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+ PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 1 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Lectures
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38801]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>
+ "The Destroyer Of Weeds, Thistles And Thorns Is A Benefactor, Whether He
+ Soweth Grain Or Not."
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <h3>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ LECTURES
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ 1901
+ </h3>
+ <h4>
+ THE DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ TO EVA A. INGERSOLL, MY WIFE, A WOMAN WITHOUT SUPERSTITION, THIS VOLUME<br />
+ IS DEDICATED. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. FOR THE USE OF MAN,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38801/old/orig38801-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Titlepage (64K)" src="images/Titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Birthplace (64K)" src="images/Birthplace.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Portrait (62K)" src="images/Portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Frontispiece (64K)" src="images/Frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">THE GODS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">HUMBOLDT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">THOMAS PAINE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">INDIVIDUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">HERETICS AND HERESIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">THE GHOSTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">LIBERTY OF WOMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">THE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkCONC">CONCLUSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0016">I. WHAT WE MUST DO TO BE SAVED</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0017">II. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0018">III. THE GOSPEL OF MARK</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0019">IV. THE GOSPEL OF LUKE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0020">V. THE GOSPEL OF JOHN</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0021">VI. THE CATHOLICS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0022">VII. THE EPISCOPALIANS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0023">VIII. THE METHODISTS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0024">IX. THE PRESBYTERIANS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0025">X. THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="#link0026">XI. WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">THE GODS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE GODS.<br /> (1872.)<br /> An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man&mdash;Resemblance
+ of Gods to<br /> their Creators&mdash;Manufacture and Characteristics of
+ Deities&mdash;Their<br /> Amours&mdash;Deficient in many Departments of
+ Knowledge&mdash;Pleased with the<br /> Butchery of Unbelievers&mdash;A
+ Plentiful Supply&mdash;Visitations&mdash;One God's<br /> Laws of War&mdash;The
+ Book called the Bible&mdash;Heresy of Universalism&mdash;Faith<br /> an
+ unhappy mixture of Insanity and Ignorance&mdash;Fallen Gods, or<br />
+ Devils&mdash;Directions concerning Human Slavery&mdash;The first
+ Appearance of<br /> the Devil&mdash;The Tree of Knowledge&mdash;Give me
+ the Storm and Tempest of<br /> Thought&mdash;Gods and Devils Natural
+ Productions&mdash;Personal Appearance<br /> of Deities&mdash;All Man's
+ Ideas suggested by his Surroundings&mdash;Phenomena<br /> Supposed to be
+ Produced by Intelligent Powers&mdash;Insanity and Disease<br />
+ attributed to Evil Spirits&mdash;Origin of the Priesthood&mdash;Temptation
+ of<br /> Christ&mdash;Innate Ideas&mdash;Divine Interference&mdash;Special
+ Providence&mdash;The<br /> Crane and the Fish&mdash;Cancer as a proof of
+ Design&mdash;Matter and<br /> Force&mdash;Miracle&mdash;Passing the Hat
+ for just one Fact&mdash;Sir William Hamilton<br /> on Cause and Effect&mdash;The
+ Phenomena of Mind&mdash;Necessity and Free Will&mdash;The<br /> Dark Ages&mdash;The
+ Originality of Repetition&mdash;Of what Use have the Gods been<br /> to
+ Man?&mdash;Paley and Design&mdash;Make Good Health Contagious&mdash;Periodicity
+ of<br /> the Universe and the Commencement of Intellectual Freedom&mdash;Lesson
+ of<br /> the ineffectual attempt to rescue the Tomb of Christ from the<br />
+ Mohammedans&mdash;The Cemetery of the Gods&mdash;Taking away Crutches&mdash;Imperial<br />
+ Reason<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">HUMBOLDT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HUMBOLDT.<br /> (1869.)<br /> The Universe is Governed by Law&mdash;The
+ Self-made Man&mdash;Poverty generally<br /> an Advantage&mdash;Humboldt's
+ Birth-place&mdash;His desire for Travel&mdash;On what<br /> Humboldt's
+ Fame depends&mdash;His Companions and Friends&mdash;Investigations<br />
+ in the New World&mdash;A Picture&mdash;Subjects of his Addresses&mdash;Victory
+ of the<br /> Church over Philosophy&mdash;Influence of the discovery that
+ the World is<br /> governed by Law&mdash;On the term Law&mdash;Copernicus&mdash;Astronomy&mdash;Aryabhatta&mdash;<br />
+ Descartes&mdash;Condition of the World and Man when the morning of
+ Science<br /> Dawned&mdash;Reasons for Honoring Humboldt&mdash;The World
+ his Monument<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THOMAS PAINE.<br /> (1870.)<br /> With his Name left out the History of
+ Liberty cannot be Written&mdash;Paine's<br /> Origin and Condition&mdash;His
+ arrival in America with a Letter of<br /> Introduction by Franklin&mdash;Condition
+ of the Colonies&mdash;"Common Sense"&mdash;A<br /> new Nation Born&mdash;Paine
+ the Best of Political Writers&mdash;The "Crisis"&mdash;War<br /> not to
+ the Interest of a trading Nation&mdash;Paine's Standing at the Close<br />
+ of the Revolution&mdash;Close of the Eighteenth Century in France-The<br />
+ "Rights of Man"&mdash;Paine Prosecuted in England&mdash;"The World is my<br />
+ Country"&mdash;Elected to the French Assembly&mdash;Votes against the
+ Death of<br /> the King&mdash;Imprisoned&mdash;A look behind the Altar&mdash;The
+ "Age of Reason"&mdash;His<br /> Argument against the Bible as a
+ Revelation&mdash;Christianity of Paine's<br /> Day&mdash;A Blasphemy Law
+ in Force in Maryland&mdash;The Scotch "Kirk"&mdash;Hanging<br /> of
+ Thomas Aikenhead for Denying the Inspiration of the<br /> Scriptures&mdash;"Cathedrals
+ and Domes, and Chimes and Chants"&mdash;Science&mdash;"He<br /> Died in
+ the Land his Genius Defended,"<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">INDIVIDUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ INDIVIDUALITY.<br /> (1873.)<br /> "His Soul was like a Star and Dwelt
+ Apart"&mdash;Disobedience one of the<br /> Conditions of Progress.&mdash;Magellan&mdash;The
+ Monarch and the Hermit-Why<br /> the Church hates a Thinker&mdash;The
+ Argument from Grandeur and<br /> Prosperity-Travelers and Guide-boards&mdash;A
+ Degrading Saying&mdash;Theological<br /> Education&mdash;Scotts, Henrys
+ and McKnights&mdash;The Church the Great<br /> Robber&mdash;Corrupting
+ the Reason of Children&mdash;Monotony of Acquiescence: For<br /> God's
+ sake, say No&mdash;Protestant Intolerance: Luther and Calvin&mdash;Assertion<br />
+ of Individual Independence a Step toward Infidelity&mdash;Salute to<br />
+ Jupiter&mdash;The Atheistic Bug-Little Religious Liberty in America&mdash;God
+ in<br /> the Constitution, Man Out&mdash;Decision of the Supreme Court of
+ Illinois<br /> that an Unbeliever could not testify in any Court&mdash;Dissimulation&mdash;Nobody<br />
+ in this Bed&mdash;The Dignity of a Unit<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">HERETICS AND HERESIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HERETICS AND HERESIES.<br /> (1874.)<br /> Liberty, a Word without which
+ all other Words are Vain&mdash;The Church, the<br /> Bible, and
+ Persecution&mdash;Over the wild Waves of War rose and fell<br /> the
+ Banner of Jesus Christ&mdash;Highest Type of the Orthodox<br /> Christian&mdash;Heretics'
+ Tongues and why they should be Removed before<br /> Burning&mdash;The
+ Inquisition Established&mdash;Forms of Torture&mdash;Act of Henry<br />
+ VIII for abolishing Diversity of Opinion&mdash;What a Good Christian was<br />
+ Obliged to Believe&mdash;The Church has Carried the Black Flag&mdash;For
+ what Men<br /> and Women have been Burned&mdash;John Calvin's Advent into
+ the<br /> World&mdash;His Infamous Acts&mdash;Michael Servetus&mdash;Castalio&mdash;Spread
+ of<br /> Presbyterianism&mdash;Indictment of a Presbyterian Minister in
+ Illinois for<br /> Heresy&mdash;Specifications&mdash;The Real Bible<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">THE GHOSTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE GHOSTS.<br /> (1877.)<br /> Dedication to Ebon C. Ingersoll&mdash;Preface&mdash;Mendacity
+ of the Religious<br /> Press&mdash;"Materialism"&mdash;Ways of Pleasing
+ the Ghosts&mdash;The Idea of<br /> Immortality not Born of any Book&mdash;Witchcraft
+ and Demon-ology&mdash;Witch<br /> Trial before Sir Matthew Hale&mdash;John
+ Wesley a Firm Believer in<br /> Ghosts&mdash;"Witch-spots"&mdash;Lycanthropy&mdash;Animals
+ Tried and Convicted&mdash;The<br /> Governor of Minnesota and the
+ Grasshoppers&mdash;A Papal Bull against<br /> Witchcraft&mdash;Victims of
+ the Delusion&mdash;Sir William Blackstone's<br /> Affirmation&mdash;Trials
+ in Belgium&mdash;Incubi and Succubi&mdash;A Bishop<br /> Personated by
+ the Devil&mdash;The Doctrine that Diseases are caused by<br /> Ghosts&mdash;Treatment&mdash;Timothy
+ Dwight against Vaccination&mdash;Ghosts as<br /> Historians&mdash;The
+ Language of Eden&mdash;Leibnitz, Founder of the Science<br /> of Language&mdash;Cosmas
+ on Astronomy&mdash;Vagaries of Kepler and Tycho<br /> Brahe&mdash;Discovery
+ of Printing, Powder, and America&mdash;Thanks to the<br /> Inventors&mdash;The
+ Catholic Murderer and the Meat&mdash;Let the Ghosts Go<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.<br /> (1877.)<br /> Liberty sustains
+ the same Relation to Mind that Space does to<br /> Matter&mdash;The
+ History of Man a History of Slavery&mdash;The Infidel Our<br /> Fathers
+ in the good old Time&mdash;The iron Arguments that Christians<br /> Used&mdash;Instruments
+ of Torture&mdash;A Vision of the Inquisition&mdash;Models of<br /> Man's
+ Inventions&mdash;Weapons, Armor, Musical Instruments, Paintings,<br />
+ Books, Skulls&mdash;The Gentleman in the Dug-out&mdash;Homage to Genius
+ and<br /> Intellect&mdash;Abraham Lincoln&mdash;What I mean by Liberty&mdash;The
+ Man who cannot<br /> afford to Speak his Thought is a Certificate of the
+ Meanness of the<br /> Community in which he Resides&mdash;Liberty of
+ Woman&mdash;Marriage and the<br /> Family&mdash;Ornaments the Souvenirs
+ of Bondage-The Story of the Garden of<br /> Eden&mdash;Adami and Heva&mdash;Equality
+ of the Sexes-The word "Boss"&mdash;The Cross<br /> Man-The Stingy Man&mdash;Wives
+ who are Beggars&mdash;How to Spend Money&mdash;By<br /> the Tomb of the
+ Old Napoleon&mdash;The Woman you Love will never Grow<br /> Old&mdash;Liberty
+ of Children&mdash;When your Child tells a Lie&mdash;Disowning<br />
+ Children&mdash;Beating your own Flesh and Blood&mdash;Make Home Pleasant&mdash;Sunday<br />
+ when I was a Boy&mdash;The Laugh of a Child&mdash;The doctrine of
+ Eternal<br /> Punishment&mdash;Jonathan Edwards on the Happiness of
+ Believing Husbands<br /> whose Wives are in Hell&mdash;The Liberty of
+ Eating and Sleeping&mdash;Water in<br /> Fever&mdash;Soil and Climate
+ necessary to the production of Genius&mdash;Against<br /> Annexing Santo
+ Domingo&mdash;Descent of Man&mdash;Conclusion<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.<br /> (1877.)<br /> To Plow is to Pray; to
+ Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers and<br /> Fulfills&mdash;The
+ Old Way of Farming&mdash;Cooking an Unknown Art-Houses, Fuel,<br /> and
+ Crops&mdash;The Farmer's Boy&mdash;What a Farmer should Sell&mdash;Beautifying<br />
+ the Home&mdash;Advantages of Illinois as a Farming State&mdash;Advantages
+ of the<br /> Farmer over the Mechanic&mdash;Farm Life too Lonely-On Early
+ Rising&mdash;Sleep<br /> the Best Doctor&mdash;Fashion&mdash;Patriotism
+ and Boarding Houses&mdash;The Farmer and<br /> the Railroads&mdash;Money
+ and Confidence&mdash;Demonetization of Silver-Area of<br /> Illinois&mdash;Mortgages
+ and Interest&mdash;Kindness to Wives and Children&mdash;How<br /> a
+ Beefsteak should be Cooked&mdash;Decorations and Comfort&mdash;Let the
+ Children<br /> Sleep&mdash;Old Age<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?<br /> (1880.)<br /> Preface&mdash;The
+ Synoptic Gospels&mdash;Only Mark Knew of the Necessity of<br /> Belief&mdash;Three
+ Christs Described&mdash;The Jewish Gentleman and the Piece of<br /> Bacon&mdash;Who
+ Wrote the New Testament?&mdash;Why Christ and the Apostles wrote<br />
+ Nothing&mdash;Infinite Respect for the Man Christ&mdash;Different
+ Feeling for<br /> the Theological Christ&mdash;Saved from What?&mdash;Chapter
+ on the Gospel of<br /> Matthew&mdash;What this Gospel says we must do to
+ be Saved&mdash;Jesus and the<br /> Children&mdash;John Calvin and
+ Jonathan Edwards conceived of as Dimpled<br /> Darlings&mdash;Christ and
+ the Man who inquired what Good Thing he should<br /> do that he might
+ have Eternal Life&mdash;Nothing said about Belief&mdash;An<br />
+ Interpolation&mdash;Chapter on the Gospel of Mark&mdash;The Believe or
+ be Damned<br /> Passage, and why it was written&mdash;The last
+ Conversation of Christ with<br /> his Disciples&mdash;The Signs that
+ Follow them that Believe&mdash;Chapter on<br /> the Gospel of Luke&mdash;Substantial
+ Agreement with Matthew and Mark&mdash;How<br /> Zaccheus achieved
+ Salvation&mdash;The two Thieves on the Cross&mdash;Chapter<br /> on the
+ Gospel of John&mdash;The Doctrine of Regeneration, or the New<br /> Birth&mdash;Shall
+ we Love our Enemies while God Damns His?&mdash;Chapter on the<br />
+ Catholics&mdash;Communication with Heaven through Decayed Saints&mdash;Nuns
+ and<br /> Nunneries&mdash;Penitentiaries of God should be Investigated&mdash;The<br />
+ Athanasian Creed expounded&mdash;The Trinity and its Members&mdash;Chapter
+ on the<br /> Episcopalians&mdash;Origin of the Episcopal Church&mdash;Apostolic
+ Succession<br /> an Imported Article&mdash;Episcopal Creed like the
+ Catholic, with a<br /> few Additional Absurdities&mdash;Chapter on the
+ Methodists&mdash;Wesley and<br /> Whitfield&mdash;Their Quarrel about
+ Predestination&mdash;Much Preaching for Little<br /> Money&mdash;Adapted
+ to New Countries&mdash;Chapter on the Presbyterians&mdash;John<br />
+ Calvin, Murderer&mdash;Meeting between Calvin and Knox&mdash;The Infamy
+ of<br /> Calvinism&mdash;Division in the Church&mdash;The Young
+ Presbyterian's Resignation<br /> to the Fate of his Mother&mdash;A
+ Frightful, Hideous, and Hellish<br /> Creed&mdash;Chapter on the
+ Evangelical Alliance&mdash;Jeremy Taylor's Opinion of<br /> Baptists&mdash;Orthodoxy
+ not Dead&mdash;Creed of the Alliance&mdash;Total Depravity,<br /> Eternal
+ Damnation&mdash;What do You Propose?&mdash;The Gospel of
+ Good-fellowship,<br /> Cheerfulness, Health, Good Living, Justice&mdash;No
+ Forgiveness&mdash;God's<br /> Forgiveness Does not Pay my Debt to Smith&mdash;Gospel
+ of Liberty, of<br /> Intelligence, of Humanity&mdash;One World at a Time&mdash;"Upon
+ that Rock I<br /> Stand"<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IN presenting to the public this edition of the late Robert G. Ingersoll's
+ works, it has been the aim of the publisher to make it worthy of the
+ author and a pleasure to his friends and admirers. No one can be more
+ conscious than he of the magnitude of the task undertaken, or more keenly
+ feel how far short it must fall of adequate accomplishment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When it is remembered that countless utterances of the author were never
+ caught from his eloquent lips, it is matter for congratulation that so
+ much has been preserved. The authorized addresses, arguments and articles
+ that have already appeared in print and passed the review of the authors
+ more or less careful inspection, will be readily recognized as accurate
+ and complete; but in this latest and fullest compilation are many
+ emanations from his heart and brain that have never had his scrutiny, were
+ not revised by him, and that yet, by general judgment, should not be lost
+ to the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These unedited sundries consist of fragments of speeches and incompleted
+ articles discovered amongst the authors literary remains and for unknown
+ reasons left in more or less unfinished form. It has been the publisher's
+ ambition to gather these fugitive pieces and place them in this edition by
+ the side of the saved treasures. Whether the work has been well or ill
+ done a generous public must decide, while the sole responsibility must
+ rest with, as it has been assumed by, the publisher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In carrying out the design of the present edition, the publisher
+ gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Mr. Ingersoll's family, who have
+ freely placed at his disposal many papers, inscriptions, monographs,
+ memoranda and pages of valuable material.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recognition is also here made of the kind courtesy of the press and of
+ publishers of magazines who have generously permitted the publication of
+ articles originally written for them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Finally, the publisher gives his thanks to all the devoted friends of the
+ author who in many ways, by suggestion and unselfish labor, have aided in
+ getting out this work. Of these, none have been more unremitting in
+ service, and to none is the publisher more indebted, than to Mr. I. Newton
+ Baker, Mr. Ingersoll's former private secretary, to Dr. Edgar C. Beall,
+ and to Mr. George E. Macdonald for the fine Tables of Contents and the
+ very valuable Index to this edition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ C. P. FARRELL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ New York, July, 1900.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE GODS
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his
+ creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was
+ invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely
+ patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded
+ praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice,
+ and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume.
+ All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the
+ priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the
+ principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and
+ to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according
+ to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred
+ heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed
+ with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have
+ wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire,
+ and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were
+ foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into
+ bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy Ghosts, and made love to the
+ beautiful daughters of men. Some were married&mdash;all ought to have been&mdash;and
+ some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some had
+ children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their
+ fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and
+ ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information,
+ their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but
+ supposed them perfectly flat Some thought the day could be lengthened by
+ stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of
+ a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had
+ created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so
+ ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or
+ as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and
+ experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give
+ a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were wofully
+ deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable
+ legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of
+ American presidents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In
+ order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust Of course,
+ they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have
+ generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and
+ destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers.
+ Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their
+ existence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so
+ easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market
+ was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These gods not
+ only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the
+ affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything. They attended
+ to every department. All was supposed to be under their immediate control.
+ Nothing was too small&mdash;nothing too large; the falling of sparrows and
+ the motions of the planets were alike attended to by these industrious and
+ observing deities. From their starry thrones they frequently came to the
+ earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. It is related of
+ one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the
+ people that they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. Some left
+ their shining abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have
+ children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give
+ directions as to the proper manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and
+ clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited
+ them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to
+ drag them into slavery&mdash;to sell their wives and children; but
+ generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first-born. The
+ priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these
+ calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought
+ upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most
+ powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged to
+ content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens. Each of
+ these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and
+ threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his existence
+ or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to deny the
+ existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. Redden your hands
+ with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle
+ the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the
+ beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless.
+ For all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and for
+ all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a
+ discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods,
+ and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate.
+ Heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in
+ your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless
+ wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell&mdash;an immortal vagrant&mdash;an
+ eternal outcast&mdash;a deathless convict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and our
+ worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship,
+ gave to his chosen people for their guidance, the following laws of war:
+ "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, <i>then proclaim
+ peace unto it</i>. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and
+ open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein
+ shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will
+ make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt
+ besiege it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt
+ smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women and the
+ little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the
+ spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil
+ of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou
+ do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of
+ the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the
+ Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, <i>thou shalt save alive
+ nothing that breatheth</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous?
+ Can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an
+ infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions was
+ one of invasion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people
+ submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have the
+ courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and child,
+ then the sword was to spare none&mdash;not even the prattling, dimpled
+ babe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and
+ tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is
+ love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to
+ trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse
+ to stultify ourselves&mdash;refuse to become liars&mdash;we are denounced,
+ hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to
+ torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch
+ our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the god threaten&mdash;we
+ will educate them, and we will despise and defy him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible,
+ unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to
+ make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book to be
+ recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for believing
+ God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for thinking him
+ good. The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalist for saying
+ "God is love." It has always been considered as one of the very highest
+ evidences of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men, women and
+ children deserve eternal damnation. It has always been heresy to say, "God
+ will at last save all."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of
+ war, because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there
+ never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the
+ inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence,
+ analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very
+ best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even
+ reasoned about, we are mental serfs. 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. If we
+ have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in
+ accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such
+ action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is
+ the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded
+ by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and
+ experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can
+ be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called
+ "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease
+ God? And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that belief. The
+ Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the
+ Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little,
+ and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to
+ conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how
+ any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of
+ inspiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison
+ with the mental freedom of the race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is
+ inestimable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his
+ master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of
+ unbelief&mdash;the result of free thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable
+ person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention&mdash;of
+ barbarian invention&mdash;is to read it Read it as you would any other
+ book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence
+ from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the
+ throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition&mdash;then read the
+ Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed
+ a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such
+ ignorance and of such atrocity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as
+ well. These devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. Some had
+ headed unsuccessful revolts; some had been caught sweetly reclining in the
+ shadowy folds of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of gods.
+ These devils generally sympathized with man. There is in regard to them a
+ most wonderful fact: In nearly all the theologies, mythologies and
+ religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the
+ gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and
+ to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities were always
+ ordered by the good gods. The pestilences were sent by the most merciful
+ gods. The frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips
+ sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods.
+ No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world, with
+ the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful and the
+ helpless were remorsely devoured by the shoreless sea. This, the most
+ fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived,
+ was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom men ignorantly
+ worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would leave upon the
+ character of a devil! One of the prophets of one of these gods, having in
+ his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the
+ people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of these gods is reported to have given the following directions
+ concerning human slavery: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall
+ he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came
+ in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his
+ wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she
+ have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her
+ master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly
+ say, I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out free.
+ Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him
+ unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear
+ through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would
+ desert forever his wife and children. Did any devil ever force upon a
+ husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? Who can
+ worship such a god? Who can bend the knee to such a monster? Who can pray
+ to such a fiend?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies.
+ Did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? The basest thing recorded of
+ the devil, is what he did concerning Job and his family, and that was done
+ by the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide a little
+ difference of opinion between their serene highnesses as to the character
+ of "my servant Job." The first account we have of the devil is found in
+ that purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as follows: "Now the
+ serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God
+ had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat
+ of the fruit of the trees of the garden? And the woman said unto the
+ serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the
+ fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye
+ shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the
+ serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know
+ that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye
+ shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the
+ tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree
+ to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat,
+ and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.... And the Lord
+ God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil;
+ and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and
+ eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the
+ Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out
+ the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a
+ flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
+ life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the
+ very letter. Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods,
+ knowing good and evil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge
+ then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous
+ tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep
+ mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased
+ repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it,
+ neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every pulpit comes the same
+ cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing
+ good and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests
+ reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its
+ flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder,
+ curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all,
+ to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate
+ of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human
+ ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of
+ modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of
+ civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead
+ calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first
+ let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some nations have borrowed their gods; of this number, we are compelled to
+ say, is our own. The Jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and having
+ no further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him and adopted their
+ devil at the same time. This borrowed god is still an object of some
+ adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the apprehensions of our
+ people. He is still supposed to be setting his traps and snares for the
+ purpose of catching our unwary souls, and is still, with reasonable
+ success, waging the old war against our God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and
+ devils. They are a perfectly natural production. Man has created them all,
+ and under the same circumstances would create them again. Man has not only
+ created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by
+ which he has been surrounded. Generally he has modeled them after himself,
+ and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech.
+ Each nation made its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put
+ in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in
+ all matters of fact, generally made by the people. No god was ever in
+ advance of the nation that created him. The negroes represented their
+ deities with black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to his a
+ yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed
+ to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval
+ face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek, and Jove looked as
+ though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient
+ face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of
+ northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of
+ the tropics were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon
+ elephants; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of
+ the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber. Nearly all
+ people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these
+ representations were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real
+ gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered
+ sacrifice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In some countries? even at this day, if the people after long praying do
+ not obtain their desires, they turn their images off as impotent gods, or
+ upbraid them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with blows and
+ curses. 'How now, dog of a spirit,' they say, 'we give you lodging in a
+ magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest
+ food, and offer incense to you; yet, after all this care, you are so
+ ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through the filth of the
+ street. If, in the meantime, it happens that they obtain their request,
+ then, with a great deal of ceremony, they wash him clean, carry him back
+ and place him in his temple again, where they fall down and make excuses
+ for what they have done. 'Of a truth,' they say, 'we were a little too
+ hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant. Why should you bring
+ this beating on yourself. But what is done cannot be undone. Let us not
+ think of it any more. If you will forget what is past, we will gild you
+ over brighter again than before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshiped almost everything,
+ including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. He has worshiped fire,
+ earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages prostrated
+ himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often make gods of articles
+ they get from civilized people. The Todas worship a cow-bell. The Kotas
+ worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband and wife, and
+ another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the
+ fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had woman been the
+ physical superior, the powers supposed to be the rulers of Nature would
+ have been women, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man,
+ they would have luxuriated in trains, lownecked dresses, laces and
+ back-hair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its god its peculiar
+ characteristics, and that every individual gives to his god his personal
+ peculiarities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those suggested by his
+ surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has
+ seen or felt. He can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform,
+ beautify, improve, multiply and compare what he sees, what he feels, what
+ he hears, and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of the
+ senses; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of power, he can
+ say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say, immortality. Knowing something
+ of time, he can say, eternity. Conceiving something of intelligence, he
+ can say, God. Having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say, devil. A few
+ gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom of his life, he can
+ say, heaven. Pain, in its numberless forms, having been experienced, he
+ can say, hell. Yet all these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a
+ foundation. The superstructure has been reared by exaggerating,
+ diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying, improving or
+ multiplying realities, so that the edifice or fabric is but the
+ incongruous grouping of what man has perceived through the medium of the
+ senses. It is as though we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle,
+ the hoofs of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo, and
+ the trunk of an elephant. We have in imagination created an impossible
+ monster. And yet the various parts of this monster really exist So it is
+ with all the gods that man has made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beyond nature man cannot go even in thought&mdash;above nature he cannot
+ rise&mdash;below nature he cannot fall.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were produced by some
+ intelligent powers, and with direct reference to him. To preserve friendly
+ relations with these powers was, and still is, the object of all
+ religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through
+ gratitude for some favor which he supposed had been rendered. He
+ endeavored by supplication to appease some being who, for some reason,
+ had, as he believed, become enraged. The lightning and thunder terrified
+ him. In the presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The great
+ forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the monstrous serpents
+ crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless sea, the flaming comets, the
+ sinister eclipses, the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than all,
+ the perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and
+ prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and frightful diseases to
+ which he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever, the contortions
+ of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild,
+ terrible and fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he
+ was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. For some reason he
+ supposed that these spirits differed in power&mdash;that they were not all
+ alike malevolent&mdash;that the higher controlled the lower, and that his
+ very existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful.
+ For this purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship and to
+ sacrifice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These ideas appear to have been almost universal in savage man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane were possessed by
+ evil spirits. For thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in
+ frightening these spirits away. Usually the priests would make the loudest
+ and most discordant noises possible. They would blow horns, beat upon rude
+ drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells.
+ If the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid of some more
+ powerful spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To pacify these spirits was considered of infinite importance. The poor
+ barbarian, knowing that men could be softened by gifts, gave to these
+ spirits that which to him seemed of the most value. With bursting heart he
+ would offer the blood of his dearest child. It was impossible for him to
+ conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that
+ these powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight of so
+ great and so deep a sorrow. It was with the barbarian then as with the
+ civilized now&mdash;one class lived upon and made merchandise of the fears
+ of another. Certain persons took it upon themselves to appease the gods,
+ and to instruct the people in their duties to these unseen powers. This
+ was the origin of the priesthood. The priest pretended to stand between
+ the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was man's attorney
+ at the court of heaven. He carried to the invisible world a flag of truce,
+ a protest and a request. He came back with a command, with authority and
+ with power. Man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the
+ priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence
+ with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave. Even
+ Christ, the supposed son of God, taught that persons were possessed of
+ evil spirits, and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of his
+ divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his
+ unfortunate countrymen. Casting out devils was his principal employment,
+ and the devils thus banished generally took occasion to acknowledge him as
+ the true Messiah; which was not only very kind of them, but quite
+ fortunate for him. The religious people have always regarded the testimony
+ of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the writers of the New
+ Testament quote the words of these imps of darkness with great
+ satisfaction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact that Christ could withstand the temptations of the devil was
+ considered as conclusive evidence that he was assisted by some god, or at
+ least by some being superior to man. St. Matthew gives an account of an
+ attempt made by the devil to tempt the supposed son of God; and it has
+ always excited the wonder of Christians that the temptation was so nobly
+ and heroically withstood. The account to which I refer is as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of
+ the devil. And when the tempter came to him, he said: 'If thou be the son
+ of God, command that these stones be made bread.' But he answered, and
+ said: 'It is written: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
+ that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' Then the devil taketh him up
+ into the holy city and setteth him upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith
+ unto him: 'If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down; for it is
+ written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time
+ thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone,'Jesus said unto him: 'It is
+ written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' Again the devil
+ taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth him all the
+ kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him: 'All
+ these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course the
+ devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took
+ 'the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and
+ endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth. Failing in
+ that, he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into an
+ exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world&mdash;this grain of
+ sand&mdash;if he, the God of all the worlds, would fall down and worship
+ him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! Is it
+ possible the devil was such an idiot? Should any great credit be given to
+ this deity for not being caught with such chaff? Think of it! The devil&mdash;the
+ prince of sharpers&mdash;the king of cunning&mdash;the master of finesse,
+ trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more
+ grossly absurd than this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These devils, according to the Bible, were of various kinds&mdash;some
+ could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. All could not be cast out
+ in the same way. The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal
+ with. St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ. The
+ boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples
+ had no control. "Jesus said unto the spirit: 'Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I
+ charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.'" Whereupon, the
+ deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and
+ immediately vacated the premises. The ease with which Christ controlled
+ this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they
+ asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To whom he
+ replied: "This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." Is
+ there a Christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if
+ found in any other book? The trouble is, these pious people shut up their
+ reason, and then open their Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. The
+ people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed as
+ a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils, had
+ either to be a god, or to be assisted by one. All founders of religions
+ have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits
+ and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out devils was a certificate of
+ divinity. A prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness was
+ regarded with contempt The utterance of the highest and noblest
+ sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little
+ respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the fact that man
+ was surrounded by what he was pleased to call good and evil phenomena.
+ Phenomena affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while
+ those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously, were ascribed to evil
+ spirits. It being admitted that all phenomena were produced by spirits,
+ the spirits were divided according to the phenomena, and the phenomena
+ were good or bad as they affected man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good phenomena, and evil
+ spirits of the evil&mdash;so that the idea of a devil has been as
+ universal as the idea of a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many writers maintain that an idea to become universal must be true; that
+ all universal ideas are innate, and that innate ideas cannot be false. If
+ the fact that an idea has been universal proves that it is innate, and if
+ the fact that an idea is innate proves that it is correct, then the
+ believers in innate ideas must admit that the evidence of a god superior
+ to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is exactly the same, and
+ that the existence of such a devil must be as self-evident as the
+ existence of such a god. The truth is, a god was inferred from good, and a
+ devil from bad, phenomena. And it is just as natural and logical to
+ suppose that a devil would cause happiness as to suppose that a god would
+ produce misery. Consequently, if an intelligence, infinite and supreme, is
+ the immediate author of all phenomena, it is difficult to determine
+ whether such intelligence is the friend or enemy of man. If phenomena were
+ all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly beneficent
+ being. If they were all bad, we might say they were produced by a
+ perfectly malevolent power; but, as phenomena are, as they affect man,
+ both good and bad, they must be produced by different and antagonistic
+ spirits; by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness, and sometimes by
+ malice; or all must be produced of necessity, and without reference to
+ their consequences upon man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The foolish doctrine that all phenomena can be traced to the interference
+ of good and evil spirits, has been, and still is, almost universal. That
+ most people still believe in some spirit that can change the natural order
+ of events, is proven by the fact that nearly all resort to prayer.
+ Thousands, at this very moment, are probably imploring some supposed power
+ to interfere in their behalf. Some want health restored; some ask that the
+ loved and absent be watched over and protected, some pray for riches, some
+ for rain, some want diseases stayed, some vainly ask for food, some ask
+ for revivals, a few ask for more wisdom, and now and then one tells the
+ Lord to do as he may think best. Thousands ask to be protected from the
+ devil; some, like David, pray for revenge, and some implore even God, not
+ to lead them into temptation. All these prayers rest upon, and are
+ produced by, the idea that some power not only can, but probably will,
+ change the order of the universe. This belief has been among the great
+ majority of tribes and nations. All sacred books are filled with the
+ accounts of such interferences, and our own Bible is no exception to this
+ rule.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to
+ suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this
+ world. If there is no interference, of what practical use can such power
+ be? The Scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine
+ interference: Animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones; the
+ sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that General Joshua may have
+ more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees to
+ convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die of
+ a boil; fire refuses to burn; water positively declines to seek its level,
+ but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common
+ walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents,
+ and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams,
+ laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years,
+ following wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes
+ altogether easier than history; the sons of God become enamored of the
+ world's girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a
+ great event fresh in the minds of men; an excellent article of brimstone
+ is imported from heaven free of duty; clothes refuse to wear out for forty
+ years; birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of expense;
+ bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without wigs;
+ muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair; dead people
+ come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and heirs; witches and
+ wizards converse freely with the souls of the departed, and God himself
+ becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and
+ dressmaker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. The shadows
+ of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell mixed and
+ mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he really
+ inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas, his dreams,
+ for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious monsters. He
+ lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads, goblins and
+ ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and devils. The
+ obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing&mdash;with beak
+ and hoof&mdash;with leering looks and sneering mouths&mdash;with the
+ malice of deformity&mdash;with the cunning of hatred, and with all the
+ slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas of the
+ dark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in the
+ long night has suffered; of the tortures he has endured, surrounded, as he
+ supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the
+ air. No wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees&mdash;that he built
+ altars and reddened them even with his own blood. No wonder that he
+ implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians for aid. No wonder that
+ he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's door, and there, in the
+ insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of
+ agony and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses faith
+ in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a multitude of
+ spirits. As he advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty
+ spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be
+ infinite and supreme. Supposing this great spirit to be superior to
+ nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. At last,
+ finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity&mdash;: finding
+ that every search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure&mdash;finding
+ that man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless&mdash;he
+ begins to investigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend
+ upon himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. Slowly,
+ painfully, but surely, the gods are being driven from the earth. Only upon
+ rare occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed to interfere
+ in the affairs of men. In most matters we are at last supposed to be free.
+ Since the invention of steamships and railways, so that the products of
+ all countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have quit the business
+ of producing famine. Now and then they kill a child because it is idolized
+ by its parents. As a rule they have given up causing accidents on
+ railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps. Cholera, yellow
+ fever, and small-pox are still considered heavenly weapons; but measles,
+ itch and ague are now attributed to natural causes. As a general thing,
+ the gods have stopped drowning children, except as a punishment for
+ violating the Sabbath. They still pay some attention to the affairs of
+ kings, men of genius and persons of great wealth; but ordinary people are
+ left to shirk for themselves as best they may. In wars between great
+ nations, the gods still interfere; but in prize fights, the best man with
+ an honest referee, is almost sure to win.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church cannot abandon the idea of special providence. To give up that
+ doctrine is to give up all. The church must insist that prayer is answered&mdash;that
+ some power superior to nature hears and grants the request of the sincere
+ and humble Christian, and that this same power in some mysterious way
+ provides for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of
+ his son the fact, that God takes care of all his creatures; that the
+ falling sparrow attracts his attention, and that his loving kindness is
+ over all his works. Happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of
+ food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the
+ crane to get his living in that manner. "See," said he, "how his legs are
+ formed for wading! What a long slender bill he has! Observe how nicely he
+ folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! He
+ does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the
+ fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "My son," said he,
+ "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as
+ well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistence."
+ "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at least so
+ far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you think the
+ arrangement a little tough on the fish?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount
+ of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks, that
+ in the beginning, some god made the laws governing the universe. He
+ believes that in consequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight
+ with, than without, a lever; that this god so made matter, and so
+ established the order of things, that two bodies cannot occupy the same
+ space at the same time; so that a body once put in motion will keep moving
+ until it is stopped; so that it is a greater distance around, than across
+ a circle; so that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five
+ or seven. He insists that it took a direct interposition of Providence to
+ make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this
+ power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two,
+ and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece. Like the old
+ Scotch divine, he thanks God that Sunday comes at the end instead of in
+ the middle of the week, and that death comes at the close instead of at
+ the commencement of life, thereby giving us time to prepare for that holy
+ day and that most solemn event These religious people see nothing but
+ design everywhere, and personal, intelligent interference in everything.
+ They insist that the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of
+ means to ends is perfectly apparent. They point us to the sunshine, to the
+ flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in
+ the world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its
+ development as is the reddest rose? That what they are pleased to call the
+ adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the April
+ rain? How beautiful the process of digestion! By what ingenious methods
+ the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! By what
+ wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to
+ this divine and charming cancer! See by what admirable instrumentalities
+ it feeds itself from the surrounding quivering, dainty flesh! See how it
+ gradually but surely expands and grows! By what marvelous mechanism it is
+ supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most secret
+ nerves of pain for sustenance and life! What beautiful colors it presents!
+ Seen through the microscope it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the
+ ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount of thought it
+ must have required to invent a way by which the life of one man might be
+ given to produce one cancer? Is it possible to look upon it and doubt that
+ there is design in the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful
+ cancer must be infinitely powerful, ingenious and good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that the universe was designed and created, and that it is
+ absurd to suppose that matter has existed from eternity, but that it is
+ perfectly self-evident that a god has.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a god created the universe, then, there must have been a time when he
+ commenced to create. Back of that time there must have been an eternity,
+ during which there had existed nothing&mdash;absolutely nothing&mdash;except
+ this supposed god. According to this theory, this god spent an eternity,
+ so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Admitting that a god did create the universe, the question then arises, of
+ what did he create it? It certainly was not made of nothing. Nothing,
+ considered in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure. It
+ follows, then, that the god must have made the universe out of himself, he
+ being the only existence. The universe is material, and if it was made of
+ god, the god must have been material. With this very thought in his mind,
+ Anaximander of Miletus said: "Creation is the decomposition of the
+ infinite."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to the sun, only for
+ the fact, that it is attracted by other worlds, and those worlds must be
+ attracted by other worlds still beyond them, and so on, without end. This
+ proves the material universe to be infinite. If an infinite universe has
+ been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god is left?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned, and nearly all
+ truly scientific minds admit that matter must have existed from eternity.
+ It is indestructible, and the indestructible cannot be created. It is the
+ crowning glory of our century to have demonstrated the indestructibility
+ and the eternal persistence of force. Neither matter nor force can be
+ increased nor diminished. Force cannot exist apart from matter. Matter
+ exists only in connection with force, and consequently, a force apart from
+ matter, and superior to nature, is a demonstrated impossibility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and could not have been
+ created. Matter in its countless forms, from dead earth to the eyes of
+ those we love, and force, in all its manifestations, from simple motion to
+ the grandest thought, deny creation and defy control.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same force with which we
+ think. Man is an organism, that changes several forms of force into
+ thought-force. Man is a machine into which we put what we call food, and
+ produce what we call thought. Think of that wonderful chemistry by which
+ bread was changed into the divine tragedy of Hamlet!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A god must not only be material, but he must be an organism, capable of
+ changing other forms of force into thought-force. This is what we call
+ eating. Therefore, if the god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he must
+ of necessity have some means of supplying the force with which to think.
+ It is impossible to conceive of a being who can eternally impart force to
+ matter, and yet have no means of supplying the force thus imparted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If neither matter nor force were created, what evidence have we, then, of
+ the existence of a power superior to nature? The theologian will probably
+ reply, "We have law and order, cause and effect, and beside all this,
+ matter could not have put itself in motion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is no being superior to
+ nature, and that matter and force have existed from eternity. Now, suppose
+ that two atoms should come together, would there be an effect? Yes.
+ Suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal force, they
+ would be stopped, to say the least. This would be an effect. If this is
+ so, then you have matter, force and effect without a being superior to
+ nature. Now, suppose that two other atoms, just like the first two, should
+ come together under precisely the same circumstances, would not the effect
+ be exactly the same? Yes. Like causes, producing like effects, is what we
+ mean by law and order. Then we have matter, force, effect, law and order
+ without a being superior to nature. Now, we know that every effect must
+ also be a cause, and that every cause must be an effect. The atoms coming
+ together did produce an effect, and as every effect must also be a cause,
+ the effect produced by the collision of the atoms, must as to something
+ else have been a cause. Then we have matter, force, law, order, cause and
+ effect without a being superior to nature. Nothing is left for the
+ supernatural but empty space. His throne is a void, and his boasted realm
+ is without matter, without force, without law, without cause, and without
+ effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But what put all this matter in motion? If matter and force have existed
+ from eternity, then matter must have always been in motion. There can be
+ no force without motion. Force is forever active, and there is, and there
+ can be no cessation. If, therefore, matter and force have existed from
+ eternity, so has motion. In the whole universe there is not even one atom
+ in a state of rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing. Nature
+ embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force. That which is beyond
+ her grasp is destitute of both, and can hardly be worth the worship and
+ adoration even of a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent
+ of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one
+ moment, the continuity of cause and effect Pluck from the endless chain of
+ existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession, and
+ you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. Change
+ the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god
+ appears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always
+ demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able
+ to turn water into wine&mdash;cure with a word the blind and lame, and
+ raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to
+ demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was
+ superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The
+ credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the
+ beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion
+ has for its foundation a miracle&mdash;that is to say, a violation of
+ nature&mdash;that is to say, a falsehood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a
+ truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but
+ falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was
+ performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until
+ one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power
+ superior to and independent of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its
+ intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told
+ that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant,
+ control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess,
+ vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works
+ of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and
+ your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one
+ fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact We
+ pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for
+ just one fact We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale
+ miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact
+ for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead
+ for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for "truth and veracity"
+ in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a
+ new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful
+ habit of living in this world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the
+ winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Shadrach, Meshech, and
+ Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor
+ dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us fox-hunting
+ with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that little speech so
+ eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is worse than useless
+ to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to
+ vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two sardines.
+ We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the church furnish at
+ least one, or forever after hold her peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden time, the church, by violating the order of nature, proved
+ the existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the
+ most astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered her
+ priests to desist. And now this same church&mdash;the people having found
+ some little sense&mdash;admits, not only, that she cannot perform a
+ miracle, but insists that the absence of miracle&mdash;the steady,
+ unbroken march of cause and effect, proves the existence of a power
+ superior to nature. The fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of
+ cause and effect proves exactly the contrary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sir William Hamilton, one of the pillars of modern theology, in discussing
+ this very subject, uses the following language: "The phenomena of matter
+ taken by themselves, so far from warranting any inference to the existence
+ of a god, would on the contrary ground even an argument to his negation.
+ The phenomena of the material world are subjected to immutable laws; are
+ produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest
+ only the blind force of a mechanical necessity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. She cannot create,
+ but she eternally transforms. There was no beginning, and there can be no
+ end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in material nature
+ there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god. They find
+ their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently
+ assert that intelligence is above, and in fact, opposed to nature. They
+ insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he has somewhere in
+ his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the "Great First Cause."
+ They say that matter cannot produce thought; but that thought can produce
+ matter. They tell us that man has intelligence, and therefore there must
+ be an intelligence greater than his. Why not say, God has intelligence,
+ therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his? So far as we
+ know, there is no intelligence apart from matter. We cannot conceive of
+ thought, except as produced within a brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The science, by means of which they demonstrate the existence of an
+ impossible intelligence, and an incomprehensible power is called,
+ metaphysics or theology. The theologians admit that the phenomena of
+ matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of any power superior to
+ nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an endless chain of
+ efficient causes&mdash;nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity.
+ They therefore appeal to what they denominate the phenomena of mind to
+ establish this superior power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find the same endless
+ chain of efficient causes; the same mechanical necessity. Every thought
+ must have had an efficient cause. Every motive, every desire, every fear,
+ hope and dream must have been necessarily produced. There is no room in
+ the mind of man for providence or chance. The facts and forces governing
+ thought are as absolute as those governing the motions of the planets. A
+ poem is produced by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and
+ naturally produced as mountains and seas. You will seek in vain for a
+ thought in man's brain without its efficient cause. Every mental operation
+ is the necessary result of certain facts and conditions. Mental phenomena
+ are considered more complicated than those of matter, and consequently
+ more mysterious. Being more mysterious, they are considered better
+ evidence of the existence of a god. No one infers a god from the simple,
+ from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the
+ unknown, and, incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is
+ science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and
+ force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of
+ interference will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the
+ mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From
+ that moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the
+ dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the
+ Bible will take its place with the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas
+ and Korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds
+ of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But," says the religionist, "you cannot explain everything; you cannot
+ understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you
+ do not comprehend, is my God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are explaining more every day. We are understanding more every day;
+ consequently your God is growing smaller every day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing daunted, the religionist then insists that nothing can exist
+ without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused cause is God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To this we again reply: Every cause must produce an effect, because until
+ it does produce an effect, it is not a cause. Every effect must in its
+ turn become a cause. Therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot be a
+ last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would necessarily
+ produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity becomes a cause. The
+ converse of these propositions must be true. Every effect must have had a
+ cause, and every cause must have been an effect. Therefore there could
+ have been no first cause. A first cause is just as impossible as a last
+ effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the universe the
+ supernatural does not and cannot exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment these great truths are understood and admitted, a belief in
+ general or special providence become impossible. From that instant men
+ will cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being, and will give
+ their time and attention to the affairs of this world. They will abandon
+ the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication. The element
+ of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the
+ future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the
+ obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the
+ disciples of any superstition. The plans of mankind will no longer be
+ interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will
+ believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any
+ deity whatever. Science, freed from the chains of pious custom and
+ evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. The mind will
+ investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusions without fear.
+ Agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the Mosaic cosmogony utterly
+ inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will cease
+ pretending any reverence for the Jewish Scriptures. The moment science
+ succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers
+ will be outspoken. The little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers
+ will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory&mdash;lasting
+ and universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of
+ persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age
+ after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and
+ heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere,
+ in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he should know
+ that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. The present is the
+ necessary child of all the past. There has been no chance, and there can
+ be no interference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man
+ must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If
+ the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor
+ is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenceless
+ are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of
+ man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man
+ alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and without intention,
+ forms, transforms, and retransforms forever. She neither weeps nor
+ rejoices. She produces man without purpose, and obliterates him without
+ regret. She knows no distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful.
+ Poison and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are
+ alike to her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She cannot be flattered
+ by worship nor melted by tears. She does not know even the attitude of
+ prayer. She appreciates no difference between poison in the fangs of
+ snakes and mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man does nature take
+ cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and, so far as we
+ know, man is the highest intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet man continues to believe that there is some power independent of
+ and superior to nature, and still endeavors, by form, ceremony,
+ supplication, hypocrisy and sacrifice, to obtain its aid. His best
+ energies have been wasted in the service of this phantom. The horrors of
+ witchcraft were all born of an ignorant belief in the existence of a
+ totally depraved being superior to nature, acting in perfect independence
+ of her laws; and all religious superstition has had for its basis a belief
+ in at least two beings, one good and the other bad, both of whom could
+ arbitrarily change the order of the universe. The history of religion is
+ simply the story of man's efforts in all ages to avoid one of these
+ powers, and to pacify the other. Both powers have inspired little else
+ than abject fear. The cold, calculating sneer of the devil, and the frown
+ of God, were equally terrible. In any event, man's fate was to be
+ arbitrarily fixed forever by an unknown power superior to all law, and to
+ all fact. Until this belief is thrown aside, man must consider himself the
+ slave of phantom masters&mdash;neither of whom promise liberty in this
+ world nor in the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not protect him
+ from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires, and clothing will. To
+ prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent
+ medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the
+ beginning of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although many eminent men have endeavored to harmonize necessity and free
+ will, the existence of evil, and the infinite power and good ness of God,
+ they have succeeded only in producing learned and ingenious failures.
+ Immense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent
+ with the facts by which we are surrounded, and all persons who have failed
+ to perceive the pretended reconciliation, have been denounced as infidels,
+ atheists and scoffers. The whole power of the church has been brought to
+ bear against philosophers and scientists in order to compel a denial of
+ the authority of demonstration, and to induce some Judas to betray Reason,
+ one of the saviors of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During that frightful period known as the "Dark Ages," Faith reigned, with
+ scarcely a rebellious subject. Her temples were "carpeted with knees," and
+ the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. The great painters
+ prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries, while the poets
+ enshrined them in song. At her bidding, man covered the earth with blood.
+ The scales of Justice were turned with her gold, and for her use were
+ invented all the cunning instruments of pain. She built cathedrals for
+ God, and dungeons for men. She peopled the clouds with angels and the
+ earth with slaves. For centuries the world was retracing its steps&mdash;going
+ steadily back toward barbaric night! A few infidels&mdash;a few heretics
+ cried, "Halt!" to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it
+ possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionize the
+ cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. Under
+ the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely
+ solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another.
+ As long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some
+ petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little
+ souls in the presence of their supposed creator and God? Under such
+ circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are
+ all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long as
+ every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply
+ impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain
+ of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the
+ horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise of nations
+ by saying, "It is the will of God." Such an explanation puts ignorance and
+ education upon an exact equality, and does away with the idea of really
+ accounting for anything whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will the religionist pretend that the real end of science is to ascertain
+ how and why God acts? Science, from such a standpoint would consist in
+ investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a grand endeavor to
+ ascertain the rules necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of
+ life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are
+ surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things&mdash;by means
+ of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental
+ powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A belief in special providence does away with the spirit of investigation,
+ and is inconsistent with personal effort. Why should man endeavor to
+ thwart the designs of God? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one
+ cubit to his stature? Under the influence of this belief, man, basking in
+ the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the field and refuses
+ to take any thought for the morrow. Believing himself in the power of an
+ infinite being, who can, at any moment, dash him to the lowest hell or
+ raise him to the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea of
+ accomplishing anything by his own efforts. As long as this belief was
+ general, the world was filled with ignorance, superstition and misery. The
+ energies of man were wasted in a vain effort to obtain the aid of this
+ power, supposed to be superior to nature. For countless ages, even men
+ were sacrificed upon the altar of this impossible god. To please him,
+ mothers have shed the blood of their own babes; martyrs have chanted
+ triumphant songs in the midst of flame; priests have gorged themselves
+ with blood; nuns have forsworn the ecstasies of love; old men have
+ tremblingly implored; women have sobbed and entreated; every pain has been
+ endured, and every horror has been perpetrated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more than
+ can be conceived. Most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the
+ loving and the innocent Women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and
+ little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. Numberless
+ altars have been reddened, even with the blood of babes; beautiful girls
+ have been given to slimy serpents; whole races of men doomed to centuries
+ of slavery, and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of
+ genius to express. During all these years the suffering have supplicated;
+ the withered lips of famine have prayed; the pale victims have implored,
+ and Heaven has been deaf and blind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of what use have the gods been to man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is no answer to say that some god created the world, established
+ certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving his
+ children weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life alone. It
+ is no solution to declare that in some, other world this god will render a
+ few, or even all, his subjects happy. What right have we to expect that a
+ perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever do better than he has
+ done, and is doing? The world is filled with imperfections. If it was made
+ by an infinite being, what reason have we for saying that he will render
+ it nearer perfect than it now is? If the infinite "Father" allows a
+ majority of his children to live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what
+ evidence is there that he will ever improve their condition? Will God have
+ more power? Will he become more merciful? Will his love for his poor
+ creatures increase? Can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love
+ ever change? Is the infinite capable of any improvement whatever?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that
+ the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing our
+ souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong, virtuous
+ and grand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in infancy?
+ The little children, according to this philosophy, can never be developed.
+ They were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling influences of pain and
+ misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an eternity of mental
+ inferiority. If the clergy are right on this question, none are so
+ unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only the suffering and
+ distressed. If evil is necessary to the development of man, in this life,
+ how is it possible for the soul to improve in the perfect joy of Paradise?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since Paley found his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied upon
+ as unanswerable. The church teaches that this world, and all that it
+ contains, were created substantially as we now see them; that the grasses,
+ the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were special
+ creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each other. The
+ most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed into the sea;
+ that the sea has encroached a little upon the land, and that some
+ mountains may be a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. The
+ theory of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the idea of
+ evolution did not occur to them. Our fathers looked upon the then
+ arrangement of things as the primal arrangement. The earth appeared to
+ them fresh from the hands of a deity. They knew nothing of the slow
+ evolutions of countless years, but supposed that the almost infinite
+ variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed from the first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that upon some island we should find a man a million years of age,
+ and suppose that we should find him in the possession of a most beautiful
+ carriage, constructed upon the most perfect model. And suppose, further,
+ that he should tell us that it was the result of several hundred thousand
+ years of labor and of thought; that for fifty thousand years he used as
+ flat a log as he could find, before it occurred to him, that by splitting
+ the log, he could have the same surface with only half the weight; that it
+ took him many thousand years to invent wheels for this log; that the
+ wheels he first used were solid, and that fifty thousand years of thought
+ suggested the use of spokes and tire; that for many centuries he used the
+ wheels without linch-pins; that it took a hundred thousand years more to
+ think of using four wheels, instead of two; that for ages he walked behind
+ the carriage, when going down hill, in order to hold it back, and that
+ only by a lucky chance he invented the tongue; would we conclude that this
+ man, from the very first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect
+ mechanic? Suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he should
+ inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred thousand years
+ before he thought of putting on a roof, and that he had but recently
+ invented windows and doors; would we say that from the beginning he had
+ been an infinitely accomplished and scientific architect?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not an improvement in the things created, show a corresponding
+ improvement in the creator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would an infinitely wise, good and powerful God, intending to produce man,
+ commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest
+ organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time,
+ slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until man
+ was evolved? Would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of
+ awkward forms, afterwards abandoned? Can the intelligence of man discover
+ the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creeping horrors,
+ that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others? Can we see the
+ propriety of so constructing the earth, that only an insignificant portion
+ of its surface is capable of producing an intelligent man? Who can
+ appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals devour
+ animals; so that every mouth is a slaughterhouse, and every stomach a
+ tomb? Is it possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in
+ universal and eternal carnage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children,
+ and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of deadly
+ shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts, and poisonous
+ reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to
+ breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would
+ occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this,
+ should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at
+ any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this
+ father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly;
+ that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the
+ earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound secret; would we
+ pronounce him angel or fiend?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the
+ habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with
+ ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with
+ earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it
+ was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. The
+ next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed;
+ covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to
+ disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple
+ contrary to the command of an arbitrary God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world was
+ full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being
+ informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be
+ guilty of such presumption. He said that, in his judgment, it was
+ impossible to point out an imperfection. "Be kind enough," said he, "to
+ name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power."
+ "Well," said I, "I would make good health catching, instead of disease."
+ The truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and
+ agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are
+ watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent
+ God, who is superior to and independent of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the
+ expected joys of the next. We are assured that all is perfection in heaven&mdash;there
+ the skies are cloudless&mdash;there all is serenity and peace. Here
+ empires may be overthrown; dynasties may be extinguished in blood;
+ millions of slaves may toil 'neath the fierce rays of the sun, and the
+ cruel strokes of the lash; yet all is happiness in heaven. Pestilences may
+ strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend above
+ them in agony&mdash;yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. Children
+ may expire vainly asking for bread; babes may be devoured by serpents,
+ while the gods sit smiling in the clouds. The innocent may languish unto
+ death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave men and heroic women may be
+ changed to ashes at the bigot's stake, while heaven is filled with song
+ and joy. Out on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked
+ struggle with the cruel waves while the angels play upon their golden
+ harps. The streets of the world are filled with the diseased, the deformed
+ and the helpless; the chambers of pain are crowded with the pale forms of
+ the suffering, while the angels float and fly in the happy realms of day.
+ In heaven they are too happy to have sympathy; too busy singing to aid the
+ imploring and distressed. Their eyes are blinded; their ears are stopped
+ and their hearts are turned to stone by the infinite selfishness of joy.
+ The saved mariner is too happy when he touches the shore to give a
+ moment's thought to his drowning brothers. With the indifference of
+ happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven barely glances at the
+ miseries of earth. Cities are devoured by the rushing lava; the earth
+ opens and thousands perish; women raise their clasped hands towards
+ heaven, but the gods are too happy to aid their children. The smiles of
+ the deities are unacquainted with the tears of men. The shouts of heaven
+ drown the sobs of earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having shown how man created gods, and how he became the trembling slave
+ of his own creation, the questions naturally arise: How did he free
+ himself even a little, from these monarchs of the sky, from these despots
+ of the clouds, from this aristocracy of the air? How did he, even to the
+ extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and throw off the
+ yoke of superstition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind was the
+ discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the universe. From
+ this he began to suspect that everything did not happen purely with
+ reference to him. He noticed, that whatever he might do, the motions of
+ the planets were always the same; that eclipses were periodical, and that
+ even comets came at certain intervals. This convinced him that eclipses
+ and comets had nothing to do with him, and that his conduct had nothing to
+ do with them. He perceived that they were not caused for his benefit or
+ injury. He thus learned to regard them with admiration instead of fear. He
+ began to suspect that famine was not sent by some enraged and revengeful
+ deity, but resuited often from the neglect and ignorance of man. He
+ learned that diseases were not produced by evil spirits. He found that
+ sickness was occasioned by natural causes, and could be cured by natural
+ means. He demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that prayer is
+ not a medicine. He found by sad experience that his gods were of no
+ practical use, as they never assisted him, except when he was perfectly
+ able to help himself. At last, he began to discover that his individual
+ action had nothing whatever to do with strange appearances in the heavens;
+ that it was impossible for him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or
+ good enough to stop one. After many centuries of thought, he about half
+ concluded that making mouths at a priest would not necessarily cause an
+ earthquake. He noticed, and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that
+ very good men were occasionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones
+ escaped. He was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the
+ most painful to which any human being ever was forced) that the right did
+ not always prevail. He noticed that the gods did not interfere in behalf
+ of the weak and innocent. He was now and then astonished by seeing an
+ unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent health. He finally
+ ascertained that there could be no possible connection between an
+ unusually severe winter and his failure to give a sheep to a priest. He
+ began to suspect that the order of the universe was not constantly being
+ changed to assist him because he repeated a creed. He observed that some
+ children would steal after having been regularly baptized. He noticed a
+ vast difference between religion and justice, and that the worshipers of
+ the same god, took delight in cutting each other's throats. He saw that
+ these religious disputes filled the world with hatred and slavery. At last
+ he had the courage to suspect, that no god at any time interferes with the
+ order of events. He learned a few facts, and these facts positively
+ refused to harmonize with the ignorant superstitions of his fathers.
+ Finding his sacred books incorrect and false in some particulars, his
+ faith in their authenticity began to be shaken; finding his priests
+ ignorant upon some points, he began to lose respect for the cloth. This
+ was the commencement of intellectual freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that
+ religious power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man depends
+ upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. The
+ church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on
+ the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite,
+ however, of the church, man found that some of his religious conceptions
+ were wrong. By reading his Bible, he found that the ideas of his God were
+ more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. He also
+ discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must
+ have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the
+ phenomena by which we are surrounded; and now and then, some man had the
+ goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. In every age some
+ thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some
+ despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and
+ heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man
+ and truth. These divine men were generally torn in pieces by the
+ worshipers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence
+ for some of the deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for
+ the crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than
+ to destroy his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution
+ springs from a due admixture of love towards God and hatred towards man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at
+ least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people
+ began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers
+ hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare
+ Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to
+ admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They also found that
+ other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. They
+ began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real
+ value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For three hundred years the Christian world endeavored to rescue from the
+ "Infidel" the empty sepulchre of Christ. For three hundred years the
+ armies of the cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts of an
+ impudent impostor. This immense fact sowed the seeds of distrust
+ throughout all Christendom, and millions began to lose confidence in a God
+ who had been vanquished by Mohammed. The people also found that commerce
+ made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was
+ utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals. They
+ discovered that those who loved the gods most were apt to love men least;
+ that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was amazing; that the most
+ malicious had the effrontery to pray for their enemies, and that humility
+ and tyranny were the fruit of the same tree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and
+ women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant
+ religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith.
+ The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the
+ known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to
+ prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery
+ hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first
+ doubt, man has continued to advance. Men began to investigate, and the
+ church began to oppose. The astronomer scanned the heavens, while the
+ church branded his grand forehead with the word, "Infidel;" and now, not a
+ glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a Christian name. In spite
+ of all religion, the geologist penetrated the earth, read her history in
+ books of stone, and found, hidden within her bosom, souvenirs of all the
+ ages. Old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and useful truths
+ took their places. One by one religious conceptions have been placed in
+ the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. A
+ new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found
+ the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored and
+ nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being
+ superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere has been discovered the
+ slightest evidence of any interference from without.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of
+ superstition. These are the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of
+ authority from the hands of priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In that vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men,
+ and there, too, are nearly all their gods. The sacred temples of India
+ were ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over the painted and
+ pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden,
+ with four heads and four arms; Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the
+ wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls;
+ Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; Kali, the goddess; Draupadi,
+ the white-armed, and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed away and left the
+ thrones of heaven desolate. Along the banks of the sacred Nile, Isis no
+ longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The shadow of
+ Typhons scowl falls no more upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore, and
+ his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but Mem-non is as
+ voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the
+ dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their
+ priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep
+ in the mystery of a language lost and dead. Odin, the author of life and
+ soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant Ymir, strode long ago from the icy
+ halls of the North; and Thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer,
+ dashes mountains to the earth no more. Broken are the circles and
+ cromlechs of the ancient Druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and
+ covered with the centuries' moss, are the sacred cairns. The divine fires
+ of Persia and of the Aztecs, have died out in the ashes of the past, and
+ there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of
+ Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus
+ lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. The
+ streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in
+ the forest aisles no dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olympus.
+ Not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and Dan&aelig; lies
+ unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed forever are the thunders of Sinai;
+ lost are the voices of the prophets, and the land once flowing with milk
+ and honey, is but a desert waste. One by one, the myths have faded from
+ the clouds: one by one, the phantom host has disappeared, and one by one,
+ facts, truths and realities have taken their places. The supernatural has
+ almost gone, but the natural remains. The gods have fled, but man is here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and
+ decay. Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them
+ all. The gods created by the nations must perish with their creators. They
+ were created by men, and like men, they must pass away. The deities of one
+ age are the by-words of the next The religion of our day, and country, is
+ no more exempt from the sneer of the future than the others have been.
+ When India was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world's throne. When the
+ sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of mankind.
+ Greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and Zeus put on the purple
+ of authority. The earth trembled with the tread of Rome's intrepid sons,
+ and Jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. Rome fell,
+ and Christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out
+ the ruling nations of the world, and now Christ sits upon the old throne.
+ Who will be his successor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Day by day, religious conceptions grow less and less intense. Day by day,
+ the old spirit dies out of book and creed. The burning enthusiasm, the
+ quenchless zeal of the early church have gone, never, never to return. The
+ ceremonies remain, but the ancient faith is fading out of the human heart.
+ The worn-out arguments fail to convince, and denunciations that once
+ blanched the faces of a race, excite in us only derision and disgust. As
+ time rolls on, the miracles grow mean and small, and the evidences our
+ fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to satisfy us. There is an
+ "irrepressible conflict" between religion and science, and they cannot
+ peaceably occupy the same brain nor the same world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all
+ religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the
+ hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord
+ will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way
+ become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some
+ way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men; but for
+ those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost impossible;
+ that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the universe leads
+ to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror; who curse the
+ cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain other than
+ feelings of pity, contempt and scorn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Reason, Observation and Experience&mdash;the Holy Trinity of Science&mdash;have
+ taught us 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. If by any possibility the
+ existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be
+ demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us
+ stand erect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all ages have battled for the
+ rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of
+ liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the church with tearing
+ down without building again. The church should by this time know that it
+ is utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. The history of
+ religious persecution fully establishes the fact that the mind necessarily
+ resists and defies every attempt to control it by violence. The mind
+ necessarily clings to old ideas until prepared for the new. The moment we
+ comprehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity cast aside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly offered to render him
+ any assistance in his power. The surgeon began to discourse very learnedly
+ upon the nature and origin of disease; of the curative properties of
+ certain medicines; of the advantages of exercise, air and light, and of
+ the various ways in which health and strength could be restored. These
+ remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so much profound
+ thought and accurate knowledge, that the cripple, becoming thoroughly
+ alarmed, cried out, "Do not, I pray you, take away my crutches. They are
+ my only support, and without them I should be miserable indeed!" "I am not
+ going," said the surgeon, "to take away your crutches. I am going to cure
+ you, and then you will throw the crutches away yourself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the vagaries of the clouds the infidels propose to substitute the
+ realities of earth; for superstition, the splendid demonstrations and
+ achievements of science; and for theological tyranny, the chainless
+ liberty of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all
+ in all of truth. We know of no end to the development of man. We cannot
+ unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. The history of one
+ monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of water is as
+ wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and one grain of
+ sand, as all the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. We
+ are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our
+ fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and
+ thought This of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly
+ satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of
+ faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science
+ opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend to have
+ circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do
+ believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is
+ grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a
+ creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth
+ while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish
+ everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render
+ all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that
+ doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It
+ is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. Driving pirates from the
+ sea is not all there is of commerce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future&mdash;not
+ the temple of all the gods, but of all the people&mdash;wherein, with
+ appropriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of Humanity. We are
+ doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society
+ shall cease producing millionaires and mendicants&mdash;gorged indolence
+ and famished industry&mdash;truth in rags, and superstition robed and
+ crowned. We are looking for the time when the useful shall be the
+ honorable; and when Reason, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the
+ King of Kings, and God of Gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HUMBOLDT.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ The Universe is Governed by Law.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ GREAT men seem to be a part of the infinite&mdash;brothers of the
+ mountains and the seas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt was one of these. He was one of those serene men, in some
+ respects like our own Franklin, whose names have all the lustre of a star.
+ He was one of the few, great enough to rise above the superstition and
+ prejudice of his time, and to know that experience, observation, and
+ reason are the only basis of knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He became one of the greatest of men in spite of having been born rich and
+ noble&mdash;in spite of position. I say in spite of these things, because
+ wealth and position are generally the enemies of genius, and the
+ destroyers of talent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is often said of this or that man, that he is a self-made man&mdash;that
+ he was born of the poorest and humblest parents, and that with every
+ obstacle to overcome he became great. This is a mistake. Poverty is
+ generally an advantage. Most of the intellectual giants of the world have
+ been nursed at the sad and loving breast of poverty. Most of those who
+ have climbed highest on the shining ladder of fame commenced at the lowest
+ round. They were reared in the straw-thatched cottages of Europe; in the
+ log-houses of America; in the factories of the great cities; in the midst
+ of toil; in the smoke and din of labor, and on the verge of want. They
+ were rocked by the feet of mothers whose hands, at the same time, were
+ busy with the needle or the wheel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard for the rich to resist the thousand allurements of pleasure,
+ and so I say, that Humboldt, in spite of having been born to wealth and
+ high social position, became truly and grandly great.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the antiquated and romantic castle of Tegel, by the side of the pine
+ forest, on the shore of the charming lake, near the beautiful city of
+ Berlin, the great Humboldt, one hundred years ago to-day, was born, and
+ there he was educated after the method suggested by Rousseau,&mdash;Campe,
+ the philologist and critic, and the intellectual Kunth being his tutors.
+ There he received the impressions that determined his career; there the
+ great idea that the universe is governed by law, took possession of his
+ mind, and there he dedicated his life to the demonstration of this sublime
+ truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He came to the conclusion that the source of man's unhappiness is his
+ ignorance of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After having received the most thorough education at that time possible,
+ and having determined to what end he would devote the labors of his life,
+ he turned his attention to the sciences of geology, mining, mineralogy,
+ botany, the distribution of plants, the distribution of animals, and the
+ effect of climate upon man. All grand physical phenomena were investigated
+ and explained. From his youth he had felt a great desire for travel. He
+ felt, as he says, a violent passion for the sea, and longed to look upon
+ nature in her wildest and most rugged forms. He longed to give a physical
+ description of the universe&mdash;a grand picture of nature; to account
+ for all phenomena; to discover the laws governing the world; to do away
+ with that splendid delusion called special providence, and to establish
+ the fact that the universe is governed by law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To establish this truth was, and is, of infinite importance to mankind.
+ That fact is the death-knell of superstition; it gives liberty to every
+ soul, annihilates fear, and ushers in the Age of Reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The object of this illustrious man was to comprehend the phenomena of
+ physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as
+ one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For this purpose he turned his attention to descriptive botany, traversing
+ distant lands and mountain ranges to ascertain with certainty the
+ geographical distribution of plants. He investigated the laws regulating
+ the differences of temperature and climate, and the changes of the
+ atmosphere. He studied the formation of the earth's crust, explored the
+ deepest mines, ascended the highest mountains, and wandered through the
+ craters of extinct volcanoes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He became thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with
+ terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads to
+ all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a
+ necessary connection between all facts, so Humboldt became acquainted with
+ all the known sciences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His fame does not depend so much upon his discoveries (although he
+ discovered enough to make hundreds of reputations) as upon his vast and
+ splendid generalizations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He found, so to speak, the world full of unconnected facts&mdash;all
+ portions of a vast system&mdash;parts of a great machine; he discovered
+ the connection that each bears to all; put them together, and demonstrated
+ beyond all contradiction that the earth is governed by law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that to discover the connection of phenomena is the primary aim of
+ all natural investigation. He was infinitely practical.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Origin and destiny were questions with which he had nothing to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His surroundings made him what he was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In accordance with a law not fully comprehended, he was a production of
+ his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Great men do not live alone; they are surrounded by the great; they are
+ the instruments used to accomplish the tendencies of their generation;
+ they fulfill the prophecies of their age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all of the scientific men of the eighteenth century had the same
+ idea entertained by Humboldt, but most of them in a dim and confused way.
+ There was, however, a general belief among the intelligent that the world
+ is governed by law, and that there really exists a connection between all
+ facts, <i>or that all facts are simply the different aspects of a general
+ fact</i>, and that the task of science is to discover this connection; to
+ comprehend this general fact or to announce the laws of things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Germany was full of thought, and her universities swarmed with
+ philosophers and grand thinkers in every department of knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians,
+ philologists, artists, statesmen, critics, and logicians of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the companion of Schiller, who believed that man would be
+ regenerated through the influence of the Beautiful; of Goethe, the grand
+ patriarch of German literature; of Weiland, who has been called the
+ Voltaire of Germany; of Herder, who wrote the outlines of a philosophical
+ history of man; of Kotzebue, who lived in the world of romance; of
+ Schleiermacher, the pantheist; of Schlegel, who gave to his countrymen the
+ enchanted realm of Shakespeare; of the sublime Kant, author of the first
+ work published in Germany on Pure Reason; of Fichte, the infinite
+ idealist; of Schopenhauer, the European Buddhist who followed the great
+ Gautama to the painless and dreamless Nirwana, and of hundreds of others,
+ whose names are familiar to and honored by the scientific world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The German mind had been grandly roused from the long lethargy of the dark
+ ages of ignorance, fear, and faith. Guided by the holy light of reason,
+ every department of knowledge was investigated, enriched and illustrated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt breathed the atmosphere of investigation; old ideas were
+ abandoned; old creeds, hallowed by centuries, were thrown aside; thought
+ became courageous; the athlete, Reason, challenged to mortal combat the
+ monsters of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No wonder that under these influences Humboldt formed the great purpose of
+ presenting to the world a picture of Nature, in order that men might, for
+ the first time, behold the face of their Mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Europe becoming too small for his genius, he visited the tropics in the
+ new world, where in the most circumscribed limits he could find the
+ greatest number of plants, of animals, and the greatest diversity of
+ climate, that he might ascertain the laws governing the production and
+ distribution of plants, animals and men, and the effects of climate upon
+ them all. He sailed along the gigantic Amazon&mdash;the mysterious Orinoco&mdash;traversed
+ the Pampas&mdash;climbed the Andes until he stood upon the crags of
+ Chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea,
+ and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips. For nearly five
+ years he pursued his investigations in the new world, accompanied by the
+ intrepid Bonpland. Nothing escaped his attention. He was the best
+ intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. He was calm,
+ reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful, and the
+ love of truth. His collections were immense, and valuable beyond
+ calculation to every science. He endured innumerable hardships, braved
+ countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted his fortune
+ for the advancement of true learning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon his return to Europe he was hailed as the second Columbus; as the
+ scientific discoverer of America; as the revealer of a new world; as the
+ great demonstrator of the sublime truth, that the universe is governed by
+ law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain side&mdash;above
+ him the eternal snow&mdash;below, the smiling valley of the tropics,
+ filled with vine and palm; his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep,
+ thoughtful and calm&mdash;his forehead majestic&mdash;grander than the
+ mountain upon which he sat&mdash;crowned with the snow of his whitened
+ hair, he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not satisfied with his discoveries in America, he crossed the steppes of
+ Asia, the wastes of Siberia, the great Ural range, adding to the knowledge
+ of mankind at every step. His energy acknowledged no obstacle, his life
+ knew no leisure; every day was filled with labor and with thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was one of the apostles of science, and he served his divine master
+ with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement; with an ardor that
+ constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the
+ polar star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order that the people at large might have the benefit of his numerous
+ discoveries, and his vast knowledge, he delivered at Berlin a course of
+ lectures, consisting of sixty-one free addresses, upon the following
+ subjects:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Five, upon the nature and limits of physical geography.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three, were devoted to a history of science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Two, to inducements to a study of natural science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixteen, on the heavens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Five, on the form, density, latent heat, and magnetic power of the earth,
+ and to the polar light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Four, were on the nature of the crust of the earth, on hot springs
+ earthquakes, and volcanoes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Two, on mountains and the type of their formation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Two, on the form of the earth's surface, on the connection of continents,
+ and the elevation of soil over ravines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three, on the sea as a globular fluid surrounding the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ten, on the atmosphere as an elastic fluid surrounding the earth, and on
+ the distribution of heat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One, on the geographic distribution of organ ized matter in general.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three, on the geography of plants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three, on the geography of animals, and
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Two, on the races of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These lectures are what is known as the Cosmos, and present a scientific
+ picture of the world&mdash;of infinite diversity in unity&mdash;of
+ ceaseless motion in the eternal grasp of law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These lectures contain the result of his investigation, observation, and
+ experience; they furnish the connection between phenomena; they disclose
+ some of the changes through which the earth has passed in the countless
+ ages; the history of vegetation, animals and men, the effects of climate
+ upon individuals and nations, the relation we sustain to other worlds, and
+ demonstrate that all phenomena, whether insignificant or grand, exist in
+ accordance with inexorable law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are some truths, however, that we never should forget: Superstition
+ has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of
+ demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and
+ all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since the murder of Hypatia in the fifth century, when the polished blade
+ of Greek philosophy was broken by the club of ignorant Catholicism, until
+ to-day, superstition has detested every effort of reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is almost impossible to conceive of the completeness of the victory
+ that the church achieved over philosophy. For ages science was utterly
+ ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was master of the
+ world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling
+ coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling was
+ sought to be suppressed; love was considered infinitely sinful; pleasure
+ was the road to eternal fire, and God was supposed to be happy only when
+ his children were miserable. The world was governed by an Almighty's whim;
+ prayers could change the order of things, halt the grand procession of
+ nature, could produce rain, avert pestilence, famine and death in all its
+ forms. There was no idea of the certain; all depended upon divine pleasure
+ or displeasure rather; heaven was full of inconsistent malevolence, and
+ earth of ignorance. Everything was done to appease the divine wrath; every
+ public calamity was caused by the sins of the people; by a failure to pay
+ tithes, or for having, even in secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. To
+ the poor multitude, the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of
+ demons ready to devour, and theological serpents lurking with infinite
+ power to fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. Life to them
+ was a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and
+ lost, guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that
+ at every step the Ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The very heavens were full of death; the lightning was regarded as the
+ glittering vengeance of God, and the earth was thick with snares for the
+ unwary feet of man. The soul was supposed to be crowded with the wild
+ beasts of desire; the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only to
+ crime; virtues were regarded as deadly sins in disguise; there was a
+ continual warfare being waged between the Deity and the Devil, for the
+ possession of every soul; the latter generally being considered
+ victorious. The flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of the
+ displeasure of heaven, and the sinfulness of man. The blight that
+ withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were the
+ messengers of the Creator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world was governed by Fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against all the evils of nature, there was known only the defence of
+ prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. <i>Man in his helplessness
+ endeavored to soften the heart of God</i>. The faces of the multitude were
+ blanched with fear, and wet with tears; they were the prey of hypocrites,
+ kings and priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My heart bleeds when I contemplate the sufferings endured by the millions
+ now dead; of those who lived when the world appeared to be insane; when
+ the heavens were filled with an infinite Horror who snatched babes with
+ dimpled hands and rosy cheeks from the white breasts of mothers, and
+ dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slowly, beautifully, like the coming of the dawn, came the grand truth,
+ that the universe is governed by law; that disease fastens itself upon the
+ good and upon the bad; that the tornado cannot be stopped by counting
+ beads; that the rushing lava pauses not for bended knees, the lightning
+ for clasped and uplifted hands, nor the cruel waves of the sea for prayer;
+ that paying tithes causes, rather than prevents famine; that pleasure is
+ not sin; that happiness is the only good; that demons and gods exist only
+ in the imagination; that faith is a lullaby sung to put the soul to sleep;
+ that devotion is a bribe that fear offers to supposed power; that offering
+ rewards in another world for obedience in this, is simply buying a soul on
+ credit; that knowledge consists in ascertaining the laws of nature, and
+ that wisdom is the science of happiness. Slowly, grandly, beautifully,
+ these truths are dawning upon mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From Copernicus we learned that this earth is only a grain of sand on the
+ infinite shore of the universe; that everywhere we are surrounded by
+ shining worlds vastly greater than our own, all moving and existing in
+ accordance with law. True, the earth began to grow small, but man began to
+ grow great.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment the fact was, established that other worlds are governed by
+ law, it was only natural to conclude that our little world was also under
+ its dominion. The old theological method of accounting for physical
+ phenomena by the pleasure and displeasure of the Deity was, by the
+ intellectual, abandoned. They found that disease, death, life, thought,
+ heat, cold, the seasons, the winds, the dreams of man, the instinct of
+ animals,&mdash;in short, that all physical and mental phenomena are
+ governed by law, absolute, eternal and inexorable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let it be understood that by the term Law is meant the same invariable
+ relations of succession and resemblance predicated of all facts springing
+ from like conditions. Law is a fact&mdash;not a cause. It is a fact, that
+ like conditions produce like results: this fact is Law. When we say that
+ the universe is governed by law, we mean that this fact, called law, is
+ incapable of change; that it is, has been, and forever will be, the same
+ inexorable, immutable Fact, inseparable from all phenomena. Law, in this
+ sense, was not enacted or made. It could not have been otherwise than as
+ it is. That which necessarily exists has no creator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago this earth was considered the real center of the
+ universe; all the stars were supposed to revolve around this insignificant
+ atom. The German mind, more than any other, has done away with this piece
+ of egotism. Purbach and Mullerus, in the fifteenth century, contributed
+ most to the advancement of astronomy in their day. To the latter, the
+ world is indebted for the introduction of decimal fractions, which
+ completed our arithmetical notation, and formed the second of the three
+ steps by which, in modern times, the science of numbers has been so
+ greatly improved; and yet, both of these men believed in the most childish
+ absurdities, at least in enough of them, to die without their orthodoxy
+ having ever been suspected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next came the great Copernicus, and he stands at the head of the heroic
+ thinkers of his time, who had the courage and the mental strength to break
+ the chains of prejudice, custom, and authority, and to establish truth on
+ the basis of experience, observation and reason. He removed the earth, so
+ to speak, from the centre of the universe, and ascribed to it a two-fold
+ motion, and demonstrated the true position which it occupies in the solar
+ system.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At his bidding the earth began to revolve. At the command of his genius it
+ commenced its grand flight mid the eternal constellations round the sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For fifty years his discoveries were disregarded. All at once, by the
+ exertions of Galileo, they were kindled into so grand a conflagration as
+ to consume the philosophy of Aristotle, to alarm the hierarchy of Rome,
+ and to threaten the existence of every opinion not founded upon
+ experience, observation, and reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The earth was no longer considered a universe, governed by the caprices of
+ some revengeful Deity, who had made the stars out of what he had left
+ after completing the world, and had stuck them in the sky simply to adorn
+ the night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have said this much concerning astronomy because it was the first
+ splendid step forward! The first sublime blow that shattered the lance and
+ shivered the shield of superstition; the first real help that man received
+ from heaven; because it was the first great lever placed beneath the altar
+ of a false religion; the first revelation of the infinite to man; the
+ first authoritative declaration, that the universe is governed by law; the
+ first science that gave the lie direct to the cosmogony of barbarism, and
+ because it is the sublimest victory that the reason has achieved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In speaking of astronomy, I have confined myself to the discoveries made
+ since the revival of learning. Long ago, on the banks of the Ganges, ages
+ before Copernicus lived, Aryabhatta taught that the earth is a sphere, and
+ revolves on its own axis. This, however, does not detract from the glory
+ of the great German. The discovery of the Hindu had been lost in the
+ midnight of Europe&mdash;in the age of faith, and Copernicus was as much a
+ discoverer as though Aryabhatta had never lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to
+ point out the particular evidence furnished by each, to establish the
+ dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of Descartes, the first
+ who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who
+ formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena
+ of the universe to the same law; of Montaigne, one of the heroes of common
+ sense; of Galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world; of
+ Voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the
+ destruction of religious intolerance; of August Comte, whose genius
+ erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of Guttenberg,
+ Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, all soldiers of science, in the grand army of
+ the dead kings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul&mdash;breaking the
+ mental manacles&mdash;getting the brain out of bondage&mdash;giving
+ courage to thought&mdash;filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science found agriculture plowing with a stick reaping with a sickle&mdash;commerce
+ at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds&mdash;a
+ world without books&mdash;without schools man denying the authority of
+ reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of
+ torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals. It found the land filled
+ with malicious monks&mdash;with persecuting Protestants, and the burners
+ of men. It found a world full of fear; ignorance upon its knees; credulity
+ the greatest virtue; women treated like beasts of burden; cruelty the only
+ means of reformation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read
+ their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders;
+ generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the
+ cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty and
+ ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most of his
+ time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on Sunday, and
+ killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. It
+ found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all
+ countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without
+ reason in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his
+ brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe
+ is governed by law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science&mdash;the
+ only lever capable of raising mankind. Abject faith is barbarism; reason
+ is civilization. To obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation
+ perceived by the reason, is noble. Ignorance worships mystery; Reason
+ explains it: the one grovels, the other soars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No wonder that fable is the enemy of knowledge. A man with a false diamond
+ shuns the society of lapidaries, and it is upon this principle that
+ superstition abhors science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have
+ worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars,
+ and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest
+ monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imposture has always worn a crown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is beginning to change because the people are beginning to
+ think. To think is to advance. Everywhere the great minds are
+ investigating the creeds and the superstitions of men&mdash;the phenomena
+ of nature, and the laws of things. At the head of this great army of
+ investigators stood Humboldt&mdash;the serene leader of an intellectual
+ host&mdash;a king by the suffrage of Science, and the divine right of
+ Genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And to-day we are not honoring some butcher called a soldier&mdash;some
+ wily politician called a statesman&mdash;some robber called a king, nor
+ some malicious metaphysician called a saint We are honoring the grand
+ Humboldt, whose victories were all achieved in the arena of thought; who
+ destroyed prejudice, ignorance and error&mdash;not men; who shed light&mdash;not
+ blood, and who contributed to the knowledge, the wealth, and the happiness
+ of all mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His life was pure, his aims lofty, his learning varied and profound, and
+ his achievements vast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed
+ as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of the world. We
+ honor him because he honored us&mdash;because he labored for others&mdash;because
+ he was the most learned man of the most learned nation&mdash;because he
+ left a legacy of glory to every human being. For these reasons he is
+ honored throughout the world. Millions are doing homage to his genius at
+ this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and
+ recounting what he accomplished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, and
+ volcanoes&mdash;with the great palms&mdash;the wide deserts&mdash;the
+ snow-lipped craters of the Andes&mdash;with primeval forests and European
+ capitals&mdash;with wildernesses and universities&mdash;with savages and
+ savans&mdash;with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes&mdash;with peaks
+ and pampas, and steppes, and cliffs and crags&mdash;with the progress of
+ the world&mdash;with every science known to man, and with every star
+ glittering in the immensity of space.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; wasted none
+ of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of
+ theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy
+ and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth
+ century. Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of
+ truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from
+ the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. He was never found on his
+ knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the grand
+ tranquil column of Reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of
+ Nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century,
+ covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a
+ world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom&mdash;upon
+ the bosom of the universal Mother&mdash;and with her loving arms around
+ him, sank into that slumber called Death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he
+ inscribed his name, and there upon everlasting stone his genius wrote
+ this, the sublimest of truths:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Universe is Governed by Law!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THOMAS PAINE
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ With His Name Left Out, the History of Liberty Cannot be Written.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ TO speak the praises of the brave and thoughtful dead, is to me a labor of
+ gratitude and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through all the centuries gone, the mind of man has been beleaguered by
+ the mailed hosts of superstition. Slowly and painfully has advanced the
+ army of deliverance. Hated by those they wished to rescue, despised by
+ those they were dying to save, these grand soldiers, these immortal
+ deliverers, have fought without thanks, labored without applause, suffered
+ without pity, and they have died execrated and abhorred. For the good of
+ mankind they accepted isolation, poverty, and calumny. They gave up all,
+ sacrificed all, lost all but truth and self-respect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the bravest soldiers in this army was Thomas Paine; and for one, I
+ feel indebted to him for the liberty we are enjoying this day. Born among
+ the poor, where children are burdens; in a country where real liberty was
+ unknown; where the privileges of class were guarded with infinite
+ jealousy, and the rights of the individual trampled beneath the feet of
+ priests and nobles; where to advocate justice was treason; where
+ intellectual freedom was Infidelity, it is wonderful that the idea of true
+ liberty ever entered his brain. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poverty was his mother&mdash;Necessity his master.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had more brains than books; more sense than education; more courage
+ than politeness; more strength than polish. He had no veneration for old
+ mistakes&mdash;no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for the
+ truth's sake, and for man's sake. He saw oppression on every hand;
+ injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench,
+ tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause
+ of the weak against the strong&mdash;of the enslaved many against the
+ titled few.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In England he was nothing. He belonged to the lower classes. There was no
+ avenue open for him. The people hugged their chains, and the whole power
+ of the government was ready to crush any man who endeavored to strike a
+ blow for the right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the age of thirty-seven, Thomas Paine left England for America, with
+ the high hope of being instrumental in the establishment of a free
+ government. In his own country he could accomplish nothing. Those two
+ vultures&mdash;Church and State&mdash;were ready to tear in pieces and
+ devour the heart of any one who might deny their divine right to enslave
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon his arrival in this country, he found himself possessed of a letter
+ of introduction, signed by another Infidel, the illustrious Franklin.
+ This, and 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, imploring that
+ mixture of idiocy and insanity, George the III., by the grace of God, for
+ a restoration of their ancient privileges. They were not endeavoring to
+ become free men, but were trying to soften the heart of their master. They
+ were perfectly willing to make brick if Pharaoh would furnish the straw.
+ The colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed for reconciliation They
+ did not dream of independence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine gave to the world his "Common Sense." It was the first argument for
+ separation, the first assault upon the British form of government, the
+ first blow for a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a trumpet's
+ blast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the first to perceive the destiny of the New World.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No other pamphlet ever accomplished such wonderful results. It was filled
+ with argument, reason, persuasion, and unanswerable logic. It opened a new
+ world. It filled the present with hope and the future with honor.
+ Everywhere the people responded, and in a few months the Continental
+ Congress declared the colonies free and independent States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A new nation was born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is simple justice to say that Paine did more to cause the Declaration
+ of Independence than any other man. Neither should it be forgotten that
+ his attacks upon Great Britain were also attacks upon monarchy; and while
+ he convinced the people that the colonies ought to separate from the
+ mother country, he also proved to them that a free government is the best
+ that can be instituted among men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 paraphernalia of power, had no
+ effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore of things. He was
+ perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing short of the bed-rock
+ satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no
+ bounds. During all the dark scenes of the Revolution, never for one moment
+ did he despair. Year after year his brave words were ringing through the
+ land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words
+ of "Common Sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and
+ consecrated themselves anew to the cause of Freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 with
+ the army. He shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. When the
+ situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave them the
+ "Crisis." It was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the
+ way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted to them, "These are the times
+ that try men's souls. The summer soldier, and the sunshine patriot, will,
+ in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands
+ it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 defence of reason
+ rebels against tyranny, has a better title to 'Defender of the Faith' than
+ George the Third."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some said it was not 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 question:
+ '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 medicine to the dead." This
+ sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 strongly possessed
+ of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the time that
+ they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their
+ power to enslave the rest of mankind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his letter to the British people, in which he tried to convince them
+ that war was not to their interest, occurs the following passage brimful
+ of common sense: "War never can be the interest of a trading nation any
+ more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business. But to make
+ war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a
+ customer at the shop-door."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical
+ statements, that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudiced. He
+ had the happiest possible way of putting the case; in asking questions in
+ such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his premises so
+ clearly that the deduction could not be avoided.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 comfort and
+ in ease. He could have been what the world is pleased to call
+ "respectable." He could have died surrounded by clergymen, warriors and
+ statesmen. At his death there would have been an imposing funeral, miles
+ of carriages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a nation in mourning,
+ and, above all, a splendid monument covered with lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He chose rather to benefit mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time the seeds sown by the great Infidels were beginning to bear
+ fruit in France. The people were beginning to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Eighteenth Century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of
+ Progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On every hand Science was bearing testimony against the Church. Voltaire
+ had filled Europe with light; D'Holbach was giving to the <i>&eacute;lite</i>
+ of Paris the principles contained in his "System of Nature." The
+ Encyclopedists 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. America had set an example to the
+ world. The word Liberty was in the mouths of men, and they began to wipe
+ the dust from their knees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dawn of a new day had appeared.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine went to France. Into the new movement he threw all his
+ energies. His fame had gone before him, and he was welcomed as a friend of
+ the human race, and as a champion of free government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his countrymen
+ the defects, absurdities and abuses of the English government For this
+ purpose he 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, natural, convincing, and 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
+ and admiration. The most difficult political problems are solved in a few
+ sentences. The venerable arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a
+ question&mdash;answered with a word. For forcible illustration, apt
+ comparison, accuracy and clearness of statement, and absolute
+ thoroughness, it has never been excelled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fears of the administration were aroused, and Paine was prosecuted for
+ libel and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the entire
+ work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man. It is
+ a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an honor, not
+ only to Thomas Paine, but to 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 country, and to do good my
+ religion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1792, Paine was elected by the department of Calais as their
+ representative in the National Assembly. So great was his popularity in
+ France that he was selected about the same time by the people of no less
+ than four departments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides all this, the French people had been so robbed by the government,
+ so degraded by the church, that they were not fit material with which to
+ construct a republic. Many of the leaders longed to establish a beneficent
+ and just government, but the people asked for revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. His philanthropy was
+ boundless. He wished to destroy monarchy&mdash;not the monarch. He voted
+ for the destruction of tyranny, and against the death of the king. 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of the king&mdash;where
+ to differ from the majority was to be suspected, and, where to be
+ suspected was almost certain death Thomas Paine had the courage, the
+ goodness and the justice to vote against death. To vote against the
+ execution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was the
+ sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested, imprisoned,
+ and doomed to death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts
+ than that of Thomas Paine voting against the kings 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&mdash;of
+ a throneless king. This was the last grand act of his political life&mdash;the
+ sublime conclusion of his political career.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. He had labored&mdash;not
+ for money, not for fame, but for the general good. He had aspired to no
+ office; had asked no recognition of his services, but had ever been
+ content to labor as a common soldier in the army of Progress. Confining
+ his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his field of action,
+ filled with a genuine love for the right, he found himself imprisoned by
+ the very people he had striven to save.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block, he would have
+ escaped the calumnies and the hatred of the Christian world. In this
+ country, 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 the orators, and his memory in the hearts of all the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine had not finished his career.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had spent his life thus far in destroying the power of kings, and now
+ he turned his attention to the priests. He knew that every abuse had been
+ embalmed in Scripture&mdash;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 from 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The result of his investigations 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 pestilence. Most of his old friends
+ forsook him. He was regarded as a moral plague, and at the bare mention of
+ his name the bloody hands of the church were raised in horror. He was
+ denounced as the most despicable of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after death
+ with redoubled fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and satisfaction
+ the supposed horrors of his death-bed; gloried in the fact that he was
+ forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what they supposed to
+ be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is wonderful that all his services were thus forgotten. It is amazing
+ that one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that some one did not
+ accord to him, at least&mdash;honesty. Strange, that in the general
+ denunciation some one did not remember his labor for liberty, his devotion
+ to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. He had, by brave
+ and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause of Progress. He
+ had made it impossible to write the history of political freedom with his
+ name left out He was one of the creators of light; one of the heralds of
+ the dawn. He hated tyranny in the name of kings, and in the name of God,
+ with every drop of his noble blood. He believed in liberty and justice,
+ and in the sacred doctrine of human equality. Under these divine banners
+ he fought the battle of his life. In both worlds he offered his blood for
+ the good of man. In the wilderness of America, in the French Assembly, in
+ the sombre cell waiting for death, he was the same unflinching, unwavering
+ friend of his race; the same undaunted champion of universal freedom. And
+ for this he has been hated; for this the church has violated even his
+ grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than for
+ men to devour their benefactors. The people in all ages have crucified and
+ glorified. Whoever lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns the
+ past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show his
+ commission, or questions the authority of the priest, will be denounced as
+ the enemy of man and God. In all ages reason has been regarded as the
+ enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so pleasing to the Deity as
+ a total denial of the authority of your own mind. Self-reliance has been
+ thought a deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the aid and
+ consolation of superstition has always horrified the church. By some
+ unaccountable infatuation, belief has been and still is considered of
+ immense importance. All religions have been based upon the idea that God
+ will forever reward the true believer, and eternally damn the man who
+ doubts or denies. Belief is regarded as the one essential thing. To
+ practice justice, to love mercy, is not enough. You must believe in some
+ incomprehensible creed. You must say, "Once one is three, and three times
+ one is one." The man who practiced every virtue, but failed to believe,
+ was execrated. Nothing so outrages the feelings of the church as a moral
+ unbeliever&mdash;nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Paine was born, the world was religious, the pulpit was the real
+ throne, and the churches were making every effort to crush out of the
+ brain the idea that it had the right to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The splendid saying of Lord Bacon, that "the inquiry of truth, which is
+ the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the
+ presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, are
+ the sovereign good of human nature," has been, and ever will be, rejected
+ by religionists. Intellectual liberty, as a matter of necessity, forever
+ destroys the idea that belief is either praise or blame-worthy, and is
+ wholly inconsistent with every creed in Christendom. Paine recognized this
+ truth. He also saw that as long as the Bible was considered inspired, this
+ infamous doctrine of the virtue of belief would be believed and preached.
+ He examined the Scriptures for himself, and found them filled with
+ cruelty, absurdity and immorality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He again made up his mind to sacrifice himself for the good of his
+ fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He commenced with the assertion, "That any system of religion that has
+ anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system."
+ What a beautiful, what a tender sentiment! No wonder the church began to
+ hate him. He believed in one God, and no more. After this life he hoped
+ for happiness. He believed that true religion consisted in doing justice,
+ loving mercy, in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy, and in
+ offering to God the fruit of the heart. He denied the inspiration of the
+ Scriptures. This was his crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a
+ revelation that comes to us second-hand, either verbally or in writing. He
+ asserted that revelation is necessarily limited to the first
+ communication, and that after that it is only an account of something
+ which another person says was a revelation to him. We have only his word
+ for it, as it was never made to us. This argument never has been and
+ probably never will be answered. He denied the divine origin of Christ,
+ and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies of the Old Testament
+ had no reference to him whatever; and yet he believed that Christ was a
+ virtuous and 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 sentiments now
+ held by the Unitarians, and in fact by all the most enlightened
+ Christians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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, false in its
+ history, and so far as the Old Testament is concerned, false in almost
+ everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that
+ the Bible is literally true. Who on earth at this day would pretend to
+ settle any scientific question by a text from the Bible? The old belief is
+ confined to the ignorant and zealous. The church itself will before long
+ be driven to occupy the position of Thomas Paine. 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 whole, whale, Jonah and all; you are
+ simply required to believe in God, and pay your pew-rent. There is not now
+ an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that
+ Samson's strength was in his hair, or that the 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine thought the barbarities of the Old Testament inconsistent with what
+ he deemed the real character of God. He believed that 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 attacked the Bible
+ precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of
+ kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in the world could not make
+ him cower. His reason knew no "Holy of Holies," except the abode of Truth.
+ The sciences were then in their infancy. The attention of the really
+ learned had not been directed to an impartial examination of our pretended
+ revelation. It was accepted by most as a matter of course. The church was
+ all-powerful, and no one, unless thoroughly imbued with the spirit of
+ self-sacrifice, thought for a moment of disputing the fundamental
+ doctrines of Christianity. The infamous doctrines that salvation depends
+ upon belief&mdash;upon a mere intellectual conviction&mdash;was then
+ believed and preached. To doubt was to secure the damnation of your soul.
+ This absurd and devilish doctrine shocked the common sense of Thomas
+ Paine, and he denounced it with the fervor of honest indignation. This
+ doctrine, although infinitely ridiculous, has been nearly universal, and
+ has been as hurtful as senseless. For the overthrow of this infamous
+ tenet, Paine exerted all his strength. He left few arguments to be used by
+ those who should come after him, and he used none that have been refuted.
+ The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of
+ an argument against liberty of thought. 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 doctrine with every possible argument
+ against it has been, and still is, believed and defended by the entire
+ orthodox world. Can it be possible that we have been endowed with reason
+ simply that our souls may be caught in its toils and snares, that we may
+ be led by its false and delusive glare out of the narrow path that leads
+ to joy into the broad way of everlasting death? Is it possible that we
+ have been given reason simply that we may through faith ignore its
+ deductions, and avoid its 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 is to say, in respect of 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 laws given to Moses by God
+ himself and have the audacity to make some of our own? How dare we drown
+ the thunders of Sinai by calling the ayes and 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 time or eternity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant
+ altar the 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!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a man should tell you that he had the most beautiful painting in the
+ world, and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your
+ eyes shut, you would likely suspect, either that he had no painting or
+ that it was some pitiable daub. Should he tell you that he was a most
+ excellent performer on the violin, and yet refuse 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 his 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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. We believe that the frightful
+ text, "He that believes shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be
+ damned," has covered the earth with blood. It has filled the heart with
+ arrogance, cruelty and murder. It has caused the religious wars; bound
+ hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded inquisitions; filled dungeons;
+ invented instruments of torture; taught the mother to hate her child;
+ imprisoned the mind; filled the world with ignorance; persecuted the
+ lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and convents; made happiness 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
+ countries with want; housed the people in hovels; fed them with famine;
+ and but for the efforts of a few brave Infidels it would have taken the
+ world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left the heavens without a
+ star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 in him to investigate the Scriptures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it necessary to understand Hebrew in order to know that cruelty is not
+ a virtue, that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and that
+ eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal fiend? Is
+ it really essential to conjugate the Greek verbs before you can make up
+ your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out of their
+ graves? Must one be versed in Latin before he is entitled to express his
+ opinion as to the genuineness of a pretended revelation from God? Common
+ sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. Logic is not confined 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christianity of Paine's day is not the Christianity of our time. There
+ has been a great improvement since then. One hundred and fifty years ago
+ the foremost preachers of our time would have perished at the stake. A
+ Universalist would have been torn in pieces in England, Scotland, and
+ America. Unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks, pelted by
+ the rabble with dead cats, after which their ears would have been cut off,
+ their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. Less than one hundred
+ and fifty years ago the following law was in force in Maryland:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That if any person shall hereafter, within this province, wittingly,
+ 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 Holy Ghost, or the Godhead of
+ any of the three persons, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall utter any
+ profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or any of the persons thereof,
+ and shall thereof be convict by verdict, shall, for the first offence, be
+ bored through the tongue, and fined twenty pounds to be levied of his
+ body. And for the second offence, the offender shall be stigmatized by
+ burning in the forehead with the letter B, and fined forty pounds. And
+ that for the third offence the offender shall suffer death without the
+ benefit of clergy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed, and
+ is still in force in the District of Columbia. Laws like this were in
+ force in most of the colonies, and in all countries where the church had
+ power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Old Testament, the death penalty is attached to hundreds of
+ offences. It has been the same in all Christian countries. To-day, in
+ civilized governments, the death penalty is attached only to murder and
+ treason; and in some it has been entirely abolished. What a commentary
+ upon the divine systems of the world!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the day of Thomas Paine, the church was ignorant, bloody and
+ relentless. In Scotland the "Kirk" was at the summit of its power. It was
+ a full sister of the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human nature.
+ It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of
+ religious 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 to write
+ them a word. It would not allow shipwrecked sailors to be rescued from
+ drowning on Sunday. It sought to annihilate 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 cannot be a true
+ system."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time nothing so delighted the church as the beauties of endless
+ torment, and listening to the weak wailings of damned infants struggling
+ in the slimy coils and poison-folds of the worm that never dies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About the beginning of the nineteenth century, a boy by the name of Thomas
+ Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for having denied the
+ inspiration of the Scriptures, and for having, on several occasions, when
+ cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm. Notwithstanding the
+ poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was found guilty and hanged.
+ His body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold and covered with
+ stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Prosecutions and executions like this were common in every Christian
+ country, and all of them were based upon the belief that an intellectual
+ conviction is a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the "Age of Reason."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. All
+ religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. 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&mdash;had
+ added to the story of Christ the fables of Mythology. He gave to the
+ Protestant Church the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He
+ turned all the angels into soldiers&mdash;made heaven a battlefield, put
+ Christ in uniform, and described 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 sublime absurdity of the blind Milton.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Heaven and hell were realities&mdash;the judgment-day was expected&mdash;books
+ of account would be opened. Every man would hear the charges against him
+ read. God was supposed to sit on 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 forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely religious,
+ so far as belief was concerned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Europe, Liberty was lying chained in the Inquisition&mdash;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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under such conditions progress was impossible. Some one had to lead the
+ way. The church is, and always has been, incapable of a forward movement.
+ Religion always looks back. The church has already reduced Spain to a
+ guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to exile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some one not connected with the church had to attack the monster that was
+ eating out the heart of the world. Some one had to sacrifice himself for
+ the good of all. The people were in the most abject slavery; their manhood
+ had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry and power. Progress is born
+ of doubt and inquiry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church never doubts&mdash;never inquires. To doubt is heresy&mdash;to
+ inquire is to admit that you do not know&mdash;the church does neither.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ More than a century ago Catholisism, wrapped in robes red with the
+ innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and
+ scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, trampling beneath
+ her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud moment of almost universal
+ dominion, felt within her heartless breast the deadly dagger of Voltaire.
+ From that blow the church never can recover. Livid with hatred she
+ launched her eternal anathema at the great destroyer, and ignorant
+ Protestants have echoed the curse of Rome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our country the church was all-powerful, and although divided into many
+ sects, would instantly unite to repel a common foe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine struck the first grand blow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "Age of Reason" did more to undermine the power of the Protestant
+ Church than all other books then known. It furnished an immense amount of
+ food for thought. It was written for the average mind, and is a
+ straightforward, honest investigation of the Bible, and of the Christian
+ system.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine did not falter, from the first page to the last. He gives you his
+ candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "Age of Reason" has liberalized us all. It put arguments in the mouths
+ of the people; it put the church on the defensive; it enabled somebody in
+ every village to corner the parson; it made the world wiser, and the
+ church better; it took power from the pulpit and divided it among the
+ pews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the church has lost
+ power. There is no exception to this rule.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of
+ its founders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the church without
+ losing its power, its honor, and existence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed
+ cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bullying the
+ enlightened Present.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science is
+ too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand completeness. A
+ sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them. They demand
+ the complete circle&mdash;the entire structure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured periods.
+ In religion they insist upon immediate answers to the questions of
+ creation and destiny. The alpha and omega of all things must be in the
+ alphabet of their superstition. A religion that cannot answer every
+ question, and guess every conundrum is, in their estimation, worse than
+ worthless. They desire a kind of theological dictionary&mdash;a religious
+ ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and turns.
+ They mistake impudence for authority, solemnity for wisdom, and bathos 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 knowing. 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 selfdenial for the
+ good of others, but for the salvation of your own sweet self.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line, one
+ word in favor of tyranny&mdash;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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has pursued Paine to deter others. No effort has been in any
+ age of the world spared to crush out opposition. 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. 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants.&mdash;temples frescoed and
+ groined and carved, and gilded with gold&mdash;altars and tapers, and
+ paintings of virgin and babe&mdash;censer and chalice&mdash;chasuble,
+ paten and alb&mdash;organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged
+ and blest&mdash;maniple, amice and stole&mdash;crosses and crosiers,
+ tiaras and crowns&mdash;mitres and missals and masses&mdash;rosaries,
+ relics and robes&mdash;martyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the
+ blood of Christ&mdash;never, never for one moment awed the brave, proud
+ spirit of the Infidel. He knew that all the pomp and glitter had been
+ purchased with Liberty&mdash;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 others worshiped, he wept and scorned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doubter, the investigator, the Infidel, have been the saviors of
+ liberty. This truth is beginning to be realized, and the truly
+ intellectual are honoring the brave thinkers of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any
+ Infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will tell the church why.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty;
+ you have burned us at the stake&mdash;wasted us upon slow fires&mdash;torn
+ our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains&mdash;treated us as
+ outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives
+ and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have
+ denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us
+ with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial. In
+ the name of your religion, you have robbed us of every right; and after
+ having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this world,
+ you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored your God
+ to torment us forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines&mdash;that we despise your
+ creeds&mdash;that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power&mdash;that
+ we are free in spite of you&mdash;that we can express our honest thought,
+ and that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been
+ disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom; that we have denounced
+ tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human
+ blood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We deny that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so
+ considered it becomes destructive of happiness&mdash;the real end of life.
+ It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the
+ heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering
+ hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds palaces for God, (who
+ dwells not in temples made with hands,) and allows his children to die in
+ huts and hovels. It fills the earth with mourning, heaven with hatred, the
+ present with fear, and all the future with despair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Virtue is a subordination of the passions to 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery. In every creed man is the
+ slave of God&mdash;woman is the slave of man and the sweet children are
+ the slaves of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not want creeds; we want knowledge&mdash;we want happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing; that
+ we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without building again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of
+ day&mdash;to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth,
+ and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men
+ wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and
+ furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate
+ monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand
+ word&mdash;Freedom?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of
+ pity&mdash;to unbind the martyr from the stake&mdash;break all the chains&mdash;put
+ out the fires of civil war&mdash;stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear
+ the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it a small thing to make men truly free&mdash;to destroy the dogmas of
+ ignorance, prejudice and power&mdash;the poisoned fables of superstition,
+ and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of Fear?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does seem as though the most zealous Christian must at times entertain
+ some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For eighteen hundred
+ years the doctrine has been preached. For more than a thousand years the
+ church had, to a great extent, the control of the civilized world, and
+ what has been the result? Are the Christian nations patterns of charity
+ and forbearance? On the contrary, their principal business is to destroy
+ each other. More than five millions of Christians are trained, 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 effort to construct still more
+ deadly and terrible engines of death. Industry is crippled, honest toil is
+ robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of Christian
+ warfare. 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people perish for the lack of knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing but education&mdash;scientific education&mdash;can benefit
+ mankind. We must find out the laws of nature and conform to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need free bodies and free minds,&mdash;free labor and free thought,&mdash;chainless
+ hands and fetterless brains. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought
+ will give us truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and
+ to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. We need have no
+ fear of being too radical. The future will verify all grand and brave
+ predictions. Paine was splendidly in advance of his time; but he was
+ orthodox compared with the Infidels of to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science, the great Iconoclast, has been busy since 1809, and by the
+ highway of Progress are the broken images of the Past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All has been accomplished by the heroic few. The men of science have
+ explored heaven and earth, and with infinite patience have furnished the
+ facts. The brave thinkers have used 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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, created a giant that turns
+ with tireless arm, the countless wheels of toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes&mdash;one of the men to
+ whom we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the Great
+ Republic. As long as free government exists he will be remembered, admired
+ and honored.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 sorrow. His friends were untrue to
+ him because he was true to himself, and true to them. He lost the respect
+ of what is called society, but kept his own. His life is what the world
+ calls failure and what history calls success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, Thomas Paine was
+ good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If to be in advance of your time&mdash;to be a pioneer in the direction of
+ right&mdash;is greatness, Thomas Paine was great.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If to avow your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of
+ death is heroic, Thomas Paine was a hero.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the age of seventy-three, death touched his tired heart. He died in the
+ land his genius defended&mdash;under the flag he gave to the skies.
+ Slander cannot touch him now&mdash;hatred cannot reach him more. He sleeps
+ in the sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few more years&mdash;a few more brave men&mdash;a few more rays of
+ light, and mankind will venerate the memory of him who said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "ANY SYSTEM OF RELIGION THAT SHOCKS THE MIND OF A CHILD CANNOT BE A TRUE
+ SYSTEM;"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The world is my Country, and to do good my Religion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INDIVIDUALITY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ "His Soul was like a Star and dwelt apart."
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ ON every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom. Custom
+ meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first questions
+ are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We are pushed and
+ dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training
+ can be summed up in the word&mdash;suppression. Our desire to have a thing
+ or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to
+ have it, and ought not to do it. At every turn we run against cherubim and
+ a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the Eden of our desire. We are
+ allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular
+ interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost
+ freedom. We are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to
+ the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition.
+ Society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly
+ all earned and claimed, and some are paid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have all read accounts of Christian gentlemen remarking, when about to
+ be hanged, how much better it would have been for them if they had only
+ followed a mother's advice. But after all, how fortunate it is for the
+ world that the maternal advice has not always been followed. How fortunate
+ it is for us all that it is somewhat unnatural for a human being to obey.
+ Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the
+ conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and tell me what would
+ have been the effect of implicit obedience. Suppose the church had had
+ absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the words
+ liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech? In defiance of
+ advice, the world has advanced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the astronomers had controlled the science of astronomy; suppose
+ the doctors had controlled the science of medicine; suppose kings had been
+ left to fix the forms of government; suppose our fathers had taken the
+ advice of Paul, who said, "be subject to the powers that be, because they
+ are ordained of God;" suppose the church could control the world to-day,
+ we would go back to chaos and old night. Philosophy would be branded as
+ infamous; Science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against
+ the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's
+ flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality
+ enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,&mdash;some one
+ who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said,
+ "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the
+ moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church." On
+ the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble with most people is, they bow to what is called authority;
+ they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think a
+ man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time.
+ They think the fathers of their nation were the greatest and best of all
+ mankind. All these things they implicitly believe because it is popular
+ and patriotic, and because they were told so when they were very small,
+ and remember distinctly of hearing mother read it out of a book. It is
+ hard to over-estimate the influence of early training in the direction of
+ superstition. You first teach children that a certain book is true&mdash;that
+ it was written by God himself&mdash;that to question its truth is a sin,
+ that to deny it is a crime, and that should they die without believing
+ that book they will be forever damned without benefit of clergy. The
+ consequence is, that long before they read that book, they believe it to
+ be true. When they do read it their minds are wholly unfitted to
+ investigate its claims. They accept it as a matter of course.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this way the reason is overcome, the sweet instincts of humanity are
+ blotted from the heart, and while reading its infamous pages even justice
+ throws aside her scales, shrieking for revenge, and charity, with bloody
+ hands, applauds a deed of murder. In this way we are taught that the
+ revenge of man is the justice of God; that mercy is not the same
+ everywhere. In this way the ideas of our race have been subverted. In this
+ way we have made tyrants, bigots, and inquisitors. In this way the brain
+ of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings
+ of nature, superstition has scrawled her countless lies. One great trouble
+ is that most teachers are dishonest. They teach as certainties those
+ things concerning which they entertain doubts. They do not say, "we <i>think</i>
+ this is so," but "we <i>know</i> this is so." They do not appeal to the
+ reason of the pupil, but they command his faith. They keep all doubts to
+ themselves; they do not explain, they assert. All this is infamous. In
+ this way you may make Christians, but you cannot make men; you cannot make
+ women. You can make followers, but no leaders; disciples, but no Christs.
+ You may promise power, honor, and happiness to all those who will blindly
+ follow, but you cannot keep your promise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A monarch said to a hermit, "Come with me and I will give you power."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have all the power that I know how to use" replied the hermit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Come," said the king, "I will give you wealth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have no wants that money can supply," said the hermit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will give you honor," said the monarch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ah, honor cannot be given, it must be earned," was the hermit's answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Come," said the king, making a last appeal, "and I will give you
+ happiness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No," said the man of solitude, "there is no happiness without liberty,
+ and he who follows cannot be free."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You shall have liberty too," said the king.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then I will stay where I am," said the old man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And all the king's courtiers thought the hermit a fool.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then somebody examines, and in spite of all keeps his manhood, and
+ has the courage to follow where his reason leads. Then the pious get
+ together and repeat wise saws, and exchange knowing nods and most
+ prophetic winks. The stupidly wise sit owl-like on the dead limbs of the
+ tree of knowledge, and solemnly hoot. Wealth sneers, and fashion laughs,
+ and respectability passes by on the other side, and scorn points with all
+ her skinny fingers, and all the snakes of superstition writhe and hiss,
+ and slander lends her tongue, and infamy her brand, and perjury her oath,
+ and the law its power, and bigotry tortures, and the church kills.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes
+ a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness. Tyranny likes
+ courtiers, flatterers, followers, fawners, and superstition wants
+ believers, disciples, zealots, hypocrites, and subscribers. The church
+ demands worship&mdash;the very thing that man should give to no being,
+ human or divine. To worship another is to degrade yourself. Worship is awe
+ and dread and vague fear and blind hope. It is the spirit of worship that
+ elevates the one and degrades the many; that builds palaces for robbers,
+ erects monuments to crime, and forges manacles even for its own hands. The
+ spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny. The worshiper always regrets
+ that he is not the worshiped. We should all remember that the intellect
+ has no knees, and that whatever the attitude of the body may be, the brave
+ soul is always found erect. Whoever worships, abdicates. Whoever believes
+ at the command of power, tramples his own individuality beneath his feet,
+ and voluntarily robs himself of all that renders man superior to the
+ brute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The despotism of faith is justified upon the ground that Christian
+ countries are the grandest and most prosperous of the world. At one time
+ the same thing could have been truly said in India, in Egypt, in Greece,
+ in Rome, and in every other country that has, in the history of the world,
+ swept to empire. This argument proves too much not only, but the
+ assumption upon which it is based is utterly false. Numberless
+ circumstances and countless conditions have produced the prosperity of the
+ Christian world. The truth is, we have advanced in spite of religious
+ zeal, ignorance, and opposition. The church has won no victories for the
+ rights of man. Luther labored to reform the church&mdash;Voltaire, to
+ reform men. Over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the
+ banner of the church. Wherever brave blood has been shed, the sword of the
+ church has been wet. On every chain has been the sign of the cross. The
+ altar and throne have leaned against and supported each other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate,
+ soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and
+ science. The church has been the enemy of progress, for the reason that it
+ has endeavored to prevent man thinking for himself. To prevent thought is
+ to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church assuming to think for
+ the human race? Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a church that
+ pretends to be the mouthpiece of God, and in his name threatens to inflict
+ eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its
+ pretensions? By what right does a man, or an organization of men, or a
+ god, claim to hold a brain in bondage? When a fact can be demonstrated,
+ force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, an appeal to force
+ is infamous. In the presence of the unknown all have an equal right to
+ think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Over the vast plain, called life, we are all travelers, and not one
+ traveler is perfectly certain that he is going in the right direction.
+ True it is that no other plain is so well supplied with guide-boards. At
+ every turn and crossing you will find them, and upon each one is written
+ the exact direction and distance. One great trouble is, however, that
+ these boards are all different, and the result is that most travelers are
+ confused in proportion to the number they read. Thousands of people are
+ around each of these signs, and each one is doing his best to convince the
+ traveler that his particular board is the only one upon which the least
+ reliance can be placed, and that if his road is taken the reward for so
+ doing will be infinite and eternal, while all the other roads are said to
+ lead to hell, and all the makers of the other guide-boards are declared to
+ be heretics, hypocrites and liars. "Well," says a traveler, "you may be
+ right in what you say, but allow me at least to read some of the other
+ directions and examine a little into their claims. I wish to rely a little
+ upon my own judgment in a matter of so great importance." "No, sir,"
+ shouts the zealot, "that is the very thing you are not allowed to do. You
+ must go my way without investigation, or you are as good as damned
+ already." "Well," says the traveler, "if that is so, I believe I had
+ better go your way." And so most of them go along, taking the word of
+ those who know as little as themselves. Now and then comes one who, in
+ spite of all threats, calmly examines the claims of all, and as calmly
+ rejects them all. These travelers take roads of their own, and are
+ denounced by all the others, as infidels and atheists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Around all of these guide-boards, as far as the eye can reach, the ground
+ is covered with mountains of human bones, crumbling and bleaching in the
+ rain and sun. They are the bones of murdered men and women&mdash;fathers,
+ mothers and babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. Every
+ mind should be true to itself&mdash;should think, investigate and conclude
+ for itself. This is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince. Every
+ soul should repel dictation and tyranny, no matter from what source they
+ come&mdash;from earth or heaven, from men or gods. Besides, every traveler
+ upon this vast plain should give to every other traveler his best idea as
+ to the road that should be taken. Each is entitled to the honest opinion
+ of all. And there is but one way to get an honest opinion upon any subject
+ whatever. The person giving the opinion must be free from fear. The
+ merchant must not fear to lose his custom, the doctor his practice, nor
+ the preacher his pulpit There can be no advance without liberty.
+ Suppression of honest inquiry is retrogression, and must end in
+ intellectual night. The tendency of orthodox religion to-day is toward
+ mental slavery and barbarism. Not one of the orthodox ministers dare
+ preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think
+ otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his
+ brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not
+ expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the
+ creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit,
+ defending the justice of his own imprisonment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious
+ convictions? Is any such thing possible? Do we not know that there are no
+ two persons alike in the whole world? No two, trees, no two leaves, no two
+ anythings that are alike? Infinite diversity is the law. Religion tries to
+ force all minds into one mould. Knowing that all cannot believe, the
+ church endeavors to make all say they believe. She longs for the unity of
+ hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of individuality and
+ freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give
+ up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. Mental slavery is mental
+ death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the
+ living coffin of his dead soul. In this sense, every church is a cemetery
+ and every creed an epitaph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike
+ ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than
+ servile imitation. The great trouble with imitation is, that we are apt to
+ ape those who are in reality far below us. After all, the poorest bargain
+ that a human being can make, is to give his individuality for what is
+ called respectability.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no saying more degrading than this: "It is better to be the tail
+ of a lion than the head of a dog." It is a responsibility to think and act
+ for yourself. Most people hate responsibility; therefore they join
+ something and become the tail of some lion. They say, "My party can act
+ for me&mdash;my church can do my thinking. It is enough for me to pay
+ taxes and obey the lion to which I belong, without troubling myself about
+ the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of anything whatever."
+ These people are respectable. They hate reformers, and dislike exceedingly
+ to have their minds disturbed. They regard convictions as very
+ disagreeable things to have. They love forms, and enjoy, beyond everything
+ else, telling what a splendid tail their lion has, and what a troublesome
+ dog their neighbor is. Besides this natural inclination to avoid personal
+ responsibility, is and always has been, the fact, that every religionist
+ has warned men against the presumption and wickedness of thinking for
+ themselves. The reason has been denounced by all Christendom as the only
+ unsafe guide. The church has left nothing undone to prevent man following
+ the logic of his brain. The plainest facts have been covered with the
+ mantle of mystery. The grossest absurdities have been declared to be
+ self-evident facts. The order of nature has been, as it were, reversed,
+ that the hypocritical few might govern the honest many. The man who stood
+ by the conclusion of his reason was denounced as a scorner and hater of
+ God and his holy church. From the organization of the first church until
+ this moment, to think your own thoughts has been inconsistent with
+ membership. Every member has borne the marks of collar, and chain, and
+ whip. No man ever seriously attempted to reform a church without being
+ cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy. The highest crime
+ against a creed is to change it. Reformation is treason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of young men are being educated at this moment by the various
+ churches. What for? In order that they may be prepared to investigate the
+ phenomena by which we are surrounded? No! The object, and the only object,
+ is that they may be prepared to defend a creed; that they may learn the
+ arguments of their respective churches, and repeat them in the dull ears
+ of a thoughtless congregation. If one, after being thus trained at the
+ expense of the Methodists, turns Presbyterian or Baptist, he is denounced
+ as an ungrateful wretch. Honest investigation is utterly impossible within
+ the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is
+ right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will
+ investigate you. The consequence of this is, that most of the theological
+ literature is the result of suppression, of fear, tyranny and hypocrisy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every orthodox writer necessarily said to himself, "If I write that, my
+ wife and children may want for bread. I will be covered with shame and
+ branded with infamy; but if I write this, I will gain position, power, and
+ honor. My church rewards defenders, and burns reformers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under these conditions all your Scotts, Hen-rys, and McKnights have
+ written; and weighed in these scales, what are their commentaries worth?
+ They are not the ideas and decisions of honest judges, but the sophisms of
+ the paid attorneys of superstition. Who can tell what the world has lost
+ by this infamous system of suppression? How many grand thinkers have died
+ with the mailed hand of superstition upon their lips? How many splendid
+ ideas have perished in the cradle of the brain, strangled in the
+ poison-coils of that python, the Church!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years a thinker was hunted down like an escaped convict.
+ To him who had braved the church, every door was shut, every knife was
+ open. To shelter him from the wild storm, to give him a crust when dying,
+ to put a cup of water to his cracked and bleeding lips; these were all
+ crimes, not one of which the church ever did forgive; and with the justice
+ taught of her God, his helpless children were exterminated as scorpions
+ and vipers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle,
+ the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to
+ brave the church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of
+ fire,&mdash;to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell&mdash;her devil and
+ her God? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were the real saviors
+ of our race, the destroyers of superstition and the creators of Science.
+ They were the real Titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the
+ thunderbolts of all the gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not
+ only the pockets but the brains of the world. She is the stone at the
+ sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man
+ has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to
+ stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be happy
+ in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights of man,
+ shall writhe in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is said that some of the Indian tribes place the heads of their
+ children between pieces of bark until the form of the skull is permanently
+ changed. To us this seems a most shocking custom; and yet, after all, is
+ it as bad as to put the souls of our children in the strait-jacket of a
+ creed? to so utterly deform their minds that they regard the God of the
+ Bible as a being of infinite mercy, and really consider it a virtue to
+ believe a thing just because it seems unreasonable? Every child in the
+ Christian world has uttered its wondering protest against this outrage.
+ All the machinery of the church is constantly employed in corrupting the
+ reason of children. In every possible way they are robbed of their own
+ thoughts and forced to accept the statements of others. Every Sunday
+ school has for its object the crushing out of every germ of individuality.
+ The poor children are taught that nothing can be more acceptable to God
+ than unreasoning obedience and eyeless faith, and that to believe God did
+ an impossible act, is far better than to do a good one yourself. They are
+ told that all religions have been simply the John-the-Baptists of ours;
+ that all the gods of antiquity have withered and shrunken into the Jehovah
+ of the Jews; that all the longings and aspirations of the race are
+ realized in the motto of the Evangelical Alliance, "Liberty in
+ non-essentials", that all there is, or ever was, of religion can be found
+ in the apostles' creed; that there is nothing left to be discovered; that
+ all the thinkers are dead, and all the living should simply be believers;
+ that we have only to repeat the epitaph found on the grave of wisdom; that
+ grave-yards are the best possible universities, and that the children must
+ be forever beaten with the bones of the fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his
+ companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only
+ ambition is to obey. He certainly would now and then be tempted to make
+ the same remark made by an English gentleman to his poor guest. The
+ gentleman had invited a man in humble circumstances to dine with him. The
+ man was so overcome with the honor that to everything the gentleman said
+ he replied "Yes." Tired at last with the monotony of acquiescence, the
+ gentleman cried out, "For God's sake, my good man, say 'No,' just once, so
+ there will be two of us."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the
+ dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising
+ orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all
+ the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going
+ to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist
+ barnacles, petrified Presbyterians and Methodist mummies? I want no heaven
+ for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty,
+ and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. Better
+ rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of
+ the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar even of a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. She accepts only
+ the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand
+ erect. She cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. The wide and sunny
+ fields belong not to her domain. The star-lit heights of genius and
+ individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. Her
+ subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are not athletes standing posed by rich life and brave endeavor like
+ antique statues, but shriveled deformities, studying with furtive glance
+ the cruel face of power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No religionist seems capable of comprehending this plain truth. There is
+ this difference between thought and action: for our actions we are
+ responsible to ourselves and to those injuriously affected; for thoughts,
+ there can, in the nature of things, be no responsibility to gods or men,
+ here or hereafter. And yet the Protestant has vied with the Catholic in
+ denouncing freedom of thought; and while I was taught to hate Catholicism
+ with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say, that in all
+ essential particulars it is precisely the same as every other religion.
+ Luther denounced mental liberty with all the coarse and brutal vigor of
+ his nature; Calvin despised, from the very bottom of his petrified heart,
+ anything that even looked like religious toleration, and solemnly declared
+ that to advocate it was to crucify Christ afresh. All the founders of all
+ the orthodox churches have advocated the same infamous tenet. The truth
+ is, that what is called religion is necessarily inconsistent with free
+ thought A believer is a bird in a cage, a Freethinker is an eagle parting
+ the clouds with tireless wing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At present, owing to the inroads that have been made by liberals and
+ infidels, most of the churches pretend to be in favor of religious
+ liberty. Of these churches, we will ask this question: How can a man, who
+ conscientiously believes in religious liberty, worship a God who does not?
+ They say to us: "We will not imprison you on account of your belief, but
+ our God will." "We will not burn you because you throw away the sacred
+ Scriptures, but their author will." "We think it an infamous crime to
+ persecute our brethren for opinion's sake,&mdash;but the God, whom we
+ ignorantly worship, will on that account, damn his own children forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why is it that these Christians not only detest the infidels, but
+ cordially despise each other? Why do they refuse to worship in the temples
+ of each other? Why do they care so little for the damnation of men, and so
+ much for the baptism of children? Why will they adorn their churches with
+ the money of thieves and flatter vice for the sake of subscriptions? Why
+ will they attempt to bribe Science to certify to the writings of God? Why
+ do they torture the words of the great into an acknowledgment of the truth
+ of Christianity? Why do they stand with hat in hand before presidents,
+ kings, emperors, and scientists, begging, like Lazarus, for a few crumbs
+ of religious comfort? Why are they so delighted to find an allusion to
+ Providence in the message of Lincoln? Why are they so afraid that some one
+ will find out that Paley wrote an essay in favor of the Epicurean
+ philosophy, and that Sir Isaac Newton was once an infidel? Why are they so
+ anxious to show that Voltaire recanted; that Paine died palsied with fear;
+ that the Emperor Julian cried out "Galilean, thou hast conquered"; that
+ Gibbon died a Catholic; that Agassiz had a little confidence in Moses;
+ that the old Napoleon was once complimentary enough to say that he thought
+ Christ greater than himself or C&aelig;sar; that Washington was caught on
+ his knees at Valley Forge; that blunt old Ethan Allen told his child to
+ believe the religion of her mother; that Franklin said, "Don't unchain the
+ tiger," and that Volney got frightened in a storm at sea?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it because the foundation of their temple is crumbling, because the
+ walls are cracked, the pillars leaning, the great dome swaying to its
+ fall, and because Science has written over the high altar its mene, mene,
+ tekel, upharsin&mdash;the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all
+ religions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward
+ infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,&mdash;Wesley, toward John
+ Stuart Mill. To really reform the church is to destroy it. Every new
+ religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion
+ of Science is but a question of time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will not say the church has been an unmitigated evil in all respects.
+ Its history is infamous and glorious. It has delighted in the production
+ of extremes. It has furnished murderers for its own martyrs. It has
+ sometimes fed the body, but has always starved the soul. It has been a
+ charitable highwayman&mdash;a profligate beggar&mdash;a generous pirate.
+ It has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. It has built more
+ prisons than asylums. It made a hundred orphans while it cared for one. In
+ one hand it has carried the alms-dish and in the other a sword. It has
+ founded schools and endowed universities for the purpose of destroying
+ true learning. It filled the world with hypocrites and zealots, and upon
+ the cross of its own Christ it crucified the individuality of man. It has
+ sought to destroy the independence of the soul and put the world upon its
+ knees. This is its crime. The commission of this crime was necessary to
+ its existence. In order to compel obedience it declared that it had the
+ truth, and all the truth; that God had made it the keeper of his secrets;
+ his agent and his vicegerent. It declared that all other religions were
+ false and infamous. It rendered all compromise impossible and all thought
+ superfluous. Thought was its enemy, obedience was its friend.
+ Investigation was fraught with danger; therefore investigation was
+ suppressed. The holy of holies was behind the curtain. All this was upon
+ the principle that forgers hate to have the signature examined by an
+ expert, and that imposture detests curiosity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," has always been the favorite
+ text of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In short, Christianity has always opposed every forward movement of the
+ human race. Across the highway of progress it has always been building
+ breastworks of Bibles, tracts, commentaries, prayer-books, creeds, dogmas
+ and platforms, and at every advance the Christians have gathered together
+ behind these heaps of rubbish and shot the poisoned arrows of malice at
+ the soldiers of freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And even the liberal Christian of to-day has his holy of holies, and in
+ the niche of the temple of his heart has his idol. He still clings to a
+ part of the old superstition, and all the pleasant memories of the old
+ belief linger in the horizon of his thoughts like a sunset. We associate
+ the memory of those we love with the religion of our childhood. It seems
+ almost a sacrilege to rudely destroy the idols that our fathers worshiped,
+ and turn their sacred and beautiful truths into the fables of barbarism.
+ Some throw away the Old Testament and cling to the New, while others give
+ up everything except the idea that there is a personal God, and that in
+ some wonderful way we are the objects of his care.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even this, in my opinion, as Science, the great iconoclast, marches
+ onward, will have to be abandoned with the rest. The great ghost will
+ surely share the fate of the little ones. They fled at the first
+ appearance of the dawn, and the other will vanish with the perfect day.
+ Until then the independence of man is little more than a dream.
+ Overshadowed by an immense personality, in the presence of the
+ irresponsible and the infinite, the individuality of man is lost, and he
+ falls prostrate in the very dust of fear. Beneath the frown of the
+ absolute, man stands a wretched, trembling slave,&mdash;beneath his smile
+ he is at best only a fortunate serf. Governed by a being whose arbitrary
+ will is law, chained to the chariot of power, his destiny rests in the
+ pleasure of the unknown. Under these circumstances, what wretched object
+ can he have in lengthening out his aimless life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, in most minds, there is a vague fear of the gods&mdash;a
+ shrinking from the malice of the skies. Our fathers were slaves, and
+ nearly all their children are mental serfs. The enfranchisement of the
+ soul is a slow and painful process. Superstition, the mother of those
+ hideous twins, Fear and Faith, from her throne of skulls, still rules the
+ world, and will until the mind of woman ceases to be the property of
+ priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory of
+ reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the minds of many, long after the intellect has thrown aside as utterly
+ fabulous the legends of the church, there still remains a lingering
+ suspicion, born of the mental habits contracted in childhood, that after
+ all there may be a grain of truth in these mountains of theological mist,
+ and that possibly the superstitious side is the side of safety.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A gentleman, walking among the ruins of Athens, came upon a fallen statue
+ of Jupiter; making an exceedingly low bow he said: "O Jupiter! I salute
+ thee." He then added: "Should you ever sit upon the throne of heaven
+ again, do not, I pray you, forget that I treated you politely when you
+ were prostrate."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have all been taught by the church that nothing is so well calculated
+ to excite the ire of the Deity as to express a doubt as to his existence,
+ and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin. Numerous well-attested
+ instances are referred to of atheists being struck dead for denying the
+ existence of God. According to these religious people, God is infinitely
+ above us in every respect, infinitely merciful, and yet he cannot bear to
+ hear a poor finite man honestly question his existence. Knowing, as he
+ does, that his children are groping in darkness and struggling with doubt
+ and fear; knowing that he could enlighten them if he would, he still holds
+ the expression of a sincere doubt as to his existence, the most infamous
+ of crimes. According to orthodox logic, God having furnished us with
+ imperfect minds, has a right to demand a perfect result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose Mr. Smith should overhear a couple of small bugs holding a
+ discussion as to the existence of Mr. Smith, and suppose one should have
+ the temerity to declare, upon the honor of a bug, that he had examined the
+ whole question to the best of his ability, including the argument based
+ upon design, and had come to the conclusion that no man by the name of
+ Smith had ever lived. Think then of Mr. Smith flying into an ecstasy of
+ rage, crushing the atheist bug beneath his iron heel, while he exclaimed,
+ "I will teach you, blasphemous wretch, that Smith is a diabolical fact!"
+ What then can we think of a God who would open the artillery of heaven
+ upon one of his own children for simply expressing his honest thought? And
+ what man who really thinks can help repeating the words of Ennius: "If
+ there are gods they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the millions of men and women who have been destroyed simply for
+ loving and worshiping this God. Is it possible that this God, having
+ infinite power, saw his loving and heroic children languishing in the
+ darkness of dungeons; heard the clank of their chains when they lifted
+ their hands to him in the agony of prayer; saw them stretched upon the
+ bigot's rack, where death alone had pity; saw the serpents of flame crawl
+ hissing round their shrinking forms&mdash;-saw all this for sixteen
+ hundred years, and sat as silent as a stone?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From such a God, why should man expect assistance? Why should he waste his
+ days in fruitless prayer? Why should he fall upon his knees and implore a
+ phantom&mdash;a phantom that is deaf, and dumb, and blind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although we live in what is called a free government,&mdash;and
+ politically we are free,&mdash;there is but little religious liberty in
+ America. Society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that
+ you suppress your opinions. It is contended by many that ours is a
+ Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon
+ that book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our
+ country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of
+ gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to
+ declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity.
+ Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is
+ the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do. And yet there
+ are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemnly decide that this
+ is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the
+ infamous laws of Jehovah. Such judges are the Jeffries of the church. They
+ believe that decisions, made by hirelings at the bidding of kings, are
+ binding upon man forever. They regard old law as far superior to modern
+ justice. They are what might be called orthodox judges. They spend their
+ days in finding out, not what ought to be, but what has been. With their
+ backs to the sunrise they worship the night. There is only one future
+ event with which they concern themselves, and that is their reelection. No
+ honest court ever did, or ever will, decide that our Constitution is
+ Christian. The Bible teaches that the powers that be, are ordained of God.
+ The Bible teaches that God is the source of all authority, and that all
+ kings have obtained their power from him. Every tyrant has claimed to be
+ the agent of the Most High. The Inquisition was founded, not in the name
+ of man, but in the name of God. All the governments of Europe recognize
+ the greatness of God, and the littleness of the people. In all ages,
+ hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves,
+ called kings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all
+ power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a
+ nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to
+ govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the
+ human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in
+ fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of slavery&mdash;through
+ the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the acknowledged ruler
+ of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, are we indebted, more than to all
+ others, for a human government, and for a Constitution in which no God is
+ recognized superior to the legally expressed will of the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They
+ knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and
+ zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the
+ terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the
+ keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all
+ should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should
+ make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame
+ a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the
+ individuality and liberty of all; to prevent the few from governing the
+ many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding all this, the spirit of persecution still lingers in our
+ laws. In many of the States, only those who believe in the existence of
+ some kind of God, are under the protection of the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The supreme court of Illinois decided, in the year of grace 1856, that an
+ unbeliever in the existence of an intelligent First Cause could not be
+ allowed to testify in any court. His wife and children might have been
+ murdered before his very face, and yet in the absence of other witnesses,
+ the murderer could not have even been indicted. The atheist was a legal
+ outcast. To him, Justice was not only blind, but deaf. He was liable, like
+ other men, to support the Government, and was forced to contribute his
+ share towards paying the salaries of the very judges who decided that
+ under no circumstances could his voice be heard in any court. This was the
+ law of Illinois, and so remained until the adoption of the new
+ Constitution. By such infamous means has the church endeavored to chain
+ the human mind, and protect the majesty of her God. The fact is, we have
+ no national religion, and no national God; but every citizen is allowed to
+ have a religion and a God of his own, or to reject all religions and deny
+ the existence of all gods. The church, however, never has, and never will
+ understand and appreciate the genius of our Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Last year, in a convention of Protestant bigots, held in the city of New
+ York for the purpose of creating public opinion in favor of a religious
+ amendment to the Federal Constitution, a reverend doctor of divinity,
+ speaking of atheists, said: "What are the rights of the atheist? I would
+ tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic. I would tolerate him as I
+ would tolerate a conspirator. He may live and go free, hold his lands and
+ enjoy his home&mdash;he may even vote; but for any higher or more advanced
+ citizenship, he is, as I hold, utterly disqualified." These are the
+ sentiments of the church to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the
+ sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to ashes
+ on the lips of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In religious ideas and conceptions there has been for ages a slow and
+ steady development At the bottom of the ladder (speaking of modern times)
+ is Catholicism, and at the top is Science. The intermediate rounds of this
+ ladder are occupied by the various sects, whose name is legion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with-our
+ right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form.
+ All that I ask, is the same right I freely accord to all others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago a Methodist clergyman took it upon himself to give me a
+ piece of friendly advice. "Although you may disbelieve the Bible," said
+ he, "you ought not to say so. That, you should keep to yourself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Do you believe the Bible," said I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He replied, "Most assuredly".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To which I retorted, "Your answer conveys no information to me. You may be
+ following your own advice. You told me to suppress my opinions. Of course
+ a man who will advise others to dissimulate will not always be particular
+ about telling the truth himself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There can be nothing more utterly subversive of all that is really
+ valuable than the suppression of honest thought. No man, worthy of the
+ form he bears, will at the command of church or state solemnly repeat a
+ creed his reason scorns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the duty of each and every one to maintain his individuality. "This
+ above all, to thine ownself be true, and it must follow as the night the
+ day, thou canst not then be false to any man." It is a magnificent thing
+ to be the sole proprietor of yourself. It is a terrible thing to wake up
+ at night and say, "There is nobody in this bed." It is humiliating to know
+ that your ideas are all borrowed; that you are indebted to your memory for
+ your principles; that your religion is simply one of your habits, and that
+ you would have convictions if they were only contagious. It is mortifying
+ to feel that you belong to a mental mob and cry "crucify him," because the
+ others do; that you reap what the great and brave have sown, and that you
+ can benefit the world only by leaving it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the unit.
+ Surely it is worth something to be one, and to feel that the census of the
+ universe would be incomplete without counting you. Surely there is
+ grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are
+ without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all
+ depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor
+ sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect
+ owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee
+ and upon no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind
+ you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant
+ tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are
+ no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to
+ whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it
+ is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no
+ prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought;
+ that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor
+ burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a
+ castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul,
+ in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HERETICS AND HERESIES.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Liberty, a Word without which all other Words are Vain.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ WHOEVER has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be
+ guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name
+ given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. This word was born of
+ the hatred, arrogance and cruelty of those who love their enemies, and
+ who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. This word was born of
+ intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought It was an epithet used
+ in the place of argument. From the commencement of the Christian era,
+ every art has been exhausted and every conceivable punishment inflicted to
+ force all people to hold the same religious opinions. This effort was born
+ of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the salvation of the
+ soul. Christ taught, and the church still teaches, that unbelief is the
+ blackest of crimes. God is supposed to hate with an infinite and
+ implacable hatred, every heretic upon the earth, and the heretics who have
+ died are supposed at this moment to be suffering the agonies of the
+ damned. The church persecutes the living and her God burns the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed that God wrote a book called the Bible, and it is generally
+ admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand. As long as
+ the church had all the copies of this book, and the people were not
+ allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world;
+ but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to differ as to
+ its meaning. A few were independent and brave enough to give the world
+ their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these men the church
+ used all her power. Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in the
+ work of enslaving the human mind. For ages they were rivals in the
+ infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. They infested every
+ country, every city, town, hamlet and family. They appealed to the worst
+ passions of the human heart They sowed the seeds of discord and hatred in
+ every land. Brother denounced brother, wives informed against their
+ husbands, mothers accused their children, dungeons were crowded with the
+ innocent; the flesh of the good and true rotted in the clasp of chains;
+ the flames devoured the heroic, and in the name of the most merciful God,
+ his children were exterminated with famine, sword, and fire. Over the wild
+ waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen
+ hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. The
+ ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough
+ to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed
+ with them upon any point whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy
+ with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief
+ essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the
+ power. Why should the church pity a man whom her God hates? Why should she
+ show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her God will burn in eternal
+ fire? Why should a Christian be better than his God? It is impossible for
+ the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than has been
+ perpetrated by the church. Every nerve in the human body capable of pain
+ has been sought out and touched by the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the
+ extent of their power. Toleration has increased only when and where the
+ power of the church has diminished. From Augustine until now the spirit of
+ the Christians has remained the same. There has been the same intolerance,
+ the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves, and the same
+ determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge inconsistent
+ with an ignorant creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this
+ revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church
+ acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a
+ revelation&mdash;not from God&mdash;but from the church. Had the people
+ submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have been but
+ one church, and that church never could have advanced. It might have
+ retrograded, because it is not necessary to think or investigate in order
+ to forget. Without heresy there could have been no progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest type of the orthodox Christian does not forget; neither does
+ he learn. He neither advances nor recedes. He is a living fossil embedded
+ in that rock called faith. He makes no effort to better his condition,
+ because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people from
+ improving theirs. The supreme desire of his heart is to force all others
+ to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object he denounces
+ free thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. When he had
+ power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. It meant
+ confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. Across the
+ open Bible lay the sword and fagot. Not content with burning such heretics
+ as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the church might
+ rob their wives and children. The property of all heretics was
+ confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead with being
+ heretical&mdash;indicted, as it were, their dust&mdash;to the end that the
+ church might clutch the bread of orphans. Learned divines discussed the
+ propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they were burned,
+ and the general opinion was, that this ought to be done so that the
+ heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock the
+ Christians who were burning them. With a mixture of ferocity and
+ Christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at a
+ slow fire, giving as a reason that more time was given them for
+ repentance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No wonder that Jesus Christ said, "I came not to bring peace, but a
+ sword."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every priest regarded himself as the agent of God. He answered all
+ questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult
+ offered to God. No one was asked to think, but all were commanded to obey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1208 the Inquisition was established. Seven years afterward, the fourth
+ council of the Lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear an oath that
+ they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. The sword of the
+ church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and
+ infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies they inflicted.
+ Acting, as they believed, or pretended to believe, under the command of
+ God; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world&mdash;hating
+ heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage beyond
+ description; merciless beyond conception,&mdash;these infamous priests, in
+ a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage.
+ They crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering flesh with
+ iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids; pulled out their
+ nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore out their tongues;
+ extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks; flayed them alive;
+ crucified them with their heads downward; exposed them to wild beasts;
+ burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and groans; ravished their
+ wives; robbed their children, and then prayed God to finish the holy work
+ in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The
+ Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic, the
+ Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the
+ Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other; and
+ each Christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other Christian who
+ denied the smallest fraction of his creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the reign of Henry VIII.&mdash;that pious and moral founder of the
+ apostolic Episcopal Church,&mdash;there was passed by the parliament of
+ England an act entitled "An act for abolishing of diversity of opinion."
+ And in this act was set forth what a good Christian was obliged to
+ believe: First, That in the sacrament was the real body and blood of Jesus
+ Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second, That the body and blood of Jesus Christ was in the bread, and the
+ blood and body of Jesus Christ was in the wine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third, That priests should not marry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth, That vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth, That private masses ought to be continued; and,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth, That auricular confession to a priest must be maintained.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what to
+ believe by simply reading the statute. The church hated to see the people
+ wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. It was thought
+ far better that a creed should be made by parliament, so that whatever
+ might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force. The punishment for
+ denying the first article was death by fire. For the denial of any other
+ article, imprisonment, and for the second offence&mdash;death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Your attention is called to these six articles, established during the
+ reign of Henry VIII., and by the Church of England, simply because not one
+ of these articles is believed by that church to-day. If the law then made
+ by the church could be enforced now, every Episcopalian would be burned at
+ the stake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Similar laws were passed in most Christian countries, as all orthodox
+ churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven.
+ According to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty
+ leads to hell. It was claimed that God had founded the church, and that to
+ deny the authority of the church was to be a traitor to God, and
+ consequently an ally of the devil. To torture and destroy one of the
+ soldiers of Satan was a duty no good Christian cared to neglect. Nothing
+ can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of God by killing your own
+ enemies. Such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for yourself and
+ damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary
+ Christian never resists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the theologians, God, the Father of us all, wrote a letter to
+ his children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning
+ of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences, these brothers
+ began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land, where this letter
+ from God has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written
+ have been filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered
+ each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God
+ every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has
+ been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and
+ prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For
+ more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. Her
+ vengeance has been measured only by her power. During all these years of
+ infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she
+ has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a
+ dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the
+ conscience of a serpent: such is the history of the Church of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not say, and I do not believe, that Christians are as bad as their
+ creeds. In spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and
+ millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous
+ promptings of the human heart. They have been true to their convictions,
+ and, with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored and
+ suffered for the salvation of men. Imbued with the spirit of
+ self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at
+ least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully
+ endured every hardship and scorned every danger. And yet, notwithstanding
+ all this, they believed that honest error was a crime. They knew that the
+ Bible so declared, and they believed that all unbelievers would be
+ eternally lost. They believed that religion was of God, and all heresy of
+ the devil. They killed heretics in defence of their own souls and the
+ souls of their children. They killed them because, according to their
+ idea, they were the enemies of God, and because the Bible teaches that the
+ blood of the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the Ganges.
+ Nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a difference of
+ opinion concerning the baptism of infants. These crimes have been produced
+ by religions filled with all that is illogical, cruel and hideous. These
+ religions were produced for the most part by ignorance, tyranny and
+ hypocrisy. Under the impression that the infinite ruler and creator of the
+ universe had commanded the destruction of heretics and infidels, the
+ church perpetrated all these crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men and women have been burned for thinking there is but one God; that
+ there was none; that the Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God was
+ somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man
+ without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a
+ sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents failed to
+ have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as though he had a
+ nose; for denying that Christ was his own father; for contending that
+ three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing
+ in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests
+ can forgive sins; for preaching that God is an essence; for denying that
+ witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity
+ of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination and
+ particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the
+ body of a dead man; for pretending that the pope was not managing this
+ world for God, and in the place of God; for disputing the efficacy of a
+ vicarious atonement; for thinking the Virgin Mary was born like other
+ people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a
+ good-sized woman; for denying that God used his finger for a pen; for
+ asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not sent to
+ punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the Bible; for having a
+ Bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend;
+ for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being
+ a Catholic, and for being a Protestant; for being an Episcopalian, a
+ Presbyterian, a Baptist, and for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue
+ has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has burned honesty
+ and rewarded hypocrisy. And all this, because it was commanded by a book&mdash;a
+ book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long, before they
+ knew one word that was in it They had been taught that to doubt the truth
+ of this book&mdash;to examine it, even&mdash;was a crime of such enormity
+ that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next The
+ Bible was the real persecutor. The Bible burned heretics, built dungeons,
+ founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they
+ grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How
+ long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than
+ death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth century,
+ a man by the name of Gerard Chauvin was married to Jeanne Lefranc, and
+ still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this marriage was a
+ son, called John Chauvin, who afterwards became famous as John Calvin, the
+ founder of the Presbyterian Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man forged five fetters for the brain. These fetters he called
+ points. That is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total
+ depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. About
+ the neck of each follower he put a collar bristling with these five iron
+ points. The presence of all these points on the collar is still the test
+ of orthodoxy in the church he founded. This man, when in the flush of
+ youth, was elected to the office of preacher in Geneva. He at once, in
+ union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of the Presbyterian
+ doctrine, and all the citizens of Geneva, on pain of banishment, were
+ compelled to take an oath that they believed this statement. Of this
+ proceeding Calvin very innocently remarked that it produced great
+ satisfaction. A man named Caroli had the audacity to dispute with Calvin.
+ For this outrage he was banished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To show you what great subjects occupied the attention of Calvin, it is
+ only necessary to state that he furiously discussed the question as to
+ whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. He drew up
+ laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribing their
+ diet, and all those whose garments were not in the Calvin fashion were
+ refused the sacrament. At last, the people becoming tired of this petty
+ theological tyranny, banished Calvin. In a few years, however, he was
+ recalled and received with great enthusiasm. After this he was supreme,
+ and the will of Calvin became the law of Geneva.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under his benign administration, James Gruet was beheaded because he had
+ written some profane verses. The slightest word against Calvin or his
+ absurd doctrines was punished as a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1553 a man was tried at Vienne by the Catholic Church for heresy. He
+ was convicted and sentenced to death by burning. It was apparently his
+ good fortune to escape. Pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he
+ fled to Geneva for protection. A dove flying from hawks, sought safety in
+ the nest of a vulture. This fugitive from the cruelty of Rome asked
+ shelter from John Calvin, who had written a book in favor of religious
+ toleration. Servetus had forgotten that this book was written by Calvin
+ when in the minority; that it was written in weakness to be forgotten in
+ power; that it was produced by fear instead of principle. He did not know
+ that Calvin had caused his arrest at Vienne, in France, and had sent a
+ copy of his work, which was claimed to be blasphemous, to the archbishop.
+ He did not then know that the Protestant Calvin was acting as one of the
+ detectives of the Catholic Church, and had been instrumental in procuring
+ his conviction for heresy. Ignorant of all this unspeakable infamy, he put
+ himself in the power of this very Calvin. The maker of the Presbyterian
+ creed caused the fugitive Serve-tus to be arrested for blasphemy. He was
+ tried. Calvin was his accuser. He was convicted and condemned to death by
+ fire. On the morning of the fatal day, Calvin saw him, and Servetus, the
+ victim, asked forgiveness of Calvin, the murderer. Servetus was bound to
+ the stake, and the fagots were lighted. The wind carried the flames
+ somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. Vainly
+ he implored a speedy death. At last the flames climbed round his form;
+ through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white heroic face. And there
+ they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty was banished from Geneva, and nothing but Presbyterianism was
+ left. Honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled, but the
+ five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible grace,
+ total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints remained
+ instead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and
+ succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed,
+ except the one from which it was copied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice. The
+ name of this man should never be forgotten. It was Castalio. This brave
+ man had the goodness and the courage to declare the innocence of honest
+ error. He was the first of the so-called reformers to take this noble
+ ground. I wish I had the genius to pay a fitting tribute to his memory.
+ Perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to
+ say, Castalio was in all things the opposite of Calvin. To plead for the
+ right of individual judgment was considered a crime, and Castalio was
+ driven from Geneva by John Calvin. By him he was denounced as a child of
+ the devil, as a dog of Satan, as a beast from hell, and as one who, by
+ this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of honest error, crucified Christ
+ afresh, and by him he was pursued until rescued by the hand of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon the name of Castalio, Calvin heaped every epithet, until his malice
+ was nearly satisfied and his imagination entirely exhausted. It is
+ impossible to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully
+ perverted as to pursue a fellow-man with the malignity of a fiend, simply
+ because he is good, just, and generous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable,
+ gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless, and infamous. He was
+ a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness,
+ ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. In
+ other words, he was as near like the God of the Old Testament as his
+ health permitted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The best thing, however, about the Presbyterians of Geneva was, that they
+ denied the power of the Pope, and the best thing about the Pope was, that
+ he was not a Presbyterian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrines of Calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by
+ multitudes on the continent; but Scotland, in a few years, became the real
+ fortress of Presbyterianism. The Scotch succeeded in establishing the same
+ kind of theocracy that flourished in Geneva. The clergy took possession
+ and control of everybody and everything. It is impossible to exaggerate
+ the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people of Scotland
+ during the reign of Presbyterianism. Heretics were hunted and devoured as
+ though they had been wild beasts. The gloomy insanity of Presbyterianism
+ took possession of a great majority of the people. They regarded their
+ ministers as the Jews did Moses and Aaron. They believed that they were
+ the especial agents of God, and that whatsoever they bound in Scotland
+ would be bound in heaven. There was not one particle of intellectual
+ freedom. No man was allowed to differ with the church, or to even
+ contradict a priest. Had Presbyterianism maintained its ascendency,
+ Scotland would have been peopled by savages to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The revengeful spirit of Calvin took possession of the Puritans, and
+ caused them to redden the soil of the New World with the brave blood of
+ honest men. Clinging to the five points of Calvin, they too established
+ governments in accordance with the teachings of the Old Testament. They
+ too attached the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought.
+ They too believed their church supreme, and exerted all their power to
+ curse this continent with a spiritual despotism as infamous as it was
+ absurd. They believed with Luther that universal toleration is universal
+ error, and universal error is universal hell. Toleration was denounced as
+ a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening effect even upon the
+ Presbyterian Church. To the ennobling influence of the arts and sciences
+ the savage spirit of Calvinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed.
+ True, the old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by a kind
+ of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a relic of the past.
+ The cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and fainter, and, as a
+ consequence, the ministers of that denomination have ventured, now and
+ then, to express doubts as to the damnation of infants, and the doctrine
+ of total depravity. The fact is, the old ideas became a little monotonous
+ to the people. The fall of man, the scheme of redemption and irresistible
+ grace, began to have a familiar sound. The preachers told the old stories
+ while the congregations slept Some of the ministers became tired of these
+ stories themselves. The five points grew dull, and they felt that nothing
+ short of irresistible grace could bear this endless repetition. The
+ outside world was full of progress, and in every direction men advanced,
+ while this church, anchored to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. Other
+ denominations, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation, were
+ springing up on every side, while the old Presbyterian ark rested on the
+ Ararat of the past, filled with the theological monsters of another age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements of
+ science, longing to feel the throb and beat of the mighty march of the
+ human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative denomination were
+ compelled, by irresistible sense, to say a few words in harmony with the
+ splendid ideas of to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These utterances have upon several occasions so nearly wakened some of the
+ members that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired whether these
+ grand ideas were not somewhat heretical. These ministers found that just
+ in the proportion that their orthodoxy decreased, their congregations
+ increased. Those who dealt in the pure unadulterated article found
+ themselves demonstrating the five points to a less number of hearers than
+ they had points. Stung to madness by this bitter truth, this galling
+ contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have raised the cry of
+ heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the lips of honest men. One of
+ the Presbyterian ministers, and one who has been enjoying the luxury of a
+ little honest thought, and the real rapture of expressing it, has already
+ been indicted, and is about to be tried by the Presbytery of Illinois. He
+ is charged&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. With having neglected to preach that most comforting and
+ consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed
+ doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous
+ doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted&mdash;of
+ the tears it has caused&mdash;of the agony it has produced. Think of the
+ millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas.
+ This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe.
+ Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and
+ degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more
+ degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this the soul can never
+ sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate
+ of the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven
+ with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons
+ of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. With having spoken a few kind words of Robert Collyer and
+ John Stuart Mill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with Robert Collyer. I have read
+ with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. He has a brain full of
+ the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet and the
+ sincere heart of a child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and
+ candid adversary? Is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an
+ advocate of liberty; one who devotes his life to the elevation of man, the
+ discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believes to be right?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying and
+ heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave of John
+ Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to
+ departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the sanctity of the
+ tomb, dig open the grave and ask his God to curse the silent dust? Is
+ Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no purity
+ of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric
+ creed? Does it still retain within its stony heart all the malice of its
+ founder? Is it still warming its fleshless hands at the flames that
+ consumed Servetus? Does it still glory in the damnation of infants, and
+ does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that perdition may
+ be filled? Is it still starving the soul and famishing the heart? Is it
+ still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling before its ignorant
+ Confession of Faith?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been present at the
+ burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their
+ tears. Had the presbytery of Chicago been there, they would have quietly
+ turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat tails, and warmed
+ themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>. With having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of
+ predestination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination is
+ that doctrine. Surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing, to one who is
+ laboring, struggling, and suffering in this weary world, to think that
+ before he existed; before the earth was; before a star had glittered in
+ the heavens; before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his
+ destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his
+ birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth.</i> With failing to preach the efficacy of a "vicarious
+ sacrifice."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be hanged&mdash;the
+ governor acting as the executioner; and suppose that just as the doomed
+ man was about to suffer death some one in the crowd should step forward
+ and say, "I am willing to die in the place of that murderer. He has a
+ family, and I have none." And suppose further, that the governor should
+ reply, "Come forward, young man, your offer is accepted. A murder has been
+ committed and somebody must be hung, and your death will satisfy the law
+ just as well as the death of the murderer." What would you then think of
+ the doctrine of "vicarious sacrifice"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This doctrine is the consummation of two outrages&mdash;forgiving one
+ crime and committing another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fifth</i>. With having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly
+ known as "evolution," or "development".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church believes and teaches the exact opposite of this doctrine.
+ According to the philosophy of theology, man has continued to degenerate
+ for six thousand years. To teach that there is that in nature which impels
+ to higher forms and grander ends, is heresy, of course. The Deity will
+ damn Spencer and his "Evolution," Darwin and his "Origin of Species,"
+ Bastian and his "Spontaneous Generation," Huxley and his "Protoplasm,"
+ Tyndall and his "Prayer Gauge," and will save those, and those only, who
+ declare that the universe has been cursed, from the smallest atom to the
+ grandest star; that everything tends to evil and to that only, and that
+ the only perfect thing in nature is the Presbyterian Confession of Faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Sixth</i>. With having intimated that the reception of Socrates and
+ Penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the least, a trifle more cordial
+ than that of Catharine II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Penelope, waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's return, delaying
+ her suitors, while sadly weaving and unweaving the shroud of Laertes, is
+ the most perfect type of wife and woman produced by the civilization of
+ Greece.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Socrates, whose life was above reproach and whose death was beyond all
+ praise, stands to-day, in the estimation of every thoughtful man, at least
+ the peer of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catharine II. assassinated her husband. Stepping upon his corpse, she
+ mounted the throne. She was the murderess of Prince Iwan, grand nephew of
+ Peter the Great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years, and who during all
+ that time saw the sky but once. Taken all in all, Catharine was probably
+ one of the most intellectual beasts that ever wore a crown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catharine, however, was the head of the Greek Church, Socrates was a
+ heretic and Penelope lived and died without having once heard of
+ "particular redemption" or of "irresistible grace."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Seventh</i>. With repudiating the idea of a "call" to the ministry, and
+ pretending that men were "called" to preach as they were to the other
+ avocations of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this doctrine is true, God, to say the least of it, is an exceedingly
+ poor judge of human nature. It is more than a century since a man of true
+ genius has been found in an orthodox pulpit. Every minister is heretical
+ just to the extent that intellect is above the average. The Lord seems to
+ be satisfied with mediocrity; but the people are not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him to
+ give up the ministry and turn his attention to something else. The
+ preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as
+ he had had a "call" to the ministry. To which the deacon replied, "That
+ may be so, but it's very unfortunate for you, that when God called you to
+ preach, he forgot to call anybody to hear you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim of the clergy that
+ they are, in some divine sense set apart to the service of the Lord; that
+ they have been chosen, and sanctified; that there is an infinite
+ difference between them and persons employed in secular affairs. They
+ teach us that all other professions must take care of themselves; that God
+ allows anybody to be a doctor, a lawyer, statesman, soldier, or artist;
+ that the Motts and Coopers&mdash;the Mansfields and Marshalls&mdash;the
+ Wilberforces and Sumners&mdash;the Angelos and Raphaels, were never
+ honored by a "call." They chose their professions and won their laurels
+ without the assistance of the Lord. All these men were left free to follow
+ their own inclinations, while God was busily engaged selecting and
+ "calling" priests, rectors, elders, ministers and exhorters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Eighth</i>. With having doubted that God was the author of the 109th
+ Psalm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The portion of that psalm which carries with it the clearest and most
+ satisfactory evidences of inspiration, and which has afforded almost
+ unspeakable consolation to the Presbyterian Church, is as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become
+ sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their
+ bread also out of their desolate places.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the stranger spoil his
+ labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be any to
+ favor his fatherless children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let his posterity be cut off: and in the generation following let their
+ name be blotted out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for Thy name's sake; because Thy mercy
+ is good, deliver Thou me.... I will greatly praise the Lord with my <i>mouth</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer. Think
+ of one infamous enough to answer it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Had this inspired psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship
+ of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood
+ upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony
+ between its surroundings and its sentiments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No wonder that the author of this inspired psalm coldly received Socrates
+ and Penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for Catharine the Second.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Ninth.</i> With having said that the battles in which the Israelites
+ engaged, with the approval and command of Jehovah, surpassed in cruelty
+ those of Julius C&aelig;sar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it Julius C&aelig;sar who said, "And the Lord our God delivered him
+ before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took
+ all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the
+ little ones, of every city, we left none to remain"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did Julius C&aelig;sar send the following report to the Roman senate? "And
+ we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took
+ not from them, three-score cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of
+ Og in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and
+ bars; beside unwalled towns a great many. And we utterly destroyed them,
+ as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women,
+ and children of every city."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did C&aelig;sar take the city of Jericho "and utterly destroy all that was
+ in the city, both men and women, young and old"? Did he smite "all the
+ country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the
+ springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed, as
+ the Lord God had commanded"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every
+ barbarous tribe, and you can find no crime that touched a lower depth of
+ infamy than those the Bible's God commanded and approved. For such a God I
+ have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the words in
+ all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. Away with such a
+ God! Give me Jupiter rather, with Io and Europa, or even Siva with his
+ skulls and snakes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Tenth</i>. With having repudiated the doctrine of "total depravity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human
+ heart! How sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and great
+ were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her
+ child is, in the sight of God, a sin; that the gratitude of the natural
+ heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are impure; that for the
+ unconverted to live and labor for others is an offence to heaven; that the
+ noblest aspirations of the soul are low and groveling in the sight of God;
+ that man should fall upon his knees and ask forgiveness, simply for loving
+ his wife and child, and that even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact
+ a crime!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the
+ wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or
+ some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized,
+ ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of
+ hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from the Christian the history of his own church&mdash;leave that
+ entirely out of the question&mdash;and he has no argument left with which
+ to substantiate the total depravity of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Eleventh</i>. With having doubted the "perseverance of the saints."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is, that Presbyterians are
+ just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to hell.
+ The real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of God, and not
+ upon the character of the person to be damned or saved; that God has the
+ weakness to send Presbyterians to Paradise, and the justice to doom the
+ rest of mankind to eternal fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least particle of
+ sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the
+ recipients of a "new heart;" that only the perfectly good can justify the
+ perfectly infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will&mdash;that
+ they are entitled to no credit for persevering; but that God forces them
+ to persevere, while on the other hand, every crime is committed in
+ accordance with the secret will of God, who does all things for his own
+ glory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been
+ believed by man, that can properly be called absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Twelfth</i>. With having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the
+ idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge, the
+ missionary effort is the most conspicuous. The whole question has been
+ decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. We have nearly
+ exterminated the Indians, but we have converted none. From the days of
+ John Eliot to the execution of the last Modoc, not one Indian has been the
+ subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption. The few red men
+ who roam the western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the
+ five points of Calvin. They are utterly oblivious to the great and vital
+ truths contained in the Thirty-nine Articles, the Saybrook platform, and
+ the resolutions of the Evangelical Alliance. No Indian has ever scalped
+ another on account of his religious belief. This of itself shows
+ conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect Why should we
+ convert the heathen of China and kill our own? Why should we send
+ missionaries across the seas, and soldiers over the plains? Why should we
+ send Bibles to the east and muskets to the west? If it is impossible to
+ convert Indians who have no religion of their own; no prejudice for or
+ against the "eternal procession of the Holy Ghost," how can we expect to
+ convert a heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of gods and Bibles
+ and prophets and Christs, and who has a religious literature far grander
+ than our own? Can we hope with the story of Daniel in the lions' den to
+ rival the stupendous miracles of India? Is there anything in our Bible as
+ lofty and loving as the prayer of the Buddhist? Compare your "Confession
+ of Faith" with the following: "Never will I seek nor receive private
+ individual salvation&mdash;never enter into final peace alone; but forever
+ and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of
+ every creature throughout all worlds. Until all are delivered, never will
+ I leave the world of sin, sorrow, and struggle, but will remain where I
+ am."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of sending an average Presbyterian to convert a man who daily offers
+ this tender, this infinitely generous, this incomparable prayer. Think of
+ reading the 109th Psalm to a heathen who has a Bible of his own in which
+ is found this passage: "Blessed is that man and beloved of all the gods,
+ who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should you read even the New Testament to a Hindu, when his own
+ Chrishna has said, "If a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff,
+ pick it up and hand it to him again"? Why send a Presbyterian to a Sufi,
+ who says, "Better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love, than
+ seventy thousand years of outward worship"? "Whoso would carelessly tread
+ one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from
+ God; but he that, living, embraceth all things in his love, to live with
+ him God bursts all bounds above, below." Why should we endeavor to thrust
+ our cruel and heartless theology upon one who prays this prayer: "O God,
+ show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast already bestowed
+ thy mercy by having created them virtuous"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of the Old Testament&mdash;with
+ the infamies commanded and approved by the being whom we are taught to
+ worship as a God&mdash;and with the following tender product of
+ Presbyterianism: "It may seem absurd to human wisdom that God should
+ harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that he
+ should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that
+ evil; but the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this,
+ knowing that God would be never a whit less good even though he should
+ destroy all men."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice,
+ the ignorance and ambition of man, Presbyterianism is the most hideous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of
+ Sabellianism, of a "Modal Trinity," and the "Eternal Procession of the
+ Holy Ghost"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon these charges, a minister is to be tried, here in Chicago; in this
+ city of pluck and progress&mdash;this marvel of energy&mdash;this miracle
+ of nerve. The cry of "heresy," here, sounds like a wail from the Dark Ages&mdash;a
+ shriek from the Inquisition, or a groan from the grave of Calvin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another effort is being made to enslave a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed that every member of the church has solemnly agreed never to
+ outgrow the creed; that he has pledged himself to remain an intellectual
+ dwarf. Upon this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he
+ hands over his brains to bind the bargain. Should a fact be found
+ inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to deny the fact and curse
+ the finder. With scraps of dogmas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that
+ his soul shall be satisfied forever. What an intellectual feast the
+ Confession of Faith must be! It reminds one of the dinner described by
+ Sydney Smith, where everything was cold except the water, and everything
+ sour except the vinegar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every member of a church promises to remain orthodox, that is to say&mdash;stationary.
+ Growth is heresy. Orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been moulted
+ by the eagle of progress. They are the dead leaves under the majestic
+ palm, while heresy is the bud and blossom at the top.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. The end that
+ grows is heresy, the end that rots is orthodox The dead are orthodox, and
+ your cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. No
+ thought, no progress, no heresy there. Slowly and silently, side by side,
+ the satisfied members peacefully decay. There is only this difference&mdash;the
+ dead do not persecute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what does a trial for heresy mean? It means that the church says to a
+ heretic, "Believe as I do, or I will withdraw my support. I will not
+ employ you. I will pursue you until your garments are rags; until your
+ children cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears. I will
+ hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then my God will do the rest
+ I will not imprison you. I will not burn you. The law prevents my doing
+ that. I helped make the law, not however to protect you, nor to deprive me
+ of the right to exterminate you but in order to keep other churches from
+ exterminating me." A trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution
+ still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of private
+ judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than truth, and that it is
+ still determined to prevent the intellectual growth of man. It means that
+ churches are shambles in which are bought and sold the souls of men. It
+ means that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing thought
+ with force. It means that if it had the power, the mental horizon would be
+ bounded by a creed; that it would bring again the whips and chains and
+ dungeon keys, the rack and fagot of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let me tell the church it lacks the power. There have been, and still
+ are, too many men who own themselves&mdash;too much thought, too much
+ knowledge for the church to grasp again the sword of power. The church
+ must abdicate. For the Eglon of superstition Science has a message from
+ Truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic
+ has been, and is, a ray of light. Not in vain did Voltaire, that great
+ man, point from the foot of the Alps the finger of scorn at every
+ hypocrite in Europe. Not in vain were the splendid utterances of the
+ infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march
+ of the human race. Heresy cannot be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved.
+ It laughs at presbyteries and synods, at ecumenical councils and the
+ impotent thunders of Sinai. Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star,
+ the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It
+ is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all
+ sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his
+ thoughts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that a man should
+ investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? Is it possible that a
+ god delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and
+ renown a god must win on such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star
+ envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! Thrust the heretics out of the
+ church&mdash;that is to say, throw away your brains,&mdash;put out your
+ eyes. The infidels will thank you. They are willing to adopt your exiles.
+ Every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. Cling
+ to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the 109th Psalm; gloat over the
+ slaughter of mothers and babes; thank God for total depravity; shower your
+ honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with
+ that heresy called genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Be true to your history. Turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the
+ naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. With a whip of
+ scorpions, drive them all out. We want them all. Keep the ignorant, the
+ superstitious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and specifications.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Keep them, and keep them all. Repeat your pious platitudes in the drowsy
+ ears of the faithful, and read your Bible to heretics, as kings read some
+ forgotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution. You are too
+ weak to excite anger. We forgive your efforts as the sun forgives a cloud&mdash;as
+ the air forgives the breath you waste.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How long, O how long, will man listen to the threats of God, and shut his
+ eyes to the splendid possibilities of Nature? How long, O how long will
+ man remain the cringing slave of a false and cruel creed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this time the whole world should know that the real Bible has not yet
+ been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished
+ until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real Bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor
+ apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact,
+ adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by
+ prophecy, by miracles or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance,
+ to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for
+ hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing
+ to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being
+ investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it
+ simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores
+ every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being
+ blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing
+ that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire
+ and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with
+ its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms
+ its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are
+ the eternal witnesses of its truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE GHOSTS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ TO
+ EBON C. INGERSOLL,
+ MY BROTHER,
+ FROM WHOSE LIPS I HEARD THE FIRST APPLAUSE,
+ AND WITH WHOSE NAME I WISH MY OWN
+ ASSOCIATED UNTIL BOTH ARE FORGOTTEN,
+ THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED.
+</pre>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ These lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice; have
+ been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who mistake
+ the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in simple
+ justice to myself I concluded to publish them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing
+ anything in a fair and catholic spirit. They appeal, not to reason, but to
+ prejudice; not to facts, but to passages of Scripture. They can conceive
+ of no goodness, of no spiritual exaltation beyond the horizon of their
+ creed. Whoever differs with them upon what they are pleased to call
+ "fundamental truths," is, in their opinion, a base and infamous man. To
+ re-enact the tragedies of the sixteenth century, they lack only the power.
+ Bigotry in all ages has been the same. Christianity simply transferred the
+ brutality of the Colosseum to the Inquisition. For the murderous combat of
+ the gladiators, the saints substituted the <i>auto de fe</i>. What has
+ been called religion is, after all, but the organization of the wild beast
+ in man. The perfumed blossom of arrogance is heaven. Hell is the
+ consummation of revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of
+ life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and
+ perdition. They have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and upon
+ the ignorant altars of the Past and the Dead, they have endeavored to
+ sacrifice the Present and the Living.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some
+ little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that until
+ I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and slimy
+ falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity with
+ which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of language, is
+ simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant and insolent;
+ he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure, the malice of
+ impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous actions of
+ unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the
+ nineteenth century needs no guardian. They should cease to regard
+ themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful sheep
+ from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. By this time they should know
+ that the religion of the ignorant and brutal Past no longer satisfies the
+ heart and brain; that the miracles have become contemptible; that the
+ "evidences" have ceased to convince; that the spirit of investigation
+ cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the church is losing her power; that
+ the young are holding in a kind of tender contempt the sacred follies of
+ the old; that the pulpit and pews no longer represent the culture and
+ morality of the world, and that the brand of intellectual inferiority is
+ upon the orthodox brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. Every chain of
+ superstition should be broken. The rights of men and women should be equal
+ and sacred&mdash;marriage should be a perfect partnership&mdash;children
+ should be governed by kindness,&mdash;every family should be a republic&mdash;every
+ fireside a democracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems almost impossible for religious people to really grasp the idea
+ of intellectual freedom. They seem to think that man is responsible for
+ his honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime; that investigation is
+ sinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that reason is a dangerous guide.
+ They cannot divest themselves of the idea that in the realm of thought
+ there must be government&mdash;authority and obedience&mdash;laws and
+ penalties&mdash;rewards and punishments, and that somewhere in the
+ universe there is a penitentiary for the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the republic of mind, <i>one</i> is a majority. There, all are
+ monarchs, and all are equals. The tyranny of a majority even is unknown.
+ Each one is crowned, sceptered and throned. Upon every brow is the tiara,
+ and around every form is the imperial purple. Only those are good citizens
+ who express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion's
+ sake, are the only traitors. There, nothing is considered infamous except
+ an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty, and joy.
+ The church contemplates this republic with a sneer. From the teeth of
+ hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. She is filled with the spite and
+ spleen born of intellectual weakness. Once she was egotistic; now she is
+ envious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once she wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be
+ real. They have been shown to be false, but she wears them still. She has
+ the malice of the caught, the hatred of the exposed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told to investigate the Bible for ourselves, and at the same time
+ informed that if we come to the conclusion that it is not the inspired
+ word of God, we will most assuredly be damned. Under such circumstances,
+ if we believe this, investigation is impossible. Whoever is held
+ responsible for his conclusions cannot weigh the evidence with impartial
+ scales. Fear stands at the balance, and gives to falsehood the weight of
+ its trembling hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I oppose the church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her
+ dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades woman;
+ because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the natural
+ depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the impossible, and
+ the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and slander; because she
+ is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men to sin on a credit;
+ because she discourages self-reliance, and laughs at good works; because
+ she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious vice&mdash;vicarious
+ punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards repentance of more
+ importance than restitution, and because she sacrifices the world we have
+ to one we know not of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will understand me.
+ Those who have escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate my
+ motives. The sad and suffering wives, the trembling and loving children
+ will thank me: This is enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C.,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ April 13, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE GHOSTS,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LET THEM COVER THEIR EYELESS SOCKETS WITH THEIR FLESHLESS HANDS AND FADE
+ FOREVER FROM THE IMAGINATION OF MEN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HERE are three theories by which men account for all phenomena, for
+ everything that happens: First, the Supernatural; Second, the Supernatural
+ and Natural; Third, the Natural. Between these theories there has been,
+ from the dawn of civilization, a continual conflict. In this great war,
+ nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the supernatural. The
+ believers in the supernatural insist that matter is controlled and
+ directed entirely by powers from without; while naturalists maintain that
+ Nature acts from within; that Nature is not acted upon; that the universe
+ is all there is; that Nature with infinite arms embraces everything that
+ exists, and that all supposed powers beyond the limits of the material are
+ simply ghosts. You say, "Oh, this is materialism!" What is matter? I take
+ in my hand some earth:&mdash;in this dust put seeds. Let the arrows of
+ light from the quiver of the sun smite upon it; let the rain fall upon it.
+ The seeds will grow and a plant will bud and blossom. Do you understand
+ this? Can you explain it better than you can the production of thought?
+ Have you the slightest conception of what it really is? And yet you speak
+ of matter as though acquainted with its origin, as though you had torn
+ from the clenched hands of the rocks the secrets of material existence. Do
+ you know what force is? Can you account for molecular action? Are you
+ really familiar with chemistry, and can you account for the loves and
+ hatreds of the atoms? Is there not something in matter that forever
+ eludes? After all, can you get beyond, above or below appearances? Before
+ you cry "materialism!" had you not better ascertain what matter really is?
+ Can you think even of anything without a material basis? Is it possible to
+ imagine the annihilation of a single atom? Is it possible for you to
+ conceive of the creation of an atom? Can you have a thought that was not
+ suggested to you by what you call matter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all phenomena by the
+ caprice of gods and devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good and bad,
+ benevolent and malignant, weak and powerful, in some mysterious way,
+ produced all phenomena; that disease and health, happiness and misery,
+ fortune and misfortune, peace and war, life and death, success and
+ failure, were but arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that shadowy
+ phantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that they were pleased and
+ displeased by the actions of men; that they sent and withheld the snow,
+ the light, and the rain; that they blessed the earth with harvests or
+ cursed it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men; that
+ they crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took sides in war; that they
+ controlled the winds; that they gave prosperous voyages, allowing the
+ brave mariner to meet his wife and child inside the harbor bar, or sent
+ the storms, strewing the sad shores with wrecks of ships and the bodies of
+ men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Formerly, these ghosts were believed to be almost innumerable. Earth, air,
+ and water were filled with these phantom hosts. In modern times they have
+ greatly decreased in number, because the second theory,&mdash;a mingling
+ of the supernatural and natural,&mdash;has generally been adopted. The
+ remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to perform the same offices as the
+ hosts of yore.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has always been believed that these ghosts could in some way be
+ appeased; that they could be flattered by sacrifices, by prayer, by
+ fasting, by the building of temples and cathedrals, by the blood of men
+ and beasts, by forms and ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and
+ prostrations, by flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of
+ home, by living alone in the wide desert, by the practice of celibacy, by
+ inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men, women and children,
+ by covering the earth with dungeons, by burning unbelievers, by putting
+ chains upon the thoughts and manacles upon the limbs of men, by believing
+ things without evidence and against evidence, by disbelieving and denying
+ demonstration, by despising facts, by hating reason, by denouncing
+ liberty, by maligning heretics, by slandering the dead, by subscribing to
+ senseless and cruel creeds, by discouraging investigation, by worshiping a
+ book, by the cultivation of credulity, by observing certain times and
+ days, by counting beads, by gazing at crosses, by hiring others to repeat
+ verses and prayers, by burning candles and ringing bells, by enslaving
+ each other and putting out the eyes of the soul. All this has been done to
+ appease and flatter these monsters of the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy
+ has been left undone by the believers in ghosts,&mdash;by the worshipers
+ of these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were born of cowardice
+ and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of
+ ignorance by that artist called superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From these ghosts, our fathers received information. They were the
+ schoolmasters of our ancestors. They were the scientists and philosophers,
+ the geologists, legislators, astronomers, physicians, metaphysicians and
+ historians of the past. For ages these ghosts were supposed to be the only
+ source of real knowledge. They inspired men to write books, and the books
+ were considered sacred. If facts were found to be inconsistent with these
+ books, so much the worse for the facts, and especially for their
+ discoverers. It was then, and still is, believed that these books are the
+ basis of the idea of immortality; that to give up these volumes, or rather
+ the idea that they are inspired, is to renounce the idea of immortality.
+ This I deny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human
+ heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the
+ shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any
+ creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will
+ continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and
+ darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow&mdash;Hope
+ shining upon the tears of grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the books written by the ghosts we have at last ascertained that they
+ knew nothing about the world in which we live. Did they know anything
+ about the next? Upon every point where contradiction is possible, they
+ have been contradicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of government
+ were administered; all authority to govern came from them. The emperors,
+ kings and potentates all had commissions from these phantoms. Man was not
+ considered as the source of any power whatever. To rebel against the king
+ was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of the
+ offender could appease the invisible phantom or the visible tyrant.
+ Kneeling was the proper position to be assumed by the multitude. The
+ prostrate were the good. Those who stood erect were infidels and traitors.
+ In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, man was enslaved, crushed,
+ and plundered. The many toiled wearily in the storm and sun that the few
+ favorites of the ghosts might live in idleness. The many lived in huts,
+ and caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in palaces. The many covered
+ themselves with rags, that the few might robe themselves in purple and in
+ gold. The many crept, and cringed, and crawled, that the few might tread
+ upon their flesh with iron feet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the ghosts men received, not only authority, but information of every
+ kind. They told us the form of this earth. They informed us that eclipses
+ were caused by the sins of man; that the universe was made in six days;
+ that astronomy, and geology were devices of wicked men, instigated by
+ wicked ghosts; that gazing at the sky with a telescope was a dangerous
+ thing; that digging into the earth was sinful curiosity; that trying to be
+ wise above what they had written was born of a rebellious and irreverent
+ spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime like doubt;
+ that investigation was pure impudence, and the punishment therefor,
+ eternal torment. They not only told us all about this world, but about two
+ others; and if their statements about the other worlds are as true as
+ about this, no one can estimate the value of their information.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For countless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no
+ pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness.
+ To accomplish this infamous purpose; to drive the love of truth from the
+ human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind; to shut out from the
+ world every ray of intellectual light; to pollute every mind with
+ superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests, and
+ the wealth of nations were exhausted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition and slavery,
+ nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors, the learned and the
+ unlearned, believed in that frightful production of ignorance, fear, and
+ faith, called witchcraft. They believed that man was the sport and prey of
+ devils. They really thought that the very air was thick with these enemies
+ of man. With few exceptions, this hideous and infamous belief was
+ universal. Under these conditions, progress was almost impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes&mdash;courage
+ doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays&mdash;courage stands erect and
+ thinks. Fear retreats&mdash;courage advances. Fear is barbarism&mdash;courage
+ is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts.
+ Fear is religion&mdash;courage is science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The facts, upon which this terrible belief rested, were proved over and
+ over again in every court of Europe. Thousands confessed themselves guilty&mdash;admitted
+ that they had sold themselves to the devil. They gave the particulars of
+ the sale; told what they said and what the devil replied. They confessed
+ this, when they knew that confession was death; knew that their property
+ would be confiscated, and their children left to beg their bread. This is
+ one of the miracles of history&mdash;one of the strangest contradictions
+ of the human mind. Without doubt, they really believed themselves guilty.
+ In the first place, they believed in witchcraft as a fact, and when
+ charged with it, they probably became insane. In their insanity they
+ confessed their guilt. They found themselves abhorred and deserted&mdash;charged
+ with a crime that they could not disprove. Like a man in quicksand, every
+ effort only sunk them deeper. Caught in this frightful web, at the mercy
+ of the spiders of superstition, hope fled, and nothing remained but the
+ insanity of confession. The whole world appeared to be insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the time of James the First, a man was executed for causing a storm at
+ sea with the intention of drowning one of the royal family. How could he
+ disprove it? How could he show that he did not cause the storm? All storms
+ were at that time generally supposed to be caused by the devil&mdash;the
+ prince of the power of the air&mdash;and by those whom he assisted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I implore you to remember that the believers in such impossible things
+ were the authors of our creeds and confessions of faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A woman was tried and convicted before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the great
+ judges and lawyers of England, for having caused children to vomit crooked
+ pins. She was also charged with having nursed devils. The learned judge
+ charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as to the existence
+ of witches; that it was established by all history, and expressly taught
+ by the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The woman was hanged and her body burned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sir Thomas More declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away the
+ sacred Scriptures. In my judgment, he was right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches, and insisted upon
+ it, years after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in England. I
+ beg of you to remember that John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist
+ Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In New England, a woman was charged with being a witch, and with having
+ changed herself into a fox. While in that condition she was attacked and
+ bitten by some dogs. A committee of three men, by order of the court,
+ examined this woman. They removed her clothing and searched for "witch
+ spots." That is to say, spots into which needles could be thrust without
+ giving her pain. They reported to the court that such spots were found.
+ She denied, however, that she ever had changed herself into a fox. Upon
+ the report of the committee she was found guilty and actually executed.
+ This was done by our Puritan fathers, by the gentlemen who braved the
+ dangers of the deep for the sake of worshiping God and persecuting their
+ fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days people believed in what was known as lycanthropy&mdash;that
+ is, that persons, with the assistance of the devil, could assume the form
+ of wolves. An instance is given where a man was attacked by a wolf. He
+ defended himself, and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal's paws.
+ The wolf ran away. The man picked up the paw, put it in his pocket and
+ carried it home. There he found his wife with one of her hands gone. He
+ took the paw from his pocket. It had changed to a human hand. He charged
+ his wife with being a witch. She was tried. She confessed her guilt, and
+ was burned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People were burned for causing frosts in summer&mdash;for destroying crops
+ with hail&mdash;for causing storms&mdash;for making cows go dry, and even
+ for souring beer. There was no impossibility for which some one was not
+ tried and convicted. The life of no one was secure. To be charged, was to
+ be convicted. Every man was at the mercy of every other. This infamous
+ belief was so firmly seated in the minds of the people, that to express a
+ doubt as to its truth was to be suspected. Whoever denied the existence of
+ witches and devils was denounced as an infidel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and
+ that the killing of the animal would destroy the devil. They absolutely
+ tried, convicted, and executed dumb beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At Basle, in 1470, a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid an
+ egg. Rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment,&mdash;this
+ everybody knew. The rooster was convicted and with all due solemnity was
+ burned in the public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having
+ killed and partially eaten a child. The hog was convicted,&mdash;but the
+ pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. As late
+ as 1740, a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. They used to go
+ through the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within a
+ certain number of days. In case they disobeyed, they were threatened with
+ pains and penalties.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let us be careful how we laugh at these things. Let us not pride
+ ourselves too much on the progress of our age. We must not forget that
+ some of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. Only a little
+ while ago, the governor of Minnesota appointed a day of fasting and
+ prayer, to see if some power could not be induced to kill the
+ grasshoppers, or send them into some other state.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the excitement with
+ regard to the existence of witchcraft that Pope Innocent VIII. issued a
+ bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching out and
+ punishing all guilty of this crime. Forms for the trial were regularly
+ laid down in a book or a pamphlet called the "Malleus Maleficorum" (Hammer
+ of Witches), which was issued by the Roman See. Popes Alexander, Leo, and
+ Adrian, issued like bulls. For two hundred and fifty years the church was
+ busy in punishing the impossible crime of witchcraft; in burning, hanging
+ and torturing men, women, and children. Protestants were as active as
+ Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred witches were burned at the stake in
+ a period of three months. About one thousand were executed in one year in
+ the diocese of Como. At least one hundred thousand victims suffered in
+ Germany alone: the last execution (in Wurtzburg) taking place as late as
+ 1749. Witches were burned in Switzerland as late as 1780.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In England the same frightful scenes were enacted. Statutes were passed
+ from Henry VI. to James I., defining the crime and its punishment. The
+ last act passed by the British parliament was when Lord Bacon was a member
+ of the House of Commons; and this act was not repealed until 1736.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, says:
+ "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery,
+ is at once flatly to contradict the word of God in various passages both
+ of the Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which
+ every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by
+ examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws, which at least
+ suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Brown's Dictionary of the Bible, published at Edinburg, Scotland, in
+ 1807, it is said that: "A witch is a woman that has dealings with Satan.
+ That such persons are among men is abundantly plain from Scripture, and
+ that they ought to be put to death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This work was re-published in Albany, New York, in 1816. No wonder the
+ clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted even unto this day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged for
+ selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off their
+ stockings and making a lather of soap.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In England it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were hanged
+ and burned. The last victim executed in Scotland, perished in 1722. "She
+ was an innocent old woman, who had so little idea of her situation as to
+ rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined to consume her. She
+ had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet&mdash;a circumstance
+ attributed to the witch having been used to transform her daughter into a
+ pony and getting her shod by the devil."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1692, nineteen persons were executed and one pressed to death in Salem,
+ Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was thought in those days that men and women made compacts with the
+ devil, orally and in writing. That they abjured God and Jesus Christ, and
+ dedicated themselves wholly to the devil. The contracts were confirmed at
+ a general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the devil himself
+ presided; and the persons generally signed the articles of agreement with
+ their own blood. These contracts were, in some instances, for a few years;
+ in others, for life. General assemblies of the witches were held at least
+ once a year, at which they appeared entirely naked, besmeared with an
+ ointment made from the bodies of unbaptized infants. "To these meetings
+ they rode from great distances on broomsticks, pokers, goats, hogs, and
+ dogs. Here they did homage to the prince of hell, and offered him
+ sacrifices of young children, and practiced all sorts of license until the
+ break of day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "As late as 1815, Belgium was disgraced by a witch trial; and guilt was
+ established by the water ordeal." "In 1836, the populace of Hela, near
+ Dantzic, twice plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress; and
+ as the miserable creature persisted in rising to the surface, she was
+ pronounced guilty, and beaten to death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It was believed that the bodies of devils are not like those of men and
+ animals, cast in an unchangeable mould. It was thought they were like
+ clouds, refined and subtle matter, capable of assuming any form and
+ penetrating into any orifice. The horrible tortures they endured in their
+ place of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to suffering, and
+ they continually sought a temperate and somewhat moist warmth in order to
+ allay their pangs. It was for this reason they so frequently entered into
+ men and women."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The devil could transport men, at his will, through the air. He could
+ beget children; and Martin Luther himself had come in contact with one of
+ these children. He recommended the mother to throw the child into the
+ river, in order to free their house from the presence of a devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was believed that the devil could transform people into any shape he
+ pleased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel. All the believers
+ in witchcraft confidently appealed to the Bible. Their mouths were filled
+ with passages demonstrating the existence of witches and their power Over
+ human beings. By the Bible they proved that innumerable evil spirits were
+ ranging over the world endeavoring to ruin mankind; that these spirits
+ possessed a power and wisdom far transcending the limits of human
+ faculties; that they delighted in every misfortune that could befall the
+ world; that their malice was superhuman. That they caused tempests was
+ proved by the action of the devil toward Job; by the passage in the book
+ of Revelation describing the four angels who held the four winds, and to
+ whom it was given to afflict the earth. They believed the devil could
+ carry persons hundreds of miles, in a few seconds, through the air. They
+ believed this, because they knew that Christ had been carried by the devil
+ in the same manner and placed on a pinnacle of the temple. "The prophet
+ Habakkuk had been transported by a spirit from Judea to Babylon; and
+ Philip, the evangelist, had been the object of a similar miracle; and in
+ the same way Saint Paul had been carried in the body into the third
+ heaven."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In those pious days, they believed that <i>Incubi</i> and <i>Succubi</i>
+ were forever wandering among mankind, alluring, by more than human charms,
+ the unwary to their destruction, and laying plots, which were too often
+ successful, against the virtue of the saints. Sometimes the witches
+ kindled in the monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. People told, with
+ bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman, four successive
+ abbots in a German monastery had been wasted away by an unholy flame."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An instance is given in which the devil not only assumed the appearance of
+ a holy man, in order to pay his addresses to a lady, but when discovered,
+ crept under the bed, suffered himself to be dragged out, and was impudent
+ enough to declare that he was the veritable bishop. So perfectly had he
+ assumed the form and features of the prelate that those who knew the
+ bishop best were deceived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human mind during these
+ long centuries of darkness and superstition. To them, these things were
+ awful and frightful realities. Hovering above them in the air, in their
+ houses, in the bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the
+ darkness of night, everywhere, around, above and below, were innumerable
+ hosts of unclean and malignant devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires of the air, the
+ church pretended to defend mankind. Pursued by these phantoms, the
+ frightened multitudes fell upon their faces and implored the aid of robed
+ hypocrisy and sceptered theft.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from the orthodox church of to-day the threat and fear of hell, and
+ it becomes an extinct volcano.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the
+ incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, and
+ the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to the charge of the
+ church, we are told that the civilization of to-day is the child of what
+ we are pleased to call the superstition of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion has not civilized man&mdash;man has civilized religion. God
+ improves as man advances.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me call your attention to what we have received from the followers of
+ the ghosts. Let me give you an outline of the sciences as taught by these
+ philosophers of the clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All diseases were produced, either as a punishment by the good ghosts, or
+ out of pure malignity by the bad ones. There were, properly speaking, no
+ diseases. The sick were possessed by ghosts. The science of medicine
+ consisted in knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the premises.
+ For thousands of years the diseased were treated with incantations, with
+ hideous noises, with drums and gongs. Everything was done to make the
+ visit of the ghost as unpleasant as possible, and they generally succeeded
+ in making things so disagreeable that if the ghost did not leave, the
+ patient did. These ghosts were supposed to be of different rank, power and
+ dignity. Now and then a man pretended to have won the favor of some
+ powerful ghost, and that gave him power over the little ones. Such a man
+ became an eminent physician.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that produced by burning
+ the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a serpent, the eyes of a toad, or
+ the tongue of an adder, were exceedingly offensive to the nostrils of an
+ ordinary ghost. With this smoke, the sick room would be filled until the
+ ghost vanished or the patient died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was also believed that certain words,&mdash;the names of the most
+ powerful ghosts,&mdash;when properly pronounced, were very effective
+ weapons. It was for a long time thought that Latin words were the best,&mdash;Latin
+ being a dead language, and known by the clergy. Others thought that two
+ sticks laid across each other and held before the wicked ghost would cause
+ it instantly to flee in dread away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years, the practice of medicine consisted in driving
+ these evil spirits out of the bodies of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In some instances, bargains and compromises were made with the ghosts. One
+ case is given where a multitude of devils traded a man for a herd of
+ swine. In this transaction the devils were the losers, as the swine
+ immediately drowned themselves in the sea. This idea of disease appears to
+ have been almost universal, and is by no means yet extinct.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings of those
+ afflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams, trances, and the
+ numberless frightful phenomena produced by diseases of the nerves, were
+ all seized upon as so many proofs that the bodies of men were filled with
+ unclean and malignant ghosts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever endeavored to account for these things by natural causes, whoever
+ attempted to cure diseases by natural means, was denounced by the church
+ as an infidel. To explain anything was a crime. It was to the interest of
+ the priest that all phenomena should be accounted for by the will and
+ power of gods and devils. The moment it is admitted that all phenomena are
+ within the domain of the natural, the necessity for a priest has
+ disappeared. Religion breathes the air of the supernatural. Take from the
+ mind of man the idea of the supernatural, and religion ceases to exist.
+ For this, reason, the church has always despised the man who explained the
+ wonderful. Upon this principle, nothing was left undone to stay the
+ science of medicine. As long as plagues and pestilences could be stopped
+ by prayer, the priest was useful. The moment the physician found a cure,
+ the priest became an extravagance. The moment it began to be apparent that
+ prayer could do nothing for the body, the priest shifted his ground and
+ began praying for the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in the practice of
+ medicine, and when it was admitted that God had nothing to do with
+ ordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the frightful
+ diseases were sent by him as punishments for the wickedness of the people.
+ It was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any natural
+ means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. Formerly, during the prevalence
+ of plague and epidemics, the arrogance of the priest was boundless. He
+ told the people that they had slighted the clergy, that they had refused
+ to pay tithes, that they had doubted some of the doctrines of the church,
+ and that God was now taking his revenge. The people for the most part,
+ believed this infamous tissue of priestcraft. They hastened to fall upon
+ their knees; they poured out their wealth upon the altars of hypocrisy;
+ they abased and debased themselves; from their minds they banished all
+ doubts, and made haste to crawl in the very dust of humility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church never wanted disease to be under the control of man. Timothy
+ Dwight, president of Yale College, preached a sermon against vaccination.
+ His idea was, that if God had decreed from all eternity that a certain man
+ should die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin to avoid and annul
+ that decree by the trick of vaccination. Small-pox being regarded as one
+ of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven, to spike it was the height
+ of presumption. Plagues and pestilences were instrumentalities in the
+ hands of God with which to gain the love and worship of mankind. To find a
+ cure for disease was to take a weapon from the church. No one tries to
+ cure the ague with prayer. Quinine has been found altogether more
+ reliable. Just as soon as a specific is found for a disease, that disease
+ will be left out of the list of prayer. The number of diseases with which
+ God from time to time afflicts mankind, is continually decreasing. In a
+ few years all of them will be under the control of man, the gods will be
+ left unarmed, and the threats of their priests will excite only a smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The science of medicine has had but one enemy&mdash;religion. Man was
+ afraid to save his body for fear he might lose his soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught the
+ infamous doctrine of eternal punishment&mdash;a doctrine that makes God a
+ heartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ghosts were historians, and their histories were the grossest
+ absurdities. "Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying
+ nothing." In those days the histories were written by the monks, who, as a
+ rule, were almost as superstitious as they were dishonest. They wrote as
+ though they had been witnesses of every occurrence they related. They
+ wrote the history of every country of importance. They told all the past
+ and predicted all the future with an impudence that amounted to sublimity.
+ "They traced the order of St. Michael, in France, to the archangel
+ himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a chivalric order in
+ heaven itself. They said that Tartars originally came from hell, and that
+ they were called Tartars because Tartarus was one of the names of
+ perdition. They declared that Scotland was so named after Scota, a
+ daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland, invaded Scotland, and took it
+ by force of arms. This statement was made in a letter addressed to the
+ Pope in the fourteenth century, and was alluded to as a well-known fact.
+ The letter was written by some of the highest dignitaries, and by the
+ direction of the King himself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of robins, from the
+ fact that these birds carried water to unbaptized infants in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth century, gave
+ the world the following piece of information: "It is well known that
+ Mohammed was once a cardinal, and became a heretic because he failed in
+ his effort to be elected pope;" and that having drank to excess, he fell
+ by the roadside, and in this condition was killed by swine. "And for that
+ reason, his followers abhor pork even unto this day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another eminent historian informs us that Nero was in the habit of
+ vomiting frogs. When I read this, I said to myself: Some of the croakers
+ of the present day against Progress would be the better for such a vomit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin, of Rheims. He was a
+ bishop. He assures us that the walls of a city fell down in answer to
+ prayer. That there were giants in those days who could take fifty ordinary
+ men under their arms and walk away with them. "With the greatest of these,
+ a direct descendant of Goliath, one Orlando had a theological discussion,
+ and that in the heat of the debate, when the giant was overwhelmed with
+ the argument, Orlando rushed forward and inflicted a fatal stab."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of Britain, written by the archdeacons of Monmouth and Oxford,
+ was wonderfully popular. According to them, Brutus conquered England and
+ built the city of London. During his time, it rained pure blood for three
+ days. At another time, a monster came from the sea, and, after having
+ devoured great multitudes of people, swallowed the king and disappeared.
+ They tell us that King Arthur was not born like other mortals, but was the
+ result of a magical contrivance; that he had great luck in killing giants;
+ that he killed one in France that had the cheerful habit of eating some
+ thirty men a day. That this giant had clothes woven of the beards of the
+ kings he had devoured. To cap the climax, one of the authors of this book
+ was promoted for having written the only reliable history of his country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all the histories of those days there is hardly a single truth. Facts
+ were considered unworthy of preservation. Anything that really happened
+ was not of sufficient interest or importance to be recorded. The great
+ religious historian, Eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history he
+ carefully omitted whatever tended to discredit the church, and that he
+ piously magnified all that conduced to her glory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same glorious principle was scrupulously adhered to by all the
+ historians of that time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They wrote, and the people believed, that the tracks of Pharoah's chariots
+ were still visible on the sands of the Red Sea, and that they had been
+ miraculously preserved from the winds and waves as perpetual witnesses of
+ the great miracle there performed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those times is the
+ result of accident or mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They accounted for everything as the work of good and evil spirits. With
+ cause and effect they had nothing to do. Facts were in no way related to
+ each other. God, governed by infinite caprice, filled the world with
+ miracles and disconnected events. From the quiver of his hatred came the
+ arrows of famine, pestilence, and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment that the idea is abandoned that all is natural; that all
+ phenomena are the necessary links in the endless chain of being, the
+ conception of history becomes impossible. With the ghosts, the present is
+ not the child of the past, nor the mother of the future. In the domain of
+ religion all is chance, accident, and caprice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not forget, I pray you, that our creeds were written by the
+ cotemporaries of these historians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same idea was applied to law. It was believed by our intelligent
+ ancestors that all law derived its sacredness and its binding force from
+ the fact that it had been communicated to man by the ghosts. Of course it
+ was not pretended that the ghosts told everybody the law; but they told it
+ to a few, and the few told it to the people, and the people, as a rule,
+ paid them exceedingly well for their trouble. It was thousands of ages
+ before the people commenced making laws for themselves, and strange as it
+ may appear, most of these laws were vastly superior to the ghost article.
+ Through the web and woof of human legislation began to run and shine and
+ glitter the golden thread of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During these years of darkness it was believed that rather than see an act
+ of injustice done; rather than see the innocent suffer; rather than see
+ the guilty triumph, some ghost would interfere. This belief, as a rule,
+ gave great satisfaction to the victorious party, and as the other man was
+ dead, no complaint was heard from him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This doctrine was the sanctification of brute force and chance. They had
+ trials by battle, by fire, by water, and by lot. Persons were made to
+ grasp hot iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established. Others,
+ with tied hands and feet, were cast into the sea, and if they sank, the
+ verdict of guilty was unanimous,&mdash;if they did not sink, they were in
+ league with devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in England, persons charged with crime could appeal to the corsned. The
+ corsned was a piece of the sacramental bread. If the defendant could
+ swallow this piece he went acquit. Godwin, Earl of Kent, in the time of
+ Edward the Confessor, appealed to the corsned. He failed to swallow it and
+ was choked to death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ghosts and their followers always took delight in torture, in cruel
+ and unusual punishments. For the infraction of most of their laws, death
+ was the penalty&mdash;death produced by stoning and by fire. Sometimes,
+ when man committed only murder, he was allowed to flee to some city of
+ refuge. Murder was a crime against man. But for saying certain words, or
+ denying certain doctrines, or for picking up sticks on certain days, or
+ for worshiping the wrong ghost, or for failing to pray to the right one,
+ or for laughing at a priest, or for saying that wine was not blood, or
+ that bread was not flesh, or for failing to regard ram's horns as
+ artillery, or for insisting that a dry bone was scarcely sufficient to
+ take the place of water works, or that a raven, as a rule, made a poor
+ landlord:&mdash;death, produced by all the ways that the ingenuity of
+ hatred could devise, was the penalty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Law is a growth&mdash;it is a science. Right and wrong exist in the nature
+ of things. Things are not right because they are commanded, nor wrong
+ because they are prohibited. There are real crimes enough without creating
+ artificial ones. All progress in legislation has for centuries consisted
+ in repealing the laws of the ghosts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea of right and wrong is born of man's capacity to enjoy and suffer.
+ If man could not suffer, if he could not inflict injury upon his fellow,
+ if he could neither feel nor inflict pain, the idea of right and wrong
+ never would have entered his brain. But for this, the word conscience
+ never would have passed the lips of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one good&mdash;happiness. There is but one sin&mdash;selfishness.
+ All law should be for the preservation of the one and the destruction of
+ the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the regime of the ghosts, laws were not supposed to exist in the
+ nature of things. They were supposed to be simply the irresponsible
+ command of a ghost. These commands were not supposed to rest upon reason,
+ they were the product of arbitrary will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The penalties for the violation of these laws were as cruel as the laws
+ were senseless and absurd. Working on the Sabbath and murder were both
+ punished with death. The tendency of such laws is to blot from the human
+ heart the sense of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To show you how perfectly every department of knowledge, or ignorance
+ rather, was saturated with superstition, I will for a moment refer to the
+ science of language.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was thought by our fathers, that Hebrew was the original language; that
+ it was taught to Adam in the Garden of Eden by the Almighty, and that
+ consequently all languages came from, and could be traced to, the Hebrew.
+ Every fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. According to the
+ ghosts, the trouble at the tower of Babel accounted for the fact that all
+ people did not speak Hebrew. The Babel business settled all questions in
+ the science of language.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After a time, so many facts were found to be inconsistent with the Hebrew
+ idea that it began to fall into disrepute, and other languages began to
+ compete for the honor of being the original.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Andre Kempe, in 1569, published a work on the language of Paradise, in
+ which he maintained that God spoke to Adam in Swedish; that Adam answered
+ in Danish; and that the serpent&mdash;which appears to me quite probable&mdash;spoke
+ to Eve in French. Erro, in a work published at Madrid, took the ground
+ that Basque was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden; but in 1580
+ Goropius published his celebrated work at Antwerp, in which he put the
+ whole matter at rest by showing, beyond all doubt, that the language
+ spoken in Paradise was neither more nor less than plain Holland Dutch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real founder of the science of language was Liebnitz, a cotemporary of
+ Sir Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea that all languages could be traced
+ to one language. He maintained that language was a natural growth.
+ Experience teaches us that this must be so. Words are continually dying
+ and continually being born. Words are naturally and necessarily produced.
+ Words are the garments of thought, the robes of ideas. Some are as rude as
+ the skins of wild beasts, and others glisten and glitter like silk and
+ gold. They have been born of hatred and revenge; of love and
+ self-sacrifice; of hope and fear, of agony and joy. These words are born
+ of the terror and beauty of nature. The stars have fashioned them. In them
+ mingle the darkness and the dawn. From everything they have taken
+ something. Words are the crystalizations of human history, of all that man
+ has enjoyed and suffered&mdash;his victories and defeats&mdash;all that he
+ has lost and won. Words are the shadows of all that has been&mdash;the
+ mirrors of all that is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and geology.
+ According to them the earth was made out of nothing, and a little more
+ nothing having been taken than was used in the construction of this world,
+ the stars were made out of what was left over. Cosmas, in the sixth
+ century, taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who either carried
+ them on their shoulders, rolled them in front of them, or drew them after.
+ He also taught that each angel that pushed a star took great pains to
+ observe what the other angels were doing, so that the relative distances
+ between the stars might always remain the same. He also gave his idea as
+ to the form of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stated that the world was a vast parallelogram; that on the outside was
+ a strip of land, like the frame of a common slate; that then there was a
+ strip of water, and in the middle a great piece of land; that Adam and Eve
+ lived on the outer strip; that their descendants, with the exception of
+ the Noah family, were drowned by a flood on this outer strip; that the ark
+ finally rested on the middle piece of land where we now are. He accounted
+ for night and day by saying that on the outside strip of land there was a
+ high mountain, around which the sun and moon revolved, and that when the
+ sun was on the other side of the mountain, it was night; and when on this
+ side, it was day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also declared that the earth was flat. This he proved by many passages
+ from the Bible. Among other reasons for believing the earth to be flat, he
+ brought forward the following: We are told in the New Testament that
+ Christ shall come again in glory and power, and all the world shall see
+ him. Now, if the world is round, how are the people on the other side
+ going to see Christ when he comes? That settled the question, and the
+ church not only endorsed the book, but declared that whoever believed less
+ or more than stated by Cosmas, was a heretic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those blessed days, Ignorance was a king and Science an outcast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew the moment this earth ceased to be the centre of the universe,
+ and became a mere speck in the starry heaven of existence, that their
+ religion would become a childish fable of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men enslaved their
+ fellow-men; they trampled upon the rights of women and children. In the
+ name and by the authority of ghosts, they bought and sold and destroyed
+ each other; they filled heaven with tyrants and earth with slaves, the
+ present with despair and the future with horror. In the name and by the
+ authority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the human mind, polluted the
+ conscience, hardened the heart, subverted justice, crowned robbery,
+ sainted hypocrisy, and extinguished for a thousand years the torch of
+ reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have endeavored, in some faint degree, to show you what has happened,
+ and what always will happen when men are governed by superstition and
+ fear; when they desert the sublime standard of reason; when they take the
+ words of others and do not investigate for themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even the great men of those days were nearly as weak in this matter as the
+ most ignorant. Kepler, one of the greatest men of the world, an astronomer
+ second to none, although he plucked from the stars the secrets of the
+ universe, was an astrologer, and really believed that he could predict the
+ career of a man by finding what star was in the ascendant at his birth.
+ This great man breathed, so to speak, the atmosphere of his time. He
+ believed in the music of the spheres, and assigned alto, bass, tenor, and
+ treble to certain stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tycho Brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose disconnected and
+ meaningless words he carefully set down, and then put them together in
+ such manner as to make prophecies, and then waited patiently to see them
+ fulfilled. Luther believed that he had actually seen the devil, and had
+ discussed points of theology with him. The human mind was in chains. Every
+ idea almost was a monster. Thought was deformed. Facts were looked upon as
+ worthless. Only the wonderful was worth preserving. Things that actually
+ happened were not considered worth recording;&mdash;real occurrences were
+ too common. Everybody expected the miraculous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ghosts were supposed to be busy; devils were thought to be the most
+ industrious things in the universe, and with these imps, every occurrence
+ of an unusual character was in some way connected. There was no order, no
+ serenity, no certainty in anything. Everything depended upon ghosts and
+ phantoms. Man was, for the most part, at the mercy of malevolent spirits.
+ He protected himself as best he could with holy water and tapers and
+ wafers and cathedrals. He made noises and rung bells to frighten the
+ ghosts, and he made music to charm them. He used smoke to choke them, and
+ incense to please them. He wore beads and crosses. He said prayers, and
+ hired others to say them. He fasted when he was hungry, and feasted when
+ he was not. He believed everything that seemed unreasonable, just to
+ appease the ghosts. He humbled himself. He crawled in the dust. He shut
+ the doors and windows, and excluded every ray of light from the temple of
+ the soul. He debauched and polluted his own mind, and toiled night and day
+ to repair the walls of his own prison. From the garden of his heart he
+ plucked and trampled upon the holy flowers of pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The priests reveled in horrible descriptions of hell. Concerning the wrath
+ of God, they grew eloquent. They denounced man as totally depraved. They
+ made reason blasphemy, and pity a crime. Nothing so delighted them as
+ painting the torments and sufferings of the lost. Over the worm that never
+ dies they grew poetic; and the second death filled them with a kind of
+ holy delight. According to them, the smoke and cries ascending from hell
+ were the perfume and music of heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I have to show you the
+ productions of the human mind, when enslaved; the effects of wide-spread
+ ignorance&mdash;the results of fear. I want to convince you that every
+ form of slavery is a viper, that, sooner or later, will strike its poison
+ fangs into the bosoms of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease to be the
+ slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave of the monsters of his
+ own creation&mdash;of the ghosts and phantoms of the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For ages the human race was imprisoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through the bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. Against
+ these grates and bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed
+ by the holy dawn of human advancement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men found that the real was the useful; that what a man knows is better
+ than what a ghost says; that an event is more valuable than a prophecy.
+ They found that diseases were not produced by spirits, and could not be
+ cured by frightening them away. They found that death was as natural as
+ life. They began to study the anatomy and chemistry of the human body, and
+ found that all was natural and within the domain of law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The conjurer and sorcerer were discarded, and the physician and surgeon
+ employed. They found that the earth was not flat; that the stars were not
+ mere specks. They found that being born under a particular planet had
+ nothing to do with the fortunes of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took his place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They found that the earth had swept through the constellations for
+ millions of ages. They found that good and evil were produced by natural
+ causes, and not by ghosts; that man could not be good enough or bad enough
+ to stop or cause a rain; that diseases were produced as naturally as
+ grass, and were not sent as punishments upon man for failing to believe a
+ certain creed. They found that man, through intelligence, could take
+ advantage of the forces of nature&mdash;that he could make the waves, the
+ winds, the flames, and the lightnings of heaven do his bidding and
+ minister to his wants. They found that the ghosts knew nothing of benefit
+ to man; that they were utterly ignorant of geology&mdash;of astronomy&mdash;of
+ geography;&mdash;that they knew nothing of history;&mdash;that they were
+ poor doctors and worse surgeons;&mdash;that they knew nothing of law and
+ less of justice; that they were without brains, and utterly destitute of
+ hearts; that they knew nothing of the rights of men; that they were
+ despisers of women, the haters of progress, the enemies of science, and
+ the destroyers of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The condition of the world during the Dark Ages shows exactly the result
+ of enslaving the bodies and souls of men. In those days there was no
+ freedom. Labor was despised, and a laborer was considered but little above
+ a beast. Ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the world, and
+ superstition ran riot with the imagination of man. The air was filled with
+ angels, with demons and monsters. Credulity sat upon the throne of the
+ soul, and Reason was an exiled king. A man to be distinguished must be a
+ soldier or a monk. War and theology, that is to say, murder and hypocrisy,
+ were the principal employments of man. Industry was a slave, theft was
+ commerce; murder was war, hypocrisy was religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every Christian country maintained that it was no robbery to take the
+ property of Mohammedans by force, and no murder to kill the owners. Lord
+ Bacon was the first man of note who maintained that a Christian country
+ was bound to keep its plighted faith with an infidel nation. Reading and
+ writing were considered dangerous arts. Every layman who could read and
+ write was suspected of being a heretic. All thought was discouraged. They
+ forged chains of superstition for the minds, and manacles of iron for the
+ bodies of men. The earth was ruled by the cowl and sword,&mdash;by the
+ mitre and scepter,&mdash;by the altar and throne,&mdash;by Fear and Force,&mdash;by
+ Ignorance and Faith,&mdash;by ghouls and ghosts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the fifteenth century the following law was in force in England:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That whosoever reads the Scriptures in the mother tongue, shall forfeit
+ land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be
+ condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant
+ traitors to the land."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the first year this law was in force thirty-nine were hanged for
+ its violation and their bodies burned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the sixteenth century men were burned because they failed to kneel to a
+ procession of monks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The slightest word uttered against the superstition of the time was
+ punished with death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even the reformers, so-called, of those days, had no idea of intellectual
+ liberty&mdash;no idea even of toleration. Luther, Knox, Calvin, believed
+ in religious liberty only when they were in the minority. The moment they
+ were clothed with power they began to exterminate with fire and sword.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Castalio was the first minister who advocated the liberty of the soul. He
+ was regarded by the reformers as a criminal, and treated as though he had
+ committed the crime of crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bodinus, a lawyer of France, about the same time, wrote a few words in
+ favor of the freedom of conscience, but public opinion was overwhelmingly
+ against him. The people were ready, anxious, and willing, with whip, and
+ chain, and fire, to drive from the mind of man the heresy that he had a
+ right to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Montaigne, a man blest with so much common sense that he was the most
+ uncommon man of his time, was the first to raise a voice against torture
+ in France. But what was the voice of one man against the terrible cry of
+ ignorant, infatuated, superstitious and malevolent millions? It was the
+ cry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of the efforts of the brave few the infamous war against the
+ freedom of the soul was waged until at least one hundred millions of human
+ beings&mdash;fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters&mdash;with hopes, loves,
+ and aspirations like ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar of an
+ ignorant faith. They perished in every way by which death can be produced.
+ Every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the believers in ghosts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part I glory in the fact, that here in the New World,&mdash;in the
+ United States,&mdash;liberty of conscience was first guaranteed to man,
+ and that the Constitution of the United States was the first great decree
+ entered in the high court of human equity forever divorcing church and
+ state,&mdash;the first injunction granted against the interference of the
+ ghosts. This was one of the grandest steps ever taken by the human race in
+ the direction of Progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will ask what has caused this wonderful change in three hundred years.
+ And I answer&mdash;the inventions and discoveries of the few;&mdash;the
+ brave thoughts, the heroic utterances of the few;&mdash;the acquisition of
+ a few facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides, you must remember that every wrong in some way tends to abolish
+ itself. It is hard to make a lie stand always. A lie will not fit a fact.
+ It will only fit another lie made for the purpose. The life of a lie is
+ simply a question of time. Nothing but truth is immortal. The nobles and
+ kings quarreled;&mdash;the priests began to dispute;&mdash;the ideas of
+ government began to change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1441 printing was discovered. At that time the past was a vast cemetery
+ with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of men had mostly perished in the brain
+ that produced them. The lips of the human race had been sealed. Printing
+ gave pinions to thought. It preserved ideas. It made it possible for man
+ to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain, the wealth of his soul.
+ At first, it was used to flood the world with the mistakes of the
+ ancients, but since that time it has been flooding the world with light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When people read they begin to reason, and when they reason they progress.
+ This was another grand step in the direction of Progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The discovery of powder, that put the peasant almost upon a par with the
+ prince;&mdash;that put an end to the so-called age of chivalry;&mdash;that
+ released a vast number of men from the armies;&mdash;that gave pluck and
+ nerve a chance with brute strength.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The discovery of America, whose shores were trod by the restless feet of
+ adventure;&mdash;that brought people holding every shade of superstition
+ together;&mdash;that gave the world an opportunity to compare notes, and
+ to laugh at the follies of each other. Out of this strange mingling of all
+ creeds, and superstitions, and facts, and theories, and countless
+ opinions, came the Great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a ghost from the
+ clouds. Every mechanic art is an educator. Every loom, every reaper and
+ mower, every steamboat, every locomotive, every engine, every press, every
+ telegraph, is a missionary of Science and an apostle of Progress. Every
+ mill, every furnace, every building with its wheels and levers, in which
+ something is made for the convenience, for the use, and for the comfort
+ and elevation of man, is a church, and every school-house is a temple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Education is the most radical thing in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To build a schoolhouse is to construct a fort.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and ammunition of
+ Progress, and every fact is a monitor with sides of iron and a turret of
+ steel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers. I thank Columbus and
+ Magellan. I thank Galileo, and Copernicus, and Kepler, and Descartes, and
+ Newton, and Laplace. I thank Locke, and Hume, and Bacon, and Shakespeare,
+ and Kant, and Fichte, and Leibnitz, and Goethe. I thank Fulton, and Watts,
+ and Volta, and Galvani, and Franklin, and Morse, who made lightning the
+ messenger of man. I thank Humboldt, the Shakespeare of science. I thank
+ Crompton and Arkwright, from whose brains leaped the looms and spindles
+ that clothe the world. I thank Luther for protesting against the abuses of
+ the church, and I denounce him because he was the enemy of liberty. I
+ thank Calvin for writing a book in favor of religious freedom, and I abhor
+ him because he burned Servetus. I thank Knox for resisting Episcopal
+ persecution, and I hate him because he persecuted in his turn. I thank the
+ Puritans for saying "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," and yet I
+ am compelled to say that they were tyrants themselves. I thank Thomas
+ Paine because he was a believer in liberty, and because he did as much to
+ make my country free as any other human being. I thank Voltaire, that
+ great man who, for half a century, was the intellectual emperor of Europe,
+ and who, from his throne at the foot of the Alps, pointed the finger of
+ scorn at every hypocrite in Christendom. I thank Darwin, Haeckel and B&uuml;chner,
+ Spencer, Tyndall and Huxley, Draper, Lecky and Buckle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers, the scientists, the
+ explorers, I thank the honest millions who have toiled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the brave men with brave thoughts. They are the Atlases upon whose
+ broad and mighty shoulders rests the grand fabric of civilization. They
+ are the men who have broken, and are still breaking, the chains of
+ Superstition. They are the Titans who carried Olympus by assault, and who
+ will soon stand victors upon Sinai's crags.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are beginning to learn that to exchange a mistake for the truth&mdash;a
+ superstition for a fact&mdash;to ascertain the real&mdash;is to progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Happiness is the only possible good, and all that tends to the happiness
+ of man is right, and is of value. All that tends to develop the bodies and
+ minds of men; all that gives us better houses, better clothes, better
+ food, better pictures, grander music, better heads, better hearts; all
+ that renders us more intellectual and more loving, nearer just; that makes
+ us better husbands and wives, better children, better citizens&mdash;all
+ these things combined produce what I call Progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man advances only as he overcomes the obstructions of Nature, and this can
+ be done only by labor and by thought. Labor is the foundation of all.
+ Without labor, and without great labor, progress is impossible. The
+ progress of the world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows
+ and through the rustling corn; upon those who sow and reap; upon those
+ whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnace fires; upon the delvers
+ in the mines, and the workers in shops; upon those who give to the winter
+ air the ringing music of the axe; upon those who battle with the
+ boisterous billows of the sea; upon the inventors and discoverers; upon
+ the brave thinkers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the surplus produced by labor, schools and universities are built and
+ fostered. From this surplus the painter is paid for the productions of the
+ pencil; the sculptor for chiseling shapeless rock into forms divinely
+ beautiful, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves, the memories,
+ and the aspirations of the world. This surplus has given us the books in
+ which we converse with the dead and living kings of the human race. It has
+ given us all there is of beauty, of elegance, and of refined happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am aware that there is a vast difference of opinion as to what progress
+ really is; that many denounce the ideas of to-day as destructive of all
+ happiness&mdash;of all good, I know that there are many worshipers of the
+ past. They venerate the ancient because it is ancient. They see no beauty
+ in anything from which they do not blow the dust of ages with the breath
+ of praise. They say, no masters like the old; no religion, no governments
+ like the ancient; no orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have
+ been dust for two thousand years. Others love the modern simply because it
+ is modern.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We should have gratitude enough to acknowledge the obligations we are
+ under to the great and heroic of antiquity, and independence enough not to
+ believe what they said simply because they said it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With the idea that labor is the basis of progress goes the truth that
+ labor must be free. The laborer must be a free man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The free man, working for wife and child, gets his head and hands in
+ partnership.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time, is the
+ problem of free labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slavery does the least work in the longest space of time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slowly but surely man is freeing his imagination of these sexless
+ phantoms, of these cruel ghosts. Slowly but surely he is rising above the
+ superstitions of the past. He is learning to rely upon himself. He is
+ beginning to find that labor is the only prayer that ought to be answered,
+ and that hoping, toiling, aspiring, suffering men and women are of more
+ importance than all the ghosts that ever wandered through the fenceless
+ fields of space.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The believers in ghosts claim still, that they are the only wise and
+ virtuous people upon the earth; claim still, that there is a difference
+ between them and unbelievers so vast, that they will be infinitely
+ rewarded, and the others infinitely punished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I ask you to-night, do the theories and doctrines of the theologians
+ satisfy the heart or brain of the nineteenth century?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have the churches the confidence of mankind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the merchant give credit to a man because he belongs to a church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the banker loan money to a man because he is a Methodist or Baptist?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will a certificate of good standing in any church be taken as collateral
+ security for one dollar?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will you take the word of a church member, or his note, or his oath,
+ simply because he is a church member?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the clergy, as a class, better, kinder and more generous to their
+ families&mdash;to their fellow-men&mdash;than doctors, lawyers, merchants
+ and farmers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does a belief in ghosts and unreasonable things necessarily make people
+ honest?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a man loses confidence in Moses, must the people lose confidence in
+ him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not the credit system in morals breed extravagance in sin?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why send missionaries to other lands while every penitentiary in ours is
+ filled with criminals?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it philosophical to say that they who do right carry a cross?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it a source of joy to think that perdition is the destination of nearly
+ all of the children of men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it worth while to quarrel about original sin&mdash;when there is so
+ much copy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it pay to dispute about baptism, and the Trinity, and predestination,
+ and apostolic succession and the infallibility of churches, of popes and
+ of books? Does all this do any good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the theologians welcomers of new truths? Are they noted for their
+ candor? Do they treat an opponent with common fairness? Are they
+ investigators? Do they pull forward, or do they hold back?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is science indebted to the church for a solitary fact?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What church is an asylum for a persecuted truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What great reform has been inaugurated by the church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did the church abolish slavery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has the church raised its voice against war?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I used to think that there was in religion no real restraining force. Upon
+ this point my mind has changed. Religion will prevent man from committing
+ artificial crimes and offences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man committed murder. The evidence was so conclusive that he confessed
+ his guilt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was asked why he killed his fellow-man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He replied: "For money."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you get any?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "How much?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Fifteen cents."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What did you do with this money?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Spent it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What for?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Liquor."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What else did you find upon the dead man?" "He had his dinner in a bucket&mdash;some
+ meat and bread."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What did you do with that?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I ate the bread."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What did you do with the meat?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I threw it away."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Why?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It was Friday."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just to the extent that man has freed himself from the dominion of ghosts
+ he has advanced. Just to the extent that he has freed himself from the
+ tyrants of his own creation he has progressed. Just to the extent that he
+ has investigated for himself he has lost confidence in superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With knowledge obedience becomes intelligent acquiescence&mdash;it is no
+ longer degrading. Acquiescence in the understood&mdash;in the known&mdash;is
+ the act of a sovereign, not of a slave. It ennobles, it does not degrade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has found that he must give liberty to others in order to have it
+ himself. He has found that a master is also a slave;&mdash;that a tyrant
+ is himself a serf. He has found that governments should be founded and
+ administered by man and for man; that the rights of all are equal; that
+ the powers that be are not ordained by God; that woman is at least the
+ equal of man; that men existed before books; that religion is one of the
+ phases of thought through which the world is passing; that all creeds were
+ made by man; that everything is natural; that a miracle is an
+ impossibility; that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that concerning
+ the unknown we are all equally ignorant; that the pew has the right to
+ contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible only to
+ himself and those he injures, and that all have a right to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ True religion must be free. Without perfect liberty of the mind there can
+ be no true religion. Without liberty the brain is a dungeon&mdash;the mind
+ a convict. The slave may bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot adore&mdash;he
+ cannot love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ True religion is the perfume of a free and grateful heart. True religion
+ is a subordination of the passions to the perceptions of the intellect.
+ True religion is not a theory&mdash;it is a practice. It is not a creed&mdash;it
+ is a life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A theory that is afraid of investigation is undeserving a place in the
+ human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. I do not pretend to have
+ fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on outstretched wings level with
+ the dim heights of thought. I simply plead for freedom. I denounce the
+ cruelties and horrors of slavery. I ask for light and air for the souls of
+ men. I say, take off those chains&mdash;break those manacles&mdash;free
+ those limbs&mdash;release that brain! I plead for the right to think&mdash;to
+ reason&mdash;to investigate. I ask that the future may be enriched with
+ the honest thoughts of men. I implore every human being to be a soldier in
+ the army of progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will not invade the rights of others. You have no right to erect your
+ toll-gate upon the highways of thought. You have no right to leap from the
+ hedges of superstition and strike down the pioneers of the human race. You
+ have no right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the altars of ghosts.
+ Believe what you may; preach what you desire; have all the forms and
+ ceremonies you please; exercise your liberty in your own way but extend to
+ all others the same right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to
+ me. If they hold thought to be dangerous&mdash;if they aver that doubt is
+ a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of
+ men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the
+ world. I attack slavery. I ask for room&mdash;room for the human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we sacrifice a real world that we have, for one we know not of?
+ Why should we enslave ourselves? Why should we forge fetters for our own
+ hands? Why should we be the slaves of phantoms. The darkness of barbarism
+ was the womb of these shadows. In the light of science they cannot cloud
+ the sky forever. They have reddened the hands of man with innocent blood.
+ They made the cradle a curse, and the grave a place of torment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human race. They
+ subverted all ideas of justice by promising infinite rewards for finite
+ virtues, and threatening infinite punishment for finite offences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They filled the future with heavens and with hells, with the shining peaks
+ of selfish joy and the lurid abysses of flame. For ages they kept the
+ world in ignorance and awe, in want and misery, in fear and chains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I plead for light, for air, for opportunity. I plead for individual
+ independence. I plead for the rights of labor and of thought. I plead for
+ a chainless future. Let the ghosts go&mdash;justice remains. Let them
+ disappear&mdash;men and women and children are left. Let the monsters fade
+ away&mdash;the world is here with its hills and seas and plains, with its
+ seasons of smiles and frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its summer of
+ shade and flower and murmuring stream; its autumn with the laden boughs,
+ when the withered banners of the corn are still, and gathered fields are
+ growing strangely wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color
+ what they touch, weaves in the Autumn wood her tapestries of gold and
+ brown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world remains with its winters and homes and firesides, where grow and
+ bloom the virtues of our race. All these are left; and music, with its sad
+ and thrilling voice, and all there is of art and song and hope and love
+ and aspiration high. All these remain. Let the ghosts go&mdash;we will
+ worship them no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man is greater than these phantoms. Humanity is grander than all the
+ creeds, than all the books. Humanity is the great sea, and these creeds,
+ and books, and religions, are but the waves of a day. Humanity is the sky,
+ and these religions and dogmas and theories are but the mists and clouds
+ changing continually, destined finally to melt away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That which is founded upon slavery, and fear, and ignorance, cannot
+ endure. In the religion of the future there will be men and women and
+ children, all the aspirations of the soul, and all the tender humanities
+ of the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let the ghosts go. We will worship them no more. Let them cover their
+ eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the
+ imaginations of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to Matter.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ THERE is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and
+ brutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and
+ desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport and
+ prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might. Crowned
+ force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny&mdash;two
+ vultures&mdash;have fed upon the liberties of man. From all these there
+ has been, and is, but one means of escape&mdash;intellectual development.
+ Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain have been the
+ fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of
+ freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been
+ practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great
+ struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.
+ Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all been crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every science has been an outcast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of
+ the human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves.
+ The priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged
+ chains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous <i>regime</i>
+ the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of
+ hypocrisy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The human race was imprisoned. Through some of the prison bars came a few
+ struggling rays of light. Against these bars Science pressed its pale and
+ thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement. Bar after
+ bar was broken away. A few grand men escaped and devoted their lives to
+ the liberation of their fellows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. Men
+ began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him?
+ The man who asked this question was called a traitor. Others asked by what
+ right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? Such men were called
+ infidels. The priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit of
+ investigation to stop? They said then and they say now, that it is
+ dangerous for man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea there
+ is room enough for every sail. In the intellectual air there is space
+ enough for every wing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to
+ himself and to his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite flag
+ of nature, the peer of every other man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to think,
+ and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin and
+ destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty of thought and
+ expression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely true,
+ but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or
+ that I have descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim that
+ what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who denies
+ that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take those chains from the human soul. Break those fetters. If I have no
+ right to think, why have I a brain? If I have no such right, have three or
+ four men, or any number, who may get together, and sign a creed, and build
+ a house, and put a steeple upon it, and a bell in it&mdash;have they the
+ right to think? The good men, the good women are tired of the whip and
+ lash in the realm of thought. They remember the chain and fagot with a
+ shudder. They are free, and they give liberty to others. Whoever claims
+ any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest
+ and infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the good old times, our fathers had the idea that they could make
+ people believe to suit them. Our ancestors, in the ages that are gone,
+ really believed that by force you could convince a man. You cannot change
+ the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. But I
+ will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done. You can
+ make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that he has changed
+ his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all over
+ him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the
+ holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same
+ opinion still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers in the good old times&mdash;and the best thing I can say about
+ them is, that they have passed away&mdash;had an idea that they could
+ force men to think their way. That idea is still prevalent in many parts,
+ even of this country. Even in our day some extremely religious people say,
+ "We will not trade with that man; we will not vote for him; we will not
+ hire him if he is a lawyer; we will die before we will take his medicine
+ if he is a doctor; we will not invite him to dinner; we will socially
+ ostracise him; he must come to our church; he must believe our doctrines;
+ he must worship our god or we will not in any way contribute to his
+ support."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the old times of which I have spoken, they desired to make all men
+ think exactly alike. All the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot make
+ two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds of
+ millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in education and
+ aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in a living robe of
+ passionate flesh&mdash;how are you going to make them think and feel
+ alike? If there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes us to
+ think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a
+ magnificent intellectual development to another? Why is it that we have
+ all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was intended
+ that all should think and feel alike?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never
+ appreciated it. I read it, but it did not burn itself into my soul. I did
+ not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of
+ religion, until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw the
+ Thumbscrew&mdash;two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces
+ with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw
+ uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism,
+ or may be said, "I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep
+ him from drowning," then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron
+ and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these
+ pieces together. When this was done most men said, "I will recant."
+ Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: "Stop; I
+ will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that there is one god or a
+ million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a
+ hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an
+ intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be savages
+ to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we
+ would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our
+ flesh, dancing around some dried snake fetich.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly, in
+ spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be the
+ truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who would not
+ recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last
+ pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the
+ throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled
+ damned. This was done in the name of love&mdash;in the name of mercy&mdash;in
+ the name of the compassionate Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw, too, what they called 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 these
+ 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter. Think of 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. In this condition, he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and
+ the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity would in
+ pity end his pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was done by gentlemen who said: "Whosoever smiteth thee upon one
+ cheek turn to him the other also."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at
+ each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each
+ windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer;
+ others to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen, divines, saints, began
+ turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the knees,
+ the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all
+ dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. And they had
+ standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life?
+ Yes. In mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law
+ and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of
+ the most merciful Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sometimes, when I read and think about these frightful things, it seems to
+ me that I have suffered all these horrors myself. It seems sometimes, as
+ though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful eyes
+ toward home and native land; 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 had seen
+ 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 countless hands of hate. And when I so feel, I swear that while I
+ live I will do what little I can to preserve and to augment the liberties
+ of man, woman, and child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of intellectual
+ development. If there is a man in the world who is not willing to give to
+ every human being every right he claims for himself, he is just so much
+ nearer a barbarian than I am. It is a question of honesty. The man who is
+ not willing to give to every other the same intellectual rights he claims
+ for himself, is dishonest, selfish, and brutal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a question of intellectual development. Whoever holds another man
+ responsible for his honest thought, has a deformed and distorted brain. It
+ is a question of intellectual development.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago I saw models of nearly everything that man has made. I
+ saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which floated
+ a naked savage&mdash;one of our ancestors&mdash;a naked savage, with teeth
+ two inches in length, with a spoonful of brains in the back of his head&mdash;I
+ saw models of all the water craft of the world, from that dug-out up to a
+ man-of-war, that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas&mdash;from
+ that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of
+ New York, with a compass like a conscience, crossing three thousand miles
+ of billows without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw at the same time the 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 were 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw at the same time, their musical instruments, from the tom-tom&mdash;that
+ is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw hide drawn across it&mdash;from
+ that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that make the common
+ air blossom with melody.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow mud, to the great works
+ which now adorn the galleries of the world. I saw also their sculpture,
+ from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several noses, and
+ two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible, brainless head,
+ up to the figures of to-day&mdash;to the marbles that genius has clad in
+ such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them without an
+ introduction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw their books&mdash;books written upon skins of wild beasts&mdash;upon
+ shoulder-blades of sheep&mdash;books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to
+ the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. When I speak of
+ libraries, I think of the remark of Plato: "A house that has a library in
+ it has a soul."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick that was
+ attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural
+ implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to
+ cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While looking upon these things I was forced to say that man advanced only
+ as he mingled his thought with his labor,&mdash;only as he got into
+ partnership with the forces of nature,&mdash;only as he learned to take
+ advantage of his surroundings&mdash;only as he freed himself from the
+ bondage of fear,&mdash;only as he depended upon himself&mdash;only as he
+ lost confidence in the gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull that
+ has been found, the Neanderthal skull&mdash;skulls from Central Africa,
+ skulls from the Bushmen of Australia&mdash;skulls from the farthest isles
+ of the Pacific sea&mdash;up to the best skulls of the last generation;&mdash;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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is all a question of brain, of intellectual development.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have better
+ heads upon the average, and more brains in them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I ask you to be honest with me. It makes no difference to you what I
+ believe, nor what I wish to prove. I simply ask you to be honest. Divest
+ your minds, for a moment at least, of all religious prejudice. Act, for a
+ few moments, as though you were men and women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one, at
+ the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and charmed his ears with
+ the music of the tom-tom, had said: "That dug-out is the best boat that
+ ever can 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 that he can improve it
+ by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel, and shall be
+ burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment&mdash;honor bright&mdash;would
+ have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one&mdash;and
+ I presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age&mdash;suppose
+ this king and priest had said: "That 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 fleecy
+ cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so
+ enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she
+ dropped it&mdash;that is how we obtained it; and any man who says that 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 wretch, and
+ shall die the death,"&mdash;I ask you, what effect would that have had
+ upon music? If that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your
+ judgment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said: "That
+ crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented: the pattern of that
+ plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw
+ is the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of all twisted things, and any man who says he
+ can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;" what, in your
+ judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the people said, and the king and priest said: "We want better weapons
+ with which to kill our fellow-Christians; we want better plows, better
+ music, better paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons, and
+ better music, better houses to live in, better clothes, we will robe him
+ in wealth, and crown him with honor." Every incentive was held out to
+ every human being to improve these things. That is the reason the club has
+ been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub to a
+ painting; that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken stone
+ finally became a glorified statue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must not, however, forget that the gentleman in the dug-out, the
+ gentleman who was enraptured with the music of the tom-tom, and cultivated
+ his land with a crooked stick, had a religion of his own. That gentlemen
+ in the dug-out was orthodox. He was never troubled with doubts. He lived
+ and died settled in his mind. He believed in hell; and he thought he would
+ be far happier in heaven, if he could just lean over and see certain
+ people who expressed doubts as to the truth of his creed, gently but
+ everlastingly broiled and burned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has had a great many
+ intellectual descendants. It is also an unhappy fact in nature, that the
+ ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. This fellow in the
+ dug-out believed in a personal devil. His devil had a cloven hoof, a long
+ tail, armed with a fiery dart; and his devil breathed brimstone. This
+ devil was at least the equal of God; not quite so stout but a little
+ shrewder. And do you know there has not been a patentable improvement made
+ upon that devil for six thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentleman in the dug-out believed that God was a tyrant; that he
+ would eternally damn the man who lived in accordance with his highest and
+ grandest ideal. He believed that the earth was flat. He believed in a
+ literal, burning, seething hell of fire and sulphur. He had also his idea
+ of politics; and his doctrine was, might makes right. And it will take
+ thousands of years before the world will reverse this doctrine, and
+ believingly say, "Right makes might."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All I ask is the same privilege to improve upon that gentleman's theology
+ as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon his
+ politics as upon his dug-out. That is all. I ask for the human soul the
+ same liberty in every direction. That is the only crime I have committed.
+ I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us become
+ investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there is in
+ heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of
+ cowards and hypocrites. Honest unbelief, honest infidelity, honest
+ atheism, will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no matter how
+ religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim
+ for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive new
+ thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at the wharf
+ of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. He delights to hear the sails of old
+ opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the joints
+ and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss for him
+ to repeat again and again: "Do not disturb my opinions. Do not unsettle my
+ mind; I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let me go backward
+ rather than forward."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to take
+ my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down in the
+ glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any orthodox harbor
+ whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, we are improving from age to age. The most orthodox people in
+ this country two hundred years ago would have been burned for the crime of
+ heresy. The ministers who denounce me for expressing my thought would have
+ been in the Inquisition themselves. Where once burned and blazed the
+ bivouac fires of the army of progress, now glow the altars of the church.
+ The religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground occupied
+ by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. The church has advanced
+ in spite, as it were, of itself. It has followed the army of progress
+ protesting and denouncing, and had to keep within protesting and
+ denouncing distance. If the church had not made great progress I could not
+ express my thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with which he
+ has mingled his thought with his labor. The sailor, without control of the
+ wind and wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious currents
+ and pulses of the sea, is superstitious. So also is the agriculturist,
+ whose prosperity depends upon something he cannot control. But the
+ mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his
+ knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a
+ reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is
+ something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it
+ larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn. Now, just in
+ proportion as man gets away from being, as it were, the slave of his
+ surroundings, the serf of the elements,&mdash;of the heat, the frost, the
+ snow, and the lightning,&mdash;just to the extent that he has gotten
+ control of his own destiny, just to the extent that he has triumphed over
+ the obstacles of nature, he has advanced physically and intellectually. As
+ man develops, he places a greater value upon his own rights. Liberty
+ becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values his own rights, he
+ begins to value the rights of others. And when all men give to all others
+ all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago the people were afraid to question the king, afraid to
+ question the priest, afraid to investigate a creed, afraid to deny a book,
+ afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think. 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 worshiped 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It no longer 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 C&aelig;sar, that he might become a member of the
+ French Academy. The emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above
+ their fellows. Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king
+ is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim&mdash;one upon
+ whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this
+ king with Haeckel, 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic
+ self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to
+ hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the
+ intensity and glory of the flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how long
+ our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of
+ the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves,
+ of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition robed and
+ crowned, I am amazed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years. It was not
+ until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to
+ that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice, her
+ priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, 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 January, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the
+ sublime and heroic North, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it
+ floats.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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
+ upon the side of mercy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long
+ lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed. Think
+ of it. The pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for a
+ hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny,
+ every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What do I mean by liberty? By physical liberty I mean the right to do
+ anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By
+ intellectual liberty I mean the right to think right and the right to
+ think wrong. Thought is the means by which we endeavor to arrive at truth.
+ If we know the truth already, we need not think. All that can be required
+ is honesty of purpose. You ask my opinion about anything; I examine it
+ honestly, and when my mind is made up, what should I tell you? Should I
+ tell you my real thought? What should I do? There is a book put in my
+ hands. I am told this is the Koran; it was written by inspiration. I read
+ it, and when I get through, suppose that I think in my heart and in my
+ brain, that it is utterly untrue, and you then ask me, what do you think?
+ Now, admitting that I live in Turkey, and have no chance to get any office
+ unless I am on the side of the Koran, what should I say? Should I make a
+ clean breast and say, that upon my honor I do not believe it? What would
+ you think then of my fellow-citizens if they said: "That man is dangerous,
+ he is dishonest."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose I read the book called the Bible, and when I get through I make up
+ my mind that it was written by men. A minister asks me, "Did you read the
+ Bible?" I answer, that I did. "Do you think it divinely inspired?" What
+ should I reply? Should I say to myself, "If I deny the inspiration of the
+ Scriptures, the people will never clothe me with power." What ought I to
+ answer? Ought I not to say like a man: "I have read it; I do not believe
+ it." Should I not give the real transcript of my mind? Or should I turn
+ hypocrite and pretend what I do not feel, and hate myself forever after
+ for being a cringing coward. For my part I would rather a man would tell
+ me what he honestly thinks. I would rather he would preserve his manhood.
+ I had a thousand times rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly
+ believer. And if there is a judgment day, a time when all will stand
+ before some supreme being, I believe I will stand higher, and stand a
+ better chance of getting my case decided in my favor, than any man
+ sneaking through life pretending to believe what he does not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have made up my mind to say my say. I shall do it kindly, distinctly;
+ but I am going to do it. I know there are thousands of men who
+ substantially agree with me, but who are not in a condition to express
+ their thoughts. They are poor; they are in business; and they know that
+ should they tell their honest thought, persons will refuse to patronize
+ them&mdash;to trade with them; they wish to get bread for their little
+ children; they wish to take care of their wives; they wish to have homes
+ and the comforts of life. Every such person is a certificate of the
+ meanness of the community in which he resides. And yet I do not blame
+ these people for not expressing their thought. I say to them: "Keep your
+ ideas to yourselves; feed and clothe the ones you love; I will do your
+ talking for you. The church can not touch, can not crush, can not starve,
+ cannot stop or stay me; I will express your thoughts."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery, the church has
+ taught that man is totally depraved. Of the truth of that doctrine, the
+ church has furnished the only evidence there is. The truth is, we are both
+ good and bad. The worst are capable of some good deeds, and the best are
+ capable of bad. The lowest can rise, and the highest may fall. That
+ mankind can be divided into two great classes, sinners and saints, is an
+ utter falsehood. In times of great disaster, called it may be, by the
+ despairing voices of women, men, denounced by the church as totally
+ depraved, rush to death as to a festival. By such men, deeds are done so
+ filled with self-sacrifice and generous daring, that millions pay to them
+ the tribute, not only of admiration, but of tears. Above all creeds, above
+ all religions, after all, is that divine thing,&mdash;Humanity; and now
+ and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the rocks and
+ breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of flame writhe and
+ hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a deed that glitters
+ like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of superstition. All
+ these frightful doctrines have been used to degrade and to enslave
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Away, forever away with the creeds and books and forms and laws and
+ religions that take from the soul liberty and reason. Down with the idea
+ that thought is dangerous! Perish the infamous doctrine that man can have
+ property in man. Let us resent with indignation every effort to put a
+ chain upon our minds. If there is no God, certainly we should not bow and
+ cringe and crawl. If there is a God, there should be no slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LIBERTY OF WOMAN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ Women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions
+ of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the
+ institution of marriage. Let me say right here, that I regard marriage as
+ the holiest institution among men. Without the fireside there is no human
+ advancement; without the family relation there is no life worth living.
+ Every good government is made up of good families. The unit of good
+ government is the family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is
+ perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and I hold in
+ utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired men and short-haired
+ women who denounce the institution of marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and
+ so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some
+ splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself
+ worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That is my idea.
+ There is no success in life without love and marriage. You had better be
+ the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours,
+ than to be king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one
+ good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar,
+ his life has been a success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject
+ slavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you wear
+ upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage.
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this
+ world by the crime of woman. What a gallant thing that is! And if it is
+ true, I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble,
+ than to live in heaven with nobody but men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read in a book&mdash;and I will say now that I cannot give the exact
+ language, as my memory does not retain the words, but I can give the
+ substance&mdash;I read in a book that the Supreme Being concluded to make
+ a world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one
+ man, and put this man in a garden. In a little while he noticed that the
+ man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for a
+ train. There was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no politics;
+ no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no
+ chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service reform. Well, he
+ wandered about the garden in this condition, until finally the Supreme
+ Being made up his mind to make him a companion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world and
+ one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. So he
+ caused a sleep to fall on this man&mdash;now understand me, I do not say
+ this story is true. After the sleep fell upon this man, the Supreme Being
+ took a rib, or as the French would call it, a cutlet, out of this man, and
+ from that he made a woman. And considering the amount of raw material
+ used, I look upon it as the most successful job ever performed. Well,
+ after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to see how
+ she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He liked her, and they started
+ housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they might do and of
+ one thing they could not do&mdash;and of course they did it. I would have
+ done it in fifteen minutes, and 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Devilment commenced. The mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough,
+ and the scarlet fever started in their race for man. They began to have
+ the toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned
+ teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the
+ world has been full of trouble from that day to this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of
+ evil by such a story as that!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 that the one that was written first was copied from the one
+ that was written last. But I would advise you all not to allow your creed
+ to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years. In this
+ other story, 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! And the branches of the trees were so arranged
+ that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand &#65533;?olian
+ harps.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Brahma, when he put them there, said: "Let them have a period of
+ courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever
+ precede marriage." When I read that, it was so much more beautiful and
+ lofty than the other, that I said to myself, "If either one of these
+ stories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be this one."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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. 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&mdash;and his name was Adami,
+ and the woman's name was Heva&mdash;said to Heva: "I believe I'll look
+ about a little." He went to the northern 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, produced a mirage,
+ and when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells
+ and dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in 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." She,
+ like every other woman that ever lived, said: "Let well enough alone; we
+ have all we want; let us stay here." But he said "No, let us go;" so she
+ 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 were naught but rocks and sand; and then the Supreme Brahma cursed
+ them both to the lowest hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then it was that the man spoke,&mdash;and I have liked him ever since for
+ it&mdash;"Curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault, it was mine."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That's the kind of man to start a world with.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Brahma said: "I will save her, but not thee." And then she
+ spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was 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 without
+ him; I love him." Then the Supreme Brahma said&mdash;and I have liked him
+ ever since I read it&mdash;"I will spare you both and watch over you and
+ your children forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Honor bright, is not that the better and grander story?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And from that same book I want to show you what ideas some of these
+ miserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert. We send
+ missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers
+ out on the plains to kill heathen here. If we can convert the heathen, why
+ not convert those nearest home? Why not convert those we can get at? Why
+ not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of the
+ average pioneer? But to show you the men we are trying to convert: In this
+ book it says: "Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is
+ love. When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one
+ man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing
+ for joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are the men we are converting. Think of it! I tell you, when I read
+ these things, I say that love is not of any country; nobility does not
+ belong exclusively to any race, and through all the ages, there have been
+ a few great and tender souls blossoming in love and pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights
+ I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my
+ doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever
+ marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman
+ so well that he says "I will make her happy," makes no mistake. And so
+ with the woman who says, "I will make him happy." There is only one way to
+ be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by
+ going cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head of a
+ family&mdash;the man who thinks he is "boss!" The fellow in the dug-out
+ used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the
+ moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though
+ the thorn touched her heart&mdash;imagine them stopping there in the
+ moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "Now, here, let us settle
+ who is 'boss!'" I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling&mdash;I
+ abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family, and when
+ he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some mighty idea is about to
+ be launched from his mouth. Do you know I dislike this man unspeakably?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the
+ sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the joy of life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light&mdash;so that it
+ will, even in the night, bursty 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 questions
+ 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&mdash;the head of the family&mdash;the boss!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy man. I do not see how it is
+ possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten million
+ of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the
+ withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man can
+ withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty
+ million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do
+ it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile
+ of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning
+ in the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you know that I have known men who would trust their wives with their
+ hearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar.
+ When I see a man of that kind, I always think he knows which of these
+ articles is the most valuable. Think of making your wife a beggar! Think
+ of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars or
+ fifty cents! "What did you do with that dollar I gave you last week?"
+ Think of having a wife that is afraid of you! What kind of children do you
+ expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? Oh, I tell you
+ if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to spend it, spend
+ it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf and you the owner of
+ unbounded forests! That's the way to spend it! I had rather be a beggar
+ and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a king and spend my money
+ like a beggar! If it has got to go, let it go!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Get the best you can for your family&mdash;try to look as well as you can
+ yourself. When you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! Ah, your
+ eye was bright, your step was light, and you looked like a prince. Do you
+ know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman is going to
+ love you always looking as slovenly as you can! Think of it! Any good
+ woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your level best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all that,
+ is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell you
+ to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces
+ of the rich. The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for the gods,
+ and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. That is my
+ doctrine! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody. Good nature
+ is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that
+ will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender both. Do not tell me that
+ you have got to be rich! We have a false standard of greatness in the
+ United States. We think here that a man must be great, that he must be
+ notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name must be
+ upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is all a mistake. It is not necessary to
+ be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. The happy man is
+ the successful man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Joy is wealth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon&mdash;a
+ magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity&mdash;and
+ gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last
+ the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought
+ about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I
+ saw him at Toulon&mdash;I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of
+ Paris&mdash;I saw him at the head of the army of Italy&mdash;I saw him
+ crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand&mdash;I saw him
+ in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids&mdash;I saw him conquer the Alps
+ and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at
+ Marengo&mdash;at Ulm and Austerlitz. 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&mdash;driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris&mdash;clutched
+ like a wild beast&mdash;banished 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thought of the orphans and widows he had made&mdash;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 peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather
+ have lived in 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 sky&mdash;with my children upon my knees and their arms about
+ me&mdash;I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless
+ silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial
+ impersonation of force and murder, known as "Napoleon the Great."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be
+ rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine
+ affection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as
+ though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with
+ perfume and with joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really
+ love will never grow old to you. 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 a woman who really loves a man does not see that he
+ grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old;
+ she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I
+ like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal. And
+ to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you
+ go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of
+ joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe
+ in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and
+ love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0011" id="link0011">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ If women have been slaves, what shall I say of children; of the little
+ children in alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn pale when
+ they hear their fathers' footsteps; little children who run away when they
+ only hear their names called by the lips of a mother; little children&mdash;the
+ children of poverty, the children of crime, the children of brutality,
+ wherever they are&mdash;flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad sea of life&mdash;my
+ heart goes out to them, one and all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought to
+ treat them as though they were human beings. They should be reared with
+ love, with kindness, with tenderness, and not with brutality. That is my
+ idea of children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world
+ were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant father will
+ have liars for his children; do you know that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other,
+ and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course
+ he lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the
+ brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little
+ breastwork in the shape of a lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that
+ you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way;
+ that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his boy left
+ home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both." Be honest
+ with him. Suppose a man as much larger than you as you are larger than a
+ child five years old, should come at you with a liberty pole in his hand,
+ and in a voice of thunder shout, "Who broke that plate?" There is not a
+ solitary one of you who would not swear you never saw it, or that it was
+ cracked when you got it. Why not be honest with these children? Just
+ imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for putting false
+ rumors afloat! Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for
+ evading the truth when he makes half of his own living that way! Think of
+ a minister punishing his child for not telling all he thinks! Just think
+ of it!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your
+ heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and truly
+ and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good Christians, when a child
+ commits a fault, drive it from the door and say: "Never do you darken this
+ house again." Think of that! And then these same people will get down on
+ their knees and ask God to take care of the child they have driven from
+ home. I will never ask God to take care of my children unless I am doing
+ my level best in that same direction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I will tell you what I say to my children: "Go where you will; commit
+ what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; you can
+ never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or my heart to
+ you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you know that I have seen some people who acted as though they thought
+ that when the Savior said "Suffer little children to come unto me, for of
+ such is the kingdom of heaven," he had a raw-hide under his mande, and
+ made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe in the government of the lash, if any one of you ever
+ expects to whip your children again, I want you to have a photograph taken
+ of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with vulgar anger,
+ and the face of the little child, with eyes swimming in tears and the
+ little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water struck by a sudden
+ cold wind. Have the picture taken. If that little child should die, I
+ cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out
+ to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in tender gold, and little
+ scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of
+ the earth&mdash;and sit down upon the grave and look at that photograph,
+ and think of the flesh now dust that you beat. I tell you it is wrong; it
+ is no way to raise children! Make your home happy. Be honest with them.
+ Divide fairly with them in everything.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give them a little liberty and love, and you can not drive them out of
+ your house. They will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. Let them
+ play any game they wish. Do not be so foolish as to say: "You may roll
+ balls on the ground, but you must not roll them on a green cloth. You may
+ knock them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue. You may
+ play with little pieces of paper which have 'authors' written on them, but
+ you must not have 'cards.'" Think of it! "You may go to a minstrel show
+ where people blacken themselves and imitate humanity below them, but you
+ must not go to a theatre and see the characters created by immortal genius
+ put upon the stage." Why? Well, I can't think of any reason in the world
+ except "minstrel" is a word of two syllables, and "theatre" has three.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there,
+ and do not commence at the cradle and shout "Don't!" "Don't!" "Stop!" That
+ is nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until he is
+ twenty-one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying
+ "Don't!" And the church says "Don't!" and the party he belongs to says
+ "Don't!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I despise that way of going through this world. Let us have liberty&mdash;just
+ a little. Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what you will, I
+ intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my grave and
+ truthfully say: "He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. From
+ his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People justify all kinds of tyranny toward children upon the ground that
+ they are totally depraved. At the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this
+ infamous doctrine of total depravity. Religion contemplates a child as a
+ living crime&mdash;heir to an infinite curse&mdash;doomed to eternal fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden time, they thought some days were too good for a child to
+ enjoy himself. When I was a boy Sunday was considered altogether too holy
+ to be happy in. Sunday used to commence then when the sun went down on
+ Saturday night. We commenced at that time for the purpose of getting a
+ good ready, and when the sun fell below the horizon on Saturday evening,
+ there was a darkness fell upon the house ten thousand times deeper than
+ that of night. Nobody said a pleasant word; nobody laughed; nobody smiled;
+ the child that looked the sickest was regarded as the most pious. That
+ night you could not even crack hickory nuts. If you were caught chewing
+ gum it was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human
+ heart. It was an exceedingly solemn night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dyspepsia was in the very air you breathed. Everybody looked sad and
+ mournful. I have noticed all my life that many people think they have
+ religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia. If there could be found an
+ absolute specific for that disease, it would be the hardest blow the
+ church has ever received.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On Sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. Then we went to
+ church. The minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little
+ sounding-board above him, and he commenced at "firstly" and went on and on
+ and on to about "twenty-thirdly." Then he made a few remarks by way of
+ application; and then took a general view of the subject, and in about two
+ hours reached the last chapter in Revelation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was no fire in
+ the church. It was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while you
+ were thanking God. The first church that ever had a stove in it in New
+ England, divided on that account. So the first church in which they sang
+ by note, was torn in fragments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the sermon we had an intermission. Then came the catechism with the
+ chief end of man. We went through with that. We sat in a row with our feet
+ coming in about six inches of the floor. The minister asked us if we knew
+ that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered "Yes." Then we
+ were asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was God's will, and
+ every little liar shouted "Yes." Then the same sermon was preached once
+ more, commencing at the other end and going back. After that, we started
+ for home, sad and solemn&mdash;overpowered with the wisdom displayed in
+ the scheme of the atonement. When we got home, if we had been good boys,
+ and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us out to the
+ graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When I looked at the
+ sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the half-effaced
+ inscriptions through the moss of silence and forgetfulness, it was a great
+ comfort. The reflection came to my mind that the observance of the Sabbath
+ could not last always. Sometimes they would sing that beautiful hymn in
+ which occurs these cheerful lines:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Where congregations ne'er break up,
+ And Sabbaths never end."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ These lines, I think, prejudiced me a little against even heaven. Then we
+ had good books that we read on Sundays by way of keeping us happy and
+ contented. There were Milners' "History of the Waldenses," Baxter's "Call
+ to the Unconverted," Yahn's "Archaeology of the Jews," and Jenkyns' "On
+ the Atonement." I used to read Jenkyns' "On the Atonement." I have often
+ thought that an atonement would have to be exceedingly broad in its
+ provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a book like that for
+ a boy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But at last the Sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went down we were
+ free. Between three and four o'clock we would go out to see how the sun
+ was coming on. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was stopping from pure
+ meanness. But finally it went down. It had to. And when the last rim of
+ light sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we would give
+ three cheers for liberty once more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sabbaths used to be prisons. Every Sunday was a Bastile. Every Christian
+ was a kind of turnkey, and every child was a prisoner,&mdash;a convict. In
+ that dungeon, a smile was a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holy day. Think of
+ that!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a tree
+ laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and
+ there would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and
+ thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its
+ mate,&mdash;singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling
+ out of its 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 that tree and think about hell and the worm that
+ never dies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and my feet did not touch
+ the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. In order to impress
+ upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if they
+ settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the
+ following illustration: "Suppose that once in a billion years a bird
+ should come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little bill
+ a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom composing
+ this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was taken, it
+ would not even be sun up in hell." Think of such an infamous doctrine
+ being taught to children!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The laugh of a child will make the holiest day-more sacred still. Strike,
+ with hand of fire, O 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 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&mdash;the laugh that fills the eyes
+ with light and every heart with joy. 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 dimples enough in thy cheeks to
+ catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet the minds of children have been polluted by this infamous doctrine
+ of eternal punishment. I denounce it to-day as a doctrine, the infamy of
+ which no language is sufficient to express.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for men and women and
+ children come from? It came from the low and beastly skull of that wretch
+ in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the animals.
+ The doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the glittering eyes of
+ snakes&mdash;snakes that hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It
+ was born of the howl and bark and growl of wild beasts. It was born of the
+ grin of hyenas and of the depraved chatter of unclean baboons. I despise
+ it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a God in the serene
+ heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest
+ belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds,
+ than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide world ten thousand
+ times over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these men are in torment;
+ that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished
+ forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of
+ lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the great ship containing the hopes and aspirations of the world,
+ when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of
+ death, chaos and disaster, I am willing to go down with the ship. I will
+ not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of paddling away in some orthodox
+ canoe. I will go down with the ship, with those who love me, and with
+ those whom I have loved. If there is a God who will damn his children
+ forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the
+ society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that
+ doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has
+ polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It
+ has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman
+ and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has
+ had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the
+ tender; it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should
+ be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister
+ of the gospel, to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of
+ eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe
+ this doctrine: neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment.
+ Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing
+ heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go
+ insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jonathan Edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his doctrine is true, is now
+ in heaven rubbing his holy hands with glee, as he hears the cries of the
+ damned, preached this doctrine; and he said: "Can the believing husband in
+ heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? Can the believing
+ father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in hell? Can the
+ loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in hell?" And
+ he replies: "I tell you, yea. Such will be their sense of justice, that it
+ will increase rather than diminish their bliss." There is no wild beast in
+ the jungles of Africa whose reputation would not be tarnished by the
+ expression of such a doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These doctrines have been taught in the name of religion, in the name of
+ universal forgiveness, in the name of infinite love and charity. Do not, I
+ pray you, soil the minds of your children with this dogma. Let them read
+ for themselves; let them think for themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a row. Treat
+ them like trees that need light and sun and air. Be fair and honest with
+ them; give them a chance. Recollect that their rights are equal to yours.
+ Do not have it in your mind that you must govern them; that they must
+ obey. Throw away forever the idea of master and slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In old times they used to make the children go to bed when they were not
+ sleepy, and get up when they were sleepy. I say let them go to bed when
+ they are sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But you say, this doctrine will do for the rich but not for the poor.
+ Well, if the poor have to waken their children early in the morning it is
+ as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a blow. Give your children
+ freedom; let them preserve their individuality. Let your children eat what
+ they desire, and commence at the end of a dinner they like. That is their
+ business and not yours. They know what they wish to eat. If they are given
+ their liberty from the first, they know what they want better than any
+ doctor in the world can prescribe. Do you know that all the improvement
+ that has ever been made in the practice of medicine has been made by the
+ recklessness of patients and not by the doctors? For thousands and
+ thousands of years the doctors would not let a man suffering from fever
+ have a drop of water. Water they looked upon as poison. But every now and
+ then some man got reckless and said, "I had rather die than not to slake
+ my thirst." Then he would drink two or three quarts of water and get well.
+ And when the doctor was told of what the patient had done, he expressed
+ great surprise that he was still alive, and complimented his constitution
+ upon being able to bear such a frightful strain. The reckless men,
+ however, kept on drinking the water, and persisted in getting well. And
+ finally the doctors said: "In a fever, water is the very best thing you
+ can take." So, I have more confidence in the voice of nature about such
+ things than I have in the conclusions of the medical schools.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let your children have freedom and they will fall into your ways; they
+ will do substantially as you do; but if you try to make them, there is
+ some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be
+ driven. And do you know that it is the luckiest thing that ever happened
+ for this world, that people are that way. What would have become of the
+ people five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice of
+ the doctors? They would have all been dead. What would the people have
+ been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly the
+ direction of the church? They would have all been idiots. It is a splendid
+ thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind, and who will
+ think for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. I believe in
+ the democracy of the family. If in this world there is anything splendid,
+ it is a home where all are equals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell their
+ children to "let their victuals stop their mouths." They used to eat as
+ though it were a religious ceremony&mdash;a very solemn thing. Life should
+ not be treated as a solemn matter. I like to see the children at table,
+ and hear each one telling of the wonderful things he has seen and heard. I
+ like to hear the clatter of knives and forks and spoons mingling with
+ their happy voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that was ever put
+ upon the boards. Let the children have liberty. Be honest and fair with
+ them; be just; be tender, and they will make you rich in love and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but I have some
+ excuse for mankind. This world, after all, is not very well adapted to
+ raising good people. In the first place, nearly all of it is water. It is
+ much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of folks. Of
+ that portion which is land not one-eighth has suitable soil and climate to
+ produce great men and women. You cannot raise men and women of genius,
+ without the proper soil and climate, any more than you can raise corn and
+ wheat upon the ice fields of the Arctic sea. You must have the necessary
+ conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you must have the soil and
+ food. The obstacles presented by nature must not be so great that man
+ cannot, by reasonable industry and courage, overcome them. There is upon
+ this world only a narrow belt of land, circling zigzag the globe, upon
+ which you can produce men and women of talent. In the Southern Hemisphere
+ the real climate that man needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result
+ is, that the southern half of our world has never produced a man or woman
+ of great genius. In the far north there is no genius&mdash;it is too cold.
+ In the far south there is no genius&mdash;it is too warm. There must be
+ winter, and there must be summer. In a country where man needs no coverlet
+ but a cloud, revolution is his normal condition. Winter is the mother of
+ industry and prudence. Above all, it is the mother of the family relation.
+ Winter holds in its icy arms the husband and wife and the sweet children.
+ If upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a
+ home in winter, at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn
+ aside, we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting;
+ the cat playing with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls
+ or dollars or knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join
+ the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising
+ like incense from the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house
+ without feeling that I had received a benediction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Civilization, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual advancement, are all
+ flowers that blossom in the drifted snow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know that I can better illustrate the great truth that only part
+ of the world is adapted to the production of great men and women than by
+ calling your attention to the difference between vegetation in valleys and
+ upon mountains. 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&mdash;every limb twisted as though in pain&mdash;getting
+ a scanty subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You go on and
+ on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago we were talking about the annexation of Santo Domingo to
+ this country. I was in Washington at the time. I was opposed to it I was
+ told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil produced
+ everything. But I said: "We do not want it; it is not the right kind of
+ country in which to raise American citizens. Such a climate would debauch
+ us. You might go there with five thousand Congregational preachers, five
+ thousand ruling elders, five thousand professors in colleges, five
+ thousand of the solid men of Boston and their wives; settle them all in
+ Santo Domingo, and you will see the second generation riding upon a mule,
+ bareback, no shoes, a grapevine bridle, hair sticking out at the top of
+ their sombreros, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cock fight on
+ Sunday." Such is the influence of climate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science, however, is gradually widening the area within which men of
+ genius can be produced. We are conquering the north with houses, clothing,
+ food and fuel. We are in many ways overcoming the heat of the south. If we
+ attend to this world instead of another, we may in time cover the land
+ with men and women of genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have still another excuse. I believe that man came up from the lower
+ animals. I do not say this as a fact. I simply say I believe it to be a
+ fact. Upon that question I stand about eight to seven, which, for all
+ practical purposes, is very near a certainty. When I first heard of that
+ doctrine I did not like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those
+ people who have nothing 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 Chimpanzee. 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 rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek. I
+ asked "What are they?" I was told: "They are the remains of muscles; that
+ they became rudimentary from lack of use; they went into bankruptcy. They
+ are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap their ears." I do
+ not now so much wonder that we once had them as that we have outgrown
+ them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all I had rather belong to a race that started from the skull-less
+ vertebrates in the dim Laurentian seas, vertebrates wiggling without
+ knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were going,
+ but that in some way began to develop, and began to get a little higher
+ and a little higher in the scale of existence; that came up by degrees
+ through millions of ages through all the animal world, through all that
+ crawls and swims and floats and climbs and walks, and finally produced the
+ gentleman in the dug-out; and then from this man, 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&mdash;for
+ in the history of this world the man who is ahead has always been called a
+ heretic&mdash;I would rather come from a race that started from that
+ skull-less vertebrate, and came up and up and up and finally produced
+ Shakespeare, the man who found the human intellect dwelling in a hut,
+ touched it with the wand of his genius and it became a palace domed and
+ pinnacled; Shakespeare, who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought,
+ and from whose day to this, there have been only gleaners of straw and
+ chaff&mdash;I would rather belong to that race that commenced a skull-less
+ vertebrate and produced Shakespeare, a race that has before it an infinite
+ future, with the angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning
+ men forward, upward and onward forever&mdash;I had rather belong to such a
+ race, commencing there, producing this, and with that hope, than to have
+ sprung from a perfect pair upon which the Lord has lost money every moment
+ from that day to this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkCONC" id="linkCONC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONCLUSION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I have given you my honest thought. Surely investigation is better than
+ unthinking faith. Surely reason is a better guide than fear. This world
+ should be controlled by the living, not by the dead. The grave is not a
+ throne, and a corpse is not a king. Man should not try to live on ashes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. More
+ than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,&mdash;about
+ another world, nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. The
+ makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every dogma that we have,
+ has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They believed in the
+ logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised thought. They
+ abhorred liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition is the child of slavery. Free thought will give us truth.
+ When all have the right to think and to express their thoughts, every
+ brain will give to all the best it has. The world will then be filled with
+ intellectual wealth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as men and women are afraid of the church, as long as a minister
+ inspires fear, as long as people reverence a thing simply because they do
+ not understand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your self-respect,
+ as long as the church has power, as long as mankind worship a book, just
+ so long will the world be filled with intellectual paupers and vagrants,
+ covered with the soiled and faded rags of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will
+ be the slave of man. The Bible was not written by a woman. Within its lids
+ there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. She is regarded as the
+ property of man. She is made to ask forgiveness for becoming a mother. She
+ is as much below her husband, as her husband is below Christ. She is not
+ allowed to speak. The gospel is too pure to be spoken by her polluted
+ lips. Woman should learn in silence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Bible will be found no description of a civilized home. The free
+ mother surrounded by free and loving children, adored by a free man, her
+ husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the Bible. They did not
+ believe in the democracy of home&mdash;in the republicanism of the
+ fireside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of children. They were
+ the advocates of brute force&mdash;the disciples of the lash. They knew
+ nothing of human rights. Their doctrines have brutalized the homes of
+ millions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book, from the slavery of dead
+ ignorance, from the aristocracy of the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and women. It
+ is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the chains are broken&mdash;until
+ dungeons are not regarded as temples. Wait until solemnity is not mistaken
+ for wisdom&mdash;until mental cowardice ceases to be known as reverence.
+ Wait until the living are considered the equals of the dead&mdash;until
+ the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until what we know can be
+ spoken without regard to what others may believe. Wait until teachers take
+ the place of preachers&mdash;until followers become investigators. Wait
+ until the world is free before you write a creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this creed there will be but one word&mdash;Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Oh Liberty, float not forever in the far horizon&mdash;remain not forever
+ in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet, but come and
+ make thy home among the children of men!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the
+ fields of thought; but I do know, that coming from 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, for woman, and for child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ To Plow is to Pray&mdash;to Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers
+ and Fulfills.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I AM not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one
+ of the hard-handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that I know
+ something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the
+ ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all wealth,
+ prosperity and luxury. I know that in a country where the tillers of the
+ fields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperous. Happy is
+ that country where those who cultivate the land own it. Patriotism is born
+ in the woods and fields&mdash;by lakes and streams&mdash;by crags and
+ plains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old way of farming was a great mistake. Everything was done the wrong
+ way. It was all work and waste, weariness and want. They used to fence a
+ hundred and sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs. Everything was left
+ to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance, accident and mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in wagons
+ and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They would bring home about
+ three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt,
+ and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking was an
+ unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. It was hard work for
+ the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the
+ snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no barns. The
+ horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. Long before spring
+ the sides would be eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. Food is
+ fuel. When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took
+ all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual
+ starvation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those times most farmers thought the best place for the pig-pen was
+ immediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The wood
+ pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log upon which an axe or two
+ had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with.
+ Pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the
+ house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. Everything was
+ done in the hardest way. Everything about the farm was disagreeable.
+ Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in the
+ sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no
+ feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and weariness and
+ vexation of spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they
+ were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by
+ the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or
+ carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or
+ dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or
+ they all run to vines, or tops, or straw, or smut, or cobs. And when in
+ spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between, the plow and the
+ reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was
+ offered, then the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good,
+ then the prices went down. Everything worked together for evil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he never would cultivate the
+ soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the
+ desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted
+ to be bookkeepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents,
+ lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm.
+ Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's&mdash;reading, writing, and
+ arithmetic&mdash;imagined that he had altogether more education than ought
+ to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into
+ some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went
+ away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went to the
+ cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. They wanted to
+ engage in something that promised quick returns. They built railways,
+ established banks and insurance companies. They speculated in stocks in
+ Wall Street, and gambled in grain at Chicago. They became rich. They lived
+ in palaces. They rode in carriages. They pitied their poor brothers on the
+ farms, and the poor brothers envied them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But time has brought its revenge. The farmers have seen the railroad
+ president a bankrupt, and the road in the hands of a receiver. They have
+ seen the bank president abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and
+ ruined fraud. The only solvent people, as a class, the only independent
+ people, are the tillers of the soil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farming must be made more attractive. The comforts of the town must be
+ added to the beauty of the fields. The sociability of the city must be
+ rendered possible in the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farming has been made repulsive. The farmers have been unsociable and
+ their homes have been lonely. They have been wasteful and careless. They
+ have not been proud of their business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, farming ought to be reasonably profitable. The farmers
+ have not attended to their own interests. They have been robbed and
+ plundered in a hundred ways.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. He should
+ sell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. He should make
+ every profit possible out of what he produces. So long as the farmers of
+ Illinois ship their corn and oats, so long they will be poor,&mdash;just
+ so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks
+ of the East,&mdash;just so long will they do the work and others reap the
+ benefit,&mdash;just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow
+ rich,&mdash;just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net
+ profits of honest toil. When the farmers of the West ship beef and pork
+ instead of grain,&mdash;when we manufacture here,&mdash;when we cease
+ paying tribute to others, ours will be the most prosperous country in the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing&mdash;It is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor breed of
+ cattle. Scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. If you are not able
+ to buy Durhams and Alderneys, you can raise the corn breed. By "corn
+ breed" I mean the cattle that have, for several generations, had enough to
+ eat, and have been treated with kindness. Every farmer who will treat his
+ cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a few years, have
+ blooded stock on his farm. All blooded stock has been produced in this
+ way. You can raise good cattle just as you can raise good people. If you
+ wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty to eat, and treat him
+ with kindness. In this way, and in this way only, can good cattle or good
+ people be produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing&mdash;You must beautify your homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, nor to plant
+ vines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When you visited the farm you were not welcomed by flowers, and greeted by
+ trees loaded with fruit. Yellow dogs came bounding over the tumbled fence
+ like wild beasts. There is no sense&mdash;there is no profit in such a
+ life. It is not living. The farmers ought to beautify their homes. There
+ should be trees and grass and flowers and running vines. Everything should
+ be kept in order&mdash;gates should be on their hinges, and about all
+ there should be the pleasant air of thrift. In every house there should be
+ a bath-room. The bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beautifier. When you
+ come from the fields tired, covered with dust, nothing is so refreshing.
+ Above all things, keep clean. It is not necessary to be a pig in order to
+ raise one. In the cool of the evening, after a day in the field, put on
+ clean clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the perfume of flowers,
+ surrounded by your family, and you will know what it is to enjoy life like
+ a gentleman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In no part of the globe will farming pay better than in Illinois. You are
+ in the best portion of the earth. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, there
+ is no such country as yours. The East is hard and stony; the soil is
+ stingy. The far West is a desert parched and barren, dreary and desolate
+ as perdition would be with the fires out. It is better to dig wheat and
+ corn from the soil than gold. Only a few days ago, I was where they wrench
+ the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks. When I saw the
+ mountains, treeless, shrub-less, flowerless, without even a spire of
+ grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect upon the country that
+ holds it, as upon the man who lives and labors only for that. It affects
+ the land as it does the man. It leaves the heart barren without a flower
+ of kindness&mdash;without a blossom of pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The farmer in Illinois has the best soil&mdash;the greatest return for the
+ least labor&mdash;more leisure&mdash;more time for enjoyment than any
+ other farmer in the world. His hard work ceases with autumn. He has the
+ long winters in which to become acquainted with his family&mdash;with his
+ neighbors&mdash;in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced
+ thought of his day. He has the time and means for self-culture. He has
+ more time than the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. If the
+ farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, and
+ every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of every science, and
+ an idea of all that has been accomplished by man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In many respects the farmer has the advantage of the mechanic. In our time
+ we have plenty of mechanics but no tradesmen. In the sub-division of labor
+ we have a thousand men working upon different parts of the same thing,
+ each taught in one particular branch, and in only one. We have, say, in a
+ shoe factory, hundreds of men, but not one shoemaker. It takes them all,
+ assisted by a great number of machines, to make a shoe. Each does a
+ particular part, and not one of them knows the entire trade. The result is
+ that the moment the factory shuts down these men are out of employment.
+ Out of employment means out of bread&mdash;out of bread means famine and
+ horror. The mechanic of to-day has but little independence. His prosperity
+ often depends upon the good will of one man. He is liable to be discharged
+ for a look, for a word. He lays by but little for his declining years. He
+ is, at the best, the slave of capital.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part of a
+ mechanic. It is better to till the ground and work for yourself than to be
+ hired by corporations. Every man should endeavor to belong to himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About seven hundred years ago, Khayyam, a Persian, said: "Why should a man
+ who possesses a piece of bread securing life for two days, and who has a
+ cup of water&mdash;why should such a man be commanded by another, and why
+ should such a man serve another?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Young men should not be satisfied with a salary. Do not mortgage the
+ possibilities of your future. Have the courage to take life as it comes,
+ feast or famine. Think of hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and
+ think of finding one for another man. How would you feel then?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the future, we take the
+ crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the present. I had a thousand
+ times rather have a farm and be independent, than to be President of the
+ United States without independence, filled with doubt and trembling,
+ feeling of the popular pulse, resorting to art and artifice, enquiring
+ about the wind of opinion, and succeeding at last in losing my
+ self-respect without gaining the respect of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man needs more manliness, more real independence. We must take care of
+ ourselves. This we can do by labor, and in this way we can preserve our
+ independence. We should try and choose that business or profession the
+ pursuit of which will give us the most happiness. Happiness is wealth. We
+ can be happy without being rich&mdash;without holding office&mdash;without
+ being famous. I am not sure that we can be happy with wealth, with office,
+ or with fame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old
+ age, that no other business or profession can promise. A professional man
+ is doomed sometime to feel that his powers are waning. He is doomed to see
+ younger and stronger men pass him in the race of life. He looks forward to
+ an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will be last where once he was
+ the first. But the farmer goes, as it were, into partnership with nature&mdash;he
+ lives with trees and flowers&mdash;he breathes the sweet air of the
+ fields. There is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. His
+ nights are filled with sleep and rest. He watches his flocks and herds as
+ they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. He hears the pleasant rain
+ falling upon the waving corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle
+ above him as he plants others for the children yet to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great question
+ asking for an answer is: What shall be done with these men? What shall
+ these men do? To this there is but one answer: They must cultivate the
+ soil. Farming must be rendered more attractive. Those who work the land
+ must have an honest pride in their business. They must educate their
+ children to cultivate the soil. They must make farming easier, so that
+ their children will not hate it&mdash;so that they will not hate it
+ themselves. The boys must not be taught that tilling the ground is a curse
+ and almost a disgrace. They must not suppose that education is thrown away
+ upon them unless they become ministers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, or
+ statesmen. It must be understood that education can be used to advantage
+ on a farm. We must get rid of the idea that a little learning unfits one
+ for work. There is no real conflict between Latin and labor. There are
+ hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges, who are
+ agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks, copyists, in
+ short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. They seem willing
+ to do anything that is not regarded as work&mdash;anything that can be
+ done in a town, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they
+ would a leprosy. Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply
+ ruined. Such an education ought to be called ignorance. It is a thousand
+ times better to have common sense without education, than education
+ without the sense. Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves.
+ They should be taught that it is disgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable
+ to be useless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must
+ be done to make farm life pleasant. One great difficulty is that the farm
+ is lonely. People write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are
+ found only in books. He who lives long alone becomes insane. A hermit is a
+ madman. Without friends and wife and child, there is nothing left worth
+ living for. The unsocial are the enemies of joy. They are filled with
+ egotism and envy, with vanity and hatred. People who live much alone
+ become narrow and suspicious. They are apt to be the property of one idea.
+ They begin to think there is no use in anything. They look upon the
+ happiness of others as a kind of folly. They hate joyous folks, because,
+ way down in their hearts, they envy them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our country, farm-life is too lonely. The farms are large, and
+ neighbors are too far apart. In these days, when the roads are filled with
+ "tramps," the wives and children need protection. When the farmer leaves
+ home and goes to some distant field to work, a shadow of fear is upon his
+ heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced to take his
+ family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the far wild forest, and
+ build his cabin miles and miles from any neighbor. He saw the smoke from
+ his hearth go up alone in all the wide and lonely sky.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of living so far
+ apart upon the lonely farms, you should live in villages. With the
+ improved machinery which you have&mdash;with your generous soil&mdash;with
+ your markets and means of transportation, you can now afford to live
+ together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to rise in the
+ middle of the night and begin his work. This getting up so early in the
+ morning is a relic of barbarism. It has made hundreds and thousands of
+ young men curse the business. There is no need of getting up at three or
+ four o'clock in the winter morning. The farmer who persists in doing it
+ and persists in dragging his wife and children from their beds ought to be
+ visited by a missionary. It is time enough to rise after the sun has set
+ the example. For what purpose do you get up? To feed the cattle? Why not
+ feed them more the night before? It is a waste of life. In the old times
+ they used to get up about three o'clock in the morning, and go to work
+ long before the sun had risen with "healing upon his wings," and as a just
+ punishment they all had the ague; and they ought to have it now. The man
+ who cannot get a living upon Illinois soil without rising before daylight
+ ought to starve. Eight hours a day is enough for any farmer to work except
+ in harvest time. When you rise at four and work till dark what is life
+ worth? Of what use are all the improvements in farming? Of what use is all
+ the improved machinery unless it tends to give the farmer a little more
+ leisure? What is harvesting now, compared with what it was in the old
+ time? Think of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and
+ mowing. Think of threshing with the flail and winnowing with the wind. And
+ now think of the reapers and mowers, the binders and threshing machines,
+ the plows and cultivators, upon which the farmer rides protected from the
+ sun. If, with all these advantages, you cannot get a living without rising
+ in the middle of the night, go into some other business. You should not
+ rob your families of sleep. Sleep is the best medicine in the world. It is
+ the best doctor upon the earth. There is no such thing as health without
+ plenty of sleep. Sleep until you are thoroughly rested and restored. When
+ you work, work; and when you get through take a good, long, and refreshing
+ rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You should live in villages, so that you can have the benefits of social
+ life. You can have a reading-room&mdash;you can take the best papers and
+ magazines&mdash;you can have plenty of books, and each one can have the
+ benefit of them all. Some of the young men and women can cultivate music.
+ You can have social gatherings&mdash;you can learn from each other&mdash;you
+ can discuss all topics of interest, and in this way you can make farming a
+ delightful business. You must keep up with the age. The way to make
+ farming respectable is for farmers to become really intelligent. They must
+ live intelligent and happy lives. They must know something of books and
+ something of what is going on in the world. They must not be satisfied
+ with knowing something of the affairs of a neighborhood and nothing about
+ the rest of the earth. The business must be made attractive, and it never
+ can be until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence and leisure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing&mdash;I am a believer in fashion. It is the duty of every
+ woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Handsome is as handsome does," but she is much handsomer if well dressed.
+ Every man should look his very best. I am a believer in good clothes. The
+ time never ought to come in this country when you can tell a farmer's wife
+ or daughter simply by the garments she wears. I say to every girl and
+ woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be, no matter how
+ cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. I believe in
+ jewelry. Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, wearing
+ jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of a wish to be
+ civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our nature, and this
+ desire seems to be everywhere and in everything. I have sometimes thought
+ that the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. It is this
+ desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and
+ gives the bird its plumage and its song. Oh daughters and wives, if you
+ would be loved, adorn yourselves&mdash;if you would be adored, be
+ beautiful!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another fault common with the farmers of our country&mdash;they
+ want too much land. You cannot, at present, when taxes are high, afford to
+ own land that you do not cultivate. Sell it and let others make farms and
+ homes. In this way what you keep will be enhanced in value. Farmers ought
+ to own the land they cultivate, and cultivate what they own. Renters can
+ hardly be called farmers. There can be no such thing in the highest sense
+ as a home unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant trees, to
+ beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. It elevates a man to own a
+ home. It gives a certain independence, a force of character that is
+ obtained in no other way. A man without a home feels like a passenger.
+ There is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Homes make patriots. He
+ who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children will defend it.
+ When he hears the word country pronounced, he thinks of his home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defence of a
+ boarding house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of our
+ people who are the owners of homes. Around the fireside cluster the
+ private and the public virtues of our race. Raise your sons to be
+ independent through labor&mdash;to pursue some business for themselves and
+ upon their own account&mdash;to be self-reliant&mdash;to act upon their
+ own responsibility, and to take the consequences like men. Teach them
+ above all things to be good, true and tender husbands&mdash;winners of
+ love and builders of homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great many farmers seem to think that they are the only laborers in the
+ world. This is a very foolish thing. Farmers cannot get along without the
+ mechanic. You are not independent of the man of genius. Your prosperity
+ depends upon the inventor. The world advances by the assistance of all
+ laborers; and all labor is under obligations to the inventions of genius.
+ The inventor does as much for agriculture as he who tills the soil. All
+ laboring men should be brothers. You are in partnership with the mechanics
+ who make your reapers, your mowers and your plows; and you should take
+ into your granges all the men who make their living by honest labor. The
+ laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against all
+ idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes: the laborers and the
+ idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest.
+ Every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no
+ matter if he occupies a throne. All laborers should be brothers. The
+ laborers should have equal rights before the world and before the law. And
+ I want every farmer to consider every man who labors either with hand or
+ brain as his brother. Until genius and labor formed a partnership there
+ was no such thing as prosperity among men. Every reaper and mower, every
+ agricultural implement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and his
+ vocation grows grander with every invention. In the olden time the
+ agriculturist was ignorant; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave
+ of superstition. He was always trying to appease some imaginary power by
+ fasting and prayer. He supposed that some being actuated by malice, sent
+ the untimely frost, or swept away with the wild wind his rude abode. To
+ him the seasons were mysteries. The thunder told him of an enraged god&mdash;the
+ barren fields of the vengeance of heaven. The tiller of the soil lived in
+ perpetual and abject fear. He knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of order,
+ nothing of law, nothing of cause and effect. He was a superstitious
+ savage. He invented prayers instead of plows, creeds instead of reapers
+ and mowers. He was unable to devote all his time to the gods, and so he
+ hired others to assist him, and for their influence with the gentlemen
+ supposed to control the weather, he gave one-tenth of all he could
+ produce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The farmer has been elevated through science and he should not forget the
+ debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. He should
+ remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family&mdash;that they
+ are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another idea entertained by most farmers is that they are in some
+ mysterious way oppressed by every other kind of business&mdash;that they
+ are devoured by monopolies, especially by railroads.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the railroads are indebted to the farmers for their prosperity,
+ and the farmers are indebted to the railroads. Without them Illinois would
+ be almost worthless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago you endeavored to regulate the charges of railroad
+ companies. The principal complaint you had was that they charged too much
+ for the transportation of corn and other cereals to the East. You should
+ remember that all freights are paid by the consumer; and that it made
+ little difference to you what the railroad charged for transportation to
+ the East, as that transportation had to be paid by the consumers of the
+ grain. You were really interested in transportation from the East to the
+ West and in local freights. The result is that while you have put down
+ through freights you have not succeeded so well in local freights. The
+ exact opposite should be the policy of Illinois. Put down local freights;
+ put them down, if you can, to the lowest possible figure, and let through
+ rates take care of themselves. If all the corn raised in Illinois could be
+ transported to New York absolutely free, it would enhance but little the
+ price that you would receive. What we want is the lowest possible local
+ rate. Instead of this you have simply succeeded in helping the East at the
+ expense of the West. The railroads are your friends. They are your
+ partners. They can prosper only where the country through which they run
+ prospers. All intelligent railroad men know this. They know that present
+ robbery is future bankruptcy. They know that the interest of the farmer
+ and of the railroad is the same. We must have railroads. What can we do
+ without them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we had no railroads, we drew, as I said before, our grain two hundred
+ miles to market.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days the farmers did not stop at hotels. They slept under their
+ wagons&mdash;took with them their food&mdash;fried their own bacon, made
+ their coffee, and ate their meals in the snow and rain. Those were the
+ days when they received ten cents a bushel for corn&mdash;when they sold
+ four bushels of potatoes for a quarter&mdash;thirty-three dozen eggs for a
+ dollar, and a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and a half.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has made the difference?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The railroads came to your door and they brought with them the markets of
+ the world. They brought New York and Liverpool and London into Illinois,
+ and the State has been clothed with prosperity as with a mantle. It is the
+ interest of the farmer to protect every great interest in the State. You
+ should feel proud that Illinois has more railroads than any other State in
+ this Union. Her main tracks and side tracks would furnish iron enough to
+ belt the globe. In Illinois there are ten thousand miles of railways. In
+ these iron highways more than three hundred million dollars have been
+ invested&mdash;a sum equal to ten times the original cost of all the land
+ in the State. To make war upon the railroads is a short-sighted and
+ suicidal policy. They should be treated fairly and should be taxed by the
+ same standard that farms are taxed, and in no other way. If we wish to
+ prosper we must act together, and we must see to it that every form of
+ labor is protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has been a long period of depression in all business. The farmers
+ have suffered least of all. Your land is just as rich and productive as
+ ever. Prices have been reasonable. The towns and cities have suffered.
+ Stocks and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. Princes have
+ become paupers, and bankers, merchants and millionaires have passed into
+ the oblivion of bankruptcy. The period of depression is slowly passing
+ away, and we are entering upon better times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great many people say that a scarcity of money is our only difficulty.
+ In my opinion we have money enough, but we lack confidence in each other
+ and in the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has been so much dishonesty, there have been so many failures, that
+ the people are afraid to trust anybody. There is plenty of money, but
+ there seems to be a scarcity of business. If you were to go to the owner
+ of a ferry, and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the shore,
+ should say, "There is a superabundance of ferryboat," he would probably
+ reply, "No, but there is a scarcity of water." So with us there is not a
+ scarcity of money, but there is a scarcity of business. And this scarcity
+ springs from lack of confidence in one another. So many presidents of
+ savings banks, even those belonging to the Young Men's Christian
+ Association, run off with the funds; so many railroad and insurance
+ companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on
+ every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear.
+ Slowly, but surely we are coming back to honest methods in business.
+ Confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the safe and money
+ will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave their hiding
+ places and every one will be seeking investment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I do not ask any interference on the part of the Government
+ except to undo the wrong it has done. I do not ask that money be made out
+ of nothing. I do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. But I do ask
+ for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud. It was
+ an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in
+ the United States. It assassinated labor. It was done in the interest of
+ avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard
+ and advance the interests of labor. We should know better than to vote for
+ men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon
+ Canada lumber, when every farmer in Illinois is a purchaser of lumber.
+ People who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. We
+ should protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence enough to know
+ what we want and how to get it. The real laboring men of this country can
+ succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not mean only the
+ farmers. I mean all who contribute in some way to the general welfare.
+ They should forget prejudices and party names, and remember only the best
+ interests of the people. Let us see if we cannot, in Illinois, protect
+ every department of industry. Let us see if all property cannot be
+ protected alike and taxed alike, whether owned by individuals or
+ corporations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where industry creates and justice protects, prosperity dwells.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you something more about Illinois. We have fifty-six thousand
+ square miles of land&mdash;nearly thirty-six million acres. Upon these
+ plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty million people.
+ Beneath these prairies were hidden millions of ages ago, by that old
+ miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. The aggregate
+ thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. Think of a column of
+ coal one mile square and one hundred miles high! All this came from the
+ sun. What a sunbeam such a column would be! Think of the engines and
+ machines this coal will run and turn and whirl! Think of all this force,
+ willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world! Think of the
+ firesides of the future around which will sit the fathers, mothers and
+ children of the years to be! Think of the sweet and happy faces, the
+ loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred light of all
+ these flames!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have the best country in the world, and Illinois is the best State in
+ that country. Is there any reason that our farmers should not be
+ prosperous and happy men? They have every advantage, and within their
+ reach are all the comforts and conveniences of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not get the land fever and think you must buy all that joins you. Get
+ out of debt as soon as you possibly can. A mortgage casts a shadow on the
+ sunniest field. There is no business under the sun that can pay ten per
+ cent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ainsworth R. Spofford gives the following facts about interest: "One
+ dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest
+ collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three
+ hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand
+ two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to
+ nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen
+ thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as
+ much. At twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and
+ seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At
+ eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and
+ forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per cent, (which we
+ sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion five
+ hundred and fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand four
+ hundred and four dollars."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred
+ years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows.
+ The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it
+ gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as
+ soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy
+ long enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Above all let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite
+ kindness. Give your sons and daughters every advantage within your power.
+ In the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers. They will
+ fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy. Do not try to
+ rule by force. A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul. I should
+ feel ashamed to die surrounded by children I had whipped. Think of feeling
+ upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had struck.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ See to it that your wife has every convenience. Make her life worth
+ living. Never allow her to become a servant. Wives, weary and worn,
+ mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief and
+ shame. If you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them
+ yourselves. See that they have the best utensils to work with.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Women cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of wood and coal&mdash;good
+ cellars and plenty in them. Have cisterns, so that you can have plenty of
+ rain water for washing. Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When the rain
+ comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the barrel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and sell
+ the rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with. Of all
+ people in our country, you should live the best. Throw your miserable
+ little stoves out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built that
+ your wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. Do not make
+ her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. The beef, not the
+ cook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have things convenient and
+ right as to have them any other way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cooking is one of the fine arts. Give your wives and daughters things to
+ cook, and things to cook with, and they will soon become most excellent
+ cooks. Good cooking is the basis of civilization. The man whose arteries
+ and veins are filled with rich blood made of good and well cooked food,
+ has pluck, courage, endurance and and noble impulses. The inventor of a
+ good soup did more for his race than the maker of any creed. The doctrines
+ of total depravity and endless punishment were born of bad cooking and
+ dyspepsia. Remember that your wife should have the things to cook with.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the good old days there would be eleven children in the family and only
+ one skillet. Everything was broken or cracked or loaned or lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable by imprisonment, to
+ fry beefsteak. Broil it; it is just as easy, and when broiled it is
+ delicious. Fried beefsteak is not fit for a wild beast. You can broil even
+ on a stove. Shut the front damper&mdash;open the back one&mdash;then take
+ off a griddle. There will then be a draft downwards through this opening.
+ Put on your steak, using a wire broiler, and not a particle of smoke will
+ touch it, for the reason that the smoke goes down. If you try to broil it
+ with the front damper open, the smoke will rise. For broiling, coal, even
+ soft coal, makes a better fire than wood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the year
+ round. There is certainly no sense in stuffing yourself full of salt meat
+ every morning, and making a well or a cistern of your stomach for the rest
+ of the day. Every farmer should have an ice house. Upon or near every farm
+ is some stream from which plenty of ice can be obtained, and the long
+ summer days made delightful. Dr. Draper, one of the world's greatest
+ scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and that it has done away with
+ many of the low forms of fever in the great cities. Ice has become one of
+ the necessaries of civilized life, and without it there is very little
+ comfort.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm and comfortable for the
+ winter. Do not build a story-and-a-half house. The half story is simply an
+ oven in which, during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel in
+ the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. The cheapest
+ are far better than none. Have books&mdash;have papers, and read them. You
+ have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify your grounds with
+ plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens. Remember that everything
+ of beauty tends to the elevation of man. Every little morning-glory whose
+ purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put
+ a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the value of everything by the
+ market reports. Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of
+ somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a little room
+ around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. Do not live in
+ this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies, put a
+ piece in the papers commencing with, "Whereas, it has pleased divine
+ Providence to remove from our midst&mdash;." Have plenty of air, and
+ plenty of warmth. Comfort is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy
+ simply because it is pleasant. That is an old and foolish idea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the darkness
+ of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome, irksome
+ and dreadful with cultivating the soil. In this way you bring farming into
+ hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with infinite kindness&mdash;treat
+ them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not filled with love.
+ Where the husband hates his wife&mdash;where the wife hates the husband;
+ where children hate their parents and each other&mdash;there is a hell
+ upon earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most
+ cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men
+ cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with
+ daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness
+ of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the
+ dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. To work for others is,
+ in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. Selfishness
+ is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. In the realm
+ of speculation, every success has at least one victim. The harvest reaped
+ by the farmer benefits all and injures none. For him to succeed, it is not
+ necessary that some one should fail. The same is true of all producers&mdash;of
+ all laborers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy as
+ that of the farmer in the early winter. He has his cellar filled&mdash;he
+ has made every preparation for the days of snow and storm&mdash;he looks
+ forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of
+ fireside-content; three months with wife and children; three months of
+ long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid
+ comfort.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the life of the farmer is such as I have described, the cities and
+ towns will not be filled with want&mdash;the streets will not be crowded
+ with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. The fields
+ will be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees and vines and
+ flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nestle in every
+ vale and gleam like gems on every plain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea must be done away with that there is something intellectually
+ degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing can be nobler than to be
+ useful. Idleness should not be respectable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If farmers will cultivate well, and without waste; if they will so build
+ that their houses will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if they will
+ plant trees and beautify their homes; if they will occupy their leisure in
+ reading, in thinking, in improving their minds and in devising ways and
+ means to make their business profitable and pleasant; if they will live
+ nearer together and cultivate sociability; if they will come together
+ often; if they will have reading rooms and cultivate music; if they will
+ have bath-rooms, ice-houses and good gardens; if their wives can have an
+ easy time; if their sons and daughters can have an opportunity to keep in
+ line with the thoughts and discoveries of the world; if the nights can be
+ taken for sleep and the evenings for enjoyment, everybody will be in love
+ with the fields. Happiness should be the object of life, and if life on
+ the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with
+ the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. Around the farm will
+ cling and cluster the happy memories of the delighful years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor&mdash;that
+ you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that
+ all who work belong to the same noble family.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his
+ boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives
+ where his father lived and died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0014" id="link0014">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkPREF" id="linkPREF">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ If what is known as the Christian Religion is true, nothing can be more
+ wonderful than the fact that Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about
+ "salvation by faith;" that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the
+ atonement, and are as silent as empty tombs as to the necessity of
+ believing anything to secure happiness in this world or another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a good many years it has been claimed that the writers of these
+ gospels knew something about the teachings of Christ, and had, at least, a
+ general knowledge of the conditions of salvation. It now seems to be
+ substantiated that the early Christians did not place implicit confidence
+ in the gospels, and did not hesitate to make such changes and additions as
+ they thought proper. Such changes and additions are about the only
+ passages in the New Testament that the Evangelical Churches now consider
+ sacred. That portion of the last chapter of Mark, in which unbelievers are
+ so cheerfully and promptly damned, has been shown to be an interpolation,
+ and it is asserted that in the revised edition of the New Testament, soon
+ to be issued, the infamous passages will not appear. With these expunged,
+ there is not one word in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, even tending to show that
+ belief in Christ has, or can have, any effect upon the destiny of the
+ soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The four gospels are the four corner-stones upon which rests the fabric of
+ orthodox Christianity. Three of these stones have crumbled, and the fourth
+ is not likely to outlast this generation. The gospel of John cannot alone
+ uphold the infinite absurdity of vicarious virtue and vice, and it cannot,
+ without the aid of "interpolation," sustain the illogical and immoral
+ dogma of salvation by faith. These frightful doctrines must be abandoned;
+ the miraculous must be given up, the wonderful stories must be expunged,
+ and from the creed of noble deeds the forgeries of superstition must be
+ blotted out. From the temple of Morality and Truth&mdash;from the great
+ windows towards the sun&mdash;the parasitic and poisonous vines of faith
+ and fable must be torn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church will be compelled at last to rest its case, not upon the
+ wonders Christ is said to have performed, but upon the system of morality
+ he taught. All the miracles, including the resurrection and ascension,
+ are, when compared with portions of the "Sermon on the Mount," but dust
+ and darkness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The careful reader of the New Testament will find three Christs described:&mdash;One
+ who wished to preserve Judaism&mdash;one who wished to reform it, and one
+ who built a system of his own. The apostles and their disciples, utterly
+ unable to comprehend a religion that did away with sacrifices, churches,
+ priests, and creeds, constructed a Christianity for themselves, so that
+ the orthodox churches of to-day rest&mdash;first, upon what Christ
+ endeavored to destroy&mdash;second, upon what he never said, and, third,
+ upon a misunderstanding of what he did say.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a certain belief is necessary to insure the salvation of the soul, the
+ church ought to explain, and without any unnecessary delay, why such an
+ infinitely important fact was utterly ignored by Matthew, Mark and Luke.
+ There are only two explanations possible. Either belief is unnecessary, or
+ the writers of these three gospels did not understand the Christian
+ system. The "sacredness" of the subject cannot longer hide the absurdity
+ of the "scheme of salvation," nor the failure of Matthew, Mark and Luke to
+ mention, what is now claimed to have been, the entire mission of Christ.
+ The church must take from the New Testament the supernatural'; the idea
+ that an intellectual conviction can subject an honest man to eternal pain&mdash;the
+ awful doctrine that the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, and
+ allow the remainder to be discussed, denied or believed without punishment
+ and without reward. No one will object to the preaching of kindness,
+ honesty and justice. To preach less is a crime, and to practice more is
+ impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing that ought to be again impressed upon the average
+ theologian, and that is the utter futility of trying to answer arguments
+ with personal abuse. It should be understood once for all that these
+ questions are in no sense personal. If it should turn out that all the
+ professed Christians in the world are sinless saints, the question of how
+ Matthew, Mark, and Luke, came to say nothing about the atonement and the
+ scheme of salvation by faith, would still be asked. And if it should then
+ be shown that all the doubters, deists, and atheists, are vile and vicious
+ wretches, the question still would wait for a reply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The origin of all religions, creeds, and sacred books, is substantially
+ the same, and the history of one, is, in the main, the history of all.
+ Thus far these religions have been the mistaken explanations of our
+ surroundings. The appearances of nature have imposed upon the ignorance
+ and fear of man. But back of all honest creeds was, and is, the desire to
+ know, to understand, and to explain, and that desire will, as I most
+ fervently hope and earnestly believe, be gratified at last by the
+ discovery of the truth. Until then, let us bear with the theories, hopes,
+ dreams, mistakes, and honest thoughts of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C.,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ October, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "THE NUREMBERG MAN WAS OPERATED BY A COMBINATION OF PIPES AND LEVERS, AND
+ THOUGH HE COULD BREATHE AND DIGEST PERFECTLY, AND EVEN REASON AS WELL AS
+ MOST THEOLOGIANS, WAS MADE OF NOTHING BUT WOOD AND LEATHER."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE whole world has been filled with fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorance has been the refuge of the soul. For thousands of years the
+ intellectual ocean was ravaged by the buccaneers of reason. Pious souls
+ clung to the shore and looked at the lighthouse. The seas were filled with
+ monsters and the islands with sirens. The people were driven in the middle
+ of a narrow road while priests went before, beating the hedges on either
+ side to frighten the robbers from their lairs. The poor followers seeing
+ no robbers, thanked their brave leaders with all their hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0016" id="link0016">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ I. WHAT WE MUST DO TO BE SAVED
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ Huddled in folds they listened with wide eyes while the shepherds told of
+ ravening wolves. With great gladness they exchanged their fleeces for
+ security. Shorn and shivering, they had the happiness of seeing their
+ protectors comfortable and warm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through all the years, those who plowed divided with those who prayed.
+ Wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral,
+ and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear is the dungeon of the mind, and superstition is a dagger with which
+ hypocrisy assassinates the soul. Courage is liberty. I am in favor of
+ absolute freedom of thought. In the realm of mind every one is 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 depend upon reason and upon
+ persuasion, and only those are traitors who resort to brute force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 not imagine that
+ there is any being who would give to his children the holy torch of
+ reason, and then damn them for following that sacred light. Let us have
+ courage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Priests have invented a crime called "blasphemy," and behind 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!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You need not fear the anger of a god that you cannot injure. Rather fear
+ to injure your fellow-men. Do not be afraid of a crime you can not commit.
+ Rather be afraid of the one that you may commit. The reason that you
+ cannot injure God is that the Infinite is conditionless. You cannot
+ increase or diminish the happiness of any being without changing that
+ being's condition. If God is conditionless, you can neither injure nor
+ benefit him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 an
+ 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, that
+ he was the eternal 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, and his conscience felt the blood of shame in
+ its cheek. 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:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My God, did you ever hear such a fuss about a little piece of bacon?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as we harbor such opinions of infinity; as long as we imagine the
+ heavens to be filled with such tyranny, just so long the sons of men will
+ be cringing, intellectual cowards. Let us think, and let us honestly
+ express our thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 vast 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 intellectual 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 the right to think? And I
+ think I have for two reasons: First, I cannot help it. And secondly, I
+ like it. The whole question is right at a point. If I have not a right to
+ express my thoughts, who has?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh," they say, "we will allow you to think, we will not burn you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "All right; why won't you burn me?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Because we think a decent man will allow others to think and to express
+ his thought."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is that you
+ believe it would be infamous in you?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And yet you worship a God who will, as you declare, punish me forever?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely an infinite God ought to be as just as man. Surely no God can have
+ the right to punish his children for being honest. He should not reward
+ hypocrisy with heaven, and punish candor with eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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? For one,
+ I am convinced, not only that I have the right to think, but that it is my
+ duty to express my honest thoughts. Whatever the gods may say we must be
+ true to ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have got what they call the Christian system of religion, and thousands
+ of people wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack that system.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 what they call the Christian
+ religion, and I find, just in proportion that nations have been religious,
+ just in the proportion they have clung to the religion of their founders,
+ 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&mdash;France.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so I say there can be no danger in the exercise of absolute
+ intellectual freedom. I find among ourselves the men who think are at
+ least as good as those who do not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 do not know. Who does know? Nobody. We have found many manuscripts
+ containing portions of the New Testament. Some of these manuscripts leave
+ out five or six books&mdash;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, so far as we know, knew
+ only Hebrew. Nobody ever saw so far as we know, one of the original Hebrew
+ manuscripts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nobody ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that
+ had ever seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original Hebrew
+ manuscripts. No doubt the clergy of your city have told you these facts
+ thousands of times, and they will be obliged to me for having repeated
+ them once more. These manuscripts are written in what are called capital
+ Greek letters. They are called Uncial manuscripts, and the New Testament
+ was not divided into chapters and verses, even, until the year of grace
+ 1551. In the original the manuscripts and gospels are signed by nobody.
+ 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 were written, and by whom they were written, are simply
+ interpolations, and everybody who has studied the subject knows it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 can not tell whether I really believe the New Testament or
+ not until I see that new translation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must remember, also, one other thing. Christ never wrote a solitary
+ word of the New Testament&mdash;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, do not forget to put that down. Luke, be sure that in
+ your gospel you have this. John, do not forget it." Not one word. And 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. Is it not wonderful that not one word
+ was written by Christ? Is it not strange that he gave no orders to have
+ his words preserved&mdash;words upon which hung the salvation of a world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why was nothing written? I will tell you. In my judgment they expected the
+ end of the world in a few days. That generation 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 earth. 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, as it now is, was not written
+ for hundreds of years after the apostles were dust. Many of the pretended
+ facts lived in the open mouth of credulity. They were in the wastebaskets
+ of forgetfulness. They depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for
+ centuries these doctrines and stories were blown about by the inconstant
+ winds. And when reduced to writing, some gentleman would write by the side
+ of the passage his idea of it, and the next copyist would put that in as a
+ part of the text. And, when it was mostly written, and the church got into
+ trouble, and wanted a passage to help 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 I get through.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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, that to that great and
+ serene man I gladly pay, I gladly pay, the tribute of my admiration 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 and manhood out
+ of the human mind. Had I lived at that time I would have been his friend,
+ and should he come again he will not find a better friend than I will be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is for the man. 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 called death was but the eternal opening of
+ the golden gates of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to face a
+ death that was eternal life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But when a man, when a poor boy sixteen years 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. For the man who, in the darkness, said: "My
+ God, why hast thou forsaken me?"&mdash;for that man I have nothing but
+ respect, admiration, and love. Back of the theological shreds, rags, and
+ patches, hiding the real Christ, I see a genuine man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years the world has been asking that question:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What must we do to be saved?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Saved from poverty? No. Saved from crime? No. Tyranny? No. But "What must
+ we do to be saved from the eternal wrath of the God who made us all?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God made us, he will not destroy us. Infinite wisdom never made a poor
+ investment. Upon all the works of an infinite God, a dividend must finally
+ be declared. Why should God make failures? Why should he waste material?
+ Why should he not correct his mistakes, instead of damning them? The
+ pulpit has cast a shadow over even the cradle. The doctrine of endless
+ punishment has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. I despise it,
+ and I defy it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 gospels,
+ Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and found that the church had been
+ deceiving me. I found that the clergy did not understand their own book;
+ that they had been building upon passages that had been interpolated; upon
+ passages that were entirely untrue, and I will tell you why I think so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0017" id="link0017">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ II. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ ACCORDING to the church, the first gospel was written by Matthew. As a
+ matter of fact he never wrote a word of it&mdash;never saw it, never heard
+ of it and probably never will. But for the purposes of this lecture I
+ admit that he wrote years; that he was his constant companion; that he
+ shared his sorrows and his triumphs; that he heard his words by the lonely
+ lakes, the barren hills, in synagogue and street, and that he knew his
+ heart and became acquainted with his thoughts and aims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us see what Matthew says we must do in order to be saved. And I
+ take it that, if this is true, Matthew is as good authority as any
+ minister in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will admit that he was with Christ for three years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
+ Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the
+ peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are
+ they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the
+ kingdom of heaven." Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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, almost as applicable to-day as it
+ was then: "For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed
+ the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter
+ into the kingdom of heaven." Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the sixth chapter I find the following, and it comes directly after the
+ prayer known as the Lord's prayer:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also
+ forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
+ father forgive your trespasses."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I accept the condition. There is an offer; I accept it. If you will
+ forgive men that trespass against you, God will forgive your trespasses
+ against him. I accept the terms, and I never will ask any God to treat me
+ 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, or be baptized, or join the
+ church, or keep Sunday; that you must count beads, or pray, or become a
+ nun, or a priest; that you must preach sermons or hear them, build
+ churches or fill them. Not one word is said about eating or fasting,
+ denying or believing. It simply says, if you forgive others God will
+ forgive you; and it must of necessity be true. No god could afford to damn
+ a forgiving man. Suppose God should damn to everlasting fire a man so
+ great and good, that he, looking from the abyss of hell, would forgive
+ God,&mdash;how would a god feel then?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let me make myself plain upon one subject, 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 hate Catholicism, and like Catholics. I hate
+ insanity but not the insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not war against men. I do not war against persons. I war against
+ certain doctrines that I believe to be wrong. But I give to every other
+ human being every right that I claim for myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing that I find is in the seventh chapter and the second verse:
+ "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what
+ measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Good! That suits me!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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? No. To the manner in which he was baptized? No. According to his
+ creed? No. Then he shall reward every man according to his works." Good! I
+ subscribe to that doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in the eighteenth chapter: "And Jesus called a little child to him and
+ stood him in the midst; and said, 'Verily I say unto you, except ye be
+ converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the
+ kingdom of heaven.'" I do not wonder that in his day, surrounded by
+ scribes and Pharisees, he turned lovingly to little children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, see what children the little children of God have been. What an
+ interesting dimpled darling John Calvin was. Think of that prattling babe,
+ 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. They were the children of faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I 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 callest thou me good? There is none good
+ but one, that is God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the
+ commandments.' He saith unto him, 'which?'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is a 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 said to
+ him: Keep the commandments. And the child said to the Almighty: "Which?"
+ Now, if there ever has been an opportunity given to the Almighty to
+ furnish a man of 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not say to him: "You must believe in me&mdash;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 must believe the Bible." He did not say: "You must
+ remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." He simply 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 mistaken, said unto him: "All these things have I kept from my
+ youth up."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What right has the church to add conditions of salvation? Why should we
+ suppose that Christ failed to tell the young man all that was necessary
+ for him to do? Is it possible that he left out some important thing simply
+ to mislead? Will some minister tell us why he thinks that Christ kept back
+ the "scheme"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now comes an interpolation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the old times when the church got a little scarce of money, they always
+ put in a passage praising poverty. So they had this 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 to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
+ heaven."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for
+ cash down. And when the next verse was written the church must have been
+ nearly bankrupt. "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?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then comes another verse, which I believe is an interpolation: "And
+ everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or
+ mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive
+ an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ never said it. Never. "Whosoever shall forsake father and mother."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 over the page and he says again: "If you will desert
+ your father and mother you shall have everlasting life." It will not do.
+ If you will desert your wife and your little children, or your lands&mdash;the
+ idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will
+ tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her
+ life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you
+ love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God
+ you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness 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 important 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 the sweet babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when people believed the infamy commanded in this
+ frightful passage. There was a time when they did desert fathers and
+ mothers and wives and children. St. Augustine says to the devotee: Fly to
+ the 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 ones I love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another condition of salvation. I find it in the twenty-fifth
+ 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 an hungered and ye gave me meat; I was
+ thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked
+ and ye clothed me; I was sick and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye
+ came unto me." Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 leave in the eternal nakedness of pain the man who has clothed his
+ fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance, here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave sailor who
+ 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 that there is any God who will push the lifeboat
+ 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 forgiving? I deny it; and from the aspersions of the
+ pulpit I seek to rescue the reputation of the Deity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I have read you substantially everything in Matthew on the subject of
+ salvation. That is all there is. Not 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, persecution never would have
+ shed one drop of blood. Not one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 did not
+ believe it, or he never heard of it. You can take your choice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Matthew, we find that heaven is promised, first, to the poor in spirit.
+ Second, to the merciful. Third, to the pure in heart. Fourth, to the
+ peacemakers. Fifth, to those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
+ Sixth, to those who keep and teach the commandments. Seventh, to those who
+ forgive men that trespass against them. Eighth, that we will be judged as
+ we judge others. Ninth, that they who receive prophets and righteous men
+ shall receive a prophet's reward. Tenth, to those who do the will of God.
+ Eleventh, that every man shall be rewarded according to his works.
+ Twelfth, to those who become as little children. Thirteenth, to those who
+ forgive the trespasses of others. Fourteenth, to the perfect: they who
+ sell all that they have and give to the poor. Fifteenth, to them who
+ forsake houses, and brethren, and sisters, and father, and mother, and
+ wife, and children, and lands for the sake of Christ's name. Sixteenth, to
+ those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter to the
+ stranger, clothes to the naked, comfort to the sick, and who visit the
+ prisoner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing else is said with regard to salvation in the gospel according to
+ St. Matthew. Not one word about believing the Old Testament to have been
+ inspired; not one word about being baptized or joining a church; not one
+ word about believing in any miracle; not even a hint that it was necessary
+ to believe that Christ was the son of God, or that he did any wonderful or
+ miraculous things, or that he was born of a virgin, or that his coming had
+ been foretold by the Jewish prophets. Not one word about believing in the
+ Trinity, or in foreordination or predestination. Matthew had not
+ understood from Christ that any such things were necessary to ensure the
+ salvation of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the testimony, Matthew had been in the company of Christ,
+ some say three years and some say one, but at least he had been with him
+ long enough to find out some of his ideas upon this great subject. And yet
+ Matthew never got the impression that it was necessary to believe
+ something in order to get to heaven. He supposed that if a man forgave
+ others God would forgive him; he believed that God would show mercy to the
+ merciful; that he would not allow those who fed the hungry to starve; that
+ he would not put in the flames of hell those who had given cold water to
+ the thirsty; that he would not cast into the eternal dungeon of his wrath
+ those who had visited the imprisoned; and that he would not damn men who
+ forgave others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew had it in his mind that God would treat us very much as we treated
+ other people; and that in the next world he would treat with kindness
+ those who had been loving and gentle in their lives. It may be the apostle
+ was mistaken; but evidently that was his opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0018" id="link0018">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ III. THE GOSPEL OF MARK
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ ET us now see what Mark thought it necessary for a man to do to save his
+ soul. In the fourth chapter, after Jesus had given to the multitude by the
+ sea the parable of the sower, his disciples, when they were again alone,
+ asked him the meaning of the parable. Jesus replied:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto
+ them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That seeing, they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear,
+ and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their
+ sins should be forgiven them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a little hard to understand why he should have preached to people
+ that he did not intend should know his meaning. Neither is it quite clear
+ why he objected to their being converted. This, I suppose, is one of the
+ mysteries that we should simply believe without endeavoring to comprehend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With the above exception, and one other that I will mention hereafter,
+ Mark substantially agrees with Matthew, and says that God will be merciful
+ to the merciful, that he will be kind to the kind, that he will pity the
+ pitying, and love the loving. Mark upholds the religion of Matthew until
+ we come to the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the sixteenth 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 universal power. Let
+ me read it to you. It is the most infamous passage in the Bible. Christ
+ never said it. No sensible man ever said it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And He said unto them" (that is, unto his disciples), "go ye into all the
+ world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is
+ baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That passage was written so that fear would give alms to hypocrisy. Now, I
+ propose to prove to you that this is an interpolation. 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 Mark, until I come to that
+ verse, and where is that said to have been spoken? According to Mark, it
+ is a part of the last conversation of Jesus Christ,&mdash;just before,
+ according to the account, he ascended bodily before their eyes. If there
+ ever was any important thing happened in this world that was it. If there
+ is any conversation that people would be apt to recollect, it would be the
+ last conversation with a god before he rose visibly through the air and
+ seated himself upon the throne of the infinite. We have in this Testament
+ five accounts of the last conversation happening between Jesus Christ and
+ his apostles. Matthew gives it, and yet Matthew does not state that in
+ that conversation Christ said: "Whoso believeth and is baptized shall be
+ saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned." And if he did say those
+ words they were the most important that ever fell from lips. Matthew did
+ not hear it, or did not believe it, or forgot it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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. Luke does
+ not pretend that Christ said that whoso believeth not shall be damned.
+ Luke certainly did not hear it. May be he forgot it. Perhaps he did not
+ think that it was worth recording. Now, it is the most important thing, if
+ Christ said it, that he ever said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I turn to John, and he gives an account of the last conversation, but
+ not one solitary word on the subject of belief or unbelief. Not one
+ solitary word on the subject of damnation. Not one. John might not have
+ been listening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I turn to the first chapter of the Acts, and there I find an account
+ of the last conversation; and in that conversation there is not one word
+ upon this subject. This is a demonstration that the passage in Mark is an
+ interpolation. What other reason have I got? There is not one particle of
+ sense in it. Why? No 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 can not believe as you wish.
+ You must believe as you must. And he might as well have said: "Go into the
+ world and preach the gospel, and whosoever has red hair shall be saved,
+ and whosoever hath not shall be damned."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I 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&mdash;two
+ more. Now hear:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And these signs shall follow them that believe." Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
+ 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bring on your believer! Let him cast out a devil. I do not ask for a large
+ one. Just a little one for a cent. Let him take up serpents. "And if they
+ drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them." Let me mix up a dose for
+ the believer, and if it does not hurt him I will join a church. "Oh! but,"
+ they say, "those things only lasted through the Apostolic age." Let us
+ see. "Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever believes
+ and is baptized shall be saved, and these signs shall follow them that
+ believe."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How long? I think at least until they had gone into all the world.
+ Certainly those 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 was unknown, and that he would be dead fourteen
+ hundred and fifty-nine years before his disciples would know that there
+ was another continent. And yet he said, "Go into all the world and preach
+ the gospel," and he knew then that it would be fourteen hundred and
+ fifty-nine years before anybody could go. 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. And the very reason that signs
+ should follow would be to convince 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This frightful declaration, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be
+ saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned," has filled the world
+ with agony and crime. Every letter of this passage has been sword and
+ fagot; every word has been dungeon and chain. That passage made the sword
+ of persecution drip with innocent blood through centuries of agony and
+ crime. That passage made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the
+ fagot's flames. That passage contradicts the Sermon on the Mount;
+ travesties the Lord's prayer; turns the splendid religion of deed and duty
+ into the superstition of creed and cruelty. I deny it. It is infamous!
+ Christ never said it!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0019" id="link0019">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IV. THE GOSPEL OF LUKE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IT is sufficient to say that Luke agrees substantially with Matthew and
+ Mark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be
+ condemned: forgive and ye shall be forgiven." Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Give and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and
+ shaken together, and running over." Good! I like it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to
+ you again."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He agrees substantially with Mark; he agrees substantially with Matthew;
+ and I come at last to the nineteenth chapter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord, 'Behold, Lord, the 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 Jesus said unto him, 'this
+ day is salvation come to this house.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is good doctrine. He did not ask Zaccheus what he believed. He did
+ not ask him, "Do you believe in the Bible? Do you believe in the five
+ points? Have you ever been baptized&mdash;sprinkled? Or immersed?" "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!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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. He
+ forgave his murderers. He forgave the men who drove the nails in his
+ hands, in his feet, that plunged a spear in his side; the soldier that in
+ the hour of death offered him in mockery the bitterness to drink. He
+ forgave them all freely, and yet, although he would forgive them, he will
+ in the nineteenth century, as we are told by the orthodox church, damn to
+ eternal fire a noble man for the expression of his honest thoughts. That
+ will not 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 railed upon him, but one of the thieves looked and pitied Christ,
+ and Christ said to that thief:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Why did he say that? Because
+ the thief pitied him. God can not afford to trample beneath the feet of
+ his infinite wrath the smallest blossom of pity that ever shed its perfume
+ in the human heart!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who was this thief? To what church did he belong? I do not know. The fact
+ that he was a thief throws no light on that question. Who was he? What did
+ he believe? I do not know. Did he believe in the Old Testament? In the
+ miracles? I do not know. Did he believe that Christ was God? I do not
+ know. Why then was the promise made to him that he should meet Christ in
+ Paradise? Simply because he pitied suffering innocence upon the cross.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God can not afford to damn any man who is capable of pitying anybody.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0020" id="link0020">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ V. THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ AND now we come to John, and that is where the trouble commences.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we come to John, and here is another doctrine. And allow me to say
+ that John was not written until long after the others. John was mostly
+ written by the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Jesus answered and said unto him: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except
+ a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he not tell Matthew that? Why did he not tell Luke that? Why did
+ he not tell Mark that? They never heard of it, or forgot it, or they did
+ not believe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into
+ the kingdom of God." Why?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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 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 added, that which is born of
+ water is water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Marvel not that I said unto thee, 'ye must be born again.'" And then the
+ reason is given, and I admit I did not understand it myself until I read
+ the reason, and when you hear 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, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and
+ whither it goeth." So, I find in the book of John the idea of the Real
+ Presence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
+ Son of man be lifted up; That whosoever believeth in him should not
+ perish, but have eternal life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
+ whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
+ the world through him might be saved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is
+ condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
+ begotten Son of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth
+ not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."
+ "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on
+ him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
+ condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the
+ dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall
+ live."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of
+ life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
+ damnation."-"And this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which
+ seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will
+ raise him up at the last day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him;
+ and I will raise him up at the last day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting
+ life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I am that bread of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat
+ thereof, and not die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this
+ bread he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh,
+ which I will give for the life of the world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat
+ the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I
+ will raise him up at the last day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that
+ eateth me, even he shall live by me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This is that bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers did
+ eat manna, and are dead; he that eateth of this bread shall live forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me,
+ except it were given unto him of my Father."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that
+ believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in
+ this world, shall keep it unto life eternal."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I find in the book of John, that in order to be saved we must not only
+ believe in Jesus Christ, but we must eat the flesh and we must drink the
+ blood of Jesus Christ. If that gospel is true, the Catholic Church is
+ right. But it is not true. I can not believe it, and yet for all that, it
+ may be true. But I do not believe it. Neither do I believe there is any
+ god in the universe who will damn a man simply for expressing his belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true, and
+ you should come to the day of judgment and find all these things to be
+ true. What would you do then?" I would walk up like a man, and say, "I was
+ mistaken."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And suppose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?"
+ I would say to him, "Do unto others as you would that others should do
+ unto you." Why not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God
+ who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? No, it will not do. It will
+ not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the book of John all these doctrines of regeneration&mdash;that it is
+ necessary to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; that salvation depends upon
+ belief&mdash;in this book of John all these doctrines find their warrant;
+ nowhere else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then read John, and you will agree with
+ me that the three first gospels teach that if we are kind and forgiving to
+ our fellows, God will be kind and forgiving to us. In John we are told
+ that another man can be good for us, or bad for us, and that the only way
+ to get to heaven is to believe something that we know is not so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these passages about believing in Christ, drinking his blood and
+ eating his flesh, are afterthoughts. They were written by the theologians,
+ and in a few years they will be considered unworthy of the lips of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0021" id="link0021">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ VI. THE CATHOLICS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ NOW, upon these gospels that I have read the churches rest; and out of
+ these things, mistakes and interpolations, they have made their creeds.
+ And the first church to make a creed, so far as I know, was the Catholic.
+ It was 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 cannot
+ believe one word that witness says, <i>now</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That church is the only one that keeps up a constant communication with
+ heaven through the instrumentality of a large number of decayed saints.
+ That church has an agent of God on earth, has a person who stands in the
+ place of deity; and that church is infallible. That church has persecuted
+ to the exact extent of her power&mdash;and always will. In Spain that
+ church stands erect, and is arrogant. In the United States that church
+ crawls; but the object in both countries is the same&mdash;and that is the
+ destruction of intellectual liberty. That church teaches us that we can
+ make God happy by being miserable ourselves; that a nun is holier in the
+ sight of God than a loving mother with her child in her thrilled and
+ thrilling arms; that a priest is better than a father; that celibacy is
+ better than that passion of love that has made everything of beauty in
+ this world. That church tells the girl of sixteen or eighteen years of
+ age, with eyes like dew and light; that girl with the red of health in the
+ white of her beautiful cheeks&mdash;tells that girl, "Put on the veil,
+ woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you will please God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil and
+ renounce the joys and beauties of this life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am opposed to allowing these spider-like priests to weave webs to catch
+ the loving maidens of the world. 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 do not believe in keeping the
+ penitentiaries of God. No doubt they are honest about it. That is not the
+ question. These ignorant superstitions fill millions of lives with
+ weariness and pain, with agony and tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that
+ creed is the foundation of the orthodox religion. Let me read it to you:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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 in trinity and trinity in unity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course you understand how that is done, and there is no need of my
+ explaining it. "Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the
+ substance." You see what a predicament that would leave the deity in if
+ you divided the substance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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"&mdash;you know what I mean by Godhead. "In glory
+ equal, and in majesty co&euml;ternal. 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
+ incomprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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 there 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, not created, but
+ begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son, not made nor
+ begotten, but proceeding."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know what proceeding is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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 Ghosts; and in this Trinity there is nothing before or
+ afterward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are co&euml;ternal
+ with one another and co&euml;qual, so that in all things the unity is to
+ be worshiped in Trinity, and the Trinity is to be worshiped in unity.
+ Those who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. Furthermore, it is
+ necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the
+ incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 Godhead, 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 is a great deal easier than the other way would be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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 and 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
+ thousands 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 the presence of which
+ the eyes even of priests would be wet with tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That church covered Europe with cathedrals and dungeons, and robbed men of
+ the jewel of the soul. That church had ignorance upon its knees. That
+ church went in partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and between
+ those two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was
+ devoured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course I have met, and cheerfully admit that there are thousands of
+ good Catholics; but Catholicism is contrary to human liberty. Catholicism
+ bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason
+ under foot. And for that reason it is wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of volumes could not contain the crimes of the Catholic Church.
+ They could not contain even the names of her victims. With sword and fire,
+ with rack and chain, with dungeon and whip she endeavored to convert the
+ world. In weakness a beggar&mdash;in power a highwayman,&mdash;alms dish
+ or dagger&mdash;tramp or tyrant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0022" id="link0022">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ VII. THE EPISCOPALIANS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE next church I wish to speak of is the Episcopalian. That was founded
+ by Henry VIII., now in heaven. He cast off Queen Catherine and Catholicism
+ together, and he accepted Episcopalianism 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 Church in this
+ country, and it has all the imperfections of a poor relation. It is always
+ boasting of its 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago, a gentleman by the name of Seabury, Samuel Seabury, was
+ sent over to England to get some apostolic succession. We had not 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 earth, and the true church never could have been founded upon this
+ continent. 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this country the Episcopalians have done some good, and I want to thank
+ that church. Having on an average less religion than the others&mdash;on
+ an average you have done more good to mankind. 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 these
+ things accept my thanks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I was a boy, the other churches looked upon dancing as probably the
+ mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost; and they 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. That church has done some good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Episcopal creed is substantially like the Catholic, containing a few
+ additional absurdities. The Episcopalians teach that it is easier to get
+ forgiveness for sin after you have been baptized. They seem to think that
+ the moment you are baptized you become a member of the firm, and as such
+ are entitled to wickedness at cost. This church is utterly unsuited to a
+ free people. Its government is tyrannical, supercilious and absurd.
+ Bishops talk as though they were responsible for the souls in their
+ charge. They wear vests that button on one side. Nothing is so essential
+ to the clergy of this denomination as a good voice. The Episcopalians have
+ persecuted just to the extent of their power. Their treatment of the Irish
+ has been a crime&mdash;a crime lasting for three hundred years. That
+ church persecuted the Puritans of England and the Presbyterians of
+ Scotland. In England the altar is the mistress of the throne, and this
+ mistress has always looked at honest wives with scorn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0023" id="link0023">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ VIII. THE METHODISTS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ ABOUT a hundred and fifty years ago, two men, John Wesley and George
+ Whitfield, said, If everybody is going to hell, somebody ought to mention
+ it. The Episcopal clergy said: Keep still; do not tear your gown. Wesley
+ and Whitfield said: This frightful truth ought to be proclaimed from the
+ housetop of every opportunity, from the highway of every occasion. They
+ were good, honest men. They believed their doctrine. And they said: If
+ there is a hell, and a Niagara of souls pouring over an eternal precipice
+ of ignorance, somebody ought to say something. They were right; somebody
+ ought, if such a thing is true. Wesley was a believer in the Bible. He
+ believed in the actual presence of the Almighty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God used to do miracles for him; used to put off a rain several days to
+ give his meeting a chance; used to cure his horse of lameness; used to
+ cure Mr. Wesley's headaches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 warfare between God
+ and this devil for the possession of that human soul, and that in the
+ warfare God had gained the victory. 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. No doubt an honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wesley and Whitfield fell out on the question of predestination. Wesley
+ insisted that God invited everybody to the feast. Whitfield said he did
+ not invite those he knew would not come. Wesley said he did. Whitfield
+ said: Well, he did not put plates for them, anyway. Wesley said he did. So
+ that, when they were in hell he could show them that there was a seat left
+ for them. The church that they founded is still active. And probably no
+ church in the world has done so much preaching for as little money as the
+ Methodists. Whitfield believed in slavery, and advocated the slave-trade.
+ And it was of Whitfield that Whittier made the two lines:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast,
+ Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ We have lately had a meeting of the Methodists, and I find by their
+ statistics that they believe that they have converted 130,000 folks in a
+ year. That, in order to do this, they have 26,000 preachers, 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 how long will it take that doctrine to
+ save this world? Good, honest people; but they are mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In old times they were very simple. Churches used to be like barns. They
+ used to have them divided&mdash;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 introduced to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing the Methodists should remember, and that is that
+ the Episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever had. And they should
+ remember that the Freethinkers have always treated them kindly and well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing about the Methodist Church in the North that I like.
+ But I find that it is not Methodism that does that. I find that the
+ Methodist Church in the South is as much opposed to liberty as the
+ Methodist Church North 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 Methodist Church is adapted to new
+ countries&mdash;its ministers are generally uncultured, and with them zeal
+ takes the place of knowledge. They convert people with noise. In the
+ silence that follows most of the converts backslide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a little while a struggle will commence between the few who are growing
+ and the orthodox many. The few will be driven out, and the church will be
+ governed by those who believe without understanding.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0024" id="link0024">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IX. THE PRESBYTERIANS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE next church is the Presbyterian, and in my judgment the worst of all,
+ as far as creed is concerned. This church was founded by John Calvin, a
+ murderer!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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
+ inaugurated torture, is now a glorified angel in heaven. It will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Knox started this doctrine in Scotland, and there is this peculiarity
+ about Presbyterianism&mdash;it grows best where 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 pestilence and a famine! Imagine a
+ conversation between a block and an ax! As I read their conversation it
+ seemed to me as though John Knox and John Calvin were made for each other;
+ that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws 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
+ death. They taught the doctrine that God had a right to damn us 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 he knows that human being will
+ sin; when he knows that human being will suffer eternal agony? Why 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 I could change that piece
+ of furniture 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet we are told that we must believe such a doctrine or we are to be
+ eternally damned! It will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1839 there was a division in this church, and they had a lawsuit to see
+ which was 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 was the
+ church of God, and that settled it. That church teaches that infinite
+ innocence was sacrificed for me! I do not want it! I do not 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 do not wish to be a charity
+ angel. I have no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day a young gentleman, a Presbyterian who had just been
+ converted, came to me and he gave me a tract, and he told me he was
+ perfectly happy. Said I, "Do you think a great many people are going to
+ hell?" "Oh, yes." "And you are perfectly happy?" Well, he did not know as
+ he was, quite. "Would not you be happier if they were all going to
+ heaven?" "Oh, yes." "Well, then, you are not perfectly happy?" No, he did
+ not think he was. "When you get to heaven, then you will 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 will not be as decent when you get to be an angel as
+ you are now, will you?" "Well," he said, "that was not exactly it." Said
+ I, "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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do. Heaven is where those are 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 consolations of this infamous doctrine. The
+ consolations of a doctrine 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
+ generous, brave boy in hell;" that makes a boy say, "I can enjoy the glory
+ of heaven with the woman who bore me, the woman <i>who would have died for
+ me</i>, in eternal agony." And they call that tidings of great joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No church has done more to fill the world with gloom than the
+ Presbyterian. Its creed is frightful, hideous, and hellish. The
+ Presbyterian god is the monster of monsters. He is an eternal executioner,
+ jailer and turnkey. He will enjoy forever the shrieks of the lost,&mdash;the
+ wails of the damned. Hell is the festival of the Presbyterian god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0025" id="link0025">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ X. THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE not time to speak of the Baptists,&mdash;that Jeremy Taylor said
+ were as much to be rooted out as anything that is the greatest pest and
+ nuisance on the earth. He hated the Baptists because they represented, in
+ some little degree, the liberty of thought. Nor have I time to speak of
+ the Quakers, the best of all, and abused by all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot 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? Simply because he preached the doctrine:
+ "Thou shalt not resist evil with evil." "Thou shalt love thy enemies."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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&mdash;the varieties of Presbyterians and Campbellites. There are
+ hundreds and hundreds of these sects, all founded upon this creed that I
+ read, differing simply in degree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 they 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 the world. We sign them and
+ swear that we believe them, but we do not. And none of us do. And all the
+ ministers, they say in private, admit that they do not believe it, not
+ quite. I do not 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, they are honest and really believe in that creed. But let us
+ see if I am waging a war against the ideas of the dead. Let us see if I am
+ simply storming a cemetery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 the 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, in the air and light of
+ love and joy, blossom into rich and glorious life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Total depravity of human nature! 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 every kiss a
+ blasphemy. It will not 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. It is an infamy. What else do they
+ believe? "The justification of a sinner by faith alone," without works&mdash;just
+ faith. Believing something that you do not understand. Of course God can
+ not afford to reward a man for believing anything that is reasonable. God
+ rewards only for believing something that is unreasonable. If you believe
+ something that is improbable and unreasonable, you are a Christian; but if
+ you believe something that you know is not so, then,&mdash;you are a
+ saint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They believe in the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and in the
+ eternal punishment of the wicked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tidings of great joy! They are so good that they will not associate with
+ Universalists. They will not associate with Unitarians; they will not
+ associate with scientists; they will only associate with those who believe
+ that God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn the most of
+ us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Evangelical Alliance reiterates the absurdities of the Dark Ages&mdash;repeats
+ the five points of Calvin&mdash;replenishes the fires of hell&mdash;certifies
+ to the mistakes and miracles of the Bible&mdash;maligns the human race,
+ and kneels to a god who accepted the agony of the innocent as an atonement
+ for the guilty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0026" id="link0026">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ XI. WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THEN they say to me: "What do you propose? You have torn this down, what
+ do you propose to give us in place of it?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 passage: "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 star that shines in the horizon of human despair, nor in the
+ sky of human hope; but I will do what I can to get that infinite shadow
+ out of the heart of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What do you propose in place of this?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, in the first place, I propose good fellowship&mdash;good friends all
+ around. No matter what we believe, shake hands and let it go. That is your
+ opinion; this is mine: let us be friends. Science makes friends; religion,
+ superstition, makes enemies. They say: Belief is important. I say: No,
+ actions are important. Judge by deed, not by creed. Good fellowship&mdash;good
+ friends&mdash;sincere men and women&mdash;mutual forbearance, born of
+ mutual respect. We have had too many of these solemn people. Whenever I
+ see an exceedingly solemn man, I know he is an exceedingly stupid man. No
+ man of any humor ever founded a religion&mdash;never. Humor sees both
+ sides. While reason is the holy light, humor carries the lantern, and the
+ man with a keen sense of humor is preserved from the solemn stupidities of
+ superstition. I like a man who has got good feeling for everybody; good
+ fellowship. One man said to another:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Will you take a glass of wine?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I do not drink."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Will you smoke a cigar?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I do not smoke."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Maybe you will chew something?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I do not chew."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Let us eat some hay."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I tell you I do not eat hay."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, then, good-by, for you are no company for man or beast."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the gospel of Cheerfulness, 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!
+ And I believe 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 the time will come when man will not fill the future with
+ consumption and insanity. I believe the time will come when we will study
+ ourselves, and understand the laws of health and then 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&mdash;all
+ suffering the penalties of crimes I had committed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the gospel of Good Living. You can not make any god happy by
+ fasting. Let us have good food, and let us have it well cooked&mdash;and
+ it is a thousand times better to know how to cook than it is to understand
+ any theology in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe in forgiveness as it is preached by the church. We do not
+ need the forgiveness of God, but of each other and of ourselves. 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 a blighted flower and afterward I get the forgiveness of
+ God, how does that help her? If there is another world, we have got to
+ settle with the people we have wronged in this. No bankrupt court there.
+ Every cent must be paid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 on the slate."
+ It will not do. For every crime you commit you must answer to yourself and
+ to the one you injure. And if you have ever clothed another with woe, as
+ with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had
+ not done that thing. No forgiveness by the gods. Eternal, inexorable,
+ everlasting justice, so far as Nature is concerned. You must reap the
+ result of your acts. Even when forgiven by the one you have injured, it is
+ not as though the injury had not been done. That is what I believe in. And
+ if it goes hard with me, I will stand it, and I will cling to my logic,
+ and I will bear it like a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 a man 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. Humanity&mdash;that word embraces all there is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I believe in this great gospel of Humanity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ah! but," they say, "it will not 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 books upon your shelves, ideas in your minds.
+ My doctrine will rid the world of the abnormal monsters born of ignorance
+ and superstition. My doctrine will give us health, wealth and happiness.
+ That is what I want. That is what I believe in. Give us intelligence. In a
+ little while a man will find that he can not 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 upon the man who does
+ right the cross turns to wings that will bear him upward forever. He will
+ find that even intelligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all
+ the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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,
+ she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred
+ she is raising kindling wood for hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One world at a time is my doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is said in this Testament, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil
+ thereof;" and I say: Sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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. Next to
+ eternal life is eternal sleep. 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 burning touch of tears. Lips touched by
+ eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts
+ of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and
+ weeping sorrow sits, and in the ray-less gloom is crouched no shuddering
+ fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as having returned to
+ earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world&mdash;I
+ would rather think of them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of
+ them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the
+ foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as
+ the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear
+ that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god. I will leave
+ my dead where nature leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs up in my
+ heart I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears.
+ But I can not believe that there is any being in this universe who has
+ created a human soul for eternal pain. 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the
+ merciful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon that rock I stand.&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That he will not torture the forgiving.&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon that rock I stand.&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no
+ star, in which honesty is a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon that rock I stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear,
+ either in this world or the world to come.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon that rock I stand.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+1 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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+ PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 2 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
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+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 2
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 2 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Lectures
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38802]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ <i>"THE CLERGY KNOW, THAT I KNOW, THAT THEY KNOW, THAT THEY DO NOT KNOW."</i>
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME II.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ LECTURES
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h4>
+ THE DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> TO MRS. SUE. M. FARRELL, IN LAW MY SISTER, AND IN FACT MY
+ FRIEND, THIS VOLUME, AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT AND LOVE, IS DEDICATED. <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38802/old/orig38802-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Titlepage (63K)" src="images/Titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Portrait (63K)" src="images/Portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Contents
+ </h3>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkPREF">PREFACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">SOME REASONS WHY</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">ORTHODOXY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">MYTH AND MIRACLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1879.)<br /> Preface&mdash;I. He who endeavors to control the Mind
+ by Force is a<br /> Tyrant, and he who submits is a Slave&mdash;All I Ask&mdash;When
+ a Religion<br /> is Founded&mdash;Freedom for the Orthodox Clergy&mdash;Every
+ Minister an<br /> Attorney&mdash;Submission to the Orthodox and the Dead&mdash;Bounden
+ Duty of<br /> the Ministry&mdash;The Minister Factory at Andover&mdash;II.
+ Free Schools&mdash;No<br /> Sectarian Sciences&mdash;Religion and the
+ Schools&mdash;Scientific<br /> Hypocrites&mdash;III. The Politicians and
+ the Churches&mdash;IV. Man and Woman the<br /> Highest Possible Titles&mdash;Belief
+ Dependent on Surroundings&mdash;Worship of<br /> Ancestors&mdash;Blindness
+ Necessary to Keeping the Narrow Path&mdash;The Bible the<br /> Chain that
+ Binds&mdash;A Bible of the Middle Ages and the Awe it Inspired&mdash;V.<br />
+ The Pentateuch&mdash;Moses Not the Author&mdash;Belief out of which Grew<br />
+ Religious Ceremonies&mdash;Egypt the Source of the Information of Moses&mdash;VI.<br />
+ Monday&mdash;Nothing, in the Light of Raw Material&mdash;The Story of
+ Creation<br /> Begun&mdash;The Same Story, substantially, Found in the
+ Records of Babylon,<br /> Egypt, and India&mdash;Inspiration Unnecessary
+ to the Truth&mdash;Usefulness of<br /> Miracles to Fit Lies to Facts&mdash;Division
+ of Darkness and Light&mdash;VII.<br /> Tuesday&mdash;The Firmament and
+ Some Biblical Notions about it&mdash;Laws of<br /> Evaporation Unknown to
+ the Inspired Writer&mdash;VIII. Wednesday&mdash;The Waters<br /> Gathered
+ into Seas&mdash;Fruit and Nothing to Eat it&mdash;Five Epochs in the<br />
+ Organic History of the Earth&mdash;Balance between the Total Amounts of<br />
+ Animal and Vegetable Life&mdash;Vegetation Prior to the Appearance of
+ the<br /> Sun&mdash;IX. Thursday&mdash;Sun and Moon Manufactured&mdash;Magnitude
+ of the Solar<br /> Orb&mdash;Dimensions of Some of the Planets&mdash;Moses'
+ Guess at the Size of Sun<br /> and Moon&mdash;Joshua's Control of the
+ Heavenly Bodies&mdash;A Hypothesis Urged<br /> by Ministers&mdash;The
+ Theory of "Refraction"&mdash;Rev. Henry Morey&mdash;Astronomical<br />
+ Knowledge of Chinese Savants&mdash;The Motion of the Earth Reversed by<br />
+ Jehovah for the Reassurance of Ahaz&mdash;"Errors" Renounced by Button&mdash;X.<br />
+ "He made the Stars Also"&mdash;Distance of the Nearest Star&mdash;XI.<br />
+ Friday&mdash;Whales and Other Living Creatures Produced&mdash;XII.<br />
+ Saturday&mdash;Reproduction Inaugurated&mdash;XIII. "Let Us Make Man"&mdash;Human<br />
+ Beings Created in the Physical Image and Likeness of God&mdash;Inquiry
+ as<br /> to the Process Adopted&mdash;Development of Living Forms
+ According to<br /> Evolution&mdash;How Were Adam and Eve Created?&mdash;The
+ Rib Story&mdash;Age of<br /> Man Upon the Earth&mdash;A Statue Apparently
+ Made before the World&mdash;XIV.<br /> Sunday&mdash;Sacredness of the
+ Sabbath Destroyed by the Theory of Vast<br /> "Periods"&mdash;Reflections
+ on the Sabbath&mdash;XV. The Necessity for a Good<br /> Memory&mdash;The
+ Two Accounts of the Creation in Genesis I and II&mdash;Order<br /> of
+ Creation in the First Account&mdash;Order of Creation in the Second<br />
+ Account&mdash;Fastidiousness of Adam in the Choice of a Helpmeet&mdash;Dr.<br />
+ Adam Clark's Commentary&mdash;Dr. Scott's Guess&mdash;Dr. Matthew
+ Henry's<br /> Admission&mdash;The Blonde and Brunette Problem&mdash;The
+ Result of Unbelief and<br /> the Reward of Faith&mdash;"Give Him a Harp"&mdash;XVI.
+ The Garden&mdash;Location of<br /> Eden&mdash;The Four Rivers&mdash;The
+ Tree of Knowledge&mdash;Andover Appealed<br /> To&mdash;XVII. The Fall&mdash;The
+ Serpent&mdash;Dr. Adam Clark Gives a Zoological<br /> Explanation&mdash;Dr.
+ Henry Dissents&mdash;Whence This Serpent?&mdash;XVIII.<br /> Dampness&mdash;A
+ Race of Giants&mdash;Wickedness of Mankind&mdash;An Ark Constructed&mdash;A<br />
+ Universal Flood Indicated&mdash;Animals Probably Admitted to the Ark&mdash;How
+ Did<br /> They Get There?&mdash;Problem of Food and Service&mdash;A
+ Shoreless Sea Covered<br /> with Innumerable Dead&mdash;Drs. Clark and
+ Henry on the Situation&mdash;The Ark<br /> Takes Ground&mdash;New
+ Difficulties&mdash;Noah's Sacrifice&mdash;The Rainbow as a<br />
+ Memorandum&mdash;Babylonian, Egyptian, and Indian Legends of a Flood&mdash;XIX.<br />
+ Bacchus and Babel&mdash;Interest Attaching to Noah&mdash;Where Did Our
+ First<br /> Parents and the Serpent Acquire a Common Language?&mdash;Babel
+ and the<br /> Confusion of Tongues&mdash;XX. Faith in Filth&mdash;Immodesty
+ of Biblical<br /> Diction&mdash;XXI. The Hebrews&mdash;God's Promises to
+ Abraham&mdash;The Sojourning<br /> of Israel in Egypt&mdash;Marvelous
+ Increase&mdash;Moses and Aaron&mdash;XXII.<br /> The Plagues&mdash;Competitive
+ Miracle Working&mdash;Defeat of the Local<br /> Magicians&mdash;XXIII.
+ The Flight Out of Egypt&mdash;Three Million People in a<br /> Desert&mdash;Destruction
+ of Pharaoh ana His Host&mdash;Manna&mdash;A Superfluity of<br /> Quails&mdash;Rev.
+ Alexander Cruden's Commentary&mdash;Hornets as Allies of the<br />
+ Israelites&mdash;Durability of the Clothing of the Jewish People&mdash;An
+ Ointment<br /> Monopoly&mdash;Consecration of Priests&mdash;The Crime of
+ Becoming a Mother&mdash;The<br /> Ten Commandments&mdash;Medical Ideas of
+ Jehovah&mdash;Character of the God of<br /> the Pentateuch&mdash;XXIV.
+ Confess and Avoid&mdash;XXV. "Inspired" Slavery&mdash;XXVI.<br />
+ "Inspired" Marriage-XXVII. "Inspired" War-XXVIII. "Inspired" Religious<br />
+ Liberty&mdash;XXIX. Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">SOME REASONS WHY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1881.)<br /> I&mdash;Religion makes Enemies&mdash;Hatred in the
+ Name of Universal<br /> Benevolence&mdash;No Respect for the Rights of
+ Barbarians&mdash;Literal<br /> Fulfillment of a New Testament Prophecy&mdash;II.
+ Duties to God&mdash;Can we<br /> Assist God?&mdash;An Infinite
+ Personality an Infinite Impossibility-Ill.<br /> Inspiration&mdash;What
+ it Really Is&mdash;Indication of Clams&mdash;Multitudinous<br /> Laughter
+ of the Sea&mdash;Horace Greeley and the Mammoth Trees&mdash;A Landscape<br />
+ Compared to a Table-cloth&mdash;The Supernatural is the Deformed&mdash;Inspiration<br />
+ in the Man as well as in the Book&mdash;Our Inspired Bible&mdash;IV.
+ God's<br /> Experiment with the Jews&mdash;Miracles of One Religion never
+ astonish the<br /> Priests of Another&mdash;"I am a Liar Myself"&mdash;V.
+ Civilized Countries&mdash;Crimes<br /> once regarded as Divine
+ Institutions&mdash;What the Believer in the<br /> Inspiration of the
+ Bible is Compelled to Say&mdash;Passages apparently<br /> written by the
+ Devil&mdash;VI. A Comparison of Books&mdash;Advancing a Cannibal<br />
+ from Missionary to Mutton&mdash;Contrast between the Utterances of
+ Jehovah<br /> and those of Reputable Heathen&mdash;Epictetus, Cicero,
+ Zeno,<br /> Seneca&mdash;the Hindu, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius&mdash;The
+ Avesta&mdash;VII.<br /> Monotheism&mdash;Egyptians before Moses taught
+ there was but One God<br /> and Married but One Wife&mdash;Persians and
+ Hindoos had a Single Supreme<br /> Deity&mdash;Rights of Roman Women&mdash;Marvels
+ of Art achieved without the<br /> Assistance of Heaven&mdash;Probable
+ Action of the Jewish Jehovah incarnated<br /> as Man&mdash;VIII. The New
+ Testament&mdash;Doctrine of Eternal Pain brought to<br /> Light&mdash;Discrepancies&mdash;Human
+ Weaknesses cannot be Predicated of<br /> Divine Wisdom&mdash;Why there
+ are Four Gospels according to Iren&aelig;us&mdash;The<br /> Atonement&mdash;Remission
+ of Sins under the Mosaic Dispensation&mdash;Christians<br /> say, "Charge
+ it"&mdash;God's Forgiveness does not Repair an Injury&mdash;Suffering<br />
+ of Innocence for the Guilty&mdash;Salvation made Possible by Jehovah's<br />
+ Failure to Civilize the Jews&mdash;Necessity of Belief not taught in the<br />
+ Synoptic Gospels&mdash;Non-resistance the Offspring of Weakness&mdash;IX.
+ Christ's<br /> Mission&mdash;All the Virtues had been Taught before his
+ Advent&mdash;Perfect and<br /> Beautiful Thoughts of his Pagan
+ Predecessors&mdash;St. Paul Contrasted<br /> with Heathen Writers&mdash;"The
+ Quality of Mercy"&mdash;X. Eternal Pain&mdash;An<br /> Illustration of
+ Eternal Punishment&mdash;Captain Kreuger of the Barque<br /> Tiger&mdash;XI.
+ Civilizing Influence of the Bible&mdash;Its Effects on the<br /> Jews&mdash;If
+ Christ was God, Did he not, in his Crucifixion, Reap what<br /> he had
+ Sown?&mdash;Nothing can add to the Misery of a Nation whose King is<br />
+ Jehovah<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">ORTHODOXY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1884.)<br /> Orthodox Religion Dying Out&mdash;Religious Deaths
+ and Births&mdash;The Religion<br /> of Reciprocity&mdash;Every Language
+ has a Cemetery&mdash;Orthodox Institutions<br /> Survive through the
+ Money invested in them&mdash;"Let us tell our Real<br /> Names"&mdash;The
+ Blows that have Shattered the Shield and Shivered the Lance<br /> of
+ Superstition&mdash;Mohammed's Successful Defence of the Sepulchre of<br />
+ Christ&mdash;The Destruction of Art&mdash;The Discovery of America&mdash;Although<br />
+ he made it himself, the Holy Ghost was Ignorant of the Form of this<br />
+ Earth&mdash;Copernicus and Kepler&mdash;Special Providence&mdash;The Man
+ and the Ship<br /> he did not Take&mdash;A Thanksgiving Proclamation
+ Contradicted&mdash;Charles<br /> Darwin&mdash;Henry Ward Beecher&mdash;The
+ Creeds&mdash;The Latest Creed&mdash;God as<br /> a Governor&mdash;The
+ Love of God&mdash;The Fall of Man&mdash;We are Bound<br /> by
+ Representatives without a Chance to Vote against Them&mdash;The<br />
+ Atonement&mdash;The Doctrine of Depravity a Libel on the Human Race&mdash;The<br />
+ Second Birth&mdash;A Unitarian Universalist&mdash;Inspiration of the<br />
+ Scriptures&mdash;God a Victim of his own Tyranny&mdash;In the New
+ Testament<br /> Trouble Commences at Death&mdash;The Reign of Truth and
+ Love&mdash;The Old<br /> Spaniard who Died without an Enemy&mdash;The
+ Wars it Brought&mdash;Consolation<br /> should be Denied to Murderers&mdash;At
+ the Rate at which Heathen are being<br /> Converted, how long will it
+ take to Establish Christ's Kingdom on<br /> Earth?&mdash;The Resurrection&mdash;The
+ Judgment Day&mdash;Pious Evasions&mdash;"We shall<br /> not Die, but we
+ shall all be Hanged"&mdash;"No Bible, no Civilization"<br /> Miracles of
+ the New Testament&mdash;Nothing Written by Christ or his<br />
+ Contemporaries&mdash;Genealogy of Jesus&mdash;More Miracles&mdash;A
+ Master of<br /> Death&mdash;Improbable that he would be Crucified&mdash;The
+ Loaves and Fishes&mdash;How<br /> did it happen that the Miracles
+ Convinced so Few?&mdash;The Resurrection&mdash;The<br /> Ascension&mdash;Was
+ the Body Spiritual&mdash;Parting from the Disciples&mdash;Casting<br />
+ out Devils&mdash;Necessity of Belief&mdash;God should be consistent in
+ the<br /> Matter of forgiving Enemies&mdash;Eternal Punishment&mdash;Some
+ Good Men who are<br /> Damned&mdash;Another Objection&mdash;Love the only
+ Bow on Life's dark Cloud&mdash;"Now<br /> is the accepted Time"&mdash;Rather
+ than this Doctrine of Eternal Punishment<br /> Should be True&mdash;I
+ would rather that every Planet should in its Orbit<br /> wheel a barren
+ Star&mdash;What I Believe&mdash;Immortality&mdash;It existed long before<br />
+ Moses&mdash;Consolation&mdash;The Promises are so Far Away, and the Dead
+ are so<br /> Near&mdash;Death a Wall or a Door&mdash;A Fable&mdash;Orpheus
+ and Eurydice.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">MYTH AND MIRACLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1885.)<br /> I. Happiness the true End and Aim of Life&mdash;Spiritual
+ People and<br /> their Literature&mdash;Shakespeare's Clowns superior to
+ Inspired<br /> Writers&mdash;Beethoven's Sixth Symphony Preferred to the
+ Five Books of<br /> Moses&mdash;Venus of Milo more Pleasing than the
+ Presbyterian Creed&mdash;II.<br /> Religions Naturally Produced&mdash;Poets
+ the Myth-makers&mdash;The Sleeping<br /> Beauty&mdash;Orpheus and
+ Eurydice&mdash;Red Riding Hood&mdash;The Golden Age&mdash;Elysian<br />
+ Fields&mdash;The Flood Myth&mdash;Myths of the Seasons&mdash;III. The
+ Sun-god&mdash;Jonah,<br /> Buddha, Chrisnna, Horus, Zoroaster&mdash;December
+ 25th as a Birthday of<br /> Gods&mdash;Christ a Sun-God&mdash;The Cross a
+ Symbol of the Life to Come&mdash;When<br /> Nature rocked the Cradle of
+ the Infant World&mdash;IV. Difference between<br /> a Myth and a Miracle&mdash;Raising
+ the Dead, Past and Present&mdash;Miracles<br /> of Jehovah&mdash;Miracles
+ of Christ&mdash;Everything Told except the Truth&mdash;The<br /> Mistake
+ of the World&mdash;V. Beginning of Investigation&mdash;The Stars as<br />
+ Witnesses against Superstition&mdash;Martyrdom of Bruno&mdash;Geology&mdash;Steam
+ and<br /> Electricity&mdash;Nature forever the Same&mdash;Persistence of
+ Force&mdash;Cathedral,<br /> Mosque, and Joss House have the same
+ Foundation&mdash;Science the<br /> Providence of Man&mdash;VI. To Soften
+ the Heart of God&mdash;Martyrs&mdash;The God was<br /> Silent&mdash;Credulity
+ a Vice&mdash;Develop the Imagination&mdash;"The Skylark" and<br /> "The
+ Daisy"&mdash;VII. How are we to Civilize the World?&mdash;Put Theology
+ out<br /> of Religion&mdash;Divorce of Church and State&mdash;Secular
+ Education&mdash;Godless<br /> Schools&mdash;VIII. The New Jerusalem&mdash;Knowledge
+ of the Supernatural<br /> possessed by Savages&mdash;Beliefs of Primitive
+ Peoples&mdash;Science is<br /> Modest&mdash;Theology Arrogant&mdash;Torque-mada
+ and Bruno on the Day of<br /> Judgment&mdash;IX. Poison of Superstition
+ in the Mother's Milk&mdash;Ability<br /> of Mistakes to take Care of
+ Themselves&mdash;Longevity of Religious<br /> Lies&mdash;Mother's
+ religion pleaded by the Cannibal&mdash;The Religion of<br /> Freedom&mdash;O
+ Liberty, thou art the God of my Idolatry<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkPREF" id="linkPREF">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ For many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply as a record of a
+ barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of
+ savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent
+ with known and demonstrated facts. To me it seemed almost a crime to teach
+ that this record was written by inspired men; that slavery, polygamy, wars
+ of conquest and extermination were right, and that there was a time when
+ men could win the approbation of infinite Intelligence, Justice, and
+ Mercy, by violating maidens and by butchering babes. To me it seemed more
+ reasonable that savage men had made these laws; and I endeavored in a
+ lecture, entitled "Some Mistakes of Moses," to point out some of the
+ errors, contradictions, and impossibilities contained in the Pentateuch.
+ The lecture was never written and consequently never delivered twice the
+ same. On several occasions it was reported and published without consent,
+ and without revision. All these publications were grossly and glaringly
+ incorrect As published, they have been answered several hundred times, and
+ many of the clergy are still engaged in the great work. To keep these
+ reverend gentlemen from wasting their talents on the mistakes of reporters
+ and printers, I concluded to publish the principal points in all my
+ lectures on this subject. And here, it may be proper for me to say, that
+ arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; that there is no logic in
+ slander, and that falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself. People who
+ love their enemies should, at least, tell the truth about their friends.
+ Should it turn out that I am the worst man in the whole world, the story
+ of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the
+ contradictions of the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when a falsehood, fulminated from the pulpit, smote like
+ a sword; but, the supply having greatly exceeded the demand, clerical
+ misrepresentation has at last become almost an innocent amusement.
+ Remembering that only a few years ago men, women, and even children, were
+ imprisoned, tortured and burned, for having expressed in an exceedingly
+ mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, I congratulate myself
+ that calumny is now the pulpit's last resort. The old instruments of
+ torture are kept only to gratify curiosity; the chains are rusting away,
+ and the demolition of time has allowed even the dungeons of the
+ Inquisition to be visited by light. The church, impotent and malicious,
+ regrets, not the abuse, but the loss of her power, and seeks to hold by
+ falsehood what she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear.
+ Christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. If that
+ religion be true, there is but one savior, one inspired book, and but one
+ little narrow grass-grown path that leads to heaven. Such a religion is
+ necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive and insolent.
+ Christianity has held all other creeds and forms in infinite contempt,
+ divided the world into enemies and friends, and verified the awful
+ declaration of its founder&mdash;a declaration that wet with blood the
+ sword he came to bring, and made the horizon of a thousand years lurid
+ with the fagots' flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Too great praise challenges attention, and often brings to light a
+ thousand faults that otherwise the general eye would never see. Were we
+ allowed to read the Bible as we do all other books, we would admire its
+ beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account for all its absurd,
+ grotesque and cruel things, by saying that its authors lived in rude,
+ barbaric times. But we are told that it was written by inspired men; that
+ it contains the will of God; that it is perfect, pure, and true in all its
+ parts; the source and standard of all moral and religious truth; that it
+ is the star and anchor of all human hope; the only guide for man, the only
+ torch in Nature's night. These claims are so at variance with every known
+ recorded fact, so palpably absurd, that every free unbiased soul is forced
+ to raise the standard of revolt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and
+ fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition
+ of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the
+ past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great
+ and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to
+ answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought
+ to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth,
+ reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they
+ were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy
+ dawn of birth, and deaths sad night. They clothed even the stars with
+ passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In
+ them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and
+ springs,&mdash;the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a
+ thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous
+ desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love;
+ filled Autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and
+ pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered
+ face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have
+ for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled
+ thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and
+ all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him
+ who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would
+ lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and
+ thoughtful man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C., Oct. 7th, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ HE WHO ENDEAVORS TO CONTROL THE MIND BY FORCE IS A TYRANT, AND HE WHO
+ SUBMITS IS A SLAVE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to do what little I can to make my country truly free, to broaden
+ the intellectual horizon of our people, to destroy the prejudices born of
+ ignorance and fear, to do away with the blind worship of the ignoble past,
+ with the idea that all the great and good are dead, that the living are
+ totally depraved, that all pleasures are sins, that sighs and groans are
+ alone pleasing to God, that thought is dangerous, that intellectual
+ courage is a crime, that cowardice is a virtue, that a certain belief is
+ necessary to secure salvation, that to carry a cross in this world will
+ give us a palm in the next, and that we must allow some priest to be the
+ pilot of our souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed,
+ and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved
+ until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his
+ thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all
+ these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is
+ amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know
+ nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise
+ each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the
+ Trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the
+ comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have
+ existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their
+ power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist
+ has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and
+ entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat
+ this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is&mdash;not
+ that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but
+ that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we
+ will not have to forgive them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question
+ is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches,
+ pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as
+ an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority,
+ the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and
+ worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That which has happened in most countries has happened in ours. When a
+ religion is founded, the educated, the powerful&mdash;that is to say, the
+ priests and nobles, tell the ignorant and superstitious&mdash;that is to
+ say, the people, that the religion of their country was given to their
+ fathers by God himself; that it is the only true religion; that all others
+ were conceived in falsehood and brought forth in fraud, and that all who
+ believe in the true religion will be happy forever, while all others will
+ burn in hell. For the purpose of governing the people, that is to say, for
+ the purpose of being supported by the people, the priests and nobles
+ declare this religion to be sacred, and that whoever adds to, or takes
+ from it, will be burned here by man, and hereafter by God. The result of
+ this is, that the priests and nobles will not allow the people to change;
+ and when, after a time, the priests, having intellectually advanced, wish
+ to take a step in the direction of progress, the people will not allow
+ them to change. At first, the rabble are enslaved by the priests, and
+ afterwards the rabble become the masters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the first things I wish to do, is to free the orthodox clergy. I am
+ a great friend of theirs, and in spite of all they may say against me, I
+ am going to do them a great and lasting service. Upon their necks are
+ visible the marks of the collar, and upon their backs those of the lash.
+ They are not allowed to read and think for themselves. They are taught
+ like parrots, and the best are those who repeat, with the fewest mistakes,
+ the sentences they have been taught. They sit like owls upon some dead
+ limb of the tree of knowledge, and hoot the same old hoots that have been
+ hooted for eighteen hundred years. Their congregations are not grand
+ enough, nor sufficiently civilized, to be willing that the poor preachers
+ shall think for themselves. They are not employed for that purpose.
+ Investigation regarded as a dangerous experiment, and the ministers are
+ warned that none of that kind of work will be tolerated. They are notified
+ to stand by the old creed, and to avoid all original thought, as a mortal
+ pestilence. Every minister is employed like an attorney&mdash;either for
+ plaintiff or defendant,&mdash;and he is expected to be true to his client.
+ If he changes his mind, he is regarded as a deserter, and denounced,
+ hated, and slandered accordingly. Every orthodox clergyman agrees not to
+ change. He contracts not to find new facts, and makes a bargain that he
+ will deny them if he does. Such is the position of a Protestant minister
+ in this nineteenth century. His condition excites my pity; and to better
+ it, I am going to do what little I can.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the clergy have the independence to break away, and the intellect
+ to maintain themselves as free men, but the most are compelled to submit
+ to the dictation of the orthodox, and the dead. They are not employed to
+ give their thoughts, but simply to repeat the ideas of others. They are
+ not expected to give even the doubts that may suggest themselves, but are
+ required to walk in the narrow, verdureless path trodden by the ignorance
+ of the past. The forests and fields on either side are nothing to them.
+ They must not even look at the purple hills, nor pause to hear the babble
+ of the brooks. They must remain in the dusty road where the guide-boards
+ are. They must confine themselves to the "fall of man," the expulsion from
+ the garden, the "scheme of salvation," the "second birth," the atonement,
+ the happiness of the redeemed, and the misery of the lost. They must be
+ careful not to express any new ideas upon these great questions. It is
+ much safer for them to quote from the works of the dead. The more vividly
+ they describe the sufferings of the unregenerate, of those who attended
+ theatres and balls, and drank wine in summer gardens on the Sabbath-day,
+ and laughed at priests, the better ministers they are supposed to be. They
+ must show that misery fits the good for heaven, while happiness prepares
+ the bad for hell; that the wicked get all their good things in this life,
+ and the good all their evil; that in this world God punishes the people he
+ loves, and in the next, the ones he hates; that happiness makes us bad
+ here, but not in heaven; that pain makes us good here, but not in hell. No
+ matter how absurd these things may appear to the carnal mind, they must be
+ preached and they must be believed. If they were reasonable, there would
+ be no virtue in believing. Even the publicans and sinners believe
+ reasonable things. To believe without evidence, or in spite of it, is
+ accounted as righteousness to the sincere and humble Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intellectual pride, and
+ show that we are never quite so dear to God as when we admit that we are
+ poor, corrupt and idiotic worms; that we never should have been born; that
+ we ought to be damned without the least delay; that we are so infamous
+ that we like to enjoy ourselves; that we love our wives and children
+ better than our God; that we are generous only because we are vile; that
+ we are honest from the meanest motives, and that sometimes we have fallen
+ so low that we have had doubts about the inspiration of the Jewish
+ Scriptures. In short, they are expected to denounce all pleasant paths and
+ rustling trees, to curse the grass and flowers, and glorify the dust and
+ weeds. They are expected to malign the wicked people in the green and
+ happy fields, who sit and laugh beside the gurgling springs or climb the
+ hills and wander as they will. They are expected to point out the dangers
+ of freedom, the safety of implicit obedience, and to show the wickedness
+ of philosophy, the goodness of faith, the immorality of science and the
+ purity of ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then a few pious people discover some young man of a religious
+ turn of mind and a consumptive habit of body, not quite sickly enough to
+ die, nor healthy enough to be wicked. The idea occurs to them that he
+ would make a good orthodox minister. They take up a contribution, and send
+ the young man to some theological school where he can be taught to repeat
+ a creed and despise reason. Should it turn out that the young man had some
+ mind of his own, and, after graduating, should change his opinions and
+ preach a different doctrine from that taught in the school, every man who
+ contributed a dollar towards his education would feel that he had been
+ robbed, and would denounce him as a dishonest and ungrateful wretch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pulpit should not be a pillory. Congregations should allow the
+ minister a little liberty. They should, at least, permit him to tell the
+ truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have, in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, a kind of minister
+ factory, where each professor takes an oath once in five years&mdash;that
+ time being considered the life of an oath&mdash;that he has not, during
+ the last five years, and will not, during the next five years,
+ intellectually advance. There is probably no oath that they could easier
+ keep. Probably, since the foundation stone of that institution was laid
+ there has not been a single case of perjury. The old creed is still
+ taught. They still insist that God is infinitely wise, powerful and good,
+ and that all men are totally depraved. They insist that the best man God
+ ever made, deserved to be damned the moment he was finished. Andover puts
+ its brand upon every minister it turns out, the same as Sheffield and
+ Birmingham brand their wares, and all who see the brand know exactly what
+ the minister believes, the books he has read, the arguments he relies on,
+ and just what he intellectually is. They know just what he can be depended
+ on to preach, and that he will continue to shrink and shrivel, and grow
+ solemnly stupid day by day until he reaches the Andover of the grave and
+ becomes truly orthodox forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have not singled out the Andover factory because it is worse than the
+ others. They are all about the same. The professors, for the most part,
+ are ministers who failed in the pulpit and were retired to the seminary on
+ account of their deficiency in reason and their excess of faith. As a
+ rule, they know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they
+ have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn
+ as stupidity touched by fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Something should be done for the liberation of these men. They should be
+ allowed to grow&mdash;to have sunlight and air. They should no longer be
+ chained and tied to confessions of faith, to mouldy books and musty
+ creeds. Thousands of ministers are anxious to give their honest thoughts.
+ The hands of wives and babes now stop their mouths. They must have bread,
+ and so the husbands and fathers are forced to preach a doctrine that they
+ hold in scorn. For the sake of shelter, food and clothes, they are obliged
+ to defend the childish miracles of the past, and denounce the sublime
+ discoveries of to-day. They are compelled to attack all modern thought, to
+ point out the dangers of science, the wickedness of investigation and the
+ corrupting influence of logic. It is for them to show that virtue rests
+ upon ignorance and faith, while vice impudently feeds and fattens upon
+ fact and demonstration. It is a part of their business to malign and
+ vilify the Voltaires, Humes, Paines, Humboldts, Tyndalls, Haeckels,
+ Darwins, Spencers, and Drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the
+ murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. They are, for the
+ most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing
+ children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the Bible,
+ and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These orthodox ministers do not add to the sum of knowledge. They produce
+ nothing. They live upon alms. They hate laughter and joy. They officiate
+ at weddings, sprinkle water upon babes, and utter meaningless words and
+ barren promises above the dead. They laugh at the agony of unbelievers,
+ mock at their tears, and of their sorrows make a jest. There are some
+ noble exceptions. Now and then a pulpit holds a brave and honest man.
+ Their congregations are willing that they should think&mdash;willing that
+ their ministers should have a little freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As we become civilized, more and more liberty will be accorded to these
+ men, until finally ministers will give their best and highest thoughts.
+ The congregations will finally get tired of hearing about the patriarchs
+ and saints, the miracles and wonders, and will insist upon knowing
+ something about the men and women of our day, and the accomplishments and
+ discoveries of our time. They will finally insist upon knowing how to
+ escape the evils of this world instead of the next. They will ask light
+ upon the enigmas of this life. They will wish to know what we shall do
+ with our criminals instead of what God will do with his&mdash;how we shall
+ do away with beggary and want&mdash;with crime and misery&mdash;with
+ prostitution, disease and famine,&mdash;with tyranny in all its cruel
+ forms&mdash;with prisons and scaffolds, and how we shall reward the honest
+ workers, and fill the world with happy homes! These are the problems for
+ the pulpits and congregations of an enlightened future. If Science cannot
+ finally answer these questions, it is a vain and worthless thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The clergy, however, will continue to answer them in the old way, until
+ their congregations are good enough to set them free. They will still talk
+ about believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, as though that were the only
+ remedy for all human ills. They will still teach that retrogression is the
+ only path that leads to light; that we must go back, that faith is the
+ only sure guide, and that reason is a delusive glare, lighting only the
+ road to eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Until the clergy are free they cannot be intellectually honest. We can
+ never tell what they really believe until they know that they can safely
+ speak. They console themselves now by a secret resolution to be as liberal
+ as they dare, with the hope that they can finally educate their
+ congregations to the point of allowing them to think a little for
+ themselves. They hardly know what they ought to do. The best part of their
+ lives has been wasted in studying subjects of no possible value. Most of
+ them are married, have families, and know but one way of making their
+ living. Some of them say that if they do not preach these foolish dogmas,
+ others will, and that they may through fear, after all, restrain mankind.
+ Besides, they hate publicly to admit that they are mistaken, that the
+ whole thing is a delusion, that the "scheme of salvation" is absurd, and
+ that the Bible is no better than some other books, and worse than most.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You can hardly expect a bishop to leave his palace, or the pope to vacate
+ the Vatican. As long as people want popes, plenty of hypocrites will be
+ found to take the place. And as long as labor fatigues, there will be
+ found a good many men willing to preach once a week, if other folks will
+ work and give them bread. In other words, while the demand lasts, the
+ supply will never fail.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish&mdash;if
+ a little more enlightened, religion would perish!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. FREE SCHOOLS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also my desire to free the schools. When a professor in a college
+ finds a fact, he should make it known, even if it is inconsistent with
+ something Moses said. Public opinion must not compel the professor to hide
+ a fact, and, "like the base Indian, throw the pearl away." With the single
+ exception of Cornell, there is not a college in the United States where
+ truth has ever been a welcome guest. The moment one of the teachers denies
+ the inspiration of the Bible, he is discharged. If he discovers a fact
+ inconsistent with that book, so much the worse for the fact, and
+ especially for the discoverer of the fact. He must not corrupt the minds
+ of his pupils with demonstrations. He must beware of every truth that
+ cannot, in some way be made to harmonize with the superstitions of the
+ Jews. Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles
+ never did, and never will agree. They are not in the least related. They
+ are deadly foes. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Can there be
+ Methodist mathematics, Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist
+ biology, or Episcopal botany? Why, then, should a sectarian college exist?
+ Only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. We should
+ not collect taxes to pay people for guessing. The common school is the
+ bread of life for the people, and it should not be touched by the
+ withering hand of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our country will never be filled with great institutions of learning until
+ there is an absolute divorce between Church and School. As long as the
+ mutilated records of a barbarous people are placed by priest and professor
+ above the reason of mankind, we shall reap but little benefit from church
+ or school.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Instead of dismissing professors for finding something out, let us rather
+ discharge those who do not. Let each teacher understand that investigation
+ is not dangerous for him; that his bread is safe, no matter how much truth
+ he may discover, and that his salary will not be reduced, simply because
+ he finds that the ancient Jews did not know the entire history of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides, it is not fair to make the Catholic support a Protestant school,
+ nor is it just to collect taxes from infidels and atheists to support
+ schools in which any system of religion is taught.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sciences are not sectarian. People do not persecute each other on
+ account of disagreements in mathematics. Families are not divided about
+ botany, and astronomy does not even tend to make a man hate his father and
+ mother. It is what people do not know, that they persecute each other
+ about. Science will bring, not a sword, but peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just as long as religion has control of the schools, science will be an
+ outcast. Let us free our institutions of learning. Let us dedicate them to
+ the science of eternal truth. Let us tell every teacher to ascertain all
+ the facts he can&mdash;to give us light, to follow Nature, no matter where
+ she leads; to be infinitely true to himself and us; to feel that he is
+ without a chain, except the obligation to be honest; that he is bound by
+ no books, by no creed, neither by the sayings of the dead nor of the
+ living; that he is asked to look with his own eyes, to reason for himself
+ without fear, to investigate in every possible direction, and to bring us
+ the fruit of all his work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have
+ signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are
+ endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and
+ vapid lectures upon the "harmony of Genesis and Geology." Like all
+ hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and
+ pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of
+ other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are
+ regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted
+ in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time
+ must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of
+ man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of
+ more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature
+ will outrank the "sacred" falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact
+ will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in
+ superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every
+ clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers,
+ then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist
+ and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. THE POLITICIANS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like also to liberate the politician. At present, the successful
+ office-seeker is a good deal like the centre of the earth; he weighs
+ nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. There are so many
+ societies, so many churches, so many isms, that it is almost impossible
+ for an independent man to succeed in a political career. Candidates are
+ forced to pretend that they are Catholics with Protestant proclivities, or
+ Christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men who now and then
+ take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of any church their
+ wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to all. The result of all
+ this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real
+ principle; and this will never change until the people become grand enough
+ to allow each other to do their own thinking, our Government should be
+ entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be
+ kept entirely out of sight. He should not be compelled to give his opinion
+ as to the inspiration of the Bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or
+ the immaculate conception. All these things are private and personal. He
+ should be allowed to settle such things for himself, and should he decide
+ contrary to the law and will of God, let him settle the matter with God.
+ The people ought to be wise enough to select as their officers men who
+ know something of political affairs, who comprehend the present greatness,
+ and clearly perceive the future grandeur of our country. If we were in a
+ storm at sea, with deck wave-washed and masts strained and bent with
+ storm, and it was necessary to reef the top sail, we certainly would not
+ ask the brave sailor who volunteered to go aloft, what his opinion was on
+ the five points of Calvinism. Our Government has nothing to do with
+ religion. It is neither Christian nor pagan; it is secular. But as long as
+ the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their
+ religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power. Just so
+ long will the candidates crawl in the dust&mdash;hide their opinions,
+ flatter those with whom they differ, pretend to agree with those whom they
+ despise; and just so long will honest men be trampled under foot. Churches
+ are becoming political organizations. Nearly every Catholic is a Democrat;
+ nearly every Methodist in the North is a Republican.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply
+ upon political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if
+ there are not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this
+ Government will be destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the hands
+ of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a
+ slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same
+ spirit that kindled the fires of the <i>auto da fe</i>, and lovingly built
+ the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy&mdash;making
+ it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the
+ ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to
+ give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should
+ be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to
+ protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.
+ Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him
+ from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from
+ ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God
+ might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his
+ children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could
+ produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. Surely
+ politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the
+ literary reputation of the Jewish God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. MAN AND WOMAN
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us forget that we are Baptists, Methodists,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catholics, Presbyterians, or Freethinkers, and remember only that we are
+ men and women. After all, man and woman are the highest possible titles.
+ All other names belittle us, and show that we have, to a certain extent,
+ given up our individuality, and have consented to wear the collar of
+ authority&mdash;that we are followers. Throwing away these names, let us
+ examine these questions not as partisans, but as human beings with hopes
+ and fears in common.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that our opinions depend, to a great degree, upon our surroundings&mdash;upon
+ race, country, and education. We are all the result of numberless
+ conditions, and inherit vices and virtues, truths and prejudices. If we
+ had been born in England, surrounded by wealth and clothed with power,
+ most of us would have been Episcopalians, and believed in church and
+ state. We should have insisted that the people needed a religion, and that
+ not having intellect enough to provide one for themselves, it was our duty
+ to make one for them, and then compel them to support it. We should have
+ believed it indecent to officiate in a pulpit without wearing a gown, and
+ that prayers should be read from a book. Had we belonged to the lower
+ classes, we might have been dissenters and protested against the mummeries
+ of the High Church. Had we been born in Turkey, most of us would have been
+ Mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of the Koran. We should have
+ believed that Mohammed actually visited heaven and became acquainted with
+ an angel by the name of Gabriel, who was so broad between the eyes that it
+ required three hundred days for a very smart camel to travel the distance.
+ If some man had denied this story we should probably have denounced him as
+ a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to undermine the foundations
+ of society, and to destroy all distinction between virtue and vice. We
+ should have said to him, "What do you propose to give us in place of that
+ angel? We cannot afford to give up an angel of that size for nothing." We
+ would have insisted that the best and wisest men believed the Koran. We
+ would have quoted from the works and letters of philosophers, generals and
+ sultans, to show that the Koran was the best of books, and that Turkey was
+ indebted to that book and to that alone for its greatness and prosperity.
+ We would have asked that man whether he knew more than all the great minds
+ of his country, whether he was so much wiser than his fathers? We would
+ have pointed out to him the fact that thousands had been consoled in the
+ hour of death by passages from the Koran; that they had died with glazed
+ eyes brightened by visions of the heavenly harem, and gladly left this
+ world of grief and tears. We would have regarded Christians as the vilest
+ of men, and on all occasions would have repeated "There is but one God,
+ and Mohammed is his prophet!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, if we had been born in India, we should in all probability have
+ believed in the religion of that country. We should have regarded the old
+ records as true and sacred, and looked upon a wandering priest as better
+ than the men from whom he begged, and by whose labor he lived. We should
+ have believed in a god with three heads instead of three gods with one
+ head, as we do now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then some one says that the religion of his father and mother is
+ good enough for him, and wonders why anybody should desire a better.
+ Surely we are not bound to follow our parents in religion any more than in
+ politics, science or art. China has been petrified by the worship of
+ ancestors. If our parents had been satisfied with the religion of theirs,
+ we would be still less advanced than we are. If we are, in any way, bound
+ by the belief of our fathers, the doctrine will hold good back to the
+ first people who had a religion; and if this doctrine is true, we ought
+ now to be believers in that first religion. In other words, we would all
+ be barbarians. You cannot show real respect to your parents by
+ perpetuating their errors. Good fathers and mothers wish their children to
+ advance, to overcome obstacles which baffled them, and to correct the
+ errors of their education. If you wish to reflect credit upon your
+ parents, accomplish more than they did, solve problems that they could not
+ understand, and build better than they knew. To sacrifice your manhood
+ upon the grave of your father is an honor to neither. Why should a son who
+ has examined a subject, throw away his reason and adopt the views of his
+ mother? Is not such a course dishonorable to both?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember that this "ancestor" argument is as old at least as the
+ second generation of men, that it has served no purpose except to enslave
+ mankind, and results mostly from the fact that acquiescence is easier than
+ investigation. This argument pushed to its logical conclusion, would
+ prevent the advance of all people whose parents were not Freethinkers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were
+ born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the
+ sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But when we look for a moment at the world, we find that each nation has
+ its "sacred records"&mdash;its religion, and its ideas of worship.
+ Certainly all cannot be right; and as it would require a life time to
+ investigate the claims of these various systems, it is hardly fair to damn
+ a man forever, simply because he happens to believe the wrong one. All
+ these religions were produced by barbarians. Civilized nations have
+ contented themselves with changing the religions of their barbaric
+ ancestors, but they have made none. Nearly all these religions are
+ intensely selfish. Each one was made by some contemptible little nation
+ that regarded itself as of almost infinite importance, and looked upon the
+ other nations as beneath the notice of their god. In all these countries
+ it was a crime to deny the sacred records, to laugh at the priests, to
+ speak disrespectfully of the gods, to fail to divide your substance with
+ the lazy hypocrites who managed your affairs in the next world upon
+ condition that you would support them in this. In the olden time these
+ theological people who quartered themselves upon the honest and
+ industrious, were called soothsayers, seers, charmers, prophets,
+ enchanters, sorcerers, wizards, astrologers, and impostors, but now, they
+ are known as clergymen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are no exception to the general rule, and consequently have our sacred
+ books as well as the rest. Of course, it is claimed by many of our people
+ that our books are the only true ones, the only ones that the real God
+ ever wrote, or had anything whatever to do with. They insist that all
+ other sacred books were written by hypocrites and impostors; that the Jews
+ were the only people that God ever had any personal intercourse with, and
+ that all other prophets and seers were inspired only by impudence and
+ mendacity. True, it seems somewhat strange that God should have chosen a
+ barbarous and unknown people who had little or nothing to do with the
+ other nations of the earth, as his messengers to the rest of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not easy to account for an infinite God making people so low in the
+ scale of intellect as to require a revelation. Neither is it easy to
+ perceive why, if a revelation was necessary for all, it was made only to a
+ few. Of course, I know that it is extremely wicked to suggest these
+ thoughts, and that ignorance is the only armor that can effectually
+ protect you from the wrath of God. I am aware that investigators with all
+ their genius, never find the road to heaven; that those who look where
+ they are going are sure to miss it, and that only those who voluntarily
+ put out their eyes and implicitly depend upon blindness can surely keep
+ the narrow path.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever reads our sacred book is compelled to believe it or suffer forever
+ the torments of the lost. We are told that we have the privilege of
+ examining it for ourselves; but this privilege is only extended to us on
+ the condition that we believe it whether it appears reasonable or not. We
+ may disagree with others as much as we please upon the meaning of all
+ passages in the Bible, but we must not deny the truth of a single word. We
+ must believe that the book is inspired. If we obey its every precept
+ without believing in its inspiration we will be damned just as certainly
+ as though we disobeyed its every word. We have no right to weigh it in the
+ scales of reason&mdash;to test it by the laws of nature, or the facts of
+ observation and experience. To do this, we are told, is to put ourselves
+ above the word of God, and sit in judgment on the works of our creator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I cannot admit that belief is a voluntary thing. It seems to
+ me that evidence, even in spite of ourselves, will have its weight, and
+ that whatever our wish may be, we are compelled to stand with fairness by
+ the scales, and give the exact result. It will not do to say that we
+ reject the Bible because we are wicked. Our wickedness must be ascertained
+ not from our belief but from our acts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am told by the clergy that I ought not to attack the Bible; that I am
+ leading thousands to perdition and rendering certain the damnation of my
+ own soul. They have had the kindness to advise me that, if my object is to
+ make converts, I am pursuing the wrong course. They tell me to use gentler
+ expressions, and more cunning words. Do they really wish me to make more
+ converts? If their advice is honest, they are traitors to their trust. If
+ their advice is not honest, then they are unfair with me. Certainly they
+ should wish me to pursue the course that will make the fewest converts,
+ and yet they pretend to tell me how my influence could be increased. It
+ may be, that upon this principle John Bright advises America to adopt free
+ trade, so that our country can become a successful rival of Great Britain.
+ Sometimes I think that even ministers are not entirely candid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding the advice of the clergy, I have concluded to pursue my
+ own course, to tell my honest thoughts, and to have my freedom in this
+ world whatever my fate may be in the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people is the Bible.
+ That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. That
+ book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. That
+ book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime.
+ That book unmans the politician and degrades the people. That book fills
+ the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear. It plays the same part in our
+ country that has been played by "sacred records" in all the nations of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago I saw one of the Bibles of the Middle Ages. It was
+ about two feet in length, and one and a half in width. It had immense
+ oaken covers, with hasps, and clasps, and hinges large enough almost for
+ the doors of a penitentiary. It was covered with pictures of winged angels
+ and aureoled saints. In my imagination I saw this book carried to the
+ cathedral altar in solemn pomp&mdash;heard the chant of robed and kneeling
+ priests, felt the strange tremor of the organ's peal; saw the colored
+ light streaming through windows stained and touched by blood and flame&mdash;the
+ swinging censer with its perfumed incense rising to the mighty roof, dim
+ with height and rich with legend carved in stone, while on the walls was
+ hung, written in light, and shade, and all the colors that can tell of joy
+ and tears, the pictured history of the martyred Christ. The people fell
+ upon their knees. The book was opened, and the priest read the messages
+ from God to man. To the multitude, the book itself was evidence enough
+ that it was not the work of human hands. How could those little marks and
+ lines and dots contain, like tombs, the thoughts of men, and how could
+ they, touched by a ray of light from human eyes, give up their dead? How
+ could these characters span the vast chasm dividing the present from the
+ past, and make it possible for the living still to hear the voices of the
+ dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. THE PENTATEUCH
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first five books in our Bible are known as the Pentateuch. For a long
+ time it was supposed that Moses was the author, and among the ignorant the
+ supposition still prevails. As a matter of fact, it seems to be well
+ settled that Moses had nothing to do with these books, and that they were
+ not written until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. But,
+ as all the churches still insist that he was the author, that he wrote
+ even an account of his own death and burial, let us speak of him as though
+ these books were in fact written by him. As the Christians maintain that
+ God was the real author, it makes but little difference whom he employed
+ as his pen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all authors of sacred books have given an account of the creation
+ of the universe, the origin of matter, and the destiny of the human race,
+ all have pointed out the obligation that man is under to his creator for
+ having placed him upon the earth, and allowed him to live and suffer, and
+ have taught that nothing short of the most abject worship could possibly
+ compensate God for his trouble and labor suffered and done for the good of
+ man. They have nearly all insisted that we should thank God for all that
+ is good in life; but they have not all informed us as to whom we should
+ hold responsible for the evils we endure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Moses differed from most of the makers of sacred books by his failure to
+ say anything of a future life, by failing to promise heaven, and to
+ threaten hell. Upon the subject of a future state, there is not one word
+ in the Pentateuch. Probably at that early day God did not deem it
+ important to make a revelation as to the eternal destiny of man. He seems
+ to have thought that he could control the Jews, at least, by rewards and
+ punishments in this world, and so he kept the frightful realities of
+ eternal joy and torment a profound secret from the people of his choice.
+ He thought it far more important to tell the Jews their origin than to
+ enlighten them as to their destiny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember that every tribe and nation has some way in which, the
+ more striking phenomena of nature are accounted for. These accounts are
+ handed down by tradition, changed by numberless narrators as intelligence
+ increases, or to account for newly discovered facts, or for the purpose of
+ satisfying the appetite for the marvelous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The way in which a tribe or nation accounts for day and night, the change
+ of seasons, the fall of snow and rain, the flight of birds, the origin of
+ the rainbow, the peculiarities of animals, the dreams of sleep, the
+ visions of the insane, the existence of earthquakes, volcanoes, storms,
+ lightning and the thousand things that attract the attention and excite
+ the wonder, fear or admiration of mankind, may be called the philosophy of
+ that tribe or nation. And as all phenomena are, by savage and barbaric man
+ accounted for as the action of intelligent beings for the accomplishment
+ of certain objects, and as these beings were supposed to have the power to
+ assist or injure man, certain things were supposed necessary for man to do
+ in order to gain the assistance, and avoid the anger of these gods. Out of
+ this belief grew certain ceremonies, and these ceremonies united with the
+ belief, formed religion; and consequently every religion has for its
+ foundation a misconception of the cause of phenomena.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All worship is necessarily based upon the belief that some being exists
+ who can, if he will, change the natural order of events. The savage prays
+ to a stone that he calls a god, while the Christian prays to a god that he
+ calls a spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful. The savage and
+ the Christian put behind the Universe an intelligent cause, and this cause
+ whether represented by one god or many, has been, in all ages, the object
+ of all worship. To carry a fetich, to utter a prayer, to count beads, to
+ abstain from food, to sacrifice a lamb, a child or an enemy, are simply
+ different ways by which the accomplishment of the same object is sought,
+ and are all the offspring of the same error.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many systems of religion must have existed many ages before the art of
+ writing was discovered, and must have passed through many changes before
+ the stories, miracles, histories, prophecies and mistakes became fixed and
+ petrified in written words. After that, change was possible only by giving
+ new meanings to old words, a process rendered necessary by the continual
+ acquisition of facts somewhat inconsistent with a literal interpretation
+ of the "sacred records." In this way an honest faith often prolongs its
+ life by dishonest methods; and in this way the Christians of to-day are
+ trying to harmonize the Mosaic account of creation with the theories and
+ discoveries of modern science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Admitting that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, or that he gave to
+ the Jews a religion, the question arises as to where he obtained his
+ information. We are told by the theologians that he received his knowledge
+ from God, and that every word he wrote was and is the exact truth. It is
+ admitted at the same time that he was an adopted son of Pharaoh's
+ daughter, and enjoyed the rank and privilege of a prince. Under such
+ circumstances, he must have been well acquainted with the literature,
+ philosophy and religion of the Egyptians, and must have known what they
+ believed and taught as to the creation of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the account of the origin of this earth as given by Moses is
+ substantially like that given by the Egyptians, then we must conclude that
+ he learned it from them. Should we imagine that he was divinely inspired
+ because he gave to the Jews what the Egyptians had given him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Egyptian priests taught <i>first</i>, that a god created the original
+ matter, leaving it in a state of chaos; <i>second</i>, that a god moulded
+ it into form; <i>third</i>, that the breath of a god moved upon the face
+ of the deep; <i>fourth</i>, that a god created simply by saying "Let it
+ be;" <i>fifth</i>, that a god created light before the sun existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be clearer than that Moses received from the Egyptians the
+ principal parts of his narrative, making such changes and additions as
+ were necessary to satisfy the peculiar superstitions of his own people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If some man at the present day should assert that he had received from God
+ the theories of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and the law of
+ heredity, and we should afterwards find that he was not only an
+ Englishman, but had lived in the family of Charles Darwin, we certainly
+ would account for his having these theories in a natural way, So, if
+ Darwin himself should pretend that he was inspired, and had obtained his
+ peculiar theories from God, we should probably reply that his grandfather
+ suggested the same ideas, and that Lamarck published substantially the
+ same theories the same year that Mr. Darwin was born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if we have sufficient courage, we will, by the same course of
+ reasoning, account for the story of creation found in the Bible. We will
+ say that it contains the belief of Moses, and that he received his
+ information from the Egyptians, and not from God. If we take the account
+ as the absolute truth and use it for the purpose of determining the value
+ of modern thought, scientific advancement becomes impossible. And even if
+ the account of the creation as given by Moses should turn out to be true,
+ and should be so admitted by all the scientific world, the claim that he
+ was inspired would still be without the least particle of proof. We would
+ be forced to admit that he knew more than we had supposed. It certainly is
+ no proof that a man is inspired simply because he is right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one pretends that Shakespeare was inspired, and yet all the writers of
+ the books of the Old Testament put together, could not have produced
+ Hamlet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we, looking upon some rough and awkward thing, or god in stone,
+ say that it must have been produced by some inspired sculptor, and with
+ the same breath pronounce the <i>Venus de Milo</i> to be the work of man?
+ Why should we, looking at some ancient daub of angel, saint or virgin, say
+ its painter must have been assisted by a god?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things
+ for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for
+ anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know.
+ Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about
+ Nature. In order to increase our respect for the Bible, it became
+ necessary for the priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same
+ time to decry and belittle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power of
+ the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence
+ of man in himself&mdash;to induce him to distrust his own powers of
+ thought, to believe that he was wholly unable to decide any question for
+ himself, and that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. The
+ church has said, "Believe, and obey! If you reason, you will become an
+ unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. If you disobey, you will do so
+ through vain pride and curiosity, and will, like Adam and Eve, be thrust
+ from Paradise forever!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I care nothing for what the church says, except in so far as
+ it accords with my reason; and the Bible is nothing to me, only in so far
+ as it agrees with what I think or know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All books should be examined in the same spirit, and truth should be
+ welcomed and falsehood exposed, no matter in what volume they may be
+ found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us in this spirit examine the Pentateuch; and if anything appears
+ unreasonable, contradictory or absurd, let us have the honesty and courage
+ to admit it. Certainly no good can result either from deceiving ourselves
+ or others. Many millions have implicitly believed this book, and have just
+ as implicitly believed that polygamy was sanctioned by God. Millions have
+ regarded this book as the foundation of all human progress, and at the
+ same time looked upon slavery as a divine institution. Millions have
+ declared this book to have been infinitely holy, and to prove that they
+ were right, have imprisoned, robbed and burned their fellow-men. The
+ inspiration of this book has been established by famine, sword and fire,
+ by dungeon, chain and whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and
+ fraud, and generations have been frightened by threats of hell, and bribed
+ with promises of heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us examine a portion of this book, not in the darkness of our fear,
+ but in the light of reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And first, let us examine the account given of the creation of this world,
+ commenced, according to the Bible, on Monday morning about five thousand
+ eight hundred and eighty-three years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. MONDAY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Moses commences his story by telling us that in the beginning God created
+ the heaven and the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this means anything, it means that God produced, caused to exist,
+ called into being, the heaven and the earth. It will not do to say that he
+ formed the heaven and the earth of previously existing matter. Moses
+ conveys, and intended to convey the idea that the matter of which the
+ heaven and the earth are composed, was created.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for me to conceive of something being created from
+ nothing. Nothing, regarded in the light of a raw material, is a decided
+ failure. I cannot conceive of matter apart from force. Neither is it
+ possible to think of force disconnected with matter. You cannot imagine
+ matter going back to absolute nothing. Neither can you imagine nothing
+ being changed into something. You may be eternally damned if you do not
+ say that you can conceive these things, but you cannot conceive them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such is the constitution of the human mind that it cannot even think of a
+ commencement or an end of matter, or force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create.
+ Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that
+ eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was
+ nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened.
+ What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite
+ intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not pretend to tell how all these things really are; but I do insist
+ that a statement that cannot possibly be comprehended by any human being,
+ and that appears utterly impossible, repugnant to every fact of
+ experience, and contrary to everything that we really know, must be
+ rejected by every honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We can conceive of eternity, because we cannot conceive of a cessation of
+ time. We can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so
+ much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star,
+ and see infinite space beyond. In other words, we cannot conceive of a
+ cessation of time; therefore eternity is a necessity of the mind. Eternity
+ sustains the same relation to time that space does to matter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the time of Moses, it was perfectly safe for him to write an account of
+ the creation of the world. He had simply to put in form the crude notions
+ of the people. At that time, no other Jew could have written a better
+ account. Upon that subject he felt at liberty to give his imagination full
+ play. There was no one who could authoritatively contradict anything he
+ might say. It was substantially the same story that had been imprinted in
+ curious characters upon the clay records of Babylon, the gigantic
+ monuments of Egypt, and the gloomy temples of India. In those days there
+ was an almost infinite difference between the educated and ignorant. The
+ people were controlled almost entirely by signs and wonders. By the lever
+ of fear, priests moved the world. The sacred records were made and kept,
+ and altered by them. The people could not read, and looked upon one who
+ could, as almost a god. In our day it is hard to conceive of the influence
+ of an educated class in a barbarous age. It was only necessary to produce
+ the "sacred record," and ignorance fell upon its face. The people were
+ taught that the record was inspired, and therefore true. They were not
+ taught that it was true, and therefore inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, the real question is not whether the Bible is inspired, but
+ whether it is true. If it is true, it does not need to be inspired. If it
+ is true, it makes no difference whether it was written by a man or a god.
+ The multiplication table is just as useful, just as true as though God had
+ arranged the figures himself. If the Bible is really true, the claim of
+ inspiration need not be urged; and if it is not true, its inspiration can
+ hardly be established. As a matter of fact, the truth does not need to be
+ inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. Where
+ truth ends, where probability stops, inspiration begins. A fact never went
+ into partnership with a miracle. Truth does not need the assistance of
+ miracle. A fact will fit every other fact in the Universe, because it is
+ the product of all other facts. A lie will fit nothing except another lie
+ made for the express purpose of fitting it. After a while the man gets
+ tired of lying, and then the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then
+ there is an opportunity to use a miracle. Just at that point, it is
+ necessary to have a little inspiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that reason is the highest attribute of man, and that if
+ there can be any communication from God to man, it must be addressed to
+ his reason. It does not seem possible that in order to understand a
+ message from God it is absolutely essential to throw our reason away. How
+ could God make known his will to any being destitute of reason? How can
+ any man accept as a revelation from God that which is unreasonable to him?
+ God cannot make a revelation to another man for me. He must make it to me,
+ and until he convinces my reason that it is true, I cannot receive it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The statement that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,
+ I cannot accept. It is contrary to my reason, and I cannot believe it. It
+ appears reasonable to me that force has existed from eternity. Force
+ cannot, as it appears to me, exist apart from matter. Force, in its
+ nature, is forever active, and without matter it could not act; and so I
+ think matter must have existed forever. To conceive of matter without
+ force, or of force without matter, or of a time when neither existed, or
+ of a being who existed for an eternity without either, and who out of
+ nothing created both, is to me utterly impossible. I may be damned on this
+ account, but I cannot help it. In my judgment, Moses was mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that Moses merely intended to tell what God did, in
+ making the heavens and the earth out of matter then in existence. He
+ distinctly states that in the <i>beginning</i> God created them. If this
+ account is true, we must believe that God, existing in infinite space
+ surrounded by eternal nothing, naught and void, created, produced, called
+ into being, willed into existence this universe of countless stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing we are told by this inspired gentleman is, that God created
+ light, and proceeded to divide it from the darkness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly, the person who wrote this believed that darkness was a thing,
+ an entity, a material that could get mixed and tangled up with light, and
+ that these entities, light and darkness, had to be separated. In his
+ imagination he probably saw God throwing pieces and chunks of darkness on
+ one side, and rays and beams of light on the other. It is hard for a man
+ who has been born but once to understand these things. For my part, I
+ cannot understand how light can be separated from darkness. I had always
+ supposed that darkness was simply the absence of light, and that under no
+ circumstances could it be necessary to take the darkness away from the
+ light. It is certain, however, that Moses believed darkness to be a form
+ of matter, because I find that in another place he speaks of a darkness
+ that could be felt. They used to have on exhibition at Rome a bottle of
+ the darkness that overspread Egypt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You cannot divide light from darkness any more than you can divide heat
+ from cold. Cold is an absence of heat, and darkness is an absence of
+ light. I suppose that we have no conception of absolute cold. We know only
+ degrees of heat. Twenty degrees below zero is just twenty degrees warmer
+ than forty degrees below zero. Neither cold nor darkness are entities, and
+ these words express simply either the absolute or partial absence of heat
+ or light. I cannot conceive how light can be divided from darkness, but I
+ can conceive how a barbarian several thousand years ago, writing upon a
+ subject about which he knew nothing, could make a mistake. The creator of
+ light could not have written in this way. If such a being exists, he must
+ have known the nature of that "mode of motion" that paints the earth on
+ every eye, and clothes in garments seven-hued this universe of worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII. TUESDAY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are next informed by Moses that "God of the waters, and let it divide
+ the waters from the waters;" and that "God made the firmament, and divided
+ the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above
+ the firmament." What did the writer mean by the word firmament?
+ Theologians now tell us that he meant an "expanse." This will not do. How
+ could an expanse divide the waters from the waters, so that the waters
+ above the expanse would not fall into and mingle with the waters below the
+ expanse? The truth is that Moses regarded the firmament as a solid affair.
+ It was where God lived, and where water was kept. It was for this reason
+ that they used to pray for rain. They supposed that some angel could with
+ a lever raise a gate and let out the quantity of moisture desired. It was
+ with the water from this firmament that the world was drowned when the
+ windows of heaven were opened. It was in this said Let there be a
+ firmament in the midst firmament that the sons of God lived&mdash;the sons
+ who "saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of
+ all which they chose." The issue of such marriages were giants, and "the
+ same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is clearer than that Moses regarded the firmament as a vast
+ material division that separated the waters of the world, and upon whose
+ floor God lived, surrounded by his sons. In no other way could he account
+ for rain. Where did the water come from? He knew nothing about the laws of
+ evaporation. He did not know that the sun wooed with amorous kisses the
+ waves of the sea, and that they, clad in glorified mist rising to meet
+ their lover, were, by disappointment, changed to tears and fell as rain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea that the firmament was the abode of the Deity must have been in
+ the mind of Moses when he related the dream of Jacob. "And he dreamed, and
+ behold, a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven;
+ and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it; and behold
+ the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, when the people were building the tower of Babel "the Lord came down
+ to see the city, and the tower which the children of men builded. And the
+ Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language: and
+ this they begin to do; and nothing will be restrained from them which they
+ imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and confound their language that
+ they may not understand one another's speech."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who wrote that absurd account must have believed that God lived
+ above the earth, in the firmament. The same idea was in the mind of the
+ Psalmist when he said that God "bowed the heavens and came down."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, God could easily remove any person bodily to heaven, as it was
+ but a little way above the earth. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not,
+ for God took him." The accounts in the Bible of the ascension of Elijah,
+ Christ and St. Paul were born of the belief that the firmament was the
+ dwelling-place of God. It probably never occurred to these writers that if
+ the firmament was seven or eight miles away, Enoch and the rest would have
+ been frozen perfectly stiff long before the journey could have been
+ completed. Possibly Elijah might have made the voyage, as he was carried
+ to heaven in a chariot of fire "by a whirlwind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, that Moses was mistaken, and upon that mistake the
+ Christians located their heaven and their hell. The telescope destroyed
+ the firmament, did away with the heaven of the New Testament, rendered the
+ ascension of our Lord and the assumption of his Mother infinitely absurd,
+ crumbled to chaos the gates and palaces of the New Jerusalem, and in their
+ places gave to man a wilderness of worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. WEDNESDAY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are next informed by the historian of creation, that after God had
+ finished making the firmament and had succeeded in dividing the waters by
+ means of an "expanse," he proceeded "to gather the waters on the earth
+ together in seas, so that the dry land might appear."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly the writer of this did not have any conception of the real form
+ of the earth. He could not have known anything of the attraction of
+ gravitation. He must have regarded the earth as flat and supposed that it
+ required considerable force and power to induce the water to leave the
+ mountains and collect in the valleys. Just as soon as the water was forced
+ to run down hill, the dry land appeared, and the grass began to grow, and
+ the mantles of green were thrown over the shoulders of the hills, and the
+ trees laughed into bud and blossom, and the branches were laden with
+ fruit. And all this happened before a ray had left the quiver of the sun,
+ before a glittering beam had thrilled the bosom of a flower, and before
+ the Dawn with trembling hands had drawn aside the curtains of the East and
+ welcomed to her arms the eager god of Day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem to me that grass and trees could grow and ripen into seed
+ and fruit without the sun. According to the account, this all happened on
+ the third day. Now, if, as the Christians say, Moses did not mean by the
+ word day a period of twenty-four hours, but an immense and almost
+ measureless space of time, and as God did not, according to this view make
+ any animals until the fifth day, that is, not for millions of years after
+ he made the grass and trees, for what purpose did he cause the trees to
+ bear fruit?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Moses says that God said on the third day, "Let the earth bring forth
+ grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his
+ kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth
+ brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree
+ yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind; and God saw that
+ it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was nothing to eat this fruit; not an insect with painted wings
+ sought the honey of the flowers; not a single living, breathing thing upon
+ the earth. Plenty of grass, a great variety of herbs, an abundance of
+ fruit, but not a mouth in all the world. If Moses is right, this state of
+ things lasted only two days; but if the modern theologians are correct, it
+ continued for millions of ages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is now well known that the organic history of the earth can be
+ properly divided into five epochs&mdash;the Primordial, Primary,
+ Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary. Each of these epochs is characterized
+ by animal and vegetable life peculiar to itself. In the First will be
+ found Alg&aelig; and Skulless Vertebrates, in the Second, Ferns and
+ Fishes, in the Third, Pine Forests and Reptiles, in the Fourth, Foliaceous
+ Forests and Mammals, and in the Fifth, Man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How much more reasonable this is than the idea that the earth was covered
+ with grass, and herbs, and trees loaded with fruit for millions of years
+ before an animal existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, in Nature, an even balance forever kept between the total
+ amounts of animal and vegetable life. "In her wonderful economy she must
+ form and bountifully nourish her vegetable progeny&mdash;twin-brother life
+ to her, with that of animals. The perfect balance between plant existences
+ and animal existences must always be maintained, while matter courses
+ through the eternal circle, becoming each in turn. If an animal be
+ resolved into its ultimate constituents in a period according to the
+ surrounding circumstances, say, of four hours, of four months, of four
+ years, or even of four thousand years,&mdash;for it is impossible to deny
+ that there may be instances of all these periods during which the process
+ has continued&mdash;those elements which assume the gaseous form mingle at
+ once with the atmosphere and are taken up from it without delay by the
+ ever-open mouths of vegetable life. By a thousand pores in every leaf the
+ carbonic acid which renders the atmosphere unfit for animal life is
+ absorbed, the carbon being separated, and assimilated to form the
+ vegetable fibre, which, as wood, makes and furnishes our houses and ships,
+ is burned for our warmth, or is stored up under pressure for coal. All
+ this carbon has played its part, and many parts in its time, as animal
+ existences from monad up to man. Our mahogany of to-day has been many
+ negroes in its turn, and before the African existed, was integral portions
+ of many a generation of extinct species."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems reasonable to suppose that certain kinds of vegetation-and
+ certain kinds of animals should exist together, and that as the character
+ of the vegetation changed, a corresponding change would take place in the
+ animal world. It may be that I am led to these conclusions by "total
+ depravity," or that I lack the necessary humility of spirit to
+ satisfactorily harmonize Haeckel and Moses; or that I am carried away by
+ pride, blinded by reason, given over to hardness of heart that I might be
+ damned, but I never can believe that the earth was covered with leaves,
+ and buds, and flowers, and fruits before the sun with glittering spear had
+ driven back the hosts of Night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX. THURSDAY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the world was covered with vegetation, it occurred to Moses that it
+ was about time to make a sun and moon; and so we are told that on the
+ fourth day God said, "Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to
+ divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons,
+ and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the
+ heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made two great
+ lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule
+ the night; he made the stars also."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that the inspired writer had any idea of the size of the
+ sun? Draw a circle five inches in diameter, and by its side thrust a pin
+ through the paper. The hole made by the pin will sustain about the same
+ relation to the circle that the earth does to the sun. Did he know that
+ the sun was eight hundred and sixty thousand miles in diameter; that it
+ was enveloped in an ocean of fire thousands of miles in depth, hotter even
+ than the Christian's hell, over which sweep tempests of flame moving at
+ the rate of one hundred miles a second, compared with which the wildest
+ storm that ever wrecked the forests of this world was but a calm? Did he
+ know that the sun every moment of time throws out as much heat as could be
+ generated by the combustion of millions upon millions of tons of coal? Did
+ he know that the volume of the earth is less than one-millionth of that of
+ the sun? Did he know of the one hundred and four planets belonging to our
+ solar system, all children of the sun? Did he know of Jupiter eighty-five
+ thousand miles in diameter, hundreds of times as large as our earth,
+ turning on his axis at the rate of twenty-five thousand miles an hour
+ accompanied by four moons, making the tour of his orbit in fifty years, a
+ distance of three thousand million miles? Did he know anything about
+ Saturn, his rings and his eight moons? Did he have the faintest idea that
+ all these planets were once a part of the sun; that the vast luminary was
+ once thousands of millions of miles in diameter; that Neptune, Uranus,
+ Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were all born before our earth, and that by no
+ possibility could this world have existed three days, nor three periods,
+ nor three "good whiles" before its source, the sun?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Moses supposed the sun to be about three or four feet in diameter and the
+ moon about half that size. Compared with the earth they were but simple
+ specks. This idea seems to have been shared by all the "inspired" men. We
+ find in the book of Joshua that the sun stood still, and the moon stayed
+ until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. "So the sun
+ stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a
+ whole day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that the sacred writer wrote in common speech as we do when we
+ talk about the rising and setting of the sun, and that all he intended to
+ say was that the earth ceased to turn on its axis "for about a whole day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My own opinion is that General Joshua knew no more about the motions of
+ the earth than he did about mercy and justice. If he had known that the
+ earth turned upon its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and
+ swept in its course about the sun at the rate of sixty-eight thousand
+ miles an hour, he would have doubled the hailstones, spoken of in the same
+ chapter, that the Lord cast down from heaven, and allowed the sun and moon
+ to rise and set in the usual way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to conceive of a more absurd story than this about the
+ stopping of the sun and moon, and yet nothing so excites the malice of the
+ orthodox preacher as to call its truth in question. Some endeavor to
+ account for the phenomenon by natural causes, while others attempt to show
+ that God could, by the refraction of light have made the sun visible
+ although actually shining on the opposite side of the earth. The last
+ hypothesis has been seriously urged by ministers within the last few
+ months. The Rev. Henry M. Morey of South Bend, Indiana, says "that the
+ phenomenon was simply optical. The rotary motion of the earth was not
+ disturbed, but the light of the sun was prolonged by the same laws of
+ refraction and reflection by which the sun now appears to be above the
+ horizon when it is really below. The medium through which the sun's rays
+ passed may have been miraculously influenced so as to have caused the sun
+ to linger above the horizon long after its usual time for disappearance."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the latest and ripest product of Christian scholarship upon this
+ question no doubt, but still it is not entirely satisfactory to me.
+ According to the sacred account the sun did not linger, merely, above the
+ horizon, but stood still "in the midst of heaven for about a whole day,"
+ that is to say, for about twelve hours. If the air was miraculously
+ changed, so that it would refract the rays of the sun while the earth
+ turned over as usual for "about a whole day," then, at the end of that
+ time the sun must have been visible in the east, that is, it must by that
+ time have been the next morning. According to this, that most wonderful
+ day must have been at least thirty-six hours in length. We have first, the
+ twelve hours of natural light, then twelve hours of "refracted and
+ reflected" light. By that time it would again be morning, and the sun
+ would shine for twelve hours more in the natural way, making thirty-six
+ hours in all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Rev. Morey would depend a little less on "refraction" and a little
+ more on "reflection," he would conclude that the whole story is simply a
+ barbaric myth and fable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It hardly seems reasonable that God, if there is one, would either stop
+ the globe, change the constitution of the atmosphere or the nature of
+ light simply to afford Joshua an opportunity to kill people on that day
+ when he could just as easily have waited until the next morning. It
+ certainly cannot be very gratifying to God for us to believe such childish
+ things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been demonstrated that force is eternal; that it is forever active,
+ and eludes destruction by change of form. Motion is a form of force, and
+ all arrested motion changes instantly to heat. The earth turns upon its
+ axis at about one thousand miles an hour. Let it be stopped and a force
+ beyond our imagination is changed to heat. It has been calculated that to
+ stop the world would produce as much heat as the burning of a solid piece
+ of coal three times the size of the earth. And yet we are asked to believe
+ that this was done in order that one barbarian might defeat another. Such
+ stories never would have been written, had not the belief been general
+ that the heavenly bodies were as nothing compared with the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The view of Moses was acquiesced in by the Jewish people and by the
+ Christian world for thousands of years. It is supposed that Moses lived
+ about fifteen hundred years before Christ, and although he was "inspired,"
+ and obtained his information directly from God, he did not know as much
+ about our solar system as the Chinese did a thousand years before he was
+ born. "The Emperor Chwenhio adopted as an epoch, a conjunction of the
+ planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which has been shown by M.
+ Bailly to have occurred no less than 2449 years before Christ." The
+ ancient Chinese knew not only the motions of the planets, but they could
+ calculate eclipses. "In the reign of the Emperor Chow-Kang, the chief
+ astronomers, Ho and Hi were condemned to death for neglecting to announce
+ a solar eclipse which took place 2169 B. C., a clear proof that the
+ prediction of eclipses was a part of the duty of the imperial
+ astronomers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not strange that a Chinaman should find out by his own exertions
+ more about the material universe than Moses could when assisted by its
+ Creator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About eight hundred years after God gave Moses the principal facts about
+ the creation of the "heaven and the earth" he performed another miracle
+ far more wonderful than stopping the world. On this occasion he not only
+ stopped the earth, but actually caused it to turn the other way. A Jewish
+ king was sick, and God, in order to convince him that he would ultimately
+ recover, offered to make the shadow on the dial go forward, or backward
+ ten degrees. The king thought it was too easy a thing to make the shadow
+ go forward, and asked that it be turned back. Thereupon, "Isaiah the
+ prophet cried unto the Lord, and he brought the shadow ten degrees
+ backward by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." I hardly see how
+ this miracle could be accounted for even by "refraction" and "reflection."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems, from the account, that this stupendous miracle was performed
+ after the king had been cured. The account of the shadow going backward is
+ given in the eleventh verse of the twentieth chapter of Second Kings,
+ while the cure is given in the seventh verse of the same chapter. "And
+ Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil,
+ and he recovered."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Stopping the world and causing it to turn back ten degrees after that,
+ seems to have been, as the boil was already cured by the figs, a useless
+ display of power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The easiest way to account for all these wonders is to say that the
+ "inspired" writers were mistaken. In this way a fearful burden is lifted
+ from the credulity of man, and he is left free to believe the evidences of
+ his own senses, and the demonstrations of science. In this way he can
+ emancipate himself from the slavery of superstition, the control of the
+ barbaric dead, and the despotism of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only about a hundred years ago, Buffon, the naturalist, was compelled by
+ the faculty of theology at Paris to publicly renounce fourteen "errors" in
+ his work on Natural History because they were at variance with the Mosaic
+ account of creation. The Pentateuch is still the scientific standard of
+ the church, and ignorant priests, armed with that, pronounce sentence upon
+ the vast accomplishments of modern thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X. "HE MADE THE STARS ALSO."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Moses came very near forgetting about the stars, and only gave five words
+ to all the hosts of heaven. Can it be possible that he knew anything about
+ the stars beyond the mere fact that he saw them shining above him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did he know that the nearest star, the one we ought to be the best
+ acquainted with, is twenty-one billion of miles away, and that it is a sun
+ shining by its own light? Did he know of the next, that is thirty-seven
+ billion miles distant? Is it possible that he was acquainted with Sirius,
+ a sun two thousand six hundred and eighty-eight times larger than our own,
+ surrounded by a system of heavenly bodies, several of which are already
+ known, and distant from us eighty-two billion miles? Did he know that the
+ Polar star that tells the mariner his course and guided slaves to liberty
+ and joy, is distant from this little world two hundred and ninety-two
+ billion miles, and that Capella wheels and shines one hundred and
+ thirty-three billion miles beyond? Did he know that it would require about
+ seventy-two years for light to reach us from this star? Did he know that
+ light travels one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles a second? Did he
+ know that some stars are so far away in the infinite abysses that five
+ millions of years are required for their light to reach this globe?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this is true, and if as the Bible tells us, the stars were made after
+ the earth, then this world has been wheeling in its orbit for at least
+ five million years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be replied that it was not the intention of God to teach geology
+ and astronomy. Then why did he say anything upon these subjects? and if he
+ did say anything, why did he not give the facts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the sacred records God created, on the first day, the heaven
+ and the earth, "moved upon the face of the waters," and made the light. On
+ the second day he made the firmament or the "expanse" and divided the
+ waters. On the third day he gathered the waters into seas, let the dry
+ land appear and caused the earth to bring forth grass, herbs and fruit
+ trees, and on the fourth day he made the sun, moon and stars and set them
+ in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth. This division of
+ labor is very striking. The work of the other days is as nothing when
+ compared with that of the fourth. Is it possible that it required the same
+ time and labor to make the grass, herbs and fruit trees, that it did to
+ fill with countless constellations the infinite expanse of space?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XI. FRIDAY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are then told that on the next day "God the moving creatures that hath
+ life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of
+ heaven. And God created great whales and every living creature which the
+ waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl
+ after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them,
+ saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let
+ fowl multiply in the earth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it true that while the dry land was covered with grass, and herbs, and
+ trees bearing fruit, the ocean was absolutely devoid of life, and so
+ remained for millions of years?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Moses meant twenty-four hours by the word day, then it would make but
+ little difference on which of the six days animals were made; but if the
+ word said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly day was used to express
+ millions of ages, during which life was slowly evolved from monad up to
+ man, then the account becomes infinitely absurd, puerile and foolish.
+ There is not a scientist of high standing who will say that in his
+ judgment the earth was covered with fruit-bearing trees before the moners,
+ the ancestors it may be of the human race, felt in Laurentian seas the
+ first faint throb of life. Nor is there one who will declare that there
+ was a single spire of grass before the sun had poured upon the world his
+ flood of gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions
+ that exist between Nature and a book? Why should philosophers be denounced
+ for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have
+ been told? If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the
+ world, but it is by no means certain that he is the author of the Bible.
+ Why then should we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book?
+ And even if this God made not only the world but the book besides, it does
+ not follow that the book is the best part of creation, and the only part
+ that we will be eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is
+ quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the
+ physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah
+ or the diet of Ezekiel. For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all
+ the results of scientific investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was.
+ Supposing the Bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for
+ Freethinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of
+ evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? Why should we be damned for
+ laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding the Nebular
+ Hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? It seems to me that a
+ belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation,
+ as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly
+ acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the
+ Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of
+ matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a
+ man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe
+ in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XII. SATURDAY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On this, the last day of creation, God said;&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and
+ creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so. And
+ God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their
+ kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and God
+ saw that it was good."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, is it true that the seas were filled with fish, the sky with fowls,
+ and the earth covered with grass, and herbs, and fruit bearing trees,
+ millions of ages before there was a creeping thing in existence? Must we
+ admit that plants and animals were the result of the fiat of some
+ incomprehensible intelligence independent of the operation of what are
+ known as natural causes? Why is a miracle any more necessary to account
+ for yesterday than for to-day or for to-morrow?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is an infinite Power, nothing can be more certain than that this
+ Power works in accordance with what we call law, that is, by and through
+ natural causes. If anything can be found without a pedigree of natural
+ antecedents, it will then be time enough to talk about the fiat of
+ creation. There must have been a time when plants and animals did not
+ exist upon this globe. The question, and the only question is, whether
+ they were naturally produced. If the account given by Moses is true, then
+ the vegetable and animal existences are the result of certain special
+ fiats of creation entirely independent of the operation of natural causes.
+ This is so grossly improbable, so at variance with the experience and
+ observation of mankind, that it cannot be adopted without abandoning
+ forever the basis of scientific thought and action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be urged that we do not understand the sacred record correctly. To
+ this it may be replied that for thousands of years the account of the
+ creation has, by the Jewish and Christian world, been regarded as
+ literally true. If it was inspired, of course God must have known just how
+ it would be understood, and consequently must have intended that it should
+ be understood just as he knew it would be. One man writing to another, may
+ mean one thing, and yet be understood as meaning something else. Now, if
+ the writer knew that he would be misunderstood, and also knew that he
+ could use other words that would convey his real meaning, but did not, we
+ would say that he used words on purpose to mislead, and was not an honest
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a being of infinite wisdom wrote the Bible, or caused it to be written,
+ he must have known exactly how his words would be interpreted by all the
+ world, and he must have intended to convey the very meaning that was
+ conveyed. He must have known that by reading that book, man would form
+ erroneous views as to the shape, antiquity, and size of this world; that
+ he would be misled as to the time and order of creation; that he would
+ have the most childish and contemptible views of the creator; that the
+ "sacred word" would be used to support slavery and polygamy; that it would
+ build dungeons for the good, and light fagots to consume the brave, and
+ therefore he must have intended that these results should follow. He also
+ must have known that thousands and millions of men and women never could
+ believe his Bible, and that the number of unbelievers would increase in
+ the exact ratio of civilization, and therefore, he must have intended that
+ result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us understand this. An honest finite being uses the best words, in his
+ judgment, to convey his meaning. This is the best he can do, because he
+ cannot certainly know the exact effect of his words on others. But an
+ infinite being must know not only the real meaning of the words, but the
+ exact meaning they will convey to every reader and hearer. He must know
+ every meaning that they are capable of conveying to every mind. He must
+ also know what explanations must be made to prevent misconception. If an
+ infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use such words that
+ every person to whom a revelation is essential will understand distinctly
+ what that revelation is, then a revelation from God through the
+ instrumentality of language is impossible, or it is not essential that all
+ should understand it correctly. It may be urged that millions have not the
+ capacity to understand a revelation, although expressed in the plainest
+ words. To this it seems a sufficient reply to ask, why a being of infinite
+ power should create men so devoid of intelligence, that he cannot by any
+ means make known to them his will? We are told that it is exceedingly
+ plain, and that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. This
+ statement is refuted by the religious history of the Christian world.
+ Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to
+ man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning. About the
+ meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war,
+ and centuries of sword and flame. If written by an infinite God, he must
+ have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be
+ responsible for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this book is the work of
+ man, that it is filled with mingled truth and error, with mistakes and
+ facts, and reflects, too faithfully perhaps, the "very form and pressure
+ of its time"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there are mistakes in the Bible, certainly they were made by man. If
+ there is anything contrary to nature, it was written by man. If there is
+ anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was never
+ written by a being worthy of the adoration of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XIII. LET US MAKE MAN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are next informed by the author of the Pentateuch that God said "Let us
+ make man in our image, after our likeness," and that "God created man in
+ his own image, in the image of God created he him&mdash;male and female
+ created he them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this account means anything, it means that man was created in the
+ physical image and likeness of God. Moses while he speaks of man as having
+ been made in the image of God, never speaks of God except as having the
+ form of a man. He speaks of God as "walking in the garden in the cool of
+ the day;" and that Adam and Eve "heard his voice." He is constantly
+ telling what God said, and in a thousand passages he refers to him as not
+ only having the human form, but as performing actions, such as man
+ performs. The God of Moses was a God with hands, with feet, with the
+ organs of speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A God of passion, of hatred, of revenge, of affection, of repentance; a
+ God who made mistakes:&mdash;in other words, an immense and powerful man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that Moses meant to convey the idea that God made
+ man in his mental or moral image. Some have insisted that man was made in
+ the moral image of God because he was made pure. Purity cannot be
+ manufactured. A moral character cannot be made for man by a god. Every man
+ must make his own moral character. Consequently, if God is infinitely
+ pure, Adam and Eve were not made in his image in that respect. Others say
+ that Adam and Eve were made in the mental image of God. If it is meant by
+ that, that they were created with reasoning powers like, but not to the
+ extent of those possessed by a god, then this may be admitted. But
+ certainly this idea was not in the mind of Moses. He regarded the human
+ form as being in the image of God, and for that reason always spoke of God
+ as having that form. No one can read the Pentateuch without coming to the
+ conclusion that the author supposed that man was created in the physical
+ likeness of Deity. God said "Go to, let us go down." "God smelled a sweet
+ savor;" "God repented him that he had made man;" "and God said;" and
+ "walked;" and "talked;" and "rested." All these expressions are
+ inconsistent with any other idea than that the person using them regarded
+ God as having the form of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, it is impossible for a man to conceive of a personal
+ God, other than as a being having the human form. No one can think of an
+ infinite being having the form of a horse, or of a bird, or of any animal
+ beneath man. It is one of the necessities of the mind to associate forms
+ with intellectual capacities. The highest form of which we have any
+ conception is man's, and consequently, his is the only form that we can
+ find in imagination to give to a personal God, because all other forms
+ are, in our minds, connected with lower intelligences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to think of a personal God as a spirit without form. We
+ can use these words, but they do not convey to the mind any real and
+ tangible meaning. Every one who thinks of a personal God at all, thinks of
+ him as having the human form. Take from God the idea of form; speak of him
+ simply as an all pervading spirit&mdash;which means an all pervading
+ something about which we know nothing&mdash;and Pantheism is the result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that God made man; and the question naturally arises, how was
+ this done? Was it by a process of "evolution," "development;" the
+ "transmission of acquired habits;" the "survival of the fittest," or was
+ the necessary amount of clay kneaded to the proper consistency, and then
+ by the hands of God moulded into form? Modern science tells that man has
+ been evolved, through countless epochs, from the lower forms; that he is
+ the result of almost an infinite number of actions, reactions,
+ experiences, states, forms, wants and adaptations. Did Moses intend to
+ convey such a meaning, or did he believe that God took a sufficient amount
+ of dust, made it the proper shape, and breathed into it the breath of
+ life? Can any believer in the Bible give any reasonable account of this
+ process of creation? Is it possible to imagine what was really done? Is
+ there any theologian who will contend that man was created directly from
+ the earth? Will he say that man was made substantially as he now is, with
+ all his muscles properly developed for walking and speaking, and
+ performing every variety of human action? That all his bones were formed
+ as they now are, and all the relations of nerve, ligament, brain and
+ motion as they are to-day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Looking back over the history of animal life from the lowest to the
+ highest forms, we find that there has been a slow and gradual development;
+ a certain but constant relation between want and production; between use
+ and form. The Moner is said to be the simplest form of animal life that
+ has yet been found. It has been described as "an organism without organs."
+ It is a kind of structureless structure; a little mass of transparent
+ jelly that can flatten itself out, and can expand and contract around its
+ food. It can feed without a mouth, digest without a stomach, walk without
+ feet, and reproduce itself by simple division. By taking this Moner as the
+ commencement of animal life, or rather as the first animal, it is easy to
+ follow the development of the organic structure through all the forms of
+ life to man himself. In this way finally every muscle, bone and joint,
+ every organ, form and function may be accounted for. In this way, and in
+ this way only, can the existence of rudimentary organs be explained. Blot
+ from the human mind the ideas of evolution, heredity, adaptation, and "the
+ survival of the fittest," with which it has been enriched by Lamarck,
+ Goethe, Darwin, Haeckel and Spencer, and all the facts in the history of
+ animal life become utterly disconnected and meaningless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall we throw away all that has been discovered with regard to organic
+ life, and in its place take the statements of one who lived in the rude
+ morning of a barbaric day? Will anybody now contend that man was a direct
+ and independent creation, and sustains and bears no relation to the
+ animals below him? Belief upon this subject must be governed at last by
+ evidence. Man cannot believe as he pleases. He can control his speech, and
+ can say that he believes or disbelieves; but after all, his will cannot
+ depress or raise the scales with which his reason finds the worth and
+ weight of facts. If this is not so, investigation, evidence, judgment and
+ reason are but empty words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I ask again, how were Adam and Eve created? In one account they are
+ created male and female, and apparently at the same time. In the next
+ account, Adam is made first, and Eve a long time afterwards, and from a
+ part of the man. Did God simply by his creative fiat cause a rib slowly to
+ expand, grow and divide into nerve, ligament, cartilage and flesh? How was
+ the woman created from a rib? How was man created simply from dust? For my
+ part, I cannot believe this statement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I may suffer for this in the world to come; and may, millions of years
+ hence, sincerely wish that I had never investigated the subject, but had
+ been content to take the ideas of the dead. I do not believe that any
+ deity works in that way. So far as my experience goes, there is an
+ unbroken procession of cause and effect. Each thing is a necessary link in
+ an infinite chain; and I cannot conceive of this chain being broken even
+ for one instant. Back of the simplest moner there is a cause, and back of
+ that another, and so on, it seems to me, forever. In my philosophy I
+ postulate neither beginning nor ending.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Mosaic account is true, we know how long man has been upon this
+ earth. If that account can be relied on, the first man was made about five
+ thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. Sixteen hundred and
+ fifty-six years after the making of the first man, the inhabitants of the
+ world, with the exception of eight people, were destroyed by a flood. This
+ flood occurred only about four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven years
+ ago. If this account is correct, at that time, only one kind of men
+ existed. Noah and his family were certainly of the same blood. It
+ therefore follows that all the differences we see between the various
+ races of men have been caused in about four thousand years. If the account
+ of the deluge is true, then since that event all the ancient kingdoms of
+ the earth were founded, and their inhabitants passed through all the
+ stages of savage, nomadic, barbaric and semi-civilized life; through the
+ epochs of Stone, Bronze and Iron; established commerce, cultivated the
+ arts, built cities, filled them with palaces and temples, invented
+ writing, produced a literature and slowly fell to shapeless ruin. We must
+ believe that all this has happened within a period of four thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From representations found upon Egyptian granite made more than three
+ thousand years ago, we know that the negro was as black, his lips as full,
+ and his hair as closely curled then as now. If we know anything, we know
+ that there was at that time substantially the same difference between the
+ Egyptian and the Negro as now. If we know anything, we know that
+ magnificent statues were made in Egypt four thousand years before our era&mdash;that
+ is to say, about six thousand years ago. There was at the World's
+ Exposition, in the Egyptian department, a statue of king Cephren, known to
+ have been chiseled more than six thousand years ago. In other words, if
+ the Mosaic account must be believed, this statue was made before the
+ world. We also know, if we know anything, that men lived in v Europe with
+ the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyena. Among the
+ bones of these animals have been found the stone hatchets and flint arrows
+ of our ancestors. In the caves where they lived have been discovered the
+ remains of these animals that had been conquered, killed and devoured as
+ food, hundreds of thousands of years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If these facts are true, Moses was mistaken. For my part, I have
+ infinitely more confidence in the discoveries of to-day, than in the
+ records of a barbarous people. It will not now do to say that man has
+ existed upon this earth for only about six thousand years. One can hardly
+ compute in his imagination the time necessary for man to emerge from the
+ barbarous state, naked and helpless, surrounded by animals far more
+ powerful than he, to progress and finally create the civilizations of
+ India, Egypt and Athens. The distance from savagery to Shakespeare must be
+ measured not by hundreds, but by millions of years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XIV. SUNDAY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he
+ rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God
+ blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had
+ rested from all his work which God created and made."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great work had been accomplished, the world, the sun, and moon, and
+ all the hosts of heaven were finished; the earth was clothed in green, the
+ seas were filled with life, the cattle wandered by the brooks&mdash;insects
+ with painted wings were in the happy air, Adam and Eve were making each
+ others acquaintance, and God was resting from his work. He was
+ contemplating the accomplishments of a week.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Because he rested on that day he sanctified it, and for that reason and
+ for that alone, it was by the Jews considered a holy day. If he only
+ rested on that day, there ought to be some account of what he did the
+ following Monday. Did he rest on that day? What did he do after he got
+ rested? Has he done anything in the way of creation since Saturday evening
+ of the first week?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is now claimed by the "scientific" Christians that the "days" of
+ creation were not ordinary days of twenty-four hours each, but immensely
+ long periods of time. If they are right, then how long was the seventh
+ day? Was that, too, a geologic period covering thousands of ages? That
+ cannot be, because Adam and Eve were created the Saturday evening before,
+ and according to the Bible that was about five thousand eight hundred and
+ eighty-three years ago. I cannot state the time exactly, because there
+ have been as many as one hundred and forty different opinions given by
+ learned Biblical students as to the time between the creation of the world
+ and the birth of Christ. We are quite certain, however, that, according to
+ the Bible, it is not more than six thousand years since the creation of
+ Adam. From this it would appear that the seventh day was not a geologic
+ epoch, but was in fact a period of less than six thousand years, and
+ probably of only twenty-four hours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians who "answer" these things may take their choice. If they
+ take the ground that the "days" were periods of twenty-four hours, then
+ geology will force them to throw away the whole account. If, on the other
+ hand, they admit that the days were vast "periods," then the sacredness of
+ the Sabbath must be given up.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is found in the Bible no intimation that there was the least
+ difference in the days. They are all spoken of in the same way. It may be
+ replied that our translation is incorrect. If this is so, then only those
+ who understand Hebrew, have had a revelation from God, and all the rest
+ have been deceived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it possible to sanctify a space of time? Is rest holier than labor?
+ If there is any difference between days, ought not that to be considered
+ best in which the most useful labor has been performed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all the superstitions of mankind, this insanity about the "sacred
+ Sabbath" is the most absurd. The idea of feeling it a duty to be solemn
+ and sad one-seventh of the time! To think that we can please an infinite
+ being by staying in some dark and sombre room, instead of walking in the
+ perfumed fields! Why should God hate to see a man happy? Why should it
+ excite his wrath to see a family in the woods, by some babbling stream,
+ talking, laughing and loving? Nature works on that "sacred" day. The earth
+ turns, the rivers run, the trees grow, buds burst into flower, and birds
+ fill the air with song. Why should we look sad, and think about death, and
+ hear about hell? Why should that day be filled with gloom instead of joy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A poor mechanic, working all the week in dust and noise, needs a day of
+ rest and joy, a day to visit stream and wood&mdash;a day to live with wife
+ and child; a day in which to laugh at care, and gather hope and strength
+ for toils to come. And his weary wife needs a breath of sunny air, away
+ from street and wall, amid the hills or by the margin of the sea, where
+ she can sit and prattle with her babe, and fill with happy dreams the
+ long, glad day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "Sabbath" was born of asceticism, hatred of human joy, fanaticism,
+ ignorance, egotism of priests and the cowardice of the people. This day,
+ for thousands of years, has been dedicated to superstition, to the
+ dissemination of mistakes, and the establishment of falsehoods. Every
+ Freethinker, as a matter of duty, should violate this day. He should
+ assert his independence, and do all within his power to wrest the Sabbath
+ from the gloomy church and give it back to liberty and joy. Freethinkers
+ should make the Sabbath a day of mirth and music; a day to spend with wife
+ and child&mdash;a day of games, and books, and dreams&mdash;a day to put
+ fresh flowers above our sleeping dead&mdash;a day of memory and hope, of
+ love and rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we in this age of the world be dominated by the dead? Why
+ should barbarian Jews who went down to death and dust three thousand years
+ ago, control the living world? Why should we care for the superstition of
+ men who began the Sabbath by paring their nails, "beginning at the fourth
+ finger, then going to the second, then to the fifth, then to the third,
+ and ending with the thumb?" How pleasing to God this must have been. The
+ Jews were very careful of these nail parings. They who threw them upon the
+ ground were wicked, because Satan used them to work evil upon the earth.
+ They believed that upon the Sabbath, souls were allowed to leave purgatory
+ and cool their burning souls in water. Fires were neither allowed to be
+ kindled nor extinguished, and upon that day it was a sin to bind up
+ wounds. "The lame might use a staff, but the blind could not." So strict
+ was the Sabbath kept, that at one time "if a Jew on a journey was
+ overtaken by the 'sacred day' in a wood, or on the highway, no matter
+ where, nor under what circumstances, he must sit down," and there remain
+ until the day was gone. "If he fell down in the dirt, there he was
+ compelled to stay until the day was done." For violating the Sabbath, the
+ punishment was death, for nothing short of the offender's blood could
+ satisfy the wrath of God. There are, in the Old Testament, two reasons
+ given for abstaining from labor on the Sabbath:&mdash;the resting of God,
+ and the redemption of the Jews from the bondage of Egypt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since the establishment of the Christian religion, the day has been
+ changed, and Christians do not regard the day as holy upon which God
+ actually rested, and which he sanctified. The Christian Sabbath, or the
+ "Lord's day" was legally established by the murderer Constantine, because
+ upon that day Christ was supposed to have risen from the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not easy to see where Christians got the right to disregard the
+ direct command of God, to labor on the day he sanctified, and keep as
+ sacred, a day upon which he commanded men to labor. The Sabbath of God is
+ Saturday, and if any day is to be kept holy, that is the one, and not the
+ Sunday of the Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us throw away these superstitions and take the higher, nobler ground,
+ that every day should be rendered sacred by some loving act, by increasing
+ the happinesss of man, giving birth to noble thoughts, putting in the path
+ of toil some flower of joy, helping the unfortunate, lifting the fallen,
+ dispelling gloom, destroying prejudice, defending the helpless and filling
+ homes with light and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XV. THE NECESSITY FOR A GOOD MEMORY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must not be forgotten that there are two accounts of the creation in
+ Genesis. The first account stops with the third verse of the second
+ chapter. The chapters have been improperly divided. In the original Hebrew
+ the Pentateuch was neither divided into chapters nor verses. There was not
+ even any system of punctuation. It was written wholly with consonants,
+ without vowels, and without any marks, dots, or lines to indicate them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These accounts are materially different, and both cannot be true. Let us
+ see wherein they differ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second account of the creation begins with the fourth verse of the
+ second chapter, and is as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were
+ created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb
+ of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain
+ upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the
+ ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into
+ his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the
+ man whom he had formed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is
+ pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the
+ midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was
+ parted and became into four heads.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The name of the first is Pison; that is it which compasseth the whole
+ land of Havilah, where there is gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth
+ the whole land of Ethiopia.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that is it which goeth
+ toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to
+ dress it and to keep it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden
+ thou mayest freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
+ thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
+ shalt surely die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I
+ will make him an helpmeet for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and
+ every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would
+ call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
+ name thereof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to
+ every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helpmeet for
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and
+ he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and
+ brought her unto the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she
+ shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave
+ unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Order of creation in the first account:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. The heaven and the earth, and light were made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. The firmament was constructed and the waters divided.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. The waters gathered into seas&mdash;and then came dry land, grass,
+ herbs and fruit trees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. The sun and moon. He made the stars also.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. Fishes, fowls, and great whales.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. Beasts, cattle, every creeping thing, man and woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Order of creation in the second account:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. The heavens and the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. A mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the
+ ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. Created a man out of dust, by the name of Adam.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. Planted a garden eastward in Eden, and put the man in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. Created the beasts and fowls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. Created a woman out of one of the man's ribs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the second account, man was made <i>before</i> the beasts and fowls. If
+ this is true, the first account is false. And if the theologians of our
+ time are correct in their view that the Mosaic day means thousands of
+ ages, then, according to the second account, Adam existed millions of
+ years before Eve was formed. He must have lived one Mosaic day before
+ there were any trees, and another Mosaic day before the beasts and fowls
+ were created. Will some kind clergymen tell us upon what kind of food Adam
+ subsisted during these immense periods?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the second account a man is made, and the fact that he was without a
+ helpmeet did not occur to the Lord God until a couple "of vast periods"
+ afterwards. The Lord God suddenly coming to an appreciation of the
+ situation said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make
+ him an helpmeet for him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, after concluding to make "an helpmeet" for Adam, what did the Lord
+ God do? Did he at once proceed to make a woman? No. What did he do? He
+ made the beasts, and tried to induce Adam to take one of them for "an
+ helpmeet." If I am incorrect, read the following account, and tell me what
+ it means:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I
+ will make him an helpmeet for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and
+ every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would
+ call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
+ name thereof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to
+ every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for
+ him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unless the Lord God was looking for an helpmeet for Adam, why did he cause
+ the animals to pass before him? And why did he, after the menagerie had
+ passed by, pathetically exclaim, "But for Adam there was not found an
+ helpmeet for him"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems that Adam saw nothing that struck his fancy. The fairest ape, the
+ sprightliest chimpanzee, the loveliest baboon, the most bewitching
+ orangoutang, the most fascinating gorilla failed to touch with love's
+ sweet pain, poor Adam's lonely heart. Let us rejoice that this was so. Had
+ he fallen in love then, there never would have been a Freethinker in this
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Adam Clarke, speaking of this remarkable proceeding says:&mdash;"God
+ caused the animals to pass before Adam to show him that no creature yet
+ formed could make him a suitable companion; that Adam was convinced that
+ none of these animals could be a suitable companion for him, and that
+ therefore he must continue in a state that was not good (celibacy) unless
+ he became a further debtor to the bounty of his maker, for among all the
+ animals which he had formed, there was not a helpmeet for Adam."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon this same subject, Dr. Scott informs us "that it was not conducive to
+ the happiness of the man to remain without the consoling society, and
+ endearment of tender friendship, nor consistent with the end of his
+ creation to be without marriage by which the earth might be replenished
+ and worshipers and servants raised up to render him praise and glory. Adam
+ seems to have been vastly better acquainted by intuition or revelation
+ with the distinct properties of every creature than the most sagacious
+ observer since the fall of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Upon this review of the animals, not one was found in outward form his
+ counterpart, nor one suited to engage his affections, participate in his
+ enjoyments, or associate with him in the worship of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Matthew Henry admits that "God brought all the animals together to see
+ if there was a suitable match for Adam in any of the numerous families of
+ the inferior creatures, but there was none. They were all looked over, but
+ Adam could not be matched among them all. Therefore God created a new
+ thing to be a helpmeet for him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Failing to satisfy Adam with any of the inferior animals, the Lord God
+ caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and while in this sleep took out one
+ of Adam's ribs and "closed up the flesh instead thereof." And out of this
+ rib, the Lord God made a woman, and brought her to the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was the Lord God compelled to take a part of the man because he had used
+ up all the original "nothing" out of which the universe was made? Is it
+ possible for any sane and intelligent man to believe this story? Must a
+ man be born a second time before this account seems reasonable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagine the Lord God with a bone in his hand with which to start a woman,
+ trying to make up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just at this point it may be proper for me to warn all persons from
+ laughing at or making light of, any stories found in the "Holy Bible."
+ When you come to die, every laugh will be a thorn in your pillow. At that
+ solemn moment, as you look back upon the records of your life, no matter
+ how many men you may have wrecked and ruined; no matter how many women you
+ have deceived and deserted, all that can be forgiven; but if you remember
+ then that you have laughed at even one story in God's "sacred book" you
+ will see through the gathering shadows of death the forked tongues of
+ devils, and the leering eyes of fiends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These stories must be believed, or the work of regeneration can never be
+ commenced. No matter how well you act your part, live as honestly as you
+ may, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, divide your last farthing with the
+ poor, and you are simply traveling the broad road that leads inevitably to
+ eternal death, unless at the same time you implicitly believe the Bible to
+ be the inspired word of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me show you the result of unbelief. Let us suppose, for a moment, that
+ we are at the Day of Judgment, listening to the trial of souls as they
+ arrive. The Recording Secretary, or whoever does the cross-examining, says
+ to a soul:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where are you from?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am from the Earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What kind of a man were you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, I don't like to talk about myself. I suppose you can tell by looking
+ at your books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No, sir. You must tell what kind of a man you were.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, I was what you might call a first-rate fellow. I loved my wife and
+ children. My home was my heaven. My fireside was a paradise to me. To sit
+ there and see the lights and shadows fall upon the faces of those I loved,
+ was to me a perfect joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How did you treat your family?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I never said an unkind word. I never caused my wife, nor one of my
+ children, a moments pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you pay your debts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did not owe a dollar when I died, and left enough to pay my funeral
+ expenses, and to keep the fierce wolf of want from the door of those I
+ loved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you belong to any church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No, sir. They were too narrow, pinched and bigoted for me, I never thought
+ that I could be very happy if other folks were damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you believe in eternal punishment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, no. I always thought that God could get his revenge in far less
+ time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you believe the rib story?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you mean the Adam and Eve business?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes! Did you believe that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To tell you the God's truth, that was just a little more than I could
+ swallow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Away with him to hell!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where are you from?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am from the world too.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you belong to any church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian Association besides.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was your business?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cashier in a Savings Bank.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you ever run away with any money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where I came from, a witness could not be compelled to criminate himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law is different here. Answer the question. Did you run away with any
+ money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How much?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One hundred thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you take anything else with you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, what else?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I took my neighbor's wife&mdash;we sang together in the choir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you have a wife and children of your own? Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And you deserted them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, sir, but such was my confidence in God that I believed he would take
+ care of them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have you heard of them since?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you believe in the rib story?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bless your soul, of course I did. A thousand times I regretted that there
+ were no harder stories in the Bible, so that I could have shown my wealth
+ of faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe the rib story yet?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, with all my heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give him a harp!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, as I was saying, God made a woman from Adam's rib. Of course, I do
+ not know exactly how this was done, but when he got the woman finished, he
+ presented her to Adam. He liked her, and they commenced house-keeping in
+ the celebrated Garden of Eden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we, in order to be good, gentle and loving in our lives, believe that
+ the creation of woman was a second thought? That Jehovah really endeavored
+ to induce Adam to take one of the lower animals as an helpmeet for him?
+ After all, is it not possible to live honest and courageous lives without
+ believing these fables? It is said that from Mount Sinai God gave, amid
+ thunderings and lightnings, ten commandments for the guidance of mankind;
+ and yet among them is not found&mdash;"Thou shalt believe the Bible."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XVI. THE GARDEN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first account we are told that God made man, male and female, and
+ said to them "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and
+ subdue it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the second account only the man is made, and he is put in a garden "to
+ dress it and to keep it." He is not told to subdue the earth, but to dress
+ and keep a garden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first account man is given every herb bearing seed upon the face of
+ the earth and the fruit of every tree for food, and in the second, he is
+ given only the fruit of all the trees in the garden with the exception "of
+ the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" which was a deadly poison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was issuing from this garden a river that was parted into four
+ heads. The first of these, Pison, compassed the whole land of Havilah, the
+ second, Gihon, that compassed the whole land of Ethiopia.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The third, Heddekel, that flowed toward the east of Assyria, and the
+ fourth, the Euphrates. Where are these four rivers now? The brave prow of
+ discovery has visited every sea; the traveler has pressed with weary feet
+ the soil of every clime; and yet there has been found no place from which
+ four rivers sprang. The Euphrates still journeys to the gulf, but where
+ are Pison, Gihon and the mighty Heddekel? Surely by going to the source of
+ the Euphrates we ought to find either these three rivers or their ancient
+ beds. Will some minister when he answers the "Mistakes of Moses" tell us
+ where these rivers are or were? The maps of the world are incomplete
+ without these mighty streams. We have discovered the sources of the Nile;
+ the North Pole will soon be touched by an American; but these three rivers
+ still rise in unknown hills, still flow through unknown lands, and empty
+ still in unknown seas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The account of these four rivers is what the Rev. David Swing would call
+ "a geographical poem." The orthodox clergy cover the whole affair with the
+ blanket of allegory, while the "scientific" Christian folks talk about
+ cataclysms, upheavals, earthquakes, and vast displacements of the earth's
+ crust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question, then arises, whether within the last six thousand years
+ there have been such upheavals and displacements? Talk as you will about
+ the vast "creative periods" that preceded the appearance of man; it is,
+ according to the Bible, only about six thousand years since man was
+ created. Moses gives us the generations of men from Adam until his day,
+ and this account cannot be explained away by calling centuries, days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the second account of creation, these four rivers were made
+ after the creation of man, and consequently they must have been
+ obliterated by convulsions of Nature within six thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we not account for these contradictions, absurdities, and falsehoods
+ by simply saying that although the writer may have done his level best, he
+ failed because he was limited in knowledge, led away by tradition, and
+ depended too implicitly upon the correctness of his imagination? Is not
+ such a course far more reasonable than to insist that all these things are
+ true and must stand though every science shall fall to mental dust?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can any reason be given for not allowing man to eat of the fruit of the
+ tree of knowledge? What kind of tree was that? If it is all an allegory,
+ what truth is sought to be conveyed? Why should God object to that fruit
+ being eaten by man? Why did he put it in the midst of the garden? There
+ was certainly plenty of room outside. If he wished to keep man and this
+ tree apart, why did he put them together? And why, after he had eaten, was
+ he thrust out? The only answer that we have a right to give, is the one
+ given in the Bible. "And the Lord God said, Behold the man has become as
+ one of us to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and
+ take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore the
+ Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from
+ whence he was taken."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will some minister, some graduate of Andover, tell us what this means? Are
+ we bound to believe it without knowing what the meaning is? If it is a
+ revelation, what does it reveal? Did God object to education then, and
+ does that account for the hostile attitude still assumed by theologians
+ toward all scientific truth? Was there in the garden a tree of life, the
+ eating of which would have rendered Adam and Eve immortal? Is it true,
+ that after the Lord God drove them from the garden that he placed upon its
+ Eastern side "Cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep
+ the way of the tree of life?" Are the Cherubim and the flaming sword
+ guarding that tree still, or was it destroyed, or did its rotting trunk,
+ as the Rev. Robert Collyer suggests, "nourish a bank of violets"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What objection could God have had to the immortality of man? You see that
+ after all, this sacred record, instead of assuring us of immortality,
+ shows us only how we lost it. In this there is assuredly but little
+ consolation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this story we have lost one Eden, but nowhere in the Mosaic
+ books are we told how we may gain another. I know that the Christians tell
+ us there is another, in which all true believers will finally be gathered,
+ and enjoy the unspeakable happiness of seeing the unbelievers in hell; but
+ they do not tell us where it is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some commentators say that the Garden of Eden was in the third heaven&mdash;some
+ in the fourth, others have located it in the moon, some in the air beyond
+ the attraction of the earth, some on the earth, some under the earth, some
+ inside the earth, some at the North Pole, others at the South, some in
+ Tartary, some in China, some on the borders of the Ganges, some in the
+ island of Ceylon, some in Armenia, some in Africa, some under the Equator,
+ others in Mesopotamia, in Syria, Persia, Arabia, Babylon, Assyria,
+ Palestine and Europe. Others have contended that it was invisible, that it
+ was an allegory, and must be spiritually understood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But whether you understand these things or not, you must believe them. You
+ may be laughed at in this world for insisting that God put Adam into a
+ deep sleep and made a woman out of one of his ribs, but you will be
+ crowned and glorified in the next. You will also have the pleasure of
+ hearing the gentlemen howl there, who laughed at you here. While you will
+ not be permitted to take any revenge, you will be allowed to smilingly
+ express your entire acquiescence in the will of God. But where is the new
+ Eden? No one knows. The one was lost, and the other has not been found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it true that man was once perfectly pure and innocent, and that he
+ became degenerate by disobedience? No. The real truth is, and the history
+ of man shows, that he has advanced. Events, like the pendulum of a clock
+ have swung forward and back ward, but after all, man, like the hands, has
+ gone steadily on. Man is growing grander. He is not degenerating. Nations
+ and individuals fail and die, and make room for higher forms. The
+ intellectual horizon of the world widens as the centuries pass. Ideals
+ grow grander and purer; the difference between justice and mercy becomes
+ less and less; liberty enlarges, and love intensifies as the years sweep
+ on. The ages of force and fear, of cruelty and wrong, are behind us and
+ the real Eden is beyond. It is said that a desire for knowledge lost us
+ the Eden of the past; but whether that is true or not, it will certainly
+ give us the Eden of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XVII. THE FALL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field,
+ that he had a conversation with Eve, in which he gave his opinion about
+ the effect of eating certain fruit; that he assured her it was good to
+ eat, that it was pleasant to the eye, that it would make her wise; that
+ she was induced to take some; that she persuaded her husband to try it;
+ that God found it out, that he then cursed the snake; condemning it to
+ crawl and eat the dust; that he multiplied the sorrows of Eve, cursed the
+ ground for Adam's sake, started thistles and thorns, condemned man to eat
+ the herb of the field in the sweat of his face, pronounced the curse of
+ death, "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," made coats of
+ skins for Adam and Eve, and drove them out of Eden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who, and what was this serpent? Dr. Adam Clarke says:&mdash;"The serpent
+ must have walked erect, for this is necessarily implied in his punishment.
+ That he was endued with the gift of speech, also with reason. That these
+ things were given to this creature. The woman no doubt having often seen
+ him walking erect, and talking and reasoning, therefore she testifies no
+ sort of surprise when he accosts her in the language related in the text.
+ It therefore appears to me that a creature of the ape or orangoutang kind
+ is here intended, and that Satan made use of this creature as the most
+ proper instrument for the accomplishment of his murderous purposes against
+ the life of the soul of man. Under this creature he lay hid, and by this
+ creature he seduced our first parents. Such a creature answers to every
+ part of the description in the text. It is evident from the structure of
+ its limbs and its muscles that it might have been originally designed to
+ walk erect, and that nothing else than the sovereign controlling power
+ could induce it to put down hands&mdash;in every respect formed like those
+ of man&mdash;and walk like those creatures whose claw-armed parts prove
+ them to have been designed to walk on all fours. The stealthy cunning, and
+ endless variety of the pranks and tricks of these creatures show them even
+ now to be wiser and more intelligent than any other creature, man alone
+ excepted. Being obliged to walk on all fours and gather their food from
+ the ground, they are literally obliged to eat the dust; and though
+ exceeding cunning, and careful in a variety of instances to separate that
+ part which is wholesome and proper for food from that which is not so, in
+ the article of cleanliness they are lost to all sense of propriety. Add to
+ this their utter aversion to walk upright; it requires the utmost
+ discipline to bring them to it, and scarcely anything offends or irritates
+ them more than to be obliged to do it. Long observation of these animals
+ enables me to state these facts. For earnest, attentive watching, and for
+ chattering and babbling they (the ape) have no fellows in the animal
+ world. Indeed, the ability and propensity to chatter, is all they have
+ left of their original gift of speech, of which they appear to have been
+ deprived at the fall as a part of their punishment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here then is the "connecting link" between man and the lower creation. The
+ serpent was simply an orang-outang that spoke Hebrew with the greatest
+ ease, and had the outward appearance of a perfect gentleman, seductive in
+ manner, plausible, polite, and most admirably calculated to deceive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It never did seem reasonable' to me that a long, cold and disgusting snake
+ with an apple in his mouth, could deceive anybody; and I am glad, even at
+ this late date to know that the something that persuaded Eve to taste the
+ forbidden fruit was, at least, in the shape of a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Henry does not agree with the zoological explanation of Mr. Clark, but
+ insists that "it is certain that the devil that beguiled Eve is the old
+ serpent, a malignant by creation, an angel of light, an immediate
+ attendant upon God's throne, but by sin an apostate from his first state,
+ and a rebel against God's crown and dignity. He who attacked our first
+ parents was surely the prince of devils, the ring leader in rebellion. The
+ devil chose to act his part in a serpent, because it is a specious
+ creature, has a spotted, dappled skin, and then, went erect. Perhaps it
+ was a flying serpent which seemed to come from on high, as a messenger
+ from the upper world, one of the seraphim; because the serpent is a
+ subtile creature. What Eve thought of this serpent speaking to her, we are
+ not likely to tell, and, I believe, she herself did not know what to think
+ of it. At first, perhaps, she supposed it might be a good angel, and yet
+ afterwards might suspect something amiss. The person tempted was a woman,
+ now alone, and at a distance from her husband, but near the forbidden
+ tree. It was the devil's subtlety to assault the weaker vessel with his
+ temptations, as we may suppose her inferior to Adam in knowledge, strength
+ and presence of mind. Some think that Eve received the command not
+ immediately from God, but at second hand from her husband, and might,
+ therefore, be the more easily persuaded to discredit it. It was the policy
+ of the devil to enter into discussion with her when she was alone. He took
+ advantage by finding her near the forbidden tree. God permitted Satan to
+ prevail over Eve, for wise and holy ends. Satan teaches men first to
+ doubt, and then to deny. He makes skeptics first, and by degrees makes
+ them atheists."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are compelled to admit that nothing could be more attractive to a woman
+ than a snake walking erect, with a "spotted, dappled skin," unless it were
+ a serpent with wings. Is it not humiliating to know that our ancestors
+ believed these things? Why should we object to the Darwinian doctrine of
+ descent after this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers thought it their duty to believe, thought it a sin to
+ entertain the slightest doubt, and really supposed that their credulity
+ was exceedingly, gratifying to God. To them, the story was entirely real.
+ They could see the garden, hear the babble of waters, smell the perfume of
+ flowers. They believed there was a tree where knowledge grew like plums or
+ pears; and they could plainly see the serpent coiled amid its rustling
+ leaves, coaxing Eve to violate the laws of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where did the serpent come from? On which of the six days was he created?
+ Who made him? Is it possible that God would make a successful rival? He
+ must have known that Adam and Eve would fall. He knew what a snake with a
+ "spotted, dappled skin" could do with an inexperienced woman. Why did he
+ not defend his children? He knew that if the serpent got into the garden,
+ Adam and Eve would sin, that he would have to drive them out, that
+ afterwards the world would be destroyed, and that he himself would die
+ upon the cross.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, I ask what and who was this serpent? He was not a man, for only one
+ man had been made. He was not a woman. He was not a beast of the field,
+ because "he was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord
+ God had made." He was neither fish nor fowl, nor snake, because he had the
+ power of speech, and did not crawl upon his belly until after he was
+ cursed. Where did this serpent come from? Why was he not kept out of the
+ garden? Why did not the Lord God take him by the tail and snap his head
+ off? Why did he not put Adam and Eve on their guard about this serpent?
+ They, of course, were not acquainted in the neighborhood, and knew nothing
+ about the serpent's reputation for truth and veracity among his neighbors.
+ Probably Adam saw him when he was looking for "an helpmeet" and gave him a
+ name, but Eve had never met him before. She was not surprised to hear a
+ serpent talk, as that was the first one she had ever met. Every thing
+ being new to her, and her husband not being with her just at that moment,
+ it need hardly excite our wonder that she tasted the fruit by way of
+ experiment. Neither should we be surprised that when she saw it was good
+ and pleasant to the eye, and a fruit to be desired to make one wise, she
+ had the generosity to divide with her husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theologians have filled thousands of volumes with abuse of this serpent,
+ but it seems that he told the exact truth. We are told that this serpent
+ was, in fact, Satan, the greatest enemy of mankind, and that he entered
+ the serpent, appearing to our first parents in its body. If this is so,
+ why should the serpent have been cursed? Why should God curse the serpent
+ for what had really been done by the devil? Did Satan remain in the body
+ of the serpent, and in some mysterious manner share his punishment? Is it
+ true that when we kill a snake we also destroy an evil spirit, or is there
+ but one devil, and did he perish at the death of the first serpent? Is it
+ on account of that transaction in the Garden of Eden, that all the
+ descendants of Adam and Eve known as Jews and Christians hate serpents?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you account for the snake-worship in Mexico, Africa and India in the
+ same way?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the form of the serpent when he entered the garden, and in what
+ way did he move from place to place? Did he walk or fly? Certainly he did
+ not crawl, because that mode of locomotion was pronounced upon him as a
+ curse. Upon what food did he subsist before his conversation with Eve? We
+ know that after that he lived upon dust, but what did he eat before? It
+ may be that this is all poetic; and the truest poetry is, according to
+ Touchstone, "the most feigning."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this same chapter we are informed that "unto Adam also and to his wife
+ did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them." Where did the Lord
+ God get those skins? He must have taken them from the animals; he was a
+ butcher. Then he had to prepare them; he was a tanner. Then he made them
+ into coats; he was a tailor. How did it happen that they needed coats of
+ skins, when they had been perfectly comfortable in a nude condition? Did
+ the "fall" produce a change in the climate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it really necessary to believe this account in order to be happy here,
+ or hereafter? Does it tend to the elevation of the human race to speak of
+ "God" as a butcher, tanner and tailor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here, let me say once for all, that when I speak of God, I mean the
+ being described by Moses; the Jehovah of the Jews. There may be for aught
+ I know, somewhere in the unknown shoreless vast, some being whose dreams
+ are constellations and within whose thought the infinite exists. About
+ this being, if such an one exists, I have nothing to say. He has written
+ no books, inspired no barbarians, required no worship, and has prepared no
+ hell in which to burn the honest seeker after truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I speak of God, I mean that god who prevented man from putting forth
+ his hand and taking also of the fruit of the tree of life that he might
+ live forever; of that god who multiplied the agonies of woman, increased
+ the weary toil of man, and in his anger drowned a world&mdash;of that god
+ whose altars reeked with human blood, who butchered babes, violated
+ maidens, enslaved men and filled the earth with cruelty and crime; of that
+ god who made heaven for the few, hell for the many, and who will gloat
+ forever and ever upon the writhings of the lost and damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XVIII. DAMPNESS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth,
+ and daughters were born unto them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and
+ they took them wives of all which they chose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that
+ he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that when
+ the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children
+ to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
+ every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it
+ grieved him at his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face
+ of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls
+ of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this account it seems that driving Adam and Eve out of Eden did not
+ have the effect to improve them or their children. On the contrary, the
+ world grew worse and worse. They were under the immediate control and
+ government of God, and he from time to time made known his will; but in
+ spite of this, man continued to increase in crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing in particular seems to have been done. Not a school was
+ established. There was no written language. There was not a Bible in the
+ world. The "scheme of salvation" was kept a profound secret. The five
+ points of Calvinism had not been taught. Sunday schools had not been
+ opened. In short, nothing had been done for the reformation of the world.
+ God did not even keep his own sons at home, but allowed them to leave
+ their abode in the firmament, and make love to the daughters of men. As a
+ result of this, the world was filled with wickedness and giants to such an
+ extent that God regretted "that he had made man on the earth, and it
+ grieved him at his heart."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course God knew when he made man, that he would afterwards regret it.
+ He knew that the people would grow worse and worse until destruction would
+ be the only remedy. He knew that he would have to kill all except Noah and
+ his family, and it is hard to see why he did not make Noah and his family
+ in the first place, and leave Adam and Eve in the original dust. He knew
+ that they would be tempted, that he would have to drive them out of the
+ garden to keep them from eating of the tree of life; that the whole thing
+ would be a failure; that Satan would defeat his plan; that he could not
+ reform the people; that his own sons would corrupt them, and that at last
+ he would have to drown them all except Noah and his family. Why was the
+ Garden of Eden planted? Why was the experiment made? Why were Adam and Eve
+ exposed to the seductive arts of the serpent? Why did God wait until the
+ cool of the day before looking after his children? Why was he not on hand
+ in the morning?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he fill the world with his own children, knowing that he would
+ have to destroy them? And why does this same God tell me how to raise my
+ children when he had to drown his?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a little curious that when God wished to reform the ante-diluvian
+ world he said nothing about hell; that he had no revivals, no
+ camp-meetings, no tracts, no outpourings of the Holy Ghost, no baptisms,
+ no noon prayer meetings, and never mentioned the great doctrine of
+ salvation by faith. If the orthodox creeds of the world are true, all
+ those people went to hell without ever having heard that such a place
+ existed. If eternal torment is a fact, surely these miserable wretches
+ ought to have been warned. They were threatened only with water when they
+ were in fact doomed to eternal fire!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not strange that God said nothing to Adam and Eve about a future
+ life; that he should have kept these "infinite verities" to himself and
+ allowed millions to live and die without the hope of heaven, or the fear
+ of hell?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that hell was not made at that time. In the six days of creation
+ nothing is said about the construction of a bottomless pit, and the
+ serpent himself did not make his appearance until after the creation of
+ man and woman. Perhaps he was made on the first Sunday, and from that fact
+ came, it may be, the old couplet,
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "And Satan still some mischief finds
+ For idle hands to do."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The sacred historian failed also to tell us when the cherubim and the
+ flaming sword were made, and said nothing about two of the persons
+ composing the Trinity. It certainly would have been an easy thing to
+ enlighten Adam and his immediate descendants. The world was then only
+ about fifteen hundred and thirty-six years old, and only about three or
+ four generations of men had lived. Adam had been dead only about six
+ hundred and six years, and some of his grandchildren must, at that time,
+ have been alive and well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to see why God did not civilize these people. He certainly had
+ the power to use, and the wisdom to devise the proper means. What right
+ has a god to fill a world with fiends? Can there be goodness in this? Why
+ should he make experiments that he knows must fail? Is there wisdom in
+ this? And what right has a man to charge an infinite being with wickedness
+ and folly?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Moses, God made up his mind not only to destroy the people,
+ but the beasts and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air. What had
+ the beasts, and the creeping things, and the birds done to excite the
+ anger of God? Why did he repent having made them? Will some Christian give
+ us an explanation of this matter? No good man will inflict unnecessary
+ pain upon a beast; how then can we worship a god who cares nothing for the
+ agonies of the dumb creatures that he made?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he make animals that he knew he would destroy? Does God delight in
+ causing pain? He had the power to make the beasts, and fowls, and creeping
+ things in his own good time and way, and it is to be presumed that he made
+ them according to his wish. Why should he destroy them? They had committed
+ no sin. They had eaten no forbidden fruit, made no aprons, nor tried to
+ reach the tree of life. Yet this god, in blind unreasoning wrath destroyed
+ "all flesh wherein was the breath of life, and every living thing beneath
+ the sky, and every substance wherein was life that he had made."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah having made up his mind to drown the world, told Noah to make an
+ Ark of gopher wood three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty
+ cubits high. A cubit is twenty-two inches; so that the ark was five
+ hundred and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet and eight inches wide and
+ fifty-five feet high. This ark was divided into three stories, and had on
+ top, one window twenty-two inches square. Ventilation must have been one
+ of Jehovah's hobbies. Think of a ship larger than the Great Eastern with
+ only one window, and that but twenty-two inches square!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ark also had one door set in the side thereof that shut from the
+ outside. As soon as this ship was finished, and properly victualed, Noah
+ received seven days notice to get the animals in the ark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed by some of the scientific theologians that the flood was
+ partial, that the waters covered only a small portion of the world, and
+ that consequently only a few animals were in the ark. It is impossible to
+ conceive of language that can more clearly convey the idea of a universal
+ flood than that found in the inspired account. If the flood was only
+ partial, why did God say he would "destroy all flesh wherein is the breath
+ of life from under heaven, and that every thing that is in the earth shall
+ die"? Why did he say "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face
+ of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of
+ the air"? Why did he say "And every living substance that I have made will
+ I destroy from off the face of the earth"? Would a partial, local flood
+ have fulfilled these threats?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be clearer than that the writer of this account intended to
+ convey, and did convey the idea that the flood was universal. Why should
+ Christians try to deprive God of the glory of having wrought the most
+ stupendous of miracles? Is it possible that the Infinite could not
+ overwhelm with waves this atom called the earth? Do you doubt his power,
+ his wisdom or his justice?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Believers in miracles should not endeavor to explain them. There is but
+ one way to explain anything, and that is to account for it by natural
+ agencies. The moment you explain a miracle, it disappears. You should
+ depend not upon explanation, but assertion. You should not be driven from
+ the field because the miracle is shown to be unreasonable. You should
+ reply that all miracles are unreasonable. Neither should you be in the
+ least disheartened if it is shown to be impossible. The possible is not
+ miraculous. You should take the ground that if miracles were reasonable,
+ and possible, there would be no reward paid for believing them. The
+ Christian has the goodness to believe, while the sinner asks for evidence.
+ It is enough for God to work miracles without being called upon to
+ substantiate them for the benefit of unbelievers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago, the Christians believed implicitly in the literal
+ truth of every miracle recorded in the Bible. Whoever tried to explain
+ them in some natural way, was looked upon as an infidel in disguise, but
+ now he is regarded as a benefactor. The credulity of the church is
+ decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are now either "explained," or
+ allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in
+ the drapery of allegory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the sixth chapter, Noah is ordered to take "of every living thing of
+ all flesh, two of every sort into the ark&mdash;male and female." In the
+ seventh chapter the order is changed, and Noah is commanded, according to
+ the Protestant Bible, as follows: "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to
+ thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean,
+ by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the
+ male and the female."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Catholic Bible, Noah was commanded&mdash;-"Of all clean
+ beasts take seven and seven, the male and the female. But of the beasts
+ that are unclean two and two, the male and the female. Of the fowls also
+ of the air seven and seven, the male and the female."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the purpose of belittling this miracle, many commentators have taken
+ the ground that Noah was not ordered to take seven males and seven females
+ of each kind of clean beasts, but seven in all. Many Christians contend
+ that only seven clean beasts of each kind were taken into the ark&mdash;three
+ and a half of each sex.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the account in the seventh chapter means anything, it means <i>first</i>,
+ that of each kind of clean beasts, fourteen were to be taken, seven males,
+ and seven females; <i>second</i>, that of unclean beasts should be taken,
+ two of each kind, one of each sex, and <i>third</i>, that he should take
+ of every kind of fowls, seven of each sex.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is equally clear that the command in the 19th and 20th verses of the
+ 6th chapter, is to take two of each sort, one male and one female. And
+ this agrees exactly with the account in the 7th, 8th, 9th, 14th, 15th, and
+ 16th verses of the 7th chapter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question is, how many beasts, fowls and creeping things did Noah
+ take into the ark?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are now known and classified at least twelve thousand five hundred
+ species of birds. There are still vast territories in China, South
+ America, and Africa unknown to the ornithologist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of the birds, Noah took fourteen of each species, according to the 3d
+ verse of the 7th chapter, "Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male
+ and the female," making a total of 175,000 birds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right here allow me to ask a question. If the flood was simply a
+ partial flood, why were birds taken into the ark? It seems to me that most
+ birds, attending strictly to business, might avoid a partial flood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are at least sixteen hundred and fifty-eight kinds of beasts. Let us
+ suppose that twenty-five of these are clean. Of the clean, fourteen of
+ each kind&mdash;seven of each sex&mdash;were taken. These amount to 350.
+ Of the unclean&mdash;two of each kind, amounting to 3,266. There are some
+ six hundred and fifty species of reptiles. Two of each kind amount to
+ 1,300. And lastly, there are of insects including the creeping things, at
+ least one million species, so that Noah and his folks had to get of these
+ into the ark about 2,000,000.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Animalcul&aelig; have not been taken into consideration. There are
+ probably many hundreds of thousands of species; many of them invisible;
+ and yet Noah had to pick them out by pairs. Very few people have any just
+ conception of the trouble Noah had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that there are many animals on this continent not found in the Old
+ World. These must have been carried from here to the ark, and then brought
+ back afterwards. Were the peccary, armadillo, ant-eater, sloth, agouti,
+ vampire-bat, marmoset, howling and prehensile-tailed monkey, the raccoon
+ and muskrat carried by the angels from America to Asia? How did they get
+ there? Did the polar bear leave his field of ice and journey toward the
+ tropics? How did he know where the ark was? Did the kangaroo swim or jump
+ from Australia to Asia? Did the giraffe, hippopotamus, antelope and
+ orang-outang journey from Africa in search of the ark? Can absurdities go
+ farther than this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What had these animals to eat while on the journey? What did they eat
+ while in the ark? What did they drink? When the rain came, of course the
+ rivers ran to the seas, and these seas rose and finally covered the world.
+ The waters of the seas, mingled with those of the flood, would make all
+ salt. It has been calculated that it required, to drown the world, about
+ eight times as much water as was in all the seas. To find how salt the
+ waters of the flood must have been, take eight quarts of fresh water, and
+ add one quart from the sea. Such water would create instead of allaying
+ thirst. Noah had to take in his ark fresh water for all his beasts, birds
+ and living things. He had to take the proper food for all. How long was he
+ in the ark? Three hundred and seventy-seven days! Think of the food
+ necessary for the monsters of the ante-diluvian world!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eight persons did all the work. They attended to the wants of 175,000
+ birds, 3,616 beasts, 1,300 reptiles, and 2,000,000 insects, saying nothing
+ of countless animalcul&aelig;.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, after they all got in, Noah pulled down the window, God shut the
+ door, and the rain commenced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How long did it rain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How deep did the water get?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About five miles and a half.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How much did it rain a day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Enough to cover the whole world to a depth of about seven hundred and
+ forty-two feet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some Christians say that the fountains of the great deep were broken up.
+ Will they be kind enough to tell us what the fountains of the great deep
+ are? Others say that God had vast stores of water in the center of the
+ earth that he used on that occasion. How did these waters happen to run up
+ hill?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, allow me to tell you once more that you must not try to explain
+ these things. Your efforts in that direction do no good, because your
+ explanations are harder to believe than the miracle itself. Take my
+ advice, stick to assertion, and let explanation alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, as now, Dhawalagiri lifted its crown of snow twenty-nine thousand
+ feet above the level of the sea, and on the cloudless cliffs of Chimborazo
+ then, as now, sat the condor; and yet the waters rising seven hundred and
+ twenty-six feet a day&mdash;thirty feet an hour, six inches a minute,&mdash;rose
+ over the hills, over the volcanoes, filled the vast craters, extinguished
+ all the fires, rose above every mountain peak until the vast world was but
+ one shoreless sea covered with the innumerable dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was this the work of the most merciful God, the father of us all? If there
+ is a God, can there be the slightest danger of incurring his displeasure
+ by doubting even in a reverential way, the truth of such a cruel lie? If
+ we think that God is kinder than he really is, will our poor souls be
+ burned for that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How many trees can live under miles of water for a year? What became of
+ the soil washed, scattered, dissolved, and covered with the <i>debris</i>
+ of a world? How were the tender plants and herbs preserved? How were the
+ animals preserved after leaving the ark? There was no grass except such as
+ had been submerged for a year. There were no animals to be devoured by the
+ carnivorous beasts. What became of the birds that fed on worms and
+ insects? What became of the birds that devoured other birds?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be remembered that the pressure of the water when at the highest
+ point&mdash;say twenty-nine thousand feet, would have been about eight
+ hundred tons on each square foot. Such a pressure certainly would have
+ destroyed nearly every vestige of vegetable life, so that when the animals
+ came out of the ark, there was not a mouthful of food in the wide world.
+ How were they supported until the world was again clothed with grass? How
+ were those animals taken care of that subsisted on others? Where did the
+ bees get honey, and the ants seeds? There was not a creeping thing upon
+ the whole earth; not a breathing creature beneath the whole heavens; not a
+ living substance. Where did the tenants of the ark get food?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is but one answer, if the story is true. The food necessary not only
+ during the year of the flood, but sufficient for many months afterwards,
+ must have been stored in the ark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is probably not an animal in the world that will not, in a year, eat
+ and drink ten times its weight. Noah must have provided food and water for
+ a year while in the ark, and food for at least six months after they got
+ ashore. It must have required for a pair of elephants, about one hundred
+ and fifty tons of food and water. A couple of mammoths would have required
+ about twice that amount. Of course there were other monsters that lived on
+ trees; and in a year would have devoured quite a forest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How could eight persons have distributed this food, even if the ark had
+ been large enough to hold it? How was the ark kept clean? We know how it
+ was ventilated; but what was done with the filth? How were the animals
+ watered? How were some portions of the ark heated for animals from the
+ tropics, and others kept cool for the polar bears? How did the animals get
+ back to their respective countries? Some had to creep back about six
+ thousand miles, and they could only go a few feet a day. Some of the
+ creeping things must have started for the ark just as soon as they were
+ made, and kept up a steady jog for sixteen hundred years. Think of a
+ couple of the slowest snails leaving a point opposite the ark and starting
+ for the plains of Shinar, a distance of twelve thousand miles. Going at
+ the rate of a mile a month, it would take them a thousand years. How did
+ they get there? Polar bears must have gone several thousand miles, and so
+ sudden a change in climate must have been exceedingly trying upon their
+ health. How did they know the way to go? Of course, all the polar bears
+ did not go. Only two were required. Who selected these?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Two sloths had to make the journey from South America. These creatures
+ cannot travel to exceed three rods a day. At this rate, they would make a
+ mile in about a hundred days. They must have gone about six thousand five
+ hundred miles, to reach the ark. Supposing them to have traveled by a
+ reasonably direct route, in order to complete the journey before Noah
+ hauled in the plank, they must have started several years before the world
+ was created. We must also consider that these sloths had to board
+ themselves on the way, and that most of their time had to be taken up
+ getting food and water. It is exceedingly doubtful whether a sloth could
+ travel six thousand miles and board himself in less than three thousand
+ years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity of this most
+ incredible, wicked and foolish of all the fables contained in that
+ repository of the impossible, called the Bible. To me it is a matter of
+ amazement, that it ever was for a moment believed by any intelligent human
+ being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Adam Clarke says that "the animals were brought to the ark by the
+ power of God, and their enmities were so removed or suspended, that the
+ lion could dwell peaceably with the lamb, and the wolf sleep happily by
+ the side of the kid. There is no positive evidence that animal food was
+ ever used before the flood. Noah had the first grant of this kind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Scott remarks, "There seems to have been a very extraordinary miracle,
+ perhaps by the ministration of angels, in bringing two of every species to
+ Noah, and rendering them submissive, and peaceful with each other. Yet it
+ seems not to have made any impression upon the hardened spectators. The
+ suspension of the ferocity of the savage beasts during their continuance
+ in the ark, is generally considered as an apt figure of the change that
+ takes place in the disposition of sinners when they enter the true church
+ of Christ."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed the deluge to have been universal. In his day science had not
+ demonstrated the absurdity of this belief, and he was not compelled to
+ resort to some theory not found in the Bible. He insisted that "by some
+ vast convulsion, the very bowels of the earth were forced upwards, and
+ rain poured down in cataracts and water-spouts, with no intermission for
+ forty days and nights, and until in every place a universal deluge was
+ effected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The presence of God was the only comfort of Noah in his dreary
+ confinement, and in witnessing the dire devastation of the earth and its
+ inhabitants, and especially of the human species&mdash;of his companions,
+ his neighbors, his relatives&mdash;all those to whom he had preached, for
+ whom he had prayed and over whom he had wept, and even of many who had
+ helped to build the ark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It seems that by a peculiar providential interposition, no animal of any
+ sort died, although they had been shut up in the ark above a year; and it
+ does not appear that there had been any increase of them during that time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Ark was flat-bottomed&mdash;square at each end&mdash;roofed like a
+ house so that it terminated at the top in the breadth of a cubit. It was
+ divided into many little cabins for its intended inhabitants. Pitched
+ within and without to keep it tight and sweet, and lighted from the upper
+ part. But it must, at first sight, be evident that so large a vessel, thus
+ constructed, with so few persons on board, was utterly unfitted to weather
+ out the deluge, except it was under the immediate guidance and protection
+ of the Almighty."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Henry furnished the Christian world with the following:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "As our bodies have in them the humors which, when God pleases, become the
+ springs and seeds of mortal disease, so the earth had, in its bowels,
+ those waters which, at God's command, sprung up and flooded it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "God made the world in six days, but he was forty days in destroying it,
+ because he is slow to anger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The hostilities between the animals in the ark ceased, and ravenous
+ creatures became mild and manageable, so that the wolf lay down with the
+ lamb, and the lion ate straw like an ox.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "God shut the door of the ark to secure Noah and to keep him safe, and
+ because it was necessary that the door should be shut very close lest the
+ water should break in and sink the ark, and very fast lest others might
+ break it down.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The waters rose so high that not only the low flat countries were
+ deluged, but to make sure work and that none might escape, the tops of the
+ highest mountains were overflowed fifteen cubits. That is, seven and a
+ half yards, so that salvation was not hoped for from hills or mountains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Perhaps some of the people got to the top of the ark, and hoped to shift
+ for themselves there. But either they perished there for want of food, or
+ the dashing rain washed them off the top. Others, it may be, hoped to
+ prevail with Noah for admission into the ark, and plead old acquaintance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Have we not eaten and drank in thy presence? Hast thou not preached in
+ our streets?' 'Yea,' said Noah, 'many a time, but to little purpose. I
+ called but ye refused; and now it is not in my power to help you. God has
+ shut the door and I cannot open it.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We may suppose that some of those who perished in the deluge had
+ themselves assisted Noah, or were employed by him in building the ark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Hitherto, man had been confined to feed only upon the products of the
+ earth. Fruits, herbs and roots, and all sorts of greens, and milk, which
+ was the first grant; but the flood having perhaps washed away much of the
+ fruits of the earth, and rendered them much less pleasant and nourishing,
+ God enlarged the grant and allowed him to eat flesh, which perhaps man
+ never thought of until now, that God directed him to it. Nor had he any
+ more desire to it than the sheep has to suck blood like the wolf. But now,
+ man is allowed to feed upon flesh as freely and safely as upon the green
+ herb."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such was the debasing influence of a belief in the literal truth of the
+ Bible upon these men, that their commentaries are filled with passages
+ utterly devoid of common sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Clarke speaking of the mammoth says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This animal, an astonishing proof of God's power, he seems to have
+ produced merely to show what he could do. And after suffering a few of
+ them to propagate, he extinguished the race by a merciful providence, that
+ they might not destroy both man and beast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We are told that it would have been much easier for God to destroy all
+ the people and make new ones, but he would not want to waste anything and
+ no power or skill should be lavished where no necessity exists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The animals were brought to the ark by the power of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again gentlemen, let me warn you of the danger of trying to explain a
+ miracle. Let it alone. Say that you do not understand it, and do not
+ expect to until taught in the schools of the New Jerusalem. The more
+ reasons you give, the more unreasonable the miracle will appear. Through
+ what you say in defence, people are led to think, and as soon as they
+ really think, the miracle is thrown away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among the most ignorant nations you will find the most wonders, among the
+ most enlightened, the least. It is with individuals, the same as with
+ nations. Ignorance believes, Intelligence examines and explains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For about seven months the ark, with its cargo of men, animals and
+ insects, tossed and wandered without rudder or sail upon a boundless sea.
+ At last it grounded on the mountains of Ararat; and about three months
+ afterward the tops of the mountains became visible. It must not be
+ forgotten that the mountain where the ark is supposed to have first
+ touched bottom, was about seventeen thousand feet high. How were the
+ animals from the tropics kept warm? When the waters were abated it would
+ be intensely cold at a point seventeen thousand feet above the level of
+ the sea. May be there were stoves, furnaces, fire places and steam coils
+ in the ark, but they are not mentioned in the inspired narrative. How were
+ the animals kept from freezing? It will not do to say that Ararat was not
+ very high after all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you will read the fourth and fifth verses of the eight chapter you will
+ see that although "the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth
+ day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat, it was not until the first
+ day of the tenth month that the tops of the mountains could be seen." From
+ this it would seem that the ark must have rested upon about the highest
+ peak in that country. Noah waited forty days more, and then for the first
+ time opened the window and took a breath of fresh air. He then sent out a
+ raven that did not return, then a dove that returned. He then waited seven
+ days and sent forth a dove that returned not. From this he knew that the
+ waters were abated. Is it possible that he could not see whether the
+ waters had gone? Is it possible to conceive of a more perfectly childish
+ way of ascertaining whether the earth was dry?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last Noah "removed the covering of the ark, and looked and behold the
+ face of the ground was dry," and thereupon God told him to disembark. In
+ his gratitude Noah built an altar and took of every clean beast and of
+ every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings. And the Lord smelled a
+ sweet savor and said in his heart that he would not any more curse the
+ ground for man's sake. For saying this in his heart the Lord gives as a
+ reason, not that man is, or will be good, but because "the imagination of
+ man's heart is evil from his youth." God destroyed man because "the
+ wickedness of man was great in the earth, and <i>because every imagination
+ of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually</i>." And he
+ promised for the same reason not to destroy him again. Will some gentleman
+ skilled in theology give us an explanation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After God had smelled the sweet savor of sacrifice, he seems to have
+ changed his idea as to the proper diet for man. When Adam and Eve were
+ created they were allowed to eat herbs bearing seed, and the fruit of
+ trees. When they were turned out of Eden, God said to them "Thou shalt eat
+ the herb of the field." In the first chapter of Genesis the "green herb"
+ was given for food to the beasts, fowls and creeping things. Upon being
+ expelled from the garden, Adam and Eve, as to their food, were put upon an
+ equality with the lower animals. According to this, the ante-diluvians
+ were vegetarians. This may account for their wickedness and longevity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After Noah sacrificed, and God smelled the sweet savor; he said&mdash;"Every
+ moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb
+ have I given you all things." Afterward this same God changed his mind
+ again, and divided the beasts and birds into clean and unclean, and made
+ it a crime for man to eat the unclean. Probably food was so scarce when
+ Noah was let out of the ark that Jehovah generously allowed him to eat
+ anything and everything he could find.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the account, God then made a covenant with Noah to the effect
+ that he would not again destroy the world with a flood, and as the
+ attesting witness of this contract, a rainbow was set in the cloud. This
+ bow was placed in the sky so that it might perpetually remind God of his
+ promise and covenant. Without this visible witness and reminder, it would
+ seem that Jehovah was liable to forget the contract, and drown the world
+ again. Did the rainbow originate in this way? Did God put it in the cloud
+ simply to keep his agreement in his memory?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For me it is impossible to believe the story of the deluge. It seems so
+ cruel, so barbaric, so crude in detail, so absurd in all its parts, and so
+ contrary to all we know of law, that even credulity itself is shocked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many nations have preserved accounts of a deluge in which all people,
+ except a family or two, were destroyed. Babylon was certainly a city
+ before Jerusalem was founded. Egypt was in the height of her power when
+ there were only seventy Jews in the world, and India had a literature
+ before the name of Jehovah had passed the lips of superstition. An account
+ of a general deluge "was discovered by George Smith, translated from
+ another account that was written about two thousand years before Christ."
+ Of course it is impossible to tell how long the story had lived in the
+ memory of tradition before it was reduced to writing by the Babylonians.
+ According to this account, which is, without doubt, much older than the
+ one given by Moses, Tamzi built a ship at the command of the god Hea, and
+ put in it his family and the beasts of the field. He pitched the ship
+ inside and outside with bitumen, and as soon as it was finished, there
+ came a flood of rain and "destroyed all life from the face of the whole
+ earth. On the seventh day there was a calm, and the ship stranded on the
+ mountain Nizir." Tamzi waited for seven days more, and then let out a
+ dove. Afterwards, he let out a swallow, and that, as well as the dove
+ returned. Then he let out a raven, and as that did not return, he
+ concluded that the water had dried away, and thereupon left the ship. Then
+ he made an offering to god, or the gods, and "Hea interceded with Bel," so
+ that the earth might never again be drowned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the Babylonian story, told without the contradictions of the
+ original. For in that, it seems, there are two accounts, as well as in the
+ Bible. Is it not a strange coincidence that there should be contradictory
+ accounts mingled in both the Babylonian and Jewish stories?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Bible there are two accounts. In one account, Noah was to take two
+ of all beasts, birds, and creeping things into the ark, while in the
+ other, he was commanded to take of clean beasts, and all birds by sevens
+ of each kind. According to one account, the flood only lasted one hundred
+ and fifty days&mdash;as related in the third verse of the eighth chapter;
+ while the other account fixes the time at three hundred and seventy-seven
+ days. Both of these accounts cannot be true. Yet in order to be saved, it
+ is not sufficient to believe one of them&mdash;you must believe both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among the Egyptians there was a story to the effect that the great god Ra
+ became utterly maddened with the people, and deliberately made up his mind
+ that he would exterminate mankind. Thereupon he began to destroy, and
+ continued in the terrible work until blood flowed in streams, when
+ suddenly he ceased, and took an oath that he would not again destroy the
+ human race. This myth was probably thousands of years old when Moses was
+ born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, in India, there was a fable about the flood. A fish warned Manu that a
+ flood was coming. Manu built a "box" and the fish towed it to a mountain
+ and saved all hands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same kind of stories were told in Greece, and among our own Indian
+ tribes. At one time the Christian pointed to the fact that many nations
+ told of a flood, as evidence of the truth of the Mosaic account; but now,
+ it having been shown that other accounts are much older, and equally
+ reasonable, that argument has ceased to be of any great value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is probable that all these accounts had a common origin. They were
+ likely born of something in nature visible to all nations. The idea of a
+ universal flood, produced by a god to drown the world on account of the
+ sins of the people, is infinitely absurd. The solution of all these
+ stories has been supposed to be, the existence of partial floods in most
+ countries; and for a long time this solution was satisfactory. But the
+ fact that these stories are greatly alike, that only one man is warned,
+ that only one family is saved, that a boat is built, that birds are sent
+ out to find if the water had abated, tend to show that they had a common
+ origin. Admitting that there were severe floods in all countries; it
+ certainly cannot follow that in each instance only one family would be
+ saved, or that the same story would in each instance be told. It may be
+ urged that the natural tendency of man to exaggerate calamities, might
+ account for this agreement in all the accounts, and it must be admitted
+ that there is some force in the suggestion. I believe, though, that the
+ real origin of all these myths is the same, and that it was originally an
+ effort to account for the sun, moon and stars. The sun and moon were the
+ man and wife, or the god and goddess, and the stars were their children.
+ From a celestial myth, it became a terrestrial one; the air, or
+ ether-ocean became a flood, produced by rain, and the sun moon and stars
+ became man, woman and children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the original story, the mountain was the place where in the far east
+ the sky was supposed to touch the earth, and it was there that the ship
+ containing the celestial passengers finally rested from its voyage. But
+ whatever may be the origin of the stories of the flood, whether told first
+ by Hindu, Babylonian or Hebrew, we may rest perfectly assured that they
+ are all equally false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XIX. BACCHUS AND BABEL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As soon as Noah had disembarked, he proceeded to plant a vineyard, and
+ began to be a husbandman; and when the grapes were ripe he made wine and
+ drank of it to excess; cursed his grandson, blessed Shem and Japheth, and
+ after that lived for three hundred and fifty years. What he did during
+ these three hundred and fifty years, we are not told. We never hear of him
+ again. For three hundred and fifty years he lived among his sons, and
+ daughters, and their descendants. He must have been a venerable man. He
+ was the man to whom God had made known his intention of drowning the
+ world. By his efforts, the human race had been saved. He must have been
+ acquainted with Methuselah for six hundred years, and Methuselah was about
+ two hundred and forty years old, when Adam died. Noah must himself have
+ known the history of mankind, and must have been an object of almost
+ infinite interest; and yet for three hundred and fifty years he is neither
+ directly nor indirectly mentioned. When Noah died, Abraham must have been
+ more than fifty years old; and Shem, the son of Noah, lived for several
+ hundred years after the death of Abraham; and yet he is never mentioned.
+ Noah when he died, was the oldest man in the whole world by about five
+ hundred years; and everybody living at the time of his death knew that
+ they were indebted to him, and yet no account is given of his burial. No
+ monument was raised to mark the spot. This, however, is no more wonderful
+ than the fact that no account is given of the death of Adam or of Eve, nor
+ of the place of their burial. This may all be accounted for by the fact
+ that the language of man was confounded at the building of the tower of
+ Babel, whereby all tradition may have been lost, so that even the sons of
+ Noah could not give an account of their voyage in the ark; and,
+ consequently, some one had to be directly inspired to tell the story,
+ after new languages had been formed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has always been a mystery to me how Adam, Eve, and the serpent were
+ taught the same language. Where did they get it? We know now, that it
+ requires a great number of years to form a language; that it is of
+ exceedingly slow growth. We also know that by language, man conveys to his
+ fellows the impressions made upon him by what he sees, hears, smells and
+ touches. We know that the language of the savage consists of a few sounds,
+ capable of expressing only a few ideas or states of the mind, such as
+ love, desire, fear, hatred, aversion and contempt. Many centuries are
+ required to produce a language capable of expressing complex ideas. It
+ does not seem to me that ideas can be manufactured by a deity and put in
+ the brain of man. These ideas must be the result of observation and
+ experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does anybody believe that God directly taught a language to Adam and Eve,
+ or that he so made them that they, by intuition spoke Hebrew, or some
+ language capable of conveying to each other their thoughts? How did the
+ serpent learn the same language? Did God teach it to him, or did he happen
+ to overhear God, when he was teaching Adam and Eve? We are told in the
+ second chapter of Genesis that God caused all the animals to pass before
+ Adam to see what he would call them. We cannot infer from this that God
+ named the animals and informed Adam what to call them. Adam named them
+ himself. Where did he get his words? We cannot imagine a man just made out
+ of dust, without the experience of a moment, having the power to put his
+ thoughts in language. In the first place, we cannot conceive of his having
+ any thoughts until he has combined, through experience and observation,
+ the impressions that nature had made upon him through the medium of his
+ senses. We cannot imagine of his knowing anything, in the first instance,
+ about different degrees of heat, nor about darkness, if he was made in the
+ day-time, nor about light, if created at night, until the next morning.
+ Before a man can have what we call thoughts, he must have had a little
+ experience. Something must have happened to him before he can have a
+ thought, and before he can express himself in language. Language is a
+ growth, not a gift. We account now for the diversity of language by the
+ fact that tribes and nations have had different experiences, different
+ wants, different surroundings, and, one result of all these differences
+ is, among other things, a difference in language. Nothing can be more
+ absurd than to account for the different languages of the world by saying
+ that the original language was confounded at the tower of Babel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Bible, up to the time of the building of that tower, the
+ whole earth was of one language and of one speech, and would have so
+ remained until the present time had not an effort been made to build a
+ tower whose top should reach into heaven. Can any one imagine what
+ objection God would have to the building of such a tower? And how could
+ the confusion of tongues prevent its construction? How could language be
+ confounded? It could be confounded only by the destruction of memory. Did
+ God destroy the memory of mankind at that time, and if so, how? Did he
+ paralyze that portion of the brain presiding over the organs of
+ articulation, so that they could not speak the words, although they
+ remembered them clearly, or did he so touch the brain that they could not
+ hear? Will some theologian, versed in the machinery of the miraculous,
+ tell us in what way God confounded the language of mankind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why would the confounding of the language make them separate? Why would
+ they not stay together until they could understand each other? People will
+ not separate, from weakness. When in trouble they come together and desire
+ the assistance of each other. Why, in this instance, did they separate?
+ What particular ones would naturally come together if nobody understood
+ the language of any other person? Would it not have been just as hard to
+ agree when and where to go, without any language to express the agreement,
+ as to go on with the building of the tower?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that any one now believes that the whole world would be of
+ one speech had the language not been confounded at Babel? Do we not know
+ that every word was suggested in some way by the experience of men? Do we
+ not know that words are continually dying, and continually being born;
+ that every language has its cradle and its cemetery&mdash;its buds, its
+ blossoms, its fruits and its withered leaves? Man has loved, enjoyed,
+ hated, suffered and hoped, and all words have been born of these
+ experiences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did "the Lord come down to see the city and the tower"? Could he not
+ see them from where he lived or from where he was? Where did he come down
+ from? Did he come in the daytime, or in the night? We are taught now that
+ God is everywhere; that he inhabits immensity; that he is in every atom,
+ and in every star. If this is true, why did he "come down to see the city
+ and the tower?" Will some theologian explain this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, is it not much easier and altogether more reasonable to say
+ that Moses was mistaken, that he knew little of the science of language,
+ and that he guessed a great deal more than he investigated?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XX. FAITH IN FILTH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No light whatever is shed upon what passed in the world after the
+ confounding of language at Babel, until the birth of Abraham. But, before
+ speaking of the history of the Jewish people, it may be proper for me to
+ say that many things are recounted in Genesis, and other books attributed
+ to Moses, of which I do not wish to speak. There are many pages of these
+ books unfit to read, many stories not calculated, in my judgment, to
+ improve the morals of mankind. I do not wish even to call the attention of
+ my readers to these things, except in a general way. It is to be hoped
+ that the time will come when such chapters and passages as cannot be read
+ without leaving the blush of shame upon the cheek of modesty, will be left
+ out, and not published as a part of the Bible. If there is a God, it
+ certainly is blasphemous to attribute to him the authorship of pages too
+ obscene, beastly and vulgar to be read in the presence of men and women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are
+ pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books
+ have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of
+ God. These stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor.
+ They never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. For one, I cannot
+ afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of
+ the Scriptures I leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the
+ clergy. Clergymen may know some way by which they can extract honey from
+ these flowers. Until these passages are expunged from the Old Testament,
+ it is not a fit book to be read by either old or young. It contains pages
+ that no minister in the United States would read to his congregation for
+ any reward whatever. There are chapters that no gentleman would read in
+ the presence of a lady. There are chapters that no father would read to
+ his child. There are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time
+ will come when mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called
+ inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that in many books besides the Bible, there are immodest lines.
+ Some of the greatest writers have soiled their pages with indecent words.
+ We account for this by saying that the authors were human; that they
+ catered to the taste and spirit of their times. We make excuses, but at
+ the same time regret that in their works they left an impure word. But
+ what shall we say of God? Is it possible that a being of infinite purity&mdash;the
+ author of modesty, would smirch the pages of his book with stories lewd,
+ licentious and obscene? If God is the author of the Bible, it is, of
+ course, the standard by which all other books can, and should be measured.
+ If the Bible is not obscene, what book is? Why should men be imprisoned
+ simply for imitating God? The Christian world should never say another
+ word against immoral books until it makes the inspired volume clean. These
+ vile and filthy things were not written for the purpose of conveying and
+ enforcing moral truth, but seem to have been written because the author
+ loved an unclean thing. There is no moral depth below that occupied by the
+ writer or publisher of obscene books, that stain with lust, the loving
+ heart of youth. Such men should be imprisoned and their books destroyed.
+ The literature of the world should be rendered decent, and no book should
+ be published that cannot be read by, and in the hearing of the best and
+ purest people. But as long as the Bible is considered as the work of God,
+ it will be hard to make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as
+ long as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. The literature
+ of our country will not be sweet and clean until the Bible ceases to be
+ regarded as the production of a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are continually told that the Bible is the very foundation of modesty
+ and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a
+ minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as
+ an unclean wretch. Every woman would leave the church, and if the men
+ stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any saving grace in hypocrisy? Will men become clean in speech by
+ believing that God is unclean? Would it not be far better to admit that
+ the Bible was written by barbarians in a barbarous, coarse and vulgar age?
+ Would it not be safer to charge Moses with vulgarity, instead of God? Is
+ it not altogether more probable that some ignorant Hebrew would write the
+ vulgar words? The Christians tell me that God is the author of these vile
+ and stupid things? I have examined the question to the best of my ability,
+ and as to God my verdict is:&mdash;Not guilty. Faith should not rest in
+ filth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every foolish and immodest thing should be expunged from the Bible. Let us
+ keep the good. Let us preserve every great and splendid thought, every
+ wise and prudent maxim, every just law, every elevated idea, and every
+ word calculated to make man nobler and purer, and let us have the courage
+ to throw the rest away. The souls of children should not be stained and
+ soiled. The charming instincts of youth should not be corrupted and
+ defiled. The girls and boys should not be taught that unclean words were
+ uttered by "inspired" lips. Teach them that these words were born of
+ savagery and lust. Teach them that the unclean is the unholy, and that
+ only the pure is sacred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXI. THE HEBREWS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After language had been confounded and the people scattered, there
+ appeared in the land of Canaan a tribe of Hebrews ruled by a chief or
+ sheik called Abraham. They had a few cattle, lived in tents, practiced
+ polygamy, wandered from place to place, and were the only folks in the
+ whole world to whom God paid the slightest attention. At this time there
+ were hundreds of cities in India filled with temples and palaces; millions
+ of Egyptians worshiped Isis and Osiris, and had covered their land with
+ marvelous monuments of industry, power and skill. But these civilizations
+ were entirely neglected by the Deity, his whole attention being taken up
+ with Abraham and his family.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems, from the account, that God and Abraham were intimately
+ acquainted, and conversed frequently upon a great variety of subjects. By
+ the twelfth chapter of Genesis it appears that he made the following
+ promises to Abraham. "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless
+ thee, and make thy name great: and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will
+ bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After receiving this communication from the Almighty, Abraham went into
+ the land of Canaan, and again God appeared to him and told him to take a
+ heifer three years old, a goat of the same age, a sheep of equal
+ antiquity, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. Whereupon Abraham killed the
+ animals "and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against
+ another." And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark,
+ behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the raw
+ and bleeding meat. The killing of these animals was a preparation for
+ receiving a visit from God. Should an American missionary in Central
+ Africa find a negro chief surrounded by a butchered heifer, a goat and a
+ sheep, with which to receive a communication from the infinite God, my
+ opinion is, that the missionary would regard the proceeding as the direct
+ result of savagery. And if the chief insisted that he had seen a smoking
+ furnace and a burning lamp going up and down between the pieces of meat,
+ the missionary would certainly conclude that the chief was not altogether
+ right in his mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is true, this same God told Abraham to take and sacrifice his
+ only son, or rather the only son of his wife, and a murder would have been
+ committed had not God, just at the right moment, directed him to stay his
+ hand and take a sheep instead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God made a great number of promises to Abraham, but few of them were ever
+ kept. He agreed to make him the father of a great nation, but he did not.
+ He solemnly promised to give him a great country, including all the land
+ between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates, but he did not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In due time Abraham passed away, and his son Isaac took his place at the
+ head of the tribe. Then came Jacob, who "watered stock" and enriched
+ himself with the spoil of Laban. Joseph was sold into Egypt by his jealous
+ brethren, where he became one of the chief men of the kingdom, and in a
+ few years his father and brothers left their own country and settled in
+ Egypt. At this time there were seventy Hebrews in the world, counting
+ Joseph and his children. They remained in Egypt two hundred and fifteen
+ years. It is claimed by some that they were in that country for four
+ hundred and thirty years. This is a mistake. Josephus says they were in
+ Egypt two hundred and fifteen years, and this statement is sustained by
+ the best biblical scholars of all denominations. According to the 17th
+ verse of the 3rd chapter of Galatians, it was four hundred and thirty
+ years from the time the promise was made to Abraham to the giving of the
+ law, and as the Hebrews did not go to Egypt for two hundred and fifteen
+ years after the making of the promise to Abraham, they could in no event
+ have been in Egypt more than two hundred and fifteen years. In our Bible
+ the 40th verse of the 12th chapter of Exodus, is as follows:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was
+ four hundred and thirty years."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This passage does not say that the sojourning was all done in Egypt;
+ neither does it say that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt four
+ hundred and thirty years; but it does say that the sojourning of the
+ children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.
+ The Vatican copy of the Septuagint renders the same passage as follows:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The sojourning of the children of Israel which they sojourned in Egypt,
+ and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Alexandrian version says:&mdash;"The sojourning of the children of
+ Israel which they and their fathers sojourned in Egypt, and in the land of
+ Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in the Samaritan Bible we have:&mdash;"The sojourning of the children
+ of Israel and of their fathers which they sojourned in the land of Canaan,
+ and in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There were seventy souls when they went down into Egypt, and they remained
+ two hundred and fifteen years, and at the end of that time they had
+ increased to about three million. How do we know that there were three
+ million at the end of two hundred and fifteen years? We know it because we
+ are informed by Moses that "there were six hundred thousand men of war."
+ Now, to each man of war, there must have been at least five other people.
+ In every State in this Union there will be to each voter, five other
+ persons at least, and we all know that there are always more voters than
+ men of war. If there were six hundred thousand men of war, there must have
+ been a population of at least three million. Is it possible that seventy
+ people could increase to that extent in two hundred and fifteen years? You
+ may say that it was a miracle; but what need was there of working a
+ miracle? Why should God miraculously increase the number of slaves? If he
+ wished miraculously to increase the population, why did he not wait until
+ the people were free?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1776, we had in the American Colonies about three millions of people.
+ In one hundred years we doubled four times: that is to say, six, twelve,
+ twenty-four, forty-eight million,&mdash;our present population.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must not forget that during all these years there has been pouring into
+ our country a vast stream of emigration, and that this, taken in
+ connection with the fact that our country is productive beyond all others,
+ gave us only four doubles in one hundred years. Admitting that the Hebrews
+ increased as rapidly without emigration as we, in this country, have with
+ it, we will give to them four doubles each century, commencing with
+ seventy people, and they would have, at the end of two hundred years, a
+ population of seventeen thousand nine hundred and twenty. Giving them
+ another double for the odd fifteen years and there would be, provided no
+ deaths had occurred, thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty people.
+ And yet we are told that instead of having this number, they had increased
+ to such an extent that they had six hundred thousand men of war; that is
+ to say, a population of more than three millions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every sensible man knows that this account is not, and cannot be true. We
+ know that seventy people could not increase to three million in two
+ hundred and fifteen years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About this time the Hebrews took a census, and found that there were
+ twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three first-born males. It is
+ reasonable to suppose that there were about as many first-born females.
+ This would make forty-four thousand five hundred and forty-six first-born
+ children. Now, there must have been about as many mothers as there were
+ first-born children. If there were only about forty-five thousand mothers
+ and three millions of people, the mothers must have had on an average
+ about sixty-six children apiece.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At this time, the Hebrews were slaves, and had been for two hundred and
+ fifteen years. A little while before, an order had been made by the
+ Egyptians that all the male children of the Hebrews should be killed. One,
+ contrary to this order, was saved in an ark made of bullrushes daubed with
+ slime. This child was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, and was adopted,
+ it seems, as her own, and, may be, was. He grew to be a man, sided with
+ the Hebrews, killed an Egyptian that was smiting a slave, hid the body in
+ the sand, and fled from Egypt to the land of Midian, became acquainted
+ with a priest who had seven daughters, took the side of the daughters
+ against the ill-mannered shepherds of that country, and married Zipporah,
+ one of the girls, and became a shepherd for her father. Afterward, while
+ tending his flock, the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush, and
+ commanded him to go to the king of Egypt and demand from him the
+ liberation of the Hebrews. In order to convince him that the something
+ burning in the bush was actually God, the rod in his hand was changed into
+ a serpent, which, upon being caught by the tail, became again a rod. Moses
+ was also told to put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out it was
+ as leprous as snow. Quite a number of strange things were performed, and
+ others promised. Moses then agreed to go back to Egypt provided his
+ brother could go with him. Whereupon the Lord appeared to Aaron, and
+ directed him to meet Moses in the wilderness. They met at the mount of
+ God, went to Egypt, gathered together all the elders of the children of
+ Israel, spake all the words which God had spoken unto Moses, and did all
+ the signs in the sight of the people. The Israelites believed, bowed their
+ heads and worshiped; and Moses and Aaron went in and told their message to
+ Pharaoh the king.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXII. THE PLAGUES.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three millions of people were in slavery. They were treated with the
+ utmost rigor, and so fearful were their masters that they might, in time,
+ increase in numbers sufficient to avenge themselves, that they took from
+ the arms of mothers all the male children and destroyed them. If the
+ account given is true, the Egyptians were the most cruel, heartless and
+ infamous people of which history gives any record. God finally made up his
+ mind to free the Hebrews; and for the accomplishment of this purpose he
+ sent, as his agents, Moses and Aaron, to the king of Egypt. In order that
+ the king might know that these men had a divine mission, God gave Moses
+ the power of changing a stick into a serpent, and water into blood. Moses
+ and Aaron went before the king, stating that the Lord God of Israel
+ ordered the king of Egypt to let the Hebrews go that they might hold a
+ feast with God in the wilderness. Thereupon Pharaoh, the king, enquired
+ who the Lord was, at the same time stating that he had never made his
+ acquaintance, and knew nothing about him. To this they replied that the
+ God of the Hebrews had met with them, and they asked to go a three days
+ journey into the desert and sacrifice unto this God, fearing that if they
+ did not he would fall upon them with pestilence or the sword. This
+ interview seems to have hardened Pharaoh, for he ordered the tasks of the
+ children of Israel to be increased; so that the only effect of the first
+ appeal was to render still worse the condition of the Hebrews. Thereupon,
+ Moses returned unto the Lord and said, "Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil
+ entreated this people? Why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came
+ to Pharaoh to speak in thy name he hath done evil to this people; neither
+ hast thou delivered thy people at all."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Apparently stung by this reproach, God answered:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharoah; for with a strong hand
+ shall he let them go; and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of
+ his land."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God then recounts the fact that he had appeared unto Abraham, Isaac and
+ Jacob, that he had established a covenant with them to give them the land
+ of Canaan, that he had heard the groanings of the children of Israel in
+ Egyptian bondage; that their groanings had put him in mind of his
+ covenant, and that he had made up his mind to redeem the children of
+ Israel with a stretched-out arm and with great judgments. Moses then spoke
+ to the children of Israel again, but they would listen to him no more. His
+ first effort in their behalf had simply doubled their trouble and they
+ seemed to have lost confidence in his power. Thereupon Jehovah promised
+ Moses that he would make him a god unto Pharaoh, and that Aaron should be
+ his prophet, but at the same time informed him that his message would be
+ of no avail; that he would harden the heart of Pharaoh so that he would
+ not listen; that he would so harden his heart that he might have an excuse
+ for destroying the Egyptians. Accordingly, Moses and Aaron again went
+ before Pharaoh. Moses said to Aaron;&mdash;"Cast down your rod before
+ Pharaoh," which he did, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh not in the
+ least surprised, called for his wise men and his sorcerers, and they threw
+ down their rods and changed them into serpents. The serpent that had been
+ changed from Aaron's rod was, at this time crawling upon the floor, and it
+ proceeded to swallow the serpents that had been produced by the magicians
+ of Egypt. What became of these serpents that were swallowed, whether they
+ turned back into sticks again, is not stated. Can we believe that the
+ stick was changed into a real living serpent, or did it assume simply the
+ appearance of a serpent? If it bore only the appearance of a serpent it
+ was a deception, and could not rise above the dignity of legerdemain. Is
+ it necessary to believe that God is a kind of prestigiator&mdash;a
+ sleight-of-hand performer, a magician or sorcerer? Can it be possible that
+ an infinite being would endeavor to secure the liberation of a race by
+ performing a miracle that could be equally performed by the sorcerers and
+ magicians of a barbarian king?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not one word was said by Moses or Aaron as to the wickedness of depriving
+ a human being of his liberty. Not a word was said in favor of liberty. Not
+ the slightest intimation that a human being was justly entitled to the
+ product of his own labor. Not a word about the cruelty of masters who
+ would destroy even the babes of slave mothers. It seems to me wonderful
+ that this God did not tell the king of Egypt that no nation could enslave
+ another, without also enslaving itself; that it was impossible to put a
+ chain around the limbs of a slave, without putting manacles upon the brain
+ of the master. Why did he not tell him that a nation founded upon slavery
+ could not stand? Instead of declaring these things, instead of appealing
+ to justice, to mercy and to liberty, he resorted to feats of jugglery.
+ Suppose we wished to make a treaty with a barbarous nation, and the
+ President should employ a sleight-of-hand performer as envoy
+ extraordinary, and instruct him, that when he came into the presence of
+ the savage monarch, he should cast down an umbrella or a walking stick,
+ which would change into a lizard or a turtle; what would we think? Would
+ we not regard such a performance as beneath the dignity even of a
+ President? And what would be our feelings if the savage king sent for his
+ sorcerers and had them perform the same feat? If such things would appear
+ puerile and foolish in the President of a great republic, what shall be
+ said when they were resorted to by the creator of all worlds? How small,
+ how contemptible such a God appears! Pharaoh, it seems, took about this
+ view of the matter, and he would not be persuaded that such tricks were
+ performed by an infinite being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh as he was going to the river's
+ bank, and the same rod which had changed to a serpent, and, by this time
+ changed back, was taken by Aaron, who, in the presence of Pharaoh, smote
+ the water of the river, which was immediately turned to blood, as well as
+ all the water in all the streams, ponds, and pools, as well as all water
+ in vessels of wood and vessels of stone in the entire land of Egypt. As
+ soon as all the waters in Egypt had been turned into blood, the magicians
+ of that country did the same with their enchantments. We are not informed
+ where they got the water to turn into blood, since all the water in Egypt
+ had already been so changed. It seems from the account that the fish in
+ the Nile died, and the river emitted a stench, and there was not a drop of
+ water in the land of Egypt that had not been changed into blood. In
+ consequence of this, the Egyptians digged "around about the river" for
+ water to drink. Can we believe this story? Is it necessary to salvation to
+ admit that all the rivers, pools, ponds and lakes of a country were
+ changed into blood, in order that a king might be induced to allow the
+ children of Israel the privilege of going a three days journey into the
+ wilderness to make sacrifices to their God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems from the account that Pharaoh was told that the God of the
+ Hebrews would, if he refused to let the Israelites go, change all the
+ waters of Egypt into blood, and that, upon his refusal, they were so
+ changed. This had, however, no influence upon him, for the reason that his
+ own magicians did the same. It does not appear that Moses and Aaron
+ expressed the least surprise at the success of the Egyptian sorcerers. At
+ that time it was believed that each nation had its own god. The only claim
+ that Moses and Aaron made for their God was, that he was the greatest and
+ most powerful of all the gods, and that with anything like an equal chance
+ he could vanquish the deity of any other nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the waters were changed to blood Moses and Aaron waited for seven
+ days. At the end of that time God told Moses to again go to Pharaoh and
+ demand the release of his people, and to inform him that, if he refused,
+ God would strike all the borders of Egypt with frogs. That he would make
+ frogs so plentiful that they would go into the houses of Pharaoh, into his
+ bedchamber, upon his bed, into the houses of his servants, upon his
+ people, into their ovens, and even into their kneading troughs. This
+ threat had no effect whatever upon Pharaoh. And thereupon Aaron stretched
+ out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered
+ the land. The magicians of Egypt did the same, and with their enchantments
+ brought more frogs upon the land of Egypt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These magicians do not seem to have been original in their ideas, but so
+ far as imitation is concerned, were perfect masters of their art. The
+ frogs seem to have made such an impression upon Pharaoh that he sent for
+ Moses and asked him to entreat the Lord that he would take away the frogs.
+ Moses agreed to remove them from the houses and the land, and allow them
+ to remain only in the rivers. Accordingly the frogs died out of the
+ houses, and out of the villages, and out of the fields, and the people
+ gathered them together in heaps. As soon as the frogs had left the houses
+ and fields, the heart of Pharaoh became again hardened, and he refused to
+ let the people go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Aaron then, according to the command of God, stretched out his hand,
+ holding the rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in
+ man and in beast, and all the dust became lice throughout the land of
+ Egypt. Pharaoh again sent for his magicians, and they sought to do the
+ same with their enchantments, but they could not. Whereupon the sorcerers
+ said unto Pharaoh: "This is the finger of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding this, however, Pharaoh refused to let the Hebrews go. God
+ then caused a grievous swarm of flies to come into the house of Pharaoh
+ and into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt, to such an
+ extent that the whole land was corrupted by reason of the flies. But into
+ that part of the country occupied by the children of Israel there came no
+ flies. Thereupon Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and said to them: "Go,
+ and sacrifice to your God in this land." They were not willing to
+ sacrifice in Egypt, and asked permission to go on a journey of three days
+ into the wilderness. To this Pharaoh acceded, and in consideration of this
+ Moses agreed to use his influence with the Lord to induce him to send the
+ flies out of the country. He accordingly told the Lord of the bargain he
+ had made with Pharaoh, and the Lord agreed to the compromise, and removed
+ the flies from Pharaoh and from his servants and from his people, and
+ there remained not a single fly in the land of Egypt. As soon as the flies
+ were gone, Pharaoh again changed his mind, and concluded not to permit the
+ children of Israel to depart. The Lord then directed Moses to go to
+ Pharaoh and tell him that if he did not allow the children of Israel to
+ depart, he would destroy his cattle, his horses, his camels and his sheep;
+ that these animals would be afflicted with a grievous disease, but that
+ the animals belonging to the Hebrews should not be so afflicted. Moses did
+ as he was bid. On the next day all the cattle of Egypt died; that is to
+ say, all the horses, all the asses, all the camels, all the oxen and all
+ the sheep; but of the animals owned by the Israelites, not one perished.
+ This disaster had no effect upon Pharaoh, and he still refused to let the
+ children of Israel go. The Lord then told Moses and Aaron to take some
+ ashes out of a furnace, and told Moses to sprinkle them toward the heavens
+ in the sight of Pharaoh; saying that the ashes should become small dust in
+ all the land of Egypt, and should be a boil breaking forth with blains
+ upon man and upon beast throughout all the land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How these boils breaking out with blains, upon cattle that were already
+ dead, should affect Pharaoh, is a little hard to understand. It must not
+ be forgotten that all the cattle and all beasts had died with the murrain
+ before the boils had broken out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was a most decisive victory for Moses and Aaron. The boils were upon
+ the magicians to that extent that they could not stand before Moses. But
+ it had no effect upon Pharaoh, who seems to have been a man of great
+ firmness. The Lord then instructed Moses to get up early in the morning
+ and tell Pharaoh that he would stretch out his hand and smite his people
+ with a pestilence, and would, on the morrow, cause it to rain a very
+ grievous hail, such as had never been known in the land of Egypt. He also
+ told Moses to give notice, so that they might get all the cattle that were
+ in the fields under cover. It must be remembered that all these cattle had
+ recently died of the murrain, and their dead bodies had been covered with
+ boils and blains. This, however, had no effect, and Moses stretched forth
+ his hand toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder, and hail and lightning,
+ and fire that ran along the ground, and the hail fell upon all the land of
+ Egypt, and all that were in the fields, both man and beast, were smitten,
+ and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the
+ country except that portion inhabited by the children of Israel; there,
+ there was no hail.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During this hail storm Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and admitted that
+ he had sinned, that the Lord was righteous, and that the Egyptians were
+ wicked, and requested them to ask the Lord that there be no more
+ thunderings and hail, and that he would let the Hebrews go. Moses agreed
+ that as soon as he got out of the city he would stretch forth his hands
+ unto the Lord, and that the thunderings should cease and the hail should
+ stop. But, when the rain and the hail and the thundering ceased, Pharaoh
+ concluded that he would not let the children of Israel go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, God sent Moses and Aaron, instructing them to tell Pharaoh that if
+ he refused to let the people go, the face of the earth would be covered
+ with locusts, so that man would not be able to see the ground, and that
+ these locusts would eat the residue of that which escaped from the hail;
+ that they would eat every tree out of the field; that they would fill the
+ houses of Pharaoh and the houses of all his servants, and the houses of
+ all the Egyptians. Moses delivered the message, and went out from Pharaoh.
+ Some of Pharaoh's servants entreated their master to let the children of
+ Israel go. Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron and asked them, who wished to
+ go into the wilderness to sacrifice. They replied that they wished to go
+ with the young and old; with their sons and daughters, with flocks and
+ herds. Pharaoh would not consent to this, but agreed that the men might
+ go. Thereupon Pharaoh drove Moses and Aaron out of his sight. Then God
+ told Moses to stretch forth his hand upon the land of Egypt for the
+ locusts, that they might come up and eat every herb, even all that the
+ hail had left. "And Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt,
+ and the Lord brought an east wind all that day and all that night; and
+ when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts; and they came up
+ over all the land of Egypt and rested upon all the coasts covering the
+ face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every
+ herb and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left, and there
+ remained not any green thing on the trees or in the herbs of the field
+ throughout the land of Egypt." Pharaoh then called for Moses and Aaron in
+ great haste, admitted that he had sinned against the Lord their God and
+ against them, asked their forgiveness and requested them to intercede with
+ God that he might take away the locusts. They went out from his presence
+ and asked the Lord to drive the locusts away, "And the Lord made a strong
+ west wind which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea so
+ that there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As soon as the locusts were gone, Pharaoh changed his mind, and, in the
+ language of the sacred text, "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he
+ would not let the children of Israel go."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Lord then told Moses to stretch out his hand toward heaven that there
+ might be darkness over the land of Egypt, "even darkness which might be
+ felt." "And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a
+ thick darkness over the land of Egypt for three days during which time
+ they saw not each other, neither arose any of the people from their places
+ for three days; but the children of Israel had light in their dwellings."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It strikes me that when the land of Egypt was covered with thick darkness&mdash;so
+ thick that it could be felt, and when light was in the dwellings of the
+ Israelites, there could have been no better time for the Hebrews to have
+ left the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pharaoh again called for Moses, and told him that his people could go and
+ serve the Lord, provided they would leave their flocks and herds. Moses
+ would not agree to this, for the reason that they needed the flocks and
+ herds for sacrifices and burnt offerings, and he did not know how many of
+ the animals God might require, and for that reason he could not leave a
+ single hoof. Upon the question of the cattle, they divided, and Pharaoh
+ again refused to let the people go. God then commanded Moses to tell the
+ Hebrews to borrow, each of his neighbor, jewels of silver and gold. By a
+ miraculous interposition the Hebrews found favor in the sight of the
+ Egyptians so that they loaned the articles asked for. After this, Moses
+ again went to Pharaoh and told him that all the first-born in the land of
+ Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh upon the throne, unto the first-born
+ of the maid-servant who was behind the mill, as well as the first-born of
+ beasts, should die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As all the beasts had been destroyed by disease and hail, it is
+ troublesome to understand the meaning of the threat as to their
+ first-born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Preparations were accordingly made for carrying this frightful threat into
+ execution. Blood was put on the door-posts of all houses inhabited by
+ Hebrews, so that God, as he passed through that land, might not be
+ mistaken and destroy the first-born of the Jews. "And it came to pass that
+ at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, the
+ first-born of Pharaoh who sat on the throne, and the first-born of the
+ captive who was in the dungeon. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, and all
+ his servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt,
+ for there was not a house where there was not one dead."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What had these children done? Why should the babes in the cradle be
+ destroyed on account of the crime of Pharaoh? Why should the cattle be
+ destroyed because man had enslaved his brother? In those days women and
+ children and cattle were put upon an exact equality, and all considered as
+ the property of the men; and when man in some way excited the wrath of
+ God, he punished them by destroying all their cattle, their wives, and
+ their little ones. Where can words be found bitter enough to describe a
+ god who would kill wives and babes because husbands and fathers had failed
+ to keep his law? Every good man, and every good woman, must hate and
+ despise such a deity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon the death of all the first-born Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and
+ not only gave his consent that they might go with the Hebrews into the
+ wilderness, but besought them to go at once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that an infinite God, creator of all worlds and sustainer
+ of all life, said to Pharaoh, "If you do not let my people go, I will turn
+ all the water of your country into blood," and that upon the refusal of
+ Pharaoh to release the people, God did turn all the waters into blood? Do
+ you believe this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that Pharaoh even after all the water was turned to blood,
+ refused to let the Hebrews go, and that thereupon God told him he would
+ cover his land with frogs? Do you believe this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that after the land was covered with frogs Pharaoh still
+ refused to let the people go, and that God then said to him, "I will cover
+ you and all your people with lice?" Do you believe God would make this
+ threat?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you also believe that God told Pharaoh, "It you do not let these people
+ go, I will fill all your houses and cover your country with flies?" Do you
+ believe God makes such threats as this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course God must have known that turning the waters into blood, covering
+ the country with frogs, infesting all flesh with lice, and filling all
+ houses with flies, would not accomplish his object, and that all these
+ plagues would have no effect whatever upon the Egyptian king.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that, failing to accomplish anything by the flies, God told
+ Pharaoh that if he did not let the people go he would kill his cattle with
+ murrain? Does such a threat sound God-like?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that, failing to effect anything by killing the cattle,
+ this same God then threatened to afflict all the people with boils,
+ including the magicians who had been rivaling him in the matter of
+ miracles; and failing to do anything by boils, that he resorted to hail?
+ Does this sound reasonable? The hail experiment having accomplished
+ nothing, do you believe that God murdered the first-born of animals and
+ men? Is it possible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd, stupid,
+ revolting, cruel and senseless, than the miracles said to have been
+ wrought by the Almighty for the purpose of inducing Pharaoh to liberate
+ the children of Israel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not altogether more reasonable to say that the Jewish people, being
+ in slavery, accounted for the misfortunes and calamities, suffered by the
+ Egyptians, by saying that they were the judgments of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the Armada of Spain was wrecked and scattered by the storm, the
+ English people believed that God had interposed in their behalf, and
+ publicly gave thanks. When the battle of Lepanto was won, it was believed
+ by the Catholic world that the victory was given in answer to prayer. So,
+ our fore-fathers in their Revolutionary struggle saw, or thought they saw,
+ the hand of God, and most firmly believed that they achieved their
+ independence by the interposition of the Most High.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it may be that while the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians,
+ there were plagues of locusts and flies. It may be that there were some
+ diseases by which many of the cattle perished. It may be that a pestilence
+ visited that country so that in nearly every house there was some one
+ dead. If so, it was but natural for the enslaved and superstitious Jews to
+ account for these calamities by saying that they were punishments sent by
+ their God. Such ideas will be found in the history of every country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a long time the Jews held these opinions, and they were handed from
+ father to son simply by tradition. By the time a written language had been
+ produced, thousands of additions had been made, and numberless details
+ invented; so that we have not only an account of the plagues suffered by
+ the Egyptians, but the whole woven into a connected story, containing the
+ threats made by Moses and Aaron, the miracles wrought by them, the
+ promises of Pharaoh, and finally the release of the Hebrews, as a result
+ of the marvelous things performed in their behalf by Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In any event it is infinitely more probable that the author was
+ misinformed, than that the God of this universe was guilty of these
+ childish, heartless and infamous things. The solution of the whole matter
+ is this:&mdash;Moses was mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXIII. THE FLIGHT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three millions of people, with their flocks and herds, with borrowed
+ jewelry and raiment, with unleavened dough in kneading troughs bound in
+ their clothes upon their shoulders, in one night commenced their journey
+ for the land of promise. We are not told how they were informed of the
+ precise time to start. With all the modern appliances, it would require
+ months of time to inform three millions of people of any fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this vast assemblage there were six hundred thousand men of war, and
+ with them were the old, the young, the diseased and helpless. Where were
+ those people going? They were going to the desert of Sinai, compared with
+ which Sahara is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava torn by storm and vexed
+ by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a Gorgon and changed instantly to stone!
+ Such was the desert of Sinai.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of the civilized nations of the world could not feed and support three
+ millions of people on the desert of Sinai for forty years. It would cost
+ more than one hundred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt
+ Christendom. They had with them their flocks and herds, and the sheep were
+ so numerous that the Israelites sacrificed, at one time, more than one
+ hundred and fifty thousand first-born lambs. How were these flocks
+ supported? What did they eat? Where were meadows and pastures for them?
+ There was no grass, no forests&mdash;nothing! There is no account of its
+ having rained baled hay, nor is it even claimed that they were
+ miraculously fed. To support these flocks, millions of acres of pasture
+ would have been required. God did not take the Israelites through the land
+ of the Philistines, for fear that when they saw the people of that country
+ they would return to Egypt, but he took them by the way of the wilderness
+ to the Red Sea, going before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by
+ night, in a pillar of fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When it was told Pharaoh that the people had fled, he made ready and took
+ six hundred chosen chariots of Egypt, and pursued after the children of
+ Israel, overtaking them by the sea. As all the animals had long before
+ that time been destroyed, we are not informed where Pharaoh obtained the
+ horses for his chariots. The moment the children of Israel saw the hosts
+ of Pharaoh, although they had six hundred thousand men of war, they
+ immediately cried unto the Lord for protection. It is wonderful to me that
+ a land that had been ravaged by the plagues described in the Bible, still
+ had the power to put in the field an army that would carry terror to the
+ hearts of six hundred thousand men of war. Even with the help of God, it
+ seems, they were not strong enough to meet the Egyptians in the open
+ field, but resorted to strategy. Moses again stretched forth his wonderful
+ rod over the waters of the Red Sea, and they were divided, and the Hebrews
+ passed through on dry land, the waters standing up like a wall on either
+ side. The Egyptians pursued them; "and in the morning watch the Lord
+ looked into the hosts of the Egyptians, through the pillar of fire," and
+ proceeded to take the wheels off their chariots. As soon as the wheels
+ were off, God told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea. Moses did
+ so, and immediately "the waters returned and covered the chariots and
+ horsemen and all the hosts of Pharaoh that came into the sea, and there
+ remained not so much as one of them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This account may be true, but still it hardly looks reasonable that God
+ would take the wheels off the chariots. How did he do it? Did he pull out
+ the linch-pins, or did he just take them off by main force?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What a picture this presents to the mind! God the creator of the universe,
+ maker of every shining, glittering star, engaged in pulling off the wheels
+ of wagons, that he might convince Pharaoh of his greatness and power!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where were these people going? They were going to the promised land. How
+ large a country was that? About twelve thousand square miles. About
+ one-fifth the size of the State of Illinois. It was a frightful country,
+ covered with rocks and desolation. How many people were in the promised
+ land already? Moses tells us there were seven nations in that country
+ mightier than the Jews. As there were at least three millions of Jews,
+ there must have been at least twenty-one millions of people already in
+ that country. These had to be driven out in order that room might be made
+ for the chosen people of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems, however, that God was not willing to take the children of Israel
+ into the promised land immediately. They were not fit to inhabit the land
+ of Canaan; so he made up his mind to allow them to wander upon the desert
+ until all except two, who had left Egypt, should perish. Of all the slaves
+ released from Egyptian bondage, only two were allowed to reach the
+ promised land!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As soon as the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, they found themselves without
+ food, and with water unfit to drink by reason of its bitterness, and they
+ began to murmur against Moses, who cried unto the Lord, and "the Lord
+ showed him a tree." Moses cast this tree into the waters, and they became
+ sweet. "And it came to pass in the morning the dew lay around about the
+ camp; and when the dew that lay was gone, behold, upon the face of the
+ wilderness lay a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost upon the
+ ground. And Moses said unto them, this is the bread which the Lord hath
+ given you to eat." This manna was a very peculiar thing. It would melt in
+ the sun, and yet they could cook it by seething and baking. One would as
+ soon think of frying snow or of broiling icicles. But this manna had
+ another remarkable quality. No matter how much or little any person
+ gathered, he would have an exact omer; if he gathered more, it would
+ shrink to that amount, and if he gathered less, it would swell exactly to
+ that amount. What a magnificent substance manna would be with which to
+ make a currency&mdash;shrinking and swelling according to the great laws
+ of supply and demand!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Upon this manna the children of Israel lived for forty years, until they
+ came to a habitable land. With this meat were they fed until they reached
+ the borders of the land of Canaan." We are told in the twenty-first
+ chapter of Numbers, that the people at last became tired of' the manna,
+ complained of God, and asked Moses why he brought them out of the land of
+ Egypt to die in the wilderness. And they said:&mdash;"There is no bread,
+ nor have we any water. Our soul loatheth this light food."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told by some commentators that the Jews lived on manna for forty
+ years; by others that they lived upon it for only a short time. As a
+ matter of fact the accounts differ, and this difference is the opportunity
+ for commentators. It also allows us to exercise faith in believing that
+ both accounts are true. If the accounts agreed, and were reasonable, they
+ would be believed by the wicked and unregenerated. But as they are
+ different and unreasonable, they are believed only by the good. Whenever a
+ statement in the Bible is unreasonable, and you believe it, you are
+ considered quite a good Christian. If the statement is grossly absurd and
+ infinitely impossible, and you still believe it, you are a saint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The children of Israel were in the desert, and they were out of water.
+ They had nothing to eat but manna, and this they had had so long that the
+ soul of every person abhorred it. Under these circumstances they
+ complained to Moses. Now, as God is infinite, he could just as well have
+ furnished them with an abundance of the purest and coolest of water, and
+ could, without the slightest trouble to himself, have given them three
+ excellent meals a day, with a generous variety of meats and vegetables, it
+ is very hard to see why he did not do so. It is still harder to conceive
+ why he fell into a rage when the people mildly suggested that they would
+ like a change of diet. Day after day, week after week, month after month,
+ year after year, nothing but manna. No doubt they did the best they could
+ by cooking it in different ways, but in spite of themselves they began to
+ loathe its sight and taste, and so they asked Moses to use his influence
+ to secure a change in the bill of fare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I ask, whether it was unreasonable for the Jews to suggest that a
+ little meat would be very gratefully received? It seems, however, that as
+ soon as the request was made, this God of infinite mercy became infinitely
+ enraged, and instead of granting it, went into partnership with serpents,
+ for the purpose of punishing the hungry wretches to whom he had promised a
+ land flowing with milk and honey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where did these serpents come from? How did God convey the information to
+ the serpents, that he wished them to go to the desert of Sinai and bite
+ some Jews? It may be urged that these serpents were created for the
+ express purpose of punishing the children of Israel for having had the
+ presumption, like Oliver Twist, to ask for more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another account in the eleventh chapter of Numbers, of the people
+ murmuring because of their food. They remembered the fish, the cucumbers,
+ the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic of Egypt, and they asked
+ for meat. The people went to the tent of Moses and asked him for flesh.
+ Moses cried unto the Lord and asked him why he did not take care of the
+ multitude. God thereupon agreed that they should have meat, not for a day
+ or two, but for a month, until the meat should come out of their nostrils
+ and become loathsome to them. He then caused a wind to bring quails from
+ beyond the sea, and cast them into the camp, on every side of the camp
+ around about for the space of a days journey. And the people gathered
+ them, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth the wrath of God
+ being provoked against them, struck them with an exceeding great plague.
+ Serpents, also, were sent among them, and thousands perished for the crime
+ of having been hungry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Alexander Cruden commenting upon this account says:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "God caused a wind to rise that drove the quails within and about the camp
+ of the Israelites; and it is in this that the miracle consists, that they
+ were brought so seasonably to this place, and in so great numbers as to
+ suffice above a million of persons above a month. Some authors affirm,
+ that in those eastern and southern countries, quails are innumerable, so
+ that in one part of Italy within the compass of five miles, there were
+ taken about an hundred thousand of them every day for a month together;
+ and that sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary they
+ fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers, that they sink them with their
+ weight."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No wonder Mr. Cruden believed the Mosaic account.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we believe that God made an arrangement with hornets for the purpose
+ af securing their services in driving the Canaanites from the land of
+ promise? Is this belief necessary unto salvation? Must we believe that God
+ said to the Jews that he would send hornets before them to drive out the
+ Canaanites, as related in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, and the
+ second chapter of Deuteronomy? How would the hornets know a Canaanite? In
+ what way would God put it in the mind of a hornet to attack a Canaanite?
+ Did God create hornets for that especial purpose, implanting an instinct
+ to attack a Canaanite, but not a Hebrew? Can we conceive of the Almighty
+ granting letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? Of course it is
+ admitted that nothing in the world would be better calculated to make a
+ man leave his native land than a few hornets. Is it possible for us to
+ believe that an infinite being would resort to such expedients in order to
+ drive the Canaanites from their country? He could just as easily have
+ spoken the Canaanites out of existence as to have spoken the hornets in.
+ In this way a vast amount of trouble, pain and suffering would have been
+ saved. Is it possible that there is, in this country, an intelligent
+ clergyman who will insist that these stories are true; that we must
+ believe them in in order to be good people in this world, and glorified
+ souls in the next?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are also told that God instructed the Hebrews to kill the Canaanites
+ slowly, giving as a reason that the beasts of the field might increase
+ upon his chosen people. When we take into consideration the fact that the
+ Holy Land contained only about eleven or twelve thousand square miles, and
+ was at that time inhabited by at least twenty-one millions of people, it
+ does not seem reasonable that the wild beasts could have been numerous
+ enough to cause any great alarm. The same ratio of population would give
+ to the State of Illinois at least one hundred and twenty millions of
+ inhabitants. Can anybody believe that, under such circumstances, the
+ danger from wild beasts could be very great? What would we think of a
+ general, invading such a State, if he should order his soldiers to kill
+ the people slowly, lest the wild beasts might increase upon them? Is it
+ possible that a God capable of doing the miracles recounted in the Old
+ Testament could not, in some way, have disposed of the wild beasts? After
+ the Canaanites were driven out, could he not have employed the hornets to
+ drive out the wild beasts? Think of a God that could drive twenty-one
+ millions of people out of the promised land, could raise up innumerable
+ stinging flies, and could cover the earth with fiery serpents, and yet
+ seems to have been perfectly powerless against the wild beasts of the land
+ of Canaan!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Speaking of these hornets, one of the good old commentators, whose views
+ have long been considered of great value by the believers in the
+ inspiration of the Bible, uses the following language:&mdash;"Hornets are
+ a sort of strong flies, which the Lord used as instruments to plague the
+ enemies of his people. They are of themselves very troublesome and
+ mischievous, and those the Lord made use of were, it is thought, of an
+ extraordinary bigness and perniciousness. It is said they live as the
+ wasps, and that they have a king or captain, and pestilent stings as bees,
+ and that, if twenty-seven of them sting man or beast, it is certain death
+ to either. Nor is it strange that such creatures did drive out the
+ Canaanites from their habitations; for many heathen writers give instances
+ of some people driven from their seats by frogs, others by mice, others by
+ bees and wasps. And it is said that a Christian city, being besieged by
+ Sapores, king of Persia, was delivered by hornets; for the elephants and
+ beasts being stung by them, waxed unruly, and so the whole army fled."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago, all such stories were believed by the Christian
+ world; and it is a historical fact, that Voltaire was the third man of any
+ note in Europe, who took the ground that the mythologies of Greece and
+ Rome were without foundation. Until his time, most Christians believed as
+ thoroughly in the miracles ascribed to the Greek and Roman gods as in
+ those of Christ and Jehovah. The Christian world cultivated credulity, not
+ only as one of the virtues, but as the greatest of them all. But, when
+ Luther and his followers left the Church of Rome, they were compelled to
+ deny the power of the Catholic Church, at that time, to suspend the laws
+ of nature, but took the ground that such power ceased with the apostolic
+ age. They insisted that all things now happened in accordance with the
+ laws of nature, with the exception of a few special interferences in favor
+ of the Protestant Church in answer to prayer. They taught their children a
+ double philosophy: by one, they were to show the impossibility of Catholic
+ miracles, because opposed to the laws of nature; by the other, the
+ probability of the miracles of the apostolic age, because they were in
+ conformity with the statements of the Scriptures. They had two
+ foundations: one, the law of nature, and the other, the word of God. The
+ Protestants have endeavored to carry on this double process of reasoning,
+ and the result has been a gradual increase of confidence in the law of
+ nature, and a gradual decrease of confidence in the word of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told, in this inspired account, that the clothing of the Jewish
+ people did not wax old, and that their shoes refused to wear out. Some
+ commentators have insisted that angels attended to the wardrobes of the
+ Hebrews, patched their garments, and mended their shoes. Certain it is,
+ however, that the same clothes lasted them for forty years, during the
+ entire journey from Egypt to the Holy Land. Little boys starting out with
+ their first pantaloons, grew as they traveled, and their clothes grew with
+ them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can it be necessary to believe a story like this? Will men make better
+ husbands, fathers, neighbors, and citizens, simply by giving credence to
+ these childish and impossible things? Certainly an infinite God could have
+ transported the Jews to the Holy Land in a moment, and could, as easily,
+ have removed the Canaanites to some other country. Surely there was no
+ necessity for doing thousands and thousands of petty miracles, day after
+ day for forty years, looking after the clothes of three millions of
+ people, changing the nature of wool and linen and leather, so that they
+ would not "wax old." Every step, every motion, would wear away some part
+ of the clothing, some part of the shoes. Were these parts, so worn away,
+ perpetually renewed, or was the nature of things so changed that they
+ could not wear away? We know that whenever matter comes in contact with
+ matter, certain atoms, by abrasion, are lost. Were these atoms gathered up
+ every night by angels, and replaced on the soles of the shoes, on the
+ elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons, so that the next morning
+ they would be precisely in the condition they were on the morning before?
+ There must be a mistake somewhere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that the real God, if there is one, ever ordered a man to
+ be killed simply for making hair oil, or ointment? We are told in the
+ thirtieth chapter of Exodus, that the Lord commanded Moses to take myrrh,
+ cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia, and olive oil, and make a holy ointment
+ for the purpose of anointing the tabernacle, tables, candlesticks and
+ other utensils, as well as Aaron and his sons; saying, at the same time,
+ that whosoever compounded any like it, or whoever put any of it on a
+ stranger, should be put to death. In the same chapter, the Lord furnishes
+ Moses with a recipe for making a perfume, saying, that whoever should make
+ any which smelled like it, should be cut off from his people. This, to me,
+ sounds so unreasonable that I cannot believe it. Why should an infinite
+ God care whether mankind made ointments and perfumes like his or not? Why
+ should the Creator of all things threaten to kill a priest who approached
+ his altar without having washed his hands and feet? These commandments and
+ these penalties would disgrace the vainest tyrant that ever sat, by
+ chance, upon a throne. There must be some mistake. I cannot believe that
+ an infinite Intelligence appeared to Moses upon Mount Sinai having with
+ him a variety of patterns for making a tabernacle, tongs, snuffers and
+ dishes. Neither can I believe that God told Moses how to cut and trim a
+ coat for a priest. Why should a God care about such things? Why should he
+ insist on having buttons sewed in certain rows, and fringes of a certain
+ color? Suppose an intelligent civilized man was to overhear, on Mount
+ Sinai, the following instructions from God to Moses:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You must consecrate my priests as follows:&mdash;You must kill a bullock
+ for a sin offering, and have Aaron and his sons lay their hands upon the
+ head of the bullock. Then you must take the blood and put it upon the
+ horns of the altar round about with your finger, and pour some blood at
+ the bottom of the altar to make a reconciliation; and of the fat that is
+ upon the inwards, the caul above the liver and two kidneys, and their fat,
+ and burn them upon the altar. You must get a ram for a burnt offering, and
+ Aaron and his sons must lay their hands upon the head of the ram. Then you
+ must kill it and sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and cut the ram into
+ pieces, and burn the head, and the pieces, and the fat, and wash the
+ inwards and the lungs in water and then burn the whole ram upon the altar
+ for a sweet savor unto me. Then you must get another ram, and have Aaron
+ and his sons lay their hands upon the head of that, then kill it and take
+ of its blood, and put it on the top of Aaron's right ear, and on the thumb
+ of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot. And you must
+ also put a little of the blood upon the top of the right ears of Aaron's
+ sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of
+ their right feet. And then you must take of the fat that is on the
+ inwards, and the caul above the liver and the two kidneys, and their fat,
+ and the right shoulder, and out of a basket of unleavened bread you must
+ take one unleavened cake and another of oil bread, and one wafer, and put
+ them on the fat of the right shoulder. And you must take of the anointing
+ oil, and of the blood, and sprinkle it on Aaron, and on his garments, and
+ on his sons' garments, and sanctify them and all their clothes."&mdash;Do
+ you believe that he would have even suspected that the creator of the
+ universe was talking?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can any one now tell why God commanded the Jews, when they were upon the
+ desert of Sinai, to plant trees, telling them at the same time that they
+ must not eat any of the fruit of such trees until after the fourth year?
+ Trees could not have been planted in that desert, and if they had been,
+ they could not have lived. Why did God tell Moses, while in the desert, to
+ make curtains of fine linen? Where could he have obtained his flax? There
+ was no land upon which it could have been produced. Why did he tell him to
+ make things of gold, and silver, and precious stones, when they could not
+ have been in possession of these things? There is but one answer, and that
+ is, the Pentateuch was written hundreds of years after the Jews had
+ settled in the Holy Land, and hundreds of years after Moses was dust and
+ ashes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the Jews had a written language, and that must have been long after
+ their flight from Egypt, they wrote out their history and their laws.
+ Tradition had filled the infancy of the nation with miracles and special
+ interpositions in their behalf by Jehovah. Patriotism would not allow
+ these wonders to grow small, and priestcraft never denied a miracle. There
+ were traditions to the effect that God had spoken face to face with Moses;
+ that he had given him the tables of the law, and had, in a thousand ways,
+ made known his will; and whenever the priests wished to make new laws, or
+ amend old ones, they pretended to have found something more that God said
+ to Moses at Sinai. In this way obedience was more easily secured. Only a
+ very few of the people could read, and, as a consequence, additions,
+ interpolations and erasures had no fear of detection. In this way we
+ account for the fact that Moses is made to speak of things that did not
+ exist in his day, and were unknown for hundreds of years after his death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, we are told that the people, when
+ numbered, must give each one a half shekel after the shekel of the <i>sanctuary</i>.
+ At that time no such money existed, and consequently the account could
+ not, by any possibility, have been written until after there was a shekel
+ of the sanctuary, and there was no such thing until long after the death
+ of Moses. If we should read that C&aelig;sar paid his troops in pounds,
+ shillings and pence, we would certainly know that the account was not
+ written by C&aelig;sar, nor in his time, but we would know that it was
+ written after the English had given these names to certain coins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, we find, that when the Jews were upon the desert it was commanded that
+ every mother should bring, as a sin offering, a couple of doves to the
+ priests, and the priests were compelled to eat these doves in the most
+ holy place. At the time this law appears to have been given, there were
+ three million people, and only three priests, Aaron, Eleazer and Ithamar.
+ Among three million people there would be, at least, three hundred births
+ a day. Certainly we are not expected to believe that these three priests
+ devoured six hundred pigeons every twenty-four hours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should a woman ask pardon of God for having been a mother? Why should
+ that be considered a crime in Exodus, which is commanded as a duty in
+ Genesis? Why should a mother be declared unclean? Why should giving birth
+ to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? Can
+ we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a
+ merciful and intelligent God? If there is anything in this poor world
+ suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it is
+ a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe. Read
+ the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, and you will see that when a woman
+ became the mother of a boy she was so unclean that she was not allowed to
+ touch a hallowed thing, nor to enter the sanctuary for forty days. If the
+ babe was a girl, then the mother was unfit for eighty days, to enter the
+ house of God, or to touch the sacred tongs and snuffers. These laws, born
+ of barbarism, are unworthy of our day, and should be regarded simply as
+ the mistakes of savages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just as low in the scale of intelligence are the directions given in the
+ fifth chapter of Numbers, for the trial of a wife of whom the husband was
+ jealous. This foolish chapter has been the foundation of all appeals to
+ God for the ascertainment of facts, such as the corsned, trial by battle,
+ by water, and by fire, the last of which is our judicial oath. It is very
+ easy to believe that in those days a guilty woman would be afraid to drink
+ the water of jealousy and take the oath, and that, through fear, she might
+ be made to confess. Admitting that the deception tended not only to
+ prevent crime, but to discover it when committed, still, we cannot admit
+ that an honest god would, for any purpose, resort to dishonest means. In
+ all countries fear is employed as a means of getting at the truth, and in
+ this there is nothing dishonest, provided falsehood is not resorted to for
+ the purpose of producing the fear. Protestants laugh at Catholics because
+ of their belief in the efficacy of holy water, and yet they teach their
+ children that a little holy water, in which had been thrown some dust from
+ the floor of the sanctuary, would, work a miracle in a woman's flesh. For
+ hundreds of years our fathers believed that a perjurer could not swallow a
+ piece of sacramental bread. Such stories belong to the childhood of our
+ race, and are now believed only by mental infants and intellectual babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot believe that Moses had in his hands a couple of tables of stone,
+ upon which God had written the Ten Commandments, and that when he saw the
+ golden calf, and the dancing, that he dashed the tables to the earth and
+ broke them in pieces. Neither do I believe that Moses took a golden calf,
+ burnt it, ground it to powder, and made the people drink it with water, as
+ related in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another account of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses,
+ in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of Exodus. In this account not
+ one word is said about the people having made a golden calf, nor about the
+ breaking of the tables of stone. In the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus,
+ there is an account of the renewal of the broken tables of the law, and
+ the commandments are given, but they are not the same commandments
+ mentioned in the twentieth chapter. There are two accounts of the same
+ transaction. Both of these stories cannot be true, and yet both must be
+ believed. Any one who will take the trouble to read the nineteenth and
+ twentieth chapters, and the last verse of the thirty-first chapter, the
+ thirty-second, thirty-third, and thirty-fourth chapters of Exodus, will be
+ compelled to admit that both accounts cannot be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the last account it appears that while Moses was upon Mount Sinai
+ receiving the commandments from God, the people brought their jewelry to
+ Aaron and he cast for them a golden calf. This happened before any
+ commandment against idolatry had been given. A god ought, certainly, to
+ publish his laws before inflicting penalties for their violation. To
+ inflict punishment for breaking unknown and unpublished laws is, in the
+ last degree, cruel and unjust. It may be replied that the Jews knew better
+ than to worship idols, before the law was given. If this is so, why should
+ the law have been given? In all civilized countries, laws are made and
+ promulgated, not simply for the purpose of informing the people as to what
+ is right and wrong, but to inform them of the penalties to be visited upon
+ those who violate the laws. When the Ten Commandments were given, no
+ penalties were attached. Not one word was written on the tables of stone
+ as to the punishments that would be inflicted for breaking any or all of
+ the inspired laws. The people should not have been punished for violating
+ a commandment before it was given. And yet, in this case, Moses commanded
+ the sons of Levi to take their swords and slay every man his brother, his
+ companion, and his neighbor. The brutal order was obeyed, and three
+ thousand men were butchered.. The Levites consecrated themselves unto the
+ Lord by murdering their sons, and their brothers, for having violated a
+ commandment before it had been given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been contended for many years that the Ten Commandments are the
+ foundation of all ideas of justice and of law. Eminent jurists have bowed
+ to popular prejudice, and deformed their works by statements to the effect
+ that the Mosaic laws are the fountains from which sprang all ideas of
+ right and wrong. Nothing can be more stupidly false than such assertions.
+ Thousands of years before Moses was born, the Egyptians had a code of
+ laws. They had laws against blasphemy, murder, adultery, larceny, perjury,
+ laws for the collection of debts, the enforcement of contracts, the
+ ascertainment of damages, the redemption of property pawned, and upon
+ nearly every subject of human interest. The Egyptian code was far better
+ than the Mosaic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Laws spring from the instinct of self-preservation. Industry objected to
+ supporting idleness, and laws were made against theft. Laws were made
+ against murder, because a very large majority of the people have always
+ objected to being murdered. All fundamental laws were born simply of the
+ instinct of self-defence. Long before the Jewish savages assembled at the
+ foot of Sinai, laws had been made and enforced, not only in Egypt and
+ India, but by every tribe that ever existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for human beings to exist together, without certain rules
+ of conduct, certain ideas of the proper and improper, of the right and
+ wrong, growing out of the relation. Certain rules must be made, and must
+ be enforced. This implies law, trial and punishment. Whoever produces
+ anything by weary labor, does not need a revelation from heaven to teach
+ him that he has a right to the thing produced. Not one of the learned
+ gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws are filled with justice and
+ intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws
+ were in force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more wonderful than the medical ideas of Jehovah. He had
+ the strangest notions about the cause and cure of disease. With him
+ everything was miracle and wonder. In the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus,
+ we find the law for cleansing a leper:&mdash;"Then shall the priest take
+ for him that is to be cleansed, two birds, alive and clean, and cedar
+ wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of
+ the birds be killed in an <i>earthen</i> vessel, over <i>running</i>
+ water. As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and
+ the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them, and the living bird, in
+ the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall
+ sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy, seven times,
+ and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into
+ the open field."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that God himself gave these directions to Moses. Does anybody
+ believe this? Why should the bird be killed in an <i>earthen</i> vessel?
+ Would the charm be broken if the vessel was of wood? Why over <i>running</i>
+ water? What would be thought of a physician now, who would give a
+ prescription like that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not strange that God, although he gave hundreds of directions for
+ the purpose of discovering the presence of leprosy, and for cleansing the
+ leper after he was healed, forgot to tell how that disease could be cured?
+ Is it not wonderful that while God told his people what animals were fit
+ for food, he failed to give a list of plants that man might eat? Why did
+ he leave his children to find out the hurtful and the poisonous by
+ experiment, knowing that experiment, in millions of cases, must be death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from
+ slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my
+ sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived
+ and abused. Their god was quick-tempered, unreasonable, cruel, revengeful
+ and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time
+ in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had
+ done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly
+ detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews
+ that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey.
+ He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be
+ over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their
+ wives and little ones, forget, the stripes and tears of Egypt. After
+ promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in
+ safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every
+ promise, said to the wretches in his power:&mdash;"Your carcasses shall
+ fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your
+ carcasses be wasted." This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter.
+ Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this
+ rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home.
+ Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified
+ to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so
+ cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice
+ shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be
+ accepted as a revelation from God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents,
+ visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each other,
+ swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and
+ outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of
+ God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered
+ with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with
+ Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to
+ those who suffered the liberty of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and
+ horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and
+ frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of
+ wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and
+ superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by
+ hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was
+ their greatest enemy, and death their only friend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and
+ arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In
+ the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched
+ by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections
+ are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A
+ false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere
+ in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in
+ curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:&mdash;such
+ is the God of the Pentateuch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXIV. CONFESS AND AVOID
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The scientific Christians now admit that the Bible is not inspired in its
+ astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, nor in any science. In other words,
+ they admit that on these subjects, the Bible cannot be depended upon. If
+ all the statements in the Scriptures were true, there would be no
+ necessity for admitting that some of them are not inspired. A Christian
+ will not admit that a passage in the Bible is uninspired, until he is
+ satisfied that it is untrue. Orthodoxy itself has at last been compelled
+ to say, that while a passage may be true and uninspired, it cannot be
+ inspired if false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the people of Europe had known as much of astronomy and geology when
+ the Bible was introduced among them, as they do now, there never could
+ have been one believer in the doctrine of inspiration. If the writers of
+ the various parts of the Bible had known as much about the sciences as is
+ now known by every intelligent man, the book never could have been
+ written. It was produced by ignorance, and has been believed and defended
+ by its author. It has lost power in the proportion that man has gained
+ knowledge. A few years ago, this book was appealed to in the settlement of
+ all scientific questions; but now, even the clergy confess that in such
+ matters, it has ceased to speak with the voice of authority. For the
+ establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than
+ the word of God. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by
+ Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. All that God told Moses, admitting the
+ entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries
+ of Descartes, Laplace, and Humboldt. In matters of fact, the Bible has
+ ceased to be regarded as a standard. Science has succeeded in breaking the
+ chains of theology. A few years ago, Science endeavored to show that it
+ was not inconsistent with the Bible. The tables have been turned, and now,
+ Religion is endeavoring to prove that the Bible is not inconsistent with
+ Science. The standard has been changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many ages, the Christians contended that the Bible, viewed simply as a
+ literary performance, was beyond all other books, and that man without the
+ assistance of God could not produce its equal. This claim was made when
+ but few books existed, and the Bible, being the only book generally known,
+ had no rival. But this claim, like the other, has been abandoned by many,
+ and soon will be, by all. Com pared with Shakespeare's "book and volume of
+ the brain," the "sacred" Bible shrinks and seems as feebly impotent and
+ vain, as would a pipe of Fan, when some great organ, voiced with every
+ tone, from the hoarse thunder of the sea to the winged warble of a mated
+ bird, floods and fills cathedral aisles with all the wealth of sound.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is now maintained&mdash;and this appears to be the last fortification
+ behind which the doctrine of inspiration skulks and crouches&mdash;that
+ the Bible, although false and mistaken in its astronomy, geology,
+ geography, history and philosophy, is inspired in its morality. It is now
+ claimed that had it not been for this book, the world would have been
+ inhabited only by savages, and that had it not been for the Holy
+ Scriptures, man never would have even dreamed of the unity of God. A
+ belief in one God is claimed to be a dogma of almost infinite importance,
+ that with out this belief civilization is impossible, and that this fact
+ is the sun around which all the virtues revolve. For my part, I think it
+ infinitely more important to believe in man. Theology is a superstition&mdash;Humanity
+ a religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXV. "INSPIRED" SLAVERY
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Perhaps the Bible was inspired upon the subject of human slavery. Is
+ there, in the civilized world, to-day, a clergyman who believes in the
+ divinity of slavery? Does the Bible teach man to enslave his brother? If
+ it does, is it not blasphemous to say that it is inspired of God? If you
+ find the institution of slavery upheld in a book said to have been written
+ by God, what would you expect to find in a book inspired by the devil?
+ Would you expect to find that book in favor of liberty? Modern Christians,
+ ashamed of the God of the Old Testament, endeavor now to show that slavery
+ was neither commanded nor opposed by Jehovah. Nothing can be plainer than
+ the following passages from the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus.
+ "Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of
+ them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
+ begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take
+ them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a
+ possession, they shall be your bondmen forever. Both thy bondmen, and thy
+ bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round
+ about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen, and bondmaids."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe in this, the Nineteenth Century, that these infamous
+ passages were inspired by God? that God approved not only of human
+ slavery, but instructed his chosen people to buy the women, children and
+ babes of the heathen round about them? If it was right for the Hebrews to
+ buy, it was also right for the heathen to sell. This God, by commanding
+ the Hebrews to buy, approved of the selling of sons and daughters. The
+ Canaanite who, tempted by gold, lured by avarice, sold from the arms of
+ his wife the dimpled babe, simply made it possible for the Hebrews to obey
+ the orders of their God. If God is the author of the Bible, the reading of
+ these passages ought to cover his cheeks with shame. I ask the Christian
+ world to-day, was it right for the heathen to sell their children? Was it
+ right for God not only to uphold, but to command the infamous traffic in
+ human flesh? Could the most revengeful fiend, the most malicious vagrant
+ in the gloom of hell, sink to a lower moral depth than this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this God, his chosen people were not only commanded to buy of
+ the heathen round about them, but were also permitted to buy each other
+ for a term of years. The law governing the purchase of Jews is laid down
+ in the twenty-first chapter of Exodus. "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six
+ years shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
+ If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married,
+ then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife,
+ and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall
+ be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall
+ plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out
+ free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring
+ him to the door, or unto the door-post: and his master shall bore his ear
+ through with an awl: and he shall serve him forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that God was the author of this infamous law? Do you
+ believe that the loving father of us all, turned the dimpled arms of babes
+ into manacles of iron? Do you believe that he baited the dungeon of
+ servitude with wife and child? Is it possible to love a God who would make
+ such laws? Is it possible not to hate and despise him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The heathen are not spoken of as human beings. Their rights are never
+ mentioned. They were the rightful food of the sword, and their bodies were
+ made for stripes and chains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the same chapter of the same inspired book, we are told that, "if a man
+ smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he dies under his hand, he
+ shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he
+ shall not be punished, for he is his money."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we believe that God called some of his children the money of others?
+ Can we believe that God made lashes upon the naked back, a legal tender
+ for labor performed? Must we regard the auction block as an altar? Were
+ blood hounds apostles? Was the slave-pen a temple? Were the stealers and
+ whippers of babes and women the justified children of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is now contended that while the Old Testament is touched with the
+ barbarism of its time, that the New Testament is morally perfect, and that
+ on its pages can be found no blot or stain. As a matter of fact, the New
+ Testament is more decidedly in favor of human slavery than the old.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I never will, I never can, worship a God who upholds the
+ institution of slavery. Such a God I hate and defy. I neither want his
+ heaven, nor fear his hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXXVI. "INSPIRED" MARRIAGE
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there an orthodox clergyman in the world, who will now declare that he
+ believes the institution of polygamy to be right? Is there one who will
+ publicly declare that, in his judgment, that institution ever was right?
+ Was there ever a time in the history of the world when it was right to
+ treat woman simply as property? Do not attempt to answer these questions
+ by saying, that the Bible is an exceedingly good book, that we are
+ indebted for our civilization to the sacred volume, and that without it,
+ man would lapse into savagery, and mental night. This is no answer. Was
+ there a time when the institution of polygamy was the highest expression
+ of human virtue? Is there a Christian woman, civilized, intelligent, and
+ free, who believes in the institution of polygamy? Are we better, purer,
+ and more intelligent than God was four thousand years ago? Why should we
+ imprison Mormons, and worship God? Polygamy is just as pure in Utah, as it
+ could have been in the promised land. Love and Virtue are the same the
+ whole world round, and Justice is the same in every star. All the
+ languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of
+ polygamy. It makes of man, a beast, of woman, a trembling slave. It
+ destroys the fireside, makes virtue an outcast, takes from human speech
+ its sweetest words, and leaves the heart a den, where crawl and hiss the
+ slimy serpents of most loathsome lust. Civilization rests upon the family.
+ The good family is the unit of good government. The virtues grow about the
+ holy hearth of home&mdash;they cluster, bloom, and shed their perfume
+ round the fireside where the one man loves the one woman. Lover&mdash;husband&mdash;wife&mdash;mother&mdash;father&mdash;child&mdash;home!&mdash;?
+ without these sacred words, the world is but a lair, and men and women
+ merely beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should the innocent maiden and the loving mother worship the heartless
+ Jewish God? Why should they, with pure and stainless lips, read the vile
+ record of inspired lust?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The marriage of the one man to the one woman is the citadel and fortress
+ of civilization. Without this, woman becomes the prey and slave of lust
+ and power, and man goes back to savagery and crime. From the bottom of my
+ heart I hate, abhor and execrate all theories of life, of which the pure
+ and sacred home is not the corner-stone. Take from the world the family,
+ the fireside, the children born of wedded love, and there is nothing left.
+ The home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire&mdash;the
+ fairest flower in all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXVII. "INSPIRED" WAR
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible be true, God commanded his chosen people to destroy men
+ simply for the crime of defending their native land. They were not allowed
+ to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the
+ mothers' arms. They were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the
+ sword of war, the unborn child. "Our heavenly Father" commanded the
+ Hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to
+ preserve the girls alive. Why were not the maidens also killed? Why were
+ they spared? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and you will find
+ that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. Is there, in
+ all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? Is it possible
+ that God permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their
+ perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of
+ lust? If this was the order of God, what, under the same circumstances,
+ would have been the command of a devil? When, in this age of the world, a
+ woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and
+ loathing, throw the book away. A general, who now should make such an
+ order, giving over to massacre and rapine a conquered people, would be
+ held in execration by the whole civilized world. Yet, if the Bible be
+ true, the supreme and infinite God was once a savage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago, out upon the western plains, in a little path leading
+ to a cabin, were found the bodies of two children and their mother. Her
+ breast was filled with wounds received in the defence of her darlings.
+ They had been murdered by the savages. Suppose when looking at their
+ lifeless forms, some one had said, "This was done by the command of God!"
+ In Canaan there were countless scenes like this. There was no pity in
+ inspired war. God raised the black flag, and commanded his soldiers to
+ kill even the smiling infant in its mother's arms. Who is the blasphemer;
+ the man who denies the existence of God, or he who covers the robes of the
+ Infinite with innocent blood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told in the Pentateuch, that God, the father of us all, gave
+ thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers,
+ and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there be
+ a God, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied
+ this lie for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXVIII. "INSPIRED" RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Bible, God selected the Jewish people through whom to
+ make known the great fact, that he was the only true and living God. For
+ this purpose, he appeared on several occasions to Moses&mdash;came down to
+ Sinai's top clothed in cloud and fire, and wrought a thousand miracles for
+ the preservation and education of the Jewish people. In their presence he
+ opened the waters of the sea. For them he caused bread to rain from
+ heaven. To quench their thirst, water leaped from the dry and barren rock.
+ Their enemies were miraculously destroyed; and for forty years, at least,
+ this God took upon himself the government of the Jews. But, after all
+ this, many of the people had less confidence in him than in gods of wood
+ and stone. In moments of trouble, in periods of disaster, in the darkness
+ of doubt, in the hunger and thirst of famine, instead of asking this God
+ for aid, they turned and sought the help of senseless things. This God,
+ with all his power and wisdom, could not even convince a few wandering and
+ wretched savages that he was more potent than the idols of Egypt. This God
+ was not willing that the Jews should think and investigate for themselves.
+ For heresy, the penalty was death. Where this God reigned, intellectual
+ liberty was unknown. He appealed only to brute force; he collected taxes
+ by threatening plagues; he demanded worship on pain of sword and fire;
+ acting as spy, inquisitor, judge and executioner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, we have the ideas of God as to
+ mental freedom. "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or the
+ wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee
+ secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not
+ known, thou nor thy fathers; namely of the gods of the people which are
+ around about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end
+ of the earth even unto the other end of the earth, Thou shalt not consent
+ unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity him, neither
+ shalt thou spare him, neither shalt thou conceal him. But thou shalt
+ surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death,
+ and afterward the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with
+ stones that he die."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the religious liberty of God; the toleration of Jehovah. If I had
+ lived in Palestine at that time, and my wife, the mother of my children,
+ had said to me, "I am tired of Jehovah, he is always asking for blood; he
+ is never weary of killing; he is always telling of his might and strength;
+ always telling what he has done for the Jews, always asking for
+ sacrifices; for doves and lambs&mdash;blood, nothing but blood.&mdash;Let
+ us worship the sun. Jehovah is too revengeful, too malignant, too
+ exacting. Let us worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in beauty;
+ it has covered the earth with flowers; by its divine light I first saw
+ your face, and my beautiful babe."&mdash;If I had obeyed the command of
+ God, I would have killed her. My hand would have been first upon her, and
+ after that the hands of all the people, and she would have been stoned
+ with stones until she died. For my part, I would never kill my wife, even
+ if commanded so to do by the real God of this universe. Think of taking up
+ some ragged rock and hurling it against the white bosom filled with love
+ for you; and when you saw oozing from the bruised lips of the death wound,
+ the red current of her sweet life&mdash;think of looking up to heaven and
+ receiving the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandment you
+ had obeyed!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that any such command was ever given by a merciful and
+ intelligent God? Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews,
+ and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to
+ worship any other God that they should kill him; and suppose that
+ afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came to this very
+ chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the Jews
+ crucified him; I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What
+ right would this God have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in
+ accordance with his own command?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon
+ the body is as nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. No god
+ is entitled to the worship or the respect of man who does not give, even
+ to the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty. The dungeons
+ of the Inquisition were temples, and the clank of every chain upon the
+ limbs of heresy was music in the ear of God. If the Pentateuch was
+ inspired, every heretic should be destroyed; and every man who advocates a
+ fact inconsistent with the sacred book, should be consumed by sword and
+ flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Old Testament no one is told to reason with a heretic, and not one
+ word is said about relying upon argument, upon education, nor upon
+ intellectual development&mdash;nothing except simple brute force. Is there
+ to-day a Christian who will say that four thousand years ago, it was the
+ duty of a husband to kill his wife if she differed with him upon the
+ subject of religion? Is there one who will now say that, under such
+ circumstances, the wife ought to have been killed? Why should God be so
+ jealous of the wooden idols of the heathen? Could he not compete with
+ Baal? Was he envious of the success of the Egyptian magicians? Was it not
+ possible for him to make such a convincing display of his power as to
+ silence forever the voice of unbelief? Did this God have to resort to
+ force to make converts? Was he so ignorant of the structure of the human
+ mind as to believe all honest doubt a crime? If he wished to do away with
+ the idolatry of the Canaanites, why did he not appear to them? Why did he
+ not give them the tables of the law? Why did he only make known his will
+ to a few wandering savages in the desert of Sinai? Will some theologian
+ have the kindness to answer these questions? Will some minister, who now
+ believes in religious liberty, and eloquently denounces the intolerance of
+ Catholicism, explain these things; will he tell us why he worships an
+ intolerant God? Is a god who will burn a soul forever in another world,
+ better than a Christian who burns the body for a few hours in this? Is
+ there no intellectual liberty in heaven? Do the angels all discuss
+ questions on the same side? Are all the investigators in perdition? Will
+ the penitent thief, winged and crowned, laugh at the honest folks in hell?
+ Will the agony of the damned increase or decrease the happiness of God?
+ Will there be, in the universe, an eternal <i>auto da fe?</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XXIX. CONCLUSION
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Pentateuch is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, geography,
+ history or philosophy, if it is not inspired concerning slavery, polygamy,
+ war, law, religious or political liberty, or the rights of men, women and
+ children, what is it inspired in, or about? The unity of God?&mdash;that
+ was believed long before Moses was born. Special providence?&mdash;that
+ has been the doctrine of ignorance in all ages. The rights of property?&mdash;theft
+ was always a crime. The sacrifice of animals?&mdash;that was a custom
+ thousands of years before a Jew existed. The sacredness of life?&mdash;there
+ have always been laws against murder. The wickedness of perjury?&mdash;truthfulness
+ has always been a virtue. The beauty of chastity?&mdash;the Pentateuch
+ does not teach it. Thou shalt worship no other God?&mdash;that has been
+ the burden of all religions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that the Pentateuch could not have been written by
+ uninspired men? that the assistance of God was necessary to produce these
+ books? Is it possible that Galileo ascertained the mechanical principles
+ of "Virtual Velocity," the laws of falling bodies and of all motion; that
+ Copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and accounted for
+ all celestial phenomena; that Kepler discovered his three laws&mdash;discoveries
+ of such importance that the 8th of May, 1618, may be called the birthday
+ of modern science; that Newton gave to the world the Method of Fluxions,
+ the Theory of Universal Gravitation, and the Decomposition of Light; that
+ Euclid, Cavalieri, Descartes, and Leibnitz, almost completed the science
+ of mathematics; that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics,
+ pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions of
+ Galvani, Volta, Franklin and Morse, of Trevethick, Watt and Fulton and of
+ all the pioneers of progress&mdash;that all this was accomplished by
+ uninspired men, while the writer of the Pentateuch was directed and
+ inspired by an infinite God? Is it possible that the codes of China,
+ India, Egypt, Greece and Rome were made by man, and that the laws recorded
+ in the Pentateuch were alone given by God? Is it possible that &#65533;?schylus
+ and Shakespeare, Burns, and Beranger, Goethe and Schiller, and all the
+ poets of the world, and all their wondrous tragedies and songs, are but
+ the work of men, while no intelligence except the infinite God could be
+ the author of the Pentateuch? Is it possible that of all the books that
+ crowd the libraries of the world, the books of science, fiction, history
+ and song, that all save only one, have been produced by man? Is it
+ possible that of all these, the Bible only is the work of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Pentateuch is inspired, the civilization of our day is a mistake
+ and crime. There should be no political liberty. Heresy should be trodden
+ out beneath the bigot's brutal feet. Husbands should divorce their wives
+ at will, and make the mothers of their children houseless and weeping
+ wanderers. Polygamy ought to be practiced; women should become slaves; we
+ should buy the sons and daughters of the heathen and make them bondmen and
+ bondwomen forever. We should sell our own flesh and blood, and have the
+ right to kill our slaves. Men and women should be stoned to death for
+ laboring on the seventh day. "Mediums," such as have familiar spirits,
+ should be burned with fire. Every vestige of mental liberty should be
+ destroyed, and reason's holy torch extinguished in the martyr's blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not far better and wiser to say that the Pentateuch while containing
+ some good laws, some truths, some wise and useful things is, after all,
+ deformed and blackened by the savagery of its time? Is it not far better
+ and wiser to take the good and throw the bad away?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us admit what we know to be true; that Moses was mistaken about a
+ thousand things; that the story of creation is not true; that the Garden
+ of Eden is a myth; that the serpent and the tree of knowledge, and the
+ fall of man are but fragments of old mythologies lost and dead; that woman
+ was not made out of a rib; that serpents never had the power of speech;
+ that the sons of God did not marry the daughters of men; that the story of
+ the flood and ark is not exactly true; that the tower of Babel is a
+ mistake; that the confusion of tongues is a childish thing; that the
+ origin of the rainbow is a foolish fancy; that Methuselah did not live
+ nine hundred and sixty-nine years; that Enoch did not leave this world,
+ taking with him his flesh and bones; that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah
+ is somewhat improbable; that burning brimstone never fell like rain; that
+ Lot's wife was not changed into chloride of sodium; that Jacob did not, in
+ fact, put his hip out of joint wrestling with God; that the history of
+ Tamar might just as well have been left out; that a belief in Pharaoh's
+ dreams is not essential to salvation; that it makes but little difference
+ whether the rod of Aaron was changed to a serpent or not; that of all the
+ wonders said to have been performed in Egypt, the greatest is, that
+ anybody ever believed the absurd account; that God did not torment the
+ innocent cattle on account of the sins of their owners; that he did not
+ kill the first born of the poor maid behind the mill because of Pharaoh's
+ crimes; that flies and frogs were not ministers of God's wrath; that lice
+ and locusts were not the executors of his will; that seventy people did
+ not, in two hundred and fifteen years, increase to three million; that
+ three priests could not eat six hundred pigeons in a day; that gazing at a
+ brass serpent could not extract poison from the blood; that God did not go
+ in partnership with hornets; that he did not murder people simply because
+ they asked for something to eat; that he did not declare the making of
+ hair oil and ointment an offence to be punished with death; that he did
+ not miraculously preserve cloth and leather; that he was not afraid of
+ wild beasts; that he did not punish heresy with sword and fire; that he
+ was not jealous, revengeful, and unjust; that he knew all about the sun,
+ moon, and stars; that he did not threaten to kill people for eating the
+ fat of an ox; that he never told Aaron to draw cuts to see which of two
+ goats should be killed; that he never objected to clothes made of woolen
+ mixed with linen; that if he objected to dwarfs, people with flat noses
+ and too many fingers, he ought not to have created such folks; that he did
+ not demand human sacrifices as set forth in the last chapter of Leviticus;
+ that he did not object to the raising of horses; that he never commanded
+ widows to spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law; that several
+ contradictory accounts of the same transaction cannot all be true; that
+ God did not talk to Abraham as one man talks to another; that angels were
+ not in the habit of walking about the earth eating veal dressed with milk
+ and butter, and making bargains about the destruction of cities; that God
+ never turned himself into a flame of fire, and lived in a bush; that he
+ never met Moses in a hotel and tried to kill him; that it was absurd to
+ perform miracles to induce a king to act in a certain way and then harden
+ his heart so that he would refuse; that God was not kept from killing the
+ Jews by the fear that the Egyptians would laugh at him; that he did not
+ secretly bury a man and then allow the corpse to write an account of the
+ funeral; that he never believed the firmament to be solid; that he knew
+ slavery was and always would be a frightful crime; that polygamy is but
+ stench and filth; that the brave soldier will always spare an unarmed foe;
+ that only cruel cowards slay the conquered and the helpless; that no
+ language can describe the murderer of a smiling babe; that God did not
+ want the blood of doves and lambs; that he did not love the smell of
+ burning flesh; that he did not want his altars daubed with blood; that he
+ did not pretend that the sins of a people could be transferred to a goat;
+ that he did not believe in witches, wizards, spooks, and devils; that he
+ did not test the virtue of woman with dirty water; that he did not suppose
+ that rabbits chewed the cud; that he never thought there were any
+ four-footed birds; that he did not boast for several hundred years that he
+ had vanquished an Egyptian king; that a dry stick did not bud, blossom,
+ and bear almonds in one night; that manna did not shrink and swell, so
+ that each man could gather only just one omer; that it was never wrong to
+ "countenance the poor man in his cause;" that God never told a people not
+ to live in peace with their neighbors; that he did not spend forty days
+ with Moses on Mount Sinai giving him patterns for making clothes, tongs,
+ basins, and snuffers; that maternity is not a sin; that physical deformity
+ is not a crime; that an atonement cannot be made for the soul by shedding
+ innocent blood; that killing a dove over running water will not make its
+ blood a medicine; that a god who demands love knows nothing of the human
+ heart; that one who frightens savages with loud noises is unworthy the
+ love of civilized men; that one who destroys children on account of the
+ sins of their fathers is a monster; that an infinite god never threatened
+ to give people the itch; that he never sent wild beasts to devour babes;
+ that he never ordered the violation of maidens; that he never regarded
+ patriotism as a crime; that he never ordered the destruction of unborn
+ children; that he never opened the earth and swallowed wives and babes
+ because husbands and fathers had displeased him; that he never demanded
+ that men should kill their sons and brothers, for the purpose of
+ sanctifying themselves; that we cannot please God by believing the
+ improbable; that credulity is not a virtue; that investigation is not a
+ crime; that every mind should be free; that all religious persecution is
+ infamous in God, as well as man; that without liberty, virtue is
+ impossible; that without freedom, even love cannot exist; that every man
+ should be allowed to think and to express his thoughts; that woman is the
+ equal of man; that children should be governed by love and reason; that
+ the family relation is sacred; that war is a hideous crime; that all
+ intolerance is born of ignorance and hate; that the freedom of today is
+ the hope of to-morrow; that the enlightened present ought not to fall upon
+ its knees and blindly worship the barbaric past; and that every free,
+ brave and enlightened man should publicly declare that all the ignorant,
+ infamous, heartless, hideous things recorded in the "inspired" Pentateuch
+ are not the words of God, but simply "Some Mistakes of Moses."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SOME REASONS WHY
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ RELIGION makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, "religion,"
+ covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of
+ persecution, of tyranny, and death. That one word brings to the mind every
+ instrument with which man has tortured man. In that one word are all the
+ fagots and flames and dungeons of the past, and in that word is the
+ infinite and eternal hell of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the name of universal benevolence Christians have hated their
+ fellow-men. Although they have been preaching universal love, the
+ Christian nations are the warlike nations of the world. The most
+ destructive weapons of war have been invented by Christians. The musket,
+ the revolver, the rifled canon, the bombshell, the torpedo, the explosive
+ bullet, have been invented by Christian brains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Above all other arts, the Christian world has placed the art of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A Christian nation has never had the slightest respect for the rights of
+ barbarians; neither has any Christian sect any respect for the rights of
+ other sects. Anciently, the sects discussed with fire and sword, and even
+ now, something happens almost every day to show that the old spirit that
+ was in the Inquisition still slumbers in the Christian breast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God, holds other people in
+ contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in
+ that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the
+ imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological
+ certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to
+ be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the worst
+ is a slave in power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to
+ be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal
+ joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole
+ world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's
+ sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who
+ will be damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A Christian nation can make no compromise with one not Christian; it will
+ either compel that nation to accept its doctrine, or it will wage war. If
+ Christ, in fact, said "I came not to bring peace but a sword," it is the
+ only prophecy in the New Testament that has been literally fulfilled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. DUTIES TO GOD.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ RELIGION is supposed to consist in a discharge of the duties we owe to
+ God. In other words, we are taught that God is exceedingly anxious that we
+ should believe a certain thing. For my part, I do not believe that there
+ is any infinite being to whom we owe anything. The reason I say this is,
+ we can not owe any duty to any being who requires nothing&mdash;to any
+ being that we cannot possibly help, to any being whose happiness we cannot
+ increase. If God is infinite, we cannot make him happier than he is. If
+ God is infinite, we can neither give, nor can he receive, anything.
+ Anything that we do or fail to do, cannot, in the slightest degree, affect
+ an infinite God; consequently, no relations can exist between the finite
+ and the Infinite, if by relations is meant mutual duties and obligations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some tell us that it is the desire of God that we should worship him. What
+ for? Why does he desire worship? Others tell us that we should sacrifice
+ something to him. What for? Is he in want? Can we assist him? Is he
+ unhappy? Is he in trouble? Does he need human sympathy? We cannot assist
+ the Infinite, but we can assist our fellow-men. We can feed the hungry and
+ clothe the naked, and enlighten the ignorant, and we can help, in some
+ degree at least, toward covering this world with the mantle of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe there is any being in this universe who gives rain for
+ praise, who gives sunshine for prayer, or who blesses a man simply because
+ he kneels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Infinite cannot receive praise or worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Infinite can neither hear nor answer prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An Infinite personality is an infinite impossibility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. INSPIRATION.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of God. What
+ is meant by the word "inspired" is not exactly known; but whatever else it
+ may mean, certainly it means that the "inspired" must be the true. If it
+ is true, there is, in fact, no need of its being inspired&mdash;the truth
+ will take care of itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church is forced to say that the Bible differs from all other books;
+ it is forced to say that it contains the actual will of God. Let us then
+ see what inspiration really is. A man looks at the sea, and the sea says
+ something to him. It makes an impression upon his mind. It awakens memory,
+ and this impression depends upon the man's experience&mdash;upon his
+ intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a different
+ brain; he has had a different experience. The sea may speak to him of joy,
+ to the other of grief and tears. The sea cannot tell the same thing to any
+ two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same
+ experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A year ago, while the cars were going from Boston to Gloucester, we passed
+ through Manchester. As the cars stopped, a lady sitting opposite, speaking
+ to her husband, looking out of the window and catching, for the first
+ time, a view of the sea, cried out, "Is it not beautiful!" and the husband
+ replied, "I'll bet you could dig clams right here!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another, standing upon the shore, listening to what the great Greek
+ tragedian called "the multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: Every
+ drop has visited all the shores of the earth; every one has been frozen in
+ the vast and icy North; every one has fallen in snow, has been whirled by
+ storms around mountain peaks; every one has been kissed to vapor by the
+ sun; every one has worn the seven-hued garment of light; every one has
+ fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs and laughed in brooks while
+ lovers wooed upon the banks, and every one has rushed with mighty rivers
+ back to the sea's embrace. Everything in nature tells a different story to
+ all eyes that see and to all ears that hear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once in my life, and once only, I heard Horace Greeley deliver a lecture.
+ I think its title was, "Across the Continent." At last he reached the
+ mammoth trees of California, and I thought "Here is an opportunity for the
+ old man to indulge his fancy. Here are trees that have outlived a thousand
+ human governments. There are limbs above his head older than the pyramids.
+ While man was emerging from barbarism to something like civilization,
+ these trees were growing. Older than history, every one appeared to be a
+ memory, a witness, and a prophecy. The same wind that filled the sails of
+ the Argonauts had swayed these trees." But these trees said nothing of
+ this kind to Mr. Greeley. Upon these subjects not a word was told to him.
+ Instead, he took his pencil, and after figuring awhile, remarked: "One of
+ these trees, sawed into inch-boards, would make more than three hundred
+ thousand feet of lumber."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was once riding on the cars in Illinois. There had been a violent
+ thunder-storm. The rain had ceased, the sun was going down. The great
+ clouds had floated toward the west, and there they assumed most wonderful
+ architectural shapes. There were temples and palaces domed and turreted,
+ and they were touched with silver, with amethyst and gold. They looked
+ like the homes of the Titans, or the palaces of the gods. A man was
+ sitting near me. I touched him and said, "Did you ever see anything so
+ beautiful!" He looked out. He saw nothing of the cloud, nothing of the
+ sun, nothing of the color; he saw only the country and replied, "Yes, it
+ is beautiful; I always did like rolling land." On another occasion I was
+ riding in a stage. There had been a snow, and after the snow a sleet, and
+ all the trees were bent, and all the boughs were arched. Every fence,
+ every log cabin had been transfigured, touched with a glory almost beyond
+ this world. The great fields were a pure and perfect white; the forests,
+ drooping beneath their load of gems, made wonderful caves, from which one
+ almost expected to see troops of fairies come. The whole world looked like
+ a bride, jewelled from head to foot. A German on the back seat, hearing
+ our talk, and our exclamations of wonder leaned forward, looked out of the
+ stage window and said: "Yes, it looks like a clean table cloth!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet,
+ the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we have thought,
+ the more we remember, the more the statue, the star, the painting, the
+ violet has to tell. Nature says to me all that I am capable of
+ understanding&mdash;gives all that I can receive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As with star, or flower, or sea, so with a book. A man reads Shakespeare.
+ What does he get from him? All that he has the mind to understand. He gets
+ his little cup full. Let another read him who knows nothing of the drama,
+ nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? Almost
+ nothing. Shakespeare has a different story for each reader. He is a world
+ in which each recognizes his acquaintances&mdash;he may know a few, he may
+ know all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The impression that nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea
+ and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. Leaving out for
+ the moment the impression gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and
+ drifts and trends&mdash;the natural food of thought must be the impression
+ made upon the brain by coming in contact through the medium of the five
+ senses with what we call the outward world. The brain is natural. Its food
+ is natural. The result, thought, must be natural. The supernatural can be
+ constructed with no material except the natural. Of the supernatural we
+ can have no conception. Thought may be deformed, and the thought of one
+ may be strange to, and denominated as unnatural by, another; but it cannot
+ be supernatural. It may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not
+ supernatural. Above the natural man cannot rise, even with the aid of
+ fancy's wings. There can can be deformed ideas, as there are deformed
+ persons. There can be religions monstrous and misshapen, but they must be
+ naturally produced. Some people have ideas about what they are pleased to
+ call the supernatural; but what they call the supernatural is simply the
+ deformed. The world is to each man according to each man. It takes the
+ world as it really is and that man to make that man's world, and that
+ man's world cannot exist without that man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may ask, and what of all this? I reply, as with everything in nature,
+ so with the Bible. It has a different story for each reader. Is then the
+ Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It is. Can God
+ then, through the Bible, make the same revelation to two persons? He
+ cannot. Why? Because the man who reads it is the man who inspires.
+ Inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. God should have
+ inspired readers as well as writers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may reply: "God knew that his book would be understood differently by
+ each one, and that he really intended that it should be understood as it
+ is understood by each." If this is so, then my understanding of the Bible
+ is the real revelation to me. If this is so, I have no right to take the
+ understanding of another. I must take the revelation made to me through my
+ understanding, and by that revelation I must stand. Suppose then, that I
+ do read this Bible honestly, fairly, and when I get through I am compelled
+ to say, "The book is not true." If this is the honest result, then you are
+ compelled to say, either that God has made no revelation to me, or that
+ the revelation that it is not true, is the revelation made to me, and by
+ which I am bound. If the book and my brain are both the work of the same
+ Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and the brain do not agree?
+ Either God should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made
+ my brain to fit his book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of him who reads.
+ There was a time when its geology, its astronomy, its natural history,
+ were inspired. That time has passed. There was a time when its morality
+ satisfied the men who ruled mankind. That time has passed. There was a
+ time when the tyrant regarded its laws as good; when the master believed
+ in its liberty; when strength gloried in its passages; but these laws
+ never satisfied the oppressed, they were never quoted by the slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have a sacred book, an inspired Bible, and I am told that this book was
+ written by the same being who made every star, and who peopled infinite
+ space with infinite worlds. I am also told that God created man, and that
+ man is totally depraved. It has always seemed to me that an infinite being
+ has no right to make imperfect things. I may be mistaken; but this is the
+ only planet I have ever been on; I live in what might be called one of the
+ rural districts of this universe, consequently I may be mistaken; I simply
+ give the best and largest thought I have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. GOD'S EXPERIMENT WITH THE JEWS
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Bible tells us that men became so bad that God destroyed them all with
+ the exception of eight persons; that afterwards he chose Abraham and some
+ of his kindred, a wandering tribe, for the purpose of seeing whether or no
+ they could be civilized. He had no time to waste with all the world. The
+ Egyptians at that time, a vast and splendid nation, having a system of
+ laws and free schools, believing in the marriage of the one man to the one
+ woman; believing, too, in the rights of woman&mdash;a nation that had
+ courts of justice and understood the philosophy of damages&mdash;these
+ people had received no revelation from God,&mdash;they were left to grope
+ in Nature's night. He had no time to civilize India, wherein had grown a
+ civilization that fills the world with wonder still&mdash;a people with a
+ language as perfect as ours, a people who had produced philosophers,
+ scientists, poets. He had no time to waste on them; but he took a few, the
+ tribe of Abraham. He established a perfect despotism&mdash;with no
+ schools, with no philosophy, with no art, with no music&mdash;nothing but
+ the sacrifices of dumb beasts&mdash;nothing but the abject worship of a
+ slave. Not a word upon geology, upon astronomy; nothing, even, upon the
+ science of medicine. Thus God spent hours and hours with Moses upon the
+ top of Sinai, giving directions for ascertaining the presence of leprosy
+ and for preventing its spread, but it never occurred to Jehovah to tell
+ Moses how it could be cured. He told them a few things about what they
+ might eat&mdash;prohibiting among other things four-footed birds, and one
+ thing upon the subject of cooking. From the thunders and lightnings of
+ Sinai he proclaimed this vast and wonderful fact: "Thou shalt not seethe a
+ kid in its mother's milk." He took these people, according to our sacred
+ Scriptures, under his immediate care, and for the purpose of controlling
+ them he wrought wonderful miracles in their sight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not a little curious that no priest of one religion has ever been
+ able to astonish a priest of another religion by telling a miracle? Our
+ missionaries tell the Hindoos the miracles of the Bible, and the Hindoo
+ priests, without the movement of a muscle, hear them and then recite
+ theirs, and theirs do not astonish our missionaries in the least! Is it
+ not a little curious that the priests of one religion never believe the
+ priests of another? Is it not a little strange that the believers in
+ sacred books regard all except their own as having been made by hypocrites
+ and fools?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I heard the other day a story. A gentleman was telling some wonderful
+ things and the listeners, with one exception, were saying, as he proceeded
+ with his tale, "Is it possible?" "Did you ever hear anything so
+ wonderful?" and when he had concluded, there was a kind of chorus of "Is
+ it possible?" and "Can it be?" One man, however, sat perfectly quiet,
+ utterly unmoved. Another listener said to him "Did you hear that?" and he
+ replied "Yes." "Well," said the other, "You did not manifest much
+ astonishment." "Oh, no," was the answer, "I am a liar myself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am told by the sacred Scriptures that, as a matter of fact, God, even
+ with the help of miracles, failed to civilize the Jews, and this shows of
+ how little real benefit, after all, it is, to have a ruler much above the
+ people, or to simply excite the wonder of mankind. Infinite wisdom, if the
+ account be true, could not civilize a single tribe. Laws made by Jehovah
+ himself were not obeyed, and every effort of Jehovah failed. It is claimed
+ that God made known his law and inspired men to write and teach his will,
+ and yet, it was found utterly impossible to reform mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. CIVILIZED COUNTRIES
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN all civilized countries, it is now passionately asserted that slavery
+ is a crime; that a war of conquest is murder; that polygamy enslaves
+ woman, degrades man and destroys home; that nothing is more infamous than
+ the slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless mothers, and of prattling
+ babes; that captured maidens should not be given to their captors; that
+ wives should not be stoned to death for differing with their husbands on
+ the subject of religion. We know that there was a time, in the history of
+ most nations, when all these crimes were regarded as divine institutions.
+ Nations entertaining this view now are regarded as savage, and, with the
+ exception of the South Sea Islanders, Feejees, a few tribes in Central
+ Africa, and some citizens of Delaware, no human beings are found degraded
+ enough to agree upon these subjects with Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only evidence we can have that a nation has ceased to be savage, is
+ that it has abandoned these doctrines of savagery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To every one except a theologian, it is easy to account for these mistakes
+ and crimes by saying that civilization is a painful growth; that the moral
+ perceptions are cultivated through ages of tyranny, of crime, and of
+ heroism; that it requires centuries for man to put out the eyes of self
+ and hold in lofty and in equal poise the golden scales of Justice.
+ Conscience is born of suffering. Mercy is the child of the imagination.
+ Man advances as he becomes acquainted with his surroundings, with the
+ mutual obligations of life, and learns to take advantage of the forces of
+ nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to say, that
+ there was a time when slavery was right, when women could sell their
+ babes, when polygamy was the highest form of virtue, when wars of
+ extermination were waged with the sword of mercy, when religious
+ toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having
+ expressed an honest thought. He is compelled to insist that Jehovah is as
+ bad now as he was then; that he is as good now as he was then. Once, all
+ the crimes that I have mentioned were commanded by God; now they are
+ prohibited. Once, God was in favor of them all; now the Devil is their
+ defender. In other words, the Devil entertains the same opinion to-day
+ that God held four thousand years ago. The Devil is as good now as Jehovah
+ was then, and God was as bad then as the Devil is now. Other nations
+ besides the Jews had similar laws and ideas&mdash;believed in and
+ practiced the same crimes, and yet, it is not claimed that they received a
+ revelation. They had no knowledge of the true God, and yet they practiced
+ the same crimes, of their own motion, that the Jews did by command of
+ Jehovah. From this it would seem that man can do wrong without a special
+ revelation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The passages upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious persecution
+ are certainly not evidences of the inspiration of that book. Suppose
+ nothing had been in the Old Testament upholding these crimes, would the
+ modern Christian suspect that it was not inspired on that account? Suppose
+ nothing had been in the Old Testament except laws in favor of these
+ crimes, would it still be insisted that it was inspired? If the Devil had
+ inspired a book, will some Christian tell us in what respect, on the
+ subjects of slavery, polygamy, war and liberty, it would have differed
+ from some parts of the Old Testament? Suppose we knew that after inspired
+ men had finished the Bible the Devil had gotten possession of it and had
+ written a few passages, what part would Christians now pick out as being
+ probably his work? Which of the following passages would be selected as
+ having been written by the Devil: "Love thy neighbor as thyself," or "Kill
+ all the males among the little ones, and kill every woman, but all the
+ women children keep alive for yourselves"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there a believer in the Bible who does not now wish that God, amid the
+ thunders and lightnings of Sinai, had said to Moses that man should not
+ own his fellow-man; that women should not sell their babes; that all men
+ should be allowed to think and investigate for themselves, and that the
+ sword never should be unsheathed to shed innocent blood? Is there a
+ believer who would not be delighted to find that every one of the infamous
+ passages are interpolations, and that the skirts of God were never
+ reddened by the blood of maiden, wife, or babe? Is there an honest man who
+ does not regret that God commanded a husband to stone his wife for
+ suggesting the worship of some other God? Surely we do not need an
+ inspired book to teach us that slavery is right, that polygamy is virtue,
+ and that intellectual liberty is a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. A COMPARISON OF BOOKS
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LET us compare the gems of Jehovah with Pagan paste. It may be that the
+ best way to illustrate what I have said, is to compare the supposed
+ teachings of Jehovah with those of persons who never wrote an inspired
+ line. In all ages of which any record has been preserved, men have given
+ their ideas of justice, charity, liberty, love and law. If the Bible is
+ the work of God, it should contain the sublimest truths, it should excel
+ the works of man, it should contain the loftiest definitions of justice,
+ the best conceptions of human liberty, the clearest outlines of duty, the
+ tenderest and noblest thoughts. Upon every page should be found the
+ luminous evidence of its divine origin. It should contain grander and more
+ wonderful things than man has written.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said that it is unfair to call attention to bad things in the
+ Bible. To this it may be replied that a divine being ought not to put bad
+ things in his book. If the Bible now upholds what we call crimes, it will
+ not do to say that it is not verbally inspired. If the words are not
+ inspired, what is? It may be said, that the thoughts are inspired. This
+ would include only thoughts expressed without words. If ideas are
+ inspired, they must be expressed by inspired words&mdash;that is to say,
+ by an inspired arrangement of words. If a sculptor were inspired of God to
+ make a statue, we would not say that the marble was inspired, but the
+ statue&mdash;that is to say, the relation of part to part, the married
+ harmony of form and function. The language, the words, take the place of
+ the marble, and it is the arrangement of the words that Christians claim
+ to be inspired. If there is an uninspired word, or a word in the wrong
+ place, until that word is known a doubt is cast on every word the book
+ contains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it was worth God's while to make a revelation at all, it was certainly
+ worth his while to see that it was correctly made&mdash;that it was
+ absolutely preserved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should God allow an inspired book to be interpolated? If it was worth
+ while to inspire men to write it, it was worth while to inspire men to
+ preserve it; and why should he allow another person to interpolate in it
+ that which was not inspired? He certainly would not have allowed the man
+ he inspired to write contrary to the inspiration. He should have preserved
+ his revelation. Neither will it do to say that God adapted his revelation
+ to the prejudices of man. It was necessary for him to adapt his revelation
+ to the capacity of man, but certainly God would not confirm a barbarian in
+ his prejudices. He would not fortify a heathen in his crimes....
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a revelation is of any importance, it is to eradicate prejudice. They
+ tell us now that the Jews were so ignorant, so bad, that God was compelled
+ to justify their crimes, in order to have any influence with them. They
+ say that if he had declared slavery and polygamy to be crimes, the Jews
+ would have refused to receive the Ten Commandments. They tell us that God
+ did the best he could; that his real intention was to lead them along
+ slowly, so that in a few hundred years they would be induced to admit that
+ larceny and murder and polygamy and slavery were not virtues. I suppose if
+ we now wished to break a cannibal of the bad habit of devouring
+ missionaries, we would first induce him to cook them in a certain way,
+ saying: "To eat cooked missionary is one step in advance of eating your
+ missionary raw. After a few years, a little mutton could be cooked with
+ missionary, and year after year the amount of mutton could be increased
+ and the amount of missionary decreased, until in the fullness of time the
+ dish could be entirely mutton, and after that the missionaries would be
+ absolutely safe."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is anything of value, it is liberty&mdash;liberty of body,
+ liberty of mind. The liberty of body is the reward of labor. Intellectual
+ liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind, and without it,
+ the world is a prison, the universe a dungeon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is really inspired, Jehovah commanded the Jewish people to
+ buy the children of the strangers that sojourned among them, and ordered
+ that the children thus bought should be an inheritance for the children of
+ the Jews, and that they should be bondmen and bondwomen forever. Yet
+ Epictetus, a man to whom no revelation was ever made, a man whose soul
+ followed only the light of nature, and who had never heard of the Jewish
+ God, was great enough to say: "Will you not remember that your servants
+ are by nature your brothers, the children of God? In saying that you have
+ bought them, you look down on the earth, and into the pit, on the wretched
+ law of men long since dead, but you see not the laws of the gods."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find that Jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, assured them that
+ their bondmen and their bondmaids must be "of the heathen that were round
+ about them." "Of them," said Jehovah, "shall ye buy bondmen and
+ bondmaids." And yet Cicero, a pagan, Cicero, who had never been
+ enlightened by reading the Old Testament, had the moral grandeur to
+ declare: "They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens but not
+ foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which
+ benevolence and justice would perish forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is inspired, Jehovah, God of all worlds, actually said: "And
+ if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his
+ hand, he shall be sorely punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day
+ or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." And yet Zeno,
+ founder of the Stoics, centuries before Christ was born, insisted that no
+ man could be the owner of another, and that the title was bad, whether the
+ slave had become so by conquest or by purchase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah ordered a Jewish general to make war, and gave, among others, this
+ command: "When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt
+ smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with
+ them, nor show mercy unto them." And yet Epictetus, whom we have already
+ quoted, gave this marvelous rule for the guidance of human conduct: "Live
+ with thy inferiors as thou wouldst have thy superiors live with thee."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible, after all, that a being of infinite goodness and wisdom
+ said: "I will heap mischief upon them; I will send mine arrows upon them;
+ they shall be burned with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with
+ bitter destruction. I will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the
+ poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within,
+ shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with
+ the man of gray hairs" while Seneca, an uninspired Roman, said: "The wise
+ man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will
+ accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He will
+ spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on
+ account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall short of justice,
+ but will fulfill it perfectly."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that God ever said to any one: "Let his children be
+ fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually
+ vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate
+ places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger
+ spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let
+ there be any to favor his fatherless children." If he ever said these
+ words, surely he had never heard this line, this strain of music from the
+ Hindu: "Sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their
+ own children."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of Sinai," said to the Jews: "Thou
+ shalt have no other gods before me.... Though shalt not bow down thyself
+ to them nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God,
+ visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third
+ and fourth generation of them that hate me." Contrast this with the words
+ put by the Hindu in the mouth of Brahma: "I am the same to all mankind.
+ They who honestly serve other gods involuntarily worship me. I am he who
+ partakest of all worship, and I am the reward of all worshipers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare these passages; the first a dungeon where crawl the things begot
+ of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed firmament inlaid with
+ suns. Is it possible that the real God ever said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I, the Lord,
+ have deceived that prophet; and I will stretch out my hand upon him and
+ will destroy him from the midst of my people." Compare that passage with
+ one from a Pagan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is better to keep silence for the remainder of your life than to speak
+ falsely."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that a being of infinite mercy gave this command:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate,
+ throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his
+ companion, and every man his neighbor; consecrate yourselves to-day to the
+ Lord, even every man upon his son and upon his brother, that he may bestow
+ a blessing upon you this day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely, that God was not animated by so great and magnanimous a spirit as
+ was Antoninus, a Roman emperor, who declared that, "he had rather keep a
+ single Roman citizen alive than slay a thousand enemies."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare the laws given to the children of Israel, as it is claimed by the
+ Creator of us all, with the following from Marcus Aurelius:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have formed the ideal of a state, in which there is the same law for
+ all, and equal rights, and equal liberty of speech established; an empire
+ where nothing is honored so much as the freedom of the citizen."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Avesta I find this: "I belong to five: to those who think good, to
+ those who speak good, to those who do good, to those who hear, and to
+ those who are pure."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Which is the one prayer which in greatness, goodness, and beauty is worth
+ all that is between heaven and earth and between this earth and the stars?
+ And he replied: To renounce all evil thoughts and words and works."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IT is claimed by the Christian world that one of the great reasons for
+ giving an inspired book to the Jews was, that through them the world might
+ learn that there is but one God. This piece of information has been
+ supposed to be of infinite value. As a matter of fact, long before Moses
+ was born, the Egyptians believed and taught that there was but one God&mdash;that
+ is to say, that above all intelligences there was the one Supreme. They
+ were guilty, too, of the same inconsistencies of modern Christians. They
+ taught the doctrine of the Trinity&mdash;God the Father, God the Mother,
+ and God the Son. God was frequently represented as father, mother and
+ babe. They also taught that the soul had a divine origin; that after death
+ it was to be judged according to the deeds done in the body; that those
+ who had done well passed into perpetual joy, and those who had done evil
+ into endless pain. In this they agreed with the most approved divine of
+ the nineteenth century. Women were the equals of men, and Egypt was often
+ governed by queens. In this, her government was vastly better than the one
+ established by God. The laws were administered by courts much like ours.
+ In Egypt there was a system of schools that gave the son of poverty a
+ chance of advancement, and the highest offices were open to the successful
+ scholar. The Egyptian married one wife. The wife was called "the lady of
+ the house." The women were not secluded. The people were not divided into
+ castes. There was nothing to prevent the rise of able and intelligent
+ Egyptians. But like the Jehovah of the Jews, they made slaves of the
+ captives of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ancient Persians believed in one God; and women helped to found the
+ Parsee religion. Nothing can exceed some of the maxims of Zoroaster. The
+ Hindoos taught that above all, and over all, was one eternal Supreme. They
+ had a code of laws. They understood the philosophy of evidence and of
+ damages. They knew better than to teach the doctrine of an eye for an eye,
+ and a tooth for a tooth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew that when one man maimed another, it was not to the interest of
+ society to have that man maimed, thus burdening the people with two
+ cripples, but that it was better to make the man who maimed the other work
+ to support him. In India, upon the death of a father, the daughters
+ received twice as much from the estate as the sons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Romans built temples to Truth, Faith, Valor, Concord, Modesty, and
+ Charity, in which they offered sacrifices to the highest conceptions of
+ human excellence. Women had rights; they presided in the temple; they
+ officiated in holy offices; they guarded the sacred fires upon which the
+ safety of Rome depended; and when Christ came, the grandest figure in the
+ known world was the Roman mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that some rude statue was made by an inspired
+ sculptor, and that the Apollo of Belvidere, Venus de Milo, and the
+ Gladiator were made by unaided men; that the daubs of the early ages were
+ painted by divine assistance, while the Raphaels, the Angelos, and the
+ Rembrandts did what they did without the help of heaven. It will not do to
+ say, that the first hut was built by God, and the last palace by degraded
+ man; that the hoarse songs of the savage tribes were made by the Deity,
+ but that Hamlet and Lear were written by man; that the pipes of Pan were
+ invented in heaven, and all other musical instruments on the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Jehovah of the Jews had taken upon himself flesh, and dwelt as a
+ man among the people had he endeavored to govern, had he followed his own
+ teachings, he would have been a slaveholder, a buyer of babes, and a
+ beater of women. He would have waged wars of extermination. He would have
+ killed grey-haired and trembling age, and would have sheathed his sword,
+ in prattling, dimpled babes. He would have been a polygamist, and would
+ have butchered his wife for differing with him on the subject of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. THE NEW TESTAMENT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ NE great objection to the Old Testament is the cruelty said to have been
+ commanded by God. All these cruelties ceased with death. The vengeance of
+ Jehovah stopped at the tomb. He never threatened to punish the dead; and
+ there is not one word, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse
+ of Malachi, containing the slightest intimation that God will take his
+ revenge in another world. It was reserved for the New Testament to make
+ known the doctrine of eternal pain. The teacher of universal benevolence
+ rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of
+ man upon the lurid gulf of hell. Within the breast of non-resistance
+ coiled the worm that never dies. Compared with this, the doctrine of
+ slavery, the wars of extermination, the curses, the punishments of the Old
+ Testament were all merciful and just.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no time to speak of the conflicting statements in the various
+ books composing the New Testament&mdash;no time to give the history of the
+ manuscripts, the errors in translation, the interpolations made by the
+ fathers and by their successors, the priests, and only time to speak of a
+ few objections, including some absurdities and some contradictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where several witnesses testify to the same transaction, no matter how
+ honest they may be, they will disagree upon minor matters, and such
+ testimony is generally considered as evidence that the witnesses have not
+ conspired among themselves. The differences in statement are accounted for
+ from the facts that all do not see alike, and that all have not equally
+ good memories; but when we claim that the witnesses are inspired, we must
+ admit that he who inspired them did know exactly what occurred, and
+ consequently there should be no disagreement, even in the minutest detail.
+ The accounts should not only be substantially, but they should be
+ actually, the same. The differences and contradictions can be accounted
+ for by the weaknesses of human nature, but these weaknesses cannot be
+ predicated of divine wisdom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here let me ask: Why should there have been more than one correct
+ account of what really happened? Why were four gospels necessary? It seems
+ to me that one inspired gospel, containing all that happened, was enough.
+ Copies of the one correct one could have been furnished to any extent.
+ According to Doctor Davidson, Iren&aelig;us argues that the gospels were
+ four in number, because there are four universal winds, four corners of
+ the globe. Others have said, because there are four seasons; and these
+ gentlemen might have added, because a donkey has four legs. For my part, I
+ cannot even conceive of a reason for more than one gospel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to one of these gospels, and according to the prevalent
+ Christian belief, the Christian religion rests upon the doctrine of the
+ atonement. If this doctrine is without foundation, the fabric falls; and
+ it is without foundation, for it is repugnant to justice and mercy. The
+ church tells us that the first man committed a crime for which all others
+ are responsible. This absurdity was the father and mother of another&mdash;that
+ a man can be rewarded for the good action of another. We are told that God
+ made a law, with the penalty of eternal death. All men, they tell us, have
+ broken this law. The law had to be vindicated. This could be done by
+ damning everybody, but through what is known as the atonement the
+ salvation of a few was made possible. They insist that the law demands the
+ extreme penalty, that justice calls for its victim, that mercy ceases to
+ plead, and that God by allowing the innocent to suffer in the place of the
+ guilty settled satisfactory with the law. To carry out this scheme God was
+ born as a babe, grew in stature, increased in knowledge, and at the age of
+ thirty-three years having lived a life filled with kindness, having
+ practiced every virtue, he was sacrificed as an atonement for man. It is
+ claimed that he took our place, bore our sins, our guilt, and in this way
+ satisfied the justice of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the Mosaic dispensation there was no remission of sin except through
+ the shedding of blood. When a man sinned he must bring to the priest a
+ lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a pair of turtle-doves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The priest would lay his hand upon the animal and the sin of the man would
+ be transferred to the beast. Then the animal would be killed in place of
+ the sinner, and the blood thus shed would be sprinkled upon the altar. In
+ this way Jehovah was satisfied. The greater the crime, the greater the
+ sacrifice. There was a ratio between the value of the animal and the
+ enormity of the sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most minute directions were given as to the killing of these animals.
+ Every priest became a butcher, every synagogue a slaughter-house. Nothing
+ could be more utterly shocking to a refined soul, nothing better
+ calculated to harden the heart, than the continual shedding of innocent
+ blood. This terrible system culminated in the sacrifice of Christ. His
+ blood took the place of all other. It is not necessary to shed any more.
+ The law at last is satisfied, satiated, surfeited.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea that God wants blood is at the bottom of the atonement, and rests
+ upon the most fearful savagery; and yet the Mosaic dispensation was better
+ adapted to prevent the commission of sin than the Christian system. Under
+ that dispensation, if you committed a sin, you had to bring a sacrifice&mdash;dove,
+ sheep, or bullock, now, when a sin is committed, the Christian says,
+ "Charge it," "Put it on the slate, If I don't pay it the Savior will." In
+ this way, rascality is sold on a credit, and the credit system of religion
+ breeds extravagance in sin. The Mosaic dispensation was based upon far
+ better business principles. The debt had to be paid, and by the man who
+ owed it. We are told that the sinner is in debt to God, and that the
+ obligation is discharged by the Savior. The best that can be said of such
+ a transaction is that the debt is transferred, not paid. As a matter of
+ fact, the sinner is in debt to the person he has injured. If you injure a
+ man, it is not enough to get the forgiveness of God&mdash;you must get the
+ man's forgiveness, you must get your own. If a man puts his hand in the
+ fire and God forgives him, his hand will smart just as badly. You must
+ reap what you sow. No God can give you wheat when you sow tares, and no
+ Devil can give you tares when you sow wheat. We must remember that in
+ nature there are neither rewards nor punishments&mdash;there are
+ consequences. The life and death of Christ do not constitute an atonement.
+ They are worth the example, the moral force, the heroism of benevolence,
+ and in so far as the life of Christ produces emulation in the direction of
+ goodness, it has been of value to mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To make innocence suffer is the greatest sin, and it may be the only sin.
+ How, then, is it possible to make the consequences of sin an atonement for
+ sin, when the consequences of sin are to be borne by one who has not
+ sinned, and the one who has sinned is to reap the reward of virtue? No
+ honorable man should be willing that another should suffer for him. No
+ good law can accept the sufferings of innocence as an atonement for the
+ guilty; and besides, if there was no atonement until the crucifixion of
+ Christ, what became of the countless millions who died before that time?
+ We must remember that the Jews did not kill animals for the Gentiles.
+ Jehovah hated foreigners. There was no way provided for the forgiveness of
+ a heathen. What has become of the millions who have died since, without
+ having heard of the atonement? What becomes of those who hear and do not
+ believe? Can there be a law that demands that the guilty be rewarded. And
+ yet, to reward the guilty is far nearer justice than to punish the
+ innocent. If the doctrine of the atonement is true, there would have been
+ no heaven had no atonement been made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Judas had understood the Christian system, if he knew that Christ must
+ be betrayed, and that God was depending on him to betray him, and that
+ without the betrayal no human soul could be saved, what should Judas have
+ done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah took special charge of the Jewish people. He did this for the
+ purpose of civilizing them. If he had succeeded in civilizing them, he
+ would have made the damnation of the entire human race a certainty;
+ because if the Jews had been a civilized people when Christ appeared&mdash;a
+ people who had not been hardened by the laws of Jehovah&mdash;they would
+ not have crucified Christ, and as a consequence, the world would have been
+ lost. If the Jews had believed in religious freedom, in the rights of
+ thought and speech, if the Christian religion is true, not a human soul
+ ever could have been saved. If, when Christ was on his way to Calvary,
+ some brave soul had rescued him from the pious mob, he would not only have
+ been damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the
+ salvation of any human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian world has been trying for nearly two thousand years to
+ explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that it
+ cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. Has the
+ promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin?
+ Can men be made better by being taught that sin gives happiness here; that
+ to live a virtuous life is to bear a cross; that men can repent between
+ the last sin and the last breath; and that repentance washes every stain
+ of the soul away? Is it good to teach that the serpent of regret will not
+ hiss in the ear of memory; that the saved will not even pity the victims
+ of their crimes; and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy
+ wretches sinned against?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another objection is, that a certain belief is necessary to save the soul.
+ This doctrine, I admit, is taught in the gospel according to John, and in
+ many of the epistles; I deny that it is taught in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.
+ It is, however, asserted by the church that to believe is the only safe
+ way. To this, I reply: Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or
+ disbelieves in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe
+ way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest. Nothing can be safer than
+ that. No man in the hour of death ever regretted having been honest. No
+ man when the shadows of the last day were gathering about the pillow of
+ death, ever regretted that he had given to his fellow-man his honest
+ thought. No man, in the presence of eternity, ever wished that he had been
+ a hypocrite. No man ever then regretted that he did not throw away his
+ reason. It certainly cannot be necessary to throw away your reason to save
+ your soul, because after that, your soul is not worth saving. The soul has
+ a right to defend itself. My brain is my castle; and when I waive the
+ right to defend it, I become an intellectual serf and slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not admit that a man by doing me an injury can place me under
+ obligations to do him a service. To render benefits for injuries is to
+ ignore all distinctions between actions. He who treats friends and enemies
+ alike has neither love nor justice. The idea of non-resistance never
+ occurred to a man with power to defend himself. The mother of this
+ doctrine was weakness. To allow a crime to be committed, even against
+ yourself, when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime
+ yourself. The church has preached the doctrine of non-resistance, and
+ under that banner has shed the blood of millions. In the folds of her
+ sacred vestments have gleamed for centuries the daggers of assassination.
+ With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy and placed the
+ crown upon the brow of crime. For more than a thousand years larceny held
+ the scales of justice, hypocrisy wore the mitre and tiara, while beggars
+ scorned the royal sons of toil, and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XI. CHRIST'S MISSION.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HE came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he reveal? "Love
+ thy neighbor as thyself"? That was in the Old Testament. "Love God with
+ all thy heart"? That was in the Old Testament. "Return good for evil"?
+ That was said by Buddha, seven hundred years before Christ was born. "Do
+ unto others as ye would that they should do unto you"? That was the
+ doctrine of Lao-tsze. Did he come to give a rule of action? Zoroaster had
+ done this long before: "Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action
+ is good or bad, abstain from it." Did he come to tell us of another world?
+ The immortality of the soul had been taught by the Hindoos, Egyptians,
+ Greeks, and Romans hundreds of years before he was born. What argument did
+ he make in favor of immortality? What facts did he furnish? What star of
+ hope did he put above the darkness of this world? Did he come simply to
+ tell us that we should not revenge ourselves upon our enemies? Long
+ before, Socrates had said: "One who is injured ought not to return the
+ injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is
+ not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we
+ have suffered from him." And Cicero had said: "Let us not listen to those
+ who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to
+ be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a
+ great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive." Is there
+ anything in the literature of the world more nearly perfect than this
+ thought?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it from Christ the world learned the first lesson of forbearance, when
+ centuries and centuries before, Chrishna had said, "If a man strike thee,
+ and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again?" Is
+ it possible that the son of God threatened to say to a vast majority, of
+ his children, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared
+ for the devil and his angels," while the Buddhist was great and tender
+ enough to say:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation; never enter
+ into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive
+ for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds.
+ Never will I leave this world of sin and sorrow and struggle until all are
+ delivered. Until then, I will remain and suffer where I am?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in the New Testament as beautiful as this, from a Sufi?&mdash;"Better
+ one moment of silent contemplation and inward love than seventy thousand
+ years of outward worship."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything comparable to this?&mdash;"Whoever carelessly treads on
+ a worm that crawls on the earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate
+ from God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in the New Testament more beautiful than the story of
+ the Sufi?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For seven years a Sufi practised every virtue, and then he mounted the
+ three steps that lead to the doors of Paradise. He knocked and a voice
+ said: "Who is there?" The Sufi replied: "Thy servant, O God." But the
+ doors remained closed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet seven other years the Sufi engaged in every good work. He comforted
+ the sorrowing and divided his substance with the poor. Again he mounted
+ the three steps, again knocked at the doors of Paradise, and again the
+ voice asked: "Who is there?" and the Sufi replied: "Thy slave, O God."&mdash;But
+ the doors remained closed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet seven other years the Sufi spent in works of charity, in visiting the
+ imprisoned and the sick. Again he mounted the steps, again knocked at the
+ celestial doors. Again he heard the question: "Who is there?" and he
+ replied: "Thyself, O God."&mdash;The gates wide open flew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that St. Paul was inspired of God, when he said: "Let the
+ women learn in silence, with all subjection."&mdash;"Neither was the man
+ created for the woman, but the woman for the man?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And is it possible that Epictetus, without the slightest aid from heaven,
+ gave to the world this gem of love:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What is more delightful than to be so dear to your wife, as to be on that
+ account dearer to yourself?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did St. Paul express the sentiments of God when he wrote&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the
+ head of every woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Wives,
+ submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And was the author of this, a poor despised heathen?&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In whatever house the husband is contented with the wife, and the wife
+ with the husband, in that house will fortune dwell; but upon the house
+ where women are not honored, let a curse be pronounced. Where the wife is
+ honored, there the gods are truly worshiped."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in the New Testament as beautiful as this?&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Shall I tell thee where nature is most blest and fair? It is where those
+ we love abide. Though that space be small, it is ample above kingdoms;
+ though it be a desert, through it run the rivers of Paradise."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After reading the curses pronounced in the Old
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Testament upon Jew and heathen, the descriptions of slaughter, of
+ treachery and of death, the destruction of women and babes; after you
+ shall have read all the chapters of horror in the New Testament, the
+ threatenings of fire and flame, then read this, from the greatest of human
+ beings:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The quality of mercy is not strained:
+ It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
+ Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed;
+ It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
+ 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
+ The throned monarch better than his crown."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ X. ETERNAL PAIN
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ UPON passages in the New Testament rests the doctrine of eternal pain.
+ This doctrine subverts every idea of justice. A finite being can neither
+ commit an infinite sin, nor a sin against the Infinite. A being of
+ infinite goodness and wisdom has no right to create any being whose life
+ is not a blessing. Infinite wisdom has no right to create a failure, and
+ surely a man destined to everlasting failure is not a conspicuous success.
+ The doctrine of eternal punishment is the most infamous of all doctrines&mdash;born
+ of ignorance, cruelty and fear. Around the angel of immortality,
+ Christianity has coiled this serpent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon Love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp. And yet in the
+ same book in which is taught this most frightful of dogmas, we are assured
+ that "the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his
+ works."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few days ago upon the wide sea, was found a barque called "The Tiger,"
+ Captain Kreuger, in command. The vessel had been one hundred and
+ twenty-six days upon the sea. For days the crew had been without water,
+ without food, and were starving. For nine days not a drop had passed their
+ lips. The crew consisted of the captain, a mate, and eleven men. At the
+ end of one hundred and eighteen days from Liverpool they killed the
+ captain's Newfoundland dog. This lasted them four days. During the next
+ five days they had nothing. For weeks they had had no light and were
+ unable to see the compass at night. On the one hundred and twenty-fifth
+ day Captain Kreuger, a German, took a revolver in his hand, stood up
+ before the men, and placing the weapon at his temple said: "Boys, we can't
+ stand this much longer, and to save you all, I am willing to die." The
+ mate grasped the revolver and begged the captain to wait another day. The
+ next day, upon the horizon of their despair, they saw the smoke of the
+ steamship Nebo. They were rescued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that Captain Kreuger was not a Christian, and suppose that he had
+ sent the ball crashing through his brain, and had done so simply to keep
+ the crew from starvation, do you tell me that a God of infinite mercy
+ would forever damn that man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not misunderstand me. I insist that every passage in the Bible
+ upholding crime was written by savage man. I insist that if there is a
+ God, he is not, never was, and never will be in favor of slavery,
+ polygamy, wars of extermination, or religious persecution. Does any
+ Christian believe that if the real God were to write a book now, he would
+ uphold the crimes commanded in the Old Testament? Has Jehovah improved?
+ Has infinite mercy become more merciful? Has infinite wisdom
+ intellectually advanced?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WILL any one claim that the passages upholding slavery have liberated
+ mankind? Are we indebted to polygamy for our modern homes? Was religious
+ liberty born of that infamous verse in which the husband is commanded to
+ kill his wife for worshiping an unknown God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The usual answer to these objections is, that no country has ever been
+ civilized without a Bible. The Jews were the only people to whom Jehovah
+ made his will directly known. Were they better than other nations? They
+ read the Old Testament and one of the effects of such reading was, that
+ they crucified a kind, loving, and perfectly innocent man. Certainly they
+ could not have done worse, without a Bible. In crucifying Christ the Jews
+ followed the teachings of his Father. If Jehovah was in fact God, and if
+ that God took upon himself flesh and came among the Jews, and preached
+ what the Jews understood to be blasphemy; and if the Jews in accordance
+ with the laws given by this same Jehovah to Moses, crucified him, then I
+ say, and I say it with infinite reverence, he reaped what he had sown. He
+ became the victim of his own injustice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I insist that these things are not true. I insist that the real God,
+ if there is one, never commanded man to enslave his fellow-man, never told
+ a mother to sell her babe, never established polygamy, never urged one
+ nation to exterminate another, and never told a husband to kill his wife
+ because she suggested the worship of another God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the aspersions of the pulpit, from the slanders of the church, I seek
+ to rescue the reputation of the Deity. I insist that the Old Testament
+ would be a better book with all these passages left out; and whatever may
+ be said of the rest of the Bible, the passages to which I have called
+ attention can, with vastly more propriety, be attributed to a devil than
+ to a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from the New Testament the idea that belief is necessary to
+ salvation; that Christ was offered as an atonement for the sins of
+ mankind; that heaven is the reward of faith, and hell the penalty of
+ honest investigation, and that the punishment of the human soul will go on
+ forever; take from it all miracles and foolish stories, and I most
+ cheerfully admit that the good passages are true. If they are true, it
+ makes no difference whether they are inspired or not. Inspiration is only
+ necessary to give authority to that which is repugnant to human reason.
+ Only that which never happened needs to be substantiated by a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The universe is natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church must cease to insist that passages upholding the institutions
+ of savage men were inspired of God. The dogma of atonement must be
+ abandoned. Good deeds must take the place of faith. The savagery of
+ eternal punishment must be renounced. It must be admitted that credulity
+ is not a virtue, and that investigation is not a crime. It must be
+ admitted that miracles are the children of mendacity, and that nothing can
+ be more wonderful than the majestic, unbroken, sublime, and eternal
+ procession of causes and effects. Reason must be the arbiter. Inspired
+ books attested by miracles cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. A
+ religion that does not command the respect of the greatest minds will, in
+ a little while, excite the mockery of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man who does not believe in intellectual liberty is a barbarian. Is it
+ possible that God is intolerant? Could there be any progress, even in
+ heaven, without intellectual liberty? Is the freedom of the future to
+ exist only in perdition? Is it not, after all, barely possible that a man
+ acting like Christ can be saved? Is a man to be eternally rewarded for
+ believing according to evidence, without evidence, or against evidence?
+ Are we to be saved because we are good, or because another was virtuous?
+ Is credulity to be winged and crowned, whilst honest doubt is chained and
+ damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Jehovah, was in fact God, he knew the end from the beginning. He knew
+ that his Bible would be a breast-work behind which all tyranny and
+ hypocrisy would crouch. He knew that his Bible would be the auction-block
+ on which women would stand while their babes were sold from their arms. He
+ knew that this Bible would be quoted by tyrants; that it would be the
+ defence of robbers called kings, and of hypocrites called priests. He knew
+ that he had taught the Jewish people nothing of importance. He knew that
+ he had found them free and left them slaves. He knew that he had never
+ fulfilled a single promise made to them. He knew that while other nations
+ had advanced in art and science his chosen people were savage still. He
+ promised them the world, and gave them a desert. He promised them liberty
+ and he made them slaves. He promised them victory and he gave them defeat.
+ He said they should be kings and he made them serfs. He promised them
+ universal empire and gave them exile. When one finishes the Old Testament
+ he is compelled to say: "Nothing can add to the misery of a nation whose
+ king is Jehovah!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Old Testament filled this world with tyranny and injustice, and the
+ New gives us a future filled with pain for nearly all of the sons of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Old Testament describes the hell of the past, and the New the hell of
+ the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Old Testament tells us the frightful things that God has done, the New
+ the frightful things that he will do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These two books give us the sufferings of the past and the future&mdash;the
+ injustice, the agony and the tears of both worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ORTHODOXY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ A LECTURE.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ IT is utterly inconceivable that any man believing in the truth of the
+ Christian religion should publicly deny it, because he who believes in
+ that religion would believe that, by a public denial, he would peril the
+ eternal salvation of his soul. It is conceivable, and without any great
+ effort of the mind, that millions who do not believe in the Christian
+ religion should openly say that they did. In a country where religion is
+ supposed to be in power&mdash;where it has rewards for pretence, where it
+ pays a premium upon hypocrisy, where it at least is willing to purchase
+ silence&mdash;it is easily conceivable that millions pretend to believe
+ what they do not. And yet I believe it has been charged against myself not
+ only that I was insincere, but that I took the side I am on for the sake
+ of popularity; and the audience to-night goes far toward justifying the
+ accusation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Orthodox Religion Dying Out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gives me immense pleasure to say to this audience that orthodox
+ religion is dying out of the civilized world. It is a sick man. It has
+ been attacked with two diseases&mdash;softening of the brain and
+ ossification of the heart. It is a religion that no longer satisfies the
+ intelligence of this country; that no longer satisfies the brain; a
+ religion against which the heart of every civilized man and woman
+ protests. It is a religion that gives hope only to a few; that puts a
+ shadow upon the cradle; that wraps the coffin in darkness and fills the
+ future of mankind with flame and fear. It is a religion that I am going to
+ do what little I can while I live to destroy. In its place I want
+ humanity, I want good fellowship, I want intellectual liberty&mdash;free
+ lips, the discoveries and inventions of genius, the demonstrations of
+ science&mdash;the religion of art, music and poetry&mdash;of good houses,
+ good clothes, good wages&mdash;that is to say, the religion of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religious Deaths and Births.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember that this is a world of progress, a world of perpetual
+ change&mdash;a succession of coffins and cradles. There is perpetual
+ death, and there is perpetual birth. By the grave of the old, forever
+ stand youth and joy; and when an old religion dies, a better one is born.
+ When we find out that an assertion is a falsehood a shining truth takes
+ its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. The more
+ false we destroy the more room there will be for the true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when the astrologer sought to read in the stars the fate
+ of men and nations. The astrologer has faded from the world, but the
+ astronomer has taken his place. There was a time when the poor alchemist,
+ bent and wrinkled and old, over his crucible endeavored to find some
+ secret by which he could change the baser metals into purest gold. The
+ alchemist has gone; the chemist took his place; and, although he finds
+ nothing to change metals into gold, he finds something that covers the
+ earth with wealth. There was a time when the soothsayer and augur
+ flourished. After them came the parson and the priest; and the parson and
+ the priest must go. The preacher must go, and in his place must come the
+ teacher&mdash;the real interpreter of Nature. We are done with the
+ supernatural. We are through with the miraculous and the impossible. There
+ was once the prophet who pretended to read the book of the future. His
+ place has been taken by the philosopher, who reasons from cause to effect&mdash;who
+ finds the facts by which we are surrounded and endeavors to reason from
+ these premises and to tell what in all probability will happen. The
+ prophet has gone, the philosopher is here. There was a time when man
+ sought aid from heaven&mdash;when he prayed to the deaf sky. There was a
+ time when everything depended on the supernaturalist. That time in
+ Christendom is passing away. We now depend upon the naturalist&mdash;not
+ upon the believer in ancient falsehoods, but on the discoverer of facts&mdash;on
+ the demonstrater of truths. At last we are beginning to build on a solid
+ foundation, and as we progress, the supernatural dies. The leaders of the
+ intellectual world deny the existence of the supernatural. They take from
+ all superstition its foundation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Religion of Reciprocity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Supernatural religion will fade from this world, and in its place we shall
+ have reason. In the place of the worship of something we know not of, will
+ be the religion of mutual love and assistance&mdash;the great religion of
+ reciprocity. Superstition must go. Science will remain. The church dies
+ hard. The brain of the world is not yet developed. There are intellectual
+ diseases as well as physical&mdash;there are pestilences and plagues of
+ the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever the new comes the old protests, and fights for its place as long
+ as it has a particle of power. We are now having the same warfare between
+ superstition and science that there was between the stage coach and the
+ locomotive. But the stage coach had to go. It had its day of glory and
+ power, but it is gone. It went West. In a little while it will be driven
+ into the Pacific. So we find that there is the same conflict between the
+ different sects and different schools not only of philosophy but of
+ medicine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recollect that everything except the demonstrated truth is liable to die.
+ That is the order of Nature. Words die. Every language has a cemetery.
+ Every now and then a word dies and a tombstone is erected, and across it
+ is written "obsolete." New words are continually being born. There is a
+ cradle in which a word is rocked. A thought is married to a sound, and a
+ child-word is born. And there comes a time when the word gets old, and
+ wrinkled, and expressionless, and is carried mournfully to the grave. So
+ in the schools of medicine. You can remember, so can I, when the old
+ allopathists, the bleeders and blisterers, reigned supreme. If there was
+ anything the matter with a man they let out his blood. Called to the
+ bedside, they took him on the point of a lancet to the edge of eternity,
+ and then practiced all their art to bring him back. One can hardly imagine
+ how perfect a constitution it took a few years ago to stand the assault of
+ a doctor. And long after the old practice was found to be a mistake
+ hundreds and thousands of the ancient physicians clung to it, carried
+ around with them, in one pocket a bottle of jalap, and in the other a
+ rusty lancet, sorry that they could not find some patient with faith
+ enough to allow the experiment to be made again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So these schools, and these theories, and these religions die hard. What
+ else can they do? Like the paintings of the old masters, they are kept
+ alive because so much money has been invested in them. Think of the amount
+ of money that has been invested in superstition! Think of the schools that
+ have been founded for the more general diffusion of useless knowledge!
+ Think of the colleges wherein men are taught that it is dangerous to
+ think, and that they must never use their brains except in the act of
+ faith! Think of the millions and billions of dollars that have been
+ expended in churches, in temples, and in cathedrals! Think of the
+ thousands and thousands of men who depend for their living upon the
+ ignorance of mankind! Think of those who grow rich on credulity and who
+ fatten on faith! Do you suppose they are going to die without a struggle?
+ What are they to do? From the bottom of my heart I sympathize with the
+ poor clergyman that has had all his common sense educated out of him, and
+ is now to be thrown upon the cold and unbelieving world. His prayers are
+ not answered; he gets no help from on high, and the pews are beginning to
+ criticise the pulpit. What is the man to do? If he suddenly changes he is
+ gone. If he preaches what he really believes he will get notice to quit.
+ And yet, if he and the congregation would come together and be perfectly
+ honest, they would all admit that they believe little and know nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a little while ago a couple of ladies were riding together from a
+ revival, late at night, and one said to the other, as they rode along: "I
+ am going to say something that will shock you, and I beg of you never to
+ tell it to anybody else. I am going to tell it to you." "Well, what is
+ it?" Said she: "I do not believe the Bible." The other replied: "Neither
+ do I."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have often thought how splendid it would be if the ministers could but
+ come together and say: "Now, let us be honest. Let us tell each other,
+ honor bright"&mdash;like Dr. Curry, of Chicago, did in the meeting the
+ other day&mdash;"just what we believe." They tell a story that in the old
+ time a lot of people, about twenty, were in Texas in a little hotel, and
+ one fellow got up before the fire, put his hands behind him, and said:
+ "Boys, let us all tell our real names." If the ministers and their
+ congregations would only tell their real thoughts they would find that
+ they are nearly as bad as I am, and that they believe as little.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Orthodoxy dies hard, and its defenders tell us that this fact shows that
+ it is of divine origin. Judaism dies hard. It has lived several thousand
+ years longer than Christianity. The religion of Mohammed dies hard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Buddhism dies hard. Why do all these religions die hard? Because
+ intelligence increases slowly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me whisper in the ear of the Protestant: Catholicism dies hard. What
+ does that prove? It proves that the people are ignorant and that the
+ priests are cunning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me whisper in the ear of the Catholic: Protestantism dies hard. What
+ does that prove? It proves that the people are superstitious and the
+ preachers stupid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me whisper in all your ears: Infidelity is not dying&mdash;it is
+ growing&mdash;it increases every day. And what does that prove? It proves
+ that the people are learning more and more&mdash;that they are advancing&mdash;that
+ the mind is getting free, and that the race is being civilized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Blows That Have Shattered the Shield and Shivered the Lance of
+ Superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mohammed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mohammed wrested from the disciples of the cross the fairest part of
+ Europe. It was known that he was an impostor, and that fact sowed the
+ seeds of distrust and infidelity in the Christian world. Christians made
+ an effort to rescue from the infidels the empty sepulchre of Christ. That
+ commenced in the eleventh century and ended at the close of the
+ thirteenth. Europe was almost depopulated. The fields were left waste, the
+ villages were deserted, nations were impoverished, every man who owed a
+ debt was discharged from payment if he put a cross upon his breast and
+ joined the Crusades. No matter what crime he had committed, the doors of
+ the prison were open for him to join the hosts of the cross. They believed
+ that God would give them victory, and they carried in front of the first
+ Crusade a goat and a goose, believing that both those animals were blessed
+ by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. And I may say that those same animals
+ are in the lead to-day in the orthodox world. Until the year 1291 they
+ endeavored to gain possession of that sepulchre, and finally the hosts of
+ Christ were driven back, baffled and beaten,&mdash;a poor, miserable,
+ religious rabble. They were driven back, and that fact sowed the seeds of
+ distrust in Christendom. You know that at that time the world believed in
+ trial by battle&mdash;that God would take the side of the right&mdash;and
+ there had been a trial by battle between the cross and the crescent, and
+ Mohammed had been victorious. Was God at that time governing the world?
+ Was he endeavoring to spread his gospel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Destruction of Art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know that when Christianity came into power it destroyed every statue
+ it could lay its ignorant hands upon. It defaced and obliterated every
+ painting; it destroyed every beautiful building; it burned the
+ manuscripts, both Greek and Latin; it destroyed all the history, all the
+ poetry, all the philosophy it could find, and reduced to ashes every
+ library that it could reach with its torch. And the result was, that the
+ night of the Middle Ages fell upon the human race. But by accident, by
+ chance, by oversight, a few of the manuscripts escaped the fury of
+ religious zeal; and these manuscripts became the seed, the fruit of which
+ is our civilization of to-day. A few statues had been buried; a few forms
+ of beauty were dug from the earth that had protected them, and now the
+ civilized world is filled with art, the walls are covered with paintings,
+ and the niches filled with statuary. A few manuscripts were found and
+ deciphered. The old languages were learned, and literature was again born.
+ A new day dawned upon mankind. Every effort at mental improvement had been
+ opposed by the church, and yet, the few things saved from the general
+ wreck&mdash;a few poems, a few works of the ancient thinkers, a few forms
+ wrought in stone, produced a new civilization destined to overthrow and
+ destroy the fabric of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Discovery of America.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the next blow that this church received? The discovery of
+ America. The Holy Ghost who inspired men to write the Bible did not know
+ of the existence of this continent, never dreamed of the Western
+ Hemisphere. The Bible left out half the world. The Holy Ghost did not know
+ that the earth is round. He did not dream that the earth is round. He
+ believed it was flat, although he made it himself. At that time heaven was
+ just beyond the clouds. It was there the gods lived, there the angels
+ were, and it was against that heaven that Jacob's ladder leaned when the
+ angels went up and down. It was to that heaven that Christ ascended after
+ his resurrection. It was up there that the New Jerusalem was, with its
+ streets of gold, and under this earth was perdition. There was where the
+ devils lived; where a pit was dug for all unbelievers, and for men who had
+ brains. I say that for this reason: Just in proportion that you have
+ brains, your chances for eternal joy are lessened, according to this
+ religion. And just in proportion that you lack brains your chances are
+ increased. At last they found that the earth is round. It was
+ circumnavigated by Magellan. In 1519 that brave man set sail. The church
+ told him: "The earth is flat, my friend; don't go, you may fall off the
+ edge." Magellan said: "I have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon,
+ and I have more confidence in the shadow than I have in the church." The
+ ship went round. The earth was circumnavigated. Science passed its hand
+ above it and beneath it, and where was the old heaven and where was the
+ hell? Vanished forever! And they dwell now only in the religion of
+ superstition. We found there was no place there for Jacob's ladder to lean
+ against; no place there for the gods and angels to live; no place to hold
+ the waters of the deluge; no place to which Christ could have ascended.
+ The foundations of the New Jerusalem crumbled. The towers and domes fell,
+ and in their places infinite space, sown with an infinite number of stars;
+ not with New Jerusalems, but with countless constellations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Copernicus and Kepler.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then man began to grow great, and with that came Astronomy, In 1473
+ Copernicus was born. In 1543 his great work appeared. In 1616 the system
+ of Copernicus was condemned by the pope, by the infallible Catholic
+ Church, and the church was about as near right upon that subject as upon
+ any other. The system of Copernicus was denounced. And how long do you
+ suppose the church fought that? Let me tell you. It was revoked by Pius
+ VII. in the year of grace 1821. For two hundred and seventy-eight years
+ after the death of Copernicus the church insisted that his system was
+ false, and that the old Bible astronomy was true. Astronomy is the first
+ help that we ever received from heaven. Then came Kepler in 1609, and you
+ may almost date the birth of science from the night that Kepler discovered
+ his first law. That was the break of the day. His first law, that the
+ planets do not move in circles but in ellipses; his second law, that they
+ describe equal spaces in equal times; his third law, that the squares of
+ their periodic times are proportional to the cubes of their distances.
+ That man gave us the key to the heavens. He opened the infinite book, and
+ in it read three lines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have not time to speak of Galileo, of Leonardo da Vinci, of Bruno, and
+ of hundreds of others who contributed to the intellectual wealth of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Special Providence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing that gave the church a blow was Statistics. We found by
+ taking statistics that we could tell the average length of human life;
+ that this human life did not depend upon infinite caprice; that it
+ depended upon conditions, circumstances, laws and facts, and that these
+ conditions, circumstances, and facts were during long periods of time
+ substantially the same. And now, the man who depends entirely upon special
+ providence gets his life insured. He has more confidence even in one of
+ these companies than he has in the whole Trinity. We found by statistics
+ that there were just so many crimes on an average committed; just so many
+ crimes of one kind and so many of another; just so many suicides, so many
+ deaths by drowning, so many accidents on an average, so many men marrying
+ women, for instance, older than themselves; so many murders of a
+ particular kind; just the same number of mistakes; and I say to-night,
+ statistics utterly demolish the idea of special providence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special
+ providence. He knew it. He had been the subject of it. A few years ago he
+ was about to go on a ship when he was detained. He did not go, and the
+ ship was lost with all on board.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes!" I said, "Do you think the people who were drowned believed in
+ special providence?" Think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine.
+ Here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with five hundred passengers
+ and they go down to the bottom of the sea&mdash;fathers, mothers,
+ children, and loving husbands and wives waiting upon the chores of
+ expectation. Here is one poor little wretch that did not happen to go! And
+ he thinks that God, the Infinite Being, interfered in his poor little
+ withered behalf and let the rest all go. That is special providence. Why
+ does special providence allow all the crimes? Why are the wife-beaters
+ protected, and why are the wives and children left defenceless if the hand
+ of God is over us all? Who protects the insane? Why does Providence permit
+ insanity? But the church cannot give up special providence. If there is no
+ such thing, then no prayers, no worship, no churches, no priests. What
+ would become of National Thanksgiving?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know we have a custom every year of issuing a proclamation of
+ thanksgiving. We say to God, "Although you have afflicted all the other
+ countries, although you have sent war, and desolation, and famine on
+ everybody else, we have been such good children that you have been kind to
+ us, and we hope you will keep on." It does not make a bit of difference
+ whether we have good times or not&mdash;the thanksgiving is always exactly
+ the same. I remember a few years ago a governor of Iowa got out a
+ proclamation of that kind. He went on to tell how thankful the people were
+ and how prosperous the State had been. There was a young fellow in that
+ State who got out another proclamation, saying that he feared the Lord
+ might be misled by official correspondence; that the governor's
+ proclamation was entirely false; that the State was not prosperous; that
+ the crops had been an almost utter failure; that nearly every farm in the
+ State was mortgaged, and that if the Lord did not believe him, all he
+ asked was that he would send some angel in whom he had confidence, to look
+ the matter over and report.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Charles Darwin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest
+ men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of
+ life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin
+ on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the
+ other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all
+ of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the
+ fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every
+ thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only
+ stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of
+ this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of
+ astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by
+ ignorance&mdash;at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied
+ to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to
+ successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more
+ cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the
+ scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England
+ was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest.
+ Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now
+ accepted facts. His light has broken in on some of the clergy, and the
+ greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit of one of the orthodox:
+ churches, Henry Ward Beecher, is a believer in the theories of Charles
+ Darwin&mdash;a man of more genius than all the clergy of that entire
+ church put together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet we are told in this little creed that orthodox religion is about
+ to conquer the world! It will be driven to the wilds of Africa. It must go
+ to some savage country; it has lost its hold upon civilization. It is
+ unfortunate to have a religion that cannot be accepted by the intellect of
+ a nation. It is unfortunate to have a religion against which every good
+ and noble heart protests. Let us have a good religion or none. My pity has
+ been excited by seeing these ministers endeavor to warp and twist the
+ passages of Scripture to fit the demonstrations of science. Of course, I
+ have not time to recount all the discoveries and events that have assisted
+ in the destruction of superstition. Every fact is an enemy of the church.
+ Every fact is a heretic. Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything
+ that ever really happened testifies against the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church teaches that man was created perfect, and that for six thousand
+ years he has degenerated. Darwin demonstrated the falsity of this dogma.
+ He shows that man has for thousands of ages steadily advanced; that the
+ Garden of Eden is an ignorant myth; that the doctrine of original sin has
+ no foundation in fact; that the atonement is an absurdity; that the
+ serpent did not tempt, and that man did not "fall."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Charles Darwin destroyed the foundation of orthodox Christianity. There is
+ nothing left but faith in what we know could not and did not happen.
+ Religion and science are enemies. One is a superstition; the other is a
+ fact. One rests upon the false, the other upon the true. One is the result
+ of fear and faith, the other of investigation and reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have been talking a great deal about the orthodox religion. Often, after
+ having delivered a lecture, I have met some good, religious person who has
+ said to me:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You do not tell it as we believe it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well, but I tell it as you have it written in your creed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh, we don't mind the creed any more."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then, why do you not change it?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh, well, we understand it as it is, and if we tried to change it, maybe
+ we would not agree."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly the creeds are in the best condition now. There is a tacit
+ understanding that they do not believe them, that there is a way to get
+ around them, and that they can read between the lines; that if they should
+ meet now to form new creeds they would fail to agree; and that now they
+ can say as they please, except in public. Whenever they do so in public
+ the church, in self-defence, must try them; and I believe in trying every
+ minister that does not preach the doctrine he agrees to. I have not the
+ slightest sympathy with a Presbyterian preacher who endeavors to preach
+ infidelity from a Presbyterian pulpit and receives Presbyterian money.
+ When he changes his views he should step down and out like a man, and say,
+ "I do not believe your doctrine, and I will not preach it. You must hire
+ some other man." The Latest Creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I find that I have correctly interpreted the creeds. There was put
+ into my hands the new Congregational creed. I have read it, and I will
+ call your attention to it to-night, to find whether that church has made
+ any advance; to find whether the sun of science has risen in the heavens
+ in vain; whether they are still the children of intellectual darkness;
+ whether they still consider it necessary for you to believe something that
+ you by no possibility can understand, in order to be a winged angel
+ forever. Now, let us see what their creed is. I will read a little of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They commence by saying that they
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
+ and of all things visible and invisible</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say, now, that there is the one personal God; that he is the maker of
+ the universe and its ruler. I again ask the old question, Of what did he
+ make it? If matter has not existed through eternity, then this God made
+ it. Of what did he make it? What did he use for the purpose? There was
+ nothing in the universe except this God. What had the God been doing for
+ the eternity he had been living? He had made nothing&mdash;called nothing
+ into existence; never had had an idea, because it is impossible to have an
+ idea unless there is something to excite an idea. What had he been doing?
+ Why does not the Congregational Church tell us? How do they know about
+ this Infinite Being? And if he is infinite how can they comprehend him?
+ What good is it to believe in something that you know you do not
+ understand, and that you never can understand?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Episcopalian creed God is described as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts
+ or passions</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of that!&mdash;without body, parts, or passions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I defy any man in the world to write a better description of nothing. You
+ cannot conceive of a finer word-painting of a vacuum than "without body,
+ parts, or passions." And yet this God, without passions, is angry at the
+ wicked every day; this God, without passions, is a jealous God, whose
+ anger burneth to the lowest hell. This God, without passions, loves the
+ whole human race; and this God, without passions, damns a large majority
+ of mankind. This God without body, walked in the Garden of Eden, in the
+ cool of the day. This God, without body, talked with Adam and Eve. This
+ God, without body, or parts met Moses upon Mount Sinai, appeared at the
+ door of the tabernacle, and talked with Moses face to face as a man
+ speaketh to his friend. This description of God is simply an effort of the
+ church to describe a something of which it has no conception.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God as a Governor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, too, I find the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>We believe that the Providence of God, by which he executes his
+ eternal purposes in the government of the world, is in and over all
+ events.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is God the governor of the world? Is this established by the history of
+ nations? What evidence can you find, if you are absolutely honest and not
+ frightened, in the history of the world, that this universe is presided
+ over by an infinitely wise and good God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do you account for Russia? How do you account for Siberia? How do you
+ account for the fact that whole races of men toiled beneath the master's
+ lash for ages without recompense and without reward? How do you account
+ for the fact that babes were sold from the arms of mothers&mdash;arms that
+ had been reached toward God in supplication? How do you account for it?
+ How do you account for the existence of martyrs? How do you account for
+ the fact that this God allows people to be burned simply for loving him?
+ Is justice always done? Is innocence always acquitted? Do the good
+ succeed? Are the honest fed? Are the charitable clothed? Are the virtuous
+ shielded? How do you account for the fact that the world has been filled
+ with pain, and grief, and tears? How do you account for the fact that
+ people have been swallowed by earthquakes, overwhelmned by volcanoes, and
+ swept from the earth by storms? Is it easy to account for famine, for
+ pestilence and plague if there be above us all a Ruler infinitely good,
+ powerful and wise?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not say there is none. I do not know. As I have said before, this is
+ the only planet I was ever on. I live in one of the rural districts of the
+ universe, and do not know about these things as much as the clergy pretend
+ to, but if they know no more about the other world than they do about
+ this, it is not worth mentioning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do they answer all this? They say that God "permits" it. What would
+ you say to me if I stood by and saw a ruffian beat out the brains of a
+ child, when I had full and perfect power to prevent it? You would say
+ truthfully that I was as bad as the murderer. Is it possible for this God
+ to prevent it? Then, if he does not he is a fiend; he is no god. But they
+ say he "permits" it. What for? So that we may have freedom of choice. What
+ for? So that God may find, I suppose, who are good and who are bad. Did he
+ not know that when he made us? Did he not know exactly just what he was
+ making? Why should he make those whom he knew would be criminals? If I
+ should make a machine that would walk your streets and take the lives of
+ people you would hang me. And if God made a man whom he knew would commit
+ murder, then God is guilty of that murder. If God made a man knowing that
+ he would beat his wife, that he would starve his children, that he would
+ strew on either side of his path of life the wrecks of ruined homes, then
+ I say the being who knowingly called that wretch into existence is
+ directly responsible. And yet we are to find the providence of God in the
+ history of nations. What little I have read shows me that when man has
+ been helped, man has done it; when the chains of slavery have been broken,
+ they have been broken by man; when something bad has been done in the
+ government of mankind, it is easy to trace it to man, and to fix the
+ responsibility upon human beings. You need not look to the sky; you need
+ throw neither praise nor blame upon gods; you can find the efficient
+ causes nearer home&mdash;right here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Love of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the next thing I find in this creed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>We believe that man was made in the image of God, that he might know,
+ love, and obey God, and enjoy him forever.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that anybody ever did love God, because nobody ever knew
+ anything about him. We love each other. We love something that we know. We
+ love something that our experience tells us is good and great and
+ beautiful. We cannot by any possibility love the unknown. We can love
+ truth, because truth adds to human happiness. We can love justice, because
+ it preserves human joy. We can love charity. We can love every form of
+ goodness that we know, or of which we can conceive, but we cannot love the
+ infinitely unknown. And how can we be made in the image of something that
+ has neither body, parts, nor passions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Fall of Man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Congregational Church has not outgrown the doctrine of "original sin."
+ We are told that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Our first parents, by disobedience, fell under the condemnation of
+ God, and that all men are so alienated from God that there is no salvation
+ from the guilt and power of sin except through God's redeeming power.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the
+ Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his
+ forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent. Does any
+ intelligent man now believe that God made man of dust, and woman of a rib,
+ and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the midst of it? Was there not
+ room outside of the garden to put his tree, if he did not want people to
+ eat his apples?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I did not want a man to eat my fruit, I would not put him in my
+ orchard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does anybody now believe in the story of the serpent? I pity any man or
+ woman who, in this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable.
+ Why did Adam and Eve disobey? Why, they were tempted. By whom? The devil.
+ Who made the devil? God. What did God make him for? Why did he not tell
+ Adam and Eve about this serpent? Why did he not watch the devil, instead
+ of watching Adam and Eve? Instead of turning them out, why did he not keep
+ him from getting in? Why did he not have his flood first, and drown the
+ devil, before he made a man and woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, people who call themselves intelligent&mdash;professors in
+ colleges and presidents of venerable institutions&mdash;teach children and
+ young men that the Garden of Eden story is an absolute historical fact. I
+ defy any man to think of a more childish thing. This God, waiting around
+ Eden&mdash;knowing all the while what would happen&mdash;having made them
+ on purpose so that it would happen, then does what? Holds all of us
+ responsible, and we were not there. Here is a representative before the
+ constituency had been born. Before I am bound by a representative I want a
+ chance to vote for or against him; and if I had been there, and known all
+ the circumstances, I should have voted "No!" And yet, I am held
+ responsible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told by the Bible and by the churches that through this fall of man
+ "<i>Sin and death entered the world?</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this, just as soon as Adam and Eve had partaken of the
+ forbidden fruit, God began to contrive ways by which he could destroy the
+ lives of his children. He invented all the diseases&mdash;all the fevers
+ and coughs and colds&mdash;all the pains and plagues and pestilences&mdash;all
+ the aches and agonies, the malaria and spores; so that when we take a
+ breath of air we admit into our lungs unseen assassins; and, fearing that
+ some might live too long, even under such circumstances, God invented the
+ earthquake and volcano, the cyclone and lightning, animalcules to infest
+ the heart and brain, so small that no eye can detect&mdash;no instrument
+ reach. This was all owing to the disobedience of Adam and Eve!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia,
+ cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only
+ this', but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love
+ and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some
+ might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs
+ that looked like food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them
+ fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the
+ deadly drop. He changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on
+ human flesh. He cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of
+ joy. He poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might
+ bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins;
+ touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy;
+ decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set
+ the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure,&mdash;with a
+ moment's joy. Then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears.
+ And yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite
+ revenge of the good God. Increase and multiply all human griefs until the
+ mind has reached imagination's farthest verge, then add eternity to time,
+ and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of
+ this doctrine called "The Fall of Man." The Atonement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are further told that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>All men are so alienated from God that there is no alleviation from
+ the guilt and power of sin except through God's redeeming grace;</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>We believe that the love of God to sinful man has found its highest
+ expression in the redemptive work of his Son, who became man, uniting his
+ divine nature with our human nature in one person; who was tempted like
+ other men and yet without sin, and by his humiliation, his holy obedience,
+ his sufferings, his death on the cross, and his resurrection, became a
+ perfect redeemer; whose sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world
+ declares the righteousness of God, and is the sole and sufficient ground
+ of forgiveness and of reconciliation with him</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The absurdity of the doctrine known as "The Fall of Man," gave birth to
+ that other absurdity known as "The Atonement." So that now it is insisted
+ that, as we are rightfully charged with the sin of somebody else, we can
+ rightfully be credited with the virtues of another. Let us leave out of
+ our philosophy both these absurdities. Our creed will read a great deal
+ better with both of them out, and will make far better sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in consequence of Adam's sin, everybody is alienated from God. How?
+ Why? Oh, we are all depraved, you know; we all do wrong. Well, why? Is
+ that because we are depraved? No. Why do we make so many mistakes? Because
+ there is only one right way, and there is an almost infinite number of
+ wrong ways; and as long as we are not perfect in our intellects we must
+ make mistakes. "There is no darkness but ignorance," and alienation, as
+ they call it, from God, is simply a lack of intellect. Why were we not
+ given better brains? That may account for the alienation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church teaches that every soul that finds its way to the shore of this
+ world is against God&mdash;naturally hates God; that the little dimpled
+ child in the cradle is simply a chunk of depravity. Everybody against God!
+ It is a libel upon the human race; it is a libel upon all the men who have
+ worked for wife and child; upon all mothers who have suffered and labored,
+ wept and worked; upon all the men who have died for their country; upon
+ all who have fought for human liberty. Leave out the history of religion
+ and there is little left to prove the depravity of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody that comes is against God! Every soul, they think, is like the
+ wrecked Irishman, who drifted to an unknown island, and as he climbed the
+ shore saw a man and said to him, "Have you a Government here?" The man
+ replied "We have." "Well," said he, "I'm forninst it!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church teaches us that such is the attitude of every soul in the
+ universe of God. Ought a god to take any credit to himself for making
+ depraved people? A god that cannot make a soul that is not totally
+ depraved, I respectfully suggest, should retire from the business. And if
+ a god has made us, knowing that we are totally depraved, why should we go
+ to the same being to be "born again?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Second Birth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church insists that we must be "born again" and that all who are not
+ the subjects of this second birth are heirs of everlasting fire. Would it
+ not have been much better to have made another Adam and Eve? Would it not
+ have been better to change Noah and his people, so that after that a
+ second birth would not have been necessary? Why not purify the fountain of
+ all human life? Why allow the earth to be peopled with depraved and
+ monstrous beings, each one of whom must be re-made, re-formed, and born
+ again?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, even reformation is not enough. If the man who steals becomes
+ perfectly honest, that is not enough; if the man who hates his fellow-man,
+ changes and loves his fellow-man, that is not enough; he must go through
+ that mysterious thing called the second birth; he must be born again. He
+ must have faith; he must believe something that he does not understand,
+ and experience what they call "conversion." According to the church,
+ nothing so excites the wrath of God&mdash;nothing so corrugates the brows
+ of Jehovah with hatred&mdash;as a man relying on his own good works. He
+ must admit that he ought to be damned, and that of the two he prefers it,
+ before God will consent to save him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I met a man the other day, who said to me, "I am a Unitarian
+ Universalist." "What do you mean by that?" I asked. "Well," said he, "this
+ is what I mean: the Unitarian thinks he is too good to be damned, and the
+ Universalist thinks God is too good to damn him, and I believe them both."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that the sacrifice of a perfect being was acceptable to
+ God? Will he accept the agony of innocence for the punishment of guilt?
+ Will he release Barabbas and crucify Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Inspiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the next thing in this great creed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the
+ record of God's revelation of Himself, the work of redemption; that they
+ were written by men under the special guidance of the holy spirit; that
+ they are able to make wise unto salvation; and that they constitute an
+ authoritative standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are
+ to be regulated and judged.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the creed of the Congregational Church; that is, the result
+ reached by a high-joint commission appointed to draw up a creed for their
+ churches; and there we have the statement that the Bible was written "by
+ men under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What part of the Bible? All of it? All of it. And yet what is this Old
+ Testament that was written by an infinitely good God? The being who wrote
+ it did not know the shape of the world he had made; knew nothing of human
+ nature. He commands men to love him, as if one could love upon command.
+ The same God upheld the institution of human slavery; and the church says
+ that the Bible that upholds that institution was written by men under the
+ guidance of the Holy Spirit. Then I disagree with the Holy Spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This church tells us that men under the guidance of the Holy Spirit upheld
+ the institution of polygamy&mdash;I deny it; that under the guidance of
+ the Holy Spirit these men upheld wars of extermination and conquest&mdash;I
+ deny it; that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit these men wrote that
+ it was right for a man to destroy the life of his wife if she happened to
+ differ with him on the subject of religion&mdash;I deny it. And yet that
+ is the book now upheld in this creed of the Congregational Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the devil had written upon the subject of slavery, which side would he
+ have taken? Let every minister answer. If you knew the devil had written a
+ work on human slavery, in your judgment, would he uphold slavery, or
+ denounce it? Would you regard it as any evidence that he ever wrote it, if
+ it upheld slavery? And yet, here you have a work upholding slavery, and
+ you say that it was written by an infinitely good God! If the devil upheld
+ polygamy, would you be surprised? If the devil wanted to kill men for
+ differing with him would you be astonished? If the devil told a man to
+ kill his wife, would you be shocked? And yet, you say, that is exactly
+ what God did. If there be a God, then that creed is blasphemy. That creed
+ is a libel upon him who sits on heaven's throne. If there be a God, I ask
+ him to write in the book in which my account is kept, that I denied these
+ lies for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe in a slaveholding God! I do not worship a polygamous Holy
+ Ghost, nor a Son who threatens eternal pain; I will not get upon my knees
+ before any being who commands a husband to slay his wife because she
+ expresses her honest thought. Suppose a book should be found old as the
+ Old Testament in which slavery, polygamy and war are all denounced, would
+ Christians think that it was written by the devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did it ever occur to you that if God wrote the Old Testament, and told the
+ Jews to crucify or kill anybody that disagreed with them on religion, and
+ that this God afterward took upon himself flesh and came to Jerusalem, and
+ taught a different religion, and the Jews killed him&mdash;did it ever
+ occur to you that he reaped exactly what he had sown? Did it ever occur to
+ you that he fell a victim to his own tyranny, and was destroyed by his own
+ hand? Of course I do not believe that any God ever was the author of the
+ Bible, or that any God was ever crucified, or that any God was ever
+ killed, or ever will be, but I want to ask you that question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take this Old Testament, then, with all its stories of murder and
+ massacre; with all its foolish and cruel fables; with all its infamous
+ doctrines; with its spirit of caste; with its spirit of hatred, and tell
+ me whether it was written by a good God. If you will read the maledictions
+ and curses of that book, you will think that God, like Lear, had divided
+ heaven among his daughters, and then, in the insanity of despair, had
+ launched his curses on the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, I must say&mdash;I must admit&mdash;that the Old Testament is
+ better than the New. In the Old Testament, when God had a man dead, he let
+ him alone. When he saw him quietly in his grave he was satisfied. The
+ muscles relaxed, and the frown gave place to a smile. But in the New
+ Testament the trouble commences at death. In the New Testament God is to
+ wreak his revenge forever and ever. It was reserved for one who said,
+ "Love your enemies," to tear asunder the veil between time and eternity
+ and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the gulfs of eternal fire. The New
+ Testament is just as much worse than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep;
+ just as much worse, as infinite cruelty is worse than dreamless rest; and
+ yet, the New Testament is claimed to be a gospel of love and peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that: "<i>The Scriptures constitute the authoritative
+ standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated
+ and judged"?</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are we to judge of conduct by the Old Testament, by the New, or by both?
+ According to the Old, the slaveholder was a just and generous man; a
+ polygamist was a model of virtue. According to the New, the worst can be
+ forgiven and the best can be lost. How can any book be a standard, when
+ the standard itself must be measured by human reason? Is there a standard
+ of a standard? Must not the reason be convinced? and, if so, is not the
+ reason of each man the final arbiter of that man? If he takes a book as a
+ standard, does he so take it because it is to him reasonable? In what way
+ is the human reason to be ignored? Why should a book take its place,
+ unless the reason has been convinced that the book is the proper standard?
+ If this is so, the book rests upon the reason of those who adopt it. Are
+ they to be saved because they act in accordance with their reason, and are
+ others to be damned because they act by the same standard&mdash;their
+ reason? No two are alike. Can we demand of all the same result? Suppose
+ the compasses were not constant to the pole&mdash;no two compasses exactly
+ alike&mdash;would you expect all ships to reach the same harbor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Reign of Truth and Love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also find in this creed the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>We believe that Jesus Christ came to establish among men the Kingdom
+ of God, the reign of truth and love, of righteousness and peace!</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, that may have been the object of Jesus Christ. I do not deny it. But
+ what was the result? The Christian world has caused more war than all the
+ rest of the world beside. Most of the cunning instruments of death have
+ been devised by Christians. All the wonderful machinery by which the life
+ is blown from men, by which nations are conquered and enslaved&mdash;all
+ these machines have been born in Christian brains. And yet he came to
+ bring peace, they say; but the Testament says otherwise: "I came not to
+ bring peace, but a sword." And the sword was brought. What are the
+ Christian nations doing to-day in Europe? Is there a solitary Christian
+ nation that will trust any other? How many millions of Christians are in
+ the uniform of forgiveness, armed with the muskets of love?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was an old Spaniard on the bed of death, who sent for a priest, and
+ the priest told him that he would have to forgive his enemies before he
+ died. He said, "I have none." "What! no enemies?" "Not one," said the
+ dying man; "I killed the last one three months ago."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How many millions of Christians are now armed and equipped to destroy
+ their fellow-Christians? Who are the men in Europe crying against war? Who
+ wishes to have the nations disarmed? Is it the church? No; the men who do
+ not believe in what they call this religion of peace. When there is a war,
+ and when they make a few thousand widows and orphans; when they strew the
+ plain with dead patriots, Christians assemble in their churches and sing
+ "Te Deum Laudamus." Why? Because he has enabled a few of his children to
+ kill some others of his children. This is the religion of peace&mdash;the
+ religion that invented the Krupp gun, that will hurl a ball weighing two
+ thousand pounds through twenty-four inches of solid steel. This is the
+ religion of peace that covers the sea with men-of-war, clad in mail, in
+ the name of universal forgiveness. This is the religion that drills and
+ uniforms five millions of men to kill their fellows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Wars It Brought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What effect has this religion had upon the nations of the earth? What have
+ the nations been fighting about? What was the Thirty Years' War in Europe
+ for? What was the war in Holland for? Why was it that England persecuted
+ Scotland? Why is it that England persecutes Ireland even to this day? At
+ the bottom of every one of these conflicts you will find a religious
+ question. The religion of Jesus Christ, as preached by his church, causes
+ war, bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? Because, they
+ say, a certain belief is necessary to salvation. They do not say, if you
+ behave yourself you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts
+ and love your wife and love your children, and are good to your friends,
+ and your neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you
+ no good; you have got to believe a certain thing. No matter how bad you
+ are, you can instantly be forgiven; and no matter how good you are, if you
+ fail to believe that which you cannot understand, the moment you get to
+ the day of judgment nothing is left but to damn you, and all the angels
+ will shout "hallelujah."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What do they teach to-day? Nearly every murderer goes to heaven; there is
+ only one step from the gallows to God, only one jerk between the halter
+ and heaven. That is taught by this church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe there ought to be a law to prevent the giving of the slightest
+ religious consolation to any man who has been found guilty of murder. Let
+ a Catholic understand that if he imbrues his hands in his brother's blood,
+ he can have no extreme unction. Let it be understood that he can have no
+ forgiveness through the church; and let the Protestant understand that
+ when he has committed that crime the community will not pray him into
+ heaven. Let him go with his victim. The victim, dying in his sins, goes to
+ hell, and the murderer has the happiness of seeing him there. If heaven
+ grows dull and monotonous, the murderer can again give life to the nerve
+ of pleasure by watching the agony of his victim.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, Christianity has not made friends; it has made enemies. It
+ is not, as taught, the religion of peace, it is the religion of war. Why
+ should a Christian hesitate to kill a man that his God is waiting to damn?
+ Why should a Christian not destroy an infidel who is trying to assassinate
+ his soul? Why should a Christian pity an unbeliever&mdash;one who has
+ rejected the Bible&mdash;when he knows that God will be pitiless forever?
+ And yet we are told, in this creed, that "<i>we believe in the ultimate
+ prevalence of the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What makes you? Do you judge from the manner in which you are getting
+ along now? How many people are being born a year? About fifty millions.
+ How many are you converting a year, really, truthfully? Five or six
+ thousand. I think I have overstated the number. Is orthodox Christianity
+ on the increase? No. There are a hundred times as many unbelievers in
+ orthodox Christianity as there were ten years ago. What are you doing in
+ the missionary world? How long is it since you converted a Chinaman? A
+ fine missionary religion, to send missionaries with their Bibles and
+ tracts to China, but if a Chinaman comes here, mob him, simply to show him
+ the difference between the practical and theoretical workings of the
+ Christian religion. How long since you have had an intelligent convert in
+ India? In my judgment, never; there never has been an intelligent Hindoo
+ converted from the time the first missionary put his foot on that soil;
+ and never, in my judgment, has an intelligent Chinaman been converted
+ since the first missionary touched that shore. Where are they? We hear
+ nothing of them, except in the reports. They get money from poor old
+ ladies, trembling on the edge of the grave, and go and tell them stories,
+ how hungry the average Chinaman is for a copy of the New Testament, and
+ paint the sad condition of a gentleman in the interior of Africa without
+ the works of Dr. McCosh, longing for a copy of <i>The Princeton Review</i>,&mdash;in
+ my judgment, a pamphlet that would suit a savage. Thus money is scared
+ from the dying, and frightened from the old and feeble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About how long is it before this kingdom is to be established? No one
+ objects to the establishment of peace and good will. Every good man longs
+ for the time when war shall cease. We are all hoping for a day of
+ universal justice&mdash;a day of universal freedom&mdash;when man shall
+ control himself, when the passions shall become obedient to the
+ intelligent will. But the coming of that day will not be hastened by
+ preaching the doctrines of total depravity and eternal revenge. That sun
+ will not rise the quicker for preaching salvation by faith. The star that
+ shines above that dawn, the herald of that day, is Science, not
+ superstition,&mdash;Reason, not religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To show you how little advance has been made, how many intellectual bats
+ and mental owls still haunt the temple, still roost above the altar, I
+ call your attention to the fact that the Congregational Church, according
+ to this creed; still believes in the resurrection of the dead, and in
+ their Confession of Faith, attached to the creed, I find that they also
+ believe in the literal resurrection of the body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Resurrection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does anybody believe that, who has the courage to think for himself? Here
+ is a man, for instance, that weighs 200 pounds and gets sick and dies
+ weighing 120; how much will he weigh in the morning of the resurrection?
+ Here is a cannibal, who eats another man; and we know that the atoms you
+ eat go into your body and become a part of you. After the cannibal has
+ eaten the missionary, and appropriated his atoms to himself, and then
+ dies, to whom will the atoms belong in the morning of the resurrection?
+ Could the missionary maintain an action of replevin, and if so, what would
+ the cannibal do for a body? It has been demonstrated, in so far as logic
+ can demonstrate anything, that there is no creation and no destruction in
+ Nature. It has been demonstrated, again and again, that the atoms in us
+ have been in millions of other beings; have grown in the forests and in
+ the grass, have blossomed in flowers, and been in the metals. In other
+ words, there are atoms in each one of us that have been in millions of
+ others; and when we die, these atoms return to the earth, again appear in
+ grass and trees, are again eaten by animals, and again devoured by
+ countless vegetable mouths and turned into wood; and yet this church, in
+ the nineteenth century,'in a council composed of, and presided over by,
+ professors and presidents of colleges and theologians, solemnly tells us
+ that it believes in the literal resurrection of the body. This is almost
+ enough to make one despair of the future&mdash;almost enough to convince a
+ man of the immortality of the absurd. They know better. There is not one
+ so ignorant but knows better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Judgment-Day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what is the next thing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>We believe in a final judgment, the issues of which are everlasting
+ punishment and everlasting life!</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the final judgment all of us will be there. The thousands, and
+ millions, and billions, and trillions, and quadrillions that have died
+ will be there. The books will be opened, and each case will be called. The
+ sheep and the goats will be divided. The unbelievers will be sent to the
+ left, while the faithful will proudly walk to the right. The saved,
+ without a tear, will bid an eternal farewell to those who loved them here&mdash;to
+ those they loved. Nearly all the human race will go away to everlasting
+ punishment, and the fortunate few to eternal life. This is the consolation
+ of the Congregational Church! This is the hope that dispels the gloom of
+ life!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pious Evasions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the clergy are caught, they give a different meaning to the words and
+ say the world was not made in seven days. They say "good whiles"&mdash;"epochs."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in this same Confession of Faith and in this creed they say that the
+ Lord's day is holy&mdash;every seventh day. Suppose you lived near the
+ North Pole where the day is three months long. Then which day would you
+ keep? If you could get to the North Pole you could prevent Sunday from
+ ever overtaking you. You could walk around the other way faster than the
+ world could revolve. How would you keep Sunday then? Suppose we invent
+ something that can go one thousand miles an hour? We can chase Sunday
+ clear around the globe. Is there anything that can be more perfectly
+ absurd than that a space of time can be holy? You might as well talk about
+ a virtuous vacuum. We are now told that the Bible is not a scientific
+ book, and that after all we cannot depend on what God said four thousand
+ years ago&mdash;that his ways are not as our ways&mdash;that we must
+ accept without evidence, and believe without understanding.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I heard the other night of an old man. He was not very well educated, and
+ he got into the notion that he must have reading of the Bible and family
+ worship. There was a bad boy in the family, and they were reading the
+ Bible by course. In the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians is this passage:
+ "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we
+ shall all be changed." This boy had rubbed out the "c" in "changed." So
+ when the old man put on his spectacles, and got down his Bible, he read:
+ "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery, we shall not all die, but we
+ shall all be hanged." The old lady said, "Father, I don't think it reads
+ that way." He said, "Who is reading this?" "Yes mother, it says 'hanged,'
+ and, more than that, I see the sense of it. Pride is the besetting sin of
+ the human heart, and if there is anything calculated to take the pride out
+ of a man it is hanging." It is in this way that ministers avoid and
+ explain the discoveries of Science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People ask me, if I take away the Bible what are we going to do? How can
+ we get along without the revelation that no one understands? What are we
+ going to do if we have no Bible to quarrel about What are we to do without
+ hell? What are we going to do with our enemies? What are we going to do
+ with the people we love but don't like?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No Bible, No Civilization."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They tell me that there never would have been any civilization if it had
+ not been for this Bible. The Jews had a Bible; the Romans had not. Which
+ had the greater and the grander government? Let us be honest. Which of
+ those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the
+ greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? Rome had
+ no Bible. God cared nothing for the Roman Empire. He let the men come up
+ by chance. His time was taken up with the Jewish people. And yet Rome
+ conquered the world, including the chosen people of God. The people who
+ had the Bible were defeated by the people who had not. How was it possible
+ for Lucretius to get along without the Bible?&mdash;how did the great and
+ glorious of that empire? And what shall we say of Greece? No Bible.
+ Compare Athens with Jerusalem. From Athens come the beauty and
+ intellectual grace of the world. Compare the mythology of Greece with the
+ mythology of Judea; one covering the earth with beauty, and the other
+ filling heaven with hatred and injustice. The Hindoos had no Bible; they
+ had been forsaken by the Creator, and yet they became the greatest
+ metaphysicians of the world. Egypt had no Bible. Compare Egypt with Judea.
+ What are we to do without the Bible? What became of the Jews who had a
+ Bible? Their temple was destroyed and their city was taken; and they never
+ found real prosperity until their God deserted them. The Turks attributed
+ all their victories to the Koran. The Koran gave them their victories over
+ the believers in the Bible. The priests of each nation have accounted for
+ the prosperity of that nation by its religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christians mistake an incident for a cause, and honestly imagine that
+ the Bible is the foundation of modern liberty and law. They forget
+ physical conditions, make no account of commerce, care nothing for
+ inventions and discoveries, and ignorantly give the credit to their
+ inspired book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The foundations of our civilization were laid centuries before
+ Christianity was known. The intelligence of courage, of self-government,
+ of energy, of industry, that uniting made the civilization of this
+ century, did not come alone from Judea, but from every nation of the
+ ancient world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miracles of the New Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many things in the New Testament that I cannot accept as true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot believe in the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. I believe he
+ was the son of Joseph and Mary; that Joseph and Mary had been duly and
+ legally married; that he was the legitimate offspring of that union.
+ Nobody ever believed the contrary until he had been dead at least one
+ hundred and fifty years. Neither Matthew, Mark, nor Luke ever dreamed that
+ he was of divine origin. He did not say to either Matthew, Mark, or Luke,
+ or to any one in their hearing, that he was the Son of God, or that he was
+ miraculously conceived. He did not say it. It may be asserted that he said
+ it to John, but John did not write the gospel that bears his name. The
+ angel Gabriel, who, they say, brought the news, never wrote a word upon
+ the subject. The mother of Christ never wrote a word upon the subject. His
+ alleged father never wrote a word upon the subject, and Joseph never
+ admitted the story. We are lacking in the matter of witnesses. I would not
+ believe such a story now. I cannot believe that it happened then. I would
+ not believe people I know, much less would I believe people I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time Matthew and Luke believed that Christ was the son of Joseph
+ and Mary. And why? they say he descended from David, and in order to show
+ that he was of the blood of David, they gave the genealogy of Joseph. And
+ if Joseph was not his father, why did they not give the genealogy of
+ Pontius Pilate or of Herod? Could they, by giving the genealogy of Joseph,
+ show that he was of the blood of David if Joseph was in no way related to
+ Christ? And yet that is the position into which the Christian world is
+ driven. In the New Testament we find that in giving the genealogy of
+ Christ it says, "who was the son of Joseph?" and the church has
+ interpolated the words "as was supposed." Why did they give a supposed
+ genealogy? It will not do. And that is a thing that cannot in any way, by
+ any human testimony, be established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it is important for us to know that he was the Son of God, I say, then,
+ that it devolves upon God to give us the evidence. Let him write it across
+ the face of the heavens, in every language of mankind. If it is necessary
+ for us to believe it, let it grow on every leaf next year. No man should
+ be damned for not believing, unless the evidence is overwhelming. And he
+ ought not to be made to depend upon say so, or upon "as was supposed." He
+ should have it directly, for himself. A man says that God told him a
+ certain thing, and he tells me, and I have only his word. He may have been
+ deceived. If God has a message for me he ought to tell it to me, and not
+ to somebody that has been dead four or five thousand years, and in another
+ language.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides, God may have changed his mind on many things; he has on slavery,
+ and polygamy at least, according to the church; and yet his church now
+ wants to go and destroy polygamy in Utah with the sword. Why do they not
+ send missionaries there with copies of the Old Testament? By reading the
+ lives of Abraham and Isaac, and Lot, and a few other patriarchs who ought
+ to have been in the penitentiary, maybe they can soften their hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ More Miracles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another miracle I do not believe,&mdash;the resurrection. I want
+ to speak about it as we would about any ordinary transaction. In the first
+ place, I do not believe that any miracle was ever performed, and if there
+ was, you cannot prove it. Why? Because it is altogether more reasonable to
+ believe that the people were mistaken about it than that it happened. And
+ why? Because, according to human experience, we know that people will not
+ always tell the truth, and we never saw a miracle ourselves, and we must
+ be governed by our experience; and if we go by our experience, we must say
+ that the miracle never happened&mdash;that the witnesses were mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man comes into Jerusalem, and the first thing he does is to cure the
+ blind. He lets the light of day visit the night of blindness. The eyes are
+ opened, and the world is again pictured upon the brain. Another man is
+ clothed with leprosy. He touches him and the disease falls from him, and
+ he stands pure, and clean, and whole. Another man is deformed, wrinkled,
+ and bent. He touches him, and throws around him again the garment of
+ youth. A man is in his grave, and he says, "Come forth!" And the man walks
+ in life, feeling his heart throb and his blood going joyously through his
+ veins. They say that actually happened. I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one wonderful thing about the dead people that were raised&mdash;we
+ do not hear of them any more. What became of them? If there was a man in
+ this city who had been raised from the dead, I would go to see him
+ to-night. I would say, "Where were you when you got the notice to come
+ back? What kind of a country is it? What kind of opening there for a young
+ man? How did you like it? Did you meet there the friends you had lost? Is
+ there a world without death, without pain, without a tear? Is there a land
+ without a grave, and where good-bye is never heard?" Nobody ever paid the
+ slightest attention to the dead who had been raised. They did not even
+ excite interest when they died the second time. Nobody said, "Why, that
+ man is not afraid. He has been there once. He has walked through the
+ valley of the shadow." Not a word. They pass quietly away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe these miracles. There is something wrong somewhere about
+ that business. I may suffer eternal punishment for all this, but I cannot,
+ I do not, believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a man who did all these things, and thereupon they crucified
+ him. Let us be honest. Suppose a man came into this city and should meet a
+ funeral procession, and say, "Who is dead?" and they should reply, "The
+ son of a widow; her only support." Suppose he should say to the
+ procession, "Halt!" and to the undertaker, "Take out that coffin, unscrew
+ that lid. Young man, I say unto thee, arise!" and the dead should step
+ from the coffin and in a moment afterward hold his mother in his arms.
+ Suppose this stranger should go to your cemetery and find some woman
+ holding a little child in each hand, while the tears fell upon a new-made
+ grave, and he should say to her, "Who lies buried here?" and she should
+ reply, "My husband;" and he should cry, "I say unto thee, oh grave, give
+ up thy dead!" and the husband should rise, and in a moment after have his
+ lips upon his wife's, and the little children with their arms around his
+ neck; do you think that the people of this city would kill him? Do you
+ think any one would wish to crucify him? Do you not rather believe that
+ every one who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even
+ upon their knees, and beg him to give back their dead? Do you believe that
+ any man was ever crucified who was the master of death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you to-night if there shall ever appear upon this earth the
+ master, the monarch, of death, all human knees will touch the earth. He
+ will not be crucified. All the living who fear death; all the living who
+ have lost a loved one, will bow to him. And yet we are told that this
+ worker of miracles, this man who could clothe the dead dust in the
+ throbbing flesh of life, was crucified. I do not believe that he worked
+ the miracles, I do not believe that he raised the dead, I do not believe
+ that he claimed to be the Son of God, These things were told long after he
+ was dead; told because the ignorant multitude demanded mystery and wonder;
+ told, because at that time the miraculous was believed of all the
+ illustrious dead. Stories that made Christianity powerful then, weaken it
+ now. He who gains a triumph in a conflict with a devil, will be defeated
+ by science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing about these foolish miracles. All could have been
+ imitated. Men could pretend to be blind; confederates could feign
+ sickness, and even death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not very difficult to limp or to hold an arm as though it were
+ paralyzed; or to say that one is afflicted with "an issue of blood." It is
+ easy to say that the son of a widow was raised from the dead, and if you
+ fail to give the name of the son, or his mother, or the time and place
+ where the wonder occurred, it is quite difficult to show that it did not
+ happen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one can be called upon to disprove anything that has not apparently
+ been established. I say apparently, because there can be no real evidence
+ in support of a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How could we prove, for instance, the miracle of the loaves and fishes?
+ There were plenty of other loaves and other fishes in the world? Each one
+ of the five thousand could have had a loaf and a fish with him. We would
+ have to show that there was no other possible way for the people to get
+ the bread and fish except by miracle, and then we are only half through.
+ We must then show that they did, in fact, get enough to feed five thousand
+ people, and that more was left than was had in the beginning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course this is simply impossible. And let me ask, why was not the
+ miracle substantiated by some of the multitude?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would it not have been a greater wonder if Christ had <i>created</i>
+ instead of multiplied the loaves and fishes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we now prove that a certain person more than eighteen hundred
+ years ago was possessed by seven devils?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How was it ever possible to prove a thing like that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can it be established that some evil spirits could talk while others
+ were dumb, and that the dumb ones were the hardest to control?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ wished to convince his fellow-men by miracles, why did he not do
+ something that could not by any means have been a counterfeit?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Instead of healing a withered arm, why did he not find some man whose arm
+ had been cut off, and make another grow?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he wanted to raise the dead, why did he not raise some man of
+ importance, some one known to all?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he do his miracles in the obscurity of the village, in the
+ darkness of the hovel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why call back to life people so insignificant that the public did not know
+ of their death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that in May, 1865, a man had pretended to raise some person by the
+ name of Smith from the dead, and suppose a religion had been founded on
+ that miracle, would it not be natural for people, hundreds of years after
+ the pretended miracle, to ask why the founder of that religion did not
+ raise from the dead Abraham Lincoln, instead of the unknown and obscure
+ Mr. Smith?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How could any man now, in any court, by any known rule of evidence,
+ substantiate one of the miracles of Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we believe anything that cannot in any way be substantiated?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If miracles were necessary to convince men eighteen centuries ago, are
+ they not necessary now?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, how many men did Christ convince with his miracles? How many
+ walked beneath the standard of the master of Nature?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How did it happen that so many miracles convinced so few? I will tell you.
+ The miracles were never performed. No other explanation is possible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is infinitely absurd to say that a man who cured the sick, the halt and
+ blind, raised the dead, cast out devils, controlled the winds and waves,
+ created food and held obedient to his will the forces of the world, was
+ put to death by men who knew his superhuman power and who had seen his
+ wondrous works. If the crucifixion was public, the miracles were private.
+ If the miracles had been public, the crucifixion could not have been. Do
+ away with the miracles, and the superhuman character of Christ is
+ destroyed. He becomes what he really was&mdash;a man. Do away with the
+ wonders, and the teachings of Christ cease to be authoritative. They are
+ then worth the reason, the truth that is in them, and nothing more. Do
+ away with the miracles, and then we can measure the utterances of Christ
+ with the standard of our reason. We are no longer intellectual serfs,
+ believing what is unreasonable in obedience to the command of a supposed
+ god. We no longer take counsel of our fears, of our cowardice, but boldly
+ defend what our reason maintains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ takes his appropriate place with the other teachers of mankind. His
+ life becomes reasonable and admirable. We have a man who hated oppression;
+ who despised and denounced superstition and hypocrisy; who attacked the
+ heartless church of his time; who excited the hatred of bigots and
+ priests, and who rather than be false to his conception of truth, met and
+ bravely suffered even death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Resurrection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The miracle of the resurrection I do not and cannot believe. If it was the
+ fact, if the dead Christ rose from the grave, why did he not appear to his
+ enemies? Why did he not visit Pontius Pilate? Why did he not call upon
+ Caiaphas, the high priest? upon Herod? Why did he not again enter the
+ temple and end the old dispute with demonstration? Why did he not confront
+ the Roman soldiers who had taken money to falsely swear that his body had
+ been stolen by his friends? Why did he not make another triumphal entry
+ into Jerusalem? Why did he not say to the multitude: "Here are the wounds
+ in my feet, and in my hands, and in my side. I am the one you endeavored
+ to kill, but Death is my slave"? Simply because the resurrection is a
+ myth. It makes no difference with his teachings. They are just as good
+ whether he wrought miracles or not. Twice two are four; that needs no
+ miracle. Twice two are five&mdash;a miracle can not help that. Christ's
+ teachings are worth their effect upon the human race. It makes no
+ difference about miracle or wonder. In that day every one believed in the
+ impossible. Nobody had any standing as teacher, philosopher, governor,
+ king, general, about whom there was not supposed to be something
+ miraculous. The earth was covered with the sons and daughters of gods and
+ goddesses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Greece, in Rome, in Egypt, in India, every great man was supposed to
+ have had either a god for his father, or a goddess for his mother. They
+ accounted for genius by divine origin. Earth and heaven were at that time
+ near together. It was but a step for the gods from the blue arch to the
+ green earth. Every lake and valley and mountain top was made rich with
+ legends of the loves of gods. How could the early Christians have made
+ converts to a man, among a people who believed so thoroughly in gods&mdash;in
+ gods that had lived upon the earth; among a people who had erected temples
+ to the sons and daughters of gods? Such people could not have been induced
+ to worship a man&mdash;a man born among barbarous people, citizen of a
+ nation weak and poor and paying tribute to the Roman power. The early
+ Christians therefore preached the gospel of a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Ascension.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot believe in the miracle of the ascension, in the bodily ascension
+ of Jesus Christ. Where was he going? In the light shed upon this question
+ by the telescope, I again ask, where was he going?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The New Jerusalem is not above us. The abode of the gods is not there.
+ Where was he going? Which way did he go? Of course that depends upon the
+ time of day he left. If he left in the evening, he went exactly the
+ opposite way from that he would have gone had he ascended in the morning.
+ What did he do with his body? How high did he go? In what way did he
+ overcome the intense cold? The nearest station is the moon, two hundred
+ and forty thousand miles away. Again I ask, where did he go? He must have
+ had a natural body, for it was the same body that died. His body must have
+ been material, otherwise he would not as he rose have circled with the
+ earth, and he would have passed from the sight of his disciples at the
+ rate of more than a thousand miles per hour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said that his body was "spiritual." Then what became of the body
+ that died? Just before his ascension we are told that he partook of
+ broiled fish with his disciples. Was the fish "spiritual?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who saw this miracle?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say the disciples saw it. Let us see what they say. Matthew did not
+ think it was worth mentioning. He does not speak of it. On the contrary,
+ he says that the last words of Christ were:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Is it possible
+ that Matthew saw this, the most miraculous of miracles, and yet forgot to
+ put it in his life of Christ? Think of the little miracles recorded by
+ this saint, and then determine whether it is probable that he witnessed
+ the ascension of Jesus Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mark says: "So, then, after the Lord had spoken unto them he was received
+ up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God." This is all he says
+ about the most wonderful vision that ever astonished human eyes, a miracle
+ great enough to have stuffed credulity to bursting; and yet all we have is
+ this one, poor, meagre verse. We know now that most of the last chapter of
+ Mark is an interpolation, and as a matter of fact, the author of Mark's
+ gospel said nothing about the ascension one way or the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luke says: "And it came to pass while he blessed them he was parted from
+ them and was carried up into Heaven."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John does not mention it. He gives as Christ's last words this address to
+ Peter: "Follow thou Me." Of course, he did not say that as he ascended. It
+ seems to have made very little impression upon him; he writes the account
+ as though tired of the story. He concludes with an impatient wave of the
+ hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Acts we have another account. A conversation is given not spoken of
+ in any of the others, and we find there two men clad in white apparel, who
+ said: "Ye men of Galilee why stand ye here gazing up into heaven? This
+ same Jesus that was taken up into heaven shall so come in like manner as
+ ye have seen him go up into heaven."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew did not see the men in white apparel, did not see the ascension.
+ Mark forgot the entire transaction, and Luke did not think the men in
+ white apparel worth mentioning. John had not confidence enough in the
+ story to repeat it. And yet, upon such evidence, we are bound to believe
+ in the bodily ascension, or suffer eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here let me ask, why was not the ascension in public?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Casting out Devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ were recorded to
+ show his power over evil spirits. On many occasions, he is said to have
+ "cast out devils"&mdash;devils who could speak, and devils who were dumb.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years belief in the existence of evil spirits has been fading
+ from the mind, and as this belief grew thin, ministers endeavored to give
+ new meanings to the ancient words. They are inclined now to put "disease"
+ in the place of "devils," and most of them say, that the poor wretches
+ supposed to have been the homes of fiends, were simply suffering from
+ epileptic fits! We must remember that Christ and these devils often
+ conversed together. Is it possible that fits can talk? These devils often
+ admitted that Christ was God. Can epilepsy certify to divinity? On one
+ occasion the fits told their name, and made a contract to leave the body
+ of a man provided they would be permitted to take possession of a herd of
+ swine. Is it possible that fits carried Christ himself to the pinnacle of
+ a temple? Did fits pretend to be the owner of the whole earth? Is Christ
+ to be praised for resisting such a temptation? Is it conceivable that fits
+ wanted Christ to fall down and worship them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church must not abandon its belief in devils. Orthodoxy cannot afford
+ to put out the fires of hell. Throw away a belief in the devil, and most
+ of the miracles of the New Testament become impossible, even if we admit
+ the supernatural. If there is no devil, who was the original tempter in
+ the garden of Eden? If there is no hell, from what are we saved; to what
+ purpose is the atonement? Upon the obverse of the Christian shield is God,
+ upon the reverse, the devil. No devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. No
+ atonement, no preaching, no gospel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Necessity of Belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does belief depend upon evidence? I think it does somewhat in some cases.
+ How is it when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence,
+ hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the law, are
+ upon their oaths equally divided, six for the plaintiff and six for the
+ defendant? Evidence does not have the same effect upon all people. Why?
+ Our brains are not alike. They are not the same shape. We have not the
+ same intelligence, or the same experience, the same sense. And yet I am
+ held accountable for my belief. I must believe in the Trinity&mdash;three
+ times one is one, once one is three, and my soul is to be eternally damned
+ for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum. That is the poison part of
+ Christianity&mdash;that salvation depends upon belief. That is the
+ accursed part, and until that dogma is discarded Christianity will be
+ nothing but superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man can control his belief. If I hear certain evidence I will believe a
+ certain thing. If I fail to hear it I may never believe it. If it is
+ adapted to my mind I may accept it; if it is not, I reject it. And what am
+ I to go by? My brain. That is the only light I have from Nature, and if
+ there be a God it is the only torch that this God has given me to find my
+ way through the darkness and night called life. I do not depend upon
+ hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man nor get
+ upon my knees before a book. Here in the temple of the mind I consult the
+ God, that is to say my reason, and the oracle speaks to me and I obey the
+ oracle. What should I obey? Another man's oracle? Shall I take another
+ man's word&mdash;not what he thinks, but what he says some God has said to
+ him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would not know a god if I should see one. I have said before, and I say
+ again, the brain thinks in spite of me, and I am not responsible for my
+ thoughts. I cannot control the beating of my heart. I cannot stop the
+ blood that flows through the rivers of my veins. And yet I am held
+ responsible for my belief. Then why does not God give me the evidence?
+ They say he has. In what? In an inspired book. But I do not understand it
+ as they do. Must I be false to my understanding? They say: "When you come
+ to die you will be sorry if you do not." Will I be sorry when I come to
+ die that I did not live a hypocrite? Will I be sorry that I did not say I
+ was a Christian when I was not? Will the fact that I was honest put a
+ thorn in the pillow of death? Cannot God forgive me for being honest? They
+ say that when he was in Jerusalem he forgave his murderers, but now he
+ will not forgive an honest man for differing from him on the subject of
+ the Trinity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say that God says to me, "Forgive your enemies." I say, "I do;" but
+ he says, "I will damn mine." God should be consistent. If he wants me to
+ forgive my enemies he should forgive his. I am asked to forgive enemies
+ who can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt him.
+ He certainly ought to be as generous as he asks us to be. And I want no
+ God to forgive me unless I am willing to forgive others, and unless I do
+ forgive others. All I ask, if that be true, is that this God should act
+ according to his own doctrine. If I am to forgive my enemies, I ask him to
+ forgive his. I do not believe in the religion of faith, but of kindness,
+ of good deeds. The idea that man is responsible for his belief is at the
+ bottom of religious intolerance and persecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How inconsistent these Christians are! In St. Louis the other day I read
+ an interview with a Christian minister&mdash;one who is now holding a
+ revival. They call him the boy preacher&mdash;a name that he has borne for
+ fifty or sixty years. The question was whether in these revivals, when
+ they were trying to rescue souls from eternal torture, they would allow
+ colored people to occupy seats with white people; and that revivalist,
+ preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ, said he would not allow the
+ colored people to sit with white people; they must go to the back of the
+ church. These same Christians tell us that in heaven there will be no
+ distinction. That Christ cares nothing for the color of the skin. That in
+ Paradise white and black will sit together, swap harps, and cry hallelujah
+ in chorus; yet this minister, believing as he says he does, that all men
+ who fail to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will eternally perish, was
+ not willing that a colored man should sit by a white man and hear the
+ gospel of everlasting peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this revivalist, the ship of the world is going down; Christ
+ is the only life-boat; and yet he is not willing that a colored man, with
+ a soul to save, shall sit by the side of a white brother, and be rescued
+ from eternal death. He admits that the white brother is totally depraved;
+ that if the white brother had justice done him he would be damned; that it
+ is only through the wonderful mercy of God that the white man is not in
+ hell; and yet such a being, totally depraved, is too good to sit by a
+ colored man! Total depravity becomes arrogant; total depravity draws the
+ color line in religion, and an ambassador of Christ says to the black man,
+ "Stand away; let your white brother hear first about the love of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the religion of humanity. It is far better to love our
+ fellow-men than to love God. We can help them. We cannot help him. We had
+ better do what we can than to be always pretending to do what we cannot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Virtue is of no color; kindness, justice and love, of no complexion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eternal Punishment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I come to the last part of this creed&mdash;the doctrine of eternal
+ punishment. I have concluded that I will never deliver a lecture in which
+ I will not attack the doctrine of eternal pain. That part of the
+ Congregational creed would disgrace the lowest savage that crouches and
+ crawls in the jungles of Africa. The man who now, in the nineteenth
+ century, preaches the doctrine of eternal punishment, the doctrine of an
+ eternal hell, has lived in vain. Think of that doctrine! The eternity of
+ punishment! I find in this same creed&mdash;in this latest utterance of
+ Congregationalism&mdash;that Christ is finally going to triumph in this
+ world and establish his kingdom. This creed declares that "we believe in
+ the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of God over all the earth." If
+ their doctrine is true he will never triumph in the other world. The
+ Congregational Church does not believe in the ultimate prevalence of the
+ kingdom of Christ in the world to come. There he is to meet with eternal
+ failure. He will have billions in hell forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this world we never will be perfectly civilized as long as a gallows
+ casts its shadow upon the earth. As long as there is a penitentiary,
+ within the walls of which a human being is immured, we are not a perfectly
+ civilized people. We shall never be perfectly civilized until we do away
+ with crime. And yet, according to this Christian religion, God is to have
+ an eternal penitentiary; he is to be an everlasting jailer, an everlasting
+ turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and he is going to keep
+ prisoners there forever, not for the purpose of reforming them&mdash;because
+ they are never going to get any better, only worse&mdash;but for the
+ purpose of purposeless punishment. And for what? For something they failed
+ to believe in this world. Born in ignorance, supported by poverty, caught
+ in the snares of temptation, deformed by toil, stupefied by want&mdash;and
+ yet held responsible through the countless ages of eternity! No man can
+ think of a greater horror; no man can dream of a greater absurdity. For
+ the growth of that doctrine ignorance was soil and fear was rain. It came
+ from the fanged mouths of serpents, and yet it is called "glad tidings of
+ great joy." Some Who are Damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told "God so loved the world" that he is going to damn almost
+ everybody. If this orthodox religion be true, some of the greatest, and
+ grandest, and best who ever lived are suffering God's torments to-night.
+ It does not appear to make much difference with the members of the church.
+ They go right on enjoying themselves about as well as ever. If this
+ doctrine is true, Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest and best of men,
+ who did so much to give us here a free government, is suffering the
+ tyranny of God to-night, although he endeavored to establish freedom among
+ men. If the churches were honest, their preachers would tell their
+ hearers: "Benjamin Franklin is in hell, and we warn all the youth not to
+ imitate Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of
+ Independence, with its self-evident truths, has been damned these many
+ years."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say. Talk as
+ you believe. Stand by your creed, or change it. I want to impress it upon
+ your minds, because the thing I wish to do in this world is to put out the
+ fires of hell. I will keep on as long as there is one little red coal left
+ in the bottomless pit. As long as the ashes are warm I shall denounce this
+ infamous doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to know that according to this creed the men who founded this
+ great and splendid Government are in hell to-night. Most of the men who
+ fought in the Revolutionary war, and wrested from the clutch of Great
+ Britain this continent, have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of God.
+ Thousands of the old Revolutionary soldiers are in torment tonight. Let
+ the preachers have the courage to say so. The men who fought in 1812, and
+ gave to the United States the freedom of the seas, have nearly all been
+ damned. Thousands of heroes who served our country in the Civil war,
+ hundreds who starved in prisons, are now in the dungeons of God, compared
+ with which, Andersonville was Paradise. The greatest of heroes are there;
+ the greatest of poets, the greatest scientists, the men who have made the
+ world beautiful&mdash;they are all among the damned if this creed is true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt, who shed light, and who added to the intellectual wealth of
+ mankind; Goethe, and Schiller, and Lessing, who almost created the German
+ language&mdash;all gone&mdash;all suffering the wrath of God tonight, and
+ every time an angel thinks of one of those men he gives his harp an extra
+ twang. Laplace, who read the heavens like an open book&mdash;he is there.
+ Robert Burns, the poet of human love&mdash;he is there. He wrote the
+ "Prayer of Holy Willie." He fastened on the cross the Presbyterian creed,
+ and there it is, a lingering crucifixion. Robert Burns increased the
+ tenderness of the human heart. Dickens put a shield of pity before the
+ flesh of childhood&mdash;God is getting even with him. Our own Ralph Waldo
+ Emerson, although he had a thousand opportunities to hear Methodist
+ clergymen, scorned the means of grace, lived to his highest ideal, gave to
+ his fellow-men his best and truest thought, and yet his spirit is the
+ sport and prey of fiends to-night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Longfellow, who has refined thousands of homes, did not believe in the
+ miraculous origin of the Savior, doubted the report of Gabriel, loved his
+ fellow-men, did what he could to free the slaves, to increase the
+ happiness of man, yet God was waiting for his soul&mdash;waiting to cast
+ him out and down forever. Thomas Paine, author of the "Rights of Man;"
+ offering his life in both hemispheres for the freedom of the human race;
+ one of the founders of this Republic, is now among the damned; and yet it
+ seems to me that if he could only get God's attention long enough to point
+ him to the American flag he would let him out. Auguste Comte, author of
+ the "Positive Philosophy," who loved his fellow-men to that degree that he
+ made of humanity a god, who wrote his great work in poverty, with his face
+ covered with tears&mdash;they are getting their revenge on him now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire, who abolished torture in France; who did more for human liberty
+ than any other man, living or dead; who was the assassin of superstition,
+ and whose dagger still rusts in the heart of Catholicism&mdash;he is with
+ the rest. All the priests who have been translated have had their
+ happiness increased by looking at Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Giordano Bruno, the first star of the morning after the long night;
+ Benedict Spinoza, the pantheist, the metaphysician, the pure and generous
+ man; Diderot, the encyclopedist, who endeavored to get all knowledge in a
+ small compass, so that he could put the peasant on an equality
+ intellectually with the prince; Diderot, who wished to sow all over the
+ world the seed of knowledge, and loved to labor for mankind, while the
+ priests wanted to burn; who did all he could to put out the fires&mdash;he
+ was lost, long, long ago. His cry for water has become so common that his
+ voice is now recognized through all the realms of heaven, and the angels
+ laughing, say to one another, "That is Diderot."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ David Hume, the Scotch philosopher, is there, with his inquiry about the
+ "Human Understanding" and his argument against miracles. Beethoven, master
+ of music, and Wagner, the Shakespeare of harmony, who made the air of this
+ world rich forever, they are there; and to-night they have better music in
+ hell than in heaven!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shelley, whose soul, like his own "Skylark," was a winged joy, has been
+ damned for many, many years; and Shakespeare, the greatest of the human
+ race, who did more to elevate mankind than all the priests who ever lived
+ and died, he is there; but founders of inquisitions, builders of dungeons,
+ makers of chains, inventors of instruments of torture, tearers, and
+ burners, and branders of human flesh, stealers of babes, and sellers of
+ husbands and wives and children, and they who kept the horizon lurid with
+ the fagot's flame for a thousand years&mdash;are in heaven to-night. I
+ wish heaven joy!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the doctrine with which we are polluting the souls of children.
+ That is the doctrine that puts a fiend by the dying bed and a prophecy of
+ hell over every cradle. That is "glad tidings of great joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a little while ago, when the great flood came upon the Ohio, sent by
+ him who is ruling the world and paying particular attention to the affairs
+ of nations, just in the gray of the morning they saw a house floating down
+ and on its top a human being. A few men went out to the rescue. They found
+ there a woman, a mother, and they wished to save her life. She said: "No,
+ I am going to stay where I am. In this house I have three dead babes; I
+ will not desert them." Think of a love so limitless&mdash;stronger and
+ deeper than despair and death! And yet, the Christian religion says, that
+ if that woman, that mother, did not happen to believe in their creed God
+ would send her soul to eternal fire! If there is another world, and if in
+ heaven they wear hats, when such a woman climbs the opposite bank of the
+ Jordan, Christ should lift his to her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine of eternal pain is my trouble with this Christian religion. I
+ reject it on account of its infinite heartlessness. I cannot tell them too
+ often, that during our last war Christians, who knew that if they were
+ shot they would go right to heaven, went and hired wicked men to take
+ their places, perfectly willing that these men should go to hell provided
+ they could stay at home. You see they are not honest in it, or they do not
+ believe it, or as the people say, "they don't sense it." They have not
+ imagination enough to conceive what it is they believe, and what a
+ terrific falsehood they assert. And I beg of every one who hears me
+ to-night, I beg, I implore, I beseech you, never to give another dollar to
+ build a church in which that lie is preached. Never give another cent to
+ send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign
+ land. Why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven, any way, if you let
+ them alone. What is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them?
+ Let them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he
+ does not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that
+ he will not believe it, is monstrous. Do not tell him here, and as quick
+ as he gets to the other world and finds it is necessary to believe, he can
+ say "Yes." Give him a chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another Objection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My objection to orthodox religion is that it destroys human love, and
+ tells us that the love of this world is not necessary to make a heaven in
+ the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No matter about your wife, your children, your brother, your sister&mdash;no
+ matter about all the affections of the human heart&mdash;when you get
+ there, you will be with the angels. I do not know whether I would like the
+ angels. I do not know whether the angels would like me. I would rather
+ stand by the ones who have loved me and whom I know; and I can conceive of
+ no heaven without the loved of this earth. That is the trouble with this
+ Christian relief-ion. Leave your father, leave your mother, leave your
+ wife, leave your children, leave everything and follow Jesus Christ. I
+ will not. I will stay with my people. I will not sacrifice on the altar of
+ a selfish fear all the grandest and noblest promptings of my heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do away with human love and what are we? What would we be in another
+ world, and what would we be here? Can any one conceive of music without
+ human love? Of art, or joy? Human love builds every home. Human love is
+ the author of all beauty. Love paints every picture, and chisels every
+ statue. Love builds every fireside. What could heaven be without human
+ love? And yet that is what we are promised&mdash;a heaven with your wife
+ lost, your mother lost, some of your children gone. And you expect to be
+ made happy by falling in with some angel! Such a religion is infamous.
+ Christianity holds human love for naught; and yet Love is the only bow on
+ Life's dark cloud. It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon
+ the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of
+ art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light of
+ every heart&mdash;builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every
+ hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with
+ melody&mdash;for music is the voice of love. Love is the magician, the
+ enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal
+ kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous
+ flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we
+ are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And how are you to get to this heaven? On the efforts of another. You are
+ to be a perpetual heavenly pauper, and you will have to admit through all
+ eternity that you never would have been there if you had not been
+ frightened. "I am here," you will say, "I have these wings, I have this
+ musical instrument, because I was scared. I am here. The ones who loved me
+ are among the damned; the ones I loved are also there&mdash;but I am here,
+ that is enough."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What a glorious' world heaven must be! No reformation in that world&mdash;not
+ the slightest. If you die in Arkansas that is the end of you! Think of
+ telling a boy in the next world, who lived and died in Delaware, that he
+ had been fairly treated! Can anything be more infamous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All on an equality&mdash;the rich and the poor, those with parents loving
+ them, those with every opportunity for education, on an equality with the
+ poor, the abject and the ignorant&mdash;and this little day called life,
+ this moment with a hope, a shadow and a tear, this little space between
+ your mother's arms and the grave, balances eternity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God can do nothing for you when you get there. A Methodist preacher can do
+ more for the soul here than its creator can there. The soul goes to
+ heaven, where there is nothing but good society; no bad examples; and they
+ are all there, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and yet they can do nothing for
+ that poor unfortunate except to damn him. Is there any sense in that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should this be a period of probation? It says in the Bible, I believe,
+ "Now is the accepted time." When does that mean? That means whenever the
+ passage is pronounced. "Now is the accepted time." It will be the same
+ to-morrow, will it not? And just as appropriate then as to-day, and if
+ appropriate at any time, appropriate through all eternity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What I say is this: There is no world&mdash;there can be no world&mdash;in
+ which every human being will not have the eternal opportunity of doing
+ right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is my objection to this Christian religion; and if the love of earth
+ is not the love of heaven, if those we love here are to be separated from
+ us there, then I want eternal sleep. Give me a good cool grave rather than
+ the furnace of Jehovah's wrath. I pray the angel of the resurrection to
+ let me sleep. Gabriel, do not blow! Let me alone! If, when the grave
+ bursts, I am not to meet the faces that have been my sunshine in this
+ life, let me sleep. Rather than that this doctrine of endless punishment
+ should be true, I would gladly see the fabric of our civilization
+ crumbling fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion
+ broods and even memory forgets. I would rather that the blind Samson of
+ some imprisoned force, released by chance, should so wreck and strand the
+ mighty world that man in stress and strain of want and fear should
+ shudderingly crawl back to savage and barbaric night. I would rather that
+ every planet should in its orbit wheel a barren star!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What I Believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think it is better to love your children than to love God, a thousand
+ times better, because you can help them, and I am inclined to think that
+ God can get along without you. Certainly we cannot help a being without
+ body, parts, or passions!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the religion of the family. I believe that the roof-tree is
+ sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft cool clasp of earth,
+ to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to the sun, and like a
+ spendthrift gives its perfume to the air. The home where virtue dwells
+ with love is like a lily with a heart of fire&mdash;the fairest flower in
+ all the world. And I tell you God cannot afford to damn a man in the next
+ world who has made a happy family in this. God cannot afford to cast over
+ the battlements of heaven the man who has a happy home upon this earth.
+ God cannot afford to be unpitying to a human heart capable of pity. God
+ cannot clothe with fire the man who has clothed the naked here; and God
+ cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving
+ the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather go to hell than
+ to heaven and keep the company of such a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Immortality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They tell me that the next terrible thing I do is to take away the hope of
+ immortality! I do not, I would not, I could not. Immortality was first
+ dreamed of by human love; and yet the church is going to take human love
+ out of immortality. We love, therefore we wish to live. A loved one dies
+ and we wish to meet again; and from the affection of the human heart grew
+ the great oak of the hope of immortality. Around that oak has climbed the
+ poisonous vines of superstition. Theologians, pretenders, soothsayers,
+ parsons, priests, popes, bishops, have taken advantage of that. They have
+ stood by graves and promised heaven. They have stood by graves and
+ prophesied a future filled with pain. They have erected their toll-gates
+ on the highway of life and have collected money from fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither the Bible nor the church gave us the idea of immortality. The Old
+ Testament tells us how we lost immortality, and it does not say a word
+ about another world, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse
+ in Malachi. There is not in the Old Testament a burial service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man in the Old Testament stands by the dead and says, "We shall meet
+ again." From the top of Sinai came no hope of another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And when we get to the New Testament, what do we find? "They that are
+ accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead."
+ As though some would be counted unworthy to obtain the resurrection of the
+ dead. And in another place. "Seek for honor, glory, immortality." If you
+ have it, why seek it? And in another place, "God, who alone hath
+ immortality." Yet they tell us that we get our idea of immortality from
+ the Bible. I deny it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would not destroy the faintest ray of human hope, but I deny that we got
+ our idea of immortality from the Bible. It existed long before Moses. We
+ find it symbolized through all Egypt, through all India. Wherever man has
+ lived he has made another world in which to meet the lost of this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of this belief we find in tombs and temples wrought and carved
+ by those who wept and hoped. Above their dead they laid the symbols of
+ another life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not know. We do not prophesy a life of pain. We leave the dead with
+ Nature, the mother of us all. Under the bow of hope, under the seven-hued
+ arch, let the dead sleep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ was in fact God, why did he not plainly say there is another
+ life? Why did he not tell us something about it? Why did he not turn the
+ tear-stained hope of immortality into the glad knowledge of another life?
+ Why did he go dumbly to his death and leave the world in darkness and in
+ doubt? Why? Because he was a man and did not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What consolation has the orthodox religion for the widow of the
+ unbeliever, the widow of a good, brave, kind man? What can the orthodox
+ minister say to relieve the bursting heart of that woman? What can he say
+ to relieve the aching hearts of the orphans as they kneel by the grave of
+ that father, if that father did not happen to be an orthodox Christian?
+ What consolation have they? When a Christian loses a friend the tears
+ spring from his eyes as quickly as from the eyes of others. Their tears
+ are as bitter as ours. Why? The echoes of the words spoken eighteen
+ hundred years ago are so low, and the sounds of the clods upon the coffin
+ are so loud; the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the
+ beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the
+ folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life
+ that brings the rapture of love to everyone. A Fable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is the fable of Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice had been captured and
+ taken to the infernal regions, and Orpheus went after her, taking with him
+ his harp and playing as he went. When he came to Pluto's realm he began to
+ play, and Sysiphus, charmed by the music, sat down upon the stone that he
+ had been heaving up the mountain's side for so many years, and which
+ continually rolled back upon him; Ixion paused upon his wheel of fire;
+ Tantalus ceased his vain efforts for water; the daughters of the Danaides
+ left off trying to fill their sieves with water; Pluto smiled, and for the
+ first time in the history of hell the cheeks of the Furies were wet with
+ tears. The god relented, and said, "Eurydice may go with you, but you must
+ not look back." So Orpheus again threaded the caverns, playing as he went,
+ and as he reached the light he failed to hear the footsteps of Eurydice.
+ He looked back, and in a moment she was gone. Again and again Orpheus
+ sought his love. Again and again looked back.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This fable gives the idea of the perpetual effort made by the human mind
+ to rescue truth from the clutch of error.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some time Orpheus will not look back. Some day Eurydice will reach the
+ blessed light, and at last there will fade from the memory of men the
+ monsters of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MYTH AND MIRACLE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ HAPPINESS is the true end and aim of life. It is the task of intelligence
+ to ascertain the conditions of happiness, and when found the truly wise
+ will live in accordance with them. By happiness is meant not simply the
+ joy of eating and drinking&mdash;the gratification of the appetite&mdash;but
+ good, wellbeing, in the highest and noblest forms. The joy that springs
+ from obligation discharged, from duty done, from generous acts, from being
+ true to the ideal, from a perception of the beautiful in nature, art and
+ conduct. The happiness that is born of and gives birth to poetry and
+ music, that follows the gratification of the highest wants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Happiness is the result of all that is really right and sane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there are many people who regard the desire to be happy as a very low
+ and degrading ambition. These people call themselves spiritual. They
+ pretend to care nothing for the pleasures of "sense." They hold this
+ world, this life, in contempt. They do not want happiness in this world&mdash;but
+ in another. Here, happiness degrades&mdash;there, it purifies and
+ ennobles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These spiritual people have been known as prophets, apostles, augurs,
+ hermits, monks, priests, popes, bishops and parsons. They are devout and
+ useless. They do not cultivate the soil. They produce nothing. They live
+ on the labor of others. They are pious and parasitic. They pray for
+ others, if the others will work for them. They claim to have been selected
+ by the Infinite to instruct and govern mankind. They are "meek" and
+ arrogant, "long-suffering" and revengeful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They ever have been, now are, and always will be the enemies of liberty,
+ of investigation and science. They are believers in the supernatural, the
+ miraculous and the absurd. They have filled the world with hatred, bigotry
+ and fear. In defence of their creeds they have committed every crime and
+ practiced every cruelty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They denounce as worldly and sensual those who are gross enough to love
+ wives and children, to build homes, to fell the forests, to navigate the
+ seas, to cultivate the earth, to chisel statues, to paint pictures and
+ fill the world with love and art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have denounced and maligned the thinkers, the poets, the dramatists,
+ the composers, the actors, the orators, the workers&mdash;those who have
+ conquered the world for man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to them this world is only the vestibule of the next, a kind of
+ school, an ordeal, a place of probation. They have always insisted that
+ this life should be spent in preparing for the next; that those who
+ supported and obeyed the "spiritual guides"&mdash;the shepherds, would be
+ rewarded with an eternity of joy, and that all others would suffer eternal
+ pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These spiritual people have always hated labor. They have added nothing to
+ the wealth of the world. They have always lived on alms&mdash;on the labor
+ of others. They have always been the enemies of innocent pleasure, and of
+ human love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These spiritual people have produced a literature. The books they have
+ written are called sacred. Our sacred books are called the Bible. The
+ Hindoos have the Vedas and many others, the Persians the Zend Avesta&mdash;the
+ Egyptians had the Book of the Dead&mdash;the Aztecs the Popol Vuh, and the
+ Mohammedans have the Koran.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These books, for the most part, treat of the unknowable. They describe
+ gods and winged phantoms of the air. They give accounts of the origin of
+ the universe, the creation of man and the worlds beyond this. They contain
+ nothing of value. Millions and millions of people have wasted their lives
+ studying these absurd and ignorant books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "spiritual people" in each country claimed that their books had been
+ written by inspired men&mdash;that God was the real author, and that all
+ men and women who denied this would be, after death, tormented forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, the worldly people, the uninspired, the wicked, have produced a
+ far greater literature than the spiritual and the inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not all the sacred books of the world equal Shakespeare's "volume of the
+ brain." A purer philosophy, grander, nobler, fell from the lips of
+ Shakespeare's clowns than the Old Testament, or the New, contains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Declaration of Independence is nobler far than all the utterances from
+ Sinai's cloud and flame. "A Man's a Man for a' That," by Robert Burns, is
+ better than anything the sacred books contain. For my part, I would rather
+ hear Beethoven's Sixth Symphony than to read the five books of Moses. Give
+ me the Sixth Symphony&mdash;this sound-wrought picture of the fields and
+ woods, of flowering hedge and happy home, where thrushes build and
+ swallows fly, and mothers sing to babes; this echo of the babbled lullaby
+ of brooks that, dallying, wind and fall where meadows bare their daisied
+ bosoms to the sun; this joyous mimicry of summer rain, the laugh of
+ children, and the rhythmic rustle of the whispering leaves; this strophe
+ of peasant life; this perfect poem of content and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would rather listen to Tristan and Isolde&mdash;that Mississippi of
+ melody&mdash;where the great notes, winged like eagles, lift the soul
+ above the cares and griefs of this weary world&mdash;than to all the
+ orthodox sermons ever preached. I would rather look at the Venus de Milo
+ than to read the Presbyterian creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The spiritual have endeavored to civilize the world through fear and faith&mdash;by
+ the promise of reward and the threat of pain in other worlds. They taught
+ men to hate and persecute their fellow-men. In all ages they have appealed
+ to force. During all the years they have practiced fraud. They have
+ pretended to have influence with the gods&mdash;that their prayers gave
+ rain, sunshine and harvest&mdash;that their curses brought pestilence and
+ famine, and that their blessings filled the world with plenty. They have
+ subsisted on the fears their falsehoods created. Like poisonous vines,
+ they have lived on the oak of labor. They have praised charity, but they
+ never gave. They have denounced revenge, but they never forgave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever the spiritual have had power, art has died, learning has
+ languished, science has been despised, liberty destroyed, the thinkers
+ have been imprisoned, the intelligent and honest have been outcasts, and
+ the brave have been murdered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "spiritual" have been, are, and always will be the enemies of the
+ human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For all the blessings that we now enjoy&mdash;for progress in every form,
+ for science and art&mdash;for all that has lengthened life, that has
+ conquered disease, that has lessened pain, for raiment, roof and food, for
+ music in its highest forms&mdash;for the poetry that has ennobled and
+ enriched our lives&mdash;for the marvellous machines now working for the
+ world&mdash;for all this we are indebted to the worldly&mdash;to those who
+ turned their attention to the affairs of this life. They have been the
+ only benefactors of our race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AND yet all of these religions&mdash;these "sacred books," these priests,
+ have been naturally produced. From the dens and caves of savagery to the
+ palaces of civilization men have traveled by the necessary paths and
+ roads. Back of every step has been the efficient cause. In the history of
+ the world there has been no chance, no interference from without, nothing
+ miraculous. Everything in accordance with and produced by the facts in
+ nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need not blame the hypocritical and cruel. They thought and acted as
+ they were compelled to think and act.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all ages man has tried to account for himself and his surroundings. He
+ did the best he could. He wondered why the water ran, why the trees grew,
+ why the clouds floated, why the stars shone, why the sun and moon
+ journeyed through the heavens. He was troubled about life and death, about
+ darkness and dreams. The seas, the volcanoes, the lightning and thunder,
+ the earthquake and cyclone, filled him with fear. Behind all life and
+ growth and motion, and even inanimate things, he placed a spirit&mdash;an
+ intelligent being&mdash;a fetich, a person, something like himself&mdash;a
+ god, controlled by love and hate. To him causes and effects became gods&mdash;supernatural
+ beings. The Dawn was a maiden, wondrously fair, the Sun, a warrior and
+ lover; the Night, a serpent, a wolf&mdash;the Wind, a musician; Winter, a
+ wild beast; Autumn, Proserpine gathering flowers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poets were the makers of these myths. They were the first to account for
+ what they saw and felt. The great multitude mistook these fancies for
+ facts. Myths strangely alike, were produced by most nations, and gradually
+ took possession of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Sleeping Beauty, a myth of the year, has been found among most
+ peoples. In this myth, the Earth was a maiden&mdash;the Sun was her lover,
+ She had fallen asleep in winter. Her blood was still and her breath had
+ gone. In the Spring the lover came, clasped her in his arms, covered her
+ lips and cheeks with kisses. She was thrilled, her heart began to beat,
+ she breathed, her blood flowed, and she awoke to love and joy. This myth
+ has made the circuit of the globe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, Red Riding-Hood is the history of a day. Little Red Riding-Hood&mdash;the
+ morning, touched with red, goes to visit her kindred, a day that is past.
+ She is attacked by the wolf of night and is rescued by the hunter, Apollo,
+ who pierces the heart of the beast with an arrow of light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The beautiful myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is the story of the year.
+ Eurydice has been captured and carried to the infernal world. Orpheus,
+ playing upon his harp, goes after her. Such is the effect of his music
+ when he reaches the realm of Pluto, the laughterless, that Tantalus ceases
+ his efforts to slake his thirst. He listens and forgets his withered lips,
+ the daughters of the Danaides cease their vain efforts to fill the sieve
+ with water, Sisyphus sits down on the stone that he so often had heaved
+ against the mountain's misty side, Ixion pauses upon his wheel of fire,
+ even Pluto smiles, and for the first time in the history of hell the
+ cheeks of the Furies are wet with tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Give me back Eurydice," cried Orpheus, and Pluto said: "Take her, but
+ look not back." Orpheus led the way and Eurydice followed. Just as he
+ reached the upper world, he missed her footsteps, turned, looked, and she
+ vanished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And thus the summer comes, is lost, and comes again through all the years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, our ancestors believed in the Garden of Eden, in the Golden Age, in
+ the blessed time when all were good and pure&mdash;when nature satisfied
+ the wants of all. The race, like the old man, has golden dreams of youth.
+ The morning was filled with light and life and joy, and the evening is
+ always sad. When the old man was young, girls were beautiful and men were
+ honest. He remembers his Eden. And so the whole world has had its age of
+ gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers were believers in the Elysian Fields. They were in the far,
+ far West. They saw them at the setting of the sun. They saw the floating
+ isles of gold in sapphire seas; the templed mist with spires and domes of
+ emerald and amethyst; the magic caverns of the clouds, resplendent with
+ the rays of every gem. And as they looked, they thought the curtain had
+ been drawn aside and that their eyes had for a moment feasted on the
+ glories of another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The myth of the Flood has also been universal. Finding shells of the seas
+ on plain and mountain, and everywhere some traces of the waves, they
+ thought the world had been submerged&mdash;that God in wrath had drowned
+ the race, except a few his mercy saved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Hindus say that Menu, a holy man, dipped from the Ganges some water,
+ and in the basin saw a little fish. The fish begged him to throw him back
+ into the river, and Menu, having pity, cast him back. The fish then told
+ Menu that there was to be a flood&mdash;told him to build an ark, to take
+ on board, people, animals and food, and that when the flood came, he, the
+ fish, would save him. The saint did as he was told, the flood came, the
+ fish returned. By that time he had grown to be a whale with a horn in his
+ head. About this horn Menu fastened a rope, attached the other end to the
+ ark, and the fish towed the boat across the raging waves to a mountain's
+ top, where it rested until the waters subsided. The name of this wonderful
+ fish was Matsaya.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many other nations told similar stories of floods and arks and the sending
+ forth of doves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all these myths and legends of the past we find philosophies and dreams
+ and efforts, stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to
+ pierce the mysteries of life and death, to answer the questions of the
+ whence and whither, and who vainly sought with bits of shattered glass to
+ make a mirror that would in very truth reflect the face and form of
+ Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes and fears, of tears
+ and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and
+ grief between the rosy dawn of birth and death's sad night. They clothed
+ even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of
+ the sons of men. In them the winds and waves were music, and all the
+ springs, the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a
+ thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous
+ desire, made tawny Summer's billowy breast the throne and home of love,
+ filled Autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes and gathered sheaves, and
+ pictured Winter as a weak old king, who felt, like Lear, upon his withered
+ face, Cordelia's tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These myths, though false in fact, are beautiful and true in thought, and
+ have for many ages and in countless ways enriched the heart and kindled
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN all probability the first religion was Sun-worship. Nothing could have
+ been more natural. Light was life and warmth and love. The sun was the
+ fireside of the world. The sun was the "all-seeing"&mdash;the "Sky
+ Father." Darkness was grief and death, and in the shadows crawled the
+ serpents of despair and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sun was a great warrior, fighting the hosts of Night. Apollo was the
+ sun, and he fought and conquered the serpent of Night. Agni, the generous,
+ who loved the lowliest and visited the humblest, was the sun. He was the
+ god of fire, and the crossed sticks that by friction leaped into flame
+ were his emblem. It was said that, in spite of his goodness, he devoured
+ his father and mother, the two pieces of wood being his parents. Baldur
+ was the sun. He was in love with the Dawn&mdash;a maiden&mdash;he deserted
+ her and traveled through the heavens alone. At the twilight they met, were
+ reconciled, and the drops of dew were the tears of joy they shed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Chrishna was the sun. At his birth the Ganges thrilled from its source to
+ the sea. All the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf
+ and bud and flower.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hercules was a sun-god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jonah the same, rescued from the fiends of Night and carried by the fish
+ through the under world. Samson was a sun-god. His strength was in his
+ hair&mdash;in his beams. He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the
+ shadow&mdash;the darkness. So, Osiris, Bacchus, Mithra, Hermes, Buddha,
+ Quelzalcoatle, Prometheus, Zoroaster, Perseus, Codom Lao-tsze Fo-hi, Horus
+ and Rameses were all sun-gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these gods had gods for fathers and all their mothers were virgins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The births of nearly all were announced by stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When they were born there was celestial music&mdash;voices declared that a
+ blessing had come upon the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Buddha was born, the celestial choir sang: "This day is born for the
+ good of men Buddha, and to dispel the darkness of their ignorance&mdash;to
+ give joy and peace to the world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Chrishna was born in a cave, and protected by shepherds. Bacchus, Apollo,
+ Mithra and Hermes were all born in caves. Buddha was born in an inn&mdash;according
+ to some, under a tree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tyrants sought to kill all of these gods when they were babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Chrishna was born, a tyrant killed the babes of the neighborhood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Buddha was the child of Maya, a virgin, in the kingdom of Madura. The king
+ arrested Maya before the child was born, imprisoned her in a tower. During
+ the night when the child was born, a great wind wrecked the tower, and
+ carried mother and child to a place of safety. The next morning the king
+ sent his soldiers to kill the babes, and when they came to Buddha and his
+ mother, the babe appeared to be about twelve years of age, and the
+ soldiers passed on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Typhon sought in many ways to destroy the babe Horus. The king pursued
+ the infant Zoroaster. Cadmus tried to kill the infant Bacchus.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of these gods were born on the 25th of December.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all were worshiped by "wise men."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of them fasted for forty days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All met with a violent death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All rose from the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of these gods is the history of our Christ. He had a god for a
+ father, a virgin for a mother. He was born in a manger, or a cave&mdash;on
+ the 2 5th of December. His birth was announced by angels. He was worshiped
+ by wise men, guided by a star. Herod, seeking his life, caused the death
+ of many babes. Christ fasted for forty days. So, it rained for forty days
+ before the flood&mdash;Moses was on Mt. Sinai for forty days. The temple
+ had forty pillars and the Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years.
+ Christ met with a violent death, and rose from the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These things are not accidents&mdash;not coincidences. Christ was a
+ sun-god. All religions have been born of sun-worship. To-day, when priests
+ pray, they shut their eyes. This is a survival of sun-worship. When men
+ worshiped the sun, they had to shut their eyes. Afterwards, to flatter
+ idols, they pretended that the glory of their faces was more than the eyes
+ could bear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the religion of our day there is nothing original. All of its
+ doctrines, its symbols and ceremonies are but the survivals of creeds that
+ perished long ago. Baptism is far older than Christianity&mdash;than
+ Judaism. The Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans had holy water.
+ The eucharist was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the goddess of the
+ fields, Bacchus the god of the vine. At the harvest festival they made
+ cakes of wheat and said: "These are the flesh of the goddess." They drank
+ wine and cried: "This is the blood of our god."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cross has been a symbol for many thousands of years. It was a symbol
+ of immortality&mdash;of life, of the god Agni, the form of the grave of a
+ man. An ancient people of Italy, who lived long before the Romans, long
+ before the Etruscans, so long that not one word of their language is
+ known, used the cross, and beneath that emblem, carved on stone, their
+ dead still rest. In the forests of Central America, ruined temples have
+ been found, and on the walls the cross with the bleeding victim. On
+ Babylonian cylinders is the impression of the cross. The Trinity came from
+ Egypt. Osiris, Isis and Horus were worshiped thousands of years before our
+ Father, Son and Holy Ghost were thought of. So the Tree of Life grew in
+ India, China and among the Aztecs long before the Garden of Eden was
+ planted. Long before our Bible was known, other nations had their sacred
+ books, temples and altars, sacrifices, ceremonies and priests. The "Fall
+ of Man" is far older than our religion, and so are the "Atonement" and the
+ Scheme of Redemption.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our blessed religion there is nothing new, nothing original.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among the Egyptians the cross was a symbol of the life to come. And yet
+ the first religion was, and all religions growing out of that, were
+ naturally produced. Every brain was a field in which Nature sowed the
+ seeds of thought. The rise and set of sun, the birth and death of day, the
+ dawns of silver and the dusks of gold, the wonders of the rain and snow,
+ the shroud of Winter and the many colored robe of Spring, the lonely moon
+ with nightly loss or gain, the serpent lightning and the thunder's voice,
+ the tempest's fury and the zephyr's sigh, the threat of storm and promise
+ of the bow, cathedral clouds with dome and spire, earthquake and strange
+ eclipse, frost and fire, the snow-crowned mountains with their tongues of
+ flame, the fields of space sown thick with stars, the wandering comets
+ hurrying past the fixed and sleepless sentinels of night, the marvels of
+ the earth and air, the perfumed flower, the painted wing, the waveless
+ pool that held within its magic breast the image of the startled face, the
+ mimic echo that made a record in the viewless air, the pathless forests
+ and the boundless seas, the ebb and flow of tides&mdash;the slow, deep
+ breathing of some vague and monstrous life&mdash;the miracle of birth, the
+ mystery of dream and death, and over all the silent and immeasurable dome.
+ These were the warp and woof, and at the loom sat Love and Fancy, Hope and
+ Fear, and wove the wondrous tapestries whereon we find pictures of gods
+ and fairy lands and all the legends that were told when Nature rocked the
+ cradle of the infant world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE must remember that there is a great difference. Myth is the
+ idealization of a fact. A miracle is the counterfeit of a fact. There is
+ the same difference between a myth and a miracle that there is between
+ fiction and falsehood&mdash;between poetry and perjury. Miracles belong to
+ the far past and the far future. The little line of sand, called the
+ present, between the seas, belongs to common sense, to the natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you should tell a man that the dead were raised two thousand years ago,
+ he would probably say: "Yes, I know that." If you should say that a
+ hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised, he might say:
+ "Probably they will." But if you should tell him that you saw a dead man
+ raised and given life that day, he would likely ask the name of the insane
+ asylum from which you had escaped.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our Bible is filled with accounts of miracles and yet they always fail to
+ convince.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah, according to the Scriptures, wrought hundreds of miracles for the
+ benefit of the Jews. With many miracles he rescued them from slavery,
+ guided them on their journey with a miraculous cloud by day and a
+ miraculous pillar of fire by night&mdash;divided the sea that they might
+ escape from the Egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and supernatural
+ quails, raised up hornets to attack their enemies, caused water to follow
+ them wherever they wandered and in countless ways manifested his power,
+ and yet the Jews cared nothing for these wonders. Not one of them seems to
+ have been convinced that Jehovah had done anything for the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of all these miracles, the Jews had more confidence in a golden
+ calf, made by themselves, than in Jehovah. The reason of this is, that the
+ miracles were never performed, and never invented until hundreds of years
+ after those, who had wandered over the desert of Sinai, were dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The miracles attributed to Christ had no effect. No human being seems to
+ have been convinced by them. Those whom he raised from the dead, cured of
+ leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. Not one of them
+ appeared at his trial. Not one offered to bear witness of his miraculous
+ power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To this there is but one explanation: The miracles were never performed.
+ These stories were the growth of centuries. The casting out of devils, the
+ changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few loaves and
+ fishes, resisting the devil, using a fish for a pocketbook, curing the
+ blind with clay and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the water,
+ the resurrection and ascension, happened and only happened, in the
+ imaginations of men, who were not born until several generations after
+ Christ was dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days the world was filled with ignorance and fear. Miracles
+ happened every day. The supernatural was expected. Gods were continually
+ interfering with the affairs of this world. Everything was told except the
+ truth, everything believed except the facts. History was a circumstantial
+ account of occurrences that never occurred. Devils and goblins and ghosts
+ were as plentiful as saints. The bones of the dead were used to cure the
+ living. Cemeteries were hospitals and corpses were physicians. The saints
+ practiced magic, the pious communed with God in dreams, and the course of
+ events was changed by prayer. The credulous demanded the marvelous, the
+ miraculous, and the priests supplied the demand. The sky was full of
+ signs, omens of death and disaster, and the darkness thick with devils
+ endeavoring to mislead and enslave the souls of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers thought that everything had been made for man, and that demons
+ and gods gave their entire attention to this world. The people believed
+ that they were the sport and prey, the favorites or victims, of these
+ phantoms. And they also believed that the Creator, the God, could be
+ influenced by sacrifice, by prayers and ceremonies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This has been the mistake of the world. All the temples have been reared,
+ all the altars erected, all the sacrifices offered, all the prayers
+ uttered in vain. No god has interfered, no prayer has been answered, no
+ help received from heaven. Nothing was created, nothing has happened for,
+ or with reference to man. If not a human being lived,&mdash;if all Were
+ in' their graves, the sun would continue to shine, the wheeling world
+ would still pursue its flight, violets would spread their velvet bosoms to
+ the day, the spendthrift roses give their perfume to the air, the climbing
+ vines would hide with leaf and flower the fallen and the dead, the
+ changing seasons would come-and go,-time would repeat the poem of the
+ year, storms would wreck and whispering rains repair, Spring with deft and
+ unseen hands would weave her robes of green, life with countless lips
+ would seek fair Summer's swelling breasts, Autumn would reap the wealth of
+ leaf and fruit and seed, Winter, the artist, would etch in frost the pines
+ and ferns, while Wind and Wave and Fire, old architects, with ceaseless
+ toil would still destroy and build, still wreck and change, and from the
+ dust of death produce again the throb and breath of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A FEW years ago a few men began to think, to investigate, to reason. They
+ began to doubt the legends of the church, the miracles of the past. They
+ began to notice what happened. They found that eclipses came at certain
+ intervals and that their coming could be foretold. They became satisfied
+ that the conduct of men had nothing to do with eclipses&mdash;and that the
+ stars moved in their orbits unconscious of the sons of men. Galileo,
+ Copernicus, and Kepler' destroyed the astronomy of the Bible, and
+ demonstrated that the "inspired" story of creation could not be true, and
+ that the church was as ignorant as the priests were dishonest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They found that the myth-makers were mistaken, that the sun and stars did
+ not revolve about the earth, that the firmament was not solid, that the
+ earth was not flat, and that the so-called philosophy of the theologians
+ was absurd and idiotic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The stars became witnesses against the creeds of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With the telescope the heavens were explored. The New Jerusalem could not
+ be found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It had faded away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church persecuted the astronomers and denied the facts. In February,
+ in the year of grace sixteen hundred, the Catholic Church, the "Triumphant
+ Beast," having in her hands, her paws, the keys of heaven and hell,
+ accused Giordano Bruno of having declared that there were other worlds
+ than this. He was tried, convicted, imprisoned in a dungeon for seven
+ years. He was offered his liberty if he would recant. Bruno, the atheist,
+ the philosopher, refused to stain his soul by denying what he believed to
+ be true. He was taken from his cell by the priests, by those who loved
+ their enemies, led to the place of execution. He was clad in a robe on
+ which representations of devils had been painted&mdash;the devils that
+ were soon to claim his soul. He was chained to a stake and about his body
+ the wood was piled. Then priests, followers of Christ, lighted the fagots
+ and flames consumed the greatest, the most perfect martyr, that ever
+ suffered death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet the Italian agent of God, the infallible Leo XIII., only a few
+ years ago, denounced Bruno, the "bravest of the brave," as a coward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church murdered him, and the pope maligned his memory. Fagot and
+ falsehood&mdash;two weapons of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago a few men began to examine rocks and soils, mountains,
+ islands, reefs and seas. They noticed the valleys and deltas that had been
+ formed by rivers, the many strata of lava that had been changed to soil,
+ the vast deposits of metals and coal, the immense reefs that the coral had
+ formed, the work of glaciers in the far past, the production of soil by
+ the disintegration of rock, by the growth and decay of vegetation and the
+ countless evidences of the countless ages through which the Earth has
+ passed. The geologists read the history of the world written by wave and
+ flame, attested by fossils, by the formation of rocks, by mountain ranges,
+ by volcanoes, by rivers, islands, continents and seas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The geology of the Bible&mdash;of the "divinely inspired" church, of the
+ "infallible" pope, was found to be utterly false and foolish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Earth became a witness against the creeds of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came Watt and Galvani with the miracles of steam and electricity,
+ while countless inventors created the wonderful machines that do the work
+ of the world. Investigation took the place of credulity. Men became
+ dissatisfied with huts and rags, with crusts and creeds. They longed for
+ the comforts, the luxuries of life. The intellectual horizon enlarged, new
+ truths were discovered, old ideas were thrown aside, the brain was
+ developed, the heart civilized and science was born. Humboldt, Laplace and
+ hundreds of others explained the phenomena of nature, called attention to
+ the ancient and venerable mistakes of sanctified ignorance and added to
+ the sum of knowledge. Darwin and Haeckel gave their conclusions to the
+ world. Men began to really think, the myths began to fade, the miracles to
+ grow mean and small, and the great structure, known as theology, fell with
+ a crash.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science denies the truth of myth and miracle, denies that human testimony
+ can substantiate the miraculous, denies the existence of the supernatural.
+ Science asserts the absolute, the unvarying uniformity of nature. Science
+ insists that the present is the child of all the past,&mdash;that no power
+ can change the past, and that nature is forever the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The chemist has found that just so many atoms of one kind unite with just
+ so many of another&mdash;no more, no less, always the same. No caprice in
+ chemistry; no interference from without.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The astronomers know that the planets remain in their orbits&mdash;that
+ their forces are constant. They know that light is forever the same,
+ always obeying the angle of incidence, traveling with the same rapidity,&mdash;casting
+ the same shadow, under the same circumstances in all worlds. They know
+ that the eclipses will occur at the times foretold&mdash;neither hastening
+ nor delaying. They know that the attraction of gravitation is always the
+ same, always in perfect proportion to mass and distance, neither weaker
+ nor stronger, unvarying forever. They know that the facts in nature cannot
+ be changed or destroyed, and that the qualities of all things are eternal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men of science know that the atomic integrity of the metals is always
+ the same, that each metal is true to its nature and that the particles
+ cling to each other with the same tenacity,&mdash;the same force. They
+ have demonstrated the persistence of force, that it is forever active,
+ forever the same, and that it cannot be destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These great truths have revolutionized the thought of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every art, every employment, all study, all experiment, the value of
+ experience, of judgment, of hope, all rest on a belief in the uniformity
+ of nature, on the eternal persistence and indestructibility of force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Break one link in the infinite chain of cause and effect, and the Master
+ of Nature appears. The broken link would become the throne of a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The uniformity of Nature denies the supernatural and demonstrates that
+ there is no interference from without. There is no place, no office left
+ for gods. Ghosts fade from the brain and the shrivelled deities fall
+ palsied from their thrones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The uniformity of Nature renders a belief in "special providence"
+ impossible. Prayer becomes a useless agitation of the air, and religious
+ ceremonies are but motions, pantomimes, mindless and meaningless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The naked savage, worshiping a wooden god, is the religious equal of the
+ robed pope kneeling before an image of the Virgin. The poor African who
+ carries roots and bark to protect himself from evil spirits is on the same
+ intellectual plane of one who sprinkles his body with "holy water."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the creeds of Christendom, all the religions of the heathen world are
+ equally absurd. The cathedral, the mosque and the joss house have the same
+ foundation. Their builders do not believe in the uniformity of Nature, and
+ the business of all priests is to induce a so-called infinite being to
+ change the order of events, to make causes barren of effects and to
+ produce effects without, and in spite of, natural causes. They all believe
+ in the unthinkable and pray for the impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science teaches us that there was no creation and that there can be no
+ destruction. The infinite denies creation and defies destruction. An
+ infinite person, an "infinite being" is an infinite impossibility. To
+ conceive of such a being is beyond the power of the mind. Yet all
+ religions rest upon the supposed existence of the unthinkable, the
+ inconceivable. And the priests of these religions pretend to be perfectly
+ familiar with the designs, will, and wishes of this unthinkable, this
+ inconceivable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science teaches that that which really is has always been, that behind
+ every effect is the efficient and necessary cause, that there is in the
+ universe neither chance nor interference, and that energy is eternal. Day
+ by day the authority of the theologian grows weaker and weaker. As the
+ people become intelligent they care less for preachers and more for
+ teachers. Their confidence in knowledge, in thought and investigation
+ increases. They are eager to know the discoveries, the useful truths, the
+ important facts made, ascertained and demonstrated by the explorers in the
+ domain of the natural. They are no longer satisfied with the platitudes of
+ the pulpit, and the assertions of theologians. They are losing confidence
+ in the "sacred Scriptures" and in the protecting power and goodness of the
+ supernatural. They are satisfied that credulity is not a virtue and that
+ investigation is not a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science is the providence of man, the worker of true miracles, of real
+ wonders. Science has "read a little in Nature's infinite book of secrecy."
+ Science knows the circuits of the winds, the courses of the stars. Fire is
+ his servant, and lightning his messenger. Science freed the slaves and
+ gave liberty to their masters. Science taught man to enchain, not his
+ fellows, but the forces of nature, forces that have no backs to be
+ scarred, no limbs for chains to chill and eat, forces that have no hearts
+ to break, forces that never know fatigue, forces that shed no tears.
+ Science is the great physician. His touch has given sight. He has made the
+ lame to leap, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and in the pallid face
+ his hand has set the rose of health. Science has given his beloved sleep
+ and wrapped in happy dreams the throbbing nerves of pain. Science is the
+ destroyer of disease, builder of happy homes, the preserver of life and
+ love. Science is the teacher of every virtue, the enemy of every vice.
+ Science has given the true basis of morals, the origin and office of
+ conscience, revealed the nature of obligation, of duty, of virtue in its
+ highest, noblest forms, and has demonstrated that true happiness is the
+ only possible good. Science has slain the monsters of superstition, and
+ destroyed the authority of inspired books. Science has read the records of
+ the rocks, records that priestcraft cannot change, and on his wondrous
+ scales has weighed the atom and the star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science has founded the only true religion. Science is the only Savior of
+ this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR many ages religion has been tried. For countless centuries man has
+ sought for help from heaven. To soften the heart of God, mothers
+ sacrificed their babes! but the God did not hear, did not see, and did not
+ help. Naked savages were devoured by beasts, bitten by serpents, killed by
+ flood and frost. They prayed for help, but their God was deaf. They built
+ temples and altars, employed priests and gave of their substance, but the
+ volcano destroyed and the famine came. For the sake of God millions
+ murdered their fellow-men, but the God was silent. Millions of martyrs
+ died for the honor of God, but the God was blind. He did not see the
+ flames, the scaffolds. He did not hear the prayers, the groans. Thousands
+ of priests in the name of God tortured their fellow-men, stretched them on
+ racks, crushed their feet in iron boots, tore out their tongues,
+ extinguished their eyes. The victims implored the protection of God, but
+ their god did not hear, did not see. He was deaf and blind. He was willing
+ that his enemies should torture his friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nations tried to destroy each other for the sake of God, and the banner of
+ the cross dripping with blood floated over a thousand fields&mdash;but the
+ god was silent. He neither knew nor cared. Pestilence covered the earth
+ with dead, the priests prayed, the altars were heaped with sacrifices, but
+ the god did not see, did not hear. The miseries of the world did not
+ lessen the joys of heaven. The clouds gave no rain, the famine came,
+ withered babes with pallid lips sought the breasts of dead mothers, while
+ starving fathers knelt and prayed, but the god did not hear. Through many
+ centuries millions were enslaved, babes were sold from mothers, husbands
+ from wives, backs were scarred with the lash. The poor wretches lifted
+ their clasped hands toward heaven and prayed for justice, for liberty&mdash;but
+ their god did not hear. He cared nothing for the sufferings of slaves,
+ nothing for the tears of wives and mothers, nothing for the agony of men.
+ He answered no prayers. He broke no chains. He freed no slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The miserable wretches appealed to the priests of God, but they were on
+ the other side. They defended the masters. The slaves had nothing to give.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During all these years it was claimed by the theologians that their God
+ was governing the world, that he was infinitely powerful, wise and good&mdash;and
+ that the "powers" of the earth were "ordained" by him. During all these
+ years the church was the enemy of progress. It hated all physicians and
+ told the people to rely on prayer, amulets and relics. It persecuted the
+ astronomers and geologists, denounced them as infidels and atheists, as
+ enemies of the human race. It poisoned the fountains of learning and
+ insisted that teachers should distort the facts in nature to the end that
+ they might harmonize with the "inspired" book. During all these years the
+ church misdirected the energies of man, and when it reached the zenith of
+ its power, darkness fell upon the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all nations and in all ages, religion has failed. The gods have never
+ interfered. Nature has produced and destroyed without mercy and without
+ hatred. She has cared no more for man than for the leaves of the forest,
+ no more for nations than for hills of ants, nothing for right or wrong,
+ for life or death, for pain or joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man through his intelligence must protect himself. He gets no help from
+ any other world. The church has always claimed and still claims that it is
+ the only reforming power, that it makes men honest, virtuous and merciful,
+ that it prevents violence and war, and that without its influence the race
+ would return to barbarism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can exceed the absurdity of these claims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we wish to improve the condition of mankind&mdash;if we wish for nobler
+ men and women we must develop the brain, we must encourage thought and
+ investigation. We must convince the world that credulity is a vice,&mdash;that
+ there is no virtue in believing without, or against evidence, and that the
+ really honest man is true to himself. We must fill the world with
+ intellectual light. We must applaud mental courage. We must educate the
+ children, rescue them from ignorance and crime. School-houses are the real
+ temples, and teachers are the true priests. We must supply the wants of
+ the mind, satisfy the hunger of the brain. The people should be familiar
+ with the great poets, with the tragedies of &#65533;?schylus, the dramas
+ of Shakespeare, with the poetry of Homer and Virgil. Shakespeare should be
+ taught in every school, found in every house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through photography the whole world may become acquainted with the great
+ statues, the great paintings, the victories of art. In this way the mind
+ is enlarged, the sympathies quickened, the appreciation of the beautiful
+ intensified, the taste refined and the character ennobled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great novels should be read by all. All should be acquainted with the
+ men and women of fiction, with the ideal world. The imagination should be
+ developed, trained and strengthened. Superstition has degraded art and
+ literature. It gave us winged monsters, scenes from heaven and hell,
+ representations of gods and devils, sculptured the absurd and painted the
+ impossible in the name of Art. It gave us the dreams of the insane, the
+ lives of fanatical saints, accounts of miracles and wonders, of cures
+ wrought by the bones of the dead, descriptions of Paradise, purgatory and
+ the eternal dungeon, discourses on baptism, on changing wine and wafers
+ into the the blood and flesh of God, on the forgiveness of sins by
+ priests, on fore-ordination and accountability, predestination and free
+ will, on devils, ghosts and goblins, the ministrations of guardian angels,
+ the virtue of belief and the wickedness of doubt. And this was called
+ "sacred literature."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church taught that those who believed, counted beads, mumbled prayers,
+ and gave their time or property for the support of the gospel were the
+ good and that all others were traveling the "broad road" to eternal pain.
+ According to the theologians, the best people, the saints, were dead, and
+ real beauty was to be found only in heaven. They denounced the joys of
+ life as husks and filthy rags, declared that the world had been cursed,
+ and that it brought forth thistles and thorns because of the sins of man.
+ They regarded the earth as a kind of dock, running out into the sea of
+ eternity,&mdash;on which the pious waited for the ship on which they were
+ to be transported to another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the real poets and the real artists clung to this world, to this life.
+ They described and represented things that exist. They expressed thoughts
+ of the brain, emotions of the heart, the griefs and joys, the hope and
+ despair of men and women. They found strength and beauty on every hand.
+ They found their angels here. They were true to human experience and they
+ touched the brain and heart of the world. In the tragedies and comedies of
+ life, in the smiles and tears, in the ecstasies of love, in the darkness
+ of death, in the dawn of hope, they found their materials for statue and
+ song, for poem and painting. Poetry and art are the children of this
+ world, born and nourished here. They are human. They have left the winged
+ monsters of heaven, the malicious deformities of hell, and have turned
+ their attention to men and women, to the things of this life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a poem called "The Skylark," by Shelley, graceful as the motions
+ of flames. Another by Robert Burns, called "The Daisy," exquisite, perfect
+ as the pearl of virtue in the beautiful breast of a loving girl. Between
+ this lark and this daisy, neither above nor below, you will find all the
+ poetry of the world. Eloquence, sublimity, poetry and art must have the
+ foundation of fact, of reality. Imaginary worlds and beings are nothing to
+ us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the old creeds are becoming cruel and vulgar. We now have
+ imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of others. Believers in
+ hell, in eternal pain, like murderers, lack imagination. The murderer has
+ not imagination enough to see his victim dead. He does not see the
+ sightless and pathetic eyes. He does not see the widow's arms about the
+ corpse, her lips upon the dead. He does not hear the sobs of children. He
+ does not see the funeral. He does not hear the clods as they fall on the
+ coffin. He does not feel the hand of arrest, the scene of the trial is not
+ before him. He does not hear the awful verdict, the sentence of the court,
+ the last words. He does not see the scaffold, nor feel about his throat
+ the deadly noose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us develop the brain, civilize the heart, and give wings to the
+ imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IF we abandon myth and miracle, if we discard the supernatural and the
+ scheme of redemption, how are we to civilize the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is falsehood a reforming power? Is credulity the mother of virtue? Is
+ there any saving grace in the impossible and absurd? Did wisdom perish
+ with the dead? Must the civilized accept the religion of savages?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we wish to reform the world we must rely on truth, on fact, on reason.
+ We must teach men that they are good or bad for themselves, that others
+ cannot be good or bad for them, that they cannot be charged with the
+ crimes, or credited with the virtues of others. We must discard the
+ doctrine of the atonement, because it is absurd and immoral. We are not
+ accountable for the sins of "Adam" and the virtues of Christ cannot be
+ transferred to us. There can be no vicarious virtue, no vicarious vice.
+ Why should the sufferings of the innocent atone for the crimes of the
+ guilty. According to the doctrine of the atonement right and wrong do not
+ exist in the nature of things, but in the arbitrary will of the Infinite.
+ This is a subversion of all ideas of justice and mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An act is good, bad, or indifferent, according to its consequences. No
+ power can step between an act and its natural consequences. A governor may
+ pardon the criminal, but the natural consequences of the crime remain
+ untouched. A god may forgive, but the consequences of the act forgiven,
+ are still the same. We must teach the world that the consequences of a bad
+ action cannot be avoided, that they are the invisible police, the unseen
+ avengers, that accept no gifts, that hear no prayers, that no cunning can
+ deceive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not need the forgiveness of gods, but of ourselves and the ones we
+ injure. Restitution without repentance is far better than repentance
+ without restitution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know nothing of any god who rewards, punishes or forgives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must teach our fellow-men that honor comes from within, not from
+ without, that honor must be earned, that it is not alms, that even an
+ infinite God could not enrich the beggar's palm with the gem of honor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Teach them also that happiness is the bud, the blossom and the fruit of
+ good and noble actions, that it is not the gift of any god; that it must
+ be earned by man&mdash;must be deserved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this world of ours there is no magic, no sleight-of-hand, by which
+ consequences can be made to punish the good and reward the bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Teach men not to sacrifice this world for some other, but to turn their
+ attention to the natural, to the affairs of this life. Teach them that
+ theology has no known foundation, that it was born of ignorance and fear,
+ that it has hardened the heart, polluted the imagination and made fiends
+ of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology is not for this world. It is no part of real religion. It has
+ nothing to do with goodness or virtue. Religion does not consist in
+ worshiping gods, but in adding to the well-being, the happiness of man. No
+ human being knows whether any god exists or not, and all that has been
+ said and written about "our god," or the gods of other people, has no
+ known fact for a foundation. Words without thoughts, clouds without rain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us put theology out of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Church and state should be absolutely divorced. Priests pretend that they
+ have been selected by, and that they get their power from God. Kings
+ occupy their thrones in accordance with the will of God. The pope declares
+ that he is the agent, the deputy of God and that by right he should rule
+ the world. All these pretentions and assertions are perfectly absurd and
+ yet they are acknowledged and believed by millions. Get theology out of
+ government and kings will descend from their thrones. All will admit that
+ governments get their powers from the consent of the governed, and that
+ all persons in office are the servants of the people. Get theology out of
+ government and chaplains will be dismissed from Legislatures, from
+ Congress, from the army and navy. Get theology out of government and
+ people will be allowed to express their honest thoughts about "inspired
+ books" and superstitious creeds. Get theology out of government and
+ priests will no longer steal a seventh of our time. Get theology out of
+ government and the clergy will soon take their places with augurs and
+ soothsayers, with necromancers and medicine-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Get theology out of education. Nothing should be taught in a school that
+ somebody does not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are plenty of things to be learned about this world, about this
+ life. Every child should be taught to think, and that it is dangerous not
+ to think. Children should not be taught the absurdities, the cruelties and
+ imbecilities of superstition. No church should be allowed to control the
+ common school, and public money should not be divided between the hateful
+ and warring sects. The public school should be secular, and only the
+ useful should be taught. Many of our colleges are under the control of
+ churches. Presidents and professors are mostly ministers of the gospel and
+ the result is that all facts inconsistent with the creeds are either
+ suppressed or denied. Only those professors who are naturally stupid or
+ mentally dishonest can retain their places. Those who tell the truth, who
+ teach the facts, are discharged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every college truth should be a welcome guest. Every professor should
+ be a finder, and every student a learner, of facts. Theology and
+ intellectual dishonesty go together. The teacher of children should be
+ intelligent and perfectly sincere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us get theology out of education.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pious denounce the secular schools as godless. They should be. The
+ sciences are all secular, all godless. Theology bears the same relation to
+ science that the black art does to chemistry, that magic does to
+ mathematics. It is something that cannot be taught, because it cannot be
+ known. It has no foundation in fact. It neither produces, nor accords
+ with, any image in the mind. It is not only unknowable but unthinkable.
+ Through hundreds and thousands of generations men have been discussing,
+ wrangling and fighting about theology. No advance has been made. The robed
+ priest has only reached the point from which the savage tried to start.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that theology always has and always will make enemies. It sows the
+ seeds of hatred in families and nations. It is selfish, cruel, revengeful
+ and malicious. It has heaven for the few and perdition for the many. We
+ now know that credulity is not a virtue and that intellectual courage is.
+ We must stop rewarding hypocrisy and bigotry. We must stop persecuting the
+ thinkers, the investigators, the creators of light, the civilizers of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WILL the unknown, the mysteries of life and itiations of the mind, forever
+ furnish food for superstition? Will the gods and ghosts perish or simply
+ retreat before the advancing hosts of science, and continue to crouch and
+ lurk just beyond the horizon of the known? Will darkness forever be the
+ womb and mother of the supernatural?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago priests told peasants that the New Jerusalem, the
+ celestial city was just above the clouds. They said that its walls and
+ domes and spires were just beyond the reach of human sight. The telescope
+ was invented and those who looked at the wilderness of stars, saw no city,
+ no throne. They said to the priests: "Where is your New Jerusalem?" The
+ priests cheerfully and confidently replied. "It is just beyond where you
+ see."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At one time it was believed that a race of men existed "with their heads
+ beneath their shoulders." Returning travelers from distant lands were
+ asked about these wonderful people and all replied that they had not seen
+ them. "Oh," said the believers in the monsters, "the men with heads
+ beneath their shoulders live in a country that you did not visit." And so
+ the monsters lived and flourished until all the world was known. We cannot
+ know the universe. We cannot travel infinite distances, and so, somewhere
+ in shoreless space there will always be room for gods and ghosts, for
+ heavens and hells. And so it may be that superstition will live and linger
+ until the world becomes intelligent enough to build upon the foundation of
+ the known, to keep the imagination within the domain of the probable, and
+ to believe in the natural&mdash;<i>until the supernatural shall have been
+ demonstrated</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Savages knew all about gods, about heavens and hells before they knew
+ anything about the world in which they lived. They were perfectly familiar
+ with evil spirits, with the invisible phantoms of the air, long before
+ they had any true conception of themselves. So, they knew all about the
+ origin and destiny of the human race. They were absolutely certain about
+ the problems, the solution of which, philosophers know, is beyond the
+ limitations of the mind. They understood astrology, but not astronomy,
+ knew something of magic, but nothing about chemistry. They were wise only
+ as to those things about which nothing can be known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor Indian believed in the "Great Spirit" and saw "design" on every
+ hand.&mdash;Trees were made that he might have bows and arrows, wood for
+ his fire and bark for his wigwam&mdash;rivers and lakes to give him fish,
+ wild beasts and corn that he might have food, and the animals had skins
+ that he might have clothes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Primitive peoples all reasoned in the same way, and modern Christians
+ follow their example. They knew but little of the world and thought that
+ it had been made expressly for the use of man. They did not know that it
+ was mostly water, that vast regions were locked in eternal ice and that in
+ most countries the conditions were unfavorable to human life. They knew
+ nothing of the countless enemies of man that live unseen in water, food
+ and air. Back of the little good they knew they put gods and back of the
+ evil, devils. They thought it of the greatest importance to gain the good
+ will of the gods, who alone could protect them from the devils. Those who
+ worshiped these gods, offered sacrifices, and obeyed priests, were
+ considered loyal members of the tribe or community, and those who refused
+ to worship were regarded as enemies and traitors. The believers, in order
+ to protect themselves from the anger of the gods, exiled or destroyed the
+ infidels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Believing as they did, the course they pursued was natural. They not only
+ wished to protect themselves from disease and death, from pestilence and
+ famine in this world but the souls of their children from eternal pain in
+ the next. Their gods were savages who demanded flattery and worship not
+ only, but the acceptance of a certain creed. As long as Christians believe
+ in eternal punishment they will be the enemies of those who investigate
+ and contend for the authority of reason, of those who demand evidence, who
+ care nothing for the unsupported assertions of the dead or the illogical
+ inferences of the living.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science always has been, is, and always will be modest, thoughtful,
+ truthful. It has but one object: The ascertainment of truth. It has no
+ prejudice, no hatred. It is in the realm of the intellect and cannot be
+ swayed or changed by passion. It does not try to please God, to gain
+ heaven or avoid hell. It is for this world, for the use of man. It is
+ perfectly candid. It does not try to conceal, but to reveal. It is the
+ enemy of mystery, of pretence and canc. It does not ask people to be
+ solemn, but sensible. It calls for and insists on the use of all the
+ senses, of all the faculties of the mind. It does not pretend to be "holy"
+ or "inspired." It courts investigation, criticism and even denial. It asks
+ for the application of every test, for trial by every standard. It knows
+ nothing of blasphemy and does not ask for the imprisonment of those who
+ ignorantly or knowingly deny the truth. The good that springs from a
+ knowledge of the truth is the only reward it offers, and the evil
+ resulting from ignorance is the only punishment it threatens. Its effort
+ is to reform the world through intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the other hand theology is, always has been, and always will be,
+ ignorant, arrogant, puerile and cruel. When the church had power,
+ hypocrisy was crowned and honesty imprisoned. Fraud wore the tiara and
+ truth was a convict, Liberty was in chains, Theology has always sent the
+ worst to heaven, the best to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give you a scene from the day of judgment. Christ is upon his
+ throne, his secretary by his side. A soul appears. This is what happens&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What is your name?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Torquemada.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Were you a Christian?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you endeavor to convert your fellow-men?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did. I tried to convert them by persuasion, by preaching and praying and
+ even by force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What did you do?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I put the heretics in prison, in chains. I tore out their tongues, put out
+ their eyes, crushed their bones, stretched them upon racks, roasted their
+ feet, and if they remained obdurate I flayed them alive or burned them at
+ the stake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And did you do all this for my glory?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, all for you. I wanted to save some, I wanted to protect the young and
+ the weak minded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you believe the Bible, the miracles&mdash;that I was God, that I was
+ born of a virgin and kept money in the mouth of a fish?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, I believed it all. My reason was the slave of faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy
+ Lord. I was hungry and you gave me meat, naked and you clothed me.."
+ Another soul arises.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What is your name?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Giordano Bruno.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Were you a Christian?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At one time I was, but for many years I was a philosopher, a seeker after
+ truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you seek to convert your fellow-men?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not to Christianity, but to the religion of reason. I tried to develop
+ their minds, to free them from the slavery of ignorance and superstition.
+ In my day the church taught the holiness of credulity&mdash;the virtue of
+ unquestioning obedience, and in your name tortured and destroyed the
+ intelligent and courageous. I did what I could to civilize the world, to
+ make men tolerant and merciful, to soften the hearts of priests, and
+ banish torture from the world. I expressed my honest thoughts and walked
+ in the light of reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you believe the Bible, the miracles? Did you believe that I was God,
+ that I was born of a virgin and that I suffered myself to be killed by the
+ Jews to appease the wrath of God&mdash;that is, of myself&mdash;so that
+ God could save the souls of a few?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No, I did not. I did not believe that God was ever born into my world, or
+ that God learned the trade of a carpenter, or that he 'increased in
+ knowledge,' or that he cast devils out of men, or that his garments could
+ cure diseases, or that he allowed himself to be murdered, and in the hour
+ of death "forsook" himself. These things I did not and could not believe.
+ But I did all the good I could. I enlightened the ignorant, comforted the
+ afflicted, defended the innocent, divided even my poverty with the poor,
+ and did the best I could to increase the happiness of my fellow-men. I was
+ a soldier in the army of progress.&mdash;I was arrested, imprisoned, tried
+ and convicted by the church&mdash;by the 'Triumphant Beast.' I was burned
+ at the stake by ignorant and heartless priests and my ashes given to the
+ winds."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then Christ, his face growing dark, his brows contracted with wrath, with
+ uplifted hands, with half averted face, cries or rather shrieks: "Depart
+ from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his
+ angels."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the justice of God&mdash;the mercy of the compassionate Christ.
+ This is the belief, the dream and hope of the orthodox theologian&mdash;"the
+ consummation devoutly to be wished."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology makes God a monster, a tyrant, a savage; makes man a servant, a
+ serf, a slave; promises heaven to the obedient, the meek, the frightened,
+ and threatens the self-reliant with the tortures of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It denounces reason and appeals to the passions&mdash;to hope and fear. It
+ does not answer the arguments of those who attack, but resorts to
+ sophistry, falsehood and slander. It is incapable of advancement. It keeps
+ its back to the sunrise, lives on myth and miracle, and guards with a
+ misers care the "sacred" superstitions of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the great struggle between the supernatural and the natural, between
+ gods and men, we have passed midnight. All the forces of civilization, all
+ the facts that have been found, all the truths that have been discovered
+ are the allies of science&mdash;the enemies of the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR thousands of generations the myths have been taught and the miracles
+ believed. Every mother was a missionary and told with loving care the
+ falsehoods of "faith" to her babe. The poison of superstition was in the
+ mother's milk. She was honest and affectionate and her character, her
+ goodness, her smiles and kisses, entered into, mingled with, and became a
+ part of the superstition that she taught. Fathers, friends and priests
+ united with the mothers, and the children thus taught, became the teachers
+ of their children and so the creeds were kept alive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Childhood loves the romantic, the mysterious, the monstrous. It lives in a
+ world where cause has nothing to do with effect, where the fairy waves her
+ hand and the prince appears. Where wish creates the thing desired and
+ facts become the slaves of amulet and charm. The individual lives the life
+ of the race, and the child is charmed with what the race in its infancy
+ produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There seems to be the same difference between mistakes and facts that
+ there is between weeds and corn. Mistakes seem to take care of themselves,
+ while the facts have to be guarded with all possible care. Falsehoods like
+ weeds flourish without care. Weeds care nothing for soil or rain. They not
+ only ask no help but they almost defy destruction. In the minds of
+ children, superstitions, legends, myths and miracles find a natural, and
+ in most instances a lasting home. Thrown aside in manhood, forgotten or
+ denied, in old age they oft return and linger to the end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This in part accounts for the longevity of religious lies. Ministers with
+ clasped hands and uplifted eyes ask the man who is thinking for himself
+ how he can be wicked and heartless enough to attack the religion of his
+ mother. This question is regarded by the clergy as unanswerable. Of course
+ it is not to be asked by the missionaries, of the Hindus and the Chinese.
+ The heathen are expected to desert the religion of their mothers as Christ
+ and his apostles deserted the religion of their mothers. It is right for
+ Jews and heathen, but not for thinkers and philosophers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A cannibal was about to kill a missionary for food.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The missionary objected and asked the cannibal how he could be so cruel
+ and wicked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cannibal replied that he followed the example of his mother. "My
+ mother," said he, "was good enough for me. Her religion is my religion.
+ The last time I saw her she was sitting, propped up against a tree, eating
+ cold missionary."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But now the mother argument has mostly lost its force, and men of mind are
+ satisfied with nothing less than truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The phenomena of nature have been investigated and the supernatural has
+ not been found. The myths have faded from the imagination, and of them
+ nothing remains but the poetic. The miraculous has become the absurd, the
+ impossible. Gods and phantoms have been driven from the earth and sky. We
+ are living in a natural world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers, some of them, demanded the freedom of religion. We have taken
+ another step. We demand the Religion of Freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ O Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry! Thou art the only deity that
+ hateth bended knees. In thy vast and unwalled temple, beneath the roofless
+ dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy worshipers stand erect! They
+ do not cringe, or crawl, or bend their foreheads to the earth. The dust
+ has never borne the impress of their lips. Upon thy altars mothers do not
+ sacrifice their babes, nor men their rights. Thou askest naught from man
+ except the things that good men hate&mdash;the whip, the chain, the
+ dungeon key. Thou hast no popes, no priests, who stand between their
+ fellow-men and thee. Thou carest not for foolish forms, or selfish
+ prayers. At thy sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow, virtue does not
+ tremble, superstition's feeble tapers do not burn, but Reason holds aloft
+ her inextinguishable torch whose holy light will one day flood the world.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+2 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+ PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 3 (of 12) By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 3
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 3 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Lectures
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38803]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>
+ "GIVE ME THE STORM AND TEMPEST OF THOUGHT AND ACTION, RATHER THAN THE
+ DEAD CALM OF IGNORANCE AND FAITH. BANISH ME FROM EDEN WHEN YOU WILL; BUT
+ FIRST LET ME EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE."
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME III.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h4>
+ LECTURES
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ THE DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38803/old/orig38803-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (64K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (64K)" src="images/portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Contents
+ </h3>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">SHAKESPEARE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">ROBERT BURNS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">ABRAHAM LINCOLN</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">VOLTAIRE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">LIBERTY IN LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">THE GREAT INFIDELS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkCONC">CONCLUSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">WHICH WAY?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">SHAKESPEARE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1891.)<br /> I. The Greatest Genius of our World&mdash;Not of
+ Supernatural Origin or<br /> of Royal Blood&mdash;Illiteracy of his
+ Parents&mdash;Education&mdash;His Father&mdash;His<br /> Mother a Great
+ Woman&mdash;Stratford Unconscious of the Immortal<br /> Child&mdash;Social
+ Position of Shakespeare&mdash;Of his Personal<br /> Peculiarities&mdash;Birth,
+ Marriage, and Death&mdash;What we Know of Him&mdash;No Line<br /> written
+ by him to be Found&mdash;The Absurd Epitaph&mdash;II. Contemporaries<br />
+ by whom he was Mentioned&mdash;III. No direct Mention of any of his<br />
+ Contemporaries in the Plays&mdash;Events and Personages of his Time&mdash;IV.<br />
+ Position of the Actor in Shakespeare's Time&mdash;Fortunately he was Not<br />
+ Educated at Oxford&mdash;An Idealist&mdash;His Indifference to
+ Stage-carpentry<br /> and Plot&mdash;He belonged to All Lands&mdash;Knew
+ the Brain and Heart of Man&mdash;An<br /> Intellectual Spendthrift&mdash;V.
+ The Baconian Theory&mdash;VI. Dramatists before<br /> and during the Time
+ of Shakespeare&mdash;Dramatic Incidents Illustrated in<br /> Passages
+ from "Macbeth" and "Julius C&aelig;sar"&mdash;VII. His Use of the Work
+ of<br /> Others&mdash;The Pontic Sea&mdash;A Passage from "Lear"&mdash;VIII.
+ Extravagance that<br /> touches the Infinite&mdash;The Greatest
+ Compliment&mdash;"Let me not live after<br /> my flame lacks oil"&mdash;Where
+ Pathos almost Touches the Grotesque&mdash;IX.<br /> An Innovator and
+ Iconoclast&mdash;Disregard of the "Unities"&mdash;Nature<br /> Forgets&mdash;Violation
+ of the Classic Model&mdash;X. Types&mdash;The Secret of<br /> Shakespeare&mdash;Characters
+ who Act from Reason and Motive&mdash;What they Say<br /> not the Opinion
+ of Shakespeare&mdash;XI. The Procession that issued from<br />
+ Shakespeare's Brain&mdash;His Great Women&mdash;Lovable Clowns&mdash;His
+ Men&mdash;Talent<br /> and Genius&mdash;XII. The Greatest of all
+ Philosophers&mdash;Master of the<br /> Human Heart&mdash;Love&mdash;XIII.
+ In the Realm of Comparison&mdash;XIV. Definitions:<br /> Suicide, Drama,
+ Death, Memory, the Body, Life, Echo, the<br /> World, Rumor&mdash;The
+ Confidant of Nature&mdash;XV. Humor and<br /> Pathos&mdash;Illustrations&mdash;XVI.
+ Not a Physician, Lawyer, or Botanist&mdash;He was<br /> a Man of
+ Imagination&mdash;He lived the Life of All&mdash;The Imagination had a<br />
+ Stage in Shakespeare's Brain.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">ROBERT BURNS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1878.)<br /> Poetry and Poets&mdash;Milton, Dante, Petrarch&mdash;Old-time
+ Poetry in<br /> Scotland&mdash;Influence of Scenery on Literature&mdash;Lives
+ that are<br /> Poems&mdash;Birth of Burns&mdash;Early Life and Education&mdash;Scotland
+ Emerging from<br /> the Gloom of Calvinism&mdash;A Metaphysical Peasantry&mdash;Power
+ of the Scotch<br /> Preacher&mdash;Famous Scotch Names&mdash;John
+ Barleycorn vs. Calvinism&mdash;Why Robert<br /> Burns is Loved&mdash;His
+ Reading&mdash;Made Goddesses of Women&mdash;Poet of Love: His<br />
+ "Vision," "Bonnie Doon," "To Mary in Heaven"&mdash;Poet of Home:<br />
+ "Cotter's Saturday Night," "John Anderson, My Jo"&mdash;Friendship:
+ "Auld<br /> Lang-Syne"&mdash;Scotch Drink: "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut"&mdash;Burns
+ the<br /> Artist: The "Brook," "Tam O'Shanter"&mdash;A Real Democrat: "A
+ man's a man<br /> for a' that"&mdash;His Theology: The Dogma of Eternal
+ Pain, "Morality,"<br /> "Hypocrisy," "Holy Willie's Prayer"&mdash;On the
+ Bible&mdash;A Statement of his<br /> Religion&mdash;Contrasted with
+ Tennyson&mdash;From Cradle to Coffin&mdash;His Last<br /> words&mdash;Lines
+ on the Birth-place of Burns.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">ABRAHAM LINCOLN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1894.)<br /> I. Simultaneous Birth of Lincoln and Darwin&mdash;Heroes
+ of Every<br /> Generation&mdash;Slavery&mdash;Principle Sacrificed to
+ Success&mdash;Lincoln's<br /> Childhood&mdash;His first Speech&mdash;A
+ Candidate for the Senate against<br /> Douglass&mdash;II. A Crisis in the
+ Affairs of the Republic&mdash;The South Not<br /> Alone Responsible for
+ Slavery&mdash;Lincoln's Prophetic Words&mdash;Nominated for<br />
+ President and Elected in Spite of his Fitness&mdash;III. Secession and<br />
+ Civil War&mdash;The Thought uppermost in his Mind&mdash;IV. A Crisis in
+ the<br /> North&mdash;Proposition to Purchase the Slaves&mdash;V. The
+ Proclamation of<br /> Emancipation&mdash;His Letter to Horace Greeley&mdash;Waited
+ on by Clergymen&mdash;VI.<br /> Surrounded by Enemies&mdash;Hostile
+ Attitude of Gladstone, Salisbury,<br /> Louis Napoleon, and the Vatican&mdash;VII.
+ Slavery the Perpetual<br /> Stumbling-block&mdash;Confiscation&mdash;VIII.
+ His Letter to a Republican<br /> Meeting in Illinois&mdash;Its Effect&mdash;IX.
+ The Power of His Personality&mdash;The<br /> Embodiment of Mercy&mdash;Use
+ of the Pardoning Power&mdash;X. The Vallandigham<br /> Affair&mdash;The
+ Horace Greeley Incident&mdash;Triumphs of Humor&mdash;XI. Promotion of<br />
+ General Hooker&mdash;A Prophecy and its Fulfillment&mdash;XII.&mdash;States
+ Rights vs.<br /> Territorial Integrity&mdash;XIII. His Military Genius&mdash;The
+ Foremost Man in<br /> all the World: and then the Horror Came&mdash;XIV.
+ Strange Mingling of Mirth<br /> and Tears&mdash;Deformation of Great
+ Historic Characters&mdash;Washington now<br /> only a Steel Engraving&mdash;Lincoln
+ not a Type&mdash;Virtues Necessary in a<br /> New Country&mdash;Laws of
+ Cultivated Society&mdash;In the Country is the Idea<br /> of Home&mdash;Lincoln
+ always a Pupil&mdash;A Great Lawyer&mdash;Many-sided&mdash;Wit and<br />
+ Humor&mdash;As an Orator&mdash;His Speech at Gettysburg contrasted with
+ the<br /> Oration of Edward Everett&mdash;Apologetic in his Kindness&mdash;No
+ Official<br /> Robes&mdash;The gentlest Memory of our World.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">VOLTAIRE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1894.)<br /> I. Changes wrought by Time&mdash;Throne and Altar
+ Twin Vultures&mdash;The King and<br /> the Priest&mdash;What is
+ Greatness?&mdash;Effect of Voltaire's Name on Clergyman<br /> and Priest&mdash;Born
+ and Baptized&mdash;State of France in 1694&mdash;The Church<br /> at the
+ Head&mdash;Efficacy of Prayers and Dead Saints&mdash;Bells and Holy<br />
+ Water&mdash;Prevalence of Belief in Witches, Devils, and Fiends&mdash;Seeds
+ of<br /> the Revolution Scattered by Noble and Priest&mdash;Condition in
+ England&mdash;The<br /> Inquisition in full Control in Spain&mdash;Portugal
+ and Germany burning<br /> Women&mdash;Italy Prostrate beneath the
+ Priests, the Puritans in America<br /> persecuting Quakers, and stealing
+ Children&mdash;II. The Days of Youth&mdash;His<br /> Education&mdash;Chooses
+ Literature as a Profession and becomes a Diplomat&mdash;In<br /> Love and
+ Disinherited&mdash;Unsuccessful Poem Competition&mdash;Jansenists<br />
+ and Molinists&mdash;The Bull Unigenitus&mdash;Exiled to Tulle&mdash;Sent
+ to the<br /> Bastile&mdash;Exiled to England&mdash;Acquaintances made
+ there&mdash;III. The Morn<br /> of Manhood&mdash;His Attention turned to
+ the History of the Church&mdash;The<br /> "Triumphant Beast" Attacked&mdash;Europe
+ Filled with the Product of his<br /> Brain&mdash;What he Mocked&mdash;The
+ Weapon of Ridicule&mdash;His Theology&mdash;His<br /> "Retractions"&mdash;What
+ Goethe said of Voltaire&mdash;IV. The Scheme of<br /> Nature&mdash;His
+ belief in the Optimism of Pope Destroyed by the Lisbon<br /> Earthquake&mdash;V.
+ His Humanity&mdash;Case of Jean Calas&mdash;The Sirven Family&mdash;The<br />
+ Espenasse Case&mdash;Case of Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde&mdash;Voltaire<br />
+ Abandons France&mdash;A Friend of Education&mdash;An Abolitionist&mdash;Not<br />
+ a Saint&mdash;VI. The Return&mdash;His Reception&mdash;His Death&mdash;Burial
+ at<br /> Romilli-on-the-Seine&mdash;VII. The Death-bed Argument&mdash;Serene
+ Demise of<br /> the Infamous&mdash;God has no Time to defend the Good and
+ protect the<br /> Pure&mdash;Eloquence of the Clergy on the Death-bed
+ Subject&mdash;The<br /> Second Return&mdash;Throned upon the Bastile&mdash;The
+ Grave Desecrated by<br /> Priests&mdash;Voltaire.<br /> A Testimonial to
+ Walt Whitman&mdash;Let us put Wreaths on the Brows of the<br /> Living&mdash;Literary
+ Ideals of the American People in 1855&mdash;"Leaves of<br /> Grass"&mdash;Its
+ reception by the Provincial Prudes&mdash;The Religion of the<br /> Body&mdash;Appeal
+ to Manhood and Womanhood&mdash;Books written for the<br /> Market&mdash;The
+ Index Expurgatorius&mdash;Whitman a believer in<br /> Democracy&mdash;Individuality&mdash;Humanity&mdash;An
+ Old-time Sea-fight&mdash;What is<br /> Poetry?&mdash;Rhyme a Hindrance to
+ Expression&mdash;Rhythm the Comrade of<br /> the Poetic&mdash;Whitman's
+ Attitude toward Religion&mdash;Philosophy&mdash;The Two<br /> Poems&mdash;"A
+ Word Out of the Sea"&mdash;"When Lilacs Last in the Door"&mdash;"A Chant<br />
+ for Death"&mdash;<br /> The History of Intellectual Progress is written
+ in the Lives of<br /> Infidels&mdash;The King and the Priest&mdash;The
+ Origin of God and Heaven, of<br /> the Devil and Hell&mdash;The Idea of
+ Hell born of Ignorance, Brutality,<br /> Cowardice, and Revenge&mdash;The
+ Limitations of our Ancestors&mdash;The Devil<br /> and God&mdash;Egotism
+ of Barbarians&mdash;The Doctrine of Hell not an Exclusive<br />
+ Possession of Christianity&mdash;The Appeal to the Cemetery&mdash;Religion
+ and<br /> Wealth, Christ and Poverty&mdash;The "Great" not on the Side of
+ Christ and<br /> his Disciples&mdash;Epitaphs as Battle-cries&mdash;Some
+ Great Men in favor of<br /> almost every Sect&mdash;Mistakes and
+ Superstitions of Eminent Men&mdash;Sacred<br /> Books&mdash;The Claim
+ that all Moral Laws came from God through<br /> the Jews&mdash;Fear&mdash;Martyrdom&mdash;God's
+ Ways toward Men&mdash;The Emperor<br /> Constantine&mdash;The Death Test&mdash;Theological
+ Comity between Protestants and<br /> Catholics&mdash;Julian&mdash;A
+ childish Fable still Believed&mdash;Bruno&mdash;His Crime,<br /> his
+ Imprisonment.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">LIBERTY IN LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1890.)<br /> "Old Age"&mdash;"Leaves of Grass"
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">THE GREAT INFIDELS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1881.)<br /> Martyrdom&mdash;The First to die for Truth without
+ Expectation of Reward&mdash;The<br /> Church in the Time of Voltaire&mdash;Voltaire&mdash;Diderot&mdash;David
+ Hume&mdash;Benedict<br /> Spinoza&mdash;Our Infidels&mdash;Thomas Paine&mdash;Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">WHICH WAY?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1884.)<br /> I. The Natural and the Supernatural&mdash;Living for
+ the Benefit of<br /> your Fellow-Man and Living for Ghosts&mdash;The
+ Beginning of Doubt&mdash;Two<br /> Philosophies of Life&mdash;Two
+ Theories of Government&mdash;II. Is our God<br /> superior to the Gods of
+ the Heathen?&mdash;What our God has done&mdash;III. Two<br /> Theories
+ about the Cause and Cure of Disease&mdash;The First Physician&mdash;The<br />
+ Bones of St. Anne Exhibited in New York&mdash;Archbishop Corrigan and<br />
+ Cardinal Gibbons Countenance a Theological Fraud&mdash;A Japanese Story&mdash;The<br />
+ Monk and the Miraculous Cures performed by the Bones of a Donkey<br />
+ represented as those of a Saint&mdash;IV.&mdash;Two Ways of accounting
+ for Sacred<br /> Books and Religions&mdash;V-Two Theories about Morals&mdash;Nothing
+ Miraculous<br /> about Morality&mdash;The Test of all Actions&mdash;VI.
+ Search for the<br /> Impossible&mdash;Alchemy&mdash;"Perpetual Motion"&mdash;Astrology&mdash;Fountain
+ of Perpetual<br /> Youth&mdash;VII. "Great Men" and the Superstitions in
+ which they have<br /> Believed&mdash;VIII. Follies and Imbecilities of
+ Great Men&mdash;We do not know<br /> what they Thought, only what they
+ Said&mdash;Names of Great Unbelievers&mdash;Most<br /> Men Controlled by
+ their Surroundings&mdash;IX. Living for God in Switzerland,<br />
+ Scotland, New England&mdash;In the Dark Ages&mdash;Let us Live for Man&mdash;X.
+ The<br /> Narrow Road of Superstition&mdash;The Wide and Ample Way&mdash;Let
+ us Squeeze the<br /> Orange Dry&mdash;This Was, This Is, This Shall Be.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1894.)<br /> The Truth about the Bible Ought to be Told&mdash;I. The
+ Origin of the<br /> Bible&mdash;Establishment of the Mosaic Code&mdash;Moses
+ not the Author of the<br /> Pentateuch&mdash;Some Old Testament Books of
+ Unknown Origin&mdash;II. Is the Old<br /> Testament Inspired?&mdash;What
+ an Inspired Book Ought to Be&mdash;What the Bible<br /> Is&mdash;Admission
+ of Orthodox Christians that it is not Inspired as to<br /> Science&mdash;The
+ Enemy of Art&mdash;III. The Ten Commandments&mdash;Omissions and<br />
+ Redundancies&mdash;The Story of Achan&mdash;The Story of Elisha&mdash;The
+ Story of<br /> Daniel&mdash;The Story of Joseph&mdash;IV. What is it all
+ Worth?&mdash;Not True, and<br /> Contradictory&mdash;Its Myths Older than
+ the Pentateuch&mdash;Other Accounts<br /> of the Creation, the Fall, etc.&mdash;Books
+ of the Old Testament Named<br /> and Characterized&mdash;V. Was Jehovah a
+ God of Love?&mdash;VI. Jehovah's<br /> Administration&mdash;VII. The New
+ Testament&mdash;Many Other Gospels besides<br /> our Four&mdash;Disagreements&mdash;Belief
+ in Devils&mdash;Raising of the Dead&mdash;Other<br /> Miracles&mdash;Would
+ a real Miracle-worker have been Crucified?&mdash;VIII.<br /> The
+ Philosophy of Christ&mdash;Love of<br /> Enemies&mdash;Improvidence&mdash;Self-Mutilation&mdash;The
+ Earth as a<br /> Footstool&mdash;Justice&mdash;A Bringer of War&mdash;Division
+ of Families&mdash;IX. Is Christ<br /> our Example?&mdash;X. Why should we
+ place Christ at the Top and Summit of the<br /> Human Race?&mdash;How did
+ he surpass Other Teachers?&mdash;What he left Unsaid,<br /> and Why&mdash;Inspiration&mdash;Rejected
+ Books of the New Testament&mdash;The Bible and<br /> the Crimes it has
+ Caused.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SHAKESPEARE
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was the greatest genius of our world. He left to us
+ the richest legacy of all the dead&mdash;the treasures of the rarest soul
+ that ever lived and loved and wrought of words the statues, pictures,
+ robes and gems of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius.
+ Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be
+ empty, all the walls naked&mdash;meaning and connection would fall from
+ words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all
+ the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become
+ the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare is too great a theme. I feel as though endeavoring to grasp a
+ globe so large that the hand obtains no hold. He who would worthily speak
+ of the great dramatist should be inspired by "a muse of fire that should
+ ascend the brightest heaven of invention"&mdash;he should have "a kingdom
+ for a stage, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ More than three centuries ago, the most intellectual of the human race was
+ born. He was not of supernatural origin. At his birth there were no
+ celestial pyrotechnics. His father and mother were both English, and both
+ had the cheerful habit of living in this world. The cradle in which he was
+ rocked was canopied by neither myth nor miracle, and in his veins there
+ was no drop of royal blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This babe became the wonder of mankind. Neither of his parents could read
+ or write. He grew up in a small and ignorant village on the banks of the
+ Avon, in the midst of the common people of three hundred years ago. There
+ was nothing in the peaceful, quiet landscape on which he looked, nothing
+ in the low hills, the cultivated and undulating fields, and nothing in the
+ murmuring stream, to excite the imagination&mdash;nothing, so far as we
+ can see, calculated to sow the seeds of the subtlest and sublimest
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So there is nothing connected with his education, or his lack of
+ education, that in any way accounts for what he did. It is supposed that
+ he attended school in his native town&mdash;but of this we are not
+ certain. Many have tried to show that he was, after all, of gentle blood,
+ but the fact seems to be the other way. Some of his biographers have
+ sought to do him honor by showing that he was patronized by Queen
+ Elizabeth, but of this there is not the slightest proof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, there never sat on any throne a king, queen, or
+ emperor who could have honored William Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education.
+ The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of
+ wealth as the mother of joy. On the other hand, the children of the rich,
+ finding that gold does not produce happiness, are apt to underrate the
+ value of wealth. So the children of the educated often care but little for
+ books, and hold all culture in contempt. The children of great authors do
+ not, as a rule, become writers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget
+ limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for
+ itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly, many generations of culture breed a desire for the rude joys of
+ savagery, and possibly generations of ignorance breed such a longing for
+ knowledge, that of this desire, of this hunger of the brain, Genius is
+ born. It may be that the mind, by lying fallow, by remaining idle for
+ generations, gathers strength.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare's father seems to have been an ordinary man of his time and
+ class. About the only thing we know of him is that he was officially
+ reported for not coming monthly to church. This is good as far as it goes.
+ We can hardly blame him, because at that time Richard Bifield was the
+ minister at Stratford, and an extreme Puritan, one who read the Psalter by
+ Sternhold and Hopkins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church was at one time Catholic, but in John Shakespeare's day it was
+ Puritan, and in 1564, the year of Shakespeare's birth, they had the images
+ defaced. It is greatly to the honor of John Shakespeare that he refused to
+ listen to the "tidings of great joy" as delivered by the Puritan Bifield.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is known of his mother, except her beautiful name&mdash;Mary
+ Arden. In those days but little attention was given to the biographies of
+ women. They were born, married, had children, and died. No matter how
+ celebrated their sons became, the mothers were forgotten. In old times,
+ when a man achieved distinction, great pains were taken to find out about
+ the father and grandfather&mdash;the idea being that genius is inherited
+ from the father's side. The truth is, that all great men have had great
+ mothers. Great women have had, as a rule, great fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mother of Shakespeare was, without doubt, one of the greatest of
+ women. She dowered her son with passion and imagination and the higher
+ qualities of the soul, beyond all other men. It has been said that a man
+ of genius should select his ancestors with great care&mdash;and yet there
+ does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. The children
+ of the great are often small. Pigmies are born in palaces, while over the
+ children of genius is the roof of straw. Most of the great are like
+ mountains, with the valley of ancestors on one side and the depression of
+ posterity on the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his day Shakespeare was of no particular importance. It may be that his
+ mother had some marvelous and prophetic dreams, but Stratford was
+ unconscious of the immortal child. He was never engaged in a reputable
+ business. Socially he occupied a position below servants. The law
+ described him as "a sturdy vagabond." He was neither a noble, a soldier,
+ nor a priest. Among the half-civilized people of England, he who amused
+ and instructed them was regarded as a menial. Kings had their clowns, the
+ people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant.
+ It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. Mozart was
+ patronized by an Archbishop&mdash;lived in the palace,&mdash;but was
+ compelled to eat with the scullions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The composer of divine melodies was not fit to sit by the side of the
+ theologian, who long ago would have been forgotten but for the fame of the
+ composer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know but little of the personal peculiarities, of the daily life, or of
+ what may be called the outward Shakespeare, and it may be fortunate that
+ so little is known. He might have been belittled by friendly fools. What
+ silly stories, what idiotic personal reminiscences, would have been
+ remembered by those who scarcely saw him! We have his best&mdash;his
+ sublimest&mdash;and we have probably lost only the trivial and the
+ worthless. All that is known can be written on a page.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are tolerably certain of the date of his birth, of his marriage and of
+ his death. We think he went to London in 1586, when he was twenty-two
+ years old. We think that three years afterward he was part owner of
+ Blackfriars' Theatre. We have a few signatures, some of which are supposed
+ to be genuine. We know that he bought some land&mdash;that he had two or
+ three law-suits. We know the names of his children. We also know that this
+ incomparable man&mdash;so apart from, and so familiar with, all the world&mdash;lived
+ during his literary life in London&mdash;that he was an actor, dramatist
+ and manager&mdash;that he returned to Stratford, the place of his birth,&mdash;that
+ he gave his writings to negligence, deserted the children of his brain&mdash;that
+ he died on the anniversary of his birth at the age of fifty-two, and that
+ he was buried in the church where the images had been defaced, and that on
+ his tomb was chiseled a rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No letter of his to any human being has been found, and no line written by
+ him can be shown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here let me give my explanation of the epitaph. Shakespeare was an
+ actor&mdash;a disreputable business&mdash;but he made money&mdash;always
+ reputable. He came back from London a rich man. He bought land, and built
+ houses. Some of the supposed great probably treated him with deference.
+ When he died he was buried in the church. Then came a reaction. The pious
+ thought the church had been profaned. They did not feel that the ashes of
+ an actor were fit to lie in holy ground. The people began to say the body
+ ought to be removed. Then it was, as I believe, that Dr. John Hall,
+ Shakespeare's son-in-law, had this epitaph cut on the tomb:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
+ To digg the dust enclosed heare:
+ Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones,
+ And curst be he yt moves my bones."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Certainly Shakespeare could have had no fear that his tomb would be
+ violated. How could it have entered his mind to have put a warning, a
+ threat and a blessing, upon his grave? But the ignorant people of that day
+ were no doubt convinced that the epitaph was the voice of the dead, and so
+ feeling they feared to invade the tomb. In this way the dust was left in
+ peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This epitaph gave me great trouble for years. It puzzled me to explain why
+ he, who erected the intellectual pyramids,&mdash;great ranges of mountains&mdash;should
+ put such a pebble at his tomb. But when I stood beside the grave and read
+ the ignorant words, the explanation I have given flashed upon me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IT has been said that Shakespeare was hardly mentioned by his
+ contemporaries, and that he was substantially unknown. This is a mistake.
+ In 1600 a book was published called <i>England's Parnassus</i>, and it
+ contained ninety extracts from Shakespeare. In the same year was published
+ the <i>Garden of the Muses</i>, containing several pieces from
+ Shakespeare, Chapman, Marston and Ben Jonson. <i>England's Helicon</i> was
+ printed in the same year, and contained poems from Spenser, Greene, Harvey
+ and Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1600 a play was acted at Cambridge, in which Shakespeare was alluded to
+ as follows: "Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare who puts them all down."
+ John Weaver published a book of poems in 1595, in which there was a sonnet
+ to Shakespeare. In 1598 Richard Bamfield wrote a poem to Shakespeare.
+ Francis Meres, "clergyman, master of arts in both universities, compiler
+ of school books," was the author of the <i>Wits Treasury</i>. In this he
+ compares the ancient and modern tragic poets, and mentions Marlowe, Peele,
+ Kyd and Shakespeare. So he compares the writers of comedies, and mentions
+ Lilly, Lodge, Greene and Shakespeare. He speaks of elegiac poets, and
+ names Surrey, Wyatt, Sidney, Raleigh and Shakespeare. He compares the
+ lyric poets, and names Spenser, Drayton, Shakespeare and others. This same
+ writer, speaking of Horace, says that England has Sidney, Shakespeare and
+ others, and that "as the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in
+ Pythagoras, so the sweet-wittie soul of Ovid lives in the mellifluous and
+ honey-tongued Shakespeare." He also says: "If the Muses could speak
+ English, they would speak in Shakespeare's phrase." This was in 1598. In
+ 1607, John Davies alludes in a poem to Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course we are all familiar with what rare Ben Jonson wrote. Henry
+ Chettle took Shakespeare to task because he wrote nothing on the death of
+ Queen Elizabeth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be wonderful that he was not better known. But is it not wonderful
+ that he gained the reputation that he did in so short a time, and that
+ twelve years after he began to write he stood at least with the first?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ BUT there is a wonderful fact connected with the writings of Shakespeare:
+ In the Plays there is no direct mention of any of his contemporaries. We
+ do not know of any poet, author, soldier, sailor, statesman, priest,
+ nobleman, king, or queen, that Shakespeare directly mentioned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not marvelous that he, living in an age of great deeds, of
+ adventures in far-off lands and unknown seas&mdash;in a time of religious
+ wars&mdash;in the days of the Armada&mdash;the massacre of St. Bartholomew&mdash;the
+ Edict of Nantes&mdash;the assassination of Henry III.&mdash;the victory of
+ Lepanto&mdash;the execution of Marie Stuart&mdash;did not mention the name
+ of any man or woman of his time? Some have insisted that the paragraph
+ ending with the lines: "The imperial votress passed on in maiden
+ meditation fancy-free," referred to Queen Elizabeth; but it is impossible
+ for me to believe that the daubed and wrinkled face, the small black eyes,
+ the cruel nose, the thin lips, the bad teeth, and the red wig of Queen
+ Elizabeth could by any possibility have inspired these marvelous lines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly apparent from Shakespeare's writings that he knew but
+ little of the nobility, little of kings and queens. He gives to these
+ supposed great people great thoughts, and puts great words in their mouths
+ and makes them speak&mdash;not as they really did&mdash;but as Shakespeare
+ thought such people should. This demonstrates that he did not know them
+ personally.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some have insisted that Shakespeare mentions Queen Elizabeth in the last
+ scene of Henry VIII. The answer to this is that Shakespeare did not write
+ the last scene in that Play. The probability is that Fletcher was the
+ author.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare lived during the great awakening of the world, when Europe
+ emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, when the discovery of
+ America had made England, that blossom of the Gulf-Stream, the centre of
+ commerce, and during a period when some of the greatest writers, thinkers,
+ soldiers and discoverers were produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cervantes was born in 1547, dying on the same day that Shakespeare died.
+ He was undoubtedly the greatest writer that Spain has produced. Rubens was
+ born in 1577. Camoens, the Portuguese, the author of the <i>Lusiad</i>,
+ died in 1597. Giordano Bruno&mdash;greatest of martyrs&mdash;was born in
+ 1548&mdash;visited London in Shakespeare's time&mdash;delivered lectures
+ at Oxford, and called that institution "the widow of learning." Drake
+ circled the globe in 1580. Galileo was born in 1564&mdash;the same year
+ with Shakespeare. Michael Angelo died in 1563. Kepler&mdash;he of the
+ Three Laws&mdash;born in 1571. Calderon, the Spanish dramatist, born in
+ 1601. Corneille, the French poet, in 1606. Rembrandt, greatest of
+ painters, 1607. Shakespeare was born in 1564. In that year John Calvin
+ died. What a glorious exchange!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventy-two years after the discovery of America Shakespeare was born, and
+ England was filled with the voyages and discoveries written by Hakluyt,
+ and the wonders that had been seen by Raleigh, by Drake, by Frobisher and
+ Hawkins. London had become the centre of the world, and representatives
+ from all known countries were in the new metropolis. The world had been
+ doubled. The imagination had been touched and kindled by discovery. In the
+ far horizon were unknown lands, strange shores beyond untraversed seas.
+ Toward every part of the world were turned the prows of adventure. All
+ these things fanned the imagination into flame, and this had its effect
+ upon the literary and dramatic world. And yet Shakespeare&mdash;the master
+ spirit of mankind&mdash;in the midst of these discoveries, of these
+ adventures, mentioned no navigator, no general, no discoverer, no
+ philosopher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Galileo was reading the open volume of the sky, but Shakespeare did not
+ mention him. This to me is the most marvelous thing connected with this
+ most marvelous man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time England was prosperous&mdash;was then laying the foundation
+ of her future greatness and power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When men are prosperous, they are in love with life. Nature grows
+ beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and
+ sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected&mdash;and this life with
+ which men are in love, is represented in a thousand forms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature, or Fate, or Chance prepared a stage for Shakespeare, and
+ Shakespeare prepared a stage for Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Famine and faith go together. In disaster and want the gaze of man is
+ fixed upon another world. He that eats a crust has a creed. Hunger falls
+ upon its knees, and heaven, looked for through tears, is the mirage of
+ misery. But prosperity brings joy and wealth and leisure&mdash;and the
+ beautiful is born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the effects of the world's awakening was Shakespeare. We account
+ for this man as we do for the highest mountain, the greatest river, the
+ most perfect gem. We can only say: He was.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "It hath been taught us from the primal state
+ That he which is was wished until he were."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN Shakespeare's time the actor was a vagabond, the dramatist a
+ disreputable person&mdash;and yet the greatest dramas were then written.
+ In spite of law, and social ostracism, Shakespeare reared the many-colored
+ dome that fills and glorifies the intellectual heavens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now the whole civilized world believes in the theatre&mdash;asks for some
+ great dramatist&mdash;is hungry for a play worthy of the century, is
+ anxious to give gold and fame to any one who can worthily put our age upon
+ the stage&mdash;and yet no great play has been written since Shakespeare
+ died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. He did not seek to put his
+ characters in a position where it was right to do wrong. He was sound and
+ healthy to the centre. It never occurred to him to write a play in which a
+ wife's lover should be jealous of her husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was in his blood the courage of his thought. He was true to himself
+ and enjoyed the perfect freedom of the highest art. He did not write
+ according to rules&mdash;but smaller men make rules from what he wrote.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How fortunate that Shakespeare was not educated at Oxford&mdash;that the
+ winged god within him never knelt to the professor. How fortunate that
+ this giant was not captured, tied and tethered by the literary
+ Lilliputians of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an idealist. He did not&mdash;like most writers of our time&mdash;take
+ refuge in the real, hiding a lack of genius behind a pretended love of
+ truth. All realities are not poetic, or dramatic, or even worth knowing.
+ The real sustains the same relation to the ideal that a stone does to a
+ statue&mdash;or that paint does to a painting. Realism degrades and
+ impoverishes. In no event can a realist be more than an imitator and
+ copyist. According to the realist's philosophy, the wax that receives and
+ retains an image is an artist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare did not rely on the stage-carpenter, or the scenic painter. He
+ put his scenery in his lines. There you will find mountains and rivers and
+ seas, valleys and cliffs, violets and clouds, and over all "the firmament
+ fretted with gold and fire." He cared little for plot, little for
+ surprise. He did not rely on stage effects, or red fire. The plays grow
+ before your eyes, and they come as the morning comes. Plot surprises but
+ once. There must be something in a play besides surprise. Plot in an
+ author is a kind of strategy&mdash;that is to say, a sort of cunning, and
+ cunning does not belong to the highest natures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in Shakespeare such a wealth of thought that the plot becomes
+ almost immaterial&mdash;and such is this wealth that you can hardly know
+ the play&mdash;there is too much. After you have heard it again and again,
+ it seems as pathless as an untrodden forest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He belonged to all lands. "Timon of Athens" is as Greek as any tragedy of
+ Eschylus. "Julius C&aelig;sar" and "Coriolanus" are perfect Roman, and as
+ you read, the mighty ruins rise and the Eternal City once again becomes
+ the mistress of the world. No play is more Egyptian than "Antony and
+ Cleopatra"&mdash;the Nile runs through it, the shadows of the pyramids
+ fall upon it, and from its scenes the Sphinx gazes forever on the
+ outstretched sands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In "Lear" is the true pagan spirit. "Romeo and Juliet" is Italian&mdash;everything
+ is sudden, love bursts into immediate flower, and in every scene is the
+ climate of the land of poetry and passion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reason of this is that Shakespeare dealt with elemental things, with
+ universal man. He knew that locality colors without changing, and that in
+ all surroundings the human heart is substantially the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not all the poetry written before his time would make his sum&mdash;not
+ all that has been written since, added to all that was written before,
+ would equal his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was nothing within the range of human thought, within the horizon of
+ intellectual effort, that he did not touch. He knew the brain and heart of
+ man&mdash;the theories, customs, superstitions, hopes, fears, hatreds,
+ vices and virtues of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew the thrills and ecstasies of love, the savage joys of hatred and
+ revenge. He heard the hiss of envy's snakes and watched the eagles of
+ ambition soar. There was no hope that did not put its star above his head&mdash;no
+ fear he had not felt&mdash;no joy that had not shed its sunshine on his
+ face. He experienced the emotions of mankind. He was the intellectual
+ spendthrift of the world. He gave with the generosity, the extravagance,
+ of madness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Read one play, and you are impressed with the idea that the wealth of the
+ brain of a god has been exhausted&mdash;that there are no more
+ comparisons, no more passions to be expressed, no more definitions, no
+ more philosophy, beauty, or sublimity to be put in words&mdash;and yet,
+ the next play opens as fresh as the dewy gates of another day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The outstretched wings of his imagination filled the sky. He was the
+ intellectual crown o' the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE plays of Shakespeare show so much knowledge, thought and learning,
+ that many people&mdash;those who imagine that universities furnish
+ capacity&mdash;contend that Bacon must have been the author.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know Bacon. We know that he was a scheming politician, a courtier, a
+ time-server of church and king, and a corrupt judge. We know that he never
+ admitted the truth of the Copernican system&mdash;that he was doubtful
+ whether instruments were of any advantage in scientific investigation&mdash;that
+ he was ignorant of the higher branches of mathematics, and that, as a
+ matter of fact, he added but little to the knowledge of the world. When he
+ was more than sixty years of age he turned his attention to poetry, and
+ dedicated his verses to George Herbert.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you will read these verses you will say that the author of "Lear" and
+ "Hamlet" did not write them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bacon dedicated his work on the <i>Advancement of Learning, Divine and
+ Human</i>, to James I., and in his dedication he stated that there had not
+ been, since the time of Christ, any king or monarch so learned in all
+ erudition, divine or human. He placed James the First before Marcus
+ Aurelius and all other kings and emperors since Christ, and concluded by
+ saying that James the First had "the power and fortune of a king, the
+ illumination of a priest, the learning and universality of a philosopher."
+ This was written of James the First, described by Macaulay as a
+ "stammering, slobbering, trembling coward, whose writings were deformed by
+ the grossest and vilest superstitions&mdash;witches being the special
+ objects of his fear, his hatred, and his persecution."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to have been taken for granted that if Shakespeare was not the
+ author of the great dramas, Lord Bacon must have been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been claimed that Bacon was the greatest philosopher of his time.
+ And yet in reading his works we find that there was in his mind a strange
+ mingling of foolishness and philosophy. He takes pains to tell us, and to
+ write it down for the benefit of posterity, that "snow is colder than
+ water, because it hath more spirit in it, and that quicksilver is the
+ coldest of all metals, because it is the fullest of spirit."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stated that he hardly believed that you could contract air by putting
+ opium on top of the weather glass, and gave the following reason:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I conceive that opium and the like make spirits fly rather by malignity
+ than by cold."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This great philosopher gave the following recipe for staunching blood:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thrust the part that bleedeth into the body of a capon, new ripped and
+ bleeding. This will staunch the blood. The blood, as it seemeth, sucking
+ and drawing up by similitude of substance the blood it meeteth with, and
+ so itself going back."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The philosopher also records this important fact: "Divers witches among
+ heathen and Christians have fed upon man's flesh to aid, as it seemeth,
+ their imagination with high and foul vapors."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lord Bacon was not only a philosopher, but he was a biologist, as appears
+ from the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "As for living creatures, it is certain that their vital spirits are a
+ substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter, and although air and
+ flame being free will not mingle, yet bound in by a body that hath some
+ fixing, will."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then the inventor of deduction reasons by analogy. He says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "As snow and ice holpen, and their cold activated by nitre or salt, will
+ turn water into ice, so it may be it will turn wood or stiff clay into
+ stone."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bacon seems to have been a believer in the transmutation of metals, and
+ solemnly gives a formula for changing silver or copper into gold. He also
+ believed in the transmutation of plants, and had arrived at such a height
+ in entomology that he informed the world that "insects have no blood."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed that he was a great observer, and as evidence of this he
+ recorded the wonderful fact that "tobacco cut and dried by the fire loses
+ weight" that "bears in the winter wax fat in sleep, though they eat
+ nothing" that "tortoises have no bones" that "there is a kind of stone, if
+ ground and put in water where cattle drink, the cows will give more milk"
+ that "it is hard to cure a hurt in a Frenchman's head, but easy in his
+ leg;" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in an Englishman's leg, but easy in
+ his head;" that "wounds made with brass weapons are easier to cure than
+ those made with iron;" that "lead will multiply and increase, as in
+ statues buried in the ground" and that "the rainbow touching anything
+ causeth a sweet smell."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bacon seems also to have turned his attention to ornithology, and says
+ that "eggs laid in the full of the moon breed better birds," and that "you
+ can make swallows white by putting ointment on the eggs before they are
+ hatched."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also informs us "that witches cannot hurt kings as easily as they can
+ common people" that "perfumes dry and strengthen the brain" that "any one
+ in the moment of triumph can be injured by another who casts an envious
+ eye, and the injury is greatest when the envious glance comes from the
+ oblique eye."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lord Bacon also turned his attention to medicine, and he states that
+ "bracelets made of snakes are good for curing cramps" that "the skin of a
+ wolf might cure the colic, because a wolf has great digestion" that
+ "eating the roasted brains of hens and hares strengthens the memory" that
+ "if a woman about to become a mother eats a good many quinces and
+ considerable coriander seed, the child will be ingenious," and that "the
+ moss which groweth on the skull of an unburied dead man is good for
+ staunching blood."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He expresses doubt, however, "as to whether you can cure a wound by
+ putting ointment on the weapon that caused the wound, instead of on the
+ wound itself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed by the advocates of the Baconian theory that their hero
+ stood at the top of science; and yet "it is absolutely certain that he was
+ ignorant of the law of the acceleration of falling bodies, although the
+ law had been made known and printed by Galileo thirty years before Bacon
+ wrote upon the subject. Neither did this great man understand the
+ principle of the lever. He was not acquainted with the precession of the
+ equinoxes, and as a matter of fact was ill-read in those branches of
+ learning in which, in his time, the most rapid progress had been made."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After Kepler discovered his third law, which was on the 15th of May, 1618,
+ Bacon was more than ever opposed to the Copernican system. This great man
+ was far behind his own time, not only in astronomy, but in mathematics. In
+ the preface to the "De-scriptio Globi Intellectualis," it is admitted
+ either that Bacon had never heard of the correction of the parallax, or
+ was unable to understand it. He complained on account of the want of some
+ method for shortening mathematical calculations; and yet "Napier's
+ Logarithms" had been printed nine years before the date of his complaint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He attempted to form a table of specific gravities by a rude process of
+ his own, a process that no one has ever followed; and he did this in spite
+ of the fact that a far better method existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have the right to compare what Bacon wrote with what it is claimed
+ Shakespeare produced. I call attention to one thing&mdash;to Bacon's
+ opinion of human love. It is this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. As to the
+ stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies, but
+ in life it doth much mischief&mdash;sometimes like a siren, sometimes like
+ a fury. Amongst all the great and worthy persons there is not one that
+ hath been transported to the mad degree of love, which shows that great
+ spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The author of "Romeo and Juliet" never wrote that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems certain that the author of the wondrous Plays was one of the
+ noblest of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see what sense of honor Bacon had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In writing commentaries on certain passages of Scripture, Lord Bacon tells
+ a courtier, who has committed some offence, how to get back into the
+ graces of his prince or king. Among other things he tells him not to
+ appear too cheerful, but to assume a very grave and modest face; not to
+ bring the matter up himself; to be extremely industrious, so that the
+ prince will see that it is hard to get along without him; also to get his
+ friends to tell the prince or king how badly he, the courtier, feels; and
+ then he says, all these failing, "let him contrive to transfer the fault
+ to others."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is true that we know but little of Shakespeare, and consequently do not
+ positively know that he did not have the ability to write the Plays&mdash;but
+ we do know Bacon, and we know that he could not have written these Plays&mdash;consequently,
+ they must have been written by a comparatively unknown man&mdash;that is
+ to say, by a man who was known by no other writings. The fact that we do
+ not know Shakespeare, except through the Plays and Sonnets, makes it
+ possible for us to believe that he was the author.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people have imagined that the Plays were written by several&mdash;but
+ this only increases the wonder, and adds a useless burden to credulity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bacon published in his time all the writings that he claimed. Naturally,
+ he would have claimed his best. Is it possible that Bacon left the
+ wondrous children of his brain on the door-step of Shakespeare, and kept
+ the deformed ones at home? Is it possible that he fathered the failures
+ and deserted the perfect?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, it is wonderful that so little has been found touching
+ Shakespeare&mdash;but is it not equally wonderful, if Bacon was the
+ author, that not a line has been found in all his papers, containing a
+ suggestion, or a hint, that he was the writer of these Plays? Is it not
+ wonderful that no fragment of any scene&mdash;no line&mdash;no word&mdash;has
+ been found?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some have insisted that Bacon kept the authorship secret because it was
+ disgraceful to write Plays. This argument does not cover the Sonnets&mdash;and
+ besides, one who had been stripped of the robes of office for receiving
+ bribes as a judge, could have borne the additional disgrace of having
+ written "Hamlet." The fact that Bacon did not claim to be the author,
+ demonstrates that he was not. Shakespeare claimed to be the author, and no
+ one in his time or day denied the claim. This demonstrates that he was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bacon published his works, and said to the world: This is what I have
+ done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose you found in a cemetery a monument erected to John Smith, inventor
+ of the Smith-churn, and suppose you were told that Mr. Smith provided for
+ the monument in his will, and dictated the inscription&mdash;would it be
+ possible to convince you that Mr. Smith was also the inventor of the
+ locomotive and telegraph?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bacon's best can be compared with Shakespeare's common, but Shakespeare's
+ best rises above Bacon's best, like a domed temple above a beggar's hut.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ OF course it is admitted that there were many dramatists before and during
+ the time of Shakespeare&mdash;but they were only the foot hills of that
+ mighty peak the top of which the clouds and mists still hide. Chapman and
+ Marlowe, Heywood and Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher wrote some
+ great lines, and in the monotony of declamation now and then is found a
+ strain of genuine music&mdash;but all of them together constituted only a
+ herald of Shakespeare. In all these Plays there is but a hint, a prophecy,
+ of the great drama destined to revolutionize the poetic thought of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare was the greatest of poets. What Greece and Rome produced was
+ great until his time. "Lions make leopards tame."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great poet is a great artist. He is painter and sculptor. The greatest
+ pictures and statues have been painted and chiseled with words. They
+ outlast all others. All the galleries of the world are poor and cheap
+ compared with the statues and pictures in Shakespeare's book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Language is made of pictures represented by sounds. The outer world is a
+ dictionary of the mind, and the artist called the soul uses this
+ dictionary of things to express what happens in the noiseless and
+ invisible world of thought. First a sound represents something in the
+ outer world, and afterwards something in the inner, and this sound at last
+ is represented by a mark, and this mark stands for a picture, and every
+ brain is a gallery, and the artists&mdash;that is to say, the souls&mdash;exchange
+ pictures and statues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All art is of the same parentage. The poet uses words&mdash;makes pictures
+ and statues of sounds. The sculptor expresses harmony, proportion,
+ passion, in marble; the composer, in music; the painter in form and color.
+ The dramatist expresses himself not only in words, not only paints these
+ pictures, but he expresses his thought in action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare was not only a poet, but a dramatist, and expressed the ideal,
+ the poetic, not only in words, but in action. There are the wit, the
+ humor, the pathos, the tragedy of situation, of relation. The dramatist
+ speaks and acts through others&mdash;his personality is lost. The poet
+ lives in the world of thought and feeling, and to this the dramatist adds
+ the world of action. He creates characters that seem to act in accordance
+ with their own natures and independently of him. He compresses lives into
+ hours, tells us the secrets of the heart, shows us the springs of action&mdash;how
+ desire bribes the judgment and corrupts the will&mdash;how weak the reason
+ is when passion pleads, and how grand it is to stand for right against the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not enough to say fine things,&mdash;great things, dramatic things,
+ must be done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give you an illustration of dramatic incident accompanying the
+ highest form of poetic expression:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Macbeth having returned from the murder of Duncan says to his wife:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Methought I heard a voice cry: Sleep no more,
+ Macbeth does murder sleep; the innocent sleep;
+ Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
+ The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
+ Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
+ Chief nourisher in life's feast."...
+
+ "Still it cried: Sleep no more, to all the house,
+ Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
+ Shall sleep no more&mdash;Macbeth shall sleep no more."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ She exclaims:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Who was it that thus cried?
+ Why, worthy Thane, you do unbend your noble strength
+ To think so brain-sickly of things; get some water,
+ And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
+ Why did you bring the daggers from the place?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Macbeth was so overcome with horror at his own deed, that he not only
+ mistook his thoughts for the words of others, but was so carried away and
+ beyond himself that he brought with him the daggers&mdash;the evidence of
+ his guilt&mdash;the daggers that he should have left with the dead. This
+ is dramatic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the same play, the difference of feeling before and after the
+ commission of a crime is illustrated to perfection. When Macbeth is on his
+ way to assassinate the king, the bell strikes, and he says, or whispers:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Afterward, when the deed has been committed, and a knocking is heard at
+ the gate, he cries:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Let me give one more instance of dramatic action. When Antony speaks above
+ the body of C&aelig;sar he says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "You all do know this mantle:
+ I remember The first time ever C&aelig;sar put it on&mdash;
+ 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
+ That day he overcame the Nervii:
+ Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through:
+ See what a rent the envious Casca made!
+ Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed,
+ And as he plucked his cursed steel away,
+ Mark how the blood of C&aelig;sar followed it."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THERE are men, and many of them, who are always trying to show that
+ somebody else chiseled the statue or painted the picture,&mdash;that the
+ poem is attributed to the wrong man, and that the battle was really won by
+ a subordinate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course Shakespeare made use of the work of others&mdash;and, we might
+ almost say, of all others. Every writer must use the work of others. The
+ only question is, how the accomplishments of other minds are used, whether
+ as a foundation to build higher, or whether stolen to the end that the
+ thief may make a reputation for himself, without adding to the great
+ structure of literature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of people have stolen stones from the Coliseum to make huts for
+ themselves. So thousands of writers have taken the thoughts of others with
+ which to adorn themselves. These are plagiarists. But the man who takes
+ the thought of another, adds to it, gives it intensity and poetic form,
+ throb and life,&mdash;is in the highest sense original.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare found nearly all of his facts in the writings of others, and
+ was indebted to others for most of the stories of his plays. The question
+ is not: Who furnished the stone, or who owned the quarry, but who chiseled
+ the statue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know all the books that Shakespeare could have read, and
+ consequently know many of the sources of his information. We find in
+ Pliny's <i>Natural History</i>, published in 1601, the following: "The sea
+ Pontis evermore floweth and runneth out into the Propontis; but the sea
+ never retireth back again with the Impontis." This was the raw material,
+ and out of it Shakespeare made the following:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Like to the Pontic Sea,
+ Whose icy current and compulsive course
+ Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
+ To the Propontic and the Hellespont&mdash;
+ Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
+ Shall ne'er turn back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
+ Till that a capable and wide revenge Swallow them up."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Perhaps we can give an idea of the difference between Shakespeare and
+ other poets, by a passage from "Lear." When Cordelia places her hand upon
+ her father's head and speaks of the night and of the storm, an ordinary
+ poet might have said:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "On such a night, a dog
+ Should have stood against my fire."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ A very great poet might have gone a step further and exclaimed:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "On such a night, mine enemy's dog
+ Should have stood against my fire."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ But Shakespeare said:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me,
+ Should have stood, that night, against my fire."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Of all the poets&mdash;of all the writers&mdash;Shakespeare is the most
+ original. He is as original as Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may truthfully be said that "Nature wants stuff to vie strange forms
+ with fancy, to make another."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THERE is in the greatest poetry a kind of extravagance that touches the
+ infinite, and in this Shakespeare exceeds all others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will remember the description given of the voyage of Paris in search
+ of Helen:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The seas and winds, old wranglers, made a truce,
+ And did him service; he touched the ports desired,
+ And for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive,
+ He brought a Grecian queen whose youth and freshness
+ Wrinkles Apollo, and makes stale the morning."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ So, in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O Helicanus! strike me, honored sir;
+ Give me a gash, put me to present pain,
+ Lest this great sea of joys, rushing upon me,
+ O'erbear the shores of my mortality."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is
+ this line:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Eyes that do mislead the morn."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic. In that marvelous play,
+ the "Midsummer Night's Dream," is one of the most extravagant things in
+ literature:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory,
+ And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
+ Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
+ That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
+ And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
+ To hear the sea-maid's music."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ This is so marvelously told that it almost seems probable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the description of Mark Antony:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "For his bounty
+ There was no winter in't&mdash;an autumn t'was
+ That grew the more by reaping.
+
+ His delights
+ Were dolphin-like&mdash;they showed his back above
+ The element they lived in."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Think of the astronomical scope and amplitude of this:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Her bed is India&mdash;there she lies a pearl."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything more intense than these words of Cleopatra?
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Rather on Nilus mud lay me stark naked
+ And let the water-flies blow me into abhorring."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Or this of Isabella:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
+ And strip myself to death as to a bed
+ That longing I've been sick for, ere I yield
+ My body up to shame."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Is there an intellectual man in the world who will not agree with this?
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Let me not live
+ After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
+ Of younger spirits."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Can anything exceed the words of Troilus when parting with Cressida:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "We two, that with so many thousand sighs
+ Did buy each other, most poorly sell ourselves
+ With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
+ Injurious time now with a robber's haste
+ Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how;
+ As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
+ With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them,
+ He fumbles up into a loos'e adieu,
+ And scants us with a single famished kiss,
+ Distasted with the salt of broken tears."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Take this example, where pathos almost touches the grotesque.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair?
+ Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous,
+ And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps thee here.
+ I' the dark, to be his paramour?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Often when reading the marvelous lines of Shakespeare, I feel that his
+ thoughts are "too subtle potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, for the
+ capacity of my ruder powers." Sometimes I cry out, "O churl!&mdash;write
+ all, and leave no thoughts for those who follow after."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SHAKESPEARE was an innovator, an iconoclast. He cared nothing for the
+ authority of men or of schools. He violated the "unities," and cared
+ nothing for the models of the ancient world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Greeks insisted that nothing should be in a play that did not tend to
+ the catastrophe. They did not believe in the episode&mdash;in the sudden
+ contrasts of light and shade&mdash;in mingling the comic and the tragic.
+ The sunlight never fell upon their tears, and darkness did not overtake
+ their laughter. They believed that nature sympathized or was in harmony
+ with the events of the play. When crime was about to be committed&mdash;some
+ horror to be perpetrated&mdash;the light grew dim, the wind sighed, the
+ trees shivered, and upon all was the shadow of the coming event.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare knew that the play had little to do with the tides and
+ currents of universal life&mdash;that Nature cares neither for smiles nor
+ tears, for life nor death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins as
+ on cradles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first time I visited the Place de la Concorde, where during the French
+ Revolution stood the guillotine, and where now stands an Egyptian obelisk&mdash;a
+ bird, sitting on the top, was singing with all its might.&mdash;Nature
+ forgets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the most notable instances of the violation by Shakespeare of the
+ classic model, is found in the 6th scene of the I. Act of Macbeth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the King and Banquo approach the castle in which the King is to be
+ murdered that night, no shadow falls athwart the threshold. So beautiful
+ is the scene that the King says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
+ Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
+ Unto our gentle senses."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And Banquo adds:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "This guest of summer,
+ The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
+ By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
+ Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,
+ Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
+ Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.
+ Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
+ The air is delicate."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Another notable instance is the porter scene immediately following the
+ murder. So, too, the dialogue with the clown who brings the asp to
+ Cleopatra just before the suicide, illustrates my meaning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know of one paragraph in the Greek drama worthy of Shakespeare. This is
+ in "Medea." When Medea kills her children she curses Jason, using the
+ ordinary Billingsgate and papal curse, but at the conclusion says: "I pray
+ the gods to make him virtuous, that he may the more deeply feel the pang
+ that I inflict."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare dealt in lights and shadows. He was intense. He put noons and
+ midnights side by side. No other dramatist would have dreamed of adding to
+ the pathos&mdash;of increasing our appreciation of Lear's agony, by
+ supplementing the wail of the mad king with the mocking laughter of a
+ loving clown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE ordinary dramatists&mdash;the men of talent&mdash;(and there is the
+ same difference between talent and genius that there is between a
+ stone-mason and a sculptor) create characters that become types. Types are
+ of necessity caricatures&mdash;actual men and women are to some extent
+ contradictory in their actions. Types are blown in the one direction by
+ the one wind&mdash;characters have pilots.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In real people, good and evil mingle. Types are all one way, or all the
+ other&mdash;all good, or all bad, all wise, or all foolish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pecksniff was a perfect type, a perfect hypocrite&mdash;and will remain a
+ type as long as language lives&mdash;a hypocrite that even drunkenness
+ could not change. Everybody understands Pecksniff, and compared with him
+ Tartuffe was an honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hamlet is an individual, a person, an actual being&mdash;and for that
+ reason there is a difference of opinion as to his motives and as to his
+ character. We differ about Hamlet as we do about C&aelig;sar, or about
+ Shakespeare himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hamlet saw the ghost of his father and heard again his fathers voice, and
+ yet, afterward, he speaks of "the undiscovered country from whose bourne
+ no traveler returns."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this there is no contradiction. The reason outweighs the senses. If we
+ should see a dead man rise from his grave, we would not, the next day,
+ believe that we did. No one can credit a miracle until it becomes so
+ common that it ceases to be miraculous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Types are puppets&mdash;controlled from without&mdash;characters act from
+ within. There is the same difference between characters and types that
+ there is between springs and water-works, between canals and rivers,
+ between wooden soldiers and heroes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In most plays and in most novels the characters are so shadowy that we
+ have to piece them out with the imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One waking in the morning sometimes sees at the foot of his bed a strange
+ figure&mdash;it may be of an ancient lady with cap and ruffles and with
+ the expression of garrulous and fussy old age&mdash;but when the light
+ gets stronger, the figure gradually changes and he sees a few clothes on a
+ chair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dramatist lives the lives of others, and in order to delineate
+ character must not only have imagination but sympathy with the character
+ delineated. The great dramatist thinks of a character as an entirety, as
+ an individual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I once had a dream, and in this dream I was discussing a subject with
+ another man. It occurred to me that I was dreaming, and I then said to
+ myself: If this is a dream, I am doing the talking for both sides&mdash;consequently
+ I ought to know in advance what the other man is going to say. In my dream
+ I tried the experiment. I then asked the other man a question, and before
+ he answered made up my mind what the answer was to be. To my surprise, the
+ man did not say what I expected he would, and so great was my astonishment
+ that I awoke.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It then occurred to me that I had discovered the secret of Shakespeare. He
+ did, when awake, what I did when asleep&mdash;that is, he threw off a
+ character so perfect that it acted independently of him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the delineation of character Shakespeare has no rivals. He creates no
+ monsters. His characters do not act without reason, without motive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Iago had his reasons. In Caliban, nature was not destroyed&mdash;and Lady
+ Macbeth certifies that the woman still was in her heart, by saying:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare's characters act from within. They are centres of energy. They
+ are not pushed by unseen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. They have
+ objects, desires. They are persons&mdash;real, living beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Few dramatists succeed in getting their characters loose from the canvas&mdash;their
+ backs stick to the wall&mdash;they do not have free and independent action&mdash;they
+ have no background, no unexpressed motives&mdash;no untold desires. They
+ lack the complexity of the real.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare makes the character true to itself. Christopher Sly,
+ surrounded by the luxuries of a lord, true to his station, calls for a pot
+ of the smallest ale.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take one expression by Lady Macbeth. You remember that after the murder is
+ discovered&mdash;after the alarm bell is rung&mdash;she appears upon the
+ scene wanting to know what has happened. Macduff refuses to tell her,
+ saying that the slightest word would murder as it fell. At this moment
+ Banquo comes upon the scene and Macduff cries out to him:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Our royal master's murdered."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ What does Lady Macbeth then say? She in fact makes a confession of guilt.
+ The weak point in the terrible tragedy is that Duncan was murdered in
+ Macbeth's castle. So when Lady Macbeth hears what they suppose is news to
+ her, she cries:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "What! In our house!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Had she been innocent, her horror of the crime would have made her forget
+ the place&mdash;the venue. Banquo sees through this, and sees through her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Her expression was a light, by which he saw her guilt&mdash;and he
+ answers:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Too cruel anywhere."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ No matter whether Shakespeare delineated clown or king, warrior or maiden&mdash;no
+ matter whether his characters are taken from the gutter or the throne&mdash;each
+ is a work of consummate art, and when he is unnatural, he is so splendid
+ that the defect is forgotten.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Romeo is told of the death of Juliet, and thereupon makes up his mind
+ to die upon her grave, he gives a description of the shop where poison
+ could be purchased. He goes into particulars and tells of the alligators
+ stuffed, of the skins of ill-shaped fishes, of the beggarly account of
+ empty boxes, of the remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes of roses&mdash;and
+ while it is hardly possible to believe that under such circumstances a man
+ would take the trouble to make an inventory of a strange kind of
+ drug-store, yet the inventory is so perfect&mdash;the picture is so
+ marvelously drawn&mdash;that we forget to think whether it is natural or
+ not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In making the frame of a great picture&mdash;of a great scene&mdash;Shakespeare
+ was often careless, but the picture is perfect. In making the sides of the
+ arch he was negligent, but when he placed the keystone, it burst into
+ blossom. Of course there are many lines in Shakespeare that never should
+ have been written. In other words, there are imperfections in his plays.
+ But we must remember that Shakespeare furnished the torch that enables us
+ to see these imperfections.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare speaks through his characters, and we must not mistake what
+ the characters say, for the opinion of Shakespeare. No one can believe
+ that Shakespeare regarded life as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound
+ and fury, signifying nothing." That was the opinion of a murderer,
+ surrounded by avengers, and whose wife&mdash;partner in his crimes&mdash;troubled
+ with thick-coming fancies&mdash;had gone down to her death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most actors and writers seem to suppose that the lines called "The Seven
+ Ages" contain Shakespeare's view of human life. Nothing could be further
+ from the truth. The lines were uttered by a cynic, in contempt and scorn
+ of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare did not put his characters in the livery and uniform of some
+ weakness, peculiarity or passion. He did not use names as tags or brands.
+ He did not write under the picture, "This is a villain." His characters
+ need no suggestive names to tell us what they are&mdash;we see them and we
+ know them for ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that in the greatest utterances of the greatest characters in
+ the supreme moments, we have the real thoughts, opinions and convictions
+ of Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all writers Shakespeare is the most impersonal. He speaks through
+ others, and the others seem to speak for themselves. The didactic is lost
+ in the dramatic. He does not use the stage as a pulpit to enforce some
+ maxim. He is as reticent as Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He idealizes the common and transfigures all he touches&mdash;but he does
+ not preach. He was interested in men and things as they were. He did not
+ seek to change them&mdash;but to portray. He was Natures mirror&mdash;and
+ in that mirror Nature saw herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I stood amid the great trees of California that lift their spreading
+ capitals against the clouds, looking like Nature's columns to support the
+ sky, I thought of the poetry of Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THAT a procession of men and women&mdash;statesmen and warriors&mdash;kings
+ and clowns&mdash;issued from Shakespeare's brain! What women!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Isabella</i>&mdash;in whose spotless life love and reason blended into
+ perfect truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Juliet</i>&mdash;within whose heart passion and purity met like white
+ and red within the bosom of a rose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Cordelia</i>&mdash;who chose to suffer loss, rather than show her
+ wealth of love with those who gilded lies in hope of gain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Hermione</i>&mdash;"tender as infancy and grace"&mdash;who bore with
+ perfect hope and faith the cross of shame, and who at last forgave with
+ all her heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Desdemona</i>&mdash;so innocent, so perfect, her love so pure, that she
+ was incapable of suspecting that another could suspect, and who with dying
+ words sought to hide her lover's crime&mdash;and with her last faint
+ breath uttered a loving lie that burst into a perfumed lily between her
+ pallid lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Perdita</i>&mdash;"a violet dim, and sweeter than the lids of Juno's
+ eyes"&mdash;"The sweetest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward."
+ And
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Helena</i>&mdash;who said:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I know I love in vain, strive against hope&mdash;
+ Yet in this captious and intenable sieve
+ I still pour in the waters of my love,
+ And lack not to lose still,
+ Thus, Indian-like,
+ Religious in mine error, I adore
+ The sun that looks upon his worshiper,
+ But knows of him no more."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Miranda</i>&mdash;who told her love as gladly as a flower gives its
+ bosom to the kisses of the sun. And <i>Cordelia</i>&mdash;whose kisses
+ cured and whose tears restored. And stainless
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Imogen</i>&mdash;who cried: "What is it to be false?" And here is the
+ description of the perfect woman:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
+ To keep her constancy in plight and youth&mdash;
+ Outliving beauty's outward with a mind
+ That doth renew swifter than blood decays."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare has done more for woman than all the other dramatists of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I love the Clowns. I love <i>Launce</i> and his dog Crabb,
+ and <i>Gobbo</i>, whose conscience threw its arms around the neck of his
+ heart, and <i>Touchstone</i>, with his lie seven times removed; and dear
+ old <i>Dogberry</i>&mdash;a pretty piece of flesh, tedious as a king. And
+ <i>Bottom</i>, the very paramour for a sweet voice, longing to take the
+ part to tear a cat in; and <i>Autolycus</i>, the snapper-up of
+ unconsidered trifles, sleeping out the thought for the life to come. And
+ great <i>Sir John</i>, without conscience, and for that reason unblamed
+ and enjoyed&mdash;and who at the end babbles of green fields, and is
+ almost loved. And ancient <i>Pistol</i>, the world his oyster. And <i>Bardolph</i>,
+ with the flea on his blazing nose, putting beholders in mind of a damned
+ soul in hell. And the poor <i>Pool</i>, who followed the mad king, and
+ went "to bed at noon." And the clown who carried the worm of Nilus, whose
+ "biting was immortal." And <i>Corin</i>, the shepherd&mdash;who described
+ the perfect man: "I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat&mdash;get that I
+ wear&mdash;owe no man aught&mdash;envy no man's happiness&mdash;glad of
+ other men's good&mdash;content."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And mingling in this motley throng, Lear, within whose brain a tempest
+ raged until the depths were stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a life
+ was given back to memory?&mdash;and then by madness thrown to storm and
+ night&mdash;and when I read the living lines I feel as though I looked
+ upon the sea and saw it wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried
+ treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years were cast upon the
+ shores.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And <i>Othello</i>&mdash;who like the base Indian threw a pearl away
+ richer than all his tribe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And <i>Hamlet</i>&mdash;thought-entangled&mdash;hesitating between two
+ worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And <i>Macbeth</i>&mdash;strange mingling of cruelty and conscience,
+ reaping the sure harvest of successful crime&mdash;"Curses not loud but
+ deep&mdash;mouth-honor&mdash;breath."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And <i>Brutus</i>, falling on his sword that C&aelig;sar might be still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And <i>Romeo</i>, dreaming of the white wonder of Juliet's hand. And <i>Ferdinand</i>,
+ the patient log-man for Miranda's sake. And <i>Florizel</i>, who, "for all
+ the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide," would
+ not be faithless to the low-born lass. And <i>Constance</i>, weeping for
+ her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant garments with his form."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime,
+ we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human
+ heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of
+ good and evil&mdash;and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old
+ nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that
+ hurries by a ruined mill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From every side the characters crowd upon us&mdash;the men and women born
+ of Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of
+ the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and
+ vividly as though they really lived with us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase&mdash;has
+ ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has
+ imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a
+ position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It is
+ a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into
+ blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine
+ perfume.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold&mdash;passions
+ became virtues&mdash;weeds became exotics from some diviner land&mdash;and
+ common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian Gods. In his
+ brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite&mdash;that
+ belongs to genius. Talent is measured and mathematical&mdash;dominated by
+ prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct
+ runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental
+ beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the
+ Greeks, and the music of Wagner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SHAKESPEARE was the greatest of philosophers. He knew the conditions of
+ success&mdash;of happiness&mdash;the relations that men sustain to each
+ other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and currents of the heart&mdash;the
+ cliffs and caverns of the brain. He knew the weakness of the will, the
+ sophistry of desire&mdash;and
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "That pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than
+ Adders to the voice of any true decision."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world&mdash;that flesh is but
+ a mask, and that
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "There is no art to find the mind's construction
+ In the face."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He knew that courage should be the servant of judgment, and that
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "When valor preys on reason it eats the sword
+ It fights with."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He knew that man is never master of the event, that he is to some extent
+ the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen is
+ as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Let determined things to destiny
+ Hold unbewailed their way."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers
+ happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. Looking in pity
+ upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and cruelties,
+ the limping travelers on the thorny paths, he was great and good enough to
+ say:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "There is no darkness but ignorance."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This great truth fills
+ the heart with pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that place and power do not give happiness&mdash;that the crowned
+ are subject as the lowest to fate and chance.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "For within the hollow crown,
+ That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
+ Keeps death his court; and there the antick sits,
+ Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
+ Allowing him a breath, a little scene
+ To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
+ Infusing him with self and vain conceit.&mdash;
+ As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
+ Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus;
+ Comes at the last, and with a little pin
+ Bores through his castle wall, and&mdash;farewell king!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ So, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy&mdash;that death and
+ misfortune come alike to rich and poor, because:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "If thou art rich thou art poor;
+ For like an ass whose back with ingots bows
+ Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey,
+ And death unloads thee."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In some of his philosophy there was a kind of scorn&mdash;a hidden meaning
+ that could not in his day and time have safely been expressed. You will
+ remember that Laertes was about to kill the king, and this king was the
+ murderer of his own brother, and sat upon the throne by reason of his
+ crime&mdash;and in the mouth of such a king Shakespeare puts these words:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "There's such divinity doth hedge a king."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ So, in Macbeth:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "How he solicits
+ Heaven himself best knows; but strangely visited people
+ All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
+ The mere despairs of surgery, he cures;
+ Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
+ Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken
+ To the succeeding royalty&mdash;he leaves
+ The healing benediction.
+
+ With this strange virtue
+ He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
+ And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
+ That speak him full of grace."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare was the master of the human heart&mdash;knew all the hopes,
+ fears, ambitions and passions that sway the mind of man; and thus knowing,
+ he declared that
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Love is not love that alters
+ When it alteration finds."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ This is the sublimest declaration in the literature of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare seems to give the generalization&mdash;the result&mdash;without
+ the process of thought. He seems always to be at the conclusion&mdash;standing
+ where all truths meet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In one of the Sonnets is this fragment of a line that contains the highest
+ possible truth:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Conscience is born of love."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ If man were incapable of suffering, the words right and wrong never could
+ have been spoken. If man were destitute of imagination, the flower of pity
+ never could have blossomed in his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We suffer&mdash;we cause others to suffer&mdash;those that we love&mdash;and
+ of this fact conscience is born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Love is the many-colored flame that makes the fireside of the heart. It is
+ the mingled spring and autumn&mdash;the perfect climate of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN the realm of comparison Shakespeare seems to have exhausted the
+ relations, parallels and similitudes of things, He only could have said:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Tedious as a twice-told tale
+ Vexing the ears of a drowsy man."
+ "Duller than a great thaw.
+ Dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In the words of Ulysses, spoken to Achilles, we find the most wonderful
+ collection of pictures and comparisons ever compressed within the same
+ number of lines:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
+ Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,&mdash;
+ A great-sized monster of ingratitudes&mdash;
+ Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devoured
+ As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
+ As done; perseverance, dear my lord,
+ Keeps honor bright: to have done is to hang
+ Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
+ In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
+ For honor travels in a strait so narrow
+ Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path;
+ For emulation hath a thousand sons
+ That one by one pursue; if you give way,
+ Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
+ Like to an entered tide, they all rush by
+ And leave you hindmost:
+ Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
+ Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
+ O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present,
+ Tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
+ For time is like a fashionable host
+ That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
+ And with his arms outstretched as he would fly,
+ Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
+ And Farewell goes out sighing."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ So the words of Cleopatra, when Charmain speaks:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Peace, peace:
+ Dost thou not see my baby at my breast
+ That sucks the nurse asleep?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ XIV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ NOTHING is more difficult than a definition&mdash;a crystallization of
+ thought so perfect that it emits light. Shakespeare says of suicide:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "It is great to do that thing
+ That ends all other deeds,
+ Which shackles accident, and bolts up change."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He defines drama to be:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Turning the accomplishments of many years
+ Into an hour glass."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Of death:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod,
+ To lie in cold obstruction and to rot."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Of memory:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The warder of the brain."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Of the body:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "This muddy vesture of decay."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And he declares that
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Our little life is rounded with a sleep."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He speaks of Echo as:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The babbling gossip of the air"&mdash;
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Romeo, addressing the poison that he is about to take, says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Come, bitter conduct, come unsavory guide,
+ Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
+ The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He describes the world as
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "This bank and shoal of time."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He says of rumor&mdash;
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "That it doubles, like the voice and echo."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ It would take days to call attention to the perfect definitions,
+ comparisons and generalizations of Shakespeare. He gave us the deeper
+ meanings of our words&mdash;taught us the art of speech. He was the lord
+ of language&mdash;master of expression and compression.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He put the greatest thoughts into the shortest words&mdash;made the poor
+ rich and the common royal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Production enriched his brain. Nothing exhausted him. The moment his
+ attention was called to any subject&mdash;comparisons, definitions,
+ metaphors and generalizations filled his mind and begged for utterance.
+ His thoughts like bees robbed every blossom in the world, and then with
+ "merry march" brought the rich booty home "to the tent royal of their
+ emperor."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare was the confidant of Nature. To him she opened her "infinite
+ book of secrecy," and in his brain were "the hatch and brood of time."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THERE is in Shakespeare the mingling of laughter and tears, humor and
+ pathos. Humor is the rose, wit the thorn. Wit is a crystallization, humor
+ an efflorescence. Wit comes from the brain, humor from the heart. Wit is
+ the lightning of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Shakespeare's nature was the climate of humor. He saw and felt the
+ sunny side even of the saddest things. You have seen sunshine and rain at
+ once. So Shakespeare's tears fell oft upon his smiles. In moments of peril&mdash;on
+ the very darkness of death&mdash;there comes a touch of humor that falls
+ like a fleck of sunshine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gonzalo, when the ship is about to sink, having seen the boatswain,
+ exclaims:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I have great comfort from this fellow;
+ Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him;
+ His complexion is perfect gallows."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare is filled with the strange contrasts of grief and laughter.
+ While poor Hero is supposed to be dead&mdash;wrapped in the shroud of
+ dishonor&mdash;Dogberry and Verges unconsciously put again the wedding
+ wreath upon her pure brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soliloquy of Launcelot&mdash;great as Hamlet's&mdash;offsets the
+ bitter and burning words of Shylock.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is only time to speak of Maria in "Twelfth Night," of Autolycus in
+ the "Winter's Tale," of the parallel drawn by Fluellen between Alexander
+ of Macedon and Harry of Monmouth, or of the marvelous humor of Falstaff,
+ who never had the faintest thought of right or wrong&mdash;or of Mercutio,
+ that embodiment of wit and humor&mdash;or of the gravediggers who lamented
+ that "great folk should have countenance in this world to drown and hang
+ themselves, more than their even Christian," and who reached the
+ generalization that "the gallows does well because it does well to those
+ who do ill."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is also an example of grim humor&mdash;an example without a parallel
+ in literature, so far as I know. Hamlet having killed Polonius is asked:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Where's Polonius?"
+
+ "At supper."
+
+ "At supper! where?"
+
+ "Not where he eats, but where he is eaten."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Above all others, Shakespeare appreciated the pathos of situation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is more pathetic than the last scene in "Lear." No one has ever
+ bent above his dead who did not feel the words uttered by the mad king,&mdash;words
+ born of a despair deeper than tears:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Oh, that a horse, a dog, a rat hath life
+ And thou no breath!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ So Iago, after he has been wounded, says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I bleed, sir; but not killed."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And Othello answers from the wreck and shattered remnant of his life:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I would have thee live;
+ For in my sense it is happiness to die."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ When Troilus finds Cressida has been false, he cries:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Let it not be believed for womanhood;
+ Think! we had mothers."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Ophelia, in her madness, "<i>the sweet bells jangled out o' tune,</i>"
+ says softly:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I would give you some violets;
+ But they withered all when my father died."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ When Macbeth has reaped the harvest, the seeds of which were sown by his
+ murderous hand, he exclaims,&mdash;and what could be more pitiful?
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Richard the Second feels how small a thing it is to be, or to have been, a
+ king, or to receive honors before or after power is lost; and so, of those
+ who stood uncovered before him, he asks this piteous question:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I live with bread, like you; feel want,
+ Taste grief, need friends; subjected thus,
+ How can you say to me I am a king?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Think of the salutation of Antony to the dead C&aelig;sar:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Pardon me, thou piece of bleeding earth."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ When Pisanio informs Imogen that he had been ordered by Posthumus to
+ murder her, she bares her neck and cries:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The lamb entreats the butcher:
+ Where is thy knife? Thou art too slow
+ To do thy master's bidding when I desire it."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Antony, as the last drops are falling from his self-inflicted wound,
+ utters with his dying breath to Cleopatra, this:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I here importune death awhile, until
+ Of many thousand kisses the poor last
+ I lay upon thy lips."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ To me, the last words of Hamlet are full of pathos:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I die, Horatio.
+ The potent poison quite o' er crows my spirit...
+ The rest is silence."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ XVI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SOME have insisted that Shakespeare must have been a physician, for the
+ reason that he shows such knowledge of medicine&mdash;of the symptoms of
+ disease and death&mdash;was so familiar with the brain, and with insanity
+ in all its forms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think he was a physician. He knew too much&mdash;his
+ generalizations were too splendid. He had none of the prejudices of that
+ profession in his time. We might as well say that he was a musician, a
+ composer, because we find in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" nearly every
+ musical term known in Shakespeare's time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Others maintain that he was a lawyer, perfectly acquainted with the forms,
+ with the expressions familiar to that profession&mdash;yet there is
+ nothing to show that he was a lawyer, or that he knew more about law than
+ any intelligent man should know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was not a lawyer. His sense of justice was never dulled by reading
+ English law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some think that he was a botanist, because he named nearly all known
+ plants. Others, that he was an astronomer, a naturalist, because he gave
+ hints and suggestions of nearly all discoveries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some have thought that he must have been a sailor, for the reason that the
+ orders given in the opening of "The Tempest" were the best that could,
+ under the circumstances, have been given to save the ship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I think there is nothing in the plays to show that he was a
+ lawyer, doctor, botanist or scientist. He had the observant eyes that
+ really see, the ears that really hear, the brain that retains all
+ pictures, all thoughts, logic as unerring as light,-the imagination that
+ supplies defects and builds the perfect from a fragment. And these
+ faculties, these aptitudes, working together, account for what he did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He exceeded all the sons of men in the splendor of his imagination. To him
+ the whole world paid tribute, and nature poured her treasures at his feet.
+ In him all races lived again, and even those to be were pictured in his
+ brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a man of imagination&mdash;that is to say, of genius, and having
+ seen a leaf, and a drop of water, he could construct the forests, the
+ rivers, and the seas&mdash;and in his presence all the cataracts would
+ fall and foam, the mists rise, the clouds form and float.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Shakespeare knew one fact, he knew its kindred and its neighbors.
+ Looking at a coat of mail, he instantly imagined the society, the
+ conditions, that produced it and what it, in turn, produced. He saw the
+ castle, the moat, the draw-bridge, the lady in the tower, and the knightly
+ lover spurring across the plain. He saw the bold baron and the rude
+ retainer, the trampled serf, and all the glory and the grief of feudal
+ life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived the life of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a citizen of Athens in the days of Pericles. He listened to the
+ eager eloquence of the great orators, and sat upon the cliffs, and with
+ the tragic poet heard "the multitudinous laughter of the sea." He saw
+ Socrates thrust the spear of question through the shield and heart of
+ falsehood. He was present when the great man drank hemlock, and met the
+ night of death, tranquil as a star meets morning. He listened to the
+ peripatetic philosophers, and was unpuzzled by the sophists. He watched
+ Phidias as he chiseled shapeless stone to forms of love and awe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived by the mysterious Nile, amid the vast and monstrous. He knew the
+ very thought that wrought the form and features of the Sphinx. He heard
+ great Memnon's morning song when marble lips were smitten by the sun. He
+ laid him down with the embalmed and waiting dead, and felt within their
+ dust the expectation of another life, mingled with cold and suffocating
+ doubts&mdash;the children born of long delay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He walked the ways of mighty Rome, and saw great C&aelig;sar with his
+ legions in the field. He stood with vast and motley throngs and watched
+ the triumphs given to victorious men, followed by uncrowned kings, the
+ captured hosts, and all the spoils of ruthless war. He heard the shout
+ that shook the Coliseum's roofless walls, when from the reeling
+ gladiator's hand the short sword fell, while from his bosom gushed the
+ stream of wasted life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived the life of savage men. He trod the forests' silent depths, and
+ in the desperate game of life or death he matched his thought against the
+ instinct of the beast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew all crimes and all regrets, all virtues and their rich rewards. He
+ was victim and victor, pursuer and pursued, outcast and king. He heard the
+ applause and curses of the world, and on his heart had fallen all the
+ nights and noons of failure and success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew the unspoken thoughts, the dumb desires, the wants and ways of
+ beasts. He felt the crouching tiger's thrill, the terror of the ambushed
+ prey, and with the eagles he had shared the ecstasy of flight and poise
+ and swoop, and he had lain with sluggish serpents on the barren rocks
+ uncoiling slowly in the heat of noon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He sat beneath the bo-tree's contemplative shade, wrapped in Buddha's
+ mighty thought, and dreamed all dreams that light, the alchemist, has
+ wrought from dust and dew, and stored within the slumbrous poppy's subtle
+ blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knelt with awe and dread at every shrine&mdash;he offered every
+ sacrifice, and every prayer&mdash;felt the consolation and the shuddering
+ fear&mdash;mocked and worshiped all the gods&mdash;enjoyed all heavens,
+ and felt the pangs of every hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived all lives, and through his blood and brain there crept the shadow
+ and the chill of every death, and his soul, like Mazeppa, was lashed naked
+ to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Imagination had a stage in. Shakespeare's brain, whereon were set all
+ scenes that lie between the morn of laughter and the night of tears, and
+ where his players bodied forth the false and true, the joys and griefs,
+ the careless shallows and the tragic deeps of universal life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From Shakespeare's brain there poured a Niagara of gems spanned by Fancy's
+ seven-hued arch. He was as many-sided as clouds are many-formed. To him
+ giving was hoarding&mdash;sowing was harvest&mdash;and waste itself the
+ source of wealth. Within his marvelous mind were the fruits of all thought
+ past, the seeds of all to be. As a drop of dew contains the image of the
+ earth and sky, so all there is of life was mirrored forth in Shakespeare's
+ brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores
+ of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny and will;
+ over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; upon which
+ fell the gloom and darkness of despair and death and all the sunlight of
+ content and love, and within which was the inverted sky lit with the
+ eternal stars&mdash;an intellectual ocean&mdash;towards which all rivers
+ ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their
+ dew and rain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ROBERT BURNS.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This lecture is printed from notes found among Colonel
+ Ingersoll's papers, but was not revised by him for
+ publication.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ A facsimile of the original manuscript as written by Colonel Ingersoll in
+ the Burns' cottage at Ayr, August 19, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="image-0001" id="image-0001">
+ <!-- IMG --></a>
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img src="images/facsimile.jpg" alt="Burn's Manuscript" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ WE have met to-night to honor the memory of that has ever written in our
+ language. I would place one above him, and only one&mdash;Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be well enough at the beginning to inquire, What is a poet? What is
+ poetry?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every one has some idea of the poetic, and this idea is born of his
+ experience&mdash;of his education&mdash;of his surroundings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There have been more nations than poets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many people suppose that poetry is a kind of art depending upon certain
+ rules, and that it is only necessary to find out these rules to be a poet.
+ But these rules have never been found. The great poet follows them
+ unconsciously. The great poet seems as unconscious as Nature, and the
+ product of the highest art seems to have been felt instead of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The finest definition perhaps that has been given is this: a poet&mdash;possibly
+ the next to the greatest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "As nature unconsciously produces that which appears to be the result of
+ consciousness, so the greatest artist consciously produces that which
+ appears the unconscious result."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poetry must rest on the experience of men&mdash;the history of heart and
+ brain. It must sit by the fireside of the heart. It must have to do with
+ this world, with the place in which we live, with the men and women we
+ know, with their loves, their hopes, their fears and their joys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, we care nothing about gods and goddesses, or folks with wings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cloud-compelling Jupiters, the ox-eyed Junos, the feather-heeled
+ Mercurys, or the Minervas that leaped full-armed from the thick skull of
+ some imaginary god, are nothing to us. We know nothing of their fears or
+ loves, and for that reason, the poetry that deals with them, no matter how
+ ingenious it may be, can never touch the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was taught that Milton was a wonderful poet, and above all others
+ sublime. I have read Milton once. Few have read him twice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With splendid words, with magnificent mythological imagery, he musters the
+ heavenly militia&mdash;puts epaulets on the shoulders of God, and
+ describes the Devil as an artillery officer of the highest rank.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he describes the battles in which immortals undertake the impossible
+ task of killing each other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take this line:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Flying with indefatigable wings over the vast abrupt."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ This is called sublime, but what does it mean?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have been taught that Dante was a wonderful poet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He described with infinite minuteness the pangs and agonies endured by the
+ damned in the torture&mdash;dungeons of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicious twins of superstition&mdash;malignity and solemnity&mdash;struggle
+ for the mastery in his revengeful lines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there was one good thing about Dante: he had the courage, and what
+ might be called the religious democracy, to see a pope in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is something to be thankful for.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, the sonnets of Petrarch are as unmeaning as the promises of
+ candidates. They are filled not with genuine passion, but with the
+ feelings that lovers are supposed to have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poetry cannot be written by rule; it is nota trade, or a profession. Let
+ the critics lay down the laws, and the true poet will violate them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By rule you can make skeletons, but you cannot clothe them with flesh, put
+ blood in their veins, thoughts in their eyes, and passions in their
+ hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This can be done only by following the impulses of the heart, the winged
+ fancies of the brain&mdash;by wandering from paths and roads, keeping step
+ with the rhythmic ebb and flow of the throbbing blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden time in Scotland, most of the so-called poetry was written by
+ pedagogues and parsons&mdash;gentlemen who found out what little they knew
+ of the living world by reading the dead languages&mdash;by studying
+ epitaphs in the cemeteries of literature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew nothing of any life that they thought poetic. They kept as far
+ from the common people as they could. They wrote countless verses, but no
+ poems. They tried to put metaphysics, that is to say, Calvinism, in
+ poetry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, a Calvinist cannot be a poet. Calvinism takes all the
+ poetry out of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the existence of the Calvinistic, the Christian, hell could be
+ demonstrated, another poem never could be written. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days they made poetry about geography, and the beauties of the
+ Scotch Kirk, and even about law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The critics have always been looking for mistakes, not beauties&mdash;not
+ for the perfection of expression and feeling. They would object to the
+ lark and nightingale because they do not sing by note&mdash;to the clouds
+ because they are not square.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At one time it was thought that scenery, the grand in nature, made the
+ poet. We now know that the poet makes the scenery. Holland has produced
+ far more genius than the Alps. Where nature is prodigal&mdash;where the
+ crags tower above the clouds&mdash;man is overcome, or overawed. In
+ England and Scotland the hills are low, and there is nothing in the
+ scenery calculated to rouse poetic blood, and yet these countries have
+ produced the greatest literature of all time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that poets and heroes make the scenery. The place where man
+ has died for man is grander than all the snow-crowned summits of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A poem is something like a mountain stream that flashes in light, then
+ lost in shadow, leaps with a kind of wild joy into the abyss, emerges
+ victorious, and winding runs amid meadows, lingers in quiet places,
+ holding within its breast the hills and vales and clouds&mdash;then
+ running by the cottage door, babbling of joy, and murmuring delight, then
+ sweeping on to join its old mother, the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands, millions of men live poems, but do not write them; but every
+ great poem has been lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say to-night that every good and self-denying man, every one who lives
+ and labors for those he loves, for wife and child, is living a poem. The
+ loving mother rocking a cradle, singing the slumber song, lives a poem
+ pure and tender as the dawn; the man who bares his breast to shot and
+ shell lives a poem, and all the great men of the world, and all the brave
+ and loving women have been poets in action, whether they have written one
+ word or not. The poor woman of the tenement, sewing, blinded by tears,
+ lives a poem holier, it may be, than the fortunate can know. The pioneers&mdash;the
+ home builders, the heroes of toil, are all poets, and their deeds are
+ filled with the pathos and perfection of the highest art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But to-night we are going to talk of a poet&mdash;one who poured out his
+ soul in song. How does a country become great? By producing great poets.
+ Why is it that Scotland, when the roll of nations is called, can stand up
+ and proudly answer "here"? Because Robert Burns has lived. It is Robert
+ Burns that put Scotland in the front rank.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 25th of January, 1759, Robert Burns was born. William Burns, a
+ gardener, his father; Agnes Brown, his mother. He was born near the little
+ town of Ayr, in a little cottage made of mud and thatched with straw. From
+ the first, poverty was his portion,&mdash;"Poverty, the half-sister of
+ Death." The father struggled as best he could, but at last overcome more
+ by misfortunes than by disease, died in 1784, at the age of 63. Robert
+ attended school at Alloway Mill, and had been taught a little by John
+ Murdock, and some by his father. That was his education&mdash;with this
+ exception, that whenever nature produces a genius, the old mother holds
+ him close to her heart and whispers secrets to his ears that others do not
+ know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had spent most of his time working on a farm, raising very poor crops,
+ getting deeper and deeper into debt, until finally the death of his father
+ left him to struggle as best he might for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the year 1759, Scotland was emerging from the darkness and gloom of
+ Calvinism. The attention of the people had been drawn from the other
+ world, or rather from the other worlds, to the affairs of this. The
+ commercial spirit, the interests of trade, were winning men from the
+ discussion of predestination and the sacred decrees of God. Mechanics and
+ manufacturers were undermining theology. The influence of the clergy was
+ gradually diminishing, and the beggarly elements of this life were
+ beginning to attract the attention of the Scotch. The people at that time
+ were mostly poor. They had made but little progress in art and science.
+ They had been engaged for many years fighting for their political or
+ theological rights, or to destroy the rights of others. They had great
+ energy, great natural sense, and courage without limit, and it may be well
+ enough to add that they were as obstinate as brave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Several countries have had a metaphysical peasantry. It is true of parts
+ of Switzerland about the time of Calvin. In Holland, after the people had
+ suffered all the cruelties that Spain could inflict, they began to discuss
+ as to foreordination and free will, and upon these questions destroyed
+ each other. The same is true of New England, and peculiarly true of
+ Scotland&mdash;a metaphysical peasantry&mdash;men who lived in mud houses
+ thatched with straw and discussed the motives of God and the means by
+ which the Infinite Being was to accomplish his ends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years the Scotch had been ruled by the clergy. The power of the
+ Scotch preacher was unlimited. It so happened that the religion of
+ Scotland became synonymous with patriotism, and those who were fighting
+ Scotland were also fighting her religion. This drew priest and people
+ together; and the priest naturally took advantage of the situation. They
+ not only determined upon the policy to be pursued by the people, but they
+ went into every detail of life. And in this world there has never been
+ established a more odious tyranny or a more odious form of government than
+ that of the Scotch Kirk.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few men had made themselves famous&mdash;David Hume, Adam Smith, Doctor
+ Hugh Blair, he of the grave, Beattie and Ramsay, Reid and Robertson&mdash;but
+ the great body of the people were orthodox to the last drop of their
+ blood. Nothing seemed to please them like attending church, like hearing
+ sermons. Before Communion Sabbath they frequently met on Friday, having
+ two or three sermons on that day, three or four on Saturday, more if
+ possible on Sunday, and wound up with a kind of gospel spree on Monday.
+ They loved it. I think it was Heinrich Heine who said, "It is not true, it
+ is not true that the damned in hell are compelled to hear all the sermons
+ preached on earth." He says this is not true. This shows that there is
+ some mercy even in hell. They were infinitely interested in these
+ questions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, the people were social, fond of games, of outdoor sports, full of
+ song and story, and no folks ever passed the cup with a happier smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sometimes I have thought that they were saved from the gloom of Calvinism
+ by the use of intoxicating liquors. It may be that John Barleycorn
+ redeemed the Scotch and saved them from the divine dyspepsia of the
+ Calvinistic creed. So, too, it may be that the Puritan was saved by rum,
+ and the Hollander by schnapps. Yet, in spite of the gloom of the creed, in
+ spite of the climate of mists and fogs, and the maniac winters, the songs
+ of Scotland are the sweetest and the tenderest in all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert Burns was a peasant&mdash;a ploughman&mdash;a poet. Why is it that
+ millions and millions of men and women love this man? He was a Scotchman,
+ and all the tendrils of his heart struck deep in Scotland's soil. He
+ voiced the ideals of the best and greatest of his race and blood. And yet
+ he is as dear to the citizens of this great Republic as to Scotia's sons
+ and daughters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All great poetry has a national flavor. It tastes of the soil. No matter
+ how great it is, how wide, how universal, the flavor of locality is never
+ lost. Burns made common life beautiful. He idealized the sun-burnt girls
+ who worked in the fields. He put honest labor above titled idleness. He
+ made a cottage far more poetic than a palace. He painted the simple joys
+ and ecstasies and raptures of sincere love. He put native sense above the
+ polish of schools.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We love him because he was independent, sturdy, self-poised, social,
+ generous, susceptible, thrilled by a look, by a touch, full of pity,
+ carrying the sorrows of others in his heart, even those of animals; hating
+ to see anybody suffer, and lamenting the death of everything&mdash;even of
+ trees and flowers. We love him because he was a natural democrat, and
+ hated tyranny in every form.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We love him because he was always on the side of the people, feeling the
+ throb of progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns read but little, had but few books; had but a little of what is
+ called education; had only an outline of history, a little of philosophy,
+ in its highest sense. His library consisted of the <i>Life of Hannibal</i>,
+ the <i>History of Wallace</i>, Ray's <i>Wisdom of God</i>, Stackhouse's <i>History
+ of the Bible</i>; two or three plays of Shakespeare, Ferguson's <i>Scottish
+ Poems</i>, Pope's <i>Homer</i>, Shenstone, McKenzie's <i>Man of Feeling</i>
+ and Ossian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns was a man of genius. He was like a spring&mdash;something that
+ suggests no labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A spring seems to be a perpetual free gift of nature. There is no thought
+ of toil. The water comes whispering to the pebbles without effort. There
+ is no machinery, no pipes, no pumps, no engines, no water-works, nothing
+ that suggests expense or trouble. So a natural poet is, when compared with
+ the educated, with the polished, with the industrious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns seems to have done everything without effort. His poems wrote
+ themselves. He was overflowing with sympathies, with suggestions, with
+ ideas, in every possible direction. There is no midnight oil. There is
+ nothing of the student&mdash;no suggestion of their having been re-written
+ or re-cast. There is in his heart a poetic April and May, and all the
+ poetic seeds burst into sudden life. In a moment the seed is a plant, and
+ the plant is in blossom, and the fruit is given to the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He looks at everything from a natural point of view; and he writes of the
+ men and women with whom he was acquainted. He cares nothing for mythology,
+ nothing for the legends of the Greeks and Romans. He draws but little from
+ history. Everything that he uses is within his reach, and he knows it from
+ centre to circumference. All his figures and comparisons are perfectly
+ natural. He does not endeavor to make angels of fine ladies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He takes the servant girls with whom he is acquainted, the dairy maids
+ that he knows. He puts wings upon them and makes the very angels envious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet this man, so natural, keeping his cheek so close to the breast of
+ nature, strangely enough thought that Pope and Churchill and Shenstone and
+ Thomson and Lyttelton and Beattie were great poets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His first poem was addressed to Nellie Kilpatrick, daughter of the
+ blacksmith. He was in love with Ellison Begbie, offered her his heart and
+ was refused. She was a servant, working in a family and living on the
+ banks of the Cessnock. Jean Armour, his wife, was the daughter of a
+ tailor, and Highland Mary, a servant&mdash;a milk-maid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not make women of goddesses, but he made goddesses of women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ POET OF LOVE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns was the poet of love. To him woman was divine. In the light of her
+ eyes he stood transfigured. Love changed this peasant to a king; the plaid
+ became a robe of purple; the ploughman became a poet; the poor laborer an
+ inspired lover.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his "Vision" his native Muse tells the story of his verse:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "When youthful Love, warm-blushing strong,
+ Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
+ Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
+ Th' adored Name,
+ I taught thee how to pour in song,
+ To soothe thy flame."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Ah, this light from heaven: how it has purified the heart of man!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was there ever a sweeter song than "Bonnie Doon"?
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Thou'lt break my heart thou bonnie bird
+ That sings beside thy mate,
+ For sae I sat and sae I sang,
+ And wist na o' my fate."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ or,
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O, my luve's like a red, red rose
+ That's newly sprung in June;
+ O, my luve's like the melodie
+ That's sweetly play'd in tune."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ It would consume days to give the intense and tender lines&mdash;lines wet
+ with the heart's blood, lines that throb and sigh and weep, lines that
+ glow like flames, lines that seem to clasp and kiss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the most perfect love-poem that I know&mdash;pure the tear of
+ gratitude&mdash;is "To Mary in Heaven:"
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
+ That lov'st to greet the early morn,
+ Again thou usher'st in the day
+ My Mary from my soul was torn.
+ O Mary! dear departed shade!
+ Where is thy place of blissful rest?
+ Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
+ Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
+
+ "That sacred hour can I forget?
+ Can I forget the hallow'd grove
+ Where, by the winding Ayr, we met,
+ To live one day of parting love?
+ Eternity will not efface
+ Those records dear of transports past;
+ Thy image at our last embrace;
+ Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
+
+ "Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
+ O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
+ The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
+ Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.
+ The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
+ The birds sang love on ev'ry spray,
+ Till too, too soon, the glowing west
+ Proclaim'd the speed of wing&egrave;d day.
+
+ "Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
+ And fondly broods with miser care!
+ Time but the impression stronger makes,
+ As streams their channels deeper wear.
+ My Mary, dear departed shade!
+ Where is thy blissful place of rest?
+ Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
+ Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Above all the daughters of luxury and wealth, above all of Scotland's
+ queens rises this pure and gentle girl made deathless by the love of
+ Robert Burns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ POET OF HOME
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the poet of the home&mdash;of father, mother, child&mdash;of the
+ purest wedded love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the "Cotter's Saturday Night," one of the noblest and sweetest poems in
+ the literature of the world, is a description of the poor cotter going
+ from his labor to his home:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "At length his lonely cot appears in view,
+ Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
+ Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through
+ To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
+
+ His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnilie,
+ His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
+ The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
+ Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
+ And makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And in the same poem, after having described the courtship, Burns bursts
+ into this perfect flower:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O happy love! where love like this is found!
+ O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
+ I've pac&egrave;d much this weary, mortal round,
+ And sage experience bids me this declare:
+ If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare
+ One cordial in this melancholy vale,
+ 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,
+ In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale
+ Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Is there in the world a more beautiful&mdash;a more touching picture than
+ the old couple sitting by the ingleside with clasped hands, and the pure,
+ patient, loving old wife saying to the white-haired man who won her heart
+ when the world was young:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "John Anderson, my jo, John,
+ When we were first acquent;
+ Your locks were like the raven,
+ Your bonnie brow was brent;
+ But now your brow is beld, John,
+ Your locks are like the snaw;
+ But blessings on your frosty pow,
+ John Anderson, my jo.
+
+ "John Anderson, my jo, John,
+ We clamb the hill thegither;
+ And monie a canty day, John,
+ We've had wi' ane anither;
+ Now we maun totter down, John,
+ But hand in hand we'll go,
+ And sleep thegither at the foot,
+ John Anderson, my jo."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Burns taught that the love of wife and children was the highest&mdash;that
+ to toil for them was the noblest.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The sacred lowe o' weel placed love,
+ Luxuriantly indulge it;
+ But never tempt the illicit rove,
+ Though naething should divulge it."
+
+ "I waine the quantum of the sin,
+ The hazzard o'concealing;
+ But och! it hardens all within,
+ And petrifies the feeling."
+
+ "To make a happy fireside clime
+ To weans and wife,
+ That's the true pathos, and sublime,
+ Of human life."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ FRIENDSHIP.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the poet of friendship:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
+ And never brought to min'?
+ Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
+ And days o' auld lang syne?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Wherever those who speak the English language assemble&mdash;wherever the
+ Anglo-Saxon people meet with clasp and smile&mdash;these words are given
+ to the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SCOTCH DRINK.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poet of good Scotch drink, of merry meetings, of the cup that cheers,
+ author of the best drinking song in the world:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut,
+ And Rob and Allen came to see;
+ Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night,
+ Ye wadna find in Christendie.
+
+ Chorus.
+
+ "We are na fou, we're no that fou,
+ But just a drappie in our ee;
+ The cock may craw, the day may daw,
+ And aye we'll taste the barley bree.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Here are we met, three merry boys,
+ Three merry boys, I trow, are we;
+ And monie a night we've merry been,
+ And monie mae we hope to be!
+
+ We are na fou, &amp;c.
+
+ "It is the moon, I ken her horn,
+ That's blinkin in the lift say hie;
+ She shines sae bright to wyle us hame,
+ But by my sooth she'll wait a wee!
+
+ We are na fou, &amp;c.
+
+ "Wha first shall rise to gang awa,
+ A cuckold, coward loun is he!
+ Wha last beside his chair shall fa',
+ He is the King amang us three!
+
+ We are na fou, &amp;c."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ POETS BORN, NOT MADE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not think the poet could be made&mdash;that colleges could furnish
+ feeling, capacity, genius. He gave his opinion of these manufactured
+ minstrels:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "A set o' dull, conceited hashes,
+ Confuse their brains in college classes!
+ They gang in stirks, and come out asses,
+ Plain truth to speak;
+ An' syne they think to climb Parnassus
+ By dint o' Greek!"
+
+ "Gie me ane spark o' Nature's fire,
+ That's a' the learning I desire;
+ Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire
+ At pleugh or cart,
+ My Muse, though hamely in attire,
+ May touch the heart."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ BURNS, THE ARTIST.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an artist&mdash;a painter of pictures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This of the brook:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
+ As thro' the glen it wimpl't;
+ Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;
+ Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
+ Whyles glitter's to the nightly rays,
+ Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;
+ Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
+ Below the spreading hazel,
+ Unseen that night."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Or this from Tam O'Shanter:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "But pleasures are like poppies spread,
+ You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed,
+ Or, like the snow falls in the river,
+ A moment white&mdash;then melts forever;
+ Or, like the borealis race,
+ That flit ere you can point their place;
+ Or, like the rainbow's lovely form,
+ Evanishing amid the storm."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ This:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "As in the bosom of the stream
+ The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en;
+ So, trembling, pure, was tender love,
+ Within the breast o' bonnie Jean."
+
+ "The sun had clos'd the winter day,
+ The Curlers quat their roarin play,
+ An' hunger's Maukin ta'en her way
+ To kail-yards green,
+ While faithless snaws ilk step betray
+ Whare she had been."
+
+ "O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods,
+ When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
+ And jinkin' hares, in amorous whids,
+ Their loves enjoy,
+ While thro' the braes the cushat croons
+ Wi' wailfu' cry!"
+
+ "Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me
+ When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
+ Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
+ Are hoary gray;
+ Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
+ Dark'ning the day!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ This of the lark and daisy&mdash;the daintiest and nearest perfect in our
+ language:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Alas! it's no' thy neebor sweet,
+ The bonnie Lark, companion meet!
+ Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
+ Wi' spreckl'd breast,
+ When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
+ The purpling east."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ A REAL DEMOCRAT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was in every fibre of his being a sincere democrat. He was a believer
+ in the people&mdash;in the sacred rights of man. He believed that honest
+ peasants were superior to titled parasites. He knew the so-called "gentrv"
+ of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In one of his letters to Dr. Moore is this passage: "It takes a few dashes
+ into the world to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnoticing
+ disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils&mdash;the mechanics
+ and peasantry around him&mdash;who were born in the same village."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew the infinitely cruel spirit of caste&mdash;a spirit that despises
+ the useful&mdash;the children of toil&mdash;those who bear the burdens of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,
+ By nature's law design'd,
+ Why was an independent wish
+ E'er planted in my mind?
+
+ If not, why am I subject to .
+ His cruelty, or scorn?
+ Or why has man the will and pow'r
+ To make his fellow mourn?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Against the political injustice of his time&mdash;against the artificial
+ distinctions among men by which the lowest were regarded as the highest&mdash;he
+ protested in the great poem, "A man's a man for a' that," every line of
+ which came like lava from his heart.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Is there, for honest poverty,
+ That hangs his head, and a' that?
+ The coward-slave, we pass him by,
+ We dare be poor for a' that!
+ For a' that, and a' that,
+ Our toils obscure, and a' that;
+ The rank is but the guinea stamp;
+ The man's the gowd for a' that."
+
+ "What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
+ Wear hodden-gray, and a' that;
+ Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
+ A man's a man for a' that.
+ For a' that, and a' that,
+ Their tinsel show, and a' that;
+ The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
+ Is king o' men for a' that."
+
+ "Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
+ Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
+ Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
+ He's but a coof for a' that;
+ For a' that, and a' that,
+ His riband, star, and a' that,
+ The man' o' independent mind,
+ He looks and laughs at a' that."
+
+ "A prince can mak' a belted knight,
+ A marquis, duke, and a' that;
+ But an honest man's aboon his might,
+ Guid faith he mauna fa' that!
+ For a' that, and a' that,
+ Their dignities, and a' that,
+ The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
+ Are higher ranks than a' that.
+
+ "Then let us pray that come it may,
+ As come it will for a' that;
+ That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
+ May bear the gree and a' that.
+ For a' that, and a' that;
+ It's cornin' yet for a' that
+ That man to man, the warld o'er,
+ Shall brithers be for a' that."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ No grander declaration of independence was ever uttered. It stirs the
+ blood like a declaration of war. It is the apotheosis of honesty,
+ independence, sense and worth. And it is a prophecy of that better day
+ when men will be brothers the world over.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HIS THEOLOGY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns was superior in heart and brain to the theologians of his time. He
+ knew that the creed of Calvin was infinitely cruel and absurd, and he
+ attacked it with every weapon that his brain could forge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was not awed by the clergy, and he cared nothing for what was called
+ "authority." He insisted on thinking for himself. Sometimes he faltered,
+ and now and then, fearing that some friend might take offence, he would
+ say or write a word in favor of the Bible, and sometimes he praised the
+ Scriptures in words of scorn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He laughed at the dogma of eternal pain&mdash;at hell as described by the
+ preacher:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit,
+ Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane,
+ Wha's ragin' flame an' scorchin' heat
+ Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!
+ The half asleep start up wi' fear,
+ An' think they hear it roarin',
+ When presently it does appear,
+ 'Twas but some neebor snorin'.
+ Asleep that day."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The dear old doctrine that man is totally depraved, that morality is a
+ snare&mdash;a flowery path leading to perdition&mdash;excited the
+ indignation of Burns. He put the doctrine in verse:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Morality, thou deadly bane,
+ Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain!
+ Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is
+ In moral mercy, truth and justice."
+ He understood the hypocrites of his day:
+ "Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!
+ That holy robe, O dinna tear it!
+ Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,
+ The lads in black;
+ But your curst wit, when it comes near it,
+ Rives't aff their back."
+
+ "Then orthodoxy yet may prance,
+ And Learning in a woody dance,
+ And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense,
+ That bites sae sair,
+ Be banish'd owre the seas to France;
+ Let him bark there."
+
+ "They talk religion in their mouth;
+ They talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth,
+ For what? to gie their malice skouth On some puir wight,
+ An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth,
+ To ruin straight."
+
+ "Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac,
+ Ye should stretch on a rack,
+ To strike evil doers wi' terror;
+ To join faith and sense Upon any pretence,
+ Was heretic damnable error,
+ Doctor Mac,
+ Was heretic damnable error."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ But the greatest, the sharpest, the deadliest, the keenest, the wittiest
+ thing ever said or written against Calvinism is Holy Willie's Prayer:&mdash;
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O Thou, wha in the Heavens dost dwell,
+ Wha, as it pleases best thysel',
+ Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,
+ A' for thy glory,
+ And no for onie guid or ill
+ They've done afore thee!
+
+ "I bless and praise thy matchless might,
+ When thousands thou has left in night,
+ That I am here afore thy sight
+ For gifts an' grace,
+ A burnin' an' a shinin' light,
+ To a' this place.
+
+ "What was I, or my generation,
+ That I should get sic exaltation?
+ I, wha deserve sic just damnation,
+ For broken laws,
+ Five thousand years 'fore my creation,
+ Thro' Adam's cause?
+
+ "When frae my mither's womb I fell,
+ Thou might hae plunged me into hell,
+ To gnash my gums, to weep and wail,
+ In burnin' lake,
+ Where damn&egrave;d devils roar and yell,
+ Chained to a stake.
+
+ "Yet I am here a chosen sample,
+ To show Thy grace is great and ample;
+ I'm here a pillar in Thy temple,
+ Strong as a rock,
+ A guide, a buckler, an example
+ To a' Thy flock."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In this poem you will find the creed stated just as it is&mdash;with
+ fairness and accuracy&mdash;and at the same time stated so perfectly that
+ its absurdity fills the mind with inextinguishable laughter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this poem Burns nailed Calvinism to the cross, put it on the rack,
+ subjected it to every instrument of torture, flayed it alive, burned it at
+ the stake, and scattered its ashes to the winds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1787 Burns wrote this curious letter to Miss Chalmers:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and have got through the five
+ books of Moses and half way in Joshua.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is really a glorious book."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This must have been written in the spirit of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of Burns, with his loving, tender heart, half way in Joshua,
+ standing in blood to his knees, surrounded by the mangled bodies of old
+ men, women and babes, the swords of the victors dripping with innocent
+ blood, shouting&mdash;"This is really a glorious sight."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A letter written on the seventh of March, 1788, contains the clearest,
+ broadest and most philosophical statement of the religion of Burns to be
+ found in his works:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "An honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the whole
+ man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley&mdash;be
+ it so; at least there is an end of pain and care, woes and wants. If that
+ part of us called Mind does survive the apparent destruction of the man,
+ away with old-wife prejudices and tales!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Every age and every nation has a different set of stories; and, as the
+ many are always weak, of consequence they have often, perhaps always, been
+ deceived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow
+ creatures, even granting that he may have been the sport at times of
+ passions and instincts, he goes to a great Unknown Being, who could have
+ had no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy; who gave
+ him those passions and instincts and well knows their force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "These, my worthy friend, are my ideas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It becomes a man of sense to think for himself, particularly in a case
+ where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are
+ equally in the dark."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Religious nonsense is the most nonsensical nonsense."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Why has a religious turn of mind always a tendency to narrow and harden
+ the heart?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "All my fears and cares are for this world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly
+ militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the
+ dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination
+ for wonders&mdash;there are millions of miracles under our feet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life.
+ The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for men and
+ women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can
+ comprehend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible&mdash;he
+ paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is
+ interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two
+ peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound
+ of the distant bell&mdash;two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful
+ for&mdash;nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they
+ soften with their tears&mdash;nothing. And yet as you look at that picture
+ you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for&mdash;that
+ they have life, love, and hope&mdash;and so the distant bell makes music
+ in their simple hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give you the difference between culture and nature&mdash;between
+ educated talent and real genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago one of the great poets died. I was reading some of his
+ volumes and during the same period was reading a little from Robert Burns.
+ And the difference between these two poets struck me forcibly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson was a piece of rare china decorated by the highest art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns was made of honest, human clay, moulded by sympathy and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson dwelt in his fancy, for the most part, with kings and queens,
+ with lords and ladies, with knights and nobles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns lingered by the fireside of the poor and humble, in the thatched
+ cottage of the peasant, with the imprisoned and despised. He loved men and
+ women in spite of their titles, and without regard to the outward. Through
+ robes and rags he saw and loved the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson was touched by place and power, the insignia given by chance or
+ birth. As he grew old he grew narrower, lost interest in the race, and
+ gave his heart to the class to which he had been lowered as a reward for
+ melodious flattery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns broadened and ripened with the flight of his few years. His
+ sympathies widened and increased to the last.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson had the art born of intellectual taste, of the sense of mental
+ proportion, knowing the color of adjectives and the gradations of
+ emphasis. His pictures were born in his brain, exquisitely shaded by
+ details, carefully wrought by painful and conscious art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns's brain was the servant of his heart. His melody was a rhythm taught
+ by love. He was touched by the miseries, the injustice, the agony of his
+ time. While Tennyson wrote of the past&mdash;of kings long dead, of ladies
+ who had been dust for many centuries, Burns melted with his love the walls
+ of caste&mdash;the cruel walls that divide the rich and the poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson celebrated the birth of royal babes, the death of the titled
+ useless; gave wings to degraded dust, wearing the laurels given by those
+ who lived upon the toil of men whom they despised. Burns poured poems from
+ his heart, filled with tears and sobs for the suffering poor; poems that
+ helped to break the chains of millions; poems that the enfranchised love
+ to repeat; poems that liberty loves to hear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson was the poet of the past, of the twilight, of the sunset, of
+ decorous regret, of the vanished glories of barbarous times, of the age of
+ chivalry in which great nobles clad in steel smote to death with battle
+ axe and sword the unarmed peasants of the field.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns was the poet of the dawn, glad that the night was fading from the
+ east. He kept his face toward the sunrise, caring nothing for the midnight
+ of the past, but loved with all the depth and sincerity of his nature the
+ few great souls&mdash;the lustrous stars&mdash;that darkness cannot
+ quench.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson was surrounded with what gold can give, touched with the
+ selfishness of wealth. He was educated at Oxford, and had what are called
+ the advantages of his time, and in maturer years was somewhat swayed by
+ the spirit of caste, by the descendants of the ancient Pharisees, and at
+ last became a lord.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns had but little knowledge of the world. What he knew was taught him
+ by his sympathies. Being a genius, he absorbed the good and noble of which
+ he heard or dreamed, and thus he happily outgrew the smaller things with
+ which he came in contact, and journeyed toward the great&mdash;the wider
+ world, until he reached the end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson was what is called religious. He believed in the divinity of
+ decorum, not falling on his face before the Eternal King, but bowing
+ gracefully, as all lords should, while uttering thanks for favors partly
+ undeserved, and thanks more fervid still for those to come.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns had the deepest and the tenderest feelings in his heart. The winding
+ stream, the flowering shrub, the shady vale&mdash;these were trysting
+ places where the real God met those he loved, and where his spirit
+ prompted thoughts and words of thankfulness and praise, took from their
+ hearts the dross of selfishness and hate, leaving the gold of love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the religion of Burns, form was nothing, creed was nothing, feeling was
+ everything. He had the religious climate of the soul, the April that
+ receives the seed, the June of blossom, and the month of harvest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns was a real poet of nature. He put fields and woods in his lines.
+ There were principles like oaks, and there were thoughts, hints and
+ suggestions as shy as violets beneath the withered leaves. There were the
+ warmth of home, the social virtues born of equal state, that touched the
+ heart and softened grief; that make breaches in the cruel walls of pride;
+ that make the rich and poor clasp hands and feel like comrades, warm and
+ true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The house in which his spirit lived was not large. It enclosed only space
+ enough for common needs, built near the barren land of want; but through
+ the open door the sunlight streamed, and from its windows all the stars
+ were seen, while in the garden grew the common flowers&mdash;the flowers
+ that all the ages through have been the messengers of honest love; and in
+ the fields were heard the rustling corn, and reapers songs, telling of
+ well-requited toil; and there were trees whose branches rose and fell and
+ swayed while birds filled all the air with music born of joy. He read with
+ tear-filled eyes the human page, and found within his breast the history
+ of hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson's imagination lived in a palace ample, wondrous fair, with dome
+ and spire and galleries, where eyes of proud old pedigree grew dim with
+ gazing at the portraits of the worthless dead; and there were parks and
+ labyrinths of walks and ways and artificial lakes where sailed the "double
+ swans;" and there were flowers from far-off lands with strange perfume,
+ and men and women of the grander sort, telling of better days and nobler
+ deeds than men in these poor times of commerce, trade and toil have hearts
+ to do; and, yet, from this fair dwelling&mdash;too vast, too finely
+ wrought, to be a home&mdash;he uttered wondrous words, painting pictures
+ that will never fade, and told, with every aid of art, old tales of love
+ and war, sometimes beguiling men of tears, enchanting all with melody of
+ speech, and sometimes rousing blood and planting seeds of high resolve and
+ noble deeds; and sometimes thoughts were woven like tapestries in patterns
+ beautiful, involved and strange, where dreams and fancies interlaced like
+ tendrils of a vine, like harmonies that wander and return to catch the
+ music of the central theme, yet cold as traceries in frost wrought on
+ glass by winter's subtle art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson was ingenious&mdash;Burns ingenuous. One was exclusive, and in
+ his exclusiveness a little disdain. The other pressed the world against
+ his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson touched art on many sides, dealing with vast poetic themes, and
+ satisfied in many ways the intellectual tastes of cultured men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tennyson is always perfectly self-possessed. He has poetic sympathy, but
+ not the fire and flame. No one thinks of him as having been excited, as
+ being borne away by passion's storm. His pulse never rises. In artistic
+ calm, he turns, polishes, perfects, embroiders and beautifies. In him
+ there is nothing of the storm and chaos, nothing of the creative genius,
+ no sea wrought to fury, filling the heavens with its shattered cry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns dwelt with simple things&mdash;with those that touch the heart; that
+ tell of joy; that spring from labor done; that lift the burdens of despair
+ from fainting souls; that soften hearts until the pearls of pity fall from
+ eyes unused to weep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To illustrate his thought, he used the things he knew&mdash;the things
+ familiar to the world&mdash;not caring for the vanished things&mdash;the
+ legends told by artful tongues to artless ears&mdash;but clinging to the
+ common things of life and love and death, adorning them with countless
+ gems; and, over all, he placed the bow of hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With him the man was greater than the king, the woman than the queen. The
+ greatest were the noblest, and the noblest were those who loved their
+ fellow-men the best, the ones who filled their lives with generous deeds.
+ Men admire Tennyson. Men love Robert Burns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a believer in God, and had confidence that this God was sitting at
+ the loom weaving with warp and woof of cause and effect, of fear and
+ fancy, pain and hope, of dream and shadows, of despair and death, mingled
+ with the light of love, the tapestries in which at last all souls will see
+ that all was perfect from the first. He believed or hoped that the spirit
+ of infinite goodness, soft as the autumn air, filled all of heaven's dome
+ with love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such a religion is easy to understand when it includes all races through
+ all times. It is consistent, if not with the highest thought, with the
+ deepest and the tenderest feelings of the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FROM CRADLE TO COFFIN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no time to follow the steps of Burns from old Alloway, by the
+ Bonnie Doon in the clay-built hut, where the January wind blew hansel in
+ on Robin&mdash;to Mt. Oliphant, with its cold and stingy soil, the hard
+ factor, whose letters made the children weep&mdash;working in the fields,
+ or tired with "The thresher's weary flinging tree," where he was thrilled,
+ for the first time with love's sweet pain that set his heart to music.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To Lochlea, still giving wings to thought&mdash;still working in the
+ unproductive fields, Lochlea where his father died, and reached the rest
+ that life denied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To Mossgiel, where Burns reached the top and summit of his art and wrote
+ like one enrapt, inspired. Here he met and loved and gave to immortality
+ his Highland Mary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To Edinburgh and fame, and back to Mauchline to Jean Armour and honor, the
+ noblest deed of all his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To Ellisland, by the winding Nith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To Dumfries, a poor exciseman, wearing out his heart in the disgusting
+ details of degrading drudgery&mdash;suspected of treason because he
+ preferred Washington to Pitt&mdash;because he sympathized with the French
+ Revolution&mdash;because he was glad that the American colonies had become
+ a free nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At a banquet once, being asked to drink the health of Pitt, Burns said: "I
+ will give you a better toast&mdash;George Washington." A little while
+ after, when they wanted him to drink to the success of the English arms,
+ Burns said: "No; I will drink this: May their success equal the justice of
+ their cause." He sent three or four little cannon to the French
+ Convention, because he sympathized with the French Revolution, and because
+ of these little things, his love of liberty, of freedom and justice, at
+ Dumfries he was suspected of being a traitor, and, as a result of these
+ trivial things, as a result of that suspicion, Burns was obliged to join
+ the Dumfries volunteers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How pitiful that the author of "Scots wha hae with Wallace bled," should
+ be thought an enemy of Scotland!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poor Burns! Old and broken before his time&mdash;surrounded by the walking
+ lumps of Dumfries' clay!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To appease the anger of his fellow-citizens&mdash;to convince them that he
+ was a patriot, he actually joined the Dumfries volunteers,&mdash;bought
+ his uniform on credit&mdash;amount about seven pounds&mdash;was unable to
+ pay&mdash;was threatened with arrest and a jail by Matthew Penn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These threats embittered his last hours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while before his death, he said: "Do not let that awkward squad&mdash;the
+ Dumfries volunteers&mdash;fire over my grave." We have a true insight into
+ what his feelings were. But they fired. They were bound to fire or die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The last words uttered by Robert Burns were these: "That damned scoundrel
+ Matthew Penn."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns had another art, the art of ending&mdash;of stopping at the right
+ place. Nothing is more difficult than this. It is hard to end a play&mdash;to
+ get the right kind of roof on a house. Not one story-teller in a thousand
+ knows just the spot where the rocket should explode. They go on talking
+ after the stick has fallen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns wrote short poems, and why? All great poems are short. There cannot
+ be a long poem any more than there can be a long joke. I believe the best
+ example of an ending perfectly accomplished you will find in his "Vision."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There comes into his house, into that "auld clay biggin," his muse, the
+ spirit of a beautiful woman, and tells him what he can do, and what he
+ can't do, as a poet. He has a long talk with her and now the thing is how
+ to get her out of the house. You may think that it is an easy thing. It is
+ easy to get yourself into difficulty, but not to get out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was struck with the beautiful manner in which Burns got that angel out
+ of the house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could be happier than the ending of the "Vision"&mdash;the
+ leave-taking of the Muse:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "And wear thou this, she solemn said,
+ And bound the holly round my head:
+ The polished leaves and berries red
+ Did rustling play;
+ And, like a passing thought she fled.
+ In light away."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ How that man rose above all his fellows in death! Do you know, there is
+ something wonderful in death. What a repose! What a piece of sculpture!
+ The common man dead looks royal; a genius dead, sublime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a few years ago I visited all the places where Burns had been, from
+ the little house of clay with one room where he was born, to the little
+ house with one room where he now sleeps, I thought of this. Yes, I visited
+ them all, all the places made immortal by his genius, the field where love
+ first touched his heart, the field where he ploughed up the home of the
+ Mouse. I saw the cottage where Robert and Jean first lived as man and
+ wife, and walked on "the banks and braes of Bonnie Doon." And when I stood
+ by his grave, I said: This man was a radical, a real genuine man. This man
+ believed in the dignity of labor, in the nobility of the useful. This man
+ believed in human love, in making a heaven here, in judging men by their
+ deeds instead of creeds and titles. This man believed in the liberty of
+ the soul, of thought and speech. This man believed in the sacred rights of
+ the individual; he sympathized with the suffering and oppressed. This man
+ had the genius to change suffering and toil into song, to enrich poverty,
+ to make a peasant feel like a prince of the blood, to fill the lives of
+ the lowly with love and light. This man had the genius to make robes of
+ glory out of squalid rags. This man had the genius to make Cleopatras, and
+ Sapphos and Helens out of the freckled girls of the villages and fields&mdash;and
+ he had the genius to make Auld Ayr, and Bonnie Doon, and Sweet Afton and
+ the Winding Nith murmur the name of Robert Burns forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man left a legacy of glory to Scotland and the whole world; he
+ enriched our language, and with a generous hand scattered the gems of
+ thought. This man was the companion of poverty, and wept the tears of
+ grief, and yet he has caused millions to shed the happy tears of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His heart blossomed in a thousand songs&mdash;songs for all times and all
+ seasons&mdash;suited to every experience of the heart&mdash;songs for the
+ dawn of love&mdash;for the glance and clasp and kiss of courtship&mdash;for
+ "favors secret, sweet and precious"&mdash;for the glow and flame, the
+ ecstasy and rapture of wedded life&mdash;songs of parting and despair&mdash;songs
+ of hope and simple joy&mdash;songs for the vanished days&mdash;songs for
+ birth and burial&mdash;songs for wild war's deadly blast, and songs for
+ gentle peace&mdash;songs for the dying and the dead&mdash;songs for labor
+ and content&mdash;songs for the spinning wheel, the sickle and the plow&mdash;songs
+ for sunshine and for storm, for laughter and for tears&mdash;songs that
+ will be sung as long as language lives and passion sways the heart of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And when I was at his birth-place, at that little clay house where he was
+ born, standing in that sacred place, I wrote these lines:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Though Scotland boasts a thousand names,
+ Of patriot, king and peer,
+ The noblest, grandest of them all,
+ Was loved and cradled here.
+ Here lived the gentle peasant-prince,
+ The loving cotter-king,
+ Compared with whom the greatest lord
+ Is but a titled thing.
+
+ 'Tis but a cot roofed in with straw,
+ A hovel made of clay;
+ One door shuts out the snow and storm,
+ One window greets the day;
+ And yet I stand within this room,
+ And hold all thrones in scorn;
+ For here beneath this lowly thatch,
+ Love's sweetest bard was born.
+
+ Within this hallowed hut I feel
+ Like one who clasps a shrine,
+ When the glad lips at last have touched
+ The something deemed divine.
+ And here the world through all the years,
+ As long as day returns,
+ The tribute of its love and tears,
+ Will pay to Robert Burns.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ ON the 12th of February, 1809, two babes were born&mdash;one in the woods
+ of Kentucky, amid the hardships and poverty of pioneers; one in England,
+ surrounded by wealth and culture. One was educated in the University of
+ Nature, the other at Cambridge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One associated his name with the enfranchisement of labor, with the
+ emancipation of millions, with the salvation of the Republic. He is known
+ to us as Abraham Lincoln.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other broke the chains of superstition and filled the world with
+ intellectual light, and he is known as Charles Darwin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is grander than to break chains from the bodies of men&mdash;nothing
+ nobler than to destroy the phantoms of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Because of these two men the nineteenth century is illustrious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few men and women make a nation glorious&mdash;Shakespeare made England
+ immortal, Voltaire civilized and humanized France; Goethe, Schiller and
+ Humboldt lifted Germany into the light. Angelo, Raphael, Galileo and Bruno
+ crowned with fadeless laurel the Italian brow, and now the most precious
+ treasure of the Great Republic is the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every generation has its heroes, its iconoclasts, its pioneers, its
+ ideals. The people always have been and still are divided, at least into
+ classes&mdash;the many, who with their backs to the sunrise worship the
+ past, and the few, who keep their faces toward the dawn&mdash;the many,
+ who are satisfied with the world as it is; the few, who labor and suffer
+ for the future, for those to be, and who seek to rescue the oppressed, to
+ destroy the cruel distinctions of caste, and to civilize mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet it sometimes happens that the liberator of one age becomes the
+ oppressor of the next. His reputation becomes so great&mdash;he is so
+ revered and worshiped&mdash;that his followers, in his name, attack the
+ hero who endeavors to take another step in advance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The heroes of the Revolution, forgetting the justice for which they
+ fought, put chains upon the limbs of others, and in their names the lovers
+ of liberty were denounced as ingrates and traitors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the Revolution our fathers to justify their rebellion dug down to
+ the bed-rock of human rights and planted their standard there. They
+ declared that all men were entitled to liberty and that government derived
+ its power from the consent of the governed. But when victory came, the
+ great principles were forgotten and chains were put upon the limbs of men.
+ Both of the great political parties were controlled by greed and
+ selfishness. Both were the defenders and protectors of slavery. For nearly
+ three-quarters of a century these parties had control of the Republic. The
+ principal object of both parties was the protection of the infamous
+ institution. Both were eager to secure the Southern vote and both
+ sacrificed principle and honor upon the altar of success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the Whig party died and the Republican was born. This party was
+ opposed to the further extension of slavery. The Democratic party of the
+ South wished to make the "divine institution" national&mdash;while the
+ Democrats of the North wanted the question decided by each territory for
+ itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Each of these parties had conservatives and extremists. The extremists of
+ the Democratic party were in the rear and wished to go back; the
+ extremists of the Republican party were in the front, and wished to go
+ forward. The extreme Democrat was willing to destroy the Union for the
+ sake of slavery, and the extreme Republican was willing to destroy the
+ Union for the sake of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither party could succeed without the votes of its extremists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the condition in 1858-60.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Lincoln was a child his parents removed from Kentucky to Indiana. A
+ few trees were felled&mdash;a log hut open to the south, no floor, no
+ window, was built&mdash;a little land plowed and here the Lincolns lived.
+ Here the patient, thoughtful, silent, loving mother died&mdash;died in the
+ wide forest as a leaf dies, leaving nothing to her son but the memory of
+ her love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a few years the family moved to Illinois. Lincoln then almost grown,
+ clad in skins, with no woven stitch upon his body&mdash;walking and
+ driving the cattle. Another farm was opened&mdash;a few acres subdued and
+ enough raised to keep the wolf from the door. Lincoln quit the farm&mdash;went
+ down the Ohio and Mississippi as a hand on a flat-boat&mdash;afterward
+ clerked in a country store&mdash;then in partnership with another bought
+ the store&mdash;failed. Nothing left but a few debts&mdash;learned the art
+ of surveying&mdash;made about half a living and paid something on the
+ debts&mdash;read law&mdash;admitted to the bar&mdash;tried a few small
+ cases&mdash;nominated for the Legislature and made a speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This speech was in favor of a tariff, not only for revenue, but to
+ encourage American manufacturers and to protect American workingmen.
+ Lincoln knew then as well as we do now, that everything, to the limits of
+ the possible, that Americans use should be produced by the energy, skill
+ and ingenuity of Americans. He knew that the more industries we had, the
+ greater variety of things we made, the greater would be the development of
+ the American brain. And he knew that great men and great women are the
+ best things that a nation can produce,&mdash;the finest crop a country can
+ possibly raise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that a nation that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor,
+ while the people who manufacture will grow intelligent and rich. To dig,
+ to chop, to plow, requires more muscle than mind, more strength than
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To invent, to manufacture, to take advantage of the forces of nature&mdash;this
+ requires thought, talent, genius. This develops the brain and gives wings
+ to the imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is better for Americans to purchase from Americans, even if the things
+ purchased cost more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we purchase a ton of steel rails from England for twenty dollars, then
+ we have the rails and England the money; But if we buy a ton of steel
+ rails from an American for twenty-five dollars, then America has both the
+ rails and the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Judging from the present universal depression and the recent elections,
+ Lincoln, in his first speech, stood on solid rock and was absolutely
+ right. Lincoln was educated in the University of Nature&mdash;educated by
+ cloud and star&mdash;by field and winding stream&mdash;by billowed plains
+ and solemn forests&mdash;by morning's birth and death of day&mdash;by
+ storm and night&mdash;by the ever eager Spring&mdash;by Summer's wealth of
+ leaf and vine and flower&mdash;the sad and transient glories of the Autumn
+ woods&mdash;and Winter, builder of home and fireside, and whose storms
+ without, create the social warmth within.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was perfectly acquainted with the political questions of the day&mdash;heard
+ them discussed at taverns and country stores, at voting places and courts
+ and on the stump. He knew all the arguments for and against, and no man of
+ his time was better equipped for intellectual conflict. He knew the
+ average mind&mdash;the thoughts of the people, the hopes and prejudices of
+ his fellow-men. He had the power of accurate statement. He was logical,
+ candid and sincere. In addition, he had the "touch of nature that makes
+ the whole world kin."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1858 he was a candidate for the Senate against Stephen A. Douglas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The extreme Democrats would not vote for Douglas, but the extreme
+ Republicans did vote for Lincoln. Lincoln occupied the middle ground, and
+ was the compromise candidate of his own party. He had lived for many years
+ in the intellectual territory of compromise&mdash;in a part of our country
+ settled by Northern and Southern men&mdash;where Northern and Southern
+ ideas met, and the ideas of the two sections were brought together and
+ compared.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sympathies of Lincoln, his ties of kindred, were with the South. His
+ convictions, his sense of justice, and his ideals, were with the North. He
+ knew the horrors of slavery, and he felt the unspeakable ecstasies and
+ glories of freedom. He had the kindness, the gentleness, of true
+ greatness, and he could not have been a master; he had the manhood and
+ independence of true greatness, and he could not have been a slave. He was
+ just, and was incapable of putting a burden upon others that he himself
+ would not willingly bear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was merciful and profound, and it was not necessary for him to read the
+ history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in
+ the same nation, or in the same brain. Lincoln was a statesman.. And there
+ is this difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician
+ schemes and works in every way to make the people do something for him. A
+ statesman wishes to do something for the people. With him place and power
+ are means to an end, and the end is the good of his country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this campaign Lincoln demonstrated three things&mdash;first, that he
+ was the intellectual superior of his opponent; second, that he was right;
+ and third, that a majority of the voters of Illinois were on his side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN 1860 the Republic reached a crisis. The conflict between liberty and
+ slavery could no longer be delayed. For three-quarters of a century the
+ forces had been gathering for the battle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the Revolution, principle was sacrificed for the sake of gain. The
+ Constitution contradicted the Declaration. Liberty as a principle was held
+ in contempt. Slavery took possession of the Government. Slavery made the
+ laws, corrupted courts, dominated Presidents and demoralized the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not hold the South responsible for slavery any more than I do the
+ North. The fact is, that individuals and nations act as they must. There
+ is no chance. Back of every event&mdash;of every hope, prejudice, fancy
+ and dream&mdash;of every opinion and belief&mdash;of every vice and virtue&mdash;of
+ every smile and curse, is the efficient cause. The present moment is the
+ child, and the necessary child, of all the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Northern politicians wanted office, and so they defended slavery; Northern
+ merchants wanted to sell their goods to the South, and so they were the
+ enemies of freedom. The preacher wished to please the people who paid his
+ salary, and so he denounced the slave for not being satisfied with the
+ position in which the good God had placed him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The respectable, the rich, the prosperous, the holders of and the seekers
+ for office, held liberty in contempt. They regarded the Constitution as
+ far more sacred than the rights of men. Candidates for the presidency were
+ applauded because they had tried to make slave States of free territory,
+ and the highest court solemnly and ignorantly decided that colored men and
+ women had no rights. Men who insisted that freedom was better than
+ slavery, and that mothers should not be robbed of their babes, were hated,
+ despised and mobbed. Mr. Douglas voiced the feelings of millions when he
+ declared that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. Upon
+ this question the people, a majority of them, were almost savages. Honor,
+ manhood, conscience, principle&mdash;all sacrificed for the sake of gain
+ or office.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the heights of philosophy&mdash;standing above the contending hosts,
+ above the prejudices, the sentimentalities of the day&mdash;Lincoln was
+ great enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic
+ words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government
+ cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the
+ Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect
+ it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or the
+ other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of
+ it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is
+ in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
+ further until it becomes alike lawful in all the States, old as well as
+ new, North as well as South."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This declaration was the standard around which gathered the grandest
+ political party the world has ever seen, and this declaration made Lincoln
+ the leader of that vast host.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this, the first great crisis, Lincoln uttered the victorious truth that
+ made him the foremost man in the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party nominated him for the presidency and the people
+ decided at the polls that a house divided against itself could not stand,
+ and that slavery had cursed soul and soil enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not a common thing to elect a really great man to fill the highest
+ official position. I do not say that the great Presidents have been chosen
+ by accident. Probably it would be better to say that they were the
+ favorites of a happy chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The average man is afraid of genius. He feels as an awkward man feels in
+ the presence of a sleight-of-hand performer. He admires and suspects.
+ Genius appears to carry too much sail&mdash;to lack prudence, has too much
+ courage. The ballast of dullness inspires confidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By a happy chance Lincoln was nominated and elected in spite of his
+ fitness&mdash;and the patient, gentle, just and loving man was called upon
+ to bear as great a burden as man has ever borne.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THEN came another crisis&mdash;the crisis of Secession and Civil war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again Lincoln spoke the deepest feeling and the highest thought of the
+ Nation. In his first message he said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also showed conclusively that the North and South, in spite of
+ secession, must remain face to face&mdash;that physically they could not
+ separate&mdash;that they must have more or less commerce, and that this
+ commerce must be carried on either between the two sections as friends, or
+ as aliens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection
+ in these words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties
+ be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws among friends?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After having stated fully and fairly the philosophy of the conflict, after
+ having said enough to satisfy any calm and thoughtful mind, he addressed
+ himself to the hearts of America. Probably there are few finer passages in
+ literature than the close of Lincoln's inaugural address:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
+ enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of
+ affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield
+ and patriotic grave to every loving heart and hearthstone all over this
+ broad land, will swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
+ surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These noble, these touching, these pathetic words, were delivered in the
+ presence of rebellion, in the midst of spies and conspirators&mdash;surrounded
+ by but few friends, most of whom were unknown, and some of whom were
+ wavering in their fidelity&mdash;at a time when secession was arrogant and
+ organized, when patriotism was silent, and when, to quote the expressive
+ words of Lincoln himself, "Sinners were calling the righteous to
+ repentance."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Lincoln became President, he was held in contempt by the South&mdash;underrated
+ by the North and East&mdash;not appreciated even by his cabinet&mdash;and
+ yet he was not only one of the wisest, but one of the shrewdest of
+ mankind. Knowing that he had the right to enforce the laws of the Union in
+ all parts of the United States, and Territories&mdash;knowing, as he did,
+ that the secessionists were in the wrong, he also knew that they had
+ sympathizers not only in the North, but in other lands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Consequently, he felt that it was of the utmost importance that the South
+ should fire the first shot, should do some act that would solidify the
+ North, and gain for us the justification of the civilized world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He proposed to give food to the soldiers at Sumter. He asked the advice of
+ all his cabinet on this question, and all, with the exception of
+ Montgomery Blair, answered in the negative, giving their reasons in
+ writing. In spite of this, Lincoln took his own course&mdash;endeavored to
+ send the supplies, and while thus engaged, doing his simple duty, the
+ South commenced actual hostilities and fired on the fort. The course
+ pursued by Lincoln was absolutely right, and the act of the South to a
+ great extent solidified the North, and gained for the Republic the
+ justification of a great number of people in other lands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time Lincoln appreciated the scope and consequences of the
+ impending conflict. Above all other thoughts in his mind was this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This conflict will settle the question, at least for centuries to come,
+ whether man is capable of governing himself, and consequently is of
+ greater importance to the free than to the enslaved."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew what depended on the issue and he said: "We shall nobly save, or
+ meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HEN came a crisis in the North. It became clearer and clearer to Lincoln's
+ mind, day by day, that the Rebellion was slavery, and that it was
+ necessary to keep the border States on the side of the Union. For this
+ purpose he proposed a scheme of emancipation and colonization&mdash;a
+ scheme by which the owners of slaves should be paid the full value of what
+ they called their "property."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that if the border States agreed to gradual emancipation, and
+ received compensation for their slaves, they would be forever lost to the
+ Confederacy, whether secession succeeded or not. It was objected at the
+ time, by some, that the scheme was far too expensive; but Lincoln, wiser
+ than his advisers&mdash;far wiser than his enemies&mdash;demonstrated that
+ from an economical point of view, his course was best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He proposed that $400 be paid for slaves, including men, women and
+ children. This was a large price, and yet he showed how much cheaper it
+ was to purchase than to carry on the war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time, at the price mentioned, there were about $750,000 worth of
+ slaves in Delaware. The cost of carrying on the war was at least two
+ millions of dollars a day, and for one-third of one day's expenses, all
+ the slaves in Delaware could be purchased. He also showed that all the
+ slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri could be bought, at
+ the same price, for less than the expense of carrying on the war for
+ eighty-seven days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the wisest thing that could have been proposed, and yet such was
+ the madness of the South, such the indignation of the North, that the
+ advice was unheeded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, in July, 1862, he urged on the Representatives of the border States
+ a scheme of gradual compensated emancipation; but the Representatives were
+ too deaf to hear, too blind to see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln always hated slavery, and yet he felt the obligations and duties
+ of his position. In his first message he assured the South that the laws,
+ including the most odious of all&mdash;the law for the return of fugitive
+ slaves&mdash;would be enforced. The South would not hear. Afterward he
+ proposed to purchase the slaves of the border States, but the proposition
+ was hardly discussed&mdash;hardly heard. Events came thick and fast;
+ theories gave way to facts, and everything was left to force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The extreme Democrat of the North was fearful that slavery might be
+ destroyed, that the Constitution might be broken, and that Lincoln, after
+ all, could not be trusted; and at the same time the radical Republican
+ feared that Lincoln loved the Union more than he did liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact is, that he tried to discharge the obligations of his great
+ office, knowing from the first that slavery must perish. The course
+ pursued by Lincoln was so gentle, so kind and persistent, so wise and
+ logical, that millions of Northern Democrats sprang to the defence, not
+ only of the Union, but of his administration. Lincoln refused to be led or
+ hurried by Fremont or Hunter, by Greeley or Sumner. From first to last he
+ was the real leader, and he kept step with events.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ON the 22d of July, 1862, Lincoln sent word to the members of his cabinet
+ that he wished to see them. It so happened that Secretary Chase was the
+ first to arrive. He found Lincoln reading a book. Looking up from the
+ page, the President said: "Chase, did you ever read this book?" "What book
+ is it?" asked Chase. "Artemus Ward," replied Lincoln. "Let me read you
+ this chapter, entitled '<i>Wax Wurx in Albany</i>.'" And so he began
+ reading while the other members of the cabinet one by one came in. At last
+ Stanton told Mr. Lincoln that he was in a great hurry, and if any business
+ was to be done he would like to do it at once. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln laid
+ down the open book, opened a drawer, took out a paper and said:
+ "Gentlemen, I have called you together to notify you what I have
+ determined to do. I want no advice. Nothing can change my mind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He then read the Proclamation of Emancipation. Chase thought there ought
+ to be something about God at the close, to which Lincoln replied: "Put it
+ in, it won't hurt it." It was also agreed that the President would wait
+ for a victory in the field before giving the Proclamation to the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The meeting was over, the members went their way. Mr. Chase was the last
+ to go, and as he went through the door looked back and saw that Mr.
+ Lincoln had taken up the book and was again engrossed in the <i>Wax Wurx
+ at Albany.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was on the 22d of July, 1862. On the 22d of August of the same year&mdash;after
+ Lincoln wrote his celebrated letter to Horace Greeley, in which he stated
+ that his object was to save the Union; <i>that he would save it with
+ slavery if he could</i>; that if it was necessary to destroy slavery in
+ order to save the Union, he would; in other words, he would do what was
+ necessary to save the Union.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This letter disheartened, to a great degree, thousands and millions of the
+ friends of freedom. They felt that Mr. Lincoln had not attained the moral
+ height upon which they supposed he stood. And yet, when this letter was
+ written, the Emancipation Proclamation was in his hands, and had been for
+ thirty days, waiting only an opportunity to give it to the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some two weeks after the letter to Greeley, Lincoln was waited on by a
+ committee of clergymen, and was by them informed that it was God's will
+ that he should issue a Proclamation of Emancipation. He replied to them,
+ in substance, that the day of miracles had passed. He also mildly and
+ kindly suggested that if it were God's will this Proclamation should be
+ issued, certainly God would have made known that will to him&mdash;to the
+ person whose duty it was to issue it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 22d day of September, 1862, the most glorious date in the history
+ of the Republic, the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln had reached the generalization of all argument upon the question
+ of slavery and freedom&mdash;a generalization that never has been, and
+ probably never will be, excelled:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is absolutely true. Liberty can be retained, can be enjoyed, only by
+ giving it to others. The spendthrift saves, the miser is prodigal. In the
+ realm of Freedom, waste is husbandry. He who puts chains upon the body of
+ another shackles his own soul. The moment the Proclamation was issued the
+ cause of the Republic became sacred. From that moment the North fought for
+ the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From that moment the North stood under the blue and stars, the flag of
+ Nature, sublime and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1831, Lincoln went down the Mississippi on a flat-boat. He received the
+ extravagant salary of ten dollars a month. When he reached New Orleans, he
+ and some of his companions went about the city.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among other places, they visited a slave market, where men and women were
+ being sold at auction. A young colored girl was on the block. Lincoln
+ heard the brutal words of the auctioneer&mdash;the savage remarks of
+ bidders. The scene filled his soul with indignation and horror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Turning to his companions, he said, "Boys, if I ever get a chance to hit
+ slavery, by God I'll hit it hard!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The helpless girl, unconsciously, had planted in a great heart the seeds
+ of the Proclamation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-one years afterward the chance came, the oath was kept, and to four
+ millions of slaves, of men, women and children, was restored liberty, the
+ jewel of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the history, in the fiction of the world, there is nothing more
+ intensely dramatic than this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln held within his brain the grandest truths, and he held them as
+ unconsciously, as easily, as naturally, as a waveless pool holds within
+ its stainless breast a thousand stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In these two years we had traveled from the Ordinance of Secession to the
+ Proclamation of Emancipation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE were surrounded by enemies. Many of the so-called great in Europe and
+ England were against us. They hated the Republic, despised our
+ institutions, and sought in many ways to aid the South.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Gladstone announced that Jefferson Davis had made a nation, and that
+ he did not believe the restoration of the American Union by force
+ attainable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the Vatican came words of encouragement for the South.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was declared that the North was fighting for empire and the South for
+ independence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Marquis of Salisbury said: "The people of the South are the natural
+ allies of England. The North keeps an opposition shop in the same
+ department of trade as ourselves."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not a very elevated sentiment&mdash;but English.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of their statesmen declared that the subjugation of the South by the
+ North would be a calamity to the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Louis Napoleon was another enemy, and he endeavored to establish a
+ monarchy in Mexico, to the end that the great North might be destroyed.
+ But the patience, the uncommon common sense, the statesmanship of Lincoln&mdash;in
+ spite of foreign hate and Northern division&mdash;triumphed over all. And
+ now we forgive all foes. Victory makes forgiveness easy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was by nature a diplomat. He knew the art of sailing against the
+ wind. He had as much shrewdness as is consistent with honesty. He
+ understood, not only the rights of individuals, but of nations. In all his
+ correspondence with other governments he neither wrote nor sanctioned a
+ line which afterward was used to tie his hands. In the use of perfect
+ English he easily rose above all his advisers and all his fellows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one claims that Lincoln did all. He could have done nothing without the
+ generals in the field, and the generals could have done nothing without
+ their armies. The praise is due to all&mdash;to the private as much as to
+ the officer; to the lowest who did his duty, as much as to the highest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My heart goes out to the brave private as much as to the leader of the
+ host.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Lincoln stood at the centre and with infinite patience, with
+ consummate skill, with the genius of goodness, directed, cheered, consoled
+ and conquered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SLAVERY was the cause of the war, and slavery was the perpetual
+ stumbling-block. As the war went on, question after question arose&mdash;questions
+ that could not be answered by theories. Should we hand back the slave to
+ his master, when the master was using his slave to destroy the Union? If
+ the South was right, slaves were property, and by the laws of war anything
+ that might be used to the advantage of the enemy might be confiscated by
+ us. Events did not wait for discussion. General Butler denominated the
+ negro as "a contraband." Congress provided that the property of the rebels
+ might be confiscated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The extreme Democrats of the North regarded the slave as more sacred than
+ life. It was no harm to kill the master&mdash;to burn his house, to ravage
+ his fields&mdash;but you must not free his slave. If in war a nation has
+ the right to take the property of its citizens&mdash;of its friends&mdash;certainly
+ it has the right to take the property of those it has the right to kill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was wise enough to know that war is governed by the laws of war,
+ and that during the conflict constitutions are silent. All that he could
+ do he did in the interests of peace. He offered to execute every law&mdash;including
+ the most infamous of all&mdash;to buy the slaves in the border States&mdash;to
+ establish gradual, compensated emancipation; but the South would not hear.
+ Then he confiscated the property of rebels&mdash;treated the slaves as
+ contraband of war, used them to put down the Rebellion, armed them and
+ clothed them in the uniform of the Republic&mdash;was in favor of making
+ them citizens and allowing them to stand on an equality with their white
+ brethren under the flag of the Nation. During these years Lincoln moved
+ with events, and every step he took has been justified by the considerate
+ judgment of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LINCOLN not only watched the war, but kept his hand on the political
+ pulse. In 1863 a tide set in against the administration. A Republican
+ meeting was to be held in Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln wrote a
+ letter to be read at this convention. It was in his happiest vein. It was
+ a perfect defence of his administration, including the Proclamation of
+ Emancipation. Among other things he said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or it is not valid. If it
+ is not valid it needs no retraction, but if it is valid it cannot be
+ retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the Northern Democrats who said they would not fight for negroes,
+ Lincoln replied:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Some of them seem willing to fight for you&mdash;but no matter."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of negro soldiers:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do
+ anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives
+ for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive&mdash;even the
+ promise of freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one line in this letter that will give it immortality:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Father of waters again goes unvexed to the sea."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This line is worthy of Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the
+ bullet."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He draws a comparison between the white men against us and the black men
+ for us:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent
+ tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have
+ helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be
+ some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful
+ speech they strove to hinder it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the influence of this letter, the love of country, of the Union, and
+ above all, the love of liberty, took possession of the heroic North.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was the greatest moral exaltation ever known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The spirit of liberty took possession of the people. The masses became
+ sublime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To fight for yourself is natural&mdash;to fight for others is grand; to
+ fight for your country is noble&mdash;to fight for the human race&mdash;for
+ the liberty of hand and brain&mdash;is nobler still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the defenders of slavery had sown the seeds of their
+ own defeat. They dug the pit in which they fell. Clay and Webster and
+ thousands of others had by their eloquence made the Union almost sacred.
+ The Union was the very tree of life, the source and stream and sea of
+ liberty and law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the sake of slavery millions stood by the Union, for the sake of
+ liberty millions knelt at the altar of the Union; and this love of the
+ Union is what, at last, overwhelmed the Confederate hosts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem possible that only a few years ago our Constitution, our
+ laws, our Courts, the Pulpit and the Press defended and upheld the
+ institution of slavery&mdash;that it was a crime to feed the hungry&mdash;to
+ give water to the lips of thirst&mdash;shelter to a woman flying from the
+ whip and chain!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old flag still flies&mdash;the stars are there&mdash;the stains have
+ gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LINCOLN always saw the end. He was unmoved by the storms and currents of
+ the times. He advanced too rapidly for the conservative politicians, too
+ slowly for the radical enthusiasts. He occupied the line of safety, and
+ held by his personality&mdash;by the force of his great character, by his
+ charming candor&mdash;the masses on his side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soldiers thought of him as a father.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All who had lost their sons in battle felt that they had his sympathy&mdash;felt
+ that his face was as sad as theirs. They knew that Lincoln was actuated by
+ one motive, and that his energies were bent to the attainment of one end&mdash;the
+ salvation of the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew that he was kind, sincere and merciful. They knew that in his
+ veins there was no drop of tyrants' blood. They knew that he used his
+ power to protect the innocent, to save reputation and life&mdash;that he
+ had the brain of a philosopher&mdash;the heart of a mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During all the years of war, Lincoln stood the embodiment of mercy,
+ between discipline and death. He pitied the imprisoned and condemned. He
+ took the unfortunate in his arms, and was the friend even of the convict.
+ He knew temptation's strength&mdash;the weakness of the will&mdash;and how
+ in fury's sudden flame the judgment drops the scales, and passion&mdash;blind
+ and deaf&mdash;usurps the throne.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One day a woman, accompanied by a Senator, called on the President. The
+ woman was the wife of one of Mosby's men. Her husband had been captured,
+ tried and condemned to be shot. She came to ask for the pardon of her
+ husband. The President heard her story and then asked what kind of man her
+ husband was. "Is he intemperate, does he abuse the children and beat you?"
+ "No, no," said the wife, "he is a good man, a good husband, he loves me
+ and he loves the children, and we cannot live without him. The only
+ trouble is that he is a fool about politics&mdash;I live in the North,
+ born there, and if I get him home, he will do no more fighting for the
+ South." "Well," said Mr. Lincoln, after examining the papers, "I will
+ pardon your husband and turn him over to you for safe keeping." The poor
+ woman, overcome with joy, sobbed as though her heart would break.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My dear woman," said Lincoln, "if I had known how badly it was going to
+ make you feel, I never would have pardoned him." "You do not understand
+ me," she cried between her sobs. "You do not understand me." "Yes, yes, I
+ do," answered the President, "and if you do not go away at once I shall be
+ crying with you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On another occasion, a member of Congress, on his way to see Lincoln,
+ found in one of the anterooms of the White House an old white-haired man,
+ sobbing&mdash;his wrinkled face wet with tears. The old man told him that
+ for several days he had tried to see the President&mdash;that he wanted a
+ pardon for his son. The Congressman told the old man to come with him and
+ he would introduce him to Mr. Lincoln. On being introduced, the old man
+ said: "Mr. Lincoln, my wife sent me to you. We had three boys. They all
+ joined your army. One of 'em has been killed, one's a fighting now, and
+ one of 'em, the youngest, has been tried for deserting and he's going to
+ be shot day after to-morrow. He never deserted. He's wild, and he may have
+ drunk too much and wandered off, but he never deserted. 'Taint in the
+ blood. He's his mother's favorite, and if he's shot, I know she'll die."
+ The President, turning to his secretary, said: "Telegraph General Butler
+ to suspend the execution in the case of&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;[giving
+ the name] until further orders from me, and ask him to answer&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Congressman congratulated the old man on his success&mdash;but the old
+ man did not respond. He was not satisfied. "Mr. President," he began, "I
+ can't take that news home. It won't satisfy his mother. How do I know but
+ what you'll give further orders to-morrow?" "My good man," said Mr.
+ Lincoln, "I have to do the best I can. The generals are complaining
+ because I pardon so many. They say that my mercy destroys discipline. Now,
+ when you get home you tell his mother what you said to me about my giving
+ further orders, and then you tell her that I said this: 'If your son lives
+ until they get further orders from me, that when he does die people will
+ say that old Methusaleh was a baby compared to him.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pardoning power is the only remnant of absolute sovereignty that a
+ President has. Through all the years, Lincoln will be known as Lincoln the
+ loving, Lincoln the merciful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LINCOLN had the keenest sense of humor, and always saw the laughable side
+ even of disaster. In his humor there was logic and the best of sense. No
+ matter how complicated the question, or how embarrassing the situation,
+ his humor furnished an answer and a door of escape.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Vallandigham was a friend of the South, and did what he could to sow the
+ seeds of failure. In his opinion everything, except rebellion, was
+ unconstitutional.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was arrested, convicted by a court martial, and sentenced to
+ imprisonment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was doubt about the legality of the trial, and thousands in the
+ North denounced the whole proceeding as tyrannical and infamous. At the
+ same time millions demanded that Vallandigham should be punished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln's humor came to the rescue. He disapproved of the findings of the
+ court, changed the punishment, and ordered that Mr. Vallandigham should be
+ sent to his friends in the South.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who regarded the act as unconstitutional almost forgave it for the
+ sake of its humor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Horace Greeley always had the idea that he was greatly superior to
+ Lincoln, because he lived in a larger town, and for a long time insisted
+ that the people of the North and the people of the South desired peace. He
+ took it upon himself to lecture Lincoln. Lincoln, with that wonderful
+ sense of humor, united with shrewdness and profound wisdom, told Greeley
+ that, if the South really wanted peace, he (Lincoln) desired the same
+ thing, and was doing all he could to bring it about. Greeley insisted that
+ a commissioner should be appointed, with authority to negotiate with the
+ representatives of the Confederacy. This was Lincoln's opportunity. He
+ authorized Greeley to act as such commissioner. The great editor felt that
+ he was caught. For a time he hesitated, but finally went, and found that
+ the Southern commissioners were willing to take into consideration any
+ offers of peace that Lincoln might make, consistent with the independence
+ of the Confederacy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The failure of Greeley was humiliating, and the position in which he was
+ left, absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again the humor of Lincoln had triumphed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln, to satisfy a few fault-finders in the North, went to Grant's
+ headquarters and met some Confederate commissioners. He urged that it was
+ hardly proper for him to negotiate with the representatives of rebels in
+ arms&mdash;that if the South wanted peace, all they had to do was to stop
+ fighting. One of the commissioners cited as a precedent the fact that
+ Charles the First negotiated with rebels in arms. To which Lincoln replied
+ that Charles the First lost his head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The conference came to nothing, as Mr. Lincoln expected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The commissioners, one of them being Alexander H. Stephens, who, when in
+ good health, weighed about ninety pounds, dined with the President and
+ Gen. Grant. After dinner, as they were leaving, Stephens put on an English
+ ulster, the tails of which reached the ground, while the collar was
+ somewhat above the wearer's head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Stephens went out, Lincoln touched Grant and said: "Grant, look at
+ Stephens. Did you ever see as little a nubbin with as much shuck?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln always tried to do things in the easiest way. He did not waste his
+ strength. He was not particular about moving along straight lines. He did
+ not tunnel the mountains. He was willing to go around, and reach the end
+ desired as a river reaches the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the most wonderful things ever done by Lincoln was the promotion of
+ General Hooker. After the battle of Fredericksburg, General Burnside found
+ great fault with Hooker, and wished to have him removed from the Army of
+ the Potomac. Lincoln disapproved of Burnside's order, and gave Hooker the
+ command. He then wrote Hooker this memorable letter:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I
+ have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I
+ think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to
+ which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and
+ skillful soldier&mdash;which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not
+ mix politics with your profession&mdash;in which you are right. You have
+ confidence&mdash;which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality.
+ You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than
+ harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you
+ have taken counsel of your ambition to thwart him as much as you could&mdash;in
+ which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and
+ honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it,
+ of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a
+ dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have
+ given you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up
+ dictators. What I now ask of you is military successes, and I will risk
+ the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its
+ ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for
+ all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse
+ into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence
+ in him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you, so far as I can, to
+ put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive, can get any good
+ out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of
+ rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go
+ forward and give us victories."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This letter has, in my judgment, no parallel. The mistaken magnanimity is
+ almost equal to the prophecy:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army,
+ of criticising their command and withholding confidence in him, will now
+ turn upon you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Chancellorsville was the fulfillment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MR. LINCOLN was a statesman. The great stumbling-block&mdash;the great
+ obstruction&mdash;in Lincoln's way, and in the way of thousands, was the
+ old doctrine of States Rights.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This doctrine was first established to protect slavery. It was clung to to
+ protect the inter-State slave trade. It became sacred in connection with
+ the Fugitive Slave Law, and it was finally used as the corner-stone of
+ Secession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This doctrine was never appealed to in defence of the right&mdash;always
+ in support of the wrong. For many years politicians upon both sides of
+ this question endeavored to express the exact relations existing between
+ the Federal Government and the States, and I know of no one who succeeded,
+ except Lincoln. In his message of 1861, delivered on July the 4th, the
+ definition is given, and it is perfect:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole&mdash;to the
+ General Government. Whatever concerns only the State should be left
+ exclusively to the State."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When that definition is realized in practice, this country becomes a
+ Nation. Then we shall know that the first allegiance of the citizen is not
+ to his State, but to the Republic, and that the first duty of the Republic
+ is to protect the citizen, not only when in other lands, but at home, and
+ that this duty cannot be discharged by delegating it to the States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln believed in the sovereignty of the people&mdash;in the supremacy
+ of the Nation&mdash;in the territorial integrity of the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A GREAT actor can be known only when he has assumed the principal
+ character in a great drama. Possibly the greatest actors have never
+ appeared, and it may be that the greatest soldiers have lived the lives of
+ perfect peace. Lincoln assumed the leading part in the greatest drama ever
+ enacted upon the stage of this continent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His criticisms of military movements, his correspondence with his generals
+ and others on the conduct of the war, show that he was at all times master
+ of the situation&mdash;that he was a natural strategist, that he
+ appreciated the difficulties and advantages of every kind, and that in
+ "the still and mental" field of war he stood the peer of any man beneath
+ the flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Had McClellan followed his advice, he would have taken Richmond.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Had Hooker acted in accordance with his suggestions, Chancellorsville
+ would have been a victory for the Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln's political prophecies were all fulfilled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know now that he not only stood at the top, but that he occupied the
+ centre, from first to last, and that he did this by reason of his
+ intelligence, his humor, his philosophy, his courage and his patriotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In passion's storm he stood, unmoved, patient, just and candid. In his
+ brain there was no cloud, and in his heart no hate. He longed to save the
+ South as well as North, to see the Nation one and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived until the end was known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived until the Confederacy was dead&mdash;until Lee surrendered, until
+ Davis fled, until the doors of Libby Prison were opened, until the
+ Republic was supreme.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived until Lincoln and Liberty were united forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived to cross the desert&mdash;to reach the palms of victory&mdash;to
+ hear the murmured music of the welcome waves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived until all loyal hearts were his&mdash;until the history of his
+ deeds made music in the souls of men&mdash;until he knew that on
+ Columbia's Calendar of worth and fame his name stood first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived until there remained nothing for him to do as great as he had
+ done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What he did was worth living for, worth dying for.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived until he stood in the midst of universal
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Joy, beneath the outstretched wings of Peace&mdash;the foremost man in all
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then the horror came. Night fell on noon. The Savior of the Republic,
+ the breaker of chains, the liberator of millions, he who had "assured
+ freedom to the free," was dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon his brow Fame placed the immortal wreath, and for the first time in
+ the history of the world a Nation bowed and wept.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The memory of Lincoln is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds all
+ hearts together now, and holds all States beneath a Nation's flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XIV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ABRAHAM LINCOLN&mdash;strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic
+ and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Democritus, of &#65533;?sop
+ and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest,
+ merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the
+ use of man; while through all, and over all, were an overwhelming sense of
+ obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all, the shadow of the
+ tragic end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters,
+ disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of
+ their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About these oaks
+ there clings none of the earth of humanity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and
+ loved and hated and schemed, we know but little. The glass through which
+ we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are
+ exceedingly indistinct.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's
+ face&mdash;forcing all features to the common mould&mdash;so that he may
+ be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as
+ he should have been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone&mdash;no ancestors, no fellows,
+ and no successors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of
+ personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual
+ star of hope. He preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He knew
+ and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best
+ books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the
+ means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of
+ thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common
+ facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the
+ seasons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a new country a man must possess at least three virtues&mdash;honesty,
+ courage and generosity. In cultivated society, cultivation is often more
+ important than soil. A well-executed counterfeit passes more readily than
+ a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of
+ society&mdash;to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous
+ enough to subscribe in public&mdash;where the subscription can be defended
+ as an investment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is
+ sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he
+ generally passes for what he resembles. People separated only by distance
+ are much nearer together, than those divided by the walls of caste.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and
+ failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and
+ the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic than
+ steeples and chimneys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting
+ sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. The constellations
+ are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic
+ sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called Spring,
+ touched and saddened by Autumn&mdash;the grace and poetry of death. Every
+ field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a
+ tender thought, and every forest a fairy-land. In the country you preserve
+ your identity&mdash;your personality. There you are an aggregation of
+ atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the country you keep your cheek close to the breast of Nature. You are
+ calmed and ennobled by the space, the amplitude and scope of earth and sky&mdash;by
+ the constancy of the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of his death he was a
+ pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no idea
+ how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part,
+ colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If
+ Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling
+ attorney, or a hypocritical parson.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was a great lawyer. There is nothing shrewder in this world than
+ intelligent honesty. Perfect candor is sword and shield.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He understood the nature of man. As a lawyer he endeavored to get at the
+ truth, at the very heart of a case. He was not willing even to deceive
+ himself. No matter what his interest said, what his passion demanded, he
+ was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to pronounce judgment
+ against his own desires.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in
+ brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors,
+ gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask&mdash;never
+ too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit, or
+ kinder humor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that humor is the pilot of reason. People without humor drift
+ unconsciously into absurdity. Humor sees the other side&mdash;stands in
+ the mind like a spectator, a good-natured critic, and gives its opinion
+ before judgment is reached. Humor goes with good nature, and good nature
+ is the climate of reason. In anger, reason abdicates and malice
+ extinguishes the torch. Such was the humor of Lincoln that he could tell
+ even unpleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell the things we
+ wish to hear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy&mdash;it
+ is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was natural in his life and thought&mdash;master of the story-teller's
+ art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech,
+ shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a logician. His logic shed light. In its presence the obscure
+ became luminous, and the most complex and intricate political and
+ metaphysical knots seemed to untie themselves. Logic is the necessary
+ product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the
+ child of a clear head and a good heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had
+ intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without
+ cant&mdash;that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an orator&mdash;clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did
+ not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you wish to be sublime you must be natural&mdash;you must keep close to
+ the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it
+ is too cold. You must be simple in your speech; too much polish suggests
+ insincerity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even
+ the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with
+ statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold
+ hoarded by memory the miser, shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift
+ hope, enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience.
+ Between his lips words bud and blossom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist&mdash;between
+ what is felt and what is said&mdash;between what the heart and brain can
+ do together and what the brain can do alone&mdash;read Lincoln's wondrous
+ speech at Gettysburg, and then the oration of Edward Everett.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The speech of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until
+ languages are dead and lips are dust. The oration of Everett will never be
+ read.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax,
+ the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the thought
+ above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the
+ shortest words&mdash;that the greatest statues need the least drapery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was an immense personality&mdash;firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy
+ is egotism&mdash;firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort,
+ unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature&mdash;unconsciously.
+ He was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds
+ with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the perfect grace
+ of modesty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor,
+ reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that
+ he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or a pretence of
+ payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the
+ best he knew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they were
+ small or mean.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By his candor, by his kindness, by his perfect freedom from restraint, by
+ saying what he thought, and saying it absolutely in his own way, he made
+ it not only possible, but popular, to be natural. He was the enemy of mock
+ solemnity, of the stupidly respectable, of the cold and formal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He wore no official robes either on his body or his soul. He never
+ pretended to be more or less, or other, or different, from what he really
+ was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had the unconscious naturalness of Nature's self.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He built upon the rock. The foundation was secure and broad. The structure
+ was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose. Through days and nights of sorrow,
+ through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose, "with malice
+ towards none, with charity for all," with infinite patience, with
+ unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. Stone after stone was laid, until
+ at last the Proclamation found its place. On that the Goddess stands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared
+ nothing for place, but everything for principle; little for money, but
+ everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily
+ swayed&mdash;willing to go slowly, if in the right direction&mdash;sometimes
+ willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that
+ fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but
+ no defence, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With him, men were neither great nor small&mdash;they were right or wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real&mdash;that
+ which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply
+ graven on his sad and tragic face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the
+ weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know
+ what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the
+ glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it,
+ except on the side of mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying
+ the master&mdash;seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices&mdash;he
+ was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the
+ nobility of a Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He longed to pardon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he
+ had rescued from death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the
+ gentlest memory of our world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ VOLTAIRE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ THE infidels of one age have often been the aureoled saints of the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As time sweeps on the old passes away and the new in its turn becomes old.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in the intellectual world, as in the physical, decay and growth,
+ and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Political rights have been preserved by traitors, the liberty of mind by
+ heretics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries the sword and cross were allies. Together they attacked
+ the rights of man. They defended each other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The throne and altar were twins&mdash;two vultures from the same egg.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ James I. said: "No bishop, no king." He might have added: "No cross, no
+ crown." The king owned the bodies of men; the priest, the souls. One lived
+ on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by fear&mdash;both
+ robbers, both beggars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds. The king made laws,
+ the priest made creeds. Both obtained their authority from God, both were
+ the agents of the Infinite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With bowed backs the people carried the burdens of one, and with wonder's
+ open mouth received the dogmas of the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the people aspired to be free, they were crushed by the king, and every
+ priest was a Herod who slaughtered the children of the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The king said to the people: "God made you peasants, and He made me king;
+ He made you to labor, and me to enjoy; He made rags and hovels for you,
+ robes and palaces for me. He made you to obey, and me to command. Such is
+ the justice of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile; He made me holy and
+ wise; you are the sheep, I am the shepherd; your fleeces belong to me. If
+ you do not obey me here, God will punish you now and torment you forever
+ in another world. Such is the mercy of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You must not reason. Reason is a rebel. You must not contradict&mdash;contradiction
+ is born of egotism; you must believe. He that hath ears to hear let him
+ hear." Heaven was a question of ears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been heretics,
+ blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius who
+ have given their lives to better the condition of their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be well enough here to ask the question: What is greatness?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought,
+ releases souls from the Bastile of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious
+ seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new
+ constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man does not seek applause
+ or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he
+ ascertains he gives to others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes
+ changed to men. If the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes
+ would be barbarians now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night,
+ an inspiration and a prophecy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man;
+ men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not
+ greatness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is
+ from within.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great men are the heroes who have freed the bodies of men; they are
+ the philosophers and thinkers who have given liberty to the soul; they are
+ the poets who have transfigured the common and filled the lives of many
+ millions with love and song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are the artists who have covered the bare walls of weary life with
+ the triumphs of genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are the heroes who have slain the monsters of ignorance and fear, who
+ have outgazed the Gorgon and driven the cruel gods from their thrones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are the inventors, the discoverers, the great mechanics, the kings of
+ the useful who have civilized this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the head of this heroic army, foremost of all, stands Voltaire, whose
+ memory we are honoring tonight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire! a name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of
+ priests. Pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will
+ find that you have made a declaration of war. Pronounce that name, and
+ from the face of the priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from the
+ mouth of forgiveness will pour a Niagara of vituperation and calumny. And
+ yet Voltaire was the greatest man of his century, and did more to free the
+ human race than any other of the sons of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On Sunday, the 21st of November, 1694, a babe was born&mdash;a babe so
+ exceedingly frail that the breath hesitated about remaining, and the
+ parents had him baptized as soon as possible. They were anxious to save
+ the soul of this babe, and they knew that if death came before baptism the
+ child would be doomed to an eternity of pain. They knew that God despised
+ an unsprinkled child. The priest who, with a few drops of water, gave the
+ name of Francois-Marie Arouet to this babe and saved his soul&mdash;little
+ thought that before him, wrapped in many folds, weakly wailing, scarcely
+ breathing, was the one destined to tear from the white throat of Liberty
+ the cruel, murderous claws of the "Triumphant Beast."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Voltaire came to this "great stage of fools," his country had been
+ Christianized&mdash;not civilized&mdash;for about fourteen hundred years.
+ For a thousand years the religion of peace and good-will had been supreme.
+ The laws had been given by Christian kings, and sanctioned by "wise and
+ holy men." Under the benign reign of universal love, every court had its
+ chamber of torture, and every priest relied on the thumb-screw and rack.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such had been the success of the blessed gospel that every science was an
+ outcast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To speak your honest thoughts, to teach your fellow-men, to investigate
+ for yourself, to seek the truth, these were all crimes, and the
+ "holy-mother church" pursued the criminals with sword and flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The believers in a God of love&mdash;an infinite father&mdash;punished
+ hundreds of offences with torture and death. Suspected persons were
+ tortured to make them confess. Convicted persons were tortured to make
+ them give the names of their accomplices. Under the leadership of the
+ church, cruelty had become the only reforming power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this blessed year, 1694, all authors were at the mercy of king and
+ priest. The most of them were cast into prisons, impoverished by fines and
+ costs, exiled or executed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The little time that hangmen could snatch from professional duties was
+ occupied in burning books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The courts of justice were traps, in which the innocent were caught. The
+ judges were almost as malicious and cruel as though they had been bishops
+ or saints. There was no trial by jury, and the rules of evidence allowed
+ the conviction of the supposed criminal by the proof of suspicion or
+ hearsay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The witnesses, being liable to be tortured, generally told what the judges
+ wished to hear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The supernatural and the miraculous controlled the world. Everything was
+ explained, but nothing was understood. The church was at the head. The
+ sick bought from monks little amulets of consecrated paper. They did not
+ send for a doctor, but for a priest, and the priest sold the diseased and
+ the dying these magical amulets. These little pieces of paper with the
+ help of some saint would cure diseases of every kind. If you would put one
+ in a cradle, it would keep the child from being bewitched. If you would
+ put one in the barn, the rats would not eat your corn. If you would keep
+ one in the house, evil spirits would not enter your doors, and if you
+ buried them in the fields, you would have good weather, the frost would be
+ delayed, rain would come when needed, and abundant crops would bless your
+ labor. The church insisted that all diseases could be cured in the name of
+ God, and that these cures could be effected by prayers, exorcism, by
+ touching bones of saints, pieces of the true cross; by being sprinkled
+ with holy water or with sanctified salt, or touched with magical oil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In that day the dead saints were the best physicians; St. Valentine cured
+ the epilepsy; St. Gervasius was exceedingly good for rheumatism; St.
+ Michael for cancer; St. Judas for coughs and colds; St. Ovidius restored
+ the hearing; St. Sebastian was good for the bites of snakes and the stings
+ of poisonous insects; St. Apollonia for toothache; St. Clara for any
+ trouble with the eyes; and St. Hubert for hydrophobia. It was known that
+ doctors reduced the revenues of the church; that was enough&mdash;science
+ was the enemy of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church thought that the air was filled with devils; that every sinner
+ was a kind of tenement house inhabited by evil spirits; that angels were
+ on one side of men and evil spirits on the other, and that God would, when
+ the subscriptions and donations justified the effort, drive the evil
+ spirits from the field.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Satan had power over the air; consequently he controlled the frost, the
+ mildew, the lightning and the flood; and the principal business of the
+ church was with bells, and holy water, and incense, and crosses, to defeat
+ the machinations of that prince of the power of the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Great reliance was placed upon the bells; they were sprinkled with holy
+ water, and their clangor cleared the air of imps and fiends. And bells
+ also protected the people from storms and lightning. In that day the
+ church used to anathematize insects. Suits were commenced against rats,
+ and judgment rendered. Every monastery had its master magician, who sold
+ incense and salt and tapers and consecrated palms and relics. Every
+ science was regarded as an enemy; every fact held the creed of the church
+ in scorn. Investigators were regarded as dangerous; thinkers were
+ traitors, and the church exerted its vast power to prevent the
+ intellectual progress of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was no real liberty, no real education, no real philosophy, no real
+ science&mdash;-nothing but credulity and superstition. The world was under
+ the control of Satan and the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church firmly believed in the existence of witches and devils and
+ fiends. In this way the church had every enemy within her power. It simply
+ had to charge him with being a wizard, of holding communications with
+ devils, and the ignorant mob were ready to tear him to pieces. So
+ prevalent was this belief, this belief in the supernatural, that the poor
+ people were finally driven to make the best possible terms they could with
+ the spirit of evil. This frightful doctrine filled every friend with
+ suspicion of his friend; it made the husband denounce the wife, children
+ their parents, parents their children. It destroyed the amenities of
+ humanity; it did away with justice in courts; it broke the bond of
+ friendship; it filled with poison the golden cup of life; it turned earth
+ into a very perdition peopled with abominable, malicious and hideous
+ fiends. Such was the result of a belief in the supernatural; such was the
+ result of giving up the evidence of their own senses and relying upon
+ dreams, visions and fears. Such was the result of the attack upon the
+ human reason; such the result of depending on the imagination, on the
+ supernatural; such the result of living in this world for another; of
+ depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves. The Protestants vied
+ with Catholics; Luther stood side by side with the priests he had deserted
+ in promoting this belief in devils and fiends. To the Catholic every
+ Protestant was possessed by a devil; to the Protestant every Catholic was
+ the home of a fiend. All order, all regular succession of causes and
+ effects were known no more; the natural ceased to exist; the learned and
+ the ignorant were on a level. The priest was caught in the net he had
+ spread for the peasant, and Christendom became a vast madhouse, with the
+ insane for keepers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Voltaire was born the church ruled and owned France. It was a period
+ of almost universal corruption. The priests were mostly libertines, the
+ judges cruel and venal. The royal palace was a house of prostitution. The
+ nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel to the last degree. The
+ common people were treated as beasts. It took the church a thousand years
+ to bring about this happy condition of things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The seeds of the Revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every
+ noble and by every priest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched; they were
+ being watered by the tears of agony; blows began to bear interest. There
+ was a faint longing for blood. Workmen, blackened by the sun, bowed by
+ labor, deformed by want, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies
+ and thought about cutting them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture;
+ the church was the arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics, angels and
+ devils were as common as lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to appreciate a great man we must know his surroundings. We must
+ understand the scope of the drama in which he played&mdash;the part he
+ acted, and we must also know his audience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In England George I. was disporting with the "May-pole" and "Elephant,"
+ and then George II., jealous and choleric, hating the English and their
+ language, making, however, an excellent image or idol before whom the
+ English were glad to bow&mdash;snobbery triumphant&mdash;the criminal code
+ getting bloodier every day&mdash;223 offences punishable with death&mdash;the
+ prisons filled and the scaffolds crowded&mdash;efforts on every hand to
+ repress the ambition of men to be men&mdash;the church relying on
+ superstition and ceremony to make men good&mdash;and the state dependent
+ on the whip, the rope and axe to make men patriotic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Spain the Inquisition in full control&mdash;all the instruments of
+ torture used to prevent the development of the mind, Spain, that had
+ driven out the Jews, that is to say, her talent; that had driven out the
+ Moors, that is to say, her taste and her industry, was still endeavoring
+ by all religious means to reduce the land to the imbecility of the true
+ faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Portugal they were burning women and children for having eaten meat on
+ a holy day, and this to please the most merciful God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Italy the nation prostrate, covered with swarms of cardinals and
+ bishops and priests and monks and nuns and every representative of holy
+ sloth. The Inquisition there also&mdash;while hands that were clasped in
+ prayer or stretched for alms, grasped with eagerness and joy the lever of
+ the rack, or gathered fagots for the holy flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Germany they were burning men and women charged with having made a
+ compact with the enemy of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in our own fair land, persecuting Quakers, stealing men and women from
+ another shore, stealing children from their mother's breasts, and paying
+ labor with the cruel lash.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition ruled the world!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is but one use for law, but one excuse for government&mdash;the
+ preservation of liberty&mdash;to give to each man his own, to secure to
+ the farmer what he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he invents
+ and makes, to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to
+ express his thoughts. Liberty is the breath of progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In France, the people were the sport of a king's caprice. Everywhere was
+ the shadow of the Bastile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happiest home. With the king
+ walked the headsman; back of the throne was the chamber of torture. The
+ Church appealed to the rack, and Faith relied on the fagot. Science was an
+ outcast, and Philosophy, so-called, was the pander of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nobles and priests were sacred. Peasants were vermin. Idleness sat at the
+ banquet, and Industry gathered the crumbs and the crusts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. THE DAYS OF YOUTH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VOLTAIRE was of the people. In the language of that day, he had no
+ ancestors. His real name was Francois-Marie Arouet. His mother was
+ Marguerite d'Aumard. This mother died when he was seven years of age. He
+ had an elder brother, Armand, who was a devotee, very religious and
+ exceedingly disagreeable. This brother used to present offerings to the
+ church, hoping to make amends for the unbelief of his brother. So far as
+ we know, none of his ancestors were literary people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Arouets had never written a line. The Abbe de Chaulieu was his
+ godfather, and, although an abbe, was a Deist who cared nothing about
+ religion except in connection with his salary. Voltaire's father wanted to
+ make a lawyer of him, but he had no taste for law. At the age of ten he
+ entered the college of Louis Le Grand. This was a Jesuit school, and here
+ he remained for seven years, leaving at seventeen, and never attending any
+ other school. According to Voltaire, he learned nothing at this school but
+ a little Greek, a good deal of Latin and a vast amount of nonsense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this college of Louis Le Grand they did not teach geography, history,
+ mathematics or any science. This was a Catholic institution, controlled by
+ the Jesuits. In that day the religion was defended, was protected or
+ supported by the state. Behind the entire creed were the bayonet, the axe,
+ the wheel, the fagot and the torture chamber.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While Voltaire was attending the college of Louis Le Grand the soldiers of
+ the king were hunting Protestants in the mountains of Cevennes for
+ magistrates to hang on gibbets, to put to torture, to break on the wheel,
+ or to burn at the stake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At seventeen Voltaire determined to devote his life to literature. The
+ father said, speaking of his two sons Armand and Francois, "I have a pair
+ of fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1713, Voltaire, in a small way, became a diplomat. He went to The Hague
+ attached to the French minister, and there he fell in love. The girl's
+ mother objected. Voltaire sent his clothes to the young lady that she
+ might visit him. Everything was discovered and he was dismissed. To this
+ girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the key note of Voltaire:
+ "Do not expose yourself to the fury of your mother. You know what she is
+ capable of. You have experienced it too well. Dissemble; it is your only
+ chance. Tell her that you have forgotten me, that you hate me; then after
+ telling her, love me all the more."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On account of this episode Voltaire was formally disinherited by his
+ father. The father procured an order of arrest and gave his son the choice
+ of going to prison or beyond the seas. He finally consented to become a
+ lawyer, and says: "I have already been a week at work in the office of a
+ solicitor learning the trade of a pettifogger."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About this time he competed for a prize, writing a poem on the king's
+ generosity in building the new choir in the Cathedral Notre Dame. He did
+ not win it. After being with the solicitor a little while, he hated the
+ law, began to write poetry and the outlines of tragedy. Great questions
+ were then agitating the public mind, questions that throw a flood of light
+ upon that epoch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1552 Dr. Baius took it into his head to sustain a number of
+ propositions touching predestination to the prejudice of the doctrine of
+ free will. The Cordelian monks selected seventy-six of the propositions
+ and denounced them to the Pope as heretical, and from the Pope obtained
+ what was called a Bull. This Bull contained a doubtful passage, the
+ meaning of which was dependent upon the position of a comma. The friends
+ of Dr. Baius wrote to Rome to find where the comma ought to be placed.
+ Rome, busy with other matter, sent as an answer a copy of the Bull in
+ which the doubtful sentence was left without any comma. So the dispute
+ continued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there was the great controversy between the Jansenists and Molinists.
+ Molini was a Spanish Jesuit, who sustained the doctrine of free will with
+ a subtlety of his own, "man's will is free, but God sees exactly how he
+ will use it." The Presbyterians of our country are still wrestling with
+ this important absurdity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jansenius was a French Jesuit who carried the doctrine of predestination
+ to the extreme, asserting that God commands things that are impossible,
+ and that Christ did not die for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1641 the Jesuits obtained a Bull condemning five propositions of
+ Jansenius. The Jansenists there upon denied that the five propositions&mdash;or
+ any of them&mdash;were found in the works of Jansenius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This question of Jansenism and Molinism occupied France for about two
+ hundred years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Voltaire's time the question had finally dwindled down to whether the
+ five propositions condemned by the Papal Bull were in fact in the works of
+ Jansenius. The Jansenists proved that the five propositions were not in
+ his book, because a niece of Pascal had a diseased eye cured by the
+ application of a thorn from the crown of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bull Unigenitus was launched in 1713, and then all the prisons were
+ filled with Jansenists. This great question of predestination and free
+ will, of free moral agency and accountability, and being saved by the
+ grace of God, and damned for the glory of God, have occupied the mind of
+ what we call the civilized world for many centuries. All these questions
+ were argued pro and con through Switzerland; all of them in Holland for
+ centuries; in Scotland and England and New England, and millions of people
+ are still busy harmonizing foreordination and free will, necessity and
+ morality, predestination and accountability.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Louis XIV. having died, the Regent took possession, and then the prisons
+ were opened. The Regent called for a list of all persons then in the
+ prisons sent there at the will of the king. He found that, as to many
+ prisoners, nobody knew any cause why they had been in prison. They had
+ been forgotten. Many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and could
+ not guess why they had been arrested. One Italian had been in the Bastile
+ thirty-three years without ever knowing why. On his arrival in Paris,
+ thirty-three years before, he was arrested and sent to prison. He had
+ grown old. He had survived his family and friends. When the rest were
+ liberated he asked to remain where he was, and lived there the rest of his
+ life. The old prisoners were pardoned, but in a little while their places
+ were taken by new ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At this time Voltaire was not interested in the great world&mdash;knew
+ very little of religion or of government. He was busy writing poetry, busy
+ thinking of comedies and tragedies. He was full of life. All his fancies
+ were winged like moths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was charged with having written some cutting epigrams. He was exiled to
+ Tulle, three hundred miles away. From this place he wrote in the true vein&mdash;"I
+ am at a chateau, a place that would be the most agreeable in the world if
+ I had not been exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting for my
+ perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving. It would be delicious to
+ remain, if I only were allowed to go."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the exile was allowed to return. Again he was arrested; this time
+ sent to the Bastile, where he remained for nearly a year. While in prison
+ he changed his name from Francois-Marie Arouet to Voltaire, and by that
+ name he has since been known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire, as full of life as summer is full of blossoms, giving his ideas
+ upon all subjects at the expense of prince and king, was exiled to
+ England. From sunny France he took his way to the mists and fogs of
+ Albion. He became acquainted with the highest and the best in Britain. He
+ met Pope, a most wonderful verbal mechanic, a maker of artificial flowers,
+ very much like natural ones, except that they lack perfume and the seeds
+ of suggestion. He made the acquaintance of Young, who wrote the "Night
+ Thoughts;" Young, a fine old hypocrite with a virtuous imagination, a
+ gentleman who electioneered with the king's mistress that he might be made
+ a bishop. He became acquainted with Chesterfield&mdash;all manners, no
+ man; with Thomson, author of "The Seasons," who loved to see the sun rise
+ in bed and visit the country in town; with Swift, whose poisoned arrows
+ were then festering in the flesh of Mr. Bull&mdash;Swift, as wicked as he
+ was witty, and as heartless as he was humorous&mdash;with Swift, a dean
+ and a devil; with Congreve, whom Addison thought superior to Shakespeare,
+ and who never wrote but one great line, "The cathedral looking
+ tranquillity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. THE MORN OF MANHOOD.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VOLTAIRE began to think, to doubt, to inquire. He studied the history of
+ the church, of the creed. He found that the religion of his time rested on
+ the inspiration of the Scriptures&mdash;the infallibility of the church&mdash;the
+ dreams of insane hermits&mdash;the absurdities of the Fathers&mdash;the
+ mistakes and falsehoods of saints&mdash;the hysteria of nuns&mdash;the
+ cunning of priests and the stupidity of the people. He found that the
+ Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife
+ Fausta and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the
+ Council of Nice, to decide whether Christ was a man or the Son of God. The
+ Council decided, in the year 325, that Christ was consubstantial with the
+ Father. He found that the church was indebted to a husband who
+ assassinated his wife&mdash;a father who murdered his son, for settling
+ the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. He found that Theodosius
+ called a council at Constantinople in 381, by which it was decided that
+ the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father&mdash;that Theodosius, the
+ younger, assembled a council at Ephesus in 431, that declared the Virgin
+ Mary to be the mother of God&mdash;that the Emperor Marcian called another
+ council at Chalcedon in 451, that decided that Christ had two wills&mdash;that
+ Pognatius called another in 680, that declared that Christ had two natures
+ to go with his two wills&mdash;and that in 1274, at the council of Lyons,
+ the important fact was found that the Holy Ghost "proceeded," not only
+ from the Father, but also from the Son at the same time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it took about 1,300 years to find out a few things that had been
+ revealed by an infinite God to his infallible church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire found that this insane creed had filled the world with cruelty
+ and fear. He found that vestments were more sacred than virtues&mdash;that
+ images and crosses&mdash;pieces of old bones and bits of wood were more
+ precious than the rights and lives of men, and that the keepers of these
+ relics were the enemies of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With all the energy of his nature&mdash;with every faculty of his mind&mdash;he
+ attacked this "Triumphant Beast."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was the apostle of common sense. He knew that there could have
+ been no primitive or first language from which all other languages had
+ been formed. He knew that every language had been influenced by the
+ surroundings of the people. He knew that the language of snow and ice was
+ not the language of palm and flower. He knew also that there had been no
+ miracle in language. He knew that it was impossible that the story of the
+ Tower of Babel should be true. He knew that everything in the whole world
+ had been natural. He was the enemy of alchemy, not only in language but in
+ science. One passage from him is enough to show his philosophy in this
+ regard. He says; "To transmute iron into gold, two things are necessary:
+ first, the annihilation of the iron; second, the creation of gold."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire gave us the philosophy of history.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature, of cheerfulness. He despised
+ with all his heart the philosophy of Calvin, the creed of the sombre, of
+ the severe, of the unnatural. He pitied those who needed the aid of
+ religion to be honest, to be cheerful. He had the courage to enjoy the
+ present and the philosophy to bear what the future might bring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet for more than a hundred and fifty years the Christian world has
+ fought this man and has maligned his memory. In every Christian pulpit his
+ name has been pronounced with scorn, and every pulpit has been an arsenal
+ of slander. He is one man of whom no orthodox minister has ever told the
+ truth. He has been denounced equally by Catholics and Protestants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, presiding elders and popes
+ have filled the world with slanders, with calumnies about Voltaire. I am
+ amazed that ministers will not or cannot tell the truth about an enemy of
+ the church. As a matter of fact, for more than one thousand years, almost
+ every pulpit has been a mint in which slanders have been coined.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire made up his mind to destroy the superstition of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He fought with every weapon that genius could devise or use. He was the
+ greatest of all caricaturists, and he used this wonderful gift without
+ mercy. For pure crystallized wit, he had no equal. The art of flattery was
+ carried by him to the height of an exact science. He knew and practiced
+ every subterfuge. He fought the army of hypocrisy and pretence, the army
+ of faith and falsehood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was annoyed by the meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the
+ cringers and crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by those who wished
+ to gain the favor of priests, the patronage of nobles. Sometimes he
+ allowed himself to be annoyed by these wretches; sometimes he attacked
+ them. And, but for these attacks, long ago they would have been forgotten.
+ In the amber of his genius Voltaire preserved these insects, these
+ tarantulas, these scorpions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is fashionable to say that he was not profound. This is because he was
+ not stupid. In the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called
+ irreverent. He thought God would not damn even a priest forever&mdash;this
+ was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to prevent Christians from
+ murdering each other, and did what he could to civilize the disciples of
+ Christ. Had he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and
+ burned a few heretics at slow fires, he would have won the admiration,
+ respect and love of the Christian world. Had he only pretended to believe
+ all the fables of antiquity, had he mumbled Latin prayers, counted beads,
+ crossed himself, devoured now and then the flesh of God, and carried
+ fagots to the feet of Philosophy in the name of Christ, he might have been
+ in heaven this moment, enjoying a sight of the damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he had only adopted the creed of his time&mdash;if he had asserted that
+ a God of infinite power and mercy had created millions and billions of
+ human beings to suffer eternal pain, and all for the sake of his glorious
+ justice&mdash;that he had given his power of attorney to a cunning and
+ cruel Italian Pope, authorizing him to save the soul of his mistress and
+ send honest wives to hell&mdash;if he had given to the nostril's of this
+ God the odor of burning flesh&mdash;the incense of the fagot&mdash;if he
+ had filled his ears with the shrieks of the tortured&mdash;the music of
+ the rack, he would now be known as Saint Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years this restless man filled Europe with the product of his
+ brain. Essays, epigrams, epics, comedies, tragedies, histories, poems,
+ novels, representing every phase and every faculty of the human mind. At
+ the same time engrossed in business, full of speculation, making money
+ like a millionaire, busy with the gossip of courts, and even with the
+ scandals of priests. At the same time alive to all the discoveries of
+ science and the theories of philosophers, and in this Babel never
+ forgetting for one moment to assail the monster of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sleeping and waking he hated the church. With the eyes of Argus he
+ watched, and with the arms of Briareus he struck. For sixty years he waged
+ continuous and unrelenting war, sometimes in the open field, sometimes
+ striking from the hedges of opportunity&mdash;taking care during all this
+ time to remain independent of all men. He was in the highest sense
+ successful. He lived like a prince, became one of the powers of Europe,
+ and in him, for the first time, literature was crowned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been claimed by the Christian critics that Voltaire was irreverent;
+ that he examined sacred things without solemnity; that he refused to
+ remove his shoes in the presence of the Burning Bush; that he smiled at
+ the geology of Moses, the astronomical ideas of Joshua, and that the
+ biography of Jonah filled him with laughter. They say that these stories,
+ these sacred impossibilities, these inspired falsehoods, should be read
+ and studied with a believing mind in humbleness of spirit; that they
+ should be examined prayerfully, asking God at the same time to give us
+ strength to triumph over the conclusions of our reason. These critics
+ imagine that a falsehood can be old enough to be venerable, and that to
+ stand covered in its presence is the act of an irreverent scoffer.
+ Voltaire approached the mythology of the Jews precisely as he did the
+ mythology of the Greeks and Romans, or the mythology of the Chinese or the
+ Iroquois Indians. There is nothing in this world too sacred to be
+ investigated, to be understood. The philosopher does not hide. Secrecy is
+ not the friend of truth. No man should be reverent at the expense of his
+ reason. Nothing should be worshiped until the reason has been convinced
+ that it is worthy of worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against all miracles, against all holy superstition, against sacred
+ mistakes, he shot the arrows of ridicule.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These arrows, winged by fancy, sharpened by wit, poisoned by truth, always
+ reached the centre.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed by many that anything, the best and holiest, can be
+ ridiculed. As a matter of fact, he who attempts to ridicule the truth,
+ ridicules himself. He becomes the food of his own laughter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mind of man is many-sided. Truth must be and is willing to be tested
+ in every way, tested by all the senses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in what way can the absurdity of the "real presence" be answered,
+ except by banter, by raillery, by ridicule, by persiflage? How are you
+ going to convince a man who believes that when he swallows the sacred
+ wafer he has eaten the entire Trinity, and that a priest drinking a drop
+ of wine has devoured the Infinite? How are you to reason with a man who
+ believes that if any of the sacred wafers are left over they should be put
+ in a secure place, so that mice should not eat God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly believes
+ that a God of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear thirty or forty
+ children in pieces for laughing at a bald-headed prophet?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How are such people to be answered? How can they be brought to a sense of
+ their absurdity? They must feel in their flesh the arrows of ridicule..
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Voltaire has been called a mocker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What did he mock? He mocked kings that were unjust; kings who cared
+ nothing for the sufferings of their subjects. He mocked the titled fools
+ of his day. He mocked the corruption of courts; the meanness, the tyranny
+ and the brutality of judges. He mocked the absurd and cruel laws, the
+ barbarous customs. He mocked popes and cardinals and bishops and priests,
+ and all the hypocrites on the earth. He mocked historians who filled their
+ books with lies, and philosophers who defended superstition. He mocked the
+ haters of liberty, the persecutors of their fellow-men. He mocked the
+ arrogance, the cruelty, the impudence, and the unspeakable baseness of his
+ time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has been blamed because he used the weapon of ridicule.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hypocrisy has always hated laughter, and always will. Absurdity detests
+ humor, and stupidity despises wit. Voltaire was the master of ridicule. He
+ ridiculed the absurd, the impossible. He ridiculed the mythologies and the
+ miracles, the stupid lives and lies of the saints. He found pretence and
+ mendacity crowned by credulity. He found the ignorant many controlled by
+ the cunning and cruel few. He found the historian, saturated with
+ superstition, filling his volumes with the details of the impossible, and
+ he found the scientists satisfied with "they say."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire had the instinct of the probable. He knew the law of average, the
+ sea level; he had the idea of proportion, and so he ridiculed the mental
+ monstrosities and deformities&mdash;the <i>non sequiturs</i>&mdash;of his
+ day. Aristotle said women had more teeth than men. This was repeated again
+ and again by the Catholic scientists of the eighteenth century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire counted the teeth. The rest were satisfied with "they say."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire for many years, in spite of his surroundings, in spite of almost
+ universal tyranny and oppression, was a believer in God and what he was
+ pleased to call the religion of Nature. He attacked the creed of his time
+ because it was dishonorable to his God. He thought of the Deity as a
+ father, as the fountain of justice, intelligence and mercy, and the creed
+ of the Catholic Church made him a monster of cruelty and stupidity. He
+ attacked the Bible with all the weapons at his command. He assailed its
+ geology, its astronomy, its ideas of justice, its laws and customs, its
+ absurd and useless miracles, its foolish wonders, its ignorance on all
+ subjects, its insane prophecies, its cruel threats and its extravagant
+ promises.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time he praised the God of nature, the God who gives us rain
+ and light and food and flowers and health and happiness&mdash;who fills
+ the world with youth and beauty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Attacked on every side, he fought with every weapon that wit, logic,
+ reason, scorn, contempt, laughter, pathos and indignation could sharpen,
+ form, devise or use. He often apologized, and the apology was an insult.
+ He often recanted, and the recantation was a thousand times worse than the
+ thing recanted. He took it back by giving more. In the name of eulogy he
+ flayed his victim. In his praise there was poison. He often advanced by
+ retreating, and asserted by retraction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not intend to give priests the satisfaction of seeing him burn or
+ suffer. Upon this very point of recanting he wrote:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They say I must retract. Very willingly. I will declare that Pascal is
+ always right. That if St. Luke and St. Mark contradict one another, it is
+ only another proof of the truth of religion to those who know how to
+ understand such things; and that another lovely proof of religion is that
+ it is unintelligible. I will even avow that all priests are gentle and
+ disinterested; that Jesuits are honest people; that monks are neither
+ proud nor given to intrigue, and that their odor is agreeable; that the
+ Holy Inquisition is the triumph of humanity and tolerance. In a word, I
+ will say all that may be desired of me, provided they leave me in repose,
+ and will not persecute a man who has done harm to none."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He gave the best years of his wondrous life to succor the oppressed, to
+ shield the defenceless, to reverse infamous decrees, to rescue the
+ innocent, to reform the laws of France, to do away with torture, to soften
+ the hearts of priests, to enlighten judges, to instruct kings, to civilize
+ the people, and to banish from the heart of man the love and lust of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may think that I have said too much; that I have placed this man too
+ high. Let me tell you what Goethe, the great German, said of this man:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If you wish depth, genius, imagination, taste, reason, sensibility,
+ philosophy, elevation, originality, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude,
+ facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility,
+ warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep of vision, vast
+ understanding, instruction rich, tone excellent, urbanity, suavity,
+ delicacy, correctness, purity, clearness, eloquence, harmony, brilliancy,
+ rapidity, gaiety, pathos, sublimity and universality, perfection indeed,
+ behold Voltaire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even Carlyle, that old Scotch terrier, with the growl of a grizzly bear,
+ who attacked shams, as I have sometimes thought, because he hated rivals,
+ was forced to admit that Voltaire gave the death stab to modern
+ superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the duty of every man to destroy the superstitions of his time, and
+ yet there are thousands of men and women, fathers and mothers, who
+ repudiate with their whole hearts the creeds of superstition, and still
+ allow their children to be taught these lies. They allow their
+ imaginations to be poisoned with the dogma of eternal pain. They allow
+ arrogant and ignorant parsons, meek and foolish teachers, to sow the seeds
+ of barbarism in the minds of their children&mdash;seeds that will fill
+ their lives with fear and pain. Nothing can be more important to a human
+ being than to be free and to live without fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is far better to be a mortal free man than an immortal slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fathers and mothers should do their utmost to make their children free.
+ They should teach them to doubt, to investigate, to inquire, and every
+ father and mother should know that by the cradle of every child, as by the
+ cradle of the infant Hercules, crawls the serpent of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. THE SCHEME OF NATURE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AT that time it was pretended by the believers in God that the plan, or
+ the scheme of nature, was not cruel; that the lower was sacrificed for the
+ benefit of the higher; that while life lived upon life, while animals
+ lived upon each other, and while man was the king or sovereign of all,
+ still the higher lived upon the lower. Consequently, a lower life was
+ sacrificed that a higher life might exist. This reasoning satisfied many.
+ Yet there were thousands that could not see why the lower should be
+ sacrificed, or why all joy should be born of pain. But, since the
+ construction of the microscope, since man has been allowed to look toward
+ the infinitely small, as well as toward the infinitely great, he finds
+ that our fathers were mistaken when they laid down the proposition that
+ only the lower life was sacrificed for the sake of the higher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we find that the lives of all visible animals are liable to be, and in
+ countless cases are, destroyed by a far lower life; that man himself is
+ destroyed by the microbes, the bacilli, the infinitesimal. We find that
+ for the sake of preserving the yellow fever germs millions and millions
+ have died, and that whole nations have been decimated for the sake of the
+ little beast that gives us the cholera. We have also found that there are
+ animals, call them what you please, that live on the substance of the
+ human heart, others that prefer the lungs, others again so delicate in
+ their palate that they insist on devouring the optic nerve, and when they
+ have destroyed the sight of one eye have sense enough to bore through the
+ cartilage of the nose to attack the other. Thus we find the other side of
+ this proposition. At first sight the lower seemed to be sacrificed for the
+ sake of the higher, but on closer inspection the highest are sacrificed
+ for the sake of the lowest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was, for a long time, a believer in the optimism of Pope&mdash;"All
+ partial evil, universal good." This is a very fine philosophy for the
+ fortunate. It suits the rich. It is flattering to kings and priests. It
+ sounds well. It is a fine stone to throw at a beggar. It enables you to
+ bear with great fortitude the misfortunes of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not the philosophy for those who suffer&mdash;for industry clothed
+ in rags, for patriotism in prison, for honesty in want, or for virtuous
+ outcasts. It is a philosophy of a class, of a few, and of the few who are
+ fortunate; and, when misfortune overtakes them, this philosophy fades and
+ withers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1755 came the earthquake at Lisbon. This frightful disaster became an
+ immense interrogation. The optimist was compelled to ask, "What was my God
+ doing? Why did the Universal Father crush to shapelessness thousands of
+ his poor children, even at the moment when they were upon their knees
+ returning thanks to him?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What could be done with this horror? If earthquake there must be, why did
+ it not occur in some uninhabited desert, on some wide waste of sea? This
+ frightful fact changed the theology of Voltaire. He became convinced that
+ this is not the best possible of all worlds. He became convinced that evil
+ is evil here, now, and forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Theist was silent. The earthquake denied the existence of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. HIS HUMANITY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ TOULOUSE was a favored town. It was rich in relics. The people were as
+ ignorant as wooden images, but they had in their possession the dried
+ bodies of seven apostles&mdash;the bones of many of the infants slain by
+ Herod&mdash;part of a dress of the Virgin Mary, and lots of skulls and
+ skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this city the people celebrated every year with great joy two holy
+ events: The expulsion of the Huguenots, and the blessed massacre of St.
+ Bartholomew. The citizens of Toulouse had been educated and civilized by
+ the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few Protestants, mild because in the minority, lived among these jackals
+ and tigers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of these Protestants was Jean Calas&mdash;a small dealer in dry goods.
+ For forty years he had been in this business, and his character was
+ without a stain. He was honest, kind and agreeable. He had a wife and six
+ children&mdash;four sons and two daughters. One of the sons became a
+ Catholic. The eldest son, Marc Antoine, disliked his father's business and
+ studied law. He could not be allowed to practice unless he became a
+ Catholic. He tried to get his license by concealing that he was a
+ Protestant. He was discovered&mdash;grew morose. Finally he became
+ discouraged and committed suicide, by hanging himself one evening in his
+ father's store.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The bigots of Toulouse started the story that his parents had killed him
+ to prevent his becoming a Catholic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On this frightful charge the father, mother, one son, a servant, and one
+ guest at their house, were arrested.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dead son was considered a martyr, the church taking possession of the
+ body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This happened in 1761.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was what was called a trial. There was no evidence, not the
+ slightest, except hearsay. All the facts were in favor of the accused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The united strength of the defendants could not have done the deed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jean Calas was doomed to torture and to death upon the wheel. This was on
+ the 9th of March, 1762, and the sentence was to be carried out the next
+ day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the morning of the 10th the father was taken to the torture room. The
+ executioner and his assistants were sworn on the cross to administer the
+ torture according to the judgment of the court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They bound him by the wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four feet
+ from the ground, and his feet to another ring in the floor. Then they
+ shortened the ropes and chains until every joint in his arms and legs was
+ dislocated. Then he was questioned. He declared that he was innocent. Then
+ the ropes were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn body; but
+ he remained firm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was called "the question ordinaire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again the magistrates exhorted the victim to confess, and again he
+ refused, saying that there was nothing to confess.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came "the question extraordinaire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Into the mouth of the victim was placed a horn holding three pints of
+ water. In this way thirty pints of water were forced into the body of the
+ sufferer. The pain was beyond description, and yet Jean Calas remained
+ firm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was then carried to the scaffold in a tumbril.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was bound to a wooden cross that lay on the scaffold. The executioner
+ then took a bar of iron, broke each leg and each arm in two places,
+ striking eleven blows in all. He was then left to die if he could. He
+ lived for two hours, declaring his innocence to the last. He was slow to
+ die, and so the executioner strangled him. Then his poor lacerated,
+ bleeding and broken body was chained to a stake and burned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this was a spectacle&mdash;a festival for the savages of Toulouse.
+ What would they have done if their hearts had not been softened by the
+ glad tidings of great joy&mdash;peace on earth and good will to men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this was not all. The property of the family was confiscated; the son
+ was released on condition that he become a Catholic; the servant if she
+ would enter a convent. The two daughters were consigned to a convent, and
+ the heart-broken widow was allowed to wander where she would.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire heard of this case. In a moment his soul was on fire. He took one
+ of the sons under his roof. He wrote a history of the case. He
+ corresponded with kings and queens, with chancellors and lawyers. If money
+ was needed, he advanced it. For years he filled Europe with the echoes of
+ the groans of Jean Calas. He succeeded. The horrible judgment was annulled&mdash;the
+ poor victim declared innocent and thousands of dollars raised to support
+ the mother and family.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the work of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE SIRVEN FAMILY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his wife and three
+ daughters. The housekeeper of the bishop wanted to make one of the
+ daughters a Catholic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law allowed the bishop to take the child of Protestants from their
+ parents for the sake of its soul. This little girl was so taken and placed
+ in a convent. She ran away and came back to her parents. Her poor little
+ body was covered with the marks of the convent whip.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Suffer little children to come unto me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The child was out of her mind&mdash;suddenly she disappeared, and a few
+ days after her little body was found in a well, three miles from home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cry was raised that her folks had murdered her to keep her from
+ becoming a Catholic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This happened only a little way from the Christian City of Toulouse while
+ Jean Calas was in prison. The Sirvens knew that a trial would end in
+ conviction. They fled. In their absence they were convicted, their
+ property confiscated, the parents sentenced to die by the hangman, the
+ daughters to be under the gallows during the execution of their mother,
+ and then to be exiled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The family fled in the midst of winter; the married daughter gave birth to
+ a child in the snows of the Alps; the mother died, and, at last reaching
+ Switzerland, the father found himself without means of support.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They went to Voltaire. He espoused their cause. He took care of them, gave
+ them the means to live, and labored to annul the sentence that had been
+ pronounced against them for nine long and weary years. He appealed to
+ kings for money, to Catharine II. of Russia, and to hundreds of others. He
+ was successful. He said of this case: The Sirvens were tried and condemned
+ in two hours in January, 1762, and now in January, 1772, after ten years
+ of effort, they have been restored to their rights.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the worshipers of God hate the
+ lovers of men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE ESPENASSE CASE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Espenasse was a Protestant, of good estate. In 1740 he received into his
+ house a Protestant clergyman, to whom he gave supper and lodging.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a country where priests repeated the parable of the "Good Samaritan,"
+ this was a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For this crime Espenasse was tried, convicted and sentenced to the galleys
+ for life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he had been imprisoned for twenty-three years his case came to the
+ knowledge of Voltaire, and he was, through the efforts of Voltaire,
+ released and restored to his family.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the work of Voltaire. There is not time to tell of the case of
+ General Lally, of the English General Byng, of the niece of Corneille, of
+ the Jesuit Adam, of the writers, dramatists, actors, widows and orphans
+ for whose benefit he gave his influence, his money and his time. But I
+ will tell another case:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1765, at the town of Abbeville, an old wooden cross on a bridge had
+ been mutilated&mdash;whittled with a knife&mdash;a terrible crime. Sticks,
+ when crossing each other, were far more sacred than flesh and blood. Two
+ young men were suspected&mdash;the Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde.
+ D'Etallonde fled to Prussia and enlisted as a common soldier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ La Barre remained and stood his trial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was convicted without the slightest evidence, and he and D'Etallonde
+ were both sentenced:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>, to endure the torture, ordinary and extraordinary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>, to have their tongues torn out by the roots with pincers of
+ iron.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>, to have their right hands cut off at the door of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth</i>, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron and burned to death
+ by a slow fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Remembering this, the judges mitigated the sentence by providing that
+ their heads should be cut off before their bodies were given to the
+ flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The case was appealed to Paris; heard by a court composed of twenty-five
+ judges, learned in the law, and the judgment was confirmed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sentence was carried out on the first day of July, 1766.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he made up his mind to abandon
+ France. He wished to leave forever a country where such cruelties were
+ possible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He wrote a pamphlet, giving the history of the case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He ascertained the whereabouts of D'Etallonde, wrote in his behalf to the
+ King of Prussia; got him released from the army; took him to his own
+ house; kept him for a year and a half; saw that he was instructed in
+ drawing, mathematics, engineering, and had at last the happiness of seeing
+ him a captain of engineers in the army of Frederick the Great.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such a man was Voltaire. He was the champion of the oppressed and the
+ helpless. He was the C&aelig;sar to whom the victims of church and state
+ appealed. He stood for the intellect and heart of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet for a hundred and fifty years those who love their enemies have
+ exhausted the vocabulary of hate, the ingenuity of malice and mendacity,
+ in their efforts to save their stupid creeds from the genius of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From a great height he surveyed the world. His horizon was large. He had
+ some vices&mdash;these he shared in common with priests&mdash;his virtues
+ were his own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was in favor of universal education&mdash;of the development of the
+ brain. The church despised him. He wished to put the knowledge of the
+ whole world within the reach of all. Every priest was his enemy. He wished
+ to drive from the gate of Eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the
+ children of Adam might return and eat of the fruit of the tree of
+ knowledge. The church opposed this because it had the fruit of the tree of
+ ignorance for sale.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was one of the foremost friends of the Encyclopedia&mdash;of Diderot,
+ and did all in his power to give information to all. So far as principles
+ were concerned, he was the greatest lawyer of his time. I do not mean that
+ he knew the terms and decisions, but that he clearly perceived not only
+ what the law should be, but its application and administration. He
+ understood the philosophy of evidence, the difference between suspicion
+ and proof, between belief and knowledge, and he did more to reform the
+ laws of the kingdom and the abuses at courts than all the lawyers and
+ statesmen of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At school, he read and studied the works of Cicero&mdash;the lord of
+ language&mdash;probably the greatest orator that has uttered speech, and
+ the words of the Roman remained in his brain. He became, in spite of the
+ spirit of caste, a believer in the equality of men. He said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Men are born equal."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Let us respect virtue and merit."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Let us have it in the heart that men are equal." He was an abolitionist&mdash;the
+ enemy of slavery in all its forms. He did not think that the color of one
+ man gave him the right to steal from another man on account of that man's
+ color. He was the friend of serf and peasant, and did what he could to
+ protect animals, wives and children from the fury of those who loved their
+ neighbors as themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was Voltaire who sowed the seeds of liberty in the heart and brain of
+ Franklin, of Jefferson and Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pufendorf had taken the ground that slavery was, in part, founded on
+ contract.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire said: "Show me the contract, and if it is signed by the party to
+ be the slave, I may believe."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He thought it absurd that God should drown the fathers, and then come and
+ die for the children. This is as good as the remark of Diderot: "If Christ
+ had the power to defend himself from the Jews and refused to use it, he
+ was guilty of suicide."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had sense enough to know that the flame of the fagot does not enlighten
+ the mind. He hated the cruel and pitied the victims of church and state.
+ He was the friend of the unfortunate&mdash;the helper of the striving. He
+ laughed at the pomp of kings&mdash;the pretensions of priests. He was a
+ believer in the natural and abhorred with all his heart the miraculous and
+ absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was not a saint. He was educated by the Jesuits. He was never
+ troubled about the salvation of his soul. All the theological disputes
+ excited his laughter, the creeds his pity, and the conduct of bigots his
+ contempt. He was much better than a saint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the Christians in his day kept their religion not for every day
+ use but for disaster, as ships carry life boats to be used only in the
+ stress of storm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire believed in the religion of humanity&mdash;of good and generous
+ deeds. For many centuries the church had painted virtue so ugly, sour and
+ cold, that vice was regarded as beautiful. Voltaire taught the beauty of
+ the useful, the hatefulness and hideousness of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists, but he was the
+ greatest man of his time, the greatest friend of freedom and the deadliest
+ foe of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did more to break the chains of superstition&mdash;to drive the
+ phantoms of fear from the heart and brain, to destroy the authority of the
+ church and to give liberty to the world than any other of the sons of men.
+ In the highest, the holiest sense he was the most profoundly religious man
+ of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. THE RETURN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AFTER an exile of twenty-seven years, occupying during all that time a
+ first place in the civilized world, Voltaire returned to Paris. His
+ journey was a triumphal march. He was received as a conqueror. The
+ Academy, the Immortals, came to meet him&mdash;a compliment that had never
+ been paid to royalty. His tragedy of "Irene" was performed. At the theatre
+ he was crowned with laurel, covered with flowers; he was intoxicated with
+ perfume and with incense of worship. He was the supreme French poet,
+ standing above them all. Among the literary men of the world he stood
+ first&mdash;a monarch by the divine right of genius. There were three
+ mighty forces in France&mdash;the throne, the altar and Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The king was the enemy of Voltaire. The court could have nothing to do
+ with him. The church, malign and morose, was waiting for her revenge, and
+ yet, such was the reputation of this man&mdash;such the hold he had upon
+ the people&mdash;that he became, in spite of Throne, in spite of Church,
+ the idol of France.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an old man of eighty-four. He had been surrounded with the
+ comforts, the luxuries of life. He was a man of great wealth, the richest
+ writer that the world had known. Among the literary men of the earth he
+ stood first. He was an intellectual king&mdash;one who had built his own
+ throne and had woven the purple of his own power. He was a man of genius.
+ The Catholic God had allowed him the appearance of success. His last years
+ were filled with the intoxication of flattery&mdash;of almost worship. He
+ stood at the summit of his age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The priests became anxious. They began to fear that God would forget, in a
+ multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Towards the last of May, 1778, it was whispered in Paris that Voltaire was
+ dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of
+ superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Two days before his death, his nephew went to seek the Cur&eacute; of
+ Saint Sulpice and the Abb&eacute; Gautier, and brought them into his
+ uncle's sick chamber. 'Ah, well!' said Voltaire, 'give them my compliments
+ and my thanks.' The Abb&eacute; spoke some words to him, exhorting him to
+ patience. The cur&eacute; of Saint Sulpice then came forward, having
+ announced himself, and asked of Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he
+ acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sick man pushed
+ one of his hands against the cur&eacute;s coif, shoving him back and
+ cried, turning abruptly to the other side, 'Let me die in peace.' The cur&eacute;
+ seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif dishonored by the
+ touch of a philosopher. He made the nurse give him a little brushing and
+ went out with the Abb&eacute; Gautier."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He expired, says Wagni&egrave;re, on the 30th of May, 1778, at about a
+ quarter-past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. A few
+ minutes before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his <i>valet de
+ chambre</i>, who was watching by him, pressed it, and said: "Adieu, my
+ dear Morand, I am gone." These were his last words. Like a peaceful river
+ with green and shaded banks, he flowed without a murmur into the waveless
+ sea, where life is rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so philosophic and tender,
+ so natural and peaceful; from these words, so utterly destitute of cant or
+ dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances,
+ have been drawn and made. From these materials, and from these alone, or
+ rather, in spite of these facts, have been constructed by priests and
+ clergymen and their dupes all the shameless lies about the death of this
+ great and wonderful man. A man, compared with whom all of his
+ calumniators, dead and living, were, and are, but dust and vermin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome increase the mental wealth
+ of man as much as Bruno? Did all the priests of France do as great a work
+ for the civilization of the world as Voltaire or Diderot? Did all the
+ ministers of Scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as David
+ Hume? Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops,
+ cardinals and popes, from the day of Pentecost to the last election, done
+ as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would the world be if infidels had never been?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the
+ world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love;
+ the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our
+ race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of
+ thought, the creditors of all the years to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to
+ the liberation of their fellow-men should have been hissed at in the hour
+ of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery&mdash;practiced
+ polygamy&mdash;-justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of
+ mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor, are supposed to have
+ passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? Why should we
+ think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men, must
+ have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the
+ instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the inventors and users of
+ thumb-screws, of iron boots and racks; the burners and tearers of human
+ flesh; the stealers, the whippers and the enslavers of men; the buyers and
+ beaters of maidens, mothers and babes; the founders of the Inquisition;
+ the makers of chains; the builders of dungeons; the calumniators of the
+ living; the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of Jesus
+ Christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands
+ folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the
+ apostles of humanity, the soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters,
+ the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days the philosophers&mdash;that is to say, the thinkers&mdash;were
+ not buried in holy ground. It was feared that their principles might
+ contaminate the ashes of the just. And they also feared that on the
+ morning of the resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip
+ into heaven. Some were burned, and their ashes scattered; and the bodies
+ of some were thrown naked to beasts, and others buried in unholy earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire knew the history of Adrienne Le Couvreur, a beautiful actress,
+ denied burial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, we do feel an interest in what is to become of our bodies.
+ There is a modesty that belongs to death. Upon this subject Voltaire was
+ infinitely sensitive. It was that he might be buried that he went through
+ the farce of confession, of absolution, and of the last sacrament. The
+ priests knew that he was not in earnest, and Voltaire knew that they would
+ not allow him to be buried in any of the cemeteries of Paris.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His death was kept a secret. The Abb&eacute; Mignot made arrangements for
+ the burial at Romilli-on-the-Seine, more than 100 miles from Paris. On
+ Sunday evening, on the last day of May, 1778, the body of Voltaire, clad
+ in a dressing gown, clothed to resemble an invalid, posed to simulate
+ life, was placed in a carriage; at its side, a servant, whose business it
+ was to keep it in position. To this carriage were attached six horses, so
+ that people might think a great lord was going to his estates. Another
+ carriage followed, in which were a grand nephew and two cousins of
+ Voltaire. All night they traveled, and on the following day arrived at the
+ courtyard of the Abbey. The necessary papers were shown, the mass was
+ performed in the presence of the body, and Voltaire found burial. A few
+ moments afterwards, the prior, who "for charity had given a little earth,"
+ received from his bishop a menacing letter forbidding the burial of
+ Voltaire. It was too late.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was dead. The foundations of State and Throne had been sapped.
+ The people were becoming acquainted with the real kings and with the
+ actual priests. Unknown men born in misery and want, men whose fathers and
+ mothers had been pavement for the rich, were rising toward the light, and
+ their shadowy faces were emerging from darkness. Labor and thought became
+ friends. That is, the gutter and the attic fraternized. The monsters of
+ the Night and the angels of the Dawn&mdash;the first thinking of revenge,
+ and the others dreaming of equality, liberty and fraternity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII. THE DEATH-BED ARGUMENT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ALL kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable
+ serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any
+ discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest
+ on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The
+ man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a
+ quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of
+ Christ, or the eternal "procession" of the Holy Ghost. The king who has
+ waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and
+ fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded
+ in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his
+ subjects, dies like a saint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the believing kings are in heaven&mdash;all the doubting philosophers
+ in perdition. All the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those
+ who burned their brothers, sleep in consecrated ground. Libraries could
+ hardly contain the names of the Christian wretches who have filled the
+ world with violence and death in defence of book and creed, and yet they
+ all died the death of the righteous, and no priest, no minister, describes
+ the agony and fear, the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls
+ were filled in the last moments of their lives. These men had never
+ doubted&mdash;they had never thought&mdash;they accepted the creed as they
+ did the fashion of their clothes. They were not infidels, they could not
+ be&mdash;they had been baptized, they had not denied the divinity of
+ Christ, they had partaken of the "last supper." They respected priests,
+ they admitted that Christ had two natures and the same number of wills;
+ they admitted that the Holy Ghost had "proceeded," and that, according to
+ the multiplication table of heaven, once one is three, and three times one
+ is one, and these things put pillows beneath their heads and covered them
+ with the drapery of peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They admitted that while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make
+ their fellows wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the
+ innocent and helpless, God would maintain the strictest neutrality; but
+ when some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to
+ the truth of the Scriptures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right
+ one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon
+ his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been
+ paralyzed&mdash;no truthful account in all the literature of the world of
+ the innocent child being shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are being
+ committed every day&mdash;men are at this moment lying in wait for their
+ human prey&mdash;wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and
+ death&mdash;little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring,
+ tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers&mdash;sweet
+ girls are deceived, lured and outraged, but God has no time to prevent
+ these things&mdash;no time to defend the good and protect the pure. He is
+ too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows. He listens for blasphemy;
+ looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal registers;
+ watches professors in college who begin to doubt the geology of Moses and
+ the astronomy of Joshua. He does not particularly object to stealing, if
+ you won't swear. A great many persons have fallen dead in the act of
+ taking God's name in vain, but millions of men, women and children have
+ been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of burden, but no one
+ engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty, has
+ appeared. Such men have denounced the superstitions of their day. They
+ have pitied the multitude. To see priests devour the substance of the
+ people&mdash;priests who made begging one of the learned professions&mdash;filled
+ them with loathing and contempt. These men were honest enough to tell
+ their thoughts, brave enough to speak the truth. Then they were denounced,
+ tried, tortured, killed by rack or flame. But some escaped the fury of the
+ fiends who love their enemies, and died naturally in their beds. It would
+ not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That would show
+ that religion was not essential at the last moment. Superstition gets its
+ power from the terror of death. It would not do to have the common people
+ understand that a man could deny the Bible&mdash;refuse to kiss the cross&mdash;contend
+ that Humanity was greater than Christ, and then die as sweetly as
+ Torquemada did, after pouring molten lead into the ears of an honest man;
+ or as calmly as Calvin after he had burned Servetus; or as peacefully as
+ King David after advising with his last breath one son to assassinate
+ another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all
+ infidels (that Christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely
+ wretched and despairing. It was alleged that words could not paint the
+ horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. Every good Christian was
+ expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. They have been
+ told and retold in every pulpit of the world. Protestant ministers have
+ repeated the lies invented by Catholic priests, and Catholics, by a kind
+ of theological comity, have sworn to the lies told by the Protestants.
+ Upon this point they have always stood together, and will as long as the
+ same falsehood can be used by both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Instead of doing these things, Voltaire wilfully closed his eyes to the
+ light of the gospel, examined the Bible for himself, advocated
+ intellectual liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant
+ faith, assisted the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed
+ to reason, endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the
+ indigent, and defended the oppressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He demonstrated that the origin of all religions is the same&mdash;the
+ same mysteries&mdash;the same miracles&mdash;the same imposture&mdash;the
+ same temples and ceremonies&mdash;the same kind of founders, apostles and
+ dupes&mdash;the same promises and threats&mdash;the same pretence of
+ goodness and forgiveness and the practice of the same persecution and
+ murder. He proved that religion made enemies&mdash;philosophy friends&mdash;and
+ that above the rights of Gods were the rights of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These were his crimes. Such a man God would not suffer to die in peace. If
+ allowed to meet death with a smile, others might follow his example, until
+ none would be left to light the holy fires of the <i>auto da fe</i>. It
+ would not do for so great, so successful, an enemy of the church to die
+ without leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly
+ prayer of chattered horror uttered by lips covered with blood and foam.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries the theologians have taught that an unbeliever&mdash;an
+ infidel&mdash;one who spoke or wrote against their creed, could not meet
+ death with composure; that in his last moments God would fill his
+ conscience with the serpents of remorse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a thousand years the clergy have manufactured the facts to fit this
+ theory&mdash;this infamous conception of the duty of man and the justice
+ of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians have insisted that crimes against man were, and are, as
+ nothing compared with crimes against God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon the death-bed subject the clergy grow eloquent. When describing the
+ shudderings and shrieks of the dying unbeliever, their eyes glitter with
+ delight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a festival.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are no longer men. They become hyenas. They dig open graves. They
+ devour the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a banquet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of hell. They gaze at the souls
+ of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. They
+ see them in flames&mdash;in oceans of fire&mdash;in gulfs of pain&mdash;in
+ abysses of despair. They shout with joy. They applaud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is an <i>auto da fe</i>, presided over by God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. THE SECOND RETURN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR four hundred years the Bastile had been the outward symbol of
+ oppression. Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a perpetual
+ threat. It was the last, and often the first, argument of king and priest.
+ Its dungeons, damp and rayless, its massive towers, its secret cells, its
+ instruments of torture, denied the existence of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1789, on the 14th of July, the people, the multitude, frenzied by
+ suffering, stormed and captured the Bastile. The battle-cry was "Vive
+ Voltaire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1791 permission was given to place in the Pantheon the ashes of
+ Voltaire. He had been buried 110 miles from Paris. Buried by stealth, he
+ was to be removed by a nation. A funeral procession of a hundred miles;
+ every village with its flags and arches; all the people anxious to honor
+ the philosopher of France&mdash;the Savior of Calas&mdash;the Destroyer of
+ Superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On reaching Paris the great procession moved along the Rue St. Antoine.
+ Here it paused, and for one night upon the ruins of the Bastile rested the
+ body of Voltaire&mdash;rested in triumph, in glory&mdash;rested on fallen
+ wall and broken arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears, on rusting
+ chain and bar and useless bolt&mdash;above the dungeons dark and deep,
+ where light had faded from the lives of men and hope had died in breaking
+ hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The conqueror resting upon the conquered.&mdash;Throned upon the Bastile,
+ the fallen fortress of Night, the body of Voltaire, from whose brain had
+ issued the Dawn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a moment his ashes must have felt the Promethean fire, and the old
+ smile must have illumined once more the face of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vast multitude bowed in reverence, hushed with love and awe heard
+ these words uttered by a priest: "God shall be avenged."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cry of the priest was a prophecy. Priests skulking in the shadows with
+ faces sinister as night, ghouls in the name of the gospel, desecrated the
+ grave. They carried away the ashes of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tomb is empty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God is avenged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is filled with his fame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has conquered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was there in the eighteenth century, a man wearing the vestments of the
+ church, the equal of Voltaire?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What cardinal, what bishop, what priest in France raised his voice for the
+ rights of men? What ecclesiastic, what nobleman, took the side of the
+ oppressed&mdash;of the peasant? Who denounced the frightful criminal code&mdash;the
+ torture of suspected persons? What priest pleaded for the liberty of the
+ citizen? What bishop pitied the victims of the rack? Is there the grave of
+ a priest in France on which a lover of liberty would now drop a flower or
+ a tear? Is there a tomb holding the ashes of a saint from which emerges
+ one ray of light?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be another life&mdash;a day of judgment, no God can afford to
+ torture in another world the man who abolished torture in this. If God be
+ the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, he should not imprison there the
+ men who broke the chains of slavery here. He cannot afford to make an
+ eternal convict of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was a perfect master of the French language, knowing all its
+ moods, tenses and declinations, in fact and in feeling&mdash;playing upon
+ it as skillfully as Paganini on his violin, finding expression for every
+ thought and fancy, writing on the most serious subjects with the gayety of
+ a harlequin, plucking jests from the crumbling mouth of death, graceful as
+ the waving of willows, dealing in double meanings that covered the asp
+ with flowers and flattery&mdash;master of satire and compliment&mdash;mingling
+ them often in the same line, always interested himself, and therefore
+ interesting others&mdash;handling thoughts, questions, subjects as a
+ juggler does balls, keeping them in the air with perfect ease&mdash;dressing
+ old words in new meanings, charming, grotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth
+ with tears, wit and wisdom, and sometimes wickedness, logic and laughter.
+ With a woman's instinct knowing the sensitive nerves&mdash;just where to
+ touch&mdash;hating arrogance of place, the stupidity of the solemn&mdash;snatching
+ masks from priest and king, knowing the springs of action and ambition's
+ ends&mdash;perfectly familiar with the great world&mdash;the intimate of
+ kings and their favorites, sympathizing with the oppressed and imprisoned,
+ with the unfortunate and poor, hating tyranny, despising superstition, and
+ loving liberty with all his heart. Such was Voltaire writing "Odipus" at
+ seventeen, "Irene" at eighty-three, and crowding between these two
+ tragedies the accomplishment of a thousand lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From his throne at the foot of the Alps, he pointed the finger of scorn at
+ every hypocrite in Europe. For half a century, past rack and stake, past
+ dungeon and cathedral, past altar and throne, he carried with brave hands
+ the sacred torch of Reason, whose light at last will flood the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LIBERTY IN LITERATURE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ (A TESTIMONIAL TO WALT WHITMAN.)
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * An address delivered in Philadelphia, Oct. 21, 1890. Used
+ by permission of the Truth Seeker Co.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I. LET US PUT WREATHS ON THE BROWS OF THE LIVING.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN the year 1855 the American people knew but little of books. Their
+ ideals, their models, were English. Young and Pollok, Addison and Watts,
+ were regarded as great poets. Some of the more reckless read Thomson's
+ "Seasons" and the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott. A few, not quite
+ orthodox, delighted in the mechanical monotony of Pope, and the really
+ wicked&mdash;those lost to all religious shame&mdash;were worshipers of
+ Shakespeare. The really orthodox Protestant, untroubled by doubts,
+ considered Milton the greatest poet of them all. Byron and Shelley were
+ hardly respectable&mdash;not to be read by young persons. It was admitted
+ on all hands that Burns was a child of nature of whom his mother was
+ ashamed and proud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the blessed year aforesaid, candor, free and sincere speech, were under
+ the ban. Creeds at that time were entrenched behind statutes, prejudice,
+ custom, ignorance, stupidity, Puritanism and slavery; that is to say,
+ slavery of mind and body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course it always has been, and forever will be, impossible for slavery,
+ or any kind or form of injustice, to produce a great poet. There are
+ hundreds of verse makers and writers on the side of wrong&mdash;enemies of
+ progress&mdash;but they are not poets, they are not men of genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At this time a young man&mdash;he to whom this testimonial is given&mdash;he
+ upon whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters&mdash;this
+ man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, "Leaves
+ of Grass." This book was, and is, the true transcript of a soul. The man
+ is unmasked. No drapery of hypocrisy, no pretence, no fear. The book was
+ as original in form as in thought. All customs were forgotten or
+ disregarded, all rules broken&mdash;nothing mechanical&mdash;no imitation&mdash;spontaneous,
+ running and winding like a river, multitudinous in its thoughts as the
+ waves of the sea&mdash;nothing mathematical or measured&mdash;in
+ everything a touch of chaos; lacking what is called form, as clouds lack
+ form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the glory of sunset. It
+ was a marvelous collection and aggregation of fragments, hints,
+ suggestions, memories, and prophecies, weeds and flowers, clouds and
+ clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, waves, shadows and
+ constellations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His book was received by many with disdain, with horror, with indignation
+ and protest&mdash;by the few as a marvelous, almost miraculous, message to
+ the world&mdash;full of thought, philosophy, poetry and music.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. A great soul appears
+ and fills the world with new and marvelous harmonies. In his words is the
+ old Promethean flame. The heart of nature beats and throbs in his line.
+ The respectable prudes and pedagogues sound the alarm, and cry, or rather
+ screech: "Is this a book for a young person?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A poem true to life as a Greek statue&mdash;candid as nature&mdash;fills
+ these barren souls with fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They forget that drapery about the perfect was suggested by immodesty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The provincial prudes, and others of like mold, pretend that love is a
+ duty rather than a passion&mdash;a kind of self-denial&mdash;not an
+ over-mastering joy. They preach the gospel of pretence and pantalettes, In
+ the presence of sincerity, of truth, they cast down their eyes and
+ endeavor to feel immodest. To them, the most beautiful thing is hypocrisy
+ adorned with a blush.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have no idea of an honest, pure passion, glorying in its strength&mdash;intense,
+ intoxicated with the beautiful, giving even to inanimate things pulse and
+ motion, and that transfigures, ennobles, and idealizes the object of its
+ adoration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They do not walk the streets of the city of life&mdash;they explore the
+ sewers; they stand in the gutters and cry "Unclean!" They pretend that
+ beauty is a snare; that love is a Delilah; that the highway of joy is the
+ broad road, lined with flowers and filled with perfume, leading to the
+ city of eternal sorrow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since the year 1855 the American people have developed; they are somewhat
+ acquainted with the literature of the world. They have witnessed the most
+ tremendous of revolutions, not only upon the fields of battle, but in the
+ world of thought. The American citizen has concluded that it is hardly
+ worth while being a sovereign unless he has the right to think for
+ himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, from this height, with the vantage-ground of to-day, I propose to
+ examine this book and to state, in a general way, what Walt Whitman has
+ done, what he has accomplished, and the place he has won in the world of
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. THE RELIGION OF THE BODY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WALT WHITMAN stood when he published his book, where all stand to-night,
+ on the perpetually moving line where history ends and prophecy begins. He
+ was full of life to the very tips of his fingers&mdash;brave, eager,
+ candid, joyous with health. He was acquainted with the past. He knew
+ something of song and story, of philosophy and art; much of the heroic
+ dead, of brave suffering, of the thoughts of men, the habits of the people&mdash;rich
+ as well as poor&mdash;familiar with labor, a friend of wind and wave,
+ touched by love and friendship, liking the open road, enjoying the fields
+ and paths, the crags, friend of the forest&mdash;feeling that he was free&mdash;neither
+ master nor slave; willing that all should know his thoughts; open as the
+ sky, candid as nature, and he gave his thoughts, his dreams, his
+ conclusions, his hopes and his mental portrait to his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman announced the gospel of the body. He confronted the people.
+ He denied the depravity of man. He insisted that love is not a crime; that
+ men and women should be proudly natural; that they need not grovel on the
+ earth and cover their faces for shame, He taught the dignity and glory of
+ the father and mother; the sacredness of maternity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Maternity, tender and pure as the tear of pity, holy as suffering&mdash;the
+ crown, the flower, the ecstasy of love!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People had been taught from Bibles and from creeds that maternity was a
+ kind of crime; that the woman should be purified by some ceremony in some
+ temple built in honor of some god. This barbarism was attacked in "Leaves
+ of Grass."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The glory of simple life was sung; a declaration of independence was made
+ for each and all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet this appeal to manhood and to womanhood was misunderstood. It was
+ denounced simply because it was in harmony with the great trend of nature.
+ To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was not the fashion for people to speak or write their thoughts. We
+ were flooded with the literature of hypocrisy. The writers did not
+ faithfully describe the worlds in which they lived. They endeavored to
+ make a fashionable world. They pretended that the cottage or the hut in
+ which they dwelt was a palace, and they called the little area in which
+ they threw their slops their domain, their realm, their empire. They were
+ ashamed of the real, of what their world actually was. They imitated; that
+ is to say, they told lies, and these lies filled the literature of most
+ lands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of passion&mdash;the
+ passion that builds every home and fills the world with art and song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They cried out: "He is a defender of passion&mdash;he is a libertine! He
+ lives in the mire. He lacks spirituality!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever differs with the multitude, especially with a led multitude&mdash;that
+ is to say, with a multitude of taggers&mdash;will find out from their
+ leaders that he has committed an unpardonable sin. It is a crime to travel
+ a road of your own, especially if you put up guide-boards for the
+ information of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many, many centuries ago Epicurus, the greatest man of his century, and of
+ many centuries before and after, said: "Happiness is the only good;
+ happiness is the supreme end." This man was temperate, frugal, generous,
+ noble&mdash;and yet through all these years he has been denounced by the
+ hypocrites of the world as a mere eater and drinker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was said that Whitman had exaggerated the importance of love&mdash;that
+ he had made too much of this passion. Let me say that no poet&mdash;not
+ excepting Shakespeare&mdash;has had imagination enough to exaggerate the
+ importance of human love&mdash;a passion that contains all heights and all
+ depths&mdash;ample as space, with a sky in which glitter all
+ constellations, and that has within it all storms, all lightnings, all
+ wrecks and ruins, all griefs, all sorrows, all shadows, and all the joy
+ and sunshine of which the heart and brain are capable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. He is to be measured by
+ his work&mdash;by the tendency, not of one line, but by the tendency of
+ all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Which way does the great stream tend? Is it for good or evil? Are the
+ motives high and noble, or low and infamous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot measure Shakespeare by a few lines, neither can we measure the
+ Bible by a few chapters, nor "Leaves of Grass" by a few paragraphs. In
+ each there are many things that I neither approve nor believe&mdash;but in
+ all books you will find a mingling of wisdom and foolishness, of
+ prophecies and mistakes&mdash;in other words, among the excellencies there
+ will be defects. The mine is not all gold, or all silver, or all diamonds&mdash;there
+ are baser metals. The trees of the forest are not all of one size. On some
+ of the highest there are dead and useless limbs, and there may be growing
+ beneath the bushes weeds, and now and then a poisonous vine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I were to edit the great books of the world, I might leave out some
+ lines and I might leave out the best. I have no right to make of my brain
+ a sieve and say that only that which passes through belongs to the rest of
+ the human race. I claim the right to choose. I give that right to all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman had the courage to express his thought&mdash;the candor to
+ tell the truth. And here let me say it gives me joy&mdash;a kind of
+ perfect satisfaction&mdash;to look above the bigoted bats, the satisfied
+ owls and wrens and chickadees, and see the great eagle poised, circling
+ higher and higher, unconscious of their existence. And it gives me joy, a
+ kind of perfect satisfaction, to look above the petty passions and
+ jealousies of small and respectable people, above the considerations of
+ place and power and reputation, and see a brave, intrepid man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be remembered that the American people had separated from the Old
+ World&mdash;that we had declared not only the independence of colonies,
+ but the independence of the individual. We had done more&mdash;we had
+ declared that the state could no longer be ruled by the church, and that
+ the church could not be ruled by the state, and that the individual could
+ not be ruled by the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These declarations were in danger of being forgotten. We needed a new
+ voice, sonorous, loud and clear, a new poet for America, for the new
+ epoch, somebody to chant the morning song of the new day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind, fascinates and
+ instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please the
+ public. They flatter the stupid and pander to the prejudice of their
+ readers. They write for the market, making books as other mechanics make
+ shoes. They have no message, they bear no torch, they are simply the
+ slaves of customers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The books they manufacture are handled by "the trade;" they are regarded
+ as harmless. The pulpit does not object; the young person can read the
+ monotonous pages without a blush&mdash;or a thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the title pages of these books you will find the imprint of the great
+ publishers; on the rest of the pages, nothing. These books might be
+ prescribed for insomnia.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men of talent, men of business, touch life upon few sides. They travel but
+ the beaten path. The creative spirit is not in them. They regard with
+ suspicion a poet who touches life on every side. They have little
+ confidence in that divine thing called sympathy, and they do not and
+ cannot understand the man who enters into the hopes, the aims and the
+ feelings of all others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all genius there is the touch of chaos&mdash;a little of the vagabond;
+ and the successful tradesman, the man who buys and sells, or manages a
+ bank, does not care to deal with a person who has only poems for
+ collaterals; they have a little fear of such people, and regard them as
+ the awkward countryman does a sleight-of-hand performer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every age in which books have been produced the governing class, the
+ respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius. If what are
+ known as the best people could have had their way, if the pulpit had been
+ consulted&mdash;the provincial moralists&mdash;the works of Shakespeare
+ would have been suppressed. Not a line would have reached our time. And
+ the same may be said of every dramatist of his age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Scotch Kirk could have decided, nothing would have been known of
+ Robert Burns. If the good people, the orthodox, could have had their say,
+ not one line of Voltaire would now be known. All the plates of the French
+ Encyclopedia would have been destroyed with the thousands that were
+ destroyed. Nothing would have been known of D'Alembert, Grimm, Diderot, or
+ any of the Titans who warred against the thrones and altars and laid the
+ foundation of modern literature not only, but what is of far greater
+ moment, universal education.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not too much to say that every book now held in high esteem would
+ have been destroyed, if those in authority could have had their will.
+ Every book of modern times that has a real value, that has enlarged the
+ intellectual horizon of mankind, that has developed the brain, that has
+ furnished real food for thought, can be found in the Index Expurgatorius
+ of the Papacy, and nearly every one has been commended to the free minds
+ of men by the denunciations of Protestants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the guardians of society, the protectors of "young persons," could have
+ had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. The
+ voices that thrill the world would now be silent. If authority could have
+ had its way, the world would have been as ignorant now as it was when our
+ ancestors lived in holes or hung from dead limbs by their prehensile
+ tails.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we are not forced to go very far back. If Shakespeare had been
+ published for the first time now, those divine plays&mdash;greater than
+ continents and seas, greater even than the constellations of the midnight
+ sky&mdash;would be excluded from the mails by the decision of the present
+ enlightened postmaster-general.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poets have always lived in an ideal world, and that ideal world has
+ always been far better than the real world. As a consequence, they have
+ forever roused, not simply the imagination, but the energies&mdash;the
+ enthusiasm of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great poets have been on the side of the oppressed&mdash;of the
+ downtrodden. They have suffered with the imprisoned and the enslaved, and
+ whenever and wherever man has suffered for the right, wherever the hero
+ has been stricken down&mdash;whether on field or scaffold&mdash;some man
+ of genius has walked by his side, and some poet has given form and
+ expression, not simply to his deeds, but to his aspirations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the Greek and Roman world we still hear the voices of a few. The
+ poets, the philosophers, the artists and the orators still speak.
+ Countless millions have been covered by the waves of oblivion, but the few
+ who uttered the elemental truths, who had sympathy for the whole human
+ race, and who were great enough to prophesy a grander day, are as alive
+ to-night as when they roused, by their bodily presence, by their living
+ voices, by their works of art, the enthusiasm of their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the respectable people, of the men of wealth and position, those
+ who dwelt in mansions, children of success, who went down to the grave
+ voiceless, and whose names we do not know. Think of the vast multitudes,
+ the endless processions, that entered the caverns of eternal night,
+ leaving no thought, no truth as a legacy to mankind!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great poets have sympathized with the people. They have uttered in all
+ ages the human cry. Unbought by gold, unawed by power, they have lifted
+ high the torch that illuminates the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. He knows
+ that there is but one excuse for government&mdash;the preservation of
+ liberty, to the end that man may be happy. He knows that there is but one
+ excuse for any institution, secular or religious&mdash;the preservation of
+ liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, lor universal
+ education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of
+ liberty. He resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. He has sworn never
+ to be tyrant or slave. He has solemnly declared:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, By God!
+ I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the
+ same terms</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This one declaration covers the entire ground. It is a declaration of
+ independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say, a
+ declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration that
+ all shall be free. The man who has this spirit can truthfully say:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>I have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown. I am for those
+ that have never been master'd.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of restraint,"
+ together with that sense of justice which compelled him to say, "Neither a
+ servant nor a master am I."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he
+ claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say: "As
+ if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the
+ same."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless the
+ liberty of each is safe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of
+ the bowing and cringing to others. Many Americans do not understand that
+ the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people.
+ Nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. Whitman has reminded
+ the people of this country that they are supreme, and he has said to them:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who
+ are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you
+ here for them. Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,
+ Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in
+ you</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He describes the ideal American citizen&mdash;the one who
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Says indifferently and alike 'How are you, friend?' to the President
+ at his levee, And he says 'Good-day, my brother,' to Cudge that hoes in
+ the sugar-field</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were
+ subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, Walt Whitman shouted:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Man shall not hold property in man.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The least develop'd person on earth is just as important and sacred to
+ himself or herself as the most develop'd person is to himself or herself.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the very soul of true democracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is not
+ simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is both.
+ Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy. He
+ is also the poet of individuality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. INDIVIDUALITY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN order to protect the liberties of a nation, we must protect the
+ individual. A democracy is a nation of free individuals. The individuals
+ are not to be sacrificed to the nation. The nation exists only for the
+ purpose of guarding and protecting the individuality of men and women.
+ Walt Whitman has told us that: "The whole theory of the universe is
+ directed unerringly to one single individual&mdash;namely to You."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And he has also told us that the greatest city&mdash;the greatest nation&mdash;is
+ "where the citizen is always the head and ideal."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, If it be a
+ few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this test maybe the greatest city on the continent to-night is Camden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This poet has asked of us this question:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own
+ no superior?</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who asks this question has left no impress of his lips in the
+ dust, and has no dirt upon his knees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was great enough to say:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson
+ but its own.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He carries the idea of individuality to its utmost height:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but
+ that man or woman is as good as God? And that there is no God any more
+ divine than Yourself?</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!
+ To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!
+ To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!
+ To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!
+ To be indeed a God!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And again:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O the joy of a manly self-hood!
+ To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,
+
+ To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,
+ To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,
+
+ To speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,
+ To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, and
+ he says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.
+ Strong and content I travel the open road."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He is one of
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors,
+ as to say 'Who are you? '"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And not only this, but he has the courage to say: "Nothing, not God, is
+ greater to one than one's self." Walt Whitman is the poet of Individuality&mdash;the
+ defender of the rights of each for the sake of all&mdash;and his
+ sympathies are as wide as the world. He is the defender of the whole race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. HUMANITY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE great poet is intensely human, infinitely sympathetic, entering into
+ the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing their
+ sorrows. Brain without heart is not much; they must act together. When the
+ respectable people of the North, the rich, the successful, were willing to
+ carry out the Fugitive Slave Law, Walt Whitman said:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,
+ Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,
+ I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin,
+ I fall on the weeds and stones,
+ The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,
+ Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.
+ Agonies are one of my changes of garments,
+ I do not ask the wounded person how he feels,
+ I myself become the wounded person....
+ I... see myself in prison shaped like another man,
+ And feel the dull unintermitted pain.
+ For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,
+ It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.
+ Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side.
+ Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a helpless thing."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "Not until the
+ sun excludes you will I exclude you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this age of greed when houses and lands and stocks and bonds outrank
+ human life; when gold is of more value than blood, these words should be
+ read by all:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "When the psalm sings instead of the singer,
+ When the script preaches instead of the preacher,
+ When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk,
+ When I can touch the body of books by night or day, and when they touch my body back again,"
+ When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince,
+ When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter,
+ When warrantee deeds loaf in chairs opposite and are my friendly companions,
+ I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poet is also a painter, a sculptor&mdash;he, too, deals in form and
+ color. The great poet is of necessity a great artist. With a few words he
+ creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and women&mdash;with
+ those who feel and speak. Have you ever read the account of the
+ stage-driver's funeral? Let me read it:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets,
+ A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of December,
+ A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.
+ Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, The gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses.
+ The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,
+ The mound above is flatted with the spades&mdash;silence,
+ A minute&mdash;no one moves or speaks&mdash;it is done,
+ He is decently put away&mdash;is there anything more?
+ He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking,
+ Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty,
+ Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was helped by a contribution, Died, aged forty-one years&mdash;and that was his funeral."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Let me read you another description, one of a woman:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Behold a woman!
+ She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.
+ She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse,
+ The sun just shines on her old white head.
+ Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,
+ Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel.
+ The melodious character of the earth.
+ The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go,
+ The justified mother of men."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? List to the
+ yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me. Our foe was no
+ skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck,
+ and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along
+ the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us. We closed with him, the yards
+ entangled, the cannon touch'd, My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.
+ We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, On our lower
+ gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around
+ and blowing up overhead. Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, Ten
+ o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five
+ feet of water reported, The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined
+ in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves. The transit to and
+ from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, They see so many strange
+ faces they do not know whom to trust.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Our frigate takes fire,
+ The other asks if we demand quarter?
+ If our colors are struck and the fighting done?
+ Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,
+ 'We have not struck,' he composedly cries, 'we have just begun our part of the fighting.'
+ Only three guns are in use,
+ One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast,
+ Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.
+ The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,
+ They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.
+ Not a moment's cease,
+ The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazines.
+ One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.
+ Serene stands the little captain,
+ He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,
+ His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.
+ Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon the surrender to us.
+ Stretch'd and still lies the midnight,
+ Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness. Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer'd,
+ The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet,
+ Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers,
+ The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,
+ The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,
+ Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,
+ Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,
+ A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,
+ The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,
+ Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Some people say that this is not poetry&mdash;that it lacks measure and
+ rhyme.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. WHAT IS POETRY?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That is
+ to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, colors and
+ forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where feeling glows and
+ thought flames&mdash;that contains all seeds of action&mdash;are made
+ known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, relations, uses and
+ qualities, so that the visible universe is a dictionary, an aggregation of
+ symbols, by which and through which is carried on the invisible commerce
+ of thought. Each object is capable of many meanings, or of being used in
+ many ways to convey ideas or states of feeling or of facts that take place
+ in the world of the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate
+ symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each man
+ occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world. He is
+ subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the facts
+ concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other worlds. No
+ two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from the flat,
+ barren, and uninteresting&mdash;from the small and shriveled and worthless&mdash;to
+ those whose rivers and mountains and seas and constellations belittle and
+ cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants of these marvelous worlds have
+ been the singers of songs, utterers of great speech&mdash;the creators of
+ art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the creator
+ tells what passes in his own world&mdash;the imitator does not. The
+ imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. He
+ is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has
+ traveled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged. For the sake of beauty,
+ they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told the story
+ of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest men and even
+ the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to the intellectual
+ beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of language, and has
+ left his impress on mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What I have said is not only true of poetry&mdash;it is true of all
+ speech. All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words
+ have been invented and are being invented, for the reason that new powers
+ are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and meanings.
+ The growth of language is necessary on account of the development of the
+ human mind. The savage needs but few symbols&mdash;the civilized many&mdash;the
+ poet most of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. Before printing
+ was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. That excuse no
+ longer exists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? In my judgment, rhyme is a hindrance
+ to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his subject, to say
+ more or less than he means, to introduce irrelevant matter that interferes
+ continually with the dramatic action and is a perpetual obstruction to
+ sincere utterance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic is
+ the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The
+ planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid. The
+ spring must be quick and warm, the soil perfect, the sunshine and rain
+ enough&mdash;everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In
+ poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm
+ seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural foundation.
+ Under emotion the blood rises and falls, the muscles contract and relax,
+ and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as the rise and fall of the
+ sea. In the highest form of expression the thought should be in harmony
+ with this natural ebb and flow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have sometimes
+ thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own garments, and
+ that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the speaker or
+ writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured
+ intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be room
+ for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may be in
+ the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and passions&mdash;-joy,
+ grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular movements in the
+ brain&mdash;that every thought is accompanied by certain physical
+ phenomena. Now, it may be that certain sounds, colors, and forms produce
+ the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies certain feelings,
+ and that these sounds, colors and forms produce first the molecular
+ movements and these in their turn reproduce the feelings, emotions and
+ states of mind capable of producing the same or like molecular movements.
+ So that what we call heroic music produces the same molecular action in
+ the brain&mdash;the same physical changes&mdash;that are produced by the
+ real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call plaintive produce the
+ same molecular movement in the brain that grief, or the twilight of grief,
+ actually produces. There may be a rhythmical molecular movement belonging
+ to each state of mind, that accompanies each thought or passion, and it
+ may be that music, or painting, or sculpture, produces the same state of
+ mind or feeling that produces the music or painting or sculpture, by
+ producing the same molecular movements.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in
+ different ways&mdash;that is to say, they produce like states of mind and
+ feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the orator,
+ work to the same end, with different materials. The painter expresses
+ through form and color and relation; the sculptor through form and
+ relation. The poet also paints and chisels&mdash;his words give form,
+ relation and color. His statues and his paintings do not crumble, neither
+ do they fade, nor will they as long as language endures. The composer
+ touches the passions, produces the very states of feeling produced by the
+ painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. In all these there must be
+ rhythm&mdash;that is to say, proportion&mdash;that is to say, harmony,
+ melody.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who gives
+ new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things of life.
+ He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the experiences of the
+ people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect day.
+ It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must not appear
+ to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of ourselves, that man
+ does best that which he does easiest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of the
+ best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the ideals of
+ his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The thoughts of the
+ people must be clad in the garments of feeling&mdash;the words must be
+ known, apt, familiar. The height must be in the thought, in the sympathy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest
+ child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife
+ looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses.
+ They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have so
+ beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the intellectual
+ children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed and garlanded
+ beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all the flowers and
+ beauty must look the eyes of the child they know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly
+ militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the
+ dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination
+ for wonders&mdash;there are millions of miracles under our feet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life.
+ The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for men and
+ women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can
+ comprehend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible&mdash;he
+ paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is
+ interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two
+ peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound
+ of the distant bell&mdash;two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful
+ for, nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they
+ soften with their tears&mdash;nothing. And yet as you look at that picture
+ you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for&mdash;that
+ they have life, love, and hope&mdash;and so the distant bell makes music
+ in their simple hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. Toward
+ all forms of worship, toward all creeds, he has maintained the attitude of
+ absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has given her last
+ message to man. He does not believe that all has been ascertained. He
+ denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. He believes in
+ progress, and so believing he says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "We consider Bibles and religions divine&mdash;I do not say they are not divine,
+ I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,
+ It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life."
+
+ "His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,
+ In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent."
+
+ "Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?
+ There can be any number of supremes&mdash;one does not countervail another
+ anymore than one eyesight countervails another."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the
+ serenity of a great and well-poised soul:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.
+ I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
+ Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself....
+ In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
+ I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the
+ invisible world, and with this feeling he writes:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Not objecting to special revelations&mdash;considering a curl of smoke or
+ a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are
+ too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this
+ lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Magnifying and applying come I,
+ Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,
+ Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos,
+ Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
+ Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
+ In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,
+ With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol and image,
+ Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends his
+ hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and
+ old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy has a venerable
+ look, and that it relies on looks and masks, on stupidity and fear.
+ Neither does he reject or accept the new because it is new. He wants the
+ truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X. PHILOSOPHY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WALT WHITMAN is a philosopher. The more a man has thought, the more he has
+ studied, the more he has traveled intellectually, the less certain he is.
+ Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the
+ common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting
+ for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the
+ why and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special
+ providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that
+ happens in the universe happens in reference to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one day
+ that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was heard to
+ remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our home?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother
+ endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to fathom
+ the mystery of being; and he said:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,
+ A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
+ Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.
+ Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me
+ I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,
+ But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd,
+ untold, altogether unreach'd,
+ Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
+ With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,
+ Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath....
+ I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object,
+ and that no man ever can."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ There is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled
+ "Elemental Drifts."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be,
+ fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a man
+ looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick enough he
+ could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a
+ mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape and
+ life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main outline to
+ something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands
+ behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and the
+ worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning behind
+ all the other meanings of Leaves of Grass."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the
+ grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that,
+ everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. In the
+ presence of these mysteries&mdash;and everything is a mystery so far as
+ origin, destiny, and nature are concerned&mdash;the intelligent, honest
+ man is compelled to say, "I do not know."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever, and from
+ the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light, a few momentary
+ sparks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything is
+ matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and a part
+ is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others that matter
+ was first and spirit after; and others that matter and spirit have existed
+ together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or
+ what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; and
+ the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. These
+ spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, matter is
+ quite a mystery. Y ou take in your hand a little earth&mdash;a little
+ dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the rain falls
+ upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts into blossom; it
+ produces fruit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is this dust&mdash;this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything
+ in the wide universe more wonderful than this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible
+ particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for
+ days, and it remains the citadel of a secret&mdash;an impregnable
+ fortress. Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in
+ serried ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts
+ and arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the
+ battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the
+ baffled hosts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the limit&mdash;the
+ end of the road traveled by the human race. He knows that every victory
+ over nature is but the preparation for another battle. This truth was in
+ his mind when he said: "Understand me well; it is provided in the essence
+ of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come
+ forth something to make a greater struggle necessary."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the generalization of all history.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XI. THE TWO POEMS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THERE are two of these poems to which I will call special attention. The
+ first is entitled, "A Word Out of the Sea."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and
+ fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of briers
+ and blackberries&mdash;from the memories of birds&mdash;from the thousand
+ responses of his heart&mdash;goes back to the sea and his childhood, and
+ sings a reminiscence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Two guests from Alabama&mdash;two birds&mdash;build their nest, and there
+ were four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for
+ joy:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Shine! shine! shine!
+ Pour down your warmth, great sun!
+ While we bask, we two together.
+ Two together!
+ Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
+ Day come white, or night come black, .
+ Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
+ Singing all time, minding no time,
+ While we two keep together."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, and
+ all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of the
+ lost:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Blow! blow! blow!
+ Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;
+ I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare feet,
+ went down to the sea, where the white arms out in the breakers were
+ tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the notes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what the
+ dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever way he
+ looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping that the
+ mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her answer;
+ waiting and then crying again: "Here I am! And this gentle call is for
+ you. Do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those are the
+ shadows;" and at last crying:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!
+ In the air, in the woods, over fields,
+ Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
+ But my mate no more, no more with me!
+ We two together no more."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And then the 'boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his breast
+ a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the birds,
+ knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be absent from
+ him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the sea the final
+ word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying not, spoke the low
+ delicious word "Death!" "ever Death!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next poem, one that will live as long as our language, entitled: "When
+ Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd," is on the death of Lincoln,
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ One who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the lustrous
+ western star" and "the gray-brown bird singing in the pines and cedars."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the atmosphere
+ and climate in harmony with every event.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and
+ night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of inlooped
+ flags, the processions long and winding, the flambeaus of night, the
+ torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, the thousand
+ voices rising strong and solemn, the dirges, the shuddering organs, the
+ tolling bells&mdash;and the sprig of lilac.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then for a moment they will hear the gray-brown bird singing in the
+ cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the west,
+ and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to adorn the
+ burial house&mdash;pictures of spring and farms and homes, and the gray
+ smoke lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold&mdash;of the
+ gorgeous indolent sinking sun&mdash;the sweet herbage under foot&mdash;the
+ green leaves of the trees prolific&mdash;the breast of the river with the
+ wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land&mdash;and the
+ most excellent sun so calm and haughty&mdash;the violet and purple morn
+ with just-felt breezes&mdash;the gentle soft-born measureless light&mdash;the
+ miracle spreading, bathing all&mdash;the fulfill'd noon&mdash;the coming
+ eve delicious, and the welcome night and the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then again they will hear the song of the gray-brown bird in the
+ limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. Again they will remember the
+ star, and again the odor of the lilac.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant
+ for death:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A CHANT FOR DEATH.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Come lovely and soothing death,
+ Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
+ In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
+ Sooner or later delicate death.
+ Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
+ For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
+ And for love, sweet love&mdash;but praise! praise! praise!
+ For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
+ Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
+ Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
+ Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
+ I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
+ Approach strong deliveress,
+ When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
+ Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
+ Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death.
+ From me to thee glad serenades,
+ Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and 'feastings for thee,
+ And the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting,
+ And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
+ The night in silence under many a star,
+ The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
+ And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
+ And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
+ Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
+ Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
+ Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
+ I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ This poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and
+ lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird entwined, will last as
+ long as the memory of Lincoln.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XII. OLD AGE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WALT WHITMAN is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, but,
+ above all, of old age. He has not been soured by slander or petrified by
+ prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him revengeful or
+ arrogant. Now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of life,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "His jocund heart still beating in his breast," he is just as brave and
+ calm and kind as in his manhood's proudest days, when roses blossomed in
+ his cheeks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has taken life's seven steps. Now, as the gamester might say, "on
+ velvet," he is enjoying "old age, expanded, broad, with the haughty
+ breadth of the universe; old age, flowing free, with the delicious near-by
+ freedom of death; old age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable
+ aggregation of dying days."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters
+ thanks:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air&mdash;for life, mere life,
+ For precious ever-lingering memories,
+ (of you my mother dear&mdash;you, father&mdash;you, brothers, sisters, friends,)
+ For all my days&mdash;not those of peace alone&mdash;the days of war the same,
+ For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,
+ For shelter, wine and meat&mdash;for sweet appreciation,
+ (You distant, dim unknown&mdash;or young or old&mdash;countless, unspecified,
+ readers belov'd,
+ We never met, and ne'er shall meet&mdash;and yet our souls embrace,
+ long, close and long;)
+ For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books&mdash;for colors, forms,
+ For all the brave strong men&mdash;devoted, hardy men&mdash;who've forward
+ sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands,
+ For braver, stronger, more devoted men&mdash;(a special laurel ere I go,
+ to life's war's chosen ones,
+ The cannoneers of song and thought&mdash;the great artillerists&mdash;
+ the foremost leaders, captains of the soul:"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ It is a great thing to preach philosophy&mdash;far greater to live it. The
+ highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it as
+ though it were desired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To be satisfied: This is wealth&mdash;success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have
+ happened&mdash;consequently he accepts. He is glad that he has lived&mdash;glad
+ that he has had his moment on the stage. In this spirit Whitman has
+ accepted life.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I shall go forth,
+ I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,
+ Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my v
+ voice will suddenly cease.
+ O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
+ Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?&mdash;and yet it is enough, O soul;
+ O soul, we have positively appear'd&mdash;that is enough."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Yes, Walt Whitman has appeared. He has his place upon the stage. The drama
+ is not ended. His voice is still heard. He is the Poet of Democracy&mdash;of
+ all people. He is the poet of the body and soul. He has sounded the note
+ of Individuality. He has given the pass-word primeval. He is the Poet of
+ Humanity&mdash;of Intellectual Hospitality. He has voiced the aspirations
+ of America&mdash;and, above all, he is the poet of Love and Death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb is his
+ farewell&mdash;his leave-taking:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "After the supper and talk&mdash;after the day is done,
+ As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,
+ Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,
+ (So hard for his hand to release those hands&mdash;no more will they meet,
+ No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,
+ A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)
+ Shunning, postponing severance&mdash;seeking to ward off the last word ever so little,
+ E'en at the exit-door turning&mdash;charges superfluous calling back&mdash;
+ e'en as he descends the steps,
+ Something to eke out a minute additional&mdash;shadows of nightfall deepening,
+ Farewells, messages lessening&mdash;dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form,
+ Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness&mdash;loth, O so loth to depart!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And is this all? Will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? Is death the
+ end? Over the grave bends Love sobbing, and by her side stands Hope and
+ whispers:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We shall meet again. Before all life is death, and after all death is
+ life. The falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies of
+ autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered
+ sublime thoughts. He has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "Leaves of Grass,"
+ you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices of the
+ morning, of the first great singers&mdash;voices elemental as those of sea
+ and storm. The horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, limitations are
+ forgotten&mdash;the realization of the will, the accomplishment of the
+ ideal, seem to be within your power. Obstructions become petty and
+ disappear. The chains and bars are broken, and the distinctions of caste
+ are lost. The soul is in the open air, under the blue and stars&mdash;the
+ flag of Nature. Creeds, theories and philosophies ask to be examined,
+ contradicted, reconstructed. Prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish
+ and custom abdicates. The sacred places become highways, duties and
+ desires clasp hands and become comrades and friends. Authority drops the
+ scepter, the priest the mitre, and the purple falls from kings. The
+ inanimate becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter
+ speech, and the dumb and voiceless burst into song. A feeling of
+ independence takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood
+ flows full and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life
+ becomes rich, royal, and superb. The world becomes a personal possession,
+ and the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. You are
+ in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats and
+ throbs the pulse of all life. You become a rover, careless and free. You
+ wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. You feel the
+ silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the intertwined and
+ over-arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds and woods. You are
+ borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear the rush and roar of
+ cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued arch, and watch the eagles
+ as they circling soar. You traverse gorges dark and dim, and climb the
+ scarred and threatening cliffs. You stand in orchards where the blossoms
+ fall like snow, where the birds nest and sing, and painted moths make
+ aimless journeys through the happy air. You live the lives of those who
+ till the earth, and walk amid the perfumed fields, hear the reapers' song,
+ and feel the breadth and scope of earth and sky. You are in the great
+ cities, in the midst of multitudes, of the endless processions. You are on
+ the wide plains&mdash;the prairies&mdash;with hunter and trapper, with
+ savage and pioneer, and you feel the soft grass yielding under your feet.
+ You sail in many ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. You travel
+ many roads, and countless paths. You visit palaces and prisons, hospitals
+ and courts; you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all
+ the suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the
+ infamous. You hear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and
+ forest, of all tools, instruments and machines. You become familiar with
+ men and women of all employments, trades and professions&mdash;with birth
+ and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. You see the cloud and
+ flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this one book, in these wondrous "Leaves of Grass," you find hints and
+ suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life that lies
+ between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his mother's
+ laughing, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-crowned, who, with a smile,
+ extends his hand to death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of "Leaves
+ of Grass."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE GREAT INFIDELS.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This lecture is printed from notes found among Colonel
+ Ingersoll's papers, but was not revised by him for
+ publication.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE sometimes thought that it will not make great and splendid
+ character to rock children in the cradle of hypocrisy. I do not believe
+ that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you
+ tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they
+ must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a
+ shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will
+ only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly
+ expresses what he believes. For my part, I believe men will be nearer
+ honest in business, in politics, grander in art&mdash;in everything that
+ is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the
+ coffin to tell their honest opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I believe thought to be dangerous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. It is
+ incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. There can
+ be no danger in honest thought, and if the world ever advances beyond what
+ it is to-day, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have passed midnight in the great struggle between Fact and Faith,
+ between Science and Superstition. The brand of intellectual inferiority is
+ now upon the orthodox brain. There is nothing grander than to rescue from
+ the leprosy of slander the reputation of a good and generous man. Nothing
+ can be nearer just than to benefit our benefactors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Infidels of one age have been the aureoled saints of the next. The
+ destroyers of the old are the creators of the new. The old passes away,
+ and the new becomes old. There is in the intellectual world, as in the
+ material, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand
+ youth and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of Infidels.
+ Political rights have been preserved by traitors&mdash;the liberty of the
+ mind by heretics. To attack the king was treason&mdash;to dispute the
+ priest was blasphemy. The sword and cross were allies. They defended each
+ other. The throne and altar were twins&mdash;vultures from the same egg.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was James I. who said: "No bishop, no king." He might have said: "No
+ cross, no crown."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The king owned the bodies, and the priest the souls, of men. One lived on
+ taxes, the other on alms. One was a robber, the other a beggar, and each
+ was both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These robbers and beggars controlled two worlds. The king made laws, the
+ priest made creeds. With bowed backs the people received the burdens of
+ the one, and with wonder's open mouth the dogmas of the other. If any
+ aspired to be free they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a
+ Herod who slaughtered the children of the brain. The king ruled by force,
+ the priest by fear, and both by both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The king said to the people: "God made you peasants, and he made me king.
+ He made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. Such is the
+ justice of God." And the priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile. He
+ made me holy and wise. If you do not obey me, God will punish you here and
+ torment you hereafter. Such is the mercy of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infidels are intellectual discoverers. They sail the unknown seas and find
+ new isles and continents in the infinite realms of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An Infidel is one who has found a new fact, who has an idea of his own,
+ and who in the mental sky has seen another star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is an intellectual capitalist, and for that reason excites the envy and
+ hatred of the theological pauper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Origin of god and Heaven, Of the Devil and Hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN the estimation of good orthodox Christians I am a criminal, because I
+ am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters,
+ husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a
+ belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and
+ scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of
+ innocent pleasure&mdash;a God made of sticks called creeds, and of old
+ clothes called myths. I shall endeavor to take from the coffin its horror,
+ from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by an
+ infinite fiend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of
+ Hell?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal
+ meanness. To worship an eternal goaler hardens, debases, and pollutes even
+ the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the
+ universe, no good being can be perfectly happy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against the heartlessness of the Christian religion every grand and tender
+ soul should enter solemn protest. The God of Hell should be held in
+ loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be
+ hated, not loved&mdash;cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by
+ such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in
+ which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy
+ the cries and sobs of hell&mdash;in which happiness will forget misery,
+ where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and
+ revenge. This idea testifies that our remote ancestors were the lowest
+ beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled with
+ cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience
+ of hunger and lust, only from the lowest and most debased could come this
+ most cruel, heartless and bestial of all dogmas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our barbarian ancestors knew but little of nature. They were too
+ astonished to investigate. They could not divest themselves of the idea
+ that everything happened with reference to them; that they caused storms
+ and earthquakes; that they brought the tempest and the whirlwind; that on
+ account of something they had done, or omitted to do, the lightning of
+ vengeance leaped from the darkened sky. They made up their minds that at
+ least two vast and powerful beings presided over this world; that one was
+ good and the other bad; that both of these beings wished to get control of
+ the souls of men; that they were relentless enemies, eternal foes; that
+ both welcomed recruits and hated deserters; that both demanded praise and
+ worship; that one offered rewards in this world, and the other in the
+ next. The Devil has paid cash&mdash;God buys on credit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man saw cruelty and mercy in nature, because he imagined that phenomena
+ were produced to punish or to reward him. When his poor hut was torn and
+ broken by the wind, he thought it a punishment. When some town or city was
+ swept away by flood or sea, he imagined that the crimes of the inhabitants
+ had been avenged. When the land was filled with plenty, when the seasons
+ were kind, he thought that he had pleased the tyrant of the skies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be remembered that both gods and devils were supposed to be
+ presided over by the greatest God and the greatest Devil. The God could
+ give infinite rewards and could inflict infinite torments. The Devil could
+ assist man here; could give him wealth and place in this world, in
+ consideration of owning his soul hereafter. Each human soul was a prize
+ contended for by these deities. Of course this God and this Devil had
+ innumerable spirits at their command, to execute their decrees. The God
+ lived in heaven and the Devil in hell. Both were mon-archs and were
+ infinitely jealous of each other. The priests pretended to be the agents
+ and recruiting sergeants of this God, and they were duly authorized to
+ promise and threaten in his name; they had power to forgive and curse.
+ These priests sought to govern the world by force and fear. Believing that
+ men could be frightened into obedience, they magnified the tortures and
+ terrors of perdition. Believing also that man could in part be influenced
+ by the hope of reward, they magnified the joys of heaven. In other words,
+ they promised eternal joy and threatened everlasting pain. Most of these
+ priests, born of the ignorance of the time, believed what they taught.
+ They proved that God was good by sunlight and harvest, by health and
+ happiness; that he was angry, by disease and death. Man, according to this
+ doctrine, was led astray by the Devil, who delighted only in evil. It was
+ supposed that God demanded worship; that he loved to be flattered; that he
+ delighted in sacrifice; that nothing made him happier than to see ignorant
+ faith upon its knees; that above all things he hated and despised doubters
+ and heretics, and that he regarded all investigation as rebellion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then believers in these ideas, those who had gained great
+ reputation for learning and sanctity, or had enjoyed great power, wrote
+ books, and these books after a time were considered sacred. Most of them
+ were written to frighten mankind, and were filled with threatenings and
+ curses for unbelievers and promises for the faithful. The more frightful
+ the curses, the more extravagant the promises, the more sacred the books
+ were considered. All of the gods were cruel and vindictive, unforgiving
+ and relentless, and the devils were substantially the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was also believed that certain things must be accepted as true, no
+ matter whether they were reasonable or not; that it was pleasing to God to
+ believe a certain creed, especially if it happened to be the creed of the
+ majority. Each community felt it a duty to see that the enemies of God
+ were converted or killed. To allow a heretic to live in peace was to
+ invite the wrath of God. Every public evil&mdash;every misfortune&mdash;was
+ accounted for by something the community had permitted or done. When
+ epidemics appeared, brought by ignorance and welcomed by filth, the
+ heretic was brought out and sacrificed to appease the vengeance of God.
+ From the knowledge they had&mdash;from their premises&mdash;they reasoned
+ well. They said, if God will inflict such frightful torments upon us here,
+ simply for allowing a few heretics to live, what will he do with the
+ heretics? Of course the heretics would be punished forever. They knew how
+ cruel was the barbarian king when he had the traitor in his power. They
+ had seen every horror that man could inflict on man. Of course a God could
+ do more than a king. He could punish forever. The fires he would kindle
+ never could be quenched. The torments he would inflict would be eternal.
+ They thought the amount of punishment would be measured only by the power
+ of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These ideas were not only prevalent in what are called barbarous times,
+ but they are received by the religious world of to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No death could be conceived more horrible than that produced by flames. To
+ these flames they added eternity, and hell was produced. They exhausted
+ the idea of personal torture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By putting intention behind what man called good, God was produced. By
+ putting intention behind what man called bad, the Devil was created. Leave
+ this "intention" out, and gods and devils fade away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If not a human being existed the sun would continue to shine, and tempests
+ now and then would devastate the world; the rain would fall in pleasant
+ showers, and the bow of promise would adorn the cloud; violets would
+ spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, and the earthquake would devour;
+ birds would sing, and daisies bloom, and roses blush, and the volcanoes
+ would fill the heavens with their lurid glare; the procession of the
+ seasons would not be broken, and the stars would shine just as serenely as
+ though the world was filled with loving hearts and happy homes. But in the
+ olden time man thought otherwise. He imagined that he was of great
+ importance. Barbarians are always egotistic. They think that the stars are
+ watching them; that the sun shines on their account; that the rain falls
+ for them, and that gods and devils are really troubling themselves about
+ their poor and ignorant souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days men fought for their God as they did for their king. They
+ killed the enemies of both. For this their king would reward them here,
+ and their God hereafter. With them it was loyalty to destroy the disloyal.
+ They did not regard God as a vague "spirit," nor as an "essence" without
+ body or parts, but as a being, a person, an infinite man, a king, the
+ monarch of the universe, who had garments of glory for believers and robes
+ of flame for the heretic and infidel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not imagine that this doctrine of hell belongs to Christianity alone.
+ Nearly all religions have had this dogma for a corner-stone. Upon this
+ burning foundation nearly all have built. Over the abyss of pain rose the
+ glittering dome of pleasure. This world was regarded as one of trial. Here
+ a God of infinite wisdom experimented with man. Between the outstretched
+ paws of the Infinite the mouse, man, was allowed to play. Here man had the
+ opportunity of hearing priests and kneeling in temples. Here he could read
+ and hear read the sacred books. Here he could have the example of the
+ pious and the counsels of the holy. Here he could build churches and
+ cathedrals. Here he could burn incense, fast, wear haircloth, deny himself
+ all the pleasures of life, confess to priests, count beads, be miserable
+ one day in seven, make creeds, construct instruments of torture, bow
+ before pictures and images, eat little square pieces of bread, sprinkle
+ water on the heads of babes, shut his eyes and say words to the clouds,
+ and slander and defame all who have the courage to despise superstition,
+ and the goodness to tell their honest thoughts. After death, nothing could
+ be done to make him better. When he should come into the presence of God,
+ nothing was left except to damn him. Priests might convert him here, but
+ God could do nothing there,&mdash;all of which shows how much more a
+ priest can do for a soul than its creator; how much more potent is the
+ example of your average Christian than that of all the angels, and how
+ much superior earth is to heaven for the moral development of the soul. In
+ heaven the Devil is not allowed to enter. There all are pure and perfect,
+ yet they cannot influence a soul for good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only here, on the earth, where the Devil is constantly active, only where
+ his agents attack every soul, is there the slightest hope of moral
+ improvement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Strange! that a world cursed by God, filled with temptations and thick
+ with fiends, should be the only place where hope exists, the only place
+ where man can repent, the only place where reform is possible! Strange!
+ that heaven, filled with angels and presided over by God, is the only
+ place where reformation is utterly impossible! Yet these are the teachings
+ of all the believers in the eternity of punishment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Masters frightened slaves with the threat of hell, and slaves got a kind
+ of shadowy revenge by whispering back the threat. The poor have damned the
+ rich and the rich the poor. The imprisoned imagined a hell for their
+ gaolers; the weak built this place for the strong; the arrogant for their
+ rivals; the vanquished for their victors; the priest for the thinker,
+ religion for reason, superstition for science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty,
+ all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew,
+ blossomed and bore fruit in this one word&mdash;Hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the nourishment of this dogma cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain,
+ and fear was light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians have placed upon the throne of the universe a God of eternal
+ hate. I cannot worship a being whose vengeance is boundless, whose cruelty
+ is shoreless, and whose malice is increased by the agonies he inflicts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE APPEAL TO THE CEMETERY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHOEVER attacks a custom or a creed, will be confronted with a list of the
+ names of the dead who upheld the custom, or believed the creed. He is
+ asked in a very triumphant and sneering way, if he knows more than all the
+ great and honored of the past Every defender of a creed has graven upon
+ his memory the names of all "great" men whose actions or words can be
+ tortured into evidence for his doctrine. The church is always anxious to
+ have some king or president certify to the moral character of Christ, the
+ authority of the Scriptures, and the justice of the Jewish God. Of late
+ years, confessions of gentlemen about to be hanged have been considered of
+ great value, and the scaffold is regarded as a means of grace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the churches of our day seek the rich. They are no longer the friends
+ and defenders of the poor. Poverty no longer feels at home in the house of
+ God. In the Temple of the Most High, garments out of fashion are
+ considered out of place. People now, before confessing to God what
+ worthless souls they have, enrich their bodies. Now words of penitence
+ mingle with the rustle of silk, and light thrown from diamonds adorns the
+ repentant tear. We are told that the rich, the fortunate, the holders of
+ place and office, the fashionable, the respectable, are all within the
+ churches. And yet all these people grow eloquent over the poverty of
+ Christ&mdash;boast that he was born in a manger&mdash;that the Holy Ghost
+ passed by all the ladies of titled wealth and fashion and selected the
+ wife of a poor and unknown mechanic for the Mother of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They admit that all the men of Jerusalem who held high positions&mdash;all
+ the people of wealth, influence and power&mdash;were the enemies of the
+ Savior and held his pretensions in contempt. They admit that he had
+ influence only with the poor, and that he was so utterly unknown&mdash;so
+ indigent in acquaintance, that it was necessary to bribe one of his
+ disciples to point him out to the police. They assert that he had done a
+ great number of miracles&mdash;had cured the sick, and raised the dead&mdash;that
+ he had preached to vast multitudes&mdash;had made a kind of triumphal
+ entry into Jerusalem&mdash;had scourged from the temple the changers of
+ money&mdash;had disputed with the doctors&mdash;and yet, notwithstanding
+ all these things, he remained in the very depths of obscurity. Surely he
+ and his disciples could have been met with the argument that the "great"
+ dead were opposed to the new religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The apostles, it is claimed, preached the doctrines of Christ in Rome and
+ Athens, and the people of those cities could have used the arguments
+ against Christianity that Christians now use in its support. They could
+ have asked the apostles if they were wiser than all the philosophers,
+ poets, orators, and statesmen dead&mdash;if they knew more, coming as they
+ did from a weak and barbarous nation, than the greatest men produced by
+ the highest civilization of the known world. With what scorn would the
+ Greeks listen to a barbarian's criticisms upon Socrates and Plato. How a
+ Roman would laugh to hear a vagrant Hebrew attack a mythology that had
+ been believed by Cato and Virgil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every new religion has to overcome this argument of the cemetery&mdash;this
+ logic of the grave. Old ideas take shelter behind a barricade of corpses
+ and tombstones. They have epitaphs for battle-cries, and malign the living
+ in the name of the dead. The moment, however, that a new religion
+ succeeds, it becomes the old religion and uses the same argument against a
+ new idea that it once so gallantly refuted. The arguments used to-day
+ against what they are pleased to call infidelity would have shut the mouth
+ of every religious reformer, from Christ to the founder of the last sect.
+ The general objection to the new is, that it differs somewhat from the
+ old, and the fact that it does differ is urged as an argument against its
+ truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man is forced to admit that he does not agree with all the great
+ men, living or dead. The average Catholic, if not a priest, as a rule will
+ admit that Sir Isaac Newton was in some things his superior, that
+ Demosthenes had the advantage of him in expressing his ideas in public,
+ and that as a sculptor he is far below the unknown man of whose hand and
+ brain was born the Venus de Milo, but he will not, on account of these
+ admissions, change his views upon the important question of
+ transubstantiation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most Protestants will cheerfully admit that they are inferior in brain and
+ genius to some men who have lived and died in the Catholic Church; that in
+ the matter of preaching funeral sermons they do not pretend to equal
+ Bossuet; that their letters are not so interesting and polished as those
+ of Pascal; that Torquemada excelled them in the genius of organization,
+ and that for planning a massacre they would not for a moment dispute the
+ palm with Catherine de Medici.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, after all these admissions, they would insist that the Pope is an
+ unblushing impostor, and that the Catholic Church is a vampire fattened by
+ the best blood of a thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, that in favor of almost every sect, the names of some great
+ men can be pronounced. In almost every church there have been men whose
+ only weakness was their religion, and who in other directions achieved
+ distinction. If you call men great because they were emperors, kings,
+ noblemen, statesmen, millionaires&mdash;because they commanded vast armies
+ and wielded great influence in their day, then more names can be found to
+ support and prop the Church of Rome than any other Christian sect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is Protestantism willing to rest its claims upon the "great man" argument?
+ Give me the ideas, the religions, not that have been advanced and believed
+ by the so-called great of the past, but that will be defended and believed
+ by the great souls of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gives me pleasure to say that Lord Bacon was a great man; but I do not
+ for that reason abandon the Copernican system of astronomy, and insist
+ that the earth is stationary. Samuel Johnson was an excellent writer of
+ latinized English, but I am confident that he never saw a real ghost.
+ Matthew Hale was a reasonably good judge of law, but he was mistaken about
+ witches causing children to vomit crooked pins. John Wesley was quite a
+ man, in a kind of religious way, but in this country few people sympathize
+ with his hatred of republican government, or with his contempt for the
+ Revolutionary Fathers. Sir Isaac Newton, in the domain of science, was the
+ colossus of his time, but his commentary on the book of Revelation would
+ hardly excite envy, even in the breast of a Spurgeon or a Talmage. Upon
+ many questions, the opinions of Napoleon were of great value, and yet
+ about his bed, when dying, he wanted to see burning the holy candles of
+ Rome. John Calvin has been called a logician, and reasoned well from his
+ premises, but the burning of Servetus did not make murder a virtue. Luther
+ weakened somewhat the power of the Catholic Church, and to that extent was
+ a reformer, and yet Lord Brougham affirmed that his "Table Talk" was so
+ obscene that no respectable English publisher would soil paper with a
+ translation. He was a kind of religious Rabelais; and yet a man can defend
+ Luther in his attack upon the church without justifying his obscenity. If
+ every man in the Catholic Church was a good man, that would not convince
+ me that Ignatius Loyola ever met and conversed with the Virgin Mary. The
+ fact is, very few men are right in everything. Great virtues may draw
+ attention from defects, but they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded
+ by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is
+ still a gem. No one should attempt to refute an argument by pronouncing
+ the name of some man, unless he is willing to adopt all the ideas and
+ beliefs of that man. It is better to give reasons and facts than names. An
+ argument should not depend for its force upon the name of its author.
+ Facts need no pedigree; logic has no heraldry, and the living should not
+ be awed by the mistakes of the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest men the world has produced have known but little. They had a
+ few facts, mingled with mistakes without number. In some departments they
+ towered above their fellows, while in others they fell below the common
+ level of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Daniel Webster had great respect for the Scriptures, but very little for
+ the claims of his creditors. Most men are strangely inconsistent. Two
+ propositions were introduced into the Confederate Congress by the same
+ man. One was to hoist the black flag, and the other was to prevent
+ carrying the mails on Sunday. George Whitefield defended the slave trade,
+ because it brought the negroes within the sound of the gospel, and gave
+ them the advantage of associating with the gentlemen who stole them. And
+ yet this same Whitefield believed and taught the dogma of predestination.
+ Volumes might be written upon the follies and imbecilities of great men. A
+ full rounded man&mdash;a man of sterling sense and natural logic&mdash;is
+ just as rare as a great painter, poet, or sculptor. If you tell your
+ friend that he is not a painter, that he has no genius for poetry, he will
+ probably admit the truth of what you say, without feeling that he has been
+ insulted in the least. But if you tell him that he is not a logician, that
+ he has but little idea of the value of a fact, that he has no real
+ conception of what evidence is, and that he never had an original thought
+ in his life, he will cut your acquaintance. Thousands of men are most
+ wonderful in mechanics, in trade, in certain professions, keen in
+ business, knowing well the men among whom they live, and yet satisfied
+ with religions infinitely stupid, with politics perfectly senseless, and
+ they will believe that wonderful things were common long ago, such things
+ as no amount of evidence could convince them had happened in their day. A
+ man may be a successful merchant, lawyer, doctor, mechanic, statesman, or
+ theologian without one particle of originality, and almost without the
+ ability to think logically upon any subject whatever. Other men display in
+ some directions the most marvelous intellectual power, astonish mankind
+ with their grasp and vigor, and at the same time, upon religious subjects
+ drool and drivel like David at the gates of Gath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SACRED BOOKS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE have found, at last, that other nations have sacred books much older
+ than our own, and that these books and records were and are substantiated
+ by traditions and monuments, by miracles and martyrs, christs and
+ apostles, as well as by prophecies fulfilled. In all of these nations
+ differences of opinion as to the authenticity and meaning of these books
+ arose from time to time, precisely as they have done and still do with us,
+ and upon these differences were founded sects that manufactured creeds.
+ These sects denounced each other, and preached with the sword and
+ endeavored to convince with the fagot. Our theologians were greatly
+ astonished to find in other bibles the same stories, precepts, laws,
+ customs and commands that adorn and stain our own. At first they accounted
+ for this, by saying that these books were in part copies of the Jewish
+ Scriptures, mingled with barbaric myths. To such an extent did they impose
+ upon and insult probability, that they declared that all the morality of
+ the world, all laws commanding right and prohibiting wrong, all ideas
+ respecting the unity of a Supreme Being, were borrowed from the Jews, who
+ obtained them directly from God. The Christian world asserts with warmth,
+ not always born of candor, that the Bible is the source, origin, and
+ fountain of law, liberty, love, charity, and justice; that it is the
+ intellectual and moral sun of the world; that it alone gives happiness
+ here, and alone points out the way to joy hereafter; that it contains the
+ only revelation from the Infinite; that all others are the work of
+ dishonest and mistaken men. They say these things in spite of the fact
+ that the Jewish nation was one of the weakest and most barbaric of the
+ past; in spite of the fact that the civilization of Egypt and India had
+ commenced to wane before that of Palestine existed. To account for all the
+ morality contained in the sacred books of the Hindus, by saying that it
+ was borrowed from the wanderers in the Desert of Sinai, from the escaped
+ slaves of the Egyptians, taxes to the utmost the credulity of ignorance,
+ bigotry, and zeal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men who make these assertions are not superior to other men. They have
+ only the facts common to all, and they must admit that these facts do not
+ force the same conclusions upon all. They must admit that men equally
+ honest, equally well informed as themselves, deny their premises and
+ conclusions. They must admit that had they been born and educated in some
+ other country, they would have had a different religion, and would have
+ regarded with reverence and awe the books they now hold as false and
+ foolish. Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of
+ others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance
+ as the titlepage and preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily
+ imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when
+ the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue
+ approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard
+ even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country,
+ in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged. There is
+ the same evidence in favor of the inspiration of the Koran and Bible. Both
+ are substantiated in exactly the same way. It is just as wicked and
+ unreasonable to be a heretic in Constantinople as in New York. To deny the
+ claims of Christ and Mohammed is alike blasphemous. It all depends upon
+ where you are when you make the denial. No religion has ever fallen that
+ carried with it down to dumb death a solitary fact. Mistakes moulder with
+ the temples in which they were taught, and countless superstitions sleep
+ with their dead priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet Christians insist that the religions of all nations that have fallen
+ from wealth and power were false, with of course the solitary exception of
+ the Jewish, simply because the nations teaching them dropped from their
+ dying hands the swords of power. This argument drawn from the fate of
+ nations proves no more than would one based upon the history of persons.
+ With nations as with individuals, the struggle for life is perpetual, and
+ the law of the survival of the fittest applies equally to both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that the fabric of our civilization will crumbling fall to
+ unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and even
+ memory forgets. Perhaps the blind Samson of some imprisoned force,
+ released by thoughtless chance, may so wreck and strand the world that
+ man, in stress and strain of want and fear, will shudderingly crawl back
+ to savage and barbaric night. The time may come in which this thrilled and
+ throbbing earth, shorn of all life, will in its soundless orbit wheel a
+ barren star, on which the light will fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze
+ of love upon the cold, pathetic face of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FEAR.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 'T'HERE is a view quite prevalent, that in some way you can prove whether
+ the theories defended or advanced by a man are right or not, by showing
+ what kind of man he was, what kind of life he lived, and what manner of
+ death he died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man entertains certain opinions; he is persecuted. He refuses to change
+ his mind; he is burned, and in the midst of flames cries out that he dies
+ without change. Hundreds then say that he has sealed his testimony with
+ his blood, and his doctrines must be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to
+ establish the correctness of an opinion. Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes
+ the sincerity of the martyr,&mdash;never the correctness of his thought.
+ Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by
+ opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An
+ error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No Christian will admit that any amount of heroism displayed by a Mormon
+ is sufficient to prove that Joseph Smith was divinely inspired. All the
+ courage and culture, all the poetry and art of ancient Greece, do not even
+ tend to establish the truth of any myth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The testimony of the dying concerning some other world, or in regard to
+ the supernatural, cannot be any better, to say the least, than that of the
+ living. In the early days of Christianity a serene and intrepid death was
+ regarded as a testimony in favor of the church. At that time Pagans were
+ being converted to Christianity&mdash;were throwing Jupiter away and
+ taking the Hebrew God instead. In the moment of death many of these
+ converts, without doubt, retraced their steps and died in the faith of
+ their ancestors. But whenever one died clinging to the cross of the new
+ religion, this was seized upon as an evidence of the truth of the gospel.
+ After a time the Christians taught that an unbeliever, one who spoke or
+ wrote against their doctrines, could not meet death with composure&mdash;that
+ the infidel in his last moments would necessarily be a prey to the serpent
+ of remorse. For more than a thousand years they have made the "facts" to
+ fit this theory. Crimes against men have been considered as nothing when
+ compared with a denial of the truth of the Bible, the divinity of Christ,
+ or the existence of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the theologians, God has always acted in this way. As long as
+ men did nothing except to render their fellows wretched; as long as they
+ only butchered and burnt the innocent and helpless, God maintained the
+ strictest and most heartless neutrality; but when some honest man, some
+ great and tender soul expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scriptures,
+ or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right one by the wrong name, then
+ the real God leaped like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his
+ quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been
+ paralyzed&mdash;no truthful account in all the literature of the world of
+ the innocent being shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are committed
+ every day&mdash;men are this moment lying in wait for their human prey&mdash;wives
+ are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death&mdash;little
+ children begging for mercy, lifting imploring, tear-filled eyes to the
+ brutal faces of fathers and mothers&mdash;sweet girls are deceived, lured,
+ and outraged, but God has no time to prevent these things&mdash;no time to
+ defend the good and to protect the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs
+ and watching sparrows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He listens for blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines
+ baptismal registers; watches professors in colleges who begin to doubt the
+ geology of Moses and the astronomy of Joshua. He does not particularly
+ object to stealing if you won't swear. A great many persons have fallen
+ dead in the act of taking God's name in vain, but millions of men, women,
+ and children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of
+ burden, but no one engaged in this infamy has ever been touched by the
+ wrathful hand of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable
+ serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any
+ discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest
+ on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The
+ man who has succeeded in making his home a hell, meets death without a
+ quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of
+ Christ, or the eternal "procession" of the Holy Ghost. The king who has
+ waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and
+ fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded
+ in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his
+ subjects, dies like a saint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his
+ wife Fausta, and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened
+ the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of
+ God. The council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the Father.
+ This was in the year 325. We are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for
+ settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. Theodosius
+ called a council at Constantinople in 381, and this council decided that
+ the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father. Theodosius, the younger,
+ assembled another council at Ephesus to ascertain who the Virgin Mary
+ really was, and it was solemnly decided in the year 431 that she was the
+ Mother of God. In 451 it was decided by a council held at Chalcedon,
+ called together by the Emperor Marcian, that Christ had two natures&mdash;the
+ human and divine. In 680, in another general council, held at
+ Constantinople, convened by order of Pognatius, it was also decided that
+ Christ had two wills, and in the year 1274 it was decided at the Council
+ of Lyons, that the Holy Ghost proceeded not only from the Father, but from
+ the Son as well. Had it not been for these councils, we might have been
+ without a Trinity even unto this day. When we take into consideration the
+ fact that a belief in the Trinity is absolutely essential to salvation,
+ how unfortunate it was for the world that this doctrine was not
+ established until the year 1274. Think of the millions that dropped into
+ hell while these questions were being discussed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, however, is a digression. Let us go back to Constantine. This
+ Emperor, stained with every crime, is supposed to have died like a
+ Christian. We hear nothing of fiends leering at him in the shadows of
+ death. He does not see the forms of his murdered wife and son covered with
+ the blood he shed. From his white and shrivelled lips issued no shrieks of
+ terror. He does not cover his glazed eyes with thin and trembling hands to
+ shut out the visions of hell. His chamber is filled with the rustle of
+ wings&mdash;of wings waiting to bear his soul to the thrilling realms of
+ joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against the Emperor Constantine the church has hurled no anathema. She has
+ accepted the story of his vision in the clouds, and his holy memory has
+ been guarded by priest and pope. All the persecutors sleep in peace, and
+ the ashes of those who burned their brothers in the name of Christ rest in
+ consecrated ground. Whole libraries could not contain even the names of
+ the wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defence
+ of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and
+ no priest or minister describes the agony and fear, the remorse and
+ horror, with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of
+ their lives. These men had never doubted&mdash;they accepted the creed&mdash;they
+ were not infidels&mdash;they had not denied the divinity of Christ&mdash;they
+ had been baptized&mdash;they had partaken of the Last Supper&mdash;they
+ had respected priests&mdash;they admitted that the Holy Ghost had
+ "proceeded," and these things put pillows beneath their dying heads, and
+ covered them with the drapery of peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then, in the history of this world, a man of genius, of sense, of
+ intellectual honesty has appeared. These men have denounced the
+ superstitions of their day. They pitied the multitude. To see priests
+ devour the substance of the people filled them with indignation. These men
+ were honest enough to tell their thoughts. Then they were denounced,
+ tried, condemned, executed. Some of them escaped the fury of the people
+ who loved their enemies, and died naturally in their beds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That
+ would show that religion was not actually necessary in the last moment.
+ Religion got much of its power from the terror of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE DEATH TEST.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ YOU had better live well and die wicked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You had better live well and die cursing than live badly and die praying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny
+ the Bible, refuse to look at the cross, contend that Christ was only a
+ man, and yet die as calmly as Calvin did after he had murdered Servetus,
+ or as did King David after advising one son to kill another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has taken great pains to show that the last moments of all
+ infidels (that Christians did not succeed in burning) were infinitely
+ wretched and despairing. It was alleged that words could not paint the
+ horrors that were endured by a dying infidel. Every good Christian was
+ expected to, and generally did, believe these accounts. They have been
+ told and retold in every pulpit of the world. Protestant ministers have
+ repeated the inventions of Catholic priests, and Catholics, by a kind of
+ theological comity, have sworn to the falsehoods told by Protestants. Upon
+ this point they have always stood together, and will as long as the same
+ calumny can be used by both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon the death-bed subject the clergy grow eloquent. When describing the
+ shudderings and shrieks of the dying unbeliever, their eyes glitter with
+ delight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a festival.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are no longer men. They become hyenas. They dig open graves. They
+ devour the reputations of the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a banquet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of hell. They gaze at the souls
+ of the infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies. They
+ see them in flames&mdash;in oceans of fire&mdash;in gulfs of pain&mdash;in
+ abysses of despair. They shout with joy. They applaud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is an <i>auto da fe</i>, presided over by God and his angels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men they thus describe were not atheists; they were all believers in
+ God, in special providence, and in the immortality of the soul. They
+ believed in the accountability of man&mdash;in the practice of virtue, in
+ justice, and liberty, but they did not believe in that collection of
+ follies and fables called the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to show that an infidel must die overwhelmed with remorse and
+ fear, they have generally selected from all the "unbelievers" since the
+ day of Christ five men&mdash;the Emperor Julian, Spinoza, Voltaire,
+ Diderot, David Hume, and Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hardly a minister in the United States has attempted to "answer" me
+ without referring to the death of one or more of these men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In vain have these calumniators of the dead been called upon to prove
+ their statements. In vain have rewards been offered to any priestly
+ maligner to bring forward the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us once for all dispose of these slanders&mdash;of these pious
+ calumnies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ JULIAN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THEY say that the Emperor Julian was an apostate that he was once a
+ Christian; that he fell from grace, and that in his last moments, throwing
+ some of his own blood into the air, he cried out to Jesus Christ,
+ "Galilean, thou hast conquered!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be remembered that the Christians had persecuted and imprisoned
+ this very Julian; that they had exiled him; that they had threatened him
+ with death. Many of his relatives were murdered by the Christians. He
+ became emperor, and Christians conspired to take his life. The
+ conspirators were discovered and they were pardoned. He did what he could
+ to prevent the Christians from destroying each other. He held pomp and
+ pride and luxury in contempt, and led his army on foot, sharing the
+ privations of the meanest soldier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon ascending the throne he published an edict proclaiming universal
+ religious toleration. He was then a Pagan. It is claimed by some that he
+ never did entirely forget his Christian education. In this I am inclined
+ to think there is some truth, because he revoked his edict of toleration,
+ and for a time was nearly as unjust as though he had been a saint. He was
+ emperor one year and seven months. In a battle with the Persians he was
+ mortally wounded. "Brought back to his tent, and feeling that he had but a
+ short time to live, he spent his last hours in discoursing with his
+ friends on the immortality of the soul. He reviewed his reign and declared
+ that he was satisfied with his conduct, and had neither penitence nor
+ remorse to express for anything that he had done." His last words were: "I
+ submit willingly to the eternal decrees of heaven, convinced that he who
+ is captivated with life, when his last hour has arrived is more weak and
+ pusillanimous than he who would rush to voluntary death when it is his
+ duty still to live."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we remember that a Christian emperor murdered Julian's father and
+ most of his kindred, and that he narrowly escaped the same fate, we can
+ hardly blame him for having a little prejudice against a church whose
+ members were fierce, ignorant, and bloody&mdash;whose priests were
+ hypocrites, and whose bishops were assassins. If Julian had said he was a
+ Christian&mdash;no matter what he actually was, he would have satisfied
+ the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The story that the dying emperor acknowledged that he was conquered by the
+ Galilean was originated by some of the so-called Fathers of the Church,
+ probably by Gregory or Theodoret. They are the same wretches who said that
+ Julian sacrificed a woman to the moon, tearing out her entrails with his
+ own hands. We are also informed by these hypocrites that he endeavored to
+ rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, and that fire came out of the earth and
+ consumed the laborers employed in the sacrilegious undertaking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did not suppose that an intelligent man could be found in the world who
+ believed this childish fable, and yet in the January number for 1880, of
+ the <i>Princeton Review</i>, the Rev. Stuart Robinson (whoever he may be)
+ distinctly certifies to the truth of this story. He says: "Throughout the
+ entire era of the planting of the Christian Church, the gospel preached
+ was assailed not only by the malignant fanaticism of the Jew and the
+ violence of Roman statecraft, but also by the intellectual weapons of
+ philosophers, wits, and poets. Now Celsus denounced the new religion as
+ base imposture. Now Tacitus described it as but another phase of the <i>odium
+ generis humani. Now Julian proposed to bring into contempt the prophetic
+ claims of its founder by the practical test of rebuilding the Temple</i>."
+ Here then in the year of grace 1880 is a Presbyterian preacher, who really
+ believes that Julian tried to rebuild the Temple, and that God caused fire
+ to issue from the earth and consume the innocent workmen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these stories rest upon the same foundation&mdash;the mendacity of
+ priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Julian changed the religion of the Empire, and diverted the revenues of
+ the church. Whoever steps between a priest and his salary, will find that
+ he has committed every crime. No matter how often the slanders may be
+ refuted, they will be repeated until the last priest has lost his body and
+ found his wings. These falsehoods about Julian were invented some fifteen
+ hundred years ago, and they are repeated to-day by just as honest and just
+ as respectable people as those who told them at first. Whenever the church
+ cannot answer the arguments of an opponent, she attacks his character. She
+ resorts to falsehood, and in the domain of calumny she has stood for
+ fifteen hundred years without a rival.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great Empire was crumbling to its fall. The literature of the world
+ was being destroyed by priests. The gods and goddesses were driven from
+ the earth and sky. The paintings were torn and defaced. The statues were
+ broken. The walls were left desolate, and the niches empty. Art, like
+ Rachel, wept for her children, and would not be comforted. The streams and
+ forests were deserted by the children of the imagination, and the whole
+ earth was barren, poor and mean.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christian ignorance, bigotry and hatred, in blind unreasoning zeal, had
+ destroyed the treasures of our race. Art was abhorred, Knowledge was
+ despised, Reason was an outcast. The sun was blotted from the intellectual
+ heaven, every star extinguished, and there fell upon the world that shadow&mdash;that
+ midnight,&mdash;known as "The Dark Ages."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This night lasted for a thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The First Great Star&mdash;Herald of the Dawn&mdash;was Bruno.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ BRUNO.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE night of the Middle Ages lasted for a thousand years. The first star
+ that enriched the horizon of this universal gloom was Giordano Bruno. He
+ was the herald of the dawn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was born in 1550, was educated for a priest, became a Dominican friar.
+ At last his reason revolted against the doctrine of transubstantiation. He
+ could not believe that the entire Trinity was in a wafer, or in a swallow
+ of wine. He could not believe that a man could devour the Creator of the
+ universe by eating a piece of bread. This led him to investigate other
+ dogmas of the Catholic Church, and in every direction he found the same
+ contradictions and impossibilities supported, not by reason, but by faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who loved their enemies threatened his life. He was obliged to flee
+ from his native land, and he became a vagabond in nearly every nation of
+ Europe. He declared that he fought, not what priests believed, but what
+ they pretended to believe. He was driven from his native country because
+ of his astronomical opinions. He had lost confidence in the Bible as a
+ scientific work. He was in danger because he had discovered a truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He fled to England. He gave some lectures at Oxford. He found that
+ institution controlled by priests. He found that they were teaching
+ nothing of importance&mdash;only the impossible and the hurtful. He called
+ Oxford "the widow of true learning." There were in England, at that time,
+ two men who knew more than the rest of the world. Shakespeare was then
+ alive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bruno was driven from England. He was regarded as a dangerous man,&mdash;he
+ had opinions, he inquired after reasons, he expressed confidence in facts.
+ He fled to France. He was not allowed to remain in that country. He
+ discussed things&mdash;that was enough. The church said, "move on." He
+ went to Germany. He was not a believer&mdash;he was an investigator. The
+ Germans wanted believers; they regarded the whole Christian system as
+ settled; they wanted witnesses; they wanted men who would assert. So he
+ was driven from Germany.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He returned at last to his native land. He found himself without friends,
+ because he had been true, not only to himself, but to the human race. But
+ the world was false to him because he refused to crucify the Christ of his
+ own soul between the two thieves of hypocrisy and bigotry. He was arrested
+ for teaching that there are other worlds than this; that many of the stars
+ are suns, around which other worlds revolve; that Nature did not exhaust
+ all her energies on this grain of sand called the earth. He believed in a
+ plurality of worlds, in the rotation of this, in the heliocentric theory.
+ For these crimes, and for these alone, he was imprisoned for six years. He
+ was kept in solitary confinement. He was allowed no books, no friends, no
+ visitors. He was denied pen and paper. In the darkness, in the loneliness,
+ he had time to examine the great questions of origin, of existence, of
+ destiny. He put to the test what is called the goodness of God. He found
+ that he could neither depend upon man nor upon any deity. At last, the
+ Inquisition demanded him. He was tried, condemned, excommunicated and
+ sentenced to be burned. According to Professor Draper, he believed that
+ this world is animated by an intelligent soul&mdash;the cause of forms,
+ but not of matter; that it lives in all things, even in such as seem not
+ to live; that everything is ready to become organized; that matter is the
+ mother of forms, and then their grave; that matter and the soul of things,
+ together, constitute God. He was a pantheist&mdash;that is to say, an
+ atheist. He was a lover of Nature,&mdash;a reaction from the asceticism of
+ the church. He was tired of the gloom of the monastery. He loved the
+ fields, the woods, the streams. He said to his brother-priests: Come out
+ of your cells, out of your dungeons: come into the air and light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Throw away your beads and your crosses. Gather flowers; mingle with your
+ fellow-men; have wives and children; scatter the seeds of joy; throw away
+ the thorns and nettles of your creeds; enjoy the perpetual miracle of
+ life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the sixteenth day of February, in the year of grace 1600, by "the
+ triumphant beast," the Church of Rome, this philosopher, this great and
+ splendid man, was burned. He was offered his liberty if he would recant.
+ There was no God to be offended by his recantation, and yet, as an apostle
+ of what he believed to be the truth, he refused this offer. To those who
+ passed the sentence upon him he said: "It is with greater fear that ye
+ pass this sentence upon me than I receive it." This man, greater than any
+ naturalist of his day; grander than the martyr of any religion, died
+ willingly in defence of what he believed to be the sacred truth. He was
+ great enough to know that real religion will not destroy the joy of life
+ on earth; great enough to know that investigation is not a crime&mdash;that
+ the really useful is not hidden in the mysteries of faith. He knew that
+ the Jewish records were below the level of the Greek and Roman myths; that
+ there is no such thing as special providence; that prayer is useless; that
+ liberty and necessity are the same, and that good and evil are but
+ relative.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the first real martyr,&mdash;neither frightened by perdition, nor
+ bribed by heaven. He was the first of all the world who died for truth
+ without expectation of reward. He did not anticipate a crown of glory. His
+ imagination had not peopled the heavens with angels waiting for his soul.
+ He had not been promised an eternity of joy if he stood firm, nor had he
+ been threatened with the fires of hell if he wavered and recanted. He
+ expected as his reward an eternal nothing! Death was to him an everlasting
+ end&mdash;nothing beyond but a sleep without a dream, a night without a
+ star, without a dawn&mdash;nothing but extinction, blank, utter, and
+ eternal. No crown, no palm, no "well done, good and faithful servant," no
+ shout of welcome, no song of praise, no smile of God, no kiss of Christ,
+ no mansion in the fair skies&mdash;not even a grave within the earth&mdash;nothing
+ but ashes, wind-blown and priest-scattered, mixed with earth and trampled
+ beneath the feet of men and beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The murder of this man will never be completely and perfectly avenged
+ until from Rome shall be swept every vestige of priest and pope, until
+ over the shapeless ruin of St. Peter's, the crumbled Vatican and the
+ fallen cross, shall rise a monument to Bruno,&mdash;the thinker,
+ philosopher, philanthropist, atheist, martyr.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE CHURCH IN THE TIME OF VOLTAIRE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHEN Voltaire was born, the natural was about the only thing in which the
+ church did not believe. The monks sold little amulets of consecrated
+ paper. They would cure diseases. If laid in a cradle they would prevent a
+ child being bewitched. So, they could be put into houses and barns to keep
+ devils away, or buried in a field to prevent bad weather, to delay frost,
+ and to insure good crops. There was a regular formulary by which they were
+ made, ending with a prayer, after which the amulets were sprinkled with
+ holy water. The church contended that its servants were the only
+ legitimate physicians. The priests cured in the name of the church, and in
+ the name of God, by exorcism, relics, water, salt, and oil. St. Valentine
+ cured epilepsy, St. Gervasius was good for rheumatism, St. Michael de
+ Sanatis for cancer, St. Judas for coughs, St. Ovidius for deafness, St.
+ Sebastian for poisonous bites, St. Apollonia for toothache, St. Clara for
+ rheum in the eye, St. Hubert for hydrophobia. Devils were driven out with
+ wax tapers, with incense, with holy water, by pronouncing prayers. The
+ church, as late as the middle of the twelfth century, prohibited good
+ Catholics from having anything to do with physicians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was believed that the devils produced storms of wind, of rain and of
+ fire from heaven; that the atmosphere was a battlefield between angels and
+ devils; that Lucifer had power to destroy fields and vineyards and
+ dwellings, and the principal business of the church was to protect the
+ people from the Devil. This was the origin of church bells. These bells
+ were sprinkled with holy water, and their clangor cleared the air of imps
+ and fiends. The bells also prevented storms and lightning. The church used
+ to anathematize insects. In the sixteenth century, regular suits were
+ commenced against rats, and judgment was rendered. Every monastery had its
+ master magician, who sold magic incense, salt, and tapers, consecrated
+ palms and relics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every science was regarded as an outcast, an enemy. Every fact held the
+ creed of the church in scorn. Investigators were enemies in disguise.
+ Thinkers were traitors, and the church exerted its vast power for
+ centuries to prevent the intellectual progress of man. There was no
+ liberty, no education, no philosophy, no science; nothing but credulity,
+ ignorance, and superstition. The world was really under the control of
+ Satan and his agents. The church, for the purpose of increasing her power,
+ exhausted every means to convince the people of the existence of witches,
+ devils, and fiends. In this way the church had every enemy within her
+ power. She simply had to charge him with being a wizard, of holding
+ communication with devils, and the ignorant mob were ready to tear him to
+ pieces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To such an extent was this frightful course pursued, and such was the
+ prevalence of the belief in the supernatural, that the worship of the
+ devil was absolutely established. The poor people, brutalized by the
+ church, filled with fear of Satanic influence, finding that the church did
+ not protect, as a last resort began to worship the Devil. The power of the
+ Devil was proven by the Bible. The history of Job, the temptation of
+ Christ in the desert, the carrying of Christ to the top of the temple, and
+ hundreds of other instances, were relied upon as establishing his power;
+ and when people laughed about witches riding upon anointed sticks in the
+ air, invisible, they were reminded of a like voyage when the Devil carried
+ Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This frightful doctrine filled every friend with suspicion of his friend.
+ It the husband denounce the wife, the children the parents, and the
+ parents the children It destroyed all the sweet relations of humanity. It
+ did away with justice in the courts. It destroyed the charity of religion.
+ It broke the bond of friendship. It filled with poison the golden cup of
+ life. It turned earth into a very hell, peopled with ignorant, tyrannical,
+ and malicious demons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such was the result of a few centuries of Christianity. Such was the
+ result of a belief in the supernatural. Such was the result of giving up
+ the evidence of our own senses, and relying upon dreams, visions, and
+ fears. Such was the result of destroying human reason, of depending upon
+ the supernatural, of living here for another world instead of for this, of
+ depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves. The Protestants vied
+ with the Catholics. Luther stood side by side with the priests he had
+ deserted, in promoting this belief in devils and fiends. To the Catholic,
+ every Protestant was possessed by a devil. To the Protestant, every
+ Catholic was the homestead of a fiend. All order, all regular succession
+ of causes and effects, were known no more. The natural ceased to exist.
+ The learned and the ignorant were on a level. The priest had been caught
+ in the net spread for the peasant, and Christendom was a vast madhouse,
+ with insane priests for keepers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VOLTAIRE
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHEN Voltaire was born, the church ruled and owned France. It was a period
+ of almost universal corruption. The priests were mostly libertines. The
+ judges were nearly as cruel as venal. The royal palace was simply a house
+ of assignation. The nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant, and cruel to
+ the last degree. The common people were treated as beasts. It took the
+ church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The seeds of the revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every
+ noble and by every priest. They germinated in the hearts of the helpless.
+ They were watered by the tears of agony. Blows began to bear interest.
+ There was a faint longing for blood. Workmen, blackened by the sun, bent
+ by labor, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about
+ cutting them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture.
+ The church was the arsenal of superstition. Miracles, relics, angels and
+ devils were as common as rags. Voltaire laughed at the evidences, attacked
+ the pretended facts, held the Bible up to ridicule, and filled Europe with
+ indignant protests against the cruelty, bigotry, and injustice of the
+ time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a believer in God, and in some ingenious way excused this God for
+ allowing the Catholic Church to exist. He had an idea that, originally,
+ mankind were believers in one God, and practiced all the virtues. Of
+ course this was a mistake. He imagined that the church had corrupted the
+ human race. In this he was right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that, at one time, the church relatively stood for progress, but
+ when it gained power, it became an obstruction. The system of Voltaire was
+ contradictory. He described a being of infinite goodness, who not only
+ destroyed his children with pestilence and famine, but allowed them to
+ destroy each other. While rejecting the God of the Bible, he accepted
+ another God, who, to say the least, allowed the innocent to be burned for
+ love of him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire hated tyranny, and loved liberty. His arguments to prove the
+ existence of a God were just as groundless as those of the reverend
+ fathers of his day to prove the divinity of Christ, or that Mary was the
+ mother of God. The theologians of his time maligned and feared him. He
+ regarded them as a spider does flies. He spread nets for them. They were
+ caught, and he devoured them for the amusement and benefit of the public.
+ He was educated by the Jesuits, and sometimes acted like one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is fashionable to say that he was not profound, This is because he was
+ not stupid. In the presence of absurdity he laughed, and was called
+ irreverent. He thought God would not damn even a priest forever: this was
+ regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to prevent Christians from murdering
+ each other and did what he could to civilize the disciples of Christ. Had
+ he founded a sect, obtained control of some country, and burned a few
+ heretics at slow fires, he would have won the admiration, respect and love
+ of the Christian world. Had he only pretended to believe all the fables of
+ antiquity, had he mumbled Latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself,
+ devoured the flesh of God, and carried fagots to the feet of philosophy in
+ the name of Christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying a
+ sight of the damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Instead of doing these things, he willfully closed his eyes to the light
+ of the gospel, examined the Bible for himself, advocated intellectual
+ liberty, struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted
+ the weak, cried out against the torture of man, appealed to reason,
+ endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored the indigent, and
+ defended the oppressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These were his crimes. Such a man God would not suffer to die in peace. If
+ allowed to meet death with a smile, others might follow his example, until
+ none would be left to light the holy fires of the auto da fe. It would not
+ do for so great, so successful an enemy of the church, to die without
+ leaving some shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer
+ of chattered horror, uttered by lips covered with blood and foam.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an old man of eighty-four. He had been surrounded with the comforts
+ of life; he was a man of wealth, of genius. Among the literary men of the
+ world he stood first. God had allowed him to have the appearance of
+ success. His last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery. He
+ stood at the summit of his age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The priests became anxious. They began to fear that God would forget, in a
+ multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Toward the last of May, 1778, it was whispered in Paris that Voltaire was
+ dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of
+ superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Two days before his death, his nephew went to seek the cur&eacute; of
+ Saint Sulpice and the Abb&eacute; Gautier and brought them into his
+ uncle's sick chamber, who was informed that they were there. 'Ah, well!'
+ said Voltaire, 'give them my compliments and my thanks.' The Abb&eacute;
+ spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience. The cur&eacute; of
+ Saint Sulpice then came forward, having announced himself, and asked of
+ Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our Lord
+ Jesus Christ. The sick man pushed one of his hands against the cur&eacute;'s
+ coif, shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side,
+ 'Let me die in peace.' The cur&eacute; seemingly considered his person
+ soiled, and his coif dishonored, by the touch of the philosopher. He made
+ the nurse give him a little brushing, and went out with the Abb&eacute;
+ Gautier."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He expired, says Wagniere, on the 30th of May, 1778, at about a quarter
+ past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. Ten minutes
+ before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his <i>valet de chambre</i>,
+ who was watching by him, pressed it and said: "Adieu, my dear Morand, I am
+ gone." These were his last words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this death, so simple and serene, so natural and peaceful; from these
+ words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch, all the frightful
+ pictures, all the despairing utterances, have been drawn and made. From
+ these materials, and from these alone, have been constructed all the
+ shameless lies about The death of this great and wonderful man, compared
+ with whom all of his calumniators, dead and living, were and are but dust
+ and vermin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was the intellectual autocrat of his time. From his throne at the
+ foot of the Alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in
+ Europe. He was the pioneer of his century. He was the assassin of
+ superstition. He left the quiver of ridicule without an arrow. Through the
+ shadows of faith and fable, through the darkness of myth and miracle,
+ through the midnight of Christianity, through the blackness of bigotry,
+ past cathedral and dungeon, past rack and stake, past altar and throne, he
+ carried, with chivalric hands, the sacred torch of reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DIDEROT. DOUBT IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD TRUTH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DIDEROT was born in 1713. His parents were in what may be called the
+ humbler walks of life. Like Voltaire he was educated by the Jesuits. He
+ had in him something of the vagabond, and was for several years almost a
+ beggar in Paris. He was endeavoring to live by his pen. In that day and
+ generation, a man without a patron, endeavoring to live by literature, was
+ necessarily almost a beggar. He nearly starved&mdash;frequently going for
+ days without food. Afterward, when he had something himself, he was as
+ generous as the air. No man ever was more willing to give, and no man less
+ willing to receive, than Diderot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He wrote upon all conceivable subjects, that he might have bread. He even
+ wrote sermons, and regretted it all his life. He and D'Alembert were the
+ life and soul of the Encyclopaedia. With infinite enthusiasm he helped to
+ gather the knowledge of the world for the use of each and all. He
+ harvested the fields of thought, separated the grain from the straw and
+ chaff, and endeavored to throw away the seeds and fruit of superstition.
+ His motto was, "<i>Incredulity is the first step towards philosophy</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had the vices of most Christians&mdash;was nearly as immoral as the
+ majority of priests. His vices he shared in common, his virtues were his
+ own. All who knew him united in saying that he had the pity of a woman,
+ the generosity of a prince, the self-denial of an anchorite, the courage
+ of C&aelig;sar, and the enthusiasm of a poet. He attacked with every power
+ of his mind the superstition of his day. He said what he thought. The
+ priests hated him. He was in favor of universal education&mdash;the church
+ despised it. He wished to put the knowledge of the whole world within
+ reach of the poorest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He wished to drive from the gate of the Garden of Eden the cherubim of
+ superstition, so that the child of Adam might return to eat once more the
+ fruit of the tree of knowledge. Every Catholic was his enemy. His poor
+ little desk was ransacked by the police searching for manuscripts in which
+ something might be found that would justify the imprisonment of such a
+ dangerous man. Whoever, in 1750, wished to increase the knowledge of
+ mankind was regarded as the enemy of social order.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intellectual superstructure of France rests upon the Encyclopaedia.
+ The knowledge given to the people was the impulse, the commencement, of
+ the revolution that left the church without an altar and the king without
+ a throne. Diderot thought for himself, and bravely gave his thoughts to
+ others. For this reason he was regarded as a criminal. He did not expect
+ his reward in another world. He did not do what he did to please some
+ imaginary God. He labored for mankind. He wished to lighten the burdens of
+ those who should live after him. Hear these noble words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The more man ascends through the past, and the more he launches into the
+ future, the greater he will be, and all these philosophers and ministers
+ and truth-telling men who have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations,
+ the atrocities of priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left
+ for them in death? This: That prejudice would pass, and that posterity
+ would pour out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O Posterity! Holy
+ and sacred stay of the unhappy and the oppressed; thou who art just, thou
+ who art incorruptible, thou who findest the good man, who unmaskest the
+ hypocrite, who breakest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy consoling
+ faith never, never abandon me!" Posterity is for the philosopher what the
+ other world is for the devotee.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was
+ guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course it would not do for the church to allow a man to die in peace
+ who had added to the intellectual wealth of the world. The moment Diderot
+ was dead, Catholic priests began painting and recounting the horrors of
+ his expiring moments. They described him as overcome with remorse, as
+ insane with fear; and these falsehoods have been repeated by the
+ Protestant world, and will probably be repeated by thousands of ministers
+ after we are dead. The truth is, he had passed his three-score years and
+ ten. He had lived for seventy-one years. He had eaten his supper. He had
+ been conversing with his wife. He was reclining in his easy chair. His
+ mind was at perfect rest. He had entered, without knowing it, the twilight
+ of his last day. Above the horizon was the evening star, telling of sleep.
+ The room grew still and the stillness was lulled by the murmur of the
+ street. There were a few moments of perfect peace. The wife said, "He is
+ asleep." She enjoyed his repose, and breathed softly that he might not be
+ disturbed. The moments wore on, and still he slept. Lovingly, softly, at
+ last she touched him. Yes, he was asleep. He had become a part of the
+ eternal silence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DAVID HUME.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE worst religion of the world was the Presbyterianism of Scotland as it
+ existed in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Kirk had all the
+ faults of the Church of Rome without a redeeming feature. The Kirk hated
+ music, painting, statuary, and architecture. Anything touched with
+ humanity&mdash;with the dimples of joy&mdash;was detested and accursed.
+ God was to be feared&mdash;not loved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Life was a long battle with the Devil. Every desire was of Satan.
+ Happiness was a snare, and human love was wicked, weak and vain. The
+ Presbyterian priest of Scotland was as cruel, bigoted and heartless as the
+ familiar of the Inquisition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One case will tell it all:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the beginning of this, the nineteenth century, a boy seventeen years of
+ age, Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for blasphemy.
+ He had denied the inspiration of the Bible. He had on several occasions,
+ when cold, jocularly wished himself in hell that he might get warm. The
+ poor, frightened boy recanted&mdash;begged for mercy; but he was found
+ guilty, hanged, thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold, and his
+ weeping mother vainly begged that his bruised and bleeding body might be
+ given to her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This one case, multiplied again and again, gives you the condition of
+ Scotland when, on the 26th of April, 1711, David Hume was born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ David Hume was one of the few Scotchmen of his day who were not owned by
+ the church. He had the manliness to examine historical and religious
+ questions for himself, and the courage to give his conclusions to the
+ world. He was singularly capable of governing himself. He was a
+ philosopher, and lived a calm and cheerful life, unstained by an unjust
+ act, free from all excess, and devoted in a reasonable degree to
+ benefiting his fellow-men. After examining the Bible he became convinced
+ that it was not true. For failing to suppress his real opinion, for
+ failing to tell a deliberate falsehood, he brought upon himself the hatred
+ of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intellectual honesty is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and whether God
+ will forgive this sin or not his church has not, and never will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hume took the ground that a miracle could not be used as evidence until
+ the fact that it had happened was established. But how can a miracle be
+ established? Take any miracle recorded in the Bible, and how could it be
+ established now? You may say: Upon the testimony of those who wrote the
+ account. Who were they? No one knows. How could you prove the resurrection
+ of Lazarus? Or of the widow's son? How could you substantiate, today, the
+ ascension of Jesus Christ? In what way could you prove that the river
+ Jordan was divided upon being struck by the coat of a prophet? How is it
+ possible now to establish the fact that the fires of a furnace refused to
+ burn three men? Where are the witnesses? Who, upon the whole earth, has
+ the slightest knowledge upon this subject?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He insisted that at the bottom of all good was the useful; that human
+ happiness was an end worth working and living for; that origin and destiny
+ were alike unknown; that the best religion was to live temperately and to
+ deal justly with our fellow-men; that the dogma of inspiration was absurd,
+ and that an honest man had nothing to fear. Of course the Kirk hated him.
+ He laughed at the creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the lot of Hume fell ease, respect, success, and honor. While many
+ disciples of God were the sport and prey of misfortune, he kept steadily
+ advancing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Envious Christians bided their time. They waited as patiently as possible
+ for the horrors of death to fall upon the heart and brain of David Hume.
+ They knew that all the furies would be there, and that God would get his
+ revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Adam Smith, author of the "Wealth of Nations," speaking of Hume in his
+ last sickness, says that in the presence of death "his cheerfulness was so
+ great, and his conversation and amusements ran so much in the usual
+ strain, that, notwithstanding all his bad symptoms, many people could not
+ believe he was dying. A few days before his death Hume said: 'I am dying
+ as fast as my enemies&mdash;if I have any&mdash;could wish, and as easily
+ and tranquilly as my best friends could desire.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Col. Edmondstoune shortly afterward wrote Hume a letter, of which the
+ following is an extract:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My heart is full. I could not see you this morning. I thought it was
+ better for us both. You cannot die&mdash;you must live in the memory of
+ your friends and acquaintances; and your works will render you immortal. I
+ cannot conceive that it was possible for any one to dislike you, or hate
+ you. He must be more than savage who could be an enemy to a man with the
+ best head and heart and the most amiable manners."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Adam Smith happened to go into his room while he was reading the above
+ letter, which he immediately showed him. Smith said to Hume that he was
+ sensible of how much he was weakening, and that appearances were in many
+ respects bad; yet, that his cheerfulness was so great and the spirit of
+ life still seemed to be so strong in him, that he could not keep from
+ entertaining some hopes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hume answered, "When I lie down in the evening I feel myself weaker than
+ when I arose in the morning; and when I rise in the morning, weaker than
+ when I lay down in the evening. I am sensible, besides, that some of my
+ vital parts are affected so that I must soon die."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well," said Mr. Smith, "if it must be so, you have at least the
+ satisfaction of leaving all your friends, and the members of your
+ brother's family in particular, in great prosperity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He replied that he was so sensible of his situation that when he was
+ reading Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, among all the excuses which are
+ alleged to Charon for not entering readily into his boat, he could not
+ find one that fitted him. He had no house to finish; he had no daughter to
+ provide for; he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself;
+ "and I could not well," said he, "imagine what excuse I could make to
+ Charon in order to obtain a little delay. I have done everything of
+ consequence which I ever meant to do, and I could, at no time expect to
+ leave my relations and friends in a better situation than that in which I
+ am now likely to leave them; and I have, therefore, every reason to die
+ contented."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Upon further consideration," said he, "I thought I might say to him,
+ 'Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me
+ a little time that I may see how the public receives the alterations.'
+ 'But,' Charon would answer, 'when you have seen the effect of this, you
+ will be for making other alterations. There will be no end to such
+ excuses; so, my honest friend, please step into the boat.' 'But,' I might
+ still urge, 'have a little patience, good Charon; I have been endeavoring
+ to open the eyes of the public; if I live a few years longer, I may have
+ the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems
+ of superstition.' And Charon would then lose all temper and decency, and
+ would cry out, 'You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many
+ hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a time?
+ Get into the boat this instant.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the Comtesse de Boufflers, the dying man, with the perfect serenity
+ that springs from an honest and loving life, writes:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I see death approach gradually without any anxiety or regret.... I salute
+ you with great affection and regard, for the last time."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 25th of August, 1776, the philosopher, the historian, the infidel,
+ the honest man, and a benefactor of his race, in the composure born of a
+ noble life, passed quietly and panglessly away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Black wrote the following account of his death:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Monday, 26 August, 1776.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Dear Sir: Yesterday, about four o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Hume
+ expired. The near approach of his death became evident on the evening
+ between Thursday and Friday, when his disease became exhaustive, and soon
+ weakened him so much that he could no longer rise from his bed. He
+ continued to the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or
+ feeling of distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of
+ impatience; but when he had occasion to speak to the people about him,
+ always did it with affection and tenderness.... When he became very weak,
+ it cost him an effort to speak, and he died in such happy composure of
+ mind that nothing could exceed it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Cullen writes Dr. Hunter on the 17th of September, 1776, from which
+ the following extracts are made:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You desire an account of Mr. Hume's last days, and I give it to you with
+ great pleasure.... It was truly an example <i>des grands hommes qui sont
+ morts en plaisantant</i>; and to me, who have been so often shocked with
+ the horrors of superstition, the reflection on such a death is truly
+ agreeable. For many weeks before his death he was very sensible of his
+ gradual decay; and his answer to inquiries after his health was, several
+ times, that he was going as fast as his enemies could wish, and as easily
+ as his friends could desire. He passed most of the time in his
+ drawing-room, admitting the visits of his friends, and with his usual
+ spirit conversed with them upon literature and politics and whatever else
+ was started. In conversation he seemed to be perfectly at ease; and to the
+ last abounded with that pleasantry and those curious and entertaining
+ anecdotes which ever distinguished him.... His senses and judgment did not
+ fail him to the last hour of his life. He constantly discovered a strong
+ sensibility of the attention and care of his friends; and midst great
+ uneasiness and languor never betrayed any peevishness or impatience."
+ (Here follows the conversation with Charon.) "These are a few particulars
+ which may, perhaps, appear trivial; but to me, no particulars seem trivial
+ which relate to so great a man. It is perhaps from trifles that we can
+ best distinguish the tranquilness and cheerfulness of the philosopher at a
+ time when the most part of mankind are under disquiet, and sometimes even
+ horror. I consider the sacrifice of the cock as a more certain evidence of
+ the tranquillity of Socrates than his discourse on immortality."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christians took it for granted that this serene and placid man died
+ filled with remorse for having given his real opinions, and proceeded to
+ describe, with every incident and detail of horror, the terrors of his
+ last moments. Brainless clergymen, incapable of understanding what Hume
+ had written, knowing only in a general way that he had held their creeds
+ in contempt, answered his arguments by maligning his character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians took it for granted that he died in horror and recounted the
+ terrible scenes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the facts of his death became generally known to intelligent men, the
+ ministers redoubled their efforts to maintain the old calumnies, and most
+ of them are in this employment even unto this day. Finding it impossible
+ to tell enough falsehoods to hide the truth, a few of the more intelligent
+ among the priests admitted that Hume not only died without showing any
+ particular fear, but was guilty of unbecoming levity. The first charge was
+ that he died like a coward; the next that he did not care enough, and went
+ through the shadowy doors of the dread unknown with a smile upon his lips.
+ The dying smile of David Hume scandalized the believers in a God of love.
+ They felt shocked to see a man dying without fear who denied the miracles
+ of the Bible; who had spent a life investigating the opinions of men; in
+ endeavoring to prove to the world that the right way is the best way; that
+ happiness is a real and substantial good, and that virtue is not a
+ termagant with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians hated to admit that a philosopher had died serenely without the
+ aid of superstition&mdash;one who had taught that man could not make God
+ happy by making himself miserable, and that a useful life, after all, was
+ the best possible religion. They imagined that death would fill such a man
+ with remorse and terror. He had never persecuted his fellow-men for the
+ honor of God, and must needs die in despair. They were mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He died as he had lived. Like a peaceful river with green and shaded banks
+ he passed, without a murmur, into that waveless sea where life at last is
+ rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ BENEDICT SPINOZA.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ONE of the greatest thinkers was Benedict Spinoza, a Jew, born at
+ Amsterdam, in 1632. He studied medicine and afterward theology. He
+ endeavored to understand what he studied. In theology he necessarily
+ failed. Theology is not intended to be understood,&mdash;it is only to be
+ believed. It is an act, not of reason, but of faith. Spinoza put to the
+ rabbis so many questions, and so persistently asked for reasons, that he
+ became the most troublesome of students. When the rabbis found it
+ impossible to answer the questions, they concluded to silence the
+ questioner. He was tried, found guilty, and excommunicated from the
+ synagogue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By the terrible curse of the Jewish religion, he was made an outcast from
+ every Jewish home. His father could not give him shelter. His mother could
+ not give him bread&mdash;could not speak to him, without becoming an
+ outcast herself. All the cruelty of Jehovah, all the infamy of the Old
+ Testament, was in this curse. In the darkness of the synagogue the rabbis
+ lighted their torches, and while pronouncing the curse, extinguished them
+ in blood, imploring God that in like manner the soul of Benedict Spinoza
+ might be extinguished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spinoza was but twenty-four years old when he found himself without
+ kindred, without friends, surrounded only by enemies. He uttered no
+ complaint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He earned his bread with willing hands, and cheerfully divided his crust
+ with those still poorer than himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He tried to solve the problem of existence. To him, the universe was One.
+ The Infinite embraced the All. The All was God. According to his belief,
+ the universe did not commence to be. It is; from eternity it was; to
+ eternity it will be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was right. The universe is all there is, or was, or will be. It is both
+ subject and object, contemplator and contemplated, creator and created,
+ destroyer and destroyed, preserver and preserved, and hath within itself
+ all causes, modes, motions and effects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this there is hope. This is a foundation and a star. The Infinite is
+ the All. Without the All, the Infinite cannot be. I am something. Without
+ me, the Infinite cannot exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spinoza was a naturalist&mdash;that is to say, a pantheist. He took the
+ ground that the supernatural is, and forever will be, an infinite
+ impossibility. His propositions are luminous as stars, and each of his
+ demonstrations is a Gibraltar, behind which logic sits and smiles at all
+ the sophistries of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spinoza has been hated because he has not been answered. He was a real
+ republican. He regarded the people as the true and only source of
+ political power. He put the state above the church, the people above the
+ priest. He believed in the absolute liberty of worship, thought and
+ speech. In every relation of life he was just, true, gentle, patient,
+ modest and loving. He respected the rights of others, and endeavored to
+ enjoy his own, and yet he brought upon himself the hatred of the Jewish
+ and the Christian world. In his day, logic was blasphemy, and to think was
+ the unpardonable sin. The priest hated the philosopher, revelation reviled
+ reason, and faith was the sworn foe of every fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spinoza was a philosopher, a philanthropist. He lived in a world of his
+ own. He avoided men. His life was an intellectual solitude. He was a
+ mental hermit. Only in his own brain he found the liberty he loved. And
+ yet the rabbis and the priests, the ignorant zealot and the cruel bigot,
+ feeling that this quiet, thoughtful, modest man was in some way forging
+ weapons to be used against the church, hated him with all their hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not retaliate. He found excuses for their acts. Their ignorance,
+ their malice, their misguided and revengeful zeal excited only pity in his
+ breast. He injured no man. He did not live on alms. He was poor&mdash;and
+ yet, with the wealth of his brain, he enriched the world. On Sunday,
+ February 21, 1677, Spinoza, one of the greatest and subtlest of
+ metaphysicians&mdash;one of the noblest and purest of human beings,&mdash;at
+ the age of forty-four, passed tranquilly away; and notwithstanding the
+ curse of the synagogue under which he had lived and most lovingly labored,
+ death left upon his lips the smile of perfect peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ OUR INFIDELS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN our country there were three infidels&mdash;Paine, Franklin and
+ Jefferson. The colonies were filled with superstition, the Puritans with
+ the spirit of persecution. Laws savage, ignorant and malignant had been
+ passed in every colony, for the purpose of destroying intellectual
+ liberty. Mental freedom was absolutely unknown. The Toleration Acts of
+ Maryland tolerated only Christians&mdash;not infidels, not thinkers, not
+ investigators. The charity of Roger Williams was not extended to those who
+ denied the Bible, or suspected the divinity of Christ. It was not based
+ upon the rights of man, but upon the rights of believers, who differed in
+ non-essential points.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment the colonies began to deny the rights of the king they
+ suspected the power of the priest. In digging down to find an excuse for
+ fighting George the Third, they unwittingly undermined the church. They
+ went through the Revolution together. They found that all denominations
+ fought equally well. They also found that persons without religion had
+ patriotism and courage, and were willing to die that a new nation might be
+ born. As a matter of fact the pulpit was not in hearty sympathy with our
+ fathers. Many priests were imprisoned because they would not pray for the
+ Continental Congress. After victory had enriched our standard, and it
+ became necessary to make a constitution&mdash;to establish a government&mdash;the
+ infidels&mdash;the men like Paine, like Jefferson, and like Franklin, saw
+ that the church must be left out; that a government deriving its just
+ powers from the consent of the governed could make no contract with a
+ church pretending to derive its powers from an infinite God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By the efforts of these infidels, the name of God was left out of the
+ Constitution of the United States. They knew that if an infinite being was
+ put in, no room would be left for the people. They knew that if any church
+ was made the mistress of the state, that mistress, like all others, would
+ corrupt, weaken, and destroy. Washington wished a church established by
+ law in Virginia. He was prevented by Thomas Jefferson. It was only a
+ little while ago that people were compelled to attend church by law in the
+ Eastern States, and taxes were raised for the support of churches the same
+ as for the construction of highways and bridges. The great principle
+ enunciated in the Constitution has silently repealed most of these laws.
+ In the presence of this great instrument, the constitutions of the States
+ grew small and mean, and in a few years every law that puts a chain upon
+ the mind, except in Delaware, will be repealed, and for these our children
+ may thank the Infidels of 1776.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church never has pretended that Jefferson or Franklin died in fear.
+ Franklin wrote no books against the fables of the ancient Jews. He thought
+ it useless to cast the pearls of thought before the swine of ignorance and
+ fear. Jefferson was a statesman. He was the father of a great party. He
+ gave his views in letters and to trusted friends. He was a Virginian,
+ author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of a university, father
+ of a political party, President of the United States, a statesman and
+ philosopher. He was too powerful for the divided churches of his day.
+ Paine was a foreigner, a citizen of the world. He had attacked Washington
+ and the Bible. He had done these things openly, and what he had said could
+ not be answered. His arguments were so good that his character was bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THOMAS PAINE
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THOMAS PAINE was born in Thetford, England. He came from the common
+ people. At the age of thirty-seven he left England for America. He was the
+ first to perceive the destiny of the New World. He wrote the pamphlet
+ "Common Sense," and in a few months the Continental Congress declared the
+ colonies free and independent States&mdash;a new nation was born. Paine
+ having aroused the spirit of independence, gave every energy of his soul
+ to keep the spirit alive. He was with the army. He shared its defeats and
+ its glory. When the situation became desperate, he gave them "The Crisis."
+ It was a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, leading the way to
+ freedom, honor, and to victory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writings of Paine are gemmed with compact statements that carry
+ conviction to the dullest. Day and night he labored for America, until
+ there was a government of the people and for the people. At the close of
+ the Revolution, no one stood higher than Thomas Paine. Had he been willing
+ to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least could
+ have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there would
+ have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled with
+ hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a
+ hypocritical monument covered with lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having done so much for man in America, he went to France. The seeds sown
+ by the great infidels were bearing fruit in Europe. The eighteenth century
+ was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of progress. Upon his arrival
+ in France he was elected a member of the French Convention&mdash;in fact,
+ he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four
+ Departments. He was one of the committee to draft a constitution for
+ France. In the Assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of
+ the king, he had the courage to vote against death. To vote against the
+ death of the king was to vote against his own life. This was the sublimity
+ of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested, imprisoned, and doomed
+ to death. While under sentence of death, while in the gloomy cell of his
+ prison, Thomas Paine wrote to Washington, asking him to say one word to
+ Robespierre in favor of the author of "Common Sense." Washington did not
+ reply. He wrote again. Washington, the President, paid no attention to
+ Thomas Paine, the prisoner. The letter was thrown into the wastebasket of
+ forgetfulness, and Thomas Paine remained condemned to death. Afterward he
+ gave his opinion of Washington at length, and I must say, that I have
+ never found it in my heart to greatly blame him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine, having done so much for political liberty, turned his
+ attention to the superstitions of his age. He published "The Age of
+ Reason;" and from that day to this, his character has been maligned by
+ almost every priest in Christendom. He has been held up as the terrible
+ example. Every man who has expressed an honest thought, has been warningly
+ referred to Thomas Paine. All his services were forgotten. No kind word
+ fell from any pulpit. His devotion to principle, his zeal for human
+ rights, were no longer remembered. Paine simply took the ground that it is
+ a contradiction to call a thing a revelation that comes to us second-hand.
+ There can be no revelation beyond the first communication. All after that
+ is hearsay. He also showed that the prophecies of the Old Testament had no
+ relation whatever to Jesus Christ, and contended that Jesus Christ was
+ simply a man. In other words, Paine was an enlightened Unitarian. Paine
+ thought the Old Testament too barbarous to have been the work of an
+ infinitely benevolent God. He attacked the doctrine that salvation depends
+ upon belief. He insisted that every man has the right to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the publication of these views every falsehood that malignity could
+ coin and malice pass was given to the world. On his return to America,
+ after the election to the presidency of another infidel, Thomas Jefferson,
+ it was not safe for him to appear in the public streets. He was in danger
+ of being mobbed. Under the very flag he had helped to put in heaven his
+ rights were not respected. Under the Constitution that he had suggested,
+ his life was insecure. He had helped to give liberty to more than three
+ millions of his fellow-citizens, and they were willing to deny it unto
+ him. He was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned, and cursed. He
+ enjoyed the seclusion of a leper; but he maintained through it all his
+ integrity. He stood by the convictions of his mind. Never for one moment
+ did he hesitate or waver.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He died almost alone. The moment he died Christians commenced
+ manufacturing horrors for his death-bed. They had his chamber filled with
+ devils rattling chains, and these ancient lies are annually certified to
+ by the respectable Christians of the present day. The truth is, he died as
+ he had lived. Some ministers were impolite enough to visit him against his
+ will. Several of them he ordered from his room. A couple of Catholic
+ priests, in all the meekness of hypocrisy, called that they might enjoy
+ the agonies of a dying friend of man. Thomas Paine, rising in his bed, the
+ few embers of expiring life blown into flame by the breath of indignation,
+ had the goodness to curse them both. His physician, who seems to have been
+ a meddling fool, just as the cold hand of death was touching the patriot's
+ heart, whispered in the dull ear of the dying man: "Do you believe, or do
+ you wish to believe, that Jesus Christ is the son of God?" And the reply
+ was: "I have no wish to believe on that subject."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These were the last remembered words of Thomas Paine. He died as serenely
+ as ever Christian passed away. He died in the full possession of his mind,
+ and on the very brink and edge of death proclaimed the doctrines of his
+ life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every Christian, every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty,
+ should feel under obligation to Thomas Paine for the splendid service
+ rendered by him in the darkest days of the American Revolution. In the
+ midnight of Valley Forge, "The Crisis" was the first star that glittered
+ in the wide horizon of despair. Every good man should remember with
+ gratitude the brave words spoken by Thomas Paine in the French Convention
+ against the death of Louis. He said: "We will kill the king, but not the
+ man. We will destroy monarchy, not the monarch."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine was a champion, in both hemispheres, of human liberty; one of
+ the founders and fathers of this Republic; one of the foremost men of his
+ age. He never wrote a word in favor of injustice. He was a despiser of
+ slavery. He abhorred tyranny in every form. He was, in the widest and best
+ sense, a friend of all his race. His head was as clear as his heart was
+ good, and he had the courage to speak his honest thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the first man to write these words: "The United States of America."
+ He proposed the present Federal Constitution. He furnished every thought
+ that now glitters in the Declaration of Independence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed in one God and no more. He was a believer even in special
+ providence, and he hoped for immortality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can the world abhor the man who said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I believe in the equality of man, and that religious duties consist in
+ doing justice, in loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our
+ fellow-creatures happy."&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to
+ himself."&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The word of God is the creation which we behold."&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good and
+ endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter."&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this
+ life."&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Man has no property in man"&mdash;and "The key of heaven is not in the
+ keeping of any sect!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Had it not been for Thomas Paine I could not deliver this lecture here
+ to-night..
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is still fashionable to calumniate this man&mdash;and yet Channing,
+ Theodore Parker, Longfellow, Emerson, and in fact all the liberal
+ Unitarians and Universalists of the world have adopted the opinions of
+ Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us compare these Infidels with the Christians of their time:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare Julian with Constantine,&mdash;the murderer of his wife,&mdash;the
+ murderer of his son,&mdash;and who established Christianity with the same
+ sword he had wet with their blood. Compare him with all the Christian
+ emperors&mdash;with all the robbers and murderers and thieves&mdash;the
+ parricides and fratricides and matricides that ever wore the imperial
+ purple on the banks of the Tiber or the shores of the Bosphorus.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us compare Bruno with the Christians who burned him; and we will
+ compare Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Jefferson, Paine&mdash;with the
+ men who it is claimed have been the visible representatives of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let it be remembered that the popes have committed every crime of which
+ human nature is capable, and that not one of them was the friend of
+ intellectual liberty&mdash;that not one of them ever shed one ray of
+ light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us compare these Infidels with the founders of sectarian churches; you
+ will see how narrow, how bigoted, how cruel were their founders, and how
+ broad, how generous, how noble, were these infidels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be honest. The great effort of the human mind is to ascertain the
+ order of facts by which we are surrounded&mdash;the history of things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who has accomplished the most in this direction&mdash;the church, or the
+ unbelievers? Upon one side write all that the church has discovered&mdash;every
+ phenomenon that has been explained by a creed, every new fact in Nature
+ that has been discovered by a church, and on the other side write the
+ discoveries of Humboldt, and the observations and demonstrations of
+ Darwin!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who has made Germany famous&mdash;her priests, or her scientists?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Goethe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Kant: That immortal man who said: "Whoever thinks that he can please God
+ in any way except by discharging his obligations to his fellows, is
+ superstitious."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that greatest and bravest of thinkers, Ernst
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Haeckel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Italy:&mdash;Mazzini. Garibaldi.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In France who are and were the friends of freedom&mdash;the Catholic
+ priests, or Renan? the bishops, or Gambetta?&mdash;Dupanloup, or Victor
+ Hugo?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Michelet&mdash;Taine&mdash;Auguste Comte.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ England:&mdash;Let us compare her priests with John Stuart Mill,&mdash;Harriet
+ Martineau, that "free rover on the breezy common of the universe."&mdash;George
+ Eliot&mdash;with Huxley and Tyndall, with Holyoake and Harrison&mdash;and
+ above and over all&mdash;with Charles Darwin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkCONC" id="linkCONC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONCLUSION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ LET us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome increase the mental wealth
+ of man as much as Bruno? Did all the priests of France do as great a work
+ for the civilization of the world as Diderot and Voltaire? Did all the
+ ministers of Scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as David
+ Hume? Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops,
+ cardinals and popes, from the day of Pentecost to the last election, done
+ as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine?&mdash;as much for science as
+ Charles Darwin?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would the world be if infidels had never been?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the
+ world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love;
+ the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our
+ race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of
+ thought, the creditors of all the years to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to
+ the liberation of their fellow-men should have been hissed at in the hour
+ of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery,
+ practiced polygamy, justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of
+ mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor are supposed to have
+ passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? Why should we
+ think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men, must
+ have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the
+ instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the inventors and users of
+ thumbscrews, of iron boots and racks; the burners and tearers of human
+ flesh; the stealers, the whippers and the enslavers of men; the buyers and
+ beaters of maidens, mothers, and babes; the founders of the Inquisition;
+ the makers of chains; the builders of dungeons; the calumniators of the
+ living; the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of Jesus
+ Christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands
+ folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the
+ apostles of humanity, the soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters,
+ the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHICH WAY?
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ THERE are two ways,&mdash;the natural and the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One way is to live for the world we are in, to develop the brain by study
+ and investigation, to take, by invention, advantage of the forces of
+ nature, to the end that we may have good houses, raiment and food, to the
+ end that the hunger of the mind may be fed through art and science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other way is to live for another world that we expect, to sacrifice
+ this life that we have for another that we know not of. The other way is
+ by prayer and ceremony to obtain the assistance, the protection of some
+ phantom above the clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One way is to think&mdash;to investigate, to observe, and follow the light
+ of reason. The other way is to believe, to accept, to follow, to deny the
+ authority of your own senses, your own reason, and bow down to those who
+ are impudent enough to declare that they know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One way is to live for the benefit of your fellow-men&mdash;for your wife
+ and children&mdash;to make those you love happy and to shield them from
+ the sorrows of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other way is to live for ghosts, goblins, phantoms and gods with the
+ hope that they will reward you in another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One way is to enthrone reason and rely on facts, the other to crown
+ credulity and live on faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One way is to walk by the light within&mdash;by the flame that illumines
+ the brain, verifying all by the senses&mdash;by touch and sight and sound.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other way is to extinguish the sacred light and follow blindly the
+ steps of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One way is to be an honest man, giving to others your thought, standing
+ erect, intrepid, careless of phantoms and hells.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other way is to cringe and crawl, to betray your nobler self, and to
+ deprive others of the liberty that you have not the courage to enjoy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not imagine that I hate the ones who have taken the wrong side and
+ traveled the wrong road.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers did the best they could. They believed in the Supernatural,
+ and they thought that sacrifices and prayer, fasting and weeping, would
+ induce the Supernatural to give them sunshine, rain and harvest&mdash;long
+ life in this world and eternal joy in another. To them, God was an
+ absolute monarch, quick to take offence, sudden in anger, terrible in
+ punishment, jealous, hateful to his enemies, generous to his favorites.
+ They believed also in the existence of an evil God, almost the equal of
+ the other God in strength, and a little superior in cunning. Between these
+ two Gods was the soul of man like a mouse between two paws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Both of these Gods inspired fear. Our fathers did not quite love God, nor
+ quite hate the Devil, but they were afraid of both. They really wished to
+ enjoy themselves with God in the next world and with the Devil in this.
+ They believed that the course of Nature was affected by their conduct;
+ that floods and storms, diseases, earthquakes and tempests were sent as
+ punishments, and that all good phenomena were rewards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everything was under the direction and control of supernatural powers. The
+ air, the darkness, were filled with angels and devils; witches and wizards
+ planned and plotted against the pious&mdash;against the true believers.
+ Eclipses were produced by the sins of the people, and the unusual was
+ regarded as the miraculous. In the good old times Christendom was an
+ insane asylum, and insane priests and prelates were the keepers. There was
+ no science. The people did not investigate&mdash;did not think. They
+ trembled and believed. Ignorance and superstition ruled the Christian
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last a few began to observe, to make records, and to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was found that eclipses came at certain intervals, and that their
+ coming could be foretold. This demonstrated that the actions of men had
+ nothing to do with eclipses. A few began to suspect that earthquakes and
+ storms had natural causes, and happened without the slightest reference to
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some began to doubt the existence of evil spirits, or the interference of
+ good ones in the affairs of the world. Finding out something about
+ astronomy, the great number of the stars, the certain and continuous
+ motions of the planets, and the fact that many of them were vastly larger
+ than the earth; ascertaining something about the earth, the slow
+ development of forms, the growth and distribution of plants, the formation
+ of islands and continents, the parts played by fire, water and air through
+ countless centuries; the kinship of all life; fixing the earth's place in
+ the constellation of the sun; by experiment and research discovering a few
+ secrets of chemistry; by the invention of printing, and the preservation
+ and dissemination of facts, theories and thoughts, they were enabled to
+ break a few chains of superstition, to free themselves a little from the
+ dominion of the supernatural, and to set their faces toward the light.
+ Slowly the number of investigators and thinkers increased, slowly the real
+ facts were gathered, the sciences began to appear, the old beliefs grew a
+ little absurd, the supernatural retreated and ceased to interfere in the
+ ordinary affairs of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Schools were founded, children were taught, books were printed and the
+ thinkers increased. Day by day confidence lessened in the supernatural,
+ and day by day men were more and more impressed with the idea that man
+ must be his own protector, his own providence. From the mists and darkness
+ of savagery and superstition emerged the dawn of the Natural. A sense of
+ freedom took possession of the mind, and the soul began to dream of its
+ power. On every side were invention and discovery, and bolder thought. The
+ church began to regard the friends of science as its foes: Theologians
+ resorted to chain and fagot&mdash;to mutilation and torture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The thinkers were denounced as heretics and Atheists&mdash;as the minions
+ of Satan and the defamers of Christ. All the ignorance, prejudice and
+ malice of superstition were aroused and all united for the destruction of
+ investigation and thought. For centuries this conflict was waged. Every
+ outrage was perpetrated, every crime committed by the believers in the
+ supernatural. But, in spite of all, the disciples of the Natural
+ increased, and the power of the church waned. Now the intelligence of the
+ world is on the side of the Natural. Still the conflict goes on&mdash;the
+ supernatural constantly losing, and the Natural constantly gaining. In a
+ few years the victory of science over superstition will be complete and
+ universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, there have been for many centuries two philosophies of life; one in
+ favor of the destruction of the passions&mdash;the lessening of wants,&mdash;and
+ absolute reliance on some higher power; the other, in favor of the
+ reasonable gratification of the passions, the increase of wants, and their
+ supply by industry, ingenuity and invention, and the reliance of man on
+ his own efforts. Diogenes, Epictetus, Socrates to some extent, Buddha and
+ Christ, all taught the first philosophy. All despised riches and luxury,
+ all were the enemies of art and music, the despisers of good clothes and
+ good food and good homes. They were the philosophers of poverty and rags,
+ of huts and hovels, of ignorance and faith. They preached the glories of
+ another world and the miseries of this. They derided the prosperous, the
+ industrious, those who enjoyed life, and reserved heaven for beggars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This philosophy is losing authority, and now most people are anxious to be
+ happy here in this life. Most people want food and roof and raiment&mdash;books
+ and pictures, luxury and leisure. They believe in developing the brain&mdash;in
+ making servants and slaves of the forces of Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now the intelligent men of the world have cast aside the teachings, the
+ philosophy of the ascetics. They no longer believe in the virtue of
+ fasting and self-torture. They believe that happiness is the only good,
+ and that the time to be happy is now&mdash;here, in this world. They no
+ longer believe in the rewards and punishments of the supernatural. They
+ believe in consequences, and that the consequences of bad actions are
+ evil, and the consequences of good actions are good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They believe that man by investigation, by reason, should find out the
+ conditions of happiness, and then live and act in accordance with such
+ conditions. They do not believe that earthquakes, or tempests, or
+ volcanoes, or eclipses are caused by the conduct of men. They no longer
+ believe in the supernatural. They do not regard themselves as the serfs,
+ servants, or favorites of any celestial king. They feel that many evils
+ can be avoided by knowledge, and for that reason they believe in the
+ development of the brain. The schoolhouse is their church and the
+ university their cathedral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, there have been for some centuries two theories of government,&mdash;one
+ theological, the other secular.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The king received his power directly from God. It was the business of the
+ people to obey. The priests received their creeds from God and it was the
+ duty of the people to believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theological government is growing somewhat unpopular. In England,
+ Parliament has taken the place of God, and in the United States,
+ government derives its powers from the consent of the governed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably Emperor William is the only man in Germany who really believes
+ that God placed him on the throne and will keep him there whether the
+ German people are satisfied or not. Italy has retired the Catholic God
+ from politics, France belongs to and is governed by the French, and even
+ in Russia there are millions who hold the Czar and all his divine
+ pretensions in contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theological governments are passing away and the secular are slowly
+ taking their places. Man is growing greater and the Gods are becoming
+ vague and indistinct. These "divine" governments rest on the fear and
+ ignorance of the many, the cunning, the impudence and the mendacity of the
+ few. A secular government is born of the intelligence, the honesty and the
+ courage, not only of the few, but of the many.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have found that man can govern himself without the assistance of priest
+ or pope, of ghost or God. We have found that religion is not self-evident,
+ and that to believe without evidence is not a praiseworthy action. We know
+ that the self-evident is the square and compass of the brain, the polar
+ star in the firmament of mind. And we know that no one denies the
+ self-evident. We also know that there is no particular goodness in
+ believing when the evidence is sufficient, and certainly there is' none in
+ saying; that you believe when the evidence is insufficient.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The believers have not all been good. Some of the worst people in the
+ whole world have been believers. The gentlemen who made Socrates drink
+ hemlock were believers. The Jews who crucified Christ were believers in
+ and worshipers of God. The devil believes in the Trinity, the Father, Son
+ and Holy Ghost, and yet it does not seem to have affected his moral
+ character. According to the Bible, he trembles, but he does not reform. At
+ last we have concluded that we have a right to examine the religion of our
+ fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ALL Christians know that all the gods, except Jehovah, were created by
+ man; that they were, and are, false, foolish and monstrous; that all the
+ heathen temples were built and all their altars erected in vain; that the
+ sacrifices were wasted, that the priests were hypocrites, that their
+ prayers were unanswered and that the poor people were deceived, robbed and
+ enslaved. But after all, is our God superior to the gods of the heathen?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We can ask this question now because we are prosperous, and prosperity
+ gives courage. If we should have a few earthquakes or a pestilence we
+ might fall on our knees, shut our eyes and ask the forgiveness of God for
+ ever having had a thought. We know that famine is the friend of faith and
+ that calamity is the sunshine of superstition. But as we have no
+ pestilence or famine, and as the crust of the earth is reasonably quiet,
+ we can afford to examine into the real character of our God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be admitted that the use of power is an excellent test of
+ character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would a good God appeal to prejudice, the armor, fortress, sword and
+ shield of ignorance? to credulity, the ring in the priest-led nose of
+ stupidity? to fear, the capital stock of imposture, the lever of
+ hypocrisy? Would a good God frighten or enlighten his children? Would a
+ good God appeal to reason or ignorance, to justice or selfishness, to
+ liberty or the lash?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To our first parents in the Garden of Eden, our God said nothing about the
+ sacredness of love, nothing about children, nothing about education, about
+ justice or liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After they had violated his command he became ferocious as a wild beast.
+ He cursed the earth and to Eve he said:&mdash;"I will greatly multiply thy
+ sorrow. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Thy husband shall rule
+ over thee."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our God made love the slave of pain, made wives serfs, and brutalized the
+ firesides of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our God drowned the whole world, with the exception of eight people; made
+ the earth one vast and shoreless sea covered with corpses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he cover the world with men, women and children knowing that he
+ would destroy them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he not try to reform them? Why would he create people, knowing
+ that they could not be reformed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that our God was intelligent and good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the flood our God selected the Jews and abandoned the rest of his
+ children. He paid no attention to the Hindoos, neglected the Egyptians,
+ ignored the Persians, forgot the Assyrians and failed to remember the
+ Greeks. And yet he was the father of them all. For many centuries he was
+ only a tribal God, protecting the few and despising the many. Our God was
+ ignorant, knew nothing of astronomy or geology. He did not even know the
+ shape of the earth, and thought the stars were only specks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew nothing of disease. He thought that the blood of a bird that had
+ been killed over running water was good medicine. He was revengeful and
+ cruel, and assisted some of his children to butcher and destroy others. He
+ commanded them to murder men, wives and children, and to keep alive the
+ maidens and distribute them among his soldiers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our God established slavery&mdash;commanded men to buy their fellow-men,
+ to make merchandise of wives and babes. Our God sanctioned polygamy and
+ made wives the property of their husbands. Our God murdered the people for
+ the crimes of kings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man of intelligence, no one whose brain has not been poisoned by
+ superstition, paralyzed by fear, can read the Old Testament without being
+ forced to the conclusion that our God was, a wild beast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we must have a god, let him be merciful. Let us remember that "the
+ quality of mercy is not strained." Let us remember that when the sword of
+ Justice becomes a staff to support the weak, it bursts into blossom, and
+ that the perfume of that flower is the only incense, the only offering,
+ the only sacrifice that mercy will accept.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SO, there have been two theories about the cause and cure of disease. One
+ is the theological, the other the scientific.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the theological idea, diseases were produced by evil spirits,
+ by devils who entered into the bodies of people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These devils could be cast out by prophets, inspired men and priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While Christ was upon earth his principal business was to cast out evil
+ spirits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries the priests followed his example, and during the Middle
+ Ages millions of devils were driven from the bodies of men. Diseases were
+ cured with little images of consecrated pewter, with pieces of paper, with
+ crosses worn about the neck&mdash;by having plaster of Paris Virgins and
+ clay Christs at the head of the bed, by touching the bones of dead saints,
+ or pieces of the true cross, or one of the nails that was driven through
+ the flesh of Christ, or a garment that had been worn by the Virgin Mary,
+ or by sprinkling the breast with holy water, or saying prayers, or
+ counting beads, or making the stations of the cross, or by going without
+ meat, or wearing haircloth, or in some way torturing the body. All
+ diseases were supposed to be of supernatural origin and all cures were of
+ the same nature. Pestilences were stopped by processions, led by priests
+ carrying the Host.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing was known of natural causes and effects. Everything was miraculous
+ and mysterious. The priests were cunning and the people credulous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slowly another theory as to the cause and cure of disease took possession
+ of the mind. A few discarded the idea of devils, and took the ground that
+ diseases were naturally produced, and that many of them could be cured by
+ natural means.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At first the physician was exceedingly ignorant, but he knew more than the
+ priest. Slowly but surely he pushed the priest from the bedside. Some
+ people finally became intelligent enough to trust their bodies to the
+ doctors, and remained ignorant enough to leave the care of their souls
+ with the priests. Among civilized people the theological theory has been
+ cast aside, and the miraculous, the supernatural, no longer has a place in
+ medicine. In Catholic countries the peasants are still cured by images,
+ prayers, holy water and the bones of saints, but when the priests are sick
+ they send for a physician, and now even the Pope, God's agent, gives his
+ sacred body to the care of a doctor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The scientific has triumphed to a great extent over the theological.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No intelligent person now believes that devils inhabit the bodies of men.
+ No intelligent person now believes that devils are trying to control the
+ actions of men. No intelligent person now believes that devils exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, at the present time, in the city of New York, Catholic priests
+ are exhibiting a piece of one of the bones of Saint Anne, the supposed
+ mother of the Virgin Mary. Some of these priests may be credulous
+ imbeciles and some may be pious rogues. If they have any real intelligence
+ they must know that there is no possible way of proving that the piece of
+ bone ever belonged to Saint Anne. And if they have any real intelligence
+ they must know that even the bones of Saint Anne were substantially like
+ the bones of other people, made of substantially the same material, and
+ that the medical and miraculous qualities of all human bones must be
+ substantially the same. And yet these priests are obtaining from their
+ credulous dupes thousands and thousands of dollars for the privilege of
+ seeing this bone and kissing the box that contains the "sacred relic."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Archbishop Corrigan knows that no one knows who the mother of the Virgin
+ Mary was, that no one knows about any of the bones of this unknown mother,
+ knows that the whole thing is a theological fraud, knows that his priests,
+ or priests under his jurisdiction, are obtaining money under false
+ pretences. Cardinal Gibbons knows the same, but neither of these pious
+ gentlemen has one word to say against this shameless crime. They are
+ willing that priests for the benefit of the church should make merchandise
+ of the hopes and fears of ignorant believers; willing that fraud that
+ produces revenue should live and thrive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the honesty of the theologian. If these gentlemen should be taken
+ sick they would not touch the relic. They would send for a physician.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you a Japanese story that is exactly in point:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An old monk was in charge of a monastery that had been built above the
+ bones of a saint. These bones had the power to cure diseases and they were
+ so placed that by thrusting the arm through an orifice they could be
+ touched by the hand of the pilgrim. Many people, afflicted in many ways,
+ came and touched these bones. Many thought they had been benefited or
+ cured, and many in gratitude left large sums of money with the monk. One
+ day the old monk addressed his assistant as follows: "My dear son,
+ business has fallen off, and I can easily attend to all who come. You will
+ have to find another place. I will give you the white donkey, a little
+ money, and my blessing."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the young man mounted upon the beast and went his way. In a few days
+ his money was gone and the white donkey died. An idea took possession of
+ the young man's mind. By the side of the road he buried the donkey, and
+ then to every passer-by held out his hands and said in solemn tones: "I
+ pray thee give me a little money to build a temple above the bones of the
+ sinless one."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such was his success that he built the temple, and then thousands came to
+ touch the bones of the sinless one. The young man became rich, gave
+ employment to many assistants and lived in the greatest luxury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One day he made up his mind to visit his old master. Taking with him a
+ large retinue of servants he started for the old home. When he reached the
+ place the old monk was seated by the doorway. With great astonishment he
+ looked at the young man and his retinue. The young man dismounted and made
+ himself known, and the old monk cried: "Where hast thou been? Tell me, I
+ pray thee, the story of thy success."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ah," the young man replied, "old age is stupid, but youth has thoughts.
+ Wait until we are alone and I will tell you all."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So that night the young man told his story, told about the death and
+ burial of the donkey, the begging of money to build a temple over the
+ bones of the sinless one, and of the sums of money he had received for the
+ cures the bones had wrought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he finished a satisfied smile crept over his pious face as he added:
+ "Old age is stupid, but youth has thoughts."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Be not so fast," said the old monk, as he placed his trembling hand on
+ the head of his visitor, "Young man, this monastery in which your youth
+ was passed, in which you have seen so many miracles performed, so many
+ diseases cured, was built above the sacred bones of the mother of your
+ little jackass."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THERE are two ways of accounting for the sacred books and religions of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One is to say that the sacred books were written by inspired men, and that
+ our religion was revealed to us by God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other is to say that all books have been written by men, without any
+ aid from supernatural powers, and that all religions have been naturally
+ produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find that other races and peoples have sacred books and prophets,
+ priests and Christs; we find too that their sacred books were written by
+ men who had the prejudices and peculiarities of the race to which they
+ belonged, and that they contain the mistakes and absurdities peculiar to
+ the people who produced them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians are perfectly satisfied that all the so-called sacred books,
+ with the exception of the Old and New Testaments, were written by men, and
+ that the claim of inspiration is perfectly absurd. So they believe that
+ all religions, except Judaism and Christianity, were invented by men. The
+ believers in other religions take the ground that their religion was
+ revealed by God, and that all others, including Judaism and Christianity,
+ were made by men. All are right and all are wrong. When they say that
+ "other" religions were produced by men, they are right; when they say that
+ their religion was revealed by God, they are wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we know that all tribes and nations have had some kind of religion;
+ that they have believed in the existence of good and evil beings, spirits
+ or powers, that could be softened by gifts or prayer. Now we know that at
+ the foundation of every religion, of all worship, is the pale and
+ bloodless face of fear. Now we know that all religions and all sacred
+ books have been naturally produced&mdash;all born of ignorance, fear and
+ cunning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we know that the gifts, sacrifices and prayers were all in vain; that
+ no god received and that no god heard or answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago prayers decided the issue of battle, and priests, through
+ their influence with God, could give the victory. Now no intelligent man
+ expects any answer to prayer. He knows that nature pursues her course
+ without reference to the wishes of men, that the clouds float, the winds
+ blow, the rain falls and the sun shines without regard to the human race.
+ Yet millions are still praying, still hoping that they can gain the
+ protection of some god, that some being will guard them from accident and
+ disease. Year after year the ministers make the same petitions, pray for
+ the same things, and keep on in spite of the fact that nothing is
+ accomplished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever good men do some noble thing the clergy give their God the
+ credit, and when evil things are done they hold the men who did the evil
+ responsible, and forget to blame their God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Praying has become a business, a profession, a trade, A minister is never
+ happier than when praying in public. Most of them are exceedingly familiar
+ with their God. Knowing that he knows everything, they tell him the needs
+ of the nation and the desires of the people, they advise him what to do
+ and when to do it. They appeal to his pride, asking him to do certain
+ things for his own glory. They often pray for the impossible. In the House
+ of Representatives in Washington I once heard a chaplain pray for what he
+ must have known was impossible. Without a change of countenance, without a
+ smile, with a face solemn as a sepulchre, he said: "I pray thee, O God, to
+ give Congress wisdom." It may be that ministers really think that their
+ prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking
+ brings spring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men of thought now know that all religions and all sacred books have
+ been made by men; that no revelation has come from any being superior to
+ nature; that all the prophecies were either false or made after the event;
+ that no miracle ever was or ever will be performed; that no God wants the
+ worship or the assistance of man; that no-prayer has ever coaxed one drop
+ of rain from the sky, one ray of light from the sun; that no prayer has
+ stayed the flood, or the tides of the sea, or folded the wings of the
+ storm; that no prayer has given water to the cracked and bleeding lips of
+ thirst, or food to the famishing; that no prayer has stopped the
+ pestilence, stilled the earthquake or quieted the volcano; that no prayer
+ has shielded the innocent, succored the oppressed, unlocked the dungeon's
+ door, broke the chains of slaves, rescued the good and noble from the
+ scaffold, or extinguished the fagot's flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligent man now knows that we live in a natural world, that gods
+ and devils and the sons of God are all phantoms, that our religion and our
+ Deity are much like the religion and deities of other nations, and that
+ the stone god of a savage answers prayer and protects his worshipers
+ precisely the same, and to just the same extent, as the Father, Son and
+ Holy Ghost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THERE are two theories about morals. One theory is that the moral man
+ obeys the commands of a supposed God, without stopping to think whether
+ the commands are right or wrong. He believes that the will of the God is
+ the source and fountain of right. He thinks a thing is wrong because the
+ God prohibits it, not that the God prohibits it because it is wrong. This
+ theory calls not for thought, but for obedience. It does not appeal to
+ reason, but to the fear of punishment, the hope of reward. God is a king
+ whose will is law, and men are serfs and slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many contend that without a belief in the existence of God morality is
+ impossible and that virtue would perish from the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This absurd theory, with its "Thus saith the Lord" has been claimed to be
+ independent of and superior to reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other theory is that right and wrong exist in the nature of things;
+ that certain actions preserve or increase the happiness of man, and that
+ other actions cause sorrow and misery; that all those actions that cause
+ happiness are moral, and that all others are evil, or indifferent. Right
+ and wrong are not revelations from some supposed god, but have been
+ discovered through the experience and intelligence of man. There is
+ nothing miraculous or supernatural about morality. Neither has morality
+ anything to do with another world, or with an infinite being. It applies
+ to conduct here, and the effect of that conduct on ourselves and others
+ determines its nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this world people are obliged to supply their wants by labor. Industry
+ is a necessity, and those who work are the natural enemies of those who
+ steal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It required no revelation from God to make larceny unpopular. Human beings
+ naturally object to being injured, maimed, or killed, and so everywhere,
+ and at all times, they have tried to protect themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men did not require a revelation from God to put in their minds the
+ thought of self-preservation. To defend yourself when attacked is as
+ natural as to eat when you are hungry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To determine the quality of an action by showing that it is in accordance
+ with, or contrary to the command of some supposed God, is superstition
+ pure and simple. To test all actions by their consequences is scientific
+ and in accord with reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the supernatural theory, natural consequences are not taken
+ into consideration. Actions are wrong because they have been prohibited
+ and right because they have been commanded. According to the Catholic
+ Church, eating meat on Friday is a sin that deserves eternal punishment.
+ And yet, in the nature of things, the consequences of eating meat on that
+ day must be exactly the same as eating meat on any other. So, all the
+ churches teach that unbelief is a crime, not in the nature of things, but
+ by reason of the will of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course this is absurd and idiotic. If there be an infinite God he
+ cannot make that wrong which in the nature of things is right. Neither can
+ he make an action good the natural consequences of which are evil. Even an
+ infinite God cannot change a fact. In spite of him the relation between
+ the diameter and circumference of a circle would remain the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the relations of things to things, of forces to forces, of acts to
+ acts, of causes to effects in the domain of what is called matter, and in
+ the realm of what is called mind, are just as certain, just as
+ unchangeable as the relation between the diameter and circumference of a
+ circle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An infinite God could not make ingratitude a virtue any easier than he
+ could make a square triangle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, the foundations of the moral and the immoral are in the nature of
+ things&mdash;in the necessary relation between conduct and well-being, and
+ an infinite God cannot change these foundations, and cannot increase or
+ diminish the natural consequences of actions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this world there is neither chance nor caprice, neither magic nor
+ miracle. Behind every event, every thought and dream, is the efficient,
+ the natural and necessary cause.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The effort to make the will of a supposed God the foundation of morality,
+ has filled the world with misery and crime, extinguished in millions of
+ minds the light of reason, and in countless ways hindered and delayed the
+ progress of our race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligent men now know, that if there be an infinite God, man cannot in
+ any way increase or decrease the happiness of such a being. They know that
+ man can only commit crimes against sentient beings who, to some extent at
+ least, are within his power, and that a crime by a finite being against an
+ infinite being is an infinite impossibility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR many thousands of years man has believed in and sought for the
+ impossible. In chemistry he has searched for a universal solvent, for some
+ way in which to change the baser metals into gold. Even Lord Bacon was a
+ believer in this absurdity. Thousands of men, during many centuries, in
+ thousands of ways, sought to change the nature of lead and iron so that
+ they might be transformed to gold. They had no conception of the real
+ nature of things. They supposed that they had originally been created by a
+ kind of magic, and could by the same kind of magic be changed into
+ something else. They were all believers in the supernatural. So, in
+ mechanics, men sought for the impossible. They were believers in perpetual
+ motion and they tried to make machines that would through a combination of
+ levers furnish the force that propelled them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of ingenious men wasted their lives in the vain effort to
+ produce machines that would in some wonderful way create a force. They did
+ not know that force is eternal, that it can neither be created nor
+ destroyed. They did not know that a machine having perpetual motion would
+ necessarily be a universe within itself, or independent of this, and in
+ which the force called friction would be necessarily changed, without
+ loss, into the force that propelled,&mdash;the machine itself causing or
+ creating the original force that put it in motion. And yet in spite of all
+ the absurdities involved, for many centuries men, regarded by their
+ fellows as intelligent and learned, tried to discover the great principle
+ of "perpetual motion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our ancestors studied the stars because in them they thought it possible
+ to learn the fate of nations, the life and destiny of the individual.
+ Eclipses, wandering comets, the relations of certain stars were the
+ forerunners or causes of prosperity or disaster, of the downfall or
+ upbuilding of kingdoms. Astrology was believed to be a science, and those
+ who studied the stars were consulted by warriors, statesmen and kings. The
+ account of the star that led the wise men of the East to the infant Christ
+ was written by a believer in astrology. It would be hard to overstate the
+ time and talent wasted in the study of this so-called science. The men who
+ believed in astrology thought that they lived in a supernatural world&mdash;a
+ world in which causes and effects had no necessary connection with each
+ other&mdash;in which all events were the result of magic and necromancy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even now, at the close of the nineteenth century, there are hundreds and
+ hundreds of men who make their living by casting the horoscopes of idiots
+ and imbeciles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "perpetual motion" of the mechanic, the universal solvent of the
+ chemist, the changing of lead into gold, the foretelling events by the
+ relations of stars were all born of the same ignorance of nature that
+ caused the theologian to imagine an uncaused cause as the cause of all
+ causes and effects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian insisted that there was something superior to nature, and
+ that that something was the creator and preserver of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there is no more evidence of the existence of that "something"
+ than there is of the philosopher's stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mechanics who now believe in perpetual motion are insane, so are the
+ chemists who seek to change one metal into another, so are the honest
+ astrologers, and in a few more years the same can truthfully be said of
+ the honest theologians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many of our ancestors believed in the existence of and sought for the
+ Fountain of Perpetual Youth. They believed that an old man could stoop and
+ drink from this fountain and that while he drank his gray hairs would
+ slowly change, that the wrinkles would disappear, that his dim eyes would
+ brighten and grow clear, his heart throb with manhood's force and rhythm,
+ while in his pallid cheeks would burst into blossom the roses of health.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were believers in the supernatural, the miraculous, and nothing
+ seemed more probable than the impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MOST people use names in place of arguments. They are satisfied to be
+ disciples, followers of the illustrious dead. Each church, each party has
+ a list of "great men," and they throw the names of these men at each other
+ when discussing their dogmas and creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men prove the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ by the
+ admissions of soldiers, statesmen and kings. And in the same way they
+ establish the existence of heaven and hell. Dispute one of their dogmas
+ and you will instantly be told that Isaac Newton or Matthew Hale was on
+ the other side, and you will be asked whether you claim to be superior to
+ Newton or Hale. In our own country the ministers, to establish their
+ absurdities, quote the opinions of Webster and of other successful
+ politicians as though such opinions were demonstrations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most Protestants will cheerfully admit that they are inferior in brain and
+ genius to some men who have lived and died in the Catholic faith; that in
+ the matter of preaching funeral sermons they are not equal to Bossuet;
+ that their letters are not as interesting and polished as those written by
+ Pascal; that Torquemada excelled them in the genius of organization, and
+ that for planning a massacre they would not for a moment claim the palm
+ from Catherine de Medici, and yet after these admissions, these same
+ Protestants would insist that the Pope is an unblushing impostor, and the
+ Catholic Church a vampire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The so-called "great men" of the world have been mistaken in many things.
+ Lord Bacon denied the Copernican system of astronomy and believed to the
+ day of his death that the sun and stars journeyed about this little earth.
+ Matthew Hale was a firm believer in the existence of witches and wizards.
+ John Wesley believed that earthquakes were caused by sin and that they
+ could be prevented by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. John Calvin
+ regarded murder as one of the means to preserve the purity of the gospel.
+ Martin Luther denounced Galileo as a fool because he was opposed to the
+ astronomy of Moses. Webster was in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and
+ held the book of Job in high esteem. He wanted votes and he knelt to the
+ South. He wanted votes and he flattered the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VOLUMES might be written on the follies and imbecilities of "great" men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago the really great men were persecuted, imprisoned or
+ burned. In this way the church was enabled to keep the "great" men on her
+ side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact it is impossible to tell what the "great" men really
+ thought. We only know what they said. These "great" men had families to
+ support, they had a prejudice against prisons and objected to being
+ burned, and it may be that they thought one way and talked another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The priests said to these men: "Agree with the creed, talk on our side, or
+ you will be persecuted to the death." Then the priests turned to the
+ people and cried: "Hear what the great men say."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a few years we have had something like liberty of speech and many men
+ have told their thoughts. Now the theologians are not quite so apt to
+ appeal to names as formerly. The really great are not on their side. The
+ leaders of modern thought are not Christians. Now the unbelievers can
+ repeat names&mdash;names that stand for intellectual triumphs. Humboldt,
+ Helmholtz, Haeckel and Huxley, Darwin, Spencer and Tyndall and many
+ others, stand for investigation, discovery, for vast achievements in the
+ world of thought. These men were and are thinkers and they had and have
+ the courage to express their thoughts. They were not and are not puppets
+ of priests, or the trembling worshipers of ghosts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years, most of the presidents of American colleges have been
+ engaged in the pious work of trying to prevent the intellectual
+ advancement of the race. To such an extent have they succeeded that none
+ of their students have been or are great scientists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the purpose of bolstering their creed the orthodox do not now repeat
+ the names of the living, their witnesses are in the cemetery. All the
+ "great" Christians are dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we want arguments, not names, reasons, not opinions. It is
+ degrading to blindly follow a man, or a church. Nothing is nobler than to
+ be governed by reason. To be vanquished by the truth is to be a victor.
+ The man who follows is a slave. The man who thinks is free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember that most men have been controlled by their surroundings.
+ Most of the intelligent men in Turkey are followers of Mahomet. They were
+ rocked in the cradle of the Koran, they received their religious opinions
+ as they did their features&mdash;from their parents. Their opinion on the
+ subject of religion is of no possible value. The same may be said of the
+ Christians of our country. Their belief is the result, not of thought, of
+ investigation, but of surroundings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All religions have been the result of ignorance, and the seeds were sown
+ and planted in the long night of savagery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the decline of the Roman power, in the times when prosperity died, when
+ commerce almost ceased, when the sceptre of authority fell from weak and
+ nerveless hands, when arts were lost and the achievements of the past
+ forgotten or unknown, then Christians came, and holding in contempt all
+ earthly things, told their fellows of another world&mdash;of joy eternal
+ beyond the clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If learning had not been lost, if the people had been educated, if they
+ had known the literature of Greece and Rome, if they had been familiar
+ with the tragedies of &#65533;?schylus, Sophocles and Euripides, with the
+ philosophy of Zeno and Epicurus, with the orations of Demosthenes; if they
+ had known the works of art, the miracles of genius, the passions in
+ marble, the dreams in stone; if they had known the history of Rome; if
+ they had understood Lucretius, Cicero and C&aelig;sar; if they had studied
+ the laws, the decisions of the Pr&aelig;tors; if they had known the
+ thoughts of all the mighty dead, there would have been no soil on which
+ the seeds of Christian superstition could have taken root and grown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the early Christians hated art, and song, and joy. They slandered and
+ maligned the human race, insisted that the world had been blighted by the
+ curse of God, that this life should be used only in making preparation for
+ the next, that education filled the mind with doubt, and science led the
+ soul from God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THERE are two ways. One is to live for God. That has been tried, and the
+ result has always been the same. It was tried in Palestine many years ago
+ and the people who tried it were not protected by their God. They were
+ conquered, overwhelmed and exiled. They lost their country and were
+ scattered over the earth. For many centuries they expected assistance from
+ their God. They believed that they would be gathered together again, that
+ their cities and temples and altars would be rebuilt, that they would
+ again be the favorites of Jehovah, that with his help they would overcome
+ their enemies and rule the world. Century by century the hope has grown
+ weaker and weaker, until now it is regarded by the intelligent as a
+ foolish dream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Living for God was tried in Switzerland and it ended in slavery and
+ torture. Every avenue that led to improvement, to progress, was closed.
+ Only those in authority were allowed to express their thoughts. No one
+ tried to increase the happiness of people in this world. Innocent pleasure
+ was regarded as sin, laughter was suppressed, all natural joy despised,
+ and love itself denounced as sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They amused themselves with fasting and prayer, hearing sermons, talking
+ about endless pain, committing to memory the genealogies in the Old
+ Testament, and now and then burning one of their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Living for God was tried in Scotland. The people became the serfs and
+ slaves of the blessed Kirk. The ministers became petty tyrants. They
+ poisoned the very springs of life. They interfered with every family,
+ invaded the privacy of every home, sowed the seeds of superstition and
+ fear, and filled the darkness with devils. They claimed to be divinely
+ inspired, that they delivered the messages of God, that to deny their
+ authority was blasphemy, and that all who refused to do their bidding
+ would suffer eternal pain. Under their government Scotland was a land of
+ sighing and sorrow, of grief and pain. The people were slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Living for God was tried in New England. A government was formed in
+ accordance with the Old Testament. The laws, for the most part, were petty
+ and absurd, the penalties cruel and bloody to the last degree. Religious
+ liberty was regarded as a crime, as an insult to God. Persons differing in
+ belief from those in power, were persecuted, whipped, maimed and exiled.
+ People supposed to be in league with the devil were imprisoned or killed.
+ A theological government was established, ministers were the agents of
+ God, they dictated the laws and fixed the penalties. Everything was under
+ the supervision of the clergy. They had no pity, no mercy. With all their
+ hearts they hated the natural. They promised happiness in another world,
+ and did all they could to destroy the pleasures of this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Their greatest consolation, their purest joy was found in their belief
+ that all who failed to obey their words, to wear their yoke, would suffer
+ infinite torture in the eternal dungeons of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Living for God was tried in the Dark Ages. Thousands of scaffolds were wet
+ with blood, countless swords were thrust through human hearts. The flames
+ of fagots consumed the flesh of men, dungeons became the homes of those
+ who thought. In the name of God every cruelty was practiced, every crime
+ committed, and liberty perished from the earth. Everywhere the result has
+ been the same. Living for God has filled the world with blood and flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another way. Let us live for man, for this world. Let us develop
+ the brain and civilize the heart. Let us ascertain the conditions of
+ happiness and live in accordance with them. Let us do what we can for the
+ destruction of ignorance, poverty and crime. Let us do our best to supply
+ the wants of the body, to satisfy the hunger of the mind, to ascertain the
+ secrets of nature, to the end that we may make the invisible forces the
+ tireless servants of the human race, and fill the world with happy homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let the gods take care of themselves. Let us live for man. Let us remember
+ that those who have sought for the truths of nature have never persecuted
+ their fellow-men. The astronomers and chemists have forged no chains,
+ built no dungeons. The geologists have invented no instrument of torture.
+ The philosophers have not demonstrated the truth of their theories by
+ burning their neighbors. The great infidels, the thinkers, have lived for
+ the good of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is noble to seek for truth, to be intellectually honest, to give to
+ others a true transcript of your mind, a photograph of your thoughts in
+ honest words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HERE are two ways: The narrow way along which the selfish go in single
+ file, not wide enough for husband and wife to walk side by side while
+ children clasp their hands. The narrow road over the desert of
+ superstition "with here and there a traveler." The narrow grass-grown
+ path, filled with flints and broken glass, bordered by thistles and
+ thorns, where the twice-born limping walk with bleeding feet. If by this
+ path you see a flower, do not pick it. It is a temptation. Beneath its
+ leaves a serpent lies. Keep your eyes on the New Jerusalem. Do not look
+ back for wife or child or friend. Think only of saving your own soul. You
+ will be just as happy in heaven with all you love in hell. Believe, have
+ faith, and you will be rewarded for the goodness of another. Look neither
+ to the right nor left. Keep on, straight on, and you will save your
+ worthless, withered, selfish soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the narrow road that leads from earth to the Christian's heartless
+ heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another way&mdash;the broad road.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give me the wide and ample way, the way broad enough for us all to go
+ together. The broad way where the birds sing, where the sun shines and the
+ streams murmur. The broad way, through the fields where the flowers grow,
+ over the daisied slopes where sunlight, lingering, seems to sleep and
+ dream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us go the broad way with the great world, with science and art, with
+ music and the drama, with all that gladdens, thrills, refines and calms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us go the wide road with husband and wife, with children and friends
+ and with all there is of joy and love between the dawn and dusk of life's
+ strange day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This world is a great orange tree filled with blossoms, with ripening and
+ ripened fruit, while, underneath the bending boughs, the fallen slowly
+ turn to dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Each orange is a life. Let us squeeze it dry, get all the juice there is,
+ so that when death comes we can say; "There is nothing left but withered
+ peel."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us travel the broad and natural way. Let us live for man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To think of what the world has suffered from superstition, from religion,
+ from the worship of beast and stone and god, is almost enough to make one
+ insane. Think of the long, long night of ignorance and fear! Think of the
+ agony, the sufferings of the past, of the days that are dead!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I look. In gloomy caves I see the sacred serpents coiled, waiting for
+ their sacrificial prey. I see their open jaws, their restless tongues,
+ their glittering eyes, their cruel fangs. I see them seize and crush in
+ many horrid folds the helpless children given by fathers and mothers to
+ appease the Serpent-God. I look again. I see temples wrought of stone and
+ gilded with barbaric gold. I see altars red with human blood. I see the
+ solemn priests thrust knives in the white breasts of girls. I look again.
+ I see other temples and other altars, where greedy flames devour the flesh
+ and blood of babes. I see other temples and other priests and other altars
+ dripping with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I look again. I see other temples and other priests and other altars on
+ which are sacrificed the liberties of man. I look. I see the cathedrals of
+ God, the huts of peasants, the robes of priests and kings, the rags of
+ honest men. I look again. The lovers of God are the murderers of men. I
+ see dungeons filled with the noblest and the best. I see exiles,
+ wanderers, outcasts, millions of martyrs, widows and orphans. I see the
+ cunning instruments of torture and hear the shrieks and sobs and moans of
+ millions dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see the dungeon's gloom, I hear the clank of chains. I see the fagot's
+ flames, the scorched and blackened face, the writhing limbs. I hear the
+ jeers and scoffs of pious fiends. I see the victim on the rack, I hear the
+ tendons as they break. I see a world beneath the feet of priests, liberty
+ in chains, every virtue a crime, every crime a virtue, intelligence
+ despised, stupidity sainted, hypocrisy crowned and the white forehead of
+ honor wearing the brand of shame. This was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I look again, and in the East of hope's fair sky the first pale light shed
+ by the herald star gives promise of another dawn. I look, and from the
+ ashes, blood and tears the heroes leap to bless the future and avenge the
+ past. I see a world at war, and in the storm and chaos of the deadly
+ strife thrones crumble, altars fall, chains break, creeds change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest peaks are touched with holy light. The dawn has blossomed. I
+ look again. I see discoverers sailing across mysterious seas. I see
+ inventors cunningly enslave the forces of the world. I see the houses
+ being built for schools. Teachers, interpreters of nature, slowly take the
+ place of priests. Philosophers arise, thinkers give the world their wealth
+ of brain, and lips grow rich with words of truth. This is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I look again, but toward the future now. The popes and priests and kings
+ are gone,&mdash;the altars and the thrones have mingled with the dust,&mdash;the
+ aristocracy of land and cloud have perished from the earth and-air, and
+ all the gods are dead. A new religion sheds its glory on mankind. It is
+ the gospel of this world, the religion of the body, of the heart and
+ brain, the evangel of health and joy. I see a world at peace, where labor
+ reaps its true reward, a world without prisons, without workhouses,
+ without asylums for the insane, a world on which the gibbets shadow does
+ not fall, a world where the poor girl, trying to win bread with the
+ needle, the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the
+ poor," is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide
+ or shame. I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the
+ miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the pallid face
+ of crime, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn. I see a race
+ without disease of flesh or brain, shapely and fair, the married harmony
+ of form and use, and as I look life lengthens, fear dies, joy deepens,
+ love intensifies. The world is free. This shall be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ SOMEBODY ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not,
+ because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges
+ dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not.
+ They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers.
+ Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare
+ not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because
+ they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many millions of people who believe the Bible to be the inspired
+ word of God&mdash;millions who think that this book is staff and guide,
+ counselor and consoler; that it fills the present with peace and the
+ future with hope&mdash;millions who believe that it is the fountain of
+ law, justice and mercy, and that to its wise and benign teachings the
+ world is indebted for its liberty, wealth and civilization&mdash;millions
+ who imagine that this book is a revelation from the wisdom and love of God
+ to the brain and heart of man&mdash;millions who regard this book as a
+ torch that conquers the darkness of death, and pours its radiance on
+ another world&mdash;a world without a tear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its
+ religious persecution; they remember heaven, but they forget the dungeon
+ of eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They forget that it imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart. They
+ forget that it is the enemy of intellectual freedom. Liberty is my
+ religion. Liberty of hand and brain&mdash;of thought and labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty is a word hated by kings&mdash;loathed by popes. It is a word that
+ shatters thrones and altars&mdash;that leaves the crowned without
+ subjects, and the outstretched hand of superstition without alms. Liberty
+ is the blossom and fruit of justice&mdash;the perfume of mercy. Liberty is
+ the seed and soil, the air and light, the dew and rain of progress, love
+ and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I. THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A FEW wandering families&mdash;poor, wretched, without education, art or
+ power; descendants of those who had been enslaved for four hundred years;
+ ignorant as the inhabitants of Central Africa, had just escaped from their
+ masters to the desert of Sinai.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Their leader was Moses, a man who had been raised in the family of Pharaoh
+ and had been taught the law and mythology of Egypt. For the purpose of
+ controlling his followers he pretended that he was instructed and assisted
+ by Jehovah, the God of these wanderers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everything that happened was attributed to the interference of this God.
+ Moses declared that he met this God face to face; that on Sinai's top from
+ the hands of this God he had received the tables of stone on which, by the
+ finger of this God, the Ten Commandments had been written, and that, in
+ addition to this, Jehovah had made known the sacrifices and ceremonies
+ that were pleasing to him and the laws by which the people should be
+ governed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this way the Jewish religion and the Mosaic Code were established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is now claimed that this religion and these laws were and are revealed
+ and established for all mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time these wanderers had no commerce with other nations, they had
+ no written language, they could neither read nor write. They had no means
+ by which they could make this revelation known to other nations, and so it
+ remained buried in the jargon of a few ignorant, impoverished and unknown
+ tribes for more than two thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many centuries after Moses, the leader, was dead&mdash;many centuries
+ after all his followers had passed away&mdash;the Pentateuch was written,
+ the work of many writers, and to give it force and authority it was
+ claimed that Moses was the author.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Towns are mentioned that were not in existence when Moses lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Money, not coined until centuries after his death, is mentioned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, many of the laws were not applicable to wanderers on the desert&mdash;laws
+ about agriculture, about the sacrifice of oxen, sheep and doves, about the
+ weaving of cloth, about ornaments of gold and silver, about the
+ cultivation of land, about harvest, about the threshing of grain, about
+ houses and temples, about cities of refuge, and about many other subjects
+ of no possible application to a few starving wanderers over the sands and
+ rocks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is now not only admitted by intelligent and honest theologians that
+ Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, but they all admit that no one
+ knows who the authors were, or who wrote any one of these books, or a
+ chapter or a line. We know that the books were not written in the same
+ generation; that they were not all written by one person; that they are
+ filled with mistakes and contradictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also admitted that Joshua did not write the book that bears his
+ name, because it refers to events that did not happen until long after his
+ death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one knows, or pretends to know, the author of Judges; all we know is
+ that it was written centuries after all the judges had ceased to exist. No
+ one knows the author of Ruth, nor of First and Second Samuel; all we know
+ is that Samuel did not write the books that bear his name. In the 25th
+ chapter of First Samuel is an account of Samuel's death, and in the 27th
+ chapter is an account of the raising of Samuel by the Witch of Endor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one knows the author of First and Second Kings or First and Second
+ Chronicles; all we know is that these books are of no value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that the Psalms were not written by David. In the Psalms the
+ Captivity is spoken of, and that did not happen until about five hundred
+ years after David slept with his fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that Solomon did not write the Proverbs or the Song; that Isaiah
+ was not the author of the book that bears his name; that no one knows the
+ author of Job, Ecclesiastes, or Esther, or of any book in the Old
+ Testament, with the exception of Ezra.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that God is not mentioned or in any way referred to in the book of
+ Esther. We know, too, that the book is cruel, absurd and impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God is not mentioned in the Song of Solomon, the best book in the Old
+ Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And we know that Ecclesiastes was written by an unbeliever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, too, that the Jews themselves had not decided as to what books
+ were inspired&mdash;were authentic&mdash;until the second century after
+ Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that the idea of inspiration was of slow growth, and that the
+ inspiration was determined by those who had certain ends to accomplish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IF it is, it should be a book that no man&mdash;no number of men&mdash;could
+ produce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should contain the perfection of philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should perfectly accord with every fact in nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There should be no mistakes in astronomy, geology, or as to any subject or
+ science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Its morality should be the highest, the purest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Its laws and regulations for the control of conduct should be just, wise,
+ perfect, and perfectly adapted to the accomplishment of the ends desired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should contain nothing calculated to make man cruel, revengeful,
+ vindictive or infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should be filled with intelligence, justice, purity, honesty, mercy and
+ the spirit of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should be opposed to strife and war, to slavery and lust, to ignorance,
+ credulity and superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should develop the brain and civilize the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should satisfy the heart and brain of the best and wisest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the Old Testament satisfy this standard?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in the Old Testament&mdash;in history, in theory, in
+ law, in government, in morality, in science&mdash;above and beyond the
+ ideas, the beliefs, the customs and prejudices of its authors and the
+ people among whom they lived?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there one ray of light from any supernatural source?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ancient Hebrews believed that this earth was the centre of the
+ universe, and that the sun, moon and stars were specks in the sky.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With this the Bible agrees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They thought the earth was flat, with four corners; that the sky, the
+ firmament, was solid&mdash;the floor of Jehovah's house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible teaches the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They imagined that the sun journeyed about the earth, and that by stopping
+ the sun the day could be lengthened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible agrees with this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They believed that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman; that they
+ had been created but a few years before, and that they, the Hebrews, were
+ their direct descendants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This the Bible teaches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If anything is, or can be, certain, the writers of the Bible were mistaken
+ about creation, astronomy, geology; about the causes of phenomena, the
+ origin of evil and the cause of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it must be admitted that if an Infinite Being is the author of the
+ Bible, he knew all sciences, all facts, and could not have made a mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, then, there are mistakes, misconceptions, false theories, ignorant
+ myths and blunders in the Bible, it must have been written by finite
+ beings; that is to say, by ignorant and mistaken men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be clearer than this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For centuries the church insisted that the Bible was absolutely true; that
+ it contained no mistakes; that the story of creation was true; that its
+ astronomy and geology were in accord with the facts; that the scientists
+ who differed with the Old Testament were infidels and atheists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now this has changed. The educated Christians admit that the writers of
+ the Bible were not inspired as to any science. They now say that God, or
+ Jehovah, did not inspire the writers of his book for the purpose of
+ instructing the world about astronomy, geology, or any science. They now
+ admit that the inspired men who wrote the Old Testament knew nothing about
+ any science, and that they wrote about the earth and stars, the sun and
+ moon, in accordance with the general ignorance of the time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It required many centuries to force the theologians to this admission.
+ Reluctantly, full of malice and hatred, the priests retired from the
+ field, leaving the victory with science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They took another position:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They declared that the authors, or rather the writers, of the Bible were
+ inspired in spiritual and moral things; that Jehovah wanted to make known
+ to his children his will and his infinite love for his children; that
+ Jehovah, seeing his people wicked, ignorant and depraved, wished to make
+ them merciful and just, wise and spiritual, and that the Bible is inspired
+ in its laws, in the religion it teaches and in its ideas of government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the issue now. Is the Bible any nearer right in its ideas of
+ justice, of mercy, of morality or of religion than in its conception of
+ the sciences?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it moral?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It upholds slavery&mdash;it sanctions polygamy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could a devil have done worse?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it merciful?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In war it raised the black flag; it commanded the destruction, the
+ massacre, of all&mdash;of the old, infirm, and helpless&mdash;of wives and
+ babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Were its laws inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hundreds of offences were punished with death. To pick up sticks on
+ Sunday, to murder your father on Monday, were equal crimes. There is in
+ the literature of the world no bloodier code. The law of revenge&mdash;of
+ retaliation&mdash;was the law of Jehovah. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
+ tooth, a limb for a limb.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is savagery&mdash;not philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it just and reasonable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible is opposed to religious toleration&mdash;to religious liberty.
+ Whoever differed with the majority was stoned to death. Investigation was
+ a crime. Husbands were ordered to denounce and to assist in killing their
+ unbelieving wives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the enemy of Art. "Thou shalt make no graven image." This was the
+ death of Art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Palestine never produced a painter or a sculptor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is the Bible civilized?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It upholds lying, larceny, robbery, murder, the selling of diseased meat
+ to strangers, and even the sacrifice of human beings to Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it philosophical?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It teaches that the sins of a people can be transferred to an animal&mdash;to
+ a goat. It makes maternity an offence for which a sin offering had to be
+ made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was wicked to give birth to a boy, and twice as wicked to give birth to
+ a girl.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To make hair-oil like that used by the priests was an offence punishable
+ with death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The blood of a bird killed over running water was regarded as medicine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would a civilized God daub his altars with the blood of oxen, lambs and
+ doves? Would he make all his priests butchers? Would he delight in the
+ smell of burning flesh?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SOME Christian lawyers&mdash;some eminent and stupid judges&mdash;have
+ said and still say, that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all
+ law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could be more absurd. Long before these commandments were given
+ there were codes of laws in India and Egypt&mdash;laws against murder,
+ perjury, larceny, adultery and fraud. Such laws are as old as human
+ society; as old as the love of life; as old as industry; as the idea of
+ prosperity; as old as human love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of the Ten Commandments that are good were old; all that were new are
+ foolish. If Jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the
+ commandment about keeping the Sabbath, and in its place would have said:
+ "Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men." He would have omitted the one
+ about swearing, and said: "The man shall have but one wife, and the woman
+ but one husband." He would have left out the one about graven images, and
+ in its stead would have said: "Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination,
+ and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defence."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Jehovah, had been civilized, how much grander the Ten Commandments
+ would have been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that we call progress&mdash;the enfranchisement of man, of labor, the
+ substitution of imprisonment for death, of fine for imprisonment, the
+ destruction of polygamy, the establishing of free speech, of the rights of
+ conscience; in short, all that has tended to the development and
+ civilization of man; all the results of investigation, observation,
+ experience and free thought; all that man has accomplished for the benefit
+ of man since the close of the Dark Ages&mdash;has been done in spite of
+ the Old Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me further illustrate the morality, the mercy, the philosophy and
+ goodness of the Old Testament:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE STORY OF ACHAN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Joshua took the City of Jericho. Before the fall of the city he declared
+ that all the spoil taken should be given to the Lord.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of this order Achan secreted a garment, some silver and gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Afterward Joshua tried to take the city of Ai. He failed and many of his
+ soldiers were slain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Joshua sought for the cause of his defeat and he found that Achan had
+ secreted a garment, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold. To
+ this Achan confessed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And thereupon Joshua took Achan, his sons and his daughters, his oxen and
+ his sheep&mdash;stoned them all to death and burned their bodies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is nothing to show that the sons and Daughters had committed any
+ crime. Certainly, the oxen and sheep should not have been stoned to death
+ for the crime of their owner. This was the justice, the mercy, of Jehovah!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After Joshua had committed this crime, with the help of Jehovah he
+ captured the city of Ai.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE STORY OF ELISHA.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And he went up thence unto Bethel, and as he was going up by the way
+ there came forth little children out of the city and mocked him, and said
+ unto him, 'Go up, thou baldhead.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And he turned back and looked at them, and cursed them in the name of the
+ Lord. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood and tore forty
+ and two children of them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the work of the good God&mdash;the merciful Jehovah!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE STORY OF DANIEL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ King Darius had honored and exalted Daniel, and the native princes were
+ jealous. So they induced the king to sign a decree to the effect that any
+ man who should make a petition to any god or man except to King Darius,
+ for thirty days, should be cast into the den of lions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Afterward these men found that Daniel, with his face toward Jerusalem,
+ prayed three times a day to Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thereupon Daniel was cast into the den of lions; a stone was placed at the
+ mouth of the den and sealed with the king's seal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The king passed a bad night. The next morning he went to the den and cried
+ out to Daniel. Daniel answered and told the king that God had sent his
+ angel and shut the mouths of the lions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Daniel was taken out alive and well, and the king was converted and
+ believed in Daniel's God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Darius, being then a believer in the true God, sent for the men who had
+ accused Daniel, and for their wives and their children, and cast them all
+ into the lions' den.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in
+ pieces, or ever they came at the bottom of the pit."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What had the wives and little children done? How had they offended King
+ Darius, the believer in Jehovah? Who protected Daniel? Jehovah! Who failed
+ to protect the innocent wives and children? Jehovah!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE STORY OF JOSEPH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pharaoh had a dream, and this dream was interpreted by Joseph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this interpretation there was to be in Egypt seven years of
+ plenty, followed by seven years of famine. Joseph advised Pharaoh to buy
+ all the surplus of the seven plentiful years and store it up against the
+ years of famine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Pharaoh appointed Joseph as his minister or agent, and ordered him to buy
+ the grain of the plentiful years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came the famine. The people came to the king for help. He told them
+ to go to Joseph and do as he said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Joseph sold corn to the Egyptians until all their money was gone&mdash;until
+ he had it all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the money was gone the people said: "Give us corn and we will give
+ you our cattle."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Joseph let them have corn until all their cattle, their horses and their
+ flocks had been given to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the people said: "Give us corn and we will give you our lands."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Joseph let them have corn until all their lands were gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the famine continued, and so the poor wretches sold themselves, and
+ they became the servants of Pharoah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then Joseph gave them seed, and made an agreement with them that they
+ should forever give one-fifth of all they raised to Pharaoh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who enabled Joseph to interpret the dream of Pharaoh? Jehovah! Did he know
+ at the time that Joseph would use the information thus given to rob and
+ enslave the people of Egypt? Yes. Who produced the famine? Jehovah!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly apparent that the Jews did not think of Jehovah as the God
+ of Egypt&mdash;the God of all the world. He was their God, and theirs
+ alone. Other nations had gods, but Jehovah was the greatest of all. He
+ hated other nations and other gods, and abhorred all religions except the
+ worship of himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. WHAT IS IT ALL WORTH?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WILL some Christian scholar tell us the value of Genesis?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that it is not true&mdash;that it contradicts itself. There are
+ two accounts of the creation in the first and second chapters. In the
+ first account birds and beasts were created before man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the second, man was created before the birds and beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first, fowls are made out of the water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the second, fowls are made out of the ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first, Adam and Eve are created together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the second, Adam is made; then the beasts and birds, and then Eve is
+ created from one of Adam's ribs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These stories are far older than the Pentateuch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Persian: God created the world in six days, a man called Adama, a woman
+ called Evah, and then rested.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Etruscan, Babylonian, Phoenician, Chaldean and the Egyptian stories
+ are much the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese and
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hindus have their Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the Persians, the Babylonians, the Nubians, the people of Southern
+ India, all had the story of the fall of man and the subtle serpent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Chinese say that sin came into the world by the disobedience of woman.
+ And even the Tahitians tell us that man was created from the earth, and
+ the first woman from one of his bones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these stories are equally authentic and of equal value to the world,
+ and all the authors were equally inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know also that the story of the flood is much older than the book of
+ Genesis, and we know besides that it is not true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that this story in Genesis was copied from the Chaldean. There you
+ find all about the rain, the ark, the animals, the dove that was sent out
+ three times, and the mountain on which the ark rested.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the Hindus, Chinese, Parsees, Persians, Greeks, Mexicans and
+ Scandinavians have substantially the same story.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We also know that the account of the Tower of Babel is an ignorant and
+ childish fable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What then is left in this inspired book of
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Genesis? Is there a word calculated to develop the heart or brain? Is
+ there an elevated thought&mdash;any great principle&mdash;anything poetic&mdash;any
+ word that bursts into blossom?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything except a dreary and detailed statement of things that
+ never happened?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in Exodus calculated to make men generous, loving and
+ noble?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it well to teach children that God tortured the innocent cattle of the
+ Egyptians&mdash;bruised them to death with hailstones&mdash;on account of
+ the sins of Pharoah?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it make us merciful to believe that God killed the firstborn of the
+ Egyptians&mdash;the firstborn of the poor and suffering people&mdash;of
+ the poor girl working at the mill&mdash;because of the wickedness of the
+ king?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that the gods of Egypt worked miracles? Did they change
+ water into blood, and sticks into serpents?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Exodus there is not one original thought or line of value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, if we know anything, that this book was written by savages&mdash;savages
+ who believed in slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination. We know that
+ the story told is impossible, and that the miracles were never performed.
+ This book admits that there are other gods besides Jehovah. In the 17th
+ chapter is this verse: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods,
+ for, in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, in this blessed book is taught the duty of human sacrifice&mdash;the
+ sacrifice of babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the 22d chapter is this command: "Thou shalt not delay to offer the
+ first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors: the first-born of thy sons
+ thou shalt give unto me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has Exodus been a help or a hindrance to the human race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from Exodus the laws common to all nations, and is there anything of
+ value left?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in Leviticus of importance? Is there a chapter worth
+ reading? What interest have we in the clothes of priests, the curtains and
+ candles of the tabernacle, the tongs and shovels of the altar or the
+ hair-oil used by the Levites?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of what use the cruel code, the frightful punishments, the curses, the
+ falsehoods and the miracles of this ignorant and infamous book?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what is there in the book of Numbers&mdash;with its sacrifices and
+ water of jealousy, with its shew-bread and spoons, its kids and fine
+ flour, its oil and candlesticks, its cucumbers, onions and manna&mdash;to
+ assist and instruct mankind? What interest have we in the rebellion of
+ Korah, the water of separation, the ashes of a red heifer, the brazen
+ serpent, the water that followed the people uphill and down for forty
+ years, and the inspired donkey of the prophet Balaam? Have these
+ absurdities and cruelties&mdash;these childish, savage superstitions&mdash;helped
+ to civilize the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in Joshua&mdash;with its wars, its murders and
+ massacres, its swords dripping with the blood of mothers and babes, its
+ tortures, maimings and mutilations, its fraud and fury, its hatred and
+ revenge&mdash;calculated to improve the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not every chapter shock the heart of a good man? Is it a book to be
+ read by children?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book of Joshua is as merciless as famine, as ferocious as the heart of
+ a wild beast. It is a history&mdash;a justification&mdash;a sanctification
+ of nearly every crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book of Judges is about the same, nothing but war and bloodshed; the
+ horrible story of Jael and Sisera; of Gideon and his trumpets and
+ pitchers; of Jephtha and his daughter, whom he murdered to please Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here we find the story of Samson, in which a sun-god is changed to a
+ Hebrew giant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Read this book of Joshua&mdash;read of the slaughter of women, of wives,
+ of mothers and babes&mdash;read its impossible miracles, its ruthless
+ crimes, and all done according to the commands of Jehovah, and tell me
+ whether this book is calculated to make us forgiving, generous and loving.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that the history of Ruth is in some respects a beautiful and
+ touching story; that it is naturally told, and that her love for Naomi was
+ deep and pure. But in the matter of courtship we would hardly advise our
+ daughters to follow the example of Ruth. Still, we must remember that Ruth
+ was a widow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything worth reading in the first and second books of Samuel?
+ Ought a prophet of God to hew a captured king in pieces? Is the story of
+ the ark, its capture and return of importance to us? Is it possible that
+ it was right, just and merciful to kill fifty thousand men because they
+ had looked into a box? Of what use to us are the wars of Saul and David,
+ the stories of Goliath and the Witch of Endor? Why should Jehovah have
+ killed Uzzah for putting forth his hand to steady the ark, and forgiven
+ David for murdering Uriah and stealing his wife?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to "Samuel," David took a census of the people. This excited the
+ wrath of Jehovah, and as a punishment he allowed David to choose seven
+ years of famine, a flight of three months from pursuing enemies, or three
+ days of pestilence. David, having confidence in God, chose the three days
+ of pestilence; and, thereupon, God, the compassionate, on account of the
+ sin of David, killed seventy thousand innocent men!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the same circumstances, what would a devil have done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in First and Second Kings that suggests the idea of
+ inspiration?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When David is dying he tells his son Solomon to murder Joab&mdash;not to
+ let his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. With his last breath he
+ commands his son to bring down the hoar head of Shimei to the grave with
+ blood. Having uttered these merciful words, the good David, the man after
+ God's heart, slept with his fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it necessary to inspire the man who wrote the history of the building
+ of the temple, the story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba, or to tell
+ the number of Solomon's wives?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What care we for the withering of Jereboam's hand, the prophecy of Jehu,
+ or the story of Elijah and the ravens?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that Elijah brought flames from heaven, or that he went at
+ last to Paradise in a chariot of fire?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe in the multiplication of the widow's oil by Elisha, that an
+ army was smitten with blindness, or that an axe floated in the water?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it civilize us to read about the beheading of the seventy sons of
+ Ahab, the putting out of the eyes of Zedekiah and the murder of his sons?
+ Is there one word in First and Second Kings calculated to make men better?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First and Second Chronicles is but a re-telling of what is told in First
+ and Second Kings. The same old stories&mdash;a little left out, a little
+ added, but in no respect made better or worse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book of Ezra is of no importance. He tells us that Cyrus, King of
+ Persia, issued a proclamation for building a temple at Jerusalem, and that
+ he declared Jehovah to be the real and only God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could be more absurd. Ezra tells us about the return from
+ captivity, the building of the temple, the dedication, a few prayers, and
+ this is all. This book is of no importance, of no use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nehemiah is about the same, only it tells of the building of the wall, the
+ complaints of the people about taxes, a list of those who returned from
+ Babylon, a catalogue of those who dwelt at Jerusalem, and the dedication
+ of the walls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not a word in Nehemiah worth reading.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then comes the book of Esther:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this we are told that King Ahasueras was intoxicated; that he sent for
+ his Queen, Vashti, to come and show herself to him and his guests. Vashti
+ refused to appear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This maddened the king, and he ordered that from every province the most
+ beautiful girls should be brought before him that he might choose one in
+ place of Vashti.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among others was brought Esther, a Jewess. She was chosen and became the
+ wife of the king. Then a gentleman by the name of Haman wanted to have all
+ the Jews killed, and the king, not knowing that Esther was of that race,
+ signed a decree that all the Jews should be killed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through the efforts of Mordecai and Esther the decree was annulled and the
+ Jews were saved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Haman prepared a gallows on which to have Mordecai hanged, but the good
+ Esther so managed matters that Haman and his ten sons were hanged on the
+ gallows that Haman had built, and the Jews were allowed to murder more
+ than seventy-five thousand of the king's subjects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the inspired story of Esther.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the book of Job we find some elevated sentiments, some sublime and
+ foolish thoughts, something of the wonder and sublimity of nature, the
+ joys and sorrows of life; but the story is infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the Psalms are good, many are indifferent, and a few are infamous.
+ In them are mingled the vices and virtues. There are verses that elevate,
+ verses that degrade. There are prayers for forgiveness and revenge. In the
+ literature of the world there is nothing more heartless, more infamous,
+ than the 109th Psalm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Proverbs there is much shrewdness, many pithy and prudent maxims,
+ many wise sayings. The same ideas are expressed in many ways&mdash;the
+ wisdom of economy and silence, the dangers of vanity and idleness. Some
+ are trivial, some are foolish, and many are wise. These proverbs are not
+ generous&mdash;not altruistic. Sayings to the same effect are found among
+ all nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ecclesiastes is the most thoughtful book in the Bible. It was written by
+ an unbeliever&mdash;a philosopher&mdash;an agnostic. Take out the
+ interpolations, and it is in accordance with the thought of the nineteenth
+ century. In this book are found the most philosophic and poetic passages
+ in the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After crossing the desert of death and crime&mdash;after reading the
+ Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles&mdash;it is
+ delightful to reach this grove of palms, called the "Song of Solomon." A
+ drama of love&mdash;of human love; a poem without Jehovah&mdash;a poem
+ born of the heart and true to the divine instincts of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I sleep, but my heart waketh."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Isaiah is the work of several. Its swollen words, its vague imagery, its
+ prophecies and curses, its ravings against kings and nations, its laughter
+ at the wisdom of man, its hatred of joy, have not the slightest tendency
+ to increase the well-being of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this book is recorded the absurdest of all miracles. The shadow on the
+ dial is turned back ten degrees, in order to satisfy Hezekiah that Jehovah
+ will add fifteen years to his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this miracle the world, turning from west to east at the rate of more
+ than a thousand miles an hour, is not only stopped, but made to turn the
+ other way until the shadow on the dial went back ten degrees! Is there in
+ the whole world an intelligent man or woman who believes this impossible
+ falsehood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jeremiah contains nothing of importance&mdash;no facts of value; nothing
+ but fault-finding, lamentations, croakings, wailings, curses and promises;
+ nothing but famine and prayer, the prosperity of the wicked, the ruin of
+ the Jews, the captivity and return, and at last Jeremiah, the traitor, in
+ the stocks and in prison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And Lamentations is simply a continuance of the ravings of the same insane
+ pessimist; nothing but dust and sackcloth and ashes, tears and howls,
+ railings and revilings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And Ezekiel&mdash;eating manuscripts, prophesying siege and desolation,
+ with visions of coals of fire, and cherubim, and wheels with eyes, and the
+ type and figure of the boiling pot, and the resurrection of dry bones&mdash;is
+ of no use, of no possible value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With Voltaire, I say that any one who admires Ezekiel should be compelled
+ to dine with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Daniel is a disordered dream&mdash;a nightmare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What can be made of this book with its image with a golden head, with
+ breast and arms of silver, with belly and thighs of brass, with legs of
+ iron, and with feet of iron and clay; with its writing on the wall, its
+ den of lions, and its vision of the ram and goat?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything to be learned from Hosea and his wife? Is there anything
+ of use in Joel, in Amos, in Obadiah? Can we get any good from Jonah and
+ his gourd? Is it possible that God is the real author of Micah and Nahum,
+ of Habakkuk and Zephaniah, of Haggai and Malachi and Zechariah, with his
+ red horses, his four horns, his four carpenters, his flying roll, his
+ mountains of brass and the stone with four eyes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in these "inspired" books that has been of benefit to
+ man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have they taught us how to cultivate the earth, to build houses, to weave
+ cloth, to prepare food? Have they taught us to paint pictures, to chisel
+ statues, to build bridges, or ships, or anything of beauty or of use? Did
+ we get our ideas of government, of religious freedom, of the liberty of
+ thought, from the Old Testament? Did we get from any of these books a hint
+ of any science? Is there in the "sacred volume" a word, a line, that has
+ added to the wealth, the intelligence and the happiness of mankind? Is
+ there one of the books of the Old Testament as entertaining as "Robinson
+ Crusoe," "The Travels of Gulliver," or "Peter Wilkins and his Flying
+ Wife"? Did the author of Genesis know as much about nature as Humboldt, or
+ Darwin, or Haeckel? Is what is called the Mosaic Code as wise or as
+ merciful as the code of any civilized nation? Were the writers of Kings
+ and Chronicles as great historians, as great writers, as Gibbon and
+ Draper? Is Jeremiah, or Habakkuk equal to Dickens or Thackeray? Can the
+ authors of Job and the Psalms be compared with Shakespeare? Why should we
+ attribute the best to man and the worst to God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. WAS JEHOVAH A GOD OF LOVE?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did these words come from the heart of love?&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them
+ and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, or show
+ mercy unto them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will heap mischief upon them. I will send mine arrows upon them; they
+ shall be burned with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter
+ destruction."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of
+ the dust."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man
+ and the virgin; the suckling also with the man of gray hairs."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be
+ continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their
+ desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the
+ stranger spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him,
+ neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body&mdash;the flesh of thy
+ sons and daughters."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the heaven that is over thee shall be brass, and the earth that is
+ under thee shall be iron."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will make my arrows drunk with blood."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will laugh at their calamity.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did these curses, these threats, come from the heart of love or from the
+ mouth of savagery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was Jehovah god or devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we place Jehovah above all the gods?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has man in his ignorance and fear ever imagined a greater monster?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have the barbarians of any land, in any time, worshiped a more heartless
+ god?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Brahma was a thousand times nobler, and so was Osiris and Zeus and
+ Jupiter. So was the supreme god of the Aztecs, to whom they offered only
+ the perfume of flowers. The worst god of the Hindus, with his necklace of
+ skulls and his bracelets of living snakes, was kind and merciful compared
+ with Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compared with Marcus Aurelius, how small Jehovah seems. Compared with
+ Abraham Lincoln, how cruel, how contemptible, is this god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. JEHOVAH'S ADMINISTRATION.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HE created the world, the hosts of heaven, a man and woman&mdash;placed
+ them in a garden. Then the serpent deceived them, and they were cast out
+ and made to earn their bread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah had been thwarted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he tried again. He went on for about sixteen hundred years trying to
+ civilize the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No schools, no churches, no Bible, no tracts&mdash;nobody taught to read
+ or write. No Ten Commandments. The people grew worse and worse, until the
+ merciful Jehovah sent the flood and drowned all the people except Noah and
+ his family, eight in all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he started again, and changed their diet. At first Adam and Eve were
+ vegetarians. After the flood Jehovah said: "Every moving thing that liveth
+ shall be meat for you"&mdash;snakes and buzzards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he failed again, and at the Tower of Babel he dispersed and scattered
+ the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Finding that he could not succeed with all the people, he thought he would
+ try a few, so he selected Abraham and his descendants. Again he failed,
+ and his chosen people were captured by the Egyptians and enslaved for four
+ hundred years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he tried again&mdash;rescued them from Pharaoh and started for
+ Palestine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he changed their diet, allowing them to eat only the beasts that
+ parted the hoof and chewed the cud. Again he failed. The people hated him,
+ and preferred the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of Jehovah. So he kept
+ them wandering until nearly all who came from Egypt had died. Then he
+ tried again&mdash;took them into Palestine and had them governed by
+ judges.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, too, was a failure&mdash;no schools, no Bible. Then he tried kings,
+ and the kings were mostly idolaters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the chosen people were conquered and carried into captivity by the
+ Babylonians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another failure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then they returned, and Jehovah tried prophets&mdash;howlers and wailers&mdash;but
+ the people grew worse and worse. No schools, no sciences, no arts, no
+ commerce. Then Jehovah took upon himself flesh, was born of a woman, and
+ lived among the people that he had been trying to civilize for several
+ thousand years. Then these people, following the law that Jehovah had
+ given them in the wilderness, charged this Jehovah-man&mdash;this Christ&mdash;with
+ blasphemy; tried, convicted and killed him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah had failed again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he deserted the Jews and turned his attention to the rest of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now the Jews, deserted by Jehovah, persecuted by Christians, are the
+ most prosperous people on the earth. Again has Jehovah failed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What an administration!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII. THE NEW TESTAMENT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHO wrote the New Testament?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christian scholars admit that they do not know. They admit that, if the
+ four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they must have
+ been written in Hebrew. And yet a Hebrew manuscript of any one of these
+ gospels has never been found. All have been and are in Greek. So, educated
+ theologians admit that the Epistles, James and Jude, were written by
+ persons who had never seen one of the four gospels. In these Epistles&mdash;in
+ James and Jude&mdash;no reference is made to any of the gospels, nor to
+ any miracle recorded in them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first mention that has been found of one of our gospels was made about
+ one hundred and eighty years after the birth of Christ, and the four
+ gospels were first named and quoted from at the beginning of the third
+ century, about one hundred and seventy years after the death of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know that there were many other gospels besides our four, some of
+ which have been lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There were the gospels of Paul, of the Egyptians, of the Hebrews, of
+ Perfection, of Judas, of Thaddeus, of the Infancy, of Thomas, of Mary, of
+ Andrew, of Nicodemus, of Marcion and several others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So there were the Acts of Pilate, of Andrew, of Mary, of Paul and Thecla
+ and of many others; also a book called the Shepherd of Hermas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At first not one of all the books was considered as inspired. The Old
+ Testament was regarded as di vine; but the books that now constitute the
+ New Testament were regarded as human productions. We now know that we do
+ not know who wrote the four gospels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question is, Were the authors of these four gospels inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If they were inspired, then the four gospels must be true. If they are
+ true, they must agree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The four gospels do not agree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew, Mark and Luke knew nothing of the atonement, nothing of salvation
+ by faith. They knew only the gospel of good deeds&mdash;of charity. They
+ teach that if we forgive others God will forgive us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With this the gospel of John does not agree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In that gospel we are taught that we must believe on the Lord Jesus
+ Christ; that we must be born again; that we must drink the blood and eat
+ the flesh of Christ. In this gospel we find the doctrine of the atonement
+ and that Christ died for us and suffered in our place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gospel is utterly at variance with, the other three. If the other
+ three are true, the gospel of John is false. If the gospel of John was
+ written by an inspired man, the writers of the other three were
+ uninspired. From this there is no possible escape. The four cannot be
+ true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is evident that there are many interpolations in the four gospels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance, in the 28th chapter of Matthew is an account to the effect
+ that the soldiers at the tomb of Christ were bribed to say that the
+ disciples of Jesus stole away his body while they, the soldiers, slept.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is clearly an interpolation. It is a break in the narrative.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 10th verse should be followed by the 16th. The 10th verse is as
+ follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then Jesus said unto them, 'Be not afraid; go tell my brethren that they
+ go unto Galilee and there shall they see me.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 16th verse:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then the eleven disciples went away unto Galilee into a mountain, where
+ Jesus had appointed them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The story about the soldiers contained in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and
+ 15th verses is an interpolation&mdash;an afterthought&mdash;long after.
+ The 15th verse demonstrates this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifteenth verse: "So they took the money and did as they were taught. And
+ this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly this account was not in the original gospel, and certainly the
+ 15th verse was not written by a Jew. No Jew could have written this: "And
+ this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mark, John and Luke never heard that the soldiers had been bribed by the
+ priests; or, if they had, did not think it worth while recording. So the
+ accounts of the Ascension of Jesus Christ in Mark and Luke are
+ interpolations. Matthew says nothing about the Ascension.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly there never was a greater miracle, and yet Matthew, who was
+ present&mdash;who saw the Lord rise, ascend and disappear&mdash;did not
+ think it worth mentioning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the other hand, the last words of Christ, according to Matthew,
+ contradict the Ascension: "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of
+ the world." John, who was present, if Christ really ascended, says not one
+ word on the subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the Ascension, the gospels do not agree. Mark gives the last
+ conversation that Christ had with his disciples, as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that
+ believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall
+ be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name
+ shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. 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. So, then,
+ after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and
+ sat on the right hand of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that this description was written by one who witnessed this
+ miracle?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This miracle is described by Luke as follows: "And it came to pass while
+ he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Brevity is the soul of wit."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Acts we are told that: "When he had spoken, while they beheld, he
+ was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither Luke, nor Matthew, nor John, nor the writer of the Acts, heard one
+ word of the conversation attributed to Christ by Mark. The fact is that
+ the Ascension of Christ was not claimed by his disciples.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At first Christ was a man&mdash;nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph
+ his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he
+ was of the blood of David.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the claim was made that he was the son of God, and that his mother
+ was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily
+ to heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the
+ minds of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ rose from the dead, why did he not appear to his enemies? Why
+ did he not call on Caiaphas, the high priest? Why did he not make another
+ triumphal entry into Jerusalem?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of
+ his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in
+ secret, in a corner?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was a miracle that could have been seen by a vast multitude&mdash;a
+ miracle that could not be simulated&mdash;one that would have convinced
+ hundreds of thousands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the story of the Resurrection, the Ascension became a necessity.
+ They had to dispose of the body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So there are many other interpolations in the gospels and epistles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again I ask: Is the New Testament true? Does anybody now believe that at
+ the birth of Christ there was a celestial greeting; that a star led the
+ Wise Men of the Bast; that Herod slew the babes of Bethlehem of two years
+ old and under?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The gospels are filled with accounts of miracles. Were they ever
+ performed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew gives the particulars of about twenty-two miracles, Mark of about
+ nineteen, Luke of about eighteen and John of about seven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the gospels, Christ healed diseases, cast out devils, rebuked
+ the sea, cured the blind, fed multitudes with five loaves and two fishes,
+ walked on the sea, cursed a fig tree, turned water into wine and raised
+ the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew is the only one that tells about the Star and the Wise Men&mdash;the
+ only one that tells about the murder of babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John is the only one who says anything about the resurrection of Lazarus,
+ and Luke is the only one giving an account of the raising from the dead
+ the widow of Nain's son.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it possible to substantiate these miracles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jews, among whom they were said to have been performed, did not
+ believe them. The diseased, the palsied, the leprous, the blind who were
+ cured, did not become followers of Christ. Those that were raised from the
+ dead were never heard of again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does any intelligent man believe in the existence of devils? The writer of
+ three of the gospels certainly did. John says nothing about Christ having
+ cast out devils, but Matthew, Mark and Luke give many instances.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does any natural man now believe that Christ cast out devils? If his
+ disciples said he did, they were mistaken. If Christ said he did, he was
+ insane or an impostor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the accounts of casting out devils are false, then the writers were
+ ignorant or dishonest. If they wrote through ignorance, then they were not
+ inspired. If they wrote what they knew to be false, they were not
+ inspired. If what they wrote is untrue, whether they knew it or not, they
+ were not inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time it was believed that palsy, epilepsy, deafness, insanity and
+ many other diseases were caused by devils; that devils took possession of
+ and lived in the bodies of men and women. Christ believed this, taught
+ this belief to others, and pretended to cure diseases by casting devils
+ out of the sick and insane. We know now, if we know anything, that
+ diseases are not caused by the presence of devils. We know, if we know
+ anything, that devils do not reside in the bodies of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ said and did what the writers of the three gospels say he said
+ and did, then Christ was mistaken. If he was mistaken, certainly he was
+ not God. And if he was mistaken, certainly he was not inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it a fact that the Devil tried to bribe Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it a fact that the Devil carried Christ to the top of the temple and
+ tried to induce him to leap to the ground?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can these miracles be established?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The principals have written nothing, Christ has written nothing, and the
+ Devil has remained silent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we know that the Devil tried to bribe Christ? Who wrote the
+ account? We do not know. How did the writer get his information? We do not
+ know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Somebody, some seventeen hundred years ago, said that the Devil tried to
+ bribe God; that the Devil carried God to the top of the temple and tried
+ to induce him to leap to the earth and that God was intellectually too
+ keen for the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is all the evidence we have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in the literature of the world more perfectly idiotic?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligent people no longer believe in witches, wizards, spooks and
+ devils, and they are perfectly satisfied that every word in the New
+ Testament about casting out devils is utterly false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that Christ raised the dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A widow living in Nain is following the body of her son to the tomb.
+ Christ halts the funeral procession and raises the young man from the dead
+ and gives him back to the arms of his mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This young man disappears. He is never heard of again. No one takes the
+ slightest interest in the man who returned from the realm of death. Luke
+ is the only one who tells the story. Maybe Matthew, Mark and John never
+ heard of it, or did not believe it and so failed to record it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John says that Lazarus was raised from the dead; Matthew, Mark and Luke
+ say nothing about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was more wonderful than the raising of the widow's son. He had not been
+ laid in the tomb for days. He was only on his way to the grave, but
+ Lazarus was actually dead. He had begun to decay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lazarus did not excite the least interest. No one asked him about the
+ other world. No one inquired of him about their dead friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he died the second time no one said: "He is not afraid. He has
+ traveled that road twice and knows just where he is going."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not believe in the miracles of Mohammed, and yet they are as well
+ attested as this. We have no confidence in the miracles performed by
+ Joseph Smith, and yet the evidence is far greater, far better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a man should go about now pretending to raise the dead, pretending to
+ cast out devils, we would regard him as insane. What, then, can we say of
+ Christ? If we wish to save his reputation we are compelled to say that he
+ never pretended to raise the dead; that he never claimed to have cast out
+ devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must take the ground that these ignorant and impossible things were
+ invented by zealous disciples, who sought to deify their leader.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those ignorant days these falsehoods added to the fame of Christ. But
+ now they put his character in peril and belittle the authors of the
+ gospels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we now believe that water was changed into wine? John tells of this
+ childish miracle, and says that the other disciples were present, yet
+ Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 'Take the miracle of the man cured by the pool of Bethseda. John says that
+ an angel troubled the waters of the pool of Bethseda, and that whoever got
+ into the pool first after the waters were troubled was healed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does anybody now believe that an angel went into the pool and troubled the
+ waters? Does anybody now think that the poor wretch who got in first was
+ healed? Yet the author of the gospel according to John believed and
+ asserted these absurdities. If he was mistaken about that he may have been
+ about all the miracles he records.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John is the only one who tells about this pool of Bethseda. Possibly the
+ other disciples did not believe the story.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we account for these pretended miracles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the days of the disciples, and for many centuries after, the world was
+ filled with the supernatural. Nearly everything that happened was regarded
+ as miraculous. God was the immediate governor of the world. If the people
+ were good, God sent seed time and harvest; but if they were bad he sent
+ flood and hail, frost and famine. If anything wonderful happened it was
+ exaggerated until it became a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of the order of events&mdash;of the unbroken and the unbreakable chain of
+ causes and effects&mdash;the people had no knowledge and no thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. No miracle ever was performed.
+ No intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never
+ will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ had wrought the miracles attributed to him; if he had cured the
+ palsied and insane; if he had given hearing to the deaf, vision to the
+ blind; if he had cleansed the leper with a word, and with a touch had
+ given life and feeling to the withered limb; if he had given pulse and
+ motion, warmth and thought, to cold and breathless clay; if he had
+ conquered death and rescued from the grave its pallid prey&mdash;no word
+ would have been uttered, no hand raised, except in praise and honor. In
+ his presence all heads would have been uncovered&mdash;all knees upon the
+ ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not strange that at the trial of Christ no one was found to say a
+ word in his favor? No man stood forth and said: "I was a leper, and this
+ man cured me with a touch." No woman said: "I am the widow of Nain and
+ this is my son whom this man raised from the dead."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man said: "I was blind, and this man gave me sight."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All silent
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRIST
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MILLIONS assert that the philosophy of Christ is perfect&mdash;that he was
+ the wisest that ever littered speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resist not evil. If smitten on one cheek turn the other</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any philosophy, any wisdom in this? Christ takes from goodness,
+ from virtue, from the truth, the right of self-defence. Vice becomes the
+ master of the world, and the good become the victims of the infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man has the right to protect himself, his property, his wife and
+ children. Government becomes impossible, and the world is at the mercy of
+ criminals. Is there any absurdity beyond this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Love your enemies</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this possible? Did any human being ever love his enemies? Did Christ
+ love his, when he denounced them as whited sepulchers, hypocrites and
+ vipers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot love those who hate us. Hatred in the hearts of others does not
+ breed love in ours. Not to resist evil is absurd; to love your enemies is
+ impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Take no thought for the morrow</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea was that God would take care of us as he did of sparrows and
+ lilies. Is there the least sense in that belief?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does God take care of anybody?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we live without taking thought for the morrow? To plow, to sow, to
+ cultivate, to harvest, is to take thought for the morrow. We plan and work
+ for the future, for our children, for the unborn generations to come.
+ Without this forethought there could be no progress, no civilization. The
+ world would go back to the caves and dens of savagery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out. If thy right hand offend
+ thee, cut it off.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why? Because it is better that one of our members should perish than that
+ the whole body should be cast into hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any wisdom in putting out your eyes or cutting off your hands? Is
+ it possible to extract from these extravagant sayings the smallest grain
+ of common sense?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Swear not at all; neither by Heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the
+ Earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is his holy city.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here we find the astronomy and geology of Christ. Heaven is the throne of
+ God, the monarch; the earth is his footstool. A footstool that turns over
+ at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and sweeps through space at the
+ rate of over a thousand miles a minute!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where did Christ think heaven was? Why was Jerusalem a holy city? Was it
+ because the inhabitants were ignorant, cruel and superstitious?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>If any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have
+ thy cloak also</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any philosophy, any good sense, in that commandment? Would it not
+ be just as sensible to say: "If a man obtains a judgment against you for
+ one hundred dollars, give him two hundred."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only the insane could give or follow this advice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Think not I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace,
+ but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father,
+ and the daughter against her mother.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this is true, how much better it would have been had he remained away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that he who said, "Resist not evil," came to bring a sword?
+ That he who said, "Love your enemies," came to destroy the peace of the
+ world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To set father against son, and daughter against father&mdash;what a
+ glorious mission!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did bring a sword, and the sword was wet for a thousand years with
+ innocent blood. In millions of hearts he sowed the seeds of hatred and
+ revenge. He divided nations and families, put out the light of reason, and
+ petrified the hearts of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or
+ father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake,
+ shall receive an hundredfold, shall inherit everlasting life.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the writer of Matthew, Christ, the compassionate, the
+ merciful, uttered these terrible words. Is it possible that Christ offered
+ the bribe of eternal joy to those who would desert their fathers, their
+ mothers, their wives and children? Are we to win the happiness of heaven
+ by deserting the ones we love? Is a home to be ruined here for the sake of
+ a mansion there?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet it is said that Christ is an example for all the world. Did he
+ desert his father and mother? He said, speaking to his mother: "Woman,
+ what have I to do with, thee?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Pharisees said unto Christ: "Is it lawful to pay tribute unto C&aelig;sar?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ said: "Show me the tribute money." They brought him a penny. And he
+ saith unto them: "Whose is the image and the superscription?" They said:
+ "C&aelig;sar's." And Christ said: "Render unto C&aelig;sar the things that
+ are C&aelig;sar's."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did Christ think that the money belonged to C&aelig;sar because his image
+ and superscription were stamped upon it? Did the penny belong to C&aelig;sar
+ or to the man who had earned it? Had C&aelig;sar the right to demand it
+ because it was adorned with his image?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it appear from this conversation that Christ understood the real
+ nature and use of money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we now say that Christ was the greatest of philosophers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX. IS CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HE never said a word in favor of education. He never even hinted at the
+ existence of any science. He never uttered a word in favor of industry,
+ economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. He was the
+ enemy of the successful, of the wealthy. Dives was sent to hell, not
+ because he was bad, but because he was rich. Lazarus went to heaven, not
+ because he was good, but because he was poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music&mdash;nothing
+ for any art. He said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king
+ to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual
+ liberty or the freedom of speech. He said nothing about the sacredness of
+ home; not one word for the fireside; not a word in favor of marriage, in
+ honor of maternity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He never married. He wandered homeless from place to place with a few
+ disciples. None of them seem to have been engaged in any useful business,
+ and they seem to have lived on alms. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All human ties were held in contempt; this world was sacrificed for the
+ next; all human effort was discouraged. God would support and protect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last, in the dusk of death, Christ, finding that he was mistaken, cried
+ out: "My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have found that man must depend on himself. He must clear the land; he
+ must build the home; he must plow and plant; he must invent; he must work
+ with hand and brain; he must overcome the difficulties and obstructions;
+ he must conquer and enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may
+ do the work of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X. WHY SHOULD WE PLACE CHRIST AT THE TOP AND SUMMIT OF THE HUMAN RACE?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AS he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he
+ wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he
+ more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater
+ philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the
+ superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than
+ Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of
+ Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than
+ Spinoza's? Was his brain equal to Kepler's or Newton's? Was he grander in
+ death&mdash;a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the
+ force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth
+ of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain
+ and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the
+ greatest of the human race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before Him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his
+ words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what
+ infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the hungry flames
+ of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew
+ that thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in
+ dungeons in darkness, filled with pain. He knew that his church would
+ invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to
+ whip and fagot, to chain and rack. He saw the horizon of the future lurid
+ with the flames of the auto da fe. He knew what creeds would spring like
+ poisonous fungi from every text. He saw the ignorant sects waging war
+ against each other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests,
+ building prisons for their fellow-men. He saw thousands of scaffolds
+ dripping with the best and bravest blood. He saw his followers using the
+ instruments of pain. He heard the groans&mdash;saw the faces white with
+ agony. He heard the shrieks and sobs and cries of all the moaning,
+ martyred multitudes. He knew that commentaries would be written on his
+ words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. He knew that the
+ Inquisition would be born of the teachings attributed to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and
+ tell. He saw all wars that would be waged, and-he knew that above these
+ fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these
+ executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the
+ cross.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned&mdash;that cruelty and
+ credulity would rule the world; knew that liberty would perish from the
+ earth; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and
+ bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers,
+ thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason's
+ holy light and leave the world without a star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive,
+ cutting out their tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that
+ cradles would be robbed and women's breasts unbabed for gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet he died with voiceless lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through
+ them the world: "You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. You
+ shall not persecute your fellow-men."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he not plainly say: "I am the Son of God," or, "I am God"? Why did
+ he not explain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the mode of baptism that
+ was pleasing to him? Why did he not write a creed? Why did he not break
+ the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that the Old Testament was or was
+ not the inspired word of God? Why did he not write the New Testament
+ himself? Why did he leave his words to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance?
+ Why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about
+ another world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into
+ the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he not tell us something of
+ the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to
+ doubt?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will tell you why. He was a man, and did not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XI. INSPIRATION
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ NOT before about the third century was it claimed or believed that the
+ books composing the New Testament were inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will be remembered that there were a great number of books of Gospels,
+ Epistles and Acts, and that from these the "inspired" ones were selected
+ by "uninspired" men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Between the "Fathers" there were great differences of opinion as to which
+ books were inspired; much discussion and plenty of hatred. Many of the
+ books now deemed spurious were by many of the "Fathers" regarded as
+ divine, and some now regarded as inspired were believed to be spurious.
+ Many of the early Christians and some of the "Fathers" repudiated the
+ Gospel of John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jude, James, Peter, and the
+ Revelation of St. John. On the other hand, many of them regarded the
+ Gospel of the Hebrews, of the Egyptians, the Preaching ol Peter, the
+ Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas, the
+ Revelation of Peter, the Revelation of Paul, the Epistle of Clement, the
+ Gospel of Nicodemus, inspired Books, equal to the very best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From all these books, and many others, the Christians selected the
+ inspired ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men who did the selecting were ignorant and superstitious. They were
+ firm believers in the miraculous. They thought that diseases had been
+ cured by the aprons and handkerchiefs of the apostles, by the bones of the
+ dead. They believed in the fable of the Phoenix, and that the hyenas
+ changed their sex every year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Were the men who through many centuries made the selections inspired? Were
+ they&mdash;ignorant, credulous, stupid and malicious&mdash;as well
+ qualified to judge of "inspiration" as the students of our time? How are
+ we bound by their opinion? Have we not the right to judge for ourselves?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Erasmus, one of the leaders of the Reformation, declared that the Epistle
+ to the Hebrews was not written by Paul, and he denied the inspiration of
+ Second and Third John, and also of Revelation. Luther was of the same
+ opinion. He declared James to be an epistle of straw, and denied the
+ inspiration of Revelation. Zwinglius rejected the book of Revelation, and
+ even Calvin denied that Paul was the author of Hebrews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that the Protestants did not agree as to what books are
+ inspired until 1647, by the Assembly of Westminster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To prove that a book is inspired you must prove the existence of God. You
+ must also prove that this God thinks, acts, has objects, ends and aims.
+ This Is somewhat difficult.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to conceive of an infinite being. Having no conception of
+ an infinite being, it is impossible to tell whether all the facts we know
+ tend to prove or disprove the existence of such a being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God is a guess. If the existence of God is admitted, how are we to prove
+ that he inspired the writers of the books of the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can one man establish the inspiration of another? How can an inspired
+ man prove that he is inspired? How can he know himself that he is
+ inspired? There is no way to prove the fact of inspiration. The only
+ evidence is the word of some man who could by no possibility know anything
+ on the Subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is inspiration? Did God use men as instruments? Did he cause them to
+ write his thoughts? Did he take possession of their minds and destroy
+ their wills?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Were these writers only partly controlled, so that their mistakes, their
+ ignorance and their prejudices were mingled with the wisdom of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How are we to separate the mistakes of man from the thoughts of God? Can
+ we do this without being inspired ourselves? If the original writers were
+ inspired, then the translators should have been, and so should be the men
+ who tell us what the Bible means.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it possible for a human being to know that he is inspired by an
+ infinite being? But of one thing we may be certain: An inspired book
+ should certainly excel all the books produced by uninspired men. It
+ should, above all, be true, filled with wisdom, blossoming in beauty&mdash;perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ministers wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will tell them:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This book, the Bible, has persecuted, even unto death, the wisest and the
+ best. This book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race.
+ This book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies
+ of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. This book sowed
+ the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and
+ impoverished, the world. This book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants&mdash;the
+ enslaver of women and children. This book has corrupted parliaments and
+ courts. This book has made colleges and, universities the teachers of
+ error and the haters of science. This book has filled Christendom with
+ hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. This book taught men to kill
+ their fellows for religion's sake. This book founded the Inquisition,
+ invented the instruments of torture, built the dungeons in which the good
+ and loving languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh,
+ erected the scaffolds whereon they died. This book piled fagots about the
+ feet of the just. This book drove reason from the minds of millions and
+ filled the asylums with the insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This book has caused fathers and mothers to shed the blood of their babes.
+ This book was the auction block on which the slave-mother stood when she
+ was sold from her child. This book filled the sails of the slave-trader
+ and made merchandise of human flesh. This book lighted the fires that,
+ burned "witches" and "wizards." This book filled the darkness with ghouls
+ and ghosts, and the bodies of men and women with devils. This book
+ polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of eternal pain. This
+ book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the
+ greatest of crimes. This book filled nations with hermits, monks and nuns&mdash;with
+ the pious and the useless. This book placed the ignorant and unclean saint
+ above the philosopher and philanthropist. This book taught man to despise
+ the joys of this life, that he might be happy in another&mdash;to waste
+ this world for the sake of the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I attack this book because it is the enemy of human liberty&mdash;the
+ greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me ask the ministers one question: How can you be wicked enough to
+ defend this book?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XII. THE REAL BIBLE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ OR thousands of years men have been writing the real Bible, and it is
+ being written from day to day, and it will never be finished while man has
+ life. All the facts that we know, all the truly recorded events, all the
+ discoveries and inventions, all the wonderful machines whose wheels and
+ levers seem to think, all the poems, crystals from the brain, flowers from
+ the heart, all the songs of love and joy, of smiles and tears, the great
+ dramas of Imagination's world, the wondrous paintings, miracles of form
+ and color, of light and shade, the marvelous marbles that seem to live and
+ breathe, the secrets told by rock and star, by dust and flower, by rain
+ and snow, by frost and flame, by winding stream and desert sand, by
+ mountain range and billowed sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the wisdom that lengthens and ennobles life&mdash;all that avoids or
+ cures disease, or conquers pain&mdash;all just and perfect laws and rules
+ that guide and shape our lives, all thoughts that feed the flames of love,
+ the music that transfigures, enraptures and enthralls, the victories of
+ heart and brain, the miracles that hands have wrought, the deft and
+ cunning hands of those who worked for wife and child, the histories of
+ noble deeds, of brave and useful men, of faithful loving wives, of
+ quenchless mother-love, of conflicts for the right, of sufferings for the
+ truth, of all the best that all the men and women of the world have said,
+ and thought and done through all the years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These treasures of the heart and brain&mdash;these are the Sacred
+ Scriptures of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+3 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 4 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
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+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
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+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 4
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 4 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Lectures
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38804]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ "The Hands That Help Are Better Far Than Lips That Pray."
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h4>
+ In Twelve Volumes, Volume IV.
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ LECTURES
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ THE DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38804/old/orig38804-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (63K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (61K)" src="images/portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Contents
+ </h3>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">THE TRUTH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">A THANKSGIVING SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">A LAY SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">THE DEVIL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">PROGRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">WHAT IS RELIGION?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1896.)<br /> I. Influence of Birth in determining Religious Belief&mdash;Scotch,
+ Irish,<br /> English, and Americans Inherit their Faith&mdash;Religions
+ of Nations<br /> not Suddenly Changed&mdash;People who Knew&mdash;What
+ they were Certain<br /> About&mdash;Revivals&mdash;Character of Sermons
+ Preached&mdash;Effect of Conversion&mdash;A<br /> Vermont Farmer for whom
+ Perdition had no Terrors&mdash;The Man and his<br /> Dog&mdash;Backsliding
+ and Re-birth&mdash;Ministers who were Sincere&mdash;A Free Will<br />
+ Baptist on the Rich Man and Lazarus&mdash;II. The Orthodox God&mdash;The<br />
+ Two Dispensations&mdash;The Infinite Horror&mdash;III. Religious Books&mdash;The<br />
+ Commentators&mdash;Paley's Watch Argument&mdash;Milton, Young, and
+ Pollok&mdash;IV.<br /> Studying Astronomy&mdash;Geology&mdash;Denial and
+ Evasion by the Clergy&mdash;V. The<br /> Poems of Robert Burns&mdash;Byron,
+ Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare&mdash;VI.<br /> Volney, Gibbon, and
+ Thomas Paine&mdash;Voltaire's Services to Liberty&mdash;Pagans<br />
+ Compared with Patriarchs&mdash;VII. Other Gods and Other Religions&mdash;Dogmas,<br />
+ Myths, and Symbols of Christianity Older than our Era&mdash;VIII. The
+ Men<br /> of Science, Humboldt, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel&mdash;IX.
+ Matter and<br /> Force Indestructible and Uncreatable&mdash;The Theory of
+ Design&mdash;X. God an<br /> Impossible Being&mdash;The Panorama of the
+ Past&mdash;XI. Free from Sanctified<br /> Mistakes and Holy Lies.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">THE TRUTH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1897.)<br /> I. The Martyrdom of Man&mdash;How is Truth to be
+ Found&mdash;Every Man should be<br /> Mentally Honest&mdash;He should be
+ Intellectually Hospitable&mdash;Geologists,<br /> Chemists, Mechanics,
+ and Professional Men are Seeking for the Truth&mdash;II.<br /> Those who
+ say that Slavery is Better than Liberty&mdash;Promises are not<br />
+ Evidence&mdash;Horace Greeley and the Cold Stove&mdash;III. "The Science
+ of<br /> Theology" the only Dishonest Science&mdash;Moses and Brigham
+ Young&mdash;Minds<br /> Poisoned and Paralyzed in Youth&mdash;Sunday
+ Schools and Theological<br /> Seminaries&mdash;Orthodox Slanderers of
+ Scientists&mdash;Religion has nothing<br /> to do with Charity&mdash;Hospitals
+ Built in Self-Defence&mdash;What Good has the<br /> Church Accomplished?&mdash;Of
+ what use are the Orthodox Ministers, and<br /> What are they doing for
+ the Good of Mankind&mdash;The Harm they are<br /> Doing&mdash;Delusions
+ they Teach&mdash;Truths they Should Tell about the<br /> Bible&mdash;Conclusions&mdash;Our
+ Christs and our Miracles.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1896.)<br /> I. "There is no Darkness but Ignorance"&mdash;False
+ Notions Concerning<br /> All Departments of Life&mdash;Changed Ideas
+ about Science, Government and<br /> Morals&mdash;II. How can we Reform
+ the World?&mdash;Intellectual Light the First<br /> Necessity&mdash;Avoid
+ Waste of Wealth in War&mdash;III. Another Waste&mdash;Vast Amount<br />
+ of Money Spent on the Church&mdash;IV. Plow can we Lessen Crime?&mdash;Frightful<br />
+ Laws for the Punishment of Minor Crimes&mdash;A Penitentiary should be a<br />
+ School&mdash;Professional Criminals should not be Allowed to Populate
+ the<br /> Earth&mdash;V. Homes for All-Make a Nation of Householders&mdash;Marriage<br />
+ and Divorce-VI. The Labor Question&mdash;Employers cannot Govern<br />
+ Prices&mdash;Railroads should Pay Pensions&mdash;What has been
+ Accomplished<br /> for the Improvement of the Condition of Labor&mdash;VII.
+ Educate the<br /> Children&mdash;Useless Knowledge&mdash;Liberty cannot
+ be Sacrificed for the Sake<br /> of Anything&mdash;False worship of
+ Wealth&mdash;VIII. We must Work and Wait.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">A THANKSGIVING SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1897.)<br /> I. Our fathers Ages Ago&mdash;From Savagery to
+ Civilization&mdash;For the<br /> Blessings we enjoy, Whom should we
+ Thank?&mdash;What Good has the Church<br /> Done?-Did Christ add to the
+ Sum of Useful Knowledge&mdash;The Saints&mdash;What<br /> have the
+ Councils and Synods Done?&mdash;What they Gave us, and What they<br />
+ did Not&mdash;Shall we Thank them for the Hell Here and for the Hell of<br />
+ the Future?&mdash;II. What Does God Do?&mdash;The Infinite Juggler and
+ his<br /> Puppets&mdash;What the Puppets have Done&mdash;Shall we Thank
+ these<br /> Gods?&mdash;Shall we Thank Nature?&mdash;III. Men who deserve
+ our Thanks&mdash;The<br /> Infidels, Philanthropists and Scientists&mdash;The
+ Discoverers and<br /> Inventors&mdash;Magellan&mdash;Copernicus&mdash;Bruno&mdash;Galileo&mdash;Kepler,
+ Herschel,<br /> Newton, and LaPlace&mdash;Lyell&mdash;What the Worldly
+ have Done&mdash;Origin and<br /> Vicissitudes of the Bible&mdash;The
+ Septuagint&mdash;Investigating the Phenomena<br /> of Nature&mdash;IV. We
+ thank the Good Men and Good Women of the Past&mdash;The<br /> Poets,
+ Dramatists, and Artists&mdash;The Statesmen&mdash;Paine, Jefferson,<br />
+ Ericsson, Lincoln. Grant&mdash;Voltaire, Humboldt, Darwin.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">A LAY SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1886.)<br /> Prayer of King Lear&mdash;When Honesty wears a Rag
+ and Rascality a Robe-The<br /> Nonsense of "Free Moral Agency "&mdash;Doing
+ Right is not Self-denial-Wealth<br /> often a Gilded Hell&mdash;The Log
+ House&mdash;Insanity of Getting<br /> More&mdash;Great Wealth the Mother
+ of Crime&mdash;Separation of Rich and<br /> Poor&mdash;Emulation&mdash;Invention
+ of Machines to Save Labor&mdash;Production and<br /> Destitution&mdash;The
+ Remedy a Division of the Land&mdash;Evils of Tenement<br /> Houses&mdash;Ownership
+ and Use&mdash;The Great Weapon is the Ballot&mdash;Sewing<br /> Women&mdash;Strikes
+ and Boycotts of No Avail&mdash;Anarchy, Communism, and<br /> Socialism&mdash;The
+ Children of the Rich a Punishment for Wealth&mdash;Workingmen<br /> Not a
+ Danger&mdash;The Criminals a Necessary Product&mdash;Society's Right<br />
+ to Punish&mdash;The Efficacy of Kindness&mdash;Labor is Honorable&mdash;Mental<br />
+ Independence.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1895.)<br /> I. The Old Testament&mdash;Story of the Creation&mdash;Age
+ of the Earth and<br /> of Man&mdash;Astronomical Calculations of the
+ Egyptians&mdash;The Flood&mdash;The<br /> Firmament a Fiction&mdash;Israelites
+ who went into Egypt&mdash;Battles of the<br /> Jews&mdash;Area of
+ Palestine&mdash;Gold Collected by David for the Temple&mdash;II. The<br />
+ New Testament&mdash;Discrepancies about the Birth of Christ&mdash;Herod
+ and<br /> the Wise Men&mdash;The Murder of the Babes of Bethlehem&mdash;When
+ was Christ<br /> born&mdash;Cyrenius and the Census of the World&mdash;Genealogy
+ of Christ<br /> according to Matthew and Luke&mdash;The Slaying of
+ Zacharias&mdash;Appearance of<br /> the Saints at the Crucifixion&mdash;The
+ Death of Judas Iscariot&mdash;Did<br /> Christ wish to be Convicted?&mdash;III.
+ Jehovah&mdash;IV. The Trinity&mdash;The<br /> Incarnation&mdash;Was
+ Christ God?&mdash;The Trinity Expounded&mdash;"Let us pray"&mdash;V.<br />
+ The Theological Christ&mdash;Sayings of a Contradictory Character&mdash;Christ
+ a<br /> Devout Jew&mdash;An ascetic&mdash;His Philosophy&mdash;The
+ Ascension&mdash;The Best that Can<br /> be Said about Christ&mdash;The
+ Part that is beautiful and Glorious&mdash;The Other<br /> Side&mdash;VI.
+ The Scheme of Redemption&mdash;VII. Belief&mdash;Eternal Pain&mdash;No
+ Hope<br /> in Hell, Pity in Heaven, or Mercy in the Heart of God&mdash;VIII.
+ Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1898.)<br /> I. What is Superstition?&mdash;Popular Beliefs about
+ the Significance<br /> of Signs, Lucky and Unlucky Numbers, Days,
+ Accidents, Jewels,<br /> etc.&mdash;Eclipses, Earthquakes, and Cyclones
+ as Omens&mdash;Signs and Wonders<br /> of the Heavens&mdash;Efficacy of
+ Bones and Rags of Saints&mdash;Diseases and<br /> Devils&mdash;II.
+ Witchcraft&mdash;Necromancers&mdash;What is a Miracle?&mdash;The
+ Uniformity<br /> of Nature&mdash;III. Belief in the Existence of Good
+ Spirits or Angels&mdash;God<br /> and the Devil&mdash;When Everything was
+ done by the Supernatural&mdash;IV. All<br /> these Beliefs now Rejected
+ by Men of Intelligence&mdash;The Devil's Success<br /> Made the Coming of
+ Christ a Necessity&mdash;"Thou shalt not Suffer a Witch<br /> to Live"&mdash;Some
+ Biblical Angels&mdash;Vanished Visions&mdash;V. Where are Heaven<br />
+ and Hell?&mdash;Prayers Never Answered&mdash;The Doctrine of Design&mdash;Why
+ Worship<br /> our Ignorance?&mdash;Would God Lead us into Temptation?&mdash;President
+ McKinley's<br /> Thanks giving for the Santiago Victory&mdash;VI. What
+ Harm Does Superstition<br /> Do?&mdash;The Heart Hardens and the Brain
+ Softens&mdash;What Superstition has Done<br /> and Taught&mdash;Fate of
+ Spain&mdash;Of Portugal, Austria, Germany&mdash;VII. Inspired<br /> Books&mdash;Mysteries
+ added to by the Explanations of Theologians&mdash;The<br /> Inspired
+ Bible the Greatest Curse of Christendom&mdash;VIII. Modifications<br />
+ of Jehovah&mdash;Changing the Bible&mdash;IX. Centuries of Darkness&mdash;The
+ Church<br /> Triumphant&mdash;When Men began to Think&mdash;X. Possibly
+ these Superstitions are<br /> True, but We have no Evidence&mdash;We
+ Believe in the Natural&mdash;Science is the<br /> Real Redeemer.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">THE DEVIL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1899.)<br /> I. If the Devil should Die, would God Make Another?&mdash;How
+ was the Idea<br /> of a Devil Produced&mdash;Other Devils than Ours&mdash;Natural
+ Origin of these<br /> Monsters&mdash;II. The Atlas of Christianity is The
+ Devil&mdash;The Devil of the<br /> Old Testament&mdash;The Serpent in
+ Eden&mdash;"Personifications" of Evil&mdash;Satan<br /> and Job&mdash;Satan
+ and David&mdash;III. Take the Devil from the Drama<br /> of Christianity
+ and the Plot is Gone&mdash;Jesus Tempted by the Evil<br /> One&mdash;Demoniac
+ Possession&mdash;Mary Magdalene&mdash;Satan and Judas&mdash;Incubi<br />
+ and Succubi&mdash;The Apostles believed in Miracles and Magic&mdash;The
+ Pool of<br /> Bethesda&mdash;IV. The Evidence of the Church&mdash;The
+ Devil was forced to<br /> Father the Failures of God&mdash;Belief of the
+ Fathers of the Church<br /> in Devils&mdash;Exorcism at the Baptism of an
+ Infant in the Sixteenth<br /> Century&mdash;Belief in Devils made the
+ Universe a Madhouse presided over by<br /> an Insane God&mdash;V.
+ Personifications of the Devil&mdash;The Orthodox Ostrich<br /> Thrusts
+ his Head into the Sand&mdash;If Devils are Personifications so are<br />
+ all the Other Characters of the Bible&mdash;VI. Some Queries about the<br />
+ Devil, his Place of Residence, his Manner of Living, and his Object in<br />
+ Life&mdash;Interrogatories to the Clergy&mdash;VII. The Man of Straw the
+ Master<br /> of the Orthodox Ministers&mdash;His recent Accomplishments&mdash;VIII.
+ Keep the<br /> Devils out of Children&mdash;IX. Conclusion.&mdash;Declaration
+ of the Free.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">PROGRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1860-64.)<br /> The Prosperity of the World depends upon its
+ Workers&mdash;Veneration for the<br /> Ancient&mdash;Credulity and Faith
+ of the Middle Ages&mdash;Penalty for Reading<br /> the Scripture in the
+ Mother Tongue&mdash;Unjust, Bloody, and Cruel Laws&mdash;The<br />
+ Reformers too were Persecutors&mdash;Bigotry of Luther and Knox&mdash;Persecution<br />
+ of Castalio&mdash;Montaigne against Torture in France&mdash;"Witchcraft"
+ (chapter<br /> on)&mdash;Confessed Wizards&mdash;A Case before Sir
+ Matthew Hale&mdash;Belief<br /> in Lycanthropy&mdash;Animals Tried and
+ Executed&mdash;Animals received<br /> as Witnesses&mdash;The Corsned or
+ Morsel of Execution&mdash;Kepler an<br /> Astrologer&mdash;Luther's
+ Encounter with the Devil&mdash;Mathematician<br /> Stoefflers,
+ Astronomical Prediction of a Flood&mdash;Histories Filled with<br />
+ Falsehood&mdash;Legend about the Daughter of Pharaoh invading Scotland
+ and<br /> giving the Country her name&mdash;A Story about Mohammed&mdash;A
+ History of the<br /> Britains written by Archdeacons&mdash;Ingenuous
+ Remark of Eusebius&mdash;Progress<br /> in the Mechanic Arts&mdash;England
+ at the beginning of the Eighteenth<br /> Century&mdash;Barbarous
+ Punishments&mdash;Queen Elizabeth's Order Concerning<br /> Clergymen and
+ Servant Girls&mdash;Inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and<br /> Others&mdash;Solomon's
+ Deprivations&mdash;Language (chapter on)&mdash;Belief that the<br />
+ Hebrew was&lt; the original Tongue&mdash;Speculations about the Language<br />
+ of Paradise&mdash;Geography (chapter on)&mdash;The Works of Cosmas&mdash;Printing<br />
+ Invented&mdash;Church's Opposition to Books&mdash;The Inquisition&mdash;The<br />
+ Reformation&mdash;"Slavery" (chapter on)&mdash;Voltaire's Remark on
+ Slavery as<br /> a Contract&mdash;White Slaves in Greece, Rome, England,
+ Scotland, and<br /> France&mdash;Free minds make Free Bodies&mdash;Causes
+ of the Abolition of White<br /> Slavery in Europe&mdash;The French
+ Revolution&mdash;The African Slave Trade,<br /> its Beginning and End&mdash;Liberty
+ Triumphed (chapter head)&mdash;Abolition of<br /> Chattel Slavery&mdash;Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">WHAT IS RELIGION?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1899.)<br /> I. Belief in God and Sacrifice&mdash;Did an Infinite God
+ Create the Children<br /> of Men and is he the Governor of the Universe?&mdash;II.
+ If this God Exists,<br /> how do we Know he is Good?&mdash;Should both
+ the Inferior and the Superior<br /> thank God for their Condition?&mdash;III.
+ The Power that Works for<br /> Righteousness&mdash;What is this Power?&mdash;The
+ Accumulated Experience of the<br /> World is a Power Working for Good?&mdash;Love
+ the Commencement of the Higher<br /> Virtues&mdash;IV. What has our
+ Religion Done?&mdash;Would Christians have been<br /> Worse had they
+ Adopted another Faith?&mdash;V. How Can Mankind be Reformed<br /> Without
+ Religion?&mdash;VI. The Four Corner-stones of my Theory&mdash;VII.
+ Matter<br /> and Force Eternal&mdash;Links in the Chain of Evolution&mdash;VIII.
+ Reform&mdash;The<br /> Gutter as a Nursery&mdash;Can we Prevent the Unfit
+ from Filling the World<br /> with their Children?&mdash;Science must make
+ Woman the Owner and Mistress<br /> of Herself&mdash;Morality Born of
+ Intelligence&mdash;IX. Real Religion and Real<br /> Worship.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and
+ mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on
+ where we were born. We are moulded and fashioned by our surroundings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Environment is a sculptor&mdash;a painter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would have said:
+ "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parents
+ had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of
+ Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take
+ great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most people love peace. They do not like to differ with their neighbors.
+ They like company. They are social. They enjoy traveling on the highway
+ with the multitude. They hate to walk alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Scotch are Calvinists because their fathers were. The Irish are
+ Catholics because their fathers were. The English are Episcopalians
+ because their fathers were, and the Americans are divided in a hundred
+ sects because their fathers were. This is the general rule, to which there
+ are many exceptions. Children sometimes are superior to their parents,
+ modify their ideas, change their customs, and arrive at different
+ conclusions. But this is generally so gradual that the departure is
+ scarcely noticed, and those who change usually insist that they are still
+ following the fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed by Christian historians that the religion of a nation was
+ sometimes suddenly changed, and that millions of Pagans were made into
+ Christians by the command of a king. Philosophers do not agree with these
+ historians. Names have been changed, altars have been overthrown, but
+ opinions, customs and beliefs remained the same. A Pagan, beneath the
+ drawn sword of a Christian, would probably change his religious views, and
+ a Christian, with a scimitar above his head, might suddenly become a
+ Mohammedan, but as a matter of fact both would remain exactly as they were
+ before&mdash;except in speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Belief is not subject to the will. Men think as they must. Children do
+ not, and cannot, believe exactly as they were taught. They are not exactly
+ like their parents. They differ in temperament, in experience, in
+ capacity, in surroundings. And so there is a continual, though almost
+ imperceptible change. There is development, conscious and unconscious
+ growth, and by comparing long periods of time we find that the old has
+ been almost abandoned, almost lost in the new. Men cannot remain
+ stationary. The mind cannot be securely anchored. If we do not advance, we
+ go backward. If we do not grow, we decay. If we do not develop, we shrink
+ and shrivel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Like the most of you, I was raised among people who knew&mdash;who were
+ certain. They did not reason or investigate. They had no doubts. They knew
+ that they had the truth. In their creed there was no guess&mdash;no
+ perhaps. They had a revelation from God. They knew the beginning of
+ things. They knew that God commenced to create one Monday morning, four
+ thousand and four years before Christ. They knew that in the eternity&mdash;back
+ of that morning, he had done nothing. They knew that it took him six days
+ to make the earth&mdash;all plants, all animals, all life, and all the
+ globes that wheel in space. They knew exactly what he did each day and
+ when he rested. They knew the origin, the cause of evil, of all crime, of
+ all disease and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They not only knew the beginning, but they knew the end. They knew that
+ life had one path and one road. They knew that the path, grass-grown and
+ narrow, filled with thorns and nettles, infested with vipers, wet with
+ tears, stained by bleeding feet, led to heaven, and that the road, broad
+ and smooth, bordered with fruits and flowers, filled with laughter and
+ song and all the happiness of human love, led straight to hell. They knew
+ that God was doing his best to make you take the path and that the Devil
+ used every art to keep you in the road.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew that there was a perpetual battle waged between the great Powers
+ of good and evil for the possession of human souls. They knew that many
+ centuries ago God had left his throne and had been born a babe into this
+ poor world&mdash;that he had suffered death for the sake of man&mdash;for
+ the sake of saving a few. They also knew that the human heart was utterly
+ depraved, so that man by nature was in love with wrong and hated God with
+ all his might.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time they knew that God created man in his own image and was
+ perfectly satisfied with his work. They also knew that he had been
+ thwarted by the Devil, who with wiles and lies had deceived the first of
+ human kind. They knew that in consequence of that, God cursed the man and
+ woman; the man with toil, the woman with slavery and pain, and both with
+ death; and that he cursed the earth itself with briers and thorns,
+ brambles and thistles. All these blessed things they knew. They knew too
+ all that God had done to purify and elevate the race. They knew all about
+ the Flood&mdash;knew that God, with the exception of eight, drowned all
+ his children&mdash;the old and young&mdash;the bowed patriarch and the
+ dimpled babe&mdash;the young man and the merry maiden&mdash;the loving
+ mother and the laughing child&mdash;because his mercy endureth forever.
+ They knew too, that he drowned the beasts and birds&mdash;everything that
+ walked or crawled or flew&mdash;because his loving kindness is over all
+ his works. They knew that God, for the purpose of civilizing his children,
+ had devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of fire,
+ killed some with his lightnings, millions with famine, with pestilence,
+ and sacrificed countless thousands upon the fields of war. They knew that
+ it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that
+ there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood
+ of Jesus Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a moral and honest life&mdash;to
+ keep your contracts, to take care of wife and child&mdash;to make a happy
+ home&mdash;to be a good citizen, a patriot, a just and thoughtful man, was
+ simply a respectable way of going to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God did not reward men for being honest, generous and brave, but for the
+ act of faith. Without faith, all the so-called virtues were sins, and the
+ men who practiced these virtues, without faith, deserved to suffer eternal
+ pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the ministers
+ in their pulpits&mdash;by teachers in Sunday schools and by parents at
+ home. The children were victims. They were assaulted in the cradle&mdash;in
+ their mother's arms. Then, the schoolmaster carried on the war against
+ their natural sense, and all the books they read were filled with the same
+ impossible truths. The poor children were helpless. The atmosphere they
+ breathed was filled with lies&mdash;lies that mingled with their blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days ministers depended on revivals to save souls and reform the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the winter, navigation having closed, business was mostly suspended.
+ There were no railways and the only means of communication were wagons and
+ boats. Generally the roads were so bad that the wagons were laid up with
+ the boats. There were no operas, no theatres, no amusement except parties
+ and balls. The parties were regarded as worldly and the balls as wicked.
+ For real and virtuous enjoyment the good people depended on revivals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sermons were mostly about the pains and agonies of hell, the joys and
+ ecstasies of heaven, salvation by faith, and the efficacy of the
+ atonement. The little churches, in which the services were held, were
+ generally small, badly ventilated, and exceedingly warm. The emotional
+ sermons, the sad singing, the hysterical amens, the hope of heaven, the
+ fear of hell, caused many to lose the little sense they had. They became
+ substantially insane. In this condition they flocked to the "mourners
+ bench"&mdash;asked for the prayers of the faithful&mdash;had strange
+ feelings, prayed and wept and thought they had been "born again." Then
+ they would tell their experience&mdash;how wicked they had been&mdash;how
+ evil had been their thoughts, their desires, and how good they had
+ suddenly become.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They used to tell the story of an old woman who, in telling her
+ experience, said:&mdash;"Before I was converted, before I gave my heart to
+ God, I used to lie and steal, but now, thanks to the grace and blood of
+ Jesus Christ, I have quit 'em both, in a great measure."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course all the people were not exactly of one mind. There were some
+ scoffers, and now and then some man had sense enough to laugh at the
+ threats of priests and make a jest of hell. Some would tell of unbelievers
+ who had lived and died in peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I was a boy I heard them tell of an old farmer in Vermont. He was
+ dying. The minister was at his bedside&mdash;asked him if he was a
+ Christian &mdash;if he was prepared to die. The old man answered that he
+ had made no preparation, that he was not a Christian&mdash;that he had
+ never done anything but work. The preacher said that he could give him no
+ hope unless he had faith in Christ, and that if he had no faith his soul
+ would certainly be lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old man was not frightened. He was perfectly calm. In a weak and
+ broken voice he said: "Mr. Preacher, I suppose you noticed my farm. My
+ wife and I came here more than fifty years ago. We were just married. It
+ was a forest then and the land was covered with stones. I cut down the
+ trees, burned the logs, picked up the stones and laid the walls. My wife
+ spun and wove and worked every moment. We raised and educated our children&mdash;denied
+ ourselves. During all these years my wife never had a good dress, or a
+ decent bonnet. I never had a good suit of clothes. We lived on the
+ plainest food. Our hands, our bodies are deformed by toil. We never had a
+ vacation. We loved each other and the children. That is the only luxury we
+ ever had. Now I am about to die and you ask me if I am prepared. Mr.
+ Preacher, I have no fear of the future, no terror of any other world.
+ There may be such a place as hell&mdash;but if there is, you never can
+ make me believe that it's any worse than old Vermont."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, they told of a man who compared himself with his dog. "My dog," he
+ said, "just barks and plays&mdash;has all he wants to eat. He never works&mdash;has
+ no trouble about business. In a little while he dies, and that is all. I
+ work with all my strength. I have no time to play. I have trouble every
+ day. In a little while I will die, and then I go to hell. I wish that I
+ had been a dog."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, while the cold weather lasted, while the snows fell, the revival
+ went on, but when the winter was over, when the steamboat's whistle was
+ heard, when business started again, most of the converts "backslid" and
+ fell again into their old ways. But the next winter they were on hand,
+ ready to be "born again." They formed a kind of stock company, playing the
+ same parts every winter and backsliding every spring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers, who preached at these revivals, were in earnest. They were
+ zealous and sincere. They were not philosophers. To them science was the
+ name of a vague dread&mdash;a dangerous enemy. They did not know much, but
+ they believed a great deal. To them hell was a burning reality&mdash;they
+ could see the smoke and flames. The Devil was no myth. He was an actual
+ person, a rival of God, an enemy of mankind. They thought that the
+ important business of this life was to save your soul&mdash;that all
+ should resist and scorn the pleasures of sense, and keep their eyes
+ steadily fixed on the golden gate of the New Jerusalem. They were
+ unbalanced, emotional, hysterical, bigoted, hateful, loving, and insane.
+ They really believed the Bible to be the actual word of God&mdash;a book
+ without mistake or contradiction. They called its cruelties, justice&mdash;its
+ absurdities, mysteries&mdash;its miracles, facts, and the idiotic passages
+ were regarded as profoundly spiritual. They dwelt on the pangs, the
+ regrets, the infinite agonies of the lost, and showed how easily they
+ could be avoided, and how cheaply heaven could be obtained. They told
+ their hearers to believe, to have faith, to give their hearts to God,
+ their sins to Christ, who would bear their burdens and make their souls as
+ white as snow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this the ministers really believed. They were absolutely certain. In
+ their minds the Devil had tried in vain to sow the seeds of doubt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I heard hundreds of these evangelical sermons&mdash;heard hundreds of the
+ most fearful and vivid descriptions of the tortures inflicted in hell, of
+ the horrible state of the lost. I supposed that what I heard was true and
+ yet I did not believe it. I said: "It is," and then I thought: "It cannot
+ be."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These sermons made but faint impressions on my mind. I was not convinced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had no desire to be "converted," did not want a "new heart" and had no
+ wish to be "born again."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I heard one sermon that touched my heart, that left its mark, like a
+ scar, on my brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One Sunday I went with my brother to hear a Free Will Baptist preacher. He
+ was a large man, dressed like a farmer, but he was an orator. He could
+ paint a picture with words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He took for his text the parable of "the rich man and Lazarus." He
+ described Dives, the rich man&mdash;his manner of life, the excesses in
+ which he indulged, his extravagance, his riotous nights, his purple and
+ fine linen, his feasts, his wines, and his beautiful women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he described Lazarus, his poverty, his rags and wretchedness, his
+ poor body eaten by disease, the crusts and crumbs he devoured, the dogs
+ that pitied him. He pictured his lonely life, his friendless death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, changing his tone of pity to one of triumph&mdash;leaping from tears
+ to the heights of exultation&mdash;from defeat to victory&mdash;he
+ described the glorious company of angels, who with white and outspread
+ wings carried the soul of the despised pauper to Paradise&mdash;to the
+ bosom of Abraham.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, changing his voice to one of scorn and loathing, he told of the rich
+ man's death. He was in his palace, on his costly couch, the air heavy with
+ perfume, the room filled with servants and physicians. His gold was
+ worthless then. He could not buy another breath. He died, and in hell he
+ lifted up his eyes, being in torment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, assuming a dramatic attitude, putting his right hand to his ear, he
+ whispered, "Hark! I hear the rich man's voice. What does he say? Hark!
+ 'Father Abraham! Father Abraham! I pray thee send Lazarus that he may dip
+ the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for I am
+ tormented in this flame.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh, my hearers, he has been making that request for more than eighteen
+ hundred years. And millions of ages hence that wail will cross the gulf
+ that lies between the saved and lost and still will be heard the cry:
+ 'Father Abraham! Father Abraham! I pray thee send Lazarus that he may dip
+ the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for I am
+ tormented in this flame.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the first time I understood the dogma of eternal pain&mdash;appreciated
+ "the glad tidings of great joy." For the first time my imagination grasped
+ the height and depth of the Christian horror. Then I said: "It is a lie,
+ and I hate your religion. If it is true, I hate your God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From that day I have had no fear, no doubt. For me, on that day, the
+ flames of hell were quenched. From that day I have passionately hated
+ every orthodox creed. That Sermon did some good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FROM my childhood I had heard read and read the Bible. Morning and evening
+ the sacred volume was opened and prayers were said. The Bible was my first
+ history, the Jews were the first people, and the events narrated by Moses
+ and the other inspired writers, and those predicted by prophets were the
+ all important things. In other books were found the thoughts and dreams of
+ men, but in the Bible were the sacred truths of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet in spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love for God.
+ He was so saving of mercy, so extravagant in murder, so anxious to kill,
+ so ready to assassinate, that I hated him with all my heart. At his
+ command, babes were butchered, women violated, and the white hair of
+ trembling age stained with blood. This God visited the people with
+ pestilence&mdash;filled the houses and covered the streets with the dying
+ and the dead&mdash;saw babes starving on the empty breasts of pallid
+ mothers, heard the sobs, saw the tears, the sunken cheeks, the sightless
+ eyes, the new made graves, and remained as pitiless as the pestilence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This God withheld the rain&mdash;caused the famine&mdash;saw the fierce
+ eyes of hunger&mdash;the wasted forms, the white lips, saw mothers eating
+ babes, and remained ferocious as famine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or
+ respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really
+ civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in the old days the good people justified Jehovah in his treatment of
+ the heathen. The wretches who were murdered were idolaters and therefore
+ unfit to live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Bible, God had never revealed himself to these people and
+ he knew that without a revelation they could not know that he was the true
+ God. Whose fault was it then that they were heathen?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christians said that God had the right to destroy them because he
+ created them. What did he create them for? He knew when he made them that
+ they would be food for the sword. He knew that he would have the pleasure
+ of seeing them murdered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah said that
+ all these horrible things happened under the "old dispensation" of
+ unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now under the "new
+ dispensation," all had been changed&mdash;the sword of justice had been
+ sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old Testament, they said, God is the
+ judge&mdash;but in the New, Christ is the merciful. As a matter of fact,
+ the New Testament is infinitely worse than the Old. In the Old there is no
+ threat of eternal pain. Jehovah had no eternal prison&mdash;no everlasting
+ fire. His hatred ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his
+ enemy was dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of
+ punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is
+ infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told his disciples not to
+ resist evil, to love their enemies, and when smitten on one cheek to turn
+ the other, and yet we are told that this same God, with the same loving
+ lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish words: "Depart ye cursed
+ into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are the words of "eternal love."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and
+ famine, in fire and flood,&mdash;all the pangs and pains of every disease
+ and every death&mdash;all this is as nothing compared with the agonies to
+ be endured by one lost soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice of
+ God&mdash;the mercy of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of
+ Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the
+ real persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and
+ furnished the fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made
+ the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the
+ blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and
+ the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart,
+ changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox
+ creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one
+ infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse.
+ Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian
+ dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and
+ revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its
+ creator, God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my
+ strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in eternal pain
+ is growing weaker every day&mdash;that thousands of ministers are ashamed
+ of it. It gives me joy to know that Christians are becoming merciful, so
+ merciful that the fires of hell are burning low&mdash;flickering, choked
+ with ashes, destined in a few years to die out forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For centuries Christendom was a madhouse. Popes, cardinals, bishops,
+ priests, monks and heretics were all insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few&mdash;four or five in a century were sound in heart and brain.
+ Only a few, in spite of the roar and din, in spite of the savage cries,
+ heard reason's voice. Only a few in the wild rage of ignorance, fear and
+ zeal preserved the perfect calm that wisdom gives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have advanced. In a few years the Christians will become&mdash;let us
+ hope&mdash;humane and sensible enough to deny the dogma that fills the
+ endless years with pain. They ought to know now that this dogma is utterly
+ inconsistent with the wisdom, the justice, the goodness of their God. They
+ ought to know that their belief in hell, gives to the Holy Ghost&mdash;the
+ Dove&mdash;the beak of a vulture, and fills the mouth of the Lamb of God
+ with the fangs of a viper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN my youth I read religious books&mdash;books about God, about the
+ atonement&mdash;about salvation by faith, and about the other worlds. I
+ became familiar with the commentators&mdash;with Adam Clark, who thought
+ that the serpent seduced our mother Eve, and was in fact the father of
+ Cain. He also believed that the animals, while in the ark, had their
+ natures' changed to that degree that they devoured straw together and
+ enjoyed each other's society&mdash;thus prefiguring the blessed
+ millennium. I read Scott, who was such a natural theologian that he really
+ thought the story of Phaeton&mdash;of the wild steeds dashing across the
+ sky&mdash;corroborated the story of Joshua having stopped the sun and
+ moon. So, I read Henry and MacKnight and found that God so loved the world
+ that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race. I
+ read Cruden, who made the great Concordance, and made the miracles as
+ small and probable as he could.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I remember that he explained the miracle of feeding the wandering Jews
+ with quails, by saying that even at this day immense numbers of quails
+ crossed the Red Sea, and that sometimes when tired, they settled on ships
+ that sank beneath their weight. The fact that the explanation was as hard
+ to believe as the miracle made no difference to the devout Cruden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To while away the time I read Calvin's Institutes, a book calculated to
+ produce, in any natural mind, considerable respect for the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read Paley's Evidences and found that the evidence of ingenuity in
+ producing the evil, in contriving the hurtful, was at least equal to the
+ evidence tending to show the use of intelligence in the creation of what
+ we call good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know the watch argument was Paley's greatest effort. A man finds a
+ watch and it is so wonderful that he concludes that it must have had a
+ maker. He finds the maker and he is so much more wonderful than the watch
+ that he says he must have had a maker. Then he finds God, the maker of the
+ man, and he is so much more wonderful than the man that he could <i>not</i>
+ have had a maker. This is what the lawyers call a departure in pleading.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Paley there can be no design without a designer&mdash;but
+ there can be a designer without a design. The wonder of the watch
+ suggested the watchmaker, and the wonder of the watchmaker, suggested the
+ creator, and the wonder of the creator demonstrated that he was not
+ created&mdash;but was uncaused and eternal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had Edwards on The Will, in which the reverend author shows that
+ necessity has no effect on accountability&mdash;and that when God creates
+ a human being, and at the same time determines and decrees exactly what
+ that being shall do and be, the human being is responsible, and God in his
+ justice and mercy has the right to torture the soul of that human being
+ forever. Yet Edwards said that he loved God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact is that if you believe in an infinite God, and also in eternal
+ punishment, then you must admit that Edwards and Calvin were absolutely
+ right. There is no escape from their conclusions if you admit their
+ premises. They were infinitely cruel, their premises infinitely absurd,
+ their God infinitely fiendish, and their logic perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet I have kindness and candor enough to say that Calvin and Edwards
+ were both insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had plenty of theological literature. There was Jenkyn on the
+ Atonement, who demonstrated the wisdom of God in devising a way in which
+ the sufferings of innocence could justify the guilty. He tried to show
+ that children could justly be punished for the sins of their ancestors,
+ and that men could, if they had faith, be justly credited with the virtues
+ of others. Nothing could be more devout, orthodox, and idiotic. But all of
+ our theology was not in prose. We had Milton with his celestial militia&mdash;with
+ his great and blundering God, his proud and cunning Devil&mdash;his wars
+ between immortals, and all the sublime absurdities that religion wrought
+ within the blind man's brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theology taught by Milton was dear to the Puritan heart. It was
+ accepted by New England, and it poisoned the souls and ruined the lives of
+ thousands. The genius of Shakespeare could not make the theology of Milton
+ poetic. In the literature of the world there is nothing, outside of the
+ "sacred books," more perfectly absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had Young's Night Thoughts, and I supposed that the author was an
+ exceedingly devout and loving follower of the Lord. Yet Young had a great
+ desire to be a bishop, and to accomplish that end he electioneered with
+ the king's mistress. In other words, he was a fine old hypocrite. In the
+ "Night Thoughts" there is scarcely a genuinely honest, natural line. It is
+ pretence from beginning to end. He did not write what he felt, but what he
+ thought he ought to feel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had Pollok's Course of Time, with its worm that never dies, its
+ quenchless flames, its endless pangs, its leering devils, and its gloating
+ God. This frightful poem should have been written in a madhouse. In it you
+ find all the cries and groans and shrieks of maniacs, when they tear and
+ rend each other's flesh. It is as heartless, as hideous, as hellish as the
+ thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know the beautiful hymn commencing with the cheerful line: "Hark
+ from the tombs, a doleful sound." Nothing could have been more appropriate
+ for children. It is well to put a coffin where it can be seen from the
+ cradle. When a mother nurses her child, an open grave should be at her
+ feet. This would tend to make the babe serious, reflective, religious and
+ miserable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God hates laughter and despises mirth. To feel free, untrammeled,
+ irresponsible, joyous,&mdash;to forget care and death&mdash;to be flooded
+ with sunshine without a fear of night&mdash;to forget the past, to have no
+ thought of the future, no dream of God, or heaven, or hell&mdash;to be
+ intoxicated with the present&mdash;to be conscious only of the clasp and
+ kiss of the one you love&mdash;this is the sin against the Holy Ghost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we had Cowper's poems. Cowper was sincere. He was the opposite of
+ Young. He had an observing eye, a gentle heart and a sense of the
+ artistic. He sympathized with all who suffered&mdash;with the imprisoned,
+ the enslaved, the outcasts. He loved the beautiful. No wonder that the
+ belief in eternal punishment made this loving soul insane. No wonder that
+ the "tidings of great joy" quenched Hope's great star and left his broken
+ heart in the darkness of despair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had many volumes of orthodox sermons, filled with wrath and the terrors
+ of the judgment to come&mdash;sermons that had been delivered by savage
+ saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had the Book of Martyrs, showing that Christians had for many centuries
+ imitated the God they worshiped.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ W|e had the history of the Waldenses&mdash;of the Reformation of the
+ Church. We had Pilgrim's Progress, Baxter's Call and Butler's Analogy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To use a Western phrase or saying, I found that Bishop Butler dug up more
+ snakes than he killed&mdash;suggested more difficulties than he explained&mdash;more
+ doubts than he dispelled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AMONG such books my youth was passed. All the seeds of Christianity&mdash;of
+ superstition, were sown in my mind and cultivated with great diligence and
+ care.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that time I knew nothing of any science&mdash;nothing about the other
+ side&mdash;nothing of the objections that had been urged against the
+ blessed Scriptures, or against the perfect Congregational creed. Of course
+ I had heard the ministers speak of blasphemers, of infidel wretches, of
+ scoffers who laughed at holy things. They did not answer their arguments,
+ but they tore their characters into shreds and demonstrated by the fury of
+ assertion that they had done the Devil's work. And yet in spite of all I
+ heard&mdash;of all I read, I could not quite believe. My brain and heart
+ said No.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a time I left the dreams, the insanities, the illusions and delusions,
+ the nightmares of theology. I studied astronomy, just a little&mdash;I
+ examined maps of the heavens&mdash;learned the names of some of the
+ constellations&mdash;of some of the stars&mdash;found something of their
+ size and the velocity with which they wheeled in their orbits&mdash;obtained
+ a faint conception of astronomical spaces&mdash;found that some of the
+ known stars were so far away in the depths of space that their light,
+ traveling at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles a second,
+ required many years to reach this little world&mdash;found that, compared
+ with the great stars, our earth was but a grain of sand&mdash;an atom&mdash;found
+ that the old belief that all the hosts of heaven had been created for the
+ benefit of man, was infinitely absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I compared what was really known about the stars with the account of
+ creation as told in Genesis. I found that the writer of the inspired book
+ had no knowledge of astronomy&mdash;that he was as ignorant as a Choctaw
+ chief&mdash;as an Eskimo driver of dogs. Does any one imagine that the
+ author of Genesis knew anything about the sun&mdash;its size? that he was
+ acquainted with Sirius, the North Star, with Capella, or that he knew
+ anything of the clusters of stars so far away that their light, now
+ visiting our eyes, has been traveling for two million years?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he had known these facts would he have said that Jehovah worked nearly
+ six days to make this world, and only a part of the afternoon of the
+ fourth day to make the sun and moon and all the stars?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet millions of people insist that the writer of Genesis was inspired by
+ the Creator of all worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains have not been
+ paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of creation was written by
+ an ignorant savage. The story is inconsistent with all known facts, and
+ every star shining in the heavens testifies that its author was an
+ uninspired barbarian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that this unknown writer was sincere, that he wrote what he
+ believed to be true&mdash;that he did the best he could. He did not claim
+ to be inspired&mdash;did not pretend that the story had been told to him
+ by Jehovah. He simply stated the "facts" as he understood them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After I had learned a little about the stars I concluded that this writer,
+ this "inspired" scribe, had been misled by myth and legend, and that he
+ knew no more about creation than the average theologian of my day. In
+ other words, that he knew absolutely nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here, allow me to say that the ministers who are answering me are
+ turning their guns in the wrong direction. These reverend gentlemen should
+ attack the astronomers. They should malign and vilify Kepler, Copernicus,
+ Newton, Herschel and Laplace. These men were the real destroyers of the
+ sacred story. Then, after having disposed of them, they can wage a war
+ against the stars, and against Jehovah himself for having furnished
+ evidence against the truthfulness of his book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I studied geology&mdash;not much, just a little&mdash;just enough to
+ find in a general way the principal facts that had been discovered, and
+ some of the conclusions that had been reached. I learned something of the
+ action of fire&mdash;of water&mdash;of the formation of islands and
+ continents&mdash;of the sedimentary and igneous rocks&mdash;of the coal
+ measures&mdash;of the chalk cliffs, something about coral reefs&mdash;about
+ the deposits made by rivers, the effect of volcanoes, of glaciers, and of
+ the all surrounding sea&mdash;just enough to know that the Laurentian
+ rocks were millions of ages older than the grass beneath my feet&mdash;just
+ enough to feel certain that this world had been pursuing its flight about
+ the sun, wheeling in light and shade, for hundreds of millions of years&mdash;just
+ enough to know that the "inspired" writer knew nothing of the history of
+ the earth&mdash;nothing of the great forces of nature&mdash;of wind and
+ wave and fire&mdash;forces that have destroyed and built, wrecked and
+ wrought through all the countless years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me tell the ministers again that they should not waste their time
+ in answering me. They should attack the geologists. They should deny the
+ facts that have been discovered. They should launch their curses at the
+ blaspheming seas, and dash their heads against the infidel rocks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I studied biology&mdash;not much&mdash;just enough to know something
+ of animal forms, enough to know that life existed when the Laurentian
+ rocks were made&mdash;just enough to know that implements of stone,
+ implements that had been formed by human hands, had been found mingled
+ with the bones of extinct animals, bones that had been split with these
+ implements, and that these animals had ceased to exist hundreds of
+ thousands of years before the manufacture of Adam and Eve.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I felt sure that the "inspired" record was false&mdash;that many
+ millions of people had been deceived and that all I had been taught about
+ the origin of worlds and men was utterly untrue. I felt that I knew that
+ the Old Testament was the work of ignorant men&mdash;that it was a
+ mingling of truth and mistake, of wisdom and foolishness, of cruelty and
+ kindness, of philosophy and absurdity&mdash;that it contained some
+ elevated thoughts, some poetry,&mdash;-a good deal of the solemn and
+ commonplace,&mdash;some hysterical, some tender, some wicked prayers, some
+ insane predictions, some delusions, and some chaotic dreams.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course the theologians fought the facts found by the geologists, the
+ scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred Scriptures. They mistook the
+ bones of the mastodon for those of human beings, and by them proudly
+ proved that "there were giants in those days." They accounted for the
+ fossils by saying that God had made them to try our faith, or that the
+ Devil had imitated the works of the Creator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They answered the geologists by saying that the "days" in Genesis were
+ long periods of time, and that after all the flood might have been local.
+ They told the astronomers that the sun and moon were not actually, but
+ only apparently, stopped. And that the appearance was produced by the
+ reflection and refraction of light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder upheld in
+ the Old Testament by saying that the people were so degraded that Jehovah
+ was compelled to pander to their ignorance and prejudice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to
+ preserve the creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At first they flatly denied the facts&mdash;then they belittled them&mdash;then
+ they harmonized them&mdash;then they denied that they had denied them.
+ Then they changed the meaning of the "inspired" book to fit the facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At first they said that if the facts, as claimed, were true, the Bible was
+ false and Christianity itself a superstition. Afterward they said the
+ facts, as claimed, were true and that they established beyond all doubt
+ the inspiration of the Bible and the divine origin of orthodox religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Anything they could not dodge, they swallowed, and anything they could not
+ swallow, they dodged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities,
+ its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched for
+ the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles, its
+ contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believed in the existence
+ of devils&mdash;talked and made bargains with them, expelled them from
+ people and animals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do
+ not exist&mdash;that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended
+ to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane. These stories about
+ devils demonstrate the human, the ignorant origin of the New Testament. I
+ gave up the New Testament because it rewards credulity, and curses brave
+ and honest men, and because it teaches the infinite horror of eternal
+ pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HAVING spent my youth in reading books about religion&mdash;about the "new
+ birth"&mdash;the disobedience of our first parents, the atonement,
+ salvation by faith, the wickedness of pleasure, the degrading consequences
+ of love, and the impossibility of getting to heaven by being honest and
+ generous, and having become somewhat weary of the frayed and raveled
+ thoughts, you can imagine my surprise, my delight when I read the poems of
+ Robert Burns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was familiar with the writings of the devout and insincere, the pious
+ and petrified, the pure and heartless. Here was a natural honest man. I
+ knew the works of those who regarded all nature as depraved, and looked
+ upon love as the legacy and perpetual witness of original sin. Here was a
+ man who plucked joy from the mire, made goddesses of peasant girls, and
+ enthroned the honest man. One whose sympathy, with loving arms, embraced
+ all forms of suffering life, who hated slavery of every kind, who was as
+ natural as heaven's blue, with humor kindly as an autumn day, with wit as
+ sharp as Ithuriel's spear, and scorn that blasted like the simoon's
+ breath. A man who loved this world, this life, the things of every day,
+ and placed above all else the thrilling ecstasies of human love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read and read again with rapture, tears and smiles, feeling that a great
+ heart was throbbing in the lines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religious, the lugubrious, the artificial, the spiritual poets were
+ forgotten or remained only as the fragments, the half remembered horrors
+ of monstrous and distorted dreams.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had found at last a natural man, one who despised his country's cruel
+ creed, and was brave and sensible enough to say: "All religions are auld
+ wives' fables, but an honest man has nothing to fear, either in this world
+ or the world to come."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One who had the genius to write Holy Willie's Prayer&mdash;a poem that
+ crucified Calvinism and through its bloodless heart thrust the spear of
+ common sense&mdash;a poem that made every orthodox creed the food of scorn&mdash;of
+ inextinguishable laughter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Burns had his faults, his frailties. He was intensely human. Still, I
+ would rather appear at the "Judgment Seat" drunk, and be able to say that
+ I was the author of "A man's a man for 'a that," than to be perfectly
+ sober and admit that I had lived and died a Scotch Presbyterian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read Byron&mdash;read his Cain, in which, as in Paradise Lost, the Devil
+ seems to be the better god&mdash;read his beautiful, sublime and bitter
+ lines&mdash;read his Prisoner of Chillon&mdash;his best&mdash;a poem that
+ filled my heart with tenderness, with pity, and with an eternal hatred of
+ tyranny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read Shelley's Queen Mab&mdash;a poem filled with beauty, courage,
+ thought, sympathy, tears and scorn, in which a brave soul tears down the
+ prison walls and floods the cells with light. I read his Skylark&mdash;a
+ winged flame&mdash;passionate as blood&mdash;tender as tears&mdash;pure as
+ light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read Keats, "whose name was writ in water"&mdash;read St. Agnes Eve, a
+ story told with such an artless art that this poor common world is changed
+ to fairy land&mdash;the Grecian Urn, that fills the soul with ever eager
+ love, with all the rapture of imagined song&mdash;the Nightingale&mdash;a
+ melody in which there is the memory of morn&mdash;a melody that dies away
+ in dusk and tears, paining the senses with its perfectness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then I read Shakespeare, the plays, the sonnets, the poems&mdash;read
+ all. I beheld a new heaven and a new earth; Shakespeare, who knew the
+ brain and heart of man&mdash;the hopes and fears, the loves and hatreds,
+ the vices and the virtues of the human race; whose imagination read the
+ tear-blurred records, the blood-stained pages of all the past, and saw
+ falling athwart the outspread scroll the light of hope and love;
+ Shakespeare, who sounded every depth&mdash;while on the loftiest peak
+ there fell the shadow of his wings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I compared the Plays with the "inspired" books&mdash;Romeo and Juliet with
+ the Song of Solomon, Lear with Job, and the Sonnets with the Psalms, and I
+ found that Jehovah did not understand the art of speech. I compared
+ Shakespeare's women&mdash;his perfect women&mdash;with the women of the
+ Bible. I found that Jehovah was not a sculptor, not a painter&mdash;not an
+ artist&mdash;that he lacked the power that changes clay to flesh&mdash;the
+ art, the plastic touch, that moulds the perfect form&mdash;the breath that
+ gives it free and joyous life&mdash;the genius that creates the faultless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones
+ compared with Shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ UP to this time I had read nothing against our blessed religion except
+ what I had found in Burns, Byron and Shelley. By some accident I read
+ Volney, who shows that all religions are, and have been, established in
+ the same way&mdash;that all had their Christs, their apostles, miracles
+ and sacred books, and then asked how it is possible to decide which is the
+ true one. A question that is still waiting for an answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read Gibbon, the greatest of historians, who marshaled his facts as
+ skillfully as C&aelig;sar did his legions, and I learned that Christianity
+ is only a name for Paganism&mdash;for the old religion, shorn of its
+ beauty&mdash;that some absurdities had been exchanged for others&mdash;that
+ some gods had been killed&mdash;a vast multitude of devils created, and
+ that hell had been enlarged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then I read the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Let me tell you
+ something about this sublime and slandered man. He came to this country
+ just before the Revolution. He brought a letter of introduction from
+ Benjamin Franklin, at that time the greatest American.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Philadelphia, Paine was employed to write for the <i>Pennsylvania
+ Magazine</i>. We know that he wrote at least five articles. The first was
+ against slavery, the second against duelling, the third on the treatment
+ of prisoners&mdash;showing that the object should be to reform, not to
+ punish and degrade&mdash;the fourth on the rights of woman, and the fifth
+ in favor of forming societies for the prevention of cruelty to children
+ and animals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this you see that he suggested the great reforms of our century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that he labored all his life for the good of his fellow-men,
+ and did as much to found the Great Republic as any man who ever stood
+ beneath our flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He gave his thoughts about religion&mdash;about the blessed Scriptures,
+ about the superstitions of his time. He was perfectly sincere and what he
+ said was kind and fair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Age of Reason filled with hatred the hearts of those who loved their
+ enemies, and the occupant of every orthodox pulpit became, and still is, a
+ passionate maligner of Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one has answered&mdash;no one will answer, his argument against the
+ dogma of inspiration&mdash;his objections to the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not rise above all the superstitions of his day. While he hated
+ Jehovah, he praised the God of Nature, the creator and preserver of all.
+ In this he was wrong, because, as Watson said in his Reply to Paine, the
+ God of Nature is as heartless, as cruel as the God of the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Paine was one of the pioneers&mdash;one of the Titans, one of the
+ heroes, who gladly gave his life, his every thought and act, to free and
+ civilize mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read Voltaire&mdash;Voltaire, the greatest man of his century, and who
+ did more for liberty of thought and speech than any other being, human or
+ "divine." Voltaire, who tore the mask from hypocrisy and found behind the
+ painted smile the fangs of hate. Voltaire, who attacked the savagery of
+ the law, the cruel decisions of venal courts, and rescued victims from the
+ wheel and rack. Voltaire, who waged war against the tyranny of thrones,
+ the greed and heartlessness of power. Voltaire, who filled the flesh of
+ priests with the barbed and poisoned arrows of his wit and made the pious
+ jugglers, who cursed him in public, laugh at themselves in private.
+ Voltaire, who sided with the oppressed, rescued the unfortunate,
+ championed the obscure and weak, civilized judges, repealed laws and
+ abolished torture in his native land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every direction this tireless man fought the absurd, the miraculous,
+ the supernatural, the idiotic, the unjust. He had no reverence for the
+ ancient. He was not awed by pageantry and pomp, by crowned Crime or
+ mitered Pretence. Beneath the crown he saw the criminal, under the miter,
+ the hypocrite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the bar of his conscience, his reason, he summoned the barbarism and
+ the barbarians of his time. He pronounced judgment against them all, and
+ that judgment has been affirmed by the intelligent world. Voltaire lighted
+ a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and
+ will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read Zeno, the man who said, centuries before our Christ was born, that
+ man could not own his fellow-man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No matter whether you claim a slave by purchase or capture, the title is
+ bad. They who claim to own their fellow-men, look down into the pit and
+ forget the justice that should rule the world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I became acquainted with Epicurus, who taught the religion of usefulness,
+ of temperance, of courage and wisdom, and who said: "Why should I fear
+ death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear
+ that which cannot exist when I do?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read about Socrates, who when on trial for his life, said, among other
+ things, to his judges, these wondrous words: "I have not sought during my
+ life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my
+ soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of
+ liberty."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I read about Diogenes, the philosopher who hated the superfluous&mdash;the
+ enemy of waste and greed, and who one day entered the temple, reverently
+ approached the altar, crushed a louse between the nails of his thumbs, and
+ solemnly said: "The sacrifice of Diogenes to all the gods." This parodied
+ the worship of the world&mdash;satirized all creeds, and in one act put
+ the essence of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Diogenes must have know of this "inspired" passage&mdash;"Without the
+ shedding of blood there is no remission of sins."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I compared Zeno, Epicurus and Socrates, three heathen wretches who had
+ never heard of the Old Testament or the Ten Commandments, with Abraham,
+ Isaac and Jacob, three favorites of Jehovah, and I was depraved enough to
+ think that the Pagans were superior to the Patriarchs&mdash;and to Jehovah
+ himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MY attention was turned to other religions, to the sacred books, the
+ creeds and ceremonies of other lands&mdash;of India, Egypt, Assyria,
+ Persia, of the dead and dying nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I concluded that all religions had the same foundation&mdash;a belief in
+ the supernatural&mdash;a power above nature that man could influence by
+ worship&mdash;by sacrifice and prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I found that all religions rested on a mistaken conception of nature&mdash;that
+ the religion of a people was the science of that people, that is to say,
+ their explanation of the world&mdash;of life and death&mdash;of origin and
+ destiny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I concluded that all religions had substantially the same origin, and that
+ in fact there has never been but one religion in the world. The twigs and
+ leaves may differ, but the trunk is the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor African that pours out his heart to his deity of stone is on an
+ exact religious level with the robed priest who supplicates his God. The
+ same mistake, the same superstition, bends the knees and shuts the eyes of
+ both. Both ask for supernatural aid, and neither has the slightest thought
+ of the absolute uniformity of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems probable to me that the first organized ceremonial religion was
+ the worship of the sun. The sun was the "Sky Father," the "All Seeing,"
+ the source of life&mdash;the fireside of the world. The sun was regarded
+ as a god who fought the darkness, the power of evil, the enemy of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There have been many sun-gods, and they seem to have been the chief
+ deities in the ancient religions. They have been worshiped in many lands&mdash;by
+ many nations that have passed to death and dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Apollo was a sun-god and he fought and conquered the serpent of night.
+ Baldur was a sun-god. He was in love with the Dawn&mdash;a maiden.
+ Chrishna was a sun-god. At his birth the Ganges was thrilled from its
+ source to the sea, and all the trees, the dead as well as the living,
+ burst into leaf and bud and flower. Hercules was a sun-god and so was
+ Samson, whose strength was in his hair&mdash;that is to say, in his beams.
+ He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the shadow&mdash;the darkness.
+ Osiris, Bacchus, and Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, and Quetzalcoatl, Prometheus,
+ Zoroaster, and Perseus, Cadom, Lao-tsze, Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses, were
+ all sun-gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of these gods had gods for fathers and their mothers were virgins. The
+ births of nearly all were announced by stars, celebrated by celestial
+ music, and voices declared that a blessing had come to the poor world. All
+ of these gods were born in humble places&mdash;in caves, under trees, in
+ common inns, and tyrants sought to kill them all when they were babes. All
+ of these sun-gods were born at the winter solstice&mdash;on Christmas.
+ Nearly all were worshiped by "wise men." All of them fasted for forty days&mdash;all
+ of them taught in parables&mdash;all of them wrought miracles&mdash;all
+ met with a violent death, and all rose from the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of these gods is the exact history of our Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is not a coincidence&mdash;an accident. Christ was a sun-god. Christ
+ was a new name for an old biography&mdash;a survival&mdash;the last of the
+ sun-gods. Christ was not a man, but a myth&mdash;not a life, but a legend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I found that we had not only borrowed our Christ&mdash;but that all our
+ sacraments, symbols and ceremonies were legacies that we received from the
+ buried past. There is nothing original in Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cross was a symbol thousands of years before our era. It was a symbol
+ of life, of immortality&mdash;of the god Agni, and it was chiseled upon
+ tombs many ages before a line of our Bible was written.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Baptism is far older than Christianity&mdash;than Judaism. The Hindus,
+ Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had Holy Water long before a Catholic lived.
+ The eucharist was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the goddess of the
+ fields&mdash;Bacchus of the vine. At the harvest festival they made cakes
+ of wheat and said: "This is the flesh of the goddess." They drank wine and
+ cried: "This is the blood of our god."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Egyptians had a Trinity. They worshiped Osiris, Isis and Horus,
+ thousands of years before the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Tree of Life grew in India, in China, and among the Aztecs, long
+ before the Garden of Eden was planted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long before our Bible was known, other nations had their sacred books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dogmas of the Fall of Man, the Atonement and Salvation by Faith, are
+ far older than our religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our blessed gospel,&mdash;in our "divine scheme,"&mdash;there is
+ nothing new&mdash;nothing original. All old&mdash;all borrowed, pieced and
+ patched.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I concluded that all religions had been naturally produced, and that
+ all were variations, modifications of one,&mdash;then I felt that I knew
+ that all were the work of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE theologians had always insisted that their God was the creator of all
+ living things&mdash;that the forms, parts, functions, colors and varieties
+ of animals were the expressions of his fancy, taste and wisdom&mdash;that
+ he made them all precisely as they are to-day&mdash;that he invented fins
+ and legs and wings&mdash;that he furnished them with the weapons of
+ attack, the shields of defence&mdash;that he formed them with reference to
+ food and climate, taking into consideration all facts affecting life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They insisted that man was a special creation, not related in any way to
+ the animals below him. They also asserted that all the forms of
+ vegetation, from mosses to forests, were just the same to-day as the
+ moment they were made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men of genius, who were for the most part free from religious prejudice,
+ were examining these things&mdash;were looking for facts. They were
+ examining the fossils of animals and plants&mdash;studying the forms of
+ animals&mdash;their bones and muscles&mdash;the effect of climate and food&mdash;the
+ strange modifications through which they had passed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt had published his lectures&mdash;filled with great thoughts&mdash;with
+ splendid generalizations&mdash;with suggestions that stimulated the spirit
+ of investigation, and with conclusions that satisfied the mind. He
+ demonstrated the uniformity of Nature&mdash;the kinship of all that lives
+ and grows&mdash;that breathes and thinks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Darwin, with his Origin of Species, his theories about Natural Selection,
+ the Survival of the Fittest, and the influence of environment, shed a
+ flood of light upon the great problems of plant and animal life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These things had been guessed, prophesied, asserted, hinted by many
+ others, but Darwin, with infinite patience, with perfect care and candor,
+ found the facts, fulfilled the prophecies, and demonstrated the truth of
+ the guesses, hints and assertions. He was, in my judgment, the keenest
+ observer, the best judge of the meaning and value of a fact, the greatest
+ Naturalist the world has produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theological view began to look small and mean.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spencer gave his theory of evolution and sustained it by countless facts.
+ He stood at a great height, and with the eyes of a philosopher, a profound
+ thinker, surveyed the world. He has influenced the thought of the wisest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology looked more absurd than ever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Huxley entered the lists for Darwin. No man ever had a sharper sword&mdash;a
+ better shield. He challenged the world. The great theologians and the
+ small scientists&mdash;those who had more courage than sense, accepted the
+ challenge. Their poor bodies were carried away by their friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Huxley had intelligence, industry, genius, and the courage to express his
+ thought. He was absolutely loyal to what he thought was truth. Without
+ prejudice and without fear, he followed the footsteps of life from the
+ lowest to the highest forms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology looked smaller still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Haeckel began at the simplest cell, went from change to change&mdash;from
+ form to form&mdash;followed the line of development, the path of life,
+ until he reached the human race. It was all natural. There had been no
+ interference from without.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read the works of these great men&mdash;of many others&mdash;and became
+ convinced that they were right, and that all the theologians&mdash;all the
+ believers in "special creation" were absolutely wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Garden of Eden faded away, Adam and Eve fell back to dust, the snake
+ crawled into the grass, and Jehovah became a miserable myth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I TOOK another step. What is matter&mdash;substance? Can it be destroyed&mdash;annihilated?
+ Is it possible to conceive of the destruction of the smallest atom of
+ substance? It can be ground to powder&mdash;changed from a solid to a
+ liquid&mdash;from a liquid to a gas&mdash;but it all remains. Nothing is
+ lost&mdash;nothing destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let an infinite God, if there be one, attack a grain of sand&mdash;attack
+ it with infinite power. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot surrender. It
+ defies all force. Substance cannot be destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I took another step.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have
+ been created.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The indestructible must be uncreateable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then I asked myself: What is force?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot conceive of the creation of force, or of its destruction. Force
+ may be changed from one form to another&mdash;from motion to heat&mdash;but
+ it cannot be destroyed&mdash;annihilated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If force cannot be destroyed it could not have been created. It is
+ eternal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing&mdash;matter cannot exist apart from force. Force cannot
+ exist apart from matter. Matter could not have existed before force. Force
+ could not have existed before matter. Matter and force can only be
+ conceived of together. This has been shown by several scientists, but most
+ clearly, most forcibly by B&uuml;chner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thought is a form of force, consequently it could not have caused or
+ created matter. Intelligence is a form of force and could not have existed
+ without or apart from matter. Without substance there could have been no
+ mind, no will, no force in any form, and there could have been no
+ substance without force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matter and force were not created. They have existed from eternity. They
+ cannot be destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was, there is, no creator. Then came the question: Is there a God?
+ Is there a being of infinite intelligence, power and goodness, who governs
+ the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There can be goodness without much intelligence&mdash;but it seems to me
+ that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In nature I see, or seem to see, good and evil&mdash;intelligence and
+ ignorance&mdash;goodness and cruelty&mdash;care and carelessness&mdash;economy
+ and waste. I see means that do not accomplish the ends&mdash;designs that
+ seem to fail.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me it seems infinitely cruel for life to feed on life&mdash;to create
+ animals that devour others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me with
+ horror. What can be more frightful than a world at-war? Every leaf a
+ battle-field&mdash;every flower a Golgotha&mdash;in every drop of water
+ pursuit, capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait
+ for life. On every blade of grass, something that kills,&mdash;something
+ that suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak&mdash;the superior
+ on the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the
+ strong&mdash;the inferior on the superior&mdash;the highest food for the
+ lowest&mdash;man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal.
+ Everywhere pain, disease and death&mdash;death that does not wait for bent
+ forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that
+ takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child&mdash;death that fills
+ the world with grief and tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can the orthodox Christian explain these things?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that life is good. I remember the sunshine and rain. Then I think
+ of the earthquake and flood. I do not forget health and harvest, home and
+ love&mdash;but what of pestilence and famine? I cannot harmonize all these
+ contradictions&mdash;these blessings and agonies&mdash;with the existence
+ of an infinitely good, wise and powerful God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian says that what we call evil is for our benefit&mdash;that
+ we are placed in this world of sin and sorrow to develop character. If
+ this is true I ask why the infant dies? Millions and millions draw a few
+ breaths and fade away in the arms of their mothers. They are not allowed
+ to develop character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian says that serpents were given fangs to protect themselves
+ from their enemies. Why did the God who made them, make enemies? Why is it
+ that many species of serpents have no fangs?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian says that God armored the hippopotamus, covered his body,
+ except the under part, with scales and plates, that other animals could
+ not pierce with tooth or tusk. But the same God made the rhinoceros and
+ supplied him with a horn on his nose, with which he disembowels the
+ hippopotamus.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same God made the eagle, the vulture, the hawk, and their helpless
+ prey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God created man&mdash;if he is the father of us all, why did he make
+ the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Should the inferior man thank God? Should the mother, who clasps to her
+ breast an idiot child, thank God? Should the slave thank God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian says that God governs the wind, the rain, the lightning.
+ How then can we account for the cyclone, the flood, the drought, the
+ glittering bolt that kills?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose we had a man in this country who could control the wind, the rain
+ and lightning, and suppose we elected him to govern these things, and
+ suppose that he allowed whole States to dry and wither, and at the same
+ time wasted the rain in the sea. Suppose that he allowed the winds to
+ destroy cities and to crush to shapelessness thousands of men and women,
+ and allowed the lightnings to strike the life out of mothers and babes.
+ What would we say? What would we think of such a savage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, according to the theologians, this is exactly the course pursued
+ by God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What do we think of a man, who will not, when he has the power, protect
+ his friends? Yet the Christian's God allowed his enemies to torture and
+ burn his friends, his worshipers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who has ingenuity enough to explain this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What good man, having the power to prevent it, would allow the innocent to
+ be imprisoned, chained in dungeons, and sigh against the dripping walls
+ their weary lives away?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God governs the world, why is innocence not a perfect shield? Why does
+ injustice triumph?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who can answer these questions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In answer, the intelligent, honest man must say: I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THIS God must be, if he exists, a person&mdash;a conscious being. Who can
+ imagine an infinite personality? This God must have force, and we cannot
+ conceive of force apart from matter. This God must be material. He must
+ have the means by which he changes force to what we call thought. When he
+ thinks he uses force, force that must be replaced. Yet we are told that he
+ is infinitely wise. If he is, he does not think. Thought is a ladder&mdash;a
+ process by which we reach a conclusion. He who knows all conclusions
+ cannot think. He cannot hope or fear. When knowledge is perfect there can
+ be no passion, no emotion. If God is infinite he does not want. He has
+ all. He who does not want does not act. The infinite must dwell in eternal
+ calm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is as impossible to conceive of such a being as to imagine a square
+ triangle, or to think of a circle without a diameter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet we are told that it is our duty to love this God. Can we love the
+ unknown, the inconceivable? Can it be our duty to love anybody? It is our
+ duty to act justly, honestly, but it cannot be our duty to love. We cannot
+ be under obligation to admire a painting&mdash;to be charmed with a poem&mdash;or
+ thrilled with music. Admiration cannot be controlled. Taste and love are
+ not the servants of the will. Love is, and must be free. It rises from the
+ heart like perfume from a flower.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of ages men and women have been trying to love the gods&mdash;trying
+ to soften their hearts&mdash;trying to get their aid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see them all. The panorama passes before me. I see them with
+ outstretched hands&mdash;with reverently closed eyes&mdash;worshiping the
+ sun. I see them bowing, in their fear and need, to meteoric stones&mdash;imploring
+ serpents, beasts and sacred trees&mdash;praying to idols wrought of wood
+ and stone. I see them building altars to the unseen powers, staining them
+ with blood of child and beast. I see the countless priests and hear their
+ solemn chants. I see the dying victims, the smoking altars, the swinging
+ censers, and the rising clouds. I see the half-god men&mdash;the mournful
+ Christs, in many lands. I see the common things of life change to miracles
+ as they speed from mouth to mouth. I see the insane prophets reading the
+ secret book of fate by signs and dreams. I see them all&mdash;the
+ Assyrians chanting the praises of Asshur and Ishtar&mdash;the Hindus
+ worshiping Brahma, Vishnu and Draupadi, the whitearmed&mdash;the Chaldeans
+ sacrificing to Bel and Hea&mdash;the Egyptians bowing to Ptah and Ra,
+ Osiris and Isis&mdash;the Medes placating the storm, worshiping the fire&mdash;the
+ Babylonians supplicating Bel and Morodach&mdash;I see them all by the
+ Euphrates, the Tigris, the Ganges and the Nile. I see the Greeks building
+ temples for Zeus, Neptune and Venus. I see the Romans kneeling to a
+ hundred gods. I see others spurning idols and pouring out their hopes and
+ fears to a vague image in the mind. I see the multitudes, with open
+ mouths, receive as truths the myths and fables of the vanished years. I
+ see them give their toil, their wealth to robe the priests, to build the
+ vaulted roofs, the spacious aisles, the glittering domes. I see them clad
+ in rags, huddled in dens and huts, devouring crusts and scraps, that they
+ may give the more to ghosts and gods. I see them make their cruel creeds
+ and fill the world with hatred, war, and death. I see them with their
+ faces in the dust in the dark days of plague and sudden death, when cheeks
+ are wan and lips are white for lack of bread. I hear their prayers, their
+ sighs, their sobs. I see them kiss the unconscious lips as their hot tears
+ fall on the pallid faces of the dead. I see the nations as they fade and
+ fail. I see them captured and enslaved. I see their altars mingle with the
+ common earth, their temples crumble slowly back to dust. I see their gods
+ grow old and weak, infirm and faint. I see them fall from vague and misty
+ thrones, helpless and dead. The worshipers receive no help. Injustice
+ triumphs. Toilers are paid with the lash,&mdash;babes are sold,&mdash;the
+ innocent stand on scaffolds, and the heroic perish in flames. I see the
+ earthquakes devour, the volcanoes overwhelm, the cyclones wreck, the
+ floods destroy, and the lightnings kill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nations perished. The gods died. The toil and wealth were lost. The
+ temples were built in vain, and all the prayers died unanswered in the
+ heedless air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I asked myself the question: Is there a supernatural power&mdash;an
+ arbitrary mind&mdash;an enthroned God&mdash;a supreme will that sways the
+ tides and currents of the world&mdash;to which all causes bow?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not deny. I do not know&mdash;but I do not believe. I believe that
+ the natural is supreme&mdash;that from the infinite chain no link can be
+ lost or broken&mdash;that there is no supernatural power that can answer
+ prayer&mdash;no power that worship can persuade or change&mdash;no power
+ that cares for man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that with infinite arms Nature embraces the all&mdash;that there
+ is no interference&mdash;no chance&mdash;that behind every event are the
+ necessary and countless causes, and that beyond every event will be and
+ must be the necessary and countless effects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man must protect himself. He cannot depend upon the supernatural&mdash;upon
+ an imaginary father in the skies. He must protect himself by finding the
+ facts in Nature, by developing his brain, to the end that he may overcome
+ the obstructions and take advantage of the forces of Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there a God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is man immortal?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor
+ denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We wait and hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHEN I became convinced that the Universe is natural&mdash;that all the
+ ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into
+ every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The
+ walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light
+ and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a
+ servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide
+ world&mdash;not even in infinite space. I was free&mdash;free to think, to
+ express my thoughts&mdash;free to live to my own ideal&mdash;free to live
+ for myself and those I loved&mdash;free to use all my faculties, all my
+ senses&mdash;free to spread imagination's wings&mdash;free to investigate,
+ to guess and dream and hope&mdash;free to judge and determine for myself&mdash;free
+ to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that
+ savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past&mdash;free
+ from popes and priests&mdash;free from all the "called" and "set apart"&mdash;free
+ from sanctified mistakes and holy lies&mdash;free from the fear of eternal
+ pain&mdash;free from the winged monsters of the night&mdash;free from
+ devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no
+ prohibited places in all the realms of thought&mdash;no air, no space,
+ where fancy could not spread her painted wings&mdash;no chains for my
+ limbs&mdash;no lashes for my back&mdash;no fires for my flesh&mdash;no
+ master's frown or threat&mdash;no following another's steps&mdash;no need
+ to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood
+ erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went
+ out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the
+ liberty of hand and brain&mdash;for the freedom of labor and thought&mdash;to
+ those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons
+ bound with chains&mdash;to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs&mdash;to
+ those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn&mdash;to
+ those by fire consumed&mdash;to all the wise, the good, the brave of every
+ land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And
+ then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that
+ light might conquer darkness still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be true to ourselves&mdash;true to the facts we know, and let us,
+ above all things, preserve the veracity of our souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow-men. We
+ cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is
+ beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can
+ tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have
+ won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of
+ ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that
+ tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can
+ fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song,
+ and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine&mdash;with
+ the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the
+ golden cup of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE TRUTH.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THROUGH millions of ages, by countless efforts to satisfy his wants, to
+ gratify his passions, his appetites, man slowly developed his brain,
+ changed two of his feet into hands and forced into the darkness of his
+ brain a few gleams and glimmerings of reason. He was hindered by
+ ignorance, by fear, by mistakes, and he advanced only as he found the
+ truth&mdash;the absolute facts. Through countless years he has groped and
+ crawled and struggled and climbed and stumbled toward the light. He has
+ been hindered and delayed and deceived by augurs and prophets&mdash;by
+ popes and priests. He has been betrayed by saints, misled by apostles and
+ Christs, frightened by devils and ghosts&mdash;enslaved by chiefs and
+ kings&mdash;robbed by altars and thrones. In the name of education his
+ mind has been filled with mistakes, with miracles, and lies, with the
+ impossible, the absurd and infamous. In the name of religion he has been
+ taught humility and arrogance, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the world is changing. We are tired of barbarian bibles and savage
+ creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is greater, nothing is of more importance, than to find amid the
+ errors and darkness of this life, a shining truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Truth is the intellectual wealth of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The noblest of occupations is to search for truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Truth is the foundation, the superstructure, and the glittering dome of
+ progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles, and purifies. The
+ grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Truth gives man the greatest power for good. Truth is sword and shield. It
+ is the sacred light of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who finds a truth lights a torch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is Truth to be Found?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By investigation, experiment and reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every human being should be allowed to investigate to the extent of his
+ desire&mdash;his ability. The literature of the world should be open to
+ him&mdash;nothing prohibited, sealed or hidden. No subject can be too
+ sacred to be understood. Each person should be allowed to reach his own
+ conclusions and to speak his honest thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He who threatens the investigator with punishment here, or hereafter, is
+ an enemy of the human race. And he who tries to bribe the investigator
+ with the promise of eternal joy is a traitor to his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no real investigation without freedom&mdash;freedom from the fear
+ of gods and men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, all investigation&mdash;all experiment&mdash;should be pursued in the
+ light of reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man should be true to himself&mdash;true to the inward light. Each
+ man, in the laboratory of his own mind, and for himself alone, should test
+ the so-called facts&mdash;the theories of all the world. Truth, <i>in
+ accordance with his reason</i>, should be his guide and master.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To love the truth, thus perceived, is mental virtue&mdash;intellectual
+ purity. This is true manhood. This is freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To throw away your reason at the command of churches, popes, parties,
+ kings or gods, is to be a serf, a slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not simply the right, but it is the duty of every man to think&mdash;to
+ investigate for himself&mdash;and every man who tries to prevent this by
+ force or fear, is doing all he can to degrade and enslave his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every Man Should be Mentally Honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He should preserve as his most precious jewel the perfect veracity of his
+ soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He should examine all questions presented to his mind, without prejudice,&mdash;unbiased
+ by hatred or love&mdash;by desire or fear. His object and his only object
+ should be to find the truth. He knows, if he listens to reason, that truth
+ is not dangerous and that error is. He should weigh the evidence, the
+ arguments, in honest scales&mdash;scales that passion or interest cannot
+ change. He should care nothing for authority&mdash;nothing for names,
+ customs or creeds&mdash;nothing for anything that his reason does not say
+ is true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of his world he should be the sovereign, and his soul should wear the
+ purple. From his dominions should be banished the hosts of force and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He Should be Intellectually Hospitable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Prejudice, egotism, hatred, contempt, disdain, are the enemies of truth
+ and progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old,
+ or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they
+ are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance
+ is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard
+ to the author. He may have been a king or serf&mdash;a philosopher or
+ servant,&mdash;but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or
+ reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the
+ man who gave it to the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing but falsehood needs the assistance of fame and place, of robes and
+ mitres, of tiaras and crowns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The wise, the really honest and intelligent, are not swayed or governed by
+ numbers&mdash;by majorities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They accept what they really believe to be true. They care nothing for the
+ opinions of ancestors, nothing for creeds, assertions and theories, unless
+ they satisfy the reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all directions they seek for truth, and when found, accept it with joy&mdash;accept
+ it in spite of preconceived opinions&mdash;in spite of prejudice and
+ hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the course pursued by wise and honest men, and no other course is
+ possible for them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every department of human endeavor men are seeking for the truth&mdash;for
+ the facts. The statesman reads the history of the world, gathers the
+ statistics of all nations to the end that his country may avoid the
+ mistakes of the past. The geologist penetrates the rocks in search of
+ facts&mdash;climbs mountains, visits the extinct craters, traverses
+ islands and continents that he may know something of the history of the
+ world. He wants the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The chemist, with crucible and retort, with countless experiments, is
+ trying to find the qualities of substances&mdash;to ravel what nature has
+ woven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great mechanics dwell in the realm of the real. They seek by natural
+ means to conquer and use the forces of nature. They want the truth&mdash;the
+ actual facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The physicians, the surgeons, rely on observation, experiment and reason.
+ They become acquainted with the human body&mdash;with muscle, blood and
+ nerve&mdash;with the wonders of the brain. They want nothing but the
+ truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so it is with the students of every science. On every hand they look
+ for facts, and it is of the utmost importance that they give to the world
+ the facts they find.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Their courage should equal their intelligence. No matter what the dead
+ have said, or the living believe, they should tell what they know. They
+ should have intellectual courage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it be good for man to find the truth&mdash;good for him to be
+ intellectually honest and hospitable, then it is good for others to know
+ the truths thus found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man should have the courage to give his honest thought. This makes
+ the finder and publisher of truth a public benefactor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who prevent, or try to prevent, the expression of honest thought,
+ are the foes of civilization&mdash;the enemies of truth. Nothing can
+ exceed the egotism and impudence of the man who claims the right to
+ express his thought and denies the same right to others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that certain ideas are sacred, and that man has not
+ the right to investigate and test these ideas for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who knows that they are sacred? Can anything be sacred to us that we do
+ not know to be true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries free speech has been an insult to God. Nothing has been
+ more blasphemous than the expression of honest thought. For many ages the
+ lips of the wise were sealed. The torches that truth had lighted, that
+ courage carried and held aloft, were extinguished with blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Truth has always been in favor of free speech&mdash;has always asked to be
+ investigated&mdash;has always longed to be known and understood. Freedom,
+ discussion, honesty, investigation and courage are the friends and allies
+ of truth. Truth loves the light and the open field. It appeals to the
+ senses&mdash;to the judgment, the reason, to all the higher and nobler
+ faculties and powers of the mind. It seeks to calm the passions, to
+ destroy prejudice and to increase the volume and intensity of reason's
+ flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not ask man to cringe or crawl. It does not desire the worship of
+ the ignorant or the prayers and praises of the frightened. It says to
+ every human being, "Think for yourself. Enjoy the freedom of a god, and
+ have the goodness and the courage to express your honest thought."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we pursue the truth? and why should we investigate and reason?
+ and why should we be mentally honest and hospitable? and why should we
+ express our honest thoughts? To this there is but one answer: for the
+ benefit of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The brain must be developed. The world must think. Speech must be free.
+ The world must learn that credulity is not a virtue and that no question
+ is settled until reason is fully satisfied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By these means man will overcome many of the obstructions of nature. He
+ will cure or avoid many diseases. He will lessen pain. He will lengthen,
+ ennoble and enrich life. In every direction he will increase his power. He
+ will satisfy his wants, gratify his tastes. He will put roof and raiment,
+ food and fuel, home and happiness within the reach of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He will drive want and crime from the world. He will destroy the serpents
+ of fear, the monsters of superstition. He will become intelligent and
+ free, honest and serene.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The monarch of the skies will be dethroned&mdash;the flames of hell will
+ be extinguished. Pious beggars will become honest and useful men.
+ Hypocrisy will collect no tolls from fear, lies will not be regarded as
+ sacred, this life will not be sacrificed for another, human beings will
+ love each other instead of gods, men will do right, not for the sake of
+ reward in some other world, but for the sake of happiness here. Man will
+ find that Nature is the only revelation, and that he, by his own efforts,
+ must learn to read the stories told by star and cloud, by rock and soil,
+ by sea and stream, by rain and fire, by plant and flower, by life in all
+ its curious forms, and all the things and forces of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he reads these stories, these records, he will know that man must
+ rely on himself,&mdash;that the supernatural does not exist, and that man
+ must be the providence of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to conceive of an argument against the freedom of thought&mdash;against
+ maintaining your self-respect and preserving the spotless and stainless
+ veracity of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ALL that I have said seems to be true&mdash;almost self-evident,&mdash;and
+ you may ask who it is that says slavery is better than liberty. Let me
+ tell you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the popes and priests, all the orthodox churches and clergymen, say
+ that they have a revelation from God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Protestants say that it is the duty of every person to read, to
+ understand, and to believe this revelation&mdash;that a man should use his
+ reason; but if he honestly concludes that the Bible is not a revelation
+ from God, and dies with that conclusion in his mind, he will be tormented
+ forever. They say:&mdash;"Read," and then add: "Believe, or be damned."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No matter how unreasonable the Bible may appear to you, you must believe.
+ No matter how impossible the miracles may seem, you must believe. No
+ matter how cruel the laws, your heart must approve them all!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is what the church calls the liberty of thought. We read the Bible
+ under the scowl and threat of God. We read by the glare of hell. On one
+ side is the devil, with the instruments of torture in his hands. On the
+ other, God, ready to launch the infinite curse. And the church says to the
+ readers: "You are free to decide. God is good, and he gives you the
+ liberty to choose."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The popes and the priests say to the poor people: "You need not read the
+ Bible. You cannot understand it. That is the reason it is called a
+ revelation. We will read it for you, and you must believe what we say. We
+ carry the key of hell. Contradict us and you will become eternal convicts
+ in the prison of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the freedom of the Catholic Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And all these priests and clergymen insist that the Bible is superior to
+ human reason&mdash;that it is the duty of man to accept it&mdash;to
+ believe it, whether he really thinks it is true or not, and without the
+ slightest regard to evidence or reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is his duty to cast out from the temple of his soul the goddess Reason,
+ and bow before the coiled serpent of Fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is what the church calls virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under these conditions what can thought be worth? The brain, swept by the
+ sirocco of God's curse, becomes a desert.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this is not all. To compel man to desert the standard of Reason, the
+ church does not entirely rely on the threat of eternal pain to be endured
+ in another world, but holds out the reward of everlasting joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To those who believe, it promises the endless ecstasies of heaven. If it
+ cannot frighten, it will bribe. It relies on fear and hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A religion, to command the respect of intelligent men, should rest on a
+ foundation of established facts. It should appeal, not to passion, not to
+ hope and fear, but to the judgment. It should ask that all the faculties
+ of the mind, all the senses, should assemble and take counsel together,
+ and that its claims be passed upon and tested without prejudice, without
+ fear, in the calm of perfect candor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the church cries: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
+ saved." Without this belief there is no salvation. Salvation is the reward
+ for belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Belief is, and forever must be, the result of evidence. A promised reward
+ is not evidence. It sheds no intellectual light. It establishes no fact,
+ answers no objection, and dissipates no doubt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it honest to offer a reward for belief?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who gives money to a judge or juror for a decision or verdict is
+ guilty of a crime. Why? Because he induces the judge, the juror, to
+ decide, not according to the law, to the facts, the right, but according
+ to the bribe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The bribe is not evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, the promise of Christ to reward those who will believe is a bribe. It
+ is an attempt to make a promise take the place of evidence. He who says
+ that he believes, and does this for the sake of the reward, corrupts his
+ soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose I should say that at the center of the earth there is a diamond
+ one hundred miles in diameter, and that I would give ten thousand dollars
+ to any man who would believe my statement. Could such a promise be
+ regarded as evidence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligent people would ask not for rewards, but reasons. Only hypocrites
+ would ask for the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, according to the New Testament, Christ offered a reward to those who
+ would believe, and this promised reward was to take the place of evidence.
+ When Christ made this promise he forgot, ignored, or held in contempt the
+ rectitude of a brave, free and natural soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The declaration that salvation is the reward for belief is inconsistent
+ with mental freedom, and could have been made by no man who thought that
+ evidence sustained the slightest relation to belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every sermon in which men have been told that they could save their souls
+ by believing, has been an injury. Such sermons dull the moral sense and
+ subvert the true conception of virtue and duty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The true man, when asked to believe, asks for evidence. The true man, who
+ asks another to believe, offers evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this is not all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of the threat of eternal pain&mdash;of the promise of everlasting
+ joy, unbelievers increased, and the churches took another step.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The churches said to the unbelievers, the heretics: "Although our God will
+ punish you forever in another world&mdash;in his prison&mdash;the doors of
+ which open only to receive, we, unless you believe, will torment you now."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then the members of these churches, led by priests, popes, and
+ clergymen, sought out their unbelieving neighbors&mdash;chained them in
+ dungeons, stretched them on racks, crushed their bones, cut out their
+ tongues, extinguished their eyes, flayed them alive and consumed their
+ poor bodies in flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this was done because these Christian savages believed in the dogma of
+ eternal pain. Because they believed that heaven was the reward for belief.
+ So believing, they were the enemies of free thought and speech&mdash;they
+ cared nothing for conscience, nothing for the veracity of a soul,&mdash;nothing
+ for the manhood of a man. In all ages most priests have been heartless and
+ relentless. They have calumniated and tortured. In defeat they have
+ crawled and whined. In victory they have killed. The flower of pity never
+ blossomed in their hearts and in their brain. Justice never held aloft the
+ scales. Now they are not as cruel. They have lost their power, but they
+ are still trying to accomplish the impossible. They fill their pockets
+ with "fool's gold" and think they are rich. They stuff their minds with
+ mistakes and think they are wise. They console themselves with legends and
+ myths, have faith in fiction and forgery&mdash;give their hearts to ghosts
+ and phantoms and seek the aid of the non-existent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They put a monster&mdash;a master&mdash;a tyrant in the sky, and seek to
+ enslave their fellow-men. They teach the cringing virtues of serfs. They
+ abhor the courage of manly men. They hate the man who thinks. They long
+ for revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They warm their hands at the imaginary fires of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I show them that hell does not exist and they denounce me for destroying
+ their consolation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Horace Greeley, as the story goes, one cold day went into a country store,
+ took a seat by the stove, unbuttoned his coat and spread out his hands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a few minutes, a little boy who clerked in the store said: "Mr.
+ Greeley, there aint no fire in that stove."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You d&mdash;&mdash;d little rascal," said Greeley, "What did you tell me
+ for, I was getting real warm."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. "THE SCIENCE OF THEOLOGY."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ALL the sciences&mdash;except Theology&mdash;are eager for facts&mdash;hungry
+ for the truth. On the brow of a finder of a fact the laurel is placed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a theological seminary, if a professor finds a fact inconsistent with
+ the creed, he must keep it secret or deny it, or lose his place. Mental
+ veracity is a crime, cowardice and hypocrisy are virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A fact, inconsistent with the creed, is denounced as a lie, and the man
+ who declares or announces the fact is a blasphemer. Every professor
+ breathes the air of insincerity. Every one is mentally dishonest. Every
+ one is a pious fraud. Theology is the only dishonest science&mdash;the
+ only one that is based on belief&mdash;on credulity,&mdash;the only one
+ that abhors investigation, that despises thought and denounces reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the great theologians in the Catholic Church have denounced reason as
+ the light furnished by the enemy of mankind&mdash;as the road that leads
+ to perdition. All the great Protestant theologians, from Luther to the
+ orthodox clergy of our time, have been the enemies of reason. All orthodox
+ churches of all ages have been the enemies of science. They attacked the
+ astronomers as though they were criminals&mdash;the geologists as though
+ they were assassins. They regarded physicians as the enemies of God&mdash;as
+ men who were trying to defeat the decrees of Providence. The biologists,
+ the anthropologists, the archaeologists, the readers of ancient
+ inscriptions, the delvers in buried cities, were all hated by the
+ theologians. They were afraid that these men might find something
+ inconsistent with the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians attacked those who studied other religions. They insisted
+ that Christianity was not a growth&mdash;not an evolution&mdash;but a
+ revelation. They denied that it was in any way connected with any natural
+ religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The facts now show beyond all doubt that all religions came from
+ substantially the same source&mdash;but there is not an orthodox Christian
+ theologian who will admit the facts. He must defend his creed&mdash;his
+ revelation. He cannot afford to be honest. He was not educated in an
+ honest school. He was not taught to be honest. He was taught to believe
+ and to defend his belief, not only against argument but against facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not a theologian in the whole world who can produce the
+ slightest, the least particle of evidence tending to show that the Bible
+ is the inspired word of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where is the evidence that the book of Ruth was written by an inspired
+ man? Where is the evidence that God is the author of the Song of Solomon?
+ Where is the evidence that any human being has been inspired? Where is the
+ evidence that Christ was and is God? Where is the evidence that the places
+ called heaven and hell exist? Where is the evidence that a miracle was
+ ever wrought?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is none.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology is entirely independent of evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where is the evidence that angels and ghosts&mdash;that devils and gods
+ exist? Have these beings been seen or touched? Does one of our senses
+ certify to their existence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians depend on assertions. They have no evidence. They claim
+ that their inspired book is superior to reason and independent of
+ evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They talk about probability&mdash;analogy&mdash;inferences&mdash;but they
+ present no evidence. They say that they know that Christ lived, in the
+ same way that they know that C&aelig;sar lived. They might add that they
+ know Moses talked with Jehovah on Sinai the same way they know that
+ Brigham Young talked with God in Utah. The evidence in both cases is the
+ same,&mdash;none in either.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do they prove that Christ rose from the dead? They find the account in
+ a book. Who wrote the book? They do not know. What evidence is this? None,
+ unless all things found in books are true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to establish one miracle except by another&mdash;and that
+ would have to be established by another still, and so on without end.
+ Human testimony is not sufficient to establish a miracle. Each human
+ being, to be really convinced, must witness the miracle for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say that Christianity was established, proven to be true, by miracles
+ wrought nearly two thousand years ago. Not one of these miracles can be
+ established except by impudent and ignorant assertion&mdash;except by
+ poisoning and deforming the minds of the ignorant and the young. To
+ succeed, the theologians invade the cradle, the nursery. In the brain of
+ innocence they plant the seeds of superstition. They pollute the minds and
+ imaginations of children. They frighten the happy with threats of pain&mdash;they
+ soothe the wretched with gilded lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This perpetual insincerity stamps itself on the face&mdash;affects every
+ feature. We all know the theological countenance,&mdash;cold,
+ unsympathetic, cruel, lighted with a pious smirk,&mdash;no line of
+ laughter&mdash;no dimpled mirth&mdash;no touch of humor&mdash;nothing
+ human.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This face is a rebuke, a reprimand to natural joy. It says to the happy:
+ "Beware of the dog"&mdash;"Prepare for death." This face, like the fabled
+ Gorgon, turns cheerfulness to stone. It is a protest against pleasure&mdash;a
+ warning and a threat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see every soul is a sculptor that fashions the features, and in this
+ way reveals itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every thought leaves its impress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The student of this science of theology must be taught in youth,&mdash;in
+ his mother's arms. These lies must be sown and planted in his brain the
+ first of all. He must be taught to believe, to accept without question. He
+ must be told that it is wicked to doubt, that it is sinful to inquire&mdash;that
+ Faith is a virtue and unbelief a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this way his mind is poisoned, paralyzed. On all other subjects he has
+ liberty&mdash;and in all other directions he is urged to study and think.
+ From his mother's arms he goes to the Sunday school. His poor little mind
+ is filled with miracles and wonders. He is told about a God who made the
+ world and who rewards and punishes. He is told that this God is the author
+ of the Bible&mdash;that Christ is his son. He is told about original sin
+ and the atonement, and he believes what he hears. No reasons are given&mdash;no
+ facts&mdash;no evidence is presented&mdash;nothing but assertion. If he
+ asks questions, he is silenced by more solemn assertions and warned
+ against the devices of the evil one. Every Sunday school is a kind of
+ inquisition where they torture and deform the minds of children&mdash;where
+ they force their souls into Catholic or Protestant moulds&mdash;and do all
+ they can to destroy the originality, the individuality, and the veracity
+ of the soul. In the theological seminary the destruction is complete.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the minister leaves the seminary, he is not seeking the truth. He has
+ it. He has a revelation from God, and he has a creed in exact accordance
+ with that revelation. His business is to stand by that revelation and to
+ defend that creed. Arguments against the revelation and the creed he will
+ not read, he will not hear. All facts that are against his religion he
+ will deny. It is impossible for him to be candid. The tremendous
+ "verities" of eternal joy, of everlasting pain are in his creed, and they
+ result from believing the false and denying the true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Investigation is an infinite danger, unbelief is an infinite offence and
+ deserves and will receive infinite punishment. In the shadow of this
+ tremendous "fact" his courage dies, his manhood is lost, and in his fear
+ he cries out that he believes, whether he does or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He says and teaches that credulity is safe and thought dangerous. Yet he
+ pretends to be a teacher&mdash;a leader, one selected by God to educate
+ his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These orthodox ministers have been the slanderers of the really great men
+ of our century. They denounced Lyell, the great geologist, for giving
+ facts to the world. They hated and belittled Humboldt, one of the greatest
+ and most intellectual of the race. They ridiculed and derided Darwin, the
+ greatest naturalist, the keenest observer, the best judge of the value of
+ a fact, the most wonderful discoverer of truth that the world has
+ produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every orthodox pulpit stood a traducer of the greatest of scientists&mdash;of
+ one who filled the world with intellectual light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has been the enemy of every science, of every real thinker, and
+ for many centuries has used her power to prevent intellectual progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ministers ought to be free. They should be the heralds of the ever coming
+ day, but they are the bats, the owls that inhabit ruins, that hate the
+ light. They denounce honest men who express their thoughts, as
+ blasphemers, and do what they can to close their mouths. For their Bible
+ they ask the protection of law. They wish to be shielded from laughter by
+ the Legislature. They ask that the arguments of their opponents be
+ answered by the courts. This is the result of a due admixture of
+ cowardice, hypocrisy and malice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What valuable fact has been proclaimed from an orthodox pulpit? What
+ ecclesiastical council has added to the intellectual wealth of the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many centuries ago the church gave to Christendom a code of laws, stupid,
+ unphilosophic and brutal to the last degree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church insists that it has made man merciful and just. Did it do this
+ by torturing heretics&mdash;by extinguishing their eyes&mdash;by flaying
+ them alive? Did it accomplish this result through the Inquisition&mdash;by
+ the use of the thumb-screw, the rack and the fagot? Of what science has
+ the church been the friend and champion? What orthodox church has opened
+ its doors to a persecuted truth? Of what use has Christianity been to man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They tell us that the church has been and is the friend of education. I
+ deny it. The church founded colleges not to educate men, but to make
+ proselytes, converts, defenders. This was in accordance with the instinct
+ of self-preservation. No orthodox church ever was, or ever will be in
+ favor of real education. A Catholic is in favor of enough education to
+ make a Catholic out of a savage, and the Protestant is in favor of enough
+ education to make a Protestant out of a Catholic, but both are opposed to
+ the education that makes free and manly men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on
+ alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, they tell us that the church has built hospitals. This is not true.
+ Men have not built hospitals because they were Christians, but because
+ they were men. They have not built them for charity&mdash;but in
+ self-defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a man comes to your door with the smallpox, you cannot let him in, you
+ cannot kill him. As a necessity, you provide a place for him. And you do
+ this to protect yourself. With this Christianity has had nothing to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church cannot give, because it does not produce. It is claimed that
+ the church has made men and women forgiving. I admit that the church has
+ preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven an enemy&mdash;never.
+ Against the great and brave thinkers it has coined and circulated
+ countless lies. Never has the church told, or tried to tell, the truth
+ about an honest foe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church teaches the existence of the supernatural. It believes in the
+ divine sleight-of-hand&mdash;in the "presto" and "open sesame" of the
+ Infinite; in some invisible Being who produces effects without causes and
+ causes without effects; whose caprice governs the world and who can be
+ persuaded by prayer, softened by ceremony, and who will, as a reward for
+ faith, save men from the natural consequences of their actions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church denies the eternal, inexorable sequence of events.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What Good has the Church Accomplished?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It claims to have preached peace because its founder said, "I came not to
+ bring peace but a sword."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It claims to have preserved the family because its founder offered a
+ hundred-fold here and life everlasting to those who would desert wife and
+ children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it claims to have taught the brotherhood of man and that the gospel is
+ for all the world, because Christ said to the woman of Samaria that he
+ came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and declared that it
+ was not meet to take the bread of the children and cast it unto dogs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the name of Christ, who threatened eternal revenge, it has preached
+ forgiveness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of what Use are the Orthodox Ministers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are the enemies of pleasure. They denounce dancing as one of the
+ deadly sins. They are shocked at the wickedness of the waltz&mdash;the
+ pollution of the polka. They are the enemies of the theatre. They slander
+ actors and actresses. They hate them because they are rivals. They are
+ trying to preserve the sacredness of the Sabbath. It fills them with
+ malice to see the people happy on that day. They preach against excursions
+ and picnics&mdash;against those who seek the woods and the sea, the
+ shadows and the waves. They are filled with holy wrath against bicycles
+ and bloomers. They are opposed to divorces. They insist that for the glory
+ of God, husbands and wives who loathe each other should be compelled to
+ live together. They abhor all works of fiction, and love the Bible. They
+ declare that the literary master-pieces of the world are unfit to be read.
+ They think that the people should be satisfied with sermons and poems
+ about death and hell. They hate art&mdash;abhor the marbles of the Greeks,
+ and all representations of the human form. They want nothing painted or
+ sculptured but hands, faces and clothes. Most of the priests are prudes,
+ and publicly denounce what they secretly admire and enjoy. In the presence
+ of the nude they cover their faces with their holy hands, but keep their
+ fingers apart. They pretend to believe in moral suasion, and want
+ everything regulated by law. If they had the power, they would prohibit
+ everything that men and women really enjoy. They want libraries, museums
+ and art galleries closed on the Sabbath. They would abolish the Sunday
+ paper&mdash;stop the running of cars and all public conveyances on the
+ holy day, and compel all the people to enjoy sermons, prayers and psalms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These dear ministers, when they have poor congregations, thunder against
+ trusts, syndicates, and corporations&mdash;against wealth, fashion and
+ luxury. They tell about Dives and Lazarus, paint rich men in hell and
+ beggars in heaven. If their congregations are rich they turn their guns in
+ the other direction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have no confidence in education&mdash;in the development of the
+ brain. They appeal to hopes and fears. They ask no one to think&mdash;to
+ investigate. They insist that all shall believe. Credulity is the greatest
+ of virtues, and doubt the deadliest of sins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These men are the enemies of science&mdash;of intellectual progress. They
+ ridicule and calumniate the great thinkers. They deny everything that
+ conflicts with the "sacred Scriptures." They still believe in the
+ astronomy of Joshua and the geology of Moses. They believe in the miracles
+ of the past, and deny the demonstrations of the present. They are the foes
+ of facts&mdash;the enemies of knowledge. A desire to be happy here, they
+ regard as wicked and worldly&mdash;but a desire to be happy in another
+ world, as virtuous and spiritual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every orthodox church is founded on mistake and falsehood. Every good
+ orthodox minister asserts what he does not know, and denies what he does
+ know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What are the Orthodox Clergy Doing for the Good of Mankind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Absolutely nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What harm are they doing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On every hand they sow the seeds of superstition. They paralyze the minds,
+ and pollute the imaginations of children. They fill their hearts with
+ fear. By their teachings, thousands become insane. With them, hypocrisy is
+ respectable and candor infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They enslave the minds of men. Under their teachings men waste and
+ misdirect their energies, abandon the ends that can be accomplished,
+ dedicate their lives to the impossible, worship the unknown, pray to the
+ inconceivable, and become the trembling slaves of a monstrous myth born of
+ ignorance and fashioned by the trembling hands of fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition is the serpent that crawls and hisses in every Eden and
+ fastens its poisonous fangs in the hearts of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the deadliest foe of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition is a beggar&mdash;a robber, a tyrant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science is a benefactor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition sheds blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science sheds light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dear preachers must give up the account of creation&mdash;the Garden
+ of Eden, the mud-man, the rib-woman, and the walking, talking, snake. They
+ must throw away the apple, the fall of man, the expulsion, and the gate
+ guarded by angels armed with swords. They must give up the flood and the
+ tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues. They must give up Abraham and
+ the wrestling match between Jacob and the Lord. So, the story of Joseph,
+ the enslavement of the Hebrews by the Egyptians, the story of Moses in the
+ bullrushes, the burning bush, the turning of sticks into serpents, of
+ water into blood, the miraculous creation of frogs, the killing of cattle
+ with hail and changing dust into lice, all must be given up. The sojourn
+ of forty years in the desert, the opening of the Red Sea, the clothes and
+ shoes that refused to wear out, the manna, the quails and the serpents,
+ the water that ran up hill, the talking of Jehovah with Moses face to
+ face, the giving of the Ten Commandments, the opening of the earth to
+ swallow the enemies of Moses&mdash;all must be thrown away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These good preachers must admit that blowing horns could not throw down
+ the walls of a city, that it was horrible for Jephthah to sacrifice his
+ daughter, that the day was not lengthened and the moon stopped for the
+ sake of Joshua, that the dead Samuel was not raised by a witch, that a man
+ was not carried to heaven in a chariot of fire, that the river Jordan was
+ not divided by the stroke of a cloak, that the bears did not destroy
+ children for laughing at a prophet, that a wandering soothsayer did not
+ collect lightnings from heaven to destroy the lives of innocent men, that
+ he did not cause rain and make iron float, that ravens did not keep a
+ hotel where preachers got board and lodging free, that the shadow on a
+ dial was not turned back ten degrees to show that a king was going to
+ recover from a boil, that Ezekiel was not told by God how to prepare a
+ dinner, that Jonah did not take cabin passage in a fish&mdash;and that all
+ the miracles in the old Testament are not allegories, or poems, but just
+ old-fashioned lies. And the dear preachers will be compelled to admit that
+ there never was a miraculous babe without a natural father, that Christ,
+ if he lived, was a man and nothing more. That he did not cast devils out
+ of folks&mdash;that he did not cure blindness with spittle and clay, nor
+ turn water into wine, nor make fishes and loaves of bread out of nothing&mdash;that
+ he did not know where to catch fishes with money in their mouths&mdash;that
+ he did not take a walk on the water&mdash;that he did not at will become
+ invisible&mdash;that he did not pass through closed doors&mdash;that he
+ did not raise the dead&mdash;that angels never rolled stones from a
+ sepulchre&mdash;that Christ did not rise from the dead and did not ascend
+ to heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these mistakes and illusions and delusions&mdash;all these miracles
+ and myths must fade from the minds of intelligent men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My dear preachers, I beg you to tell the truth. Tell your congregations
+ that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch. Tell them that nobody
+ knows who wrote the five books. Tell them that Deuteronomy was not written
+ until about six hundred years before Christ. Tell them that nobody knows
+ who wrote Joshua, or Judges, or Ruth, Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles, Job,
+ or the Psalms, or the Song of Solomon. Be honest, tell the truth. Tell
+ them that nobody knows who wrote Esther&mdash;that Ecclesiastes was
+ written long after Christ&mdash;that many of the prophecies were written
+ after the events pretended to be foretold had happened. Tell them that
+ Ezekiel and Daniel were insane. Tell them that nobody knows who wrote the
+ gospels, and tell them that no line about Christ written by a contemporary
+ has been found. Tell them it is all guess&mdash;and may be, and perhaps.
+ Be honest. Tell the truth, develop your brains, use all your senses and
+ hold high the torch of Reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a few years the pulpits will be filled with teachers instead of
+ preachers&mdash;with thoughtful, brave, and honest men. The congregations
+ will be civilized&mdash;intellectually honest and hospitable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, most of the ministers insist that the old falsehoods shall be treated
+ with reverence&mdash;that ancient lies with long white beards&mdash;wrinkled
+ and bald-headed frauds&mdash;round-shouldered and toothless miracles, and
+ palsied mistakes on crutches, shall be called allegories, parables,
+ oriental imagery, inspired poems. In their presence the ungodly should
+ remove their hats. They should respect the mould and moss of antiquity.
+ They should remember that these lies, these frauds, the miracles and
+ mistakes, have for thousands of years ruled, enslaved, and corrupted the
+ human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These ministers ought to know that their creeds are based on imagined
+ facts and demonstrated by assertion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They ought to know that they have no evidence,&mdash;nothing but promises
+ and threats. They ought to know that it is impossible to conceive of force
+ existing without and before matter&mdash;that it is equally impossible to
+ conceive of matter without force&mdash;that it is impossible to conceive
+ of the creation or destruction of matter or force,&mdash;that it is
+ impossible to conceive of infinite intelligence dwelling from eternity in
+ infinite space, and that it is impossible to conceive of the creator, or
+ creation, of substance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The God of the Christian is an enthroned guess&mdash;a perhaps&mdash;an
+ inference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man, and no body of men, can answer the questions of the Whence and
+ Whither. The mystery of existence cannot be explained by the intellect of
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Back of life, of existence, we cannot go&mdash;beyond death we cannot see.
+ All duties, all obligations, all knowledge, all experience, are for this
+ life, for this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that men and women and children exist. We know that happiness, for
+ the most part, depends on conduct.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are satisfied that all the gods are phantoms and that the supernatural
+ does not exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know the difference between hope and knowledge, we hope for happiness
+ here and we dream of joy hereafter, but we do not know. We cannot assert,
+ we can only hope. We can have our dream. In the wide night our star can
+ shine and shed its radiance on the graves of those we love. We can bend
+ above our pallid dead and say that beyond this life there are no sighs&mdash;no
+ tears&mdash;no breaking hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkCONC" id="linkCONC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONCLUSION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ LET us be honest. Let us preserve the veracity of our souls. Let education
+ commence in the cradle&mdash;in the lap of the loving mother. This is the
+ first school. The teacher, the mother, should be absolutely honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nursery should not be an asylum for lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Parents should be modest enough to be truthful&mdash;honest enough to
+ admit their ignorance. Nothing should be taught as true that cannot be
+ demonstrated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every child should be taught to doubt, to inquire, to demand reasons.
+ Every soul should defend itself&mdash;should be on its guard against
+ falsehood, deceit, and mistake, and should beware of all kinds of
+ confidence men, including those in the pulpit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Children should be taught to express their doubts&mdash;to demand reasons.
+ The object of education should be to develop the brain, to quicken the
+ senses. Every school should be a mental gymnasium. The child should be
+ equipped for the battle of life. Credulity, implicit obedience, are the
+ virtues of slaves and the enslavers of the free. All should be taught that
+ there is nothing too sacred to be investigated&mdash;too holy to be
+ understood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Each mind has the right to lift all curtains, withdraw all veils, scale
+ all walls, explore all recesses, all heights, all depths for itself, in
+ spite of church or priest, or creed or book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great volume of Nature should be open to all. None but the intelligent
+ and honest can really read this book. Prejudice clouds and darkens every
+ page. Hypocrisy reads and misquotes, and credulity accepts the quotation.
+ Superstition cannot read a line or spell the shortest word. And yet this
+ volume holds all knowledge, all truth, and is the only source of thought.
+ Mental liberty means the right of all to read this book. Here the Pope and
+ Peasant are equal. Each must read for himself&mdash;and each ought
+ honestly and fearlessly to give to his fellow-men what he learns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no authority in churches or priests&mdash;no authority in numbers
+ or majorities. The only authority is Nature&mdash;the facts we know. Facts
+ are the masters, the enemies of the ignorant, the servants and friends of
+ the intelligent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorance is the mother of mystery and misery, of superstition and sorrow,
+ of waste and want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligence is the only light. It enables us to keep the highway, to
+ avoid the obstructions, and to take advantage of the forces of nature. It
+ is the only lever capable of raising mankind. To develop the brain is to
+ civilize the world. Intelligence reaves the heavens of winged and
+ frightful monsters&mdash;drives ghosts and leering fiends from the
+ darkness, and floods with light the dungeons of fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All should be taught that there is no evidence of the existence of the
+ supernatural&mdash;that the man who bows before an idol of wood or stone
+ is just as foolish as the one who prays to an imagined God,&mdash;that all
+ worship has for its foundation the same mistake&mdash;the same ignorance,
+ the same fear&mdash;that it is just as foolish to believe in a personal
+ god as in a personal devil&mdash;just as foolish to believe in great
+ ghosts as little ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, all should be taught that the forces, the facts in Nature, cannot be
+ controlled or changed by prayer or praise, by supplication, ceremony, or
+ sacrifice; that there is no magic, no miracle; that force can be overcome
+ only by force, and that the whole world is natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All should be taught that man must protect himself&mdash;that there is no
+ power superior to Nature that cares for man&mdash;that Nature has neither
+ pity nor hatred&mdash;that her forces act without the slightest regard for
+ man&mdash;that she produces without intention and destroys without regret.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All should be taught that usefulness is the bud and flower and fruit of
+ real religion. The popes and cardinals, the bishops, priests and parsons
+ are all useless. They produce nothing. They live on the labor of others.
+ They are parasites that feed on the frightened. They are vampires that
+ suck the blood of honest toil. Every church is an organized beggar. Every
+ one lives on alms&mdash;on alms collected by force and fear. Every
+ orthodox church promises heaven and threatens hell, and these promises and
+ threats are made for the sake of alms, for revenue. Every church cries:
+ "Believe and give."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A new era is dawning on the world. We are beginning to believe in the
+ religion of usefulness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men who felled the forests, cultivated the earth, spanned the rivers
+ with bridges of steel, built the railways and canals, the great ships,
+ invented the locomotives and engines, supplying the countless wants of
+ man; the men who invented the telegraphs and cables, and freighted the
+ electric spark with thought and love; the men who invented the looms and
+ spindles that clothe the world, the inventors of printing and the great
+ presses that fill the earth with poetry, fiction and fact, that save and
+ keep all knowledge for the children yet to be; the inventors of all the
+ wonderful machines that deftly mould from wood and steel the things we
+ use; the men who have explored the heavens and traced the orbits of the
+ stars&mdash;who have read the story of the world in mountain range and
+ billowed sea; the men who have lengthened life and conquered pain; the
+ great philosophers and naturalists who have filled the world with light;
+ the great poets whose thoughts have charmed the souls, the great painters
+ and sculptors who have made the canvas speak, the marble live; the great
+ orators who have swayed the world, the composers who have given their
+ souls to sound, the captains of industry, the producers, the soldiers who
+ have battled for the right, the vast host of useful men&mdash;these are
+ our Christs, our apostles and our saints. The triumphs of science are our
+ miracles. The books filled with the facts of Nature are our sacred
+ scriptures, and the force that is in every atom and in every star&mdash;in
+ everything that lives and grows and thinks, that hopes and suffers, is the
+ only possible god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The absolute we cannot know&mdash;beyond the horizon of the Natural we
+ cannot go. All our duties are within our reach&mdash;all our obligations
+ must be discharged here, in this world. Let us love and labor. Let us wait
+ and work. Let us cultivate courage and cheerfulness&mdash;open our hearts
+ to the good&mdash;our minds to the true. Let us live free lives. Let us
+ hope that the future will bring peace and joy to all the children of men,
+ and above all, let us preserve the veracity of our souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This address was delivered before the Militant Church at
+ the Columbia Theatre, Chicago, Ills., April 12, 1896.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "THERE is no darkness but ignorance." Every human being is a necessary
+ product of conditions, and every one is born with defects for which he
+ cannot be held responsible. Nature seems to care nothing for the
+ individual, nothing for the species.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Life pursuing life and in its turn pursued by death, presses to the snow
+ line of the possible, and every form of life, of instinct, thought and
+ action is fixed and determined by conditions, by countless antecedent and
+ co-existing facts. The present is the child, and the necessary child, of
+ all the past, and the mother of all the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every human being longs to be happy, to satisfy the wants of the body with
+ food, with roof and raiment, and to feed the hunger of the mind, according
+ to his capacity, with love, wisdom, philosophy, art and song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The wants of the savage are few; but with civilization the wants of the
+ body increase, the intellectual horizon widens and the brain demands more
+ and more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The savage feels, but scarcely thinks. The passion of the savage is
+ uninfluenced by his thought, while the thought of the philosopher is
+ uninfluenced by passion. Children have wants and passions before they are
+ capable of reasoning. So, in the infancy of the race, wants and passions
+ dominate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The savage was controlled by appearances, by impressions; he was mentally
+ weak, mentally indolent, and his mind pursued the path of least
+ resistance. Things were to him as they appeared to be. He was a natural
+ believer in the supernatural, and, finding himself beset by dangers and
+ evils, he sought in many ways the aid of unseen powers. His children
+ followed his example, and for many ages, in many lands, millions and
+ millions of human beings, many of them the kindest and the best, asked for
+ supernatural help. Countless altars and temples have been built, and the
+ supernatural has been worshiped with sacrifice and song, with self-denial,
+ ceremony, thankfulness and prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During all these ages, the brain of man was being slowly and painfully
+ developed. Gradually mind came to the assistance of muscle, and thought
+ became the friend of labor. Man has advanced just in the proportion that
+ he has mingled thought with his work, just in the proportion that he has
+ succeeded in getting his head and hands into partnership. All this was the
+ result of experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature, generous and heartless, extravagant and miserly as she is, is our
+ mother and our only teacher, and she is also the deceiver of men. Above
+ her we cannot rise, below her we cannot fall. In her we find the seed and
+ soil of all that is good, of all that is evil. Nature originates,
+ nourishes, preserves and destroys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Good deeds bear fruit, and in the fruit are seeds that in their turn bear
+ fruit and seeds. Great thoughts are never lost, and words of kindness do
+ not perish from the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every brain is a field where nature sows the seeds of thought, and the
+ crop depends upon the soil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every flower that gives its fragrance to the wandering air leaves its
+ influence on the soul of man. The wheel and swoop of the winged creatures
+ of the air suggest the flowing lines of subtle art. The roar and murmur of
+ the restless sea, the cataract's solemn chant, the thunder's voice, the
+ happy babble of the brook, the whispering leaves, the thrilling notes of
+ mating birds, the sighing winds, taught man to pour his heart in song and
+ gave a voice to grief and hope, to love and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all that is, in mountain range and billowed plain, in winding stream
+ and desert sand, in cloud and star, in snow and rain, in calm and storm,
+ in night and day, in woods and vales, in all the colors of divided light,
+ in all there is of growth and life, decay and death, in all that flies and
+ floats and swims, in all that moves, in all the forms and qualities of
+ things, man found the seeds and symbols of his thoughts; and all that man
+ has wrought becomes a part of nature's self, forming the lives of those to
+ be. The marbles of the Greeks, like strains of music, suggest the perfect,
+ and teach the melody of life. The great poems, paintings, inventions,
+ theories and philosophies, enlarge and mould the mind of man. All that is
+ is natural. All is naturally produced. Beyond the horizon of the natural
+ man cannot go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, for many ages, man in all directions has relied upon, and sincerely
+ believed in, the existence of the supernatural. He did not believe in the
+ uniformity of nature; he had no conception of cause and effect, of the
+ indestructibility of force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In medicine he believed in charms, magic, amulets, and incantations. It
+ never occurred to the savage that diseases were natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In chemistry he sought for the elixir of life, for the philosopher's
+ stone, and for some way of changing the baser metals into gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In mechanics he searched for perpetual motion, believing that he, by some
+ curious combinations of levers, could produce, could create a force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In government, he found the source of authority in the will of the
+ supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries his only conception of morality was the idea of
+ obedience, not to facts as they exist in nature, but to the supposed
+ command of some being superior to nature. During all these years religion
+ consisted in the praise and worship of the invisible and infinite, of some
+ vast and incomprehensible power, that is to say, of the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By experience, by experiment, possibly by accident, man found that some
+ diseases could be cured by natural means; that he could be relieved in
+ many instances of pain by certain kinds of leaves or bark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the beginning. Gradually his confidence increased in the
+ direction of the natural, and began to decrease in charms and amulets, The
+ war was waged for many centuries, but the natural gained the victory. Now
+ we know that all diseases are naturally produced, and that all remedies,
+ all curatives, act in accordance with the facts in nature. Now we know
+ that charms, magic, amulets and incantations are just as useless in the
+ practice of medicine as they would be in solving a problem in mathematics.
+ We now know that there are no supernatural remedies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In chemistry the war was long and bitter; but we now no longer seek for
+ the elixir of life, and no one is trying to find the philosopher's stone.
+ We are satisfied that there is nothing supernatural in all the realm of
+ chemistry. We know that substances are always true to their natures; we
+ know that just so many atoms of one substance will unite with just so many
+ of another. The miraculous has departed from chemistry; in that science
+ there is no magic, no caprice and no possible use for the supernatural. We
+ are satisfied that there can be no change, that we can absolutely rely on
+ the uniformity of nature; that the attraction of gravitation will always
+ remain the same; and we feel that we know this as certainly as we know
+ that the relation between the diameter and circumference of a circle can
+ never change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know that in mechanics the natural is supreme. We know that man can
+ by no possibility create a force; that by no possibility can he destroy a
+ force. No mechanic dreams of depending upon or asking for any supernatural
+ aid. He knows that he works in accordance with certain facts that no power
+ can change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So we in the United States believe that the authority to govern, the
+ authority to make and execute laws, comes from the consent of the governed
+ and not from any supernatural source. We do not believe that the king
+ occupied his throne because of the will of the supernatural. Neither do we
+ believe that others are subjects or serfs or slaves by reason of any
+ supernatural will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, our ideas of morality have changed, and millions now believe that
+ whatever produces happiness and well-being is in the highest sense moral.
+ Unreasoning obedience is not the foundation or the essence of morality.
+ That is the result of mental slavery. To act in accordance with obligation
+ perceived is to be free and noble. To simply obey is to practice what
+ might be called a slave virtue; but real morality is the flower and fruit
+ of liberty and wisdom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are very many who have reached the conclusion that the supernatural
+ has nothing to do with real religion. Religion does not consist in
+ believing without evidence or against evidence. It does not consist in
+ worshiping the unknown or in trying to do something for the Infinite.
+ Ceremonies, prayers and inspired books, miracles, special providence, and
+ divine interference all belong to the supernatural and form no part of
+ real religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every science rests on the natural, on demonstrated facts. So, morality
+ and religion must find their foundations in the necessary nature of
+ things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. HOW CAN WE REFORM THE WORLD?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IGNORANCE being darkness, what we need is intellectual light. The most
+ important things to teach, as the basis of all progress, are that the
+ universe is natural; that man must be the providence of man; that, by the
+ development of the brain, we can avoid some of the dangers, some of the
+ evils, overcome some of the obstructions, and take advantage of some of
+ the facts and forces of nature; that, by invention and industry, we can
+ supply, to a reasonable degree, the wants of the body, and by thought,
+ study and effort, we can in part satisfy the hunger of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man should cease to expect any aid from any supernatural source. By this
+ time he should be satisfied that worship has not created wealth, and that
+ prosperity is not the child of prayer. He should know that the
+ supernatural has not succored the oppressed, clothed the naked, fed the
+ hungry, shielded the innocent, stayed the pestilence, or freed the slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Being satisfied that the supernatural does not exist, man should turn his
+ entire attention to the affairs of this world, to the facts in nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, first of all, he should avoid waste&mdash;waste of energy, waste of
+ wealth. Every good man, every good woman, should try to do away with war,
+ to stop the appeal to savage force. Man in a savage state relies upon his
+ strength, and decides for himself what is right and what is wrong.
+ Civilized men do not settle their differences by a resort to arms. They
+ submit the quarrel to arbitrators and courts. This is the great difference
+ between the savage and the civilized. Nations, however, sustain the
+ relations of savages to each other. There is no way of settling their
+ disputes. Each nation decides for itself, and each nation endeavors to
+ carry its decision into effect. This produces war. Thousands of men at
+ this moment are trying to invent more deadly weapons to destroy their
+ fellow-men. For eighteen hundred years peace has been preached, and yet
+ the civilized nations are the most warlike of the world. There are in
+ Europe to-day between eleven and twelve millions of soldiers, ready to
+ take the field, and the frontiers of every civilized nation are protected
+ by breastwork and fort. The sea is covered with steel clad ships, filled
+ with missiles of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The civilized world has impoverished itself, and the debt of Christendom,
+ mostly for war, is now nearly thirty thousand million dollars. The
+ interest on this vast sum has to be paid; it has to be paid by labor, much
+ of it by the poor, by those who are compelled to deny themselves almost
+ the necessities of life. This debt is growing year by year. There must
+ come a change, or Christendom will become bankrupt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The interest on this debt amounts at least to nine hundred million dollars
+ a year; and the cost of supporting armies and navies, of repairing ships,
+ of manufacturing new engines of death, probably amounts, including the
+ interest on the debt, to at least six million dollars a day. Allowing ten
+ hours for a day, that is for a working day, the waste of war is at least
+ six hundred thousand dollars an hour, that is to say, ten thousand dollars
+ a minute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of all this being paid for the purpose of killing and preparing to
+ kill our fellow-men. Think of the good that could be done with this vast
+ sum of money; the schools that could be built, the wants that could be
+ supplied. Think of the homes it would build, the children it would clothe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we wish to do away with war, we must provide for the settlement of
+ national differences by an international court. This court should be in
+ perpetual session; its members should be selected by the various
+ governments to be affected by its decisions, and, at the command and
+ disposal of this court, the rest of Christendom being disarmed, there
+ should be a military force sufficient to carry its judgments into effect.
+ There should be no other excuse, no other business for an army or a navy
+ in the civilized world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man has imagination enough to paint the agonies, the horrors and
+ cruelties of war. Think of sending shot and shell crashing through the
+ bodies of men! Think of the widows and orphans! Think of the maimed, the
+ mutilated, the mangled!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. ANOTHER WASTE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LET us be perfectly candid with each other. We are seeking the truth,
+ trying to find what ought to be done to increase the well-being of man. I
+ must give you my honest thought. You have the right to demand it, and I
+ must maintain the integrity of my soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another direction in which the wealth and energies of man are
+ wasted. From the beginning of history until now man has been seeking the
+ aid of the supernatural. For many centuries the wealth of the world was
+ used to propitiate the unseen powers. In our own country, the property
+ dedicated to this purpose is worth at least one thousand million dollars.
+ The interest on this sum is fifty million dollars a year, and the cost of
+ employing persons, whose business it is to seek the aid of the
+ supernatural and to maintain the property, is certainly as much more. So
+ that the cost in our country is about two million dollars a week, and,
+ counting ten hours as a working day, this amounts to about five hundred
+ dollars a minute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For this vast amount of money the returns are remarkably small. The good
+ accomplished does not appear to be great. There is no great diminution in
+ crime. The decrease of immorality and poverty is hardly perceptible. In
+ spite, however, of the apparent failure here, a vast sum of money is
+ expended every year to carry our ideas of the supernatural to other races.
+ Our churches, for the most part, are closed during the week, being used
+ only a part of one day in seven. No one wishes to destroy churches or
+ church organizations. The only desire is that they shall accomplish
+ substantial good for the world. In many of our small towns&mdash;towns of
+ three or four thousand people&mdash;will be found four or five churches,
+ sometimes more. These churches are founded upon immaterial differences; a
+ difference as to the mode of baptism; a difference as to who shall be
+ entitled to partake of the Lord's supper; a difference of ceremony; of
+ government; a difference about fore-ordination; a difference about fate
+ and free will. And it must be admitted that all the arguments on all sides
+ of these differences have been presented countless millions of times. Upon
+ these subjects nothing new is produced or anticipated, and yet the
+ discussion is maintained by the repetition of the old arguments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it seems to me that it would be far better for the people of a town,
+ having a population of four or five thousand, to have one church, and the
+ edifice should be of use, not only on Sunday, but on every day of the
+ week. In this building should be the library of the town. It should be the
+ clubhouse of the people, where they could find the principal newspapers
+ and periodicals of the world. Its auditorium should be like a theatre.
+ Plays should be presented by home talent; an orchestra formed, music
+ cultivated. The people should meet there at any time they desire. The
+ women could carry their knitting and sewing; and connected with it should
+ be rooms for the playing of games, billiards, cards, and chess. Everything
+ should be made as agreeable as possible. The citizens should take pride in
+ this building. They should adorn its niches with statues and its walls
+ with pictures. It should be the intellectual centre. They could employ a
+ gentleman of ability, possibly of genius, to address them on Sundays, on
+ subjects that would be of real interest, of real importance. They could
+ say to this minister:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We are engaged in business during the week; while we are working at our
+ trades and professions, we want you to study, and on Sunday tell us what
+ you have found out."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let such a minister take for a series of sermons the history, the
+ philosophy, the art and the genius of the Greeks. Let him tell of the
+ wondrous metaphysics, myths and religions of India and Egypt. Let him make
+ his congregation conversant with the philosophies of the world, with the
+ great thinkers, the great poets, the great artists, the great actors, the
+ great orators, the great inventors, the captains of industry, the soldiers
+ of progress. Let them have a Sunday school in which the children shall be
+ made acquainted with the facts of nature; with botany, entomology,
+ something of geology and astronomy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let them be made familiar with the greatest of poems, the finest
+ paragraphs of literature, with stories of the heroic, the self-denying and
+ generous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it seems to me that such a congregation in a few years would become
+ the most intelligent people in the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that people are tired of the old theories. They have lost
+ confidence in the miraculous, in the supernatural, and they have ceased to
+ take interest in "facts" that they do not quite believe.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "There is no darkness but ignorance."
+ There is no light but intelligence,
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ As often as we can exchange a mistake for a fact, a falsehood for a truth,
+ we advance. We add to the intellectual wealth of the world, and in this
+ way, and in this way alone, can be laid the foundation for the future
+ prosperity and civilization of the race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I blame no one; I call in question the motives of no person; I admit that
+ the world has acted as it must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But hope for the future depends upon the intelligence of the present. Man
+ must husband his resources. He must not waste his energies in endeavoring
+ to accomplish the impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He must take advantage of the forces of nature. He must depend on
+ education, on what he can ascertain by the use of his senses, by
+ observation, by experiment and reason. He must break the chains of
+ prejudice and custom. He must be free to express his thoughts on all
+ questions. He must find the conditions of happiness and become wise enough
+ to live in accordance with them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. HOW CAN WE LESSEN CRIME?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN spite of all that has been done for the reformation of the world, in
+ spite of all the inventions, in spite of all the forces of nature that are
+ now the tireless slaves of man, in spite of all improvements in
+ agriculture, in mechanics, in every department of human labor, the world
+ is still cursed with poverty and with crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The prisons are full, the courts are crowded, the officers of the law are
+ busy, and there seems to be no material decrease in crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many thousands of years man has endeavored to reform his fellow-men by
+ imprisonment, torture, mutilation and death, and yet the history of the
+ world shows that there has been and is no reforming power in punishment.
+ It is impossible to make the penalty great enough, horrible enough to
+ lessen crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago, in civilized countries, larceny and many offences
+ even below larceny, were punished by death; and yet the number of thieves
+ and criminals of all grades increased. Traitors were hanged and quartered
+ or drawn into fragments by horses; and yet treason flourished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of these frightful laws have been repealed, and the repeal certainly
+ did not increase crime. In our own country we rely upon the gallows, the
+ penitentiary and the jail. When a murder is committed, the man is hanged,
+ shocked to death by electricity, or lynched, and in a few minutes a new
+ murderer is ready to suffer a like fate. Men steal; they are sent to the
+ penitentiary for a certain number of years, treated like wild beasts,
+ frequently tortured. At the end of the term they are discharged, having
+ only enough money to return to the place from which they were sent. They
+ are thrown upon the world without means&mdash;without friends&mdash;they
+ are convicts. They are shunned, suspected and despised. If they obtain a
+ place, they are discharged as soon as it is found that they were in
+ prison. They do the best they can to retain the respect of their
+ fellow-men by denying their imprisonment and their identity. In a little
+ while, unable to gain a living by honest means, they resort to crime, they
+ again appear in court, and again are taken within the dungeon walls. No
+ reformation, no chance to reform, nothing to give them bread while making
+ new friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this is infamous. Men should not be sent to the pentitentiary as a
+ punishment, because we must remember that men do as they must. Nature does
+ not frequently produce the perfect. In the human race there is a large
+ percentage of failures. Under certain conditions, with certain appetites
+ and passions and with a certain quality, quantity and shape of brain, men
+ will become thieves, forgers and counterfeiters. The question is whether
+ reformation is possible, whether a change can be produced in the person by
+ producing a change in the conditions. The criminal is dangerous and
+ society has the right to protect itself. The criminal should be confined,
+ and, if possible, should be reformed. A pentitentiary should be a school;
+ the convicts should be educated. So, prisoners should work, and they
+ should be paid a reasonable sum for their labor. The best men should have
+ charge of prisons. They should be philanthropists and philosophers; they
+ should know something of human nature. The prisoner, having been taught,
+ we will say, for five years&mdash;taught the underlying principles of
+ conduct, of the naturalness and harmony of virtue, of the discord of
+ crime; having been convinced that society has no hatred, that nobody
+ wishes to punish, to degrade, or to rob him; and being at the time of his
+ discharge paid a reasonable price for his labor; being allowed by law to
+ change his name, so that his identity will not be preserved, he could go
+ out of the prison a friend of the government. He would have the feeling
+ that he had been made a better man; that he had been treated with justice,
+ with mercy, and the money he carried with him would be a breastwork behind
+ which he could defy temptation, a breastwork that would support and take
+ care of him until he could find some means by which to support himself.
+ And this man, instead of making crime a business, would become a good,
+ honorable and useful-citizen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As it is now, there is but little reform. The same faces appear again and
+ again at the bar; the same men hear again and again the verdict of guilty
+ and the sentence of the court, and the same men return again and again to
+ the prison cell. Murderers, those belonging to the dangerous classes,
+ those who are so formed by nature that they rush to the crimes of
+ desperation, should be imprisoned for life; or they should be put upon
+ some island, some place where they can be guarded, where it may be that by
+ proper effort they could support themselves; the men on one island, the
+ women on another. And to these islands should be sent professional
+ criminals, those who have deliberately adopted a life of crime for the
+ purpose of supporting themselves, the women upon one island, the men upon
+ another. Such people should not populate the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither the diseases nor the deformities of the mind or body should be
+ perpetuated. Life at the fountain should not be polluted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. HOMES FOR ALL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE home is the unit of the nation. The more homes the broader the
+ foundation of the nation and the more secure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everything that is possible should be done to keep this from being a
+ nation of tenants. The men who cultivate the earth should own it.
+ Something has already been done in our country in that direction, and
+ probably in every State there is a homestead exemption. This exemption has
+ thus far done no harm to the creditor class. When we imprisoned people for
+ debt, debts were as insecure, to say the least, as now. By the homestead
+ laws, a home of a certain value or of a certain extent, is exempt from
+ forced levy or sale; and these laws have done great good. Undoubtedly they
+ have trebled the homes of the nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I wish to go a step further. I want, if possible, to get the people out of
+ the tenements, out of the gutters of degradation, to homes where there can
+ be privacy, where these people can feel that they are in partnership with
+ nature; that they have an interest in good government. With the means we
+ now have of transportation, there is no necessity for poor people being
+ huddled in festering masses in the vile, filthy and loathsome parts of
+ cities, where poverty breeds rags, and the rags breed diseases. I would
+ exempt a homestead of a reasonable value, say of the value of two or three
+ thousand dollars, not only from sale under execution, but from sale for
+ taxes of every description. These homes should be absolutely exempt; they
+ should belong to the family, so that every mother should feel that the
+ roof above her head was hers; that her house was her castle, and that in
+ its possession she could not be disturbed, even by the nation. Under
+ certain conditions I would allow the sale of this homestead, and exempt
+ the proceeds of the sale for a certain time, during which they might be
+ invested in another home; and all this could be done to make a nation of
+ householders, a nation of land-owners, a nation of home-builders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would invoke the same power to preserve these homes, and to acquire
+ these homes, that I would invoke for acquiring lands for building
+ railways. Every State should fix the amount of land that could be owned by
+ an individual, not liable to be taken from him for the purpose of giving a
+ home to another, and when any man owned more acres than the law allowed,
+ and another should ask to purchase them, and he should refuse, I would
+ have the law so that the person wishing to purchase could file his
+ petition in court. The court would appoint commissioners, or a jury would
+ be called, to determine the value of the land the petitioner wished for a
+ home, and, upon the amount being paid, found by such commission, or jury,
+ the land should vest absolutely in the petitioner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This right of eminent domain should be used not only for the benefit of
+ the person wishing a home, but for the benefit of all the people. Nothing
+ is more important to America than that the babes of America should be born
+ around the firesides of homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another question in which I take great interest, and it ought, in
+ my judgment, to be answered by the intelligence and kindness of our
+ century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know that for many, many ages, men have been slaves, and we all
+ know that during all these years, women have, to some extent been the
+ slaves of slaves. It is of the utmost importance to the human race that
+ women, that mothers, should be free. Without doubt, the contract of
+ marriage is the most important and the most sacred that human beings can
+ make. Marriage is the most important of all institutions. Of course, the
+ ceremony of marriage is not the real marriage. It is only evidence of the
+ mutual flames that burn within. There can be no real marriage without
+ mutual love. So I believe in the ceremony of marriage, that it should be
+ public; that records should be kept. Besides, the ceremony says to all the
+ world that those who marry are in love with each other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then arises the question of divorce. Millions of people imagine that the
+ married are joined together by some supernatural power, and that they
+ should remain together, or at least married, during life. If all who have
+ been married were joined together by the supernatural, we must admit that
+ the supernatural is not infinitely wise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, marriage is a contract, and the parties to the contract are
+ bound to keep its provisions; and neither should be released from such a
+ contract unless, in some way, the interests of society are involved. I
+ would have the law so that any husband could obtain a divorce when the
+ wife had persistently and flagrantly violated the contract; such divorce
+ to be granted on equitable terms. I would give the wife a divorce if she
+ requested it, if she wanted it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I would do this, not only for her sake, but for the sake of the
+ community, of the nation. All children should be children of love. All
+ that are born should be sincerely welcomed. The children of mothers who
+ dislike, or hate, or loathe the fathers, will fill the world with insanity
+ and crime. No woman should by law, or by public opinion, be forced to live
+ with a man whom she abhors. There is no danger of demoralizing the world
+ through divorce. Neither is there any danger of destroying in the human
+ heart that divine thing called love. As long as the human race exists, men
+ and women will love each other, and just so long there will be true and
+ perfect marriage. Slavery is not the soil or rain of virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I make a difference between granting divorce to a man and to a woman, and
+ for this reason: A woman dowers her husband with her youth and beauty. He
+ should not be allowed to desert her because she has grown wrinkled and
+ old. Her capital is gone; her prospects in life lessened; while, on the
+ contrary, he may be far better able to succeed than when he married her.
+ As a rule, the man can take care of himself, and as a rule, the woman
+ needs help. So, I would not allow him to cast her off unless she had
+ flagrantly violated the contract. But, for the sake of the community, and
+ especially for the sake of the babes, I would give her a divorce for the
+ asking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a
+ generation of free women&mdash;of free mothers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tenderest word in our language is maternity. In this word is the
+ divine mingling of ecstasy and agony&mdash;of love and self-sacrifice.
+ This word is holy!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. THE LABOR QUESTION.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HERE has been for many years ceaseless discussion upon what is called the
+ labor question; the conflict between the workingman and the capitalist.
+ Many ways have been devised, some experiments have been tried for the
+ purpose of solving this question. Profit-sharing would not work, because
+ it is impossible to share profits with those who are incapable of sharing
+ losses. Communities have been formed, the object being to pay the expenses
+ and share the profits among all the persons belonging to the society. For
+ the most part these have failed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Others have advocated arbitration. And, while it may be that the employers
+ could be bound by the decision of the arbitrators, there has been no way
+ discovered by which the employees could be held by such decision. In other
+ words, the question has not been solved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my own part, I see no final and satisfactory solution except through
+ the civilization of employers and employed. The question is so
+ complicated, the ramifications are so countless, that a solution by law,
+ or by force, seems at least improbable. Employers are supposed to pay
+ according to their profits. They may or may not. Profits may be destroyed
+ by competition. The employer is at the mercy of other employers, and as
+ much so as his employees are at his mercy. The employers cannot govern
+ prices; they cannot fix demand; they cannot control supply; and at
+ present, in the world of trade, the laws of supply and demand, except when
+ interfered with by conspiracy, are in absolute control.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will the time arrive, and can it arrive, except by developing the brain,
+ except by the aid of intellectual light, when the purchaser will wish to
+ give what a thing is worth, when the employer will be satisfied with a
+ reasonable profit, when the employer will be anxious to give the real
+ value for raw material; when he will be really anxious to pay the laborer
+ the full value of his labor? Will the employer ever become civilized
+ enough to know that the law of supply and demand should not absolutely
+ apply in the labor market of the world? Will he ever become civilized
+ enough not to take advantage of the necessities of the poor, of the hunger
+ and rags and want of poverty? Will he ever become civilized enough to say:
+ "I will pay the man who labors for me enough to give him a reasonable
+ support, enough for him to assist in taking care of wife and children,
+ enough for him to do this, and lay aside something to feed and clothe him
+ when old age comes; to lay aside something, enough to give him house and
+ hearth during the December of his life, so that he can warm his worn and
+ shriveled hands at the fire of home"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, capital can do nothing without the assistance of labor. All
+ there is of value in the world is the product of labor. The laboring man
+ pays all the expenses. No matter whether taxes are laid on luxuries or on
+ the necessaries of life, labor pays every cent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So we must remember that, day by day, labor is becoming intelligent. So, I
+ believe the employer is gradually becoming civilized, gradually becoming
+ kinder; and many men who have made large fortunes from the labor of their
+ fellows have given of their millions to what they regarded as objects of
+ charity, or for the interests of education. This is a kind of penance,
+ because the men that have made this money from the brain and muscle of
+ their fellow-men have ever felt that it was not quite their own. Many of
+ these employers have sought to balance their accounts by leaving something
+ for universities, for the establishment of libraries, drinking fountains,
+ or to build monuments to departed greatness. It would have been, I think,
+ far better had they used this money to better the condition of the men who
+ really earned it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I think that when we become civilized, great corporations will make
+ provision for men who have given their lives to their service. I think the
+ great railroads should pay pensions to their worn out employees. They
+ should take care of them in old age. They should not maim and wear out
+ their servants and then discharge them, and allow them to be supported in
+ poorhouses. These great companies should take care of the men they maim;
+ they should look out for the ones whose lives they have used and whose
+ labor has been the foundation of their prosperity. Upon this question,
+ public sentiment should be aroused to such a degree that these
+ corporations would be ashamed to use a human life and then throw away the
+ broken old man as they would cast aside a rotten tie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that the mechanics, the workingmen, will finally become
+ intelligent enough to really unite, to act in absolute concert. Could this
+ be accomplished, then a reasonable rate of compensation could be fixed and
+ enforced. Now such efforts are local, and the result up to this time has
+ been failure. But, if all could unite, they could obtain what is
+ reasonable, what is just, and they would have the sympathy of a very large
+ majority of their fellow-men, provided they were reasonable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, before they can act in this way, they must become really intelligent,
+ intelligent enough to know what is reasonable and honest enough to ask for
+ no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much has already been accomplished for the workingman that I have hope,
+ and great hope, of the future. The hours of labor have been shortened, and
+ materially shortened, in many countries. There was a time when men worked
+ fifteen and sixteen hours a day. Now, generally, a day's work is not
+ longer than ten hours, and the tendency is to still further decrease the
+ hours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By comparing long periods of time, we more clearly perceive the advance
+ that has been made. In 1860, the average amount earned by the laboring
+ men, workmen, mechanics, per year, was about two hundred and eighty-five
+ dollars. It is now about five hundred dollars, and a dollar to-day will
+ purchase more of the necessaries of life, more food, clothing and fuel,
+ than it would in 1860. These facts are full of hope for the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All our sympathies should be with the men who work, who toil; for the
+ women who labor for themselves and children; because we know that labor is
+ the foundation of all, and that those who labor are the Caryatides that
+ support the structure and glittering dome of civilization and progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII. EDUCATE THE CHILDREN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ EVERY child should be taught to be self-supporting, and every one should
+ be taught to avoid being a burden on others, as they would shun death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every child should be taught that the useful are the honorable, and that
+ they who live on the labor of others are the enemies of society. Every
+ child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent
+ labor is the highest form of prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Children should be taught to think, to investigate, to rely upon the light
+ of reason, of observation and experience; should be taught to use all
+ their senses; and they should be taught only that which in some sense is
+ really useful. They should be taught the use of tools, to use their hands,
+ to embody their thoughts in the construction of things. Their lives should
+ not be wasted in the acquisition of the useless, or of the almost useless.
+ Years should not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages, or to
+ the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of
+ things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the mind with dates of
+ great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. They should be taught
+ the philosophy of history, the growth of nations, of philosophies,
+ theories, and, above all, of the sciences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, they should be taught the importance, not only of financial, but of
+ mental honesty; to be absolutely sincere; to utter their real thoughts,
+ and to give their actual opinions; and, if parents want honest children,
+ they should be honest themselves. It may be that hypocrites transmit their
+ failing to their offspring. Men and women who pretend to agree with the
+ majority, who think one way and talk another, can hardly expect their
+ children to be absolutely sincere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing should be taught in any school that the teacher does not know.
+ Beliefs, superstitions, theories, should not be treated like demonstrated
+ facts. The child should be taught to investigate, not to believe. Too much
+ doubt is better than too much credulity. So, children should be taught
+ that it is their duty to think for themselves, to understand, and, if
+ possible, to know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Real education is the hope of the future. The development of the brain,
+ the civilization of the heart, will drive want and crime from the world.
+ The schoolhouse is the real cathedral, and science the only possible
+ savior of the human race. Education, real education, is the friend of
+ honesty, of morality, of temperance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot rely upon legislative enactments to make people wise and good;
+ neither can we expect to make human beings manly and womanly by keeping
+ them out of temptation. Temptations are as thick as the leaves of the
+ forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is
+ dead. The great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong
+ enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it. All the forces
+ of civilization are in favor of morality and temperance. Little can be
+ accomplished by law, because law, for the most part, about such things, is
+ a destruction of personal liberty. Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the
+ sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything.
+ It is of more value than everything else. Yet some people would destroy
+ the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation
+ to all the virtues that the sun does to life. The world had better go back
+ to barbarism, to the dens, the caves and lairs of savagery; better lose
+ all art, all inventions, than to lose liberty. Liberty is the breath of
+ progress; it is the seed and soil, the heat and rain of love and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, all should be taught that the highest ambition is to be happy, and to
+ add to the well-being of others; that place and power are not necessary to
+ success; that the desire to acquire great wealth is a kind of insanity.
+ They should be taught that it is a waste of energy, a waste of thought, a
+ waste of life, to acquire what you do not need and what you do not really
+ use for the benefit of yourself or others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither mendicants nor millionaires are the happiest of mankind. The man
+ at the bottom of the ladder hopes to rise; the man at the top fears to
+ fall. The one asks; the other refuses; and, by frequent refusal, the heart
+ becomes hard enough and the hand greedy enough to clutch and hold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Few men have intelligence enough, real greatness enough, to own a great
+ fortune. As a rule, the fortune owns them. Their fortune is their master,
+ for whom they work and toil like slaves. The man who has a good business
+ and who can make a reasonable living and lay aside something for the
+ future, who can educate his children and can leave enough to keep the wolf
+ of want from the door of those he loves, ought to be the happiest of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, society bows and kneels at the feet of wealth. Wealth gives power.
+ Wealth commands flattery and adulation. And so, millions of men give all
+ their energies, as well as their very souls, for the acquisition of gold.
+ And this will continue as long as society is ignorant enough and
+ hypocritical enough to hold in high esteem the man of wealth without the
+ slightest regard to the character of the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In judging of the rich, two things should be considered: How did they get
+ it, and what are they doing with it? Was it honestly acquired? Is it being
+ used for the benefit of mankind? When people become really intelligent,
+ when the brain is really developed, no human being will give his life to
+ the acquisition of what he does not need or what he cannot intelligently
+ use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time will come when the truly intelligent man cannot be happy, cannot
+ be satisfied, when millions of his fellow-men are hungry and naked. The
+ time will come when in every heart will be the perfume of pity's sacred
+ flower. The time will come when the world will be anxious to ascertain the
+ truth, to find out the conditions of happiness, and to live in accordance
+ with such conditions; and the time will come when in the brain of every
+ human being will be the climate of intellectual hospitality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man will be civilized when the passions are dominated by the intellect,
+ when reason occupies the throne, and when the hot blood of passion no
+ longer rises in successful revolt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To civilize the world, to hasten the coming of the Golden Dawn of the
+ Perfect Day, we must educate the children, we must commence at the cradle,
+ at the lap of the loving mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. WE MUST WORK AND WAIT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE reforms that I have mentioned cannot be accomplished in a day,
+ possibly not for many centuries; and in the meantime there is much crime,
+ much poverty, much want, and consequently something must be done now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let each human being, within the limits of the possible be
+ self-supporting; let every one take intelligent thought for the morrow;
+ and if a human being supports himself and acquires a surplus, let him use
+ a part of that surplus for the unfortunate; and let each one to the extent
+ of his ability help his fellow-men. Let him do what he can in the circle
+ of his own acquaintance to rescue the fallen, to help those who are trying
+ to help themselves, to give work to the idle. Let him distribute kind
+ words, words of wisdom, of cheerfulness and hope. In other words, let
+ every human being do all the good he can, and let him bind up the wounds
+ of his fellow-creatures, and at the same time put forth every effort, to
+ hasten the coming of a better day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, in my judgment, is real religion. To do all the good you can is to
+ be a saint in the highest and in the noblest sense. To do all the good you
+ can; this is to be really and truly spiritual. To relieve suffering, to
+ put the star of hope in the midnight of despair, this is true holiness.
+ This is the religion of science. The old creeds are too narrow, they are
+ not for the world in which we live. The old dogmas lack breadth and
+ tenderness; they are too cruel, too merciless, too savage. We are growing
+ grander and nobler.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The firmament inlaid with suns is the dome of the real cathedral. The
+ interpreters of nature are the true and only priests. In the great creed
+ are all the truths that lips have uttered, and in the real litany will be
+ found all the ecstasies and aspirations of the soul, all dreams of joy,
+ all hopes for nobler, fuller life. The real church, the real edifice, is
+ adorned and glorified with all that Art has done. In the real choir is all
+ the thrilling music of the world, and in the star-lit aisles have been,
+ and are, the grandest souls of every land and clime.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "There is no darkness but ignorance."
+ Let us flood the world with intellectual light.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A THANKSGIVING SERMON.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ MANY ages ago our fathers were living in dens and caves. Their bodies,
+ their low foreheads, were covered with hair. They were eating berries,
+ roots, bark and vermin. They were fond of snakes and raw fish. They
+ discovered fire and, probably by accident, learned how to cause it by
+ friction. They found how to warm themselves&mdash;to fight the frost and
+ storm. They fashioned clubs and rude weapons of stone with which they
+ killed the larger beasts and now and then each other. Slowly, painfully,
+ almost imperceptibly they advanced. They crawled and stumbled, staggered
+ and struggled toward the light. To them the world was unknown. On every
+ hand was the mysterious, the sinister, the hurtful. The forests were
+ filled with monsters, and the darkness was crowded with ghosts, devils,
+ and fiendish gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These poor wretches were the slaves of fear, the sport of dreams.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then, one rose a little above his fellows&mdash;used his senses&mdash;the
+ little reason that he had&mdash;found something new&mdash;some better way.
+ Then the people killed him and afterward knelt with reverence at his
+ grave. Then another thinker gave his thought&mdash;was murdered&mdash;another
+ tomb became sacred&mdash;another step was taken in advance. And so through
+ countless years of ignorance and cruelty&mdash;of thought and crime&mdash;of
+ murder and worship, of heroism, suffering, and self-denial, the race has
+ reached the heights where now we stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Looking back over the long and devious roads that lie between the
+ barbarism of the past and the civilization of to-day, thinking of the
+ centuries that rolled like waves between these distant shores, we can form
+ some idea of what our fathers suffered&mdash;of the mistakes they made&mdash;some
+ idea of their ignorance, their stupidity&mdash;and some idea of their
+ sense, their goodness, their heroism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a long road from the savage to the scientist&mdash;from a den to a
+ mansion&mdash;from leaves to clothes&mdash;from a flickering rush to the
+ arc-light&mdash;from a hammer of stone to the modern mill&mdash;a long
+ distance from the pipe of Pan to the violin&mdash;to the orchestra&mdash;from
+ a floating log to the steamship&mdash;from a sickle to a reaper&mdash;from
+ a flail to a threshing machine&mdash;-from a crooked stick to a plow&mdash;from
+ a spinning wheel to a spinning jenny&mdash;from a hand loom to a Jacquard&mdash;a
+ Jacquard that weaves fair forms and wondrous flowers beyond Arachne's
+ utmost dream&mdash;from a few hieroglyphics on the skins of beasts&mdash;on
+ bricks of clay&mdash;to a printing press, to a library&mdash;a long
+ distance from the messenger, traveling on foot, to the electric spark&mdash;from
+ knives and tools of stone to those of steel&mdash;a long distance from
+ sand to telescopes&mdash;from echo to the phonograph, the phonograph that
+ buries in indented lines and dots the sounds of living speech, and then
+ gives back to life the very words and voices of the dead&mdash;a long way
+ from the trumpet to the telephone, the telephone that transports speech as
+ swift as thought and drops the words, perfect as minted coins, in
+ listening ears&mdash;a long way from a fallen tree to the suspension
+ bridge&mdash;from the dried sinews of beasts to the cables of steel&mdash;from
+ the oar to the propeller&mdash;from the sling to the rifle&mdash;from the
+ catapult to the cannon&mdash;a long distance from revenge to law&mdash;from
+ the club to the Legislature&mdash;from slavery to freedom&mdash;from
+ appearance to fact&mdash;from fear to reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet the distance has been traveled by the human race. Countless
+ obstructions have been overcome&mdash;numberless enemies have been
+ conquered&mdash;thousands and thousands of victories have been won for the
+ right, and millions have lived, labored and died for their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the blessings we enjoy&mdash;for the happiness that is ours, we ought
+ to be grateful. Our hearts should blossom with thankfulness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whom, what, should we thank?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be honest&mdash;generous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Should we thank the church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity has controlled Christendom for at least fifteen hundred
+ years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During these centuries what have the orthodox churches accomplished, for
+ the good of man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this life man needs raiment and roof, food and fuel. He must be
+ protected from heat and cold, from snow and storm. He must take thought
+ for the morrow. In the summer of youth he must prepare for the winter of
+ age. He must know something of the causes of disease&mdash;of the
+ conditions of health. If possible he must conquer pain, increase happiness
+ and lengthen life. He must supply the wants of the body&mdash;and feed the
+ hunger of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What good has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has it taught men to cultivate the earth? to build homes? to weave cloth
+ to cure or prevent disease? to build ships, to navigate the seas? to
+ conquer pain, or to lengthen life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did Christ or any of his apostles add to the sum of useful knowledge? Did
+ they say one word in favor of any science, of any art? Did they teach
+ their fellow-men how to make a living, how to overcome the obstructions of
+ nature, how to prevent sickness&mdash;how to protect themselves from pain,
+ from famine, from misery and rags?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they explain any of the phenomena of nature? any of the facts that
+ affect the life of man? Did they say anything in favor of investigation&mdash;of
+ study&mdash;of thought? Did they teach the gospel of self-reliance, of
+ industry&mdash;of honest effort? Can any farmer, mechanic, or scientist
+ find in the New Testament one useful fact? Is there anything in the sacred
+ book that can help the geologist, the astronomer, the biologist, the
+ physician, the inventor&mdash;the manufacturer of any useful thing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the very first it taught the vanity&mdash;the worthlessness of all
+ earthly things. It taught the wickedness of wealth, the blessedness of
+ poverty. It taught that the business of this life was to prepare for
+ death. It insisted that a certain belief was necessary to insure
+ salvation, and that all who failed to believe, or doubted in the least
+ would suffer eternal pain. According to the church the natural desires,
+ ambitions and passions of man were all wicked and depraved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To love God, to practice self-denial, to overcome desire, to despise
+ wealth, to hate prosperity, to desert wife and children, to live on roots
+ and berries, to repeat prayers, to wear rags, to live in filth, and drive
+ love from the heart&mdash;these, for centuries, were the highest and most
+ perfect virtues, and those who practiced them were saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The saints did not assist their fellow-men. Their fellow-men assisted
+ them. They did not labor for others. They were beggars&mdash;parasites&mdash;vermin.
+ They were insane. They followed the teachings of Christ. They took no
+ thought for the morrow. They mutilated their bodies&mdash;scarred their
+ flesh and destroyed their minds for the sake of happiness in another
+ world. During the journey of life they kept their eyes on the grave. They
+ gathered no flowers by the way&mdash;they walked in the dust of the road&mdash;avoided
+ the green fields. Their moans made all the music they wished to hear. The
+ babble of brooks, the songs of birds, the laughter of children, were
+ nothing to them. Pleasure was the child of sin, and the happy needed a
+ change of heart. They were sinless and miserable&mdash;but they had faith&mdash;they
+ were pious and wretched&mdash;but they were limping towards heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has denounced pride and luxury&mdash;all things that adorn and enrich
+ life&mdash;all the pleasures of sense&mdash;the ecstasies of love&mdash;the
+ happiness of the hearth&mdash;the clasp and kiss of wife and child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the church has done this because it regarded this life as a period of
+ probation&mdash;a time to prepare&mdash;to become spiritual&mdash;to
+ overcome the natural&mdash;to fix the affections on the invisible&mdash;to
+ become passionless&mdash;to subdue the flesh&mdash;to congeal the blood&mdash;to
+ fold the wings of fancy&mdash;to become dead to the world&mdash;so that
+ when you appeared before God you would be the exact opposite of what he
+ made you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It pretended to have a revelation from God. It knew the road to eternal
+ joy, the way to death. It preached salvation by faith, and declared that
+ only orthodox believers could become angels, and all doubters would be
+ damned. It knew this, and so knowing it became the enemy of discussion, of
+ investigation, of thought. Why investigate, why discuss, why think when
+ you know? It sought to enslave the world. It appealed to force. It
+ unsheathed the sword, lighted the fagot, forged the chain, built the
+ dungeon, erected the scaffold, invented and used the instruments of
+ torture. It branded, maimed and mutilated&mdash;it imprisoned and tortured&mdash;it
+ blinded and burned, hanged and crucified, and utterly destroyed millions
+ and millions of human beings. It touched every nerve of the body&mdash;produced
+ every pain that can be felt, every agony that can be endured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it did all this to preserve what it called the truth&mdash;to destroy
+ heresy and doubt, and to save, if possible, the souls of a few. It was
+ honest. It was necessary to prevent the development of the brain&mdash;to
+ arrest all progress&mdash;and to do this the church used all its power. If
+ men were allowed to think and express their thoughts they would fill their
+ minds and the minds of others with doubts. If they were allowed to think
+ they would investigate, and then they might contradict the creed, dispute
+ the words of priests and defy the church. The priests cried to the people:
+ "It is for us to talk. It is for you to hear. Our duty is to preach and
+ yours is to believe."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There have been thousands of councils and synods&mdash;thousands and
+ thousands of occasions when the clergy have met and discussed and
+ quarreled&mdash;when pope and cardinals, bishops and priests have added to
+ or explained their creeds&mdash;and denied the rights of others. What
+ useful truth did they discover? What fact did they find? Did they add to
+ the intellectual wealth of the world? Did they increase the sum of
+ knowledge?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that they looked over a number of Jewish books and picked out the
+ ones that Jehovah wrote.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they find the medicinal virtue that dwells in any weed or flower?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that they decided that the Holy Ghost was not created&mdash;not
+ begotten&mdash;but that he proceeded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they teach us the mysteries of the metals and how to purify the ores
+ in furnace flames?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They shouted: "Great is the mystery of Godliness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they show us how to improve our condition in this world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They informed us that Christ had two natures and two wills.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they give us even a hint as to any useful thing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They gave us predestination, foreordination and just enough "free will" to
+ go to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they discover or show us how to produce anything for food?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they produce anything to satisfy the hunger of man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Instead of this they discovered that a peasant girl who lived in
+ Palestine, was the mother of God. This they proved by a book, and to make
+ the book evidence they called it inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they tell us anything about chemistry&mdash;how to combine and
+ separate substances&mdash;how to subtract the hurtful&mdash;how to produce
+ the useful?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They told us that bread, by making certain motions and mumbling certain
+ prayers, could be changed into the flesh of God, and that in the same way
+ wine could be changed to his blood. And this, notwithstanding the fact
+ that God never had any flesh or blood, but has always been a spirit
+ without body, parts or passions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gave us the history of the world&mdash;of the stars, and the beginning
+ of all things. It taught the geology of Moses&mdash;the astronomy of
+ Joshua and Elijah. It taught the fall of man and the atonement&mdash;proved
+ that a Jewish peasant was God&mdash;established the existence of hell,
+ purgatory and heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It pretended to have a revelation from God&mdash;the Scriptures, in which
+ could be found all knowledge&mdash;everything that man could need in the
+ journey of life. Nothing outside of the inspired book&mdash;except legends
+ and prayers&mdash;could be of any value. Books that contradicted the Bible
+ were hurtful, those that agreed with it&mdash;useless. Nothing was of
+ importance except faith, credulity&mdash;belief. The church said: "Let
+ philosophy alone, count your beads. Ask no questions, fall upon your
+ knees. Shut your eyes, and save your souls."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For centuries it kept the earth flat, for centuries it made all the hosts
+ of heaven travel around this world&mdash;for centuries it clung to
+ "sacred" knowledge, and fought facts with the ferocity of a fiend. For
+ centuries it hated the useful. It was the deadly enemy of medicine.
+ Disease was produced by devils and could be cured only by priests,
+ decaying bones, and holy water. Doctors were the rivals of priests. They
+ diverted the revenues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church opposed the study of anatomy&mdash;was against the dissection
+ of the dead. Man had no right to cure disease&mdash;God would do that
+ through his priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man had no right to prevent disease&mdash;diseases were sent by God as
+ judgments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church opposed inoculation&mdash;vaccination, and the use of
+ chloroform and ether. It was declared to be a sin, a crime for a woman to
+ lessen the pangs of motherhood. The church declared that woman must bear
+ the curse of the merciful Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It taught that the insane were inhabited by devils. Insanity was not a
+ disease. It was produced by demons. It could be cured by prayers&mdash;gifts,
+ amulets and charms. All these had to be paid for. This enriched the
+ church. These ideas were honestly entertained by Protestants as well as
+ Catholics&mdash;by Luther, Calvin, Knox and Wesley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It taught the awful doctrine of witchcraft. It filled the darkness with
+ demons&mdash;the air with devils, and the world with grief and shame. It
+ charged men, women and children with being in league with Satan to injure
+ their fellows. Old women were convicted for causing storms at sea&mdash;for
+ preventing rain and for bringing frost. Girls were convicted for having
+ changed themselves into wolves, snakes and toads. These witches were
+ burned for causing diseases&mdash;for selling their souls and for souring
+ beer. All these things were done with the aid of the Devil who sought to
+ persecute the faithful, the lambs of God. Satan sought in many ways to
+ scandalize the church. He sometimes assumed the appearance of a priest and
+ committed crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On one occasion he personated a bishop&mdash;a bishop renowned for his
+ sanctity&mdash;allowed himself to be discovered and dragged from the room
+ of a beautiful widow. So perfectly did he counterfeit the features and
+ form of the bishop, that many who were well acquainted with the prelate,
+ were actually deceived, and the widow herself thought her lover was the
+ bishop. All this was done by the Devil to bring reproach upon holy men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hundreds of like instances could be given, as the war waged between demons
+ and priests was long and bitter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These popes and priests&mdash;these clergymen, were not hypocrites. They
+ believed in the New Testament&mdash;in the teachings of Christ, and they
+ knew that the principal business of the Savior was casting out devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It made the wife a slave&mdash;the property of the husband, and it placed
+ the husband as much above the wife as Christ was above the husband. It
+ taught that a nun is purer, nobler than a mother. It induced millions of
+ pure and conscientious girls to renounce the joys of life&mdash;to take
+ the veil woven of night and death, to wear the habiliments of the dead&mdash;made
+ them believe that they were the brides of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I would as soon be a widow as the bride of a man who had been
+ dead for eighteen hundred years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor deluded girls imagined that they, in some mysterious way, were in
+ spiritual wedlock united with God. All worldly desires were driven from
+ their hearts. They filled their lives with fastings&mdash;with prayers&mdash;with
+ self-accusings. They forgot fathers and mothers and gave their love to the
+ invisible. They were the victims, the convicts of superstition&mdash;prisoners
+ in the penitentiaries of God. Conscientious, good, sincere&mdash;insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These loving women gave their hearts to a phantom, their lives to a dream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago, at a revival, a fine buxom girl was "converted," "born
+ again." In her excitement she cried, "I'm married to Christ&mdash;I'm
+ married to Christ." In her delirium she threw her arms around the neck of
+ an old man and again cried, "I'm married to Christ." The old man, who
+ happened to be a kind of skeptic, gently removed her hands, saying at the
+ same time: "I don't know much about your husband, but I have great respect
+ for your father-in-law."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Priests, theologians, have taken advantage of women&mdash;of their
+ gentleness&mdash;their love of approbation. They have lived upon their
+ hopes and fears. Like vampires, they have sucked their blood. They have
+ made them responsible for the sins of the world. They have taught them the
+ slave virtues&mdash;meekness, humility&mdash;implicit obedience. They have
+ fed their minds with mistakes, mysteries and absurdities. They have
+ endeavored to weaken and shrivel their brains, until, to them, there would
+ be no possible connection between evidence and belief&mdash;between fact
+ and faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was the enemy of commerce&mdash;of business. It denounced the taking of
+ interest for money. Without taking interest for money, progress is
+ impossible. The steamships, the great factories, the railroads have all
+ been built with borrowed money, money on which interest was promised and
+ for the most part paid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church was opposed to fire insurance&mdash;to life insurance. It
+ denounced insurance in any form as gambling, as immoral. To insure your
+ life was to declare that you had no confidence in God&mdash;that you
+ relied on a corporation instead of divine providence. It was declared that
+ God would provide for your widow and your fatherless children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To insure your life was to insult heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church regarded epidemics as the messengers of the good God. The
+ "Black Death" was sent by the eternal Father, whose mercy spared some and
+ whose justice murdered the rest. To stop the scourge, they tried to soften
+ the heart of God by kneelings and prostrations&mdash;by processions and
+ prayers&mdash;by burning incense and by making vows. They did not try to
+ remove the cause. The cause was God. They did not ask for pure water, but
+ for holy water. Faith and filth lived or rather died together. Religion
+ and rags, piety and pollution kept company. Sanctity kept its odor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was the enemy of art and literature. It destroyed the marbles of Greece
+ and Rome. Beauty was Pagan. It destroyed so far as it could the best
+ literature of the world. It feared thought&mdash;but it preserved the
+ Scriptures, the ravings of insane saints, the falsehoods of the Fathers,
+ the bulls of popes, the accounts of miracles performed by shrines, by
+ dried blood and faded hair, by pieces of bones and wood, by rusty nails
+ and thorns, by handkerchiefs and rags, by water and beads and by a finger
+ of the Holy Ghost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the literature of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that the priests were honest&mdash;as honest as ignorant. More
+ could not be said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity claims, with great pride, that it established asylums for the
+ insane. Yes, it did. But the insane were treated as criminals. They were
+ regarded as the homes&mdash;as the tenement-houses of devils. They were
+ persecuted and tormented. They were chained and flogged, starved and
+ killed. The asylums were prisons, dungeons, the insane were victims and
+ the keepers were ignorant, conscientious, pious fiends. They were not
+ trying to help men, they were fighting devils&mdash;destroying demons.
+ They were not actuated by love&mdash;but by hate and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It founded schools where facts were denied, where science was denounced
+ and philosophy despised. Schools, where priests were made&mdash;where they
+ were taught to hate reason and to look upon doubts as the suggestions of
+ the Devil. Schools where the heart was hardened and the brain shriveled.
+ Schools in which lies were sacred and truths profane. Schools for the more
+ general diffusion of ignorance&mdash;schools to prevent thought&mdash;to
+ suppress knowledge. Schools for the purpose of enslaving the world.
+ Schools in which teachers knew less than pupils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has the church done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has used its influence with God to get rain and sunshine&mdash;to stop
+ flood and storm&mdash;to kill insects, rats, snakes and wild beasts&mdash;to
+ stay pestilence and famine&mdash;to delay frost and snow&mdash;to lengthen
+ the lives of kings and queens&mdash;to protect presidents&mdash;to give
+ legislators wisdom&mdash;to increase collections and subscriptions. In
+ marriages it has made God the party of the third part. It has sprinkled
+ water on babes when they were named. It has put oil on the dying and
+ repeated prayers for the dead. It has tried to protect the people from the
+ malice of the Devil&mdash;from ghosts and spooks, from witches and wizards
+ and all the leering fiends that seek to poison the souls of men. It has
+ endeavored to protect the sheep of God from the wolves of science&mdash;from
+ the wild beasts of doubt and investigation. It has tried to wean the lambs
+ of the Lord from the delights, the pleasures, the joys, of life. According
+ to the philosophy of the church, the virtuous weep and suffer, the vicious
+ laugh and thrive, the good carry a cross, and the wicked fly. But in the
+ next life this will be reversed. Then the good will be happy, and the bad
+ will be damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church filled the world with faith and crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It polluted the fountains of joy. It gave us an ignorant, jealous,
+ revengeful and cruel God&mdash;sometimes merciful&mdash;sometimes
+ ferocious. Now just, now infamous&mdash;sometimes wise&mdash;generally
+ foolish. It gave us a Devil, cunning, malicious, almost the equal of God,
+ not quite as strong&mdash;but quicker&mdash;not as profound&mdash;but
+ sharper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gave us angels with wings&mdash;cherubim and seraphim and a heaven with
+ harps and hallelujahs&mdash;with streets of gold and gates of pearl.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gave us fiends and imps with wings like bats. It gave us ghosts and
+ goblins, spooks and sprites, and little devils that swarmed in the bodies
+ of men, and it gave us hell where the souls of men will roast in eternal
+ flames. Shall we thank the church? Shall we thank the orthodox churches?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall we thank them for the hell they made here? Shall we thank them for
+ the hell of the future?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE must remember that the church was founded and has been protected by
+ God, that all the popes, and cardinals, all the bishops, priests and
+ monks, all the ministers and exhorters were selected and set apart&mdash;all
+ sanctified and enlightened by the infinite God&mdash;that the Holy
+ Scriptures were inspired by the same Being, and that all the orthodox
+ creeds were really made by him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know what these men&mdash;filled with the Holy Ghost&mdash;have done.
+ We know the part they have played. We know the souls they have saved and
+ the bodies they have destroyed. We know the consolation they have given
+ and the pain they have inflicted&mdash;the lies they have defended&mdash;the
+ truths they have denied. We know that they convinced millions that
+ celibacy is the greatest of all virtues&mdash;that women are perpetual
+ temptations, the enemies of true holiness&mdash;that monks and priests are
+ nobler than fathers, that nuns are purer than mothers. We know that they
+ taught the blessed absurdity of the Trinity&mdash;that God once worked at
+ the trade of a carpenter in Palestine. We know that they divided knowledge
+ into sacred and profane&mdash;taught that Revelation was sacred&mdash;that
+ Reason was blasphemous&mdash;that faith was holy and facts false. That the
+ sin of Adam and Eve brought disease and pain, vice and death into the
+ world. We know that they have taught the dogma of special providence&mdash;that
+ all events are ordered and regulated by God&mdash;that he crowns and
+ uncrowns kings&mdash;preserves and destroys&mdash;guards and kills&mdash;that
+ it is the duty of man to submit to the divine will, and that no matter how
+ much evil there may be&mdash;no matter how much suffering&mdash;how much
+ pain and death, man should pour out-his heart in thankfulness that it is
+ no worse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me be understood. I do not say and I do not think that the church was
+ dishonest, that the clergy were insincere. I admit that all religions, all
+ creeds, all priests, have been naturally produced. I admit, and cheerfully
+ admit, that the believers in the supernatural have done some good&mdash;not
+ because they believed in gods and devils&mdash;but in spite of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that thousands and thousands of clergymen are honest, self-denying
+ and humane&mdash;that they are doing what they believe to be their duty&mdash;doing
+ what they can to induce men and women to live pure and noble lives. This
+ is not the result of their creeds&mdash;it is because they are human.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What I say is that every honest teacher of the supernatural has been and
+ is an unconscious enemy of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the philosophy of the church&mdash;of those who believe in the
+ supernatural?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Back of all that is&mdash;back of all events&mdash;Christians put an
+ infinite Juggler who with a wish creates, preserves, destroys. The world
+ is his stage and mankind his puppets. He fills them with wants and
+ desires, with appetites and ambitions&mdash;with hopes and fears&mdash;with
+ love and hate. He touches the springs. He pulls the strings&mdash;baits
+ the hooks, sets the traps and digs the pits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The play is a continuous performance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He watches these puppets as they struggle and fail. Sees them outwit each
+ other and themselves&mdash;leads them to every crime, watches the births
+ and deaths&mdash;hears lullabies at cradles and the fall of clods on
+ coffins. He has no pity. He enjoys the tragedies&mdash;the desperation&mdash;the
+ despair&mdash;the suicides. He smiles at the murders, the assassinations,&mdash;the
+ seductions, the desertions&mdash;the abandoned babes of shame. He sees the
+ weak enslaved&mdash;mothers robbed of babes&mdash;the innocent in dungeons&mdash;on
+ scaffolds. He sees crime crowned and hypocrisy robed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He withholds the rain and his puppets starve. He opens the earth and they
+ are devoured. He sends the flood and they are drowned. He empties the
+ volcano and they perish in fire. He sends the cyclone and they are torn
+ and mangled. With quick lightnings they are dashed to death. He fills the
+ air and water with the invisible enemies of life&mdash;the messengers of
+ pain, and watches the puppets as they breathe and drink. He creates
+ cancers to feed upon their flesh&mdash;their quivering nerves&mdash;serpents,
+ to fill their veins with venom,&mdash;beasts to crunch their bones&mdash;to
+ lap their blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the poor puppets he makes insane&mdash;makes them struggle in the
+ darkness with imagined monsters with glaring eyes and dripping jaws, and
+ some are made without the flame of thought, to drool and drivel through
+ the darkened days. He sees all the agony, the injustice, the rags of
+ poverty, the withered hands of want&mdash;the motherless babes&mdash;the
+ deformed&mdash;the maimed&mdash;the leprous, knows the tears that flow&mdash;hears
+ the sobs and moans&mdash;sees the gleam of swords, hears the roar of the
+ guns&mdash;sees the fields reddened with blood&mdash;the white faces of
+ the dead. But he mocks when their fear cometh, and at their calamity he
+ fills the heavens with laughter. And the poor puppets who are left alive,
+ fall on their knees and thank the Juggler with all their hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But after all, the gods have not supported the children of men, men have
+ supported the gods. They have built the temples. They have sacrificed
+ their babes, their lambs, their cattle. They have drenched the altars with
+ blood. They have given their silver, their gold, their gems. They have fed
+ and clothed their priests&mdash;but the gods have given nothing in return.
+ Hidden in the shadows they have answered no prayer&mdash;heard no cry&mdash;given
+ no sign&mdash;extended no hand&mdash;uttered no word. Unseen and unheard
+ they have sat on their thrones, deaf and dumb&mdash;paralyzed and blind.
+ In vain the steeples rise&mdash;in vain the prayers ascend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And think what man has done to please the gods. He has renounced his
+ reason&mdash;extinguished the torch of his brain, he has believed without
+ evidence and against evidence. He has slandered and maligned himself. He
+ has fasted and starved. He has mutilated his body&mdash;scarred his flesh&mdash;given
+ his blood to vermin. He has persecuted, imprisoned and destroyed his
+ fellows. He has deserted wife and child. He has lived alone in the desert.
+ He has swung-censers and burned incense, counted beads and sprinkled
+ himself with holy water&mdash;shut his eyes, clasped his hands&mdash;fallen
+ upon his knees and groveled in the dust&mdash;but the gods have been
+ silent&mdash;silent as stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have these cringings and crawlings&mdash;these cruelties and absurdities&mdash;this
+ faith and foolishness pleased the gods?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has any disaster been averted&mdash;any blessing obtained? We do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall we thank these gods?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall we thank the church's God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who and what is he?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say that he is the creator and preserver of all that has been&mdash;of
+ all that is&mdash;of all that will be&mdash;that he is the father of
+ angels and devils, the architect of heaven and hell&mdash;that he made the
+ earth&mdash;a man and woman&mdash;that he made the serpent who tempted
+ them, made his own rival&mdash;gave victory to his enemy&mdash;that he
+ repented of what he had done&mdash;that he sent a flood and destroyed all
+ of the children of men with the exception of eight persons&mdash;that he
+ tried to civilize the survivors and their children&mdash;tried to do this
+ with earthquakes and fiery serpents &mdash;with pestilence and famine. But
+ he failed. He intended to fail. Then he was born into the world, preached
+ for three years, and allowed some savages to kill him. Then he rose from
+ the dead and went back to heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that he would fail, knew that he would be killed. In fact he
+ arranged everything himself and brought everything to pass just as he had
+ predestined it an eternity before the world was. All who believe these
+ things will be saved and they who doubt or deny will be lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has this God good sense?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not always. He creates his own enemies and plots against himself. Nothing
+ lives, except in accordance with his will, and yet the devils do not die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the matter with this God? Well, sometimes he is foolish&mdash;sometimes
+ he is cruel and sometimes he is insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does this God exist? Is there any intelligence back of Nature? Is there
+ any being anywhere among the stars who pities the suffering children of
+ men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall we thank Nature?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does Nature care for us more than for leaves, or grass, or flies?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does Nature know that we exist? We do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we do know that Nature is going to murder us all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we thank Nature? If we thank God or Nature for the sunshine and
+ rain, for health and happiness, whom shall we curse for famine and
+ pestilence, for earthquake and cyclone&mdash;for disease and death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IF we cannot thank the orthodox churches&mdash;if we cannot thank the
+ unknown, the incomprehensible, the supernatural&mdash;if we cannot thank
+ Nature&mdash;if we can not kneel to a Guess, or prostrate ourselves before
+ a Perhaps&mdash;whom shall we thank?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see what the worldly have done&mdash;what has been accomplished by
+ those not "called," not "set apart," not "inspired," not filled with the
+ Holy Ghost&mdash;by those who were neglected by all the Gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Passing over the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, their
+ poets, philosophers and metaphysicians&mdash;we will come to modern times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the 10th century after Christ the Saracens&mdash;governors of a vast
+ empire&mdash;"established colleges in Mongolia, Tartary, Persia,
+ Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Morocco, Fez and in Spain." The
+ region owned by the Saracens was greater than the Roman Empire. They had
+ not only colleges&mdash;but observatories. The sciences were taught. They
+ introduced the ten numerals&mdash;taught algebra and trigonometry&mdash;understood
+ cubic equations&mdash;knew the art of surveying&mdash;they made catalogues
+ and maps of the stars&mdash;gave the great stars the names they still bear&mdash;they
+ ascertained the size of the earth&mdash;determined the obliquity of the
+ ecliptic and fixed the length of the year. They calculated eclipses,
+ equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets and occultations of stars.
+ They constructed astronomical instruments. They made clocks of various
+ kinds and were the inventors of the pendulum. They originated chemistry&mdash;discovered
+ sulphuric and nitric acid and alcohol.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They were the first to publish pharmacopoeias and dispensatories.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In mechanics they determined the laws of falling bodies. They understood
+ the mechanical powers, and the attraction of gravitation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They taught hydrostatics and determined the specific gravities of bodies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In optics they discovered that a ray of light did not proceed from the
+ eye to an object&mdash;but from the object to the eye."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They were manufacturers of cotton, leather, paper and steel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They gave us the game of chess.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They produced romances and novels and essays on many subjects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In their schools they taught the modern doctrines of evolution and
+ development." They anticipated Darwin and Spencer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These people were not Christians. They were the followers, for the most
+ part, of an impostor&mdash;of a pretended prophet of a false God. And yet
+ while the true Christians, the men selected by the true God and filled
+ with the Holy Ghost were tearing out the tongues of heretics, these
+ wretches were irreverently tracing the orbits of the stars. While the true
+ believers were flaying philosophers and extinguishing the eyes of
+ thinkers, these godless followers of Mohammed were founding colleges,
+ collecting manuscripts, investigating the facts of nature and giving their
+ attention to science. Afterward the followers of Mohammed became the
+ enemies of science and hated facts as intensely and honestly as
+ Christians. Whoever has a revelation from God will defend it with all his
+ strength&mdash;will abhor reason and deny facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it is well to know that we are indebted to the Moors&mdash;to the
+ followers of Mohammed&mdash;for having laid the foundations of modern
+ science. It is well to know that we are not indebted to the church, to
+ Christianity, for any useful fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is well to know that the seeds of thought were sown in our minds by the
+ Greeks and Romans, and that our literature came from those seeds. The
+ great literature of our language is Pagan in its thought&mdash;Pagan in
+ its beauty&mdash;Pagan in its perfection. It is well to know that when
+ Mohammedans were the friends of science, Christians were its enemies. How
+ consoling it is to think that the friends of science&mdash;the men who
+ educated their fellows&mdash;are now in hell, and that the men who
+ persecuted and killed philosophers are now in heaven! Such is the justice
+ of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christians of the Middle Ages, the men who were filled with the Holy
+ Ghost, knew all about the worlds beyond the grave, but nothing about the
+ world in which they lived. They thought the earth was flat&mdash;a little
+ dishing if anything&mdash;that it was about five thousand years old, and
+ that the stars were little sparkles made to beautify the night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact is that Christianity was in existence for fifteen hundred years
+ before there was an astronomer in Christendom. No follower of Christ knew
+ the shape of the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The earth was demonstrated to be a globe, not by a pope or cardinal&mdash;not
+ by a collection of clergymen&mdash;not by the "called" or the "set apart,"
+ but by a sailor. Magellan left Seville, Spain, August 10th, 1519, sailed
+ west and kept sailing west, and the ship reached Seville, the port it
+ left, on Sept. 7th, 1522.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world had been circumnavigated. The earth was known to be round. There
+ had been a dispute between the Scriptures and a sailor. The fact took the
+ sailor's side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1543 Copernicus published his book, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
+ Bodies."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had some idea of the vastness of the stars&mdash;of the astronomical
+ spaces&mdash;of the insignificance of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Toward the close of the sixteenth century, Bruno, one of the greatest men
+ this world has produced, gave his thoughts to his fellow-men. He taught
+ the plurality of worlds. He was a Pantheist, an Atheist, an honest man. He
+ called the Catholic Church the "Triumphant Beast." He was imprisoned for
+ many years, tried, convicted, and on the 16th day of February, 1600,
+ burned in Rome by men filled with the Holy Ghost, burned on the spot where
+ now his monument rises. Bruno, the noblest, the greatest of all the
+ martyrs. The only one who suffered death for what he believed to be the
+ truth. The only martyr who had no heaven to gain, no hell to shun, no God
+ to please. He was nobler than inspired men, grander than prophets, greater
+ and purer than apostles. Above all the theologians of the world, above the
+ makers of creeds, above the founders of religions rose this serene,
+ unselfish and intrepid man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet Christians, followers of Christ, murdered this incomparable man. These
+ Christians were true to their creed. They believed that faith would be
+ rewarded with eternal joy, and doubt punished with eternal pain. They were
+ logical. They were pious and pitiless&mdash;devout and devilish&mdash;meek
+ and malicious&mdash;religious and revengeful&mdash;Christ-like and cruel&mdash;loving
+ with their mouths and hating with their hearts. And yet, honest victims of
+ ignorance and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What have the wordly done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1608, Lippersheim, a Hollander, so arranged lenses that objects were
+ exaggerated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He invented the telescope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He gave countless worlds to our eyes, and made us citizens of the
+ Universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1610, on the night of January 7th, Galileo demonstrated the truth of
+ the Copernican system, and in 1632, published his work on "The System of
+ the World."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What did the church do?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Galileo was arrested, imprisoned, forced to fall upon his knees, put his
+ hand on the Bible, and recant. For ten years he was kept in prison&mdash;for
+ ten years until released by the pity of death. Then the church&mdash;men
+ filled with the Holy Ghost&mdash;denied his body burial in consecrated
+ ground. It was feared that his dust might corrupt the bodies of those who
+ had persecuted him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1609, Kepler published his book "Motions of the Planet Mars." He, too,
+ knew of the attraction of gravitation and that it acted in proportion to
+ mass and distance. Kepler announced his Three Laws. He found and
+ mathematically expressed the relation of distance, mass, and motion.
+ Nothing greater has been accomplished by the human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Astronomy became a science and Christianity a superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came Newton, Herscheland Laplace. The astronomy of Joshua and Elijah
+ faded from the minds of intelligent men, and Jehovah became an ignorant
+ tribal god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men began to see that the operations of Nature were not subject to
+ interference. That eclipses were not caused by the wrath of God&mdash;that
+ comets had nothing to do with the destruction of empires or the death of
+ kings, that the stars wheeled in their orbits without regard to the
+ actions of men. In the sacred East the dawn appeared.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What have the wordly done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago a few men became wicked enough to use their senses. They
+ began to look and listen. They began to really see and then they began to
+ reason. They forgot heaven and hell long enough to take some interest in
+ this world. They began to examine soils and rocks. They noticed what had
+ been done by rivers and seas. They found out something about the crust of
+ the earth. They found that most of the rocks had been deposited and
+ stratified in the water&mdash;rocks 70,000 feet in thickness. They found
+ that the coal was once vegetable matter. They made the best calculations
+ they could of the time required to make the coal, and concluded that it
+ must have taken at least six or seven millions of years. They examined the
+ chalk cliffs, found that they were composed of the microscopic shells of
+ minute organisms, that is to say, the dust of these shells. This dust
+ settled over areas as large as Europe and in some places the chalk is a
+ mile in depth. This must have required many millions of years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lyell, the highest authority on the subject, says that it must have
+ required, to cause the changes that we know, at least two hundred million
+ years. Think of these vast deposits caused by the slow falling of
+ infinitesimal atoms of impalpable dust through the silent depths of
+ ancient seas! Think of the microscopical forms of life, constructing their
+ minute houses of lime, giving life to others, leaving their mansions
+ beneath the waves, and so through countless generations building the
+ foundations of continents and islands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Go back of all life that we now know&mdash;back of all the flying lizards,
+ the armored monsters, the hissing serpents, the winged and fanged horrors&mdash;back
+ to the Laurentian rocks&mdash;to the eozoon, the first of living things
+ that we have found&mdash;back of all mountains, seas and rivers&mdash;back
+ to the first incrustation of the molten world&mdash;back of wave of fire
+ and robe of flame&mdash;back to the time when all the substance of the
+ earth blazed in the glowing sun with all the stars that wheel about the
+ central fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the days and nights that lie between!&mdash;think of the
+ centuries, the withered leaves of time, that strew the desert of the past!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature does not hurry. Time cannot be wasted&mdash;cannot be lost. The
+ future remains eternal and all the past is as though it had not been&mdash;as
+ though it were to be. The infinite knows neither loss nor gain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know something of the history of the world&mdash;something of the human
+ race; and we know that man has lived and struggled through want and war,
+ through pestilence and famine, through ignorance and crime, through fear
+ and hope, on the old earth for millions and millions of years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last we know that infallible popes, and countless priests and
+ clergymen, who had been "called," filled with the Holy Ghost, and
+ presidents of colleges, kings, emperors and executives of nations had
+ mistaken the blundering guesses of ignorant savages for the wisdom of an
+ infinite God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last we know that the story of creation, of the beginning of things, as
+ told in the "sacred book," is not only untrue, but utterly absurd and
+ idiotic. Now we know that the inspired writers did not know and that the
+ God who inspired them did not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are no longer misled by myths and legends. We rely upon facts. The
+ world is our witness and the stars testify for us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What have the worldly done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have investigated the religions of the world&mdash;have read the
+ sacred books, the prophecies, the commandments, the rules of conduct. They
+ have studied the symbols, the ceremonies, the prayers and sacrifices. And
+ they have shown that all religions are substantially the same&mdash;produced
+ by the same causes&mdash;that all rest on a misconception of the facts in
+ nature&mdash;that all are founded on ignorance and fear, on mistake and
+ mystery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have found that Christianity is like the rest&mdash;that it was not a
+ revelation, but a natural growth&mdash;that its gods and devils, its
+ heavens and hells, were borrowed&mdash;that its ceremonies and sacraments
+ were souvenirs of other religions&mdash;that no part of it came from
+ heaven, but that it was all made by savage man. They found that Jehovah
+ was a tribal god and that his ancestors had lived on the banks of the
+ Euphrates, the Tigris, the Ganges and the Nile, and these ancestors were
+ traced back to still more savage forms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They found that all the sacred books were filled with inspired mistake and
+ sacred absurdity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, say the Christians, we have the only inspired book. We have the Old
+ Testament and the New. Where did you get the Old Testament? From the Jews?&mdash;Yes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the Jews returned from Babylon, about 400 years before Christ, Ezra
+ commenced making the Bible. You will find an account of this in the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that Genesis was written after the Captivity&mdash;because it was
+ from the Babylonians that the Jews got the story of the creation&mdash;of
+ Adam and Eve, of the Garden&mdash;of the serpent, and the tree of life&mdash;of
+ the flood&mdash;and from them they learned about the Sabbath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You find nothing about that holy day in Judges, Joshua, Samuel, Kings or
+ Chronicles&mdash;nothing in Job, the Psalms, in Esther, Solomon's Song or
+ Ecclesiastes. Only in books written by Ezra after the return from Babylon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Ezra finished the inspired book, he placed it in the temple. It was
+ written on the skins of beasts, and, so far as we know, there was but one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What became of this Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jerusalem was taken by Titus about 70 years after Christ. The temple was
+ destroyed and, at the request of Josephus, the Holy Bible was sent to
+ Vespasian the Emperor, at Rome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And this Holy Bible has never been seen or heard of since. So much for
+ that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there was a copy, or rather a translation, called the Septuagint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How was that made?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is said that Ptolemy Soter and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus obtained a
+ translation of the Jewish Bible. This translation was made by seventy
+ persons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time the Jewish Bible did not contain Daniel, Ecclesiastes, but
+ few of the Psalms and only a part of Isaiah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What became of this translation known as the Septuagint?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was burned in the Bruchium Library forty-seven years before Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there was another so-called copy of part of the Bible, known as the
+ Samaritan Roll of the Pentateuch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this is not considered of any value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have we a true copy of the Bible that was in the temple at Jerusalem&mdash;the
+ one sent to Vespasian?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nobody knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have we a true copy of the Septuagint?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nobody knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the oldest manuscript of the Bible we have in Hebrew?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The oldest manuscript we have in Hebrew was written in the 10th century
+ after Christ. The oldest pretended copy we have of the Septuagint written
+ in Greek was made in the 5th century after Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible was divinely inspired, if it was the actual word of God, we
+ have no authenticated copy. The original has been lost and we are left in
+ the darkness of Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for us to show that our Bible is correct. We have no
+ standard. Many of the books in our Bible contradict each other. Many
+ chapters appear to be incomplete and parts of different books are written
+ in the same words, showing that both could not have been original. The
+ 19th and 20th chapters of 2nd Kings and the 37th and 38th chapters of
+ Isaiah are exactly the same. So is the 36th chapter of Isaiah from the 2nd
+ verse the same as the 18th chapter of 2nd Kings from the 2nd verse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it is perfectly apparent that there could have been no possible
+ propriety in inspiring the writers of Kings and the writers of Chronicles.
+ The books are substantially the same, differing in a few mistakes&mdash;in
+ a few falsehoods. The same is true of Leviticus and Numbers. The books do
+ not agree either in facts or philosophy. They differ as the men differed
+ who wrote them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What have the worldly done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have investigated the phenomena of nature. They have invented ways to
+ use the forces of the world, the weight of falling water&mdash;of moving
+ air. They have changed water to steam, invented engines&mdash;the tireless
+ giants that work for man. They have made lightning a messenger and slave.
+ They invented movable type, taught us the art of printing and made it
+ possible to save and transmit the intellectual wealth of the world. They
+ connected continents with cables, cities and towns with the telegraph&mdash;brought
+ the world into one family&mdash;made intelligence independent of distance.
+ They taught us how to build homes, to obtain food, to weave cloth. They
+ covered the seas with iron ships and the land with roads and steeds of
+ steel. They gave us the tools of all the trades&mdash;the implements of
+ labor. They chiseled statues, painted pictures and "witched the world"
+ with form and color. They have found the cause of and the cure for many
+ maladies that afflict the flesh and minds of men. They have given us the
+ instruments of music and the great composers and performers have changed
+ the common air to tones and harmonies that intoxicate, exalt and purify
+ the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have rescued us from the prisons of fear, and snatched our souls from
+ the fangs and claws of superstition's loathsome, crawling, flying beasts.
+ They have given us the liberty to think and the courage to express our
+ thoughts. They have changed the frightened, the enslaved, the kneeling,
+ the prostrate into men and women&mdash;clothed them in their right minds
+ and made them truly free. They have uncrowned the phantoms, wrested the
+ scepters from the ghosts and given this world to the children of men. They
+ have driven from the heart the fiends of fear and extinguished the flames
+ of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have read a few leaves of the great volume&mdash;deciphered some of
+ the records written on stone by the tireless hands of time in the dim
+ past. They have told us something of what has been done by wind and wave,
+ by fire and frost, by life and death, the ceaseless workers, the pauseless
+ forces of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have enlarged the horizon of the known, changed the glittering specks
+ that shine above us to wheeling worlds, and filled all space with
+ countless suns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have found the qualities of substances, the nature of things&mdash;how
+ to analyze, separate and combine, and have enabled us to use the good and
+ avoid the hurtful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have given us mathematics in the higher forms, by means of which we
+ measure the astronomical spaces, the distances to stars, the velocity at
+ which the heavenly bodies move, their density and weight, and by which the
+ mariner navigates the waste and trackless seas. They have given us all we
+ have of knowledge, of literature and art. They have made life worth
+ living. They have filled the world with conveniences, comforts and
+ luxuries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this has been done by the worldly&mdash;by those, who were not
+ "called" or "set apart" or filled with the Holy Ghost or had the slightest
+ claim to "apostolic succession." The men who accomplished these things
+ were not "inspired." They had no revelation&mdash;no supernatural aid.
+ They were not clad in sacred vestments, and tiaras were not upon their
+ brows. They were not even ordained. They used their senses, observed and
+ recorded facts. They had confidence in reason. They were patient searchers
+ for the truth. They turned their attention to the affairs of this world.
+ They were not saints. They were sensible men. They worked for themselves,
+ for wife and child and for the benefit of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To these men we are indebted for all we are, for all we know, for all we
+ have. They were the creators of civilization&mdash;the founders of free
+ states&mdash;the saviors of liberty&mdash;the destroyers of superstition
+ and the great captains in the army of progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHOM shall we thank? Standing here at the close of the 19th century&mdash;amid
+ the trophies of thought&mdash;the triumphs of genius&mdash;here under the
+ flag of the Great Republic&mdash;knowing something of the history of man&mdash;here
+ on this day that has been set apart for thanksgiving, I most reverently
+ thank the good men, the good women of the past, I thank the kind fathers,
+ the loving mothers of the savage days. I thank the father who spoke the
+ first gentle word, the mother who first smiled upon her babe. I thank the
+ first true friend. I thank the savages who hunted and fished that they and
+ their babes might live. I thank those who cultivated the ground and
+ changed the forests into farms&mdash;those who built rude homes and
+ watched the faces of their happy children in the glow of fireside flames&mdash;those
+ who domesticated horses, cattle and sheep&mdash;those who invented wheels
+ and looms and taught us to spin and weave&mdash;those who by cultivation
+ changed wild grasses into wheat and corn, changed bitter things to fruit,
+ and worthless weeds to flowers, that sowed within our souls the seeds of
+ art. I thank the poets of the dawn&mdash;the tellers of legends&mdash;the
+ makers of myths&mdash;the singers of joy and grief, of hope and love. I
+ thank the artists who chiseled forms in stone and wrought with light and
+ shade the face of man. I thank the philosophers, the thinkers, who taught
+ us how to use our minds in the great search for truth. I thank the
+ astronomers who explored the heavens, told us the secrets of the stars,
+ the glories of the constellations&mdash;the geologists who found the story
+ of the world in fossil forms, in memoranda kept in ancient rocks, in lines
+ written by waves, by frost and fire&mdash;the anatomists who sought in
+ muscle, nerve and bone for all the mysteries of life&mdash;the chemists
+ who unraveled Nature's work that they might learn her art&mdash;the
+ physicians who have laid the hand of science on the brow of pain, the hand
+ whose magic touch restores&mdash;the surgeons who have defeated Nature's
+ self and forced her to preserve the lives of those she labored to destroy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the discoverers of chloroform and ether, the two angels who give
+ to their beloved sleep, and wrap the throbbing brain in the soft robes of
+ dreams. I thank the great inventors&mdash;those who gave us movable type
+ and the press, by means of which great thoughts and all discovered facts
+ are made immortal&mdash;the inventors of engines, of the great ships, of
+ the railways, the cables and telegraphs. I thank the great mechanics, the
+ workers in iron and steel, in wood and stone. I thank the inventors and
+ makers of the numberless things of use and luxury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the industrious men, the loving mothers, the useful women. They
+ are the benefactors of our race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The inventor of pins did a thousand times more good than all the popes and
+ cardinals, the bishops and priests&mdash;than all the clergymen and
+ parsons, exhorters and theologians that ever lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The inventor of matches did more for the comfort and convenience of
+ mankind than all the founders of religions and the makers of all creeds&mdash;than
+ all malicious monks and selfish saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the honest men and women who have expressed their sincere
+ thoughts, who have been true to themselves and have preserved the veracity
+ of their souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the thinkers of Greece and Rome, Zeno and Epicurus, Cicero and
+ Lucretius. I thank Bruno, the bravest, and Spinoza, the subtlest of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank Voltaire, whose thought lighted a flame in the brain of man,
+ unlocked the doors of superstition's cells and gave liberty to many
+ millions of his fellow-men. Voltaire&mdash;a name that sheds light.
+ Voltaire&mdash;a star that superstition's darkness cannot quench.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the great poets&mdash;the dramatists. I thank Homer and Aeschylus,
+ and I thank Shakespeare above them all. I thank Burns for the heart-throbs
+ he changed into songs, for his lyrics of flame. I thank Shelley for his
+ Skylark, Keats for his Grecian Urn and Byron for his Prisoner of Chillon.
+ I thank the great novelists. I thank the great sculptors. I thank the
+ unknown man who moulded and chiseled the Venus de Milo. I thank the great
+ painters. I thank Rembrandt and Corot. I thank all who have adorned,
+ enriched and ennobled life&mdash;all who have created the great, the
+ noble, the heroic and artistic ideals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the statesmen who have preserved the rights of man. I thank Paine
+ whose genius sowed the seeds of independence in the hearts of '76. I thank
+ Jefferson whose mighty words for liberty have made the circuit of the
+ globe. I thank the founders, the defenders, the saviors of the Republic. I
+ thank Ericsson, the greatest mechanic of his century, for the monitor. I
+ thank Lincoln for the Proclamation. I thank Grant for his victories and
+ the vast host that fought for the right,&mdash;for the freedom of man. I
+ thank them all&mdash;the living and the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the great scientists&mdash;those who have reached the foundation,
+ the bed-rock&mdash;who have built upon facts&mdash;the great scientists,
+ in whose presence theologians look silly and feel malicious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The scientists never persecuted, never imprisoned their fellow-men. They
+ forged no chains, built no dungeons, erected no scaffolds&mdash;tore no
+ flesh with red hot pincers&mdash;dislocated no joints on racks&mdash;crushed
+ no bones in iron boots&mdash;extinguished no eyes&mdash;tore out no
+ tongues and lighted no fagots. They did not pretend to be inspired&mdash;did
+ not claim to be prophets or saints or to have been born again. They were
+ only intelligent and honest men. They did not appeal to force or fear.
+ They did not regard men as slaves to be ruled by torture, by lash and
+ chain, nor as children to be cheated with illusions, rocked in the cradle
+ of an idiot creed and soothed by a lullaby of lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They did not wound&mdash;they healed. They did not kill&mdash;they
+ lengthened life. They did not enslave&mdash;they broke the chains and made
+ men free. They sowed the seeds of knowledge, and many millions have
+ reaped, are reaping, and will reap the harvest of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank Humboldt and Helmholtz and Haeckel and B&uuml;chner. I thank
+ Lamarck and Darwin&mdash;Darwin who revolutionized the thought of the
+ intellectual world. I thank Huxley and Spencer. I thank the scientists one
+ and all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank the heroes, the destroyers of prejudice and fear&mdash;the
+ dethroners of savage gods&mdash;the extinguishers of hate's eternal fire&mdash;the
+ heroes, the breakers of chains&mdash;the founders of free states&mdash;the
+ makers of just laws&mdash;the heroes who fought and fell on countless
+ fields&mdash;the heroes whose dungeons became shrines&mdash;the heroes
+ whose blood made scaffolds sacred&mdash;the heroes, the apostles of
+ reason, the disciples of truth, the soldiers of freedom&mdash;the heroes
+ who held high the holy torch and filled the world with light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With all my heart I thank them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A LAY SERMON.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Delivered before the Congress of the American Secular
+ Union, at Chickering Hall, New York, Nov. 14, 1885.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the greatest tragedy that has ever been written
+ by man&mdash;in the fourth scene of the third act&mdash;is the best prayer
+ that I have ever read; and when I say "the greatest tragedy," everybody
+ familiar with Shakespeare will know that I refer to "King Lear." After he
+ has been on the heath, touched with insanity, coming suddenly to the place
+ of shelter, he says:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "I'll pray, and then I'll sleep."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And this prayer is my text:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
+ That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
+ How shall your unhoused heads, your unfed sides,
+ Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
+ From seasons such as these?
+
+ Oh, I have ta'en
+ Too little care of this.
+ Take physic, pomp;
+ Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
+ That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
+ And show the heavens more just."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ That is one of the noblest prayers that ever fell from human lips. If
+ nobody has too much, everybody will have enough!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I propose to say a few words upon subjects that are near to us all, and in
+ which every human being ought to be interested&mdash;and if he is not, it
+ may be that his wife will be, it may be that his orphans will be; and I
+ would like to see this world, at last, so that a man could die and not
+ feel that he left his wife and children a prey to the greed, the avarice,
+ or the cruelties of mankind. There is something wrong in a government
+ where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong, when
+ honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender,
+ eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. I cannot do much, but I
+ can at least sympathize with those who suffer. There is one thing that we
+ should remember at the start, and if I can only teach you that, to-night&mdash;unless
+ you know it already&mdash;I shall consider the few words I may have to say
+ a wonderful success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to remember that everybody is as he <i>must</i> be. I want you
+ to get out of your minds the old nonsense of "free moral agency;" and then
+ you will have charity for the whole human race. When you know that they
+ are not responsible for their dispositions, any more than for their
+ height; not responsible for their acts, any more than for their dreams;
+ when you finally understand the philosophy that everything exists as the
+ result of an efficient cause, and that the lightest fancy that ever
+ fluttered its painted wings in the horizon of hope was as necessarily
+ produced as the planet that in its orbit wheels about the sun&mdash;when
+ you understand this, I believe you will have charity for all mankind&mdash;including
+ even yourself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wealth is not a crime; poverty is not a virtue&mdash;although the virtuous
+ have generally been poor. There is only one good, and that is human
+ happiness; and he only is a wise man who makes himself and others happy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have heard all my life about self-denial. There never was anything more
+ idiotic than that. No man who does right practices self-denial. To do
+ right is the bud and blossom and fruit of wisdom. To do right should
+ always be dictated by the highest possible selfishness and the most
+ perfect generosity. No man practices self-denial unless he does wrong. To
+ inflict an injury upon yourself is an act of self-denial. He who denies
+ justice to another denies it to himself. To plant seeds that will forever
+ bear the fruit of joy, is not an act of self-denial. So this idea of doing
+ good to others only for their sake is absurd. You want to do it, not
+ simply for their sake, but for your own; because a perfectly civilized man
+ can never be perfectly happy while there is one unhappy being in this
+ universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step. The barbaric world was to be rewarded in some
+ other world for acting sensibly in this. They were promised rewards in
+ another world, if they would only have self-denial enough to be virtuous
+ in this. If they would forego the pleasures of larceny and murder; if they
+ would forego the thrill and bliss of meanness here, they would be rewarded
+ hereafter for that self-denial. I have exactly the opposite idea. Do
+ right, not to deny yourself, but because you love yourself and because you
+ love others. Be generous, because it is better for you. Be just, because
+ any other course is the suicide of the soul. Whoever does wrong plagues
+ himself, and when he reaps that harvest, he will find that he was not
+ practicing self-denial when he did right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you want to be happy yourself, if you are truly civilized, you want
+ others to be happy. Every man ought, to the extent of his ability, to
+ increase the happiness of mankind, for the reason that that will increase
+ his own. No one can be really prosperous unless those with whom he lives
+ share the sunshine and the joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first thing a man wants to know and be sure of is when he has got
+ enough. Most people imagine that the rich are in heaven, but, as a rule,
+ it is only a gilded hell. There is not a man in the city of New York with
+ genius enough, with brains enough, to own five millions of dollars. Why?
+ The money will own him. He becomes the key to a safe. That money will get
+ him up at daylight; that money will separate him from his friends; that
+ money will fill his heart with fear; that money will rob his days of
+ sunshine and his nights of pleasant dreams. He cannot own it. He becomes
+ the property of that money. And he goes right on making more. What for? He
+ does not know. It becomes a kind of insanity. No one is happier in a
+ palace than in a cabin. I love to see a log house. It is associated in my
+ mind always with pure, unalloyed happiness. It is the only house in the
+ world that looks as though it had no mortgage on it. It looks as if you
+ could spend there long, tranquil autumn days; the air filled with
+ serenity; no trouble, no thoughts about notes, about interest&mdash;nothing
+ of the kind; just breathing free air, watching the hollyhocks, listening
+ to the birds and to the music of the spring that comes like a poem from
+ the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is an insanity to get more than you want. Imagine a man in this city,
+ an intelligent man, say with two or three millions of coats, eight or ten
+ millions of hats, vast warehouses full of shoes, billions of neckties, and
+ imagine that man getting up at four o'clock in the morning, in the rain
+ and snow and sleet, working like a dog all day to get another necktie! Is
+ not that exactly what the man of twenty or thirty millions, or of five
+ millions, does to-day? Wearing his life out that somebody may say, "How
+ rich he is!" What can he do with the surplus? Nothing. Can he eat it? No.
+ Make friends? No. Purchase flattery and lies? Yes. Make all his poor
+ relations hate him? Yes. And then, what worry! Annoyed, nervous,
+ tormented, until his poor little brain becomes inflamed, and you see in
+ the morning paper, "Died of apoplexy." This man finally began to worry for
+ fear he would not have enough neckties to last him through.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So we ought to teach our children that great wealth is a curse. Great
+ wealth is the mother of crime. On the other hand are the abject poor. And
+ let me ask, to-night: Is the world forever to remain as it was when Lear
+ made his prayer? Is it ever to remain as it is now? I hope not. Are there
+ always to be millions whose lips are white with famine? Is the withered
+ palm to be always extended, imploring from the stony heart of respectable
+ charity, alms? Must every man who sits down to a decent dinner always
+ think of the starving? Must every one sitting by the fireside think of
+ some poor mother, with a child strained to her breast, shivering in the
+ storm? I hope not. Are the rich always to be divided from the poor,&mdash;not
+ only in fact, but in feeling? And that division is growing more and more
+ every day The gulf between Lazarus and Dives widens year by year, only
+ their positions are changed&mdash;Lazarus is in hell, and he thinks Dives
+ is in the bosom of Abraham.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there is one thing that helps to widen this gulf. In nearly every city
+ of the United States you will find the fashionable part, and the poor
+ part. The poor know nothing of the fashionable part, except the outside
+ splendor; and as they go by the palaces, that poison plant called envy,
+ springs and grows in their poor hearts. The rich know nothing of the poor,
+ except the squalor and rags and wretchedness, and what they read in the
+ police records, and they say, "Thank God, we are not like those people!"
+ Their hearts are filled with scorn and contempt, and the hearts of the
+ others with envy and hatred. There must be some way devised for the rich
+ and poor to get acquainted. The poor do not know how many well-dressed
+ people sympathize with them, and the rich do not know how many noble
+ hearts beat beneath the rags. If we can ever get the loving poor
+ acquainted with the sympathizing rich, this question will be nearly
+ solved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a hundred other ways they are divided. If anything should bring mankind
+ together it ought to be a common belief. In Catholic countries, that does
+ have a softening influence upon the rich and upon the poor. They believe
+ the same. So in Mohammedan countries they can kneel in the same mosque,
+ and pray to the same God. But how is it with us? The church is not free.
+ There is no welcome in the velvet for the velveteen. Poverty does not feel
+ at home there, and the consequence is, the rich and poor are kept apart,
+ even by their religion. I am not saying anything against religion. I am
+ not on that question; but I would think more of any religion, provided
+ that even for one day in the week, or for one hour in the year, it allowed
+ wealth to clasp the hand of poverty and to have, for one moment even, the
+ thrill of genuine friendship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden times, in barbaric life, it was a simple' thing to get a
+ living. A little hunting, a little fishing, pulling a little fruit, and
+ digging for roots&mdash;all simple; and they were nearly all on an
+ equality, and comparatively there were fewer failures. Living has at last
+ become complex. All the avenues are filled with men struggling for the
+ accomplishment of the same thing:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "For emulation hath a thousand sons
+ That one by one pursue: if you give way,
+ Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
+ Like to an entered tide, they all rush by,
+ And leave you hindmost;&mdash;
+ Or, like a gallant horse, fallen in first rank,
+ Lie there for pavement to the abject rear."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The struggle is so hard. And just exactly as we have risen in the scale of
+ being, the per cent, of failures has increased. It is so that all men are
+ not capable of getting a living. They have not cunning enough, intellect
+ enough, muscle enough&mdash;they are not strong enough. They are too
+ generous, or they are too negligent; and then some people seem to have
+ what is called "bad luck"&mdash;that is to say, when anything falls, they
+ are under it; when anything bad happens, it happens to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now there is another trouble. Just as life becomes complex and as
+ everyone is trying to accomplish certain objects, all the ingenuity of the
+ brain is at work to get there by a shorter way, and, in consequence, this
+ has become an age of invention. Myriads of machines have been invented&mdash;every
+ one of them to save labor. If these machines helped the laborer, what a
+ blessing they would be!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the laborer does not own the machine; the machine owns him. That is
+ the trouble. In the olden time, when I was a boy, even, you know how it
+ was in the little towns. There was a shoemaker&mdash;two of them&mdash;a
+ tailor or two, a blacksmith, a wheelwright. I remember just how the shops
+ used to look. I used to go to the blacksmith shop at night, get up on the
+ forge, and hear them talk about turning horse-shoes. Many a night have I
+ seen the sparks fly and heard the stories that were told. There was a
+ great deal of human nature in those days! Everybody was known. If times
+ got hard, the poor little shoemakers made a living mending, half-soling,
+ straightening up the heels. The same with the blacksmith; the same with
+ the tailor. They could get credit&mdash;they did not have to pay till the
+ next January, and if they could not pay then, they took another year, and
+ they were happy enough. Now one man is not a shoemaker. There is a great
+ building&mdash;several hundred thousand dollars' worth of machinery, three
+ or four thousand people&mdash;not a single mechanic in the whole building.
+ One sews on straps, another greases the machines, cuts out soles, waxes
+ threads. And what is the result? When the machines stop, three thousand
+ men are out of employment. Credit goes. Then come want and famine, and if
+ they happen to have a little child die, it would take them years to save
+ enough of their earnings to pay the expense of putting away that little
+ sacred piece of flesh. And yet, by this machinery we can produce enough to
+ flood the world. By the inventions in agricultural machinery the United
+ States can feed all the mouths upon the earth. There is not a thing that
+ man uses that can not instantly be over-produced to such an extent as to
+ become almost worthless; and yet, with all this production, with all this
+ power to create, there are millions and millions in abject want. Granaries
+ bursting, and famine looking into the doors of the poor! Millions of
+ everything, and yet millions wanting everything and having substantially
+ nothing!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is something wrong there. We have got into that contest between
+ machines-and men, and if extravagance does not keep pace with ingenuity,
+ it is going to be the most terrible question that man has ever settled. I
+ tell you, to-night, that these things are worth thinking about. Nothing
+ that touches the future of our race, nothing that touches the happiness of
+ ourselves or our children, should be beneath our notice. We should think
+ of these things&mdash;must think of them&mdash;and we should endeavor to
+ see that justice is finally done between man and man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My sympathies are with the poor. My sympathies are with the workingmen of
+ the United States. Understand me distinctly. I am not an Anarchist.
+ Anarchy is the reaction from tyranny. I am not a Socialist. I am not a
+ Communist. I am an Individualist. I do not believe in tyranny of
+ government, but I do believe in justice as between man and man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the remedy? Or, what can we think of&mdash;for do not imagine that
+ I think I know. It is an immense, an almost infinite, question, and all we
+ can do is to guess. You have heard a great deal lately upon the land
+ subject. Let me say a word or two upon that. In the first place I do not
+ want to take, and I would not take, an inch of land from any human being
+ that belonged to him. If we ever take it, we must pay for it&mdash;condemn
+ it and take it&mdash;do not rob anybody. Whenever any man advocates
+ justice, and robbery as the means, I suspect him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man should be allowed to own any land that he does not use. Everybody
+ knows that&mdash;I do not care whether he has thousands or millions. I
+ have owned a great deal of land, but I know just as well as I know I am
+ living that I should not be allowed to have it unless I use it. And why?
+ Don't you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? Don't you
+ know that there would be an American Air-bottling Association? And don't
+ you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of
+ breath, if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just
+ telling how it is. Now, the land belongs to the children of Nature. Nature
+ invites into this world every babe that is born. And what would you think
+ of me, for instance, to-night, if I had invited you here&mdash;nobody had
+ charged you anything, but you had been invited&mdash;and when you got here
+ you had found one man pretending to occupy a hundred seats, another fifty,
+ and another seventy-five, and thereupon you were compelled to stand up&mdash;what
+ would you think of the invitation? It seems to me that every child of
+ Nature is entitled to his share of the land, and that he should not be
+ compelled to beg the privilege to work the soil, of a babe that happened
+ to be born before him. And why do I say this? Because it is not to our
+ interest to have a few landlords and millions of tenants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tenement house is the enemy of modesty, the enemy of virtue, the enemy
+ of patriotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Home is where the virtues grow. I would like to see the law so that every
+ home, to a small amount, should be free not only from sale for debts, but
+ should be absolutely free from taxation, so that every man could have a
+ home. Then we will have a nation of patriots.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, suppose that every man were to have all the land he is able to buy.
+ The Vanderbilts could buy to-day all the land that is in farms in the
+ State of Ohio&mdash;every foot of it. Would it be for the best interest of
+ that State to have a few landlords and four or five millions of serfs? So,
+ I am in favor of a law finally to be carried out&mdash;not by robbery, but
+ by compensation, under the right, as the lawyers call it, of eminent
+ domain&mdash;so that no person would be allowed to own more land than he
+ uses. I am not blaming these rich men for being rich. I pity the most of
+ them. I had rather be poor, with a little sympathy in my heart, than to be
+ rich as all the mines of earth and not have that little flower of pity in
+ my breast. I do not see how a man can have hundreds of millions and pass
+ every day people that have not enough to eat. I do not understand it. I
+ might be just the same way myself. There is something in money that dries
+ up the sources of affection, and the probability is, it is this: the
+ moment a man gets money, so many men are trying to get it away from him
+ that in a little while he regards the whole human race as his enemy, and
+ he generally thinks that they could be rich, too, if they would only
+ attend to business as he has. Understand, I am not blaming these people.
+ There is a good deal of human nature in us all. You remember the story of
+ the man who made a speech at a Socialist meeting, and closed it by saying,
+ "Thank God, I am no monopolist," but as he sank to his seat said, "But I
+ wish to the Lord I was!" We must remember that these rich men are
+ naturally produced. Do not blame them. Blame the system!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certain privileges have been granted to the few by the Government,
+ ostensibly for the benefit of the many; and whenever that grant is not for
+ the good of the many, it should be taken from the few&mdash;not by force,
+ not by robbery, but by estimating fairly the value of that property, and
+ paying to them its value; because everything should be done according to
+ law and order.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What remedy, then, is there? First, the great weapon in this country is
+ the ballot. Each voter is a sovereign. There the poorest is the equal of
+ the richest. His vote will count just as many as though the hand that cast
+ it controlled millions. The poor are in the majority in this country. If
+ there is any law that oppresses them, it is their fault. They have
+ followed the fife and drum of some party. They have been misled by others.
+ No man should go an inch with a party&mdash;no matter if that party is
+ half the world and has in it the greatest intellects of the earth&mdash;unless
+ that party is going his way. No honest man should ever turn round to join
+ anything. If it overtakes him, good. If he has to hurry up a little to get
+ to it, good. But do not go with anything that is not going your way; no
+ matter whether they call it Republican, or Democrat, or Progressive
+ Democracy&mdash;do not go with it unless it goes your way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ballot is the power. The law should settle many of these questions
+ between capital and labor. But I expect the greatest good to come from
+ civilization, from the growth of a sense of justice; for I tell you
+ to-night, a civilized man will never want anything for less than it is
+ worth&mdash;a civilized man, when he sells a thing, will never want more
+ than it is worth&mdash;a really and truly civilized man, would rather be
+ cheated than to cheat. And yet, in the United States, good as we are,
+ nearly everybody wants to get everything for a little less than it is
+ worth, and the man that sells it to him wants to get a little more than it
+ is worth? and this breeds rascality on both sides. That ought to be done
+ away with. There is one step toward it that we will take: we will finally
+ say that human flesh, human labor, shall not depend entirely on "supply
+ and demand." That is infinitely cruel. Every man should give to another
+ according to his ability to give&mdash;and enough that he may make his
+ living and lay something by for the winter of old age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Go to England. Civilized country they call it. It is not. It never was. I
+ am afraid it never will be. Go to London, the greatest city of this world,
+ where there is the most wealth&mdash;the greatest glittering piles of
+ gold. And yet, one out of every six in that city dies in a hospital, a
+ workhouse or a prison. Is that the best that we are ever to know? Is that
+ the last word that civilization has to say? Look at the women in this town
+ sewing for a living, making cloaks for less than forty-five cents, that
+ sell for $45! Right here&mdash;here, amid all the palaces, amid the
+ thousands of millions of property&mdash;here! Is that all that
+ civilization can do? Must a poor woman support herself, or her child, or
+ her children, by that kind of labor, and with such pay&mdash;and do we
+ call ourselves civilized?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did you ever read that wonderful poem about the sewing woman? Let me tell
+ you the last verse:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Winds that have sainted her, tell ye the story
+ Of the young life by the needle that bled,
+ Making a bridge over death's soundless waters
+ Out of a swaying, and soul-cutting thread&mdash;
+ Over it going, all the world knowing
+ That thousands have trod it, foot-bleeding, before:
+ God protect all of us! God pity all of us,
+ Should she look back from the opposite shore!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I cannot call this civilization. There must be something nearer a fairer
+ division in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You can never get it by strikes. Never. The first strike that is a great
+ success will be the last, because the people who believe in law and order
+ will put the strikers down. The strike is no remedy. Boycotting is no
+ remedy. Brute force is no remedy. These questions have to be settled by
+ reason, by candor, by intelligence, by kindness; and nothing is
+ permanently settled in this world that has not for its corner-stone
+ justice, and is not protected by the profound conviction of the human
+ mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is no country for Anarchy, no country for Communism, no country for
+ the Socialist. Why? Because the political power is equally divided. What
+ other reason? Speech is free. What other? The press is untrammeled. And
+ that is all that the right should ever ask&mdash;a free press, free
+ speech, and the protection of person. That is enough. That is all I ask.
+ In a country like Russia, where every mouth is a bastile and every tongue
+ a convict, there may be some excuse. Where the noblest and the best are
+ driven to Siberia, there may be a reason for the Nihilist. In a country
+ where no man is allowed to petition for redress, there is a reason, but
+ not here. This&mdash;say what you will against it&mdash;this is the best
+ Government ever founded by the human race! Say what you will of parties,
+ say what you will of dishonesty, the holiest flag that ever kissed the air
+ is ours!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago morally we were a low people&mdash;before we
+ abolished slavery&mdash;but now, when there is no chain except that of
+ custom, when every man has an opportunity, this is the grandest Government
+ of the earth. There is hardly a man in the United States to-day, of any
+ importance, whose voice anybody cares to hear, who was not nursed at the
+ loving breast of poverty. Look at the children of the rich. My God, what a
+ punishment for being rich! So, whatever happens, let every man say that
+ this Government, and this form of government, shall stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But," say some, "these workingmen are dangerous." I deny it. We are all
+ in their power. They run all the cars. Our lives are in their hands almost
+ every day. They are working in all our homes. They do the labor of this
+ world. We are all at their mercy, and yet they do not commit more crimes,
+ according to number, than the rich. Remember that. I am not afraid of
+ them. Neither am I afraid of the monopolists, because, under our
+ institutions, when they become hurtful to the general good, the people
+ will stand it just to a certain point, and then comes the end&mdash;not in
+ anger, not in hate, but from a love of liberty and justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we have in this country another class. We call them "criminals." Let
+ me take another step:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
+ But to support him after."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Recollect what I said in the first place&mdash;that every man is as he
+ must be. Every crime is a necessary product. The seeds were all sown, the
+ land thoroughly plowed, the crop well attended to, and carefully
+ harvested. Every crime is born of necessity. If you want less crime, you
+ must change the conditions. Poverty makes crime. Want, rags, crusts,
+ failure, misfortune&mdash;all these awake the wild beast in man, and
+ finally he takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal. And
+ what do you do with him? You punish him. Why not punish a man for having
+ the consumption? The time will come when you will see that that is just as
+ logical. What do you do with the criminal? You send him to the
+ penitentiary. Is he made better? Worse. The first thing you do is to try
+ to trample out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You mark
+ him. You put him in stripes. At night you put him in darkness. His feeling
+ for revenge grows. You make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that
+ place branded in body and soul, and then you won't let him reform if he
+ wants to. You put on airs above him, because he has been in the
+ penitentiary. The next time you look with scorn upon a convict, let me beg
+ of you to do one thing. Maybe you are not as bad as I am, but do one
+ thing: think of all the crimes you have wanted to commit; think of all the
+ crimes you would have committed if you had had the opportunity; think of
+ all the temptations to which you would have yielded had nobody been
+ looking; and then put your hand on your heart and say whether you can
+ justly look with contempt even upon a convict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ None but the noblest should inflict punishment, even on the basest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Society has no right to punish any man in revenge&mdash;no right to punish
+ any man except for two objects&mdash;one, the prevention of crime; the
+ other, the reformation of the criminal. How can you reform him? Kindness
+ is the sunshine in which virtue grows. Let it be understood by these men
+ that there is no revenge; let it be understood, too, that they can reform.
+ Only a little while ago I read of a case of a young man who had been in a
+ penitentiary and came out. He kept it a secret, and went to work for a
+ farmer. He got in love with the daughter, and wanted to marry her. He had
+ nobility enough to tell the truth&mdash;he told the father that he had
+ been in the penitentiary. The father said, "You cannot have my daughter,
+ because it would stain her life." The young man said, "Yes, it would stain
+ her life, therefore I will not marry her." He went out. In a few moments
+ afterward they heard the report of a pistol, and he was dead. He left just
+ a little note saying: "I am through. There is no need of my living longer,
+ when I stain with my life the one I love." And yet we call our society
+ civilized. There is a mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want that question thought of. I want all my fellow-citizens to think of
+ it. I want you to do what you can to do away with all cruelty. There are,
+ of course, some cases that have to be treated with what might be called
+ almost cruelty; but if there is the smallest seed of good in any human
+ heart, let kindness fall upon it until it grows, and in that way I know,
+ and so do you, that the world will get better and better day by day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us, above all things, get acquainted with each other. Let every man
+ teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable. Let us say to
+ our children: It is your business to see that you never become a burden on
+ others. Your first duty is to take care of yourselves, and if there is a
+ surplus, with that surplus help your fellow-man. You owe it to yourself
+ above all things not to be a burden upon others. Teach your son that it is
+ his duty not only, but his highest joy, to become a home-builder, a
+ home-owner. Teach your children that the fireside is the happiest place in
+ this world. Teach them that whoever is an idler, whoever lives upon the
+ labor of others, whether he is a pirate or a king, is a dishonorable
+ person. Teach them that no civilized man wants anything for nothing, or
+ for less than it is worth; that he wants to go through this world paying
+ his way as he goes, and if he gets a little ahead, an extra joy, it should
+ be divided with another, if that other is doing something for himself.
+ Help others help themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let us teach that great wealth is not great happiness; that money will
+ not purchase love; it never did and never can purchase respect; it never
+ did and never can purchase the highest happiness. I believe with Robert
+ Burns:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "If happiness have not her seat
+ And center in the breast,
+ We may be wise, or rich, or great,
+ But never can be blest."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ We must teach this, and let our fellow-citizens know that we give them
+ every right that we claim for ourselves. We must discuss these questions
+ and have charity&mdash;and we will have it whenever we have the philosophy
+ that all men are as they must be, and that intelligence and kindness are
+ the only levers capable of raising mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there is another thing. Let each one be true to himself. No matter
+ what his class, no matter what his circumstances, let him tell his
+ thought. Don't let his class bribe him. Don't let him talk like a banker
+ because he is a banker. Don't let him talk like the rest of the merchants
+ because he is a merchant. Let him be true to the human race instead of to
+ his little business&mdash;be true to the ideal in his heart and brain,
+ instead of to his little present and apparent selfishness&mdash;let him
+ have a larger and more intelligent selfishness&mdash;a generous
+ philosophy, that includes not only others but himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So far as I am concerned, I have made up my mind that no organization,
+ secular or religious, shall be my master. I have made up my mind that no
+ necessity of bread, or roof, or raiment shall ever put a padlock on my
+ lips. I have made up my mind that no hope of preferment, no honor, no
+ wealth, shall ever make me for one moment swerve from what I really
+ believe, no matter whether it is to my immediate interest, as one would
+ think, or not. And while I live, I am going to do what little I can to
+ help my fellow-men who have not been as fortunate as I have been. I shall
+ talk on their side, I shall vote on their side, and do what little I can
+ to convince men that happiness does not lie in the direction of great
+ wealth, but in the direction of achievement for the good of themselves and
+ for the good of their fellow-men. I shall do what little I can to hasten
+ the day when this earth shall be covered with homes, and when by countless
+ firesides shall sit the happy and the loving families of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I. THE OLD TESTAMENT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ONE of the foundation stones of our faith is the Old Testament. If that
+ book is not true, if its authors were unaided men, if it contains blunders
+ and falsehoods, then that stone crumbles to dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The geologists demonstrated that the author of Genesis was mistaken as to
+ the age of the world, and that the story of the universe having been
+ created in six days, about six thousand years ago could not be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians then took the ground that the "days" spoken of in Genesis
+ were periods of time, epochs, six "long whiles," and that the work of
+ creation might have been commenced millions of years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The change of days into epochs was considered by the believers of the
+ Bible as a great triumph over the hosts of infidelity. The fact that
+ Jehovah had ordered the Jews to keep the Sabbath, giving as a reason that
+ he had made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, did not
+ interfere with the acceptance of the "epoch" theory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is still another question. How long has man been upon the earth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Bible, Adam was certainly the first man, and in his case
+ the epoch theory cannot change the account. The Bible gives the age at
+ which Adam died, and gives the generations to the flood&mdash;then to
+ Abraham and so on, and shows that from the creation of Adam to the birth
+ of Christ it was about four thousand and four years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the sacred Scriptures man has been on this earth five
+ thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine years and no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Geologists have divided a few years of the worlds history into periods,
+ reaching from the azoic rocks to the soil of our time. With most of these
+ periods they associate certain forms of life, so that it is known that the
+ lowest forms of life belonged with the earliest periods, and the higher
+ with the more recent. It is also known that certain forms of life existed
+ in Europe many ages ago, and that many thousands of years ago these forms
+ disappeared.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance, it is well established that at one time there lived in
+ Europe, and in the British Islands some of the most gigantic mammals, the
+ mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the Irish elk, elephants and other
+ forms that have in those countries become extinct. Geologists say that
+ many thousands of years have passed since these animals ceased to inhabit
+ those countries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was during the Drift Period that these forms of life existed in Europe
+ and England, and that must have been hundreds of thousands of years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In caves, once inhabited by men, have been found implements of flint and
+ the bones of these extinct animals. With the flint tools man had split the
+ bones of these beasts that he might secure the marrow for food.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many such caves and hundreds of such tools, and of such bones have been
+ found. And we now know that in the Drift Period man was the companion of
+ these extinct monsters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is therefore certain that many, many thousands of years before Adam
+ lived, men, women and children inhabited the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is certain that the account in the Bible of the creation of the first
+ man is a mistake. It is certain that the inspired writers knew nothing
+ about the origin of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give you another fact:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Egyptians were astronomers. A few years ago representations of the
+ stars were found on the walls of an old temple, and it was discovered by
+ calculating backward that the stars did occupy the exact positions as
+ represented about seven hundred and fifty years before Christ. Afterward
+ another representation of the stars was found, and by calculating in the
+ same way, it was found that the stars did occupy the exact positions
+ represented about three thousand eight hundred years before Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Bible the first man was created four thousand and four
+ years before Christ If this is true then Egypt was founded, its language
+ formed, its arts cultivated, its astronomical discoveries made and
+ recorded about two hundred years after the creation of the first man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, Adam was two or three hundred years old when the Egyptian
+ astronomers made these representations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again I say that the writers of the Bible were mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do I know?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to that same Bible there was a flood some fifteen or sixteen
+ hundred years after Adam was created that destroyed the entire human race
+ with the exception of eight persons, and according to the Bible the
+ Egyptians descended from one of the sons of Noah. How then did the
+ Egyptians represent the stars in the position they occupied twelve hundred
+ years before the flood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one pretends that Egypt existed as a nation before the flood. Yet the
+ astronomical representations found, must have been made more than a
+ thousand years before the world was drowned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another mistake in the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to that book the sun was made after the earth was created.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did the earth exist before the sun?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men of science are believers in the exact opposite. They believe that
+ the earth is a child of the sun&mdash;that the earth, as well as the other
+ planets belonging to our constellation, came from the sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writers of the Bible were mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another point:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Bible, Jehovah made the world in six days, and the work
+ done each day is described. What did Jehovah do on the second day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the record:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and
+ let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and
+ divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which
+ were above the firmament. And it was so, and God called the firmament
+ heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writer of this believed in a solid firmament&mdash;the floor of
+ Jehovah's house. He believed that the waters had been divided, and that
+ the rain came from above the firmament. He did not understand the fact of
+ evaporation&mdash;did not know that the rain came from the water on the
+ earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we know that there is no firmament, and we know that the waters are
+ not divided by a firmament. Consequently we know that, according to the
+ Bible, Jehovah did nothing on the second day. He must have rested on
+ Tuesday. This being so, we ought to have two Sundays a week.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we rely on the historical parts of the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventy souls went down into Egypt, and in two hundred and fifteen years
+ increased to three millions. They could not have doubled more than four
+ times a century. Say nine times in two hundred and fifteen years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This makes thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty, (35,840.) instead
+ of three millions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe the accounts of the battles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take one instance:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jereboam had an army of eight hundred thousand men, Abijah of four hundred
+ thousand. They fought. The Lord was on Abijah's side, and he killed five
+ hundred thousand of Jereboam's men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these soldiers were Jews&mdash;all lived in Palestine, a poor
+ miserable little country about one-quarter as large as the State of New
+ York. Yet one million two hundred thousand soldiers were put in the field.
+ This required a population in the country of ten or twelve millions. Of
+ course this is absurd. Palestine in its palmiest days could not have
+ supported two millions of people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soil is poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is inspired, is it true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told by this inspired book of the gold and silver collected by King
+ David for the temple&mdash;the temple afterward completed by the virtuous
+ Solomon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the blessed Bible, David collected about two thousand million
+ dollars in silver, and five thousand million dollars in gold, making a
+ total of seven thousand million dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in the bank of France at the present time (1895) nearly six
+ hundred million dollars, and so far as we know, it is the greatest amount
+ that was ever gathered together. All the gold now known, coined and in
+ bullion, does not amount to much more than the sum collected by David.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seven thousand millions. Where did David get this gold? The Jews had no
+ commerce. They owned no ships. They had no great factories, they produced
+ nothing for other countries. There were no gold or silver mines in
+ Palestine. Where then was this gold, this silver found? I will tell you:
+ In the imagination of a writer who had more patriotism than intelligence,
+ and who wrote, not for the sake of truth, but for the glory of the Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that David collected nearly eight thousand tons of gold&mdash;that
+ he by economy got together about sixty thousand tons of silver, making a
+ total of gold and silver of sixty-eight thousand tons?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The average freight car carries about fifteen tons&mdash;David's gold and
+ silver would load about four thousand five hundred and thirty-three cars,
+ making a train about thirty-two miles in length. And all this for the
+ temple at Jerusalem, a building ninety feet long and forty-five feet high
+ and thirty wide, to which was attached a porch thirty feet wide, ninety
+ feet long and one hundred and eighty feet high.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably the architect was inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there a sensible man in the world who believes that David collected
+ seven thousand million dollars worth of gold or silver?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is hardly five thousand million dollars of gold now used as money in
+ the whole world. Think of the millions taken from the mines of California,
+ Australia and Africa during the present century and yet the total scarcely
+ exceeds the amount collected by King David more than a thousand years
+ before the birth of Christ. Evidently the inspired historian made a
+ mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It required a little imagination and a few ciphers to change seven million
+ dollars or seven hundred thousand dollars into seven thousand million
+ dollars. Drop four ciphers and the story becomes fairly reasonable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Old Testament must be thrown aside. It is no longer a foundation. It
+ has crumbled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. THE NEW TESTAMENT
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ BUT we have the New Testament, the sequel of the Old, in which Christians
+ find the fulfillment of prophecies made by inspired Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The New Testament vouches for the truth, the inspiration, of the Old, and
+ if the old is false, the New cannot be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the New Testament we find all that we know about the life and teachings
+ of Jesus Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed that the writers were divinely inspired, and that all they
+ wrote is true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see if these writers agree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly there should be no difference about the birth of Christ. From
+ the Christian's point of view, nothing could have been of greater
+ importance than that event.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew says: "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days
+ of Herod the King, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his
+ star in the east and are come to worship him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew does not tell us who these wise men were, from what country they
+ came, to what race they belonged. He did not even know their names.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are also informed that when Herod heard these things he was troubled
+ and all Jerusalem with him; that he gathered the chief priests and asked
+ of them where Christ should be born and they told him that he was to be
+ born in Bethlehem.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then Herod called the wise men and asked them when the star appeared, and
+ told them to go to Bethlehem and report to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When they left Herod, the star again appeared and went before them until
+ it stood over the place where the child was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When they came to the child they worshiped him,&mdash;gave him gifts, and
+ being warned by God in a dream, they went back to their own country
+ without calling on Herod.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to
+ take Mary and the child into Egypt for fear of Herod.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Joseph took Mary and the child to Egypt and remained there until the
+ death of Herod.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then Herod, finding that he was mocked by the wise men, "sent forth and
+ slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof
+ from two years old and under."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the death of Herod an angel again appeared in a dream to Joseph and
+ told him to take mother and child and go back to Palestine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So he went back and dwelt in Nazareth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this story true? Must we believe in the star and the wise men? Who were
+ these wise men? From what country did they come? What interest had they in
+ the birth of the King of the Jews? What became of them and their star?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course I know that the Holy Catholic Church has in her keeping the
+ three skulls that belonged to these wise men, but I do not know where the
+ church obtained these relics, nor exactly how their genuineness has been
+ established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we believe that Herod murdered the babes of Bethlehem?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not wonderful that the enemies of Herod did not charge him with this
+ horror? Is it not marvelous that Mark and Luke and John forgot to mention
+ this most heartless of massacres?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luke also gives an account of the birth of Christ. He says that there went
+ out a decree from C&aelig;sar Augustus that all the world should be taxed;
+ that this was when Cyrenius was governor of Syria; that in accordance with
+ this decree, Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to be taxed; that at that
+ place Christ was born and laid in a manger. He also says that shepherds,
+ in the neighborhood, were told of the birth by an angel, with whom was a
+ multitude of the heavenly host; that these shepherds visited Mary and the
+ child, and told others what they had seen and heard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He tells us that after eight days the child was named, Jesus; that forty
+ days after his birth he was taken by Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem, and
+ that after they had performed all things according to the law they
+ returned to Nazareth. Luke also says that the child grew and waxed strong
+ in spirit, and that his parents went every year to Jerusalem.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do the accounts in Matthew and Luke agree? Can both accounts be true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luke never heard of the star, and Matthew knew nothing of the heavenly
+ host. Luke never heard of the wise men, nor Matthew of the shepherds. Luke
+ knew nothing of the hatred of Herod, the murder of the babes or the flight
+ into Egypt. According to Matthew, Joseph, warned by an angel, took Mary
+ and the child and fled into Egypt. According to Luke they all went to
+ Jerusalem, and from there back to Nazareth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Both of these accounts cannot be true. Will some Christian scholar tell us
+ which to believe?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When was Christ born?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luke says that it took place when Cyrenius was governor. Here is another
+ mistake. Cyrenius was not appointed governor until after the death of
+ Herod, and the taxing could not have taken place until ten years after the
+ alleged birth of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Luke, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, and for the purpose
+ of getting them to Bethlehem, so that the child could be born in the right
+ place, the taxing under Cyrenius was used, but the writer, being
+ "inspired" made a mistake of about ten years as to the time of the taxing
+ and of the birth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew says nothing about the date of the birth, except that he was born
+ when Herod was king. It is now known that Herod had been dead ten years
+ before the taxing under Cyrenius. So, if Luke tells the truth, Joseph,
+ being warned by an angel, fled from the hatred of Herod ten years after
+ Herod was dead. If Matthew and Luke are both right Christ was taken to
+ Egypt ten years before he was born, and Herod killed the babes ten years
+ after he was dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will some Christian scholar have the goodness to harmonize these
+ "inspired" accounts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew and Luke both try to show that Christ was of the blood of David,
+ that he was a descendant of that virtuous king.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As both of these writers were inspired and as both received their
+ information from God, they ought to agree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Matthew there was between David and Jesus twenty-seven
+ generations, and he gives all the names.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Luke there were between David and Jesus forty-two
+ generations, and he gives all the names.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In these genealogies&mdash;both inspired&mdash;there is a difference
+ between David and Jesus, a difference of some fourteen or fifteen
+ generations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides, the names of all the ancestors are different, with two
+ exceptions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew says that Joseph's father was Jacob. Luke says that Heli was
+ Joseph's father.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Both of these genealogies cannot be true, and the probability is that both
+ are false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not in all the pulpits ingenuity enough to harmonize these
+ ignorant and stupid contradictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many curious mistakes in the words attributed to Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told in Matthew, chapter xxiii, verse 35, that Christ said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from
+ the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias,
+ whom ye slew between the temple and the altar."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is certain that these words were not spoken by Christ. He could not by
+ any possibility have known that the blood of Zacharias had been shed. As a
+ matter of fact, Zacharias was killed by the Jews, during the seige of
+ Jerusalem by Titus, and this seige took place seventy-one years after the
+ birth of Christ, thirty-eight years after he was dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Zacharias was not the son of Barachias&mdash;no such
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Zacharias was killed. The Zacharias that was slain was the son of Baruch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we must not expect the "inspired" to be accurate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew says that at the time of the crucifixion&mdash;"the graves were
+ opened and that many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out
+ of their graves <i>after</i> his resurrection, and went into the holy city
+ and appeared unto many."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this the graves were opened at the time of the crucifixion,
+ but the dead did not arise and come out until after the resurrection of
+ Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were polite enough to sit in their open graves and wait for Christ to
+ rise first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To whom did these saints appear? What became of them? Did they slip back
+ into their graves and commit suicide?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not wonderful that Mark, Luke and John never heard of these saints?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What kind of saints were they? Certainly they were not Christian saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, the inspired writers do not agree in regard to Judas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly the inspired writers ought to have known what happened to Judas,
+ the betrayer. Matthew being duly "inspired" says that when Judas saw that
+ Jesus had been condemned, he repented and took back the money to the chief
+ priests and elders, saying that he had sinned in betraying the innocent
+ blood. They said to him: "What is that to us? See thou to that." Then
+ Judas threw down the pieces of silver and went and hanged himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The chief priests then took the pieces of silver and bought the potter's
+ field to bury strangers in, and it is called the field of blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told in Acts of the apostles that Peter stood up in the midst of
+ the disciples and said: "Now this man, (Judas) purchased a field with the
+ reward of iniquity&mdash;and falling headlong he burst asunder and all his
+ bowels gushed out&mdash;that field is called the field of blood."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew says Judas repented and gave back the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Peter says that he bought a field with the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew says that Judas hanged himself. Peter says that he fell down and
+ burst asunder. Which of these accounts is true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides, it is hard to see why Christians hate, loathe and despise Judas.
+ According to their scheme of salvation, it was absolutely necessary that
+ Christ should be killed&mdash;necessary that he should be betrayed, and
+ had it not been for Judas, all the world, including Christ's mother, and
+ the part of Christ that was human, would have gone to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, according to the New Testament, Christ did not know that one of his
+ disciples was to betray him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jesus, when on his way to Jerusalem, for the last time, said, speaking to
+ the twelve disciples, Judas being present, that they, the disciples should
+ thereafter sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, more than a year before this journey, John says that Christ said,
+ speaking to the twelve disciples: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one
+ of you is a devil." And John adds: "He spake of Judas Iscariot, for it was
+ he that should betray him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did Christ a year afterward, tell Judas that he should sit on a throne
+ and judge one of the tribes of Israel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another trouble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paul says that Jesus after his resurrection appeared to the twelve
+ disciples. According to Paul, Jesus appeared to Judas with the rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly Paul had not heard the story of the betrayal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did Christ select Judas as one of his disciples, knowing that he would
+ betray him? Did he desire to be betrayed? Was it his intention to be put
+ to death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he fail to defend himself before Pilate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the accounts, Pilate wanted to save him. Did Christ wish to
+ be convicted?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christians are compelled to say that Christ intended to be sacrificed&mdash;that
+ he selected Judas with that end in view, and that he refused to defend
+ himself because he desired to be crucified. All this is in accordance with
+ the horrible idea that without the shedding of blood there is no remission
+ of sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. JEHOVAH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ GOD the Father.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jehovah of the Old Testament is the God of the Christians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He it was who created the Universe, who made all substance, all force, all
+ life, from nothing. He it is who has governed and still governs the world.
+ He has established and destroyed empires and kingdoms, despotisms and
+ republics. He has enslaved and liberated the sons of men. He has caused
+ the sun to rise on the good and on the evil, and his rain to fall on the
+ just and the unjust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This shows his goodness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has caused his volcanoes to devour the good and the bad, his cyclones
+ to wreck and rend the generous and the cruel, his floods to drown the
+ loving and the hateful, his lightning to kill the virtuous and the
+ vicious, his famines to starve the innocent and criminal and his plagues
+ to destroy the wise and good, the ignorant and wicked. He has allowed his
+ enemies to imprison, to torture and to kill his friends. He has permitted
+ blasphemers to flay his worshipers alive, to dislocate their joints upon
+ racks, and to burn them at the stake. He has allowed men to enslave their
+ brothers and to sell babes from the breasts of mothers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This shows his impartiality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pious negro who commenced his prayer: "O thou great and unscrupulous
+ God," was nearer right than he knew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ministers ask: Is it possible for God to forgive man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And when I think of what has been suffered&mdash;of the centuries of agony
+ and tears, I ask: Is it possible for man to forgive God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do Christians prove the existence of their God? Is it possible to
+ think of an infinite being? Does the word God correspond with any image in
+ the mind? Does the word God stand for what we know or for what we do not
+ know?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is not this unthinkable God a guess, an inference?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we think of a being without form, without body, without parts, without
+ passions? Why should we speak of a being without body as of the masculine
+ gender?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should the Bible speak of this God as a man?&mdash;of his walking in
+ the garden in the cool of the evening&mdash;of his talking, hearing and
+ smelling? If he has no passions why is he spoken of as jealous,
+ revengeful, angry, pleased and loving?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Bible God is spoken of as a person in the form of man, journeying
+ from place to place, as having a home and occupying a throne. These ideas
+ have been abandoned, and now the Christian's God is the infinite, the
+ incomprehensible, the formless, bodiless and passionless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of the existence of such a being there can be, in the nature of things, no
+ evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars,
+ with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and
+ destiny of all, replies: "I do not know. These questions are beyond the
+ powers of my mind." The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He clings to
+ facts. Beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. He does
+ not mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. He is honest.
+ He neither deceives himself nor others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and he calls
+ this God. The scientist arrives at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and
+ calls it the Unknown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian insists that his inconceivable governs the world, that it,
+ or he, or they, can be influenced by prayers and ceremonies, that it, or
+ he, or they, punishes and rewards, that it, or he, or they, has priests
+ and temples.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The scientist insist that the Unknown is not changed so far as he knows by
+ prayers of people or priests. He admits that he does not know whether the
+ Unknown is good or bad&mdash;whether he, or it, wants or whether he, or
+ it, is worthy of worship. He does not say that the Unknown is God, that it
+ created substance and force, life and thought. He simply says that of the
+ Unknown he knows nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should Christians insist that a God of infinite wisdom, goodness and
+ power governs the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he allow millions of his children to be enslaved? Why did he allow
+ millions of mothers to be robbed of their babes? Why has he allowed
+ injustice to triumph? Why has he permitted the innocent to be imprisoned
+ and the good to be burned? Why has he withheld his rain and starved
+ millions of the children of men? Why has he allowed the volcanoes to
+ destroy, the earthquakes to devour, and the tempest to wreck and rend?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. THE TRINITY
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE New Testament informs us that Christ was the son of Joseph and the son
+ of God, and that Mary was his mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it established that Christ was the son of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is said that Joseph was told so in a dream by an angel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Joseph wrote nothing on that subject&mdash;said nothing so far as we
+ know. Mary wrote nothing, said nothing. The angel that appeared to Joseph
+ or that informed Joseph said nothing to anybody else. Neither has the Holy
+ Ghost, the supposed father, ever said or written one word. We have
+ received no information from the parties who could have known anything on
+ the subject. We get all our facts from those who could not have known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it possible to prove that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who knows that such a being as the Holy Ghost ever existed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How was it possible for Mary to know anything about the Holy Ghost?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How could Joseph know that he had been visited by an angel in a dream?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could he know that the visitor was an angel? It all occurred in a dream
+ and poor Joseph was asleep. What is the testimony of one who was asleep
+ worth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the evidence we have is that somebody who wrote part of the New
+ Testament says that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ, and that
+ somebody who wrote another part of the New Testament says that Joseph was
+ the father of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew and Luke give the genealogy and both show that Christ was the son
+ of Joseph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "Incarnation" has to be believed without evidence. There is no way in
+ which it can be established. It is beyond the reach and realm of reason.
+ It defies observation and is independent of experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed not only that Christ was the Son of God, but that he was,
+ and is, God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was he God before he was born? Was the body of Mary the dwelling place of
+ God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What evidence have we that Christ was God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Somebody has said that Christ claimed that God was his father and that he
+ and his father were one. We do not know who this somebody was and do not
+ know from whom he received his information.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Somebody who was "inspired" has said that Christ was of the blood of David
+ through his father Joseph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is all the evidence we have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that God, the creator of the Universe, learned the trade of
+ a carpenter in Palestine, that he gathered a few disciples about him, and
+ after teaching for about three years, suffered himself to be crucified by
+ a few ignorant and pious Jews?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the
+ Father being the first and the Holy Ghost the third. Each of these three
+ persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost
+ is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father,
+ but existed before he was begotten&mdash;just the same before as after.
+ Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as
+ his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and Son, but was equal
+ to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say, before he
+ existed, but he is of the same age of the other two.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son God and the Holy
+ Ghost God, and that these three Gods make one God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and
+ three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take
+ two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we
+ add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other
+ two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and
+ absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it possible to prove the existence of the Trinity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible for a human being, who has been born but once, to
+ comprehend, or to imagine the existence of three beings, each of whom is
+ equal to the three?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of one of these beings as the father of one, and think of that one
+ as half human and all God, and think of the third as having proceeded from
+ the other two, and then think of all three as one. Think that after the
+ father begot the son, the father was still alone, and after the Holy Ghost
+ proceeded from the father and the son, the father was still alone&mdash;because
+ there never was and never will be but one God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At this point, absurdity having reached its limit, nothing more can be
+ said except: "Let us pray."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN the New Testament we find the teachings and sayings of Christ. If we
+ say that the book is inspired, then we must admit that Christ really said
+ all the things attributed to him by the various writers. If the book is
+ inspired we must accept it all. We have no right to reject the
+ contradictory and absurd and accept the reasonable and good. We must take
+ it all just as it is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My own observation has led me to believe that men are generally consistent
+ in their theories and inconsistent in their lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I think that Christ in his utterances was true to his theory, to his
+ philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I find in the Testament sayings of a contradictory character, I
+ conclude that some of those sayings were never uttered by him. The sayings
+ that are, in my judgment, in accordance with what I believe to have been
+ his philosophy, I accept, and the others I throw away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are some of his sayings which show him to have been a devout Jew,
+ others that he wished to destroy Judaism, others showing that he held all
+ people except the Jews in contempt and that he wished to save no others,
+ others showing that he wished to convert the world, still others showing
+ that he was forgiving, self-denying and loving, others that he was
+ revengeful and malicious, others, that he was an ascetic, holding all
+ human ties in utter contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The following passages show that Christ was a devout Jew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth
+ for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem for it is his holy city."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not
+ come to destroy, but to fulfill." "For after all these things, (clothing,
+ food and drink) do the Gentiles seek."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, when he cured a leper, he said: "Go thy way, show thyself unto the
+ priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jesus sent his disciples forth saying: "Go not into the way of the
+ Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather
+ to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A woman came out of Canaan and cried to Jesus: "Have mercy on me, my
+ daughter is sorely vexed with a devil"&mdash;but he would not answer. Then
+ the disciples asked him to send her away, and he said: "I am not sent but
+ unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the woman worshiped him and said: "Lord help me." But he answered and
+ said: "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto dogs."
+ Yet for her faith he cured her child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, when the young man asked him what he must do to be saved, he said:
+ "Keep the commandments."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ said: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, all
+ therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law
+ to fail."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ went into the temple and cast out them that sold and bought there,
+ and said: "It is written, my house is the house of prayer: but ye have
+ made it a den of thieves."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly all these passages were written by persons who regarded Christ
+ as the Messiah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many of the sayings attributed to Christ show that he was an ascetic, that
+ he cared nothing for kindred, nothing for father and mother, nothing for
+ brothers or sisters, and nothing for the pleasures of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ said to a man: "Follow me." The man said: "Suffer me first to go
+ and bury my father." Christ answered: "Let the dead bury their dead."
+ Another said: "I will follow thee, but first let me go bid them farewell
+ which are at home."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jesus said: "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back is
+ fit for the kingdom of God. If thine right eye offend thee pluck it out.
+ If thy right hand offend thee cut it off."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One said unto him: "Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without,
+ desiring to speak with thee." And he answered: "Who is my mother, and who
+ are my brethren?" Then he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples
+ and said: "Behold my mother and my brethren."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or
+ father or mother, or wife or children, or lands for my name's sake shall
+ receive an hundred fold and shall inherit everlasting life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he
+ that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ it seems had a philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed that God was a loving father, that he would take care of his
+ children, that they need do nothing except to rely implicitly on God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
+ you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink,
+ nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.... For your heavenly Father
+ knoweth that ye have need of all these things."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ask and it shall be given you. Whatsoever ye would that men should do to
+ you, do ye even so to them. If ye forgive men their trespasses your
+ heavenly Father will also forgive you. The very hairs of your head are all
+ numbered."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ seemed to rely absolutely on the protection of God until the
+ darkness of death gathered about him, and then he cried: "My God! my God!
+ why hast thou forsaken me?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While there are many passages in the New Testament showing Christ to have
+ been forgiving and tender, there are many others, showing that he was
+ exactly the opposite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What must have been the spirit of one who said: "I am come to send fire on
+ the earth? Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you,
+ nay, but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one
+ house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall
+ be divided against the son, and the son against the father, the mother
+ against the daughter and the daughter against the mother, the
+ mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against
+ her mother-in-law."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and
+ children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot
+ be my disciple."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them,
+ bring hither and slay them before me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This passage built dungeons and lighted fagots.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his
+ angels."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I came not to bring peace but a sword."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these sayings could not have been uttered by the same person. They are
+ inconsistent with each other. Love does not speak the words of hatred. The
+ real philanthropist does not despise all nations but his own. The teacher
+ of universal forgiveness cannot believe in eternal torture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the interpolations, legends, accretions, mistakes and falsehoods in
+ the New Testament is it possible to free the actual man? Clad in mist and
+ myth, hidden by the draperies of gods, deformed, indistinct as faces in
+ clouds, is it possible to find and recognize the features, the natural
+ face of the actual Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries our fathers closed their eyes to the contradictions and
+ inconsistencies of the Testament and in spite of their reason harmonized
+ the interpolations and mistakes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is no longer possible. The contradictions are too many, too glaring.
+ There are contradictions of fact not only, but of philosophy, of theory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The accounts of the trial, the crucifixion, and ascension of Christ do not
+ agree. They are full of mistakes and contradictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to one account Christ ascended the day of, or the day after his
+ resurrection. According to another he remained forty days after rising
+ from the dead. According to one account, he was seen after his
+ resurrection only by a few women and his disciples. According to another
+ he was seen by the women, by his disciples on several occasions and by
+ hundreds of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Matthew, Luke and Mark, Christ remained for the most part in
+ the country, seldom going to Jerusalem. According to John he remained
+ mostly in Jerusalem, going occasionally into the country, and then
+ generally to avoid his enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Christ taught that if you would
+ forgive others God would forgive you. According to John, Christ said that
+ the only way to get to heaven was to believe on him and be born again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These contradictions are gross and palpable and demonstrate that the New
+ Testament is not inspired, and that many of its statements must be false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we wish to save the character of Christ, many of the passages must be
+ thrown away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must discard the miracles or admit that he was insane or an impostor.
+ We must discard the passages that breathe the spirit of hatred and
+ revenge, or admit that he was malevolent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Matthew was mistaken about the genealogy of Christ, about the wise men,
+ the star, the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the babes by Herod,&mdash;then
+ he may have been mistaken in many passages that he put in the mouth of
+ Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same may be said in regard to Mark, Luke and John.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church must admit that the writers of the New Testament were
+ uninspired men&mdash;that they made many mistakes, that they accepted
+ impossible legends as historical facts, that they were ignorant and
+ superstitious, that they put malevolent, stupid, insane and unworthy words
+ in the mouth of Christ, described him as the worker of impossible miracles
+ and in many ways stained and belittled his character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The best that can be said about Christ is that nearly nineteen centuries
+ ago he was born in the land of Palestine in a country without wealth,
+ without commerce, in the midst of a people who knew nothing of the greater
+ world&mdash;a people enslaved, crushed by the mighty power of Rome. That
+ this babe, this child of poverty and want grew to manhood without
+ education, knowing nothing of art, or science, and at about the age of
+ thirty began wandering about the hills and hamlets of his native land,
+ discussing with priests, talking with the poor and sorrowful, writing
+ nothing, but leaving his words in the memory or forgetfulness of those to
+ whom he spoke.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That he attacked the religion of his time because it was cruel. That this
+ excited the hatred of those in power, and that Christ was arrested, tried
+ and crucified.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries this great Peasant of Palestine has been worshiped as
+ God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions and millions have given their lives to his service. The wealth of
+ the world was lavished on his shrines. His name carried consolation to the
+ diseased and dying. His name dispelled the darkness of death, and filled
+ the dungeon with light. His name gave courage to the martyr, and in the
+ midst of fire, with shriveling lips the sufferer uttered it again, and
+ again. The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that Christ was their
+ friend, felt that he knew their sorrows and pitied their sufferings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor mother, holding her dead babe in her arms, lovingly whispered his
+ name. His gospel has been carried by millions to all parts of the globe,
+ and his story has been told by the self-denying and faithful to countless
+ thousands of the sons of men. In his name have been preached charity,&mdash;forgiveness
+ and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He it was, who according to the faith, brought immortality to light, and
+ many millions have entered the valley of the shadow with their hands in
+ his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this is true, and if it were all, how beautiful, how touching, how
+ glorious it would be. But it is not all. There is another side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his name millions and millions of men and women have been imprisoned,
+ tortured and killed. In his name millions and millions have been enslaved.
+ In his name the thinkers, the investigators, have been branded as
+ criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the wisest and best.
+ In his name the progress of many nations was stayed for a thousand years.
+ In his gospel was found the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an
+ infinite horror to death. His gospel filled the world with hatred and
+ revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made happiness here the road
+ to hell, denounced love as base and bestial, canonized credulity, crowned
+ bigotry and destroyed the liberty of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would have been far better had the New Testament never been written&mdash;far
+ better had the theological Christ never lived. Had the writers of the
+ Testament been regarded as uninspired, had Christ been thought of only as
+ a man, had the good been accepted and the absurd, the impossible, and the
+ revengeful thrown away, mankind would have escaped the wars, the tortures,
+ the scaffolds, the dungeons, the agony and tears, the crimes and sorrows
+ of a thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. THE "SCHEME"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE have also the scheme of redemption.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this "scheme," by the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of
+ Eden, human nature became evil, corrupt and depraved. It became impossible
+ for human beings to keep, in all things, the law of God. In spite of this,
+ God allowed the people to live and multiply for some fifteen hundred
+ years, and then on account of their wickedness drowned them all with the
+ exception of eight persons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nature of these eight persons was evil, corrupt and depraved, and in
+ the nature of things their children would be cursed with the same nature.
+ Yet God gave them another trial, knowing exactly what the result would be.
+ A few of these wretches he selected and made them objects of his love and
+ care, the rest of the world he gave to indifference and neglect. To
+ civilize the people he had chosen, he assisted them in conquering and
+ killing their neighbors, and gave them the assistance of priests and
+ inspired prophets. For their preservation and punishment he wrought
+ countless miracles, gave them many laws and a great deal of advice. He
+ taught them to sacrifice oxen, sheep, and doves, to the end that their
+ sins might be forgiven. The idea was inculcated that there was a certain
+ relation between the sin and the sacrifice,&mdash;the greater the sin, the
+ greater the sacrifice. He also taught the savagery that without the
+ shedding of blood there was no remission of sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of all his efforts, the people grew gradually worse. They would
+ not, they could not keep his laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A sacrifice had to be made for the sins of the people. The sins were too
+ great to be washed out by the blood of animals or men. It became necessary
+ for. God himself to be sacrificed. All mankind were under the curse of the
+ law. Either all the world must be lost or God must die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In only one way could the guilty be justified, and that was by the death,
+ the sacrifice of the innocent. And the innocent being sacrificed must be
+ great enough to atone for the world; There was but one such being&mdash;God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thereupon God took upon himself flesh, was born into the world&mdash;was
+ known as Christ&mdash;was murdered, sacrificed by the Jews, and became an
+ atonement for the sins of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the scheme of Redemption,&mdash;the atonement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man steals, and then sacrifices a dove, or gives a lamb to a priest. His
+ crime remains the same. He need not kill something. Let him give back the
+ thing stolen, and in future live an honest life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man slanders his neighbor and then kills an ox. What has that to do with
+ the slander. Let him take back his slander, make all the reparation that
+ he can, and let the ox alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no sense in sacrifice, never was and never will be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Make restitution, reparation, undo the wrong and you need shed no blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A good law, one springing from the nature of things, cannot demand, and
+ cannot accept, and cannot be satisfied with the punishment, or the agony
+ of the innocent. A god could not accept his own sufferings in
+ justification of the guilty.&mdash;This is a complete subversion of all
+ ideas of justice and morality. A god could not make a law for man, then
+ suffer in the place of the man who had violated it, and say that the law
+ had been carried out, and the penalty duly enforced. A man has committed
+ murder, has been tried, convicted and condemned to death. Another man goes
+ to the governor and says that he is willing to die in place of the
+ murderer. The governor says: "All right, I accept your offer, a murder has
+ been committed, somebody must be hung and your death will satisfy the
+ law."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But that is not the law. The law says, not that somebody shall be hanged,
+ but that the murderer shall suffer death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even if the governor should die in the place of the criminal, it would be
+ no better. There would be two murders instead of one, two innocent men
+ killed, one by the first murderer and one by the State, and the real
+ murderer free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, Christians call, "satisfying the law."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII. BELIEF.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE are told that all who believe in this scheme of redemption and have
+ faith in the redeemer will be rewarded with eternal joy. Some think that
+ men can be saved by faith without works, and some think that faith and
+ works are both essential, but all agree that without faith there is no
+ salvation. If you repent and believe on Jesus Christ, then his goodness
+ will be imputed to you and the penalty of the law, so far as you are
+ concerned, will be satisfied by the sufferings of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may repent and reform, you may make restitution, you may practice all
+ the virtues, but without this belief in Christ, the gates of heaven will
+ be shut against you forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where is this heaven? The Christians do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the Christian go there at death, or must he wait for the general
+ resurrection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Testament teaches that the bodies of the dead are to be raised? Where
+ are their souls in the meantime? They do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can the dead be raised? The atoms composing their bodies enter into new
+ combinations, into new forms, into wheat and corn, into the flesh of
+ animals and into the bodies of other men. Where one man dies, and some of
+ his atoms pass into the body of another man and he dies, to whom will
+ these atoms belong in the day of resurrection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christianity were only stupid and unscientific, if its God was ignorant
+ and kind, if it promised eternal joy to believers and if the believers
+ practiced the forgiveness they teach, for one I should let the faith
+ alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is another side to Christianity. It is not only stupid, but
+ malicious. It is not only unscientific, but it is heartless. Its god is
+ not only ignorant, but infinitely cruel. It not only promises the faithful
+ an eternal reward, but declares that nearly all of the children of men,
+ imprisoned in the dungeons of God will suffer eternal pain. This is the
+ savagery of Christianity. This is why I hate its unthinkable God, its
+ impossible Christ, its inspired lies, and its selfish, heartless heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians believe in infinite torture, in eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eternal Pain!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the meanness of which the heart of man is capable is in that one word&mdash;Hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word is a den, a cave, in which crawl the slimy reptiles of revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word certifies to the savagery of primitive man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word is the depth, the dungeon, the abyss, from which civilized man
+ has emerged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word is the disgrace, the shame, the infamy, of our revealed
+ religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word fills all the future with the shrieks of the damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word brutalizes the New Testament, changes the Sermon on the Mount to
+ hypocrisy and cant, and pollutes and hardens the very heart of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word adds an infinite horror to death, and makes the cradle as
+ terrible as the coffin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word is the assassin of joy, the mocking murderer of hope. That word
+ extinguishes the light of life and wraps the world in gloom. That word
+ drives reason from his throne, and gives the crown to madness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word drove pity from the hearts of men, stained countless swords with
+ blood, lighted fagots, forged chains, built dungeons, erected scaffolds,
+ and filled the world with poverty and pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word is a coiled serpent in the mother's breast, that lifts its
+ fanged head and hisses in her ear:&mdash;"Your child will be the fuel of
+ eternal fire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word blots from the firmament the star of hope and leaves the heavens
+ black.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That word makes the Christian's God an eternal torturer, an everlasting
+ inquisitor&mdash;an infinite wild beast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the Christian prophecy of the eternal future:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No hope in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No pity in heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No mercy in the heart of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. CONCLUSION
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Old Testament is absurd, ignorant and cruel,&mdash;the New Testament
+ is a mingling of the false and true&mdash;it is good and bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jehovah of the Jews is an impossible monster. The Trinity absurd and
+ idiotic, Christ is a myth or a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fall of man is contradicted by every fact concerning human history
+ that we know. The scheme of redemption&mdash;through the atonement&mdash;is
+ immoral and senseless. Hell was imagined by revenge, and the orthodox
+ heaven is the selfish dream of heartless serfs and slaves. The foundations
+ of the faith have crumbled and faded away. They were miracles, mistakes,
+ and myths, ignorant and untrue, absurd, impossible, immoral, unnatural,
+ cruel, childish, savage. Beneath the gaze of the scientist they vanished,
+ confronted by facts they disappeared. The orthodox religion of our day has
+ no foundation in truth. Beneath the superstructure can be found no fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some may ask, "Are you trying to take our religion away?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I answer, No&mdash;superstition is not religion. Belief without evidence
+ is not religion. Faith without facts is not religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the
+ suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits&mdash;to
+ love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to
+ wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and
+ child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in
+ nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts
+ that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world, to cultivate
+ courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the
+ splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words, to discard error,
+ to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate
+ hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do
+ the best that can be done and then to be resigned this is the religion of
+ reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, says the prejudiced priest, the malicious minister, "You take away a
+ future life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not trying to destroy another world, but I am endeavoring to prevent
+ the theologians from destroying this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and that fact does not depend
+ on bibles, or Christs, or priests or creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The hope of another life was in the heart, long before the "sacred books"
+ were written, and will remain there long after all the "sacred books" are
+ known to be the work of savage and superstitious men. Hope is the
+ consolation of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The wanderers hope for home.&mdash;Hope builds the house and plants the
+ flowers and fills the air with song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sick and suffering hope for health.&mdash;Hope gives them health and
+ paints the roses in their cheeks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love.&mdash;Hope brings the lover to
+ their arms. They feel the kisses on their eager lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and hunger hope for
+ wealth.&mdash;Hope fills their thin and trembling hands with gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dying hopes that death is but another birth, and Love leans above the
+ pallid face and whispers, "We shall meet again."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hope is the consolation of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope, if there be a God that he is wise and good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope that if there be another life it will bring peace and joy to
+ all the children of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let us hope that this poor earth on which we live, may be a perfect
+ world&mdash;a world without a crime&mdash;without a tear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SUPERSTITION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I. WHAT IS SUPERSTITION?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To believe in spite of evidence or without evidence. To account for one
+ mystery by another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To believe that the world is governed by chance or caprice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To disregard the true relation between cause and effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To put thought, intention and design back of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To believe that mind created and controls matter. To believe in force
+ apart from substance, or in substance apart from force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To believe in miracles, spells and charms, in dreams and prophecies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To believe in the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The foundation of superstition is ignorance, the superstructure is faith
+ and the dome is a vain hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition is the child of ignorance and the mother of misery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In nearly every brain is found some cloud of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A woman drops a cloth with which she is washing dishes, and she exclaims:
+ "That means company."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most people will admit that there is no possible connection between
+ dropping the cloth and the coming of visitors. The falling cloth could not
+ have put the visit desire in the minds of people not present, and how
+ could the cloth produce the desire to visit the particular person who
+ dropped it? There is no possible connection between the dropping of the
+ cloth and the anticipated effects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man catches a glimpse of the new moon over his left shoulder, and he
+ says: "This is bad luck."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To see the moon over the right or left shoulder, or not to see it, could
+ not by any possibility affect the moon, neither could it change the effect
+ or influence of the moon on any earthly thing. Certainly the left-shoulder
+ glance could in no way affect the nature of things. All the facts in
+ nature would remain the same as though the glance had been over the right
+ shoulder. We see no connection between the left-shoulder glance and any
+ possible evil effects upon the one who saw the moon in this way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A girl counts the leaves of a flower, and she says: "One, he comes; two,
+ he tarries; three, he courts; four, he marries; five, he goes away."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course the flower did not grow, and the number of its leaves was not
+ determined with reference to the courtship or marriage of this girl,
+ neither could there have been any intelligence that guided her hand when
+ she selected that particular flower. So, count' ing the seeds in an apple
+ cannot in any way determine whether the future of an individual is to be
+ happy or miserable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of persons believe in lucky and unlucky days, numbers, signs and
+ jewels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many people regard Friday as an unlucky day&mdash;as a bad day to commence
+ a journey, to marry, to make any investment. The only reason given is that
+ Friday is an unlucky day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Starting across the sea on Friday could have no possible effect upon the
+ winds, or waves, or tides, any more than starting on any other day, and
+ the only possible reason for thinking Friday unlucky is the assertion that
+ it is so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it is thought by many that it is dangerous for thirteen people to dine
+ together. Now, if thirteen is a dangerous number, twenty-six ought to be
+ twice as dangerous, and fifty-two four times as terrible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is said that one of the thirteen will die in a year. Now, there is no
+ possible relation between the number and the digestion of each, between
+ the number and the individual diseases. If fourteen dine together there is
+ greater probability, if we take into account only the number, of a death
+ within the year, than there would be if only thirteen were at the table.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Overturning the salt is very unlucky, but spilling the vinegar makes no
+ difference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why salt should be revengeful and vinegar forgiving has never been told.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the first person who enters a theatre is crosseyed, the audience will
+ be small and the "run" a failure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How the peculiarity of the eyes of the first one who enters, changes the
+ intention of a community, or how the intentions of a community cause the
+ cross-eyed man to go early, has never been satisfactorily explained.
+ Between this so-called cause and the so-called effect there is, so far as
+ we can see, no possible relation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To wear an opal is bad luck, but rubies bring health. How these stones
+ affect the future, how they destroy causes and defeat effects, no one
+ pretends to know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, there are thousands of lucky and unlucky tilings, warnings, omens and
+ prophecies, but all sensible, sane and reasoning human beings know that
+ every one is an absurd and idiotic superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries it was believed that eclipses of the sun and moon were
+ prophetic of pestilence or famine, and that comets foretold the death of
+ kings, or the destruction of nations, the coming of war or plague. All
+ strange appearances in the heavens&mdash;the Northern Lights, circles
+ about the moon, sun dogs, falling stars&mdash;filled our intelligent
+ ancestors with terror. They fell upon their knees&mdash;did their best
+ with sacrifice and prayer to avoid the threatened disaster. Their faces
+ were ashen with fear as they closed their eyes and cried to the heavens
+ for help. The clergy, who were as familiar with God then as the orthodox
+ preachers are now, knew exactly the meaning of eclipses and sun dogs and
+ Northern Lights; knew that God's patience was nearly exhausted; that he
+ was then whetting the sword of his wrath, and that the people could save
+ themselves only by obeying the priests, by counting their beads and
+ doubling their subscriptions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Earthquakes and cyclones filled the coffers of the church. In the midst of
+ disasters the miser, with trembling hands, opened his purse. In the gloom
+ of eclipses thieves and robbers divided their booty with God, and poor,
+ honest, ignorant girls, remembering that they had forgotten to say a
+ prayer, gave their little earnings to soften the heart of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we know that all these signs and wonders in the heavens have nothing
+ to do with the fate of kings, nations or individuals; that they had no
+ more reference to human beings than to colonies of ants, hives of bees or
+ the eggs of insects. We now know that the signs and eclipses, the comets,
+ and the falling stars, would have been just the same if not a human being
+ had been upon the earth. We know now that eclipses come at certain times
+ and that their coming can be exactly foretold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago the belief was general that there were certain healing
+ virtues in inanimate things, in the bones of holy men and women, in the
+ rags that had been tom from the foul clothing of still fouler saints, in
+ hairs from martyrs, in bits of wood and rusty nails from the true cross,
+ in the teeth and finger nails of pious men, and in a thousand other sacred
+ things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The diseased were cured by kissing a box in which was kept some bone, or
+ rag, or bit of wood, some holy hairs, provided the kiss was preceded or
+ followed by a gift&mdash;a something for the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In some mysterious way the virtue in the bone, or rag, or piece of wood,
+ crept or flowed from the box, took possession of the sick who had the
+ necessary faith, and in the name of God drove out the devils who were the
+ real disease.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This belief in the efficacy of bones or rags and holy hair was born of
+ another belief&mdash;the belief that all diseases were produced by evil
+ spirits. The insane were supposed to be possessed by devils. Epilepsy and
+ hysteria were produced by the imps of Satan. In short, every human
+ affliction was the work of the malicious emissaries of the god of hell.
+ This belief was almost universal, and even in our time the sacred bones
+ are believed in by millions of people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But to-day no intelligent man believes in the existence of devils&mdash;no
+ intelligent man believes that evil spirits cause disease&mdash;consequently,
+ no intelligent person believes that holy bones or rags, sacred hairs or
+ pieces of wood, can drive disease out, or in any way bring back to the
+ pallid cheek the rose of health.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligent people now know that the bone of a saint has in it no greater
+ virtue than the bone of any animal. That a rag from a wandering beggar is
+ just as good as one from a saint, and that the hair of a horse will cure
+ disease just as quickly and surely as the hair of a martyr. We now know
+ that all the sacred relics are religious rubbish; that those who use them
+ are for the most part dishonest, and that those who rely on them are
+ almost idiotic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This belief in amulets and charms, in ghosts and devils, is superstition,
+ pure and simple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our ancestors did not regard these relics as medicine, having a curative
+ power, but the idea was that evil spirits stood in dread of holy things&mdash;that
+ they fled from the bone of a saint, that they feared a piece of the true
+ cross, and that when holy water was sprinkled on a man they immediately
+ left the premises. So, these devils hated and dreaded the sound of holy
+ bells, the light of sacred tapers, and, above all, the ever-blessed cross.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days the priests were fishers for money, and they used these
+ relics for bait.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This belief in the Devil and evil spirits laid the foundation for another
+ belief: Witchcraft.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was believed that the devil had certain things to give in exchange for
+ a soul. The old man, bowed and broken, could get back his youth&mdash;the
+ rounded form, the brown hair, the leaping heart of life's morning&mdash;if
+ he would sign and seal away his soul. So, it was thought that the
+ malicious could by charm and spell obtain revenge, that the poor could be
+ enriched, and that the ambitious could rise to place and power. All the
+ good things of this life were at the disposal of the Devil. For those who
+ resisted the temptations of the Evil One, rewards were waiting in another
+ world, but the Devil rewarded here in this life. No one has imagination
+ enough to paint the agonies that were endured by reason of this belief in
+ witchcraft. Think of the families destroyed, of the fathers and mothers
+ cast in prison, tortured and burned, of the firesides darkened, of the
+ children murdered, of the old, the poor and helpless that were stretched
+ on racks mangled and flayed!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the days when superstition and fear were in every house, in every
+ mind, when accusation was conviction, when assertion of innocence was
+ regarded as a confession of guilt, and when Christendom was insane!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we know that all of these horrors were the result of superstition. Now
+ we know that ignorance was the mother of all the agonies endured. Now we
+ know that witches never lived, that human beings never bargained with any
+ devil, and that our pious savage ancestors were mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers believed in miracles, in signs and wonders, eclipses and
+ comets, in the virtues of bones, and in the powers attributed to evil
+ spirits. All these belonged to the miraculous. The world was supposed to
+ be full of magic; the spirits were sleight-of-hand performers&mdash;necromancers.
+ There were no natural causes behind events. A devil wished, and it
+ happened. One who had sold his soul to Satan made a few motions, uttered
+ some strange words, and the event was present. Natural causes were not
+ believed in. Delusion and illusion, the monstrous and miraculous, ruled
+ the world. The foundation was gone&mdash;reason had abdicated. Credulity
+ gave tongues and wings to lies, while the dumb and limping facts were left
+ behind&mdash;were disregarded and remained untold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHAT IS A MIRACLE?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An act performed by a master of nature without reference to the facts in
+ nature. This is the only honest definition of a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a man could make a perfect circle, the diameter of which was exactly
+ one-half the circumference, that would be a miracle in geometry. If a man
+ could make twice four, nine, that would be a miracle in mathematics. If a
+ man could make a stone, falling in the air, pass through a space of ten
+ feet the first second, twenty-five feet the second second, and five feet
+ the third second, that would be a miracle in physics. If a man could put
+ together hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen and produce pure gold, that would
+ be a miracle in chemistry. If a minister were to prove his creed, that
+ would be a theological miracle. If Congress by law would make fifty cents
+ worth of silver worth a dollar, that would be a financial miracle. To make
+ a square triangle would be a most wonderful miracle. To cause a mirror to
+ reflect the faces of persons who stand behind it, instead of those who
+ stand in front, would be a miracle. To make echo answer a question would
+ be a miracle. In other words, to do anything contrary to or without regard
+ to the facts in nature is to perform a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we are convinced of what is called the "uniformity of nature." We
+ believe that all things act and are acted upon in accordance with their
+ nature; that under like conditions the results will always be
+ substantially the same; that like ever has and ever will produce like. We
+ now believe that events have natural parents and that none die childless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miracles are not simply impossible, but they are unthinkable by any man
+ capable of thinking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now an intelligent man cannot believe that a miracle ever was, or ever
+ will be, performed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While our ancestors filled the darkness with evil spirits, enemies of
+ mankind, they also believed in the existence of good spirits. These good
+ spirits sustained the same relation to God that the evil ones did to the
+ Devil. These good spirits protected the faithful from the temptations and
+ snares of the Evil One. They took care of those who carried amulets and
+ charms, of those who repeated prayers and counted beads, of those who
+ fasted and performed ceremonies. These good spirits would turn aside the
+ sword and arrow from the breast of the faithful. They made poison
+ harmless, they protected the credulous, and in a thousand ways defended
+ and rescued the true believer. They drove doubts from the minds of the
+ pious, sowed the seeds of credulity and faith, saved saints from the wiles
+ of women, painted the glories of heaven for those who fasted and prayed,
+ made it possible for the really good to dispense with the pleasures of
+ sense and to hate the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These angels watched over infants who had been baptized, over persons who
+ had made holy vows, over priests and nuns and wandering beggars who
+ believed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These spirits were of various kinds: Some had once been men or women, some
+ had never lived in this world, and some had been angels from the
+ commencement. Nobody pretended to know exactly what they were, or exactly
+ how they looked, or in what way they went from place to place, or how they
+ affected or controlled the minds of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was believed that the king of all these evil spirits was the Devil, and
+ that the king of all the good spirits was God. It was also believed that
+ God was in fact the king of all, and that the Devil himself was one of the
+ children of this God. This God and this Devil were at war, each trying to
+ secure the souls of men. God offered the rewards of eternal joy and
+ threatened eternal pain. The Devil baited his traps with present pleasure,
+ with the gratification of the senses, with the ecstasies of love, and
+ laughed at the joys of heaven and the pangs of hell. With malicious hand
+ he sowed the seeds of doubt&mdash;induced men to investigate, to reason,
+ to call for evidence, to rely upon themselves; planted in their hearts the
+ love of liberty, assisted them to break their chains, to escape from their
+ prisons and besought them to think. In this way he corrupted the children
+ of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers believed that they could by prayer, by sacrifice, by fasting,
+ by performing certain ceremonies, gain the assistance of this God and of
+ these good spirits. They were not quite logical. They did not believe that
+ the Devil was the author of all evil. They thought that flood and famine,
+ plague and cyclone, earthquake and war, were sometimes sent by God as
+ punishment for unbelief. They fell upon their knees and with white lips,
+ prayed the good God to stay his hand. They humbled themselves, confessed
+ their sins, and filled the heavens with their vows and cries. With priests
+ and prayers they tried to stay the plague. They kissed the relics, fell at
+ shrines, besought the Virgin and the saints, but the prayers all died in
+ the heartless air, and the plague swept on to its natural end. Our poor
+ fathers knew nothing of any science. Back of all events they put spirits,
+ good or bad, angels or demons, gods or devils. To them nothing had what we
+ call a natural cause. Everything was the work of spirits. All was done by
+ the supernatural, and everything was done by evil spirits that they could
+ do to ruin, punish, mislead and damn the children of men. This world was a
+ field of battle, and here the hosts of heaven and hell waged war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now no man in whose brain the torch of reason bums, no man who
+ investigates, who really thinks, who is capable of weighing evidence,
+ believes in signs, in lucky or unlucky days, in lucky or unlucky numbers.
+ He knows that Fridays and Thursdays are alike; that thirteen is no more
+ deadly than twelve. He knows that opals affect the wearer the same as
+ rubies, diamonds or common glass. He knows that the matrimonial chances of
+ a maiden are not increased or decreased by the number of leaves of a
+ flower or seeds in an apple. He knows that a glance at the moon over the
+ left shoulder is as healthful and lucky as one over the right. He does not
+ care whether the first comer to a theatre is crosseyed or hump-backed,
+ bow-legged, or as well-proportioned as Apollo. He knows that a strange cat
+ could be denied asylum without bringing any misfortune to the family. He
+ knows that an owl does not hoot in the full of the moon because a
+ distinguished man is about to die. He knows that comets and eclipses would
+ come if all the folks were dead. He is not frightened by sun dogs, or the
+ Morning of the North when the glittering lances pierce the shield of
+ night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knows that all these things occur without the slightest reference to
+ the human race. He feels certain that floods would destroy and cyclones
+ rend and earthquakes devour; that the stars would shine; that day and
+ night would still pursue each other around the world; that flowers would
+ give their perfume to the air, and light would paint the seven-hued arch
+ upon the dusky bosom of the cloud if every human being was unconscious
+ dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man of thought and sense does not believe in the existence of the Devil.
+ He feels certain that imps, goblins, demons and evil spirits exist only in
+ the imagination of the ignorant and frightened. He knows how these
+ malevolent myths were made. He knows the part they have played in all
+ religions. He knows that for many centuries a belief in these devils,
+ these evil spirits, was substantially universal. He knows that the priest
+ believed as firmly as the peasant. In those days the best educated and the
+ most ignorant were equal dupes. Kings and courtiers, ladies and clowns,
+ soldiers and artists, slaves and convicts, believed as firmly in the Devil
+ as they did in God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Back of this belief there is no evidence, and there never has been. This
+ belief did not rest on any fact. It was supported by mistakes,
+ exaggerations and lies. The mistakes were natural, the exaggerations were
+ mostly unconscious and the lies were generally honest. Back of these
+ mistakes, these exaggerations, these lies, was the love of the marvelous.
+ Wonder listened with greedy ears, with wide eyes, and ignorance with open
+ mouth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of sense knows the history of this belief, and he knows, also,
+ that for many centuries its truth was established by the Holy Bible. He
+ knows that the Old Testament is filled with allusions to the Devil, to
+ evil spirits, and that the New Testament is the same. He knows that Christ
+ himself was a believer in the Devil, in evil spirits, and that his
+ principal business was casting out devils from the bodies of men and
+ women. He knows that Christ himself, according to the New Testament, was
+ not only tempted by the Devil, but was carried by his Satanic Highness to
+ the top of the temple. If the New Testament is the inspired word of God,
+ then I admit that these devils, these imps, do actually exist and that
+ they do take possession of human beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To deny the existence of these evil spirits, to deny the existence of the
+ Devil, is to deny the truth of the New Testament. To deny the existence of
+ these imps of darkness is to contradict the words of Jesus Christ. If
+ these devils do not exist, if they do not cause disease, if they do not
+ tempt and mislead their victims, then Christ was an ignorant,
+ superstitious man, insane, an impostor, or the New Testament is not a true
+ record of what he said and what he pretended to do. If we give up the
+ belief in devils, we must give up the inspiration of the Old and New
+ Testament. We must give up the divinity of Christ. To deny the existence
+ of evil spirits is to utterly destroy the foundation of Christianity.
+ There is no half-way ground. Compromise is impossible. If all the accounts
+ in the New Testament of casting out devils are false, what part of the
+ Blessed Book is true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the success of the Devil in the Garden of Eden made
+ the coming of Christ a necessity, laid the foundation for the atonement,
+ crucified the Savior and gave us the Trinity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Devil does not exist, the Christian creeds all crumble, and the
+ superstructure known as "Christianity," built by the fathers, by popes, by
+ priests and theologians&mdash;built with mistakes and falsehoods, with
+ miracles and wonders, with blood and flame, with lies and legends borrowed
+ from the savage world, becomes a shapeless ruin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we give up the belief in devils and evil spirits, we are compelled to
+ say that a witch never lived. No sensible human being now believes in
+ witchcraft. We know that it was a delusion. We now know that thousands and
+ thousands of innocent men, women and children were tortured and burned for
+ having been found guilty of an impossible crime, and we also know, if our
+ minds have not been deformed by faith, that all the books in which the
+ existence of witches is taught were written by ignorant and superstitious
+ men. We also know that the Old Testament asserted the existence of
+ witches. According to that Holy Book, Jehovah was a believer in
+ witchcraft, and said to his chosen people: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch
+ to live."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This one commandment&mdash;this simple line&mdash;demonstrates that
+ Jehovah was not only not God, but that he was a poor, ignorant,
+ superstitious savage. This one line proves beyond all possible doubt that
+ the Old Testament was written by men, by barbarians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Wesley was right when he said that to give up a belief in witchcraft
+ was to give up the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give up the Devil, and what can you do with the Book of Job? How will you
+ account for the lying spirits that Jehovah sent to mislead Ahab?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ministers who admit that witchcraft is a superstition will read the story
+ of the Witch of Endor&mdash;will read it in a solemn, reverential voice&mdash;with
+ a theological voice&mdash;and will have the impudence to say that they
+ believe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would be delightful to know that angels hover in the air; that they
+ guard the innocent, protect the good; that they bend over the cradles and
+ give health and happy dreams to pallid babes; that they fill dungeons with
+ the light of their presence and give hope to the imprisoned; that they
+ follow the fallen, the erring, the outcasts, the friendless, and win them
+ back to virtue, love and joy. But we have no more evidence of the
+ existence of good spirits than of bad. The angels that visited Abraham and
+ the mother of Samson are as unreal as the ghosts and goblins of the Middle
+ Ages. The angel that stopped the donkey of Balaam, the one who walked in
+ the furnace flames with Meshech, Shadrack and Abed-nego, the one who slew
+ the Assyrians and the one who in a dream removed the suspicions of Joseph,
+ were all created by the imagination of the credulous, by the lovers of the
+ marvelous, and they have been handed down from dotage to infancy, from
+ ignorance to ignorance, through all the years. Except in Catholic
+ countries, no winged citizen of the celestial realm has visited the world
+ for hundreds of years. Only those who are blind to facts can see these
+ beautiful creatures, and only those who reach conclusions without the
+ assistance of evidence can believe in their existence. It is told that the
+ great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals.
+ A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: "Whoever saw angels
+ with sandals?" Angelo answered with another question: "Whoever saw an
+ angel barefooted?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The existence of angels has never been established. Of course, we know
+ that millions and millions have believed in seraphim and cherubim; have
+ believed that the angel Gabriel contended with the Devil for the body of
+ Moses; that angels shut the mouths of the lions for the protection of
+ Daniel; that angels ministered unto Christ, and that countless angels will
+ accompany the Savior when he comes to take possession of the world. And we
+ know that all these millions believe through blind, unreasoning faith,
+ holding all evidence and all facts in theological contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the angels come no more. They bring no balm to any wounded heart. Long
+ ago they folded their pinions and faded from the earth and air. These
+ winged guardians no longer protect the innocent; no longer cheer the
+ suffering; no longer whisper words of comfort to the helpless. They have
+ become dreams&mdash;vanished visions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the dear old religious days the earth was flat&mdash;a little dishing,
+ if anything&mdash;and just above it was Jehovah's house, and just below it
+ was where the Devil lived. God and his angels inhabited the third story,
+ the Devil and his imps the basement, and the human race the second floor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then they knew where heaven was. They could almost hear the harps and
+ hallelujahs. They knew where hell was, and they could almost hear the
+ groans and smell the sulphurous fumes. They regarded the volcanoes as
+ chimneys. They were perfectly acquainted with the celestial, the
+ terrestrial and the infernal. They were quite familiar with the New
+ Jerusalem, with its golden streets and gates of pearl. Then the
+ translation of Enoch seemed reasonable enough, and no one doubted that
+ before the flood the sons of God came down and made love to the daughters
+ of men. The theologians thought that the builders of Babel would have
+ succeeded if God had not come down and caused them to forget the meaning
+ of words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those blessed days the priests knew all about heaven and hell. They
+ knew that God governed the world by hope and fear, by promise and threat,
+ by reward and punishment. The reward was to be eternal and so was the
+ punishment. It was not God's plan to develop the human brain, so that man
+ would perceive and comprehend the right and avoid the wrong. He taught
+ ignorance nothing but obedience, and for obedience he offered eternal joy.
+ He loved the submissive&mdash;the kneelers and crawlers. He hated the
+ doubters, the investigators, the thinkers, the philosophers. For them he
+ created the eternal prison where he could feed forever the hunger of his
+ hate. He loved the credulous&mdash;those who believed without evidence&mdash;and
+ for them he prepared a home in the realm of fadeless light. He delighted
+ in the company of the questionless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But where is this heaven, and where is this hell? We now know that heaven
+ is not just above the clouds and that hell is not just below the earth.
+ The telescope has done away with the ancient heaven, and the revolving
+ world has quenched the flames of the ancient hell. These theological
+ countries, these imagined worlds, have disappeared. No one knows, and no
+ one pretends to know, where heaven is; and no one knows, and no one
+ pretends to know, the locality of hell. Now the theologians say that hell
+ and heaven are not places, but states of mind&mdash;conditions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The belief in gods and devils has been substantially universal. Back of
+ the good, man placed a god; back of the evil, a devil; back of health,
+ sunshine and harvest was a good deity; back of disease, misfortune and
+ death he placed a malicious fiend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any evidence that gods and devils exist? The evidence of the
+ existence of a god and of a devil is substantially the same. Both of these
+ deities are inferences; each one is a perhaps. They have not been seen&mdash;they
+ are invisible&mdash;and they have not ventured within the horizon of the
+ senses. The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they
+ make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained
+ theologian&mdash;like a doctor of divinity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now no intelligent man believes in the existence of a devil&mdash;no
+ longer fears the leering fiend. Most people who think have given up a
+ personal God, a creative deity. They now talk about the "Unknown," the
+ "Infinite Energy," but they put Jehovah with Jupiter. They regard them
+ both as broken dolls from the nursery of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men or women who ask for evidence&mdash;who desire to know the truth&mdash;care
+ nothing for signs; nothing for what are called wonders; nothing for lucky
+ or unlucky jewels, days or numbers; nothing for charms or amulets; nothing
+ for comets or eclipses, and have no belief in good or evil spirits, in
+ gods or devils. They place no reliance on general or special providence&mdash;on
+ any power that rescues, protects and saves the good or punishes the vile
+ and vicious. They do not believe that in the whole history of mankind a
+ prayer has been answered. They think that all the sacrifices have been
+ wasted, and that all the incense has ascended in vain. They do not believe
+ that the world was created and prepared for man any more than it was
+ created and prepared for insects. They do not think it probable that
+ whales were invented to supply the Eskimo with blubber, or that flames
+ were created to attract and destroy moths. On every hand there seems to be
+ evidence of design&mdash;design for the accomplishment of good, design for
+ the accomplishment of evil. On every side are the benevolent and malicious&mdash;something
+ toiling to preserve, something laboring to destroy. Everything surrounded
+ by friends and enemies&mdash;by the love that protects, by the hate that
+ kills. Design is as apparent in decay, as in growth; in failure, as in
+ success; in grief, as in joy. Nature with one hand building, with one hand
+ tearing down, armed with sword and shield&mdash;slaying and protecting,
+ and protecting but to slay. All life journeying toward death, and all
+ death hastening back to life. Everywhere waste and economy, care and
+ negligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We watch the flow and ebb of life and death&mdash;the great drama that
+ forever holds the stage, where players act their parts and disappear; the
+ great drama in which all must act&mdash;ignorant and learned, idiotic and
+ insane&mdash;without rehearsal and without the slightest knowledge of a
+ part, or of any plot or purpose in the play. The scene shifts; some actors
+ disappear and others come, and again the scene shifts; mystery everywhere.
+ We try to explain, and the explanation of one fact contradicts another.
+ Behind each veil removed, another. All things equal in wonder. One drop of
+ water as wonderful as all the seas; one grain of sand as all the world;
+ one moth with painted wings as all the things that live; one egg from
+ which warmth, in darkness, woos to life an organized and breathing form&mdash;a
+ form with sinews, bones and nerves, with blood and brain, with instincts,
+ passions, thoughts and wants&mdash;as all the stars that wheel in space.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The smallest seed that, wrapped in soil, has dreams of April rains and
+ days of June, withholds its secret from the wisest men. The wisdom of the
+ world cannot explain one blade of grass, the faintest motion of the
+ smallest leaf. And yet theologians, popes, priests, parsons, who
+ speechless stand before the wonder of the smallest thing that is, know all
+ about the origin of worlds, know when the beginning was, when the end will
+ be, know all about the God who with a wish created all, know what his plan
+ and purpose was, the means he uses and the end he seeks. To them all
+ mysteries have been revealed, except the mystery of things that touch the
+ senses of a living man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they
+ love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "We do not
+ know."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, why should we worship our ignorance, why should we kneel to the
+ Unknown, why should we prostrate ourselves before a guess?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God exists, how do we know that he is good, that he cares for us? The
+ Christians say that their God has existed from eternity; that he forever
+ has been, and forever will be, infinite, wise and good. Could this God
+ have avoided being God? Could he have avoided being good? Was he wise and
+ good without his wish or will?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Being from eternity, he was not produced. He was back of all cause. What
+ he is, he was, and will be, unchanged, unchangeable. He had nothing to do
+ with the making or developing of his character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing to do with the development of his mind. What he was, he is. He has
+ made no progress. What he is, he will be, there can be no change. Why
+ then, I ask, should we praise him? He could not have been different from
+ what he was and is. Why should we pray to him? He cannot change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet Christians implore their God not to do wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The meanest thing charged against the Devil is that he leads the children
+ of men into temptation, and yet, in the Lord's Prayer, God is insultingly
+ asked not to imitate the king of fiends.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Lead us not into temptation."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Why should God demand praise? He is as lie was. He has never learned
+ anything; has never practiced any self-denial; was never tempted, never
+ touched by fear or hope, and never had a want. Why should he demand our
+ praise?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does anyone know that this God exists; that he ever heard or answered any
+ prayer? Is it known that he governs the world; that he interferes in the
+ affairs of men; that he protects the good or punishes the wicked? Can
+ evidence of this be found in the history of mankind? If God governs the
+ world, why should we credit him for the good and not charge him with the
+ evil? To justify this God we must say that good is good and that evil is
+ also good. If all is done by this God we should make no distinction
+ between his actions&mdash;between the actions of the infinitely wise,
+ powerful and good. If we thank him for sunshine and harvest we should also
+ thank him for plague and famine. If we thank him for liberty, the slave
+ should raise his chained hands in worship and thank God that he toils
+ unpaid with the lash upon his naked back. If we thank him for victory we
+ should thank him for defeat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few days ago our President, by proclamation, thanked God for giving
+ us the victory at Santiago. He did not thank him for sending the yellow
+ fever. To be consistent the President should have thanked him equally for
+ both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that good and evil spirits&mdash;gods and devils&mdash;are
+ beyond the realm of experience; beyond the horizon of our senses; beyond
+ the limits of our thoughts; beyond imagination's utmost flight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man should think; he should use all his senses; he should examine; he
+ should reason. The man who cannot think is less than man; the man who will
+ not think is traitor to himself; the man who fears to think is
+ superstition's slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What harm does superstition do? What harm in believing in fables, in
+ legends?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To believe in signs and wonders, in amulets, charms and miracles, in gods
+ and devils, in heavens and hells, makes the brain an insane ward, the
+ world a madhouse, takes all certainty from the mind, makes experience a
+ snare, destroys the kinship of effect and cause&mdash;the unity of nature&mdash;and
+ makes man a trembling serf and slave. With this belief a knowledge of
+ nature sheds no light upon the path to be pursued. Nature becomes a puppet
+ of the unseen powers. The fairy, called the supernatural, touches with her
+ wand a fact, it disappears. Causes are barren of effects, and effects are
+ independent of all natural causes. Caprice is king. The foundation is
+ gone. The great dome rests on air. There is no constancy in qualities,
+ relations or results. Reason abdicates and superstition wears her crown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The heart hardens and the brain softens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The energies of man are wasted in a vain effort to secure the protection
+ of the supernatural. Credulity, ceremony, worship, sacrifice and prayer
+ take the place of honest work, of investigation, of intellectual effort,
+ of observation, of experience. Progress becomes impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition is, always lias been, and forever will be, the enemy of
+ liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Superstition created all the gods and angels, all the devils and ghosts,
+ all the witches, demons and goblins, gave us all the augurs, soothsayers
+ and prophets, filled the heavens with signs and wonders, broke the chain
+ of cause and effect, and wrote the history of man in miracles and lies.
+ Superstition made all the popes, cardinals, bishops and priests, all the
+ monks and nuns, the begging friars and the filthy saints, all the
+ preachers and exhorters, all the "called" and "set apart." Superstition
+ made men fall upon their knees before beasts and stones, caused them to
+ worship snakes and trees and insane phantoms of the air, beguiled them of
+ their gold and toil, and made them shed their children's blood and give
+ their babes to flames. Superstition built the cathedrals and temples, all
+ the altars, mosques and churches, filled the world with amulets and
+ charms, with images and idols, with sacred bones and holy hairs, with
+ martyrs' blood and rags, with bits, of wood that frighten devils from the
+ breasts of men. Superstition invented and used the instruments of torture,
+ flayed men and women alive, loaded millions, with chains and destroyed
+ hundreds of thousands with fire. Superstition mistook insanity for
+ inspiration and the ravings of maniacs for prophesy, for the wisdom of
+ God. Superstition imprisoned the virtuous, tortured the thoughtful, killed
+ the heroic, put chains on the body, manacles on the brain, and utterly
+ destroyed the liberty of speech. Superstition gave us all the prayers and
+ ceremonies; taught all the kneelings, genuflections and prostrations;
+ taught men to hate themselves, to despise pleasure, to scar their flesh,
+ to grovel in the dust, to desert their wives and children, to shun their
+ fellow-men, and to spend their lives in useless pain and prayer.
+ Superstition taught that human love is degrading, low and vile; taught
+ that monks are purer than fathers, that nuns are holier than mothers, that
+ faith is superior to fact, that credulity leads to heaven, that doubt is
+ the road to hell, that belief is better than knowledge, and that to ask
+ for evidence is to insult God. Superstition is, always has been, and
+ forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the
+ assassin of freedom. It sacrifices the known to the unknown, the present
+ to the future, this actual world to the shadowy next. It has given us a
+ selfish heaven, and a hell of infinite revenge; it has filled the world
+ with hatred, war and crime, with the malice of meekness and the arrogance
+ of humility. Superstition is the only enemy of science in all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nations, races, have been destroyed by this monster. For nearly two
+ thousand years the infallible agent of God has lived in Italy. That
+ country has been covered with nunneries, monasteries, cathedrals and
+ temples&mdash;filled with all varieties of priests and holy men. For
+ centuries Italy was enriched with the gold of the faithful. All roads led
+ to Rome, and these roads were filled with pilgrims bearing gifts, and yet
+ Italy, in spite of all the prayers, steadily pursued the downward path,
+ died and was buried, and would at this moment be in her grave had it not
+ been for Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi. For her poverty, her misery, she
+ is indebted to the holy Catholic Church, to the infallible agents of God.
+ For the life she has she is indebted to the enemies of superstition. A few
+ years ago Italy was great enough to build a monument to Giordano Bruno&mdash;Bruno,
+ the victim of the "Triumphant Beast;"&mdash;Bruno, the sublimest of her
+ sons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spain was at one time owner of half the earth, and held within her greedy
+ hands the gold and silver of the world. At that time all nations were in
+ the darkness of superstition. At that time the world was governed by
+ priests. Spain clung to her creed. Some nations began to think, but Spain
+ continued to believe. In some countries, priests lost power, but not in
+ Spain. The power behind her throne was the cowled monk. In some countries
+ men began to interest themselves in science, but not in Spain. Spain told
+ her beads and continued to pray to the Virgin. Spain was busy-saving her
+ soul. In her zeal she destroyed herself. She relied on the supernatural;
+ not on knowledge, but superstition. Her prayers were never answered. The
+ saints were dead. They could not help, and the Blessed Virgin did not
+ hear. Some countries were in the dawn of a new day, but Spain gladly
+ remained in the night. With fire and sword she exterminated the men who
+ thought. Her greatest festival was the <i>Auto da Fe</i>. Other nations
+ grew great while Spain grew small. Day by day her power waned, but her
+ faith increased. One by one her colonies were lost, but she kept her
+ creed. She gave her gold to superstition, her brain to priests, but she
+ faithfully counted her beads. Only a few days ago, relying on her God and
+ his priests, on charms and amulets, on holy water and pieces of the true
+ cross, she waged war against the great Republic. Bishops blessed her
+ armies and sprinkled holy water on her ships, and yet her armies were
+ defeated and captured, lier ships battered, beached and burned, and in her
+ helplessness she sued for peace. But she has her creed; her superstition
+ is not lost. Poor Spain, wrecked by faith, the victim of religion!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Portugal, slowly dying, growing poorer every day, still clings to the
+ faith. Her prayers are never answered, but she makes them still. Austria
+ is nearly gone, a victim of superstition. Germany is traveling toward the
+ night. God placed her Kaiser on the throne. The people must obey.
+ Philosophers and scientists fall upon, their knees and become the puppets
+ of the divinely crowned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The believers in the supernatural, in a power superior to nature, in God,
+ have what they call "inspired books." These books contain the absolute
+ truth. They must be believed. He who denies them will be punished with
+ eternal pain. These books are not addressed to human reason. They are
+ above reason. They care nothing for what a man calls "facts." Facts that
+ do not agree with these books are mistakes. These books are independent of
+ human experience, of human reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our inspired books constitute what we call the "Bible." The man who reads
+ this inspired book, looking for contradictions, mistakes and
+ interpolations, imperils the salvation of his soul. While he reads he has
+ no right to think, no right to reason. To believe is his only duty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions of men have wasted their lives in the study of this book&mdash;in
+ trying to harmonize contradictions and to explain the obscure and
+ seemingly absurd. In doing this they have justified nearly every crime and
+ every cruelty. In its follies they have found the profoundest wisdom.
+ Hundreds of creeds have been constructed from its inspired passages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably no two of its readers have agreed as to its meaning. Thousands
+ have studied Hebrew and Greek that they might read the Old and New
+ Testament in the languages in which they were written. The more they
+ studied, the more they differed. By the same book they proved that nearly
+ everybody is to be lost, and that all are to be saved; that slavery is a
+ divine institution, and that all men should be free; that polygamy is
+ right, and that no man should have more than one wife; that the powers
+ that be are ordained of God, and that the people have a right to overturn
+ and destroy the powers that be; that all the actions of men were
+ predestined&mdash;preordained from eternity, and yet that man is free;
+ that all the heathen will be lost; that all the heathen will be saved;
+ that all men who live according to the light of nature will be damned for
+ their pains; that you must be baptized by sprinkling; that you must be
+ baptized by immersion; that there is no salvation without baptism; that
+ baptism is useless; that you must believe in the Trinity; that it is
+ sufficient to believe in God; that you must believe that a Hebrew peasant
+ was God; that at the same time he was half man, that he was of the blood
+ of David through his supposed father Joseph, who was not his father, and
+ that it is not necessary to believe that Christ was God; that you must
+ believe that the Holy Ghost proceeded; that it makes no difference whether
+ you do or not; that you must keep the Sabbath holy; that Christ taught
+ nothing of the kind; that Christ established a church; that he established
+ no church; that the dead are to be raised; that there is to be no
+ resurrection; that Christ is coming again; that he has made his last
+ visit; that Christ went to hell and preached to the spirits in prison;
+ that he did nothing of the kind; that all the Jews are going to perdition;
+ that they are all going to heaven; that all the miracles described in the
+ Bible were performed; that some of them were not, because they are
+ foolish, childish and idiotic; that all the Bible is inspired; that some
+ of the books are not inspired; that there is to be a general judgment,
+ when the sheep and goats are to be divided; that there never will be any
+ general judgment; that the sacramental bread and wine are changed into the
+ flesh and blood of God and the Trinity; that they are not changed; that
+ God has no flesh or blood; that there is a place called "purgatory;" that
+ there is no such place; that unbaptized infants will be lost; that they
+ will be saved; that we must believe the Apostles' Creed; that the apostles
+ made no creed; that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ; that Joseph
+ was his father; that the Holy Ghost had the form of a dove; that there is
+ no Holy Ghost; that heretics should be killed; that you must not resist
+ evil; that you should murder unbelievers; that you must love your enemies;
+ that you should take no thought for the morrow, but should be diligent in
+ business; that you should lend to all who ask, and that One who does not
+ provide for his own household is worse than an infidel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In defence of all these creeds, all these contradictions, thousands of
+ volumes have been written, millions of sermons have been preached,
+ countless swords reddened with blood, and thousands and thousands of
+ nights made lurid with the faggot's flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hundreds and hundreds of commentators have obscured and darkened the
+ meaning of the plainest texts, spiritualized dates, names, numbers and
+ even genealogies. They have degraded the poetic, changed parables to
+ history, and imagery to stupid and impossible facts. They have wrestled
+ with rhapsody and prophecy, with visions and dreams, with illusions and
+ delusions, with myths and miracles, with the blunders of ignorance, the
+ ravings of insanity and the ecstasy of hysterics. Millions of priests and
+ preachers have added to the mysteries of the inspired book by explanation,
+ by showing the wisdom of foolishness, the foolishness of wisdom, the mercy
+ of cruelty and the probability of the impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians made the Bible a master and the people its slaves. With
+ this book they destroyed intellectual veracity, the natural manliness of
+ man. With this book they banished pity from the heart, subverted all ideas
+ of justice and fairness, imprisoned the soul in the dungeon of fear and
+ made honest doubt a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of what the world has suffered from fear. Think of the millions who
+ were driven to insanity. Think of the fearful nights&mdash;nights filled
+ with phantoms, with flying, crawling monsters, with hissing serpents that
+ slowly uncoiled, with vague and formless horrors, with burning and
+ malicious eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the fear of death, of infinite wrath, of everlasting revenge in
+ the prisons of fire, of an eternity, of thirst, of endless regret, of the
+ sobs and sighs, the shrieks and groans of eternal pain!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the hearts hardened, of the hearts broken, of the cruelties
+ inflicted, of the agonies endured, of the lives darkened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The inspired Bible has been and is the greatest curse of Christendom, and
+ will so remain as long as it is held to be inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our God was made by men, sculptured by savages who did the best they
+ could. They made our God somewhat like themselves, and gave to him their
+ passions, their ideas of right and wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As man advanced he slowly changed his God&mdash;took a little ferocity
+ from his heart, and put the light of kindness in his eyes. As man
+ progressed he obtained a wider view, extended the intellectual horizon,
+ and again he changed his God, making him as nearly perfect as he could,
+ and yet this God was patterned after those who made him. As man became
+ civilized, as he became merciful, he began to love justice, and as his
+ mind expanded his ideal became purer, nobler, and so his God became more
+ merciful, more loving.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our day Jehovah has been outgrown. He is no longer the perfect. Now
+ theologians talk, not about Jehovah, but about a God of love, call him the
+ Eternal Father and the perpetual friend and providence of man. But, while
+ they talk about this God of love, cyclones wreck and rend, the earthquake
+ devours, the flood destroys, the red bolt leaping from the cloud still
+ crashes the life out of men, and plague and fever still are tireless
+ reapers in the harvest fields of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They tell us now that all is good; that evil is but blessing in disguise,
+ that pain makes strong and virtuous men&mdash;makes character&mdash;while
+ pleasure enfeebles and degrades. If this be so, the souls in hell should
+ grow to greatness, while those in heaven should shrink and shrivel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we know that good is good. We know that good is not evil, and that
+ evil is not good. We know that light is not darkness, and that darkness is
+ not light. But we do not feel that good and evil were planned and caused
+ by a supernatural God. We regard them both as necessities. We neither
+ thank nor curse. We know that some evil can be avoided and that the good
+ can be increased. We know that this can be done by increasing knowledge,
+ by developing the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As Christians have changed their God, so they have accordingly changed
+ their Bible. The impossible and absurd, the cruel and the infamous, have
+ been mostly thrown aside, and thousands are now engaged in trying to save
+ the inspired word. Of course, the orthodox still cling to every word, and
+ still insist that every line is true. They are literalists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To them the Bible means exactly what it says.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They want no explanation. They care nothing for commentators.
+ Contradictions cannot disturb their faith. They deny that any
+ contradictions exist. They loyally stand by the sacred text, and they give
+ it the narrowest possible interpretation. They are like the janitor of an
+ apartment house who refused to rent a flat to a gentleman because he said
+ he had children. "But," said the gentleman, "my children are both married
+ and live in Iowa." "That makes no difference," said the janitor, "I am not
+ allowed to rent a flat to any man who has children."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the orthodox churches are obstructions on the highway of progress.
+ Every orthodox creed is a chain, a dungeon. Every believer in the
+ "inspired book" is a slave who drives reason from her throne, and in her
+ stead crowns fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Reason is the light, the sun, of the brain. It is the compass of the mind,
+ the ever-constant Northern Star, the mountain peak that lifts itself above
+ all clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There were centuries of darkness when religion had control of Christendom.
+ Superstition was almost universal. Not one in twenty thousand could read
+ or write. During these centuries the people lived with their back to the
+ sunrise, and pursued their way toward the dens of ignorance and faith.
+ There was no progress, no invention, no discovery. On every hand cruelty
+ and worship, persecution and prayer. The priests were the enemies of
+ thought, of investigation. They were the shepherds, and the people were
+ their sheep and it was their business to guard the flock from the wolves
+ of thought and doubt. This world was of no importance compared with the
+ next. This life was to be spent in preparing for the life to come. The
+ gold and labor of men were wasted in building cathedrals and in supporting
+ the pious and the useless. During these Dark Ages of Christianity, as I
+ said before, nothing was invented, nothing was discovered, calculated to
+ increase the well-being of men. The energies of Christendom were wasted in
+ the vain effort to obtain assistance from the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For centuries the business of Christians was to wrest from the followers
+ of Mohammed the empty sepulcher of Christ. Upon the altar of this folly
+ millions of lives were sacrificed, and yet the soldiers of the impostor
+ were victorious, and the wretches who carried the banner of Christ were
+ scattered like leaves before the storm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was, I believe, one invention during these ages. It is said that, in
+ the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk, invented
+ gunpowder, but this invention was without a fellow. Yet we cannot give
+ Christianity the credit, because Bacon was an infidel, and was great
+ enough to say that in all things reason must be the standard. He was
+ persecuted and imprisoned, as most sensible men were in those blessed
+ days. The church was triumphant. The sceptre and mitre were in her hands,
+ and yet her success was the result of force and fraud, and it carried
+ within itself the seeds of its defeat. The church attempted the
+ impossible. It endeavored to make the world of one belief; to force all
+ minds to a common form, and utterly destroy the individuality of man. To
+ accomplish this it employed every art and artifice that cunning could
+ suggest It inflicted every cruelty by every means that malice could
+ invent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, in spite of all, a few men began to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They became interested in the affairs of this world&mdash;in the great
+ panorama of nature. They began to seek for causes, for the explanations of
+ phenomena. They were not satisfied with the assertions of the church.
+ These thinkers withdrew their gaze from the skies and looked at their own
+ surroundings. They were unspiritual enough to desire comfort here. They
+ became sensible and secular, worldly and wise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the result? They began to invent, to discover, to find the
+ relation between facts, the conditions of happiness and the means that
+ would increase the well-being of their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Movable types were invented, paper was borrowed from the Moors, books
+ appeared, and it became possible to save the intellectual wealth so that
+ each generation could hand it to the next. History began to take the place
+ of legend and rumor. The telescope was invented. The orbits of the stars
+ were traced, and men became citizens of the universe. The steam engine was
+ constructed, and now steam, the great slave, does the work of hundreds of
+ millions of men. The Black Art, the impossible, was abandoned, and
+ chemistry, the useful, took its place. Astrology became astronomy. Kepler
+ discovered the three great laws, one of the greatest triumphs of human
+ genius, and our constellation became a poem, a symphony. Newton gave us
+ the mathematical expression of the attraction of gravitation. Harvey
+ discovered the circulation of the blood. He gave us the fact, and Draper
+ gave us the reason. Steamships conquered the seas and railways covered the
+ land. Houses and streets were lighted with gas. Through the invention of
+ matches fire became the companion of man. The art of photography became
+ known; the sun became an artist. Telegraphs and cables were invented. The
+ lightning became a carrier of thought, and the nations became neighbors.
+ Anaesthetics were discovered and pain was lost in sleep. Surgery became a
+ science. The telephone was invented&mdash;the telephone that carries and
+ deposits in listening ears the waves of words. The phonograph, that
+ catches and retains in marks and dots and gives again the echoes of our
+ speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came electric light that fills the night with day, and all the
+ wonderful machines that use the subtle force&mdash;the same force that
+ leaps from the summer cloud to ravage and destroy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Spectrum Analysis that tells us of the substance of the sun; the R&ouml;ntgen
+ rays that change the opaque to the transparent. The great thinkers
+ demonstrated the indestructibility of force and matter&mdash;demonstrated
+ that the indestructible could not have been created. The geologist, in
+ rocks and deposits and mountains and continents, read a little of the
+ story of the world&mdash;of its changes, of the glacial epoch&mdash;the
+ story of vegetable and animal life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The biologists, through the fossil forms of life, established the
+ antiquity of man and demonstrated the worthlessness of Holy Writ. Then
+ came evolution, the survival of the fittest and natural selection.
+ Thousands of mysteries were explained and science wrested the sceptre from
+ superstition. The cell theory was advanced, and embryology was studied;
+ the microscope discovered germs of disease and taught us how to stay the
+ plague. These great theories and discoveries, together with countless
+ inventions, are the children of intellectual liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all we know but little. In the darkness of life there are a few
+ gleams of light. Possibly the dropping of a dishcloth prophesies the
+ coming of company, but we have no evidence. Possibly it is dangerous for
+ thirteen to dine together, but we have no evidence. Possibly a maiden's
+ matrimonial chances are determined by the number of seeds in an apple, or
+ by the number of leaves on a flower, but we have no evidence. Possibly
+ certain stones give good luck to the wearer, while the wearing of others
+ brings loss and death. Possibly a glimpse of the new moon over the left
+ shoulder brings misfortune. Possibly there are curative virtues in old
+ bones, in sacred rags and holy hairs, in images and bits of wood, in rusty
+ nails and dried blood, but the trouble is we have no evidence. Possibly
+ comets, eclipses and shooting stars foretell the death of kings, the
+ destruction of nations or the coming of plague. Possibly devils take
+ possession of the bodies and minds of men. Possibly witches, with the
+ Devil's help, control the winds, breed storms on sea and land, fill
+ summer's lap with frosts and snow, and work with charm and spell against
+ the public weal, but of this we have no evidence. It may be that all the
+ miracles described in the Old and New Testament were performed; that the
+ pallid flesh of the dead felt once more the thrill of life; that the
+ corpse arose and felt upon his smiling lips the kiss of wife and child.
+ Possibly water was turned into wine, loaves and fishes increased, and
+ possibly devils were expelled from men and women; possibly fishes were
+ found with money in their mouths; possibly clay and spittle brought back
+ the light to sightless eyes, and possibly words cured disease and made the
+ leper clean, but of this we have no evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly iron floated, rivers divided, waters burst from dry bones, birds
+ carried food to prophets and angels flourished drawn swords, but of this
+ we have no evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly Jehovah employed lying spirits to deceive a king, and all the
+ wonders of the savage world may have happened, but the trouble is there is
+ no proof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So there may be a Devil, almost infinite in cunning and power, and he may
+ have a countless number of imps whose only business is to sow the seeds of
+ evil and to vex, mislead, capture and imprison in eternal flames the souls
+ of men. All this, so far as we know, is possible. All we know is that we
+ have no evidence except the assertions of ignorant priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly there is a place called "hell," where all the devils live&mdash;a
+ hell whose flames are waiting for, all the men who think and have the
+ courage to express their thoughts, for all who fail to credit priests and
+ sacred books, for all who walk the path that reason lights, for all the
+ good and brave who lack credulity and faith&mdash;but of this, I am happy
+ to say, there is no proof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so there may be a place called "heaven," the home of God, where angels
+ float and fly and play on harps and hear with joy the groans and shrieks
+ of the lost in hell, but of this there is no evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It all rests on dreams and visions of the insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There may be a power superior to nature, a power that governs and directs
+ all things, but the existence of this power has not been established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the presence of the mysteries of life and thought, of force and
+ substance, of growth and decay, of birth and death, of joy and pain, of
+ the sufferings of the good, the triumphs of wrong, the intelligent honest
+ man is compelled to say: "I do not know."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we do know how gods and devils, heavens and hells, have been made. We
+ know the history of inspired books&mdash;the origin of religions. We know
+ how the seeds of superstition were planted and what made them grow. We
+ know that all superstitions, all creeds, all follies and mistakes, all
+ crimes and cruelties, all virtues, vices, hopes and fears, all discoveries
+ and inventions, have been naturally produced. By the light of reason we
+ divide the useful from the hurtful, the false from the true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know the past&mdash;the paths that man has traveled&mdash;his mistakes,
+ his triumphs. We know a few facts, a few fragments, and the imagination,
+ the artist of the mind, with these facts, these fragments, rebuilds the
+ past, and on the canvas of the future deftly paints the things to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We believe in the natural, in the unbroken and unbreakable succession of
+ causes and effects. We deny the existence of the supernatural. We do not
+ believe in any God who can be pleased with incense, with kneeling, with
+ bell-ringing, psalm-singing, bead-counting, fasting or prayer&mdash;in any
+ God who can be flattered by words of faith or fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We believe in the natural. We have no fear of devils, ghosts or hells. We
+ believe that Mahatmas, astral bodies, materializations of spirits, crystal
+ gazing, seeing the future, telepathy, mind reading and Christian Science
+ are only cunning frauds, the genuineness of which is established by the
+ testimony of incompetent, honest witnesses. We believe that Cunning plates
+ fraud with the gold of honesty, and veneers vice with virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that millions are seeking the impossible&mdash;trying to secure
+ the aid of the supernatural&mdash;to solve the problem of life&mdash;to
+ guess the riddle of destiny, and to pluck from the future its secret. We
+ know that all their efforts are in vain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We believe in the natural. We believe in home and fireside&mdash;in wife
+ and child and friend&mdash;in the realities of this world. We have faith
+ in facts&mdash;in knowledge&mdash;in the development of the brain. We
+ throw away superstition and welcome science. We banish the phantoms, the
+ mistakes and lies and cling to the truth. We do not enthrone the unknown
+ and crown our ignorance. We do not stand with our backs to the sun and
+ mistake our shadow for God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not create a master and thankfully wear his chains. We do not
+ enslave ourselves. We want no leaders&mdash;no followers. Our desire is
+ that every human being shall be true to himself, to his ideal, unbribed by
+ promises, careless of threats. We want no tyrant on the earth or in the
+ air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that superstition has given us delusions and illusions, dreams and
+ visions, ceremonies and cruelties, faith and fanaticism, beggars and
+ bigots, persecutions and prayers, theology and torture, piety and poverty,
+ saints and slaves, miracles and mummeries, disease and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that science has given us all we have of value. Science is the
+ only civilizer. It has freed the slave, clothed the naked, fed the hungry,
+ lengthened life, given us homes and hearths, pictures and books, ships and
+ railways, telegraphs and cables, engines that tirelessly turn the
+ countless wheels, and it has destroyed the monsters, the phantoms, the
+ winged horrors that filled the savage brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science is the real redeemer. It will put honesty above hypocrisy; mental
+ veracity above all belief. It will teach the religion of usefulness. It
+ will destroy bigotry in all its forms. It will put thoughtful doubt above
+ thoughtless faith. It will give us philosophers, thinkers and savants,
+ instead of priests, theologians and saints. It will abolish poverty and
+ crime, and greater, grander, nobler than all else, it will make the whole
+ world free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE DEVIL.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IF THE DEVIL SHOULD DIE WOULD GOD MAKE ANOTHER?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago I delivered a lecture on "Superstition," in which,
+ among other things, I said that the Christian world could not deny the
+ existence of the Devil; that the Devil was really the keystone of the
+ arch, and that to take him away was to destroy the entire system.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great many clergymen answered or criticised this statement. Some of
+ these ministers avowed their belief in the existence of his Satanic
+ Majesty, while others actually denied his existence; but some, without
+ stating their own position, said that others believed, not in the
+ existence of a personal devil, but in the personification of evil, and
+ that all references to the Devil in the Scriptures could be explained on
+ the hypothesis that the Devil thus alluded to was simply a personification
+ of evil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I read these answers I thought of this line from Heine: "Christ rode
+ on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the questions are, first, whether the Devil does really exist;
+ second, whether the sacred Scriptures teach the existence of the Devil and
+ of unclean spirits, and third, whether this belief in devils is a
+ necessary part of what is known as "orthodox Christianity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, where did the idea that a Devil exists come from? How was it
+ produced?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear is an artist&mdash;a sculptor&mdash;a painter. All tribes and
+ nations, having suffered, having been the sport and prey of natural
+ phenomena, having been struck by lightning, poisoned by weeds, overwhelmed
+ by volcanoes, destroyed by earthquakes, believed in the existence of a
+ Devil, who was the king&mdash;the ruler&mdash;of innumerable smaller
+ devils, and all these devils have been from time immemorial regarded as
+ the enemies of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Along the banks of the Ganges wandered the Asuras, the most powerful of
+ evil spirits. Their business was to war against the Devas&mdash;that is to
+ say, the gods&mdash;and at the same time against human beings. There, too,
+ were the ogres, the Jakshas and many others who killed and devoured human
+ beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Persians turned this around, and with them the Asuras were good and
+ the Devas bad. Ormuzd was the good&mdash;the god&mdash;Ahriman the evil&mdash;the
+ devil &mdash;and between the god and the devil was waged a perpetual war.
+ Some of the Persians thought that the evil would finally triumph, but
+ others insisted that the good would be the victor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Egypt the devil was Set&mdash;or, as usually called, Typhon&mdash;and
+ the good god was Osiris. Set and his legions fought against Osiris and
+ against the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among the Greeks, the Titans were the enemies of the gods. Ate was the
+ spirit that tempted, and such was her power that at one time she tempted
+ and misled the god of gods, even Zeus himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These ideas about gods and devils often changed, because in the days of
+ Socrates a demon was not a devil, but a guardian angel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We obtain our Devil from the Jews, and they got him from Babylon. The Jews
+ cultivated the science of Demonology, and at one time it was believed that
+ there were nine kinds of demons: Beelzebub, prince of the false gods of
+ the other nations; the Pythian Apollo, prince of liars; Belial, prince of
+ mischief-makers; Asmodeus, prince of revengeful devils; Satan, prince of
+ witches and magicians; Meresin, prince of aerial devils, who caused
+ thunderstorms and plagues; Abaddon, who caused wars, tumults and
+ combustions; Diabolus, who drives to despair, and Mammon, prince of the
+ tempters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was believed that demons and sorcerers frequently came together and
+ held what were called "Sabbats;" that is to say, orgies. It was also known
+ that sorcerers and witches had marks on their bodies that had been
+ imprinted by the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course these devils were all made by the people, and in these devils we
+ find the prejudices of their makers. The Europeans always represent their
+ devils as black, while the Africans believed that theirs were white.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it was believed that people by the aid of the Devil could assume any
+ shape that they wished. Witches and wizards were changed into wolves,
+ dogs, cats and serpents. This change to animal form was exceedingly
+ common.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Within two years, between 1598 and 1600, in one district of France, the
+ district of Jura, more than six hundred men and women were tried and
+ convicted before one judge of having changed themselves into wolves, and
+ all were put to death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is only one instance. There are thousands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no time to give the history of this belief in devils. It has been
+ universal. The consequences have been terrible beyond the imagination.
+ Millions and millions of men, women and children, of fathers and mothers,
+ have been sacrificed upon the altar of this ignorant and idiotic belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the Christians of to-day do not believe that the devils of the
+ Hindus, Egyptians, Persians or Babylonians existed. They think that those
+ nations created their own devils, precisely the same as they did their own
+ gods. But the Christians of to-day admit that for many centuries
+ Christians did believe in the existence of countless devils; that the
+ Fathers of the church believed as sincerely in the Devil and his demons as
+ in God and his angels; that they were just as sure about hell as heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that people did the best they could to account for what they saw,
+ for what they experienced. I admit that the devils as well as the gods
+ were naturally produced&mdash;the effect of nature upon the human brain.
+ The cause of phenomena filled our ancestors not only with wonder, but with
+ terror. The miraculous, the supernatural, was not only believed in, but
+ was always expected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man walking in the woods at night&mdash;just a glimmering of the moon&mdash;everything
+ uncertain and shadowy&mdash;sees a monstrous form. One arm is raised. His
+ blood grows cold, his hair lifts. In the gloom he sees the eyes of an ogre&mdash;eyes
+ that flame with malice. He feels that the something is approaching. He
+ turns, and with a cry of horror takes to his heels. He is afraid to look
+ back. Spent, out of breath, shaking with fear, he reaches his hut and
+ falls at the door. When he regains consciousness, he tells his story and,
+ of course, the children believe. When they become men and women they tell
+ father's story of having seen the Devil to their children, and so the
+ children and grandchildren not only believe, but think they know, that
+ their father&mdash;their grandfather&mdash;actually saw a devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An old woman sitting by the fire at night&mdash;a storm raging without&mdash;hears
+ the mournful sough of the wind. To her it becomes a voice. Her imagination
+ is touched, and the voice seems to utter words. Out of these words she
+ constructs a message or a warning from the unseen world. If the words are
+ good, she has heard an angel; if they are threatening and malicious, she
+ has heard a devil. She tells this to her children and they believe. They
+ say that mother's religion is good enough for them. A girl suffering from
+ hysteria falls into a trance&mdash;has visions of the infernal world. The
+ priest sprinkles holy water on her pallid face, saying: "She hath a
+ devil." A man utters a terrible cry; falls to the ground; foam and blood
+ issue from his mouth; his limbs are convulsed. The spectators say: "This
+ is the Devil's work."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through all the ages people have mistaken dreams and visions of fear for
+ realities. To them the insane were inspired; epileptics were possessed by
+ devils; apoplexy was the work of an unclean spirit. For many centuries
+ people believed that they had actually seen the malicious phantoms of the
+ night, and so thorough was this belief&mdash;so vivid&mdash;that they made
+ pictures of them. They knew how they looked. They drew and chiseled their
+ hoofs, their horns&mdash;all their malicious deformities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I admit that all these monsters were naturally produced. The people
+ believed that hell was their native land; that the Devil was a king, and
+ that lie and his imps waged war against the children of men. Curiously
+ enough some of these devils were made out of degraded gods, and, naturally
+ enough, many devils were made out of the gods of other nations. So that
+ frequently the gods of one people were the devils of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In nature there are opposing forces. Some of the forces work for what man
+ calls good; some for what he calls evil. Back of these forces our
+ ancestors put will, intelligence and design. They could not believe that
+ the good and evil came from the same being. So back of the good they put
+ God; back of the evil, the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. THE ATLAS OF CHRISTIANITY IS THE DEVIL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religion known as "Christianity" was invented by God himself to repair
+ in part the wreck and ruin that had resulted from the Devil's work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take the Devil from the scheme of salvation&mdash;from the atonement&mdash;from
+ the dogma of eternal pain&mdash;and the foundation is gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Devil is the keystone of the arch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He inflicted the wounds that Christ came to heal. He corrupted the human
+ race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question now is: Does the Old Testament teach the existence of the
+ Devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Old Testament teaches anything, it does teach the existence of the
+ Devil, of Satan, of the Serpent, of the enemy of God and man, the deceiver
+ of men and women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who believe the Scriptures are compelled to say that this Devil was
+ created by God, and that God knew when he created him just what he would
+ do&mdash;the exact measure of his success; knew that he would be a
+ successful rival; knew that he would deceive and corrupt the children of
+ men; knew that, by reason of this Devil, countless millions of human
+ beings would suffer eternal torment in the prison of pain. And this God
+ also knew when he created the Devil, that he, God, would be compelled to
+ leave his throne, to be bom a babe in Palestine, and to suffer a cruel
+ death. All this he knew when he created the Devil. Why did he create him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is no answer to say that this Devil was once an angel of light and fell
+ from his high estate because he was free. God knew what he would do with
+ his freedom when he made him and gave him liberty of action, and as a
+ matter of fact must have made him with the intention that he should rebel;
+ that he should fall; that he should become a devil; that he should tempt
+ and corrupt the father and mother of the human race; that he should make
+ hell a necessity, and that, in consequence of his creation, countless
+ millions of the children of men would suffer eternal pain. Why did he
+ create him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Admit that God is infinitely wise. Has he ingenuity enough to frame an
+ excuse for the creation of the Devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the Old Testament teach the existence of a real, living Devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first account of this being is found in Genesis, and in that account
+ he is called the "Serpent." He is declared to have been more subtle than
+ any beast of the field. According to the account, this Serpent had a
+ conversation with Eve, the first woman. We are not told in what language
+ they conversed, or how they understood each other, as this was the first
+ time they had met. Where did Eve get her language? Where did the Serpent
+ get his? Of course, such questions are impudent, but at the same time they
+ are natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The result of this conversation was that Eve ate the forbidden fruit and
+ induced Adam to do the same. This is what is called the "Fall," and for
+ this they were expelled from the Garden of Eden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On account of this, God cursed the earth with weeds and thorns and
+ brambles, cursed man with toil, made woman a slave, and cursed maternity
+ with pain and sorrow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How men&mdash;good men&mdash;can worship this God; how women&mdash;good
+ women&mdash;can love this Jehovah, is beyond my imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In addition to the other curses the Serpent was cursed&mdash;condemned to
+ crawl on his belly and to eat dust. We do not know by what means, before
+ that time, he moved from place to place&mdash;whether he walked or flew;
+ neither do we know on what food he lived; all we know is that after that
+ time he crawled and lived on dust. Jehovah told him that this he should do
+ all the days of his life. It would seem from this that the Serpent was not
+ at that time immortal&mdash;that there was somewhere in the future a
+ milepost at which the life of this Serpent stopped. Whether he is living
+ yet or not, I am not certain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that this is allegory, or a poem, because this
+ proves too much. If the Serpent did not in fact exist, how do we know that
+ Adam and Eve existed? Is all that is said about God allegory, and poetic,
+ or mythical? Is the whole account, after all, an ignorant dream?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither will it do to say that the Devil&mdash;the Serpent&mdash;was a
+ personification of evil. Do personifications of evil talk? Can a
+ personification of evil crawl on its belly? Can a personification of evil
+ eat dust? If we say that the Devil was a personification of evil, are we
+ not at the same time compelled to say that Jehovah was a personification
+ of good; that the Garden of Eden was the personification of a place, and
+ that the whole story is a personification of something that did not
+ happen? Maybe that Adam and Eve were not driven out of the Garden; they
+ may have suffered only the personification of exile. And maybe the
+ cherubim placed at the gate of Eden, with flaming swords, were only
+ personifications of policemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no escape. If the Old Testament is true, the Devil does exist,
+ and it is impossible to explain him away without at the same time
+ explaining God away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So there are many references to devils, and spirits of divination and of
+ evil which I have not the time to call attention to; but, in the Book of
+ Job, Satan, the Devil has a conversation with God. It is this Devil that
+ brings the sorrows and losses on the upright man. It is this Devil that
+ raises the storm that wrecks the homes of Job's children. It is this Devil
+ that kills the children of Job. Take this Devil from that book, and all
+ meaning, plot and purpose fade away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to say that the Devil in Job was only a personification of
+ evil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Chronicles we are told that Satan provoked David to number Israel. For
+ this act of David, caused by the Devil, God did not smite the Devil, did
+ not punish David, but he killed 70,000 poor innocent Jews who had done
+ nothing but stand up and be counted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was this Devil who tempted David a personification of evil, or was Jehovah
+ a personification of the devilish?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Zachariah we are told that Joshua stood before the angel of the Lord,
+ and that Satan stood at his right hand to resist him, and that the Lord
+ rebuked Satan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If words convey any meaning, the Old Testament teaches the existence of
+ the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the passages about witches and those having familiar spirits were born
+ of a belief in the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a man who loved Jehovah wanted revenge on his enemy he fell on his
+ holy knees, and from a heart full of religion he cried: "Let Satan stand
+ at his right hand."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. TAKE THE DEVIL FROM THE DRAMA OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE PLOT IS GONE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question is: Does the New Testament teach the existence of the
+ Devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the New Testament is far more explicit than the Old.
+ The Jews, believing that Jehovah was God, had very little business for a
+ devil. Jehovah was wicked enough and malicious enough to take the Devil's
+ place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first reference in the New Testament to the Devil is in the fourth
+ chapter of Matthew. We are told that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the
+ wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems that he was not led by the Devil into the wilderness, but by the
+ Spirit; that the Spirit and the Devil were acting together in a kind of
+ pious conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the wilderness Jesus fasted forty days, and then the Devil asked him to
+ turn stones into bread. The Devil also took him to Jerusalem and set him
+ on a pinnacle of the temple, and tried to induce him to leap to the earth.
+ The Devil also took him to the top of a mountain and showed him all the
+ kingdoms of the world and offered them all to him in exchange for his
+ worship. Jesus refused. The Devil went away and angels came and ministered
+ to Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the question is: Did the author of this account believe in the
+ existence of the Devil, or did he regard this Devil as a personification
+ of evil, and did he intend that his account should be understood as an
+ allegory, or as a poem, or as a myth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was Jesus tempted? If he was tempted, who tempted him? Did anybody offer
+ him the kingdoms of the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did the writer of the account try to convey to the reader the thought that
+ Christ was tempted by the Devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ was not tempted by the Devil, then the temptation was bom in his
+ own heart. If that be true, can it be said that he was divine? If these
+ adders, these vipers, were coiled in his bosom, was he the son of God? Was
+ he pure?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the same chapter we are told that Christ healed "those which were
+ possessed of devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the
+ palsy." From this it is evident that a distinction was made between those
+ possessed with devils and those whose minds were affected and those who
+ were afflicted with diseases.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the eighth chapter we are told that people brought unto Christ many
+ that were possessed with devils, and that he cast out the spirits with his
+ word. Now, can we say that these people were possessed with
+ personifications of evil, and that these personifications of evil were
+ cast out? Are these personifications entities? Have they form and shape?
+ Do they occupy space?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then comes the story of the two men possessed with devils who came from
+ the tombs, and were exceeding fierce. It is said that when they saw Jesus
+ they cried out: "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art
+ thou come hither to torment us before the time?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If these were simply personifications of evil, how did they know that
+ Jesus was the Son of God, and how can a personification of evil be
+ tormented?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that at the same time, a good way off, many swine were
+ feeding, and that the devils besought Christ, saying: "If thou cast us
+ out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine." And he said unto them:
+ "Go."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that personifications of evil would desire to enter the
+ bodies of swine, and is it possible that it was necessary for them to have
+ the consent of Christ before they could enter the swine? The question
+ naturally arises: How did they enter into the body of the man? Did they do
+ that without Christ's consent, and is it a fact that Christ protects swine
+ and neglects human beings? Can personifications have desires?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the ninth chapter of Matthew there was a dumb man brought to Jesus,
+ possessed with a devil. Jesus cast out the devil and the dumb man spake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did a personification of evil prevent the dumb man from talking? Did it in
+ some way paralyze his organs of speech? Could it have done this had it
+ only been a personification of evil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the tenth chapter Jesus gives his twelve disciples power to cast out
+ unclean spirits. What were unclean spirits supposed to be? Did they really
+ exist? Were they shadows, impersonations, allegories?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Jesus sent his disciples forth on the great mission to convert the
+ world, among other things he told them to heal the sick, to raise the dead
+ and to cast out devils. Here a distinction is made between the sick and
+ those who were possessed by evil spirits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what did Christ mean by devils?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the twelfth chapter we are told of a very remarkable case. There was
+ brought unto Jesus one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, and Jesus
+ healed him. The blind and dumb both spake and saw. Thereupon the Pharisees
+ said: "This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince
+ of devils."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jesus answered by saying: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought
+ to desolation. If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did not Christ tell the Pharisees that he did not cast out devils&mdash;only
+ personifications of evil; and that with these personifications Beelzebub
+ had nothing to do?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another question: Did the Pharisees believe in the existence of devils, or
+ had they the personification idea?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time Christ said: "If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God,
+ then the kingdom of God is come unto you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he meant anything by these words he certainly intended to convey the
+ idea that what he did demonstrated the superiority of God over the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did Christ believe in the existence of the Devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the fifteenth chapter is the account of the woman of Canaan who cried
+ unto Jesus, saying: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. My
+ daughter is sorely vexed with a devil." On account of her faith Christ
+ made the daughter whole.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the sixteenth chapter a man brought his son to Jesus. The boy was a
+ lunatic, sore vexed, oftentimes falling in the fire and water. The
+ disciples had tried to cure him and had failed. Jesus rebuked the devil,
+ and the devil departed out of him and the boy was cured. Was the devil in
+ this case a personification of evil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The disciples then asked Jesus why they could not cast that devil out.
+ Jesus told them that it was because of their unbelief, and then added:
+ "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." From this it
+ would seem that some personifications were easier to expel than others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first chapter of Mark throws a little light on the story of the
+ temptation of Christ. Matthew tells us that Jesus was led up of the Spirit
+ into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. In Mark we are told who
+ this Spirit was:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And straightway coming up out of the water he saw the heavens opened, and
+ the Spirit like a dove descending upon him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And there came a voice from heaven, saying: 'Thou art my beloved Son, in
+ whom I am well pleased.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why the Holy Ghost should hand Christ over to the tender mercies of the
+ Devil is not explained. And it is all the more wonderful when we remember
+ that the Holy Ghost was the third person in the Trinity and Christ the
+ second, and that this Holy Ghost was, in fact, God, and that Christ also
+ was, in fact, God, so that God led God into the wilderness to be tempted
+ of the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that Christ was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan,
+ and was with the wild beasts, and that the angels ministered unto him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Were these angels real angels, or were they personifications of good, of
+ comfort?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So we see that the same Spirit that came out of heaven, the same Spirit
+ that said "This is my beloved son," drove Christ into the wilderness to be
+ tempted of Satan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was this Devil a real being? Was this Spirit who claimed to be the father
+ of Christ a real being, or was he a personification? Are the heavens a
+ real place? Are they a personification? Did the wild beasts live and did
+ the angels minister unto Christ? In other words, is the story true, or is
+ it poetry, or metaphor, or mistake, or falsehood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It might be asked: Why did God wish to be tempted by the Devil? Was God
+ ambitious to obtain a victory over Satan? Was Satan foolish enough to
+ think that he could mislead God, and is it possible that the Devil offered
+ to give the world as a bribe to its creator and owner, knowing at the same
+ time that Christ was the creator and owner, and also knowing that he
+ (Christ) knew that he (the Devil) knew that he (Christ) was the creator
+ and owner?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is not the whole story absurdly idiotic? The Devil knew that Christ was
+ God, and knew that Christ knew that the tempter was the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be asked how I know that the Devil knew that Christ was God. My
+ answer is found in the same chapter. There is an account of what a devil
+ said to Christ:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art
+ thou come to destroy us? I know thee. Thou art the holy one of God."
+ Certainly, if the little devils knew this, the Devil himself must have had
+ like information. Jesus rebuked this devil and said to him: "Hold thy
+ peace, and come out of him." And when the unclean spirit had torn him and
+ cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So we are told that Jesus cast out many devils, and suffered not the
+ devils to speak because they knew him. So it is said in the third chapter
+ that "unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him and cried,
+ saying, 'Thou art the son of God.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the fifth chapter is an account of casting out the devils that went
+ into the swine, and we are told that "all the devils besought him saying,
+ 'Send us into the swine.' And Jesus gave them leave."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again I ask: Was it necessary for the devils to get the permission of
+ Christ before they could enter swine? Again I ask: By whose permission did
+ they enter into the man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could personifications of evil enter a herd of swine, or could
+ personifications of evil make a bargain with Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the sixth chapter we are told that the disciples "cast out many devils
+ and anointed with oil many that were sick." Here again the distinction is
+ made between those possessed by devils and those afflicted by disease. It
+ will not do to say that the devils were diseases or personifications.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the seventh chapter a Greek woman whose daughter was possessed by a
+ devil besought Christ to cast this devil out. At last Christ said: "The
+ devil is gone out of thy daughter."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the ninth chapter one of the multitude said unto Christ: "I have
+ brought unto thee my son which hath a dumb spirit. I spoke unto thy
+ disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So they brought this boy before Christ, and when the boy saw him, the
+ spirit tare him, and he fell on the ground and "wallowed, foaming."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ asked the father: "How long is it ago since this came unto him?"
+ And he answered: "Of a child, and ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire
+ and into the waters to destroy him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then Christ said: "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of
+ him, and enter no more into him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him; and he was
+ as one dead; insomuch that many said, 'He is dead.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the disciples asked Jesus why they could not cast them out, and Jesus
+ said: "This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any doubt about the belief of the man who wrote this account? Is
+ there any allegory, or poetry, or myth in this story? The devil, in this
+ case, was not an ordinary, every-day devil. He was dumb and deaf; it was
+ no use to order him out, because he could not hear. The only way was to
+ pray and fast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there such a thing as a dumb and deaf devil? If so, the devils must be
+ organized. They must have ears and organs of speech, and they must be dumb
+ because there is something the matter with the apparatus of speaking, and
+ they must be deaf because something is the matter with their ears. It
+ would seem from this that they are not simply spiritual beings, but
+ organized on a physical basis. Now, we know that the ears do not hear. It
+ is the brain that hears. So these devils must have brains; that is to say,
+ they must have been what we call "organized beings."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is hardly possible that personifications of evil are dumb or deaf.
+ That is to say, that they have physical imperfections.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the same chapter John tells Christ that he saw one casting out devils
+ in Christ's name who did not follow with them, and Jesus said: "Forbid him
+ not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this he seemed to admit that some one, not a follower of his, was
+ casting out devils in his name, and he was willing that he should go on,
+ because, as he said: "For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my
+ name that can lightly speak evil of me." In the fourth chapter of Luke the
+ story of the temptation of Christ by the Devil is again told with a few
+ additions. All the writers, having been inspired, did not remember exactly
+ the same things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luke tells us that the Devil said unto Christ, having shown him all the
+ kingdoms of the world in a moment of time: "All this power will I give
+ thee and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to
+ whomsoever I will I give it. If thou wilt worship me, all shall be thine."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are also told that when the Devil had ended all the temptation he
+ departed from him for a season. The date of his return is not given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the same chapter we are told that a man in the synagogue had a "spirit
+ of an unclean devil." This devil recognized Jesus and admitted that he was
+ the Holy One of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the apostles seemed to have relied upon the evidence
+ of devils to substantiate the divinity of their Lord.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jesus said to this devil: "Hold thy peace and come out of him." And the
+ devil, after throwing the man down, came out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the forty-first verse of the same chapter it is said: "And devils also
+ came out of many, crying out and saying, 'Thou art Christ, the Son of
+ God.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also said that Christ rebuked them and suffered them not to speak,
+ for they knew that he was Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it will not do to say that these devils were diseases, because
+ diseases could not talk, and diseases would not recognize Christ as the
+ Son of God. After all, epilepsy is not a theologian. I admit that lunacy
+ comes nearer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the eighth chapter is told again the story of the devils and the swine.
+ In this account, Jesus asked the devil his name, and the devil replied
+ "Legion." In the ninth chapter is told the story of the devil that the
+ disciples could not cast out, but was cast out by Christ, and in the
+ thirteenth chapter it is said that the Pharisees came to Jesus, telling
+ him to go away, because Herod would kill him, and Jesus said unto these
+ Pharisees; "Go ye, and tell that fox, behold, I cast out devils."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What did he mean by this? Did he mean that he cured diseases? No. Because
+ in the same sentence he says, "And I do cures to-day," making a
+ distinction between devils and diseases.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the twenty-second chapter an account of the betrayal of Christ by Judas
+ is given in these words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then entered Satan into Judas Iscariot, being of the number of the
+ twelve."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And he went his way and communed with the chief priests and captains how
+ he might betray him unto them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Christ the little devils knew that he was the Son of God.
+ Certainly, then, Satan, king of all the fiends, knew that Christ was
+ divine. And he not only knew that, but he knew all about the scheme of
+ salvation. He knew that Christ wished to make an atonement of blood by the
+ sacrifice of himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Christian theologians, the Devil has always done his utmost
+ to gain possession of the souls of men. At the time he entered into Judas,
+ persuading him to betray Christ, he knew that if Christ was betrayed he
+ would be crucified, and that he would make an atonement for all believers,
+ and that, as a result, he, the Devil, would lose all the souls that Christ
+ gained.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What interest had the Devil in defeating himself? If he could have
+ prevented the betrayal, then Christ would not have been crucified. No
+ atonement would have been made, and the whole world would have gone to
+ hell. The success of the Devil would have been complete. But, according to
+ this story, the Devil outwitted himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How thankful we should be to his Satanic Majesty. He opened for us the
+ gates of Paradise and made it possible for us to obtain eternal life.
+ Without Satan, without Judas, not a single human being could have become
+ an angel of light. All would have been wingless devils in the prison of
+ flame. In Jerusalem, to the extent of his power, Satan repaired the wreck
+ and ruin he had wrought in the Garden of Eden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly the writers of the New Testament believed in the existence of
+ the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the eighth chapter it is said that out of Mary Magdalene were cast
+ seven devils. To me Mary Magdalene is the most beautiful character in the
+ New Testament. She is the one true disciple. In the darkness of the
+ crucifixion she lingered near. She was the first at the sepulcher. Defeat,
+ disaster, disgrace, could not conquer her love. And yet, according to the
+ account, when she met the risen Christ, he said: "Touch me not." This was
+ the reward of her infinite devotion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Gospel of John we are told that John the Baptist said that he saw
+ the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and that it abode upon
+ Christ. But in the Gospel of John nothing is said about the Spirit driving
+ Christ into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Possibly John never
+ heard of that, or forgot it, or did not believe it. But in the thirteenth
+ chapter I find this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And supper being ended, the Devil having now put into the heart of Judas
+ Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him."...
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In John there are no accounts of the casting out of devils by Christ or
+ his apostles. On that subject there is no word. Possibly John had his
+ doubts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the fifth chapter of Acts we are told that the people brought the sick
+ and those which were vexed with unclean spirits to the apostles, and the
+ apostles healed them. Here again there is made a clear distinction between
+ the sick and those possessed by devils. And in the eighth chapter we are
+ told that "unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the thirteen chapter Paul calls Elymas the child of the Devil, and in
+ the sixteenth chapter an account is given of "a damsel possessed with a
+ spirit of divination, who brought her masters much gain by soothsaying."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paul and Silas, it would seem, cast out this spirit, and by reason of that
+ suffered great persecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the nineteenth chapter certain vagabond Jews pronounced over those who
+ had evil spirits the name of Jesus, and the evil spirits answered: "Jesus
+ I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them so that they fled
+ naked and wounded."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paul, writing to the Corinthians, in the eighth chapter says; "I would not
+ that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the
+ Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and
+ the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the eleventh chapter he says that long hair is the glory of woman, but
+ that she ought to keep her head covered because of the angels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those intellectual days people believed in what were called the Incubi
+ and the Succubi. The Incubi were male angels and the Succubi were female
+ angels, and according to the belief of that time nothing so attracted the
+ Incubi as the beautiful hair of women, and for this reason Paul said that
+ women should keep their heads covered. Paul calls the Devil the "prince of
+ the power of the air."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in Jude we are told "that Michael, the archangel, when contending with
+ the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him
+ a railing accusation, but said, 'The Lord rebuke thee.'" Was this devil
+ with whom Michael contended a personification of evil, or a poem, or a
+ myth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In First Peter we are told to be sober, vigilant, "because your adversary,
+ the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are people devoured by personifications or myths? Has an allegory an
+ appetite, or is a poem a cannibal?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in Ephesians we are warned not to give place to the Devil, and in the
+ same book we are told: "Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able
+ to stand against the wiles of the Devil."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in Hebrews it is said that "him that had the power of death&mdash;that
+ is, the Devil;" showing that the Devil has the power of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in James it is said that if we resist the Devil he will flee from us;
+ and in First John we are told that he that committeth sin is of the Devil,
+ for the reason that the Devil sinneth from the beginning; and we are also
+ told that "for this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he may
+ destroy the works of the Devil."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No Devil&mdash;no Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Revelation, the insanest of all books, I find the following: "And there
+ was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and
+ the dragon fought and his angels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil,
+ and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the
+ earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Therefore, rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the
+ inhabiters of the earth and of the sea; for the devil is come down unto
+ you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
+ time."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this it would appear that the Devil once lived in heaven, raised a
+ rebellion, was defeated and cast out, and the inspired writer
+ congratulates the angels that they are rid of him and commiserates us that
+ we have him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the twentieth chapter of Revelation is the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the
+ bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And he laid Hold on the dragon&mdash;that old serpent, which is the Devil
+ and Satan&mdash;and bound him a thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal
+ upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand
+ years should be fulfilled; and after he must be loosed a little season."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to understand how one could be confined in a pit without a
+ bottom, and how a chain of iron could hold one in eternal fire, or what
+ use there would be to lock a bottomless pit; but these are questions
+ probably suggested by the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are further told that "when the thousand years are expired Satan shall
+ be loosed out of his prison."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the
+ beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night
+ forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the light of the passages that I have read we can clearly see what the
+ writers of the New Testament believed. About this there can be no honest
+ difference. If the gospels teach the existence of God&mdash;of Christ&mdash;they
+ teach the existence of the Devil. If the Devil does not exist&mdash;if
+ little devils do not enter the bodies of men&mdash;the New Testament may
+ be inspired, but it is not true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The early Christians proved that Christ was divine because he cast out
+ devils. The evidence they offered was more absurd than the statement they
+ sought to prove. They were like the old man who said that he saw a
+ grindstone floating down the river. Some one said that a grindstone would
+ not float. "Ah," said the old man, "but the one I saw had an iron crank in
+ it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I do not blame the authors of the gospels. They lived in' a
+ superstitious age, at a time when Rumor was the historian, when Gossip
+ corrected the "proof," and when everything was believed except the facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The apostles, like their fellows, believed in miracles and magic.
+ Credulity was regarded as a virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Parkhurst denounces the apostles as worthless cravens.
+ Certainly I do not agree with him. I think that they were good men. I do
+ not believe that any one of them ever tried to reform Jerusalem on the
+ Parkhurst plan. I admit that they honestly believed in devils&mdash;that
+ they were credulous and superstitious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one story in the New Testament that illustrates my meaning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the fifth chapter of John is the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Now, there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep market, a pool, which is called
+ in the Hebrew tongue 'Bethesda,' having five porches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk&mdash;of blind, halt,
+ withered&mdash;waiting for the moving of the water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the
+ water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in
+ was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And a certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight
+ years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When Jesus saw him he and knew that he had been now a long time in that
+ case, he saith unto him: 'Wilt thou be made whole??'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The impotent man answered him: 'Sir, I have no man when the water is
+ troubled to put me into the pool; but while I am coming another steppeth
+ down before me.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Jesus saith unto him: 'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does any sensible human being now believe this story? Was the water of
+ Bethesda troubled by an angel? Where did the angel come from? Where do
+ angels live? Did the angel put medicine in the water&mdash;just enough to
+ cure one? Did he put in different medicines for different diseases, or did
+ he have a medicine, like those that are patented now, that cured all
+ diseases just the same?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was the water troubled by an angel? Possibly, what apostles and
+ theologians call an angel a scientist knows as carbonic acid gas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John does not say that the people thought the water was troubled by an
+ angel, but he states it as a fact. And he tells us, also, as a fact, that
+ the first invalid that got in the water after it had been troubled was
+ cured of what disease he had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the evidence of John worth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again I say that if the Devil does not exist the gospels are not inspired.
+ If devils do not exist Christ was either honestly mistaken, insane or an
+ impostor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If devils do not exist the fall of man is a mistake and the atonement an
+ absurdity. If devils do not exist hell becomes only a dream of revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beneath the structure called "Christianity" are four corner-stones&mdash;the
+ Father, Son, Holy Ghost and Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. THE EVIDENCE OF THE CHURCH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Devil, was Forced to Father the Failures of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the fathers of the church believed in devils. All the saints won their
+ crowns by overcoming devils. All the popes and cardinals, bishops and
+ priests, believed in devils. Most of their time was occupied in fighting
+ devils. The whole Catholic world, from the lowest layman to the highest
+ priest, believed in devils. They proved the existence of devils by the New
+ Testament. They knew that these devils were citizens of hell. They knew
+ that Satan was their king. They knew that hell was made for the Devil and
+ his angels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The founders of all the Protestant churches&mdash;the makers of all the
+ orthodox creeds&mdash;all the leading Protestant theologians, from Luther
+ to the president of Princeton College&mdash;were, and are, firm believers
+ in the Devil. All the great commentators believed in the Devil as firmly
+ as they did in God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the "Scheme of Salvation" the Devil was a necessity. Somebody had to
+ be responsible for the thorns and thistles, for the cruelties and crimes.
+ Somebody had to father the mistakes of God. The Devil was the scapegoat of
+ Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For hundreds of years, good, honest, zealous Christians contended against
+ the Devil. They fought him day and night, and the thought that they had
+ beaten him gave to their dying lips the smile of victory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For centuries the church taught that the natural man was totally depraved;
+ that he was by nature a child of the Devil, and that new-born babes were
+ tenanted by unclean spirits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As late as the middle of the sixteenth century, every infant that was
+ baptized was, by that ceremony, freed from a devil. When the holy water
+ was applied the priest said: "I command thee, thou unclean spirit, in the
+ name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou come out
+ and depart from this infant, whom our Lord Jesus Christ has vouchsafed to
+ call to his holy baptism, to be made a member of his body, and of his holy
+ congregation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time the fathers&mdash;the theologians, the commentators&mdash;agreed
+ that unbaptized children, including those that were born dead, went to
+ hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And these same fathers&mdash;theologians and commentators&mdash;said: "God
+ is love."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These babes were pure as Pity's tears, innocent as their mother's loving
+ smiles, and yet the makers of our creeds believed and taught that leering,
+ unclean fiends inhabited their dimpled flesh. O, the unsearchable riches
+ of Christianity!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries the church filled the world with devils&mdash;with
+ malicious spirits that caused storm and tempest, disease, accident and
+ death&mdash;that filled the night with visions of despair; with prophecies
+ that drove the dreamers mad. These devils assumed a thousand forms&mdash;countless
+ disguises in their efforts to capture souls and destroy the church. They
+ deceived sometimes the wisest and the best; made priests forget their
+ vows. They melted virtue's snow in passion's fire, and in cunning ways
+ entrapped and smirched the innocent and good. These devils gave witches
+ and wizards their supernatural powers, and told them the secrets of the
+ future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions of men and women were destroyed because they had sold themselves
+ to the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time Christians really believed the New Testament. They knew it
+ was the inspired word of God, and so believing, so knowing&mdash;as they
+ thought&mdash;they became insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man has genius enough to describe the agonies that have been inflicted
+ on innocent men and women because of this absurd belief. How it darkened
+ the mind, hardened the heart, and poisoned life! It made the Universe a
+ madhouse presided over by an insane God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think! Why would a merciful God allow his children to be the victims of
+ devils? Why would a decent God allow his worshipers to believe in devils,
+ and by reason of that belief to persecute, torture and burn their
+ fellow-men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians did not ask these questions. They believed the Bible; they had
+ confidence in the words of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. PERSONIFICATIONS OF EVIL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Orthodox Ostrich Thrusts His Head into the Sand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many of the clergy are now ashamed to say that they believe in devils. The
+ belief has become ignorant and vulgar. They are ashamed of the lake of
+ fire and brimstone. It is too savage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time they do not wish to give up the inspiration of the Bible.
+ They give new meanings to the inspired words. Now they say that devils
+ were only personifications of evil. If the devils were only
+ personifications of evil, what were the angels? Was the angel who told
+ Joseph who the father of Christ was, a personification? Was the Holy Ghost
+ only the personification of a father? Was the angel who told Joseph that
+ Herod was dead a personification of news?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Were the angels who rolled away the stone and sat clothed in shining
+ garments in the empty sepulcher of Christ a couple of personifications?
+ Were all the angels described in the Old Testament imaginary shadows&mdash;bodiless
+ personifications? If the angels of the Bible are real angels, the devils
+ are real devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be honest with ourselves and each other and give to the Bible its
+ natural, obvious meaning. Let us admit that the writers believed what they
+ wrote. If we believe that they were mistaken, let us have the honesty and
+ courage to say so. Certainly we have no right to change or avoid their
+ meaning, or to dishonestly correct their mistakes. Timid preachers sully
+ their own souls when they change what the writers of the Bible believed to
+ be facts to allegories, parables, poems and myths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for any man who believes in the inspiration of the Bible
+ to explain away the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is true the Devil exists. There is no escape from this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Devil does not exist the Bible is not true. There is no escape from
+ this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that the Devil of the Bible is an impossible contradiction; an
+ impossible being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This Devil is the enemy of God and God is his. Now, why should this Devil,
+ in another world, torment sinners, who are his friends, to please God, his
+ enemy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Devil is a personification, so is hell and the lake of fire and
+ brimstone. All these horrors fade into allegories; into ignorant lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Any clergyman who can read the Bible and then say that devils are
+ personifications of evil is himself a personification of stupidity or
+ hypocrisy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does any intelligent man now, whose brain has not been deformed by
+ superstition, believe in the existence of the Devil? What evidence have we
+ that he exists? Where does this Devil live? What does he do for a
+ livelihood? What does he eat? If he does not eat, he cannot think. He
+ cannot think without the expenditure of force. He cannot create force; he
+ must borrow it&mdash;that is to say, he must eat. How does lie move from
+ place to place? Does he walk or does he fly, or has he invented some
+ machine? What object has he in life? What idea of success? This Devil,
+ according to the Bible, knows that he is to be defeated; knows that the
+ end is absolute and eternal failure; knows that every step he takes leads
+ to the infinite catastrophe. Why does he act as he does?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers thought that everything in this world came from some other
+ realm; that all ideas of right and wrong came from above; that conscience
+ dropped from the clouds; that the darkness was filled with imps from
+ perdition, and the day with angels from heaven; that souls had been
+ breathed into man by Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What there is in this world that lives and breathes was produced here.
+ Life was not imported. Mind is not an exotic. Of this planet man is a
+ native. This world is his mother. The maker did not descend from the
+ heavens. The maker was and is here. Matter and force in their countless
+ forms, affinities and repulsions produced the living, breathing world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we account for devils? Is it possible that they creep into the
+ bodies of men and swine? Do they stay in the stomach or brain, in the
+ heart or liver?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are these devils immortal or do they multiply and die? Were they all
+ created at the same time or did they spring from a single pair? If they
+ are subject to death what becomes of them after death? Do they go to some
+ other world, are they annihilated, or can they get to heaven by believing
+ on Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the brain of science the devils have never lived. There you will find
+ no goblins, ghosts, wraiths or imps&mdash;no witches, spooks or sorcerers.
+ There the supernatural does not exist. No man of sense in the whole world
+ believes in devils any more than he does in mermaids, vampires, gorgons,
+ hydras, naiads, dryads, nymphs, fairies or the anthropophagi&mdash;any
+ more than he does in the Fountain of Youth, the Philosopher's Stone,
+ Perpetual Motion or Fiat Money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is the same difference between religion and science that there is
+ between a madhouse and a university&mdash;between a fortune teller and a
+ mathematician&mdash;between emotion and philosophy&mdash;between guess and
+ demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The devils have gone, and with them they have taken the miracles of
+ Christ. They have carried away our Lord. They have taken away the
+ inspiration of the Bible, and we are left in the darkness of nature
+ without the consolation of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let me ask the clergy a few questions:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How did your Devil, who was at one time an angel of light, come to sin?
+ There was no other devil to tempt him. He was in perfectly good society&mdash;in
+ the company of God&mdash;of the Trinity. All of his associates were
+ perfect. How did he fall? He knew that God was infinite, and yet he waged
+ war against him and induced about a third of the angels to volunteer. He
+ knew that he could not succeed; knew that he would be defeated and cast
+ out; knew that he was fighting for failure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why was God so unpopular? Why were the angels so bad?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Christians, these angels were spirits. They had never
+ been corrupted by flesh&mdash;by the passion of love. Why were they so
+ wicked?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did God create those angels, knowing that they would rebel? Why did he
+ deliberately sow the seeds of discord in heaven, knowing that he would
+ cast them into the lake of eternal fire&mdash;knowing that for them he
+ would create the eternal prison, whose dungeons would echo forever the
+ sobs and shrieks of endless pain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How foolish is infinite wisdom!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How malicious is mercy!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How revengeful is boundless love!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, I say that no sensible man in all the world believes in devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why does God allow these devils to enjoy themselves at the expense of his
+ ignorant children? Why does he allow them to leave their prison? Does he
+ give them furloughs or tickets-of-leave?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does he want his children misled and corrupted so that he can have the
+ pleasure of damning their souls?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII. THE MAN OF STRAW.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the preachers who have answered me say that I am fighting a man of
+ straw.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am fighting the supernatural&mdash;the dogma of inspiration&mdash;the
+ belief in devils&mdash;the atonement, salvation by faith&mdash;the
+ forgiveness of sins and the savagery of eternal pain. I am fighting the
+ absurd,-the monstrous, the cruel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers pretend that they have advanced&mdash;that they do not
+ believe the things that I attack. In this they are not honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who is the "man of straw"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of straw is their master. In every orthodox pulpit stands this man
+ of straw&mdash;stands beside the preacher&mdash;stands with a club, called
+ a "creed," in his upraised hand. The shadow of this club falls athwart the
+ open Bible&mdash;falls upon the preacher's brain, darkens the light of his
+ reason and compels him to betray himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of straw rules every sectarian school and college&mdash;every
+ orthodox church. He is the censor who passes on every sermon. Now and then
+ some minister puts a little sense in his discourse&mdash;tries to take a
+ forward step. Down comes the club, and the man of straw demands an
+ explanation&mdash;a retraction. If the minister takes it back&mdash;good.
+ If he does not, he is brought to book. The man of straw put the plaster of
+ silence on the lips of Prof. Briggs, and he was forced to leave the church
+ or remain dumb.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of straw closed the mouth of Prof. Smith, and he has not opened it
+ since.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of straw would not allow the Presbyterian creed to be changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of straw took Father McGlynn by the collar, forced him to his
+ knees, made him take back his words and ask forgiveness for having been
+ abused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of straw pitched Prof. Swing out of the pulpit and drove the Rev.
+ Mr. Thomas from the Methodist Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell the orthodox ministers that they are trying to cover their
+ retreat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have given up the geology and astronomy of the Bible. You have
+ admitted that its history is untrue. You are retreating still. You are
+ giving up the dogma of inspiration; you have your doubts about the flood
+ and Babel; you have given up the witches and wizards; you are beginning to
+ throw away the miraculous; you have killed the little devils, and in a
+ little while you will murder the Devil himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a few years you will take the Bible for what it is worth. The good and
+ true will be treasured in the heart; the foolish, the infamous, will be
+ thrown away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of straw will then be dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the real old petrified, orthodox Christian will cling to the
+ Devil. He expects to have all of his sins charged to the Devil, and at the
+ same time he will be credited with all the virtues of Christ. Upon this
+ showing on the books, upon this balance, he will be entitled to his halo
+ and harp. What a glorious, what an equitable, transaction! The sorcerer
+ Superstition changes debt to credit. He waves his wand, and he who
+ deserves the tortures of hell receives an eternal reward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But if a man lacks faith the scheme is exactly reversed. While in one case
+ a soul is rewarded for the virtues of another, in the other case a soul is
+ damned for the sins of another. This is justice when it blossoms in mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beyond this idiocy cannot go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. KEEP THE DEVILS OUT OF CHILDREN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ William Kingdon Clifford, one of the greatest men of this century, said:
+ "If there is one lesson that history forces upon us in every page, it is
+ this: Keep your children away from the priest, or he will make them the
+ enemies of mankind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every orthodox Sunday school children are taught to believe in devils.
+ Every little brain becomes a menagerie, filled with wild beasts from hell.
+ The imagination is polluted with the deformed, the monstrous and
+ malicious. To fill the minds of children with leering fiends&mdash;with
+ mocking devils&mdash;is one of the meanest and basest of crimes. In these
+ pious prisons&mdash;these divine dungeons&mdash;these Protestant and
+ Catholic inquisitions&mdash;children are tortured with these cruel lies.
+ Here they are taught that to really think is wicked; that to express your
+ honest thought is blasphemy; and that to live a free and joyous life,
+ depending on fact instead of faith, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Children thus taught&mdash;thus corrupted and deformed&mdash;become the
+ enemies of investigation&mdash;of progress. They are no longer true to
+ themselves. They have lost the veracity of the soul. In the language of
+ Prof. Clifford, "they are the enemies of the human race."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I say to all fathers and mothers, keep your children away from priests;
+ away from orthodox Sunday schools; away from the slaves of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They will teach them to believe in the Devil; in hell; in the prison of
+ God; in the eternal dungeon, where the souls of men are to suffer forever.
+ These frightful things are a part of Christianity. Take these lies from
+ the creed and the whole scheme falls into shapeless ruin. This dogma of
+ hell is the infinite of savagery&mdash;the dream of insane revenge. It
+ makes God a wild beast&mdash;an infinite hyena. It makes Christ as
+ merciless as the fangs of a viper. Save poor children from the pollution
+ of this horror. Protect them from this infinite lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX. CONCLUSION.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that there are many good and beautiful passages in the Old and New
+ Testament; that from the lips of Christ dropped many pearls of kindness&mdash;of
+ love. Every verse that is true and tender I treasure in my heart. Every
+ thought, behind which is the tear of pity, I appreciate and love. But I
+ cannot accept it all. Many utterances attributed to Christ shock my brain
+ and heart. They are absurd and cruel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from the New Testament the infinite savagery, the shoreless
+ malevolence of eternal pain, the absurdity of salvation by faith, the
+ ignorant belief in the existence of devils, the immorality and cruelty of
+ the atonement, the doctrine of non-resistance that denies to virtue the
+ right of self-defence, and how glorious it would be to know that the
+ remainder is true! Compared with this knowledge, how everything else in
+ nature would shrink and shrivel! What ecstasy it would be to know that God
+ exists; that he is our father and that he loves and cares for the children
+ of men! To know that all the paths that human beings travel, turn and wind
+ as they may, lead to the gates of stainless peace! How the heart would
+ thrill and throb to know that Christ was the conqueror of Death; that at
+ his grave the all-devouring monster was baffled and beaten forever; that
+ from that moment the tomb became the door that opens on eternal life! To
+ know this would change all sorrow into gladness. Poverty, failure,
+ disaster, defeat, power, place and wealth would become meaningless sounds.
+ To take your babe upon your knee and say: "Mine and mine forever!" What
+ joy! To clasp the woman you love in your arms and to know that she is
+ yours and forever&mdash;yours though suns darken and constellations
+ vanish! This is enough: To know that the loved and dead are not lost; that
+ they still live and love and wait for you. To know that Christ dispelled
+ the darkness of death and filled the grave with eternal light. To know
+ this would be all that the heart could bear. Beyond this joy cannot go.
+ Beyond this there is no place for hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How beautiful, how enchanting, Death would be! How we would long to see
+ his fleshless skull! What rays of glory would stream from his sightless
+ sockets, and how the heart would long for the touch of his stilling hand!
+ The shroud would become a robe of glory, the funeral procession a harvest
+ home, and the grave would mark the end of sorrow, the beginning of eternal
+ joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet it were better far that all this should be false than that all of
+ the New Testament should be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is far better to have no heaven than to have heaven and hell; better to
+ have no God than God and Devil; better to rest iii eternal sleep than to
+ be an angel and know that the ones you love are suffering eternal pain;
+ better to live a free and loving life&mdash;a life that ends forever at
+ the grave&mdash;than to be an immortal slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The master cannot be great enough to make slavery sweet. I have no
+ ambition to become a winged servant, a winged slave. Better eternal sleep.
+ But they say, "If you give up these superstitions, what have you left?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me now give you the declaration of a creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DECLARATION OF THE FREE
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ We have no falsehoods to defend&mdash;
+ We want the facts;
+ Our force, our thought, we do not spend
+ In vain attacks.
+ And we will never meanly try
+ To save some fair and pleasing lie.
+
+ The simple truth is what we ask,
+ Not the ideal;
+ We've set ourselves the noble task
+ To find the real.
+ If all there is is naught but dross,
+ We want to know and bear our loss.
+
+ We will not willingly be fooled,
+ By fables nursed;
+ Our hearts, by earnest thought, are schooled
+ To bear the worst;
+ And we can stand erect and dare
+ All things, all facts that really are.
+
+ We have no God to serve or fear,
+ No hell to shun,
+ No devil with malicious leer.
+ When life is done
+ An endless sleep may close our eyes,
+ A sleep with neither dreams nor sighs.
+
+ We have no master on the land&mdash;
+ No king in air&mdash;
+ Without a manacle we stand,
+ Without a prayer,
+ Without a fear of coming night,
+ We seek the truth, we love the light.
+
+ We do not bow before a guess,
+ A vague unknown;
+ A senseless force we do not bless
+ In solemn tone.
+ When evil comes we do not curse,
+ Or thank because it is no worse.
+
+ When cyclones rend&mdash;when lightning blights,
+ 'Tis naught but fate;
+ There is no God of wrath who smites
+ In heartless hate.
+ Behind the things that injure man
+ There is no purpose, thought, or plan.
+
+ We waste no time in useless dread,
+ In trembling fear;
+ The present lives, the past is dead,
+ And we are here,
+ All welcome guests at life's great feast&mdash;
+ We need no help from ghost or priest.
+
+ Our life is joyous, jocund, free&mdash;
+ Not one a slave
+ Who bends in fear the trembling knee,
+ And seeks to save
+ A coward soul from future pain;
+ Not one will cringe or crawl for gain.
+
+ The jeweled cup of love we drain,
+ And friendship's wine
+ Now swiftly flows in every vein
+ With warmth divine.
+ And so we love and hope and dream
+ That in death's sky there is a gleam.
+
+ We walk according to our light,
+ Pursue the path
+ That leads to honor's stainless height,
+ Careless of wrath
+ Or curse of God, or priestly spite,
+ Longing to know and do the right.
+
+ We love our fellow-man, our kind,
+ Wife, child, and friend.
+ To phantoms we are deaf and blind,
+ But we extend
+ The helping hand to the distressed;
+ By lifting others we are blessed.
+
+ Love's sacred flame within the heart
+ And friendship's glow;
+ While all the miracles of art
+ Their wealth bestow
+ Upon the thrilled and joyous brain,
+ And present raptures banish pain.
+
+ We love no phantoms of the skies,
+ But living flesh,
+ With passion's soft and soulful eyes,
+ Lips warm and fresh,
+ And cheeks with health's red flag unfurled,
+ The breathing angels of this world.
+
+ The hands that help are better far
+ Than lips that pray.
+ Love is the ever gleaming star
+ That leads the way,
+ That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss,
+ But on a paradise in this.
+
+ We do not pray, or weep, or wail;
+ We have no dread,
+ No fear to pass beyond the veil
+ That hides the dead.
+ And yet we question, dream, and guess,
+ But knowledge we do not possess.
+
+ We ask, yet nothing seems to know;
+ We cry in vain.
+ There is no "master of the show"
+ Who will explain,
+ Or from the future tear the mask;
+ And yet we dream, and still we ask
+
+ Is there beyond the silent night
+ An endless day?
+ Is death a door that leads to light?
+ We cannot say.
+ The tongueless secret locked in fate
+ We do not know.&mdash;
+
+ We hope and wait.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROGRESS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This is the first lecture ever delivered by Mr. Ingersoll.
+ The stars indicate the words missing in the manuscript. It
+ was delivered in Pekin, 111., in 1860, and again in
+ Bloomington, 111., in 1804.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IT is admitted by all that happiness is the only good, happiness in its
+ highest and grandest sense and the most * * springs * * of * * refined * *
+ generous * *
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Conscience * * tends * * indirectly * * truly we * * physically * * to
+ develop the wonderful powers of the mind is progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for men to become educated and refined without leisure
+ and there can be no leisure without wealth and all wealth is produced by
+ labor, nothing else. Nothing can * * the hands * * and * * fabrics *
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ America labor is not honored as it deserves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We should remember that the prosperity of the world depends upon the men
+ who walk in the fresh furrows and through the rustling corn, upon those
+ whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnaces, upon the delvers in
+ dark mines, the workers in shops, upon those who give to the wintry air
+ the ringing music of the axe, and upon those who wrestle with the wild
+ waves of the raging sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it is from the surplus produced by labor that schools are built, that
+ colleges and universities are founded and endowed. From this surplus the
+ painter is paid for the immortal productions of the pencil. This pays the
+ sculptor for chiseling the shapeless rock into forms of beauty almost
+ divine, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves and aspirations of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This surplus has erected all the palaces and temples, all the galleries of
+ art, has given to us all the books in which we converse, as it were, with
+ the dead kings of the human race, and has supplied us with all there is of
+ elegance, of beauty and of refined happiness in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am aware that the subject chosen by me is almost infinite and that in
+ its broadest sense it is absolutely beyond the present comprehension of
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am also aware that there are many opinions as to what progress really
+ is, that what one calls progress, another denominates barbarism; that many
+ have a wonderful veneration for all that is ancient, merely because it is
+ ancient, and they see no beauty in anything from which they do not have to
+ blow the dust of ages with the breath of praise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say, no masters like the old, no governments like the ancient, no
+ orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have been dust for two
+ thousand years. Others despise antiquity and admire only the modern,
+ merely because it is modern. They find so much to condemn in the past,
+ that they condemn all. I hope, however, that I have gratitude enough to
+ acknowledge the obligations I am under to the great and heroic minds of
+ antiquity, and that I have manliness and independence enough not to
+ believe what they said merely because they said it, and that I have moral
+ courage enough to advocate ideas, however modern they may be, if I believe
+ that they are right. Truth is neither young nor old, is neither ancient
+ nor modern, but is the same for all times and places and should be sought
+ for with ceaseless activity, eagerly acknowledged, loved more than life,
+ and abandoned&mdash;never. In accordance with the idea that labor is the
+ basis of all prosperity and happiness, is another idea or truth, and that
+ is, that labor in order to make the laborer and the world at large happy,
+ must be free. That the laborer must be a free man, the thinker must be
+ free. I do not intend in what I may say upon this subject to carry you
+ back to the remotest antiquity,&mdash;back to Asia, the cradle of the
+ world, where we could stand in the ashes and ruins of a civilization so
+ old that history has not recorded even its decay. It will answer my
+ present purpose to commence with the Middle Ages. In those times there was
+ no freedom of either mind or body in Europe. Labor was despised, and a
+ laborer was considered as scarcely above the beasts. Ignorance like a
+ mantle covered the world, and superstition ran riot with the human
+ imagination. The air was filled with angels, demons and monsters.
+ Everything assumed the air of the miraculous. Credulity occupied the
+ throne of reason and faith put out the eyes of the soul. A man to be
+ distinguished had either to be a soldier or a monk. He could take his
+ choice between killing and lying. You must remember that in those days
+ nations carried on war as an end, not as a means. War and theology were
+ the business of mankind. No man could win more than a bare existence by
+ industry, much less fame and glory. Comparatively speaking, there was no
+ commerce. Nations instead of buying and selling from and to each other,
+ took what they wanted by brute force. And every Christian country
+ maintained that it was no robbery to take the property of Mohammedans, and
+ no murder to kill the owners with or without just cause of quarrel. Lord
+ Bacon was the first man of note who maintained that a Christian country
+ was bound to keep its plighted faith with an Infidel one. In those days
+ reading and writing were considered very dangerous arts, and any layman
+ who had acquired the art of reading was suspected of being a heretic or a
+ wizard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is almost impossible for us to conceive of the ignorance, the cruelty,
+ the superstition and the mental blindness of that period. In reading the
+ history of those dark and bloody years, I am amazed at the wickedness, the
+ folly and presumption of mankind. And yet, the solution of the whole
+ matter is, they despised liberty; they hated freedom of mind and of body.
+ They forged chains of superstition for the one and of iron for the other.
+ They were ruled by that terrible trinity, the cowl, the sword and chain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You cannot form a correct opinion of those ages without reading the
+ standard authors, so to speak, of that time, the laws then in force, and
+ by ascertaining the habits and customs of the people, their mode of
+ administering the laws, and the ideas that were commonly received as
+ correct. No one believed that honest error could be innocent; no one
+ dreamed of such a thing as religious freedom. In the fifteenth century the
+ following law was in force in England: "That whatsoever they were that
+ should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land,
+ cattle, body, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be
+ condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant
+ traitors to the land." The next year after this law was in force, in one
+ day thirty-nine were hanged for its violation and their bodies afterward
+ burned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Laws equally unjust, bloody and cruel were in force in all parts of
+ Europe. In the sixteenth century a man was burned in France because he
+ refused to kneel to a procession of dirty monks. I could enumerate
+ thousands of instances of the most horrid cruelty perpetrated upon men,
+ women and even little children, for no other reason in the world than for
+ a difference of opinion upon a subject that neither party knew anything
+ about. But you are all, no doubt, perfectly familiar with the history of
+ religious persecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing, however, that is strange indeed, and that is that the
+ reformers of those days, the men who rose against the horrid tyranny of
+ the times, the moment they attained power, persecuted with a zeal and
+ bitterness never excelled. Luther, one of the grand men of the world, cast
+ in the heroic mould, although he gave utterance to the following sublime
+ sentiment: "Every one has the right to read for himself that he may
+ prepare himself to live and to die," still had no idea of what we call
+ religious freedom. He considered universal toleration an error, so did
+ Melancthon, and Erasmus, and yet, strange as it may appear, they were
+ exercising the very right they denied to others, and maintaining their
+ right with a courage and energy absolutely sublime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Knox was only in favor of religious freedom when he was in the
+ minority, and Baxter entertained the same sentiment. Castalio, a professor
+ at Geneva, in Switzerland, was the first clergyman in Europe who declared
+ the innocence of honest error, and who proclaimed himself in favor of
+ universal toleration. The name of this man should never be forgotten. He
+ had the goodness, the courage, although surrounded with prisons and
+ inquisitions, and in the midst of millions of fierce bigots, to declare
+ the innocence of honest error, and that every man had a right to worship
+ the good God in his own way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the utterance of this sublime sentiment his professorship was taken
+ from him, he was driven from Geneva by John Calvin and his adherents,
+ although he had belonged to their sect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was denounced as a child of the Devil, a dog of Satan, as a murderer of
+ souls, as a corrupter of the faith, and as one who by his doctrines
+ crucified the Savior afresh. Not content with merely driving him from his
+ home, they pursued him absolutely to the grave, with a malignity that
+ increased rather than diminished. You must not think that Calvin was alone
+ in this; on the contrary he was fully sustained by public opinion, and
+ would have been sustained even though he had procured the burning of the
+ noble Castalio at the stake. I cite this instance not merely for the
+ purpose of casting odium upon Calvin, but to show you what public opinion
+ was at that time, when such things were ordinary transactions. Bodi-nus, a
+ lawyer in France, about the same time advocated something like religious
+ liberty, but public opinion was overwhelmingly against him and the people
+ were at all times ready with torch and brand, chain, and fagot to get the
+ abominable heresy out of the human mind, that a man had a right to think
+ for himself. And yet Luther, Calvin, Knox and Baxter, in spite, as it
+ were, of themselves, conferred a great and lasting benefit upon mankind;
+ for what they did was at least in favor of individual judgment, and one
+ successful stand against the church produced others, all of which tended
+ to establish universal toleration. In those times you will remember that
+ failing to convert a man or woman by the ordinary means, they resorted to
+ every engine of torture that the ingenuity of bigotry could devise; they
+ crushed their feet in what they called iron boots; they roasted them upon
+ slow fires; they plucked out their nails, and then into the bleeding quick
+ thrust needles; and all this to convince them of the truth. I suppose that
+ we should love our neighbor as ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Montaigne was the first man who raised his voice against torture in
+ France; a man blessed with so much common sense, that he was the most
+ uncommon man of the age in which he lived. But what was one voice against
+ the terrible cry of ignorant millions?&mdash;a drowning man in the wild
+ roar of the infinite sea. It is impossible to read the history of the long
+ and seemingly hopeless war waged for religious freedom, without being
+ filled with horror and disgust. Millions of men, women and children, at
+ least one hundred millions of human beings with hopes and loves and
+ aspirations like ourselves, have been sacrificed upon the altar of
+ bigotry. They have perished at the stake, in prisons, by famine and by
+ sword; they have died wandering, homeless, in deserts, groping in caves,
+ until their blood cried from the earth for vengeance. But the principle,
+ gathering strength from their weakness, nourished by blood and flame,
+ rendered holier still by their sufferings&mdash;grander by their heroism,
+ and immortal by their death, triumphed at last, and is now acknowledged by
+ the whole civilized world. Enormous as the cost has been the principle is
+ worth a thousand times as much. There must be freedom in religion, for
+ without freedom there can be no real religion. And as for myself I glory
+ in the fact that upon American soil that principle was first firmly
+ established, and that the Constitution of the United States was the first
+ of any great nation in which religious toleration was made one of the
+ fundamental laws of the land. And it is not only the law of our country
+ but the law is sustained by an enlightened public opinion. Without liberty
+ there is no religion&mdash;no worship. What light is to the eyes&mdash;what
+ air is to the lungs&mdash;what love is to the heart, liberty is to the
+ soul of man. Without liberty, the brain is a dungeon, where the chained
+ thoughts die with their pinions pressed against the hingeless doors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WITCHCRAFT
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE next fact to which I call your attention is, that during the Middle
+ Ages the people, the whole people, the learned and the ignorant, the
+ masters and the slaves, the clergy, the lawyers, doctors and statesmen,
+ all believed in witchcraft&mdash;in the evil eye, and that the devil
+ entered into people, into animals and even into insects to accomplish his
+ dark designs. And all the people believed it their solemn duty to thwart
+ the devil by all means in their power, and they accordingly set themselves
+ at work hanging and burning everybody suspected of being in league with
+ the Enemy of mankind. If you grant their premises, you justify their
+ actions. If these persons had actually entered into partnership with the
+ devil for the purpose of injuring their neighbors, the people would have
+ been justified in exterminating them all. And the crime of witchcraft was
+ proven over and over again in court after court in every town of Europe.
+ Thousands of people who were charged with being in league with the devil
+ confessed the crime, gave all the particulars of the bargain, told just
+ what the devil said and what they replied, and exactly how the bargain was
+ consummated, admitted in the presence of death, on the very edge of the
+ grave, when they knew that the confession would confiscate all their
+ property and leave their children homeless wanderers, and render their own
+ names infamous after death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We can account for a man suffering death for what he believes to be right.
+ He knows that he has the sympathy of all the truly good, and he hopes that
+ his name will be gratefully remembered in the far future, and above all,
+ he hopes to win the approval of a just God. But the man who confessed
+ himself guilty of being a wizard, knew that his memory would be execrated
+ and expected that his soul would be eternally lost. What motive could then
+ have induced so many to confess? Strange as it is, I believe that they
+ actually believed themselves guilty. They considered their case hopeless;
+ they confessed and died without a prayer. These things are enough to make
+ one think that sometimes the world becomes insane and that the earth is a
+ vast asylum without a keeper. I repeat that I am convinced that the people
+ that confessed themselves guilty believed that they were so. In the first
+ place, they believed in witchcraft and that people often were possessed of
+ Satan, and when they were accused the fright and consternation produced by
+ the accusation, in connection with their belief, often produced insanity
+ or something akin to it, and the poor creatures charged with a crime that
+ it was impossible to disprove, deserted and abhorred by their friends,
+ left alone with their superstitions and fears, driven to despair, looked
+ upon death as a blessed relief from a torture that you and I cannot at
+ this day understand. People were charged with the most impossible crimes.
+ In the time of James the First, a man was burned in Scotland for having
+ produced a storm at sea for the purpose of drowning one of the royal
+ family. A woman was tried before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the most learned
+ and celebrated lawyers of England, for having caused children to
+ vomit-crooked pins. She was also charged with nursing demons. Of course
+ she was found guilty, and the learned Judge charged the jury that there
+ was no doubt as to the existence of witches, that all history, sacred and
+ profane, and that the experience of every country proved it beyond any
+ manner of doubt. And the woman was either hanged or burned for a crime for
+ which it was impossible for her to be guilty. In those times they also
+ believed in Lycanthropy&mdash;that is, that persons of whom the devil had
+ taken possession could assume the appearance of wolves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One instance is related where a man was attacked by what appeared to be a
+ wolf. He defended himself and succeeded in cutting off one of the wolf's
+ paws, whereupon the wolf ran and the man picked up the paw and putting it
+ in his pocket went home. When he took the paw out of his pocket it had
+ changed to a human hand, and his wife sat in the house with one of her
+ hands gone and the stump of her arm bleeding. He denounced his wife as a
+ witch, she confessed the crime and was burned at the stake. People were
+ burned for causing frosts in the summer, for destroying crops with hail,
+ for causing cows to become dry, and even for souring beer. The life of no
+ one was secure, malicious enemies had only to charge one with witchcraft,
+ prove a few odd sayings and queer actions to secure the death of their
+ victim. And this belief in witchcraft was so intense that to express a
+ doubt upon the subject was to be suspected and probably executed.
+ Believing that animals were also taken possession of by evil spirits and
+ also believing that if they killed an animal containing one of the evil
+ spirits that they caused the death of the spirit, they absolutely tried
+ animals, convicted and executed them. At Basle, in 1474, a rooster was
+ tried, charged with having laid an egg, and as rooster eggs were used only
+ in making witch ointment it was a serious charge, and everyone of course
+ admitted that the devil must have been the cause, as roosters could not
+ very well lay eggs without some help. And the egg having been produced in
+ court, the rooster was duly convicted and he together with his miraculous
+ egg were publicly and with all due solemnity burned in the public square.
+ So a hog and six pigs were tried for having killed, and partially eaten a
+ child, the hog was convicted and executed, but the pigs were acquitted on
+ the ground of their extreme youth. Asiate as 1740 a cow was absolutely
+ tried on a charge of being possessed of the devil. Our forefathers used to
+ rid themselves of rats, leeches, locusts and vermin by pronouncing what
+ they called a public exorcism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On some occasions animals were received as witnesses in judicial
+ proceedings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law was in some of the countries of Europe, that if a man's house was
+ broken into between sunset and sunrise and the owner killed the intruder,
+ it should be considered justifiable homicide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it was also considered that it was just possible that a man living
+ alone might entice another to his house in the night-time, kill him and
+ then pretend that his victim was a robber. In order to prevent this, it
+ was enacted that when a person was killed by a man living alone and under
+ such circumstances, the solitary householder should not be held innocent
+ unless he produced in court some animal, a dog or a cat, that had been an
+ inmate of the house and had witnessed the death of the person killed. The
+ prisoner was then compelled in the presence of such animal to make a
+ solemn declaration of his innocence, and if the animal failed to
+ contradict him, he was declared guiltless,&mdash;the law taking it for
+ granted that the Deity would cause a miraculous manifestation by a dumb
+ animal, rather than allow a murderer to escape. It was the law in England
+ that any one convicted of a crime, could appeal to what was called corsned
+ or morsel of execration. This was a piece of cheese or bread of about an
+ ounce in weight, which was first consecrated with a form of exorcism
+ desiring that the Almighty, if the man were guilty, would cause
+ convulsions and paleness, and that it might stick in his throat, but that
+ it might if the man were innocent, turn to health and nourishment. Godwin,
+ the Earl of Kent, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, appealed to
+ the corsned, which sticking in his throat, produced death. There were also
+ trials by water and by fire. Persons were made to handle red hot iron, and
+ if it burned them their guilt was established; so their hands and feet
+ were tied, and they were thrown into the water, and if they sank they were
+ pronounced guilty and allowed to drown. I give these instances to show you
+ what has happened, and what always will happen, in countries where
+ ignorance prevails, and people abandon the great standard of reason. And
+ also to show to you that scarcely any man, however great, can free himself
+ of the superstitions of his time. Kepler, one of the greatest men of the
+ world, and an astronomer second to none, although he plucked from the
+ stars the secrets of the universe, was an astrologer and thought he could
+ predict the career of any man by finding what star was in the ascendant at
+ his birth. This infinitely foolish stuff was religiously believed by him,
+ merely because he had been raised in an atmosphere of boundless credulity.
+ Tycho Brahe, another astronomer who has been, and is called the prince of
+ astronomers&mdash;not only believed in astrology, but actually kept an
+ idiot in his service, whose disconnected and meaningless words he
+ carefully wrote down and then put them together in such a manner as to
+ make prophecies, and then he patiently and confidently awaited their
+ fulfillment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luther believed that he had actually seen the devil not only, but that he
+ had had discussions with him upon points of theology. On one occasion
+ getting excited, he threw an inkstand at his majesty's head, and the ink
+ stain is still to be seen on the wall where the stand was broken. The
+ devil I believe, was untouched, he probably having an inkling of Luther's
+ intention, made a successful dodge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the time of Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, Stoefflerer, a noted
+ mathematician and astronomer, a man of great learning, made an
+ astronomical calculation according to the great science of astrology and
+ ascertained that the world was to be visited by another deluge. This
+ prediction was absolutely believed by the leading men of the empire not
+ only, but of all Europe. The commissioner general of the army of Charles
+ the Fifth recommended that a survey be made of the country by competent
+ men in order to find out the highest land. But as it was uncertain how
+ high the water would rise this idea was abandoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of people left their homes in low lands, by the rivers and near
+ the sea and sought the more elevated ground. Immense suffering was
+ produced. People in some instances abandoned the aged, the sick and the
+ infirm to the tender mercies of the expected flood, so anxious were they
+ to reach some place of security.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At Toulouse, in France, the people actually built an ark and stocked it
+ with provisions, and it was not till long after the day upon which the
+ flood was to have come, had passed, that the people recovered from their
+ fright and returned to their homes. About the same time it was currently
+ reported and believed that a child had been born in Silesia with a golden
+ tooth. The people were again filled with wonder and consternation. They
+ were satisfied that some great evil was coming upon mankind. At last it
+ was solved by some chapter in Daniel wherein is predicted somebody with a
+ golden head. Such stories would never have gained credence only for the
+ reason that the supernatural was expected. Anything in the ordinary course
+ of nature was not worth telling. The human mind was in chains; it had been
+ deformed by slavery. Reason was a trembling coward, and every production
+ of the mind was deformed, every idea was a monster. Almost every law was
+ unjust. Their religion was nothing more or less than monsters worshiping
+ an imaginary monster. Science could not, properly speaking, exist. Their
+ histories were the grossest and most palpable falsehoods, and they filled
+ all Europe with the most shocking absurdities. The histories were all
+ written by the monks and bishops, all of whom were intensely
+ superstitious, and equally dishonest. Everything they did was a pious
+ fraud. They wrote as if they had been eye-witnesses of every occurrence
+ that they related. They entertained, and consequently expressed, no doubt
+ as to any particular, and in case of any difficulty they always had a few
+ miracles ready just suited for the occasion, and the people never for an
+ instant doubted the absolute truth of every statement that they made. They
+ wrote the history of every country of any importance. They related all the
+ past and present, and predicted nearly all the future, with an ignorant
+ impudence actually sublime. They traced the order of St. Michael in France
+ back to the Archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a
+ chivalric order in heaven itself. They also said that the Tartars
+ originally came from hell, and that they were called Tartars because
+ Tartarus was one of the names of perdition. They declared that Scotland
+ was so called after Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland
+ and afterward invaded Scotland and took it by force of arms. This
+ statement was made in a letter addressed to the Pope in the 14th century
+ and was alluded to as a well-known fact. The letter was written by some of
+ the highest dignitaries of the church and by direction of the king
+ himself. Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the 13th century, gave
+ the world the following piece of valuable information: "It is well known
+ that Mohammed originally was a Cardinal and became a heretic because he
+ failed in his design of being elected Pope."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same gentleman informs us that Mohammed having drank to excess fell
+ drunk by the roadside, and in that condition was killed by pigs. And this
+ is the reason, says he, that his followers abhor pork even unto this day.
+ Another historian of about the same period, tells us that one of the popes
+ cut off his hand because it had been kissed by an improper person, and
+ that the hand was still in the Lateran at Rome, where it had been
+ miraculously preserved from corruption for over five hundred years. After
+ that occurrence, says he, the Pope's toe was substituted, which accounts
+ for this practice. He also has the goodness to inform his readers that
+ Nero was in the habit of vomiting frogs. Some of the croakers of the
+ present day against progress would, I think, be the better of such a
+ vomit. The history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin the Archbishop of
+ Rheims, and received the formal approbation of the Pope. In this it is
+ asserted that the walls of a city fell down in answer to prayer; that
+ Charlemagne was opposed by a giant called Fenacute who was a descendant of
+ the ancient Goliath; that forty men were sent to attack this giant, and
+ that he took them under his arms and quietly carried them away. At last
+ Orlando engaged him singly; not meeting with the success that he
+ anticipated, he changed his tactics and commenced a theological
+ discussion; warming with his subject he pressed forward and suddenly
+ stabbed his opponent, inflicting a mortal wound. After the death of the
+ giant, Charlemagne easily conquered the whole country and divided it among
+ his sons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of the Britons, written by the Archdeacons of Monmouth and
+ Oxford, was immensely popular. According to their account, Brutus, a
+ Roman, conquered England, built London, called the country Britain after
+ himself. During his time it rained blood for three days. At another time a
+ monster came from the sea, and after having devoured a great many common
+ people, finally swallowed the king himself. They say that King Arthur was
+ not born like ordinary mortals, but was formed by a magical contrivance
+ made by a wizard. That he was particularly lucky in killing giants, that
+ he killed one in France who used to eat several people every day, and that
+ this giant was clothed with garments made entirely of the beards of kings
+ that he had killed and eaten. To cap the climax, one of the authors of
+ this book was promoted for having written an authentic history of his
+ country. Another writer of the 15th century says that after Ignatius was
+ dead they found impressed upon his heart the Greek word Theos. In all
+ historical compositions there was an incredible want of common honesty.
+ The great historian Eusebius ingenuously remarks that in his history he
+ omitted whatever tended to discredit the church and magnified whatever
+ conduced to her glory. The same glorious principle was adhered to by most,
+ if not all, of the writers of those days. They wrote and the people
+ believed that the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot wheels, were still impressed
+ upon the sands of the Red Sea and could not be obliterated either by the
+ winds or waves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next subject to which I call your attention is the wonderful progress
+ in the mechanical arts. Animals use the weapons nature has furnished, and
+ those only&mdash;the beak, the claw, the tusk, the teeth. The barbarian
+ uses a club, a stone. As man advances he makes tools with which to fashion
+ his weapons; he discovers the best material to be used in their
+ construction. The next thing was to find some power to assist him&mdash;that
+ is to say, the weight of falling water, or the force of the wind. He then
+ creates a force, so to speak, by changing water to steam, and with that he
+ impels machines that can do almost everything but think. You will observe
+ that the ingenuity of man is first exercised in the construction of
+ weapons. There were splendid Damascus blades when plowing was done with a
+ crooked stick. There were complete suits of armor on backs that had never
+ felt a shirt. The world was full of inventions to destroy life before
+ there were any to prolong it or make it endurable. Murder was always a
+ science&mdash;medicine is not one yet. Scalping was known and practiced
+ long before Barret discovered the Hair Regenerator. The destroyers have
+ always been honored. The useful have always been despised. In ancient
+ times agriculture was known only to slaves. The low, the ignorant, the
+ contemptible, cultivated the soil. To work was to be nobody. Mechanics
+ were only one degree above the farmer. In short, labor was disgraceful.
+ Idleness was the badge of gentle blood. The fields being poorly cultivated
+ produced but little at the best. Only a few kinds of crops were raised.
+ The result was frequent famine and constant suffering. One country could
+ not be supplied from another as now; the roads were always horrible, and
+ besides all this, every country was at war with nearly every other. This
+ state of things lasted until a few years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me show you the condition of England at the beginning of the
+ eighteenth century. At that time London was the most populous capital in
+ Europe, yet it was dirty, ill built, without any sanitary provisions
+ whatever. The deaths were one in 23 each year. Now in a much more crowded
+ population they are not one in forty. Much of the country was then heath
+ and swamp. Almost within sight of London there was a tract, twenty-five
+ miles round, almost in a state of nature; there were but three houses upon
+ it. In the rainy season the roads were almost impassable. Through gullies
+ filled with mud, carriages were dragged by oxen. Between places of great
+ importance the roads were little known, and a principal mode of transport
+ was by pack horses, of which passengers took advantage by stowing
+ themselves away between the packs. The usual charge for freight was 30
+ cents per ton a mile. After a while, what they were pleased to call flying
+ coaches were established. They could move from thirty to fifty miles a
+ day. Many persons thought the risk so great that it was tempting
+ Providence to get into one of them. The mail bag was carried on horseback
+ at five miles an hour. A penny post had been established in the city, but
+ many long-headed men, who knew what they were saying, denounced it as a
+ popish contrivance. Only a few years before, Parliament had resolved that
+ all pictures in the royal collection which contained representations of
+ Jesus or the Virgin Mary should be burned. Greek statues were handed over
+ to Puritan stone masons to be made decent. Lewis Meggleton had given
+ himself out as the last and the greatest of the prophets, having power to
+ save or damn. He had also discovered that God was only six feet high and
+ the sun four miles off. There were people in England as savage as our
+ Indians. The women, half naked, would chant some wild measure, while the
+ men would brandish their dirks and dance. There were thirty-four counties
+ without a printer. Social discipline was wretched. The master flogged his
+ apprentice, the pedagogue his scholar, the husband his wife; and I am
+ ashamed to say that whipping has not been abolished in our schools. It is
+ a relic of barbarism and should not be tolerated one moment. It is brutal,
+ low and contemptible. The teacher that administers such punishment is no
+ more to blame than the parents that allow it. Every gentleman and lady
+ should use his or her influence to do away with this vile and infamous
+ practice. In those days public punishments were all brutal. Men and women
+ were put in the pillory and then pelted with brick-bats, rotten eggs and
+ dead cats, by the rabble. The whipping-post was then an institution in
+ England as it is now in the enlightened State of Delaware. Criminals were
+ drawn and quartered; others were disemboweled and hung and their bodies
+ suspended in chains to rot in the air. The houses of the people in the
+ country were huts, thatched with straw. Anybody who could get fresh meat
+ once a week was considered rich. Children six years old had to labor. In
+ London the houses were of wood or plaster, the streets filthy beyond
+ expression, even muddier than Bloomington is now. After nightfall a
+ passenger went about at his peril, for chamber windows were opened and
+ slop pails unceremoniously emptied. There were no lamps in the streets,
+ but plenty of highwaymen and robbers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The morals of the people corresponded, as they generally do, to their
+ physical condition. It is said that the clergy did what they could to make
+ the people pious, but they could not accomplish much. You cannot convert a
+ man when he is hungry. He will not accept better doctrines until he gets
+ better clothes, and he won't have more faith till he gets more food.
+ Besides this, the clergy were a little below par, so much so that Queen
+ Elizabeth issued an order that no clergyman should presume to marry a
+ servant girl without the consent of her master or mistress. During the
+ same time the condition of France and indeed of all Europe was even worse
+ than England. What has changed the condition of Great Britain? More than
+ any and everything else, the inventions of her mechanics. The old moral
+ method was and always will be a failure. If you wish to better the
+ condition of a people morally, better them physically. About the close of
+ the 18th Century, Watt, Arkwright, Hargreave, Crompton, Cartwright,
+ invented the steam engine, the spring frame, the jenny, the mule, the
+ power loom, the carding machine and a hundred other minor inventions, and
+ put it in the power of England to monopolize the markets of the world. Her
+ machinery soon became equal to 30,000,000 of men. In a few years the
+ population was doubled and the wealth quadrupled; and England became the
+ first nation of the world through her inventors, her merchants, her
+ mechanics, and in spite of her statesmen, her priests and her nobles.
+ England began to spin for the world, cotton began to be universally worn,
+ clean shirts began to be seen. The most cunning spinners of India could
+ make a thread over 100 miles long from one pound of cotton. The machines
+ of England have produced one over 1000 miles in length from the same
+ quantity. In a short time Stephenson invented the locomotive. Railroads
+ began to be built. Fulton gave to the world the steamboat, and commerce
+ became independent of the winds. There are already railroads enough in the
+ United States to make a double track around the world. Man has lengthened
+ his arms. He reaches to every country and takes what he wants; the world
+ is before him; he helps himself. There can be no more famine. If there is
+ no food in this country, the boat and the car will bring it from another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We can have the luxuries of every climate. A majority of the people now
+ live better than the king used to do. Poor Solomon with his thousand
+ wives, and no carpets, his great temple, and no gas light! A thousand
+ women, and not a pin in the house; no stoves, no cooking range, no baking
+ powder, no potatoes&mdash;think of it! Breakfast without potatoes! Plenty
+ of wisdom and old saws&mdash;but no green corn; never heard of succotash
+ in his whole life. No clean clothes, no music, if you except a jew's-harp,
+ no ice water, no skates, no carriages, because there was not a decent road
+ in all his dominions. Plenty of theology but no tobacco, no books, no
+ pictures, not a picture in all Palestine, not a piece of statuary, not a
+ plough that would scour. No tea, no coffee; he never heard of any place of
+ amusement, never was at a theatre, or a circus. "Seven up" was then
+ unknown to the world. He couldn't even play billiards, with all his
+ knowledge, never had an idea of woman's rights, or universal suffrage;
+ never went to school a day in his life, and cared no more about the will
+ of the people than Andy Johnson.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The inventors have helped more than any other class to make the world what
+ it is; the workers and the thinkers, the poor and the grand; labor and
+ learning, industry and intelligence; Watt and Descartes, Fulton and
+ Montaigne, Stephenson and Kepler, Crompton and Comte, Franklin and
+ Voltaire, Morse and Buckle, Draper and Spencer, and hundreds more that I
+ could mention. The inventors, the workers, the thinkers, the mechanics,
+ the surgeons, the philosophers&mdash;these are the Atlases upon whose
+ shoulders rests the great fabric of modern civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LANGUAGE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN order to show you that the most abject superstition pervaded every
+ department of human knowledge, or of ignorance rather, allow me to give
+ you a few of their ideas upon language. It was universally believed that
+ all languages could be traced back to the Hebrew; that the Hebrew was the
+ original language, and every fact inconsistent with that idea was
+ discarded. In consequence of this belief all efforts to investigate the
+ science of language were utterly fruitless. After a time, the Hebrew idea
+ falling into disrepute, other languages claimed the honor of being the
+ original ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Andr&eacute; Kempe published a work in 1569, on the language of Paradise,
+ in which he maintained that God spoke to Adam in Swedish; that Adam
+ answered in Danish and that the serpent (which appears quite probable)
+ spoke to Eve in French. Erro, in a book published at Madrid, took the
+ ground that Basque was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden. But in
+ 1580, Goropius published his celebrated work at Antwerp, in which he put
+ the whole matter at rest by proving that the language spoken in Paradise
+ was nothing more or less than plain Holland Dutch. The real founder of the
+ present science of language was a German, Leibnitz&mdash;a contemporary of
+ Sir Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea that all language could be traced
+ to an original one. That language was, so to speak, a natural growth.
+ Actual experience teaches us that this must be true. The ancient sages of
+ Egypt had a vocabulary, according to Bunsen, of only about six hundred and
+ eighty-five words, exclusive of proper names. The English language has at
+ least one hundred thousand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ GEOGRAPHY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN the 6th century a monk by the name of Cosmas wrote a kind of orthodox
+ geography and astronomy combined. He pretended that it was all in
+ accordance with the Bible. According to him, the world was composed,
+ first, of a flat piece of land and circular; this piece of land was
+ entirely surrounded by water which was the ocean, and beyond the strip of
+ water was another circle of land; this outside circle was the land
+ inhabited by the old world before the flood; Noah crossed the strip of
+ water and landed on the central piece where we now are; on the outside
+ land was a high mountain around which the sun and moon revolved; when the
+ sun was behind the mountain it was night, and when on the side next us it
+ was day. He also taught that on the outer edge of the outside circle of
+ land the firmament or sky was fastened, that it was made of some solid
+ material and turned over the world like an immense kettle. And it was
+ declared at that time that anyone who believed either more or less on that
+ subject than that book contained was a heretic and deserved to be
+ exterminated from the face of the earth. This was authority until the
+ discovery of America by Columbus. Cosmas said the earth was flat; if it
+ was round how could men on the other side at the day of judgment see the
+ coming of the Lord? At the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I
+ have, to show you the productions of the mind when enslaved&mdash;the
+ consequences of abandoning judgment and reason&mdash;the effects of wide
+ spread ignorance and universal bigotry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to convince you that every wrong is a viper that will sooner or
+ later strike with poisoned fangs the bosom that nourishes it. You will ask
+ what has produced this wonderful change in only three hundred years. You
+ will remember that in those days it was said that all ghosts vanished at
+ the dawn of day; that the sprites, the spooks, the hobgoblins and all the
+ monsters of the imagination fled from the approaching sun. In 1441,
+ printing was invented. In the next century it became a power, and it has
+ been flooding the world with light from that time to this. The Press has
+ been the true Prometheus.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been, so to speak, the trumpet blown by the Gabriel of Progress,
+ until, from the graves of ignorance and superstition, the people have
+ leaped to grand and glorious life, spurning with swift feet the dust of an
+ infamous past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When people read, they reason, when they reason they progress. You must
+ not think that the enemies of progress allowed books to be published or
+ read when they had the power to prevent it. The whole power of the church,
+ of the government, was arrayed upon the side of ignorance. People found in
+ the possession of books were often executed. Printing, reading and writing
+ were crimes. Anathemas were hurled from the Vatican against all who dared
+ to publish a word in favor of liberty or the sacred rights of man. The
+ Inquisition was founded on purpose to crush out every noble aspiration of
+ the heart. It was a war of darkness against light, of slavery against
+ liberty, of superstition against reason. I shall not attempt to recount
+ the horrors and tortures of the Inquisition. Suffice it to say that they
+ were equal to the most terrible and vivid pictures even of Hell, and the
+ Inquisitors were even more horrid fiends than even a real Perdition could
+ boast. But in spite of priests, in spite of kings, in spite of mitres, in
+ spite of crowns, in spite of Cardinals and Popes, books were published and
+ books were read. Beam after beam of light penetrated the darkness. Star
+ after star arose in the firmament of ignorance. The morning of Freedom
+ began to dawn. Driven to madness by the prospect of ultimate defeat, the
+ enemies of light persecuted with redoubled fury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People were burned for saying that the earth was round, for saying that
+ the sun was the center of a system. A woman was executed because she
+ endeavored to allay the pains of a fever by singing. The very name of
+ Philosopher became a title of proscription, and the slightest offences
+ were punished by death. About the beginning of the sixteenth century
+ Luther and Jerome, of Prague, inaugurated the great Reformation in
+ Germany, Ziska was at work in Hungary, Zwinglius in Switzerland. The grand
+ work went forward in Denmark, in Sweden and in England. All this was
+ accomplished as early as 1534. They unmasked the corruption and withstood
+ the tyranny of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With a zeal amounting to enthusiasm, with a courage that was heroic, with
+ an energy that never flagged, a determination that brooked no opposition,
+ with a firmness that defied torture and death, this sublime band of
+ reformers sprang to the attack. Stronghold after stronghold was carried,
+ and in a few short but terrible years, the banner of the Reformation waved
+ in triumph over the bloody ensign of Saint Peter. The soul roused from the
+ slumbers of a thousand years began to think. When slaves begin to reason,
+ slavery begins to die. The invention of powder had released millions from
+ the army, and left them to prosecute the arts of peace. Industry began to
+ be remunerative and respectable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science began to unfold the wings that will finally fill the heavens.
+ Descartes announced to the world the sublime truth that the Universe is
+ governed by law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Commerce began to unfold her wings. People of different countries began to
+ get acquainted. Christians found that Mohammedan gold was not the less
+ valuable on account of the doctrines of its owners. Telescopes began to be
+ pointed toward the stars. The Universe was getting immense. The Earth was
+ growing small. It was discovered that a man could be healthy without being
+ a Catholic. Innumerable agencies were at work dispelling darkness and
+ creating light. The supernatural began to be abandoned, and mankind
+ endeavored to account for all physical phenomena by physical laws. The
+ light of reason was irradiating the world, and from that light, as from
+ the approach of the sun, the ghosts and spectres of superstition wrapped
+ their sheets around their attenuated bodies and vanished into thin air.
+ Other inventions rapidly followed. The wonderful power of steam was made
+ known to the world by Watts and by Fulton. Neptune was frightened from the
+ sea. The locomotive was given to mankind by Stephenson; the telegraph by
+ Franklin and Morse. The rush of the ship, the scream of the locomotive,
+ and the electric flash have frightened the monsters of ignorance from the
+ world, and have left nothing above us but the heaven's eternal blue,
+ filled with glittering planets wheeling through immensity in accordance
+ with <i>Law</i>. True religion is a subordination of the passions and
+ interests to the perceptions of the intellect. But when religion was
+ considered the end of life instead of a means of happiness, it
+ overshadowed all other interests and became the destroyer of mankind. It
+ became a hydra-headed monster&mdash;a serpent reaching in terrible coils
+ from the heavens and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding,
+ quivering hearts of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SLAVERY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE endeavored thus far to show you some of the results produced by
+ enslaving the human mind. I now call your attention to another terrible
+ phase of this subject; the enslavement of the body. Slavery is a very
+ ancient institution, yes, about as ancient as robbery, theft and murder,
+ and is based upon them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Springing from the same fountain, that a man is not the owner of his soul,
+ is the doctrine that he is not the owner of his body. The two are always
+ found together, supported by precisely the same arguments, and attended by
+ the same infamous acts of cruelty. From the earliest time, slavery has
+ existed in all countries, and among all people until recently. Pufendorf
+ said that slavery was originally established by contract. Voltaire
+ replied, "Show me the original contract, and if it is signed by the party
+ that was to be a slave I will believe you." You will bear in mind that the
+ slavery of which I am now speaking is white slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Greeks enslaved one another as well as those captured in war. Coriolanus
+ scrupled not to make slaves of his own countrymen captured in civil war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Julius C&aelig;sar sold to the highest bidder at onetime fifty-three
+ thousand prisoners of war all of whom were white. Hannibal exposed to sale
+ thirty thousand captives at one time, all of whom were Roman citizens. In
+ Rome, men were sold into bondage in order to pay their debts. In Germany,
+ men often hazarded their freedom on the throwing of dice. The Barbary
+ States held white Christians in slavery in this, the 19th century. There
+ were white slaves in England as late as 1574. There were white slaves in
+ Scotland until the end of the 18th century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These Scotch slaves were colliers and salters. They were treated as real
+ estate and passed with a deed to the mines in which they worked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was also the law that no collier could work in any mine except the one
+ to which he belonged. It was also the law that their children could follow
+ no other occupation than that of their fathers. This slavery absolutely
+ existed in Scotland until the beginning of the glorious 19th century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the Roman nobles were the owners of as many as twenty thousand
+ slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The common people of France were in slavery for fourteen hundred years.
+ They were transferred with land, and women were often seen assisting
+ cattle to pull the plough, and yet people have the impudence to say that
+ black slavery is right, because the blacks have always been slaves in
+ their own country. I answer, so have the whites until very recently. In
+ the good old days when might was right and when kings and popes stood by
+ the people, and protected the people, and talked about "holy oil and
+ divine right," the world was filled with slaves. The traveler standing
+ amid the ruins of ancient cities and empires, seeing on every side the
+ fallen pillar and the prostrate wall, asks why did these cities fall, why
+ did these empires crumble? And the Ghost of the Past, the wisdom of ages,
+ answers: These temples, these palaces, these cities, the ruins of which
+ you stand upon were built by tyranny and injustice. The hands that built
+ them were unpaid. The backs that bore the burdens also bore the marks of
+ the lash. They were built by slaves to satisfy the vanity and ambition of
+ thieves and robbers. For these reasons they are dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Their civilization was a lie. Their laws merely regulated robbery and
+ established theft. They bought and sold the bodies and souls of men, and
+ the mournful winds of desolation, sighing amid their crumbling ruins, is a
+ voice of prophetic warning to those who would repeat the infamous
+ experiment. From the ruins of Babylon, of Carthage, of Athens, of Palmyra,
+ of Thebes, of Rome, and across the great desert, over that sad and solemn
+ sea of sand, from the land of the pyramids, over the fallen Sphinx and
+ from the lips of Memnon the same voice, the same warning and uttering the
+ great truth, that no nation founded upon slavery, either of body or mind,
+ can stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, to-day, there are thousands upon thousands endeavoring to build
+ the temples and cities and to administer our Government upon the old plan.
+ They are makers of brick without straw. They are bowing themselves beneath
+ hods of untempered mortar. They are the babbling builders of another
+ Babel, a Babel of mud upon a foundation of sand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothwithstanding the experience of antiquity as to the terrible effects of
+ slavery, bondage was the rule, and liberty the exception, during the
+ Middle Ages not only, but for ages afterward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same causes that led to the liberation of mind also liberated the
+ body. Free the mind, allow men to write and publish and read, and one by
+ one the shackles will drop, broken, in the dust. This truth was always
+ known, and for that reason slaves have never been allowed to read. It has
+ always been a crime to teach a slave. The intelligent prefer death to
+ slavery. Education is the most radical abolitionist in the world. To teach
+ the alphabet is to inaugurate revolution. To build a schoolhouse is to
+ construct a fort. Every library is an arsenal, and every truth is a
+ monitor, iron-clad and steel-plated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not think that white slavery was abolished without a struggle. The men
+ who opposed white slavery were ridiculed, were persecuted, driven from
+ their homes, mobbed, hanged, tortured and burned. They were denounced as
+ having only one idea, by men who had none. They were called fanatics by
+ men who were so insane as to suppose that the laws of a petty prince were
+ greater than those of the Universe. Crime made faces at virtue, and
+ honesty was an outcast beggar. In short, I cannot better describe to you
+ the manner in which the friends of slavery acted at that time, than by
+ saying that they acted precisely as they used to do in the United States.
+ White slavery, established by kidnapping and piracy, sustained by torture
+ and infinite cruelty, was defended to the very last.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me now call your attention to one of the most immediate causes of the
+ abolition of white slavery in Europe. There were during the Middle Ages
+ three great classes of people: the common people, the clergy and the
+ nobility. All these people could, however, be divided into two classes,
+ namely, the robbed and the robbers. The feudal lords were jealous of the
+ king, the king afraid of the lords, the clergy always siding with the
+ stronger party. The common people had only to do the work, the fighting,
+ and to pay the taxes, as by the law the property of the nobles was exempt
+ from taxation. The consequence was, in every war between the nobles and
+ the king, each party endeavored by conciliation to get the peasants upon
+ their side. When the clergy were on the side of the king they created
+ dissension between the people and the nobles by telling them that the
+ nobles were tyrants. When they were on the side of the nobles they told
+ the people that the king was a tyrant. At last the people believed both,
+ and the old adage was verified, that when thieves fall out honest men get
+ their dues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By virtue of the civil and religious wars of Europe, slavery was
+ abolished, and the French Revolution, one of the grandest pages in all
+ history, was, so to speak, the exterminator of white slavery. In that
+ terrible period the people who had borne the yoke for fourteen hundred
+ years, rising from the dust, casting their shackles from them, fiercely
+ avenged their wrongs. A mob of twenty millions driven to desperation, in
+ the sublimity of despair, in the sacred name of Liberty cried for
+ vengeance. They reddened the earth with the blood of their masters. They
+ trampled beneath their feet the great army of human vermin that had lived
+ upon their labor. They filled the air with the ruins of temples and
+ thrones, and with bloody hands tore in pieces the altar upon which their
+ rights had been offered by an impious church. They scorned the
+ superstitions of the past not only, but they scorned the past; for the
+ past to them was only wrong, imposition and outrage. The French Revolution
+ was the inauguration of a new era. The lava of freedom long buried beneath
+ a mountain of wrong and injustice at last burst forth, overwhelming the
+ Pompeii and Herculaneum of priestcraft and tyranny. As soon as white
+ slavery began to decay in Europe, and while the condition of the white
+ slaves was improving about the middle of the 16th century in 1541, Alonzo
+ Gonzales, of Portugal, pointed out to his countrymen a new field of
+ operations, a new market for human flesh, and in a short time the African
+ slave-trade with all its unspeakable horrors was inaugurated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This trade has been the great crime of modern times. It is almost
+ impossible to conceive that nations who professed to be Christian, or even
+ in any degree civilized, should have engaged in this infamous traffic. Yet
+ nearly all of the nations of Europe engaged in the slave-trade, legalized
+ it, protected it, fostered the practice, and vied with each other in acts,
+ the bare recital of which is enough to make the heart stand still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been calculated that for years, at least 400,000 Africans were
+ either killed or enslaved annually. They crammed their ships so full of
+ these unfortunate wretches, that, as a general thing, about ten per cent,
+ died of suffocation on the voyage. They were treated like wild beasts. In
+ times of danger they were thrown into the sea. Remember that this horrible
+ traffic commenced in the middle of the 16th century, was carried on by
+ nations pretending to Christian civilization, and when do you think it was
+ abolished by some of the principal countries? In England, Wilberforce and
+ Clarkson dedicated their lives to the abolition of the slave-trade. They
+ were hated and despised. They persevered for twenty years, and it was not
+ until the 25th of March, 1808, that England pronounced the infamous
+ traffic in human flesh illegal, and the rejoicing in England was redoubled
+ on receiving the news that the United States had done the same thing.
+ After a time, those engaged in the slave-trade were declared pirates.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 28th day of August, 1833, England abolished slavery throughout the
+ British Colonies, thus giving liberty to nearly one million slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The United States was then the greatest slave-holding power in the
+ civilized world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are all acquainted with the history of slavery in this country. We know
+ that it corrupted our people, that it has drenched our land in fraternal
+ blood, that it has clad our country in mourning for the loss of 300,000 of
+ her bravest sons; that it carried us back to the darkest ages of the
+ world, that it led us to the very brink of destruction, forced us to the
+ shattered gates of eternal ruin, death and annihilation. But Liberty
+ rising above party prejudice, Freedom lifting itself above all other
+ considerations,
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
+ Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,&mdash;
+ Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
+ Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And on the 1st day of January, 1863, the grandest New Year that ever
+ dawned upon this continent, in accordance with the will of the heroic
+ North, by the sublime act of one whose name will be sacred through all the
+ coming years, the justice so long delayed was accomplished, and four
+ millions of slaves became chainless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LIBERTY TRIUMPHED.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LIBERTY, that most sacred word, without which all other words are vain,
+ without which, life is worse than death, and men are beasts! I never see
+ the word Liberty without seeing a halo of glory around it. It is a word
+ worthy of the lips of a God. Can you realize the fact that only a few
+ years ago, the most shocking system of slavery&mdash;the most barbarous&mdash;existed
+ in our country, and that you and I were bound by the laws of the United
+ States to stand between a human being and his liberty? That we were
+ absolutely compelled by law to hand back that human being to the lash and
+ chain? That by our laws children were sold from the arms of mothers, wives
+ sold from their husbands? That we executed our laws with the assistance of
+ bloodhounds, owned and trained by human bloodhounds fiercer still, and
+ that all this was not only upheld by politicians, but by the pretended
+ ministers of Christ? That the pulpit was in partnership with the auction
+ block&mdash;that the bloodhound's bark was only an echo from many of the
+ churches? And that this was all done under the sacred name of Liberty, by
+ a republican government that was founded upon the sublime declaration that
+ all men are equal? This all seems to me like a horrible dream, a nightmare
+ of terror, a hellish impossibility. And yet, with cheeks glowing and
+ burning with shame, before the bar of history, we are forced to plead
+ guilty to this terrible charge. We made a whip-ping-post of the cross of
+ Christ. It is true that in a great degree we have atoned for this national
+ crime. Our bravest and our best have been sacrificed. We have borne the
+ bloody burden of war. The good and the true have been with us, and the
+ women of the North have won glory imperishable. They robbed war of half
+ its terrors. Not content with binding the wreath of victory upon the
+ leader's brow, they bandaged the soldiers' wounds, they nerved the living,
+ comforted the dying, and smiled upon the great victory through their
+ tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have consoled the hero's widow and are educating his orphans. They
+ have erected a monument to enlightened charity to which time can add only
+ grandeur. There is much, however, to be accomplished still. Slavery has
+ been abolished, but Progress requires more. We are called upon to make
+ this a free government in the broadest sense, to give liberty to all.
+ Standing in the presence of all history, knowing the experience of
+ mankind, knowing that the earth is covered with countless wrecks of cruel
+ failures; appealed to by the great army of martyrs and heroes who have
+ gone before; by the sacred dust filling innumerable graves; by the memory
+ of our own noble dead; by all the suffering of the past; by all the hopes
+ for the future; by all the glorious dead and the countless millions yet to
+ be, I pray, I beseech, I implore the American people to lay the foundation
+ of the Government upon the principles of eternal justice. I pray, I
+ beseech, I implore them to take for the corner-stone, Universal Human
+ Liberty&mdash;the stone which has been heretofore rejected by all the
+ builders of nations. The Government will then stand, and the swelling dome
+ of the temple will touch the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkCONC2" id="linkCONC2">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONCLUSION
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE thus endeavored to show you some of the effects of slavery, and to
+ prove to you that a step in order to be in the direction of progress must
+ be in the direction of freedom; that slavery either of body or mind is
+ barbarism and is practiced and defended only by infamous tyrants or their
+ dupes. I have endeavored to point out some of the causes of the abolition
+ of slavery, both of body and mind. There is one truth, however, that you
+ must not forget, and that is, that every evil tends to correct and abolish
+ itself. I believe, however, that the diffusion of knowledge, more than
+ everything else combined, has ameliorated the condition of mankind. When
+ there was no freedom of speech and no press, then every idea perished in
+ the brain that gave it birth. One man could not profit by the thought of
+ another. The experience of the past was in a great degree unknown. And
+ this state of things produced the same effect in the mental world, that
+ confining all the water to the springs would in the physical. Confine the
+ water to the springs, the rivulets would cease to murmur, the rivers to
+ flow, and the ocean itself would become a desert of sand. But with the
+ invention of printing, ideas began to circulate, born of the busy brain of
+ the million&mdash;little rivulets of facts running into rivers of
+ information, and they all flowing into the great ocean of human knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This exchange of ideas, this comparison of thought, has given to each
+ generation the advantage of all the past. This, more than all else, has
+ enabled man to improve his condition. It is by this that from the log or
+ piece of bark on which a naked savage floated, we have by successive
+ improvements created a man-of-war carrying a hundred guns and miles of
+ canvas. By these means we have changed a handful of sand into a telescope.
+ In the hands of science a drop of water has become a giant, turning with
+ swift and tireless arm the countless wheels. The sun has become an artist
+ painting with shining beams the very thoughts within our eyes. The
+ elements have been taught to do our bidding, and the electric spark,
+ freighted with human thought and love, defies distance, and devours time
+ as it sweeps under all the waves of the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are some of the results of free thought and free labor. I have
+ barely alluded to a few&mdash;where is improvement to stop? Science is
+ only in its infancy. It has accomplished all this and is in its cradle
+ still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are standing on the shore of an infinite ocean whose countless waves,
+ freighted with blessings, are welcoming our adventurous feet. Progress has
+ been written on every soul. The human race is advancing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forward, oh sublime army of progress, forward until law is justice,
+ forward until ignorance is unknown, forward while there is a spiritual or
+ temporal throne, forward until superstition is a forgotten dream, forward
+ until the world is free, forward until human reason, clothed in the purple
+ of authority, is king of kings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0012" id="link0012">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHAT IS RELIGION?
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This was Col. Ingersoll's last public address, delivered
+ before the American Free Religious Association, in the
+ Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, June 2, 1899.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IT is asserted that an infinite God created all things, governs all
+ things, and that the creature should be obedient and thankful to the
+ creator; that the creator demands certain things, and that the person who
+ complies with these demands is religious. This kind of religion has been
+ substantially universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries and by many peoples it was believed that this God
+ demanded sacrifices; that he was pleased when parents shed the blood of
+ their babes. Afterward it was supposed that he was satisfied with the
+ blood of oxen, lambs and doves, and that in exchange for or on account of
+ these sacrifices, this God gave rain, sunshine and harvest. It was also
+ believed that if the sacrifices were not made, this God sent pestilence,
+ famine, flood and earthquake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The last phase of this belief in sacrifice was, according to the Christian
+ doctrine, that God accepted the blood of his son, and that after his son
+ had been murdered, he, God, was satisfied, and wanted no more blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During all these years and by all these peoples it was believed that this
+ God heard and answered prayer, that he forgave sins and saved the souls of
+ true believers. This, in a general way, is the definition of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the questions are, Whether religion was founded on any known fact?
+ Whether such a being as God exists? Whether he was the creator of yourself
+ and myself? Whether any prayer was ever answered? Whether any sacrifice of
+ babe or ox secured the favor of this unseen God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>.&mdash;Did an infinite God create the children of men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he create the intellectually inferior?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he create the deformed and helpless?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he create the criminal, the idiotic, the insane?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can infinite wisdom and power make any excuse for the creation of
+ failures?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the failures under obligation to their creator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>.&mdash;Is an infinite God the governor of this world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is he responsible for all the chiefs, kings, emperors, and queens?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is he responsible for all the wars that have been waged, for all the
+ innocent blood that has been shed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is he responsible for the centuries of slavery, for the backs that have
+ been scarred with the lash, for the babes that have been sold from the
+ breasts of mothers, for the families that have been separated and
+ destroyed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this God responsible for religious persecution, for the Inquisition,
+ for the thumb-screw and rack, and for all the instruments of torture?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did this God allow the cruel and vile to destroy the brave and virtuous?
+ Did he allow tyrants to shed the blood of patriots?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did he allow his enemies to torture and burn his friends?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is such a God worth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would a decent man, having the power to prevent it, allow his enemies to
+ torture and burn his friends?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we conceive of a devil base enough to prefer his enemies to his
+ friends?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a good and infinitely powerful God governs this world, how can we
+ account for cyclones, earthquakes, pestilence and famine?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we account for cancers, for microbes, for diphtheria and the
+ thousand diseases that prey on infancy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we account for the wild beasts that devour human beings, for the
+ fanged serpents whose bite is death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we account for a world where life feeds on life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Were beak and claw, tooth and fang, invented and produced by infinite
+ mercy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did infinite goodness fashion the wings of the eagles so that their
+ fleeing prey could be overtaken?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did infinite goodness create the beasts of prey with the intention that
+ they should devour the weak and helpless?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did infinite goodness create the countless worthless living things that
+ breed within and feed upon the flesh of higher forms?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did infinite wisdom intentionally produce the microscopic beasts that feed
+ upon the optic nerve?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of blinding a man to satisfy the appetite of a microbe!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of life feeding on life! Think of the victims! Think of the Niagara
+ of blood pouring over the precipice of cruelty!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In view of these facts, what, after all, is religion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear builds the altar and offers the sacrifice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear erects the cathedral and bows the head of man in worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear bends the knees and utters the prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear pretends to love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion teaches the slave-virtues&mdash;obedience, humility, self-denial,
+ forgiveness, non-resistance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lips, religious and fearful, tremblingly repeat this passage: "Though he
+ slay me, yet will I trust him." This is the abyss of degradation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion does not teach self-reliance, independence, manliness, courage,
+ self-defence. Religion makes God a master and man his serf. The master
+ cannot be great enough to make slavery sweet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IF this God exists, how do we know that he is-I good? How can we prove
+ that he is merciful, that he cares for the children of men? If this God
+ exists, he has on many occasions seen millions of his poor children
+ plowing the fields, sowing and planting the grain, and when he saw them he
+ knew that they depended on the expected crop for life, and yet this good
+ God, this merciful being, withheld the rain. He caused the sun to rise, to
+ steal all moisture from the land, but gave no rain. He saw the seeds that
+ man had planted wither and perish, but he sent no rain. He saw the people
+ look with sad eyes upon the barren earth, and he sent no rain. He saw them
+ slowly devour the little that they had, and saw them when the days of
+ hunger came&mdash;saw them slowly waste away, saw their hungry, sunken
+ eyes, heard their prayers, saw them devour the miserable animals that they
+ had, saw fathers and mothers, insane with hunger, kill and eat their
+ shriveled babes, and yet the heaven above them was as brass and the earth
+ beneath as iron, and he sent no rain. Can we say that in the heart of this
+ God there blossomed the flower of pity? Can we say that he cared for the
+ children of men? Can we say that his mercy endureth forever?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do we prove that this God is good because he sends the cyclone that wrecks
+ villages and covers the fields with the mangled bodies of fathers, mothers
+ and babes? Do we prove his goodness by showing that he has opened the
+ earth and swallowed thousands of his helpless children, or that with the
+ volcanoes he has overwhelmed them with rivers of fire? Can we infer the
+ goodness of God from the facts we know?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If these calamities did not happen, would we suspect that God cared
+ nothing for human beings? If there were no famine, no pestilence, no
+ cyclone, no earthquake, would we think that God is not good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the theologians, God did not make all men alike. He made
+ races differing in intelligence, stature and color. Was there goodness,
+ was there wisdom in this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ought the superior races to thank God that they are not the inferior? If
+ we say yes, then I ask another question: Should the inferior races thank
+ God that they are not superior, or should they thank God that they are not
+ beasts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When God made these different races he knew that the superior would
+ enslave the inferior, knew that the inferior would be conquered, and
+ finally destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God did this, and knew the blood that would be shed, the agonies that
+ would be endured, saw the countless fields covered with the corpses of the
+ slain, saw all the bleeding backs of slaves, all the broken hearts of
+ mothers bereft of babes, if he saw and knew all this, can we conceive of a
+ more malicious fiend?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, then, should we say that God is good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dungeons against whose dripping walls the brave and generous have
+ sighed their souls away, the scaffolds stained and glorified with noble
+ blood, the hopeless slaves with scarred and bleeding backs, the writhing
+ martyrs clothed in flame, the virtuous stretched on racks, their joints
+ and muscles torn apart, the flayed and bleeding bodies of the just, the
+ extinguished eyes of those who sought for truth, the countless patriots
+ who fought and died in vain, the burdened, beaten, weeping wives, the
+ shriveled faces of neglected babes, the murdered millions of the vanished
+ years, the victims of the winds and waves, of flood and flame, of
+ imprisoned forces in the earth, of lightning's stroke, of lava's molten
+ stream, of famine, plague and lingering pain, the mouths that drip with
+ blood, the fangs that poison, the beaks that wound and tear, the triumphs
+ of the base, the rule and sway of wrong, the crowns that cruelty has worn
+ and the robed hypocrites, with clasped and bloody hands, who thanked their
+ God&mdash;a phantom fiend&mdash;that liberty had been banished from the
+ world, these souvenirs of the dreadful past, these horrors that still
+ exist, these frightful facts deny that any God exists who has the will and
+ power to guard and bless the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. THE POWER THAT WORKS FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MOST people cling to the supernatural. If they give up one God, they
+ imagine another. Having outgrown Jehovah, they talk about the power that
+ works for righteousness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is this power?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man advances, and necessarily advances through experience. A man wishing
+ to go to a certain place comes to where the road divides. He takes the
+ left hand, believing it to be the right road, and travels until he finds
+ that it is the wrong one. He retraces his steps and takes the right hand
+ road and reaches the place desired. The next time he goes to the same
+ place, he does not take the left hand road. He has tried that road, and
+ knows that it is the wrong road. He takes the right road, and thereupon
+ these theologians say, "There is a power that works for righteousness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A child, charmed by the beauty of the flame, grasps it with its dimpled
+ hand. The hand is burned, and after that the child keeps its hand out of
+ the fire. The power that works for righteousness has taught the child a
+ lesson.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The accumulated experience of the world is a power and force that works
+ for righteousness. This force is not conscious, not intelligent. It has no
+ will, no purpose. It is a result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So thousands have endeavored to establish the existence of God by the fact
+ that we have what is called the moral sense; that is to say, a conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is insisted by these theologians, and by many of the so-called
+ philosophers, that this moral sense, this sense of duty, of obligation,
+ was imported, and that conscience is an exotic. Taking the ground that it
+ was not produced here, was not produced by man, they then imagine a God
+ from whom it came.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man is a social being. We live together in families, tribes and nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The members of a family, of a tribe, of a nation, who increase the
+ happiness of the family, of the tribe or of the nation, are considered
+ good members. They are praised, admired and respected. They are regarded
+ as good; that is to say, as moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The members who add to the misery of the family, the tribe or the nation,
+ are considered bad members.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are blamed, despised, punished. They are regarded as immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The family, the tribe, the nation, creates a standard of conduct, of
+ morality. There is nothing supernatural in this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest of human beings has said, "Conscience is born of love."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sense of obligation, of duty, was naturally produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among savages, the immediate consequences of actions are taken into
+ consideration. As people advance, the remote consequences are perceived.
+ The standard of conduct becomes higher. The imagination is cultivated. A
+ man puts himself in the place of another. The sense of duty becomes
+ stronger, more imperative. Man judges himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He loves, and love is the commencement, the foundation of the highest
+ virtues. He injures one that he loves. Then comes regret, repentance,
+ sorrow, conscience. In all this there is nothing supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has deceived himself. Nature is a mirror in which man sees his own
+ image, and all supernatural religions rest on the pretence that the image,
+ which appears to be behind this mirror, has been caught.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the metaphysicians of the spiritual type, from Plato to Swedenborg,
+ have manufactured their facts, and all founders of religion have done the
+ same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that an infinite God exists, what can we do for him? Being
+ infinite, he is conditionless; being conditionless, he cannot be benefited
+ or injured. He cannot want. He has.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants
+ his praise!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHAT has our religion done? Of course, it is admitted by Christians that
+ all other religions are false, and consequently we need examine only our
+ own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has Christianity done good? Has it made men nobler, more merciful, nearer
+ honest? When the church had control, were men made better and happier?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has been the effect of Christianity in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal,
+ in Ireland?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has religion done for Hungary or Austria? What was the effect of
+ Christianity in Switzerland, in Holland, in Scotland, in England, in
+ America? Let us be honest. Could these countries have been worse without
+ religion? Could they have been worse had they had any other religion than
+ Christianity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would Torquemada have been worse had he been a follower of Zoroaster?
+ Would Calvin have been more bloodthirsty if he had believed in the
+ religion of the South Sea Islanders? Would the Dutch have been more
+ idiotic if they had denied the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and worshiped
+ the blessed trinity of sausage, beer and cheese? Would John Knox have been
+ any worse had he deserted Christ and become a follower of Confucius?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take our own dear, merciful Puritan Fathers? What did Christianity do for
+ them? They hated pleasure. On the door of life they hung the crape of
+ death. They muffled all the bells of gladness. They made cradles by
+ putting rockers on coffins. In the Puritan year there were twelve
+ Decembers. They tried to do away with infancy and youth, with prattle of
+ babes and the song of the morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religion of the Puritan was an unadulterated curse. The Puritan
+ believed the Bible to be the word of God, and this belief has always made
+ those who held it cruel and wretched. Would the Puritan have been worse if
+ he had adopted the religion of the North American Indians?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me refer to just one fact showing the influence of a belief in the
+ Bible on human beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "On the day of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth she was presented with a
+ Geneva Bible by an old man representing Time, with Truth standing by his
+ side as a child. The Queen received the Bible, kissed it, and pledged
+ herself to diligently read therein. In the dedication of this blessed
+ Bible the Queen was piously exhorted to put all Papists to the sword."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this incident we see the real spirit of Protestant lovers of the Bible.
+ In other words, it was just as fiendish, just as infamous as the Catholic
+ spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has the Bible made the people of Georgia kind and merciful? Would the
+ lynchers be more ferocious if they worshiped gods of wood and stone?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII. HOW CAN MANKIND BE REFORMED WITHOUT RELIGION?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ RELIGION has been tried, and in all countries, in all times, has failed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion has never made man merciful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Remember the Inquisition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What effect did religion have on slavery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What effect upon Libby, Saulsbury and Andersonville?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion has always been the enemy of science, of investigation and
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion has never made man free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has never made man moral, temperate, industrious and honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are Christians more temperate, nearer virtuous, nearer honest than
+ savages?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among savages do we not find that their vices and cruelties are the fruits
+ of their superstitions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To those who believe in the Uniformity of Nature, religion is impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we affect the nature and qualities of substance by prayer? Can we
+ hasten or delay the tides by worship? Can we change winds by sacrifice?
+ Will kneelings give us wealth? Can we cure disease by supplication? Can we
+ add to our knowledge by ceremony? Can we receive virtue or honor as alms?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are not the facts in the mental world just as stubborn&mdash;just as
+ necessarily produced&mdash;as the facts in the material world? Is not what
+ we call mind just as natural as what we call body?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion rests on the idea that Nature has a master and that this master
+ will listen to prayer; that this master punishes and rewards; that he
+ loves praise and flattery and hates the brave and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has man obtained any help from heaven?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IF we have a theory, we must have facts for the foundation. We must have
+ corner-stones. We must not build on guesses, fancies, analogies or
+ inferences. The structure must have a basement. If we build, we must begin
+ at the bottom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have a theory and I have four corner-stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first stone is that matter&mdash;substance&mdash;cannot be destroyed,
+ cannot be annihilated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second stone is that force cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The third stone is that matter and force cannot exist apart&mdash;no
+ matter without force&mdash;no force without matter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fourth stone is that that which cannot be destroyed could not have
+ been created; that the indestructible is the uncreatable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If these corner-stones are facts, it follows as a necessity that matter
+ and force are from and to eternity; that they can neither be increased nor
+ diminished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It follows that nothing has been or can be created; that there never has
+ been or can be a creator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It follows that there could not have been any intelligence, any design
+ back of matter and force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no intelligence without force. There is no force without matter.
+ Consequently there could not by any possibility have been any
+ intelligence, any force, back of matter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It therefore follows that the supernatural does not and cannot exist. If
+ these four corner-stones are facts, Nature has no master. If matter and
+ force are from and to eternity, it follows as a necessity that no God
+ exists; that no God created or governs the universe; that no God exists
+ who answers prayer; no God who succors the oppressed; no God who pities
+ the sufferings of innocence; no God who cares for the slaves with scarred
+ flesh, the mothers robbed of their babes; no God who rescues the tortured,
+ and no God that saves a martyr from the flames. In other words, it proves
+ that man has never received any help from heaven; that all sacrifices have
+ been in vain, and that all prayers have died unanswered in the heedless
+ air. I do not pretend to know. I say what I think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If matter and force have existed from eternity, it then follows that all
+ that has been possible has happened, all that is possible is happening,
+ and all that will be possible will happen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the universe there is no chance, no caprice. Every event has parents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That which has not happened, could not. The present is the necessary
+ product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the infinite chain there is, and there can be, no broken, no missing
+ link. The form and motion of every star, the climate of every world, all
+ forms of vegetable and animal life, all instinct, intelligence and
+ conscience, all assertions and denials, all vices and virtues, all
+ thoughts and dreams, all hopes and fears, are necessities. Not one of the
+ countless things and relations in the universe could have been different.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IF matter and force are from eternity, then we can say that man had no
+ intelligent creator&mdash;that man was not a special creation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know, if we know anything, that Jehovah, the divine potter, did not
+ mix and mould clay into the forms of men and women, and then breathe the
+ breath of life into these forms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know that our first parents were not foreigners. We know that they
+ were natives of this world, produced here, and that their life did not
+ come from the breath of any god. We now know, if we know anything, that
+ the universe is natural, and that men and women have been naturally
+ produced. We now know our ancestors, our pedigree. We have the family
+ tree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have all the links of the chain, twenty-six links inclusive from moner
+ to man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We did not get our information from inspired books. We have fossil facts
+ and living forms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the simplest creatures, from blind sensation, from organism from one
+ vague want, to a single cell with a nucleus, to a hollow ball filled with
+ fluid, to a cup with double walls, to a flat worm, to a something that
+ begins to breathe, to an organism that has a spinal chord, to a link
+ between the invertebrate to the vertebrate, to one that has a cranium&mdash;a
+ house for a brain&mdash;to one with fins, still onward to one with fore
+ and hinder fins, to the reptile mammalia, to the marsupials, to the
+ lemures, dwellers in trees, to the simi&aelig;, to the pithecanthropi, and
+ lastly, to man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know the paths that life has traveled. We know the footsteps of
+ advance. They have been traced. The last link has been found. For this we
+ are indebted, more than to all others, to the greatest of biologists,
+ Ernst Haeckel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now believe that the universe is natural and we deny the existence of
+ the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII. Reform.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR thousands of years men and women have been trying to reform the world.
+ They have created gods and devils, heavens and hells; they have written
+ sacred books, performed miracles, built cathedrals and dungeons; they have
+ crowned and uncrowned kings and queens; they have tortured and imprisoned,
+ flayed alive and burned; they have preached and prayed; they have tried
+ promises and threats; they have coaxed and persuaded; they have preached
+ and taught, and in countless ways have endeavored to make people honest,
+ temperate, industrious and virtuous; they have built hospitals and
+ asylums, universities and schools, and seem to have done their very best
+ to make mankind better and happier, and yet they have not succeeded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why have the reformers failed? I will tell them why.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorance, poverty and vice are populating the world. The gutter is a
+ nursery. People unable even to support themselves fill the tenements, the
+ huts and hovels with children. They depend on the Lord, on luck and
+ charity. They are not intelligent enough to think about consequences or to
+ feel responsibility. At the same time they do not want children, because a
+ child is a curse, a curse to them and to itself. The babe is not welcome,
+ because it is a burden. These unwelcome children fill the jails and
+ prisons, the asylums and hospitals, and they crowd the scaffolds. A few
+ are rescued by chance or charity, but the great majority are failures,
+ They become vicious, ferocious. They live by fraud and violence, and
+ bequeath their vices to their children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against this inundation of vice the forces of reform are helpless, and
+ charity itself becomes an unconscious promoter of crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Failure seems to be the trademark of Nature. Why? Nature has no design, no
+ intelligence. Nature produces without purpose, sustains without intention
+ and destroys without thought. Man has a little intelligence, and he should
+ use it. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real question is, can we prevent the ignorant, the poor, the vicious,
+ from filling the world with their children?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we prevent this Missouri of ignorance and vice from emptying into the
+ Mississippi of civilization?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must the world forever remain the victim of ignorant passion? Can the
+ world be civilized to that degree that consequences will be taken into
+ consideration by all?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should men and women have children that they cannot take care of,
+ children that are burdens and curses? Why? Because they have more passion
+ than intelligence, more passion than conscience, more passion than reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You cannot reform these people with tracts and talk. You cannot reform
+ these people with preach and creed. Passion is, and always has been, deaf.
+ These weapons of reform are substantially useless. Criminals, tramps,
+ beggars and failures are increasing every day. The prisons, jails,
+ poorhouses and asylums are crowded. Religion is helpless. Law can punish,
+ but it can neither reform criminals nor prevent crime. The tide of vice is
+ rising. The war that is now being waged against the forces of evil is as
+ hopeless as the battle of the fireflies against the darkness of night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is but one hope. Ignorance, poverty and vice must stop populating
+ the world. This cannot be done by moral suasion. This cannot be done by
+ talk or example. This cannot be done by religion or by law, by priest or
+ by hangman. This cannot be done by force, physical or moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To accomplish this there is but one way. Science must make woman the
+ owner, the mistress of herself. Science, the only possible savior of
+ mankind, must put it in the power of woman to decide for herself whether
+ she will or will not become a mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the solution of the whole question. This frees woman. The babes
+ that are then born will be welcome. They will be clasped with glad hands
+ to happy breasts. They will fill homes with light and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men and women who believe that slaves are purer, truer, than the free, who
+ believe that fear is a safer guide than knowledge, that only those are
+ really good who obey the commands of others, and that ignorance is the
+ soil in which the perfect, perfumed flower of virtue grows, will with
+ protesting hands hide their shocked faces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men and women who think that light is the enemy of virtue, that purity
+ dwells in darkness, that it is dangerous for human beings to know
+ themselves and the facts in Nature that affect their well being, will be
+ horrified at the thought of making intelligence the master of passion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I look forward to the time when men and women by reason of their
+ knowledge of consequences, of the morality born of intelligence, will
+ refuse to perpetuate disease and pain, will refuse to fill the world with
+ failures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When that time comes the prison walls will fall, the dungeons will be
+ flooded with light, and the shadow of the scaffold will cease to curse the
+ earth. Poverty and crime will be childless. The withered hands of want
+ will not be stretched for alms. They will be dust. The whole world will be
+ intelligent, virtuous and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ RELIGION can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to
+ stand erect and face the future with a smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with
+ wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to
+ forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose
+ and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once
+ more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to
+ see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the
+ coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel
+ within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the
+ rhythmic beating of your fearless heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought
+ and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they,
+ like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to
+ look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads
+ that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens
+ from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace
+ for the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is real religion. This is real worship.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 5 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:10%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
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+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 5
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 5 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Discussions
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38805]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF<br /> ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <h3>
+ "There Can Be But Little Liberty On Earth<br /> While Men Worship A Tyrant
+ In Heaven."
+ </h3>
+ <h3>
+ In Twelve Volumes, Volume V.
+ </h3>
+ <h2>
+ DISCUSSIONS
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <h3>
+ DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38805/old/orig38805-h/main.htm">
+ This eBook has been formatted to match the format of the original
+ printed volume with the line breaks as in the original. This
+ formatting allows the retention of the unusual method the author has
+ used when marking long quotations. Those wishing to view this eBook
+ in a more appealing format for laptops and other computers may click
+ on this line.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br /><br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (57K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (58K)" src="images/portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents.
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkPREF">PREFACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">INGERSOLL'S INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">FIRST INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">SECOND INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">THIRD INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">FOURTH INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">FIFTH INTERVIEW,</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">SIXTH INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">THE OBSERVER'S SECOND ATTACK</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">INGERSOLL'S SECOND REPLY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>CONTENTS
+ OF VOLUME V.</b></big><br /> <br /> SIX INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.<br /> <br />
+ (1882.)<br /> <br /> Preface&mdash;First Interview: Great Men as Witnesses<br />
+ to the Truth of the Gospel&mdash;No man should quote<br /> the Words of
+ Another unless he is willing to<br /> Accept all the Opinions of that Man&mdash;Reasons
+ of<br /> more Weight than Reputations&mdash;Would a general<br /> Acceptance
+ of Unbelief fill the Penitentiaries?&mdash;<br /> My Creed&mdash;Most
+ Criminals Orthodox&mdash;Relig-ion and<br /> Morality not Necessarily
+ Associates&mdash;On the<br /> Creation of the Universe out of Omnipotence&mdash;Mr.<br />
+ Talmage's Theory about the Pro-duction of Light<br /> prior to the Creation
+ of the Sun&mdash;The Deluge and<br /> the Ark&mdash;Mr. Talmage's tendency
+ to Belittle the<br /> Bible Miracles&mdash;His Chemical, Geological, and<br />
+ Agricultural Views&mdash;His Disregard of Good Manners-<br /> -Second
+ Interview: An Insulting Text&mdash;God's Design<br /> in Creating Guiteau
+ to be the Assassin of<br /> Garfield&mdash;Mr. Talmage brings the Charge of<br />
+ Blasphemy&mdash;Some Real Blasphemers&mdash;The Tabernacle<br /> Pastor
+ tells the exact Opposite of the Truth about<br /> Col. Ingersoll's Attitude
+ toward the Circulation<br /> of Immoral Books&mdash;"Assassinating" God&mdash;Mr.<br />
+ Talmage finds Nearly All the Invention of Modern<br /> Times Mentioned in
+ the Bible&mdash;The Reverend<br /> Gentleman corrects the Translators of
+ the Bible in<br /> the Matter of the Rib Story&mdash;Denies that Polygamy<br />
+ is permitted by the Old Testament&mdash;His De-fence of<br /> Queen
+ Victoria and Violation of the Grave of<br /> George Eliot&mdash;Exhibits a
+ Christian Spirit&mdash;Third<br /> Interview: Mr. Talmage's Partiality in
+ the<br /> Bestowal of his Love&mdash;Denies the Right of Laymen<br /> to
+ Examine the Scriptures&mdash;Thinks the Infidels<br /> Victims of
+ Bibliophobia &mdash;He explains the Stopping<br /> of the Sun and Moon at
+ the Command of Joshua&mdash;<br /> Instances a Dark Day in the Early Part
+ of the<br /> Century&mdash;Charges that Holy Things are Made Light<br /> of&mdash;Reaffirms
+ his Confidence in the Whale and<br /> Jonah Story&mdash;The Commandment
+ which Forbids the<br /> making of Graven Images&mdash;Affirmation that the<br />
+ Bible is the Friend of Woman&mdash;The Present<br /> Condition of Woman&mdash;Fourth
+ Interview: Colonel<br /> Ingersoll Compared by Mr. Talmage tojehoiakim, who<br />
+ Consigned Writings of Jeremiah to the Flames&mdash;An<br /> Intimation that
+ Infidels wish to have all copies<br /> of the Bible Destroyed by Fire&mdash;Laughter<br />
+ Deprecated&mdash;Col. Ingersoll Accused of Denouncing<br /> his Father&mdash;Mr.
+ Talmage holds that a Man may be<br /> Perfectly Happy in Heaven with His
+ Mother in Hell-<br /> -Challenges the Infidel to Read a Chapter from St.<br />
+ John&mdash;On the "Chief Solace of the World"&mdash;Dis-<br /> covers an
+ Attempt is being made to Put Out the<br /> Light-houses of the Farther
+ Shore&mdash;Affirms our<br /> Debt to Christianity for Schools, Hospitals,<br />
+ etc.&mdash;Denies that Infidels have ever Done any<br /> Good&mdash;<br />
+ <br /> Fifth Interview: Inquiries if Men gather Grapes of<br /> Thorns, or
+ Figs of Thistles, and is Answered in<br /> the Negative&mdash;Resents the
+ Charge that the Bible is<br /> a Cruel Book&mdash;Demands to Know where the
+ Cruelty of<br /> the Bible Crops out in the Lives of Christians&mdash;<br />
+ Col. Ingersoll Accused of saying that the Bible<br /> is a Collection of
+ Polluted Writings&mdash;Mr. Talmage<br /> Asserts the Orchestral Harmony of
+ the Scriptures<br /> from Genesis to Revelation, and Repudiates the<br />
+ Theory of Contradictions&mdash;His View of Mankind<br /> Indicated in
+ Quotations from his Confession of<br /> Faith&mdash;He Insists that the
+ Bible is Scientific&mdash;<br /> Traces the New Testament to its Source
+ with St.<br /> John&mdash;Pledges his Word that no Man ever Died for a<br />
+ Lie Cheerfully and Triumphantly&mdash;As to Prophecies<br /> and
+ Predictions&mdash;Alleged "Prophetic" Fate of the<br /> Jewish People&mdash;Sixth
+ Interview: Dr. Talmage takes<br /> the Ground that the Unrivalled
+ Circulation of the<br /> Bible Proves that it is Inspired&mdash;Forgets'
+ that a<br /> Scientific Fact does not depend on the Vote of<br /> Numbers&mdash;Names
+ some Christian Millions&mdash;His<br /> Arguments Characterized as the
+ Poor-est, Weakest,<br /> and Best Possible in Support of the Doctrine of<br />
+ Inspira-tion&mdash;Will God, in Judging a Man, take<br /> into
+ Consideration the Cir-cumstances of that<br /> Man's Life?&mdash;Satisfactory
+ Reasons for Not Believ-<br /> ing that the Bible is inspired.<br /> <br />
+ <br /> THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.<br /> <br /> The Pith and Marrow of what Mr.
+ Talmage has been<br /> Pleased to Say, set forth in the form of a Shorter<br />
+ Catechism.<br /> <br /> <br /> A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.<br /> <br />
+ (1877.)<br /> <br /> Letter to the New York Observer&mdash;An Offer to Pay<br />
+ One Thousand Dollars in Gold for Proof that Thomas<br /> Paine or Voltaire
+ Died in Terror because of any<br /> Religious Opinions Either had Expressed&mdash;<br />
+ Proposition to Create a Tribunal to Hear the<br /> Evidence&mdash;The
+ Ob-server, after having Called upon<br /> Col. Ingersoll to Deposit the
+ Money, and<br /> Characterized his Talk as "Infidel 'Buncombe,'"<br />
+ Denies its Own Words, but attempts to Prove them&mdash;<br /> Its Memory
+ Refreshed by Col. Ingersoll and the<br /> Slander Refuted&mdash;Proof that
+ Paine did Not Recant -<br /> -Testimony of Thomas Nixon, Daniel Pelton, Mr.<br />
+ Jarvis, B. F. Has-kin, Dr. Manley, Amasa<br /> Woodsworth, Gilbert Vale,
+ Philip Graves, M. D.,<br /> Willet Hicks, A. C. Hankinson, John Hogeboom,
+ W.<br /> J. Hilton, Tames Cheetham, Revs. Milledollar and<br /> Cunningham,
+ Mrs. Hedden, Andrew A. Dean, William<br /> Carver,&mdash;The Statements of
+ Mary Roscoe and Mary<br /> Hindsdale Examined&mdash;William Cobbett's
+ Account of a<br /> Call upon Mary Hinsdale&mdash;Did Thomas Paine live the<br />
+ Life of a Drunken Beast, and did he Die a Drunken,<br /> Cowardly, and
+ Beastly Death?&mdash;Grant Thorbum's<br /> Charges Examined&mdash;Statement
+ of the Rev. J. D.<br /> Wickham, D.D., shown to be Utterly False&mdash;False<br />
+ Witness of the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D.&mdash;W. H.<br /> Ladd, James
+ Cheetham, and Mary Hinsdale&mdash;Paine's<br /> Note to Cheetham&mdash;Mr-Staple,
+ Mr. Purdy, Col. John<br /> Fellows, James Wilburn, Walter Morton, Clio<br />
+ Rickman, Judge Herttell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer,<br /> Mr.<br /> <br /> XV<br />
+ <br /> Lovett, all these Testified that Paine was a<br /> Temperate Man&mdash;Washington's
+ Letter to Paine&mdash;<br /> Thomas Jefferson's&mdash;Adams and Washing-ton
+ on<br /> "Common Sense"&mdash;-James Monroe's Tribute&mdash;<br />
+ Quotations from Paine&mdash;Paine's Estate and His<br /> Will&mdash;The
+ Observer's Second Attack (p. 492):<br /> Statements of Elkana Watson,
+ William Carver, Rev.<br /> E. F. Hatfield, D.D., James Cheetham, Dr. J. W.<br />
+ Francis, Dr. Manley, Bishop Fenwick&mdash;Ingersoll's<br /> Second Reply
+ (p. 516): Testimony Garbled by the<br /> Editor of the Observer&mdash;Mary
+ Roscoeand Mary Hins-<br /> dale the Same Person&mdash;Her Reputation for
+ Veracity-<br /> -Letter from Rev. A. W. Cornell&mdash;Grant Thorburn<br />
+ Exposed by James Parton&mdash;The Observer's Admission<br /> that Paine did
+ not Recant&mdash;Affidavit of<br /> <br /> William B. Barnes.<br /> <br />
+ <br /> <a name="linkPREF" id="linkPREF"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>PREFACE</b></big><br />
+ <br /> SEVERAL people, having read the sermons of<br /> Mr. Talmage in which
+ he reviews some of my<br /> lectures, have advised me not to pay the
+ slightest<br /> attention to the Brooklyn divine. They think that<br /> no
+ new arguments have been brought forward, and<br /> they have even gone so
+ far as to say that some of<br /> the best of the old ones have been left
+ out.<br /> <br /> After thinking the matter over, I became satisfied<br />
+ that my friends were mistaken, that they had been car-<br /> ried away by
+ the general current of modern thought,<br /> and were not in a frame of
+ mind to feel the force<br /> of the arguments of Mr. Talmage, or to clearly
+ see<br /> the candor that characterizes his utterances.<br /> <br /> At the
+ first reading, the logic of these sermons does<br /> not impress you. The
+ style is of a character calculated<br /> <br /> VI<br /> <br /> to throw the
+ searcher after facts and arguments off<br /> his guard. The imagination of
+ the preacher is so<br /> lurid; he is so free from the ordinary forms of
+ ex-<br /> pression; his statements are so much stranger than<br /> truth,
+ and his conclusions so utterly independent of<br /> his premises, that the
+ reader is too astonished to<br /> be convinced. Not until I had read with
+ great care<br /> the six discourses delivered for my benefit had I any<br />
+ clear and well-defined idea of the logical force of<br /> Mr. Talmage. I
+ had but little conception of his<br /> candor, was almost totally ignorant
+ of his power to<br /> render the simple complex and the plain obscure by<br />
+ the mutilation of metaphor and the incoherence<br /> of inspired
+ declamation. Neither did I know the<br /> generous accuracy with which he
+ states the position<br /> of an opponent, and the fairness he exhibits in a<br />
+ religious discussion.<br /> <br /> He has without doubt studied the Bible as
+ closely<br /> and critically as he has the works of Buckle and<br /> Darwin,
+ and he seems to have paid as much attention<br /> to scientific subjects as
+ most theologians. His theory<br /> of light and his views upon geology are
+ strikingly<br /> original, and his astronomical theories are certainly as<br />
+ profound as practical. If his statements can be relied<br /> upon, he has
+ successfully refuted the teachings of<br /> <br /> VII<br /> <br /> Humboldt
+ and Haeckel, and exploded the blunders of<br /> Spencer and Tyndall.
+ Besides all this, he has the<br /> courage of his convictions&mdash;he does
+ not quail before a<br /> fact, and he does not strike his colors even to a
+ dem-<br /> onstration. He cares nothing for human experience.<br /> He
+ cannot be put down with statistics, nor driven<br /> from his position by
+ the certainties of science. He<br /> cares neither for the persistence of
+ force, nor the<br /> indestructibility of matter.<br /> <br /> He believes in
+ the Bible, and he has the bravery<br /> to defend his belief. In this, he
+ proudly stands<br /> almost alone. He knows that the salvation of the<br />
+ world depends upon a belief in his creed. He<br /> knows that what are
+ called "the sciences" are of<br /> no importance in the other world. He
+ clearly sees<br /> that it is better to live and die ignorant here, if you<br />
+ can wear a crown of glory hereafter. He knows it<br /> is useless to be
+ perfectly familiar with all the sciences<br /> in this world, and then in
+ the next "lift up your eyes,<br /> being in torment." He knows, too, that
+ God will<br /> not punish any man for denying a fact in science.<br /> A man
+ can deny the rotundity of the earth, the<br /> attraction of gravitation,
+ the form of the earths orbit,<br /> or the nebular hypothesis, with perfect
+ impunity.<br /> He is not bound to be correct upon any philo-<br /> <br />
+ VIII<br /> <br /> sophical subject. He is at liberty to deny and ridi-<br />
+ cule the rule of three, conic sections, and even the<br /> multiplication
+ table. God permits every human<br /> being to be mistaken upon every
+ subject but one.<br /> No man can lose his soul by denying physical facts.<br />
+ Jehovah does not take the slightest pride in his geology,<br /> <br /> or in
+ his astronomy, or in mathematics, or in<br /> any school of philosophy&mdash;he
+ is jealous only of his<br /> reputation as the author of the Bible. You may
+ deny<br /> everything else in the universe except that book.<br /> This
+ being so, Mr. Talmage takes the safe side, and<br /> insists that the Bible
+ is inspired. He knows that at<br /> the day of judgment, not a scientific
+ question will be<br /> asked. He knows that the H&aelig;ckels and Huxleys<br />
+ will, on that terrible day, regret that they ever<br /> learned to read. He
+ knows that there is no "saving<br /> grace" in any department of human
+ knowledge; that<br /> mathematics and all the exact sciences and all the<br />
+ philosophies will be worse than useless. He knows<br /> that inventors,
+ discoverers, thinkers and investigators,<br /> have no claim upon the mercy
+ of Jehovah; that the<br /> educated will envy the ignorant, and that the
+ writers<br /> and thinkers will curse their books.<br /> <br /> He knows that
+ man cannot be saved through<br /> what he knows&mdash;but only by means of
+ what he<br /> <br /> IX<br /> <br /> believes. Theology is not a science. If
+ it were,<br /> God would forgive his children for being mistaken<br /> about
+ it. If it could be proved like geology, or<br /> astronomy, there would be
+ no merit in believing it.<br /> From a belief in the Bible, Mr. Talmage is
+ not to be<br /> driven by uninspired evidence. He knows that his<br /> logic
+ is liable to lead him astray, and that his reason<br /> cannot be depended
+ upon. He believes that scien-<br /> tific men are no authority in matters
+ concerning<br /> which nothing can be known, and he does not wish<br /> to
+ put his soul in peril, by examining by the light of<br /> reason, the
+ evidences of the supernatural.<br /> <br /> He is perfectly consistent with
+ his creed. What<br /> happens to us here is of no consequence compared<br />
+ with eternal joy or pain. The ambitions, honors,<br /> glories and triumphs
+ of this world, compared with<br /> eternal things, are less than naught.<br />
+ <br /> Better a cross here and a crown there, than a feast<br /> here and a
+ fire there.<br /> <br /> Lazarus was far more fortunate than Dives. The<br />
+ purple and fine linen of this short life are as nothing<br /> compared with
+ the robes of the redeemed.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage knows that philosophy is
+ unsafe&mdash;<br /> that the sciences are sirens luring souls to eternal<br />
+ wreck. He knows that the deluded searchers after<br /> <br /> X<br /> <br />
+ facts are planting thorns in their own pillows&mdash;that<br /> the
+ geologists are digging pits for themselves, and<br /> that the astronomers
+ are robbing their souls of the<br /> heaven they explore. He knows that
+ thought, capa-<br /> city, and intellectual courage are dangerous, and this<br />
+ belief gives him a feeling of personal security.<br /> <br /> The Bible is
+ adapted to the world as it is. Most<br /> people are ignorant, and but few
+ have the capacity to<br /> comprehend philosophical and scientific
+ subjects, and<br /> if salvation depended upon understanding even one<br />
+ of the sciences, nearly everybody would be lost.<br /> Mr. Talmage sees
+ that it was exceedingly merciful in<br /> God to base salvation on belief
+ instead of on brain.<br /> Millions can believe, while only a few can
+ understand.<br /> Even the effort to understand is a kind of treason<br />
+ born of pride and ingratitude. This being so, it is far<br /> safer, far
+ better, to be credulous than critical. You are<br /> offered an infinite
+ reward for believing the Bible. If<br /> you examine it you may find it
+ impossible for you to<br /> believe it. Consequently, examination is
+ dangerous.<br /> Mr. Talmage knows that it is not necessary to under-<br />
+ stand the Bible in order to believe it. You must be-<br /> lieve it first.
+ Then, if on reading it you find anything<br /> that appears false, absurd,
+ or impossible, you may<br /> be sure that it is only an appearance, and
+ that the real<br /> <br /> XI<br /> <br /> fault is in yourself. It is certain
+ that persons wholly<br /> incapable of reasoning are absolutely safe, and
+ that<br /> to be born brainless is to be saved in advance.<br /> <br /> Mr.
+ Talmage takes the ground,&mdash;and certainly from<br /> his point of view
+ nothing can be more reasonable<br /> &mdash;that thought should be avoided,
+ after one has<br /> "experienced religion" and has been the subject of<br />
+ "regeneration." Every sinner should listen to ser-<br /> mons, read
+ religious books, and keep thinking, until<br /> he becomes a Christian.
+ Then he should stop. After<br /> that, thinking is not the road to heaven.
+ The real<br /> point and the real difficulty is to stop thinking just at<br />
+ the right time. Young Christians, who have no idea<br /> of what they are
+ doing, often go on thinking after<br /> joining the church, and in this way
+ heresy is born, and<br /> heresy is often the father of infidelity. If
+ Christians<br /> would follow the advice and example of Mr. Talmage<br />
+ all disagreements about doctrine would be avoided.<br /> In this way the
+ church could secure absolute in-<br /> tellectual peace and all the
+ disputes, heartburnings,<br /> jealousies and hatreds born of thought,
+ discussion<br /> and reasoning, would be impossible.<br /> <br /> In the
+ estimation of Mr. Talmage, the man who<br /> doubts and examines is not fit
+ for the society of<br /> angels. There are no disputes, no discussions in<br />
+ <br /> XII<br /> <br /> heaven. The angels do not think; they believe,<br />
+ they enjoy. The highest form of religion is re-<br /> pression. We should
+ conquer the passions and<br /> destroy desire. We should control the mind
+ and<br /> stop thinking. In this way we "offer ourselves a<br /> "living
+ sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." When<br /> desire dies, when thought
+ ceases, we shall be pure.<br /> &mdash;This is heaven.<br /> <br /> Robert G.
+ Ingersoll.<br /> <br /> Washington, D. C,<br /> <br /> April; 1882.<br /> <br />
+ <br /> <a name="link0002" id="link0002"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>INGERSOLL'S
+ INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.</b></big><br /> <a name="link0003" id="link0003"></a><br />
+ <br /> <big><b>FIRST INTERVIEW.</b></big><br /> <br /> <i>Polonius. My lord,
+ I will use them according to<br /> their desert.<br /> <br /> Hamlet. God's
+ bodikins, man, much better: use<br /> every man after his desert, and who
+ should 'scape<br /> whipping? Use them after your own honor and<br />
+ dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is<br /> in your bounty.</i><br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have you read the sermon of<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage,
+ in which he exposes your mis-<br /> representations?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ I have read such reports as appeared in<br /> some of the New York papers.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you think of what he has<br /> to say?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Some time ago I gave it as my opinion<br /> of Mr.
+ Talmage that, while he was a man of most<br /> excellent judgment, he was
+ somewhat deficient in<br /> imagination. I find that he has the disease
+ that seems<br /> <br /> 16<br /> <br /> to afflict most theologians, and that
+ is, a kind of intel-<br /> lectual toadyism, that uses the names of
+ supposed great<br /> men instead of arguments. It is perfectly astonishing<br />
+ to the average preacher that any one should have the<br /> temerity to
+ differ, on the subject of theology, with<br /> Andrew Jackson, Daniel
+ Webster, and other gentlemen<br /> eminent for piety during their lives,
+ but who,<br /> as a rule, expressed their theological opinions a few<br />
+ minutes before dissolution. These ministers are per-<br /> fectly delighted
+ to have some great politician, some<br /> judge, soldier, or president,
+ certify to the truth of the<br /> Bible and to the moral character of Jesus
+ Christ.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage insists that if a witness is false in one<br />
+ particular, his entire testimony must be thrown away.<br /> Daniel Webster
+ was in favor of the Fugitive Slave<br /> Law, and thought it the duty of
+ the North to capture<br /> the poor slave-mother. He was willing to stand<br />
+ between a human being and his freedom. He was<br /> willing to assist in
+ compelling persons to work without<br /> any pay except such marks of the
+ lash as they might<br /> receive. Yet this man is brought forward as a
+ witness<br /> for the truth of the gospel. If he was false in his<br />
+ testimony as to liberty, what is his affidavit worth as<br /> to the value
+ of Christianity? Andrew Jackson was a<br /> brave man, a good general, a
+ patriot second to none,<br /> <br /> 17<br /> <br /> an excellent judge of
+ horses, and a brave duelist. I<br /> admit that in his old age he relied
+ considerably upon<br /> the atonement. I think Jackson was really a very
+ great<br /> man, and probably no President impressed himself<br /> more
+ deeply upon the American people than the hero<br /> of New Orleans, but as
+ a theologian he was, in my<br /> judgment, a most decided failure, and his
+ opinion as<br /> to the authenticity of the Scriptures is of no earthly<br />
+ value. It was a subject upon which he knew probably<br /> as little as Mr.
+ Talmage does about modern infidelity.<br /> Thousands of people will quote
+ Jackson in favor of<br /> religion, about which he knew nothing, and yet
+ have<br /> no confidence in his political opinions, although he<br />
+ devoted the best part of his life to politics.<br /> <br /> No man should
+ quote the words of another, in place<br /> of an argument, unless he is
+ willing to accept all the<br /> opinions of that man. Lord Bacon denied the
+ Copernican<br /> <br /> system of astronomy, and, according to Mr.<br />
+ Talmage, having made that mistake, his opinions upon<br /> other subjects
+ are equally worthless. Mr. Wesley<br /> believed in ghosts, witches, and
+ personal devils, yet<br /> upon many subjects I have no doubt his opinions
+ were<br /> correct. The truth is, that nearly everybody is right<br /> about
+ some things and wrong about most things; and<br /> if a man's testimony is
+ not to be taken until he is<br /> <br /> 18<br /> <br /> right on every
+ subject, witnesses will be extremely<br /> scarce.<br /> <br /> Personally, I
+ care nothing about names. It makes<br /> no difference to me what the
+ supposed great men of<br /> the past have said, except as what they have
+ said<br /> contains an argument; and that argument is worth to<br /> me the
+ force it naturally has upon my mind. Chris-<br /> tians forget that in the
+ realm of reason there are no<br /> serfs and no monarchs. When you submit
+ to an<br /> argument, you do not submit to the man who made it.<br />
+ Christianity demands a certain obedience, a certain<br /> blind,
+ unreasoning faith, and parades before the eyes<br /> of the ignorant, with
+ great pomp and pride, the names<br /> of kings, soldiers, and statesmen who
+ have admitted<br /> the truth of the Bible. Mr. Talmage introduces as a<br />
+ witness the Rev. Theodore Parker. This same The-<br /> odore Parker
+ denounced the Presbyterian creed as<br /> the most infamous of all creeds,
+ and said that the worst<br /> heathen god, wearing a necklace of live
+ snakes, was a<br /> representation of mercy when compared with the God<br />
+ of John Calvin. Now, if this witness is false in any<br /> particular, of
+ course he cannot be believed, according<br /> to Mr. Talmage, upon any
+ subject, and yet Mr.<br /> Talmage introduces him upon the stand as a good<br />
+ witness.<br /> <br /> 19<br /> <br /> Although I care but little for names,
+ still I will sug-<br /> gest that, in all probability, Humboldt knew more
+ upon<br /> this subject than all the pastors in the world. I cer-<br />
+ tainly would have as much confidence in the opinion<br /> of Goethe as in
+ that of William H. Seward; and as<br /> between Seward and Lincoln, I
+ should take Lincoln;<br /> and when you come to Presidents, for my part, if
+ I<br /> were compelled to pin my faith on the sleeve of any-<br /> body, I
+ should take Jefferson's coat in preference to<br /> Jackson's. I believe
+ that Haeckel is, to say the least,<br /> the equal of any theologian we
+ have in this country,<br /> and the late John W. Draper certainly knew as
+ much<br /> upon these great questions as the average parson. I<br /> believe
+ that Darwin has investigated some of these<br /> things, that Tyndall and
+ Huxley have turned their<br /> minds somewhat in the same direction, that
+ Helmholtz<br /> has a few opinions, and that, in fact, thousands of able,<br />
+ intelligent and honest men differ almost entirely with<br /> Webster and
+ Jackson.<br /> <br /> So far as I am concerned, I think more of reasons<br />
+ than of reputations, more of principles than of persons,<br /> more of
+ nature than of names, more of facts, than of<br /> faiths.<br /> <br /> It is
+ the same with books as with persons. Proba-<br /> bly there is not a book
+ in the world entirely destitute<br /> <br /> 20<br /> <br /> of truth, and not
+ one entirely exempt from error.<br /> The Bible is like other books. There
+ are mistakes in<br /> it, side by side with truths,&mdash;passages
+ inculcating<br /> murder, and others exalting mercy; laws devilish and<br />
+ tyrannical, and others filled with wisdom and justice.<br /> It is foolish
+ to say that if you accept a part, you must<br /> accept the whole. You must
+ accept that which com-<br /> mends itself to your heart and brain. There
+ never was<br /> a doctrine that a witness, or a book, should be thrown<br />
+ entirely away, because false in one particular. If in<br /> any particular
+ the book, or the man, tells the truth, to<br /> that extent the truth
+ should be accepted.<br /> <br /> Truth is made no worse by the one who tells
+ it,<br /> and a lie gets no real benefit from the reputation of its<br />
+ author.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the statement<br />
+ that a general belief in your teachings would fill all<br /> the
+ penitentiaries, and that in twenty years there<br /> would be a hell in
+ this world worse than the one<br /> expected in the other?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ My creed is this:<br /> <br /> 1. Happiness is the only good.<br /> <br /> 2.
+ The way to be happy, is to make others happy.<br /> <br /> 21<br /> <br />
+ Other things being equal, that man is happiest who is<br /> nearest just&mdash;who
+ is truthful, merciful and intelligent&mdash;<br /> in other words, the one
+ who lives in accordance with<br /> the conditions of life.<br /> <br /> 3.
+ The time to be happy is now, and the place to<br /> be happy, is here.<br />
+ <br /> 4. Reason is the lamp of the mind&mdash;the only torch<br /> of
+ progress; and instead of blowing that out and de-<br /> pending upon
+ darkness and dogma, it is far better to<br /> increase that sacred light.<br />
+ <br /> 5. Every man should be the intellectual proprietor<br /> of himself,
+ honest with himself, and intellectually<br /> hospitable; and upon every
+ brain reason should be<br /> enthroned as king.<br /> <br /> 6. Every man
+ must bear the consequences, at<br /> least of his own actions. If he puts
+ his hands in<br /> the fire, his hands must smart, and not the hands of<br />
+ another. In other words: each man must eat the<br /> fruit of the tree he
+ plants.<br /> <br /> I can not conceive that the teaching of these doc-<br />
+ trines would fill penitentiaries, or crowd the gallows.<br /> The doctrine
+ of forgiveness&mdash;the idea that somebody<br /> else can suffer in place
+ of the guilty&mdash;the notion that<br /> just at the last the whole
+ account can be settled&mdash;<br /> these ideas, doctrines, and notions are
+ calculated to fill<br /> <br /> 22<br /> <br /> penitentiaries. Nothing breeds
+ extravagance like the<br /> credit system.<br /> <br /> Most criminals of the
+ present day are orthodox be-<br /> lievers, and the gallows seems to be the
+ last round of<br /> the ladder reaching from earth to heaven. The Rev.<br />
+ Dr. Sunderland, of this city, in his sermon on the assas-<br /> sination of
+ Garfield, takes the ground that God per-<br /> mitted the murder for the
+ purpose of opening the eyes<br /> of the people to the evil effects of
+ infidelity. Accord-<br /> ing to this minister, God, in order to show his
+ hatred<br /> of infidelity, "inspired," or allowed, one Christian to<br />
+ assassinate another.<br /> <br /> Religion and morality do not necessarily
+ go together.<br /> Mr. Talmage will insist to-day that morality is not<br />
+ sufficient to save any man from eternal punishment.<br /> As a matter of
+ fact, religion has often been the enemy<br /> of morality. The moralist has
+ been denounced by the<br /> theologians. He sustains the same relation to
+ Chris-<br /> tianity that the moderate drinker does to the total-<br />
+ abstinence society. The total-abstinence people say<br /> that the example
+ of the moderate drinker is far worse<br /> upon the young than that of the
+ drunkard&mdash;that the<br /> drunkard is a warning, while the moderate
+ drinker is<br /> a perpetual temptation. So Christians say of moral-<br />
+ ists. According to them, the moralist sets a worse<br /> <br /> 23<br />
+ <br /> example than the criminal. The moralist not only in-<br /> sists that
+ a man can be a good citizen, a kind husband,<br /> an affectionate father,
+ without religion, but demon-<br /> strates the truth of his doctrine by his
+ own life;<br /> whereas the criminal admits that in and of himself he<br />
+ is nothing, and can do nothing, but that he needs<br /> assistance from the
+ church and its ministers.<br /> <br /> The worst criminals of the modern
+ world have been<br /> Christians&mdash;I mean by that, believers in
+ Christianity&mdash;<br /> and the most monstrous crimes of the modern world<br />
+ have been committed by the most zealous believers.<br /> There is nothing
+ in orthodox religion, apart from the<br /> morality it teaches, to prevent
+ the commission oF crime.<br /> On the other hand, the perpetual proffer of
+ forgiveness<br /> is a direct premium upon what Christians are pleased<br />
+ to call the commission of sin.<br /> <br /> Christianity has produced no
+ greater character than<br /> Epictetus, no greater sovereign than Marcus
+ Aurelius.<br /> The wickedness of the past was a good deal like that<br />
+ of the present. As a rule, kings have been wicked in<br /> direct
+ proportion to their power&mdash;their power having<br /> been lessened,
+ their crimes have decreased. As a<br /> matter of fact, paganism, of
+ itself, did not produce any<br /> great men; neither has Christianity.
+ Millions of in-<br /> fluences determine individual character, and the re-<br />
+ <br /> 24<br /> <br /> ligion of the country in which a man happens to be<br />
+ born may determine many of his opinions, without<br /> influencing, to any
+ great extent, his real character.<br /> <br /> There have been brave,
+ honest, and intelligent men<br /> in and out of every church.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Mr. Talmage says that you insist that,<br /> according to the Bible, the
+ universe was made out of<br /> nothing, and he denounces your statement as
+ a gross<br /> misrepresentation. What have you stated upon that<br />
+ subject?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. What I said was substantially this: "We<br />
+ "are told in the first chapter of Genesis, that in the<br /> "beginning God
+ created the heaven and the earth.<br /> "If this means anything, it means
+ that God pro-<br /> "duced&mdash;caused to exist, called into being&mdash;the<br />
+ "heaven and the earth. It will not do to say that<br /> "God formed the
+ heaven and the earth of previously<br /> "existing matter. Moses conveys,
+ and intended to<br /> "convey, the idea that the matter of which the<br />
+ "universe is composed was created."<br /> <br /> This has always been my
+ position. I did not sup-<br /> pose that nothing was used as the raw
+ material; but<br /> <br /> if the Mosaic account means anything, it means
+ that<br /> whereas there was nothing, God caused something to<br /> <br /> 25<br />
+ <br /> exist&mdash;created what we know as matter. I can not<br /> conceive
+ of something being made, created, without<br /> anything to make anything
+ with. I have no more<br /> confidence in fiat worlds than I have in fiat
+ money.<br /> Mr. Talmage tells us that God did not make the uni-<br /> verse
+ out of <i>nothing</i>, but out of "omnipotence."<br /> Exactly how God
+ changed "omnipotence" into matter<br /> is not stated. If there was <i>nothing</i>
+ in the universe,<br /> <i>omnipotence</i> could do you no good. The weakest
+ man<br /> in the world can lift as much <i>nothing</i> as God.<br /> <br />
+ Mr. Talmage seems to think that to create something<br /> from nothing is
+ simply a question of strength&mdash;that it<br /> requires infinite muscle&mdash;that
+ it is only a question of<br /> biceps. Of course, omnipotence is an
+ attribute, not an<br /> entity, not a raw material; and the idea that
+ something<br /> can be made out of omnipotence&mdash;using that as the<br />
+ raw material&mdash;is infinitely absurd. It would have<br /> been equally
+ logical to say that God made the universe<br /> out of his omniscience, or
+ his omnipresence, or his<br /> unchangeableness, or out of his honesty, his
+ holiness,<br /> or his incapacity to do evil. I confess my utter in-<br />
+ ability to understand, or even to suspect, what the<br /> reverend
+ gentleman means, when he says that God<br /> created the universe out of
+ his "omnipotence."<br /> <br /> I admit that the Bible does not tell when
+ God created<br /> <br /> 26<br /> <br /> the universe. It is simply said that
+ he did this "in the<br /> beginning." We are left, however, to infer that
+ "the<br /> beginning" was Monday morning, and that on the<br /> first Monday
+ God created the matter in an exceedingly<br /> chaotic state; that on
+ Tuesday he made a firmament<br /> to divide the waters from the waters;
+ that on Wednes-<br /> day he gathered the waters together in seas and<br />
+ allowed the dry land to appear. We are also told that<br /> on that day
+ "the earth brought forth grass and herb<br /> "yielding seed after his
+ kind, and the tree yielding<br /> "fruit, whose seed was in itself, after
+ his kind." This<br /> was before the creation of the sun, but Mr. Talmage<br />
+ takes the ground that there are many other sources of<br /> light; that
+ "there may have been volcanoes in active<br /> operation on other planets."
+ I have my doubts,<br /> however, about the light of volcanoes being
+ sufficient<br /> to produce or sustain vegetable life, and think it a<br />
+ little doubtful about trees growing only by "volcanic<br /> glare." Neither
+ do I think one could depend upon<br /> "three thousand miles of liquid
+ granite" for the pro-<br /> duction of grass and trees, nor upon "light
+ that rocks<br /> might emit in the process of crystallization." I doubt<br />
+ whether trees would succeed simply with the assistance<br /> of the "Aurora
+ Borealis or the Aurora Australis."<br /> There are other sources of light,
+ not mentioned by<br /> <br /> 27<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage&mdash;lightning-bugs,
+ phosphorescent beetles,<br /> and fox-fire. I should think that it would be
+ humili-<br /> ating, in this age, for an orthodox preacher to insist<br />
+ that vegetation could exist upon this planet without the<br /> light of the
+ sun&mdash;that trees could grow, blossom and<br /> bear fruit, having no
+ light but the flames of volcanoes,<br /> or that emitted by liquid granite,
+ or thrown off by the<br /> crystallization of rocks.<br /> <br /> There is
+ another thing, also, that should not be for-<br /> gotten, and that is,
+ that there is an even balance for-<br /> ever kept between the totals of
+ animal and vegetable<br /> life&mdash;that certain forms of animal life go
+ with certain<br /> forms of vegetable life. Mr. Haeckel has shown that<br />
+ "in the first epoch, alg&aelig; and skull-less vertebrates<br /> were found
+ together; in the second, ferns and fishes;<br /> in the third, pines and
+ reptiles; in the fourth, foliaceous<br /> <br /> forests and mammals."
+ Vegetable and animal<br /> life sustain a necessary relation; they exist
+ together;<br /> they act and interact, and each depends upon the other.<br />
+ The real point of difference between Mr. Talmage and<br /> myself is this:
+ He says that God made the universe<br /> out of his "omnipotence," and I
+ say that, although I<br /> know nothing whatever upon the subject, my
+ opinion<br /> is, that the universe has existed from eternity&mdash;that it<br />
+ continually changes in form, but that it never was<br /> <br /> 28<br />
+ <br /> created or called into being by any power. I think<br /> that all
+ that is, is all the God there is.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage
+ charges you with having<br /> misrepresented the Bible story of the deluge.
+ Has he<br /> correctly stated your position?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Mr.
+ Talmage takes the ground that the<br /> flood was only partial, and was,
+ after all, not much of a<br /> flood. The Bible tells us that God said he
+ would<br /> "destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from<br />
+ "under heaven, and that everything that is in the<br /> "earth shall die;"
+ that God also said: "I will destroy<br /> "man, whom I have created, from
+ the face of the<br /> "earth; both man and beast and the creeping thing<br />
+ "and the fowls of the air, and every living substance<br /> "that I have
+ made will I destroy from off the face of<br /> "the earth."<br /> <br /> I
+ did not suppose that there was any miracle in the<br /> Bible larger than
+ the credulity of Mr. Talmage. The<br /> flood story, however, seems to be a
+ little more than<br /> he can bear. He is like the witness who stated that<br />
+ he had read <i>Gullivers Travels</i>, the <i>Stories of Mun-<br /> chausen</i>,
+ and the <i>Flying Wife</i>, including <i>Robinson<br /> Crusoe</i>, and
+ believed them all; but that Wirt's <i>Life of<br /> Patrick Henry</i> was a
+ litde more than he could stand.<br /> <br /> 29<br /> <br /> It is strange
+ that a man who believes that God<br /> created the universe out of
+ "omnipotence" should<br /> believe that he had not enough omnipotence left
+ to<br /> drown a world the size of this. Mr. Talmage seeks<br /> to make the
+ story of the flood reasonable. The<br /> moment it is reasonable, it ceases
+ to be miraculous.<br /> Certainly God cannot afford to reward a man with<br />
+ eternal joy for believing a reasonable story. Faith is<br /> only necessary
+ when the story is unreasonable, and if<br /> the flood only gets small
+ enough, I can believe it<br /> myself. I ask for evidence, and Mr. Talmage
+ seeks<br /> to make the story so little that it can be believed<br />
+ without evidence. He tells us that it was a kind of<br /> "local option"
+ flood&mdash;a little wet for that part of the<br /> country.<br /> <br /> Why
+ was it necessary to save the birds? They<br /> certainly could have gotten
+ out of the way of a real<br /> small flood. Of the birds, Noah took
+ fourteen of each<br /> species. He was commanded to take of the fowls of
+ the<br /> air by sevens&mdash;seven of each sex&mdash;and, as there are<br />
+ at least 12,500 species, Noah collected an aviary of<br /> about 175,000
+ birds, provided the flood was general.<br /> If it was local, there are no
+ means of determining the<br /> number. But why, if the flood was local,
+ should he<br /> have taken any of the fowls of the air into his ark?<br />
+ <br /> 30<br /> <br /> All they had to do was to fly away, or "roost high;"<br />
+ and it would have been just as easy for God to have<br /> implanted in
+ them, for the moment, the instinct of<br /> getting out of the way as the
+ instinct of hunting the ark.<br /> It would have been quite a saving of
+ room and pro-<br /> visions, and would have materially lessened the labor<br />
+ and anxiety of Noah and his sons.<br /> <br /> Besides, if it had been a
+ partial flood, and great<br /> enough to cover the highest mountains in
+ that country,<br /> the highest mountain being about seventeen thousand<br />
+ feet, the flood would have been covered with a sheet<br /> of ice several
+ thousand feet in thickness. If a column<br /> of water could have been
+ thrown seventeen thousand<br /> feet high and kept stationary, several
+ thousand feet<br /> of the upper end would have frozen. If, however,<br />
+ the deluge was general, then the atmosphere would<br /> have been forced
+ out the same on all sides, and the<br /> climate remained substantially
+ normal.<br /> <br /> Nothing can be more absurd than to attempt to<br />
+ explain the flood by calling it partial.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage also says
+ that the window ran clear<br /> round the ark, and that if I had only known
+ as much<br /> Hebrew as a man could put on his little finger, I<br /> would
+ have known that the window went clear round.<br /> To this I reply that, if
+ his position is correct, then the<br /> <br /> 31<br /> <br /> original
+ translators of King James' edition did not<br /> know as much Hebrew as
+ they could have put on<br /> their little fingers; and yet I am obliged to
+ believe<br /> their translation or be eternally damned. If the<br /> window
+ went clear round, the inspired writer should<br /> have said so, and the
+ learned translators should have<br /> given us the truth. No one pretends
+ that there was<br /> more than one door, and yet the same language is<br />
+ used about the door, except this&mdash;that the exact size<br /> of the
+ window is given, and the only peculiarity men-<br /> tioned as to the door
+ is that it shut from the outside.<br /> For any one to see that Mr. Talmage
+ is wrong on the<br /> window question, it is only necessary to read the
+ story<br /> of the deluge.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage also endeavors to
+ decrease the depth<br /> of the flood. If the flood did not cover the
+ highest<br /> hills, many people might have been saved. He also<br />
+ insists that all the water did not come from the rains,<br /> but that "the
+ fountains of the great deep were broken<br /> "up." What are "the fountains
+ of the great deep"?<br /> How would their being "broken up" increase the<br />
+ depth of the water? He seems to imagine that these<br /> "fountains" were
+ in some way imprisoned&mdash;anxious<br /> to get to the surface, and that,
+ at that time, an oppor-<br /> tunity was given for water to run up hill, or
+ in some<br /> <br /> 32<br /> <br /> mysterious way to rise above its level.
+ According to<br /> the account, the ark was at the mercy of the waves for<br />
+ at least seven months. If this flood was only partial,<br /> it seems a
+ little curious that the water did not seek its<br /> level in less than
+ seven months. With anything like<br /> a fair chance, by that time most of
+ it would have<br /> found its way to the sea again.<br /> <br /> There is in
+ the literature of ignorance no more<br /> perfectly absurd and cruel story
+ than that of the<br /> deluge.<br /> <br /> I am very sorry that Mr. Talmage
+ should disagree<br /> with some of the great commentators. Dr. Scott<br />
+ tells us that, in all probability, the angels assisted in<br /> getting the
+ animals into the ark. Dr. Henry insists<br /> that the waters in the bowels
+ of the earth, at God's<br /> command, sprung up and flooded the earth. Dr.<br />
+ Clark tells us that it would have been much easier<br /> for God to have
+ destroyed all the people and made<br /> some new ones, but that he did not
+ want to waste<br /> anything. Dr. Henry also tells us that the lions, while<br />
+ in the ark, ate straw like oxen. Nothing could be<br /> more amusing than
+ to see a few lions eating good,<br /> dry straw. This commentator assures
+ us that the<br /> waters rose so high that the loftiest mountains were<br />
+ overflowed fifteen cubits, so that salvation was not<br /> <br /> 33<br />
+ <br /> hoped for from any hills or mountains. He tells us<br /> that some of
+ the people got on top of the ark, and<br /> hoped to shift for themselves,
+ but that, in all proba-<br /> bility, they were washed off by the rain.
+ When we<br /> consider that the rain must have fallen at the rate of<br />
+ about eight hundred feet a day, I am inclined to think<br /> that they were
+ washed off.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage has clearly misrepresented the Bible.<br />
+ He is not prepared to believe the story as it is told.<br /> The seeds of
+ infidelity seem to be germinating in his<br /> mind. His position no doubt
+ will be a great relief to<br /> most of his hearers. After this, their
+ credulity will<br /> not be strained. They can say that there was probably<br />
+ quite a storm, some rain, to an extent that rendered it<br /> necessary for
+ Noah and his family&mdash;his dogs, cats,<br /> and chickens&mdash;to get
+ in a boat. This would not be<br /> unreasonable. The same thing happens
+ almost every<br /> year on the shores of great rivers, and consequently<br />
+ the story of the flood is an exceedingly reasonable<br /> one.<br /> <br />
+ Mr. Talmage also endeavors to account for the<br /> miraculous collection
+ of the animals in the ark by<br /> the universal instinct to get out of the
+ rain. There<br /> are at least two objections to this: 1. The animals<br />
+ went into the ark before the rain commenced; 2. I<br /> <br /> 34<br /> <br />
+ have never noticed any great desire on the part of<br /> ducks, geese, and
+ loons to get out of the water. Mr.<br /> Talmage must have been misled by a
+ line from an old<br /> nursery book that says: "And the little fishes got<br />
+ "under the bridge to keep out of the rain." He tells<br /> us that Noah
+ described what he saw. He is the first<br /> theologian who claims that
+ Genesis was written by<br /> Noah, or that Noah wrote any account of the
+ flood.<br /> Most Christians insist that the account of the flood<br /> was
+ written by Moses, and that he was inspired to<br /> write it. Of course, it
+ will not do for me to say that<br /> Mr. Talmage has misrepresented the
+ facts.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. You are also charged with misrepresen-<br />
+ tation in your statement as to where the ark at last<br /> rested. It is
+ claimed by Mr. Talmage that there is<br /> nothing in the Bible to show
+ that the ark rested on<br /> the highest mountains.<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Of course I have no knowledge as to<br /> where the ark really came to
+ anchor, but after it struck<br /> bottom, we are told that a dove was sent
+ out, and<br /> that the dove found no place whereon to rest her<br /> foot.
+ If the ark touched ground in the low country,<br /> surely the mountains
+ were out of water, and an or-<br /> dinary mountain furnishes, as a rule,
+ space enough<br /> <br /> 35<br /> <br /> for a dove's foot. We must infer
+ that the ark rested<br /> on the only land then above water, or near enough<br />
+ above water to strike the keel of Noah's boat. Mount<br /> Ararat is about
+ seventeen thousand feet high; so I<br /> take it that the top of that
+ mountain was where Noah<br /> ran aground&mdash;otherwise, the account
+ means nothing.<br /> <br /> Here Mr. Talmage again shows his tendency to<br />
+ belittle the miracles of the Bible. I am astonished<br /> that he should
+ doubt the power of God to keep an<br /> ark on a mountain seventeen
+ thousand feet high.<br /> He could have changed the climate for that
+ occasion.<br /> He could have made all the rocks and glaciers pro-<br />
+ duce wheat and corn in abundance. Certainly God,<br /> who could overwhelm
+ a world with a flood, had the<br /> power to change every law and fact in
+ nature.<br /> <br /> I am surprised that Mr. Talmage is not willing to<br />
+ believe the story as it is told. What right has he to<br /> question the
+ statements of an inspired writer? Why<br /> should he set up his judgment
+ against the Websters<br /> and Jacksons? Is it not infinitely impudent in
+ him<br /> to contrast his penny-dip with the sun of inspiration?<br /> What
+ right has he to any opinion upon the subject?<br /> He must take the Bible
+ as it reads. He should<br /> remember that the greater the miracle the
+ greater<br /> should be his faith.<br /> <br /> 36<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ You do not seem to have any great<br /> opinion of the chemical,
+ geological, and agricultural<br /> views expressed by Mr. Talmage?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. You must remember that Mr. Talmage<br /> has a certain
+ thing to defend. He takes the Bible as<br /> actually true, and with the
+ Bible as his standard, he<br /> compares and measures all sciences. He does
+ not<br /> study geology to find whether the Mosaic account is<br /> true,
+ but he reads the Mosaic account for the purpose<br /> of showing that
+ geology can not be depended upon.<br /> His idea that "one day is as a
+ thousand years with<br /> "God," and that therefore the "days" mentioned in
+ the<br /> Mosaic account are not days of twenty-four hours, but<br /> long
+ periods, is contradicted by the Bible itself. The<br /> great reason given
+ for keeping the Sabbath day is, that<br /> "God rested on the seventh day
+ and was refreshed."<br /> Now, it does not say that he rested on the
+ "seventh<br /> "period," or the "seventh good&mdash;while," or the<br />
+ "seventh long-time," but on the "seventh day." In<br /> imitation of this
+ example we are also to rest&mdash;not on<br /> the seventh good-while, but
+ on the seventh day.<br /> Nothing delights the average minister more than
+ to<br /> find that a passage of Scripture is capable of several<br />
+ interpretations. Nothing in the inspired book is so<br /> <br /> 37<br />
+ <br /> dangerous as accuracy. If the holy writer uses<br /> general terms,
+ an ingenious theologian can harmonize<br /> a seemingly preposterous
+ statement with the most<br /> obdurate fact. An "inspired" book should
+ contain<br /> neither statistics nor dates&mdash;as few names as possible,<br />
+ and not one word about geology or astronomy. Mr.<br /> Talmage is doing the
+ best he can to uphold the fables<br /> of the Jews. They are the foundation
+ of his faith.<br /> He believes in the water of the past and the fire of
+ the<br /> future&mdash;in the God of flood and flame&mdash;the eternal<br />
+ torturer of his helpless children.<br /> <br /> It is exceedingly
+ unfortunate that Mr. Talmage does<br /> not appreciate the importance of
+ good manners, that<br /> he does not rightly estimate the convincing power
+ of<br /> kindness and good nature. It is unfortunate that a<br /> Christian,
+ believing in universal forgiveness, should<br /> exhibit so much of the
+ spirit of detraction, that he<br /> should run so easily and naturally into
+ epithets, and<br /> that he should mistake vituperation for logic. Thou-<br />
+ sands of people, knowing but little of the mysteries of<br /> Christianity&mdash;never
+ having studied theology,&mdash;may<br /> become prejudiced against the
+ church, and doubt the<br /> divine origin of a religion whose defenders
+ seem to<br /> rely, at least to a great degree, upon malignant per-<br />
+ sonalities. Mr. Talmage should remember that in a<br /> <br /> 38<br /> <br />
+ discussion of this kind, he is supposed to represent a<br /> being of
+ infinite wisdom and goodness. Surely, the<br /> representative of the
+ infinite can afford to be candid,<br /> can afford to be kind. When he
+ contemplates the<br /> condition of a fellow-being destitute of religion, a<br />
+ fellow-being now travelling the thorny path to eternal<br /> fire, he
+ should be filled with pity instead of hate.<br /> Instead of deforming his
+ mouth with scorn, his eyes<br /> should be filled with tears. He should
+ take into<br /> consideration the vast difference between an infidel<br />
+ and a minister of the gospel,&mdash;knowing, as he does,<br /> that a crown
+ of glory has been prepared for the<br /> minister, and that flames are
+ waiting for the soul<br /> of the unbeliever. He should bear with
+ philosophic<br /> fortitude the apparent success of the skeptic, for a<br />
+ few days in this brief life, since he knows that in a<br /> little while
+ the question will be eternally settled in<br /> his favor, and that the
+ humiliation of a day is as<br /> nothing compared with the victory of
+ eternity. In<br /> this world, the skeptic appears to have the best<br /> of
+ the argument; logic seems to be on the side<br /> of blasphemy; common
+ sense apparently goes hand<br /> in hand with infidelity, and the few
+ things we are<br /> absolutely certain of, seem inconsistent with the<br />
+ Christian creeds.<br /> <br /> 39<br /> <br /> This, however, as Mr. Talmage
+ well knows, is but<br /> apparent. God has arranged the world in this way<br />
+ for the purpose of testing the Christian's faith.<br /> Beyond all these
+ facts, beyond logic, beyond reason,<br /> Mr. Talmage, by the light of
+ faith, clearly sees the<br /> eternal truth. This clearness of vision
+ should give<br /> him the serenity of candor and the kindness born of<br />
+ absolute knowledge. He, being a child of the light,<br /> should not expect
+ the perfect from the children of<br /> darkness. He should not judge
+ Humboldt and<br /> Wesley by the same standard. He should remember<br />
+ that Wesley was especially set apart and illuminated<br /> by divine
+ wisdom, while Humboldt was left to grope<br /> in the shadows of nature. He
+ should also remember<br /> that ministers are not like other people. They
+ have<br /> been "called." They have been "chosen" by infinite<br /> wisdom.
+ They have been "set apart," and they<br /> have bread to eat that we know
+ not of. While<br /> other people are forced to pursue the difficult paths<br />
+ of investigation, they fly with the wings of faith.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage
+ is perfectly aware of the advantages<br /> he enjoys, and yet he deems it
+ dangerous to be fair.<br /> This, in my judgment, is his mistake. If he
+ cannot<br /> easily point out the absurdities and contradictions in<br />
+ infidel lectures, surely God would never have selected<br /> <br /> 40<br />
+ <br /> him for that task. We cannot believe that imperfect<br /> instruments
+ would be chosen by infinite wisdom.<br /> Certain lambs have been entrusted
+ to the care of Mr.<br /> Talmage, the shepherd. Certainly God would not<br />
+ select a shepherd unable to cope with an average<br /> wolf. Such a
+ shepherd is only the appearance of<br /> protection. When the wolf is not
+ there, he is a<br /> useless expense, and when the wolf comes, he goes.<br />
+ I cannot believe that God would select a shepherd<br /> of that kind.
+ Neither can the shepherd justify his<br /> selection by abusing the wolf
+ when out of sight.<br /> The fear ought to be on the other side. A divinely<br />
+ appointed shepherd ought to be able to convince his<br /> sheep that a wolf
+ is a dangerous animal, and ought<br /> to be able to give his reasons. It
+ may be that the<br /> shepherd has a certain interest in exaggerating the<br />
+ cruelty and ferocity of the wolf, and even the number<br /> of the wolves.
+ Should it turn out that the wolves<br /> exist only in the imagination of
+ the shepherd, the<br /> sheep might refuse to pay the salary of their pro-<br />
+ tector. It will, however, be hard to calculate the<br /> extent to which
+ the sheep will lose confidence in a<br /> shepherd who has not even the
+ courage to state the<br /> facts about the wolf. But what must be the
+ result<br /> when the sheep find that the supposed wolf is, in<br /> <br />
+ 41<br /> <br /> fact, their friend, and that he is endeavoring to rescue<br />
+ them from the exactions of the pretended shepherd,<br /> who creates, by
+ falsehood, the fear on which he<br /> lives?<br /> <br /> <br /> <a
+ name="link0004" id="link0004"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>SECOND INTERVIEW.</b></big><br />
+ <br /> <br /> <i>Por. Why, man, what's the matter? Don't tear<br /> your
+ hair.<br /> <br /> Sir Hugh. I have been beaten in a discussion,<br />
+ overwhelmed and humiliated.<br /> <br /> Por. Why didn't you call your
+ adversary a fool?<br /> <br /> Sir Hugh. My God! I forgot it!</i><br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. I want to ask you a few questions<br /> about the second
+ sermon of Mr. Talmage;<br /> have you read it, and what do you think of it?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The text taken by the reverend gentle-<br /> man is an
+ insult, and was probably intended as such:<br /> "The fool hath said in his
+ heart, there is no God."<br /> Mr. Talmage seeks to apply this text to any
+ one<br /> who denies that the Jehovah of the Jews was and is<br /> the
+ infinite and eternal Creator of all. He is per-<br /> fectly satisfied that
+ any man who differs with him on<br /> this question is a "fool," and he has
+ the Christian<br /> forbearance and kindness to say so. I presume he<br />
+ <br /> 46<br /> <br /> is honest in this opinion, and no doubt regards Bruno,<br />
+ Spinoza and Humboldt as driveling imbeciles. He<br /> entertains the same
+ opinion of some of the greatest,<br /> wisest and best of Greece and Rome.<br />
+ <br /> No man is fitted to reason upon this question who<br /> has not the
+ intelligence to see the difficulties in all<br /> theories. No man has yet
+ evolved a theory that<br /> satisfactorily accounts for all that is. No
+ matter<br /> what his opinion may be, he is beset by a thousand<br />
+ difficulties, and innumerable things insist upon an<br /> explanation. The
+ best that any man can do is to<br /> take that theory which to his mind
+ presents the<br /> fewest difficulties. Mr. Talmage has been educated<br />
+ in a certain way&mdash;has a brain of a certain quantity,<br /> quality and
+ form&mdash;and accepts, in spite it may be,<br /> of himself, a certain
+ theory. Others, formed differ-<br /> ently, having lived under different
+ circumstances,<br /> cannot accept the Talmagian view, and thereupon he<br />
+ denounces them as fools. In this he follows the<br /> example of David the
+ murderer; of David, who<br /> advised one of his children to assassinate
+ another;<br /> of David, whose last words were those of hate and<br />
+ crime. Mr. Talmage insists that it takes no especial<br /> brain to reason
+ out a "design" in Nature, and in a<br /> moment afterward says that "when
+ the world slew<br /> <br /> 47<br /> <br /> "Jesus, it showed what it would do
+ with the eternal<br /> "God, if once it could get its hands on Him." Why<br />
+ should a God of infinite wisdom create people who<br /> would gladly murder
+ their Creator? Was there any<br /> particular "design" in that? Does the
+ existence<br /> of such people conclusively prove the existence of a<br />
+ good Designer? It seems to me&mdash;and I take it that<br /> my thought is
+ natural, as I have only been born<br /> once&mdash;that an infinitely wise
+ and good God would<br /> naturally create good people, and if he has not,
+ cer-<br /> tainly the fault is his. The God of Mr. Talmage<br /> knew, when
+ he created Guiteau, that he would<br /> assassinate Garfield. Why did he
+ create him? Did<br /> he want Garfield assassinated? Will somebody be<br />
+ kind enough to show the "design" in this trans-<br /> action? Is it
+ possible to see "design" in earth-<br /> quakes, in volcanoes, in
+ pestilence, in famine, in<br /> ruthless and relentless war? Can we find
+ "design" in<br /> the fact that every animal lives upon some other&mdash;<br />
+ that every drop of every sea is a battlefield where<br /> the strong devour
+ the weak? Over the precipice<br /> of cruelty rolls a perpetual Niagara of
+ blood. Is<br /> there "design" in this? Why should a good God<br /> people a
+ world with men capable of burning their<br /> fellow-men&mdash;and capable
+ of burning the greatest and<br /> <br /> 48<br /> <br /> best? Why does a good
+ God permit these things?<br /> It is said of Christ that he was infinitely
+ kind and<br /> generous, infinitely merciful, because when on earth<br /> he
+ cured the sick, the lame and blind. Has he not<br /> as much power now as
+ he had then? If he was and<br /> is the God of all worlds, why does he not
+ now give<br /> back to the widow her son? Why does he with-<br /> hold light
+ from the eyes of the blind? And why<br /> does one who had the power
+ miraculously to feed<br /> thousands, allow millions to die for want of
+ food?<br /> Did Christ only have pity when he was part human?<br /> Are we
+ indebted for his kindness to the flesh that<br /> clothed his spirit? Where
+ is he now? Where has he<br /> been through all the centuries of slavery and
+ crime?<br /> If this universe was "designed," then all that<br /> happens
+ was "designed." If a man constructs an<br /> engine, the boiler of which
+ explodes, we say either<br /> that he did not know the strength of his
+ materials, or<br /> that he was reckless of human life. If an infinite
+ being<br /> should construct a weak or imperfect machine, he must<br /> be
+ held accountable for all that happens. He cannot<br /> be permitted to say
+ that he did not know the strength<br /> of the materials. He is directly
+ and absolutely re-<br /> sponsible. So, if this world was designed by a
+ being<br /> of infinite power and wisdom, he is responsible for<br /> <br />
+ 49<br /> <br /> the result of that design. My position is this: I do<br />
+ not know. But there are so many objections to the<br /> personal-God
+ theory, that it is impossible for me to<br /> accept it. I prefer to say
+ that the universe is all the<br /> God there is. I prefer to make no being
+ responsible.<br /> I prefer to say: If the naked are clothed, man<br /> must
+ clothe them; if the hungry are fed, man must<br /> feed them. I prefer to
+ rely upon human endeavor,<br /> upon human intelligence, upon the heart and
+ brain<br /> of man. There is no evidence that God has ever<br /> interfered
+ in the affairs of man. The hand of earth<br /> is stretched uselessly
+ toward heaven. From the<br /> clouds there comes no help. In vain the
+ shipwrecked<br /> cry to God. In vain the imprisoned ask for liberty<br />
+ and light&mdash;the world moves on, and the heavens are<br /> deaf and dumb
+ and blind. The frost freezes, the fire<br /> burns, slander smites, the
+ wrong triumphs, the good<br /> suffer, and prayer dies upon the lips of
+ faith.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage charges you with being<br />
+ "the champion blasphemer of America"&mdash;what do<br /> you understand
+ blasphemy to be?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Blasphemy is an epithet
+ bestowed by su-<br /> perstition upon common sense. Whoever investi-<br />
+ gates a religion as he would any department of<br /> <br /> 50<br /> <br />
+ science, is called a blasphemer. Whoever contradicts<br /> a priest,
+ whoever has the impudence to use his own<br /> reason, whoever is brave
+ enough to express his<br /> honest thought, is a blasphemer in the eyes of
+ the<br /> religionist. When a missionary speaks slightingly of<br /> the
+ wooden god of a savage, the savage regards him<br /> as a blasphemer. To
+ laugh at the pretensions of<br /> Mohammed in Constantinople is blasphemy.
+ To say<br /> in St. Petersburg that Mohammed was a prophet of<br /> God is
+ also blasphemy. There was a time when to<br /> acknowledge the divinity of
+ Christ in Jerusalem was<br /> blasphemy. To deny his divinity is now
+ blasphemy<br /> in New York. Blasphemy is to a considerable extent<br /> a
+ geographical question. It depends not only on what<br /> you say, but where
+ you are when you say it. Blas-<br /> phemy is what the old calls the new,&mdash;what
+ last<br /> year's leaf says to this year's bud. The founder of<br /> every
+ religion was a blasphemer. The Jews so re-<br /> garded Christ, and the
+ Athenians had the same<br /> opinion of Socrates. Catholics have always
+ looked<br /> upon Protestants as blasphemers, and Protestants have<br />
+ always held the same generous opinion of Catholics.<br /> To deny that Mary
+ is the Mother of God is blas-<br /> phemy. To say that she is the Mother of
+ God is<br /> blasphemy. Some savages think that a dried snake-<br /> <br />
+ 51<br /> <br /> skin stuffed with leaves is sacred, and he who thinks<br />
+ otherwise is a blasphemer. It was once blasphemy<br /> to laugh at Diana,
+ of the Ephesians. Many people<br /> think that it is blasphemous to tell
+ your real opinion<br /> of the Jewish Jehovah. Others imagine that words<br />
+ can be printed upon paper, and the paper bound into<br /> a book covered
+ with sheepskin, and that the book is<br /> sacred, and that to question its
+ sacredness is blas-<br /> phemy. Blasphemy is also a crime against God, but<br />
+ nothing can be more absurd than a crime against<br /> God. If God is
+ infinite, you cannot injure him. You<br /> cannot commit a crime against
+ any being that you<br /> cannot injure. Of course, the infinite cannot be
+ in-<br /> jured. Man is a conditioned being. By changing<br /> his
+ conditions, his surroundings, you can injure him;<br /> but if God is
+ infinite, he is conditionless. If he is<br /> conditionless, he cannot by
+ any possibility be injured.<br /> You can neither increase, nor decrease,
+ the well-being<br /> of the infinite. Consequently, a crime against God<br />
+ is a demonstrated impossibility. The cry of blasphemy<br /> means only that
+ the argument of the blasphemer can-<br /> not be answered. The
+ sleight-of-hand performer,<br /> when some one tries to raise the curtain
+ behind which<br /> he operates, cries "blasphemer!" The priest, find-<br />
+ ing that he has been attacked by common sense,&mdash;<br /> <br /> 52<br />
+ <br /> by a fact,&mdash;resorts to the same cry. Blasphemy is the<br />
+ black flag of theology, and it means: No argument<br /> and no quarter! It
+ is an appeal to prejudice, to<br /> passions, to ignorance. It is the last
+ resort of a<br /> defeated priest. Blasphemy marks the point where<br />
+ argument stops and slander begins. In old times, it<br /> was the signal
+ for throwing stones, for gathering<br /> fagots and for tearing flesh; now
+ it means falsehood<br /> and calumny.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Then you
+ think that there is no such<br /> thing as the crime of blasphemy, and that
+ no such<br /> offence can be committed?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Any one
+ who knowingly speaks in favor<br /> of injustice is a blasphemer. Whoever
+ wishes to<br /> destroy liberty of thought,&mdash;the honest expression of<br />
+ ideas,&mdash;is a blasphemer. Whoever is willing to malign<br /> his
+ neighbor, simply because he differs with him upon<br /> a subject about
+ which neither of them knows anything<br /> for certain, is a blasphemer. If
+ a crime can be com-<br /> mitted against God, he commits it who imputes to<br />
+ God the commission of crime. The man who says<br /> that God ordered the
+ assassination of women and<br /> babes, that he gave maidens to satisfy the
+ lust of<br /> soldiers, that he enslaved his own children,&mdash;that man<br />
+ <br /> 53<br /> <br /> is a blasphemer. In my judgment, it would be far<br />
+ better to deny the existence of God entirely. It<br /> seems to me that
+ every man ought to give his honest<br /> opinion. No man should suppose
+ that any infinite<br /> God requires him to tell as truth that which he
+ knows<br /> nothing about.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage, in order to make a point
+ against<br /> infidelity, states from his pulpit that I am in favor of<br />
+ poisoning the minds of children by the circulation of<br /> immoral books.
+ The statement is entirely false. He<br /> ought to have known that I
+ withdrew from the Liberal<br /> League upon the very question whether the
+ law should<br /> be repealed or modified. I favored a modification<br /> of
+ that law, so that books and papers could not be<br /> thrown from the mails
+ simply because they were<br /> "infidel."<br /> <br /> I was and am in favor
+ of the destruction of<br /> every immoral book in the world. I was and am<br />
+ in favor, not only of the law against the circulation<br /> of such filth,
+ but want it executed to the letter in every<br /> State of this Union. Long
+ before he made that state-<br /> ment, I had introduced a resolution to
+ that effect, and<br /> supported the resolution in a speech. Notwithstand-<br />
+ ing these facts, hundreds of clergymen have made<br /> haste to tell the
+ exact opposite of the truth. This<br /> <br /> 54<br /> <br /> they have done
+ in the name of Christianity, under the<br /> pretence of pleasing their
+ God. In my judgment, it<br /> is far better to tell your honest opinions,
+ even upon<br /> the subject of theology, than to knowingly tell a false-<br />
+ hood about a fellow-man. Mr. Talmage may have<br /> been ignorant of the
+ truth. He may have been misled<br /> by other ministers, and for his
+ benefit I make this ex-<br /> planation. I wanted the laws modified so that
+ bigotry<br /> could not interfere with the literature of intelligence;<br />
+ but I did not want, in any way, to shield the writers or<br /> publishers
+ of immoral books. Upon this subject I<br /> used, at the last meeting of
+ the Liberal League that<br /> I attended, the following language:<br />
+ <br /> "But there is a distinction wide as the Mississippi,<br /> "yes,
+ wider than the Atlantic, wider than all oceans,<br /> "between the
+ literature of immorality and the litera-<br /> "ture of free thought. One
+ is a crawling, slimy lizard,<br /> "and the other an angel with wings of
+ light. Let us<br /> "draw this distinction. Let us understand ourselves.<br />
+ "Do not make the wholesale statement that all these<br /> "laws ought to be
+ repealed. They ought not to be<br /> "repealed. Some of them are good, and
+ the law<br /> "against sending instruments of vice through the<br /> "mails
+ is good. The law against sending obscene<br /> "pictures and books is good.
+ The law against send-<br /> <br /> 55<br /> <br /> "ing bogus diplomas through
+ the mails, to allow a<br /> "lot of ignorant hyenas to prey upon the sick
+ people<br /> "of the world, is a good law. The law against rascals<br />
+ "who are getting up bogus lotteries, and sending their<br /> "circulars in
+ the mails is a good law. You know, as<br /> "well as I, that there are
+ certain books not fit to go<br /> "through the mails. You know that. You
+ know there<br /> "are certain pictures not fit to be transmitted, not fit<br />
+ "to be delivered to any human being. When these<br /> "books and pictures
+ come into the control of the<br /> "United States, I say, burn them up! And
+ when any<br /> "man has been indicted who has been trying to make<br />
+ "money by pandering to the lowest passions in the<br /> "human breast, then
+ I say, prosecute him! let the<br /> "law take its course."<br /> <br /> I can
+ hardly convince myself that when Mr.<br /> Talmage made the charge, he was
+ acquainted with<br /> the facts. It seems incredible that any man, pre-<br />
+ tending to be governed by the law of common<br /> honesty, could make a
+ charge like this knowing<br /> it to be untrue. Under no circumstances,
+ would<br /> I charge Mr. Talmage with being an infamous<br /> man, unless
+ the evidence was complete and over-<br /> whelming. Even then, I should
+ hesitate long before<br /> making the charge. The side I take on
+ theological<br /> <br /> 56<br /> <br /> questions does not render a resort to
+ slander or<br /> calumny a necessity. If Mr. Talmage is an honor-<br /> able
+ man, he will take back the statement he has<br /> made. Even if there is a
+ God, I hardly think that<br /> he will reward one of his children for
+ maligning<br /> another; and to one who has told falsehoods about<br />
+ "infidels," that having been his only virtue, I doubt<br /> whether he will
+ say: "Well done good and faithful<br /> "servant."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ What have you to say to the charge<br /> that you are endeavoring to
+ "assassinate God,"<br /> and that you are "far worse than the man who at-<br />
+ "tempts to kill his father, or his mother, or his sister,<br /> "or his
+ brother"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, I think that is about as reason-<br />
+ able as anything he says. No one wishes, so far as I<br /> know, to
+ assassinate God. The idea of assassinating<br /> an infinite being is of
+ course infinitely absurd. One<br /> would think Mr. Talmage had lost his
+ reason! And<br /> yet this man stands at the head of the Presbyterian<br />
+ clergy. It is for this reason that I answer him. He<br /> is the only
+ Presbyterian minister in the United<br /> States, so far as I know, able to
+ draw an audience.<br /> He is, without doubt, the leader of that
+ denomination.<br /> <br /> 57<br /> <br /> He is orthodox and conservative. He
+ believes im-<br /> plicitly in the "Five Points" of Calvin, and says<br />
+ nothing simply for the purpose of attracting attention.<br /> He believes
+ that God damns a man for his own glory;<br /> that he sends babes to hell
+ to establish his mercy,<br /> and that he filled the world with disease and
+ crime<br /> simply to demonstrate his wisdom. He believes that<br />
+ billions of years before the earth was, God had made<br /> up his mind as
+ to the exact number that he would<br /> eternally damn, and had counted his
+ saints. This<br /> doctrine he calls "glad tidings of great joy." He<br />
+ really believes that every man who is true to himself<br /> is waging war
+ against God; that every infidel is a<br /> rebel; that every Freethinker is
+ a traitor, and that<br /> only those are good subjects who have joined the<br />
+ Presbyterian Church, know the Shorter Catechism by<br /> heart, and
+ subscribe liberally toward lifting the mort-<br /> gage on the Brooklyn
+ Tabernacle. All the rest are<br /> endeavoring to assassinate God, plotting
+ the murder<br /> of the Holy Ghost, and applauding the Jews for the<br />
+ crucifixion of Christ. If Mr. Talmage is correct in<br /> his views as to
+ the power and wisdom of God, I<br /> imagine that his enemies at last will
+ be overthrown,<br /> that the assassins and murderers will not succeed, and<br />
+ that the Infinite, with Mr. Talmage s assistance, will<br /> <br /> 58<br />
+ <br /> finally triumph. If there is an infinite God, certainly<br /> he
+ ought to have made man grand enough to have<br /> and express an opinion of
+ his own. Is it possible<br /> that God can be gratified with the applause
+ of moral<br /> cowards? Does he seek to enhance his glory by<br /> receiving
+ the adulation of cringing slaves? Is God<br /> satisfied with the adoration
+ of the frightened?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. You notice that Mr. Talmage
+ finds<br /> nearly all the inventions of modern times mentioned<br /> in the
+ Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>: Yes; Mr. Talmage has made an ex-<br />
+ ceedingly important discovery. I admit that I am<br /> somewhat amazed at
+ the wisdom of the ancients.<br /> This discovery has been made just in the
+ nick of<br /> time. Millions of people were losing their respect<br /> for
+ the Old Testament. They were beginning to<br /> think that there was some
+ discrepancy between the<br /> prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel and the
+ latest devel-<br /> opments in physical science. Thousands of preachers<br />
+ were telling their flocks that the Bible is not a<br /> scientific book;
+ that Joshua was not an inspired as-<br /> tronomer, that God never
+ enlightened Moses about<br /> geology, and that Ezekiel did not understand
+ the<br /> entire art of cookery. These admissions caused<br /> <br /> 59<br />
+ <br /> some young people to suspect that the Bible, after all,<br /> was not
+ inspired; that the prophets of antiquity did<br /> not know as much as the
+ discoverers of to-day. The<br /> Bible was falling into disrepute. Mr.
+ Talmage has<br /> rushed to the rescue. He shows, and shows conclu-<br />
+ sively as anything can be shown from the Bible, that<br /> Job understood
+ all the laws of light thousands of<br /> years before Newton lived; that he
+ anticipated the<br /> discoveries of Descartes, Huxley and Tyndall; that<br />
+ he was familiar with the telegraph and telephone;<br /> that Morse, Bell
+ and Edison simply put his discov-<br /> eries in successful operation; that
+ Nahum was, in<br /> fact, a master-mechanic; that he understood perfectly<br />
+ the modern railway and described it so accurately<br /> that Trevethick,
+ Foster and Stephenson had no diffi-<br /> culty in constructing a
+ locomotive. He also has<br /> discovered that Job was well acquainted with
+ the<br /> trade winds, and understood the mysterious currents,<br /> tides
+ and pulses of the sea; that Lieutenant Maury<br /> was a plagiarist; that
+ Humboldt was simply a biblical<br /> student. He finds that Isaiah and
+ Solomon were<br /> far in advance of Galileo, Morse, Meyer and Watt.<br />
+ This is a discovery wholly unexpected to me. If<br /> Mr. Talmage is right,
+ I am satisfied the Bible is an<br /> inspired book. If it shall turn out
+ that Joshua was<br /> <br /> 60<br /> <br /> superior to Laplace, that Moses
+ knew more about<br /> geology than Humboldt, that Job as a scientist was<br />
+ the superior of Kepler, that Isaiah knew more than<br /> Copernicus, and
+ that even the minor prophets ex-<br /> celled the inventors and discoverers
+ of our time&mdash;<br /> then I will admit that infidelity must become
+ speech-<br /> less forever. Until I read this sermon, I had never<br /> even
+ suspected that the inventions of modern times<br /> were known to the
+ ancient Jews. I never supposed<br /> that Nahum knew the least thing about
+ railroads, or<br /> that Job would have known a telegraph if he had seen<br />
+ it. I never supposed that Joshua comprehended the<br /> three laws of
+ Kepler. Of course I have not read<br /> the Old Testament with as much care
+ as some other<br /> people have, and when I did read it, I was not looking<br />
+ for inventions and discoveries. I had been told so<br /> often that the
+ Bible was no authority upon scientific<br /> questions, that I was lulled
+ into a state of lethargy.<br /> What is amazing to me is, that so many men
+ did<br /> read it without getting the slightest hint of the<br /> smallest
+ invention. To think that the Jews read that<br /> book for hundreds and
+ hundreds of years, and yet<br /> went to their graves without the slightest
+ notion of<br /> astronomy, or geology, of railroads, telegraphs, or<br />
+ steamboats! And then to think that the early fathers<br /> <br /> 61<br />
+ <br /> made it the study of their lives and died without in-<br /> venting
+ anything! I am astonished that Mr. Talmage<br /> himself does not figure in
+ the records of the Patent<br /> Office. I cannot account for this, except
+ upon the<br /> supposition that he is too honest to infringe on the<br />
+ patents of the patriarchs. After this, I shall read<br /> the Old Testament
+ with more care.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you see that Mr. Talmage
+ endeav-<br /> ors to convict you of great ignorance in not knowing<br />
+ that the word translated "rib" should have been<br /> translated "side,"
+ and that Eve, after all, was not<br /> made out of a rib, but out of Adam's
+ side?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I may have been misled by taking the<br />
+ Bible as it is translated. The Bible account is simply<br /> this: "And the
+ Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall<br /> "upon Adam, and he slept. And he
+ took one of<br /> "his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof;<br />
+ "and the rib which the Lord God had taken from<br /> "man made he a woman,
+ and brought her unto the<br /> "man. And Adam said: This is now bone of my<br />
+ "bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called<br /> "woman, because
+ she was taken out of man." If<br /> Mr. Talmage is right, then the account
+ should be as<br /> follows: "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep<br />
+ <br /> 62<br /> <br /> "to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one<br />
+ "of his sides, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;<br /> "and the side
+ which the Lord God had taken from<br /> "man made he a woman, and brought
+ her unto the<br /> "man. And Adam said: This is now side of my<br /> "side,
+ and flesh of my flesh." I do not see that the<br /> story is made any
+ better by using the word "side"<br /> instead of "rib." It would be just as
+ hard for God<br /> to make a woman out of a man's side as out of a<br />
+ rib. Mr. Talmage ought not to question the power<br /> of God to make a
+ woman out of a bone, and he must<br /> recollect that the less the material
+ the greater the<br /> miracle.<br /> <br /> There are two accounts of the
+ creation of man,<br /> in Genesis, the first being in the twenty-first
+ verse<br /> of the first chapter and the second being in the<br />
+ twenty-first and twenty-second verses of the sec-<br /> ond chapter.<br />
+ <br /> According to the second account, "God formed<br /> "man of the dust
+ of the ground, and breathed into<br /> "his nostrils the breath of life."
+ And after this,<br /> "God planted a garden eastward in Eden and put<br />
+ "the man" in this garden. After this, "He made<br /> "every tree to grow
+ that was good for food and<br /> "pleasant to the sight," and, in addition,
+ "the tree<br /> <br /> 63<br /> <br /> "of life in the midst of the garden,"
+ beside "the tree<br /> "of the knowledge of good and evil." And he "put<br />
+ "the man in the garden to dress it and keep it,"<br /> telling him that he
+ might eat of everything he saw<br /> except of "the tree of the knowledge
+ of good and<br /> "evil."<br /> <br /> After this, God having noticed that it
+ "was not<br /> "good for man to be alone, formed out of the ground<br />
+ "every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, and<br /> "brought them
+ to Adam to see what he would call<br /> "them, and Adam gave names to all
+ cattle, and to<br /> "the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.<br />
+ "But for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for<br /> "him."<br /> <br />
+ We are not told how Adam learned the language,<br /> or how he understood
+ what God said. I can hardly<br /> believe that any man can be created with
+ the know-<br /> ledge of a language. Education cannot be ready<br /> made
+ and stuffed into a brain. Each person must<br /> learn a language for
+ himself. Yet in this account we<br /> find a language ready made for man's
+ use. And not<br /> only man was enabled to speak, but a serpent also<br />
+ has the power of speech, and the woman holds a<br /> conversation with this
+ animal and with her husband;<br /> and yet no account is given of how any
+ language was<br /> <br /> 64<br /> <br /> learned. God is described as walking
+ in the garden<br /> in the cool of the day, speaking like a man&mdash;holding<br />
+ conversations with the man and woman, and occa-<br /> sionally addressing
+ the serpent.<br /> <br /> In the nursery rhymes of the world there is<br />
+ nothing more childish than this "inspired" account<br /> of the creation of
+ man and woman.<br /> <br /> The early fathers of the church held that woman<br />
+ was inferior to man, because man was not made for<br /> woman, but woman
+ for man; because Adam was<br /> made first and Eve afterward. They had not
+ the<br /> gallantry of Robert Burns, who accounted for the<br /> beauty of
+ woman from the fact that God practiced<br /> on man first, and then gave
+ woman the benefit of<br /> his experience. Think, in this age of the world,<br />
+ of a well-educated, intelligent gentleman telling his<br /> little child
+ that about six thousand years ago a<br /> mysterious being called God made
+ the world out of<br /> his "omnipotence;" then made a man out of some<br />
+ dust which he is supposed to have moulded into<br /> form; that he put this
+ man in a garden for the pur-<br /> pose of keeping the trees trimmed; that
+ after a little<br /> while he noticed that the man seemed lonesome, not<br />
+ particularly happy, almost homesick; that then it oc-<br /> curred to this
+ God, that it would be a good thing for<br /> <br /> 65<br /> <br /> the man to
+ have some company, somebody to help<br /> him trim the trees, to talk to
+ him and cheer him up<br /> on rainy days; that, thereupon, this God caused<br />
+ a deep sleep to fall on the man, took a knife, or a<br /> long, sharp piece
+ of "omnipotence," and took out one<br /> of the man's sides, or a rib, and
+ of that made a<br /> woman; that then this man and woman got along<br />
+ real well till a snake got into the garden and induced<br /> the woman to
+ eat of the tree of the knowledge of<br /> good and evil; that the woman got
+ the man to take<br /> a bite; that afterwards both of them were detected by<br />
+ God, who was walking around in the cool of the<br /> evening, and thereupon
+ they were turned out of the<br /> garden, lest they should put forth their
+ hands and eat<br /> of the tree of life, and live forever.<br /> <br /> This
+ foolish story has been regarded as the sacred,<br /> inspired truth; as an
+ account substantially written by<br /> God himself; and thousands and
+ millions of people<br /> have supposed it necessary to believe this
+ childish<br /> falsehood, in order to save their souls. Nothing<br /> more
+ laughable can be found in the fairy tales and<br /> folk-lore of savages.
+ Yet this is defended by the<br /> leading Presbyterian divine, and those
+ who fail to<br /> believe in the truth of this story are called "brazen<br />
+ "faced fools," "deicides," and "blasphemers."<br /> <br /> 66<br /> <br /> By
+ this story woman in all Christian countries was<br /> degraded. She was
+ considered too impure to preach<br /> the gospel, too impure to distribute
+ the sacramental<br /> bread, too impure to hand about the sacred wine,<br />
+ too impure to step within the "holy of holies," in the<br /> Catholic
+ Churches, too impure to be touched by a<br /> priest. Unmarried men were
+ considered purer than<br /> husbands and fathers. Nuns were regarded as su-<br />
+ perior to mothers, a monastery holier than a home, a<br /> nunnery nearer
+ sacred than the cradle. And through<br /> all these years it has been
+ thought better to love<br /> God than to love man, better to love God than
+ to<br /> love your wife and children, better to worship an<br /> imaginary
+ deity than to help your fellow-men.<br /> <br /> I regard the rights of men
+ and women equal. In<br /> Love's fair realm, husband and wife are king and<br />
+ queen, sceptered and crowned alike, and seated on<br /> the self-same
+ throne.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you still insist that the Old
+ Testa-<br /> ment upholds polygamy? Mr. Talmage denies this<br /> charge,
+ and shows how terribly God punished those<br /> who were not satisfied with
+ one wife.<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I see nothing in what Mr. Talmage has<br />
+ said calculated to change my opinion. It has been<br /> <br /> 67<br /> <br />
+ admitted by thousands of theologians that the Old<br /> Testament upholds
+ polygamy. Mr. Talmage is<br /> among the first to deny it. It will not do
+ to say that<br /> David was punished for the crime of polygamy<br /> or
+ concubinage. He was "a man after God's own<br /> "heart." He was made a
+ king. He was a successful<br /> general, and his blood is said to have
+ flowed in the<br /> veins of God. Solomon was, according to the ac-<br />
+ count, enriched with wisdom above all human beings.<br /> Was that a
+ punishment for having had so many<br /> wives? Was Abraham pursued by the
+ justice of<br /> God because of the crime against Hagar, or for the<br />
+ crime against his own wife? The verse quoted by<br /> Mr. Talmage to show
+ that God was opposed to<br /> polygamy, namely, the eighteenth verse of the
+ eight-<br /> eenth chapter of Leviticus, cannot by any ingenuity<br /> be
+ tortured into a command against polygamy. The<br /> most that can be
+ possibly said of it is, that you shall<br /> not marry the sister of your
+ wife, while your wife is<br /> living. Yet this passage is quoted by Mr.
+ Talmage<br /> as "a thunder of prohibition against having more<br /> "than
+ one wife." In the twentieth chapter of<br /> Leviticus it is enacted: "That
+ if a man take a wife<br /> "and her mother they shall be burned with fire."
+ A<br /> commandment like this shows that he might take his<br /> <br /> 68<br />
+ <br /> wife and somebody else's mother. These passages<br /> have nothing to
+ do with polygamy. They show<br /> whom you may marry, not how many; and
+ there is<br /> not in Leviticus a solitary word against polygamy&mdash;<br />
+ not one. Nor is there such a word in Genesis, nor<br /> Exodus, nor in the
+ entire Pentateuch&mdash;not one<br /> word. These books are filled with the
+ most minute<br /> directions about killing sheep, and goats and doves;<br />
+ about making clothes for priests, about fashioning<br /> tongs and
+ snuffers; and yet, they contain not one<br /> word against polygamy. It
+ never occurred to the in-<br /> spired writers that polygamy was a crime.
+ Polygamy<br /> was accepted as a matter of course. Women were<br /> simple
+ property.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage, however, insists that, although God<br />
+ was against polygamy, he permitted it, and at the<br /> same time threw his
+ moral influence against it.<br /> Upon this subject he says: "No doubt God
+ per-<br /> "mitted polygamy to continue for sometime, just<br /> "as he
+ permits murder and arson, theft and gam-<br /> "bling to-day to continue,
+ although he is against<br /> "them." If God is the author of the Ten Com-<br />
+ mandments, he prohibited murder and theft, but<br /> he said nothing about
+ polygamy. If he was so<br /> terribly against that crime, why did he forget
+ to<br /> <br /> 69<br /> <br /> mention it? Was there not room enough on the<br />
+ tables of stone for just one word on this subject?<br /> Had he no time to
+ give a commandment against<br /> slavery? Mr. Talmage of course insists
+ that God<br /> had to deal with these things gradually, his idea being<br />
+ that if God had made a commandment against them all<br /> at once, the Jews
+ would have had nothing more to do<br /> with him.<br /> <br /> For instance:
+ if we wanted to break cannibals<br /> of eating missionaries, we should not
+ tell them all<br /> at once that it was wrong, that it was wicked, to<br />
+ eat missionaries raw; we should induce them first<br /> to cook the
+ missionaries, and gradually wean them<br /> from raw flesh. This would be
+ the first great step.<br /> We would stew the missionaries, and after a
+ time<br /> put a little mutton in the stew, not enough to excite<br /> the
+ suspicion of the cannibal, but just enough to get<br /> him in the habit of
+ eating mutton without knowing it.<br /> Day after day we would put in more
+ mutton and less<br /> missionary, until finally, the cannibal would be
+ perfectly<br /> satisfied with clear mutton. Then we would tell him<br />
+ that it was wrong to eat missionary. After the can-<br /> nibal got so that
+ he liked mutton, and cared nothing<br /> for missionary, then it would be
+ safe to have a law<br /> upon the subject.<br /> <br /> 70<br /> <br /> Mr.
+ Talmage insists that polygamy cannot exist<br /> among people who believe
+ the Bible. In this he is<br /> mistaken. The Mormons all believe the Bible.
+ There<br /> is not a single polygamist in Utah who does not insist<br />
+ upon the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments.<br /> <br /> The Rev.
+ Mr. Newman, a kind of peripatetic consu-<br /> lar theologian, once had a
+ discussion, I believe, with<br /> Elder Orson Pratt, at Salt Lake City,
+ upon the question<br /> of polygamy. It is sufficient to say of this
+ discussion<br /> that it is now circulated by the Mormons as a campaign<br />
+ document. The elder overwhelmed the parson.<br /> Passages of Scripture in
+ favor of polygamy were<br /> quoted by the hundred. The lives of all the
+ patriarchs<br /> were brought forward, and poor parson Newman was<br />
+ driven from the field. The truth is, the Jews at that<br /> time were much
+ like our forefathers. They were<br /> barbarians, and many of their laws
+ were unjust<br /> and cruel. Polygamy was the right of all; practiced,<br />
+ as a matter of fact, by the rich and powerful, and the<br /> rich and
+ powerful were envied by the poor. In such<br /> esteem did the ancient Jews
+ hold polygamy, that the<br /> number of Solomons wives was given, simply to
+ en-<br /> hance his glory. My own opinion is, that Solomon<br /> had very
+ few wives, and that polygamy was not<br /> general in Palestine. The
+ country was too poor, and<br /> <br /> 71<br /> <br /> Solomon, in all his
+ glory was hardly able to support<br /> one wife. He was a poor barbarian
+ king with a<br /> limited revenue, with a poor soil, with a sparse popu-<br />
+ lation, without art, without science and without power.<br /> He sustained
+ about the same relation to other kings<br /> that Delaware does to other
+ States. Mr. Talmage<br /> says that God persecuted Solomon, and yet, if he
+ will<br /> turn to the twenty-second chapter of First Chronicles,<br /> he
+ will find what God promised to Solomon. God,<br /> speaking to David, says:
+ "Behold a son shall be born<br /> "to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and
+ I will give him<br /> "rest from his enemies around about; for his name
+ shall<br /> "be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness<br /> "unto
+ Israel in his days. He shall build a house in my<br /> "name, and he shall
+ be my son and I will be his father,<br /> "and I will establish the throne
+ of his kingdom over<br /> "Israel forever." Did God keep his promise?<br />
+ <br /> So he tells us that David was persecuted by<br /> God, on account of
+ his offences, and yet I find in<br /> the twenty-eighth verse of the
+ twenty-ninth chapter<br /> of First Chronicles, the following account of
+ the death<br /> of David: "And he died in a good old age, full of<br />
+ "days, riches and honor." Is this true?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What
+ have you to say to the charge<br /> that you were mistaken in the number of
+ years that<br /> <br /> 72<br /> <br /> the Hebrews were in Egypt? Mr. Talmage
+ says that<br /> they were there 430 years, instead of 215 years.<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. If you will read the third chapter of<br /> Galatians,
+ sixteenth and seventeenth verses, you will<br /> find that it was 430 years
+ from the time God made the<br /> promise to Abraham to the giving of the
+ law from<br /> Mount Sinai. The Hebrews did not go to Egypt for<br /> 215
+ years after the promise was made to Abraham,<br /> and consequently did not
+ remain in Egypt more than<br /> 215 years. If Galatians is true, I am
+ right.<br /> <br /> Strange that Mr. Talmage should belittle the mira-<br />
+ cles. The trouble with this defender of the faith is that<br /> he cares
+ nothing for facts. He makes the strangest<br /> statements, and cares the
+ least for proof, of any<br /> man I know. I can account for what he says of
+ me<br /> only upon the supposition that he has not read my<br /> lectures.
+ He may have been misled by the pirated<br /> editions; Persons have stolen
+ my lectures, printed the<br /> same ones under various names, and filled
+ them with<br /> mistakes and things I never said. Mr. C. P. Farrell,<br />
+ of Washington, is my only authorized publisher.<br /> Yet Mr. Talmage
+ prefers to answer the mistakes of<br /> literary thieves, and charge their
+ ignorance to me.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did you ever attack the
+ character of<br /> Queen Victoria, or did you draw any parallel between<br />
+ <br /> 73<br /> <br /> her and George Eliot, calculated to depreciate the<br />
+ reputation of the Queen?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I never said a word
+ against Victoria.<br /> The fact is, I am not acquainted with her&mdash;never
+ met<br /> her in my life, and know but little of her. I never<br /> happened
+ to see her "in plain clothes, reading the<br /> "Bible to the poor in the
+ lane,"&mdash;neither did I ever<br /> hear her sing. I most cheerfully
+ admit that her<br /> reputation is good in the neighborhood where she<br />
+ resides. In one of my lectures I drew a parallel<br /> between George Eliot
+ and Victoria. I was showing<br /> the difference between a woman who had
+ won her<br /> position in the world of thought, and one who was<br /> queen
+ by chance. This is what I said:<br /> <br /> "It no longer satisfies the
+ ambition of a great man<br /> "to be a king or emperor. The last Napoleon
+ was<br /> "not satisfied with being the Emperor of the French.<br /> "He was
+ not satisfied with having a circlet of gold<br /> "about his head&mdash;he
+ wanted some evidence that he<br /> "had something of value in his head. So
+ he wrote<br /> "the life of Julius C&aelig;sar that he might become a<br />
+ "member of the French Academy. The emperors,<br /> "the kings, the popes,
+ no longer tower above their<br /> "fellows. Compare King William with the
+ philoso-<br /> "pher H&aelig;ckel. The king is one of the 'anointed<br />
+ <br /> 74<br /> <br /> "'of the Most High'&mdash;as they claim&mdash;one upon<br />
+ "whose head has been poured the divine petroleum<br /> "of authority.
+ Compare this king with H&aelig;ckel, who<br /> "towers an intellectual
+ Colossus above the crowned<br /> "mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with
+ Queen<br /> "Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given<br /> "her by
+ blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while<br /> "George Eliot wears robes
+ of glory, woven in the<br /> "loom of her own genius. The world is
+ beginning<br /> "to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart."<br /> I
+ said not one word against Queen Victoria, and did<br /> not intend to even
+ intimate that she was not an ex-<br /> cellent woman, wife and mother. I
+ was simply trying<br /> to show that the world was getting great enough to<br />
+ place a genius above an accidental queen. Mr. Tal-<br /> mage, true to the
+ fawning, cringing spirit of ortho-<br /> doxy, lauds the living queen and
+ cruelly maligns the<br /> genius dead. He digs open the grave of George
+ Eliot,<br /> and tries to stain the sacred dust of one who was the<br />
+ greatest woman England has produced. He calls her<br /> "an adultress." He
+ attacks her because she was an<br /> atheist&mdash;because she abhorred
+ Jehovah, denied the<br /> inspiration of the Bible, denied the dogma of
+ eternal<br /> pain, and with all her heart despised the Presbyterian<br />
+ creed. He hates her because she was great and brave<br /> <br /> 75<br />
+ <br /> and free&mdash;because she lived without "faith" and died<br />
+ without fear&mdash;because she dared to give her honest<br /> thought, and
+ grandly bore the taunts and slanders of<br /> the Christian world.<br />
+ <br /> George Eliot tenderly carried in her heart the<br /> burdens of our
+ race. She looked through pity's tears<br /> upon the faults and frailties
+ of mankind. She knew<br /> the springs and seeds of thought and deed, and
+ saw,<br /> with cloudless eyes, through all the winding ways of<br /> greed,
+ ambition and deceit, where folly vainly plucks<br /> with thorn-pierced
+ hands the fading flowers of selfish<br /> joy&mdash;the highway of eternal
+ right. Whatever her<br /> relations may have been&mdash;no matter what I
+ think, or<br /> others say, or how much all regret the one mistake in<br />
+ all her self-denying, loving life&mdash;I feel and know that<br /> in the
+ court where her own conscience sat as judge, she<br /> stood acquitted&mdash;pure
+ as light and stainless as a star.<br /> <br /> How appropriate here, with
+ some slight change,<br /> the wondrously poetic and pathetic words of
+ Laertes<br /> at Ophelia's grave:<br /> <br /> <i>Leave her i' the earth;<br />
+ And from her fair and unpolluted flesh<br /> May violets spring!<br /> I
+ tell thee, churlish priest,<br /> A ministering angel shall this woman be,<br />
+ When thou liest howling!</i><br /> <br /> I have no words with which to tell
+ my loathing for<br /> a man who violates a noble woman's grave.<br /> <br />
+ 76<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the spirit in which<br />
+ Mr. Talmage reviews your lectures is in accordance<br /> with the teachings
+ of Christianity?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I think that he talks like a
+ true Presby-<br /> terian. If you will read the arguments of Calvin<br />
+ against the doctrines of Castalio and Servetus, you will<br /> see that Mr.
+ Talmage follows closely in the footsteps<br /> of the founder of his
+ church. Castalio was such a<br /> wicked and abandoned wretch, that he
+ taught the<br /> innocence of honest error. He insisted that God<br /> would
+ not eternally damn a man for being honestly<br /> mistaken. For the
+ utterance of such blasphemous<br /> sentiments, abhorrent to every
+ Christian mind, Calvin<br /> called him "a dog of Satan, and a child of
+ hell." In<br /> short, he used the usual arguments. Castalio was<br />
+ banished, and died in exile. In the case of Servetus,<br /> after all the
+ epithets had been exhausted, an appeal<br /> was made to the stake, and the
+ blasphemous wretch<br /> was burned to ashes.<br /> <br /> If you will read
+ the life of John Knox, you will find<br /> that Mr. Talmage is as orthodox
+ in his methods of<br /> dealing with infidels, as he is in his creed. In my<br />
+ opinion, he would gladly treat unbelievers now, as the<br /> Puritans did
+ the Quakers, as the Episcopalians did the<br /> Presbyterians, as the
+ Presbyterians did the Baptists,<br /> <br /> 77<br /> <br /> and as the
+ Catholics have treated all heretics. Of<br /> course, all these sects will
+ settle their differences in<br /> heaven. In the next world, they will
+ laugh at the<br /> crimes they committed in this.<br /> <br /> The course
+ pursued by Mr. Talmage is consistent.<br /> The pulpit cannot afford to
+ abandon the weapons of<br /> falsehood and defamation. Candor sows the
+ seeds of<br /> doubt. Fairness is weakness. The only way to suc-<br />
+ cessfully uphold the religion of universal love, is to<br /> denounce all
+ Freethinkers as blasphemers, adulterers,<br /> and criminals. No matter how
+ generous they may<br /> appear to be, no matter how fairly they may deal
+ with<br /> their fellow-men, rest assured that they are actuated<br /> by
+ the lowest and basest motives. Infidels who out-<br /> wardly live honest
+ and virtuous lives, are inwardly<br /> vicious, virulent and vile. After
+ all, morality is only<br /> a veneering. God is not deceived with the
+ varnish of<br /> good works. We know that the natural man is<br /> totally
+ depraved, and that until he has been regene-<br /> rated by the spirit of
+ God, he is utterly incapable of a<br /> good action. The generosity of the
+ unbeliever is, in<br /> fact, avarice. His honesty is only a form of
+ larceny.<br /> His love is only hatred. No matter how sincerely<br /> he may
+ love his wife,&mdash;how devoted he may be to<br /> his children,&mdash;no
+ matter how ready he may be 'to<br /> <br /> 78<br /> <br /> sacrifice even his
+ life for the good of mankind, God,<br /> looking into his very heart, finds
+ it only a den of<br /> hissing snakes, a lair of wild, ferocious beasts, a
+ cage<br /> of unclean birds.<br /> <br /> The idea that God will save a man
+ simply because<br /> he is honest and generous, is almost too preposterous<br />
+ for serious refutation. No man should rely upon his<br /> own goodness. He
+ should plead the virtue of another.<br /> God, in his infinite justice,
+ damns a good man on his<br /> own merits, and saves a bad man on the merits
+ of<br /> another. The repentant murderer will be an angel<br /> of light,
+ while his honest and unoffending victim will<br /> be a fiend in hell.<br />
+ <br /> A little while ago, a ship, disabled, was blown about<br /> the
+ Atlantic for eighty days. Everything had been<br /> eaten. Nothing remained
+ but bare decks and hunger.<br /> The crew consisted of Captain Kruger and
+ nine others.<br /> For nine days, nothing had been eaten. The captain,<br />
+ taking a revolver in his hand, said: "Mates, some<br /> "one must die for
+ the rest. I am willing to sacrifice<br /> "myself for you." One of his
+ comrades grasped his<br /> hand, and implored him to wait one more day. The<br />
+ next morning, a sail was seen upon the horizon, and<br /> the dying men
+ were rescued.<br /> <br /> To an ordinary man,&mdash;to one guided by the
+ light of<br /> <br /> 79<br /> <br /> reason,&mdash;it is perfectly clear that
+ Captain Kruger was<br /> about to do an infinitely generous action. Yet Mr.<br />
+ Talmage will tell us that if that captain was not a<br /> Christian, and if
+ he had sent the bullet crashing<br /> through his brain in order that his
+ comrades might eat<br /> his body, and live to reach their wives and homes,&mdash;<br />
+ his soul, from that ship, would have gone, by dark<br /> and tortuous ways,
+ down to the prison of eternal pain.<br /> <br /> Is it possible that Christ
+ would eternally damn a<br /> man for doing exactly what Christ would have
+ done,<br /> had he been infinitely generous, under the same cir-<br />
+ cumstances? Is not self-denial in a man as praise-<br /> worthy as in a
+ God? Should a God be worshiped,<br /> and a man be damned, for the same
+ action?<br /> <br /> According to Mr. Talmage, every soldier who fought<br />
+ for our country in the Revolutionary war, who was<br /> not a Christian, is
+ now in hell. Every soldier, not a<br /> Christian, who carried the flag of
+ his country to vic-<br /> tory&mdash;either upon the land or sea, in the
+ war of 1812,<br /> is now in hell. Every soldier, not a Christian, who<br />
+ fought for the preservation of this Union,&mdash;to break<br /> the chains
+ of slavery&mdash;to free four millions of people<br /> &mdash;to keep the
+ whip from the naked back&mdash;every man<br /> who did this&mdash;every one
+ who died at Andersonville<br /> and Libby, dreaming that his death would
+ help make<br /> <br /> 80<br /> <br /> the lives of others worth living, is
+ now a lost and<br /> wretched soul. These men are now in the prison of<br />
+ God,&mdash;a prison in which the cruelties of Libby and<br /> Andersonville
+ would be regarded as mercies,&mdash;in<br /> which famine would be a joy.<br />
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0005" id="link0005"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>THIRD
+ INTERVIEW.</b></big><br /> <br /> <i>Sinner. Is God infinite in wisdom and
+ power?<br /> <br /> Parson. He is.<br /> <br /> Sinner. Does he at all times
+ know just what ought<br /> to be done?<br /> <br /> Parson. He does.<br />
+ <br /> Sinner. Does he always do just what ought to be<br /> done?<br />
+ <br /> Parson. He does.<br /> <br /> Sinner. Why do you pray to him?<br />
+ <br /> Parson. Because he is unchangeable.</i><br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ I want to ask you a few questions<br /> about Mr. Talmage's third sermon.
+ What do<br /> you think of it?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I often ask myself
+ the questions: Is<br /> there anything in the occupation of a minister,&mdash;any-<br />
+ thing in his surroundings, that makes him incapable<br /> of treating an
+ opponent fairly, or decently? Is there<br /> anything in the doctrine of
+ universal forgiveness that<br /> compels a man to speak of one who differs
+ with him<br /> only in terms of disrespect and hatred? Is it neces-<br />
+ sary for those who profess to love the whole world,<br /> to hate the few
+ they come in actual contact with?<br /> <br /> 84<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage, no
+ doubt, professes to love all man-<br /> kind,&mdash;Jew and Gentile,
+ Christian and Pagan. No<br /> doubt, he believes in the missionary effort,
+ and thinks<br /> we should do all in our power to save the soul of the<br />
+ most benighted savage; and yet he shows anything<br /> but affection for
+ the "heathen" at home. He loves<br /> the ones he never saw,&mdash;is real
+ anxious for their wel-<br /> fare,&mdash;but for the ones he knows, he
+ exhibits only<br /> scorn and hatred. In one breath, he tells us that<br />
+ Christ loves us, and in the next, that we are "wolves<br /> "and dogs." We
+ are informed that Christ forgave<br /> even his murderers, but that now he
+ hates an honest<br /> unbeliever with all his heart. He can forgive the<br />
+ ones who drove the nails into his hands and feet,&mdash;<br /> the one who
+ thrust the spear through his quivering<br /> flesh,&mdash;but he cannot
+ forgive the man who entertains<br /> an honest doubt about the "scheme of
+ salvation."<br /> He regards the man who thinks, as a "mouth-maker<br /> "at
+ heaven." Is it possible that Christ is less for-<br /> giving in heaven
+ than he was in Jerusalem? Did he<br /> excuse murderers then, and does he
+ damn thinkers<br /> now? Once he pitied even thieves; does he now<br />
+ abhor an intellectually honest man?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr.
+ Talmage seems to think that you<br /> have no right to give your opinion
+ about the Bible.<br /> <br /> 85<br /> <br /> Do you think that laymen have
+ the same right as<br /> ministers to examine the Scriptures?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ If God only made a revelation for<br /> preachers, of course we will have
+ to depend on the<br /> preachers for information. But the preachers have<br />
+ made the mistake of showing the revelation. They<br /> ask us, the laymen,
+ to read it, and certainly there is<br /> no use of reading it, unless we
+ are permitted to think<br /> for ourselves while we read. If after reading
+ the Bible<br /> we believe it to be true, we will say so, if we are<br />
+ honest. If we do not believe it, we will say so, if we<br /> are honest.<br />
+ <br /> But why should God be so particular about our<br /> believing the
+ stories in his book? Why should God<br /> object to having his book
+ examined? We do not<br /> have to call upon legislators, or courts, to
+ protect<br /> Shakespeare from the derision of mankind. Was not<br /> God
+ able to write a book that would command the<br /> love and admiration of
+ the world? If the God of<br /> Mr. Talmage is infinite, he knew exactly how
+ the<br /> stories of the Old Testament would strike a gentle-<br /> man of
+ the nineteenth century. He knew that many<br /> would have their doubts,&mdash;that
+ thousands of them&mdash;<br /> and I may say most of them,&mdash;would
+ refuse to believe<br /> that a miracle had ever been performed.<br /> <br />
+ 86<br /> <br /> Now, it seems to me that he should either have left<br /> the
+ stories out, or furnished evidence enough to con-<br /> vince the world.
+ According to Mr. Talmage, thou-<br /> sands of people are pouring over the
+ Niagara of<br /> unbelief into the gulf of eternal pain. Why does not<br />
+ God furnish more evidence? Just in proportion as<br /> man has developed
+ intellectually, he has demanded<br /> additional testimony. That which
+ satisfies a barbarian,<br /> excites only the laughter of a civilized man.
+ Cer-<br /> tainly God should furnish evidence in harmony with<br /> the
+ spirit of the age. If God wrote his Bible for the<br /> average man, he
+ should have written it in such a way<br /> that it would have carried
+ conviction to the brain and<br /> heart of the average man; and he should
+ have<br /> made no man in such a way that he could not, by any<br />
+ possibility, believe it. There certainly should be a<br /> harmony between
+ the Bible and the human brain. If<br /> I do not believe the Bible, whose
+ fault is it? Mr.<br /> Talmage insists that his God wrote the Bible for me.<br />
+ and made me. If this is true, the book and the man<br /> should agree.
+ There is no sense in God writing<br /> a book for me and then making me in
+ such a way that<br /> I cannot believe his book.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ But Mr. Talmage says the reason why<br /> you hate the Bible is, that your
+ soul is poisoned; that<br /> <br /> 87<br /> <br /> the Bible "throws you into
+ a rage precisely as pure<br /> "water brings on a paroxysm of hydrophobia."<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Is it because the mind of the infidel is<br />
+ poisoned, that he refuses to believe that an infinite<br /> God commanded
+ the murder of mothers, maidens and<br /> babes? Is it because their minds
+ are impure, that<br /> they refuse to believe that a good God established<br />
+ the institution of human slavery, or that he protected<br /> it when
+ established? Is it because their minds are<br /> vile, that they refuse to
+ believe that an infinite God<br /> established or protected polygamy? Is it
+ a sure<br /> sign of an impure mind, when a man insists that<br /> God never
+ waged wars of extermination against his<br /> helpless children? Does it
+ show that a man has<br /> been entirely given over to the devil, because he<br />
+ refuses to believe that God ordered a father to sacri-<br /> fice his son?
+ Does it show that a heart is entirely<br /> without mercy, simply because a
+ man denies the<br /> justice of eternal pain?<br /> <br /> I denounce many
+ parts of the Old Testament<br /> because they are infinitely repugnant to
+ my sense<br /> of justice,&mdash;because they are bloody, brutal and in-<br />
+ famous,&mdash;because they uphold crime and destroy<br /> human liberty. It
+ is impossible for me to imagine<br /> a greater monster than the God of the
+ Old Testa-<br /> <br /> 88<br /> <br /> ment. He is unworthy of my worship. He
+ com-<br /> mands only my detestation, my execration, and my<br /> passionate
+ hatred. The God who commanded the<br /> murder of children is an infamous
+ fiend. The God<br /> who believed in polygamy, is worthy only of con-<br />
+ tempt. The God who established slavery should be<br /> hated by every free
+ man. The Jehovah of the Jews<br /> was simply a barbarian, and the Old
+ Testament is<br /> mostly the barbarous record of a barbarous people.<br />
+ <br /> If the Jehovah of the Jews is the real God, I do<br /> not wish to be
+ his friend. From him I neither ask,<br /> nor expect, nor would I be
+ willing to receive, even an<br /> eternity of joy. According to the Old
+ Testament,<br /> he established a government,&mdash;a political state,&mdash;and<br />
+ yet, no civilized country to-day would re-enact these<br /> laws of God.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the explanation<br /> given by
+ Mr. Talmage of the stopping of the sun and<br /> moon in the time of
+ Joshua, in order that a battle<br /> might be completed?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Of course, if there is an infinite God,<br /> he could have stopped the sun
+ and moon. No one<br /> pretends to prescribe limits to the power of the<br />
+ infinite. Even admitting that such a being existed,<br /> the question
+ whether he did stop the sun and moon,<br /> <br /> 89<br /> <br /> or not,
+ still remains. According to the account, these<br /> planets were stopped,
+ in order that Joshua might con-<br /> tinue the pursuit of a routed enemy.
+ I take it for<br /> granted that a being of infinite wisdom would not<br />
+ waste any force,&mdash;that he would not throw away any<br />
+ "omnipotence," and that, under ordinary circum-<br /> stances, he would
+ husband his resources. I find that<br /> this spirit exists, at least in
+ embryo, in Mr. Talmage.<br /> He proceeds to explain this miracle. He does
+ not<br /> assert that the earth was stopped on its axis, but sug-<br />
+ gests "refraction" as a way out of the difficulty. Now,<br /> while the
+ stopping of the earth on its axis accounts for<br /> the sun remaining in
+ the same relative position, it does<br /> not account for the stoppage of
+ the moon. The moon<br /> has a motion of its own, and even if the earth had
+ been<br /> stopped in its rotary motion, the moon would have gone<br /> on.
+ The Bible tells us that the moon was stopped. One<br /> would suppose that
+ the sun would have given sufficient<br /> light for all practical purposes.
+ Will Mr. Talmage be<br /> kind enough to explain the stoppage of the moon?<br />
+ Every one knows that the moon is somewhat obscure<br /> when the sun is in
+ the midst of the heavens. The moon<br /> when compared with the sun at such
+ a time, is much<br /> like one of the discourses of Mr. Talmage side by
+ side<br /> with a chapter from Humboldt;&mdash;it is useless.<br /> <br /> 90<br />
+ <br /> In the same chapter in which the account of the<br /> stoppage of the
+ sun and moon is given, we find that<br /> God cast down from heaven great
+ hailstones on<br /> Joshua's enemies. Did he get out of hailstones?<br />
+ Had he no "omnipotence" left? Was it necessary<br /> for him to stop the
+ sun and moon and depend entirely<br /> upon the efforts of Joshua? Would
+ not the force<br /> employed in stopping the rotary motion of the earth<br />
+ have been sufficient to destroy the enemy? Would<br /> not a millionth part
+ of the force necessary to stop the<br /> moon, have pierced the enemy's
+ centre, and rolled up<br /> both his flanks? A resort to lightning would
+ have<br /> been, in my judgment, much more economical and<br /> rather more
+ effective. If he had simply opened the<br /> earth, and swallowed them, as
+ he did Korah and his<br /> company, it would have been a vast saving of<br />
+ "omnipotent" muscle. Yet, the foremost orthodox<br /> minister of the
+ Presbyterian Church,&mdash;the one who<br /> calls all unbelievers "wolves
+ and dogs," and "brazen<br /> "fools," in his effort to account for this
+ miracle, is<br /> driven to the subterfuge of an "optical illusion."<br />
+ We are seriously informed that "God probably<br /> "changed the nature of
+ the air," and performed this<br /> feat of ledgerdemain through the
+ instrumentality of<br /> "refraction." It seems to me it would have been
+ fully<br /> <br /> 91<br /> <br /> as easy to have changed the nature of the
+ air breathed<br /> by the enemy, so that it would not have supported<br />
+ life. He could have accomplished this by changing<br /> only a little air,
+ in that vicinity; whereas, according<br /> to the Talmagian view, he
+ changed the atmosphere<br /> of the world. Or, a small "local flood" might
+ have<br /> done the work. The optical illusion and refraction<br /> view,
+ ingenious as it may appear, was not original<br /> with Mr. Talmage. The
+ Rev. Henry M. Morey, of<br /> South Bend, Indiana, used, upon this subject,
+ the fol-<br /> lowing language; "The phenomenon was simply<br /> "optical.
+ The rotary motion of the earth was not<br /> "disturbed, but the light of
+ the sun was prolonged by<br /> "the same laws of refraction and reflection
+ by which<br /> "the sun now appears to be above the horizon when<br /> "it
+ is really below. The medium through which the<br /> "sun's rays passed,
+ might have been miraculously<br /> "influenced so as to have caused the sun
+ to linger<br /> "above the horizon long after its usual time for dis-<br />
+ "appearance."<br /> <br /> I pronounce the opinion of Mr. Morey to be the<br />
+ ripest product of Christian scholarship. According to<br /> the
+ Morey-Talmage view, the sun lingered somewhat<br /> above the horizon. But
+ this is inconsistent with the<br /> Bible account. We are not told in the
+ Scriptures that<br /> <br /> 92<br /> <br /> the sun "lingered above the
+ horizon," but that it "stood<br /> "still in the midst of heaven for about
+ a whole day."<br /> The trouble about the optical-illusion view is, that it<br />
+ makes the day too long. If the air was miraculously<br /> changed, so that
+ it refracted the rays of the sun, while<br /> the earth turned over as
+ usual for about a whole day,<br /> then, at the end of that time, the sun
+ must have been<br /> again visible in the east. It would then naturally<br />
+ shine twelve hours more, so that this miraculous day<br /> must have been
+ at least thirty-six hours in length.<br /> There were first twelve hours of
+ natural light, then<br /> twelve hours of refracted and reflected light,
+ and then<br /> twelve hours more of natural light. This makes the<br /> day
+ too long. So, I say to Mr. Talmage, as I said to<br /> Mr. Morey: If you
+ will depend a little less on<br /> refraction, and a little more on
+ reflection, you will see<br /> that the whole story is a barbaric myth and
+ foolish<br /> fable.<br /> <br /> For my part, I do not see why God should be<br />
+ pleased to have me believe a story of this character.<br /> I can hardly
+ think that there is great joy in heaven<br /> over another falsehood
+ swallowed. I can imagine<br /> that a man may deny this story, and still be
+ an excel-<br /> lent citizen, a good father, an obliging neighbor, and<br />
+ in all respects a just and truthful man. I can also<br /> <br /> 93<br />
+ <br /> imagine that a man may believe this story, and yet<br /> assassinate
+ a President of the United States.<br /> <br /> I am afraid that Mr. Talmage
+ is beginning to be<br /> touched, in spite of himself, with some new ideas.
+ He<br /> tells us that worlds are born and that worlds die.<br /> This is
+ not exactly the Bible view. You would think<br /> that he imagined that a
+ world was naturally pro-<br /> duced,&mdash;that the aggregation of atoms
+ was natural,<br /> and that disintegration came to worlds, as to men,<br />
+ through old age. Yet this is not the Bible view.<br /> According to the
+ Bible, these worlds were not born,&mdash;<br /> they were created out of
+ "nothing," or out of<br /> "omnipotence," which is much the same. According<br />
+ to the Bible, it took this infinite God six days to make<br /> this atom
+ called earth; and according to the account,<br /> he did not work nights,&mdash;he
+ worked from the morn-<br /> ings to the evenings,&mdash;and I suppose
+ rested nights,<br /> as he has since that time on Sundays.<br /> <br />
+ Admitting that the battle which Joshua fought<br /> was exceedingly
+ important&mdash;which I do not think&mdash;<br /> is it not a little
+ strange that this God, in all subse-<br /> quent battles of the world's
+ history, of which we<br /> know anything, has maintained the strictest neu-<br />
+ trality? The earth turned as usual at Yorktown,<br /> and at Gettysburg the
+ moon pursued her usual<br /> <br /> 94<br /> <br /> course; and so far as I
+ know, neither at Waterloo<br /> nor at Sedan were there any peculiar freaks
+ of "re-<br /> "fraction" or "reflection."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr.
+ Talmage tells us that there was in<br /> the early part of this century a
+ dark day, when<br /> workmen went home from their fields, and legis-<br />
+ latures and courts adjourned, and that the darkness<br /> of that day has
+ not yet been explained. What is<br /> your opinion about that?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. My opinion is, that if at that time we<br /> had been at war
+ with England, and a battle had<br /> been commenced in the morning, and in
+ the after-<br /> noon the American forces had been driven from their<br />
+ position and were hard pressed by the enemy, and<br /> if the day had
+ become suddenly dark, and so dark<br /> that the Americans were thereby
+ enabled to escape,<br /> thousands of theologians of the calibre of Mr.
+ Tal-<br /> mage would have honestly believed that there had<br /> been an
+ interposition of divine Providence. No<br /> battle was fought that day,
+ and consequently, even<br /> the ministers are looking for natural causes.
+ In<br /> olden times, when the heavens were visited by<br /> comets, war,
+ pestilence and famine were predicted.<br /> If wars came, the prediction
+ was remembered; if<br /> <br /> 95<br /> <br /> nothing happened, it was
+ forgotten. When eclipses<br /> visited the sun and moon, the barbarian fell
+ upon his<br /> knees, and accounted for the phenomena by the<br />
+ wickedness of his neighbor. Mr. Talmage tells us<br /> that his father was
+ terrified by the meteoric shower<br /> that visited our earth in 1833. The
+ terror of the<br /> father may account for the credulity of the son.<br />
+ Astronomers will be surprised to read the declaration<br /> of Mr. Talmage
+ that the meteoric shower has never<br /> been explained. Meteors visit the
+ earth every year<br /> of its life, and in a certain portion of the orbit
+ they<br /> are always expected, and they always come. Mr.<br /> Newcomb has
+ written a work on astronomy that<br /> all ministers ought to read.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage also charges you with<br /> "making
+ light of holy things," and seems to be aston-<br /> ished that you should
+ ridicule the anointing oil of<br /> Aaron?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I find
+ that the God who had no time to<br /> say anything on the subject of
+ slavery, and who found<br /> no room upon the tables of stone to say a word<br />
+ against polygamy, and in favor of the rights of<br /> woman, wife and
+ mother, took time to give a recipe<br /> for making hair oil. And in order
+ that the priests<br /> <br /> 96<br /> <br /> might have the exclusive right
+ to manufacture this oil,<br /> decreed the penalty of death on all who
+ should<br /> infringe. I admit that I am incapable of seeing the<br />
+ beauty of this symbol. Neither could I ever see the<br /> necessity of
+ Masons putting oil on the corner-stone<br /> of a building. Of course, I do
+ not know the exact<br /> chemical effect that oil has on stone, and I see
+ no harm<br /> in laughing at such a ceremony. If the oil does good,<br />
+ the laughter will do no harm; and if the oil will do no<br /> harm, the
+ laughter will do no good. Personally, I am<br /> willing that Masons should
+ put oil on all stones; but,<br /> if Masons should insist that I must
+ believe in the effi-<br /> cacy of the ceremony, or be eternally damned, I<br />
+ would have about the same feeling toward the<br /> Masons that I now have
+ toward Mr. Talmage. I<br /> presume that at one time the putting of oil on
+ a<br /> corner-stone had some meaning; but that it ever did<br /> any good,
+ no sensible man will insist. It is a custom<br /> to break a bottle of
+ champagne over the bow of<br /> a newly-launched ship, but I have never
+ considered<br /> this ceremony important to the commercial interests<br />
+ of the world.<br /> <br /> I have the same opinion about putting oil on<br />
+ stones, as about putting water on heads. For my<br /> part, I see no good
+ in the rite of baptism. Still, it<br /> <br /> 97<br /> <br /> may do no harm,
+ unless people are immersed during<br /> cold weather. Neither have I the
+ slightest objection<br /> to the baptism of anybody; but if people tell me
+ that<br /> I must be baptized or suffer eternal agony, then I deny<br /> it.
+ If they say that baptism does any earthly good, I<br /> deny it. No one
+ objects to any harmless ceremony;<br /> but the moment it is insisted that
+ a ceremony is neces-<br /> sary, the reason of which no man can see, then
+ the<br /> practice of the ceremony becomes hurtful, for the<br /> reason
+ that it is maintained only at the expense of<br /> intelligence and
+ manhood.<br /> <br /> It is hurtful for people to imagine that they can<br />
+ please God by any ceremony whatever. If there is<br /> any God, there is
+ only one way to please him, and<br /> that is, by a conscientious discharge
+ of your obliga-<br /> tions to your fellow-men. Millions of people imagine<br />
+ that they can please God by wearing certain kinds<br /> of cloth. Think of
+ a God who can be pleased with<br /> a coat of a certain cut! Others, to
+ earn a smile of<br /> heaven, shave their heads, or trim their beards, or<br />
+ perforate their ears or lips or noses. Others maim<br /> and mutilate their
+ bodies. Others think to please<br /> God by simply shutting their eyes, by
+ swinging<br /> censers, by lighting candles, by repeating poor Latin,<br />
+ by making a sign of the cross with holy water, by<br /> <br /> 98<br /> <br />
+ ringing bells, by going without meat, by eating fish,<br /> by getting
+ hungry, by counting beads, by making<br /> themselves miserable Sundays, by
+ looking solemn,<br /> by refusing to marry, by hearing sermons; and<br />
+ others imagine that they can please God by calumni-<br /> ating
+ unbelievers.<br /> <br /> There is an old story of an Irishman who, when<br />
+ dying, sent for a priest. The reputation of the<br /> dying man was so
+ perfectly miserable, that the priest<br /> refused to administer the rite
+ of extreme unction.<br /> The priest therefore asked him if he could
+ recollect<br /> any decent action that he had ever done. The dying<br /> man
+ said that he could not. "Very well," said the<br /> priest, "then you will
+ have to be damned." In a<br /> moment, the pinched and pale face
+ brightened, and<br /> he said to the priest: "I have thought of one good<br />
+ "action." "What is it?" asked the priest. And the<br /> dying man said,
+ "Once I killed a gauger."<br /> <br /> I suppose that in the next world some
+ ministers,<br /> driven to extremes, may reply: "Once I told a lie<br />
+ "about an infidel."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. You see that Mr. Talmage
+ still sticks to<br /> the whale and Jonah story. What do you think of<br />
+ his argument, or of his explanation, rather, of that<br /> miracle?<br />
+ <br /> 99<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The edge of his orthodoxy seems to be<br />
+ crumbling. He tells us that "there is in the mouth<br /> "of the common
+ whale a cavity large enough for a<br /> "man to live in without descent
+ into his stomach,"&mdash;<br /> and yet Christ says, that Jonah was in the
+ whale's<br /> belly, not in his mouth. But why should Mr. Tal-<br /> mage
+ say that? We are told in the sacred account<br /> that "God prepared a
+ great fish" for the sole pur-<br /> pose of having Jonah swallowed. The
+ size of the<br /> present whale has nothing to do with the story. No<br />
+ matter whether the throat of the whale of to-day is<br /> large or small,&mdash;that
+ has nothing to do with it. The<br /> simple story is, that God prepared a
+ fish and had<br /> Jonah swallowed. And yet Mr. Talmage throws out<br /> the
+ suggestion that probably this whale held Jonah<br /> in his mouth for three
+ days and nights. I admit that<br /> Jonah's chance for air would have been
+ a little better<br /> in his mouth, and his chance for water a little
+ worse.<br /> Probably the whale that swallowed Jonah was the<br /> same fish
+ spoken of by Procopius,&mdash;both accounts<br /> being entitled, in my
+ judgment, to equal credence.<br /> I am a little surprised that Mr. Talmage
+ forgot<br /> to mention the fish spoken of by Munchausen&mdash;an<br />
+ equally reliable author,&mdash;and who has given, not<br /> simply the bald
+ fact that a fish swallowed a ship, but<br /> <br /> 100<br /> <br /> was good
+ enough to furnish the details. Mr. Talmage<br /> should remember that out
+ of Jonah's biography<br /> grew the habit of calling any remarkable lie, "a
+ fish<br /> "story." There is one thing that Mr. Talmage<br /> should not
+ forget; and that is, that miracles should<br /> not be explained. Miracles
+ are told simply to be<br /> believed, not to be understood.<br /> <br />
+ Somebody suggested to Mr. Talmage that, in<br /> all probability, a person
+ in the stomach of a whale<br /> would be digested in less than three days.
+ Mr. Tal-<br /> mage, again showing his lack of confidence in God,<br />
+ refusing to believe that God could change the nature<br /> of gastric
+ juice,&mdash;having no opportunity to rely<br /> upon "refraction or
+ reflection," frankly admits that<br /> Jonah had to save himself by keeping
+ on the<br /> constant go and jump. This gastric-juice theory of<br /> Mr.
+ Talmage is an abandonment of his mouth hy-<br /> pothesis. I do not wonder
+ that Mr. Talmage thought<br /> of the mouth theory. Possibly, the two
+ theories had<br /> better be united&mdash;so that we may say that Jonah,<br />
+ when he got tired of the activity necessary to<br /> avoid the gastric
+ juice, could have strolled into<br /> the mouth for a rest. What a picture!
+ Jonah<br /> sitting on the edge of the lower jaw, wiping the<br />
+ perspiration and the gastric juice from his anxious<br /> <br /> 101<br />
+ <br /> face, and vainly looking through the open mouth<br /> for signs of
+ land!<br /> <br /> In this story of Jonah, we are told that "the Lord<br />
+ "spake unto the fish." In what language? It must<br /> be remembered that
+ this fish was only a few hours<br /> old. He had been prepared during the
+ storm, for<br /> the sole purpose of swallowing Jonah. He was a<br /> fish
+ of exceedingly limited experience. He had no<br /> hereditary knowledge,
+ because he did not spring<br /> from ancestors; consequently, he had no
+ instincts.<br /> Would such a fish understand any language? It<br /> may be
+ contended that the fish, having been made<br /> for the occasion, was given
+ a sufficient knowledge<br /> of language to understand an ordinary command-<br />
+ ment; but, if Mr. Talmage is right, I think an order<br /> to the fish
+ would have been entirely unnecessary.<br /> When we take into consideration
+ that a thing the<br /> size of a man had been promenading up and down<br />
+ the stomach of this fish for three days and three<br /> nights,
+ successfully baffling the efforts of gastric<br /> juice, we can readily
+ believe that the fish was as<br /> anxious to have Jonah go, as Jonah was
+ to leave.<br /> <br /> But the whale part is, after all, not the most won-<br />
+ derful portion of the book of Jonah. According to<br /> this wonderful
+ account, "the word of the Lord came<br /> <br /> 102<br /> <br /> "to Jonah,"
+ telling him to "go and cry against the<br /> "city of Nineveh;" but Jonah,
+ instead of going,<br /> endeavored to evade the Lord by taking ship for<br />
+ Tarshish. As soon as the Lord heard of this, he<br /> "sent out a great
+ wind into the sea," and frightened<br /> the sailors to that extent that
+ after assuring them-<br /> selves, by casting lots, that Jonah was the man,
+ they<br /> threw him into the sea. After escaping from the<br /> whale, he
+ went to Nineveh, and delivered his pre-<br /> tended message from God. In
+ consequence of his<br /> message, Jonah having no credentials from God,&mdash;<br />
+ nothing certifying to his official character, the King<br /> of Nineveh
+ covered himself with sack-cloth and sat<br /> down in some ashes. He then
+ caused a decree to<br /> be issued that every man and beast should abstain<br />
+ from food and water; and further, that every man and<br /> beast should be
+ covered with sack-cloth. This was<br /> done in the hope that Jonah's God
+ would repent, and<br /> turn away his fierce anger. When we take into con-<br />
+ sideration the fact that the people of Nineveh were<br /> not Hebrews, and
+ had not the slightest confidence in<br /> the God of the Jews&mdash;knew no
+ more of, and cared no<br /> more for, Jehovah than we now care for Jupiter,
+ or<br /> Neptune; the effect produced by the proclamation of<br /> Jonah is,
+ to say the least of it, almost incredible.<br /> <br /> 103<br /> <br /> We
+ are also informed, in this book, that the<br /> moment God saw all the
+ people sitting in the ashes,<br /> and all the animals covered with
+ sack-cloth, he<br /> repented. This failure on the part of God to destroy<br />
+ the unbelievers displeased Jonah exceedingly, and<br /> he was very angry.
+ Jonah was much like the<br /> modern minister, who seems always to be
+ personally<br /> aggrieved if the pestilence and famine prophesied by<br />
+ him do not come. Jonah was displeased to that<br /> degree, that he asked
+ God to kill him. Jonah then<br /> went out of the city, even after God had
+ repented,<br /> made him a booth and sat under it, in the shade,<br />
+ waiting to see what would become of the city. God<br /> then "prepared a
+ gourd, and made it to come up<br /> "over Jonah that it might be a shadow
+ over his<br /> "head to deliver him from his grief." And then we<br /> have
+ this pathetic line: "So Jonah was exceedingly<br /> "glad of the gourd."<br />
+ <br /> God having prepared a fish, and also prepared<br /> a gourd, proposed
+ next morning to prepare a worm.<br /> And when the sun rose next day, the
+ worm that<br /> God had prepared, "smote the gourd, so that<br /> "it
+ withered." I can hardly believe that an in-<br /> finite being prepared a
+ worm to smite a gourd<br /> so that it withered, in order to keep the sun
+ from<br /> <br /> 104<br /> <br /> the bald head of a prophet. According to
+ the<br /> account, after sunrise, and after the worm had<br /> smitten the
+ gourd, "God prepared a vehement east<br /> "wind." This was not an ordinary
+ wind, but one<br /> prepared expressly for that occasion. After the wind<br />
+ had been prepared, "the sun beat upon the head of<br /> "Jonah, and he
+ fainted, and wished in himself to<br /> "die." All this was done in order
+ to convince<br /> Jonah that a man who would deplore the loss of a<br />
+ gourd, ought not to wish for the destruction of a city.<br /> <br /> Is it
+ possible for any intelligent man now to<br /> believe that the history of
+ Jonah is literally true?<br /> For my part, I cannot see the necessity
+ either of<br /> believing it, or of preaching it. It has nothing to do<br />
+ with honesty, with mercy, or with morality. The<br /> bad may believe it,
+ and the good may hold it in<br /> contempt. I do not see that civilization
+ has the<br /> slightest interest in the fish, the gourd, the worm, or<br />
+ the vehement east wind.<br /> <br /> Does Mr. Talmage think that it is
+ absolutely neces-<br /> sary to believe <i>all</i> the story? Does he not
+ think it<br /> probable that a God of infinite mercy, rather than<br /> damn
+ the soul of an honest man to hell forever, would<br /> waive, for instance,
+ the worm,&mdash;provided he believed<br /> in the vehement east wind, the
+ gourd and the fish?<br /> <br /> 105<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage, by insisting on
+ the literal truth of<br /> the Bible stories, is doing Christianity great
+ harm.<br /> Thousands of young men will say: "I can't become<br /> "a
+ Christian if it is necessary to believe the adven-<br /> "tures of Jonah."
+ Mr. Talmage will put into the<br /> paths of multitudes of people willing
+ to do right,<br /> anxious to make the world a little better than it is,&mdash;<br />
+ this stumbling block. He could have explained it,<br /> called it an
+ allegory, poetical license, a child of the<br /> oriental imagination, a
+ symbol, a parable, a poem, a<br /> dream, a legend, a myth, a divine
+ figure, or a great<br /> truth wrapped in the rags and shreds and patches
+ of<br /> seeming falsehood. His efforts to belittle the miracle,<br /> to
+ suggest the mouth instead of the stomach,&mdash;to<br /> suggest that Jonah
+ took deck passage, or lodged in<br /> the forecastle instead of in the
+ cabin or steerage,&mdash;<br /> to suggest motion as a means of avoiding
+ digestion,<br /> is a serious theological blunder, and may cause the<br />
+ loss of many souls.<br /> <br /> If Mr. Talmage will consult with other
+ ministers,<br /> they will tell him to let this story alone&mdash;that he
+ will<br /> simply "provoke investigation and discussion"&mdash;two<br />
+ things to be avoided. They will tell him that they<br /> are not willing
+ their salary should hang on so slender<br /> a thread, and will advise him
+ not to bother his gourd<br /> <br /> 106<br /> <br /> about Jonah's. They will
+ also tell him that in this<br /> age of the world, arguments cannot be
+ answered by<br /> "a vehement east wind."<br /> <br /> Some people will think
+ that it would have been<br /> just as easy for God to have pulled the gourd
+ up, as<br /> to have prepared a worm to bite it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Mr. Talmage charges that you have<br /> said there are indecencies in the
+ Bible. Are you<br /> still of that opinion?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Mr.
+ Talmage endeavors to evade the<br /> charge, by saying that "there are
+ things in the Bible<br /> "not intended to be read, either in the family
+ circle,<br /> "or in the pulpit, but nevertheless they are to be<br />
+ "read." My own judgment is, that an infinite being<br /> should not inspire
+ the writing of indecent things.<br /> It will not do to say, that the Bible
+ description of sin<br /> "warns and saves." There is nothing in the history<br />
+ of Tamar calculated to "warn and save and the<br /> same may be said of
+ many other passages in the<br /> Old Testament. Most Christians would be
+ glad<br /> to know that all such passages are interpolations.<br /> I regret
+ that Shakespeare ever wrote a line that<br /> could not be read any where,
+ and by any person.<br /> But Shakespeare, great as he was, did not rise en-<br />
+ <br /> 107<br /> <br /> tirely above his time. So of most poets. Nearly all<br />
+ have stained their pages with some vulgarity; and I<br /> am sorry for it,
+ and hope the time will come when<br /> we shall have an edition of all the
+ great writers and<br /> poets from which every such passage is elimi-<br />
+ nated.<br /> <br /> It is with the Bible as with most other books. It<br />
+ is a mingling of good and bad. There are many<br /> exquisite passages in
+ the Bible,&mdash;many good laws,&mdash;<br /> many wise sayings,&mdash;and
+ there are many passages<br /> that should never have been written. I do not
+ pro-<br /> pose to throw away the good on account of the<br /> bad, neither
+ do I propose to accept the bad on<br /> account of the good. The Bible need
+ not be taken<br /> as an entirety. It is the business of every man who<br />
+ reads it, to discriminate between that which is good<br /> and that which
+ is bad. There are also many passages<br /> neither good nor bad,&mdash;wholly
+ and totally indifferent<br /> &mdash;conveying 110 information&mdash;utterly
+ destitute of<br /> ideas,&mdash;and as to these passages, my only objection<br />
+ to them is that they waste time and paper.<br /> <br /> I am in favor of
+ every passage in the Bible that<br /> conveys information. I am in favor of
+ every wise<br /> proverb, of every verse coming from human ex-<br />
+ perience and that appeals to the heart of man. I am<br /> <br /> 108<br />
+ <br /> in favor of every passage that inculcates justice,<br /> generosity,
+ purity, and mercy. I am satisfied that<br /> much of the historical part is
+ false. Some of it<br /> is probably true. Let us have the courage to take<br />
+ the true, and throw the false away. I am satisfied<br /> that many of the
+ passages are barbaric, and many of<br /> them are good. Let us have the
+ wisdom to accept<br /> the good and to reject the barbaric.<br /> <br /> No
+ system of religion should go in partnership<br /> with barbarism. Neither
+ should any Christian feel<br /> it his duty to defend the savagery of the
+ past. The<br /> philosophy of Christ must stand independently of the<br />
+ mistakes of the Old Testament. We should do jus-<br /> tice whether a woman
+ was made from a rib or from<br /> "omnipotence." We should be merciful
+ whether<br /> the flood was general, or local. We should be kind<br /> and
+ obliging whether Jonah was swallowed by a fish<br /> or not. The miraculous
+ has nothing to do with the<br /> moral. Intelligence is of more value than
+ inspiration.<br /> Brain is better than Bible. Reason is above all<br />
+ religion. I do not believe that any civilized human<br /> being clings to
+ the Bible on account of its barbaric<br /> passages. I am candid enough to
+ believe that every<br /> Christian in the world would think more of the
+ Bible,<br /> if it had not upheld slavery, if it had denounced<br /> <br />
+ 109<br /> <br /> polygamy, if it had cried out against wars of exter-<br />
+ mination, if it had spared women and babes, if it had<br /> upheld
+ everywhere, and at all times, the standard of<br /> justice and mercy. But
+ when it is claimed that the<br /> book is perfect, that it is inspired,
+ that it is, in fact,<br /> the work of an infinitely wise and good God,&mdash;then<br />
+ it should be without a defect. There should not be<br /> within its lids an
+ impure word; it should not express<br /> an impure thought. There should
+ not be one word<br /> in favor of injustice, not one word in favor of
+ slavery,<br /> not one word in favor of wars of extermination.<br /> There
+ must be another revision of the Scriptures.<br /> The chaff must be thrown
+ away. The dross must<br /> be rejected; and only that be retained which is
+ in<br /> exact harmony with the brain and heart of the<br /> greatest and
+ the best.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage charges you with unfair-<br />
+ ness, because you account for the death of art in<br /> Palestine, by the
+ commandment which forbids the<br /> making of graven images.<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ I have said that that commandment was<br /> the death of art, and I say so
+ still. I insist that by<br /> reason of that commandment, Palestine
+ produced no<br /> painter and no sculptor until after the destruction of<br />
+ <br /> 110<br /> <br /> Jerusalem. Mr. Talmage, in order to answer that<br />
+ statement, goes on to show that hundreds and thou-<br /> sands of pictures
+ were produced in the Middle Ages.<br /> That is a departure in pleading.
+ Will he give us the<br /> names of the painters that existed in Palestine
+ from<br /> Mount Sinai to the destruction of the temple? Will<br /> he give
+ us the names of the sculptors between those<br /> times? Mohammed
+ prohibited his followers from<br /> making any representation of human or
+ animal life,<br /> and as a result, Mohammedans have never produced<br /> a
+ painter nor a sculptor, except in the portrayal and<br /> chiseling of
+ vegetable forms. They were confined<br /> to trees and vines, and flowers.
+ No Mohammedan<br /> has portrayed the human face or form. But the<br />
+ commandment of Jehovah went farther than that of<br /> Momammed, and
+ prevented portraying the image of<br /> anything. The assassination of art
+ was complete.<br /> <br /> There is another thing that should not be
+ forgotten.<br /> <br /> We are indebted for the encouragement of<br /> art,
+ not to the Protestant Church; if indebted to any,<br /> it is to the
+ Catholic. The Catholic adorned the cathedral<br /> <br /> with painting and
+ statue&mdash;not the Protestant.<br /> The Protestants opposed music and
+ painting, and<br /> refused to decorate their temples. But if Mr. Tal-<br />
+ mage wishes to know to whom we are indebted for<br /> <br /> 111<br /> <br />
+ art, let him read the mythology of Greece and Rome.<br /> The early
+ Christians destroyed paintings and statues.<br /> They were the enemies of
+ all beauty. They hated<br /> and detested every expression of art. They
+ looked<br /> upon the love of statues as a form of idolatry. They<br />
+ looked upon every painting as a remnant of Pagan-<br /> ism. They destroyed
+ all upon which they could lay<br /> their ignorant hands. Hundred of years
+ afterwards,<br /> the world was compelled to search for the fragments<br />
+ that Christian fury had left. The Greeks filled the<br /> world with
+ beauty. For every stream and mountain<br /> and cataract they had a god or
+ goddess. Their<br /> sculptors impersonated every dream and hope, and<br />
+ their mythology feeds, to-day, the imagination of<br /> mankind. The Venus
+ de Milo is the impersonation<br /> of beauty, in ruin&mdash;the sublimest
+ fragment of the<br /> ancient world. Our mythology is infinitely unpoetic<br />
+ and barren&mdash;our deity an old bachelor from eternity,<br /> who once
+ believed in indiscriminate massacre. Upon<br /> the throne of our heaven,
+ woman finds no place.<br /> Our mythology is destitute of the maternal.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage denies your statement<br /> that the Old
+ Testament humiliates woman. He also<br /> denies that the New Testament
+ says anything<br /> against woman. How is it?<br /> <br /> 112<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Of course, I never considered a book up-<br /> holding polygamy to be the
+ friend of woman. Eve,<br /> according to that book, is the mother of us
+ all, and<br /> yet the inspired writer does not tell us how long she<br />
+ lived,&mdash;does not even mention her death,&mdash;makes<br /> not the
+ slightest reference as to what finally became<br /> of her. Methuselah
+ lived nine hundred and sixty-<br /> nine years, and yet, there is not the
+ slightest mention<br /> made of Mrs. Methuselah. Enoch was translated,<br />
+ and his widow is not mentioned. There is not a<br /> word about Mrs. Seth,
+ or Mrs. Enos, or Mrs. Cainan,<br /> or Mrs. Mahalaleel, or Mrs. Jared. We
+ do not<br /> know the name of Mrs. Noah, and I believe not the<br /> name of
+ a solitary woman is given from the creation<br /> of Eve&mdash;with the
+ exception of two of Lamech's<br /> wives&mdash;until Sarai is mentioned as
+ being the wife<br /> of Abram.<br /> <br /> If you wish really to know the
+ Bible estimation of<br /> woman, turn to the fourth and fifth verses of the<br />
+ twelfth chapter of Leviticus, in which a woman, for<br /> the crime of
+ having borne a son, is unfit to touch a<br /> hallowed thing, or to come in
+ the holy sanctuary for<br /> thirty-three days; but if a woman was the
+ mother<br /> of a girl, then she became totally unfit to enter the<br />
+ sanctuary, or pollute with her touch a hallowed thing,<br /> <br /> 113<br />
+ <br /> for sixty-six days. The pollution was twice as great<br /> when she
+ had borne a daughter.<br /> <br /> It is a little difficult to see why it is
+ a greater crime<br /> to give birth to a daughter than to a son. Surely, a<br />
+ law like that did not tend to the elevation of woman.<br /> You will also
+ find in the same chapter that a woman<br /> had to offer a pigeon, or a
+ turtle-dove, as a sin offer-<br /> ing, in order to expiate the crime of
+ having become a<br /> mother. By the Levitical law, a mother was unclean.<br />
+ The priest had to make an atonement for her.<br /> <br /> If there is,
+ beneath the stars, a figure of complete<br /> and perfect purity, it is a
+ mother holding in her arms<br /> her child. The laws respecting women,
+ given by<br /> commandment of Jehovah to the Jews, were born of<br />
+ barbarism, and in this day and age should be re-<br /> garded only with
+ detestation and contempt. The<br /> twentieth and twenty-first verses of
+ the nineteenth<br /> chapter of Leviticus show that the same punishment<br />
+ was not meted to men and women guilty of the<br /> same crime.<br /> <br />
+ The real explanation of what we find in the Old<br /> Testament degrading
+ to woman, lies in the fact, that<br /> the overflow of Love's mysterious
+ Nile&mdash;the sacred<br /> source of life&mdash;was, by its savage
+ authors, deemed<br /> unclean.<br /> <br /> 114<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ But what have you to say about the<br /> women of the Bible, mentioned by
+ Mr. Talmage,<br /> and held up as examples for all time of all that is<br />
+ sweet and womanly?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I believe that Esther is his
+ principal<br /> heroine. Let us see who she was.<br /> <br /> According to
+ the book of Esther, Ahasuerus who<br /> was king of Persia, or some such
+ place, ordered<br /> Vashti his queen to show herself to the people<br />
+ and the princes, because she was "exceedingly fair<br /> "to look upon."
+ For some reason&mdash;modesty per-<br /> haps&mdash;she refused to appear.
+ And thereupon the<br /> king "sent letters into all his provinces and to
+ every<br /> "people after their language, that every man should<br /> "bear
+ rule in his own house;" it being feared that<br /> if it should become
+ public that Vashti had disobeyed,<br /> all other wives might follow her
+ example. The king<br /> also, for the purpose of impressing upon all women<br />
+ the necessity of obeying their husbands, issued a<br /> decree that "Vashti
+ should come no more before<br /> "him," and that he would "give her royal
+ estate<br /> "unto another." This was done that "all the<br /> "wives should
+ give to their husbands honor, both to<br /> "great and small."<br /> <br />
+ After this, "the king appointed officers in all the<br /> <br /> 115<br />
+ <br /> "provinces of his kingdom that they might gather<br /> "together all
+ the fair young virgins," and bring<br /> them to his palace, put them in
+ the custody of<br /> his chamberlain, and have them thoroughly washed.<br />
+ Then the king was to look over the lot and take<br /> each day the one that
+ pleased him best until he found<br /> the one to put in the place of
+ Vashti. A fellow by<br /> the name of Mordecai, living in that part of the<br />
+ country, hearing of the opportunity to sell a girl,<br /> brought Esther,
+ his uncle's daughter,&mdash;she being an<br /> orphan, and very beautiful&mdash;to
+ see whether she<br /> might not be the lucky one.<br /> <br /> The remainder
+ of the second chapter of this<br /> book, I do not care to repeat. It is
+ sufficient to say<br /> that Esther at last was chosen.<br /> <br /> The king
+ at this time did not know that Esther<br /> was a Jewess. Mordecai her
+ kinsman, however,<br /> discovered a plot to assassinate the king, and
+ Esther<br /> told the king, and the two plotting gentlemen were<br /> hanged
+ on a tree.<br /> <br /> After a while, a man by the name of Haman was<br />
+ made Secretary of State, and everybody coming in<br /> his presence bowed
+ except Mordecai. Mordecai was<br /> probably depending on the influence of
+ Esther.<br /> Haman finally became so vexed, that he made up<br /> <br /> 116<br />
+ <br /> his mind to have all the Jews in the kingdom<br /> destroyed. (The
+ number of Jews at that time<br /> in Persia must have been immense.) Haman
+ there-<br /> upon requested the king to have an order issued to<br />
+ destroy all the Jews, and in consideration of the<br /> order, proposed to
+ pay ten thousand talents of silver.<br /> And thereupon, letters were
+ written to the governors<br /> of the various provinces, sealed with the
+ king's ring,<br /> sent by post in all directions, with instructions to
+ kill<br /> all the Jews, both young and old&mdash;little children and<br />
+ women,&mdash;in one day. (One would think that the<br /> king copied this
+ order from another part of the Old<br /> Testament, or had found an
+ original by Jehovah.) The<br /> people immediately made preparations for
+ the killing.<br /> Mordecai clothed himself with sack-cloth, and Esther<br />
+ called upon one of the king's chamberlains, and she<br /> finally got the
+ history of the affair, as well as a copy<br /> of the writing, and
+ thereupon made up her mind to<br /> go in and ask the king to save her
+ people.<br /> <br /> At that time, Bismarck's idea of government being<br />
+ in full force, any one entering the king's presence with-<br /> out an
+ invitation, was liable to be put to death. And<br /> in case any one did go
+ in to see the king, if the king<br /> failed to hold out his golden
+ sceptre, his life was not<br /> spared. Notwithstanding this order, Esther
+ put on<br /> <br /> 117<br /> <br /> her best clothes, and stood in the inner
+ court of the<br /> king's house, while the king sat on his royal throne.<br />
+ When the king saw her standing in the court, he<br /> held out his sceptre,
+ and Esther drew near, and he<br /> asked her what she wished; and thereupon
+ she<br /> asked that the king and Haman might take dinner<br /> with her
+ that day, and it was done. While they were<br /> feasting, the king again
+ asked Esther what she<br /> wanted; and her second request was, that they<br />
+ would come and dine with her once more. When<br /> Haman left the palace
+ that day, he saw Mordecai<br /> again at the gate, standing as stiffly as
+ usual, and it<br /> filled Haman with indignation. So Haman, taking<br />
+ the advice of his wife, made a gallows fifty cubits<br /> high, for the
+ special benefit of Mordecai. The next<br /> day, when Haman went to see the
+ king, the king,<br /> having the night before refreshed his memory in<br />
+ respect to the service done him by Mordecai, asked<br /> Haman what ought
+ to be done for the man whom<br /> the king wished to honor. Haman,
+ supposing of<br /> course that the king referred to him, said that royal<br />
+ purple ought to be brought forth, such as the king<br /> wore, and the
+ horse that the king rode on, and the<br /> crown-royal should be set on the
+ man's head;&mdash;that<br /> one of the most noble princes should lead the
+ horse,<br /> <br /> 118<br /> <br /> and as he went through the streets,
+ proclaim: "Thus<br /> "shall it be done to the man whom the king de-<br />
+ "lighteth to honor."<br /> <br /> Thereupon the king told Haman that
+ Mordecai<br /> was the man that the king wished to honor. And<br /> Haman
+ was forced to lead this horse, backed by<br /> Mordecai, through the
+ streets, shouting: "This shall<br /> "be done to the man whom the king
+ delighteth to<br /> "honor." Immediately afterward, he went to the<br />
+ banquet that Esther had prepared, and the king<br /> again asked Esther her
+ petition. She then asked<br /> for the salvation of her people; stating at
+ the same<br /> time, that if her people had been sold into slavery,<br />
+ she would have held her tongue; but since they<br /> were about to be
+ killed, she could not keep silent.<br /> The king asked her who had done
+ this thing; and<br /> Esther replied that it was the wicked Haman.<br />
+ <br /> Thereupon one of the chamberlains, remembering<br /> the gallows that
+ had been made for Mordecai, men-<br /> tioned it, and the king immediately
+ ordered that<br /> Haman be hanged thereon; which was done. And<br />
+ Mordecai immediately became Secretary of State.<br /> The order against the
+ Jews was then rescinded; and<br /> Ahasuerus, willing to do anything that
+ Esther de-<br /> sired, hanged all of Haman's folks. He not only did<br />
+ <br /> 119<br /> <br /> this, but he immediately issued an order to all the<br />
+ Jews allowing them to kill the other folks. And the<br /> Jews got together
+ throughout one hundred and<br /> twenty-seven provinces, "and such was
+ their power,<br /> "that no man could stand against them; and there-<br />
+ "upon the Jews smote all their enemies with the<br /> "stroke of the sword,
+ and with slaughter and de-<br /> "struction, and did whatever they pleased
+ to those<br /> "who hated them." And in the palace of the king,<br /> the
+ Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men, besides<br /> ten sons of Haman;
+ and in the rest of the provinces,<br /> they slew seventy-five thousand
+ people. And after<br /> this work of slaughter, the Jews had a day of glad-<br />
+ ness and feasting.<br /> <br /> One can see from this, what a beautiful
+ Bible<br /> character Esther was&mdash;how filled with all that is<br />
+ womanly, gentle, kind and tender!<br /> <br /> This story is one of the most
+ unreasonable, as well<br /> as one of the most heartless and revengeful, in
+ the<br /> whole Bible. Ahasuerus was a monster, and Esther<br /> equally
+ infamous; and yet, this woman is held up for<br /> the admiration of
+ mankind by a Brooklyn pastor.<br /> There is this peculiarity about the
+ book of Esther:<br /> the name of God is not mentioned in it, and the<br />
+ deity is not referred to, directly or indirectly;&mdash;yet<br /> <br /> 120<br />
+ <br /> it is claimed to be an inspired book. If Jehovah<br /> wrote it, he
+ certainly cannot be charged with<br /> egotism.<br /> <br /> I most
+ cheerfully admit that the book of Ruth is<br /> quite a pleasant story, and
+ the affection of Ruth for<br /> her mother-in-law exceedingly touching, but
+ I am of<br /> opinion that Ruth did many things that would be re-<br />
+ garded as somewhat indiscreet, even in the city of<br /> Brooklyn.<br />
+ <br /> All I can find about Hannah is, that she made a<br /> little coat for
+ her boy Samuel, and brought it to him<br /> from year to year. Where he got
+ his vest and<br /> pantaloons we are not told. But this fact seems<br />
+ hardly enough to make her name immortal.<br /> <br /> So also Mr. Talmage
+ refers us to the wonderful<br /> woman Abigail. The story about Abigail,
+ told in<br /> plain English, is this: David sent some of his fol-<br />
+ lowers to Nabal, Abigail's husband, and demanded<br /> food. Nabal, who
+ knew nothing about David, and<br /> cared less, refused. Abigail heard
+ about it, and took<br /> food to David and his servants. She was very much<br />
+ struck, apparently, with David and David with her.<br /> A few days
+ afterward Nabal died&mdash;supposed to have<br /> been killed by the Lord&mdash;but
+ probably poisoned;<br /> and thereupon David took Abigail to wife. The<br />
+ <br /> 121<br /> <br /> whole matter should have been investigated by the<br />
+ grand jury.<br /> <br /> We are also referred to Dorcas, who no doubt was a<br />
+ good woman&mdash;made clothes for the poor and gave<br /> alms, as millions
+ have done since then. It seems<br /> that this woman died. Peter was sent
+ for, and there-<br /> upon raised her from the dead, and she is never men-<br />
+ tioned any more. Is it not a little strange that a<br /> woman who had been
+ actually raised from the dead,<br /> should have so completely passed out
+ of the memory<br /> of her time, that when she died the second time, she<br />
+ was entirely unnoticed?<br /> <br /> Is it not astonishing that so little is
+ in the New<br /> Testament concerning the mother of Christ? My<br /> own
+ opinion is, that she was an excellent woman, and<br /> the wife of Joseph;
+ and that Joseph was the actual<br /> father of Christ. I think there can be
+ no reasonable<br /> doubt that such was the opinion of the authors of the<br />
+ original gospels. Upon any other hypothesis, it is<br /> impossible to
+ account for their having given the<br /> genealogy of Joseph to prove that
+ Christ was of the<br /> blood of David. The idea that he was the Son of<br />
+ God, or in any way miraculously produced, was an<br /> afterthought, and is
+ hardly entitled now to serious<br /> consideration. The gospels were
+ written so long after<br /> <br /> 122<br /> <br /> the death of Christ, that
+ very little was known of him,<br /> and substantially nothing of his
+ parents. How is it<br /> that not one word is said about the death of Mary&mdash;<br />
+ not one word about the death of Joseph? How did<br /> it happen that Christ
+ did not visit his mother after his<br /> resurrection? The first time he
+ speaks to his mother<br /> is when he was twelve years old. His mother
+ having<br /> told him that she and his father had been seeking<br /> him, he
+ replied: "How is it that ye sought me: wist<br /> "ye not that I must be
+ about my Father s business?"<br /> <br /> The second time was at the
+ marriage feast in Cana,<br /> when he said to her: "Woman, what have I to
+ do<br /> "with thee?" And the third time was at the cross,<br /> when
+ "Jesus, seeing his mother standing by the<br /> "disciple whom he loved,
+ said to her: Woman, be-<br /> "hold thy son;" and to the disciple: "Behold
+ thy<br /> "mother." And this is all.<br /> <br /> The best thing about the
+ Catholic Church is<br /> the deification of Mary,&mdash;and yet this is
+ denounced<br /> by Protestantism as idolatry. There is something<br /> in
+ the human heart that prompts man to tell his faults<br /> more freely to
+ the mother than to the father. The<br /> cruelty of Jehovah is softened by
+ the mercy of<br /> Mary.<br /> <br /> Is it not strange that none of the
+ disciples of Christ<br /> <br /> 123<br /> <br /> said anything about their
+ parents,&mdash;that we know<br /> absolutely nothing of them? Is there any
+ evidence<br /> that they showed any particular respect even for the<br />
+ mother of Christ?<br /> <br /> Mary Magdalen is, in many respects, the
+ tenderest<br /> and most loving character in the New Testament.<br />
+ According to the account, her love for Christ knew<br /> no abatement,&mdash;no
+ change&mdash;true even in the hopeless<br /> shadow of the cross. Neither
+ did it die with his<br /> death. She waited at the sepulchre; she hasted in<br />
+ the early morning to his tomb, and yet the only<br /> comfort Christ gave
+ to this true and loving soul lies<br /> in these strangely cold and
+ heartless words: "Touch<br /> "me not."<br /> <br /> There is nothing tending
+ to show that the women<br /> spoken of in the Bible were superior to the
+ ones we<br /> know. There are to-day millions of women making<br /> coats
+ for their sons,&mdash;hundreds of thousands of<br /> women, true not simply
+ to innocent people, falsely<br /> accused, but to criminals. Many a loving
+ heart is<br /> as true to the gallows as Mary was to the cross.<br /> There
+ are hundreds of thousands of women accept-<br /> ing poverty and want and
+ dishonor, for the love they<br /> bear unworthy men; hundreds and
+ thousands, hun-<br /> dreds and thousands, working day and night, with<br />
+ <br /> 124<br /> <br /> strained eyes and tired hands, for husbands and<br />
+ children,&mdash;clothed in rags, housed in huts and hovels,<br /> hoping
+ day after day for the angel of death. There are<br /> thousands of women in
+ Christian England, working in<br /> iron, laboring in the fields and
+ toiling in mines. There<br /> are hundreds and thousands in Europe,
+ everywhere,<br /> doing the work of men&mdash;deformed by toil, and who<br />
+ would become simply wild and ferocious beasts,<br /> except for the love
+ they bear for home and child.<br /> <br /> You need not go back four
+ thousand years for<br /> heroines. The world is filled with them to-day.<br />
+ They do not belong to any nation, nor to any religion,<br /> nor
+ exclusively to any race. Wherever woman is<br /> found, they are found.<br />
+ <br /> There is no description of any women in the Bible<br /> that equal
+ thousands and thousands of women known<br /> to-day. The women mentioned by
+ Mr. Talmage fall<br /> almost infinitely below, not simply those in real
+ life, but<br /> the creations of the imagination found in the world of<br />
+ fiction. They will not compare with the women born<br /> of Shakespeare's
+ brain. You will find none like<br /> Isabella, in whose spotless life, love
+ and reason<br /> blended into perfect truth; nor Juliet, within whose<br />
+ heart passion and purity met, like white and red within<br /> the bosom of
+ a rose; nor Cordelia, who chose to<br /> <br /> 125<br /> <br /> suffer loss
+ rather than show her wealth of love with<br /> those who gilded dross with
+ golden words in hope<br /> of gain; nor Miranda, who told her love as
+ freely<br /> as a flower gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun;<br /> nor
+ Imogene, who asked: "What is it to be false?"<br /> nor Hermione, who bore
+ with perfect faith and hope<br /> the cross of shame, and who at last
+ forgave with all<br /> her heart; nor Desdemona, her innocence so perfect<br />
+ and her love so pure, that she was incapable of sus-<br /> pecting that
+ another could suspect, and sought with<br /> dying words to hide her
+ lover's crime.<br /> <br /> If we wish to find what the Bible thinks of<br />
+ woman, all that is necessary to do is to read it.<br /> We will find that
+ everywhere she is spoken of<br /> simply as property,&mdash;as belonging
+ absolutely to the<br /> man. We will find that whenever a man got tired<br />
+ of his wife, all he had to do was to give her a writing<br /> of
+ divorcement, and that then the mother of his<br /> children became a
+ houseless and a homeless wanderer.<br /> We will find that men were allowed
+ to have as<br /> many wives as they could get, either by courtship,<br />
+ purchase, or conquest. The Jewish people in the<br /> olden time were in
+ many respects like their barbarian<br /> neighbors.<br /> <br /> If we read
+ the New Testament, we will find in the<br /> <br /> 126<br /> <br /> epistle
+ of Paul to Timothy, the following gallant<br /> passages:<br /> <br /> "Let
+ the woman learn in silence, with all<br /> "subjection."<br /> <br /> "But I
+ suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp<br /> "authority over the man,
+ but to be in silence."<br /> <br /> And for these kind, gentle and civilized
+ remarks,<br /> the apostle Paul gives the following reasons:<br /> <br />
+ "For Adam was first formed, then Eve."<br /> <br /> "And Adam was not
+ deceived, but the woman<br /> "being deceived was in the transgression."<br />
+ <br /> Certainly women ought to feel under great obli-<br /> gation to the
+ apostle Paul.<br /> <br /> In the fifth chapter of the same epistle, Paul,<br />
+ advising Timothy as to what kind of people he<br /> should admit into his
+ society or church, uses the<br /> following language:<br /> <br /> "Let not a
+ widow be taken into the number under<br /> "threescore years old, having
+ been the wife of one<br /> "man."<br /> <br /> "But the younger widows
+ refuse, for when they<br /> "have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they
+ will<br /> "marry."<br /> <br /> This same Paul did not seem to think
+ polygamy<br /> wrong, except in a bishop. He tells Timothy that:<br /> <br />
+ 127<br /> <br /> "A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one<br />
+ "wife."<br /> <br /> He also lays down the rule that a deacon should be<br />
+ the husband of one wife, leaving us to infer that the<br /> other members
+ might have as many as they could get.<br /> <br /> In the second epistle to
+ Timothy, Paul speaks of<br /> "grandmother Lois," who was referred to in
+ such<br /> extravagant language by Mr. Talmage, and nothing<br /> is said
+ touching her character in the least. All her<br /> virtues live in the
+ imagination, and in the imagina-<br /> tion alone.<br /> <br /> Paul, also,
+ in his epistle to the Ephesians, says:<br /> <br /> "Wives, submit
+ yourselves unto your own hus-<br /> "bands, as unto the Lord. For the
+ husband is the<br /> "head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the<br />
+ "church."<br /> <br /> "Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,<br />
+ "so let the wives be to their own husbands, in<br /> "everything."<br />
+ <br /> You will find, too, that in the seventh chapter of<br /> First
+ Corinthians, Paul laments that all men are not<br /> bachelors like
+ himself, and in the second verse of<br /> that chapter he gives the only
+ reason for which he<br /> was willing that men and women should marry. He<br />
+ advised all the unmarried, and all widows, to remain<br /> <br /> 128<br />
+ <br /> as he was. In the ninth verse of this same chapter<br /> is a slander
+ too vulgar for repetition,&mdash;an estimate<br /> of woman and of woman's
+ love so low and vile, that<br /> every woman should hold the inspired
+ author in<br /> infinite abhorrence.<br /> <br /> Paul sums up the whole
+ matter, however, by telling<br /> those who have wives or husbands, to stay
+ with<br /> them&mdash;as necessary evils only to be tolerated&mdash;but<br />
+ sincerely regrets that anybody was ever married;<br /> and finally says
+ that:<br /> <br /> "They that have wives should be as though they<br /> "had
+ none;" because, in his opinion:<br /> <br /> "He that is unmarried careth
+ for the things that<br /> "belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord;<br />
+ "but he that is married careth for the things that are<br /> "of the world,
+ how he may please his wife."<br /> <br /> "There is this difference also,"
+ he tells us, "be-<br /> "tween a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman<br />
+ "careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be<br /> "holy both in
+ body and in spirit; but she that is<br /> "married careth for the things of
+ the world, how she<br /> " may please her husband."<br /> <br /> Of course,
+ it is contended that these things have<br /> tended to the elevation of
+ woman.<br /> <br /> The idea that it is better to love the Lord than to<br />
+ <br /> 129<br /> <br /> love your wife, or your husband, is infinitely
+ absurd.<br /> Nobody ever did love the Lord,&mdash;nobody can&mdash;until<br />
+ he becomes acquainted with him.<br /> <br /> Saint Paul also tells us that
+ "Man is the image<br /> "and glory of God; but woman is the glory of<br />
+ "man;" and for the purpose of sustaining this posi-<br /> tion, says:<br />
+ <br /> "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman<br /> "of the man;
+ neither was the man created for the<br /> "woman, but the woman for the
+ man."<br /> <br /> Of course, we can all see that man could have<br /> gotten
+ along well enough without woman, but woman,<br /> by no possibility, could
+ have gotten along without<br /> man. And yet, this is called "inspired;"
+ and this<br /> apostle Paul is supposed to have known more than<br /> all
+ the people now upon the earth. No wonder Paul<br /> at last was constrained
+ to say: "We are fools for<br /> "Christ's sake."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How do you account for the present<br /> condition of woman in what is
+ known as "the civilized<br /> "world," unless the Bible has bettered her
+ condition?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. We must remember that thousands of<br />
+ things enter into the problem of civilization. Soil,<br /> climate, and
+ geographical position, united with count-<br /> <br /> 130<br /> <br /> less
+ other influences, have resulted in the civilization<br /> of our time. If
+ we want to find what the influence of<br /> the Bible has been, we must
+ ascertain the condition<br /> of Europe when the Bible was considered as
+ abso-<br /> lutely true, and when it wielded its greatest influence.<br />
+ <br /> Christianity as a form of religion had actual posses-<br /> sion of
+ Europe during the Middle Ages. At that<br /> time, it exerted its greatest
+ power. Then it had the<br /> opportunity of breaking the shackles from the
+ limbs<br /> of woman. Christianity found the Roman matron a<br /> free
+ woman. Polygamy was never known in Rome;<br /> and although divorces were
+ allowed by law, the<br /> Roman state had been founded for more than five<br />
+ hundred years before either a husband or a wife<br /> asked for a divorce.
+ From the foundation of Chris-<br /> tianity,&mdash;I mean from the time it
+ became the force in<br /> the Roman state,&mdash;woman, as such, went down
+ in<br /> the scale of civilization. The sceptre was taken from<br /> her
+ hands, and she became once more the slave and<br /> serf of man. The men
+ also were made slaves, and<br /> woman has regained her liberty by the same
+ means<br /> that man has regained his,&mdash;by wresting authority<br />
+ from the hands of the church. While the church had<br /> power, the wife
+ and mother was not considered as<br /> good as the begging nun; the husband
+ and father<br /> was far below the vermin-covered monk; homes<br /> were of
+ no value compared with the cathedral; for<br /> God had to have a house, no
+ matter how many of<br /> his children were wanderers. During all the years
+ in<br /> which woman has struggled for equal liberty with<br /> man, she has
+ been met with the Bible doctrine that<br /> she is the inferior of the man;
+ that Adam was made<br /> first, and Eve afterwards; that man was not made
+ for<br /> woman, but that woman was made for man.<br /> <br /> I find that in
+ this day and generation, the meanest<br /> men have the lowest estimate of
+ woman; that the<br /> greater the man is, the grander he is, the more he<br />
+ thinks of mother, wife and daughter. I also find that<br /> just in the
+ proportion that he has lost confidence in the<br /> polygamy of Jehovah and
+ in the advice and philosophy<br /> of Saint Paul, he believes in the rights
+ and liberties of<br /> woman. As a matter of fact, men have risen from a<br />
+ perusal of the Bible, and murdered their wives. They<br /> have risen from
+ reading its pages, and inflicted cruel<br /> and even mortal blows upon
+ their children. Men<br /> have risen from reading the Bible and torn the
+ flesh<br /> of others with red-hot pincers. They have laid<br /> down the
+ sacred volume long enough to pour molten<br /> lead into the ears of
+ others. They have stopped<br /> reading the sacred Scriptures for a
+ sufficient time to<br /> <br /> 132<br /> <br /> incarcerate their fellow-men,
+ to load them with chains,<br /> and then they have gone back to their
+ reading,<br /> allowing their victims to die in darkness and despair.<br />
+ Men have stopped reading the Old Testament long<br /> enough to drive a
+ stake into the ground and collect a<br /> few fagots and burn an honest
+ man. Even ministers<br /> have denied themselves the privilege of reading
+ the<br /> sacred book long enough to tell falsehoods about<br /> their
+ fellow-men. There is no crime that Bible<br /> readers and Bible believers
+ and Bible worshipers and<br /> Bible defenders have not committed. There is
+ no<br /> meanness of which some Bible reader, believer, and<br /> defender,
+ has not been guilty. Bible believers and<br /> Bible defenders have filled
+ the world with calumnies<br /> and slanders. Bible believers and Bible
+ defenders<br /> have not only whipped their wives, but they have<br />
+ murdered them; they have murdered their children.<br /> I do not say that
+ reading the Bible will necessarily<br /> make men dishonest, but I do say,
+ that reading the<br /> Bible will not prevent their committing crimes. I do<br />
+ not say that believing the Bible will necessarily make<br /> men commit
+ burglary, but I do say that a belief in the<br /> Bible has caused men to
+ persecute each other, to<br /> imprison each other, and to burn each other.<br />
+ <br /> Only a little while ago, a British clergyman mur-<br /> <br /> 133<br />
+ <br /> dered his wife. Only a little while ago, an American<br /> Protestant
+ clergyman whipped his boy to death be-<br /> cause the boy refused to say a
+ prayer.<br /> <br /> The Rev. Mr. Crowley not only believed the Bible,<br />
+ but was licensed to expound it. He had been<br /> "called" to the ministry,
+ and upon his head had<br /> been laid the holy hands; and yet, he
+ deliberately<br /> starved orphans, and while looking upon their<br />
+ sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, sung pious hymns<br /> and quoted with great
+ unction: "Suffer little chil-<br /> "dren to come unto me."<br /> <br /> As a
+ matter of fact, in the last twenty years,<br /> more money has been stolen
+ by Christian cashiers,<br /> Christian presidents, Christian directors,
+ Christian<br /> trustees and Christian statesmen, than by all other<br />
+ convicts in all the penitentiaries in all the Christian<br /> world.<br />
+ <br /> The assassin of Henry the Fourth was a Bible reader<br /> and a Bible
+ believer. The instigators of the massacre<br /> of St. Bartholomew were
+ believers in your sacred<br /> Scriptures. The men who invested their money
+ in the<br /> slave-trade believed themselves filled with the Holy<br />
+ Ghost, and read with rapture the Psalms of David and<br /> the Sermon on
+ the Mount. The murderers of Scotch<br /> Presbyterians were believers in
+ Revelation, and the<br /> <br /> 134<br /> Presbyterians, when they murdered
+ others, were also<br /> believers. Nearly every man who expiates a crime<br />
+ upon the gallows is a believer in the Bible. For a<br /> thousand years,
+ the daggers of assassination and the<br /> swords of war were blest by
+ priests&mdash;by the believers<br /> in the sacred Scriptures. The assassin
+ of President<br /> Garfield is a believer in the Bible, a hater of
+ infidelity,<br /> a believer in personal inspiration, and he expects in a<br />
+ few weeks to join the winged and redeemed in<br /> heaven.<br /> <br /> If a
+ man would follow, to-day, the teachings of the<br /> Old Testament, he
+ would be a criminal. If he would<br /> follow strictly the teachings of the
+ New, he would be<br /> insane.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="link0006"
+ id="link0006"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>FOURTH INTERVIEW.</b></big><br />
+ <br /> <br /> <i>Son. There is no devil.<br /> <br /> Mother. I know there is.<br />
+ <br /> Son. How do you know?<br /> <br /> Mother. Because they make pictures
+ that look just<br /> like him.<br /> <br /> Son. But, mother&mdash;<br />
+ <br /> Mother. Don't "mother" me! You are trying to<br /> disgrace your
+ parents.</i><br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. I want to ask you a few questions
+ about<br /> Mr. Talmage's fourth sermon against you, entitled:<br /> "The
+ Meanness of Infidelity," in which he compares<br /> you to Jehoiakim, who
+ had the temerity to throw<br /> some of the writings of the weeping
+ Jeremiah into<br /> the fire?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. So far as I am
+ concerned, I really re-<br /> gret that a second edition of Jeremiah's roll
+ was<br /> gotten out. It would have been far better for us all,<br /> if it
+ had been left in ashes. There was nothing but<br /> curses and prophecies
+ of evil, in the sacred roll that<br /> <br /> 138<br /> <br /> Jehoiakim
+ burned. The Bible tells us that Jehovah<br /> became exceedingly wroth
+ because of the destruction<br /> of this roll, and pronounced a curse upon
+ Jehoiakim<br /> and upon Palestine. I presume it was on account of<br /> the
+ burning of that roll that the king of Babylon<br /> destroyed the chosen
+ people of God. It was on<br /> account of that sacrilege that the Lord said
+ of<br /> Jehoiakim: "He shall have none to sit upon the<br /> "throne of
+ David; and his dead body shall be cast<br /> "out in the day to the heat,
+ and in the night to the<br /> "frost." Any one can see how much a dead body<br />
+ would suffer under such circumstances. Imagine an<br /> infinitely wise,
+ good and powerful God taking ven-<br /> geance on the corpse of a barbarian
+ king! What<br /> joy there must have been in heaven as the angels<br />
+ watched the alternate melting and freezing of the<br /> dead body of
+ Jehoiakim!<br /> <br /> Jeremiah was probably the most accomplished<br />
+ croaker of all time. Nothing satisfied him. He was<br /> a prophetic
+ pessimist,&mdash;an ancient Bourbon. He<br /> was only happy when
+ predicting war, pestilence and<br /> famine. No wonder Jehoiakim despised
+ him, and<br /> hated all he wrote.<br /> <br /> One can easily see the
+ character of Jeremiah from<br /> the following occurrence: When the
+ Babylonians<br /> <br /> 139<br /> <br /> had succeeded in taking Jerusalem,
+ and in sacking<br /> the city, Jeremiah was unfortunately taken prisoner;<br />
+ but Captain Nebuzaradan came to Jeremiah, and told<br /> him that he would
+ let him go, because he had pro-<br /> phesied against his own country. He
+ was regarded<br /> as a friend by the enemy.<br /> <br /> There was, at that
+ time, as now, the old fight<br /> between the church and the civil power.
+ Whenever<br /> a king failed to do what the priests wanted, they<br />
+ immediately prophesied overthrow, disaster, and de-<br /> feat. Whenever
+ the kings would hearken to their<br /> voice, and would see to it that the
+ priests had plenty<br /> to eat and drink and wear, then they all declared<br />
+ that Jehovah would love that king, would let him live<br /> out all his
+ days, and allow his son to reign in his<br /> stead. It was simply the old
+ conflict that is still being<br /> waged, and it will be carried on until
+ universal civil-<br /> ization does away with priestcraft and superstition.<br />
+ <br /> The priests in the days of Jeremiah were the same<br /> as now. They
+ sought to rule the State. They pre-<br /> tended that, at their request,
+ Jehovah would withhold<br /> or send the rain; that the seasons were within
+ their<br /> power; that they with bitter words could blight the<br /> fields
+ and curse the land with want and death. They<br /> gloried then, as now, in
+ the exhibition of God's wrath.<br /> <br /> 140<br /> <br /> In prosperity,
+ the priests were forgotten. Success<br /> scorned them; Famine flattered
+ them; Health laughed<br /> at them; Pestilence prayed to them; Disaster was<br />
+ their only friend.<br /> <br /> These old prophets prophesied nothing but
+ evil,<br /> and consequently, when anything bad happened, they<br /> claimed
+ it as a fulfillment, and pointed with pride to<br /> the fact that they
+ had, weeks or months, or years<br /> before, foretold something of that
+ kind. They were<br /> really the originators of the phrase, "I told you
+ so!"<br /> <br /> There was a good old Methodist class-leader that<br />
+ lived down near a place called Liverpool, on the<br /> Illinois river. In
+ the spring of 1861 the old man,<br /> telling his experience, among other
+ things said, that he<br /> had lived there by the river for more than
+ thirty<br /> years, and he did not believe that a year had passed<br /> that
+ there were not hundreds of people during the<br /> hunting season shooting
+ ducks on Sunday; that he<br /> had told his wife thousands of times that no
+ good<br /> would come of it; that evil would come of it; "And<br /> "now,
+ said the old man, raising his voice with the<br /> importance of the
+ announcement, "war is upon us!"<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you wish,
+ as Mr. Talmage says, to de-<br /> stroy the Bible&mdash;to have all the
+ copies burned to ashes?<br /> What do you wish to have done with the Bible?<br />
+ <br /> 141<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I want the Bible treated exactly as we<br />
+ treat other books&mdash;preserve the good and throw<br /> away the foolish
+ and the hurtful. I am fighting the<br /> doctrine of inspiration. As long
+ as it is believed that<br /> the Bible is inspired, that book is the master&mdash;no<br />
+ mind is free. With that belief, intellectual liberty is<br /> impossible.
+ With that belief, you can investigate<br /> only at the risk of losing your
+ soul. The Catholics<br /> have a pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet
+ the<br /> pope is capable of intellectual advancement. In<br /> addition to
+ this, the pope is mortal, and the church<br /> cannot be afflicted with the
+ same idiot forever. The<br /> Protestants have a book for their pope. The
+ book<br /> cannot advance. Year after year, and century after<br /> century,
+ the book remains as ignorant as ever. It is<br /> only made better by those
+ who believe in its inspira-<br /> tion giving better meanings to the words
+ than their<br /> ancestors did. In this way it may be said that the<br />
+ Bible grows a little better.<br /> <br /> Why should we have a book for a
+ master? That<br /> which otherwise might be a blessing, remains a curse.<br />
+ If every copy of the Bible were destroyed, all that is<br /> good in that
+ book would be reproduced in a single<br /> day. Leave every copy of the
+ Bible as it is, and<br /> have every human being believe in its
+ inspiration,<br /> <br /> 142<br /> <br /> and intellectual liberty would
+ cease to exist. The<br /> whole race, from that moment, would go back to-<br />
+ ward the night of intellectual death.<br /> <br /> The Bible would do more
+ harm if more people<br /> really believed it, and acted in accordance with
+ its<br /> teachings. Now and then a Freeman puts the knife<br /> to the
+ heart of his child. Now and then an assassin<br /> relies upon some sacred
+ passage; but, as a rule, few<br /> men believe the Bible to be absolutely
+ true.<br /> <br /> There are about fifteen hundred million people in<br />
+ the world. There are not two million who have read<br /> the Bible through.
+ There are not two hundred<br /> million who ever saw the Bible. There are
+ not five<br /> hundred million who ever heard that such a book<br /> exists.<br />
+ <br /> Christianity is claimed to be a religion for all<br /> mankind. It
+ was founded more than eighteen cen-<br /> turies ago; and yet, not one
+ human being in three<br /> has ever heard of it. As a matter of fact, for
+ more<br /> than fourteen centuries and-a-half after the crucifixion<br /> of
+ Christ, this hemisphere was absolutely unknown.<br /> There was not a
+ Christian in the world who knew<br /> there was such a continent as ours,
+ and all the<br /> inhabitants of this, the New World, were deprived<br /> of
+ the gospel for fourteen centuries and-a-half, and<br /> <br /> 143<br />
+ <br /> knew nothing of its blessings until they were in-<br /> formed by
+ Spanish murderers and marauders. Even<br /> in the United States,
+ Christianity is not keeping pace<br /> with the increase of population.
+ When we take<br /> into consideration that it is aided by the momentum<br />
+ of eighteen centuries, is it not wonderful that it is not<br /> to-day
+ holding its own? The reason of this is, that<br /> we are beginning to
+ understand the Scriptures. We<br /> are beginningto see, and to see
+ clearly, that they are<br /> simply of human origin, and that the Bible
+ bears<br /> the marks of the barbarians who wrote it. The best<br />
+ educated among the clergy admit that we know but<br /> little as to the
+ origin of the gospels; that we do not<br /> positively know the author of
+ one of them; that it is<br /> really a matter of doubt as to who wrote the
+ five<br /> books attributed to Moses. They admit now, that<br /> Isaiah was
+ written by more than one person; that<br /> Solomon's Song was not written
+ by that king; that<br /> Job is, in all probability, not a Jewish book;
+ that<br /> Ecclesiastes must have been written by a Freethinker,<br /> and
+ by one who had his doubts about the immortality<br /> of the soul. The best
+ biblical students of the so-<br /> called orthodox world now admit that
+ several stories<br /> were united to make the gospel of Saint Luke; that<br />
+ Hebrews is a selection from many fragments, and<br /> <br /> 144<br /> <br />
+ that no human being, not afflicted with delirium<br /> tremens, can
+ understand the book of Revelation.<br /> <br /> I am not the only one
+ engaged in the work of<br /> destruction. Every Protestant who expresses a
+ doubt<br /> as to the genuineness of a passage, is destroying the<br />
+ Bible. The gentlemen who have endeavored to treat<br /> hell as a question
+ of syntax, and to prove that eternal<br /> punishment depends upon grammar,
+ are helping to<br /> bring the Scriptures into contempt. Hundreds of<br />
+ years ago, the Catholics told the Protestant world that<br /> it was
+ dangerous to give the Bible to the people.<br /> The Catholics were right;
+ the Protestants were<br /> wrong. To read is to think. To think is to
+ investi-<br /> gate. To investigate is, finally, to deny. That book<br />
+ should have been read only by priests. Every copy<br /> should have been
+ under the lock and key of bishop,<br /> cardinal and pope. The common
+ people should have<br /> received the Bible from the lips of the ministers.<br />
+ The world should have been kept in ignorance. In<br /> that way, and in
+ that way only, could the pulpit have<br /> maintained its power. He who
+ teaches a child<br /> the alphabet sows the seeds of heresy. I have lived<br />
+ to see the schoolhouse in many a village larger than<br /> the church.
+ Every man who finds a fact, is the<br /> enemy of theology. Every man who
+ expresses an<br /> <br /> 145<br /> <br /> honest thought is a soldier in the
+ army of intellectual<br /> liberty.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage
+ thinks that you laugh too<br /> much,&mdash;that you exhibit too much
+ mirth, and that no<br /> one should smile at sacred things?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ The church has always feared ridicule.<br /> The minister despises
+ laughter. He who builds upon<br /> ignorance and awe, fears intelligence
+ and mirth. The<br /> theologians always begin by saying: "Let us be<br />
+ "solemn." They know that credulity and awe are<br /> twins. They also know
+ that while Reason is the<br /> pilot of the soul, Humor carries the lamp.
+ Whoever<br /> has the sense of humor fully developed, cannot, by<br /> any
+ possibility, be an orthodox theologian. He would<br /> be his own laughing
+ stock. The most absurd stories,<br /> the most laughable miracles, read in
+ a solemn, stately<br /> way, sound to the ears of ignorance and awe like<br />
+ truth. It has been the object of the church for<br /> eighteen hundred
+ years to prevent laughter.<br /> <br /> A smile is the dawn of a doubt.<br />
+ <br /> Ministers are always talking about death, and<br /> coffins, and
+ dust, and worms,&mdash;the cross in this life,<br /> and the fires of
+ another. They have been the<br /> enemies of human happiness. They hate to
+ hear<br /> <br /> 146<br /> <br /> even the laughter of children. There seems
+ to have<br /> been a bond of sympathy between divinity and<br /> dyspepsia,
+ between theology and indigestion. There<br /> is a certain pious hatred of
+ pleasure, and those who<br /> have been "born again" are expected to
+ despise<br /> "the transitory joys of this fleeting life." In this,<br />
+ they follow the example of their prophets, of whom<br /> they proudly say:
+ "They never smiled."<br /> <br /> Whoever laughs at a holy falsehood, is
+ called a<br /> "scoffer." Whoever gives vent to his natural feel-<br /> ings
+ is regarded as a "blasphemer," and whoever<br /> examines the Bible as he
+ examines other books, and<br /> relies upon his reason to interpret it, is
+ denounced<br /> as a "reprobate."<br /> <br /> Let us respect the truth, let
+ us laugh at miracles,<br /> and above all, let us be candid with each
+ other.<br /> <br /> 'Question. Mr. Talmage charges that you have, in<br />
+ your lectures, satirized your early home; that you<br /> have described
+ with bitterness the Sundays that were<br /> forced upon you in your youth;
+ and that in various<br /> ways you have denounced your father as a
+ "tyrant,"<br /> or a "bigot," or a "fool"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I have
+ described the manner in which<br /> Sunday was kept when I was a boy. My
+ father for<br /> <br /> 147<br /> <br /> many years regarded the Sabbath as a
+ sacred day.<br /> We kept Sunday as most other Christians did. I think<br />
+ that my father made a mistake about that day. I<br /> have no doubt he was
+ honest about it, and really<br /> believed that it was pleasing to God for
+ him to keep<br /> the Sabbath as he did.<br /> <br /> I think that Sunday
+ should not be a day of gloom,<br /> of silence and despair, or a day in
+ which to hear that<br /> the chances are largely in favor of your being
+ eternally<br /> damned. That day, in my opinion, should be one of<br /> joy;
+ a day to get acquainted with your wife and<br /> children; a day to visit
+ the woods, or the sea, or the<br /> murmuring stream; a day to gather
+ flowers, to visit<br /> the graves of your dead, to read old poems, old<br />
+ letters, old books; a day to rekindle the fires of<br /> friendship and
+ love.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage says that my father was a Christian,<br /> and
+ he then proceeds to malign his memory. It<br /> seems to me that a living
+ Christian should at least<br /> tell the truth about one who sleeps the
+ silent sleep<br /> of death.<br /> <br /> I have said nothing, in any of my
+ lectures, about<br /> my father, or about my mother, or about any of my<br />
+ relatives. I have not the egotism to bring them<br /> forward. They have
+ nothing to do with the subject<br /> <br /> 148<br /> <br /> in hand. That my
+ father was mistaken upon the<br /> subject of religion, I have no doubt. He
+ was a good,<br /> a brave and honest man. I loved him living, and<br /> I
+ love him dead. I never said to him an unkind<br /> word, and in my heart
+ there never was of him an<br /> unkind thought. He was grand enough to say
+ to<br /> me, that I had the same right to my opinion that he<br /> had to
+ his. He was great enough to tell me to read<br /> the Bible for myself, to
+ be honest with myself, and if<br /> after reading it I concluded it was not
+ the word of<br /> God, that it was my duty to say so.<br /> <br /> My mother
+ died when I was but a child; and from<br /> that day&mdash;the darkest of
+ my life&mdash;her memory has<br /> been within my heart a sacred thing, and
+ I have felt,<br /> through all these years, her kisses on my lips.<br />
+ <br /> I know that my parents&mdash;if they are conscious now<br /> &mdash;do
+ not wish me to honor them at the expense of<br /> my manhood. I know that
+ neither my father nor my<br /> mother would have me sacrifice upon their
+ graves my<br /> honest thought. I know that I can only please them by<br />
+ being true to myself, by defending what I believe is<br /> good, by
+ attacking what I believe is bad. Yet this min-<br /> ister of Christ is
+ cruel enough, and malicious enough,<br /> to attack the reputation of the
+ dead. What he says<br /> about my father is utterly and unqualifiedly
+ false.<br /> <br /> 149<br /> <br /> Right here, it may be well enough for me
+ to say,<br /> that long before my father died, he threw aside, as<br />
+ unworthy of a place in the mind of an intelligent<br /> man, the infamous
+ dogma of eternal fire; that he<br /> regarded with abhorrence many passages
+ in the Old<br /> Testament; that he believed man, in another world,<br />
+ would have the eternal opportunity of doing right,<br /> and that the pity
+ of God would last as long as the<br /> suffering of man. My father and my
+ mother were<br /> good, in spite of the Old Testament. They were mer-<br />
+ ciful, in spite of the one frightful doctrine in the New.<br /> They did
+ not need the religion of Presbyterianism.<br /> Presbyterianism never made
+ a human being better.<br /> If there is anything that will freeze the
+ generous<br /> current of the soul, it is Calvinism. If there is any<br />
+ creed that will destroy charity, that will keep the<br /> tears of pity
+ from the cheeks of men and women, it<br /> is Presbyterianism. If there is
+ any doctrine calcu-<br /> lated to make man bigoted, unsympathetic, and<br />
+ cruel, it is the doctrine of predestination. Neither<br /> my father, nor
+ my mother, believed in the damnation<br /> of babes, nor in the inspiration
+ of John Calvin.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage professes to be a Christian. What<br />
+ effect has the religion of Jesus Christ had upon him?<br /> Is he the
+ product&mdash;the natural product&mdash;of Chris-<br /> <br /> 150<br />
+ <br /> tianity? Does the real Christian violate the sanctity<br /> of death?
+ Does the real Christian malign the<br /> memory of the dead? Does the good
+ Christian<br /> defame unanswering and unresisting dust?<br /> <br /> But why
+ should I expect kindness from a Chris-<br /> tian? Can a minister be
+ expected to treat with<br /> fairness a man whom his God intends to damn?
+ If<br /> a good God is going to burn an infidel forever, in<br /> the world
+ to come, surely a Christian should have<br /> the right to persecute him a
+ little here.<br /> <br /> What right has a Christian to ask anybody to love<br />
+ his father, or mother, or wife, or child? According<br /> to the gospels,
+ Christ offered a reward to any one<br /> who would desert his father or his
+ mother. He<br /> offered a premium to gentlemen for leaving their<br />
+ wives, and tried to bribe people to abandon their<br /> little children. He
+ offered them happiness in this<br /> world, and a hundred fold in the next,
+ if they would<br /> turn a deaf ear to the supplications of a father, the<br />
+ beseeching cry of a wife, and would leave the out-<br /> stretched arms of
+ babes. They were not even<br /> allowed to bury their fathers and their
+ mothers. At<br /> that time they were expected to prefer Jesus to their<br />
+ wives and children. And now an orthodox minister<br /> says that a man
+ ought not to express his honest<br /> <br /> 151<br /> <br /> thoughts,
+ because they do not happen to be in accord<br /> with the belief of his
+ father or mother.<br /> <br /> Suppose Mr. Talmage should read the Bible
+ care-<br /> fully and without fear, and should come to the honest<br />
+ conclusion that it is not inspired, what course would<br /> he pursue for
+ the purpose of honoring his parents?<br /> Would he say, "I cannot tell the
+ truth, I must lie,<br /> "for the purpose of shedding a halo of glory
+ around<br /> "the memory of my mother"? Would he say: "Of<br /> "course, my
+ father and mother would a thousand<br /> "times rather have their son a
+ hypocritical Christian<br /> "than an honest, manly unbeliever"? This might<br />
+ please Mr. Talmage, and accord perfectly with his<br /> view, but I prefer
+ to say, that my father wished me to<br /> be an honest man. If he is in
+ "heaven" now, I am<br /> sure that he would rather hear me attack the<br />
+ "inspired" word of God, honestly and bravely, than<br /> to hear me, in the
+ solemn accents of hypocrisy, defend<br /> what I believe to be untrue.<br />
+ <br /> I may be mistaken in the estimate angels put upon<br /> human beings.
+ It may be that God likes a pretended<br /> follower better than an honest,
+ outspoken man&mdash;one<br /> who is an infidel simply because he does not
+ under-<br /> stand this God. But it seems to me, in my unregenerate<br />
+ condition, touched and tainted as I am by original sin,<br /> <br /> 152<br />
+ <br /> that a God of infinite power and wisdom ought to be<br /> able to
+ make a man brave enough to have an opinion<br /> of his own. I cannot
+ conceive of God taking any<br /> particular pride in any hypocrite he has
+ ever made.<br /> Whatever he may say through his ministers, or<br />
+ whatever the angels may repeat, a manly devil<br /> stands higher in my
+ estimation than an unmanly<br /> angel. I do not mean by this, that there
+ are any<br /> unmanly angels, neither do I pretend that there<br /> are any
+ manly devils. My meaning is this: If I have<br /> a Creator, I can only
+ honor him by being true to<br /> myself, and kind and just to my
+ fellow-men. If I wish<br /> to shed lustre upon my father and mother, I can<br />
+ only do so by being absolutely true to myself.<br /> Never will I lay the
+ wreath of hypocrisy upon the<br /> tombs of those I love.<br /> <br /> Mr.
+ Talmage takes the ground that we must defend<br /> the religious belief of
+ our parents. He seems to<br /> forget that all parents do not believe
+ exactly alike,<br /> and that everybody has at least two parents. Now,<br />
+ suppose that the father is an infidel, and the mother<br /> a Christian,
+ what must the son do? Must he "drive<br /> "the ploughshare of contempt
+ through the grave of<br /> "the father," for the purpose of honoring the
+ mother;<br /> or must he drive the ploughshare through the grave<br /> <br />
+ 153<br /> <br /> of the mother to honor the father; or must he com-<br />
+ promise, and talk one way and believe another? If<br /> Mr. Talmage's
+ doctrine is correct, only persons who<br /> have no knowledge of their
+ parents can have liberty<br /> of opinion. Foundlings would be the only
+ free<br /> people. I do not suppose that Mr. Talmage would<br /> go so far
+ as to say that a child would be bound by<br /> the religion of the person
+ upon whose door-steps he<br /> was found. If he does not, then over every
+ foundling<br /> hospital should be these words: "Home of Intel-<br />
+ "lectual Liberty."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you suppose that we will
+ care<br /> nothing in the next world for those we loved in this?<br /> Is it
+ worse in a man than in an angel, to care nothing<br /> for his mother?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. According to Mr. Talmage, a man can<br /> be perfectly
+ happy in heaven, with his mother in hell.<br /> He will be so entranced
+ with the society of Christ,<br /> that he will not even inquire what has
+ become of his<br /> wife. The Holy Ghost will keep him in such a state<br />
+ of happy wonder, of ecstatic joy, that the names,<br /> even, of his
+ children will never invade his memory.<br /> It may be that I am lacking in
+ filial affection, but<br /> I would much rather be in hell, with my parents<br />
+ <br /> 154<br /> <br /> in heaven, than be in heaven with my parents in hell.<br />
+ I think a thousand times more of my parents than I<br /> do of Christ. They
+ knew me, they worked for me,<br /> they loved me, and I can imagine no
+ heaven, no<br /> state of perfect bliss for me, in which they have no<br />
+ share. If God hates me, because I love them,<br /> I cannot love him.<br />
+ <br /> I cannot truthfully say that I look forward with any<br /> great
+ degree of joy, to meeting with Haggai and<br /> Habakkuk; with Jeremiah,
+ Nehemiah, Obadiah,<br /> Zechariah or Zephaniah; with Ezekiel, Micah, or<br />
+ Malachi; or even with Jonah. From what little<br /> I have read of their
+ writings, I have not formed a<br /> very high opinion of the social
+ qualities of these<br /> gentlemen.<br /> <br /> I want to meet the persons I
+ have known; and if<br /> there is another life, I want to meet the really
+ and<br /> the truly great&mdash;men who have been broad enough to<br /> be
+ tender, and great enough to be kind.<br /> <br /> Because I differ with my
+ parents, because I am<br /> convinced that my father was wrong in some of<br />
+ his religious opinions, Mr. Talmage insists that I dis-<br /> grace my
+ parents. How did the Christian religion<br /> commence? Did not the first
+ disciples advocate<br /> theories that their parents denied? Were they<br />
+ <br /> 155<br /> <br /> not false,&mdash;in his sense of the word,&mdash;to
+ their<br /> fathers and mothers? How could there have been<br /> any
+ progress in this world, if children had not<br /> gone beyond their
+ parents? Do you consider that<br /> the inventor of a steel plow cast a
+ slur upon his<br /> father who scratched the ground with a wooden<br /> one?
+ I do not consider that an invention by the<br /> son is a slander upon the
+ father; I regard each<br /> invention simply as an improvement; and every<br />
+ father should be exceedingly proud of an ingenious<br /> son. If Mr.
+ Talmage has a son, it will be impossible<br /> for him to honor his father
+ except by differing with<br /> him.<br /> <br /> It is very strange that Mr.
+ Talmage, a believer in<br /> Christ, should object to any man for not
+ loving his<br /> mother and his father, when his Master, according<br /> to
+ the gospel of Saint Luke, says: "If any man<br /> "come to me, and hate not
+ his father, and mother,<br /> "and wife, and children, and brethren, and
+ sis-<br /> "ters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my<br />
+ "disciple."<br /> <br /> According to this, I have to make my choice be-<br />
+ tween my wife, my children, and Jesus Christ. I have<br /> concluded to
+ stand by my folks&mdash;both in this world,<br /> and in "the world to
+ come."<br /> <br /> 156<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage asks you
+ whether, in your<br /> judgment, the Bible was a good, or an evil, to your<br />
+ parents?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I think it was an evil. The worst thing<br />
+ about my father was his religion. He would have<br /> been far happier, in
+ my judgment, without it. I<br /> think I get more real joy out of life than
+ he did.<br /> He was a man of a very great and tender heart. He<br /> was
+ continually thinking&mdash;for many years of his<br /> life&mdash;of the
+ thousands and thousands going down to<br /> eternal fire. That doctrine
+ filled his days with<br /> gloom, and his eyes with tears. I think that my<br />
+ father and mother would have been far happier had<br /> they believed as I
+ do. How any one can get any<br /> joy out of the Christian religion is past
+ my compre-<br /> hension. If that religion is true, hundreds of mil-<br />
+ lions are now in hell, and thousands of millions yet<br /> unborn will be.
+ How such a fact can form any part<br /> of the "glad tidings of great joy,"
+ is amazing to me.<br /> It is impossible for me to love a being who would<br />
+ create countless millions for eternal pain. It is<br /> impossible for me
+ to worship the God of the Bible,<br /> or the God of Calvin, or the God of
+ the Westminster<br /> Catechism.<br /> <br /> 157<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ I see that Mr. Talmage challenges you<br /> to read the fourteenth chapter
+ of Saint John. Are<br /> you willing to accept the challenge; or have you<br />
+ ever read that chapter?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I do not claim to be
+ very courageous,<br /> but I have read that chapter, and am very glad that<br />
+ Mr. Talmage has called attention to it. According<br /> to the gospels,
+ Christ did many miracles. He healed<br /> the sick, gave sight to the
+ blind, made the lame<br /> walk, and raised the dead. In the fourteenth
+ chapter<br /> of Saint John, twelfth verse, I find the following:<br />
+ <br /> "Verily, verily, I say unto you: He that believeth<br /> "on me, the
+ works that I do shall he do also; and<br /> "greater works than these shall
+ he do, because I go<br /> "unto my Father."<br /> <br /> I am willing to
+ accept that as a true test of a<br /> believer. If Mr. Talmage really
+ believes in Jesus<br /> Christ, he ought to be able to do at least as great<br />
+ miracles as Christ is said to have done. Will Mr.<br /> Talmage have the
+ kindness to read the fourteenth<br /> chapter of John, and then give me
+ some proof, in<br /> accordance with that chapter, that he is a believer in<br />
+ Jesus Christ? Will he have the kindness to perform<br /> a miracle?&mdash;for
+ instance, produce a "local flood,"<br /> make a worm to smite a gourd, or
+ "prepare a fish"?<br /> <br /> 158<br /> <br /> Can he do anything of that
+ nature? Can he even<br /> cause a "vehement east wind"? What evidence,<br />
+ according to the Bible, can Mr. Talmage give of his<br /> belief? How does
+ he prove that he is a Christian?<br /> By hating infidels and maligning
+ Christians? Let<br /> Mr. Talmage furnish the evidence, according to the<br />
+ fourteenth chapter of Saint John, or forever after<br /> hold his peace.<br />
+ <br /> He has my thanks for calling my attention to the<br /> fourteenth
+ chapter of Saint John.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage charges
+ that you are at-<br /> tempting to destroy the "chief solace of the world,"<br />
+ without offering any substitute. How do you answer<br /> this?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. If he calls Christianity the "chief solace<br /> "of the
+ world," and if by Christianity he means that all<br /> who do not believe
+ in the inspiration of the Scrip-<br /> tures, and have no faith in Jesus
+ Christ, are to be<br /> eternally damned, then I admit that I am doing the<br />
+ best I can to take that "solace" from the human<br /> heart. I do not
+ believe that the Bible, when prop-<br /> erly understood, is, or ever has
+ been, a comfort to<br /> any human being. Surely, no good man can be<br />
+ comforted by reading a book in which he finds that<br /> <br /> 159<br />
+ <br /> a large majority of mankind have been sentenced to<br /> eternal
+ fire. In the doctrine of total depravity there<br /> is no "solace." In the
+ doctrine of "election" there can<br /> be no joy until the returns are in,
+ and a majority<br /> found for you.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage
+ says that you are taking<br /> away the world's medicines, and in place of
+ anaes-<br /> thetics, in place of laudanum drops, you read an<br /> essay to
+ the man in pain, on the absurdities of mor-<br /> phine and nervines in
+ general.<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It is exactly the other way. I say, let<br />
+ us depend upon morphine, not upon prayer. Do<br /> not send for the
+ minister&mdash;take a little laudanum.<br /> Do not read your Bible,&mdash;chloroform
+ is better. Do<br /> not waste your time listening to meaningless ser-<br />
+ mons, but take real, genuine soporifics.<br /> <br /> I regard the
+ discoverer of ether as a benefactor.<br /> I look upon every great surgeon
+ as a blessing to<br /> mankind. I regard one doctor, skilled in his profes-<br />
+ sion, of more importance to the world than all the<br /> orthodox
+ ministers.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage should remember that for hundreds<br />
+ of years, the church fought, with all its power, the<br /> science of
+ medicine. Priests used to cure diseases<br /> <br /> 160<br /> <br /> by
+ selling little pieces of paper covered with cabalistic<br /> marks. They
+ filled their treasuries by the sale of<br /> holy water. They healed the
+ sick by relics&mdash;the teeth<br /> and ribs of saints, the finger-nails
+ of departed wor-<br /> thies, and the hair of glorified virgins. Infidelity<br />
+ said: "Send for the doctor." Theology said: "Stick<br /> "to the priest."
+ Infidelity,&mdash;that is to say, science,&mdash;<br /> said: "Vaccinate
+ him." The priest said: "Pray;&mdash;<br /> "I will sell you a charm." The
+ doctor was regarded<br /> as a man who was endeavoring to take from God his<br />
+ means of punishment. He was supposed to spike<br /> the artillery of
+ Jehovah, to wet the powder of the<br /> Almighty, and to steal the flint
+ from the musket of<br /> heavenly retribution.<br /> <br /> Infidelity has
+ never relied upon essays, it has<br /> never relied upon words, it has
+ never relied upon<br /> prayers, it has never relied upon angels or gods;
+ it<br /> has relied upon the honest efforts of men and women.<br /> It has
+ relied upon investigation, observation, experi-<br /> ence, and above all,
+ upon human reason.<br /> <br /> We, in America, know how much prayers are<br />
+ worth. We have lately seen millions of people upon<br /> their knees. What
+ was the result?<br /> <br /> In the olden times, when a plague made its ap-<br />
+ pearance, the people fell upon their knees and died.<br /> <br /> 161<br />
+ <br /> When pestilence came, they rushed to their ca-<br /> thedrals, they
+ implored their priests&mdash;and died. God<br /> had no pity upon his
+ ignorant children. At last,<br /> Science came to the rescue. Science,&mdash;not
+ in the<br /> attitude of prayer, with closed eyes, but in the atti-<br />
+ tude of investigation, with open eyes,&mdash;looked for and<br />
+ discovered some of the laws of health. Science<br /> found that cleanliness
+ was far better than godliness. It<br /> said: Do not spend your time in
+ praying;&mdash;clean your<br /> houses, clean your streets, clean
+ yourselves. This pest-<br /> ilence is not a punishment. Health is not
+ simply a favor<br /> of the gods. Health depends upon conditions, and<br />
+ when the conditions are violated, disease is inevitable,<br /> and no God
+ can save you. Health depends upon<br /> your surroundings, and when these
+ are favorable,<br /> the roses are in your cheeks.<br /> <br /> We find in
+ the Old Testament that God gave<br /> to Moses a thousand directions for
+ ascertaining<br /> the presence of leprosy. Yet it never occurred<br /> to
+ this God to tell Moses how to cure the disease.<br /> Within the lids of
+ the Old Testament, we have no<br /> information upon a subject of such
+ vital importance<br /> to mankind.<br /> <br /> It may, however, be claimed
+ by Mr. Talmage, that<br /> this statement is a little too broad, and I will
+ therefore<br /> <br /> 162<br /> <br /> give one recipe that I find in the
+ fourteenth chapter<br /> of Leviticus:<br /> <br /> "Then shall the priest
+ command to take for him<br /> " that is to be cleansed two birds alive and
+ clean, and<br /> "cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop; and the priest<br />
+ "shall command that one of the birds be killed in an<br /> "earthen vessel
+ over running water. As for the<br /> "living bird, he shall take it, and
+ the cedar wood,<br /> "and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them<br />
+ "and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was<br /> "killed over
+ the running water. And he shall<br /> "sprinkle upon him that is to be
+ cleansed from the<br /> "leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him
+ clean,<br /> "and shall let the living bird loose into the open<br />
+ "field."<br /> <br /> Prophets were predicting evil&mdash;filling the
+ country<br /> with their wails and cries, and yet it never occurred<br /> to
+ them to tell one solitary thing of the slightest<br /> importance to
+ mankind. Why did not these inspired<br /> men tell us how to cure some of
+ the diseases that<br /> have decimated the world? Instead of spending<br />
+ forty days and forty nights with Moses, telling him<br /> how to build a
+ large tent, and how to cut the gar-<br /> ments of priests, why did God not
+ give him a little<br /> useful information in respect to the laws of
+ health?<br /> <br /> 163<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage must remember that the
+ church has<br /> invented no anodynes, no anaesthetics, no medicines,<br />
+ and has affected no cures. The doctors have not<br /> been inspired. All
+ these useful things men have<br /> discovered for themselves, aided by no
+ prophet and<br /> by no divine Savior. Just to the extent that man<br /> has
+ depended upon the other world, he has failed to<br /> make the best of
+ this. Just in the proportion that he<br /> has depended on his own efforts,
+ he has advanced.<br /> The church has always said:<br /> <br /> "Consider the
+ lilies of the field; they toil not,<br /> "neither do they spin." "Take no
+ thought for the<br /> "morrow." Whereas, the real common sense of this<br />
+ world has said: "No matter whether lilies toil and<br /> spin, or not, if
+ you would succeed, you must work;<br /> you must take thought for the
+ morrow, you must<br /> look beyond the present day, you must provide for<br />
+ your wife and your children."<br /> <br /> What can I be expected to give as
+ a substitute for<br /> perdition? It is enough to show that it does not<br />
+ exist. What does a man want in place of a disease?<br /> Health. And what
+ is better calculated to increase<br /> the happiness of mankind than to
+ know that the<br /> doctrine of eternal pain is infinitely and absurdly<br />
+ false?<br /> <br /> 164<br /> <br /> Take theology from the world, and natural
+ Love<br /> remains, Science is still here, Music will not be lost,<br /> the
+ page of History will still be open, the walls of<br /> the world will still
+ be adorned with Art, and the<br /> niches rich with Sculpture.<br /> <br />
+ Take theology from the world, and we all shall<br /> have a common hope,&mdash;and
+ the fear of hell will be<br /> removed from every human heart.<br /> <br />
+ Take theology from the world, and millions of<br /> men will be compelled
+ to earn an honest living.<br /> Impudence will not tax credulity. The
+ vampire of<br /> hypocrisy will not suck the blood of honest toil.<br />
+ <br /> Take theology from the world, and the churches<br /> can be schools,
+ and the cathedrals universities.<br /> <br /> Take theology from the world,
+ and the money<br /> wasted on superstition will do away with want.<br />
+ <br /> Take theology from the world, and every brain<br /> will find itself
+ without a chain.<br /> <br /> There is a vast difference between what is
+ called<br /> infidelity and theology.<br /> <br /> Infidelity is honest. When
+ it reaches the confines<br /> of reason, it says: "I know no further."<br />
+ <br /> Infidelity does not palm its guess upon an ignorant<br /> world as a
+ demonstration.<br /> <br /> 165<br /> <br /> Infidelity proves nothing by
+ slander&mdash;establishes<br /> nothing by abuse.<br /> <br /> Infidelity has
+ nothing to hide. It has no "holy<br /> "of holies," except the abode of
+ truth. It has no<br /> curtain that the hand of investigation has not the<br />
+ right to draw aside. It lives in the cloudless light,<br /> in the very
+ noon, of human eyes.<br /> <br /> Infidelity has no bible to be blasphemed.
+ It does<br /> not cringe before an angry God.<br /> <br /> Infidelity says to
+ every man: Investigate for<br /> yourself. There is no punishment for
+ unbelief.<br /> <br /> Infidelity asks no protection from legislatures. It<br />
+ wants no man fined because he contradicts its doc-<br /> trines.<br /> <br />
+ Infidelity relies simply upon evidence&mdash;not evi-<br /> dence of the
+ dead, but of the living.<br /> <br /> Infidelity has no infallible pope. It
+ relies only<br /> upon infallible fact. It has no priest except the<br />
+ interpreter of Nature. The universe is its church.<br /> Its bible is
+ everything that is true. It implores every<br /> man to verify every word
+ for himself, and it implores<br /> him to say, if he does not believe it,
+ that he does<br /> not.<br /> <br /> Infidelity does not fear contradiction.
+ It is not<br /> afraid of being laughed at. It invites the scrutiny<br />
+ <br /> 166<br /> <br /> of all doubters, of all unbelievers. It does not rely<br />
+ upon awe, but upon reason. It says to the whole<br /> world: It is
+ dangerous not to think. It is dan-<br /> gerous not to be honest. It is
+ dangerous not to<br /> investigate. It is dangerous not to follow where<br />
+ your reason leads.<br /> <br /> Infidelity requires every man to judge for
+ himself.<br /> Infidelity preserves the manhood of man.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Mr. Talmage also says that you are<br /> trying to put out the light-houses
+ on the coast of the<br /> next world; that you are "about to leave
+ everybody<br /> "in darkness at the narrows of death"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ There can be no necessity for these<br /> light-houses, unless the God of
+ Mr. Talmage has<br /> planted rocks and reefs within that unknown sea.<br />
+ If there is no hell, there is no need of any light-<br /> house on the
+ shores of the next world; and only<br /> those are interested in keeping up
+ these pretended<br /> light-houses who are paid for trimming invisible<br />
+ wicks and supplying the lamps with allegorical oil.<br /> Mr. Talmage is
+ one of these light-house keepers,<br /> and he knows that if it is
+ ascertained that the coast<br /> is not dangerous, the light-house will be
+ abandoned,<br /> and the keeper will have to find employment else-<br />
+ <br /> 167<br /> <br /> where. As a matter of fact, every church is a use-<br />
+ less light-house. It warns us only against breakers<br /> that do not
+ exist. Whenever a mariner tells one of<br /> the keepers that there is no
+ danger, then all the<br /> keepers combine to destroy the reputation of
+ that<br /> mariner.<br /> <br /> No one has returned from the other world to
+ tell<br /> us whether they have light-houses on that shore or<br /> not; or
+ whether the light-houses on this shore&mdash;one<br /> of which Mr. Talmage
+ is tending&mdash;have ever sent a<br /> cheering ray across the sea.<br />
+ <br /> Nature has furnished every human being with<br /> a light more or
+ less brilliant, more or less powerful.<br /> That light is Reason; and he
+ who blows that light<br /> out, is in utter darkness. It has been the
+ business of<br /> the church for centuries to extinguish the lamp of the<br />
+ mind, and to convince the people that their own<br /> reason is utterly
+ unreliable. The church has asked<br /> all men to rely only upon the light
+ of the church.<br /> <br /> Every priest has been not only a light-house but<br />
+ a guide-board. He has threatened eternal damna-<br /> tion to all who
+ travel on some other road. These<br /> guide-boards have been toll-gates,
+ and the principal<br /> reason why the churches have wanted people to go<br />
+ their road is, that tolls might be collected. They<br /> <br /> 168<br />
+ <br /> have regarded unbelievers as the owners of turnpikes<br /> do people
+ who go 'cross lots. The toll-gate man<br /> always tells you that other
+ roads are dangerous&mdash;<br /> filled with quagmires and quicksands.<br />
+ <br /> Every church is a kind of insurance society, and<br /> proposes, for
+ a small premium, to keep you from<br /> eternal fire. Of course, the man
+ who tells you that<br /> there is to be no fire, interferes with the
+ business,<br /> and is denounced as a malicious meddler and blas-<br />
+ phemer. The fires of this world sustain the same<br /> relation to
+ insurance companies that the fires of the<br /> next do to the churches.<br />
+ <br /> Mr. Talmage also insists that I am breaking up the<br />
+ "life-boats." Why should a ship built by infinite<br /> wisdom, by an
+ infinite shipbuilder, carry life-boats?<br /> The reason we have life-boats
+ now is, that we are<br /> not entirely sure of the ship. We know that man<br />
+ has not yet found out how to make a ship that can<br /> certainly brave all
+ the dangers of the deep. For this<br /> reason we carry life-boats. But
+ infinite wisdom must<br /> surely build ships that do not need life-boats.
+ Is there<br /> to be a wreck at last? Is God's ship to go down in<br />
+ storm and darkness? Will it be necessary at last to<br /> forsake his ship
+ and depend upon life-boats?<br /> <br /> For my part, I do not wish to be
+ rescued by a life-<br /> <br /> 169<br /> <br /> boat. When the ship, bearing
+ the whole world, goes<br /> down, I am willing to go down with it&mdash;with
+ my<br /> wife, with my children, and with those I have loved.<br /> I will
+ not slip ashore in an orthodox canoe with<br /> somebody else's folks,&mdash;I
+ will stay with my own.<br /> <br /> What a picture is presented by the
+ church! A few<br /> in life's last storm are to be saved; and the saved,<br />
+ when they reach shore, are to look back with joy<br /> upon the great ship
+ going down to the eternal depths!<br /> This is what I call the unutterable
+ meanness of or-<br /> thodox Christianity.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage speaks of
+ the "meanness of in-<br /> "fidelity."<br /> <br /> The meanness of orthodox
+ Christianity permits the<br /> husband to be saved, and to be ineffably
+ happy, while<br /> the wife of his bosom is suffering the tortures of hell.<br />
+ <br /> The meanness of orthodox Christianity tells the<br /> boy that he can
+ go to heaven and have an eternity<br /> of bliss, and that this bliss will
+ not even be clouded<br /> by the fact that the mother who bore him writhes
+ in<br /> eternal pain.<br /> <br /> The meanness of orthodox Christianity
+ allows<br /> a soul to be so captivated with the companionship<br /> of
+ angels as to forget all the old loves and friend-<br /> ships of this
+ world.<br /> <br /> 170<br /> <br /> The meanness of orthodox Christianity,
+ its un-<br /> speakable selfishness, allows a soul in heaven to exult<br />
+ in the fact of its own salvation, and at the same time<br /> to care
+ nothing for the damnation of all the rest.<br /> <br /> The orthodox
+ Christian says that if he can only<br /> save his little soul, if he can
+ barely squeeze into<br /> heaven, if he can only get past Saint Peter's
+ gate,<br /> if he can by hook or crook climb up the opposite<br /> bank of
+ Jordan, if he can get a harp in his hand, it<br /> matters not to him what
+ becomes of brother or<br /> sister, father or mother, wife or child. He is
+ willing<br /> that they should burn if he can sing.<br /> <br /> Oh, the
+ unutterable meanness of orthodox Chris-<br /> tianity, the infinite
+ heartlessness of the orthodox<br /> angels, who with tearless eyes will
+ forever gaze upon<br /> the agonies of those who were once blood of their<br />
+ blood and flesh of their flesh!<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage describes a picture
+ of the scourging<br /> of Christ, painted by Rubens, and he tells us that<br />
+ he was so appalled by this picture&mdash;by the sight of<br /> the naked
+ back, swollen and bleeding&mdash;that he could<br /> not have lived had he
+ continued to look; yet this<br /> same man, who could not bear to gaze upon
+ a<br /> painted pain, expects to be perfectly happy in heaven,<br /> while
+ countiess billions of actual&mdash;not painted&mdash;men,<br /> <br /> 171<br />
+ <br /> women, and children writhe&mdash;not in a pictured flame,<br /> but
+ in the real and quenchless fires of hell.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr.
+ Talmage also claims that we are<br /> indebted to Christianity for schools,
+ colleges, univer-<br /> sities, hospitals and asylums?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ This shows that Mr. Talmage has not<br /> read the history of the world.
+ Long before Chris-<br /> tianity had a place, there were vast libraries.
+ There<br /> were thousands of schools before a Christian existed<br /> on
+ the earth. There were hundreds of hospitals<br /> before a line of the New
+ Testament was written.<br /> Hundreds of years before Christ, there were
+ hospitals<br /> in India,&mdash;not only for men, women and children, but<br />
+ even for beasts. There were hospitals in Egypt long<br /> before Moses was
+ born. They knew enough then<br /> to cure insanity with music. They
+ surrounded the<br /> insane with flowers, and treated them with kindness.<br />
+ <br /> The great libraries at Alexandria were not Chris-<br /> tian. The
+ most intellectual nation of the Middle<br /> Ages was not Christian. While
+ Christians were<br /> imprisoning people for saying that the earth is
+ round,<br /> the Moors in Spain were teaching geography with<br /> globes.
+ They had even calculated the circumference<br /> of the earth by the tides
+ of the Red Sea.<br /> <br /> Where did education come from? For a thousand<br />
+ <br /> 172<br /> <br /> years Christianity destroyed books and paintings and<br />
+ statues. For a thousand years Christianity was filled<br /> with hatred
+ toward every effort of the human mind.<br /> We got paper from the Moors.
+ Printing had been<br /> known thousands of years before, in China. A few<br />
+ manuscripts, containing a portion of the literature of<br /> Greece, a few
+ enriched with the best thoughts of<br /> the Roman world, had been
+ preserved from the<br /> general wreck and ruin wrought by Christian hate.<br />
+ These became the seeds of intellectual progress.<br /> For a thousand years
+ Christianity controlled Europe.<br /> The Mohammedans were far in advance
+ of the<br /> Christians with hospitals and asylums and institutions<br /> of
+ learning.<br /> <br /> Just in proportion that we have done away with<br />
+ what is known as orthodox Christianity, humanity<br /> has taken its place.
+ Humanity has built all the asy-<br /> lums, all the hospitals. Humanity,
+ not Christianity,<br /> has done these things. The people of this country<br />
+ are all willing to be taxed that the insane may be<br /> cared for, that
+ the sick, the helpless, and the desti-<br /> tute may be provided for, not
+ because they are<br /> Christians, but because they are humane; and they<br />
+ are not humane because they are Christians.<br /> <br /> The colleges of
+ this country have been poisoned by<br /> <br /> 173<br /> <br /> theology, and
+ their usefulness almost destroyed. Just<br /> in proportion that they have
+ gotten from ecclesiastical<br /> control, they have become a good. That
+ college, to-<br /> day, which has the most religion has the least true<br />
+ learning; and that college which is the nearest free,<br /> does the most
+ good. Colleges that pit Moses against<br /> modern geology, that undertake
+ to overthrow the<br /> Copernican system by appealing to Joshua, have<br />
+ done, and are doing, very little good in this world.<br /> <br /> Suppose
+ that in the first century Pagans had said<br /> to Christians: Where are
+ your hospitals, where are<br /> your asylums, where are your works of
+ charity, where<br /> are your colleges and universities?<br /> <br /> The
+ Christians undoubtedly would have replied:<br /> We have not been in power.
+ There are but few<br /> of us. We have been persecuted to that degree<br />
+ that it has been about as much as we could do to<br /> maintain ourselves.<br />
+ <br /> Reasonable Pagans would have regarded such an<br /> answer as
+ perfectly satisfactory. Yet that question<br /> could have been asked of
+ Christianity after it had<br /> held the reins of power for a thousand
+ years, and<br /> Christians would have been compelled to say: We<br /> have
+ no universities, we have no colleges, we have<br /> no real asylums.<br />
+ <br /> 174<br /> <br /> The Christian now asks of the atheist: Where<br /> is
+ your asylum, where is your hospital, where is your<br /> university? And
+ the atheist answers: There have<br /> been but few atheists. The world is
+ not yet suffi-<br /> ciently advanced to produce them. For hundreds<br />
+ and hundreds of years, the minds of men have been<br /> darkened by the
+ superstitions of Christianity. Priests<br /> have thundered against human
+ knowledge, have de-<br /> nounced human reason, and have done all within<br />
+ their power to prevent the real progress of mankind.<br /> <br /> You must
+ also remember that Christianity has<br /> made more lunatics than it ever
+ provided asylums<br /> for. Christianity has driven more men and women<br />
+ crazy than all other religions combined. Hundreds<br /> and thousands and
+ millions have lost their reason in<br /> contemplating the monstrous
+ falsehoods of Chris-<br /> tianity. Thousands of mothers, thinking of their<br />
+ sons in hell&mdash;thousands of fathers, believing their<br /> boys and
+ girls in perdition, have lost their reason.<br /> <br /> So, let it be
+ distinctly understood, that Christianity<br /> has made ten lunatics&mdash;twenty&mdash;one
+ hundred&mdash;<br /> where it has provided an asylum for one.<br /> <br />
+ Mr. Talmage also speaks of the hospitals. When<br /> we take into
+ consideration the wars that have been<br /> waged on account of religion,
+ the countless thou-<br /> <br /> 175<br /> <br /> sands who have been maimed
+ and wounded, through<br /> all the years, by wars produced by theology&mdash;then
+ I<br /> say that Christianity has not built hospitals enough<br /> to take
+ care of her own wounded&mdash;not enough to<br /> take care of one in a
+ hundred. Where Christianity<br /> has bound up the wounds of one, it has
+ pierced the<br /> bodies of a hundred others with sword and spear,<br />
+ with bayonet and ball. Where she has provided<br /> one bed in a hospital,
+ she has laid away a hundred<br /> bodies in bloody graves.<br /> <br /> Of
+ course I do not expect the church to do<br /> anything but beg. Churches
+ produce nothing. They<br /> are like the lilies of the field. "They toil
+ not, neither<br /> "do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not<br />
+ "arrayed like most of them."<br /> <br /> The churches raise no corn nor
+ wheat. They<br /> simply collect tithes. They carry the alms' dish.<br />
+ They pass the plate. They take toll. Of course<br /> a mendicant is not
+ expected to produce anything.<br /> He does not support,&mdash;he is
+ supported. The church<br /> does not help. She receives, she devours, she<br />
+ consumes, and she produces only discord. She ex-<br /> changes mistakes for
+ provisions, faith for food,<br /> prayers for pence. The church is a
+ beggar. But we<br /> have this consolation: In this age of the world, this<br />
+ <br /> 176<br /> <br /> beggar is not on horseback, and even the walking is<br />
+ not good.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage says that infidels have<br />
+ done no good?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, let us see. In the first
+ place,<br /> what is an "infidel"? He is simply a man in advance<br /> of
+ his time. He is an intellectual pioneer. He is<br /> the dawn of a new day.
+ He is a gentleman with an<br /> idea of his own, for which he gave no
+ receipt to the<br /> church. He is a man who has not been branded as<br />
+ the property of some one else. An "infidel" is one<br /> who has made a
+ declaration of independence. In<br /> other words, he is a man who has had
+ a doubt. To<br /> have a doubt means that you have thought upon<br /> the
+ subject&mdash;that you have investigated the question;<br /> and he who
+ investigates any religion will doubt.<br /> <br /> All the advance that has
+ been made in the religious<br /> world has been made by "infidels," by
+ "heretics,"<br /> by "skeptics," by doubters,&mdash;that is to say, by<br />
+ thoughtful men. The doubt does not come from the<br /> ignorant members of
+ your congregations. Heresy is<br /> not born of stupidity,&mdash;it is not
+ the child of the brain-<br /> less. He who is so afraid of hurting the
+ reputation<br /> of his father and mother that he refuses to advance,<br />
+ <br /> 177<br /> <br /> is not a "heretic." The "heretic" is not true to<br />
+ falsehood. Orthodoxy is. He who stands faithfully<br /> by a mistake is
+ "orthodox." He who, discovering<br /> that it is a mistake, has the courage
+ to say so, is an<br /> "infidel."<br /> <br /> An infidel is an intellectual
+ discoverer&mdash;one who<br /> finds new isles, new continents, in the vast
+ realm of<br /> thought. The dwellers on the orthodox shore de-<br /> nounce
+ this brave sailor of the seas as a buccaneer.<br /> <br /> And yet we are
+ told that the thinkers of new<br /> thoughts have never been of value to
+ the world.<br /> Voltaire did more for human liberty than all the<br />
+ orthodox ministers living and dead. He broke a<br /> thousand times more
+ chains than Luther. Luther<br /> simply substituted his chain for that of
+ the Catholics.<br /> Voltaire had none. The Encyclopaedists of France<br />
+ did more for liberty than all the writers upon theology.<br /> Bruno did
+ more for mankind than millions of "be-<br /> "lievers." Spinoza contributed
+ more to the growth<br /> of the human intellect than all the orthodox
+ theolo-<br /> gians.<br /> <br /> Men have not done good simply because they
+ have<br /> believed this or that doctrine. They have done good<br /> in the
+ intellectual world as they have thought and<br /> secured for others the
+ liberty to think and to ex-<br /> <br /> 178<br /> <br /> press their
+ thoughts. They have done good in the<br /> physical world by teaching their
+ fellows how to<br /> triumph over the obstructions of nature. Every<br />
+ man who has taught his fellow-man to think, has<br /> been a benefactor.
+ Every one who has supplied his<br /> fellow-men with facts, and insisted
+ upon their right<br /> to think, has been a blessing to his kind.<br />
+ <br /> Mr. Talmage, in order to show what Christians<br /> have done, points
+ us to Whitefield, Luther, Oberlin,<br /> Judson, Martyn, Bishop Mcllvaine
+ and Hannah<br /> More. I would not for one moment compare George<br />
+ Whitefield with the inventor of movable type, and<br /> there is no
+ parallel between Frederick Oberlin and<br /> the inventor of paper; not the
+ slightest between<br /> Martin Luther and the discoverer of the New World;<br />
+ not the least between Adoniram Judson and the in-<br /> ventor of the
+ reaper, nor between Henry Martyn<br /> and the discoverer of photography.
+ Of what use to<br /> the world was Bishop Mcllvaine, compared with<br /> the
+ inventor of needles? Of what use were a<br /> hundred such priests compared
+ with the inventor<br /> of matches, or even of clothes-pins? Suppose that<br />
+ Hannah More had never lived? about the same<br /> number would read her
+ writings now. It is hardly fair<br /> to compare her with the inventor of
+ the steamship?<br /> <br /> 179<br /> <br /> The progress of the world&mdash;its
+ present improved<br /> condition&mdash;can be accounted for only by the
+ discov-<br /> eries of genius, only by men who have had the<br /> courage to
+ express their honest thoughts.<br /> <br /> After all, the man who invented
+ the telescope<br /> found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of<br />
+ prayer had ever discovered. I feel absolutely certain<br /> that the
+ inventor of the steam engine was a greater<br /> benefactor to mankind than
+ the writer of the Presby-<br /> terian creed. I may be mistaken, but I
+ think that<br /> railways have done more to civilize mankind, than any<br />
+ system of theology. I believe that the printing press<br /> has done more
+ for the world than the pulpit. It is<br /> my opinion that the discoveries
+ of Kepler did a<br /> thousand times more to enlarge the minds of men<br />
+ than the prophecies of Daniel. I feel under far<br /> greater obligation to
+ Humboldt than to Haggai.<br /> The inventor of the plow did more good than
+ the<br /> maker of the first rosary&mdash;because, say what you<br /> will,
+ plowing is better than praying; we can live by<br /> plowing without
+ praying, but we can not live by<br /> praying without plowing. So I put my
+ faith in the<br /> plow.<br /> <br /> As Jehovah has ceased to make garments
+ for his<br /> children,&mdash;as he has stopped making coats of skins,<br />
+ <br /> 180<br /> <br /> I have great respect for the inventors of the
+ spinning-<br /> jenny and the sewing machine. As no more laws<br /> are
+ given from Sinai, I have admiration for the real<br /> statesmen. As
+ miracles have ceased, I rely on<br /> medicine, and on a reasonable
+ compliance with the<br /> conditions of health.<br /> <br /> I have infinite
+ respect for the inventors, the<br /> thinkers, the discoverers, and above
+ all, for the un-<br /> known millions who have, without the hope of fame,<br />
+ lived and labored for the ones they loved.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a
+ name="link0007" id="link0007"></a><br /> <br /> <br /> <big><b>FIFTH
+ INTERVIEW.</b></big><br /> <br /> <i>Parson. You had belter join the church;
+ it is<br /> the safer way.<br /> <br /> Sinner. I can't live up to your
+ doctrines, and you<br /> know it.<br /> <br /> Parson. Well, you can come as
+ near it in the<br /> church as out; and forgiveness<br /> <br /> will be
+ easier if you join us.<br /> <br /> Sinner. What do you mean by that?<br />
+ <br /> Parson. I will tell you. If you join the church,<br /> and happen to
+ back-slide now and then, Christ will<br /> say to his Father: "That man is
+ a "friend of mine,<br /> and you may charge his account to me."</i><br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What have you to say about the<br /> fifth sermon of
+ the Rev. Mr. Talmage in reply<br /> to you?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The
+ text from which he preached is:<br /> "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or
+ figs of thistles?"<br /> I am compelled to answer these questions in the<br />
+ negative. That is one reason why I am an infidel.<br /> I do not believe
+ that anybody can gather grapes of<br /> thorns, or figs of thistles. That
+ is exactly my doctrine.<br /> But the doctrine of the church is, that you
+ can. The<br /> <br /> 184<br /> <br /> church says, that just at the last, no
+ matter if you<br /> have spent your whole life in raising thorns and
+ thistles,<br /> in planting and watering and hoeing and plowing<br /> thorns
+ and thistles&mdash;that just at the last, if you will<br /> repent, between
+ hoeing the last thistle and taking the<br /> last breath, you can reach out
+ the white and palsied<br /> hand of death and gather from every thorn a
+ cluster<br /> of grapes and from every thistle an abundance of<br /> figs.
+ The church insists that in this way you can<br /> gather enough grapes and
+ figs to last you through all<br /> eternity.<br /> <br /> My doctrine is,
+ that he who raises thorns must<br /> harvest thorns. If you sow thorns, you
+ must reap<br /> thorns; and there is no way by which an innocent<br /> being
+ can have the thorns you raise thrust into his<br /> brow, while you gather
+ his grapes.<br /> <br /> But Christianity goes even further than this. It<br />
+ insists that a man can plant grapes and gather thorns.<br /> Mr. Talmage
+ insists that, no matter how good you<br /> are, no matter how kind, no
+ matter how much you<br /> love your wife and children, no matter how many<br />
+ self-denying acts you do, you will not be allowed to<br /> eat of the
+ grapes you raise; that God will step be-<br /> tween you and the natural
+ consequences of your<br /> goodness, and not allow you to reap what you
+ sow.<br /> <br /> 185<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage insists, that if you have no
+ faith in the<br /> Lord Jesus Christ, although you have been good<br />
+ here, you will reap eternal pain as your harvest; that<br /> the effect of
+ honesty and kindness will not be peace<br /> and joy, but agony and pain.
+ So that the church<br /> does insist not only that you can gather grapes
+ from<br /> thorns, but thorns from grapes.<br /> <br /> I believe exactly the
+ other way. If a man is a<br /> good man here, dying will not change him,
+ and he<br /> will land on the shore of another world&mdash;if there is<br />
+ one&mdash;the same good man that he was when he left<br /> this; and I do
+ not believe there is any God in this<br /> universe who can afford to damn
+ a good man. This<br /> God will say to this man: You loved your wife,<br />
+ your children, and your friends, and I love you.<br /> You treated others
+ with kindness; I will treat you<br /> in the same way. But Mr. Talmage
+ steps up to<br /> his God, nudges his elbow, and says: Although he<br /> was
+ a very good man, he belonged to no church;<br /> he was a blasphemer; he
+ denied the whale story, and<br /> after I explained that Jonah was only in
+ the whale's<br /> mouth, he still denied it; and thereupon Mr. Tal-<br />
+ mage expects that his infinite God will fly in a<br /> passion, and in a
+ perfect rage will say: What! did<br /> he deny that story? Let him be
+ eternally damned!<br /> <br /> 186<br /> <br /> Not only this, but Mr. Talmage
+ insists that a man<br /> may have treated his wife like a wild beast; may
+ have<br /> trampled his child beneath the feet of his rage; may<br /> have
+ lived a life of dishonesty, of infamy, and yet,<br /> having repented on
+ his dying bed, having made his<br /> peace with God through the
+ intercession of his Son,<br /> he will be welcomed in heaven with shouts of
+ joy.<br /> I deny it. I do not believe that angels can be so<br /> quickly
+ made from rascals. I have but little confi-<br /> dence in repentance
+ without restitution, and a hus-<br /> band who has driven a wife to
+ insanity and death by<br /> his cruelty&mdash;afterward repenting and
+ finding himself<br /> in heaven, and missing his wife,&mdash;were he worthy
+ to<br /> be an angel, would wander through all the gulfs of<br /> hell until
+ he clasped her once again..<br /> <br /> Now, the next question is, What
+ must be done with<br /> those who are sometimes good and sometimes bad?<br />
+ That is my condition. If there is another world, I<br /> expect to have the
+ same opportunity of behaving<br /> myself that I have here. If, when I get
+ there, I fail<br /> to act as I should, I expect to reap what I sow. If,<br />
+ when I arrive at the New Jerusalem, I go into the<br /> thorn business, I
+ expect to harvest what I plant. If<br /> I am wise enough to start a
+ vineyard, I expect to<br /> have grapes in the early fall. But if I do
+ there as I<br /> <br /> 187<br /> <br /> have done here&mdash;plant some
+ grapes and some thorns,<br /> and harvest them together&mdash;I expect to
+ fare very<br /> much as I have fared here. But I expect year by<br /> year
+ to grow wiser, to plant fewer thorns every<br /> spring, and more grapes.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage charges that you have<br /> taken the
+ ground that the Bible is a cruel book, and<br /> has produced cruel people?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I have taken that ground, and I<br /> maintain
+ it. The Bible was produced by cruel people,<br /> and in its turn it has
+ produced people like its authors.<br /> The extermination of the Canaanites
+ was cruel.<br /> Most of the laws of Moses were bloodthirsty and<br />
+ cruel. Hundreds of offences were punishable by<br /> death, while now, in
+ civilized countries, there are only<br /> two crimes for which the
+ punishment is capital. I<br /> charge that Moses and Joshua and David and
+ Samuel<br /> and Solomon were cruel. I believe that to read and<br />
+ believe the Old Testament naturally makes a man<br /> careless of human
+ life. That book has produced<br /> hundreds of religious wars, and it has
+ furnished the<br /> battle-cries of bigotry for fifteen hundred years.<br />
+ <br /> The Old Testament is filled with cruelty, but its<br /> cruelty stops
+ with this world, its malice ends with<br /> <br /> 188<br /> <br /> death;
+ whenever its victim has reached the grave,<br /> revenge is satisfied. Not
+ so with the New Testament.<br /> It pursues its victim forever. After
+ death, comes<br /> hell; after the grave, the worm that never dies. So<br />
+ that, as a matter of fact, the New Testament is in-<br /> finitely more
+ cruel than the Old.<br /> <br /> Nothing has so tended to harden the human
+ heart<br /> as the doctrine of eternal punishment, and that<br /> passage:
+ "He that believeth and is baptized shall be<br /> "saved, and he that
+ believeth not shall be damned,"<br /> has shed more blood than all the
+ other so-called<br /> "sacred books" of all this world.<br /> <br /> I insist
+ that the Bible is cruel. The Bible invented<br /> instruments of torture.
+ The Bible laid the foundations<br /> of the Inquisition. The Bible
+ furnished the fagots and<br /> the martyrs. The Bible forged chains not
+ only for the<br /> hands, but for the brains of men. The Bible was at<br />
+ the bottom of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.<br /> Every man who has been
+ persecuted for religion's<br /> sake has been persecuted by the Bible. That
+ sacred<br /> book has been a beast of prey.<br /> <br /> The truth is,
+ Christians have been good in spite of<br /> the Bible. The Bible has lived
+ upon the reputations of<br /> good men and good women,&mdash;men and women
+ who<br /> were good notwithstanding the brutality they found<br /> <br />
+ <br /> 189<br /> <br /> upon the inspired page. Men have said: "My mother<br />
+ "believed in the Bible; my mother was good; there-<br /> "fore, the Bible
+ is good," when probably the mother<br /> never read a chapter in it.<br />
+ <br /> The Bible produced the Church of Rome, and<br /> Torquemada was a
+ product of the Bible. Philip of<br /> Spain and the Duke of Alva were
+ produced by the<br /> Bible. For thirty years Europe was one vast battle-<br />
+ field, and the war was produced by the Bible. The re-<br /> vocation of the
+ Edict of Nantes was produced by the<br /> sacred Scriptures. The
+ instruments of torture&mdash;the<br /> pincers, the thumb-screws, the
+ racks, were produced<br /> by the word of God. The Quakers of New England<br />
+ were whipped and burned by the Bible&mdash;their children<br /> were stolen
+ by the Bible. The slave-ship had for its<br /> sails the leaves of the
+ Bible. Slavery was upheld in<br /> the United States by the Bible. The
+ Bible was the<br /> auction-block. More than this, worse than this,<br />
+ infinitely beyond the computation of imagination, the<br /> despotisms of
+ the old world all rested and still rest<br /> upon the Bible. "The powers
+ that be" were sup-<br /> posed to have been "ordained of God;" and he who<br />
+ rose against his king periled his soul.<br /> <br /> In this connection, and
+ in order to show the state<br /> of society when the church had entire
+ control of civil<br /> <br /> 190<br /> <br /> and ecclesiastical affairs, it
+ may be well enough to<br /> read the following, taken from the <i>New York
+ Sun</i> of<br /> March 21, 1882. From this little extract, it will be<br />
+ easy in the imagination to re-organize the government<br /> that then
+ existed, and to see clearly the state of so-<br /> ciety at that time. This
+ can be done upon the same<br /> principle that one scale tells of the
+ entire fish, or one<br /> bone of the complete animal:<br /> <br /> "From
+ records in the State archives of Hesse-<br /> "Darmstadt, dating back to
+ the thirteenth century,<br /> "it appears that the public executioner's fee
+ for boiling<br /> "a criminal in oil was twenty-four florins; for decapi-<br />
+ "tating with the sword, fifteen florins and-a-half; for<br /> "quartering,
+ the same; for breaking on the wheel,<br /> "five florins, thirty kreuzers;
+ for tearing a man to<br /> "pieces, eighteen florins. Ten florins per head
+ was<br /> "his charge for hanging, and he burned delinquents<br /> "alive at
+ the rate of fourteen florins apiece. For ap-<br /> "plying the 'Spanish
+ boot' his fee was only two<br /> "florins. Five florins were paid to him
+ every time he<br /> "subjected a refractory witness to the torture of the<br />
+ "rack. The same amount was his due for 'branding<br /> "'the sign of the
+ gallows with a red-hot iron upon<br /> "'the back, forehead, or cheek of a
+ thief,' as well as<br /> "for 'cutting off the nose and ears of a slanderer
+ or<br /> <br /> 191<br /> <br /> "'blasphemer.' Flogging with rods was a cheap<br />
+ "punishment, its remuneration being fixed at three<br /> "florins, thirty
+ kreuzers."<br /> <br /> The Bible has made men cruel. It is a cruel book.<br />
+ And yet, amidst its thorns, amidst its thistles, amidst<br /> its nettles
+ and its swords and pikes, there are some<br /> flowers, and these I wish,
+ in common with all good<br /> men, to save.<br /> <br /> I do not believe
+ that men have ever been made<br /> merciful in war by reading the Old
+ Testament. I do<br /> not believe that men have ever been prompted to<br />
+ break the chain of a slave by reading the Pentateuch.<br /> The question is
+ not whether Florence Nightingale and<br /> Miss Dix were cruel. I have said
+ nothing about<br /> John Howard, nothing about Abbott Lawrence.<br /> I say
+ nothing about people in this connection. The<br /> question is: Is the
+ Bible a cruel book? not: Was<br /> Miss Nightingale a cruel woman? There
+ have been<br /> thousands and thousands of loving, tender and char-<br />
+ itable Mohammedans. Mohammedan mothers love<br /> their children as well as
+ Christian mothers can.<br /> Mohammedans have died in defence of the Koran&mdash;<br />
+ died for the honor of an impostor. There were<br /> millions of charitable
+ people in India&mdash;millions in<br /> Egypt&mdash;and I am not sure that
+ the world has ever<br /> <br /> 192<br /> <br /> produced people who loved one
+ another better than<br /> the Egyptians.<br /> <br /> I think there are many
+ things in the Old Testament<br /> calculated to make man cruel. Mr. Talmage
+ asks:<br /> "What has been the effect upon your children? As<br /> "they
+ have become more and more fond of the<br /> "Scriptures have they become
+ more and more fond<br /> "of tearing off the wings of flies and pinning
+ grass-<br /> "hoppers and robbing birds' nests?"<br /> <br /> I do not
+ believe that reading the bible would make<br /> them tender toward flies or
+ grasshoppers. According<br /> to that book, God used to punish animals for
+ the<br /> crimes of their owners. He drowned the animals in<br /> a flood.
+ He visited cattle with disease. He bruised<br /> them to death with
+ hailstones&mdash;killed them by the<br /> thousand. Will the reading of
+ these things make<br /> children kind to animals? So, the whole system of<br />
+ sacrifices in the Old Testament is calculated to harden<br /> the heart.
+ The butchery of oxen and lambs, the killing<br /> of doves, the perpetual
+ destruction of life, the con-<br /> tinual shedding of blood&mdash;these
+ things, if they have<br /> any tendency, tend only to harden the heart of
+ child-<br /> hood.<br /> <br /> The Bible does not stop simply with the
+ killing of<br /> animals. The Jews were commanded to kill their<br /> <br />
+ 193<br /> <br /> neighbors&mdash;not only the men, but the women; not<br />
+ only the women, but the babes. In accordance with<br /> the command of God,
+ the Jews killed not only their<br /> neighbors, but their own brothers; and
+ according to<br /> this book, which is the foundation, as Mr. Talmage<br />
+ believes, of all mercy, men were commanded to kill<br /> their wives
+ because they differed with them on the<br /> subject of religion.<br />
+ <br /> Nowhere in the world can be found laws more un-<br /> just and cruel
+ than in the Old Testament.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage wants
+ you to tell where<br /> the cruelty of the Bible crops out in the lives of
+ Chris-<br /> tians?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, millions
+ of Christians<br /> have been persecutors. Did they get the idea of<br />
+ persecution from the Bible? Will not every honest<br /> man admit that the
+ early Christians, by reading the<br /> Old Testament, became convinced that
+ it was not<br /> only their privilege, but their duty, to destroy heathen<br />
+ nations? Did they not, by reading the same book,<br /> come to the
+ conclusion that it was their solemn duty<br /> to extirpate heresy and
+ heretics? According to the<br /> New Testament, nobody could be saved
+ unless he<br /> believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The early Chris-<br />
+ <br /> 194<br /> <br /> tians believed this dogma. They also believed that<br />
+ they had a right to defend themselves and their<br /> children from
+ "heretics."<br /> <br /> We all admit that a man has a right to defend his<br />
+ children against the assaults of a would-be murderer,<br /> and he has the
+ right to carry this defence to the<br /> extent of killing the assailant.
+ If we have the right<br /> to kill people who are simply trying to kill the
+ bodies<br /> of our children, of course we have the right to kill<br /> them
+ when they are endeavoring to assassinate, not<br /> simply their bodies,
+ but their souls. It was in this<br /> way Christians reasoned. If the
+ Testament is right,<br /> their reasoning was correct. Whoever believes the<br />
+ New Testament literally&mdash;whoever is satisfied that it<br /> is
+ absolutely the word of God, will become a perse-<br /> cutor. All religious
+ persecution has been, and is, in<br /> exact harmony with the teachings of
+ the Old and<br /> New Testaments. Of course I mean with some of<br /> the
+ teachings. I admit that there are passages in<br /> both the Old and New
+ Testaments against persecu-<br /> tion. These are passages quoted only in
+ time of<br /> peace. Others are repeated to feed the flames of<br /> war.<br />
+ <br /> I find, too, that reading the Bible and believing the<br /> Bible do
+ not prevent even ministers from telling false-<br /> <br /> 195<br /> <br />
+ hoods about their opponents. I find that the Rev.<br /> Mr. Talmage is
+ willing even to slander the dead,&mdash;<br /> that he is willing to stain
+ the memory of a Christian,<br /> and that he does not hesitate to give
+ circulation<br /> to what he knows to be untrue. Mr. Talmage<br /> has
+ himself, I believe, been the subject of a church<br /> trial. How many of
+ the Christian witnesses against<br /> him, in his judgment, told the truth?
+ Yet they were<br /> all Bible readers and Bible believers. What effect, in<br />
+ his judgment, did the reading of the Bible have upon<br /> his enemies? Is
+ he willing to admit that the testi-<br /> mony of a Bible, reader and
+ believer is true? Is he<br /> willing to accept the testimony even of
+ ministers?<br /> &mdash;of his brother ministers? Did reading the Bible<br />
+ make them bad people? Was it a belief in the Bible<br /> that colored their
+ testimony? Or, was it a belief in<br /> the Bible that made Mr. Talmage
+ deny the truth of<br /> their statements?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr.
+ Talmage charges you with having<br /> said that the Scriptures are a
+ collection of polluted<br /> writings?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I have
+ never said such a thing. I have<br /> said, and I still say, that there are
+ passages in the<br /> Bible unfit to be read&mdash;passages that never
+ should<br /> <br /> 196<br /> <br /> have been written&mdash;passages, whether
+ inspired or<br /> uninspired, that can by no possibility do any human<br />
+ being any good. I have always admitted that there<br /> are good passages
+ in the Bible&mdash;many good, wise<br /> and just laws&mdash;many things
+ calculated to make men<br /> better&mdash;many things calculated to make
+ men worse.<br /> I admit that the Bible is a mixture of good and bad,<br />
+ of truth and falsehood, of history and fiction, of sense<br /> and
+ nonsense, of virtue and vice, of aspiration and<br /> revenge, of liberty
+ and tyranny.<br /> <br /> I have never said anything against Solomon's<br />
+ Song. I like it better than I do any book that pre-<br /> cedes it, because
+ it touches upon the human. In the<br /> desert of murder, wars of
+ extermination, polygamy,<br /> concubinage and slavery, it is an oasis
+ where the<br /> trees grow, where the birds sing, and where human<br /> love
+ blossoms and fills the air with perfume. I do<br /> not regard that book as
+ obscene. There are many<br /> things in it that are beautiful and tender,
+ and it is<br /> calculated to do good rather than harm.<br /> <br /> Neither
+ have I any objection to the book of Eccle-<br /> siastes&mdash;except a few
+ interpolations in it. That book<br /> was written by a Freethinker, by a
+ philosopher.<br /> There is not the slightest mention of God in it, nor<br />
+ of another state of existence. All portions in which<br /> <br /> 197<br />
+ <br /> God is mentioned are interpolations. With some of<br /> this book I
+ agree heartily. I believe in the doctrine<br /> of enjoying yourself, if
+ you can, to-day. I think it<br /> foolish to spend all your years in
+ heaping up treas-<br /> ures, not knowing but he who will spend them is to<br />
+ be an idiot. I believe it is far better to be happy with<br /> your wife
+ and child now, than to be miserable here,<br /> with angelic expectations
+ in some other world.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage is mistaken when he supposes
+ that all<br /> Bible believers have good homes, that all Bible readers<br />
+ are kind in their families. As a matter of fact, nearly all<br /> the
+ wife-whippers of the United States are orthodox.<br /> Nine-tenths of the
+ people in the penitentiaries are<br /> believers. Scotland is one of the
+ most orthodox<br /> countries in the world, and one of the most intem-<br />
+ perate. Hundreds and hundreds of women are<br /> arrested every year in
+ Glasgow for drunkenness.<br /> Visit the Christian homes in the
+ manufacturing dis-<br /> tricts of England. Talk with the beaters of
+ children<br /> and whippers of wives, and you will find them be-<br />
+ lievers. Go into what is known as the "Black<br /> "Country," and you will
+ have an idea of the Chris-<br /> tian civilization of England.<br /> <br />
+ Let me tell you something about the "Black<br /> "Country." There women
+ work in iron; there women<br /> <br /> 198<br /> <br /> do the work of men.
+ Let me give you an instance:<br /> A commission was appointed by Parliament
+ to ex-<br /> amine into the condition of the women in the "Black<br />
+ "Country," and a report was made. In that report<br /> I read the
+ following:<br /> <br /> "A superintendent of a brickyard where women<br />
+ "were engaged in carrying bricks from the yard to<br /> "the kiln, said to
+ one of the women:<br /> <br /> "'Eliza, you don't appear to be very uppish
+ this<br /> "morning.'"<br /> <br /> "'Neither would you be very uppish, sir,'
+ she re-<br /> "plied, 'if you had had a child last night.'"<br /> <br /> This
+ gives you an idea of the Christian civilization<br /> of England.<br />
+ <br /> England and Ireland produce most of the prize-<br /> fighters. The
+ scientific burglar is a product of Great<br /> Britain. There is not the
+ great difference that Mr.<br /> Talmage supposes, between the morality of
+ Pekin<br /> and of New York. I doubt if there is a city in<br /> the world
+ with more crime according to the population<br /> than New York, unless it
+ be London, or it may be<br /> Dublin, or Brooklyn, or possibly Glasgow,
+ where<br /> a man too pious to read a newspaper published on<br /> Sunday,
+ stole millions from the poor.<br /> <br /> I do not believe there is a
+ country in the world<br /> <br /> 199<br /> <br /> where there is more robbery
+ than in Christian lands&mdash;<br /> no country where more cashiers are
+ defaulters, where<br /> more presidents of banks take the money of
+ depositors,<br /> where there is more adulteration of food, where<br />
+ fewer ounces make a pound, where fewer inches make<br /> a yard, where
+ there is more breach of trust, more<br /> respectable larceny under the
+ name of embezzlement,<br /> or more slander circulated as gospel.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage insists that there are no<br />
+ contradictions in the Bible&mdash;that it is a perfect har-<br /> mony from
+ Genesis to Revelation&mdash;a harmony as<br /> perfect as any piece of
+ music ever written by<br /> Beethoven or Handel?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Of course, if God wrote it, the Bible<br /> ought to be perfect. I do not
+ see why a minister<br /> should be so perfectly astonished to find that an<br />
+ inspired book is consistent with itself throughout.<br /> Yet the truth is,
+ the Bible is infinitely inconsistent.<br /> <br /> Compare the two systems&mdash;the
+ system of Jehovah<br /> and that of Jesus. In the Old Testament the
+ doctrine<br /> of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was<br />
+ taught. In the New Testament, "forgive your<br /> "enemies," and "pray for
+ those who despitefully<br /> "use you and persecute you." In the Old
+ Testament<br /> <br /> 200<br /> <br /> it is kill, burn, massacre, destroy;
+ in the New forgive.<br /> The two systems are inconsistent, and one is just<br />
+ about as far wrong as the other. To live for and<br /> thirst for revenge,
+ to gloat over the agony of an<br /> enemy, is one extreme; to "resist not
+ evil" is the<br /> other extreme; and both these extremes are equally<br />
+ distant from the golden mean of justice.<br /> <br /> The four gospels do
+ not even agree as to the terms<br /> of salvation. And yet, Mr. Talmage
+ tells us that<br /> there are four cardinal doctrines taught in the Bible&mdash;<br />
+ the goodness of God, the fall of man, the sympathetic<br /> and forgiving
+ nature of the Savior, and two desti-<br /> nies&mdash;one for believers and
+ the other for unbelievers.<br /> That is to say:<br /> <br /> 1. That God is
+ good, holy and forgiving.<br /> <br /> 2. That man is a lost sinner.<br />
+ <br /> 3. That Christ is "all sympathetic," and ready to<br /> take the
+ whole world to his heart.<br /> <br /> 4. Heaven for believers and hell for
+ unbelievers.<br /> <br /> <i>First</i>. I admit that the Bible says that God
+ is<br /> <br /> good and holy. But this Bible also tells what God<br /> did,
+ and if God did what the Bible says he did, then I<br /> insist that God is
+ not good, and that he is not holy,<br /> or forgiving. According to the
+ Bible, this good<br /> God believed in religious persecution; this good<br />
+ <br /> 201<br /> <br /> God believed in extermination, in polygamy, in con-<br />
+ cubinage, in human slavery; this good God com-<br /> manded murder and
+ massacre, and this good God<br /> could only be mollified by the shedding
+ of blood.<br /> This good God wanted a butcher for a priest. This<br /> good
+ God wanted husbands to kill their wives&mdash;<br /> wanted fathers and
+ mothers to kill their children.<br /> This good God persecuted animals on
+ account of the<br /> crimes of their owners. This good God killed the<br />
+ common people because the king had displeased him.<br /> This good God
+ killed the babe even of the maid<br /> behind the mill, in order that he
+ might get even with<br /> a king. This good God committed every possible<br />
+ crime.<br /> <br /> <i>Second</i>. The statement that man is a lost sinner<br />
+ is not true. There are thousands and thousands of<br /> magnificent Pagans&mdash;men
+ ready to die for wife, or<br /> child, or even for friend, and the history
+ of Pagan<br /> countries is filled with self-denying and heroic acts.<br />
+ If man is a failure, the infinite God, if there be one,<br /> is to blame.
+ Is it possible that the God of Mr. Tal-<br /> mage could not have made man
+ a success? Accord-<br /> ing to the Bible, his God made man knowing that in<br />
+ about fifteen hundred years he would have to drown<br /> all his
+ descendants.<br /> <br /> 202<br /> <br /> Why would a good God create a man
+ that he<br /> knew would be a sinner all his life, make hundreds<br /> of
+ thousands of his fellow-men unhappy, and who at<br /> last would be doomed
+ to an eternity of suffering?<br /> Can such a God be good? How could a
+ devil have<br /> done worse?<br /> <br /> <i>Third.</i> If God is infinitely
+ good, is he not fully as<br /> sympathetic as Christ? Do you have to employ<br />
+ Christ to mollify a being of infinite mercy? Is Christ<br /> any more
+ willing to take to his heart the whole world<br /> than his Father is?
+ Personally, I have not the<br /> slightest objection in the world to
+ anybody believing<br /> in an infinitely good and kind God&mdash;not the
+ slightest<br /> objection to any human being worshiping an infi-<br />
+ nitely tender and merciful Christ&mdash;not the slightest<br /> objection
+ to people preaching about heaven, or about<br /> the glories of the future
+ state&mdash;not the slightest.<br /> <br /> <i>Fourth</i>. I object to the
+ doctrine of two destinies<br /> for the human race. I object to the
+ infamous false-<br /> hood of eternal fire. And yet, Mr. Talmage is en-<br />
+ deavoring to poison the imagination of men, women<br /> and children with
+ the doctrine of an eternal hell.<br /> Here is what he preaches, taken from
+ the "Constitu-<br /> "tion of the Presbyterian Church of the United<br />
+ "States:"<br /> <br /> 203<br /> <br /> "By the decrees of God, for the
+ manifestation of<br /> "his glory, some men and angels are predestinated<br />
+ "to everlasting life, and others foreordained to ever-<br /> "lasting
+ death."<br /> <br /> That is the doctrine of Mr. Talmage. He wor-<br /> ships
+ a God who damns people "for the manifesta-<br /> "tion of his glory,"&mdash;a
+ God who made men, knowing<br /> that they would be damned&mdash;a God who
+ damns<br /> babes simply to increase his reputation with the<br /> angels.
+ This is the God of Mr. Talmage. Such a<br /> God I abhor, despise and
+ execrate.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What does Mr. Talmage think of man-<br />
+ kind? What is his opinion of the "unconverted"?<br /> How does he regard
+ the great and glorious of the<br /> earth, who have not been the victims of
+ his particular<br /> superstition? What does he think of some of the<br />
+ best the earth has produced?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I will tell you how
+ he looks upon all<br /> such. Read this from his "Confession of Faith:"<br />
+ <br /> "Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety<br /> "of the
+ tempter, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.<br /> "By this sin, they
+ fell from their original righteous-<br /> "ness and communion with God, and
+ so became<br /> "dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties<br />
+ <br /> 204<br /> <br /> "and parts of soul and body; and they being the<br />
+ "root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was<br /> "imputed, and the
+ same death in sin and corrupted<br /> "nature conveyed to all their
+ posterity. From this<br /> "original corruption&mdash;whereby we are
+ utterly indis-<br /> "posed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,<br />
+ "and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual<br />
+ "transgressions."<br /> <br /> This is Mr. Talmage's view of humanity.<br />
+ <br /> Why did his God make a devil? Why did he<br /> allow the devil to
+ tempt Adam and Eve? Why did<br /> he leave innocence and ignorance at the
+ mercy of<br /> subtlety and wickedness? Why did he put "the<br /> "tree of
+ the knowledge of good and evil" in the<br /> garden? For what reason did he
+ place temptation<br /> in the way of his children? Was it kind, was it
+ just,<br /> was it noble, was it worthy of a good God? No<br /> wonder
+ Christ put into his prayer: "Lead us not<br /> "into temptation."<br />
+ <br /> At the time God told Adam and Eve not to eat,<br /> why did he not
+ tell them of the existence of Satan?<br /> Why were they not put upon their
+ guard against the<br /> serpent? Why did not God make his appearance<br />
+ just before the sin, instead of just after. Why did<br /> he not play the
+ role of a Savior instead of that of a<br /> <br /> 205<br /> <br /> detective?
+ After he found that Adam and Eve had<br /> sinned&mdash;knowing as he did
+ that they were then<br /> totally corrupt&mdash;knowing that all their
+ children<br /> would be corrupt, knowing that in fifteen hundred<br /> years
+ he would have to drown millions of them, why<br /> did he not allow Adam
+ and Eve to perish in accord-<br /> ance with natural law, then kill the
+ devil, and make a<br /> new pair?<br /> <br /> When the flood came, why did
+ he not drown all?<br /> Why did he save for seed that which was "perfectly<br />
+ "and thoroughly corrupt in all its parts and facul-<br /> "ties"? If God
+ had drowned Noah and his sons<br /> and their families, he could have then
+ made a new<br /> pair, and peopled the world with men not "wholly<br />
+ "defiled in all their faculties and parts of soul and<br /> "body."<br />
+ <br /> Jehovah learned nothing by experience. He per-<br /> sisted in his
+ original mistake. What would we think<br /> of a man who finding that a
+ field of wheat was<br /> worthless, and that such wheat never could be<br />
+ raised with profit, should burn all of the field with the<br /> exception
+ of a few sheaves, which he saved for seed?<br /> Why save such seed? Why
+ should God have pre-<br /> served Noah, knowing that he was totally
+ corrupt,<br /> and that he would again fill the world with infamous<br />
+ <br /> 206<br /> <br /> people&mdash;people incapable of a good action? He<br />
+ must have known at that time, that by preserving<br /> Noah, the Canaanites
+ would be produced, that these<br /> same Canaanites would have to be
+ murdered, that<br /> the babes in the cradles would have to be strangled.<br />
+ Why did he produce them? He knew at that time,<br /> that Egypt would
+ result from the salvation of Noah,<br /> that the Egyptians would have to
+ be nearly de-<br /> stroyed, that he would have to kill their first-born,<br />
+ that he would have to visit even their cattle with<br /> disease and
+ hailstones. He knew also that the<br /> Egyptians would oppress his chosen
+ people for two<br /> hundred and fifteen years, that they would upon the<br />
+ back of toil inflict the lash. Why did he preserve<br /> Noah? He should
+ have drowned all, and started<br /> with a new pair. He should have warned
+ them<br /> against the devil, and he might have succeeded, in<br /> that
+ way, in covering the world with gentlemen and<br /> ladies, with real men
+ and real women.<br /> <br /> We know that most of the people now in the<br />
+ world are not Christians. Most who have heard the<br /> gospel of Christ
+ have rejected it, and the Presby-<br /> terian Church tells us what is to
+ become of all these<br /> people. This is the "glad tidings of great joy."<br />
+ Let us see:<br /> <br /> 207<br /> <br /> "All mankind, by their fall, lost
+ communion with<br /> "God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made<br />
+ "liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself,<br /> "and to
+ the pains of hell forever."<br /> <br /> According to this good Presbyterian
+ doctrine, all<br /> that we suffer in this world, is the result of Adam's<br />
+ fall. The babes of to-day suffer for the crime of the<br /> first parents.
+ Not only so; but God is angry at us<br /> for what Adam did. We are under
+ the wrath of an<br /> infinite God, whose brows are corrugated with eternal<br />
+ hatred.<br /> <br /> Why should God hate us for being what we are<br /> and
+ necessarily must have been? A being that God<br /> made&mdash;the devil&mdash;for
+ whose work God is responsible,<br /> according to the Bible wrought this
+ woe. God of his<br /> own free will must have made the devil. What did<br />
+ he make him for? Was it necessary to have a devil<br /> in heaven? God,
+ having infinite power, can of<br /> course destroy this devil to-day. Why
+ does he per-<br /> mit him to live? Why did he allow him to thwart his<br />
+ plans? Why did he permit him to pollute the inno-<br /> cence of Eden? Why
+ does he allow him now to<br /> wrest souls by the million from the
+ redeeming hand<br /> of Christ?<br /> <br /> According to the Scriptures, the
+ devil has always<br /> <br /> 208<br /> <br /> been successful. He enjoys
+ himself. He is called<br /> "the prince of the power of the air." He has no<br />
+ conscientious scruples. He has miraculous power.<br /> All miraculous power
+ must come of God, otherwise<br /> it is simply in accordance with nature.
+ If the devil<br /> can work a miracle, it is only with the consent and<br />
+ by the assistance of the Almighty. Is the God of<br /> Mr. Talmage in
+ partnership with the devil? Do<br /> they divide profits?<br /> <br /> We are
+ also told by the Presbyterian Church&mdash;<br /> I quote from their
+ Confession of Faith&mdash;that "there<br /> "is no sin so small but it
+ deserves damnation.'' Yet<br /> Mr. Talmage tells us that God is good, that
+ he is filled<br /> with mercy and loving-kindness. A child nine or ten<br />
+ years of age commits a sin, and thereupon it deserves<br /> eternal
+ damnation. That is what Mr. Talmage calls,<br /> not simply justice, but
+ mercy; and the sympathetic<br /> heart of Christ is not touched. The same
+ being who<br /> said: "Suffer little children to come unto me," tells<br />
+ us that a child, for the smallest sin, deserves to be<br /> eternally
+ damned. The Presbyterian Church tells us<br /> that infants, as well as
+ adults, in order to be saved,<br /> need redemption by the blood of Christ,
+ and regen-<br /> eration by the Holy Ghost.<br /> <br /> I am charged with
+ trying to take the consolation<br /> <br /> 209<br /> <br /> of this doctrine
+ from the world. I am a criminal<br /> because I am endeavoring to convince
+ the mother<br /> that her child does not deserve eternal punishment.<br /> I
+ stand by the graves of those who "died in their<br /> "sins," by the tombs
+ of the "unregenerate," over the<br /> ashes of men who have spent their
+ lives working for<br /> their wives and children, and over the sacred dust
+ of<br /> soldiers who died in defence of flag and country,<br /> and I say
+ to their friends&mdash;I say to the living who<br /> loved them, I say to
+ the men and women for whom<br /> they worked, I say to the children whom
+ they edu-<br /> cated, I say to the country for which they died:<br /> These
+ fathers, these mothers, these wives, these<br /> husbands, these soldiers
+ are not in hell.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Mr. Talmage insists that the
+ Bible is<br /> scientific, and that the real scientific man sees no<br />
+ contradiction between revelation and science; that,<br /> on the contrary,
+ they are in harmony. What is your<br /> understanding of this matter?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I do not believe the Bible to be a sci-<br /> entific
+ book. In fact, most of the ministers now admit<br /> that it was not
+ written to teach any science. They<br /> admit that the first chapter of
+ Genesis is not geo-<br /> logically true. They admit that Joshua knew
+ nothing<br /> <br /> 210<br /> <br /> of science. They admit that four-footed
+ birds did<br /> not exist in the days of Moses. In fact, the only<br /> way
+ they can avoid the unscientific statements of the<br /> Bible, is to assert
+ that the writers simply used the<br /> common language of their day, and
+ used it, not with<br /> the intention of teaching any scientific truth, but
+ for<br /> the purpose of teaching some moral truth. As a<br /> matter of
+ fact, we find that moral truths have been<br /> taught in all parts of this
+ world. They were taught<br /> in India long before Moses lived; in Egypt
+ long be-<br /> fore Abraham was born; in China thousands of<br /> years
+ before the flood. They were taught by hundreds<br /> and thousands and
+ millions before the Garden of<br /> Eden was planted.<br /> <br /> It would
+ be impossible to prove the truth of a<br /> revelation simply because it
+ contained moral truths.<br /> If it taught immorality, it would be
+ absolutely certain<br /> that it was not a revelation from an infinitely
+ good<br /> being. If it taught morality, it would be no reason<br /> for
+ even suspecting that it had a divine origin. But<br /> if the Bible had
+ given us scientific truths; if the<br /> ignorant Jews had given us the
+ true theory of our<br /> solar system; if from Moses we had learned the<br />
+ nature of light and heat; if from Joshua we had<br /> learned something of
+ electricity; if the minor pro-<br /> <br /> 211<br /> <br /> phets had given
+ us the distances to other planets;<br /> if the orbits of the stars had
+ been marked by the<br /> barbarians of that day, we might have admitted
+ that<br /> they must have been inspired. If they had said any-<br /> thing
+ in advance of their day; if they had plucked<br /> from the night of
+ ignorance one star of truth, we<br /> might have admitted the claim of
+ inspiration; but<br /> the Scriptures did not rise above their source, did<br />
+ not rise above their ignorant authors&mdash;above the<br /> people who
+ believed in wars of extermination, in<br /> polygamy, in concubinage, in
+ slavery, and who taught<br /> these things in their "sacred Scriptures."<br />
+ <br /> The greatest men in the scientific world have not<br /> been, and are
+ not, believers in the inspiration of the<br /> Scriptures. There has been
+ no greater astronomer<br /> than Laplace. There is no greater name than<br />
+ Humboldt. There is no living scientist who stands<br /> higher than Charles
+ Darwin. All the professors in<br /> all the religious colleges in this
+ country rolled into<br /> one, would not equal Charles Darwin. All the cow-<br />
+ ardly apologists for the cosmogony of Moses do not<br /> amount to as much
+ in the world of thought as Ernst<br /> Haeckel. There is no orthodox
+ scientist the equal<br /> of Tyndall or Huxley. There is not one in this<br />
+ country the equal of John Fiske. I insist, that the<br /> <br /> 212<br />
+ <br /> foremost men to-day in the scientific world reject the<br /> dogma of
+ inspiration. They reject the science of the<br /> Bible, and hold in utter
+ contempt the astronomy of<br /> Joshua, and the geology of Moses.<br />
+ <br /> Mr. Talmage tells us "that Science is a boy and<br /> "Revelation is
+ a man." Of course, like the most he<br /> says, it is substantially the
+ other way. Revelation,<br /> so-called, was the boy. Religion was the
+ lullaby of<br /> the cradle, the ghost-story told by the old woman,<br />
+ Superstition. Science is the man. Science asks for<br /> demonstration.
+ Science impels us to investigation,<br /> and to verify everything for
+ ourselves. Most pro-<br /> fessors of American colleges, if they were not
+ afraid<br /> of losing their places, if they did not know that<br />
+ Christians were bad enough now to take the bread<br /> from their mouths,
+ would tell their students that the<br /> Bible is not a scientific book.<br />
+ <br /> I admit that I have said:<br /> <br /> 1. That the Bible is cruel.<br />
+ <br /> 2. That in many passages it is impure.<br /> <br /> 3. That it is
+ contradictory.<br /> <br /> 4. That it is unscientific.<br /> <br /> Let me
+ now prove these propositions one by one.<br /> <br /> First. The Bible is
+ cruel.<br /> <br /> I have opened it at random, and the very first<br />
+ <br /> 213<br /> <br /> chapter that has struck my eye is the sixth of First<br />
+ Samuel. In the nineteenth verse of that chapter, I<br /> find the
+ following:<br /> <br /> "And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because<br />
+ "they had looked into the ark of the Lord; even he<br /> "smote of the
+ people fifty thousand and three-score<br /> "and ten men."<br /> <br /> All
+ this slaughter was because some people had<br /> looked into a box that was
+ carried upon a cart. Was<br /> that cruel?<br /> <br /> I find, also, in the
+ twenty-fourth chapter of Second<br /> Samuel, that David was moved by God
+ to number<br /> Israel and Judah. God put it into his heart to take<br /> a
+ census of his people, and thereupon David said to<br /> Joab, the captain
+ of his host:<br /> <br /> "Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from<br />
+ "Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people,<br /> "that I may know
+ the number of the people."<br /> <br /> At the end of nine months and twenty
+ days, Joab<br /> gave the number of the people to the king, and<br /> there
+ were at that time, according to that census,<br /> "eight hundred thousand
+ valiant men that drew the<br /> "sword," in Israel, and in Judah, "five
+ hundred<br /> "thousand men," making a total of thirteen hundred<br />
+ thousand men of war. The moment this census was<br /> <br /> 214<br /> <br />
+ taken, the wrath of the Lord waxed hot against<br /> David, and thereupon
+ he sent a seer, by the name of<br /> Gad, to David, and asked him to choose
+ whether he<br /> would have seven years of famine, or fly three<br /> months
+ before his enemies, or have three days of<br /> pestilence. David concluded
+ that as God was so<br /> merciful as to give him a choice, he would be more<br />
+ merciful than man, and he chose the pestilence.<br /> <br /> Now, it must be
+ remembered that the sin of taking<br /> the census had not been committed
+ by the people,<br /> but by David himself, inspired by God, yet the<br />
+ people were to be punished for David's sin. So,,<br /> when David chose the
+ pestilence, God immediately<br /> killed "seventy thousand men, from Dan
+ even to<br /> "Beersheba."<br /> <br /> "And when the angel stretched out his
+ hand upon<br /> "Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of<br />
+ "the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the<br /> "people, It is
+ enough; stay now thine hand."<br /> <br /> Was this cruel?<br /> <br /> Why
+ did a God of infinite mercy destroy seventy<br /> thousand men? Why did he
+ fill his land with widows<br /> and orphans, because King David had taken
+ the cen-<br /> sus? If he wanted to kill anybody, why did he not<br /> kill
+ David? I will tell you why. Because at that<br /> <br /> 215<br /> <br />
+ time, the people were considered as the property of<br /> the king. He
+ killed the people precisely as he killed<br /> the cattle. And yet, I am
+ told that the Bible is not a<br /> cruel book.<br /> <br /> In the
+ twenty-first chapter of Second Samuel, I<br /> find that there were three
+ years of famine in the days<br /> of David, and that David inquired of the
+ Lord the<br /> reason of the famine; and the Lord told him that it<br /> was
+ because Saul had slain the Gibeonites. Why did<br /> not God punish Saul
+ instead of the people? And<br /> David asked the Gibeonites how he should
+ make<br /> atonement, and the Gibeonites replied that they<br /> wanted no
+ silver nor gold, but they asked that seven<br /> of the sons of Saul might
+ be delivered unto them, so<br /> that they could hang them before the Lord,
+ in Gibeah.<br /> And David agreed to the proposition, and thereupon<br /> he
+ delivered to the Gibeonites the two sons of Rizpah,<br /> Saul's concubine,
+ and the five sons of Michal, the<br /> daughter of Saul, and the Gibeonites
+ hanged all<br /> seven of them together. And Rizpah, more tender<br /> than
+ them all, with a woman's heart of love kept<br /> lonely vigil by the dead,
+ "from the beginning of har-<br /> "vest until water dropped upon them out
+ of heaven,<br /> "and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon<br />
+ "them by day, nor the beast of the field by night."<br /> <br /> 216<br />
+ <br /> I want to know if the following, from the fifteenth<br /> chapter of
+ First Samuel, is inspired:<br /> <br /> "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I
+ remember that<br /> "which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for<br />
+ "him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now<br /> "go and smite Amalek,
+ and utterly destroy all that<br /> "they have, and spare them not, but slay
+ both man<br /> "and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,<br /> "camel
+ and ass."<br /> <br /> We must remember that those he was commanded<br /> to
+ slay had done nothing to Israel. It was something<br /> done by their
+ forefathers, hundreds of years before;<br /> and yet they are commanded to
+ slay the women and<br /> children and even the animals, and to spare none.<br />
+ <br /> It seems that Saul only partially carried into exe-<br /> cution this
+ merciful command of Jehovah. He spared<br /> the life of the king. He
+ "utterly destroyed all the<br /> "people with the edge of the sword," but
+ he kept<br /> alive the best of the sheep and oxen and of the fat-<br />
+ lings and lambs. Then God spake unto Samuel and<br /> told him that he was
+ very sorry he had made Saul<br /> king, because he had not killed all the
+ animals, and<br /> because he had spared Agag; and Samuel asked<br /> Saul:
+ "What meaneth this bleating of sheep in mine<br /> "ears, and the lowing of
+ the oxen which I hear?"<br /> <br /> 217<br /> <br /> Are stories like this
+ calculated to make soldiers<br /> merciful?<br /> <br /> So I read in the
+ sixth chapter of Joshua, the fate<br /> of the city of Jericho: "And they
+ utterly destroyed<br /> "all that was in the city, both man and woman,<br />
+ "young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the<br /> "edge of the
+ sword. And they burnt the city with<br /> "fire, and all that was therein."
+ But we are told that<br /> one family was saved by Joshua, out of the
+ general<br /> destruction: "And Joshua saved Rahab, the harlot,<br />
+ "alive, and her father's household, and all that she<br /> "had." Was this
+ fearful destruction an act of<br /> mercy?<br /> <br /> It seems that they
+ saved the money of their<br /> victims: "the silver and gold and the
+ vessels of brass<br /> "and of iron they put into the treasury of the house<br />
+ "of the Lord."<br /> <br /> After all this pillage and carnage, it appears<br />
+ that there was a suspicion in Joshua's mind that<br /> somebody was keeping
+ back a part of the treasure.<br /> Search was made, and a man by the name
+ of Achan<br /> admitted that he had sinned against the Lord, that he<br />
+ had seen a Babylonish garment among the spoils, and<br /> two hundred
+ shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of<br /> fifty shekels' weight, and
+ that he took them and hid<br /> <br /> 2l8<br /> <br /> them in his tent. For
+ this atrocious crime it seems<br /> that the Lord denied any victories to
+ the Jews until<br /> they found out the wicked criminal. When they dis-<br />
+ covered poor Achan, "they took him and his sons<br /> "and his daughters,
+ and his oxen and his asses and<br /> "his sheep, and all that he had, and
+ brought them unto<br /> "the valley of Achor; and all Israel stoned him
+ with<br /> "stones and burned them with fire after they had<br /> "stoned
+ them with stones."<br /> <br /> After Achan and his sons and his daughters
+ and<br /> his herds had been stoned and burned to death, we<br /> are told
+ that "the Lord turned from the fierceness of<br /> "his anger."<br /> <br />
+ And yet it is insisted that this God "is merciful,<br /> "and that his
+ loving-kindness is over all his works."<br /> In the eighth chapter of this
+ same book, the infi-<br /> nite God, "creator of heaven and earth and all
+ that is<br /> "therein," told his general, Joshua, to lay an ambush<br />
+ for a city&mdash;to "lie in wait against the city, even be-<br /> "hind the
+ city; go not very far from the city, but be<br /> "ye all ready." He told
+ him to make an attack and<br /> then to run, as though he had been beaten,
+ in order<br /> that the inhabitants of the city might follow, and<br />
+ thereupon his reserves that he had ambushed might<br /> rush into the city
+ and set it on fire. God Almighty<br /> <br /> 219<br /> <br /> planned the
+ battle. God himself laid the snare. The<br /> whole programme was carried
+ out. Joshua made<br /> believe that he was beaten, and fled, and then the<br />
+ soldiers in ambush rose out of their places, enter-<br /> ed the city, and
+ set it on fire. Then came the<br /> slaughter. They "utterly destroyed all
+ the inhabit-<br /> "ants of Ai," men and maidens, women and babes,<br />
+ sparing only their king till evening, when they<br /> hanged him on a tree,
+ then "took his carcase down<br /> "from the tree and cast it at the
+ entering of the<br /> "gate, and raised thereon a great heap of stones<br />
+ "which remaineth unto this day." After having<br /> done all this, "Joshua
+ built an altar unto the Lord<br /> "God of Israel, and offered burnt
+ offerings unto the<br /> "Lord." I ask again, was this cruel?<br /> <br />
+ Again I ask, was the treatment of the Gibeonites<br /> cruel when they
+ sought to make peace but were<br /> denied, and cursed instead; and
+ although permitted<br /> to live, were yet made slaves? Read the mandate<br />
+ consigning them to bondage: "Now therefore ye<br /> "are cursed, and there
+ shall none of you be freed<br /> "from being bondmen and hewers of wood and<br />
+ "drawers of water for the house of my God."<br /> <br /> Is it possible, as
+ recorded in the tenth chapter of<br /> Joshua, that the Lord took part in
+ these battles, and<br /> <br /> 220<br /> <br /> cast down great hail-stones
+ from the battlements of<br /> heaven upon the enemies of the Israelites, so
+ that<br /> "they were more who died with hail-stones, than<br /> "they whom
+ the children of Israel slew with the<br /> "sword"?<br /> <br /> Is it
+ possible that a being of infinite power would<br /> exercise it in that way
+ instead of in the interest of<br /> kindness and peace?<br /> <br /> I find,
+ also, in this same chapter, that Joshua took<br /> Makkedah and smote it
+ with the edge of the sword,<br /> that he utterly destroyed all the souls
+ that were<br /> therein, that he allowed none to remain.<br /> <br /> I find
+ that he fought against Libnah, and smote<br /> it with the edge of the
+ sword, and utterly destroyed<br /> all the souls that were therein, and
+ allowed none to<br /> remain, and did unto the king as he did unto the king<br />
+ of Jericho.<br /> <br /> I find that he also encamped against Lachish, and<br />
+ that God gave him that city, and that he "smote it<br /> "with the edge of
+ the sword, and all the souls that<br /> "were therein," sparing neither old
+ nor young, help-<br /> less women nor prattling babes.<br /> <br /> He also
+ vanquished Horam, King of Gezer, "and<br /> "smote him and his people until
+ he left him none<br /> "remaining."<br /> <br /> 221<br /> <br /> He encamped
+ against the city of Eglon, and killed<br /> every soul that was in it, at
+ the edge of the sword,<br /> just as he had done to Lachish and all the
+ others.<br /> <br /> He fought against Hebron, "and took it and<br /> "smote
+ it with the edge of the sword, and the king<br /> "thereof,"&mdash;and it
+ appears that several cities, their<br /> number not named, were included in
+ this slaughter,<br /> for Hebron "and all the cities thereof and all the<br />
+ "souls that were therein," were utterly destroyed.<br /> <br /> He then
+ waged war against Debir and took it, and<br /> more unnumbered cities with
+ it, and all the souls that<br /> were therein shared the same horrible fate&mdash;he
+ did<br /> not leave a soul alive.<br /> <br /> And this chapter of horrors
+ concludes with this<br /> song of victory:<br /> <br /> "So Joshua smote all
+ the country of the hills, and<br /> "of the south, and of the vale, and of
+ the springs,<br /> "and all their kings: he left none remaining, but<br />
+ "utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord<br /> "God of Israel
+ commanded. And Joshua smote<br /> "them from Kadeshbarnea even unto Gaza,
+ and all the<br /> "country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon. And all these<br />
+ "kings and their land did Joshua take at one time,<br /> "because the Lord
+ God of Israel fought for Israel."<br /> Was God, at that time, merciful?<br />
+ <br /> 222<br /> <br /> I find, also, in the twenty-first chapter that many<br />
+ Icings met, with their armies, for the purpose of<br /> overwhelming
+ Israel, and the Lord said unto Joshua:<br /> "Be not afraid because of
+ them, for to-morrow about<br /> "this time I will deliver them all slain
+ before Israel.<br /> "I will hough their horses and burn their chariots<br />
+ "with fire." Were animals so treated by the com-<br /> mand of a merciful
+ God?<br /> <br /> Joshua captured Razor, and smote all the souls<br /> that
+ were therein with the edge of the sword, there<br /> was not one left to
+ breathe; and he took all the<br /> cities of all the kings that took up
+ arms against him,<br /> and utterly destroyed all the inhabitants thereof.<br />
+ He took the cattle and spoils as prey unto himself,<br /> and smote every
+ man with the edge of the sword;<br /> and not only so, but left not a human
+ being to<br /> breathe.<br /> <br /> I find the following directions given to
+ the Israel-<br /> ites who were waging a war of conquest. They are<br /> in
+ the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy, from the<br /> tenth to the
+ eighteenth verses:<br /> <br /> "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight<br />
+ "against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it<br /> "shall be, if it
+ make thee an answer of peace, and<br /> "open unto thee, then it shall be
+ that all the people<br /> <br /> 223<br /> <br /> "that is found therein shall
+ be tributaries unto thee,<br /> "and they shall serve thee. And if it will
+ make no<br /> "peace with thee, but will war against thee, then<br /> "thou
+ shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy<br /> "God hath delivered it into
+ thine hands, thou shalt<br /> "smite every male thereof with the edge of
+ the<br /> "sword; but the women, and the little ones, and<br /> "the cattle,
+ and all that is in the city, even the spoil<br /> "thereof, shalt thou take
+ unto thyself; and thou<br /> "shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which
+ the<br /> "Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou<br /> "do unto all
+ the cities which are very far off from<br /> "thee, which are not of the
+ cities of these nations."<br /> It will be seen from this that people could
+ take<br /> their choice between death and slavery, provided<br /> these
+ people lived a good ways from the Israelites.<br /> Now, let us see how
+ they were to treat the inhabit-<br /> ants of the cities near to them:<br />
+ <br /> "But of the cities of these people which the Lord<br /> "thy God doth
+ give thee for an inheritance, thou<br /> "shalt save alive nothing that
+ breatheth. But thou<br /> "shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the
+ Hittites,<br /> "and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites,<br />
+ "the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God<br /> "hath commanded
+ thee."<br /> <br /> 224<br /> <br /> It never occurred to this merciful God to
+ send<br /> missionaries to these people. He built them no<br />
+ schoolhouses, taught them no alphabet, gave them<br /> no book; they were
+ not supplied even with a copy of<br /> the Ten Commandments. He did not say
+ "Reform,"<br /> but "Kill;" not "Educate," but "Destroy." He gave<br /> them
+ no Bible, built them no church, sent them no<br /> preachers. He knew when
+ he made them that he<br /> would have to have them murdered. When he<br />
+ created them he knew that they were not fit to live;<br /> and yet, this is
+ the infinite God who is infinitely<br /> merciful and loves his children
+ better than an earthly<br /> mother loves her babe.<br /> <br /> In order to
+ find just how merciful God is, read the<br /> twenty-eighth chapter of
+ Deuteronomy, and see what<br /> he promises to do with people who do not
+ keep all of<br /> his commandments and all of his statutes. He curses<br />
+ them in their basket and store, in the fruit of their<br /> body, in the
+ fruit of their land, in the increase of their<br /> cattle and sheep. He
+ curses them in the city and in<br /> the field, in their coming in and
+ their going out. He<br /> curses them with pestilence, with consumption,
+ with<br /> fever, with inflammation, with extreme burning, with<br /> sword,
+ with blasting, with mildew. He tells them<br /> that the heavens shall be
+ as brass over their heads<br /> <br /> 225<br /> <br /> and the earth as iron
+ under their feet; that the rain<br /> shall be powder and dust and shall
+ come down on<br /> them and destroy them; that they shall flee seven<br />
+ ways before their enemies; that their carcasses shall<br /> be meat for the
+ fowls of the air, and the beasts of the<br /> earth; that he will smite
+ them with the botch of<br /> Egypt, and with the scab, and with the itch,
+ and with<br /> madness and blindness and astonishment; that he<br /> will
+ make them grope at noonday; that they shall be<br /> oppressed and spoiled
+ evermore; that one shall be-<br /> troth a wife and another shall have her;
+ that they<br /> shall build a house and not dwell in it; plant a vine-<br />
+ yard and others shall eat the grapes; that their<br /> sons and daughters
+ shall be given to their enemies;<br /> that he will make them mad for the
+ sight of their<br /> eyes; that he will smite them in the knees and in the<br />
+ legs with a sore botch that cannot be healed, and<br /> from the sole of
+ the foot to the top of the head;<br /> that they shall be a by-word among
+ all nations; that<br /> they shall sow much seed and gather but little;
+ that<br /> the locusts shall consume their crops; that they shall<br />
+ plant vineyards and drink no wine,&mdash;that they shall<br /> gather
+ grapes, but worms shall eat them; that they<br /> shall raise olives but
+ have no oil; beget sons and<br /> daughters, but they shall go into
+ captivity; that all<br /> <br /> 226<br /> <br /> the trees and fruit of the
+ land shall be devoured by<br /> locusts, and that all these curses shall
+ pursue them<br /> and overtake them, until they be destroyed; that they<br />
+ shall be slaves to their enemies, and be constantly in<br /> hunger and
+ thirst and nakedness, and in want of all<br /> things. And as though this
+ were not enough, the<br /> Lord tells them that he will bring a nation
+ against<br /> them swift as eagles, a nation fierce and savage, that<br />
+ will show no mercy and no favor to old or young,<br /> and leave them
+ neither corn, nor wine, nor oil, nor<br /> flocks, nor herds; and this
+ nation shall besiege them<br /> in their cities until they are reduced to
+ the necessity<br /> of eating the flesh of their own sons and daughters;<br />
+ so that the men would eat their wives and their<br /> children, and women
+ eat their husbands and their<br /> own sons and daughters, and their own
+ babes.<br /> <br /> All these curses God pronounced upon them if they<br />
+ did not observe to do all the words of the law that<br /> were written in
+ his book.<br /> <br /> This same merciful God threatened that he would<br />
+ bring upon them all the diseases of Egypt&mdash;every<br /> sickness and
+ every plague; that he would scatter<br /> them from one end of the earth to
+ the other; that<br /> they should find no rest; that their lives should
+ hang<br /> in perpetual doubt; that in the morning they would<br /> <br />
+ 227<br /> <br /> say: Would God it were evening! and in the even-<br /> ing,
+ Would God it were morning! and that he would<br /> finally take them back
+ to Egypt where they should<br /> be again sold for bondmen and bondwomen.<br />
+ <br /> This curse, the foundation of the <i>Anathema<br /> maranatha</i>;
+ this curse, used by the pope of Rome to<br /> prevent the spread of
+ thought; this curse used even<br /> by the Protestant Church; this curse
+ born of barba-<br /> rism and of infinite cruelty, is now said to have<br />
+ issued from the lips of an infinitely merciful God. One<br /> would suppose
+ that Jehovah had gone insane; that<br /> he had divided his kingdom like
+ Lear, and from the<br /> darkness of insanity had launched his curses upon
+ a<br /> world.<br /> <br /> In order that there may be no doubt as to the<br />
+ mercy of Jehovah, read the thirteenth chapter of<br /> Deuteronomy:<br />
+ <br /> "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy<br /> "son, or thy
+ daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or<br /> "thy friend, which is as thine
+ own soul, entice thee<br /> "secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other
+ gods,<br /> "which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers;<br /> " * * *
+ thou shalt not consent unto him, nor<br /> "hearken unto him; neither shall
+ thine eyes pity him,<br /> "neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou
+ conceal<br /> <br /> 228<br /> <br /> "him; but thou shalt surely kill him:
+ thine hand<br /> "shall be first upon him to put him to death, and<br />
+ "afterwards the hand of all the people; and thou<br /> "shalt stone him
+ with stones that he die, because he<br /> "hath sought to entice thee away
+ from the Lord thy<br /> "God."<br /> <br /> This, according to Mr. Talmage,
+ is a commandment<br /> of the infinite God. According to him, God ordered<br />
+ a man to murder his own son, his own wife, his own<br /> brother, his own
+ daughter, if they dared even to sug-<br /> gest the worship of some other
+ God than Jehovah.<br /> For my part, it is impossible not to despise such<br />
+ a God&mdash;a God not willing that one should worship<br /> what he must.
+ No one can control his admiration,<br /> and if a savage at sunrise falls
+ upon his knees and<br /> offers homage to the great light of the East, he
+ can-<br /> not help it. If he worships the moon, he cannot help<br /> it. If
+ he worships fire, it is because he cannot control<br /> his own spirit. A
+ picture is beautiful to me in spite<br /> of myself. A statue compels the
+ applause of my<br /> brain. The worship of the sun was an exceedingly<br />
+ natural religion, and why should a man or woman be<br /> destroyed for
+ kneeling at the fireside of the world?<br /> <br /> No wonder that this same
+ God, in the very next<br /> chapter of Deuteronomy to that quoted, says to
+ his<br /> <br /> 229<br /> <br /> chosen people: "Ye shall not eat of anything
+ that<br /> "dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger<br />
+ "that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou<br /> "mayest sell
+ it unto an alien: for thou art a holy<br /> "people unto the Lord thy God."<br />
+ <br /> What a mingling of heartlessness and thrift&mdash;the<br /> religion
+ of sword and trade!<br /> <br /> In the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy,
+ Jehovah<br /> gives his own character. He tells the Israelites that<br />
+ there are seven nations greater and mightier than<br /> themselves, but
+ that he will deliver them to his chosen<br /> people, and that they shall
+ smite them and utterly<br /> destroy them; and having some fear that a drop
+ of<br /> pity might remain in the Jewish heart, he says:<br /> <br /> "Thou
+ shalt make no covenant with them, nor<br /> "show mercy unto them. * * *
+ Know therefore<br /> "that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God,<br />
+ "which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that<br /> "love him and keep
+ his commandments to a thousand<br /> "generations, and repayeth them that
+ hate him to<br /> "their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to<br />
+ "him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face."<br /> This is the
+ description which the merciful, long-suffer-<br /> ing Jehovah gives of
+ himself.<br /> <br /> So, he promises great prosperity to the Jews if<br />
+ <br /> 230<br /> <br /> they will only obey his commandments, and says:<br />
+ "And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness,<br /> "and will put
+ none of the evil diseases of Egypt<br /> "upon thee, but will lay them upon
+ all them that<br /> "hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the people<br />
+ "which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine<br /> "eye shall have no
+ pity upon them."<br /> <br /> Under the immediate government of Jehovah,<br />
+ mercy was a crime. According to the law of God,<br /> pity was weakness,
+ tenderness was treason, kindness<br /> was blasphemy, while hatred and
+ massacre were<br /> virtues.<br /> <br /> In the second chapter of
+ Deuteronomy we find<br /> another account tending to prove that Jehovah is
+ a<br /> merciful God. We find that Sihon, king of Heshbon,<br /> would not
+ let the Hebrews pass by him, and the<br /> reason given is, that "the Lord
+ God hardened his<br /> "spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might<br />
+ "deliver him into the hand" of the Hebrews. Sihon,<br /> his heart having
+ been hardened by God, came out<br /> against the chosen people, and God
+ delivered him to<br /> them, and "they smote him, and his sons, and all his<br />
+ "people, and took all his cities, and utterly destroyed<br /> "the men and
+ the women, and the little ones of<br /> "every city: they left none to
+ remain." And in this<br /> <br /> 231<br /> <br /> same chapter this same God
+ promises that the dread<br /> and fear of his chosen people should be "upon
+ all the<br /> "nations that are under the whole heaven," and that<br />
+ "they should "tremble and be in anguish because of"<br /> the Hebrews.<br />
+ <br /> Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and see<br /> how the
+ Midianites were slain. You will find that<br /> "the children of Israel
+ took all the women of Midian<br /> "captives, and their little ones," that
+ they took "all<br /> "their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their
+ goods,"<br /> that they slew all the males, and burnt all their cities<br />
+ and castles with fire, that they brought the captives<br /> and the prey
+ and the spoil unto Moses and Eleazar<br /> the priest; that Moses was wroth
+ with the officers<br /> of his host because they had saved all the women<br />
+ alive, and thereupon this order was given: "Kill<br /> "every male among
+ the little ones, and kill every<br /> "woman, * * * but all the women
+ children<br /> "keep alive for yourselves."<br /> <br /> After this, God
+ himself spake unto Moses, and<br /> said: "Take the sum of the prey that
+ was taken,<br /> "both of man and of beast, thou and Eleazar the<br />
+ "priest * * * and divide the prey into two<br /> "parts, between those who
+ went to war, and between<br /> "all the congregation, and levy a tribute
+ unto the<br /> <br /> 232<br /> <br /> "Lord, one soul of five hundred of the
+ persons,<br /> "and the cattle; take it of their half and give it to<br />
+ "the priest for an offering * * * and of the<br /> "children of Israel's
+ half, take one portion of fifty of<br /> "the persons and the animals and
+ give them unto<br /> "the Levites. * * * And Moses and the priest<br /> "did
+ as the Lord had commanded." It seems that<br /> they had taken six hundred
+ and seventy-five thou-<br /> sand sheep, seventy-two thousand beeves,
+ sixty-one<br /> thousand asses, and thirty-two thousand women<br /> children
+ and maidens. And it seems, by the fortieth<br /> verse, <i>that the Lord's
+ tribute of the maidens was thirty-<br /> two</i>,&mdash;the rest were given
+ to the soldiers and to the<br /> congregation of the Lord.<br /> <br /> Was
+ anything more infamous ever recorded in the<br /> annals of barbarism? And
+ yet we are told that the<br /> Bible is an inspired book, that it is not a
+ cruel book,<br /> and that Jehovah is a being of infinite mercy.<br /> <br />
+ In the twenty-fifth chapter of Numbers we find<br /> that the Israelites
+ had joined themselves unto Baal-<br /> Peor, and thereupon the anger of the
+ Lord was<br /> kindled against them, as usual. No being ever lost<br /> his
+ temper more frequently than this Jehovah. Upon<br /> this particular
+ occasion, "the Lord said unto Moses,<br /> "Take all the heads of the
+ people, and hang them<br /> <br /> 233<br /> <br /> "up before the Lord
+ against the sun, that the fierce<br /> "anger of the Lord may be turned
+ away from Israel."<br /> And thereupon "Moses said unto the judges of
+ Israel,<br /> "Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto<br />
+ "Baal-peor."<br /> <br /> Just as soon as these people were killed, and
+ their<br /> heads hung up before the Lord against the sun, and<br /> a
+ horrible double murder of a too merciful Israelite<br /> and a Midianitish
+ woman, had been committed by<br /> Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, "the
+ plague was stayed<br /> "from the children of Israel." Twenty-four thousand<br />
+ had died. Thereupon, "the Lord spake unto Moses<br /> "and said"&mdash;and
+ it is a very merciful commandment<br /> &mdash;"Vex the Midianites and
+ smite them."<br /> <br /> In the twenty-first chapter of Numbers is more
+ evi-<br /> dence that God is merciful and compassionate.<br /> <br /> The
+ children of Israel had become discouraged.<br /> They had wandered so long
+ in the desert that they<br /> finally cried out: "Wherefore have ye brought
+ us<br /> "up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There<br /> "is no
+ bread, there is no water, and our soul loatheth<br /> "this light bread."
+ Of course they were hungry and<br /> thirsty. Who would not complain under
+ similar cir-<br /> cumstances? And yet, on account of this complaint,<br />
+ the God of infinite tenderness and compassion sent<br /> <br /> 234<br />
+ <br /> serpents among them, and these serpents bit them&mdash;<br /> bit the
+ cheeks of children, the breasts of maidens,<br /> and the withered faces of
+ age. Why would a God<br /> do such an infamous thing? Why did he not, as
+ the<br /> leader of this people, his chosen children, feed them<br />
+ better? Certainly an infinite God had the power<br /> to satisfy their
+ hunger and to quench their thirst.<br /> He who overwhelmed a world with
+ water, certainly<br /> could have made a few brooks, cool and babbling,<br />
+ to follow his chosen people through all their jour-<br /> neying. He could
+ have supplied them with miracu-<br /> lous food.<br /> <br /> How fortunate
+ for the Jews that Jehovah was not<br /> revengeful, that he was so slow to
+ anger, so patient,<br /> so easily pleased. What would they have done had<br />
+ he been exacting, easily incensed, revengeful, cruel,<br /> or
+ blood-thirsty?<br /> <br /> In the sixteenth chapter of Numbers, an account
+ is<br /> given of a rebellion. It seems that Korah, Dathan<br /> and Abiram
+ got tired of Moses and Aaron. They<br /> thought the priests were taking a
+ little too much<br /> upon themselves. So Moses told them to have two<br />
+ hundred and fifty of their men bring their censers<br /> and put incense in
+ them before the Lord, and stand<br /> in the door of the tabernacle of the
+ congregation<br /> <br /> 235<br /> <br /> with Moses and Aaron. That being
+ done, the Lord<br /> appeared, and told Moses and Aaron to separate<br />
+ themselves from the people, that he might consume<br /> them all in a
+ moment. Moses and Aaron, having a<br /> little compassion, begged God not
+ to kill everybody.<br /> The people were then divided, and Dathan and<br />
+ Abiram came out and stood in the door of their<br /> tents with their wives
+ and their sons and their little<br /> children. And Moses said:<br /> <br />
+ "Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent<br /> "me to do all these
+ works; for I have not done them<br /> "of my mine own mind. If these men
+ die the<br /> "common death of all men, or if they be visited<br /> "after
+ the common visitation of all men, then the<br /> "Lord hath not sent me.
+ But if the Lord make a<br /> "new thing, and the earth open her mouth and<br />
+ "swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them,<br /> "and they go
+ down quick into the pit, then ye shall<br /> "understand that these men
+ have provoked the<br /> "Lord." The moment he ceased speaking, "the<br />
+ "ground clave asunder that was under them; and<br /> "the earth opened her
+ mouth and swallowed them up,<br /> "and their houses, and all the men that
+ appertained<br /> "unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that<br />
+ "appertained to them went down alive into the pit,<br /> <br /> 236<br />
+ <br /> "and the earth closed upon them, and they perished<br /> "from among
+ the congregation."<br /> <br /> This, according to Mr. Talmage, was the act
+ of an<br /> exceedingly merciful God, prompted by infinite kind-<br /> ness,
+ and moved by eternal pity. What would he<br /> have done had he acted from
+ motives of revenge?<br /> What would he Jiave done had he been remorse-<br />
+ lessly cruel and wicked?<br /> <br /> In addition to those swallowed by the
+ earth, the<br /> two hundred and fifty men that offered the incense<br />
+ were consumed by "a fire that came out from the<br /> "Lord." And not only
+ this, but the same merciful<br /> Jehovah wished to consume all the people,
+ and he<br /> would have consumed them all, only that Moses pre-<br /> vailed
+ upon Aaron to take a censer and put fire<br /> therein from off the altar
+ of incense and go quickly<br /> to the congregation and make an atonement
+ for them.<br /> He was not quick enough. The plague had already<br /> begun;
+ and before he could possibly get the censers<br /> and incense among the
+ people, fourteen thousand and<br /> seven hundred had died of the plague.
+ How many<br /> more might have died, if Jehovah had not been so<br /> slow
+ to anger and so merciful and tender to his<br /> children, we have no means
+ of knowing.<br /> <br /> In the thirteenth chapter of the same book of<br />
+ <br /> 237<br /> <br /> Numbers, we find that some spies were sent over<br />
+ into the promised land, and that they brought back<br /> grapes and figs
+ and pomegranates, and reported that<br /> the whole land was flowing with
+ milk and honey, but<br /> that the people were strong, that the cities were<br />
+ walled, and that the nations in the promised land<br /> were mightier than
+ the Hebrews. They reported that<br /> all the people they met were men of a
+ great stature,<br /> that they had seen "the giants, the sons of Anak<br />
+ "which come of giants," compared with whom the<br /> Israelites were "in
+ their own sight as grasshoppers,<br /> "and so were we in their sight."
+ Entirely discour-<br /> aged by these reports, "all the congregation lifted
+ up<br /> "their voice and cried, and the people wept that<br /> "night * * *
+ and murmured against Moses and<br /> "against Aaron, and said unto them:
+ Would God<br /> "that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would<br /> "God
+ we had died in this wilderness!" Some of<br /> them thought that it would
+ be better to go back,&mdash;<br /> that they might as well be slaves in
+ Egypt as to be<br /> food for giants in the promised land. They did not<br />
+ want their bones crunched between the teeth of the<br /> sons of Anak.<br />
+ <br /> Jehovah got angry again, and said to Moses:<br /> "How long will
+ these people provoke me? * * *<br /> <br /> 238<br /> <br /> "I will smite
+ them with pestilence, and disinherit<br /> "them." But Moses said: Lord, if
+ you do this,<br /> the Egyptians will hear of it, and they will say that<br />
+ you were not able to bring your people into the<br /> promised land. Then
+ he proceeded to flatter him by<br /> telling him how merciful and
+ long-suffering he had<br /> been. Finally, Jehovah concluded to pardon the<br />
+ people this time, but his pardon depended upon the<br /> violation of his
+ promise, for he said: "They shall<br /> "not see the land which I sware
+ unto their fathers,<br /> "neither shall any of them that provoked me see
+ it;<br /> "but my servant Caleb, * * * him will I bring<br /> "into the
+ land." And Jehovah said to the people:<br /> "Your carcasses shall fall in
+ this wilderness, and all<br /> "that were numbered of you according to your<br />
+ "whole number, from twenty years old and upward,<br /> "which have murmured
+ against me, ye shall not<br /> "come into the land concerning which I sware
+ to<br /> "make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of<br /> "Jephunneh,
+ and Joshua the son of Nun. But your<br /> "little ones, which ye said
+ should be a prey, them<br /> "will I bring in, and they shall know the land<br />
+ "which ye have despised. But as for you, your<br /> "carcasses shall fall
+ in this wilderness. And your<br /> "children shall wander in the wilderness
+ forty<br /> <br /> 239<br /> <br /> "years * * * until your carcasses be
+ wasted in<br /> "the wilderness."<br /> <br /> And all this because the
+ people were afraid of<br /> giants, compared with whom they were but as
+ grass-<br /> hoppers.<br /> <br /> So we find that at one time the people
+ became<br /> exceedingly hungry. They had no flesh to eat.<br /> There were
+ six hundred thousand men of war, and<br /> they had nothing to feed on but
+ manna. They<br /> naturally murmured and complained, and thereupon a<br />
+ wind from the Lord went forth and brought quails<br /> from the sea,
+ (quails are generally found in the sea,)<br /> "and let them fall by the
+ camp, as it were a day's<br /> "journey on this side, and as it were a
+ day's journey<br /> "on the other side, round about the camp, and as it<br />
+ "were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.<br /> "And the people
+ stood up all that day, and all that<br /> "night, and all the next day, and
+ they gathered the<br /> "quails. * * * And while the flesh was yet be-<br />
+ "tween their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of<br /> "the Lord was
+ kindled against the people, and the<br /> "Lord smote the people with a
+ very great plague."<br /> <br /> Yet he is slow to anger, long-suffering,
+ merciful<br /> and just.<br /> <br /> In the thirty-second chapter of Exodus,
+ is the ac-<br /> <br /> 240<br /> <br /> count of the golden calf. It must be
+ borne in mind<br /> that the worship of this calf by the people was before<br />
+ the Ten Commandments had been given to them.<br /> Christians now insist
+ that these commandments must<br /> have been inspired, because no human
+ being could<br /> have constructed them,&mdash;could have conceived of<br />
+ them.<br /> <br /> It seems, according to this account, that Moses had<br />
+ been up in the mount with God, getting the Ten Com-<br /> mandments, and
+ that while he was there the people<br /> had made the golden calf. When he
+ came down and<br /> saw them, and found what they had done, having in<br />
+ his hands the two tables, the work of God, he cast<br /> the tables out of
+ his hands, and broke them beneath<br /> the mount. He then took the calf
+ which they had<br /> made, ground it to powder, strewed it in the water,<br />
+ and made the children of Israel drink of it. And in the<br />
+ twenty-seventh verse we are told what the Lord did:<br /> "Thus saith the
+ Lord God of Israel: Put every man<br /> "his sword by his side, and go in
+ and out from gate<br /> "to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man<br />
+ "his brother, and every man his companion, and<br /> "every man his
+ neighbor. And the children of Levi<br /> "did according to the word of
+ Moses; and there fell<br /> "of the people that day about three thousand
+ men."<br /> <br /> 241<br /> <br /> The reason for this slaughter is thus
+ given: "For<br /> "Moses had said: Consecrate yourselves to-day to<br />
+ "the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon<br /> " his brother, that
+ he may bestow upon you a blessing<br /> "this day."<br /> <br /> Now, it must
+ be remembered that there had not<br /> been as yet a promulgation of the
+ commandment<br /> u Thou shalt have no other gods before me." This<br /> was
+ a punishment for the infraction of a law before<br /> the law was known&mdash;before
+ the commandment had<br /> been given. Was it cruel, or unjust?<br /> <br />
+ Does the following sound as though spoken by a<br /> God of mercy: "I will
+ make mine arrows drunk<br /> "with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh"?<br />
+ And yet this is but a small part of the vengeance and<br /> destruction
+ which God threatens to his enemies, as<br /> recorded in the thirty-second
+ chapter of the book of<br /> Deuteronomy.<br /> <br /> In the sixty-eighth
+ Psalm is found this merciful<br /> passage: "That thy foot may be dipped in
+ the blood<br /> "of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the<br />
+ "same.<br /> <br /> So we find in the eleventh chapter of Joshua the<br />
+ reason why the Canaanites and other nations made<br /> war upon the Jews.
+ It is as follows: "For it was of<br /> <br /> 242<br /> <br /> "the Lord to
+ harden their hearts that they should<br /> "come against Israel in battle,
+ that he might destroy<br /> "them utterly, and that they might have no
+ favor, but<br /> "that he might destroy them."<br /> <br /> Read the
+ thirtieth chapter of Exodus and you will<br /> find that God gave to Moses
+ a recipe for making<br /> the oil of holy anointment, and in the
+ thirty-second<br /> verse we find that no one was to make any oil like it<br />
+ and in the next verse it is declared that whoever<br /> compounded any like
+ it, or whoever put any of it on<br /> a stranger, should be cut off from
+ the Lord's people.<br /> <br /> In the same chapter, a recipe is given for
+ per-<br /> fumery, and it is declared that whoever shall make<br /> any like
+ it, or that smells like it, shall suffer death.<br /> <br /> In the next
+ chapter, it is decreed that if any one fails<br /> to keep the Sabbath "he
+ shall be surely put to death."<br /> <br /> There are in the Pentateuch
+ hundreds and hun-<br /> dreds of passages showing the cruelty of Jehovah.<br />
+ What could have been more cruel than the flood?<br /> What more heartless
+ than to overwhelm a world?<br /> What more merciless than to cover a
+ shoreless sea<br /> with the corpses of men, women and children?<br /> <br />
+ The Pentateuch is filled with anathemas, with<br /> curses, with words of
+ vengeance, of jealousy, of<br /> hatred, and brutality. By reason of these
+ passages,<br /> <br /> 243<br /> <br /> millions of people have plucked from
+ their hearts the<br /> flowers of pity and justified the murder of women<br />
+ and the assassination of babes.<br /> <br /> In the second chapter of Second
+ Kings we find<br /> that the prophet Elisha was on his way to a place<br />
+ called Bethel, and as he was going, there came forth<br /> little children
+ out of the city and mocked him and<br /> said: "Go up thou bald head; Go up
+ thou bald<br /> "head! And he turned back and looked on them<br /> "and
+ cursed them in the name of the Lord. And<br /> "there came forth two she
+ bears out of the wood and<br /> "tare forty and two children of them."<br />
+ <br /> Of course he obtained his miraculous power from<br /> Jehovah; and
+ there must have been some communi-<br /> cation between Jehovah and the
+ bears. Why did the<br /> bears come? How did they happen to be there?<br />
+ Here is a prophet of God cursing children in the<br /> name of the Lord,
+ and thereupon these children<br /> are torn in fragments by wild beasts.<br />
+ <br /> This is the mercy of Jehovah; and yet I am told<br /> that the Bible
+ has nothing cruel in it; that it preaches<br /> only mercy, justice,
+ charity, peace; that all hearts<br /> are softened by reading it; that the
+ savage nature of<br /> man is melted into tenderness and pity by it, and
+ that<br /> only the totally depraved can find evil in it.<br /> <br /> 244<br />
+ <br /> And so I might go on, page after page, book after<br /> book, in the
+ Old Testament, and describe the cruelties<br /> committed in accordance
+ with the commands of<br /> Jehovah.<br /> <br /> But all the cruelties in the
+ Old Testament are ab-<br /> solute mercies compared with the hell of the
+ New<br /> Testament. In the Old Testament God stops with<br /> the grave. He
+ seems to have been satisfied when he<br /> saw his enemies dead, when he
+ saw their flesh rotting<br /> in the open air, or in the beaks of birds, or
+ in the teeth<br /> of wild beasts. But in the New Testament, ven-<br />
+ geance does not stop with the grave. It begins there,<br /> and stops
+ never. The enemies of Jehovah are to be<br /> pursued through all the ages
+ of eternity. There is to<br /> be no forgiveness&mdash;no cessation, no
+ mercy, nothing<br /> but everlasting pain.<br /> <br /> And yet we are told
+ that the author of hell is a<br /> being of infinite mercy.<br /> <br /> <i>Second</i>;
+ All intelligent Christians will admit that<br /> there are many passages in
+ the Bible that, if found in<br /> the Koran, they would regard as impure
+ and immoral.<br /> <br /> It is not necessary for me to specify the
+ passages,<br /> nor to call the attention of the public to such things.<br />
+ I am willing to trust the judgment of every honest<br /> reader, and the
+ memory of every biblical student.<br /> <br /> 245<br /> <br /> The Old
+ Testament upholds polygamy. That is<br /> infinitely impure. It sanctions
+ concubinage. That<br /> is impure; nothing could or can be worse. Hun-<br />
+ dreds of things are publicly told that should have re-<br /> mained unsaid.
+ No one is made better by reading<br /> the history of Tamar, or the
+ biography of Lot, or<br /> the memoirs of Noah, of Dinah, of Sarah and<br />
+ Abraham, or of Jacob and Leah and Rachel and others<br /> that I do not
+ care to mention. No one is improved<br /> in his morals by reading these
+ things.<br /> <br /> All I mean to say is, that the Bible is like other<br />
+ books produced by other nations in the same stage<br /> of civilization.
+ What one age considers pure, the<br /> next considers impure. What one age
+ may consider<br /> just, the next may look upon as infamous. Civiliza-<br />
+ tion is a growth. It is continually dying, and continu-<br /> ally being
+ born. Old branches rot and fall, new buds<br /> appear. It is a perpetual
+ twilight, and a perpetual<br /> dawn&mdash;the death of the old, and the
+ birth of the new.<br /> <br /> I do not say, throw away the Bible because
+ there<br /> are some foolish passages in it, but I say, throw away<br /> the
+ foolish passages. Don't throw away wisdom<br /> because it is found in
+ company with folly; but do not<br /> say that folly is wisdom, because it
+ is found in its<br /> company. All that is true in the Bible is true
+ whether<br /> <br /> 246<br /> <br /> it is inspired or not. All that is true
+ did not need to<br /> be inspired. Only that which is not true needs the<br />
+ assistance of miracles and wonders. I read the Bible<br /> as I read other
+ books. What I believe to be good,<br /> I admit is good; what I think is
+ bad, I say is bad;<br /> what I believe to be true, I say is true, and what
+ I<br /> believe to be false, I denounce as false.<br /> <br /> <i>Third</i>.
+ Let us see whether there are any contra-<br /> dictions in the Bible.<br />
+ <br /> A little book has been published, called "Self<br /> "Contradictions
+ of the Bible," by J. P. Mendum, of<br /> The Boston Investigator. I find
+ many of the apparent<br /> contradictions of the Bible noted in this book.<br />
+ <br /> We all know that the Pentateuch is filled with the<br /> commandments
+ of God upon the subject of sacrificing<br /> animals. We know that God
+ declared, again and<br /> again, that the smell of burning flesh was a
+ sweet<br /> savor to him. Chapter after chapter is filled with direc-<br />
+ tions how to kill the beasts that were set apart for<br /> sacrifices; what
+ to do with their blood, their flesh and<br /> their fat. And yet, in the
+ seventh chapter of Jeremiah,<br /> all this is expressly denied, in the
+ following language:<br /> "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded<br />
+ "them in the day that I brought them out of the land<br /> "of Egypt,
+ concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices."<br /> <br /> 247<br /> <br /> And
+ in the sixth chapter of Jeremiah, the same<br /> Jehovah says; "Your burnt
+ offerings are not ac-<br /> "ceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me."<br />
+ <br /> In the Psalms, Jehovah derides the idea of<br /> sacrifices, and
+ says: "Will I eat of the flesh of<br /> "bulls, or drink the blood of
+ goats? Offer unto God<br /> "thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most<br />
+ "High."<br /> <br /> So I find in Isaiah the following: "Bring no more<br />
+ "vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me;<br /> "the new moons
+ and sabbaths, the calling of as-<br /> "semblies, I cannot away with; it is
+ iniquity, even<br /> "the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your<br />
+ "appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble<br /> "to me; I am
+ weary to bear them." "To what<br /> "purpose is the multitude of your
+ sacrifices unto me?<br /> "saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt offerings
+ of<br /> "rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not<br /> "in the
+ blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.<br /> "When ye come to
+ appear before me, who hath re-<br /> "quired this at your hand?"<br /> <br />
+ So I find in James: "Let no man say when he is<br /> "tempted: I am tempted
+ of God; for God cannot be<br /> "tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any
+ man;"<br /> and yet in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis I<br /> <br />
+ 248<br /> <br /> find this: "And it came to pass after these things,<br />
+ "that God did tempt Abraham."<br /> <br /> In Second Samuel we see that he
+ tempted David.<br /> He also tempted Job, and Jeremiah says: "O Lord,<br />
+ "thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived." To<br /> such an extent was
+ Jeremiah deceived, that in the<br /> fourteenth chapter and eighteenth
+ verse we find him<br /> crying out to the Lord: "Wilt thou be altogether<br />
+ "unto me as a liar?"<br /> <br /> So in Second Thessalonians: "For these
+ things<br /> "God shall send them strong delusions, that they<br /> "should
+ believe a lie."<br /> <br /> So in First Kings, twenty-second chapter:
+ "Behold,<br /> "the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all<br />
+ "these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil<br /> "concerning thee."<br />
+ <br /> So in Ezekiel: "And if the prophet be deceived<br /> "when he hath
+ spoken a thing, I, the Lord, have de-<br /> "ceived that prophet."<br />
+ <br /> So I find: "Thou shalt not bear false witness;"<br /> and in the book
+ of Revelation: "All liars shall have<br /> "their part in the lake which
+ burneth with fire and<br /> "brimstone;" yet in First Kings, twenty-second<br />
+ chapter, I find the following: "And the Lord said:<br /> "Who shall
+ persuade Ahab, that he may go up and<br /> <br /> 249<br /> <br /> "fall at
+ Ramoth-Gilead? And one said on this<br /> "manner, and another said on that
+ manner. And<br /> "there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord,<br />
+ "and said: I will persuade him. And the Lord said<br /> "unto him:
+ Wherewith? And he said: I will go<br /> "forth, and I will be a lying
+ spirit in the mouth of all<br /> "his prophets. And he said: Thou shalt
+ persuade<br /> "him, and prevail also. Go forth, and do so."<br /> <br /> In
+ the Old Testament we find contradictory laws<br /> about the same thing,
+ and contradictory accounts of<br /> the same occurrences.<br /> <br /> In the
+ twentieth chapter of Exodus we find the first<br /> account of the giving
+ of the Ten Commandments. In<br /> the thirty-fourth chapter another account
+ of the same<br /> transaction is given. These two accounts could not<br />
+ have been written by the same person. Read them,<br /> and you will be
+ forced to admit that both of them<br /> cannot by any possibility be true.
+ They differ in so<br /> many particulars, and the commandments themselves<br />
+ are so different, that it is impossible that both can be<br /> true.<br />
+ <br /> So there are two histories of the creation. If you<br /> will read
+ the first and second chapters of Genesis,<br /> you will find two accounts
+ inconsistent with each<br /> other, both of which cannot be true. The first
+ account<br /> <br /> 250<br /> <br /> ends with the third verse of the second
+ chapter of<br /> Genesis. By the first account, man and woman were<br />
+ made at the same time, and made last of all. In the<br /> second account,
+ not to be too critical, all the beasts<br /> of the field were made before
+ Eve was, and Adam<br /> was made before the beasts of the field; whereas in<br />
+ the first account, God made all the animals before he<br /> made Adam. In
+ the first account there is nothing<br /> about the rib or the bone or the
+ side,&mdash;that is only<br /> found in the second account. In the first
+ account,<br /> there is nothing about the Garden of Eden, nothing<br />
+ about the four rivers, nothing about the mist that<br /> went up from the
+ earth and watered the whole face<br /> of the ground; nothing said about
+ making man from<br /> dust; nothing about God breathing into his nostrils<br />
+ the breath of life; yet according to the second ac-<br /> count, the Garden
+ of Eden was planted, and all the<br /> animals were made before Eve was
+ formed. It is<br /> impossible to harmonize the two accounts.<br /> <br />
+ So, in the first account, only the word God is<br /> used&mdash;"God said
+ so and so,&mdash;God did so and so."<br /> In the second account he is
+ called Lord God,&mdash;"the<br /> "Lord God formed man,"&mdash;"the Lord
+ God caused<br /> "it to rain,"&mdash;"the Lord God planted a garden." It<br />
+ is now admitted that the book of Genesis is made up<br /> <br /> 251<br />
+ <br /> of two stories, and it is very easy to take them apart<br /> and show
+ exactly how they were put together.<br /> <br /> So there are two stories of
+ the flood, differing<br /> almost entirely from each other&mdash;that is to
+ say, so<br /> contradictory that both cannot be true.<br /> <br /> There are
+ two accounts of the manner in which<br /> Saul was made king, and the
+ accounts are inconsistent<br /> with each other.<br /> <br /> Scholars now
+ everywhere admit that the copyists<br /> made many changes, pieced out
+ fragments, and made<br /> additions, interpolations, and meaningless
+ repetitions.<br /> It is now generally conceded that the speeches of<br />
+ Elihu, in Job, were interpolated, and most of the<br /> prophecies were
+ made by persons whose names even<br /> are not known.<br /> <br /> The
+ manuscripts of the Old Testament were not<br /> alike. The Greek version
+ differed from the Hebrew,<br /> and there was no generally received text of
+ the Old<br /> Testament until after the beginning of the Christian<br />
+ era. Marks and points to denote vowels were in-<br /> vented probably in
+ the seventh century after Christ;<br /> and whether these marks and points
+ were put in the<br /> proper places, is still an open question. The Alex-<br />
+ andrian version, or what is known as the Septuagint,<br /> translated by
+ seventy-two learned Jews assisted by<br /> <br /> 252<br /> <br /> miraculous
+ power, about two hundred years before<br /> Christ, could not, it is now
+ said, have been translated<br /> from the Hebrew text that we now have.
+ This can<br /> only be accounted for by supposing that we have a<br />
+ different Hebrew text. The early Christians adopted<br /> the Septuagint
+ and were satisfied for a time; but so<br /> many errors were found, and so
+ many were scanning<br /> every word in search of something to assist their<br />
+ peculiar views, that new versions were produced,<br /> and the new versions
+ all differed somewhat from the<br /> Septuagint as well as from each other.
+ These ver-<br /> sions were mostly in Greek. The first Latin Bible<br /> was
+ produced in Africa, and no one has ever found<br /> out which Latin
+ manuscript was original. Many were<br /> produced, and all differed from
+ each other. These<br /> Latin versions were compared with each other and<br />
+ with the Hebrew, and a new Latin version was made<br /> in the fifth
+ century, and the old ones held their own<br /> for about four hundred
+ years, and no one knows<br /> which version was right. Besides, there were
+ Ethi-<br /> opie, Egyptian, Armenian and several other ver-<br /> sions, all
+ differing from each other as well as from all<br /> others. It was not
+ until the fourteenth century that<br /> the Bible was translated into
+ German, and not until<br /> the fifteenth that Bibles were printed in the
+ principal<br /> <br /> 253<br /> <br /> languages of Europe; and most of these
+ Bibles<br /> differed from each other, and gave rise to endless<br />
+ disputes and to almost numberless crimes.<br /> <br /> No man in the world
+ is learned enough, nor has<br /> he time enough, even if he could live a
+ thousand<br /> years, to find what books belonged to and consti-<br /> tuted
+ the Old Testament. He could not ascertain<br /> the authors of the books,
+ nor when they were written,<br /> nor what they mean. Until a man has
+ sufficient<br /> time to do all this, no one can tell whether he be-<br />
+ lieves the Bible or not. It is sufficient, however, to<br /> say that the
+ Old Testament is filled with contradic-<br /> tions as to the number of men
+ slain in battle, as to<br /> the number of years certain kings reigned, as
+ to the<br /> number of a woman's children, as to dates of events,<br /> and
+ as to locations of towns and cities.<br /> <br /> Besides all this, many of
+ its laws are contradictory,<br /> often commanding and prohibiting the same
+ thing.<br /> <br /> The New Testament also is filled with contradic-<br />
+ tions. The gospels do not even agree upon the<br /> terms of salvation.
+ They do not even agree as to<br /> the gospel of Christ, as to the mission
+ of Christ.<br /> They do not tell the same story regarding the be-<br />
+ trayal, the crucifixion, the resurrection or the ascen-<br /> sion of
+ Christ. John is the only one that ever heard<br /> <br /> 254<br /> <br /> of
+ being "born again." The evangelists do not give<br /> the same account of
+ the same miracles, and the<br /> miracles are not given in the same order.
+ They do<br /> not agree even in the genealogy of Christ.<br /> <br /> <i>Fourth</i>.
+ Is the Bible scientific? In my judgment<br /> it is not<br /> <br /> It is
+ unscientific to say that this world was "cre-<br /> "ated that the universe
+ was produced by an infinite<br /> being, who had existed an eternity prior
+ to such<br /> "creation." My mind is such that I cannot possibly<br />
+ conceive of a "creation." Neither can I conceive of<br /> an infinite being
+ who dwelt in infinite space an infi-<br /> nite length of time.<br /> <br />
+ I do not think it is scientific to say that the uni-<br /> verse was made
+ in six days, or that this world is only<br /> about six thousand years old,
+ or that man has only<br /> been upon the earth for about six thousand
+ years.<br /> <br /> If the Bible is true, Adam was the first man. The<br />
+ age of Adam is given, the age of his children, and<br /> the time,
+ according to the Bible, was kept and known<br /> from Adam, so that if the
+ Bible is true, man has only<br /> been in this world about six thousand
+ years. In my<br /> judgment, and in the judgment of every scientific<br />
+ man whose judgment is worth having or quoting,<br /> man inhabited this
+ earth for thousands of ages prior<br /> <br /> 255<br /> <br /> to the
+ creation of Adam. On one point the Bible is<br /> at least certain, and
+ that is, as to the life of Adam.<br /> The genealogy is given, the pedigree
+ is there, and it<br /> is impossible to escape the conclusion that,
+ according<br /> to the Bible, man has only been upon this earth<br /> about
+ six thousand years. There is no chance there<br /> to say "long periods of
+ time," or "geological ages."<br /> There we have the years. And as to the
+ time of the<br /> creation of man, the Bible does not tell the truth.<br />
+ <br /> What is generally called "The Fall of Man" is<br /> unscientific. God
+ could not have made a moral<br /> character for Adam. Even admitting the
+ rest of the<br /> story to be true, Adam certainly had to make char-<br />
+ acter for himself.<br /> <br /> The idea that there never would have been
+ any<br /> disease or death in this world had it not been for the<br />
+ eating of the forbidden fruit is preposterously unsci-<br /> entific.
+ Admitting that Adam was made only six<br /> thousand years ago, death was
+ in the world millions of<br /> years before that time. The old rocks are
+ filled with re-<br /> mains of what were once living and breathing animals.<br />
+ Continents were built up with the petrified corpses of<br /> animals. We
+ know, therefore, that death did not enter<br /> the world because of Adam's
+ sin. We know that life<br /> and death are but successive links in an
+ eternal chain.<br /> <br /> 256<br /> <br /> So it is unscientific to say that
+ thorns and brambles<br /> were produced by Adam's sin.<br /> <br /> It is
+ also unscientific to say that labor was pro-<br /> nounced as a curse upon
+ man. Labor is not a curse.<br /> Labor is a blessing. Idleness is a curse.<br />
+ <br /> It is unscientific to say that the sons of God,<br /> living, we
+ suppose, in heaven, fell in love with the<br /> daughters of men, and that
+ on account of this a<br /> flood was sent upon the earth that covered the<br />
+ highest mountains.<br /> <br /> The whole story of the flood is
+ unscientific, and no<br /> scientific man worthy of the name, believes it.<br />
+ <br /> Neither is the story of the tower of Babel a scien-<br /> tific
+ thing. Does any scientific man believe that<br /> God confounded the
+ language of men for fear they<br /> would succeed in building a tower high
+ enough to<br /> reach to heaven?<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to say
+ that angels were in the<br /> habit of walking about the earth, eating veal
+ dressed<br /> with butter and milk, and making bargains about the<br />
+ destruction of cities.<br /> <br /> The story of Lot's wife having been
+ turned into a<br /> pillar of salt is extremely unscientific.<br /> <br /> It
+ is unscientific to say that people at one time lived<br /> to be nearly a
+ thousand years of age. The history<br /> <br /> 257<br /> <br /> of the world
+ shows that human life is lengthening<br /> instead of shortening.<br />
+ <br /> It is unscientific to say that the infinite God<br /> wrestled with
+ Jacob and got the better of him, put-<br /> ting his thigh out of joint.<br />
+ <br /> It is unscientific to say that God, in the likeness of<br /> a flame
+ of fire, inhabited a bush.<br /> <br /> It is unscientific to say that a
+ stick could be<br /> changed into a living snake. Living snakes can not<br />
+ be made out of sticks. There are not the necessary<br /> elements in a
+ stick to make a snake.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to say that God
+ changed water<br /> into blood. All the elements of blood are not in<br />
+ water.<br /> <br /> It is unscientific to declare that dust was changed<br />
+ into lice.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to say that God caused a thick<br />
+ darkness over the land of Egypt, and yet allowed it<br /> to be light in
+ the houses of the Jews.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to say that about
+ seventy people<br /> could, in two hundred and fifteen years increase to<br />
+ three millions.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to say that an infinitely
+ good<br /> God would destroy innocent people to get revenge<br /> upon a
+ king.<br /> <br /> 258<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to say that slavery
+ was once<br /> right, that polygamy was once a virtue, and that ex-<br />
+ termination was mercy.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to assert that a
+ being of infinite<br /> power and goodness went into partnership with in-<br />
+ sects,&mdash;granted letters of marque and reprisal to<br /> hornets.<br />
+ <br /> It is unscientific to insist that bread was really<br /> rained from
+ heaven.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to suppose that an infinite being<br />
+ spent forty days and nights furnishing Moses with plans<br /> and
+ specifications for a tabernacle, an ark, a mercy seat,<br /> cherubs of
+ gold, a table, four rings, some dishes, some<br /> spoons, one candlestick,
+ several bowls, a few knobs,<br /> seven lamps, some snuffers, a pair of
+ tongs, some cur-<br /> tains, a roof for a tent of rams' skins dyed red, a
+ few<br /> boards, an altar with horns, ash pans, basins and flesh<br />
+ hooks, shovels and pots and sockets of silver and<br /> ouches of gold and
+ pins of brass&mdash;for all of which this<br /> God brought with him
+ patterns from heaven.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to say that when a
+ man commits<br /> a sin, he can settle with God by killing a sheep.<br />
+ <br /> It is not scientific to say that a priest, by laying<br /> his hands
+ on the head of a goat, can transfer the sins<br /> of a people to the
+ animal.<br /> <br /> 259<br /> <br /> Was it scientific to endeavor to
+ ascertain whether<br /> a woman was virtuous or not, by compelling her to<br />
+ drink water mixed with dirt from the floor of the<br /> sanctuary?<br />
+ <br /> Is it scientific to say that a dry stick budded,<br /> blossomed, and
+ bore almonds; or that the ashes of a<br /> red heifer mixed with water can
+ cleanse us of sin;<br /> or that a good being gave cities into the hands of
+ the<br /> Jews in consideration of their murdering all the in-<br />
+ habitants?<br /> <br /> Is it scientific to say that an animal saw an angel,<br />
+ and conversed with a man?<br /> <br /> Is it scientific to imagine that
+ thrusting a spear<br /> through the body of a woman ever stayed a plague?<br />
+ <br /> Is it scientific to say that a river cut itself in two<br /> and
+ allowed the lower end to run off?<br /> <br /> Is it scientific to assert
+ that seven priests blew<br /> seven rams' horns loud enough to blow down
+ the<br /> walls of a city?<br /> <br /> Is it scientific to say that the sun
+ stood still in the<br /> midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down for<br />
+ about a whole day, and that the moon also stayed?<br /> <br /> Is it
+ scientifically probable that an angel of the<br /> Lord devoured unleavened
+ cakes and broth with<br /> fire that came out of the end of a stick, as he
+ sat<br /> <br /> 260<br /> <br /> under an oak tree; or that God made known
+ his<br /> will by letting dew fall on wool without wetting the<br /> ground
+ around it; or that an angel of God appeared<br /> to Manoah in the absence
+ of her husband, and that<br /> this angel afterwards went up in a flame of
+ fire, and<br /> as the result of this visit a child was born whose<br />
+ strength was in his hair?<br /> <br /> Is it scientific to say that the
+ muscle of a man de-<br /> pended upon the length of his locks?<br /> <br />
+ Is it unscientific to deny that water gushed from a<br /> hollow place in a
+ dry bone?<br /> <br /> Is it evidence of a thoroughly scientific mind to<br />
+ believe that one man turned over a house so large<br /> that three thousand
+ people were on its roof?<br /> <br /> Is it purely scientific to say that a
+ man was once<br /> fed by the birds of the air, who brought him bread<br />
+ and meat every morning and evening, and that after-<br /> ward an angel
+ turned cook and prepared two sup-<br /> pers in one night, for the same
+ prophet, who ate<br /> enough to last him forty days and forty nights?<br />
+ <br /> Is it scientific to say that a river divided because<br /> the water
+ had been struck with a cloak; or that a<br /> man actually went to heaven
+ in a chariot of fire<br /> drawn by horses of fire; or that a being of
+ infinite<br /> mercy would destroy children for laughing at a bald-<br />
+ <br /> 261<br /> <br /> headed prophet; or curse children and childrens<br />
+ children with leprosy for a father's fault; or that he<br /> made iron
+ float in water; or that when one corpse<br /> touched another it came to
+ life; or that the sun went<br /> backward in heaven so that the shadow on a
+ sun-<br /> dial went back ten degrees, as a sign that a miserable<br />
+ barbarian king would get well?<br /> <br /> Is it scientific to say that the
+ earth not only<br /> stopped in its rotary motion, but absolutely turned<br />
+ the other way,&mdash;that its motion was reversed simply<br /> as a sign to
+ a petty king?<br /> <br /> Is it scientific to say that Solomon made gold
+ and<br /> silver at Jerusalem as plentiful as stones, when we<br /> know
+ that there were kings in his day who could<br /> have thrown away the value
+ of the whole of Palestine<br /> without missing the amount?<br /> <br /> Is
+ it scientific to say that Solomon exceeded all<br /> the kings of the earth
+ in glory, when his country<br /> was barren, without roads, when his people
+ were<br /> few, without commerce, without the arts, without the<br />
+ sciences, without education, without luxuries?<br /> <br /> According to the
+ Bible, as long as Jehovah attended<br /> to the affairs of the Jews, they
+ had nothing but war,<br /> pestilence and famine; after Jehovah abandoned
+ them,<br /> and the Christians ceased, in a measure, to persecute<br />
+ <br /> 262<br /> <br /> them, the Jews became the most prosperous of people.<br />
+ Since Jehovah in his anger cast them away, they have<br /> produced
+ painters, sculptors, scientists, statesmen,<br /> composers, soldiers and
+ philosophers.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to believe that God ever
+ pre-<br /> vented rain, that he ever caused famine, that he ever<br /> sent
+ locusts to devour the wheat and corn, that he<br /> ever relied on
+ pestilence for the government of man-<br /> kind; or that he ever killed
+ children to get even with<br /> their parents.<br /> <br /> It is not
+ scientific to believe that the king of Egypt<br /> invaded Palestine with
+ seventy thousand horsemen<br /> and twelve hundred chariots of war. There
+ was not,<br /> at that time, a road in Palestine over which a chariot<br />
+ could be driven.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to believe that in a
+ battle between<br /> Jeroboam and Abijah, the army of Abijah slew in<br />
+ one day five hundred thousand chosen men.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific
+ to believe that Zerah, the Ethio-<br /> pian, invaded Palestine with a
+ million of men who<br /> were overthrown and destroyed; or that Jehoshaphat<br />
+ had a standing army of nine hundred and sixty<br /> thousand men.<br />
+ <br /> It is unscientific to believe that Jehovah advertised<br /> for a
+ liar, as is related in Second Chronicles.<br /> <br /> 263<br /> <br /> It is
+ not scientific to believe that fire refused to<br /> burn, or that water
+ refused to wet.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to believe in dreams, in
+ visions,<br /> and in miracles.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to believe
+ that children have<br /> been born without fathers, that the dead have ever<br />
+ been raised to life, or that people have bodily as-<br /> cended to heaven
+ taking their clothes with them.<br /> <br /> It is not scientific to believe
+ in the supernatural.<br /> Science dwells in the realm of fact, in the
+ realm of<br /> demonstration. Science depends upon human ex-<br /> perience,
+ upon observation, upon reason.<br /> <br /> It is unscientific to say that
+ an innocent man can<br /> be punished in place of a criminal, and for a
+ criminal,<br /> and that the criminal, on account of such punishment,<br />
+ can be justified.<br /> <br /> It is unscientific to say that a finite sin
+ deserves<br /> infinite punishment.<br /> <br /> It is unscientific to
+ believe that devils can inhabit<br /> human beings, or that they can take
+ possession of<br /> swine, or that the devil could bodily take a man, or<br />
+ the Son of God, and carry him to the pinnacle of a<br /> temple.<br /> <br />
+ In short, the foolish, the unreasonable, the false,<br /> the miraculous
+ and the supernatural are unscientific.<br /> <br /> 264<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Mr. Talmage gives his reason for<br /> accepting the New Testament, and
+ says: "You<br /> "can trace it right out. Jerome and Eusebius in the<br />
+ "first century, and Origen in the second century,<br /> "gave lists of the
+ writers of the New Testament.<br /> "These lists correspond with our list
+ of the writers<br /> "of the New Testament, showing that precisely as<br />
+ "we have it, they had it in the third and fourth cen-<br /> "turies. Where
+ did they get it? From Iren&aelig;us.<br /> "Where did he get it? From
+ Polycarp. Where did<br /> "Polycarp get it? From Saint John, who was a per-<br />
+ "sonal associate of Jesus. The line is just as clear<br /> "as anything
+ ever was clear." How do you under-<br /> stand this matter, and has Mr.
+ Talmage stated the<br /> facts?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Let us examine
+ first the witnesses pro-<br /> duced by Mr. Talmage. We will also call
+ attention<br /> to the great principle laid down by Mr. Talmage for<br />
+ the examination of evidence,&mdash;that where a witness<br /> is found
+ false in one particular, his entire testimony<br /> must be thrown away.<br />
+ <br /> Eusebius was born somewhere about two hundred<br /> and seventy years
+ after Christ. After many vicissi-<br /> tudes he became, it is said, the
+ friend of Constantine.<br /> He made an oration in which he extolled the
+ virtues<br /> <br /> 265<br /> <br /> of this murderer, and had the honor of
+ sitting at the<br /> right hand of the man who had shed the blood of his<br />
+ wife and son. In the great controversy with regard<br /> to the position
+ that Christ should occupy in the Trinity,<br /> he sided with Arius, "and
+ lent himself to the perse-<br /> "cution of the orthodox with Athanasius."
+ He in-<br /> sisted that Jesus Christ was not the same as God,<br /> and
+ that he was not of equal power and glory. Will<br /> Mr. Talmage admit that
+ his witness told the truth in<br /> this? "He would not even call the Son
+ co-eternal<br /> "with God."<br /> <br /> Eusebius must have been an
+ exceedingly truthful<br /> man. He declared that the tracks of Pharaoh's
+ chariots<br /> were in his day visible upon the shores of the Red<br /> Sea;
+ that these tracks had been through all the years<br /> miraculously
+ preserved from the action of wind and<br /> wave, as a supernatural
+ testimony to the fact that<br /> God miraculously overwhelmed Pharaoh and
+ his<br /> hosts.<br /> <br /> Eusebius also relates that when Joseph and Mary<br />
+ arrived in Eygpt they took up their abode in Hermopolis,<br /> <br /> a city
+ of Theb&aelig;us, in which was the superb<br /> temple of Serapis. When
+ Joseph and Mary entered<br /> the temple, not only the great idol, but all
+ the lesser<br /> idols fell down before him.<br /> <br /> 266<br /> <br /> "It
+ is believed by the learned Dr. Lardner, that<br /> "Eusebius was the one
+ guilty of the forgery in the<br /> "passage found in Josephus concerning
+ Christ. Un-<br /> "blushing falsehoods and literary forgeries of the<br />
+ "vilest character darkened the pages of his historical<br /> "writings."
+ (Waites History.)<br /> <br /> From the same authority I learn that Eusebius<br />
+ invented an eclipse, and some earthquakes, to agree<br /> with the account
+ of the crucifixion. It is also be-<br /> lieved that Eusebius quoted from
+ works that never<br /> existed, and that he pretended a work had been<br />
+ written by Porphyry, entitled: "The Philosophy of<br /> "Oracles," and then
+ quoted from it for the purpose<br /> of proving the truth of the Christian
+ religion.<br /> <br /> The fact is, Eusebius was utterly destitute of truth.<br />
+ He believed, as many still believe, that he could<br /> please God by the
+ fabrication of lies.<br /> <br /> Iren&aelig;us lived somewhere about the
+ end of the<br /> second century. "Very little is known of his early<br />
+ "history, and the accounts given in various biogra-<br /> "phies are for
+ the most part conjectural." The<br /> writings of Iren&aelig;us are known
+ to us principally<br /> through Eusebius, and we know the value of his<br />
+ testimony.<br /> <br /> Now, if we are to take the testimony of Iren&aelig;us,<br />
+ <br /> 267<br /> <br /> why not take it? He says that the ministry of Christ<br />
+ lasted for twenty years, and that Christ was fifty years<br /> old at the
+ time of his crucifixion. He also insisted<br /> that the "Gospel of Paul"
+ was written by Luke, "a<br /> "statement made to give sanction to the
+ gospel of<br /> "Luke."<br /> <br /> Iren&aelig;us insisted that there were
+ four gospels, that<br /> there must be, and "he speaks frequently of these<br />
+ "gospels, and argues that they should be four in<br /> "number, neither
+ more nor less, because there are<br /> "four universal winds, and four
+ quarters of the<br /> "world;" and he might have added: because<br />
+ donkeys have four legs.<br /> <br /> These facts can be found in "The
+ History of the<br /> "Christian Religion to A. D. 200," by Charles B.<br />
+ Waite,&mdash;a book that Mr. Talmage ought to read.<br /> <br /> According
+ to Mr. Waite, Iren&aelig;us, in the thirty-<br /> third chapter of his
+ fifth book, <i>Adversus H&aelig;reses</i>,<br /> cites from Papias the
+ following sayings of Christ:<br /> "The days will come in which vines shall
+ grow<br /> "which shall have ten thousand branches, and on<br /> "each
+ branch ten thousand twigs, and in each twig<br /> "ten thousand shoots, and
+ in each shoot ten thousand<br /> "clusters, and in every one of the
+ clusters ten<br /> "thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed<br />
+ <br /> 268<br /> <br /> "will give five and twenty metrets of wine." Also<br />
+ that "one thousand million pounds of clear, pure, fine<br /> "flour will be
+ produced from one grain of wheat."<br /> Iren&aelig;us adds that "these
+ things were borne witness<br /> "to by Papias the hearer of John and the
+ companion<br /> "of Polycarp."<br /> <br /> Is it possible that the eternal
+ welfare of a human<br /> being depends upon believing the testimony of
+ Poly-<br /> carp and Iren&aelig;us? Are people to be saved or lost<br /> on
+ the reputation of Eusebius? Suppose a man is<br /> firmly convinced that
+ Polycarp knew nothing about<br /> Saint John, and that Saint John knew
+ nothing about<br /> Christ,&mdash;what then? Suppose he is convinced that<br />
+ Eusebius is utterly unworthy of credit,&mdash;what then?<br /> Must a man
+ believe statements that he has every<br /> reason to think are false?<br />
+ <br /> The question arises as to the witnesses named by<br /> Mr. Talmage,
+ whether they were competent to decide<br /> as to the truth or falsehood of
+ the gospels. We have<br /> the right to inquire into their mental traits
+ for the<br /> purpose of giving only due weight to what they have<br />
+ said.<br /> <br /> Mr. Bronson C. Keeler is the author of a book<br />
+ called: "A Short History of the Bible." I avail<br /> myself of a few of
+ the facts he has there collected. I<br /> <br /> 269<br /> <br /> find in this
+ book, that Iren&aelig;us, Clement and Origen<br /> believed in the fable of
+ the Phoenix, and insisted that<br /> God produced the bird on purpose to
+ prove the<br /> probability of the resurrection of the body. Some<br /> of
+ the early fathers believed that the hyena changed<br /> its sex every year.
+ Others of them gave as a reason<br /> why good people should eat only
+ animals with a<br /> cloven foot, the fact that righteous people lived not<br />
+ only in this world, but had expectations in the next.<br /> They also
+ believed that insane people were pos-<br /> sessed by devils; that angels
+ ate manna; that some<br /> angels loved the daughters of men and fell; that
+ the<br /> pains of women in childbirth, and the fact that ser-<br /> pents
+ crawl on their bellies, were proofs that the<br /> account of the fall, as
+ given in Genesis, is true; that<br /> the stag renewed its youth by eating
+ poisonous<br /> snakes; that eclipses and comets were signs of God's<br />
+ anger; that volcanoes were openings into hell; that<br /> demons blighted
+ apples; that a corpse in a cemetery<br /> moved to make room for another
+ corpse to be placed<br /> beside it. Clement of Alexandria believed that
+ hail<br /> storms, tempests and plagues were caused by demons.<br /> He also
+ believed, with Mr. Talmage, that the events<br /> in the life of Abraham
+ were typical and prophetical<br /> of arithmetic and astronomy.<br /> <br />
+ 270<br /> <br /> Origen, another of the witnesses of Mr. Talmage,<br /> said
+ that the sun, moon and stars were living crea-<br /> tures, endowed with
+ reason and free will, and occa-<br /> sionally inclined to sin. That they
+ had free will, he<br /> proved by quoting from Job; that they were rational<br />
+ creatures, he inferred from the fact that they moved.<br /> The sun, moon
+ and stars, according to him, were<br /> "subject to vanity," and he
+ believed that they prayed<br /> to God through his only begotten son.<br />
+ <br /> These intelligent witnesses believed that the blight-<br /> ing of
+ vines and fruit trees, and the disease and de-<br /> struction that came
+ upon animals and men, were all<br /> the work of demons; but that when they
+ had entered<br /> into men, the sign of the cross would drive them out.<br />
+ They derided the idea that the earth is round, and<br /> one of them said:
+ "About the antipodes also, one<br /> "can neither hear nor speak without
+ laughter. It is<br /> "asserted as something serious that we should be-<br />
+ "lieve that there are men who have their feet oppo-<br /> "site to ours.
+ The ravings of Anaxagoras are more<br /> "tolerable, who said that snow was
+ black."<br /> <br /> Concerning these early fathers, Professor Davidson,<br />
+ as quoted by Mr. Keeler, uses the following lan-<br /> guage: "Of the three
+ fathers who contributed<br /> "most to the growth of the canon, Iren&aelig;us
+ was<br /> <br /> 271<br /> <br /> "credulous and blundering; Tertullian
+ passionate<br /> "and one-sided; and Clement of Alexandria, im-<br /> "bued
+ with the treasures of Greek wisdom, was<br /> "mainly occupied with
+ ecclesiastical ethics. Their<br /> "assertions show both ignorance and
+ exaggeration."<br /> These early fathers relied upon by Mr. Talmage,<br />
+ quoted from books now regarded as apocryphal&mdash;<br /> books that have
+ been thrown away by the church<br /> and are no longer considered as of the
+ slightest<br /> authority. Upon this subject I again quote Mr.<br /> Keeler:
+ "Clement quoted the 'Gospel according to<br /> "'the Hebrews,' which is now
+ thrown away by the<br /> "church; he also quoted from the Sibylline books<br />
+ "and the Pentateuch in the same sentence. Origen<br /> "frequently cited
+ the Gospel of the Hebrews. Jerome<br /> "did the same, and Clement believed
+ in the 'Gospel<br /> "'according to the Egyptians.' The Shepherd of<br />
+ "Hermas, a book in high repute in the early church,<br /> "and one which
+ distinctly claims to have been<br /> "inspired, was quoted by Iren&aelig;us
+ as Scripture.<br /> "Clement of Alexandria said it was a divine revela-<br />
+ "tion. Origen said it was divinely inspired, and<br /> "quoted it as Holy
+ Scripture at the same time that<br /> "he cited the Psalms and Epistles of
+ Paul. Jerome<br /> "quoted the 'Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach,'<br />
+ <br /> 272<br /> <br /> "as divine Scripture. Origen quotes the 'Wisdom<br />
+ "of Solomon' as the 'Word of God' and 'the<br /> "'words of Christ
+ himself.' Eusebius of C&aelig;sarea<br /> "cites it as a * Divine Oracle,'
+ and St. Chrysostom<br /> "used it as Scripture. So Eusebius quotes the<br />
+ "thirteenth chapter of Daniel as Scripture, but as a<br /> "matter of fact,
+ Daniel has not a thirteenth chapter,&mdash;<br /> "the church has taken it
+ away. Clement spoke of<br /> "the writer of the fourth book of Esdras as a
+ prophet;<br /> "he thought Baruch as much the word of God as<br /> "any
+ other book, and he quotes it as divine Scripture.<br /> "Clement cites
+ Barnabas as an apostle. Origen<br /> "quotes from the Epistle of Barnabas,
+ calls it 'Holy<br /> " 'Scripture,' and places it on a level with the
+ Psalms<br /> "and the Epistles of Paul; and Clement of Alexan-<br /> "dria
+ believed in the 'Epistle of Barnabas,' and the<br /> "'Revelation, of
+ Peter,' and wrote comments upon<br /> "these holy books."<br /> <br />
+ Nothing can exceed the credulity of the early<br /> fathers, unless it may
+ be their ignorance. They be-<br /> lieved everything that was miraculous.
+ They believed<br /> everything except the truth. Anything that really<br />
+ happened was considered of no importance by them.<br /> They looked for
+ wonders, miracles, and monstrous<br /> things, and&mdash;generally found
+ them. They revelled<br /> <br /> 273<br /> <br /> in the misshapen and the
+ repulsive. They did not<br /> think it wrong to swear falsely in a good
+ cause.<br /> They interpolated, forged, and changed the records to<br />
+ suit themselves, for the sake of Christ. They quoted<br /> from persons who
+ never wrote. They misrepresented<br /> those who had written, and their
+ evidence is abso-<br /> lutely worthless. They were ignorant, credulous,<br />
+ mendacious, fanatical, pious, unreasonable, bigoted,<br /> hypocritical,
+ and for the most part, insane. Read the<br /> book of Revelation, and you
+ will agree with me that<br /> nothing that ever emanated from a madhouse
+ can<br /> more than equal it for incoherence. Most of the<br /> writings of
+ the early fathers are of the same kind.<br /> <br /> As to Saint John, the
+ real truth is, that we know<br /> nothing certainly of him. We do not know
+ that he<br /> ever lived.<br /> <br /> We know nothing certainly of Jesus
+ Christ. We<br /> know nothing of his infancy, nothing of his youth,<br />
+ and we are not sure that such a person ever existed.<br /> <br /> We know
+ nothing of Polycarp. We do not know<br /> where he was born, or where, or
+ how he died. We<br /> know nothing for certain about Iren&aelig;us. All the<br />
+ names quoted by Mr. Talmage as his witnesses<br /> are surrounded by clouds
+ and doubts, by mist and<br /> darkness. We only know that many of their<br />
+ <br /> 274<br /> <br /> statements are false, and do not know that any of<br />
+ them are true.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the
+ following state-<br /> ment by Mr. Talmage: "Oh, I have to tell you that no<br />
+ "man ever died for a lie cheerfully and triumphantly"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ There was a time when men "cheerfully<br /> "and triumphantly died" in
+ defence of the doctrine<br /> of the "real presence" of God in the wafer
+ and wine.<br /> Does Mr. Talmage believe in the doctrine of "tran-<br />
+ "substantiation"? Yet hundreds have died "cheer-<br /> "fully and
+ triumphantly" for it. Men have died for<br /> the idea that baptism by
+ immersion is the only<br /> scriptural baptism. Did they die for a lie? If
+ not,<br /> is Mr. Talmage a Baptist?<br /> <br /> Giordano Bruno was an
+ atheist, yet he perished at<br /> the stake rather than retract his
+ opinions. He did<br /> not expect to be welcomed by angels and by God.<br />
+ He did not look for a crown of glory. He expected<br /> simply death and
+ eternal extinction. Does the fact<br /> that he died for that belief prove
+ its truth?<br /> <br /> Thousands upon thousands have died in defence of<br />
+ the religion of Mohammed. Was Mohammed an im-<br /> postor? Thousands have
+ welcomed death in defence<br /> of the doctrines of Buddha. Is Buddhism
+ true?<br /> <br /> 275<br /> <br /> So I might make a tour of the world, and
+ of all<br /> ages of human history, and find that millions and<br />
+ millions have died "cheerfully and triumphantly" in<br /> defence of their
+ opinions. There is not the slightest<br /> truth in Mr. Talmage's
+ statement.<br /> <br /> A little while ago, a man shot at the Czar of
+ Russia.<br /> On the day of his execution he was asked if he<br /> wished
+ religious consolation. He replied that he<br /> believed in no religion.
+ What did that prove? It<br /> proved only the man's honesty of opinion. All
+ the<br /> martyrs in the world cannot change, never did<br /> change, a
+ falsehood into a truth, nor a truth into<br /> a falsehood. Martyrdom
+ proves nothing but the<br /> sincerity of the martyr and the cruelty and
+ mean-<br /> ness of his murderers. Thousands and thousands of<br /> people
+ have imagined that they knew things, that<br /> they were certain, and have
+ died rather than retract<br /> their honest beliefs.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage
+ now says that he knows all about the<br /> Old Testament, that the
+ prophecies were fulfilled,<br /> and yet he does not know when the
+ prophecies were<br /> made&mdash;whether they were made before or after the<br />
+ fact. He does not know whether the destruction of<br /> Babylon was told
+ before it happened, or after. He<br /> knows nothing upon the subject. He
+ does not know<br /> <br /> 276<br /> <br /> who made the pretended prophecies.
+ He does not<br /> know that Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Habakkuk, or<br /> Hosea
+ ever lived in this world. He does not know<br /> who wrote a single book of
+ the Old Testament. He<br /> knows nothing on the subject. He believes in
+ the<br /> inspiration of the Old Testament because ancient<br /> cities
+ finally fell into decay&mdash;were overrun and de-<br /> stroyed by
+ enemies, and he accounts for the fact that<br /> the Jew does not lose his
+ nationality by saying that<br /> the Old Testament is true.<br /> <br /> The
+ Jews have been persecuted by the Christians,<br /> and they are still
+ persecuted by them; and Mr. Tal-<br /> mage seems to think that this
+ persecution was a part<br /> of Gods plan, that the Jews might, by
+ persecution,<br /> be prevented from mingling with other nationalities,<br />
+ and so might stand, through the instrumentality of<br /> perpetual hate and
+ cruelty, the suffering witnesses of<br /> the divine truth of the Bible.<br />
+ <br /> The Jews do not testify to the truth of the Bible,<br /> but to the
+ barbarism and inhumanity of Christians&mdash;<br /> to the meanness and
+ hatred of what we are pleased<br /> to call the "civilized world." They
+ testify to the fact<br /> that nothing so hardens the human heart as
+ religion.<br /> <br /> There is no prophecy in the Old Testament fore-<br />
+ telling the coming of Jesus Christ. There is not one<br /> <br /> 277<br />
+ <br /> word in the Old Testament referring to him in any<br /> way&mdash;not
+ one word. The only way to prove this<br /> is to take your Bible, and
+ wherever you find these<br /> words: "That it might be fulfilled," and
+ "which<br /> "was spoken," turn to the Old Testament and<br /> find what was
+ written, and you will see that it had<br /> not the slightest possible
+ reference to the thing re-<br /> counted in the New Testament&mdash;not the
+ slightest.<br /> <br /> Let us take some of the prophecies of the Bible,<br />
+ and see how plain they are, and how beautiful they<br /> are. Let us see
+ whether any human being can tell<br /> whether they have ever been
+ fulfilled or not.<br /> <br /> Here is a vision of Ezekiel: "I looked, and
+ be-<br /> "hold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great<br /> "cloud, and
+ a fire infolding itself, and a brightness<br /> "was about it, and out of
+ the midst thereof as the<br /> "color of amber, out of the midst of the
+ fire. Also<br /> "out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four<br />
+ "living creatures. And this was their appearance;<br /> "they had the
+ likeness of a man. And every one<br /> "had four faces, and every one had
+ four wings.<br /> "And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of<br />
+ "their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they<br /> "sparkled
+ like the color of burnished brass. And<br /> "they had the hands of a man
+ under their wings on<br /> <br /> 278<br /> <br /> "their four sides; and they
+ four had their faces and<br /> "their wings. Their wings were joined one to<br />
+ "another; they turned not when-they went; they<br /> "went every one
+ straight forward. As for the like-<br /> "ness of their faces, they four
+ had the face of a man,<br /> "and the face of a lion, on the right side:
+ and they<br /> "four had the face of an ox on the left side; they<br />
+ "four also had the face of an eagle.<br /> <br /> "Thus were their faces:
+ and their wings were<br /> "stretched upward; two wings of every one were<br />
+ "joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.<br /> "And they went
+ every one straight forward: whither<br /> "the spirit was to go, they went;
+ and they turned not<br /> "when they went.<br /> <br /> "As for the likeness
+ of the living creatures, their<br /> "appearance was like burning coals of
+ fire, and like<br /> "the appearance of lamps: it went up and down<br />
+ "among the living creatures; and the fire was bright,<br /> "and out of the
+ fire went forth lightning. And the<br /> "living creatures ran and returned
+ as the appearance<br /> "of a flash of lightning.<br /> <br /> "Now as I
+ beheld the living creatures, behold one<br /> "wheel upon the earth by the
+ living creatures, with<br /> "his four faces. The appearance of the wheels
+ and<br /> "their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and<br /> <br />
+ 279<br /> <br /> "they four had one likeness: and their appearance<br /> "and
+ their work was as it were a wheel in the middle<br /> "of a wheel. When
+ they went, they went upon<br /> "their four sides: and they turned not when
+ they<br /> "went. As for their rings, they were so high that<br /> "they
+ were dreadful; and their rings were full of<br /> "eyes round about them
+ four. And when the living<br /> "creatures went, the wheels went by them:
+ and<br /> "when the living creatures were lifted up from the<br /> "earth,
+ the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever<br /> "the spirit was to go, they
+ went, thither was their<br /> "spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up
+ over<br /> "against them: for the spirit of the living creature<br /> "was
+ in the wheels. When those went, these went;<br /> "and when those stood,
+ these stood; and when those<br /> "were lifted up from the earth, the
+ wheels were<br /> "lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the<br />
+ "living creature was in the wheels. And the like-<br /> "ness of the
+ firmament upon the heads of the living<br /> "creature was as the color of
+ the terrible crystal,<br /> "stretched forth over their heads above. And
+ under<br /> "the firmament were their wings straight, the one<br /> "toward
+ the other; every one had two, which<br /> "covered on this side, and every
+ one had two,<br /> "which covered on that side, their bodies."<br /> <br />
+ 280<br /> <br /> Is such a vision a prophecy? Is it calculated<br /> to
+ convey the slightest information? If so, what?<br /> <br /> So, the
+ following vision of the prophet Daniel is<br /> exceedingly important and
+ instructive:<br /> <br /> "Daniel spake and said: I saw in my vision by<br />
+ "night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven<br /> "strove upon the
+ great sea. And four great beasts<br /> "came up from the sea, diverse one
+ from another.<br /> "The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings:<br />
+ "I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it<br /> "was lifted up
+ from the earth, and made stand upon<br /> "the feet as a man, and a man's
+ heart was given to<br /> "it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a<br />
+ "bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had<br /> "three ribs in
+ the mouth of it between the teeth of<br /> "it: and they said thus unto it,
+ Arise, devour much<br /> "flesh.<br /> <br /> "After this I beheld, and lo
+ another, like a leopard,<br /> "which had upon the back of it four wings of
+ a fowl;<br /> "the beast had also four heads, and dominion was<br /> "given
+ to it.<br /> <br /> "After this I saw in the night visions, and behold<br />
+ "a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong ex-<br /> "ceedingly;
+ and it had great iron teeth; it devoured<br /> "and brake in pieces, and
+ stamped the residue with<br /> <br /> 281<br /> <br /> "the feet of it; and it
+ was diverse from all the beasts<br /> "that were before it, and it had ten
+ horns. I con-<br /> "sidered the horns, and, behold, there came up<br />
+ "among them another little horn, before whom<br /> "there were three of the
+ first horns plucked up by<br /> "the roots: and behold, in this horn were
+ eyes like<br /> "the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great<br /> "things."<br />
+ <br /> I have no doubt that this prophecy has been liter-<br /> ally
+ fulfilled, but I am not at present in condition to<br /> give the time,
+ place, or circumstances.<br /> <br /> A few moments ago, my attention was
+ called to<br /> the following extract from <i>The New York Herald</i> of<br />
+ the thirteenth of March, instant:<br /> <br /> "At the Fifth Avenue Baptist
+ Church, Dr. Armi-<br /> "tage took as his text, 'A wheel in the middle of a<br />
+ "'wheel'&mdash;Ezekiel, i., 16. Here, said the preacher,<br /> "are three
+ distinct visions in one&mdash;the living crea-<br /> "tures, the moving
+ wheels and the fiery throne. We<br /> "have time only to stop the wheels of
+ this mystic<br /> "chariot of Jehovah, that we may hold holy converse<br />
+ "with Him who rides upon the wings of the wind.<br /> "In this vision of
+ the prophet we have a minute and<br /> "amplified account of these
+ magnificent symbols or<br /> "hieroglyphics, this wondrous machinery which
+ de-<br /> <br /> 282<br /> <br /> "notes immense attributes and agencies and
+ voli-<br /> "tions, passing their awful and mysterious course of<br />
+ "power and intelligence in revolution after revolu-<br /> "tion of the
+ emblematical mechanism, in steady and<br /> "harmonious advancement to the
+ object after which<br /> "they are reaching. We are compelled to look<br />
+ "upon the whole as symbolical of that tender and<br /> "endearing
+ providence of which Jesus spoke when<br /> "He said, 'The very hairs of
+ your head are num-<br /> "* bered.'"<br /> <br /> Certainly, an ordinary
+ person, not having been<br /> illuminated by the spirit of prophecy, would
+ never<br /> have even dreamed that there was the slightest re-<br /> ference
+ in Ezekiel's vision to anything like counting<br /> hairs. As a
+ commentator, the Rev. Dr. Armitage<br /> has no equal; and, in my judgment,
+ no rival. He<br /> has placed himself beyond the reach of ridicule. It<br />
+ is impossible to say anything about his sermon as<br /> laughable as his
+ sermon.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have you no confidence in any pro-<br />
+ phecies? Do you take the ground that there never<br /> has been a human
+ being who could predict the<br /> future?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I admit
+ that a man of average intelli-<br /> <br /> 283<br /> <br /> gence knows that
+ a certain course, when pursued<br /> long enough, will bring national
+ disaster, and it is<br /> perfectly safe to predict the downfall of any and<br />
+ every country in the world. In my judgment,<br /> nations, like
+ individuals, have an average life.<br /> Every nation is mortal. An
+ immortal nation cannot<br /> be constructed of mortal individuals. A nation
+ has<br /> a reason for existing, and that reason sustains the<br /> same
+ relation to the nation that the acorn does to<br /> the oak. The nation
+ will attain its growth&mdash;other<br /> things being equal. It will reach
+ its manhood and<br /> its prime, but it will sink into old age, and at last<br />
+ must die. Probably, in a few thousand years, men<br /> will be able to
+ calculate the average life of nations,<br /> as they now calculate the
+ average life of persons.<br /> There has been no period since the morning
+ of his-<br /> tory until now, that men did not know of dead and<br /> dying
+ nations. There has always been a national<br /> cemetery. Poland is dead,
+ Turkey is dying. In<br /> every nation are the seeds of dissolution. Not
+ only<br /> nations die, but races of men. A nation is born,<br /> becomes
+ powerful, luxurious, at last grows weak, is<br /> overcome, dies, and
+ another takes its place, In this<br /> way civilization and barbarism, like
+ day and night,<br /> alternate through all of history's years.<br /> <br />
+ 284<br /> <br /> In every nation there are at least two classes of<br /> men:
+ First, the enthusiastic, the patriotic, who be-<br /> lieve that the nation
+ will live forever,&mdash;that its flag<br /> will float while the earth has
+ air; Second, the owls<br /> and ravens and croakers, who are always
+ predicting<br /> disaster, defeat, and death. To the last class belong<br />
+ the Jeremiahs, Ezekiels, and Isaiahs of the Jews.<br /> They were always
+ predicting the downfall of Jeru-<br /> salem. They revelled in defeat and
+ captivity. They<br /> loved to paint the horrors of famine and war. For<br />
+ the most part, they were envious, hateful, misan-<br /> thropic and unjust.<br />
+ <br /> There seems to have been a war between church<br /> and state. The
+ prophets were endeavoring to pre-<br /> serve the ecclesiastical power.
+ Every king who would<br /> listen to them, was chosen of God. He instantly<br />
+ became the model of virtue, and the prophets assured<br /> him that he was
+ in the keeping of Jehovah. But if<br /> the king had a mind of his own, the
+ prophets im-<br /> mediately called down upon him all the curses of<br />
+ heaven, and predicted the speedy destruction of his<br /> kingdom.<br />
+ <br /> If our own country should be divided, if an empire<br /> should rise
+ upon the ruins of the Republic, it would<br /> be very easy to find that
+ hundreds and thousands of<br /> <br /> 285<br /> <br /> people had foretold
+ that very thing. If you will read<br /> the political speeches of the last
+ twenty-two years,<br /> you will find prophecies to fit any possible future<br />
+ state of affairs in our country. No matter what<br /> happens, you will
+ find that somebody predicted it.<br /> If the city of London should lose
+ her trade, if the<br /> Parliament house should become the abode of moles<br />
+ and bats, if "the New Zealander should sit upon the<br /> "ruins of London
+ Bridge," all these things would be<br /> simply the fulfillment of
+ prophecy. The fall of every<br /> nation under the sun has been predicted
+ by hundreds<br /> and thousands of people.<br /> <br /> The prophecies of the
+ Old Testament can be made<br /> to fit anything that may happen, or that
+ may not<br /> happen. They will apply to the death of a king, or<br /> to
+ the destruction of a people,&mdash;to the loss of com-<br /> merce, or the
+ discovery of a continent. Each pro-<br /> phecy is a jugglery of words, of
+ figures, of symbols,<br /> so put together, so used, so interpreted, that
+ they<br /> can mean anything, everything, or nothing.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you see anything "prophetic" in<br /> the fate of the Jewish people
+ themselves? Do you<br /> think that God made the Jewish people wanderers,
+ so<br /> that they might be perpetual witnesses to the truth<br /> of the
+ Scriptures?<br /> <br /> 286<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I cannot believe that
+ an infinitely good<br /> God would make anybody a wanderer. Neither can<br />
+ I believe that he would keep millions of people with-<br /> out country and
+ without home, and allow them to be<br /> persecuted for thousands of years,
+ simply that they<br /> might be used as witnesses. Nothing could be more<br />
+ absurdly cruel than this.<br /> <br /> The Christians justify their
+ treatment of the Jews<br /> on the ground that they are simply fulfilling
+ prophecy.<br /> The Jews have suffered because of the horrid story<br />
+ that their ancestors crucified the Son of God. Chris-<br /> tianity, coming
+ into power, looked with horror upon<br /> the Jews, who denied the truth of
+ the gospel. Each<br /> Jew was regarded as a dangerous witness against<br />
+ Christianity. The early Christians saw how neces-<br /> sary it was that
+ the people who lived in Jerusalem<br /> at the time of Christ should be
+ convinced that<br /> he was God, and should testify to the miracles he<br />
+ wrought. Whenever a Jew denied it, the Christian<br /> was filled with
+ malignity and hatred, and immediately<br /> excited the prejudice of other
+ Christians against the<br /> man simply because he was a Jew. They forgot,
+ in<br /> their general hatred, that Mary, the mother of Christ,<br /> was a
+ Jewess; that Christ himself was of Jewish<br /> blood; and with an
+ inconsistency of which, of all<br /> <br /> 287<br /> <br /> religions,
+ Christianity alone could have been guilty,<br /> the Jew became an object
+ of especial hatred and<br /> aversion.<br /> <br /> When we remember that
+ Christianity pretends to<br /> be a religion of love and kindness, of
+ charity and for-<br /> giveness, must not every intelligent man be shocked<br />
+ by the persecution of the Jews? Even now, in learned<br /> and cultivated
+ Germany, the Jew is treated as though<br /> he were a wild beast. The
+ reputation of this great<br /> people has been stained by a persecution
+ spring-<br /> ing only from ignorance and barbarian prejudice.<br /> So in
+ Russia, the Christians are anxious to shed<br /> every drop of Jewish
+ blood, and thousands are to-day<br /> fleeing from their homes to seek a
+ refuge from Chris-<br /> tian hate. And Mr. Talmage believes that all these<br />
+ persecutions are kept up by the perpetual intervention<br /> of God, in
+ order that the homeless wanderers of the<br /> seed of Abraham may testify
+ to the truth of the Old<br /> and New Testaments. He thinks that every
+ burning<br /> Jewish home sheds light upon the gospel,&mdash;that<br />
+ every gash in Jewish flesh cries out in favor of the<br /> Bible,&mdash;that
+ every violated Jewish maiden shows the<br /> interest that God still takes
+ in the preservation of<br /> his Holy Word.<br /> <br /> I am endeavoring to
+ do away with religious<br /> <br /> 288<br /> <br /> prejudice. I wish to
+ substitute humanity for super-<br /> stition, the love of our fellow-men,
+ for the fear of<br /> God. In the place of ignorant worship, let us put<br />
+ good deeds. We should be great enough and grand<br /> enough to know that
+ the rights of the Jew are pre-<br /> cisely the same as our own. We cannot
+ trample<br /> upon their rights, without endangering our own; and<br /> no
+ man who will take liberty from another, is great<br /> enough to enjoy
+ liberty himself.<br /> <br /> Day by day Christians are laying the
+ foundation<br /> of future persecution. In every Sunday school little<br />
+ children are taught that Jews killed the God of this<br /> universe. Their
+ little hearts are filled with hatred<br /> against the Jewish people. They
+ are taught as a<br /> part of the creed to despise the descendants of the<br />
+ only people with whom God is ever said to have had<br /> any conversation
+ whatever.<br /> <br /> When we take into consideration what the Jewish<br />
+ people have suffered, it is amazing that every one of<br /> them does not
+ hate with all his heart and soul and<br /> strength the entire Christian
+ world. But in spite of<br /> the persecutions they have endured, they are
+ to-day,<br /> where they are permitted to enjoy reasonable liberty,<br />
+ the most prosperous people on the globe. The idea<br /> that their
+ condition shows, or tends to show, that<br /> <br /> 289<br /> <br /> upon
+ them abides the wrath of Jehovah, cannot be<br /> substantiated by the
+ facts.<br /> <br /> The Jews to-day control the commerce of the<br /> world.
+ They control the money of the world. It is<br /> for them to say whether
+ nations shall or shall not go<br /> to war. They are the people of whom
+ nations borrow<br /> money. To their offices kings come with their hats<br />
+ in their hands. Emperors beg them to discount their<br /> notes. Is all
+ this a consequence of the wrath of<br /> God?<br /> <br /> We find upon our
+ streets no Jewish beggars. It is<br /> a rare sight to find one of these
+ people standing as<br /> a criminal before a court. They do not fill our
+ alms-<br /> houses, nor our penitentiaries, nor our jails. In-<br />
+ tellectually and morally they are the equal of any<br /> people. They have
+ become illustrious in every de-<br /> partment of art and science. The old
+ cry against<br /> them is at last perceived to be ignorant. Only a few<br />
+ years ago, Christians would rob a Jew, strip him of<br /> his possessions,
+ steal his money, declare him an out-<br /> cast, and drive him forth. Then
+ they would point<br /> to him as a fulfillment of prophecy.<br /> <br /> If
+ you wish to see the difference between some<br /> Jews and some Christians,
+ compare the addresses of<br /> Felix Adler with the sermons of Mr. Talmage.<br />
+ <br /> 290<br /> <br /> I cannot convince myself that an infinitely good<br />
+ and wise God holds a Jewish babe in the cradle of<br /> to-day responsible
+ for the crimes of Caiaphas the<br /> high priest. I hardly think that an
+ infinitely good<br /> being would pursue this little babe through all its
+ life<br /> simply to get revenge on those who died two thou-<br /> sand
+ years ago. An infinite being ought certainly to<br /> know that the child
+ is not to blame; and an infinite<br /> being who does not know this, is not
+ entitled to the<br /> love or adoration of any honest man.<br /> <br /> There
+ is a strange inconsistency in what Mr. Tal-<br /> mage says. For instance,
+ he finds great fault with<br /> me because I do not agree with the
+ religious ideas<br /> of my father; and he finds fault equally with the<br />
+ Jews who do. The Jews who were true to the re-<br /> ligion of their
+ fathers, according to Mr. Talmage,<br /> have been made a by-word and a
+ hissing and a re-<br /> proach among all nations, and only those Jews were<br />
+ fortunate and blest who abandoned the religion of<br /> their fathers. The
+ real reason for this inconsistency<br /> is this: Mr. Talmage really thinks
+ that a man can<br /> believe as he wishes. He imagines that evidence de-<br />
+ pends simply upon volition; consequently, he holds<br /> every one
+ responsible for his belief. Being satisfied<br /> that he has the exact
+ truth in this matter, he meas-<br /> <br /> 291<br /> <br /> ures all other
+ people by his standard, and if they<br /> fail by that measurement, he
+ holds them personally<br /> responsible, and believes that his God does the
+ same.<br /> If Mr. Talmage had been born in Turkey, he would<br /> in all
+ probability have been a Mohammedan, and<br /> would now be denouncing some
+ man who had denied<br /> the inspiration of the Koran, as the "champion
+ blas-<br /> "phemer" of Constantinople. Certainly he would<br /> have been,
+ had his parents been Mohammedans;<br /> because, according to his doctrine,
+ he would have<br /> been utterly lacking in respect and love for his father<br />
+ and mother had he failed to perpetuate their errors.<br /> So, had he been
+ born in Utah, of Mormon parents,<br /> he would now have been a defender of
+ polygamy.<br /> He would not "run the ploughshare of contempt<br /> "through
+ the graves of his parents," by taking the<br /> ground that polygamy is
+ wrong.<br /> <br /> I presume that all of Mr. Talmage's forefathers<br />
+ were not Presbyterians. There must have been<br /> a time when one of his
+ progenitors left the faith of<br /> his father, and joined the Presbyterian
+ Church. Ac-<br /> cording to the reasoning of Mr. Talmage, that particular<br />
+ progenitor was an exceedingly bad man; but had it<br /> not been for the
+ crime of that bad man, Mr. Talmage<br /> might not now have been on the
+ road to heaven.<br /> <br /> 292<br /> <br /> I hardly think that all the
+ inventors, the thinkers,<br /> the philosophers, the discoverers,
+ dishonored their<br /> parents. Fathers and mothers have been made<br />
+ immortal by such sons. And yet these sons demon-<br /> strated the errors
+ of their parents. A good father<br /> wishes to be excelled by his
+ children.<br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="link0008" id="link0008"></a><br />
+ <br /> <big><b>SIXTH INTERVIEW.</b></big><br /> <br /> <i>It is a
+ contradiction in terms and ideas to call<br /> anything a revelation that
+ comes to us at second-<br /> hand, either verbally or in writing.
+ Revelation is<br /> necessarily limited to the first communication&mdash;<br />
+ after this, it is only an account of something<br /> which that person says
+ was a revelation made to<br /> him; and though he may find himself obliged
+ to<br /> believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to<br /> believe it in the
+ same manner; for it was not a<br /> revelation made to me, and I have only
+ his word<br /> for it that it was made to him.&mdash;Thomas Paine.</i><br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the argu-<br /> ments presented
+ by Mr. Talmage in favor of<br /> the inspiration of the Bible?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Talmage takes the ground that<br /> there are more
+ copies of the Bible than of any<br /> other book, and that consequently it
+ must be in-<br /> spired.<br /> <br /> It seems to me that this kind of
+ reasoning proves<br /> entirely too much. If the Bible is the inspired word<br />
+ of God, it was certainly just as true when there was<br /> only one copy,
+ as it is to-day; and the facts con-<br /> tained in it were just as true
+ before they were<br /> <br /> 296<br /> <br /> written, as afterwards. We all
+ know that it is a fact<br /> in human nature, that a man can tell a
+ falsehood so<br /> often that he finally believes it himself; but I never<br />
+ suspected, until now, that a mistake could be printed<br /> enough times to
+ make it true.<br /> <br /> There may have been a time, and probably there<br />
+ was, when there were more copies of the Koran<br /> than of the Bible. When
+ most Christians were ut-<br /> terly ignorant, thousands of Moors were
+ educated;<br /> and it is well known that the arts and sciences<br />
+ flourished in Mohammedan countries in a far greater<br /> degree than in
+ Christian. Now, at that time, it may<br /> be that there were more copies
+ of the Koran than of<br /> the Bible. If some enterprising Mohammedan had<br />
+ only seen the force of such a fact, he might have<br /> established the
+ inspiration of the Koran beyond<br /> a doubt; or, if it had been found by
+ actual count that<br /> the Koran was a little behind, a few years of in-<br />
+ dustry spent in the multiplication of copies, might<br /> have furnished
+ the evidence of its inspiration.<br /> <br /> Is it not simply amazing that
+ a doctor of divinity,<br /> a Presbyterian clergyman, in this day and age,
+ should<br /> seriously rely upon the number of copies of the Bible<br /> to
+ substantiate the inspiration of that book? Is it<br /> possible to conceive
+ of anything more fig-leaflessly<br /> <br /> 297<br /> <br /> absurd? If there
+ is anything at all in this argument,<br /> it is, that all books are true
+ in proportion to the<br /> number of copies that exist. Of course, the same<br />
+ rule will work with newspapers; so that the news-<br /> paper having the
+ largest circulation can consistently<br /> claim infallibility. Suppose
+ that an exceedingly absurd<br /> statement should appear in <i>The New York
+ Herald</i>,<br /> and some one should denounce it as utterly without<br />
+ any foundation in fact or probability; what would<br /> Mr. Talmage think
+ if the editor of the Herald, as an<br /> evidence of the truth of the
+ statement, should rely<br /> on the fact that his paper had the largest
+ circulation<br /> of any in the city? One would think that the whole<br />
+ church had acted upon the theory that a falsehood re-<br /> peated often
+ enough was as good as the truth.<br /> <br /> Another evidence brought
+ forward by the reverend<br /> gentleman to prove the inspiration of the
+ Scriptures,<br /> is the assertion that if Congress should undertake to<br />
+ pass a law to take the Bible from the people, thirty,<br /> millions would
+ rise in defence of that book.<br /> <br /> This argument also seems to me to
+ prove too much,<br /> and as a consequence, to prove nothing. If Con-<br />
+ gress should pass a law prohibiting the reading of<br /> Shakespeare, every
+ American would rise in defence<br /> of his right to read the works of the
+ greatest man<br /> <br /> 298<br /> <br /> this world has known. Still, that
+ would not even<br /> tend to show that Shakespeare was inspired. The<br />
+ fact is, the American people would not allow Con-<br /> gress to pass a law
+ preventing them from reading<br /> any good book. Such action would not
+ prove the<br /> book to be inspired; it would prove that the American<br />
+ people believe in liberty.<br /> <br /> There are millions of people in
+ Turkey who would<br /> peril their lives in defence of the Koran. A fact
+ like<br /> this does not prove the truth of the Koran; it simply<br />
+ proves what Mohammedans think of that book, and<br /> what they are willing
+ to do for its preservation.<br /> <br /> It can not be too often repeated,
+ that martyrdom<br /> does not prove the truth of the thing for which the<br />
+ martyr dies; it only proves the sincerity of the martyr<br /> and the
+ cruelty of his murderers. No matter how<br /> many people regard the Bible
+ as inspired,&mdash;that fact<br /> furnishes no evidence that it is
+ inspired. Just as many<br /> people have regarded other books as inspired;
+ just as<br /> many millions have been deluded about the inspiration<br /> of
+ books ages and ages before Christianity was born.<br /> <br /> The simple
+ belief of one man, or of millions of men,<br /> is no evidence to another.
+ Evidence must be based,<br /> not upon the belief of other people, but upon
+ facts.<br /> A believer may state the facts upon which his belief<br />
+ <br /> 299<br /> <br /> is founded, and the person to whom he states them<br />
+ gives them the weight that according to the con-<br /> struction and
+ constitution of his mind he must. But<br /> simple, bare belief is not
+ testimony. We should build<br /> upon facts, not upon beliefs of others,
+ nor upon the<br /> shifting sands of public opinion. So much for this<br />
+ argument.<br /> <br /> The next point made by the reverend gentleman<br />
+ is, that an infidel cannot be elected to any office in<br /> the United
+ States, in any county, precinct, or ward.<br /> <br /> For the sake of the
+ argument, let us admit that this<br /> is true. What does it prove? There
+ was a time<br /> when no Protestant could have been elected to any<br />
+ office. What did that prove? There was a time<br /> when no Presbyterian
+ could have been chosen to fill<br /> any public station. What did that
+ prove? The<br /> same may be said of the members of each religious<br />
+ denomination. What does that prove?<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage says that
+ Christianity must be true,<br /> because an infidel cannot be elected to
+ office. Now,<br /> suppose that enough infidels should happen to settle<br />
+ in one precinct to elect one of their own number to<br /> office; would
+ that prove that Christianity was not<br /> true in that precinct? There was
+ a time when no<br /> man could have been elected to any office, who in-<br />
+ <br /> 300<br /> <br /> sisted on the rotundity of the earth; what did that<br />
+ prove? There was a time when no man who denied<br /> the existence of
+ witches, wizards, spooks and devils,<br /> could hold any position of
+ honor; what did that<br /> prove? There was a time when an abolitionist
+ could<br /> not be elected to office in any State in this Union;<br /> what
+ did that prove? There was a time when they<br /> were not allowed to
+ express their honest thoughts;<br /> what does that prove? There was a time
+ when a<br /> Quaker could not have been elected to any office;<br /> there
+ was a time in the history of this country when<br /> but few of them were
+ allowed to live; what does<br /> that prove? Is it necessary, in order to
+ ascertain the<br /> truth of Christianity, to look over the election re-<br />
+ turns? Is "inspiration" a question to be settled by<br /> the ballot? I
+ admit that it was once, in the first<br /> place, settled that way. I admit
+ that books were<br /> voted in and voted out, and that the Bible was
+ finally<br /> formed in accordance with a vote; but does Mr.<br /> Talmage
+ insist that the question is not still open?<br /> Does he not know, that a
+ fact cannot by any possi-<br /> bility be affected by opinion? We make laws
+ for<br /> the whole people, by the whole people. We agree<br /> that a
+ majority shall rule, but nobody ever pretended<br /> that a question of
+ taste could be settled by an appeal<br /> <br /> 301<br /> <br /> to
+ majorities, or that a question of logic could be<br /> affected by numbers.
+ In the world of thought, each<br /> man is an absolute monarch, each brain
+ is a king-<br /> dom, that cannot be invaded even by the tyranny of<br />
+ majorities.<br /> <br /> No man can avoid the intellectual responsibility of<br />
+ deciding for himself.<br /> <br /> Suppose that the Christian religion had
+ been put<br /> to vote in Jerusalem? Suppose that the doctrine of<br /> the
+ "fall" had been settled in Athens, by an appeal<br /> to the people, would
+ Mr. Talmage have been willing<br /> to abide by their decision? If he
+ settles the inspira-<br /> tion of the Bible by a popular vote, he must
+ settle the<br /> meaning of the Bible by the same means. There are<br />
+ more Methodists than Presbyterians&mdash;why does the<br /> gentleman
+ remain a Presbyterian? There are more<br /> Buddhists than Christians&mdash;why
+ does he vote against<br /> majorities? He will remember that Christianity
+ was<br /> once settled by a popular vote&mdash;that the divinity of<br />
+ Christ was submitted to the people, and the people<br /> said: "Crucify
+ him!"<br /> <br /> The next, and about the strongest, argument Mr.<br />
+ Talmage makes is, that I am an infidel because I was<br /> defeated for
+ Governor of Illinois.<br /> <br /> When put in plain English, his statement
+ is this:<br /> <br /> 302<br /> <br /> that I was defeated because I was an
+ infidel, and that<br /> I am an infidel because I was defeated. This, I be-<br />
+ lieve, is called reasoning in a circle. The truth is,<br /> that a good
+ many people did object to me because I<br /> was an infidel, and the
+ probability is, that if I had<br /> denied being an infidel, I might have
+ obtained an<br /> office. The wonderful part is, that any Christian<br />
+ should deride me because I preferred honor to po-<br /> litical success. He
+ who dishonors himself for the<br /> sake of being honored by others, will
+ find that two<br /> mistakes have been made&mdash;one by himself, and the<br />
+ other, by the people.<br /> <br /> I presume that Mr.Talmage really thinks
+ that I was<br /> extremely foolish to avow my real opinions. After<br />
+ all, men are apt to judge others somewhat by them-<br /> selves. According
+ to him, I made the mistake of<br /> preserving my manhood and losing an
+ office. Now,<br /> if I had in fact been an infidel, and had denied it, for<br />
+ the sake of position, then I admit that every Christian<br /> might have
+ pointed at me the finger of contempt.<br /> But I was an infidel, and
+ admitted it. Surely, I should<br /> not be held in contempt by Christians
+ for having<br /> made the admission. I was not a believer in the<br />
+ Bible, and I said so. I was not a Christian, and I said<br /> so. I was not
+ willing to receive the support of any<br /> <br /> 303<br /> <br /> man under
+ a false impression. I thought it better to<br /> be honestly beaten, than
+ to dishonestly succeed.<br /> According to the ethics of Mr. Talmage I made
+ a<br /> mistake, and this mistake is brought forward as<br /> another
+ evidence of the inspiration of the Scriptures.<br /> If I had only been
+ elected Governor of Illinois,&mdash;that<br /> is to say, if I had been a
+ successful hypocrite, I might<br /> now be basking in the sunshine of this
+ gentleman's<br /> respect. I preferred to tell the truth&mdash;to be an<br />
+ honest man,&mdash;and I have never regretted the course<br /> I pursued.<br />
+ <br /> There are many men now in office who, had they<br /> pursued a nobler
+ course, would be private citizens.<br /> Nominally, they are Christians;
+ actually, they are<br /> nothing; and this is the combination that
+ generally<br /> insures political success.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage is
+ exceedingly proud of the fact that<br /> Christians will not vote for
+ infidels. In other words,<br /> he does not believe that in our Government
+ the<br /> church has been absolutely divorced from the state.<br /> He
+ believes that it is still the Christian's duty to<br /> make the religious
+ test. Probably he wishes to get<br /> his God into the Constitution. My
+ position is this:<br /> <br /> Religion is an individual matter&mdash;a
+ something for<br /> each individual to settle for himself, and with which<br />
+ <br /> 304<br /> <br /> no other human being has any concern, provided the<br />
+ religion of each human being allows liberty to every<br /> other. When
+ called upon to vote for men to fill the<br /> offices of this country, I do
+ not inquire as to the re-<br /> ligion of the candidates. It is none of my
+ business.<br /> I ask the questions asked by Jefferson: "Is he<br />
+ "honest; is he capable?" It makes no difference to<br /> me, if he is
+ willing that others should be free, what<br /> creed he may profess. The
+ moment I inquire into his<br /> religious belief, I found a little
+ inquisition of my own;<br /> I repeat, in a small way, the errors of the
+ past, and<br /> reproduce, in so far as I am capable, the infamy of<br />
+ the ignorant orthodox years.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage will accept my thanks
+ for his frankness.<br /> I now know what controls a Presbyterian when he<br />
+ casts his vote. He cares nothing for the capacity,<br /> nothing for the
+ fitness, of the candidate to discharge<br /> the duties of the office to
+ which he aspires; he<br /> simply asks: Is he a Presbyterian, is he a
+ Protestant,<br /> does he believe our creed? and then, no matter how<br />
+ ignorant he may be, how utterly unfit, he receives the<br /> Presbyterian
+ vote. According to Mr. Talmage, he<br /> would vote for a Catholic who, if
+ he had the power,<br /> would destroy all liberty of conscience, rather
+ than<br /> vote for an infidel who, had he the power, would<br /> <br /> 305<br />
+ <br /> destroy all the religious tyranny of the world, and<br /> allow every
+ human being to think for himself, and<br /> to worship God, or not, as and
+ how he pleased.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage makes the serious mistake of
+ placing<br /> the Bible above the laws and Constitution of his<br />
+ country. He places Jehovah above humanity. Such<br /> men are not entirely
+ safe citizens of any republic.<br /> And yet, I am in favor of giving to
+ such men all the<br /> liberty I ask for myself, trusting to education and
+ the<br /> spirit of progress to overcome any injury they may<br /> do, or
+ seek to do.<br /> <br /> When this country was founded, when the Con-<br />
+ stitution was adopted, the churches agreed to let the<br /> State alone.
+ They agreed that all citizens should have<br /> equal civil rights. Nothing
+ could be more dangerous<br /> to the existence of this Republic than to
+ introduce<br /> religion into politics. The American theory is, that<br />
+ governments are founded, not by gods, but by men,<br /> and that the right
+ to govern does not come from<br /> God, but "from the consent of the
+ governed." Our<br /> fathers concluded that the people were sufficiently<br />
+ intelligent to take care of themselves&mdash;to make good<br /> laws and to
+ execute them. Prior to that time, all<br /> authority was supposed to come
+ from the clouds.<br /> Kings were set upon thrones by God, and it was the<br />
+ <br /> 306<br /> <br /> business of the people simply to submit. In all
+ really<br /> civilized countries, that doctrine has been abandoned.<br />
+ The source of political power is here, not in heaven.<br /> We are willing
+ that those in heaven should control<br /> affairs there; we are willing
+ that the angels should<br /> have a government to suit themselves; but
+ while we<br /> live here, and while our interests are upon this earth,<br />
+ we propose to make and execute our own laws.<br /> <br /> If the doctrine of
+ Mr. Talmage is the true doctrine,<br /> if no man should be voted for
+ unless he is a Christian,<br /> then no man should vote unless he is a
+ Christian. It<br /> will not do to say that sinners may vote, that an
+ infidel<br /> may be the repository of political power, but must not<br />
+ be voted for. A decent Christian who is not willing<br /> that an infidel
+ should be elected to an office, would<br /> not be willing to be elected to
+ an office by infidel<br /> votes. If infidels are too bad to be voted for,
+ they<br /> are certainly not good enough to vote, and no<br /> Christian
+ should be willing to represent such an<br /> infamous constituency.<br />
+ <br /> If the political theory of Mr. Talmage is carried<br /> out, of
+ course the question will arise in a little while,<br /> What is a
+ Christian? It will then be necessary to<br /> write a creed to be
+ subscribed by every person before<br /> he is fit to vote or to be voted
+ for. This of course<br /> <br /> 307<br /> <br /> must be done by the State,
+ and must be settled,<br /> under our form of government, by a majority
+ vote.<br /> Is Mr. Talmage willing that the question, What is<br />
+ Christianity? should be so settled? Will he pledge<br /> himself in advance
+ to subscribe to such a creed? Of<br /> course he will not. He will insist
+ that he has the<br /> right to read the Bible for himself, and that he must<br />
+ be bound by his own conscience. In this he would<br /> be right. If he has
+ the right to read the Bible for<br /> himself, so have I. If he is to be
+ bound by his con-<br /> science, so am I. If he honestly believes the Bible
+ to<br /> be true, he must say so, in order to preserve his man-<br /> hood;
+ and if I honestly believe it to be uninspired,&mdash;<br /> filled with
+ mistakes,&mdash;I must say so, or lose my man-<br /> hood. How infamous I
+ would be should I endeavor<br /> to deprive him of his vote, or of his
+ right to be voted<br /> for, because he had been true to his conscience!
+ And<br /> how infamous he is to try to deprive me of the right<br /> to
+ vote, or to be voted for, because I am true to my<br /> conscience!<br />
+ <br /> When we were engaged in civil war, did Mr. Tal-<br /> mage object to
+ any man's enlisting in the ranks who<br /> was not a Christian? Was he
+ willing, at that time,<br /> that sinners should vote to keep our flag in
+ heaven?<br /> Was he willing that the "unconverted" should cover<br /> <br />
+ 308<br /> <br /> the fields of victory with their corpses, that this nation<br />
+ might not die? At the same time, Mr. Talmage<br /> knew that every
+ "unconverted" soldier killed, went<br /> down to eternal fire. Does Mr.
+ Talmage believe that<br /> it is the duty of a man to fight for a
+ government in<br /> which he has no rights? Is the man who shoulders<br />
+ his musket in the defence of human freedom good<br /> enough to cast a
+ ballot? There is in the heart of this<br /> priest the safne hatred of real
+ liberty that drew the<br /> sword of persecution, that built dungeons, that
+ forged<br /> chains and made instruments of torture.<br /> <br /> Nobody,
+ with the exception of priests, would be<br /> willing to trust the
+ liberties of this country in the<br /> hands of any church. In order to
+ show the political<br /> estimation in which the clergy are held, in order
+ to<br /> show the confidence the people at large have in the<br /> sincerity
+ and wisdom of the clergy, it is sufficient to<br /> state, that no priest,
+ no bishop, could by any possi-<br /> bility be elected President of the
+ United States. No<br /> party could carry that load. A fear would fall upon<br />
+ the mind and heart of every honest man that this<br /> country was about to
+ drift back to the Middle Ages,<br /> and that the old battles were to be
+ refought. If the<br /> bishop running for President was of the Methodist<br />
+ Church, every other church would oppose him. If<br /> <br /> 309<br /> <br />
+ he was a Catholic, the Protestants would as a body<br /> combine against
+ him. Why? The churches have<br /> no confidence in each other. Why? Because
+ they<br /> are acquainted with each other.<br /> <br /> As a matter of fact,
+ the infidel has a thousand<br /> times more reason to vote against the
+ Christian,<br /> than the Christian has to vote against the infidel.<br />
+ The Christian believes in a book superior to the<br /> Constitution&mdash;superior
+ to all Constitutions and all<br /> laws. The infidel believes that the
+ Constitution and<br /> laws are superior to any book. He is not controlled<br />
+ by any power beyond the seas or above the clouds.<br /> He does not receive
+ his orders from Rome, or Sinai.<br /> He receives them from his
+ fellow-citizens, legally and<br /> constitutionally expressed. The
+ Christian believes in<br /> a power greater than man, to which, upon the
+ peril<br /> of eternal pain, he must bow. His allegiance, to say<br /> the
+ best of it, is divided. The Christian puts the for-<br /> tune of his own
+ soul over and above the temporal<br /> welfare of the entire world; the
+ infidel puts the good<br /> of mankind here and now, beyond and over all.<br />
+ <br /> There was a time in New England when only<br /> church members were
+ allowed to vote, and it may be<br /> instructive to state the fact that
+ during that time<br /> Quakers were hanged, women were stripped, tied to<br />
+ <br /> 310<br /> <br /> carts, and whipped from town to town, and their<br />
+ babes sold into slavery, or exchanged for rum. Now<br /> in that same
+ country, thousands and thousands of<br /> infidels vote, and yet the laws
+ are nearer just, women<br /> are not whipped and children are not sold.<br />
+ <br /> If all the convicts in all the penitentiaries of the<br /> United
+ States could be transported to some island in<br /> the sea, and there
+ allowed to make a government for<br /> themselves, they would pass better
+ laws than John<br /> Calvin did in Geneva. They would have clearer and<br />
+ better views of the rights of men, than unconvicted<br /> Christians used
+ to have. I do not say that these<br /> convicts are better people, but I do
+ say that, in my<br /> judgment, they would make better laws. They cer-<br />
+ tainly could not make worse.<br /> <br /> If these convicts were taken from
+ the prisons of<br /> the United States, they would not dream of uniting<br />
+ church and state. They would have no religious<br /> test. They would allow
+ every man to vote and to be<br /> voted for, no matter what his religious
+ views might<br /> be. They would not dream of whipping Quakers, of<br />
+ burning Unitarians, of imprisoning or burning Uni-<br /> versalists or
+ infidels. They would allow all the people<br /> to guess for themselves.
+ Some of these convicts, of<br /> course, would believe in the old ideas,
+ and would<br /> insist upon the suppression of free thought. Those<br />
+ coming from Delaware would probably repeat with<br /> great gusto the
+ opinions of Justice Comegys, and<br /> insist that the whipping-post was
+ the handmaid of<br /> Christianity.<br /> <br /> It would be hard to conceive
+ of a much worse<br /> government than that founded by the Puritans.<br />
+ They took the Bible for the foundation of their<br /> political structure.
+ They copied the laws given to<br /> Moses from Sinai, and the result was
+ one of the<br /> worst governments that ever disgraced this world.<br />
+ They believed the Old Testament to be inspired.<br /> They believed that
+ Jehovah made laws for all people<br /> and for all time. They had not
+ learned the hypoc-<br /> risy that believes and avoids. They did not say:<br />
+ This law was once just, but is now unjust; it was<br /> once good, but now
+ it is infamous; it was given by<br /> God once, but now it can only be
+ obeyed by the<br /> devil. They had not reached the height of biblical<br />
+ exegesis on which we find the modern theologian<br /> perched, and who
+ tells us that Jehovah has reformed.<br /> The Puritans were consistent.
+ They did what people<br /> must do who honestly believe in the inspiration
+ of<br /> the Old Testament. If God gave laws from Sinai<br /> what right
+ have we to repeal them?<br /> <br /> 312<br /> <br /> As people have gained
+ confidence in each other,<br /> they have lost confidence in the sacred
+ Scriptures.<br /> We know now that the Bible can not be used as the<br />
+ foundation of government. It is capable of too many<br /> meanings. Nobody
+ can find out exactly what it<br /> upholds, what it permits, what it
+ denounces, what it<br /> denies. These things depend upon what part you<br />
+ read. If it is all true, it upholds everything bad and<br /> denounces
+ everything good, and it also denounces<br /> the bad and upholds the good.
+ Then there are<br /> passages where the good is denounced and the bad<br />
+ commanded; so that any one can go to the Bible<br /> and find some text,
+ some passage, to uphold anything<br /> he may desire. If he wishes to
+ enslave his fellow-<br /> men, he will find hundreds of passages in his
+ favor.<br /> If he wishes to be a polygamist, he can find his<br />
+ authority there. If he wishes to make war, to exter-<br /> minate his
+ neighbors, there his warrant can be found.<br /> If, on the other hand, he
+ is oppressed himself, and<br /> wishes to make war upon his king, he can
+ find a<br /> battle-cry. And if the king wishes to put him down,<br /> he
+ can find text for text on the other side. So, too,<br /> upon all questions
+ of reform. The teetotaler goes<br /> there to get his verse, and the
+ moderate drinker<br /> finds within the sacred lids his best excuse.<br />
+ <br /> 313<br /> <br /> Most intelligent people are now convinced that the<br />
+ bible is not a guide; that in reading it you must<br /> exercise your
+ reason; that you can neither safely<br /> reject nor accept all; that he
+ who takes one passage<br /> for a staff, trips upon another; that while one
+ text is<br /> a light, another blows it out; that it is such a ming-<br />
+ ling of rocks and quicksands, such a labyrinth of<br /> clews and snares&mdash;so
+ few flowers among so many<br /> nettles and thorns, that it misleads rather
+ than di-<br /> rects, and taken altogether, is a hindrance and not<br /> a
+ help.<br /> <br /> Another important point made by Mr. Talmage is,<br /> that
+ if the Bible is thrown away, we will have nothing<br /> left to swear
+ witnesses on, and that consequently the<br /> administration of justice
+ will become impossible.<br /> <br /> There was a time when the Bible did not
+ exist, and<br /> if Mr. Talmage is correct, of course justice was im-<br />
+ possible then, and truth must have been a stranger<br /> to human lips. How
+ can we depend upon the testi-<br /> mony of those who wrote the Bible, as
+ there was no<br /> Bible in existence while they were writing, and con-<br />
+ sequently there was no way to take their testimony,<br /> and we have no
+ account of their having been sworn<br /> on the Bible after they got it
+ finished. It is extremely<br /> sad to think that all the nations of
+ antiquity were left<br /> <br /> 314<br /> <br /> entirely without the means
+ of eliciting truth. No<br /> wonder that Justice was painted blindfolded.<br />
+ <br /> What perfect fetichism it is, to imagine that a man<br /> will tell
+ the truth simply because he has kissed an<br /> old piece of sheepskin
+ stained with the saliva of all<br /> classes. A farce of this kind adds
+ nothing to the<br /> testimony of an honest man; it simply allows a rogue<br />
+ to give weight to his false testimony. This is really<br /> the only result
+ that can be accomplished by kissing<br /> the Bible. A desperate villain,
+ for the purpose of<br /> getting revenge, or making money, will gladly go<br />
+ through the ceremony, and ignorant juries and su-<br /> perstitious judges
+ will be imposed upon. The whole<br /> system of oaths is false, and does
+ harm instead of<br /> good. Let every man walk into court and tell his<br />
+ story, and let the truth of the story be judged by its<br />
+ reasonableness, taking into consideration the charac-<br /> ter of the
+ witness, the interest he has, and the posi-<br /> tion he occupies in the
+ controversy, and then let it<br /> be the business of the jury to ascertain
+ the real truth<br /> &mdash;to throw away the unreasonable and the impossi-<br />
+ ble, and make up their verdict only upon what they<br /> believe to be
+ reasonable and true. An honest man<br /> does not need the oath, and a
+ rascal uses it simply<br /> to accomplish his purpose. If the history of
+ courts<br /> <br /> 315<br /> <br /> proved that every man, after kissing the
+ Bible, told<br /> the truth, and that those who failed to kiss it some-<br />
+ times lied, I should be in favor of swearing all people<br /> on the Bible;
+ but the experience of every lawyer is,<br /> that kissing the Bible is not
+ always the preface of a<br /> true story. It is often the ceremonial
+ embroidery<br /> of a falsehood.<br /> <br /> If there is an infinite God who
+ attends to the<br /> affairs of men, it seems to me almost a sacrilege to<br />
+ publicly appeal to him in every petty trial. If one<br /> will go into any
+ court, and notice the manner in<br /> which oaths are administered,&mdash;the
+ utter lack of<br /> solemnity&mdash;the matter-of-course air with which the<br />
+ whole thing is done, he will be convinced that it is a<br /> form of no
+ importance. Mr. Talmage would probably<br /> agree with the judge of whom
+ the following story is<br /> told:<br /> <br /> A witness was being sworn.
+ The judge noticed<br /> that he was not holding up his hand. He said to the<br />
+ clerk: "Let the witness hold up his right hand."<br /> "His right arm was
+ shot off," replied the clerk. "Let<br /> "him hold up his left, then."
+ "That was shot off, too,<br /> "your honor." "Well, then, let him raise one
+ foot;<br /> "no man can be sworn in this court without holding<br />
+ "something up."<br /> <br /> <br /> My own opinion is, that if every copy of
+ the Bible<br /> in the world were destroyed, there would be some<br /> way
+ to ascertain the truth in judicial proceedings;<br /> and any other book
+ would do just as well to swear<br /> witnesses upon, or a block in the
+ shape of a book<br /> covered with some kind of calfskin could do equally<br />
+ well, or just the calfskin would do. Nothing is more<br /> laughable than
+ the performance of this ceremony,<br /> and I have never seen in court one
+ calf kissing the<br /> skin of another, that I did not feel humiliated that<br />
+ such things were done in the name of Justice.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage has
+ still another argument in favor<br /> of the preservation of the Bible. He
+ wants to<br /> know what book could take its place on the centre-<br />
+ table.<br /> <br /> I admit that there is much force in this. Suppose<br />
+ we all admitted the Bible to be an uninspired book,<br /> it could still be
+ kept on the centre-table. It would<br /> be just as true then as it is now.
+ Inspiration can not<br /> add anything to a fact; neither can inspiration
+ make<br /> the immoral moral, the unjust just, or the cruel merci-<br />
+ ful. If it is a fact that God established human slavery,<br /> that does
+ not prove slavery to be right; it simply<br /> shows that God was wrong. If
+ I have the right to<br /> use my reason in determining whether the Bible is<br />
+ <br /> 317<br /> <br /> inspired or not, and if in accordance with my reason<br />
+ I conclude that it is inspired, I have still the right to<br /> use my
+ reason in determining whether the command-<br /> ments of God are good or
+ bad. Now, suppose we<br /> take from the Bible every word upholding
+ slavery,<br /> every passage in favor of polygamy, every verse<br />
+ commanding soldiers to kill women and children, it<br /> would be just as
+ fit for the centre-table as now. Sup-<br /> pose every impure word was
+ taken from it; suppose<br /> that the history of Tamar was left out, the
+ biography<br /> of Lot, and all other barbarous accounts of a barbarous<br />
+ people, it would look just as well upon the centre-<br /> table as now.<br />
+ <br /> Suppose that we should become convinced that<br /> the writers of the
+ New Testament were mistaken as<br /> to the eternity of punishment, or that
+ all the passages<br /> now relied upon to prove the existence of perdition<br />
+ were shown to be interpolations, and were thereupon<br /> expunged, would
+ not the book be dearer still to<br /> every human being with a heart? I
+ would like to<br /> see every good passage in the Bible preserved. I<br />
+ would like to see, with all these passages from the<br /> Bible, the
+ loftiest sentiments from all other books<br /> that have ever been uttered
+ by men in all ages and<br /> of all races, bound in one volume, and to see
+ that<br /> <br /> 318<br /> <br /> volume, filled with the greatest, the
+ purest and the<br /> best, become the household book.<br /> <br /> The
+ average Bible, on the average centre-table, is<br /> about as much used as
+ though it were a solid block.<br /> It is scarcely ever opened, and people
+ who see its<br /> covers every day are unfamiliar with its every page.<br />
+ <br /> I admit that some things have happened some-<br /> what hard to
+ explain, and tending to show that the<br /> Bible is no ordinary book. I
+ heard a story, not long<br /> ago, bearing upon this very subject.<br />
+ <br /> A man was a member of the church, but after a<br /> time, having had
+ bad luck in business affairs, became<br /> somewhat discouraged. Not
+ feeling able to con-<br /> tribute his share to the support of the church,
+ he<br /> ceased going to meeting, and finally became an<br /> average
+ sinner. His bad luck pursued him until he<br /> found himself and his
+ family without even a crust to<br /> eat. At this point, his wife told him
+ that she be-<br /> lieved they were suffering from a visitation of God,<br />
+ and begged him to restore family worship, and see if<br /> God would not do
+ something for them. Feeling that<br /> he could not possibly make matters
+ worse, he took<br /> the Bible from its resting place on a shelf where<br />
+ it had quietly slumbered and collected the dust of<br /> many months, and
+ gathered his family about him.<br /> <br /> 319<br /> <br /> He opened the
+ sacred volume, and to his utter as-<br /> tonishment, there, between the
+ divine leaves, was a<br /> ten-dollar bill. He immediately dropped on his<br />
+ knees. His wife dropped on hers, and the children on<br /> theirs, and with
+ streaming eyes they returned thanks<br /> to God. He rushed to the
+ butcher's and bought<br /> some steak, to the baker's and bought some
+ bread,<br /> to the grocer's and got some eggs and butter and tea,<br /> and
+ joyfully hastened home. The supper was cooked,<br /> it was on the table,
+ grace was said, and every face<br /> was radiant with joy. Just at that
+ happy moment a<br /> knock was heard, the door was opened, and a police-<br />
+ man entered and arrested the father for passing<br /> counterfeit money.<br />
+ <br /> Mr. Talmage is also convinced that the Bible is<br /> inspired and
+ should be preserved because there is no<br /> other book that &agrave;
+ mother could give her son as he<br /> leaves the old home to make his way
+ in the world.<br /> <br /> Thousands and thousands of mothers have pre-<br />
+ sented their sons with Bibles without knowing really<br /> what the book
+ contains. They simply followed the<br /> custom, and the sons as a rule
+ honored the Bible, not<br /> because they knew anything of it, but because
+ it was<br /> a gift from mother. But surely, if all the passages<br />
+ upholding polygamy were out, the mother would give<br /> <br /> 320<br />
+ <br /> the book to her son just as readily, and he would re-<br /> ceive it
+ just as joyfully. If there were not one word<br /> in it tending to degrade
+ the mother, the gift would cer-<br /> tainly be as appropriate. The fact
+ that mothers have<br /> presented Bibles to their sons does not prove that
+ the<br /> book is inspired. The most that can be proved by<br /> this fact
+ is that the mothers believed it to be inspired.<br /> It does not even tend
+ to show what the book is,<br /> neither does it tend to establish the truth
+ of one<br /> miracle recorded upon its pages. We cannot believe<br /> that
+ fire refused to burn, simply because the state-<br /> ment happens to be in
+ a book presented to a son by<br /> his mother, and if all the mothers of
+ the entire world<br /> should give Bibles to all their children, this would
+ not<br /> prove that it was once right to murder mothers, or to<br />
+ enslave mothers, or to sell their babes.<br /> <br /> The inspiration of the
+ Bible is not a question of<br /> natural affection. It can not be decided
+ by the love<br /> a mother bears her son. It is a question of fact, to<br />
+ be substantiated like other facts. If the Turkish<br /> mother should give
+ a copy of the Koran to her<br /> son, I would still have my doubts about
+ the in-<br /> spiration of that book; and if some Turkish soldier<br />
+ saved his life by having in his pocket a copy of<br /> the Koran that
+ accidentally stopped a bullet just<br /> <br /> 321<br /> <br /> opposite his
+ heart, I should still deny that Mohammed<br /> was a prophet of God.<br />
+ <br /> Nothing can be more childish than to ascribe<br /> mysterious powers
+ to inanimate objects. To imagine<br /> that old rags made into pulp,
+ manufactured into<br /> paper, covered with words, and bound with the skin<br />
+ of a calf or a sheep, can have any virtues when thus<br /> put together
+ that did not belong to the articles out<br /> of which the book was
+ constructed, is of course<br /> infinitely absurd.<br /> <br /> In the days
+ of slavery, negroes used to buy dried<br /> roots of other negroes, and put
+ these roots in their<br /> pockets, so that a whipping would not give them<br />
+ pain. Kings have bought diamonds to give them<br /> luck. Crosses and
+ scapularies are still worn for the<br /> purpose of affecting the
+ inevitable march of events.<br /> People still imagine that a verse in the
+ Bible can step<br /> in between a cause and its effect; really believe that<br />
+ an amulet, a charm, the bone of some saint, a piece<br /> of a cross, a
+ little image of the Virgin, a picture of a<br /> priest, will affect the
+ weather, will delay frost, will<br /> prevent disease, will insure safety
+ at sea, and in some<br /> cases prevent hanging. The banditti of Italy have<br />
+ great confidence in these things, and whenever they<br /> start upon an
+ expedition of theft and plunder, they<br /> <br /> 322<br /> <br /> take
+ images and pictures of saints with them, such<br /> as have been blest by a
+ priest or pope. They pray<br /> sincerely to the Virgin, to give them luck,
+ and see not<br /> the slightest inconsistency in appealing to all the<br />
+ saints in the calendar to assist them in robbing honest<br /> people.<br />
+ <br /> Edmund About tells a story that illustrates the belief<br /> of the
+ modern Italian. A young man was gambling.<br /> Fortune was against him. In
+ the room was a little<br /> picture representing the Virgin and her child.
+ Before<br /> this picture he crossed himself, and asked the assist-<br />
+ ance of the child. Again he put down his money<br /> and again lost.
+ Returning to the picture, he told the<br /> child that he had lost all but
+ one piece, that he was<br /> about to hazard that, and made a very urgent
+ request<br /> that he would favor him with divine assistance. He<br /> put
+ down the last piece. He lost. Going to the<br /> picture and shaking his
+ fist at the child, he cried out:<br /> "Miserable bambino, I am glad they
+ crucified you!"<br /> <br /> The confidence that one has in an image, in a
+ relic,<br /> in a book, comes from the same source,&mdash;fetichism.<br />
+ To ascribe supernatural virtues to the skin of a snake,<br /> to a picture,
+ or to a bound volume, is intellectually<br /> the same.<br /> <br /> Mr.
+ Talmage has still another argument in favor<br /> <br /> 323<br /> <br /> of
+ the inspiration of the Scriptures. He takes the<br /> ground that the Bible
+ must be inspired, because so<br /> many people believe it.<br /> <br /> Mr.
+ Talmage should remember that a scientific<br /> fact does not depend upon
+ the vote of numbers;&mdash;<br /> it depends simply upon demonstration; it
+ depends<br /> upon intelligence and investigation, not upon an<br />
+ ignorant multitude; it appeals to the highest, in-<br /> stead of to the
+ lowest. Nothing can be settled<br /> by popular prejudice.<br /> <br />
+ According to Mr. Talmage, there are about three<br /> hundred million
+ Christians in the world. Is this true?<br /> In all countries claiming to
+ be Christian&mdash;including<br /> all of civilized Europe, Russia in Asia,
+ and every<br /> country on the Western hemisphere, we have nearly<br /> four
+ hundred millions of people. Mr. Talmage claims<br /> that three hundred
+ millions are Christians. I sup-<br /> pose he means by this, that if all
+ should perish to-<br /> night, about three hundred millions would wake up<br />
+ in heaven&mdash;having lived and died good and consist-<br /> ent
+ Christians.<br /> <br /> There are in Russia about eighty millions of people<br />
+ &mdash;how many Christians? I admit that they have re-<br /> cently given
+ more evidence of orthodox Christianity<br /> than formerly. They have been
+ murdering old men;<br /> <br /> 324<br /> <br /> they have thrust daggers into
+ the breasts of women;<br /> they have violated maidens&mdash;because they
+ were Jews.<br /> Thousands and thousands are sent each year to the<br />
+ mines of Siberia, by the Christian government of<br /> Russia. Girls
+ eighteen years of age, for having ex-<br /> pressed a word in favor of
+ human liberty, are to-day<br /> working like beasts of burden, with chains
+ upon<br /> their limbs and with the marks of whips upon<br /> their backs.
+ Russia, of course, is considered by Mr.<br /> Talmage as a Christian
+ country&mdash;a country utterly<br /> destitute of liberty&mdash;without
+ freedom of the press,<br /> without freedom of speech, where every mouth is<br />
+ locked and every tongue a prisoner&mdash;a country filled<br /> with
+ victims, soldiers, spies, thieves and executioners.<br /> What would Russia
+ be, in the opinion of Mr. Tal-<br /> mage, but for Christianity? How could
+ it be worse,<br /> when assassins are among the best people in it?<br /> The
+ truth is, that the people in Russia, to-day, who<br /> are in favor of
+ human liberty, are not Christians.<br /> The men willing to sacrifice their
+ lives for the good<br /> of others, are not believers in the Christian
+ religion.<br /> The men who wish to break chains are infidels;<br /> the men
+ who make chains are Christians. Every<br /> good and sincere Catholic of
+ the Greek Church<br /> is a bad citizen, an enemy of progress, a foe of<br />
+ <br /> 325<br /> <br /> human liberty. Yet Mr. Talmage regards Russia<br /> as
+ a Christian country.<br /> <br /> The sixteen millions of people in Spain
+ are claimed<br /> as Christians. Spain, that for centuries was the as-<br />
+ sassin of human rights; Spain, that endeavored to<br /> spread Christianity
+ by flame and fagot; Spain, the<br /> soil where the Inquisition flourished,
+ where bigotry<br /> grew, and where cruelty was worship,&mdash;where<br />
+ murder was prayer. I admit that Spain is a Chris-<br /> tian nation. I
+ admit that infidelity has gained no<br /> foothold beyond the Pyrenees. The
+ Spaniards are<br /> orthodox. They believe in the inspiration of the<br />
+ Old and New Testaments. They have no doubts<br /> about miracles&mdash;no
+ doubts about heaven, no doubts<br /> about hell. I admit that the priests,
+ the highway-<br /> men, the bishops and thieves, are equally true be-<br />
+ lievers. The man who takes your purse on the<br /> highway, and the priest
+ who forgives the robber,<br /> are alike orthodox.<br /> <br /> It gives me
+ pleasure, however, to say that even in<br /> Spain there is a dawn. Some
+ great men, some men<br /> of genius, are protesting against the tyranny of
+ Cath-<br /> olicism. Some men have lost confidence in the<br /> cathedral,
+ and are beginningto ask the State to erect<br /> the schoolhouse. They are
+ beginning to suspect<br /> <br /> 326<br /> <br /> that priests are for the
+ most part impostors and<br /> plunderers.<br /> <br /> According to Mr.
+ Talmage, the twenty-eight mil-<br /> lions in Italy are Christians. There
+ the Christian<br /> Church was early established, and the popes are to-<br />
+ day the successors of St. Peter. For hundreds and<br /> hundreds of years,
+ Italy was the beggar of the world,<br /> and to her, from every land,
+ flowed streams of gold<br /> and silver. The country was covered with
+ convents,<br /> and monasteries, and churches, and cathedrals filled<br />
+ with monks and nuns. Its roads were crowded with<br /> pilgrims, and its
+ dust was on the feet of the world.<br /> What has Christianity done for
+ Italy&mdash;Italy, its soil a<br /> blessing, its sky a smile&mdash;Italy,
+ with memories great<br /> enough to kindle the fires of enthusiasm in any<br />
+ human breast?<br /> <br /> Had it not been for a few Freethinkers, for a few<br />
+ infidels, for such men as Garibaldi and Mazzini, the<br /> heaven of Italy
+ would still have been without a star.<br /> <br /> I admit that Italy, with
+ its popes and bandits, with<br /> its superstition and ignorance, with its
+ sanctified<br /> beggars, is a Christian nation; but in a little while,&mdash;<br />
+ in a few days,&mdash;when according to the prophecy of<br /> Garibaldi
+ priests, with spades in their hands, will<br /> dig ditches to drain the
+ Pontine marshes; in a little<br /> <br /> 327<br /> <br /> while, when the
+ pope leaves the Vatican, and seeks<br /> the protection of a nation he has
+ denounced,&mdash;asking<br /> alms of intended victims; when the nuns shall
+ marry,<br /> and the monasteries shall become factories, and the<br /> whirl
+ of wheels shall take the place of drowsy prayers<br /> &mdash;then, and not
+ until then, will Italy be,&mdash;not a<br /> Christian nation, but great,
+ prosperous, and free.<br /> <br /> In Italy, Giordano Bruno was burned. Some
+ day,<br /> his monument will rise above the cross of Rome.<br /> <br /> We
+ have in our day one example,&mdash;and so far as I<br /> know, history
+ records no other,&mdash;of the resurrection<br /> of a nation. Italy has
+ been called from the grave of<br /> superstition. She is "the first fruits
+ of them that<br /> "slept."<br /> <br /> I admit with Mr. Talmage that
+ Portugal is a Chris-<br /> tian country&mdash;that she engaged for hundreds
+ of years<br /> in the slave trade, and that she justified the infamous<br />
+ traffic by passages in the Old Testament. I admit,<br /> also, that she
+ persecuted the Jews in accordance<br /> with the same divine volume. I
+ admit that all the<br /> crime, ignorance, destitution, and superstition in
+ that<br /> country were produced by the Catholic Church. I<br /> also admit
+ that Portugal would be better if it were<br /> Protestant.<br /> <br /> Every
+ Catholic is in favor of education enough to<br /> <br /> 328<br /> <br />
+ change a barbarian into a Catholic; every Protestant<br /> is in favor of
+ education enough to change a Catholic<br /> into a Protestant; but
+ Protestants and Catholics alike<br /> are opposed to education that will
+ lead to any<br /> real philosophy and science. I admit that Portugal<br />
+ is what it is, on account of the preaching of the<br /> gospel. I admit
+ that Portugal can point with pride<br /> to the triumphs of what she calls
+ civilization within<br /> her borders, and truthfully ascribe the glory to
+ the<br /> church. But in a litde while, when more railroads<br /> are built,
+ when telegraphs connect her people with<br /> the civilized world, a spirit
+ of doubt, of investigation,<br /> will manifest itself in Portugal.<br />
+ <br /> When the people stop counting beads, and go to<br /> the study of
+ mathematics; when they think more of<br /> plows than of prayers for
+ agricultural purposes; when<br /> they find that one fact gives more light
+ to the mind<br /> than a thousand tapers, and that nothing can by any<br />
+ possibility be more useless than a priest,&mdash;then Por-<br /> tugal will
+ begin to cease to be what is called a<br /> Christian nation.<br /> <br /> I
+ admit that Austria, with her thirty-seven millions,<br /> is a Christian
+ nation&mdash;including her Croats, Hungar-<br /> ians, Servians, and
+ Gypsies. Austria was one of the<br /> assassins of Poland. When we remember
+ that John<br /> <br /> 329<br /> <br /> Sobieski drove the Mohammedans from
+ the gates of<br /> Vienna, and rescued from the hand of the "infidel"<br />
+ the beleagured city, the propriety of calling Austria a<br /> Christian
+ nation becomes still more apparent. If one<br /> wishes to know exactly how
+ "Christian" Austria is,<br /> let him read the history of Hungary, let him
+ read<br /> the speeches of Kossuth. There is one good thing<br /> about
+ Austria: slowly but surely she is undermining<br /> the church by
+ education. Education is the enemy<br /> of superstition. Universal
+ education does away with<br /> the classes born of the tyranny of
+ ecclesiasticism&mdash;<br /> classes founded upon cunning, greed, and brute<br />
+ strength. Education also tends to do away with<br /> intellectual
+ cowardice. The educated man is his<br /> own priest, his own pope, his own
+ church.<br /> <br /> When cunning collects tolls from fear, the church<br />
+ prospers.<br /> <br /> Germany is another Christian nation. Bismarck is<br />
+ celebrated for his Christian virtues.<br /> <br /> Only a little while ago,
+ Bismarck, when a bill was<br /> under consideration for ameliorating the
+ condition<br /> of the Jews, stated publicly that Germany was a<br />
+ Christian nation, that her business was to extend<br /> and protect the
+ religion of Jesus Christ, and that<br /> being a Christian nation, no laws
+ should be passed<br /> <br /> 330<br /> <br /> ameliorating the condition of
+ the Jews. Certainly a<br /> remark like this could not have been made in
+ any<br /> other than a Christian nation. There is no freedom<br /> of the
+ press, there is no freedom of speech, in Ger-<br /> many. The Chancellor
+ has gone so far as to declare<br /> that the king is not responsible to the
+ people. Ger-<br /> many must be a Christian nation. The king gets his<br />
+ right to govern, not from his subjects, but from God.<br /> He relies upon
+ the New Testament. He is satisfied<br /> that "the powers that be in
+ Germany are ordained<br /> "of God." He is satisfied that treason against
+ the<br /> German throne is treason against Jehovah. There<br /> are millions
+ of Freethinkers in Germany. They are<br /> not in the majority, otherwise
+ there would be more<br /> liberty in that country. Germany is not an
+ infidel<br /> nation, or speech would be free, and every man<br /> would be
+ allowed to express his honest thoughts.<br /> <br /> Wherever I see Liberty
+ in chains, wherever the<br /> expression of opinion is a crime, I know that
+ that<br /> country is not infidel; I know that the people are not<br />
+ ruled by reason. I also know that the greatest men<br /> of Germany&mdash;her
+ Freethinkers, her scientists, her<br /> writers, her philosophers, are, for
+ the most part, in-<br /> fidel. Yet Germany is called a Christian nation,
+ and<br /> ought to be so called until her citizens are free.<br /> <br /> 331<br />
+ <br /> France is also claimed as a Christian country. This<br /> is not
+ entirely true. France once was thoroughly<br /> Catholic, completely
+ Christian. At the time of the<br /> massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the
+ French were<br /> Christians. Christian France made exiles of the<br />
+ Huguenots. Christian France for years and years<br /> was the property of
+ the Jesuits. Christian France<br /> was ignorant, cruel, orthodox and
+ infamous. When<br /> France was Christian, witnesses were cross-examined<br />
+ with instruments of torture.<br /> <br /> Now France is not entirely under
+ Catholic control,<br /> and yet she is by far the most prosperous nation in<br />
+ Europe. I saw, only the other day, a letter from a<br /> Protestant bishop,
+ in which he states that there are<br /> only about a million Protestants in
+ France, and only<br /> four or five millions of Catholics, and admits, in a<br />
+ very melancholy way, that thirty-four or thirty-five<br /> millions are
+ Freethinkers. The bishop is probably<br /> mistaken in his figures, but
+ France is the best housed,<br /> the best fed, the best clad country in
+ Europe.<br /> <br /> Only a little while ago, France was overrun, trampled<br />
+ into the very earth, by the victorious hosts of Ger-<br /> many, and France
+ purchased her peace with the<br /> savings of centuries. And yet France is
+ now rich and<br /> prosperous and free, and Germany poor, discontented<br />
+ <br /> 332<br /> <br /> and enslaved. Hundreds and thousands of Germans,<br />
+ unable to find liberty at home, are coming to the<br /> United States.<br />
+ <br /> I admit that England is a Christian country. Any<br /> doubts upon
+ this point can be dispelled by reading<br /> her history&mdash;her career
+ in India, what she has done<br /> in China, her treatment of Ireland, of
+ the American<br /> Colonies, her attitude during our Civil war; all these<br />
+ things show conclusively that England is a Christian<br /> nation.<br />
+ <br /> Religion has filled Great Britain with war. The<br /> history of the
+ Catholics, of the Episcopalians, of<br /> Cromwell&mdash;all the burnings,
+ the maimings, the brand-<br /> ings, the imprisonments, the confiscations,
+ the civil<br /> wars, the bigotry, the crime&mdash;show conclusively that<br />
+ Great Britain has enjoyed to the full the blessings of<br /> "our most holy
+ religion."<br /> <br /> Of course, Mr. Talmage claims the United States<br />
+ as a Christian country. The truth is, our country is<br /> not as Christian
+ as it once was. When heretics were<br /> hanged in New England, when the
+ laws of Virginia<br /> and Maryland provided that the tongue of any man<br />
+ who denied the doctrine of the Trinity should be<br /> bored with hot
+ iron,, and that for the second offence<br /> he should suffer death, I
+ admit that this country was<br /> <br /> 333<br /> <br /> Christian. When we
+ engaged in the slave trade,<br /> when our flag protected piracy and murder
+ in every<br /> sea, there is not the slightest doubt that the United<br />
+ States was a Christian country. When we believed<br /> in slavery, and when
+ we deliberately stole the labor<br /> of four millions of people; when we
+ sold women<br /> and babes, and when the people of the North<br /> enacted a
+ law by virtue of which every Northern<br /> man was bound to turn hound and
+ pursue a human<br /> being who was endeavoring to regain his liberty, I<br />
+ admit that the United States was a Christian nation.<br /> I admit that all
+ these things were upheld by the Bible<br /> &mdash;that the slave trader
+ was justified by the Old Testa-<br /> ment, that the bloodhound was a kind
+ of missionary<br /> in disguise, that the auction block was an altar, the<br />
+ slave pen a kind of church, and that the whipping-<br /> post was
+ considered almost as sacred as the cross.<br /> At that time, our country
+ was a Christian nation.<br /> <br /> I heard Frederick Douglass say that he
+ lectured<br /> against slavery for twenty years before the doors<br /> of a
+ single church were opened to him. In New<br /> England, hundreds of
+ ministers were driven from<br /> their pulpits because they preached
+ against the<br /> crime of human slavery. At that time, this country<br />
+ was a Christian nation.<br /> <br /> 334<br /> <br /> Only a few years ago,
+ any man speaking in favor<br /> of the rights of man, endeavoring to break
+ a chain<br /> from a human limb, was in danger of being mobbed<br /> by the
+ Christians of this country. I admit that Dela-<br /> ware is still a
+ Christian State. I heard a story about<br /> that State the other day.<br />
+ <br /> About fifty years ago, an old Revolutionary soldier<br /> applied for
+ a pension. He was asked his age, and he<br /> replied that he was fifty
+ years old. He was told that<br /> if that was his age, he could not have
+ been in the<br /> Revolutionary War, and consequently was not en-<br />
+ titled to any pension. He insisted, however, that he<br /> was only fifty
+ years old. Again they told him that<br /> there must be some mistake. He
+ was so wrinkled,<br /> so bowed, had so many marks of age, that he must<br />
+ certainly be more than fifty years old. "Well," said<br /> the old man, "if
+ I must explain, I will: I lived forty<br /> "years in Delaware; but I never
+ counted that time,<br /> "and I hope God won't."<br /> <br /> The fact is, we
+ have grown less and less Christian<br /> every year from 1620 until now,
+ and the fact is that<br /> we have grown more and more civilized, more and<br />
+ more charitable, nearer and nearer just.<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage speaks as
+ though all the people in<br /> what he calls the civilized world were
+ Christians. Ad-<br /> <br /> 335<br /> <br /> mitting this to be true, I find
+ that in these countries<br /> millions of men are educated, trained and
+ drilled to<br /> kill their fellow Christians. I find Europe covered<br />
+ with forts to protect Christians from Christians, and<br /> the seas filled
+ with men-of-war for the purpose of<br /> ravaging the coasts and destroying
+ the cities of Chris-<br /> tian nations. These countries are filled with
+ prisons,<br /> with workhouses, with jails and with toiling, ignorant<br />
+ and suffering millions. I find that Christians have<br /> invented most of
+ the instruments of death, that<br /> Christians are the greatest soldiers,
+ fighters, de-<br /> stroyers. I find that every Christian country is taxed<br />
+ to its utmost to support these soldiers; that every<br /> Christian nation
+ is now groaning beneath the grievous<br /> burden of monstrous debt, and
+ that nearly all these<br /> debts were contracted in waging war. These
+ bonds,<br /> these millions, these almost incalculable amounts,<br /> were
+ given to pay for shot and shell, for rifle and<br /> torpedo, for
+ men-of-war, for forts and arsenals, and<br /> all the devilish enginery of
+ death. I find that each<br /> of these nations prays to God to assist it as
+ against<br /> all others; and when one nation has overrun, ravaged<br /> and
+ pillaged another, it immediately returns thanks<br /> to the Almighty, and
+ the ravaged and pillaged kneel<br /> and thank God that it is no worse.<br />
+ <br /> 336<br /> <br /> Mr. Talmage is welcome to all the evidence he can<br />
+ find in the history of what he is pleased to call the<br /> civilized
+ nations of the world, tending to show the<br /> inspiration of the Bible.<br />
+ <br /> And right here it may be well enough to say again,<br /> that the
+ question of inspiration can not be settled by<br /> the votes of the
+ superstitious millions. It can not be<br /> affected by numbers. It must be
+ decided by each<br /> human being for himself. If every man in this world,<br />
+ with one exception, believed the Bible to be the in-<br /> spired word of
+ God, the man who was the exception<br /> could not lose his right to think,
+ to investigate, and to<br /> judge for himself.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ You do not think, then, that any of the<br /> arguments brought forward by
+ Mr. Talmage for the<br /> purpose of establishing the inspiration of the
+ Bible,<br /> are of any weight whatever?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I do
+ not. I do not see how it is possible<br /> to make poorer, weaker or better
+ arguments than he<br /> has made.<br /> <br /> Of course, there can be no
+ "evidence" of the in-<br /> spiration of the Scriptures. What is
+ "inspiration"?<br /> Did God use the prophets simply as instruments?<br />
+ Did he put his thoughts in their minds, and use their<br /> <br /> 337<br />
+ <br /> hands to make a record? Probably few Christians<br /> will agree as
+ to what they mean by "inspiration."<br /> The general idea is, that the
+ minds of the writers of<br /> the books of the Bible were controlled by the
+ divine<br /> will in such a way that they expressed, independently<br /> of
+ their own opinions, the thought of God. I believe it<br /> is admitted that
+ God did not choose the exact words,<br /> and is not responsible for the
+ punctuation or syntax.<br /> It is hard to give any reason for claiming
+ more for<br /> the Bible than is claimed by those who wrote it.<br /> There
+ is no claim of "inspiration" made by the writer<br /> of First and Second
+ Kings. Not one word about the<br /> author having been "inspired" is found
+ in the book<br /> of Job, or in Ruth, or in Chronicles, or in the Psalms,<br />
+ or Ecclesiastes, or in Solomon's Song, and nothing is<br /> said about the
+ author of the book of Esther having<br /> been "inspired." Christians now
+ say that Matthew,<br /> Mark, Luke and John were "inspired" to write the<br />
+ four gospels, and yet neither Mark, nor Luke, nor<br /> John, nor Matthew
+ claims to have been "inspired."<br /> If they were "inspired," certainly
+ they should have<br /> stated that fact. The very first thing stated in
+ each<br /> of the gospels should have been a declaration by the<br /> writer
+ that he had been "inspired," and that he was<br /> about to write the book
+ under the guidance of God,<br /> <br /> 338<br /> <br /> and at the conclusion
+ of each gospel there should<br /> have been a solemn statement that the
+ writer had<br /> put down nothing of himself, but had in all things<br />
+ followed the direction and guidance of the divine<br /> will. The church
+ now endeavors to establish the<br /> inspiration of the Bible by force, by
+ social ostracism,<br /> and by attacking the reputation of every man who<br />
+ denies or doubts. In all Christian countries, they<br /> begin with the
+ child in the cradle. Each infant is<br /> told by its mother, by its
+ father, or by some of its<br /> relatives, that "the Bible is an inspired
+ book." This<br /> pretended fact, by repetition "in season and out of<br />
+ "season," is finally burned and branded into the<br /> brain to such a
+ degree that the child of average<br /> intelligence never outgrows the
+ conviction that the<br /> Bible is, in some peculiar sense, an "inspired"
+ book.<br /> The question has to be settled for each generation.<br /> The
+ evidence is not sufficient, and the foundation of<br /> Christianity is
+ perpetually insecure. Beneath this great<br /> religious fabric there is no
+ rock. For eighteen centu-<br /> ries, hundreds and thousands and millions
+ of people<br /> have been endeavoring to establish the fact that the<br />
+ Scriptures are inspired, and since the dawn of science,<br /> since the
+ first star appeared in the night of the<br /> Middle Ages, until this
+ moment, the number of<br /> <br /> 339<br /> <br /> people who have doubted
+ the fact of inspiration<br /> has steadily increased. These doubts have not
+ been<br /> born of ignorance, they have not been suggested by<br /> the
+ unthinking. They have forced themselves upon<br /> the thoughtful, upon the
+ educated, and now the ver-<br /> dict of the intellectual world is, that
+ the Bible is not<br /> inspired. Notwithstanding the fact that the church<br />
+ has taken advantage of infancy, has endeavored to<br /> control education,
+ has filled all primers and spelling-<br /> books and readers and text books
+ with superstition&mdash;<br /> feeding all minds with the miraculous and
+ super-<br /> natural, the growth toward a belief in the natural<br /> and
+ toward the rejection of the miraculous has been<br /> steady and sturdy
+ since the sixteenth century. There<br /> has been, too, a moral growth,
+ until many passages<br /> in the Bible have become barbarous, inhuman and<br />
+ infamous. The Bible has remained the same, while<br /> the world has
+ changed. In the light of physical and<br /> moral discovery, "the inspired
+ volume" seems in<br /> many respects absurd. If the same progress is made<br />
+ in the next, as in the last, century, it is very easy to<br /> predict the
+ place that will then be occupied by the<br /> Bible. By comparing long
+ periods of time, it is easy<br /> to measure the advance of the human race.
+ Com-<br /> pare the average sermon of to-day with the average<br /> <br />
+ 340<br /> <br /> sermon of one hundred years ago. Compare what<br />
+ ministers teach to-day with the creeds they profess<br /> to believe, and
+ you will see the immense distance<br /> that even the church has traveled
+ in the last century.<br /> <br /> The Christians tell us that scientific men
+ have<br /> made mistakes, and that there is very little certainty<br /> in
+ the domain of human knowledge. This I admit.<br /> The man who thought the
+ world was flat, and who<br /> had a way of accounting for the movement of
+ the<br /> heavenly bodies, had what he was pleased to call a<br />
+ philosophy. He was, in his way, a geologist and an<br /> astronomer. We
+ admit that he was mistaken; but<br /> if we claimed that the first
+ geologist and the first<br /> astronomer were inspired, it would not do for
+ us to<br /> admit that any advance had been made, or that any<br /> errors
+ of theirs had been corrected. We do not<br /> claim that the first
+ scientists were inspired. We do<br /> not claim that the last are inspired.
+ We admit that<br /> all scientific men are fallible. We admit that they do<br />
+ not know everything. We insist that they know but<br /> little, and that
+ even in that little which they are sup-<br /> posed to know, there is the
+ possibility of error. The<br /> first geologist said: "The earth is flat."
+ Suppose<br /> that the geologists of to-day should insist that that<br />
+ man was inspired, and then endeavor to show that<br /> <br /> 341<br /> <br />
+ the word "flat," in the "Hebrew," did not mean<br /> quite flat, but just a
+ little rounded; what would we<br /> think of their honesty? The first
+ astronomer in-<br /> sisted that the sun and moon and stars revolved<br />
+ around this earth&mdash;that this little earth was the centre<br /> of the
+ entire system. Suppose that the astronomers<br /> of to-day should insist
+ that that astronomer was in-<br /> spired, and should try to explain, and
+ say that he<br /> simply used the language of the common people, and<br />
+ when he stated that the sun and moon and stars re-<br /> volved around the
+ earth, he merely meant that they<br /> "apparently revolved," and that the
+ earth, in fact,<br /> turned over, would we consider them honest men?<br />
+ You might as well say that the first painter was in-<br /> spired, or that
+ the first sculptor had the assistance of<br /> God, as to say that the
+ first writer, or the first book-<br /> maker, was divinely inspired. It is
+ more probable<br /> that the modern geologist is inspired than that the an-<br />
+ cient one was, because the modern geologist is nearer<br /> right. It is
+ more probable that William Lloyd Gar-<br /> rison was inspired upon the
+ question of slavery than<br /> that Moses was. It is more probable that the
+ author<br /> of the Declaration of Independence spoke by divine<br />
+ authority than that the author of the Pentateuch did.<br /> In other words,
+ if there can be any evidence of<br /> <br /> 342<br /> <br /> "inspiration,"
+ it must lie in the fact of doing or<br /> saying the best possible thing
+ that could have been<br /> done or said at that time or upon that subject.<br />
+ <br /> To make myself clear: The only possible evidence<br /> of
+ "inspiration" would be perfection&mdash;a perfection ex-<br /> celling
+ anything that man unaided had ever attained.<br /> An "inspired" book
+ should excel all other books; an<br /> inspired statue should be the best
+ in this world; an in-<br /> spired painting should be beyond all others. If
+ the Bible<br /> has been improved in any particular, it was not, in that<br />
+ particular, ''inspired." If slavery is wrong, the Bible is<br /> not
+ inspired. If polygamy is vile and loathsome, the<br /> Bible is not
+ inspired. If wars of extermination are cruel<br /> and heartless, the Bible
+ is not "inspired." If there is<br /> within that book a contradiction of
+ any natural fact; if<br /> there is one ignorant falsehood, if there is one
+ mistake,<br /> then it is not "inspired." I do not mean mistakes that<br />
+ have grown out of translations; but if there was in<br /> the original
+ manuscript one mistake, then it is not<br /> "inspired." I do not demand a
+ miracle; I do not<br /> demand a knowledge of the future; I simply demand<br />
+ an absolute knowledge of the past. I demand an ab-<br /> solute knowledge
+ of the then present; I demand a<br /> knowledge of the constitution of the
+ human mind&mdash;<br /> of the facts in nature, and that is all I demand.<br />
+ <br /> 343<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If I understand you, you think that
+ all<br /> political power should come from the people; do you<br /> not
+ believe in any "special providence," and do you<br /> take the ground that
+ God does not interest himself<br /> in the affairs of nations and
+ individuals?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The Christian idea is that God made
+ the<br /> world, and made certain laws for the government of<br /> matter
+ and mind, and that he never interferes except<br /> upon special occasions,
+ when the ordinary laws fail to<br /> work out the desired end. Their notion
+ is, that the<br /> Lord now and then stops the horses simply to show<br />
+ that he is driving. It seems to me that if an infinitely<br /> wise being
+ made the world, he must have made it<br /> the best possible; and that if
+ he made laws for the<br /> government of matter and mind, he must have made<br />
+ the best possible laws. If this is true, not one of<br /> these laws can be
+ violated without producing a posi-<br /> tive injury. It does not seem
+ probable that infinite<br /> wisdom would violate a law that infinite
+ wisdom had<br /> made.<br /> <br /> Most ministers insist that God now and
+ then in-<br /> terferes in the affairs of this world; that he has not<br />
+ interfered as much lately as he did formerly. When<br /> the world was
+ comparatively new, it required alto-<br /> gether more tinkering and fixing
+ than at present.<br /> <br /> 344<br /> <br /> Things are at last in a
+ reasonably good condition,<br /> and consequently a great amount of
+ interference is<br /> not necessary. In old times it was found necessary
+ fre-<br /> quently to raise the dead, to change the nature of fire<br /> and
+ water, to punish people with plagues and famine,<br /> to destroy cities by
+ storms of fire and brimstone, to<br /> change women into salt, to cast
+ hailstones upon<br /> heathen, to interfere with the movements of our<br />
+ planetary system, to stop the earth not only, but<br /> sometimes to make
+ it turn the other way, to arrest<br /> the moon, and to make water stand up
+ like a wall.<br /> Now and then, rivers were divided by striking them<br />
+ with a coat, and people were taken to heaven in<br /> chariots of fire.
+ These miracles, in addition to curing<br /> the sick, the halt, the deaf
+ and blind, were in former<br /> times found necessary, but since the
+ "apostolic age,"<br /> nothing of the kind has been resorted to except in<br />
+ Catholic countries. Since the death of the last<br /> apostle, God has
+ appeared only to members of the<br /> Catholic Church, and all modern
+ miracles have been<br /> performed for the benefit of Catholicism. There is<br />
+ no authentic account of the Virgin Mary having ever<br /> appeared to a
+ Protestant. The bones of Protestant<br /> saints have never cured a
+ solitary disease. Protest-<br /> ants now say that the testimony of the
+ Catholics can<br /> <br /> 345<br /> <br /> not be relied upon, and yet, the
+ authenticity of every<br /> book in the New Testament was established by
+ Cath-<br /> olic testimony. Some few miracles were performed<br /> in
+ Scotland, and in fact in England and the United<br /> States, but they were
+ so small that they are hardly<br /> worth mentioning. Now and then, a man
+ was struck<br /> dead for taking the name of the Lord in vain. Now<br /> and
+ then, people were drowned who were found in<br /> boats on Sunday. Whenever
+ anybody was about to<br /> commit murder, God has not interfered&mdash;the
+ reason<br /> being that he gave man free-will, and expects to hold<br /> him
+ accountable in another world, and there is no<br /> exception to this
+ free-will doctrine, but in cases<br /> where men swear or violate the
+ Sabbath. They are<br /> allowed to commit all other crimes without any in-<br />
+ terference on the part of the Lord.<br /> <br /> My own opinion is, that the
+ clergy found it neces-<br /> sary to preserve the Sabbath for their own
+ uses, and<br /> for that reason endeavored to impress the people<br /> with
+ the enormity of its violation, and for that purpose<br /> gave instances of
+ people being drowned and suddenly<br /> struck dead for working or amusing
+ themselves on that<br /> day. The clergy have objected to any other places
+ of<br /> amusement except their own, being opened on that<br /> day. They
+ wished to compel people either to go to<br /> <br /> 346<br /> <br /> church
+ or stay at home. They have also known<br /> that profanity tended to do
+ away with the feelings<br /> of awe they wished to cultivate, and for that
+ reason<br /> they have insisted that swearing was one of the most<br />
+ terrible of crimes, exciting above all others the wrath<br /> of God.<br />
+ <br /> There was a time when people fell dead for having<br /> spoken
+ disrespectfully to a priest. The priest at that<br /> time pretended to be
+ the visible representative of<br /> God, and as such, entitled to a degree
+ of reverence<br /> amounting almost to worship. Several cases are<br />
+ given in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland where<br /> men were
+ deprived of speech for having spoken<br /> rudely to a parson.<br /> <br />
+ These stories were calculated to increase the im-<br /> portance of the
+ clergy and to convince people that<br /> they were under the special care
+ of the Deity. The<br /> story about the bears devouring the little children<br />
+ was told in the first place, and has been repeated<br /> since, simply to
+ protect ministers from the laughter<br /> of children. There ought to be
+ carved on each side<br /> of every pulpit a bear with fragments of children
+ in<br /> its mouth, as this animal has done so much to protect<br /> the
+ dignity of the clergy.<br /> <br /> Besides the protection of ministers, the
+ drowning<br /> <br /> 347<br /> <br /> of breakers of the Sabbath, and
+ striking a few people<br /> dead for using profane language, I think there
+ is no<br /> evidence of any providential interference in the affairs<br />
+ of this world in what may be called modern times.<br /> Ministers have
+ endeavored to show that great calam-<br /> ities have been brought upon
+ nations and cities as a<br /> punishment for the wickedness of the people.
+ They<br /> have insisted that some countries have been visited<br /> with
+ earthquakes because the people had failed to<br /> discharge their
+ religious duties; but as earthquakes<br /> happened in uninhabited
+ countries, and often at sea,<br /> where no one is hurt, most people have
+ concluded<br /> that they are not sent as punishments. They have<br />
+ insisted that cities have been burned as a punish-<br /> ment, and to show
+ the indignation of the Lord, but<br /> at the same time they have admitted
+ that if the<br /> streets had been wider, the fire departments better<br />
+ organized, and wooden buildings fewer, the design<br /> of the Lord would
+ have been frustrated.<br /> <br /> After reading the history of the world,
+ it is some-<br /> what difficult to find which side the Lord is really on.<br />
+ He has allowed Catholics to overwhelm and de-<br /> stroy Protestants, and
+ then he has allowed Protestants<br /> to overwhelm and destroy Catholics.
+ He has allowed<br /> Christianity to triumph over Paganism, and he allowed<br />
+ <br /> 348<br /> <br /> Mohammedans to drive back the hosts of the cross<br />
+ from the sepulchre of his son. It is curious that this<br /> God would
+ allow the slave trade to go on, and yet<br /> punish the violators of the
+ Sabbath. It is simply<br /> wonderful that he would allow kings to wage
+ cruel<br /> and remorseless war, to sacrifice millions upon the<br /> altar
+ of heartless ambition, and at the same time<br /> strike a man dead for
+ taking his name in vain. It is<br /> wonderful that he allowed slavery to
+ exist for centu-<br /> ries in the United States; that he allows polygamy<br />
+ now in Utah; that he cares nothing for liberty in<br /> Russia, nothing for
+ free speech in Germany, nothing<br /> for the sorrows of the overworked,
+ underpaid millions<br /> of the world; that he cares nothing for the
+ innocent<br /> languishing in prisons, nothing for the patriots con-<br />
+ demned to death, nothing for the heart-broken<br /> widows and orphans,
+ nothing for the starving, and<br /> yet has ample time to note a sparrow's
+ fall. If he<br /> would only strike dead the would-be murderers; if<br /> he
+ would only palsy the hands of husbands' uplifted<br /> to strike their
+ wives; if he would render speechless<br /> the cursers of children, he
+ could afford to overlook<br /> the swearers and breakers of his Sabbath.<br />
+ <br /> For one, I am not satisfied with the government<br /> of this world,
+ and I am going to do what little I can<br /> <br /> 349<br /> <br /> to make
+ it better. I want more thought and less<br /> fear, more manhood and less
+ superstition, less prayer<br /> and more help, more education, more reason,
+ more<br /> intellectual hospitality, and above all, and over all,<br /> more
+ liberty and kindness.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that God,
+ if there be one,<br /> when he saves or damns a man, will take into con-<br />
+ sideration all the circumstances of the man's life?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Suppose that two orphan boys, James<br /> and John, are given homes. James
+ is taken into a<br /> Christian family and John into an infidel. James<br />
+ becomes a Christian, and dies in the faith. John be-<br /> comes an
+ infidel, and dies without faith in Christ.<br /> According to the Christian
+ religion, as commonly<br /> preached, James will go to heaven, and John to
+ hell.<br /> <br /> Now, suppose that God knew that if James had<br /> been
+ raised by the infidel family, he would have died<br /> an infidel, and that
+ if John had been raised by the<br /> Christian family, he would have died a
+ Christian.<br /> What then? Recollect that the boys did not choose<br /> the
+ families in which they were placed.<br /> <br /> Suppose that a child, cast
+ away upon an island in<br /> which he found plenty of food, grew to
+ manhood;<br /> and suppose that after he had reached mature years,<br />
+ <br /> 350<br /> <br /> the island was visited by a missionary who taught a<br />
+ false religion; and suppose that this islander was con-<br /> vinced that
+ he ought to worship a wooden idol; and<br /> suppose, further, that the
+ worship consisted in sacri-<br /> ficing animals; and suppose the islander,
+ actuated<br /> only by what he conceived to be his duty and by<br />
+ thankfulness, sacrificed a toad every night and every<br /> morning upon
+ the altar of his wooden god; that<br /> when the sky looked black and
+ threatening he sacri-<br /> ficed two toads; that when feeling unwell he
+ sacrificed<br /> three; and suppose that in all this he was honest, that<br />
+ he really believed that the shedding of toad-blood<br /> would soften the
+ heart of his god toward him? And<br /> suppose that after he had become
+ fully-convinced<br /> of the truth of his religion, a missionary of the<br />
+ "true religion" should visit the island, and tell the<br /> history of the
+ Jews&mdash;unfold the whole scheme of<br /> salvation? And suppose that the
+ islander should<br /> honestly reject the true religion? Suppose he should<br />
+ say that he had "internal evidence" not only, but<br /> that many miracles
+ had been performed by his god,<br /> in his behalf; that often when the sky
+ was black<br /> with storm, he had sacrificed a toad, and in a few<br />
+ moments the sun was again visible, the heavens blue,<br /> and without a
+ cloud; that on several occasions, having<br /> <br /> 351<br /> <br />
+ forgotten at evening to sacrifice his toad, he found<br /> himself unable
+ to sleep&mdash;that his conscience smote<br /> him, he had risen, made the
+ sacrifice, returned to his<br /> bed, and in a few moments sunk into a
+ serene and<br /> happy slumber? And suppose, further, that the man<br />
+ honestly believed that the efficacy of the sacrifice<br /> depended largely
+ on the size of the toad? Now<br /> suppose that in this belief the man had
+ died,&mdash;what<br /> then?<br /> <br /> It must be remembered that God knew
+ when the<br /> missionary of the false religion went to the island;<br />
+ and knew that the islander would be convinced of the<br /> truth of the
+ false religion; and he also knew that the<br /> missionary of the true
+ religion could not, by any<br /> possibility, convince the islander of the
+ error of his<br /> way; what then?<br /> <br /> If God is infinite, we cannot
+ speak of him as<br /> making efforts, as being tired. We cannot con-<br />
+ sistently say that one thing is easy to him, and<br /> another thing is
+ hard, providing both are possible.<br /> This being so, why did not God
+ reveal himself to<br /> every human being? Instead of having an inspired<br />
+ book, why did he not make inspired folks? Instead<br /> of having his
+ commandments put on tables of stone,<br /> why did he not write them on
+ each human brain?<br /> <br /> 352<br /> <br /> Why was not the mind of each
+ man so made that<br /> every religious truth necessary to his salvation was<br />
+ an axiom?<br /> <br /> Do we not know absolutely that man is greatly<br />
+ influenced by his surroundings? If Mr. Talmage<br /> had been born in
+ Turkey, is it not probable that<br /> he would now be a whirling Dervish?
+ If he had<br /> first seen the light in Central Africa, he might now<br />
+ have been prostrate before some enormous serpent;<br /> if in India, he
+ might have been a Brahmin, running a<br /> prayer-machine; if in Spain, he
+ would probably have<br /> been a priest, with his beads and holy water. Had<br />
+ he been born among the North American Indians,<br /> he would speak of the
+ "Great Spirit," and solemnly<br /> smoke the the pipe of peace.<br /> <br />
+ Mr. Talmage teaches that it is the duty of children<br /> to perpetuate the
+ errors of their parents; conse-<br /> quently, the religion of his parents
+ determined his<br /> theology. It is with him not a question of reason,<br />
+ but of parents; not a question of argument, but of<br /> filial affection.
+ He does not wish to be a philoso-<br /> pher, but an obedient son. Suppose
+ his father had<br /> been a Catholic, and his mother a Protestant,&mdash;what<br />
+ then? Would he show contempt for his mother by<br /> following the path of
+ his father; or would he show<br /> <br /> 353<br /> <br /> disrespect for his
+ father, by accepting the religion of<br /> his mother; or would he have
+ become a Protestant<br /> with Catholic proclivities, or a Catholic with
+ Protest-<br /> ant leanings? Suppose his parents had both been<br />
+ infidels&mdash;what then?<br /> <br /> Is it not better for each one to
+ decide honestly for<br /> himself? Admitting that your parents were good
+ and<br /> kind; admitting that they were honest in their views,<br /> why
+ not have the courage to say, that in your opinion,<br /> father and mother
+ were both mistaken? No one can<br /> honor his parents by being a
+ hypocrite, or an intellectu-<br /> al coward. Whoever is absolutely true to
+ himself, is<br /> true to his parents, and true to the whole world. Who-<br />
+ ever is untrue to himself, is false to all mankind. Re-<br /> ligion must
+ be an individual matter. If there is a God,<br /> and if there is a day of
+ judgment, the church that a man<br /> belongs to will not be tried, but the
+ man will be tried.<br /> <br /> It is a fact that the religion of most
+ people was made<br /> for them by others; that they have accepted certain<br />
+ dogmas, not because they have examined them, but<br /> because they were
+ told that they were true. Most of<br /> the people in the United States,
+ had they been born in<br /> Turkey, would now be Mohammedans, and most of<br />
+ the Turks, had they been born in Spain, would now<br /> be Catholics.<br />
+ <br /> 354<br /> <br /> It is almost, if not quite, impossible for a man to<br />
+ rise entirely above the ideas, views, doctrines and re-<br /> ligions of
+ his tribe or country. No one expects to<br /> find philosophers in Central
+ Africa, or scientists<br /> among the Fejees. No one expects to find
+ philoso-<br /> phers or scientists in any country where the church<br /> has
+ absolute control.<br /> <br /> If there is an infinitely good and wise God,
+ of<br /> course he will take into consideration the surround-<br /> ings of
+ every human being. He understands the<br /> philosophy of environment, and
+ of heredity. He<br /> knows exactly the influence of the mother, of all<br />
+ associates, of all associations. He will also take into<br /> consideration
+ the amount, quality and form of each<br /> brain, and whether the brain was
+ healthy or diseased.<br /> He will take into consideration the strength of
+ the<br /> passions, the weakness of the judgment. He will<br /> know exactly
+ the force of all temptation&mdash;what was<br /> resisted. He will take an
+ account of every effort<br /> made in the right direction, and will
+ understand<br /> all the winds and waves and quicksands and shores<br /> and
+ shallows in, upon and around the sea of every<br /> life.<br /> <br /> My own
+ opinion is, that if such a being exists, and<br /> all these things are
+ taken into consideration, we will<br /> <br /> 355<br /> <br /> be absolutely
+ amazed to see how small the difference<br /> is between the "good" and the
+ "bad." Certainly<br /> there is no such difference as would justify a being<br />
+ of infinite wisdom and benevolence in rewarding one<br /> with eternal joy
+ and punishing the other with eternal<br /> pain.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ What are the principal reasons that<br /> have satisfied you that the Bible
+ is not an inspired<br /> book?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The great evils
+ that have afflicted this<br /> world are:<br /> <br /> <i>First</i>. Human
+ slavery&mdash;where men have bought<br /> and sold their fellow-men&mdash;sold
+ babes from mothers,<br /> and have practiced) every conceivable cruelty
+ upon<br /> the helpless.<br /> <br /> <i>Second</i>. Polygamy&mdash;an
+ institution that destroys<br /> the home, that treats woman as a simple
+ chattel, that<br /> does away with the sanctity of marriage, and with all<br />
+ that is sacred in love.<br /> <br /> <i>Third</i>. Wars of conquest and
+ extermination&mdash;<br /> by which nations have been made the food of the<br />
+ sword.<br /> <br /> <i>Fourth</i>. The idea entertained by each nation that<br />
+ all other nations are destitute of rights&mdash;in other<br /> <br /> 356<br />
+ <br /> words, patriotism founded upon egotism, prejudice,<br /> and love of
+ plunder.<br /> <br /> <i>Fifth</i>. Religious persecution.<br /> <br /> <i>Sixth</i>.
+ The divine right of kings&mdash;an idea that<br /> rests upon the
+ inequality of human rights, and insists<br /> that people should be
+ governed without their con-<br /> sent; that the right of one man to govern
+ another<br /> comes from God, and not from the consent of the<br />
+ governed. This is caste&mdash;one of the most odious<br /> forms of
+ slavery.<br /> <br /> <i>Seventh</i>. A belief in malicious supernatural be-<br />
+ ings&mdash;devils, witches, and wizards.<br /> <br /> <i>Eighth</i>. A
+ belief in an infinite being who or-<br /> dered, commanded, established and
+ approved all<br /> these evils.<br /> <br /> <i>Ninth</i>. The idea that one
+ man can be good for<br /> another, or bad for another&mdash;that is to say,
+ that one<br /> can be rewarded for the goodness of another, or<br /> justly
+ punished for the sins of another.<br /> <br /> <i>Tenth</i>. The dogma that
+ a finite being can commit<br /> an infinite sin, and thereby incur the
+ eternal dis-<br /> pleasure of an infinitely good being, and be justly<br />
+ subjected to eternal torment.<br /> <br /> My principal objection to the
+ Bible is that it sus-<br /> tains all of these ten evils&mdash;that it is
+ the advocate of<br /> <br /> 357<br /> <br /> human slavery, the friend of
+ polygamy; that within<br /> its pages I find the command to wage wars of
+ ex-<br /> termination; that I find also that the Jews were<br /> taught to
+ hate foreigners&mdash;to consider all human<br /> beings as inferior to
+ themselves; I also find persecu-<br /> tion commanded as a religious duty;
+ that kings were<br /> seated upon their thrones by the direct act of God,<br />
+ and that to rebel against a king was rebellion against<br /> God. I object
+ to the Bible also because I find within<br /> its pages the infamous spirit
+ of caste&mdash;I see the sons<br /> of Levi set apart as the perpetual
+ beggars and<br /> governors of a people; because I find the air filled<br />
+ with demons seeking to injure and betray the sons<br /> of men; because
+ this book is the fountain of modern<br /> superstition, the bulwark of
+ tyranny and the fortress<br /> of caste. This book also subverts the idea
+ of justice<br /> by threatening infinite punishment for the sins of a<br />
+ finite being.<br /> <br /> At the same time, I admit&mdash;as I always have
+ ad-<br /> mitted&mdash;that there are good passages in the Bible&mdash;<br />
+ good laws, good teachings, with now and then a true<br /> line of history.
+ But when it is asserted that every<br /> word was written by inspiration&mdash;that
+ a being of in-<br /> finite wisdom and goodness is its author,&mdash;then<br />
+ I raise the standard of revolt.<br /> <br /> 358<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ What do you think of the declaration<br /> of Mr. Talmage that the Bible
+ will be read in heaven<br /> throughout all the endless ages of eternity?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course I know but very little as to<br /> what is
+ or will be done in heaven. My knowledge<br /> of that country is somewhat
+ limited, and it may be<br /> possible that the angels will spend most of
+ their time<br /> in turning over the sacred leaves of the Old Testa-<br />
+ ment. I can not positively deny the statement of the<br /> Reverend Mr.
+ Talmage as I have but very little idea<br /> as to how the angels manage to
+ kill time.<br /> <br /> The Reverend Mr. Spurgeon stated in a sermon<br />
+ that some people wondered what they would do<br /> through all eternity in
+ heaven. He said that, as for<br /> himself, for the first hundred thousand
+ years he<br /> would look at the wound in one of the Savior's<br /> feet,
+ and for the next hundred thousand years he<br /> would look at the wound in
+ his other foot, and<br /> for the next hundred thousand years he would<br />
+ look at the wound in one of his hands, and for<br /> the next hundred
+ thousand years he would look at<br /> the wound in the other hand, and for
+ the next<br /> hundred thousand years he would look at the wound<br /> in
+ his side.<br /> <br /> Surely, nothing could be more delightful than this<br />
+ <br /> 359<br /> <br /> A man capable of being happy in such employment,<br />
+ could of course take great delight in reading even<br /> the genealogies of
+ the Old Testament. It is very<br /> easy to see what a glow of joy would
+ naturally over-<br /> spread the face of an angel while reading the history<br />
+ of the Jewish wars, how the seraphim and cherubim<br /> would clasp their
+ rosy palms in ecstasy over the fate<br /> of Korah and his company, and
+ what laughter would<br /> wake the echoes of the New Jerusalem as some one<br />
+ told again the story of the children and the bears;<br /> and what happy
+ groups, with folded pinions, would<br /> smilingly listen to the 109th
+ Psalm.<br /> <br /> [Illustration: 371]<br /> <br /> An orthodox "state of
+ mind"<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="link0009" id="link0009"></a><br />
+ <br /> <big><b>THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.</b></big><br /> <br /> <i>As Mr.
+ Talmage delivered the series of sermons<br /> referred to in these
+ interviews, for the purpose<br /> of furnishing arguments to the young, so
+ that they<br /> might not be misled by the sophistry of modern<br />
+ infi-delity, I have thought it best to set forth,<br /> for use in Sunday
+ schools, the pith and marrow of<br /> what he has been pleased to say, in
+ the form of</i><br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <big><b>A SHORTER CATECHISM.</b></big><br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Who made you?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Jehovah,
+ the original Presbyterian.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What else did he
+ make?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He made the world and all things.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he make the world out of nothing?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ No.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What did he make it out of?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Out of his "omnipotence." Many infidels<br /> have pretended that if God
+ made the universe, and if<br /> there was nothing until he did make it, he
+ had nothing<br /> to make it out of. Of course this is perfectly absurd<br />
+ when we remember that he always had his "omnipo-<br /> tence and that is,
+ undoubtedly, the material used.<br /> <br /> 364<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Did he create his own "omnipotence"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly
+ not, he was always omnipo-<br /> tent.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Then if
+ he always had "omnipotence,"<br /> he did not "create" the material of
+ which the uni-<br /> verse is made; he simply took a portion of his<br />
+ "omnipotence" and changed it to "universe"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Certainly, that is the way I under-<br /> stand it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Is he still omnipotent, and has he as<br /> much "omnipotence" now as he
+ ever had?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, I suppose he has.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How long did it take God to make the<br /> universe?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Six "good-whiles."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How long is a "good-while"?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. That will depend upon the future dis-<br /> coveries
+ of geologists. "Good-whiles" are of such<br /> a nature that they can be
+ pulled out, or pushed up;<br /> and it is utterly impossible for any
+ infidel, or scien-<br /> tific geologist, to make any period that a
+ "good-while"<br /> won't fit.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you
+ understand by "the<br /> "morning and evening" of a "good-while"?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course the words "morning and<br /> <br /> 365<br />
+ <br /> "evening" are used figuratively, and mean simply<br /> the beginning
+ and the ending, of each "good-while."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. On what
+ day did God make vegetation?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. On the third day.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was that before the sun was made?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Yes; a "good-while" before.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How did vegetation
+ grow without sun-<br /> light?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. My own opinion is,
+ that it was either<br /> "nourished by the glare of volcanoes in the moon<br />
+ or "it may have gotten sufficient light from rivers<br /> "of molten
+ granite;" or, "sufficient light might have<br /> "been emitted by the
+ crystallization of rocks." It<br /> has been suggested that light might
+ have been fur-<br /> nished by fire-flies and phosphorescent bugs and<br />
+ worms, but this I regard as going too far.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do
+ you think that light emitted by<br /> rocks would be sufficient to produce
+ trees?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, with the assistance of the "Aurora<br />
+ "Borealis, or even the Aurora Australis;" but with<br /> both, most
+ assuredly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If the light of which you speak was<br />
+ sufficient, why was the sun made?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. To keep time
+ with.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What did God make man of?<br /> <br /> 366<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He made man of dust and "omnipo-<br /> "tence."<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he make a woman at the same<br /> time that he
+ made a man?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No; he thought at one time to avoid<br />
+ the necessity of making a woman, and he caused all<br /> the animals to
+ pass before Adam, to see what he<br /> would call them, and to see whether
+ a fit companion<br /> could be found for him. Among them all, not one<br />
+ suited Adam, and Jehovah immediately saw that he<br /> would have to make
+ an help-meet on purpose.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What was woman made
+ of?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. She was made out of "man's side, out of<br />
+ his right side," and some more "omnipotence." Infi-<br /> dels say that she
+ was made out of a rib, or a bone, but<br /> that is because they do not
+ understand Hebrew.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What was the object of
+ making woman<br /> out of man's side?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. So that a
+ young man would think more<br /> of a neighbor's girl than of his own uncle
+ or grand-<br /> father.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What did God do with
+ Adam and Eve<br /> after he got them done?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He put
+ them into a garden to see what<br /> they would do.<br /> <br /> 367<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do we know where the Garden of Eden<br /> was, and
+ have we ever found any place where a<br /> "river parted and became into
+ four heads"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. We are not certain where this
+ garden<br /> was, and the river that parted into four heads cannot<br /> at
+ present be found. Infidels have had a great deal<br /> to say about these
+ four rivers, but they will wish<br /> they had even one, one of these days.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What happened to Adam and Eve in<br /> the garden?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They were tempted by a snake who was<br /> an
+ exceedingly good talker, and who probably came<br /> in walking on the end
+ of his tail. This supposition<br /> is based upon the fact that, as a
+ punishment, he was<br /> condemned to crawl on his belly. Before that time,<br />
+ of course, he walked upright.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What happened
+ then?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Our first parents gave way, ate of the<br />
+ forbidden fruit, and in consequence, disease and<br /> death entered the
+ world. Had it not been for this,<br /> there would have been no death and
+ no disease.<br /> Suicide would have been impossible, and a man<br /> could
+ have been blown into a thousand atoms by<br /> dynamite, and the pieces
+ would immediately have<br /> come together again. Fire would have refused
+ to<br /> <br /> 368<br /> <br /> burn and water to drown; there could have
+ been no<br /> hunger, no thirst; all things would have been equally<br />
+ healthy.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you mean to say that there would<br />
+ have been no death in the world, either of animals,<br /> insects, or
+ persons?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you also think that all briers and<br /> thorns sprang from the same
+ source, and that had<br /> the apple not been eaten, no bush in the world<br />
+ would have had a thorn, and brambles and thistles<br /> would have been
+ unknown?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Would there have been no poisonous<br /> plants, no poisonous reptiles?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No, sir; there would have been none;<br /> there would
+ have been no evil in the world if Adam<br /> and Eve had not partaken of
+ the forbidden fruit.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was the snake who tempted
+ them to<br /> eat, evil?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. '<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Was he in the world before the for-<br /> bidden fruit was
+ eaten?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course he was; he tempted them to<br />
+ eat it<br /> <br /> 369<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How, then, do you
+ account for the fact<br /> that, before the forbidden fruit was eaten, an
+ evil<br /> serpent was in the world?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Perhaps
+ apples had been eaten in other<br /> worlds.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is
+ it not wonderful that such awful con-<br /> sequences flowed from so small
+ an act?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It is not for you to reason about it;
+ you<br /> should simply remember that God is omnipotent.<br /> There is but
+ one way to answer these things, and<br /> that is to admit their truth.
+ Nothing so puts the<br /> Infinite out of temper as to see a human being<br />
+ impudent enough to rely upon his reason. The<br /> moment we rely upon our
+ reason, we abandon God,<br /> and try to take care of ourselves. Whoever
+ relies<br /> entirely upon God, has no need of reason, and<br /> reason has
+ no need of him.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Were our first parents under
+ the im-<br /> mediate protection of an infinite God?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ They were.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why did he not protect them? Why<br />
+ did he not warn them of this snake? Why did he<br /> not put them on their
+ guard? Why did he not<br /> make them so sharp, intellectually, that they
+ could<br /> not be deceived? Why did he not destroy that<br /> <br /> 370<br />
+ <br /> snake; or how did he come to make him; what did<br /> he make him
+ for?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. You must remember that, although God<br />
+ made Adam and Eve perfectly good, still he was very<br /> anxious to test
+ them. He also gave them the power<br /> of choice, knowing at the same time
+ exactly what they<br /> would choose, and knowing that he had made them<br />
+ so that they must choose in a certain way. A being<br /> of infinite wisdom
+ tries experiments. Knowing ex-<br /> actly what will happen, he wishes to
+ see if it will.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What punishment did God
+ inflict upon<br /> Adam and Eve for the sin of having eaten the for-<br />
+ bidden fruit?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He pronounced a curse upon the
+ woman,<br /> saying that in sorrow she should bring forth children,<br />
+ and that her husband should rule over her; that she,<br /> having tempted
+ her husband, was made his slave;<br /> and through her, all married women
+ have been de-<br /> prived of their natural liberty. On account of the<br />
+ sin of Adam and Eve, God cursed the ground, saying<br /> that it should
+ bring forth thorns and thistles, and<br /> that man should eat his bread in
+ sorrow, and that he<br /> should eat the herb of the field.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Did he turn them out of the garden<br /> because of their sin?<br /> <br />
+ 371<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No. The reason God gave for turning<br />
+ them out of the garden was: "Behold the man is<br /> "become as one of us,
+ to know good and evil; and<br /> "now, lest he put forth his hand and take
+ of the<br /> "tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore, the<br />
+ "Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden<br /> "to till the ground
+ from whence he was taken."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If the man had
+ eaten of the tree of life,<br /> would he have lived forever?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Certainly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was he turned out to prevent his<br />
+ eating?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He was.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Then
+ the Old Testament tells us how we<br /> lost immortality, not that we are
+ immortal, does it?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes; it tells us how we lost
+ it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was God afraid that Adam and Eve<br />
+ might get back into the garden, and eat of the fruit<br /> of the tree of
+ life?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I suppose he was, as he placed "cher-<br />
+ "ubim and a flaming sword which turned every<br /> "way to guard the tree
+ of life."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Has any one ever seen any of these<br />
+ cherubim?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Not that I know of.<br /> <br /> 372<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Where is the flaming sword now?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Some angel has it in heaven.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you understand
+ that God made<br /> coats of skins, and clothed Adam and Eve when<br /> he
+ turned them out of the garden?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, sir.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you really believe that the infinite<br /> God
+ killed some animals, took their skins from them,<br /> cut out and sewed up
+ clothes for Adam and Eve?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The Bible says so; we
+ know that he<br /> had patterns for clothes, because he showed some<br /> to
+ Moses on Mount Sinai.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. About how long did God
+ continue<br /> to pay particular attention to his children in this<br />
+ world?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. For about fifteen hundred years; and<br />
+ some of the people lived to be nearly a thousand<br /> years of age.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did this God establish any schools or<br />
+ institutions of learning? Did he establish any church?<br /> Did he ordain
+ any ministers, or did he have any re-<br /> vivals?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ No; he allowed the world to go on<br /> pretty much in its own way. He did
+ not even keep<br /> his own boys at home. They came down and made<br />
+ <br /> 373<br /> <br /> love to the daughters of men, and finally the world<br />
+ got exceedingly bad.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What did God do then?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He made up his mind that he would drown<br /> them.
+ You see they were all totally depraved,&mdash;in<br /> every joint and
+ sinew of their bodies, in every drop<br /> of their blood, and in every
+ thought of their brains.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he drown them
+ all?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No, he saved eight, to start with again.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Were these eight persons totally de-<br /> praved?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why did he not kill
+ them, and start<br /> over again with a perfect pair? Would it not have<br />
+ been better to have had his flood at first, before he<br /> made anybody,
+ and drowned the snake?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. "God's way are not our
+ ways;" and<br /> besides, you must remember that "a thousand years<br />
+ "are as one day" with God.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How did God destroy
+ the people?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. By water; it rained forty days and
+ forty<br /> nights, and "the fountains of the great deep were<br /> "broken
+ up."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How deep was the water?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ About five miles.<br /> <br /> 374<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How much did
+ it rain each day?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. About eight hundred feet;
+ though the<br /> better opinion now is, that it was a local flood. In-<br />
+ fidels have raised objections and pressed them to that<br /> degree that
+ most orthodox people admit that the<br /> flood was rather local.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. If it was a local flood, why did they put<br />
+ birds of the air into the ark? Certainly, birds could<br /> have avoided a
+ local flood?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. If you take this away from us, what
+ do<br /> you propose to give us in its place? Some of the<br /> best people
+ of the world have believed this story.<br /> Kind husbands, loving mothers,
+ and earnest patriots<br /> have believed it, and that is sufficient.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. At the time God made these people,<br /> did he know
+ that he would have to drown them all?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course
+ he did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he know when he made them that<br />
+ they would all be failures?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why, then, did he make them?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ He made them for his own glory, and<br /> no man should disgrace his
+ parents by denying it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Were the people after
+ the flood just as<br /> bad as they were before?<br /> <br /> 375<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. About the same.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did they try to
+ circumvent God?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They got together for the purpose of build-<br />
+ ing a tower, the top of which should reach to heaven,<br /> so that they
+ could laugh at any future floods, and go<br /> to heaven at any time they
+ desired.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did God hear about this?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. He did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What did he say?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He said: "Go to; let us go down," and<br /> see what
+ the people are doing; I am satisfied they<br /> will succeed.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How were the people prevented from<br /> succeeding?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ God confounded their language, so that<br /> the mason on top could not cry
+ "mort'!" to the<br /> hod-carrier below; he could not think of the word<br />
+ to use, to save his life, and the building stopped.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ If it had not been for the confusion of<br /> tongues at Babel, do you
+ really think that all the<br /> people in the world would have spoken just
+ the same<br /> language, and would have pronounced every word<br />
+ precisely the same?<br /> <br /> 376<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. If it had not been, then, for the con-<br /> fusion
+ of languages, spelling books, grammars and<br /> dictionaries would have
+ been useless?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I suppose so.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do any two people in the whole world<br /> speak the same language, now?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course they don't, and this is one of<br /> the
+ great evidences that God introduced confusion<br /> into the languages.
+ Every error in grammar, every<br /> mistake in spelling, every blunder in
+ pronunciation,<br /> proves the truth of the Babel story.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ This being so, this miracle is the best<br /> attested of all?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose it is.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you not
+ think that a confusion of<br /> tongues would bring men together instead of
+ separa-<br /> ting them? Would not a man unable to converse<br /> with his
+ fellow feel weak instead of strong; and<br /> would not people whose
+ language had been con-<br /> founded cling together for mutual support?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. According to nature, yes; according to<br /> theology,
+ no; and these questions must be answered<br /> according to theology. And
+ right here, it may be<br /> well enough to state, that in theology the
+ unnatural<br /> <br /> 377<br /> <br /> is the probable, and the impossible is
+ what has always<br /> happened. If theology were simply natural, anybody<br />
+ could be a theologian.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did God ever make any
+ other special<br /> efforts to convert the people, or to reform the world?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, he destroyed the cities of Sodom<br /> and
+ Gomorrah with a storm of fire and brimstone.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you suppose it was really brim-<br /> stone?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Undoubtedly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think this brimstone came
+ from<br /> the clouds?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Let me tell you that you
+ have no right<br /> to examine the Bible in the light of what people are<br />
+ pleased to call "science." The natural has nothing<br /> to do with the
+ supernatural. Naturally there would<br /> be no brimstone in the clouds,
+ but supernaturally<br /> there might be. God could make brimstone out of<br />
+ his "omnipotence." We do not know really what<br /> brimstone is, and
+ nobody knows exactly how brim-<br /> stone is made. As a matter of fact,
+ all the brimstone<br /> in the world might have fallen at that time.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that Lot's wife was<br /> changed into
+ salt?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course she was. A miracle was per-<br />
+ <br /> 378<br /> <br /> formed. A few centuries ago, the statue of salt made<br />
+ by changing Lot's wife into that article, was standing.<br /> Christian
+ travelers have seen it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why do you think she
+ was changed<br /> into salt?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. For the purpose of
+ keeping the event<br /> fresh in the minds of men.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ God having failed to keep people in-<br /> nocent in a garden; having
+ failed to govern them<br /> outside of a garden; having failed to reform
+ them by<br /> water; having failed to produce any good result by a<br />
+ confusion of tongues; having failed to reform them<br /> with fire and
+ brimstone, what did he then do?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He concluded
+ that he had no time to<br /> waste on them all, but that he would have to
+ select<br /> one tribe, and turn his entire attention to just a few<br />
+ folks.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Whom did he select?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ A man by the name of Abram.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What kind of man
+ was Abram?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. If you wish to know, read the twelfth<br />
+ chapter of Genesis; and if you still have any doubts<br /> as to his
+ character, read the twentieth chapter of the<br /> same book, and you will
+ see that he was a man who<br /> made merchandise of his wife's body. He had
+ had<br /> <br /> 379<br /> <br /> such good fortune in Egypt, that he tried
+ the experi-<br /> ment again on Abimelech.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did
+ Abraham show any gratitude?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes; he offered to
+ sacrifice his son, to<br /> show his confidence in Jehovah.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ What became of Abraham and his<br /> people?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. God
+ took such care of them, that in<br /> about two hundred and fifteen years
+ they were all<br /> slaves in the land of Egypt.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How long did they remain in slavery?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Two hundred
+ and fifteen years.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Were they the same people
+ that God<br /> had promised to take care of?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They
+ were.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was God at that time, in favor of<br />
+ slavery?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Not at that time. He was angry at the<br />
+ Egyptians for enslaving the Jews, but he afterwards<br /> authorized the
+ Jews to enslave other people.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What means did
+ he take to liberate<br /> the Jews?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He sent his
+ agents to Pharaoh, and de-<br /> manded their freedom; and upon Pharaoh s
+ refusing,<br /> he afflicted the people, who had nothing to do with<br />
+ <br /> 380<br /> <br /> it, with various plagues,&mdash;killed children, and
+ tor-<br /> mented and tortured beasts.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was such
+ conduct Godlike?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. If you have anything
+ against<br /> your neighbor, it is perfectly proper to torture his<br />
+ horse, or torment his dog. Nothing can be nobler<br /> than this. You see
+ it is much better to injure his<br /> animals than to injure him. To punish
+ animals for<br /> the sins of their owners must be just, or God would<br />
+ not have done it. Pharaoh insisted on keeping the<br /> people in slavery,
+ and therefore God covered the<br /> bodies of oxen and cows with boils. He
+ also bruised<br /> them to death with hailstones. From this we infer,<br />
+ that "the loving kindness of God is over all his works."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you consider such treatment of ani-<br /> mals consistent with divine
+ mercy?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. You know that under the<br />
+ Mosaic dispensation, when a man did a wrong, he<br /> could settle with God
+ by killing an ox, or a sheep,<br /> or some doves. If the man failed to
+ kill them, of<br /> course God would kill them. It was upon this prin-<br />
+ ciple that he destroyed the animals of the Egyptians.<br /> They had
+ sinned, and he merely took his pay.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How was it
+ possible, under the old dis-<br /> pensation, to please a being of infinite
+ kindness?<br /> <br /> 381<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. All you had to do was
+ to take an innocent<br /> animal, bring it to the altar, cut its throat,
+ and sprinkle<br /> the altar with its blood. Certain parts of it were to be<br />
+ given to the butcher as his share, and the rest was to<br /> be burnt on
+ the altar. When God saw an animal thus<br /> butchered, and smelt the warm
+ blood mingled with<br /> the odor of burning flesh, he was pacified, and
+ the<br /> smile of forgiveness shed its light upon his face.<br /> Of
+ course, infidels laugh at these things; but what<br /> can you expect of
+ men who have not been "born<br /> "again"? "The carnal mind is enmity with
+ God."<br /> <i>Question</i>. What else did God do in order to in-<br /> duce
+ Pharaoh to liberate the Jews?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He had his agents
+ throw down a cane<br /> in the presence of Pharaoh and thereupon Jehovah<br />
+ changed this cane into a serpent.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did this
+ convince Pharaoh?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No; he sent for his own
+ magicians.<br /> <i>Question</i>. What did they do?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ They threw down some canes and they<br /> also were changed into serpents.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did Jehovah change the canes of the<br /> Egyptian
+ magicians into snakes?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I suppose he did, as he
+ is the only one<br /> capable of performing such a miracle.<br /> <br /> 382<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. If the rod of Aaron was changed into<br /> a serpent
+ in order to convince Pharaoh that God had<br /> sent Aaron and Moses, why
+ did God change the<br /> sticks of the Egyptian magicians into serpents&mdash;why<br />
+ did he discredit his own agents, and render worth-<br /> less their only
+ credentials?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, we cannot explain the conduct
+ of<br /> Jehovah; we are perfectly satisfied that it was for<br /> the best.
+ Even in this age of the world God allows<br /> infidels to overwhelm his
+ chosen people with argu-<br /> ments; he allows them to discover facts that
+ his<br /> ministers can not answer, and yet we are satisfied<br /> that in
+ the end God will give the victory to us. All<br /> these things are tests
+ of faith. It is upon this prin-<br /> ciple that God allows geology to
+ laugh at Genesis,<br /> that he permits astronomy apparently to contradict<br />
+ his holy word.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What did God do with these
+ people<br /> after Pharaoh allowed them to go?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Finding that they were not fit to settle<br /> a new country, owing to the
+ fact that when hungry<br /> they longed for food, and sometimes when their
+ lips<br /> were cracked with thirst insisted on having water,<br /> God in
+ his infinite mercy had them marched round<br /> and round, back and forth,
+ through a barren wilder-<br /> <br /> 383<br /> <br /> ness, until all, with
+ the exception of two persons,<br /> died.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why
+ did he do this?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because he had promised these
+ people<br /> that he would take them "to a land flowing with<br /> "milk and
+ honey."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was God always patient and kind and<br />
+ merciful toward his children while they were in the<br /> wilderness?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, he always was merciful and kind<br /> and
+ patient. Infidels have taken the ground that he<br /> visited them with
+ plagues and disease and famine;<br /> that he had them bitten by serpents,
+ and now and<br /> then allowed the ground to swallow a few thousands<br />
+ of them, and in other ways saw to it that they were<br /> kept as
+ comfortable and happy as was consistent with<br /> good government; but all
+ these things were for their<br /> good; and the fact is, infidels have no
+ real sense of<br /> justice.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How did God happen
+ to treat the Is-<br /> raelites in this way, when he had promised Abraham<br />
+ that he would take care of his progeny, and when he<br /> had promised the
+ same to the poor wretches while<br /> they were slaves in Egypt?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Because God is unchangeable in his na-<br /> <br /> 384<br />
+ <br /> ture, and wished to convince them that every being<br /> should be
+ perfectly faithful to his promise.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was God
+ driven to madness by the<br /> conduct of his chosen people?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Almost.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he know exactly what they would<br />
+ do when he chose them?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Exactly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Were the Jews guilty of idolatry?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They were.
+ They worshiped other gods<br /> &mdash;gods made of wood and stone.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it not wonderful that they were not<br />
+ convinced of the power of God, by the many mira-<br /> cles wrought in
+ Egypt and in the wilderness?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, it is very
+ wonderful; but the Jews,<br /> who must have seen bread rained from heaven;
+ who<br /> saw water gush from the rocks and follow them up hill<br /> and
+ down; who noticed that their clothes did not<br /> wear out, and did not
+ even get shiny at the knees,<br /> while the elbows defied the ravages of
+ time, and<br /> their shoes remained perfect for forty years; it is<br />
+ wonderful that when they saw the ground open<br /> and swallow their
+ comrades; when they saw God<br /> talking face to face with Moses as a man
+ talks with<br /> his friend; after they saw the cloud by day and the<br />
+ <br /> 385<br /> <br /> pillar of fire by night,&mdash;it is absolutely
+ astonishing<br /> that they had more faith in a golden calf that they<br />
+ made themselves, than in Jehovah.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How is it
+ that the Jews had no confi-<br /> dence in these miracles?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Because they were there and saw them.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you
+ think that it is necessary for<br /> us to believe all the miracles of the
+ Old Testament<br /> in order to be saved?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The Old
+ Testament is the foundation of<br /> the New. If the Old Testament is not
+ inspired, then<br /> the New is of no value. If the Old Testament is<br />
+ inspired, all the miracles are true, and we cannot<br /> believe that God
+ would allow any errors, or false<br /> statements, to creep into an
+ inspired volume, and to<br /> be perpetuated through all these years.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Should we believe the miracles, whether<br /> they
+ are reasonable or not?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly; if they were
+ reasonable, they<br /> would not be miracles. It is their unreasonableness<br />
+ that appeals to our credulity and our faith. It is im-<br /> possible to
+ have theological faith in anything that<br /> can be demonstrated. It is
+ the office of faith to<br /> believe, not only without evidence, but in
+ spite of<br /> evidence. It is impossible for the carnal mind to<br /> <br />
+ 386<br /> <br /> believe that Samsons muscle depended upon the<br /> length
+ of his hair. "God has made the wisdom of<br /> "this world foolishness."
+ Neither can the uncon-<br /> verted believe that Elijah stopped at a hotel
+ kept by<br /> ravens. Neither can they believe that a barrel would<br /> in
+ and of itself produce meal, or that an earthen pot<br /> could create oil.
+ But to a Christian, in order that a<br /> widow might feed a preacher, the
+ truth of these<br /> stories is perfectly apparent.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How should we regard the wonderful<br /> stories of the Old Testament?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They should be looked upon as "types"<br /> and
+ "symbols." They all have a spiritual signifi-<br /> cance. The reason I
+ believe the story of Jonah is,<br /> that Jonah is a type of Christ.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you believe the story of Jonah to<br /> be a true
+ account of a literal fact?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. You must
+ remember that<br /> Jonah was not swallowed by a whale. God "pre-<br />
+ "pared a great fish" for that occasion. Neither is it by<br /> any means
+ certain that Jonah was in the belly of<br /> this whale. "He probably
+ stayed in his mouth."<br /> Even if he was in his stomach, it was very easy<br />
+ for him to defy the ordinary action of gastric juice<br /> by rapidly
+ walking up and down..<br /> <br /> 387<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you
+ think that Jonah was really in<br /> the whale's stomach?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ My own opinion is that he stayed in his<br /> mouth. The only objection to
+ this theory is, that it<br /> is more reasonable than the other and
+ requires less<br /> faith. Nothing could be easier than for God to make<br />
+ a fish large enough to furnish ample room for one<br /> passenger in his
+ mouth. I throw out this suggestion<br /> simply that you may be able to
+ answer the objections<br /> of infidels who are always laughing at this
+ story.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you really believe that Elijah went<br />
+ to heaven in a chariot of fire, drawn by horses of<br /> fire?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course he did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What was this
+ miracle performed for?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. To convince the people of
+ the power of<br /> God.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Who saw the miracle?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Nobody but Elisha.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was he
+ convinced before that time?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Oh yes; he was one
+ of God's prophets.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Suppose that in these days
+ two men<br /> should leave a town together, and after a while one<br /> of
+ them should come back having on the clothes of<br /> the other, and should
+ account for the fact that he had<br /> <br /> 388<br /> <br /> his friend's
+ clothes by saying that while they were<br /> going along the road together
+ a chariot of fire came<br /> down from heaven drawn by fiery steeds, and
+ there-<br /> upon his friend got into the carriage, threw him his<br />
+ clothes, and departed,&mdash;would you believe it?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Of course things like that don't happen<br /> in these days; God does not
+ have to rely on wonders<br /> now.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you mean
+ that he performs no<br /> miracles at the present day?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ We cannot say that he does not perform<br /> miracles now, but we are not
+ in position to call atten-<br /> tion to any particular one. Of course he
+ supervises<br /> the affairs of nations and men and does whatever in<br />
+ his judgment is necessary.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that
+ Samson's strength<br /> depended on the length of his hair?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ The Bible so states, and the Bible is true.<br /> A physiologist might say
+ that a man could not use<br /> the muscle in his hair for lifting purposes,
+ but these<br /> same physiologists could not tell you how you move<br /> a
+ finger, nor how you lift a feather; still, actuated by<br /> the pride of
+ intellect, they insist that the length of a<br /> man's hair could not
+ determine his strength. God<br /> says it did; the physiologist says that
+ it did not; we<br /> <br /> 389<br /> <br /> can not hesitate whom to believe.
+ For the purpose<br /> of avoiding eternal agony I am willing to believe<br />
+ anything; I am willing to say that strength depends<br /> upon the length
+ of hair, or faith upon the length of<br /> ears. I am perfectly willing to
+ believe that a man<br /> caught three hundred foxes, and put fire brands
+ be-<br /> tween their tails; that he slew thousands with a bone,<br /> and
+ that he made a bee hive out of a lion. I will<br /> believe, if necessary,
+ that when this man's hair was<br /> short he hardly had strength enough to
+ stand, and<br /> that when it was long, he could carry away the gates<br />
+ of a city, or overthrow a temple filled with people.<br /> If the infidel
+ is right, I will lose nothing by believing,<br /> but if he is wrong, I
+ shall gain an eternity of joy.<br /> If God did not intend that we should
+ believe these<br /> stories, he never would have told them, and why<br />
+ should a man put his soul in peril by trying to dis-<br /> prove one of the
+ statements of the Lord?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Suppose it should turn
+ out that some<br /> of these miracles depend upon mistranslations of the<br />
+ original Hebrew, should we still believe them?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ The safe side is the best side. It is<br /> far better to err on the side
+ of belief, than on the<br /> side of infidelity. God does not threaten
+ anybody<br /> with eternal punishment for believing too much.<br /> <br />
+ 390<br /> <br /> Danger lies on the side of investigation, on the<br /> side
+ of thought. The perfectly idiotic are absolutely<br /> safe. As they
+ diverge from that point,&mdash;as they rise<br /> in the intellectual
+ scale, as the brain develops, as the<br /> faculties enlarge, the danger
+ increases. I know that<br /> some biblical students now take the ground
+ that<br /> Samson caught no foxes,&mdash;that he only took sheaves<br /> of
+ wheat that had been already cut and bound, set<br /> them on fire, and
+ threw them into the grain still<br /> standing. If this is what he did, of
+ course there is<br /> nothing miraculous about it, and the value of the<br />
+ story is lost. So, others contend that Elijah was not<br /> fed by the
+ ravens, but by the Arabs. They tell us<br /> that the Hebrew word standing
+ for "Arab" also<br /> stands for "bird," and that the word really means<br />
+ "migratory&mdash;going from place to place&mdash;homeless."<br /> But I
+ prefer the old version. It certainly will do no<br /> harm to believe that
+ ravens brought bread and flesh<br /> to a prophet of God. Where they got
+ their bread<br /> and flesh is none of my business; how they knew<br />
+ where the prophet was, and recognized him; or how<br /> God talks to
+ ravens, or how he gave them directions,<br /> I have no right to inquire. I
+ leave these questions<br /> to the scientists, the blasphemers, and
+ thinkers.<br /> There are many people in the church anxious to<br /> <br />
+ 391<br /> <br /> get the miracles out of the Bible, and thousands,<br /> I
+ have no doubt, would be greatly gratified to learn<br /> that there is, in
+ fact, nothing miraculous in Scripture;<br /> but when you take away the
+ miraculous, you take<br /> away the supernatural; when you take away the<br />
+ supernatural, you destroy the ministry; and when<br /> you take away the
+ ministry, hundreds of thousands<br /> of men will be left without
+ employment.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it not wonderful that the
+ Egyptians<br /> were not converted by the miracles wrought in their<br />
+ country?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, they all would have been, if God<br />
+ had not purposely hardened their hearts to prevent<br /> it. Jehovah always
+ took great delight in furnishing<br /> the evidence, and then hardening the
+ man's heart so<br /> that he would not believe it. After all the miracles<br />
+ that had been performed in Egypt,&mdash;the most won-<br /> derful that
+ were ever done in any country, the<br /> Egyptians were as unbelieving as
+ at first; they pur-<br /> sued the Israelites, knowing that they were
+ protected<br /> by an infinite God, and failing to overwhelm them,<br />
+ came back and worshiped their own false gods just as<br /> firmly as
+ before. All of which shows the unreason-<br /> ableness of a Pagan, and the
+ natural depravity of<br /> human nature.<br /> <br /> 392<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How did it happen that the Canaanites<br /> were never convinced that the
+ Jews were assisted by<br /> Jehovah?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They must
+ have been an exceedingly<br /> brave people to contend so many years with
+ the<br /> chosen people of God. Notwithstanding all their<br /> cities were
+ burned time and time again; notwith-<br /> standing all the men, women and
+ children were put<br /> to the edge of the sword; notwithstanding the
+ taking<br /> of all their cattle and sheep, they went right on<br />
+ fighting just as valiantly and desperately as ever.<br /> Each one lost his
+ life many times, and was just as<br /> ready for the next conflict. My own
+ opinion is, that<br /> God kept them alive by raising them from the dead<br />
+ after each battle, for the purpose of punishing the<br /> Jews. God used
+ his enemies as instruments for the<br /> civilization of the Jewish people.
+ He did not wish<br /> to convert them, because they would give him much<br />
+ more trouble as Jews than they did as Canaanites.<br /> He had all the Jews
+ he could conveniently take care<br /> of. He found it much easier to kill a
+ hundred<br /> Canaanites than to civilize one Jew.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How do you account for the fact that<br /> the heathen were not surprised
+ at the stopping of the<br /> sun and moon?<br /> <br /> 393<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ They were so ignorant that they had<br /> not the slightest conception of
+ the real cause of<br /> the phenomenon. Had they known the size of<br /> the
+ earth, and the relation it sustained to the other<br /> heavenly bodies;
+ had they known the magnitude of<br /> the sun, and the motion of the moon,
+ they would,<br /> in all probability, have been as greatly astonished as<br />
+ the Jews were; but being densely ignorant of as-<br /> tronomy, it must
+ have produced upon them not the<br /> slightest impression. But we must
+ remember that<br /> the sun and moon were not stopped for the purpose<br />
+ of converting these people, but to give Joshua more<br /> time to kill
+ them. As soon as we see clearly the<br /> purpose of Jehovah, we instantly
+ perceive how ad-<br /> mirable were the means adopted.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you not consider the treatment<br /> of the Canaanites to have been
+ cruel and ferocious?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. To a totally depraved man,
+ it does look<br /> cruel; to a being without any good in him,&mdash;to one<br />
+ who has inherited the rascality of many generations,<br /> the murder of
+ innocent women and little children<br /> does seem horrible; to one who is
+ "contaminated in<br /> "all his parts," by original sin,&mdash;who was
+ "conceived<br /> "in sin, and brought forth in iniquity," the assassina-<br />
+ tion of men, and the violation of captive maidens,<br /> <br /> 394<br />
+ <br /> do not seem consistent with infinite goodness. But<br /> when one has
+ been "born again," when "the love<br /> "of God has been shed abroad in his
+ heart," when<br /> he loves all mankind, when he "overcomes evil with<br />
+ "good," when he "prays for those who despite-<br /> "fully use him and
+ persecute him,"&mdash;to such a man,<br /> the extermination of the
+ Canaanites, the violation<br /> of women, the slaughter of babes, and the
+ destruc-<br /> tion of countless thousands, is the highest evidence<br /> of
+ the goodness, the mercy, and the long-suffering<br /> of God. When a man
+ has been "born again," all<br /> the passages of the Old Testament that
+ appear so<br /> horrible and so unjust to one in his natural state,<br />
+ become the dearest, the most consoling, and the<br /> most beautiful of
+ truths. The real Christian reads<br /> the accounts of these ancient
+ battles with the greatest<br /> possible satisfaction. To one who really
+ loves his<br /> enemies, the groans of men, the shrieks of women,<br /> and
+ the cries of babes, make music sweeter than the<br /> zephyr's breath.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. In your judgment, why did God destroy<br /> the
+ Canaanites?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. To prevent their contaminating his<br />
+ chosen people. He knew that if the Jews were<br /> allowed to live with
+ such neighbors, they would<br /> <br /> 395<br /> <br /> finally become as bad
+ as the Canaanites themselves.<br /> He wished to civilize his chosen
+ people, and it was<br /> therefore necessary for him to destroy the
+ heathen.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did God succeed in civilizing the
+ Jews<br /> after he had "removed" the Canaanites?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Well, not entirely. He had to allow the<br /> heathen he had not destroyed
+ to overrun the whole<br /> land and make captives of the Jews. This was
+ done<br /> for the good of his chosen people.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Did he then succeed in civilizing them?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Not quite.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he ever quite succeed in civilizing<br /> them?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, we must admit that the experi-<br /> ment never
+ was a conspicuous success. The Jews<br /> were chosen by the Almighty 430
+ years before he<br /> appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai. He was their<br />
+ direct Governor. He attended personally to their<br /> religion and
+ politics, and gave up a great part of his<br /> valuable time for about two
+ thousand years, to the<br /> management of their affairs; and yet, such was
+ the<br /> condition of the Jewish people, after they had had all<br /> these
+ advantages, that when there arose among them<br /> a perfectly kind, just,
+ generous and honest man, these<br /> people, with whom God had been
+ laboring for so<br /> <br /> 396<br /> <br /> many centuries, deliberately put
+ to death that good<br /> and loving man.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you
+ think that God really endeav-<br /> ored to civilize the Jews?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. This is an exceedingly hard question.<br /> If he had really
+ tried to do it, of course he could<br /> have done it. We must not think of
+ limiting the<br /> power of the infinite. But you must remember that<br />
+ if he had succeeded in civilizing the Jews, if he had<br /> educated them
+ up to the plane of intellectual liberty,<br /> and made them just and kind
+ and merciful, like him-<br /> self, they would not have crucified Christ,
+ and you<br /> can see at once the awful condition in which we<br /> would
+ all be to-day. No atonement could have<br /> been made; and if no atonement
+ had been made,<br /> then, according to the Christian system, the whole<br />
+ world would have been lost. We must admit that<br /> there was no time in
+ the history of the Jews from<br /> Sinai to Jerusalem, that they would not
+ have put a<br /> man like Christ to death.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. So
+ you think that, after all, it was not<br /> God's intention that the Jews
+ should become civilized?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. We do not know. We can
+ only say<br /> that "God's ways are not our ways." It may be<br /> that God
+ took them in his special charge, for the<br /> <br /> 397<br /> <br /> purpose
+ of keeping them bad enough to make the<br /> necessary sacrifice. That may
+ have been the divine<br /> plan. In any event, it is safer to believe the
+ explana-<br /> tion that is the most unreasonable.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you think that Christ knew the<br /> Jews would crucify him?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that
+ when he chose<br /> Judas he knew that he would betray him?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Certainly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he know when Judas went to the<br />
+ chief priest and made the bargain for the delivery<br /> of Christ?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why did he
+ allow himself to be be-<br /> trayed, if he knew the plot?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Infidelity is a very good doctrine to live<br /> by, but you should read
+ the last words of Paine and<br /> Voltaire.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If
+ Christ knew that Judas would betray<br /> him, why did he choose him?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Nothing can exceed the atrocities of the<br /> French
+ Revolution&mdash;when they carried a woman<br /> through the streets and
+ worshiped her as the goddess<br /> of Reason.<br /> <br /> 398<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Would not the mission of Christ have<br /> been a failure had no one
+ betrayed him?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Thomas Paine was a drunkard, and
+ re-<br /> canted on his death-bed, and died a blaspheming<br /> infidel
+ besides.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it not clear that an atonement was<br />
+ necessary; and is it not equally clear that the atone-<br /> ment could not
+ have been made unless somebody<br /> had betrayed Christ; and unless the
+ Jews had been<br /> wicked and orthodox enough to crucify him?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course the atonement had to be<br /> made. It was a part
+ of the "divine plan" that Christ<br /> should be betrayed, and that the
+ Jews should be<br /> wicked enough to kill him. Otherwise, the world<br />
+ would have been lost.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Suppose Judas had
+ understood the<br /> divine plan, what ought he to have done? Should<br />
+ he have betrayed Christ, or let somebody else do it;<br /> or should he
+ have allowed the world to perish, in-<br /> cluding his own soul?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. If you take the Bible away from the<br /> world, "how
+ would it be possible to have witnesses<br /> "sworn in courts;" how would
+ it be possible to ad-<br /> minister justice?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ If Christ had not been betrayed and<br /> <br /> 399<br /> <br /> crucified,
+ is it true that his own mother would be in<br /> perdition to-day?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Most assuredly. There was but one<br /> way by which
+ she could be saved, and that was by<br /> the death of her son&mdash;through
+ the blood of the<br /> atonement. She was totally depraved through the<br />
+ sin of Adam, and deserved eternal death. Even her<br /> love for the infant
+ Christ was, in the sight of God,&mdash;<br /> that is to say, of her babe,&mdash;wickedness.
+ It can not<br /> be repeated too often that there is only one way to<br />
+ be saved, and that is, to believe in the Lord Jesus<br /> Christ.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Could Christ have prevented the Jews<br /> from
+ crucifying him?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He could.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ If he could have saved his life and did<br /> not, was he not guilty of
+ suicide?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No one can understand these questions<br />
+ who has not read the prophecies of Daniel, and has<br /> not a clear
+ conception of what is meant by "the full-<br /> "ness of time."<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. What became of all the Canaanites, the<br /> Egyptians,
+ the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans and<br /> Chinese? What became of the
+ billions who died<br /> before the promise was made to Abraham; of the<br />
+ <br /> 400<br /> <br /> billions and billions who never heard of the Bible,<br />
+ who never heard the name, even, of Jesus Christ&mdash;<br /> never knew of
+ "the scheme of salvation"? What<br /> became of the millions and billions
+ who lived in this<br /> hemisphere, and of whose existence Jehovah himself<br />
+ seemed perfectly ignorant?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. They were undoubtedly
+ lost. God<br /> having made them, had a right to do with them as<br /> he
+ pleased. They are probably all in hell to-day, and<br /> the fact that they
+ are damned, only adds to the joy<br /> of the redeemed. It is by contrast
+ that we are able<br /> to perceive the infinite kindness with which God has<br />
+ treated us.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it not possible that something
+ can<br /> be done for a human soul in another world as well as<br /> in
+ this?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No; this is the only world in which<br />
+ God even attempts to reform anybody. In the<br /> other world, nothing is
+ done for the purpose of<br /> making anybody better. Here in this world,
+ where<br /> man lives but a few days, is the only opportunity<br /> for
+ moral improvement. A minister can do a thou-<br /> sand times more for a
+ soul than its creator; and this<br /> country is much better adapted to
+ moral growth than<br /> heaven itself. A person who lived on this earth a<br />
+ <br /> 401<br /> <br /> few years, and died without having been converted,<br />
+ has no hope in another world. The moment he arrives<br /> at the judgment
+ seat, nothing remains but to damn<br /> him. Neither God, nor the Holy
+ Ghost, nor Jesus<br /> Christ, can have the least possible influence with<br />
+ him there.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. When God created each human being,<br />
+ did he know exactly what would be his eternal fate?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Most assuredly he did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he know that
+ hundreds and millions<br /> and billions would suffer eternal pain?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. But he gave them freedom<br /> of choice
+ between good and evil.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he know exactly how
+ they would<br /> use that freedom?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he know that billions would use<br /> it wrong?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was it optional with
+ him whether he<br /> should make such people or not?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Certainly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Had these people any option as to<br />
+ whether they would be made or not?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>, No.<br />
+ <br /> 402<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Would it not have been far better to<br />
+ leave them unconscious dust?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. These questions
+ show how foolish it is<br /> to judge God according to a human standard.
+ What<br /> to us seems just and merciful, God may regard in an<br /> exactly
+ opposite light; and we may hereafter be<br /> developed to such a degree
+ that we will regard the<br /> agonies of the damned as the highest possible
+ evi-<br /> dence of the goodness and mercy of God.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How do you account for the fact that<br /> God did not make himself known
+ except to Abra-<br /> ham and his descendants? Why did he fail to<br />
+ reveal himself to the other nations&mdash;nations that,<br /> compared with
+ the Jews, were learned, cultivated<br /> and powerful? Would you regard a
+ revelation now<br /> made to the Esquimaux as intended for us; and<br />
+ would it be a revelation of which we would be<br /> obliged to take notice?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course, God could have revealed him-<br /> self,
+ not only to all the great nations, but to each<br /> individual. He could
+ have had the Ten Command-<br /> ments engraved on every heart and brain; or
+ he<br /> could have raised up prophets in every land; but<br /> he chose,
+ rather, to allow countless millions of his<br /> children to wander in the
+ darkness and blackness of<br /> <br /> 403<br /> <br /> Nature; chose, rather,
+ that they should redden their<br /> hands in each other's blood; chose,
+ rather, that they<br /> should live without light, and die without hope;<br />
+ chose, rather, that they should suffer, not only in this<br /> world, but
+ forever in the next. Of course we have<br /> no right to find fault with
+ the choice of God.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Now you can tell a sinner
+ to "believe<br /> "on the Lord Jesus Christ;" what could a sinner have<br />
+ been told in Egypt, three thousand years ago; and<br /> in what language
+ would you have addressed a Hindu<br /> in the days of Buddha&mdash;the
+ "divine scheme" at that<br /> time being a secret in the divine breast?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It is not for us to think upon these<br /> questions.
+ The moment we examine the Christian<br /> system, we begin to doubt. In a
+ little while, we shall<br /> be infidels, and shall lose the respect of
+ those who<br /> refuse to think. It is better to go with the majority.<br />
+ These doctrines are too sacred to be touched. You<br /> should be satisfied
+ with the religion of your father<br /> and your mother. "You want some book
+ on the<br /> "centre-table," in the parlor; it is extremely handy<br /> to
+ have a Family Record; and what book, other than<br /> the Bible, could a
+ mother give a son as he leaves the<br /> old homestead?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Is it not wonderful that all the writers<br /> <br /> 404<br /> <br /> of the
+ four gospels do not give an account of the<br /> ascension of Jesus Christ?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. This question has been answered long<br /> ago, time
+ and time again.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Perhaps it has, but would it
+ not be<br /> well enough to answer it once more? Some may<br /> not have
+ seen the answer?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Show me the hospitals that
+ infidels<br /> have built; show me the asylums that infidels<br /> have
+ founded.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. I know you have given the usual an-<br />
+ swer; but after all, is it not singular that a miracle<br /> so wonderful
+ as the bodily ascension of a man, should<br /> not have been mentioned by
+ all the writers of that<br /> man's life? Is it not wonderful that some of
+ them<br /> said that he did ascend, and others that he agreed to<br /> stay
+ with his disciples always?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. People unacquainted
+ with the Hebrew,<br /> can have no conception of these things. A story<br />
+ in plain English, does not sound as it does in Hebrew.<br /> Miracles seem
+ altogether more credible, when told in<br /> a dead language.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ What, in your judgment, became of<br /> the dead who were raised by Christ?
+ Is it not<br /> singular that they were never mentioned afterward?<br />
+ <br /> 405<br /> <br /> Would not a man who had been raised from the<br />
+ dead naturally be an object of considerable interest,<br /> especially to
+ his friends and acquaintances? And<br /> is it not also wonderful that
+ Christ, after having<br /> wrought so many miracles, cured so many lame and<br />
+ halt and blind, fed so many thousands miraculously,<br /> and after having
+ entered Jerusalem in triumph as a<br /> conqueror and king, had to be
+ pointed out by one<br /> of his own disciples who was bribed for the
+ purpose?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course, all these things are exceed-<br />
+ ingly wonderful, and if found in any other book,<br /> would be absolutely
+ incredible; but we have no<br /> right to apply the same kind of reasoning
+ to the<br /> Bible that we apply to the Koran or to the sacred<br /> books
+ of the Hindus. For the ordinary affairs of<br /> this world, God has given
+ us reason; but in the<br /> examination of religious questions, we should
+ de-<br /> pend upon credulity and faith.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If
+ Christ came to offer himself a sacri-<br /> fice, for the purpose of making
+ atonement for the<br /> sins of such as might believe on him, why did he<br />
+ not make this fact known to all of his disciples?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ He did. This was, and is, the gospel.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How is
+ it that Matthew says nothing<br /> about "salvation by faith," but simply
+ says that God<br /> <br /> 406<br /> <br /> will be merciful to the merciful,
+ that he will forgive<br /> the forgiving, and says not one word about the<br />
+ necessity of believing anything?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. But you will
+ remember that Mark says,<br /> in the last chapter of his gospel, that
+ "whoso be-<br /> "lieveth not shall be damned."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you admit that Matthew says<br /> nothing on the subject?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Yes, I suppose I must.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is not that passage in
+ Mark generally<br /> admitted to be an interpolation?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Some biblical scholars say that it is.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is that
+ portion of the last chapter of<br /> Mark found in the Syriac version of
+ the Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It is not.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ If it was necessary to believe on Jesus<br /> Christ, in order to be saved,
+ how is it that Matthew<br /> failed to say so?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ "There are more copies of the Bible<br /> "printed to-day, than of any
+ other book in the world,<br /> "and it is printed in more languages than
+ any other<br /> "book."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you consider it
+ necessary to be<br /> "regenerated"&mdash;to be "born again"&mdash;in order
+ to be<br /> saved?<br /> <br /> 407<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did Matthew say anything on the sub-<br /> ject of
+ "regeneration"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Did Mark?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did
+ Luke?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is Saint
+ John the only one who speaks<br /> of the necessity of being "born again"?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He is.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that
+ Matthew, Mark and<br /> Luke knew anything about the necessity of "regen-<br />
+ "eration"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course they did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Why did they fail to speak of it?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. There is no
+ civilization without the Bible.<br /> The moment you throw away the sacred
+ Scriptures,<br /> you are all at sea&mdash;you are without an anchor and<br />
+ without a compass.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. You will remember that,
+ according to<br /> Mark, Christ said to his disciples: "Go ye into all<br />
+ "the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."<br /> Did he refer to
+ the gospel set forth by Mark?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course he did.<br />
+ <br /> 408<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Well, in the gospel set forth by
+ Mark,<br /> there is not a word about "regeneration," and no<br /> word
+ about the necessity of believing anything&mdash;ex-<br /> cept in an
+ interpolated passage. Would it not seem<br /> from this, that
+ "regeneration" and a "belief in the<br /> "Lord Jesus Christ," are no part
+ of the gospel?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Nothing can exceed in horror the
+ last<br /> moments of the infidel; nothing can be more ter-<br /> rible than
+ the death of the doubter. When the<br /> glories of this world fade from
+ the vision; when am-<br /> bition becomes an empty name; when wealth turns<br />
+ to dust in the palsied hand of death, of what use is<br /> philosophy then?
+ Who cares then for the pride of<br /> intellect? In that dread moment, man
+ needs some-<br /> thing to rely on, whether it is true or not.<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Would it not have been more con-<br /> vincing if Christ,
+ after his resurrection, had shown<br /> himself to his enemies as well as
+ to his friends?<br /> Would it not have greatly strengthened the evidence<br />
+ in the case, if he had visited Pilate; had presented<br /> himself before
+ Caiaphas, the high priest; if he had<br /> again entered the temple, and
+ again walked the<br /> streets of Jerusalem?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. If
+ the evidence had been complete and<br /> overwhelming, there would have
+ been no praise-<br /> <br /> 409<br /> <br /> worthiness in belief; even
+ publicans and sinners<br /> would have believed, if the evidence had been
+ suffi-<br /> cient. The amount of evidence required is the test<br /> of the
+ true Christian spirit.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Would it not also have
+ been better<br /> had the ascension taken place in the presence of<br />
+ unbelieving thousands; it seems such a pity to have<br /> wasted such a
+ demonstration upon those already<br /> convinced?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ These questions are the natural fruit of<br /> the carnal mind, and can be
+ accounted for only by<br /> the doctrine of total depravity. Nothing has
+ given<br /> the church more trouble than just such questions.<br /> Unholy
+ curiosity, a disposition to pry into the divine<br /> mysteries, a desire
+ to know, to investigate, to explain<br /> &mdash;in short, to understand,
+ are all evidences of a re-<br /> probate mind.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How can we account for the fact that<br /> Matthew alone speaks of the wise
+ men of the East<br /> coming with gifts to the infant Christ; that he alone<br />
+ speaks of the little babes being killed by Herod? Is<br /> it possible that
+ the other writers never heard of these<br /> things?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Nobody can get any good out of the<br /> Bible by reading it in a critical
+ spirit. The contra-<br /> <br /> 410<br /> <br /> dictions and discrepancies
+ are only apparent, and melt<br /> away before the light of faith. That
+ which in other<br /> books would be absolute and palpable contradiction,<br />
+ is, in the Bible, when spiritually discerned, a perfect<br /> and beautiful
+ harmony. My own opinion is, that<br /> seeming contradictions are in the
+ Bible for the pur-<br /> pose of testing and strengthening the faith of
+ Chris-<br /> tians, and for the further purpose of ensnaring infidels,<br />
+ "that they might believe a lie and be damned."<br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it
+ possible that a good God would<br /> take pains to deceive his children?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The Bible is filled with instances of that<br /> kind,
+ and all orthodox ministers now know that<br /> fossil animals&mdash;that
+ is, representations of animals in<br /> stone, were placed in the rocks on
+ purpose to mis-<br /> lead men like Darwin and Humboldt, Huxley and<br />
+ Tyndall. It is also now known that God, for the<br /> purpose of misleading
+ the so-called men of science,<br /> had hairy elephants preserved in ice,
+ made stomachs<br /> for them, and allowed twigs of trees to be found in<br />
+ these stomachs, when, as a matter of fact, no such<br /> elephants ever
+ lived or ever died. These men who<br /> are endeavoring to overturn the
+ Scriptures with the<br /> lever of science will find that they have been
+ de-<br /> ceived. Through all eternity they will regret their<br /> <br />
+ 411<br /> <br /> philosophy. They will wish, in the next world, that<br />
+ they had thrown away geology and physiology and<br /> all other "ologies"
+ except theology. The time is<br /> coming when Jehovah will "mock at their
+ fears and<br /> "laugh at their calamity."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If
+ Joseph was not the father of Christ,<br /> why was his genealogy given to
+ show that Christ<br /> was of the blood of David; why would not the<br />
+ genealogy of any other Jew have done as well?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ That objection was raised and answered<br /> hundreds of years ago.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. If they wanted to show that Christ was of<br /> the
+ blood of David, why did they not give the gene-<br /> alogy of his mother
+ if Joseph was not his father?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. That objection was
+ answered hundreds<br /> of years ago.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How was
+ it answered?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. When Voltaire was dying, he sent
+ for a<br /> priest.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How does it happen that the
+ two gene-<br /> alogies given do not agree?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Perhaps they were written by different<br /> persons.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Were both these persons inspired by<br /> the same God?<br /> <br /> 412<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why were the
+ miracles recorded in the<br /> New Testament performed?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ The miracles were the evidence relied<br /> on to prove the supernatural
+ origin and the divine<br /> mission of Jesus Christ.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Aside from the miracles, is there any<br /> evidence to show the
+ supernatural origin or character<br /> of Jesus Christ?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Some have considered that his moral<br /> precepts are sufficient, of
+ themselves, to show that<br /> he was divine.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Had all of his moral precepts been<br /> taught before he lived?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. The same things had been said, but they<br /> did not have
+ the same meaning.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Does the fact that Buddha
+ taught the<br /> same tend to show that he was of divine origin?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly not. The rules of evidence<br /> applicable to the
+ Bible are not applicable to other<br /> books. We examine other books in
+ the light of<br /> reason; the Bible is the only exception. So, we<br />
+ should not judge of Christ as we do of any other<br /> man.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you think that Christ wrought<br /> <br /> 413<br /> <br /> many of his
+ miracles because he was good, charitable,<br /> and filled with pity?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Has he as much
+ power now as he had<br /> when on earth?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Most
+ assuredly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is he as charitable and pitiful
+ now, as<br /> he was then?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Why does he not now cure the lame<br /> and the halt and the blind?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It is well known that, when Julian the<br /> Apostate
+ was dying, catching some of his own blood<br /> in his hand and throwing it
+ into the air he exclaimed:<br /> "Galileean, thou hast conquered!"<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you consider it our duty to love our<br />
+ neighbor?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Is virtue the same in all worlds?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Most
+ assuredly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Are we under obligation to render
+ good<br /> for evil, and to "pray for those who despitefully use us"?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Will Christians in
+ heaven love their<br /> neighbors?<br /> <br /> 414<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Y es; if their neighbors are not in hell.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do
+ good Christians pity sinners in this<br /> world?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Yes.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because
+ they regard them as being in<br /> great danger of the eternal wrath of
+ God.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. After these sinners have died, and<br />
+ been sent to hell, will the Christians in heaven then<br /> pity them?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No. Angels have no pity.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ If we are under obligation to love our<br /> enemies, is not God under
+ obligation to love his?<br /> If we forgive our enemies, ought not God to
+ forgive<br /> his? If we forgive those who injure us, ought not<br /> God to
+ forgive those who have not injured him?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. God made
+ us, and he has therefore the<br /> right to do with us as he pleases.
+ Justice demands<br /> that he should damn all of us, and the few that he<br />
+ will save will be saved through mercy and without<br /> the slightest
+ respect to anything they may have done<br /> themselves. Such is the
+ justice of God, that those<br /> in hell will have no right to complain,
+ and those in<br /> heaven will have no right to be there. Hell is justice,<br />
+ and salvation is charity.<br /> <br /> 415<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do
+ you consider it possible for a law to<br /> be jusdy satisfied by the
+ punishment of an innocent<br /> person?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Such is
+ the scheme of the atonement.<br /> As man is held responsible for the sin
+ of Adam, so<br /> he will be credited with the virtues of Christ; and<br />
+ you can readily see that one is exactly as reasonable<br /> as the other.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Suppose a man honestly reads the New<br />
+ Testament, and honestly concludes that it is not an<br /> inspired book;
+ suppose he honestly makes up his<br /> mind that the miracles are not true;
+ that the devil<br /> never really carried Christ to the pinnacle of the<br />
+ temple; that devils were really never cast out of a<br /> man and allowed
+ to take refuge in swine;&mdash;I say,<br /> suppose that he is honestly
+ convinced that these<br /> things are not true, what ought he to say?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He ought to say nothing.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Suppose that the same man should read<br /> the Koran, and come to the
+ conclusion that it is not<br /> an inspired book; what ought he to say?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He ought to say that it is not inspired;<br /> his
+ fellow-men are entitled to his honest opinion, and<br /> it is his duty to
+ do what he can do to destroy a per-<br /> nicious superstition.<br /> <br />
+ 416<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Suppose then, that a reader of the Bible,<br />
+ having become convinced that it is not inspired&mdash;<br /> honestly
+ convinced&mdash;says nothing&mdash;keeps his con-<br /> clusion absolutely
+ to himself, and suppose he dies in<br /> that belief, can he be saved?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly not.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Has the
+ honesty of his belief anything<br /> to do with his future condition?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Nothing whatever.,<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Suppose that he tried to believe, that<br /> he hated to disagree with his
+ friends, and with his<br /> parents, but that in spite of himself he was
+ forced to<br /> the conclusion that the Bible is not the inspired word<br />
+ of God, would he then deserve eternal punishment?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Certainly he would.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Can a man control his
+ belief?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He cannot&mdash;except as to the Bible.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you consider it just in God to<br /> create a man
+ who cannot believe the Bible, and then<br /> damn him because he does not?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Such is my belief.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it
+ your candid opinion that a man<br /> who does not believe the Bible should
+ keep his<br /> belief a secret from his fellow-men?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ It is.<br /> <br /> 417<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do I know that you
+ believe the<br /> Bible? You have told me that if you did not be-<br />
+ lieve it, you would not tell me?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. There is no way
+ for you to ascertain,<br /> except by taking my word for it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ What will be the fate of a man who<br /> does not believe it, and yet
+ pretends to believe it?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He will be damned.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Then hypocrisy will not save him?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ No.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. And if he does not believe it, and ad-<br />
+ mits that he does not believe it, then his honesty will<br /> not save him?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No. Honesty on the wrong side is no<br /> better than
+ hypocrisy on the right side.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do we know who
+ wrote the gospels?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes; we do.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Are we absolutely sure who wrote<br /> them?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of
+ course; we have the evidence as it<br /> has come to us through the
+ Catholic Church.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Can we rely upon the Catholic
+ Church<br /> now?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No; assuredly no! But we have
+ the<br /> testimony of Polycarp and Iren&aelig;us and Clement,<br /> <br />
+ 418<br /> <br /> and others of the early fathers, together with that of<br />
+ the Christian historian, Eusebius.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do we
+ really know about Polycarp?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. We know that he
+ suffered martyrdom un-<br /> der Marcus Aurelius, and that for quite a time
+ the fire<br /> refused to burn his body, the flames arching over him,<br />
+ leaving him in a kind of fiery tent; and we also know<br /> that from his
+ body came a fragrance like frankincense,<br /> and that the Pagans were so
+ exasperated at seeing<br /> the miracle, that one of them thrust a sword
+ through<br /> the body of Polycarp; that the blood flowed out and<br />
+ extinguished the flames and that out of the wound<br /> flew the soul of
+ the martyr in the form of a dove.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is that all
+ we know about Polycarp?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, with the exception
+ of a few more<br /> like incidents.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do we know
+ that Polycarp ever met<br /> St. John?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes;
+ Eusebius says so.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Are we absolutely certain
+ that he ever<br /> lived?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, or Eusebius could
+ not have written<br /> about him.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do we know
+ anything of the character<br /> of Eusebius?<br /> <br /> 419<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Yes; we know that he was untruthful<br /> only when he wished to do good.
+ But God can use<br /> even the dishonest. Other books have to be sub-<br />
+ stantiated by truthful men, but such is the power of<br /> God, that he can
+ establish the inspiration of the Bible<br /> by the most untruthful
+ witnesses. If God's witnesses<br /> were honest, anybody could believe, and
+ what be-<br /> comes of faith, one of the greatest virtues?<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Is the New Testament now the same as<br /> it was in the days of the early
+ fathers?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly not. Many books now thrown<br />
+ out, and not esteemed of divine origin, were esteemed<br /> divine by
+ Polycarp and Iren&aelig;us and Clement and<br /> many of the early
+ churches. These books are now<br /> called "apocryphal."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Have you not the same witnesses in<br /> favor of their authenticity, that
+ you have in favor of<br /> the gospels?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Precisely
+ the same. Except that they<br /> were thrown out.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Why were they thrown out?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because the Catholic
+ Church did not es-<br /> teem them inspired.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Did the Catholics decide for us which<br /> are the true gospels and which
+ are the true epistles?<br /> <br /> 420<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes. The
+ Catholic Church was then the<br /> only church, and consequently must have
+ been the<br /> true church.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How did the
+ Catholic Church select the<br /> true books?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Councils were called, and votes were<br /> taken, very much as we now pass
+ resolutions in<br /> political meetings.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was
+ the Catholic Church infallible then?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It was
+ then, but it is not now.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If the Catholic
+ Church at that time<br /> had thrown out the book of Revelation, would it<br />
+ now be our duty to believe that book to have been<br /> inspired?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No, I suppose not.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it
+ not true that some of these books<br /> were adopted by exceedingly small
+ majorities?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It is.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ If the Epistle to the Hebrews and to<br /> the Romans, and the book of
+ Revelation had been<br /> thrown out, could a man now be saved who honestly<br />
+ believes the rest of the books?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. This is
+ doubtful.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Were the men who picked out the in-<br />
+ spired books inspired?<br /> <br /> 421<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. We cannot
+ tell, but the probability is<br /> that they were.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do we know that they picked out the<br /> right ones?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Well, not exactly, but we believe that<br /> they did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Are we certain that some of the books<br /> that were thrown out were not
+ inspired?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, the only way to tell is to read<br />
+ them carefully.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If upon reading these
+ apocryphal books<br /> a man concludes that they are not inspired, will he
+ be<br /> damned for that reason?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No. Certainly
+ not.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If he concludes that some of them are<br />
+ inspired, and believes them, will he then be damned<br /> for that belief?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Oh, no! Nobody is ever damned for<br /> believing too
+ much.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Does the fact that the books now com-<br />
+ prising the New Testament were picked out by the<br /> Catholic Church
+ prevent their being examined now<br /> by an honest man, as they were
+ examined at the time<br /> they were picked out?<br /> <br /> 422<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. No; not if the man comes to the con-<br /> clusion that they
+ are inspired.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Does the fact that the Catholic
+ Church<br /> picked them out and declared them to be inspired,<br /> render
+ it a crime to examine them precisely as you<br /> would examine the books
+ that the Catholic Church<br /> threw out and declared were not inspired?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I think it does.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. At the
+ time the council was held in which<br /> it was determined which of the
+ books of the New<br /> Testament are inspired, a respectable minority voted<br />
+ against some that were finally decided to be inspired.<br /> If they were
+ honest in the vote they gave, and died<br /> without changing their
+ opinions, are they now in hell?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, they ought
+ to be.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If those who voted to leave the book<br />
+ of Revelation out of the canon, and the gospel of<br /> Saint John out of
+ the canon, believed honestly that<br /> these were not inspired books, how
+ should they have<br /> voted?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, I suppose a
+ man ought to vote as<br /> he honestly believes&mdash;except in matters of
+ religion.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If the Catholic Church was not
+ infal-<br /> lible, is the question still open as to what books are,<br />
+ and what are not, inspired?<br /> <br /> 423<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I
+ suppose the question is still open&mdash;<br /> but it would be dangerous
+ to decide it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If, then, I examine all the
+ books again,<br /> and come to the conclusion that some that were<br />
+ thrown out were inspired, and some that were ac-<br /> cepted were not
+ inspired, ought I to say so?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Not if it is
+ contrary to the faith of your<br /> father, or calculated to interfere with
+ your own po-<br /> litical prospects.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it as
+ great a sin to admit into the<br /> Bible books that are uninspired as to
+ reject those<br /> that are inspired?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, it is
+ a crime to reject an inspired<br /> book, no matter how unsatisfactory the
+ evidence is<br /> for its inspiration, but it is not a crime to receive an<br />
+ uninspired book. God damns nobody for believing<br /> too much. An excess
+ of credulity is simply to err in<br /> the direction of salvation.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Suppose a man disbelieves in the inspira-<br /> tion
+ of the New Testament&mdash;believes it to be entirely<br /> the work of
+ uninspired men; and suppose he also be-<br /> lieves&mdash;but not from any
+ evidence obtained in the New<br /> Testament&mdash;that Jesus Christ was
+ the son of God, and<br /> that he made atonement for his soul, can he then
+ be<br /> saved without a belief in the inspiration of the Bible?<br /> <br />
+ 424<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. This has not yet been decided by<br /> our
+ church, and I do not wish to venture an<br /> opinion.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Suppose a man denies the inspiration<br /> of the Scriptures; suppose that
+ he also denies the<br /> divinity of Jesus Christ; and suppose, further,
+ that<br /> he acts precisely as Christ is said to have acted;<br /> suppose
+ he loves his enemies, prays for those who<br /> despitefully use him, and
+ does all the good he pos-<br /> sibly can, is it your opinion that such a
+ man will be<br /> saved?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No, sir. There is "none
+ other name<br /> "given under heaven and among men," whereby a<br /> sinner
+ can be saved but the name of Christ.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Then it
+ is your opinion that God<br /> would save a murderer who believed in
+ Christ, and<br /> would damn another man, exactly like Christ, who<br />
+ failed to believe in him?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes; because we have
+ the blessed<br /> promise that, out of Christ, "our God is a consuming<br />
+ "fire."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Suppose a man read the Bible care-<br />
+ fully and honestly, and was not quite convinced that<br /> it was true, and
+ that while examining the subject, he<br /> died; what then?<br /> <br /> 425<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I do not believe that God would allow<br /> him to
+ examine the matter in another world, or to<br /> make up his mind in
+ heaven. Of course, he would<br /> eternally perish.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Could Christ now furnish evidence<br /> enough to convince every human
+ being of the truth<br /> of the Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course
+ he could, because he is in-<br /> finite.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Are
+ any miracles performed now?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Oh, no!<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Have we any testimony, except human<br /> testimony, to
+ substantiate any miracle?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Only human testimony.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do all men give the same force to the<br /> same
+ evidence?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. By no means.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Have all honest men who have exam-<br /> ined the Bible believed it to be
+ inspired?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course they have. Infidels are not<br />
+ honest.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Could any additional evidence have<br />
+ been furnished?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. With perfect ease.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Would God allow a soul to suffer<br /> <br /> 426<br /> <br /> eternal agony
+ rather than furnish evidence of the<br /> truth of his Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ God has furnished plenty of evidence,<br /> and altogether more than was
+ really necessary. We<br /> should read the Bible in a believing spirit.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Are all parts of the inspired books<br /> equally
+ true?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Necessarily.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ According to Saint Matthew, God<br /> promises to forgive all who will
+ forgive others; not<br /> one word is said about believing in Christ, or
+ believ-<br /> ing in the miracles, or in any Bible; did Matthew tell<br />
+ the truth?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The Bible must be taken as a whole;<br />
+ and if other conditions are added somewhere else,<br /> then you must
+ comply with those other conditions.<br /> Matthew may not have stated all
+ the conditions.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. I find in another part of the
+ New<br /> Testament, that a young man came to Christ and<br /> asked him
+ what was necessary for him to do in order<br /> that he might inherit
+ eternal life. Christ did not tell<br /> him that he must believe the Bible,
+ or that he must<br /> believe in him, or that he must keep the Sabbath-<br />
+ day; was Christ honest with that young man?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Well, I suppose he was.<br /> <br /> 427<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. You
+ will also recollect that Zaccheus<br /> said to Christ, that where he had
+ wronged any man<br /> he had made restitution, and further, that half his<br />
+ goods he had given to the poor; and you will re-<br /> member that Christ
+ said to Zaccheus: "This day<br /> "hath salvation come to thy house." Why
+ did not<br /> Christ tell Zaccheus that he "must be born again;"<br /> that
+ he must "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of
+ course there are mysteries in our<br /> holy religion that only those who
+ have been "born<br /> "again" can understand. You must remember that<br />
+ "the carnal mind is enmity with God."<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it
+ not strange that Christ, in his Ser-<br /> mon on the Mount, did not speak
+ of "regeneration,"<br /> or of the "scheme of salvation"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Well, it may be.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Can a man be saved now by
+ living<br /> exactly in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. He can not.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Would then a man,
+ by following the<br /> course of conduct prescribed by Christ in the Sermon<br />
+ on the Mount, lose his soul?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He most certainly
+ would, because there<br /> is not one word in the Sermon on the Mount about<br />
+ believing on the Lord Jesus Christ; not one word<br /> <br /> 428<br /> <br />
+ about believing in the Bible; not one word about the<br /> "atonement;" not
+ one word about "regeneration."<br /> So that, if the Presbyterian Church is
+ right, it is abso-<br /> lutely certain that a man might follow the
+ teachings<br /> of the Sermon on the Mount, and live in accordance<br />
+ with its every word, and yet deserve and receive the<br /> eternal
+ condemnation of God. But we must remem-<br /> ber that the Sermon on the
+ Mount was preached be-<br /> fore Christianity existed. Christ was talking
+ to Jews.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did Christ write anything himself, in<br />
+ the New Testament?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Not a word.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Did he tell any of his disciples to write<br /> any of his words?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. There is no account of it, if he did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do we know whether any of the dis-<br /> ciples wrote anything?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course they did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do you
+ know?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because the gospels bear their names.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Are you satisfied that Christ was abso-<br /> lutely
+ God?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course he was. We believe that<br />
+ Christ and God and the Holy Ghost are all the same,<br /> that the three
+ form one, and that each one is three.<br /> <br /> 429<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Was Christ the God of the universe at<br /> the time of his birth?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. He certainly was.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Was he
+ the infinite God, creator<br /> and controller of the entire universe,
+ before he was<br /> born?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course he was. This
+ is the mystery<br /> of "God manifest in the flesh." The infidels have<br />
+ pretended that he was like any other child, and was<br /> in fact supported
+ by Nature instead of being the<br /> supporter of Nature. They have
+ insisted that like<br /> other children, he had to be cared for by his
+ mother.<br /> Of course he appeared to be cared for by his mother.<br /> It
+ was a part of the plan that in all respects he should<br /> appear to be
+ like other children.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did he know just as much
+ before he<br /> was born as after?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. If he was God
+ of course he did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do you account for the
+ fact that<br /> Saint Luke tells us, in the last verse of the second<br />
+ chapter of his gospel, that "Jesus increased in wis-<br /> "dom and
+ stature"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. That I presume is a figure of speech;<br />
+ because, if he was God, he certainly could not have<br /> increased in
+ wisdom. The physical part of him could<br /> <br /> 430<br /> <br /> increase
+ in stature, but the intellectual part must have<br /> been infinite all the
+ time.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that Luke was mistaken?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No; I believe what Luke said. If it<br /> appears
+ untrue, or impossible, then I know that it is<br /> figurative or
+ symbolical.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did I understand you to say that
+ Christ<br /> was actually God?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course he was.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Then why did Luke say in the same<br /> verse of the
+ same chapter that "Jesus increased in<br /> "favor with God"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ I dare you to go into a room by your-<br /> self and read the fourteenth
+ chapter of Saint John!<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is it necessary to
+ understand the Bible<br /> in order to be saved?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Certainly not; it is only necessary that<br /> you believe it.<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it necessary to believe all the<br /> miracles?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It may not be necessary, but as it is im-<br />
+ possible to tell which ones can safely be left out, you<br /> had better
+ believe them all.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Then you regard belief as
+ the safe<br /> way?<br /> <br /> 431<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course it
+ is better to be fooled in this<br /> world than to be damned in the next.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think that there are any cruel-<br /> ties on
+ God's part recorded in the Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. At first
+ flush, many things done by God<br /> himself, as well as by his prophets,
+ appear to be<br /> cruel; but if we examine them closely, we will find<br />
+ them to be exactly the opposite.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do you
+ explain the story of Elisha<br /> and the children,&mdash;where the two
+ she-bears destroyed<br /> forty-two children on account of their impudence?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. This miracle, in my judgment, estab-<br /> lishes two
+ things: 1. That children should be polite<br /> to ministers, and 2. That
+ God is kind to animals&mdash;<br /> "giving them their meat in due season."
+ These<br /> bears have been great educators&mdash;they are the<br />
+ foundation of the respect entertained by the young<br /> for theologians.
+ No child ever sees a minister now<br /> without thinking of a bear.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the story of<br /> Daniel&mdash;you
+ no doubt remember it? Some men<br /> told the king that Daniel was praying
+ contrary to<br /> law, and thereupon Daniel was cast into a den of<br />
+ lions; but the lions could not touch him, their<br /> mouths having been
+ shut by angels. The next<br /> <br /> 432<br /> <br /> morning, the king,
+ finding that Daniel was still<br /> intact, had him taken out; and then,
+ for the purpose<br /> of gratifying Daniels God, the king had all the men<br />
+ who had made the complaint against Daniel, and<br /> their wives and their
+ little children, brought and cast<br /> into the lions' den. According to
+ the account, the<br /> lions were so hungry that they caught these wives<br />
+ and children as they dropped, and broke all their<br /> bones in pieces
+ before they had even touched the<br /> ground. Is it not wonderful that God
+ failed to pro-<br /> tect these innocent wives and children?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ These wives and children were heathen;<br /> they were totally depraved.
+ And besides, they were<br /> used as witnesses. The fact that they were
+ devoured<br /> with such quickness shows that the lions were<br /> hungry.
+ Had it not been for this, infidels would<br /> have accounted for the
+ safety of Daniel by saying<br /> that the lions had been fed.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you believe that Shadrach, Meshach<br /> and Abednego were cast "into a
+ burning fiery furnace<br /> "heated one seven times hotter than it was wont
+ to<br /> "be heated," and that they had on "their coats, their<br /> "hosen
+ and their hats," and that when they came<br /> out "not a hair of their
+ heads was singed, nor was<br /> "the smell of fire upon their garments"?<br />
+ <br /> 433<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The evidence of this miracle is
+ exceed-<br /> ingly satisfactory. It resulted in the conversion of<br />
+ Nebuchadnezzar.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do you know he was
+ converted?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because immediately after the miracle<br />
+ the king issued a decree that "every people, nation<br /> "and language
+ that spoke anything amiss against<br /> "the God of Shadrach and Company,
+ should be cut<br /> "in pieces." This decree shows that he had become<br />
+ a true disciple and worshiper of Jehovah.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If
+ God in those days preserved from<br /> the fury of the fire men who were
+ true to him and<br /> would not deny his name, why is it that he has failed<br />
+ to protect thousands of martyrs since that time?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ This is one of the divine mysteries.<br /> God has in many instances
+ allowed his enemies to<br /> kill his friends. I suppose this was allowed
+ for the<br /> good of his enemies, that the heroism of the mar-<br /> tyrs
+ might convert them.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you believe all the
+ miracles?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I believe them all, because I believe
+ the<br /> Bible to be inspired.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What makes you
+ think it is inspired?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I have never seen anybody
+ who knew<br /> it was not; besides, my father and mother believed it.<br />
+ <br /> 434<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have you any other reasons for be-<br />
+ lieving it to be inspired?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes; there are more
+ copies of the Bible<br /> printed than of any other book; and it is printed
+ in<br /> more languages. And besides, it would be impossible<br /> to get
+ along without it.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why could we not get along
+ without it?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. We would have nothing to swear wit-<br />
+ nesses by; no book in which to keep the family<br /> record; nothing for
+ the centre-table, and nothing for<br /> a mother to give her son. No nation
+ can be civilized<br /> without the Bible.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Did
+ God always know that a Bible was<br /> necessary to civilize a country?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly he did.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why did
+ he not give a Bible to<br /> the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Greeks and the<br />
+ Romans?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. It is astonishing what perfect fools in-<br />
+ fidels are.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why do you call infidels "fools"?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because I find in the fifth chapter of the<br />
+ gospel according to Matthew the following: "Who-<br /> "soever shall say
+ 'Thou fool!' shall be in danger of<br /> "hell fire."<br /> <br /> 435<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have I the right to read the Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Yes. You not only have the right, but<br /> it is your duty.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ In reading the Bible the words make<br /> certain impressions on my mind.
+ These impressions<br /> depend upon my brain,&mdash;upon my intelligence.
+ Is<br /> not this true?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course, when you read
+ the Bible, im-<br /> pressions are made upon your mind.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Can I control these impressions?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I do not think
+ you can, as long as you<br /> remain in a sinful state.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ How am I to get out of this sinful state?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. You
+ must believe on the Lord Jesus<br /> Christ, and you must read the Bible in
+ a prayerful<br /> spirit and with a believing heart.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Suppose that doubts force themselves<br /> upon my mind?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Then you will know that you are a sin-<br /> ner, and that you are
+ depraved.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If I have the right to read the
+ Bible,<br /> have I the right to try to understand it?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Most assuredly.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you admit that I have the
+ right to<br /> reason about it and to investigate it?<br /> <br /> 436<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes; I admit that. Of course you can-<br /> not help
+ reasoning about what you read.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Does the right
+ to read a book include<br /> the right to give your opinion as to the truth
+ of what<br /> the book contains?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course,&mdash;if
+ the book is not inspired.<br /> Infidels hate the Bible because it is
+ inspired, and<br /> Christians know that it is inspired because infidels<br />
+ say that it is not.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have I the right to decide
+ for myself<br /> whether or not the book is inspired?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ You have no right to deny the truth of<br /> God's Holy Word.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Is God the author of all books?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly not.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have I the right to say that God did<br /> not write
+ the Koran?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because the Koran was written by an<br /> impostor.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do you know?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. My
+ reason tells me so.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have you the right to be
+ guided by<br /> your reason?<br /> <br /> 437<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I
+ must be.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Have you the same right to follow
+ your<br /> reason after reading the Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No.
+ The Bible is the standard of reason.<br /> The Bible is not to be judged or
+ corrected by your<br /> reason. Your reason is to be weighed and measured<br />
+ by the Bible. The Bible is different from other<br /> books and must not be
+ read in the same critical spirit,<br /> nor judged by the same standard.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What did God give us reason for?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ So that we might investigate other<br /> religions, and examine other
+ so-called sacred books.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. If a man honestly
+ thinks that the Bible<br /> is not inspired, what should he say?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. He should admit that he is mistaken.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ When he thinks he is right?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes. The Bible is
+ different from other<br /> books. It is the master of reason. You read the<br />
+ Bible, not to see if that is wrong, but to see<br /> whether your reason is
+ right. It is the only book<br /> about which a man has no right to reason.
+ He must<br /> believe. The Bible is addressed, not to the reason,<br /> but
+ to the ears: "He that hath ears to hear, let<br /> "him hear."<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think we have the right to tell<br /> <br /> 438<br />
+ <br /> what the Bible means&mdash;what ideas God intended to<br /> convey,
+ or has conveyed to us, through the medium<br /> of the Bible?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Well, I suppose you have that right.<br /> Yes, that must be your duty. You
+ certainly ought<br /> to tell others what God has said to you.<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Do all men get the same ideas from<br /> the Bible?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do you account
+ for that?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because all men are not alike; they<br />
+ differ in intellect, in education, and in experience.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Who has the right to decide as to the<br /> real ideas that God intended to
+ convey?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I am a Protestant, and believe in the<br />
+ right of private judgment. Whoever does not is a<br /> Catholic. Each man
+ must be his own judge, but God<br /> will hold him responsible.<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Does God believe in the right of private<br /> judgment?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Of course he does.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Is he
+ willing that I should exercise my<br /> judgment in deciding whether the
+ Bible is inspired or<br /> not?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. No. He believes
+ in the exercise of<br /> <br /> 439<br /> <br /> private judgment only in the
+ examination and rejec-<br /> tion of other books than the Bible.<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Is he a Catholic?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. I cannot
+ answer blasphemy! Let me<br /> tell you that God will "laugh at your
+ calamity, and<br /> "will mock when your fear cometh." You will be<br />
+ accursed.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Why do you curse infidels?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Because I am a Christian.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Did not Christ say that we ought to<br /> "bless those who curse us," and
+ that we should<br /> "love our enemies"?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes, but
+ he cursed the Pharisees and<br /> called them "hypocrites" and "vipers."<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. How do you account for that?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ It simply shows the difference between<br /> theory and practice.<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you consider the best way to<br /> answer
+ infidels.<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The old way is the best. You should<br />
+ say that their arguments are ancient, and have been<br /> answered over and
+ over again. If this does not<br /> satisfy your hearers, then you should
+ attack the<br /> character of the infidel&mdash;then that of his parents&mdash;<br />
+ then that of his children.<br /> <br /> 440<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Suppose that the infidel is a good man,<br /> how will you answer him then?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. But an infidel cannot be a good man.<br /> Even if he
+ is, it is better that he should lose his<br /> reputation, than that
+ thousands should lose their<br /> souls. We know that all infidels are vile
+ and infa-<br /> mous. We may not have the evidence, but we know<br /> that
+ it exists.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. How should infidels be treated?
+ Should<br /> Christians try to convert them?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ Christians should have nothing to do<br /> with infidels. It is not safe
+ even to converse with<br /> them. They are always talking about reason, and<br />
+ facts, and experience. They are filled with sophistry<br /> and should be
+ avoided.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Should Christians pray for the con-<br />
+ version of infidels?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Yes; but such prayers
+ should be made<br /> in public and the name of the infidel should be given<br />
+ and his vile and hideous heart portrayed so that the<br /> young may be
+ warned.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. Whom do you regard as infidels?<br />
+ <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The scientists&mdash;the geologists, the as-<br />
+ tronomers, the naturalists, the philosophers. No one<br /> can overestimate
+ the evil that has been wrought<br /> <br /> 441<br /> <br /> by Laplace,
+ Humboldt, Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel,<br /> Renan, Emerson, Strauss, Bikhner,
+ Tyndall, and<br /> their wretched followers. These men pretended to<br />
+ know more than Moses and the prophets. They<br /> were "dogs baying at the
+ moon." They were<br /> "wolves" and "fools." They tried to "assassinate<br />
+ "God," and worse than all, they actually laughed<br /> at the clergy,<br />
+ <br /> <i>Question</i>. Do you think they did, and are doing<br /> great
+ harm?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. Of what use are all the<br />
+ sciences, if you lose your own soul? People in hell<br /> will care nothing
+ about education. The rich man<br /> said nothing about science, he wanted
+ water.<br /> Neither will they care about books and theories<br /> in
+ heaven. If a man is perfectly happy, it makes<br /> no difference how
+ ignorant he is.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. But how can he answer these
+ scientists?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. Well, my advice is to let their
+ argu-<br /> ments alone. Of course, you will deny all their<br /> facts; but
+ the most effective way is to attack their<br /> character.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ But suppose they are good men,&mdash;<br /> what then?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ The better they are, the worse they are.<br /> <br /> 442<br /> <br /> We
+ cannot admit that the infidel is really good. He<br /> may appear to be
+ good, and it is our duty to strip<br /> the mask of appearance from the
+ face of unbelief. If<br /> a man is not a Christian, he is totally
+ depraved, and<br /> why should we hesitate to make a misstatement<br />
+ about a man whom God is going to make miserable<br /> forever?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Question</i>. Are we not commanded to love our<br /> enemies?<br /> <br />
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, but not the enemies of God.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ Do you fear the final triumph of infi-<br /> delity?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ No. We have no fear. We believe<br /> that the Bible can be revised often
+ enough to agree<br /> with anything that may really be necessary to the<br />
+ preservation of the church. We can always rely<br /> upon revision. Let me
+ tell you that the Bible is the<br /> most peculiar of books. At the time
+ God inspired his<br /> holy prophets to write it, he knew exactly what the<br />
+ discoveries and demonstrations of the future would<br /> be, and he wrote
+ his Bible in such a way that the<br /> words could always be interpreted in
+ accordance with<br /> the intelligence of each age, and so that the words<br />
+ used are capable of several meanings, so that, no<br /> matter what may
+ hereafter be discovered, the Bible<br /> <br /> 443<br /> <br /> will be found
+ to agree with it,&mdash;for the reason that<br /> the knowledge of Hebrew
+ will grow in the exact<br /> proportion that discoveries are made in other
+ depart-<br /> ments of knowledge. You will therefore see, that all<br />
+ efforts of infidelity to destroy the Bible will simply<br /> result in
+ giving a better translation.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you
+ consider is the strongest<br /> argument in favor of the inspiration of the
+ Scrip-<br /> tures?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The dying words of
+ Christians.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>. What do you consider the strongest<br />
+ argument against the truth of infidelity?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>. The
+ dying words of infidels. You know<br /> how terrible were the death-bed
+ scenes of Hume,<br /> Voltaire, Paine and Hobbes, as described by hundreds<br />
+ of persons who were not present; while all Christians<br /> have died with
+ the utmost serenity, and with their<br /> last words have testified to the
+ sustaining power of<br /> faith in the goodness of God.<br /> <br /> <i>Question</i>.
+ What were the last words of Jesus<br /> Christ?<br /> <br /> <i>Answer</i>.
+ "My God, my God, why hast thou for-<br /> "saken me?"<br /> <br /> <br />
+ <br /> <a name="link0010" id="link0010"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>A
+ VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.</b></big><br /> <br /> <br /> <i>"To argue with
+ a man who has renounced the use and<br /> authority of reason, is like
+ administering<br /> medicine to the dead."&mdash;Thomas Paine.</i><br />
+ <br /> <br /> Peoria, October 8, 1877.<br /> <br /> To the Editor of the N Y.
+ Observer:<br /> <br /> Sir: Last June in San Francisco, I offered a<br />
+ thousand dollars in gold&mdash;not as a wager, but as a<br /> gift&mdash;to
+ any one who would substantiate the absurd<br /> story that Thomas Paine
+ died in agony and fear,<br /> frightened by the clanking chains of devils.
+ I also<br /> offered the same amount to any minister who would<br /> prove
+ that Voltaire did not pass away as serenely as<br /> the coming of the
+ dawn. Afterward I was informed<br /> that you had accepted the offer, and
+ had called upon<br /> me to deposit the money. Acting upon this inform-<br />
+ ation, I sent you the following letter:<br /> <br /> Peoria, Ill., August
+ 31st, 1877.<br /> <br /> To the Editor of the New York Observer:<br /> <br />
+ I have been informed that you accepted, in your<br /> paper, an offer made
+ by me to any clergyman in<br /> San Francisco. That offer was, that I would
+ pay<br /> <br /> 448<br /> <br /> one thousand dollars in gold to any minister
+ in that<br /> city who would prove that Thomas Paine died in<br /> terror
+ because of religious opinions he had ex-<br /> pressed, or that Voltaire
+ did not pass away serenely<br /> as the coming of the dawn.<br /> <br /> For
+ many years religious journals and ministers<br /> have been circulating
+ certain pretended accounts of<br /> the frightful agonies endured by Paine
+ and Voltaire<br /> when dying; that these great men at the moment of<br />
+ death were terrified because they had given their<br /> honest opinions
+ upon the subject of religion to their<br /> fellow-men. The imagination of
+ the religious world<br /> has been taxed to the utmost in inventing absurd<br />
+ and infamous accounts of the last moments of these<br /> intellectual
+ giants. Every Sunday school paper,<br /> thousands of idiotic tracts, and
+ countless stupidities<br /> called sermons, have been filled with these
+ calumnies.<br /> <br /> Paine and Voltaire both believed in God&mdash;both<br />
+ hoped for immortality&mdash;both believed in special<br /> providence. But
+ both denied the inspiration of the<br /> Scriptures&mdash;both denied the
+ divinity of Jesus Christ.<br /> While theologians most cheerfully admit
+ that most<br /> murderers die without fear, they deny the possibility<br />
+ of any man who has expressed his disbelief in the<br /> inspiration of the
+ Bible dying except in an agony of<br /> terror. These stories are used in
+ revivals and in<br /> <br /> 449<br /> <br /> Sunday schools, and have long
+ been considered of<br /> great value.<br /> <br /> I am anxious that these
+ slanders shall cease. I<br /> am desirous of seeing justice done, even at
+ this late<br /> day, to the dead.<br /> <br /> For the purpose of
+ ascertaining the evidence upon<br /> which these death-bed accounts really
+ rest, I make<br /> to you the following proposition:&mdash;<br /> <br />
+ First.&mdash;As to Thomas Paine: I will deposit with<br /> the First
+ National Bank of Peoria, Illinois, one thou-<br /> sand dollars in gold,
+ upon the following conditions:<br /> This money shall be subject to your
+ order when<br /> you shall, in the manner hereinafter provided, sub-<br />
+ stantiate that Thomas Paine admitted the Bible to be<br /> an inspired
+ book, or that he recanted his Infidel<br /> opinions&mdash;or that he died
+ regretting that he had dis-<br /> believed the Bible&mdash;or that he died
+ calling upon<br /> Jesus Christ in any religious sense whatever.<br /> <br />
+ In order that a tribunal may be created to try this<br /> question, you may
+ select one man, I will select<br /> another, and the two thus chosen shall
+ select a third,<br /> and any two of the three may decide the matter.<br />
+ <br /> As there will be certain costs and expenditures on<br /> both sides,
+ such costs and expenditures shall be paid<br /> by the defeated party.<br />
+ <br /> In addition to the one thousand dollars in gold, I<br /> <br /> 450<br />
+ <br /> will deposit a bond with good and sufficient security<br /> in the
+ sum of two thousand dollars, conditioned for<br /> the payment of all costs
+ in case I am defeated. I<br /> shall require of you a like bond.<br /> <br />
+ From the date of accepting this offer you may<br /> have ninety days to
+ collect and present your testi-<br /> mony, giving me notice of time and
+ place of taking<br /> depositions. I shall have a like time to take evi-<br />
+ dence upon my side, giving you like notice, and you<br /> shall then have
+ thirty days to take further testimony<br /> in reply to what I may offer.
+ The case shall then<br /> be argued before the persons chosen; and their<br />
+ decisions shall be final as to us.<br /> <br /> If the arbitrator chosen by
+ me shall die, I shall<br /> have the right to choose another. You shall
+ have<br /> the same right. If the third one, chosen by our two,<br /> shall
+ die, the two shall choose another; and all va-<br /> cancies, from whatever
+ cause, shall be filled upon the<br /> same principle.<br /> <br /> The
+ arbitrators shall sit when and where a major-<br /> ity shall determine,
+ and shall have full power to pass<br /> upon all questions arising as to
+ competency of<br /> evidence, and upon all subjects.<br /> <br /> <i>Second</i>.&mdash;As
+ to Voltaire: I make the same prop-<br /> osition, if you will substantiate
+ that Voltaire died<br /> expressing remorse or showing in any way that he<br />
+ <br /> 451<br /> <br /> was in mental agony because he had attacked Catholi-<br />
+ cism&mdash;or because he had denied the inspiration of the<br /> Bible&mdash;or
+ because he had denied the divinity of Christ.<br /> <br /> I make these
+ propositions because I want you<br /> to stop slandering the dead.<br />
+ <br /> If the propositions do not suit you in any particu-<br /> lar, please
+ state your objections, and I will modify<br /> them in any way consistent
+ with the object in view.<br /> <br /> If Paine and Voltaire died filled with
+ childish and<br /> silly fear, I want to know it, and I want the world to<br />
+ know it. On the other hand, if the believers in<br /> superstition have
+ made and circulated these cruel<br /> slanders concerning the mighty dead,
+ I want the<br /> world to know that.<br /> <br /> As soon as you notify me of
+ the acceptance of<br /> these propositions I will send you the certificate
+ of<br /> the bank that the money has been deposited upon<br /> the foregoing
+ conditions, together with copies of<br /> bonds for costs. Yours truly,<br />
+ <br /> R. G. Ingersoll.<br /> <br /> In your paper of September 27, 1877, you
+ acknowl-<br /> edge the receipt of the foregoing letter, and after<br />
+ giving an outline of its contents, say: "As not one<br /> of the
+ affirmations, in the form stated in this letter,<br /> was contained in the
+ offer we made, we have no<br /> occasion to substantiate them. But we are
+ prepared<br /> <br /> 452<br /> <br /> to produce the evidence of the truth of
+ our own<br /> statement, and even to go further; to show not only<br /> that
+ Tom Paine 'died a drunken, cowardly, and<br /> beastly death,' but that for
+ many years previous, and<br /> up to that event he lived a drunken and
+ beastly life."<br /> In order to refresh your memory as to what you<br />
+ had published, I call your attention to the following,<br /> which appeared
+ in the N. Y. Observer, July 19, 1877:<br /> "Put Down the Money.<br /> <br />
+ "Col. Bob Ingersoll, in a speech full of ribaldry<br /> and blasphemy, made
+ in San Francisco recently, said:<br /> "I will give $1,000 in gold coin to
+ any clergyman<br /> who can substantiate that the death of Voltaire was<br />
+ not as peaceful as the dawn; and of Tom Paine whom<br /> they assert died
+ in fear and agony, frightened by the<br /> clanking chains of devils&mdash;in
+ fact frightened to death<br /> by God. I will give $1,000 likewise to any
+ one who<br /> can substantiate this 'absurd story'&mdash;a story without<br />
+ a word of truth in it."<br /> <br /> "We have published the testimony, and
+ the wit-<br /> nesses are on hand to prove that Tom Paine died a<br />
+ drunken, cowardly and beastly death. Let the Colo-<br /> nel deposit the
+ money with any honest man, and the<br /> absurd story, as he terms it,
+ shall be shown to be an<br /> ower true tale. But he wont do it. His talk
+ is Infi-<br /> del 'buncombe' and nothing more."<br /> <br /> 453<br /> <br />
+ On the 31st of August I sent you my letter, and<br /> on the 27th of
+ September you say in your paper:<br /> "As not one of the affirmations in
+ the form stated<br /> in this letter was contained in the offer we made, we<br />
+ have no occasion to substantiate them."<br /> <br /> What were the
+ affirmations contained in the offer<br /> you made? I had offered a
+ thousand dollars in gold<br /> to any one who would substantiate "the
+ absurd story"<br /> that Thomas Paine died in fear and agony,frightened<br />
+ by the clanking chains of devils&mdash;in fact, frightened to<br /> death
+ by God.<br /> <br /> In response to this offer you said: "Let the Colo-<br />
+ nel deposit the money with an honest man and the<br /> 'absurd story' as he
+ terms it, shall be shown to be<br /> an 'ower true tale.' But he won't do
+ it. His talk<br /> is infidel 'buncombe' and nothing more."<br /> <br /> Did
+ you not offer to prove that Paine died in fear<br /> and agony, frightened
+ by the clanking chains of<br /> devils? Did you not ask me to deposit the
+ money<br /> that you might prove the "absurd story" to be an<br /> "ower
+ true tale" and obtain the money? Did you<br /> not in your paper of the
+ twenty-seventh of September<br /> in effect deny that you had offered to
+ prove this<br /> "absurd story"? As soon as I offered to deposit<br /> the
+ gold and give bonds besides to cover costs, did<br /> you not publish a
+ falsehood?<br /> <br /> 454<br /> <br /> You have eaten your own words, and,
+ for my<br /> part, I would rather have dined with Ezekiel than<br /> with
+ you.<br /> <br /> You have not met the issue. You have know-<br /> ingly
+ avoided it. The question was not as to the<br /> personal habits of Paine.
+ The real question was<br /> and is, whether Paine was filled with fear and
+ horror<br /> at the time of his death on account of his religious<br />
+ opinions. That is the question. You avoid this.<br /> In effect, you
+ abandon that charge and make others.<br /> <br /> To you belongs the honor
+ of having made the<br /> most cruel and infamous charges against Thomas<br />
+ Paine that have ever been made. Of what you<br /> have said you cannot
+ prove the truth of one word.<br /> <br /> You say that Thomas Paine died a
+ drunken,<br /> cowardly and beastly death.<br /> <br /> I pronounce this
+ charge to be a cowardly and<br /> beastly falsehood.<br /> <br /> Have you
+ any evidence that he was in a drunken<br /> condition when he died?<br />
+ <br /> What did he say or do of a cowardly character<br /> just before, or
+ at about the time of his death?<br /> <br /> In what way was his death
+ cowardly? You must<br /> answer these questions, and give your proof, or
+ all<br /> honest men will hold you in abhorrence. You have<br /> made these
+ charges. The man against whom you<br /> <br /> Vindication of thomas paine.<br />
+ <br /> 455<br /> <br /> make them is dead. He cannot answer you. I<br /> can.
+ He cannot compel you to produce your testi-<br /> mony, or admit by your
+ silence that you have<br /> cruelly slandered the defenceless dead. I can
+ and I<br /> will. You say that his death was cowardly. In<br /> what
+ respect? Was it cowardly in him to hold the<br /> Thirty-Nine Articles in
+ contempt? Was it cowardly<br /> not to call on your Lord? Was it cowardly
+ not to<br /> be afraid? You say that his death was beastly.<br /> Again I
+ ask, in what respect? Was it beastly to<br /> submit to the inevitable with
+ tranquillity? Was it<br /> beastly to look with composure upon the approach<br />
+ of death? Was it beastly to die without a com-<br /> plaint, without a
+ murmur&mdash;to pass from life without<br /> a fear?<br /> <br /> Did Thomas
+ Paine Recant?<br /> <br /> Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would<br />
+ crawl and cringe around him during his last mo-<br /> ments. He believed
+ that they would put a lie in<br /> the mouth of Death.<br /> <br /> When the
+ shadow of the coming dissolution was<br /> upon him, two clergymen, Messrs.
+ Milledollar and<br /> Cunningham, called to annoy the dying man. Mr.<br />
+ Cunningham had the politeness to say, "You have<br /> now a full view of
+ death you cannot live long, and<br /> whosoever does not believe in the
+ Lord Jesus Christ<br /> <br /> 456<br /> <br /> will asuredly be damned." Mr.
+ Paine replied, "Let<br /> me have none of your popish stuff. Get away with<br />
+ you. Good morning."<br /> <br /> On another occasion a Methodist minister
+ ob-<br /> truded himself when Willet Hicks was present.<br /> This minister
+ declared to Mr. Paine "that unless he<br /> repented of his unbelief he
+ would be damned."<br /> Paine, although at the door of death, rose in his
+ bed<br /> and indignantly requested the clergyman to leave<br /> his room.
+ On another occasion, two brothers by<br /> the name of Pigott, sought to
+ convert him. He was<br /> displeased and requested their departure. After-<br />
+ ward Thomas Nixon and Captain Daniel Pelton<br /> visited him for the
+ express purpose of ascertaining<br /> whether he had, in any manner,
+ changed his relig-<br /> ious opinions. They were assured by the dying<br />
+ man that he still held the principles he had expressed<br /> in his
+ writings.<br /> <br /> Afterward, these gentlemen hearing that William<br />
+ Cobbett was about to write a life of Paine, sent him<br /> the following
+ note:<br /> <br /> New York, April 24, 1818.<br /> <br /> "Sir: We have been
+ informed that you have a de-<br /> sign to write a history of the life and
+ writings of<br /> Thomas Paine. If you have been furnished with<br />
+ materials in respect to his religious opinions, or<br /> <br /> 457<br />
+ <br /> rather of his recantation of his former opinions before<br /> his
+ death, all you have heard of his recanting is false.<br /> Being aware that
+ such reports would be raised after<br /> his death by fanatics who infested
+ his house at the<br /> time it was expected he would die, we, the subscrib-<br />
+ ers, intimate acquaintances of Thomas Paine since<br /> the year 1776, went
+ to his house. He was sitting<br /> up in a chair, and apparently in full
+ vigor and use of<br /> all his mental faculties. We interrogated him upon<br />
+ his religious opinions, and if he had changed his<br /> mind, or repented
+ of anything he had said or wrote<br /> on that subject. He answered, "Not
+ at all," and<br /> appeared rather offended at our supposition that any<br />
+ change should take place in his mind. We took<br /> down in writing the
+ questions put to him and his<br /> answers thereto before a number of
+ persons then in<br /> his room, among whom were his doctor, Mrs.<br />
+ Bonneville, etc. paper is mislaid and cannot<br /> be found at present, but
+ the above is the substance<br /> which can be attested by many living
+ witnesses."<br /> <br /> Thomas Nixon.<br /> <br /> Daniel Pelton.<br /> <br />
+ Mr. Jarvis, the artist, saw Mr. Paine one or two<br /> days before his
+ death. To Mr. Jarvis he expressed<br /> his belief in his written opinions
+ upon the subject of<br /> religion. B. F. Haskin, an attorney of the city
+ of<br /> <br /> 458<br /> <br /> New York, also visited him and inquired as to
+ his<br /> religious opinions. Paine was then upon the thresh-<br /> old of
+ death, but he did not tremble. He was not a<br /> coward. He expressed his
+ firm and unshaken belief<br /> in the religious ideas he had given to the
+ world.<br /> <br /> Dr. Manley was with him when he spoke his last<br />
+ words. Dr. Manley asked the dying man if he did<br /> not wish to believe
+ that Jesus was the Son of God,<br /> and the dying philosopher answered: "I
+ have no<br /> wish to believe on that subject." Amasa Woodsworth<br /> <br />
+ sat up with Thomas Paine the night before his<br /> death. In 1839 Gilbert
+ Vale hearing that Mr.<br /> Woodsworth was living in or near Boston,
+ visited<br /> him for the purpose of getting his statement. The<br />
+ statement was published in the Beacon of June 5,<br /> 1839, while
+ thousands who had been acquainted with<br /> Mr. Paine were living.<br />
+ <br /> The following is the article referred to.<br /> <br /> "We have just
+ returned from Boston. One ob-<br /> ject of our visit to that city, was to
+ see a Mr. Amasa<br /> Woodsworth, an engineer, now retired in a hand-<br />
+ some cottage and garden at East Cambridge, Boston.<br /> This gentleman
+ owned the house occupied by Paine<br /> at his death&mdash;while he lived
+ next door. As an act<br /> of kindness Mr. Woodsworth visited Mr. Paine
+ every<br /> day for six weeks before his death. He frequently<br /> <br />
+ 459<br /> <br /> sat up with him, and did so on the last two nights of<br />
+ his life. He was always there with Dr. Manley, the<br /> physician, and
+ assisted in removing Mr. Paine while<br /> his bed was prepared. He was
+ present when Dr.<br /> Manley asked Mr. Paine "if he wished to believe<br />
+ that Jesus Christ was the Son of God," and he de-<br /> scribes Mr. Paine's
+ answer as animated. He says<br /> that lying on his back he used some
+ action and with<br /> much emphasis, replied, "I have no wish to believe<br />
+ on that subject." He lived some time after this, but<br /> was not known to
+ speak, for he died tranquilly. He<br /> accounts for the insinuating style
+ of Dr. Manley's<br /> letter, by stating that that gentleman just after its<br />
+ publication joined a church. He informs us that he<br /> has openly
+ reproved the doctor for the falsity con-<br /> tained in the spirit of that
+ letter, boldly declaring be-<br /> fore Dr. Manley, who is yet living, that
+ nothing<br /> which he saw justified the insinuations. Mr. Woods-<br />
+ worth assures us that he neither heard nor saw any-<br /> thing to justify
+ the belief of any mental change in<br /> the opinions of Mr. Paine previous
+ to his death; but<br /> that being very ill and in pain chiefly arising
+ from<br /> the skin being removed in some parts by long lying,<br /> he was
+ generally too uneasy to enjoy conversation<br /> on abstract subjects.
+ This, then, is the best evidence<br /> that can be procured on this
+ subject, and we publish<br /> <br /> 460<br /> <br /> it while the
+ contravening parties are yet alive, and<br /> with the authority of Mr.
+ Woodsworth.<br /> <br /> Gilbert Vale.<br /> <br /> A few weeks ago I received
+ the following letter<br /> which confirms the statement of Mr. Vale:<br />
+ <br /> Near Stockton, Cal., Green-<br /> wood Cottage, July 9, 1877.<br />
+ <br /> Col. Ingersoll: In 1842 I talked with a gentle-<br /> man in Boston.
+ I have forgotten his name; but he was<br /> then an engineer of the
+ Charleston navy yard. I am<br /> thus particular so that you can find his
+ name on the<br /> books. He told me that he nursed Thomas Paine<br /> in his
+ last illness, and closed his eyes when dead. I<br /> asked him if he
+ recanted and called upon God to<br /> save him. He replied, "No. He died as
+ he had<br /> taught. He had a sore upon his side and when we<br /> turned
+ him it was very painful and he would cry out<br /> 'O God!' or something
+ like that." "But," said<br /> the narrator, "that was nothing, for he
+ believed in a<br /> God." I told him that I had often heard it asserted<br />
+ from the pulpit that Mr. Paine had recanted in his<br /> last moments. The
+ gentleman said that it was not<br /> true, and he appeared to be an
+ intelligent, truthful<br /> man. With respect, I remain, etc.<br /> <br />
+ Philip Graves, M. D.<br /> <br /> 461<br /> <br /> The next witness is Willet
+ Hicks, a Quaker<br /> preacher. He says that during the last illness of<br />
+ Mr. Paine he visited him almost daily, and that<br /> Paine died firmly
+ convinced of the truth of the relig-<br /> ious opinions he had given to
+ his fellow-men. It<br /> was to this same Willet Hicks that Paine applied
+ for<br /> permission to be buried in the cemetery of the<br /> Quakers.
+ Permission was refused. This refusal<br /> settles the question of
+ recantation. If he had re-<br /> canted, of course there could have been no
+ objection<br /> to his body being buried by the side of the best<br />
+ hypocrites on the earth.<br /> <br /> If Paine recanted why should he be
+ denied "a<br /> little earth for charity"? Had he recanted, it<br /> would
+ have been regarded as a vast and splendid<br /> triumph for the gospel. It
+ would with much noise<br /> and pomp and ostentation have been heralded<br />
+ about the world.<br /> <br /> I received the following letter to-day. The<br />
+ writer is well know in this city, and is a man of<br /> high character:<br />
+ <br /> Peoria, Oct. 8th, 1877.<br /> <br /> Robert G. Ingersoll, Esteemed
+ Friend: My<br /> parents were Friends (Quakers). My father died<br /> when I
+ was very young. The elderly and middle-<br /> aged Friends visited at my
+ mother's house. We<br /> <br /> 462<br /> <br /> lived in the city of New
+ York. Among the number<br /> I distinctly remember Elias Hicks, Willet
+ Hicks,<br /> <br /> and a Mr.-Day, who was a bookseller in Pearl<br /> <br />
+ street. There were many others, whose names I<br /> do not now remember.
+ The subject of the recanta-<br /> tion by Thomas Paine of his views about
+ the Bible<br /> in his last illness, or at any other time, was dis-<br />
+ cussed by them in my presence at different times.<br /> I learned from them
+ that some of them had attended<br /> upon Thomas Paine in his last sickness
+ and minis-<br /> tered to his wants up to the time of his death.<br /> And
+ upon the question of whether he did recant<br /> there was but one
+ expression. They all said that<br /> he did not recant in any manner. I
+ often heard<br /> them say they wished he had recanted. In fact,<br />
+ according to them, the nearer he approached death<br /> the more positive
+ he appeared to be in his con-<br /> victions.<br /> <br /> These
+ conversations were from 1820 to 1822. I<br /> was at that time from ten to
+ twelve years old, but<br /> these conversations impressed themselves upon
+ me<br /> because many thoughtless people then blamed the<br /> Society of
+ Friends for their kindness to that "arch<br /> Infidel," Thomas Paine..<br />
+ <br /> Truly yours,<br /> <br /> A. C. Hankinson.<br /> <br /> 463<br /> <br /> A
+ few days ago I received the following letter:<br /> Albany, New York, Sept.
+ 27, 1877.<br /> <br /> Dear Sir: It is over twenty years ago that pro-<br />
+ fessionally I made the acquaintance of John Hogeboom,<br /> <br /> a Justice
+ of the Peace of the county of<br /> Rensselaer, New York. He was then over
+ seventy<br /> years of age and had the reputation of being a man<br /> of
+ candor and integrity. He was a great admirer of<br /> Paine. He told me
+ that he was personally ac-<br /> quainted with him, and used to see him
+ frequently<br /> during the last years of his life in the city of New<br />
+ York, where Hogeboom then resided. I asked him<br /> if there was any truth
+ in the charge that Paine was<br /> in the habit of getting drunk. He said
+ that it was<br /> utterly false; that he never heard of such a thing<br />
+ during the life-time of Mr. Paine, and did not believe<br /> any one else
+ did. I asked him about the recantation<br /> of his religious opinions on
+ his death-bed, and the<br /> revolting death-bed scenes that the world had
+ heard<br /> so much about. He said there was no truth in<br /> them, that he
+ had received his information from<br /> persons who attended Paine in his
+ last illness, "and<br /> that he passed peacefully away, as we may say, in<br />
+ the sunshine of a great soul."...<br /> <br /> Yours truly,<br /> <br /> W. J.
+ Hilton,<br /> <br /> 464<br /> <br /> The witnesses by whom I substantiate the
+ fact<br /> that Thomas Paine did not recant, and that he died<br /> holding
+ the religious opinions he had published, are:<br /> First&mdash;Thomas
+ Nixon, Captain Daniel Pelton,<br /> B. F. Haskin. These gentlemen visited
+ him during<br /> his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining whether<br />
+ he had in any respect changed his views upon relig-<br /> ion. He told them
+ that he had not.<br /> <br /> Second&mdash;James Cheetham. This man was the<br />
+ most malicious enemy Mr. Paine had, and yet he<br /> admits that "Thomas
+ Paine died placidly, and al-<br /> most without a struggle." (See Life of
+ Thomas<br /> Paine, by James Cheetham).<br /> <br /> Third&mdash;The
+ ministers, Milledollar and Cunning-<br /> ham. These gentlemen told Mr.
+ Paine that if he<br /> died without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ he<br />
+ would be damned, and Paine replied, "Let me have<br /> none of your popish
+ stuff. Good morning." (See<br /> Sherwin's Life of Paine, p. 220).<br />
+ <br /> Fourth&mdash;Mrs. Hedden. She told these same<br /> preachers when
+ they attempted to obtrude them-<br /> selves upon Mr. Paine again, that the
+ attempt to<br /> convert Mr. Paine was useless&mdash;"that if God did not<br />
+ change his mind no human power could."<br /> <br /> Fifth&mdash;Andrew A.
+ Dean. This man lived upon<br /> Paine's farm at New Rochelle, and
+ corresponded<br /> <br /> 465<br /> <br /> with him upon religious subjects.
+ (See Paine's<br /> Theological Works, p. 308.)<br /> <br /> Sixth&mdash;Mr.
+ Jarvis, the artist with whom Paine<br /> lived. He gives an account of an
+ old lady coming<br /> to Paine and telling him that God Almighty had<br />
+ sent her to tell him that unless he repented and be-<br /> lieved in the
+ blessed Savior, he would be damned.<br /> Paine replied that God would not
+ send such a foolish<br /> old woman with such an impertinent message. (See<br />
+ Clio Rickman's Life of Paine.)<br /> <br /> Seventh&mdash;Wm. Carver, with
+ whom Paine boarded.<br /> Mr. Carver said again and again that Paine did
+ not<br /> recant. He knew him well, and had every opportun-<br /> ity of
+ knowing. (See Life of Paine by Gilbert Vale.)<br /> <br /> Eighth&mdash;Dr.
+ Manley, who attended him in his last<br /> sickness, and to whom Paine
+ spoke his last words.<br /> Dr. Manley asked him if he did not wish to
+ believe in<br /> Jesus Christ, and he replied, "I have no wish to<br />
+ believe on that subject."<br /> <br /> Ninth&mdash;Willet Hicks and Elias
+ Hicks, who were<br /> with him frequently during his last sickness, and<br />
+ both of whom tried to persuade him to recant. Ac-<br /> cording to their
+ testimony, Mr. Paine died as he had<br /> lived&mdash;a believer in God,
+ and a friend of man.<br /> Willet Hicks was offered money to say something<br />
+ false against Thomas Paine. He was even offered<br /> <br /> 466<br /> <br />
+ money to remain silent and allow others to slander<br /> the dead. Mr.
+ Hicks, speaking of Thomas Paine,<br /> said: "He was a good man&mdash;an
+ honest man."<br /> (Vale's Life of Paine.)<br /> <br /> Tenth&mdash;Amasa
+ Woodsworth, who was with him<br /> every day for some six weeks immediately
+ preceding<br /> his death, and sat up with him the last two nights of<br />
+ his life. This man declares that Paine did not recant<br /> and that he
+ died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr.<br /> Woodsworth is conclusive.<br />
+ <br /> Eleventh&mdash;Thomas Paine himself. The will of<br /> Thomas Paine,
+ written by himself, commences as<br /> follows:<br /> <br /> "The last will
+ and testament of me, the subscriber,<br /> Thomas Paine, reposing
+ confidence in my creator<br /> God, and in no other being, for I know of no
+ other,<br /> nor believe in any other;" and closes in these words;<br /> "I
+ have lived an honest and useful life to mankind;<br /> my time has been
+ spent in doing good, and I die in<br /> perfect composure and resignation
+ to the will of my<br /> creator God."<br /> <br /> Twelfth&mdash;If Thomas
+ Paine recanted, why do you<br /> pursue him? If he recanted, he died
+ substantially<br /> in your belief, for what reason then do you denounce<br />
+ his death as cowardly? If upon his death-bed he<br /> renounced the
+ opinions he had published, the busi-<br /> <br /> 467<br /> <br /> ness of
+ defaming him should be done by Infidels, not<br /> by Christians.<br />
+ <br /> I ask you if it is honest to throw away the testi-<br /> mony of his
+ friends&mdash;the evidence of fair and honor-<br /> able men&mdash;and take
+ the putrid words of avowed and<br /> malignant enemies?<br /> <br /> When
+ Thomas Paine was dying, he was infested<br /> by fanatics&mdash;by the
+ snaky spies of bigotry. In the<br /> shadows of death were the unclean
+ birds of prey<br /> waiting to tear with beak and claw the corpse of him<br />
+ who wrote the "Rights of Man." And there lurk-<br /> ing and crouching in
+ the darkness were the jackals<br /> and hyenas of superstition ready to
+ violate his grave.<br /> <br /> These birds of prey&mdash;these unclean
+ beasts are the<br /> witnesses produced and relied upon by you.<br /> <br />
+ One by one the instruments of torture have been<br /> wrenched from the
+ cruel clutch of the church, until<br /> within the armory of orthodoxy
+ there remains but<br /> one weapon&mdash;Slander.<br /> <br /> Against the
+ witnesses that I have produced you<br /> can bring just two&mdash;Mary
+ Roscoe and Mary Hins-<br /> dale. The first is referred to in the memoir of<br />
+ Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his<br /> house. Grellet
+ tells what happened between this<br /> girl and Paine. According to this
+ account Paine<br /> asked her if she had ever read any of his writings,<br />
+ <br /> 468<br /> <br /> and on being told that she had read very little of<br />
+ them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding<br /> that from such an
+ one as she he expected a correct<br /> answer.<br /> <br /> Let us examine
+ this falsehood. Why would Paine<br /> expect a correct answer about his
+ writings from one<br /> who had read very little of them? Does not such a<br />
+ statement devour itself? This young lady further<br /> said that the "Age
+ of Reason" was put in her hands<br /> and that the more she read in it the
+ more dark and<br /> distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into<br />
+ the fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked, "I wish<br /> all had done as you
+ did, for if the devil ever had any<br /> agency in any work, he had it in
+ my writing that book."<br /> <br /> The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a
+ servant<br /> in the family of Willet Hicks. She, like Mary Ros-<br /> coe,
+ was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine.<br /> To this young lady
+ Paine, according to her account,<br /> said precisely the same that he did
+ to Mary Roscoe,<br /> and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.<br /> <br />
+ My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary<br /> Hinsdale are one and the
+ same person, or the same<br /> story has been by mistake put in the mouth
+ of both.<br /> <br /> It is not possible that the same conversation should<br />
+ have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe,<br /> and between him and
+ Mary Hinsdale.<br /> <br /> 469<br /> <br /> Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet
+ Hicks and he<br /> pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication.<br />
+ He said that Thomas Paine never said any such<br /> thing to Mary Hinsdale.
+ (See Vale's Life of<br /> Paine.)<br /> <br /> Another thing about this
+ witness. A woman by<br /> the name of Mary Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker,<br />
+ died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother about that<br /> time and told him that
+ his sister had recanted, and<br /> wanted her to say so at her funeral.
+ This turned<br /> out to be false.<br /> <br /> It has been claimed that Mary
+ Hinsdale made her<br /> statement to Charles Collins. Long after the
+ alleged<br /> occurrence Gilbert Vale, one of the biographers of<br />
+ Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning<br /> Mary Hinsdale. Vale
+ asked him what he thought<br /> of her. He replied that some of the Friends
+ be-<br /> lieved that she used opiates, and that they did not<br /> give
+ credit to her statements. He also said that he<br /> believed what the
+ Friends said, but thought that<br /> when a young woman, she might have
+ told the<br /> truth.<br /> <br /> In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York.<br />
+ He began collecting materials for a life of Thomas<br /> Paine. In this he
+ became acquainted with Mary<br /> Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett
+ gave a<br /> <br /> 470<br /> <br /> full account of what happened in a letter
+ addressed<br /> to the Norwich Mercury in 1819. From this ac-<br /> count it
+ seems that Charles Collins told Cobbett that<br /> Paine had recanted.
+ Cobbett called for the testi-<br /> mony, and told Mr. Collins that he must
+ give time,<br /> place, and the circumstances. He finally brought a<br />
+ statement that he stated had been made by Mary<br /> Hinsdale. Armed with
+ this document Cobbett, in<br /> October of that year, called upon the said
+ Mary<br /> Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony street, New York, and<br /> showed
+ her the statement. Upon being questioned<br /> by Mr. Cobbett she said,
+ "That it was so long ago<br /> that she could not speak positively to any
+ part of the<br /> matter&mdash;that she would not say that any part of the<br />
+ paper was true&mdash;that she had never seen the paper<br /> &mdash;and
+ that she had never given Charles Collins<br /> authority to say anything
+ about the matter in her<br /> name." And so in the month of October, in the<br />
+ year of grace 1818, in the mist and fog of forgetful-<br /> ness
+ disappeared forever one Mary Hinsdale&mdash;the<br /> last and only witness
+ against the intellectual honesty<br /> of Thomas Paine.<br /> <br /> <i>Did
+ Thomas Paine live the life of a drunken beast,<br /> and did he die a
+ drunken, cowardly and beastly death?</i><br /> <br /> Upon you rests the
+ burden of substantiating these<br /> infamous charges.<br /> <br /> 471<br />
+ <br /> You have, I suppose, produced the best evidence<br /> in your
+ possession, and that evidence I will now pro-<br /> ceed to examine. Your
+ first witness is Grant Thor-<br /> burn. He makes three charges against
+ Thomas<br /> Paine, 1st. That his wife obtained a divorce from<br /> him in
+ England for cruelty and neglect. 2d. That<br /> he was a defaulter and fled
+ from England to Amer-<br /> ica. 3d. That he was a drunkard.<br /> <br />
+ These three charges stand upon the same evidence<br /> &mdash;the word of
+ Grant Thorburn. If they are not all<br /> true Mr. Thorburn stands
+ impeached.<br /> <br /> The charge that Mrs. Paine obtained a divorce on<br />
+ account of the cruelty and neglect of her husband is<br /> utterly false.
+ There is no such record in the world,<br /> and never was. Paine and his
+ wife separated by<br /> mutual consent. Each respected the other. They<br />
+ remained friends. This charge is without any foun-<br /> dation in fact. I
+ challenge the Christian world to<br /> produce the record of this decree of
+ divorce. Accord-<br /> ing to Mr. Thorburn it was granted in England. In<br />
+ that country public records are kept of all such de-<br /> crees. Have the
+ kindness to produce this decree<br /> showing that it was given on account
+ of cruelty or<br /> admit that Mr. Thorburn was mistaken.<br /> <br /> Thomas
+ Paine was a just man. Although sepa-<br /> rated from his wife, he always
+ spoke of her with<br /> <br /> 472<br /> <br /> tenderness and respect, and
+ frequently sent her<br /> money without letting her know the source from<br />
+ whence it came. Was this the conduct of a drunken<br /> beast?<br /> <br />
+ The second charge, that Paine was a defaulter in<br /> England and fled to
+ America, is equally false. He<br /> did not flee from England. He came to
+ America,<br /> not as a fugitive, but as a free man. He came with<br /> a
+ letter of introduction signed by another Infidel,<br /> Benjamin Franklin.
+ He came as a soldier of Free-<br /> dom&mdash;an apostle of Liberty.<br />
+ <br /> In this second charge there is not one word of truth.<br /> <br /> He
+ held a small office in England. If he was a<br /> defaulter the records of
+ that country will show that<br /> fact.<br /> <br /> Mr. Thorburn, unless the
+ record can be produced<br /> to substantiate him, stands convicted of at
+ least two<br /> mistakes.<br /> <br /> Now, as to the third: He says that in
+ 1802 Paine<br /> was an "old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated<br /> and
+ half asleep."<br /> <br /> Can any one believe this to be a true account of<br />
+ the personal appearance of Mr. Paine in 1802? He<br /> had just returned
+ from France. He had been wel-<br /> comed home by Thomas Jefferson, who had
+ said that<br /> he was entitled to the hospitality of every American.<br />
+ <br /> 473<br /> <br /> In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public din-<br />
+ ner in the city of New York. He was called upon<br /> and treated with
+ kindness and respect by such men<br /> as DeWitt Clinton.<br /> <br /> In
+ 1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to Andrew A.<br /> Dean upon the subject of
+ religion. Read that letter<br /> and then say that the writer of it was an
+ "old rem-<br /> nant of mortality, drunk, bloated and half asleep."<br />
+ Search the files of the New York Observer from the<br /> first issue to the
+ last, and you will find nothing supe-<br /> rior to this letter.<br /> <br />
+ In 1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable<br /> length, and of great
+ force, to his friend Samuel<br /> Adams. Such letters are not written by
+ drunken<br /> beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by<br />
+ drunkards. It was about the same time that he<br /> wrote his "Remarks on
+ Robert Hall's Sermons."<br /> <br /> These "Remarks" were not written by a
+ drunken<br /> beast, but by a clear-headed and thoughtful man.<br /> <br />
+ In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of<br /> England, and a
+ treatise on gunboats, full of valuable<br /> maritime information:&mdash;in
+ 1805, a treatise on yellow<br /> fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In
+ short, he<br /> was an industrious and thoughtful man. He sympa-<br />
+ thized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. He<br /> looked upon
+ monarchy as a species of physical<br /> <br /> 474<br /> <br /> slavery. He
+ had the goodness to attack that form<br /> of government. He regarded the
+ religion of his day<br /> as a kind of mental slavery. He had the courage
+ to<br /> give his reasons for his opinion. His reasons filled<br /> the
+ churches with hatred. Instead of answering his<br /> arguments they
+ attacked him. Men who were not<br /> fit to blacken his shoes, blackened
+ his character.<br /> <br /> There is too much religious cant in the
+ statement<br /> of Mr. Thorburn. He exhibited too much anxiety<br /> to tell
+ what Grant Thorburn said to Thomas Paine.<br /> He names Thomas Jefferson
+ as one of the disreputa-<br /> ble men who welcomed Paine with open arms.
+ The<br /> testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson<br /> as a
+ disreputable person, as to the character of any-<br /> body, is utterly
+ without value. In my judgment, the<br /> testimony of Mr. Thorburn should
+ be thrown aside<br /> as wholly unworthy of belief.<br /> <br /> Your next
+ witness is the Rev. J. D. Wickham, D.<br /> D., who tells what an elder in
+ his church said. This<br /> elder said that Paine passed his last days on
+ his farm<br /> at New Rochelle with a solitary female attendant.<br /> This
+ is not true. He did not pass his last days at<br /> New Rochelle.
+ Consequently this pious elder did<br /> not see him during his last days at
+ that place. Upon<br /> this elder we prove an alibi. Mr. Paine passed his<br />
+ last days in the city of New York, in a house upon<br /> <br /> 475<br />
+ <br /> Columbia street. The story of the Rev. J. D. Wick-<br /> ham, D.D.,
+ is simply false.<br /> <br /> The next competent false witness is the Rev.<br />
+ Charles Hawley, D.D., who proceeds to state that<br /> the story of the
+ Rev. J. D. Wickham, D.D., is cor-<br /> roborated by older citizens of New
+ Rochelle. The<br /> names of these ancient residents are withheld. Ac-<br />
+ cording to these unknown witnesses, the account<br /> given by the deceased
+ elder was entirely correct.<br /> But as the particulars of Mr. Paine's
+ conduct "were<br /> too loathsome to be described in print," we are left<br />
+ entirely in the dark as to what he really did.<br /> <br /> While at New
+ Rochelle Mr. Paine lived with Mr.<br /> Purdy&mdash;with Mr. Dean&mdash;with
+ Captain Pelton, and<br /> with Mr. Staple. It is worthy of note that all of<br />
+ these gentlemen give the lie direct to the statements<br /> of "older
+ residents" and ancient citizens spoken of<br /> by the Rev. Charles Hawley,
+ D.D., and leave him<br /> with his "loathsome particulars" existing only in
+ his<br /> own mind.<br /> <br /> The next gentleman you bring upon the stand
+ is<br /> W. H. Ladd, who quotes from the memoirs of<br /> Stephen Grellet.
+ This gentleman also has the mis-<br /> fortune to be dead. According to his
+ account, Mr.<br /> Paine made his recantation to a servant girl of his<br />
+ by the name of Mary Roscoe. To this girl, accord-<br /> <br /> 476<br />
+ <br /> ing to the account, Mr. Paine uttered the wish that<br /> all who
+ read his book had burned it. I believe there<br /> is a mistake in the name
+ of this girl. Her name was<br /> probably Mary Hinsdale, as it was once
+ claimed that<br /> Paine made the same remark to her, but this point<br /> I
+ shall notice hereafter. These are your witnesses,<br /> and the only ones
+ you bring forward, to support<br /> your charge that Thomas Paine lived a
+ drunken and<br /> beastly life and died a drunken, cowardly and beastly<br />
+ death. All these calumnies are found in a life of<br /> Paine by a Mr.
+ Cheetham, the convicted libeler<br /> already referred to. Mr. Cheetham was
+ an enemy<br /> of the man whose life he pretended to write.<br /> <br /> In
+ order to show you the estimation in which Mr.<br /> Cheetham was held by
+ Mr. Paine, I will give you a<br /> copy of a letter that throws light upon
+ this point:<br /> <br /> October 28, 1807.<br /> <br /> "Mr. Cheetham: Unless
+ you make a public apol-<br /> ogy for the abuse and falsehood in your paper
+ of<br /> Tuesday, October 27th, respecting me, I will prose-<br /> cute you
+ for lying."<br /> <br /> Thomas Paine.<br /> <br /> In another letter,
+ speaking of this same man, Mr.<br /> Paine says: "If an unprincipled bully
+ cannot be re-<br /> formed, he can be punished." "Cheetham has been<br /> so
+ long in the habit of giving false information, that<br /> truth is to him
+ like a foreign language."<br /> <br /> 477<br /> <br /> Mr. Cheetham wrote the
+ life of Paine to gratify<br /> his malice and to support religion. He was
+ prose-<br /> cuted for libel&mdash;was convicted and fined.<br /> <br /> Yet
+ the life of Paine written by this man is referred<br /> to by the Christian
+ world as the highest authority.<br /> <br /> As to the personal habits of
+ Mr. Paine, we have<br /> the testimony of William Carver, with whom he<br />
+ lived; of Mr. Jarvis, the artist, with whom he lived;<br /> of Mr. Staple,
+ with whom he lived; of Mr. Purdy,<br /> who was a tenant of Paine's; of Mr.
+ Burger, with<br /> whom he was intimate; of Thomas Nixon and<br /> Captain
+ Daniel Pelton, both of whom knew him<br /> well; of Amasa Woodsworth, who
+ was with him<br /> when he died; of John Fellows, who boarded at the<br />
+ same house; of James Wilburn, with whom he<br /> boarded; of B. F. Haskin,
+ a lawyer, who was well<br /> acquainted with him and called upon him during
+ his<br /> last illness; of Walter Morton, a friend; of Clio<br /> Rickman,
+ who had known him for many years; of<br /> Willet and Elias Hicks, Quakers,
+ who knew him in-<br /> timately and well; of Judge Herttell, H. Margary,<br />
+ Elihu Palmer, and many others. All these testified<br /> to the fact that
+ Mr. Paine was a temperate man. In<br /> those days nearly everybody used
+ spirituous liquors.<br /> Paine was not an exception; but he did not drink
+ to<br /> excess. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel where<br /> <br /> 478<br />
+ <br /> Paine stopped, in a note to Caleb Bingham, declared<br /> that Paine
+ drank less than any boarder he had.<br /> <br /> Against all this evidence
+ you produce the story of<br /> Grant Thorburn&mdash;the story of the Rev.
+ J. D. Wick-<br /> ham that an elder in his church told him that Paine<br />
+ was a drunkard, corroborated by the Rev. Charles<br /> Hawley, and an
+ extract from Lossing's history to<br /> the same effect. The evidence is
+ overwhelmingly<br /> against you. Will you have the fairness to admit it?<br />
+ Your witnesses are merely the repeaters of the false-<br /> hoods of James
+ Cheetham, the convicted libeler.<br /> <br /> After all, drinking is not as
+ bad as lying. An<br /> honest drunkard is better than a calumniator of the<br />
+ dead. "A remnant of old mortality, drunk, bloated<br /> and half asleep" is
+ better than a perfectly sober<br /> defender of human slavery.<br /> <br />
+ To become drunk is a virtue compared with steal-<br /> ing a babe from the
+ breast of its mother.<br /> <br /> Drunkenness is one of the beatitudes,
+ compared<br /> with editing a religious paper devoted to the defence<br />
+ of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine insti-<br /> tution.<br />
+ <br /> Do you really think that Paine was a drunken<br /> beast when he
+ wrote "Common Sense"&mdash;a pamphlet<br /> that aroused three millions of
+ people, as people were<br /> never aroused by a pamphlet before? Was he a<br />
+ <br /> 479<br /> <br /> drunken beast when he wrote the "Crisis"? Was<br /> it
+ to a drunken beast that the following letter was<br /> addressed:<br />
+ <br /> Rocky Hill, September 10, 1783.<br /> <br /> "I have learned since I
+ have been at this place,<br /> that you are at Bordentown.&mdash;Whether
+ for the sake<br /> of retirement or economy I know not. Be it for<br />
+ either or both, or whatever it may, if you will come<br /> to this place
+ and partake with me I shall be exceed-<br /> ingly happy to see you at it.
+ Your presence may<br /> remind Congress of your past services to this
+ country;<br /> and if it is in my power to impress them, command<br /> my
+ best exertions with freedom, as they will be<br /> rendered cheerfully by
+ one who entertains a lively<br /> sense of the importance of your works,
+ and who with<br /> much pleasure subscribes himself,<br /> <br /> "Your
+ Sincere Friend,<br /> <br /> "George Washington."<br /> <br /> Did any of your
+ ancestors ever receive a letter<br /> like that?<br /> <br /> Do you think
+ that Paine was a drunken beast<br /> when the following letter was received
+ by him?<br /> <br /> "You express a wish in your letter to return to<br />
+ America in a national ship; Mr. Dawson, who brings<br /> over the treaty,
+ and who will present you with this<br /> letter, is charged with orders to
+ the captain of the<br /> <br /> 480<br /> <br /> Maryland to receive and
+ accommodate you back, if you<br /> can be ready to depart at such a short
+ warning. You<br /> will in general find us returned to sentiments worthy<br />
+ of former times; <i>in these it will be your glory to have<br /> steadily
+ labored and with as much effect as any man<br /> living.</i> That you may
+ live long to continue your<br /> useful labors, and reap the reward in the
+ <i>thankfulness<br /> of nations</i>, is my sincere prayer. Accept the
+ assur-<br /> ances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment."<br />
+ <br /> Thomas Jefferson.<br /> <br /> Did any of your ancestors ever receive
+ a letter<br /> like that?<br /> <br /> "It has been very generally propagated
+ through<br /> the continent that I wrote the pamphlet 'Common<br /> Sense.'
+ I could not have written anything in so<br /> manly and striking a style."&mdash;John
+ Adams.<br /> <br /> "A few more such flaming arguments as were<br />
+ exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the<br /> sound doctrine and
+ unanswerable reasoning con-<br /> tained in the pamphlet 'Common Sense,'
+ will not<br /> leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of<br /> a
+ separation."&mdash;George Washington.<br /> <br /> "It is not necessary for
+ me to tell you how<br /> much all your countrymen&mdash;I speak of the
+ great<br /> mass of the people&mdash;are interested in your welfare.<br />
+ <br /> 481<br /> <br /> They have not forgotten the history of their own<br />
+ Revolution and the difficult scenes through which<br /> they passed; nor do
+ they review its several stages<br /> without reviving in their bosoms a due
+ sensibility of<br /> the merits of those who served them in that great<br />
+ and arduous conflict. The crime of ingratitude has<br /> not yet stained,
+ and I trust never will stain, our<br /> national character. You are
+ considered by them as<br /> not only having rendered important services in
+ our<br /> own Revolution, but as being on a more extensive<br /> scale the
+ friend of human rights, and a distinguished<br /> and able defender of
+ public liberty. To the welfare<br /> of Thomas Paine the Americans are not,
+ nor can<br /> they be indifferent.".. James Monroe.<br /> <br /> Did any of
+ your ancestors ever receive a letter<br /> like that?<br /> <br /> "No writer
+ has exceeded Paine in ease and famil-<br /> iarity of style, in perspicuity
+ of expression, happiness<br /> of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming
+ lan-<br /> guage."'&mdash;Thomas Jefferson.<br /> <br /> Was ever a letter
+ like that written about an editor<br /> of the <i>New York Observer?</i><br />
+ <br /> Was it in consideration of the services of a<br /> drunken beast that
+ the Legislature of Pennsylvania<br /> presented Thomas Paine with five
+ hundred pounds<br /> sterling?<br /> <br /> 482<br /> <br /> Did the State of
+ New York feel indebted to a<br /> drunken beast, and confer upon Thomas
+ Paine an<br /> estate of several hundred acres?<br /> <br /> "I believe in
+ the equality of man, and I believe<br /> that religious duties consist in
+ doing justice, loving<br /> mercy, and endeavoring to make our
+ fellow-creat-<br /> ures happy."<br /> <br /> "My own mind is my own church."<br />
+ <br /> "It is necessary to the happiness of man that he<br /> be mentally
+ faithful to himself."<br /> <br /> "Any system of religion that shocks the
+ mind of<br /> a child cannot be a true system."<br /> <br /> "The Word of God
+ is the creation which we<br /> behold."<br /> <br /> "The age of ignorance
+ commenced with the<br /> Christian system."<br /> <br /> "It is with a pious
+ fraud as with a bad action&mdash;it<br /> begets a calamitous necessity of
+ going on."<br /> <br /> "To read the Bible without horror, we must undo<br />
+ everything that is tender, sympathizing and benev-<br /> olent in the heart
+ of man."<br /> <br /> "The man does not exist who can say I have per-<br />
+ secuted him, or that I have in any case returned evil<br /> for evil."<br />
+ <br /> "Of all tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in<br /> religion is
+ the worst."<br /> <br /> 483<br /> <br /> "My own opinion is, that those whose
+ lives have<br /> been spent in doing good and endeavoring to make<br />
+ their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter."<br /> "The belief in
+ a cruel god makes a cruel man."<br /> "The intellectual part of religion is
+ a private affair<br /> between every man and his Maker, and in which no<br />
+ third party has any right to interfere. The practical<br /> part consists
+ in our doing good to each other."<br /> <br /> "No man ought to make a
+ living by religion. One<br /> person cannot act religion for another&mdash;every
+ person<br /> must perform it for himself."<br /> <br /> "One good
+ schoolmaster is of more use than a<br /> hundred priests."<br /> <br /> "Let
+ us propagate morality unfettered by super-<br /> stition."<br /> <br /> "God
+ is the power, or first cause, Nature is the<br /> law, and matter is the
+ subject acted upon."<br /> <br /> "I believe in one God and no more, and I
+ hope<br /> for happiness beyond this life."<br /> <br /> "The key of heaven
+ is not in the keeping of any<br /> sect nor ought the road to it to be
+ obstructed<br /> by any."<br /> <br /> "My religion, and the whole of it, is
+ the fear and<br /> love of the Deity and universal philanthropy."<br />
+ <br /> "I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I<br /> have a good
+ state of health and a happy mind. I<br /> <br /> 484<br /> <br /> take care of
+ both, by nourishing the first with tem-<br /> perance and the latter with
+ abundance."<br /> <br /> "He lives immured within the Bastile of a<br />
+ word."<br /> <br /> How perfectly that sentence describes you! The<br />
+ Bastile in which you are immured is the word<br /> "Calvinism."<br /> <br />
+ "Man has no property in man."<br /> <br /> What a splendid motto that would
+ have made for<br /> the <i>New York Observer</i> in the olden time!<br />
+ <br /> "The world is my country; to do good, my<br /> religion."<br /> <br />
+ I ask you again whether these splendid utterances<br /> came from the lips
+ of a drunken beast?<br /> <br /> <br /> <i>Did Thomas Paine die in
+ destitution and want?</i><br /> <br /> The charge has been made, over and
+ over again,<br /> that Thomas Paine died in want and destitution&mdash;<br />
+ that he was an abandoned pauper&mdash;an outcast with-<br /> out friends
+ and without money. This charge is just<br /> as false as the rest.<br />
+ <br /> Upon his return to this country in 1802, he was<br /> worth $30,000,
+ according to his own statement made<br /> at that time in the following
+ letter addressed to Clio<br /> Rickman:<br /> <br /> "My Dear Friend: Mr.
+ Monroe, who is appointed<br /> minister extraordinary to France, takes
+ charge of<br /> <br /> 485<br /> <br /> this, to be delivered to Mr. Este,
+ banker in Paris, to<br /> be forwarded to you.<br /> <br /> "I arrived at
+ Baltimore the 30th of October, and<br /> you can have no idea of the
+ agitation which my<br /> arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire to<br />
+ Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles) every newspaper<br /> was filled with
+ applause or abuse.<br /> <br /> "My property in this country has been taken
+ care<br /> of by my friends, and is now worth six thousand<br /> pounds
+ sterling; which put in the funds will bring<br /> me &pound;400 sterling a
+ year.<br /> <br /> "Remember me in affection and friendship to your<br />
+ wife and family, and in the circle of your friends."<br /> <br /> Thomas
+ Paine.<br /> <br /> A man in those days worth thirty thousand dol-<br /> lars
+ was not a pauper. That amount would bring an<br /> income of at least two
+ thousand dollars per annum.<br /> Two thousand dollars then would be fully
+ equal to<br /> five thousand dollars now.<br /> <br /> On the 12th of July,
+ 1809, the year in which he<br /> died, Mr. Paine made his will. From this
+ instru-<br /> ment we learn that he was the owner of a valuable<br /> farm
+ within twenty miles of New York. He also<br /> was the owner of thirty
+ shares in the New York<br /> Phoenix Insurance Company, worth upwards of
+ fif-<br /> teen hundred dollars. Besides this, some personal<br /> <br /> 486<br />
+ <br /> property and ready money. By his will he gave to<br /> Walter Morton,
+ and Thomas Addis Emmett, brother<br /> of Robert Emmett, two hundred
+ dollars each, and<br /> one hundred to the widow of Elihu Palmer.<br />
+ <br /> Is it possible that this will was made by a pauper<br /> &mdash;by a
+ destitute outcast&mdash;by a man who suffered for<br /> the ordinary
+ necessaries of life?<br /> <br /> But suppose, for the sake of the argument,
+ that he<br /> was poor and that he died a beggar, does that tend<br /> to
+ show that the Bible is an inspired book and that<br /> Calvin did not burn
+ Servetus? Do you really regard<br /> poverty as a crime? If Paine had died
+ a millionaire,<br /> would you have accepted his religious opinions? If<br />
+ Paine had drank nothing but cold water would you<br /> have repudiated the
+ five cardinal points of Calvin-<br /> ism? Does an argument depend for its
+ force upon<br /> the pecuniary condition of the person making it?<br /> As a
+ matter of fact, most reformers&mdash;most men and<br /> women of genius,
+ have been acquainted with poverty.<br /> Beneath a covering of rags have
+ been found some of<br /> the tenderest and bravest hearts.<br /> <br /> Owing
+ to the attitude of the churches for the last<br /> fifteen hundred years,
+ truth-telling has not been a<br /> very lucrative business. As a rule,
+ hypocrisy has<br /> worn the robes, and honesty the rags. That day is<br />
+ passing away. You cannot now answer the argu-<br /> <br /> 487<br /> <br />
+ ments of a man by pointing at holes in his coat.<br /> Thomas Paine
+ attacked the church when it was<br /> powerful&mdash;when it had what was
+ called honors to<br /> bestow&mdash;when it was the keeper of the public
+ con-<br /> science&mdash;when it was strong and cruel. The church<br />
+ waited till he was dead then attacked his reputation<br /> and his clothes.<br />
+ <br /> Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. The<br /> lion was dead.<br />
+ <br /> Conclusion.<br /> <br /> From the persistence with which the orthodox<br />
+ have charged for the last sixty-eight years that<br /> Thomas Paine
+ recanted, and that when dying he<br /> was filled with remorse and fear;
+ from the malignity<br /> of the attacks upon his personal character, I had
+ con-<br /> cluded that there must be some evidence of some<br /> kind to
+ support these charges. Even with my ideas<br /> of the average honor of
+ believers in superstition&mdash;<br /> the disciples of fear&mdash;I did
+ not quite believe that all<br /> these infamies rested solely upon poorly
+ attested<br /> lies. I had charity enough to suppose that some-<br /> thing
+ had been said or done by Thomas Paine capa-<br /> ble of being tortured
+ into a foundation for these<br /> calumnies. And I was foolish enough to
+ think that<br /> even you would be willing to fairly examine the pre-<br />
+ tended evidence said to sustain these charges, and<br /> <br /> 488<br />
+ <br /> give your honest conclusion to the world. I sup-<br /> posed that
+ you, being acquainted with the history of<br /> your country, felt under a
+ certain obligation to<br /> Thomas Paine for the splendid services rendered
+ by<br /> him in the darkest days of the Revolution. It was<br /> only
+ reasonable to suppose that you were aware that<br /> in the midnight of
+ Valley Forge the "Crisis," by<br /> Thomas Paine, was the first star that
+ glittered in the<br /> wide horizon of despair. I took it for granted that<br />
+ you knew of the bold stand taken and the brave<br /> words spoken by Thomas
+ Paine, in the French Con-<br /> vention, against the death of the king. I
+ thought it<br /> probable that you, being an editor, had read the<br />
+ "Rights of Man;" that you knew that Thomas<br /> Paine was a champion of
+ human liberty; that he was<br /> one of the founders and fathers of this
+ Republic; that<br /> he was one of the foremost men of his age; that he<br />
+ had never written a word in favor of injustice; that<br /> he was a
+ despiser of slavery; that he abhorred tyr-<br /> anny in all its forms;
+ that he was in the widest and<br /> highest sense a friend of his race;
+ that his head was<br /> as clear as his heart was good, and that he had the<br />
+ courage to speak his honest thought. Under these<br /> circumstances I had
+ hoped that you would for the<br /> moment forget your religious prejudices
+ and submit<br /> to the enlightened judgment of the world the evi-<br />
+ <br /> 489<br /> <br /> dence you had, or could obtain, affecting in any way<br />
+ the character of so great and so generous a man. This<br /> you have
+ refused to do. In my judgment, you have<br /> mistaken the temper of even
+ your own readers. A<br /> large majority of the religious people of this
+ country<br /> have, to a considerable extent, outgrown the preju-<br />
+ dices of their fathers. They are willing to know the<br /> truth and the
+ whole truth, about the life and death of<br /> Thomas Paine. They will not
+ thank you for having<br /> presented them the moss-covered, the maimed and
+ dis-<br /> torted traditions of ignorance, prejudice, and credulity.<br />
+ By this course you will convince them not of the<br /> wickedness of Paine,
+ but of your own unfairness.<br /> <br /> What crime had Thomas Paine
+ committed that he<br /> should have feared to die? The only answer you<br />
+ can give is, that he denied the inspiration of the<br /> Scriptures. If
+ this is a crime, the civilized world is<br /> filled with criminals. The
+ pioneers of human thought<br /> &mdash;the intellectual leaders of the
+ world&mdash;the foremost<br /> men in every science&mdash;the kings of
+ literature and<br /> art&mdash;those who stand in the front rank of
+ investiga-<br /> tion&mdash;the men who are civilizing, elevating,
+ instruct-<br /> ing, and refining mankind, are to-day unbelievers in<br />
+ the dogma of inspiration. Upon this question, the<br /> intellect of
+ Christendom agrees with the conclusions<br /> reached by the genius of
+ Thomas Paine. Centuries<br /> <br /> 490<br /> <br /> ago a noise was made for
+ the purpose of frightening<br /> mankind. Orthodoxy is the echo of that
+ noise.<br /> <br /> The man who now regards the Old Testament as<br /> in any
+ sense a sacred or inspired book is, in my judg-<br /> ment, an intellectual
+ and moral deformity. There is<br /> in it so much that is cruel, ignorant,
+ and ferocious<br /> that it is to me a matter of amazement that it was<br />
+ ever thought to be the work of a most merciful deity.<br /> <br /> Upon the
+ question of inspiration Thomas Paine<br /> gave his honest opinion. Can it
+ be that to give an<br /> honest opinion causes one to die in terror and de-<br />
+ spair? Have you in your writings been actuated by<br /> the fear of such a
+ consequence? Why should it be<br /> taken for granted that Thomas Paine,
+ who devoted<br /> his life to the sacred cause of freedom, should have<br />
+ been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of<br /> conscience,
+ while editors of Presbyterian papers who<br /> defended slavery as a divine
+ institution, and cheer-<br /> fully justified the stealing of babes from
+ the breasts of<br /> mothers, are supposed to have passed smilingly from<br />
+ earth to the embraces of angels? Why should you<br /> think that the heroic
+ author of the "Rights of Man"<br /> should shudderingly dread to leave this
+ "bank and<br /> shoal of time," while Calvin, dripping with the blood<br />
+ of Servetus, was anxious to be judged of God? Is<br /> it possible that the
+ persecutors&mdash;the instigators of<br /> <br /> 491<br /> <br /> the
+ massacre of St. Bartholomew&mdash;the inventors and<br /> users of
+ thumb-screws, and iron boots, and racks&mdash;<br /> the burners and
+ tearers of human flesh&mdash;the stealers,<br /> whippers and enslavers of
+ men&mdash;the buyers and<br /> beaters of babes and mothers&mdash;the
+ founders of<br /> inquisitions&mdash;the makers of chains, the builders of<br />
+ dungeons, the slanderers of the living and the calum-<br /> niators of the
+ dead, all died in the odor of sanctity,<br /> with white, forgiven hands
+ folded upon the breasts<br /> of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice&mdash;the<br />
+ apostles of humanity&mdash;the soldiers of liberty&mdash;the<br /> breakers
+ of fetters&mdash;the creators of light&mdash;died sur-<br /> rounded with
+ the fierce fiends of fear?<br /> <br /> In your attempt to destroy the
+ character of Thomas<br /> Paine you have failed, and have succeeded only in<br />
+ leaving a stain upon your own. You have written<br /> words as cruel,
+ bitter and heartless as the creed of<br /> Calvin. Hereafter you will stand
+ in the pillory of<br /> history as a defamer&mdash;a calumniator of the
+ dead.<br /> You will be known as the man who said that Thomas<br /> Paine,
+ the "Author Hero," lived a drunken, coward-<br /> ly and beastly life, and
+ died a drunken and beastly<br /> death. These infamous words will be
+ branded upon<br /> the forehead of your reputation. They will be re-<br />
+ membered against you when all else you may have<br /> uttered shall have
+ passed from the memory of men.<br /> <br /> Robert G. Ingersoll.<br /> <br />
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0012" id="link0012"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>THE
+ OBSERVER'S SECOND ATTACK</b></big><br /> <br /> <i>* From the NY. Observer
+ of Nov. 1, 1877.</i><br /> <br /> <br /> TOM PAINE AGAIN.<br /> <br /> In the
+ Observer of September 27th, in response<br /> to numerous calls from
+ different parts of the country<br /> for information, and in fulfillment of
+ a promise, we<br /> presented a mass of testimony, chiefly from persons<br />
+ with whom we had been personally acquainted,<br /> establishing the truth
+ of our assertions in regard to<br /> the dissolute life and miserable end
+ of Paine. It was<br /> not a pleasing subject for discussion, and an
+ apology,<br /> or at least an explanation, is due to our readers for<br />
+ resuming it, and for occupying so much space, or<br /> any space, in
+ exhibiting the truth and the proofs in<br /> regard to the character of a
+ man who had become so<br /> debased by his intemperance, and so vile in his<br />
+ habits, as to be excluded, for many years before and<br /> up to the time
+ of his death, from all decent society.<br /> <br /> Our reasons for taking
+ up the subject at all, and<br /> for presenting at this time so much
+ additional testi-<br /> mony in regard to the facts of the case, are these:<br />
+ At different periods for the last fifty years, efforts<br /> <br /> 493<br />
+ <br /> have been made by Infidels to revive and honor the<br /> memory of
+ one whose friends would honor him most<br /> by suffering his name to sink
+ into oblivion, if that<br /> were possible. About two years since, Rev. O.
+ B.<br /> Frothingham, of this city, came to their aid, and<br /> undertook a
+ sort of championship of Paine, making<br /> in a public discourse this
+ statement: "No private<br /> character has been more foully calumniated in
+ the<br /> name of God than that of Thomas Paine." (Mr.<br /> Frothingham, it
+ will be remembered, is the one who<br /> recently, in a public discourse,
+ announced the down-<br /> fall of Christianity, although he very kindly
+ made<br /> the allowance that, "it may be a thousand years<br /> before its
+ decay will be visible to all eyes." It is<br /> our private opinion that it
+ will be at least a thousand<br /> and one.) Rev. John W. Chadwick, a
+ minister of<br /> the same order of unbelief, who signs himself, "Min-<br />
+ ister of the Second Unitarian Society in Brooklyn,"<br /> has devoted two
+ discourses to the same end, eulogiz-<br /> ing Paine. In one of these,
+ which we have before<br /> us in a handsomely printed pamphlet, entitled,<br />
+ "Method and Value of his (Paine's) Religious<br /> Teachings," he says:
+ "Christian usage has determ-<br /> ined that an Infidel means one who does
+ not believe<br /> in Christianity as a supernatural religion; in the<br />
+ Bible as a Supernatural book; in Jesus as a super-<br /> <br /> 494<br />
+ <br /> natural person. And in this sense Paine was an<br /> Infidel, and so,
+ thank God, am I." It is proper to<br /> add that Unitarians generally
+ decline all responsibil-<br /> ity for the utterances of both of these men,
+ and that<br /> they compose a denomination, or rather two denom-<br />
+ inations, of their own.<br /> <br /> There is also a certain class of
+ Infidels who are<br /> not quite prepared to meet the odium that attaches<br />
+ to the name; they call themselves Christians, but<br /> their sympathies
+ are all with the enemies of Chris-<br /> tianity, and they are not always
+ able to conceal it.<br /> They have not the courage of their opinions, like<br />
+ Mr. Frothingham and Mr. Chadwick, and they work<br /> only sideways toward
+ the same end. We have been<br /> no little amused since our last article on
+ this subject<br /> appeared, to read some of the articles that have been<br />
+ written on the other side, though professedly on no<br /> side, and to
+ observe how sincerely these men depre-<br /> cate the discussion of the
+ character of Paine, as an<br /> unprofitable topic. It never appeared to
+ them un-<br /> profitable when the discussion was on the other side.<br />
+ <br /> Then, too, we have for months past been receiving<br /> letters from
+ different parts of the country, asking<br /> authentic information on the
+ subject and stating that<br /> the followers of Paine are making
+ extraordinary<br /> efforts to circulate his writings against the Christian<br />
+ <br /> 495<br /> <br /> religion, and in order to give currency to these
+ writ-<br /> ings they are endeavoring to rescue his name from<br /> the
+ disgrace into which it sank during the latter<br /> years of his life.
+ Paine spent several of his last<br /> years in furnishing a commentary upon
+ his Infidel<br /> principles. This commentary was contained in his<br />
+ besotted, degraded life and miserable end, but his<br /> friends do not
+ wish the commentary to go out in<br /> connection with his writings. They
+ prefer to have<br /> them read without the comments by their author.<br />
+ Hence this anxiety to free the great apostle of<br /> Infidelity from the
+ obloquy which his life brought<br /> upon his name; to represent him as a
+ pure, noble,<br /> virtuous man, and to make it appear that he died a<br />
+ peaceful, happy death, just like a philosopher.<br /> <br /> But what makes
+ the publication of the facts in the<br /> case still more imperative at
+ this time is the whole-<br /> sale accusation brought against the Christian
+ public<br /> by the friends and admirers of Paine. Christian<br /> ministers
+ as a class, and Christian journals are<br /> expressly accused of
+ falsifying history, of defaming<br /> "the mighty dead!" (meaning Paine,)
+ etc. In<br /> the face of all these accusations it cannot be out of<br />
+ place to state the facts and to fortify the statement<br /> by satisfactory
+ evidence, as we are abundantly able<br /> to do.<br /> <br /> 496<br /> <br />
+ The two points on which we proposed to produce<br /> the testimony are, the
+ character of Paine's life (refer-<br /> ring of course to his last
+ residence in this country,<br /> for no one has intimated that he had sunk
+ into such<br /> besotted drunkenness until about the time of his<br />
+ return to the United States in 1802), and the real<br /> character of his
+ death as consistent with such a life,<br /> and as marked further by the
+ cowardliness, which<br /> has been often exhibited by Infidels in the same<br />
+ circumstances.<br /> <br /> It is nothing at all to the purpose to show, as
+ his<br /> friends are fond of doing, that Paine rendered<br /> important
+ service to the cause of American Inde-<br /> pendence. This is not the
+ point under discussion<br /> and is not denied. No one ever called in
+ question<br /> the valuable service that Benedict Arnold rendered<br /> to
+ the country in the early part of the Revolutionary<br /> war; but this,
+ with true Americans, does not suffice<br /> to cast a shade of loveliness
+ or even to spread a man-<br /> tle of charity over his subsequent career.
+ Whatever<br /> share Paine had in the personal friendship of the<br />
+ fathers of the Revolution he forfeited by his subse-<br /> quent life of
+ beastly drunkenness and degradation,<br /> and on this account as well as
+ on account of his<br /> blasphemy he was shunned by all decent people.<br />
+ <br /> We wish to make one or two corrections of mis-<br /> <br /> 497<br />
+ <br /> statements by Paine's advocates, on which a vast<br /> amount of
+ argument has been simply wasted. We<br /> have never stated in any form,
+ nor have we ever<br /> supposed, that Paine actually renounced his Infidel-<br />
+ ity. The accounts agree in stating that he died a<br /> blaspheming
+ Infidel, and his horrible death we regard<br /> as one of the fruits, the
+ fitting complement of his<br /> Infidelity. We have never seen anything
+ that<br /> encouraged the hope that he was not abandoned of<br /> God in his
+ last hours. But we have no doubt, on<br /> the other hand, that having
+ become a wreck in body<br /> and mind through his intemperance, abandoned
+ of<br /> God, deserted by his Infidel companions, and de-<br /> pendent upon
+ Christian charity for the attentions he<br /> received, miserable beyond
+ description in his condi-<br /> tion, and seeing nothing to hope for in the
+ future, he<br /> was afraid to die, and was ready to call upon God<br /> and
+ upon Christ for mercy, and ready perhaps in the<br /> next minute to
+ blaspheme. This is what we referred<br /> to in speaking of Paine's death
+ as cowardly. It is<br /> shown in the testimony we have produced, and still<br />
+ more fully in that which we now present. The most<br /> wicked men are
+ ready to call upon God in seasons<br /> of great peril, and sometimes ask
+ for Christian min-<br /> istrations when in extreme illness; but they are<br />
+ often ready on any alleviation of distress to turn to<br /> <br /> 498<br />
+ <br /> their wickedness again, in the expressive language<br /> of
+ Scripture, "as the sow that was washed to her<br /> wallowing in the mire."<br />
+ <br /> We have never stated or intimated, nor, so far as<br /> we are aware,
+ has any one of our correspondents<br /> stated, that Paine died in poverty.
+ It has been<br /> frequently and truthfully stated that Paine was de-<br />
+ pendent on Christian charity for the attentions he<br /> received in his
+ last days, and so he was. His Infidel<br /> companions forsook him and
+ Christian hearts and<br /> hands ministered to his wants, notwithstanding
+ the<br /> blasphemies of his death-bed.<br /> <br /> Nor has one of our
+ correspondents stated, as<br /> alleged, that Paine died at New Rochelle.
+ The<br /> Rev. Dr. Wickham, who was a resident of that place<br /> nearly
+ fifty years ago, and who was perfectly familiar<br /> with the facts of his
+ life, wrote that Paine spent "his<br /> latter days" on the farm presented
+ to him by<br /> the State of New York, which was strictly true,<br /> but
+ made no reference to it as the place of his<br /> death.<br /> <br /> Such
+ misrepresentations serve to show how much<br /> the advocates of Paine
+ admire "truth."<br /> <br /> With these explanations we produce further evi-<br />
+ dence in regard to the manner of Paine's life and the<br /> character of
+ his death, both of which we have already<br /> <br /> 499<br /> <br />
+ characterized in appropriate terms, as the following<br /> testimony will
+ show.<br /> <br /> In regard to Paine's "personal habits," even before<br />
+ his return to this country, and particularly his aver-<br /> sion to soap
+ and water, Elkana Watson, a gentleman<br /> of the highest social position,
+ who resided in France<br /> during a part of the Revolutionary war, and who<br />
+ was the personal friend of Washington, Franklin,<br /> and other patriots
+ of the period, makes some inci-<br /> dental statements in his "Men and
+ Times of the<br /> Revolution." Though eulogizing Paine's efforts in<br />
+ behalf of American Independence, he describes him<br /> as "coarse and
+ uncouth in his manners, loathsome<br /> in his appearance, and a disgusting
+ egotist." On<br /> Paine's arrival at Nantes, the Mayor and other dis-<br />
+ tinguished citizens called upon him to pay their<br /> respects to the
+ American patriot. Mr. Watson says:<br /> "He was soon rid of his
+ respectable visitors, who<br /> left the room with marks of astonishment
+ and dis-<br /> gust." Mr. W., after much entreaty, and only by<br />
+ promising him a bundle of newspapers to read while<br /> undergoing the
+ operation, succeeded in prevailing<br /> on Paine to "stew, for an hour, in
+ a hot bath." Mr.<br /> W. accompanied Paine to the bath, and "instructed<br />
+ the keeper, in French, (which Paine did not under-<br /> stand,) gradually
+ to increase the heat of the water<br /> <br /> 500<br /> <br /> until 'le
+ Monsieur serait bien bouille (until the gentle-<br /> man shall be well
+ boiled;) and adds that "he became<br /> so much absorbed in his reading
+ that he was nearly-<br /> parboiled before leaving the bath, much to his
+ im-<br /> provement and my satisfaction."<br /> <br /> William Carver has
+ been cited as a witness in be-<br /> half of Paine, and particularly as to
+ his "personal<br /> habits." In a letter to Paine, dated December 2,<br />
+ 1776, he bears the following testimony:<br /> <br /> "A respectable
+ gentlemen from New Rochelle<br /> called to see me a few days back, and
+ said that<br /> everybody was tired of you there, and no one would<br />
+ undertake to board and lodge you. I thought this<br /> was the case, as I
+ found you at a tavern in a most<br /> miserable situation. You appeared as
+ if you had<br /> not been shaved for a fortnight, and as to a shirt, it<br />
+ could not be said that you had one on. It was only<br /> the remains of
+ one, and this, likewise, appeared not<br /> to have been off your back for
+ a fortnight, and was<br /> nearly the color of tanned leather; and you had
+ the<br /> most disagreeable smell possible; just like that of<br /> our poor
+ beggars in England. Do you remember the<br /> pains I took to clean you?
+ that I got a tub of warm<br /> water and soap and washed you from head to
+ foot, and<br /> this I had to do three times before I could get you<br />
+ clean." (And then follow more disgusting details.)<br /> <br /> 501<br />
+ <br /> "You say, also, that you found your own liquors<br /> during the time
+ you boarded with me; but you<br /> should have said, 'I found only a small
+ part of the<br /> liquor I drank during my stay with you; this part I<br />
+ purchased of John Fellows, which was a demijohn of<br /> brandy containing
+ four gallons, and this did not serve<br /> me three weeks.' This can be
+ proved, and I mean<br /> not to say anything that I cannot prove; for I
+ hold<br /> truth as a precious jewel. It is a well-known fact,<br /> that
+ you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my<br /> expense, during the
+ different times that you have<br /> boarded with me, the demijohn above
+ mentioned<br /> excepted, and the last fourteen weeks you were sick.<br />
+ Is not this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper?"<br /> This chosen
+ witness in behalf of Paine, closes his<br /> letter, which is full of
+ loathsome descriptions of<br /> Paine's manner of life, as follows:<br />
+ <br /> "Now, sir, I think I have drawn a complete por-<br /> trait of your
+ character; yet to enter upon every<br /> minutiae would be to give a
+ history of your life, and<br /> to develop the fallacious mask of hypocrisy
+ and de-<br /> ception under which you have acted in your political<br /> as
+ well as moral capacity of life."<br /> <br /> (Signed) "William Carver."<br />
+ <br /> Carver had the same opinion of Paine to his dying<br /> day. When an
+ old man, and an Infidel of the Paine<br /> <br /> 502<br /> <br /> type and
+ habits, he was visited by the Rev. E. F.<br /> Hatfield, D.D., of this
+ city, who writes to us of his<br /> interview with Carver, under date of
+ Sept. 27, 1877:<br /> "I conversed with him nearly an hour. I took<br />
+ special pains to learn from him all that I could about<br /> Paine, whose
+ landlord he had been for eighteen<br /> months. He spoke of him as a base
+ and shameless<br /> drunkard, utterly destitute of moral principle. His<br />
+ denunciations of the man were perfectly fearful, and<br /> fully confirmed,
+ in my apprehension, all that had been<br /> written of Paine's immorality
+ and repulsiveness."<br /> Cheetham's Life of Paine, which was published<br />
+ the year that he died, and which has passed through<br /> several editions
+ (we have three of them now before<br /> us) describes a man lost to all
+ moral sensibility and<br /> to all sense of decency, a habitual drunkard,
+ and it is<br /> simply incredible that a book should have appeared<br /> so
+ soon after the death of its subject and should have<br /> been so
+ frequently republished without being at once<br /> refuted, if the
+ testimony were not substantially true.<br /> Many years later, when it was
+ found necessary to<br /> bolster up the reputation of Paine, Cheetham's<br />
+ Memoirs were called a pack of lies. If only one-<br /> tenth part of what
+ he publishes circumstantially in<br /> his volume, as facts in regard to
+ Paine, were true, all<br /> that has been written against him in later
+ years does<br /> <br /> 503<br /> <br /> not begin to set forth the degraded
+ character of the<br /> man's life. And with all that has been written on<br />
+ the subject we see no good reason to doubt the sub-<br /> stantial accuracy
+ of Cheetham's portrait of the man<br /> whom he knew so well.<br /> <br />
+ Dr. J. W. Francis, well-known as an eminent phy-<br /> sician, of this
+ city, in his Reminiscences of New York,<br /> says of Paine:<br /> <br /> "He
+ who, in his early days, had been associated<br /> with, and had received
+ counsel from Franklin, was,<br /> in his old age, deserted by the humblest
+ menial; he,<br /> whose pen has proved a very sword among nations,<br /> had
+ shaken empires, and made kings tremble, now<br /> yielded up the mastery to
+ the most treacherous of<br /> tyrants, King Alcohol."<br /> <br /> The
+ physician who attended Paine during his last<br /> illness was Dr. James R.
+ Manley, a gentleman of the<br /> highest character. A letter of his,
+ written in Octo-<br /> ber of the year that Paine died, fully corroborates<br />
+ the account of his state as recorded by Stephen<br /> Grellet in his
+ Memoirs, which we have already<br /> printed. He writes:<br /> <br /> "New
+ York, October 2, 1809: I was called upon<br /> by accident to visit Mr.
+ Paine, on the 25th of Feb-<br /> ruary last, and found him indisposed with
+ fever, and<br /> very apprehensive of an attack of apoplexy, as he<br />
+ <br /> 504<br /> <br /> stated that he had that disease before, and at this<br />
+ time felt a great degree of vertigo, and was unable<br /> to help himself
+ as he had hitherto done, on account<br /> of an intense pain above the
+ eyes. On inquiry of<br /> the attendants I was told that three or four days<br />
+ previously he had concluded to dispense with his<br /> usual quantity of
+ accustomed stimulus and that he<br /> had on that day resumed it. To the
+ want of his<br /> usual drink they attributed his illness, and it is highly<br />
+ probable that the usual quantity operating upon a<br /> state of system
+ more excited from the above priva-<br /> tions, was the cause of the
+ symptoms of which he<br /> then complained.... And here let me be per-<br />
+ mitted to observe (lest blame might attach to those<br /> whose business it
+ was to pay any particular attention<br /> to his cleanliness of person)
+ that it was absolutely<br /> impossible to effect that purpose. Cleanliness
+ ap-<br /> peared to make no part of his comfort; he seemed<br /> to have a
+ singular aversion to soap and water; he<br /> would never ask to be washed,
+ and when he was he<br /> would always make objections; and it was not un-<br />
+ usual to wash and to dress him clean very much<br /> against his
+ inclinations. In this deplorable state,<br /> with confirmed dropsy,
+ attended with frequent cough,<br /> vomiting and hiccough, he continued
+ growing from<br /> bad to worse till the morning of the 8th of June,<br />
+ <br /> 505<br /> <br /> when he died. Though I may remark that during<br />
+ the last three weeks of his life his situation was such<br /> that his
+ decease was confidently expected every day,<br /> his ulcers having assumed
+ a gangrenous appearance,<br /> being excessively fetid, and discolored
+ blisters hav-<br /> ing taken place on the soles of his feet without any<br />
+ ostensible cause, which baffled the usual attempts to<br /> arrest their
+ progress; and when we consider his<br /> former habits, his advanced age,
+ the feebleness of his<br /> constitution, his constant habit of using
+ ardent spirits<br /> ad libitum till the commencement of his last illness,<br />
+ so far from wondering that he died so soon, we are<br /> constrained to
+ ask, How did he live so long? Con-<br /> cerning his conduct during his
+ disease I have not<br /> much to remark, though the little I have may be<br />
+ somewhat interesting. Mr. Paine professed to be<br /> above the fear of
+ death, and a great part of his con-<br /> versation was principally
+ directed to give the impres-<br /> sion that he was perfectly willing to
+ leave this world,<br /> and yet some parts of his conduct were with
+ difficulty<br /> reconcilable with his belief. In the first stages of his<br />
+ illness he was satisfied to be left alone during the<br /> day, but he
+ required some person to be with him at<br /> night, urging as his reason
+ that he was afraid that<br /> he should die when unattended, and at this
+ period<br /> his deportment and his principle seemed to be con-<br /> <br />
+ 506<br /> <br /> sistent; so much so that a stranger would judge from<br />
+ some of the remarks he would make that he was an<br /> Infidel. I recollect
+ being with him at night, watch-<br /> ing; he was very apprehensive of a
+ speedy dissolu-<br /> tion, and suffered great distress of body, and
+ perhaps<br /> of mind (for he was waiting the event of an applica-<br />
+ tion to the Society of Friends for permission that his<br /> corpse might
+ be deposited in their grave-ground, and<br /> had reason to believe that
+ the request might be<br /> refused), when he remarked in these words, 'I
+ think<br /> I can say what they made Jesus Christ to say&mdash;"My<br />
+ God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" He<br /> went on to observe on the
+ want of that respect which<br /> he conceived he merited, when I observed
+ to him<br /> that I thought his corpse should be matter of least<br />
+ concern to him; that those whom he would leave<br /> behind him would see
+ that he was properly interred,<br /> and, further, that it would be of
+ little consequence to<br /> me where I was deposited provided I was buried;<br />
+ upon which he answered that he had nothing else to<br /> talk about, and
+ that he would as lief talk of his death<br /> as of anything, but that he
+ was not so indifferent<br /> about his corpse as I appeared to be.<br />
+ <br /> "During the latter part of his life, though his con-<br /> versation
+ was equivocal, his conduct was singular;<br /> he could not be left alone
+ night or day; he not only<br /> <br /> 507<br /> <br /> required to have some
+ person with him, but he must<br /> see that he or she was there, and would
+ not allow<br /> his curtain to be closed at any time; and if, as it<br />
+ would sometimes unavoidably happen, he was left<br /> alone, he would
+ scream and halloo until some person<br /> came to him. When relief from
+ pain would admit,<br /> he seemed thoughtful and contemplative, his eyes<br />
+ being generally closed, and his hands folded upon<br /> his breast,
+ although he never slept without the assist-<br /> ance of an anodyne. There
+ was something remark-<br /> able in his conduct about this period (which
+ comprises<br /> about two weeks immediately preceding his death),<br />
+ particularly when we reflect that Thomas Paine was<br /> the author of the
+ 'Age of Reason.' He would call<br /> out during his paroxysms of distress,
+ without inter-<br /> mission, 'O Lord help me! God help me! Jesus<br />
+ Christ help me! Lord help me!' etc., repeating the<br /> same expressions
+ without the least variation, in a<br /> tone of voice that would alarm the
+ house. It was<br /> this conduct which induced me to think that he had<br />
+ abandoned his former opinions, and I was more<br /> inclined to that belief
+ when I understood from his<br /> nurse (who is a very serious and, I
+ believe, pious<br /> woman), that he would occasionally inquire, when he<br />
+ saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading,<br /> and, being
+ answered, and at the same time asked<br /> <br /> 508<br /> <br /> whether she
+ should read aloud, he assented, and<br /> would appear to give particular
+ attention.<br /> <br /> "I took occasion during the nights of the fifth<br />
+ and sixth of June to test the strength of his opinions<br /> respecting
+ revelation. I purposely made him a very<br /> late visit; it was a time
+ which seemed to suit exactly<br /> with my errand; it was midnight, he was
+ in great<br /> distress, constantly exclaiming in the words above<br />
+ mentioned, when, after a considerable preface, I<br /> addressed him in the
+ following manner, the nurse<br /> being present: 'Mr. Paine, your opinions,
+ by a large<br /> portion of the community, have been treated with<br />
+ deference, you have never been in the habit of mix-<br /> ing in your
+ conversation words of coarse meaning;<br /> you have never indulged in the
+ practice of profane<br /> swearing; you must be sensible that we are ac-<br />
+ quainted with your religious opinions as they are<br /> given to the world.
+ What must we think of your<br /> present conduct? Why do you call upon
+ Jesus<br /> Christ to help you? Do you believe that he can<br /> help you?
+ Do you believe in the divinity of Jesus<br /> Christ? Come, now, answer me
+ honestly. I want<br /> an answer from the lips of a dying man, for I verily<br />
+ believe that you will not live twenty-four hours.' I<br /> waited some time
+ at the end of every question; he<br /> did not answer, but ceased to
+ exclaim in the above<br /> <br /> 509<br /> <br /> manner. Again I addressed
+ him; 'Mr. Paine, you<br /> have not answered my questions; will you answer<br />
+ them? Allow me to ask again, do you believe? or<br /> let me qualify the
+ question, do you wish to believe<br /> that Jesus Christ is the Son of
+ God?' After a pause<br /> of some minutes, he answered, 'I have no wish to<br />
+ believe on that subject.' I then left him, and knew<br /> not whether he
+ afterward spoke to any person on<br /> any subject, though he lived, as I
+ before observed,<br /> till the morning of the 8th. Such conduct, under<br />
+ usual circumstances, I conceive absolutely unaccount-<br /> able, though,
+ with diffidence, I would remark, not so<br /> much so in the present
+ instance; for though the first<br /> necessary and general result of
+ conviction be a sin-<br /> cere wish to atone for evil committed, yet it
+ may be<br /> a question worthy of able consideration whether<br /> excessive
+ pride of opinion, consummate vanity, and<br /> inordinate self-love might
+ not prevent or retard that<br /> otherwise natural consequence. For my own
+ part,<br /> I believe that had not Thomas Paine been such a<br />
+ distinguished Infidel he would have left less equivo-<br /> cal evidences
+ of a change of opinion. Concerning<br /> the persons who visited Mr. Paine
+ in his distress as<br /> his personal friends, I heard very little, though
+ I may<br /> observe that their number was small, and of that<br /> number
+ there were not wanting those who endeavor-<br /> <br /> 510<br /> <br /> ed to
+ support him in his deistical opinions, and to<br /> encourage him to 'die
+ like a man,' to 'hold fast his<br /> integrity,' lest Christians, or, as
+ they were pleased to<br /> term them, hypocrites, might take advantage of
+ his<br /> weakness, and furnish themselves with a weapon by<br /> which they
+ might hope to destroy their glorious sys-<br /> tem of morals. Numbers
+ visited him from motives<br /> of benevolence and Christian charity,
+ endeavoring to<br /> effect a change of mind in respect to his religious<br />
+ sentiments. The labor of such was apparently lost,<br /> and they pretty
+ generally received such treatment<br /> from him as none but good men would
+ risk a second<br /> time, though some of those persons called frequently."<br />
+ The following testimony will be new to most of<br /> our readers. It is
+ from a letter written by Bishop<br /> Fenwick (Roman Catholic Bishop of
+ Boston), con-<br /> taining a full account of a visit which he paid to<br />
+ Paine in his last illness. It was printed in the <i>United<br /> States
+ Catholic Magazine</i> for 1846; in the <i>Catholic<br /> Herald</i> of
+ Philadelphia, October 15, 1846; in a sup-<br /> plement to the <i>Hartford
+ Courant</i>, October 23, 1847;<br /> and in <i>Littell's Living Age</i> for
+ January 22, 1848,<br /> from which we copy. Bishop Fenwick writes:<br />
+ <br /> "A short time before Paine died I was sent for by<br /> him. He was
+ prompted to this by a poor Catholic<br /> woman who went to see him in his
+ sickness, and<br /> <br /> 511<br /> <br /> who told him, among other things,
+ that in his<br /> wretched condition if anybody could do him any<br /> good
+ it would be a Roman Catholic priest. This<br /> woman was an American
+ convert (formerly a Shak-<br /> ing Quakeress) whom I had received into the
+ church<br /> but a few weeks before. She was the bearer of this<br />
+ message to me from Paine. I stated this circum-<br /> stance to F.
+ Kohlmann, at breakfast, and requested<br /> him to accompany me. After some
+ solicitation on<br /> my part he agreed to do so? at which I was greatly<br />
+ rejoiced, because I was at the time quite young and<br /> inexperienced in
+ the ministry, and was glad to have<br /> his assistance, as I knew, from
+ the great reputation<br /> of Paine, that I should have to do with one of
+ the<br /> most impious as well as infamous of men. We<br /> shortly after
+ set out for the house at Greenwich<br /> where Paine lodged, and on the way
+ agreed on a<br /> mode of proceeding with him.<br /> <br /> "We arrived at
+ the house; a decent-looking elderly<br /> woman (probably his housekeeper,)
+ came to the<br /> door and inquired whether we were the Catholic<br />
+ priests, for said she, 'Mr. Paine has been so much<br /> annoyed of late by
+ other denominations calling upon<br /> him that he has left express orders
+ with me to admit<br /> no one to-day but the clergymen of the Catholic<br />
+ Church. Upon assuring her that we were Catholic<br /> <br /> 512<br /> <br />
+ clergymen she opened the door and showed us into<br /> the parlor. She then
+ left the room and shortly after<br /> returned to inform us that Paine was
+ asleep, and, at<br /> the same time, expressed a wish that we would not<br />
+ disturb him, 'for,' said she, 'he is always in a bad<br /> humor when
+ roused out of his sleep. It is better we<br /> wait a little till he be
+ awake.' We accordingly sat<br /> down and resolved to await a more
+ favorable moment.<br /> 'Gentlemen,' said the lady, after having taken her<br />
+ seat also, 'I really wish you may succeed with Mr.<br /> Paine, for he is
+ laboring under great distress of mind<br /> ever since he was informed by
+ his physicians that he<br /> cannot possibly live and must die shortly. He
+ sent<br /> for you to-day because he was told that if any one<br /> could do
+ him good you might. Possibly he may<br /> think you know of some remedy
+ which his physicians<br /> are ignorant of. He is truly to be pitied. His
+ cries<br /> when he is left alone are heart-rending. 'O Lord<br /> help me!'
+ he will exclaim during his paroxysms of<br /> distress&mdash;'God help me&mdash;Jesus
+ Christ help me!'<br /> repeating the same expressions without the least<br />
+ variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the<br /> house. Sometimes
+ he will say, 'O God, what have<br /> I done to suffer so much!' then,
+ shortly after, 'But<br /> there is no God,' and again a little after, 'Yet
+ if<br /> there should be, what would become of me hereafter.'<br /> <br />
+ 513<br /> <br /> Thus he will continue for some time, when on a sud-<br />
+ den he will scream, as if in terror and agony, and<br /> call out for me by
+ name. On one of these occasions,<br /> which are very frequent, I went to
+ him and inquired<br /> what he wanted. 'Stay with me,' he replied, 'for<br />
+ God's sake, for I cannot bear to be left alone.' I<br /> then observed that
+ I could not always be with him,<br /> as I had much to attend to in the
+ house. 'Then,' said<br /> he, 'send even a child to stay with me, for it is
+ a<br /> hell to be alone.' 'I never saw,' she concluded, 'a<br /> more
+ unhappy, a more forsaken man. It seems he<br /> cannot reconcile himself to
+ die.'<br /> <br /> "Such was the conversation of the woman who<br /> had
+ received us, and who probably had been employ-<br /> ed to nurse and take
+ care of him during his illness.<br /> She was a Protestant, yet seemed very
+ desirous that<br /> we should afford him some relief in his state of<br />
+ abandonment, bordering on complete despair. Hav-<br /> ing remained thus
+ some time in the parlor, we at<br /> length heard a noise in the adjoining
+ passage-way,<br /> which induced us to believe that Mr. Paine, who was<br />
+ sick in that room, had awoke. We accordingly pro-<br /> posed to proceed
+ thither, which was assented to by<br /> the woman, and she opened the door
+ for us. On<br /> entering, we found him just getting out of his<br />
+ slumber. A more wretched being in appearance I<br /> <br /> 514<br /> <br />
+ never beheld. He was lying in a bed sufficiently<br /> decent of itself,
+ but at present besmeared with filth;<br /> his look was that of a man
+ greatly tortured in mind;<br /> his eyes haggard, his countenance
+ forbidding, and<br /> his whole appearance that of one whose better days<br />
+ had been one continued scene of debauch. His only<br /> nourishment at this
+ time, as we were informed, was<br /> nothing more than milk punch, in which
+ he indulged<br /> to the full extent of his weak state. He had par-<br />
+ taken, undoubtedly, but very recently of it, as the<br /> sides and corners
+ of his mouth exhibited very un-<br /> equivocal traces of it, as well as of
+ blood, which had<br /> also followed in the track and left its mark on the<br />
+ pillow. His face, to a certain extent, had also been<br /> besmeared with
+ it."<br /> <br /> Immediately upon their making known the object<br /> of
+ their visit, Paine interrupted the speaker by say-<br /> ing: "That's
+ enough, sir; that's enough," and again<br /> interrupting him, "I see what
+ you would be about.<br /> I wish to hear no more from you, sir. My mind is<br />
+ made up on that subject. I look upon the whole of<br /> the Christian
+ scheme to be a tissue of absurdities<br /> and lies, and Jesus Christ to be
+ nothing more than a<br /> cunning knave and impostor." He drove them out<br />
+ of the room, exclaiming: Away with you and your<br /> God, too; leave the
+ room instantly; all that you<br /> <br /> 515<br /> <br /> have uttered are
+ lies&mdash;filthy lies; and if I had a<br /> little more time I would prove
+ it, as I did about<br /> your impostor, Jesus Christ."<br /> <br /> This, we
+ think, will suffice. We have a mass of<br /> letters containing statements
+ confirmatory of what<br /> we have published in regard to the life and
+ death of<br /> Paine, but nothing more can be required.<br /> <br /> <br />
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013"></a><br /> <br /> <big><b>INGERSOLL'S
+ SECOND REPLY.</b></big><br /> <br /> Peoria, Nov. 2d, 1877.<br /> <br /> To
+ the Editor of the New York Observer:<br /> <br /> You ought to have honesty
+ enough to admit that<br /> you did, in your paper of July 19th, offer to
+ prove<br /> that the absurd story that Thomas Paine died in<br /> terror and
+ agony on account of the religious opinions<br /> he had expressed, was
+ true. You ought to have<br /> fairness enough to admit that you called upon
+ me<br /> to deposit one thousand dollars with an honest man,<br /> that you
+ might, by proving that Thomas Paine did<br /> die in terror, obtain the
+ money.<br /> <br /> You ought to have honor enough to admit that<br /> you
+ challenged me and that you commenced the<br /> controversy concerning
+ Thomas Paine.<br /> <br /> You ought to have goodness enough to admit<br />
+ that you were mistaken in the charges you made.<br /> <br /> You ought to
+ have manhood enough to do what<br /> you falsely asserted that Thomas Paine
+ did:&mdash;you<br /> ought to recant. You ought to admit publicly that<br />
+ you slandered the dead; that you falsified history;<br /> that you defamed
+ the defenceless; that you deliber-<br /> <br /> 517<br /> <br /> ately denied
+ what you had published in your own<br /> paper. There is an old saying to
+ the effect that<br /> open confession is good for the soul. To you is<br />
+ presented a splendid opportunity of testing the truth<br /> of this saying.<br />
+ <br /> Nothing has astonished me more than your lack<br /> of common honesty
+ exhibited in this controversy. In<br /> your last, you quote from Dr. J. W.
+ Francis. Why<br /> did you leave out that portion in which Dr. Francis<br />
+ says <i>that Cheetham with settled malignity wrote the<br /> life of Paine?</i>
+ Why did you leave out that part in<br /> which Dr. Francis says that
+ Cheetham in the same<br /> way <i>slandered Alexander Hamilton and De Witt<br />
+ Clinton?</i> Is it your business to suppress the truth?<br /> Why did you
+ not publish the entire letter of Bishop<br /> Fenwick? Was it because it
+ proved beyond all<br /> cavil that Thomas Paine did not recant? Was it<br />
+ because in the light of that letter Mary Roscoe,<br /> Mary Hinsdale and
+ Grant Thorburn appeared un-<br /> worthy of belief? Dr. J. W. Francis says
+ in the<br /> same article from which you quoted, "<i>Paine clung to<br />
+ his Infidelity until the last moment of his life!'</i> Why<br /> did you
+ not publish that? It was the first line im-<br /> mediately above what you
+ did quote. You must<br /> have seen it. Why did you suppress it? A lawyer,<br />
+ doing a thing of this character, is denominated a<br /> <br /> 518<br />
+ <br /> shyster. I do not know the appropriate word to<br /> designate a
+ theologian guilty of such an act.<br /> <br /> You brought forward three
+ witnesses, pretending<br /> to have personal knowledge about the life and
+ death<br /> of Thomas Paine: Grant Thorburn, Mary Roscoe<br /> and Mary
+ Hinsdale. In my reply I took the ground<br /> that Mary Roscoe and Mary
+ Hinsdale must have<br /> been the same person. I thought it impossible that<br />
+ Paine should have had a conversation with Mary<br /> Roscoe, and then one
+ precisely like it with Mary<br /> Hinsdale. Acting upon this conviction, I
+ proceeded<br /> to show that the conversation never could have hap-<br />
+ pened, that it was absurdly false to say that Paine<br /> asked the opinion
+ of a girl as to his works who had<br /> never read but little of them. I
+ then showed by the<br /> testimony of William Cobbett, that he visited Mary<br />
+ Hinsdale in 1819, taking with him a statement con-<br /> cerning the
+ recantation of Paine, given him by Mr.<br /> Collins, and that upon being
+ shown this statement<br /> she said that "it was so long ago that she could
+ not<br /> speak positively to any part of the matter&mdash;that she<br />
+ would not say any part of the paper was true." At<br /> that time she knew
+ nothing, and remembered noth-<br /> ing. I also showed that she was a kind
+ of standing<br /> witness to prove that others recanted. Willett Hicks<br />
+ denounced her as unworthy of belief.<br /> <br /> 519<br /> <br /> To-day the
+ following from the New York <i>World</i><br /> was received, showing that I
+ was right in my<br /> conjecture:<br /> <br /> <br /> Tom Paine's Death-Bed.<br />
+ <br /> <i>To the Editor of the World</i>:<br /> <br /> Sir: I see by your
+ paper that Bob Ingersoll dis-<br /> credits Mary Hinsdale's story of the
+ scenes which<br /> occurred at the death-bed of Thomas Paine. No<br /> one
+ who knew that good lady would for one moment<br /> doubt her veracity or
+ question her testimony. Both<br /> she and her husband were Quaker
+ preachers, and<br /> well known and respected inhabitants of New York<br />
+ City, <i>Ingersoll is right in his conjecture that Mary<br /> Roscoe and
+ Mary Hinsdale was the same person</i>. Her<br /> maiden name was Roscoe,
+ and she married Henry<br /> Hinsdale. My mother was a Roscoe, a niece of<br />
+ Mary Roscoe, and lived with her for some time. I<br /> have heard her
+ relate the story of Tom Paine's dying<br /> remorse, as told her by her
+ aunt, who was a witness<br /> to it. She says (in a letter I have just
+ received from<br /> her), "he (Tom Paine) suffered fearfully from remorse,<br />
+ and renounced his Infidel principles, calling on God<br /> to forgive him,
+ and wishing his pamphlets and books<br /> to be burned, saying he could not
+ die in peace until<br /> it was done." (Rev.) A. W. Cornell.<br /> <br />
+ Harpersville, New York.<br /> <br /> 520<br /> <br /> You will notice that the
+ testimony of Mary Hins-<br /> dale has been drawing interest since 1809,
+ and has<br /> materially increased. If Paine "suffered fearfully<br /> from
+ remorse, renounced his Infidel opinions and<br /> called on God to forgive
+ him," it is hardly generous<br /> for the Christian world to fasten the
+ fangs of malice<br /> in the flesh of his reputation.<br /> <br /> So Mary
+ Roscoe was Mary Hinsdale, and as<br /> Mary Hinsdale has been shown by her
+ own admis-<br /> sion to Mr. Cobbett to have known nothing of the<br />
+ matter; and as Mary Hinsdale was not, according to<br /> Willet Hicks,
+ worthy of belief&mdash;as she told a false-<br /> hood of the same kind
+ about Mary Lockwood, and<br /> was, according to Mr. Collins, addicted to
+ the use of<br /> opium&mdash;this disposes of her and her testimony.<br />
+ <br /> There remains upon the stand Grant Thorburn.<br /> Concerning this
+ witness, I received, yesterday, from<br /> the eminent biographer and
+ essayist, James Parton,<br /> the following epistle:<br /> <br />
+ Newburyport, Mass.<br /> <br /> Col. R. G. Ingersoll:<br /> <br /> Touching
+ Grant Thorburn, I personally know him<br /> to have been a dishonest man.
+ At the age of ninety-<br /> two he copied, with trembling hand, a piece
+ from a<br /> newspaper and brought it to the office of the <i>Home<br />
+ Journal, as his own</i>. It was I who received it and<br /> <br /> 521<br />
+ <br /> detected the deliberate forgery. If you are ever go-<br /> ing to
+ continue this subject, I will give you the exact<br /> facts.<br /> <br />
+ Fervently yours,<br /> <br /> James Parton.<br /> <br /> After this, you are
+ welcome to what remains of<br /> Grant Thorburn.<br /> <br /> There is one
+ thing that I have noticed during this<br /> controversy regarding Thomas
+ Paine. In no instance<br /> that I now call to mind has any Christian
+ writer<br /> spoken respectfully of Mr. Paine. All have taken<br />
+ particular pains to call him "Tom" Paine. Is it not<br /> a little strange
+ that religion should make men so<br /> coarse and ill-mannered?<br /> <br />
+ I have often wondered what these same gentle-<br /> men would say if I
+ should speak of the men eminent<br /> in the annals of Christianity in the
+ same way. What<br /> would they say if I should write about "Tim"<br />
+ Dwight, old "Ad" Clark, "Tom" Scott, "Jim"<br /> McKnight, "Bill" Hamilton,
+ "Dick" Whately, "Bill"<br /> Paley, and "Jack" Calvin?<br /> <br /> They
+ would <i>say</i> of me then, just what I <i>think</i> of<br /> them now.<br />
+ <br /> Even if we have religion, do not let us try to get<br /> along
+ without good manners. Rudeness is exceed-<br /> ingly unbecoming, even in a
+ saint. Persons who<br /> <br /> 522<br /> <br /> forgive their enemies ought,
+ to say the least, to<br /> treat with politeness those who have never
+ injured<br /> them.<br /> <br /> It is exceedingly gratifying to me that I
+ have com-<br /> pelled you to say that "Paine died a blaspheming<br />
+ Infidel." Hereafter it is to be hoped nothing will be<br /> heard about his
+ having recanted. As an answer to<br /> such slander his friends can
+ confidently quote the<br /> following from the <i>New York Observer</i> of
+ November<br /> ist, 1877:<br /> <br /> "WE HAVE NEVER STATED IN ANY FORM, NOR<br />
+ HAVE WE EVER SUPPOSED THAT PAINE ACTUALLY RE-<br /> NOUNCED HIS INFIDELITY.
+ THE ACCOUNTS AGREE IN<br /> STATING THAT HE DIED A BLASPHEMING INFIDEL."<br />
+ <br /> This for all coming time will refute the slanders of<br /> the
+ churches yet to be.<br /> <br /> Right here allow me to ask: If you never
+ supposed<br /> that Paine renounced his Infidelity, why did you try<br /> to
+ prove by Mary Hinsdale that which you believed<br /> to be untrue?<br />
+ <br /> From the bottom of my heart I thank myself for<br /> having compelled
+ you to admit that Thomas Paine<br /> did not recant.<br /> <br /> For the
+ purpose of verifying your own admission<br /> concerning the death of Mr.
+ Paine, permit me to call<br /> your attention to the following affidavit:<br />
+ <br /> 523<br /> <br /> Wabash, Indiana, October 27, 1877.<br /> <br /> Col. R.
+ G. Ingersoll:<br /> <br /> Dear Sir: The following statement of facts is at<br />
+ your disposal. In the year 1833 Willet Hicks made<br /> a visit to Indiana
+ and stayed over night at my father's<br /> house, four miles east of
+ Richmond. In the morn-<br /> ing at breakfast my mother asked Willet Hicks
+ the<br /> following questions:<br /> <br /> "Was thee with Thomas Paine
+ during his last<br /> sickness?"<br /> <br /> Mr. Hicks said: "I was with him
+ every day dur-<br /> ing the latter part of his last sickness."<br /> <br />
+ "Did he express any regret in regard to writing<br /> the 'Age of Reason,'
+ as the published accounts say<br /> he did&mdash;those accounts that have
+ the credit of ema-<br /> nating from his Catholic housekeeper?"<br /> <br />
+ Mr. Hicks replied: "He did not in any way by<br /> word or action."<br />
+ <br /> "Did he call on God or Jesus Christ, asking either<br /> of them to
+ forgive his sins, or did he curse them or<br /> either of them?"<br /> <br />
+ Mr. Hicks answered: "He did not. He died as<br /> easy as any one I ever
+ saw die, and I have seen<br /> many die in my time." William B Barnes.<br />
+ <br /> Subscribed and sworn to before me Oct. 27, 1877.<br /> <br /> Warren
+ Bigler, Notary Public.<br /> <br /> 524<br /> <br /> You say in your last that
+ "Thomas Paine was<br /> abandoned of God." So far as this controversy is<br />
+ concerned, it seems to me that in that sentence you<br /> have most
+ graphically described your own condi-<br /> tion.<br /> <br /> Wishing you
+ success in all honest undertakings, I<br /> remain,<br /> <br /> Yours truly,<br />
+ <br /> Robert G. Ingersoll.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+5 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+ PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 6 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 6
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 6 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Discussions
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38806]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>
+ "ARGUMENTS CANNOT BE ANSWERED WITH INSULTS. KINDNESS IS STRENGTH; ANGER
+ BLOWS OUT THE LAMP OF THE MIND. IN THE EXAMINATION OF A GREAT AND
+ IMPORTANT QUESTION, EVERY ONE SHOULD BE SERENE, SLOW-PULSED AND CALM."
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <h3>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES VOLUME VI.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ DISCUSSIONS
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ 1900
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Dresden Edition
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38806/old/orig38806-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (63K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (63K)" src="images/portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">DETAILED CONTENTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; INGERSOLL'S OPENING PAPER</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY JEREMIAH S. BLACK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">FAITH OR AGNOSTICISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">A REPLY TO THE REV. HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">LETTER TO DR. FIELD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">CONTROVERSY ON CHRISTIANTY</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">ROME OR REASON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">THE CHURCH ITS OWN WITNESS, By Cardinal Manning.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">ROME OR REASON: A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">IS DIVORCE WRONG?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.<br /> (1881.)<br /> I. Col. Ingersoll's Opening
+ Paper&mdash;Statement of the Fundamental Truths<br /> of Christianity&mdash;Reasons
+ for Thinking that Portions of the Old Testament<br /> are the Product of
+ a Barbarous People&mdash;Passages upholding<br /> Slavery, Polygamy, War,
+ and Religious Persecution not Evidences of<br /> Inspiration&mdash;If the
+ Words are not Inspired, What Is?&mdash;Commands of<br /> Jehovah compared
+ with the Precepts of Pagans and Stoics&mdash;Epictetus,<br /> Cicero,
+ Zeno, Seneca, Brahma&mdash;II. The New Testament&mdash;Why were<br />
+ Four Gospels Necessary?&mdash;Salvation by Belief&mdash;The Doctrine of<br />
+ the Atonement&mdash;The Jewish System Culminating in the Sacrifice of<br />
+ Christ&mdash;Except for the Crucifixion of her Son, the Virgin Mary
+ would be<br /> among the Lost&mdash;What Christ must have Known would
+ Follow the Acceptance<br /> of His Teachings&mdash;The Wars of Sects, the
+ Inquisition, the Fields of<br /> Death&mdash;Why did he not Forbid it
+ All?&mdash;The Little that he Revealed&mdash;The<br /> Dogma of Eternal
+ Punishment&mdash;Upon Love's Breast the Church has Placed<br /> the
+ Eternal Asp&mdash;III. The "Inspired" Writers&mdash;Why did not God
+ furnish<br /> Every Nation with a Bible?<br /> II. Judge Black's Reply&mdash;His
+ Duty that of a Policeman&mdash;The Church not<br /> in Danger&mdash;Classes
+ who Break out into Articulate Blasphemy&mdash;The<br /> Sciolist&mdash;Personal
+ Remarks about Col. Ingersoll&mdash;Chief-Justice Gibson of<br />
+ Pennsylvania Quoted&mdash;We have no Jurisdiction or Capacity to Rejudge
+ the<br /> Justice of God&mdash;The Moral Code of the Bible&mdash;Civil
+ Government of the<br /> Jews&mdash;No Standard of Justice without Belief
+ in a God&mdash;Punishments for<br /> Blasphemy and Idolatry Defended&mdash;Wars
+ of Conquest&mdash;Allusion to Col.<br /> Ingersoll's War Record&mdash;Slavery
+ among the Jews&mdash;Polygamy Discouraged by<br /> the Mosaic
+ Constitution&mdash;Jesus of Nazareth and the Establishment of<br /> his
+ Religion&mdash;Acceptance of Christianity and Adjudication upon its<br />
+ Divinity&mdash;The Evangelists and their Depositions&mdash;The
+ Fundamental Truths<br /> of Christianity&mdash;Persecution and Triumph of
+ the Church&mdash;Ingersoll's<br /> Propositions Compressed and the
+ Compressions Answered&mdash;Salvation as a<br /> Reward of Belief&mdash;Punishment
+ of Unbelief&mdash;The Second Birth, Atonement,<br /> Redemption,
+ Non-resistance, Excessive Punishment of Sinners, Christ and<br />
+ Persecution, Christianity and Freedom of Thought, Sufficiency of the<br />
+ Gospel, Miracles, Moral Effect of Christianity.<br /> III. Col.
+ Ingersoll's Rejoinder&mdash;How this Discussion Came About&mdash;Natural<br />
+ Law&mdash;The Design Argument&mdash;The Right to Rejudge the Justice
+ even of a<br /> God&mdash;Violation of the Commandments by Jehovah&mdash;Religious
+ Intolerance<br /> of the Old Testament&mdash;Judge Black's Justification
+ of Wars of<br /> Extermination&mdash;His Defence of Slavery&mdash;Polygamy
+ not "Discouraged" by the<br /> Old Testament&mdash;Position of Woman
+ under the Jewish System and under that<br /> of the Ancients&mdash;a
+ "Policeman's" View of God&mdash;Slavery under Jehovah<br /> and in Egypt&mdash;The
+ Admission that Jehovah gave no Commandment against<br /> Polygamy&mdash;The
+ Learned and Wise Crawl back in Cribs&mdash;Alleged Harmony of<br /> Old
+ and New Testaments&mdash;On the Assertion that the Spread of
+ Christianity<br /> Proves the Supernatural Origin of the Gospel&mdash;The
+ Argument applicable to<br /> All Religions&mdash;Communications from
+ Angels ana Gods&mdash;Authenticity of<br /> the Statements of the
+ Evangelists&mdash;Three Important Manuscripts&mdash;Rise<br /> of
+ Mormonism&mdash;Ascension of Christ&mdash;The Great Public Events
+ alleged<br /> as Fundamental Truths of Christianity&mdash;Judge Black's
+ System<br /> of "Compression"&mdash;"A Metaphysical Question"&mdash;Right
+ and<br /> Wrong&mdash;Justice&mdash;Christianity and Freedom of Thought&mdash;Heaven
+ and<br /> Hell&mdash;Production of God and the Devil&mdash;Inspiration of
+ the Bible<br /> dependent on the Credulity of the Reader&mdash;Doubt of
+ Miracles&mdash;The<br /> World before Christ's Advent&mdash;Respect for
+ the Man Christ&mdash;The Dark<br /> Ages&mdash;Institutions of Mercy&mdash;Civil
+ Law.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1887.)<br /> An Open Letter to Robert G. Ingersoll&mdash;Superstitions&mdash;Basis
+ of<br /> Religion&mdash;Napoleon's Question about the Stars&mdash;The
+ Idea of God&mdash;Crushing<br /> out Hope&mdash;Atonement, Regeneration,
+ and Future Retribution&mdash;Socrates and<br /> Jesus&mdash;The Language
+ of Col. Ingersoll characterized as too Sweeping&mdash;The<br /> Sabbath&mdash;But
+ a Step from Sneering at Religion to Sneering at Morality.<br /> A Reply
+ to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D. D.&mdash;Honest Differences of<br />
+ Opinion&mdash;Charles Darwin&mdash;Dr. Field's Distinction between
+ Superstition<br /> and Religion&mdash;The Presbyterian God an Infinite
+ Torquemada&mdash;Napoleon's<br /> Sensitiveness to the Divine Influence&mdash;The
+ Preference of Agassiz&mdash;The<br /> Mysterious as an Explanation&mdash;The
+ Certainty that God is not what he<br /> is Thought to Be&mdash;Self-preservation
+ the Fibre of Society&mdash;Did<br /> the Assassination of Lincoln
+ Illustrate the Justice of God's<br /> Judgments?&mdash;Immortality&mdash;Hope
+ and the Presbyterian Creed&mdash;To a Mother<br /> at the Grave of Her
+ Son&mdash;Theological Teaching of Forgiveness&mdash;On<br /> Eternal
+ Retribution&mdash;Jesus and Mohammed&mdash;Attacking the Religion of<br />
+ Others&mdash;Ananias and Sapphira&mdash;The Pilgrims and Freedom to
+ Worship&mdash;The<br /> Orthodox Sabbath&mdash;Natural Restraints on
+ Conduct&mdash;Religion and<br /> Morality&mdash;The Efficacy of Prayer&mdash;Respect
+ for Belief of Father and<br /> Mother&mdash;The "Power behind Nature"&mdash;Survival
+ of the Fittest&mdash;The Saddest<br /> Fact&mdash;"Sober Second Thought."<br />
+ A Last Word to Robert G. Ingersoll, by Dr. Field&mdash;God not a<br />
+ Presbyterian&mdash;Why Col. Ingersoll's Attacks on Religion are Resented&mdash;God<br />
+ is more Merciful than Man&mdash;Theories about the Future Life&mdash;Retribution<br />
+ a Necessary Part of the Divine Law&mdash;The Case of Robinson<br />
+ Crusoe&mdash;Irresistible Proof of Design&mdash;Col. Ingersoll's View of<br />
+ Immortality&mdash;An Almighty Friend.<br /> Letter to Dr. Field&mdash;The
+ Presbyterian God&mdash;What the Presbyterians<br /> Claim&mdash;The
+ "Incurably Bad"&mdash;Responsibility for not seeing Things<br /> Clearly&mdash;Good
+ Deeds should Follow even Atheists&mdash;No Credit in<br /> Belief&mdash;Design
+ Argument that Devours Itself&mdash;Belief as a Foundation<br /> of Social
+ Order&mdash;No Consolation in Orthodox Religion&mdash;The "Almighty<br />
+ Friend" and the Slave Mother&mdash;a Hindu Prayer&mdash;Calvinism&mdash;Christ
+ not the<br /> Supreme Benefactor of the Race.<br /> COLONEL INGERSOLL ON
+ CHRISTIANITY.<br /> (1888.)<br /> Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field
+ by the Hon. Wm. E.<br /> Gladstone&mdash;External Triumph and Prosperity
+ of the Church&mdash;A Truth Half<br /> Stated&mdash;Col. Ingersoll's
+ Tumultuous Method and lack of Reverential<br /> Calm&mdash;Jephthah's
+ Sacrifice&mdash;Hebrews xii Expounded&mdash;The Case of<br /> Abraham&mdash;Darwinism
+ and the Scriptures&mdash;Why God demands Sacrifices of<br /> Man&mdash;Problems
+ admitted to be Insoluble&mdash;Relation of human Genius<br /> to Human
+ Greatness&mdash;Shakespeare and Others&mdash;Christ and the Family<br />
+ Relation&mdash;Inaccuracy of Reference in the Reply&mdash;Ananias and<br />
+ Sapphira&mdash;The Idea of Immortality&mdash;Immunity of Error in Belief
+ from<br /> Moral Responsibility&mdash;On Dishonesty in the Formation of
+ Opinion&mdash;A<br /> Plausibility of the Shallowest kind&mdash;The
+ System of Thuggism&mdash;Persecution<br /> for Opinion's Sake&mdash;Riding
+ an Unbroken Horse.<br /> Col. Ingersoll to Mr. Gladstone&mdash;On the
+ "Impaired" State of the human<br /> Constitution&mdash;Unbelief not Due
+ to Degeneracy&mdash;Objections to the<br /> Scheme of Redemption&mdash;Does
+ Man Deserve only Punishment?&mdash;"Reverential<br /> Calm"&mdash;The
+ Deity of the Ancient Jews&mdash;Jephthah and Abraham&mdash;Relation<br />
+ between Darwinism and the Inspiration of the Scriptures&mdash;Sacrifices
+ to<br /> the Infinite&mdash;What is Common Sense?&mdash;An Argument that
+ will Defend every<br /> Superstition&mdash;The Greatness of Shakespeare&mdash;The
+ Absolute Indissolubility<br /> of Marriage&mdash;Is the Religion of
+ Christ for this Age?&mdash;As to Ananias and<br /> Sapphira&mdash;Immortality
+ and People of Low Intellectual Development&mdash;Can<br /> we Control our
+ Thought?&mdash;Dishonest Opinions Cannot be Formed&mdash;Some<br />
+ Compensations for Riding an "Unbroken Horse."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">ROME OR REASON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1888.)<br /> "The Church Its Own Witness," by Cardinal Manning&mdash;Evidence<br />
+ that Christianity is of Divine Origin&mdash;The Universality of the<br />
+ Church&mdash;Natural Causes not Sufficient to Account for the Catholic<br />
+ Church&mdash;-The World in which Christianity Arose&mdash;Birth of
+ Christ&mdash;From<br /> St Peter to Leo XIII.&mdash;The First Effect of
+ Christianity&mdash;Domestic<br /> Life's Second Visible Effect&mdash;Redemption
+ of Woman from traditional<br /> Degradation&mdash;Change Wrought by
+ Christianity upon the Social, Political<br /> and International Relations
+ of the World&mdash;Proof that Christianity is of<br /> Divine Origin and
+ Presence&mdash;St. John and the Christian Fathers&mdash;Sanctity<br /> of
+ the Church not Affected by Human Sins.<br /> A Reply to Cardinal Manning&mdash;I.
+ Success not a Demonstration of either<br /> Divine Origin or Supernatural
+ Aid&mdash;Cardinal Manning's Argument<br /> More Forcible in the Mouth of
+ a Mohammedan&mdash;Why Churches Rise and<br /> Flourish&mdash;Mormonism&mdash;Alleged
+ Universality of the Catholic Church&mdash;Its<br /> "inexhaustible
+ Fruitfulness" in Good Things&mdash;The Inquisition and<br /> Persecution&mdash;Not
+ Invincible&mdash;Its Sword used by Spain&mdash;Its Unity not<br />
+ Unbroken&mdash;The State of the World when Christianity was Established&mdash;The<br />
+ Vicar of Christ&mdash;A Selection from Draper's "History of the
+ Intellectual<br /> Development of Europe"&mdash;Some infamous Popes&mdash;Part
+ II. How the Pope<br /> Speaks&mdash;Religions Older than Catholicism and
+ having the Same Rites<br /> and Sacraments&mdash;Is Intellectual
+ Stagnation a Demonstration of Divine<br /> Origin?&mdash;Integration and
+ Disintegration&mdash;The Condition of the World 300<br /> Years Ago&mdash;The
+ Creed of Catholicism&mdash;The "One true God" with a Knowledge<br /> of
+ whom Catholicism has "filled the World"&mdash;Did the Catholic Church<br />
+ overthrow Idolatry?&mdash;Marriage&mdash;Celibacy&mdash;Human Passions&mdash;The
+ Cardinal's<br /> Explanation of Jehovah's abandonment of the Children of
+ Men for<br /> four thousand Years&mdash;Catholicism tested by Paganism&mdash;Canon
+ Law<br /> and Convictions had Under It&mdash;Rival Popes&mdash;Importance
+ of a Greek<br /> "Inflection"&mdash;The Cardinal Witnesses.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">IS DIVORCE WRONG?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1889.)<br /> Preface by the Editor of the North American Review&mdash;Introduction,
+ by the<br /> Rev. S. W. Dike, LL. D.&mdash;A Catholic View by Cardinal
+ Gibbons&mdash;Divorce<br /> as Regarded by the Episcopal Church, by
+ Bishop, Henry C. Potter&mdash;Four<br /> Questions Answered, by Robert G.
+ Ingersoll.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Reply to Cardinal Gibbons&mdash;Indissolubility of Marriage a Reaction<br />
+ from Polygamy&mdash;Biblical Marriage&mdash;Polygamy Simultaneous and<br />
+ Successive&mdash;Marriage and Divorce in the Light of Experience&mdash;Reply<br />
+ to Bishop Potter&mdash;Reply to Mr. Gladstone&mdash;Justice Bradley&mdash;Senator<br />
+ Dolph&mdash;The argument Continued in Colloquial Form&mdash;Dialogue
+ between<br /> Cardinal Gibbons and a Maltreated Wife&mdash;She Asks the
+ Advice of Mr.<br /> Gladstone&mdash;The Priest who Violated his Vow&mdash;Absurdity
+ of the Divorce<br /> laws of Some States.<br /> REPLY TO DR. LYMAN ABBOTT.<br />
+ (1890)<br /> Dr. Abbott's Equivocations&mdash;Crimes Punishable by Death
+ under Mosaic<br /> and English Law&mdash;Severity of Moses Accounted for
+ by Dr. Abbott&mdash;The<br /> Necessity for the Acceptance of
+ Christianity&mdash;Christians should be<br /> Glad to Know that the Bible
+ is only the Work of Man and that the New<br /> Testament Life of Christ
+ is Untrue&mdash;All the Good Commandments, Known<br /> to the World
+ thousands of Years before Moses&mdash;Human Happiness of<br /> More
+ Consequence than the Truth about God&mdash;The Appeal to Great<br />
+ Names&mdash;Gladstone not the Greatest Statesman&mdash;What the Agnostic
+ Says&mdash;The<br /> Magnificent Mistakes of Genesis&mdash;The Story of
+ Joseph&mdash;Abraham as a<br /> "self-Exile for Conscience's Sake."<br />
+ REPLY TO ARCHDEACON FARRAR.<br /> (1890.)<br /> Revelation as an Appeal to
+ Man's "Spirit"&mdash;What is Spirit and what is<br /> "Spiritual
+ Intuition"?&mdash;The Archdeacon in Conflict with St. Paul&mdash;II.<br />
+ The Obligation to Believe without Evidence&mdash;III. Ignorant Credulity&mdash;IV.<br />
+ A Definition of Orthodoxy&mdash;V. Fear not necessarily Cowardice&mdash;Prejudice<br />
+ is Honest&mdash;The Ola has the Advantage in an Argument&mdash;St.<br />
+ Augustine&mdash;Jerome&mdash;the Appeal to Charlemagne&mdash;Roger Bacon&mdash;Lord
+ Bacon<br /> a Defender of the Copernican System&mdash;The Difficulty of
+ finding out<br /> what Great Men Believed&mdash;Names Irrelevantly Cited&mdash;Bancroft
+ on the<br /> Hessians&mdash;Original Manuscripts of the Bible&mdash;VI.
+ An Infinite Personality<br /> a Contradiction in Terms&mdash;VII. A
+ Beginningless Being&mdash;VIII. The<br /> Cruelties of Nature not to be
+ Harmonized with the Goodness of a<br /> Deity&mdash;Sayings from the
+ Indian&mdash;Origen, St. Augustine, Dante, Aquinas.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1890.)<br /> A Reply to the Dean of St. Paul&mdash;Growing Confidence in
+ the Power of<br /> Kindness&mdash;Crimes against Soldiers and Sailors&mdash;Misfortunes
+ Punished<br /> as Crimes&mdash;The Dean's Voice Raised in Favor of the
+ Brutalities of the<br /> Past&mdash;Beating of Children&mdash;Of Wives&mdash;Dictum
+ of Solomon.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; INGERSOLL'S OPENING PAPER
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ [Ingersoll-Black]
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the presence of eternity the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A PROFOUND change has taken place in the world of thought. The pews are
+ trying to set themselves somewhat above the pulpit. The layman discusses
+ theology with the minister, and smiles. Christians excuse themselves for
+ belonging to the church, by denying a part of the creed. The idea is
+ abroad that they who know the most of nature believe the least about
+ theology. The sciences are regarded as infidels, and facts as scoffers.
+ Thousands of most excellent people avoid churches, and, with few
+ exceptions, only those attend prayer-meetings who wish to be alone. The
+ pulpit is losing because the people are growing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course it is still claimed that we are a Christian people, indebted to
+ something called Christianity for all the progress we have made. There is
+ still a vast difference of opinion as to what Christianity really is,
+ although many warring sects have been discussing that question, with fire
+ and sword, through centuries of creed and crime. Every new sect has been
+ denounced at its birth as illegitimate, as a something born out of
+ orthodox wedlock, and that should have been allowed to perish on the steps
+ where it was found. Of the relative merits of the various denominations,
+ it is sufficient to say that each claims to be right. Among the
+ evangelical churches there is a substantial agreement upon what they
+ consider the fundamental truths of the gospel. These fundamental truths,
+ as I understand them, are:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That there is a personal God, the creator of the material universe; that
+ he made man of the dust, and woman from part of the man; that the man and
+ woman were tempted by the devil; that they were turned out of the Garden
+ of Eden; that, about fifteen hundred years afterward, God's patience
+ having been exhausted by the wickedness of mankind, he drowned his
+ children with the exception of eight persons; that afterward he selected
+ from their descendants Abraham, and through him the Jewish people; that he
+ gave laws to these people, and tried to govern them in all things; that he
+ made known his will in many ways; that he wrought a vast number of
+ miracles; that he inspired men to write the Bible; that, in the fullness
+ of time, it having been found impossible to reform mankind, this God came
+ upon earth as a child born of the Virgin Mary; that he lived in Palestine;
+ that he preached for about three years, going from place to place,
+ occasionally raising the dead, curing the blind and the halt; that he was
+ crucified&mdash;for the crime of blasphemy, as the Jews supposed, but
+ that, as a matter of fact, he was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of
+ all who might have faith in him; that he was raised from the dead and
+ ascended into heaven, where he now is, making intercession for his
+ followers; that he will forgive the sins of all who believe on him, and
+ that those who do not believe will be consigned to the dungeons of eternal
+ pain. These&mdash;it may be with the addition of the sacraments of Baptism
+ and the Last Supper&mdash;constitute what is generally known as the
+ Christian religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is most cheerfully admitted that a vast number of people not only
+ believe these things, but hold them in exceeding reverence, and imagine
+ them to be of the utmost importance to mankind. They regard the Bible as
+ the only light that God has given for the guidance of his children; that
+ it is the one star in nature's sky&mdash;the foundation of all morality,
+ of all law, of all order, and of all individual and national progress.
+ They regard it as the only means we have for ascertaining the will of God,
+ the origin of man, and the destiny of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is needless to inquire into the causes that have led so many people to
+ believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. In my opinion, they were and
+ are mistaken, and the mistake has hindered, in countless ways, the
+ civilization of man. The Bible has been the fortress and defence of nearly
+ every crime. No civilized country could re-enact its laws, and in many
+ respects its moral code is abhorrent to every good and tender man. It is
+ admitted that many of its precepts are pure, that many of its laws are
+ wise and just, and that many of its statements are absolutely true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without desiring to hurt the feeling? of anybody, I propose to give a few
+ reasons for thinking that a few passages, at least, in the Old Testament
+ are the product of a barbarous people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all civilized countries it is not only admitted, but it is passionately
+ asserted, that slavery is and always was a hideous crime; that a war of
+ conquest is simply murder; that polygamy is the enslavement of woman, the
+ degradation of man, and the destruction of home; that nothing is more
+ infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless women, and of
+ prattling babes; that captured maidens should not be given to soldiers;
+ that wives should not be stoned to death on account of their religious
+ opinions, and that the death penalty ought not to be inflicted for a
+ violation of the Sabbath. We know that there was a time, in the history of
+ almost every nation, when slavery, polygamy, and wars of extermination
+ were regarded as divine institutions; when women were looked upon as
+ beasts of burden, and when, among some people, it was considered the duty
+ of the husband to murder the wife for differing with him on the subject of
+ religion. Nations that entertain these views to-day are regarded as
+ savage, and, probably, with the exception of the South Sea Islanders, the
+ Feejees, some citizens of Delaware, and a few tribes in Central Africa, no
+ human beings can be found degraded enough to agree upon these subjects
+ with the Jehovah of the ancient Jews. The only evidence we have, or can
+ have, that a nation has ceased to be savage is the fact that it has
+ abandoned these doctrines. To every one, except the theologian, it is
+ perfectly easy to account for the mistakes, atrocities, and crimes of the
+ past, by saying that civilization is a slow and painful growth; that the
+ moral perceptions are cultivated through ages of tyranny, of want, of
+ crime, and of heroism; that it requires centuries for man to put out the
+ eyes of self and hold in lofty and in equal poise the scales of justice;
+ that conscience is born of suffering; that mercy is the child of the
+ imagination&mdash;of the power to put oneself in the sufferer's place, and
+ that man advances only as he becomes acquainted with his surroundings,
+ with the mutual obligations of life, and learns to take advantage of the
+ forces of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to declare
+ that there was a time when slavery was right&mdash;when men could buy, and
+ women could sell, their babes. He is compelled to insist that there was a
+ time when polygamy was the highest form of virtue; when wars of
+ extermination were waged with the sword of mercy; when religious
+ toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having
+ expressed an honest thought. He must maintain that Jehovah is just as bad
+ now as he was four thousand years ago, or that he was just as good then as
+ he is now, but that human conditions have so changed that slavery,
+ polygamy, religious persecutions, and wars of conquest are now perfectly
+ devilish. Once they were right&mdash;once they were commanded by God
+ himself; now, they are prohibited. There has been such a change in the
+ conditions of man that, at the present time, the devil is in favor of
+ slavery, polygamy, religious persecution, and wars of conquest. That is to
+ say, the devil entertains the same opinion to-day that Jehovah held four
+ thousand years ago, but in the meantime Jehovah has remained exactly the
+ same&mdash;changeless and incapable of change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find that other nations beside the Jews had similar laws and ideas;
+ that they believed in and practiced slavery and polygamy, murdered women
+ and children, and exterminated their neighbors to the extent of their
+ power. It is not claimed that they received a revelation. It is admitted
+ that they had no knowledge of the true God. And yet, by a strange
+ coincidence, they practised the same crimes, of their own motion, that the
+ Jews did by the command of Jehovah. From this it would seem that man can
+ do wrong without a special revelation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will hardly be claimed, at this day, that the passages in the Bible
+ upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious persecution are evidences
+ of the inspiration of that book. Suppose that there had been nothing in
+ the Old Testament upholding these crimes, would any modern Christian
+ suspect that it was not inspired, on account of the omission? Suppose that
+ there had been nothing in the Old Testament but laws in favor of these
+ crimes, would any intelligent Christian now contend that it was the work
+ of the true God? If the devil had inspired a book, will some believer in
+ the doctrine of inspiration tell us in what respect, on the subjects of
+ slavery, polygamy, war, and liberty, it would have differed from some
+ parts of the Old Testament? Suppose that we should now discover a Hindu
+ book of equal antiquity with the Old Testament, containing a defence of
+ slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution, would
+ we regard it as evidence that the writers were inspired by an infinitely
+ wise and merciful God? As most other nations at that time practiced these
+ crimes, and as the Jews would have practiced them all, even if left to
+ themselves, one can hardly see the necessity of any inspired commands upon
+ these subjects. Is there a believer in the Bible who does not wish that
+ God, amid the thunders and lightnings of Sinai, had distinctly said to
+ Moses that man should not own his fellow-man; that women should not sell
+ their babes; that men should be allowed to think and investigate for
+ themselves, and that the sword should never be unsheathed to shed the
+ blood of honest men? Is there a believer in the world, who would not be
+ delighted to find that every one of these infamous passages are
+ interpolations, and that the skirts of God were never reddened by the
+ blood of maiden, wife, or babe? Is there a believer who does not regret
+ that God commanded a husband to stone his wife to death for suggesting the
+ worship of the sun or moon? Surely, the light of experience is enough to
+ tell us that slavery is wrong, that polygamy is infamous, and that murder
+ is not a virtue. No one will now contend that it was worth God's while to
+ impart the information to Moses, or to Joshua, or to anybody else, that
+ the Jewish people might purchase slaves of the heathen, or that it was
+ their duty to exterminate the natives of the Holy Land. The deists have
+ contended that the Old Testament is too cruel and barbarous to be the work
+ of a wise and loving God. To this, the theologians have replied, that
+ nature is just as cruel; that the earthquake, the volcano, the pestilence
+ and storm, are just as savage as the Jewish God; and to my mind this is a
+ perfect answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that we knew that after "inspired" men had finished the Bible, the
+ devil got possession of it, and wrote a few passages; what part of the
+ sacred Scriptures would Christians now pick out as being probably his
+ work? Which of the following passages would naturally be selected as
+ having been written by the devil&mdash;"Love thy neighbor as thyself," or
+ "Kill all the males among the little ones, and kill every woman; but all
+ the women children keep alive for yourselves."?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that the best way to illustrate what I have said of the Old
+ Testament is to compare some of the supposed teachings of Jehovah with
+ those of persons who never read an "inspired" line, and who lived and died
+ without having received the light of revelation. Nothing can be more
+ suggestive than a comparison of the ideas of Jehovah&mdash;the inspired
+ words of the one claimed to be the infinite God, as recorded in the Bible&mdash;with
+ those that have been expressed by men who, all admit, received no help
+ from heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all ages of which any record has been preserved, there have been those
+ who gave their ideas of justice, charity, liberty, love and law. Now, if
+ the Bible is really the work of God, it should contain the grandest and
+ sublimest truths. It should, in all respects, excel the works of man.
+ Within that book should be found the best and loftiest definitions of
+ justice; the truest conceptions of human liberty; the clearest outlines of
+ duty; the tenderest, the highest, and the noblest thoughts,&mdash;not that
+ the human mind has produced, but that the human mind is capable of
+ receiving. Upon every page should be found the luminous evidence of its
+ divine origin. Unless it contains grander and more wonderful things than
+ man has written, we are not only justified in saying, but we are compelled
+ to say, that it was written by no being superior to man. It may be said
+ that it is unfair to call attention to certain bad things in the Bible,
+ while the good are not so much as mentioned. To this it may be replied
+ that a divine being would not put bad things in a book. Certainly a being
+ of infinite intelligence, power, and goodness could never fall below the
+ ideal of "depraved and barbarous" man. It will not do, after we find that
+ the Bible upholds what we now call crimes, to say that it is not verbally
+ inspired. If the words are not inspired, what is? It may be said that the
+ thoughts are inspired. But this would include only the thoughts expressed
+ without words. If ideas are inspired, they must be contained in and
+ expressed only by inspired words; that is to say, the arrangement of the
+ words, with relation to each other, must have been inspired. For the
+ purpose of this perfect arrangement, the writers, according to the
+ Christian world, were inspired. Were some sculptor inspired of God to make
+ a statue perfect in its every part, we would not say that the marble was
+ inspired, but the statue&mdash;the relation of part to part, the married
+ harmony of form and function. The language, the words, take the place of
+ the marble, and it is the arrangement of these words that Christians claim
+ to be inspired. If there is one uninspired word,&mdash;that is, one word
+ in the wrong place, or a word that ought not to be there,&mdash;to that
+ extent the Bible is an uninspired book. The moment it is admitted that
+ some words are not, in their arrangement as to other words, inspired,
+ then, unless with absolute certainty these words can be pointed out, a
+ doubt is cast on all the words the book contains. If it was worth God's
+ while to make a revelation to man at all, it was certainly worth his while
+ to see that it was correctly made. He would not have allowed the ideas and
+ mistakes of pretended prophets and designing priests to become so mingled
+ with the original text that it is impossible to tell where he ceased and
+ where the priests and prophets began. Neither will it do to say that God
+ adapted his revelation to the prejudices of mankind. Of course it was
+ necessary for an infinite being to adapt his revelation to the
+ intellectual capacity of man; but why should God confirm a barbarian in
+ his prejudices? Why should he fortify a heathen in his crimes? If a
+ revelation is of any importance whatever, it is to eradicate prejudices
+ from the human mind. It should be a lever with which to raise the human
+ race. Theologians Have exhausted their ingenuity in finding excuses for
+ God. It seems to me that they would be better employed in finding excuses
+ for men. They tell us that the Jews were so cruel and ignorant that God
+ was compelled to justify, or nearly to justify, many of their crimes, in
+ order to have any influence with them whatever. They tell us that if he
+ had declared slavery and polygamy to be criminal, the Jews would have
+ refused to receive the Ten Commandments. They insist that, under the
+ circumstances, God did the best he could; that his real intention was to
+ lead them along slowly, step by step, so that, in a few hundred years,
+ they would be induced to admit that it was hardly fair to steal a babe
+ from its mother's breast. It has always seemed reasonable that an infinite
+ God ought to have been able to make man grand enough to know, even without
+ a special revelation, that it is not altogether right to steal the labor,
+ or the wife, or the child, of another. When the whole question is
+ thoroughly examined, the world will find that Jehovah had the prejudices,
+ the hatreds, and superstitions of his day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is anything of value, it is liberty. Liberty is the air of the
+ soul, the sunshine of life. Without it the world is a prison and the
+ universe an infinite dungeon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is really inspired, Jehovah commanded the Jewish people to
+ buy the children of the strangers that sojourned among them, and ordered
+ that the children thus bought should be an inheritance for the children of
+ the Jews, and that they should be bondmen and bondwomen forever. Yet
+ Epictetus, a man to whom no revelation was made, a man whose soul followed
+ only the light of nature, and who had never heard of the Jewish God, was
+ great enough to say: "Will you not remember that your servants are by
+ nature your brothers, the children of God? In saying that you have bought
+ them, you look down on the earth, and into the pit, on the wretched law of
+ men long since dead, but you see not the laws of the gods."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find that Jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, assured them that
+ their bondmen and their bondmaids must be "of the heathen that were round
+ about them." "Of them," said Jehovah, "shall ye buy bondmen and
+ bondmaids." And yet Cicero, a pagan, Cicero, who had never been
+ enlightened by reading the Old Testament, had the moral grandeur to
+ declare: "They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens, but not
+ foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which
+ benevolence and justice would perish forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is inspired, Jehovah, God of all worlds, actually said: "And
+ if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his
+ hand, he shall be surely punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day
+ or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." And yet Zeno,
+ founder of the Stoics, centuries before Christ was born, insisted that no
+ man could be the owner of another, and that the title was bad, whether the
+ slave had become so by conquest, or by purchase. Jehovah ordered a Jewish
+ general to make war, and gave, among others, this command: "When the Lord
+ thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly
+ destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto
+ them." And yet Epictetus, whom we have already quoted, gave this marvelous
+ rule for the guidance of human conduct: "Live with thy inferiors as thou
+ would'st have thy superiors live with thee."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible, after all, that a being of infinite goodness and wisdom
+ said: "I will heap mischief upon them: I will spend mine arrows upon them.
+ They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with
+ bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with
+ the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within,
+ shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with
+ the man of gray hairs"; while Seneca, an uninspired Roman, said: "The wise
+ man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will
+ accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He will
+ spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on
+ account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall short of justice,
+ but will fulfill it perfectly."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we believe that God ever said of any one: "Let his children be
+ fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually
+ vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate
+ places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath and let the stranger
+ spoil his labor; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let
+ there be any to favor his fatherless children." If he ever said these
+ words, surely he had never heard this line, this strain of music, from the
+ Hindu: "Sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their
+ own children."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of Sinai," said to the Jews: "Thou
+ shalt have no other Gods before me.... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to
+ them nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting
+ the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth
+ generation of them that hate me." Contrast this with the words put by the
+ Hindu into the mouth of Brahma:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I am the same to all mankind. They who honestly serve other gods,
+ involuntarily worship me. I am he who partaketh of all worship, and I am
+ the reward of all worshipers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare these passages. The first, a dungeon where crawl the things begot
+ of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed firmament inlaid with
+ suns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WAIVING the contradictory statements in the various books of the New
+ Testament; leaving out of the question the history of the manuscripts;
+ saying nothing about the errors in translation and the interpolations made
+ by the fathers; and admitting, for the time being, that the books were all
+ written at the times claimed, and by the persons whose names they bear,
+ the questions of inspiration, probability, and absurdity still remain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, where several persons testify to the same transaction, while
+ agreeing in the main points, they will disagree upon many minor things,
+ and such disagreement upon minor matters is generally considered as
+ evidence that the witnesses have not agreed among themselves upon the
+ story they should tell. These differences in statement we account for from
+ the facts that all did not see alike, that all did not have the same
+ opportunity for seeing, and that all had not equally good memories. But
+ when we claim that the witnesses were inspired, we must admit that he who
+ inspired them did know exactly what occurred, and consequently there
+ should be no contradiction, even in the minutest detail. The accounts
+ should be not only substantially, but they should be actually, the same.
+ It is impossible to account for any differences, or any contradictions,
+ except from the weaknesses of human nature, and these weaknesses cannot be
+ predicated of divine wisdom. Why should there be more than one correct
+ account of anything? Why were four gospels necessary? One inspired record
+ of all that happened ought to be enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One great objection to the Old Testament is the cruelty said to have been
+ commanded by God, but all the cruelties recounted in the Old Testament
+ ceased with death. The vengeance of Jehovah stopped at the portal of the
+ tomb. He never threatened to avenge himself upon the dead; and not one
+ word, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse of Malachi,
+ contains the slightest intimation that God will punish in another world.
+ It was reserved for the New Testament to make known the frightful doctrine
+ of eternal pain. It was the teacher of universal benevolence who rent the
+ veil between time and eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of man on the
+ lurid gulfs of hell. Within the breast of non-resistance was coiled the
+ worm that never dies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One great objection to the New Testament is that it bases salvation upon
+ belief. This, at least, is true of the Gospel according to John, and of
+ many of the Epistles. I admit that Matthew never heard of the atonement,
+ and died utterly ignorant of the scheme of salvation. I also admit that
+ Mark never dreamed that it was necessary for a man to be born again; that
+ he knew nothing of the mysterious doctrine of regeneration, and that he
+ never even suspected that it was necessary to believe anything. In the
+ sixteenth chapter of Mark, we are told that "He that believeth and is
+ baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned"; but
+ this passage has been shown to be an interpolation, and, consequently, not
+ a solitary word is found in the Gospel according to Mark upon the subject
+ of salvation by faith. The same is also true of the Gospel of Luke. It
+ says not one word as to the necessity of believing on Jesus Christ, not
+ one word as to the atonement, not one word upon the scheme of salvation,
+ and not the slightest hint that it is necessary to believe anything here
+ in order to be happy hereafter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I here take occasion to say, that with most of the teachings of the
+ Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke I most heartily agree. The miraculous
+ parts must, of course, be thrown aside. I admit that the necessity of
+ belief, the atonement, and the scheme of salvation are all set forth in
+ the Gospel of John,&mdash;a gospel, in my opinion, not written until long
+ after the others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the prevailing Christian belief, the Christian religion rests
+ upon the doctrine of the atonement. If this doctrine is without
+ foundation, if it is repugnant to justice and mercy, the fabric falls. We
+ are told that the first man committed a crime for which all his posterity
+ are responsible,&mdash;in other words, that we are accountable, and can be
+ justly punished for a sin we never in fact committed. This absurdity was
+ the father of another, namely, that a man can be rewarded for a good
+ action done by another. God, according to the modern theologians, made a
+ law, with the penalty of eternal death for its infraction. All men, they
+ say, have broken that law. In the economy of heaven, this law had to be
+ vindicated. This could be done by damning the whole human race. Through
+ what is known as the atonement, the salvation of a few was made possible.
+ They insist that the law&mdash;whatever that is&mdash;demanded the extreme
+ penalty, that justice called for its victims, and that even mercy ceased
+ to plead. Under these circumstances, God, by allowing the innocent to
+ suffer, satisfactorily settled with the law, and allowed a few of the
+ guilty to escape. The law was satisfied with this arrangement. To carry
+ out this scheme, God was born as a babe into this world. "He grew in
+ stature and increased in knowledge." At the age of thirty-three, after
+ having lived a life filled with kindness, charity and nobility, after
+ having practiced every virtue, he was sacrificed as an atonement for man.
+ It is claimed that he actually took our place, and bore our sins and our
+ guilt; that in this way the justice of God was satisfied, and that the
+ blood of Christ was an atonement, an expiation, for the sins of all who
+ might believe on him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the Mosaic dispensation, there was no remission of sin except
+ through the shedding of blood. If a man committed certain sins, he must
+ bring to the priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a pair of turtle-doves.
+ The priest would lay his hands upon the animal, and the sin of the man
+ would be transferred. Then the animal would be killed in the place of the
+ real sinner, and the blood thus shed and sprinkled upon the altar would be
+ an atonement. In this way Jehovah was satisfied. The greater the crime,
+ the greater the sacrifice&mdash;the more blood, the greater the atonement.
+ There was always a certain ratio between the value of the animal and the
+ enormity of the sin. The most minute directions were given about the
+ killing of these animals, and about the sprinkling of their blood. Every
+ priest became a butcher, and every sanctuary a slaughter-house. Nothing
+ could be more utterly shocking to a refined and loving soul. Nothing could
+ have been better calculated to harden the heart than this continual
+ shedding of innocent blood. This terrible system is supposed to have
+ culminated in the sacrifice of Christ. His blood took the place of all
+ other. It is necessary to shed no more. The law at last is satisfied,
+ satiated, surfeited. The idea that God wants blood is at the bottom of the
+ atonement, and rests upon the most fearful savagery. How can sin be
+ transferred from men to animals, and how can the shedding of the blood of
+ animals atone for the sins of men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church says that the sinner is in debt to God, and that the obligation
+ is discharged by the Savior. The best that can possibly be said of such a
+ transaction is, that the debt is transferred, not paid. The truth is, that
+ a sinner is in debt to the person he has injured. If a man injures his
+ neighbor, it is not enough for him to get the forgiveness of God, but he
+ must have the forgiveness of his neighbor. If a man puts his hand in the
+ fire and God forgives him, his hand will smart exactly the same. You must,
+ after all, reap what you sow. No god can give you wheat when you sow
+ tares, and no devil can give you tares when you sow wheat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments&mdash;there are
+ consequences. The life of Christ is worth its example, its moral force,
+ its heroism of benevolence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To make innocence suffer is the greatest sin; how then is it possible to
+ make the suffering of the innocent a justification for the criminal? Why
+ should a man be willing to let the innocent suffer for him? Does not the
+ willingness show that he is utterly unworthy of the sacrifice? Certainly,
+ no man would be fit for heaven who would consent that an innocent person
+ should suffer for his sin. What would we think of a man who would allow
+ another to die for a crime that he himself had committed? What would we
+ think of a law that allowed the innocent to take the place of the guilty?
+ Is it possible to vindicate a just law by inflicting punishment on the
+ innocent? Would not that be a second violation instead of a vindication?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there was no general atonement until the crucifixion of Christ, what
+ became of the countless millions who died before that time? And it must be
+ remembered that the blood shed by the Jews was not for other nations.
+ Jehovah hated foreigners. The Gentiles were left without forgiveness What
+ has become of the millions who have died since, without having heard of
+ the atonement? What becomes of those who have heard but have not believed?
+ It seems to me that the doctrine of the atonement is absurd, unjust, and
+ immoral. Can a law be satisfied by the execution of the wrong person? When
+ a man commits a crime, the law demands his punishment, not that of a
+ substitute; and there can be no law, human or divine, that can be
+ satisfied by the punishment of a substitute. Can there be a law that
+ demands that the guilty be rewarded? And yet, to reward the guilty is far
+ nearer justice than to punish the innocent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the orthodox theology, there would have been no heaven had no
+ atonement been made. All the children of men would have been cast into
+ hell forever. The old men bowed with grief, the smiling mothers, the sweet
+ babes, the loving maidens, the brave, the tender, and the just, would have
+ been given over to eternal pain. Man, it is claimed, can make no atonement
+ for himself. If he commits one sin, and with that exception lives a life
+ of perfect virtue, still that one sin would remain unexpiated, unatoned,
+ and for that one sin he would be forever lost. To be saved by the goodness
+ of another, to be a redeemed debtor forever, has in it something repugnant
+ to manhood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must also remember that Jehovah took special charge of the Jewish
+ people; and we have always been taught that he did so for the purpose of
+ civilizing them. If he had succeeded in civilizing the Jews, he would have
+ made the damnation of the entire human race a certainty; because, if the
+ Jews had been a civilized people when Christ appeared,&mdash;a people
+ whose hearts had not been hardened by the laws and teachings of Jehovah,&mdash;they
+ would not have crucified him, and, as a consequence, the world would have
+ been lost. If the Jews had believed in religious freedom,&mdash;in the
+ right of thought and speech,&mdash;not a human soul could ever have been
+ saved. If, when Christ was on his way to Calvary, some brave, heroic soul
+ had rescued him from the holy mob, he would not only have been eternally
+ damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the salvation of
+ any human being, and, except for the crucifixion of her son, the Virgin
+ Mary, if the church is right, would be to-day among the lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In countless ways the Christian world has endeavored, for nearly two
+ thousand years, to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an
+ admission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be
+ believed. Is it not immoral to teach that man can sin, that he can harden
+ his heart and pollute his soul, and that, by repenting and believing
+ something that he does not comprehend, he can avoid the consequences of
+ his crimes? Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the
+ commission of a sin? Should men be taught that sin gives happiness here;
+ that they ought to bear the evils of a virtuous life in this world for the
+ sake of joy in the next; that they can repent between the last sin and the
+ last breath; that after repentance every stain of the soul is washed away
+ by the innocent blood of another; that the serpent of regret will not hiss
+ in the ear of memory; that the saved will not even pity the victims of
+ their own crimes; that the goodness of another can be transferred to them;
+ and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned
+ against?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another objection is that a certain belief is necessary to save the soul.
+ It is often asserted that to believe is the only safe way. If you wish to
+ be safe, be honest. Nothing can be safer than that. No matter what his
+ belief may be, no man, even in the hour of death, can regret having been
+ honest. It never can be necessary to throw away your reason to save your
+ soul. A soul without reason is scarcely worth saving. There is no more
+ degrading doctrine than that of mental non-resistance. The soul has a
+ right to defend its castle&mdash;the brain, and he who waives that right
+ becomes a serf and slave. Neither can I admit that a man, by doing me an
+ injury, can place me under obligation to do him a service. To render
+ benefits for injuries is to ignore all distinctions between actions. He
+ who treats his friends and enemies alike has neither love nor justice. The
+ idea of non-resistance never occurred to a man with power to protect
+ himself. This doctrine was the child of weakness, born when resistance was
+ impossible. To allow a crime to be committed when you can prevent it, is
+ next to committing the crime yourself. And yet, under the banner of
+ non-resistance, the church has shed the blood of millions, and in the
+ folds of her sacred vestments have gleamed the daggers of assassination.
+ With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the
+ crown upon the brow of crime. For a thousand years larceny held the scales
+ of justice, while beggars scorned the princely sons of toil, and ignorant
+ fear denounced the liberty of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before him, like a
+ panorama, moved the history yet to be. He knew exactly how his words would
+ be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be
+ committed in his name. He knew that the fires of persecution would climb
+ around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that brave men would
+ languish in dungeons, in darkness, filled with pain; that the church would
+ use instruments of torture, that his followers would appeal to whip and
+ chain. He must have seen the horizon of the future red with the flames of
+ the <i>auto da fe</i>. He knew all the creeds that would spring like
+ poison fungi from every text. He saw the sects waging war against each
+ other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building
+ dungeons for their fellow-men. He saw them using instruments of pain. He
+ heard the groans, saw the faces white with agony, the tears, the blood&mdash;heard
+ the shrieks and sobs of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. He knew that
+ commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the
+ light of fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of teachings
+ attributed to him. He saw all the interpolations and falsehoods that
+ hypocrisy would write and tell. He knew that above these fields of death,
+ these dungeons, these burnings, for a thousand years would float the
+ dripping banner of the cross. He knew that in his name his followers would
+ trade in human flesh, that cradles would be robbed, and women's breasts
+ unbabed for gold, and yet he died with voiceless lips. Why did he fail to
+ speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world, that
+ man should not persecute, for opinion's sake, his fellow-man? Why did he
+ not cry, You shall not persecute in my name; you shall not burn and
+ torment those who differ from you in creed? Why did he not plainly say, I
+ am the Son of God? Why did he not explain the doctrine of the Trinity? Why
+ did he not tell the manner of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he
+ not say something positive, definite, and satisfactory about another
+ world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven to the glad
+ knowledge of another life? Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the
+ world to misery and to doubt?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he reveal? "Love
+ thy neighbor as thyself"? That was in the Old Testament. "Love God with
+ all thy heart"? That was in the Old Testament. "Return good for evil"?
+ That was said by Buddha seven hundred years before he was born. "Do unto
+ others as ye would that they should do unto you"? This was the doctrine of
+ Lao-tsze. Did he come to give a rule of action? Zoroaster had done this
+ long before: "Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good
+ or bad, abstain from it." Did he come to teach us of another world? The
+ immortality of the soul had been taught by Hindus, Egyptians, Greeks, and
+ Romans hundreds of years before he was born. Long before, the world had
+ been told by Socrates that: "One who is injured ought not to return the
+ injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is
+ not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we
+ may have suffered from him." And Cicero had said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Let us not listen to those who think that we ought to be angry with our
+ enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly: nothing is more
+ praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency
+ and readiness to forgive."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything nearer perfect than this from Confucius: "For benefits
+ return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of
+ revenge"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dogma of eternal punishment rests upon passages in the New Testament.
+ This infamous belief subverts every idea of justice. Around the angel of
+ immortality the church has coiled this serpent. A finite being can neither
+ commit an infinite sin, nor a sin against the infinite. A being of
+ infinite goodness and wisdom has no right, according to the human standard
+ of justice, to create any being destined to suffer eternal pain. A being
+ of infinite wisdom would not create a failure, and surely a man destined
+ to everlasting agony is not a success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How long, according to the universal benevolence of the New Testament, can
+ a man be reasonably punished in the next world for failing to believe
+ something unreasonable in this? Can it be possible that any punishment can
+ endure forever? Suppose that every flake of snow that ever fell was a
+ figure nine, and that the first flake was multiplied by the second, and
+ that product by the third, and so on to the last flake. And then suppose
+ that this total should be multiplied by every drop of rain that ever fell,
+ calling each drop a figure nine; and that total by each blade of grass
+ that ever helped to weave a carpet for the earth, calling each blade a
+ figure nine; and that again by every grain of sand on every shore, so that
+ the grand total would make a line of nines so long that it would require
+ millions upon millions of years for light, traveling at the rate of one
+ hundred and eighty-five thousand miles per second, to reach the end. And
+ suppose, further, that each unit in this almost infinite total stood for
+ billions of ages&mdash;still that vast and almost endless time, measured
+ by all the years beyond, is as one flake, one drop, one leaf, one blade,
+ one grain, compared with all the flakes and drops and leaves and blades
+ and grains. Upon love's breast the church has placed the eternal asp. And
+ yet, in the same book in which is taught this most infamous of doctrines,
+ we are assured that "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are
+ over all his works."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SO FAR as we know, man is the author of all books. If a book had been
+ found on the earth by the first man, he might have regarded it as the work
+ of God; but as men were here a good while before any books were found, and
+ as man has produced a great many books, the probability is that the Bible
+ is no exception.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most nations, at the time the Old Testament was written, believed in
+ slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution; and
+ it is not wonderful that the book contained nothing contrary to such
+ belief. The fact that it was in exact accord with the morality of its time
+ proves that it was not the product of any being superior to man. "The
+ inspired writers" upheld or established slavery, countenanced polygamy,
+ commanded wars of extermination, and ordered the slaughter of women and
+ babes. In these respects they were precisely like the uninspired savages
+ by whom they were surrounded. They also taught and commanded religious
+ persecution as a duty, and visited the most trivial offences with the
+ punishment of death. In these particulars they were in exact accord with
+ their barbarian neighbors. They were utterly ignorant of geology and
+ astronomy, and knew no more of what had happened than of what would
+ happen; and, so far as accuracy is concerned, their history and prophecy
+ were about equal; in other words, they were just as ignorant as those who
+ lived and died in nature's night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does any Christian believe that if God were to write a book now, he would
+ uphold the crimes commanded in the Old Testament? Has Jehovah improved?
+ Has infinite mercy-become more merciful? Has infinite wisdom
+ intellectually-advanced? Will any one claim that the passages upholding
+ slavery have liberated mankind; that we are indebted for our modern homes
+ to the texts that made polygamy a virtue; or that religious liberty found
+ its soil, its light, and rain in the infamous verse wherein the husband is
+ commanded to stone to death the wife for worshiping an unknown god?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The usual answer to these objections is that no country has ever been
+ civilized without the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jews were the only people to whom Jehovah made his will directly
+ known,&mdash;the only people who had the Old Testament. Other nations were
+ utterly neglected by their Creator. Yet, such was the effect of the Old
+ Testament on the Jews, that they crucified a kind, loving, and perfectly
+ innocent man. They could not have done much worse without a Bible. In the
+ crucifixion of Christ, they followed the teachings of his Father. If, as
+ it is now alleged by the theologians, no nation can be civilized without a
+ Bible, certainly God must have known the fact six thousand years ago, as
+ well as the theologians know it now. Why did he not furnish every nation
+ with a Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the Old Testament, I insist that all the bad passages were written
+ by men; that those passages were not inspired. I insist that a being of
+ infinite goodness never commanded man to enslave his fellow-man, never
+ told a mother to sell her babe, never established polygamy, never ordered
+ one nation to exterminate another, and never told a husband to kill his
+ wife because she suggested the worshiping of some other God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also insist that the Old Testament would be a much better book with all
+ of these passages left out; and, whatever may be said of the rest, the
+ passages to which attention has been drawn can with vastly more propriety
+ be attributed to a devil than to a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from the New Testament all passages upholding the idea that belief is
+ necessary to salvation; that Christ was offered as an atonement for the
+ sins of the world; that the punishment of the human soul will go on
+ forever; that heaven is the reward of faith, and hell the penalty of
+ honest investigation; take from it all miraculous stories,&mdash;and I
+ admit that all the good passages are true. If they are true, it makes no
+ difference whether they are inspired or not. Inspiration is only necessary
+ to give authority to that which is repugnant to human reason. Only that
+ which never happened needs to be substantiated by miracles. The universe
+ is natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church must cease to insist that the passages upholding the
+ institutions of savage men were inspired of God. The dogma of the
+ atonement must be abandoned. Good deeds must take the place of faith. The
+ savagery of eternal punishment must be renounced. Credulity is not a
+ virtue, and investigation is not a crime. Miracles are the children of
+ mendacity. Nothing can be more wonderful than the majestic, unbroken,
+ sublime, and eternal procession of causes and effects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Reason must be the final arbiter. "Inspired" books attested by miracles
+ cannot stand against a demonstrated fact. A religion that does not command
+ the respect of the greatest minds will, in a little while, excite the
+ mockery of all. Every civilized man believes in the liberty of thought. Is
+ it possible that God is intolerant? Is an act infamous in man one of the
+ virtues of the Deity? Could there be progress in heaven without
+ intellectual liberty? Is the freedom of the future to exist only in
+ perdition? Is it not, after all, barely possible that a man acting like
+ Christ can be saved? Is a man to be eternally rewarded for believing
+ according to evidence, without evidence, or against evidence? Are we to be
+ saved because we are good, or because another was virtuous? Is credulity
+ to be winged and crowned, while honest doubt is chained and damned?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not misunderstand me. My position is that the cruel passages in the Old
+ Testament are not inspired; that slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination,
+ and religious persecution always have been, are, and forever will be,
+ abhorred and cursed by the honest, the virtuous, and the loving; that the
+ innocent cannot justly suffer for the guilty, and that vicarious vice and
+ vicarious virtue are equally absurd; that eternal punishment is eternal
+ revenge; that only the natural can happen; that miracles prove the
+ dishonesty of the few and the credulity of the many; and that, according
+ to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, salvation does not depend upon belief, nor the
+ atonement, nor a "second birth," but that these gospels are in exact
+ harmony with the declaration of the great Persian: "Taking the first
+ footstep with the good thought, the second with the good word, and the
+ third with the good deed, I entered paradise."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought,
+ nor satisfy the hunger of the heart. While dusty faiths, embalmed and
+ sepulchered in ancient texts, remain the same, the sympathies of men
+ enlarge; the brain no longer kills its young; the happy lips give liberty
+ to honest thoughts; the mental firmament expands and lifts; the broken
+ clouds drift by; the hideous dreams, the foul, misshapen children of the
+ monstrous night, dissolve and fade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY JEREMIAH S. BLACK.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ "Gratiano speaks of an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all
+ Venice: his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of
+ chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them
+ they are not worth the search."&mdash;<i>Merchant of Venice</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE request to answer the foregoing paper comes to me, not in the form but
+ with the effect of a challenge, which I cannot decline without seeming to
+ acknowledge that the religion of the civilized world is an absurd
+ superstition, propagated by impostors, professed by hypocrites, and
+ believed only by credulous dupes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But why should I, an unlearned and unauthorized layman, be placed in such
+ a predicament? The explanation is easy enough. This is no business of the
+ priests. Their prescribed duty is to preach the word, in the full
+ assurance that it will commend itself to all good and honest hearts by its
+ own manifest veracity and the singular purity of its precepts. They cannot
+ afford to turn away from their proper work, and leave willing hearers
+ uninstructed, while they wrangle in vain with a predetermined opponent.
+ They were warned to expect slander, indignity, and insult, and these are
+ among the evils which they must not resist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will be seen that I am assuming no clerical function. I am not out on
+ the forlorn hope of converting Mr. Ingersoll. I am no preacher exhorting a
+ sinner to leave the seat of the scornful and come up to the bench of the
+ penitents. My duty is more analogous to that of the policeman who would
+ silence a rude disturber of the congregation by telling him that his
+ clamor is false and his conduct an offence against public decency.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nor is the Church in any danger which calls for the special vigilance of
+ its servants. Mr. Ingersoll thinks that the rock-founded faith of
+ Christendom is giving way before his assaults, but he is grossly mistaken.
+ The first sentence of his essay is a preposterous blunder. It is not true
+ that "<i>a profound change</i> has taken place in the world of <i>thought,</i>"
+ unless a more rapid spread of the Gospel and a more faithful observance of
+ its moral principles can be called so. Its truths are everywhere
+ proclaimed with the power of sincere conviction, and accepted with devout
+ reverence by uncounted multitudes of all classes. Solemn temples rise to
+ its honor in the great cities; from every hill-top in the country you see
+ the church-spire pointing toward heaven, and on Sunday all the paths that
+ lead to it are crowded with worshipers. In nearly all families, parents
+ teach their children that Christ is God, and his system of morality
+ absolutely perfect. This belief lies so deep in the popular heart that, if
+ every written record of it were destroyed to-day, the memory of millions
+ could reproduce it to-morrow. Its earnestness is proved by its works.
+ Wherever it goes it manifests itself in deeds of practical benevolence. It
+ builds, not churches alone, but almshouses, hospitals, and asylums. It
+ shelters the poor, feeds the hungry, visits the sick, consoles the
+ afflicted, provides for the fatherless, comforts the heart of the widow,
+ instructs the ignorant, reforms the vicious, and saves to the uttermost
+ them that are ready to perish. To the common observer, it does not look as
+ if Christianity was making itself ready to be swallowed up by Infidelity.
+ Thus far, at least, the promise has been kept that "the gates of hell
+ shall not prevail against it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, to be sure, a change in the party hostile to religion&mdash;not
+ "a profound change," but a change entirely superficial&mdash;which
+ consists, not in thought, but merely in modes of expression and methods of
+ attack. The bad classes of society always hated the doctrine and
+ discipline which reproached their wickedness and frightened them by
+ threats of punishment in another world. Aforetime they showed their
+ contempt of divine authority only by their actions; but now, under new
+ leadership, their enmity against God breaks out into articulate blasphemy.
+ They assemble themselves together, they hear with passionate admiration
+ the bold harangue which ridicules and defies the Maker of the universe;
+ fiercely they rage against the Highest, and loudly they laugh, alike at
+ the justice that condemns, and the mercy that offers to pardon them. The
+ orator who relieves them by assurances of impunity, and tells them that no
+ supreme authority has made any law to control them, is applauded to the
+ echo and paid a high price for his congenial labor; he pockets their
+ money, and flatters himself that he is a great power, profoundly moving
+ "the world of thought."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another totally false notion expressed in the opening paragraph,
+ namely, that "they who know most of nature believe the least about
+ theology." The truth is exactly the other way. The more clearly one sees
+ "the grand procession of causes and effects," the more awful his reverence
+ becomes for the author of the "sublime and unbroken" law which links them
+ together. Not self-conceit and rebellious pride, but unspeakable humility,
+ and a deep sense of the measureless distance between the Creator and the
+ creature, fills the mind of him who looks with a rational spirit upon the
+ works of the All-wise One. The heart of Newton repeats the solemn
+ confession of David: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy
+ fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that
+ thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him?" At the
+ same time, the lamentable fact must be admitted that "a little learning is
+ a dangerous thing" to some persons. The sciolist with a mere smattering of
+ physical knowledge is apt to mistake himself for a philosopher, and
+ swelling with his own importance, he gives out, like Simon Magus, "that
+ himself is some great one." His vanity becomes inflamed more and more,
+ until he begins to think he knows all things. He takes every occasion to
+ show his accomplishments by finding fault with the works of creation* and
+ Providence; and this is an exercise in which he cannot long continue
+ without learning to disbelieve in any Being greater than himself. It was
+ to such a person, and not to the unpretending simpleton, that Solomon
+ applied his often quoted aphorism: "The fool hath said in his heart, there
+ is no God." These are what Paul refers to as "vain babblings and the
+ opposition of science, falsely so called;" but they are perfectly
+ powerless to stop or turn aside the great current of human thought on the
+ subject of Christian theology. That majestic stream, supplied from a
+ thousand unfailing fountains, rolls on and will roll forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll is not, as some have estimated him, the most formidable
+ enemy that Christianity has encountered since the time of Julian the
+ Apostate. But he stands at the head of living infidels, "by merit raised
+ to that bad eminence." His mental organization has the peculiar defects
+ which fit him for such a place. He is all imagination and no discretion.
+ He rises sometimes into a region of wild poetry, where he can color
+ everything to suit himself. His motto well expresses the character of his
+ argumentation&mdash;"mountains are as unstable as clouds:" a fancy is as
+ good as a fact, and a high-sounding period is rather better than a logical
+ demonstration. His inordinate self-confidence makes him at once ferocious
+ and fearless. He was a practical politician before he "took the stump"
+ against Christianity, and at all times he has proved his capacity to
+ "split the ears of the groundlings," and make the unskillful laugh. The
+ article before us is the least objectionable of all his productions. Its
+ style is higher, and better suited to the weight of the theme. Here the
+ violence of his fierce invective is moderated; his scurrility gives place
+ to an attempt at sophistry less shocking if not more true; and his coarse
+ jokes are either excluded altogether, or else veiled in the decent
+ obscurity of general terms. Such a paper from such a man, at a time like
+ the present, is not wholly unworthy of a grave contradiction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He makes certain charges which we answer by an explicit denial, and thus
+ an issue is made, upon which, as a pleader would say, we "put ourselves
+ upon the country." He avers that a certain "something called Christianity"
+ is a false faith imposed on the world without evidence; that the facts it
+ pretends to rest on are mere inventions; that its doctrines are
+ pernicious; that its requirements are unreasonable, and that its sanctions
+ are cruel. I deny all this, and assert, on the contrary, that its
+ doctrines are divinely revealed; its fundamental facts incontestably
+ proved; its morality perfectly free from all taint of error, and its
+ influence most beneficent upon society in general, and upon all
+ individuals who accept it and make it their rule of action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How shall this be determined? Not by what we call divine revelation, for
+ that would be begging the question; not by sentiment, taste, or temper,
+ for these are as likely to be false as true; but by inductive reasoning
+ from evidence, of which the value is to be measured according to those
+ rules of logic which enlightened and just men everywhere have adopted to
+ guide them in the search for truth. We can appeal only to that rational
+ love of justice, and that detestation of falsehood, which fair-minded
+ persons of good intelligence bring to the consideration of other important
+ subjects when it becomes their duty to decide upon them. In short, I want
+ a decision upon sound judicial principles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gibson, the great Chief-Justice of Pennsylvania, once said to certain
+ skeptical friends of his: "Give Christianity a common-law trial; submit
+ the evidence <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i> to an impartial jury under the
+ direction of a competent court, and the verdict will assuredly be in its
+ favor." This deliverance, coming from the most illustrious judge of his
+ time, not at all given to expressions of sentimental piety, and quite
+ incapable of speaking on any subject for mere effect, staggered the
+ unbelief of those who heard it. I did not know him then, except by his
+ great reputation for ability and integrity, but my thoughts were strongly
+ influenced by his authority, and I learned to set a still higher value
+ upon all his opinions, when, in after life, I was honored with his close
+ and intimate friendship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let Christianity have a trial on Mr. Ingersoll's indictment, and give us a
+ decision <i>secundum allegata et probata</i>. I will confine myself
+ strictly to the record; that is to say, I will meet the accusations
+ contained in this paper, and not those made elsewhere by him or others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His first specification against Christianity is the belief of its
+ disciples "that there is a personal God, the creator of the material
+ universe." If God made the world it was a most stupendous miracle, and all
+ miracles, according to Mr. Ingersoll's idea are "the children of
+ mendacity." To admit the one great miracle of creation would be an
+ admission that other miracles are at least probable, and that would ruin
+ his whole case. But you cannot catch the leviathan of atheism with a hook.
+ The universe, he says, is natural&mdash;it came into being of its own
+ accord; it made its own laws at the start, and afterward improved itself
+ considerably by spontaneous evolution. It would be a mere waste of time
+ and space to enumerate the proofs which show that the universe was created
+ by a pre-existent and self-conscious Being, of power and wisdom to us
+ inconceivable. Conviction of the fact (miraculous though it be) forces
+ itself on every one whose mental faculties are healthy and tolerably well
+ balanced. The notion that all things owe their origin and their harmonious
+ arrangement to the fortuitous concurrence of atoms is a kind of lunacy
+ which very few men in these days are afflicted with. I hope I may safely
+ assume it as certain that all, or nearly all, who read this page will have
+ sense and reason enough to see for themselves that the plan of the
+ universe could not have been designed without a Designer or executed
+ without a Maker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Mr. Ingersoll asserts that, at all events, this material world had not
+ a good and beneficent creator; it is a bad, savage, cruel piece of work,
+ with its pestilences, storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes; and man, with
+ his liability to sickness, suffering, and death, is not a success, but, on
+ the contrary, a failure. To defend the Creator of the world against an
+ arraignment so foul as this would be almost as unbecoming as to make the
+ accusation. We have neither jurisdiction nor capacity to rejudge the
+ justice of God. Why man is made to fill this particular place in the scale
+ of creation&mdash;a little lower than the angels, yet far above the
+ brutes; not passionless and pure, like the former, nor mere machines, like
+ the latter; able to stand, yet free to fall; knowing the right, and
+ accountable for going wrong; gifted with reason, and impelled by self-love
+ to exercise the faculty&mdash;these are questions on which we may have our
+ speculative opinions, but knowledge is out of our reach. Meantime, we do
+ not discredit our mental independence by taking it for granted that the
+ Supreme Being has done all things well. Our ignorance of the whole scheme
+ makes us poor critics upon the small part that comes within our limited
+ perceptions. Seeming defects in the structure of the world may be its most
+ perfect ornament&mdash;all apparent harshness the tenderest of mercies.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "All discord, harmony not understood,
+ All partial evil, universal good."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ But worse errors are imputed to God as moral ruler of the world than those
+ charged against him as creator. He made man badly, but governed him worse;
+ if the Jehovah of the Old Testament was not merely an imaginary being,
+ then, according to Mr. Ingersoll, he was a prejudiced, barbarous, criminal
+ tyrant. We will see what ground he lays, if any, for these outrageous
+ assertions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mainly, principally, first and most important of all, is the unqualified
+ assertion that the "moral code" which Jehovah gave to his people "is in
+ many respects abhorrent to every good and tender man." Does Mr. Ingersoll
+ know what he is talking about? The moral code of the Bible consists of
+ certain immutable rules to govern the conduct of all men, at all times and
+ all places, in their private and personal relations with one another. It
+ is entirely separate and apart from the civil polity, the religious forms,
+ the sanitary provisions, the police regulations, and the system of
+ international law laid down for the special and exclusive observance of
+ the Jewish people. This is a distinction which every intelligent man knows
+ how to make. Has Mr. Ingersoll fallen into the egregious blunder of
+ confounding these things? or, understanding the true sense of his words,
+ is he rash and shameless enough to assert that the moral code of the Bible
+ excites the abhorrence of good men? In fact, and in truth, this moral
+ code, which he reviles, instead of being abhorred, is entitled to, and has
+ received, the profoundest respect of all honest and sensible persons. The
+ second table of the Decalogue is a perfect compendium of those duties
+ which every man owes to himself, his family, and his neighbor. In a few
+ simple words, which he can commit to memory almost in a minute, it teaches
+ him to purify his heart from covetousness; to live decently, to injure
+ nobody in reputation, person, or property, and to give every one his own.
+ By the poets, the prophets, and the sages of Israel, these great elements
+ are expanded into a volume of minuter rules, so clear, so impressive, and
+ yet so solemn and so lofty, that no pre-existing system of philosophy can
+ compare with it for a moment. If this vain mortal is not blind with
+ passion, he will see, upon reflection, that he has attacked the Old
+ Testament precisely where it is most impregnable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dismissing his groundless charge against the moral code, we come to his
+ strictures on the civil government of the Jews, which he says was so bad
+ and unjust that the Lawgiver by whom it was established must have been as
+ savagely cruel as the Creator that made storms and pestilences; and the
+ work of both was more worthy of a devil than a God. His language is
+ recklessly bad, very defective in method, and altogether lacking in
+ precision. But, apart from the ribaldry of it, which I do not feel myself
+ bound to notice, I find four objections to the Jewish constitution&mdash;not
+ more than four&mdash;which are definite enough to admit of an answer.
+ These relate to the provisions of the Mosaic law on the subjects of (1)
+ Blasphemy and Idolatry; (2) War; (3) Slavery; (4) Polygamy. In these
+ respects he pronounces the Jewish system not only unwise but criminally
+ unjust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here let me call attention to the difficulty of reasoning about justice
+ with a man who has no acknowledged standard of right and wrong. What is
+ justice? That which accords with law; and the supreme law is the will of
+ God. But I am dealing with an adversary who does not admit that there is a
+ God. Then for him there is no standard at all; one thing is as right as
+ another, and all things are equally wrong. Without a sovereign ruler there
+ is no law, and where there is no law there can be no transgression. It is
+ the misfortune of the atheistic theory that it makes the moral world an
+ anarchy; it refers all ethical questions to that confused tribunal where
+ chaos sits as umpire and "by decision more embroils the fray." But through
+ the whole of this cloudy paper there runs a vein of presumptuous egotism
+ which says as plainly as words can speak it that the author holds <i>himself</i>
+ to be the ultimate judge of all good and evil; what he approves is right,
+ and what he dislikes is certainly wrong. Of course I concede nothing to a
+ claim like that. I will not admit that the Jewish constitution is a thing
+ to be condemned merely because he curses it. I appeal from his profane
+ malediction to the conscience of men who have a rule to judge by. Such
+ persons will readily see that his specific objections to the statesmanship
+ which established the civil government of the Hebrew people are extremely
+ shallow, and do not furnish the shade of an excuse for the indecency of
+ his general abuse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. He regards the punishments inflicted for blasphemy and
+ idolatry as being immoderately cruel. Considering them merely as religious
+ offences,&mdash;as sins against God alone,&mdash;I agree that civil laws
+ should notice them not at all. But sometimes they affect very injuriously
+ certain social rights which it is the duty of the state to protect.
+ Wantonly to shock the religious feelings of your neighbor is a grievous
+ wrong. To utter blasphemy or obscenity in the presence of a Christian
+ woman is hardly better than to strike her in the face. Still, neither
+ policy nor justice requires them to be ranked among the highest crimes in
+ a government constituted like ours. But things were wholly different under
+ the Jewish theocracy, where God was the personal head of the state. There
+ blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance; idolatry was an overt act
+ of treason; to worship the gods of the hostile heathen was deserting to
+ the public enemy, and giving him aid and comfort. These are crimes which
+ every independent community has always punished with the utmost rigor. In
+ our own very recent history, they were repressed at the cost of more lives
+ than Judea ever contained at any one time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll not only ignores these considerations, but he goes the
+ length of calling God a religious persecutor and a tyrant because he does
+ not encourage and reward the service and devotion paid by his enemies to
+ the false gods of the pagan world. He professes to believe that all kinds
+ of worship are equally meritorious, and should meet the same acceptance
+ from the true God. It is almost incredible that such drivel as this should
+ be uttered by anybody. But Mr. Ingersoll not only expresses the thought
+ plainly&mdash;he urges it with the most extravagant figures of his florid
+ rhetoric. He quotes the first commandment, in which Jehovah claims for
+ himself the exclusive worship of His people, and cites, in contrast, the
+ promise put in the mouth of Brahma, that he will appropriate the worship
+ of all gods to himself, and reward all worshipers alike. These passages
+ being compared, he declares the first "a dungeon, where crawl the things
+ begot of jealous slime;" the other, "great as the domed firmament, inlaid
+ with suns." Why is the living God, whom Christians believe to be the Lord
+ of liberty and Father of lights, denounced as the keeper of a loathsome
+ dungeon? Because he refuses to encourage and reward the worship of Mammon
+ and Moloch, of Belial and Baal; of Bacchus, with its drunken orgies, and
+ Venus, with its wanton obscenities; the bestial religion which degraded
+ the soul of Egypt and the "dark idolatries of alienated Judah," polluted
+ with the moral filth of all the nations round about.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let the reader decide whether this man, entertaining such sentiments and
+ opinions, is fit to be a teacher, or at all likely to lead us in the way
+ we should go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. Under the constitution which God provided for the Jews,
+ they had, like every other nation, the war-making power. They could not
+ have lived a day without it. The right to exist implied the right to
+ repel, with all their strength, the opposing force which threatened their
+ destruction. It is true, also, that in the exercise of this power they did
+ not observe those rules of courtesy and humanity which have been adopted
+ in modern times by civilized belligerents. Why? Because their enemies,
+ being mere savages, did not understand and would not practise, any rule
+ whatever; and the Jews were bound <i>ex necessitate rei</i>&mdash;not
+ merely justified by the <i>lex talionis</i>&mdash;to do as their enemies
+ did. In your treatment of hostile barbarians, you not only may lawfully,
+ but must necessarily, adopt their mode of warfare. If they come to conquer
+ you, they may be conquered by you; if they give no quarter, they are
+ entitled to none; if the death of your whole population be their purpose,
+ you may defeat it by exterminating theirs. This sufficiently answers the
+ silly talk of atheists and semi-atheists about the warlike wickedness of
+ the Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Mr. Ingersoll positively, and with the emphasis of supreme and
+ all-sufficient authority, declares that "a war of conquest is simply
+ murder." He sustains this proposition by no argument founded in principle.
+ He puts sentiment in place of law, and denounces aggressive fighting
+ because it is offensive to his "tender and refined soul;" the atrocity of
+ it is therefore proportioned to the sensibilities of his own heart. He
+ proves war a desperately wicked thing by continually vaunting his own love
+ for small children. Babes&mdash;sweet babes&mdash;the prattle of babes&mdash;are
+ the subjects of his most pathetic eloquence, and his idea of music is
+ embodied in the commonplace expression of a Hindu, that the lute is sweet
+ only to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children. All
+ this is very amiable in him, and the more so, perhaps, as these objects of
+ his affection are the young ones of a race in his opinion miscreated by an
+ evil-working chance. But his <i>philoprogenitiveness</i> proves nothing
+ against Jew or Gentile, seeing that all have it in an equal degree, and
+ those feel it most who make the least parade of it. Certainly it gives him
+ no authority to malign the God who implanted it alike in the hearts of us
+ all. But I admit that his benevolence becomes peculiar and ultra when it
+ extends to beasts as well as babes. He is struck with horror by the
+ sacrificial solemnities of the Jewish religion. "The killing of those
+ animals was," he says, "a terrible system," a "shedding of innocent
+ blood," "shocking to a refined and sensitive soul." There is such a depth
+ of tenderness in this feeling, and such a splendor of refinement, that I
+ give up without a struggle to the superiority of a man who merely
+ professes it. A carnivorous American, full of beef and mutton, who mourns
+ with indignant sorrow because bulls and goats were killed in Judea three
+ thousand years ago, has reached the climax of sentimental goodness, and
+ should be permitted to dictate on all questions of peace and war. Let
+ Grotius, Vattel, and Pufendorf, as well as Moses and the prophets, hide
+ their diminished heads.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But to show how inefficacious, for all practical purposes, a mere
+ sentiment is when substituted for a principle, it is only necessary to
+ recollect that Mr. Ingersoll is himself a warrior who staid not behind the
+ mighty men of his tribe when they gathered themselves together for a war
+ of conquest. He took the lead of a regiment as eager as himself to spoil
+ the Philistines, "and out he went a-coloneling." How many Amale-kites, and
+ Hittites, and Amorites he put to the edge of the sword, how many wives he
+ widowed, or how many mothers he "unbabed" cannot now be told. I do not
+ even know how many droves of innocent oxen he condemned to the slaughter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it is certain that his refined and tender soul took great pleasure in
+ the terror, conflagration, blood, and tears with which the war was
+ attended, and in all the hard oppressions which the conquered people were
+ made to suffer afterwards. I do not say that the war was either better or
+ worse for his participation and approval. But if his own conduct (for
+ which he professes neither penitence nor shame) was right, it was right on
+ grounds which make it an inexcusable outrage to call the children of
+ Israel savage criminals for carrying on wars of aggression to save the
+ life of their government. These inconsistencies are the necessary
+ consequence of having no rule of action and no guide for the conscience.
+ When a man throws away the golden metewand of the law which God has
+ provided, and takes the elastic cord of feeling for his measure of
+ righteousness, you cannot tell from day to day what he will think or do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>. But Jehovah permitted his chosen people to hold the captives
+ they took in war or purchased from the heathen as servants for life. This
+ was slavery, and Mr. Ingersoll declares that "in all civilized countries
+ it is not only admitted, but it is passionately asserted, that slavery is,
+ and always was, a hideous crime," therefore he concludes that Jehovah was
+ a criminal. This would be a <i>non sequitur</i>, even if the premises were
+ true. But the premises are false; civilized countries have admitted no
+ such thing. That slavery is a crime, under all circumstances and at all
+ times, is a doctrine first started by the adherents of a political faction
+ in this country, less than forty years ago. They denounced God and Christ
+ for not agreeing with them, in terms very similar to those used here by
+ Mr. Ingersoll. But they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were
+ they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it.
+ Politically, they were successful; I need not say by what means, or with
+ what effect upon the morals of the country. Doubtless Mr. Ingersoll gets a
+ great advantage by invoking their passions and their interests to his aid,
+ and he knows how to use it. I can only say that, whether American
+ Abolitionism was right or wrong under the circumstances in which we were
+ placed, my faith and my reason both assure me that the infallible God
+ proceeded upon good grounds when he authorized slavery in Judea.
+ Subordination of inferiors to superiors is the groundwork of human
+ society. All improvement of our race, in this world and the next, must
+ come from obedience to some master better and wiser than ourselves. There
+ can be no question that, when a Jew took a neighboring savage for his
+ bond-servant, incorporated him into his family, tamed him, taught him to
+ work, and gave him a knowledge of the true God, he conferred upon him a
+ most beneficent boon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth</i>. Polygamy is another of his objections to the Mosaic
+ constitution. Strange to say, it is not there. It is neither commanded nor
+ prohibited; it is only discouraged. If Mr. Ingersoll were a statesman
+ instead of a mere politician, he would see good and sufficient reasons for
+ the forbearance to legislate directly upon the subject. It would be
+ improper for me to set them forth here. He knows, probably, that the
+ influence of the Christian Church alone, and without the aid of state
+ enactments, has extirpated this bad feature of Asiatic manners wherever
+ its doctrines were carried. As the Christian faith prevails in any
+ community, in that proportion precisely marriage is consecrated to its
+ true purpose, and all intercourse between the sexes refined and purified.
+ Mr. Ingersoll got his own devotion to the principle of monogamy&mdash;his
+ own respect for the highest type of female character&mdash;his own belief
+ in the virtue of fidelity to one good wife&mdash;from the example and
+ precept of his Christian parents. I speak confidently, because these are
+ sentiments which do not grow in the heart of the natural man without being
+ planted. Why, then, does he throw polygamy into the face of the religion
+ which abhors it? Because he is nothing if not political. The Mormons
+ believe in polygamy, and the Mormons are unpopular. They are guilty of
+ having not only many wives but much property, and if a war could be hissed
+ up against them, its fruits might be more "gaynefull pilladge than wee doe
+ now conceyve of." It is a cunning maneuver, this, of strengthening atheism
+ by enlisting anti-Mormon rapacity against the God of the Christians. I can
+ only protest against the use he would make of these and other political
+ interests. It is not argument; it is mere stump oratory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think I have repelled all of Mr. Ingersoll's accusations against the Old
+ Testament that are worth noticing, and I might stop here. But I will not
+ close upon him without letting him see, at least, some part of the case on
+ the other side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not enumerate in detail the positive proofs which support the
+ authenticity of the Hebrew Bible, though they are at hand in great
+ abundance, because the evidence in support of the new dispensation will
+ establish the verity of the old&mdash;the two being so connected together
+ that if one is true the other cannot be false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Jesus of Nazareth announced himself to be Christ, the Son of God, in
+ Judea, many thousand persons who heard his words and saw his works
+ believed in his divinity without hesitation. Since the morning of the
+ creation, nothing has occurred so wonderful as the rapidity with which
+ this religion spread itself abroad. Men who were in the noon of life when
+ Jesus was put to death as a malefactor lived to see him worshiped as God
+ by organized bodies of believers in every province of the Roman empire. In
+ a few more years it took complete possession of the general mind,
+ supplanted all other religions, and wrought a radical change in human
+ society. It did this in the face of obstacles which, according to every
+ human calculation, were insurmountable. It was antagonized by all the evil
+ propensities, the sensual wickedness, and the vulgar crimes of the
+ multitude, as well as the polished vices of the luxurious classes; and was
+ most violently opposed even by those sentiments and habits of thought
+ which were esteemed virtuous, such as patriotism and military heroism. It
+ encountered not only the ignorance and superstition, but the learning and
+ philosophy, the poetry, eloquence, and art of the time. Barbarism and
+ civilization were alike its deadly enemies. The priesthood of every
+ established religion and the authority of every government were arrayed
+ against it. All these, combined together and roused to ferocious
+ hostility, were overcome, not by the enticing words of man's wisdom, but
+ by the simple presentation of a pure and peaceful doctrine, preached by
+ obscure strangers at the daily peril of their lives. Is it Mr. Ingersoll's
+ idea that this happened by chance, like the creation of the world? If not,
+ there are but two other ways to account for it; either the evidence by
+ which the Apostles were able to prove the supernatural origin of the
+ gospel was overwhelming and irresistible, or else its propagation was
+ provided for and carried on by the direct aid of the Divine Being himself.
+ Between these two, infidelity may make its own choice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just here another dilemma presents its horns to our adversary. If
+ Christianity was a human fabrication, its authors must have been either
+ good men or bad. It is a moral impossibility&mdash;a mere contradiction in
+ terms&mdash;to say that good, honest, and true men practised a gross and
+ willful deception upon the world. It is equally incredible that any
+ combination of knaves, however base, would fraudulently concoct a
+ religious system to denounce themselves, and to invoke the curse of God
+ upon their own conduct. Men that love lies, love not such lies as that. Is
+ there any way out of this difficulty, except by confessing that
+ Christianity is what it purports to be&mdash;a divine revelation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The acceptance of Christianity by a large portion of the generation
+ contemporary with its Founder and his apostles was, under the
+ circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal
+ intelligence could pronounce. The record of that judgment has come down to
+ us, accompanied by the depositions of the principal witnesses. In the
+ course of eighteen centuries many efforts have been made to open the
+ judgment or set it aside on the ground that the evidence was insufficient
+ to support it. But on every rehearing the wisdom and virtue of mankind
+ have re-affirmed it. And now comes Mr. Ingersoll, to try the experiment of
+ another bold, bitter, and fierce reargument. I will present some of the
+ considerations which would compel me, if I were a judge or juror in the
+ cause, to decide it just as it was decided originally.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. There is no good reason to doubt that the statements of the
+ evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine. The multiplication of
+ copies was a sufficient guarantee against any material alteration of the
+ text. Mr. Ingersoll speaks of interpolations made by the fathers of the
+ Church. All he knows and all he has ever heard on that subject is that
+ some of the innumerable transcripts contained errors which were discovered
+ and corrected. That simply proves the present integrity of the documents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. I call these statements <i>depositions</i>, because they
+ are entitled to that kind of credence which we give to declarations made
+ under oath&mdash;but in a much higher degree, for they are more than sworn
+ to. They were made in the immediate prospect of death. Perhaps this would
+ not affect the conscience of an atheist,&mdash;neither would an oath,&mdash;but
+ these people manifestly believed in a judgment after death, before a God
+ of truth, whose displeasure they feared above all things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>. The witnesses could not have been mistaken. The nature of
+ the facts precluded the possibility of any delusion about them. For every
+ averment they had "the sensible and true avouch of their own eyes" and
+ ears. Besides, they were plain-thinking, sober, unimaginative men, who,
+ unlike Mr. Ingersoll, always, under all circumstances, and especially in
+ the presence of eternity, recognized the difference between mountains and
+ clouds. It is inconceivable how any fact could be proven by evidence more
+ conclusive than the statement of such persons, publicly given and
+ steadfastly persisted in through every kind of persecution, imprisonment
+ and torture to the last agonies of a lingering death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth</i>. Apart from these terrible tests, the more ordinary claims
+ to credibility are not wanting. They were men of unimpeachable character.
+ The most virulent enemies of the cause they spoke and died for have never
+ suggested a reason for doubting their personal honesty. But there is
+ affirmative proof that they and their fellow-disciples were held by those
+ who knew them in the highest estimation for truthfulness. Wherever they
+ made their report it was not only believed, but believed with a faith so
+ implicit that thousands were ready at once to seal it with their blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fifth</i>. The tone and temper of their narrative impress us with a
+ sentiment of profound respect. It is an artless, unimpassioned, simple
+ story. No argument, no rhetoric, no epithets, no praises of friends, no
+ denunciation of enemies, no attempts at concealment. How strongly these
+ qualities commend the testimony of a witness to the confidence of judge
+ and jury is well known to all who have any experience in such matters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Sixth</i>. The statements made by the evangelists are alike upon every
+ important point, but are different in form and expression, some of them
+ including details which the others omit. These variations make it
+ perfectly certain that there could have been no previous concert between
+ the witnesses, and that each spoke independently of the others, according
+ to his own conscience and from his own knowledge. In considering the
+ testimony of several witnesses to the same transaction, their substantial
+ agreement upon the main facts, with circumstantial differences in the
+ detail, is always regarded as the great characteristic of truth and
+ honesty. There is no rule of evidence more universally adopted than this&mdash;none
+ better sustained by general experience, or more immovably fixed in the
+ good sense of mankind. Mr. Ingersoll, himself, admits the rule and
+ concedes its soundness. The logical consequence of that admission is that
+ we are bound to take this evidence as incontestably true. But mark the
+ infatuated perversity with which he seeks to evade it. He says that when
+ we claim that the witnesses were inspired, the rule does not apply,
+ because the witnesses then speak what is known to him who inspired them,
+ and all must speak exactly the same, even to the minutest detail. Mr.
+ Ingersoll's notion of an inspired witness is that he is no witness at all,
+ but an irresponsible medium who unconsciously and involuntarily raps out
+ or writes down whatever he is prompted to say. But this is a false
+ assumption, not countenanced or even suggested by anything contained in
+ the Scriptures. The apostles and evangelists are expressly declared to be
+ witnesses, in the proper sense of the word, called and sent to testify the
+ truth according to their knowledge. If they had all told the same story in
+ the same way, without variation, and accounted for its uniformity by
+ declaring that they were inspired, and had spoken without knowing whether
+ their words were true or false, where would have been their claim to
+ credibility? But they testified what they knew; and here comes an infidel
+ critic impugning their testimony because the impress of truth is stamped
+ upon its face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Seventh</i>. It does not appear that the statements of the evangelists
+ were ever denied by any person who pretended to know the facts. Many there
+ were in that age and afterward who resisted the belief that Jesus was the
+ Christ, the Son of God, and only Saviour of man; but his wonderful works,
+ the miraculous purity of his life, the unapproachable loftiness of his
+ doctrines, his trial and condemnation by a judge who pronounced him
+ innocent, his patient suffering, his death on the cross, and resurrection
+ from the grave,&mdash;of these not the faintest contradiction was
+ attempted, if we except the false and feeble story which the elders and
+ chief priests bribed the guard at the tomb to put in circulation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Eighth</i>. What we call the fundamental truths of Christianity consist
+ of great public events which are sufficiently established by history
+ without special proof. The value of mere historical evidence increases
+ according to the importance of the facts in question, their general
+ notoriety, and the magnitude of their visible consequences. Cornwallis
+ surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, and changed the destiny of Europe
+ and America. Nobody would think of calling a witness or even citing an
+ official report to prove it. Julius Caesar was assassinated. We do not
+ need to prove that fact like an ordinary murder. He was master of the
+ world, and his death was followed by a war with the conspirators, the
+ battle at Philippi, the quarrel of the victorious triumvirs, Actium, and
+ the permanent establishment of imperial government under Augustus. The
+ life and character, the death and resurrection, of Jesus are just as
+ visibly connected with events which even an infidel must admit to be of
+ equal importance. The Church rose and armed herself in righteousness for
+ conflict with the powers of darkness; innumerable multitudes of the best
+ and wisest rallied to her standard and died in her cause; her enemies
+ employed the coarse and vulgar machinery of human government against her,
+ and her professors were brutally murdered in large numbers, her triumph
+ was complete; the gods of Greece and Rome crumbled on their altars; the
+ world was revolutionized and human society was transformed. The course of
+ these events, and a thousand others, which reach down to the present hour,
+ received its first propulsion from the transcendent fact of Christ's
+ crucifixion. Moreover, we find the memorial monuments of the original
+ truth planted all along the way. The sacraments of baptism and the supper
+ constantly point us back to the author and finisher of our faith. The mere
+ historical evidence is for these reasons much stronger than what we have
+ for other occurrences which are regarded as undeniable. When to this is
+ added the cumulative evidence given directly and positively by
+ eye-witnesses of irreproachable character, and wholly uncontradicted, the
+ proof becomes so strong that the disbelief we hear of seems like a kind of
+ insanity.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "It is the very error of the moon,
+ Which comes more near the earth than she was wont,
+ And makes men mad!"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ From the facts established by this evidence, it follows irresistibly that
+ the Gospel has come to us from God. That silences all reasoning about the
+ wisdom and justice of its doctrines, since it is impossible, even to
+ imagine that wrong can be done or commanded by that Sovereign Being whose
+ will alone is the ultimate standard of all justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Mr. Ingersoll is still dissatisfied. He raises objections as false,
+ fleeting, and baseless as clouds, and insists that they are as stable as
+ the mountains, whose everlasting foundations are laid by the hand of the
+ Almighty. I will compress his propositions into plain words printed in <i>italics</i>,
+ and, taking a look at his misty creations, let them roll away and vanish
+ into air, one after another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Christianity offers eternal salvation as the reward of belief alone</i>.
+ This is a misrepresentation simple and naked. No such doctrine is
+ propounded in the Scriptures, or in the creed of any Christian church. On
+ the contrary, it is distinctly taught that faith avails nothing without
+ repentance, reformation, and newness of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The mere failure to believe it is punished in hell</i>. I have never
+ known any Christian man or woman to assert this. It is universally agreed
+ that children too young to understand it do not need to believe it. And
+ this exemption extends to adults who have never seen the evidence, or,
+ from weakness of intellect, are incapable of weighing it. Lunatics and
+ idiots are not in the least danger, and for aught I know, this category
+ may, by a stretch of God's mercy, include minds constitutionally sound,
+ but with faculties so perverted by education, habit, or passion that they
+ are incapable of reasoning. I sincerely hope that, upon this or some other
+ principle, Mr. Ingersoll may escape the hell he talks about so much. But
+ there is no direct promise to save him in spite of himself. The plan of
+ redemption contains no express covenant to pardon one who rejects it with
+ scorn and hatred. Our hope for him rests upon the infinite compassion of
+ that gracious Being who prayed on the cross for the insulting enemies who
+ nailed him there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The mystery of the second birth is incomprehensible</i>. Christ
+ established a new kingdom in the world, but not of it. Subjects were
+ admitted to the privileges and protection of its government by a process
+ equivalent to naturalization. To be born again, or regenerated is to be
+ naturalized. The words all mean the same thing. Does Mr. Ingersoll want to
+ disgrace his own intellect by pretending that he cannot see this simple
+ analogy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The doctrine of the atonement is absurd, unjust, and immoral</i>. The
+ plan of salvation, or any plan for the rescue of sinners from the legal
+ operation of divine justice, could have been framed only in the councils
+ of the Omniscient. Necessarily its heights and depths are not easily
+ fathomed by finite intelligence. But the greatest, ablest, wisest, and
+ most virtuous men that ever lived have given it their profoundest
+ consideration, and found it to be not only authorized by revelation, but
+ theoretically conformed to their best and highest conceptions of infinite
+ goodness. Nevertheless, here is a rash and superficial man, without
+ training or habits of reflection, who, upon a mere glance, declares that
+ it "must be abandoned," because it <i>seems to him</i> "absurd, unjust,
+ and immoral." I would not abridge his freedom of thought or speech, and
+ the <i>argumentum ad verecundiam</i> would be lost upon him. Otherwise I
+ might suggest that, when he finds all authority, human and divine, against
+ him, he had better speak in a tone less arrogant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>He does not comprehend how justice and mercy can be blended together in
+ the plan of redemption, and therefore it cannot be true</i>. A thing is
+ not necessarily false because he does not understand it: he cannot
+ annihilate a principle or a fact by ignoring it. There are many truths in
+ heaven and earth which no man can see through; for instance, the union of
+ man's soul with his body, is not only an unknowable but an unimaginable
+ mystery. Is it therefore false that a connection does exist between matter
+ and spirit?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>How, he asks, can the sufferings of an innocent person satisfy justice
+ for the sins of the guilty?</i> This raises a metaphysical question, which
+ it is not necessary or possible for me to discuss here. As matter of fact,
+ Christ died that sinners might be reconciled to God, and in that sense he
+ died for them; that is, to furnish them with the means of averting divine
+ justice, which their crimes had provoked..
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>What, he again asks, would we think of a man who allowed another to die
+ for a crime which he himself had committed?</i> I answer that a man who,
+ by any contrivance, causes his own offence to be visited upon the head of
+ an innocent person is unspeakably depraved. But are Christians guilty of
+ this baseness because they accept the blessings of an institution which
+ their great benefactor died to establish? Loyalty to the King who has
+ erected a most beneficent government for us at the cost of his life&mdash;fidelity
+ to the Master who bought us with his blood&mdash;is not the fraudulent
+ substitution of an innocent person in place of a criminal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The doctrine of non-resistance, forgiveness of injuries, reconciliation
+ with enemies, as taught in the New Testament, is the child of weakness,
+ degrading and unjust</i>. This is the whole substance of a long, rambling
+ diatribe, as incoherent as a sick man's dream. Christianity does not
+ forbid the necessary defense of civil society, or the proper vindication
+ of personal rights. But to cherish animosity, to thirst for mere revenge,
+ to hoard up wrongs, real or fancied, and lie in wait for the chance of
+ paying them back; to be impatient, unforgiving, malicious, and cruel to
+ all who have crossed us&mdash;these diabolical propensities are checked
+ and curbed by the authority and spirit of the Christian religion, and the
+ application of it has converted men from low savages into refined and
+ civilized beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The punishment of sinners in eternal hell is excessive</i>. The future
+ of the soul is a subject on which we have very dark views. In our present
+ state, the mind takes no idea except what is conveyed to it through the
+ bodily senses. All our conceptions of the spiritual world are derived from
+ some analogy to material things, and this analogy must necessarily be very
+ remote, because the nature of the subjects compared is so diverse that a
+ close similarity cannot be even supposed. No revelation has lifted the
+ veil between time and eternity; but in shadowy figures we are warned that
+ a very marked distinction will be made between the good and the bad in the
+ next world. Speculative opinions concerning the punishment of the wicked,
+ its nature and duration, vary with the temper and the imaginations of men.
+ Doubtless we are many of us in error; but how can Mr. Ingersoll enlighten
+ us? Acknowledge ing no standard of right and wrong in this world, he can
+ have no theory of rewards and punishments in the next. The deeds done in
+ the body, whether good or evil, are all morally alike in his eyes, and if
+ there be in heaven a congregation of the just, he sees no reason why the
+ worst rogue should not be a member of it. It is supposed, however, that
+ man has a soul as well as a body, and that both are subject to certain
+ laws, which cannot be violated without incurring the proper penalty&mdash;or
+ consequence, if he likes that word better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>If Christ was God, he knew that his followers would persecute and
+ murder men for their opinions; yet he did not forbid it</i>. There is but
+ one way to deal with this accusation, and that is to contradict it flatly.
+ Nothing can be conceived more striking than the prohibition, not only of
+ persecution, but of all the passions which lead or incite to it. No
+ follower of Christ indulges in malice even to his enemy without violating
+ the plainest rule of his faith. He cannot love God and hate his brother:
+ if he says he can, St. John pronounces him a liar. The broadest
+ benevolence, universal philanthropy, inexhaustible charity, are inculcated
+ in every line of the New Testament. It is plain that Mr. Ingersoll never
+ read a chapter of it; otherwise he would not have ventured upon this
+ palpable falsification of its doctrines. Who told him that the devilish
+ spirit of persecution was authorized, or encouraged, or not forbidden, by
+ the Gospel? The person, whoever it was, who imposed upon his trusting
+ ignorance should be given up to the just reprobation of his
+ fellow-citizens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Christians in modern times carry on wars of detraction and slander
+ against one another</i>. The discussions of theological subjects by men
+ who believe in the fundamental doctrines of Christ are singularly free
+ from harshness and abuse. Of course I cannot speak with absolute
+ certainty, but I believe most confidently that there is not in all the
+ religious polemics of this century as much slanderous invective as can be
+ found in any ten lines of Mr. Ingersoll's writings. Of course I do not
+ include political preachers among my models of charity and forbearance.
+ They are a mendacious set, but Christianity is no more responsible for
+ their misconduct than it is for the treachery of Judas Iscariot or the
+ wrongs done to Paul by Alexander the coppersmith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>But, says he, Christians have been guilty of wanton and wicked
+ Persecution</i>. It is true that some persons, professing Christianity,
+ have violated the fundamental principles of their faith by inflicting
+ violent injuries and bloody wrongs upon their fellow-men. But the
+ perpetrators of these outrages were in fact not Christians: they were
+ either hypocrites from the beginning or else base apostates&mdash;infidels
+ or something worse&mdash;hireling wolves, whose gospel was their maw. Not
+ one of them ever pretended to find a warrant for his conduct in any
+ precept of Christ or any doctrine of his Church. All the wrongs of this
+ nature which history records have been the work of politicians, aided
+ often by priests and ministers who were willing to deny their Lord and
+ desert to the enemy, for the sake of their temporal interests. Take the
+ cases most commonly cited and see if this be not a true account of them.
+ The <i>auto da f&eacute;</i> of Spain and Portugal, the burnings at
+ Smithfield, and the whipping of women in Massachusetts, were the outcome
+ of a cruel, false, and antichristian policy. Coligny and his adherents
+ were killed by an order of Charles IX., at the instance of the Guises, who
+ headed a hostile faction, and merely for reasons of state. Louis XIV.
+ revoked the edict of Nantes, and banished the Waldenses under pain of
+ confiscation and death; but this was done on the declared ground that the
+ victims were not safe subjects. The brutal atrocities of Cromwell and the
+ outrages of the Orange lodges against the Irish Catholics were not
+ persecutions by religious people, but movements as purely political as
+ those of the Know-Nothings, Plug-Uglys, and Blood-Tubs of this country. If
+ the Gospel should be blamed for these acts in opposition to its
+ principles, why not also charge it with the cruelties of Nero, or the
+ present persecution of the Jesuits by the infidel republic of France?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Christianity is opposed to freedom of thought</i>. The kingdom of
+ Christ is based upon certain principles, to which it requires the assent
+ of every one who would enter therein. If you are unwilling to own his
+ authority and conform your moral conduct to his laws, you cannot expect
+ that he will admit you to the privileges of his government. But
+ naturalization is not forced upon you if you prefer to be an alien. The
+ Gospel makes the strongest and tenderest appeal to the heart, reason, and
+ conscience of man&mdash;entreats him to take thought for his own highest
+ interest, and by all its moral influence provokes him to good works; but
+ he is not constrained by any kind of duress to leave the service or
+ relinquish the wages of sin. Is there anything that savors of tyranny in
+ this? A man of ordinary judgment will say, no. But Mr. Ingersoll thinks it
+ as oppressive as the refusal of Jehovah to reward the worship of demons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The gospel of Christ does not satisfy the hunger of the heart</i>. That
+ depends upon what kind of a heart it is. If it hungers after
+ righteousness, it will surely be filled. It is probable, also, that if it
+ hungers for the filthy food of a godless philosophy it will get what its
+ appetite demands. That was an expressive phrase which Carlyle used when he
+ called modern infidelity "the gospel of dirt." Those who are greedy to
+ swallow it will doubless be supplied satisfactorily.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Accounts of miracles are always false</i>. Are miracles impossible? No
+ one will say so who opens his eyes to the miracles of creation with which
+ we are surrounded on every hand. You cannot even show that they are <i>a
+ priori</i> improbable. God would be likely to reveal his will to the
+ rational creatures who were required to obey it; he would authenticate in
+ some way the right of prophets and apostles to speak in his name;
+ supernatural power was the broad seal which he affixed to their
+ commission. From this it follows that the improbability of a miracle is no
+ greater than the original improbability of a revelation, and that is not
+ improbable at all. Therefore, if the miracles of the New Testament are
+ proved by sufficient evidence, we believe them as we believe any other
+ established fact. They become deniable only when it is shown that the
+ great miracle of making the world was never performed. Accordingly Mr.
+ Ingersoll abolishes creation first, and thus clears the way to his
+ dogmatic conclusion that <i>all</i> miracles are "the children of
+ mendacity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Christianity is pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the mind,
+ narrows the soul, arrests the progress of human society, and hinders
+ civilization</i>. Mr. Ingersoll, as a zealous apostle of "the gospel of
+ dirt," must be expected to throw a good deal of mud. But this is too much:
+ it injures himself instead of defiling the object of his assault. When I
+ answer that all we have of virtue, justice, intellectual liberty, moral
+ elevation, refinement, benevolence, and true wisdom came to us from that
+ source which he reviles as the fountain of evil, I am not merely putting
+ one assertion against the other; for I have the advantage, which he has
+ not, of speaking what every tolerably well-informed man knows to be true.
+ Reflect what kind of a world this was when the disciples of Christ
+ undertook to reform it, and compare it with the condition in which their
+ teachings have put it. In its mighty metropolis, the center of its
+ intellectual and political power, the best men were addicted to vices so
+ debasing that I could not even allude to them without soiling the paper I
+ write upon. All manner of unprincipled wickedness was practiced in the
+ private life of the whole population without concealment or shame, and the
+ magistrates were thoroughly and universally corrupt. Benevolence in any
+ shape was altogether unknown. The helpless and the weak got neither
+ justice nor mercy. There was no relief for the poor, no succor for the
+ sick, no refuge for the unfortunate. In all pagandom there was not a
+ hospital, asylum, almshouse, or organized charity of any sort. The
+ indifference to human life was literally frightful. The order of a
+ successful leader to assassinate his opponents was always obeyed by his
+ followers with the utmost alacrity and pleasure. It was a special
+ amusement of the populace to witness the shows at which men were compelled
+ to kill one another, to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, or otherwise
+ "butchered, to make a Roman holiday." In every province paganism enacted
+ the same cold-blooded cruelties; oppression and robbery ruled supreme;
+ murder went rampaging and red over all the earth. The Church came, and her
+ light penetrated this moral darkness like a new sun. She covered the globe
+ with institutions of mercy, and thousands upon thousands of her disciples
+ devoted themselves exclusively to works of charity at the sacrifice of
+ every earthly interest. Her earliest adherents were killed without remorse&mdash;beheaded,
+ crucified, sawn asunder, thrown to the beasts, or covered with pitch,
+ piled up in great heaps, and slowly burnt to death. But her faith was made
+ perfect through suffering, and the law of love rose in triumph from the
+ ashes of her martyrs. This religion has come down to us through the ages,
+ attended all the way by righteousness, justice, temperance, mercy,
+ transparent truthfulness, exulting hope, and white-winged charity. Never
+ was its influence for good more plainly perceptible than now. It has not
+ converted, purified, and reformed all men, for its first principle is the
+ freedom of the human will, and there are those who choose to reject it.
+ But to the mass of mankind, directly and indirectly, it has brought
+ uncounted benefits and blessings. Abolish it&mdash;take away the
+ restraints which it imposes on evil passions&mdash;silence the admonitions
+ of its preachers&mdash;let all Christians cease their labors of charity&mdash;blot
+ out from history the records of its heroic benevolence&mdash;repeal the
+ laws it has enacted and the institutions it has built up&mdash;let its
+ moral principles be abandoned and all its miracles of light be
+ extinguished&mdash;what would we come to? I need not answer this question:
+ the experiment has been partially tried. The French nation formally
+ renounced Christianity, denied the existence of the Supreme Being, and so
+ satisfied the hunger of the infidel heart for a time. What followed?
+ Universal depravity, garments rolled in blood, fantastic crimes unimagined
+ before, which startled the earth with their sublime atrocity. The American
+ people have and ought to have no special desire to follow that terrible
+ example of guilt and misery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to discuss this subject within the limits of a review. No
+ doubt the effort to be short has made me obscure. If Mr. Ingersoll thinks
+ himself wronged, or his doctrines misconstrued, let him not lay my fault
+ at the door of the Church, or cast his censure on the clergy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ J. S. Black.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do, in
+ order to become acceptable to God, is mere superstition and religious
+ folly." Kant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do, in
+ order to become acceptable to God, is mere superstition and religious
+ folly." Kant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SEVERAL months ago, The North American Review asked me to write an
+ article, saying that it would be published if some one would furnish a
+ reply. I wrote the article that appeared in the August number, and by me
+ it was entitled "Is All of the Bible Inspired?" Not until the article was
+ written did I know who was expected to answer. I make this explanation for
+ the purpose of dissipating the impression that Mr. Black had been
+ challenged by me. To have struck his shield with my lance might have given
+ birth to the impression that I was somewhat doubtful as to the correctness
+ of my position. I naturally expected an answer from some professional
+ theologian, and was surprised to find that a reply had been written by a
+ "policeman," who imagined that he had answered my arguments by simply
+ telling me that my statements were false. It is somewhat unfortunate that
+ in a discussion like this any one should resort to the slightest personal
+ detraction. The theme is great enough to engage the highest faculties of
+ the human mind, and in the investigation of such a subject vituperation is
+ singularly and vulgarly out of place. Arguments cannot be answered with
+ insults. It is unfortunate that the intellectual arena should be entered
+ by a "policeman," who has more confidence in concussion than discussion.
+ Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good
+ health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind.
+ In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be
+ serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of
+ arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice.
+ Candor is the courage of the soul. Leaving the objectionable portions of
+ Mr. Black's reply, feeling that so grand a subject should not be blown and
+ tainted with malicious words, I proceed to answer as best I may the
+ arguments he has urged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am made to say that "the universe is 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did say that "the universe is natural," but I did not say that "it came
+ into being of its own accord"; neither did I say that "it made its own
+ laws and afterward improved itself." The universe, according to my idea,
+ is, always was, and forever will be. It did not "come into being," it is
+ the one eternal being,&mdash;the only thing that ever did, does, or can
+ exist. It did not "make its own laws." We know nothing of what we call the
+ laws of nature except as we gather the idea of law from the uniformity of
+ phenomena springing from like conditions. To make myself clear: Water
+ always runs down-hill. The theist says that this happens because there is
+ behind the phenomenon an active law. As a matter of fact, law is this side
+ of the phenomenon. Law does not cause the phenomenon, but the phenomenon
+ causes the idea of law in our minds; and this idea is produced from the
+ fact that under like circumstances the same phenomenon always happens. Mr.
+ Black probably thinks that the difference in the weight of rocks and
+ clouds was created by law; that parallel lines fail to unite only because
+ it is illegal that diameter and circumference could have been so made that
+ it would be a greater distance across than around a circle; that a
+ straight line could enclose a triangle if not prevented by law, and that a
+ little legislation could make it possible for two bodies to occupy the
+ same space at the same time. It seems to me that law cannot be the cause
+ of phenomena, but is an effect produced in our minds by their succession
+ and resemblance. To put a God back of the universe, compels us to admit
+ that there was a time when nothing existed except this God; that this God
+ had lived from eternity in an infinite vacuum, and in absolute idleness.
+ The mind of every thoughtful man is forced to one of these two
+ conclusions: either that the universe is self-existent, or that it was
+ created by a self-existent being. To my mind, there are far more
+ difficulties in the second hypothesis than in the first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, upon a question like this, nothing can be absolutely known. We
+ live on an atom called Earth, and what we know of the infinite is almost
+ infinitely limited; but, little as we know, all have an equal right to
+ give their honest thought. Life is a shadowy, strange, and winding road on
+ which we travel for a little way&mdash;a few short steps&mdash;-just from
+ the cradle, with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet way-side inn,
+ where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is&mdash;Good-night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know as little as any one else about the "plan" of the universe; and as
+ to the "design," I know just as little. It will not do to say that the
+ universe was designed, and therefore there must be a designer. There must
+ first be proof that it was "designed." It will not do to say that the
+ universe has a "plan," and then assert that there must have been an
+ infinite maker. The idea that a design must have a beginning and that a
+ designer need not, is a simple expression of human ignorance. We find a
+ watch, and we say: "So curious and wonderful a thing must have had a
+ maker." We find the watch-maker, and we say: "So curious and wonderful a
+ thing as man must have had a maker." We find God, and we then say: "He is
+ so wonderful that he must <i>not</i> have had a maker." In other words,
+ all things a little wonderful must have been created, but it is possible
+ for something to be so wonderful that it always existed. One would suppose
+ that just as the wonder increased the necessity for a creator increased,
+ because it is the wonder of the thing that suggests the idea of creation.
+ Is it possible that a designer exists from all eternity without design?
+ Was there no design in having an infinite designer? For me, it is hard to
+ see the plan or design in earthquakes and pestilences. It is somewhat
+ difficult to discern the design or the benevolence in so making the world
+ that billions of animals live only on the agonies of others. The justice
+ of God is not visible to me in the history of this world. When I think of
+ the suffering and death, of the poverty and crime, of the cruelty and
+ malice, of the heartlessness of this "design" and "plan," where beak and
+ claw and tooth tear and rend the quivering flesh of weakness and despair,
+ I cannot convince myself that it is the result of infinite wisdom,
+ benevolence, and justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most Christians have seen and recognized this difficulty, and have
+ endeavored to avoid it by giving God an opportunity in another world to
+ rectify the seeming mistakes of this. Mr. Black, however, avoids the
+ entire question by saying: "We have neither jurisdiction nor capacity to
+ rejudge the justice of God." In other words, we have no right to think
+ upon this subject, no right to examine the questions most vitally
+ affecting human kind. We are simply to accept the ignorant statements of
+ barbarian dead. This question cannot be settled by saying that "it would
+ be a mere waste of time and space to enumerate the proofs which show that
+ the Universe was created by a preexistent and self-conscious Being." The
+ time and space should have been "wasted," and the proofs should have been
+ enumerated. These "proofs" are what the wisest and greatest are trying to
+ find. Logic is not satisfied with assertion. It cares nothing for the
+ opinions of the "great,"&mdash;nothing for the prejudices of the many, and
+ least of all for the superstitions of the dead. In the world of Science, a
+ fact is a legal tender. Assertions and miracles are base and spurious
+ coins. We have the right to rejudge the justice even of a god. No one
+ should throw away his reason&mdash;the fruit of all experience. It is the
+ intellectual capital of the soul, the only light, the only guide, and
+ without it the brain becomes the palace of an idiot king, attended by a
+ retinue of thieves and hypocrites.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course it is admitted that most of the Ten Commandments are wise and
+ just. In passing, it may be well enough to say, that the commandment,
+ "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of
+ anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that
+ is in the water under the earth," was the absolute death of Art, and that
+ not until after the destruction of Jerusalem was there a Hebrew painter or
+ sculptor. Surely a commandment is not inspired that drives from the earth
+ the living canvas and the breathing stone&mdash;leaves all walls bare and
+ all the niches desolate. In the tenth commandment we find woman placed on
+ an exact equality with other property, which, to say the least of it, has
+ never tended to the amelioration of her condition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A very curious thing about these commandments is that their supposed
+ author violated nearly every one. From Sinai, according to the account, he
+ said: "Thou shalt not kill," and yet he ordered the murder of millions;
+ "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and yet he gave captured maidens to
+ gratify the lust of captors; "Thou shalt not steal," and yet he gave to
+ Jewish marauders the flocks and herds of others; "Thou shalt not covet thy
+ neighbor's house, nor his wife," and yet he allowed his chosen people to
+ destroy the homes of neighbors and to steal their wives; "Honor thy father
+ and thy mother," and yet this same God had thousands of fathers butchered,
+ and with the sword of war killed children yet unborn; "Thou shalt not bear
+ false witness against thy neighbor," and yet he sent abroad "lying
+ spirits" to deceive his own prophets, and in a hundred ways paid tribute
+ to deceit. So far as we know, Jehovah kept only one of these commandments&mdash;he
+ worshiped no other god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religious intolerance of the Old Testament is justified upon the
+ ground that "blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance," that
+ "idolatry was an act of overt treason," and that "to worship the gods of
+ the hostile heathen was deserting to the public enemy, and giving him aid
+ and comfort." According to Mr. Black, we should all have liberty of
+ conscience except when directly governed by God. In that country where God
+ is king, liberty cannot exist. In this position, I admit that he is upheld
+ and fortified by the "sacred" text. Within the Old Testament there is no
+ such thing as religious toleration. Within that volume can be found no
+ mercy for an unbeliever. For all who think for themselves, there are
+ threatenings, curses, and anathemas. Think of an infinite being who is so
+ cruel, so unjust, that he will not allow one of his own children the
+ liberty of thought! Think of an infinite God acting as the direct governor
+ of a people, and yet not able to command their love! Think of the author
+ of all mercy imbruing his hands in the blood of helpless men, women, and
+ children, simply because he did not furnish them with intelligence enough
+ to understand his law! An earthly father who cannot govern by affection is
+ not fit to be a father; what, then, shall we say of an infinite being who
+ resorts to violence, to pestilence, to disease, and famine, in the vain
+ effort to obtain even the respect of a savage? Read this passage, red from
+ the heart of cruelty:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or
+ the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice
+ thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods which thou hast not
+ known, thou nor thy fathers,... thou shalt not consent unto him, nor
+ hearken unto him, neither shalt thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou
+ spare, neither shalt thou conceal him, but thou shalt surely kill him;
+ thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the
+ hand of all the people; and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the religious liberty of the Bible. If you had lived in Palestine,
+ and if the wife of your bosom, dearer to you than your own soul, had said:
+ "I like the religion of India better than that of Palestine," it would
+ have been your duty to kill her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Your eye must not pity her, your hand must be first upon her, and
+ afterwards the hand of all the people." If she had said: "Let us worship
+ the sun&mdash;the sun that clothes the earth in garments of green&mdash;the
+ sun, the great fireside of the world&mdash;the sun that covers the hills
+ and valleys with flowers&mdash;that gave me your face, and made it
+ possible for me to look into the eyes of my babe&mdash;let us worship the
+ sun," it was your duty to kill her. You must throw the first stone, and
+ when against her bosom&mdash;a bosom filled with love for you&mdash;you
+ had thrown the jagged and cruel rock, and had seen the red stream of her
+ life oozing from the dumb lips of death, you could then look up and
+ receive the congratulations of the God whose commandment you had obeyed.
+ Is it possible that a being of infinite mercy ordered a husband to kill
+ his wife for the crime of having expressed an opinion on the subject of
+ religion? Has there been found upon the records of the savage world
+ anything more perfectly fiendish than this commandment of Jehovah? This is
+ justified on the ground that "blasphemy was a breach of political
+ allegiance, and idolatry an act of overt treason." We can understand how a
+ human king stands in need of the service of his people. We can understand
+ how the desertion of any of his soldiers weakens his army; but were the
+ king infinite in power, his strength would still remain the same, and
+ under no conceivable circumstances could the enemy triumph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insist that, if there is an infinitely good and wise God, he beholds
+ with pity the misfortunes of his children. I insist that such a God would
+ know the mists, the clouds, the darkness enveloping the human mind. He
+ would know how few stars are visible in the intellectual sky. His pity,
+ not his wrath, would be excited by the efforts of his blind children,
+ groping in the night to find the cause of things, and endeavoring, through
+ their tears, to see some dawn of hope. Filled with awe by their
+ surroundings, by fear of the unknown, he would know that when, kneeling,
+ they poured out their gratitude to some unseen power, even to a visible
+ idol, it was, in fact, intended for him. An infinitely good being, had he
+ the power, would answer the reasonable prayer of an honest savage, even
+ when addressed to wood and stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The atrocities of the Old Testament, the threatenings, maledictions, and
+ curses of the "inspired book," are defended on the ground that the Jews
+ had a right to treat their enemies as their enemies treated them; and in
+ this connection is this remarkable statement: "In your treatment of
+ hostile barbarians you not only may lawfully, you must necessarily, adopt
+ their mode of warfare. If they come to conquer you, they may be conquered
+ by you; if they give no quarter, they are entitled to none; if the death
+ of your whole population be their purpose, you may defeat it by
+ exterminating theirs."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a man who is a "Christian policeman," and has taken upon himself to
+ defend the Christian religion; for one who follows the Master who said
+ that when smitten on one cheek you must turn the other, and who again and
+ again enforced the idea that you must overcome evil with good, it is
+ hardly consistent to declare that a civilized nation must of necessity
+ adopt the warfare of savages. Is it possible that in fighting, for
+ instance, the Indians of America, if they scalp our soldiers we should
+ scalp theirs? If they ravish, murder, and mutilate our wives, must we
+ treat theirs in the same manner? If they kill the babes in our cradles,
+ must we brain theirs? If they take our captives, bind them to the trees,
+ and if their squaws fill their quivering flesh with sharpened fagots and
+ set them on fire, that they may die clothed with flame, must our wives,
+ our mothers, and our daughters follow the fiendish example? Is this the
+ conclusion of the most enlightened Christianity? Will the pulpits of the
+ United States adopt the arguments of this "policeman"? Is this the last
+ and most beautiful blossom of the Sermon on the Mount? Is this the echo of
+ "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black justifies the wars of extermination and conquest because the
+ American people fought for the integrity of their own country; fought to
+ do away with the infamous institution of slavery; fought to preserve the
+ jewels of liberty and justice for themselves and for their children. Is it
+ possible that his mind is so clouded by political and religious prejudice,
+ by the recollections of an unfortunate administration, that he sees no
+ difference between a war of extermination and one of self-preservation?
+ that he sees no choice between the murder of helpless age, of weeping
+ women and of sleeping babes, and the defence of liberty and nationality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soldiers of the Republic did not wage a war of extermination. They did
+ not seek to enslave their fellow-men. They did not murder trembling age.
+ They did not sheathe their swords in women's breasts. They gave the old
+ men bread, and let the mothers rock their babes in peace. They fought to
+ save the world's great hope&mdash;to free a race and put the humblest hut
+ beneath the canopy of liberty and law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Claiming neither praise nor dispraise for the part taken by me in the
+ Civil war, for the purposes of this argument, it is sufficient to say that
+ I am perfectly willing that my record, poor and barren as it is, should be
+ compared with his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Never for an instant did I suppose that any respectable American citizen
+ could be found willing at this day to defend the institution of slavery;
+ and never was I more astonished than when I found Mr. Black denying that
+ civilized countries passionately assert that slavery is and always was a
+ hideous crime. I was amazed when he declared that "the doctrine that
+ slavery is a crime under all circumstances and at all times was first
+ started by the adherents of a political faction in this country less than
+ forty years ago." He tells us that "they denounced God and Christ for not
+ agreeing with them," but that "they did not constitute the civilized
+ world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very respectable
+ portion of it. Politically they were successful; I need not say by what
+ means, or with what effect upon the morals of the country."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slavery held both branches of Congress, filled the chair of the Executive,
+ sat upon the Supreme Bench, had in its hands all rewards, all offices;
+ knelt in the pew, occupied the pulpit, stole human beings in the name of
+ God, robbed the trundle-bed for love of Christ; incited mobs, led
+ ignorance, ruled colleges, sat in the chairs of professors, dominated the
+ public press, closed the lips of free speech, and polluted with its
+ leprous hand every source and spring of power. The abolitionists attacked
+ this monster. They were the bravest, grandest men of their country and
+ their century. Denounced by thieves, hated by hypocrites, mobbed by
+ cowards, slandered by priests, shunned by politicians, abhorred by the
+ seekers of office,&mdash;these men "of whom the world was not worthy," in
+ spite of all opposition, in spite of poverty and want, conquered
+ innumerable obstacles, never faltering for one moment, never dismayed&mdash;accepting
+ defeat with a smile born of infinite hope&mdash;knowing that they were
+ right&mdash;insisted and persisted until every chain was broken, until
+ slave-pens became schoolhouses, and three millions of slaves became free
+ men, women, and children. They did not measure with "the golden metewand
+ of God," but with "the elastic cord of human feeling." They were men the
+ latchets of whose shoes no believer in human slavery was ever worthy to
+ unloose. And yet we are told by this modern defender of the slavery of
+ Jehovah that they were not even respectable; and this slander is justified
+ because the writer is assured "that the infallible God proceeded upon good
+ grounds when he authorized slavery in Judea."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not satisfied with having slavery in this world, Mr. Black assures us that
+ it will last through all eternity, and that forever and forever inferiors
+ must be subordinated to superiors. Who is the superior man? According to
+ Mr. Black, he is superior who lives upon the unpaid labor of the inferior.
+ With me, the superior man is the one who uses his superiority in bettering
+ the condition of the inferior. The superior man is strength for the weak,
+ eyes for the blind, brains for the simple; he is the one who helps carry
+ the burden that nature has put upon the inferior. Any man who helps
+ another to gain and retain his liberty is superior to any infallible God
+ who authorized slavery in Judea. For my part, I would rather be the slave
+ than the master. It is better to be robbed than to be a robber. I had
+ rather be stolen from than to be a thief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Mr. Black, there will be slavery in heaven, and fast by the
+ throne of God will be the auction-block, and the streets of the New
+ Jerusalem will be adorned with the whipping post, while the music of the
+ harp will be supplemented by the crack of the driver's whip. If some good
+ Republican would catch Mr. Black, "incorporate him into his family, tame
+ him, teach him to think, and give him a knowledge of the true principles
+ of human liberty and government, he would confer upon him a most
+ beneficent boon."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slavery includes all other crimes. It is the joint product of the
+ kidnapper, pirate, thief, murderer, and hypocrite. It degrades labor and
+ corrupts leisure. To lacerate the naked back, to sell wives, to steal
+ babes, to breed bloodhounds, to debauch your own soul&mdash;this is
+ slavery. This is what Jehovah "authorized in Judea." This is what Mr.
+ Black believes in still. He "measures with the golden metewand of God." I
+ abhor slavery. With me, liberty is not merely a means&mdash;it is an end.
+ Without that word, all other words are empty sounds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black is too late with his protest against the freedom of his
+ fellow-man. Liberty is making the tour of the world. Russia has
+ emancipated her serfs; the slave trade is prosecuted only by thieves and
+ pirates; Spain feels upon her cheek the burning blush of shame; Brazil
+ with proud and happy eyes is looking for the dawn of freedom's day; the
+ people of the South rejoice that slavery is no more, and every good and
+ honest man (excepting Mr. Black), of every land and clime, hopes that the
+ limbs of men will never feel again the weary weight of chains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are informed by Mr. Black that polygamy is neither commanded nor
+ prohibited in the Old Testament&mdash;that it is only "discouraged." It
+ seems to me that a little legislation on that subject might have tended to
+ its "discouragement." But where is the legislation? In the moral code,
+ which Mr. Black assures us "consists of certain immutable rules to govern
+ the conduct of all men at all times and at all places in their private and
+ personal relations with others," not one word is found on the subject of
+ polygamy. There is nothing "discouraging" in the Ten Commandments, nor in
+ the records of any conversation Jehovah is claimed to have had with Moses
+ upon Sinai. The life of Abraham, the story of Jacob and Laban, the duty of
+ a brother to be the husband of the widow of his deceased brother, the life
+ of David, taken in connection with the practice of one who is claimed to
+ have been the wisest of men&mdash;all these things are probably relied on
+ to show that polygamy was at least "discouraged." Certainly, Jehovah had
+ time to instruct Moses as to the infamy of polygamy. He could have spared
+ a few moments from a description of the patterns of tongs and basins, for
+ a subject so important as this. A few words in favor of the one wife and
+ the one husband&mdash;in favor of the virtuous and loving home&mdash;might
+ have taken the place of instructions as to cutting the garments of priests
+ and fashioning candlesticks and ouches of gold. If he had left out simply
+ the order that rams' skins should be dyed red, and in its place had said,
+ "A man shall have but one wife, and the wife but one husband," how much
+ better would it have been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the languages of the world are not sufficient to express the filth of
+ polygamy. It makes man a beast, and woman a slave. It destroys the
+ fireside and makes virtue an outcast. It takes us back to the barbarism of
+ animals, and leaves the heart a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy
+ serpents of most loathsome lust. And yet Mr. Black insists that we owe to
+ the Bible the present elevation of woman. Where will he find in the Old
+ Testament the rights of wife, and mother, and daughter defined? Even in
+ the New Testament she is told to "learn in silence, with all subjection;"
+ that she "is not suffered to teach, nor to usurp any authority over the
+ man, but to be in silence." She is told that "the head of every man is
+ Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God."
+ In other words, there is the same difference between the wife and husband
+ that there is between the husband and Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reasons given for this infamous doctrine are that "Adam was first
+ formed, and then Eve;" that "Adam was not deceived," but that "the woman
+ being deceived, was in the transgression." These childish reasons are the
+ only ones given by the inspired writers. We are also told that "a man,
+ indeed, ought to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of
+ God;" but that "the woman is the glory of the man," and this is justified
+ from the fact, and the remarkable fact, set forth in the very next verse&mdash;that
+ "the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man." And the same
+ gallant apostle says: "Neither was the man created for the woman, but the
+ woman for the man;" "Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto
+ the Lord; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the
+ head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the
+ church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be subject to their own
+ husbands in everything." These are the passages that have liberated woman!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Old Testament, woman had to ask pardon, and had to be
+ purified, for the crime of having borne sons and daughters. If in this
+ world there is a figure of perfect purity, it is a mother holding in her
+ thrilled and happy arms her child. The doctrine that woman is the slave,
+ or serf, of man&mdash;whether it comes from heaven or from hell, from God
+ or a demon, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very
+ Sodom of perdition&mdash;is savagery, pure and simple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In no country in the world had women less liberty than in the Holy Land,
+ and no monarch held in less esteem the rights of wives and mothers than
+ Jehovah of the Jews. The position of woman was far better in Egypt than in
+ Palestine. Before the pyramids were built, the sacred songs of Isis were
+ sung by women, and women with pure hands had offered sacrifices to the
+ gods. Before Moses was born, women had sat upon the Egyptian throne. Upon
+ ancient tombs the husband and wife are represented as seated in the same
+ chair. In Persia women were priests, and in some of the oldest
+ civilizations "they were reverenced on earth, and worshiped afterward as
+ goddesses in heaven." At the advent of Christianity, in all pagan
+ countries women officiated at the sacred altars. They guarded the eternal
+ fire. They kept the sacred books. From their lips came the oracles of
+ fate. Under the domination of the Christian Church, woman became the
+ merest slave for at least a thousand years. It was claimed that through
+ woman the race had fallen, and that her loving kiss had poisoned all the
+ springs of life. Christian priests asserted that but for her crime the
+ world would have been an Eden still. The ancient fathers exhausted their
+ eloquence in the denunciation of woman, and repeated again and again the
+ slander of St. Paul. The condition of woman has improved just in
+ proportion that man has lost confidence in the inspiration of the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the purpose of defending the character of his infallible God, Mr.
+ Black is forced to defend religious intolerance, wars of extermination,
+ human slavery, and <i>almost</i> polygamy. He admits that God established
+ slavery; that he commanded his chosen people to buy the children of the
+ heathen; that heathen fathers and mothers did right to sell their girls
+ and boys; that God ordered the Jews to wage wars of extermination and
+ conquest; that it was right to kill the old and young; that God forged
+ manacles for the human brain; that he commanded husbands to murder their
+ wives for suggesting the worship of the sun or moon; and that every cruel,
+ savage passage in the Old Testament was inspired by him. Such is a
+ "policeman's" view of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will Mr. Black have the kindness to state a few of his objections to the
+ devil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black should have answered my arguments, instead of calling me
+ "blasphemous" and "scurrilous." In the discussion of these questions I
+ have nothing to do with the reputation of my opponent. His character
+ throws no light on the subject, and is to me a matter of perfect
+ indifference. Neither will it do for one who enters the lists as the
+ champion of revealed religion to say that "we have no right to rejudge the
+ justice of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such a statement is a white flag. The warrior eludes the combat when he
+ cries out that it is a "metaphysical question." He deserts the field and
+ throws down his arms when he admits that "no revelation has lifted the
+ veil between time and eternity." Again I ask, why were the Jewish people
+ as wicked, cruel, and ignorant with a revelation from God, as other
+ nations were without? Why were the worshipers of false deities as brave,
+ as kind, and generous as those who knew the only true and living God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do you explain the fact that while Jehovah was waging wars of
+ extermination, establishing slavery, and persecuting for opinion's sake,
+ heathen philosophers were teaching that all men are brothers, equally
+ entitled to liberty and life? You insist that Jehovah believed in slavery
+ and yet punished the Egyptians for enslaving the Jews. Was your God once
+ an abolitionist? Did he at that time "denounce Christ for not agreeing
+ with him"? If slavery was a crime in Egypt, was it a virtue in Palestine?
+ Did God treat the Canaanites better than Pharaoh did the Jews? Was it
+ right for Jehovah to kill the children of the people because of Pharaoh's
+ sin? Should the peasant be punished for the king's crime? Do you not know
+ that the worst thing that can be said of Nero, Caligula, and Commodus is
+ that they resembled the Jehovah of the Jews? Will you tell me why God
+ failed to give his Bible to the whole world? Why did he not give the
+ Scriptures to the Hindu, the Greek, and Roman? Why did he fail to
+ enlighten the worshipers of "Mammon" and Moloch, of Belial and Baal, of
+ Bacchus and Venus? After all, was not Bacchus as good as Jehovah? Is it
+ not better to drink wine than to shed blood? Was there anything in the
+ worship of Venus worse than giving captured maidens to satisfy the
+ victor's lust? Did "Mammon" or Moloch do anything more infamous than to
+ establish slavery? Did they order their soldiers to kill men, women, and
+ children, and to save alive nothing that had breath? Do not answer these
+ questions by saying that "no veil has been lifted between time and
+ eternity," and that "we have no right to rejudge the justice of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Jehovah was in fact God, he knew the end from the beginning. He knew
+ that his Bible would be a breastwork behind which tyranny and hypocrisy
+ would crouch; that it would be quoted by tyrants; that it would be the
+ defence of robbers, called kings, and of hypocrites called priests. He
+ knew that he had taught the Jewish people but little of importance. He
+ knew that he found them free and left them captives. He knew that he had
+ never fulfilled the promises made to them. He knew that while other
+ nations had advanced in art and science, his chosen people were savage
+ still. He promised them the world, and gave them a desert. He promised
+ them liberty, and he made them slaves. He promised them victory, and he
+ gave them defeat. He said they should be kings, and he made them serfs. He
+ promised them universal empire, and gave them exile. When one finishes the
+ Old Testament, he is compelled to say: Nothing can add to to the misery of
+ a nation whose king is Jehovah!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here I take occasion to thank Mr. Black for having admitted that
+ Jehovah gave no commandment against the practice of polygamy, that he
+ established slavery, waged wars of extermination, and persecuted for
+ opinion's sake even unto death. Most theologians endeavor to putty, patch,
+ and paint the wretched record of inspired crime, but Mr. Black has been
+ bold enough and honest enough to admit the truth. In this age of fact and
+ demonstration it is refreshing to find a man who believes so thoroughly in
+ the monstrous and miraculous, the impossible and immoral&mdash;who still
+ clings lovingly to the legends of the bib and rattle&mdash;who through the
+ bitter experiences of a wicked world has kept the credulity of the cradle,
+ and finds comfort and joy in thinking about the Garden of Eden, the subtle
+ serpent, the flood, and Babel's tower, stopped by the jargon of a thousand
+ tongues&mdash;who reads with happy eyes the story of the burning brimstone
+ storm that fell upon the cities of the plain, and smilingly explains the
+ transformation of the retrospective Mrs. Lot&mdash;who laughs at Egypt's
+ plagues and Pharaoh's whelmed and drowning hosts&mdash;eats manna with the
+ wandering Jews, warms himself at the burning bush, sees Korah's company by
+ the hungry earth devoured, claps his wrinkled hands with glee above the
+ heathens' butchered babes, and longingly looks back to the patriarchal
+ days of concubines and slaves. How touching when the learned and wise
+ crawl back in cribs and ask to hear the rhymes and fables once again! How
+ charming in these hard and scientific times to see old age in
+ Superstition's lap, with eager lips upon her withered breast!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black comes to the conclusion that the Hebrew Bible is in exact
+ harmony with the New Testament, and that the two are "connected together;"
+ and "that if one is true the other cannot be false."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this is so, then he must admit that if one is false the other cannot be
+ true; and it hardly seems possible to me that there is a right-minded,
+ sane man, except Mr. Black, who now believes that a God of infinite
+ kindness and justice ever commanded one nation to exterminate another;
+ ever ordered his soldiers to destroy men, women, and babes; ever
+ established the institution of human slavery; ever regarded the
+ auction-block as an altar, or a bloodhound as an apostle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black contends (after having answered my indictment against the Old
+ Testament by admitting the allegations to be true) that the rapidity with
+ which Christianity spread "proves the supernatural origin of the Gospel,
+ or that it was propagated by the direct aid of the Divine Being himself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see. In his efforts to show that the "infallible God established
+ slavery in Judea," he takes occasion to say that "the doctrine that
+ slavery is a crime under all circumstances was first started by the
+ adherents of a political faction in this, country less than forty years
+ ago;" that "they denounced God and Christ for not agreeing with them;" but
+ that "they did not constitute the civilized world; nor were they, if the
+ truth must be told, a very respectable portion of it." Let it be
+ remembered that this was only forty years ago; and yet, according to Mr.
+ Black, a few disreputable men changed the ideas of nearly fifty millions
+ of people, changed the Constitution of the United States, liberated a race
+ from slavery, clothed three millions of people with political rights, took
+ possession of the Government, managed its affairs for more than twenty
+ years, and have compelled the admiration of the civilized world. Is it Mr.
+ Black's idea that this happened by chance? If not, then according to him,
+ there are but two ways to account for it; either the rapidity with which
+ Republicanism spread proves its supernatural origin, "or else its
+ propagation was provided for and carried on by the direct aid of the
+ Divine Being himself." Between these two, Mr. Black may make his choice.
+ He will at once see that the rapid rise and spread of any doctrine does
+ not even tend to show that it was divinely revealed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This argument is applicable to all religions. Mohammedans can use it as
+ well as Christians. Mohammed was a poor man, a driver of camels. He was
+ without education, without influence, and without wealth, and yet in a few
+ years he consolidated thousands of tribes, and made millions of men
+ confess that there is "one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." His success
+ was a thousand times greater during his life than that of Christ. He was
+ not crucified; he was a conqueror. "Of all men, he exercised the greatest
+ influence upon the human race." Never in the world's history did a
+ religion spread with the rapidity of his. It burst like a storm over the
+ fairest portions of the globe. If Mr. Black is right in his position that
+ rapidity is secured only by the direct aid of the Divine Being, then
+ Mohammed was most certainly the prophet of God. As to wars of
+ extermination and slavery, Mohammed agreed with Mr. Black, and upon
+ polygamy, with Jehovah. As to religious toleration, he was great enough to
+ say that "men holding to any form of faith might be saved, provided they
+ were virtuous." In this, he was far in advance both of Jehovah and Mr.
+ Black.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to take the ground that the rapid rise and spread of a
+ religion demonstrates its divine character. Years before Gautama died, his
+ religion was established, and his disciples were numbered by millions. His
+ doctrines were not enforced by the sword, but by an appeal to the hopes,
+ the fears, and the reason of mankind; and more than one-third of the human
+ race are to-day the followers of Gautama. His religion has outlived all
+ that existed in his time; and according to Dr. Draper, "there is no other
+ country in the world except India that has the religion to-day it had at
+ the birth of Jesus Christ." Gautama believed in the equality of all men;
+ abhorred the spirit of caste, and proclaimed justice, mercy, and education
+ for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagine a Mohammedan answering an infidel; would he not use the argument
+ of Mr Black, simply substituting Mohammed for Christ, just as effectually
+ as it has been used against me? There was a time when India was the
+ foremost nation of the world. Would not your argument, Mr. Black, have
+ been just as good in the mouth of a Brahmin then, as it is in yours now?
+ Egypt, the mysterious mother of mankind, with her pyramids built
+ thirty-four hundred years before Christ, was once the first in all the
+ earth, and gave to us our Trinity, and our symbol of the cross. Could not
+ a priest of Isis and Osiris have used your arguments to prove that his
+ religion was divine, and could he not have closed by saying: "From the
+ facts established by this evidence it follows irresistibly that our
+ religion came to us from God"? Do you not see that your argument proves
+ too much, and that it is equally applicable to all the religions of the
+ world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, it is urged that "the acceptance of Christianity by a large portion
+ of the generation contemporary with its founder and his apostles was,
+ under the circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as
+ mortal intelligence could pronounce." If this is true, then "the
+ acceptance of Buddhism by a large portion of the generation contemporary
+ with its founder was an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal
+ intelligence could pronounce." The same could be said of Mohammedanism,
+ and, in fact, of every religion that has ever benefited or cursed this
+ world. This argument, when reduced to its simplest form, is this: All that
+ succeeds is inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old argument that if Christianity is a human fabrication its authors
+ must have been either good men or bad men, takes it for granted that there
+ are but two classes of persons&mdash;the good and the bad. There is at
+ least one other class&mdash;<i>the mistaken</i>, and both of the other
+ classes may belong to this. Thousands of most excellent people have been
+ deceived, and the history of the world is filled with instances where men
+ have honestly supposed that they had received communications from angels
+ and gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In thousands of instances these pretended communications contained the
+ purest and highest thoughts, together with the most important truths; yet
+ it will not do to say that these accounts are true; neither can they be
+ proved by saying that the men who claimed to be inspired were good. What
+ we must say is, that being good men, they were mistaken; and it is the
+ charitable mantle of a mistake that I throw over Mr. Black, when I find
+ him defending the institution of slavery. He seems to think it utterly
+ incredible that any "combination of knaves, however base, would
+ fraudulently concoct a religious system to denounce themselves, and to
+ invoke the curse of God upon their own conduct." How did religions other
+ than Christianity and Judaism arise? Were they all "concocted by a
+ combination of knaves"? The religion of Gautama is filled with most
+ beautiful and tender thoughts, with most excellent laws, and hundreds of
+ sentences urging mankind to deeds of love and self-denial. Was Gautama
+ inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not Mr. Black know that thousands of people charged with witchcraft
+ actually confessed in open court their guilt? Does he not know that they
+ admitted that they had spoken face to face with Satan, and had sold their
+ souls for gold and power? Does he not know that these admissions were made
+ in the presence and expectation of death? Does he not know that hundreds
+ of judges, some of them as great as the late lamented Gibson, believed in
+ the existence of an impossible crime?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that "there is no good reason to doubt that the statements of
+ the Evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine." The fact is, no one
+ knows who made the "statements of the Evangelists."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are three important manuscripts upon which the Christian world
+ relies. "The first appeared in the catalogue of the Vatican, in 1475. This
+ contains the Old Testament. Of the New, it contains the four gospels,&mdash;the
+ Acts, the seven Catholic Epistles, nine of the Pauline Epistles, and the
+ Epistle to the Hebrews, as far as the fourteenth verse of the ninth
+ chapter,"&mdash;and nothing more. This is known as the Codex Vatican. "The
+ second, the Alexandrine, was presented to King Charles the First, in 1628.
+ It contains the Old and New Testaments, with some exceptions; passages are
+ wanting in Matthew, in John, and in II. Corinthians. It also contains the
+ Epistle of Clemens Romanus, a letter of Athanasius, and the treatise of
+ Eusebius on the Psalms." The last is the Sinaitic Codex, discovered about
+ 1850, at the Convent of St. Catherine's, on Mount Sinai. "It contains the
+ Old and New Testaments, and in addition the entire Epistle of Barnabas,
+ and a portion of the Shepherd of Hermas&mdash;two books which, up to the
+ beginning of the fourth century, were looked upon by many as Scripture."
+ In this manuscript, or codex, the gospel of St. Mark concludes with the
+ eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter, leaving out the frightful passage:
+ "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He
+ that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not
+ shall be damned."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In matters of the utmost importance these manuscripts disagree, but even
+ if they all agreed it would not furnish the slightest evidence of their
+ truth. It will not do to call the statements made in the gospels
+ "depositions," until it is absolutely established who made them, and the
+ circumstances under which they were made. Neither can we say that "they
+ were made in the immediate prospect of death," until we know who made
+ them. It is absurd to say that "the witnesses could not have been
+ mistaken, because the nature of the facts precluded the possibility of any
+ delusion about them." Can it be pretended that the witnesses could not
+ have been mistaken about the relation the Holy Ghost is alleged to have
+ sustained to Jesus Christ? Is there no possibility of delusion about a
+ circumstance of that kind? Did the writers of the four gospels have "'the
+ sensible and true avouch of their own eyes' and ears" in that behalf? How
+ was it possible for any one of the four Evangelists to know that Christ
+ was the Son of God, or that he was God? His mother wrote nothing on the
+ subject. Matthew says that an angel of the Lord told Joseph in a dream,
+ but Joseph never wrote an account of this wonderful vision. Luke tells us
+ that the angel had a conversation with Mary, and that Mary told Elizabeth,
+ but Elizabeth never wrote a word. There is no account of Mary or Joseph or
+ Elizabeth or the angel, having had any conversation with Matthew, Mark,
+ Luke, or John in which one word was said about the miraculous origin of
+ Jesus Christ. The persons who knew did not write, so that the account is
+ nothing but hearsay. Does Mr. Black pretend that such statements would be
+ admitted as evidence in any court? But how do we know that the disciples
+ of Christ wrote a word of the gospels? How did it happen that Christ wrote
+ nothing? How do we know that the writers of the gospels "were men of
+ unimpeachable character"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this is answered by saying "that nothing was said by the most virulent
+ enemies against the personal honesty of the Evangelists." How is this
+ known? If Christ performed the miracles recorded in the New Testament, why
+ would the Jews put to death a man able to raise their dead? Why should
+ they attempt to kill the Master of Death? How did it happen that a man who
+ had done so many miracles was so obscure, so unknown, that one of his
+ disciples had to be bribed to point him out? Is it not strange that the
+ ones he had cured were not his disciples? Can we believe, upon the
+ testimony of those about whose character we know nothing, that Lazarus was
+ raised from the dead? What became of Lazarus? We never hear of him again.
+ It seems to me that he would have been an object of great interest. People
+ would have said: "He is the man who was once dead." Thousands would have
+ inquired of him about the other world; would have asked him where he was
+ when he received the information that he was wanted on the earth. His
+ experience would have been vastly more interesting than everything else in
+ the New Testament. A returned traveler from the shores of Eternity&mdash;one
+ who had walked twice through the valley of the shadow&mdash;would have
+ been the most interesting of human beings. When he came to die again,
+ people would have said: "He is not afraid; he has had experience; he knows
+ what death is." But, strangely enough, this Lazarus fades into obscurity
+ with "the wise men of the East," and with the dead who came out of their
+ graves on the night of the crucifixion. How is it known that it was
+ claimed, during the life of Christ, that he had wrought a miracle? And if
+ the claim was made, how is it known that it was not denied? Did the Jews
+ believe that Christ was clothed with miraculous power? Would they have
+ dared to crucify a man who had the power to clothe the dead with life? Is
+ it not wonderful that no one at the trial of Christ said one word about
+ the miracles he had wrought? Nothing about the sick he had healed, nor the
+ dead he had raised?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not wonderful that Josephus, the best historian the Hebrews
+ produced, says nothing about the life or death of Christ; nothing about
+ the massacre of the infants by Herod; not one word about the wonderful
+ star that visited the sky at the birth of Christ; nothing about the
+ darkness that fell upon the world for several hours in the midst of day;
+ and failed entirely to mention that hundreds of graves were opened, and
+ that multitudes of Jews arose from the dead, and visited the Holy City? Is
+ it not wonderful that no historian ever mentioned any of these prodigies?
+ and is it not more amazing than all the rest, that Christ himself
+ concealed from Matthew, Mark, and Luke the dogma of the atonement, the
+ necessity of belief, and the mystery of the second birth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course I know that two letters were said to have been written by Pilate
+ to Tiberius, concerning the execution of Christ, but they have been shown
+ to be forgeries. I also know that "various letters were circulated
+ attributed to Jesus Christ," and that one letter is said to have been
+ written by him to Abgarus, king of Edessa; but as there was no king of
+ Edessa at that time, this letter is admitted to have been a forgery. I
+ also admit that a correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul was forged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here in our own country, only a few years ago, men claimed to have found
+ golden plates upon which was written a revelation from God. They founded a
+ new religion, and, according to their statement, did many miracles. They
+ were treated as outcasts, and their leader was murdered. These men made
+ their "depositions" "in the immediate prospect of death." They were
+ mobbed, persecuted, derided, and yet they insisted that their prophet had
+ miraculous power, and that he, too, could swing back the hingeless door of
+ death. The followers of these men have increased, in these few years, so
+ that now the murdered prophet has at least two hundred thousand disciples.
+ It will be hard to find a contradiction of these pretended miracles,
+ although this is an age filled with papers, magazines, and books. As a
+ matter of fact, the claims of Joseph Smith were so preposterous that
+ sensible people did not take the pains to write and print denials. When we
+ remember that eighteen hundred years ago there were but few people who
+ could write, and that a manuscript did not become public in any modern
+ sense, it was possible for the gospels to have been written with all the
+ foolish claims in reference to miracles without exciting comment or
+ denial. There is not, in all the contemporaneous literature of the world,
+ a single word about Christ or his apostles. The paragraph in Josephus is
+ admitted to be an interpolation, and the letters, the account of the
+ trial, and several other documents forged by the zeal of the early
+ fathers, are now admitted to be false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither will it do to say that "the statements made by the Evangelists are
+ alike upon every important point." If there is anything of importance in
+ the New Testament, from the theological standpoint, it is the ascension of
+ Jesus Christ. If that happened, it was a miracle great enough to surfeit
+ wonder. Are the statements of the inspired witnesses alike on this
+ important point? Let us see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Matthew says nothing upon the subject. Either Matthew was not there, had
+ never heard of the ascension,&mdash;or, having heard of it, did not
+ believe it, or, having seen it, thought it too unimportant to record. To
+ this wonder of wonders Mark devotes one verse: "So then, after the Lord
+ had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the
+ right-hand of God." Can we believe that this verse was written by one who
+ witnessed the ascension of Jesus Christ; by one who watched his Master
+ slowly rising through the air till distance reft him from his tearful
+ sight? Luke, another of the witnesses, says: "And it came to pass, while
+ he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven."
+ John corroborates Matthew by saying nothing on the subject. Now, we find
+ that the last chapter of Mark, after the eighth verse, is an
+ interpolation; so that Mark really says nothing about the occurrence.
+ Either the ascension of Christ must be given up, or it must be admitted
+ that the witnesses do not agree, and that three of them never heard of
+ that most stupendous event.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, if anything could have left its "form and pressure" on the brain,
+ it must have been the last words of Jesus Christ. The last words,
+ according to Matthew, are: "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 whatsoever I have commanded
+ you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." The
+ last words, according to the inspired witness known as Mark, are: "And
+ these signs shall follow them that believe: in my name shall they cast out
+ devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 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." Luke tells us that the last
+ words uttered by Christ, with the exception of a blessing, were: "And
+ behold, I send forth the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in
+ the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." The
+ last words, according to John, were: "Peter, seeing Him, saith to Jesus:
+ Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he
+ tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An account of the ascension is also given in the Acts of the Apostles; and
+ the last words of Christ, according to that inspired witness, are: "But ye
+ shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye
+ shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in
+ Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." In this account of the
+ ascension we find that two men stood by the disciples in white apparel,
+ and asked them: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?
+ This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in
+ like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Matthew says nothing of
+ the two men. Mark never saw them. Luke may have forgotten them when
+ writing his gospel, and John may have regarded them as optical illusions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luke testifies that Christ ascended on the very day of his resurrection.
+ John deposes that eight days after the resurrection Christ appeared to the
+ disciples and convinced Thomas. In the Acts we are told that Christ
+ remained on earth for forty days after his resurrection. These
+ "depositions" do not agree. Neither do Matthew and Luke agree in their
+ histories of the infancy of Christ. It is impossible for both to be true.
+ One of these "witnesses" must have been mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most wonderful miracle recorded in the New Testament, as having been
+ wrought by Christ, is the resurrection of Lazarus. While all the writers
+ of the gospels, in many instances, record the same wonders and the same
+ conversations, is it not remarkable that the greatest miracle is mentioned
+ alone by John?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Two of the witnesses, Matthew and Luke, give the genealogy of Christ.
+ Matthew says that there were forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ.
+ Luke insists that there were forty-two from Christ to David, while Matthew
+ gives the number as twenty-eight. It may be said that this is an old
+ objection. An objection-remains young until it has been answered. Is it
+ not wonderful that Luke and Matthew do not agree on a single name of
+ Christ's ancestors for thirty-seven generations?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a difference of opinion among the "witnesses" as to what the
+ gospel of Christ is. If we take the "depositions" of Matthew, Mark, and
+ Luke, then the gospel of Christ amounts simply to this: That God will
+ forgive the forgiving, and that he will be merciful to the merciful.
+ According to three witnesses, Christ knew nothing of the doctrine of the
+ atonement; never heard of the second birth; and did not base salvation, in
+ whole nor in part, on belief. In the "deposition" of John, we find that we
+ must be born again; that we must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; and
+ that an atonement was made for us. If Christ ever said these things to, or
+ in the hearing of, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they forgot to mention them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To my mind, the failure of the evangelists to agree as tu what is
+ necessary for man to do in order to insure the salvation of his soul, is a
+ demonstration that they were not inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do the witnesses agree as to the last words of Christ when he was
+ crucified. Matthew says that he cried: "My God, my God, why hast thou
+ forsaken me?" Mark agrees with Matthew. Luke testifies that his last words
+ were: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." John states that he
+ cried: "It is finished."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luke says that Christ said of his murderers: "Father, forgive them; for
+ they know not what they do." Matthew, Mark, and John do not record these
+ touching words. John says that Christ, on the day of his resurrection,
+ said to his disciples: "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto
+ them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other disciples do not record this monstrous passage. They did not
+ hear the abdication of God. They were not present when Christ placed in
+ their hands the keys of heaven and hell, and put a world beneath the feet
+ of priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is easy to account for the differences and contradictions in these
+ "depositions" (and there are hundreds of them) by saying that each one
+ told the story as he remembered it, or as he had heard it, or that the
+ accounts have been changed, but it will not do to say that the witnesses
+ were inspired of God. We can account for these contradictions by the
+ infirmities of human nature; but, as I said before, the infirmities of
+ human nature cannot be predicated of a divine being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, I ask, why should there be more than one inspired gospel? Of what
+ use were the other three? There can be only one true account of anything.
+ All other true accounts must simply be copies of that. And I ask again,
+ why should there have been more than one inspired gospel? That which is
+ the test of truth as to ordinary witnesses is a demonstration against
+ their inspiration. It will not do at this late day to say that the
+ miracles worked by Christ demonstrated his divine origin or mission. The
+ wonderful works he did, did not convince the people with whom he lived. In
+ spite of the miracles, he was crucified. He was charged with blasphemy.
+ "Policemen" denounced the "scurrility" of his words, and the absurdity of
+ his doctrines. He was no doubt told that it was "almost a crime to utter
+ blasphemy in the presence of a Jewish woman;" and it may be that he was
+ taunted for throwing away "the golden metewand" of the "infallible God who
+ authorized slavery in Judea," and taking the "elastic cord of human
+ feeling."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians tell us that the citizens of Mecca refused to believe on
+ Mohammed because he was an impostor, and that the citizens of Jerusalem
+ refused to believe on Jesus Christ because he was <i>not</i> an impostor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ had wrought the miracles attributed to him&mdash;if he had cured
+ the maimed, the leprous, and the halt&mdash;if he had changed the night of
+ blindness into blessed day&mdash;if he had wrested from the fleshless hand
+ of avaricious death the stolen jewel of a life, and clothed again with
+ throbbing flesh the pulseless dust, he would have won the love and
+ adoration of mankind. If ever there shall stand upon this earth the king
+ of death, all human knees will touch the ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are further informed that "what we call the fundamental truths of
+ Christianity consist of great public events which are sufficiently
+ established by history without special proof."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, we admit that the Roman Empire existed; that Julius Caesar was
+ assassinated; and we may admit that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus;
+ but will some one be kind enough to tell us how the assassination of
+ Caesar even tends to prove that Romulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf?
+ We will all admit that, in the sixth century after Christ, Mohammed was
+ born at Mecca; that his victorious hosts vanquished half the Christian
+ world; that the crescent triumphed over the cross upon a thousand fields;
+ that all the Christians of the earth were not able to rescue from the
+ hands of an impostor the empty grave of Christ. We will all admit that the
+ Mohammedans cultivated the arts and sciences; that they gave us our
+ numerals; taught us the higher mathematics; gave us our first ideas of
+ astronomy, and that "science was thrust into the brain of Europe on the
+ point of a Moorish lance;" and yet we will not admit that Mohammed was
+ divinely inspired, nor that he had frequent conversations with the angel
+ Gabriel, nor that after his death his coffin was suspended in mid-air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago, in the city of Chicago, a gentleman addressed a number
+ of Sunday-school children. In his address, he stated that some people were
+ wicked enough to deny the story of the deluge; that he was a traveler;
+ that he had been to the top of Mount Ararat, and had brought with him a
+ stone from that sacred locality. The children were then invited to form in
+ procession and walk by the pulpit, for the purpose of seeing this
+ wonderful stone. After they had looked at it, the lecturer said: "Now,
+ children, if you ever hear anybody deny the story of the deluge, or say
+ that the ark did not rest on Mount Ararat, you can tell them that you know
+ better, because you have seen with your own eyes a stone from that very
+ mountain."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact that Christ lived in Palestine does not tend to show that he was
+ in any way related to the Holy Ghost; nor does the existence of the
+ Christian religion substantiate the ascension of Jesus Christ. We all
+ admit that Socrates lived in Athens, but we do not admit that he had a
+ familiar spirit. I am satisfied that John Wesley was an Englishman, but I
+ hardly believe that God postponed a rain because Mr. Wesley wanted to
+ preach. All the natural things in the world are not sufficient to
+ establish the supernatural. Mr. Black reasons in this way: There was a
+ hydra-headed monster. We know this, because Hercules killed him. There
+ must have been such a woman as Proserpine, otherwise Pluto could not have
+ carried her away. Christ must have been divine, because the Holy Ghost was
+ his father. And there must have been such a being as the Holy Ghost,
+ because without a father Christ could not have existed. Those who are
+ disposed to deny everything because a part is false, reason exactly the
+ other way. They insist that because there was no hydra-headed monster,
+ Hercules did not exist. The true position, in my judgment, is that the
+ natural is not to be discarded because found in the company of the
+ miraculous, neither should the miraculous be believed because associated
+ with the probable. There was in all probability such a man as Jesus
+ Christ. He may have lived in Jerusalem. He may have been crucified, but
+ that he was the Son of God, or that he was raised from the dead, and
+ ascended bodily to heaven, has never been, and, in the nature of things,
+ can never be, substantiated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Apparently tired with his efforts to answer what I really said, Mr. Black
+ resorted to the expedient of "compressing" my propositions and putting
+ them in italics. By his system of "compression" he was enabled to squeeze
+ out what I really said, and substitute a few sentences of his own. I did
+ not say that "Christianity offers eternal salvation as the reward of
+ belief alone," but I did say that no salvation is offered <i>without</i>
+ belief. There must be a difference of opinion in the minds of Mr. Black's
+ witnesses on this subject. In one place we are told that a man is
+ "justified by faith without the deeds of the law;" and in another, "to him
+ that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his
+ faith is counted to him for righteousness;" and the following passages
+ seem to show the necessity of belief:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not
+ is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
+ begotten Son of God." "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:
+ and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of
+ God abideth on him." "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the
+ life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
+ "And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die." "For the
+ gifts and calling of God are without repentance." "For by grace are ye
+ saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God."
+ "Not of works, lest any man should boast." "Whosoever shall confess that
+ Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." "Whosoever
+ believeth not shall be damned.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not understand that the Christians of to-day insist that simple
+ belief will secure the salvation of the soul. I believe it is stated in
+ the Bible that "the very devils believe;" and it would seem from this that
+ belief is not such a meritorious thing, after all. But Christians do
+ insist that without belief no man can be saved; that faith is necessary to
+ salvation, and that there is "none other name under heaven given among men
+ whereby we can be saved," except that of Christ. My doctrine is that there
+ is only one way to be saved, and that is to act in harmony with your
+ surroundings&mdash;to live in accordance with the facts of your being. A
+ Being of infinite wisdom has no right to create a person destined to
+ everlasting pain. For the honest infidel, according to the American
+ Evangelical pulpit, there is no heaven. For the upright atheist, there is
+ nothing in another world but punishment. Mr. Black admits that lunatics
+ and idiots are in no danger of hell. This being so, his God should have
+ created only lunatics and idiots. Why should the fatal gift of brain be
+ given to any human being, if such gift renders him liable to eternal hell?
+ Better be a lunatic here and an angel there. Better be an idiot in this
+ world, if you can be a seraph in the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the doctrine of the atonement, Mr. Black has nothing to offer except
+ the barren statement that it is believed by the wisest and the best. A
+ Mohammedan, speaking in Constantinople, will say the same of the Koran. A
+ Brahmin, in a Hindu temple, will make the same remark, and so will the
+ American Indian, when he endeavors to enforce something upon the young of
+ his tribe. He will say: "The best, the greatest of our tribe have believed
+ in this." This is the argument of the cemetery, the philosophy of
+ epitaphs, the logic of the coffin. Who are the greatest and wisest and
+ most virtuous of mankind? This statement, that it has been believed by the
+ best, is made in connection with an admission that it cannot be fathomed
+ by the wisest. It is not claimed that a thing is necessarily false because
+ it is not understood, but I do claim that it is not necessarily true
+ because it cannot be comprehended. I still insist that "the plan of
+ redemption," as usually preached, is absurd, unjust, and immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For nearly two thousand years Judas Iscariot has been execrated by
+ mankind; and yet, if the doctrine of the atonement is true, upon his
+ treachery hung the plan of salvation. Suppose Judas had known of this plan&mdash;known
+ that he was selected by Christ for that very purpose, that Christ was
+ depending on him. And suppose that he also knew that only by betraying
+ Christ could he save either himself or others; what ought Judas to have
+ done? Are you willing to rely upon an argument that justifies the
+ treachery of that wretch?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insisted upon knowing how the sufferings of an innocent man could
+ satisfy justice for the sins of the guilty. To this, Mr. Black replies as
+ follows: "This raises a metaphysical question, which it is not necessary
+ or possible for me to discuss here." Is this considered an answer? Is it
+ in this way that "my misty creations are made to roll away and vanish into
+ air one after another?" Is this the best that can be done by one of the
+ disciples of the infallible God who butchered babes in Judea? Is it
+ possible for a "policeman" to "silence a rude disturber" in this way? To
+ answer an argument, is it only necessary to say that it "raises a
+ metaphysical question"? Again I say: The life of Christ is worth its
+ example, its moral force, its heroism of benevolence. And again I say: The
+ effort to vindicate a law by inflicting punishment on the innocent is a
+ second violation instead of a vindication.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black, under the pretence of "compressing," puts in my mouth the
+ following: "The doctrine of non-resistance, forgiveness of injuries,
+ reconciliation with enemies, as taught in the New Testament, is the child
+ of weakness, degrading and unjust."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is entirely untrue. What I did say is this: "The idea of
+ non-resistance never occurred to a man who had the power to protect
+ himself. This doctrine was the child of weakness, born when resistance was
+ impossible." I said not one word against the forgiveness of injuries, not
+ one word against the reconciliation of enemies&mdash;not one word. I
+ believe in the reconciliation of enemies. I believe in a reasonable
+ forgiveness of injuries. But I do not believe in the doctrine of
+ non-resistance. Mr. Black proceeds to say that Christianity forbids us "to
+ cherish animosity, to thirst for mere revenge, to hoard up wrongs real or
+ fancied, and lie in wait for the chance of paying them back; to be
+ impatient, unforgiving, malicious, and cruel to all who have crossed us."
+ And yet the man who thus describes Christianity tells us that it is not
+ only our right, but our duty, to fight savages as savages fight us;
+ insists that where a nation tries to exterminate us, we have a right to
+ exterminate them. This same man, who tells us that "the diabolical
+ propensities of the human heart are checked and curbed by the spirit of
+ the Christian religion," and that this religion "has converted men from
+ low savages into refined and civilized beings," still insists that the
+ author of the Christian religion established slavery, waged wars of
+ extermination, abhorred the liberty of thought, and practiced the divine
+ virtues of retaliation and revenge. If it is our duty to forgive our
+ enemies, ought not God to forgive his? Is it possible that God will hate
+ his enemies when he tells us that we must love ours? The enemies of God
+ cannot injure him, but ours can injure us. If it is the duty of the
+ injured to forgive, why should the uninjured insist upon having revenge?
+ Why should a being who destroys nations with pestilence and famine expect
+ that his children will be loving and forgiving?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black insists that without a belief in God there can be no perception
+ of right and wrong, and that it is impossible for an atheist to have a
+ conscience. Mr. Black, the Christian, the believer in God, upholds wars of
+ extermination. I denounce such wars as murder. He upholds the institution
+ of slavery. I denounce that institution as the basest of crimes. Yet I am
+ told that I have no knowledge of right and wrong; that I measure with "the
+ elastic cord of human feeling," while the believer in slavery and wars of
+ extermination measures with "the golden metewand of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is right and what is wrong? Everything is right that tends to the
+ happiness of mankind, and everything is wrong that increases the sum of
+ human misery. What can increase the happiness of this world more than to
+ do away with every form of slavery, and with all war? What can increase
+ the misery of mankind more than to increase wars and put chains upon more
+ human limbs? What is conscience? If man were incapable of suffering, if
+ man could not feel pain, the word "conscience" never would have passed his
+ lips. The man who puts himself in the place of another, whose imagination
+ has been cultivated to the point of feeling the agonies suffered by
+ another, is the man of conscience. But a man who justifies slavery, who
+ justifies a God when he commands the soldier to rip open the mother and to
+ pierce with the sword of war the child unborn, is controlled and
+ dominated, not by conscience, but by a cruel and remorseless superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Consequences determine the quality of an action. If consequences are good,
+ so is the action. If actions had no consequences, they would be neither
+ good nor bad. Man did not get his knowledge of the consequences of actions
+ from God, but from experience and reason. If man can, by actual
+ experiment, discover the right and wrong of actions, is it not utterly
+ illogical to declare that they who do not believe in God can have no
+ standard of right and wrong? Consequences are the standard by which
+ actions are judged. They are the children that testify as to the real
+ character of their parents. God or no God, larceny is the enemy of
+ industry&mdash;industry is the mother of prosperity&mdash;prosperity is a
+ good, and therefore larceny is an evil. God or no God, murder is a crime.
+ There has always been a law against larceny, because the laborer wishes to
+ enjoy the fruit of his toil. As long as men object to being killed, murder
+ will be illegal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Mr. Black, the man who does not believe in a supreme being
+ acknowledges no standard of right and wrong in this world, and therefore
+ can have no theory of rewards and punishments in the next. Is it possible
+ that only those who believe in the God who persecuted for opinion's sake
+ have any standard of right and wrong? Were the greatest men of all
+ antiquity without this standard? In the eyes of intelligent men of Greece
+ and Rome, were all deeds, whether good or evil, morally alike? Is it
+ necessary to believe in the existence of an infinite intelligence before
+ you can have any standard of right and wrong? Is it possible that a being
+ cannot be just or virtuous unless he believes in some being infinitely
+ superior to himself? If this doctrine be true, how can God be just or
+ virtuous? Does he believe in some being superior to himself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said that the Pagans believed in a god, and consequently had a
+ standard of right and wrong. But the Pagans did not believe in the "true"
+ God. They knew nothing of Jehovah. Of course it will not do to believe in
+ the wrong God. In order to know the difference between right and wrong,
+ you must believe in the right God&mdash;in the one who established
+ slavery. Can this be avoided by saying that a false god is better than
+ none?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea of justice is not the child of superstition&mdash;it was not born
+ of ignorance; neither was it nurtured by the passages in the Old Testament
+ upholding slavery, wars of extermination, and religious persecution. Every
+ human being necessarily has a standard of right and wrong; and where that
+ standard has not been polluted by superstition, man abhors slavery,
+ regards a war of extermination as murder, and looks upon religious
+ persecution as a hideous crime. If there is a God, infinite in power and
+ wisdom, above him, poised in eternal calm, is the figure of Justice. At
+ the shrine of Justice the infinite God must bow, and in her impartial
+ scales the actions even of Infinity must be weighed. There is no world, no
+ star, no heaven, no hell, in which gratitude is not a virtue and where
+ slavery is not a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the logic of this "reply," all good and evil become mixed and
+ mingled&mdash;equally good and equally bad, unless we believe in the
+ existence of the infallible God who ordered husbands to kill their wives.
+ We do not know right from wrong now, unless we are convinced that a being
+ of infinite mercy waged wars of extermination four thousand years ago. We
+ are incapable even of charity, unless we worship the being who ordered the
+ husband to kill his wife for differing with him on the subject of
+ religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that acts are good or bad only as they effect the actors, and
+ others. We know that from every good act good consequences flow, and that
+ from every bad act there are only evil results. Every virtuous deed is a
+ star in the moral firmament. There is in the moral world, as in the
+ physical, the absolute and perfect relation of cause and effect. For this
+ reason, the atonement becomes an impossibility. Others may suffer by your
+ crime, but their suffering cannot discharge you; it simply increases your
+ guilt and adds to your burden. For this reason happiness is not a reward&mdash;it
+ is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment&mdash;it is a result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is insisted that Christianity is not opposed to freedom of thought, but
+ that "it is based on certain principles to which it requires the assent of
+ all." Is this a candid statement? Are we only required to give our assent
+ to certain principles in order to be saved? Are the inspiration of the
+ Bible, the divinity of Christ, the atonement, and the Trinity, principles?
+ Will it be admitted by the orthodox world that good deeds are sufficient
+ unto salvation&mdash;that a man can get into heaven by living in
+ accordance with certain principles? This is a most excellent doctrine, but
+ it is not Christianity. And right here, it may be well enough to state
+ what I mean by Christianity. The morality of the world is not
+ distinctively Christian. Zoroaster, Gautama, Mohammed, Confucius, Christ,
+ and, in fact, all founders of religions, have said to their disciples: You
+ must not steal; You must not murder; You must not bear false witness; You
+ must discharge your obligations. Christianity is the ordinary moral code,
+ <i>plus</i> the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, his
+ resurrection, his ascension, the inspiration of the Bible, the doctrine of
+ the atonement, and the necessity of belief. Buddhism is the ordinary moral
+ code, <i>plus</i> the miraculous illumination of Buddha, the performance
+ of certain ceremonies, a belief in the transmigration of the soul, and in
+ the final absorption of the human by the infinite. The religion of
+ Mohammed is the ordinary moral code, <i>plus</i> the belief that Mohammed
+ was the prophet of God, total abstinence from the use of intoxicating
+ drinks, a harem for the faithful here and hereafter, ablutions, prayers,
+ alms, pilgrimages, and fasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The morality in Christianity has never opposed the freedom of thought. It
+ has never put, nor tended to put, a chain on a human mind, nor a manacle
+ on a human limb; but the doctrines distinctively Christian&mdash;the
+ necessity of believing a certain thing; the idea that eternal punishment
+ awaited him who failed to believe; the idea that the innocent can suffer
+ for the guilty&mdash;these things have opposed, and for a thousand years
+ substantially destroyed, the freedom of the human mind. All religions
+ have, with ceremony, magic, and mystery, deformed, darkened, and corrupted
+ the soul. Around the sturdy oaks of morality have grown and clung the
+ parasitic, poisonous vines of the miraculous and monstrous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have insisted, and I still insist, that it is impossible for a finite
+ man to commit a crime deserving infinite punishment; and upon this subject
+ Mr. Black admits that "no revelation has lifted the veil between time and
+ eternity;" and, consequently, neither the priest nor the "policeman" knows
+ anything with certainty regarding another world. He simply insists that
+ "in shadowy figures we are warned that a very marked distinction will be
+ made between the good and bad in the next world." There is "a very marked
+ distinction" in this; but there is this rainbow on the darkest human
+ cloud: The worst have hope of reform. All I insist is, if there is another
+ life, the basest soul that finds its way to that dark or radiant shore
+ will have the everlasting chance of doing right. Nothing but the most
+ cruel ignorance, the most heartless superstition, the most ignorant
+ theology, ever imagined that the few days of human life spent here,
+ surrounded by mists and clouds of darkness, blown over life's sea by
+ storms and tempests of passion, fixed for all eternity the condition of
+ the human race. If this doctrine be true, this life is but a net, in which
+ Jehovah catches souls for hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation unsheathed the
+ swords and lighted the fagots of persecution. As long as heaven is the
+ reward of creed instead of deed, just so long will every orthodox church
+ be a bastile, every member a prisoner, and every priest a turnkey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the estimation of good orthodox Christians, I am a criminal, because I
+ am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters,
+ husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a
+ belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and
+ scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of
+ innocent pleasure&mdash;a God made of sticks, called creeds, and of old
+ clothes, called myths. I have tried to take from the coffin its horror,
+ from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by the
+ savages of the past. Is it necessary that heaven should borrow its light
+ from the glare of hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless
+ injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens,
+ debases, and pollutes the soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart
+ in the universe, no perfectly good being can be perfectly happy. Against
+ the heartlessness of this doctrine every grand and generous soul should
+ enter its solemn protest. I want no part in any heaven where the saved,
+ the ransomed, and redeemed drown with merry shouts the cries and sobs of
+ hell&mdash;in which happiness forgets misery&mdash;where the tears of the
+ lost increase laughter and deepen the dimples of joy. The idea of hell was
+ born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. This idea
+ tends to show that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from
+ dens, lairs, and caves&mdash;only from mouths filled with cruel fangs&mdash;only
+ from hearts of fear and hatred&mdash;only from the conscience of hunger
+ and lust&mdash;only from the lowest and most debased, could come this most
+ cruel, heartless, and absurd of all dogmas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our ancestors knew but little of nature. They were too astonished to
+ investigate. They could not divest themselves of the idea that everything
+ happened with reference to them; that they caused storms and earthquakes;
+ that they brought the tempest and the whirlwind; that on account of
+ something they had done, or omitted to do, the lightning of vengeance
+ leaped from the darkened sky. They made up their minds that at least two
+ vast and powerful beings presided over this world; that one was good and
+ the other bad; that both of these beings wished to get control of the
+ souls of men; that they were relentless enemies, eternal foes; that both
+ welcomed recruits and hated deserters; that one offered rewards in this
+ world, and the other in the next. Man saw cruelty and mercy in nature,
+ because he imagined that phenomena were produced to punish or to reward
+ him. It was supposed that God demanded worship; that he loved to be
+ flattered; that he delighted in sacrifice; that nothing made him happier
+ than to see ignorant faith upon its knees; that above all things he hated
+ and despised doubters and heretics, and regarded investigation as
+ rebellion. Each community felt it a duty to see that the enemies of God
+ were converted or killed. To allow a heretic to live in peace was to
+ invite the wrath of God. Every public evil&mdash;every misfortune&mdash;was
+ accounted for by something the community had permitted or done. When
+ epidemics appeared, brought by ignorance and welcomed by filth, the
+ heretic was brought out and sacrificed to appease the anger of God. By
+ putting intention behind what man called good, God was produced. By
+ putting intention behind what man called bad, the Devil was created. Leave
+ this "intention" out, and gods and devils fade away. If not a human being
+ existed, the sun would continue to shine, and tempest now and then would
+ devastate the earth; the rain would fall in pleasant showers; violets
+ would spread their velvet bosoms to the sun, the earthquake would devour,
+ birds would sing and daisies bloom and roses blush, and volcanoes fill the
+ heavens with their lurid glare; the procession of the seasons would not be
+ broken, and the stars would shine as serenely as though the world were
+ filled with loving hearts and happy homes. Do not imagine that the
+ doctrine of eternal revenge belongs to Christianity alone. Nearly all
+ religions have had this dogma for a corner-stone. Upon this burning
+ foundation nearly all have built. Over the abyss of pain rose the
+ glittering dome of pleasure. This world was regarded as one of trial.
+ Here, a God of infinite wisdom experimented with man. Between the
+ outstretched paws of the Infinite, the mouse&mdash;man&mdash;was allowed
+ to play. Here, man had the opportunity of hearing priests and kneeling in
+ temples. Here, he could read, and hear read, the sacred books. Here, he
+ could have the example of the pious and the counsels of the holy. Here, he
+ could build churches and cathedrals. Here, he could burn incense, fast,
+ wear hair-cloth, deny himself all the pleasures of life, confess to
+ priests, construct instruments of torture, bow before pictures and images,
+ and persecute all who had the courage to despise superstition, and the
+ goodness to tell their honest thoughts. After death, if he died out of the
+ church, nothing could be done to make him better. When he should come into
+ the presence of God, nothing was left except to damn him. Priests might
+ convert him here, but God could do nothing there. All of which shows how
+ much more a priest can do for a soul than its creator. Only here, on the
+ earth, where the devil is constantly active, only where his agents attack
+ every soul, is there the slightest hope of moral improvement. Strange!
+ that a world cursed by God, filled with temptations, and thick with
+ fiends, should be the only place where man can repent, the only place
+ where reform is possible!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Masters frightened slaves with the threat of hell, and slaves got a kind
+ of shadowy revenge by whispering back the threat. The imprisoned imagined
+ a hell for their gaolers; the weak built this place for the strong; the
+ arrogant for their rivals; the vanquished for their victors; the priest
+ for the thinker; religion for reason; superstition for science. All the
+ meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the
+ hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew,
+ blossomed, and bore fruit in this one word&mdash;Hell. For the nourishment
+ of this dogma, cruelty was soil, ignorance was rain, and fear was light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did Mr. Black fail to answer what I said in relation to the doctrine
+ of inspiration? Did he consider that a "metaphysical question"? Let us see
+ what inspiration really is. A man looks at the sea, and the sea says
+ something to him. It makes an impression on his mind. It awakens memory,
+ and this impression depends upon his experience&mdash;upon his
+ intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a different
+ brain; he has a different experience. The sea may speak to him of joy, to
+ the other of grief and tears. The sea cannot tell the same thing to any
+ two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same
+ experience. One may think of wreck and ruin, and another, while listening
+ to the "multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: Every drop has
+ visited all the shores of earth; every one has been frozen in the vast and
+ icy North, has fallen in snow, has whirled in storms around the mountain
+ peaks, been kissed to vapor by the sun, worn the seven-hued robe of light,
+ fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs, and laughed in brooks while
+ lovers wooed upon the banks. Everything in nature tells a different story
+ to all eyes that see and to all ears that hear. So, when we look upon a
+ flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet, the more we know, the
+ more we have experienced, the more we have thought, the more we remember,
+ the more the statue, the star, the painting, the violet has to tell.
+ Nature says to me all that I am capable of understanding&mdash;gives all
+ that I can receive. As with star, or flower, or sea, so with a book. A
+ thoughtful man reads Shakespeare. What does he get? All that he has the
+ mind to understand. Let another read him, who knows nothing of the drama,
+ nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? Almost
+ nothing. Shakespeare has a different story for each reader. He is a world
+ in which each recognizes his acquaintances. The impression that nature
+ makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea and star and flower, must be
+ the natural food of thought. Leaving out for the moment the impressions
+ gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and drifts and trends&mdash;the
+ natural food of thought must be the impressions made upon the brain by
+ coming in contact through the medium of the senses with what we call the
+ outward world. The brain is natural; its food is natural; the result,
+ thought, must be natural. Of the supernatural we have no conception.
+ Thought may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and
+ denominated unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural. It may
+ be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. Above the natural,
+ man cannot rise. There can be deformed ideas, as there are deformed
+ persons. There may be religions monstrous and misshapen, but they were
+ naturally produced. The world is to each man according to each man. It
+ takes the world as it really is and that man to make that man's world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may ask, And what of all this? I reply, As with everything in nature,
+ so with the Bible. It has a different story for each reader. Is, then, the
+ Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It is. Can God,
+ through the Bible, make precisely the same revelation to two persons? He
+ cannot. Why? Because the man who reads is not inspired. God should inspire
+ readers as well as writers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may reply: God knew that his book would be understood differently by
+ each one, and intended that it should be understood as it is understood by
+ each. If this is so, then my understanding of the Bible is the real
+ revelation to me. If this is so, I have no right to take the understanding
+ of another. I must take the revelation made to me through my
+ understanding, and by that revelation I must stand. Suppose then, that I
+ read this Bible honestly, fairly, and when I get through am compelled to
+ say, "The book is not true." If this is the honest result, then you are
+ compelled to say, either that God has made no revelation to me, or that
+ the revelation that it is not true is the revelation made to me, and by
+ which I am bound. If the book and my brain are both the work of the same
+ infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and brain do not agree?
+ Either God should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made
+ my brain to fit his book. The inspiration of the Bible depends on the
+ credulity of him who reads. There was a time when its geology, its
+ astronomy, its natural history, were thought to be inspired; that time has
+ passed. There was a time when its morality satisfied the men who ruled the
+ world of thought; that time has passed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black, continuing his process of compressing my propositions,
+ attributes to me the following statement: "The gospel of Christ does not
+ satisfy the hunger of the heart." I did not say this. What I did say is:
+ "The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought,
+ nor satisfy the hunger of the heart." In so far as Christ taught any
+ doctrine in opposition to slavery, in favor of intellectual liberty,
+ upholding kindness, enforcing the practice of justice and mercy, I most
+ cheerfully admit that his teachings should be followed. Such teachings do
+ not need the assistance of miracles. They are not in the region of the
+ supernatural. They find their evidence in the glad response of every
+ honest heart that superstition has not touched and stained. The great
+ question under discussion is, whether the immoral, absurd, and infamous
+ can be established by the miraculous. It cannot be too often repeated,
+ that truth scorns the assistance of miracle. That which actually happens
+ sets in motion innumerable effects, which, in turn, become causes
+ producing other effects. These are all "witnesses" whose "depositions"
+ continue. What I insist on is, that a miracle cannot be established by
+ human testimony. We have known people to be mistaken. We know that all
+ people will not tell the truth. We have never seen the dead raised. When
+ people assert that they have, we are forced to weigh the probabilities,
+ and the probabilities are on the other side. It will not do to assert that
+ the universe was created, and then say that such creation was miraculous,
+ and, therefore, all miracles are possible. We must be sure of our
+ premises. Who knows that the universe was created? If it was not; if it
+ has existed from eternity; if the present is the necessary child of all
+ the past, then the miraculous is the impossible. Throw away all the
+ miracles of the New Testament, and the good teachings of Christ remain&mdash;all
+ that is worth preserving will be there still. Take from what is now known
+ as Christianity the doctrine of the atonement, the fearful dogma of
+ eternal punishment, the absurd idea that a certain belief is necessary to
+ salvation, and with most of the remainder the good and intelligent will
+ most heartily agree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black attributes to me the following expression: "Christianity is
+ pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the mind, narrows the soul,
+ arrests the progress of human society, and hinders civilization." I said
+ no such thing. Strange, that he is only able to answer what I did not say.
+ I endeavored to show that the passages in the Old Testament upholding
+ slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious intolerance had
+ filled the world with blood and crime. I admitted that there are many wise
+ and good things in the Old Testament. I also insisted that the doctrine of
+ the atonement&mdash;that is to say, of moral bankruptcy&mdash;the idea
+ that a certain belief is necessary to salvation, and the frightful dogma
+ of eternal pain, had narrowed the soul, had darkened the mind, and had
+ arrested the progress of human society. Like other religions, Christianity
+ is a mixture of good and evil. The church has made more orphans than it
+ has fed. It has never built asylums enough to hold the insane of its own
+ making. It has shed more blood than light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black seems to think that miracles are the most natural things
+ imaginable, and wonders that anybody should be insane enough to deny the
+ probability of the impossible. He regards all who doubt the miraculous
+ origin, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, as afflicted with
+ some "error of the moon," and declares that their "disbelief seems like a
+ kind of insanity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To ask for evidence is not generally regarded as a symptom of a brain
+ diseased. Delusions, illusions, phantoms, hallucinations, apparitions,
+ chimeras, and visions are the common property of the religious and the
+ insane. Persons blessed with sound minds and healthy bodies rely on facts,
+ not fancies&mdash;on demonstrations instead of dreams. It seems to me that
+ the most orthodox Christians must admit that many of the miracles recorded
+ in the New Testament are extremely childish. They must see that the
+ miraculous draught of fishes, changing water into wine, fasting for forty
+ days, inducing devils to leave an insane man by allowing them to take
+ possession of swine, walking on the water, and using a fish for a
+ pocket-book, are all unworthy of an infinite being, and are calculated to
+ provoke laughter&mdash;to feed suspicion and engender doubt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black takes the ground that if a man believes in the creation of the
+ universe&mdash;that being the most stupendous miracle of which the mind
+ can conceive&mdash;he has no right to deny anything. He asserts that God
+ created the universe; that creation was a miracle; that "God would be
+ likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to
+ obey it," and that he would authenticate his revelation by giving his
+ prophets and apostles supernatural power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After making these assertion, he triumphantly exclaims: "It therefore
+ follows that the improbability of a miracle is no greater than the
+ original improbability of a revelation, and that is not improbable at
+ all."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How does he know that God made the universe? How does he know what God
+ would be likely to do? How does he know that any revelation was made? And
+ how did he ascertain that any of the apostles and prophets were entrusted
+ with supernatural power? It will not do to prove your premises by
+ assertions, and then claim that your conclusions are correct, because they
+ agree with your premises.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If "God would be likely to reveal his will to the rational creatures who
+ were required to obey it," why did he reveal it only to the Jews?
+ According to Mr. Black, God is the only natural thing in the universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We should remember that ignorance is the mother of credulity; that the
+ early Christians believed everything but the truth, and that they accepted
+ Paganism, admitted the reality of all the Pagan miracles&mdash;taking the
+ ground that they were all forerunners of their own. Pagan miracles were
+ never denied by the Christian world until late in the seventeenth century.
+ Voltaire was the third man of note in Europe who denied the truth of Greek
+ and Roman mythology. "The early Christians cited Pagan oracles predicting
+ in detail the sufferings of Christ. They forged prophecies, and attributed
+ them to the heathen sibyls, and they were accepted as genuine by the
+ entire church."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ St. Iren&aelig;us assures us that all Christians possessed the power of
+ working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils, healed the sick,
+ and even raised the dead. St. Epiphanius asserts that some rivers and
+ fountains were annually transmuted into wine, in attestation of the
+ miracle of Cana, adding that he himself had drunk of these fountains. St.
+ Augustine declares that one was told in a dream where the bones of St.
+ Stephen were buried, that the bones were thus discovered, and brought to
+ Hippo, and that they raised five dead persons to life, and that in two
+ years seventy miracles were performed with these relics. Justin Martyr
+ states that God once sent some angels to guard the human race, that these
+ angels fell in love with the daughters of men, and became the fathers of
+ innumerable devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For hundreds of years, miracles were about the only things that happened.
+ They were wrought by thousands of Christians, and testified to by
+ millions. The saints and martyrs, the best and greatest, were the
+ witnesses and workers of wonders. Even heretics, with the assistance of
+ the devil, could suspend the "laws of nature." Must we believe these
+ wonderful accounts because they were written by "good men," by Christians,
+ "who made their statements in the presence and expectation of death"? The
+ truth is that these "good men" were mistaken. They expected the
+ miraculous. They breathed the air of the marvelous. They fed their minds
+ on prodigies, and their imaginations feasted on effects without causes.
+ They were incapable of investigating. Doubts were regarded as "rude
+ disturbers of the congregation." Credulity and sanctity walked hand in
+ hand. Reason was danger. Belief was safety. As the philosophy of the
+ ancients was rendered almost worthless by the credulity of the common
+ people, so the proverbs of Christ, his religion of forgiveness, his creed
+ of kindness, were lost in the mist of miracle and the darkness of
+ superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Mr. Black is right, there were no virtue, justice, intellectual
+ liberty, moral elevation, refinement, benevolence, or true wisdom, until
+ Christianity was established. He asserts that when Christ came,
+ "benevolence, in any shape, was altogether unknown."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He insists that "the infallible God who authorized slavery in Judea"
+ established a government; that he was the head and king of the Jewish
+ people; that for this reason heresy was treason. Is it possible that God
+ established a government in which benevolence was unknown? How did it
+ happen that he established no asylums for the insane? How do you account
+ for the fact that your God permitted some of his children to become
+ insane? Why did Jehovah fail to establish hospitals and schools? Is it
+ reasonable to believe that a good God would assist his chosen people to
+ exterminate or enslave his other children? Why would your God people a
+ world, knowing that it would be destitute of benevolence for four thousand
+ years? Jehovah should have sent missionaries to the heathen. He ought to
+ have reformed the inhabitants of Canaan. He should have sent teachers, not
+ soldiers&mdash;missionaries, not murderers. A God should not exterminate
+ his children; he should reform them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black gives us a terrible picture of the condition of the world at the
+ coming of Christ; but did the God of Judea treat his own children, the
+ Gentiles, better than the Pagans treated theirs? When Rome enslaved
+ mankind&mdash;when with her victorious armies she sought to conquer or to
+ exterminate tribes and nations, she but followed the example of Jehovah.
+ Is it true that benevolence came with Christ, and that his coming heralded
+ the birth of pity in the human heart? Does not Mr. Black know that,
+ thousands of years before Christ was born, there were hospitals and
+ asylums for orphans in China? Does he not know that in Egypt, before Moses
+ lived, the insane were treated with kindness and wooed back to natural
+ thought by music's golden voice? Does he not know that in all times, and
+ in all countries, there have been great and loving souls who wrought, and
+ toiled, and suffered, and died that others might enjoy? Is it possible
+ that he knows nothing of the religion of Buddha&mdash;a religion based
+ upon equality, charity and forgiveness? Does he not know that, centuries
+ before the birth of the great Peasant of Palestine, another, upon the
+ plains of India, had taught the doctrine of forgiveness; and that,
+ contrary to the tyranny of Jehovah, had given birth to the sublime
+ declaration that all men are by nature free and equal? Does he not know
+ that a religion of absolute trust in God had been taught thousands of
+ years before Jerusalem was built&mdash;a religion based upon absolute
+ special providence, carrying its confidence to the extremest edge of human
+ thought, declaring that every evil is a blessing in disguise, and that
+ every step taken by mortal man, whether in the rags of poverty or the
+ royal robes of kings, is the step necessary to be taken by that soul in
+ order to reach perfection and eternal joy? But how is it possible for a
+ man who believes in slavery to have the slightest conception of
+ benevolence, justice or charity? If Mr. Black is right, even Christ
+ believed and taught that man could buy and sell his fellow-man. Will the
+ Christians of America admit this? Do they believe that Christ from
+ heaven's throne mocked when colored mothers, reft of babes, knelt by empty
+ cradles and besought his aid?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the man Christ&mdash;for the reformer who loved his fellow-men&mdash;for
+ the man who believed in an Infinite Father, who would shield the innocent
+ and protect the just&mdash;for the martyr who expected to be rescued from
+ the cruel cross, and who at last, finding that his hope was dust, cried
+ out in the gathering gloom of death: "My God! My God! Why hast thou
+ forsaken me?"&mdash;for that great and suffering man, mistaken though he
+ was, I have the highest admiration and respect. That man did not, as I
+ believe, claim a miraculous origin; he did not pretend to heal the sick
+ nor raise the dead. He claimed simply to be a man, and taught his
+ fellow-men that love is stronger far than hate. His life was written by
+ reverent ignorance. Loving credulity belittled his career with feats of
+ jugglery and magic art, and priests, wishing to persecute and slay, put in
+ his mouth the words of hatred and revenge. The theological Christ is the
+ impossible union of the human and divine&mdash;man with the attributes of
+ God, and God with the limitations and weaknesses of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After giving a terrible description of the Pagan world, Mr. Black says:
+ "The church came, and her light penetrated the moral darkness like a new
+ sun; she covered the globe with institutions of mercy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this true? Do we not know that when the Roman empire fell, darkness
+ settled on the world? Do we not know that this darkness lasted for a
+ thousand years, and that during all that time the church of Christ held,
+ with bloody hands, the sword of power? These years were the starless
+ midnight of our race. Art died, law was forgotten, toleration ceased to
+ exist, charity fled from the human breast, and justice was unknown. Kings
+ were tyrants, priests were pitiless, and the poor multitude were slaves.
+ In the name of Christ, men made instruments of torture, and the <i>auto da
+ f&ecirc;</i> took the place of the gladiatorial show. Liberty was in
+ chains, honesty in dungeons, while Christian superstition ruled mankind.
+ Christianity compromised with Paganism. The statues of Jupiter were used
+ to represent Jehovah. Isis and her babe were changed to Mary and the
+ infant Christ. The Trinity of Egypt became the Father, Son, and Holy
+ Ghost. The simplicity of the early Christians was lost in heathen rites
+ and Pagan pomp. The believers in the blessedness of poverty became rich,
+ avaricious, and grasping, and those who had said, "Sell all, and give to
+ the poor," became the ruthless gatherers of tithes and taxes. In a few
+ years the teachings of Jesus were forgotten. The gospels were interpolated
+ by the designing and ambitious. The church was infinitely corrupt. Crime
+ was crowned, and virtue scourged. The minds of men were saturated with
+ superstition. Miracles, apparitions, angels, and devils had possession of
+ the world. "The nights were filled with incubi and succubi; devils', clad
+ in wondrous forms, and imps in hideous shapes, sought to tempt or fright
+ the soldiers of the cross. The maddened spirits of the air sent hail and
+ storm. Sorcerers wrought sudden death, and witches worked with spell and
+ charm against the common weal." In every town the stake arose. Faith
+ carried fagots to the feet of philosophy. Priests&mdash;not "politicians"&mdash;fed
+ and fanned the eager flames. The dungeon was the foundation of the
+ cathedral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Priests sold charms and relics to their flocks to keep away the wolves of
+ hell. Thousands of Christians, failing to find protection in the church,
+ sold their poor souls to Satan for some magic wand. Suspicion sat in every
+ house, families were divided, wives denounced husbands, husbands denounced
+ wives, and children their parents. Every calamity then, as now, increased
+ the power of the church. Pestilence supported the' pulpit, and famine was
+ the right hand of faith. Christendom was insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will Mr. Black be kind enough to state at what time "the church covered
+ the globe with institutions of mercy"? In his reply, he conveys the
+ impression that these institutions were organized in the first century, or
+ at least in the morning of Christianity. How many hospitals for the sick
+ were established by the church during a thousand years? Do we not know
+ that for hundreds of years the Mohammedans erected more hospitals and
+ asylums than the Christians? Christendom was filled with racks and
+ thumbscrews, with stakes and fagots, with chains and dungeons, for
+ centuries before a hospital was built. Priests despised doctors. Prayer
+ was medicine. Physicians interfered with the sale of charms and relics.
+ The church did not cure&mdash;it killed. It practiced surgery with the
+ sword. The early Christians did not build asylums for the insane. They
+ charged them with witchcraft, and burnt them. They built asylums, not for
+ the mentally diseased, but for the mentally developed. These asylums were
+ graves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the languages of the world have not words of horror enough to paint
+ the agonies of man when the church had power. Tiberius, Caligula,
+ Claudius, Nero, Domitian, and Commodus were not as cruel, false, and base
+ as many of the Christians Popes. Opposite the names of these imperial
+ criminals write John the XII., Leo the VIII., Boniface the VII., Benedict
+ the IX., Innocent the III., and Alexander the VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it under these pontiffs that the "church penetrated the moral darkness
+ like a new sun," and covered the globe with institutions of mercy? Rome
+ was far better when Pagan than when Catholic. It was better to allow
+ gladiators and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. The greatest of
+ the Romans denounced the cruelties of the arena. Seneca condemned the
+ combats even of wild beasts. He was tender enough to say that "we should
+ have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the
+ depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering."
+ Aurelius compelled the gladiators to fight with blunted swords. Roman
+ lawyers declared that all men are by nature free and equal. Woman, under
+ Pagan rule in Rome, became as free as man. Zeno, long before the birth of
+ Christ, taught that virtue alone establishes a difference between men. We
+ know that the Civil Law is the foundation of our codes. We know that
+ fragments of Greek and Roman art&mdash;a few manuscripts saved from
+ Christian destruction, some inventions and discoveries of the Moors&mdash;were
+ the seeds of modern civilization. Christianity, for a thousand years,
+ taught memory to forget and reason to believe. Not one step was taken in
+ advance. Over the manuscripts of philosophers and poets, priests with
+ their ignorant tongues thrust out, devoutly scrawled the forgeries of
+ faith. For a thousand years the torch of progress was extinguished in the
+ blood of Christ, and his disciples, moved by ignorant zeal, by insane,
+ cruel creeds, destroyed with flame and sword a hundred millions of their
+ fellow-men. They made this world a hell. But if cathedrals had been
+ universities&mdash;if dungeons of the Inquisition had been laboratories&mdash;if
+ Christians had believed in character instead of creed&mdash;if they had
+ taken from the Bible all the good and thrown away the wicked and absurd&mdash;if
+ domes of temples had been observatories&mdash;if priests had been
+ philosophers&mdash;if missionaries had taught the useful arts&mdash;if
+ astrology had been astronomy&mdash;if the black art had been chemistry&mdash;if
+ superstition had been science&mdash;if religion had been humanity&mdash;it'
+ would have been a heaven filled with love, with liberty, and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We did not get our freedom from the church. The great truth, that all men
+ are by nature free, was never told on Sinai's barren crags, nor by the
+ lonely shores of Galilee.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Old Testament filled this world with tyranny and crime, and the New
+ gives us a future filled with pain for nearly all the sons of men. The Old
+ describes the hell of the past, and the New the hell of the future. The
+ Old tells us the frightful things that God has done&mdash;the New the
+ cruel things that he will do. These two books give us the sufferings of
+ the past and future&mdash;the injustice, the agony, the tears of both
+ worlds. If the Bible is true&mdash;if Jehovah is God&mdash;if the lot of
+ countless millions is to be eternal pain&mdash;better a thousand times
+ that all the constellations of the shoreless vast were eyeless darkness
+ and eternal space. Better that all that is should cease to be. Better that
+ all the seeds and springs of things should fail and wither from great
+ Nature's realm. Better that causes and effects should lose relation and
+ become unmeaning phrases and forgotten sounds. Better that every life
+ should change to breathless death, to voiceless blank, and every world to
+ blind oblivion and to moveless naught.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Black justifies all the crimes and horrors, excuses all the tortures
+ of all the Christian years, by denouncing the cruelties of the French
+ Revolution. Thinking people will not hasten to admit that an infinitely
+ good being authorized slavery in Judea, because of the atrocities of the
+ French Revolution. They will remember the sufferings of the Huguenots.
+ They will remember the massacre of St. Bartholomew. They will not forget
+ the countless cruelties of priest and king. They will not forget the
+ dungeons of the Bastile. They will know that the Revolution was an effect,
+ and that liberty was not the cause&mdash;that atheism was not the cause.
+ Behind the Revolution they will see altar and throne&mdash;sword and fagot&mdash;palace
+ and cathedral&mdash;king and priest&mdash;master and slave&mdash;tyrant
+ and hypocrite. They will see that the excesses, the cruelties, and crimes
+ were but the natural fruit of seeds the church had sown. But the
+ Revolution was not entirely evil. Upon that cloud of war, black with the
+ myriad miseries of a thousand years, dabbled with blood of king and queen,
+ of patriot and priest, there was this bow: "Beneath the flag of France all
+ men are free." In spite of all the blood and crime, in spite of deeds that
+ seem insanely base, the People placed upon a Nation's brow these stars:&mdash;Liberty,
+ Fraternity, Equality&mdash;grander words than ever issued from Jehovah's
+ lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ FAITH OR AGNOSTICISM.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ [Ingersoll-Field.]
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ An Open Letter to Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ Dear Sir: I am glad that I know you, even though some of my brethren look
+ upon you as a monster because of your unbelief. I shall never forget the
+ long evening I spent at your house in Washington; and in what I have to
+ say, however it may fail to convince you, I trust you will feel that I
+ have not shown myself unworthy of your courtesy or confidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Your conversation, then and at other times, interested me greatly. I
+ recognized at once the elements of your power over large audiences, in
+ your wit and dramatic talent&mdash;personating characters and imitating
+ tones of voice and expressions of countenance&mdash;and your remarkable
+ use of language, which even in familiar talk often rose to a high degree
+ of eloquence. All this was a keen intellectual stimulus. I was, for the
+ most part, a listener; but as we talked freely of religious matters, I
+ protested against your unbelief as utterly without reason. Yet there was
+ no offence given or taken, and we parted, I trust, with a feeling of
+ mutual respect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Still further, we found many points of sympathy. I do not hesitate to say
+ that there are many things in which I agree with you, in which I love what
+ you love and hate what you hate. A man's hatreds are not the least
+ important part of him; they are among the best indications of his
+ character. You love truth, and hate lying and hypocrisy&mdash;all the
+ petty arts and deceits of the world by which men represent themselves to
+ be other than they are&mdash;as well as the pride and arrogance, in which
+ they assume superiority over their fellow-beings. Above all, you hate
+ every form of injustice and oppression. Nothing moves your indignation so
+ much as "man's inhumanity to man," and you mutter "curses, not loud but
+ deep," on the whole race of tyrants and oppressors, whom you would sweep
+ from the face of the earth. And yet, you do not hate oppression more than
+ I; nor love liberty more. Nor will I admit that you have any stronger
+ desire for that intellectual freedom, to the attainment of which you look
+ forward as the last and greatest emancipation of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nor have you a greater horror of superstition. Indeed, I might say that
+ you cannot have so great, for the best of all reasons, that you have not
+ seen so much of it; you have not stood on the banks of the Ganges, and
+ seen the Hindoos by tens of thousands rushing madly to throw themselves
+ into the sacred river, even carrying the ashes of their dead to cast them
+ upon the waters. It seems but yesterday that I was sitting on the back of
+ an elephant, looking down on this horrible scene of human degradation.
+ Such superstition overthrows the very foundations of morality. In place of
+ the natural sense of right and wrong, which is written in men's
+ consciences and hearts, it introduces an artificial standard, by which the
+ order of things is totally reversed: right is made wrong, and wrong is
+ made right. It makes that a virtue which is not a virtue, and that a crime
+ which is not a crime. Religion consists in a round of observances that
+ have no relation whatever to natural goodness, but which rather exclude it
+ by being a substitute for it. Penances and pilgrimages take the place of
+ justice and mercy, benevolence and charity. Such a religion, so far from
+ being a purifier, is the greatest corrupter of morals; so that it is no
+ extravagance to say of the Hindoos, who are a gentle race, that they might
+ be virtuous and good if they were not so religious. But this colossal
+ superstition weighs upon their very existence, crushing out even natural
+ virtue. Such a religion is an immeasurable curse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hope this language is strong enough to satisfy even your own intense
+ hatred of superstition. You cannot loathe it more than I do. So far we
+ agree perfectly. But unfortunately you do not limit your crusade to the
+ religions of Asia, but turn the same style of argument against the
+ religion of Europe and America, and, indeed, against the religious belief
+ and worship of every country and clime. In this matter you make no
+ distinctions: you would sweep them all away; church and cathedral must go
+ with the temple and the pagoda, as alike manifestations of human
+ credulity, and proofs of the intellectual feebleness and folly of mankind.
+ While under the impression of that memorable evening at your house, I took
+ up some of your public addresses, and experienced a strange revulsion of
+ feeling. I could hardly believe my eyes as I read, so inexpressibly was I
+ shocked. Things which I held sacred you not only rejected with unbelief,
+ but sneered at with contempt. Your words were full of a bitterness so
+ unlike anything I had heard from your lips, that I could not reconcile the
+ two, till I reflected that in Robert Ingersoll (as in the most of us)
+ there were two men, who were not only distinct, but contrary the one to
+ the other&mdash;the one gentle and sweet-tempered; the other delighting in
+ war as his native element. Between the two, I have a decided preference
+ for the former. I have no dispute with the quiet and peaceable gentleman,
+ whose kindly spirit makes sunshine in his home; but it is <i>that other
+ man</i> over yonder, who comes forth into the arena like a gladiator,
+ defiant and belligerent, that rouses my antagonism. And yet I do not
+ intend to <i>stand up</i> even against him; but if he will only <i>sit
+ down</i> and listen patiently, and answer in those soft tones of voice
+ which he knows so well how to use, we can have a quiet talk, which will
+ certainly do him no harm, while it relieves my troubled mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What then is the basis of this religion which you despise? At the
+ foundation of every form of religious faith and worship, is the idea of
+ God. Here you take your stand; you do not believe in God. Of course you do
+ not deny absolutely the existence of a Creative Power: for that would be
+ to assume a knowledge which no human being can possess. How small is the
+ distance that we can see before us! The candle of our intelligence throws
+ its beams but a little way, beyond which the circle of light is compassed
+ by universal darkness. Upon this no one insists more than yourself. I have
+ heard you discourse upon the insignificance of man in a way to put many
+ preachers to shame. I remember your illustration from the myriads of
+ creatures that live on plants, from which you picked out, to represent
+ human insignificance, an insect too small to be seen by the naked eye,
+ whose world was a leaf, and whose life lasted but a single day! Surely a
+ creature that can only be seen with a microscope, cannot <i>know</i> that
+ a Creator does not exist!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, I must do you the justice to say, you do not affirm. All that you
+ can say is, that if there be no knowledge on one side, neither is there on
+ the other; that it is only a matter of probability; and that, judging from
+ such evidence as appeals to your senses and your understanding, you do not
+ <i>believe</i> that there is a God. Whether this be a reasonable
+ conclusion or not, it is at least an intelligible state of mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I am not going to argue against what the Catholics call "invincible
+ ignorance"&mdash;an incapacity on account of temperament&mdash;for I hold
+ that the belief in God, like the belief in all spiritual things, comes to
+ some minds by a kind of intuition. There are natures so finely strung that
+ they are sensitive to influences which do not touch others. You may say
+ that it is mere poetical rhapsody when Shelley writes:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The awful shadow of some unseen power,
+ Floats, though unseen, among us."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ But there are natures which are not at all poetical or dreamy, only most
+ simple and pure, which, in moments of spiritual exaltation, are almost <i>conscious</i>
+ of a Presence that is not of this world. But this, which is a matter of
+ experience, will have no weight with those who do not have that
+ experience. For the present, therefore, I would not be swayed one particle
+ by mere sentiment, but look at the question in the cold light of reason
+ alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea of God is, indeed, the grandest and most awful that can be
+ entertained by the human mind. Its very greatness overpowers us, so that
+ it seems impossible that such a Being should exist. But if it is hard to
+ conceive of Infinity, it is still harder to get any intelligible
+ explanation of the present order of things without admitting the existence
+ of an intelligent Creator and Upholder of all. Galileo, when he swept the
+ sky with his telescope, traced the finger of God in every movement of the
+ heavenly bodies. Napoleon, when the French savants on the voyage to Egypt
+ argued that there was no God, disdained any other answer than to point
+ upward to the stars and ask, "Who made all these?" This is the first
+ question, and it is the last. The farther we go, the more we are forced to
+ one conclusion. No man ever studied nature with a more simple desire to
+ know the truth than Agassiz, and yet the more he explored, the more he was
+ startled as he found himself constantly face to face with the evidences of
+ mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you say this is "a great mystery," meaning that it is something that we
+ do not know anything about? Of course, it is "a mystery." But do you think
+ to escape mystery by denying the Divine existence? You only exchange one
+ mystery for another. The first of all mysteries is, not that God exists,
+ but that <i>we</i> exist. Here we are. How did we come here? We go back to
+ our ancestors; but that does not take away the difficulty; it only removes
+ it farther off. Once begin to climb the stairway of past generations, and
+ you will find that it is a Jacob's ladder, on which you mount higher and
+ higher until you step into the very presence of the Almighty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But even if we know that there is a God, what can we know of His
+ character? You say, "God is whatever we conceive Him to be." We frame an
+ image of Deity out of our consciousness&mdash;it is simply a reflection of
+ our own personality, cast upon the sky like the image seen in the Alps in
+ certain states of the atmosphere&mdash;and then fall down and worship that
+ which we have created, not indeed with our hands, but out of our minds.
+ This may be true to some extent of the gods of mythology, but not of the
+ God of Nature, who is as inflexible as Nature itself. You might as well
+ say that the laws of nature are whatever we imagine them to be. But we do
+ not go far before we find that, instead of being pliant to our will, they
+ are rigid and inexorable, and we dash ourselves against them to our own
+ destruction. So God does not bend to human thought any more than to human
+ will. The more we study Him the more we find that He is <i>not</i> what we
+ imagined him to be; that He is far greater than any image of Him that we
+ could frame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, after all, you rejoin that the conception of a Supreme Being is
+ merely an abstract idea, of no practical importance, with no bearing upon
+ human life. I answer, it is of immeasurable importance. Let go the idea of
+ God, and you have let go the highest moral restraint. There is no Ruler
+ above man; he is a law unto himself&mdash;a law which is as impotent to
+ produce order, and to hold society together, as man is with his little
+ hands to hold the stars in their courses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know how you reason against the Divine existence from the moral disorder
+ of the world. The argument is one that takes strong hold of the
+ imagination, and may be used with tremendous effect. You set forth in
+ colors none too strong the injustice that prevails in the relations of men
+ to one another&mdash;the inequalities of society; the haughtiness of the
+ rich and the misery of the poor; you draw lurid pictures of the vice and
+ crime which run riot in the great capitals which are the centres of
+ civilization; and when you have wound up your audience to the highest
+ pitch, you ask, "How can it be that there is a just God in heaven, who
+ looks down upon the earth and sees all this horrible confusion, and yet
+ does not lift His hand to avenge the innocent or punish the guilty?" To
+ this I will make but one answer: Does it convince yourself? I do not mean
+ to imply that you are conscious of insincerity. But an orator is sometimes
+ carried away by his own eloquence, and states things more strongly than he
+ would in his cooler moments. So I venture to ask: With all your tendency
+ to skepticism, do you really believe that there is no moral government of
+ the world&mdash;no Power behind nature "making for righteousness?" Are
+ there no retributions in history? When Lincoln stood on the field of
+ Gettysburg, so lately drenched with blood, and, reviewing the carnage of
+ that terrible day, accepted it as the punishment of our national sins, was
+ it a mere theatrical flourish in him to lift his hand to heaven, and
+ exclaim, "Just and true are Thy ways, Lord God Almighty!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having settled it to your own satisfaction that there is no God, you
+ proceed in the same easy way to dispose of that other belief which lies at
+ the foundation of all religion&mdash;the immortality of the soul. With an
+ air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience by storm, you
+ confess your ignorance of what, perhaps, others are better acquainted
+ with, when you say, "This world is all that <i>I</i> know anything about,
+ <i>so far as I recollect</i>." This is very wittily put, and some may
+ suppose it contains an argument; but do you really mean to say that you do
+ not <i>know</i> anything except what you "recollect," or what you have
+ seen with your eyes? Perhaps you never saw your grandparents; but have you
+ any more doubt of their existence than of that of your father and mother
+ whom you did see?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here, as when you speak of the existence of God, you carefully avoid any
+ positive affirmation: you neither affirm nor deny. You are ready for
+ whatever may "turn up." In your jaunty style, if you find yourself
+ hereafter in some new and unexpected situation, you will accept it and
+ make the best of it, and be "as ready as the next man to enter on any
+ remunerative occupation!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But while airing this pleasant fancy, you plainly regard the hope of
+ another life as a beggar's dream&mdash;the momentary illusion of one who,
+ stumbling along life's highway, sets him down by the roadside, footsore
+ and weary, cold and hungry, and falls asleep, and dreams of a time when he
+ shall have riches and plenty. Poor creature! let him dream; it helps him
+ to forget his misery, and may give him a little courage for his rude
+ awaking to the hard reality of life. But it is all a dream, which
+ dissolves in thin air, and floats away and disappears. This illustration I
+ do not take from you, but simply choose to set forth what (as I infer from
+ the sentences above quoted and many like expressions) may describe, not
+ unfairly, your state of mind. Your treatment of the subject is one of
+ trifling. You do not speak of it in a serious way, but lightly and
+ flippantly, as if it were all a matter of fancy and conjecture, and not
+ worthy of sober consideration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, does it never occur to you that there is something very cruel in this
+ treatment of the belief of your fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another
+ life hangs all that relieves the darkness of their present existence? To
+ many of them life is a burden to carry, and they need all the helps to
+ carry it that can be found in reason, in philosophy, or in religion. But
+ what support does your hollow creed supply? You are a man of warm heart,
+ of the tenderest sympathies. Those who know you best, and love you most,
+ tell me that you cannot bear the sight of suffering even in animals; that
+ your natural sensibility is such that you find no pleasure in sports, in
+ hunting or fishing; to shoot a robin would make you feel like a murderer.
+ If you see a poor man in trouble your first impulse is to help him. You
+ cannot see a child in tears but you want to take up the little fellow in
+ your arms, and make him smile again. And yet, with all your sensibility,
+ you hold the most remorseless and pitiless creed in the world&mdash;a
+ creed in which there is not a gleam of mercy or of hope. A mother has lost
+ her only son. She goes to his grave and throws herself upon it, the very
+ picture of woe. One thought only keeps her from despair: it is that beyond
+ this life there is a world where she may once more clasp her boy in her
+ arms. What will you say to that mother? You are silent, and your silence
+ is a sentence of death to her hopes. By that grave you cannot speak; for
+ if you were to open your lips and tell that mother what you really
+ believe, it would be that her son is blotted out of existence, and that
+ she can never look upon his face again. Thus with your iron heel do you
+ trample down and crush the last hope of a broken heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When such sorrow comes to you, you feel it as keenly as any man. With your
+ strong domestic attachments one cannot pass out of your little circle
+ without leaving a great void in your heart, and your grief is as eloquent
+ as it is hopeless. No sadder words ever fell from human lips than these,
+ spoken over the coffin of one to whom you were tenderly attached: "Life is
+ but a narrow vale, between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities!"
+ This is a doom of annihilation, which strikes a chill to the stoutest
+ heart. Even you must envy the faith which, as it looks upward, sees those
+ "peaks of two eternities," not "cold and barren," but warm with the glow
+ of the setting sun, which gives promise of a happier to-morrow!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think I hear you say, "So might it be! Would that I could believe it!"
+ for no one recognizes more the emptiness of life as it is. I do not forget
+ the tone in which you said: "Life is very sad to me; it is very pitiful;
+ there isn't much to it." True indeed! With your belief, or want of belief,
+ there is very little to it; and if this were all, it would be a fair
+ question whether life were worth living. In the name of humanity, let us
+ cling to all that is left us that can bring a ray of hope into its
+ darkness, and thus lighten its otherwise impenetrable gloom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I observe that you not unfrequently entertain yourself and your audiences
+ by caricaturing certain doctrines of the Christian religion. The
+ "Atonement," as you look upon it, is simply "punishing the wrong man"&mdash;letting
+ the guilty escape and putting the innocent to death. This is vindicating
+ justice by permitting injustice. But is there not another side to this?
+ Does not the idea of sacrifice run through human life, and ennoble human
+ character? You see a mother denying herself for her children, foregoing
+ every comfort, enduring every hardship, till at last, worn out by her
+ labor and her privation, she folds her hands upon her breast. May it not
+ be said truly that she gives her life for the life of her children?
+ History is full of sacrifice, and it is the best part of history. I will
+ not speak of "the noble army of martyrs," but of heroes who have died for
+ their country or for liberty&mdash;what is it but this element of devotion
+ for the good of others that gives such glory to their immortal names? How
+ then should it be thought a thing without reason that a Deliverer of the
+ race should give His life for the life of the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, too, you find a subject for caricature in the doctrine of
+ "Regeneration." But what is regeneration but a change of character shown
+ in a change of life? Is that so very absurd? Have you never seen a
+ drunkard reformed? Have you never seen a man of impure life, who, after
+ running his evil course, had, like the prodigal, "come to himself"&mdash;that
+ is, awakened to his shame, and turning from it, come back to the path of
+ purity, and finally regained a true and noble manhood? Probably you would
+ admit this, but say that the change was the result of reflection, and of
+ the man's own strength of will. The doctrine of regeneration only adds to
+ the will of man the power of God. We believe that man is weak, but that
+ God is mighty; and that when man tries to raise himself, an arm is
+ stretched out to lift him up to a height which he could not attain alone.
+ Sometimes one who has led the worst life, after being plunged into such
+ remorse and despair that he feels as if he were enduring the agonies of
+ hell, turns back and takes another course: he becomes "a new creature,"
+ whom his friends can hardly recognize as he "sits clothed and in his right
+ mind." The change is from darkness to light, from death to life; and he
+ who has known but one such case will never say that the language is too
+ strong which describes that man as "born again."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you think that I pass lightly over these doctrines, not bringing out
+ all the meaning which they bear, I admit it. I am not writing an essay in
+ theology, but would only show, in passing, by your favorite method of
+ illustration, that the principles involved are the same with which you are
+ familiar in everyday life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the doctrine which excites your bitterest animosity is that of Future
+ Retribution. The prospect of another life, reaching on into an unknown
+ futurity, you would contemplate with composure were it not for the dark
+ shadow hanging over it. But to live only to suffer; to live when asking to
+ die; to "long for death, and not be able to find it"&mdash;is a prospect
+ which arouses the anger of one who would look with calmness upon death as
+ an eternal sleep. The doctrine loses none of its terrors in passing
+ through your hands; for it is one of the means by which you work upon the
+ feelings of your hearers. You pronounce it "the most horrible belief that
+ ever entered the human mind: that the Creator should bring beings into
+ existence to destroy them! This would make Him the most fearful tyrant in
+ the universe&mdash;a Moloch devouring his own children!" I shudder when I
+ recall the fierce energy with which you spoke as you said, "Such a God I
+ hate with all the intensity of my being!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But gently, gently, Sir! We will let this burst of fury pass before we
+ resume the conversation. When you are a little more tranquil, I would
+ modestly suggest that perhaps you are fighting a figment of your
+ imagination. I never heard of any Christian teacher who said that "the
+ Creator brought beings into the world to destroy them!" Is it not better
+ to moderate yourself to exact statements, especially when, with all
+ modifications, the subject is one to awaken a feeling the most solemn and
+ profound?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I am not going to enter into a discussion of this doctrine. I will not
+ quote a single text. I only ask you whether it is not a scientific truth
+ that <i>the effect of everything which is of the nature of a cause is
+ eternal</i>. Science has opened our eyes to some very strange facts in
+ nature. The theory of vibrations is carried by the physicists to an
+ alarming extent. They tell us that it is literally and mathematically true
+ that you cannot throw a ball in the air but it shakes the solar system.
+ Thus all things act upon all. What is true in space may be true in time,
+ and the law of physics may hold in the spiritual realm. When the soul of
+ man departs out of the body, being released from the grossness of the
+ flesh, it may enter on a life a thousand times more intense than this: in
+ which it will not need the dull senses as avenues of knowledge, because
+ the spirit itself will be all eye, all ear, all intelligence; while
+ memory, like an electric flash, will in an instant bring the whole of the
+ past into view; and the moral sense will be quickened as never before.
+ Here then we have all the conditions of retribution&mdash;a world which,
+ however shadowy it may be seem, is yet as real as the homes and
+ habitations and activities of our present state; with memory trailing the
+ deeds of a lifetime behind it, and conscience, more inexorable than any
+ judge, giving its solemn and final verdict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With such conditions assumed, let us take a case which would awaken your
+ just indignation&mdash;that of a selfish, hardhearted, and cruel man; who
+ sacrifices the interests of everybody to his own; who grinds the faces of
+ the poor, robbing the widow and the orphan of their little all; and who,
+ so far from making restitution, dies with his ill-gotten gains held fast
+ in his clenched hand. How long must the night be to sleep away the memory
+ of such a hideous life? If he wakes, will not the recollection cling to
+ him still? Are there any waters of oblivion that can cleanse his miserable
+ soul? If not&mdash;if he cannot forget&mdash;surely he cannot forgive
+ himself for the baseness which now he has no opportunity to repair. Here,
+ then, is a retribution which is inseparable from his being, which is a
+ part of his very existence. The undying memory brings the undying pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take another case&mdash;alas! too sadly frequent. A man of pleasure
+ betrays a young, innocent, trusting woman by the promise of his love, and
+ then casts her off, leaving her to sink down, down, through every degree
+ of misery and shame, till she is lost in depths, which plummet never
+ sounded, and disappears. Is he not to suffer for this poor creature's
+ ruin? Can he rid himself of it by fleeing beyond "that bourne from whence
+ no traveler returns"? Not unless he can flee from himself: for in the
+ lowest depths of the under-world&mdash;a world in which the sun never
+ shines&mdash;that image will still pursue him. As he wanders in its gloomy
+ shades a pale form glides by him like an affrighted ghost. The face is the
+ same, beautiful even in its sorrow, but with a look upon it as of one who
+ has already suffered an eternity of woe. In an instant all the past comes
+ back again. He sees the young, unblessed mother wandering in some lonely
+ place, that only the heavens may witness her agony and her despair. There
+ he sees her holding up in her arms the babe that had no right to be born,
+ and calling upon God to judge her betrayer. How far in the future must he
+ travel to forget that look? Is there any escape except by plunging into
+ the gulf of annihilation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thus far in this paper I have taken a tone of defence. But I do not admit
+ that the Christian religion needs any apology,&mdash;it needs only to be
+ rightly understood to furnish its own complete vindication. Instead of
+ considering its "evidences," which is but going round the outer walls, let
+ us enter the gates of the temple and see what is within. Here we find
+ something better than "towers and bulwarks" in the character of Him who is
+ the Founder of our Religion, and not its Founder only but its very core
+ and being. Christ is Christianity. Not only is He the Great Teacher, but
+ the central subject of what He taught, so that the whole stands or falls
+ with Him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our first conversation, I observed that, with all your sharp comments
+ on things sacred, you professed great respect for the ethics of
+ Christianity, and for its author. "Make the Sermon on the Mount your
+ religion," you said, "and there I am with you." Very well! So far, so
+ good. And now, if you will go a little further, you may find still more
+ food for reflection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All who have made a study of the character and teachings of Christ, even
+ those who utterly deny the supernatural, stand in awe and wonder before
+ the gigantic figure which is here revealed. Renan closes his "Life of
+ Jesus" with this as the result of his long study: "Jesus will never be
+ surpassed. His worship will be renewed without ceasing; his story [l&eacute;gende]
+ will draw tears from beautiful eyes without end; his sufferings will touch
+ the finest natures; all the ages will proclaim
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THAT AMONG THE SONS OF MEN THERE HAS NOT RISEN A GREATER THAN JESUS;"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ while Rousseau closes his immortal eulogy by saying, "Socrates died like a
+ philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here is an argument for Christianity to which I pray you to address
+ yourself. As you do not believe in miracles, and are ready to explain
+ everything by natural causes, I beg you to tell us how came it to pass
+ that a Hebrew peasant, born among the hills of Judea, had a wisdom above
+ that of Socrates or Plato, of Confucius or Buddha? This is the greatest of
+ miracles, that such a Being has lived and died on the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since this is the chief argument for Religion, does it not become one who
+ undertakes to destroy it to set himself first to this central position,
+ instead of wasting his time on mere outposts? When you next address one of
+ the great audiences that hang upon your words, is it unfair to ask that
+ you lay aside such familiar topics as Miracles or Ghosts, or a reply to
+ Talmage, and tell us what you think of Jesus Christ; whether you look upon
+ Him as an impostor, or merely as a dreamer&mdash;a mild and harmless
+ enthusiast; or are you ready to acknowledge that He is entitled to rank
+ among the great teachers of mankind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But if you are compelled to admit the greatness of Christ, you take your
+ revenge on the Apostles, whom you do not hesitate to say that you "don't
+ think much of." In fact, you set them down in a most peremptory way as "a
+ poor lot." It did seem rather an unpromising "lot," that of a boat-load of
+ fishermen, from which to choose the apostles of a religion&mdash;almost as
+ unpromising as it was to take a rail-splitter to be the head of a nation
+ in the greatest crisis of its history! But perhaps in both cases there was
+ a wisdom higher than ours, that chose better than we. It might puzzle even
+ you to give a better definition of religion than this of the Apostle
+ James: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to
+ visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
+ unspotted from the world," or to find among those sages of antiquity, with
+ whose writings you are familiar, a more complete and perfect delineation
+ of that which is the essence of all goodness and virtue, than Paul's
+ description of the charity which "suffereth long and is kind;" or to find
+ in the sayings of Confucius or of Buddha anything more sublime than this
+ aphorism of John: "God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in
+ God, and God in him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here you must allow me to make a remark, which is not intended as a
+ personal retort, but simply in the interest of that truth which we both
+ profess to seek, and to count worth more than victory. Your language is
+ too sweeping to indicate the careful thinker, who measures his words and
+ weighs them in a balance. Your lectures remind me of the pictures of
+ Gustave Dor&eacute;, who preferred to paint on a large canvas, with
+ figures as gigantesque as those of Michael Angelo in his Last Judgment.
+ The effect is very powerful, but if he had softened his colors a little,&mdash;if
+ there were a few delicate touches, a mingling of light and shade, as when
+ twilight is stealing over the earth,&mdash;the landscape would be more
+ true to nature. So, believe me, your words would be more weighty if they
+ were not so strong. But whenever you touch upon religion you seem to lose
+ control of yourself, and a vindictive feeling takes possession of you,
+ which causes you to see things so distorted from their natural appearance
+ that you cannot help running into the broadest caricature. You swing your
+ sentences as the woodman swings his axe. Of course, this "slashing" style
+ is very effective before a popular audience, which does not care for nice
+ distinctions, or for evidence that has to be sifted and weighed; but wants
+ opinions off hand, and likes to have its prejudices and hatreds echoed
+ back in a ringing voice. This carries the crowd, but does not convince the
+ philosophic mind. The truth-seeker cannot cut a road through the forest
+ with sturdy blows; he has a hidden path to trace, and must pick his way
+ with slow and cautious step to find that which is more precious than gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But if it were possible for you to sweep away the "evidences of
+ Christianity," you have not swept away Christianity itself; it still
+ lives, not only in tradition, but in the hearts of the people, entwined
+ with all that is sweetest in their domestic life, from which it must be
+ torn out with unsparing hand before it can be exterminated. To begin with,
+ you turn your back upon history. All that men have done and suffered for
+ the sake of religion was folly. The Pilgrims, who crossed the sea to find
+ freedom to worship God in the forests of the New World, were miserable
+ fanatics. There is no more place in the world for heroes and martyrs. He
+ who sacrifices his life for a faith, or an idea, is a fool. The only
+ practical wisdom is to have a sharp eye to the main chance. If you keep on
+ in this work of demolition, you will soon destroy all our ideals. Family
+ life withers under the cold sneer&mdash;half pity and half scorn&mdash;with
+ which you look down on household worship. Take from our American firesides
+ such scenes as that pictured in the <i>Cotter's Saturday Night</i>, and
+ you have taken from them their most sacred hours and their tenderest
+ memories.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same destructive spirit which intrudes into our domestic as well as
+ our religious life, would take away the beauty of our villages as well as
+ the sweetness of our homes. In the weary round of a week of toil, there
+ comes an interval of rest; the laborer lays down his burden, and for a few
+ hours breathes a serener air. The Sabbath morning has come:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Sweet day I so cool, so calm, so bright,
+ The bridal of the earth and sky."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ At the appointed hour the bell rings across the valley, and sends its
+ echoes among the hills; and from all the roads the people come trooping to
+ the village church. Here they gather, old and young, rich and poor; and as
+ they join in the same act of worship, feel that God is the maker of them
+ all? Is there in our national life any influence more elevating than this&mdash;one
+ which tends more to bring a community together; to promote neighborly
+ feeling; to refine the manners of the people; to breed true courtesy, and
+ all that makes a Christian village different from a cluster of Indian
+ wigwams&mdash;a civilized community different from a tribe of savages?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this you would destroy: you would abolish the Sabbath, or have it
+ turned into a holiday; you would tear down the old church, so full of
+ tender associations of the living and the dead, or at least have it
+ "razeed," cutting off the tall spire that points upward to heaven; and the
+ interior you would turn into an Assembly room&mdash;a place of
+ entertainment, where the young people could have their merry-makings,
+ except perchance in the warm' Summer-time, when they could dance on the
+ village green! So far you would have gained your object. But would that be
+ a more orderly community, more refined or more truly happy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may think this a mere sentiment&mdash;that we care more for the
+ picturesque than for the true. But there is one result which is fearfully
+ real: the destructive creed, or no creed, which despoils our churches and
+ our homes, attacks society in its first principles by taking away the
+ support of morality. I do not believe that general morality can be upheld
+ without the sanctions of religion. There may be individuals of great
+ natural force of character, who can stand alone&mdash;men of superior
+ intellect and strong will. But in general human nature is weak, and virtue
+ is not the spontaneous growth of childish innocence. Men do not become
+ pure and good by instinct. Character, like mind, has to be developed by
+ education; and it needs all the elements of strength which can be given
+ it, from without as well as from within, from the government of man and
+ the government of God. To let go of these restraints is a peril to public
+ morality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You feel strong in the strength of a robust manhood, well poised in body
+ and mind, and in the centre of a happy home, where loving hearts cling to
+ you like vines round the oak. But many to whom you speak are quite
+ otherwise. You address thousands of young men who have come out of country
+ homes, where they have been brought up in the fear of God, and have heard
+ the morning and evening prayer. They come into a city full of temptations,
+ but are restrained from evil by the thought of father and mother, and
+ reverence for Him who is the Father of us all&mdash;a feeling which,
+ though it may not have taken the form of any profession, is yet at the
+ bottom of their hearts, and keeps them from many a wrong and wayward step.
+ A young man, who is thus "guarded and defended" as by unseen angels, some
+ evening when he feels very lonely, is invited to "go and hear Ingersoll,"
+ and for a couple of hours listens to your caricatures of religion, with
+ descriptions of the prayers and the psalm-singing, illustrated by devout
+ grimaces and nasal tones, which set the house in roars of laughter, and
+ are received with tumultuous applause. When it is all over, and the young
+ man finds himself again under the flaring lamps of the city streets, he is
+ conscious of a change; the faith of his childhood has been rudely torn
+ from him, and with it "a glory has passed away from the earth;" the Bible
+ which his mother gave him, the morning that he came away, is "a mass of
+ fables;" the sentence which she wished him to hang on the wall, "Thou,
+ God, seest me," has lost its power, for there is no God that sees him, no
+ moral government, no law and no retribution. So he reasons as he walks
+ slowly homeward, meeting the temptations which haunt these streets at
+ night&mdash;temptations from which he has hitherto turned with a shudder,
+ but which he now meets with a diminished power of resistance. Have you
+ done that young man any good in taking from him what he held sacred
+ before? Have you not left him morally weakened? From sneering at religion,
+ it is but a step to sneering at morality, and then but one step more to a
+ vicious and profligate career. How are you going to stop this downward
+ tendency? When you have stripped him of former restraints, do you leave
+ him anything in their stead, except indeed a sense of honor, self-respect,
+ and self-interest?&mdash;worthy motives, no doubt, but all too feeble to
+ withstand the fearful temptations that assail him. Is the chance of his
+ resistance as good as it was before? Watch him as he goes along that
+ street at midnight! He passes by the places of evil resort, of drinking
+ and gambling&mdash;those open mouths of hell; he hears the sound of music
+ and dancing, and for the first time pauses to listen. How long will it be
+ before he will venture in?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With such dangers in his path, it is a grave responsibility to loosen the
+ restraints which hold such a young man to virtue. These gibes and sneers
+ which you utter so lightly, may have a sad echo in a lost character and a
+ wretched life. Many a young man has been thus taunted until he has pushed
+ off from the shore, under the idea of gaining his "liberty," and ventured
+ into the rapids, only to be carried down the stream, and left a wreck in
+ the whirlpool below.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You tell me that your object is to drive fear out of the world. That is a
+ noble ambition; if you succeed, you will be indeed a deliverer. Of course
+ you mean only irrational fears. You would not have men throw off the fear
+ of violating the laws of nature; for that would lead to incalculable
+ misery. You aim only at the terrors born of ignorance and superstition.
+ But how are you going to get rid of these? You trust to the progress of
+ science, which has dispelled so many fears arising from physical
+ phenomena, by showing that calamities ascribed to spiritual agencies are
+ explained by natural causes. But science can only go a certain way, beyond
+ which we come into the sphere of the unknown, where all is dark as before.
+ How can you relieve the fears of others&mdash;indeed how can you rid
+ yourself of fear, believing as you do that there is no Power above which
+ can help you in any extremity; that you are the sport of accident, and may
+ be dashed in pieces by the blind agency of nature? If I believed this, I
+ should feel that I was in the grasp of some terrible machinery which was
+ crushing me to atoms, with no possibility of escape.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not so does Religion leave man here on the earth, helpless and hopeless&mdash;in
+ abject terror, as he is in utter darkness as to his fate&mdash;but opening
+ the heaven above him, it discovers a Great Intelligence, compassing all
+ things, seeing the end from the beginning, and ordering our little lives
+ so that even the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements
+ of character, conduce to our future happiness. God is our Father. We look
+ up into His face with childlike confidence, and find that "His service is
+ perfect freedom." "Love casts out fear." That, I beg to assure you, is the
+ way, and the only way, by which man can be delivered from those fears by
+ which he is all his lifetime subject to bondage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In your attacks upon Religion you do violence to your own manliness.
+ Knowing you as I do, I feel sure that you do not realize where your blows
+ fall, or whom they wound, or you would not use your weapons so freely. The
+ faiths of men are as sacred as the most delicate manly or womanly
+ sentiments of love and honor. They are dear as the beloved faces that have
+ passed from our sight. I should think myself wanting in respect to the
+ memory of my father and mother if I could speak lightly of the faith in
+ which they lived and died. Surely this must be mere thoughtlessness, for I
+ cannot believe that you find pleasure in giving pain. I have not forgotten
+ the gentle hand that was laid upon your shoulder, and the gentle voice
+ which said, "Uncle Robert wouldn't hurt a fly." And yet you bruise the
+ tenderest sensibilities, and trample down what is most cherished by
+ millions of sisters and daughters and mothers, little heeding that you are
+ sporting with "human creatures' lives."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are waging a hopeless war&mdash;a war in which you are certain only of
+ defeat. The Christian Religion began to be nearly two thousand years
+ before you and I were born, and it will live two thousand years after we
+ are dead. Why is it that it lives on and on, while nations and kingdoms
+ perish? Is not this "the survival of the fittest?" Contend against it with
+ all your wit and eloquence, you will fail, as all have failed before you.
+ You cannot fight against the instincts of humanity. It is as natural for
+ men to look up to a Higher Power as it is to look up to the stars. Tell
+ them that there is no God! You might as well tell them that there is no
+ Sun in heaven, even while on that central light and heat all life on earth
+ depends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not presume to, think that I have convinced you, or changed your
+ opinion; but it is always right to appeal to a man's "sober second
+ thought"&mdash;to that better judgment that comes with increasing
+ knowledge and advancing years; and I will not give up hope that you will
+ yet see things more clearly, and recognize the mistake you have made in
+ not distinguishing Religion from Superstition&mdash;two things as far
+ apart as "the hither from the utmost pole." Superstition is the greatest
+ enemy of Religion. It is the nightmare of the mind, filling it with all
+ imaginable terrors&mdash;a black cloud which broods over half the world.
+ Against this you may well invoke the light of science to scatter its
+ darkness. Whoever helps to sweep it away, is a benefactor of his race. But
+ when this is done, and the moral atmosphere is made pure and sweet, then
+ you as well as we may be conscious of a new Presence coming into the
+ hushed and vacant air, as Religion, daughter of the skies, descends to
+ earth to bring peace and good will to men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Henry M. Field.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Doubt is called the beacon of the wise."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ My Dear Mr. Field:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I answer your letter because it is manly, candid and generous. It is not
+ often that a minister of the gospel of universal benevolence speaks of an
+ unbeliever except in terms of reproach, contempt and hatred. The meek are
+ often malicious. The statement in your letter, that some of your brethren
+ look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief, tends to show that
+ those who love God are not always the friends of their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally
+ damned, that they are by nature totally depraved, and that there is no
+ soundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look
+ upon others as "monsters"? And yet "some of your brethren," who regard
+ unbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of
+ another, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first question that arises between us, is as to the innocence of
+ honest error&mdash;as to the right to express an honest thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must know that perfectly honest men differ on many important subjects.
+ Some believe in free trade, others are the advocates of protection. There
+ are honest Democrats and sincere Republicans. How do you account for these
+ differences? Educated men, presidents of colleges, cannot agree upon
+ questions capable of solution&mdash;questions that the mind can grasp,
+ concerning which the evidence is open to all and where the facts can be
+ with accuracy ascertained. How do you explain this? If such differences
+ can exist consistently with the good faith of those who differ, can you
+ not conceive of honest people entertaining different views on subjects
+ about which nothing can be positively known?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You do not regard me as a monster. "Some of your brethren" do. How do you
+ account for this difference? Of course, your brethren&mdash;their hearts
+ having been softened by the Presbyterian God&mdash;are governed by charity
+ and love. They do not regard me as a monster because I have committed an
+ infamous crime, but simply for the reason that I have expressed my honest
+ thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What should I have done? I have read the Bible with great care, and the
+ conclusion has forced itself upon my mind not only that it is not
+ inspired, but that it is not true. Was it my duty to speak or act contrary
+ to this conclusion? Was it my duty to remain silent? If I had been untrue
+ to myself, if I had joined the majority,&mdash;if I had declared the book
+ to be the inspired word of God,&mdash;would your brethren still have
+ regarded me as a monster? Has religion had control of the world so long
+ that an honest man seems monstrous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to your creed&mdash;according to your Bible&mdash;the same Being
+ who made the mind of man, who fashioned every brain, and sowed within
+ those wondrous fields the seeds of every thought and deed, inspired the
+ Bible's every word, and gave it as a guide to all the world. Surely the
+ book should satisfy the brain. And yet, there are millions who do not
+ believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Some of the greatest and
+ best have held the claim of inspiration in contempt. No Presbyterian ever
+ stood higher in the realm of thought than Humboldt. He was familiar with
+ Nature from sands to stars, and gave his thoughts, his discoveries and
+ conclusions, "more precious than the tested gold," to all mankind. Yet he
+ not only rejected the religion of your brethren, but denied the existence
+ of their God. Certainly, Charles Darwin was one of the greatest and purest
+ of men,&mdash;as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass,&mdash;desiring
+ only to find amid the mists and clouds of ignorance the star of truth. No
+ man ever exerted a greater influence on the intellectual world. His
+ discoveries, carried to their legitimate conclusion, destroy the creeds
+ and sacred Scriptures of mankind. In the light of "Natural Selection,"
+ "The Survival of the Fittest," and "The Origin of Species," even the
+ Christian religion becomes a gross and cruel superstition. Yet Darwin was
+ an honest, thoughtful, brave and generous man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare, I beg of you, these men, Humboldt and Darwin, with the founders
+ of the Presbyterian Church. Read the life of Spinoza, the loving
+ pantheist, and then that of John Calvin, and tell me, candidly, which, in
+ your opinion, was a "monster." Even your brethren do not claim that men
+ are to be eternally punished for having been mistaken as to the truths of
+ geology, astronomy, or mathematics. A man may deny the rotundity and
+ rotation of the earth, laugh at the attraction of gravitation, scout the
+ nebular hypothesis, and hold the multiplication table in abhorrence, and
+ yet join at last the angelic choir. I insist upon the same freedom of
+ thought in all departments of human knowledge. Reason is the supreme and
+ final test.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God has made a revelation to man, it must have been addressed to his
+ reason. There is no other faculty that could even decipher the address. I
+ admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by
+ stumblers carried in the starless night,&mdash;blown and flared by
+ passion's storm,&mdash;and yet it is the only light. Extinguish that, and
+ nought remains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You draw a distinction between what you are pleased to call "superstition"
+ and religion. You are shocked at the Hindoo mother when she gives her
+ child to death at the supposed command of her God. What do you think of
+ Abraham, of Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah himself? Is not the
+ sacrifice of a child to a phantom as horrible in Palestine as in India?
+ Why should a God demand a sacrifice from man? Why should the infinite ask
+ anything from the finite? Should the sun beg of the glow-worm, and should
+ the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must remember that the Hindoo mother believes that her child will be
+ forever blest&mdash;that it will become the especial care of the God to
+ whom it has been given. This is a sacrifice through a false belief on the
+ part of the mother. She breaks her heart for the love of her babe. But
+ what do you think of the Christian mother who expects to be happy in
+ heaven, with her child a convict in the eternal prison&mdash;a prison in
+ which none die, and from which none escape? What do you say of those
+ Christians who believe that they, in heaven, will be so filled with
+ ecstasy that all the loved of earth will be forgotten&mdash;that all the
+ sacred relations of life, and all the passions of the heart, will fade and
+ die, so that they will look with stony, un-replying, happy eyes upon the
+ miseries of the lost?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have laid down a rule by which superstition can be distinguished from
+ religion. It is this: "It makes that a crime which is not a crime, and
+ that a virtue which is not a virtue." Let us test your religion by this
+ rule.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it a crime to investigate, to think, to reason, to observe? Is it a
+ crime to be governed by that which to you is evidence, and is it infamous
+ to express your honest thought? There is also another question: Is
+ credulity a virtue? Is the open mouth of ignorant wonder the only entrance
+ to Paradise?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to your creed, those who believe are to be saved, and those who
+ do not believe are to be eternally lost. When you condemn men to
+ everlasting pain for unbelief&mdash;that is to say, for acting in
+ accordance with that which is evidence to them&mdash;do you not make that
+ a crime which is not a crime? And when you reward men with an eternity of
+ joy for simply believing that which happens to be in accord with their
+ minds, do you not make that a virtue which is not a virtue? In other
+ words, do you not bring your own religion exactly within your own
+ definition of superstition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, that no one can justly be held responsible for his thoughts.
+ The brain thinks without asking our consent. We believe, or we disbelieve,
+ without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the effect of
+ evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who watches. There
+ is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in the formation of an
+ opinion. The conclusion is entirely independent of desire. We must
+ believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That which must be, has the right to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We think in spite of ourselves. The brain thinks as the heart beats, as
+ the eyes see, as the blood pursues its course in the old accustomed ways.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question then is, not have we the right to think,&mdash;that being a
+ necessity,&mdash;but have we the right to express our honest thoughts? You
+ certainly have the right to express yours, and you have exercised that
+ right. Some of your brethren, who regard me as a monster, have expressed
+ theirs. The question now is, have I the right to express mine? In other
+ words, have I the right to answer your letter? To make that a crime in me
+ which is a virtue in you, certainly comes within your definition of
+ superstition. To exercise a right yourself which you deny to me is simply
+ the act of a tyrant. Where did you get your right to express your honest
+ thoughts? When, and where, and how did I lose mine?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You would not burn, you would not even imprison me, because I differ with
+ you on a subject about which neither of us knows anything. To you the
+ savagery of the Inquisition is only a proof of the depravity of man. You
+ are far better than your creed. You believe that even the Christian world
+ is outgrowing the frightful feeling that fagot, and dungeon, and
+ thumb-screw are legitimate arguments, calculated to convince those upon
+ whom they are used, that the religion of those who use them was founded by
+ a God of infinite compassion. You will admit that he who now persecutes
+ for opinion's sake is infamous. And yet, the God you worship will,
+ according to your creed, torture through all the endless years the man who
+ entertains an honest doubt. A belief in such a God is the foundation and
+ cause of all religious persecution. You may reply that only the belief in
+ a false God causes believers to be inhuman. But you must admit that the
+ Jews believed in the true God, and you are forced to say that they were so
+ malicious, so cruel, so savage, that they crucified the only Sinless Being
+ who ever lived. This crime was Committed, not in spite of their religion,
+ but in accordance with it. They simply obeyed the command of Jehovah. And
+ the followers of this Sinless Being, who, for all these centuries, have
+ denounced the cruelty of the Jews for crucifying a man on account of his
+ opinion, have destroyed millions and millions of their fellow-men for
+ differing with them. And this same Sinless Being threatens to torture in
+ eternal fire countless myriads for the same offence. Beyond this,
+ inconsistency cannot go. At this point absurdity becomes infinite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Your creed transfers the Inquisition to another world, making it eternal.
+ Your God becomes, or rather is, an infinite Torquemada, who denies to his
+ countless victims even the mercy of death. And this you call "a
+ consolation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You insist that at the foundation of every religion is the idea of God.
+ According to your creed, all ideas of God, except those entertained by
+ those of your faith, are absolutely false. You are not called upon to
+ defend the Gods of the nations dead; nor the Gods of heretics. It is your
+ business to defend the God of the Bible&mdash;the God of the Presbyterian
+ Church. When in the ranks doing battle for your creed, you must wear the
+ uniform of your church. You dare not say that it is sufficient to insure
+ the salvation of a soul to believe in a god, or in some god. According to
+ your creed, man must believe in your God. All the nations dead believed in
+ gods, and all the worshipers of Zeus, and Jupiter, and Isis, and Osiris,
+ and Brahma prayed and sacrificed in vain. Their petitions were not
+ answered, and their souls were not saved. Surely you do not claim that it
+ is sufficient to believe in any one of the heathen gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What right have you to occupy the position of the deists, and to put forth
+ arguments that even Christians have answered? The deist denounced the God
+ of the Bible because of his cruelty, and at the same time lauded the God
+ of Nature. The Christian replied that the God of Nature was as cruel as
+ the God of the Bible. This answer was complete.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I feel that you are entitled to the admission that none have been, that
+ none are, too ignorant, too degraded, to believe in the supernatural; and
+ I freely give you the advantage of this admission. Only a few&mdash;and
+ they among the wisest, noblest, and purest of the human race&mdash;have
+ regarded all gods as monstrous myths. Yet a belief in "the true God" does
+ not seem to make men charitable or just. For most people, theism is the
+ easiest solution of the universe. They are satisfied with saying that
+ there must be a Being who created and who governs the world. But the
+ universality of a belief does not tend to establish its truth. The belief
+ in the existence of a malignant Devil has been as universal as the belief
+ in a beneficent God, yet few intelligent men will say that the
+ universality of this belief in an infinite demon even tends to prove his
+ existence. In the world of thought, majorities count for nothing. Truth
+ has always dwelt with the few.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has filled the world with impossible monsters, and he has been the
+ sport and prey of these phantoms born of ignorance and hope and fear. To
+ appease the wrath of these monsters man has sacrificed his fellow-man. He
+ has shed the blood of wife and child; he has fasted and prayed; he has
+ suffered beyond the power of language to express, and yet he has received
+ nothing from these gods&mdash;they have heard no supplication, they have
+ answered no prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may reply that your God "sends his rain on the just and on the
+ unjust," and that this fact proves that he is merciful to all alike. I
+ answer, that your God sends his pestilence on the just and on the unjust&mdash;that
+ his earthquakes devour and his cyclones rend and wreck the loving and the
+ vicious, the honest and the criminal. Do not these facts prove that your
+ God is cruel to all alike? In other words, do they not demonstrate the
+ absolute impartiality of divine negligence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you not believe that any honest man of average intelligence, having
+ absolute control of the rain, could do vastly better than is being done?
+ Certainly there would be no droughts or floods; the crops would not be
+ permitted to wither and die, while rain was being wasted in the sea. Is it
+ conceivable that a good man with power to control the winds would not
+ prevent cyclones? Would you not rather trust a wise and honest man with
+ the lightning?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should an infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the good and
+ preserve the vile? Why should he treat all alike here, and in another
+ world make an infinite difference? Why should your God allow his
+ worshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by his enemies? Why should he
+ allow the honest, the loving, the noble, to perish at the stake? Can you
+ answer these questions? Does it not seem to you that your God must have
+ felt a touch of shame when the poor slave mother&mdash;one that had been
+ robbed of her babe&mdash;knelt and with clasped hands, in a voice broken
+ with sobs, commenced her prayer with the words "Our Father"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gave me pleasure to find that, notwithstanding your creed, you are
+ philosophical enough to say that some men are incapacitated, by reason of
+ temperament, for believing in the existence of God. Now, if a belief in
+ God is necessary to the salvation of the soul, why should God create a
+ soul without this capacity? Why should he create souls that he knew would
+ be lost? You seem to think that it is necessary to be poetical, or dreamy,
+ in order to be religious, and by inference, at least, you deny certain
+ qualities to me that you deem necessary. Do you account for the atheism of
+ Shelley by saying that he was not poetic, and do you quote his lines to
+ prove the existence of the very God whose being he so passionately denied?
+ Is it possible that Napoleon&mdash;one of the most infamous of men&mdash;had
+ a nature so finely strung that he was sensitive to the divine influences?
+ Are you driven to the necessity of proving the existence of one tyrant by
+ the words of another? Personally, I have but little confidence in a
+ religion that satisfied the heart of a man who, to gratify his ambition,
+ filled half the world with widows and orphans. In regard to Agassiz, it is
+ just to say that he furnished a vast amount of testimony in favor of the
+ truth of the theories of Charles Darwin, and then denied the correctness
+ of these theories&mdash;preferring the good opinions of Harvard for a few
+ days to the lasting applause of the intellectual world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I agree with you that the world is a mystery, not only, but that
+ everything in nature is equally mysterious, and that there is no way of
+ escape from the mystery of life and death. To me, the crystallization of
+ the snow is as mysterious as the constellations. But when you endeavor to
+ explain the mystery of the universe by the mystery of God, you do not even
+ exchange mysteries&mdash;you simply make one more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be mysterious enough to become an explanation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mystery of man cannot be explained by the mystery of God. That mystery
+ still asks for explanation. The mind is so that it cannot grasp the idea
+ of an infinite personality. That is beyond the circumference. This being
+ so, it is impossible that man can be convinced by any evidence of the
+ existence of that which he cannot in any measure comprehend. Such evidence
+ would be equally incomprehensible with the incomprehensible fact sought to
+ be established by it, and the intellect of man can grasp neither the one
+ nor the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You admit that the God of Nature&mdash;that is to say, your God&mdash;is
+ as inflexible as nature itself. Why should man worship the inflexible? Why
+ should he kneel to the unchangeable? You say that your God "does not bend
+ to human thought any more than to human will," and that "the more we study
+ him, the more we find that he is not what we imagined him to be." So that,
+ after all, the only thing you are really certain of in relation to your
+ God is, that he is not what you think he is. Is it not almost absurd to
+ insist that such a state of mind is necessary to salvation, or that it is
+ a moral restraint, or that it is the foundation of social order?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most religious nations have been the most immoral, the cruelest and
+ the most unjust. Italy was far worse under the Popes than under the C&aelig;sars.
+ Was there ever a barbarian nation more savage than the Spain of the
+ sixteenth century? Certainly you must know that what you call religion has
+ produced a thousand civil wars, and has severed with the sword all the
+ natural ties that produce "the unity and married calm of States." Theology
+ is the fruitful mother of discord; order is the child of reason. If you
+ will candidly consider this question&mdash;if you will for a few moments
+ forget your preconceived opinions&mdash;you will instantly see that the
+ instinct of self-preservation holds society together. Religion itself was
+ born of this instinct. People, being ignorant, believed that the Gods were
+ jealous and revengeful. They peopled space with phantoms that demanded
+ worship and delighted in sacrifice and ceremony, phantoms that could be
+ flattered by praise and changed by prayer. These ignorant people wished to
+ preserve themselves. They supposed that they could in this way avoid
+ pestilence and famine, and postpone perhaps the day of death. Do you not
+ see that self-preservation lies at the foundation of worship? Nations,
+ like individuals, defend and protect themselves. Nations, like
+ individuals, have fears, have ideals, and live for the accomplishment of
+ certain ends. Men defend their property because it is of value. Industry
+ is the enemy of theft. Men, as a rule, desire to live, and for that reason
+ murder is a crime. Fraud is hateful to the victim. The majority of mankind
+ work and produce the necessities, the comforts, and the luxuries of life.
+ They wish to retain the fruits of their labor. Government is one of the
+ instrumentalities for the preservation of what man deems of value. This is
+ the foundation of social order, and this holds society together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion has been the enemy of social order, because it directs the
+ attention of man to another world. Religion teaches its votaries to
+ sacrifice this world for the sake of that other. The effect is to weaken
+ the ties that hold families and States together. Of what consequence is
+ anything in this world compared with eternal joy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You insist that man is not capable of self-government, and that God made
+ the mistake of filling a world with failures&mdash;in other words, that
+ man must be governed not by himself, but by your God, and that your God
+ produces order, and establishes and preserves all the nations of the
+ earth. This being so, your God is responsible for the government of this
+ world. Does he preserve order in Russia? Is he accountable for Siberia?
+ Did he establish the institution of slavery? Was he the founder of the
+ Inquisition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You answer all these questions by calling my attention to "the
+ retributions of history." What are the retributions of history? The honest
+ were burned at the stake; the patriotic, the generous, and the noble were
+ allowed to die in dungeons; whole races were enslaved; millions of mothers
+ were robbed of their babes. What were the retributions of history? They
+ who committed these crimes wore crowns, and they who justified these
+ infamies were adorned with the tiara.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are mistaken when you say that Lincoln at Gettysburg said: "Just and
+ true are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty." Something like this occurs in
+ his last inaugural, in which he says,&mdash;speaking of his hope that the
+ war might soon be ended,&mdash;"If it shall continue until every drop of
+ blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,
+ still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
+ altogether.'" But admitting that you are correct in the assertion, let me
+ ask you one question: Could one standing over the body of Lincoln, the
+ blood slowly oozing from the madman's wound, have truthfully said: "Just
+ and true are thy judgments, Lord God Almighty"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you really believe that this world is governed by an infinitely wise
+ and good God? Have you convinced even yourself of this? Why should God
+ permit the triumph of injustice? Why should the loving be tortured? Why
+ should the noblest be destroyed? Why should the world be filled with
+ misery, with ignorance, and with want? What reason have you for believing
+ that your God will do better in another world than he has done and is
+ doing in this? Will he be wiser? Will he have more power? Will he be more
+ merciful?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I say "your God," of course I mean the God described in the Bible and
+ the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. But again I say, that in the nature
+ of things, there can be no evidence of the existence of an infinite being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An infinite being must be conditionless, and for that reason there is
+ nothing that a finite being can do that can by any possibility affect the
+ well-being of the conditionless. This being so, man can neither owe nor
+ discharge any debt or duty to an infinite being. The infinite cannot want,
+ and man can do nothing for a being who wants nothing. A conditioned being
+ can be made happy, or miserable, by changing conditions, but the
+ conditionless is absolutely independent of cause and effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not say that a God does not exist, neither do I say that a God does
+ exist; but I say that I do not know&mdash;that there can be no evidence to
+ my mind of the existence of such a being, and that my mind is so that it
+ is incapable of even thinking of an infinite personality. I know that in
+ your creed you describe God as "without body, parts, or passions." This,
+ to my mind, is simply a description of an infinite vacuum. I have had no
+ experience with gods. This world is the only one with which I am
+ acquainted, and I was surprised to find in your letter the expression that
+ "perhaps others are better acquainted with that of which I am so
+ ignorant." Did you, by this, intend to say that you know anything of any
+ other state of existence&mdash;that you have inhabited some other planet&mdash;that
+ you lived before you were born, and that you recollect something of that
+ other world, or of that other state?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon the question of immortality you have done me, unintentionally, a
+ great injustice. With regard to that hope, I have never uttered "a
+ flippant or a trivial" word. I have said a thousand times, and I say
+ again, that the idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed and
+ flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear
+ beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any
+ book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human
+ affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and
+ clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not know, we
+ cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door&mdash;the beginning, or end,
+ of a day&mdash;the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of
+ wings&mdash;the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life, that brings
+ rapture and love to every one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The belief in immortality is far older than Christianity. Thousands of
+ years before Christ was born billions of people had lived and died in that
+ hope. Upon countless graves had been laid in love and tears the emblems of
+ another life. The heaven of the New Testament was to be in this world. The
+ dead, after they were raised, were to live here. Not one satisfactory word
+ was said to have been uttered by Christ&mdash;nothing philosophic, nothing
+ clear, nothing that adorns, like a bow of promise, the cloud of doubt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the account in the New Testament, Christ was dead for a
+ period of nearly three days. After his resurrection, why did not some one
+ of his disciples ask him where he had been? Why did he not tell them what
+ world he had visited? There was the opportunity to "bring life and
+ immortality to light." And yet he was as silent as the grave that he had
+ left&mdash;speechless as the stone that angels had rolled away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do you account for this? Was it not infinitely cruel to leave the
+ world in darkness and in doubt, when one word could have filled all time
+ with hope and light?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The hope of immortality is the great oak round which have climbed the
+ poisonous vines of superstition. The vines have not supported the oak&mdash;the
+ oak has supported the vines. As long as men live and love and die, this
+ hope will blossom in the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All I have said upon this subject has been to express my hope and confess
+ my lack of knowledge. Neither by word nor look have I expressed any other
+ feeling than sympathy with those who hope to live again&mdash;for those
+ who bend above their dead and dream of life to come. But I have denounced
+ the selfishness and heartlessness of those who expect for themselves an
+ eternity of joy, and for the rest of mankind predict, without a tear, a
+ world of endless pain. Nothing can be more contemptible than such a hope&mdash;a
+ hope that can give satisfaction only to the hyenas of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I say that I do not know&mdash;when I deny the existence of
+ perdition, you reply that "there is something very cruel in this treatment
+ of the belief of my fellow-creatures."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have had the goodness to invite me to a grave over which a mother
+ bends and weeps for her only son. I accept your invitation. We will go
+ together. Do not, I pray you, deal in splendid generalities. Be explicit.
+ Remember that the son for whom the loving mother weeps was not a
+ Christian, not a believer in the inspiration of the Bible nor in the
+ divinity of Jesus Christ. The mother turns to you for consolation, for
+ some star of hope in the midnight of her grief. What must you say? Do not
+ desert the Presbyterian creed. Do not forget the threatenings of Jesus
+ Christ. What must you say? Will you read a portion of the Presbyterian
+ Confession of Faith? Will you read this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Although the light of Nature, and the works of creation and Providence,
+ do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God as to leave man
+ inexcusable, yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and
+ of his will which is necessary to salvation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Or, will you read this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and
+ angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to
+ everlasting death. These angels and men, thus predestined and
+ foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number
+ is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or
+ diminished."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the mother, lifting her tear-stained face, should say: "My son was
+ good, generous, loving and kind. He gave his life for me. Is there no hope
+ for him?" Would you then put this serpent in her breast?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Men not professing the Christian religion cannot be saved in any other
+ way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to conform their lives according
+ to the light of Nature. We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin.
+ There is no sin so small but that it deserves damnation. Works done by
+ unregenerate men, although, for the matter of that, they may be things
+ which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others, are
+ sinful and cannot please God or make a man meet to receive Christ or God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And suppose the mother should then sobbingly ask: "What has become of my
+ son? Where is he now?" Would you still read from your Confession of Faith,
+ or from your Catechism&mdash;this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torment
+ and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. At the last
+ day the righteous shall come into everlasting life, but the wicked shall
+ be cast into eternal torment and punished with everlasting destruction.
+ The wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished with unspeakable
+ torment, both of body and soul, with the devil and his angels forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the poor mother still wept, still refused to be comforted, would you
+ thrust this dagger in her heart?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "At the Day of Judgment you, being caught up to Christ in the clouds,
+ shall be seated at his right hand and there openly acknowledged and
+ acquitted, and you shall join with him in the damnation of your son."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this failed to still the beatings of her aching heart, would you repeat
+ these words which you say came from the loving soul of Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe
+ not shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting fire
+ prepared for the devil and his angels."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would you not be compelled, according to your belief, to tell this mother
+ that "there is but one name given under heaven and among men whereby" the
+ souls of men can enter the gates of Paradise? Would you not be compelled
+ to say: "Your son lived in a Christian land. The means of grace were
+ within his reach. He died not having experienced a change of heart, and
+ your son is forever lost. You can meet your son again only by dying in
+ your sins; but if you will give your heart to God you can never clasp him
+ to your breast again."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What could I say? Let me tell you:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My dear madam, this reverend gentleman knows nothing of another world. He
+ cannot see beyond the tomb. He has simply stated to you the superstitions
+ of ignorance, of cruelty and fear. If there be in this universe a God, he
+ certainly is as good as you are. Why should he have loved your son in life&mdash;loved
+ him, according to this reverend gentleman, to that degree that he gave his
+ life for him; and why should that love be changed to hatred the moment
+ your son was dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My dear woman, there are no punishments, there are no rewards&mdash;there
+ are consequences; and of one thing you may rest assured, and that is, that
+ every soul, no matter what sphere it may inhabit, will have the
+ everlasting opportunity of doing right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If death ends all, and if this handful of dust over which you weep is all
+ there is, you have this consolation: Your son is not within the power of
+ this reverend gentleman's God&mdash;that is something. Your son does not
+ suffer. Next to a life of joy is the dreamless sleep of death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it not seem to you infinitely absurd to call orthodox Christianity "a
+ consolation"? Here in this world, where every human being is enshrouded in
+ cloud and mist,&mdash;where all lives are filled with mistakes,&mdash;where
+ no one claims to be perfect, is it "a consolation" to say that "the
+ smallest sin deserves eternal pain"? Is it possible for the ingenuity of
+ man to extract from the doctrine of hell one drop, one ray, of
+ "consolation"? If that doctrine be true, is not your God an infinite
+ criminal? Why should he have created uncounted billions destined to suffer
+ forever? Why did he not leave them unconscious dust? Compared with this
+ crime, any crime that man can by any possibility commit is a virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think for a moment of your God,&mdash;the keeper of an infinite
+ penitentiary filled with immortal convicts,&mdash;your God an eternal
+ turnkey, without the pardoning power. In the presence of this infinite
+ horror, you complacently speak of the atonement,&mdash;a scheme that has
+ not yet gathered within its horizon a billionth part of the human race,&mdash;an
+ atonement with one-half the world remaining undiscovered for fifteen
+ hundred years after it was made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there could be no suffering, there could be no sin. To unjustly cause
+ suffering is the only possible crime. How can a God accept the suffering
+ of the innocent in lieu of the punishment of the guilty?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to your theory, this infinite being, by his mere will, makes
+ right and wrong. This I do not admit. Right and wrong exist in the nature
+ of things&mdash;in the relation they bear to man, and to sentient beings.
+ You have already admitted that "Nature is inflexible, and that a violated
+ law calls for its consequences." I insist that no God can step between an
+ act and its natural effects. If God exists, he has nothing to do with
+ punishment, nothing to do with reward. From certain acts flow certain
+ consequences; these consequences increase or decrease the happiness of
+ man; and the consequences must be borne.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man who has forfeited his life to the commonwealth may be pardoned, but
+ a man who has violated a condition of his own well-being cannot be
+ pardoned&mdash;there is no pardoning power. The laws of the State are
+ made, and, being made, can be changed; but the facts of the universe
+ cannot be changed. The relation of act to consequence cannot be altered.
+ This is above all power, and, consequently, there is no analogy between
+ the laws of the State and the facts in Nature. An infinite God could not
+ change the relation between the diameter and circumference of the circle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man having committed a crime may be pardoned, but I deny the right of
+ the State to punish an innocent man in the place of the pardoned&mdash;no
+ matter how willing the innocent man may be to suffer the punishment. There
+ is no law in Nature, no fact in Nature, by which the innocent can be
+ justly punished to the end that the guilty may go free. Let it be
+ understood once for all: Nature cannot pardon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have recognized this truth. You have asked me what is to become of one
+ who seduces and betrays, of the criminal with the blood of his victim upon
+ his hands? Without the slightest hesitation I answer, whoever commits a
+ crime against another must, to the utmost of his power in this world and
+ in another, if there be one, make full and ample restitution, and in
+ addition must bear the natural consequences of his offence. No man can be
+ perfectly happy, either in this world or in any other, who has by his
+ perfidy broken a loving and confiding heart. No power can step between
+ acts and consequences&mdash;no forgiveness, no atonement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, my dear friend, you have taught for many years, if you are a
+ Presbyterian, or an evangelical Christian, that a man may seduce and
+ betray, and that the poor victim, driven to insanity, leaping from some
+ wharf at night where ships strain at their anchors in storm and darkness&mdash;you
+ have taught that this poor girl may be tormented forever by a God of
+ infinite compassion. This is not all that you have taught. You have said
+ to the seducer, to the betrayer, to the one who would not listen to her
+ wailing cry,&mdash;who would not even stretch forth his hand to catch her
+ fluttering garments,&mdash;you have said to him: "Believe in the Lord
+ Jesus Christ, and you shall be happy forever; you shall live in the realm
+ of infinite delight, from which you can, without a shadow falling upon
+ your face, observe the poor girl, your victim, writhing in the agonies of
+ hell." You have taught this. For my part, I do not see how an angel in
+ heaven meeting another angel whom he had robbed on the earth, could feel
+ entirely blissful. I go further. Any decent angel, no matter if sitting at
+ the right hand of God, should he see in hell one of his victims, would
+ leave heaven itself for the purpose of wiping one tear from the cheek of
+ the damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to have forgotten your statement in the commencement of your
+ letter, that your God is as inflexible as Nature&mdash;that he bends not
+ to human thought nor to human will. You seem to have forgotten the line
+ which you emphasized with italics: "<i>The effect of everything which is
+ of the nature of a cause, is eternal</i>." In the light of this sentence,
+ where do you find a place for forgiveness&mdash;for your atonement? Where
+ is a way to escape from the effect of a cause that is eternal? Do you not
+ see that this sentence is a cord with which I easily tie your hands? The
+ scientific part of your letter destroys the theological. You have put "new
+ wine into old bottles," and the predicted result has followed. Will the
+ angels in heaven, the redeemed of earth, lose their memory? Will not all
+ the redeemed rascals remember their rascality? Will not all the redeemed
+ assassins remember the faces of the dead? Will not all the seducers and
+ betrayers remember her sighs, her tears, and the tones of her voice, and
+ will not the conscience of the redeemed be as inexorable as the conscience
+ of the damned?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If memory is to be forever "the warder of the brain," and if the redeemed
+ can never forget the sins they committed, the pain and anguish they
+ caused, then they can never be perfectly happy; and if the lost can never
+ forget the good they did, the kind actions, the loving words, the heroic
+ deeds; and if the memory of good deeds gives the slightest pleasure, then
+ the lost can never be perfectly miserable. Ought not the memory of a good
+ action to live as long as the memory of a bad one? So that the undying
+ memory of the good, in heaven, brings undying pain, and the undying memory
+ of those in hell brings undying pleasure. Do you not see that if men have
+ done good and bad, the future can have neither a perfect heaven nor a
+ perfect hell?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the manly doctrine that every human being must bear the
+ consequences of his acts, and that no man can be justly saved or damned on
+ account of the goodness or the wickedness of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If by atonement you mean the natural effect of self-sacrifice, the effects
+ following a noble and disinterested action; if you mean that the life and
+ death of Christ are worth their effect upon the human race,&mdash;which
+ your letter seems to show,&mdash;then there is no question between us. If
+ you have thrown away the old and barbarous idea that a law had been
+ broken, that God demanded a sacrifice, and that Christ, the innocent, was
+ offered up for us, and that he bore the wrath of God and suffered in our
+ place, then I congratulate you with all my heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me impossible that life should be exceedingly joyous to any
+ one who is acquainted with its miseries, its burdens, and its tears. I
+ know that as darkness follows light around the globe, so misery and
+ misfortune follow the sons of men. According to your creed, the future
+ state will be worse than this. Here, the vicious may reform; here, the
+ wicked may repent; here, a few gleams of sunshine may fall upon the
+ darkest life. But in your future state, for countless billions of the
+ human race, there will be no reform, no opportunity of doing right, and no
+ possible gleam of sunshine can ever touch their souls. Do you not see that
+ your future state is infinitely worse than this? You seem to mistake the
+ glare of hell for the light of morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us throw away the dogma of eternal retribution. Let us "cling to all
+ that can bring a ray of hope into the darkness of this life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have been kind enough to say that I find a subject for caricature in
+ the doctrine of regeneration. If, by regeneration, you mean reformation,&mdash;if
+ you mean that there comes a time in the life of a young man when he feels
+ the touch of responsibility, and that he leaves his foolish or vicious
+ ways, and concludes to act like an honest man,&mdash;if this is what you
+ mean by regeneration, I am a believer. But that is not the definition of
+ regeneration in your creed&mdash;that is not Christian regeneration. There
+ is some mysterious, miraculous, supernatural, invisible agency, called, I
+ believe, the Holy Ghost, that enters and changes the heart of man, and
+ this mysterious agency is like the wind, under the control, apparently, of
+ no one, coming and going when and whither it listeth. It is this illogical
+ and absurd view of regeneration that I have attacked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You ask me how it came to' pass that a Hebrew peasant, born among the
+ hills of Galilee, had a wisdom above that of Socrates or Plato, of
+ Confucius or Buddha, and you conclude by saying, "This is the greatest of
+ miracles&mdash;that such a being should live and die on the earth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I can hardly admit your conclusion, because I remember that Christ said
+ nothing in favor of the family relation. As a matter of fact, his life
+ tended to cast discredit upon marriage. He said nothing against the
+ institution of slavery; nothing against the tyranny of government; nothing
+ of our treatment of animals; nothing about education, about intellectual
+ progress; nothing of art, declared no scientific truth, and said nothing
+ as to the rights and duties of nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may reply that all this is included in "Do unto others as you would be
+ done by;" and "Resist not evil." More than this is necessary to educate
+ the human race. It is not enough to say to your child or to your pupil,
+ "Do right." The great question still remains: What is right? Neither is
+ there any wisdom in the idea of non-resistance. Force without mercy is
+ tyranny. Mercy without force is but a waste of tears. Take from virtue the
+ right of self-defence and vice becomes the master of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me ask you how it came to pass that an ignorant driver of camels, a
+ man without family, without wealth, became master of hundreds of millions
+ of human beings? How is it that he conquered and overran more than half of
+ the Christian world? How is it that on a thousand fields the banner of the
+ cross went down in blood, while that of the crescent floated in triumph?
+ How do you account for the fact that the flag of this impostor floats
+ to-day above the sepulchre of Christ? Was this a miracle? Was Mohammed
+ inspired? How do you account for Confucius, whose name is known wherever
+ the sky bends? Was he inspired&mdash;this man who for many centuries has
+ stood first, and who has been acknowledged the superior of all men by
+ hundreds and thousands of millions of his fellow-men? How do you account
+ for Buddha,&mdash;in many respects the greatest religious teacher this
+ world has ever known,&mdash;the broadest, the most intellectual of them
+ all; he who was great enough, hundreds of years before Christ was born, to
+ declare the universal brotherhood of man, great enough to say that
+ intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind? How do you
+ account for him, who has had more followers than any other? Are you
+ willing to say that all success is divine? How do you account for
+ Shakespeare, born of parents who could neither read nor write, held in the
+ lap of ignorance and love, nursed at the breast of poverty&mdash;how do
+ you account for him, by far the greatest of the human race, the wings of
+ whose imagination still fill the horizon of human thought; Shakespeare,
+ who was perfectly acquainted with the human heart, knew all depths of
+ sorrow, all heights of joy, and in whose mind were the fruit of all
+ thought, of all experience, and a prophecy of all to be; Shakespeare, the
+ wisdom and beauty and depth of whose words increase with the intelligence
+ and civilization of mankind? How do you account for this miracle? Do you
+ believe that any founder of any religion could have written "Lear" or
+ "Hamlet"? Did Greece produce a man who could by any possibility have been
+ the author of "Troilus and Cressida"? Was there among all the countless
+ millions of almighty Rome an intellect that could have written the tragedy
+ of "Julius C&aelig;sar"? Is not the play of "Antony and Cleopatra" as
+ Egyptian as the Nile? How do you account for this man, within whose veins
+ there seemed to be the blood of every race, and in whose brain there were
+ the poetry and philosophy of a world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You ask me to tell my opinion of Christ. Let me say here, once for all,
+ that for the man Christ&mdash;for the man who, in the darkness, cried out,
+ "My God, why hast thou forsaken me!" &mdash;for that man I have the
+ greatest possible respect. And let me say, once for all, that the place
+ where man has died for man is holy ground. To that great and serene
+ peasant of Palestine I gladly pay the tribute of my admiration and my
+ tears. He was a reformer in his day&mdash;an infidel in his time. Back of
+ the theological mask, and in spite of the interpolations of the New
+ Testament, I see a great and genuine man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to see how you can consistently defend the course pursued by
+ Christ himself. He attacked with great bitterness "the religion of
+ others." It did not occur to him that "there was something very cruel in
+ this treatment of the belief of his fellow-creatures." He denounced the
+ chosen people of God as a "generation of vipers." He compared them to
+ "whited sepulchres." How can you sustain the conduct of missionaries? They
+ go to other lands and attack the sacred beliefs of others. They tell the
+ people of India and of all heathen lands, not only that their religion is
+ a lie, not only that their gods are myths, but that the ancestors of these
+ people&mdash;their fathers and mothers who never heard of God, of the
+ Bible, or of Christ&mdash;are all in perdition. Is not this a cruel
+ treatment of the belief of a fellow-creature?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A religion that is not manly and robust enough to bear attack with smiling
+ fortitude is unworthy of a place in the heart or brain. A religion that
+ takes refuge in sentimentality, that cries out: "Do not, I pray you, tell
+ me any truth calculated to hurt my feelings," is fit only for asylums.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You believe that Christ was God, that he was infinite in power. While in
+ Jerusalem he cured the sick, raised a few from the dead, and opened the
+ eyes of the blind. Did he do these things because he loved mankind, or did
+ he do these miracles simply to establish the fact that he was the very
+ Christ? If he was actuated by love, is he not as powerful now as he was
+ then? Why does he not open the eyes of the blind now? Why does he not with
+ a touch make the leper clean? If you had the power to give sight to the
+ blind, to cleanse the leper, and would not exercise it, what would be
+ thought of you? What is the difference between one who can and will not
+ cure, and one who causes disease?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only the other day I saw a beautiful girl&mdash;a paralytic, and yet her
+ brave and cheerful spirit shone over the wreck and ruin of her body like
+ morning on the desert. What would I think of myself, had I the power by a
+ word to send the blood through all her withered limbs freighted again with
+ life, should I refuse?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most theologians seem to imagine that the virtues have been produced by
+ and are really the children of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion has to do with the supernatural. It defines our duties and
+ obligations to God. It prescribes a certain course of conduct by means of
+ which happiness can be attained in another world. The result here is only
+ an incident. The virtues are secular. They have nothing whatever to do
+ with the supernatural, and are of no kindred to any religion. A man may be
+ honest, courageous, charitable, industrious, hospitable, loving and pure,
+ without being religious&mdash;that is to say, without any belief in the
+ supernatural; and a man may be the exact opposite and at the same time a
+ sincere believer in the creed of any church&mdash;that is to say, in the
+ existence of a personal God, the inspiration of the Scriptures and in the
+ divinity of Jesus Christ. A man who believes in the Bible may or may not
+ be kind to his family, and a man who is kind and loving in his family may
+ or may not believe in the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order that you may see the effect of belief in the formation of
+ character, it is only necessary to call your attention to the fact that
+ your Bible shows that the devil himself is a believer in the existence of
+ your God, in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and in the divinity of
+ Jesus Christ. He not only believes these things, but he knows them, and
+ yet, in spite of it all, he remains a devil still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Few religions have been bad enough to destroy all the natural goodness in
+ the human heart. In the deepest midnight of superstition some natural
+ virtues, like stars, have been visible in the heavens. Man has committed
+ every crime in the name of Christianity&mdash;or at least crimes that
+ involved the commission of all others. Those who paid for labor with the
+ lash, and who made blows a legal tender, were Christians. Those who
+ engaged in the slave trade were believers in a personal God. One slave
+ ship was called "The Jehovah." Those who pursued with hounds the fugitive
+ led by the Northern star prayed fervently to Christ to crown their efforts
+ with success, and the stealers of babes, just before falling asleep,
+ commended their souls to the keeping of the Most High.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As you have mentioned the apostles, let me call your attention to an
+ incident.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira. The apostles, having
+ nothing themselves, conceived the idea of having all things in common.
+ Their followers who had something were to sell what little they had, and
+ turn the proceeds over to these theological financiers. It seems that
+ Ananias and Sapphira had a piece of land. They sold it, and after talking
+ the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the collaterals,
+ concluded to keep a little&mdash;just enough to keep them from starvation
+ if the good and pious bankers should abscond.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Ananias brought the money, he was asked whether he had kept back a
+ part of the price. He said that he had not. Whereupon God, the
+ compassionate, struck him dead. As soon as the corpse was removed, the
+ apostles sent for his wife. They did not tell her that her husband had
+ been killed. They deliberately set a trap for her life. Not one of them
+ was good enough or noble enough to put her on her guard; they allowed her
+ to believe that her husband had told his story, and that she was free to
+ corroborate what he had said. She probably felt that they were giving more
+ than they could afford, and, with the instinct of woman, wanted to keep a
+ little. She denied that any part of the price had been kept back. That
+ moment the arrow of divine vengeance entered her heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will you be kind enough to tell me your opinion of the apostles in the
+ light of this story? Certainly murder is a greater crime than mendacity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have been good enough, in a kind of fatherly way, to give me some
+ advice. You say that I ought to soften my colors, and that my words would
+ be more weighty if not so strong. Do you really desire that I should add
+ weight to my words? Do you really wish me to succeed? If the commander of
+ one army should send word to the general of the other that his men were
+ firing too high, do you think the general would be misled? Can you
+ conceive of his changing his orders by reason of the message?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I deny that "the Pilgrims crossed the sea to find freedom to worship God
+ in the forests of the new world." They came not in the interest of
+ freedom. It never entered their minds that other men had the same right to
+ worship God according to the dictates of their consciences that the
+ Pilgrims themselves had. The moment they had power they were ready to whip
+ and brand, to imprison and burn. They did not believe in religious
+ freedom. They had no more idea of liberty of conscience than Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not say that there is no place in the world for heroes and martyrs.
+ On the contrary, I declare that the liberty we now have was won for us by
+ heroes and by martyrs, and millions of these martyrs were burned, or
+ flayed alive, or torn in pieces, or assassinated by the church of God. The
+ heroism was shown in fighting the hordes of religious superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Giordano Bruno was a martyr. He was a hero. He believed in no God, in no
+ heaven, and in no hell, yet he perished by fire. He was offered liberty on
+ condition that he would recant. There was no God to please, no heaven to
+ expect, no hell to fear, and yet he died by fire, simply to preserve the
+ unstained whiteness of his soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For hundreds of years every man who attacked the church was a hero. The
+ sword of Christianity has been wet for many centuries with the blood of
+ the noblest. Christianity has been ready with whip and chain and fire to
+ banish freedom from the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither is it true that "family life withers under the cold sneer&mdash;half
+ pity and half scorn&mdash;with which I look down on household worship."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who believe in the existence of God, and believe that they are
+ indebted to this divine being for the few gleams of sunshine in this life,
+ and who thank God for the little they have enjoyed, have my entire
+ respect. Never have I said one word against the spirit of thankfulness. I
+ understand the feeling of the man who gathers his family about him after
+ the storm, or after the scourge, or after long sickness, and pours out his
+ heart in thankfulness to the supposed God who has protected his fireside.
+ I understand the spirit of the savage who thanks his idol of stone, or his
+ fetich of wood. It is not the wisdom of the one or of the other that I
+ respect, it is the goodness and thankfulness that prompt the prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the family. I believe in family life; and one of my
+ objections to Christianity is that it divides the family. Upon this
+ subject I have said hundreds of times, and I say again, that the roof-tree
+ is sacred, from the smallest fibre that feels the soft, cool clasp of
+ earth, to the topmost flower that spreads its bosom to the sun, and like a
+ spendthrift gives its perfume to the air. The home where virtue dwells
+ with love is like a lily with a heart of fire, the fairest flower in all
+ this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What did Christianity in the early centuries do for the home? What have
+ nunneries and monasteries, and what has the glorification of celibacy done
+ for the family? Do you not know that Christ himself offered rewards in
+ this world and eternal happiness in another to those who would desert
+ their wives and children and follow him? What effect has that promise had
+ upon family life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the family is regarded as nothing. Christianity
+ teaches that there is but one family, the family of Christ, and that all
+ other relations are as nothing compared with that. Christianity teaches
+ the husband to desert the wife, the wife to desert the husband, children
+ to desert their parents, for the miserable and selfish purpose of saving
+ their own little, shriveled souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is far better for a man to love his fellow-men than to love God. It is
+ better to love wife and children than to love Christ. It is better to
+ serve your neighbor than to serve your God&mdash;even if God exists. The
+ reason is palpable. You can do nothing for God. You can do something for
+ wife and children. You can add to the sunshine of a life. You can plant
+ flowers in the pathway of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is true that I am an enemy of the orthodox Sabbath. It is true that I
+ do not believe in giving one-seventh of our time to the service of
+ superstition. The whole scheme of your religion can be understood by any
+ intelligent man in one day. Why should he waste a seventh of his whole
+ life in hearing the same thoughts repeated again and again?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is more gloomy than an orthodox Sabbath. The mechanic who has
+ worked during the week in heat and dust, the laboring man who has barely
+ succeeded in keeping his soul in his body, the poor woman who has been
+ sewing for the rich, may go to the village church which you have
+ described. They answer the chimes of the bell, and what do they hear in
+ this village church? Is it that God is the Father of the human race; is
+ that all? If that were all, you never would have heard an objection from
+ my lips. That is not all. If all ministers said: Bear the evils of this
+ life; your Father in heaven counts your tears; the time will come when
+ pain and death and grief will be forgotten words; I should have listened
+ with the rest. What else does the minister say to the poor people who have
+ answered the chimes of your bell? He says: "The smallest sin deserves
+ eternal pain." "A vast majority of men are doomed to suffer the wrath of
+ God forever." He fills the present with fear and the future with fire. He
+ has heaven for the few, hell for the many. He describes a little
+ grass-grown path that leads to heaven, where travelers are "few and far
+ between," and a great highway worn with countless feet that leads to
+ everlasting death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such Sabbaths are immoral. Such ministers are the real savages. Gladly
+ would I abolish such a Sabbath. Gladly would I turn it into a holiday, a
+ day of rest and peace, a day to get acquainted with your wife and
+ children, a day to exchange civilities with your neighbors; and gladly
+ would I see the church in which such sermons are preached changed to a
+ place of entertainment. Gladly would I have the echoes of orthodox sermons&mdash;the
+ owls and bats among the rafters, the snakes in crevices and corners&mdash;driven
+ out by the glorious music of Wagner and Beethoven. Gladly would I see the
+ Sunday school where the doctrine of eternal fire is taught, changed to a
+ happy dance upon the village green.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Music refines. The doctrine of eternal punishment degrades. Science
+ civilizes. Superstition looks longingly back to savagery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You do not believe that general morality can be upheld without the
+ sanctions of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity has sold, and continues to sell, crime on a credit. It has
+ taught, and it still teaches, that there is forgiveness for all. Of course
+ it teaches morality. It says: "Do not steal, do not murder;" but it adds,
+ "but if you do both, there is a way of escape: believe on the Lord Jesus
+ Christ and thou shalt be saved." I insist that such a religion is no
+ restraint. It is far better to teach that there is no forgiveness, and
+ that every human being must bear the consequences of his acts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first great step toward national reformation is the universal
+ acceptance of the idea that there is no escape from the consequences of
+ our acts. The young men who come from their country homes into a city
+ filled with temptations, may be restrained by the thought of father and
+ mother. This is a natural restraint. They may be restrained by their
+ knowledge of the fact that a thing is evil on account of its consequences,
+ and that to do wrong is always a mistake. I cannot conceive of such a man
+ being more liable to temptation because he has heard one of my lectures in
+ which I have told him that the only good is happiness&mdash;that the only
+ way to attain that good is by doing what he believes to be right. I cannot
+ imagine that his moral character will be weakened by the statement that
+ there is no escape from the consequences of his acts. You seem to think
+ that he will be instantly led astray&mdash;that he will go off under the
+ flaring lamps to the riot of passion. Do you think the Bible calculated to
+ restrain him? To prevent this would you recommend him to read the lives of
+ Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and the other holy polygamists of the Old
+ Testament? Should he read the life of David, and of Solomon? Do you think
+ this would enable him to withstand temptation? Would it not be far better
+ to fill the young man's mind with facts so that he may know exactly the
+ physical consequences of such acts? Do you regard ignorance as the
+ foundation of virtue? Is fear the arch that supports the moral nature of
+ man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to think that there is danger in knowledge, and that the best
+ chemists are most likely to poison themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You say that to sneer at religion is only a step from sneering at
+ morality, and then only another step to that which is vicious and
+ profligate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jews entertained the same opinion of the teachings of Christ. He
+ sneered at their religion. The Christians have entertained the same
+ opinion of every philosopher. Let me say to you again&mdash;and let me say
+ it once for all&mdash;that morality has nothing to do with religion.
+ Morality does not depend upon the supernatural. Morality does not walk
+ with the crutches of miracles. Morality appeals to the experience of
+ mankind. It cares nothing about faith, nothing about sacred books.
+ Morality depends upon facts, something that can be seen, something known,
+ the product of which can be estimated. It needs no priest, no ceremony, no
+ mummery. It believes in the freedom of the human mind. It asks for
+ investigation. It is founded upon truth. It is the enemy of all religion,
+ because it has to do with this world, and with this world alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My object is to drive fear out of the world. Fear is the jailer of the
+ mind. Christianity, superstition&mdash;that is to say, the supernatural&mdash;makes
+ every brain a prison and every soul a convict. Under the government of a
+ personal deity, consequences partake of the nature of punishments and
+ rewards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the government of Nature, what you call punishments and rewards are
+ simply consequences. Nature does not punish. Nature does not reward.
+ Nature has no purpose. When the storm comes, I do not think: "This is
+ being done by a tyrant." When the sun shines, I do not say: "This is being
+ done by a friend." Liberty means freedom from personal dictation. It does
+ not mean escape from the relations we sustain to other facts in Nature. I
+ believe in the restraining influences of liberty. Temperance walks hand in
+ hand with freedom. To remove a chain from the body puts an additional
+ responsibility upon the soul. Liberty says to the man: You injure or
+ benefit yourself; you increase or decrease your own well-being. It is a
+ question of intelligence. You need not bow to a supposed tyrant, or to
+ infinite goodness. You are responsible to yourself and to those you
+ injure, and to none other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I rid myself of fear, believing as I do that there is no power above which
+ can help me in any extremity, and believing as I do that there is no power
+ above or below that can injure me in any extremity. I do not believe that
+ I am the sport of accident, or that I may be dashed in pieces by the blind
+ agency of Nature. There is no accident, and there is no agency. That which
+ happens must happen. The present is the necessary child of all the past,
+ the mother of all the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it relieve mankind from fear to believe that there is some God who
+ will help them in extremity? What evidence have they on which to found
+ this belief? When has any God listened to the prayer of any man? The water
+ drowns, the cold freezes, the flood destroys, the fire burns, the bolt of
+ heaven falls&mdash;when and where has the prayer of man been answered?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is the religious world to-day willing to test the efficacy of prayer? Only
+ a few years ago it was tested in the United States. The Christians of
+ Christendom, with one accord, fell upon their knees and asked God to spare
+ the life of one man. You know the result. You know just as well as I that
+ the forces of Nature produce the good and bad alike. You know that the
+ forces of Nature destroy the good and bad alike. You know that the
+ lightning feels the same keen delight in striking to death the honest man
+ that it does or would in striking the assassin with his knife lifted above
+ the bosom of innocence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did God hear the prayers of the slaves? Did he hear the prayers of
+ imprisoned philosophers and patriots? Did he hear the prayers of martyrs,
+ or did he allow fiends, calling themselves his followers, to pile the
+ fagots round the forms of glorious men? Did he allow the flames to devour
+ the flesh of those whose hearts were his? Why should any man depend on the
+ goodness of a God who created countless millions, knowing that they would
+ suffer eternal grief?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The faith that you call sacred&mdash;"sacred as the most delicate manly or
+ womanly sentiment of love and honor"&mdash;is the faith that nearly all of
+ your fellow-men are to be lost. Ought an honest man to be restrained from
+ denouncing that faith because those who entertain it say that their
+ feelings are hurt? You say to me: "There is a hell. A man advocating the
+ opinions you advocate will go there when he dies." I answer: "There is no
+ hell. The Bible that teaches it is not true." And you say: "How can you
+ hurt my feelings?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to think that one who attacks the religion of his parents is
+ wanting in respect to his father and his mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Were the early Christians lacking in respect for their fathers and
+ mothers? Were the Pagans who embraced Christianity heartless sons and
+ daughters? What have you to say of the apostles? Did they not heap
+ contempt upon the religion of their fathers and mothers? Did they not join
+ with him who denounced their people as a "generation of vipers"? Did they
+ not follow one who offered a reward to those who would desert fathers and
+ mothers? Of course you have only to go back a few generations in your
+ family to find a Field who was not a Presbyterian. After that you find a
+ Presbyterian. Was he base enough and infamous enough to heap contempt upon
+ the religion of his father and mother? All the Protestants in the time of
+ Luther lacked in respect for the religion of their fathers and mothers.
+ According to your idea, Progress is a Prodigal Son. If one is bound by the
+ religion of his father and mother, and his father happens to be a
+ Presbyterian and his mother a Catholic, what is he to do? Do you not see
+ that your doctrine gives intellectual freedom only to foundlings?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If by Christianity you mean the goodness, the spirit of forgiveness, the
+ benevolence claimed by Christians to be a part, and the principal part, of
+ that peculiar religion, then I do not agree with you when you say that
+ "Christ is Christianity and that it stands or falls with him." You have
+ narrowed unnecessarily the foundation of your religion. If it should be
+ established beyond doubt that Christ never existed, all that is of value
+ in Christianity would remain, and remain unimpaired. Suppose that we
+ should find that Euclid was a myth, the science known as mathematics would
+ not suffer. It makes no difference who painted or chiseled the greatest
+ pictures and statues, so long as we have the pictures and statues. When he
+ who has given the world a truth passes from the earth, the truth is left.
+ A truth dies only when forgotten by the human race. Justice, love, mercy,
+ forgiveness, honor, all the virtues that ever blossomed in the human
+ heart, were known and practiced for uncounted ages before the birth of
+ Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You insist that religion does not leave man in "abject terror"&mdash;does
+ not leave him "in utter darkness as to his fate."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to know who will be saved? Can you read the names mentioned
+ in the decrees of the Infinite? Is it possible to tell who is to be
+ eternally lost? Can the imagination conceive a worse fate than your
+ religion predicts for a majority of the race? Why should not every human
+ being be in "abject terror" who believes your doctrine? How many loving
+ and sincere women are in the asylums to-day fearing that they have
+ committed "the unpardonable sin"&mdash;a sin to which your God has
+ attached the penalty of eternal torment, and yet has failed to describe
+ the offence? Can tyranny go beyond this&mdash;fixing the penalty of
+ eternal pain for the violation of a law not written, not known, but kept
+ in the secrecy of infinite darkness? How much happier it is to know
+ nothing about it, and to believe nothing about it! How much better to have
+ no God!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You discover a "Great Intelligence ordering our little lives, so that even
+ the trials that we bear, as they call out the finer elements of character,
+ conduce to our future happiness." This is an old explanation&mdash;probably
+ as good as any. The idea is, that this world is a school in which man
+ becomes educated through tribulation&mdash;the muscles of character being
+ developed by wrestling with misfortune. If it is necessary to live this
+ life in order to develop character, in order to become worthy of a better
+ world, how do you account for the fact that billions of the human race die
+ in infancy, and are thus deprived of this necessary education and
+ development? What would you think of a schoolmaster who should kill a
+ large proportion of his scholars during the first day, before they had
+ even had the opportunity to look at "A"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You insist that "there is a power behind Nature making for righteousness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Nature is infinite, how can there be a power outside of Nature? If you
+ mean by "a power making for righteousness" that man, as he becomes
+ civilized, as he becomes intelligent, not only takes advantage of the
+ forces of Nature for his own benefit, but perceives more and more clearly
+ that if he is to be happy he must live in harmony with the conditions of
+ his being, in harmony with the facts by which he is surrounded, in harmony
+ with the relations he sustains to others and to things; if this is what
+ you mean, then there is "a power making for righteousness." But if you
+ mean that there is something supernatural back of Nature directing events,
+ then I insist that there can by no possibility be any evidence of the
+ existence of such a power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of the human race shows that nations rise and fall. There is a
+ limit to the life of a race; so that it can be said of every dead nation,
+ that there was a period when it laid the foundations of prosperity, when
+ the combined intelligence and virtue of the people constituted a power
+ working for righteousness, and that there came a time when this nation
+ became a spendthrift, when it ceased to accumulate, when it lived on the
+ labors of its youth, and passed from strength and glory to the weakness of
+ old age, and finally fell palsied to its tomb.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligence of man guided by a sense of duty is the only power that
+ makes for righteousness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You tell me that I am waging "a hopeless war," and you give as a reason
+ that the Christian religion began to be nearly two thousand years before I
+ was born, and that it will live two thousand years after I am dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this an argument? Does it tend to convince even yourself? Could not
+ Caiaphas, the high priest, have said substantially this to Christ? Could
+ he not have said: "The religion of Jehovah began to be four thousand years
+ before you were born, and it will live two thousand years after you are
+ dead"? Could not a follower of Buddha make the same illogical remark to a
+ missionary from Andover with the glad tidings? Could he not say: "You are
+ waging a hopeless war. The religion of Buddha began to be twenty-five
+ hundred years before you were born, and hundreds of millions of people
+ still worship at Great Buddha's shrine"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you insist that nothing except the right can live for two thousand
+ years? Why is it that the Catholic Church "lives on and on, while nations
+ and kingdoms perish"? Do you consider that the "survival of the fittest"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it the same Christian religion now living that lived during the Middle
+ Ages? Is it the same Christian religion that founded the Inquisition and
+ invented the thumbscrew? Do you see no difference between the religion of
+ Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and the Christianity of to-day? Do you really
+ think that it is the same Christianity that has been living all these
+ years? Have you noticed any change in the last generation? Do you remember
+ when scientists endeavored to prove a theory by a passage from the Bible,
+ and do you now know that believers in the Bible are exceedingly anxious to
+ prove its truth by some fact that science has demonstrated? Do you know
+ that the standard has changed? Other things are not measured by the Bible,
+ but the Bible has to submit to another test. It no longer owns the scales.
+ It has to be weighed,&mdash;it is being weighed,&mdash;it is growing
+ lighter and lighter every day. Do you know that only a few years ago "the
+ glad tidings of great joy" consisted mostly in a description of hell? Do
+ you know that nearly every intelligent minister is now ashamed to preach
+ about it, or to read about it, or to talk about it? Is there any change?
+ Do you know that but few ministers now believe in the "plenary
+ inspiration" of the Bible, that from thousands of pulpits people are now
+ told that the creation according to Genesis is a mistake, that it, never
+ was as wet as the flood, and that the miracles of the Old Testament are
+ considered simply as myths or mistakes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How long will what you call Christianity endure, if it changes as rapidly
+ during the next century as it has during the last? What will there be left
+ of the supernatural?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem possible that thoughtful people can, for many years,
+ believe that a being of infinite wisdom is the author of the Old
+ Testament, that a being of infinite purity and kindness upheld polygamy
+ and slavery, that he ordered his chosen people to massacre their
+ neighbors, and that he commanded husbands and fathers to persecute wives
+ and daughters unto death for opinion's sake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem within the prospect of belief that Jehovah, the cruel,
+ the jealous, the ignorant, and the revengeful, is the creator and
+ preserver of the universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it seem possible that infinite goodness would create a world in which
+ life feeds on life, in which everything devours and is devoured? Can there
+ be a sadder fact than this: Innocence is not a certain shield?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for me to believe in the eternity of punishment. If that
+ doctrine be true, Jehovah is insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Day after day there are mournful processions of men and women, patriots
+ and mothers, girls whose only crime is that the word Liberty burst into
+ flower between their pure and loving lips, driven like beasts across the
+ melancholy wastes of Siberian snow. These men, these women, these
+ daughters, go to exile and to slavery, to a land where hope is satisfied
+ with death. Does it seem possible to you that an "Infinite Father" sees
+ all this and sits as silent as a god of stone?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, according to your Presbyterian creed, according to your inspired
+ book, according to your Christ, there is another procession, in which are
+ the noblest and the best, in which you will find the wondrous spirits of
+ this world, the lovers of the human race, the teachers of their
+ fellow-men, the greatest soldiers that ever battled for the right; and
+ this procession of countless millions, in which you will find the most
+ generous and the most loving of the sons and daughters of men, is moving
+ on to the Siberia of God, the land of eternal exile, where agony becomes
+ immortal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can you, how can any man with brain or heart, believe this infinite
+ lie?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there not room for a better, for a higher philosophy? After all, is it
+ not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily
+ produced, that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes and all
+ crimes, were simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of this
+ perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute
+ justification for the individual? May we not find that every soul has,
+ like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like Prometheus
+ to the rocks of fate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You ask me to take the "sober second thought." I beg of you to take the
+ first, and if you do, you will throw away the Presbyterian creed; you will
+ instantly perceive that he who commits the "smallest sin" no more deserves
+ eternal pain than he who does the smallest virtuous deed deserves eternal
+ bliss; you will become convinced that an infinite God who creates billions
+ of men knowing that they will suffer through all the countless years is an
+ infinite demon; you will be satisfied that the Bible, with its philosophy
+ and its folly, with its goodness and its cruelty, is but the work of man,
+ and that the supernatural does not and cannot exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For you personally, I have the highest regard and the sincerest respect,
+ and I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not to furrow the
+ cheeks of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be shrieked in a
+ mad-house. Do not make the cradle as terrible as the coffin. Preach, I
+ pray you, the gospel of Intellectual Hospitality&mdash;the liberty of
+ thought and speech. Take from loving hearts the awful fear. Have mercy on
+ your fellow-men. Do not drive to madness the mothers whose tears are
+ falling on the pallid faces of those who died in unbelief. Pity the
+ erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. Do not proclaim as "tidings of
+ great joy" that an Infinite Spider is weaving webs to catch the souls of
+ men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ My Dear Colonel Ingersoll:
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ I have read your Reply to my Open Letter half a dozen times, and each time
+ with new appreciation of your skill as an advocate. It is written with
+ great ingenuity, and furnishes probably as complete an argument as you are
+ able to give for the faith (or want of faith) that is in you. Doubtless
+ you think it unanswerable, and so it will seem to those who are
+ predisposed to your way of thinking. To quote a homely saying of Mr.
+ Lincoln, in which there is as much of wisdom as of wit, "For those who
+ like that sort of thing, no doubt that is the sort of thing they do like."
+ You may answer that we, who cling to the faith of our fathers, are equally
+ prejudiced, and that it is for that reason that we are not more impressed
+ by the force of your pleading. I do not deny a strong leaning that way,
+ and yet our real interest is the same&mdash;to get at the truth; and,
+ therefore, I have tried to give due weight to whatever of argument there
+ is in the midst of so much eloquence; but must confess that, in spite of
+ all, I remain in the same obdurate frame of mind as before. With all the
+ candor that I can bring to bear upon the question, I find on reviewing my
+ Open Letter scarcely a sentence to change and nothing to withdraw; and am
+ quite willing to leave it as my Declaration of Faith, to stand side by
+ side with your Reply, for intelligent and candid men to judge between us.
+ I need only to add a few words in taking leave of the subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem a little disturbed that "some of my brethren" should look upon
+ you as "a monster" because of your unbelief. I certainly do not approve of
+ such language, although they would tell me that it is the only word which
+ is a fit response to your ferocious attacks upon what they hold most
+ sacred. You are a born gladiator, and when you descend into the arena, you
+ strike heavy blows, which provoke blows in return. In this very Reply you
+ manifest a particular animosity against Presbyterians. Is it because you
+ were brought up in that Church, of which your father, whom you regard with
+ filial respect and affection, was an honored minister? You even speak of
+ "the Presbyterian God!" as if we assumed to appropriate the Supreme Being,
+ claiming to be the special objects of His favor. Is there any ground for
+ this imputation of narrowness? On the contrary, when we bow our knees
+ before our Maker, it is as the God and Father of all mankind; and the
+ expression you permit yourself to use, can only be regarded as grossly
+ offensive. Was it necessary to offer this rudeness to the religious
+ denomination in which you were born?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And this may explain, what you do not seem fully to understand, why it is
+ that you are sometimes treated to sharp epithets by the religious press
+ and public. You think yourself persecuted for your opinions. But others
+ hold the same opinions without offence. Nor is it because you express your
+ opinions. Nobody would deny you the same freedom which is accorded to
+ Huxley or Herbert Spencer. It is not because you exercise your liberty of
+ judgment or of speech, but because of the way in which you attack others,
+ holding up their faith to all manner of ridicule, and speaking of those
+ who profess it as if they must be either knaves or fools. It is not in
+ human nature not to resent such imputations on that which, however
+ incredible to you, is very precious to them. Hence it is that they think
+ you a rough antagonist; and when you shock them by such expressions as I
+ have quoted, you must expect some pretty strong language in return. I do
+ not join them in this, because I know you, and appreciate that other side
+ of you which is manly and kindly and chivalrous. But while I recognize
+ these better qualities, I must add in all frankness that I am compelled to
+ look upon you as a man so embittered against religion that you cannot
+ think of it except as associated with cant, bigotry, and hypocrisy. In
+ such a state of mind it is hardly possible for you to judge fairly of the
+ arguments for its truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe with you, that reason was given us to be exercised, and that
+ when man seeks after truth, his mind should be, as you say Darwin's was,
+ "as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass." But if he is warped by
+ passion so that he cannot see things truly, then is he responsible. It is
+ the moral element which alone makes the responsibility. Nor do I believe
+ that any man will be judged in this world or the next for what does not
+ involve a moral wrong. Hence your appalling statement, "The God you
+ worship will, according to your creed, torture (!) through all the endless
+ years the man who entertains an honest doubt," does not produce the effect
+ intended, simply because I do not affirm nor believe any such thing. I
+ believe that, in the future world, every man will be judged according to
+ the deeds done in the body, and that the judgment, whatever it may be,
+ will be transparently just. God is more merciful than man. He desireth not
+ the death of the wicked. Christ forgave, where men would condemn, and
+ whatever be the fate of any human soul, it can never be said that the
+ Supreme Ruler was wanting either in justice or mercy. This I emphasize
+ because you dwell so much upon the subject of future retribution, giving
+ it an attention so constant as to be almost exclusive. Whatever else you
+ touch upon, you soon come back to this as the black thunder-cloud that
+ darkens all the horizon, casting its mighty shadows over the life that now
+ is and that which is to come. Your denunciations of this "inhuman" belief
+ are so reiterated that one would be left to infer that there is nothing
+ else in Religion; that it is all wrath and terror. But this is putting a
+ part for the whole. Religion is a vast system, of which this is but a
+ single feature: it is but one doctrine of many; and indeed some whom no
+ one will deny to be devout Christians, do not hold it at all, or only in a
+ modified form, while with all their hearts they accept and profess the
+ Religion that Christ came to bring into the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Archdeacon Farrar, of Westminster Abbey, the most eloquent preacher in the
+ Church of England, has written a book entitled "Eternal Hope," in which he
+ argues from reason and the Bible, that this life is not "the be-all and
+ end-all" of human probation; but that in the world to come there will be
+ another opportunity, when countless millions, made wiser by unhappy
+ experience, will turn again to the paths of life; and that so in the end
+ the whole human race, with the exception of perhaps a few who remain
+ irreclaimable, will be recovered and made happy forever. Others look upon
+ "eternal death" as merely the extinction of being, while immortality is
+ the reward of pre-eminent virtue, interpreting in that sense the words,
+ "The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through
+ Jesus Christ our Lord." The latter view might recommend itself to you as
+ the application of "the survival of the fittest" to another world, the
+ worthless, the incurably bad, of the human race being allowed to drop out
+ of existence (an end which can have no terrors for you, since you look
+ upon it as the common lot of all men,) while the good are continued in
+ being forever. The acceptance of either of these theories would relieve
+ your mind of that "horror of great darkness" which seems to come over it
+ whenever you look forward to retribution beyond the grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But while conceding all liberty to others I cannot so easily relieve
+ myself of this stern and rugged truth. To me moral evil in the universe is
+ a tremendous reality, and I do not see how to limit it within the bounds
+ of time. Retribution is to me a necessary part of the Divine law. A law
+ without a penalty for its violations is no law. But I rest the argument
+ for it, not on the Bible, but <i>on principles which you yourself
+ acknowledge</i>. You say, "There are no punishments, no rewards: there are
+ consequences." Very well, take the "consequences," and see where they lead
+ you. When a man by his vices has reduced his body to a wreck and his mind
+ to idiocy, you say this is the "consequence" of his vicious life. Is it a
+ great stretch of language to say that it is his "punishment," and
+ nonetheless punishment because self-inflicted? To the poor sufferer raving
+ in a madhouse, it matters little what it is called, so long as he is
+ experiencing the agonies of hell. And here your theory of "consequences,"
+ if followed up, will lead you very far. For if man lives after death, and
+ keeps his personal identity, do not the "consequences" of his past life
+ follow him into the future? And if his existence is immortal, are not the
+ consequences immortal also? And what is this but endless retribution?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But you tell me that the moral effect of retribution is destroyed by the
+ easy way in which a man escapes the penalty. He has but to repent, and he
+ is restored to the same condition before the law as if he had not sinned.
+ Not so do I understand it. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins," but
+ forgiveness does not reverse the course of nature; it does not prevent the
+ operation of natural law. A drunkard may repent as he is nearing his end,
+ but that does not undo the wrong that he has done, nor avert the
+ consequences. In spite of his tears, he dies in an agony of shame and
+ remorse. The inexorable law must be fulfilled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so in the future world. Even though a man be forgiven, he does not
+ wholly escape the evil of his past life. A retribution follows him even
+ within the heavenly gates; for if he does not suffer, still that bad life
+ has so shriveled up his moral nature as to diminish his power of
+ enjoyment. There are degrees of happiness, as one star differeth from
+ another star in glory; and he who begins wrong, will find that it is not
+ as well to sin and repent of it as not to sin at all. He enters the other
+ world in a state of spiritual infancy, and will have to begin at the
+ bottom and climb slowly upward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We might go a step farther, and say that perhaps heaven itself has not
+ only its lights but its shadows, in the reflections that must come even
+ there. We read of "the book of God's remembrance," but is there not
+ another book of remembrance in the mind itself&mdash;a book which any man
+ may well fear to open and to look thereon? When that book is opened, and
+ we read its awful pages, shall we not all think "what might have been?"
+ And will those thoughts be wholly free from sadness? The drunken brute who
+ breaks the heart that loved him may weep bitterly, and his poor wife may
+ forgive him with her dying lips; but <i>he cannot forgive himself</i> ,
+ and <i>never</i> can he recall without grief that bowed head and that
+ broken heart. This preserves the element of retribution, while it does not
+ shut the door to forgiveness and mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we need not travel over again the round of Christian doctrines. My
+ faith is very simple; it revolves around two words; God and Christ. These
+ are the two centres, or, as an astronomer might say, the double-star, or
+ double-sun, of the great orbit of religious truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the first of these, you say "There can be no evidence to my mind of
+ the existence of such a being, and my mind is so that it is incapable of
+ even thinking of an infinite personality;" and you gravely put to me this
+ question: "Do you really believe that this world is governed by an
+ infinitely wise and good God? Have you convinced even yourself of this?"
+ Here are two questions&mdash;one as to the existence of God, and the other
+ as to His benevolence. I will answer both in language as plain as it is
+ possible for me to use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First, Do I believe in the existence of God? I answer that it is
+ impossible for me not to believe it. I could not disbelieve it if I would.
+ You insist that belief or unbelief is not a matter of choice or of the
+ will, but of evidence. You say "the brain thinks as the heart beats, as
+ the eyes see." Then let us stand aside with all our prepossessions, and
+ open our eyes to what we can see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Robinson Crusoe in his desert island came down one day to the
+ seashore, and saw in the sand the print of a human foot, could he help the
+ instantaneous conviction that a man had been there? You might have tried
+ to persuade him that it was all chance,&mdash;that the sand had been
+ washed up by the waves or blown by the winds, and taken this form, or that
+ some marine insect had traced a figure like a human foot,&mdash;you would
+ not have moved him a particle. The imprint was there, and the conclusion
+ was irresistible: he did not believe&mdash;he knew that some human being,
+ whether friend or foe, civilized or savage, had set his foot upon that
+ desolate shore. So when I discover in the world (as I think I do)
+ mysterious footprints that are certainly not human, it is not a question
+ whether I shall believe or not: I cannot help believing that some Power
+ greater than man has set foot upon the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a fashion among atheistic philosophers to make light of the argument
+ from design; but "my mind is so that it is incapable" of resisting the
+ conclusion to which it leads me. And (since personal questions are in
+ order) I beg to ask if it is possible for you to take in your hands a
+ watch, and believe that there was no "design" in its construction; that it
+ was not made to keep time, but only "happened" so; that it is the product
+ of some freak of nature, which brought together its parts and set it
+ going. Do you not know with as much positiveness as can belong to any
+ conviction of your mind, that it was not the work of accident, but of
+ design; and that if there was a design, there was a designer? And if the
+ watch was made to keep time, was not the eye made to see and the ear to
+ hear? Skeptics may fight against this argument as much as they please, and
+ try to evade the inevitable conclusion, and yet it remains forever
+ entwined in the living frame of man as well as imbedded in the solid
+ foundations of the globe. Wherefore I repeat, it is not a question with me
+ whether I will believe or not&mdash;I cannot help believing; and I am not
+ only surprised, but amazed, that you or any thoughtful man can come to any
+ other conclusion.' In wonder and astonishment I ask, "Do you really
+ believe" that in all the wide universe there is no Higher Intelligence
+ than that of the poor human creatures that creep on this earthly ball? For
+ myself, it is with the pro-foundest conviction as well as the deepest
+ reverence that I repeat the first sentence of my faith: "I believe in God
+ the Father Almighty."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And not the Almighty only, but the Wise and the Good. Again I ask, How can
+ I help believing what I see every day of my life? Every morning, as the
+ sun rises in the East, sending light and life over the world, I behold a
+ glorious image of the beneficent Creator. The exquisite beauty of the
+ dawn, the dewy freshness of the air, the fleecy clouds floating in the sky&mdash;all
+ speak of Him. And when the sun goes down, sending shafts of light through
+ the dense masses that would hide his setting, and casting a glory over the
+ earth and sky, this wondrous illumination is to me but the reflection of
+ Him who "spreadeth out the heavens like a curtain; who maketh the clouds
+ His chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How much more do we find the evidences of goodness in man himself: in the
+ power of thought; of acquiring knowledge; of penetrating the mysteries of
+ nature and climbing among the stars. Can a being endowed with such
+ transcendent gifts doubt the goodness of his Creator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, I believe with all my heart and soul in One who is not only
+ Infinitely Great, but Infinitely Good; who loves all the creatures He has
+ made; bending over them as the bow in the cloud spans the arch of heaven,
+ stretching from horizon to horizon; looking down upon them with a
+ tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold. "Like as a
+ father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him; for
+ He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the question of immortality you are equally "at sea." You know nothing
+ and believe nothing; or, rather, you know only that you do not know, and
+ believe that you do not believe. You confess indeed to a faint hope, and
+ admit a bare possibility, that there may be another life, though you are
+ in an uncertainty about it that is altogether bewildering and desperate.
+ But your mind is so poetical that you give a certain attractiveness even
+ to the prospect of annihilation. You strew the sepulchre with such flowers
+ as these:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that the idea of
+ immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with
+ its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks
+ of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any
+ religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and
+ flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love
+ kisses the lips of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not know, we
+ cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a
+ day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the folding forever of wings;
+ the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life that brings rapture and
+ love to every one."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beautiful words! but inexpressibly sad! It is a silver lining to the
+ cloud, and yet the cloud is there, dark and impenetrable. But perhaps we
+ ought not to expect anything clearer and brighter from one who recognizes
+ no light but that of Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That light is very dim. If it were all we had, we should be just where
+ Cicero was, and say with him, and with you, that a future life was "to be
+ hoped for rather than believed." But does not that very uncertainty show
+ the need of a something above Nature, which is furnished in Him who "was
+ crucified, dead and buried, and the third day rose again from the dead?"
+ It is the Conqueror of Death who calls to the fainthearted: "I am the
+ Resurrection and the Life." Since He has gone before us, lighting up the
+ dark passage of the grave, we need not fear to follow, resting on the word
+ of our Leader: "Because I live, ye shall live also."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This faith in another life is a precious inheritance, which cannot be torn
+ from the agonized bosom without a wrench that tears every heartstring; and
+ it was to this I referred as the last refuge of a poor, suffering,
+ despairing soul, when I asked: "Does it never occur to you that there is
+ something very cruel in this treatment of the belief of your
+ fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another life hangs all that relieves
+ the darkness of their present existence?" The imputation of cruelty you
+ repel with some warmth, saying (with a slight variation of my language): "<i>When
+ I deny the existence of perdition</i>, you reply that there is something
+ very cruel in this treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures." Of
+ course, this change of words, putting perdition in the place of immortal
+ life and hope, was a mere inadvertence. But it was enough to change the
+ whole character of what I wrote. As I described "the treatment of the
+ belief of my fellow-creatures," I did think it "very cruel," and I think
+ so still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While correcting this slight misquotation, I must remove from your mind a
+ misapprehension, which is so very absurd as to be absolutely comical. In
+ my Letter referring to your disbelief of immortality, I had said: "With an
+ air of modesty and diffidence that would carry an audience by storm, you
+ confess your ignorance of what perhaps others are better acquainted with,
+ when you say, 'This world is all that I know anything about, <i>so far as
+ I recollect</i>'" Of course "what perhaps others are better acquainted
+ with" was a part of what you said, or at least implied by your manner (for
+ you do not convey your meaning merely by words, but by a tone of voice, by
+ arched eyebrows, or a curled lip); and yet, instead of taking the sentence
+ in its plain and obvious sense, you affect to understand it as an
+ assumption on my part to have some private and mysterious knowledge of
+ another world (!), and gravely ask me, "Did you by this intend to say that
+ you know anything of any other state of existence; that you have inhabited
+ some other planet; that you lived before you were born; and that you
+ recollect something of that other world or of that other state?" No, my
+ dear Colonel! I have been a good deal of a traveler, and have seen all
+ parts of this world, but I have never visited any other. In reading your
+ sober question, if I did not know you to be one of the brightest wits of
+ the day, I should be tempted to quote what Sidney Smith says of a
+ Scotchman, that "you cannot get a joke into his head except by a surgical
+ operation!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But to return to what is serious: you make light of our faith and our
+ hopes, because you know not the infinite solace they bring to the troubled
+ human heart. You sneer at the idea that religion can be a "consolation."
+ Indeed! Is it not a consolation to have an Almighty Friend? Was it a light
+ matter for the poor slave mother, who sat alone in her cabin, having been
+ robbed of her children, to sing in her wild, wailing accents:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Nobody knows the sorrows I've seen:
+ Nobody knows but Jesus?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Would you rob her of that Unseen Friend&mdash;the only Friend she had on
+ earth or in heaven?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I will do you the justice to say that your want of religious faith
+ comes in part from your very sensibility and tenderness of heart. You
+ cannot recognize an overruling Providence, because your mind is so
+ harassed by scenes that you witness. Why, you ask, do men suffer so? You
+ draw frightful pictures of the misery which exists in the world, as a
+ proof of the incapacity of its Ruler and Governor, and do not hesitate to
+ say that "any honest man of average intelligence could do vastly better."
+ If you could have your way, you would make everybody happy; there should
+ be no more poverty, and no more sickness or pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a pleasant picture to look at, and yet you must excuse me for
+ saying that it is rather a child's picture than that of a stalwart man.
+ The world is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged
+ like children: spoiled children they would soon become. It is an arena of
+ conflict, in which we are to develop the manhood that is in us. We all
+ have to take the "rough-and-tumble" of life, and are the better for it&mdash;physically,
+ intellectually, and morally. If there be any true manliness within us, we
+ come out of the struggle stronger and better; with larger minds and kinder
+ hearts; a broader wisdom and a gentler charity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Perhaps we should not differ on this point if we could agree as to the
+ true end of life. But here I fear the difference is irreconcilable. You
+ think that end is happiness: I think it is character. I do not believe
+ that the highest end of life upon earth is to "have a good time to get
+ from it the utmost amount of enjoyment;" but to be truly and greatly GOOD;
+ and that to that end no discipline can be too severe which leads us "to
+ suffer and be strong." That discipline answers its end when it raises the
+ spirit to the highest pitch of courage and endurance. The splendor of
+ virtue never appears so bright as when set against a dark background. It
+ was in prisons and dungeons that the martyrs showed the greatest degree of
+ moral heroism, the power of
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Man's unconquerable mind."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ But I know well that these illustrations do not cover the whole case.
+ There is another picture to be added to those of heroic struggle and
+ martyrdom&mdash;that of silent suffering, which makes of life one long
+ agony, and which often comes upon the good, so that it seems as if the
+ best suffered the most. And yet when you sit by a sick bed, and look into
+ a face whiter than the pillow on which it rests, do you not sometimes mark
+ how that very suffering refines the nature that bears it so meekly? This
+ is the Christian theory: that suffering, patiently borne, is a means of
+ the greatest elevation of character, and, in the end, of the highest
+ enjoyment. Looking at it in this light, we can understand how it should be
+ that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
+ [or even to be named] with the glory which shall be revealed." When the
+ heavenly morning breaks, brighter than any dawn that blushes "o'er the
+ world," there will be "a restitution of all things:" the poor will be made
+ rich, and the most suffering the most serenely happy; as in the vision of
+ the Apocalypse, when it is asked "What are these which are arrayed in
+ white robes, and whence came they?" the answer is, "These are they which
+ came our of great tribulation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this conclusion, which is not adopted lightly, but after innumerable
+ struggles with doubt, after the experience and the reflection of years, I
+ feel "a great peace." It is the glow of sunset that gilds the approach of
+ evening. For (we must confess it) it is towards that you and I are
+ advancing. The sun has passed the meridian, and hastens to his going down.
+ Whatever of good this life has for us (and I am far from being one of
+ those who look upon it as a vale of tears) will soon be behind us. I see
+ the shadows creeping on; yet I welcome the twilight that will soon darken
+ into night, for I know that it will be a night all glorious with stars. As
+ I look upward, the feeling of awe is blended with a strange, overpowering
+ sense of the Infinite Goodness, which surrounding me like an atmosphere:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "And so beside the Silent Sea,
+ I wait the muffled oar;
+ No harm from Him can come to me
+ On ocean or on shore.
+
+ I know not where His Islands lift
+ Their fronded palms in air;
+ I only know I cannot drift
+ Beyond His love and care."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Would that you could share with me this confidence and this hope! But you
+ seem to be receding farther from any kind of faith. In one of your closing
+ paragraphs, you give what is to you "the conclusion of the whole matter."
+ After repudiating religion with scorn, you ask, "Is there not room for a
+ better, for a higher philosophy?" and thus indicate the true answer to be
+ given, to which no words can do justice but your own:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "After all, is it not possible that we may find that everything has been
+ necessarily produced; that all religions and superstitions, all mistakes
+ and all crimes, were simply necessities? Is it not possible that out of
+ this perception may come not only love and pity for others, but absolute
+ justification for the individual? May we not find that every soul has,
+ like Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like Prometheus
+ to the rocks of fate?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this be the end of all philosophy, it is equally the end of "all
+ things." Not only does it make an end of us and of our hopes of futurity,
+ but of all that makes the present life worth living&mdash;of all freedom,
+ and hence of all virtue. There are no more any moral distinctions in the
+ world&mdash;no good and no evil, no right and no wrong; nothing but grim
+ necessity. With such a creed, I wonder how you can ever stand at the bar,
+ and argue for the conviction of a criminal. Why should he be convicted and
+ punished for what he could not help? Indeed he is not a criminal, since
+ there is no such thing as crime. He is not to blame. Was he not "lashed to
+ the wild horse of passion," carried away by a power beyond his control?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What cruelty to thrust him behind iron bars! Poor fellow! he deserves our
+ pity. Let us hasten to relieve him from a position which must be so
+ painful, and make our humble apology for having presumed to punish him for
+ an act in which he only obeyed an impulse which he could not resist. This
+ will be "absolute justification for the individual." But what will become
+ of society, you do not tell us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are you aware that in this last attainment of "a better, a higher
+ philosophy" (which is simply absolute fatalism), you have swung round to
+ the side of John Calvin, and gone far beyond him? That you, who have
+ exhausted all the resources of the English language in denouncing his
+ creed as the most horrible of human beliefs&mdash;brainless, soulless,
+ heartless; who have held it up to scorn and derision; now hold to the
+ blackest Calvinism that was ever taught by man? You cannot find words
+ sufficient to express your horror of the doctrine of Divine decrees; and
+ yet here you have decrees with a vengeance&mdash;predestination and
+ damnation, both in one. Under such a creed, man is a thousand times worse
+ off than under ours: for he has absolutely no hope. You may say that at
+ any rate he cannot suffer forever. You do not know even that; but at any
+ rate <i>he suffers as long as he exists</i>. There is no God above to show
+ him pity, and grant him release; but as long as the ages roll, he is
+ "lashed to the rocks of fate," with the insatiate vulture tearing at his
+ heart!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In reading your glittering phrases, I seem to be losing hold of
+ everything, and to be sinking, sinking, till I touch the lowest depths of
+ an abyss; while from the blackness above me a sound like a death-knell
+ tolls the midnight of the soul. If I believed this I should cry, God help
+ us all! Or no&mdash;for there would be no God, and even this last
+ consolation would be denied us: for why should we offer a prayer which can
+ neither be heard nor answered? As well might we ask mercy from "the rocks
+ of fate" to which we are chained forever!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recoiling from this Gospel of Despair, I turn to One in whose face there
+ is something at once human and divine&mdash;an indescribable majesty,
+ united with more than human tenderness and pity; One who was born among
+ the poor, and had not where to lay His head, and yet went about doing
+ good; poor, yet making many rich; who trod the world in deepest
+ loneliness, and yet whose presence lighted up every dwelling into which He
+ came; who took up little children in His arms, and blessed them; a giver
+ of joy to others, and yet a sufferer himself; who tasted every human
+ sorrow, and yet was always ready to minister to others' grief; weeping
+ with them that wept; coming to Bethany to comfort Mary and Martha
+ concerning their brother; rebuking the proud, but gentle and pitiful to
+ the most abject of human creatures; stopping amid the throng at the cry of
+ a blind beggar by the wayside; willing to be known as "the friend of
+ sinners," if He might recall them into the way of peace; who did not scorn
+ even the fallen woman who sank at His feet, but by His gentle word,
+ "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more," lifted her up, and set
+ her in the path of a virtuous womanhood; and who, when dying on the cross,
+ prayed: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." In this
+ Friend of the friendless, Comforter of the comfortless, Forgiver of the
+ penitent, and Guide of the erring, I find a greatness that I had not found
+ in any of the philosophers or teachers of the world. No voice in all the
+ ages thrills me like that which whispers close to my heart, "Come unto me
+ and I will give you rest," to which I answer: This is my Master, and I
+ will follow Him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Henry M. Field.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LETTER TO DR. FIELD.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ My Dear Mr. Field:
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ With great pleasure I have read your second letter, in which you seem to
+ admit that men may differ even about religion without being responsible
+ for that difference; that every man has the right to read the Bible for
+ himself, state freely the conclusion at which he arrives, and that it is
+ not only his privilege, but his duty to speak the truth; that Christians
+ can hardly be happy in heaven, while those they loved on earth are
+ suffering with the lost; that it is not a crime to investigate, to think,
+ to reason, to observe, and to be governed by evidence; that credulity is
+ not a virtue, and that the open mouth of ignorant wonder is not the only
+ entrance to Paradise; that belief is not necessary to salvation, and that
+ no man can justly be made to suffer eternal pain for having expressed an
+ intellectual conviction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to admit that no man can justly be held responsible for his
+ thoughts; that the brain thinks without asking our consent, and that we
+ believe or disbelieve without an effort of the will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I congratulate you upon the advance that you have made. You not only admit
+ that we have the right to think, but that we have the right to express our
+ honest thoughts. You admit that the Christian world no longer believes in
+ the fagot, the dungeon, and the thumbscrew. Has the Christian world
+ outgrown its God? Has man become more merciful than his maker? If man will
+ not torture his fellow-man on account of a difference of opinion, will a
+ God of infinite love torture one of his children for what is called the
+ sin of unbelief? Has man outgrown the Inquisition, and will God forever be
+ the warden of a penitentiary? The walls of the old dungeons have fallen,
+ and light now visits the cell where brave men perished in darkness. Is
+ Jehovah to keep the cells of perdition in repair forever, and are his
+ children to be the eternal prisoners?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems hard for you to appreciate the mental condition of one who
+ regards all gods as substantially the same; that is to say, who thinks of
+ them all as myths and phantoms born of the imagination,&mdash;characters
+ in the religious fictions of the race. To you it probably seems strange
+ that a man should think far more of Jupiter than of Jehovah. Regarding
+ them both as creations of the mind, I choose between them, and I prefer
+ the God of the Greeks, on the same principle that I prefer Portia to Iago;
+ and yet I regard them, one and all, as children of the imagination, as
+ phantoms born of human fears and human hopes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely nothing was further from my mind than to hurt the feelings of any
+ one by speaking of the Presbyterian God. I simply intended to speak of the
+ God of the Presbyterians. Certainly the God of the Presbyterian is not the
+ God of the Catholic, nor is he the God of the Mohammedan or Hindoo. He is
+ a special creation suited only to certain minds. These minds have
+ naturally come together, and they form what we call the Presbyterian
+ Church. As a matter of fact, no two churches can by any possibility have
+ precisely the same God; neither can any two human beings conceive of
+ precisely the same Deity. In every man's God there is, to say the least, a
+ part of that man. The lower the man, the lower his conception of God. The
+ higher the man, the grander his Deity must be. The savage who adorns his
+ body with a belt from which hang the scalps of enemies slain in battle,
+ has no conception of a loving, of a forgiving God; his God, of necessity,
+ must be as revengeful, as heartless, as infamous as the God of John
+ Calvin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You do not exactly appreciate my feeling. I do not hate Presbyterians; I
+ hate Presbyterianism. I hate with all my heart the creed of that church,
+ and I most heartily despise the God described in the Confession of Faith.
+ But some of the best friends I have in the world are afflicted with the
+ mental malady known as Presbyterianism. They are the victims of the
+ consolation growing out of the belief that a vast majority of their
+ fellow-men are doomed to suffer eternal torment, to the end that their
+ Creator may be eternally glorified. I have said many times, and I say
+ again, that I do not despise a man because he has the rheumatism; I
+ despise the rheumatism because it has a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I do insist that the Presbyterians have assumed to appropriate to
+ themselves their Supreme Being, and that they have claimed, and that they
+ do claim, to be the "special objects of his favor." They do claim to be
+ the very elect, and they do insist that God looks upon them as the objects
+ of his special care. They do claim that the light of Nature, without the
+ torch of the Presbyterian creed, is insufficient to guide any soul to the
+ gate of heaven. They do insist that even those who never heard of Christ,
+ or never heard of the God of the Presbyterians, will be eternally lost;
+ and they not only claim this, but that their fate will illustrate not only
+ the justice but the mercy of God. Not only so, but they insist that the
+ morality of an unbeliever is displeasing to God, and that the love of an
+ unconverted mother for her helpless child is nothing less than sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I meet a man who really believes the Presbyterian creed, I think of
+ the Laocoon. I feel as though looking upon a human being helpless in the
+ coils of an immense and poisonous serpent. But I congratulate you with all
+ my heart that you have repudiated this infamous, this savage creed; that
+ you now admit that reason was given us to be exercised; that God will not
+ torture any man for entertaining an honest doubt, and that in the world to
+ come "every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me quote your exact language: "I believe that in the future world
+ every man will be judged according to the deeds done in the body." Do you
+ not see that you have bidden farewell to the Presbyterian Church? In that
+ sentence you have thrown away the atonement, you have denied the efficacy
+ of the blood of Jesus Christ, and you have denied the necessity of belief.
+ If we are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, that is the end of
+ the Presbyterian scheme of salvation. I sincerely congratulate you for
+ having repudiated the savagery of Calvinism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It also gave me great pleasure to find that you have thrown away, with a
+ kind of glad shudder, that infamy of infamies, the dogma of eternal pain.
+ I have denounced that inhuman belief; I have denounced every creed that
+ had coiled within it that viper; I have denounced every man who preached
+ it, the book that contains it, and with all my heart the God who threatens
+ it; and at last I have the happiness of seeing the editor of the New York
+ <i>Evangelist</i> admit that devout Christians do not believe that lie,
+ and quote with approbation the words of a minister of the Church of
+ England to the effect that all men will be finally recovered and made
+ happy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you find this doctrine of hope in the Presbyterian creed? Is this star,
+ that sheds light on every grave, found in your Bible? Did Christ have in
+ his mind the shining truth that all the children of men will at last be
+ filled with joy, when he uttered these comforting words: "Depart from me,
+ ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you find in this flame the bud of hope, or the flower of promise?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You suggest that it is possible that "the incurably bad will be
+ annihilated," and you say that such a fate can have no terrors for me, as
+ I look upon annihilation as the common lot of all. Let us examine this
+ position. Why should a God of infinite wisdom create men and women whom he
+ knew would be "incurably bad"? What would you say of a mechanic who was
+ forced to destroy his own productions on the ground that they were
+ "incurably bad"? Would you say that he was an infinitely wise mechanic?
+ Does infinite justice annihilate the work of infinite wisdom? Does God,
+ like an ignorant doctor, bury his mistakes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides, what right have you to say that I "look upon annihilation as the
+ common lot of all"? Was there any such thought in my Reply? Do you find it
+ in any published words of mine? Do you find anything in what I have
+ written tending to show that I believe in annihilation? Is it not true
+ that I say now, and that I have always said, that I do not know? Does a
+ lack of knowledge as to the fate of the human soul imply a belief in
+ annihilation? Does it not equally imply a belief in immortality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have been&mdash;at least until recently&mdash;a believer in the
+ inspiration of the Bible and in the truth of its every word. What do you
+ say to the following: "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth
+ beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the
+ other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence
+ above a beast." You will see that the inspired writer is not satisfied
+ with admitting that he does not know. "As the cloud is consumed and
+ vanisheth away; so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more."
+ Was it not cruel for an inspired man to attack a sacred belief?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem surprised that I should speak of the doctrine of eternal pain as
+ "the black thunder-cloud that darkens all the horizon, casting its mighty
+ shadows over the life that now is and that which is to come." If that
+ doctrine be true, what else is there worthy of engaging the attention of
+ the human mind? It is the blackness that extinguishes every star. It is
+ the abyss in which every hope must perish. It leaves a universe without
+ justice and without mercy&mdash;a future without one ray of light, and a
+ present with nothing but fear. It makes heaven an impossibility, God an
+ infinite monster, and man an eternal victim. Nothing can redeem a religion
+ in which this dogma is found. Clustered about it are all the snakes of the
+ Furies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But you have abandoned this infamy, and you have admitted that we are to
+ be judged according to the deeds done in the body. Nothing can be nearer
+ self-evident than the fact that a finite being cannot commit an infinite
+ sin; neither can a finite being do an infinitely good deed. That is to
+ say, no one can deserve for any act eternal pain, and no one for any deed
+ can deserve eternal joy. If we are to be judged by the deeds done in the
+ body, the old orthodox hell and heaven both become impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, too, you have recognized the great and splendid truth that sin cannot
+ be predicated of an intellectual conviction. This is the first great step
+ toward the liberty of soul. You admit that there is no morality and no
+ immorality in belief&mdash;that is to say, in the simple operation of the
+ mind in weighing evidence, in observing facts, and in drawing conclusions.
+ You admit that these things are without sin and without guilt. Had all men
+ so believed there never could have been religious persecution&mdash;the
+ Inquisition could not have been built, and the idea of eternal pain never
+ could have polluted the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have been driven to the passions for the purpose of finding what you
+ are pleased to call "sin" and "responsibility" and you say, speaking of a
+ human being, "but if he is warped by passion so that he cannot see things
+ truly, then is he responsible." One would suppose that the use of the word
+ "cannot" is inconsistent with the idea of responsibility. What is passion?
+ There are certain desires, swift, thrilling, that quicken the action of
+ the heart&mdash;desires that fill the brain with blood, with fire and
+ flame&mdash;desires that bear the same relation to judgment that storms
+ and waves bear to the compass on a ship. Is passion necessarily produced?
+ Is there an adequate cause for every effect? Can you by any possibility
+ think of an effect without a cause, and can you by any possibility think
+ of an effect that is not a cause, or can you think of a cause that is not
+ an effect? Is not the history of real civilization the slow and gradual
+ emancipation of the intellect, of the judgment, from the mastery of
+ passion? Is not that man civilized whose reason sits the crowned monarch
+ of his brain&mdash;whose passions are his servants?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who knows the strength of the temptation to another? Who knows how little
+ has been resisted by those who stand, how much has been resisted by those
+ who fall? Who knows whether the victor or the victim made the braver and
+ the more gallant fight? In judging of our fellow-men we must take into
+ consideration the circumstances of ancestry, of race, of nationality, of
+ employment, of opportunity, of education, and of the thousand influences
+ that tend to mold or mar the character of man. Such a view is the mother
+ of charity, and makes the God of the Presbyterians impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last you have seen the impossibility of forgiveness. That is to say,
+ you perceive that after forgiveness the crime remains, and its children,
+ called consequences, still live. You recognize the lack of philosophy in
+ that doctrine. You still believe in what you call "the forgiveness of
+ sins," but you admit that forgiveness cannot reverse the course of nature,
+ and cannot prevent the operation of natural law. You also admit that if a
+ man lives after death, he preserves his personal identity, his memory, and
+ that the consequences of his actions will follow him through all the
+ eternal years. You admit that consequences are immortal. After making this
+ admission, of what use is the old idea of the forgiveness of sins? How can
+ the criminal be washed clean and pure in the blood of another? In spite of
+ this forgiveness, in spite of this blood, you have taken the ground that
+ consequences, like the dogs of Act&aelig;on, follow even a Presbyterian,
+ even one of the elect, within the heavenly gates. If you wish to be
+ logical, you must also admit that the consequences of good deeds, like
+ winged angels, follow even the atheist within the gates of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have had the courage of your convictions, and you have said that we
+ are to be judged according to the deeds done in the body. By that judgment
+ I am willing to abide. But, whether willing or not, I must abide, because
+ there is no power, no God that can step between me and the consequences of
+ my acts. I wish no heaven that I have not earned, no happiness to which I
+ am not entitled. I do not wish to become an immortal pauper; neither am I
+ willing to extend unworthy hands for alms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My dear Mr. Field, you have outgrown your creed&mdash;as every
+ Presbyterian must who grows at all. You are far better than the spirit of
+ the Old Testament; far better, in my judgment, even than the spirit of the
+ New. The creed that you have left behind, that you have repudiated,
+ teaches that a man may be guilty of every crime&mdash;that he may have
+ driven his wife to insanity, that his example may have led his children to
+ the penitentiary, or to the gallows, and that yet, at the eleventh hour,
+ he may, by what is called "repentance," be washed absolutely pure by the
+ blood of another and receive and wear upon his brow the laurels of eternal
+ peace. Not only so, but that creed has taught that this wretch in heaven
+ could look back on the poor earth and see the wife, whom he swore to love
+ and cherish, in the mad-house, surrounded by imaginary serpents,
+ struggling in the darkness of night, made insane by his heartlessness&mdash;that
+ creed has taught and teaches that he could look back and see his children
+ in prison cells, or on the scaffold with the noose about their necks, and
+ that these visions would not bring a shade of sadness to his redeemed and
+ happy face. It is this doctrine, it is this dogma&mdash;so bestial, so
+ savage as to beggar all the languages of men&mdash;that I have denounced.
+ All the words of hatred, loathing and contempt, found in all the dialects
+ and tongues of men, are not sufficient to express my hatred, my contempt,
+ and my loathing of this creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You say that it is impossible for you not to believe in the existence of
+ God. With this statement, I find no fault. Your mind is so that a belief
+ in the existence of a Supreme Being gives satisfaction and content. Of
+ course, you are entitled to no credit for this belief, as you ought not to
+ be rewarded for believing that which you cannot help believing; neither
+ should I be punished for failing to believe that which I cannot believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You believe because you see in the world around you such an adaptation of
+ means to ends that you are satisfied there is design. I admit that when
+ Robinson Crusoe saw in the sand the print of a human foot, like and yet
+ unlike his own, he was justified in drawing the conclusion that a human
+ being had been there. The inference was drawn from his own experience, and
+ was within the scope of his own mind. But I do not agree with you that he
+ "knew" a human being had been there; he had only sufficient evidence upon
+ which to found a belief. He did not know the footsteps of all animals; he
+ could not have known that no animal except man could have made that
+ footprint: In order to have known that it was the foot of man, he must
+ have known that no other animal was capable of making it, and he must have
+ known that no other being had produced in the sand the likeness of this
+ human foot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see what you call evidences of intelligence in the universe, and you
+ draw the conclusion that there must be an infinite intelligence. Your
+ conclusion is far wider than your premise. Let us suppose, as Mr. Hume
+ supposed, that there is a pair of scales, one end of which is in darkness,
+ and you find that a pound weight, or a ten-pound weight, placed upon that
+ end of the scale in the light is raised; have you the right to say that
+ there is an infinite weight on the end in darkness, or are you compelled
+ to say only that there is weight enough on the end in darkness to raise
+ the weight on the end in light?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is illogical to say, because of the existence of this earth and of what
+ you can see in and about it, that there must be an infinite intelligence.
+ You do not know that even the creation of this world, and of all planets
+ discovered, required an infinite power, or infinite wisdom. I admit that
+ it is impossible for me to look at a watch and draw the inference that
+ there was no design in its construction, or that it only happened. I could
+ not regard it as a product of some freak of nature, neither could I
+ imagine that its various parts were brought together and set in motion by
+ chance. I am not a believer in chance. But there is a vast difference
+ between what man has made and the materials of which he has constructed
+ the things he has made. You find a watch, and you say that it exhibits, or
+ shows design. You insist that it is so wonderful it must have had a
+ designer&mdash;in other words, that it is too wonderful not to have been
+ constructed. You then find the watchmaker, and you say with regard to him
+ that he too must have had a designer, for he is more wonderful than the
+ watch. In imagagination you go from the watchmaker to the being you call
+ God, and you say he designed the watchmaker, but he himself was not
+ designed because he is too wonderful to have been designed. And yet in the
+ case of the watch and of the watchmaker, it was the wonder that suggested
+ design, while in the case of the maker of the watchmaker the wonder denied
+ a designer. Do you not see that this argument devours itself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If wonder suggests a designer, can it go on increasing until it denies
+ that which it suggested?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must remember, too, that the argument of design is applicable to all.
+ You are not at liberty to stop at sunrise and sunset and growing corn and
+ all that adds to the happiness of man; you must go further. You must admit
+ that an infinitely wise and merciful God designed the fangs of serpents,
+ the machinery by which the poison is distilled, the ducts by which it is
+ carried to the fang, and that the same intelligence impressed this serpent
+ with a desire to deposit this deadly virus in the flesh of man. You must
+ believe that an infinitely wise God so constructed this world, that in the
+ process of cooling, earthquakes would be caused&mdash;earthquakes that
+ devour and overwhelm cities and states. Do you see any design in the
+ volcano that sends its rivers of lava over the fields and the homes of
+ men? Do you really think that a perfectly good being designed the
+ invisible parasites that infest the air, that inhabit the water, and that
+ finally attack and destroy the health and life of man? Do you see the same
+ design in cancers that you do in wheat and corn? Did God invent tumors for
+ the brain? Was it his ingenuity that so designed the human race that
+ millions of people should be born deaf and dumb, that millions should be
+ idiotic? Did he knowingly plant in the blood or brain the seeds of
+ insanity? Did he cultivate those seeds? Do you see any design in this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man calls that good which increases his happiness, and that evil which
+ gives him pain. In the olden time, back of the good he placed a God; back
+ of the evil a devil; but now the orthodox world is driven to admit that
+ the God is the author of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I see no goodness in the pestilence&mdash;no mercy in the
+ bolt that leaps from the cloud and leaves the mark of death on the breast
+ of a loving mother. I see no generosity in famine, no goodness in disease,
+ no mercy in want and agony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet you say that the being who created parasites that live only by
+ inflicting pain&mdash;the being responsible for all the sufferings of
+ mankind&mdash;you say that he has "a tenderness compared to which all
+ human love is faint and cold." Yet according to the doctrine of the
+ orthodox world, this being of infinite love and tenderness so created
+ nature that its light misleads, and left a vast majority of the human race
+ to blindly grope their way to endless pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You insist that a knowledge of God&mdash;a belief in God&mdash;is the
+ foundation of social order; and yet this God of infinite tenderness has
+ left for thousands and thousands of years nearly all of his children
+ without a revelation. Why should infinite goodness leave the existence of
+ God in doubt? Why should he see millions in savagery destroying the lives
+ of each other, eating the flesh of each other, and keep his existence a
+ secret from man? Why did he allow the savages to depend on sunrise and
+ sunset and clouds? Why did he leave this great truth to a few half-crazed
+ prophets, or to a cruel, heartless, and ignorant church? The sentence
+ "There is a God".could have been imprinted on every blade of grass, on
+ every leaf, on every star. An infinite God has no excuse for leaving his
+ children in doubt and darkness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another point. You know that for thousands of ages men
+ worshiped wild beasts as God. You know that for countless generations they
+ knelt by coiled serpents, believing those serpents to be gods. Why did the
+ real God secrete himself and allow his poor, ignorant, savage children to
+ imagine that he was a beast, a serpent? Why did this God allow mothers to
+ sacrifice their babes? Why did he not emerge from the darkness? Why did he
+ not say to the poor mother, "Do not sacrifice your babe; keep it in your
+ arms; press it to your bosom; let it be the solace of your declining
+ years. I take no delight in the death of children; I am not what you
+ suppose me to be; I am not a beast; I am not a serpent; I am full of love
+ and kindness and mercy, and I want my children to be happy in this world"?
+ Did the God who allowed a mother to sacrifice her babe through the
+ mistaken idea that he, the God, demanded the sacrifice, feel a tenderness
+ toward that mother "compared to which all human love is faint and cold"?
+ Would a good father allow some of his children to kill others of his
+ children to please him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another question. Why should God, a being of infinite
+ tenderness, leave the question of immortality in doubt? How is it that
+ there is nothing in the Old Testament on this subject? Why is it that he
+ who made all the constellations did not put in his heaven the star of
+ hope? How do you account for the fact that you do not find in the Old
+ Testament, from the first mistake in Genesis, to the last curse in
+ Malachi, a funeral service? Is it not strange that some one in the Old
+ Testament did not stand by an open grave of father or mother and say: "We
+ shall meet again"? Was it because the divinely inspired men did not know?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You taunt me by saying that I know no more of the immortality of the soul
+ than Cicero knew. I admit it. I know no more than the lowest savage, no
+ more than a doctor of divinity&mdash;that is to say, nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not, however, a curious fact that there is less belief in the
+ immortality of the soul in Christian countries than in heathen lands&mdash;that
+ the belief in immortality, in an orthodox church, is faint and cold and
+ speculative, compared with that belief in India, in China, or in the
+ Pacific Isles? Compare the belief in immortality in America, of
+ Christians, with that of the followers of Mohammed. Do not Christians weep
+ above their dead? Does a belief in immortality keep back their tears?
+ After all, the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near&mdash;the
+ echoes of words said to have been spoken more than eighteen centuries ago
+ are lost in the sounds of the clods that fall on the coffin, And yet,
+ compared with the orthodox hell, compared with the prison-house of God,
+ how ecstatic is the grave&mdash;the grave without a sigh, without a tear,
+ without a dream, without a fear. Compared with the immortality promised by
+ the Presbyterian creed, how beautiful annihilation seems. To be nothing&mdash;how
+ much better than to be a convict forever. To be unconscious dust&mdash;how
+ much better than to be a heartless angel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not, there never has been, there never will be, any consolation
+ in orthodox Christianity. It offers no consolation to any good and loving
+ man. I prefer the consolation of Nature, the consolation of hope, the
+ consolation springing from human affection. I prefer the simple desire to
+ live and love forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, it would be a consolation to know that we have an "Almighty
+ Friend" in heaven; but an "Almighty Friend" who cares nothing for us, who
+ allows us to be stricken by his lightning, frozen by his winter, starved
+ by his famine, and at last imprisoned in his hell, is a friend I do not
+ care to have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I remember "the poor slave mother who sat alone in her cabin, having been
+ robbed of her children;" and, my dear Mr. Field, I also remember that the
+ people who robbed her justified the robbery by reading passages from the
+ sacred Scriptures. I remember that while the mother wept, the robbers,
+ some of whom were Christians, read this: "Buy of the heathen round about,
+ and they shall be your bondmen and bondwomen forever." I remember, too,
+ that the robbers read: "Servants be obedient unto your masters;" and they
+ said, this passage is the only message from the heart of God to the
+ scarred back of the slave. I remember this, and I remember, also, that the
+ poor slave mother upon her knees in wild and wailing accents called on the
+ "Almighty Friend," and I remember that her prayer was never heard, and
+ that her sobs died in the negligent air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You ask me whether I would "rob this poor woman of such a friend?" My
+ answer is this: I would give her liberty; I would break her chains. But
+ let me ask you, did an "Almighty Friend" see the woman he loved "with a
+ tenderness compared to which all human love is faint and cold," and the
+ woman who loved him, robbed of her children? What was the "Almighty
+ Friend" worth to her? She preferred her babe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How could the "Almighty Friend" see his poor children pursued by hounds&mdash;his
+ children whose only crime was the love of liberty&mdash;how could he see
+ that, and take sides with the hounds? Do you believe that the "Almighty
+ Friend" then governed the world? Do you really think that he
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast,
+ Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost"?
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that the "Almighty Friend" saw all of the tragedies that
+ were enacted in the jungles of Africa&mdash;that he watched the wretched
+ slave-ships, saw the miseries of the middle passage, heard the blows of
+ all the whips, saw all the streams of blood, all the agonized faces of
+ women, all the tears that were shed? Do you believe that he saw and knew
+ all these things, and that he, the "Almighty Friend," looked coldly down
+ and stretched no hand to save?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You persist, however, in endeavoring to account for the miseries of the
+ world by taking the ground that happiness is not the end of life. You say
+ that "the real end of life is character, and that no discipline can be too
+ severe which leads us to suffer and be strong." Upon this subject you use
+ the following language: "If you could have your way you would make
+ everybody happy; there would be no more poverty, and no more sickness or
+ pain." And this you say, is a "child's picture, hardly worthy of a
+ stalwart man." Let me read you another "child's picture," which you will
+ find in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, supposed to have been
+ written by St. John, the Divine: "And I heard a great voice out of heaven
+ saying, behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with
+ them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them,
+ and be their God; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and
+ there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall
+ there be any more pain.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you visited some woman living in a tenement, supporting by her poor
+ labor a little family&mdash;a poor woman on the edge of famine, sewing, it
+ may be, her eyes blinded by tears&mdash;would you tell her that "the world
+ is not a playground in which men are to be petted and indulged like
+ children."? Would you tell her that to think of a world without poverty,
+ without tears, without pain, is "a child's picture"? If she asked you for
+ a little assistance, would you refuse it on the ground that by being
+ helped she might lose character? Would you tell her: "God does not wish to
+ have you happy; happiness is a very foolish end; character is what you
+ want, and God has put you here with these helpless, starving babes, and he
+ has put this burden on your young life simply that you may suffer and be
+ strong. I would help you gladly, but I do not wish to defeat the plans of
+ your Almighty Friend"? You can reason one way, but you would act the
+ other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I agree with you that work is good, that struggle is essential; that men
+ are made manly by contending with each other and with the forces of
+ nature; but there is a point beyond which struggle does not make
+ character; there is a point at which struggle becomes failure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can you conceive of an "Almighty Friend" deforming his children because he
+ loves them? Did he allow the innocent to languish in dungeons because he
+ was their friend? Did he allow the noble to perish upon the scaffold, the
+ great and the self-denying to be burned at the stake, because he had the
+ power to save? Was he restrained by love? Did this "Almighty Friend" allow
+ millions of his children to be enslaved to the end that the "splendor of
+ virtue might have a dark background"? You insist that "suffering patiently
+ borne, is a means of the greatest elevation of character, and in the end
+ of the highest enjoyment." Do you not then see that your "Almighty Friend"
+ has been unjust to the happy&mdash;that he is cruel to those whom we call
+ the fortunate&mdash;that he is indifferent to the men who do not suffer&mdash;that
+ he leaves all the happy and prosperous and joyous without character, and
+ that in the end, according to your doctrine, they are the losers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, after all, there is no need of arguing this question further. There
+ is one fact that destroys forever your theory&mdash;and that is the fact
+ that millions upon millions die in infancy. Where do they get "elevation
+ of character"? What opportunity is given to them to "suffer and be
+ strong"? Let us admit that we do not know. Let us say that the mysteries
+ of life, of good and evil, of joy and pain, have never been explained. Is
+ character of no importance in heaven? How is it possible for angels,
+ living in "a child's picture," to "suffer and be strong"? Do you not see
+ that, according to your philosophy, only the damned can grow great&mdash;only
+ the lost can become sublime?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You do not seem to understand what I say with regard to what I call the
+ higher philosophy. When that philosophy is accepted, of course there will
+ be good in the world, there will be evil, there will still be right and
+ wrong. What is good? That which tends to the happiness of sentient beings.
+ What is evil? That which tends to the misery, or tends to lessen the
+ happiness of sentient beings. What is right? The best thing to be done
+ under the circumstances&mdash;that is to say, the thing that will increase
+ or preserve the happiness of man. What is wrong? That which tends to the
+ misery of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What you call liberty, choice, morality, responsibility, have nothing
+ whatever to do with this. There is no difference between necessity and
+ liberty. He who is free, acts from choice. What is the foundation of his
+ choice? What we really mean by liberty is freedom from personal dictation&mdash;we
+ do not wish to be controlled by the will of others. To us the nature of
+ things does not seem to be a master&mdash;Nature has no will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Society has the right to protect itself by imprisoning those who prey upon
+ its interests; but it has no right to punish. It may have the right to
+ destroy the life of one dangerous to the community; but what has freedom
+ to do with this? Do you kill the poisonous serpent because he knew better
+ than to bite? Do you chain a wild beast because he is morally responsible?
+ Do you not think that the criminal deserves the pity of the virtuous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was looking forward to the time when the individual might feel justified&mdash;when
+ the convict who had worn the garment of disgrace might know and feel that
+ he had acted as he must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is an old Hindoo prayer to which I call your attention:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Have mercy, God, upon the vicious;
+ Thou hast already had mercy upon the just by making them just."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Is it not possible that we may find that everything has been necessarily
+ produced? This, of course, would end in the justification of men. Is not
+ that a desirable thing? Is it not possible that intelligence may at last
+ raise the human race to that sublime and philosophic height?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You insist, however, that this is Calvinism. I take it for granted that
+ you understand Calvinism&mdash;but let me tell you what it is. Calvinism
+ asserts that man does as he must, and that, notwithstanding this fact, he
+ is responsible for what he does&mdash;that is to say, for what he is
+ compelled to do&mdash;that is to say, for what God does with him; and
+ that, for doing that which he must, an infinite God, who compelled him to
+ do it, is justified in punishing the man in eternal fire; this, not
+ because the man ought to be damned, but simply for the glory of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Starting from the same declaration, that man does as he must, I reach the
+ conclusion that we shall finally perceive in this fact justification for
+ every individual. And yet you see no difference between my doctrine and
+ Calvinism. You insist that damnation and justification are substantially
+ the same; and yet the difference is as great as human language can
+ express. You call the justification of all the world "the Gospel of
+ Despair," and the damnation of nearly all the human race the "Consolation
+ of Religion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, my dear friend, do you not see that when you come to speak of
+ that which is really good, you are compelled to describe your ideal human
+ being? It is the human in Christ, and only the human, that you by any
+ possibility can understand. You speak of one who was born among the poor,
+ who went about doing good, who sympathized with those who suffered. You
+ have described, not only one, but many millions of the human race,
+ Millions of others have carried light to those sitting in darkness;
+ millions and millions have taken children in their arms; millions have
+ wept that those they love might smile. No language can express the
+ goodness, the heroism, the patience and self-denial of the many millions,
+ dead and living, who have preserved in the family of man the jewels of the
+ heart. You have clad one being in all the virtues of the race, in all the
+ attributes of gentleness, patience, goodness, and love, and yet that
+ being, according to the New Testament, had to his character another side.
+ True, he said, "Come unto me and I will give you rest;" but what did he
+ say to those who failed to come? You pour out your whole heart in
+ thankfulness to this one man who suffered for the right, while I thank not
+ only this one, but all the rest. My heart goes out to all the great, the
+ self-denying and the good,&mdash;to the founders of nations, singers of
+ songs, builders of homes; to the inventors, to the artists who have filled
+ the world with beauty, to the composers of music, to the soldiers of the
+ right, to the makers of mirth, to honest men, and to all the loving
+ mothers of the race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare, for one moment, all that the Savior did, all the pain and
+ suffering that he relieved,&mdash;compare all this with the discovery of
+ an&aelig;sthetics. Compare your prophets with the inventors, your Apostles
+ with the Keplers, the Humboldts and the Darwins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I belong to the great church that holds the world within its starlit
+ aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds
+ with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love
+ the germs of good in every soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most men are provincial, narrow, one sided, only partially developed. In a
+ new country we often see a little patch of land, a clearing in which the
+ pioneer has built his cabin. This little clearing is just large enough to
+ support a family, and the remainder of the farm is still forest, in which
+ snakes crawl and wild beasts occasionally crouch. It is thus with the
+ brain of the average man. There is a little clearing, a little patch, just
+ large enough to practice medicine with, or sell goods, or practice law; or
+ preach with, or do some kind of business, sufficient to obtain bread and
+ food and shelter for a family, while all the rest of the brain is covered
+ with primeval forest, in which lie coiled the serpents of superstition and
+ from which spring the wild beasts of orthodox religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it
+ necessary to assert what we do not know. No cause is great enough to
+ demand a sacrifice of candor. The mysteries of life and death, of good and
+ evil, have never yet been solved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an
+ eternity of pain&mdash;those only who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts
+ of men&mdash;those only who poison all the springs of life, and seat a
+ skeleton at every feast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us banish the shriveled hags of superstition; let us welcome the
+ beautiful daughters of truth and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTROVERSY ON CHRISTIANTY
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ [Ingersoll-Gladstone.]
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ COLONEL INGERSOLL ON CHRISTIANITY; SOME REMARKS ON HIS REPLY TO DR. FIELD.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AS a listener from across the broad Atlantic to the clash of arms in the
+ combat between Colonel Ingersoll and Dr. Field on the most momentous of
+ all subjects, I have not the personal knowledge which assisted these
+ doughty champions in making reciprocal acknowledgments, as broad as could
+ be desired, with reference to personal character and motive. Such
+ acknowledgments are of high value in keeping the issue clear, if not
+ always of all adventitious, yet of all venomous matter. Destitute of the
+ experience on which to found them as original testimonies, still, in
+ attempting partially to criticise the remarkable Reply of Colonel
+ Ingersoll, I can both accept in good faith what has been said by Dr.
+ Field, and add that it seems to me consonant with the strain of the pages
+ I have set before me. Having said this, I shall allow myself the utmost
+ freedom in remarks, which will be addressed exclusively to the matter, not
+ the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me begin by making several acknowledgments of another kind, but which
+ I feel to be serious. The Christian Church has lived long enough in
+ external triumph and prosperity to expose those of whom it is composed to
+ all such perils of error and misfeasance, as triumph and prosperity bring
+ with them. Belief in divine guidance is not of necessity belief that such
+ guidance can never be frustrated by the laxity, the infirmity, the
+ perversity of man, alike in the domain of action and in the domain of
+ thought. Believers in the perpetuity of the life of the Church are not
+ tied to believing in the perpetual health of the Church. Even the great
+ Latin Communion, and that communion even since the Council of the Vatican
+ in 1870, theoretically admits, or does not exclude, the possibility of a
+ wide range of local and partial error in opinion as well as conduct.
+ Elsewhere the admission would be more unequivocal. Of such errors in
+ tenet, or in temper and feeling more or less hardened into tenet, there
+ has been a crop alike abundant and multifarious. Each Christian party is
+ sufficiently apt to recognize this fact with regard to every other
+ Christian party; and the more impartial and reflective minds are aware
+ that no party is exempt from mischiefs, which lie at the root of the human
+ constitution in its warped, impaired, and dislocated condition. Naturally
+ enough, these deformities help to indispose men towards belief; and when
+ this indisposition has been developed into a system of negative warfare,
+ all the faults of all the Christian bodies, and sub-divisions of bodies,
+ are, as it was natural to expect they would be, carefully raked together,
+ and become part and parcel of the indictment against the divine scheme of
+ redemption. I notice these things in the mass, without particularity,
+ which might be invidious, for two important purposes. First, that we all,
+ who hold by the Gospel and the Christian Church, may learn humility and
+ modesty, as well as charity and indulgence, in the treatment of opponents,
+ from our consciousness that we all, alike by our exaggerations and our
+ shortcomings in belief, no less than by faults of conduct, have
+ contributed to bring about this condition of fashionable hostility to
+ religious faith: and, secondly, that we may resolutely decline to be held
+ bound to tenets, or to consequences of tenets, which represent not the
+ great Christendom of the past and present, but only some hole and corner
+ of its vast organization; and not the heavenly treasure, but the rust or
+ the canker to which that treasure has been exposed through the incidents
+ of its custody in earthen vessels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not remember ever to have read a composition, in which the merely
+ local coloring of particular, and even very limited sections of
+ Christianity, was more systematically used as if it had been available and
+ legitimate argument against the whole, than in the Reply before us.
+ Colonel Ingersoll writes with a rare and enviable brilliancy, but also
+ with an impetus which he seems unable to control. Denunciation, sarcasm,
+ and invective, may in consequence be said to constitute the staple of his
+ work; and, if argument or some favorable admission here and there peeps
+ out for a moment, the writer soon leaves the dry and barren heights for
+ his favorite and more luxurious galloping grounds beneath. Thus, when the
+ Reply has consecrated a line (N. A. R., No. 372, p. 473) to the pleasing
+ contemplation of his opponent as "manly, candid, and generous," it
+ immediately devotes more than twelve to a declamatory denunciation of a
+ practice (as if it were his) altogether contrary to generosity and to
+ candor, and reproaches those who expect (<i>ibid.</i>) "to receive as alms
+ an eternity of joy." I take this as a specimen of the mode of statement
+ which permeates the whole Reply. It is not the statement of an untruth.
+ The Christian receives as alms all whatsoever he receives at all. <i>Qui
+ salvandos salvas gratis</i> is his song of thankful praise. But it is the
+ statement of one-half of a truth, which lives only in its entirety, and of
+ which the Reply gives us only a mangled and bleeding <i>frustum</i>. For
+ the gospel teaches that the faith which saves is a living and energizing
+ faith, and that the most precious part of the alms which we receive lies
+ in an ethical and spiritual process, which partly qualifies for, but also
+ and emphatically composes, this conferred eternity of joy. Restore this
+ ethical element to the doctrine from which the Reply has rudely displaced
+ it, and the whole force of the assault is gone, for there is now a total
+ absence of point in the accusation; it conies only to this, that "mercy
+ and judgment are met together," and that "righteousness and peace have
+ kissed each other" (Ps. lxxxv. 10).
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Perhaps, as we proceed, there will be supplied ampler means of judging
+ whether I am warranted in saying that the instance I have here given is a
+ normal instance of a practice so largely followed as to divest the entire
+ Reply of that calmness and sobriety of movement which are essential to the
+ just exercise of the reasoning power in subject matter not only grave, but
+ solemn. Pascal has supplied us, in the "Provincial Letters," with an
+ unique example of easy, brilliant, and fascinating treatment of a theme
+ both profound and complex. But where shall we find another Pascal? And, if
+ we had found him, he would be entitled to point out to us that the famous
+ work was not less close and logical than it was witty. In this case, all
+ attempt at continuous argument appears to be deliberately abjured, not
+ only as to pages, but, as may almost be said, even as to lines. The paper,
+ noteworthy as it is, leaves on my mind the impression of a battle-field
+ where every man strikes at every man, and all is noise, hurry, and
+ confusion. Better surely had it been, and worthier of the great weight and
+ elevation of the subject, if the controversy had been waged after the
+ pattern of those engagements where a chosen champion on either side, in a
+ space carefully limited and reserved, does battle on behalf of each silent
+ and expectant host. The promiscuous crowds represent all the lower
+ elements which enter into human conflicts: the chosen champions, and the
+ order of their proceeding, signify the dominion of reason over force, and
+ its just place as the sovereign arbiter of the great questions that
+ involve the main destiny of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will give another instance of the tumultuous method in which the Reply
+ conducts, not, indeed, its argument, but its case. Dr. Field had exhibited
+ an example of what he thought superstition, and had drawn a distinction
+ between superstition and religion. But to the author of the Reply all
+ religion is superstition, and, accordingly, he writes as follows (p. 475):
+ "You are shocked at the Hindoo mother, when she gives her child to death
+ at the supposed command of her God. What do you think of Abraham? of
+ Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah himself?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Taking these three appeals in the reverse order to that in which they are
+ written, I will briefly ask, as to the closing challenge, "What do you
+ think of Jehovah himself?" whether this is the tone in which controversy
+ ought to be carried on? Not only is the name of Jehovah encircled in the
+ heart of every believer with the profoundest reverence and love, but the
+ Christian religion teaches, through the Incarnation, a doctrine of
+ personal union with God so lofty that it can only be approached in a deep,
+ reverential calm. I do not deny that a person who deems a given religion
+ to be wicked may be led onward by logical consistency to impugn in strong
+ terms the character of the Author and Object of that religion. But he is
+ surely bound by the laws of social morality and decency to consider well
+ the terms and the manner of his indictment. If he founds it upon
+ allegations of fact, these allegations should be carefully stated, so as
+ to give his antagonists reasonable evidence that it is truth and not
+ temper which wrings from him a sentence of condemnation, delivered in
+ sobriety and sadness, and not without a due commiseration for those, whom
+ he is attempting to undeceive, who think he is himself both deceived and a
+ deceiver, but who surely are entitled, while this question is in process
+ of decision, to require that He whom they adore should at least be treated
+ with those decent reserves which are deemed essential when a human being,
+ say a parent, wife, or sister, is in question. But here a contemptuous
+ reference to Jehovah follows, not upon a careful investigation of the
+ cases of Abraham and of Jephthah, but upon a mere summary citation of them
+ to surrender themselves, so to speak, as culprits; that is to say, a
+ summons to accept at once, on the authority of the Reply, the view which
+ the writer is pleased to take of those cases. It is true that he assures
+ us in another part of his paper that he has read the scriptures with care;
+ and I feel bound to accept this assurance, but at the same time to add
+ that if it had not been given I should, for one, not have made the
+ discovery, but might have supposed that the author had galloped, not
+ through, but about, the sacred volume, as a man glances over the pages of
+ an ordinary newspaper or novel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although there is no argument as to Abraham or Jephthah expressed upon the
+ surface, we must assume that one is intended, and it seems to be of the
+ following kind: "You are not entitled to reprove the Hindoo mother who
+ cast her child under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut, for you approve
+ of the conduct of Jephthah, who (probably) sacrificed his daughter in
+ fulfilment of a vow (Judges xi. 31) that he would make a burnt offering of
+ whatsoever, on his safe return, he should meet coming forth from the doors
+ of his dwelling." Now the whole force of this rejoinder depends upon our
+ supposed obligation as believers to approve the conduct of Jephthah. It
+ is, therefore, a very serious question whether we are or are not so
+ obliged. But this question the Reply does not condescend either to argue,
+ or even to state. It jumps to an extreme conclusion without the decency of
+ an intermediate step. Are not such methods of proceeding more suited to
+ placards at an election, than to disquisitions on these most solemn
+ subjects?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am aware of no reason why any believer in Christianity should not be
+ free to canvass, regret, condemn the act of Jephthah. So far as the
+ narration which details it is concerned, there is not a word of sanction
+ given to it more than to the falsehood of Abraham in Egypt, or of Jacob
+ and Rebecca in the matter of the hunting (Gen. xx. 1-18, and Gen. xxiii.);
+ or to the dissembling of St. Peter in the case of the Judaizing converts
+ (Gai. ii. 11). I am aware of no color of approval given to it elsewhere.
+ But possibly the author of the Reply may have thought he found such an
+ approval in the famous eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
+ where the apostle, handling his subject with a discernment and care very
+ different from those of the Reply, writes thus (Heb. xi. 32):
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon,
+ and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah: of David also, and Samuel,
+ and of the prophets."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jephthah, then, is distinctly held up to us by a canonical writer as an
+ object of praise. But of praise on what account? Why should the Reply
+ assume that it is on account of the sacrifice of his child? The writer of
+ the Reply has given us no reason, and no rag of a reason, in support of
+ such a proposition. But this was the very thing he was bound by every
+ consideration to prove, upon making his indictment against the Almighty.
+ In my opinion, he could have one reason only for not giving a reason, and
+ that was that no reason could be found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The matter, however, is so full of interest, as illustrating both the
+ method of the Reply and that of the Apostolic writer, that I shall enter
+ farther into it, and draw attention to the very remarkable structure of
+ this noble chapter, which is to Faith what the thirteenth of Cor. I. is to
+ Charity. From the first to the thirty-first verse, it commemorates the
+ achievements of faith in ten persons: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah,
+ Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses (in greater detail than any one else), and
+ finally Rahab, in whom, I observe in passing, it will hardly be pretended
+ that she appears in this list on account of the profession she had
+ pursued. Then comes the rapid recital (v. 31), without any specification
+ of particulars whatever, of these four names: Gideon, Barak, Samson,
+ Jephthah. Next follows a kind of recommencement, indicated by the word
+ also; and the glorious acts and sufferings of the prophets are set forth
+ largely with a singular power and warmth, headed by the names of David and
+ Samuel, the rest of the sacred band being mentioned only in the mass.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is surely very remarkable that, in the whole of this recital, the
+ Apostle, whose "feet were shod with the preparation of the gospel of
+ peace," seems with a tender instinct to avoid anything like stress on the
+ exploits of warriors. Of the twelve persons having a share in the detailed
+ expositions, David is the only warrior, and his character as a man of war
+ is eclipsed by his greater attributes as a prophet, or declarer of the
+ Divine counsels. It is yet more noteworthy that Joshua, who had so fair a
+ fame, but who was only a warrior, is never named in the chapter, and we
+ are simply told that "by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they
+ had been compassed about seven times" (Hebrews xi. 30). But the series of
+ four names, which are given without any specification of their title to
+ appear in the list, are all names of distinguished warriors. They had all
+ done great acts of faith and patriotism against the enemies of Israel,&mdash;Gideon
+ against the Midianites, Barak against the hosts of Syria, Samson against
+ the Philistines, and Jephthah against the children of Ammon. Their tide to
+ appear in the list at all is in their acts of war, and the mode of their
+ treatment as men of war is in striking accordance with the analogies of
+ the chapter. All of them had committed errors. Gideon had again and again
+ demanded a sign, and had made a golden ephod, "which thing became a snare
+ unto Gideon and to his house" (Judges viii. 27). Barak had refused to go
+ up against Jabin unless Deborah would join the venture (Judges v. 8).
+ Samson had been in dalliance with Delilah. Last came Jephthah, who had, as
+ we assume, sacrificed his daughter in fulfilment of a rash vow. No one
+ supposes that any of the others are honored by mention in the chapter on
+ account of his sin or error: why should that supposition be made in the
+ case of Jephthah, at the cost of all the rules of orderly interpretation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having now answered the challenge as to Jephthah, I proceed to the case of
+ Abraham. It would not be fair to shrink from touching it in its tenderest
+ point. That point is nowhere expressly touched by the commendations
+ bestowed upon Abraham in Scripture. I speak now of the special form, of
+ the words that are employed. He is not commended because, being a father,
+ he made all the preparations antecedent to plunging the knife into his
+ son. He is commended (as I read the text) because, having received a
+ glorious promise, a promise that his wife should be a mother of nations,
+ and that kings should be born of her (Gen. xvii. 6), and that by his seed
+ the blessings of redemption should be conveyed to man, and the fulfilment
+ of this promise depending solely upon the life of Isaac, he was,
+ nevertheless, willing that the chain of these promises should be broken by
+ the extinction of that life, because his faith assured him that the
+ Almighty would find the way to give effect to His own designs (Heb. xi.
+ 17-19). The offering of Isaac is mentioned as a completed offering, and
+ the intended blood-shedding, of which I shall speak presently, is not here
+ brought into view.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The facts, however, which we have before us, and which are treated in
+ Scripture with caution, are grave and startling. A father is commanded to
+ sacrifice his son. Before consummation, the sacrifice is interrupted. Yet
+ the intention of obedience had been formed, and certified by a series of
+ acts. It may have been qualified by a reserve of hope that God would
+ interpose before the final act, but of this we have no distinct statement,
+ and it can only stand as an allowable conjecture. It may be conceded that
+ the narrative does not supply us with a complete statement of particulars.
+ That being so, it behooves us to tread cautiously in approaching it. Thus
+ much, however, I think, may further be said: the command was addressed to
+ Abraham under conditions essentially different from those which now
+ determine for us the limits of moral obligation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the conditions, both socially and otherwise, were indeed very
+ different. The estimate of human life at the time was different. The
+ position of the father in the family was different: its members were
+ regarded as in some sense his property. There is every reason to suppose
+ that, around Abraham in "the land of Moriah," the practice of human
+ sacrifice as an act of religion was in vigor. But we may look more deeply
+ into the matter. According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were
+ placed under a law, not of consciously perceived right and wrong, but of
+ simple obedience. The tree, of which alone they were forbidden to eat, was
+ the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Duty lay for them in following
+ the command of the Most High, before and until they, or their descendants,
+ should become capable of appreciating it by an ethical standard. Their
+ condition was greatly analogous to that of the infant, who has just
+ reached the stage at which he can comprehend that he is ordered to do this
+ or that, but not the nature of the thing so ordered. To the external
+ standard of right and wrong, and to the obligation it entails per se, the
+ child is introduced by a process gradually unfolded with the development
+ of his nature, and the opening out of what we term a moral sense. If we
+ pass at once from the epoch of Paradise to the period of the prophets, we
+ perceive the important progress that has been made in the education of the
+ race. The Almighty, in His mediate intercourse with Israel, deigns to
+ appeal to an independently conceived criterion, as to an arbiter between
+ His people and Himself. "Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the
+ Lord" (Isaiah i. 18). "Yet ye say the way of the Lord is not equal. Hear
+ now, O house of Israel, is not my way equal, are not your ways unequal?"
+ (Ezekiel xvii. 25). Between these two epochs how wide a space of moral
+ teaching has been traversed! But Abraham, so far as we may judge from the
+ pages of Scripture, belongs essentially to the Adamic period, far more
+ than to the prophetic. The notion of righteousness and sin was not indeed
+ hidden from him: transgression itself had opened that chapter, and it was
+ never to be closed: but as yet they lay wrapped up, so to speak, in Divine
+ command and prohibition. And what God commanded, it was for Abraham to
+ believe that He himself would adjust to the harmony of His own character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The faith of Abraham, with respect to this supreme trial, appears to have
+ been centered in this, that he would trust God to all extremities, and in
+ despite of all appearances. The command received was obviously
+ inconsistent with the promises which had preceded it. It was also
+ inconsistent with the morality acknowledged in later times, and perhaps
+ too definitely reflected in our minds, by an anachronism easy to conceive,
+ on the day of Abraham. There can be little doubt, as between these two
+ points of view, that the strain upon his faith was felt mainly, to say the
+ least, in connection with the first mentioned. This faith is not wholly
+ unlike the faith of Job; for Job believed, in despite of what was to the
+ eye of flesh an unrighteous government of the world. If we may still trust
+ the Authorized Version, his cry was, "though he slay me, yet will I trust
+ in him" (Job xiii. 15). This cry was, however, the expression of one who
+ did not expect to be slain; and it may be that Abraham, when he said, "My
+ son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering," not only
+ believed explicitly that God would do what was right, but, moreover,
+ believed implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son. I do
+ not say that this case is like the case of Jephthah, where the
+ introduction of difficulty is only gratuitous. I confine myself to these
+ propositions. Though the law of moral action is the same everywhere and
+ always, it is variously applicable to the human being, as we know from
+ experience, in the various stages of his development; and its first form
+ is that of simple obedience to a superior whom there is every ground to
+ trust. And further, if the few straggling rays of our knowledge in a case
+ of this kind rather exhibit a darkness lying around us than dispel it, we
+ do not even know all that was in the mind of Abraham, and are not in a
+ condition to pronounce upon it, and cannot, without departure from sound
+ reason, abandon that anchorage by which he probably held, that the law of
+ Nature was safe in the hands of the Author of Nature, though the means of
+ the reconciliation between the law and the appearances have not been fully
+ placed within our reach.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the Reply is not entitled to so wide an answer as that which I have
+ given. In the parallel with the case of the Hindoo widow, it sins against
+ first principles. An established and habitual practice of child-slaughter,
+ in a country of an old and learned civilization, presents to us a case
+ totally different from the issue of a command which was not designed to be
+ obeyed and which belongs to a period when the years of manhood were
+ associated in great part with the character that appertains to childhood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will already have been seen that the method of this Reply is not to
+ argue seriously from point to point, but to set out in masses, without the
+ labor of proof, crowds of imputations, which may overwhelm an opponent
+ like balls from a <i>mitrailleuse</i>. As the charges lightly run over in
+ a line or two require pages for exhibition and confutation, an exhaustive
+ answer to the Reply within the just limits of an article is on this
+ account out of the question; and the only proper course left open seems to
+ be to make a selection of what appears to be the favorite, or the most
+ formidable and telling assertions, and to deal with these in the serious
+ way which the grave interests of the theme, not the manner of their
+ presentation, may deserve.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was an observation of Aristotle that weight attaches to the
+ undemonstrated propositions of those who are able to speak on any given
+ subject matter from experience. The Reply abounds in undemonstrated
+ propositions. They appear, however, to be delivered without any sense of a
+ necessity that either experience or reasoning are required in order to
+ give them a title to acceptance. Thus, for example, the system of Mr.
+ Darwin is hurled against Christianity as a dart which cannot but be fatal
+ (p. 475):
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "His discoveries, carried to their legitimate conclusion, destroy the
+ creeds and sacred Scriptures of mankind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This wide-sweeping proposition is imposed upon us with no exposition of
+ the how or the why; and the whole controversy of belief one might suppose
+ is to be determined, as if from St. Petersburgh, by a series of <i>ukases</i>.
+ It is only advanced, indeed, to decorate the introduction of Darwin's name
+ in support of the proposition, which I certainly should support and not
+ contest, that error and honesty are compatible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On what ground, then, and for what reason, is the system of Darwin fatal
+ to Scriptures and to creeds? I do not enter into the question whether it
+ has passed from the stage of working hypothesis into that of
+ demonstration, but I assume, for the purposes of the argument, all that,
+ in this respect, the Reply can desire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not possible to discover, from the random language of the Reply,
+ whether the scheme of Darwin is to sweep away all theism, or is to be
+ content with extinguishing revealed religion. If the latter is meant, I
+ should reply that the moral history of man, in its principal stream, has
+ been distinctly an evolution from the first until now; and that the
+ succinct though grand account of the Creation in Genesis is singularly
+ accordant with the same idea, but is wider than Darwinism, since it
+ includes in the grand progression the inanimate world as well as the
+ history of organisms. But, as this could not be shown without much detail,
+ the Reply reduces me to the necessity of following its own unsatisfactory
+ example in the bald form of an assertion, that there is no colorable
+ ground for assuming evolution and revelation to be at variance with one
+ another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, however, the meaning be that theism is swept away by Darwinism, I
+ observe that, as before, we have only an unreasoned dogma or dictum to
+ deal with, and, dealing perforce with the unknown, we are in danger of
+ striking at a will of the wisp. Still, I venture on remarking that the
+ doctrine of Evolution has acquired both praise and dispraise which it does
+ not deserve. It is lauded in the skeptical camp because it is supposed to
+ get rid of the shocking idea of what are termed sudden acts of creation;
+ and it is as unjustly dispraised, on the opposing side, because it is
+ thought to bridge over the gap between man and the inferior animals, and
+ to give emphasis to the relationship between them. But long before the day
+ either of Mr. Darwin or his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, this
+ relationship had been stated, perhaps even more emphatically by one whom,
+ were it not that I have small title to deal in undemonstrated assertion, I
+ should venture to call the most cautious, the most robust, and the most
+ comprehensive of our philosophers. Suppose, says Bishop Butler (Analogy,
+ Part 2, Chap. 2), that it were implied in the natural immortality of
+ brutes, that they must arrive at great attainments, and become (like us)
+ rational and moral agents; even this would be no difficulty, since we know
+ not what latent powers and capacities they may be endowed with. And if
+ pride causes us to deem it an indignity that our race should have
+ proceeded by propagation from an ascending scale of inferior organisms,
+ why should it be a more repulsive idea to have sprung immediately from
+ something less than man in brain and body, than to have been fashioned
+ according to the expression in Genesis (Chap. II., v. 7), "out of the dust
+ of the ground?" There are halls and galleries of introduction in a palace,
+ but none in a cottage; and this arrival of the creative work at its climax
+ through an ever aspiring preparatory series, rather than by transition at
+ a step from the inanimate mould of earth, may tend rather to magnify than
+ to lower the creation of man on its physical side. But if belief has (as
+ commonly) been premature in its alarms, has non-belief been more
+ reflective in its exulting anticipations, and its paeans on the assumed
+ disappearance of what are strangely enough termed sudden acts of creation
+ from the sphere of our study and contemplation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One striking effect of the Darwinian theory of descent is, so far as I
+ understand, to reduce the breadth of all intermediate distinctions in the
+ scale of animated life. It does not bring all creatures into a single
+ lineage, but all diversities are to be traced back, at some point in the
+ scale and by stages indefinitely minute, to a common ancestry. All is done
+ by steps, nothing by strides, leaps, or bounds; all from protoplasm up to
+ Shakespeare, and, again, all from primal night and chaos up to protoplasm.
+ I do not ask, and am incompetent to judge, whether this is among the
+ things proven, but I take it so for the sake of the argument; and I ask,
+ first, why and whereby does this doctrine eliminate the idea of creation?
+ Does the new philosophy teach that if the passage from pure reptile to
+ pure bird is achieved by a spring (so to speak) over a chasm, this implies
+ and requires creation; but that if reptile passes into bird, and
+ rudimental into finished bird, by a thousand slight and but just
+ discernible modifications, each one of these is so small that they are not
+ entitled to a name so lofty, may be set down to any cause or no cause, as
+ we please? I should have supposed it miserably unphilosophical to treat
+ the distinction between creative and non-creative function as a simply
+ quantitative distinction. As respects the subjective effect on the human
+ mind, creation in small, when closely regarded, awakens reason to admiring
+ wonder, not less than creation in great: and as regards that function
+ itself, to me it appears no less than ridiculous to hold that the broadly
+ outlined and large advances of so-called Mosaism are creation, but the
+ refined and stealthy onward steps of Darwinism are only manufacture, and
+ relegate the question of a cause into obscurity, insignificance, or
+ oblivion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But does not reason really require us to go farther, to turn the tables on
+ the adversary, and to contend that evolution, by how much it binds more
+ closely together the myriad ranks of the living, aye, and of all other
+ orders, by so much the more consolidates, enlarges, and enhances the true
+ argument of design, and the entire theistic position? If orders are not
+ mutually related, it is easier to conceive of them as sent at haphazard
+ into the world. We may, indeed, sufficiently, draw an argument of design
+ from each separate structure, but we have no further title to build upon
+ the position which each of them holds as towards any other. But when the
+ connexion between these objects has been established, and so established
+ that the points of transition are almost as indiscernible as the passage
+ from day to night, then, indeed, each preceding stage is a prophecy of the
+ following, each succeeding one is a memorial of the past, and, throughout
+ the immeasurable series, every single member of it is a witness to all the
+ rest. The Reply ought surely to dispose of these, and probably many more
+ arguments in the case, before assuming so absolutely the rights of
+ dictatorship, and laying it down that Darwinism, carried to its legitimate
+ conclusion (and I have nowhere endeavored to cut short its career),
+ destroys the creeds and Scriptures of mankind. That I maybe the more
+ definite in my challenge, I would, with all respect, ask the author of the
+ Reply to set about confuting the succinct and clear argument of his
+ countryman, Mr. Fiske, who, in the earlier part of the small work entitled
+ <i>Man's Destiny</i> (Macmillan, London, 1887) has given what seems to me
+ an admissible and also striking interpretation of the leading Darwinian
+ idea in its bearings on the theistic argument. To this very partial
+ treatment of a great subject I must at present confine myself; and I
+ proceed to another of the notions, as confident as they seem to be crude,
+ which the Reply has drawn into its wide-casting net (p. 475):
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Why should God demand a sacrifice from; man? Why should the Infinite ask
+ anything from the finite? Should the sun beg of the glow-worm, and should
+ the momentary spark excite the envy of the source of light?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is one of the cases in which happy or showy illustration is, in the
+ Reply before me, set to carry with a rush the position which argument
+ would have to approach more laboriously and more slowly. The case of the
+ glow-worm with the sun cannot but move a reader's pity, it seems so very
+ hard. But let us suppose for a moment that the glow-worm was so
+ constituted, and so related to the sun that an interaction between them
+ was a fundamental condition of its health and life; that the glowworm
+ must, by the law of its nature, like the moon, reflect upon the sun,
+ according to its strength and measure, the light which it receives, and
+ that only by a process involving that reflection its own store of vitality
+ could be upheld? It will be said that this is a very large <i>petitio</i>
+ to import into the glowworm's case. Yes, but it is the very <i>petitio</i>
+ which is absolutely requisite in order to make it parallel to the case of
+ the Christian. The argument which the Reply has to destroy is and must be
+ the Christian argument, and not some figure of straw, fabricated at will.
+ It is needless, perhaps, but it is refreshing, to quote the noble Psalm
+ (Ps. 1. 10, 12, 14, 15), in which this assumption of the Reply is rebuked.
+ "All the beasts of the forest are mine; and so are the cattle upon a
+ thousand hills.... If I be hungry I will not tell thee; for the whole
+ world is mine, and all that is therein.... Offer unto God thanksgiving;
+ and pay thy vows unto the Most Highest, and call upon Me in the time of
+ trouble; so will I hear thee, and thou shalt praise Me." Let me try my
+ hand at a counter-illustration. If the Infinite is to make no demand upon
+ the finite, by parity of reasoning the great and strong should scarcely
+ make them on the weak and small. Why then should the father make demands
+ of love, obedience, and sacrifice, from his young child? Is there not some
+ flavor of the sun and glow-worm here? But every man does so make them, if
+ he is a man of sense and feeling; and he makes them for the sake and in
+ the interest of the son himself, whose nature, expanding in the warmth of
+ affection and pious care, requires, by an inward law, to return as well as
+ to receive. And so God asks of us, in order that what we give to Him may
+ be far more our own than it ever was before the giving, or than it could
+ have been unless first rendered up to Him, to become a part of what the
+ gospel calls our treasure in heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although the Reply is not careful to supply us with whys, it does not
+ hesitate to ask for them (p. 479):
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Why should an infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the good and
+ preserve the vile? Why should He treat all alike here, and in another
+ world make an infinite difference? Why should your God allow His
+ worshipers, His adorers, to be destroyed by His enemies? Why should He
+ allow the honest, the loving, the noble, to perish at the stake?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The upholders of belief or of revelation, from Claudian down to Cardinal
+ Newman (see the very remarkable passage of the <i>Apologia pro vit&acirc;
+ su&acirc;</i>, pp. 376-78), cannot and do not, seek to deny that the
+ methods of divine government, as they are exhibited by experience, present
+ to us many and varied moral problems, insoluble by our understanding.
+ Their existence may not, and should not, be dissembled. But neither should
+ they be exaggerated. Now exaggeration by mere suggestion is the fault, the
+ glaring fault, of these queries. One who had no knowledge of mundane
+ affairs beyond the conception they insinuate would assume that, as a rule,
+ evil has the upper hand in the management of the world. Is this the grave
+ philosophical conclusion of a careful observer, or is it a crude, hasty,
+ and careless overstatement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not difficult to conceive how, in times of sadness and of storm,
+ when the suffering soul can discern no light at any point of the horizon,
+ place is found for such an idea of life. It is, of course, opposed to the
+ Apostolic declaration that godliness hath the promise of the life that now
+ is (1 Tim. iv. 8), but I am not to expect such a declaration to be
+ accepted as current coin, even of the meanest value, by the author of the
+ Reply. Yet I will offer two observations founded on experience in support
+ of it, one taken from a limited, another from a larger and more open
+ sphere. John Wesley, in the full prime of his mission, warned the converts
+ whom he was making among English laborers of a spiritual danger that lay
+ far ahead. It was that, becoming godly, they would become careful, and,
+ becoming careful, they would become wealthy. It was a just and sober
+ forecast, and it represented with truth the general rule of life, although
+ it be a rule perplexed with exceptions. But, if this be too narrow a
+ sphere of observation, let us take a wider one, the widest of all. It is
+ comprised in the brief statement that Christendom rules the world, and
+ rules it, perhaps it should be added, by the possession of a vast surplus
+ of material as well as moral force. Therefore the assertions carried by
+ implication in the queries of the Reply, which are general, are because
+ general untrue, although they might have been true within those prudent
+ limitations which the method of this Reply appears especially to eschew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Taking, then, these challenges as they ought to have been given, I admit
+ that great believers, who have been also great masters of wisdom and
+ knowledge, are not able to explain the inequalities of adjustment between
+ human beings and the conditions in which they have been set down to work
+ out their destiny. The climax of these inequalities is perhaps to be found
+ in the fact that, whereas rational belief, viewed at large, founds the
+ Providential government of the world upon the hypothesis of free agency,
+ there are so many cases in which the overbearing mastery of circumstance
+ appears to reduce it to extinction or paralysis. Now, in one sense,
+ without doubt, these difficulties are matter for our legitimate and
+ necessary cognizance. It is a duty incumbent upon us respectively,
+ according to our means and opportunities, to decide for ourselves, by the
+ use of the faculty of reason given us, the great questions of natural and
+ revealed religion. They are to be decided according to the evidence; and,
+ if we cannot trim the evidence into a consistent whole, then according to
+ the balance of the evidence. We are not entitled, either for or against
+ belief, to set up in this province any rule of investigation, except such
+ as common-sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life. As in
+ ordinary conduct, so in considering the basis of belief, we are bound to
+ look at the evidence as a whole. We have no right to demand demonstrative
+ proofs, or the removal of all conflicting elements, either in the one
+ sphere or in the other. What guides us sufficiently in matters of common
+ practice has the very same authority to guide us in matters of
+ speculation; more properly, perhaps, to be called the practice of the
+ soul. If the evidence in the aggregate shows the being of a moral Governor
+ of the world, with the same force as would suffice to establish an
+ obligation to act in a matter of common conduct, we are bound in duty to
+ accept it, and have no right to demand as a condition previous that all
+ occasions of doubt or question be removed out of the way. Our demands for
+ evidence must be limited by the general reason of the case. Does that
+ general reason of the case make it probable that a finite being, with a
+ finite place in a comprehensive scheme, devised and administered by a
+ Being who is infinite, would be able either to embrace within his view, or
+ rightly to appreciate, all the motives and the aims that may have been in
+ the mind of the Divine Disposer? On the contrary, a demand so unreasonable
+ deserves to be met with the scornful challenge of Dante (Paradise xix.
+ 79):
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Or tu chi sei, che vuoi sedere a scranna
+ Per giudicar da lungi mille miglia
+ Colla veduta corta d'una spanna?
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Undoubtedly a great deal here depends upon the question whether, and in
+ what degree, our knowledge is limited. And here the Reply seems to be by
+ no means in accord with Newton and with Butler. By its contempt for
+ authority, the Reply seems to cut off from us all knowledge that is not at
+ first hand; but then also it seems to assume an original and first hand
+ knowledge of all possible kinds of things. I will take an instance, all
+ the easier to deal with because it is outside the immediate sphere of
+ controversy. In one of those pieces of fine writing with which the Reply
+ abounds, it is determined <i>obiter</i> by a backhanded stroke (N. A. R.,
+ p. 491) that Shakespeare is "by far the greatest of the human race." I do
+ not feel entitled to assert that he is not; but how vast and complex a
+ question is here determined for us in this airy manner! Has the writer of
+ the Reply really weighed the force, and measured the sweep of his own
+ words? Whether Shakespeare has or has not the primacy of genius over a
+ very few other names which might be placed in competition with his, is a
+ question which has not yet been determined by the general or deliberate
+ judgment of lettered mankind. But behind it lies another question,
+ inexpressibly difficult, except for the Reply, to solve. That question is,
+ what is the relation of human genius to human greatness. Is genius the
+ sole constitutive element of greatness, or with what other elements, and
+ in what relations to them, is it combined? Is every man great in
+ proportion to his genius? Was Goldsmith, or was Sheridan, or was Burns, or
+ was Byron, or was Goethe, or was Napoleon, or was Alcibiades, no smaller,
+ and was Johnson, or was Howard, or was Washington, or was Phocion, or
+ Leonidas, no greater, than in proportion to his genius properly so-called?
+ How are we to find a common measure, again, for different kinds of
+ greatness; how weigh, for example, Dante against Julius Caesar? And I am
+ speaking of greatness properly so called, not of goodness properly so
+ called. We might seem to be dealing with a writer whose contempt for
+ authority in general is fully balanced, perhaps outweighed, by his respect
+ for one authority in particular.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religions of the world, again, have in many cases given to many men
+ material for life-long study. The study of the Christian Scriptures, to
+ say nothing of Christian life and institutions, has been to many and
+ justly famous men a study "never ending, still beginning"; not, like the
+ world of Alexander, too limited for the powerful faculty that ranged over
+ it; but, on the contrary, opening height on height, and with deep
+ answering to deep, and with increase of fruit ever prescribing increase of
+ effort. But the Reply has sounded all these depths, has found them very
+ shallow, and is quite able to point out (p. 490) the way in which the
+ Saviour of the world might have been a much greater teacher than He
+ actually was; had He said anything, for instance, of the family relation,
+ had He spoken against slavery and tyranny, had He issued a sort of <i>code
+ Napoleon</i> embracing education, progress, scientific truth, and
+ international law. This observation on the family relation seems to me
+ beyond even the usual measure of extravagance when we bear in mind that,
+ according to the Christian scheme, the Lord of heaven and earth "was
+ subject" (St. Luke ii. 51) to a human mother and a reputed human father,
+ and that He taught (according to the widest and, I believe, the best
+ opinion) the absolute indissolubility of marriage. I might cite many other
+ instances in reply. But the broader and the true answer to the objection
+ is, that the Gospel was promulgated to teach principles and not a code;
+ that it included the foundation of a society in which those principles
+ were to be conserved, developed, and applied; and that down to this day
+ there is not a moral question of all those which the Reply does or does
+ not enumerate, nor is there a question of duty arising in the course of
+ life for any of us, that is not determinable in all its essentials by
+ applying to it as a touchstone the principles declared in the Gospel. Is
+ not, then, the <i>hiatus</i>, which the Reply has discovered in the
+ teaching of our Lord, an imaginary <i>hiatus</i>? Nay, are the suggested
+ improvements of that teaching really gross deteriorations? Where would
+ have been the wisdom of delivering to an uninstructed population of a
+ particular age a codified religion, which was to serve for all nations,
+ all ages, all states of civilization? Why was not room to be left for the
+ career of human thought in finding out, and in working out, the adaptation
+ of Christianity to the ever varying movement of the world? And how is it
+ that they who will not admit that a revelation is in place when it has in
+ view the great and necessary work of conflict against sin, are so free in
+ recommending enlargements of that Revelation for purposes, as to which no
+ such necessity can be pleaded?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have known a person who, after studying the old classical or Olympian
+ religion for the third part of a century, at length began to hope that he
+ had some partial comprehension of it, some inkling of what it meant. Woe
+ is him that he was not conversant either with the faculties or with the
+ methods of the Reply, which apparently can dispose in half an hour of any
+ problem, dogmatic, historical, or moral: and which accordingly takes
+ occasion to assure us that Buddha was "in many respects the greatest
+ religious teacher this world has ever known, the broadest, the most
+ intellectual of them all" (p. 491). On this I shall only say that an
+ attempt to bring Buddha and Buddhism into line together is far beyond my
+ reach, but that every Christian, knowing in some degree what Christ is,
+ and what He has done for the world, can only be the more thankful if
+ Buddha, or Confucius, or any other teacher has in any point, and in any
+ measure, come near to the outskirts of His ineffable greatness and glory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is my fault or my misfortune to remark, in this Reply, an inaccuracy of
+ reference, which would of itself suffice to render it remarkable. Christ,
+ we are told (pp. 492, 500), denounced the chosen people of God as "a
+ generation of vipers." This phrase is applied by the Baptist to the crowd
+ who came to seek baptism from him; but it is only applied by our Lord to
+ Scribes or Pharisees (Luke iii. 7, Matthew xxiii. 33, and xii.34), who are
+ so commonly placed by Him in contrast with the people. The error is
+ repeated in the mention of whited sepulchres. Take again the version of
+ the story of Ananias and Sapphira. We are told (p. 494) that the Apostles
+ conceived the idea "of having all things in common." In the narrative
+ there is no statement, no suggestion of the kind; it is a pure
+ interpolation (Acts iv. 32-7). Motives of a reasonable prudence are stated
+ as a mattei of fact to have influenced the offending couple&mdash;another
+ pure interpolation. After the catastrophe of Ananias "the Apostles sent
+ for his wife"&mdash;a third interpolation. I refer only to these points as
+ exhibitions of an habitual and dangerous inaccuracy, and without any
+ attempt at present to discuss the case, in which the judgments of God are
+ exhibited on their severer side, and in which I cannot, like the Reply,
+ undertake summarily to determine for what causes the Almighty should or
+ should not take life, or delegate the power to take it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, we have (p. 486) these words given as a quotation from the Bible:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe
+ not shall be damned; and these shall go away into everlasting fire,
+ prepared for the devil and his angels."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second clause thus reads as if applicable to the persons mentioned in
+ the first; that is to say, to those who reject the tidings of the Gospel.
+ But instead of its being a continuous passage, the latter section is
+ brought out of another gospel (St. Matthew's) and another connection; and
+ it is really written, not of those who do not believe, but those who
+ refuse to perform offices of charity to their neighbor in his need. It
+ would be wrong to call this intentional misrepresentation; but can it be
+ called less than somewhat reckless negligence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a more special misfortune to find a writer arguing on the same side
+ with his critic, and yet for the critic not to be able to agree with him.
+ But so it is with reference to the great subject of immortality, as
+ treated in the Reply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The idea of immortality, that, like a sea, has ebbed and flowed in the
+ human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the
+ shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any
+ creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection; and it will
+ continue to ebb and flow beneath the mist and clouds of doubt and
+ darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death" (p. 483).
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here we have a very interesting chapter of the history of human opinion
+ disposed of in the usual summary way, by a statement which, as it appears
+ to me, is developed out of the writer's inner consciousness. If the belief
+ in immortality is not connected with any revelation or religion, but is
+ simply the expression of a subjective want, then plainly we may expect the
+ expression of it to be strong and clear in proportion to the various
+ degrees in which faculty is developed among the various races of mankind.
+ But how does the matter stand historically? The Egyptians were not a
+ people of high intellectual development, and yet their religious system
+ was strictly associated with, I might rather say founded on, the belief in
+ immortality. The ancient Greeks, on the other hand, were a race of
+ astonishing, perhaps unrivalled, intellectual capacity. But not only did
+ they, in prehistoric ages, derive their scheme of a future world from
+ Egypt; we find also that, with the lapse of time and the advance of the
+ Hellenic civilization, the constructive ideas of the system lost all life
+ and definite outline, and the most powerful mind of the Greek philosophy,
+ that of Aristotle, had no clear perception whatever of a personal
+ existence in a future state.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The favorite doctrine of the Reply is the immunity of all error in belief
+ from moral responsibility. In the first page (p. 473) this is stated with
+ reserve as the "innocence of honest error." But why such a limitation? The
+ Reply warms with its subject; it shows us that no error can be otherwise
+ than honest, inasmuch as nothing which involves honesty, or its reverse,
+ can, from the constitution of our nature, enter into the formation of
+ opinion. Here is the full blown exposition (p. 476):
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The brain thinks without asking our consent. We believe, or we
+ disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the
+ effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who
+ watches. <i>There is no opportunity of being honesty or dishonest, in the
+ formation of an opinion</i>. The conclusion is entirely independent of
+ desire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reasoning faculty is, therefore, wholly extrinsic to our moral nature,
+ and no influence is or can be received or imparted between them. I know
+ not whether the meaning is that all the faculties of our nature are like
+ so many separate departments in one of the modern shops that supply all
+ human wants; that will, memory, imagination, affection, passion, each has
+ its own separate domain, and that they meet only for a comparison of
+ results, just to tell one another what they have severally been doing. It
+ is difficult to conceive, if this be so, wherein consists the personality,
+ or individuality or organic unity of man. It is not difficult to see that
+ while the Reply aims at uplifting human nature, it in reality plunges us
+ (p. 475) into the abyss of degradation by the destruction of moral
+ freedom, responsibility, and unity. For we are justly told that "reason is
+ the supreme and final test." Action may be merely instinctive and
+ habitual, or it may be consciously founded on formulated thought; but, in
+ the cases where it is instinctive and habitual, it passes over, so soon as
+ it is challenged, into the other category, and finds a basis for itself in
+ some form of opinion. But, says the Reply, we have no responsibility for
+ our opinions: we cannot help forming them according to the evidence as it
+ presents itself to us. Observe, the doctrine embraces every kind of
+ opinion, and embraces all alike, opinion on subjects where we like or
+ dislike, as well as upon subjects where we merely affirm or deny in some
+ medium absolutely colorless. For, if a distinction be taken between the
+ colorless and the colored medium, between conclusions to which passion or
+ propensity or imagination inclines us, and conclusions to which these have
+ nothing to say, then the whole ground will be cut away from under the feet
+ of the Reply, and it will have to build again <i>ab initio</i>. Let us try
+ this by a test case. A father who has believed his son to have been
+ through life upright, suddenly finds that charges are made from various
+ quarters against his integrity. Or a friend, greatly dependent for the
+ work of his life on the co-operation of another friend, is told that that
+ comrade is counterworking and betraying him. I make no assumption now as
+ to the evidence or the result; but I ask which of them could approach the
+ investigation without feeling a desire to be able to acquit? And what
+ shall we say of the desire to condemn? Would Elizabeth have had no leaning
+ towards finding Mary Stuart implicated in a conspiracy? Did English judges
+ and juries approach with an unbiassed mind the trials for the Popish plot?
+ Were the opinions formed by the English Parliament on the Treaty of
+ Limerick formed without the intervention of the will? Did Napoleon judge
+ according to the evidence when he acquitted himself in the matter of the
+ Due d' Enghien? Does the intellect sit in a solitary chamber, like Galileo
+ in the palace of the Vatican, and pursue celestial observation all
+ untouched, while the turmoil of earthly business is raging everywhere
+ around? According to the Reply, it must be a mistake to suppose that there
+ is anywhere in the world such a thing as bias, or prejudice, or
+ prepossession: they are words without meaning in regard to our judgments,
+ for even if they could raise a clamor from without, the intellect sits
+ within, in an atmosphere of serenity, and, like Justice, is deaf and
+ blind, as well as calm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In addition to all other faults, I hold that this philosophy, or phantasm
+ of philosophy, is eminently retrogressive. Human nature, in its compound
+ of flesh and spirit, becomes more complex with the progress of
+ civilization; with the steady multiplication of wants, and of means for
+ their supply. With complication, introspection has largely extended, and I
+ believe that, as observation extends its field, so far from isolating the
+ intelligence and making it autocratic, it tends more and more to enhance
+ and multiply the infinitely subtle, as well as the broader and more
+ palpable modes, in which the interaction of the human faculties is carried
+ on. Who among us has not had occasion to observe, in the course of his
+ experience, how largely the intellectual power of a man is affected by the
+ demands of life on his moral powers, and how they open and grow, or dry up
+ and dwindle, according to the manner in which those demands are met.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Genius itself, however purely a conception of the intellect, is not exempt
+ from the strong influences of joy and suffering, love and hatred, hope and
+ fear, in the development of its powers. It may be that Homer, Shakespeare,
+ Goethe, basking upon the whole in the sunshine of life, drew little
+ supplementary force from its trials and agitations. But the history of one
+ not less wonderful than any of these, the career of Dante, tells a
+ different tale; and one of the latest and most searching investigators of
+ his history (Scartazzini, Dante Alighieri, <i>seine zeit, sein leben, und
+ seine werkes</i>, B. II. Ch. 5, p. 119; also pp. 438, 9. Biel, 1869) tells
+ and shows us, how the experience of his life co-operated with his
+ extraordinary natural gifts and capabilities to make him what he was.
+ Under the three great heads of love, belief, and patriotism, his life was
+ a continued course of ecstatic or agonizing trials. The strain of these
+ trials was discipline; discipline was experience; and experience was
+ elevation. No reader of his greatest work will, I believe, hold with the
+ Reply that his thoughts, conclusions, judgments, were simple results of an
+ automatic process, in which the will and affections had no share, that
+ reasoning operations are like the whir of a clock running down, and we can
+ no more arrest the process or alter the conclusion than the wheels can
+ stop the movement or the noise.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * I possess the confession of an illiterate criminal, made,
+ I think, in 1834, under the following circumstances: The new
+ poor law had just been passed in England, and it required
+ persons needing relief to go into the workhouse as a
+ condition of receiving it. In some parts of the country,
+ this provision produced a profound popular panic. The man in
+ question was destitute at the time. He was (I think) an old
+ widower with four very young sons. He rose in the night and
+ strangled them all, one after another, with a blue
+ handkerchief, not from want of fatherly affection, but to
+ keep them out of the workhouse. The confession of this
+ peasant, simple in phrase, but intensely impassioned,
+ strongly reminds me of the Ugolino of Dante, and appears to
+ make some approach to its sublimity. Such, in given
+ circumstances, is the effect of moral agony on mental power.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine taught in the Reply, that belief is, as a general, nay,
+ universal law, independent of the will, surely proves, when examined, to
+ be a plausibility of the shallowest kind. Even in arithmetic, if a boy,
+ through dislike of his employment, and consequent lack of attention,
+ brings out a wrong result for his sum, it can hardly be said that his
+ conclusion is absolutely and in all respects independent of his will.
+ Moving onward, point by point, toward the centre of the argument, I will
+ next take an illustration from mathematics. It has (I apprehend) been
+ demonstrated that the relation of the diameter to the circumference of a
+ circle is not susceptible of full numerical expression. Yet, from time to
+ time, treatises are published which boldly announce that they set forth
+ the quadrature of the circle. I do not deny that this may be purely
+ intellectual error; but would it not, on the other hand, be hazardous to
+ assert that no grain of egotism or ambition has ever entered into the
+ composition of any one of such treatises? I have selected these instances
+ as, perhaps, the most favorable that can be found to the doctrine of the
+ Reply. But the truth is that, if we set aside matters of trivial import,
+ the enormous majority of human judgments are those into which the biassing
+ power off likes and dislikes more or less largely enters. I admit, indeed,
+ that the illative faculty works under rules upon which choice and
+ inclination ought to exercise no influence whatever. But even if it were
+ granted that in fact the faculty of discourse is exempted from all such
+ influence within its own province, yet we come no nearer to the mark,
+ because that faculty has to work upon materials supplied to it by other
+ faculties; it draws conclusions according to premises, and the question
+ has to be determined whether our conceptions set forth in those premises
+ are or are not influenced by moral causes. For, if they be so influenced,
+ then in vain will be the proof that the understanding has dealt loyally
+ and exactly with the materials it had to work upon; inasmuch as, although
+ the intellectual process be normal in itself, the operation may have been
+ tainted <i>ab initio</i> by coloring and distorting influences which have
+ falsified the primary conceptions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me now take an illustration from the extreme opposite quarter to that
+ which I first drew upon. The system called Thuggism, represented in the
+ practice of the Thugs, taught that the act, which we describe as murder,
+ was innocent. Was this an honest error? Was it due, in its authors as well
+ as in those who blindly followed them, to an automatic process of thought,
+ in which the will was not consulted, and which accordingly could entail no
+ responsibility? If it was, then it is plain that the whole foundations,
+ not of belief, but of social morality, are broken up. If it was not, then
+ the sweeping doctrine of the present writer on the necessary blamelessness
+ of erroneous conclusions tumbles to the ground like a house of cards at
+ the breath of the child who built it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In truth, the pages of the Reply, and the Letter which has more recently
+ followed it,* themselves demonstrate that what the writer has asserted
+ wholesale he overthrows and denies in detail.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * North American Review for January, 1888, "Another Letter
+ to Dr. Field."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ "You will admit," says the Reply (p. 477), "that he who now persecutes for
+ opinion's sake is infamous." But why? Suppose he thinks that by
+ persecution he can bring a man from soul-destroying falsehood to
+ soul-saving truth, this opinion may reflect on his intellectual debility:
+ but that is his misfortune, not his fault. His brain has thought without
+ asking his consent; he has believed or disbelieved without an effort of
+ the will (p. 476). Yet the very writer, who has thus established his title
+ to think, is the first to hurl at him an anathema for thinking. And again,
+ in the Letter to Dr. Field (N. A. R., vol. 146, p. 33), "the dogma of
+ eternal pain" is described as "that infamy of infamies." I am not about to
+ discuss the subject of future retribution. If I were, it would be my first
+ duty to show that this writer has not adequately considered either the
+ scope of his own arguments (which in no way solve the difficulties he
+ presents) or the meaning of his words; and my second would be to recommend
+ his perusal of what Bishop Butler has suggested on this head. But I am at
+ present on ground altogether different. I am trying another issue. This
+ author says we believe or disbelieve without the action of the will, and,
+ consequently, belief or disbelief is not the proper subject of praise or
+ blame. And yet, according to the very same authority, the dogma of eternal
+ pain is what?&mdash;not "an error of errors," but an "infamy of infamies;"
+ and though to hold a negative may not be a subject of moral reproach, yet
+ to hold the affirmative may. Truly it may be asked, is not this a fountain
+ which sends forth at once sweet waters and bitter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once more. I will pass away from tender ground, and will endeavor to lodge
+ a broader appeal to the enlightened judgment of the author. Says Odysseus
+ in the Illiad (B. II.) [&mdash;Greek&mdash;]: and a large part of the
+ world, stretching this sentiment beyond its original meaning, have held
+ that the root of civil power is not in the community, but in its head. In
+ opposition to this doctrine, the American written Constitution, and the
+ entire American tradition, teach the right of a nation to self-government.
+ And these propositions, which have divided and still divide the world,
+ open out respectively into vast systems of irreconcilable ideas and laws,
+ practices and habits of mind. Will any rational man, above all will any
+ American, contend that these conflicting systems have been adopted,
+ upheld, and enforced on one side and the other, in the daylight of pure
+ reasoning only, and that moral, or immoral, causes have had nothing to do
+ with their adoption? That the intellect has worked impartially, like a
+ steam-engine, and that selfishness, love of fame, love of money, love of
+ power, envy, wrath, and malice, or again bias, in its least noxious form,
+ have never had anything to do with generating the opposing movements, or
+ the frightful collisions in which they have resulted? If we say that they
+ have not, we contradict the universal judgment of mankind. If we say they
+ have, then mental processes are not automatic, but may be influenced by
+ the will and by the passions, affections, habits, fancies that sway the
+ will; and this writer will not have advanced a step toward proving the
+ universal innocence of error, until he has shown that propositions of
+ religion are essentially unlike almost all other propositions, and that no
+ man ever has been, or from the nature of the case can be, affected in
+ their acceptance or rejection by moral causes.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The chief part of these observations were written before I
+ had received the January number of the Review, with Col.
+ Ingersoll's additional letter to Dr. Field. Much, of this
+ letter is specially pointed at Dr. Field, who can defend
+ himself, and at Calvin, whose ideas I certainly cannot
+ undertake to defend all along the line. I do not see that
+ the Letter adds to those, the most salient, points of the
+ earlier article which I have endeavored to select for
+ animadversion.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ To sum up. There are many passages in these noteworthy papers, which,
+ taken by themselves, are calculated to command warm sympathy. Towards the
+ close of his final, or latest letter, the writer expresses himself as
+ follows (N. A. R., vol. 146, p. 46.):
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Neither in the interest of truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it
+ necessary to assert what we do not know. No cause is great enough to
+ demand a sacrifice of candor. The mysteries of life and death, of good and
+ evil, have never yet been solved." How good, how wise are these words! But
+ coming at the close of the controversy, have they not some of the
+ ineffectual features of a death-bed repentance? They can hardly be said to
+ represent in all points the rules under which the pages preceding them
+ have been composed; or he, who so justly says that we ought not to assert
+ what we do not know, could hardly have laid down the law as we find it a
+ few pages earlier (ibid, p. 40) when it is pronounced that "an infinite
+ God has no excuse for leaving his children in doubt and darkness." Candor
+ and upright intention are indeed every where manifest amidst the flashing
+ corruscations which really compose the staple of the articles. Candor and
+ upright intention also impose upon a commentator the duty of formulating
+ his animadversions. I sum them up under two heads. Whereas we are placed
+ in an atmosphere of mystery, relieved only by a little sphere of light
+ round each of us, like a clearing in an American forest (which this writer
+ has so well described), and rarely can see farther than is necessary for
+ the direction of our own conduct from day to day, we find here, assumed by
+ a particular person, the character of an universal judge without appeal.
+ And whereas the highest self-restraint is necessary in these dark but,
+ therefore, all the more exciting inquiries, in order to maintain the ever
+ quivering balance of our faculties, this rider chooses to ride an unbroken
+ horse, and to throw the reins upon his neck. I have endeavored to give a
+ sample of the results.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ W. E. Gladstone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ To The Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone, M. P.:
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ My Dear Sir:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the threshold of this Reply, it gives me pleasure to say that for your
+ intellect and character I have the greatest respect; and let me say
+ further, that I shall consider your arguments, assertions, and inferences
+ entirely apart from your personality&mdash;apart from the exalted position
+ that you occupy in the estimation of the civilized world. I gladly
+ acknowledge the inestimable services that you have rendered, not only to
+ England, but to mankind. Most men are chilled and narrowed by the snows of
+ age; their thoughts are darkened by the approach of night. But you, for
+ many years, have hastened toward the light, and your mind has been "an
+ autumn that grew the more by reaping."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under no circumstances could I feel justified in taking advantage of the
+ admissions that you have made as to the "errors" the "misfeasance" the
+ "infirmities and the perversity" of the Christian Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly apparent that churches, being only aggregations of people,
+ contain the prejudice, the ignorance, the vices and the virtues of
+ ordinary human beings. The perfect cannot be made out of the imperfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man is not necessarily a great mathematician because he admits the
+ correctness of the multiplication table. The best creed may be believed by
+ the worst of the human race. Neither the crimes nor the virtues of the
+ church tend to prove or disprove the supernatural origin of religion. The
+ massacre of St. Bartholomew tends no more to establish the inspiration of
+ the Scriptures, than the bombardment of Alexandria.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is one thing that cannot be admitted, and that is your statement
+ that the constitution of man is in a "warped, impaired, and dislocated
+ condition," and that "these deformities indispose men to belief." Let us
+ examine this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We say that a thing is "warped" that was once nearer level, flat, or
+ straight; that it is "impaired" when it was once nearer perfect, and that
+ it is "dislocated" when once it was united. Consequently, you have said
+ that at some time the human constitution was unwarped, unimpaired, and
+ with each part working in harmony with all. You seem to believe in the
+ degeneracy of man, and that our unfortunate race, starting at perfection,
+ has traveled downward through all the wasted years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hardly possible that our ancestors were perfect. If history proves
+ anything, it establishes the fact that civilization was not first, and
+ savagery afterwards. Certainly the tendency of man is not now toward
+ barbarism. There must have been a time when language was unknown, when
+ lips had never formed a word. That which man knows, man must have learned.
+ The victories of our race have been slowly and painfully won. It is a long
+ distance from the gibberish of the savage to the sonnets of Shakespeare&mdash;a
+ long and weary road from the pipe of Pan to the great orchestra voiced
+ with every tone from the glad warble of a mated bird to the hoarse thunder
+ of the sea. The road is long that lies between the discordant cries
+ uttered by the barbarian over the gashed body of his foe and the marvelous
+ music of Wagner and Beethoven. It is hardly possible to conceive of the
+ years that lie between the caves in which crouched our naked ancestors
+ crunching the bones of wild beasts, and the home of a civilized man with
+ its comforts, its articles of luxury and use,&mdash;with its works of art,
+ with its enriched and illuminated walls. Think of the billowed years that
+ must have rolled between these shores. Think of the vast distance that man
+ has slowly groped from the dark dens and lairs of ignorance and fear to
+ the intellectual conquests of our day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it true that these deformities, these warped, impaired, and dislocated
+ constitutions indispose men to belief? Can we in this way account for the
+ doubts entertained by the intellectual leaders of mankind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do, in this age and time, to account for unbelief in this
+ deformed and dislocated way. The exact opposite must be true. Ignorance
+ and credulity sustain the relation of cause and effect. Ignorance is
+ satisfied with assertion, with appearance. As man rises in the scale of
+ intelligence he demands evidence. He begins to look back of appearance. He
+ asks the priest for reasons. The most ignorant part of Christendom is the
+ most orthodox.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have simply repeated a favorite assertion of the clergy, to the effect
+ that man rejects the gospel because he is naturally depraved and hard of
+ heart&mdash;because, owing to the sin of Adam and Eve, he has fallen from
+ the perfection and purity of Paradise to that "impaired" condition in
+ which he is satisfied with the filthy rags of reason, observation and
+ experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, that what you call unbelief is only a higher and holier
+ faith. Millions of men reject Christianity because of its cruelty. The
+ Bible was never rejected by the cruel. It has been upheld by countless
+ tyrants&mdash;by the dealers in human flesh&mdash;by the destroyers of
+ nations&mdash;by the enemies of intelligence&mdash;by the stealers of
+ babes and the whippers of women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also true that it has been held as sacred by the good, the
+ self-denying, the virtuous and the loving, who clung to the sacred volume
+ on account of the good it contains and in spite of all its cruelties and
+ crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are mistaken when you say that all "the faults of all the Christian
+ bodies and subdivisions of bodies have been carefully raked together," in
+ my Reply to Dr. Field, "and made part and parcel of the indictment against
+ the divine scheme of salvation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No thoughtful man pretends that any fault of any Christian body can be
+ used as an argument against what you call the "divine scheme of
+ redemption."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I find in your Remarks the frequent charge that I am guilty of making
+ assertions and leaving them to stand without the assistance of argument or
+ fact, and it may be proper, at this particular point, to inquire how you
+ know that there is "a divine scheme of redemption."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My objections to this "divine scheme of redemption" are: <i>first</i>,
+ that there is not the slightest evidence that it is divine; <i>second</i>,
+ that it is not in any sense a "scheme," human or divine; and <i>third</i>,
+ that it cannot, by any possibility, result in the redemption of a human
+ being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It cannot be divine, because it has no foundation in the nature of things,
+ and is not in accordance with reason. It is based on the idea that right
+ and wrong are the expression of an arbitrary will, and not words applied
+ to and descriptive of acts in the light of consequences. It rests upon the
+ absurdity called "pardon," upon the assumption that when a crime has been
+ committed justice will be satisfied with the punishment of the innocent.
+ One person may suffer, or reap a benefit, in consequence of the act of
+ another, but no man can be justly punished for the crime, or justly
+ rewarded for the virtues, of another. A "scheme" that punishes an innocent
+ man for the vices of another can hardly be called divine. Can a murderer
+ find justification in the agonies of his victim? There is no vicarious
+ vice; there is no vicarious virtue. For me it is hard to understand how a
+ just and loving being can charge one of his children with the vices, or
+ credit him with the virtues, of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And why should we call anything a "divine scheme" that has been a failure
+ from the "fall of man" until the present moment? What race, what nation,
+ has been redeemed through the instrumentality of this "divine scheme"?
+ Have not the subjects of redemption been for the most part the enemies of
+ civilization? Has not almost every valuable book since the invention of
+ printing been denounced by the believers in the "divine scheme"?
+ Intelligence, the development of the mind, the discoveries of science, the
+ inventions of genius, the cultivation of the imagination through art and
+ music, and the practice of virtue will redeem the human race. These are
+ the saviors of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You admit that the "Christian churches have by their exaggerations and
+ shortcomings, and by their faults of conduct, contributed to bring about a
+ condition of hostility to religious faith."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If one wishes to know the worst that man has done, all that power guided
+ by cruelty can do, all the excuses that can be framed for the commission
+ of every crime, the infinite difference that can exist between that which
+ is professed and that which is practiced, the marvelous malignity of
+ meekness, the arrogance of humility and the savagery of what is known as
+ "universal love," let him read the history of the Christian Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, I not only admit that millions of Christians have been honest in the
+ expression of their opinions, but that they have been among the best and
+ noblest of our race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it is further admitted that a creed should be examined apart from the
+ conduct of those who have assented to its truth. The church should be
+ judged as a whole, and its faults should be accounted for either by the
+ weakness of human nature, or by reason of some defect or vice in the
+ religion taught,&mdash;or by both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in the Christian religion&mdash;anything in what you are
+ pleased to call the "Sacred Scriptures" tending to cause the crimes and
+ atrocities that have been committed by the church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to be natural for man to defend himself and the ones he loves.
+ The father slays the man who would kill his child&mdash;he defends the
+ body. The Christian father burns the heretic&mdash;he defends the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If "orthodox Christianity" be true, an infidel has not the right to live.
+ Every book in which the Bible is attacked should be burned with its
+ author. Why hesitate to burn a man whose constitution is "warped, impaired
+ and dislocated," for a few moments, when hundreds of others will be saved
+ from eternal flames?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Christianity you will find the cause of persecution. The idea that
+ belief is essential to salvation&mdash;this ignorant and merciless dogma&mdash;accounts
+ for the atrocities of the church. This absurd declaration built the
+ dungeons, used the instruments of torture, erected the scaffolds and
+ lighted the fagots of a thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What, I pray you, is the "heavenly treasure" in the keeping of your
+ church? Is it a belief in an infinite God? That was believed thousands of
+ years before the serpent tempted Eve. Is it the belief in the immortality
+ of the soul? That is far older. Is it that man should treat his neighbor
+ as himself? That is more ancient. What is the treasure in the keeping of
+ the church? Let me tell you. It is this: That there is but one true
+ religion&mdash;Christianity,&mdash;and that all others are false; that the
+ prophets, and Christs, and priests of all others have been and are
+ impostors, or the victims of insanity; that the Bible is the one inspired
+ book&mdash;the one authentic record of the words of God; that all men are
+ naturally depraved and deserve to be punished with unspeakable torments
+ forever; that there is only one path that leads to heaven, while countless
+ highways lead to hell; that there is only one name under heaven by which a
+ human being can be saved; that we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ;
+ that this life, with its few and fleeting years, fixes the fate of man;
+ that the few will be saved and the many forever lost. This is "the
+ heavenly treasure" within the keeping of your church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And this "treasure" has been guarded by the cherubim of persecution, whose
+ flaming swords were wet for many centuries with the best and bravest
+ blood. It has been guarded by cunning, by hypocrisy, by mendacity, by
+ honesty, by calumniating the generous, by maligning the good, by
+ thumbscrews and racks, by charity and love, by robbery and assassination,
+ by poison and fire, by the virtues of the ignorant and the vices of the
+ learned, by the violence of mobs and the whirlwinds of war, by every hope
+ and every fear, by every cruelty and every crime, and by all there is of
+ the wild beast in the heart of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With great propriety it may be asked: In the keeping of which church is
+ this "heavenly treasure"? Did the Catholics have it, and was it taken by
+ Luther? Did Henry the VIII. seize it, and is it now in the keeping of the
+ Church of England? Which of the warring sects in America has this
+ treasure; or have we, in this country, only the "rust and cankers"? Is it
+ in an Episcopal Church, that refuses to associate with a colored man for
+ whom Christ died, and who is good enough for the society of the angelic
+ host?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But wherever this "heavenly treasure" has been, about it have always
+ hovered the Stymphalian birds of superstition, thrusting their brazen
+ beaks and claws deep into the flesh of honest men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You were pleased to point out as the particular line justifying your
+ assertion "that denunciation, sarcasm, and invective constitute the staple
+ of my work," that line in which I speak of those who expect to receive as
+ alms an eternity of joy, and add: "I take this as a specimen of the mode
+ of statement which permeates the whole."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Field commenced his Open Letter by saying: "I am glad that I know you,
+ <i>even though some of my brethren look upon you as a monster, because of
+ your unbelief</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In reply I simply said: "The statement in your Letter that some of your
+ brethren look upon me as a monster on account of my unbelief tends to show
+ that those who love God are not always the friends of their fellow-men. Is
+ it not strange that people who admit that they ought to be eternally
+ damned&mdash;that they are by nature depraved&mdash;that there is no
+ soundness or health in them, can be so arrogantly egotistic as to look
+ upon others as monsters? And yet some of your brethren, who regard
+ unbelievers as infamous, rely for salvation entirely on the goodness of
+ another, and expect to receive as alms an eternity of joy." Is there any
+ denunciation, sarcasm or invective in this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should one who admits that he himself is totally depraved call any
+ other man, by way of reproach, a monster? Possibly, he might be justified
+ in addressing him as a fellow-monster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not satisfied with your statement that "the Christian receives as
+ alms all whatsoever he receives at all." Is it true that man deserves only
+ punishment? Does the man who makes the world better, who works and battles
+ for the right, and dies for the good of his fellow-men, deserve nothing
+ but pain and anguish? Is happiness a gift or a consequence? Is heaven only
+ a well-conducted poorhouse? Are the angels in their highest estate nothing
+ but happy paupers? Must all the redeemed feel that they are in heaven
+ simply because there was a miscarriage of justice? Will the lost be the
+ only ones who will know that the right thing has been done, and will they
+ alone appreciate the "ethical elements of religion"? Will they repeat the
+ words that you have quoted: "Mercy and judgment are met together;
+ righteousness and peace have kissed each other"? or will those words be
+ spoken by the redeemed as they joyously contemplate the writhings of the
+ lost?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one will dispute "that in the discussion of important questions
+ calmness and sobriety are essential." But solemnity need not be carried to
+ the verge of mental paralysis. In the search for truth,&mdash;that
+ everything in nature seems to hide,&mdash;man needs the assistance of all
+ his faculties. All the senses should be awake. Humor should carry a torch,
+ Wit should give its sudden light, Candor should hold the scales, Reason,
+ the final arbiter, should put his royal stamp on every fact, and Memory,
+ with a miser's care, should keep and guard the mental gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has always despised the man of humor, hated laughter, and
+ encouraged the lethargy of solemnity. It is not willing that the mind
+ should subject its creed to every test of truth. It wishes to overawe. It
+ does not say, "He that hath a mind to think, let him think;" but, "He that
+ hath ears to hear, let him hear." The church has always abhorred wit,&mdash;that
+ is to say, it does not enjoy being struck by the lightning of the soul.
+ The foundation of wit is logic, and it has always been the enemy of the
+ supernatural, the solemn and absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You express great regret that no one at the present day is able to write
+ like Pascal. You admire his wit and tenderness, and the unique, brilliant,
+ and fascinating manner in which he treated the profoundest and most
+ complex themes. Sharing in your admiration and regret, I call your
+ attention to what might be called one of his religious generalizations:
+ "Disease is the natural state of a Christian." Certainly it cannot be said
+ that I have ever mingled the profound and complex in a more fascinating
+ manner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another instance is given of the "tumultuous method in which I conduct,
+ not, indeed, my argument, but my case."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Field had drawn a distinction between superstition and religion, to
+ which I replied: "You are shocked at the Hindoo mother when she gives her
+ child to death at the supposed command of her God. What do you think of
+ Abraham, of Jephthah? What is your opinion of Jehovah himself?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These simple questions seem to have excited you to an unusual degree, and
+ you ask in words of some severity:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Whether this is the tone in which controversies ought be carried on?" And
+ you say that&mdash;"not only is the name of Jehovah encircled in the heart
+ of every believer with the pro-foundest reverence and love, but that the
+ Christian religion teaches, through the incarnation, a personal relation
+ with God so lofty that it can only be approached in a deep, reverential
+ calm." You admit that "a person who deems a given religion to be wicked,
+ may be led onward by logical consistency to impugn in strong terms the
+ character of the author and object of that religion," but you insist that
+ such person is "bound by the laws of social morality and decency to
+ consider well the terms and meaning of his indictment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was there any lack of "reverential calm" in my question? I gave no
+ opinion, drew no indictment, but simply asked for the opinion of another.
+ Was that a violation of the "laws of social morality and decency"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not necessary for me to discuss this question with you. It has been
+ settled by Jehovah himself. You probably remember the account given in the
+ eighteenth chapter of I. Kings, of a contest between the prophets of Baal
+ and the prophets of Jehovah. There were four hundred and fifty prophets of
+ the false God who endeavored to induce their deity to consume with fire
+ from heaven the sacrifice upon his altar. According to the account, they
+ were greatly in earnest. They certainly appeared to have some hope of
+ success, but the fire did not descend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said 'Cry aloud,
+ for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a
+ journey, or peradventure, he sleepeth and must be awaked.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you consider that the proper way to attack the God of another? Did not
+ Elijah know that the name of Baal "was encircled in the heart of every
+ believer with the profoundest reverence and love"? Did he "violate the
+ laws of social morality and decency"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Jehovah and Elijah did not stop at this point. They were not satisfied
+ with mocking the prophets of Baal, but they brought them down to the brook
+ Kishon&mdash;four hundred and fifty of them&mdash;and there they murdered
+ every one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does it appear to you that on that occasion, on the banks of the brook
+ Kishon&mdash;"Mercy and judgment met together, and that righteousness and
+ peace kissed each other"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question arises: Has every one who reads the Old Testament the right
+ to express his thought as to the character of Jehovah? You will admit that
+ as he reads his mind will receive some impression, and that when he
+ finishes the "inspired volume" he will have some opinion as to the
+ character of Jehovah. Has he the right to express that opinion? Is the
+ Bible a revelation from God to man? Is it a revelation to the man who
+ reads it, or to the man who does not read it? If to the man who reads it,
+ has he the right to give to others the revelation that God has given to
+ him? If he comes to the conclusion at which you have arrived,&mdash;that
+ Jehovah is God,&mdash;has he the right to express that opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he concludes, as I have done, that Jehovah is a myth, must he refrain
+ from giving his honest thought? Christians do not hesitate to give their
+ opinion of heretics, philosophers, and infidels. They are not restrained
+ by the "laws of social morality and decency." They have persecuted to the
+ extent of their power, and their Jehovah pronounced upon unbelievers every
+ curse capable of being expressed in the Hebrew dialect. At this moment,
+ thousands of missionaries are attacking the gods of the heathen world, and
+ heaping contempt on the religion of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But as you have seen proper to defend Jehovah, let us for a moment examine
+ this deity of the ancient Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are several tests of character. It may be that all the virtues can
+ be expressed in the word "kindness," and that nearly all the vices are
+ gathered together in the word "cruelty."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Laughter is a test of character. When we know what a man laughs at, we
+ know what he really is. Does he laugh at misfortune, at poverty, at
+ honesty in rags, at industry without food, at the agonies of his
+ fellow-men? Does he laugh when he sees the convict clothed in the garments
+ of shame&mdash;at the criminal on the scaffold? Does he rub his hands with
+ glee over the embers of an enemy's home? Think of a man capable ol
+ laughing while looking at Marguerite in the prison cell with her dead babe
+ by her side. What must be the real character of a God who laughs at the
+ calamities of his children, mocks at their fears, their desolation, their
+ distress and anguish? Would an infinitely loving God hold his ignorant
+ children in derision? Would he pity, or mock? Save, or destroy? Educate,
+ or exterminate? Would he lead them with gentle hands toward the light, or
+ lie in wait for them like a wild beast? Think of the echoes of Jehovah's
+ laughter in the rayless caverns of the eternal prison. Can a good man mock
+ at the children of deformity? Will he deride the misshapen? Your Jehovah
+ deformed some of his own children, and then held them up to scorn and
+ hatred. These divine mistakes&mdash;these blunders of the infinite&mdash;were
+ not allowed to enter the temple erected in honor of him who had dishonored
+ them. Does a kind father mock his deformed child? What would you think of
+ a mother who would deride and taunt her misshapen babe?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another test. How does a man use power? Is he gentle or cruel?
+ Does he defend the weak, succor the oppressed, or trample on the fallen?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you will read again the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, you will
+ find how Jehovah, the compassionate, whose name is enshrined in so many
+ hearts, threatened to use his power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with
+ an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with
+ blasting and mildew. And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass,
+ and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord shall make the
+ rain of thy land powder and dust.".... "And thy carcass shall be meat unto
+ all fowls of the air and unto the beasts of the earth.".... "The Lord
+ shall smite thee with madness and blindness. And thou shalt eat of the
+ fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and thy daughters. The
+ tender and delicate woman among you,... her eye shall be evil... toward
+ her young one and toward her children which she shall bear; for she shall
+ eat them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Should it be found that these curses were in fact uttered by the God of
+ hell, and that the translators had made a mistake in attributing them to
+ Jehovah, could you say that the sentiments expressed are inconsistent with
+ the supposed character of the Infinite Fiend?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A nation is judged by its laws&mdash;by the punishment it inflicts. The
+ nation that punishes ordinary offences with death is regarded as
+ barbarous, and the nation that tortures before it kills is denounced as
+ savage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What can you say of the government of Jehovah, in which death was the
+ penalty for hundreds of offences?&mdash;death for the expression of an
+ honest thought&mdash;death for touching with a good intention a sacred ark&mdash;death
+ for making hair oil&mdash;for eating shew bread&mdash;for imitating
+ incense and perfumery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the history of the world a more cruel code cannot be found. Crimes seem
+ to have been invented to gratify a fiendish desire to shed the blood of
+ men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another test: How does a man treat the animals in his power&mdash;his
+ faithful horse&mdash;his patient ox&mdash;his loving dog?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How did Jehovah treat the animals in Egypt? Would a loving God, with
+ fierce hail from heaven, bruise and kill the innocent cattle for the
+ crimes of their owners? Would he torment, torture and destroy them for the
+ sins of men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah was a God of blood. His altar was adorned with the horns of a
+ beast. He established a religion in which every temple was a
+ slaughter-house, and every priest a butcher&mdash;a religion that demanded
+ the death of the first-born, and delighted in the destruction of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another test: The civilized man gives to others the rights
+ that he claims for himself. He believes in the liberty of thought and
+ expression, and abhors persecution for conscience sake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did Jehovah believe in the innocence of thought and the liberty of
+ expression? Kindness is found with true greatness. Tyranny lodges only in
+ the breast of the small, the narrow, the shriveled and the selfish. Did
+ Jehovah teach and practice generosity? Was he a believer in religious
+ liberty? If he was and is, in fact, God, he must have known, even four
+ thousand years ago, that worship must be free, and that he who is forced
+ upon his knees cannot, by any possibility, have the spirit of prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me call your attention to a few passages in the thirteenth chapter of
+ Deuteronomy:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or
+ the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice
+ thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods,... thou shalt not
+ consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him,
+ neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt
+ surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death,
+ and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with
+ stones, that he die."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible for you to find in the literature of this world more awful
+ passages than these? Did ever savagery, with strange and uncouth marks,
+ with awkward forms of beast and bird, pollute the dripping walls of caves
+ with such commands? Are these the words of infinite mercy? When they were
+ uttered, did "righteousness and peace kiss each other"? How can any loving
+ man or woman "encircle the name of Jehovah"&mdash;author of these words&mdash;"with
+ profoundest reverence and love"? Do I rebel because my "constitution is
+ warped, impaired and dislocated"? Is it because of "total depravity" that
+ I denounce the brutality of Jehovah? If my heart were only good&mdash;if I
+ loved my neighbor as myself&mdash;would I then see infinite mercy in these
+ hideous words? Do I lack "reverential calm"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These frightful passages, like coiled adders, were in the hearts of
+ Jehovah's chosen people when they crucified "the Sinless Man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah did not tell the husband to reason with his wife. She was to be
+ answered only with death. She was to be bruised and mangled to a bleeding,
+ shapeless mass of quivering flesh, for having breathed an honest thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is anything of importance in this world, it is the family, the
+ home, the marriage of true souls, the equality of husband and wife&mdash;the
+ true republicanism of the heart&mdash;the real democracy of the fireside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us read the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of Genesis:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy
+ conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire
+ shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Never will I worship any being who added to the sorrows and agonies of
+ maternity. Never will I bow to any God who introduced slavery into every
+ home&mdash;who made the wife a slave and the husband a tyrant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Old Testament shows that Jehovah, like his creators, held women in
+ contempt. They were regarded as property: "Thou shalt not covet thy
+ neighbor's wife,&mdash;nor his ox."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should a pure woman worship a God who upheld polygamy? Let us finish
+ this subject: The institution of slavery involves all crimes. Jehovah was
+ a believer in slavery. This is enough. Why should any civilized man
+ worship him? Why should his name "be encircled with love and tenderness in
+ any human heart"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed that man could become the property of man&mdash;that it was
+ right for his chosen people to deal in human flesh&mdash;to buy and sell
+ mothers and babes. He taught that the captives were the property of the
+ captors and directed his chosen people to kill, to enslave, or to pollute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the presence of these commandments, what becomes of the fine saying,
+ "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? What shall we say of a God who established
+ slavery, and then had the effrontery to say, "Thou shalt not steal"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be insisted that Jehovah is the Father of all&mdash;and that he has
+ "made of one blood all the nations of the earth." How then can we account
+ for the wars of extermination? Does not the commandment "Love thy neighbor
+ as thyself," apply to nations precisely the same as to individuals?
+ Nations, like individuals, become great by the practice of virtue. How did
+ Jehovah command his people to treat their neighbors?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He commanded his generals to destroy all, men, women and babes: "Thou
+ shalt save nothing alive that breatheth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour
+ flesh."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue
+ of thy dogs in the same."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "... I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of
+ serpents of the dust...."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and
+ the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that these words fell from the lips of the Most Merciful?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may reply that the inhabitants of Canaan were unfit to live&mdash;that
+ they were ignorant and cruel. Why did not Jehovah, the "Father of all,"
+ give them the Ten Commandments? Why did he leave them without a bible,
+ without prophets and priests? Why did he shower all the blessings of
+ revelation on one poor and wretched tribe, and leave the great world in
+ ignorance and crime&mdash;and why did he order his favorite children to
+ murder those whom he had neglected?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By the question I asked of Dr. Field, the intention was to show that
+ Jephthah, when he sacrificed his daughter to Jehovah, was as much the
+ slave of superstition as is the Hindoo mother when she throws her babe
+ into the yellow waves of the Ganges.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems that this savage Jephthah was in direct communication with
+ Jehovah at Mizpeh, and that he made a vow unto the Lord and said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
+ then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to
+ meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely
+ be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, it is perfectly clear that the sacrifice intended was
+ a human sacrifice, from the words: "that whatsoever cometh forth of the
+ doors of my house to meet me." Some human being&mdash;wife, daughter,
+ friend, was expected to come. According to the account, his daughter&mdash;his
+ only daughter&mdash;his only child&mdash;came first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Jephthah was in communication with God, why did God allow this man to
+ make this vow; and why did he allow the daughter that he loved to be
+ first, and why did he keep silent and allow the vow to be kept, while
+ flames devoured the daughter's flesh?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ St. Paul is not authority. He praises Samuel, the man who hewed Agag in
+ pieces; David, who compelled hundreds to pass under the saws and harrows
+ of death, and many others who shed the blood of the innocent and helpless.
+ Paul is an unsafe guide. He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows
+ the seeds of future crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If "believers are not obliged to approve of the conduct of Jephthah" are
+ they free to condemn the conduct of Jehovah? If you will read the account
+ you will see that the "spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah" when he made
+ the cruel vow. If Paul did not commend Jephthah for keeping this vow, what
+ was the act that excited his admiration? Was it because Jephthah slew on
+ the banks of the Jordan "forty and two thousand" of the sons of Ephraim?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In regard to Abraham, the argument is precisely the same, except that
+ Jehovah is said to have interfered, and allowed an animal to be slain
+ instead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the answers given by you is that "it may be allowed that the
+ narrative is not within our comprehension"; and for that reason you say
+ that "it behooves us to tread cautiously in approaching it." Why
+ cautiously?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These stories of Abraham and Jephthah have cost many an innocent life.
+ Only a few years ago, here in my country, a man by the name of Freeman,
+ believing that God demanded at least the show of obedience&mdash;believing
+ what he had read in the Old Testament that "without the shedding of blood
+ there is no remission," and so believing, touched with insanity,
+ sacrificed his little girl&mdash;plunged into her innocent breast the
+ dagger, believing it to be God's will, and thinking that if it were not
+ God's will his hand would be stayed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know of nothing more pathetic than the story of this crime told by this
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more monstrous than the conception of a God who demands
+ sacrifice&mdash;of a God who would ask of a father that he murder his son&mdash;of
+ a father that he would burn his daughter. It is far beyond my
+ comprehension how any man ever could have believed such an infinite, such
+ a cruel absurdity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the command of the real God&mdash;if there be one&mdash;I would not
+ sacrifice my child, I would not murder my wife. But as long as there are
+ people in the world whose minds are so that they can believe the stories
+ of Abraham and Jephthah, just so long there will be men who will take the
+ lives of the ones they love best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have taken the position that the conditions are different; and you say
+ that: "According to the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were placed under a
+ law, not of consciously perceived right and wrong, but of simple
+ obedience. The tree of which alone they were forbidden to eat was the tree
+ of the knowledge of good and evil; duty lay for them in following the
+ command of the Most High, before and until they became capable of
+ appreciating it by an ethical standard. Their knowledge was but that of an
+ infant who has just reached the stage at which he can comprehend that he
+ is ordered to do this or that, but not the nature of the things so
+ ordered.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Adam and Eve could not "consciously perceive right and wrong," how is
+ it possible for you to say that "duty lay for them in following the
+ command of the Most High"? How can a person "incapable of perceiving right
+ and wrong" have an idea of duty? You are driven to say that Adam and Eve
+ had no moral sense. How under such circumstances could they have the sense
+ of guilt, or of obligation? And why should such persons be punished? And
+ why should the whole human race become tainted by the offence of those who
+ had no moral sense?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you intend to be understood as saying that Jehovah allowed his children
+ to enslave each other because "duty lay for them in following the command
+ of the Most High"? Was it for this reason that he caused them to
+ exterminate each other? Do you account for the severity of his punishments
+ by the fact that the poor creatures punished were not aware of the
+ enormity of the offences they had committed? What shall we say of a God
+ who has one of his children stoned to death for picking up sticks on
+ Sunday, and allows another to enslave his fellow-man? Have you discovered
+ any theory that will account for both of these facts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another word as to Abraham:&mdash;You defend his willingness to kill his
+ son because "the estimate of human life at the time was different"&mdash;because
+ "the position of the father in the family was different; its members were
+ regarded as in some sense his property;" and because "there is every
+ reason to suppose that around Abraham in the 'land of Moriah' the practice
+ of human sacrifice as an act of religion was in full vigor."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us examine these three excuses: Was Jehovah justified in putting a low
+ estimate on human life? Was he in earnest when he said "that whoso
+ sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed"? Did he pander to
+ the barbarian view of the worthlessness of life? If the estimate of human
+ life was low, what was the sacrifice worth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was the son the property of the father? Did Jehovah uphold this savage
+ view? Had the father the right to sell or kill his child?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you defend Jehovah and Abraham because the ignorant wretches in the
+ "land of Moriah," knowing nothing of the true God, cut the throats of
+ their babes "as an act of religion"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was Jehovah led away by the example of the Gods of Moriah? Do you not see
+ that your excuses are simply the suggestions of other crimes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see clearly that the Hindoo mother, when she throws her babe into the
+ Ganges at the command of her God, "sins against first principles"; but you
+ excuse Abraham because he lived in the childhood of the race. Can Jehovah
+ be excused because of his youth? Not satisfied with your explanation, your
+ defences and excuses, you take the ground that when Abraham said: "My son,
+ God will provide a lamb for a burnt offering," he may have "believed
+ implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son." In other
+ words, that Abraham did not believe that he would be required to shed the
+ blood of Isaac. So that, after all, the faith of Abraham consisted in
+ "believing implicitly" that Jehovah was not in earnest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have discovered a way by which, as you think, the neck of orthodoxy
+ can escape the noose of Darwin, and in that connection you use this
+ remarkable language:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I should reply that the moral history of man, in its principal stream,
+ has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." It is hard to
+ see how this statement agrees with the one in the beginning of your
+ Remarks, in which you speak of the human constitution in its "warped,
+ impaired and dislocated" condition. When you wrote that line you were
+ certainly a theologian&mdash;a believer in the Episcopal creed&mdash;and
+ your mind, by mere force of habit, was at that moment contemplating man as
+ he is supposed to have been created&mdash;perfect in every part. At that
+ time you were endeavoring to account for the unbelief now in the world,
+ and you did this by stating that the human constitution is "warped,
+ impaired and dislocated"; but the moment you are brought face to face with
+ the great truths uttered by Darwin, you admit "that the moral history of
+ man has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." Is not
+ this a fountain that brings forth sweet and bitter waters?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insist, that the discoveries of Darwin do away absolutely with the
+ inspiration of the Scriptures&mdash;with the account of creation in
+ Genesis, and demonstrate not simply the falsity, not simply the
+ wickedness, but the foolishness of the "sacred volume." There is nothing
+ in Darwin to show that all has been evolved from "primal night and from
+ chaos." There is no evidence of "primal night." There is no proof of
+ universal chaos. Did your Jehovah spend an eternity in "primal night,"
+ with no companion but chaos.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It makes no difference how long a lower form may require to reach a
+ higher. It makes no difference whether forms can be simply modified or
+ absolutely changed. These facts have not the slightest tendency to throw
+ the slightest light on the beginning or on the destiny of things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I most cheerfully admit that gods have the right to create swiftly or
+ slowly. The reptile may become a bird in one day, or in a thousand billion
+ years&mdash;this fact has nothing to do with the existence or
+ non-existence of a first cause, but it has something to do with the truth
+ of the Bible, and with the existence of a personal God of infinite power
+ and wisdom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not a gradual improvement in the thing created show a corresponding
+ improvement in the creator? The church demonstrated the falsity and folly
+ of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account
+ of creation, and now the theories of Darwin having been fairly
+ established, the church says that the Mosaic account is true, because it
+ is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was
+ mistaken, what then?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me it is somewhat difficult to understand the mental processes of one
+ who really feels that "the gap between man and the inferior animals or
+ their relationship was stated, perhaps, even more emphatically by Bishop
+ Butler than by Darwin."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Butler answered deists, who objected to the cruelties of the Bible, and
+ yet lauded the God of Nature by showing that the God of Nature is as cruel
+ as the God of the Bible. That is to say, he succeeded in showing that both
+ Gods are bad. He had no possible conception of the splendid
+ generalizations of Darwin&mdash;the great truths that have revolutionized
+ the thought of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there was one question asked by Bishop Butler that throws a flame of
+ light upon the probable origin of most, if not all, religions: "Why might
+ not whole communities and public bodies be seized with fits of insanity as
+ well as individuals?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you are convinced that Moses and Darwin are in exact accord, will you
+ be good enough to tell who, in your judgment, were the parents of Adam and
+ Eve? Do you find in Darwin any theory that satisfactorily accounts for the
+ "inspired fact" that a Rib, commencing with Monogonic Propagation&mdash;falling
+ into halves by a contraction in the middle&mdash;reaching, after many ages
+ of Evolution, the Amphigonie stage, and then, by the Survival of the
+ Fittest, assisted by Natural Selection, moulded and modified by
+ Environment, became at last, the mother of the human race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here is a world in which there are countless varieties of life&mdash;these
+ varieties in all probability related to each other&mdash;all living upon
+ each other&mdash;everything devouring something, and in its turn devoured
+ by something else&mdash;everywhere claw and beak, hoof and tooth,&mdash;everything
+ seeking the life of something else&mdash;every drop of water a
+ battle-field, every atom being for some wild beast a jungle&mdash;every
+ place a golgotha&mdash;and such a world is declared to be the work of the
+ infinitely wise and compassionate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to your idea, Jehovah prepared a home for his children&mdash;first
+ a garden in which they should be tempted and from which they should be
+ driven; then a world filled with briers and thorns and wild and poisonous
+ beasts&mdash;a world in which the air should be filled with the enemies of
+ human life&mdash;a world in which disease should be contagious, and in
+ which it was impossible to tell, except by actual experiment, the
+ poisonous from the nutritious. And these children were allowed to live in
+ dens and holes and fight their way against monstrous serpents and
+ crouching beasts&mdash;were allowed to live in ignorance and fear&mdash;to
+ have false ideas of this good and loving God&mdash;ideas so false, that
+ they made of him a fiend&mdash;ideas so false, that they sacrificed their
+ wives and babes to appease the imaginary wrath of this monster. And this
+ God gave to different nations different ideas of himself, knowing that in
+ consequence of that these nations would meet upon countless fields of
+ death and drain each other's veins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would it not have been better had the world been so that parents would
+ transmit only their virtues&mdash;only their perfections, physical and
+ mental,&mdash;allowing their diseases and their vices to perish with them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my reply to Dr. Field I had asked: Why should God demand a sacrifice
+ from man? Why should the infinite ask anything from the finite? Should the
+ sun beg from the glowworm, and should the momentary spark excite the envy
+ of the source of light?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon which you remark, "that if the infinite is to make no demands upon
+ the finite, by parity of reasoning, the great and strong should scarcely
+ make them on the weak and small." Can this be called reasoning? Why should
+ the infinite demand a sacrifice from man? In the first place, the infinite
+ is conditionless&mdash;the infinite cannot want&mdash;the infinite has. A
+ conditioned being may want; but the gratification of a want involves a
+ change of condition. If God be conditionless, he can have no wants&mdash;consequently,
+ no human being can gratify the infinite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But you insist that "if the infinite is to make no demands upon the
+ finite, by parity of reasoning, the great and strong should scarcely make
+ them on the weak and small."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great have wants. The strong are often in need, in peril, and the
+ great and strong often need the services of the small and weak. It was the
+ mouse that freed the lion. England is a great and powerful nation&mdash;yet
+ she may need the assistance of the weakest of her citizens. The world is
+ filled with illustrations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The lack of logic is in this: The infinite cannot want anything; the
+ strong and the great may, and as a fact always do. The great and the
+ strong cannot help the infinite&mdash;they can help the small and the
+ weak, and the small and the weak can often help the great and strong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You ask: "Why then should the father make demands of love, obedience, and
+ sacrifice from his young child?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No sensible father ever demanded love from his child. Every civilized
+ father knows that love rises like the perfume from a flower. You cannot
+ command it by simple authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It cannot obey. A father demands obedience from a child for the good of
+ the child and for the good of himself. But suppose the father to be
+ infinite&mdash;why should the child sacrifice anything for him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it may be that you answer all these questions, all these difficulties,
+ by admitting, as you have in your Remarks, "that these problems are
+ insoluble by our understanding."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, then, do you accept them? Why do you defend that which you cannot
+ understand? Why does your reason volunteer as a soldier under the flag of
+ the incomprehensible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I asked of Dr. Field, and I ask again, this question: Why should an
+ infinitely wise and powerful God destroy the good and preserve the vile?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What do I mean by this question? Simply this: The earthquake, the
+ lightning, the pestilence, are no respecters of persons. The vile are not
+ always destroyed, the good are not always saved. I asked: Why should God
+ treat all alike in this world, and in another make an infinite difference?
+ This, I suppose, is "insoluble to our understanding."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should Jehovah allow his worshipers, his adorers, to be destroyed by
+ his enemies? Can you by any possibility answer this question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may account for all these inconsistencies, these cruel contradictions,
+ as John Wesley accounted for earthquakes when he insisted that they were
+ produced by the wickedness of men, and that the only way to prevent them
+ was for everybody to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you may have
+ some way of showing that Mr. Wesley's idea is entirely consistent with the
+ theories of Mr. Darwin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to think that as long as there is more goodness than evil in the
+ world&mdash;as long as there is more joy than sadness&mdash;we are
+ compelled to infer that the author of the world is infinitely good,
+ powerful, and wise, and that as long as a majority are out of gutters and
+ prisons, the "divine scheme" is a success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this system of logic, if there were a few more unfortunates&mdash;if
+ there was just a little more evil than good&mdash;then we would be driven
+ to acknowledge that the world was created by an infinitely malevolent
+ being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the history of the world has been such that not only
+ your theologians but your apostles, and not only your apostles but your
+ prophets, and not only your prophets but your Jehovah, have all been
+ forced to account for the evil, the injustice and the suffering, by the
+ wickedness of man, the natural depravity of the human heart and the wiles
+ and machinations of a malevolent being second only in power to Jehovah
+ himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again and again you have called me to account for "mere suggestions and
+ assertions without proof"; and yet your remarks are filled with assertions
+ and mere suggestions without proof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You admit that "great believers are not able to explain the inequalities
+ of adjustment between human beings and the conditions in which they have
+ been set down to work out their destiny."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do you know "that they have been set down to work out their destiny"?
+ If that was, and is, the purpose, then the being who settled the
+ "destiny," and the means by which it tvas to be "worked out," is
+ responsible for all that happens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And is this the end of your argument, "That you are not able to explain
+ the inequalities of adjustment between human beings"? Is the solution of
+ this problem beyond your power? Does the Bible shed no light? Is the
+ Christian in the presence of this question as dumb as the agnostic? When
+ the injustice of this world is so flagrant that you cannot harmonize that
+ awful fact with the wisdom and goodness of an infinite God, do you not see
+ that you have surrendered, or at least that you have raised a flag of
+ truce beneath which your adversary accepts as final your statement that
+ you do not know and that your imagination is not sufficient to frame an
+ excuse for God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gave me great pleasure to find that at last even you have been driven
+ to say that: "it is a duty incumbent upon us respectively according to our
+ means and opportunities, to decide by the use of the faculty of reason
+ given us, the great questions of natural and revealed religion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You admit "that I am to decide for myself, by the use of my reason,"
+ whether the Bible is the word of God or not&mdash;whether there is any
+ revealed religion&mdash;and whether there be or be not an infinite being
+ who created and who governs this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You also admit that we are to decide these questions according to the
+ balance of the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this in accordance with the doctrine of Jehovah? Did Jehovah say to the
+ husband that if his wife became convinced, according to her means and her
+ opportunities, and decided according to her reason, that it was better to
+ worship some other God than Jehovah, then that he was to say to her: "You
+ are entitled to decide according to the balance of the evidence as it
+ seems to you"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have you abandoned Jehovah? Is man more just than he? Have you appealed
+ from him to the standard of reason? Is it possible that the leader of the
+ English Liberals is nearer civilized than Jehovah?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you know that in this sentence you demonstrate the existence of a dawn
+ in your mind? This sentence makes it certain that in the East of the
+ midnight of Episcopal superstition there is the herald of the coming day.
+ And if this sentence shows a dawn, what shall I say of the next:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We are not entitled, either for or against belief, to set up in this
+ province any rule of investigation except such as common sense teaches us
+ to use in the ordinary conduct of life"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This certainly is a morning star. Let me take this statement, let me hold
+ it as a torch, and by its light I beg of you to read the Bible once again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it in accordance with reason that an infinitely good and loving God
+ would drown a world that he had taken no means to civilize&mdash;to whom
+ he had given no bible, no gospel,&mdash;taught no scientific fact and in
+ which the seeds of art had not been sown; that he would create a world
+ that ought to be drowned? That a being of infinite wisdom would create a
+ rival, knowing that the rival would fill perdition with countless souls
+ destined to suffer eternal pain? Is it according to common sense that an
+ infinitely good God would order some of his children to kill others? That
+ he would command soldiers to rip open with the sword of war the bodies of
+ women&mdash;wreaking vengeance on babes unborn? Is it according to reason
+ that a good, loving, compassionate, and just God would establish slavery
+ among men, and that a pure God would uphold polygamy? Is it according to
+ common sense that he who wished to make men merciful and loving would
+ demand the sacrifice of animals, so that his altars would be wet with the
+ blood of oxen, sheep, and doves? Is it according to reason that a good God
+ would inflict tortures upon his ignorant children&mdash;that he would
+ torture animals to death&mdash;and is it in accordance with common sense
+ and reason that this God would create countless billions of people knowing
+ that they would be eternally damned?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is common sense? Is it the result of observation, reason and
+ experience, or is it the child of credulity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is this curious fact: The far past and the far future seem to belong
+ to the miraculous and the monstrous. The present, as a rule, is the realm
+ of common sense. If you say to a man: "Eighteen hundred years ago the dead
+ were raised," he will reply: "Yes, I know that." And if you say: "A
+ hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised," he will
+ probably reply: "I presume so." But if you tell him: "I saw a dead man
+ raised to-day," he will ask, "From what madhouse have you escaped?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment we decide "according to reason," "according to the balance of
+ evidence," we are charged with "having violated the laws of social
+ morality and decency," and the defender of the miraculous and the
+ incomprehensible takes another position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologian has a city of refuge to which he flies&mdash;an old
+ breastwork behind which he kneels&mdash;a rifle-pit into which he crawls.
+ You have described this city, this breastwork, this rifle-pit and also the
+ leaf under which the ostrich of theology thrusts its head. Let me quote:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Our demands for evidence must be limited by the general reason of the
+ case. Does that general reason of the case make it probable that a finite
+ being, with a finite place in a comprehensive scheme devised and
+ administered by a being who is infinite, would be able even to embrace
+ within his view, or rightly to appreciate all the motives or aims that
+ there may have been in the mind of the divine disposer?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And this is what you call "deciding by the use of the faculty of reason,"
+ "according to the evidence," or at least "according to the balance of
+ evidence." This is a conclusion reached by a "rule of investigation such
+ as common sense teaches us to use in the ordinary conduct of life." Will
+ you have the kindness to explain what it is to act contrary to evidence,
+ or contrary to common sense? Can you imagine a superstition so gross that
+ it cannot be defended by that argument?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing, it seems to me, could have been easier than for Jehovah to have
+ reasonably explained his scheme. You may answer that the human intellect
+ is not sufficient to understand the explanation. Why then do not
+ theologians stop explaining? Why do they feel it incumbent upon them to
+ explain that which they admit God would have explained had the human mind
+ been capable of understanding it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How much better would it have been if Jehovah had said a few things on
+ these subjects. It always seemed wonderful to me that he spent several
+ days and nights on Mount Sinai explain* ing to Moses how he could detect
+ the presence of leprosy, without once thinking to give him a prescription
+ for its cure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There were thousands and thousands of opportunities for this God to
+ withdraw from these questions the shadow and the cloud. When Jehovah out
+ of the whirlwind asked questions of Job, how much better it would have
+ been if Job had asked and Jehovah had answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You say that we should be governed by evidence and by common sense. Then
+ you tell us that the questions are beyond the reach of reason, and with
+ which common sense has nothing to do. If we then ask for an explanation,
+ you reply in the scornful challenge of Dante.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to imagine that every man who gives an opinion, takes his solemn
+ oath that the opinion is the absolute end of all investigation on that
+ subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my opinion, Shakespeare was, intellectually, the greatest of the human
+ race, and my intention was simply to express that view. It never occurred
+ to me that any one would suppose that I thought Shakespeare a greater
+ actor than Garrick, a more wonderful composer than Wagner, a better
+ violinist than Remenyi, or a heavier man than Daniel Lambert. It is to be
+ regretted that you were misled by my words and really supposed that I
+ intended to say that Shakespeare was a greater general than Caesar. But,
+ after all, your criticism has no possible bearing on the point at issue.
+ Is it an effort to avoid that which cannot be met? The real question is
+ this: If we cannot account for Christ without a miracle, how can we
+ account for Shakespeare? Dr. Field took the ground that Christ himself was
+ a miracle; that it was impossible to account for such a being in any
+ natural way; and, guided by common sense, guided by the rule of
+ investigation such as common sense teaches, I called attention to Buddha,
+ Mohammed, Confucius, and Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In another place in your Remarks, when my statement about Shakespeare was
+ not in your mind, you say: "All is done by steps&mdash;nothing by strides,
+ leaps or bounds&mdash;all from protoplasm up to Shakespeare." Why did you
+ end the series with Shakespeare? Did you intend to say Dante, or Bishop
+ Butler?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is curious to see how much ingenuity a great man exercises when guided
+ by what he calls "the rule of investigation as suggested by common sense."
+ I pointed out some things that Christ did not teach&mdash;among others,
+ that he said nothing with regard to the family relation, nothing against
+ slavery, nothing about education, nothing as to the rights and duties of
+ nations, nothing as to any scientific truth. And this is answered by
+ saying that "I am quite able to point out the way in which the Savior of
+ the world might have been much greater as a teacher than he actually was."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this an answer, or is it simply taking refuge behind a name? Would it
+ not have been better if Christ had told his disciples that they must not
+ persecute; that they had no right to destroy their fellow-men; that they
+ must not put heretics in dungeons, or destroy them with flames; that they
+ must not invent and use instruments of torture; that they must not appeal
+ to brutality, nor endeavor to sow with bloody hands the seeds of peace?
+ Would it not have been far better had he said: "I come not to bring a
+ sword, but peace"? Would not this have saved countless cruelties and
+ countless lives?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to think that you have fully answered my objection when you say
+ that Christ taught the absolute indissolubility of marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should a husband and wife be compelled to live with each other after
+ love is dead? Why should the wife still be bound in indissoluble chains to
+ a husband who is cruel, infamous, and false? Why should her life be
+ destroyed because of his? Why should she be chained to a criminal and an
+ outcast? Nothing can be more unphilosophic than this. Why fill the world
+ with the children of indifference and hatred?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The marriage contract is the most important, the most sacred, that human
+ beings can make. It will be sacredly kept by good men and by good women.
+ But if a loving woman&mdash;tender, noble, and true&mdash;makes this
+ contract with a man whom she believed to be worthy of all respect and
+ love, and who is found to be a cruel, worthless wretch, why should her
+ life be lost?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you not know that the indissolubility of the marriage contract leads to
+ its violation, forms an excuse for immorality, eats out the very heart of
+ truth, and gives to vice that which alone belongs to love?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in order that you may know why the objection was raised, I call your
+ attention to the fact that Christ offered a reward, not only in this world
+ but in another, to any husband who would desert his wife. And do you know
+ that this hideous offer caused millions to desert their wives and
+ children?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theologians have the habit of using names instead of arguments&mdash;of
+ appealing to some man, great in some direction, to establish their creed;
+ but we all know that no man is great enough to be an authority, except in
+ that particular domain in which he won his eminence; and we all know that
+ great men are not great in all directions. Bacon died a believer in the
+ Ptolemaic system of astronomy. Tycho Brahe kept an imbecile in his
+ service, putting down with great care the words that fell from the hanging
+ lip of idiocy, and then endeavored to put them together in a way to form
+ prophecies. Sir Matthew Hale believed in witchcraft not only, but in its
+ lowest and most vulgar forms; and some of the greatest men of antiquity
+ examined the entrails of birds to find the secrets of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has always seemed to me that reasons are better than names.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After taking the ground that Christ could not have been a greater teacher
+ than he actually was, you ask: "Where would have been the wisdom of
+ delivering to an uninstructed population of a particular age a codified
+ religion which was to serve for all nations, all ages, all states of
+ civilization?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not this question admit that the teachings of Christ will not serve
+ for all nations, all ages and all states of civilization?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let me ask: If it was necessary for Christ "to deliver to an
+ uninstructed population of a particular age a certain religion suited only
+ for that particular age," why should a civilized and scientific age
+ eighteen hundred years afterwards be absolutely bound by that religion? Do
+ you not see that your position cannot be defended, and that you have
+ provided no way for retreat? If the religion of Christ was for that age,
+ is it for this? Are you willing to admit that the Ten Commandments are not
+ for all time? If, then, four thousand years before Christ, commandments
+ were given not simply for "an uninstructed population of a particular age,
+ but for all time," can you give a reason why the religion of Christ should
+ not have been of the same character?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place you say that God has revealed himself to the world&mdash;that
+ he has revealed a religion; and in the next place, that "he has not
+ revealed a perfect religion, for the reason that no room would be left for
+ the career of human thought."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did not God reveal this imperfect religion to all people instead of to
+ a small and insignificant tribe, a tribe without commerce and without
+ influence among the nations of the world? Why did he hide this imperfect
+ light under a bushel? If the light was necessary for one, was it not
+ necessary for all? And why did he drown a world to whom he had not even
+ given that light? According to your reasoning, would there not have been
+ left greater room for the career of human thought, had no revelation been
+ made?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You say that "you have known a person who after studying the old classical
+ or Olympian religion for a third part of a century, at length began to
+ hope that he had some partial comprehension of it&mdash;some inkling of
+ what is meant." You say this for the purpose of showing how impossible it
+ is to understand the Bible. If it is so difficult, why do you call it a
+ revelation? And yet, according to your creed, the man who does not
+ understand the revelation and believe it, or who does not believe it,
+ whether he understands it or not, is to reap the harvest of everlasting
+ pain. Ought not the revelation to be revealed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to escape from the fact that Christ denounced the chosen people
+ of God as "a generation of vipers" and as "whited sepulchres," you take
+ the ground that the scribes and pharisees were not the chosen people. Of
+ what blood were they? It will not do to say that they were not the people.
+ Can you deny that Christ addressed the chosen people when he said:
+ "Jerusalem, which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto
+ thee"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have called me to an account for what I said in regard to Ananias and
+ Sapphira. <i>First</i>, I am charged with having said that the apostles
+ conceived the idea of having all things in common, and you denounce this
+ as an interpolation; <i>second</i>, "that motives of prudence are stated
+ as a matter of fact to have influenced the offending couple"&mdash;and
+ this is charged as an interpolation; and, <i>third</i>, that I stated that
+ the apostles sent for the wife of Ananias&mdash;and this is characterized
+ as a pure invention.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me it seems reasonable to suppose that the idea of having all things in
+ common was conceived by those who had nothing, or had the least, and not
+ by those who had plenty. In the last verses of the fourth chapter of the
+ Acts, you will find this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were
+ possessed of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the
+ things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and
+ distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses,
+ who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted,
+ the son of consolation), a Levite and of the country of Cyprus, having
+ land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now it occurred to me that the idea was in all probability suggested by
+ the men at whose feet the property was laid. It never entered my mind that
+ the idea originated with those who had land for sale. There may be a
+ different standard by which human nature is measured in your country, than
+ in mine; but if the thing had happened in the United States, I feel
+ absolutely positive that it would have been at the suggestion of the
+ apostles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession and kept back part of
+ the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and
+ laid it at the apostles' feet."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my Letter to Dr. Field I stated&mdash;not at the time pretending to
+ quote from the New Testament&mdash;that Ananias and Sapphira, after
+ talking the matter over, not being entirely satisfied with the
+ collaterals, probably concluded to keep a little&mdash;just enough to keep
+ them from starvation if the good and pious bankers should abscond. It
+ never occurred to me that any man would imagine that this was a quotation,
+ and I feel like asking your pardon for having led you into this error. We
+ are informed in the Bible that "they kept back a part of the price." It
+ occurred to me, "judging by the rule of investigation according to common
+ sense," that there was a reason for this, and I could think of no reason
+ except that they did not care to trust the apostles with all, and that
+ they kept back just a little, thinking it might be useful if the rest
+ should be lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the account, after Peter had made a few remarks to Ananias,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ananias fell down and gave up the ghost;.... and the young men arose,
+ wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the
+ space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came
+ in."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whereupon Peter said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much?' And she said, 'Yea, for
+ so much.' Then Peter said unto her, 'How is it that ye have agreed
+ together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which
+ have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.' Then
+ fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost; and the
+ young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her
+ by her husband."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only objection found to this is, that I inferred that the apostles had
+ sent for her. Sending for her was not the offence. The failure to tell her
+ what had happened to her husband was the offence&mdash;keeping his fate a
+ secret from her in order that she might be caught in the same net that had
+ been set for her husband by Jehovah. This was the offence. This was the
+ mean and cruel thing to which I objected. Have you answered that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I feel sure that the thing never occurred&mdash;the probability
+ being that Ananias and Sapphira never lived and never died. It is probably
+ a story invented by the early church to make the collection of
+ subscriptions somewhat easier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, we find a man in the nineteenth century, foremost of his
+ fellow-citizens in the affairs of a great nation, upholding this barbaric
+ view of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me beg of you to use your reason "according to the rule suggested by
+ common sense." Let us do what little we can to rescue the reputation, even
+ of a Jewish myth, from the calumnies of Ignorance and Fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, again, I am charged with having given certain words as a quotation
+ from the Bible in which two passages are combined&mdash;"They who believe
+ and are baptized shall be saved, and they who believe not shall be damned.
+ And these shall go away into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and
+ his angels."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were given as two passages. No one for a moment supposed that they
+ would be read together as one, and no one imagined that any one in
+ answering the argument would be led to believe that they were intended as
+ one. Neither was there in this the slightest negligence, as I was
+ answering a man who is perfectly familiar with the Bible. The objection
+ was too small to make. It is hardly large enough to answer&mdash;and had
+ it not been made by you it would not have been answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are not satisfied with what I have said upon the subject of
+ immortality. What I said was this: The idea of immortality, that like a
+ sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of
+ hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was
+ not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born
+ of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists
+ and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You answer this by saying that "the Egyptians were believers in
+ immortality, but were not a people of high intellectual development."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How such a statement tends to answer what I have said, is beyond my powers
+ of discernment. Is there the slightest connection between my statement and
+ your objection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You make still another answer, and say that "the ancient Greeks were a
+ race of perhaps unparalled intellectual capacity, and that notwithstanding
+ that, the most powerful mind of the Greek philosophy, that of Aristotle,
+ had no clear conception of a personal existence in a future state." May I
+ be allowed to ask this simple question: Who has?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are you urging an objection to the dogma of immortality, when you say that
+ a race of unparalled intellectual capacity had no confidence in it? Is
+ that a doctrine believed only by people who lack intellectual capacity? I
+ stated that the idea of immortality was born of love, You reply, "the
+ Egyptians believed it, but they were not intellectual." Is not this a <i>non
+ sequitur?</i> The question is: Were they a loving people?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does history show that there is a moral governor of the world? What
+ witnesses shall we call? The billions of slaves who were paid with blows?&mdash;the
+ countless mothers whose babes were sold? Have we time to examine the
+ Waldenses, the Covenanters of Scotland, the Catholics of Ireland, the
+ victims of St. Bartholomew, of the Spanish Inquisition, all those who have
+ died in flames? Shall we hear the story of Bruno? Shall we ask Servetus?
+ Shall we ask the millions slaughtered by Christian swords in America&mdash;all
+ the victims of ambition, of perjury, of ignorance, of superstition and
+ revenge, of storm and earthquake, of famine, flood and fire?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can all the agonies and crimes, can all the inequalities of the world be
+ answered by reading the "noble Psalm" in which are found the words: "Call
+ upon me in the day of trouble, so I will hear thee, and thou shalt praise
+ me"? Do you prove the truth of these fine words, this honey of Trebizond,
+ by the victims of religious persecution? Shall we hear the sighs and sobs
+ of Siberia?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing. Why should you, from the page of Greek history, with the
+ sponge of your judgment, wipe out all names but one, and tell us that the
+ most powerful mind of the Greek philosophy was that of Aristotle? How did
+ you ascertain this fact? Is it not fair to suppose that you merely
+ intended to say that, according to your view, Aristotle had the most
+ powerful mind among all the philosophers of Greece? I should not call
+ attention to this, except for your criticism on a like remark of mine as
+ to the intellectual superiority of Shakespeare. But if you knew the
+ trouble I have had in finding out your meaning, from your words, you would
+ pardon me for calling attention to a single line from Aristotle:
+ "Clearness is the virtue of style."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me Epicurus seems far greater than Aristotle, He had clearer vision.
+ His cheek was closer to the breast of nature, and he planted his
+ philosophy nearer to the bed-rock of fact. He was practical enough to know
+ that virtue is the means and happiness the end; that the highest
+ philosophy is the art of living. He was wise enough to say that nothing is
+ of the slightest value to man that does not increase or preserve his
+ wellbeing, and he was great enough to know and courageous enough to
+ declare that all the gods and ghosts were monstrous phantoms born of
+ ignorance and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I still insist that human affection is the foundation of the idea of
+ immortality; that love was the first to speak that word, no matter whether
+ they who spoke it were savage or civilized, Egyptian or Greek. But if we
+ are immortal&mdash;if there be another world&mdash;why was it not clearly
+ set forth in the Old Testament? Certainly, the authors of that book had an
+ opportunity to learn it from the Egyptians. Why was it not revealed by
+ Jehovah? Why did he waste his time in giving orders for the consecration
+ of priests&mdash;in saying that they must have sheep's blood put on their
+ right ears and on their right thumbs and on their right big toes? Could a
+ God with any sense of humor give such directions, or watch without huge
+ laughter the performance of such a ceremony? In order to see the beauty,
+ the depth and tenderness of such a consecration, is it essential to be in
+ a state of "reverential calm"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not strange that Christ did not tell of another world distinctly,
+ clearly, without parable, and without the mist of metaphor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact is that the Hindoos, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans
+ taught the immortality of the soul, not as a glittering guess&mdash;a
+ possible perhaps&mdash;but as a clear and demonstrated truth for many
+ centuries before the birth of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Old Testament proves anything, it is that death ends all. And the
+ New Testament, by basing immortality on the resurrection of the body, but
+ "keeps the word of promise to our ear and breaks it to our hope."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my Reply to Dr. Field, I said: "The truth is, that no one can justly be
+ held responsible for his thoughts. The brain thinks without asking our
+ consent; we believe, or disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief
+ is a result. It is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn
+ in spite of him who watches. There is no opportunity of being honest or
+ dishonest in the formation of an opinion. The conclusion is entirely
+ independent of desire. We must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what
+ we wish."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the brain think without our consent? Can we control our thought? Can
+ we tell what we are going to think tomorrow?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we stop thinking?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is belief the result of that which to us is evidence, or is it a product
+ of the will? Can the scales in which reason weighs evidence be turned by
+ the will? Why then should evidence be weighed? If it all depends on the
+ will, what is evidence? Is there any opportunity of being dishonest in the
+ formation of an opinion? Must not the man who forms the opinion know what
+ it is? He cannot knowingly cheat himself. He cannot be deceived with dice
+ that he loads. He cannot play unfairly at solitaire without knowing that
+ he has lost the game. He cannot knowingly weigh with false scales and
+ believe in the correctness of the result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have not even attempted to answer my arguments upon these points, but
+ you have unconsciously avoided them. You did not attack the citadel. In
+ military parlance, you proceeded to "shell the woods." The noise is
+ precisely the same as though every shot had been directed against the
+ enemy's position, but the result is not. You do not seem willing to
+ implicitly trust the correctness of your aim. You prefer to place the
+ target after the shot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question is whether the will knowingly can change evidence, and
+ whether there is any opportunity of being dishonest in the formation of an
+ opinion. You have changed the issue. You have erased the word formation
+ and interpolated the word expression.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us suppose that a man has given an opinion, knowing that it is not
+ based on any fact. Can you say that he has given his opinion? The moment a
+ prejudice is known to be a prejudice, it disappears. Ignorance is the soil
+ in which prejudice must grow. Touched by a ray of light, it dies. The
+ judgment of man may be warped by prejudice and passion, but it cannot be
+ consciously warped. It is impossible for any man to be influenced by a
+ known prejudice, because a known prejudice cannot exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not contending that all opinions have been honestly expressed. What I
+ contend is that when a dishonest opinion has been expressed it is not the
+ opinion that was formed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cases suggested by you are not in point. Fathers are honestly swayed,
+ if really swayed, by love; and queens and judges have pretended to be
+ swayed by the highest motives, by the clearest evidence, in order that
+ they might kill rivals, reap rewards, and gratify revenge. But what has
+ all this to do with the fact that he who watches the scales in which
+ evidence is weighed knows the actual result?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us examine your case: If a father is <i>consciously</i> swayed by his
+ love for his son, and for that reason says that his son is innocent, then
+ he has not expressed his opinion. If he is unconsciously swayed and says
+ that his son is innocent, then he has expressed his opinion. In both
+ instances his opinion was independent of his will; but in the first
+ instance he did not express his opinion. You will certainly see this
+ distinction between the formation and the expression of an opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same argument applies to the man who consciously has a desire to
+ condemn. Such a <i>conscious</i> desire cannot affect the testimony&mdash;cannot
+ affect the opinion. Queen Elizabeth undoubtedly desired the death of Mary
+ Stuart, but this conscious desire could not have been the foundation on
+ which rested Elizabeth's opinion as to the guilt or innocence of her
+ rival. It is barely possible that Elizabeth did not express her real
+ opinion. Do you believe that the English judges in the matter of the
+ Popish Plot gave judgment in accordance with their opinions? Are you
+ satisfied that Napoleon expressed his real opinion when he justified
+ himself for the assassination of the Duc d'Enghien?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you answer these questions in the affirmative, you admit that I am
+ right. If you answer in the negative, you admit that you are wrong. The
+ moment you admit that the opinion formed cannot be changed by expressing a
+ pretended opinion, your argument is turned against yourself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is admitted that prejudice strengthens, weakens and colors evidence;
+ but prejudice is honest. And when one acts knowingly against the evidence,
+ that is not by reason of prejudice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to my views of propriety, it would be unbecoming for me to say
+ that your argument on these questions is "a piece of plausible
+ shallowness." Such language might be regarded as lacking "reverential
+ calm," and I therefore refrain from even characterizing it as plausible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not perfectly apparent that you have changed the issue, and that
+ instead of showing that opinions are creatures of the will, you have
+ discussed the quality of actions? What have corrupt and cruel judgments
+ pronounced by corrupt and cruel judges to do with their real opinions?
+ When a judge forms one opinion and renders another he is called corrupt.
+ The corruption does not consist in forming his opinion, but in rendering
+ one that he did not form. Does a dishonest creditor, who incorrectly adds
+ a number of items making the aggregate too large, necessarily change his
+ opinion as to the relations of numbers? When an error is known, it is not
+ a mistake; but a conclusion reached by a mistake, or by a prejudice, or by
+ both, is a necessary conclusion. He who pretends to come to a conclusion
+ by a mistake which he knows is not a mistake, knows that he has not
+ expressed his real opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can any thing be more illogical than the assertion that because a boy
+ reaches, through negligence in adding figures, a wrong result, that he is
+ accountable for his opinion of the result? If he knew he was negligent,
+ what must his opinion of the result have been?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So with the man who boldly announces that he has discovered the numerical
+ expression of the relation sustained by the diameter to the circumference
+ of a circle. If he is honest in the announcement, then the announcement
+ was caused not by his will but by his ignorance. His will cannot make the
+ announcement true, and he could not by any possibility have supposed that
+ his will could affect the correctness of his announcement. The will of one
+ who thinks that he has invented or discovered what is called perpetual
+ motion, is not at fault. The man, if honest, has been misled; if not
+ honest, he endeavors to mislead others. There is prejudice, and prejudice
+ does raise a clamor, and the intellect is affected and the judgment is
+ darkened and the opinion is deformed; but the prejudice is real and the
+ clamor is sincere and the judgment is upright and the opinion is honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intellect is not always supreme. It is surrounded by clouds. It
+ sometimes sits in darkness. It is often misled&mdash;sometimes, in
+ superstitious fear, it abdicates. It is not always a white light. The
+ passions and prejudices are prismatic&mdash;they color thoughts. Desires
+ betray the judgment and cunningly mislead the will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to think that the fact of responsibility is in danger unless it
+ rests upon the will, and this will you regard as something without a
+ cause, springing into being in some mysterious way, without father or
+ mother, without seed or soil, or rain or light. You must admit that man is
+ a conditioned being&mdash;that he has wants, objects, ends, and aims, and
+ that these are gratified and attained only by the use of means. Do not
+ these wants and these objects have something to do with the will, and does
+ not the intellect have something to do with the means? Is not the will a
+ product? Independently of conditions, can it exist? Is it not necessarily
+ produced? Behind every wish and thought, every dream and fancy, every fear
+ and hope, are there not countless causes? Man feels shame. What does this
+ prove? He pities himself. What does this demonstrate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dark continent of motive and desire has never been explored. In the
+ brain, that wondrous world with one inhabitant, there are recesses dim and
+ dark, treacherous sands and dangerous shores, where seeming sirens tempt
+ and fade; streams that rise in unknown lands from hidden springs, strange
+ seas with ebb and flow of tides, resistless billows urged by storms of
+ flame, profound and awful depths hidden by mist of dreams, obscure and
+ phantom realms where vague and fearful things are half revealed, jungles
+ where passion's tigers crouch, and skies of cloud and blue where fancies
+ fly with painted wings that dazzle and mislead; and the poor sovereign of
+ this pictured world is led by old desires and ancient hates, and stained
+ by crimes of many vanished years, and pushed by hands that long ago were
+ dust, until he feels like some bewildered slave that Mockery has throned
+ and crowned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one pretends that the mind of man is perfect&mdash;that it is not
+ affected by desires, colored by hopes, weakened by fears, deformed by
+ ignorance and distorted by superstition. But all this has nothing to do
+ with the innocence of opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that the Thugs were taught that murder is innocent; but did the
+ teachers believe what they taught? Did the pupils believe the teachers?
+ Did not Jehovah teach that the act that we describe as murder was a duty?
+ Were not his teachings practiced by Moses and Joshua and Jephthah and
+ Samuel and David? Were they honest? But what has all this to do with the
+ point at issue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Society has the right to protect itself, even from honest murderers and
+ conscientious thieves. The belief of the criminal does not disarm society;
+ it protects itself from him as from a poisonous serpent, or from a beast
+ that lives on human flesh. We are under no obligation to stand still and
+ allow ourselves to be murdered by one who honestly thinks that it is his
+ duty to take our lives. And yet according to your argument, we have no
+ right to defend ourselves from honest Thugs. Was Saul of Tarsus a Thug
+ when he persecuted Christians "even unto strange cities"? Is the Thug of
+ India more ferocious than Torquemada, the Thug of Spain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If belief depends upon the will, can all men have correct opinions who
+ will to have them? Acts are good or bad, according to their consequences,
+ and not according to the intentions of the actors. Honest opinions may be
+ wrong, and opinions dishonestly expressed may be right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you mean to say that because passion and prejudice, the reckless
+ "pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores of will and judgment," sway the mind,
+ that the opinions which you have expressed in your Remarks to me are not
+ your opinions? Certainly you will admit that in all probability you have
+ prejudices and passions, and if so, can the opinions that you have
+ expressed, according to your argument, be honest? My lack of confidence in
+ your argument gives me perfect confidence in your candor. You may remember
+ the philosopher who retained his reputation for veracity, in spite of the
+ fact that he kept saying: "There is no truth in man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are only those opinions honest that are formed without any interference of
+ passion, affection, habit or fancy? What would the opinion of a man
+ without passions, affections, or fancies be worth? The alchemist gave up
+ his search for an universal solvent upon being asked in what kind of
+ vessel he expected to keep it when found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be admitted that Biel "shows us how the life of Dante co-operated
+ with his extraordinary natural gifts and capabilities to make him what he
+ was," but does this tend to show that Dante changed his opinions by an act
+ of his will, or that he reached honest opinions by knowingly using false
+ weights and measures?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must admit that the opinions, habits and religions of men depend, at
+ least in some degree, on race, occupation, training and capacity. Is not
+ every thoughtful man compelled to agree with Edgar Fawcett, in whose brain
+ are united the beauty of the poet and the subtlety of the logician,
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Who sees how vice her venom wreaks
+ On the frail babe before it speaks,
+ And how heredity enslaves
+ With ghostly hands that reach from graves"?
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Why do you hold the intellect criminally responsible for opinions, when
+ you admit that it is controlled by the will? And why do you hold the will
+ responsible, when you insist that it is swayed by the passions and
+ affections? But all this has nothing to do with the fact that every
+ opinion has been honestly formed, whether honestly expressed or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one pretends that all governments have been honestly formed and
+ honestly administered. All vices, and some virtues are represented in most
+ nations. In my opinion a republic is far better than a monarchy. The
+ legally expressed will of the people is the only rightful sovereign. This
+ sovereignty, however, does not embrace the realm of thought or opinion. In
+ that world, each human being is a sovereign,&mdash;throned and crowned:
+ One is a majority. The good citizens of that realm give to others all
+ rights that they claim for themselves, and those who appeal to force are
+ the only traitors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The existence of theological despotisms, of God-anointed kings, does not
+ tend to prove that a known prejudice can determine the weight of evidence.
+ When men were so ignorant as to suppose that God would destroy them unless
+ they burned heretics, they lighted the fagots in selfdefence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Feeling as I do that man is not responsible for his opinions, I
+ characterized persecution for opinion's sake as infamous. So, it is
+ perfectly clear to me, that it would be the infamy of infamies for an
+ infinite being to create vast numbers of men knowing that they would
+ suffer eternal pain. If an infinite God creates a man on purpose to damn
+ him, or creates him knowing that he will be damned, is not the crime the
+ same? We make mistakes and failures because we are finite; but can you
+ conceive of any excuse for an infinite being who creates failures? If you
+ had the power to change, by a wish, a statue into a human being, and you
+ knew that this being would die without a "change of heart" and suffer
+ endless pain, what would you do?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can you think of any excuse for an earthly father, who, having wealth,
+ learning and leisure, leaves his own children in ignorance and darkness?
+ Do you believe that a God of infinite wisdom, justice and love, called
+ countless generations of men into being, knowing that they would be used
+ as fuel for the eternal fire?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many will regret that you did not give your views upon the main questions&mdash;the
+ principal issues&mdash;involved, instead of calling attention, for the
+ most part, to the unimportant. If men were discussing the causes and
+ results of the Franco-Prussian war, it would hardly be worth while for a
+ third person to interrupt the argument for the purpose of calling
+ attention to a misspelled word in the terms of surrender.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we admit that man is responsible for his opinions and his thoughts, and
+ that his will is perfectly free, still these admissions do not even tend
+ to prove the inspiration of the Bible, or the "divine scheme of
+ redemption."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, the days of the supernatural are numbered. The dogma of
+ inspiration must be abandoned. As man advances,&mdash;as his intellect
+ enlarges,&mdash;as his knowledge increases,&mdash;as his ideals become
+ nobler, the bibles and creeds will lose their authority&mdash;the
+ miraculous will be classed with the impossible, and the idea of special
+ providence will be discarded. Thousands of religions have perished,
+ innumerable gods have died, and why should the religion of our time be
+ exempt from the common fate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Creeds cannot remain permanent in a world in which knowledge increases.
+ Science and superstition cannot peaceably occupy the same brain. This is
+ an age of investigation, of discovery and thought. Science destroys the
+ dogmas that mislead the mind and waste the energies of man. It points out
+ the ends that can be accomplished; takes into consideration the limits of
+ our faculties; fixes our attention on the affairs of this world, and
+ erects beacons of warning on the dangerous shores. It seeks to ascertain
+ the conditions of health, to the end that life may be enriched and
+ lengthened, and it reads with a smile this passage:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And God-wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his
+ body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases
+ departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation,
+ challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It
+ seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the
+ human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a
+ foundation for morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all
+ books it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to
+ civilize the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and' heart. It
+ refines through art, music and the drama&mdash;giving voice and expression
+ to every noble thought. The mysterious does not excite the feeling of
+ worship, but the ambition to understand. It does not pray&mdash;it works.
+ It does not answer inquiry with the malicious cry of "blasphemy." Its
+ feelings are not hurt by contradiction, neither does it ask to be
+ protected by law from the laughter of heretics. It has taught man that he
+ cannot walk beyond the horizon&mdash;that the questions of origin and
+ destiny cannot be answered&mdash;that an infinite personality cannot be
+ comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of any system of
+ religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility be
+ established&mdash;such a religion not being within the domain of evidence.
+ And, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here&mdash;that all our
+ obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness,
+ is the highest possible wisdom; and that "man believes not what he would,
+ but what he can."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And after all, it may be that "to ride an unbroken horse with the reins
+ thrown upon his neck"&mdash;as you charge me with doing&mdash;gives a
+ greater variety of sensations, a keener delight, and a better prospect of
+ winning the race than to sit solemnly astride of a dead one, in "a deep
+ reverential calm," with the bridle firmly in your hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again assuring you of my profound respect, I remain, Sincerely yours,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0011" id="link0011">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ROME OR REASON.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Col. Ingersoll and Cardinal Manning.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ The Gladstone-Ingersoll Controversy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0012" id="link0012">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CHURCH ITS OWN WITNESS, By Cardinal Manning.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE Vatican Council, in its Decree on Faith has these words: "The Church
+ itself, by its marvelous propagation, its eminent sanctity, its
+ inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, its catholic unity and
+ invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual motive of credibility, and
+ an irrefragable witness of its own Divine legation."* Its Divine Founder
+ said: "I am the light of the world;" and, to His Apostles, He said also,
+ "Ye are the light of the world," and of His Church He added, "A city
+ seated on a hill cannot be hid." The Vatican Council says, "The Church is
+ its own witness." My purpose is to draw out this assertion more fully.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "Const. Dogm. de Fide Catholica, c. iii.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ These words affirm that the Church is self-evident, as light is to the
+ eye, and through sense, to the intellect. Next to the sun at noonday,
+ there is nothing in the world more manifest than the one visible Universal
+ Church. Both the faith and the infidelity of the world bear witness to it.
+ It is loved and hated, trusted and feared, served and assaulted, honored
+ and blasphemed: it is Christ or Antichrist, the Kingdom of God or the
+ imposture of Satan. It pervades the civilized world. No man and no nation
+ can ignore it, none can be indifferent to it. Why is all this? How is its
+ existence to be accounted for?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me suppose that I am an unbeliever in Christianity, and that some
+ friend should make me promise to examine the evidence to show that
+ Christianity is a Divine revelation; I should then sift and test the
+ evidence as strictly as if it were in a court of law, and in a cause of
+ life and death; my will would be in suspense: it would in no way control
+ the process of my intellect. If it had any inclination from the
+ equilibrium, it would be towards mercy and hope; but this would not add a
+ feather's weight to the evidence, nor sway the intellect a hair's breadth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the examination has been completed, and my intellect convinced, the
+ evidence being sufficient to prove that Christianity is a divine
+ revelation, nevertheless I am not yet a Christian. All this sifting brings
+ me to the conclusion of a chain of reasoning; but I am not yet a believer.
+ The last act of reason has brought me to the brink of the first act of
+ faith. They are generically distinct and separable. The acts of reason are
+ intellectual, and jealous of the interference of the will. The act of
+ faith is an imperative act of the will, founded on and justified by the
+ process and conviction of the intellect. Hitherto I have been a critic:
+ henceforward, if I will, I become a disciple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may here be objected that no man can so far suspend the inclination of
+ the will when the question is, has God indeed spoken to man or no? is the
+ revealed law of purity, generosity, perfection, divine, or only the poetry
+ of imagination? Can a man be indifferent between two such sides of the
+ problem? Will he not desire the higher and better side to be true? and if
+ he desire, will he not incline to the side that he desires to find true?
+ Can a moral being be absolutely indifferent between two such issues? and
+ can two such issues be equally attractive to a moral agent? Can it be
+ indifferent and all the same to us whether God has made Himself and His
+ will known to us or not? Is there no attraction in light, no repulsion in
+ darkness? Does not the intrinsic and eternal distinction of good and evil
+ make itself felt in spite of the will? Are we not responsible to "receive
+ the truth in the love of it?" Nevertheless, evidence has its own limits
+ and quantities, and cannot be made more or less by any act of the will.
+ And yet, what is good or bad, high or mean, lovely or hateful, ennobling
+ or degrading, must attract or repel men as they are better or worse in
+ their moral sense; for an equilibrium between good and evil, to God or to
+ man, is impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The last act of my reason, then, is distinct from my first act of faith
+ precisely in this: so long as I was uncertain I suspended the inclination
+ of my will, as an act of fidelity to conscience and of loyalty to truth;
+ but the process once complete, and the conviction once attained, my will
+ imperatively constrains me to believe, and I become a disciple of a Divine
+ revelation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My friend next tells me that there are Christian Scriptures, and I go
+ through precisely the same process of critical examination and final
+ conviction, the last act of reasoning preceding, as before, the first act
+ of faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He then tells me that there is a Church claiming to be divinely founded,
+ divinely guarded, and divinely guided in its custody of Christianity and
+ of the Christian Scriptures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once more I have the same twofold process of reasoning and of believing to
+ go through.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, however, this difference in the subject-matter: Christianity is
+ an order of supernatural truth appealing intellectually to my reason; the
+ Christian Scriptures are voiceless, and need a witness. They cannot prove
+ their own mission, much less their own authenticity or inspiration. But
+ the Church is visible to the eye, audible to the ear, self-manifesting and
+ self-asserting: I cannot escape from it. If I go to the east, it is there;
+ if I go to the west, it is there also. If I stay at home, it is before me,
+ seated on the hill; if I turn away from it, I am surrounded by its light.
+ It pursues me and calls to me. I cannot deny its existence; I cannot be
+ indifferent to it; I must either listen to it or willfully stop my ears; I
+ must heed it or defy it, love it or hate it. But my first attitude towards
+ it is to try it with forensic strictness, neither pronouncing it to be
+ Christ nor Antichrist till I have tested its origin, claim, and character.
+ Let us take down the case in short-hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. It says that it interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world.
+ In some it holds the whole nation in its unity, in others it holds fewer;
+ but in all it is present, visible, audible, naturalized, and known as the
+ one Catholic Church, a name that none can appropriate. Though often
+ claimed and controversially assumed, none can retain it; it falls off. The
+ world knows only one Catholic Church, and always restores the name to the
+ right owner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. It is not a national body, but extra-national, accused of its foreign
+ relations and foreign dependence. It is international, and independent in
+ a supernational unity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. In faith, divine worship, sacred ceremonial, discipline, government,
+ from the highest to the lowest, it is the same in every place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. It speaks all languages in the civilized world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. It is obedient to one Head, outside of all nations, except one only;
+ and in that nation, his headship is not national but world-wide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. The world-wide sympathy of the Church in all lands with its Head has
+ been manifested in our days, and before our eyes, by a series of public
+ assemblages in Rome, of which nothing like or second to it can be found.
+ In 1854, 350 Bishops of all nations surrounded their Head when he defined
+ the Immaculate Conception. In 1862, 400 Bishops assembled at the
+ canonization of the Martyrs of Japan. In 1867, 500 Bishops came to keep
+ the eighteenth centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom. In 1870, 700 Bishops
+ assembled in the Vatican Council. On the Feast of the Epiphany, 1870, the
+ Bishops of thirty nations during two whole hours made profession of faith
+ in their own languages, kneeling before their head. Add to this, that in
+ 1869, in the sacerdotal jubilee of Pius IX., Rome was filled for months by
+ pilgrims from all lands in Europe and beyond the sea, from the Old World
+ and from the New, bearing all manner of gifts and oblations to the Head of
+ the Universal Church. To this, again, must be added the world-wide outcry
+ and protest of all the Catholic unity against the seizure and sacrilege of
+ September, 1870, when Rome was taken by the Italian Revolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. All this came to pass not only by reason of the great love of the
+ Catholic world for Pius IX., but because they revered him as the successor
+ of St. Peter and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. For that undying reason the
+ same events have been reproduced in the time of Leo XIII. In the early
+ months of this year Rome was once more filled with pilgrims of all
+ nations, coming in thousands as representatives of millions in all
+ nations, to celebrate the sacerdotal jubilee of the Sovereign Pontiff. The
+ courts of the Vatican could not find room for the multitude of gifts and
+ offerings of every kind which were sent from all quarters of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. These things are here said, not because of any other importance, but
+ because they set forth in the most visible and self-evident way the living
+ unity and the luminous universality of the One Catholic and Roman Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. What has thus far been said is before our eyes at this hour. It is no
+ appeal to history, but to a visible and palpable fact. Men may explain it
+ as they will; deny it, they cannot. They see the Head of the Church year
+ by year speaking to the nations of the world; treating with Empires,
+ Republics and Governments. There is no other man on earth that can so bear
+ himself. Neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can such a voice
+ go forth to which rulers and people listen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the century of revolutions. Rome has in our time been besieged
+ three times; three Popes have been driven out of it, two have been shut up
+ in the Vatican. The city is now full of the Revolution. The whole Church
+ has been tormented by Falck laws, Mancini laws, and Crispi laws. An
+ unbeliever in Germany said some years ago, "The net is now drawn so tight
+ about the Church, that if it escapes this time I will believe in it."
+ Whether he believes, or is even alive now to believe, I cannot say.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing thus far has been said as proof. The visible, palpable facts,
+ which are at this moment before the eyes of all men, speak for themselves.
+ There is one, and only one, worldwide unity of which these things can be
+ said. It is a fact and a phenomenon for which an intelligible account must
+ be rendered. If it be only a human system built up by the intellect, will
+ and energy of men, let the adversaries prove it. The burden is upon them;
+ and they will have more to do as we go on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thus far we have rested upon the evidence of sense and fact. We must now
+ go on to history and reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every religion and every religious body known to history has varied from
+ itself and broken up. Brahminism has given birth to Buddhism; Mahometanism
+ is parted into the Arabian and European Khalifates; the Greek schism into
+ the Russian, Constantinopolitan, and Bulgarian autocephalous fragment;
+ Protestaritism into its multitudinous diversities. All have departed from
+ their original type, and all are continually developing new and
+ irreconcilable, intellectual and ritualistic, diversities and repulsions.
+ How is it that, with all diversities of language, civilization, race,
+ interest, and conditions, social and political, including persecution and
+ warfare, the Catholic nations are at this day, even when in warfare, in
+ unchanged unity of faith, communion, worship and spiritual sympathy with
+ each other and with their Head? This needs a rational explanation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said in answer, endless divisions have come out of the Church,
+ from Arius to Photius, and from Photius to Luther.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, but they all came out. There is the difference. They did not remain
+ in the Church, corrupting the faith. They came out, and ceased to belong
+ to the Catholic unity, as a branch broken from a tree ceases to belong to
+ the tree. But the identity of the tree remains the same. A branch is not a
+ tree, nor a tree a branch. A tree may lose branches, but it rests upon its
+ root, and renews its loss. Not so the religions, so to call them, that
+ have broken away from unity. Not one has retained its members or its
+ doctrines. Once separated from the sustaining unity of the Church, all
+ separations lose their spiritual cohesion, and then their intellectual
+ identity. <i>Ramus procisus arescit</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the present it is enough to say that no human legislation, authority
+ or constraint can ever create internal unity of intellect and will; and
+ that the diversities and contradictions generated by all human systems
+ prove the absence of Divine authority. Variations or contradictions are
+ proof of the absence of a Divine mission to mankind. All natural causes
+ run to disintegration. Therefore, they can render no account of the
+ world-wide unity of the One Universal Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such, then, are the facts before our eyes at this day. We will seek out
+ the origin of the body or system called the Catholic Church, and pass at
+ once to its outset eighteen hundred years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I affirm, then, three things: (1) First, that no adequate account can be
+ given of this undeniable fact from natural causes; (2) that the history of
+ the Catholic Church demands causes above nature; and (3) that it has
+ always claimed for itself a Divine origin and Divine authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I. And, first, before we examine what it was and what it has done, we will
+ recall to mind what was the world in the midst of which it arose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most comprehensive and complete description of the old world, before
+ Christianity came in upon it, is given in the first chapter of the Epistle
+ to the Romans. Mankind had once the knowledge of God: that knowledge was
+ obscured by the passions of sense; in the darkness of the human intellect,
+ with the light of nature still before them, the nations worshiped the
+ creature&mdash;that is, by pantheism, polytheism, idolatry; and, having
+ lost the knowledge of God and of His perfections, they lost the knowledge
+ of their own nature and of its laws, even of the natural and rational
+ laws, which thenceforward ceased to guide, restrain, or govern them. They
+ became perverted and inverted with every possible abuse, defeating the end
+ and destroying the powers of creation. The lights of nature were put out,
+ and the world rushed headlong into confusions, of which the beasts that
+ perish were innocent. This is analytically the history of all nations but
+ one. A line of light still shone from Adam to Enoch, from Enoch to
+ Abraham, to whom the command was given, "Walk before Me and be perfect."
+ And it ran on from Abraham to Caiaphas, who crucified the founder of
+ Christianity. Through all anthropomorphisms of thought and language this
+ line of light still passed inviolate and inviolable. But in the world, on
+ either side of that radiant stream, the whole earth was dark. The
+ intellectual and moral state of the Greek world may be measured in its
+ highest excellence in Athens; and of the Roman world in Rome. The 'state
+ of Athens&mdash;its private, domestic, and public morality&mdash;may be
+ seen in Aristophanes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The state of Rome is visible in Juvenal, and in the fourth book of St.
+ Augustine's "City of God." There was only one evil wanting-. The world was
+ not Atheist. Its polytheism was the example and the warrant of all forms
+ of moral abominations. Imitary quod colis plunged the nations in crime.
+ Their theology was their degradation; their text-book of an elaborate
+ corruption of intellect and will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity came in "the fullness of time." What that fullness may mean,
+ is one of the mysteries of times and seasons which it is not for us to
+ know. But one motive for the long delay of four thousand years is not far
+ to seek. It gave time, full and ample, for the utmost development and
+ consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of which the intellect and
+ will of man are capable. The four great empires were each of them the
+ concentration of a supreme effort of human power. The second inherited
+ from the first, the third from both, the fourth from all three. It was, as
+ it was foretold or described, as a beast, "exceeding terrible; his teeth
+ and claws were of iron; he devoured and broke in pieces; and the rest he
+ stamped upon with his feet." * The empire of man over man was never so
+ widespread, so absolute, so hardened into one organized mass, as in
+ Imperial Rome. The world had never seen a military power so disciplined,
+ irresistible, invincible; a legislation so just, so equitable, so strong
+ in its execution; a government so universal, so local, so minute. It
+ seemed to be imperishable. Rome was called the eternal. The religions of
+ all nations were enshrined in Dea Roma; adopted, practiced openly, and
+ taught. They were all <i>religiones licitae</i>, known to the law; not
+ tolerated only, but recognized. The theologies of Egypt, Greece, and of
+ the Latin world, met in an empyreum, consecrated and guarded by the
+ Imperial law, and administered by the Pontifex Maximus. No fanaticism ever
+ surpassed the religious cruelties of Rome.. Add to all this the colluvies
+ of false philosophies of every land, and of every date. They both blinded
+ and hardened the intellect of public opinion and of private men against
+ the invasion of anything except contempt, and hatred of both the
+ philosophy of sophists and of the religion of the people. Add to all this
+ the sensuality of the most refined and of the grossest luxury the world
+ had ever seen, and a moral confusion and corruption which violated every
+ law of nature.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Daniel, vii. 19.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The god of this world had built his city. From foundation to parapet,
+ everything that the skill and power of man could do had been done without
+ stint of means or limit of will. The Divine hand was stayed, or rather, as
+ St. Augustine says, an unsurpassed natural greatness was the reward of
+ certain natural virtues, degraded as they were in unnatural abominations.
+ Rome was the climax of the power of man without God, the apotheosis of the
+ human will, the direct and supreme antagonist of God in His own world. In
+ this the fullness of time was come. Man built all this for himself.
+ Certainly, man could not also build the City of God. They are not the work
+ of one and the same architect, who capriciously chose to build first the
+ city of confusion, suspending for a time his skill and power to build some
+ day the City of God. Such a hypothesis is folly. Of two things, one.
+ Disputers must choose one or the other. Both cannot be asserted, and the
+ assertion needs no answer&mdash;it refutes itself. So much for the first
+ point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. In the reign of Augustus, and in a remote and powerless Oriental race,
+ a Child was born in a stable of a poor Mother. For thirty years He lived a
+ hidden life; for three years He preached the Kingdom of God, and gave laws
+ hitherto unknown to men. He died in ignominy upon the Cross; on the third
+ day He rose again; and after forty days He was seen no more. This unknown
+ Man created the world-wide unity of intellect and will which is visible to
+ the eye, and audible, in all languages, to the ear. It is in harmony with
+ the reason and moral nature of all nations, in all ages, to this day. What
+ proportion is there between the cause and the effect? What power was there
+ in this isolated Man? What unseen virtues went out of Him to change the
+ world? For change the world He did; and that not in the line or on the
+ level of nature as men had corrupted it, but in direct contradiction to
+ all that was then supreme in the world. He taught the dependence of the
+ intellect against its self-trust, the submission of the will against its
+ license, the subjugation of the passions by temperate control or by
+ absolute subjection against their willful indulgence. This was to reverse
+ what men believed to be the laws of nature: to make water climb upward and
+ fire to point downward. He taught mortification of the lusts of the flesh,
+ contempt of the lusts of the eyes, and hatred of the pride of life. What
+ hope was there that such a teacher should convert imperial Rome? that such
+ a doctrine should exorcise the fullness of human pride and lust? Yet so it
+ has come to pass; and how? Twelve men more obscure than Himself,
+ absolutely without authority or influence of this world, preached
+ throughout the empire and beyond it. They asserted two facts: the one,
+ that God had been made man; the other, that He died and rose again. What
+ could be more incredible? To the Jews the unity and spirituality of God
+ were axioms of reason and faith; to the Gentiles, however cultured, the
+ resurrection of the flesh was impossible. The Divine Person Who had died
+ and risen could not be called in evidence as the chief witness. He could
+ not be produced in court. Could anything be more suspicious if credible,
+ or less credible even if He were there to say so? All that they could do
+ was to say, "We knew Him for three years, both before His death and after
+ He rose from the dead. If you will believe us, you will believe what we
+ say. If you will not believe us, we can say no more. He is not here, but
+ in heaven. We cannot call him down." It is true, as we read, that Peter
+ cured a lame man at the gate of the Temple. The Pharisees could not deny
+ it, but they would not believe what Peter said; they only told him to hold
+ his tongue. And yet thousands in one day in Jerusalem believed in the
+ Incarnation and the Resurrection; and when the Apostles were scattered by
+ persecution, wherever they went men believed their word. The most intense
+ persecution was from the Jews, the people of faith and of Divine
+ traditions. In the name of God and of religion they stoned Stephen, and
+ sent Saul to persecute at Damascus. More than this, they stirred up the
+ Romans in every place. As they had forced Pilate to crucify Jesus of
+ Nazareth, so they swore to slay Paul. And yet, in spite of all, the faith
+ spread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is true, indeed, that the Empire of Alexander, the spread of the
+ Hellenistic Greek, the prevalence of Greek in Rome itself, the Roman roads
+ which made the Empire traversable, the Roman peace which sheltered the
+ preachers of the faith in the outset of their work, gave them facilities
+ to travel and to be understood. But these were only external facilities,
+ which in no way rendered more credible or more acceptable the voice of
+ penance and mortification, or the mysteries of the faith, which was
+ immutably "to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness."
+ It was in changeless opposition to nature as man had marred it; but it was
+ in absolute harmony with nature as God had made it to His own likeness.
+ Its power was its persuasiveness; and its persuasiveness was in its
+ conformity to the highest and noblest aspirations and aims of the soul in
+ man. The master-key so long lost was found at last; and its conformity to
+ the wards of the lock was its irrefragable witness to its own mission and
+ message.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But if it is beyond belief that Christianity in its outset made good its
+ foothold by merely human causes and powers, how much more does this become
+ incredible in every age as we come down from the first century to the
+ nineteenth, and from the Apostolic mission to the world-wide Church,
+ Catholic and Roman, at this day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not only did the world in the fullness of its power give to the Christian
+ faith no help to root or to spread itself, but it wreaked all the fullness
+ of its power upon it to uproot and to destroy it, Of the first thirty
+ Pontiffs in Rome, twenty-nine were martyred. Ten successive persecutions,
+ or rather one universal and continuous persecution of two hundred years,
+ with ten more bitter excesses of enmity in every province of the Empire,
+ did all that man can do to extinguish the Christian name. The Christian
+ name may be blotted out here and there in blood, but the Christian faith
+ can nowhere be slain. It is inscrutable, and beyond the reach of man. In
+ nothing is the blood of the martyrs more surely the seed of the faith.
+ Every martyrdom was a witness to the faith, and the ten persecutions were
+ the sealing of the work of the twelve Apostles. The destroyer defeated
+ himself. Christ crucified was visibly set forth before all the nations,
+ the world was a Calvary, and the blood of the martyrs preached in every
+ tongue the Passion of Jesus Christ. The world did its worst, and ceased
+ only for weariness and conscious defeat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came the peace, and with peace the peril of the Church. The world
+ outside had failed; the world inside began to work. It no longer destroyed
+ life; it perverted the intellect, and, through intellectual perversion,
+ assailed the faith at its centre, The Angel of light preached heresy. The
+ Baptismal Creed was assailed all along the line; Gnosticism assailed the
+ Father-and Creator of all things; Arianism, the God-head of the Son;
+ Nestorianism, the unity of His person; Monophysites, the two natures;
+ Monothelites, the divine and human wills; Macedonians, the person of the
+ Holy Ghost So throughout the centuries, from Nic&aelig;a to the Vatican,
+ every article has been in succession perverted by heresy and defined by
+ the Church. But of this we shall speak hereafter. If the human intellect
+ could fasten its perversions on the Chris tian faith, it would have done
+ so long ago; and if the Christian faith had been guarded by no more than
+ human intellect, it would long ago have been disintegrated, as we see in
+ every religion outside the unity of the one Catholic Church. There is no
+ example in which fragmentary Christianities have not departed from their
+ original type. No human system is immutable; no thing human is changeless.
+ The human intellect, therefore, can give no sufficient account of the
+ identity of the Catholic faith in all places and in all ages by any of its
+ own natural processes or powers. The force of this argument is immensely
+ increased when we trace the tradition of the faith through the nineteen
+ OEcumenical Councils which, with one continuous intelligence, have guarded
+ and unfolded the deposit of faith, defining every truth as it has been
+ successively assailed, in absolute harmony and unity of progression.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What the Senate is to your great Republic, or the Parliament to our
+ English monarchy, such are the nineteen Councils of the Church, with this
+ only difference: the secular Legislatures must meet year by year with
+ short recesses; Councils have met on the average once in a century. The
+ reason of this is that the mutabilities of national life, which are as the
+ water-floods, need constant remedies; the stability of the Church seldom
+ needs new legislation. The faith needs no definition except in rare
+ intervals of periodical intellectual disorder. The discipline of the
+ Church reigns by an universal common law which seldom needs a change, and
+ by local laws which are provided on the spot. Nevertheless, the
+ legislation of the Church, the <i>Corpus Juris</i>, or <i>Canon Law</i>,
+ is a creation of wisdom and justice, to which no Statutes at large or
+ Imperial pandects can bear comparison. Human intellect has reached its
+ climax in jurisprudence, but the world-wide and secular legislation of the
+ Church has a higher character. How the Christian law corrected, elevated,
+ and completed the Imperial law, may be seen in a learned and able work by
+ an American author, far from the Catholic faith, but in the main just and
+ accurate in his facts and arguments&mdash;the <i>Gesta Christi</i> of
+ Charles Loring Brace. Water cannot rise above its source, and if the
+ Church by mere human wisdom corrected and perfected the Imperial law, its
+ source must be higher than the sources of the world. This makes a heavy
+ demand on our credulity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Starting from St. Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some 258 Pontiffs
+ claiming to be, and recognized by the whole Catholic unity as, successors
+ of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ. To them has been rendered in
+ every age not only the external obedience of outward submission, but the
+ internal obedience of faith. They have borne the onset of the nations who
+ destroyed Imperial Rome, and the tyranny of heretical Emperors of
+ Byzantium; and, worse than this, the alternate despotism and patronage of
+ the Emperors of the West, and the substraction of obedience in the great
+ Western schisms, when the unity of the Church and the authority of its
+ Head were, as men thought, gone for ever. It was the last assault&mdash;the
+ forlorn hope of the gates of hell. Every art of destruction had been
+ tried: martyrdom, heresy, secularity, schism; at last, two, and three, and
+ four claimants, or, as the world says, rival Popes, were set up, that men
+ might believe that St. Peter had no longer a successor, and our Lord no
+ Vicar, upon earth; for, though all might be illegitimate, only one could
+ be the lawful and true Head of the Church. Was it only by the human power
+ of man that the unity, external and internal, which for fourteen hundred
+ years had been supreme, was once more restored in the Council of
+ Constance, never to be broken again? The succession of the English
+ monarchy has been, indeed, often broken, and always restored, in these
+ thousand years. But here is a monarchy of eighteen hundred years,
+ powerless in worldly force or support, claiming and receiving not only
+ outward allegiance, but inward unity of intellect and will. If any man
+ tell us that these two phenomena are on the same level of merely human
+ causes, it is too severe a tax upon our natural reason to believe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the inadequacy of human causes to account for the universality, unity,
+ and immutability of the Catholic Church, will stand out more visibly if we
+ look at the intellectual and moral revolution which Christianity has
+ wrought in the world and upon mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first effect of Christianity was to fill the world with the true
+ knowledge of the One True God, and to destroy utterly all idols, not by
+ fire but by light. Before the Light of the world no false god and no
+ polytheism could stand. The unity and spirituality of God swept away all
+ theogonies and theologies of the first four thousand years. The stream of
+ light which descended from the beginning expanded into a radiance, and the
+ radiance into a flood, which illuminated all nations, as it had been
+ foretold, "The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the
+ covering waters of the sea;" "And idols shall be utterly destroyed."* In
+ this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was revealed to men their own
+ relation to a Creator as of sons to a father. The Greeks called the chief
+ of the gods <i>Zeus Pater</i>, and the Latins <i>Jupiter</i>; but neither
+ realized the dependence and love of sonship as revealed by the Founder of
+ Christianity.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Isaias, xi. 9-11, 18.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The monotheism of the world comes down from a primeval and Divine source.
+ Polytheism is the corruption of men and of nations. Yet in the
+ multiplicity of all polytheisms, ont supreme Deity was always recognized.
+ The Divine unity was imperishable. Polytheism is of human imagination: it
+ is of men's manufacture. The deification of nature and passions and heroes
+ had filled the world with an elaborate and tenacious superstition,
+ surrounded by reverence, fear, religion, and awe. Every perversion of what
+ is good in man surrounded it with authority; everything that is evil in
+ man guarded it with jealous care. Against this world-wide and imperious
+ demon-ology the science of one God, all holy and supreme, advanced with
+ resistless force. Beelzebub is not divided against himself; and if
+ polytheism is not Divine, monotheism must be. The overthrow of idolatry
+ and demonology was the mastery of forces that are above nature. This
+ conclusion is enough for our present purpose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A second visible effect of Christianity of which nature cannot offer any
+ adequate cause is to be found in the domestic life of the Christian world.
+ In some nations the existence of marriage was not so much as recognized.
+ In others, if recognized, it was dishonored by profuse concubinage. Even
+ in Israel, the most advanced nation, the law of divorce was permitted for
+ the hardness of their hearts. Christianity republished the primitive law
+ by which marriage unites only one man and one woman indissolubly in a
+ perpetual contract. It raised their mutual and perpetual contract to a
+ sacrament. This at one blow condemned all other relations between man and
+ woman, all the legal gradations of the Imperial law, and all forms and
+ pleas of divorce. Beyond this the spiritual legislation of the Church
+ framed most elaborate tables of consanguinity and affinity, prohibiting
+ all marriages between persons in certain degrees of kinship or relation.
+ This law has created the purity and peace of domestic life. Neither the
+ Greek nor the Roman world had any true conception of a home. The <i>Eoria</i>
+ or Vesta was a sacred tradition guarded by vestals like a temple worship.
+ It was not a law and a power in the homes of the people. Christianity, by
+ enlarging the circles of prohibition within which men and women were as
+ brothers and sisters, has created the home with all its purities and
+ safeguards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such a law of unity and indissolubility, encompassed by a multitude of
+ prohibitions, no mere human legislation could impose on the the passions
+ and will of mankind. And yet the Imperial laws gradually yielded to its
+ resistless pressure, and incorporated it in its world-wide legislation.
+ The passions and practices of four thousand years were against the change;
+ yet it was accomplished, and it reigns inviolate to this day, though the
+ relaxations of schism in the East and the laxities of the West have
+ revived the abuse of divorces, and have partially abolished the wise and
+ salutary prohibitions which guard the homes of the faithful. These
+ relaxations prove that all natural forces have been, and are, hostile to
+ the indissoluble law of Christian marriage. Certainly, then, it was not by
+ natural forces that the Sacrament of Matrimony and the legislation
+ springing from it were enacted. If these are restraints of human liberty
+ and license, either they do not spring from nature, or they have had a
+ supernatural cause whereby they exist. It was this that redeemed woman
+ from the traditional degradation in which the world had held her. The
+ condition of women in Athens and in Rome&mdash;which may be taken as the
+ highest points of civilization&mdash;is too well known to need recital.
+ Women had no rights, no property, no independence. Plato looked upon them
+ as State property; Aristotle as chattels; the Greeks wrote of them as [&mdash;Greek&mdash;].
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They were the prey, the sport, the slaves of man. Even in Israel, though
+ they were raised incomparably higher than in the Gentile world, they were
+ far below the dignity and authority of Christian women. Libanius, the
+ friend of Julian, the Apostate, said, "O ye gods of Greece, how great are
+ the women of the Christians!" Whence came the elevation of womanhood? Not
+ from the ancient civilization, for it degraded them; not from Israel, for
+ among the Jews the highest state of womanhood was the marriage state. The
+ daughter of Jepthe went into the mountains to mourn not her death but her
+ virginity. The marriage state in the Christian world, though holy and
+ good, is not the highest state. The state of virginity unto death is the
+ highest condition of man and woman. But this is above the law of nature.
+ It belongs to a higher order. And this life of virginity, in repression of
+ natural passion and lawful instinct, is both above and against the
+ tendencies of human nature. It begins in a mortification, and ends in a
+ mastery, over the movements and ordinary laws of human nature. Who will
+ ascribe this to natural causes? and, if so, why did it not appear in the
+ first four thousand years? And when has it ever appeared except in a
+ handful of vestal virgins, or in Oriental recluses, with what reality
+ history shows? An exception proves a rule. No one will imagine that a life
+ of chastity is impossible to nature; but the restriction is a repression
+ of nature which individuals may acquire, but the multitude have never
+ attained. A religion which imposes chastity on the unmarried, and upon its
+ priesthood, and upon the multitudes of women in every age who devote
+ themselves to the service of One Whom they have never seen, is a
+ mortification of nature in so high a degree as to stand out as a fact and
+ a phenomenon, of which mere natural causes afford no adequate solution.
+ Its existence, not in a handful out of the millions of the world, but its
+ prevalence and continuity in multitudes scattered throughout the Christian
+ world, proves the presence of a cause higher than the laws of nature. So
+ true is this, that jurists teach that the three vows of chastity, poverty,
+ and obedience are contrary to "the policy of the law," that is, to the
+ interests of the commonwealth, which desires the multiplication,
+ enrichment, and liberty of its members.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To what has been said may be added the change wrought by Christianity upon
+ the social, political, and international relations of the world. The root
+ of this ethical change, private and public, is the Christian home. The
+ authority of parents, the obedience of children, the love of brotherhood,
+ are the three active powers which have raised the society of man above the
+ level of the old world. Israel was head and shoulders above the world
+ around it; but Christendom is high above Israel. The new Commandment of
+ brotherly love, and the Sermon on the Mount, have wrought a revolution,
+ both in private and public life. From this come the laws of justice and
+ sympathy which bind together the nations of the Christian world. In the
+ old world, even the most refined races, worshiped by our modern
+ philosophers, held and taught that man could hold property in man. In its
+ chief cities there were more slaves than free men. Who has taught the
+ equality of men before the law, and extinguished the impious thought that
+ man can hold property in man? It was no philosopher: even Aristotle taught
+ that a slave was [&mdash;Greek&mdash;]. It was no lawgiver, for all taught
+ the lawfulness of slavery till Christianity denied it. The Christian law
+ has taught that man can lawfully sell his labor, but that he cannot
+ lawfully be sold, or sell himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The necessity of being brief, the impossibility of drawing out the picture
+ of the old world, its profound immoralities, its unimaginable cruelties,
+ compels me to argue with my right hand tied behind me. I can do no more
+ than point again to Mr. Brace's "Gesta Christi," or to Dr. Dollinger's
+ "Gentile and Jew," as witnesses to the facts which I have stated or
+ implied. No one who has not read such books, or mastered their contents by
+ original study, can judge of the force of the assertion that Christianity
+ has reformed the world by direct antagonism to the human will, and by a
+ searching and firm repression of human passion. It has ascended the stream
+ of human license, <i>contra ictum fluminis</i>, by a power mightier than
+ nature, and by laws of a higher order than the relaxations of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before Christianity came on earth, the civilization of man by merely
+ natural force had culminated. It could not rise above its source; all that
+ it could do was done; and the civilization in every race and empire had
+ ended in decline and corruption. The old civilization was not regenerated.
+ It passed away to give place to a new. But the new had a higher source,
+ nobler laws and supernatural powers. The highest excellence of men and of
+ nations is the civilization of Christianity. The human race has ascended
+ into what we call Christendom, that is, into the new creation of charity
+ and justice among men. Christendom was created by the worldwide Church as
+ we see it before our eyes at this day. Philosophers and statesmen believe
+ it to be the work of their own hands: they did not make it; but they have
+ for three hundred years been unmaking it by reformations and revolutions.
+ These are destructive forces. They build up nothing. It has been well said
+ by Donoso Cortez that "the history of civilization is the history of
+ Christianity, the history of Christianity is the history of the Church,
+ the history of the Church is the history of the Pontiffs, the greatest
+ statesmen and rulers that the world has ever seen."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some years ago, a Professor of great literary reputation in England, who
+ was supposed even then to be, as his subsequent writings have proved, a
+ skeptic or non-Christian, published a well-known and very candid book,
+ under the title of "Ecce Homo." The writer placed himself, as it were,
+ outside of Christianity. He took, not the Church in the world as in this
+ article, but the Christian Scriptures as a historical record, to be judged
+ with forensic severity and absolute impartiality of mind. To the credit of
+ the author, he fulfilled this pledge; and his conclusion shall here be
+ given. After an examination of the life and character of the Author of
+ Christianity, he proceeded to estimate His teaching and its effects under
+ the following heads:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1. The Christian Legislation.
+ 2. The Christian Republic.
+ 3. Its Universality.
+ 4. The Enthusiasm of Humanity.
+ 5. The Lord's Supper.
+ 6. Positive Morality.
+ 7. Philanthropy.
+ 8. Edification.
+ 9. Mercy.
+ 10. Resentment.
+ 11. Forgiveness.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He then draws his conclusion as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The achievement of Christ in founding by his single will and power a
+ structure so durable and so universal is like no other achievement which
+ history records. The masterpieces of the men of action are coarse and
+ commonplace in comparison with it, and the masterpieces of speculation
+ flimsy and unsubstantial. When we speak of it the commonplaces of
+ admiration fail us altogether. Shall we speak of the originality of the
+ design, of the skill displayed in the execution? All such terms are
+ inadequate. Originality and contriving skill operate indeed, but, as it
+ were, implicitly. The creative effort which produced that against which it
+ is said the gates of hell shall not prevail cannot be analyzed. No
+ architect's designs were furnished for the New Jerusalem; no committee
+ drew up rules for the universal commonwealth. If in the works of nature we
+ can trace the indications of calculation, of a struggle with difficulties,
+ of precaution, of ingenuity, then in Christ's work it may be that the same
+ indications occur. But these inferior and secondary powers were not
+ consciously exercised; they were implicitly present in the manifold yet
+ single creative act. The inconceivable work was done in calmness; before
+ the eyes of mea it was noiselessly accomplished, attracting little
+ attention. Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into
+ the formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? Who can
+ describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these
+ things can explain the origin of the Christian Church. For others it must
+ be enough to say, 'The Holy Ghost fell on those that believed'. No man saw
+ the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen crowded together, the
+ unfinished walla and unpaved streets; no man heard the clink of trowel and
+ pickaxe: 'it descended out of heaven from God.'"*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "Ece Homo," Conclusion, p. 329, Fifth Edition. Macmillan,
+ 1886.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And yet the writer is, as he was then, still outside of Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. We come now to our third point, that Christianity has always claimed
+ a Divine origin and a Divine presence as the source of its authority and
+ powers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To prove this by texts from the New Testament would be to transcribe the
+ volume; and if the evidence of the whole New Testament were put in, not
+ only might some men deny its weight as evidence, but we should place our
+ whole argument upon a false foundation. Christianity was anterior to the
+ New Testament and is independent of it. The Christian Scriptures
+ presuppose both the faith and the Church as already existing, known, and
+ believed. <i>Prior liber quam stylus</i>: as Tertullian argued. The Gospel
+ was preached before it was written. The four books were written to those
+ who already believed, to confirm their faith. They were written at
+ intervals: St. Matthew in Hebrew in the year 39, in Greek in 45. St. Mark
+ in 43, St. Luke in 57, St. John about 90, in different places and for
+ different motives. Four Gospels did not exist for sixty years, or two
+ generations of men. St. Peter and St. Paul knew of only three of our four.
+ In those sixty years the faith had spread from east to west. Saints and
+ Martyrs had gone up to their crown who never saw a sacred book. The
+ Apostolic Epistles prove the antecedent existence of the Churches to which
+ they were addressed. Rome and Corinth, and Galatia and Ephesus, Philippi
+ and Coloss&aelig;, were Churches with pastors and people before St. Paul
+ wrote to them. The Church had already attested and executed its Divine
+ legation before the New Testament existed; and when all its books were
+ written they were not as yet collected into a volume. The earliest
+ collection was about the beginning of the second century, and in the
+ custody of the Church in Rome. We must, therefore, seek to know what was
+ and is Christianity before and outside of the written books; and we have
+ the same evidence for the oral tradition of the faith as we have for the
+ New Testament itself. Both alike were in the custody of the Church; both
+ are delivered to us by the same witness and on the same evidence. To
+ reject either, is logically to reject both. Happily men are not saved by
+ logic, but by faith. The millions of men in all ages have believed by
+ inheritance of truth divinely guarded and delivered to them. They have no
+ need of logical analysis. They have believed from their childhood. Neither
+ children nor those who <i>infantibus oquiparantur</i> are logicians. It is
+ the penance of the doubter and the unbeliever to regain by toil his lost
+ inheritance. It is a hard penance, like the suffering of those who
+ eternally debate on "predestination, freewill, fate."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Between the death of St. John and the mature lifetime of St. Iren&aelig;us
+ fifty years elapsed. St. Polycarp was disciple of St. John. St. Iren&aelig;us
+ was disciple of St. Polycarp. The mind of St. John and the mind of St.
+ Iren&aelig;us had only one intermediate intelligence, in contact with
+ each. It would be an affectation of minute criticism to treat the doctrine
+ of St. Irenaeus as a departure from the doctrine of St. Polycarp, or the
+ doctrine of St. Polycarp as a departure from the doctrine of St. John.
+ Moreover, St. John ruled the Church at Ephesus, and St. Irenaeus was born
+ in Asia Minor about the year A. D. 120&mdash;that is, twenty years after
+ St. John's death, when the Church in Asia Minor was still full of the
+ light of his teaching and of the accents of his voice. Let us see how St.
+ Iren&aelig;us describes the faith and the Church. In his work against
+ Heresies, in Book iii. chap. i., he says, "We have known the way of our
+ salvation by those through whom the Gospel came to us; which, indeed, they
+ then preached, but afterwards, by the will of God, delivered to us in
+ Scriptures, the future foundation and pillar of our faith. It is not
+ lawful to say that they preached before they had perfect knowledge, as
+ some dare to affirm, boasting themselves to be correctors of the Apostles.
+ For after our Lord rose from the dead, and when they had been clothed with
+ the power of the Holy Ghost, Who came upon them from on high, they were
+ filled with all truths, and had knowledge which was perfect." In chapter
+ ii. he adds that, "When they are refuted out of Scripture, they turn and
+ accuse the Scriptures as erroneous, unauthoritative, and of various
+ readings, so that the truth cannot be found by those who do not know
+ tradition"&mdash;that is, their own. "But when we challenge them to come
+ to the tradition of the Apostles, which is in custody of the succession of
+ Presbyters in the Church, they turn against tradition, saying that they
+ are not only wiser than the Presbyters, but even the Apostles, and have
+ found the truth." "It therefore comes to pass that they will not agree
+ either with the Scriptures or with tradition." (Ibid. c. iii.) "Therefore,
+ all who desire to know the truth ought to look to the tradition of the
+ Apostles, which is manifest in all the world and in all the Church. We are
+ able to count up the Bishops who were instituted in the Church by the
+ Apostles, and their successors to our day. They never taught nor knew such
+ things as these men madly assert." "But as it would be too long in such a
+ book as this to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, we point to
+ the tradition of the greatest, most ancient Church, known to all, founded
+ and constituted in Rome by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, and
+ to the faith announced to all men, coming down to us by the succession of
+ Bishops, thereby confounding all those who, in any way, by self-pleasing,
+ or vainglory, or blindness, or an evil mind, teach as they ought not. For
+ with this Church, by reason of its greater principality, it is necessary
+ that all churches should agree; that is, the faithful, wheresoever they
+ be, for in that Church the tradition of the Apostles has been preserved."
+ No comment need be made on the words the "greater principality," which
+ have been perverted by every anti-Catholic writer from the time they were
+ written to this day. But if any one will compare them with the words of
+ St. Paul to the Colossians (chap. i. 18), describing the primacy of the
+ Head of the Church in heaven, it will appear almost certain that the
+ original Greek of St. Iren&aelig;us, which is unfortunately lost,
+ contained either [&mdash;Greek&mdash;], or some inflection of [&mdash;Greek&mdash;]
+ which signifies primacy. However this may be, St. Iren&aelig;us goes on:
+ "The blessed Apostles, having founded and instructed the Church, gave in
+ charge the Episcopate, for the administration of the same, to Linus. Of
+ this Linus, Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, makes mention. To him
+ succeeded Anacletus, and after him, in the third place from the Apostles,
+ Clement received the Episcopate, he who saw the Apostles themselves and
+ conferred with them, while as yet he had the preaching of the Apostles in
+ his ears and the tradition before his eyes; and not he only, but many who
+ had been taught by the Apostles still survived. In the time of this
+ Clement, when no little dissension had arisen among the brethren in
+ Corinth, the Church in Rome wrote very powerful letters <i>potentissimas
+ litteras</i> to the Corinthians, recalling them to peace, restoring their
+ faith, and declaring the tradition which it had so short a time ago
+ received from the Apostles." These letters of St. Clement are well known,
+ but have lately become more valuable and complete by the discovery of
+ fragments published in a new edition by Light-foot. In these fragments
+ there is a tone of authority fully explaining the words of St. Iren&aelig;us.
+ He then traces the succession of the Bishops of Rome to his own day, and
+ adds: "This demonstration is complete to show that it is one and the same
+ life-giving faith which has been preserved in the Church from the Apostles
+ until now, and is handed on in truth." "Polycarp was not only taught by
+ the Apostles, and conversed with many of those who had seen our Lord, but
+ he also was constituted by the Apostles in Asia to be Bishop in the Church
+ of Smyrna. We also saw him in our early youth, for he lived long, and when
+ very old departed from this life most gloriously and nobly by martyrdom.
+ He ever taught that what he had learned from the Apostles, and what the
+ Church had delivered, those things only are true." In the fourth chapter,
+ St. Iren&aelig;us goes on to say: "Since, then, there are such proofs (of
+ the faith), the truth is no longer to be sought for among others, which it
+ is easy to receive from the Church, forasmuch as the Apostles laid up all
+ truth in fullness in a rich depository, that all who will may receive from
+ it the water of life." "But what if the Apostles had not left us the
+ Scriptures: ought we not to follow the order of tradition, which they gave
+ in charge to them to whom they intrusted the Churches? To which order (of
+ tradition) many barbarous nations yield assent, who believe in Christ
+ without paper and ink, having salvation written by the Spirit in their
+ hearts, and diligently holding the ancient tradition." In the twenty-sixth
+ chapter of the same book he says: "Therefore, it is our duty to obey the
+ Presbyters who are in the Church, who have succession from the Apostles,
+ as we have already shown; who also with the succession of the Episcopate
+ have the <i>charisma veritatis certum</i>," the spiritual and certain gift
+ of truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have quoted these passages at length, not so much as proofs of the
+ Catholic Faith as to show the identity of the Church at its outset with
+ the Church before our eyes at this hour, proving that the acorn has grown
+ up into its oak, or, if you will, the identity of the Church at this hour
+ with the Church of the Apostolic mission. These passages show the
+ Episcopate, its central principality, its succession, its custody of the
+ faith, its subsequent reception and guardianship of the Scriptures, Its
+ Divine tradition, and the charisma or Divine assistance by which its
+ perpetuity is secured in the succession of the Apostles. This is almost
+ verbally, after eighteen hundred years, the decree of the Vatican Council:
+ <i>Veritatis et fidei nunquam deficientis charisma</i>.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "Const. Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi," cap. iv.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ But St. Iren&aelig;us draws out in full the Church of this day. He shows
+ the parallel of the first creation and of the second; of the first Adam
+ and the Second; and of the analogy between the Incarnation or natural
+ body, and the Church or mystical body of Christ. He says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our faith "we received from the Church, and guard.... as an excellent gift
+ in a noble vessel, always full of youth, and making youthful the vessel
+ itself in which it is. For this gift of God is intrusted to the Church, as
+ the breath of life (<i>was imparted</i>) to the first man, so this end,
+ that all the members partaking of it might be quickened with life. And
+ thus the communication of Christ is imparted; that is, the Holy Ghost, the
+ earnest of incorruption, the confirmation of the faith, the way of ascent
+ to God. For in the Church (St. Paul says) God placed Apostles, Prophets,
+ Doctors, and all other operations of the Spirit, of which none are
+ partakers who do not come to the Church, thereby depriving themselves of
+ life by a perverse mind and worse deeds. For where the Church is, there is
+ also the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the
+ Church, and all grace. But the Spirit is truth. Wherefore, they who do not
+ partake of Him (<i>the Spirit</i>), and are not nurtured unto life at the
+ breast of the mother (<i>the Church</i>), do not receive of that most pure
+ fountain which proceeds from the Body of Christ, but dig out for
+ themselves broken pools from the trenches of the earth, and drink water
+ soiled with mire, because they turn aside from the faith of the Church
+ lest they should be convicted, and reject the Spirit lest they should be
+ taught."* Again he says: "The Church, scattered throughout the world, even
+ unto the ends of the earth, received from the Apostles and their disciples
+ the faith in one God the Father Almighty, that made the heaven and the
+ earth, and the seas, and all things that are in them." &amp;c.**
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ *St. Iren&aelig;us, Cont. Hezret lib. iii. cap. xxiv.
+
+ ** Lib. i. cap. x.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ He then recites the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the
+ Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His
+ coming again to raise all men, to judge men and angels, and to give
+ sentence of condemnation or of life everlasting. How much soever the
+ language may vary from other forms, such is the substance of the Baptismal
+ Creed. He then adds:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Church having received this preaching and this faith, as we have said
+ before, although it be scattered abroad through the whole world, carefully
+ preserves it, dwelling as in one habitation, and believes alike in these
+ (doctrines) as though she had one soul and the same heart: and in strict
+ accord, as though she had one mouth, proclaims, and teaches, and delivers
+ onward these things. And although there may be many diverse languages in
+ the world, yet the power of the tradition is one and the same. And neither
+ do the Churches planted in Germany believe otherwise, or otherwise deliver
+ (the faith), nor those in Iberia, nor among the Celtae, nor in the East,
+ nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor they that are planted in the mainland. But
+ as the sun, which is God's creature, in all the world is one and the same,
+ so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and lightened all
+ men that are willing to come to the knowledge of the truth. And neither
+ will any ruler of the Church, though he be mighty in the utterance of
+ truth, teach otherwise than thus (for no man is above the master), nor
+ will he that is weak in the same diminish from the tradition; for the
+ faith being one and the same, he that is able to say most of it hath
+ nothing over, and he that is able to say least hath no lack."*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * St. Irenaeus, lib. i. c. x.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ To St. Irenaeus, then, the Church was "the irrefragable witness of its own
+ legation." When did it cease so to be? It would be easy to multiply
+ quotations from Tertullian in A. D. 200, from St. Cyprian a. d. 250, from
+ St. Augustine and St. Optatus in A. d. 350, from St. Leo in a. d. 450, all
+ of which are on the same traditional lines of faith in a divine mission to
+ the world and of a divine assistance in its discharge. But I refrain from
+ doing so because I should have to write not an article but a folio. Any
+ Catholic theology will give the passages which are now before me; or one
+ such book as the Loci Theologici of Melchior Canus will suffice to show
+ the continuity and identity of the tradition of St. Irenaeus and the
+ tradition of the Vatican Council, in which the universal church last
+ declared the immutable faith and its own legation to mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world-wide testimony of the Catholic Church is a sufficient witness to
+ prove the coming of the Incarnate Son to redeem mankind, and to return to
+ His Father; it is also sufficient to prove the advent of the Holy Ghost to
+ abide with us for ever. The work of the Son in this world was accomplished
+ by the Divine acts and facts of His three-and-thirty years of life, death,
+ Resurrection, and Ascension. The office of the Holy Ghost is perpetual,
+ not only as the Illuminator and Sanctifier of all who believe, but also as
+ the Life and Guide of the Church. I may quote now the words of the Founder
+ of the Church: "It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the
+ Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you."* "I
+ will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may
+ abide with you for ever."** "The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot
+ receive, because it seeth Him not nor knoweth Him; but you shall know Him,
+ because He shall abide with you and shall be in you."***
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * St. John, xvi. 7.
+
+ ** Ibid, xiv. 16.
+
+ *** St.John, xiv. 16, 17.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ St. Paul in the Epistles to the Ephesians describes the Church as a body
+ of which the Head is in heaven, and the Author of its indefectible life
+ abiding in it as His temple. Therefore the words, "He that heareth you
+ heareth Me." This could not be if the witness of the Apostles had been
+ only human. A Divine guidance was attached to the office they bore. They
+ were, therefore, also judges of right and wrong, and teachers by Divine
+ guidance of the truth. But the presence and guidance of the Spirit of
+ Truth is as full at this day as when St. Iren&aelig;us wrote. As the
+ Churches then were witnesses, judges, and teachers, so is the Church at
+ this hour a world-wide witness, an unerring judge and teacher, divinely
+ guided and guarded in the truth. It is therefore not only a human and
+ historical, but a Divine witness. This is the chief Divine truth which the
+ last three hundred years have obscured. Modern Christianity believes in
+ the one advent of the Redeemer, but rejects the full and personal advent
+ of the Holy Ghost. And yet the same evidence proves both. The Christianity
+ of reformers, always returns to Judaism, because they reject the full, or
+ do not believe the personal, advent of the Holy Ghost. They deny that
+ there is an infallible teacher, among men; and therefore they return to
+ the types and shadows of the Law before the Incarnation, when the Head was
+ not yet incarnate, and the Body of Christ did not as yet exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But perhaps some one will say, "I admit your description of the Church as
+ it is now and as it was in the days of St. Iren&aelig;us; but the eighteen
+ hundred years of which you have said nothing were ages of declension,
+ disorder, superstition, demoralization." I will answer by a question: was
+ not this foretold? Was not the Church to be a field of wheat and tares
+ growing together till the harvest at the end of the world? There were
+ Cathari of old, and Puritans since, impatient at the patience of God in
+ bearing with the perversities and corruptions of the human intellect and
+ will. The Church, like its Head in heaven, is both human and divine. "He
+ was crucified in weakness," but no power of man could wound His divine
+ nature. So with the Church, which is His Body. Its human element may
+ corrupt and die; its divine life, sanctity, authority, and structure
+ cannot die; nor can the errors of human intellect fasten upon its faith,
+ nor the immoralities of the human will fasten upon its sanctity. Its
+ organization of Head and Body is of divine creation, divinely guarded by
+ the Holy Ghost, who quickens it by His indwelling, and guides it by His
+ light. It is in itself incorrupt and incorruptible in the midst of
+ corruption, as the light of heaven falls upon all the decay and corruption
+ in the world, unsullied and unalterably pure. We are never concerned to
+ deny or to cloak the sins of Christians or of Catholics. They may destroy
+ themselves, but they cannot infect the Church from which they fall. The
+ fall of Lucifer left no stain behind him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When men accuse the Church of corruption, they reveal the fact that to
+ them the Church is a human institution, of voluntary aggregation or of
+ legislative enactment. They reveal the fact that to them the Church is not
+ an object of Divine faith, as the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the
+ Altar. They do not perceive or will not believe that the articles of the
+ Baptismal Creed are objects of faith, divinely revealed or divinely
+ created. "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the
+ Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins," are all objects of faith in
+ a Divine order. They are present in human history, but the human element
+ which envelops them has no power to infect or to fasten upon them. Until
+ this is perceived there can be no true or full belief in the advent and
+ office of the Holy Ghost, or in the nature and sacramental action of the
+ Church. It is the visible means and pledge of light and of sanctification
+ to all who do not bar their intellect and their will against its inward
+ and spiritual grace. The Church is not on probation. It is the instrument
+ of probation to the world. As the light of the world, it is changeless as
+ the firmament As the source of sanctification, it is inexhaustible as the
+ Rivex of Life. The human and external history of men calling themselves
+ Christian and Catholic has been at times as degrading and abominable as
+ any adversary is pleased to say. But the sanctity of the Church is no more
+ affected by human sins than was Baptism by the hypocrisy of Simon Magus.
+ The Divine foundation, and office, and mission of the Church is a part of
+ Christianity. They who deny it deny an article of faith; they who believe
+ it imperfectly are the followers of a fragmentary Christianity of modern
+ date. Who can be a disciple of Jesus Christ who does not believe the
+ words? "On this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall
+ not prevail against it;" "As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you;"*
+ "I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom;"** "All
+ power in heaven and earth is given unto Me. Go, therefore, and teach all
+ nations;"*** "He that heareth you heareth Me;"**** "I will be with you
+ always, even unto the end of the world;"(v) "When the days of Pentecost
+ were accomplished they were all together in one place: and suddenly there
+ came a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming, and there appeared to
+ them parted tongues, as it were, of fire;" "And they were all filled with
+ the Holy Ghost;" (vi) "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay
+ upon you no other burdens."(vii) But who denies that the Apostles claimed
+ a Divine mission? and who can deny that the Catholic and Roman Church from
+ St. Iren&aelig;us to Leo XIII. has ever and openly claimed the same,
+ invoking in all its supreme acts as witness, teacher, and legislator the
+ presence, light, and guidance of the Holy Ghost? As the preservation of
+ all created things is by the same creative power produced in perpetual and
+ universal action, so the indefectibility of the Church and of the faith is
+ by the perpetuity of the presence and office of the Third Person of the
+ Holy Trinity. Therefore, St. Augustine calls the day of Pentecost, Natalis
+ Spiritus Sancti.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ *St. John, xx. 21.
+
+ ** St. Luke, xxii. 29.
+
+ *** St. Matthew, xxviii. 18, 19.
+
+ **** St. Luke, x. 10.
+
+ (v) St. Matthew, xxviii. 20.
+
+ (vii)Acts, ii. 1-5.
+
+ (viii) Acts, xv. 28.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ It is more than time that I should make an end; and to do so it will be
+ well to sum up the heads of our argument. The Vatican Council declares
+ that the world-wide Church is the irrefragable witness of its own legation
+ or mission to mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In proof of this I have affirmed:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. That the imperishable existence of Christianity, and the vast and
+ undeniable revolution that it has wrought in men and in nations, in the
+ moral elevation of manhood and of womanhood, and in the domestic, social
+ and political life of the Christian world, cannot be accounted for by any
+ natural causes, or by any forces that are, as philosophers say, <i>intra
+ possibilitatem natures</i>, within the limits of what is possible to man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. That this world-wide and permanent elevation of the Christian world, in
+ comparison with both the old world and the modern world outside of
+ Christianity, demands a cause higher than the possibility of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. That the Church has always claimed a Divine origin and a Divine office
+ and authority in virtue of a perpetual Divine assistance. To this even the
+ Christian world, in all its fragments external to the Catholic unity,
+ bears witness. It is turned to our reproach. They rebuke us for holding
+ the teaching of the Church to be infallible. We take the rebuke as a
+ testimony of our changeless faith. It is not enough for men to say that
+ they refuse to believe this account of the visible and palpable fact of
+ the imperishable Christianity of the Catholic and Roman Church. They must
+ find a more reasonable, credible, and adequate account for it. This no man
+ has yet done. The denials are many and the solutions are many; but they do
+ not agree together. Their multiplicity is proof of their human origin. The
+ claim of the Catholic Church to a Divine authority and to a Divine
+ assistance is one and the same in every age, and is identical in every
+ place. Error is not the principle of unity, nor truth of variations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Church has guarded the doctrine of the Apostles, by Divine assistance,
+ with unerring fidelity. The articles of the faith are to-day the same in
+ number as in the beginning. The explicit definition of their implicit
+ meaning has expanded from age to age, as the everchanging denials and
+ perversions of the world have demanded new definitions of the ancient
+ truth. The world is against all dogma, because it is impatient of
+ definiteness and certainty in faith. It loves open questions and the
+ liberty of error. The Church is dogmatic for fear of error. Every truth
+ defined adds to its treasure. It narrows the field of error and enlarges
+ the inheritance of truth. The world and the Church are ever moving in
+ opposite directions. As the world becomes more vague and uncertain, the
+ Church becomes more definite. It moves against wind and tide, against the
+ stress and storm of the world. There was never a more luminous evidence of
+ this supernatural fact than in the Vatican Council. For eight months all
+ that the world could say and do, like the four winds of heaven, was
+ directed upon it. Governments, statesmen, diplomatists, philosophers,
+ intriguers, mockers, and traitors did their utmost and their worst against
+ it. They were in dread lest the Church should declare that by Divine
+ assistance its Head in faith and morals cannot err; for if this be true,
+ man did not found it, man cannot reform it, man cannot teach it to
+ interpret its history or its acts. It knows its own history, and is the
+ supreme witness of its own legation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am well aware that I have been writing truisms, and repeating trite and
+ trivial arguments. They are trite because the feet of the faithful for
+ nearly nineteen hundred years have worn them in their daily life; they are
+ trivial because they point to the one path in which the wayfarer, though a
+ fool, shall not err.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Henry Edward, (Cardinal Manning), Card. Archbishop of Westminster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ROME OR REASON: A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Superstition "has ears more deaf than adders to the voice of
+ any true decision."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ CARDINAL MANNING has stated the claims of the Roman Catholic Church with
+ great clearness, and apparently without reserve. The age, position and
+ learning of this man give a certain weight to his words, apart from their
+ worth. He represents the oldest of the Christian churches. The questions
+ involved are among the most important that can engage the human mind. No
+ one having the slightest regard for that superb thing known as
+ intellectual honesty, will avoid the issues tendered, or seek in any way
+ to gain a victory over truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without candor, discussion, in the highest sense, is impossible. All have
+ the same interest, whether they know it or not, in the establishment of
+ facts. All have the same to gain, the same to lose. He loads the dice
+ against himself who scores a point against the right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Absolute honesty is to the intellectual perception what light is to the
+ eyes. Prejudice and passion cloud the mind. In each disputant should be
+ blended the advocate and judge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this spirit, having in view only the ascertainment of the truth, let us
+ examine the arguments, or rather the statements and conclusions, of
+ Cardinal Manning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The proposition is that "The church itself, by its marvelous propagation,
+ its eminent sanctity, its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things,
+ its catholic unity and invincible stability, is a vast and perpetual
+ motive of credibility, and an irrefragable witness of its own divine
+ legation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reasons given as supporting this proposition are:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the Catholic Church interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized
+ world; that it is extranational and independent in a supernational unity;
+ that it is the same in every place; that it speaks all languages in the
+ civilized world; that it is obedient to one head; that as many as seven
+ hundred bishops have knelt before the pope; that pilgrims from all nations
+ have brought gifts to Rome, and that all these things set forth in the
+ most self-evident way the unity and universality of the Roman Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also asserted that "men see the Head of the Church year by year
+ speaking to the nations of the world, treating with Empires, Republics and
+ Governments;" that "there is no other man on earth that can so bear
+ himself," and that "neither from Canterbury nor from Constantinople can
+ such a voice go forth to which rulers and people listen."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also claimed that the Catholic Church has enlightened and purified
+ the world; that it has given us the peace and purity of domestic life;
+ that it has destroyed idolatry and demonology; that it gave us a body of
+ law from a higher source than man; that it has produced the civilization
+ of Christendom; that the popes were the greatest of statesmen and rulers;
+ that celibacy is better than marriage, and that the revolutions and
+ reformations of the last three hundred years have been destructive and
+ calamitous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We will examine these assertions as well as some others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one will dispute that the Catholic Church is the best witness of its
+ own existence. The same is true of every thing that exists&mdash;of every
+ church, great and small, of every man, and of every insect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it is contended that the marvelous growth or propagation of the church
+ is evidence of its divine origin. Can it be said that success is
+ supernatural? All success in this world is relative. Majorities are not
+ necessarily right. If anything is known&mdash;if anything can be known&mdash;we
+ are sure that very large bodies of men have frequently been wrong. We
+ believe in what is called the progress of mankind. Progress, for the most
+ part, consists in finding new truths and getting rid of old errors&mdash;that
+ is to say, getting nearer and nearer in harmony with the facts of nature,
+ seeing with greater clearness the conditions of well-being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no nation in which a majority leads the way. In the progress of
+ mankind, the few have been the nearest right. There have been centuries in
+ which the light seemed to emanate only from a handful of men, while the
+ rest of the world was enveloped in darkness. Some great man leads the way&mdash;he
+ becomes the morning star, the prophet of a coming day. Afterward, many
+ millions accept his views. But there are still heights above and beyond;
+ there are other pioneers, and the old day, in comparison with the new,
+ becomes a night. So, we cannot say that success demonstrates either divine
+ origin or supernatural aid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, if we know anything, that wisdom has often been trampled beneath
+ the feet of the multitude. We know that the torch of science has been
+ blown out by the breath of the hydra-headed. We know that the whole
+ intellectual heaven has been darkened again and again. The truth or
+ falsity of a proposition cannot be determined by ascertaining the number
+ of those who assert, or of those who deny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the marvelous propagation of the Catholic Church proves its divine
+ origin, what shall we say of the marvelous propagation of Mohammedanism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be clearer than that Christianity arose out of the ruins of
+ the Roman Empire&mdash;that is to say, the ruins of Paganism. And it is
+ equally clear that Mohammedanism arose out of the wreck and ruin of
+ Catholicism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After Mohammed came upon the stage, "Christianity was forever expelled
+ from its most glorious seats&mdash;from Palestine, the scene of its most
+ sacred recollections; from Asia Minor, that of its first churches; from
+ Egypt, whence issued the great doctrine of Trinitarian Orthodoxy, and from
+ Carthage, who imposed her belief on Europe." Before that time "the
+ ecclesiastical chiefs of Rome, of Constantinople, and of Alexandria were
+ engaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, carrying out their purposes
+ by weapons and in ways revolting to the conscience of man. Bishops were
+ concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries, blindings, riots,
+ treasons, civil war. Patriarchs and primates were excommunicating and
+ anathematizing one another in their rivalries for earthly power&mdash;bribing
+ eunuchs with gold and courtesans and royal females with concessions of
+ episcopal love. Among legions of monks who carried terror into the
+ imperial armies and riot into the great cities arose hideous clamors for
+ theological dogmas, but never a voice for intellectual liberty or the
+ outraged rights of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Under these circumstances, amid these atrocities and crimes, Mohammed
+ arose, and raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of the
+ meteoric stone, and from the basest idol worship, and irrevocably wrenched
+ from Christianity more than half&mdash;and that by far the best half&mdash;of
+ her possessions, since it included the Holy Land, the birth-place of the
+ Christian faith, and Africa, which had imparted to it its Latin form; and
+ now, after a lapse of more than a thousand years that continent, and a
+ very large part of Asia, remain permanently attached to the Arabian
+ doctrine."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be interesting in this connection to say that the Mohammedan now
+ proves the divine mission of his apostle by appealing to the marvelous
+ propagation of the faith. If the argument is good in the mouth of a
+ Catholic, is it not good in the mouth of a Moslem? Let us see if it is not
+ better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Church triumphed only over the
+ institutions of men&mdash;triumphed only over religions that had been
+ established by men,&mdash;by wicked and ignorant men. But Mohammed
+ triumphed not only over the religions of men, but over the religion of
+ God. This ignorant driver of camels, this poor, unknown, unlettered boy,
+ unassisted by God, unenlightened by supernatural means, drove the armies
+ of the true cross before him as the winter's storm drives withered leaves.
+ At his name, priests, bishops, and cardinals fled with white faces&mdash;popes
+ trembled, and the armies of God, fighting for the true faith, were
+ conquered on a thousand fields.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the success of a church proves its divinity, and after that another
+ church arises and defeats the first, what does that prove?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us put this question in a milder form: Suppose the second church lives
+ and flourishes in spite of the first, what does that prove?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, however, no church rises with everything against it.
+ Something is favorable to it, or it could not exist. If it succeeds and
+ grows, it is absolutely certain that the conditions are favorable. If it
+ spreads rapidly, it simply shows that the conditions are exceedingly
+ favorable, and that the forces in opposition are weak and easily overcome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here, in my own country, within a few years, has arisen a new religion.
+ Its foundations were laid in an intelligent community, having had the
+ advantages of what is known as modern civilization. Yet this new faith&mdash;founded
+ on the grossest absurdities, as gross as we find in the Scriptures&mdash;in
+ spite of all opposition began to grow, and kept growing. It was subjected
+ to persecution, and the persecution increased its strength. It was driven
+ from State to State by the believers in universal love, until it left what
+ was called civilization, crossed the wide plains, and took up its abode on
+ the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It continued to grow. Its founder, as
+ he declared, had frequent conversations with God, and received directions
+ from that source. Hundreds of miracles were performed&mdash;multitudes
+ upon the desert were miraculously fed&mdash;the sick were cured&mdash;the
+ dead were raised, and the Mormon Church continued to grow, until now, less
+ than half a century after the death of its founder, there are several
+ hundred thousand believers in the new faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you think that men enough could join this church to prove the truth of
+ its creed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Joseph Smith said that he found certain golden plates that had been buried
+ for many generations, and upon these plates, in some unknown language, had
+ been engraved this new revelation, and I think he insisted that by the use
+ of miraculous mirrors this language was translated. If there should be
+ Mormon bishops in all the countries of the world, eighteen hundred years
+ from now, do you think a cardinal of that faith could prove the truth of
+ the golden plates simply by the fact that the faith had spread and that
+ seven hundred bishops had knelt before the head of that church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that a "supernatural" religion&mdash;that is to say, a
+ religion that is claimed to have been divinely founded and to be
+ authenticated by miracles, is much easier to establish among an ignorant
+ people than any other&mdash;and the more ignorant the people, the easier
+ such a religion could be established. The reason for this is plain. All
+ ignorant tribes, all savage men, believe in the miraculous, in the
+ supernatural. The conception of uniformity, of what may be called the
+ eternal consistency of nature, is an idea far above their comprehension.
+ They are forced to think in accordance with their minds, and as a
+ consequence they account for all phenomena by the acts of superior beings&mdash;that
+ is to say, by the supernatural. In other words, that religion having most
+ in common with the savage, having most that was satisfactory to his mind,
+ or to his lack of mind, would stand the best chance of success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is probably safe to say that at one time, or during one phase of the
+ development of man, everything was miraculous. After a time, the mind
+ slowly developing, certain phenomena, always happening under like
+ conditions, were called "natural," and none suspected any special
+ interference. The domain of the miraculous grew less and less&mdash;the
+ domain of the natural larger; that is to say, the common became the
+ natural, but the uncommon was still regarded as the miraculous. The rising
+ and setting of the sun ceased to excite the wonder of mankind&mdash;there
+ was no miracle about that; but an eclipse of the sun was miraculous. Men
+ did not then know that eclipses are periodical, that they happen with the
+ same certainty that the sun rises. It took many observations through many
+ generations to arrive at this conclusion. Ordinary rains became "natural,"
+ floods remained "miraculous."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it can all be summed up in this: The average man regards the common as
+ natural, the uncommon as supernatural. The educated man&mdash;and by that
+ I mean the developed man&mdash;is satisfied that all phenomena are
+ natural, and that the supernatural does not and can not exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, an individual is egotistic in the proportion that he lacks
+ intelligence. The same is true of nations and races. The barbarian is
+ egotistic enough to suppose that an Infinite Being is constantly doing
+ something, or failing to do something, on his account. But as man rises in
+ the scale of civilization, as he becomes really great, he comes to the
+ conclusion that nothing in Nature happens on his account&mdash;that he is
+ hardly great enough to disturb the motions of the planets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us make an application of this: To me, the success of Mormonism is no
+ evidence of its truth, because it has succeeded only with the
+ superstitious. It has been recruited from communities brutalized by other
+ forms of superstition. To me, the success of Mohammed does not tend to
+ show that he was right&mdash;for the reason that he triumphed only over
+ the ignorant, over the superstitious. The same is true of the Catholic
+ Church. Its seeds were planted in darkness. It was accepted by the
+ credulous, by men incapable of reasoning upon such questions. It did not,
+ it has not, it can not triumph over the intellectual world. To count its
+ many millions does not tend to prove the truth of its creed. On the
+ contrary, a creed that delights the credulous gives evidence against
+ itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Questions of fact or philosophy cannot be settled simply by numbers. There
+ was a time when the Copernican system of astronomy had but few supporters&mdash;the
+ multitude being on the other side. There was a time when the rotation of
+ the earth was not believed by the majority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us press this idea further. There was a time when Christianity was not
+ in the majority, anywhere. Let us suppose that the first Christian
+ missionary had met a prelate of the Pagan faith, and suppose this prelate
+ had used against the Christian missionary the Cardinal's argument&mdash;how
+ could the missionary have answered if the Cardinal's argument is good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, after all, is the success of the Catholic Church a marvel? If this
+ church is of divine origin, if it has been under the especial care,
+ protection and guidance of an Infinite Being, is not its failure far more
+ wonderful than its success? For eighteen centuries it has persecuted and
+ preached, and the salvation of the world is still remote. This is the
+ result, and it may be asked whether it is worth while to try to convert
+ the world to Catholicism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are Catholics better than Protestants? Are they nearer honest, nearer
+ just, more charitable? Are Catholic nations better than Protestant? Do the
+ Catholic nations move in the van of progress? Within their jurisdiction
+ are life, liberty and property safer than anywhere else? Is Spain the
+ first nation of the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me ask another question: Are Catholics or Protestants better than
+ Freethinkers? Has the Catholic Church produced a greater man than
+ Humboldt? Has the Protestant produced a greater than Darwin? Was not
+ Emerson, so far as purity of life is concerned, the equal of any true
+ believer? Was Pius IX., or any other vicar of Christ, superior to Abraham
+ Lincoln?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it is claimed that the Catholic Church is universal, and that its
+ universality demonstrates its divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Bible, the apostles were ordered to go into all the world
+ and preach the gospel&mdash;yet not one of them, nor one of their converts
+ at any time, nor one of the vicars of God, for fifteen hundred years
+ afterward, knew of the existence of the Western Hemisphere. During all
+ that time, can it be said that the Catholic Church was universal? At the
+ close of the fifteenth century, there was one-half of the world in which
+ the Catholic faith had never been preached, and in the other half not one
+ person in ten had ever heard of it, and of those who had heard of it, not
+ one in ten believed it. Certainly the Catholic Church was not then
+ universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it universal now? What impression has Catholicism made upon the many
+ millions of China, of Japan, of India, of Africa? Can it truthfully be
+ said that the Catholic Church is now universal? When any church becomes
+ universal, it will be the only church. There cannot be two universal
+ churches, neither can there be one universal church and any other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal next tries to prove that the Catholic Church is divine, "by
+ its eminent sanctity and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good
+ things."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here let me admit that there are many millions of good Catholics&mdash;that
+ is, of good men and women who are Catholics. It is unnecessary to charge
+ universal dishonesty or hypocrisy, for the reason that this would be only
+ a kind of personality. Many thousands of heroes have died in defence of
+ the faith, and millions of Catholics have killed and been killed for the
+ sake of their religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here it may be well enough to say that martyrdom does not even tend to
+ prove the truth of a religion. The man who dies in flames, standing by
+ what he believes to be true, establishes, not the truth of what he
+ believes, but his sincerity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without calling in question the intentions of the Catholic Church, we can
+ ascertain whether it has been "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things,"
+ and whether it has been "eminent for its sanctity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, nothing can be better than goodness. Nothing is more
+ sacred, or can be more sacred, than the wellbeing of man. All things that
+ tend to increase or preserve the happiness of the human race are good&mdash;that
+ is to say, they are sacred. All things that tend to the destruction of
+ man's well-being, that tend to his unhappiness, are bad, no matter by whom
+ they are taught or done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly certain that the Catholic Church has taught, and still
+ teaches, that intellectual liberty is dangerous&mdash;that it should not
+ be allowed. It was driven to take this position because it had taken
+ another. It taught, and still teaches, that a certain belief is necessary
+ to salvation. It has always known that investigation and inquiry led, or
+ might lead, to doubt; that doubt leads, or may lead, to heresy, and that
+ heresy leads to hell. In other words, the Catholic Church has something
+ more important than this world, more important than the well-being of man
+ here. It regards this life as an opportunity for joining that church, for
+ accepting that creed, and for the saving of your soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Catholic Church is right in its premises, it is right in its
+ conclusion. If it is necessary to believe the Catholic creed in order to
+ obtain eternal joy, then, of course, nothing else in this world is,
+ comparatively speaking, of the slightest importance. Consequently, the
+ Catholic Church has been, and still is, the enemy of intellectual freedom,
+ of investigation, of inquiry&mdash;in other words, the enemy of progress
+ in secular things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The result of this was an effort to compel all men to accept the belief
+ necessary to salvation. This effort naturally divided itself into
+ persuasion and persecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will be admitted that the good man is kind, merciful, charitable,
+ forgiving and just. A church must be judged by the same standard. Has the
+ church been merciful? Has it been "fruitful in the good things" of
+ justice, charity and forgiveness? Can a good man, believing a good
+ doctrine, persecute for opinion's sake? If the church imprisons a man for
+ the expression of an honest opinion, is it not certain, either that the
+ doctrine of the church is wrong, or that the church is bad? Both cannot be
+ good. "Sanctity" without goodness is impossible. Thousands of "saints"
+ have been the most malicious of the human race. If the history of the
+ world proves anything, it proves that the Catholic Church was for many
+ centuries the most merciless institution that ever existed among men. I
+ cannot believe that the instruments of persecution were made and used by
+ the eminently good; neither can I believe that honest people were
+ imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the stake by a church that was
+ "inexhaustibly fruitful in all good things."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me say here that I have no Protestant prejudices against
+ Catholicism, and have no Catholic prejudices against Protestantism. I
+ regard all religions either without prejudice or with the same prejudice.
+ They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and all have for a
+ foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next. All the Gods have
+ been made by men. They are all equally powerful and equally useless. I
+ like some of them better than I do others, for the same reason that I
+ admire some characters in fiction more than I do others. I prefer Miranda
+ to Caliban, but have not the slightest idea that either of them existed.
+ So I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, although perfectly satisfied that both are
+ myths. I believe myself to be in a frame of mind to justly and fairly
+ consider the claims of different religions, believing as I do that all are
+ wrong, and admitting as I do that there is some good in all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When one speaks of the "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things" of
+ the Catholic Church, we remember the horrors and atrocities of the
+ Inquisition&mdash;the rewards offered by the Roman Church for the capture
+ and murder of honest men. We remember the Dominican Order, the members of
+ which, upheld by the vicar of Christ, pursued the heretics like sleuth
+ hounds, through many centuries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church, "inexhaustible in fruitfulness in all good things," not only
+ imprisoned and branded and burned the living, but violated the dead. It
+ robbed graves, to the end that it might convict corpses of heresy&mdash;to
+ the end that it might take from widows their portions and from orphans
+ their patrimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We remember the millions in the darkness of dungeons&mdash;the millions
+ who perished by the sword&mdash;the vast multitudes destroyed in flames&mdash;those
+ who were flayed alive&mdash;those who were blinded&mdash;those whose
+ tongues were cut out&mdash;those into whose ears were poured molten lead&mdash;those
+ whose eyes were deprived of their lids&mdash;those who were tortured and
+ tormented in every way by which pain could be inflicted and human nature
+ overcome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And we remember, too, the exultant cry of the church over the bodies of
+ her victims: "Their bodies were burned here, but their souls are now
+ tortured in hell."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We remember that the church, by treachery, bribery, perjury, and the
+ commission of every possible crime, got possession and control of
+ Christendom, and we know the use that was made of this power&mdash;that it
+ was used to brutalize, degrade, stupefy, and "sanctify" the children of
+ men. We know also that the vicars of Christ were persecutors for opinion's
+ sake&mdash;that they sought to destroy the liberty of thought through fear&mdash;that
+ they endeavored to make every brain a bastile in which the mind should be
+ a convict&mdash;that they endeavored to make every tongue a prisoner,
+ watched by a familiar of the Inquisition&mdash;and that they threatened
+ punishment here, imprisonment here, burnings here, and, in the name of
+ their God, eternal imprisonment and eternal burnings hereafter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, too, that the Catholic Church was, during all the years of its
+ power, the enemy of every science. It preferred magic to medicine, relics
+ to remedies, priests to physicians. It thought more of astrologers than of
+ astronomers. It hated geologists&mdash;it persecuted the chemist, and
+ imprisoned the naturalist, and opposed every discovery calculated to
+ improve the condition of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to forget the persecutions of the Cathari, the
+ Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Hussites, the Huguenots, and of every sect
+ that had the courage to think just a little for itself. Think of a woman&mdash;the
+ mother of a family&mdash;taken from her children and burned, on account of
+ her view as to the three natures of Jesus Christ. Think of the Catholic
+ Church,&mdash;an institution with a Divine Founder, presided over by the
+ agent of God&mdash;punishing a woman for giving a cup of cold water to a
+ fellow-being who had been anathematized. Think of this church, "fruitful
+ in all good things," launching its curse at an honest man&mdash;not only
+ cursing him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet with a
+ fiendish particularity, but having at the same time the impudence to call
+ on God, and the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary, to join
+ in the curse; and to curse him not only here, but forever hereafter&mdash;calling
+ upon all the saints and upon all the redeemed to join in a hallelujah of
+ curses, so that earth and heaven should reverberate with countless curses
+ launched at a human being simply for having expressed an honest thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This church, so "fruitful in all good things," invented crimes that it
+ might punish. This church tried men for a "suspicion of heresy"&mdash;imprisoned
+ them for the vice of being suspected&mdash;stripped them of all they had
+ on earth and allowed them to rot in dungeons, because they were guilty of
+ the crime of having been suspected. This was a part of the Canon Law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is too late to talk about the "invincible stability" of the Catholic
+ Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was not invincible in the seventh, in the eighth, or in the ninth
+ centuries. It was not invincible in Germany in Luther's day. It was not
+ invincible in the Low Countries. It was not invincible in Scotland, or in
+ England. It was not invincible in France. It is not invincible in Italy,
+ It is not supreme in any intellectual centre of the world. It does not
+ triumph in Paris, or Berlin; it is not dominant in London, in England;
+ neither is it triumphant in the United States. It has not within its fold
+ the philosophers, the statesmen, and the thinkers, who are the leaders of
+ the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed that Catholicism "interpenetrates all the nations of the
+ civilized world," and that "in some it holds the whole nation in its
+ unity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose the Catholic Church is more powerful in Spain than in any other
+ nation. The history of this nation demonstrates the result of Catholic
+ supremacy, the result of an acknowledgment by a people that a certain
+ religion is too sacred to be examined.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without attempting in an article of this character to point out the many
+ causes that contributed to the adoption of Catholicism by the Spanish
+ people, it is enough to say that Spain, of all nations, has been and is
+ the most thoroughly Catholic, and the most thoroughly interpenetrated and
+ dominated by the spirit of the Church of Rome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spain used the sword of the church. In the name of religion it endeavored
+ to conquer the Infidel world. It drove from its territory the Moors, not
+ because they were bad, not because they were idle and dishonest, but
+ because they were Infidels. It expelled the Jews, not because they were
+ ignorant or vicious, but because they were unbelievers. It drove out the
+ Moriscoes, and deliberately made outcasts of the intelligent, the
+ industrious, the honest and the useful, because they were not Catholics.
+ It leaped like a wild beast upon the Low Countries, for the destruction of
+ Protestantism. It covered the seas with its fleets, to destroy the
+ intellectual liberty of man. And not only so&mdash;it established the
+ Inquisition within its borders. It imprisoned the honest, it burned the
+ noble, and succeeded after many years of devotion to the true faith, in
+ destroying the industry, the intelligence, the usefulness, the genius, the
+ nobility and the wealth of a nation. It became a wreck, a jest of the
+ conquered, and excited the pity of its former victims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this period of degradation, the Catholic Church held "the whole nation
+ in its unity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last Spain began to deviate from the path of the church It made a
+ treaty with an Infidel power. In 1782 it became humble enough, and wise
+ enough, to be friends with Turkey. It made treaties with Tripoli and
+ Algiers and the Barbary States. It had become too poor to ransom the
+ prisoners taken by these powers. It began to appreciate the fact that it
+ could neither conquer nor convert the world by the sword.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spain has progressed in the arts and sciences, in all that tends to enrich
+ and ennoble a nation, in the precise proportion that she has lost faith in
+ the Catholic Church. This may be said of every other nation in
+ Christendom. Torquemada is dead; Castelar is alive. The dungeons of the
+ Inquisition are empty, and a little light has penetrated the clouds and
+ mists&mdash;not much, but a little. Spain is not yet clothed and in her
+ right mind. A few years ago the cholera visited Madrid and other cities.
+ Physicians were mobbed. Processions of saints carried the host through the
+ streets for the purpose of staying the plague. The streets were not
+ cleaned; the sewers were filled. Filth and faith, old partners, reigned
+ supreme. The church, "eminent for its sanctity," stood in the light and
+ cast its shadow on the ignorant and the prostrate. The church, in its
+ "inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things," allowed its children to
+ perish through ignorance, and used the diseases it had produced as an
+ instrumentality to further enslave its votaries and its victims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one will deny that many of its priests exhibited heroism of the highest
+ order in visiting the sick and administering what are called the
+ consolations of religion to the dying, and in burying the dead. It is
+ necessary neither to deny or disparage the self-denial and goodness of
+ these men. But their religion did more than all other causes to produce
+ the very evils that called for the exhibition of self-denial and heroism.
+ One scientist in control of Madrid could have prevented the plague. In
+ such cases, cleanliness is far better than "godliness;" science is
+ superior to superstition; drainage much better than divinity; therapeutics
+ more excellent than theology. Goodness is not enough&mdash;intelligence is
+ necessary. Faith is not sufficient, creeds are helpless, and prayers
+ fruitless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is admitted that the Catholic Church exists in many nations; that it is
+ dominated, at least in a great degree, by the Bishop of Rome&mdash;that it
+ is international in that sense, and that in that sense it has what may be
+ called a "supernational unity." The same, however, is true of the Masonic
+ fraternity. It exists in many nations, but it is not a national body. It
+ is in the same sense extranational, in the same sense international, and
+ has in the same sense a supernational unity. So the same may be said of
+ other societies. This, however, does not tend to prove that anything
+ supernational is supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also admitted that in faith, worship, ceremonial, discipline and
+ government, the Catholic Church is substantially the same wherever it
+ exists. This establishes the unity, but not the divinity, of the
+ institution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church that does not allow investigation, that teaches that all doubts
+ are wicked, attains unity through tyranny, that is, monotony by
+ repression. Wherever man has had something like freedom, differences have
+ appeared, heresies have taken root, and the divisions have become
+ permanent&mdash;new sects have been born and the Catholic Church has been
+ weakened. The boast of unity is the confession of tyranny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is insisted that the unity of the church substantiates its claim to
+ divine origin. This is asserted over and over again, in many ways; and yet
+ in the Cardinal's article is found this strange mingling of boast and
+ confession: "Was it only by the human power of man that the unity,
+ external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been supreme,
+ was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be broken
+ again?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this it is admitted that the internal and external unity of the
+ Catholic Church had been broken, and that it required more than human
+ power to restore it. Then the boast is made that it will never be broken
+ again. Yet it is asserted that the internal and external unity of the
+ Catholic Church is the great fact that demonstrates its divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if this internal and external unity was broken, and remained broken
+ for years, there was an interval during which the church had no internal
+ or external unity, and during which the evidence of divine origin failed.
+ The unity was broken in spite of the Divine Founder. This is admitted by
+ the use of the word "again." The unbroken unity of the church is asserted,
+ and upon this assertion is based the claim of divine origin; it is then
+ admitted that the unity was broken. The argument is then shifted, and the
+ claim is made that it required more than human power to restore the
+ internal and external unity of the church, and that the restoration, not
+ the unity, is proof of the divine origin. Is there any contradiction
+ beyond this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us state the case in another way. Let us suppose that a man has a
+ sword which he claims was made by God, stating that the reason he knows
+ that God made the sword is that it never had been and never could be
+ broken. Now, if it was afterwards ascertained that it had been broken, and
+ the owner admitted that it had been, what would be thought of him if he
+ then took the ground that it had been welded, and that the welding was the
+ evidence that it was of divine origin?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A prophecy is then indulged in, to the effect that the internal and
+ external unity of the church can never be broken again. It is admitted
+ that it was broken&mdash;it is asserted that it was divinely restored&mdash;and
+ then it is declared that it is never to be broken again. No reason is
+ given for this prophecy; it must be born of the facts already stated. Put
+ in a form to be easily understood, it is this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that the unity of the church can never be broken, because the
+ church is of divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that it was broken; but this does not weaken the argument, because
+ it was restored by God, and it has not been broken since.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Therefore, it never can be broken again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is stated that the Catholic Church is immutable, and that its
+ immutability establishes its claim to divine origin. Was it immutable when
+ its unity, internal and external, was broken? Was it precisely the same
+ after its unity was broken that it was before? Was it precisely the same
+ after its unity was divinely restored that it was while broken? Was it
+ universal while it was without unity? Which of the fragments was universal&mdash;which
+ was immutable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact that the Catholic Church is obedient to the pope, establishes,
+ not the supernatural origin of the church, but the mental slavery of its
+ members. It establishes the fact that it is a successful organization;
+ that it is cunningly devised; that it destroys the mental independence,
+ and that whoever absolutely submits to its authority loses the jewel of
+ his soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact that Catholics are to a great extent obedient to the pope,
+ establishes nothing except the thoroughness of the organization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How was the Roman empire formed? By what means did that Great Power hold
+ in bondage the then known world? How is it that a despotism is
+ established? How is it that the few enslave the many? How is it that the
+ nobility live on the labor of peasants? The answer is in one word,
+ Organization. The organized few triumph over the unorganized many. The few
+ hold the sword and the purse. The unorganized are overcome in detail&mdash;terrorized,
+ brutalized, robbed, conquered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember that when Christianity was established the world was
+ ignorant, credulous and cruel. The gospel with its idea of forgiveness&mdash;with
+ its heaven and hell&mdash;was suited to the barbarians among whom it was
+ preached. Let it be understood, once for all, that Christ had but little
+ to do with Christianity. The people became convinced&mdash;being ignorant,
+ stupid and credulous&mdash;that the church held the keys of heaven and
+ hell. The foundation for the most terrible mental tyranny that has existed
+ among men was in this way laid. The Catholic Church enslaved to the extent
+ of its power. It resorted to every possible form of fraud; it perverted
+ every good instinct of the human heart; it rewarded every vice; it
+ resorted to every artifice that ingenuity could devise, to reach the
+ highest round of power. It tortured the accused to make them confess; it
+ tortured witnesses to compel the commission of perjury; it tortured
+ children for the purpose of making them convict their parents; it
+ compelled men to establish their own innocence; it imprisoned without
+ limit; it had the malicious patience to wait; it left the accused without
+ trial, and left them in dungeons until released by death. There is no
+ crime that the Catholic Church did not commit,&mdash;no cruelty that it
+ did not practice,&mdash;no form of treachery that it did not reward, and
+ no virtue that it did not persecute. It was the greatest and most powerful
+ enemy of human rights. It did all that organization, cunning, piety,
+ self-denial, heroism, treachery, zeal and brute force could do to enslave
+ the children of men. It was the enemy of intelligence, the assassin of
+ liberty, and the destroyer of progress. It loaded the noble with chains
+ and the infamous with honors. In one hand it carried the alms dish, in the
+ other a dagger. It argued with the sword, persuaded with poison, and
+ convinced with the fagot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to see how the divine origin of a church can be
+ established by showing that hundreds of bishops have visited the pope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the fact that millions of the faithful visit Mecca establish the
+ truth of the Koran? Is it a scene for congratulation when the bishops of
+ thirty nations kneel before a man? Is it not humiliating to know that man
+ is willing to kneel at the feet of man? Could a noble man demand, or
+ joyfully receive, the humiliation of his fellows?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, arrogance and humility go together. He who in power compels his
+ fellow-man to kneel, will himself kneel when weak. The tyrant is a cringer
+ in power; a cringer is a tyrant out of power. Great men stand face to
+ face. They meet on equal terms. The cardinal who kneels in the presence of
+ the pope, wants the bishop to kneel in his presence; and the bishop who
+ kneels demands that the priest shall kneel to him; and the priest who
+ kneels demands that they in lower orders shall kneel; and all, from pope
+ to the lowest&mdash;that is to say, from pope to exorcist, from pope to
+ the one in charge of the bones of saints&mdash;all demand that the people,
+ the laymen, those upon whom they live, shall kneel to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of free and noble spirit will not kneel. Courage has no knees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear kneels, or falls upon its ashen face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal insists that the pope is the vicar of Christ, and that all
+ popes have been. What is a vicar of Christ? He is a substitute in office.
+ He stands in the place, or occupies the position in relation to the
+ church, in relation to the world, that Jesus Christ would occupy were he
+ the pope at Rome. In other words, he takes Christ's place; so that,
+ according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ himself is
+ present in the person of the pope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know that a good man may employ a bad agent. A good king might
+ leave his realm and put in his place a tyrant and a wretch. The good man
+ and the good king cannot certainly know what manner of man the agent is&mdash;what
+ kind of person the vicar is&mdash;consequently the bad may be chosen. But
+ if the king appointed a bad vicar, knowing him to be bad, knowing that he
+ would oppress the people, knowing that he would imprison and burn the
+ noble and generous, what excuse can be imagined for such a king?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the church is of divine origin, and if each pope is the vicar of
+ Jesus Christ, he must have been chosen by Jesus Christ; and when he was
+ chosen, Christ must have known exactly what his vicar would do. Can we
+ believe that an infinitely wise and good Being would choose immoral,
+ dishonest, ignorant, malicious, heartless, fiendish, and inhuman vicars?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal admits that "the history of Christianity is the history of
+ the church, and that the history of the church is the history of the
+ Pontiffs," and he then declares that "the greatest statesmen and rulers
+ that the world has ever seen are the Popes of Rome."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me call attention to a few passages in Draper's "History of the
+ Intellectual Development of Europe."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Constantine was one of the vicars of Christ. Afterwards, Stephen IV. was
+ chosen. The eyes of Constantine were then put out by Stephen, acting in
+ Christ's place. The tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was amputated by the
+ man who had been substituted for God. This bishop was left in a dungeon to
+ perish of thirst. Pope Leo III. was seized in the street and forced into a
+ church, where the nephews of Pope Adrian attempted to put out his eyes and
+ cut off his tongue. His successor, Stephen V., was driven ignominiously
+ from Rome. His successor, Paschal I., was accused of blinding and
+ murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace. John VIII., unable to
+ resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "At this time, the Bishop of Naples was in secret alliance with the
+ Mohammedans, and they divided with this Catholic bishop the plunder they
+ collected from other Catholics. This bishop was excommunicated by the
+ pope; afterwards he gave him absolution because he betrayed the chief
+ Mohammedans, and assassinated others. There was an ecclesiastical
+ conspiracy to murder the pope, and some of the treasures of the church
+ were seized, and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys to
+ admit the Saracens. Formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions,
+ who had been excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of Pope John,
+ was himself elected pope in 891. Boniface VI. was his successor. He had
+ been deposed from the diaconate and from the priesthood for his immoral
+ and lewd life. Stephen VII. was the next pope, and he had the dead body of
+ Formosus taken from the grave, clothed in papal habiliments, propped up in
+ a chair and tried before a Council. The corpse was found guilty, three
+ fingers were cut off and the body cast into the Tiber. Afterwards Stephen
+ VII., this Vicar of Christ, was thrown into prison and strangled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "From 896 to 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V., in less than two
+ months after he became pope, was cast into prison by Christopher, one of
+ his chaplains. This Christopher usurped his place, and in a little while
+ was expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who became pope in 905. This pope
+ lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated Theodora, who with her
+ daughters Marozia and Theodora, both prostitutes, exercised an
+ extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by
+ John X. She gave him the Archbishopric of Revenna, and made him pope in
+ 915. The daughter of Theodora overthrew this pope. She surprised him in
+ the Lateran Palace. His brother, Peter, was killed; the pope was thrown
+ into prison, where he was afterward murdered. Afterward, this Marozia,
+ daughter of Theodora, made her own son pope, John XI. Many affirmed that
+ Pope Sergius was his father, but his mother inclined to attribute him to
+ her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she afterward married. Another of
+ her sons, Alberic, jealous of his brother John, the pope, cast him and
+ their mother into prison. Alberic's son was then elected pope as John XII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "John was nineteen years old when he became the vicar of Christ. His reign
+ was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor
+ Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere. He was tried. It
+ appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration of bishops;
+ that he had ordained one who was only ten years old; that he was charged
+ with incest, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had
+ become a brothel. He put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic; he maimed
+ another&mdash;both dying in consequence of their injuries. He was given to
+ drunkenness and to gambling. He was deposed at last, and Leo VII. elected
+ in his stead. Subsequently he got the upper hand. He seized his
+ antagonists; he cut off the hand of one, the nose, the finger, and the
+ tongue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the
+ vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, I admit that the most infamous popes, the most heartless and
+ fiendish bishops, friars, and priests were models of mercy, charity, and
+ justice when compared with the orthodox God&mdash;with the God they
+ worshiped. These popes, these bishops, these priests could persecute only
+ for a few years&mdash;they could burn only for a few moments&mdash;but
+ their God threatened to imprison and burn forever; and their God is as
+ much worse than they were, as hell is worse than the Inquisition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "John XIII. was strangled in prison. Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict
+ VII., and starved him to death. John XIV. was secretly put to death in the
+ dungeons of the castle of St. Angelo. The corpse of Boniface was dragged
+ by the populace through the streets."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be remembered that the popes were assassinated by Catholics&mdash;murdered
+ by the faithful&mdash;that one vicar of Christ strangled another vicar of
+ Christ, and that these men were "the greatest rulers and the greatest
+ statesmen of the earth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Pope John XVI. was seized, his eyes put out, his nose cut off, his tongue
+ torn from his mouth, and he was sent through the streets mounted on an
+ ass, with his face to the tail. Benedict IX., a boy of less than twelve
+ years of age, was raised to the apostolic throne. One of his successors,
+ Victor III., declared that the life of Benedict was so shameful, so foul,
+ so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of
+ banditti. The people, unable to bear longer his adulteries, his homicides
+ and his abominations, rose against him, and in despair of maintaining his
+ position, he put up the papacy to auction, and it was bought by a
+ presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI., in the year of grace 1045.
+ Well may we ask, Were these the vicegerents of God upon earth&mdash;these,
+ who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human
+ wickedness cannot pass?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be sufficient to say that there is no crime that man can commit
+ that has not been committed by the vicars of Christ. They have inflicted
+ every possible torture, violated every natural right. Greater monsters the
+ human race has not produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among the "some two hundred and fifty-eight" Vicars of Christ there were
+ probably some good men. This would have happened even if the intention had
+ been to get all bad men, for the reason that man reaches perfection
+ neither in good nor in evil; but if they were selected by Christ himself,
+ if they were selected by a church with a divine origin and under divine
+ guidance, then there is no way to account for the selection of a bad one.
+ If one hypocrite was duly elected pope&mdash;one murderer, one strangler,
+ one starver&mdash;this demonstrates that all the popes were selected by
+ men, and by men only, and that the claim of divine guidance is born of
+ zeal and uttered without knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But who were the vicars of Christ? How many have there been? Cardinal
+ Manning himself does not know. He is not sure. He says: "Starting from St.
+ Peter to Leo XIII., there have been some two hundred and fifty-eight
+ Pontiffs claiming to be recognized by the whole Catholic unity as
+ successors of St. Peter and Vicars of Jesus Christ." Why did he use the
+ word "some"? Why "claiming"? Does he not positively know? Is it possible
+ that the present Vicar of Christ is not certain as to the number of his
+ predecessors? Is he infallible in faith and fallible in fact?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "If we live thus tamely,&mdash;
+ To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,&mdash;
+ Farewell nobility."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ NO ONE will deny that "the pope speaks to many people in many nations;
+ that he treats with empires and governments," and that "neither from
+ Canterbury nor from Constantinople such a voice goes forth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How does the pope speak? What does he say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He speaks against the liberty of man&mdash;against the progress of the
+ human race. He speaks to calumniate thinkers, and to warn the faithful
+ against the discoveries of science. He speaks for the destruction of
+ civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who listens? Do astronomers, geologists and scientists put the hand to the
+ ear fearing that an accent may be lost? Does France listen? Does Italy
+ hear? Is not the church weakest at its centre? Do those who have raised
+ Italy from the dead, and placed her again among the great nations, pay
+ attention? Does Great Britain care for this voice&mdash;this moan, this
+ groan&mdash;of the Middle Ages? Do the words of Leo XIII. impress the
+ intelligence of the Great Republic? Can anything be more absurd than for
+ the vicar of Christ to attack a demonstration of science with a passage of
+ Scripture, or a quotation from one of the "Fathers"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare the popes with the kings and queens of England. Infinite wisdom
+ had but little to do with the selection of these monarchs, and yet they
+ were far better than any equal number of consecutive popes. This is faint
+ praise, even for kings and queens, but it shows that chance succeeded in
+ getting better rulers for England than "Infinite Wisdom" did for the
+ Church of Rome. Compare the popes with the presidents of the Republic
+ elected by the people. If Adams had murdered Washington, and Jefferson had
+ imprisoned Adams, and if Madison had cut out Jefferson's tongue, and
+ Monroe had assassinated Madison, and John Quincy Adams had poisoned
+ Monroe, and General Jackson had hung Adams and his Cabinet, we might say
+ that presidents had been as virtuous as popes. But if this had happened,
+ the verdict of the world would be that the people are not capable of
+ selecting their presidents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this voice from Rome is growing feebler day by day; so feeble that the
+ Cardinal admits that the vicar of God, and the supernatural church, "are
+ being tormented by Falck laws, by Mancini laws and by Crispi laws." In
+ other words, this representative of God, this substitute of Christ, this
+ church of divine origin, this supernatural institution&mdash;pervaded by
+ the Holy Ghost&mdash;are being "tormented" by three politicians. Is it
+ possible that this patriotic trinity is more powerful than the other?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed that if the Catholic Church "be only a human system, built
+ up by the intellect, will and energy of men, the adversaries must prove it&mdash;that
+ the burden is upon them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a general thing, institutions are natural. If this church is
+ supernatural, it is the one exception. The affirmative is with those who
+ claim that it is of divine origin. So far as we know, all governments and
+ all creeds are the work of man. No one believes that Rome was a
+ supernatural production, and yet its beginnings were as small as those of
+ the Catholic Church. Commencing in weakness, Rome grew, and fought, and
+ conquered, until it was believed that the sky bent above a subjugated
+ world. And yet all was natural. For every effect there was an efficient
+ cause.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Catholic asserts that all other religions have been produced by man&mdash;that
+ Brahminism and Buddhism, the religion of Isis and Osiris, the marvelous
+ mythologies of Greece and Rome, were the work of the human mind. From
+ these religions Catholicism has borrowed. Long before Catholicism was
+ born, it was believed that women had borne children whose fathers were
+ gods. The Trinity was promulgated in Egypt centuries before the birth of
+ Moses. Celibacy was taught by the ancient Nazarenes and Essenes, by the
+ priests of Egypt and India, by mendicant monks, and by the piously insane
+ of many countries long before the apostles lived. The Chinese tell us that
+ "when there were but one man and one woman upon the earth, the woman
+ refused to sacrifice her virginity even to people the globe; and the gods,
+ honoring her purity, granted that she should conceive beneath the gaze of
+ her lover's eyes, and a virgin mother became the parent of humanity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The founders of many religions have insisted that it was the duty of man
+ to renounce the pleasures of sense, and millions before our era took the
+ vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and most cheerfully lived upon
+ the labor of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sacraments of baptism and confirmation are far older than the Church
+ of Rome. The Eucharist is pagan. Long before popes began to murder each
+ other, pagans ate cakes&mdash;the flesh of Ceres, and drank wine&mdash;the
+ blood of Bacchus. Holy water flowed in the Ganges and Nile, priests
+ interceded for the people, and anointed the dying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that every successful religion that has taught
+ unnatural doctrines, unnatural practices, must of necessity have been of
+ divine origin. In most religions there has been a strange mingling of the
+ good and bad, of the merciful and cruel, of the loving and malicious.
+ Buddhism taught the universal brotherhood of man, insisted on the
+ development of the mind, and this religion was propagated not by the
+ sword, but by preaching, by persuasion, and by kindness&mdash;yet in many
+ things it was contrary to the human will, contrary to the human passions,
+ and contrary to good sense. Buddhism succeeded. Can we, for this reason,
+ say that it is a supernatural religion? Is the unnatural the supernatural?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is insisted that, while other churches have changed, the Catholic
+ Church alone has remained the same, and that this fact demonstrates its
+ divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has the creed of Buddhism changed in three thousand years? Is intellectual
+ stagnation a demonstration of divine origin? When anything refuses to
+ grow, are we certain that the seed was planted by God? If the Catholic
+ Church is the same to-day that it has been for many centuries, this proves
+ that there has been no intellectual development. If men do not differ upon
+ religious subjects, it is because they do not think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Differentiation is the law of growth, of progress. Every church must gain
+ or lose: it cannot remain the same; it must decay or grow. The fact that
+ the Catholic Church has not grown&mdash;that it has been petrified from
+ the first&mdash;does not establish divine origin; it simply establishes
+ the fact that it retards the progress of man. Everything in nature changes&mdash;every
+ atom is in motion&mdash;every star moves. Nations, institutions and
+ individuals have youth, manhood, old age, death. This is and will be true
+ of the Catholic Church. It was once weak&mdash;it grew stronger&mdash;it
+ reached its climax of power&mdash;it began to decay&mdash;it never can
+ rise again. It is confronted by the dawn of Science. In the presence of
+ the nineteenth century it cowers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that "All natural causes run to disintegration."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Natural causes run to integration as well as to disintegration. All growth
+ is integration, and all growth is natural. All decay is disintegration,
+ and all decay is natural. Nature builds and nature destroys. When the
+ acorn grows&mdash;when the sunlight and rain fall upon it and the oak
+ rises&mdash;so far as the oak is concerned "all natural causes" do not
+ "run to disintegration." But there comes a time when the oak has reached
+ its limit, and then the forces of nature run towards disintegration, and
+ finally the old oak falls. But if the Cardinal is right&mdash;if "all
+ natural causes run to disintegration," then every success must have been
+ of divine origin, and nothing is natural but destruction. This is Catholic
+ science: "All natural causes run to disintegration." What do these causes
+ find to disintegrate? Nothing that is natural. The fact that the thing is
+ not disintegrated shows that it was and is of supernatural origin.
+ According to the Cardinal, the only business of nature is to disintegrate
+ the supernatural. To prevent this, the supernatural needs the protection
+ of the Infinite. According to this doctrine, if anything lives and grows,
+ it does so in spite of nature. Growth, then, is not in accordance with,
+ but in opposition to nature. Every plant is supernatural&mdash;it defeats
+ the disintegrating influences of rain and light. The generalization of the
+ Cardinal is half the truth. It would be equally true to say: All natural
+ causes run to integration. But the whole truth is that growth and decay
+ are equal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal asserts that "Christendom was created by the world-wide
+ church as we see it before our eyes at this day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Philosophers and statesmen believe it to be the work of their own hands;
+ they did not make it, but they have for three hundred years been unmaking
+ it by reformations and revolutions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The meaning of this is that Christendom was far better three hundred years
+ ago than now; that during these three centuries Christendom has been going
+ toward barbarism. It means that the supernatural church of God has been a
+ failure for three hundred years; that it has been unable to withstand the
+ attacks of philosophers and statesmen, and that it has been helpless in
+ the midst of "reformations and revolutions."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the condition of the world three hundred years ago, the period,
+ according to the Cardinal, in which the church reached the height of its
+ influence, and since which it has been unable to withstand the rising tide
+ of reformation and the whirlwind of revolution?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In that blessed time, Philip II. was king of Spain&mdash;he with the
+ cramped head and the monstrous jaw. Heretics were hunted like wild and
+ poisonous beasts; the Inquisition was firmly established, and priests were
+ busy with rack and fire. With a zeal born of the hatred of man and the
+ love of God, the church, with every instrument of torture, touched every
+ nerve in the human body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those happy days, the Duke of Alva was devastating the homes of
+ Holland; heretics were buried alive&mdash;their tongues were torn from
+ their mouths, their lids from their eyes; the Armada was on the sea for
+ the destruction of the heretics of England, and the Moriscoes&mdash;a
+ million and a half of industrious people&mdash;were being driven by sword
+ and flame from their homes. The Jews had been expelled from Spain. This
+ Catholic country had succeeded in driving intelligence and industry from
+ its territory; and this had been done with a cruelty, with a ferocity,
+ unequaled, in the annals of crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing was left but ignorance, bigotry, intolerance, credulity, the
+ Inquisition, the seven sacraments and the seven deadly sins. And yet a
+ Cardinal of the nineteenth century, living in the land of Shakespeare,
+ regrets the change that has been wrought by the intellectual efforts, by
+ the discoveries, by the inventions and heroism of three hundred years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three hundred years ago, Charles IX., in France, son of Catherine de
+ Medici, in the year of grace 1572&mdash;after nearly sixteen centuries of
+ Catholic Christianity&mdash;after hundreds of vicars of Christ had sat in
+ St. Peter's chair&mdash;after the natural passions of man had been
+ "softened" by the creed of Rome&mdash;came the Massacre of St.
+ Bartholomew, the result of a conspiracy between the Vicar of Christ,
+ Philip II., Charles IX., and his fiendish mother. Let the Cardinal read
+ the account of this massacre once more, and, after reading it, imagine
+ that he sees the gashed and mutilated bodies of thousands of men and
+ women, and then let him say that he regrets the revolutions and
+ reformations of three hundred years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About three hundred years ago Clement VIII., Vicar of Christ, acting in
+ God's place, substitute of the Infinite, persecuted Giordano Bruno even
+ unto death. This great, this sublime man, was tried for heresy. He had
+ ventured to assert the rotary motion of the earth; he had hazarded the
+ conjecture that there were in the fields of infinite space worlds larger
+ and more glorious than ours. For these low and groveling thoughts, for
+ this contradiction of the word and vicar of God, this man was imprisoned
+ for many years. But his noble spirit was not broken, and finally, in the
+ year 1600, by the orders of the infamous vicar, he was chained to the
+ stake. Priests believing in the doctrine of universal forgiveness&mdash;priests
+ who when smitten upon one cheek turned the other&mdash;carried with a kind
+ of ferocious joy fagots to the feet of this incomparable man. These
+ disciples of "Our Lord" were made joyous as the flames, like serpents,
+ climbed around the body of Bruno. In a few moments the brave thinker was
+ dead, and the priests who had burned him fell upon their knees and asked
+ the infinite God to continue the blessed work forever in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are two things that cannot exist in the same universe&mdash;an
+ infinite God and a martyr.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the Cardinal regret that kings and emperors are not now engaged in
+ the extermination of Protestants? Does he regret that dungeons of the
+ Inquisition are no longer crowded with the best and bravest? Does he long
+ for the fires of the <i>auto da f&eacute;</i>.?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In coming to a conclusion as to the origin of the Catholic Church&mdash;in
+ determining the truth of the claim of infallibility&mdash;we are not
+ restricted to the physical achievements of that church, or to the history
+ of its propagation, or to the rapidity of its growth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This church has a creed; and if this church is of divine origin&mdash;if
+ its head is the vicar of Christ, and, as such, infallible in matters of
+ faith and morals, this creed must be true. Let us start with the
+ supposition that God exists, and that he is infinitely wise, powerful and
+ good&mdash;and this is only a supposition. Now, if the creed is foolish,
+ absurd and cruel, it cannot be of divine origin. We find in this creed the
+ following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold
+ the Catholic faith."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not necessary, before all things, that he be good, honest, merciful,
+ charitable and just. Creed is more important than conduct. The most
+ important of all things is, that he hold the Catholic faith. There were
+ thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that faith,
+ because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the virtues
+ were just as important as now, just as important as they ever can be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed.
+ Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and rejected
+ it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because of their
+ belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions of their
+ fellows. We know that men can be, have been, and are just as wicked with
+ it as without it. We know that it is not necessary to believe it to be
+ good, loving, tender, noble and self-denying. We admit that millions who
+ have believed it have also been self-denying and heroic, and that
+ millions, by such belief, were not prevented from torturing and destroying
+ the helpless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if all who believed it were good, and all who rejected it were bad,
+ then there might be some propriety in saying that "whoever will be saved,
+ before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith." But as
+ the experience of mankind is otherwise, the declaration becomes absurd,
+ ignorant and cruel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another clause:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without
+ doubt, he shall everlastingly perish."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now have both sides of this wonderful truth: The believer will be
+ saved, the unbeliever will be lost. We know that faith is not the child or
+ servant of the will. We know that belief is a conclusion based upon what
+ the mind supposes to be true. We know that it is not an act of the will.
+ Nothing can be more absurd than to save a man because he is not
+ intelligent enough to accept the truth, and nothing can be more infamous
+ than to damn a man because he is intelligent enough to reject the false.
+ It resolves itself into a question of intelligence. If the creed is true,
+ then a man rejects it because he lacks intelligence. Is this a crime for
+ which a man should everlastingly perish? If the creed is false, then a man
+ accepts it because he lacks intelligence. In both cases the crime is
+ exactly the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a man is to be damned for rejecting the truth, certainly he should not
+ be saved for accepting the false. This one clause demonstrates that a
+ being of infinite wisdom and goodness did not write it. It also
+ demonstrates that it was the work of men who had neither wisdom nor a
+ sense of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is this Catholic faith that must be held? It is this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither
+ confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." Why should an
+ Infinite Being demand worship? Why should one God wish to be worshiped as
+ three? Why should three Gods wished to be worshiped as one? Why should we
+ pray to one God and think of three, or pray to three Gods and think of
+ one? Can this increase the happiness of the one or of the three? Is it
+ possible to think of one as three, or of three as one? If you think of
+ three as one, can you think of one as none, or of none as one? When you
+ think of three as one, what do you do with the other two? You must not
+ "confound the persons"&mdash;they must be kept separate. When you think of
+ one as three, how do you get the other two? You must not "divide the
+ substance." Is it possible to write greater contradictions than these?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This creed demonstrates the human origin of the Catholic Church. Nothing
+ could be more unjust than to punish man for unbelief&mdash;for the
+ expression of honest thought&mdash;for having been guided by his reason&mdash;for
+ having acted in accordance with his best judgment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another claim is made, to the effect "that the Catholic Church has filled
+ the world with the true knowledge of the one true God, and that it has
+ destroyed all idols by light instead of by fire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Catholic Church described the true God as a being who would inflict
+ eternal pain on his weak and erring children; described him as a fickle,
+ quick-tempered, unreasonable deity, whom honesty enraged, and whom
+ flattery governed; one who loved to see fear upon its knees, ignorance
+ with closed eyes and open mouth; one who delighted in useless self-denial,
+ who loved to hear the sighs and sobs of suffering nuns, as they lay
+ prostrate on dungeon floors; one who was delighted when the husband
+ deserted his family and lived alone in some cave in the far wilderness,
+ tormented by dreams and driven to insanity by prayer and penance, by
+ fasting and faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Catholic Church, the true God enjoyed the agonies of
+ heretics. He loved the smell of their burning flesh; he applauded with
+ wide palms when philosophers were flayed alive, and to him the <i>auto da
+ f&eacute;</i> was a divine comedy. The shrieks of wives, the cries of
+ babes when fathers were being burned, gave contrast, heightened the effect
+ and filled his cup with joy. This true God did not know the shape of the
+ earth he had made, and had forgotten the orbits of the stars. "The stream
+ of light which descended from the beginning" was propagated by fagot to
+ fagot, until Christendom was filled with the devouring fires of faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may also be said that the Catholic Church filled the world with the
+ true knowledge of the one true Devil. It filled the air with malicious
+ phantoms, crowded innocent sleep with leering fiends, and gave the world
+ to the domination of witches and wizards, spirits and spooks, goblins and
+ ghosts, and butchered and burned thousands for the commission of
+ impossible crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is contended that: "In this true knowledge of the Divine Nature was
+ revealed to man their own relation to a Creator as sons to a Father."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This tender relation was revealed by the Catholics to the Pagans, the
+ Arians, the Cathari, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the heretics, the
+ Jews, the Moriscoes, the Protestants&mdash;to the natives of the West
+ Indies, of Mexico, of Peru&mdash;to philosophers, patriots and thinkers.
+ All these victims were taught to regard the true God as a loving father,
+ and this lesson was taught with every instrument of torture&mdash;with
+ brandings and burnings, with flayings and flames. The world was filled
+ with cruelty and credulity, ignorance and intolerance, and the soil in
+ which all these horrors grew was the true knowledge of the one true God,
+ and the true knowledge of the one true Devil. And yet, we are compelled to
+ say, that the one true Devil described by the Catholic Church was not as
+ malevolent as the one true God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it true that the Catholic Church overthrew idolatry? What is idolatry?
+ What shall we say of the worship of popes&mdash;of the doctrine of the
+ Real Presence, of divine honors paid to saints, of sacred vestments, of
+ holy water, of consecrated cups and plates, of images and relics, of
+ amulets and charms?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Catholic Church filled the world with the spirit of idolatry. It
+ abandoned the idea of continuity in nature, it denied the integrity of
+ cause and effect. The government of the world was the composite result of
+ the caprice of God, the malice of Satan, the prayers of the faithful&mdash;softened,
+ it may be, by the charity of Chance. Yet the Cardinal asserts, without the
+ preface of a smile, that "Demonology was overthrown by the church, with
+ the assistance of forces that were above nature;" and in the same breath
+ gives birth to this enlightened statement: "Beelzebub is not divided
+ against himself." Is a belief in Beelzebub a belief in demonology? Has the
+ Cardinal forgotten the Council of Nice, held in the year of grace 787,
+ that declared the worship of images to be lawful? Did that infallible
+ Council, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, destroy idolatry?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal takes the ground that marriage is a sacrament, and therefore
+ indissoluble, and he also insists that celibacy is far better than
+ marriage,&mdash;holier than a sacrament,&mdash;that marriage is not the
+ highest state, but that "the state of virginity unto death is the highest
+ condition of man and woman."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest ideal of a family is where all are equal&mdash;where love has
+ superseded authority&mdash;where each seeks the good of all, and where
+ none obey&mdash;where no religion can sunder hearts, and with which no
+ church can interfere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real marriage is based on mutual affection&mdash;the ceremony is but
+ the outward evidence of the inward flame. To this contract there are but
+ two parties. The church is an impudent intruder. Marriage is made public
+ to the end that the real contract may be known, so that the world can see
+ that the parties have been actuated by the highest and holiest motives
+ that find expression in the acts of human beings. The man and woman are
+ not joined together by God, or by the church, or by the state. The church
+ and state may prescribe certain ceremonies, certain formalities&mdash;but
+ all these are only evidence of the existence of a sacred fact in the
+ hearts of the wedded. The indissolubility of marriage is a dogma that has
+ filled the lives of millions with agony and tears. It has given a
+ perpetual excuse for vice and immorality. Fear has borne children begotten
+ by brutality. Countless women have endured the insults, indignities and
+ cruelties of fiendish husbands, because they thought that it was the will
+ of God. The contract of marriage is the most important that human beings
+ can make; but no contract can be so important as to release one of the
+ parties from the obligation of performance; and no contract, whether made
+ between man and woman, or between them and God, after a failure of
+ consideration caused by the willful act of the man or woman, can hold and
+ bind the innocent and honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do the believers in indissoluble marriage treat their wives better than
+ others? A little while ago, a woman said to a man who had raised his hand
+ to strike her: "Do not touch me; you have no right to beat me; I am not
+ your wife."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About a year ago a husband, whom God in his infinite wisdom had joined to
+ a loving and patient woman in the indissoluble sacrament of marriage,
+ becoming enraged, seized the helpless wife and tore out one of her eyes.
+ She forgave him. A few weeks ago he deliberately repeated this frightful
+ crime, leaving his victim totally blind. Would it not have been better if
+ man, before the poor woman was blinded, had put asunder whom God had
+ joined together? Thousands of husbands, who insist that marriage is
+ indissoluble, are the beaters of wives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law of the church has created neither the purity nor the peace of
+ domestic life. Back of all churches is human affection. Back of all
+ theologies is the love of the human heart. Back of all your priests and
+ creeds is the adoration of the one woman by the one man, and of the one
+ man by the one woman. Back of your faith is the fireside; back of your
+ folly is the family; and back of all your holy mistakes and your sacred
+ absurdities is the love of husband and wife, of parent and child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that neither the Greek nor the Roman world had any true
+ conception of a home. The splendid story of Ulysses and Penelope, the
+ parting of Hector and Andromache, demonstrate that a true conception of
+ home existed among the Greeks. Before the establishment of Christianity,
+ the Roman matron commanded the admiration of the then known world. She was
+ free and noble. The church degraded woman&mdash;made her the property of
+ the husband, and trampled her beneath its brutal feet. The "fathers"
+ denounced woman as a perpetual temptation, as the cause of all evil. The
+ church worshiped a God who had upheld polygamy, and had pronounced his
+ curse on woman, and had declared that she should be the serf of the
+ husband. This church followed the teachings of St. Paul. It taught the
+ uncleanness of marriage, and insisted that all children were conceived in
+ sin. This church pretended to have been founded by one who offered a
+ reward in this world, and eternal joy in the next, to husbands who would
+ forsake their wives and children and follow him. Did this tend to the
+ elevation of woman? Did this detestable doctrine "create the purity and
+ peace of domestic life"? Is it true that a monk is purer than a good and
+ noble father?&mdash;that a nun is holier than a loving mother?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything deeper and stronger than a mother's love? Is there
+ anything purer, holier than a mother holding her dimpled babe against her
+ billowed breast?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The good man is useful, the best man is the most useful. Those who fill
+ the nights with barren prayers and holy hunger, torture themselves for
+ their own good and not for the benefit of others. They are earning eternal
+ glory for themselves&mdash;they do not fast for their fellow-men&mdash;their
+ selfishness is only equalled by their foolishness. Compare the monk in his
+ selfish cell, counting beads and saying prayers for the purpose of saving
+ his barren soul, with a husband and father sitting by his fireside with
+ wife and children. Compare the nun with the mother and her babe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity. It tries to put a stain upon
+ motherhood, upon marriage, upon love&mdash;that is to say, upon all that
+ is holiest in the human heart. Take love from the world, and there is
+ nothing left worth living for. The church has treated this great, this
+ sublime, this unspeakably holy passion, as though it polluted the heart.
+ They have placed the love of God above the love of woman, above the love
+ of man. Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish,
+ because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet the Cardinal asserts "that the change wrought by Christianity in the
+ social, political and international relations of the world"&mdash;"that
+ the root of this ethical change, private and public, is the Christian
+ home." A moment afterward, this prelate insists that celibacy is far
+ better than marriage. If the world could be induced to live in accordance
+ with the "highest state," this generation would be the last. Why were men
+ and women created? Why did not the Catholic God commence' with the sinless
+ and sexless? The Cardinal ought to take the ground that to talk well is
+ good, but that to be dumb is the highest condition; that hearing is a
+ pleasure, but that deafness is ecstasy; and that to think, to reason, is
+ very well, but that to be a Catholic is far better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions from
+ human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to destroy
+ passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge passion
+ to the utmost is one form of intemperance&mdash;to destroy passion is
+ another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of
+ the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The goodness, the sympathy, the self-denial of the nun, of the monk, all
+ come from the mother-instinct, the father-instinct&mdash;all were produced
+ by human affection, by the love of man for woman, of woman for man. Love
+ is a transfiguration. It ennobles, purifies and glorifies. In true
+ marriage two hearts burst into flower. Two lives unite. They melt in
+ music. Every moment is a melody. Love is a revelation, a creation. From
+ love the world borrows its beauty and the heavens their glory. Justice,
+ self-denial, charity and pity are the children of love. Lover, wife,
+ mother, husband, father, child, home&mdash;these words shed light&mdash;they
+ are the gems of human speech. Without love all glory fades, the noble
+ falls from life, art dies, music loses meaning and becomes mere motions of
+ the air, and virtue ceases to exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is asserted that this life of celibacy is above and against the
+ tendencies of human nature; and the Cardinal then asks: "Who will ascribe
+ this to natural causes, and, if so, why did it not appear in the first
+ four thousand years?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is in a system of religion a doctrine, a dogma, or a practice
+ against the tendencies of human nature&mdash;if this religion succeeds,
+ then it is claimed by the Cardinal that such religion must be of divine
+ origin. Is it "against the tendencies of human nature" for a mother to
+ throw her child into the Ganges to please a supposed God? Yet a religion
+ that insisted on that sacrifice succeeded, and has, to-day, more believers
+ than the Catholic Church can boast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religions, like nations and individuals, have always gone along the line
+ of least resistance. Nothing has "ascended the stream of human license by
+ a power mightier than nature." There is no such power. There never was,
+ there never can be, a miracle. We know that man is a conditioned being. We
+ know that he is affected by a change of conditions. If he is ignorant he
+ is superstitious; this is natural. If his brain is developed&mdash;if he
+ perceives clearly that all things are naturally produced, he ceases to be
+ superstitious, and becomes scientific. He is not a saint, but a savant&mdash;not
+ a priest, but a philosopher. He does not worship, he works; he
+ investigates; he thinks; he takes advantage, through intelligence, of the
+ forces of nature. He is no longer the victim of appearances, the dupe of
+ his own ignorance, and the persecutor of his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He then knows that it is far better to love his wife and children than to
+ love God. He then knows that the love of man for woman, of woman for man,
+ of parent for child, of child for parent, is far better, far holier than
+ the love of man for any phantom born of ignorance and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is illogical to take the ground that the world was cruel and ignorant
+ and idolatrous when the Catholic Church was established, and that because
+ the world is better now than then, the church is of divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the world when science came? What was it in the days of Galileo,
+ Copernicus and Kepler? What-was it when printing was invented? What was it
+ when the Western World was found? Would it not be much easier to prove
+ that science is of divine origin?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science does not persecute. It does not shed blood&mdash;it fills the
+ world with light. It cares nothing for heresy; it develops the mind, and
+ enables man to answer his own prayers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cardinal Manning takes the ground that Jehovah practically abandoned the
+ children of men for four thousand years, and gave them over to every
+ abomination. He claims that Christianity came "in the fullness of time,"
+ and it is then admitted that "what the fullness of time may mean is one of
+ the mysteries of times and seasons, that it is not for us to know." Having
+ declared that it is a mystery, and one that we are not to know, the
+ Cardinal explains it: "One motive for the long delay of four thousand
+ years is not far to seek&mdash;it gave time, full and ample, for the
+ utmost development and consolidation of all the falsehood and evil of
+ which the intellect and will of man are capable."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to imagine why an infinitely good and wise being "gave time
+ full and ample for the utmost development and consolidation of falsehood
+ and evil"? Why should an infinitely wise God desire this development and
+ consolidation? What would be thought of a father who should refuse to
+ teach his son and deliberately allow him to go into every possible excess,
+ to the end that he might "develop all the falsehood and evil of which his
+ intellect and will were capable"? If a supernatural religion is a
+ necessity, and if without it all men simply develop and consolidate
+ falsehood and evil, why was not a supernatural religion given to the first
+ man? The Catholic Church, if this be true, should have been founded in the
+ Garden of Eden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it not cruel to drown a world just for the want of a supernatural
+ religion&mdash;a religion that man, by no possibility, could furnish? Was
+ there "husbandry in heaven"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the Cardinal contradicts himself by not only admitting, but declaring,
+ that the world had never seen a legislation so just, so equitable, as that
+ of Rome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that a nation in which falsehood and evil had reached their
+ highest development was, after all, so wise, so just and so equitable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was not the civil law far better than the Mosaic&mdash;more philosophical,
+ nearer just?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The civil law was produced without the assistance of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Cardinal, it was produced by men in whom all the
+ falsehood and evil of which they were capable had been developed and
+ consolidated, while the cruel and ignorant Mosaic code came from the lips
+ of infinite wisdom and compassion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is declared that the history of Rome shows what man can do without God,
+ and I assert that the history of the Inquisition shows what man can do
+ when assisted by a church of divine origin, presided over, by the
+ infallible vicars of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact that the early Christians not only believed incredible things,
+ but persuaded others of their truth, is regarded by the Cardinal as a
+ miracle. This is only another phase of the old argument that success is
+ the test of divine origin. All supernatural religions have been founded in
+ precisely the same way. The credulity of eighteen hundred years ago
+ believed everything except the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A religion is a growth, and is of necessity adapted in some degree to the
+ people among whom it grows. It is shaped and molded by the general
+ ignorance, the superstition and credulity of the age in which it lives.
+ The key is fashioned by the lock.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every religion that has succeeded has in some way supplied the wants of
+ its votaries, and has to a certain extent harmonized with their hopes,
+ their fears, their vices, and their virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, as the Cardinal says, the religion of Christ is in absolute harmony
+ with nature, how can it be supernatural? The Cardinal also declares that
+ "the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature in
+ all nations and all ages to this day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What becomes of the argument that Catholicism must be of divine origin
+ because "it has ascended the stream of human license, <i>contra ictum
+ fluminis</i>, by a power mightier than nature"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If "it is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of all nations and
+ all ages to this day," it has gone with the stream, and not against it. If
+ "the religion of Christ is in harmony with the reason and moral nature of
+ all nations," then the men who have rejected it are unnatural, and these
+ men have gone against the stream. How then can it be said that
+ Christianity has been in changeless opposition to nature as man has marred
+ it? To what extent has man marred it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of the marring by man, we are told that the reason and moral
+ nature of all nations in all ages to this day is in harmony with the
+ religion of Jesus Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are we justified in saying that the Catholic Church is of divine origin
+ because the Pagans failed to destroy it by persecution?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We will put the Cardinal's statement in form:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution, therefore
+ Catholicism is of divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us make an application of this logic:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paganism failed to destroy Catholicism by persecution; therefore,
+ Catholicism is of divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catholicism failed to destroy Protestantism by persecution; therefore,
+ Protestantism is of divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity;
+ therefore, Infidelity is of divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us make another application:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paganism did not succeed in destroying Catholicism; therefore, Paganism
+ was a false religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catholicism did not succeed in destroying Protestantism; therefore,
+ Catholicism is a false religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catholicism and Protestantism combined failed to destroy Infidelity;
+ therefore, both Catholicism and Protestantism are false religions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal has another reason for believing the Catholic Church of
+ divine origin. He declares that the "Canon Law is a creation of wisdom and
+ justice to which no statutes at large or imperial pandects can bear
+ comparison;" "that the world-wide and secular legislation of the church
+ was of a higher character, and that as water cannot rise above its source,
+ the church could not, by mere human wisdom, have corrected and perfected
+ the imperial law, and therefore its source must have been higher than the
+ sources of the world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Europe was the most ignorant, the Canon Law was supreme.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the good in the Canon Law was borrowed&mdash;the bad
+ was, for the most part, original. In my judgment, the legislation of the
+ Republic of the United States is in many respects superior to that of
+ Rome, and yet we are greatly indebted to the Civil Law. Our legislation is
+ superior in many particulars to that of England, and yet we are greatly
+ indebted to the Common Law; but it never occurred to me that our Statutes
+ at Large are divinely inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Canon Law is, in fact, the legislation of infinite wisdom, then it
+ should be a perfect code. Yet, the Canon Law made it a crime next to
+ robbery and theft to take interest for money. Without the right to take
+ interest the business of the whole world, would to a large extent, cease
+ and the prosperity of mankind end. There are railways enough in the United
+ States to make six tracks around the globe, and every mile was built with
+ borrowed money on which interest was paid or promised. In no other way
+ could the savings of many thousands have been brought together and a
+ capital great enough formed to construct works of such vast and
+ continental importance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was provided in this same wonderful Canon Law that a heretic could not
+ be a witness against a Catholic. The Catholic was at liberty to rob and
+ wrong his fellow-man, provided the fellow-man was not a fellow Catholic,
+ and in a court established by the vicar of Christ, the man who had been
+ robbed was not allowed to open his mouth. A Catholic could enter the house
+ of an unbeliever, of a Jew, of a heretic, of a Moor, and before the eyes
+ of the husband and father murder his wife and children, and the father
+ could not pronounce in the hearing of a judge the name of the murderer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is wiser now, and the Canon Law, given to us by infinite wisdom,
+ has been repealed by the common sense of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this divine code it was provided that to convict a cardinal bishop,
+ seventy-two witnesses were required; a cardinal presbyter, forty-four; a
+ cardinal deacon, twenty-four; a subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, reader,
+ ostiarius, seven; and in the purgation of a bishop, twelve witnesses were
+ invariably required; of a presbyter, seven; of a deacon, three. These
+ laws, in my judgment, were made, not by God, but by the clergy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So too in this cruel code it was provided that those who gave aid, favor,
+ or counsel, to excommunicated persons, should be anathema, and that those
+ who talked with, consulted, or sat at the same table with or gave anything
+ in charity to the excommunicated should be anathema.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that a being of infinite wisdom made hospitality a crime?
+ Did he say: "Whoso giveth a cup of cold water to the excommunicated shall
+ wear forever a garment of fire"? Were not the laws of the Romans much
+ better? Besides all this, under the Canon Law the dead could be tried for
+ heresy, and their estates confiscated&mdash;that is to say, their widows
+ and orphans robbed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most brutal part of the common law of England is that in relation to
+ the rights of women&mdash;all of which was taken from the <i>Corpus Juris
+ Canonici</i>, "the law that came from a higher source than man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only cause of absolute divorce as laid down by the pious canonists was
+ <i>propter infidelitatem</i>, which was when one of the parties became
+ Catholic, and would not live with the other who continued still an
+ unbeliever. Under this divine statute, a pagan wishing to be rid of his
+ wife had only to join the Catholic Church, provided she remained faithful
+ to the religion of her fathers. Under this divine law, a man marrying a
+ widow was declared to be a bigamist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would require volumes to point out the cruelties, absurdities and
+ inconsistencies of the Canon Law. It has been thrown away by the world.
+ Every civilized nation has a code of its own, and the Canon Law is of
+ interest only to the historian, the antiquarian, and the enemy of
+ theological government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the Canon Law, people were convicted of being witches and wizards,
+ of holding intercourse with devils. Thousands perished at the stake,
+ having been convicted of these impossible crimes. Under the Canon Law,
+ there was such a crime as the suspicion of heresy. A man or woman could be
+ arrested, charged with being suspected, and under this Canon Law, flowing
+ from the intellect of infinite wisdom, the presumption was in favor of
+ guilt. The suspected had to prove themselves innocent. In all civilized
+ courts, the presumption of innocence is the shield of the indicted, but
+ the Canon Law took away this shield, and put in the hand of the priest the
+ sword of presumptive guilt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the real pope is the vicar of Christ, the true shepherd of the sheep,
+ this fact should be known not only to the vicar, but to the sheep. A
+ divinely founded and guarded church ought to know its own shepherd, and
+ yet the Catholic sheep have not always been certain who the shepherd was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Council of Pisa, held in 1409, deposed two popes&mdash;rivals&mdash;Gregory
+ and Benedict&mdash;that is to say, deposed the actual vicar of Christ and
+ the pretended. This action was taken because a council, enlightened by the
+ Holy Ghost, could not tell the genuine from the counterfeit. The council
+ then elected another vicar, whose authority was afterwards denied.
+ Alexander V. died, and John XXIII. took his place; Gregory XII. insisted
+ that he was the lawful pope; John resigned, then he was deposed, and
+ afterward imprisoned; then Gregory XII. resigned, and Martin V. was
+ elected. The whole thing reads like the annals of a South American
+ revolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Council of Constance restored, as the Cardinal declares, the unity of
+ the church, and brought back the consolation of the Holy Ghost. Before
+ this great council John Huss appeared and maintained his own tenets. The
+ council declared that the church was not bound to keep its promise with a
+ heretic. Huss was condemned and executed on the 6th of July, 1415. His
+ disciple, Jerome of Prague, recanted, but having relapsed, was put to
+ death, May 30, 1416. This cursed council shed the blood of Huss and
+ Jerome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal appeals to the author of "Ecce Homo" for the purpose of
+ showing that Christianity is above nature, and the following passages,
+ among others, are quoted:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Who can describe that which unites men? Who has entered into the
+ formation of speech, which is the symbol of their union? Who can describe
+ exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who can do these things can
+ explain the origin of the Christian Church."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These passages should not have been quoted by the Cardinal. The author of
+ these passages simply says that the origin of the Christian Church is no
+ harder to find and describe than that which unites men&mdash;than that
+ which has entered into the formation of speech, the symbol of their union&mdash;no
+ harder to describe than the origin of civil society&mdash;because he says
+ that one who can describe these can describe the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly none of these things are above nature. We do not need the
+ assistance of the Holy Ghost in these matters. We know that men are united
+ by common interests, common purposes, common dangers&mdash;by race,
+ climate and education. It is no more wonderful that people live in
+ families, tribes, communities and nations, than that birds, ants and bees
+ live in flocks and swarms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we know anything, we know that language is natural&mdash;that it is a
+ physical science. But if we take the ground occupied by the Cardinal, then
+ we insist that everything that cannot be accounted for by man, is
+ supernatural. Let me ask, by what man? What man must we take as the
+ standard?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cosmas or Humboldt, St. Iren&aelig;us or Darwin? If everything that we
+ cannot account for is above nature, then ignorance is the test of the
+ supernatural. The man who is mentally honest, stops where his knowledge
+ stops. At that point he says that he does not know. Such a man is a
+ philosopher. Then the theologian steps forward, denounces the modesty of
+ the philosopher as blasphemy, and proceeds to tell what is beyond the
+ horizon of the human intellect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could a savage account for the telegraph, or the telephone, by natural
+ causes? How would he account for these wonders? He would account for them
+ precisely as the Cardinal accounts for the Catholic Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Belonging to no rival church, I have not the slightest interest in the
+ primacy of Leo XIII., and yet it is to be regretted that this primacy
+ rests upon such a narrow and insecure foundation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal says that "it will appear almost certain that the original
+ Greek of St. Iren&aelig;us, <i>which is unfortunately lost</i>, contained
+ either [&mdash;Greek&mdash;], or some inflection of [&mdash;Greek&mdash;],
+ which signifies primacy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this it appears that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome rests on some
+ "inflection" of a Greek word&mdash;and that this supposed inflection was
+ in a letter supposed to have been written by St. Iren&aelig;us, which has
+ certainly been lost. Is it possible that the vast fabric of papal power
+ has this, and only this, for its foundation? To this "inflection" has it
+ come at last?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal's case depends upon the intelligence and veracity of his
+ witnesses. The Fathers of the church were utterly incapable of examining a
+ question of fact. They were all believers in the miraculous. The same is
+ true of the apostles. If St. John was the author of the Apocalypse, he was
+ undoubtedly insane. If Polycarp said the things attributed to him by
+ Catholic writers, he was certainly in the condition of his master. What is
+ the testimony of St. John worth in the light of the following? "Cerinthus,
+ the heretic, was in a bathhouse. St. John and another Christian were about
+ to enter. St. John cried out: 'Let us run away, lest the house fall upon
+ us while the enemy of truth is in it.'" Is it possible that St. John
+ thought that God would kill two eminent Christians for the purpose of
+ getting even with one heretic?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see who Polycarp was. He seems to have been a prototype of the
+ Catholic Church, as will be seen from the following statement concerning
+ this Father: "When any heretical doctrine was spoken in his presence he
+ would stop his ears." After this, there can be no question of his
+ orthodoxy. It is claimed that Polycarp was a martyr&mdash;that a spear was
+ run through his body, and that from the wound his soul, in the shape of a
+ bird, flew away. The history of his death is just as true as the history
+ of his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Iren&aelig;us, another witness, took the ground that there was to be a
+ millennium&mdash;a thousand years of enjoyment in which celibacy would not
+ be the highest form of virtue. If he is called as a witness for the
+ purpose of establishing the divine origin of the church, and if one of his
+ "inflections" is the basis of papal supremacy, is the Cardinal also
+ willing to take his testimony as to the nature of the millennium?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the Fathers were infinitely credulous. Every one of them believed, not
+ only in the miracles said to have been wrought by Christ, by the apostles,
+ and by other Christians, but every one of them believed in the Pagan
+ miracles. All of these Fathers were familiar with wonders and
+ impossibilities. Nothing was so common with them as to work miracles, and
+ on many occasions they not only cured diseases, not only reversed the
+ order of nature, but succeeded in raising the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is very hard, indeed, to prove what the apostles said, or what the
+ Fathers of the church wrote. There were many centuries filled with
+ forgeries&mdash;many generations in which the cunning hands of
+ ecclesiastics erased, obliterated or interpolated the records of the past&mdash;during
+ which they invented books, invented authors, and quoted from works that
+ never existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The testimony of the "Fathers" is without the slightest value. They
+ believed everything&mdash;they examined nothing. They received as a
+ waste-basket receives. Whoever accepts their testimony will exclaim with
+ the Cardinal: "Happily, men are not saved by logic."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0014" id="link0014">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IS DIVORCE WRONG?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ By Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Henry C. Potter, and Colonel Robert G.
+ Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE attention of the public has been particularly directed of late to the
+ abuses of divorce, and to the facilities afforded by the complexities of
+ American law, and by the looseness of its administration, for the
+ disruption of family ties. Therefore the <i>North American Review</i> has
+ opened its pages for the thorough discussion of the subject in its moral,
+ social, and religious aspects, and some of the most eminent leaders of
+ modern thought have contributed their opinions. The Rev. S. W. Dike,
+ LL.D., who is a specialist on the subject of divorce, has prepared some
+ statistics touching the matter, and, with the assistance of Bishop Potter,
+ the four following questions have been formulated as a basis for the
+ discussion:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. What is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. Does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists contribute to
+ the moral purity of society?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Editor North American Review,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkINTR" id="linkINTR">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ Introduction by the Rev. S. W. Dike, LL.D.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I AM to introduce this discussion with some facts and make a few
+ suggestions upon them. In the dozen years of my work at this problem I
+ have steadily insisted upon a broad basis of fact as the only foundation
+ of sound opinion. We now have a great statistical advance in the report of
+ the Department of labor. A few of these statistics will serve the present
+ purpose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There were in the United States 9,937 divorces reported for the year 1867
+ and 25,535 for 1886, or a total 328,716 in the twenty years. This increase
+ is more than twice as great as the population, and has been remarkably
+ uniform throughout the period. With the exception of New York, perhaps
+ Delaware, and the three or four States where special legislative reforms
+ have been secured, the increase covers the country and has been more than
+ twice the gain in population. The South apparently felt the movement later
+ than the North and West, but its greater rapidity there will apparently
+ soon obliterate most existing differences. The movement is well-nigh as
+ universal in Europe as here. Thirteen European countries, including
+ Canada, had 6,540 divorces in 1876 and 10,909 in 1886&mdash;an increase of
+ 67 per cent. In the same period the increase with us was 72.5 per cent.
+ But the ratios of divorce to population are here generally three or four
+ times greater than in Europe. The ratios to marriage in the United States
+ are sometimes as high as 1 to 10, 1 to 9, or even a little more for single
+ years. In heathen Japan for three years they were more than 1 to 3. But
+ divorce there is almost wholly left to the regulation of the family, and
+ practically optional with the parties. It is a re-transference of the wife
+ by a simple writing to her own family.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. The increase of divorce is one of several evils affecting the family.
+ Among these are hasty or ill-considered marriages, the decline of marriage
+ and the decrease of children,&mdash;too generally among classes
+ pecuniarily best able to maintain domestic life,&mdash;the probable
+ increase in some directions of marital infidelity and sexual vice, and
+ last, but not least, a tendency to reduce the family to a minimum of force
+ in the life of society. All these evils should be studied and treated in
+ their relations to each other. Carefully-conducted investigations alone
+ can establish these latter statements beyond dispute, although there can
+ be little doubt of their general correctness as here carefully made. And
+ the conclusion is forced upon us that the toleration of the increase of
+ divorce, touching as it does the vital bond of the family, is so far forth
+ a confession of our western civilization that it despairs of all remedies
+ for ills of the family, and is becoming willing, in great degree, to look
+ away from all true remedies to a dissolution of the family by the courts
+ in all serious cases. If this were our settled purpose, it would look like
+ giving up the idea of producing and protecting a family increasingly
+ capable of enduring to the end of its natural existence. If the drift of
+ things on this subject during the present century may be taken as
+ prophetic, our civilization moves in an opposite direction in its
+ treatment of the family from its course with the individual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. Divorce, including these other evils related to the family, is
+ preeminently a social problem. It should therefore be reached by all the
+ forces of our great social institutions&mdash;religious, educational,
+ industrial, and political. Each of these should be brought to bear on it
+ proportionately and in cooperation with the others. But I can here take up
+ only one or two lines for further suggestion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. The causes of divorces, like those of most social evils, are often many
+ and intricate. The statistics for this country, when the forty-three
+ various statutory causes are reduced to a few classes, show that 20 per
+ cent, of the divorces were based on adultery, 16 on cruelty, 38 were
+ granted for desertion, 4 for drunkenness, less than 3 for neglect to
+ provide, and so on. But these tell very little, except that it is easier
+ or more congenial to use one or another of the statutory causes, just as
+ the old "omnibus clause," which gave general discretion to the courts in
+ Connecticut, and still more in some other States, was made to cover many
+ cases. A special study of forty-five counties in twelve States, however,
+ shows that drunkenness was a direct or indirect cause in 20.1 per cent, of
+ 29,665 cases. That is, it could be found either alone or in conjunction
+ with others, directly or indirectly, in one-fifth of the cases.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. Laws and their administration affect divorce. New York grants absolute
+ divorce for only one cause, and New Jersey for two. Yet New York has many
+ more divorces in proportion to population, due largely to a looser system
+ of administration. In seventy counties of twelve States 68 per cent, of
+ the applications are granted. The enactment of a more stringent law is
+ immediately followed by a decrease of divorces, from which there is a
+ tendency to recover. Personally, I think stricter methods of
+ administration, restrictions upon remarriage, proper delays in hearing
+ suits, and some penal inflictions for cruelty, desertion, neglect of
+ support, as well as for adultery, would greatly reduce divorces, even
+ without removing a single statutory cause. There would be fewer unhappy
+ families, not more. For people would then look to real remedies instead of
+ confessing the hopelessness of remedy by appeals to the courts. A
+ multitude of petty ills and many utterly wicked frauds and other abuses
+ would disappear. "Your present methods," said a Nova Scotian to a man from
+ Maine a few years ago, "are simply ways of multiplying and magnifying
+ domestic ills." There is much force in this. But let us put reform of
+ marriage laws along with these measures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. The evils of conflicting and diverse marriage and divorce laws are
+ doing immense harm. The mischief through which innocent parties are
+ defrauded, children rendered illegitimate, inheritance made uncertain, and
+ actual imprisonments for bigamy grow out of divorce and remarriage, are
+ well known to most. Uniformity through a national law or by conventions of
+ the States has been strongly urged for many years. Uniformity is needed.
+ But for one, I have long discouraged too early action, because the problem
+ is too difficult, the consequences too serious, and the elements of it
+ still too far out of our reach for any really wise action at present. The
+ government report grew immediately out of this conviction. It will, I
+ think, abundantly justify the caution. For it shows that uniformity could
+ affect at the utmost only a small percentage of the total divorces in the
+ United States. <i>Only 19.9 percent of all the divorced who were married
+ in this country obtained their divorces in a different State from the one
+ in which their marriage had taken place, in all these twenty years, 80.1
+ per cent, having been divorced in the State where married</i>. Now,
+ marriage on the average lasts 9.17 years before divorce occurs, which
+ probably is nearly two-fifths the length of a married life before its
+ dissolution by death. From this 19.9 per cent, there must, therefore, be
+ subtracted the large migration of married couples for legitimate purposes,
+ in order to get any fair figure to express the migration for divorce. But
+ the movement of the native population away from the State of birth is 22
+ or 23 per cent. This, however, includes all ages. For all who believe that
+ divorce itself is generally a great evil, the conclusion is apparently
+ inevitable that the question of uniformity, serious as it is, is a very
+ small part of the great legal problem demanding solution at our hands.
+ This general problem, aside from its graver features in the more immediate
+ sphere of sociology and religion, must evidently tax our publicists and
+ statesmen severely. The old temptation to meet special evils by general
+ legislation besets us on this subject. I think comparative and historical
+ study of the law of the family, (the <i>Familienrecht</i> of the Germans),
+ especially if the movement of European law be seen, points toward the need
+ of a pretty comprehensive and thorough examination of our specific legal
+ problem of divorce and marriage law in this fuller light, before much
+ legislation is undertaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Samuel W. Dike.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ However much men may differ in their views of the nature and attributes of
+ the matrimonial contract, and in their concept of the rights and
+ obligations of the marriage state, no one will deny that these are grave
+ questions; since upon marriage rests the family, and upon the family rest
+ society, civilization, and the highest interests of religion and the
+ state. Yet, strange to say, divorce, the deadly enemy of marriage, stalks
+ abroad to-day bold and unblushing, a monster licensed by the laws of
+ Christian states to break hearts, wreck homes and ruin souls. And passing
+ strange is it, too, that so many, wise and far-seeing in less weighty
+ concerns, do not appear to see in the evergrowing power of divorce a
+ menace not only to the sacredness of the marriage institution, but even to
+ the fair social fabric reared upon matrimony as its corner-stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God instituted in Paradise the marriage state and sanctified it. He
+ established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility. By divine
+ authority Adam spoke when of his wife he said: "This now is bone of my
+ bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was
+ taken out of man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall
+ cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Gen., ii., 23-24.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ But like other things on earth, marriage suffered in the fall; and little
+ by little polygamy and divorce began to assert themselves against the law
+ of matrimonial unity and indissolubility. Yet the ideal of the marriage
+ institution never faded away. It survived, not only among the chosen
+ people, but even among the nations of heathendom, disfigured much, 'tis
+ true, but with its ancient beauty never wholly destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When, in the fullness of time, Christ came to restore the things that were
+ perishing, he reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms the sanctity,
+ unity, and indissolubility of marriage. Nay, more. He gave to this state
+ added holiness and a dignity higher far than it had "from the beginning."
+ He made marriage a sacrament, made it the type of his own never-ending
+ union with his one spotless spouse, the church. St. Paul, writing to the
+ Ephesians, says: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the
+ church, and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it,
+ cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might
+ present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or
+ any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So also
+ ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.... For this cause shall
+ a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they
+ shall be two in one flesh."*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Ephes., v., 25-31.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In defence of Christian marriage, the church was compelled from the
+ earliest days of her existence to do frequent and stern battle. But
+ cultured pagan, and rough barbarian, and haughty Christian lord were met
+ and conquered. Men were taught to master passion, and Christian marriage,
+ with all its rights secured and reverenced, became a ruling power in the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Council of Trent, called, in the throes of the mighty moral upheaval
+ of the sixteenth century, to deal with the new state of things, again
+ proclaimed to a believing and an unbelieving world the Catholic doctrine
+ of the holiness, unity, and indissolubility of marriage, and the
+ unlawfulness of divorce. The council declared no new dogmas: it simply
+ reaffirmed the common teaching of the church for centuries. But some of
+ the most hallowed attributes of marriage seemed to be objects of peculiar
+ detestation to the new teachers, and their abolition was soon demanded.
+ "The leaders in the changes of matrimonial law," writes Professor Woolsey,
+ "were the Protestant reformers themselves, and that almost from the
+ beginning of the movement.... The reformers, when they discarded the
+ sacramental view of marriage and the celibacy of the clergy, had to make
+ out a new doctrine of marriage and of divorce."* The "new doctrine of
+ marriage and of divorce," pleasing as it was to the sensual man, was
+ speedily learned and as speedily put in practice. The sacredness with
+ which Christian marriage had been hedged around began to be more and more
+ openly trespassed upon, and restive shoulders wearied more and more
+ quickly of the marriage yoke when divorce promised freedom for newer joys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To our own time the logical consequences of the "new doctrine" have come.
+ To-day "abyss calls upon abyss," change calls for change, laxity calls for
+ license. Divorce is now a recognized presence in high life and low; and
+ polygamy, the first-born of divorce, sits shameless in palace and in
+ hovel. Yet the teacher that feared not to speak the words of truth in
+ bygone ages is not silent now. In no uncertain tones, the church proclaims
+ to the world to-day the unchangeable law of the strict unity and absolute
+ indissolubility of valid and consummated Christian marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the question then, "Can divorce from the bond of marriage ever be
+ allowed?" the Catholic can only answer no.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "Divorce and Divorce Legislation," by Theodore D. Woolsey,
+ 2d Ed., p. 126.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And for this no, his first and last and best reason can be but this: "<i>Thus
+ saith the Lord</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As time goes on the wisdom of the church in absolutely forbidding divorce
+ from the marriage bond grows more and more plain even to the many who deny
+ to this prohibition a divine and authoritative sanction. And nowhere is
+ this more true than in our own country. Yet our experience of the evils of
+ divorce is but the experience of every people that has cherished this
+ monster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take but a hasty view of the consequences of divorce in ancient
+ times. Turn only to pagan Greece and Rome, two peoples that practised
+ divorce most extensively. In both we find divorce weakening their
+ primitive virtue and making their latter corruption more corrupt. Among
+ the Greeks morality declined as material civilization advanced. Divorce
+ grew easy and common, and purity and peace were banished from the family
+ circle. Among the Romans divorce was not common until the latter days of
+ the Republic. Then the flood-gates of immorality were opened, and, with
+ divorce made easy, came rushing in corruption of morals among both sexes
+ and in every walk of life. "Passion, interest, or caprice," Gibbon, the
+ historian, tells us, "suggested daily motives for the dissolution of
+ marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman,
+ declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded
+ to a transient society of profit or pleasure."* Each succeeding generation
+ witnessed moral corruption more general, moral degradation more profound;
+ men and women were no longer ashamed of licentiousness; until at length
+ the nation that became mighty because built on a pure family fell when its
+ corner-stone crumbled away in rottenness.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empir&eacute;," Milman's Ed., Vol.
+ III., p. 236.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Heedless of the lessons taught by history, modern nations, too, have made
+ trial of divorce. In Europe, wherever the new gospel of marriage and
+ divorce has had! notable influence, divorce has been legalized; and in due
+ proportion to the extent of that influence causes for divorce have been
+ multiplied, the bond of marriage more and more recklessly broken, and the
+ obligations of that sacred state more and more shamelessly disregarded. In
+ our own country the divorce evil has grown more rapidly than our growth
+ and strengthened more rapidly than our strength. Mr. Carroll D. Wright, in
+ a special report on the statistics of marriage and divorce made to
+ Congress in February, 1889, places the number of divorces in the United
+ States in 1867 at 9,937, and the number in 1886 at 25,535. These figures
+ show an increase of the divorce evil much out of proportion to our
+ increase in population. The knowledge that divorces can easily be procured
+ encourages hasty marriages and equally hasty preparations. Legislators and
+ judges in some States are encouraging inventive genius in the art of
+ finding new causes for divorce. Frequently the most trivial and even
+ ridiculous pretexts are recognized as sufficient for the rupture of the
+ marriage bond; and in some States divorce can be obtained "without
+ publicity," and even without the knowledge of the defendant&mdash;in such
+ cases generally an innocent wife. Crime has sometimes been committed for
+ the very purpose of bringing about a divorce, and cases are not rare in
+ which plots have been laid to blacken the reputation of a virtuous spouse
+ in order to obtain legal freedom for new nuptials. Sometimes, too, there
+ is a collusion between the married parties to obtain divorce. One of them
+ trumps up charges; the other does not oppose the suit; and judgment is
+ entered for the plaintiff. Every daily newspaper tells us of divorces
+ applied for or granted, and the public sense of decency is constantly
+ being shocked by the disgusting recital of of divorce-court scandals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are filled with righteous indignation at Mormonism; we brand it as a
+ national disgrace, and justly demand its suppression. Why? Because,
+ forsooth, the Mormons are polygamists. Do we forget that there are two
+ species of polygamy&mdash;simultaneous and successive? Mormons practise
+ without legal recognition the first species; while among us the second
+ species is indulged in, and with the sanction of law, by thousands in
+ whose nostrils Mormonism is a stench and an abomination. The Christian
+ press and pulpit of the land denounce the Mormons as "an adulterous
+ generation," but too often deal very tenderly with Christian polygamists.
+ Why? Is Christian polygamy less odious in the eyes of God than Mormon
+ polygamy? Among us, *tis true, the one is looked upon as more respectable
+ than the other. Yet we know that the Mormons as a class, care for their
+ wives and children; while Christian polygamists but too often leave
+ wretched wives to starve, slave, or sin, and leave miserable children a
+ public charge. "O divorced and much-married Christian," says the
+ polygamous dweller by Salt Lake, "pluck first the beam from thy own eye,
+ and then shalt thou see to pluck the mote from the eye of thy
+ much-married, but undivorced, Mormon brother." It follows logically from
+ the Catholic doctrine of the unity and indissolubility of marriage, and
+ the consequent prohibition of divorce from the marital bond, that no one,
+ even though divorced <i>a vinculo</i> by the civil power, can be allowed
+ by the church to take another consort during the lifetime of the true wife
+ or husband, and such connection the church can but hold as sinful. It is
+ written: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth
+ adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be
+ married to another, she committeth adultery."*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Mark, x., ii, 12.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I am well aware that upon the words of our Saviour as found in
+ St. Matthew, Chap. xix., 9, many base the right of divorce from the
+ marriage bond for adultery, with permission to remarry. But, as is well
+ known, the Catholic Church, upon the concurrent testimony of the
+ Evangelists Mark* and Luke,** and upon the teaching of St. Paul,***
+ interprets our Lord's words quoted by St. Matthew as simply permitting, on
+ account of adultery, divorce from bed and board, with no right to either
+ party to marry another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But even if divorce <i>a vinculo</i> were not forbidden by divine law, how
+ inadequate a remedy would it be for the evils for which so many deem it a
+ panacea. "Divorce <i>a vinculo</i>," as Dr. Brownson truly says,
+ "logically involves divorce <i>ad libitum."</i>*** Now, what reason is
+ there to suppose that parties divorced and remated will be happier in the
+ new connection than in the old? As a matter of fact, many persons have
+ been divorced a number of times. Sometimes, too, it happens that, after a
+ period of separation, divorced parties repent of their folly, reunite, and
+ are again divorced. Indeed, experience clearly proves that unhappiness
+ among married people frequently does not arise so much from "mutual
+ incompatibility" as from causes inherent in one or both of the parties&mdash;causes
+ that would be likely to make a new union as wretched as the old one. There
+ is wisdom in the pithy saying of-a recent writer: "Much ill comes, not
+ because men and women are married, but because they are fools."***
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Mark, x., n, 12. Luke, xvi., 18. J I. Cor.,vii., 10, 11.
+
+ ** Essay on "The Family&mdash;Christian and Pagan."
+
+ *** Prof. David Swing in Chicago Journal.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ There are some who think that the absolute prohibition of divorce does not
+ contribute to the purity of society, and are therefore of opinion that
+ divorce with liberty to remarry does good in this regard. He who believes
+ the matrimonial bond indissoluble, divorce a vinculo evil, and the
+ connection resulting from it criminal, can only say: "Evil should not be
+ done that good may come." But, after all, would even passing good come
+ from this greater freedom? In a few exceptional cases&mdash;Yes: in the
+ vast majority of cases&mdash;No. The trying of divorce as a safeguard of
+ purity is an old experiment, and an unsuccessful one. In Rome adulteries
+ increased as divorces were multiplied. After speaking of the facility and
+ frequency of divorce among the Romans, Gibbon adds:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which
+ demonstrates that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness
+ and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy all mutual
+ confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute. The minute difference
+ between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be removed, might
+ still more easily be forgotten."*
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How <i>apropos</i> in this connection are the words of Professor Woolsey:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Nothing is more startling than to pass from the first part of the
+ eighteenth to this latter part of the nineteenth century, and to observe
+ how law has changed and opinion has altered in regard to marriage, the
+ great foundation of society, and to divorce; and how, almost pari passu,
+ various offences against chastity, such as concubinage, prostitution,
+ illegitimate births, abortion, disinclination to family life, have
+ increased also&mdash;not, indeed, at the same pace everywhere, or all of
+ them equally in all countries, yet have decidedly increased on the
+ whole."!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely in few parts of the wide world is the truth of these strong words
+ more evident than in those parts of our own country where loose divorce
+ laws have long prevailed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should be noted that, while never allowing the dissolution of the
+ marriage bond, the Catholic Church has always permitted, for grave causes
+ and under certain conditions, a temporary or permanent "separation from
+ bed and board."
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Milman's Ed., Vol.
+ III., p. 236.
+
+ ** "Divorce and Divorce Legislation," 2d Ed., p. 274.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The causes which, <i>positis ponendis</i>, justify such separation may be
+ briefly given thus: mutual consent, adultery, and grave peril of soul or
+ body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said that there are persons so unhappily mated and so
+ constituted that for them no relief can come save from divorce <i>a
+ vinculo</i>, with permission to remarry. I shall not linger here to point
+ out to such the need of seeking from a higher than earthly power the grace
+ to suffer and be strong. But for those whose reasoning on this subject is
+ of the earth, earthy, I shall add some words of practical worldly wisdom
+ from eminent jurists. In a note to his edition of Blackstone's
+ "Commentaries," Mr. John Taylor Coleridge says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is no less truly than beautifully said by Sir W. Scott, in the case of
+ Evans v. Evans, that 'though in particular cases the repugnance of the law
+ to dissolve the obligation of matrimonial cohabitation may operate with
+ great severity upon individuals, yet it must be carefully remembered that
+ the general happiness of the married life is secured by its
+ indissolubility.' When people understand that they must live together,
+ except for a few reasons known to the law, they learn to soften by mutual
+ accommodation that yoke which they know they cannot shake off: they become
+ good husbands and good wives from the necessity of remaining husbands and
+ wives: for necessity is a powerful master in teaching the duties which it
+ imposes. If it were once understood that upon mutual disgust married
+ persons might be legally separated, many couples who now pass through the
+ world with mutual comfort, with attention to their common offspring, and
+ to the moral order of civil society, might have been at this moment living
+ in a state of mutual unkindness, in a state of estrangement from their
+ common offspring, and in a state of the most licentious and unrestrained
+ immorality. In this case, as in many other cases, the happiness of some
+ individuals must be sacrificed to the greater and more general good."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The facility and frequency of divorce, and its lamentable consequences,
+ are nowadays calling much attention to measures of "divorce reform." "How
+ can divorce reform be best secured?" it may be asked. Believing, as I do,
+ that divorce is evil, I also believe that its "reformation" and its death
+ must be simultaneous. It should cease to be. Divorce as we know it began
+ when marriage was removed from the domain of the church: divorce shall
+ cease when the old order shall be restored. Will this ever come to pass?
+ Perhaps so&mdash;after many days. Meanwhile, something might be done,
+ something should be done, to lessen the evils of divorce. Our present
+ divorce legislation must be presumed to be such as the majority of the
+ people wish it. A first step, therefore, in the way of "divorce reform"
+ should be the creation of a more healthy public sentiment on this
+ question. Then will follow measures that will do good in proportion to
+ their stringency. A few practical suggestions as to the salient features
+ of remedial divorce legislation may not be out of place. Persons seeking
+ at the hands of the civil law relief in matrimonial troubles should have
+ the right to ask for divorce <i>a vinculo</i>, or simple separation <i>a
+ mens&acirc; et thoro</i>, as they may elect. The number of
+ legally-recognized grounds for divorce should be lessened, and "noiseless"
+ divorces forbidden. "Rapid-transit" facilities for passing through divorce
+ courts should be cut off, and divorce "agencies" should be suppressed. The
+ plaintiff in a divorce case should be a <i>bona fide</i> resident of the
+ judicial district in which his petition is filed, and in every divorce
+ case the legal representatives of the State should appear for the
+ defendant, and, by all means, the right of remarriage after divorce should
+ be restricted. If divorce cannot be legislated out of existence, let, at
+ least, its power for evil be diminished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ James Cardinal Gibbons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am asked certain questions with regard to the attitude of the Episcopal
+ Church towards the matter of divorce. In undertaking to answer them, it is
+ to be remembered that there is a considerable variety of opinion which is
+ held in more or less precise conformity with doctrinal or canonical
+ declarations of the church. With these variations this paper, except in so
+ far as it may briefly indicate them, is not concerned. Nor is it an
+ expression of individual opinion. That is not what has been asked for or
+ attempted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine and law of the Protestant Episcopal Church on the subject of
+ divorce is contained in canon 13, title II., of the "Digest of the
+ Canons," 1887. That, canon has been to a certain extent interpreted by
+ Episcopal judgments under section IV. The "public opinion" of the clergy
+ or laity can only be ascertained in the usual way; especially by examining
+ their published treatises, letters, etc., and perhaps most satisfactorily
+ by the reports of discussion in the diocesan and general conventions on
+ the subject of divorce. Among members of the Protestant Episcopal Church
+ divorce is excessively rare, cases of uncertainty in the application of
+ the canon, are much more rare, and the practice of the clergy is almost
+ perfectly uniform. There is, however, by no means the same uniformity in
+ their opinions either as to divorce or marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As divorce is necessarily a mere accident of marriage, and as divorce is
+ impossible without a precedent marriage, much practical difficulty might
+ arise, and much difference of opinion does arise, from the fact that the
+ Protestant Episcopal Church has nowhere defined marriage. Negatively, it
+ is explicitly affirmed (Article XXV.) that "matrimony is not to be counted
+ for a sacrament of the Gospel." This might seem to reduce matrimony to a
+ civil contract. And accordingly the first rubric in the <i>Form of
+ Solemnization of Matrimony</i> directs, on the ground of differences of
+ laws in the various States, that "the minister is left to the direction of
+ those laws in everything that regards the civil contract between the
+ parties." Laws determining what persons shall be capable of contracting
+ would seem to be included in "everything that regards the civil contract;"
+ and unquestionably the laws of most of the States render all persons
+ legally divorced capable of at once contracting a new marriage. Both the
+ first section of canon 13 and the <i>Form of Solemnization</i>, affirm
+ that, "if any persons be joined together otherwise than as God's word doth
+ allow, their marriage is not lawful." But it is nowhere excepting as to
+ divorce, declared <i>what the impediments are</i>. The Protestant
+ Episcopal Church has never, by canon or express legislation, published,
+ for instance, a table of prohibited degrees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the matter of divorce, however, canon 13, title II., supersedes, for
+ the members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, both a part of the civil
+ law relating to the persons capable of contracting marriage, and also all
+ private judgment as to the teaching of "the Word of God" on that subject.
+ No minister is allowed, as a rule, to solemnize the marriage of any man or
+ woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living. But if the person
+ seeking to be married is the innocent party in the divorce for adultery,
+ that person, whether man or woman, may be married by a minister of the
+ church. With the above exception, the clergy are forbidden to administer
+ the sacraments to any divorced and remarried person without the express
+ permission of the bishop, unless that person be "penitent" and "in
+ imminent danger of death." Any doubts "as to the facts of any case under
+ section II. of this canon" must be referred to the bishop. Of course,
+ where there is no reasonable doubt the minister may proceed. It may be
+ added that the sacraments are to be refused also to persons who may be
+ reasonably supposed to have contracted marriage "otherwise," in any
+ respect, "than as the Word of God and the discipline of this Church doth
+ allow." These impediments are nowhere defined; and accordingly it has
+ happened that a man who had married a deceased wife's sister and the woman
+ he had married were, by the private judgment of a priest, refused the holy
+ communion. The civil courts do not seem inclined to protect the clergy
+ from consequences of interference with the civil law. In Southbridge,
+ Mass., a few weeks ago, a man who had been denounced from the altar for
+ marrying again after a divorce obtained a judgment for $1,720 damages. The
+ law of the church would seem to be that, even though a legal divorce may
+ have been obtained, remarriage is absolutely forbidden, excepting to the
+ innocent party, whether man or woman, in a divorce for adultery. The
+ penalty for breach of this law might involve, for the officiating
+ clergyman, deposition from the ministry; for the offending man or woman,
+ exclusion from the sacraments, which, in the judgment of a very large
+ number of the clergy, involves everlasting damnation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is obvious, then, that the Protestant Episcopal Church allows the
+ complete validity of a divorce <i>a vinculo</i> in the case of adultery,
+ and the right of remarriage to the innocent party. But that church has not
+ determined in what manner either the grounds of the divorce or the
+ "innocence" of either party is to be ascertained. The canon does not
+ require a clergyman to demand, nor can the church enable him to secure,
+ the production of a copy of the record or decree of the court of law by
+ which a divorce is granted, nor would such decree indicate the "innocence"
+ of one party, though it might prove the guilt of the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The effect of divorce upon the integrity of the family is too obvious to
+ require stating. As the father and mother are the heads of the family,
+ their separation must inevitably destroy the common family life. On the
+ other hand, it is often contended that the destruction has been already
+ completed, and that a divorce is only the legal recognition of what has
+ already taken place; "the integrity of the family" can scarcely remain
+ when either a father or mother, or both, are living in violation of the
+ law on which that integrity rests. The question may be asked whether the
+ absolute prohibition of divorce would contribute to the moral purity of
+ society. It is difficult to answer such a question, because anything on
+ the subject must be comparatively worthless until verified by experience.
+ It is quite certain that the prohibition of divorce never prevents illicit
+ sexual connections, as was abundantly proved when divorce in England was
+ put within the reach of persons who were not able to afford the expense of
+ a special act of Parliament. It is, indeed, so palpable a fact that any
+ amount of evidence or argument is wholly superfluous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law of the Protestant Episcopal Church is by no means identical with
+ the opinion of either the clergy or the laity. In the judgment of many,
+ the existing law is far too lax, or, at least, the whole doctrine of
+ marriage is far too inadequately dealt with in the authoritative teaching
+ of the church. The opinion of this school finds, perhaps, its most
+ adequate expression in the report of a committee of the last General
+ Convention forming Appendix XIII. of the "Journal" of that convention. It
+ is, substantially, that the Mosaic law of marriage is still binding upon
+ the church, unless directly abrogated by Christ himself; that it was
+ abrogated by him only so far that all divorce was forbidden by him,
+ excepting for the cause of fornication; that a woman might not claim
+ divorce for any reason whatever; that the marriage of a divorced person
+ until the death of the other party is wholly forbidden; that marriage is
+ not merely a civil contract, but a spiritual and supernatural union,
+ requiring for its mutual obligation a supernatural, divine grace; that
+ such grace is only imparted in the sacrament of matrimony, which is a true
+ sacrament and does actually confer grace; that marriage is wholly within
+ the jurisdiction of the church, though the State may determine such rules
+ and guarantees as may secure publicity and sufficient evidence of a
+ marriage, etc.; that severe penalties should be inflicted by the State, on
+ the demand of the church, for the suppression of all offences against the
+ seventh commandment and sundry other parts of the Mosaic legislation,
+ especially in relation to "prohibited degrees."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another school, equally earnest and sincere in its zeal for the
+ integrity of the family and sexual purity, which would nevertheless
+ repudiate much the greater part of the above assumption. This school, if
+ one may so venture to combine scattered opinions, argues substantially as
+ follows: The type of all Mosaic legislation was circumcision; that rite
+ was of universal obligation and divine authority. St. Paul so regarded it.
+ The abrogation of the law requiring circumcision was, therefore, the
+ abrogation of the whole of the Mosaic legislation. The "burden of proof,"
+ therefore, rests upon those who affirm the present obligation of what
+ formed a part of the Mosaic law; and they must show that it has been
+ reenacted by Christ and his Apostles or forms some part of some other and
+ independent system of law or morals still in force. Christ's words about
+ divorce are not to be construed as a positive law, but as expressing the
+ ideal of marriage, and corresponding to his words about eunuchs, which not
+ everybody "can receive." So far as Christ's words seem to indicate an
+ inequality as to divorce between man and woman, they are explained by the
+ authoritative and inspired assertion of St. Paul: "In Christ Jesus there
+ is neither male nor female." A divine law is equally authoritative by
+ whomsoever declared&mdash;whether by the Son Incarnate or by the Holy
+ Ghost speaking through inspired Apostles. If, then, a divine law was ever
+ capable of suspension or modification, it may still be capable of such
+ suspension or modification in corresponding circumstances. The
+ circumstances which justified a modification of the original divine law of
+ marriage do still exist in many conditions of society and even of
+ individual life. The Protestant Episcopal Church cannot, alone, speak with
+ such authority on disputed passages of Scripture as to justify her
+ ministers in direct disobedience to the civil authority, which is also
+ "ordained of God." The exegesis of the early church was closely connected
+ with theories about matter, and about the inferiority of women and of
+ married life, which are no longer believed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course this is a very brief statement. As a matter of fact the actual
+ effect of the doctrine and discipline of the Protestant Episcopal Church
+ on marriage and divorce is that divorce among her members is excessively
+ rare; that it is regarded with extreme aversion; and that the public
+ opinion of the church maintains the law as it now is, but could not be
+ trusted to execute laws more stringent. A member of the committee of the
+ General Convention whose report has been already referred to closes that
+ report with the following protest:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The undersigned finds himself unable to concur in so much of the
+ [proposed] canon as forbids the holy communion to a truly pious and godly
+ woman who has been compelled by long years of suffering from a drunken and
+ brutal husband to obtain a divorce, and has regularly married some
+ suitable person according to the established laws of the land. And also
+ from so much of the [proposed] canon as may seem to forbid marriage with a
+ deceased wife's sister."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The final action on these points, which has already been stated, indicates
+ that the proposed report thus referred to was, in one particular at least,
+ in advance of the sentiment of the church as expressed in her General
+ Convention.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Henry C. Potter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question (1.) Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any
+ circumstances?</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world for the most part is ruled by the tomb, and the living are
+ tyrannized over by the dead. Old ideas, long after the conditions under
+ which they were produced have passed away, often persist in surviving.
+ Many are disposed to worship the ancient&mdash;to follow the old paths,
+ without inquiring where they lead, and without knowing exactly where they
+ wish to go themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Opinions on the subject of divorce have been, for the most part, inherited
+ from the early Christians. They have come to us through theological and
+ priestly channels. The early Christians believed that the world was about
+ to be destroyed, or that it was to be purified by fire; that all the
+ wicked were to perish, and that the good were to be caught up in the air
+ to meet their Lord&mdash;to remain there, in all probability, until the
+ earth was prepared as a habitation for the blessed. With this thought or
+ belief in their minds, the things of this world were of comparatively no
+ importance. The man who built larger barns in which to store his grain was
+ regarded as a foolish farmer, who had forgotten, in his greed for gain,
+ the value of his own soul. They regarded prosperous people as the children
+ of Mammon, and the unfortunate, the wretched and diseased, as the
+ favorites of God. They discouraged all worldly pursuits, except the
+ soliciting of alms. There was no time to marry or to be given in marriage;
+ no time to build homes and have families. All their thoughts were centred
+ upon the heaven they expected to inherit. Business, love, all secular
+ things, fell into disrepute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is said in the Testament about the families of the apostles;
+ nothing of family life, of the sacredness of home; nothing about the
+ necessity of education, the improvement and development of the mind. These
+ things were forgotten, for the reason that nothing, in the presence of the
+ expected event, was considered of any importance, except to be ready when
+ the Son of Man should come. Such was the feeling, that rewards were
+ offered by Christ himself to those who would desert their wives and
+ children. Human love was spoken of with contempt. "Let the dead bury their
+ dead. What is that to thee? Follow thou me." They not only believed these
+ things, but acted in accordance with them; and, as a consequence, all the
+ relations of life were denied or avoided, and their obligations
+ disregarded. Marriage was discouraged. It was regarded as only one degree
+ above open and unbridled vice, and was allowed only in consideration of
+ human weakness. It was thought far better not to marry&mdash;that it was
+ something grander for a man to love God than to love woman. The
+ exceedingly godly, the really spiritual, believed in celibacy, and held
+ the opposite sex in a kind of pious abhorrence. And yet, with that
+ inconsistency so characteristic of theologians, marriage was held to be a
+ sacrament. The priest said to the man who married: "Remember that you are
+ caught for life. This door opens but once. Before this den of matrimony
+ the tracks are all one way." This was in the nature of a punishment for
+ having married. The theologian felt that the contract of marriage, if not
+ contrary to God's command, was at least contrary to his advice, and that
+ the married ought to suffer in some way, as a matter of justice. The fact
+ that there could be no divorce, that a mistake could not be corrected, was
+ held up as a warning. At every wedding feast this skeleton stretched its
+ fleshless finger towards bride and groom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all intelligent people have given up the idea that the world is
+ about to come to an end. They do not now believe that prosperity is a
+ certain sign of wickedness, or that poverty and wretchedness are sure
+ certificates of virtue. They are hardly convinced that Dives should have
+ been sent to hell simply for being rich, or that Lazarus was entitled to
+ eternal joy on account of his poverty. We now know that prosperous people
+ may be good, and that unfortunate people may be bad. We have reached the
+ conclusion that the practice of virtue tends in the direction of
+ prosperity, and that a violation of the conditions of well-being brings,
+ with absolute certainty, wretchedness and misfortune.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when it was believed that the sin of an individual was
+ visited upon the tribe, the community, or the nation to which he belonged.
+ It was then thought that if a man or woman had made a vow to God, and had
+ failed to keep the vow, God might punish the entire community; therefore
+ it was the business of the community to see to it that the vow was kept.
+ That idea has been abandoned. As we progress, the rights of the individual
+ are perceived, and we are now beginning dimly to discern that there are no
+ rights higher than the rights of the individual. There was a time when
+ nearly all believed in the reforming power of punishment&mdash;in the
+ beneficence of brute force. But the world is changing. It was at one time
+ thought that the Inquisition was the savior of society; that the
+ persecution of the philosopher was requisite to the preservation of the
+ state, and that, no matter what happened, the state should be preserved.
+ We have now more light. And standing upon this luminous point that we call
+ the present, let me answer your questions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Marriage is the most important, the most sacred, contract that human
+ beings can make. No matter whether we call it a contract, or a sacrament,
+ or both, it remains precisely the same. And no matter whether this
+ contract is entered into in the presence of magistrate or priest, it is
+ exactly the same. A true marriage is a natural concord and agreement of
+ souls, a harmony in which discord is not even imagined; it is a mingling
+ so perfect that only one seems to exist; all other considerations are
+ lost; the present seems to be eternal. In this supreme moment there is no
+ shadow&mdash;or the shadow is as luminous as light. And when two beings
+ thus love, thus unite, this is the true marriage of soul and soul. That
+ which is said before the altar, or minister, or magistrate, or in the
+ presence of witnesses, is only the outward evidence of that which has
+ already happened within; it simply testifies to a union that has already
+ taken place&mdash;to the uniting of two mornings of hope to reach the
+ night together. Each has found the ideal; the man has found the one woman
+ of all the world&mdash;the impersonation of affection, purity, passion,
+ love, beauty, and grace; and the woman has found the one man of all the
+ world, her ideal, and all that she knows of romance, of art, courage,
+ heroism, honesty, is realized in him. The idea of contract is lost. Duty
+ and obligation are instantly changed into desire and joy, and two lives,
+ like uniting streams, flow on as one. Nothing can add to the sacredness of
+ this marriage, to the obligation and duty of each to each. There is
+ nothing in the ceremony except the desire on the part of the man and woman
+ that the whole world should know that they are really married and that
+ their souls have been united.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every marriage, for a thousand reasons, should be public, should be
+ recorded, should be known; but, above all, to the end that the purity of
+ the union should appear. These ceremonies are not only for the good and
+ for the protection of the married, but also for the protection of their
+ children, and of society as well. But, after all, the marriage remains a
+ contract of the highest possible character&mdash;a contract in which each
+ gives and receives a heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question then arises, Should this marriage, under any circumstances,
+ be dissolved? It is easy to understand the position taken by the various
+ churches; but back of theological opinions is the question of contract.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this contract of marriage, the man agrees to protect and cherish his
+ wife. Suppose that he refuses to protect; that he abuses, assaults, and
+ tramples upon the woman he wed. What is her redress? Is she under any
+ obligation to him? He has violated the contract. He has failed to protect,
+ and, in addition, he has assaulted her like a wild beast. Is she under any
+ obligation to him? Is she bound by the contract he has broken? If so, what
+ is the consideration for this obligation? Must she live with him for his
+ sake? or, if she leaves him to preserve her life, must she remain his wife
+ for his sake? No intelligent man will answer these questions in the
+ affirmative.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, then, she is not bound to remain his wife for the husband's sake, is
+ she bound to remain his wife because the marriage was a sacrament? Is
+ there any obligation on the part of the wife to remain with the brutal
+ husband for the sake of God? Can her conduct affect in any way the
+ happiness of an infinite being? Is it possible for a human being to
+ increase or diminish the well-being of the Infinite?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question is as to the right of society in this matter. It must be
+ admitted that the peace of society will be promoted by the separation of
+ such people. Certainly society cannot insist upon a wife remaining with a
+ husband who bruises and mangles her flesh. Even married women have a right
+ to personal security. They do not lose, either by contract or sacrament,
+ the right of self-preservation; this they share in common, to say the
+ least of it, with the lowest living creatures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This will probably be admitted by most of the enemies of divorce; but they
+ will insist that while the wife has the right to flee from her husband's
+ roof and seek protection of kindred or friends, the marriage&mdash;the
+ sacrament&mdash;must remain unbroken. Is it to the interest of society
+ that those who despise each other should live together? Ought the world to
+ be peopled by the children of hatred or disgust, the children of lust and
+ loathing, or by the welcome babes of mutual love? Is it possible that an
+ infinitely wise and compassionate God insists that a helpless woman shall
+ remain the wife of a cruel wretch? Can this add to the joy of Paradise, or
+ tend to keep one harp in tune? Can anything be more infamous than for a
+ government to compel a woman to remain the wife of a man she hates&mdash;of
+ one whom she justly holds in abhorrence? Does any decent man wish the
+ assistance of a constable, a sheriff, a judge, or a church, to keep his
+ wife in his house? Is it possible to conceive of a more contemptible human
+ being than a man who would appeal to force in such a case? It may be said
+ that the woman is free to go, and that the courts will protect her from
+ the brutality of the man who promised to be her protector; but where shall
+ the woman go? She may have no friends; or they may be poor; her kindred
+ may be dead. Has she no right to build another home? Must this woman, full
+ of kindness, affection, health, be tied and chained to this living corpse?
+ Is there no future for her? Must she be an outcast forever&mdash;deceived
+ and betrayed for her whole life? Can she never sit by her own hearth, with
+ the arms of her children about her neck, and with a husband who loves and
+ protects her? Is she to become a social pariah, and is this for the
+ benefit of society?&mdash;or is it for the sake of the wretch who
+ destroyed her life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriage
+ could be annulled. Is it necessary to lose your liberty in order to retain
+ your moral character&mdash;in order to be pure and womanly? Must a woman,
+ in order to retain her virtue, become a slave, a serf, with a beast for a
+ master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for a master?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If an infinite being is one of the parties to the contract, is it not the
+ duty of this being to see to it that the contract is carried out? What
+ consideration does the infinite being give? What consideration does he
+ receive? If a wife owes no duty to her husband because the husband has
+ violated the contract, and has even assaulted her life, is it possible for
+ her to feel toward him any real thrill of affection? If she does not, what
+ is there left of marriage? What part of this contract or sacrament remains
+ in living force? She can not sustain the relation of wife, because she
+ abhors him; she cannot remain under the same roof, for fear that she may
+ be killed. They sustain, then, only the relations of hunter and hunted&mdash;of
+ tyrant and victim. Is it desirable that this relation should last through
+ life, and that it should be rendered sacred by the ceremony of a church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again I ask, Is it desirable to have families raised under such
+ circumstances? Are we in need of children born of such parents? Can the
+ virtue of others be preserved only by this destruction of happiness, by
+ this perpetual imprisonment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A marriage without love is bad enough, and a marriage for wealth or
+ position is low enough; but what shall we say of a marriage where the
+ parties actually abhor each other? Is there any morality in this? any
+ virtue in this? Is there virtue in retaining the name of wife, or husband,
+ without the real and true relation? Will any good man say, will any good
+ woman declare, that a true, loving woman should be compelled to be the
+ mother of children whose father she detests? Is there a good woman in the
+ world who would not shrink from this herself; and is there a woman so
+ heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear that from
+ which she would shudderingly and shriekingly shrink?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Marriages are made by men and women; not by society; not by the state; not
+ by the church; not by supernatural beings. By this time we should know
+ that nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being of sentient
+ beings; that nothing is virtuous the result of which is not good. We know
+ now, if we know anything, that all the reasons for doing right, and all
+ the reasons against doing wrong, are here in this world. We should have
+ imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of another. Let a man
+ suppose himself a helpless woman beaten by a brutal husband&mdash;would he
+ advocate divorces then?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Few people have an adequate idea of the sufferings of women and children,
+ of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the footsteps of a
+ returning husband, of the number of children who hide when they hear the
+ voice of a father. Few people know the number of blows that fall on the
+ flesh of the helpless every day, and few know the nights of terror passed
+ by mothers who hold babes to their breasts. Compared with these, all the
+ hardships of poverty borne by those who love each other are as nothing.
+ Men and women truly married bear the sufferings and misfortunes of poverty
+ together. They console each other. In the darkest night they see the
+ radiance of a star, and their affection gives to the heart of each
+ perpetual sunshine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The good home is the unit of the good government. The hearthstone is the
+ corner-stone of civilization. Society is not interested in the
+ preservation of hateful homes, of homes where husbands and wives are
+ selfish, cold, and cruel. It is not to the interest of society that good
+ women should be enslaved, that they should live in fear, or that they
+ should become mothers by husbands whom they hate. Homes should be filled
+ with kind and generous fathers, with true and loving mothers; and when
+ they are so filled, the world will be civilized. Intelligence will rock
+ the cradle; justice will sit in the courts; wisdom in the legislative
+ halls; and above all and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the
+ spirit of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although marriage is the most important and the most sacred contract that
+ human beings can make, still when that contract has been violated, courts
+ should have the power to declare it null and void upon such conditions as
+ may be just.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth, her beauty, her
+ love&mdash;with all she has; and from this contract certainly the husband
+ should never be released, unless the wife has broken the conditions of
+ that contract. Divorces should be granted publicly, precisely as the
+ marriage should be solemnized. Every marriage should be known, and there
+ should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the contract entered
+ into should be understood; the record should be open and public. And the
+ same is true of divorces. The conditions should be determined, the
+ property should be divided by a court of equity, and the custody of the
+ children given under regulations prescribed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men and women are not virtuous by law. Law does not of itself create
+ virtue, nor is it the foundation or fountain of love. Law should protect
+ virtue, and law should protect the wife, if she has kept her contract, and
+ the husband, if he has fulfilled his. But the death of love is the end of
+ marriage. Love is natural. Back of all ceremony burns and will forever
+ burn the sacred flame. There has been no time in the world's history when
+ that torch was extinguished. In all ages, in all climes, among all people,
+ there has been true, pure, and unselfish love. Long before a ceremony was
+ thought of, long before a priest existed, there were true and perfect
+ marriages. Back of public opinion is natural modesty, the affections of
+ the heart; and in spite of all law, there is and forever will be the realm
+ of choice. Wherever love is, it is pure; and everywhere, and at all times,
+ the ceremony of marriage testifies to that which has happened within the
+ temple of the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question (2). Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any
+ circumstances?</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This depends upon whether marriage is a crime. If it is not a crime, why
+ should any penalty be attached? Can any one conceive of any reason why a
+ woman obtaining a divorce, without fault on her part, should be compelled
+ as a punishment to remain forever single? Why should she be punished for
+ the dishonesty or brutality of another? Why should a man who faithfully
+ kept his contract of marriage, and who was deserted by an unfaithful wife,
+ be punished for the benefit of society? Why should he be doomed to live
+ without a home?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another view. We must remember that human passions are the
+ same after as before divorce. To prevent remarriage is to give excuse for
+ vice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question (3). What is the effect of divorce upon the integrity of the
+ family?</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real marriage is back of the ceremony, and the real divorce is back of
+ the decree. When love is dead, when husband and wife abhor each other,
+ they are divorced. The decree records in a judicial way what has really
+ taken place, just as the ceremony of marriage attests a contract already
+ made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The true family is the result of the true marriage, and the institution of
+ the family should above all things be preserved. What becomes of the
+ sacredness of the home, if the law compels those who abhor each other to
+ sit at the same hearth? This lowers the standard, and changes the happy
+ haven of home into the prison-cell. If we wish to preserve the integrity
+ of the family, we must preserve the democracy of the fireside, the
+ republicanism of the home, the absolute and perfect equality of husband
+ and wife. There must be no exhibition of force, no spectre of fear. The
+ mother must not remain through an order of court, or the command of a
+ priest, or by virtue of the tyranny of society; she must sit in absolute
+ freedom, the queen of herself, the sovereign of her own soul and of her
+ own body. Real homes can never be preserved through force, through
+ slavery, or superstition. Nothing can be more sacred than a home, no altar
+ purer than the hearth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question (4). Does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists
+ contribute to the moral purity of society?</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must define our terms. What is moral purity? The intelligent of this
+ world seek the well-being of themselves and others. They know that
+ happiness is the only good; and this they strive to attain. To live in
+ accordance with the conditions of well-being is moral in the highest
+ sense. To use the best instrumentalities to attain the highest ends is our
+ highest conception of the moral. In other words, morality is the melody of
+ the perfection of conduct. A man is not moral because he is obedient
+ through fear or ignorance. Morality lives in the realm of perceived
+ obligation, and where a being acts in accordance with perceived
+ obligation, that being is moral. Morality is not the child of slavery.
+ Ignorance is not the corner-stone of virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first duty of a human being is to himself. He must see to it that he
+ does not become a burden upon others. To be self-respecting, he must
+ endeavor to be self-sustaining. If by his industry and intelligence he
+ accumulates a margin, then he is under obligation to do with that margin
+ all the good he can. He who lives to the ideal does the best he can. In
+ true marriage men and women give not only their bodies, but their souls.
+ This is the ideal marriage; this is moral. They who give their bodies, but
+ not their souls, are not married, whatever the ceremony may be; this is
+ immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this be true, upon what principle can a woman continue to sustain the
+ relation of wife after love is dead? Is there some other consideration
+ that can take the place of genuine affection? Can she be bribed with
+ money, or a home, or position, or by public opinion, and still remain a
+ virtuous woman? Is it for the good of society that virtue should be thus
+ crucified between church and state? Can it be said that this contributes
+ to the moral purity of the human race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there a higher standard of virtue in countries where divorce is
+ prohibited than in those where it is granted? Where husbands and wives who
+ have ceased to love cannot be divorced, there are mistresses and lovers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sacramental view of marriage is the shield of vice. The world looks at
+ the wife who has been abused, who has been driven from the home of her
+ husband, and the world pities; and when this wife is loved by some other
+ man, the world excuses. So, too, the husband who cannot live in peace, who
+ leaves his home, is pitied and excused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to conceive of anything more immoral than for a husband to
+ insist on living with a wife who has no love for him? Is not this a
+ perpetual crime? Is the wife to lose her personality? Has she no right of
+ choice? Is her modesty the property of another? Is the man she hates the
+ lord of her desire? Has she no right to guard the jewels of her soul? Is
+ there a depth below this? And is this the foundation of morality? this the
+ corner-stone of society? this the arch that supports the dome of
+ civilization? Is this pathetic sacrifice on the one hand, this sacrilege
+ on the other, pleasing in the sight of heaven?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me, the tenderest word in our language, the most pathetic fact within
+ our knowledge, is maternity. Around this sacred word cluster the joys and
+ sorrows, the agonies and ecstasies, of the human race. The mother walks in
+ the shadow of death that she may give another life. Upon the altar of love
+ she puts her own life in pawn. When the world is civilized, no wife will
+ become a mother against her will. Man will then know that to enslave
+ another is to imprison himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0016" id="link0016">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DIVORCE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ A LITTLE while ago the North American Review propounded the following
+ questions:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry, under any circumstances?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. What is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. Does the absolute prohibition of divorce, where it exists, contribute
+ to the moral purity of society?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These questions were answered in the November number of the Review, 1889,
+ by Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Henry C. Potter and myself. In the December
+ number, the same questions were again answered by W. E. Gladstone, Justice
+ Bradley and Senator Dolph. In the following month Mary A. Livermore,
+ Amelia E. Barr, Rose Terry Cooke, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Jennie June
+ gave their opinions upon the subject of divorce; and in the February
+ number of this year, Margaret Lee and the Rev. Phillip S. Moxom
+ contributed articles upon this subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I propose to review these articles, and, first, let me say a few words in
+ answer to Cardinal Gibbons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ REPLY TO CARDINAL GIBBONS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The indissolubility of marriage was a reaction from polygamy. Man
+ naturally rushes from one extreme to the other. The Cardinal informs us
+ that "God instituted in Paradise the marriage state, and sanctified it;"
+ that "he established its law of unity and declared its indissolubility."
+ The Cardinal, however, accounts for polygamy and divorce by saying that,
+ "marriage suffered in the fall."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it be true that God instituted marriage in the Garden of Eden, and
+ declared its unity and indissolubility, how do you account for the fact
+ that this same God afterwards upheld polygamy? How is it that he forgot to
+ say anything on the subject when he gave the Ten Commandments to Moses?
+ How does it happen that in these commandments he puts women on an equality
+ with other property&mdash;"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or
+ thy neighbor's ox, or anything that is thy neighbor's"? How did it happen
+ that Jacob, who was in direct communication with God, married, not his
+ deceased wife's sister, but both sisters, while both were living? Is there
+ any way of accounting for the fact that God upheld concubinage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither is it true that "Christ reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms,
+ the sanctity, unity, and indissolubility of marriage." Neither is it true
+ that "Christ gave to this state an added holiness and a dignity higher far
+ than it had 'from the beginning.'" If God declared the unity and
+ indissolubility of marriage in the Garden of Eden, how was it possible for
+ Christ to have "added a holiness and dignity to marriage higher far than
+ it had from the beginning"? How did Christ make marriage a sacrament?
+ There is nothing on that subject in the new Testament; besides, Christ did
+ apparently allow divorce, for one cause at least. He is reported to have
+ said: "Whosoever putteth away his wife, save for fornication, causeth her
+ to commit adultery."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal answers the question, "Can divorce from the bonds of marriage
+ ever be allowed?" with an emphatic theological "NO," and as a reason for
+ this "no," says, "Thus saith the Lord."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is true that we regard Mormonism as a national disgrace, and that we so
+ regard it because the Mormons are polygamists. At the same time,
+ intelligent people admit that polygamy is no worse in Utah, than it was in
+ Palestine&mdash;no worse under Joseph Smith, than under Jehovah&mdash;that
+ it has been and must be forever the same, in all countries and in all
+ times. The Cardinal takes the ground that "there are two species of
+ polygamy&mdash;simultaneous and successive," and yet he seems to regard
+ both species with equal horror. If a wife dies and the husband marries
+ another woman, is not that successive polygamy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal takes the ground that while no dissolution of the marriage
+ bond should be allowed, yet for grave causes a temporary or permanent
+ separation from bed and board may be obtained, and these causes he
+ enumerates as "mutual consent, adultery, and grave peril of soul or body."
+ To those, however, not satisfied with this doctrine, and who are "so
+ unhappily mated and so constituted that for them no relief can come save
+ from absolute divorce," the Cardinal says, in a very sympathetic way, that
+ he "Will not linger here to point out to such the need of seeking from a
+ higher than earthly power, the grace to suffer and be strong."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the foundation and upon the very threshold of this inquiry, one thing
+ ought to be settled, and that is this: Are we to answer these questions in
+ the light of human experience; are we to answer them from the standpoint
+ of what is better here, in this world, for men and women&mdash;what is
+ better for society here and now&mdash;or are we to ask: What is the will
+ of God? And in order to find out what is this will of God, are we to ask
+ the church, or are we to read what are called "the sacred writings" for
+ ourselves? In other words, are these questions to be settled by
+ theological and ecclesiastical authority, or by the common sense of
+ mankind? No one, in my judgment, should marry for the sake of God, and no
+ one should be divorced for the sake of God, and no man and woman should
+ live together as husband and wife, for the sake of God. God being an
+ infinite being, cannot be rendered unhappy by any action of man, neither
+ can his well-being be increased; consequently, the will of God has nothing
+ whatever to do with this matter. The real question then must be: What is
+ best for man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only the other day, a husband sought out his wife and with his own hand
+ covered her face with sulphuric acid, and in a moment afterward she was
+ blind. A Cardinal of the Catholic Church tells this woman, sitting in
+ darkness, that it is her duty to "suffer and be strong"; that she must
+ still remain the wife of this wretch; that to break the bond that binds
+ them together, would be an act of sacrilege. So, too, two years ago, a
+ husband deserted his wife in Germany. He came to this country. She was
+ poor. She had two children&mdash;one a babe. Holding one in her arm, and
+ leading the other by the hand, she walked hundreds of miles to the shore
+ of the sea. Overcome by fatigue, she was taken sick, and for months
+ remained in a hospital. Having recovered, she went to work, and finally
+ got enough money to pay her passage to New York. She came to this city,
+ bringing her children with her. Upon her arrival, she commenced a search
+ for her husband. One day overcome by exertion, she fainted in the street.
+ Persons took pity upon her and carried her upstairs into a room. By a
+ strange coincidence, a few moments afterward her husband entered. She
+ recognized him. He fell upon her like a wild beast, and threw her down the
+ stairs. She was taken up from the pavement bleeding, and carried to a
+ hospital.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal says to this woman: Remain the wife of this man; it will be
+ very pleasing to God; "suffer and be strong." But I say to this woman:
+ Apply to some Court; get a decree of absolute divorce; cling to your
+ children, and if at any time hereafter some good and honest man offers you
+ his hand and heart, and you can love him, accept him and build another
+ home, to the end that you may sit by your own fireside, in your old age,
+ with your children about you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that the indissolubility of marriage preserves the virtue
+ of mankind. The fact is exactly the opposite. If the Cardinal wishes to
+ know why there are more divorces now than there were fifty or a hundred
+ years ago, let me tell him: Women are far more intelligent&mdash;some of
+ them are no longer the slaves either of husbands, or priests. They are
+ beginning to think for themselves. They can see no good reason why they
+ should sacrifice their lives to please Popes or Gods. They are no longer
+ deceived by theological prophecies. They are not willing to suffer here,
+ with the hope of being happy beyond the clouds&mdash;they want their
+ happiness now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ REPLY TO BISHOP POTTER.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bishop Potter does not agree with the Cardinal, yet they both study
+ substantially the same bible&mdash;both have been set apart for the
+ purpose of revealing the revelation. They are the persons whose duty it is
+ to enlighten the common people. Cardinal Gibbons knows that he represents
+ the only true church, and Bishop Potter is just as sure that he occupies
+ that position. What is the ordinary man to do?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal states, without the slightest hesitation, that "Christ made
+ marriage a sacrament&mdash;made it the type of his own never-ending union
+ with his one sinless spouse, the church." The Bishop does not agree with
+ the Cardinal. He says: "Christ's words about divorce are not to be
+ construed as a positive law, but as expressing the ideal of marriage, and
+ corresponding to his words about eunuchs, which not everybody can
+ receive." Ought not the augurs to agree among themselves? What is a man
+ who has only been born once, to do?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal says explicitly that marriage is a sacrament, and the Bishop
+ cites Article xxv., that "matrimony is not to be accounted for a sacrament
+ of the gospel," and then admits that "this might seem to reduce matrimony
+ to a civil contract." For the purpose of bolstering up that view, he says,
+ "The first rubric in the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony declares that
+ the minister is left to the direction of those laws in every thing that
+ regards a civil contract between the parties.'" He admits that "no
+ minister is allowed, <i>as a rule</i>, to solemnize the marriage of any
+ man or woman who has a divorced husband or wife still living." As a matter
+ of fact, we know that hundreds of Episcopalians do marry where a wife or a
+ husband is still living, and they are not turned out of the Episcopal
+ Church for this offence. The Bishop admits that the church can do very
+ little on the subject, but seems to gather a little consolation from the
+ fact, that "the penalty for breach of this law might involve, for the
+ officiating clergyman, deposition from the ministry&mdash;for the
+ offending man or woman exclusion from the sacraments, which, in the
+ judgment of a very large number of the clergy, involves everlasting
+ damnation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Cardinal is perfectly satisfied that the prohibition of divorce is the
+ foundation of morality, and the Bishop is equally certain that "the
+ prohibition of divorce never prevents illicit sexual connections."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bishop also gives us the report of a committee of the last General
+ Convention, forming Appendix xiii of the Journal. This report, according
+ to the Bishop, is to the effect "that the Mosaic law of marriage is still
+ binding upon the church unless directly abrogated by Christ himself, that
+ it-was abrogated by him only so far that all divorce was forbidden by him
+ excepting for the cause of fornication; that a woman might not claim
+ divorce for any reason whatever; that the marriage of a divorced person
+ until the death of the other party, is wholly forbidden; that marriage is
+ not merely a civil contract but a spiritual and supernatural union,
+ requiring for its mutual obligations a supernatural divine grace, and that
+ such grace is only imparted in the sacrament of matrimony."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most beautiful thing about this report is, that a woman might not
+ claim divorce for any reason whatever. I must admit that the report is in
+ exact accordance with the words of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the
+ Bishop, not to leave us entirely without hope, says that "there is in his
+ church another school, equally earnest and sincere in its zeal for the
+ integrity of the family, which would nevertheless repudiate the greater
+ part of the above report."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing, however, that I was exceedingly glad to see, and that
+ is, that according to the Bishop the ideas of the early church are closely
+ connected with theories about matter, and about the inferiority of woman,
+ and about married life, which are no longer believed. The Bishop has, with
+ great clearness, stated several sides of this question; but I must say,
+ that after reading the Cardinal and the Bishop, the earnest theological
+ seeker after truth would find himself, to say the least of it, in some
+ doubt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, who cares what the Old Testament says upon this
+ subject? Are we to be bound forever by the ancient barbarians?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Gladstone takes the ground, first, "that marriage is essentially a
+ contract for life, and only expires when life itself expires"; second,
+ "that Christian marriage involves a vow before God"; third, "that no
+ authority has been given to the Christian Church to cancel such a vow";
+ fourth, "that it lies beyond the province of tie civil legislature, which,
+ from the necessity of things, has a veto within the limits of reason, upon
+ the making of it, but has no competency to annul it when once made";
+ fifth, "that according to the laws of just interpretation, remarriage is
+ forbidden by the text of Holy Scripture"; and sixth, "that while divorce
+ of any kind impairs the integrity of the family, divorce with remarriage
+ destroys it root and branch; that the parental and the conjugal relations
+ are joined together by the hand of the Almighty no less than the persons
+ united by the marriage tie, to one another." <i>First</i>. Undoubtedly, a
+ real marriage was never entered into unless the parties expected to live
+ together as long as they lived. It does not enter into the imagination of
+ the real lover that the time is coming when he is to desert the being he
+ adores, neither does it enter into the imagination of his wife, or of the
+ girl about to become a wife. But how and in what way, does a Christian
+ marriage involve a vow before God? Is God a party to the contract? If yes,
+ he ought to see to it that the contract is carried out. If there are three
+ parties&mdash;the man, the woman, and God&mdash;each one should be bound
+ to do something, and what is God bound to do? Is he to hold the man to his
+ contract, when the woman has violated hers? Is it his business to hold the
+ woman to the contract, when the man has violated his? And what right has
+ he to have anything to say on the subject, unless he has agreed to do
+ something by reason of this vow? Otherwise, it would be simply a <i>nudum
+ pactum</i>&mdash;a vow without consideration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Gladstone informs us that no authority has been given to the Christian
+ Church to cancel such a vow. If he means by that, that God has not given
+ any such authority to the Christian Church, I most cheerfully admit it.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Note.&mdash;This abrupt termination, together with the
+ unfinished replies to Justice Bradley and Senator Dolph,
+ which follow, shows that the author must have been
+ interrupted in his work, and on next taking it up concluded
+ that the colloquial and concrete form would better serve his
+ turn than the more formal and didactic style above employed.
+ He thereupon dictated his reply to the Gibbon and Gladstone
+ arguments in the following form which will be regarded as a
+ most interesting instance of the author's wonderful
+ versatility of style.
+
+ This unfinished matter was found among Col. Ingersoll's
+ manuscripts, and is given as transcribed from the
+ stenographic notes of Mr. I. N. Baker, his secretary,
+ without revision by the author.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ JUSTICE BRADLEY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Potter, and Mr. Gladstone represent the
+ theological side&mdash;that is to say, the impracticable, the
+ supernatural, the unnatural. After reading their opinions, it is
+ refreshing to read those of Justice Bradley. It is like coming out of the
+ tomb into the fresh air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Speaking of the law, whether regarded as divine or human or both, Justice
+ Bradley says: "I know no other law on the subject but the moral law, which
+ does not consist of arbitrary enactments and decrees, but is adapted to
+ our condition as human beings. This is so, whether it is conceived of as
+ the will of an all-wise creator, or as the voice of humanity speaking from
+ its experience, its necessities and its higher instincts. And that law
+ surely does not demand that the injured party to the marriage bond should
+ be forever tied to one who disregards and violates every obligation that
+ it imposes&mdash;to one with whom it is impossible to cohabit&mdash;to one
+ whose touch is contamination. Nor does it demand that such injured party,
+ if legally free, should be forever debarred from forming other ties
+ through which the lost hopes of happiness for life may be restored. It is
+ not reason, and it can not be law&mdash;divine, or moral&mdash;that
+ unfaithfulness, or willful and obstinate desertion, or persistent cruelty
+ of the stronger party, should afford no ground for relief.......If no
+ redress be legalized, the law itself will be set at defiance, and greater
+ injury to soul and body will result from clandestine methods of relief."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely, this is good, wholesome, practical common sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SENATOR DOLPH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Senator Dolph strikes a strong blow, and takes the foundation from under
+ the idiotic idea of legal separation without divorce. He says: "As there
+ should be no partial divorce, which leaves the parties in the condition
+ aptly described by an eminent jurist as 'a wife without a husband and a
+ husband without a wife,' so, as a matter of public expediency, and in the
+ interest of public morals, whenever and however the marriage is dissolved,
+ both parties should be left free to remarry." Again: "Prohibition of
+ remarriage is likely to injure society more than the remarriage of the
+ guilty party;" and the Senator says, with great force: "Divorce for proper
+ causes, free from fraud and collusion, conserves the moral integrity of
+ the family."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In answering the question as to whether absolute prohibition of divorce
+ tends to morality or immorality, the Senator cites the case of South
+ Carolina. In that State, divorces were prohibited, and in consequence of
+ this prohibition, the proportion of his property which a married man might
+ give to his concubine was regulated by law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED, IN COLLOQUIAL FORM.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who have written on the subject of divorce seem to be divided into
+ two classes&mdash;the supernaturalists and the naturalists. The first
+ class rely on tradition, inspired books, the opinions of theologians as
+ expressed in creeds, and the decisions of ecclesiastical tribunals. The
+ second class take into account the nature of human beings, their own
+ experience, and the facts of life, as they know them. The first class live
+ for another world; the second, for this&mdash;the one in which we live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theological theorists regard men and women as depraved, in consequence
+ of what they are pleased to call "the fall of man," while the men and
+ women of common sense know that the race has slowly and painfully
+ progressed through countless years of suffering and toil. The priests
+ insist that marriage is a sacrament; the philosopher, that it is a
+ contract.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question as to the propriety of granting divorces cannot now be
+ settled by quoting passages of Scripture, or by appealing to creeds, or by
+ citing the acts of legislatures or the decisions of courts. With
+ intelligent millions, the Scriptures are no longer considered as of the
+ slightest authority. They pay no more regard to the Bible than to the
+ Koran, the Zend-Avestas, or the Popol Vuh&mdash;neither do they care for
+ the various creeds that were formulated by barbarian ancestors, nor for
+ the laws and decisions based upon the savagery of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden times when religions were manufactured&mdash;when
+ priest-craft and lunacy governed the world&mdash;the women were not
+ consulted. They were regarded and treated as serfs and menials&mdash;looked
+ upon as a species of property to be bought and sold like the other
+ domestic animals. This view or estimation of woman was undoubtedly in the
+ mind of the author of the Ten Commandments when he said: "Thou shalt not
+ covet thy neighbor's wife,&mdash;nor his ox."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such, however, has been the advance of woman in all departments of
+ knowledge&mdash;such advance having been made in spite of the efforts of
+ the church to keep her the slave of faith&mdash;that the obligations,
+ rights and remedies growing out of the contract of marriage and its
+ violation, cannot be finally determined without her consent and
+ approbation. Legislators and priests must consult with wives and mothers.
+ They must become acquainted with their wants and desires&mdash;with their
+ profound aversions* their pure hatreds, their loving self-denials, and,
+ above all, with the religion of the body that moulds and dominates their
+ lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have learned to suspect the truth of the old, because it is old, and
+ for that reason was born in the days of slavery and darkness&mdash;because
+ the probability is that the parents of the old were ignorance and
+ superstition. We are beginning to be wise enough to take into
+ consideration the circumstances of our own time&mdash;the theories and
+ aspirations of the present&mdash;the changed conditions of the world&mdash;the
+ discoveries and inventions that have modified or completely changed the
+ standards of the greatest of the human race. We are on the eve of
+ discovering that nothing should be done for the sake of gods, but all for
+ the good of man&mdash;nothing for another world&mdash;everything for this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the theories must be tested by experience, by facts. The moment a
+ supernatural theory comes in contact with a natural fact, it falls to
+ chaos. Let us test all these theories about marriage and divorce&mdash;all
+ this sacramental, indissoluble imbecility, with a real case&mdash;with a
+ fact in life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago a man and woman fell in love and were married in a German
+ village. The woman had a little money and this was squandered by the
+ husband. When the money was gone, the husband deserted his wife and two
+ little children, leaving them to live as best they might. She had honestly
+ given her hand and heart, and believed that if she could only see him once
+ more&mdash;if he could again look into her eyes&mdash;he would come back
+ to her. The husband had fled to America. The wife lived four hundred miles
+ from the sea. Taking her two little children with her, she traveled on
+ foot the entire distance. For eight weeks she journeyed, and when she
+ reached the sea&mdash;tired, hungry, worn out, she fell unconscious in the
+ street. She was taken to the hospital, and for many weeks fought for life
+ upon the shore of death. At last she recovered, and sailed for New York.
+ She was enabled to get just enough money to buy a steerage ticket.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few days ago, while wandering in the streets of New York in search of
+ her husband, she sank unconscious to the sidewalk. She was taken into the
+ home of another. In a little while her husband entered. He caught sight of
+ his wife. She ran toward him, threw her arms about his neck, and cried:
+ "At last I have found you!" "With an oath, he threw her to the floor; he
+ bruised her flesh with his feet and fists; he dragged her into the hall,
+ and threw her into the street."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us suppose that this poor wife sought out Cardinal Gibbons and the
+ Right Honorable William E. Gladstone, for the purpose of asking their
+ advice. Let us imagine the conversation:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. My dear Cardinal, I was married four years ago. I loved
+ my husband and I was sure that he loved me. Two babes were born. He
+ deserted me without cause. He left me in poverty and want. Feeling that he
+ had been overcome by some delusion&mdash;tempted by something more than he
+ could bear, and dreaming that if I could look upon his face again he would
+ return, I followed-him on foot. I walked, with my children in my arms,
+ four hundred miles. I crossed the sea. I found him at last&mdash;and
+ instead of giving me again his love, he fell upon me like a wild beast. He
+ bruised and blackened my flesh. He threw me from him, and for my proffered
+ love I received curses and blows. Another man, touched by the evidence of
+ my devotion, made my acquaintance&mdash;came to my relief&mdash;supplied
+ my wants&mdash;gave me and my children comfort, and then offered me his
+ hand and heart, in marriage. My dear Cardinal, I told him that I was a
+ married woman, and he told me that I should obtain a divorce, and so I
+ have come to ask your counsel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Cardinal</i>. My dear woman, God instituted in Paradise the
+ marriage state and sanctified it, and he established its law of unity and
+ declared its indissolubility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. But, Mr. Cardinal, if it be true that "God instituted
+ marriage in the Garden of Eden, and declared its unity and
+ indissolubility," how do you account for the fact that this same God
+ afterward upheld polygamy? How is it that he forgot to say anything on the
+ subject when he gave the Ten Commandments to Moses?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Cardinal</i>. You must remember that the institution of marriage
+ suffered in the fall of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. How does that throw any light upon my case? That was long
+ ago. Surely, I was not represented at that time, and is it right that I
+ should be punished for what was done by others in the very beginning of
+ the world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Cardinal.</i> Christ reasserted in clear and unequivocal terms, the
+ sanctity, unity and indissolubility of marriage, and Christ gave to this
+ state an added holiness, and a dignity higher far than it had from the
+ beginning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. How did it happen that Jacob, while in direct
+ communication with God, married, not his deceased wife's sister, but both
+ sisters while both were living? And how, my dear Cardinal, do you account
+ for the fact that God upheld concubinage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Cardinal.</i> Marriage is a sacrament. You seem to ask me whether
+ divorce from the bond of marriage can ever be allowed? I answer with an
+ emphatic theological No; and as a reason for this No, I say, Thus saith
+ the Lord. To allow a divorce and to permit the divorced parties, or either
+ of them, to remarry, is one species of polygamy. There are two kinds&mdash;the
+ simultaneous and the successive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. But why did God allow simultaneous polygamy in Palestine?
+ Was it any better in Palestine then than it is in Utah now? If a wife
+ dies, and the husband marries another wife, is not that successive
+ polygamy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Cardinal</i>. Curiosity leads to the commission of deadly sins. We
+ should be satisfied with a Thus saith the Lord, and you should be
+ satisfied with a Thus saith the Cardinal. If you have the right to inquire&mdash;to
+ ask questions&mdash;then you take upon yourself the right of deciding
+ after the questions have been answered. This is the end of authority. This
+ undermines the cathedral. You must remember the words of our Lord: "What
+ God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. Do you really think that God joined us together? Did he
+ at the time know what kind of man he was joining to me? Did he then know
+ that he was a wretch, an ingrate, a kind of wild beast? Did he then know
+ that this husband would desert me&mdash;leave me with two babes in my
+ arms, without raiment and without food? Did God put his seal upon this
+ bond of marriage, upon this sacrament, and it was well-pleasing in his
+ sight that my life should be sacrificed, and does he leave me now to crawl
+ toward death, in poverty and tears?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Cardinal</i>. My dear woman, I will not linger here to point out to
+ you the need of seeking from a higher than an earthly power the grace to
+ suffer and be strong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. Mr. Cardinal, am I under any obligation to God? Will it
+ increase the happiness of the infinite for me to remain homeless and
+ husbandless? Another offers to make me his wife and to give me a home,&mdash;to
+ take care of my children and to fill my heart with joy. If I accept, will
+ the act lessen the felicity or ecstasy of heaven? Will it add to the grief
+ of God? Will it in any way affect his well-being?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Cardinal.</i> Nothing that we can do can effect the well-being of
+ God. He is infinitely above his children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. Then why should he insist upon the sacrifice of my life?
+ Mr. Cardinal, you do not seem to sympathize with me. You do not understand
+ the pangs I feel. You are too far away from my heart, and your words of
+ consolation do not heal the bruise; they leave me as I now leave you&mdash;without
+ hope. I will ask the advice of the Right Honorable William E. Gladstone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. Mr. Gladstone, you know my story, and so I ask that you
+ will give me the benefit of your knowledge, of your advice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Mr. Gladstone</i>. My dear woman, marriage is essentially a contract
+ for life, and only expires when life itself expires. I say this because
+ Christian marriage involves a vow before God, and no authority has been
+ given to the Christian Church to cancel such a vow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. Do you consider that God was one of the contracting
+ parties in my marriage? Must all vows made to God be kept? Suppose the vow
+ was made in ignorance, in excitement&mdash;must it be absolutely
+ fulfilled? Will it make any difference to God whether it is kept or not?
+ Does not an infinite God know the circumstances under which every vow is
+ made? Will he not take into consideration the imperfections, the
+ ignorance, the temptations and the passions of his children? Will God hold
+ a poor girl to the bitter dregs of a mistaken bargain? Have I not suffered
+ enough? Is it necessary that my heart should break? Did not God know at
+ the time the vow was made that it ought not to have been made? If he feels
+ toward me as a father should, why did he give no warning? Why did he
+ accept the vow? Why did he allow a contract to be made giving only to
+ death the annulling power? Is death more merciful than God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Mr. Gladstone</i>. All vows that are made to God must be kept. Do you
+ not remember that Jephthah agreed to sacrifice the first one who came out
+ of his house to meet him, and that he fulfilled the vow, although in doing
+ so, he murdered his own daughter. God makes no allowance for ignorance,
+ for temptation, for passion&mdash;nothing. Besides, my dear woman, to
+ cancel the contract of marriage lies beyond the province of the civil
+ legislature; it has no competency to annul the contract of marriage when
+ once made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. The man who has rescued me from the tyranny of my husband&mdash;the
+ man who wishes to build me a home and to make my life worth living, wishes
+ to make with me a contract of marriage. This will give my babes a home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Mr. Gladstone</i>. My dear madam, while divorce of any kind impairs the
+ integrity of the family, divorce with remarriage destroys it root and
+ branch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife</i>. The integrity of my family is already destroyed. My
+ husband deserted his home&mdash;left us in the very depths of want. I have
+ in my arms two helpless babes. I love my children, and I love the man who
+ has offered to give them and myself another fireside. Can you say that
+ this is only destruction? The destruction has already occurred. A
+ remarriage gives a home to me and mine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Mr. Gladstone.</i> But, my dear mistaken woman, the parental and the
+ conjugal relations are joined together by the hand of the Almighty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife.</i> Do you believe that the Almighty was cruel enough, in my
+ case, to join the parental and the conjugal relations, to the end that
+ they should endure as long as I can bear the sorrow? If there were three
+ parties to my marriage, my husband, myself, and God, should each be bound
+ by the contract to do something? What did God bind himself to do? If
+ nothing, why should he interfere? If nothing, my vow to him was without
+ consideration. You are as cruel and unsympathetic, Mr. Gladstone, as the
+ Cardinal. You have not the imagination to put yourself in my place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Mr. Gladstone.</i> My dear madam, we must be governed by the law of
+ Christ, and there must be no remarriage. The husband and wife must remain
+ husband and wife until a separation is caused by death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife.</i> If Christ was such a believer in the sacredness of the
+ marriage relation, why did he offer rewards not only in this world, but in
+ the next, to husbands who would desert their wives and follow him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Mr. Gladstone.</i> It is not for us to inquire. God's ways are not our
+ ways.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Wife.</i> Nature is better than you. A mother's love is higher and
+ deeper than your philosophy. I will follow the instincts of my heart. I
+ will provide a home for my babes, and for myself. I will be freed from the
+ infamous man who betrayed me. I will become the wife of another&mdash;of
+ one who loves me&mdash;and after having filled his life with joy, I hope
+ to die in his arms, surrounded by my children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few months ago, a priest made a confession&mdash;he could carry his
+ secret no longer. He admitted that he was married&mdash;that he was the
+ father of two children&mdash;that he had violated his priestly vows. He
+ was unfrocked and cast out. After a time he came back and asked to be
+ restored into the bosom of the church, giving as his reason that he had
+ abandoned his wife and babes. This throws a flood of light on the
+ theological view of marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know of nothing equal to this, except the story of the Sandwich Island
+ chief who was converted by the missionaries, and wished to join the
+ church. On cross-examination, it turned out that he had twelve wives, and
+ he was informed that a polygamist could not be a Christian. The next year
+ he presented himself again for the purpose of joining the church, and
+ stated that he was not a polygamist&mdash;that he had only one wife. When
+ the missionaries asked him what he had done with the other eleven he
+ replied: "I ate them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The indissoluble marriage was a reaction from polygamy. The church has
+ always pretended that it was governed by the will of God, and that for all
+ its dogmas it had a "thus saith the Lord." Reason and experience were
+ branded as false guides. The priests insisted that they were in direct
+ communication with the Infinite&mdash;that they spoke by the authority of
+ God, and that the duty of the people was to obey without question and to
+ submit with at least the appearance of gladness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know that no such communication exists&mdash;that priests spoke
+ without authority, and that the duty of the people was and is to examine
+ for themselves. We now know that no one knows what the will of God is, or
+ whether or not such a being exists. We now know that nature has furnished
+ all the light there is, and that the inspired books are like all books,
+ and that their value depends on the truth, the beauty, and the wisdom they
+ contain. We also know that it is now impossible to substantiate the
+ supernatural. Judging from experience&mdash;reasoning from known facts&mdash;we
+ can safely say that society has no right to demand the sacrifice of an
+ innocent individual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Society has no right, under the plea of self-preservation, to compel women
+ to remain the wives of men who have violated the contract of marriage, and
+ who have become objects of contempt and loathing to their wives. It is not
+ to the best interest of society to maintain such firesides&mdash;such
+ homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time has not arrived, in my judgment, for the Congress of the United
+ States, under an amendment to the Constitution, to pass a general law
+ applicable to all the States, fixing the terms and conditions of divorce.
+ The States of the Union are not equally enlightened. Some are far more
+ conservative than others. Let us wait until a majority of the States have
+ abandoned the theological theories upon this subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon this question light comes from the West, where men have recently laid
+ the foundations of States, and where the people are not manacled and
+ burdened with old constitutions and statutes and decisions, and where with
+ a large majority the tendency is to correct the mistakes of their
+ ancestors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let the States in their own way solve this question, and the time will
+ come when the people will be ready to enact sensible and reasonable laws
+ touching this important subject, and then the Constitution can be amended
+ and the whole subject controlled by Federal law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law, as it now exists in many of the States, is to the last degree
+ absurd and cruel. In some States the husband can obtain a divorce on the
+ ground that the wife has been guilty of adultery, but the wife cannot
+ secure a divorce from the husband simply for the reason that he has been
+ guilty of the same offence. So, in most of the States where divorce is
+ granted on account of desertion for a certain number of years, the husband
+ can return on the last day of the time fixed, and the poor wife who has
+ been left in want is obliged to receive the wretch with open arms. In some
+ States nothing is considered cruelty that does not endanger life or limb
+ or health. The whole question is in great confusion, but after all there
+ are some States where the law is reasonable, and the consequence is, that
+ hundreds and thousands of suffering wives are released from a bondage
+ worse than death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea that marriage is something more than a contract is at the bottom
+ of all the legal and judicial absurdities that surround this subject. The
+ moment that it is regarded from a purely secular standpoint the infamous
+ laws will disappear. We shall then take into consideration the real rights
+ and obligations of the parties to the contract of marriage. We shall have
+ some respect for the sacred feelings of mothers&mdash;for the purity of
+ woman&mdash;the freedom of the fireside&mdash;the real democracy of the
+ hearthstone and, above all, for love, the purest, the profoundest and the
+ holiest of all passions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We shall no longer listen to priests who regard celibacy as a higher state
+ than marriage, nor to those statesmen who look upon a barbarous code as
+ the foundation of all law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as men imagine that they have property in wives; that women can be
+ owned, body and mind; that it is the duty of wives to obey; that the
+ husband is the master, the source of authority&mdash;that his will is law,
+ and that he can call on legislators and courts to protect his superior
+ rights, that to enforce obedience the power of the State is pledged&mdash;just
+ so long will millions of husbands be arrogant, tyrannical and cruel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No gentleman will be content to have a slave for the mother of his
+ children. Force has no place in the world of love. It is impossible to
+ control likes and dislikes by law. No one ever did and no one ever can
+ love on compulsion. Courts can not obtain jurisdiction of the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tides and currents of the soul care nothing for the creeds. People who
+ make rules for the conduct of others generally break them themselves. It
+ is so easy to bear with fortitude the misfortunes of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every child should be well-born&mdash;well fathered and mothered. Society
+ has as great an interest in children as in parents. The innocent should
+ not be compelled by law to suffer for the crimes of the guilty. Wretched
+ and weeping wives are not essential to the welfare of States and Nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church cries now "whom God hath joined together let not man put
+ asunder"; but when the people are really civilized the State will say:
+ "whom Nature hath put asunder let not man bind and manacle together."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ANSWER TO LYMAN ABBOTT.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This unfinished article was written as a reply to the Rev.
+ Lyman Abbott's article entitled, "Flaws in Ingersollism,"
+ which was printed in the April number of the North American
+ Review for 1890.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IN your Open Letter to me, published in this Review, you attack what you
+ supposed to be my position, and ask several questions to which you demand
+ answers; but in the same letter, you state that you wish no controversy
+ with me. Is it possible that you wrote the letter to prevent a
+ controversy? Do you attack only those with whom you wish to live in peace,
+ and do you ask questions, coupled with a request that they remain
+ unanswered?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In addition to this, you have taken pains to publish in your own paper,
+ that it was no part of your design in the article in the <i>North American
+ Review</i>, to point out errors in my statements, and that this design was
+ distinctly disavowed in the opening paragraph of your article. You further
+ say, that your simple object was to answer the question "What is
+ Christianity?" May I be permitted to ask why you addressed the letter to
+ me, and why do you now pretend that, although you did address a letter to
+ me, I was not in your mind, and that you had no intention of pointing out
+ any flaws in my doctrines or theories? Can you afford to occupy this
+ position?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You also stated in your own paper, <i>The Christian Union</i>, that the
+ title of your article had been changed by the editor of the <i>Review</i>,
+ without your knowledge or consent; leaving it to be inferred that the
+ title given to the article by you was perfectly consistent with your
+ statement, that it was no part of your design in the article in the <i>North
+ American Review</i>, to point out errors in my (Ingersoll's) statements;
+ and that your simple object was to answer the question, What is
+ Christianity? And yet, the title which you gave your own article was as
+ follows: "To Robert G. Ingersoll: A Reply."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. We are told that only twelve crimes were punished by death:
+ idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, fraudulent prophesying, Sabbath-breaking,
+ rebellion against parents, resistance to judicial officers, murder,
+ homicide by negligence, adultery, incestuous marriages, and kidnapping. We
+ are then told that as late as the year 1600 there were 263 crimes capital
+ in England.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not the world know that all the crimes or offences punishable by
+ death in England could be divided in the same way? For instance, treason.
+ This covered a multitude of offences, all punishable by death. Larceny
+ covered another multitude. Perjury&mdash;trespass, covered many others.
+ There might still be made a smaller division, and one who had made up his
+ mind to define the Criminal Code of England might have said that there was
+ only one offence punishable by death&mdash;wrong-doing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The facts with regard to the Criminal Code of England are, that up to the
+ reign of George I. there were 167 offences punishable by death. Between
+ the accession of George I. and termination of the reign of George III.,
+ there were added 56 new crimes to which capital punishment was attached.
+ So that when George IV. became king, there were 223 offences capital in
+ England.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Bright, commenting upon this subject, says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "During all these years, so far as this question goes, our Government was
+ becoming more cruel and more barbarous, and we do not find, and have not
+ found, that in the great Church of England, with its fifteen or twenty
+ thousand ministers, and with its more than score of Bishops in the House
+ of Lords, there ever was a voice raised, or an organization formed, in
+ favor of a more merciful code, or in condemnation of the enormous
+ cruelties which our law was continually inflicting. Was not Voltaire
+ justified in saying that the English were the only people who murdered by
+ law?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, taking into consideration the situation of the
+ people, the number of subjects covered by law, there were far more
+ offences capital in the days of Moses, than in the reign of George IV. Is
+ it possible that a minister, a theologian of the nineteenth century,
+ imagines that he has substantiated the divine origin of the Old Testament
+ by endeavoring to show that the government of God was not quite as bad as
+ that of England?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Abbott also informs us that the reason Moses killed so many was, that
+ banishment from the camp during the wandering in the Wilderness was a
+ punishment worse than death. If so, the poor wretches should at least have
+ been given their choice. Few, in my judgment, would have chosen death,
+ because the history shows that a large majority were continually clamoring
+ to be led back to Egypt. It required all the cunning and power of God to
+ keep the fugitives from returning in a body. Many were killed by Jehovah,
+ simply because they wished to leave the camp&mdash;because they longed
+ passionately for banishment, and thought with joy of the flesh-pots of
+ Egypt, preferring the slavery of Pharaoh to the liberty of Jehovah. The
+ memory of leeks and onions was enough to set their faces toward the Nile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. I am charged with saying that the Christian missionaries say to
+ the heathen: "You must examine your religion&mdash;and not only so, but
+ you must reject it; and unless you do reject it, and in addition to such
+ rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned." Mr. Abbott denies
+ the truth of this statement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me ask him, If the religion of Jesus Christ is preached clearly and
+ distinctly to a heathen, and the heathen understands it, and rejects it
+ deliberately, unequivocally, and finally, can he be saved?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This question is capable of a direct answer. The reverend gentleman now
+ admits that an acceptance of Christianity is not essential to salvation.
+ If the acceptance of Christianity is not essential to the salvation of the
+ heathen who has heard Christianity preached&mdash;knows what its claims
+ are, and the evidences that support those claims, is the acceptance of
+ Christianity essential to the salvation of an adult intelligent citizen of
+ the United States? Will the reverend gentleman tell us, and without
+ circumlocution, whether the acceptance of Christianity is necessary to the
+ salvation of anybody? If he says that it is, then he admits that I was
+ right in my statement concerning what is said to the heathen. If he says
+ that it is not, then I ask him, What do you do with the following passages
+ of Scripture: "There is none other name given under heaven or among men
+ whereby we must be saved."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and
+ whosoever believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; and whosoever
+ believeth not shall be damned"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am delighted to know that millions of Pagans will be found to have
+ entered into eternal life without any knowledge of Christ or his religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another question naturally arises: If a heathen can hear and reject the
+ Gospel, and yet be saved, what will become of the heathen who never heard
+ of the Gospel? Are they all to be saved? If all who never heard are to be
+ saved, is it not dangerous to hear?&mdash;Is it not cruel to preach? Why
+ not stop preaching and let the entire world become heathen, so that after
+ this, no soul may be lost?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. You say that I desire to deprive mankind of their faith in God, in
+ Christ and in the Bible. I do not, and have not, endeavored to destroy the
+ faith of any man in a good, in a just, in a merciful God, or in a
+ reasonable, natural, human Christ, or in any truth that the Bible may
+ contain. I have endeavored&mdash;and with some degree of success&mdash;to
+ destroy the faith of man in the Jehovah of the Jews, and in the idea that
+ Christ was in fact the God of this universe. I have also endeavored to
+ show that there are many things in the Bible ignorant and cruel&mdash;that
+ the book was produced by barbarians and by savages, and that its influence
+ on the world has been bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I do believe that life and property will be safer, that liberty will
+ be surer, that homes will be sweeter, and life will be more joyous, and
+ death less terrible, if the myth called Jehovah can be destroyed from the
+ human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that the heart of the Christian ought to burst into an
+ efflorescence of joy when he becomes satisfied that the Bible is only the
+ work of man; that there is no such place as perdition&mdash;that there are
+ no eternal flames&mdash;that men's souls are not to suffer everlasting
+ pain&mdash;that it is all insanity and ignorance and fear and horror. I
+ should think that every good and tender soul would be delighted to know
+ that there is no Christ who can say to any human being&mdash;to any
+ father, mother, or child&mdash;"Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire
+ prepared for the devil and his angels." I do believe that he will be far
+ happier when the Psalms of David are sung no more, and that he will be far
+ better when no one could sing the 109th Psalm without shuddering and
+ horror. These Psalms for the most part breathe the spirit of hatred, of
+ revenge, and of everything fiendish in the human heart. There are some
+ good lines, some lofty aspirations&mdash;these should be preserved; and to
+ the extent that they do give voice to the higher and holier emotions, they
+ should be preserved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I believe the world will be happier when the life of Christ, as it is
+ written now in the New Testament, is no longer believed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the Ten Commandments will fall into oblivion, and the world will
+ be far happier when they do. Most of these commandments are universal.
+ They were not discovered by Jehovah&mdash;they were not original with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thou shalt not kill," is as old as life. And for this reason a large
+ majority of people in all countries have objected to being murdered. "Thou
+ shalt not steal," is as old as industry. There never has been a human
+ being who was willing to work through the sun and rain and heat of summer,
+ simply for the purpose that some one who had lived in idleness might steal
+ the result of his labor. Consequently, in all countries where it has been
+ necessary to work, larceny has been a crime. "Thou shalt not lie," is as
+ old as speech. Men have desired, as a rule, to know the truth; and truth
+ goes with courage and candor. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," is as old
+ as love. "Honor thy father and thy mother," is as old as the family
+ relation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these commandments were known among all peoples thousands and
+ thousands of years before Moses was born. The new one, "Thou shalt worship
+ no other Gods but me," is a bad commandment&mdash;because that God was not
+ worthy of worship. "Thou shalt make no graven image,"&mdash;a bad
+ commandment. It was the death of art. "Thou shalt do no work on the
+ Sabbath-day,"&mdash;a bad commandment; the object of that being, that
+ one-seventh of the time should be given to the worship of a monster,
+ making a priesthood necessary, and consequently burdening industry with
+ the idle and useless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Professor Clifford felt lonely at the loss of such a companion as
+ Jehovah, it is impossible for me to sympathize with his feelings. No one
+ wishes to destroy the hope of another life&mdash;no one wishes to blot out
+ any good that is, or that is hoped for, or the hope of which gives
+ consolation to the world. Neither do I agree with this gentleman when he
+ says, "Let us have the truth, cost what it may." I say: Let us have
+ happiness&mdash;well-being. The truth upon these matters is of but little
+ importance compared with the happiness of mankind. Whether there is, or is
+ not, a God, is absolutely unimportant, compared with the well-being of the
+ race. Whether the Bible is, or is not, inspired, is not of as much
+ consequence as human happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, if the Old and New Testaments are true, then human happiness
+ becomes impossible, either in this world, or in the world to come&mdash;that
+ is, impossible to all people who really believe that these books are true.
+ It is often necessary to know the truth, in order to prepare ourselves to
+ bear consequences; but in the metaphysical world, truth is of no possible
+ importance except as it affects human happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be a God, he certainly will hold us to no stricter responsibility
+ about metaphysical truth than about scientific truth. It ought to be just
+ as dangerous to make a mistake in Geology as in Theology&mdash;in
+ Astronomy as in the question of the Atonement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not endeavoring to overthrow any faith in God, but the faith in a bad
+ God. And in order to accomplish this, I have endeavored to show that the
+ question of whether an Infinite God exists, or not, is beyond the power of
+ the human mind. Anything is better than to believe in the God of the
+ Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. Mr. Abbott, like the rest, appeals to names instead of to
+ arguments. He appeals to Socrates, and yet he does not agree with
+ Socrates. He appeals to Goethe, and yet Goethe was far from a Christian.
+ He appeals to Isaac Newton and to Mr. Gladstone&mdash;and after mentioning
+ these names, says, that on his side is this faith of the wisest, the best,
+ the noblest of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was Socrates after all greater than Epicurus&mdash;had he a subtler mind&mdash;was
+ he any nobler in his life? Was Isaac Newton so much greater than Humboldt&mdash;than
+ Charles Darwin, who has revolutionized the thought of the civilized world?
+ Did he do the one-hundredth part of the good for mankind that was done by
+ Voltaire&mdash;was he as great a metaphysician as Spinoza?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But why should we appeal to names?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a contest between Protestantism and Catholicism are you willing to
+ abide by the tests of names? In a contest between Christianity and
+ Paganism, in the first century, would you have considered the question
+ settled by names? Had Christianity then produced the equals of the great
+ Greeks and Romans? The new can always be overwhelmed with names that were
+ in favor of the old. Sir Isaac Newton, in his day, could have been
+ overwhelmed by the names of the great who had preceded him. Christ was
+ overwhelmed by this same method&mdash;Moses and the Prophets were appealed
+ to as against this Peasant of Palestine. This is the argument of the
+ cemetery&mdash;this is leaving the open field, and crawling behind
+ gravestones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Newton was understood to be, all his life, a believer in the Trinity; but
+ he dared not say what his real thought was. After his death there was
+ found among his papers an argument that he published against the divinity
+ of Christ. This had been published in Holland, because he was afraid to
+ have it published in England. How do we really know what the great men of
+ whom you speak believed, or believe?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not agree with you when you say that Gladstone is the greatest
+ statesman. He will not, in my judgment, for one moment compare with Thomas
+ Jefferson&mdash;with Alexander Hamilton&mdash;or, to come down to later
+ times, with Gambetta; and he is immeasurably below such a man as Abraham
+ Lincoln. Lincoln was not a believer. Gambetta was an atheist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, these names prove nothing. Instead of citing a name, and saying
+ that this great man&mdash;Sir Isaac Newton, for instance&mdash;believed in
+ our doctrine, it is far better to give the reasons that Sir Isaac Newton
+ had for his belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all organizations are filled with snobbishness. Each church has a
+ list of great names, and the members feel in duty bound to stand by their
+ great men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why is idolatry the worst of sins? Is it not far better to worship a God
+ of stone than a God who threatens to punish in eternal flames the most of
+ his children? If you simply mean by idolatry a false conception of God,
+ you must admit that no finite mind can have a true conception of God&mdash;and
+ you must admit that no two men can have the same false conception of God,
+ and that, as a consequence, no two men can worship identically the same
+ Deity. Consequently they are all idolaters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think idolatry the worst of sins. Cruelty is the worst of sins.
+ It is far better to worship a false God, than to injure your neighbor&mdash;far
+ better to bow before a monstrosity of stone, than to enslave your
+ fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. I am glad that you admit that a bad God is worse than no God. If
+ so, the atheist is far better than the believer in Jehovah, and far better
+ than the believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ&mdash;because I am
+ perfectly satisfied that none but a bad God would threaten to say to any
+ human soul, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
+ devil and his angels." So that, before any Christian can be better than an
+ atheist, he must reform his God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The agnostic does not simply say, "I do not know." He goes another step,
+ and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that
+ you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He
+ is not satisfied with saying that you do not know,&mdash;he demonstrates
+ that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact&mdash;he
+ drives you from the realm of reason&mdash;he drives you from the light,
+ into the darkness of conjecture&mdash;into the world of dreams and
+ shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no
+ foundation in fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You say that religion tells us that "life is a battle with temptation&mdash;the
+ result is eternal life to the victors."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But what of the victims? Did your God create these victims, knowing that
+ they would be victims? Did he deliberately change the clay into the man&mdash;into
+ a being with wants, surrounded by difficulties and temptations&mdash;and
+ did he deliberately surround this being with temptations that he knew he
+ could not withstand, with obstacles that he knew he could not overcome,
+ and whom he knew at last would fall a victim upon the field of death? Is
+ there no hope for this victim? No remedy for this mistake of your God? Is
+ he to remain a victim forever? Is it not better to have no God than such a
+ God? Could the condition of this victim be rendered worse by the death of
+ God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth. Of course I agree with you when you say that character is worth
+ more than condition&mdash;that life is worth more than place. But I do not
+ agree with you when you say that being&mdash;that simple existence&mdash;is
+ better than happiness. If a man is not happy, it is far better not to be.
+ I utterly dissent from your philosophy of life. From my standpoint, I do
+ not understand you when you talk about self-denial. I can imagine a being
+ of such character, that certain things he would do for the one he loved,
+ would by others be regarded as acts of self-denial, but they could not be
+ so regarded by him. In these acts of so-called selfdenial, he would find
+ his highest joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This pretence that to do right is to carry a cross, has done an immense
+ amount of injury to the world. Only those who do wrong carry a cross. To
+ do wrong is the only possible self-denial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pulpit has always been saying that, although the virtuous and good,
+ the kind, the tender, and the loving, may have a very bad time here, yet
+ they will have their reward in heaven&mdash;having denied themselves the
+ pleasures of sin, the ecstasies of crime, they will be made happy in a
+ world hereafter; but that the wicked, who have enjoyed larceny, and
+ rascality in all its forms, will be punished hereafter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this rests upon the idea that man should sacrifice himself, not for
+ his fellow-men, but for God&mdash;that he should do something for the
+ Almighty&mdash;that he should go hungry to increase the happiness of
+ heaven&mdash;that he should make a journey to Our Lady of Loretto, with
+ dried peas in his shoes; that he should refuse to eat meat on Friday; that
+ he should say so many prayers before retiring to rest; that he should do
+ something that he hated to do, in order that he might win the approbation
+ of the heavenly powers. For my part, I think it much better to feed the
+ hungry, than to starve yourself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You ask me, What is Christianity? You then proceed to partially answer
+ your own question, and you pick out what you consider the best, and call
+ that Christianity. But you have given only one side, and that side not all
+ of it good. Why did you not give the other side of Christianity&mdash;the
+ side that talks of eternal flames, of the worm that dieth not&mdash;the
+ side that denounces the investigator and the thinker&mdash;the side that
+ promises an eternal reward for credulity&mdash;the side that tells men to
+ take no thought for the morrow but to trust absolutely in a Divine
+ Providence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Within thirty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, faith in his
+ resurrection had become the inspiration of the church." I ask you, Was
+ there a resurrection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What advance has been made in what you are pleased to call the doctrine of
+ the brotherhood of man, through the instrumentality of the church? Was
+ there as much dread of God among the Pagans as there has been among
+ Christians?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that the church is a conservator of civilization. It
+ sells crime on credit. I do not believe it is an educator of good will. It
+ has caused more war than all other causes. Neither is it a school of a
+ nobler reverence and faith. The church has not turned the minds of men
+ toward principles of justice, mercy and truth&mdash;it has destroyed the
+ foundation of justice. It does not minister comfort at the coffin&mdash;it
+ fills the mourners with fear. It has never preached a gospel of "Peace on
+ Earth"&mdash;it has never preached "Good Will toward men."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I do not agree with you when you say that: "The most stalwart
+ anti-Romanists can hardly question that with the Roman Catholic Church
+ abolished by instantaneous decree, its priests banished and its churches
+ closed, the disaster to American communities would be simply awful in its
+ proportions, if not irretrievable in its results."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I may agree with you in this, that the most stalwart anti-Romanists would
+ not wish to have the Roman Catholic Church abolished by tyranny, and its
+ priests banished, and its churches closed. But if the abolition of that
+ church could be produced by the development of the human mind; and if its
+ priests, instead of being banished, should become good and useful
+ citizens, and were in favor of absolute liberty of mind, then I say that
+ there would be no disaster, but a very wide and great and splendid
+ blessing. The church has been the Centaur&mdash;not Theseus; the church
+ has not been Hercules, but the serpent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any
+ particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it&mdash;loyalty to
+ our duty as we know it&mdash;loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart&mdash;is,
+ to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any
+ particular man or God. There is a kind of slavery&mdash;a kind of
+ abdication&mdash;for any man to take any other man as his absolute pattern
+ and to hold him up as the perfection of all life, and to feel that it is
+ his duty to grovel in the dust in his presence. It is better to feel that
+ the springs of action are within yourself&mdash;that you are poised upon
+ your own feet&mdash;and that you look at the world with your own eyes, and
+ follow the path that reason shows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that the world could be re-organized upon the simple but
+ radical principles of the Sermon on the Mount. Neither do I believe that
+ this sermon was ever delivered by one man. It has in it many fragments
+ that I imagine were dropped from many mouths. It lacks coherence&mdash;it
+ lacks form. Some of the sayings are beautiful, sublime and tender; and
+ others seem to be weak, contradictory and childish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventh. I do not say that I do not know whether this faith is true, or
+ not. I say distinctly and clearly, that I know it is not true. I admit
+ that I do not know whether there is any infinite personality or not,
+ because I do not know that my mind is an absolute standard. But according
+ to my mind, there is no such personality; and according to my mind, it is
+ an infinite absurdity to suppose that there is such an infinite
+ personality. But I do know something of human nature; I do know a little
+ of the history of mankind; and I know enough to know that what is known as
+ the Christian faith, is not true. I am perfectly satisfied, beyond all
+ doubt and beyond all per-adventure, that all miracles are falsehoods. I
+ know as well as I know that I live&mdash;that others live&mdash;that what
+ you call your faith, is not true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am glad, however, that you admit that the miracles of the Old Testament,
+ or the inspiration of the Old Testament, are not essentials. I draw my
+ conclusion from what you say: "I have not in this paper discussed the
+ miracles, or the inspiration of the Old Testament; partly because those
+ topics, in my opinion, occupy a subordinate position in Christian faith,
+ and I wish to consider only essentials." At the same time, you tell us
+ that, "On historical evidence, and after a careful study of the arguments
+ on both sides, I regard as historical the events narrated in the four
+ Gospels, ordinarily regarded as miracles." At the same time, you say that
+ you fully agree with me that the order of nature has never been violated
+ or interrupted. In other words, you must believe that all these so-called
+ miracles were actually in accordance with the laws, or facts rather, in
+ nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eighth. You wonder that I could write the following: "To me there is
+ nothing of any particular value in the Pentateuch. There is not, so far as
+ I know, a line in the Book of Genesis calculated to make a human being
+ better." You then call my attention to "The magnificent Psalm of Praise to
+ the Creator with which Genesis opens; to the beautiful legend of the first
+ sin and its fateful consequences; the inspiring story of Abraham&mdash;the
+ first selfexile for conscience sake; the romantic story of Joseph the
+ Peasant boy becoming a Prince," which you say "would have attraction for
+ any one if he could have found a charm in, for example, the Legends of the
+ Round Table."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "magnificent Psalm of Praise to the Creator with which Genesis opens"
+ is filled with magnificent mistakes, and is utterly absurd. "The beautiful
+ legend of the first sin and its fateful consequences" is probably the most
+ contemptible story that was ever written, and the treatment of the first
+ pair by Jehovah is unparalleled in the cruelty of despotic governments.
+ According to this infamous account, God cursed the mothers of the world,
+ and added to the agonies of maternity. Not only so, but he made woman a
+ slave, and man something, if possible, meaner&mdash;a master.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I must confess that I have very little admiration for Abraham. (Give
+ reasons.)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So far as Joseph is concerned, let me give you the history of Joseph,&mdash;how
+ he conspired with Pharaoh to enslave the people of Egypt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You seem to be astonished that I am not in love with the character of
+ Joseph, as pictured in the Bible. Let me tell you who Joseph was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems, from the account, that Pharaoh had a dream. None of his wise men
+ could give its meaning. He applied to Joseph, and Joseph, having been
+ enlightened by Jehovah, gave the meaning of the dream to Pharaoh. He told
+ the king that there would be in Egypt seven years of great plenty, and
+ after these seven years of great plenty, there would be seven years of
+ famine, and that the famine would consume the land. Thereupon Joseph gave
+ to Pharaoh some advice. First, he was to take up a fifth part of the land
+ of Egypt, in the seven plenteous years&mdash;he was to gather all the food
+ of those good years, and lay up corn, and he was to keep this food in the
+ cities. This food was to be a store to the land against the seven years of
+ famine. And thereupon Pharaoh said unto Joseph, "Forasmuch as God hath
+ showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: thou
+ shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be
+ ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said
+ unto Joseph, See I have set thee over all the land of Egypt."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are further informed by the holy writer, that in the seven plenteous
+ years the earth brought forth by handfuls, and that Joseph gathered up all
+ the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up
+ the food in the cities, and that he gathered corn as the sand of the sea.
+ This was done through the seven plenteous years. Then commenced the years
+ of dearth. Then the people of Egypt became hungry, and they cried to
+ Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto
+ Joseph. The famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened
+ the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians, and the famine waxed sore in
+ the land of Egypt. There was no bread in the land, and Egypt fainted by
+ reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found
+ in the land of Egypt, by the sale of corn, and brought the money to
+ Pharaoh's house. After a time the money failed in the land of Egypt, and
+ the Egyptians came unto Joseph and said, "Give us bread; why should we die
+ in thy presence? for the money faileth." And Joseph said, "Give your
+ cattle, and I will give you for your cattle." And they brought their
+ cattle unto Joseph, and he gave them bread in exchange for horses and
+ flocks and herds, and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that
+ year. When the year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and
+ said, "Our money is spent, our cattle are gone, naught is left but our
+ bodies and our lands." And they said to Joseph, "Buy us, and our land, for
+ bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh; and give us seed
+ that we may live and not die, that the land be not desolate." And Joseph
+ bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man
+ his field, because the famine prevailed over them. So the land became
+ Pharaoh's. Then Joseph said to the people, "I have bought you this day,
+ and your land; lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land." And
+ thereupon the people said, "Thou hast saved our lives; we will be
+ Pharaoh's servants." "And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto
+ this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, <i>except the land of
+ the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet I am asked, by a minister of the nineteenth century, whether it is
+ possible that I do not admire the character of Joseph. This man received
+ information from God&mdash;and gave that information to Pharaoh, to the
+ end that he might impoverish and enslave a nation. This man, by means of
+ intelligence received from Jehovah, took from the people what they had,
+ and compelled them at last to sell themselves, their wives and their
+ children, and to become in fact bondmen forever. Yet I am asked by the
+ successor of Henry Ward Beecher, if I do not admire the infamous wretch
+ who was guilty of the greatest crime recorded in the literature of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it is difficult for me to understand why you speak of Abraham as "a
+ self-exile for conscience sake." If the king of England had told one of
+ his favorites that if he would go to North America he would give him a
+ territory hundreds of miles square, and would defend him in its
+ possession, and that he there might build up an empire, and the favorite
+ believed the king, and went, would you call him "a self-exile for
+ conscience sake"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the story in the Bible, the Lord promised Abraham that if he
+ would leave his country and kindred, he would make of him a great nation,
+ would bless him, and make his name great, that he would bless them that
+ blessed Abraham, and that he would curse him whom Abraham cursed; and
+ further, that in him all the families of the earth should be blest. If
+ this is true, would you call Abraham "a self-exile for conscience sake"?
+ If Abraham had only known that the Lord was not to keep his promise, he
+ probably would have remained where he was&mdash;the fact being, that every
+ promise made by the Lord to Abraham, was broken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you think that Abraham was "a self-exile for conscience sake" when he
+ told Sarah, his wife, to say that she was his sister&mdash;in consequence
+ of which she was taken into Pharaoh's house, and by reason of which
+ Pharaoh made presents of sheep and oxen and man servants and maid servants
+ to Abraham? What would you call such a proceeding now? What would you
+ think of a man who was willing that his wife should become the mistress of
+ the king, provided the king would make him presents?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it for conscience sake that the same subterfuge was adopted again,
+ when Abraham said to Abimelech, the King of Gerar, She is my sister&mdash;in
+ consequence of which Abimelech sent for Sarah and took her?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll having been called to Montana, as counsel in a long and
+ important law suit, never finished this article.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ANSWER TO ARCHDEACON FARRAR.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This fragment (found among Col. Ingersoll's papers) is a
+ mere outline of a contemplated answer to Archdeacon Farrar's
+ article in the North American Review, May, 1810, entitled:
+ "A Few Words on Col. Ingersoll."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ ARCHDEACON FARRAR, in the opening of his article, in a burst of
+ confidence, takes occasion to let the world know how perfectly angelic he
+ intends to be. He publicly proclaims that he can criticise the arguments
+ of one with whom he disagrees, without resorting to invective, or becoming
+ discourteous. Does he call attention to this because most theologians are
+ hateful and ungentlemanly? Is it a rare thing for the pious to be candid?
+ Why should an Archdeacon be cruel, or even ill-bred? Yet, in the very
+ beginning, the Archdeacon in effect says: Behold, I show you a mystery&mdash;a
+ Christian who can write about an infidel, without invective and without
+ brutality. Is it then so difficult for those who love their enemies to
+ keep within the bounds of decency when speaking of unbelievers who have
+ never injured them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, I was somewhat surprised when I read the proclamation
+ to the effect that the writer was not to use invective, and was to be
+ guilty of no discourtesy; but on reading the article, and finding that he
+ had failed to keep his promise, I was not surprised.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of
+ the dead. The arguments that cannot be answered provoke epithet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ARCHDEACON FARRAR criticises several of my statements: <i>The same rules
+ or laws of probability must govern in religious questions as in others</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This apparently self-evident statement seems to excite almost the ire of
+ this Archdeacon, and for the purpose of showing that it is not true, he
+ states, first, that "the first postulate of revelation is that it appeals
+ to man's spirit;" second, that "the spirit is a sphere of being which
+ transcends the spheres of the senses and the understanding;" third, that
+ "if a man denies the existence of a spiritual intuition, he is like a
+ blind man criticising colors, or a deaf man criticising harmonies;"
+ fourth, that "revelation must be judged by its own criteria;" and fifth,
+ that "St. Paul draws a marked distinction between the spirit of the world
+ and the spirit which is of God," and that the same Saint said that "the
+ natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are
+ foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them, because they are
+ spiritually discerned." Let us answer these objections in their order.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. "The first postulate of revelation is that it appeals to man's spirit."
+ What does the Archdeacon mean by "spirit"? A man says that he has received
+ a revelation from God, and he wishes to convince another man that he has
+ received a revelation&mdash;how does he proceed? Does he appeal to the
+ man's reason? Will he tell him the circumstances under which he received
+ the revelation? Will he tell him why he is convinced that it was from God?
+ Will the Archdeacon be kind enough to tell how the spirit can be
+ approached passing by the reason, the understanding, the judgment and the
+ intellect? If the Archdeacon replies that the revelation itself will bear
+ the evidence within itself, what then, I ask, does he mean by the word
+ "evidence"? Evidence about what? Is it such evidence as satisfies the
+ intelligence, convinces the reason, and is it in conformity with the known
+ facts of the mind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said by the Archdeacon that anything that satisfies what he is
+ pleased to call the spirit, that furnishes what it seems by nature to
+ require, is of supernatural origin. We hear music, and this music seems to
+ satisfy the desire for harmony&mdash;still, no one argues, from that fact,
+ that music is of supernatural origin. It may satisfy a want in the brain&mdash;a
+ want unknown until the music was heard&mdash;and yet we all agree in
+ saying that music has been naturally produced, and no one claims that
+ Beethoven, or Wagner, was inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same may be said of things that satisfy the palate&mdash;of statues,
+ of paintings, that reveal to him who looks, the existence of that of which
+ before that time he had not even dreamed. Why is it that we love color&mdash;that
+ we are pleased with harmonies, or with a succession of sounds rising and
+ falling at measured intervals? No one would answer this question by saying
+ that sculptors and painters and musicians were inspired; neither would
+ they say that the first postulate of art is that it appeals to man's
+ spirit, and for that reason the rules or laws of probability have nothing
+ to do with the question of art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. That "the spirit is a sphere of being which transcends the spheres of
+ the senses and the understanding." Let us imagine a man without senses. He
+ cannot feel, see, hear, taste, or smell. What is he? Would it be possible
+ for him to have an idea? Would such a man have a spirit to which
+ revelation could appeal, or would there be locked in the dungeon of his
+ brain a spirit, that is to say, a "sphere of being which transcends the
+ spheres of the senses and the understanding"? Admit that in the person
+ supposed, the machinery of life goes on&mdash;what is he more than an
+ inanimate machine?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. That "if a man denies the very existence of a spiritual intuition, he
+ is like a blind man criticising colors, or a deaf man criticising
+ harmonies." What do you mean by "spiritual intuition"? When did this
+ "spiritual intuition" become the property of man&mdash;before, or after,
+ birth? Is it of supernatural, or miraculous, origin, and is it possible
+ that this "spiritual intuition" is independent of the man? Is it based
+ upon experience? Was it in any way born of the senses, or of the effect of
+ nature upon the brain&mdash;that is to say, of things seen, or heard, or
+ touched? Is a "spiritual intuition" an entity? If man can exist without
+ the "spiritual intuition," do you insist that the "spiritual intuition"
+ can exist without the man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may remember that Mr. Locke frequently remarked: "Define your terms."
+ It is to be regretted that in the hurry of writing your article, you
+ forgot to give an explanation of "spiritual intuition."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will also take the liberty of asking you how a blind man could criticise
+ colors, and how a deaf man could criticise harmonies. Possibly you may
+ imagine that "spiritual intuition" can take cognizance of colors, as well
+ as of harmonies. Let me ask: Why cannot a blind man criticise colors? Let
+ me answer: For the same reason that Archdeacon Farrar can tell us nothing
+ about an infinite personality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. That "revelation must be judged by its own criteria." Suppose the Bible
+ had taught that selfishness, larceny and murder were virtues; would you
+ deny its inspiration? Would not your denial be based upon a conclusion
+ that had been reached by your reason that no intelligent being could have
+ been its author&mdash;that no good being could, by any possibility, uphold
+ the commission of such crimes? In that case would you be guided by
+ "spiritual intuition," or by your reason?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we examine the claims of a history&mdash;as, for instance, a history
+ of England, or of America, are we to decide according to "spiritual
+ intuition," or in accordance with the laws or rules of probability? Is
+ there a different standard for a history written in Hebrew, several
+ thousand years ago, and one written in English in the nineteenth century?
+ If a history should now be written in England, in which the most
+ miraculous and impossible things should be related as facts, and if I
+ should deny these alleged facts, would you consider that the author had
+ overcome my denial by saying, "history must be judged by its own
+ criteria"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. That "the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God,
+ for they are foolishness unto him, and he cannot know them, because they
+ are spiritually discerned." The Archdeacon admits that the natural man
+ cannot know the things of the spirit, because they are not naturally, but
+ spiritually, discerned. On the next page we are told, that "the truths
+ which Agnostics repudiate have been, and are, acknowledged by all except a
+ fraction of the human race." It goes without saying that a large majority
+ of the human race are natural; consequently, the statement of the
+ Archdeacon contradicts the statement of St. Paul. The Archdeacon insists
+ that all except a fraction of the human race acknowledge the truths which
+ Agnostics repudiate, and they must acknowledge them because they are by
+ them spiritually discerned; and yet, St. Paul says that this is
+ impossible, and insists that "the natural man cannot know the things of
+ the spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is only one way to harmonize the statement of the Archdeacon and the
+ Saint, and that is, by saying that nearly all of the human race are
+ unnatural, and that only a small fraction are natural, and that the small
+ fraction of men who are natural, are Agnostics, and only those who accept
+ what the Archdeacon calls "truths" are unnatural to such a degree that
+ they can discern spiritual things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon this subject, the last things to which the Archdeacon appeals, are
+ the very things that he, at first, utterly repudiated. He asks, "Are we
+ contemptuously to reject the witness of innumerable multitudes of the good
+ and wise, that&mdash;with a spiritual reality more convincing to them than
+ the material evidences which converted the apostles,"&mdash;they have
+ seen, and heard, and their hands have handled the "Word of Life"? Thus at
+ last the Archdeacon appeals to the evidences of the senses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Archdeacon then proceeds to attack the following statement: <i>There
+ is no subject, and can be none, concerning which any human being is under
+ any obligation to believe without evidence</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One would suppose that it would be impossible to formulate an objection to
+ this statement. What is or is not evidence, depends upon the mind to which
+ it is presented. There is no possible "insinuation" in this statement, one
+ way or the other. There is nothing sinister in it, any more than there
+ would be in the statement that twice five are ten. How did it happen to
+ occur to the Archdeacon that when I spoke of believing without evidence, I
+ referred to all people who believe in the existence of a God, and that I
+ intended to say "that one-third of the world's inhabitants had embraced
+ the faith of Christians without evidence"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certain things may convince one mind and utterly fail to convince others.
+ Undoubtedly the persons who have believed in the dogmas of Christianity
+ have had what was sufficient evidence for them. All I said was, that
+ "there is no subject, and can be none, concerning which any human being is
+ under any obligation to believe without evidence." Does the Archdeacon
+ insist that there is an obligation resting on any human mind to believe
+ without evidence? Is he willing to go a step further and say that there is
+ an obligation resting upon the minds of men to believe contrary to
+ evidence? If one is under obligation to believe without evidence, it is
+ just as reasonable to say that he is under obligation to believe in spite
+ of evidence. What does the word "evidence" mean? A man in whose honesty I
+ have great confidence, tells me that he saw a dead man raised to life. I
+ do not believe him. Why? His statement is not evidence to my mind. Why?
+ Because it contradicts all of my experience, and, as I believe, the
+ experience of the intelligent world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one pretends that "one-third of the world's inhabitants have embraced
+ the faith of Christians without evidence"&mdash;that is, that all
+ Christians have embraced the faith without evidence. In the olden time,
+ when hundreds of thousands of men were given their choice between being
+ murdered and baptized, they generally accepted baptism&mdash;probably they
+ accepted Christianity without critically examining the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it historically absurd that millions of people have believed in systems
+ of religion without evidence? Thousands of millions have believed that
+ Mohammed was a prophet of God. And not only so, but have believed in his
+ miraculous power. Did they believe without evidence? Is it historically
+ absurd to say that Mohammedanism is based upon mistake? What shall we say
+ of the followers of Buddha, who far outnumber the followers of Christ?
+ Have they believed without evidence? And is it historically absurd to say
+ that our ancestors of a few hundred years ago were as credulous as the
+ disciples of Buddha? Is it not true that the same gentlemen who believed
+ thoroughly in all the miracles of the New Testament also believed the
+ world to be flat, and were perfectly satisfied that the sun made its daily
+ journey around the earth? Did they have any evidence? Is it historically
+ absurd to say that they believed without evidence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Neither is there any intelligent being who can by any possibility be
+ flattered by the exercise of ignorant credulity.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Archdeacon asks what I "gain by stigmatizing as ignorant credulity
+ that inspired, inspiring, invincible conviction&mdash;the formative
+ principle of noble efforts and self-sacrificing lives, which at this
+ moment, as during all the long millenniums of the past, has been held not
+ only by the ignorant and the credulous, but by those whom all the ages
+ have regarded as the ablest, the wisest, the most learned and the most
+ gifted of mankind?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the Archdeacon deny that credulity is ignorant? In this connection,
+ what does the word "credulity" mean? It means that condition or state of
+ the mind in which the impossible, or the absurd, is accepted as true. Is
+ not such credulity ignorant? Do we speak of wise credulity&mdash;of
+ intelligent credulity? We may say theological credulity, or Christian
+ credulity, but certainly not intelligent credulity. Is the flattery of the
+ ignorant and credulous&mdash;the flattery being based upon that which
+ ignorance and credulity have accepted&mdash;acceptable to any intelligent
+ being? Is it possible that we can flatter God by pretending to believe, or
+ by believing, that which is repugnant to reason, that which upon
+ examination is seen to be absurd? The Archdeacon admits that God cannot
+ possibly be so flattered. If, then, he agrees with my statement, why
+ endeavor to controvert it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who without prejudice reads and understands the Old and New
+ Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Archdeacon says that he cannot pretend to imagine what my definition
+ of an orthodox Christian is. I will use his own language to express my
+ definition. "By an orthodox Christian I mean one who believes what is
+ commonly called the Apostles' Creed. I also believe that the essential
+ doctrines of the church must be judged by her universal formulae, not by
+ the opinions of this or that theologian, however eminent, or even of any
+ number of theologians, unless the church has stamped them with the
+ sanction of her formal and distinct acceptance."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the language of the Archdeacon himself, and I accept it as a
+ definition of orthodoxy. With this definition in mind, I say that the man
+ who without prejudice reads and understands the Old and New Testaments
+ will cease to be an orthodox Christian. By "prejudice," I mean the
+ tendencies and trends given to his mind by heredity, by education, by the
+ facts and circumstances entering into the life of man. We know how
+ children are poisoned in the cradle, how they are deformed in the Sunday
+ School, how they are misled by the pulpit. And we know how numberless
+ interests unite and conspire to prevent the individual soul from examining
+ for itself. We know that nearly all rewards are in the hands of
+ Superstition&mdash;that she holds the sweet wreath, and that her hands
+ lead the applause of what is called the civilized world. We know how many
+ men give up their mental independence for the sake of pelf and power. We
+ know the influence of mothers and fathers&mdash;of Church and State&mdash;of
+ Faith and Fashion. All these influences produce in honest minds what may
+ be known as prejudice,&mdash;in other minds, what may be known as
+ hypocrisy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hardly worth my while to speak of the merits of students of Holy
+ Writ "who," the Archdeacon was polite enough to say, "know ten thousand
+ times more of the Scriptures" than I do. This, to say the least of it, is
+ a gratuitous assertion, and one that does not tend to throw the slightest
+ ray of light on any matter in controversy. Neither is it true that it was
+ my "point" to say that all people are prejudiced, merely because they
+ believe in God; it was my point to say that no man can read the miracles
+ of the Old Testament, without prejudice, and believe them; it was my point
+ to say that no man can read many of the cruel and barbarous laws said to
+ have been given by God himself, and yet believe,&mdash;unless he was
+ prejudiced,&mdash;that these laws were divinely given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I believe that there is now beneath the cope of heaven an
+ intelligent man, without prejudice, who believes in the inspiration of the
+ Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country, without
+ fear and without prejudice, will not and cannot be a believer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN answering this statement the Archdeacon says: "<i>Argal</i>, every
+ believer in any religion is either an incompetent idiot, or coward&mdash;with
+ a dash of prejudice."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hardly know what the gentleman means by an "incompetent idiot," as I
+ know of no competent ones. It was not my intention to say that believers
+ in religion are idiots or cowards. I did not mean, by using the word
+ "fear," to say that persons actuated by fear are cowards. That was not in
+ my mind. By "fear," I intended to convey that fear commonly called awe, or
+ superstition,&mdash;that is to say, fear of the supernatural,&mdash;fear
+ of the gods&mdash;fear of punishment in another world&mdash;fear of some
+ Supreme Being; not fear of some other man&mdash;not the fear that is
+ branded with cowardice. And, of course, the Archdeacon perfectly
+ understood my meaning; but it was necessary to give another meaning in
+ order to make the appearance of an answer possible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By "prejudice," I mean that state of mind that accepts the false for the
+ true. All prejudice is honest. And the probability is, that all men are
+ more or less prejudiced on some subject. But on that account I do not call
+ them "incompetent idiots, or cowards, with a dash of prejudice." I have no
+ doubt that the Archdeacon himself believes that all Mahommedans are
+ prejudiced, and that they are actuated more or less by fear, inculcated by
+ their parents and by society at large. Neither have I any doubt that he
+ regards all Catholics as prejudiced, and believes that they are governed
+ more or less by fear. It is no answer to what I have said for the
+ Archdeacon to say that "others have studied every form of religion with
+ infinitely greater power than I have done." This is a personality that has
+ nothing to do with the subject in hand. It is no argument to repeat a list
+ of names. It is an old trick of the theologians to use names instead of
+ arguments&mdash;to appeal to persons instead of principles&mdash;to rest
+ their case upon the views of kings and nobles and others who pretend
+ eminence in some department of human learning or ignorance, rather than on
+ human knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the argument of the old against the new, and on this appeal the
+ old must of necessity have the advantage. When some man announces the
+ discovery of a new truth, or of some great fact contrary to the opinions
+ of the learned, it is easy to overwhelm him with names. There is but one
+ name on his side&mdash;that is to say, his own. All others who are living,
+ and the dead, are on the other side. And if this argument is good, it
+ ought to have ended all progress many thousands of years ago. If this
+ argument is conclusive, the first man would have had freedom of opinion;
+ the second man would have stood an equal chance; but if the third man
+ differed from the other two, he would have been gone. Yet this is the
+ argument of the church. They say to every man who advances something new:
+ Are you greater than the dead? The man who is right is generally modest.
+ Men in the wrong, as a rule, are arrogant; and arrogance is generally in
+ the majority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Archdeacon appeals to certain names to show that I am wrong. In order
+ for this argument to be good&mdash;that is to say, to be honest&mdash;he
+ should agree with all the opinions of the men whose names he gives. He
+ shows, or endeavors to show, that I am wrong, because I do not agree with
+ St. Augustine. Does the Archdeacon agree with St. Augustine? Does he now
+ believe that the bones of a saint were taken to Hippo&mdash;that being in
+ the diocese of St. Augustine&mdash;and that five corpses, having been
+ touched with these bones, were raised to life? Does he believe that a
+ demoniac, on being touched with one of these bones, was relieved of a
+ multitude of devils, and that these devils then and there testified to the
+ genuineness of the bones, not only, but told the hearers that the doctrine
+ of the Trinity was true? Does the Archdeacon agree with St. Augustine that
+ over seventy miracles were performed with these bones, and that in a
+ neighboring town many hundreds of miracles were performed? Does he agree
+ with St. Augustine in his estimate of women&mdash;placing them on a par
+ with beasts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that St. Augustine had great influence with the people of his day&mdash;but
+ what people? I admit also that he was the founder of the first begging
+ brotherhood&mdash;that he organized mendicancy&mdash;and that he most
+ cheerfully lived on the labor of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If St. Augustine lived now he would be the inmate of an asylum. This same
+ St. Augustine believed that the fire of hell was material&mdash;that the
+ body itself having influenced the soul to sin, would be burned forever,
+ and that God by a perpetual miracle would save the body from being
+ annihilated and devoured in those eternal flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me ask the Archdeacon a question: Do you agree with St. Augustine? If
+ you do not, do you claim to be a greater man? Is "your mole-hill higher
+ than his Dhawalagiri"? Are you looking down upon him from the altitude of
+ your own inferiority?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Precisely the same could be said of St. Jerome. The Archdeacon appeals to
+ Charlemagne, one of the great generals of the world&mdash;a man who in his
+ time shed rivers of blood, and who on one occasion massacred over four
+ thousand helpless prisoners&mdash;a Christian gentleman who had, I think,
+ about nine wives, and was the supposed father of some twenty children.
+ 'This same Charlemagne had laws against polygamy, and yet practiced it
+ himself. Are we under the same obligation to share his vices as his views?
+ It is wonderful how the church has always appealed to the so-called great&mdash;how
+ it has endeavored to get certificates from kings and queens, from
+ successful soldiers and statesmen, to the truth of the Bible and the moral
+ character of Christ! How the saints have crawled in the dust before the
+ slayers of mankind! Think of proving the religion of love and forgiveness
+ by Charlemagne and Napoleon!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An appeal is also made to Roger Bacon. Yet this man attained all his
+ eminence by going contrary to the opinions and teachings of the church. In
+ his time, it was matter of congratulation that you knew nothing of secular
+ things. He was a student of Nature, an investigator, and by the very
+ construction of his mind was opposed to the methods of Catholicism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Copernicus was an astronomer, but he certainly did not get his astronomy
+ from the church, nor from General Joshua, nor from the story of the Jewish
+ king for whose benefit the sun was turned back in heaven ten degrees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither did Kepler find his three laws in the Sermon on the Mount, nor
+ were they the utterances of Jehovah on Mount Sinai. He did not make his
+ discoveries because he was a Christian; but in spite of that fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to Lord Bacon, let me ask, are you willing to accept his ideas? If not,
+ why do you quote his name? Am I bound by the opinions of Bacon in matters
+ of religion, and not in matters of science? Bacon denied the Coperni-can
+ system, and died a believer in the Ptolemaic&mdash;died believing that the
+ earth is stationary and that the sun and stars move around it as a center.
+ Do you agree with Bacon? If not, do you pretend that your mind is greater?
+ Would it be fair for a believer in Bacon to denounce you as an egotist and
+ charge you with "obstreperousness" because you merely suggested that Mr.
+ Bacon was a little off in his astronomical opinions? Do you not see that
+ you have furnished the cord for me to tie your hands behind you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know how you ascertained that Shakespeare was what you call a
+ believer. Substantially all that we know of Shakespeare is found in what
+ we know as his "works" All else can be read in one minute. May I ask, how
+ you know that Shakespeare was a believer? Do you prove it by the words he
+ put in the mouths of his characters? If so, you can prove that he was
+ anything, nothing, and everything. Have you literary bread to eat that I
+ know not of? Whether Dante was, or was not, a Christian, I am not prepared
+ to say. I have always admired him for one thing: he had the courage to see
+ a pope in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably you are not prepared to agree with Milton&mdash;especially in his
+ opinion that marriage had better be by contract, for a limited time. And
+ if you disagree with Milton on this point, do you thereby pretend to say
+ that you could have written a better poem than Paradise Lost?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Newton is supposed to have been a Trinitarian. And yet it is said that,
+ after his death, there was found an article, which had been published by
+ him in Holland, against the dogma of the Trinity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, it is quite difficult to find out what the great men have
+ believed. They have been actuated by so many unknown motives; they have
+ wished for place; they have desired to be Archdeacons, Bishops, Cardinals,
+ Popes; their material interests have sometimes interfered with the
+ expression of their thoughts. Most of the men to whom you have alluded
+ lived at a time when the world was controlled by what may be called a
+ Christian mob&mdash;when the expression of an honest thought would have
+ cost the life of the one who expressed it&mdash;when the followers of
+ Christ were ready with sword and fagot to exterminate philosophy and
+ liberty from the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that we are under any obligation to believe the Mosaic
+ account of the Garden of Eden, or of the talking serpent, because "Whewell
+ had an encyclopaedic range of knowledge"? Must we believe that Joshua
+ stopped the sun, because Faraday was "the most eminent man of science of
+ his day"? Shall we believe the story of the fiery furnace, because "Mr.
+ Spottiswoode was president of the Royal Society"&mdash;had "rare
+ mathematical genius"&mdash;so rare that he was actually "buried in
+ Westminster Abbey"? Shall we believe that Jonah spent three days and
+ nights in the inside of a whale because "Professor Clark Maxwell's death
+ was mourned by all"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are we under any obligation to believe that an infinite God sent two she
+ bears to tear forty children in pieces because they laughed at a prophet
+ without hair? Must we believe this because "Sir Gabriel Stokes is the
+ living president of the Royal Society, and a Churchman" besides? Are we
+ bound to believe that Daniel spent one of the happiest evenings of his
+ life in the lion's den, because "Sir William Dawson of Canada, two years
+ ago, presided over the British Association"? And must we believe in the
+ ten plagues of Egypt, including the lice, because "Professor Max M&uuml;ller
+ made an eloquent plea in Westminster Abbey in favor of Christian
+ missions"? Possibly he wanted missionaries to visit heathen lands so that
+ they could see the difference for themselves between theory and practice,
+ in what is known as the Christian religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we believe the miracles of the New Testament&mdash;the casting out of
+ devils&mdash;because "Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning stand far above all
+ other poets of this generation in England," or because "Longfellow,
+ Holmes, and Lowell and Whittier" occupy the same position in America? Must
+ we admit that devils entered into swine because "Bancroft and Parkman are
+ the leading prose writers of America"&mdash;which I take this occasion to
+ deny?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is to be hoped that some time the Archdeacon will read that portion of
+ Mr. Bancroft's history in which he gives the account of how the soldiers,
+ commonly called Hessians, were raised by the British Government during the
+ American Revolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These poor wretches were sold at so much apiece. For every one that was
+ killed, so much was paid, and for every one that was wounded a certain
+ amount was given. Mr. Bancroft tells us that God was not satisfied with
+ this business, and although he did not interfere in any way to save the
+ poor soldiers, he did visit the petty tyrants who made the bargains with
+ his wrath. I remember that as a punishment to one of these, his wife was
+ induced to leave him; another one died a good many years afterwards; and
+ several of them had exceedingly bad luck.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After reading this philosophic dissertation on the dealings of Providence,
+ I doubt if the Archdeacon will still remain of the opinion that Mr.
+ Bancroft is one of the leading prose writers of America. If the Archdeacon
+ will read a few of the sermons of Theodore Parker, and essays of Ralph
+ Waldo Emerson, if he will read the life of Voltaire by James Parton, he
+ may change his opinion as to the great prose writers of America.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My argument against miracles is answered by reference to "Dr. Lightfoot, a
+ man of such immense learning that he became the equal of his successor Dr.
+ Westcott." And when I say that there are errors and imperfections in the
+ Bible, I am told that Dr. Westcott "investigated the Christian religion
+ and its earliest documents <i>au fond</i>, and was an orthodox believer."
+ Of course the Archdeacon knows that no one now knows who wrote one of the
+ books of the Bible. He knows that no one now lives who ever saw one of the
+ original manuscripts, and that no one now lives who ever saw anybody who
+ had seen anybody who had seen an original manuscript.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Archdeacon says that it is, and yet in the same article he quotes the
+ following from Job: "Canst thou by searching find out God?" "It is as high
+ as Heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Hell; what canst thou know?"
+ And immediately after making these quotations, the Archdeacon takes the
+ ground of the agnostic, and says, "with the wise ancient Rabbis, we learn
+ to say, <i>I do not know</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for me to say what any other human being cannot conceive;
+ but I am absolutely certain that my mind cannot conceive of an infinite
+ personality&mdash;of an infinite Ego.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man is conscious of his individuality. Man has wants. A multitude of
+ things in nature seems to work against him; and others seem to be
+ favorable to him. There is conflict between him and nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If man had no wants&mdash;if there were no conflict between him and any
+ other being, or any other thing, he could not say "I"&mdash;that is to
+ say, he could not be conscious of personality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it seems to me that an infinite personality is a contradiction in
+ terms, says "I."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE same line of argument applies to the next statement that is criticised
+ by the Archdeacon: <i>Can the human mind conceive a beginningless being?</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that there is such a thing as matter, but we do not know that
+ there is a beginningless being. We say, or some say, that matter is
+ eternal, because the human mind cannot conceive of its commencing. Now, if
+ we knew of the existence of an Infinite Being, we could not conceive of
+ his commencing. But we know of no such being. We do know of the existence
+ of matter; and my mind is so, that I cannot conceive of that matter having
+ been created by a beginningless being. I do not say that there is not a
+ beginningless being, but I do not believe there is, and it is beyond my
+ power to conceive of such a being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Archdeacon also says that "space is quite as impossible to conceive as
+ God." But nobody pretends to love space&mdash;no one gives intention and
+ will to space&mdash;no one, so far as I know, builds altars or temples to
+ space. Now, if God is as inconceivable as space, why should we pray to
+ God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Archdeacon, however, after quoting Sir William Hamilton as to the
+ inconceivability of space as absolute or infinite, takes occasion to say
+ that "space is an entity." May I be permitted to ask how he knows that
+ space is an entity? As a matter of fact, the conception of infinite space
+ is a necessity of the mind, the same as eternity is a necessity of the
+ mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE next sentence or statement to which the Archdeacon objects is as
+ follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>He who cannot harmonize the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of
+ Jehovah, cannot harmonize the cruelties of Nature with the goodness or
+ wisdom of a supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account for
+ pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery, and for the
+ triumph of the strong over the weak.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One objection that he urges to this statement is that St. Paul had made a
+ stronger one in the same direction. The Archdeacon however insists that "a
+ world without a contingency, or an agony, could have had no hero and no
+ saint," and that "science enables us to demonstrate that much of the
+ apparent misery and anguish is transitory and even phantasmal; that many
+ of the seeming forces of destruction are overruled to ends of beneficence;
+ that most of man's disease and anguish is due to his own sin and folly and
+ wilfulness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will not say that these things have been said before, but I will say
+ that they have been answered before. The idea that the world is a school
+ in which character is formed and in which men are educated is very old.
+ If, however, the world is a school, and there is trouble and misfortune,
+ and the object is to create character&mdash;that is to say, to produce
+ heroes and saints&mdash;then the question arises, what becomes of those
+ who die in infancy? They are left without the means of education. Are they
+ to remain forever without character? Or is there some other world of
+ suffering and sorrow?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to form character in heaven? How did the angels become
+ good? How do you account for the justice of God? Did he attain character
+ through struggle and suffering?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would you say of a school teacher who should kill one-third of the
+ children on the morning of the first day? And what can you say of God,&mdash;if
+ this world is a school,&mdash;who allows a large per cent, of his children
+ to die in infancy&mdash;consequently without education&mdash;therefore,
+ without character?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the world is the result of infinite wisdom and goodness, why is the
+ Christian Church engaged in endeavoring to make it better; or, rather, in
+ an effort to change it? Why not leave it as an infinite God made it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it true that most of man's diseases are due to his own sin and folly
+ and wilfulness? Is it not true that no matter how good men are they must
+ die, and will they not die of diseases? Is it true that the wickedness of
+ man has created the microbe? Is it possible that the sinfulness of man
+ created the countless enemies of human life that lurk in air and water and
+ food? Certainly the wickedness of man has had very little influence on
+ tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. Is it true that "the signature of
+ beauty with which God has stamped the visible world&mdash;alike in the sky
+ and on the earth&mdash;alike in the majestic phenomena of an intelligent
+ creation and in its humblest and most microscopic production&mdash;is a
+ perpetual proof that God is a God of love"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see. The scientists tell us that there is a little microscopic
+ animal, one who is very particular about his food&mdash;so particular,
+ that he prefers to all other things the optic nerve, and after he has
+ succeeded in destroying that nerve and covering the eye with the mask of
+ blindness, he has intelligence enough to bore his way through the bones of
+ the nose in search of the other optic nerve. Is it not somewhat difficult
+ to discover "the signature of beauty with which God has stamped" this
+ animal? For my part, I see but little beauty in poisonous serpents, in
+ man-eating sharks, in crocodiles, in alligators. It would be impossible
+ for me to gaze with admiration upon a cancer. Think, for a moment, of a
+ God ingenious enough and good enough to feed a cancer with the quivering
+ flesh of a human being, and to give for the sustenance of that cancer the
+ life of a mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is well enough to speak of "the myriad voices of nature in their mirth
+ and sweetness," and it is also well enough to think of the other side. The
+ singing birds have a few notes of love&mdash;the rest are all of warning
+ and of fear. Nature, apparently with infinite care, produces a living
+ thing, and at the same time is just as diligently at work creating another
+ living thing to devour the first, and at the same time a third to devour
+ the second, and so on around the great circle of life and death, of agony
+ and joy&mdash;tooth and claw, fang and tusk, hunger and rapine, massacre
+ and murder, violence and vengeance and vice everywhere and through all
+ time. [Here the manuscript ends, with the following notes.]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SAYINGS FROM THE INDIAN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The rain seems hardest when the wigwam leaks."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When the tracks get too large and too numerous, the wise Indian says that
+ he is hunting something else."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A little crook in the arrow makes a great miss."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A great chief counts scalps, not hairs."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You cannot strengthen the bow by poisoning the arrows."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No one saves water in a flood."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ORIGEN.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Origen considered that the punishment of the wicked consisted in
+ separation from God. There was too much pity in his heart to believe in
+ the flames of hell. But he was condemned as heretical by the Council of
+ Carthage, A. D., 398, and afterwards by other councils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ST. AUGUSTINE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ St. Augustine censures Origen for his merciful view, and says: "The
+ church, not without reason, condemned him for this error." He also held
+ that hell was in the centre of the earth, and that God supplied the centre
+ with perpetual fire by a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DANTE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dante is a wonderful mixture of melancholy and malice, of religion and
+ revenge, and he represents himself as so pitiless that when he found his
+ political opponents in hell, he struck their faces and pulled the hair of
+ the tormented.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AQUINAS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Aquinas believed the same. He was the loving gentleman who believed in the
+ undying worm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0017" id="link0017">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This unfinished and unrevised article was found among Col.
+ Ingersoll's papers, and is here reproduced without change.&mdash;
+ It is a reply to the Dean of St Paul's Contribution to the
+ North American Review for Dec., 1891, entitled: "Is Corporal
+ Punishment Degrading?"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ THE Dean of St. Paul protests against the kindness of parents, guardians
+ and teachers toward children, wards and pupils. He believes in the gospel
+ of ferule and whips, and has perfect faith in the efficacy of flogging in
+ homes and schools. He longs for the return of the good old days when
+ fathers were severe, and children affectionate and obedient.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In America, for many years, even wife-beating has been somewhat unpopular,
+ and the flogging of children has been considered cruel and unmanly. Wives
+ with bruised and swollen faces, and children with lacerated backs, have
+ excited pity for themselves rather than admiration for savage husbands and
+ brutal fathers. It is also true that the church has far less power here
+ than in England, and it may be that those who wander from the orthodox
+ fold grow merciful and respect the rights even of the weakest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But whatever the cause may be, the fact is that we, citizens of the
+ Republic, feel that certain domestic brutalities are the children of
+ monarchies and despotisms; that they were produced by superstition,
+ ignorance, and savagery; and that they are not in accord with the free and
+ superb spirit that founded and preserves the Great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of late years, confidence in the power of kindness has greatly increased,
+ and there is a wide-spread suspicion that cruelty and violence are not the
+ instrumentalities of civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Physicians no longer regard corporal punishment as a sure cure even for
+ insanity&mdash;and it is generally admitted that the lash irritates rather
+ than soothes the victim of melancholia.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Civilized men now insist that criminals cannot always be reformed even by
+ the most ingenious instruments of torture. It is known that some convicts
+ repay the smallest acts of kindness with the sincerest gratitude. Some of
+ the best people go so far as to say that kindness is the sunshine in which
+ the virtues grow. We know that for many ages governments tried to make men
+ virtuous with dungeon and fagot and scaffold; that they tried to cure even
+ disease of the mind with brandings and maimings and lashes on the naked
+ flesh of men and women&mdash;and that kings endeavored to sow the seeds of
+ patriotism&mdash;to plant and nurture them in the hearts of their subjects&mdash;with
+ whip and chain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In England, only a few years ago, there were hundreds of brave soldiers
+ and daring sailors whose breasts were covered with honorable scars&mdash;witnesses
+ of wounds received at Trafalgar and Balaklava&mdash;while on the backs of
+ these same soldiers and sailors were the marks of English whips. These
+ shameless cruelties were committed in the name of discipline, and were
+ upheld by officers, statesmen and clergymen. The same is true of nearly
+ all civilized nations. These crimes have been excused for the reason that
+ our ancestors were, at that time, in fact, barbarians&mdash;that they had
+ no idea of justice, no comprehension of liberty, no conception of the
+ rights of men, women, and children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time the church was, in most countries, equal to, or superior to,
+ the state, and was a firm believer in the civilizing influences of cruelty
+ and torture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the creeds of that day, God intended to torture the wicked
+ forever, and the church, according to its power, did all that it could in
+ the same direction. Learning their rights and duties from priests, fathers
+ not only beat their children, but their wives. In those days most homes
+ were penitentiaries, in which wives and children were the convicts and of
+ which husbands and fathers were the wardens and turnkeys. The king
+ imitated his supposed God, and imprisoned, flogged, branded, beheaded and
+ burned his enemies, and the husbands and fathers imitated the king, and
+ guardians and teachers imitated them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet in spite of all the beatings and burnings, the whippings and hangings,
+ the world was not reformed. Crimes increased, the cheeks of wives were
+ furrowed with tears, the faces of children white with fear&mdash;fear of
+ their own fathers; pity was almost driven from the heart of man and found
+ refuge, for the most part, in the breasts of women, children, and dogs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days, misfortunes were punished as crimes. Honest debtors were
+ locked in loathsome dungeons, and trivial offences were punished with
+ death. Worse than all that, thousands of men and women were destroyed, not
+ because they were vicious, but because they were virtuous, honest and
+ noble. Extremes beget obstructions. The victims at last became too
+ numerous, and the result did not seem to justify the means. The good, the
+ few, protested against the savagery of kings and fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing seems clearer to me than that the world has been gradually growing
+ better for many years. Men have a clearer conception of rights and
+ obligations&mdash;a higher philosophy&mdash;a far nobler ideal. Even kings
+ admit that they should have some regard for the well-being of their
+ subjects. Nations and individuals are slowly outgrowing the savagery of
+ revenge, the desire to kill, and it is generally admitted that criminals
+ should neither be imprisoned nor tortured for the gratification of the
+ public. At last we are beginning to know that revenge is a mistake&mdash;that
+ cruelty not only hardens the victim, but makes a criminal of him who
+ inflicts it, and that mercy guided by intelligence is the highest form of
+ justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tendency of the world is toward kindness. The religious creeds are
+ being changed or questioned, because they shock the heart of the present.
+ All civilized churches, all humane Christians, have given up the dogma of
+ eternal pain. This infamous doctrine has for many centuries polluted the
+ imagination and hardened the heart. This coiled viper no longer inhabits
+ the breast of a civilized man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all civilized countries slavery has been abolished, the honest debtor
+ released, and all are allowed the liberty of speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long ago flogging was abolished in our army and navy and all cruel and
+ unusual punishments prohibited by law. In many parts of the Republic the
+ whip has been banished from the public schools, the flogger of children is
+ held in abhorrence, and the wife-beater is regarded as a cowardly
+ criminal. The gospel of kindness is not only preached, but practiced. Such
+ has been the result of this advance of civilization&mdash;of this growth
+ of kindness&mdash;of this bursting into blossom of the flower called pity,
+ in the heart&mdash;that we treat our horses (thanks to Henry Bergh) better
+ than our ancestors did their slaves, their servants or their tenants. The
+ gentlemen of to-day show more affection for their dogs than most of the
+ kings of England exhibited toward their wives. The great tide is toward
+ mercy; the savage creeds are being changed; heartless laws have been
+ repealed; shackles have been broken; torture abolished, and the keepers of
+ prisons are no longer allowed to bruise and scar the flesh of convicts.
+ The insane are treated with kindness&mdash;asylums are in the midst of
+ beautiful grounds, the rooms are filled with flowers, and the wandering
+ mind is called back by the golden voice of music.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the midst of these tendencies&mdash;of these accomplishments&mdash;in
+ the general harmony between the minds of men, acting together, to the end
+ that the world may be governed by kindness through education and the
+ blessed agencies of reformation and prevention, the Dean of St. Paul
+ raises his voice in favor of the methods and brutalities of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reverend gentleman takes the ground that the effect of flogging on the
+ flogged is not degrading; that the effect of corporal punishment is
+ ennobling; that it tends to make boys manly by ennobling and teaching them
+ to bear bodily pain with fortitude. To be flogged develops character,
+ self-reliance, courage, contempt of pain and the highest heroism. The Dean
+ therefore takes the ground that parents should flog their children,
+ guardians their wards, and teachers their pupils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Dean is wrong he goes too far, and if he is right he does not go
+ far enough. He does not advocate the flogging of children who obey their
+ parents, or of pupils who violate no rule. It follows then that such
+ children are in great danger of growing up unmanly, without the courage
+ and fortitude to bear bodily pain. If flogging is really a blessing it
+ should not be withheld from the good and lavished on the unworthy. The
+ Dean should have the courage of his convictions. The teacher should not
+ make a pretext of the misconduct of the pupil to do him a great service.
+ He should not be guilty of calling a benefit a punishment He should not
+ deceive the children under his care and develop their better natures under
+ false pretences. But what is to become of the boys and girls who "behave
+ themselves," who attend to their studies, and comply with the rules? They
+ lose the benefits conferred on those who defy their parents and teachers,
+ reach maturity without character, and so remain withered and worthless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Dean not only defends his position by an appeal to the Bible, the
+ history of nations, but to his personal experience. In order to show the
+ good effects of brutality and the bad consequences of kindness, he gives
+ two instances that came under his observation. The first is that of an
+ intelligent father who treated his sons with great kindness and yet these
+ sons neglected their affectionate father in his old age. The second
+ instance is that of a mother who beat her daughter. The wretched child, it
+ seems, was sent out to gather sticks from the hedges, and when she brought
+ home a large stick, the mother suspected that she had obtained it
+ wrongfully and thereupon proceeded to beat the child. And yet the Dean
+ tells us that this abused daughter treated the hyena mother with the
+ greatest kindness, and loved her as no other daughter ever loved a mother.
+ In order to make this case strong and convincing the Dean states that this
+ mother was a most excellent Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From these two instances the Dean infers, and by these two instances
+ proves, that kindness breeds bad sons, and that flogging makes
+ affectionate daughters. The Dean says to the Christian mother: "If you
+ wish to be loved by your daughter, you must beat her." And to the
+ Christian father he says: "If you want to be neglected in your old age by
+ your sons, you will treat them with kindness." The Dean does not follow
+ his logic to the end. Let me give him two instances that support his
+ theory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A good man married a handsome woman. He was old, rich, kind and indulgent.
+ He allowed his wife to have her own way. He never uttered a cross or cruel
+ word. He never thought of beating her. And yet, as the Dean would say, in
+ consequence of his kindness, she poisoned him, got his money and married
+ another man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this city, not long ago, a man, a foreigner, beat his wife according to
+ his habit. On this particular occasion the punishment was excessive. He
+ beat her until she became unconscious; she was taken to a hospital and the
+ physician said that she could not live. The husband was brought to the
+ hospital and preparations were made to take her dying statement. After
+ being told that she was dying, she was asked if her husband had beaten
+ her. Her face was so bruised and swollen that the lids of her eyes had to
+ be lifted in order that she might see the wretch who had killed her. She
+ beckoned him to her side&mdash;threw her arms about his neck&mdash;drew
+ his face to hers&mdash;kissed him, and said: "He is not the man. He did
+ not do it"&mdash;then&mdash;died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the philosophy of the Dean, these instances show that
+ kindness causes crime, and that wife-beating cultivates in the highest
+ degree the affectional nature of woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Dean, if consistent, is a believer in slavery, because the lash
+ judiciously applied brings out the finer feelings of the heart. Slaves
+ have been known to die for their masters, while under similar
+ circumstances hired men have sought safety in flight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know of many instances where the abused, the maligned, and the
+ tortured have returned good for evil&mdash;and many instances where the
+ loved, the honored, and the trusted have turned against their benefactors,
+ and yet we know that cruelty and torture are not superior to love and
+ kindness. Yet, the Dean tries to show that severity is the real mother of
+ affection, and that kindness breeds monsters. If kindness and affection on
+ the part of parents demoralize children, will not kindness and affection
+ on the part of children demoralize the parents?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the children are young and weak, the parents who are strong beat the
+ children in order that they may be affectionate. Now, when the children
+ get strong and the parents are old and weak, ought not the children to
+ beat them, so that they too may become kind and loving?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you want an affectionate son, beat him. If you desire a loving wife,
+ beat her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is really the advice of the Dean of St Paul. To me it is one of the
+ most pathetic facts in nature that wives and children love husbands and
+ fathers who are utterly unworthy. It is enough to sadden a life to think
+ of the affection that has been lavished upon the brutal, of the countless
+ pearls that Love has thrown to swine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Dean, quoting from Hooker, insists that "the voice of man is as the
+ sentence of God himself,"&mdash;in other words, that the general voice,
+ practice and opinion of the human race are true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, cannibalism, slavery, polygamy, the worship of snakes and stones,
+ the sacrifice of babes, have during vast periods of time been practiced
+ and upheld by an overwhelming majority of mankind. Whether the "general
+ voice" can be depended on depends much on the time, the epoch, during
+ which the "general voice" was uttered. There was a time when the "general
+ voice" was in accord with the appetite of man; when all nations were
+ cannibals and lived on each other, and yet it can hardly be said that this
+ voice and appetite were in exact accord with divine goodness. It is hardly
+ safe to depend on the "general voice" of savages, no matter how numerous
+ they may have been. Like most people who defend the cruel and absurd, the
+ Dean appeals to the Bible as the supreme authority in the moral world,&mdash;and
+ yet if the English Parliament should re-enact the Mosaic Code every member
+ voting in the affirmative would be subjected to personal violence, and an
+ effort to enforce that code would produce a revolution that could end only
+ in the destruction of the government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The morality of the Old Testament is not always of the purest; when
+ Jehovah tried to induce Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, he never took the
+ ground that slavery was wrong. He did not seek to convince by argument, to
+ soften by pity, or to persuade by kindness. He depended on miracles and
+ plagues. He killed helpless babes and the innocent beasts of the fields.
+ No wonder the Dean appeals to the Bible to justify the beating of
+ children. So, too, we are told that "all sensible persons, Christian and
+ otherwise, will admit that there are in every child born into the world
+ tendencies to evil that need rooting out."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Dean undoubtedly believes in the creed of the established church, and
+ yet he does not hesitate to say that a God of infinite goodness and
+ intelligence never created a child&mdash;never allowed one to be born into
+ the world without planting in its little heart "tendencies to evil that
+ need rooting out."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, Solomon is quoted to the effect "that he that spareth his rod hateth
+ his son." To me it has always been a matter of amazement why civilized
+ people, living in the century of Darwin and Humboldt, should quote as
+ authority the words of Solomon, a murderer, an ingrate, an idolater, and a
+ polygamist&mdash;a man so steeped and sodden in ignorance that he really
+ believed he could be happy with seven hundred wives and three hundred
+ concubines. The Dean seems to regret that flogging is no longer practiced
+ in the British navy, and quotes with great cheerfulness a passage from
+ Deuteronomy to prove that forty lashes on the naked back will meet with
+ the approval of God. He insists that St. Paul endured corporal punishment
+ without the feeling of degradation not only, but that he remembered his
+ sufferings with a sense of satisfaction. Does the Dean think that the
+ satisfaction of St. Paul justified the wretches who beat and stoned him?
+ Leaving the Hebrews, the Dean calls the Greeks as witnesses to establish
+ the beneficence of flogging. They resorted to corporal punishment in their
+ schools, says the Dean and then naively remarks "that Plutarch was opposed
+ to this."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Dean admits that in Rome it was found necessary to limit by law the
+ punishment that a father might inflict upon his children, and yet he seems
+ to regret that the legislature interfered. The Dean observes that
+ "Quintillian severely censured corporal punishment" and then accounts for
+ the weakness and folly of the censure, by saying that "Quintillian wrote
+ in the days when the glories of Rome were departed." And then adds these
+ curiously savage words: "It is worthy of remark that no children treated
+ their parents with greater tenderness and reverence than did those of Rome
+ in the days when the father possessed the unlimited power of punishment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not quite satisfied with the strength of his case although sustained by
+ Moses and Solomon, St. Paul and several schoolmasters, he proceeds to show
+ that God is thoroughly on his side, not only in theory, but in practice;
+ "whom the Lord loveth lie chasteneth, and scourgeth every sou whom he
+ receiveth.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Dean asks this question: "Which custom, kindness or severity, does
+ experience show to be the less dangerous?" And he answers from a new
+ heart: "I fear that I must unhesitatingly give the palm to severity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I have found that there have been more reverence and affection, more
+ willingness to make sacrifices for parents, more pleasure in contributing
+ to their pleasure or happiness in that life where the tendency has been to
+ a severe method of treatment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that any good mail exists who is willing to gain the
+ affection of his children in that way? How could such a man beat and
+ bruise the flesh of his babes, knowing that they would give him in return
+ obedience and love; that they would fill the evening of his days&mdash;the
+ leafless winter of his life&mdash;with perfect peace?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of being fed and clothed by children you had whipped&mdash;whose
+ flesh you had scarred! Think of feeling in the hour of death upon your
+ withered lips, your withered cheeks, the kisses and the tears of one whom,
+ you had beaten&mdash;upon whose flesh were still the marks of your lash!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The whip degrades; a severe father teaches his children to dissemble;
+ their love is pretence, and their obedience a species of self-defence.
+ Fear is the father of lies.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+ </body>
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 7
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 7 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Discussions
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38807]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h4>
+ "EVERY BRAIN IS A FIELD WHERE NATURE SOWS THE SEEDS OF THOUGHT,<br /> AND
+ THE CROP DEPENDS UPON THE SOIL."
+ </h4>
+ <h4>
+ <br />
+ </h4>
+ <h3>
+ In Twelve Volumes, Volume VII.
+ </h3>
+ <h3>
+ DISCUSSIONS
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h4>
+ Dresden Edition
+ </h4>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38807/old/orig38807-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (62K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (64K)" src="images/portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">A CHRISTMAS SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">IS SUICIDE A SIN?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC
+ TELEGRAPH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a><br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.<br /> (1877.)<br /> Answer to San Francisco
+ Clergymen&mdash;Definition of Liberty, Physical<br /> and Mental&mdash;The
+ Right to Compel Belief&mdash;Woman the Equal of Man&mdash;The<br />
+ Ghosts&mdash;Immortality&mdash;Slavery&mdash;Witchcraft&mdash;Aristocracy
+ of the<br /> Air&mdash;Unfairness of Clerical Critics&mdash;Force and
+ Matter&mdash;Doctrine of<br /> Negation&mdash;Confident Deaths of
+ Murderers&mdash;Childhood Scenes returned to<br /> by the Dying&mdash;Death-bed
+ of Voltaire&mdash;Thomas Paine&mdash;The First<br /> Sectarians Were
+ Heretics&mdash;Reply to Rev. Mr. Guard&mdash;Slaughter of<br /> the
+ Canaanites&mdash;Reply to Rev. Samuel Robinson&mdash;Protestant<br />
+ Persecutions&mdash;Toleration&mdash;Infidelity and Progress&mdash;The<br />
+ Occident&mdash;Calvinism&mdash;Religious Editors&mdash;Reply to the Rev.
+ Mr.<br /> Ijams&mdash;Does the Bible teach Man to Enslave his Brothers?&mdash;Reply
+ to<br /> California <i>Christian Advocate</i>&mdash;Self-Government of
+ French People at<br /> and Since the Revolution&mdash;On the Site of the
+ Bastile&mdash;French<br /> Peasant's Cheers for Jesus Christ&mdash;Was
+ the World created in Six<br /> Days&mdash;Geology&mdash;What is the
+ Astronomy of the Bible?&mdash;The Earth the Centre<br /> of the Universe&mdash;Joshua's
+ Miracle&mdash;Change of Motion into Heat&mdash;Geography<br /> and
+ Astronomy of Cosmas&mdash;Does the Bible teach the Existence of<br />
+ that Impossible Crime called Witchcraft?&mdash;Saul and the Woman of<br />
+ Endor&mdash;Familiar Spirits&mdash;Demonology of the New Testament&mdash;Temptation
+ of<br /> Jesus&mdash;Possession by Devils&mdash;Gadarene Swine Story&mdash;Test
+ of Belief&mdash;Bible<br /> Idea of the Rights of Children&mdash;Punishment
+ of the Rebellious<br /> Son&mdash;Jephthah's Vow and Sacrifice&mdash;Persecution
+ of Job&mdash;The Gallantry<br /> of God&mdash;Bible Idea of the Rights of
+ Women&mdash;Paul's Instructions to<br /> Wives&mdash;Permission given to
+ Steal Wives&mdash;Does the Bible Sanction<br /> Polygamy and Concubinage?&mdash;Does
+ the Bible Uphold and Justify Political<br /> Tyranny?&mdash;Powers that
+ be Ordained of God&mdash;Religious Liberty of<br /> God&mdash;Sun-Worship
+ punishable with Death&mdash;Unbelievers to be damned&mdash;Does<br /> the
+ Bible describe a God of Mercy?&mdash;Massacre Commanded&mdash;Eternal<br />
+ Punishment Taught in the New Testament&mdash;The Plan of Salvation&mdash;Fall<br />
+ and Atonement Moral Bankruptcy&mdash;Other Religions&mdash;Parsee<br />
+ Sect&mdash;Brahmins&mdash;Confucians&mdash;Heretics and Orthodox.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.<br /> (1879.)<br /> Rev. Robert Collyer&mdash;Inspiration
+ of the Scriptures&mdash;Rev. Dr.<br /> Thomas&mdash;Formation of the Old
+ Testament&mdash;Rev. Dr. Kohler&mdash;Rev. Mr.<br /> Herford&mdash;Prof.
+ Swing&mdash;Rev. Dr. Ryder.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.<br /> (1882.)<br /> Rev. David Walk&mdash;Character
+ of Jesus&mdash;Two or Three Christs Described<br /> in the Gospels&mdash;Christ's
+ Change of Opinions&mdash;Gospels Later than the<br /> Epistles&mdash;Divine
+ Parentage of Christ a Late Belief&mdash;The Man Christ<br /> probably a
+ Historical Character&mdash;Jesus Belittled by his Worshipers&mdash;He<br />
+ never Claimed to be Divine&mdash;Christ's Omissions&mdash;Difference
+ between<br /> Christian and other Modern Civilizations&mdash;Civilization
+ not Promoted<br /> by Religion&mdash;Inventors&mdash;French and American
+ Civilization: How<br /> Produced&mdash;Intemperance and Slavery in
+ Christian Nations&mdash;Advance due to<br /> Inventions and Discoveries&mdash;Missionaries&mdash;Christian
+ Nations Preserved by<br /> Bayonet and Ball&mdash;Dr. T. B. Taylor&mdash;Origin
+ of Life on this Planet&mdash;Sir<br /> William Thomson&mdash;Origin of
+ Things Undiscoverable&mdash;Existence after<br /> Death&mdash;Spiritualists&mdash;If
+ the Dead Return&mdash;Our Calendar&mdash;Christ and<br /> Christmas-The
+ Existence of Pain&mdash;Plato's Theory of Evil&mdash;Will God do<br />
+ Better in Another World than he does in this?&mdash;Consolation&mdash;Life
+ Not a<br /> Probationary Stage&mdash;Rev. D.O'Donaghue&mdash;The Case of
+ Archibald Armstrong<br /> and Jonathan Newgate&mdash;Inequalities of Life&mdash;Can
+ Criminals live a<br /> Contented Life?&mdash;Justice of the Orthodox God
+ Illustrated.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.<br /> (1883.)<br /> Are the Books of Atheistic or
+ Infidel Writers Extensively<br /> Read?&mdash;Increase in the Number of
+ Infidels&mdash;Spread of Scientific<br /> Literature&mdash;Rev. Dr. Eddy&mdash;Rev.
+ Dr. Hawkins&mdash;Rev. Dr. Haynes&mdash;Rev.<br /> Mr. Pullman&mdash;Rev.
+ Mr. Foote&mdash;Rev. Mr. Wells&mdash;Rev. Dr. Van Dyke&mdash;Rev.<br />
+ Carpenter&mdash;Rev. Mr. Reed&mdash;Rev. Dr. McClelland&mdash;Ministers
+ Opposed to<br /> Discussion&mdash;Whipping Children&mdash;Worldliness as
+ a Foe of the Church&mdash;The<br /> Drama&mdash;Human Love&mdash;Fires,
+ Cyclones, and Other Afflictions as Promoters<br /> of Spirituality&mdash;Class
+ Distinctions&mdash;Rich and Poor&mdash;Aristocracies&mdash;The<br />
+ Right to Choose One's Associates&mdash;Churches Social Affairs&mdash;Progress<br />
+ of the Roman Catholic Church&mdash;Substitutes for the Churches&mdash;Henry<br />
+ Ward Beecher&mdash;How far Education is Favored by the Sects&mdash;Rivals
+ of the<br /> Pulpit&mdash;Christianity Now and One Hundred Years Ago&mdash;French
+ Revolution<br /> produced by the Priests&mdash;Why the Revolution was a
+ Failure&mdash;Infidelity<br /> of One Hundred Years Ago&mdash;Ministers
+ not more Intellectual than a Century<br /> Ago&mdash;Great Preachers of
+ the Past&mdash;New Readings of Old Texts&mdash;Clerical<br /> Answerers
+ of Infidelity&mdash;Rev. Dr. Baker&mdash;Father Fransiola&mdash;Faith
+ and<br /> Reason&mdash;Democracy of Kindness&mdash;Moral Instruction&mdash;Morality
+ Born of Human<br /> Needs&mdash;The Conditions of Happiness&mdash;The
+ Chief End of Man.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.<br /> (1888.)<br /> Discussion between Col.
+ Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon. Frederic R. Coudert,<br /> and ex-Gov. Stewart
+ L. Woodford before the Nineteenth Century Club of<br /> New York&mdash;Propositions&mdash;Toleration
+ not a Disclaimer but a Waiver of the<br /> Right to Persecute&mdash;Remarks
+ of Courtlandt Palmer&mdash;No Responsibility for<br /> Thought&mdash;Intellectual
+ Hospitality&mdash;Right of Free Speech&mdash;Origin of the<br /> term
+ "Toleration"&mdash;Slander and False Witness&mdash;Nobody can Control
+ his own<br /> Mind: Anecdote&mdash;Remarks of Mr. Coudert&mdash;Voltaire,
+ Rousseau, Hugo, and<br /> Ingersoll&mdash;General Woodford's Speech&mdash;Reply
+ by Colonel Ingersoll&mdash;A<br /> Catholic Compelled to Pay a Compliment
+ to Voltaire&mdash;Responsibility for<br /> Thoughts&mdash;The Mexican
+ Unbeliever and his Reception in the Other Country.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">A CHRISTMAS SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A CHRISTMAS SERMON.<br /> (1891.)<br /> Christianity's Message of Grief&mdash;Christmas
+ a Pagan Festival&mdash;Reply<br /> to Dr. Buckley&mdash;Charges by the
+ Editor of the Christian Advocate&mdash;The<br /> Tidings of Christianity&mdash;In
+ what the Message of Grief Consists&mdash;Fear<br /> and Flame&mdash;An
+ Everlasting Siberia&mdash;Dr. Buckley's Proposal to Boycott the<br />
+ Telegram&mdash;Reply to Rev. J. M. King and Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. Cana
+ Day<br /> be Blasphemed?&mdash;Hurting Christian feelings&mdash;For
+ Revenue only What is<br /> Blasphemy?&mdash;Balaam's Ass wiser than the
+ Prophet&mdash;The Universalists&mdash;Can<br /> God do Nothing for this
+ World?&mdash;The Universe a Blunder if Christianity<br /> is true&mdash;The
+ Duty of a Newspaper&mdash;Facts Not Sectarian&mdash;The Rev.<br /> Mr.
+ Peters&mdash;What Infidelity Has Done&mdash;Public School System not<br />
+ Christian&mdash;Orthodox Universities&mdash;Bruno on Oxford&mdash;As to
+ Public<br /> Morals&mdash;No Rewards or Punishments in the Universe&mdash;The
+ Atonement<br /> Immoral&mdash;As to Sciences and Art&mdash;Bruno,
+ Humboldt, Darwin&mdash;Scientific<br /> Writers Opposed by the Church&mdash;As
+ to the Liberation of Slaves&mdash;As to<br /> the Reclamation of
+ Inebriates&mdash;Rum and Religion&mdash;The Humanity<br /> of Infidelity&mdash;What
+ Infidelity says to the Dying&mdash;The Battle<br /> Continued&mdash;Morality
+ not Assailed by an Attack on Christianity&mdash;The<br /> Inquisition and
+ Religious Persecution&mdash;Human Nature Derided by<br /> Christianity&mdash;Dr.
+ DaCosta&mdash;"Human Brotherhood" as exemplified by<br /> the History of
+ the Church&mdash;The Church and Science, Art and<br /> Learning&mdash;&mdash;Astronomy's
+ Revenge&mdash;Galileo and Kepler&mdash;Mrs. Browning:<br /> Science
+ Thrust into the Brain of Europe&mdash;Our Numerals&mdash;Christianity
+ and<br /> Literature&mdash;Institution's of Learning&mdash;Stephen Girard&mdash;James
+ Lick&mdash;Our<br /> Chronology&mdash;Historians&mdash;Natural Philosophy&mdash;Philology&mdash;Metaphysical<br />
+ Research&mdash;Intelligence, Hindoo, Egyptian&mdash;Inventions&mdash;John<br />
+ Ericsson&mdash;Emancipators&mdash;Rev. Mr. Ballou&mdash;The Right of Goa
+ to<br /> Punish&mdash;Rev. Dr. Hillier&mdash;Rev. Mr. Haldeman&mdash;George
+ A. Locey&mdash;The "Great<br /> Physician"&mdash;Rev. Mr. Talmage&mdash;Rev.
+ J. Benson Hamilton&mdash;How Voltaire<br /> Died&mdash;The Death-bed of
+ Thomas Paine&mdash;Rev. Mr. Holloway&mdash;Original<br /> Sin&mdash;Rev.
+ Dr. Tyler&mdash;The Good Samaritan a Heathen&mdash;Hospitals and<br />
+ Asylums&mdash;Christian Treatment of the Insane&mdash;Rev. Dr. Buckley&mdash;The<br />
+ North American Review Discussion&mdash;Judge Black, Dr. Field,<br /> Mr.
+ Gladstone&mdash;Circulation of Obscene Literature&mdash;Eulogy of<br />
+ Whiskey&mdash;Eulogy of Tobacco&mdash;Human Stupidity that Defies the
+ Gods&mdash;Rev.<br /> Charles Deems&mdash;Jesus a Believer in a Personal
+ Devil&mdash;The Man Christ.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.<br /> (1892.)<br /> Reply to the <i>Western
+ Watchman</i>&mdash;Henry D'Arcy&mdash;Peter's<br /> Prevarication-Some
+ Excellent Pagans-Heartlessness of a<br /> Catholic&mdash;Wishes do not
+ Affect the Judgment&mdash;Devout Robbers&mdash;Penitent<br /> Murderers&mdash;Reverential
+ Drunkards&mdash;Luther's Distich&mdash;Judge<br /> Normile&mdash;Self-destruction.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">IS SUICIDE A SIN?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IS SUICIDE A SIN?<br /> (1894.)<br /> Col. Ingersoll's First Letter in <i>The
+ New York World</i>&mdash;Under what<br /> Circumstances a Man has the
+ Right to take his Own Life&mdash;Medicine and the<br /> Decrees of God&mdash;Case
+ of the Betrayed Girl&mdash;Suicides not Cowards&mdash;Suicide<br /> under
+ Roman Law&mdash;Many Suicides Insane&mdash;Insanity Caused by Religion&mdash;The<br />
+ Law against Suicide Cruel and Idiotic&mdash;Natural and Sufficient Cause
+ for<br /> Self-destruction&mdash;Christ's Death a Suicide&mdash;Col.
+ Ingersoll's Reply to his<br /> Critics&mdash;Is Suffering the Work of
+ God?&mdash;It is not Man's Duty to<br /> Endure Hopeless Suffering&mdash;When
+ Suicide is Justifiable&mdash;The<br /> Inquisition&mdash;Alleged
+ Cowardice of Suicides&mdash;Propositions<br /> Demonstrated&mdash;Suicide
+ the Foundation of the Christian<br /> Religion&mdash;Redemption and
+ Atonement&mdash;The Clergy on Infidelity<br /> and Suicide&mdash;Morality
+ and Unbelief&mdash;Better injure yourself than<br /> Another&mdash;Misquotation
+ by Opponents&mdash;Cheerful View the Best&mdash;The<br /> Wonder is that
+ Men endure&mdash;Suicide a Sin (Interview in The New<br /> York Journal)&mdash;Causes
+ of Suicide&mdash;Col. Ingersoll Does Not Advise<br /> Suicide&mdash;Suicides
+ with Tracts or Bibles in their Pockets&mdash;Suicide a Sin<br />
+ (Interview in The New York Herald)&mdash;Comments on Rev. Alerle St.
+ Croix<br /> Wright's Sermon&mdash;Suicide and Sanity (Interview in The
+ York World)&mdash;As to<br /> the Cowardice of Suicide&mdash;Germany and
+ the Prevalence of Suicide&mdash;Killing<br /> of Idiots and Defective
+ Infants&mdash;Virtue, Morality, and Religion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?<br /> (1891.)<br /> Reply to General Rush Hawkins'
+ Article, "Brutality and Avarice<br /> Triumphant"&mdash;Croakers and
+ Prophets of Evil&mdash;Medical Treatment<br /> for Believers in Universal
+ Evil&mdash;Alleged Fraud in Army<br /> Contracts&mdash;Congressional
+ Extravagance&mdash;Railroad "Wreckers"&mdash;How<br /> Stockholders in
+ Some Roads Lost Their Money&mdash;The Star-Route<br /> Trials&mdash;Timber
+ and Public Lands&mdash;Watering Stock&mdash;The Formation<br /> of Trusts&mdash;Unsafe
+ Hotels: European Game and Singing Birds&mdash;Seal<br /> Fisheries&mdash;Cruelty
+ to Animals&mdash;Our Indians&mdash;Sensible and Manly<br /> Patriotism&mdash;Days
+ of Brutality&mdash;Defence of Slavery by the Websters,<br /> Bentons, and
+ Clays&mdash;Thirty Years' Accomplishment&mdash;Ennobling Influence of<br />
+ War for the Right&mdash;The Lady ana the Brakeman&mdash;American Esteem
+ of Honesty<br /> in Business&mdash;Republics do not Tend to Official
+ Corruption&mdash;This the Best<br /> Country in the World.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC
+ TELEGRAPH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.<br /> (1878.)<br />
+ Defence of the Lecture on Moses&mdash;How Biblical Miracles are sought
+ to<br /> be Proved&mdash;Some <i>Non Sequiturs</i>&mdash;A Grammatical
+ Criticism&mdash;Christianity<br /> Destructive of Manners&mdash;Cuvier
+ and Agassiz on Mosaic Cosmogony&mdash;Clerical<br /> Advance agents&mdash;Christian
+ Threats and Warnings&mdash;Catholicism the Upas<br /> Tree&mdash;Hebrew
+ Scholarship as a Qualification for Deciding Probababilities<br /> &mdash;Contradictions
+ and Mistranslations of the Bible&mdash;Number of Errors in<br /> the
+ Scriptures&mdash;The Sunday Question.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.<br /> (1881.)<br /> Charged with
+ Blasphemy in the State of Delaware&mdash;Can a Conditionless<br /> Deity
+ be Injured?&mdash;Injustice the only Blasphemy&mdash;The Lecture<br /> in
+ Delaware&mdash;Laws of that State&mdash;All Sects in turn Charged with<br />
+ Blasphemy&mdash;Heresy Consists in making God Better than he is Thought<br />
+ to Be&mdash;A Fatal Biblical Passage&mdash;Judge Comegys&mdash;Wilmington<br />
+ Preachers&mdash;States with Laws against Blasphemy&mdash;No Danger of
+ Infidel<br /> Mobs&mdash;No Attack on the State of Delaware Contemplated&mdash;Comegys
+ a<br /> Resurrection&mdash;Grand Jury's Refusal to Indict&mdash;Advice
+ about the Cutting<br /> out of Heretics' Tongues&mdash;Objections to the
+ Whipping-post&mdash;Mr. Bergh's<br /> Bill&mdash;One Remedy for
+ Wife-beating.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.<br /> (1882.)<br /> Solemnity&mdash;Charged
+ with Being Insincere&mdash;Irreverence&mdash;Old Testament<br /> Better
+ than the New&mdash;"Why Hurt our Feelings?"&mdash;Involuntary Action of<br />
+ the Brain&mdash;Source of our Conceptions of Space&mdash;Good and Bad&mdash;Right
+ and<br /> Wrong&mdash;The Minister, the Horse and the Lord's Prayer&mdash;Men
+ Responsible<br /> for their Actions&mdash;The "Gradual" Theory Not
+ Applicable to<br /> the Omniscient&mdash;Prayer Powerless to Alter
+ Results&mdash;Religious<br /> Persecution&mdash;Orthodox Ministers Made
+ Ashamed of their<br /> Creed&mdash;Purgatory&mdash;Infidelity and Baptism
+ Contrasted&mdash;Modern Conception<br /> of the Universe&mdash;The Golden
+ Bridge of Life&mdash;"The Only Salutation"&mdash;The<br /> Test for
+ Admission to Heaven&mdash;"Scurrility."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.<br /> (1892.)<br /> Dr.
+ Hall has no Time to Discuss the subject of Starving<br /> Workers&mdash;Cloakmakers'
+ Strike&mdash;Warner Van Norden of the Church Extension<br /> Society&mdash;The
+ Uncharitableness of Organized Charity&mdash;Defence of the<br />
+ Cloakmakers&mdash;Life of the Underpaid&mdash;On the Assertion that
+ Assistance<br /> encourages Idleness and Crime&mdash;The Man without Pity
+ an Intellectual<br /> Beast&mdash;Tendency of Prosperity to Breed
+ Selfishness&mdash;Thousands Idle<br /> without Fault&mdash;Egotism of
+ Riches&mdash;Van Norden's Idea of Happiness&mdash;The<br /> Worthy Poor.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.<br /> (1898.)<br /> Interview in a Boston
+ Paper&mdash;Why should a Minister call this a "Poor"<br /> World?&mdash;Would
+ an Infinite God make People who Need a Redeemer?&mdash;Gospel<br />
+ Gossip&mdash;Christ's Sayings Repetitions&mdash;The Philosophy of
+ Confucius&mdash;Rev.<br /> Mr. Mills&mdash;The Charge of "Robbery"&mdash;The
+ Divine Plan.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1898.)<br /> Interview in the New York Journal&mdash;Rev. Roberts.
+ MacArthur&mdash;A<br /> Personal Devil&mdash;Devils who held
+ Conversations with Christ not simply<br /> personifications of Evil&mdash;The
+ Temptation&mdash;The "Man of Straw"&mdash;Christ's<br /> Mission
+ authenticated by the Casting Out of Devils&mdash;Spain&mdash;God<br />
+ Responsible for the Actions of Man&mdash;Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Parks&mdash;Rev.
+ Dr. E.<br /> F. Moldehnke&mdash;Patience amidst the Misfortunes of Others&mdash;Yellow
+ Fever<br /> as a Divine Agent&mdash;The Doctrine that All is for the Best&mdash;Rev.
+ Mr.<br /> Hamlin&mdash;Why Did God Create a Successful Rival?&mdash;A
+ Compliment by the<br /> Rev. Mr. Belcher&mdash;Rev. W. C. Buchanan&mdash;No
+ Argument Old until it is<br /> Answered&mdash;Why should God Create
+ sentient Beings to be Damned?&mdash;Rev. J.<br /> W. Campbell&mdash;Rev.
+ Henry Frank&mdash;Rev. E. C.J. Kraeling on Christ and the<br /> Devil&mdash;Would
+ he make a World like This?<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This lecture was delivered by Col. Ingersoll in San
+ Francisco Cal., June 27, 1877. It was a reply to various
+ clergymen of that city, who had made violent attacks upon
+ him after the delivery of his lectures, "The Liberty of Man,
+ Woman and Child," and "The Ghosts."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AGAINST the aspersions of the pulpit and the religious press, I offer in
+ evidence this magnificent audience. Although I represent but a small part
+ of the holy cause of intellectual liberty, even that part shall not be
+ defiled or smirched by a single personality. Whatever I say, I shall say
+ because I believe it will tend to make this world grander, man nearer
+ just, the father kinder, the mother more loving, the children more
+ affectionate, and because I believe it will make an additional flower
+ bloom in the pathway of every one who hears me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, what have I said? What has been my offence? What have
+ I done? I am spoken of by the clergy as though I were a wolf that in the
+ absence of the good shepherd had fattened upon his innocent flock. What
+ have I said?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I delivered a lecture entitled, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child." In
+ that lecture I said that man was entitled to physical and intellectual
+ liberty. I defined physical liberty to be the right to do right; the right
+ to do anything that did not interfere with the real happiness of others. I
+ defined intellectual liberty to be the right to think right, and the right
+ to think wrong&mdash;provided you did your best to think right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This must be so, because thought is only an instrumentality by which we
+ seek to ascertain the truth. Every man has the right to think, whether his
+ thought is in reality right or wrong; and he cannot be accountable to any
+ being for thinking wrong. There is upon man, so far as thought is
+ concerned, the obligation to think the best he can, and to honestly
+ express his best thought. Whenever he finds what is right, or what he
+ honestly believes to be the right, he is less than a man if he fears to
+ express his conviction before an assembled world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The right to do right is my definition of physical liberty. "The right of
+ one human being ceases where the right of another commences." My
+ definition of intellectual liberty is, the right to think, whether you
+ think right or wrong, provided you do your best to think right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in Liberty, Fraternity and Equality&mdash;the Blessed Trinity of
+ Humanity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in Observation, Reason and Experience&mdash;the Blessed Trinity
+ of Science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in Man, Woman and Child&mdash;the Blessed Trinity of Life and
+ Joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have said, and still say, that you have no right to endeavor by force to
+ compel another to think your way&mdash;that man has no right to compel his
+ fellow-man to adopt his creed, by torture or social ostracism. I have
+ said, and still say, that even an infinite God has and can have no right
+ to compel by force or threats even the meanest of mankind to accept a
+ dogma abhorrent to his mind. As a matter of fact such a power is incapable
+ of being exercised. You may compel a man to say that he has changed his
+ mind. You may force him to say that he agrees with you. In this way,
+ however, you make hypocrites, not converts. Is it possible that a god
+ wishes the worship of a slave? Does a god desire the homage of a coward?
+ Does he really long for the adoration of a hypocrite? Is it possible that
+ he requires the worship of one who dare not think? If I were a god it
+ seems to me that I had rather have the esteem and love of one grand, brave
+ man, with plenty of heart and plenty of brain, than the blind worship, the
+ ignorant adoration, the trembling homage of a universe of men afraid to
+ reason. And yet I am warned by the orthodox guardians of this great city
+ not to think. I am told that I am in danger of hell; that for me to
+ express my honest convictions is to excite the wrath of God. They inform
+ me that unless I believe in a certain way, meaning their way, I am in
+ danger of everlasting fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear.
+ That time has substantially passed away. For a hundred years hell has been
+ gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the
+ brimstone is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and
+ lower, and the climate gradually changing. To such an extent has the
+ change already been effected that if I were going there to-night I would
+ take an overcoat and a box of matches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. I deny
+ it. A conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a
+ crime; and the man who says it is, does not think so. The god who punishes
+ it as a crime is simply an infamous tyrant. As for me, I would a thousand
+ times rather go to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand
+ thinkers of the world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who
+ would damn his children for an honest belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing I have said is, that woman is the equal of man; that she
+ has every right that man has, and one more&mdash;the right to be
+ protected, because she is the weaker. I have said that marriage should be
+ an absolutely perfect partnership of body and soul; that a man should
+ treat his wife like a splendid flower, and that she should fill his life
+ with perfume and with joy. I have said that a husband had no right to be
+ morose; that he had no right to assassinate the sunshine and murder the
+ joy of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have said that when he went home he should go like a ray of light, and
+ fill his house so full of joy that it would burst out of the doors and
+ windows and illumine even the darkness of night. I said that marriage was
+ the holiest, highest, the most sacred institution among men; that it took
+ millions of years for woman to advance from the condition of absolute
+ servitude, from the absolute slavery where the Bible found her and left
+ her, up to the position she occupies at present. I have pleaded for the
+ rights of woman, for the rights of wives, and what is more, for the rights
+ of little children. I have said that they could be governed by affection,
+ by love, and that my heart went out to all the children of poverty and of
+ crime; to the children that live in the narrow streets and in the
+ sub-cellars; to the children that run and hide when they hear the
+ footsteps of a brutal father, the children that grow pale when they hear
+ their names pronounced even by a mother; to all the little children, the
+ flotsam and jetsam upon the wide, rude sea of life. I have said that my
+ heart goes out to them one and all; I have asked fathers and mothers to
+ cease beating their own flesh and blood. I have said to them, When your
+ child does wrong, put your arms around him; let him feel your heart beat
+ against his. It is easier to control your child with a kiss than with a
+ club.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For expressing these sentiments, I have been denounced by the religious
+ press and by ministers in their pulpits as a demon, as an enemy of order,
+ as a fiend, as an infamous man. Of this, however, I make no complaint. A
+ few years ago they would have burned me at the stake and I should have
+ been compelled to look upon their hypocritical faces through flame and
+ smoke. They cannot do it now or they would. One hundred years ago I would
+ have been burned, simply for pleading for the rights of men. Fifty years
+ ago I would have been imprisoned. Fifty years ago my wife and my children
+ would have been torn from my arms in the name of the most merciful God.
+ Twenty-five years ago I could not have made a living in the United States
+ at the practice of law; but I can now. I would not then have been allowed
+ to express my thought; but I can now, and I will. And when I think about
+ the liberty I now enjoy, the whole horizon is illuminated with glory and
+ the air is filled with wings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I then delivered another lecture entitled "Ghosts," in which I sought to
+ show that man had been controlled by phantoms of his own imagination; in
+ which I sought to show these imps of darkness, these devils, had all been
+ produced by superstition; in which I endeavored to prove that man had
+ groveled in the dust before monsters of his own creation; in which I
+ endeavored to demonstrate that the many had delved in the soil that the
+ few might live in idleness, that the many had lived in caves and dens that
+ the few might dwell in palaces of gold; in which I endeavored to show that
+ man had received nothing from these ghosts except hatred, except
+ ignorance, except unhappiness, and that in the name of phantoms man had
+ covered the face of the world with tears. And for this, I have been
+ assailed, in the name, I presume, of universal forgiveness. So far as any
+ argument I have produced is concerned, it cannot in any way make the
+ slightest difference whether I am a good or a bad man. It cannot in any
+ way make the slightest difference whether my personal character is good or
+ bad. That is not the question, though, so far as I am concerned, I am
+ willing to stake the whole question upon that issue. That is not, however,
+ the thing to be discussed, nor the thing to be decided. The question is,
+ whether what I said is true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did say that from ghosts we had obtained certain things&mdash;among
+ other things a book known as the Bible. From the ghosts we received that
+ book; and the believers in ghosts pretend that upon that book rests the
+ doctrine of the immortality of the human soul. This I deny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whether or not the soul is immortal is a fact in nature and cannot be
+ changed by any book whatever. If I am immortal, I am. If am not, no book
+ can render me so. It is no mure wonderful that I should live again than
+ that I do live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine of immortality is not based upon any book. The foundation of
+ that idea is not a creed. The idea of immortality, which, like a sea, has
+ ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves of
+ hope and fear against the shores and rocks of fate and time, was not born
+ of any book, was not born of a creed. It is not the child of any religion.
+ It was born of human affection; and it will continue to ebb and flow
+ beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses
+ the lips of death. It is the eternal bow&mdash;Hope shining upon the tears
+ of Grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did say that these ghosts taught that human slavery was right. If there
+ is a crime beneath the shining stars it is the crime of enslaving a human
+ being. Slavery enslaves not only the slave, but the master as well. When
+ you put a chain upon the limbs of another, you put a fetter also upon your
+ own brain. I had rather be a slave than a slaveholder. The slave can at
+ least be just&mdash;the slaveholder cannot. I had rather be robbed than be
+ a robber. I had rather be stolen from than to be a thief. I have said, and
+ I do say, that the Bible upheld, sustained and sanctioned the institution
+ of human slavery; and before I get through I will prove it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I said that to the same book we are indebted, to a great degree, for the
+ doctrine of witchcraft. Relying upon its supposed sacred texts, people
+ were hanged and their bodies burned for getting up storms at sea with the
+ intent of drowning royal vermin. Every possible offence was punished under
+ the name of witchcraft, from souring beer to high treason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also said, and I still say, that the book we obtained from the ghosts,
+ for the guidance of man, upheld the infamy of infamies, called polygamy;
+ and I will also prove that. And the same book teaches, not political
+ liberty, but political tyranny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also said that the author of the book given us by the ghosts knew
+ nothing about astronomy, still less about geology, still less, if
+ possible, about medicine, and still less about legislation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is what I have said concerning the aristocracy of the air. I am well
+ aware that having said it I ought to be able to prove the truth of my
+ words. I have said these things. No one ever said them in better nature
+ than I have. I have not the slightest malice&mdash;a victor never felt
+ malice. As soon as I had said these things, various gentlemen felt called
+ upon to answer me. I want to say that if there is anything I like in the
+ world it is fairness. And one reason I like it so well is that I have had
+ so little of it. I can say, if I wish, extremely mean and hateful things.
+ I have read a great many religious papers and discussions and think that I
+ now know all the infamous words in our language. I know how to account for
+ every noble action by a mean and wretched motive, and that, in my
+ judgment, embraces nearly the entire science of modern theology. The
+ moment I delivered a lecture upon "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," I
+ was charged with having said that there is nothing back of nature, and
+ that nature with its infinite arms embraces everything; and thereupon I
+ was informed that I believed in nothing but matter and force, that I
+ believed only in earth, that I did not believe in spirit. If by spirit you
+ mean that which thinks, then I am a believer in spirit. If you mean by
+ spirit the something that says "I," the something that reasons, hopes,
+ loves and aspires, then I am a believer in spirit. Whatever spirit there
+ is in the universe must be a natural thing, and not superimposed upon
+ nature. All that I can say is, that whatever is, is natural. And there is
+ as much goodness, in my judgment, as much spirit in this world as in any
+ other; and you are just as near the heart of the universe here as you can
+ be anywhere. One of your clergymen says in answer, as he supposes, to me,
+ that there is matter and force and spirit. Well, can matter exist without
+ force? What would keep it together? What would keep the finest possible
+ conceivable atom together unless there was force? Can you imagine such a
+ thing as matter without force? Can you conceive of force without matter?
+ Can you conceive of force floating about attached to nothing? Can you
+ possibly conceive of this? No human being can conceive of force without
+ matter. "You cannot conceive of force being harnessed or hitched to matter
+ as you would hitch horses to a carriage." You cannot. Now, what is spirit?
+ They say spirit is the first thing that was. It seems to me, however, as
+ though spirit was the blossom, the fruit of all, not the commencement.
+ They say it was first. Very well. Spirit without force, a spirit without
+ any matter&mdash;what would that spirit do? No force, no matter!&mdash;a
+ spirit living in an infinite vacuum. What would such a spirit turn its
+ particular attention to? This spirit, according to these theologians,
+ created the world, the universe; and if it did, there must have been a
+ time when it commenced to create; and back of that there must have been an
+ eternity spent in absolute idleness. Now, is it possible that a spirit
+ existed during an eternity without any force and without any matter? Is it
+ possible that force could exist without matter or spirit? Is it possible
+ that matter could exist alone, if by matter you mean something without
+ force? The only answer I can give to all these questions is, I do not
+ know. For my part, I do not know what spirit is, if there is any. I do not
+ know what matter is, neither am I acquainted with the elements of force.
+ If you mean by matter that which I can touch, that which occupies space,
+ then I believe in matter. If you mean by force anything that can overcome
+ weight, that can overcome what we call gravity or inertia; if you mean by
+ force that which moves the molecules of matter, or the movement itself,
+ then I believe in force. If you mean by spirit that which thinks and
+ loves, then I believe in spirit. There is, however, no propriety in
+ wasting any time about the science of metaphysics. I will give you my
+ definition of metaphysics: Two fools get together; each admits what
+ neither can prove, and thereupon both of them say, "hence we infer." That
+ is all there is of metaphysics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gentlemen, however, say to me that all my doctrine about the
+ treatment of wives and children, all my ideas of the rights of man, all
+ these are wrong, because I am not exactly correct as to my notion 01
+ spirit. They say that spirit existed first, at least an eternity before
+ there was any force or any matter. Exactly how spirit could act without
+ force we do not understand. That we must take upon credit. How spirit
+ could create matter without force is a serious question, and we are too
+ reverent to press such an inquiry. We are bound to be satisfied, however,
+ that spirit is entirely independent of force and matter, and any man who
+ denies this must be "a malevolent and infamous wretch."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another reverend gentleman proceeds to denounce all I have said as the
+ doctrine of negation. And we are informed by him&mdash;speaking I presume
+ from experience&mdash;that negation is a poor thing to die by. He tells us
+ that the last hours are the grand testing hours. They are the hours when
+ atheists disown their principles and infidels bewail their folly&mdash;"that
+ Voltaire and Thomas Paine wrote sharply against Christianity, but their
+ death-bed scenes are too harrowing for recital"&mdash;He also states that
+ "another French infidel philosopher tried in vain to fortify Voltaire, but
+ that a stronger man than Voltaire had taken possession of him, and he
+ cried 'Retire! it is you that have brought me to my present state&mdash;Begone!
+ what a rich glory you have brought me.'" This, my friends, is the same
+ old, old falsehood that has been repeated again and again by the lips of
+ hatred and hypocrisy. There is not in one of these stories a solitary word
+ of truth; and every intelligent man knows all these death-bed accounts to
+ be entirely and utterly false. They are taken, however, by the mass of the
+ church as evidence that all opposition to Christianity, so-called, fills
+ the bed of the dying infidel and scoffer with serpents and scorpions. So
+ far as my experience goes, the bad die in many instances as placidly as
+ the good. I have sometimes thought that a hardened wretch, upon whose
+ memory is engraved the record of nearly every possible crime, dies without
+ a shudder, without a tremor, while some grand, good man, remembering
+ during his last moments an unkind word spoken to a stranger, it may be in
+ the heat of anger, dies with remorseful words upon his lips. Nearly every
+ murderer who is hanged, dies with an immensity of nerve, but I never
+ thought it proved that he had lived a good and useful life. Neither have I
+ imagined that it sanctified the crime for which he suffered death. The
+ fact is, that when man approaches natural death, his powers, his
+ intellectual faculties fail and grow dim. He becomes a child. He has less
+ and less sense. And just in proportion as he loses his reasoning powers,
+ he goes back to the superstitions of his childhood. The scenes of youth
+ cluster about him and he is again in the lap of his mother. Of this very
+ fact, there is not a more beautiful description than that given by
+ Shakespeare when he takes that old mass of wit and filth, Jack Falstaff,
+ in his arms, and Mrs Quickly says: "A' made a finer end, and went away, an
+ it had been my christom child; a' parted ev'n just between twelve and one,
+ ev'n at the turning o' the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the
+ sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' end, I knew
+ there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled
+ of green fields." As the genius of Shakespeare makes Falstaff a child
+ again upon sunny slopes, decked with daisies, so death takes the dying
+ back to the scenes of their childhood, and they are clasped once more to
+ the breasts of mothers. They go back, for the reason that nearly every
+ superstition in the world has been sanctified by some sweet and placid
+ mother. Remember, the superstition has never sanctified the mother, but
+ the mother has sanctified the superstition. The young Mohammedan, who now
+ lies dying upon some field of battle, thinks sweet and tender thoughts of
+ home and mother, and will, as the blood oozes from his veins, repeat some
+ holy verse from the blessed Koran. Every superstition in the world that is
+ now held sacred has been made so by mothers, by fathers, by the
+ recollections of home. I know what it has cost the noble, the brave, the
+ tender, to throw away every superstition, although sanctified by the
+ memory of those they loved. Whoever has thrown away these superstitions
+ has been pursued by his fellow-men, From the day of the death of Voltaire
+ the church has pursued him as though he had been the vilest criminal. A
+ little over one hundred years ago, Catholicism, the inventor of
+ instruments of torture, red with the innocent blood of millions, felt in
+ its heartless breast the dagger of Voltaire. From that blow the Catholic
+ Church never can recover. Livid with hatred she launched at her assassin
+ the curse of Rome, and ignorant Protestants have echoed that curse. For
+ myself, I like Voltaire, and whenever I think of that name, it is to me as
+ a plume floating above some grand knight&mdash;a knight who rides to a
+ walled city and demands an unconditional surrender. I like him. He was
+ once imprisoned in the Bastile, and while in that frightful fortress&mdash;and
+ I like to tell it&mdash;he changed his name. His name was Francois Marie
+ Arouet. In his gloomy cell he changed this name to Voltaire, and when some
+ sixty years afterward the Bastile was torn down to the very dust,
+ "Voltaire" was the battle cry of the destroyers who did it. I like him
+ because he did more for religious toleration than any other man who ever
+ lived or died. I admire him because he did more to do away with torture in
+ civil proceedings than any other man. I like him because he was always
+ upon the side of justice, upon the side of progress. I like him in spite
+ of his faults, because he had many and splendid virtues. I like him
+ because his doctrines have never brought unhappiness to any country. I
+ like him because he hated tyranny; and when he died he died as serenely as
+ ever mortal died; he spoke to his servant recognizing him as a man. He
+ said to him, calling him by name: "My friend, farewell." These were the
+ last words of Voltaire. And this was the only frightful scene enacted at
+ his bed of death. I like Voltaire, because for half a century he was the
+ intellectual emperor of Europe. I like him, because from his throne at the
+ foot of the Alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in
+ Christendom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will give to any clergyman in the city of San Francisco a thousand
+ dollars in gold to substantiate the story that the death of Voltaire was
+ not as peaceful as the coming of the dawn. The same absurd story is told
+ of Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine was a patriot&mdash;he was the first man in
+ the world to write these words: "The Free and Independent States of
+ America." He was the first man to convince the American people that they
+ ought to separate themselves from Great Britain. "His pen did as much, to
+ say the least, for the liberty of America, as the sword of Washington."
+ The men who have enjoyed the benefit of his heroic services repay them
+ with slander and calumny. If there is in this world a crime, ingratitude
+ is a crime. And as for myself, I am not willing to receive anything from
+ any man without making at least an acknowledgment of my obligation. Y et
+ these clergymen, whose very right to stand in their pulpits and preach,
+ was secured to them by such men as Thomas Paine, delight in slandering the
+ reputation of that great man. They tell their hearers that he died in
+ fear,&mdash;that he died in agony, hearing devils rattle chains, and that
+ the infinite God condescended to frighten a dying man. I will give one
+ thousand dollars in gold to any clergyman in San Francisco who will
+ substantiate the truth of the absurd stories concerning the death of
+ Thomas Paine. There is not one word of truth in these accounts; not one
+ word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me ask one thing, and let me ask it, if you please, in what is called
+ a reverent spirit. Suppose that Voltaire and Thomas Paine, and Volney and
+ Hume and Hobbes had cried out when dying "My God, My God, why hast thou
+ forsaken me?" what would the clergymen of this city then have said?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To resort to these foolish calumnies about the great men who have opposed
+ the superstitions of the world, is in my judgment, unbecoming any
+ intelligent man. The real question is not, who is afraid to die? The
+ question is, who is right? The great question is not, who died right, but
+ who lived right? There is infinitely more responsibility in living than in
+ dying. The moment of death is the most unimportant moment of life. Nothing
+ can be done then. You cannot even do a favor for a friend, except to
+ remember him in your will. It is a moment when life ceases to be of value.
+ While living, while you have health and strength, you can augment the
+ happiness of your fellow-men; and the man who has made others happy need
+ not be afraid to die. Yet these believers, as they call themselves, these
+ believers who hope for immortality&mdash;thousands of them, will rob their
+ neighbors, thousands of them will do numberless acts of injustice, when,
+ according to their belief, the witnesses of their infamy will live
+ forever; and the men whom they have injured and outraged, will meet them
+ in every glittering star through all the ages yet to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As for me, I would rather do a generous action, and read the record in the
+ grateful faces of my fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gentlemen who attack me are orthodox now, but the men who started
+ their churches were heretics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first Presbyterian was a heretic. The first Baptist was a heretic. The
+ first Congregationalist was a heretic. The first Christian was denounced
+ as a blasphemer. And yet these heretics, the moment they get numerous
+ enough to be in the majority in some locality, begin to call themselves
+ orthodox. Can there be any impudence beyond this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first Baptist, as I said before, was a heretic; and he was the best
+ Baptist that I have ever heard anything about. I always liked him. He was
+ a good man&mdash;Roger Williams. He was the first man, so far as I know,
+ in this country, who publicly said that the soul of man should be free.
+ And it was a wonder to me that a man who had sense enough to say that,
+ could think that any particular form of baptism was necessary to
+ salvation. It does strike me that a man of great brain and thought could
+ not possibly think the eternal welfare of a human being, the question
+ whether he should dwell with angels, or be tossed upon eternal waves of
+ fire, should be settled by the manner in which he had been baptized. That
+ seems, to me so utterly destitute of thought and heart, that it is a
+ matter of amazement to me that any man ever looked upon the ordinance of
+ baptism as of any importance whatever. If we were at the judgment seat
+ to-night, and the Supreme Being, in our hearing, should ask a man:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Have you been a good man?" and the man replied:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Tolerably good."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you love your wife and children?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you try and make them happy?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you try and make your neighbors happy?" "Yes, I paid my debts: I gave
+ heaping measure, and I never cared whether I was thanked for it or not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the Supreme Being then should say:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Were you ever baptized?" and the man should reply:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I am sorry to say I never was."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could a solitary person of sense hear that question asked, by the Supreme
+ Being, without laughing, even if he knew that his own case was to be
+ called next?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I happened to be in the company of six or seven Baptist elders&mdash;how I
+ ever got into such bad company, I don't know,&mdash;and one of them asked
+ what I thought about baptism. Well, I never thought much about it; did not
+ know much about it; didn't want to say anything, but they insisted upon
+ it. I said, "Well, I'll give you my opinion&mdash;with soap, baptism is a
+ good thing."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Reverend Mr. Guard has answered me, as I am informed, upon several
+ occasions. I have read the reports of his remarks, and have boiled them
+ down. He said some things about me not entirely pleasant, which I do not
+ wish to repeat. In his reply he takes the ground:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. That the Bible is not an immoral book, because he swore upon
+ it or by it when he joined the Masons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. He excuses Solomon for all his crimes upon the supposition
+ that he had softening of the brain, or a fatty degeneration of the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third.</i> That the Hebrews had the right to slay all the inhabitants
+ of Canaan, according to the doctrine of the "survival of the fittest." He
+ takes the ground that the destruction of these Canaanites, the ripping
+ open of women with child by the sword of war, was an act of sublime mercy.
+ He justifies a war of extermination; he applauds every act of cruelty and
+ murder. He says that the Canaanites ought to have been turned from their
+ homes; that men guilty of no crime except fighting for their country, old
+ men with gray hairs, old mothers and little, dimpled, prattling children,
+ ought to have been sacrificed upon the altar of war; that it was an act of
+ sublime mercy to plunge the sword of religious persecution into the bodies
+ of all, old and young. This is what the reverend gentleman is pleased to
+ call mercy. If this is mercy let us have injustice. If there is in the
+ heavens such a God I am sorry that man exists. All this, however, is
+ justified upon the ground that God has the right to do as he pleases with
+ the being he has created. This I deny. Such a doctrine is infamously
+ false. Suppose I could take a stone and in one moment change it into a
+ sentient, hoping, loving human being, would I have the right to torture
+ it? Would I have the right to give it pain? No one but a fiend would
+ either exercise or justify such a right. Even if there is a God who
+ created us all he has no such right. Above any God that can exist, in the
+ infinite serenity forever sits the figure of justice; and this God, no
+ matter how great and infinite he may be, is bound to do justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth.</i> That God chose the Jews and governed them personally for
+ thousands of years, and drove out the Canaanites in order that his
+ peculiar people might not be corrupted by the example of idolaters; that
+ he wished to make of the Hebrews a great nation, and that, consequently,
+ he was justified in destroying the original inhabitants of that country.
+ It seems to me that the end hardly justified the means. According to the
+ account, God governed the Jews personally for many ages and succeeded in
+ civilizing them to that degree, that they crucified him the first
+ opportunity they had. Such an administration can hardly be called a
+ success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fifth.</i> The reverend gentleman seems to think that the practice of
+ polygamy after all is not a bad thing when compared with the crime of
+ exhibiting a picture of Antony and Cleopatra. Upon the corrupting
+ influence of such pictures he descants at great length, and attacks with
+ all the bitterness of the narrow theologian the masterpieces of art. Allow
+ me to say one word about art. That is one of the most beautiful words in
+ our language&mdash;Art. And it never seemed to me necessary for art to go
+ in partnership with a rag. I like the paintings of Angelo, of Raffaelle. I
+ like the productions of those splendid souls that put their ideas of
+ beauty upon the canvas uncovered.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "There are brave souls in every land
+ Who worship nature, grand and nude,
+ And who with swift indignant hand
+ Tear off the fig leaves of the prude."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Sixth</i>. That it may be true that the Bible sanctions slavery, but
+ that it is not an immoral book even if it does.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I can account for these statements, for these arguments, only as the
+ reverend gentleman has accounted for the sins of Solomon&mdash;"by a
+ softening of the brain, or a fatty degeneration of the heart."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does seem to me that if I were a Christian, and really thought my
+ fellow-man was going down to the bottomless pit; that he was going to
+ misery and agony forever, it does seem to me that I would try and save
+ him. It does seem to me, that instead of having my mouth filled with
+ epithets and invectives; instead of drawing the lips of malice back from
+ the teeth of hatred, it seems to me that my eyes would be filled with
+ tears. It seems to me that I would do what little I could to reclaim him.
+ I would talk to him and of him, in kindness. I would put the arms of
+ affection about him. I would not speak of him as though he were a wild
+ beast. I would not speak to him as though he were a brute. I would think
+ of him as a man, as a man liable to eternal torture among the damned, and
+ my heart would be filled with sympathy, not hatred&mdash;my eyes with
+ tears, not scorn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is anything pitiable, it is to see a man so narrowed and withered
+ by the blight and breath of superstition, as cheerfully to defend the most
+ frightful crimes of which we have a record&mdash;a man so hardened and
+ petrified by creed and dogma that he hesitates not to defend even the
+ institution of human slavery&mdash;so lost to all sense of pity that he
+ applauds murder and rapine as though they were acts of the loftiest
+ self-denial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next gentleman who has endeavored to answer what I have said, is the
+ Rev. Samuel Robinson. This he has done in his sermon entitled "Ghosts
+ against God or Ingersoll against Honesty." I presume he imagines himself
+ to be the defendant in both cases.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentleman apologized for attending an infidel lecture, upon the
+ ground that he had to contribute to the support of a "materialistic
+ demon." To say the least, this is not charitable. But I am satisfied. I am
+ willing to exchange facts for epithets. I fare so much better than did the
+ infidels in the olden time that I am more than satisfied. It is a little
+ thing that I bear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The brave men of the past endured the instruments of torture. They were
+ stretched upon racks; their feet were crushed in iron boots; they stood
+ upon the shores of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and
+ native land. They were taken from their firesides, from their wives, from
+ their children; they were taken to the public square; they were chained to
+ stakes, and their ashes were scattered by the countless hands of hatred. I
+ am satisfied. The disciples of fear cannot touch me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentlemen hated to contribute a cent to the support of a
+ "materialistic demon." When I saw that statement I will tell you what I
+ did. I knew the man's conscience must be writhing in his bosom to think
+ that he had contributed a dollar toward my support, toward the support of
+ a "materialistic demon." I wrote him a letter and I said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My Dear Sir: In order to relieve your conscience of the crime of having
+ contributed to the support of an unbeliever in ghosts, I hereby enclose
+ the amount you paid to attend my lecture." I then gave him a little good
+ advice. I advised him to be charitable, to be kind, and regretted
+ exceedingly that any man could listen to one of my talks for an hour and a
+ half and not go away satisfied that all men had the same right to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man denied having received the money, but it was traced to him
+ through a blot on the envelope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentleman avers that everything that I said about persecution is
+ applicable to the Catholic Church only. That is what he says. The
+ Catholics have probably persecuted more than any other church, simply
+ because that church has had more power, simply because it has been more of
+ a church. It has to-day a better organization, and as a rule, the
+ Catholics come nearer believing what they say about their church than
+ other Christians do. Was it a Catholic persecution that drove the Puritan
+ fathers from England? Was it not the storm of Episcopal persecution that
+ filled the sails of the Mayflower? Was it not a Protestant persecution
+ that drove the Ark and Dove to America? Let us be honest. Who went to
+ Scotland and persecuted the Presbyterians? Who was it that chained to the
+ stake that splendid girl by the sands of the sea for not saying "God save
+ the king"? She was worthy to have been the mother of C&aelig;sar. She
+ would not say "God save the king," but she would say "God save the king,
+ if it be God's will." Protestants ordered her to say "God save the king,"
+ and no more. She said, "I will not," and they chained her to a stake in
+ the sand and allowed her to be drowned by the rising of the inexorable
+ tide. Who did this? Protestants. Who drove Roger Williams from
+ Massachusetts? Protestants. Who sold white Quaker children into slavery?
+ Protestants. Who cut out the tongues of Quakers? Who burned and destroyed
+ men and women and children charged with impossible crimes? Protestants.
+ The Protestants have persecuted exactly to the extent of their power. The
+ Catholics have done the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want, however, to be just. The first people to pass an act of religious
+ toleration in the New World were the Catholics of Maryland. The next were
+ the Baptists of Rhode Island, led by Roger Williams. The Catholics passed
+ the act of religious toleration, and after the Protestants got into power
+ again in England, and also in the colony of Maryland, they repealed the
+ law of toleration and passed another law declaring the Catholics from
+ under the protection of all law. Afterward, the Catholics again got into
+ power and had the generosity and magnanimity to re-enact the old law. And,
+ so far as I know, it is the only good record upon the subject of religious
+ toleration the Catholics have in this world, and I am always willing to
+ give them credit for it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentleman also says that infidelity has done nothing for the world in
+ the development of the arts and sciences. Does he not know that nearly
+ every man who took a forward step was denounced by the church as a heretic
+ and infidel? Does he not know that the church has in all ages persecuted
+ the astronomers, the geologists, the logicians? Does he not know that even
+ to-day the church slanders and maligns the foremost men? Has he ever heard
+ of Tyndall, of Huxley? Is he acquainted with John W. Draper, one of the
+ leading minds of the world? Did he ever hear of Auguste Comte, the great
+ Frenchman? Did he ever hear of Descartes, of Laplace, of Spinoza? In
+ short, has he ever heard of a man who took a step in advance of his time?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Orthodoxy never advances. When it advances, it ceases to be orthodoxy and
+ becomes heresy. Orthodoxy is putrefaction. It is intellectual cloaca; it
+ cannot advance. What the church calls infidelity is simply free thought.
+ Every man who really owns his own brain is, in the estimation of the
+ church, an infidel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a paper published in this city called <i>The Occident</i>. The
+ Editor has seen fit to speak of me, and of the people who have assembled
+ to hear me, in the lowest, vilest and most scurrilous terms possible. I
+ cannot afford to reply in the same spirit. He alleges that the people who
+ assemble to hear me are the low, the debauched and the infamous. The man
+ who reads that paper ought to read it with tongs. It is a Presbyterian
+ sheet; and would gladly treat me as John Calvin treated Castalio. Castalio
+ was the first minister in the history of Christendom who acknowledged the
+ innocence of honest error, and John Calvin followed him like a
+ sleuth-hound of perdition. He called him a "dog of Satan;" said that he
+ had crucified Christ afresh; and pursued him to the very grave. The editor
+ of this paper is still warming his hands at the fire that burned Servetus.
+ He has in his heart the same fierce hatred of everything that is free. But
+ what right have we to expect anything good of a man who believes in the
+ eternal damnation of infants?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There may have been sometime in the history of the world a worse religion
+ than Old School Presbyterianism, but if there ever was, from cannibalism
+ to civilization, I have never heard of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I make a distinction between the members and the creed of that church. I
+ know many who are a thousand times better than the creed&mdash;good, warm
+ and splendid friends of mine. I would do anything in the world for them.
+ And I have said to them a hundred times, "You are a thousand times better
+ than your creed." But when you come down to the doctrine of the damnation
+ of infants, it is the deformity of deformities. The editor of this paper
+ is engaged in giving the world the cheerful doctrines of fore-ordination
+ and damnation&mdash;those twin comforts of the Presbyterian creed, and
+ warning them against the frightful effects of reasoning in any manner for
+ themselves. He regards the intellectually free as the lowest, the vilest
+ and the meanest, as men who wish to sin, as men who are longing to commit
+ crime, men who are anxious to throw off all restraint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My friends, every chain thrown from the body puts an additional obligation
+ upon the soul. Every man who is free, puts a responsibility upon his brain
+ and upon his heart. You, who never want responsibility, give your souls to
+ some church. You, who never want the feeling that you are under obligation
+ to yourselves, give your souls away. But if you are willing to feel and
+ meet responsibility; if you feel that you must give an account not only to
+ yourselves but to every human being whom you injure, then you must be
+ free. Where there is no freedom, there can be no responsibility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a mystery to me why the editors of religious papers are so
+ malicious, why they endeavor to answer argument with calumny. Is it
+ because they feel the sceptre slowly slipping from their hands? Is it the
+ result of impotent rage? Is it because there is being written upon every
+ orthodox brain a certificate of intellectual inferiority?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This same editor assures his readers that what I say is not worth
+ answering, and yet he devotes column after column of his journal to that
+ very purpose. He states that I am no speaker, no orator; and upon the same
+ page admits that he did not hear me, giving as a reason that he does not
+ think it right to pay money for such a purpose. Recollect, that in a
+ religious paper, a man who professes honesty, criticises a statue or a
+ painting, condemns it, and at the end of the criticism says that he never
+ saw it. He criticises what he calls the oratory of a man, and at the end
+ says, "I never heard him, and I never saw him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, I have never heard of any of these gentlemen who
+ thought it necessary to hear what any man said in order to answer him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next gentleman who answered me is the Rev. Mr. Ijams. And I must say,
+ so far as I can see, in his argument, or in his mode of treatment, he is a
+ kind and considerate gentleman. He makes several mistakes as to what I
+ really said, but the fault I suppose must have been in the report. I am
+ made to say in the report of his sermon, "There is no sacred place in all
+ the universe." What I did say was, "There is no sacred place in all the
+ universe of thought. There is nothing too holy to be investigated, nothing
+ too divine to be understood. The fields of thought are fenceless, and
+ without a wall." I say this to-night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ijams also says that I had declared that man had not only the right to
+ do right, but also the right to do wrong. What I really said was, man has
+ the right to do right, and the right to think right, and the right to
+ think wrong. Thought is a means of ascertaining truth, a mode by which we
+ arrive at conclusions. And if no one has a right to think, unless he
+ thinks right, he would only have the right to think upon self-evident
+ propositions. In all respects, with the exception of these misstatements
+ to which I have called your attention, so far as I can see, Mr. Ijams was
+ perfectly fair, and treated me as though I had the ordinary rights of a
+ human being. I take this occasion to thank him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great many papers, a great many people, a good many ministers and a
+ multitude of men, have had their say, and have expressed themselves with
+ the utmost freedom. I cannot reply to them all. I can only reply to those
+ who have made a parade of answering me. Many have said it is not worth
+ answering, and then proceeded to answer. They have said, he has produced
+ no argument, and then have endeavored to refute it. They have said it is
+ simply the old straw that has been thrashed over and over again for years
+ and years. If all I have said is nothing, if it is all idle and foolish,
+ why do they take up the time of their fellow-men replying to me? Why do
+ they fill their religious papers with criticisms, if all I have said and
+ done reminds them, according to the Rev. Mr. Guard, of "some little dog
+ barking at a railway train"? Why stop the train, why send for the
+ directors, why hold a consultation and finally say, we must settle with
+ that dog or stop running these cars?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably the best way to answer them all, is to prove beyond cavil the
+ truth of what I have said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DOES THE BIBLE TEACH MAN TO ENSLAVE HIS BROTHER? II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IF this "sacred" book teaches man to enslave his brother, it is not
+ inspired. A god who would establish slavery is as cruel and heartless as
+ any devil could be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of
+ them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
+ begat in your land, and they shall be your possession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to
+ inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondmen forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, <i>shall be</i>
+ of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and
+ bondmaids."&mdash;Leviticus xxv.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is white slavery. This allows one white man to buy another, to buy a
+ woman, to separate families and rob a mother of her child. This makes the
+ whip upon the naked backs of men and women a legal tender for labor
+ performed. This is the kind of slavery established by the most merciful
+ God. The reason given for all this, is, that the persons whom they
+ enslaved were heathen. You may enslave them because they are not orthodox.
+ If you can find anybody who does not believe in me, the God of the Jews,
+ you may steal his wife from his arms, and her babe from the cradle. If you
+ can find a woman that does not believe in the Hebrew Jehovah, you may
+ steal her prattling child from her breast. Can any one conceive of
+ anything more infamous? Can any one find in the literature of this world
+ more frightful words ascribed even to a demon? And all this is found in
+ that most beautiful and poetic chapter known as the 25th of Leviticus&mdash;from
+ the Bible&mdash;from this sacred gift of God&mdash;this "Magna Charta of
+ human freedom."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the
+ seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were
+ married, then his wife shall go out with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. "If his master have given him a wife, and she hath borne him sons or
+ daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall
+ go out by himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. "And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and
+ children; I w ill not go out free:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. "Then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also bring
+ him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear
+ through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."&mdash;<i>Exodus,
+ xxi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The slave is allowed to have his liberty if he will give up his wife and
+ children. He must remain in slavery for the sake of wife and child. This
+ is another of the laws of the most merciful God. This God changes even
+ love into a chain. Children are used by him as manacles and fetters, and
+ wives become the keepers of prisons. Any man who believes that such
+ hideous laws were made by an infinitely wise and benevolent God is, in my
+ judgment, insane or totally depraved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are the doctrines of the Old Testament. What is the doctrine of the
+ New? What message had he who came from heaven's throne for the oppressed
+ of earth? What words of sympathy, what words of cheer, for those who
+ labored and toiled without reward? Let us see:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Servants, be obedient to them that are <i>your</i> masters, according to
+ the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto
+ Christ."&mdash;<i>Ephesians, vi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the salutation of the most merciful God to a slave, to a woman who
+ has been robbed of her child&mdash;to a man tracked by hounds through
+ lonely swamps&mdash;to a girl with flesh torn and bleeding&mdash;to a
+ mother weeping above an empty cradle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good
+ and gentle, but also to the fro ward."&mdash;<i>I Peter ii., 18</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief,
+ suffering wrongfully."&mdash;<i>I Peter ii., 19</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It certainly must be an immense pleasure to God to see a man work
+ patiently for nothing. It must please the Most High to see a slave with
+ his wife and child sold upon the auction block. If this slave escapes from
+ slavery and is pursued, how musical the baying of the bloodhound must be
+ to the ears of this most merciful God. All this is simply infamous. On the
+ throne of this universe there sits no such monster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Servants, obey in all things your masters, according to the flesh; not
+ with eye-service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing
+ God."&mdash;<i>Col. iii., 22</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The apostle here seems afraid that the slave would not work every moment
+ that his strength permitted. He really seems to have feared that he might
+ not at all times do the very best he could to promote the interests of the
+ thief who claimed to own him. And speaking to all slaves, in the name of
+ the Father of All, this apostle says: "Obey in all things your masters,
+ not with eye-service, but with singleness of heart, fearing God." He says
+ to them in substance, There is no way you can so well please God as to
+ work honestly for a thief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. "Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters
+ worthy of all honor, that the name of God and <i>his</i> doctrine be not
+ blasphemed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of serving God by honoring a robber! Think of bringing the name and
+ doctrine of God into universal contempt by claiming to own yourself!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. "And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them,
+ because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are
+ faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and
+ exhort."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is to say, do not despise Christians who steal the labor of others.
+ Do not hold in contempt the "faithful and beloved, partakers of the
+ benefit," who turn the cross of Christ into a whipping post.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words <i>even</i>
+ to words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according
+ to godliness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. "He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes
+ of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. "Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the
+ truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This seems to be the opinion the apostles entertained of the early
+ abolitionists. Seeking to give human beings their rights, seeking to give
+ labor its just reward, seeking to clothe all men with that divine garment
+ of the soul, Liberty,&mdash;all this was denounced by the apostle as a
+ simple strife of words, whereof cometh envy, railings, evil surmisings and
+ perverse disputing, destitute of truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. "But godliness with contentment is great gain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry
+ nothing out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. "And having food and raiment let us be therewith content."&mdash;<i>I
+ Tim., vi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was intended to make a slave satisfied to hear the clanking of his
+ chains. This is the reason he should never try to better his condition. He
+ should be contented simply with the right to work for nothing. If he only
+ had food and raiment, and a thief to work for, he should be contented. He
+ should solace himself with the apostolic reflection, that as he brought
+ nothing into the world, he could carry nothing out, and that when dead he
+ would be as happily situated as his master.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to show you what the inspired writer meant by the word <i>servant</i>,
+ I will read from the 21st chapter of Exodus, verses 20 and 21:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under
+ his hand; he shall be surely punished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished:
+ for he <i>is</i> his money."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, notwithstanding these passages the <i>Christian Advocate</i> says,
+ "the Bible is the Magna Charta of our liberty."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After reading that, I was not surprised by the following in the same
+ paper:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We regret to record that Ingersoll is on a low plane of infidelity and
+ atheism, not less offensive to good morals than have been the teachings of
+ infidelity during the last century. France has been cursed with such
+ teachings for a hundred years, and because of it, to-day her citizens are
+ incapable of self-government."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the condition of France a century ago? Were they capable of
+ self-government then? For fourteen hundred years the common people of
+ France had suffered. For fourteen hundred years they had been robbed by
+ the altar and by the throne. They had been the prey of priests and nobles.
+ All were exempt from taxation, except the common people. The cup of their
+ suffering was full, and the French people arose in fury and frenzy, and
+ tore the drapery from the altars of God, and filled the air with the dust
+ of thrones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely, the slavery of fourteen centuries had not been produced by the
+ teachings of Voltaire. I stood only a little while ago at the place where
+ once stood the Bastile. In my imagination I saw that prison standing as it
+ stood of yore. I could see it attacked by the populace. I could see their
+ stormy faces and hear their cries. And I saw that ancient fortification of
+ tyranny go down forever. And now where once stood the Bastile stands the
+ Column of July. Upon its summit is a magnificent statue of Liberty,
+ holding in one hand a banner, in the other a broken chain, and upon its
+ shining forehead is the star of progress. There it stands where once stood
+ the Bastile. And France is as much superior to what it was when Voltaire
+ was born, as that statue, surmounting the Column of July, is more
+ beautiful than the Bastile that stood there once with its cells of
+ darkness, and its dungeons of horror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet we are now told that the French people have rendered themselves
+ incapable of government, simply because they have listened to the voice of
+ progress. There are magnificent men in France. From that country have come
+ to the human race some of the grandest and holiest messages the ear of man
+ has ever heard. The French people have given to history some of the most
+ touching acts of self-sacrifice ever performed beneath the amazed stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I admire the French people. I cannot forget the Rue San
+ Antoine, nor the red cap of liberty. I can never cease to remember that
+ the tricolor was held aloft in Paris, while Europe was in chains, and
+ while liberty, with a bleeding breast, was in the Inquisition of Spain.
+ And yet we are now told by a religious paper, that France is not capable
+ of self-government. I suppose it was capable of self-government under the
+ old r&eacute;gime, at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. I
+ suppose it was capable of self-government when women were seen yoked with
+ cattle pulling plows. I suppose it was capable of self-government when all
+ who labored were in a condition of slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the old times, even among the priests, there were some good, some
+ sincere and most excellent men. I have read somewhere of a sermon preached
+ by one of these in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. This old priest, among
+ other things, said that the soul of a beggar was as dear to God as the
+ soul of the richest of his people, and that Jesus Christ died as much for
+ a beggar as for a prince. One French peasant, rough with labor, cried out:
+ "I propose three cheers for Jesus Christ." I like such things. I like to
+ hear of them. I like to repeat them. Paris has been a kind of volcano, and
+ has made the heavens lurid with its lava of hatred, but it has also
+ contributed more than any other city to the intellectual development of
+ man. France has produced some infamous men, among others John Calvin, but
+ for one Calvin, she has produced a thousand benefactors of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment the French people rise above the superstitions of the church,
+ they will be in the highest sense capable of self-government. The moment
+ France succeeds in releasing herself from the coils of Catholicism&mdash;from
+ the shadows of superstition&mdash;from the foolish forms and mummeries of
+ the church&mdash;from the intellectual tyranny of a thousand years&mdash;she
+ will not only be capable of self-government, but will govern herself. Let
+ the priests be usefully employed. We want no overseers of the mind; no
+ slave-drivers for the soul. We cannot afford to pay hypocrites for
+ depriving us of liberty. It is a waste of money to pay priests to frighten
+ our children, and paralyze the intellect of women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WAS THE WORLD CREATED IN SIX DAYS? III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR hundreds of years it was contended by all Christians that the earth
+ was made in six days, literal days of twenty-four hours each, and that on
+ the seventh day the Lord rested from his labor. Geologists have driven the
+ church from this position, and it is now claimed that the days mentioned
+ in the Bible are periods of time. This is a simple evasion, not in any way
+ supported by the Scriptures. The Bible distinctly and clearly says that
+ the world was created in six days. There is not within its lids a clearer
+ statement. It does not say six periods. It was made according to that book
+ in six days:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 31. "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very
+ good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."&mdash;<i>Genesis
+ i</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of
+ them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he
+ rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "And God blessed the seventh day (not seventh period), and sanctified
+ it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created
+ and made."&mdash;<i>Genesis ii</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the following passages it seems clear what was meant by the word
+ days:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 15. "Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest,
+ holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall
+ surely be put to death."&mdash;Served him right!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 16. "Wherefore, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe
+ the Sabbath, throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 17. "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in
+ six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested
+ and was refreshed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 18. "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him
+ upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with
+ the finger of God."&mdash;<i>Exodus xxxi</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 12. "Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up
+ the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of
+ Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley
+ of Ajalon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 13. "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had
+ avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of
+ Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven; and hasted not to
+ go down about a whole day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 14. "And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord
+ hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel."&mdash;<i>Josh.
+ x</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These passages must certainly convey the idea that this world was made in
+ six days, not six periods. And the reason why they were to keep the
+ Sabbath was because the Creator rested on the seventh day&mdash;not
+ period. If you say six periods, instead of six days, what becomes of your
+ Sabbath? The only reason given in the Bible for observing the Sabbath is
+ that God observed it&mdash;that he rested from his work that day and was
+ refreshed. Take this reason away and the sacredness of that day has no
+ foundation in the Scriptures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHAT IS THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE? IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHEN people were ignorant of all the sciences the Bible was understood by
+ those who read it the same as by those who wrote it. From time to time
+ discoveries were made that seemed inconsistent with the Scriptures. At
+ first, theologians denounced the discoverers of all facts inconsistent
+ with the Bible, as atheists and scoffers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible teaches us that the earth is the centre of the universe; that
+ the sun and moon and stars revolve around this speck called the earth. The
+ men who discovered that all this was a mistake were denounced by the
+ ignorant clergy of that day, precisely as the ignorant clergy of our time
+ denounce the advocates of free thought. When the doctrine of the earth's
+ place in the solar system was demonstrated; when persecution could no
+ longer conceal the mighty truth, then it was that the church made an
+ effort to harmonize the Scriptures with the discoveries of science. When
+ the utter absurdity of the Mosaic account of creation became apparent to
+ all thoughtful men, the church changed the reading of the Bible. Then it
+ was pretended that the "days" of creation were vast periods of time. When
+ it was shown to be utterly impossible that the sun revolved around the
+ earth, then the account given by Joshua of the sun standing still for the
+ space of a whole day, was changed into a figure of speech. It was said
+ that Joshua merely conformed to the mode of speech common in his day; and
+ that when he said the sun stood still, he merely intended to convey the
+ idea that the earth ceased turning upon its axis. They admitted that
+ stopping the sun could not lengthen the day, and for that reason it must
+ have been the earth that stopped. But you will remember that the moon
+ stood still in the valley of Ajalon&mdash;that the moon stayed until the
+ people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One would naturally suppose that the sun would have given sufficient light
+ to enable the Jews to avenge themselves upon their enemies without any
+ assistance from the moon. Of course, if the moon had not stopped, the
+ relations between the earth and moon would have been changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there a sensible man in the world who believes this wretched piece of
+ ignorance? Is it possible that the religion of this nineteenth century has
+ for its basis such childish absurdities? According to this account, what
+ was the sun, or rather the earth, stopped for? It was stopped in order
+ that the Hebrews might avenge themselves upon the Amorites. For the
+ accomplishment of such a purpose the earth was made to pause. Why should
+ an almost infinite force be expended simply for the purpose of destroying
+ a handful of men? Why this waste of force? Let me explain. I strike my
+ hands together. They feel a sudden Heat. Where did the heat come from?
+ Motion has been changed into heat. You will remember that there can be no
+ destruction of force. It disappears in one form only to reappear in
+ another. The earth, rotating at the rate of one thousand miles an hour,
+ was stopped. The motion of this vast globe would have instantly been
+ changed into heat. It has been calculated by one of the greatest
+ scientists of the present day that to stop the earth would generate as
+ much heat as could be produced by burning a world as large as this of
+ solid coal. And yet, all this force was expended for the paltry purpose of
+ defeating a few poor barbarians. The employment of so much force for the
+ accomplishment of so insignificant an object would be as useless as
+ bringing all the intellect of a great man to bear in answering the
+ arguments of the clergymen of San Francisco.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The waste of that immense force in stopping the planets in their grand
+ courses, for the purpose claimed, would be like using a Krupp gun to
+ destroy an insect to which a single drop of water is "an unbounded world."
+ How is it possible for men of ordinary intellect, not only to endorse such
+ ignorant falsehoods, but to malign those who do not? Can anything be more
+ debasing to the intellect of man than a belief in the astronomy of the
+ Bible? According to the Scriptures, the world was made out of nothing, and
+ the sun, moon, and stars, of the nothing that happened to be left. To the
+ writers of the Bible the firmament was solid, and in it were grooves along
+ which the stars were pushed by angels. From the Bible Cosmas constructed
+ his geography and astronomy. His book was passed upon by the church, and
+ was declared to be the truth concerning the subjects upon which he
+ treated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This eminent geologist and astronomer, taking the Bible as his guide,
+ found and taught: First, that the earth was flat; second, that it was a
+ vast parallelogram; third, that in the middle there was a vast body of
+ land, then a strip of water all around it, then a strip of land. He
+ thought that on the outer strip of land people lived before the flood&mdash;that
+ at the time of the flood, Noah in his Ark crossed the strip of water and
+ landed on the shore of the country, in the middle of the world, where we
+ now are. This great biblical scholar informed the true believers of his
+ day that in the outer strip of land were mountains, around which the sun
+ and moon revolved; that when the sun was on the side of the mountain next
+ the land occupied by man, it was day, and when on the other side, it was
+ night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Cosmas believed the Bible, and regarded Joshua as the most eminent
+ astronomer of his day. He also taught that the firmament was solid, and
+ that the angels pushed and drew the stars. He tells us that these angels
+ attended strictly to their business, that each one watched the motions of
+ all the others so that proper distances might always be maintained, and
+ all confusion avoided. All this was believed by the gentlemen who made
+ most of our religion. The great argument made by Cosmas to show that the
+ earth must be flat, was the fact that the Bible stated that when Christ
+ should come the second time, in glory, the whole world should see him.
+ "Now," said Cosmas, "if the world is round, how could the people on the
+ other side see the Lord when he comes?" This settled the question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These were the ideas of the fathers of the church. These men have been for
+ centuries regarded as almost divinely inspired. Long after they had become
+ dust they governed the world. The superstitions they planted, their
+ descendants watered with the best and bravest blood. To maintain their
+ ignorant theories, the brain of the world was dwarfed for a thousand
+ years, and the infamous work is still being prosecuted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible was regarded as not only true, but as the best of all truth. Any
+ new theory advanced, was immediately examined in the light, or rather in
+ the darkness, of revelation, and if according to that test it was false,
+ it was denounced, and the person bringing it forward forced to recant. It
+ would have been a far better course to have discovered every theory found
+ to be in harmony with the Scriptures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet we are told by the clergy and religious press of this city, that
+ the Bible is the foundation of all science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THE EXISTENCE OF THAT IMPOSSIBLE CRIME CALLED
+ WITCHCRAFT?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IT was said by Sir Thomas More that to give up witchcraft was to give up
+ the Bible itself. This idea was entertained by nearly all the eminent
+ theologians of a hundred years ago. In my judgment, they were right. To
+ give up witchcraft is to give up, in a great degree at least, the
+ supernatural. To throw away the little ghosts simply prepares the mind of
+ man to give up the great ones. The founders of nearly all creeds, and of
+ all religions properly so called, have taught the existence of good and
+ evil spirits. They have peopled the dark with devils and the light with
+ angels. They have crowded hell with demons and heaven with seraphs. The
+ moment these good and evil spirits, these angels and fiends, disappear
+ from the imaginations of men, and phenomena are accounted for by natural
+ rather than by supernatural means, a great step has been taken in the
+ direction of what is now known as materialism. While the church believes
+ in witchcraft, it is in a greatly modified form. The evil spirits are not
+ as plenty as in former times, and more phenomena are accounted for by
+ natural means. Just to the extent that belief has been lost in spirits,
+ just to that extent the church has lost its power and authority. When men
+ ceased to account for the happening of any event by ascribing it to the
+ direct action of good or evil spirits, and began to reason from known
+ premises, the chains of superstition began to grow weak. Into such
+ disrepute has witchcraft at last fallen that many Christians not only deny
+ the existence of these evil spirits, but take the ground that no such
+ thing is taught in the Scriptures. Let us see:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."&mdash;<i>Exodus xxii., 18</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. "Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar
+ spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to
+ him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a spirit at Endor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. "And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and
+ two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, I pray
+ thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I
+ shall name unto thee.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. "And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done,
+ how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards out
+ of the land; wherefore, then, layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me
+ to die?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. "And Saul sware to her by the Lord, saying, As the Lord liveth, there
+ shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. "Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said,
+ Bring me up Samuel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 12. "And when the woman saw Samuel she cried with a loud voice: and the
+ woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 13. "And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And
+ the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 14. "And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man
+ cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was
+ Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 15. "And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?"&mdash;2
+ Samuels xxviii.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This reads very much like an account of a modern spiritual seance. Is it
+ not one of the wonderful things of the world that men and women who
+ believe this account of the witch of Endor, who believe all the miracles
+ and all the ghost stories of the Bible, deny with all their force the
+ truth of modern Spiritualism. So far as I am concerned, I would rather
+ believe some one who has heard what he relates, who has seen what he
+ tells, or at least thinks he has seen what he tells. I would rather
+ believe somebody I know, whose reputation for truth is good among those
+ who know him. I would rather believe these people than to take the words
+ of those who have been in their graves for four thousand years, and about
+ whom I know nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 31 "Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after
+ wizards, to be defiled by them; I am the Lord, your God."&mdash;<i>Leviticus
+ xix</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6 "And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and
+ after wizards, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him
+ off from among his people."&mdash;<i>Leviticus xx.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. "There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or
+ an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. "Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a
+ necromancer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 12. "For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord."&mdash;<i>Deut.
+ xviii</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have given you a few of the passages found in the Old Testament upon
+ this subject, showing conclusively that the Bible teaches the existence of
+ witches, wizards and those who have familiar spirits. In the New Testament
+ there are passages equally strong, showing that the Savior himself was a
+ believer in the existence of evil spirits, and in the existence of a
+ personal devil. Nothing can be plainer than the teaching of the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
+ of the devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. "And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward
+ an hungered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God,
+ command that these stones be made bread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread
+ alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. "Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a
+ pinnacle of the temple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. "And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for
+ it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in
+ their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot
+ against a stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. "Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the
+ Lord, thy God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and
+ sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. "And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt
+ fall down and worship me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. "Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written,
+ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. "Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered
+ unto him."&mdash;<i>Matt. iv.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this does not teach the existence of a personal devil, there is nothing
+ within the lids of the Scriptures teaching the existence of a personal
+ God. If this does not teach the existence of evil spirits, there is
+ nothing in the Bible going to show that good spirits exist either in this
+ world or the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 16. "When the even was come they brought unto him many that were possessed
+ with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all
+ that were sick."&mdash;<i>Matt. vii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. "And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of
+ the Gadarenes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. "And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of
+ the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no,
+ not with chains:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. "Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the
+ chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces:
+ neither could any man tame him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. "And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs,
+ crying and cutting himself with stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. "But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. "And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee,
+ Jesus, thou son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou
+ torment me not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. "For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. "And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name
+ is Legion, for we are many.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. "Now, there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 12. "And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that
+ we may enter into them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 13. "And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went
+ out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep
+ place into the sea, and they were about two thousand; and were choked in
+ the sea."&mdash;<i>Mark v</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine of witchcraft does not stop here. The power of casting out
+ devils was bequeathed by the Savior to his apostles and followers, and to
+ all who might believe in him throughout all the coming time:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 17. "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they
+ cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 18. "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."&mdash;<i>Mark xvi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see the clergy who have been answering me, tested in this
+ way: Let them drink poison, let them take up serpents, let them cure the
+ sick by the laying on of hands, and I will then believe that they believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I deny the witchcraft stories of the world. Witches are born in the
+ ignorant, frightened minds of men. Reason will exorcise them. "They are
+ tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." These
+ devils have covered the world with blood and tears. They have filled the
+ earth with fear. They have filled the lives of children with darkness and
+ horror. They have peopled the sweet world of imagination with monsters.
+ They have made religion a strange mingling of fear and ferocity. I am
+ doing what I can to reave the heavens of these monsters. For my part, I
+ laugh at them all. I hold them all in contempt, ancient and modern, great
+ and small.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE BIBLE IDEA OF THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ALL religion has for its basis the tyranny of God and the slavery of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 18. "If a man have a stubborn and 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 hearken unto them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 19. "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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 20. "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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 21. "And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die;
+ so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and
+ fear."&mdash;<i>Deut. xxi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. He proceeded
+ to obey. And the boy, being then about thirty years of age, was not
+ consulted. At the command of a phantom of the air, a man was willing to
+ offer upon the altar his only son. And such was the slavery of children,
+ that the only son had not the spirit to resist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have you ever read the story of Jephthah?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 30 "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt
+ without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 31. "Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my
+ house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall
+ surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 32. "So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against
+ them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 33. "And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even
+ twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great
+ slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of
+ Israel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 34."And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold, his daughter
+ came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only
+ child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 35. "And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and
+ said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one
+ of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I
+ cannot go back....
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 39. "And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto
+ her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."&mdash;<i>Judges
+ xi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there in the history of the world a sadder thing than this? What can we
+ think of a father who would sacrifice his daughter to a demon God? And
+ what can we think of a God who would accept such a sacrifice? Can such a
+ God be worthy of the worship of man? I plead for the rights of children. I
+ plead for the government of kindness and love. I plead for the republic of
+ home, the democracy of the fireside. I plead for affection. And for this I
+ am pursued by invective. For this I am called a fiend, a devil, a monster,
+ by Christian editors and clergymen, by those who pretend to love their
+ enemies and pray for those that despitefully use them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Allow me to give you another instance of affection related in the
+ Scriptures. There was, it seems, a most excellent man by the name of Job.
+ The Lord was walking up and down, and happening to meet Satan, said to
+ him: "Are you acquainted with my servant Job? Have you noticed what an
+ excellent man he is?" And Satan replied to him and said: "Why should he
+ not be an excellent man&mdash;you have given him everything he wants? Take
+ from him what he has and he will curse you." And thereupon the Lord gave
+ Satan the power to destroy the property and children of Job. In a little
+ while these high contracting parties met again; and the Lord seemed
+ somewhat elated with his success, and called again the attention of Satan
+ to the sinlessness of Job. Satan then told him to touch his body and he
+ would curse him. And thereupon power was given to Satan over the body of
+ Job, and he covered his body with boils. Yet in all this, Job did not sin
+ with his lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This book seems to have been written to show the excellence of patience,
+ and to prove that at last God will reward all who will bear the
+ afflictions of heaven with fortitude and without complaint. The sons and
+ daughters of Job had been slain, and then the Lord, in order to reward
+ Job, gave him other children, other sons and other daughters&mdash;not the
+ same ones he had lost; but others. And this, according to the writer, made
+ ample amends. Is that the idea we now have of love? If I have a child, no
+ matter how deformed that child may be, and if it dies, nobody can make the
+ loss to me good by bringing a more beautiful child. I want the one I loved
+ and the one I lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE GALLANTRY OF GOD. VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE said that the Bible is a barbarous book; that it has no respect for
+ the rights of woman. Now I propose to prove it. It takes something besides
+ epithets and invectives to prove or disprove anything. Let us see what the
+ sacred volume says concerning the mothers and daughters of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man who does not in his heart of hearts respect woman, who has not there
+ an altar at which he worships the memory of mother, is less than a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 12. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the
+ man, but to be in silence."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reason given for this, and the only reason that occurred to the sacred
+ writer, was:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 13. "For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 14. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the
+ transgression.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 15. "Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they
+ continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."&mdash;<i>1 Tim.
+ ii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is to say, the woman sustains the same relation to the man that man
+ does to Christ, and man sustains the same relation to Christ that Christ
+ does to God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This places the woman infinitely below the man. And yet this barbarous
+ idiocy is regarded as divinely inspired. How can any woman look other than
+ with contempt upon such passages? How can any woman believe that this is
+ the will of a most merciful God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. "For a man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the
+ image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And this is justified from the remarkable fact set forth in the next
+ verse:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This same chivalric gentleman also says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. "Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."&mdash;<i>1
+ Cor. xi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 22. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible for abject obedience to go beyond this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 23. "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head
+ of the Church, and he is the saviour of the body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 24. "Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be
+ to their own husbands in everything."&mdash;<i>Eph. v.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even the Savior did not put man and woman upon an equality. A man could
+ divorce his wife, but the wife could not divorce her husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every noble woman should hold such apostles and such ideas in contempt.
+ According to the Old Testament, woman had to ask pardon and had to be
+ purified from the crime of having born sons and daughters. To make love
+ and maternity crimes is infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. "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,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. "And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire
+ unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 12. "Then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her
+ head, and pare her nails."&mdash;<i>Deut. xxi</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is barbarism, no matter whether it came from heaven or from hell,
+ from a God or from a devil, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem
+ or from the very Sodom of perdition. It is barbarism complete and utter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION POLYGAMY AND CONCUBINAGE? VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ READ the infamous order of Moses in the 31st chapter of Numbers&mdash;an
+ order unfit to be reproduced in print&mdash;an order which I am unwilling
+ to repeat. Read the 31 st chapter of Exodus. Read the 21 st chapter of
+ Deuteronomy. Read the-life of Abraham, of David, of Solomon, of Jacob, and
+ then tell me the sacred Bible does not teach polygamy and concubinage. All
+ the languages of the world are insufficient to express the filth of
+ polygamy. It makes man a beast&mdash;woman a slave. It destroys the
+ fireside. It makes virtue an outcast. It makes home a lair of wild beasts.
+ It is the infamy of infamies. Yet this is the doctrine of the Bible&mdash;a
+ doctrine defended even by Luther and Melancthon. It is by the Bible that
+ Brigham Young justifies the practice of this beastly horror. It takes from
+ language those sweetest words, husband, wife, father mother, child and
+ lover. It takes us back to the barbarism of animals, and leaves the heart
+ a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of loathsome lust. Yet
+ the book justifying this infamy is the book upon which rests the
+ civilization of the nineteenth century. And because I denounce this
+ frightful thing, the clergy denounce me as a demon, and the infamous <i>Christian
+ Advocate</i> says that the moral sentiment of this State ought to denounce
+ this Illinois Catiline for his blasphemous utterances and for his base and
+ debasing scurrility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DOES THE BIBLE UPHOLD AND JUSTIFY POLITICAL TYRANNY? IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR my part, I insist that man has not only the capacity, but the right to
+ govern himself. All political authority is vested in the people
+ themselves, They have the right to select their officers and agents, and
+ these officers and agents are responsible to the people. Political
+ authority does not come from the clouds. Man should not be governed by the
+ aristocracy of the air. The Bible is not a Republican or Democratic book.
+ Exactly the opposite doctrine is taught. From that volume we learn that
+ the people have no power whatever; that all power and political authority
+ comes from on high, and that all the kings, all the potentates and powers,
+ have been ordained of God; that all the ignorant and cruel kings have been
+ placed upon the world's thrones by the direct act of Deity. The Scriptures
+ teach us that the common people have but one duty&mdash;the duty of
+ obedience. Let me read to you some of the political ideas in the great
+ "Magna Charta" of human liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no
+ power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. "Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of
+ God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this, George III. was ordained of God. He was King of Great
+ Britian by divine right, and by divine right was the lawful King of the
+ American Colonies. The leaders in the Revolutionary struggle resisted the
+ power, and according to these passages, resisted the ordinances of God;
+ and for that resistance they are promised the eternal recompense of
+ damnation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou
+ then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt
+ have praise of the same....
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. "Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for
+ conscience sake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. "For, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers,
+ attending continually upon this very thing."&mdash;<i>Romans, xiii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 13. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake;
+ whether it be to the king as supreme.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 14. "Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the
+ punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 15. "For so is the will of God."&mdash;<i>1 Pet. ii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Had these ideas been carried out, political progress in the world would
+ have been impossible. Upon the necks of the people still would have been
+ the feet of kings. I deny this wretched, this infamous doctrine. Whether
+ higher powers are ordained of God or not, if those higher powers endeavor
+ to destroy the rights of man, I for one shall resist. Whenever and
+ wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in support of a human right, I am
+ a rebel. The despicable doctrine of submission to titled wrong and robed
+ injustice finds no lodgment in the brain of a man. The real rulers are the
+ people, and the rulers so-called are but the servants of the people. They
+ are not ordained of any God. All political power comes from and belongs to
+ man. Upon these texts of Scripture rest the thrones of Europe. For fifteen
+ hundred years these verses have been repeated by brainless kings and
+ heardess priests. For fifteen hundred years each one of these texts has
+ been a bastile in which has been imprisoned the pioneers of progress. Each
+ one of these texts has been an obstruction on the highway of humanity.
+ Each one has been a fortification behind which have crouched the sainted
+ hypocrites and the titled robbers. According to these texts, a robber gets
+ his right to rob from God. And it is the duty of the robbed to submit. The
+ thief gets his right to steal from God. The king gets his right to trample
+ upon human liberty from God. I say, fight the king&mdash;fight the priest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY OF GOD. X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Bible denounces religious liberty. After covering the world with
+ blood, after having made it almost hollow with graves, Christians are
+ beginning to say that men have a right to differ upon religious questions
+ provided the questions about which they differ are not considered of great
+ importance. The motto of the Evangelical Alliance is: "In non-essentials,
+ Liberty; in essentials, Unity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian world have condescended to say that upon all non-essential
+ points we shall have the right to think for ourselves; but upon matters of
+ the least importance, they will think and speak for us. In this they are
+ consistent. They but follow the teachings of the God they worship. They
+ but adhere to the precepts and commands of the sacred Scriptures. Within
+ that volume there is no such thing as religious toleration. Within that
+ volume there is not one particle of mercy for an unbeliever. For all who
+ think for themselves, for all who are the owners of their own souls, there
+ are threatenings, curses and anathemas. Any Christian who to-day exercises
+ the least toleration is to that extent false to his religion. Let us see
+ what the "Magna Charta" of liberty says upon this subject:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or
+ the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice
+ thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not
+ known, thou, nor thy fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. "Namely of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto
+ thee, or afar off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the
+ other end of the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. "Thou shalt not consent unto him; nor hearken unto him; neither shall
+ thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. "But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to
+ put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. "And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath
+ sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out
+ of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."&mdash;<i>Deut. xiii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the religious liberty of the Bible. If the wife of your bosom had
+ said, "I like the religion of India better than the religion of
+ Palestine," it was then your duty to kill her, and the merciful Most High&mdash;understand
+ me, I do not believe in any merciful Most High&mdash;said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thou shalt not pity her but thou shalt surely kill; thy hand shall be the
+ first upon her to put her to death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This I denounce as infamously infamous. If it is necessary to believe in
+ such a God, if it is necessary to adore such a Deity in order to be saved,
+ I will take my part joyfully in perdition. Let me read you a few more
+ extracts from the "Magna Charta" of human liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. "If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord
+ thy God giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the
+ sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. "And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the
+ sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. "And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired
+ diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such
+ abomination is wrought in Israel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. "Then shalt thou bring forth that man, or that woman, which have
+ committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman,
+ and shalt stone them with stones till they die."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under this law if the woman you loved had said: "Let us worship the sun; I
+ am tired of this jealous and bloodthirsty Jehovah; let us worship the sun;
+ let us kneel to it as it rises over the hills, filling the world with
+ light and love, when the dawn stands jocund on the mountain's misty top;
+ it is the sun whose beams illumine and cover the earth with verdure and
+ with beauty; it is the sun that covers the trees with leaves, that carpets
+ the earth with grass and adorns the world with flowers; I adore the sun
+ because in its light I have seen your eyes; it has given to me the face of
+ my babe; it has clothed my life with joy; let us in gratitude fall down
+ and worship the glorious beams of the sun."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For this offence she deserved not only death, but death at your hands:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thine eye shall not pity her; neither shalt thou spare; neither shalt
+ thou conceal her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But thou shalt surely kill her: thy hand shall be the first upon her to
+ put her to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And thou shalt stone her with stones that she die."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part I had a thousand times rather worship the sun than a God who
+ would make such a law or give such a command. This you may say is the
+ doctrine of the Old Testament&mdash;what is the doctrine of the New?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth
+ not shall be damned."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the religious liberty of the New Testament. That is the "tidings
+ of great joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every one of these words has been a chain upon the limbs, a whip upon the
+ backs of men. Every one has been a fagot. Every one has been a sword.
+ Every one has been a dungeon, a scaffold, a rack. Every one has been a
+ fountain of tears. These words have filled the hearts of men with hatred.
+ These words invented all the instruments of torture. These words covered
+ the earth with blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the sake of argument, suppose that the Bible is an inspired book. If
+ then, as is contended, God gave these frightful laws commanding religious
+ intolerance to his chosen people, and afterward this same God took upon
+ himself flesh, and came among the Jews and taught a different religion,
+ and they crucified him, did he not reap what he had sown?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ DOES THE BIBLE DESCRIBE A GOD OF MERCY? XI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IS it possible to conceive of a more jealous, revengeful, changeable,
+ unjust, unreasonable, cruel being than the Jehovah of the Hebrews? Is it
+ possible to read the words said to have been spoken by this Deity, without
+ a shudder? Is it possible to contemplate his character without hatred?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour
+ flesh."&mdash;<i>Deut. xxxii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this the language of an infinitely kind and tender parent to his weak,
+ his wandering and suffering children?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of
+ thy dogs in the same." <i>Psalms, lxviii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that a God takes delight in seeing dogs lap the blood of
+ his children?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 22. "And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little
+ and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the
+ field increase upon thee.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 23. "But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy
+ them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 24. "And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt
+ destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand
+ before thee, until thou have destroyed them."&mdash;<i>Deut. vii.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If these words had proceeded from the mouth of a demon, if they had been
+ spoken by some enraged and infinitely malicious fiend, I should not have
+ been surprised. But these things are attributed to a God of infinite
+ mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 40. "So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and
+ of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings; he left none
+ remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of
+ Israel commanded."&mdash;<i>Josh, x.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 14. "And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of
+ Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the
+ edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to
+ breathe."&mdash;<i>Josh. xi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 19. "There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel,
+ save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all other they took in
+ battle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 20. "For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come
+ against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that
+ they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord
+ commanded Moses."&mdash;<i>Josh. xi.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are no words in our language with which to express the indignation I
+ feel when reading these cruel and heartless words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim
+ peace unto it. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open
+ unto thee, then it shall be that all the people therein shall be
+ tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no
+ peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege
+ it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt
+ smite every male thereof with the sword. But the women, <i>and the little
+ ones</i>, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil
+ thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of
+ thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee,
+ which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these
+ people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou
+ shalt save alive nothing that breatheth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These terrible instructions were given to an army of invasion. The men who
+ were thus ruthlessly murdered were fighting for their homes, their
+ firesides, for their wives and for their little children. Yet these
+ things, by the clergy of San Francisco, are called acts of sublime mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this is justified by the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The
+ Old Testament is filled with anathemas, with curses, with words of
+ vengeance, of revenge, of jealousy, of hatred and of almost infinite
+ brutality. Do not, I pray you, pluck from the heart the sweet flower of
+ pity and trample it in the bloody dust of superstition. Do not, I beseech
+ you, justify the murder of women, the assassination of dimpled babes. Do
+ not let the gaze of the gorgon of superstition turn your hearts to stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there an intelligent Christian in the world who would not with joy and
+ gladness receive conclusive testimony to the effect that all the passages
+ in the Bible upholding and sustaining polygamy and concubinage, political
+ tyranny, the subjection of woman, the enslavement of children,
+ establishing domestic and political tyranny, and that all the commands to
+ destroy men, women and children, are but interpolations of kings and
+ priests, made for the purpose of subjugating mankind through the
+ instrumentality of fear? Is there a Christian in the world who would not
+ think vastly more of the Bible if all these infamous things were
+ eliminated from it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely the good things in that book are not rendered more sacred from the
+ fact that in the same volume are found the frightful passages I have
+ quoted. In my judgment the Bible should be read and studied precisely as
+ we read and study any book whatever. The good in it should be preserved
+ and cherished, and that which shocks the human heart should be cast aside
+ forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While the Old Testament threatens men, women and children with disease,
+ famine, war, pestilence and death, there are no threatenings of punishment
+ beyond this life. The doctrine of eternal punishment is a dogma of the New
+ Testament. This doctrine, the most cruel, the most infamous of which the
+ human mind can conceive, is taught, if taught at all, in the Bible&mdash;in
+ the New Testament. One cannot imagine what the human heart has suffered by
+ reason of the frightful doctrine of eternal damnation. It is a doctrine so
+ abhorrent to every drop of my blood, so infinitely cruel, that it is
+ impossible for me to respect either the head or heart of any human being
+ who teaches or fears it. This doctrine necessarily subverts all ideas of
+ justice. To inflict infinite punishment for finite crimes, or rather for
+ crimes committed by finite beings, is a proposition so monstrous that I am
+ astonished it ever found lodgment in the brain of man. Whoever says that
+ we can be happy in heaven while those we loved on earth are suffering
+ infinite torments in eternal fire, defames and calumniates the human
+ heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE PLAN OF SALVATION. XII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE are told, however, that a way has been provided for the salvation of
+ all men, and that in this plan the infinite mercy of God is made manifest
+ to the children of men. According to the great scheme of the atonement,
+ the innocent suffers for the guilty in order to satisfy a law. What kind
+ of law must it be that is satisfied with the agony of innocence? Who made
+ this law? If God made it he must have known that the innocent would have
+ to suffer as a consequence. The whole scheme is to me a medley of
+ contradictions, impossibilities and theological conclusions. We are told
+ that if Adam and Eve had not sinned in the Garden of Eden death never
+ would have entered the world. We are further informed that had it not been
+ for the devil, Adam and Eve would not have been led astray; and if they
+ had not, as I said before, death never would have touched with its icy
+ hand the human heart. If our first parents had never sinned, and death
+ never had entered the world, you and I never would have existed. The earth
+ would have been filled thousands of generations before you and I were
+ born. At the feast of life, death made seats vacant for us. According to
+ this doctrine, we are indebted to the devil for our existence. Had he not
+ tempted Eve&mdash;no sin. If there had been no sin&mdash;no death. If
+ there had been no death the world would have been filled ages before you
+ and I were born. Therefore, we owe our existence to the devil. We are
+ further informed that as a consequence of original sin the scheme called
+ the atonement became necessary; and that if the Savior had not taken upon
+ himself flesh and come to this atom called the earth, and if he had not
+ been crucified for us, we should all have been cast forever into hell. Had
+ it not been for the bigotry of the Jews and the treachery of Judas
+ Iscariot, Christ would not have been crucified; and if he had not been
+ crucified, all of us would have had our portion in the lake that burneth
+ with eternal fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this great doctrine, according to this vast and most
+ wonderful scheme, we owe, as I said before, our existence to the devil,
+ our salvation to Judas Iscariot and the bigotry of the Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So far as I am concerned, I fail to see any mercy in the plan of
+ salvation. Is it mercy to reward a man forever in consideration of
+ believing a certain thing, of the truth of which there is, to his mind,
+ ample testimony? Is it mercy to punish a man with eternal fire simply
+ because there is not testimony enough to satisfy his mind? Can there be
+ such a thing as mercy in eternal punishment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet this same Deity says to me, "resist not evil; pray for those that
+ despitefully use you; love your enemies, but I will eternally damn mine."
+ It seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All atonement, after all, is a kind of moral bankruptcy. Under its
+ provisions, man is allowed the luxury of sinning upon a credit. Whenever
+ he is guilty of a wicked action he says, "charge it." This kind of
+ bookkeeping, in my judgment, tends to breed extravagance in sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, most Christians are better than their creeds; most creeds
+ are better than the Bible, and most men are better than their God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ OTHER RELIGIONS. XIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WE must remember that ours is not the only religion. Man has in all ages
+ endeavored to answer the great questions Whence? and Whither? He has
+ endeavored to read his destiny in the stars, to pluck the secret of his
+ existence from the night. He has questioned the spectres of his own
+ imagination. He has explored the mysterious avenues of dreams. He has
+ peopled the heavens with spirits. He has mistaken his visions for
+ realities. In the twilight of ignorance he has mistaken shadows for gods.
+ In all ages he has been the slave of misery, the dupe of superstition and
+ the fool of hope. He has suffered and aspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion is a thing of growth, of development. As we advance we throw
+ aside the grosser and absurder forms of faith&mdash;practically at first
+ by ceasing to observe them, and lastly, by denying them altogether. Every
+ church necessarily by its constitution endeavors to prevent this natural
+ growth or development. What has happened to other religions must happen to
+ ours. Ours is not superior to many that have passed, or are passing away.
+ Other religions have been lived for and died for by men as noble as ours
+ can boast. Their dogmas and doctrines have, to say the least, been as
+ reasonable, as full of spiritual grandeur, as ours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has had beautiful thoughts. Man has tried to solve these questions in
+ all the countries of the world, and I respect all such men and women; but
+ let me tell you one little thing. I want to show you that in other
+ countries there is something.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Parsee sect of Persia say: A Persian saint ascended the three stairs
+ that lead to heaven's gate, and knocked; a voice said: "Who is there?"
+ "Thy servant, O God!" But the gates would not open. For seven years he did
+ every act of kindness; again he came, and the voice said: "Who is there?"
+ And he replied: "Thy slave, O God!" Yet the gates were shut. Yet seven
+ other years of kindness, and the man again knocked; and the voice cried
+ and said: "Who is there?" "Thyself, O God!" And the gates wide open flew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say there is no more beautiful Christian poem than this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A Persian after having read our religion, with its frightful descriptions
+ of perdition, wrote these words: "Two angels flying out from the blissful
+ city of God&mdash;the angel of love and the angel of pity&mdash;hovered
+ over the eternal pit where suffered the captives of hell. One smile of
+ love illumined the darkness and one tear of pity extinguished all the
+ fires." Has orthodoxy produced anything as generously beautiful as this?
+ Let me read you this: Sectarians, hear this: Believers in eternal
+ damnation, hear this: Clergy of America who expect to have your happiness
+ in heaven increased by seeing me burning in hell, hear this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the prayer of the Brahmins&mdash;a prayer that has trembled from
+ human lips toward heaven for more than four thousand years:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Never will I seek or receive private individual salvation. Never will I
+ enter into final bliss alone. But forever and everywhere will I labor and
+ strive for the final redemption of every creature throughout all worlds,
+ and until all are redeemed. Never will I wrongly leave this world to sin,
+ sorrow and struggle, but will remain and work and suffer where I am."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has the orthodox religion produced a prayer like this? See the infinite
+ charity, not only for every soul in this world, but of all the shining
+ worlds of the universe. Think of that, ye parsons who imagine that a large
+ majority are going to eternal ruin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare it with the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, and compare it with the
+ imprecation of Christ: "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared
+ for the devil and his angels;" with the ideas of Jeremy Taylor, with the
+ creeds of Christendom, with all the prayers of all the saints, and in no
+ church except the Universalist will you hear a prayer like this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain
+ from it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since the days of Zoroaster has there been any rule for human conduct
+ given superior to this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the principles taught by us superior to those of Confucius? He was
+ asked if there was any single word comprising the duties of man. He
+ replied: "Reciprocity." Upon being asked what he thought of the doctrine
+ of returning benefits for injuries, he replied: "That is not my doctrine.
+ If you return benefits for injuries what do you propose for benefits? My
+ doctrine is; For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice
+ without any admixture of revenge."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To return good for evil is to pay a premium upon wickedness. I cannot put
+ a man under obligation to do me a favor by doing him an injury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, to-day, right now, what is the church doing? What is it doing, I ask
+ you honestly? Does it satisfy the craving hearts of the nineteenth
+ century? Are we satisfied? I am not saying this except from the honesty of
+ my heart. Are we satisfied? Is it a consolation to us now? Is it even a
+ consolation when those we love die? The dead are so near and the promises
+ are so far away. It is covered with the rubbish of the past. I ask you, is
+ it all that is demanded by the brain and heart of the nineteenth century?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We want something better; we want something grander; we want something
+ that has more brain in it, and more heart in it. We want to advance&mdash;that
+ is what we want; and you cannot advance without being a heretic&mdash;you
+ cannot do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all these religions have been upheld by persecution and bloodshed.
+ They have been rendered stable by putting fetters upon the human brain.
+ They have all, however, been perfectly natural productions, and under
+ similar circumstances would all be reproduced. Only by intellectual
+ development are the old superstitions outgrown. As only the few
+ intellectually advance, the majority is left on the side of superstition,
+ and remains there until the advanced ideas of the few thinkers become
+ general; and by that time there are other thinkers still in advance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so the work of development and growth slowly and painfully proceeds
+ from age to age. The pioneers are denounced as heretics, and the heretics
+ denounce their denouncers as the disciples of superstition and ignorance.
+ Christ was a heretic. Herod was orthodox. Socrates was a blasphemer.
+ Anytus worshiped all the gods. Luther was a skeptic, while the sellers of
+ indulgences were the best of Catholics. Roger Williams was a heretic,
+ while the Puritans who drove him from Massachusetts were all orthodox.
+ Every step in advance in the religious history of the world has been taken
+ by heretics. No superstition has been destroyed except by a heretic. No
+ creed has been bettered except by a heretic. Heretic is the name that the
+ orthodox laggard hurls at the disappearing pioneer. It is shouted by the
+ dwellers in swamps to the people upon the hills. It is the opinion that
+ midnight entertains of the dawn. It is what the rotting says of the
+ growing. Heretic is the name that a stench gives to a perfume.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With this word the coffin salutes the cradle. It is taken from the lips of
+ the dead. Orthodoxy is a shroud&mdash;heresy is a banner. Orthodoxy is an
+ epitaph&mdash;heresy is a prophecy. Orthodoxy is a cloud, a fog, a mist&mdash;heresy
+ the star shining forever above the child of truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am a believer in the eternity of progress. I do not believe that Want
+ will forever extend its withered hand, its wan and shriveled palms, for
+ charity. I do not believe that the children will forever be governed by
+ cruelty and brute force. I do not believe that poverty will dwell with man
+ forever. I do not believe that prisons will forever cover the earth, or
+ that the shadow of the gallows will forever fall upon the ground. I do not
+ believe that injustice will sit forever upon the bench, or that malice and
+ superstition will forever stand in the pulpit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe the time will come when there will be charity in every heart,
+ when there will be love in every family, and when law and liberty and
+ justice, like the atmosphere, will surround this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have worshiped the ghosts long enough. We have prostrated ourselves
+ before the ignorance of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us stand erect and look with hopeful eyes toward the brightening
+ future. Let us stand by our convictions. Let us not throw away our idea of
+ justice for the sake of any book or of any religion whatever. Let us live
+ according to our highest and noblest and purest ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this time we should know that the real Bible has not been written.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real Bible is not the work of inspired men, or prophets, or apostles,
+ or evangelists, or of Christs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book.
+ It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles, or signs. It makes no appeal
+ to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for
+ unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of
+ demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of
+ being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not
+ pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges
+ the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for
+ himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the
+ surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies to its perfection.
+ The earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and
+ plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every
+ leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars,
+ shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ladies and gentlemen you cannot tell how I thank you this evening; you
+ cannot tell how I feel toward the intellectual hospitality of this great
+ city by the Pacific sea. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you&mdash;I thank
+ you again and again, a thousand times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Chicago Times, 1879.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ To the Editor:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ NOTHING is more gratifying than to see ideas that were received with
+ scorn, flourishing in the sunshine of approval. Only a few weeks ago, I
+ stated that the Bible was not inspired; that Moses was mistaken; that the
+ "flood" was a foolish myth; that the Tower of Babel existed only in
+ credulity; 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 differed from each other; and that this book had
+ filled the world with agony and crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time I had not the remotest idea that the most learned clergymen
+ in Chicago would substantially agree with me&mdash;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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. Rev. Robert Collyer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But, Mr. Collyer, do you really think that a book with as
+ many passages in favor of wrong as right, is inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "I look upon the Old Testament as a rotting tree. When it
+ falls it will fertilize a bank of violets."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that God upheld slavery and polygamy? Do
+ you believe that he ordered the killing of babes and the violation of
+ maidens?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "There is threefold inspiration in the Bible, the first,
+ peerless and perfect, the word of God to man; <i>the second, simply and
+ purely human, and then below this again, there is an inspiration born of
+ an evil heart, ruthless and savage there and then as anything well can be</i>.
+ A threefold inspiration, of heaven first, then of the earth, and 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then after all you do not pretend that the Scriptures are
+ really inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you say to the last verse in the Bible, where a
+ curse is threatened to any man who takes from or adds to the book?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "I have but one answer to this question, and it is: Let who
+ will have written this, I cannot 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not regard such talk as "slang"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (Supposed) Answer. If an infidel had said that the writer of Revelation
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. 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?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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 safety, 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
+ instant did the steady sun stand still or let his planet stand still while
+ barbarian fought barbarian. He kept just 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 philosopher. 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. Rev. Dr. Thomas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the Old Testament?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "My opinion is that it is not one book, but many&mdash;thirty-nine
+ books bound up in one. The date and authorship of most of these books are
+ wholly unknown. The Hebrews wrote without vowels, and without dividing the
+ letters into syllables, words, or sentences. The books were gathered up by
+ Ezra. At that time only two of the Jewish tribes remained. All progress
+ has ceased. In gathering up the sacred book, copyists exercised great
+ liberty in making changes and additions."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Yes, we know all that, but is the Old Testament inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "There maybe the inspiration of art, of poetry, or oratory;
+ of patriotism&mdash;and there are such inspirations. There are moments
+ when great truths and principles come to men. They seek the man, and not
+ the man them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Yes, we all admit that, but is the Bible inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "But still I know of no way to convince anyone of spirit,
+ and inspiration, and God, only as his reason may take hold of these
+ things."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the Old Testament true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "The story of Eden may be an allegory. The history of the
+ children of Israel may have mistakes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Must inspiration claim infallibility? Answer. "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 be degrees of inspiration."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that God commanded the soldiers to kill
+ the children and the married women, and save for themselves, the maidens,
+ as recorded in <i>Numbers xxxi, 2</i>,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that God upheld slavery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that God upheld polygamy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "The Bible may be wrong in some statements. God and right
+ cannot 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. Ingersoll to appear at the other extreme,
+ denying too much."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What then shall be done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "We must take a middle ground. It is not necessary to
+ believe that the bears devoured the forty-two children, nor that Jonah was
+ swallowed by the whale."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. Rev. Dr. Kohler.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion about the Old Testament?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "I will not make futile attempts of artificially
+ 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you an orthodox Christian?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you really believe the Old Testament was inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "I greatly acknowledge our indebtedness to men like
+ Voltaire and Thomas Paine, whose bold denial and cutting wit were so
+ instrumental in bringing about this glorious era of freedom, so congenial
+ and blissful, particularly to the long-abused Jewish race."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe in the inspiration of the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe all the stories in the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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 spiritual 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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the Bible inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "True, the Bible is not free from errors, nor is any work
+ of man and time. It abounds in childish views and offensive matter. I
+ trust that it will in a time not far off be presented for common use in
+ families, schools, synagogues and churches, in a refined shape, cleansed
+ from all dross and chaff, and stumbling blocks in which the scoffer
+ delights to dwell."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. Rev. Mr. Herford.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the Bible true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "Ingersoll 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 <i>any ancient book</i> it is simply nonsense."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the stories in the Bible exaggerated?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "I dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that God upheld polygamy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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. <i>But
+ what is there to be indignant</i> about in that?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. And so you really wonder why any man should be indignant
+ at the idea that God upheld and sanctioned that beastliness called
+ polygamy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "What is there to be indignant about in that?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. Prof. Swing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your idea of the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "I think it is a poem."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth. Rev. Dr. Ryder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. And what is your idea of the sacred Scriptures?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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, whatever may be the form of
+ their poetry, it always possesses the characteristic of religion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I suppose you fully appreciate the religious
+ characteristics of the Song of Solomon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Does the Bible uphold polygamy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> "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."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. So you think God corrected some of the worst abuses of
+ polygamy, but preserved the institution itself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I might question many others, but have concluded not to consider those as
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 the advance they have made, and hope soon to
+ meet them on the serene heights of perfect freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C., May 7, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The Iconoclast, Indianapolis, Indiana. 1883.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ THE following questions have been submitted to me by the Rev. David Walk,
+ Dr. T. B. Taylor, the Rev. Myron W. Reed, and the Rev. D. O'Donaghue, of
+ Indianapolis, with the request that I answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the Character of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in
+ the Four Gospels, Fictional or Real?&mdash;Rev. David Walk.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> In all probability, there was a man by the name of Jesus
+ Christ, who was, in his day and generation, a reformer&mdash;a man who was
+ infinitely shocked at the religion of Jehovah&mdash;who became almost
+ insane with pity as he contemplated the sufferings of the weak, the poor,
+ and the ignorant at the hands of an intolerant, cruel, hypocritical, and
+ bloodthirsty church. It is no wonder that such a man predicted the
+ downfall of the temple. In all probability, he hated, at last, every
+ pillar and stone in it, and despised even the "Holy of Holies." This man,
+ of course, like other men, grew. He did not die with the opinion he held
+ in his youth. He changed his views from time to time&mdash;fanned the
+ spark of reason into a flame, and as he grew older his horizon extended
+ and widened, and he became gradually a wiser, greater, and better man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I find two or three Christs described in the four Gospels. In some
+ portions you would imagine that he was an exceedingly pious Jew. When he
+ says that people must not swear by Jerusalem, because it is God's holy
+ city, certainly no Pharisee could have gone beyond that expression. So,
+ too, when it is recorded that he drove the money changers from the temple.
+ This, had it happened, would have been the act simply of one who had
+ respect for this temple and not for the religion taught in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would seem that, at first, Christ believed substantially in the
+ religion of his time; that afterward, seeing its faults, he wished to
+ reform it; and finally, comprehending it in all its enormity, he devoted
+ his life to its destruction. This view shows that he "increased in stature
+ and grew in knowledge."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This view is also supported by the fact that, at first, according to the
+ account, Christ distinctly stated that his gospel was not for the
+ Gentiles. At that time he had altogether more patriotism than philosophy.
+ In my own opinion, he was driven to like the Gentiles by the persecution
+ he endured at home. He found, as every Freethinker now finds, that there
+ are many saints not in churches and many devils not out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The character of Christ, in many particulars, as described in the Gospels,
+ depends upon who wrote the Gospels. Each one endeavored to make a Christ
+ to suit himself. So that Christ, after all, is a growth; and since the
+ Gospels were finished, millions of men have been adding to and changing
+ the character of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing that should not be forgotten, and that is that the
+ Gospels were not written until after the Epistles. I take it for granted
+ that Paul never saw any of the Gospels, for the reason that he quotes none
+ of them. There is also this remarkable fact: Paul quotes none of the
+ miracles of the New Testament. He says not one word about the multitude
+ being fed miraculously, not one word about the resurrection of Lazarus,
+ nor of the widow's son. He had never heard of the lame, the halt, and the
+ blind that had been cured; or if he had, he did not think these incidents
+ of enough importance to be embalmed in an epistle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So we find that none of the early fathers ever quoted from the four
+ Gospels. Nothing can be more certain than that the four Gospels were not
+ written until after the Epistles, and nothing can be more certain than
+ that the early Christians knew nothing of what we call the Gospels of
+ Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All these things have been growths. At
+ first it was believed that Christ was a direct descendant from David. At
+ that time the disciples of Christ, of course, were Jews. The Messiah was
+ expected through the blood of David.&mdash;For that reason, the genealogy
+ of Joseph, a descendant of David, was given. It was not until long after,
+ that the idea came into the minds of Christians that Christ was the son of
+ the Holy Ghost. If they, at the time the genealogy was given, believed
+ that Christ was in fact the son of the Holy Ghost, why did they give the
+ genealogy of Joseph to show that Christ was related to David? In other
+ words, why should the son of God attempt to get glory out of the fact that
+ he had in his veins the blood of a barbarian king? There is only one
+ answer to this. The Jews expected the Messiah through David, and in order
+ to prove that Christ was the Messiah, they gave the genealogy of Joseph.
+ Afterward, the idea became popularized that Christ was the son of God, and
+ then were interpolated the words "as was supposed" in the genealogy of
+ Christ. It was a long time before the disciples became great enough to
+ include the world in their scheme, and before they thought it proper to
+ tell the "glad tidings of great joy" beyond the limits of Judea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My own opinion is that the man called Christ lived; but whether he lived
+ in Palestine, or not, is of no importance. His life is worth its example,
+ its moral force, its benevolence, its self-denial and heroism. It is of no
+ earthly importance whether he changed water into wine or not. All his
+ miracles are simply dust and darkness compared with what he actually said
+ and actually did. We should be kind to each other whether Lazarus was
+ raised or not. We should be just and forgiving whether Christ lived or
+ not. All the miracles in the world are of no use to virtue, morality, or
+ justice. Miracles belong to superstition, to ignorance, to fear and folly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither does it make any difference who wrote the Gospels. They are worth
+ the truth that is in them and no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The words of Paul are often quoted, that "all scripture is given by
+ inspiration of God." Of course that could not have applied to anything
+ written after that time. It could have applied only to the Scriptures then
+ written and then known. It is perfectly clear that the four Gospels were
+ not at that time written, and therefore this statement of Paul's does not
+ apply to the four Gospels. Neither does it apply to anything written after
+ that statement was written. Neither does it apply to that statement. If it
+ applied to anything it was the Old Testament, and not the New.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christ has been belittled by his worshipers. When stripped of the
+ miraculous; when allowed to be, not divine but divinely human, he will
+ have gained a thousandfold in the estimation of mankind. I think of him as
+ I do of Buddha, as I do of Confucius, of Epictetus, of Bruno. I place him
+ with the great, the generous, the self-denying of the earth, and for the
+ man Christ, I feel only admiration and respect. I think he was in many
+ things mistaken. His reliance upon the goodness of God was perfect. He
+ seemed to believe that his father in heaven would protect him. He thought
+ that if God clothed the lilies of the field in beauty, if he provided for
+ the sparrows, he would surely protect a perfectly just and loving man. In
+ this he was mistaken; and in the darkness of death, overwhelmed, he cried
+ out: "Why hast thou forsaken me?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that Christ ever claimed to be divine; ever claimed to be
+ inspired; ever claimed to work a miracle. In short, I believe that he was
+ an honest man. These claims were all put in his mouth by others&mdash;by
+ mistaken friends, by ignorant worshipers, by zealous and credulous
+ followers, and sometimes by dishonest and designing priests. This has
+ happened to all the great men of the world. All historical characters are,
+ in part, deformed or reformed by fiction. There was a man by the name of
+ George Washington, but no such George Washington ever existed as we find
+ portrayed in history. The historical C&aelig;sar never lived. The
+ historical Mohammed is simply a myth. It is the task of modern criticism
+ to rescue these characters, and in the mass of superstitious rubbish to
+ find the actual man. Christians borrowed the old clothes of the Olympian
+ gods and gave them to Christ. To me, Christ the man is far greater than
+ Christ the god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me, it has always been a matter of wonder that Christ said nothing as
+ to the obligation man is under to his country, nothing as to the rights of
+ the people as against the wish and will of kings, nothing against the
+ frightful system of human slavery&mdash;almost universal in his time. What
+ he did not say is altogether more wonderful than what he did say. It is
+ marvelous that he said nothing upon the subject of intemperance, nothing
+ about education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature, nothing
+ about art. He said nothing in favor of the home, except to offer a reward
+ to those who would desert their wives and families. Of course, I do not
+ believe that he said the words that were attributed to him, in which a
+ reward is offered to any man who will desert his kindred. But if we take
+ the account given in the four Gospels as the true account, then Christ did
+ offer a reward to a father who would desert his children. It has always
+ been contended that he was a perfect example of mankind, and yet he never
+ married. As a result of what he did not teach in connection with what he
+ did teach, his followers saw no harm in slavery, no harm in polygamy. They
+ belittled this world and exaggerated the importance of the next. They
+ consoled the slave by telling him that in a little while he would exchange
+ his chains for wings. They comforted the captive by saying that in a few
+ days he would leave his dungeon for the bowers of Paradise. His followers
+ believed that he had said that "Whosoever believeth not shall be damned."
+ This passage was the cross upon which intellectual liberty was crucified.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ had given us the laws of health; if he had told us how to cure
+ disease by natural means; if he had set the captive free; if he had
+ crowned the people with their rightful power; if he had placed the home
+ above the church; if he had broken all the mental chains; if he had
+ flooded all the caves and dens of fear with light, and filled the future
+ with a common joy, he would in truth have been the Savior of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you account for the difference between the
+ Christian and other modern civilizations?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I account for the difference between men by the difference
+ in their ancestry and surroundings&mdash;the difference in soil, climate,
+ food, and employment. There would be no civilization in England were it
+ not for the Gulf Stream. There would have been very little here had it not
+ been for the discovery of Columbus. And even now on this continent there
+ would be but little civilization had the soil been poor. I might ask: How
+ do you account for the civilization of Egypt? At one time that was the
+ greatest civilization in the world. Did that fact prove that the Egyptian
+ religion was of divine origin? So, too, there was a time when the
+ civilization of India was beyond all others. Does that prove that Vishnu
+ was a God? Greece dominated the intellectual world for centuries. Does
+ that fact absolutely prove that Zeus was the creator of heaven and earth?
+ The same may be said of Rome. There was a time when Rome governed the
+ world, and yet I have always had my doubts as to the truth of the Roman
+ mythology. As a matter of fact, Rome was far better than any Christian
+ nation ever was to the end of the seventeenth century. A thousand years of
+ Christian rule produced no fellow for the greatest of Rome. There were no
+ poets the equals of Horace or Virgil, no philosophers as great as
+ Lucretius, no orators like Cicero, no emperors like Marcus Aurelius, no
+ women like the mothers of Rome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The civilization of a country may be hindered by a religion, but it has
+ never been increased by any form of superstition. When America was
+ discovered it had the same effect upon Europe that it would have, for
+ instance, upon the city of Chicago to have Lake Michigan put the other
+ side of it. The Mediterranean lost its trade. The centers of commerce
+ became deserted. The prow of the world turned westward, and, as a result,
+ France, England, and all countries bordering on the Atlantic became
+ prosperous. The world has really been civilized by discoverers&mdash;by
+ thinkers. The man who invented powder, and by that means released hundreds
+ of thousands of men from the occupations of war, did more for mankind than
+ religion. The inventor of paper&mdash;and he was not a Christian&mdash;did
+ more than all the early fathers for mankind. The inventors of plows, of
+ sickles, of cradles, of reapers; the inventors of wagons, coaches,
+ locomotives; the inventors of skiffs, sail-vessels, steamships; the men
+ who have made looms&mdash;in short, the inventors of all useful things&mdash;they
+ are the civilizers taken in connection with the great thinkers, the poets,
+ the musicians, the actors, the painters, the sculptors. The men who have
+ invented the useful, and the men who have made the useful beautiful, are
+ the real civilizers of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The priests, in all ages, have been hindrances&mdash;stumbling-blocks.
+ They have prevented man from using his reason. They have told ghost
+ stories to courage until courage became fear. They have done all in their
+ power to keep men from growing intellectually, to keep the world in a
+ state of childhood, that they themselves might be deemed great and good
+ and wise. They have always known that their reputation for wisdom depended
+ upon the ignorance of the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I account for the civilization of France by such men as Voltaire. He did
+ good by assisting to destroy the church. Luther did good exactly in the
+ same way. He did harm in building another church. I account, in part, for
+ the civilization of England by the fact that she had interests greater
+ than the church could control; and by the further fact that her greatest
+ men cared nothing for the church. I account in part for the civilization
+ of America by the fact that our fathers were wise enough, and jealous of
+ each other enough, to absolutely divorce church and state. They regarded
+ the church as a dangerous mistress&mdash;one not fit to govern a
+ president. This divorce was obtained because men like Jefferson and Paine
+ were at that time prominent in the councils of the people. There is this
+ peculiarity in our country&mdash;the only men who can be trusted with
+ human liberty are the ones who are not to be angels hereafter. Liberty is
+ safe so long as the sinners have an opportunity to be heard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither must we imagine that our civilization is the only one in the
+ world. They had no locks and keys in Japan until that country was visited
+ by Christians, and they are now used only in those ports where Christians
+ are allowed to enter. It has often been claimed that there is but one way
+ to make a man temperate, and that is by making him a Christian; and this
+ is claimed in face of the fact that Christian nations are the most
+ intemperate in the world. For nearly thirteen centuries the followers of
+ Mohammed have been absolute teetotalers&mdash;not one drunkard under the
+ flag of the star and crescent. Wherever, in Turkey, a man is seen under
+ the influence of liquor, they call him a Christian. You must also remember
+ that almost every Christian nation has held slaves. Only a few years ago
+ England was engaged in the slave trade. A little while before that our
+ Puritan ancestors sold white Quaker children in the Barbadoes, and traded
+ them for rum, sugar, and negro slaves. Even now the latest champion of
+ Christianity upholds slavery, polygamy, and wars of extermination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sometimes I suspect that our own civilization is not altogether perfect.
+ When I think of the penitentiaries crammed to suffocation, and of the many
+ who ought to be in; of the want, the filth, the depravity of the great
+ cities; of the starvation in the manufacturing centers of Great Britain,
+ and, in fact, of all Europe; when I see women working like beasts of
+ burden, and little children deprived, not simply of education, but of air,
+ light and food, there is a suspicion in my mind that Christian
+ civilization is not a complete and overwhelming success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, I am compelled to account for the advance that we have made, by
+ the discoveries and inventions of men of genius. For the future I rely
+ upon the sciences; upon the cultivation of the intellect. I rely upon
+ labor; upon human interests in this world; upon the love of wife and
+ children and home. I do not rely upon sacred books, but upon good men and
+ women. I do not rely upon superstition, but upon knowledge; not upon
+ miracles, but upon facts; not upon the dead, but upon the living; and when
+ we become absolutely civilized, we shall look back upon the superstitions
+ of the world, not simply with contempt, but with pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I rely upon missionaries to convert those whom we are pleased
+ to call "the heathen." Honest commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange
+ ideas when we exchange fabrics. The effort to force a religion upon the
+ people always ends in war. Commerce, founded upon mutual advantage, makes
+ peace. An honest merchant is better than a missionary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spain was blessed with what is called Christian civilization, and yet, for
+ hundreds of years, that government was simply an organized crime. When one
+ pronounces the name of Spain, he thinks of the invasion of the New World,
+ the persecution in the Netherlands, the expulsion of the Jews, and the
+ Inquisition. Even to-day, the Christian nations of Europe preserve
+ themselves from each other by bayonet and ball. Prussia has a standing
+ army of six hundred thousand men, France a half million, and all their
+ neighbors a like proportion. These countries are civilized. They are in
+ the enjoyment of Christian governments&mdash;have their hundreds of a
+ thousands of ministers, and the land covered with cathedrals and churches&mdash;and
+ yet every nation is nearly beggared by keeping armies in the field.
+ Christian kings have no confidence in the promises of each other. What
+ they call peace is the little time necessarily spent in reloading their
+ guns. England has hundreds of ships of war to protect her commerce from
+ other Christians, and to force China to open her ports to the opium trade.
+ Only the other day the Prime Minister of China, in one of his dispatches
+ to the English government, used substantially the following language:
+ "England regards the opium question simply as one of trade, but to China,
+ it has a moral aspect." Think of Christian England carrying death and
+ desolation to hundreds of thousands in the name of trade. Then think of
+ heathen China protesting in the name of morality. At the same time England
+ has the impudence to send missionaries to China.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has been called Christianity has been a disturber of the public peace
+ in all countries and at all times. Nothing has so alienated nations,
+ nothing has so destroyed the natural justice of mankind, as what has been
+ known as religion. The idea that all men must worship the same God,
+ believe the same dogmas, has for thousands of years plucked with bloody
+ hands the flower of pity from the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is
+ not a result of "inspiration." It is the child of invention, of discovery,
+ of applied knowledge&mdash;that is to say, of science. When man becomes
+ great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought
+ is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when
+ religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and
+ not until then, will the world be civilized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Since Laplace and other most distinguished astronomers
+ hold to the theory that the earth was originally in a gaseous state, and
+ then a molten mass in which the germs, even, of vegetable or animal life,
+ could not exist, how do you account for the origin of life on this planet
+ without a "Creator"?&mdash;Dr. T. B. Taylor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Whether or not "the earth was originally in a gaseous state
+ and afterwards a molten mass in which the germs of vegetable and animal
+ life could not exist," I do not know. My belief is that the earth as it
+ is, and as it was, taken in connection with the influence of the sun, and
+ of other planets, produced whatever has existed or does exist on the
+ earth. I do not see why gas would not need a "creator" as much as a
+ vegetable. Neither can I imagine that there is any more necessity for some
+ one to start life than to start a molten mass. There may be now portions
+ of the world in which there is not one particle of vegetable life. It may
+ be that on the wide waste fields of the Arctic zone there are places where
+ no vegetable life exists, and there may be many thousand miles where no
+ animal life can be found. But if the poles of the earth could be changed,
+ and if the Arctic zone could be placed in a different relative position to
+ the sun, the snows would melt, the hills would appear, and in a little
+ while even the rocks would be clothed with vegetation. After a time
+ vegetation would produce more soil, and in a few thousand years forests
+ would be filled with beasts and birds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think it was Sir William Thomson who, in his effort to account for the
+ origin of life upon this earth, stated that it might have come from some
+ meteoric stone falling from some other planet having in it the germs of
+ life. What would you think of a farmer who would prepare his land and wait
+ to have it planted by meteoric stones? So, what would you think of a Deity
+ who would make a world like this, and allow it to whirl thousands and
+ millions of years, barren as a gravestone, waiting for some vagrant comet
+ to sow the seeds of life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that back of animal life is the vegetable, and back of the
+ vegetable, it may be, is the mineral. It may be that crystallization is
+ the first step toward what we call life, and yet I believe life is back of
+ that. In my judgment, if the earth ever was in a gaseous state, it was
+ filled with life. These are subjects about which we know but little. How
+ do you account for chemistry? How do you account for the fact that just so
+ many particles of one kind seek the society of just so many particles of
+ another, and when they meet they instantly form a glad and lasting union?
+ How do you know but atoms have love and hatred? How do you know that the
+ vegetable does not enjoy growing, and that crystallization itself is not
+ an expression of delight? How do you know that a vine bursting into flower
+ does not feel a thrill? We find sex in the meanest weeds&mdash;how can you
+ say they have no loves?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, of what use is it to search for a creator? The difficulty is
+ not thus solved. You leave your creator as much in need of a creator as
+ anything your creator is supposed to have created. The bottom of your
+ stairs rests on nothing, and the top of your stairs leans upon nothing.
+ You have reached no solution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The word "God" is simply born of our ignorance. We go as far as we can,
+ and we say the rest of the way is "God." We look as far as we can, and
+ beyond the horizon, where there is nought so far as we know but blindness,
+ we place our Deity. We see an infinitesimal segment of a circle, and we
+ say the rest is "God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man must give up searching for the origin of anything. No one knows the
+ origin of life, or of matter, or of what we call mind. The whence and the
+ whither are questions that no man can answer. In the presence of these
+ questions all intellects are upon a level. The barbarian knows exactly the
+ same as the scientist, the fool as the philosopher. Only those who think
+ that they have had some supernatural information pretend to answer these
+ questions, and the unknowable, the impossible, the unfathomable, is the
+ realm wholly occupied by the "inspired."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are satisfied that all organized things must have had a beginning, but
+ we cannot conceive that matter commenced to be. Forms change, but
+ substance remains eternally the same. A beginning of substance is
+ unthinkable. It is just as easy to conceive of anything commencing to
+ exist <i>without</i> a cause as <i>with</i> a cause. There must be
+ something for cause to operate upon. Cause operating upon nothing&mdash;were
+ such a thing possible&mdash;would produce nothing. There can be no
+ relation between cause and nothing. We can understand how things can be
+ arranged, joined or separated&mdash;and how relations can be changed or
+ destroyed, but we cannot conceive of creation&mdash;of nothing being
+ changed into something, nor of something being made&mdash;except from
+ preexisting materials.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Since the universal testimony of the ages is in the
+ affirmative of phenomena that attest the continued existence of man after
+ death&mdash;which testimony is overwhelmingly sustained by the phenomena
+ of the nineteenth century&mdash;what further evidence should thoughtful
+ people require in order to settle the question, "Does death end all?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I admit that in all ages men have believed in spooks and
+ ghosts and signs and wonders. This, however, proves nothing. Men have for
+ thousands of ages believed the impossible, and worshiped the absurd. Our
+ ancestors have worshiped snakes and birds and beasts. I do not admit that
+ any ghost ever existed. I know that no miracle was ever performed except
+ in imagination; and what you are pleased to call the "phenomena of the
+ nineteenth century," I fear are on an exact equality with the phenomena of
+ the Dark Ages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not yet understand the action of the brain. No one knows the origin
+ of a thought. No one knows how he thinks, or why he thinks, any more than
+ one knows why or how his heart beats. People, I imagine, have always had
+ dreams. In dreams they often met persons whom they knew to be dead, and it
+ may be that much of the philosophy of the present was born of dreams. I
+ cannot admit that anything supernatural ever has happened or ever will
+ happen. I cannot admit the truth of what you call the "phenomena of the
+ nineteenth century," if by such "phenomena" you mean the reappearance of
+ the dead. I do not deny the existence of a future state, because I do not
+ know. Neither do I aver that there is one, because I do not know. Upon
+ this question I am simply honest. I find that people who believe in
+ immortality&mdash;or at least those who say they do&mdash;are just as
+ afraid of death as anybody else. I find that the most devout Christian
+ weeps as bitterly above his dead, as the man who says that death ends all.
+ You see the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. Still, I
+ do not say that man is not immortal; but I do say that there is nothing in
+ the Bible to show that he is. The Old Testament has not a word upon the
+ subject&mdash;except to show us how we lost immortality. According to that
+ book, man was driven from the Garden of Eden, lest he should put forth his
+ hand and eat of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. So the
+ fact is, the Old Testament shows us how we lost immortality. In the New
+ Testament we are told to seek for immortality, and it is also stated that
+ "God alone hath immortality."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is this curious thing about Christians and Spiritualists: The
+ Spiritualists laugh at the Christians for believing the miracles of the
+ New Testament; they laugh at them for believing the story about the witch
+ of Endor. And then the Christians laugh at the Spiritualists for believing
+ that the same kind of things happen now. As a matter of fact, the
+ Spiritualists have the best of it, because their witnesses are now living,
+ whereas the Christians take simply the word of the dead&mdash;of men they
+ never saw and of men about whom they know nothing. The Spiritualist, at
+ least, takes the testimony of men and women that he can cross-examine. It
+ would seem as if these gentlemen ought to make common cause. Then the
+ Christians could prove their miracles by the Spiritualists, and the
+ Spiritualists could prove their "phenomena" by the Christians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that thoughtful people require some additional testimony in
+ order to settle the question, "Does death end all?" If the dead return to
+ this world they should bring us information of value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are thousands of questions that studious historians and savants are
+ endeavoring to settle&mdash;questions of history, of philosophy, of law,
+ of art, upon which a few intelligent dead ought to be able to shed a flood
+ of light. All the questions of the past ought to be settled. Some modern
+ ghosts ought to get acquainted with some of the Pharaohs, and give us an
+ outline of the history of Egypt. They ought to be able to read the
+ arrow-headed writing and all the records of the past. The hieroglyphics of
+ all ancient peoples should be unlocked, and thoughts and facts that have
+ been imprisoned for so many thousand years should be released and once
+ again allowed to visit brains. The Spiritualists ought to be able to give
+ us the history of buried cities. They should clothe with life the dust of
+ all the past. If they could only bring us valuable information; if they
+ could only tell us about some steamer in distress so that succor could be
+ sent; if they could only do something useful, the world would cheerfully
+ accept their theories and admit their "facts." I think that thoughtful
+ people have the right to demand such evidence. I would like to have the
+ spirits give us the history of all the books of the New Testament and tell
+ us who first told of the miracles. If they could give us the history of
+ any religion, or nation, or anything, I should have far more confidence in
+ the "phenomena of the nineteenth century."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing about the Spiritualists I like, and that is, they are
+ liberal. They give to others the rights they claim for themselves. They do
+ not pollute their souls with the dogma of eternal pain. They do not
+ slander and persecute even those who deny their "phenomena." But I cannot
+ admit that they have furnished conclusive evidence that death does not end
+ all. Beyond the horizon of this life we have not seen. From the mysterious
+ beyond no messenger has come to me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the whole world I would not blot from the sky of the future a single
+ star. Arched by the bow of hope let the dead sleep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How, when, where, and by whom was our present calendar
+ originated,&mdash;that is "Anno Domini,"&mdash;and what event in the
+ history of the nations does it establish as a fact, if not the birth of
+ Jesus of Nazareth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I have already said, in answer to a question by another
+ gentleman, that I believe the man Jesus Christ existed, and we now date
+ from somewhere near his birth. I very much doubt about his having been
+ born on Christmas, because in reading other religions, I find that that
+ time has been celebrated for thousands of years, and the cause of it is
+ this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ About the 21st or 22d of December is the shortest day. After that the days
+ begin to lengthen and the sun comes back, and for many centuries in most
+ nations they had a festival in commemoration of that event. The
+ Christians, I presume, adopted this day, and made the birth of Christ fit
+ it. Three months afterward&mdash;the 21st of March&mdash;the days and
+ nights again become equal, and the day then begins to lengthen. For
+ centuries the nations living in the temperate zones have held festivals to
+ commemorate the coming of spring&mdash;the yearly miracle of leaf, of bud
+ and flower. This is the celebration known as Easter, and the Christians
+ adopted that in commemoration of Christ's resurrection. So that, as a
+ matter of fact, these festivals of Christmas and Easter do not even tend
+ to show that they stand for or are in any way connected with the birth or
+ resurrection of Christ. In fact the evidence is overwhelmingly the other
+ way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While we are on the calendar business it may be well enough to say that we
+ get our numerals from the Arabs, from whom also we obtained our ideas of
+ algebra. The higher mathematics came to us from the same source. So from
+ the Arabs we receive chemistry, and our first true notions of geography.
+ They gave us also paper and cotton.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Owing to the fact that the earth does not make its circuit in the exact
+ time of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, and owing to the
+ fact that it was a long time before any near approach was made to the
+ actual time, all calendars after awhile became too inaccurate for general
+ use, and they were from time to time changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Right here, it may be well enough to remark, that all the monuments and
+ festivals in the world are not sufficient to establish an impossible
+ event. No amount of monumental testimony, no amount of living evidence,
+ can substantiate a miracle. The monument only proves the <i>belief</i> of
+ the builders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we rely upon the evidence of monuments, calendars, dates, and
+ festivals, all the religions on the earth can be substantiated. Turkey is
+ filled with such monuments and much of the time wasted in such festivals.
+ We celebrate the Fourth of July, but such celebration does not even tend
+ to prove that God, by his special providence, protected Washington from
+ the arrows of an Indian. The Hebrews celebrate what is called the
+ Passover, but this celebration does not even tend to prove that the angel
+ of the Lord put blood on the door-posts in Egypt. The Mohammedans
+ celebrate to-day the flight of Mohammed, but that does not tend to prove
+ that Mohammed was inspired and was a prophet of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nobody can change a falsehood to a truth by the erection of a monument.
+ Monuments simply prove that people endeavor to substantiate truths and
+ falsehoods by the same means.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Letting the question as to hell hereafter rest for the
+ present, how do you account for the hell here&mdash;namely, the existence
+ of pain? There are people who, by no fault of their own, are at this
+ present time in misery. If for these there is no life to come, their
+ existence is a mistake; but if there is a life to come, it may be that the
+ sequel to the acts of the play to come will justify the pain and misery of
+ this present time?&mdash;Rev. Myron W. Reed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> There are four principal theories:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>&mdash;That there is behind the universe a being of infinite
+ power and wisdom, kindness, and justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>&mdash;That the universe has existed from eternity, and that
+ it is the only eternal existence, and that behind it is no creator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>&mdash;That there is a God who made the universe, but who is
+ not all-powerful and who is, under the circumstances, doing the best he
+ can.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth</i>&mdash;That there is an all-powerful God who made the
+ universe, and that there is also a nearly all-powerful devil, and this
+ devil ravels about as fast as this God knits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By the last theory, as taught by Plato, it is extremely easy to account
+ for the misery in this world. If we admit that there is a malevolent being
+ with power enough, and with cunning enough, to frequently circumvent God,
+ the problem of evil becomes solved so far as this world is concerned. But
+ why this being was evil is still unsolved; why the devil is malevolent is
+ still a mystery. Consequently you will have to go back of this world, on
+ that theory, to account for the origin of evil. If this devil always
+ existed, then, of course, the universe at one time was inhabited only by
+ this God and this devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the third theory is correct, we can account for the fact that God does
+ not see to it that justice is always done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the second theory is true, that the universe has existed from eternity,
+ and is without a creator, then we must account for the existence of evil
+ and good, not by personalities behind the universe, but by the nature of
+ things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is an infinitely good and wise being who created all, it seems to
+ me that he should have made a world in which innocence should be a
+ sufficient shield. He should have made a world where the just man should
+ have nothing to fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My belief is this: We are surrounded by obstacles. We are filled with
+ wants. We must have clothes. We must have food. We must protect ourselves
+ from sun and storm, from heat and cold. In our conflict with these
+ obstacles, with each other, and with what may be called the forces of
+ nature, all do not succeed. It is a fact in nature that like begets like;
+ that man gives his constitution, at least in part, to his children; that
+ weakness and strength are in some degree both hereditary. This is a fact
+ in nature. I do not hold any god responsible for this fact&mdash;filled as
+ it is with pain and joy. But it seems to me that an infinite God should so
+ have arranged matters that the bad would not pass&mdash;that it would die
+ with its possessor&mdash;that the good should survive, and that the man
+ should give to his son, not the result of his vices, but the fruit of his
+ virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot see why we should expect an infinite God to do better in another
+ world than he does in this. If he allows injustice to prevail here, why
+ will he not allow the same thing in the world to come? If there is any
+ being with power to prevent it, why is crime permitted? If a man standing
+ upon the railway should ascertain that a bridge had been carried off by a
+ flood, and if he also knew that the train was coming filled with men,
+ women, and children; with husbands going to their wives, and wives
+ rejoining their families; if he made no effort to stop that train; if he
+ simply sat down by the roadside to witness the catastrophe, and so
+ remained until the train dashed off the precipice, and its load of life
+ became a mass of quivering flesh, he would be denounced by every good man
+ as the most monstrous of human beings. And yet this is exactly what the
+ supposed God does. He, if he exists, sees the train rushing to the gulf.
+ He gives no notice. He sees the ship rushing for the hidden rock. He makes
+ no sign. And he so constructed the world that assassins lurk in the air&mdash;hide
+ even in the sunshine&mdash;and when we imagine that we are breathing the
+ breath of life, we are taking into ourselves the seeds of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are two facts inconsistent in my mind&mdash;a martyr and a God.
+ Injustice upon earth renders the justice of heaven impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would not take from those suffering in this world the hope of happiness
+ hereafter. My principal object has been to take away from them the fear of
+ eternal pain hereafter. Still, it is impossible for me to explain the
+ facts by which I am surrounded, if I admit the existence of an infinite
+ Being. I find in this world that physical and mental evils afflict the
+ good. It seems to me that I have the same reason to expect the bad to be
+ rewarded hereafter. I have no right to suppose that infinite wisdom will
+ ever know any more, or that infinite benevolence will increase in
+ kindness, or that the justice of the eternal can change. If, then, this
+ eternal being allows the good to suffer pain here, what right have we to
+ say that he will not allow them to suffer forever?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people have insisted that this life is a kind of school for the
+ production of self-denying men and women&mdash;that is, for the production
+ of character. The statistics show that a large majority die under five
+ years of age. What would we think of a schoolmaster who killed the most of
+ his pupils the first day? If this doctrine is true, and if manhood cannot
+ be produced in heaven, those who die in childhood are infinitely
+ unfortunate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that, although I do not understand the subject, still, all pain,
+ all misery may be for the best. I do not know. If there is an infinitely
+ wise Being, who is also infinitely powerful, then everything that happens
+ must be for the best. That philosophy of special providence, going to the
+ extreme, is infinitely better than most of the Christian creeds. There
+ seems to be no half-way house between special providence and atheism. You
+ know some of the Buddhists say that when a man commits murder, that is the
+ best thing he could have done, and that to be murdered was the best thing
+ that could have happened to the killed. They insist that every step taken
+ is the necessary step and the best step; that crimes are as necessary as
+ virtues, and that the fruit of crime and virtue is finally the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But whatever theories we have, we have at last to be governed by the
+ facts. We are in a world where vice, deformity, weakness, and disease are
+ hereditary. In the presence of this immense and solemn truth rises the
+ religion of the body. Every man should refuse to increase the misery of
+ this world. And it may be that the time will come when man will be great
+ enough and grand enough utterly to refrain from the propagation of disease
+ and deformity, and when only the healthy will be fathers and mothers. We
+ do know that the misery in this world can be lessened; consequently I
+ believe in the religion of this world. And whether there is a heaven or
+ hell here, or hereafter, every good man has enough to do to make this
+ world a little better than it is. Millions of lives are wasted in the vain
+ effort to find the origin of things, and the destiny of man. This world
+ has been neglected. We have been taught that life should be merely a
+ preparation for death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To avoid pain we must know the conditions of health. For the
+ accomplishment of this end we must rely upon investigation instead of
+ faith, upon labor in place of prayer. Most misery is produced by
+ ignorance. Passions sow the seeds of pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. State with what words you can comfort those who have, by
+ their own fault, or by the fault of others, found this life not worth
+ living?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> If there is no life beyond this, and so believing I come to
+ the bedside of the dying&mdash;of one whose life has been a failure&mdash;a
+ "life not worth living," I could at least say to such an one, "Your
+ failure ends with your death. Beyond the tomb there is nothing for you&mdash;neither
+ pain nor misery, neither grief nor joy." But if I were a good orthodox
+ Christen, then I would have to say to this man, "Your life has been a
+ failure; you have not been a Christian, and the failure will be extended
+ eternally; you have not only been a failure for a time, but you will be a
+ failure forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Admitting that there is another world, and that the man's life had been a
+ failure in this, then I should say to him, "If you live again, you will
+ have the eternal opportunity to reform. There will be no time, no date, no
+ matter how many millions and billions of ages may have passed away, at
+ which you will not have the opportunity of doing right."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under no circumstances could I consistently say to this man: "Although
+ your life has been a failure; although you have made hundreds and
+ thousands of others suffer; although you have deceived and betrayed the
+ woman who loved you; although you have murdered your benefactor; still, if
+ you will now repent and believe a something that is unreasonable or
+ reasonable to your mind, you will, at the moment of death, be transferred
+ to a world of eternal joy." This I could not say. I would tell him, "If
+ you die a bad man here, you will commence the life to come with the same
+ character you leave this. Character cannot be made by another for you. You
+ must be the architect of your own." There is to me unspeakably more
+ comfort in the idea that every failure ends here, than that it is to be
+ perpetuated forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can a Christian comfort the mother of a girl who has died without
+ believing in Christ? What doctrine is there in Christianity to wipe away
+ her tears? What words of comfort can you offer to the mother whose brave
+ boy fell in defence of his country, she knowing and you knowing, that the
+ boy was not a Christian, that he did not believe in the Bible, and had no
+ faith in the blood of the atonement? What words of comfort have you for
+ such fathers and for such mothers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me, there is no doctrine so infinitely absurd as the idea that this
+ life is a probationary state&mdash;that the few moments spent here decide
+ the fate of a human soul forever. Nothing can be conceived more merciless,
+ more unjust. I am doing all I can to destroy that doctrine. I want, if
+ possible, to get the shadow of hell from the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why has any life been a failure here? If God is a being of infinite wisdom
+ and kindness, why does he make failures? What excuse has infinite wisdom
+ for peopling the world with savages? Why should one feel grateful to God
+ for having made him with a poor, weak and diseased brain; for having
+ allowed him to be the heir of consumption, of scrofula, or of insanity?
+ Why should one thank God, who lived and died a slave?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, is it not of more importance to speak the absolute truth? Is it
+ not manlier to tell the fact than to endeavor to convey comfort through
+ falsehood? People must reap not only what they sow, but what others have
+ sown. The people of the whole world are united in spite of themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next to telling a man, whose life has been a failure, that he is to enjoy
+ an immortality of delight&mdash;next to that, is to assure him that a
+ place of eternal punishment does not exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, there are but few lives worth living in any great and splendid
+ sense. Nature seems filled with failure, and she has made no exception in
+ favor of man. To the greatest, to the most successful, there comes a time
+ when the fevered lips of life long for the cool, delicious kiss of death&mdash;when,
+ tired of the dust and glare of day, they hear with joy the rustling
+ garments of the night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Archibald Armstrong and Jonathan Newgate were fast friends. Their views in
+ regard to the question of a future life, and the existence of a God, were
+ in perfect accord. They said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'We know so little about these matters that we are not justified in
+ giving them any serious consideration. Our motto and rule of life shall be
+ for each one to make himself as comfortable as he can, and enjoy every
+ pleasure within his reach, not allowing himself to be influenced at all by
+ thoughts of a future life.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Both had some money. Archibald had a large amount. Once upon a time when
+ no human eye saw him&mdash;and he had no belief in a God&mdash;Jonathan
+ stole every dollar of his friend's wealth, leaving him penniless. He had
+ no fear, no remorse; no one saw him do the deed. He became rich, enjoyed
+ life immensely, lived in contentment and pleasure, until in mellow old age
+ he went the way of all flesh. Archibald fared badly. The odds were against
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "His money was gone. He lived in penury and discontent, dissatisfied with
+ mankind and with himself, until at last, overcome by misfortune, and
+ depressed by an incurable malady, he sought rest in painless suicide."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are we to think of the rule of life laid down by
+ these men? Was either of them inconsistent or illogical? Is there no
+ remedy to correct such irregularities?&mdash;Rev. D. O'Donaghue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> The Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue seems to entertain strange ideas as
+ to right and wrong. He tells us that Archibald Armstrong and Jonathan
+ Newgate concluded to make themselves as comfortable as they could and
+ enjoy every pleasure within their reach, and the Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue
+ states that one of the pleasures within the reach of Mr. Newgate was to
+ steal what little money Mr. Armstrong had. Does the reverend gentleman
+ think that Mr. Newgate made or could make himself comfortable in that way?
+ He tells us that Mr. Newgate "had no remorse,"&mdash;that he "became rich
+ and enjoyed life immensely,"&mdash;that he "lived in contentment and
+ pleasure, until, in mellow old age, he went the way of all flesh."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the reverend gentleman really believe that a man can steal without
+ fear, without remorse? Does he really suppose that one can enjoy the
+ fruits of theft, that a criminal can live a contented and happy life, that
+ one who has robbed his friend can reach a mellow and delightful old age?
+ Is this the philosophy of the Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right here I may be permitted to ask, Why did the Rev. Mr.
+ O'Donaghue's God allow a thief to live without fear, without remorse, to
+ enjoy life immensely and to reach a mellow old age? And why did he allow
+ Mr. Armstrong, who had been robbed, to live in penury and discontent,
+ until at last, overcome by misfortune, he sought rest in suicide? Does the
+ Rev. Mr. O'Donaghue mean to say that if there is no future life it is wise
+ to steal in this? If the grave is the eternal home, would the Rev. Mr.
+ O'Donaghue advise people to commit crimes in order that they may enjoy
+ this life? Such is not my philosophy. Whether there is a God or not, truth
+ is better than falsehood. Whether there is a heaven or hell, honesty is
+ always the best policy. There is no world, and can be none, where vice can
+ sow the seed of crime and reap the sheaves of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to my view, Mr. Armstrong was altogether more fortunate than Mr.
+ Newgate. I had rather be robbed than to be a robber, and I had rather be
+ of such a disposition that I would be driven to suicide by misfortune than
+ to live in contentment upon the misfortunes of others. The reverend
+ gentleman, however, should have made his question complete&mdash;he should
+ have gone the entire distance. He should have added that Mr. Newgate,
+ after having reached a mellow old age, was suddenly converted, joined the
+ church, and died in the odor of sanctity on the very day that his victim
+ committed suicide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I will answer the fable of the reverend gentleman with a fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A young man was in love with a girl. She was young, beautiful, and
+ trustful. She belonged to no church&mdash;knew nothing about a future
+ world&mdash;basked in the sunshine of this. All her life had been filled
+ with gentle deeds. The tears of pity had sanctified her cheeks. She
+ believed in no religion, worshiped no God, believed no Bible, but loved
+ everything. Her lover in a fit of jealous rage murdered her. He was tried;
+ convicted; a motion for a new trial overruled and a pardon refused. In his
+ cell, in the shadow of death, he was converted&mdash;he became a Catholic.
+ With the white lips of fear he confessed to a priest. He received the
+ sacrament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was hanged, and from the rope's end winged his way to the realms of
+ bliss. For months the murdered girl had suffered all the pains and pangs
+ of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor girl will endure the agony of the damned forever, while her
+ murderer will be ravished with angelic chant and song. Such is the justice
+ of the orthodox God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Allow me to use the language of the reverend gentleman: "Is there no
+ remedy to correct such irregularities?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as the idea of eternal punishment remains a part of the Christian
+ system, that system will be opposed by every man of heart and brain. Of
+ all religious dogmas it is the most shocking, infamous, and absurd. The
+ preachers of this doctrine are the enemies of human happiness; they are
+ the assassins of natural joy. Every father, every mother, every good man,
+ every loving woman, should hold this doctrine in abhorrence; they should
+ refuse to pay men for preaching it; they should not build churches in
+ which this infamy is taught; they should teach their little children that
+ it is a lie; they should take this horror from childhood's heart&mdash;a
+ horror that makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Brooklyn Union, 1883.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The clergymen who have been interviewed, almost
+ unanimously have declared that the church is suffering very little from
+ the skepticism of the day, and that the influence of the scientific
+ writers, whose opinions are regarded as atheistic or infidel, is not
+ great; and that the books of such writers are not read as much as some
+ people think they are. What is your opinion with regard to that subject?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> It is natural for a man to defend his business, to stand by
+ his class, his caste, his creed. And I suppose this accounts for the
+ ministers all saying that infidelity is not on the increase. By comparing
+ long periods of time, it is very easy to see the progress that has been
+ made. Only a few years ago men who are now considered quite orthodox would
+ have been imprisoned, or at least mobbed, for heresy. Only a few years ago
+ men like Huxley and Tyndall and Spencer and Darwin and Humboldt would have
+ been considered as the most infamous of monsters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago science was superstition's hired man. The scientific
+ men apologized for every fact they happened to find. With hat in hand they
+ begged pardon of the parson for finding a fossil, and asked the
+ forgiveness of God for making any discovery in nature. At that time every
+ scientific discovery was something to be pardoned. Moses was authority in
+ geology, and Joshua was considered the first astronomer of the world. Now
+ everything has changed, and everybody knows it except the clergy. Now
+ religion is taking off its hat to science. Religion is finding out new
+ meanings for old texts. We are told that God spoke in the language of the
+ common people; that he was not teaching any science; that he allowed his
+ children not only to remain in error, but kept them there. It is now
+ admitted that the Bible is no authority on any question of natural fact;
+ it is inspired only in morality, in a spiritual way. All, except the
+ Brooklyn ministers, see that the Bible has ceased to be regarded as
+ authority. Nobody appeals to a passage to settle a dispute of fact. The
+ most intellectual men of the world laugh at the idea of inspiration. Men
+ of the greatest reputations hold all supernaturalism in contempt. Millions
+ of people are reading the opinions of men who combat and deny the
+ foundation of orthodox Christianity. Humboldt stands higher than all the
+ apostles. Darwin has done more to change human thought than all the
+ priests who have existed. Where there was one infidel twenty-five years
+ ago, there are one hundred now. I can remember when I would be the only
+ infidel in the town. Now I meet them thick as autumn leaves; they are
+ everywhere. In all the professions, trades, and employments, the orthodox
+ creeds are despised. They are not simply disbelieved; they are execrated.
+ They are regarded, not with indifference, but with passionate hatred.
+ Thousands and hundreds of thousands of mechanics in this country abhor
+ orthodox Christianity. Millions of educated men hold in immeasurable
+ contempt the doctrine of eternal punishment. The doctrine of atonement is
+ regarded as absurd by millions. So with the dogma of imputed guilt,
+ vicarious virtue, and vicarious vice. I see that the Rev. Dr. Eddy advises
+ ministers not to answer the arguments of infidels in the pulpit, and gives
+ this wonderful reason: That the hearers will get more doubts from the
+ answer than from reading the original arguments. So the Rev. Dr. Hawkins
+ admits that he cannot defend Christianity from infidel attacks without
+ creating more infidelity. So the Rev. Dr. Haynes admits that he cannot
+ answer the theories of Robertson Smith in popular addresses. The only
+ minister who feels absolutely safe on this subject, so far as his
+ congregation is concerned, seems to be the Rev. Joseph Pullman. He
+ declares that the young people in his church don't know enough to have
+ intelligent doubts, and that the old people are substantially in the same
+ condition. Mr. Pullman feels that he is behind a breastwork so strong that
+ other defence is unnecessary. So the Rev. Mr. Foote thinks that infidelity
+ should never be refuted in the pulpit. I admit that it never has been
+ successfully done, but I did not suppose so many ministers admitted the
+ impossibility. Mr. Foote is opposed to all public discussion. Dr. Wells
+ tells us that scientific atheism should be ignored; that it should not be
+ spoken of in the pulpit. The Rev, Dr. Van Dyke has the same feeling of
+ security enjoyed by Dr. Pullman, and he declares that the great majority
+ of the Christian people of to-day know nothing about current infidel
+ theories. His idea is to let them remain in ignorance; that it would be
+ dangerous for the Christian minister even to state the position of the
+ infidel; that, after stating it, he might not, even with the help of God,
+ successfully combat the theory. These ministers do not agree. Dr.
+ Carpenter accounts for infidelity by nicotine in the blood. It is all
+ smoke.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He thinks the blood of the human family has deteriorated. He thinks that
+ the church is safe because the Christians read. He differs with his
+ brothers Pullman and Van Dyke. So the Rev. George E. Reed believes that
+ infidelity should be discussed in the pulpit. He has more confidence in
+ his general and in the weapons of his warfare than some of his brethren.
+ His confidence may arise from the fact that he has never had a discussion.
+ The Rev. Dr. McClelland thinks the remedy is to stick by the catechism;
+ that there is not now enough of authority; not enough of the brute force;
+ thinks that the family, the church, and the state ought to use the rod;
+ that the rod is the salvation of the world; that the rod is a divine
+ institution; that fathers ought to have it for their children; that
+ mothers ought to use it. This is a part of the religion of universal love.
+ The man who cannot raise children without whipping them ought not to have
+ them. The man who would mar the flesh of a boy or girl is unfit to have
+ the control of a human being. The father who keeps a rod in his house
+ keeps a relic of barbarism in his heart. There is nothing reformatory in
+ punishment; nothing reformatory in fear. Kindness, guided by intelligence,
+ is the only reforming force. An appeal to brute force is an abandonment of
+ love and reason, and puts father and child upon a savage equality; the
+ savageness in the heart of the father prompting the use of the rod or
+ club, produces a like savageness in the victim; The old idea that a
+ child's spirit must be broken is infamous. All this is passing away,
+ however, with orthodox Christianity. That children are treated better than
+ formerly shows conclusively the increase of what is called infidelity.
+ Infidelity has always been a protest against tyranny in the state, against
+ intolerance in the church, against barbarism in the family. It has always
+ been an appeal for light, for justice, for universal kindness and
+ tenderness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The ministers say, I believe, Colonel, that worldliness
+ is the greatest foe to the church, and admit that it is on the increase?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I see that all the ministers you have interviewed regard
+ worldliness as the great enemy of the church. What is worldliness? I
+ suppose worldliness consists in paying attention to the affairs of this
+ world; getting enjoyment out of this life; gratifying the senses, giving
+ the ears music, the eyes painting and sculpture, the palate good food;
+ cultivating the imagination; playing games of chance; adorning the person;
+ developing the body; enriching the mind; investigating the facts by which
+ we are surrounded; building homes; rocking cradles; thinking; working;
+ inventing; buying; selling; hoping&mdash;all this, I suppose, is
+ worldliness. These "worldly" people have cleared the forests, plowed the
+ land, built the cities, the steamships, the telegraphs, and have produced
+ all there is of worth and wonder in the world. Yet the preachers denounce
+ them. Were it not for "worldly" people how would the preachers get along?
+ Who would build the churches? Who would fill the contribution boxes and
+ plates, and who (most serious of all questions) would pay the salaries? It
+ is the habit of the ministers to belittle men who support them&mdash;to
+ slander the spirit by which they live. "It is as though the mouth should
+ tear the hand that feeds it." The nobility of the Old World hold the
+ honest workingman in contempt, and yet are so contemptible themselves that
+ they are willing to live upon his labor. And so the minister pretending to
+ be spiritual&mdash;pretending to be a spiritual guide&mdash;looks with
+ contempt upon the men who make it possible for him to live. It may be said
+ by "worldliness" they only mean enjoyment&mdash;that is, hearing music,
+ going to the theater and the opera, taking a Sunday excursion to the
+ silvery margin of the sea. Of course, ministers look upon theaters as
+ rival attractions, and most of their hatred is born of business views.
+ They think people ought to be driven to church by having all other places
+ closed. In my judgment the theater has done good, while the church has
+ done harm. The drama never has insisted upon burning anybody. Persecution
+ is not born of the stage. On the contrary, upon the stage have forever
+ been found impersonations of patriotism, heroism, courage, fortitude, and
+ justice, and these impersonations have always been applauded, and have
+ been represented that they might be applauded. In the pulpit, hypocrites
+ have been worshiped; upon the stage they have been held up to derision and
+ execration. Shakespeare has done far more for the world than the Bible.
+ The ministers keep talking about spirituality as opposed to worldliness.
+ Nothing can be more absurd than this talk of spirituality. As though
+ readers of the Bible, repeaters of texts, and sayers of prayers were
+ engaged in a higher work than honest industry. Is there anything higher
+ than human love? A man is in love with a girl, and he has determined to
+ work for her and to give his life that she may have a life of joy. Is
+ there anything more spiritual than that&mdash;anything higher? They marry.
+ He clears some land. He fences a field. He builds a cabin; and she, of
+ this hovel, makes a happy home. She plants flowers, puts a few simple
+ things of beauty upon the walls. This is what the preachers call
+ "worldliness." Is there anything more spiritual? In a little while, in
+ this cabin, in this home, is heard the drowsy rhythm of the cradle's rock,
+ while softly floats the lullaby upon the twilight air. Is there anything
+ more spiritual, is there anything more infinitely tender than to see
+ husband and wife bending, with clasped hands, over a cradle, gazing upon
+ the dimpled miracle of love? I say it is spiritual to work for those you
+ love; spiritual to improve the physical condition of mankind&mdash;for he
+ who improves the physical condition improves the mental. I believe in the
+ plowers instead of the prayers. I believe in the new firm of "Health &amp;
+ Heresy" rather than the old partnership of "Disease &amp; Divinity," doing
+ business at the old sign of the "Skull &amp; Crossbones." Some of the
+ ministers that you have interviewed, or at least one of them, tells us the
+ cure for worldliness. He says that God is sending fires, and cyclones, and
+ things of that character for the purpose of making people spiritual; of
+ calling their attention to the fact that everything in this world is of a
+ transitory nature. The clergy have always had great faith in famine, in
+ affliction, in pestilence. They know that a man is a thousand times more
+ apt to thank God for a crust or a crumb than for a banquet. They know that
+ prosperity has the same effect on the average Christian that thick soup
+ has, according to Bumble, on the English pauper: "It makes 'em impudent."
+ The devil made a mistake in not doubling Job's property instead of leaving
+ him a pauper. In prosperity the ministers think that we forget death and
+ are too happy. In the arms of those we love, the dogma of eternal fire is
+ for the moment forgotten. According to the ministers, God kills our
+ children in order that we may not forget him. They imagine that the man
+ who goes into Dakota, cultivates the soil and rears him a little home, is
+ getting too "worldly." And so God starts a cyclone to scatter his home and
+ the limbs of wife and children upon the desolate plains, and the ministers
+ in Brooklyn say this is done because we are getting too "worldly." They
+ think we should be more "spiritual;" that is to say, willing to live upon
+ the labor of others; willing to ask alms, saying, in the meantime, "It is
+ more blessed to give than to receive." If this is so, why not give the
+ money back? "Spiritual" people are those who eat oatmeal and prunes, have
+ great confidence in dried apples, read Cowper's "Task" and Pollok's
+ "Course of Time," laugh at the jokes in <i>Harper's Monthly</i>, wear
+ clothes shiny at the knees and elbows, and call all that has elevated the
+ world "beggarly elements."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Some of the clergymen who have been interviewed admit
+ that the rich and poor no longer meet together, and deprecate the
+ establishment of mission chapels in connection with the large and
+ fashionable churches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> The early Christians supposed that the end of the world was
+ at hand. They were all sitting on the dock waiting for the ship. In the
+ presence of such a belief what are known as class distinctions could not
+ easily exist. Most of them were exceedingly poor, and poverty is a bond of
+ union. As a rule, people are hospitable in the proportion that they lack
+ wealth. In old times, in the West, a stranger was always welcome. He took
+ in part the place of the newspaper. He was a messenger from the older
+ parts of the country. Life was monotonous. The appearance of the traveler
+ gave variety. As people grow wealthy they grow exclusive. As they become
+ educated there is a tendency to pick their society. It is the same in the
+ church. The church no longer believes the creed, no longer acts as though
+ the creed were true. If the rich man regarded the sermon as a means of
+ grace, as a kind of rope thrown by the minister to a man just above the
+ falls; if he regarded it as a lifeboat, or as a lighthouse, he would not
+ allow his coachman to remain outside. If he really believed that the
+ coachman had an immortal soul, capable of eternal joy, liable to
+ everlasting pain, he would do his utmost to make the calling and election
+ of the said coachman sure. As a matter of fact the rich man now cares but
+ little for servants. They are not included in the scheme of salvation,
+ except as a kind of job lot. The church has become a club. It is a social
+ affair, and the rich do not care to associate in the week days with the
+ poor they may happen to meet at church. As they expect to be in heaven
+ together forever, they can afford to be separated here. There will
+ certainly be time enough there to get acquainted. Another thing is the
+ magnificence of the churches. The church depends absolutely upon the rich.
+ Poor people feel out of place in such magnificent buildings. They drop
+ into the nearest seat; like poor relations, they sit on the extreme edge
+ of the chair. At the table of Christ they are below the salt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are constantly humiliated. When subscriptions are asked for they feel
+ ashamed to have their mite compared with the thousands given by the
+ millionaire. The pennies feel ashamed to mingle with the silver in the
+ contribution plate. The result is that most of them avoid the church. It
+ costs too much to worship God in public. Good clothes are necessary,
+ fashionably cut. The poor come in contact with too much silk, too many
+ jewels, too many evidences of what is generally assumed to be superiority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would this state of affairs be remedied if, instead of
+ churches, we had societies of ethical culture? Would not the rich there
+ predominate and the poor be just as much out of place?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I think the effect would be precisely the same, no matter
+ what the society is, what object it has, if composed of rich and poor.
+ Class distinctions, to a greater or less extent, will creep in&mdash;in
+ fact, they do not have to creep in. They are there at the commencement,
+ and they are born of the different conditions of the members.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These class distinctions are not always made by men of wealth. For
+ instance, some men obtain money, and are what we call snobs. Others obtain
+ it and retain their democratic principles, and meet men according to the
+ law of affinity, or general intelligence, on intellectual grounds, for
+ instance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not only the distinction produced by wealth and power, but there
+ are the distinctions born of intelligence, of culture, of character, of
+ end, object, aim in life. No one can blame an honest mechanic for holding
+ a wealthy snob in utter contempt. Neither can any one blame respectable
+ poverty for declining to associate with arrogant wealth. The right to make
+ the distinction is with all classes, and with the individuals of all
+ classes. It is impossible to have any society for any purpose&mdash;that
+ is, where they meet together&mdash;without certain embarrassments being
+ produced by these distinctions. Nowt for instance, suppose there should be
+ a society simply of intelligent and cultured people. There, wealth, to a
+ great degree, would be disregarded. But, after all, the distinction that
+ intelligence draws between talent and genius is as marked and cruel as was
+ ever drawn between poverty and wealth. Wherever the accomplishment of some
+ object is deemed of such vast importance that, for the moment, all minor
+ distinctions are forgotten, then it is possible for the rich and poor, the
+ ignorant and intelligent, to act in concert. This happens in political
+ parties, in time of war, and it has also happened whenever a new religion
+ has been founded. Whenever the rich wish the assistance of the poor,
+ distinctions are forgotten. It is upon the same principle that we gave
+ liberty to the slave during the Civil war, and clad him in the uniform of
+ the nation; we wanted him, we needed him; and, for the time, we were
+ perfectly willing to forget the distinction of color. Common peril
+ produces pure democracy. It is with societies as with individuals. A poor
+ young man coming to New York, bent upon making his fortune, begins to talk
+ about the old fogies; holds in contempt many of the rules and regulations
+ of the trade; is loud in his denunciation of monopoly; wants competition;
+ shouts for fair play, and is a real democrat. But let him succeed; let him
+ have a palace in Fifth Avenue, with his monogram on spoons and coaches;
+ then, instead of shouting for liberty, he will call for more police. He
+ will then say: "We want protection; the rabble must be put down." We have
+ an aristocracy of wealth. In some parts of our country an aristocracy of
+ literature&mdash;men and women who imagine themselves writers and who hold
+ in contempt all people who cannot express commonplaces in the most elegant
+ diction&mdash;people who look upon a mistake in grammar as far worse than
+ a crime. So, in some communities we have an aristocracy of muscle. The
+ only true aristocracy, probably, is that of kindness. Intellect, without
+ heart, is infinitely cruel; as cruel as wealth without a sense of justice;
+ as cruel as muscle without mercy. So that, after all, the real aristocracy
+ must be that of goodness where the intellect is directed by the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You say that the aristocracy of intellect is quite as
+ cruel as the aristocracy of wealth&mdash;what do you mean by that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> By intellect, I mean simply intellect; that is to say, the
+ aristocracy of education&mdash;of simple brain&mdash;expressed in
+ innumerable ways&mdash;in invention, painting, sculpture, literature. And
+ I meant to say that that aristocracy was as cruel as that of simple
+ arrogant wealth. After all, why should a man be proud of something given
+ him by nature&mdash;something that he did not earn, did not produce&mdash;something
+ that he could not help? Is it not more reasonable to be proud of wealth
+ which you have accumulated than of brain which nature gave you? And, to
+ carry this idea clearly out, why should we be proud of anything? Is there
+ any proper occasion on which to crow? If you succeed, your success crows
+ for you; if you fail, certainly crowing is not in the best of taste. And
+ why should a man be proud of brain? Why should he be proud of disposition
+ or of good acts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You speak of the cruelty of the intellect, and yet, of
+ course, you must recognize the right of every one to select his own
+ companions. Would it be arrogant for the intellectual man to prefer the
+ companionship of people of his own class in preference to commonplace and
+ unintelligent persons?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> All men should have the same rights, and one right that
+ every man should have is to associate with congenial people. There are
+ thousands of good men whose society I do not covet. They may be stupid, or
+ they may be stupid only in the direction in which I am interested, and may
+ be exceedingly intelligent as to matters about which I care nothing. In
+ either case they are not congenial. They have the right to select
+ congenial company; so have I. And while distinctions are thus made, they
+ are not cruel; they are not heartless. They are for the good of all
+ concerned, spring naturally from the circumstances, and are consistent
+ with the highest philanthropy. Why we notice these distinctions in the
+ church more than we do in the club is that the church talks one way and
+ acts another; because the church insists that a certain line of conduct is
+ essential to salvation, and that every human being is in danger of eternal
+ pain. If the creed were true, then, in the presence of such an infinite
+ verity, all earthly distinctions should instantly vanish. Every Christian
+ should exert himself for the salvation of the soul of a beggar with the
+ same degree of earnestness that he would show to save a king. The
+ accidents of wealth, education, social position, should be esteemed as
+ naught, and the richest should gladly work side by side with the poorest.
+ The churches will never reach the poor as long as they sell pews; as long
+ as the rich members wear their best clothes on Sunday. As long as the
+ fashions of the drawing-room are taken to the table of the last supper,
+ the poor will remain in the highways and hedges. Present fashion is more
+ powerful than faith. So long as the ministers shut up their churches, and
+ allow the poor to go to hell in summer; as long as they leave the devil
+ without a competitor for three months in the year, the churches will not
+ materially impede the march of human progress. People often, unconsciously
+ and without any malice, say something or do something that throws an
+ unexpected light upon a question. The other day, in one of the New York
+ comic papers, there was a picture representing the foremost preachers of
+ the country at the seaside together. It was regarded as a joke that they
+ could enjoy each others society. These ministers are supposed to be the
+ apostles of the religion of kindness. They tell us to love even our
+ enemies, and yet the idea that they could associate happily together is
+ regarded as a joke! After all, churches are like other institutions, they
+ have to be managed, and they now rely upon music and upon elocution rather
+ than upon the gospel. They are becoming social affairs. They are giving up
+ the doctrine of eternal punishment, and have consequently lost their hold.
+ The orthodox churches used to tell us there was to be a fire, and they
+ offered to insure; and as long as the fire was expected the premiums were
+ paid and the policies were issued. Then came the Universalist Church,
+ saying that there would be no fire, and yet asking the people to insure.
+ For such a church there is no basis. It undoubtedly did good by its
+ influence upon other churches. So with the Unitarian. That church has no
+ basis for organization; no reason, because no hell is threatened, and
+ heaven is but faintly promised. Just as the churches have lost their
+ belief in eternal fire, they have lost their influence, and the reason
+ they have lost their belief is on account of the diffusion of knowledge.
+ That doctrine is becoming absurd and infamous. Intelligent people are
+ ashamed to broach it. Intelligent people can no longer believe it. It is
+ regarded with horror, and the churches must finally abandon it, and when
+ they do, that is the end of the church militant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you say to the progress of the Roman Catholic
+ Church, in view of the fact that they have not changed their belief, in
+ any particular, in regard to future punishment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Neither Catholicism nor Protestantism will ever win another
+ battle. The last victory of Protestantism was won in Holland. Nations have
+ not been converted since then. The time has passed to preach with sword
+ and gun, and for that reason Catholicism can win no more victories. That
+ church increases in this country mostly from immigration. Catholicism does
+ not belong to the New World. It is at war with the idea of our Government,
+ antagonistic to true republicanism, and is in every sense anti-American.
+ The Catholic Church does not control its members. That church prevents no
+ crime. It is not in favor of education. It is not the friend of liberty.
+ In Europe it is now used as a political power, but here it dare not assert
+ itself. There are thousands of good Catholics. As a rule they probably
+ believe the creed of the church. That church has lost the power to
+ anathematize. It can no longer burn. It must now depend upon other forces&mdash;upon
+ persuasion, sophistry, ignorance, fear, and heredity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have stated your objections to the churches, what
+ would you have to take their place?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> There was a time when men had to meet together for the
+ purpose of being told the law. This was before printing, and for hundreds
+ and hundreds of years most people depended for their information on what
+ they heard. The ear was the avenue to the brain. There was a time, of
+ course, when Freemasonry was necessary, so that a man could carry, not
+ only all over his own country, but to another, a certificate that he was a
+ gentleman; that he was an honest man. There was a time, and it was
+ necessary, for the people to assemble. They had no books, no papers, no
+ way of reaching each other. But now all that is changed. The daily press
+ gives you the happenings of the world. The libraries give you the thoughts
+ of the greatest and best. Every man of moderate means can command the
+ principal sources of information. There is no necessity for going to the
+ church and hearing the same story forever. Let the minister write what he
+ wishes to say. Let him publish it. If it is worth buying, people will read
+ it. It is hardly fair to get them in a church in the name of duty and
+ there inflict upon them a sermon that under no circumstances they would
+ read. Of course, there will always be meetings, occasions when people come
+ together to exchange ideas, to hear what a man has to say upon some
+ questions, but the idea of going fifty-two days in a year to hear anybody
+ on the same subject is absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would you include a man like Henry Ward Beecher in that
+ statement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Beecher is interesting just in proportion that he is not
+ orthodox, and he is altogether more interesting when talking against his
+ creed. He delivered a sermon the other day in Chicago, in which he takes
+ the ground that Christianity is kindness, and that, consequently, no one
+ could be an infidel. Every one believes in kindness, at least
+ theoretically. In that sermon he throws away all creed, and comes to the
+ conclusion that Christianity is a life, not an aggregation of intellectual
+ convictions upon certain subjects. The more sermons like that are
+ preached, probably the better. What I intended was the eternal repetition
+ of the old story: That God made the world and a man, and then allowed the
+ devil to tempt him, and then thought of a scheme of salvation, of
+ vicarious atonement, 1500 years afterwards; drowned everybody except Noah
+ and his family, and afterward, when he failed to civilize the Jewish
+ people, came in person and suffered death, and announced the doctrine that
+ all who believed on him would be saved, and those who did not, eternally
+ lost. Now, this story, with occasional references to the patriarchs and
+ the New Jerusalem, and the exceeding heat of perdition, and the wonderful
+ joys of Paradise, is the average sermon, and this story is told again,
+ again, and again, by the same men, listened to by the same people without
+ any effect except to tire the speaker and the hearer. If all the ministers
+ would take their texts from Shakespeare; if they would read every Sunday a
+ selection from some of the great plays, the result would be infinitely
+ better. They would all learn something; the mind would be enlarged, and
+ the sermon would appear short. Nothing has shown more clearly the
+ intellectual barrenness of the pulpit than baccalaureate sermons lately
+ delivered. The dignified dullness, the solemn stupidity of these addresses
+ has never been excelled. No question was met. The poor candidates for the
+ ministry were given no new weapons. Armed with the theological flintlock
+ of a century ago, they were ordered to do battle for doctrines older than
+ their weapons. They were told to rely on prayer, to answer all arguments
+ by keeping out of discussions, and to overwhelm the skeptic by ignoring
+ the facts. There was a time when the Protestant clergy were in favor of
+ education; that is to say, education enough to make a Catholic a
+ Protestant, but not enough to make a Protestant a philosopher. The
+ Catholics are also in favor of education enough to make a savage a
+ Catholic, and there they stop. The Christian should never unsettle his
+ belief. If he studies, if he reads, he is in danger. A new idea is a
+ doubt; a doubt is the threshold of infidelity. The young ministers are
+ warned against inquiry. They are educated like robins; they swallow
+ whatever is thrown in the mouth, worms or shingle-nails, it makes no
+ difference, and they are expected to get their revenge by treating their
+ flocks precisely as the professors treated them. The creeds of the
+ churches are being laughed at. Thousands of young men say nothing, because
+ they do not wish to hurt the feelings of mothers and maiden aunts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of business men say nothing, for fear it may interfere with
+ trade. Politicians keep quiet for fear of losing influence. But when you
+ get at the real opinions of people, a vast majority have outgrown the
+ doctrines of orthodox Christianity. Some people think these things good
+ for women and children, and use the Lord as an immense policeman to keep
+ order. Every day ministers are uttering a declaration of independence.
+ They are being examined by synods and committees of ministers, and they
+ are beginning everywhere to say that they do not regard this life as a
+ probationary stage; that the doctrine of eternal punishment is too bad;
+ that the Bible is, in many things, foolish, absurd, and infamous; that it
+ must have been written by men. And the people at large are beginning to
+ find that the ministers have kept back the facts; have not told the
+ history of the Bible; have not given to their congregations the latest
+ advices, and so the feeling is becoming almost general that orthodox
+ Christianity has outlived its usefulness. The church has a great deal to
+ contend with. The scientific men are not religious. Geology laughs at
+ Genesis, and astronomy has concluded that Joshua knew but very little of
+ the motions of heavenly bodies. Statesmen do not approve of the laws of
+ Moses; the intellect of the world is on the other side. There is something
+ besides preaching on Sunday. The newspaper is the rival of the pulpit.
+ Nearly all the cars are running on that blessed day. Steamers take
+ hundreds of thousands of excursionists. The man who has been at work all
+ the week seeks the sight of the sea, and this has become so universal that
+ the preacher is following his example. The flock has ceased to be afraid
+ of the wolf, and the shepherd deserts the sheep. In a little while all the
+ libraries will be open&mdash;all the museums. There will be music in the
+ public parks; the opera, the theater. And what will churches do then? The
+ cardinal points will be demonstrated to empty pews, unless the church is
+ wise enough to meet the intellectual demands of the present.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You speak as if the influences working against
+ Christianity to-day will tend to crush it out of existence. Do you think
+ that Christianity is any worse off now than it was during the French
+ Revolution, when the priests were banished from the country and reason was
+ worshiped; or in England, a hundred years ago, when Hume, Bolingbroke, and
+ others made their attacks upon it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> You must remember that the French Revolution was produced
+ by Catholicism; that it was a reaction; that it went to infinite extremes;
+ that it was a revolution seeking revenge. It is not hard to understand
+ those times, provided you know the history of the Catholic Church. The
+ seeds of the French Revolution were sown by priests and kings. The people
+ had suffered the miseries of slavery for a thousand years, and the French
+ Revolution came because human nature could bear the wrongs no longer. It
+ was something not reasoned; it was felt. Only a few acted from
+ intellectual convictions. The most were stung to madness, and were carried
+ away with the desire to destroy. They wanted to shed blood, to tear down
+ palaces, to cut throats, and in some way avenge the wrongs of all the
+ centuries. Catholicism has never recovered&mdash;it never will. The dagger
+ of Voltaire struck the heart; the wound was mortal. Catholicism has
+ staggered from that day to this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been losing power every moment. At the death of Voltaire there were
+ twenty millions less Catholics than when he was born. In the French
+ Revolution muscle outran mind; revenge anticipated reason. There was
+ destruction without the genius of construction. They had to use materials
+ that had been rendered worthless by ages of Catholicism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The French Revolution was a failure because the French people were a
+ failure, and the French people were a failure because Catholicism had made
+ them so. The ministers attack Voltaire without reading him. Probably there
+ are not a dozen orthodox ministers in the world who have read the works of
+ Voltaire. I know of no one who has. Only a little while ago, a minister
+ told me he had read Voltaire. I offered him one hundred dollars to repeat
+ a paragraph, or to give the title, even, of one of Voltaire's volumes.
+ Most ministers think he was an atheist. The trouble with the infidels in
+ England a hundred years ago was that they did not go far enough. It may be
+ that they could not have gone further and been allowed to live. Most of
+ them took the ground that there was an infinite, all-wise, beneficent God,
+ creator of the universe, and that this all-wise, beneficent God certainly
+ was too good to be the author of the Bible. They, however, insisted that
+ this good God was the author of nature, and the theologians completely
+ turned the tables by showing that this god of nature was in the pestilence
+ and plague business, manufactured earthquakes, overwhelmed towns and
+ cities, and was, of necessity, the author of all pain and agony. In my
+ judgment, the Deists were all successfully answered. The god of nature is
+ certainly as bad as the God of the Old Testament. It is only when we
+ discard the idea of a deity, the idea of cruelty or goodness in nature,
+ that we are able ever to bear with patience the ills of life. I feel that
+ I am neither a favorite nor a victim. Nature neither loves nor hates me. I
+ do not believe in the existence of any personal god. I regard the universe
+ as the one fact, as the one existence&mdash;that is, as the absolute
+ thing. I am a part of this. I do not say that there is no God; I simply
+ say that I do not believe there is. There may be millions of them. Neither
+ do I say that man is not immortal. Upon that point I admit that I do not
+ know, and the declarations of all the priests in the world upon that
+ subject give me no light, and do not even tend to add to my information on
+ the subject, because I know that they know that they do not know. The
+ infidelity of a hundred years ago knew nothing, comparatively speaking, of
+ geology; nothing of astronomy; nothing of the ideas of Lamarck and Darwin;
+ nothing of evolution; nothing, comparatively speaking, of other religions;
+ nothing of India, that womb of metaphysics; in other words, the infidels
+ of a hundred years ago knew the creed of orthodox Christianity to be
+ false, but had not the facts to demonstrate it. The infidels of to-day
+ have the facts; that is the difference. A hundred years ago it was a
+ guessing prophecy; to-day it is the fact and fulfillment. Everything in
+ nature is working against superstition to-day. Superstition is like a
+ thorn in the flesh, and everything, from dust to stars, is working
+ together to destroy the false. The smallest pebble answers the greatest
+ parson. One blade of grass, rightly understood, destroys the orthodox
+ creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You say that the pews will be empty in the future unless
+ the church meets the intellectual demands of the present. Are not the
+ ministers of to-day, generally speaking, much more intellectual than those
+ of a hundred years ago, and are not the "liberal" views in regard to the
+ inspiration of the Bible, the atonement, future punishment, the fall of
+ man, and the personal divinity of Christ which openly prevail in many
+ churches, an indication that the church is meeting the demands of many
+ people who do not care to be classed as out-and-out disbelievers in
+ Christianity, but who have advanced views on those and other questions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> As to the first part of this question, I do not think the
+ ministers of to-day are more intellectual than they were a hundred years
+ ago; that is, I do not think they have greater brain capacity, but I think
+ on the average, the congregations have a higher amount. The amelioration
+ of orthodox Christianity is not by the intelligence in the pulpit, but by
+ the brain in the pews. Another thing: One hundred years ago the church had
+ intellectual honors to bestow. The pulpit opened a career. Not so now.
+ There are too many avenues to distinction and wealth&mdash;too much
+ worldliness. The best minds do not go into the pulpit. Martyrs had rather
+ be burned than laughed at. Most ministers of to-day are not naturally
+ adapted to other professions promising eminence. There are some great
+ exceptions, but those exceptions are the ministers nearest infidels.
+ Theodore Parker was a great man. Henry Ward Beecher is a great man&mdash;not
+ the most consistent man in the world&mdash;but he is certainly a man of
+ mark, a remarkable genius. If he could only get rid of the idea that
+ Plymouth Church is necessary to him&mdash;after that time he would not
+ utter an orthodox word. Chapin was a man of mind. I might mention some
+ others, but, as a rule, the pulpit is not remarkable for intelligence. The
+ intelligent men of the world do not believe in orthodox Christianity. It
+ is to-day a symptom of intellectual decay. The conservative ministers are
+ the stupid ones. The conservative professors are those upon whose ideas
+ will be found the centuries' moss, old red sandstone theories,
+ pre-historic silurian. Now, as to the second part of the question: The
+ views of the church are changing, the clergy of Brooklyn to the contrary,
+ notwithstanding. Orthodox religion is a kind of boa-constrictor; anything
+ it can not dodge it will swallow. The church is bound to have something
+ for sale that somebody wants to buy. According to the pew demand will be
+ the pulpit supply. In old times the pulpit dictated to the pews. Things
+ have changed. Theology is now run on business principles. The gentleman
+ who pays for the theories insists on having them suit him. Ministers are
+ intellectual gardeners, and they must supply the market with such
+ religious vegetables as the congregations desire. Thousands have given up
+ belief in the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, the
+ atonement idea and original sin. Millions believe now, that this is not a
+ state of probation; that a man, provided he is well off and has given
+ liberally to the church, or whose wife has been a regular attendant, will,
+ in the next world, have another chance; that he will be permitted to file
+ a motion for a new trial. Others think that hell is not as warm as it used
+ to be supposed; that, while it is very hot in the middle of the day, the
+ nights are cool; and that, after all, there is not so much to fear from
+ the future. They regard the old religion as very good for the poor, and
+ they give them the old ideas on the same principle that they give them
+ their old clothes. These ideas, out at the elbows, out at the knees,
+ buttons off, somewhat raveled, will, after all, do very well for paupers.
+ There is a great trade of this kind going on now&mdash;selling old
+ theological clothes to the colored people in the South. All I have said
+ applies to all churches. The Catholic Church changes every day. It does
+ not change its ceremonies; but the spirit that begot the ceremonies, the
+ spirit that clothed the skeleton of ceremony with the flesh and blood and
+ throb of life and love, is gone. The spirit that built the cathedrals, the
+ spirit that emptied the wealth of the world into the lap of Rome, has
+ turned in another direction. Of course, the churches are all going to
+ endeavor to meet the demands of the hour. They will find new readings for
+ old texts. They will re-punctuate and re-parse the Old Testament. They
+ will find that "flat" meant "a little rounding;" that "six days" meant
+ "six long times;" that the word "flood" should have been translated
+ "dampness," "dew," or "threatened rain;" that Daniel in the lion's den was
+ an historical myth; that Samson and his foxes had nothing to do with this
+ world. All these things will be gradually explained and made to harmonize
+ with the facts of modern science. They will not change the words of the
+ creed; they will simply give "new meanings and the highest criticism
+ to-day is that which confesses and avoids. In other words, the churches
+ will change as the people change. They will keep for sale that which can
+ be sold. Already the old goods are being "marked down." If, however, the
+ church should fail, why then it must go. I see no reason, myself, for its
+ existence. It apparently does no good; it devours without producing; it
+ eats without planting, and is a perpetual burden. It teaches nothing of
+ value. It misleads, mystifies, and misrepresents. It threatens without
+ knowledge and promises without power. In my judgment, the quicker it goes
+ the better for all mankind. But if it does not go in name, it must go in
+ fact, because it must change; and, therefore, it is only a question of
+ time when it ceases to divert from useful channels the blood and muscle of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You say that in the baccalaureate sermons delivered
+ lately the theological students were told to answer arguments by keeping
+ out of discussion. Is it not the fact that ministers have of late years
+ preached very largely on scientific disbelief, agnosticism, and
+ infidelity, so much so as to lead to their being reprimanded by some of
+ their more conservative brethren?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Of course there are hundreds of thousands of ministers
+ perpetually endeavoring to answer infidelity. Their answers have done so
+ much harm that the more conservative among the clergy have advised them to
+ stop. Thousands have answered me, and their answers, for the most part,
+ are like this: Paine was a blackguard, therefore the geology of Genesis is
+ on a scientific basis. We know the doctrine of the atonement is true,
+ because in the French Revolution they worshiped reason. And we know, too,
+ all about the fall of man and the Garden of Eden because Voltaire was
+ nearly frightened to death when he came to die. These are the usual
+ arguments, supplemented by a few words concerning myself. And, in my view,
+ they are the best that can be made. Failing to answer a man's argument,
+ the next best thing is to attack his character. "You have no case," said
+ an attorney to the plaintiff. "No matter," said the plaintiff, "I want you
+ to give the defendant the devil."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say to the Rev. Dr. Baker's statement
+ that he generally buys five or six tickets for your lectures and gives
+ them to young men, who are shocked at the flippant way in which you are
+ said to speak of the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Well, as to that, I have always wondered why I had such
+ immense audiences in Brooklyn and New York. This tends to clear away the
+ mystery. If all the clergy follow the example of Dr. Baker, that accounts
+ for the number seeking admission. Of course, Dr. Baker would not
+ misrepresent a thing like that, and I shall always feel greatly indebted
+ to him, shall hereafter regard him as one of my agents, and take this
+ occasion to return my thanks. He is certainly welcome to all the converts
+ to Christianity made by hearing me. Still, I hardly think it honest in
+ young men to play a game like that on the doctor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You speak of the eternal repetition of the old story of
+ Christianity and say that the more sermons like the one Mr. Beecher
+ preached lately the better. Is it not the fact that ministers, at the
+ present time, do preach very largely on questions of purely moral, social,
+ and humanitarian interest, so much so, indeed, as to provoke criticism on
+ the part of the secular newspaper press?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I admit that there is a general tendency in the pulpit to
+ preach about things happening in this world; in other words, that the
+ preachers themselves are beginning to be touched with worldliness. They
+ find that the New Jerusalem has no particular interest for persons dealing
+ in real estate in this world. And thousands of people are losing interest
+ in Abraham, in David, Haggai, and take more interest in gentlemen who have
+ the cheerful habit of living. They also find that their readers do not
+ wish to be reminded perpetually of death and coffins; and worms and dust
+ and gravestones and shrouds and epitaphs and hearses, biers, and cheerful
+ subjects of that character. That they prefer to hear the minister speak
+ about a topic in which they have a present interest, and about which
+ something cheerful can be said. In fact, it is a relief to hear about
+ politics, a little about art, something about stocks or the crops, and
+ most ministers find it necessary to advertise that they are going to speak
+ on something that has happened within the last eighteen hundred years, and
+ that, for the time being, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego will be left in
+ the furnace. Of course, I think that most ministers are reasonably honest.
+ Maybe they don't tell all their doubts, but undoubtedly they are
+ endeavoring to make the world better, and most of the church members think
+ that they are doing the best that can be done. I am not criticising their
+ motives, but their methods. I am not attacking the character or reputation
+ of ministers, but simply giving my ideas, avoiding anything personal. I do
+ not pretend to be very good, nor very bad&mdash;-just fair to middling.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You say that Christians will not read for fear that they
+ will unsettle their belief. Father Fransiola (Roman Catholic) said in the
+ interview I had with him: "If you do not allow man to reason you crush his
+ manhood. Therefore, he has to reason upon the credibility of his faith,
+ and through reason, guided by faith, he discovers the truth, and so
+ satisfies his wants."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Without calling in question the perfect sincerity of Father
+ Fransiola, I think his statement is exactly the wrong end to. I do not
+ think that reason should be guided by faith; I think that faith should be
+ guided by reason. After all, the highest possible conception of faith
+ would be the science of probabilities, and the probable must not be based
+ on what has not happened, but upon what has; not upon something we know
+ nothing about, but the nature of the things with which we are acquainted.
+ The foundation we must know something about, and whenever we reason, we
+ must have something as a basis, something secular, something that we think
+ we know. About these facts we reason, sometimes by analogy, and we say
+ thus and so has happened, therefore thus and so may happen. We do not say
+ thus and so <i>may</i> happen, therefore something else <i>has</i>
+ happened. We must reason from the known to the unknown, not from the
+ unknown to the known. This Father admits that if you do not allow a man to
+ reason you crush his manhood. At the same time he says faith must govern
+ reason. Who makes the faith? The church. And the church tells the man that
+ he must take the faith, reason or no reason, and that he may afterward
+ reason, taking the faith as a fact. This makes him an intellectual slave,
+ and the poor devil mistakes for liberty the right to examine his own
+ chains. These gentlemen endeavor to satisfy their prisoners by insisting
+ that there is nothing beyond the walls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You criticise the church for not encouring the poor to
+ mingle with the rich, and yet you defend the right of a man to choose his
+ own company. Are not these same distinctions made by non-confessing
+ Christians in real life, and will not there always be some greater,
+ richer, wiser, than the rest?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I do not blame the church because there are these
+ distinctions based on wealth, intelligence, and culture. What I blame the
+ church for is pretending to do away with these distinctions. These
+ distinctions in men are inherent; differences in brain, in race, in blood,
+ in education, and they are differences that will eternally exist&mdash;that
+ is, as long as the human race exists. Some will be fortunate, some
+ unfortunate, some generous, some stingy, some rich, some poor. What I wish
+ to do away with is the contempt and scorn and hatred existing between rich
+ and poor. I want the democracy of kindness&mdash;what you might call the
+ republicanism of justice. I do not have to associate with a man to keep
+ from robbing him. I can give him his rights without enjoying his company,
+ and he can give me my rights without inviting me to dinner. Why should not
+ poverty have rights? And has not honest poverty the right to hold
+ dishonest wealth in contempt, and will it not do it, whether it belongs to
+ the same church or not? We cannot judge men by their wealth, or by the
+ position they hold in society. I like every kind man; I hate every cruel
+ one. I like the generous, whether they are poor or rich, ignorant or
+ cultivated. I like men that love their families, that are kind to their
+ wives, gentle with their children, no matter whether they are millionaires
+ or mendicants. And to me the blossom of benevolence, of charity, is the
+ fairest flower, no matter whether it blooms by the side of a hovel, or
+ bursts from a vine climbing the marble pillar of a palace. I respect no
+ man because he is rich; I hold in contempt no man because he is poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Some of the clergymen say that the spread of infidelity
+ is greatly exaggerated; that it makes more noise and creates more notice
+ than conservative Christianity simply on account of its being outside of
+ the accepted line of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> There was a time when an unbeliever, open and pronounced,
+ was a wonder. At that time the church had great power; it could retaliate;
+ it could destroy. The church abandoned the stake only when too many men
+ objected to being burned. At that time infidelity was clad not simply in
+ novelty, but often in fire. Of late years the thoughts of men have been
+ turned, by virtue of modern discoveries, as the result of countless
+ influences, to an investigation of the foundation of orthodox religion.
+ Other religions were put in the crucible of criticism, and nothing was
+ found but dross. At last it occurred to the intelligent to examine our own
+ religion, and this examination has excited great interest and great
+ comment. People want to hear, and they want to hear because they have
+ already about concluded themselves that the creeds are founded in error.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands come to hear me because they are interested in the question,
+ because they want to hear a man say what they think. They want to hear
+ their own ideas from the lips of another. The tide has turned, and the
+ spirit of investigation, the intelligence, the intellectual courage of the
+ world is on the other side. A real good old-fashioned orthodox minister
+ who believes the Thirty-nine articles with all his might, is regarded
+ to-day as a theological mummy, a kind of corpse acted upon by the galvanic
+ battery of faith, making strange motions, almost like those of life&mdash;not
+ quite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How would you convey moral instruction from youth up, and
+ what kind of instruction would you give?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I regard Christianity as a failure. Now, then, what is
+ Christianity? I do not include in the word "Christianity" the average
+ morality of the world or the morality taught in all systems of religion;
+ that is, as distinctive Christianity. Christianity is this: A belief in
+ the inspiration of the Scriptures, the atonement, the life, death, and
+ resurrection of Christ, an eternal reward for the believers in Christ, and
+ eternal punishment for the rest of us. Now, take from Christianity its
+ miracles, its absurdities of the atonement and fall of man and the
+ inspiration of the Scriptures, and I have no objection to it as I
+ understand it. I believe, in the main, in the Christianity which I suppose
+ Christ taught, that is, in kindness, gentleness, forgiveness. I do not
+ believe in loving enemies; I have pretty hard work to love my friends.
+ Neither do I believe in revenge. No man can afford to keep the viper of
+ revenge in his heart. But I believe in justice, in self-defence.
+ Christianity&mdash;that is, the miraculous part&mdash;must be abandoned.
+ As to morality&mdash;morality is born, is born of the instinct of
+ self-preservation. If man could not suffer, the word "conscience" never
+ would have passed his lips. Self-preservation makes larceny a crime.
+ Murder will be regarded as a bad thing as long as a majority object to
+ being murdered. Morality does not come from the clouds; it is born of
+ human want and human experience. We need no inspiration, no inspired work.
+ The industrious man knows that the idle has no right to rob him of the
+ product of his labor, and the idle man knows that he has no right to do
+ it. It is not wrong because we find it in the Bible, but I presume it was
+ put in the Bible because it is wrong. Then, you find in the Bible other
+ things upheld that are infamous. And why? Because the writers of the Bible
+ were barbarians, in many things, and because that book is a mixture of
+ good and evil. I see no trouble in teaching morality without miracle. I
+ see no use of miracle. What can men do with it? Credulity is not a virtue.
+ The credulous are not necessarily charitable. Wonder is not the mother of
+ wisdom. I believe children should be taught to investigate and to reason
+ for themselves, and that there are facts enough to furnish a foundation
+ for all human virtue. We will take two families; in the one, the father
+ and mother are both Christians, and they teach their children their creed;
+ teach them that they are naturally totally depraved; that they can only
+ hope for happiness in a future life by pleading the virtues of another,
+ and that a certain belief is necessary to salvation; that God punishes his
+ children forever. Such a home has a certain atmosphere. Take another
+ family; the father and mother teach their children that they should be
+ kind to each other because kindness produces happiness; that they should
+ be gentle; that they should be just, because justice is the mother of joy.
+ And suppose this father and mother say to their children: "If you are
+ happy it must be as a result of your own actions; if you do wrong you must
+ suffer the consequences. No Christ can redeem you; no savior can suffer
+ for you. You must suffer the consequences of your own misdeeds. If you
+ plant you must reap, and you must reap what you plant." And suppose these
+ parents also say: "You must find out the conditions of happiness. You must
+ investigate the circumstances by which you are surrounded. You must
+ ascertain the nature and relation of things so that you can act in
+ accordance with known facts, to the end that you may have health and
+ peace." In such a family, there would be a certain atmosphere, in my
+ judgment, a thousand times better and purer and sweeter than in the other.
+ The church generally teaches that rascality pays in this world, but not in
+ the next; that here virtue is a losing game, but the dividends will be
+ large in another world. They tell the people that they must serve God on
+ credit, but the devil pays cash here. That is not my doctrine. My doctrine
+ is that a thing is right because it pays, in the highest sense. That is
+ the reason it is right. The reason a thing is wrong is because it is the
+ mother of misery. Virtue has its reward here and now. It means health; it
+ means intelligence, contentment, success. Vice means exactly the opposite.
+ Most of us have more passion than judgment, carry more sail than ballast,
+ and by the tempest of passion we are blown from port, we are wrecked and
+ lost. We cannot be saved by faith or by belief. It is a slower process: We
+ must be saved by knowledge, by intelligence&mdash;the only lever capable
+ of raising mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The shorter catechism, Colonel, you may remember says
+ "that man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." What is
+ your idea of the chief end of man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> It has always seemed a little curious to me that joy should
+ be held in such contempt here, and yet promised hereafter as an eternal
+ reward. Why not be happy here, as well as in heaven. Why not have joy
+ here? Why not go to heaven now&mdash;that is, to-day? Why not enjoy the
+ sunshine of this world, and all there is of good in it? It is bad enough;
+ so bad that I do not believe it was ever created by a beneficent deity;
+ but what little good there is in it, why not have it? Neither do I believe
+ that it is the end of man to glorify God. How can the Infinite be
+ glorified? Does he wish for reputation? He has no equals, no superiors.
+ How can he have what we call reputation? How can he achieve what we call
+ glory? Why should he wish the flattery of the average Presbyterian? What
+ good will it do him to know that his course has been approved of by the
+ Methodist Episcopal Church? What does he care, even, for the religious
+ weeklies, or the presidents of religious colleges? I do not see how we can
+ help God, or hurt him. If there be an infinite Being, certainly nothing we
+ can do can in any way affect him. We can affect each other, and therefore
+ man should be careful not to sin against man. For that reason I have said
+ a hundred times, injustice is the only blasphemy. If there be a heaven I
+ want to associate there with the ones who have loved me here. I might not
+ like the angels and the angels might not like me. I want to find old
+ friends. I do not care to associate with the Infinite; there could be no
+ freedom in such society. I suppose I am not spiritual enough, and am
+ somewhat touched with worldliness. It seems to me that everybody ought to
+ be honest enough to say about the Infinite "I know nothing of eternal joy,
+ I have no conception about another world, I know nothing." At the same
+ time, I am not attacking anybody for believing in immortality. The more a
+ man can hope, and the less he can fear, the better. I have done what I
+ could to drive from the human heart the shadow of eternal pain. I want to
+ put out the fires of an ignorant and revengeful hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * A discussion between Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon.
+ Frederic R. Coudert, Ex-Gov. Stewart L. Woodford, before the
+ Nineteenth Century Club of New York, at the Metropolitan
+ Opera House, May 8, 1888. The points for discussion, as
+ submitted in advance, were the following propositions:
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Colonel Ingersoll's Opening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ladies, Mr. President and Gentlemen:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I AM here to-night for the purpose of defending your right to differ with
+ me. I want to convince you that you are under no compulsion to accept my
+ creed; that you are, so far as I am concerned, absolutely free to follow
+ the torch of your reason according to your conscience; and I believe that
+ you are civilized to that degree that you will extend to me the right that
+ you claim for yourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. Thought is a necessary natural product&mdash;the result of what is
+ called impressions made through the medium of the senses upon the brain,
+ not forgetting the Fact of heredity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. No human being is accountable to any being-human or divine&mdash;for
+ his thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. Human beings have a certain interest in the thoughts of each other,
+ and one who undertakes to tell his thoughts should be honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. All have an equal right to express their thoughts upon all
+ subjects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. For one man to say to another, "I tolerate you," is an assumption
+ of authority&mdash;not a disclaimer, but a waiver, of the right to
+ persecute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth. Each man has the same right to express to the whole world his
+ ideas, that the rest of the world have to express their thoughts to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Courtlandt Palmer, Esq., President of the Club, in introducing Mr.
+ Ingersoll, among other things said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The inspiration of the orator of the evening seems to be that of the
+ great Victor Hugo, who uttered the august saying, 'There shall be no
+ slavery of the mind.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When I was in Paris, about a year ago, I visited the tomb of Victor Hugo.
+ It was placed in a recess in the crypt of the Pantheon. Opposite it was
+ the tomb of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Near by, in another recess, was the
+ memorial statue of Voltaire; and I felt, as I looked at these three
+ monuments, that had Colonel Ingersoll been born in France, and had he
+ passed in his long life account, the acclaim of the liberal culture of
+ France would have enlarged that trio into a quartette.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Colonel Ingersoll has appeared in several important debates in print,
+ notably with Judge Jeremiah S. Black formerly Attorney-General of the
+ United States: lately in the pages of The North American Review with the
+ Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field, and last but not least the Right Hon. William E
+ Gladstone, England's greatest citizen, has taken up the cudgel against him
+ in behalf of his view of Orthodoxy To-night, I believe-for the first time,
+ the colonel has consented to appear in a colloquial discussion. I have now
+ the honor to introduce this distinguished orator."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit, at the very threshold, that every human being thinks as he must;
+ and the first proposition really is, whether man has the right to think.
+ It will bear but little discussion, for the reason that no man can control
+ his thought. If you think you can, what are you going to think to-morrow?
+ What are you going to think next year? If you can absolutely control your
+ thought, can you stop thinking?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question is, Has the will any power over the thought? What is thought?
+ It is the result of nature&mdash;of the outer world&mdash;first upon the
+ senses&mdash;those impressions left upon the brain as pictures of things
+ in the outward world, and these pictures are transformed into, or produce,
+ thought; and as long as the doors of the senses are open, thoughts will be
+ produced. Whoever looks at anything in nature, thinks. Whoever hears any
+ sound&mdash;or any symphony&mdash;no matter what&mdash;thinks. Whoever
+ looks upon the sea, or on a star, or on a flower, or on the face of a
+ fellow-man, thinks, and the result of that look is an absolute necessity.
+ The thought produced will depend upon your brain, upon your experience,
+ upon the history of your life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One who looks upon the sea, knowing that the one he loved the best had
+ been devoured by its hungry waves, will have certain thoughts; and he who
+ sees it for the first time, will have different thoughts. In other words,
+ no two brains are alike; no two lives have been or are or ever will be the
+ same. Consequently, nature cannot produce the same effect upon any two
+ brains, or upon any two hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different.
+ If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed
+ after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ&mdash;our
+ thoughts are different. Therefore the commerce that we call conversation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Back of language is thought. Back of language is the desire to express our
+ thought to another. This desire not only gave us language&mdash;this
+ desire has given us the libraries of the world. And not only the
+ libraries; this desire to express thought, to show to others the splendid
+ children of the brain, has written every book, formed every language,
+ painted every picture, and chiseled every statue&mdash;this desire to
+ express our thought to others, to reap the harvest of the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, then, thought is a necessity, "it follows as the night the day" that
+ there is, there can be, no responsibility for thought to any being, human
+ or divine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A camera contains a sensitive plate. The light flashes upon it, and the
+ sensitive plate receives a picture. Is it in fault, is it responsible, for
+ the picture? So with the brain. An image is left on it, a picture is
+ imprinted there. The plate may not be perfectly level&mdash;it may be too
+ concave, or too convex, and the picture may be a deformity; so with the
+ brain. But the man does not make his own brain, and the consequence is, if
+ the picture is distorted it is not the fault of the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We take then these two steps: first, thought is a necessity; and second,
+ the thought depends upon the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Each brain is a kind of field where nature sows with careless hands the
+ seeds of thought. Some brains are poor and barren fields, producing weeds
+ and thorns, and some are like the tropic world where grow the palm and
+ pine&mdash;children of the sun and soil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You read Shakespeare. What do you get out of Shakespeare? All that your
+ brain is able to hold. It depends upon your brain. If you are great&mdash;if
+ you have been cultivated&mdash;if the wings of your imagination have been
+ spread&mdash;if you have had great, free, and splendid thoughts&mdash;'r
+ you have stood upon the edge of things&mdash;if you have had the courage
+ to meet all that can come&mdash;you get an immensity from Shakespeare. If
+ you have lived nobly&mdash;if you have loved with every drop of your blood
+ and every fibre of your being&mdash;if you have suffered&mdash;if you have
+ enjoyed&mdash;then you get an immensity from Shakespeare. But if you have
+ lived a poor, little, mean, wasted, barren, weedy life&mdash;you get very
+ little from that immortal man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it is from every source in nature&mdash;what you get depends upon what
+ you are.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take then the second step. If thought is a necessity, there can be no
+ responsibility for thought. And why has man ever believed that his
+ fellow-man was responsible for his thought?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everything that is, everything that has been, has been naturally produced.
+ Man has acted as, under the same circumstances, we would have acted;
+ because when you say "under the circumstances," it is the same as to say
+ that you would do exactly as they have done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has always been in men the instinct of self-preservation. There was
+ a time when men believed, and honestly believed, that there was above them
+ a God. Sometimes they believed in many, but it will be sufficient for my
+ illustration to say, one. Man believed that there was in the sky above him
+ a God who attended to the affairs of men. He believed that that God,
+ sitting upon his throne, rewarded virtue and punished vice. He believed
+ also, that that God held the community responsible for the sins of
+ individuals. He honestly believed it. When the flood came, or when the
+ earthquake devoured, he really believed that some God was filled with
+ anger&mdash;with holy indignation&mdash;at his children. He believed it,
+ and so he looked about among his neighbors to see who was in fault, and if
+ there was any man who had failed to bring his sacrifice to the altar, had
+ failed to kneel, it may be to the priest, failed to be present in the
+ temple, or had given it as his opinion that the God of that tribe or of
+ that nation was of no use, then, in order to placate the God, they seized
+ the neighbor and sacrificed him on the altar of their ignorance and of
+ their fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They believed when the lightning leaped from the cloud and left its
+ blackened mark upon the man, that he had done something&mdash;that he had
+ excited the wrath of the gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And while man so believed, while he believed that it was necessary, in
+ order to defend himself, to kill his neighbor&mdash;he acted simply
+ according to the dictates of his nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What I claim is that we have nov-advanced far enough not only to think,
+ but to know, that the conduct of man has nothing to do with the phenomena
+ of nature. We are now advanced far enough to absolutely know that no man
+ can be bad enough and no nation infamous enough to cause an earthquake. I
+ think we have got to that point that we absolutely know that no man can be
+ wicked enough to entice one of the bolts from heaven&mdash;that no man can
+ be cruel enough to cause a drought&mdash;and that you could not have
+ infidels enough on the earth to cause another flood. I think we have
+ advanced far enough not only to say that, but to absolutely know it&mdash;I
+ mean people who have thought, and in whose minds there is something like
+ reasoning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, if we know anything, that the lightning is just as apt to hit a
+ good man as a bad man. We know it. We know that the earthquake is just as
+ liable to swallow virtue as to swallow vice. And you know just as well as
+ I do that a ship loaded with pirates is just as apt to outride the storm
+ as one crowded with missionaries. You know it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am now speaking of the phenomena of nature. I believe, as much as I
+ believe that I live, that the reason a thing is right is because it tends
+ to the happiness of mankind. I believe, as much as I be-believe that I
+ live, that on the average the good man is not only the happier man, but
+ that no man is happy who is not good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If then we have gotten over that frightful, that awful superstition&mdash;we
+ are ready to enjoy hearing the thoughts of each other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not say, neither do I intend to be understood as saying, that there
+ is no God. All I intend to say is, that so far as we can see, no man is
+ punished, no nation is punished by lightning, or famine, or storm.
+ Everything happens to the one as to the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us admit that there is an infinite God. That has nothing to do
+ with the sinlessness of thought&mdash;nothing to do with the fact that no
+ man is accountable to any being, human or divine, for what he thinks. And
+ let me tell you why.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be an infinite God, leave him to deal with men who sin against
+ him. You can trust him, if you believe in him. He has the power. He has a
+ heaven full of bolts. Trust him. And now that you are satisfied that the
+ earthquake will not swallow you, or the lightning strike you, simply
+ because you tell your thoughts, if one of your neighbors differs with you,
+ and acts improperly or thinks or speaks improperly of your God, leave him
+ with your God&mdash;he can attend to him a thousand times better than you
+ can, He has the time. He lives from eternity to eternity. More than that,
+ he has the means. So that, whether there be this Being or not, you have no
+ right to interfere with your neighbor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next proposition is, that I have the same right to express my thought
+ to the whole world, that the whole world has to express its thought to me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that this realm of thought is not a democracy, where the
+ majority rule; it is not a republic. It is a country with one inhabitant.
+ This brain is the world in which my mind lives, and my mind is the
+ sovereign of that realm. We are all kings, and one man balances the rest
+ of the world as one drop of water balances the sea. Each soul is crowned.
+ Each soul wears the purple and the tiara; and only those are good citizens
+ of the intellectual world who give to every other human being every right
+ that they claim for themselves, and only those are traitors in the great
+ realm of thought who abandon reason and appeal to force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If now I have got out of your minds the idea that you must abuse your
+ neighbors to keep on good terms with God, then the question of religion is
+ exactly like every question&mdash;I mean of thought, of mind&mdash;I have
+ nothing to say now about action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there authority in the world of art? Can a legislature pass a law that
+ a certain picture is beautiful, and can it pass a law putting in the
+ penitentiary any impudent artistic wretch who says that to him it is not
+ beautiful? Precisely the same with music. Our ears are not all the same;
+ we are not touched by the same sounds&mdash;the same beautiful memories*
+ do not arise. Suppose you have an authority in music? You may make men, it
+ may be, by offering them office or by threatening them with punishment,
+ swear that they all like that tune&mdash;but you never will know till the
+ day of your death whether they do or not. The moment you introduce a
+ despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites&mdash;and
+ you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in the great realm of religion, there can be no force. No one can be
+ compelled to pray. No matter how you tie him down, or crush him down on
+ his face or on his knees, it is above the power of the human race to put
+ in that man, by force, the spirit of prayer. You cannot do it. Neither can
+ you compel anybody to worship a God. Worship rises from the heart like
+ perfume from a flower. It cannot obey; it cannot do that which some one
+ else commands. It must be absolutely true to the law of its own nature.
+ And do you think any God would be satisfied with compulsory worship? Would
+ he like to see long rows of poor, ignorant slaves on their terrified knees
+ repeating words without a soul&mdash;giving him what you might call the
+ shucks of sound? Will any God be satisfied with that? And so I say, we
+ must be as free in one department of thought as another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I take the next step, and that is, that the rights of all are
+ absolutely equal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have the same right to give you my opinion that you have to give me
+ yours. I have no right to compel you to hear, if you do not want to. I
+ have no right to compel you to speak if you do not want to. If you do not
+ wish to know my thought, I have no right to force it upon you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing is, that this liberty of thought, this liberty of
+ expression, is of more value than any other thing beneath the stars. Of
+ more value than any religion, of more value than any government, of more
+ value than all the constitutions that man has written and all the laws
+ that he has passed, is this liberty&mdash;the absolute liberty of the
+ human mind. Take away that word from language, and all other words become
+ meaningless sounds, and there is then no reason for a man being and living
+ upon the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So then, I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality&mdash;that is
+ all. You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us
+ see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I
+ will bid it a polite "good day." If I do like it, I will say: "Sit down;
+ stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world."
+ That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And how any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the
+ right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who
+ speaks&mdash;who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can
+ liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the
+ liberty to speak against liberty&mdash;the real believer in free speech
+ allowing others to speak against the right to speak? Is there any
+ limitation beyond that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, whoever has spoken against the right to speak has admitted that he
+ violated his own doctrine. No man can open his mouth against the freedom
+ of speech without denying every argument he may put forward. Why? He is
+ exercising the right that he denies. How did he get it? Suppose there is
+ one man on an island. You will all admit now that he would have the right
+ to do his own thinking. You will all admit that he has the right to
+ express his thought. Now, will somebody tell me how many men would have to
+ emigrate to that island before the original settler would lose his right
+ to think and his right to express himself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be an infinite Being&mdash;and it is a question that I know
+ nothing about&mdash;you would be perfectly astonished to know how little I
+ do know on that subject, and yet I know as much as the aggregated world
+ knows, and as little as the smallest insect that ever fanned with happy
+ wings the summer air&mdash;if there be such a Being, I have the same right
+ to think that he has simply because it is a necessity of my nature&mdash;because
+ I cannot help it. And the Infinite would be just as responsible to the
+ smallest intelligence living in the infinite spaces&mdash;he would be just
+ as responsible to that intelligence as that intelligence can be to him,
+ provided that intelligence thinks as a necessity of his nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another phrase to which I object&mdash;"toleration." "The limits
+ of toleration." Why say "toleration"? I will tell you why. When the
+ thinkers were in the minority&mdash;when the philosophers were vagabonds&mdash;when
+ the men with brains furnished fuel for bonfires&mdash;when the majority
+ were ignorantly orthodox&mdash;when they hated the heretic as a last
+ year's leaf hates a this year's bud&mdash;in that delightful time these
+ poor people in the minority had to say to ignorant power, to conscientious
+ rascality, to cruelty born of universal love: "Don't kill us; don't be so
+ arrogantly meek as to burn us; tolerate us." At that time the minority was
+ too small to talk about rights, and the great big ignorant majority when
+ tired of shedding blood, said: "Well, we will tolerate you; we can afford
+ to wait; you will not live long, and when the Being of infinite compassion
+ gets hold of you we will glut our revenge through an eternity of joy; we
+ will ask you every now and then, 'What is your opinion now?'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Both feeling absolutely sure that infinite goodness would have his
+ revenge, they "tolerated" these thinkers, and that word finally took the
+ place almost of liberty. But I do not like it. When you say "I tolerate,"
+ you do not say you have no right to punish, no right to persecute. It is
+ only a disclaimer for a few moments and for a few years, but you retain
+ the right. I deny it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me say here to-night&mdash;it is your experience, it is mine&mdash;that
+ the bigger a man is the more charitable he is; you know it. The more brain
+ he has, the more excuses he finds for all the world; you know it. And if
+ there be in heaven an infinite Being, he must be grander than any man; he
+ must have a thousand times more charity than the human heart can hold, and
+ is it possible that he is going to hold his ignorant children responsible
+ for the impressions made by nature upon their brain? Let us have some
+ sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another side to this question, and that is with regard to the
+ freedom of thought and expression in matters pertaining to this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man has a right to hurt the character of a neighbor. He has no right to
+ utter slander. He has no right to bear false witness. He has no right to
+ be actuated by any motive except for the general good&mdash;but the things
+ he does here to his neighbor&mdash;these are easily defined and easily
+ punished. All that I object to is setting up a standard of authority in
+ the world of art, the world of beauty, the world of poetry, the world of
+ worship, the world of religion, and the world of metaphysics. That is what
+ I object to; and if the old doctrines had been carried out, every human
+ being that has benefited this world would have been destroyed. If the
+ people who believe that a certain belief is necessary to insure salvation
+ had had control of this world, we would have been as ignorant to-night as
+ wild beasts. Every step in advance has been made in spite of them. There
+ has not been a book of any value printed since the invention of that art&mdash;and
+ when I say "of value," I mean that contained new and splendid truths&mdash;that
+ was not anathematized by the gentlemen who believed that man is
+ responsible for his thought. Every step has been taken in spite of that
+ doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Consequently I simply believe in absolute liberty of mind. And I have no
+ fear about any other world&mdash;not the slightest. When I get there, I
+ will give my honest opinion of that country; I will give my honest thought
+ there; and if for that I lose my soul, I will keep at least my
+ self-respect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man tells me a story. I believe it, or disbelieve it. I cannot help it.
+ I read a story&mdash;no matter whether in the original Hebrew, or whether
+ it has been translated. I believe it or I disbelieve it. No matter whether
+ it is written in a very solemn or a very flippant manner&mdash;I have my
+ idea about its truth. And I insist that each man has the right to judge
+ that for himself, and for that reason, as I have already said, I am
+ defending your right to differ with me&mdash;that is all. And if you do
+ differ with me, all that it proves is that I do not agree with you. There
+ is no man that lives to-night beneath the stars&mdash;there is no being&mdash;that
+ can force my soul upon its knees, unless the reason is given. I will be no
+ slave. I do not care how big my master is, I am just as small, if a slave,
+ as though the master were small. It is not the greatness of the master
+ that can honor the slave. In other words, I am going to act according to
+ my right, as I understand it, without interfering with any other human
+ being. And now, if you think&mdash;any of you, that you can control your
+ thought, I want you to try it. There is not one here who can by any
+ possibility think, only as he must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You remember the story of the Methodist minister who insisted that he
+ could control his thoughts. A man said to him, "Nobody can control his own
+ mind." "Oh, yes, he can," the preacher replied. "My dear sir," said the
+ man, "you cannot even say the Lord's Prayer without thinking of something
+ else." "Oh, yes, I can." "Well, if you will do it, I will give you that
+ horse, the best riding horse in this county." "Well, who is to judge?"
+ said the preacher. "I will take your own word for it, and if you say the
+ Lord's Prayer through without thinking of anything else, I will give you
+ that horse." So the minister shut his eyes and began: "Our Father which
+ art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,"&mdash;"I
+ suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say to you to-night, ladies and gentlemen, that I feel more interest in
+ the freedom of thought and speech than in all other questions, knowing, as
+ I do, that it is the condition of great and splendid progress for the
+ race; remembering, as I do, that the opposite idea has covered the cheek
+ of the world with tears; remembering, and knowing, as I do, that the
+ enemies of free thought and free speech have covered this world with
+ blood. These men have filled the heavens with an infinite monster; they
+ have filled the future with fire and flame, and they have made the
+ present, when they have had the power, a perdition. These men, these
+ doctrines, have carried fagots to the feet of philosophy. These men, these
+ doctrines, have hated to see the dawn of an intellectual day. These men,
+ these doctrines, have denied every science, and denounced and killed every
+ philosopher they could lay their bloody, cruel, ignorant hands upon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And for that reason, I am for absolute liberty of thought, everywhere, in
+ every department, domain, and realm of the human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ REMARKS OF MR. COUDERT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Ladies and Gentlemen and Mr. President</i>: It is not only "the sense
+ of the church" that I am lacking now, I am afraid it is any sense at all;
+ and I am only wondering how a reasonably intelligent being&mdash;meaning
+ myself&mdash;could in view of the misfortune that befell Mr. Kernan, have
+ undertaken to speak to-night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a new experience. I have never sung in any of Verdi's operas&mdash;I
+ have never listened to one through&mdash;but I think I would prefer to try
+ all three of these performances rather than go on with this duty which, in
+ a vain moment of deluded vanity, I heedlessly undertook.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am in a new field here. I feel very much like the master of a ship who
+ thinks that he can safely guide his bark. (I am not alluding to the
+ traditional bark of St. Peter, in which I hope that I am and will always
+ be, but the ordinary bark that requires a compass and a rudder and a
+ guide.) And I find that all these ordinary things, which we generally take
+ for granted, and which are as necessary to our safety as the air which we
+ breathe, or the sunshine that we enjoy, have been quietly, pleasantly, and
+ smilingly thrown overboard by the gentleman who has just preceded me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Carlyle once said&mdash;and the thought came to me as the gentleman was
+ speaking&mdash;"A Comic History of England!"&mdash;for some wretch had
+ just written such a book&mdash;(talk of free thought and free speech when
+ men do such things!)&mdash;"A Comic History of England!" The next thing we
+ shall hear of will be "A Comic History of the Bible!" I think we have
+ heard the first chapter of that comic history to-night; and the only
+ comfort that I have&mdash;and possibly some other antiquated and
+ superannuated persons of either sex, if such there be within my hearing&mdash;is
+ that such things as have seemed to me charmingly to partake of the order
+ of blasphemy, have been uttered with such charming bonhomie, and received
+ with such enthusiastic admiration, that I have wondered whether we are in
+ a Christian audience of the nineteenth century, or in a possible
+ Ingersollian audience of the twenty-third.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me first, before I enter upon the very few and desultory remarks,
+ which are the only ones that I can make now and with which I may claim
+ your polite attention&mdash;let me say a word about the comparison with
+ which your worthy President opened these proceedings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are two or three things upon which I am a little sensitive: One,
+ aspersions upon the land of my birth&mdash;the city of New York; the next,
+ the land of my fathers; and the next, the bark that I was just speaking
+ of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now your worthy President, in his well-meant efforts to exhibit in the
+ best possible style the new actor upon his stage, said that he had seen
+ Victor Hugo's remains, and Voltaire's, and Jean Jacques Rousseau's, and
+ that he thought the niche might well be filled by Colonel Ingersoll. If
+ that had been merely the expression of a natural desire to see him
+ speedily annihilated, I might perhaps in the interests of the Christian
+ community have thought, but not said, "Amen!" (Here you will at once
+ observe the distinction I make between free thought and free speech!)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think, and I beg that none of you, and particularly the eloquent
+ rhetorician who preceded me, will think, that in anything I may say I
+ intend any personal discourtesy, for I do believe to some extent in
+ freedom of speech upon a platform like this. Such a debate as this rises
+ entirely above and beyond the plane of personalities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose that your President intended to compare Colonel Ingersoll to
+ Voltaire, to Hugo and to Rousseau. I have no retainer from either of those
+ gentlemen, but for the reason that I just gave you, I wish to defend their
+ memory from what I consider a great wrong. And so I do not think&mdash;with
+ all respect to the eloquent and learned gentleman&mdash;that he is
+ entitled to a place in that niche. Voltaire did many wrong things. He did
+ them for many reasons, and chiefly because he was human. But Voltaire did
+ a great deal to build up. Leaving aside his noble tragedies, which charmed
+ and delighted his audiences, and dignified the stage, throughout his work
+ was some effort to ameliorate the condition of the human race. He fought
+ against torture; he fought against persecution; he fought against bigotry;
+ he clamored and wrote against littleness and fanaticism in every way, and
+ he was not ashamed when he entered upon his domains at Fernay, to erect a
+ church to the God of whom the most our friend can say is, "I do not know
+ whether he exists or not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rousseau did many noble things, but he was a madman, and in our day would
+ probably have been locked up in an asylum and treated by intelligent
+ doctors. His works, however, bear the impress of a religious education,
+ and if there be in his works or sayings anything to parallel what we have
+ heard tonight&mdash;whether a parody on divine revelation, or a parody
+ upon the prayer of prayers&mdash;I have not seen it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Victor Hugo has enriched the literature of his day with prose and poetry
+ that have made him the Shakespeare of the nineteenth century&mdash;poems
+ as deeply imbued with a devout sense of responsibility to the Almighty as
+ the writings of an archbishop or a cardinal. He has left the traces of his
+ beneficent action all over the literature of his day, of his country, and
+ of his race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these men, then, have built up something. Will anyone, the most ardent
+ admirer of Colonel Ingersoll, tell me what he has built up?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To go now to the argument. The learned gentleman says that freedom of
+ thought is a grand thing. Unfortunately, freedom of thought exists. What
+ one of us would not put manacles and fetters upon his thoughts, if he only
+ could? What persecution have any of us suffered to compare with the
+ involuntary recurrence of these demons that enter our brain&mdash;that
+ bring back past events that we would wipe out with our tears, or even with
+ our blood&mdash;and make us slaves of a power unseen but uncontrollable
+ and uncontrolled? Is it not unworthy of so eloquent and intelligent a man
+ to preach before you here to-night that thought must always be free?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When in the history of the world has thought ever been fettered? If there
+ be a page in history upon which such an absurdity is written, I have
+ failed to find it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thought is beyond the domain of man. The most cruel and arbitrary ruler
+ can no more penetrate into your bosom and mine and extract the inner
+ workings of our brain, than he can scale the stars or pull down the sun
+ from its seat. Thought must be free. Thought is unseen, unhandled and
+ untouched, and no despot has yet been able to reach it, except when the
+ thoughts burst into words. And therefore, may we not consider now, and
+ say, that liberty of word is what he wants, and not liberty of thought,
+ which no one has ever gainsaid, or disputed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty of speech!&mdash;and the gentleman generously tells us, "Why, I
+ only ask for myself what I would cheerfully extend to you. I wish you to
+ be free; and you can even entertain those old delusions which your mothers
+ taught, and look with envious admiration upon me while I scale the giddy
+ heights of Olympus, gather the honey and approach the stars and tell you
+ how pure the air is in those upper regions which you are unable to reach."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thanks for his kindness! But I think that it is one thing for us to extend
+ to him that liberty that he asks for&mdash;the liberty to destroy&mdash;and
+ another thing for him to give us the liberty which we claim&mdash;the
+ liberty to conserve.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Oh, destruction is so easy, destruction is so pleasant! It marks the
+ footsteps all through our life. The baby begins by destroying his bib; the
+ older child by destroying his horse, and when the man is grown up and he
+ joins the regiment with the latent instinct that when he gets a chance he
+ will destroy human life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This building cost many thousand days' work. It was planned by more or
+ less skillful architects (ignorant of ventilation, but well-meaning). Men
+ lavished their thought, and men lavished their sweat for a pittance, upon
+ this building. It took months and possibly years to build it and to adorn
+ it and to beautify it. And yet, as it stands complete tonight with all of
+ you here in the vigor of your life and in the enjoyment of such
+ entertainment as you may get here this evening, I will find a dozen men
+ who with a few pounds of dynamite will reduce it and all of us to instant
+ destruction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dynamite man may say to me, "I give you full liberty to build and
+ occupy and insure, if you will give me liberty to blow up." Is that a fair
+ bargain? Am I bound in conscience and in good sense to accept it? Liberty
+ of speech! Tell me where liberty of speech has ever existed. There have
+ been free societies, England was a free country. France has struggled
+ through crisis after crisis to obtain liberty of speech. We think we have
+ liberty of speech, as we understand it, and yet who would undertake to say
+ that our society could live with liberty of speech? We have gone through
+ many crises in our short history, and we know that thought is nothing
+ before the law, but the word is an act&mdash;as guilty at times as the act
+ of killing, or burglary, or any of the violent crimes that disgrace
+ humanity and require the police.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A word is an act&mdash;an act of the tongue; and why should my tongue go
+ unpunished, and I who wield it mercilessly toward those who are weaker
+ than I, escape, if my arm is to be punished when I use it tyrannously?
+ Whom would you punish for the murder of Desdemona&mdash;is it Iago, or
+ Othello? Who was the villain, who was the criminal, who deserved the
+ scaffold&mdash;who but free speech? Iago exercised free speech. He
+ poisoned the ear of Othello and nerved his arm and Othello was the
+ murderer&mdash;but Iago went scot free. That was a word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh," says the counsel, "but that does not apply to individuals; be tender
+ and charitable to individuals." Tender and charitable to men if they
+ endeavor to destroy all that you love and venerate and respect!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are you tender and charitable to me if you enter my house, my castle, and
+ debauch my children from the faith that they have been taught? Are you
+ tender and charitable to them and to me when you teach them that I have
+ instructed them in falsehood, that their mother has rocked them in
+ blasphemy, and that they are now among the fools and the witlings of the
+ world because they believe in my precepts? Is that the charity that you
+ speak of? Heaven forbid that liberty of speech such as that, should ever
+ invade my home or yours!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all understand, and the learned gentleman will admit, that his
+ discourse is but an eloquent apology for blasphemy. And when I say this, I
+ beg you to believe me incapable of resorting to the cheap artifice of
+ strong words to give point to a pointless argument, or to offend a
+ courteous adversary. I think if I put it to him he would, with
+ characteristic candor, say, "Yes, that is what I claim&mdash;the liberty
+ to blaspheme; the world has outgrown these things; and I claim to-day, as
+ I claimed a few months ago in the neighboring gallant little State of New
+ Jersey, that while you cannot slander man, your tongue is free to revile
+ and insult man's maker." New Jersey was behind in the race for progress,
+ and did not accept his argument. His unfortunate client was convicted and
+ had to pay the fine which the press&mdash;which is seldom mistaken&mdash;says
+ came from the pocket of his generous counsel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The argument was a strong one; the argument was brilliant, and was able;
+ and I say now, with all my predilections for the church of my fathers, and
+ for your church (because it is not a question of our differences, but it
+ is a question whether the tree shall be torn up by the roots, not what
+ branches may bear richer fruit or deserve to be lopped off)&mdash;I say,
+ why has every Christian State passed these statutes against blasphemy?
+ Turning into ridicule sacred things&mdash;firing off the Lord's Prayer as
+ you would a joke from Joe Miller or a comic poem&mdash;that is what I mean
+ by blasphemy. If there is any other or better definition, give it me, and
+ I will use it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now understand. All these States of ours care not one fig what our
+ religion is. Behave yourselves properly, obey the laws, do not require the
+ intervention of the police, and the majesty of your conscience will be as
+ exalted as the sun. But the wisest men and the best men&mdash;possibly not
+ so eloquent as the orator, but I may say it without offence to him&mdash;other
+ names that shine brightly in the galaxy of our best men, have insisted and
+ maintained that the Christian faith was the ligament that kept our modern
+ society together, and our laws have said, and the laws of most of our
+ States say, to this day, "Think what you like, but do not, like Samson,
+ pull the pillars down upon us all."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I had anything to say, ladies and gentlemen, it is time that I should
+ say it now. My exordium has been very long, but it was no longer than the
+ dignity of the subject, perhaps, demanded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Free speech we all have. Absolute liberty of speech we never had. Did we
+ have it before the war? Many of us here remember that if you crossed an
+ imaginary line and went among some of the noblest and best men that ever
+ adorned this continent, one word against slavery meant death. And if you
+ say that that was the influence of slavery, I will carry you to Boston,
+ that city which numbers within its walls as many intelligent people to the
+ acre as any city on the globe&mdash;was it different there?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, the fugitive, beaten, blood-stained slave, when he got there, was
+ seized and turned back; and when a few good and brave men, in defence of
+ free speech, undertook to defend the slave and to try and give him
+ liberty, they were mobbed and pelted and driven through the city. You may
+ say, "That proves there was no liberty of speech." No; it proves this:
+ that wherever, and wheresoever, and whenever, liberty of speech is
+ incompatible with the safety of the State, liberty of speech must fall
+ back and give way, in order that the State may be preserved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First, above everything, above all things, the safety of the people is the
+ supreme law. And if rhetoricians, anxious to tear down, anxious to pluck
+ the faith from the young ones who are unable to defend it, come forward
+ with nickel-plated platitudes and commonplaces clothed in second-hand
+ purple and tinsel, and try to tear down the temple, then it is time, I
+ shall not say for good men&mdash;for I know so few they make a small
+ battalion&mdash;but for good women, to come to the rescue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ GENERAL WOODFORD'S SPEECH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen&gt;: At this late hour, I could not
+ attempt&mdash;even if I would&mdash;the eloquence of my friend Colonel
+ Ingersoll; nor the wit and rapier-like sarcasm of my other valued friend
+ Mr. Coudert. But there are some things so serious about this subject that
+ we discuss to-night, that I crave your pardon if, without preface, and
+ without rhetoric, I get at once to what from my Protestant standpoint
+ seems the fatal logical error of Mr. Inger-soll's position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll starts with the statement&mdash;and that I may not, for I
+ could not, do him injustice, nor myself injustice, in the quotation, I
+ will give it as he stated it&mdash;he starts with this statement: that
+ thought is a necessary natural product, the result of what we call
+ impressions made through the medium of the senses upon the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you think that is thought? Now stop&mdash;turn right into your own
+ minds&mdash;is that thought? Does not will power take hold? Does not
+ reason take hold? Does not memory take hold, and is not thought the action
+ of the brain based upon the impression and assisted or directed by
+ manifold and varying influences?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secondly, our friend Mr. Ingersoll says that no human being is accountable
+ to any being, human or divine, for his thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He starts with the assumption that thought is the inevitable impression
+ burnt upon the mind at once, and then jumps to the conclusion that there
+ is no responsibility. Now, is not that a fair logical analysis of what he
+ has said?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My senses leave upon my mind an impression, and then my mind, out of that
+ impression, works good or evil. The glass of brandy, being presented to my
+ physical sense, inspires thirst&mdash;inspires the thought of thirst&mdash;inspires
+ the instinct of debauchery. Am I not accountable for the result of the
+ mind given me, whether I yield to the debauch, or rise to the dignity of
+ self-control?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every thing of sense leaves its impression upon the mind. If there be no
+ responsibility anywhere, then is this world blind chance. If there be no
+ responsibility anywhere, then my friend deserves no credit if he be
+ guiding you in the path of truth, and I deserve no censure if I be
+ carrying you back into the path of superstition. Why, admit for a moment
+ that a man has no control over his thought, and you destroy absolutely the
+ power of regenerating the world, the power of improving the world. The
+ world swings one way, or it swings the other. If it be true that in all
+ these ages we have come nearer and nearer to a perfect liberty, that is
+ true simply and alone because the mind of man through reason, through
+ memory, through a thousand inspirations and desires and hopes, has ever
+ tended toward better results and higher achievements.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No accountability? I speak not for my friend, but I recognize that I am
+ accountable to myself; I recognize that whether I rise or fall, that
+ whether my life goes upward or downward, I am responsible to myself. And
+ so, in spite of all sophistry, so in spite of all dream, so in spite of
+ all eloquence, each woman, each man within this audience is responsible&mdash;first
+ of all to herself and himself&mdash;whether when bad thoughts, when
+ passion, when murder, when evil come into the heart or brain he harbors
+ them there or he casts them out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am responsible further&mdash;I am responsible to my neighbor. I know
+ that I am my neighbor's keeper, I know that as I touch your life, as you
+ touch mine, I am responsible every moment, every hour, every day, for my
+ influence upon you. I am either helping you up, or I am dragging you down;
+ you are either helping me up or you are dragging me down&mdash;and you
+ know it. Sophistry cannot get away from this; eloquence cannot seduce us
+ from it. You know that if you look back through the record of your life,
+ there are lives that you have helped and lives that you have hurt. You
+ know that there are lives on the downward plane that went down because in
+ an evil hour you pushed them; you know, perhaps with blessing, lives that
+ have gone up because you have reached out to them a helping hand. That
+ responsibility for your neighbor is a responsibility and an accountability
+ that you and I cannot avoid or evade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe one thing further: that because there is a creation there is a
+ Creator. I believe that because there is force, there is a Projector of
+ force; because there is matter, there is spirit. I reverently believe
+ these things. I am not angry with my neighbor because he does not; it may
+ be that he is right, that I am wrong; but if there be a Power that sent me
+ into this world, so far as that Power has given me wrong direction, or
+ permitted wrong direction, that Power will judge me justly. So far as I
+ disregard the light that I have, whatever it may be&mdash;whether it br
+ light of reason, light of conscience, light of history&mdash;so far as I
+ do that which my judgment tells me is wrong, I am responsible and I am
+ accountable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now the Protestant theory, as I understand it, is simply this: It would
+ vary from the theory as taught by the mother church&mdash;it certainly
+ swings far away from the theory as suggested by my friend; I understand
+ the Protestant theory to be this: That every man is responsible to
+ himself, to his neighbor, and to his God, for his thought. Not for the
+ first impression&mdash;but for that impression, for that direction and
+ result which he intelligently gives to the first impression or deduces
+ from it. I understand that the Protestant idea is this: that man may think&mdash;we
+ know he will think&mdash;for himself; but that he is responsible for it.
+ That a man may speak his thought, so long as he does not hurt his
+ neighbor. He must use his own liberty so that he shall not injure the
+ well-being of any other one&mdash;so that when using this liberty, when
+ exercising this freedom, he is accountable at the last to his God. And so
+ Protestantism sends me into the world with this terrible and solemn
+ responsibility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It leaves Mr. Ingersoll free to speak his thought at the bar of his
+ conscience, before the bar of his fellow-man, but it holds him in the
+ inevitable grip of absolute responsibility for every light word idly
+ spoken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God grant that he may use that power so that he can face that
+ responsibility at the last!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It leaves to every churchman liberty to believe and stand by his church
+ according to his own conviction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It stands for this; the absolute liberty of each individual man to think,
+ to write, to speak, to act, according to the best light within him;
+ limited as to his fellows, by the condition that he shall not use that
+ liberty so as to injure them; limited in the other direction, by those
+ tremendous laws which are laws in spite of all rhetoric, and in spite of
+ all logic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I put my finger into the fire, that fire burns. If I do a wrong, that
+ wrong remains. If I hurt my neighbor, the wrong reacts upon myself. If I
+ would try to escape what you call judgment, what you call penalty, I
+ cannot escape the working of the inevitable-law that follows a cause by
+ effect; I cannot escape that inevitable law&mdash;not the creation of some
+ dark monster flashing through the skies&mdash;but, as I believe, the
+ beneficent creation which puts into the spiritual life the same control of
+ law that guides the material life, which wisely makes me responsible, that
+ in the solemnity of that responsibility I am bound to lift my brother up
+ and never to drag my brother down.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ REPLY OF COLONEL INGERSOLL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first gentleman who replied to me took the ground boldly that
+ expression is not free&mdash;that no man has the right to express his real
+ thoughts&mdash;and I suppose that he acted in accordance with that idea.
+ How are you to know whether he thought a solitary thing that he said, or
+ not? How is it possible for us to ascertain whether he is simply the
+ mouthpiece of some other? Whether he is a free man, or whether he says
+ that which he does not believe, it is impossible for us to ascertain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He tells you that I am about to take away the religion of your mothers. I
+ have heard that said a great many times. No doubt Mr. Coudert has the
+ religion of his mother, and judging from the argument he made, his mother
+ knew at least as much about these questions as her son. I believe that
+ every good father and good mother wants to see the son and the daughter
+ climb higher upon the great and splendid mount of thought than they
+ reached.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You never can honor your father by going around swearing to his mistakes.
+ You never can honor your mother by saying that ignorance is blessed
+ because she did not know everything. I want to honor my parents by finding
+ out more than they did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing that I was a little astonished at&mdash;that Mr.
+ Coudert, knowing that he would be in eternal felicity with his harp in his
+ hand, seeing me in the world of the damned, could yet grow envious here
+ to-night at my imaginary monument.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And he tells you&mdash;this Catholic&mdash;that Voltaire was an
+ exceedingly good Christian compared with me. Do you know I am glad that I
+ have compelled a Catholic&mdash;one who does not believe he has the right
+ to express his honest thoughts&mdash;to pay a compliment to Voltaire
+ simply because he thought it was at my expense?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have an almost infinite admiration for Voltaire; and when I hear that
+ name pronounced, I think of a plume floating over a mailed knight&mdash;I
+ think of a man that rode to the beleaguered City of Catholicism and
+ demanded a surrender&mdash;I think of a great man who thrust the dagger of
+ assassination into your Mother Church, and from that wound she never will
+ recover.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One word more. This gentleman says that children are destructive&mdash;that
+ the first thing they do is to destroy their bibs. The gentleman, I should
+ think from his talk, has preserved his!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They talk about blasphemy. What is blasphemy? Let us be honest with each
+ other. Whoever lives upon the unpaid labor of others is a blasphemer.
+ Whoever slanders, maligns, and betrays is a blasphemer. Whoever denies to
+ others the rights that he claims for himself is a blasphemer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who is a worshiper? One who makes a happy home&mdash;one who fills the
+ lives of wife and children with sunlight&mdash;one who has a heart where
+ the flowers of kindness burst into blossom and fill the air with perfume&mdash;the
+ man who sits beside his wife, prematurely old and wasted, and holds her
+ thin hands in his and kisses them as passionately and loves her as truly
+ and as rapturously as when she was a bride&mdash;he is a worshiper&mdash;that
+ is worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the gentleman brought forward as a reason why we should not have free
+ speech, that only a few years ago some of the best men in the world, if
+ you said a word in favor of liberty, would shoot you down. What an
+ argument was that! They were not good men. They were the whippers of women
+ and the stealers of babes&mdash;robbers of the trundlebed&mdash;assassins
+ of human liberty. They knew no better, but I do not propose to follow the
+ example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much for debauching his family by telling them that his precepts are
+ false. If he has taught them as he has taught us to-night, he has
+ debauched their minds. I would be honest at the cradle. I would not tell a
+ child anything as a certainty that I did not know. I would be absolutely
+ honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But he says that thought is absolutely free&mdash;nobody can control
+ thought. Let me tell him: Superstition is the jailer of the mind. You can
+ so stuff a child with superstition that its poor little brain is a bastile
+ and its poor little soul a convict. Fear is the jailer of the mind, and
+ superstition is the assassin of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So when anybody goes into his family and tells these great and shining
+ truths, instead of debauching his children they will kill the snakes that
+ crawl in their cradles. Let us be honest and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, coming to the second gentleman. He is a Protestant. The Catholic
+ Church says: "Don't think; pay your fare; this is a through ticket, and we
+ will look out for your baggage." The Protestant Church says: "Read that
+ Bible for yourselves; think for yourselves; but if you do not come to a
+ right conclusion you will be eternally damned." Any sensible man will say,
+ "Then I won't read it&mdash;I'll believe it without reading it." And that
+ is the only way you can be sure you will believe it; don't read it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Governor Woodford says that we are responsible for our thoughts. Why?
+ Could you help thinking as you did on this subject? No, Could you help
+ believing the Bible? I suppose not. Could you help believing that story of
+ Jonah? Certainly not&mdash;it looks reasonable in Brooklyn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I stated that thought was the result of the impressions of nature upon the
+ mind through the medium of the senses. He says you cannot have thought
+ without memory. How did you get the first one?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course I intended to be understood&mdash;and the language is clear&mdash;that
+ there could be no thought except through the impressions made upon the
+ brain by nature through the avenues called the senses. Take away the
+ senses, how would you think then? If you thought at all, I think you would
+ agree with Mr. Coudert.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I admit&mdash;so we need never have a contradiction about it&mdash;I
+ admit that every human being is responsible to the person he injures. If
+ he injures any man, woman, or child, or any dog, or the lowest animal that
+ crawls, he is responsible to that animal, to that being&mdash;in other
+ words, he is responsible to any being that he has injured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But you cannot injure an infinite Being, if there be one. I will tell you
+ why. You cannot help him, and you cannot hurt him. If there be an infinite
+ Being, he is conditionless&mdash;he does not want anything&mdash;he has
+ it. You cannot help anybody that does not want something&mdash;you cannot
+ help him. You cannot hurt anybody unless he is a conditioned being and you
+ change his condition so as to inflict a harm. But if God be conditionless,
+ you cannot hurt him, and you cannot help him. So do not trouble yourselves
+ about the Infinite. All our duties lie within reach&mdash;all our duties
+ are right here; and my religion is simply this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. Give to every other human being every right that you claim
+ for yourself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. If you tell your thought at all, tell your honest thought.
+ Do not be a parrot&mdash;do not be an instrumentality for an organization.
+ Tell your own thought, honor bright, what you think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My next idea is, that the only possible good in the universe is happiness.
+ The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be
+ happy is to try and make somebody else so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My good friend General Woodford&mdash;and he is a good man telling the
+ best he knows&mdash;says that I will be accountable at the bar up yonder.
+ I am ready to settle that account now, and expect to be, every moment of
+ my life&mdash;and when that settlement comes, if it does come, I do not
+ believe that a solitary being can rise and say that I ever injured him or
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But no matter what they say. Let me tell you a story, how we will settle
+ if we do get there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You remember the story told about the Mexican who believed that his
+ country was the only one in the world, and said so. The priest told him
+ that there was another country where a man lived who was eleven or twelve
+ feet high, that made the whole world, and if he denied it, when that man
+ got hold of him he would not leave a whole bone in his body. But he denied
+ it. He was one of those men who would not believe further than his vision
+ extended.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So one day in his boat, he was rocking away when the wind suddenly arose
+ and he was blown out of sight of his home. After several days he was blown
+ so far that he saw the shores of another country. Then he said, "My Lord;
+ I am gone! I have been swearing all my life that there was no other
+ country, and here it is!" So he did his best&mdash;paddled with what
+ little strength he had left, reached the shore, and got out of his boat.
+ Sure enough, there came down a man to meet him about twelve feet high. The
+ poor little wretch was frightened almost to death, so he said to the tall
+ man as he saw him coming down: "Mister, whoever you are, I denied your
+ existence&mdash;I did not believe you lived; I swore there was no such
+ country as this; but I see I was mistaken, and I am gone. You are going to
+ kill me, and the quicker you do it the better and get me out of my misery.
+ Do it now!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great man just looked at the little fellow, and said nothing, till he
+ asked, "What are you going to do with me, because over in that other
+ country I denied your existence?" "What am I going to do with you?" said
+ the supposed God. "Now that you have got here, if you behave yourself I am
+ going to treat you well."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A CHRISTMAS SERMON.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This is the famous Christmas Sermon written by Colonel
+ Ingersoll and printed in the Evening Telegram, on December
+ 19,1891.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE good part of Christmas is not always Christian&mdash;it is generally
+ Pagan; that is to say, human, natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of
+ eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips.
+ It meant war on earth and perdition hereafter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It taught some good things&mdash;the beauty of love and kindness in man.
+ But as a torch-bearer, as a bringer of joy, it has been a failure. It has
+ given infinite consequences to the acts of finite beings, crushing the
+ soul with a responsibility too great for mortals to bear. It has filled
+ the future with fear and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal
+ penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men. Not
+ satisfied with that, it has deprived God of the pardoning power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In answer to this "Christmas Sermon" the Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley, editor of
+ the Christian Advocate, the recognized organ of the Methodist Church,
+ wrote an article, calling upon the public to boycott the Evening Telegram
+ for publishing such a "sermon."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This attack was headed "Lies That Are Mountainous." The Telegram promptly
+ accepted the issue raised by Dr. Buckley and dared him to do his utmost.
+ On the very same day it published an answer from Colonel Ingersoll that
+ echoed throughout America.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet it may have done some good by borrowing from the Pagan world the
+ old festival called Christmas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long before Christ was born the Sun-God triumphed over the powers of
+ Darkness. About the time that we call Christmas the days begin perceptibly
+ to lengthen. Our barbarian ancestors were worshipers of the sun, and they
+ celebrated his victory over the hosts of night. Such a festival was
+ natural and beautiful. The most natural of all religions is the worship of
+ the sun. Christianity adopted this festival. It borrowed from the Pagans
+ the best it has.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in Christmas and in every day that has been set apart for joy.
+ We in America have too much work and not enough play. We are too much like
+ the English.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think it was Heinrich Heine who said that he thought a blaspheming
+ Frenchman was a more pleasing object to God than a praying Englishman. We
+ take our joys too sadly. I am in favor of all the good free days&mdash;the
+ more the better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christmas is a good day to forgive and forget&mdash;a good day to throw
+ away prejudices and hatreds&mdash;a good day to fill your heart and your
+ house, and the hearts and houses of others, with sunshine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ R. G Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ COL. INGERSOLL'S REPLY TO Dr. BUCKLEY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHENEVER an orthodox editor attacks an unbeliever, look out for kindness,
+ charity and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The gentle editor of the <i>Christian Advocate</i> charges me with having
+ written three "gigantic falsehoods," and he points them out as follows: <i>First</i>&mdash;"Christianity
+ did not come with tidings of great joy? but with a message of eternal
+ grief."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>&mdash;"It [Christianity] has filled the future with fear and
+ flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be
+ the home of nearly all the sons of men."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>&mdash;"Not satisfied with that, it [Christianity] has
+ deprived God of the pardoning power."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us take up these "gigantic falsehoods" in their order and see
+ whether they are in accord with the New Testament or not&mdash;whether
+ they are supported by the creed of the Methodist Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insist that Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but
+ with a message of eternal grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the orthodox creeds, Christianity came with the tidings that
+ the human race was totally depraved, and that all men were in a lost
+ condition, and that all who rejected or failed to believe the new
+ religion, would be tormented in eternal fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These were not "tidings of great joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the passengers on some great ship were told that the ship was to be
+ wrecked, that a few would be saved and that nearly all would go to the
+ bottom, would they talk about "tidings of great joy"? It is to be presumed
+ that Christ knew what his mission was, and what he came for. He says:
+ "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send
+ peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his
+ father, and the daughter against her mother." In my judgment, these are
+ not "tidings of great joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the message of eternal grief:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye
+ cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous
+ [meaning the Methodists] into life eternal."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that believeth not shall be damned."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
+ abideth on him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but
+ rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Knowing, as we do, that but few people have been believers, that during
+ the last eighteen hundred years not one in a hundred has died in the
+ faith, and that consequently nearly all the dead are in hell, it can
+ truthfully be said that Christianity came with a message of eternal grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the second "gigantic falsehood," to the effect that
+ Christianity filled the future with fear and flame, and made God the
+ keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all
+ the sons of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Old Testament there is nothing about punishment in some other
+ world, nothing about the flames and torments of hell. When Jehovah killed
+ one of his enemies he was satisfied. His revenge was glutted when the
+ victim was dead. The Old Testament gave the future to sleep and oblivion.
+ But in the New Testament we are told that the punishment in another world
+ is everlasting, and that "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever
+ and ever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This awful doctrine, these frightful texts, filled the future with fear
+ and flame. Building on these passages, the orthodox churches have
+ constructed a penitentiary, in which nearly all the sons of men are to be
+ imprisoned and tormented forever, and of this prison God is the keeper.
+ The doors are opened only to receive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine of eternal punishment is the infamy of infamies. As I have
+ often said, the man who believes in eternal torment, in the justice of
+ endless pain, is suffering from at least two diseases&mdash;petrifaction
+ of the heart and putrefaction of the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question is whether Christianity has deprived God of the
+ pardoning power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Methodist Church and every orthodox church teaches that this life is a
+ period of probation; that there is no chance given for reformation after
+ death; that God gives no opportunity to repent in another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the doctrine of the Christian world. If this dogma be true, then
+ God will never release a soul from hell&mdash;the pardoning power will
+ never be exercised.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How happy God will be and how happy all the saved will be, knowing that
+ billions and billions of his children, of their fathers, mothers,
+ brothers, sisters, wives, and children are convicts in the eternal
+ dungeons, and that the words of pardon will never be spoken!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet this is in accordance with the promise contained in the New Testament,
+ of happiness here and eternal joy hereafter, to those who would desert
+ brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me clear that Christianity did not bring "tidings of great
+ joy," but that it came with a "message of eternal grief"&mdash;that it did
+ "fill the future with fear and flame," that it did make God "the keeper of
+ an eternal penitentiary," that the penitentiary "was destined to be the
+ home of nearly all the sons of men," and that "it deprived God of the
+ pardoning power."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course you can find passages full of peace, in the Bible, others of war&mdash;some
+ filled with mercy, and others cruel as the fangs of a wild beast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Methodists, God has an eternal prison&mdash;an
+ everlasting Siberia. There is to be an eternity of grief, of agony and
+ shame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What do I think of what the Doctor says about the <i>Telegram</i> for
+ having published my Christmas sermon?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The editor of the <i>Christian Advocate</i> has no idea of what
+ intellectual liberty means. He ought to know that a man should not be
+ insulted because another man disagrees with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What right has Dr. Buckley to disagree with Cardinal Gibbons, and what
+ right has Cardinal Gibbons to disagree with Dr. Buckley? The same right
+ that I have to disagree with them both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not warn people against reading Catholic or Methodist papers or
+ books. But I do tell them to investigate for themselves&mdash;to stand by
+ what they believe to be true, to deny the false, and, above all things, to
+ preserve their mental manhood. The good Doctor wants the <i>Telegram</i>
+ destroyed&mdash;wants all religious people to unite for the purpose of
+ punishing the <i>Telegram</i>&mdash;because it published something with
+ which the reverend Doctor does not agree, or rather that does not agree
+ with the Doctor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is too late. That day has faded in the West of the past. The doctor of
+ theology has lost his power. Theological thunder has lost its lightning&mdash;it
+ is nothing now but noise, pleasing those who make it and amusing those who
+ hear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The <i>Telegram</i> has nothing to fear. It is, in the highest sense, a
+ newspaper&mdash;wide-awake, alive, always on time, good to its friends,
+ fair with its enemies, and true to the public.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What have I to say to the Doctor's personal abuse?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing. A man may call me a devil, or the devil, or he may say that I am
+ incapable of telling the truth, or that I tell lies, and yet all this
+ proves nothing. My arguments remain unanswered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot afford to call Dr. Buckley names, I have good mental manners. The
+ cause I represent (in part) is too great, too sacred, to be stained by an
+ ignorant or a malicious personality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that men do as they must with the light they have, and so I say&mdash;More
+ light!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Rev. James M. King&mdash;who seems to have taken this occasion to
+ become known&mdash;finds fault because "blasphemous utterances concerning
+ Christmas" were published in the <i>Telegram</i>, and were allowed "to
+ greet the eyes of innocent children and pure women."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it possible to blaspheme a day? One day is not, in and of itself,
+ holier than another&mdash;that is to say, two equal spaces of time are
+ substantially alike. We call a day "good" or "bad" according to what
+ happens in the day. A day filled with happiness, with kind words, with
+ noble deeds, is a good day. A day filled with misfortunes and anger and
+ misery we call a bad day. But how is it possible to blaspheme a day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man may or may not believe that Christ was born on the 2 5th of
+ December, and yet he may fill that day, so far as he is concerned, with
+ good thoughts and words and deeds. Another may really believe that Christ
+ was born on that day, and yet do his worst to make all his friends
+ unhappy. But how can the rights of what are called "clean families" be
+ violated by reading the honest opinions of others as to whether Christmas
+ is kept in honor of the birth of Christ, or in honor of the triumph of the
+ sun over the hosts of darkness? Are Christian families so weak
+ intellectually that they cannot bear to hear the other side? Or is their
+ case so weak that the slightest evidence overthrows it? Why do all these
+ ministers insist that it is ill-bred to even raise a question as to the
+ truth of the improbable, or as to the improbability of the impossible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A minister says to me that I am going to hell&mdash;that I am bound to be
+ punished forever and ever&mdash;and thereupon I say to him: "There is no
+ hell you are mistaken; your Bible is not inspired; no human being is to
+ suffer agony forever;" and thereupon, with an injured look, he asks me
+ this question: "Why do you hurt my feelings?" It does not occur to him
+ that I have the slightest right to object to his sentence of eternal
+ grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the gentleman imagine that true men and pure women cannot differ with
+ him? There are many thousands of people who love and honor the memory of
+ Jesus Christ, who yet have not the slightest belief in his divine origin,
+ and who do not for one moment imagine that he was other than a good and
+ heroic man. And there are thousands of people who admire the character of
+ Jesus Christ who do not believe that he ever existed&mdash;who admire the
+ character of Christ as they admire Imogen, or Per-dita, not believing that
+ any of the characters mentioned actually lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it may be well enough here to state that no human being hates any
+ really good man or good woman&mdash;that is, no human being hates a man
+ known to be good&mdash;a woman known to be pure and good. No human being
+ hates a lovable character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly easy for any one with the slightest imagination to
+ understand how other people differ from him. I do not attribute a bad
+ motive to a man simply because he disagrees with me. I do not say that a
+ man is a Christian or a Mohammedan "for revenue only." I do not say that a
+ man joins the Democratic party simply for office, or that he marches with
+ the Republicans simply for position. I am willing to hear his reasons&mdash;with
+ his motives I have nothing to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. King imagines that I have denounced Christianity "for revenue only."
+ Is he willing to admit that we have drifted so far from orthodox religion
+ that the way to make money is to denounce Christianity? I can hardly
+ believe, for joy, that liberty of thought has advanced so far. I regret
+ exceedingly that there is not an absolute foundation for his remark. I am
+ indeed sorry that it is possible in this world of ours for any human being
+ to make a living out of the ignorance and fear of his fellow-men. Still,
+ it gives me great hope for the future to read, even in this ignorant
+ present, that there is one man, and that man myself, who advocates human
+ liberty&mdash;the absolute enfranchisement of the soul&mdash;and does it
+ "for revenue"&mdash;because this charge is such a splendid compliment to
+ my fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly the remark of the Rev. Mr. King will be gratifying to the <i>Telegram</i>
+ and will satisfy that brave and progressive sheet that it is in harmony
+ with the intelligence of the age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My opinion is that the <i>Telegram</i> will receive the praise of
+ enlightened and generous people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Personally I judge a man not so much by his theories as by his practice,
+ and I would much rather meet on the desert&mdash;were I about to perish
+ for want of water&mdash;a Mohammedan who would give me a drink than a
+ Christian who would not; because, after all is said and done, we are
+ compelled to judge people by their actions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know what takes place in the invisible world called the brain,
+ inhabited by the invisible something we call the mind. All that takes
+ place there is invisible and soundless. This mind, hidden in this brain,
+ masked by flesh, remains forever unseen, and the only evidence we can
+ possibly have as to what occurs in that world, we obtain from the actions
+ of the man, of the woman. By these actions we judge of the character, of
+ the soul. So I make up my mind as to whether a man is good or bad, not by
+ his theories, but by his actions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under no circumstances can the expression of an honest opinion, couched in
+ becoming language, amount to blasphemy. And right here it may be well
+ enough to inquire: What is blasphemy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man who knowingly assaults the true, who knowingly endeavors to stain
+ the pure, who knowingly maligns the good and noble, is a blasphemer. A man
+ who deserts the truth because it is unpopular is a blasphemer. He who runs
+ with the hounds knowing that the hare is in the right is a blasphemer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the soul of every man, or in the temple inhabited by the soul, there is
+ one niche in which can be found the statue of the ideal. In the presence
+ of this statue the good man worships&mdash;the bad man blasphemes&mdash;that
+ is to say, he is not true to the ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man who slanders a pure woman or an honest man is a blasphemer. So, too,
+ a man who does not give the honest transcript of his mind is a blasphemer.
+ If a man really thinks the character of Jehovah, as portrayed in the Old
+ Testament, is good, and he denounces Jehovah as bad, he is a blasphemer.
+ If he really believes that the character of Jehovah, as portrayed in the
+ Old Testament, is bad, and he pronounces it good, he is a blasphemer and a
+ coward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All laws against "blasphemy" have been passed by the numerically strong
+ and intellectually weak. These laws have been passed by those who, finding
+ no help in logic, appealed to the legislature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Back of all these superstitions you will find some self-interest. I do not
+ say that this is true in every case, but I do say that if priests had not
+ been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrificed to God.
+ Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and
+ it always so happened that God wanted what his agents liked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I will not say that all priests have been priests "for revenue only,"
+ but I must say that the history of the world tends to show that the
+ sacerdotal class prefer revenue without religion to religion without
+ revenue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am much obliged to the Rev. Mr. King for admitting that an infidel has a
+ right to publish his views at his own expense, and with the utmost
+ cheerfulness I accord that right to a Christian. The only thing I have
+ ever objected to is the publication of his views at the expense of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot admit, however, that the ideas contained in what is known as the
+ Christmas Sermon are "revolting to a vast majority of the people who give
+ character to the community in which we live." I suppose that a very large
+ majority of men and women who disagree with me are perfectly satisfied
+ that I have the right to disagree with them, and that I do not disagree
+ with them to any greater degree than they disagree with me. And I also
+ imagine that a very large majority of intelligent people are perfectly
+ willing to hear the other side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not regard religious opinions or political opinions as exotics that
+ have to be kept under glass, protected from the frosts of common sense or
+ the tyrannous north wind of logic. Such plants are hardly worth
+ preserving. They certainly ought to be hardy enough to stand the climate
+ of free discussion, and if they cannot, the sooner they die the better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think there was anything blasphemous or impure in the words
+ published by, the <i>Telegram</i>. The most that can possibly be said
+ against them, calculated to excite the prejudice of Christians, is that
+ they were true&mdash;that they cannot be answered except by abuse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not possible, in this day and generation, to stay the rising flood
+ of intellectual freedom by keeping the names of thinkers out of print. The
+ church has had the field for eighteen hundred years. For most of this time
+ it has held the sword and purse of the world. For many centuries it
+ controlled colleges and universities and schools. It had within its gift
+ wealth and honor. It held the keys, so far as this world is concerned, of
+ heaven and hell&mdash;that is to say, of prosperity and misfortune. It
+ pursued its enemies even to the grave. It reddened the scaffold with the
+ best blood, and kept the sword of persecution wet for many centuries.
+ Thousands and thousands have died in its dungeons. Millions of reputations
+ have been blasted by its slanders. It has made millions of widows and
+ orphans, and it has not only ruled this world, but it has pretended to
+ hold the keys of eternity, and under this pretence it has sentenced
+ countless millions to eternal flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the spirit of independence rose against its monstrous assumptions.
+ It has been growing some-what weaker. It has been for many years gradually
+ losing its power. The sword of the state belongs now to the people. The
+ partnership between altar and throne has in many countries been dissolved.
+ The adulterous marriage of church and state has ceased to exist. Men are
+ beginning to express their honest thoughts. In the arena where speech is
+ free, superstition is driven to the wall. Man relies more and more on the
+ facts in nature, and the real priest is the interpreter of nature. The
+ pulpit is losing its power. In a little while religion will take its place
+ with astrology, with the black art, and its ministers will take rank with
+ magicians and sleight-of-hand performers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With regard to the letter of the Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., I have but little
+ to say.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am glad that he believes in a free platform and a free press&mdash;that
+ he, like Lucretia Mott, believes in "truth for authority, and not
+ authority for truth." At the same time I do not see how the fact that I am
+ not a scientist has the slightest bearing upon the question; but if there
+ is any fact that I have avoided or misstated, then I wish that fact to be
+ pointed out. I admit also, that I am a "sentimentalist"&mdash;that is,
+ that I am governed, to a certain extent, by sentiment&mdash;that my mind
+ is so that cruelty is revolting and that mercy excites my love and
+ admiration. I admit that I am so much of "a sentimentalist" that I have no
+ love for the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and that it is impossible for
+ me to believe a creed that fills the prison house of hell with countless
+ billions of men, women and children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am also glad that the reverend gentleman admits that I have "stabbed to
+ the heart hundreds of superstitions and lies," and I hope to stab many,
+ many more, and if I succeed in stabbing all lies to the heart there will
+ be no foundation left for what I called "orthodox" Christianity&mdash;but
+ goodness will survive, justice will live, and the flower of mercy will
+ shed its perfume forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we take into consideration the fact that the Rev. Mr. Dixon is a
+ minister and believes that he is called upon to deliver to the people a
+ divine message, I do not wonder that he makes the following assertion: "If
+ God could choose Balaam's ass to speak a divine message, I do not see why
+ he could not utilize the Colonel." It is natural for a man to justify
+ himself and to defend his own occupation. Mr. Dixon, however, will
+ remember that the ass was much superior to the prophet of God, and that
+ the argument was all on the side of the ass. And, furthermore, that the
+ spiritual discernment of the ass far exceeded that of the prophet. It was
+ the ass who saw the angel when the prophet's eye was dim. I suggest to the
+ Rev. Mr. Dixon that he read the account once more, and he will find:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>, that the ass <i>first</i> saw the angel of the Lord; <i>second</i>,
+ that the prophet Balaam was cruel, unreasonable, and brutal; <i>third</i>,
+ that the prophet so lost his temper that he wanted to kill the innocent
+ ass, and the ass, not losing her temper, reasoned with the prophet and
+ demonstrated not only her intellectual but her moral superiority. In
+ addition to all this the angel of the Lord had to open the eyes of the
+ prophet&mdash;in other words, had to work a miracle&mdash;in order to make
+ the prophet equal to the ass, and not only so, but rebuked him for his
+ cruelty. And this same angel admitted that without any miracle whatever
+ the ass saw him&mdash;the angel&mdash;showing that the spiritual
+ discernment of the ass in those days was far superior to that of the
+ prophet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I regret that the Rev. Mr. King loses his temper and that the Rev. Mr.
+ Dixon is not quite polite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of us should remember that passion clouds the judgment, and that he
+ who seeks for victory loses sight of the cause.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there is another thing: He who has absolute confidence in the justice
+ of his position can afford to be good-natured. Strength is the foundation
+ of kindness; weakness is often malignant, and when argument fails passion
+ comes to the rescue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be good-natured. Let us have respect for the rights of each other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The course pursued by the <i>Telegram</i> is worthy of all praise. It has
+ not only been just to both sides, but it has been&mdash;as is its custom&mdash;true
+ to the public.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ INGERSOLL AGAIN ANSWERS HIS CRITICS. IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>To the Editor of the Evening Telegram</i> :
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SOME of the gentlemen who have given their ideas through the columns of
+ the <i>Telegram</i> have wandered from the questions under discussion. It
+ may be well enough to state what is really in dispute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was called to account for having stated that Christianity did not bring
+ "tidings of great joy," but a message of eternal grief&mdash;that it
+ filled the future with fear and flame&mdash;made God the keeper of an
+ eternal penitentiary, in which most of the children of men were to be
+ imprisoned forever, and that, not satisfied with that, it had deprived God
+ of the pardoning power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These statements were called "mountainous lies" by the Rev. Dr. Buckley,
+ and because the <i>Telegram</i> had published the "Christmas Sermon"
+ containing these statements, he insisted that such a paper should not be
+ allowed in the families of Christians or of Jews&mdash;in other words,
+ that the <i>Telegram</i> should be punished, and that good people should
+ refuse to allow that sheet to come into their homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will probably be admitted by all fair-minded people that if the
+ orthodox creeds be true, then Christianity was and is the bearer of a
+ message of eternal grief, and a large majority of the human race are to
+ become eternal convicts, and God has deprived himself of the pardoning
+ power. According to those creeds, no word of mercy to any of the lost can
+ ever fall from the lips of the Infinite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Universalists deny that such was or is the real message of
+ Christianity. They insist that all are finally to be saved. If that
+ doctrine be true, then I admit that Christianity came with "tidings of
+ great joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Personally I have no quarrel with the Univer-salist Church. I have no
+ quarrel with any creed that expresses hope for all of the human race. I
+ find fault with no one for filling the future with joy&mdash;for dreaming
+ splendid dreams and for uttering splendid prophecies. I do not object to
+ Christianity because it promises heaven to a few, but because it threatens
+ the many with perdition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem possible to me that a God who loved men to that degree
+ that he died that they might be saved, abandons his children the moment
+ they are dead. It seems to me that an infinite God might do something for
+ a soul after it has reached the other world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that infinite wisdom can do no more than is done for a
+ majority of souls in this world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the millions born in ignorance and filth, raised in poverty and
+ crime. Think of the millions who are only partially developed in this
+ world. Think of the weakness of the will, of the power of passion. Think
+ of the temptations innumerable. Think, too, of the tyranny of man, of the
+ arrogance of wealth and position, of the sufferings of the weak&mdash;and
+ can we then say that an infinite God has done, in this world, all that
+ could be done for the salvation of his children? Is it not barely possible
+ that something may be done in another world? Is there nothing left for God
+ to do for a poor, ignorant, criminal human soul after it leaves this
+ world? Can God do nothing except to pronounce the sentence of eternal
+ pain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insist that if the orthodox creed be true, Christianity did not come
+ with "tidings of great joy," but that its message was and is one of
+ eternal grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the orthodox creed be true, the universe is a vast blunder&mdash;an
+ infinite crime. Better, a thousand times, that every pulse of life should
+ cease&mdash;better that all the gods should fall palsied from their
+ thrones, than that the creed of Christendom should be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another question and that involves the freedom of the press.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The <i>Telegram</i> has acted with the utmost fairness and with the
+ highest courage. After all, the American people admire the man who takes
+ his stand and bravely meets all comers. To be an instrumentality of
+ progress, the press must be free. Only the free can carry a torch. Liberty
+ sheds light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The editor or manager of a newspaper occupies a public position, and he
+ must not treat his patrons as though they were weak and ignorant children.
+ He must not, in the supposed interest of any ism, suppress the truth&mdash;neither
+ must he be dictated to by any church or any society of believers or
+ unbelievers. The <i>Telegram</i>, by its course, has given a certificate
+ of its manliness, and the public, by its course, has certified that it
+ appreciates true courage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All Christians should remember that facts are not sectarian, and that the
+ sciences are not bound by the creeds. We should remember that there are no
+ such things as Methodist mathematics, or Baptist botany, or Catholic
+ chemistry. The sciences are secular. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Peters seems to have mistaken the issues&mdash;and yet, in
+ some things, I agree with him. He is certainly right when he says that
+ "Mr. Buckley's cry to boycott the Telegram is unmanly and un-American,"
+ but I am not certain that he is right when he says that it is
+ un-Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has not been in the habit of pursuing enemies with kind words
+ and charitable deeds. To tell the truth, it has always been rather
+ relentless. It has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven. There
+ is in the history of Christendom no instance where the church has extended
+ the hand of friendship to a man who denied the truth of its creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in the church no spirit&mdash;no climate&mdash;of compromise. In
+ the nature of things there can be none, because the church claims that it
+ is absolutely right&mdash;that there is only one road leading to heaven.
+ It demands unconditional surrender. It will not bear contradiction. It
+ claims to have the absolute truth. For these reasons it cannot
+ consistently compromise, any more than a mathematician could change the
+ multiplication table to meet the view of some one who should deny that
+ five times five are twenty-five.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church does not give its opinion&mdash;it claims to know&mdash;it
+ demands belief. Honesty, industry, generosity count for nothing in the
+ absence of belief. It has taught and still teaches that no man can reach
+ heaven simply through good and honest deeds. It believes and teaches that
+ the man who relies upon himself will be eternally punished&mdash;and why
+ should the church forgive a man whom it thinks its God is waiting somewhat
+ impatiently to damn?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Peters asks&mdash;and probably honestly thinks that the
+ questions are pertinent to the issues involved&mdash;"What has infidelity
+ done for the world? What colleges, hospitals, and schools has it founded?
+ What has it done for the elevation of public morals?" And he inquires what
+ science or art has been originated by infidelity. He asks how many slaves
+ it has liberated, how many inebriates it has reclaimed, how many fallen
+ women it has restored, and what it did for the relief of the wounded and
+ dying soldiers; and concludes by asking what life it ever assisted to
+ higher holiness, and what death it has ever cheered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although these questions have nothing whatever to do with the matters
+ under discussion, still it may be well enough to answer them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is cheerfully admitted that hospitals and asylums have been built by
+ Christians in Christian countries, and it is also admitted that hospitals
+ and asylums have been built in countries not Christian; that there were
+ such institutions in China thousands of years before Christ was born, and
+ that many centuries before the establishment of any orthodox church there
+ were asylums on the banks of the Nile&mdash;asylums for the old, the poor,
+ the infirm&mdash;asylums for the blind and for the insane, and that the
+ Egyptians, even of those days, endeavored to cure insanity with kindness
+ and affection. The same is true of India and probably of most ancient
+ nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has always been more or less humanity in man&mdash;more or less
+ goodness in the human heart. So far as we know, mothers have always loved
+ their children. There must always have been more good than evil, otherwise
+ the human race would have perished. The best things in the Christian
+ religion came from the heart of man. Pagan lips uttered the sublimest of
+ truths, and all ages have been redeemed by honesty, heroism, and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let me answer these questions in their order.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>&mdash;As to the schools.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is most cheerfully admitted that the Catholics have always been in
+ favor of education&mdash;that is to say, of education enough to make a
+ Catholic out of a heathen. It is also admitted that Protestants have
+ always been in favor of enough education to make a Protestant out of a
+ Catholic. Many schools and many colleges have been established for the
+ spread of what is called the Gospel and for the education of the clergy.
+ Presbyterians have founded schools for the benefit of their creed. The
+ Methodists have established colleges for the purpose of making Methodists.
+ The same is true of nearly all the sects. As a matter of fact, these
+ schools have in many important directions hindered rather than helped the
+ cause of real education. The pupils were not taught to investigate for
+ themselves. They were not allowed to think. They were told that thought is
+ dangerous. They were stuffed and crammed with creeds&mdash;with the ideas
+ of others. Their credulity was applauded and their curiosity condemned. If
+ all the people had been educated in these sectarian schools, all the
+ people would have been far more ignorant than they are. These schools have
+ been, and most of them still are, the enemies of higher education, and
+ just to the extent that they are under the control of theologians they are
+ hindrances, and just to the extent that they have become secularized they
+ have been and are a benefit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our public-school system is not Christian. It is secular. Yet I admit that
+ it never could have been established without the assistance of Christians&mdash;neither
+ could it have been supported without the assistance of others. But such is
+ the value placed upon education that people of nearly all denominations,
+ and of nearly all religions, and of nearly all opinions, for the most part
+ agree that the children of a nation should be educated by the nation. Some
+ religious people are opposed to these schools because they are not
+ religious&mdash;because they do not teach some creed&mdash;but a large
+ majority of the people stand by the public schools as they are. These
+ schools are growing better and better, simply because they are growing
+ less and less theological, more and more secular.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infidelity, or agnosticism, or free thought, has insisted that only that
+ should be taught in schools which somebody knows or has good reason to
+ believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest professors in our colleges to-day are those who have the
+ least confidence in the supernatural, and the schools that stand highest
+ in the estimation of the most intelligent are those that have drifted
+ farthest from the orthodox creeds. Free thought has always been and ever
+ must be the friend of education. Without free thought there can be no such
+ thing&mdash;in the highest sense&mdash;as a school. Unless the mind is
+ free, there are no teachers and there are no pupils, in any just and
+ splendid sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has been and still is the enemy of education, because it has
+ been in favor of intellectual slavery, and the theological schools have
+ been what might be called the deformatories of the human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance: A man is graduated from an orthodox university. In this
+ university he has studied astronomy, and yet he believes that Joshua
+ stopped the sun. He has studied geology, and yet he asserts the truth of
+ the Mosaic cosmogony. He has studied chemistry, and yet believes that
+ water was turned into wine. He has been taught the ordinary theory of
+ cause and effect, and at the same time he thoroughly believes in the
+ miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. Can such an institution,
+ with any propriety, be called a seat of learning? Can we not say of such a
+ university what Bruno said of Oxford: "Learning is dead and Oxford is its
+ widow."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Year after year the religious colleges are improving&mdash;simply because
+ they are becoming more and more secular, less and less theological.
+ Whether infidelity has founded universities or not, it can truthfully be
+ said that the spirit of investigation, the spirit of free thought, the
+ attitude of mental independence, contended for by those who are called
+ infidels, have made schools useful instead of hurtful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can it be shown that any infidel has ever raised his voice against
+ education? Can there be found in the literature of free thought one line
+ against the enlightenment of the human race? Has free thought ever
+ endeavored to hide or distort, a fact? Has it not always appealed to the
+ senses&mdash;to demonstration? It has not said, "He that hath ears to
+ hear, let him hear," but it has said, "He that hath brains to think, let
+ him think."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The object of a school should be to ascertain truth in every direction, to
+ the end that man may know the conditions of happiness&mdash;and every
+ school should be absolutely free. No teacher should be bound by anything
+ except a perceived fact. He should not be the slave of a creed, engaged in
+ the business of enslaving others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much for schools.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second&mdash;As to public morals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. Every church
+ unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on a credit. I do not mean by
+ this that any church consciously advocates immorality. I most cheerfully
+ admit that thousands and thousands of ministers are endeavoring to do good&mdash;that
+ they are pure, self-denying men, trying to make this world better. But
+ there is a frightful defect in their philosophy. They say to the bank
+ cashier: You must not steal, you must not take a dollar&mdash;larceny is
+ wrong, it is contrary to all law, human and divine&mdash;but if you do
+ steal every cent in the bank, God will as gladly, quickly forgive you in
+ Canada as he will in the United States. On the other hand, what is called
+ infidelity says: There is no being in the universe who rewards, and there
+ is no being who punishes&mdash;every act has its consequences. If the act
+ is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences
+ are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. It says to
+ every human being: You must reap what you sow. There is no reward, there
+ is no punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are
+ the invisible and implacable police of nature. They cannot be avoided.
+ They cannot be bribed. No power can awe them, and there is not gold enough
+ in the world to make them pause. Even a God cannot induce them to release
+ for one instant their victim.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. If all men
+ knew that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions&mdash;if
+ they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring
+ themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Free thought has attacked the morality of what is called the atonement.
+ The innocent should not suffer for the guilty, and if the innocent does
+ suffer for the guilty, that cannot by any possibility justify the guilty.
+ The reason a thing is wrong is because it, in some way, causes the
+ innocent to suffer. This being the very essence of wrong, how can the
+ suffering of innocence justify the guilty? If there be a world of joy, he
+ who is worthy to enter that world must be willing to carry his own burdens
+ in this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much for morality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third&mdash;As to sciences and art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that we are indebted to Christianity for any science. I
+ do not remember that one science is mentioned in the New Testament. There
+ is not one word, so far as I remember, about education&mdash;nothing about
+ any science, nothing about art. The writers of the New Testament seem to
+ have thought that the world was about coming to an end. This world was to
+ be sacrificed absolutely to the next. The affairs of this life were not
+ worth speaking of. All people were exhorted to prepare at once for the
+ other life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sciences have advanced in the proportion that they did not interfere
+ with orthodox theology. To the extent that they were supposed to interfere
+ with theology they have been obstructed and denounced. Astronomy was found
+ to be inconsistent with the Scriptures, and the astronomers were
+ imprisoned and despised. Geology contradicted the Mosaic account, and the
+ geologists were denounced and persecuted. Every step taken in astronomy
+ was taken in spite of the church, and every fact in geology had to fight
+ its way. The same is true as to the science of medicine. The church wished
+ to cure disease by necromancy, by charm and prayer, and with the bones of
+ the saints. The church wished man to rely entirely upon God&mdash;that is
+ to say, upon the church&mdash;and not upon himself. The physician
+ interfered with the power and prosperity of the priest, and those who
+ appealed to physicians were denounced as lacking faith in God. This state
+ of things existed even in the Old Testament times. A king failed to send
+ for the prophets, but sent for a physician, and then comes this piece of
+ grim humor: "And Asa slept with his fathers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great names in science are not those of recognized saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bruno&mdash;one of the greatest and bravest of men&mdash;greatest of all
+ martyrs&mdash;perished at the stake, because he insisted on the existence
+ of other worlds and taught the astronomy of Galileo.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt&mdash;in some respects the wisest man known to the scientific
+ world&mdash;denied the existence of the supernatural and "the truths of
+ revealed religion," and yet he revolutionized the thought of his day and
+ left a legacy of intellectual glory to the race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Darwin&mdash;greatest of scientists&mdash;so great that our time will
+ probably be known as "Darwin's Century"&mdash;had not the slightest
+ confidence in any possible phase of the so-called supernatural. This great
+ man left the creed of Christendom without a foundation. He brought as
+ witnesses against the inspiration of the Scriptures such a multitude of
+ facts, such an overwhelming amount of testimony, that it seems impossible
+ to me that any unprejudiced man can, after hearing the testimony, remain a
+ believer in evangelical religion. He accomplished more than all the
+ schools, colleges, and universities that Christianity has founded. He
+ revolutionized the philosophy of the civilized world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writers who have done most for science have been the most bitterly
+ opposed by the church. There is hardly a valuable book in the libraries of
+ the world that cannot be found on the "Index Expurgatorius." Kant and
+ Fichte and Spinoza were far above and beyond the orthodox-world. Voltaire
+ did more for freedom than any other man, and yet the church denounced him
+ with a fury amounting to insanity&mdash;called him an atheist, although he
+ believed not only in God, but in special providence. He was opposed to the
+ church&mdash;that is to say, opposed to slavery, and for that reason he
+ was despised.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what shall I say of D'Holbach, of Hume, of Buckle, of Draper, of
+ Haeckel, of B&uuml;chner, of Tyndall and Huxley, of Auguste Comte, and
+ hundreds and thousands of others who have filled the scientific world with
+ light and the heart of man with love and kindness?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be well enough, in regard to art, to say that Christianity is
+ indebted to Greece and Rome for its highest conceptions, and it may be
+ well to add that for many centuries Christianity did the best it could to
+ destroy the priceless marbles of Greece and Rome. A few were buried, and
+ in that way were saved from Christian fury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same is true of the literature of the classic world. A few fragments
+ were rescued, and these became the seeds of modern literature. A few
+ statues were preserved, and they are to-day models for all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course it will be admitted that there is much art in Christian lands,
+ because, in spite of the creeds, Christians, so-called, have turned their
+ attention to this world. They have beautified their homes, they have
+ endeavored to clothe themselves in purple and fine linen. They have been
+ forced from banquets or from luxury by the difficulty of camels going
+ through the eyes of needles or the impossibility of carrying water to the
+ rich man. They have cultivated this world, and the arts have lived. Did
+ they obey the precepts that they find in their sacred writings there would
+ be no art, they would "take no thought for the morrow," they would
+ "consider the lilies of the field."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth&mdash;As to the liberation of slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was exceedingly unfortunate for the Rev. Mr. Peters that he spoke of
+ slavery. The Bible upholds human slavery&mdash;white slavery. The Bible
+ was quoted by all slaveholders and slave-traders. The man who went to
+ Africa to steal women and children took the Bible with him. He planted
+ himself firmly on the Word of God. As Whittier says of Whitefield:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "He bade the slave ship speed from coast to coast,
+ Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ So when the poor wretches were sold to the planters, the planters defended
+ their action by reading the Bible. When a poor woman was sold, her
+ children torn from her breast, the auction block on which she stood was
+ the Bible; the auctioneer who sold her quoted the Scriptures; the man who
+ bought her repeated the quotations, and the ministers from the pulpit said
+ to the weeping woman, as her child was carried away: "Servants, be
+ obedient unto your masters."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Freethinkers in all ages have been opposed to slavery. Thomas Paine did
+ more for human liberty than any other man who ever stood upon the western
+ world. The first article he ever wrote in this country was one against the
+ institution of slavery. Freethinkers have also been in favor of free
+ bodies. Freethinkers have always said "free hands," and the infidels, the
+ wide world over, have been friends of freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth&mdash;As to the reclamation of inebriates.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Much has been said, and for many years, on the subject of temperance&mdash;much
+ has been uttered by priests and laymen&mdash;and yet there seems to be a
+ subtle relation between rum and religion. Scotland is extremely orthodox,
+ yet it is not extremely temperate. England is nothing if not religious,
+ and London is, par excellence, the Christian city of the world, and yet it
+ is the most intemperate. The Mohammedans&mdash;followers of a false
+ prophet&mdash;do not drink.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth&mdash;As to the humanity of infidelity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can it be said that people have cared for the wounded and dying only
+ because they were orthodox?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not true that religion, in its efforts to propagate the creed of
+ forgiveness by the sword, has caused the death of more than one hundred
+ and fifty millions of human beings? Is it not true that where the church
+ has cared for one orphan it has created hundreds? Can Christianity afford
+ to speak of war?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian nations of the world to-day are armed against each other. In
+ Europe, all that can be gathered by taxation&mdash;all that can be
+ borrowed by pledging the prosperity of the future&mdash;the labor of those
+ yet unborn&mdash;is used for the purpose of keeping Christians in the
+ field, to the end that they may destroy other Christians, or at least
+ prevent other Christians from destroying them. Europe is covered with
+ churches and fortifications, with temples and with forts&mdash;hundreds of
+ thousands of priests, millions of soldiers, countless Bibles and countless
+ bayonets&mdash;and that whole country is oppressed and impoverished for
+ the purpose of carrying on war. The people have become deformed by labor,
+ and yet Christianity boasts of peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventh&mdash;"And what death has infidelity ever cheered?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible for the orthodox Christian to cheer the dying when the
+ dying is told that there is a world of eternal pain, and that he, unless
+ he has been forgiven, is to be an eternal convict? Will it cheer him to
+ know that, even if he is to be saved, countless millions are to be lost?
+ Is it possible for the Christian religion to put a smile upon the face of
+ death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the other hand, what is called infidelity says to the dying: What
+ happens to you will happen to all. If there be another world of joy, it is
+ for all. If there is another life, every human being will have the eternal
+ opportunity of doing right&mdash;the eternal opportunity to live, to
+ reform, to enjoy. There is no monster in the sky. There is no Moloch who
+ delights in the agony of his children. These frightful things are savage
+ dreams.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infidelity puts out the fires of hell with the tears of pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infidelity puts the seven-hued arch of Hope over every grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us then, gentlemen, come back to the real questions under discussion.
+ Let us not wander away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jan'y 9, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ INGERSOLL CONTINUES THE BATTLE. V.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ NO one objects to the morality of Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The industrious people of the world&mdash;those who have anything&mdash;are,
+ as a rule, opposed to larceny; a very large majority of people object to
+ being murdered, and so we have laws against larceny and murder. A large
+ majority of people believe in what they call, or what they understand to
+ be, justice&mdash;at least as between others. There is no very great
+ difference of opinion among civilized people as to what is or is not
+ moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It cannot truthfully be said that the man who attacks Buddhism attacks all
+ morality. He does not attack goodness, justice, mercy, or anything that
+ tends in his judgment to the welfare of mankind; but he attacks Buddhism.
+ So one attacking what is called Christianity does not attack kindness,
+ charity, or any virtue. He attacks something that has been added to the
+ virtues. He does not attack the flower, but what he believes to be the
+ parasite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If people, when they speak of Christianity, include the virtues common to
+ all religions, they should not give Christianity credit for all the good
+ that has been done. There were millions of virtuous men and women,
+ millions of heroic and self-denying souls before Christianity was known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seen possible to me that love, kindness, justice, or charity
+ ever caused any one who possessed and practiced these virtues to persecute
+ his fellow-man on account of a difference of belief. If Christianity has
+ persecuted, some reason must exist outside of the virtues it has
+ inculcated. If this reason&mdash;this cause&mdash;is inherent in that
+ something else, which has been added to the ordinary virtues, then
+ Christianity can properly be held accountable for the persecution. Of
+ course back of Christianity is the nature of man, and, primarily, it may
+ be responsible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in Christianity that will account for such persecutions&mdash;for
+ the Inquisition? It certainly was taught by the church that belief was
+ necessary to salvation, and it was thought at the same time that the fate
+ of man was eternal punishment; that the state of man was that of
+ depravity, and that there was but one way by which he could be saved, and
+ that was through belief&mdash;through faith. As long as this was honestly
+ believed, Christians would not allow heretics or infidels to preach a
+ doctrine to their wives, to their children, or to themselves which, in
+ their judgment, would result in the damnation of souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law gives a father the right to kill one who is about to do great
+ bodily harm to his son. Now, if a father has the right to take the life of
+ a man simply because he is attacking the body of his son, how much more
+ would he have the right to take the life of one who was about to
+ assassinate the soul of his son!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians reasoned in this way. In addition to this, they felt that God
+ would hold the community responsible if the community allowed a blasphemer
+ to attack the true religion. Therefore they killed the freethinker, or
+ rather the free talker, in self-defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence;
+ that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity
+ had plainly said: "It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it
+ is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is
+ kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest"&mdash;if he had
+ only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he had added to this: "You must not persecute in my name. The religion
+ I teach is the Religion of Love&mdash;not the Religion of Force and
+ Hatred. You must not imprison your fellow-men. You must not stretch them
+ upon racks, or crush their bones in iron boots. You must not flay them
+ alive. You must not cut off their eyelids, or pour molten lead into their
+ ears. You must treat all with absolute kindness. If you cannot convert
+ your neighbor by example, persuasion, argument, that is the end. You must
+ never resort to force, and, whether he believes as you do or not, treat
+ him always with kindness"&mdash;his followers then would not have murdered
+ their fellows in his name.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ was in fact God, he knew the persecutions that would be carried
+ on in his name; he knew the millions that would suffer death through
+ torture; and yet he died without saying one word to prevent what he must
+ have known, if he were God, would happen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that Christianity has added to morality is worthless and useless. Not
+ only so&mdash;it has been hurtful. Take Christianity from morality and the
+ useful is left, but take morality from Christianity and the useless
+ remains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, falling back on the old assertion, "By its fruits we may know
+ Christianity," then I think we are justified in saying that, as
+ Christianity consists of a mixture of morality and <i>something else</i>,
+ and as morality never has persecuted a human being, and as Christianity
+ has persecuted millions, the cause of the persecution must be the <i>something
+ else</i> that was added to morality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot agree with the reverend gentleman when he says that "Christianity
+ has taught mankind the priceless value and dignity of human nature." On
+ the other hand, Christianity has taught that the whole human race is by
+ nature depraved, and that if God should act in accordance with his sense
+ of justice, all the sons of men would be doomed to eternal pain. Human
+ nature has been derided, has been held up to contempt and scorn, all our
+ desires and passions denounced as wicked and filthy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Da Costa asserts that Christianity has taught mankind the value of
+ freedom. It certainly has not been the advocate of free thought; and what
+ is freedom worth if the mind is to be enslaved?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Da Costa knows that millions have been sacrificed in their efforts to
+ be free; that is, millions have been sacrificed for exercising their
+ freedom as against the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that the church "has taught and established the fact of
+ human brotherhood." This has been the result of a civilization to which
+ Christianity itself has been hostile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we prove that "the church established human brotherhood" by banishing
+ the Jews from Spain; by driving out the Moors; by the tortures of the
+ Inquisition; by butchering the Covenanters of Scotland; by the burning of
+ Bruno and Servetus; by the persecution of the Irish; by whipping and
+ hanging Quakers in New England; by the slave trade; and by the hundreds of
+ wars waged in the name of Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know that the Bible upholds slavery in its very worst and most
+ cruel form; and how it can be said that a religion founded upon a Bible
+ that upholds the institution of slavery has taught and established the
+ fact of human brotherhood, is beyond my imagination to conceive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I think it true that "we are indebted to Christianity for the
+ advancement of science, art, philosophy, letters and learning."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cheerfully admit that we are indebted to Christianity for some learning,
+ and that the human mind has been developed by the discussion of the
+ absurdities of superstition. Certainly millions and millions have had what
+ might be called mental exercise, and their minds may have been somewhat
+ broadened by the examination, even, of these absurdities, contradictions,
+ and impossibilities. The church was not the friend of science or learning
+ when it burned Vanini for writing his "Dialogues Concerning Nature." What
+ shall we say of the "Index Expurgatorius"? For hundreds of years all books
+ of any particular value were placed on the "Index," and good Catholics
+ forbidden to read them. Was this in favor of science and learning?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That we are indebted to Christianity for the advancement of science seems
+ absurd. What science? Christianity was certainly the enemy of astronomy,
+ and I believe that it was Mr. Draper who said that astronomy took her
+ revenge, so that not a star that glitters in all the heavens bears a
+ Christian name.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can it be said that the church has been the friend of geology, or of any
+ true philosophy? Let me show how this is impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church accepts the Bible as an inspired book. Then the only object is
+ to find its meaning, and if that meaning is opposed to any result that the
+ human mind may have reached, the meaning stands and the result reached by
+ the mind must be abandoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For hundreds of years the Bible was the standard, and whenever anything
+ was asserted in any science contrary to-the Bible, the church immediately
+ denounced the scientist. I admit the standard has been changed, and
+ ministers are very busy, not trying to show that science does not agree
+ with the Bible, but that the Bible agrees with science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly Christianity has done little for art. The early Christians
+ destroyed all the marbles of Greece and Rome upon which they could lay
+ their violent hands; and nothing has been produced by the Christian world
+ equal to the fragments that were accidentally preserved. There have been
+ many artists who were Christians; but they were not artists because they
+ were Christians; because there have been many Christians who were not
+ artists. It cannot be said that art is born of any creed. The mode of
+ expression may be determined, and probably is to a certain degree, by the
+ belief of the artist; but not his artistic perception and feeling.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, Galileo did not make his discoveries because he was a Christian, but
+ in spite of it. His Bible was the other way, and so was his creed.
+ Consequently, they could not by any possibility have assisted him. Kepler
+ did not discover or announce what are known as the "Three Laws" because he
+ was a Christian; but, as I said about Galileo, in spite of his creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every Christian who has really found out and demonstrated and clung to a
+ fact inconsistent with the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures, has
+ done so certainly without the assistance of his creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me illustrate this: When our ancestors were burning each other to
+ please God; when they were ready to destroy a man with sword and flame for
+ teaching the rotundity of the world, the Moors in Spain were teaching
+ geography to their children with brass globes. So, too, they had
+ observatories and knew something of the orbits of the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They did not find out these things because they were Mohammedans, or on
+ account of their belief in the impossible. They were far beyond the
+ Christians, intellectually, and it has been very poetically said by Mrs.
+ Browning, that "Science was thrust into the brain of Europe on the point
+ of a Moorish lance."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the Arabs we got our numerals, making mathematics of the higher
+ branches practical. We also got from them the art of making cotton paper,
+ which is almost at the foundation of modern intelligence. We learned from
+ them to make cotton cloth, making cleanliness possible in Christendom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So from among people of different religions we have learned many useful
+ things; but they did not discover them on account of their religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that the religion of Greece was true because the
+ Greeks were the greatest sculptors. Neither is it an argument in favor of
+ monarchy that Shakespeare, the greatest of men, was born and lived in a
+ monarchy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Da Costa takes one of the effects of a general cause, or of a vast
+ number of causes, and makes it the cause, not only of other effects, but
+ of the general cause. He seems to think that all events for many
+ centuries, and especially all the good ones, were caused by Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the civilization of our time is the result of
+ countless causes with which Christianity had little to do, except by way
+ of hindrance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the Doctor think that the material progress of the world was caused
+ by this passage: "Take no thought for the morrow"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does he seriously insist that the wealth of Christendom rests on this
+ inspired declaration: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of
+ a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Peters, in answer, takes the ground that the Bible has
+ produced the richest and most varied literature the world has ever seen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, I think, is hardly true. Has not most of modern literature been
+ produced in spite of the Bible? Did not Christians, for many generations,
+ take the ground that the Bible was the only important book, and that books
+ differing from the Bible should be destroyed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christianity&mdash;Catholic and Protestant&mdash;could have had its
+ way, the works of Voltaire, Spinoza, Hume, Paine, Humboldt, Darwin,
+ Haeckel, Spencer, Comte, Huxley, Tyndall, Draper, Goethe, Gibbon, Buckle
+ and B&uuml;chner would not have been published. In short, the philosophy
+ that enlightens and the fiction that enriches the brain would not exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest literature the world has ever seen is, in my judgment, the
+ poetic&mdash;the dramatic; that is to say, the literature of fiction in
+ its widest sense. Certainly if the church could have had control, the
+ plays of Shakespeare never would have been written; the literature of the
+ stage could not have existed; most works of fiction, and nearly all
+ poetry, would have perished in the brain. So I think it hardly fair to say
+ that "the Bible has produced the richest and most varied literature the
+ world has ever seen."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of theological books have been written on thousands of questions
+ of no possible importance. Libraries have been printed on subjects not
+ worth discussing&mdash;not worth thinking about&mdash;and that will, in a
+ few years, be regarded as puerile by the whole world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Peters, in his enthusiasm, asks this question:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Who raised our great institutions of learning? Infidels never a stone of
+ them!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Stephen Girard founded the best institution of learning, the best charity,
+ the noblest ever founded in this or any other land; and under the roof
+ built by his wisdom and his wealth many thousands of orphans have been
+ reared, clothed, fed and educated, not only in books, but in avocations,
+ and become happy and useful citizens. Under his will there has been
+ distributed to the poor, fuel to the value of more than $500,000; and this
+ distribution goes on year after year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the best observatories in the world was built by the generosity of
+ James Lick, an infidel. I call attention to these two cases simply to show
+ that the gentleman is mistaken, and that he was somewhat carried away by
+ his zeal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, too, Mr. Peters takes the ground that "we are indebted to Christianity
+ for our chronology."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Christianity this world has been peopled about six thousand
+ years. Christian chronology gives the age of the first man, and then gives
+ the line from father to son down to the flood, and from the flood down to
+ the coming of Christ, showing that men have been upon the earth only about
+ six thousand years. This chronology is infinitely absurd, and I do not
+ believe that there is an intelligent, well-educated Christian in the
+ world, having examined the subject, who will say that the Christian
+ chronology is correct.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither can it, I think, truthfully be said that "we are indebted to
+ Christianity for the continuation of history." The best modern historians
+ of whom I have any knowledge are Voltaire, Hume, Gibbon, Buckle and
+ Draper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither can I admit that "we are indebted to Christianity for natural
+ philosophy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not deny that some natural philosophers have also been Christians,
+ or, rather, that some Christians have been natural philosophers to the
+ extent that their Christianity permitted. But Lamarck and Humboldt and
+ Darwin and Spencer and Haeckel and Huxley and Tyndall have done far more
+ for natural philosophy than they have for orthodox religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever believes in the miraculous must be the enemy of natural
+ philosophy. To him there is something above nature, liable to interfere
+ with nature. Such a man has two classes of ideas in his mind, each
+ inconsistent with the other. To the extent that he believes in the
+ supernatural he is incapacitated for dealing with the natural, and to that
+ extent fails to be a philosopher. Philosophy does not include the caprice
+ of the Infinite. It is founded on the absolute integrity and invariability
+ of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I agree with the reverend gentleman when he says that "we are
+ indebted to Christianity for our knowledge of philology."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church taught for a long time that Hebrew was the first language and
+ that other languages had been derived from that; and for hundreds and
+ hundreds of years the efforts of philologists were arrested simply because
+ they started with that absurd assumption and believed in the Tower of
+ Babel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity cannot now take the credit for "metaphysical research." It
+ has always been the enemy of metaphysical research. It never has said to
+ any human being, "Think!" It has always said, "Hear!" It does not ask
+ anybody to investigate. It lays down certain doctrines as absolutely true,
+ and, instead of asking investigation, it threatens every investigator with
+ eternal pain. Metaphysical research is destroying what has been called
+ Christianity, and Christians have always feared it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentleman makes another mistake, and a very common one. This is his
+ argument: Christian countries are the most intelligent; therefore they owe
+ that intelligence to Christianity. Then the next step is taken.
+ Christianity, being the best, having produced these results, must have
+ been of divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see what this proves. There was a time when Egypt was the first
+ nation in the world. Could not an Egyptian, at that time have used the
+ same arguments that Mr. Peters uses now, to prove that the religion of
+ Egypt was divine? Could he not then have said: "Egypt is the most
+ intelligent, the most civilized and the richest of all nations; it has
+ been made so by its religion; its religion is, therefore, divine"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So there was a time when a Hindoo could have made the same argument.
+ Certainly this argument could have been made by a Greek. It could have
+ been repeated by a Roman. And yet Mr. Peters will not admit that the
+ religion of Egypt was divine, or that the mythology of Greece was true, or
+ that Jupiter was in fact a god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not evident to all that if the churches in Europe had been
+ institutions of learning; if the domes of cathedrals had been
+ observatories; if priests had been teachers of the facts in nature, the
+ world would have been far in advance of what it is to-day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Countries depend on something besides their religion for progress. Nations
+ with a good soil can get along quite well with an exceedingly poor
+ religion; and no religion yet has been good enough to give wealth or
+ happiness to human beings where the climate and soil were bad and barren.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no
+ corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual
+ mendicant. It lives on the labor of others, and then has the arrogance to
+ pretend that it supports the giver.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Peters makes this exceedingly strange statement: "Every discovery in
+ science, invention and art has been the work of Christian men. Infidels
+ have contributed their share, but never one of them has reached the
+ grandeur of originality."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, I think, so far as invention is concerned, can be answered with one
+ name&mdash;John Ericsson, one of the profoundest agnostics I ever met.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am almost certain that Humboldt and Goethe were original. Darwin was
+ certainly regarded as such.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not wish to differ unnecessarily with Mr. Peters, but I have some
+ doubts about Morse having been the inventor of the telegraph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither can I admit that Christianity abolished slavery. Many of the
+ abolitionists in this country were infidels; many of them were Christians.
+ But the church itself did not stand for liberty. The Quakers, I admit,
+ were, as a rule, on the side of freedom. But the Christians of New England
+ persecuted these Quakers, whipped them from town to town, lacerated their
+ naked backs, and maimed their bodied, not only, but took their lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Peters asks: "What name is there among the world's emancipators after
+ which you cannot write the name 'Christian?'" Well, let me give him a few&mdash;Voltaire,
+ Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, Lincoln, Darwin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Peters asks: "Why is it that in Christian countries you find the
+ greatest amount of physical and intellectual liberty, the greatest freedom
+ of thought, speech, and action?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this true of all? How about Spain and Portugal? There is more
+ infidelity in France than in Spain, and there is far more liberty in
+ France than in Spain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is far more infidelity in England than there was a century ago, and
+ there is far more liberty than there was a century ago. There is far more
+ infidelity in the United States than there was fifty years ago, and a
+ hundred infidels to-day where there was one fifty years ago; and there is
+ far more intellectual liberty, far greater freedom of speech and action,
+ than ever before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago Italy was a Christian country to the fullest extent. Now
+ there are a thousand times more liberty and a thousand times less
+ religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Orthodoxy is dying; Liberty is growing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ballou, a grandson, or grand-nephew, of Hosea Ballou, seems to have
+ wandered from the faith. As a rule, Christians insist that when one denies
+ the religion of Christian parents he is an exceedingly bad man, but when
+ he denies the religion of parents not Christians, and becomes a Christian,
+ that he is a very faithful, good and loving son.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ballou insists that God has the same right to punish us that Nature
+ has, or that the State has. I do not think he understands what I have
+ said. The State ought not to punish for the sake of punishment. The State
+ may imprison, or inflict what is called punishment, first, for its own
+ protection, and, secondly, for the reformation of the punished. If no one
+ could do the State any injury, certainly the State would have no right to
+ punish under the plea of protection; and if no human being could by any
+ possibility be reformed, then the excuse of reformation could not be
+ given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us apply this: If God be infinite, no one can injure him. Therefore he
+ need not punish anybody or damn anybody or burn anybody for his
+ protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step. Punishment being justified only on two grounds&mdash;that
+ is, the protection of society and the reformation of the punished&mdash;how
+ can eternal punishment be justified? In the first place, God does not
+ punish to protect himself, and, in the second place, if the punishment is
+ to be forever, he does not punish to reform the punished. What excuse then
+ is left?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take still another step. If, instead of punishment, we say
+ "consequences," and that every good man has the right to reap the good
+ consequences of good actions, and that every bad man must bear the
+ consequences of bad actions, then you must say to the good: If you stop
+ doing good you will lose the harvest. You must say to the bad: If you stop
+ doing bad you need not increase your burdens. And if it be a fact in
+ Nature that all must reap what they sow, there is neither mercy nor
+ cruelty in this fact, and I hold no God responsible for it. The trouble
+ with the Christian creed is that God is described as the one who gives
+ rewards and the one who inflicts eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another trouble. This God, if infinite, must have known
+ when he created man, exactly who would be eternally damned. What right had
+ he to create men, knowing that they were to be damned?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much for Mr. Ballou.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Dr. Hillier seems to reason in a kind of circle. He takes the
+ ground, in the first place, that "infidelity, Christianity, science, and
+ experience all agree, without the slightest tremor of uncertainty, in the
+ inexorable law that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." He
+ then takes the ground that, "if we wish to be rid of the harvest, we must
+ not sow the seed; if we would avoid the result, we must remove the cause;
+ the only way to be rid of hell is to stop doing evil; that this, and this
+ only, is the way to abolish an eternal penitentiary."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Very good; but that is not the point. The real thing under discussion is
+ this: Is this life a state of probation, and if a man fails to live a good
+ life here, will he have no opportunity for reformation in another world,
+ if there be one? Can he cease to do evil in the eternal penitentiary? and
+ if he does, can he be pardoned&mdash;can he be released?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is admitted that man must bear the consequences of his acts. If the
+ consequences are good, then the acts are good. If the consequences are
+ bad, the acts are bad. Through experience we find that certain acts tend
+ to unhappiness and others to happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the only question is whether we have wisdom enough to live in harmony
+ with our conditions here; and if we fail here, will we have an opportunity
+ of reforming in another world? If not, then the few years that we live
+ here determine whether we shall be angels or devils forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me, if there be another life, that in that life men may do
+ good, and men may do evil; and if they may do good it seems to me that
+ they may reform.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not see why God, if there be one, should lose all interest in his
+ children, simply because they leave this world and go where he is. Is it
+ possible that an infinite God does all for his children here, in this poor
+ ignorant world, that it is possible for him to do, and that if he fails to
+ reform them here, nothing is left to do except to make them eternal
+ convicts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Haldeman mistakes my position. I do not admit that "an
+ infinite God, as revealed in Nature, has allowed men to grow up under
+ conditions which no ordinary mortal can look at in all their concentrated
+ agony and not break his heart."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not confess that God reveals himself in Nature as an infinite God,
+ without mercy. I do not admit that there is an infinite Being anywhere
+ responsible for the agonies and tears, for the barbarities and horrors of
+ this life. I cannot believe that there is in the universe a Being with
+ power to prevent these things. I hold no God responsible. I attribute
+ neither cruelty nor mercy to Nature. Nature neither weeps nor rejoices. I
+ cannot believe that this world, as it now is, as it has been, was created
+ by an infinitely wise, powerful, and benevolent God. But it is far better
+ that we should all go down "with souls unsatisfied" to the dreamless
+ grave, to the tongueless silence of the voiceless dust, than that
+ countless millions of human souls should suffer forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eternal sleep is better than eternal pain. Eternal punishment is eternal
+ revenge, and can be inflicted only by an eternal monster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. George A. Locey endeavors to put his case in an extremely small
+ compass, and satisfies himself with really one question, and that is: "If
+ a man in good health is stricken with disease, is assured that a physician
+ can cure him, but refuses to take the medicine and dies, ought there to be
+ any escape?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He concludes that the physician has done his duty; that the patient was
+ obdurate and suffered the penalty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The application he makes is this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Christian's 'tidings of great joy' is the message that the Great
+ Physician tendered freely. Its acceptance is a cure certain, and a life of
+ eternal happiness the reward. If the soul accepts, are they not tidings of
+ great joy; and if the soul rejects, is it not unreasonable on the part of
+ Colonel Ingersoll to try and sneak out and throw the blame on God?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The answer to this seems easy. The cases are not parallel. If an infinite
+ God created us all, he knew exactly what we would do. If he gave us free
+ will it does not change the result, because he knew how we would use the
+ free will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if he knew that billions upon billions would refuse to take the
+ remedy, and consequently would suffer eternal pain, why create them? There
+ would have been much less misery in the world had he left them dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What right has a God to make a failure? Why should he change dust into a
+ sentient being, knowing that that being was to be the heir of endless
+ agony?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the supposed physician had created the patient who refused to take the
+ medicine, and had so created him that he knew he would refuse to take it,
+ the cases might be parallel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the orthodox creed, millions are to be damned who never heard
+ of the medicine or of the "Great Physician."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing said by the Rev. Mr. Talmage that I hardly think he
+ could have intended. Possibly there has been a misprint. It is the
+ following paragraph:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Who" (speaking of Jesus) "has such an eye to our need; such a lip to kiss
+ away our sorrow; such a hand to snatch us out of the fire; <i>such a foot
+ to trample our enemies</i>; such a heart to embrace all our necessities?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What does the reverend gentleman mean by "<i>such a foot to trample our
+ enemies</i>"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, to me, is a terrible line. But it is in accordance with the history
+ of the church. In the name of its founder it has "trampled on its
+ enemies," and beneath its cruel feet have perished the noblest of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. J. Benson Hamilton, of Brooklyn, comes into this discussion with
+ a great deal of heat and considerable fury. He states that "Infidelity is
+ the creed of prosperity, but when sickness or trouble or sorrow comes he"
+ (meaning the infidel) "does not paw nor mock nor cry 'Ha! ha!' He sneaks
+ and cringes like a whipped cur, and trembles and whines and howls."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The spirit of Mr. Hamilton is not altogether admirable. He seems to think
+ that a man establishes the truth of his religion by being brave, or
+ demonstrates its falsity by trembling in the presence of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of people have died for false religions and in honor of false
+ gods. Their heroism did not prove the truth of the religion, but it did
+ prove the sincerity of their convictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great many murderers have been hanged who exhibited on the scaffold the
+ utmost contempt of death; and yet this courage exhibited by dying
+ murderers has never been appealed to in justification of murder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reverend gentleman tells again the story of the agonies endured by
+ Thomas Paine when dying; tells us that he then said that he wished his
+ work had been thrown into the fire, and that if the devil ever had any
+ agency in any work he had in the writing of that book (meaning "The Age of
+ Reason,") and that he frequently asked the Lord Jesus to have mercy upon
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there is not a word of truth in this story. Its falsity has been
+ demonstrated thousands and thousands of times, and yet ministers of the
+ Gospel go right on repeating it just the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So this gentleman tells us that Voltaire was accustomed to close his
+ letters with the words, "Crush the wretch!" (meaning Christ). This is not
+ so. He referred to superstition, to religion, not to Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentleman also says that "Voltaire was the prey of anguish and dread,
+ alternately supplicating and blaspheming God; that he complained that he
+ was abandoned by God; that when he died his friends fled from the room,
+ declaring the sight too terrible to be endured."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not one word of truth in this. Everybody who has read the life of
+ Voltaire knows that he died with the utmost serenity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you how Voltaire died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an old man of eighty-four. He had been surrounded by the comforts
+ of life. He was a man of wealth&mdash;of genius. Among the literary men of
+ the world he stood first. God had allowed him to have the appearance of
+ success. His last years were filled with the intoxication of flattery. He
+ stood at the summit of his age. The priests became anxious. They began to
+ fear that God would forget, in a multiplicity of business, to make a
+ terrible example of Voltaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Toward the last of May, 1788, it was whispered in Paris that Voltaire was
+ dying. Upon the fences of expectation gathered the unclean birds of
+ superstition, impatiently waiting for their prey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Two days before his death his nephew went to seek the Cur&eacute; of St.
+ Sulpice and the Abb&eacute; Gautier, and brought them into his uncle's
+ sick-chamber, who was informed that they were there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Ah, well,' said Voltaire; 'give them my compliments and my thanks.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The abb&eacute; spoke some words to Voltaire, exhorting him to patience.
+ The Cur&eacute; of St. Sulpice then came forward, having announced
+ himself, and asked Voltaire, lifting his voice, if he acknowledged the
+ divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sick man pushed one of his hands
+ against the cur&eacute;'s coif shoving him back, and cried, turning
+ abruptly to the other side:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Let me die in peace!'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The cur&eacute; seemingly considered his person soiled and his coif
+ dishonored by the touch of the philosopher. He made the nurse give him a
+ little brushing and went out with the Abb&eacute; Gautier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "He expired," says Wagniere, "on the 30th of May, 1788, at about a quarter
+ past eleven at night, with the most perfect tranquillity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ten minutes before his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his <i>valet-de-chambre</i>,
+ who was watching by him, pressed it and said: 'Adieu, my dear Morand. I am
+ gone!'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "These were his last words."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this death, so simple and serene, so natural and peaceful&mdash;from
+ these words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic touch&mdash;all the
+ frightful pictures, all the despairing utterances have been drawn and
+ made. From these materials, and from these alone, have been constructed
+ all the shameless calumnies about the death of this great and wonderful
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Voltaire was the intellectual autocrat of his time. From his throne at the
+ foot of the Alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in
+ Europe. He was the pioneer of his century. He was the assassin of
+ superstition. Through the shadows of faith and fable; through the darkness
+ of myth and miracle; through the midnight of Christianity; through the
+ blackness of bigotry; past cathedral and dungeon; past rack and stake;
+ past altar and throne, he carried, with chivalric hands, the sacred torch
+ of Reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me also tell you about the death of Thomas Paine. After the
+ publication of his "Rights of Man" and "The Age of Reason", every
+ falsehood that malignity could coin and malice pass, was given to the
+ world. On his return to America, although Thomas Jefferson, another
+ infidel, was President, it was hardly safe for Paine to appear in the
+ public streets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under the very flag he had helped to put in heaven, his rights were not
+ respected. Under the Constitution that he had first suggested, his life
+ was insecure. He had helped to give liberty to more than three millions of
+ his fellow-citizens, and they were willing to deny it unto him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned and cursed. But he
+ maintained his integrity. He stood by the convictions of his mind, and
+ never for one moment did he hesitate or waver. He died almost alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment he died the pious commenced manufacturing horrors for his
+ death-bed. They had his chamber filled with devils rattling chains, and
+ these ancient falsehoods are certified to by the clergy even of the
+ present day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that Thomas Paine died as he had lived. Some ministers were
+ impolite enough to visit him against his will. Several of them he ordered
+ from his room. A couple of Catholic priests, in all the meekness of
+ arrogance, called that they might enjoy the agonies of the dying friend of
+ man. Thomas Paine, rising in his bed, the few moments of expiring life
+ fanned into flame by the breath of indignation, had the goodness to curse
+ them both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His physician, who seems to have been a meddling fool, just as the cold
+ hand of Death was touching the patriot's heart, whispered in the dulled
+ ear of the dying man: "Do you believe, or do you wish to believe, that
+ Jesus Christ is the Son of God?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the reply was: "I have no wish to believe on that subject."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These were the last remembered words of Thomas Paine. He died as serenely
+ as ever mortal passed away. He died in the full possession of his mind,
+ and on the brink and edge of death proclaimed the doctrines of his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty, every lover of the
+ great Republic, should feel under obligation to Thomas Paine for the
+ splendid services rendered by him in the darkest days of the American
+ Revolution. In the midnight of Valley Forge, "The Crisis" was the first
+ star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We should remember that Thomas Paine was the first man to write these
+ words: "The United States of America."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Hamilton seems to take a kind of joy in imagining what
+ infidels will suffer when they come to die, and he writes as though he
+ would like to be present.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part I hope that all the sons and daughters of men will die in
+ peace; that they will pass away as easily as twilight fades to night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course when I said that "Christianity did not bring tidings of great
+ joy, but a message of eternal grief," I meant orthodox Christianity; and
+ when I said that "Christianity fills the future with fire and flame, and
+ made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, in which most of the
+ children of men were to be imprisoned forever," I was giving what I
+ understood to be the Evangelical belief on that subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the churches have given up the doctrine of eternal punishment, then for
+ one I am delighted, and I shall feel that what little I have done toward
+ that end has not been done in vain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Hamilton, enjoying my dying agony in imagination, says: "Let
+ the world wait but for a few years at the most, when Death's icy fingers
+ feel for the heartstrings of the boaster, and, as most of his like who
+ have gone before him have done, he will sing another strain."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How shall I characterize the spirit that could prompt the writing of such
+ a sentence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reverend gentleman "loves his enemies," and yet he is filled with glee
+ when he thinks of the agonies I shall endure when Death's icy fingers feel
+ for the strings of my heart! Yet I have done him no harm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He then quotes, as being applicable to me, a passage from the prophet
+ Isaiah, commencing: "The vile person will speak villainy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this passage applicable only to me?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Holloway is not satisfied with the "Christmas Sermon." For
+ his benefit I repeat, in another form, what the "Christmas Sermon"
+ contains:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If orthodox Christianity teaches that this life is a period of probation,
+ that we settle here our eternal destiny, and that all who have heard the
+ Gospel and who have failed to believe it are to be eternally lost, then I
+ say that Christianity did not "bring tidings of great joy," but a Message
+ of Eternal Grief. And if the orthodox churches are still preaching the
+ doctrine of Endless Pain, then I say it would be far better if every
+ church crumbled into dust than that such preaching and such teaching
+ should be continued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would be far better yet, however, if the ministers could be converted
+ and their congregations enlightened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that the orthodox churches preach some things beside hell; but if
+ they do not believe in the eternity of punishment they ought publicly to
+ change their creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit, also, that the average minister advises his congregation to be
+ honest and to treat all with kindness, and I admit that many of these
+ ministers fail to follow their own advice when they make what they call
+ "replies" to me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there are many good things about the church. To the extent that
+ it is charitable, or rather to the extent that it causes charity, it is
+ good. To the extent that it causes men and women to lead moral lives it is
+ good. But to the extent that it fills the future with fear it is bad. To
+ the extent that it convinces any human being that there is any God who not
+ only can, but will, inflict eternal torments on his own children, it is
+ bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And such teaching does tend to blight humanity. Such teaching does pollute
+ the imagination of childhood. Such teaching does furrow the cheeks of the
+ best and tenderest with tears..Such teaching does rob old age of all its
+ joy, and covers every cradle with a curse!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Holloway seems to be extremely familiar with God. He says:
+ "God seems to have delayed his advent through all the ages to give unto
+ the world the fullest opportunity to do all that the human mind could
+ suggest for the weal of the race."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to this gentleman, God just delayed his advent for the purpose
+ of seeing what the world would do, <i>knowing all the time exactly what
+ would be done</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us make a suggestion: If the orthodox creed be true, then all people
+ became tainted or corrupted or depraved, or in some way spoiled by what is
+ known as "Original Sin."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Old Testament, these people kept getting worse and worse.
+ It does not seem that Jehovah made any effort to improve them, but he
+ patiently waited for about fifteen hundred years without having
+ established any church, without having given them a Bible, and then he
+ drowned all but eight persons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, those eight persons were also depraved. The taint of Original Sin was
+ also in their blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that Jehovah made a mistake. He should also have killed the
+ remaining eight, and started new, kept the serpent out of his garden, and
+ furnished the first pair with a Bible and the Presbyterian Confession of
+ Faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Dr. Tyler takes it for granted that all charity and goodness are
+ the children of Christianity. This is a mistake. All the virtues were in
+ the world long before Christ came. Probably Mr. Tyler will be convinced by
+ the words of Christ himself. He will probably remember the story of the
+ Good Samaritan, and if he does he will see that it is exactly in point.
+ The Good Samaritan was not a Hebrew. He was not one of "the chosen
+ people." He was a poor, "miserable heathen," who knew nothing about the
+ Jehovah of the Old Testament, and who had never heard of the "scheme of
+ salvation." And yet, according to Christ, he was far more charitable than
+ the Levites&mdash;the priests of Jehovah, the highest of "the chosen
+ people." Is it not perfectly plain from this story that charity was in the
+ world before Christianity was established?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great deal has been said about asylums and hospitals, as though the
+ Christians are entitled to great credit on that score. If Dr. Tyler will
+ read what is said in the British Encyclopaedia, under the head of "Mental
+ Diseases," he will find that the Egyptians treated the insane with the
+ utmost kindness, and that they called reason back to its throne by the
+ voice of music; that the temples were resorted to by crowds of the insane;
+ and that "whatever gifts of nature or productions of art were calculated
+ to impress the imagination were there united. Games and recreations were
+ instituted in the temples. Groves and gardens surrounded these holy
+ retreats. Gayly decorated boats sometimes transported patients to breathe
+ the pure breezes of the Nile."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in ancient Greece it is said that "from the hands of the priest the
+ cure of the disordered mind first passed into the domain of medicine, with
+ the philosophers. Pythagoras is said to have employed music for the cure
+ of mental diseases. The order of the day for his disciples exhibits a
+ profound knowledge of the relations of body and mind. The early morning
+ was divided between gentle exercise, conversation and music. Then came
+ conversation, followed by gymnastic exercise and a temperate diet.
+ Afterward, a bath and supper with a sparing allowance of wine; then
+ reading, music and conversation concluded the day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So "Asclepiades was celebrated for his treatment of mental disorders. He
+ recommended that bodily restraint should be avoided as much as possible."
+ It is also stated that "the philosophy and arts of Greece spread to Rome,
+ and the first special treatise on insanity is that of Celsus, which
+ distinguishes varieties of insanity and their proper treatment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Over the arts and sciences of Greece and Rome the errors and ignorance of
+ the Middle Ages gradually crept, until they enveloped them in a cloud
+ worse than Egyptian darkness. The insane were again consigned to the
+ miracle-working-ordinances of o o priests or else totally neglected.
+ Idiots and imbeciles were permitted to go clotheless and homeless. The
+ frantic and furious were chained in lonesome dungeons and exhibited for
+ money, like wild beasts. The monomaniacs became, according to
+ circumstance, the objects of superstitious horror or reverence. They were
+ regarded as possessed with demons and subjected either to priestly
+ exorcism, or cruelly destroyed as wizards and witches. This cruel
+ treatment of the insane continued with little or no alleviation down to
+ the end of the last century in all the civilized countries of Europe."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me quote a description of these Christian asylums.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Public asylums indeed existed in most of the metropolitan cities of
+ Europe, but the insane were more generally, if at all troublesome,
+ confined in jails, where they were chained in the lowest dungeons or made
+ the butts and menials of the most debased criminals. In public asylums the
+ inmates were confined in cellars, isolated in cages, chained to floors or
+ walls. These poor victims were exhibited to the public like wild beasts.
+ They were often killed by the ignorance and brutality of their keepers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I call particular attention to the following paragraph: "Such was the
+ state of the insane generally throughout Europe at the commencement of
+ this century. Such it continued to be in England so late as 1815 and in
+ Ireland as 1817, as revealed by the inquiries of parliamentary commissions
+ in those years respectively."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Tyler is entirely welcome to all the comfort these facts can give.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not only were the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians far in advance of the
+ Christians in the treatment of the mentally diseased, but even the
+ Mohammedans were in advance of the Christians about 700 years, and in
+ addition to this they treated their lunatics with great kindness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The temple of Diana of Ephesus was a refuge for insolvent debtors, and the
+ Thesium was a refuge for slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, I say that hundreds of years before the establishment of
+ Christianity there were in India not only hospitals and asylums for
+ people, but even for animals. The great mistake of the Christian clergy is
+ that they attribute all goodness to Christianity. They have always been
+ engaged in maligning human nature&mdash;in attacking the human heart&mdash;in
+ efforts to destroy all natural passions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Perfect maxims for the conduct of life were uttered and repeated in India
+ and China hundreds and hundreds of years before the Christian era. Every
+ virtue was lauded and every vice denounced. All the good that Christianity
+ has in it came from the human heart. Everything in that system of religion
+ came from this world; and in it you will find not only the goodness of
+ man, but the imperfections of man&mdash;not only the love of man, but the
+ malice of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you why the Christians for so many centuries neglected or
+ abused the insane. They believed the New Testament, and honestly supposed
+ that the insane were filled with devils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In regard to the contest between Dr. Buckley, who, as I understand it, is
+ a doctor of theology&mdash;and I should think such theology stood in need
+ of a doctor&mdash;and the <i>Telegram</i>, I have nothing to say. There is
+ only one side to that contest; and so far as the Doctor heretofore
+ criticised what is known as the "Christmas Sermon," I have answered him,
+ leaving but very little to which I care to reply in his last article.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Buckley, like many others, brings forward names instead of reasons&mdash;instead
+ of arguments. Milton, Pascal, Elizabeth Fry, John Howard, and Michael
+ Faraday are not arguments. They are only names; and, instead of giving the
+ names, Dr. Buckley should give the reasons advanced by those whose names
+ he pronounces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jonathan Edwards may have been a good man, but certainly his theology was
+ infamous. So Father Mathew was a good man, but it was impossible for him
+ to be good enough to convince Dr. Buckley of the doctrine of the "Real
+ Presence."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Milton was a very good man, and he described God as a kind of
+ brigadier-general, put the angels in uniform and had regular battles; but
+ Milton's goodness can by no possibility establish the truth of his
+ poetical and absurd vagaries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the self-denial and goodness in the world do not even tend to prove
+ the existence of the supernatural or of the miraculous. Millions and
+ millions of the most devoted men could not, by their devotion,
+ substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are, however, some misstatements in Dr. Buckley's article that ought
+ not to be passed over in silence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first is to the effect that I was invited to write an article for the
+ <i>North American Review</i>, Judge Jeremiah Black to reply, and that
+ Judge Black was improperly treated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is true that I was invited to write an article, and did write one;
+ but I did not know at the time who was to reply. It is also true that
+ Judge Black did reply, and that my article and his reply appeared in the
+ same number of the <i>Review.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Buckley alleges that the <i>North American Review</i> gave me an
+ opportunity to review the Judge, but denied to Judge Black an opportunity
+ to respond. This is without the slightest foundation in fact. Mr. Metcalf,
+ who at that time was manager of the <i>Review</i>, is still living and
+ will tell the facts. Personally I had nothing to do with it, one way or
+ the other. I did not regard Judge Black's reply as formidable, and was not
+ only willing that he should be heard again, but anxious that he should.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the debate, with Dr. Field and Mr. Gladstone, I leave them to say
+ whether they were or were not fairly treated. Dr. Field, by his candor, by
+ his fairness, and by the manly spirit he exhibited won my respect and
+ love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most ministers imagine that any man who differs from them is a blasphemer.
+ This word seems to leap unconsciously from their lips. They cannot imagine
+ that another man loves liberty as much and with as sincere devotion as
+ they love God. They cannot imagine that another prizes liberty above all
+ gods, even if gods exist. They cannot imagine that any mind is so that it
+ places Justice above all persons, a mind that cannot conceive even of a
+ God who is not bound to do justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God exists, above him, in eternal calm, is the figure of Justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither can some ministers understand a man who regards Jehovah and
+ Jupiter as substantially the same, with this exception&mdash;that he
+ thinks far more of Jupiter, because Jupiter had at least some human
+ feelings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not understand that a man can be guilty of blasphemy who states his
+ honest thoughts in proper language, his object being, not to torture the
+ feelings of others, but simply to give his thought&mdash;to find and
+ establish the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Buckley makes a charge that he ought to have known to be without
+ foundation. Speaking of myself, he said: "In him the laws to prevent the
+ circulation of obscene publications through the mails have found their
+ most vigorous opponent."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hardly necessary for me to say that this is untrue. The facts are
+ that an effort was made to classify obscene literature with what the pious
+ call "blasphemous and immoral works." A petition was forwarded to Congress
+ to amend the law so that the literature of Freethought could not be thrown
+ from the mails, asking that, if no separation could be made, the law
+ should be repealed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was said that I had signed this petition, and I certainly should have
+ done so had it been presented to me. The petition was absolutely proper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago I found the petition, and discovered that while it bore my
+ name it had never been signed by me. But for the purposes of this answer I
+ am perfectly willing that the signature should be regarded as genuine, as
+ there is nothing in the petition that should not have been granted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law as it stood was opposed by the Liberal League&mdash;but not a
+ member of that society was in favor of the circulation of obscene
+ literature; but they did think that the privacy of the mails had been
+ violated, and that it was of the utmost importance to maintain the
+ inviolability of the postal service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I disagreed with these people, and favored the destruction of obscene
+ literature not only, but that it be made a criminal offence to send it
+ through the mails. As a matter of fact I drew up resolutions to that
+ effect that were passed. Afterward they were changed, or some others were
+ passed, and I resigned from the League on that account.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more absurd than that I was, directly or indirectly, or
+ could have been, interested in the circulation of obscene publications
+ through the mails; and I will pay a premium of $1,000 a word for each and
+ every word I ever said or wrote in favor of sending obscene publications
+ through the mails.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I might use much stronger language. I might follow the example of Dr.
+ Buckley himself. But I think I have said enough to satisfy all
+ unprejudiced people that the charge is absurdly false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the eulogy of whiskey. It gives me a certain pleasure to read
+ that even now, and I believe the readers of the <i>Telegram</i> would like
+ to read it once more; so here it is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I send you some of the most wonderful whiskey that ever drove the
+ skeleton from a feast or painted landscapes in the brain of man. It is the
+ mingled souls of wheat and corn. In it you will find the sunshine and the
+ shadow that chased each other over the billowy fields; the breath of June;
+ the carol of the lark; the dews of night; the wealth of summer and
+ autumn's rich content, all golden with imprisoned light. Drink it and you
+ will hear the voices of men and maidens singing the 'Harvest Home,'
+ mingled with the laughter of children. Drink it and you will feel within
+ your blood the star-lit dawns, the dreamy, tawny dusks of many perfect
+ days. For forty years this liquid joy has been within the happy staves of
+ oak, longing to touch the lips of men."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I re-quote this for the reason that Dr. Buckley, who is not very accurate,
+ made some mistakes in his version.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in order to show the depth of degradation to which I have sunk in
+ this direction, I will confess that I also wrote a eulogy of tobacco, and
+ here it is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Nearly four centuries ago Columbus, the adventurous, in the blessed
+ island of Cuba, saw happy people with rolled leaves between their lips.
+ Above their heads were little clouds of smoke. Their faces were serene,
+ and in their eyes was the autumnal heaven of content. These people were
+ kind, innocent, gentle and loving.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The climate of Cuba is the friendship of the earth and air, and of this
+ climate the sacred leaves were born&mdash;the leaves that breed in the
+ mind of him who uses them the cloudless, happy days in which they grew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "These leaves make friends, and celebrate with gentle rites the vows of
+ peace. They have given consolation to the world. They are the companions
+ of the lonely&mdash;the friends of the imprisoned, of the exile, of
+ workers in mines, of fellers of forests, of sailors on the desolate seas.
+ They are the givers of strength and calm to the vexed and wearied minds of
+ those who build with thought and dream the temples of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They tell of hope and rest. They smooth the wrinkled brows of pain&mdash;drive
+ fears and strange misshapen dreads from out the mind and fill the heart
+ with rest and peace. Within their magic warp and woof some potent gracious
+ spell imprisoned lies, that, when released by fire, doth softly steal
+ within the fortress of the brain and bind in sleep the captured sentinels
+ of care and grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "These leaves are the friends of the fireside, and their smoke, like
+ incense, rises from myriads of happy homes. Cuba is the smile of the sea."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are some people so constituted that there is no room in the heaven
+ of their minds for the butterflies and moths of fancy to spread their
+ wings. Everything is taken in solemn and stupid earnest. Such men would
+ hold Shakespeare responsible for what Falstaff said about "sack," and for
+ Mrs. Quickly's notions of propriety.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is an old Greek saying which is applicable here: "In the presence of
+ human stupidity, even the gods stand helpless."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, lacked all sense of humor.
+ He preached a sermon on "The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes." He insisted
+ that they were caused by the wickedness of man, and that the only way to
+ cure them was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who does not carry the torch of Humor is always in danger of
+ falling into the pit of Absurdity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Charles Deems, pastor of the Church of the Strangers, contributes
+ his part to the discussion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He took a text from John, as follows: "He that committeth sin is of the
+ devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son
+ of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the orthodox creed of the Rev. Dr. Deems all have committed
+ sin, and consequently all are of the devil. The Doctor is not a
+ metaphysician. He does not care to play at sleight of hand with words. He
+ stands on bed-rock, and he asserts that the devil is no Persian myth, but
+ a personality, who works unhindered by the limitations of a physical body,
+ and gets human personalities to aid him in his works.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the text, it seems that the devil was a sinner from the
+ beginning. I suppose that must mean from his beginning, or from the
+ beginning of things. According to Dr. Deems' creed, his God is the Creator
+ of all things, and consequently must have been the Creator of the devil.
+ According to the Scriptures the devil is the father of lies, and Dr.
+ Deems' God is the father of the devil&mdash;that is to say, the
+ grandfather of lies. This strikes me as almost "blasphemous."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Doctor also tells us "that Jesus believed as much in the personality
+ of the devil as in that of Herod or Pilate or John or Peter."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That I admit. There is not the slightest doubt, if the New Testament be
+ true, that Christ believed in a personal devil&mdash;a devil with whom he
+ had conversations; a devil who took him to the pinnacle of the Temple and
+ endeavored to induce him to leap to the earth below.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course he believed in a personal devil. Not only so; he believed in
+ thousands of personal devils. He cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene.
+ He cast a legion of devils out of the man in the tombs, or, rather, made a
+ bargain with these last-mentioned devils that they might go into a drove
+ or herd of swine, if they would leave the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I not only admit that Christ believed in devils, but he believed that some
+ devils were deaf and dumb, and so declared.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Deems is right, and I hope he will defend against all comers the
+ integrity of the New Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Doctor, however, not satisfied exactly with what he finds in the New
+ Testament, draws a little on his own imagination. He says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The devil is an organizing, imperial intellect, vindictive, sharp,
+ shrewd, persevering, the aim of whose works is to overthrow the authority
+ of God's law."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How does the Doctor know that the devil has an organizing, imperial
+ intellect? How does he know that he is vindictive and sharp and shrewd and
+ persevering?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the devil has an "imperial intellect," why does he attempt the
+ impossible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert Burns shocked Scotland by saying of the devil, or, rather, to the
+ devil, that he was sorry for him, and hoped he would take a thought and
+ mend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Deems has gone far in advance of Burns. For a clergyman he seems to be
+ exceedingly polite. Speaking of the "Arch Enemy of God"&mdash;of that
+ "organizing, imperial intellect who is seeking to undermine the church"&mdash;the
+ Doctor says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The devil may be conceded to be sincere."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "An honest God is the noblest work of man," and it may now be added: A
+ sincere devil is the noblest work of Dr. Deems.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, with all the devil's smartness, sharpness, and shrewdness, the Doctor
+ says that he "cannot write a book; that he cannot deliver lectures" (like
+ myself, I suppose), "edit a newspaper" (like the editor of the <i>Telegram</i>),
+ "or make after-dinner speeches; but he can get his servants to do these
+ things for him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing in the Doctor's address that I feel like correcting (I
+ quote from the <i>Telegram's</i> report):
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Dr. Deems showed at length how the Son of God, the Christ of the Bible&mdash;<i>not
+ the Christ of the lecture platform caricatures</i>&mdash;is operating to
+ overcome all these works."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I take it for granted that he refers to what he supposes I have said about
+ Christ, and, for fear that he may not have read it, I give it here:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "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, that to that
+ great and serene man I gladly pay, the tribute of my admiration 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 and manhood out
+ of the human mind. Had I lived at that time I would have been his friend,
+ and should he come again he will not find a better friend than I will be.
+ That is for the man. For the theological creation I have a different
+ feeling."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have not answered each one who has attacked by name. Neither have I
+ mentioned those who have agreed with me. But I do take this occasion to
+ thank all, irrespective of their creeds, who have manfully advocated the
+ right of free speech, and who have upheld the <i>Telegram</i> in the
+ course it has taken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank all who have said a kind word for me, and I also feel quite
+ grateful to those who have failed to say unkind words. Epithets are not
+ arguments. To abuse is not to convince. Anger is stupid and malice
+ illogical.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, after all that has appeared by way of reply, I still insist that
+ orthodox Christianity did not come with "tidings of great joy," but with a
+ message of eternal grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ New York, February 5, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ *A reply to the Western Watchman, published in the St. Louis
+ Globe Democrat, Sept. 1, 1892.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read an article in the <i>Western Watchman</i>,
+ entitled "Suicide of Judge Normile"? If so, what is your opinion of it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I have read the article, and I think the spirit in which it
+ is written is in exact accord with the creed, with the belief, that
+ prompted it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this article the writer speaks not only of Judge Normile, but of Henry
+ D'Arcy, and begins by saying that a Catholic community had been shocked,
+ but that as a matter of fact the Catholics had no right "to feel special
+ concern in the life or death of either," for the reason, "that both had
+ ceased to be Catholics, and had lived as infidels and scoffers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Catholic creed all infidels and scoffers are on the
+ direct road to eternal pain; and yet, if the <i>Watchman</i> is to be
+ believed, Catholics have no right to have special concern for the fate of
+ such people, even after their death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has always proclaimed that it was seeking the lost&mdash;that
+ it was trying in every way to convert the infidels and save the scoffers&mdash;that
+ it cared less for the ninety-nine sheep safe in the fold than for the one
+ that had strayed. We have been told that God so loved infidels and
+ scoffers, that he came to this poor world and gave his life that they
+ might be saved. But now we are told by the <i>Western Watchman</i> that
+ the church, said to have been founded by Christ, has no right to feel any
+ special concern about the fate of infidels and scoffers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly the <i>Watchman</i> only refers to the infidels and scoffers who
+ were once Catholics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the New Testament is true, St. Peter was at one time a Christian; that
+ is to say, a good Catholic, and yet he fell from grace and not only denied
+ his Master, but went to the extent of swearing that he did not know him;
+ that he never had made his acquaintance. And yet, this same Peter was
+ taken back and became the rock on which the Catholic Church is supposed to
+ rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the Catholics of St. Louis following the example of Christ, when they
+ publicly declare that they care nothing for the fate of one who left the
+ church and who died in his sins?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The <i>Watchman</i>, in order to show that it was simply doing its duty,
+ and was not actuated by hatred or malice, assures us as follows: "A warm
+ personal friendship existed between D'Arcy and Normile and the managers of
+ this paper." What would the <i>Watchman</i> have said if these men had
+ been the personal enemies of the managers of that paper? Two warm personal
+ friends, once Catholics, had gone to hell; but the managers of the <i>Watchman</i>,
+ "warm personal friends" of the dead, had no right to feel any special
+ concern about these friends in the flames of perdition. One would think
+ that pity had changed to piety.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another wonderful statement is that "both of these men determined to go to
+ hell, if there was a hell, and to forego the joys of heaven, if there was
+ a heaven."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Admitting that heaven and hell exist, that heaven is a good place, and
+ that hell, to say the least, is, and eternally will be, unpleasant, why
+ should any sane man unalterably determine to go to hell? It is hard to
+ think of any reason, unless he was afraid of meeting those Catholics in
+ heaven who had been his "warm personal friends" in this world. The truth
+ is that no one wishes to be unhappy in this or any other country. The
+ truth is that Henry D'Arcy and Judge Normile both became convinced that
+ the Catholic Church is of human origin, that its creed is not true, that
+ it is the enemy of progress, and the foe of freedom. It may be that they
+ were in part led to these conclusions by the conduct of their "warm
+ personal friends."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed that these men, Henry D'Arcy and Judge Normile "studied" to
+ convince themselves "that there was no God, that they went back to
+ Paganism and lived among the ancients," and "that they soon revelled in
+ the grossness of Paganism." If they went back to Paganism, they certainly
+ found plenty of gods. The Pagans filled heaven and earth with deities. The
+ Catholics have only three, while the Pagans had hundreds. And yet there
+ were some very good Pagans. By associating with Socrates and Plato one
+ would not necessarily become a groveling wretch. Zeno was not altogether
+ abominable. He would compare favorably, at least, with the average pope.
+ Aristotle was not entirely despicable, although wrong, it may be, in many
+ things. Epicurus was temperate, frugal and serene. He perceived the beauty
+ of use, and celebrated the marriage of virtue and joy. He did not teach
+ his disciples to revel in grossness, although his maligners have made this
+ charge. Cicero was a Pagan, and yet he uttered some very sublime and
+ generous sentiments. Among other things, he said this: "When we say that
+ we should love Romans, but not foreigners, we destroy the bond of
+ universal brotherhood and drive from our hearts charity and justice."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose a Pagan had written about "two warm personal friends" of his, who
+ had joined the Catholic Church, and suppose he had said this: "Although
+ our two warm personal friends have both died by their own hands, and
+ although both have gone to the lowest hell, and are now suffering
+ inconceivable agonies, we have no right to feel any special concern about
+ them or about their sufferings; and, to speak frankly, we care nothing for
+ their agonies, nothing for their tears, and we mention them only to keep
+ other Pagans from joining that blasphemous and ignorant church. Both of
+ our friends were raised as Pagans, both were educated in our holy
+ religion, and both had read the works of our greatest and wisest authors,
+ and yet they fell into apostasy, and studied day and night, in season and
+ out of season, to convince themselves that a young carpenter of Palestine
+ was in fact, Jupiter, whom we call Stator, the creator, the sustainer and
+ governor of all."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is probable that the editor of the <i>Watchman</i> was perfectly
+ conscientious in his attack on the dead. Nothing but a sense of religious
+ duty could induce any man to attack the character of a "warm personal
+ friend," and to say that although the friend was in hell, he felt no
+ special concern as to his fate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The <i>Watchman</i> seems to think that it is hardly probable or possible
+ that a sane Catholic should become an infidel. People of every religion
+ feel substantially in this way. It is probable that the Mohammedan is of
+ the opinion that no sane believer in the religion of Islam could possibly
+ become a Catholic. Probably there are no sane Mohammedans. I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it seems to me, that when a sane Catholic reads the history of his
+ church, of the Inquisition, of centuries of flame and sword, of
+ philosophers and thinkers tortured, flayed and burned by the "Bride of
+ God," and of all the cruelties of Christian years, he may reasonably come
+ to the conclusion that the Church of Rome is not the best possible church
+ in this, the best possible of all worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would hardly impeach his sanity if, after reading the history of
+ superstition, he should denounce the Hierarchy, from priest to pope. The
+ truth is, the real opinions of all men are perfectly honest no matter
+ whether they are for or against the Catholic creed. All intelligent people
+ are intellectually hospitable. Every man who knows something of the
+ operations of his own mind is absolutely certain that his wish has not, to
+ his knowledge, influenced his judgment. He may admit that his wish has
+ influenced his speech, but he must certainly know that it has not affected
+ his judgment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, a man cannot cheat himself in a game of solitaire and
+ really believe that he has won the game. No matter what the appearance of
+ the cards may be, he knows whether the game was lost or won. So, men may
+ say that their judgment is a certain way, and they may so affirm in
+ accordance with their wish, but neither the wish, nor the declaration can
+ affect the real judgment. So, a man must know whether he believes a
+ certain creed or not, or, at least, what the real state of his mind is.
+ When a man tells me that he believes in the supernatural, in the
+ miraculous, and in the inspiration of the Scriptures, I take it for
+ granted that he is telling the truth, although it seems impossible to me
+ that the man could reach that conclusion. When another tells me that he
+ does not know whether there is a Supreme Being or not, but that he does
+ not believe in the supernatural, and is perfectly satisfied that the
+ Scriptures are for the most part false and barbarous, I implicitly believe
+ every word he says.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit cheerfully that there are many millions of men and women who
+ believe what to me seems impossible and infinitely absurd; and,
+ undoubtedly, what I believe seems to them equally impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us give to others the liberty which we claim for ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The <i>Watchman</i> seems to think that unbelief, especially when coupled
+ with what they call "the sins of the flesh," is the lowest possible depth,
+ and tells us that "robbers may be devout," "murderers penitent," and
+ "drunkards reverential."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In some of these statements the <i>Watchman</i> is probably correct. There
+ have been "devout robbers." There have been gentlemen of the highway,
+ agents of the road, who carried sacred images, who bowed, at holy shrines
+ for the purpose of securing success. For many centuries the devout
+ Catholics robbed the Jews. The devout Ferdinand and Isabella were great
+ robbers. A great many popes have indulged in this theological pastime, not
+ to speak of the rank and file. Yes, the <i>Watchman</i> is right. There is
+ nothing in robbery that necessarily interferes with devotion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There have been penitent murderers, and most murderers, unless impelled by
+ a religious sense of duty to God, have been penitent. David, with dying
+ breath, advised his son to murder the old friends of his father. He
+ certainly was not penitent. Undoubtedly Torquemada murdered without
+ remorse, and Calvin burned his "warm personal friend" to gain the applause
+ of God. Philip the Second was a murderer, not penitent, because he deemed
+ it his duty. The same may be said of the Duke of Alva, and of thousands of
+ others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert Burns was not, according to his own account, strictly virtuous, and
+ yet I like him better than I do those who planned and carried into bloody
+ execution the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Undoubtedly murderers have been penitent. A man in California cut the
+ throat of a woman, although she begged for mercy, saying at the same time
+ that she was not prepared to die. He cared nothing for her prayers. He was
+ tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He made a motion for a new trial.
+ This was denied. He appealed to the governor, but the executive refused to
+ interfere. Then he became penitent and experienced religion. On the
+ scaffold he remarked that he was going to heaven; that his only regret was
+ that he would not meet the woman he had murdered, as she was not a
+ Christian when she died. Undoubtedly murderers can be penitent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An old Spaniard was dying. He sent for a priest to administer the last
+ sacraments of the church. The priest told him that he must forgive all his
+ enemies. "I have no enemies," said the dying man, "I killed the last one
+ three weeks ago." Undoubtedly murderers can be penitent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I admit that drunkards have been pious and reverential, and I might
+ add, honest and generous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some good Catholics and some good Protestants have enjoyed a hospitable
+ glass, and there have been priests who used the blood of the grape for
+ other than a sacramental purpose. Even Luther, a good Catholic in his day,
+ a reformer, a Doctor of Divinity, gave to the world this couplet:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Who loves not woman, wine and song,
+ Will live a fool his whole life long."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The <i>Watchman</i>, in effect, says that a devout robber is better than
+ an infidel; that a penitent murderer is superior to a freethinker, in the
+ sight of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another curious thing in this article is that after sending both men to
+ hell, the <i>Watchman</i> says: "As to their moral habits we know
+ nothing."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may then be taken for granted, if these "warm personal friends" knew
+ nothing against the dead, that their lives were, at least, what the church
+ calls moral. We know, if we know anything, that there is no necessary
+ connection between what is called religion and morality. Certainly there
+ were millions of moral people, those who loved mercy and dealt honestly,
+ before the Catholic Church existed. The virtues were well known, and
+ practiced, before a triple crown surrounded the cunning brain of an
+ Italian Vicar of God, and before the flames of the <i>Auto da f&eacute;</i>
+ delighted the hearts of a Christian mob. Thousands of people died for the
+ right, before the wrong organized the infallible church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But why should any man deem it his duty or feel it a pleasure to say harsh
+ and cruel things of the dead? Why pierce the brow of death with the thorns
+ of hatred? Suppose the editor of the <i>Watchman</i> had died, and Judge
+ Normile had been the survivor, would the infidel and scoffer have attacked
+ the unreplying dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Henry D'Arcy I did not know; but Judge Normile was my friend and I was
+ his. Although we met but a few times, he excited my admiration and
+ respect. He impressed me as being an exceedingly intelligent man, well
+ informed on many subjects, of varied reading, possessed of a clear and
+ logical mind, a poetic temperament, enjoying the beautiful things in
+ literature and art, and the noble things in life. He gave his opinions
+ freely, but without the least arrogance, and seemed perfectly willing that
+ others should enjoy the privilege of differing with him. He was, so far as
+ I could perceive, a gentleman, tender of the feelings of others, free and
+ manly in his bearing, "of most excellent fancy," and a most charming and
+ agreeable companion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According, however, to the <i>Watchman</i>, such a man is far below a
+ "devout robber" or a "penitent murderer." Is it possible that an assassin
+ like Ravillac is far better than a philosopher like Voltaire; and that all
+ the Catholic robbers and murderers who retain their faith, give greater
+ delight to God than the Humboldts, Haeckels and Darwins who have filled
+ the world with intellectual light?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly the Catholic Church is mistaken. Possibly the <i>Watchman</i> is
+ in error, and possibly there may be for the erring, even in another world,
+ some asylum besides hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Judge Normile died by his own hand. Certainly he was not afraid of the
+ future. He was not appalled by death. He died by his own hand. Can
+ anything be more pitiful&mdash;more terrible? How can a man in the flowing
+ tide and noon of life destroy himself? What storms there must have been
+ within the brain; what tempests must have raved and wrecked; what
+ lightnings blinded and revealed; what hurrying clouds obscured and hid the
+ stars; what monstrous shapes emerged from gloom; what darkness fell upon
+ the day; what visions filled the night; how the light failed; how paths
+ were lost; how highways disappeared; how chasms yawned; until one thought&mdash;the
+ thought of death&mdash;swift, compassionate and endless&mdash;became the
+ insane monarch of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Standing by the prostrate form of one who thus found death, it is far
+ better to pity than to revile&mdash;to kiss the clay than curse the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The editor of the <i>Watchman</i> has done himself injustice. He has not
+ injured the dead, but the living.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am an infidel&mdash;an unbeliever&mdash;and yet I hope that all the
+ children of men may find peace and joy. No matter how they leave this
+ world, from altar or from scaffold, crowned with virtue or stained with
+ crime, I hope that good may come to all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ R. G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IS SUICIDE A SIN?
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * These letters were published in the New York World, 1894.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Col. Ingersoll's First Letter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I DO not know whether self-killing is on the increase or not. If it is,
+ then there must be, on the average, more trouble, more sorrow, more
+ failure, and, consequently, more people are driven to despair. In
+ civilized life there is a great struggle, great competition, and many
+ fail. To fail in a great city is like being wrecked at sea. In the country
+ a man has friends; he can get a little credit, a little help, but in the
+ city it is different. The man is lost in the multitude. In the roar of the
+ streets, his cry is not heard. Death becomes his only friend. Death
+ promises release from want, from hunger and pain, and so the poor wretch
+ lays down his burden, dashes it from his shoulders and falls asleep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me all this seems very natural. The wonder is that so many endure and
+ suffer to the natural end, that so many nurse the spark of life in huts
+ and prisons, keep it and guard it through years of misery and want;
+ support it by beggary, by eating the crust found in the gutter, and to
+ whom it only gives days of weariness and nights of fear and dread. Why
+ should the man, sitting amid the wreck of all he had, the loved ones dead,
+ friends lost, seek to lengthen, to preserve his life? What can the future
+ have for him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself. When life is
+ of no value to him, when he can be of no real assistance to others, why
+ should a man continue? When he is of no benefit, when he is a burden to
+ those he loves, why should he remain? The old idea was that God made us
+ and placed us here for a purpose and that it was our duty to remain until
+ he called us. The world is outgrowing this absurdity. What pleasure can it
+ give God to see a man devoured by a cancer; to see the quivering flesh
+ slowly eaten; to see the nerves throbbing with pain? Is this a festival
+ for God? Why should the poor wretch stay and suffer? A little morphine
+ would give him sleep&mdash;the agony would be forgotten and he would pass
+ unconsciously from happy dreams to painless death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God determines all births and deaths, of what use is medicine and why
+ should doctors defy with pills and powders, the decrees of God? No one,
+ except a few insane, act now according to this childish superstition. Why
+ should a man, surrounded by flames, in the midst of a burning building,
+ from which there is no escape, hesitate to put a bullet through his brain
+ or a dagger in his heart? Would it give God pleasure to see him burn? When
+ did the man lose the right of self-defence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, when a man has committed some awful crime, why should he stay and ruin
+ his family and friends? Why should he add to the injury? Why should he
+ live, filling his days and nights, and the days and nights of others, with
+ grief and pain, with agony and tears?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should a man sentenced to imprisonment for life hesitate to still his
+ heart? The grave is better than the cell. Sleep is sweeter than the ache
+ of toil. The dead have no masters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the poor girl, betrayed and deserted, the door of home closed against
+ her, the faces of friends averted, no hand that will help, no eye that
+ will soften with pity, the future an abyss filled with monstrous shapes of
+ dread and fear, her mind racked by fragments of thoughts like clouds
+ broken by storm, pursued, surrounded by the serpents of remorse, flying
+ from horrors too great to bear, rushes with joy through the welcome door
+ of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justifiable suicide&mdash;cases
+ in which not to end life would be a mistake, sometimes almost a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the necessity of death, each must decide for himself. And if a man
+ honestly decides that death is best&mdash;best for him and others&mdash;and
+ acts upon the decision, why should he be blamed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly the man who kills himself is not a physical coward. He may have
+ lacked moral courage, but not physical. It may be said that some men fight
+ duels because they are afraid to decline. They are between two fires&mdash;the
+ chance of death and the certainty of dishonor, and they take the chance of
+ death. So the Christian martyrs were, according to their belief, between
+ two fires&mdash;the flames of the fagot that could burn but for a few
+ moments, and the fires of God, that were eternal. And they chose the
+ flames of the fagot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men who fear death to that degree that they will bear all the pains and
+ pangs that nerves can feel, rather than die, cannot afford to call the
+ suicide a coward. It does not seem to me that Brutus was a coward or that
+ Seneca was. Surely Antony had nothing left to live for. Cato was not a
+ craven. He acted on his judgment. So with hundreds of others who felt that
+ they had reached the end&mdash;-that the journey was done, the voyage was
+ over, and, so feeling, stopped. It seems certain that the man who commits
+ suicide, who "does the thing that ends all other deeds, that shackles
+ accident and bolts up change" is not lacking in physical courage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If men had the courage, they would not linger in prisons, in almshouses,
+ in hospitals; they would not bear the pangs of incurable disease, the
+ stains of dishonor; they would not live in filth and want, in poverty and
+ hunger, neither would they wear the chain of slavery. All this can be
+ accounted for only by the fear of death or "of something after."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seneca, knowing that Nero intended to take his life, had no fear. He knew
+ that he could defeat the Emperor. He knew that "at the bottom of every
+ river, in the coil of every rope, on the point of every dagger, Liberty
+ sat and smiled." He knew that it was his own fault if he allowed himself
+ to be tortured to death by his enemy. He said: "There is this blessing,
+ that while life has but one entrance, it has exits innumerable, and as I
+ choose the house in which I live, the ship in which I will sail, so will I
+ choose the time and manner of my death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me this is not cowardly, but manly and noble. Under the Roman law
+ persons found guilty of certain offences were not only destroyed, but
+ their blood was polluted and their children became outcasts. If, however,
+ they died before conviction their children were saved. Many committed
+ suicide to save their babes. Certainly they were not cowards. Although
+ guilty of great crimes they had enough of honor, of manhood, left to save
+ their innocent children. This was not cowardice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without doubt many suicides are caused by insanity. Men lose their
+ property. The fear of the future overpowers them. Things lose proportion,
+ they lose poise and balance, and in a flash, a gleam of frenzy, kill
+ themselves. The disappointed in love, broken in heart&mdash;the light
+ fading from their lives&mdash;seek the refuge of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who take their lives in painful, barbarous ways&mdash;who mangle
+ their throats with broken glass, dash themselves from towers and roofs,
+ take poisons that torture like the rack&mdash;such persons must be insane.
+ But those who take the facts into account, who weigh the arguments for and
+ against, and who decide that death is best&mdash;the only good&mdash;and
+ then resort to reasonable means, may be, so far as I can see, in full
+ possession of their minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Life is not the same to all&mdash;to some a blessing, to some a curse, to
+ some not much in any way. Some leave it with unspeakable regret, some with
+ the keenest joy and some with indifference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion, or the decadence of religion, has a bearing upon the number of
+ suicides. The fear of God, of judgment, of eternal pain will stay the
+ hand, and people so believing will suffer here until relieved by natural
+ death. A belief in eternal agony beyond the grave will cause such
+ believers to suffer the pangs of this life. When there is no fear of the
+ future, when death is believed to be a dreamless sleep, men have less
+ hesitation about ending their lives. On the other hand, orthodox religion
+ has driven millions to insanity. It has caused parents to murder their
+ children and many thousands to destroy themselves and others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems probable that all real, genuine orthodox believers who kill
+ themselves must be insane, and to such a degree that their belief is
+ forgotten. God and hell are out of their minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am satisfied that many who commit suicide are insane, many are in the
+ twilight or dusk of insanity, and many are perfectly sane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law we have in this State making it a crime to attempt suicide is
+ cruel and absurd and calculated to increase the number of successful
+ suicides. When a man has suffered so much, when he has been so persecuted
+ and pursued by disaster that he seeks the rest and sleep of death, why
+ should the State add to the sufferings of that man? A man seeking death,
+ knowing that he will be punished if he fails, will take extra pains and
+ precautions to make death certain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This law was born of superstition, passed by thoughtlessness and enforced
+ by ignorance and cruelty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the house of life becomes a prison, when the horizon has shrunk and
+ narrowed to a cell, and when the convict longs for the liberty of death,
+ why should the effort to escape be regarded as a crime?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I regard life from a natural point of view. I do not take gods,
+ heavens or hells into account. My horizon is the known, and my estimate of
+ life is based upon what I know of life here in this world. People should
+ not suffer for the sake of supernatural beings or for other worlds or the
+ hopes and fears of some future state. Our joys, our sufferings and our
+ duties are here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law of New York about the attempt to commit suicide and the law as to
+ divorce are about equal. Both are idiotic. Law cannot prevent suicide.
+ Those who have lost all fear of death, care nothing for law and its
+ penalties. Death is liberty, absolute and eternal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We should remember that nothing happens but the natural. Back of every
+ suicide and every attempt to commit suicide is the natural and efficient
+ cause. Nothing happens by chance. In this world the facts touch each
+ other. There is no space between&mdash;no room for chance. Given a certain
+ heart and brain, certain conditions, and suicide is the necessary result.
+ If we wish to prevent suicide we must change conditions. We must by
+ education, by invention, by art, by civilization, add to the value of the
+ average life. We must cultivate the brain and heart&mdash;do away with
+ false pride and false modesty. We must become generous enough to help our
+ fellows without degrading them. We must make industry&mdash;useful work of
+ all kinds&mdash;honorable. We must mingle a little affection with our
+ charity&mdash;a little fellowship. We should allow those who have sinned
+ to really reform. We should not think only of what the wicked have done,
+ but we should think of what we have wanted to do. People do not hate the
+ sick. Why should they despise the mentally weak&mdash;the diseased in
+ brain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our actions are the fruit, the result, of circumstances&mdash;of
+ conditions&mdash;and we do as we must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This great truth should fill the heart with pity for the failures of our
+ race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sometimes I have wondered that Christians denounced the suicide; that in
+ olden times they buried him where the roads crossed, drove a stake through
+ his body, and then took his property from his children and gave it to the
+ State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christians would only think, they would see that orthodox religion
+ rests upon suicide&mdash;that man was redeemed by suicide, and that
+ without suicide the whole world would have been lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christ were God, then he had the power to protect himself from the Jews
+ without hurting them. But instead of using his power he allowed them to
+ take his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a strong man should allow a few little children to hack him to death
+ with knives when he could easily have brushed them aside, would we not say
+ that he committed suicide?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no escape. If Christ were, in fact, God, and allowed the Jews to
+ kill him, then he consented to his own death&mdash;refused, though
+ perfectly able, to defend and protect himself, and was, in fact, a
+ suicide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot reform the world by law or by superstition. As long as there
+ shall be pain and failure, want and sorrow, agony and crime, men and women
+ will untie life's knot and seek the peace of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the hopelessly imprisoned&mdash;to the dishonored and despised&mdash;to
+ those who have failed, who have no future, no hope&mdash;to the abandoned,
+ the brokenhearted, to those who are only remnants and fragments of men and
+ women&mdash;how consoling, how enchanting is the thought of death!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And even to the most fortunate, death at last is a welcome deliverer.
+ Death is as natural and as merciful as life. When we have journeyed long&mdash;when
+ we are weary&mdash;when we wish for the twilight, for the dusk, for the
+ cool kisses of the night&mdash;when the senses are dull&mdash;when the
+ pulse is faint and low&mdash;when the mists gather on the mirror of memory&mdash;when
+ the past is almost forgotten, the present hardly perceived&mdash;when the
+ future has but empty hands&mdash;death is as welcome as a strain of music.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, death is not so terrible as joyless life. Next to eternal
+ happiness is to sleep in the soft clasp of the cool earth, disturbed by no
+ dream, by no thought, by no pain, by no fear, unconscious of all and
+ forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The wonder is that so many live, that in spite of rags and want, in spite
+ of tenement and gutter, of filth and pain, they, limp and stagger and
+ crawl beneath their burdens to the natural end. The wonder is that so few
+ of the miserable are brave enough to die&mdash;that so many are terrified
+ by the "something after death"&mdash;by the spectres and phantoms of
+ superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most people are in love with life. How they cling to it in the arctic
+ snows&mdash;how they struggle in the waves and currents of the sea&mdash;how
+ they linger in famine&mdash;how they fight disaster and despair! On the
+ crumbling edge of death they keep the flag flying and go down at last full
+ of hope and courage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But many have not such natures. They cannot bear defeat. They are
+ disheartened by disaster. They lie down on the field of conflict and give
+ the earth their blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are our unfortunate brothers and sisters. We should not curse or
+ blame&mdash;we should pity. On their pallid faces our tears should fall.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the best men I ever knew, with an affectionate wife, a charming and
+ loving daughter, committed suicide. He was a man of generous impulses. His
+ heart was loving and tender. He was conscientious, and so sensitive that
+ he blamed himself for having done what at the time he thought was wise and
+ best. He was the victim of his virtues. Let us be merciful in our
+ judgments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All we can say is that the good and the bad, the loving and the malignant,
+ the conscientious and the vicious, the educated and the ignorant, actuated
+ by many motives, urged and pushed by circumstances and conditions&mdash;sometimes
+ in the calm of judgment, sometimes in passion's storm and stress,
+ sometimes in whirl and tempest of insanity&mdash;raise their hands against
+ themselves and desperately put out the light of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who attempt suicide should not be punished. If they are insane they
+ should if possible be restored to reason; if sane, they should be reasoned
+ with, calmed and assisted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ R. G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ COL. INGERSOLL'S REPLY TO HIS CRITICS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN the article written by me about suicide the ground was taken that
+ "under many circumstances a man has the right to kill himself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This has been attacked with great fury by clergymen, editors and the
+ writers of letters. These people contend that the right of
+ self-destruction does not and cannot exist. They insist that life is the
+ gift of God, and that he only has the right to end the days of men; that
+ it is our duty to bear the sorrows that he sends with grateful patience.
+ Some have denounced suicide as the worst of crimes&mdash;worse than the
+ murder of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first question, then, is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has a man under any circumstances the right to kill himself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man is being slowly devoured by a cancer&mdash;his agony is intense&mdash;his
+ suffering all that nerves can feel. His life is slowly being taken. Is
+ this the work of the good God? Did the compassionate God create the cancer
+ so that it might feed on the quiverering flesh of this victim?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man, suffering agonies beyond the imagination to conceive, is of no
+ use to himself. His life is but a succession of pangs. He is of no use to
+ his wife, his children, his friends or society. Day after day he is
+ rendered unconscious by drugs that numb the nerves and put the brain to
+ sleep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has he the right to render himself unconscious? Is it proper for him to
+ take refuge in sleep?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be a good God I cannot believe that he takes pleasure in the
+ sufferings of men&mdash;that he gloats over the agonies of his children.
+ If there be a good God, he will, to the extent of his power, lessen the
+ evils of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I insist that the man being eaten by the cancer&mdash;a burden to
+ himself and others, useless in every way&mdash;has the right to end his
+ pain and pass through happy sleep to dreamless rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But those who have answered me would say to this man: "It is your duty to
+ be devoured. The good God wishes you to suffer. Your life is the gift of
+ God. You hold it in trust and you have no right to end it. The cancer is
+ the creation of God and it is your duty to furnish it with food."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take another case: A man is on a burning ship, the crew and the rest of
+ the passengers have escaped&mdash;gone in the lifeboats&mdash;and he is
+ left alone. In the wide horizon there is no sail, no sign of help. He
+ cannot swim. If he leaps into the sea he drowns, if he remains on the ship
+ he burns. In any event he can live but a few moments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who have answered me, those who insist that under no circumstances a
+ man has the right to take his life, would say to this man on the deck,
+ "Remain where you are. It is the desire of your loving, heavenly Father
+ that you be clothed in flame&mdash;that you slowly roast&mdash;that your
+ eyes be scorched to blindness and that you die insane with pain. Your life
+ is not your own, only the agony is yours."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would say to this man: Do as you wish. If you prefer drowning to
+ burning, leap into the sea. Between inevitable evils you have the right of
+ choice. You can help no one, not even God, by allowing yourself to be
+ burned, and you can injure no one, not even God, by choosing the easier
+ death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us suppose another case:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man has been captured by savages in Central Africa. He is about to be
+ tortured to death. His captors are going to thrust splinters of pine into
+ his flesh and then set them on fire. He watches them as they make the
+ preparations. He knows what they are about to do and what he is about to
+ suffer. There is no hope of rescue, of help. He has a vial of poison. He
+ knows that he can take it and in one moment pass beyond their power,
+ leaving to them only the dead body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this man under obligation to keep his life because God gave it, until
+ the savages by torture take it? Are the savages the agents of the good
+ God? Are they the servants of the Infinite? Is it the duty of this man to
+ allow them to wrap his body in a garment of flame? Has he no right to
+ defend himself? Is it the will of God that he die by torture? What would
+ any man of ordinary intelligence do in a case like this? Is there room for
+ discussion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the man took the poison, shortened his life a few moments, escaped the
+ tortures of the savages, is it possible that he would in another world be
+ tortured forever by an infinite savage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose another case: In the good old days, when the Inquisition
+ flourished, when men loved their enemies and murdered their friends, many
+ frightful and ingenious ways were devised to touch the nerves of pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who loved God, who had been "born twice," would take a fellow-man
+ who had been convicted of "heresy," lay him upon the floor of a dungeon,
+ secure his arms and legs with chains, fasten him to the earth so that he
+ could not move, put an iron vessel, the opening downward, on his stomach,
+ place in the vessel several rats, then tie it securely to his body. Then
+ these worshipers of God would wait until the rats, seeking food and
+ liberty, would gnaw through the body of the victim.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if a man about to be subjected to this torture, had within his hand a
+ dagger, would it excite the wrath of the "good God," if with one quick
+ stroke he found the protection of death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To this question there can be but one answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the cases I have supposed it seems to me that each person would have
+ the right to destroy himself. It does not seem possible that the man was
+ under obligation to be devoured by a cancer; to remain upon the ship and
+ perish in flame; to throw away the poison and be tortured to death by
+ savages; to drop the dagger and endure the "mercies" of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, in the cases I have supposed, men would have the right to take their
+ lives, then I was right when I said that "under many circumstances a man
+ has a right to kill himself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>.&mdash;I denied that persons who killed themselves were
+ physical cowards. They may lack moral courage; they may exaggerate their
+ misfortunes, lose the sense of proportion, but the man who plunges the
+ dagger in his heart, who sends the bullet through his brain, who leaps
+ from some roof and dashes himself against the stones beneath, is not and
+ cannot be a physical coward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The basis of cowardice is the fear of injury or the fear of death, and
+ when that fear is not only gone, but in its place is the desire to die, no
+ matter by what means, it is impossible that cowardice should exist. The
+ suicide wants the very thing that a coward fears. He seeks the very thing
+ that cowardice endeavors to escape.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, the man, forced to a choice of evils, choosing the less is not a
+ coward, but a reasonable man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be admitted that the suicide is honest with himself. He is to bear
+ the injury; if it be one. Certainly there is no hypocrisy, and just as
+ certainly there is no physical cowardice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is the man who takes morphine rather than be eaten to death by a cancer a
+ coward?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is the man who leaps into the sea rather than be burned a coward? Is the
+ man that takes poison rather than be tortured to death by savages or
+ "Christians" a coward?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>.&mdash;I also took the position that some suicides were sane;
+ that they acted on their best judgment, and that they were in full
+ possession of their minds. Now, if under some circumstances, a man has the
+ right to take his life, and, if, under such circumstances, he does take
+ his life, then it cannot be said that he was insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the persons who have tried to answer me have taken the ground that
+ suicide is not only a crime, but some of them have said that it is the
+ greatest of crimes. Now, if it be a crime, then the suicide must have been
+ sane. So all persons who denounce the suicide as a criminal admit that he
+ was sane. Under the law, an insane person is incapable of committing a
+ crime. All the clergymen who have answered me, and who have passionately
+ asserted that suicide is a crime, have by that assertion admitted that
+ those who killed themselves were sane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They agree with me, and not only admit, but assert that "some who have
+ committed suicide were sane and in the full possession of their minds."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that these three propositions have been demonstrated to be
+ true: <i>First</i>, that under some circumstances a man has the right to
+ take his life; <i>second</i>, that the man who commits suicide is not a
+ physical coward, and, <i>third</i>, that some who have committed suicide
+ were at the time sane and in full possession of their minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth</i>.&mdash;I insisted, and still insist, that suicide was and is
+ the foundation of the Christian religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I still insist that if Christ were God he had the power to protect himself
+ without injuring his assailants&mdash;that having that power it was his
+ duty to use it, and that failing to use it he consented to his own death
+ and was guilty of suicide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To this the clergy answer that it was self-sacrifice for the redemption of
+ man, that he made an atonement for the sins of believers. These ideas
+ about redemption and atonement are born of a belief in the "fall of man,"
+ on account of the sins of our first "parents," and of the declaration that
+ "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." The
+ foundation has crumbled. No intelligent person now believes in the "fall
+ of man"&mdash;that our first parents were perfect, and that their
+ descendants grew worse and worse, at least until the coming of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligent men now believe that ages and ages before the dawn of history,
+ man was a poor, naked, cruel, ignorant and degraded savage, whose language
+ consisted of a few sounds of terror, of hatred and delight; that he
+ devoured his fellow-man, having all the vices, but not all the virtues of
+ the beasts; that the journey from the den to the home, the palace, has
+ been long and painful, through many centuries of suffering, of cruelty and
+ war; through many ages of discovery, invention, self-sacrifice and
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Redemption and atonement are left without a fact on which to rest. The
+ idea that an infinite God, creator of all worlds, came to this grain of
+ sand, learned the trade of a carpenter, discussed with Pharisees and
+ scribes, and allowed a few infuriated Hebrews to put him to death that he
+ might atone for the sins of men and redeem a few believers from the
+ consequences of his own wrath, can find no lodgment in a good and natural
+ brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In no mythology can anything more monstrously unbelievable be found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But if Christ were a man and attacked the religion of his times because it
+ was cruel and absurd; if he endeavored to found a religion of kindness, of
+ good deeds, to take the place of heartlessness and ceremony, and if,
+ rather than to deny what he believed to be right and true, he suffered
+ death, then he was a noble man&mdash;a benefactor of his race. But if he
+ were God there was no need of this. The Jews did not wish to kill God. If
+ he had only made himself known all knees would have touched the ground. If
+ he were God it required no heroism to die. He knew that what we call death
+ is but the opening of the gates of eternal life. If he were God there was
+ no self-sacrifice. He had no need to suffer pain. He could have changed
+ the crucifixion to a joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even the editors of religious weeklies see that there is no escape from
+ these conclusions&mdash;from these arguments&mdash;and so, instead of
+ attacking the arguments, they attack the man who makes them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fifth</i>.&mdash;I denounced the law of New York that makes an attempt
+ to commit suicide a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that one who has suffered so much that he passionately
+ longs for death should be pitied, instead of punished&mdash;helped rather
+ than imprisoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A despairing woman who had vainly sought for leave to toil, a woman
+ without home, without friends, without bread, with clasped hands, with
+ tear-filled eyes, with broken words of prayer, in the darkness of night
+ leaps from the dock, hoping, longing for the tearless sleep of death. She
+ is rescued by a kind, courageous man, handed over to the authorities,
+ indicted, tried, convicted, clothed in a convict's garb and locked in a
+ felon's cell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me this law seems barbarous and absurd, a law that only savages would
+ enforce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Sixth</i>.&mdash;In this discussion a curious thing has happened. For
+ several centuries the clergy have declared that while infidelity is a very
+ good thing to live by, it is a bad support, a wretched consolation, in the
+ hour of death. They have in spite of the truth, declared that all the
+ great unbelievers died trembling with fear, asking God for mercy,
+ surrounded by fiends, in the torments of despair. Think of the thousands
+ and thousands of clergymen who have described the last agonies of
+ Voltaire, who died as peacefully as a happy child smilingly passes from
+ play to slumber; the final anguish of Hume, who fell into his last sleep
+ as serenely as a river, running between green and shaded banks, reaches
+ the sea; the despair of Thomas Paine, one of the bravest, one of the
+ noblest men, who met the night of death untroubled as a star that meets
+ the morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time these ministers admitted that the average murderer could
+ meet death on the scaffold with perfect serenity, and could smilingly ask
+ the people who had gathered to see him killed to meet him in heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the honest man who had expressed his honest thoughts against the creed
+ of the church in power could not die in peace. God would see to it that
+ his last moments should be filled with the insanity of fear&mdash;that
+ with his last breath he should utter the shriek of remorse, the cry for
+ pardon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This has all changed, and now the clergy, in their sermons answering me,
+ declare that the atheists, the freethinkers, have no fear of death&mdash;that
+ to avoid some little annoyance, a passing inconvenience, they gladly and
+ cheerfully put out the light of life. It is now said that infidels believe
+ that death is the end&mdash;that it is a dreamless sleep&mdash;that it is
+ without pain&mdash;that therefore they have no fear, care nothing for
+ gods, or heavens or hells, nothing for the threats of the pulpit, nothing
+ for the day of judgment, and that when life becomes a burden they
+ carelessly throw it down.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The infidels are so afraid of death that they commit suicide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This certainly is a great change, and I congratulate myself on having
+ forced the clergy to contradict themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Seventh</i>.&mdash;The clergy take the position that the atheist, the
+ unbeliever, has no standard of morality&mdash;that he can have no real
+ conception of right and wrong. They are of the opinion that it is
+ impossible for one to be moral or good unless he believes in some Being
+ far above himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this connection we might ask how God can be moral or good unless he
+ believes in some Being superior to himself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is morality? It is the best thing to do under the circumstances. What
+ is the best thing to do under the circumstances? That which will increase
+ the sum of human happiness&mdash;or lessen it the least. Happiness in its
+ highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves
+ or creates happiness is moral&mdash;that which decreases it, or puts it in
+ peril, is immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not hard for an atheist&mdash;for an unbeliever&mdash;to keep his
+ hands out of the fire. He knows that burning his hands will not increase
+ his well-being, and he is moral enough to keep them out of the flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it may be said that each man acts according to his intelligence&mdash;so
+ far as what he considers his own good is concerned. Sometimes he is swayed
+ by passion, by prejudice, by ignorance&mdash;but when he is really
+ intelligent, master of himself, he does what he believes is best for him.
+ If he is intelligent enough he knows that what is really good for him is
+ good for others&mdash;for all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for me to see' why any belief in the supernatural is
+ necessary to have a keen perception of right and wrong. Every man who has
+ the capacity to suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the
+ same capacity to others, has within himself the natural basis of all
+ morality. The idea of morality was born here, in this world, of the
+ experience, the intelligence of mankind. Morality is not of supernatural
+ origin. It did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the
+ supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no supernatural heavens
+ or hells to give it force and life. Subjects who are governed by the
+ threats and promises of a king are merely slaves. They are not governed by
+ the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. They are obedient cowards,
+ controlled by fear, or beggars governed by rewards&mdash;by alms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Right and wrong exist in the nature of things. Murder was just as criminal
+ before as after the promulgation of the Ten Commandments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Eighth</i>.&mdash;The clergy take the position that the atheist, the
+ unbeliever, has no standard of morality&mdash;that he can have no real
+ conception of right and wrong. They are of the opinion that it is
+ impossible for one to be moral or good unless he believes in some Being
+ far above himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this connection we might ask how God can be moral or good unless he
+ believes in some Being superior to himself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is morality? It is the best thing to do under the circumstances. What
+ is the best thing to do under the circumstances? That which will increase
+ the sum of human happiness&mdash;or lessen it the least. Happiness in its
+ highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which increases or preserves
+ or creates happiness is moral&mdash;that which decreases it, or puts it in
+ peril, is immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not hard for an atheist&mdash;for an unbeliever&mdash;to keep his
+ hands out of the fire. He knows that burning his hands will not increase
+ his well-being, and he is moral enough to keep them out of the flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it may be said that each man acts according to his intelligence&mdash;so
+ far as what he Considers his own good is concerned. Sometimes he is swayed
+ by passion, by prejudice, by ignorance&mdash;but when he is really
+ intelligent, master of himself, he does what he believes is best for him.
+ If he is intelligent enough he knows that what is really good for him is
+ food for others&mdash;for all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for me to see why any belief in the supernatural is
+ necessary to have a keen perception of right and wrong. Every man who has
+ the capacity to suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the
+ same capacity to others, has within himself the natural basis of all
+ morality. The idea of morality was born here, in this world, of the
+ experience, the intelligence of mankind. Morality is not of supernatural
+ origin. It did not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the
+ supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no supernatural heavens
+ or hells to give it force and life. Subjects who are governed by the
+ threats and promises of a king are merely slaves. They are not governed by
+ the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. They are obedient cowards,
+ controlled by fear, or beggars governed by rewards&mdash;by alms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Right and wrong exist in the nature of things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Murder was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of the Ten
+ Commandments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Eighth</i>.&mdash;Many of the clergy, some editors and some writers of
+ letters who have answered me, have said that suicide is the worst of
+ crimes&mdash;that a man had better murder somebody else than himself. One
+ clergyman gives as a reason for this statement that the suicide dies in an
+ act of sin, and therefore he had better kill another person. Probably he
+ would commit a less crime if he would murder his wife or mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not see that it is any worse to die than to live in sin. To say that
+ it is not as wicked to murder another as yourself seems absurd. The man
+ about to kill himself wishes to die. Why is it better for him to kill
+ another man, who wishes to live?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To my mind it seems clear that you had better injure yourself than
+ another. Better be a spendthrift than a thief. Better throw away your own
+ money than steal the money of another&mdash;better kill yourself if you
+ wish to die than murder one whose life is full of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The clergy tell us that God is everywhere, and that it is one of the
+ greatest possible crimes to rush into his presence. It is wonderful how
+ much they know about God and how little about their fellow-men. Wonderful
+ the amount of their information about other worlds and how limited their
+ knowledge is of this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There may or may not be an infinite Being. I neither affirm nor deny. I am
+ honest enough to say that I do not know. I am candid enough to admit that
+ the question is beyond the limitations of my mind. Yet I think I know as
+ much on that subject as any human being knows or ever knew, and that is&mdash;nothing.
+ I do not say that there is not another world, another life; neither do I
+ say that there is. I say that I do not know. It seems to me that every
+ sane and honest man must say the same. But if there is an infinitely good
+ God and another world, then the infinitely good God will be just as good
+ to us in that world as he is in this. If this infinitely good God loves
+ his children in this world, he will love them in another. If he loves a
+ man when he is alive, he will not hate him the instant he is dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we are the children of an infinitely wise and powerful God, he knew
+ exactly what we would do&mdash;the temptations that we could and could not
+ withstand&mdash;knew exactly the effect that everything would have upon
+ us, knew under what circumstances we would take our lives&mdash;and
+ produced such circumstances himself. It is perfectly apparent that there
+ are many people incapable by nature of bearing the burdens of life,
+ incapable of preserving their mental poise in stress and strain of
+ disaster, disease and loss, and who by failure, by misfortune and want,
+ are driven to despair and insanity, in whose darkened minds there comes
+ like a flash of lightning in the night, the thought of death, a thought so
+ strong, so vivid, that all fear is lost, all ties broken, all duties, all
+ obligations, all hopes forgotten, and naught remains except a fierce and
+ wild desire to die. Thousands and thousands become moody, melancholy,
+ brood upon loss of money, of position, of friends, until reason abdicates
+ and frenzy takes possession of the soul. If there be an infinitely wise
+ and powerful God, all this was known to him from the beginning, and he so
+ created things, established relations, put in operation causes and
+ effects, that all that has happened was the necessary result of his own
+ acts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Ninth</i>.&mdash;Nearly all who have tried to answer what I said have
+ been exceedingly careful to misquote me, and then answer something that I
+ never uttered. They have declared that I have advised people who were in
+ trouble, somewhat annoyed, to kill themselves; that I have told men who
+ have lost their money, who had failed in business, who were not good in
+ health, to kill themselves at once, without taking into consideration any
+ duty that they owed to wives, children, friends, or society.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man has a right to leave his wife to fight the battle alone if he is
+ able to help. No man has a right to desert his children if he can possibly
+ be of use. As long as he can add to the comfort of those he loves, as long
+ as he can stand between wife and misery, between child and want, as long
+ as he can be of any use, it is his duty to remain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the cheerful view, in looking at the sunny side of things, in
+ bearing with fortitude the evils of life, in struggling against adversity,
+ in finding the fuel of laughter even in disaster, in having confidence in
+ to-morrow, in finding the pearl of joy among the flints and shards, and in
+ changing by the alchemy of patience even evil things to good. I believe in
+ the gospel of cheerfulness, of courage and good nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of the future I have no fear. My fate is the fate of the world&mdash;of
+ all that live. My anxieties are about this life, this world. About the
+ phantoms called gods and their impossible hells, I have no care, no fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The existence of God I neither affirm nor deny, I wait. The immortality of
+ the soul I neither affirm nor deny. I hope&mdash;hope for all of the
+ children of men. I have never denied the existence of another world, nor
+ the immortality of the soul. For many years I have said that the idea of
+ immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with
+ its countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks
+ of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any
+ religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and
+ flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love
+ kisses the lips of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What I deny is the immortality of pain, the eternity of torture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, the instinct of self-preservation is strong. People do not kill
+ themselves on the advice of friends or enemies. All wish to be happy, to
+ enjoy life; all wish for food and roof and raiment, for friends, and as
+ long as life gives joy, the idea of self-destruction never enters the
+ human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The oppressors, the tyrants, those who trample on the rights of others,
+ the robbers of the poor, those who put wages below the living point, the
+ ministers who make people insane by preaching the dogma of eternal pain;
+ these are the men who drive the weak, the suffering and the helpless down
+ to death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that God has appointed a time for each to die. Of
+ this there is, and there can be, no evidence. There is no evidence that
+ any god takes any interest in the affairs of men&mdash;that any sides with
+ the right or helps the weak, protects the innocent or rescues the
+ oppressed. Even the clergy admit that their God, through all ages, has
+ allowed his friends, his worshipers, to be imprisoned, tortured and murdered
+ by his enemies. Such is the protection of God. Billions of prayers have
+ been uttered; has one been answered? Who sends plague, pestilence and
+ famine? Who bids the earthquake devour and the volcano to overwhelm?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Tenth</i>.&mdash;Again, I say that it is wonderful to me that so many
+ men, so many women endure and carry their burdens to the natural end; that
+ so many, in spite of "age, ache and penury," guard with trembling hands
+ the spark of life; that prisoners for life toil and suffer to the last;
+ that the helpless wretches in poorhouses and asylums cling to life; that
+ the exiles in Siberia, loaded with chains, scarred with the knout, live
+ on; that the incurables, whose every breath is a pang, and for whom the
+ future has only pain, should fear the merciful touch and clasp of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is but a few steps at most from the cradle to the grave; a short
+ journey. The suicide hastens, shortens the path, loses the afternoon, the
+ twilight, the dusk of life's day; loses what he does not want, what he
+ cannot bear. In the tempest of despair, in the blind fury of madness, or
+ in the calm of thought and choice, the beleaguered soul finds the serenity
+ of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us leave the dead where nature leaves them. We know nothing of any
+ realm that lies beyond the horizon of the known, beyond the end of life.
+ Let us be honest with ourselves and others. Let us pity the suffering, the
+ despairing, the men and women hunted and pursued by grief and shame, by
+ misery and want, by chance and fate until their only friend is death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SUICIDE A SIN.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * New York Journal, 1805. An Interview.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that what you have written about suicide has
+ caused people to take their lives?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No, I do not. People do not kill themselves because of the
+ ideas of others. They are the victims of misfortune.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you consider the chief cause of suicide?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> There are many causes. Some individuals are crossed in
+ love, others are bankrupt in estate or reputation, still others are
+ diseased in body and frequently in mind. There are a thousand and one
+ causes that lead up to the final act.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider that nationality plays a part in these
+ tragedies?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No, it is a question of individuals. There are those whose
+ sorrows are greater than they can bear. These sufferers seek the peace of
+ death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you, then, advise suicide?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No, I have never done so, but I have said, and still say,
+ that there are circumstances under which it is justifiable for a person to
+ take his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the law which prohibits
+ self-destruction?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> That it is absurd and ridiculous. The other day a man was
+ tried before Judge Goff for having tried to kill himself. I think he
+ pleaded guilty, and the Judge, after speaking of the terrible crime of the
+ poor wretch, sentenced him to the penitentiary for two years. This was an
+ outrage; infamous in every way, and a disgrace to our civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that such a law will prevent the frequency
+ of suicides?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> By no means. After this, persons in New York who have made
+ up their minds to commit suicide will see to it that they succeed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have your opinions been in any way modified since your
+ first announcement of them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No, I feel now as I have felt for many years. No one can
+ answer my articles on suicide, because no one can satisfactorily refute
+ them. Every man of sense knows that a person being devoured by a cancer
+ has the right to take morphine, and pass from agony to dreamless sleep.
+ So, too, there are circumstances under which a man has the right to end
+ his pain of mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you seen in the papers that many who have killed
+ themselves have had on their persons some article of yours on suicide?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Yes, I have read such accounts, but I repeat that I do not
+ think these persons were led to kill themselves by reading the articles.
+ Many people who have killed themselves were found to have Bibles or tracts
+ in their pockets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you account for the presence of the latter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> The reason of this is that the theologians know nothing.
+ The pious imagine that their God has placed us here for some wise and
+ inscrutable purpose, and that he will call for us when he wants us. All
+ this is idiotic. When a man is of no use to himself or to others, when his
+ days and nights are filled with pain and sorrow, why should he remain to
+ endure them longer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SUICIDE A SIN.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * New York Herald, 1897. An Interview.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL was seen at his house and asked if he had read
+ the Rev. Merle St. Croix Wright's sermon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Yes. I have read the sermon, and also an interview had with
+ the reverend gentleman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long ago I gave my views about suicide, and I entertain the same views
+ still. Mr. Wright's sermon has stirred up quite a commotion among the
+ orthodox ministers. This commotion may always be expected when anything
+ sensible comes from a pulpit. Mr. Wright has mixed a little common sense
+ with his theology, and, of course this has displeased the truly orthodox.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sense is the bitterest foe that theology has. No system of supernatural
+ religion can outlive a good dose of real good sense. The orthodox
+ ministers take the ground that an infinite Being created man, put him on
+ the earth and determined his days. They say that God desires every person
+ to live until he, God, calls for his soul. They insist that we are all on
+ guard and must remain so until relieved by a higher power&mdash;the
+ superior officer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble with this doctrine is that it proves too much. It proves that
+ God kills every person who dies as we say, "according to nature." It
+ proves that we ought to say, "according to God." It proves that God sends
+ the earthquake, the cyclone, the pestilence, for the purpose of killing
+ people. It proves that all diseases and all accidents are his messengers,
+ and that all who do not kill themselves, die by the act, and in accordance
+ with the will of God. It also shows that when a man is murdered, it is in
+ harmony with, and a part of the divine plan. When God created the man who
+ was murdered, he knew that he would be murdered, and when he made the man
+ who committed the murder, he knew exactly what he would do. So that the
+ murder was the act of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can it be said that God intended that thousands should die of famine and
+ that he, to accomplish his purpose, withheld the rain? Can we say that he
+ intended that thousands of innocent men should die in dungeons and on
+ scaffolds?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that a man, "slowly being devoured by a cancer," whose days
+ and nights are filled with torture, who is useless to himself and a burden
+ to others, is carrying out the will of God? Does God enjoy his agony? Is
+ God thrilled by the music of his moans&mdash;the melody of his shrieks?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This frightful doctrine makes God an infinite monster, and every human
+ being a slave; a victim. This doctrine is not only infamous but it is
+ idiotic. It makes God the only criminal in the universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if we are governed by reason, if we use our senses and our minds, and
+ have courage enough to be honest; if we know a little of the world's
+ history, then we know&mdash;if we know anything&mdash;that man has taken
+ his chances, precisely the same as other animals. He has been destroyed by
+ heat and cold, by flood and fire, by storm and famine, by countless
+ diseases, by numberless accidents. By his intelligence, his cunning, his
+ strength, his foresight, he has managed to escape utter destruction. He
+ has defended himself. He has received no supernatural aid. Neither has he
+ been attacked by any supernatural power. Nothing has ever happened in
+ nature as the result of a purpose to benefit or injure the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Consequently the question of the right or wrong of suicide is not in any
+ way affected by a supposed obligation to the Infinite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All theological considerations must be thrown aside because we see and
+ know that the laws of life are the same for all living things&mdash;that
+ when the conditions are favorable, the living multiply and life lengthens,
+ and when the conditions are unfavorable, the living decrease and life
+ shortens. We have no evidence of any interference of any power superior to
+ nature. Taking into consideration the fact that all the duties and
+ obligations of man must be to his fellows, to sentient beings, here in
+ this world, and that he owes no duty and is under no obligation to any
+ phantoms of the air, then it is easy to determine whether a man under
+ certain circumstances has the right to end his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he can be of no use to others&mdash;if he is of no use to himself&mdash;if
+ he is a burden to others&mdash;a curse to himself&mdash;why should he
+ remain? By ending his life he ends his sufferings and adds to the
+ well-being of others. He lessens misery and increases happiness. Under
+ such circumstances undoubtedly a man has the right to stop the pulse of
+ pain and woo the sleep that has no dream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think that the discussion of this question is of much importance,
+ but I am glad that a clergyman has taken a natural and a sensible
+ position, and that he has reasoned not like a minister, but like a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When wisdom comes from the pulpit I am delighted and surprised. I feel
+ then that there is a little light in the East, possibly the dawn of a
+ better day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I congratulate the Rev. Mr. Wright, and thank him for his brave and
+ philosophic words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another thing. Certainly a man has the right to avoid
+ death, to save himself from accident and disease. If he has this right,
+ then the theologians must admit that God, in making his decrees, took into
+ consideration the result of such actions. Now, if God knew that while most
+ men would avoid death, some would seek it, and if his decrees were so made
+ that they would harmonize with the acts of those who would avoid death,
+ can we say that he did not, in making his decrees, take into consideration
+ the acts of those who would seek death? Let us remember that all actions,
+ good, bad and indifferent, are the necessary children of conditions&mdash;that
+ there is no chance in the natural world in which we live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, we must keep in mind that all real opinions are honest, and that all
+ have the same right to express their thoughts. Let us be charitable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When some suffering wretch, wild with pain, crazed with regret, frenzied
+ with fear, with desperate hand unties the knot of life, let us have pity&mdash;Let
+ us be generous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SUICIDE AND SANITY.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * New York Press, 1897. An Interview.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is a suicide necessarily insane? was the first question,
+ to which Colonel Ingersoll replied:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No. At the same time I believe that a great majority of
+ suicides are insane. There are circumstances under which suicide is
+ natural, sensible and right. When a man is of no use to himself, when he
+ can be of no use to others, when his life is filled with agony, when the
+ future has no promise of relief, then I think he has the right to cast the
+ burden of life away and seek the repose of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is a suicide necessarily a coward?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I cannot conceive of cowardice in connection with suicide.
+ Of nearly all things death is the most feared. And the man who voluntarily
+ enters the realm of death cannot properly be called a coward. Many men who
+ kill themselves forget the duties they owe to others&mdash;forget their
+ wives and children. Such men are heartless, wicked, brutal; but they are
+ not cowards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. When is the suicide of the sane justifiable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> To escape death by torture; to avoid being devoured by a
+ cancer; to prevent being a burden on those you love; when you can be of no
+ use to others or to yourself; when life is unbearable; when in all the
+ horizon of the future there is no star of hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that any suicides have been caused or
+ encouraged by your declaration three years ago that suicide sometimes was
+ justifiable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Many preachers talk as though I had inaugurated, invented,
+ suicide, as though no one who had not read my ideas on suicide had ever
+ taken his own life. Talk as long as language lasts, you cannot induce a
+ man to kill himself. The man who takes his own life does not go to others
+ to find reasons or excuses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. On the whole is the world made better or worse by
+ suicides?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Better by some and poorer by others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why is it that Germany, said to be the most educated of
+ civilized nations, leads the world in suicides?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I do not know that Germany is the most educated; neither do
+ I know that suicide is more frequent there than in all other countries. I
+ know that the struggle for life is severe in Germany, that the laws are
+ unjust, that the government is oppressive, that the people are
+ sentimental, that they brood over their troubles and easily become
+ hopeless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If suicide is sometimes justifiable, is not killing of
+ born idiots and infants hopelessly handicapped at birth equally so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> There is no relation between the questions&mdash;between
+ suicides and killing idiots. Suicide may, under certain circumstances, be
+ right and killing idiots may be wrong; killing idiots may be right and
+ suicide may be wrong. When we look about us, when we read interviews with
+ preachers about Jonah, we know that all the idiots have not been killed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Should suicide be forbidden by law?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No. A law that provides for the punishment of those who
+ attempt to commit suicide is idiotic. Those who are willing to meet death
+ are not afraid of law. The only effect of such a law would be to make the
+ person who had concluded to kill himself a little more careful to succeed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your belief about virtue, morality and religion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I believe that all actions that tend to the well-being of
+ sentient beings are virtuous and moral. I believe that real religion
+ consists in doing good. I do not believe in phantoms. I believe in the
+ uniformity of nature; that matter will forever attract matter in
+ proportion to mass and distance; that, under the same circumstances,
+ falling bodies will attain the same speed, increasing in exact proportion
+ to distance; that light will always, under the same circumstances, be
+ reflected at the same angle; that it will always travel with the same
+ velocity; that air will forever be lighter than water, and gold heavier
+ than iron; that all substances will be true to their natures; that a
+ certain degree of heat will always expand the metals and change water into
+ steam; that a certain degree of cold will cause the metals to shrink and
+ change water into ice; that all atoms will forever be in motion; that like
+ causes will forever produce like effects, that force will be overcome only
+ by force; that no atom of matter will ever be created or destroyed; that
+ the energy in the universe will forever remain the same, nothing lost,
+ nothing gained; that all that has been possible has happened, and that all
+ that will be possible will happen; that the seeds and causes of all
+ thoughts, dreams, fancies and actions, of all virtues and all vices, of
+ all successes and all failures, are in nature; that there is in the
+ universe no power superior to nature; that man is under no obligation to
+ the imaginary gods; that all his obligations and duties are to be
+ discharged and done in this world; that right and wrong do not depend on
+ the will of an infinite Being, but on the consequences of actions, and
+ that these consequences necessarily flow from the nature of things. I
+ believe that the universe is natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ *A reply to General Rush Hawkins' article, "Brutality and
+ Avarice Triumphant," published in the North American Review,
+ June, 1891.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ THERE are many people, in all countries, who seem to enjoy individual and
+ national decay. They love to prophesy the triumph of evil. They mistake
+ the afternoon of their own lives for the evening of the world. To them
+ everything has changed. Men are no longer honest or brave, and women have
+ ceased to be beautiful. They are dyspeptic, and it gives them the greatest
+ pleasure to say that the art of cooking has been lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many generations many of these people occupied the pulpits. They
+ lifted the hand of warning whenever the human race took a step in advance.
+ As wealth increased, they declared that honesty and goodness and
+ self-denial and charity were vanishing from the earth. They doubted the
+ morality of well-dressed people&mdash;considered it impossible that the
+ prosperous should be pious. Like owls sitting on the limbs of a dead tree,
+ they hooted the obsequies of spring, believing it would come no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are some patriots who think it their duty to malign and slander the
+ land of their birth. They feel that they have a kind of Cassandra mission,
+ and they really seem to enjoy their work. They honestly believe that every
+ kind of crime is on the increase, that the courts are all corrupt, that
+ the legislators are bribed, that the witnesses are suborned, that all
+ holders of office are dishonest; and they feel like a modern Marius
+ sitting amid the ruins of all the virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is useless to endeavor to persuade these people that they are wrong.
+ They do not want arguments, because they will not heed them. They need
+ medicine. Their case is not for a philosopher, but for a physician.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ General Hawkins is probably right when he says that some fraudulent shoes,
+ some useless muskets, and some worn-out vessels were sold to the
+ Government during the war; but we must remember that there were millions
+ and millions of as good shoes as art and honesty could make, millions of
+ the best muskets ever constructed, and hundreds of the most magnificent
+ ships ever built, sold to the Government during the same period. We must
+ not mistake an eddy for the main stream. We must also remember another
+ thing: there were millions of good, brave, and patriotic men to wear the
+ shoes, to use the muskets, and to man the ships.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it is probably true that Congress was extravagant in land subsidies
+ voted to railroads; but that this legislation was secured by bribery is
+ preposterous. It was all done in the light of noon. There is not the
+ slightest evidence tending to show that the general policy of hastening
+ the construction of railways through the Territories of the United States
+ was corruptly adopted&mdash;not the slightest. At the same time, it may be
+ that some members of Congress were induced by personal considerations to
+ vote for such subsidies. As a matter of fact, the policy was wise, and
+ through the granting of the subsidies thousands of miles of railways were
+ built, and these railways have given to civilization vast territories
+ which otherwise would have remained substantially useless to the world.
+ Where at that time was a wilderness, now are some of the most thriving
+ cities in the United States&mdash;a great, an industrious, and a happy
+ population. The results have justified the action of Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also true that some railroads have been "wrecked" in the United
+ States, but most of these wrecks have been the result of competition. It
+ is the same with corporations as with individuals&mdash;the powerful
+ combine against the weak. In the world of commerce and business is the
+ great law of the survival of the strongest. Railroads are not eleemosynary
+ institutions. They have but little regard for the rights of one another.
+ Some fortunes have been made by the criminal "wrecking" of roads, but even
+ in the business of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the
+ companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other
+ things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many railways were built in advance of a demand; they had to develop the
+ country through which they passed. While they waited for immigration,
+ interest accumulated; as a result foreclosure took place; then
+ reorganization. By that time the country had been populated; towns were
+ springing up along the line; increased business was the result. On the new
+ bonds and the new stock the company paid interest and dividends. Then the
+ ones who first invested and lost their money felt that they had been
+ defrauded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it is easy to say that certain men are guilty of crimes&mdash;easy to
+ indict the entire nation, and at the same time impossible to substantiate
+ one of the charges. Everyone who knows the history of the Star-Route
+ trials knows that nothing was established against the defendants, knows
+ that every effort was made by the Government to convict them, and also
+ knows that an unprejudiced jury of twelve men, never suspected of being
+ improperly influenced, after having heard the entire case, pronounced the
+ defendants not guilty. After this, of course, any one can say, who knows
+ nothing of the evidence and who cares nothing for the facts, that the
+ defendants were all guilty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may also be true that some settlers in the far West have taken timber
+ from the public lands, and it may be that it was a necessity. Our laws and
+ regulations were such that where a settler was entitled to take up a
+ certain amount of land he had to take it all in one place; he could not
+ take a certain number of acres on the plains and a certain number of acres
+ in the timber. The consequence was that when he settled upon the land&mdash;the
+ land that he could cultivate&mdash;he took the timber that he needed from
+ the Government land, and this has been called stealing. So I suppose it
+ may be said that the cattle stole the Government's grass and possibly
+ drank the Government's water.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will also be admitted with pleasure that stock has been "watered" in
+ this country. And what is the crime or practice known as watering stock?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance, you have a railroad one hundred miles long, worth, we will
+ say, $3,000,000&mdash;able to pay interest on that sum at the rate of six
+ per cent. Now, we all know that the amount of stock issued has nothing to
+ do with the value of the thing represented by the stock. If there was one
+ share of stock representing this railroad, it would be worth three million
+ dollars, whether it said on its face it was one dollar or one hundred
+ dollars. If there were three million shares of stock issued on this
+ property, they would be worth one dollar apiece, and, no matter whether it
+ said on this stock that each share was a hundred dollars or a thousand
+ dollars, the share would be worth one dollar&mdash;no more, no less. If
+ any one wishes to find the value of stock, he should find the value of the
+ thing represented by the stock. It is perfectly clear that, if a pie is
+ worth one dollar, and you cut it into four pieces, each piece is worth
+ twenty-five cents; and if you cut it in a thousand pieces, you do not
+ increase the value of the pie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, then, you wish to find the value of a share of stock, find its
+ relation to the thing represented by all the stock.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It can also be safely admitted that trusts have been formed. The reason is
+ perfectly clear. Corporations are like individuals&mdash;they combine.
+ Unfortunate corporations become socialistic, anarchistic, and cry out
+ against the abuses of trusts. It is natural for corporations to defend
+ themselves&mdash;natural for them to stop ruinous competition by a
+ profitable pool; and when strong corporations combine, little corporations
+ suffer. It is with corporations as with fishes&mdash;the large eat the
+ little; and it may be that this will prove a public benefit in the end.
+ When the large corporations have taken possession of the little ones, it
+ may be that the Government will take possession of them&mdash;the
+ Government being the largest corporation of them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is to be regretted that all houses are not fireproof; but certainly no
+ one imagines that the people of this country build houses for the purpose
+ of having them burned, or that they erect hotels having in view the
+ broiling of guests. Men act as they must; that is to say, according to
+ wants and necessities. In a new country the buildings are cheaper than in
+ an old one, money is scarcer, interest higher, and consequently people
+ build cheaply and take the risks of fire. They do not do this on account
+ of the Constitution of the United States, or the action of political
+ parties, or the general idea that man is entitled to be free. In the
+ hotels of Europe it may be that there is not as great danger of fire as of
+ famine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The destruction of game and of the singing birds is to be greatly
+ regretted, not only in this country, but in all others. The people of
+ America have been too busy felling forests, ploughing fields, and building
+ houses, to cultivate, to the highest degree, the aesthetic side of their
+ natures. Nature has been somewhat ruthless with us. The storms of winter
+ breasted by the Western pioneer, the whirlwinds of summer, have tended, it
+ may be, to harden somewhat the sensibilities; in consequence of which they
+ have allowed their horses and cattle to bear the rigors of the same
+ climate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also true that the seal-fisheries are being destroyed, in the
+ interest of the present, by those who care nothing for the future. All
+ these things are to be deprecated, are to be spoken against; but we must
+ not hint, provided we are lovers of the Republic, that such things are
+ caused by free institutions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ General Hawkins asserts that "Christianity has neither preached nor
+ practiced humanity towards animals," while at the same time "Sunday school
+ children by hundreds of thousands are taught what a terrible thing it is
+ to break the Sabbath;" that "museum trustees tremble with pious horror at
+ the suggestion of opening the doors leading to the collections on that
+ day," and that no protests have come "from lawmakers or the Christian
+ clergy." Few people will suspect me of going out of my way to take care of
+ Christianity or of the clergy. At the same time, I can afford to state the
+ truth. While there is not much in the Bible with regard to practicing
+ humanity toward animals, there is at least this: "The merciful man is
+ merciful to his beast." Of course, I am not alluding now to the example
+ set by Jehovah when he destroyed the cattle of the Egyptians with
+ hailstones and diseases on account of the sins of their owners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In regard to the treatment of animals Christians have been much like other
+ people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, hundreds of lawmakers have not only protested against cruelty to
+ animals, but enough have protested against it to secure the enactment of
+ laws making cruelty toward animals a crime. Henry Bergh, who did as much
+ good as any man who has lived in the nineteenth century, was seconded in
+ his efforts by many of the Christian clergy not only, but by hundreds and
+ thousands of professing Christians&mdash;probably millions. Let us be
+ honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is true that the clergy are apt to lose the distinction between
+ offences and virtues, to regard the little as the important&mdash;that is
+ to say, to invert the pyramid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is true that the Indians have been badly treated. It is true that the
+ fringe of civilization has been composed of many low and cruel men. It is
+ true that the red man has been demoralized by the vices of the white. It
+ is a frightful fact that, when a superior race meets an inferior, the
+ inferior imitates only the vices of the superior, and the superior those
+ of the inferior. They exchange faults and failings. This is one of the
+ most terrible facts in the history of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be said to justify our treatment of the Indians. There is,
+ however, this shadow of an excuse: In the old times, when we lived along
+ the Atlantic, it hardly occurred to our ancestors that they could ever go
+ beyond the Ohio; so the first treaty with the Indians drove them back but
+ a few miles. In a little while, through immigration, the white race passed
+ the line, and another treaty was made, forcing the Indians still further
+ west; yet the tide of immigration kept on, and in a little while again the
+ line was passed, the treaty violated. Another treaty was made, pushing the
+ Indians still farther toward the Pacific, across the Illinois, across the
+ Mississippi, across the Missouri, violating at every step some treaty
+ made; and each treaty born of the incapacity of the white men who made it
+ to foretell the growth of the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the author of "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" made a great mistake
+ when he selected the last thirty years of our national life as the period
+ within which the Americans have made a change of the national motto
+ appropriate, and asserted that now there should be in place of the old
+ motto the words, "Plundering Made Easy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most men believe in a sensible and manly patriotism. No one should be
+ blind to the defects in the laws and institutions of his country. He
+ should call attention to abuses, not for the purpose of bringing his
+ country into disrepute, but that the abuses may cease and the defects be
+ corrected. He should do what he can to make his country great, prosperous,
+ just, and free. But it is hardly fair to exaggerate the faults of your
+ country for the purpose of calling attention to your own virtues, or to
+ earn the praise of a nation that hates your own. This is what might be
+ called wallowing in the gutter of reform.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The thirty years chosen as the time in which we as a nation have passed
+ from virtue to the lowest depths of brutality and avarice are, in fact,
+ the most glorious years in the life of this or of any other nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1861 slavery was, in a legal sense at least, a national institution. It
+ was firmly imbedded in the Federal Constitution. The Fugitive Slave Law
+ was in full force and effect. In all the Southern and in nearly all of the
+ Northern States it was a crime to give food, shelter, or raiment to a man
+ or woman seeking liberty by flight. Humanity was illegal, hospitality a
+ misdemeanor, and charity a crime. Men and women were sold like beasts.
+ Mothers were robbed of their babes while they stood under our flag. All
+ the sacred relations of life were trampled beneath the bloody feet of
+ brutality and avarice. Besides, so firmly was slavery fixed in law and
+ creed, in statute and Scripture, that the tongues of honest men were
+ imprisoned. Those who spoke for the slave were mobbed by Northern lovers
+ of the "Union."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it seems to me that those were the days when the motto could properly
+ have been, "Plundering Made Easy." Those were the days of brutality, and
+ the brutality was practiced to the end that we might make money out of the
+ unpaid labor of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not necessary to go into details as to the cause of the then
+ condition; it is enough to say that the whole nation, North and South, was
+ responsible. There were many years of compromise, and thousands of
+ statesmen, so-called, through conventions and platforms, did what they
+ could to preserve slavery and keep the Union. These efforts corrupted
+ politics, demoralized our statesmen, polluted our courts, and poisoned our
+ literature. The Websters, Bentons, and Clays mistook temporary expedients
+ for principles, and really thought that the progress of the world could be
+ stopped by the resolutions of a packed political convention. Yet these
+ men, mistaken as they really were, worked and wrought unconsciously in the
+ cause of human freedom. They believed that the preservation of the Union
+ was the one important thing, and that it could not be preserved unless
+ slavery was protected&mdash;unless the North would be faithful to the
+ bargain as written in the Constitution. For the purpose of keeping the
+ nation true to the Union and false to itself, these men exerted every
+ faculty and all their strength. They exhausted their genius in showing
+ that slavery was not, after all, very bad, and that disunion was the most
+ terrible calamity that could by any possibility befall the nation, and
+ that the Union, even at the price of slavery, was the greatest possible
+ blessing. They did not suspect that slavery would finally strike the blow
+ for disunion. But when the time came and the South unsheathed the sword,
+ the teachings of these men as to the infinite value of the Union gave to
+ our flag millions of brave defenders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see what has been accomplished during the thirty years of
+ "Brutality and Avarice."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republic has been rebuilt and reunited, and we shall remain one people
+ for many centuries to come. The Mississippi is nature's protest against
+ disunion. The Constitution of the United States is now the charter of
+ human freedom, and all laws inconsistent with the idea that all men are
+ entitled to liberty have been repealed. The black man knows that the
+ Constitution is his shield, that the laws protect him, that our flag is
+ his, and the black mother feels that her babe belongs to her. Where the
+ slave-pen used to be you will find the schoolhouse. The dealer in human
+ flesh is now a teacher; instead of lacerating the back of a child, he
+ develops and illumines the mind of a pupil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is now freedom of speech. Men are allowed to utter their thoughts.
+ Lips are no longer sealed by mobs. Never before in the history of our
+ world has so much been done for education.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The amount of business done in a country on credit is the measure of
+ confidence, and confidence is based upon honesty. So it may truthfully be
+ said that, where a vast deal of business is done on credit, an exceedingly
+ large per cent. of the people are regarded as honest. In our country a
+ very large per cent. of contracts are faithfully fulfilled. Probably there
+ is no nation in the world where so much business is done on credit as in
+ the United States. The fact that the credit of the Republic is second to
+ that of no other nation on the globe would seem to be at least an
+ indication of a somewhat general diffusion of honesty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The author of "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" seems to be of the
+ opinion that our country was demoralized by the war. They who fight for
+ the right are not degraded&mdash;they are ennobled. When men face death
+ and march to the mouths of the guns for a principle, they grow great; and
+ if they come out of the conflict, they come with added moral grandeur;
+ they become better men, better citizens, and they love more intensely than
+ ever the great cause for the success of which they put their lives in
+ pawn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The period of the Revolution produced great men. After the great victory
+ the sons of the heroes degenerated, and some of the greatest principles
+ involved in the Revolution were almost forgotten.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the Civil war the North grew great and the South was educated.
+ Never before in the history of mankind was there such a period of moral
+ exaltation. The names that shed the brightest, the whitest light on the
+ pages of our history became famous then. Against the few who were actuated
+ by base and unworthy motives let us set the great army that fought for the
+ Republic, the millions who bared their breasts to the storm, the hundreds
+ and hundreds of thousands who did their duty honestly, nobly, and went
+ back to their wives and children with no thought except to preserve the
+ liberties of themselves and their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there were some men who did not do their duty&mdash;some men
+ false to themselves and to their country. No one expects to find
+ sixty-five millions of saints in America. A few years ago a lady
+ complained to the president of a Western railroad that a brakeman had
+ spoken to her with great rudeness. The president expressed his regret at
+ the incident, and said among other things: "Madam, you have no idea how
+ difficult it is for us to get gentlemen to fill all those places."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hardly to be expected that the American people should excel all
+ others in the arts, in poetry, and in fiction. We have been very busy
+ taking possession of the Republic. It is hard to overestimate the courage,
+ the industry, the self-denial it has required to fell the forests, to
+ subdue the fields, to construct the roads, and to build the countless
+ homes. What has been done is a certificate of the honesty and industry of
+ our people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that "one of the unwritten mottoes of our business morals
+ seem to say in the plainest phraseology possible: 'Successful wrong is
+ right.'" Men in this country are not esteemed simply because they are
+ rich; inquiries are made as to how they made their money, as to how they
+ use it. The American people do not fall upon their knees before the golden
+ calf; the worst that can be said is that they think too much of the gold
+ of the calf&mdash;and this distinction is seen by the calves themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nowhere in the world is honesty in business esteemed more highly than
+ here. There are millions of business men&mdash;merchants, bankers, and men
+ engaged in all trades and professions&mdash;to whom reputation is as dear
+ as life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing in the article "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant" that
+ seems even more objectionable than the rest, and that is the statement,
+ or, rather, the insinuation, that all the crimes and the shortcomings of
+ the American people can be accounted for by the fact that our Government
+ is a Republic. We are told that not long ago a French official complained
+ to a friend that he was compelled to employ twenty clerks to do the work
+ done by four under the empire, and on being asked the reason answered: "It
+ is the Republic." He was told that, as he was the head of the bureau, he
+ could prevent the abuse, to which he replied: "I know I have the power;
+ but I have been in this position for more than thirty years, and am now
+ too old to learn another occupation, and I <i>must</i> make places for the
+ friends of the deputies." And then it is added by General Hawkins: "<i>And
+ so it is here</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that it cannot be fairly urged that we have abused the
+ Indians because we contend that all men have equal rights before the law,
+ or because we insist that governments derive their just powers from the
+ consent of the governed. The probability is that a careful reading of the
+ history of the world will show that nations under the control of kings and
+ emperors have been guilty of some cruelty. To account for the bad we do by
+ the good we believe, is hardly logical. Our virtues should not be made
+ responsible for our vices.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that free institutions tend to the demoralization of men?
+ Is a man dishonest because he is a man and maintains the rights of men? In
+ order to be a moral nation must we be controlled by king or emperor? Is
+ human liberty a mistake? Is it possible that a citizen of the great
+ Republic attacks the liberty of his fellow-citizens? Is he willing to
+ abdicate? Is he willing to admit that his rights are not equal to the
+ rights of others? Is he, for the sake of what he calls morality, willing
+ to become a serf, a servant or a slave?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that "high character is impracticable" in this Republic? Is
+ this the experience of the author of "Brutality and Avarice Triumphant"?
+ Is it true that "intellectual achievement pays no dividends"? Is it not a
+ fact that America is to-day the best market in the world for books, for
+ music, and for art?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in our country no real foundation for these wide and sweeping
+ slanders. This, in my judgment, is the best Government, the best country,
+ in the world. The citizens of this Republic are, on the average, better
+ clothed and fed and educated than any other people. They are fuller of
+ life, more progressive, quicker to take advantage of the forces of nature,
+ than any other of the children of men. Here the burdens of government are
+ lightest, the responsibilities of the individual greatest, and here, in my
+ judgment, are to be worked out the most important problems of social
+ science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here in America is a finer sense of what is due from man to man than you
+ will find in other lands. We do not cringe to those whom chance has
+ crowned; we stand erect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our sympathies are strong and quick. Generosity is almost a national
+ failing. The hand of honest want is rarely left unfilled. Great calamities
+ open the hearts and hands of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here you will find democracy in the family&mdash;republicanism by the
+ fireside. Say what you will, the family is apt to be patterned after the
+ government. If a king is at the head of the nation, the husband imagines
+ himself the monarch of the home. In this country we have carried into the
+ family the idea on which the Government is based. Here husbands and wives
+ are beginning to be equals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest test of civilization is the treatment of women and children.
+ By this standard America stands first among nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a magnitude, a scope, a grandeur, about this country&mdash;an
+ amplitude&mdash;that satisfies the heart and the imagination. We have our
+ faults, we have our virtues, but our country is the best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No American should ever write a line that can be sneeringly quoted by an
+ enemy of the great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The Cincinnati Gazette, 1878. An Interview.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, have you noticed the criticisms made on your
+ lectures by the <i>Cincinnati Gazette</i> and the <i>Catholic Telegraph</i>?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I have read portions of the articles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Well, they are hardly of importance enough to form a
+ distinct subject of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Well, what do you think of the attempted argument of the
+ <i>Gazette</i> against your lecture on Moses?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> The writer endeavors to show that considering the ignorance
+ prevalent four thousand years ago, God did as well as one could reasonably
+ expect; that God at that time did not have the advantage of telescope,
+ microscope, and spectrum, and that for this reason a few mistakes need not
+ excite our special wonder. He also shows that, although God was in favor
+ of slavery he introduced some reforms; but whether the reforms were
+ intended to perpetuate slavery or to help the slave is not stated. The
+ article has nothing to do with my position. I am perfectly willing to
+ admit that there is a land called Egypt; that the Jews were once slaves;
+ that they got away and started a little country of their own. All this may
+ be true without proving that they were miraculously fed in the wilderness,
+ or that water ran up hill, or that God went into partnership with hornets
+ or snakes. There may have been a man by the name of Moses without proving
+ that sticks were turned into snakes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A while ago a missionary addressed a Sunday school. In the course of his
+ remarks he said that he had been to Mount Ararat, and had brought a stone
+ from the mountain. He requested the children to pass in line before him so
+ that they could all get a look at this wonderful stone. After they had all
+ seen it he said: "You will as you grow up meet people who will deny that
+ there ever was a flood, or that God saved Noah and the animals in the ark,
+ and then you can tell them that you know better, because you saw a stone
+ from the very mountain where the ark rested."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is precisely the kind of argument used in the <i>Gazette</i>. The
+ article was written by some one who does not quite believe in the
+ inspiration of the Scriptures himself, and were it not for the fear of
+ hell, would probably say so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that there was such a man as Mohammed, such a city as Mecca, such
+ a general as Omar, but I do not admit that God made known his will to
+ Mohammed in any substantial manner. Of course the <i>Gazette</i> would
+ answer all this by saying that Mohammed did exist, and that therefore God
+ must have talked with him. I admit that there was such a general as
+ Washington, but I do not admit that God kept him from being shot. I admit
+ that there is a portrait of the Virgin Mary in Rome, but I do not admit
+ that it shed tears. I admit that there was such a man as Moses, but I do
+ not admit that God hunted for him in a tavern to kill him. I admit that
+ there was such a priest as St. Denis, but I do not admit that he carried
+ his head in his hand, after it was cut off, and swam the river, and put
+ his head on again and eventually recovered. I admit that the article
+ appeared in the <i>Gazette</i>, but I do not admit that it amounted to
+ anything whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Did you notice what the <i>Catholic Telegraph</i> said
+ about your lecture being ungrammatical?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Yes; I saw an extract from it. In the <i>Catholic Telegraph</i>
+ occurs the following: "The lecture was a failure as brilliant as
+ Ingersoll's flashes of ungrammatical rhetoric." After making this
+ statement with the hereditary arrogance of a priest, after finding fault
+ with my "ungrammatical rhetoric" he then writes the following sentence:
+ "It could not boast neither of novelty in argument or of attractive
+ language." After this, nothing should be noticed that this gentleman says
+ on the subject of grammar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this connection it may be proper for me to say that nothing is more
+ remarkable than the fact that Christianity destroys manners. With one
+ exception, no priest has ever written about me, so far as I know, except
+ in an arrogant and insolent manner. They seem utterly devoid of the usual
+ amenities of life. Every one who differs with them is vile, ignorant and
+ malicious. But, after all, what can you expect of a gentleman who worships
+ a God who will damn dimpled babes to an eternity of fire, simply because
+ they were not baptized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. This Catholic writer says that the oldest page of history
+ and the newest page of science are nothing more than commentaries on the
+ Mosaic Record. He says the Cosmogony of Moses has been believed in, and
+ has been received as the highest truth by the very brightest names in
+ science. What do you think of that statement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I think it is without the least foundation in fact, and is
+ substantially like the gentleman's theology, depending simply upon
+ persistent assertion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see he quotes Cuvier as great authority. Cuvier denied that the fossil
+ animals were in any way related to the animals now living, and believed
+ that God had frequently destroyed all life upon the earth and then
+ produced other forms. Agassiz was the last scientist of any standing who
+ ventured to throw a crumb of comfort to this idea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you mean to say that all the great living scientists
+ regard the Cosmogony of Moses as a myth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I do. I say this: All men of science and men of sense look
+ upon the Mosaic account as a simple myth. Humboldt, who stands in the same
+ relation to science that Shakespeare did to the drama, held this opinion.
+ The same is held by the best minds in Germany, by Huxley, Tyndall and
+ Herbert Spencer in England, by John W. Draper and others in the United
+ States. Whoever agrees with Moses is some poor frightened orthodox
+ gentleman afraid of losing his soul or his salary, and as a rule, both are
+ exceedingly small.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Some people say that you slander the Bible in saying that
+ God went into partnership with hornets, and declare that there is no such
+ passage in the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Well, let them read the twenty-eighth verse of the
+ twenty-third chapter of Exodus, "And I will send hornets before thee,
+ which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite and the Hittite from
+ before thee."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you find in lecturing through the country that your
+ ideas are generally received with favor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Astonishingly so. There are ten times as many freethinkers
+ as there were five years ago. In five years more we will be in the
+ majority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it true that the churches, as a general thing, make
+ strong efforts, as I have seen it stated, to prevent people from going to
+ hear you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Yes; in many places ministers have advised their
+ congregations to keep away, telling them I was an exceedingly dangerous
+ man. The result has generally been a full house, and I have hardly ever
+ failed to publicly return my thanks to the clergy for acting as my advance
+ agents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you ever meet Christian people who try to convert you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Not often. But I do receive a great many anonymous letters,
+ threatening me with the wrath of God, and calling my attention to the
+ uncertainty of life and the certainty of damnation. These letters are
+ nearly all written in the ordinary Christian spirit; that is to say, full
+ of hatred and impertinence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Don't you think it remarkable that the <i>Telegraph</i>,
+ a Catholic paper, should quote with extravagant praise, an article from
+ such an orthodox sheet as the <i>Gazette</i>?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I do not. All the churches must make common cause. All
+ superstitions lead to Rome; all facts lead to science. In a few years all
+ the churches will be united. This will unite all forms of liberalism. When
+ that is done the days of superstition, of arrogance, of theology, will be
+ numbered. It is very laughable to see a Catholic quoting scientific men in
+ favor of Moses, when the same men would have taken great pleasure in
+ swearing that the Catholic Church was the worst possible organization.
+ That church should forever hold its peace. Wherever it has had authority
+ it has destroyed human liberty. It reduced Italy to a hand organ, Spain to
+ a guitar, Ireland to exile, Portugal to contempt. Catholicism is the upas
+ tree in whose shade the intellect of man has withered. The recollection of
+ the massacre of St. Bartholomew should make a priest silent, and the
+ recollection of the same massacre should make a Protestant careful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I can afford to be maligned by a priest, when the same party denounces
+ Garibaldi, the hero of Italy, as a "pet tiger" to Victor Emmanuel. I could
+ not afford to be praised by such a man. I thank him for his abuse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the point that no one is able to
+ judge of these things unless he is a Hebrew scholar?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I do not think it is necessary to understand Hebrew to
+ decide as to the probability of springs gushing out of dead bones, or of
+ the dead getting out of their graves, or of the probability of ravens
+ keeping a hotel for wandering prophets. I hardly think it is necessary
+ even to be a Greek scholar to make up my mind as to whether devils
+ actually left a person and took refuge in the bodies of swine. Besides, if
+ the Bible is not properly translated, the circulation ought to stop until
+ the corrections are made. I am not accountable if God made a revelation to
+ me in a language that he knew I never would understand. If he wishes to
+ convey any information to my mind, he certainly should do it in English
+ before he eternally damns me for paying no attention to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are not many of the contradictions in the Bible owing to
+ mistranslations?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No. Nearly all of the mistranslations have been made to
+ help out the text. It would be much worse, much more contradictory had it
+ been correctly translated. Nearly all of the <i>mistakes</i>, as Mr.
+ Weller would say, have been made for the purposes of harmony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How many errors do you suppose there are?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Well, I do not know. It has been reported that the American
+ Bible Society appointed a committee to hunt for errors, and the said
+ committee returned about twenty-four to twenty-five thousand. And
+ thereupon the leading men said, to correct so many errors will destroy the
+ confidence of the common people in the sacredness of the Scriptures.
+ Thereupon it was decided not to correct any. I saw it stated the other day
+ that a very prominent divine charged upon the Bible Society that they knew
+ they were publishing a book full of errors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the Bible anyhow?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> My first objection is, it is not true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second.&mdash;It is not inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third.&mdash;It upholds human slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth.&mdash;It sanctions concubinage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth.&mdash;It commands the most infamously cruel acts of war, such as
+ the utter destruction of old men and little children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth.&mdash;After killing fathers, mothers and brothers, it commands the
+ generals to divide the girls among the soldiers and priests. Beyond this,
+ infamy has never gone. If any God made this order I am opposed to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventh.&mdash;It upholds human sacrifice, or, at least, seems to, from
+ the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Notwithstanding no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord of
+ all that he hath, both of <i>man</i> and <i>beast</i>, and of the field of
+ his possession, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most
+ holy unto the Lord."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "None devoted, which shall be devoted, of men, shall be redeemed; but
+ shall surely be put to death." (Twenty-seventh Chapter of Leviticus, 28th
+ and 29th verses.)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eighth.&mdash;Its laws are absurd, and the punishments cruel and unjust.
+ Think of killing a man for making hair oil! Think of killing a man for
+ picking up sticks on Sunday!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ninth.&mdash;It upholds polygamy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tenth.&mdash;It knows nothing of astronomy, nothing of geology, nothing of
+ any science whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eleventh.&mdash;It is opposed to religious liberty, and teaches a man to
+ kill his own wife if she differs with him on religion; that is to say, if
+ he is orthodox. There is no book in the world in which can be found so
+ much that is thoroughly despicable and infamous. Of course there are some
+ good passages, some good sentiments. But they are, at least in the Old
+ Testament, few and far between.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twelfth.&mdash;It treats woman like a beast, and man like a slave. It
+ fills heaven with tyranny, and earth with hypocrisy and grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think any book inspired?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> No. I do not think any book is inspired. But, if it had
+ been the intention of this God to give to man an inspired book, he should
+ have waited until Shakespeare's time, and used Shakespeare as the
+ instrument. Then there never would have been any doubt as to the
+ inspiration of the book. There is more beauty, more goodness, more
+ intelligence in Shakespeare than in all the sacred books of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think as a freethinker of the Sunday question
+ in Cincinnati?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I think that it is a good thing to have a day of
+ recreation, a day of rest, a day of joy, not a day of dyspepsia and
+ theology. I am in favor of operas and theaters, music and happiness on
+ Sunday. I am opposed to all excesses on any day. If the clergy will take
+ half the pains to make the people intelligent that they do to make them
+ superstitious, the world will soon have advanced so far that it can enjoy
+ itself without excess. The ministers want Sunday for themselves. They want
+ everybody to come to church because they can go no where else. It is like
+ the story of a man coming home at three o'clock in the morning, who, upon
+ being asked by his wife how he could come at such a time of night,
+ replied, "The fact is, every other place is shut up." The orthodox clergy
+ know that their churches will remain empty if any other place remains
+ open. Do not forget to say that I mean orthodox churches, orthodox clergy,
+ because I have great respect for Unitarians and Universalists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0011" id="link0011">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Brooklyn Eagle, 1881.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I understand, Colonel Ingersoll, that you have been
+ indicted in the State of Delaware for the crime of blasphemy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Well, not exactly indicted. The Judge, who, I believe, is
+ the Chief Justice of the State, dedicated the new court-house at
+ Wilmington to the service of the Lord, by a charge to the grand jury, in
+ which he almost commanded them to bring in a bill of indictment against
+ me, for what he was pleased to call the crime of blasphemy. Now, as a
+ matter of fact, there can be no crime committed by man against God,
+ provided always that a correct definition of the Deity has been given by
+ the orthodox churches. They say that he is infinite. If so, he is
+ conditionless. I can injure a man by changing his conditions. Take from a
+ man water, and he perishes of thirst; take from him air, and he
+ suffocates; he may die from too much, or too little heat. That is because
+ he is a conditioned being. But if God is conditionless, he cannot in any
+ way be affected by what anybody else may do; and, consequently, a sin
+ against God is as impossible as a sin against the principle of the lever
+ or inclined plane. This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for
+ the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.
+ Blasphemy is a kind of breastwork behind which hypocrisy has crouched for
+ thousands of years. Injustice is the only blasphemy that can be committed,
+ and justice is the only true worship. Man can sin against man, but not
+ against God. But even if man could sin against God, it has always struck
+ me that an infinite being would be entirely able to take care of himself
+ without the assistance of a Chief Justice. Men have always been violating
+ the rights of men, under the plea of defending the rights of God, and
+ nothing, for ages, was so perfectly delightful to the average Christian as
+ to gratify his revenge, and get God in his debt at the same time. Chief
+ Justice Comegys has taken this occasion to lay up for himself what he
+ calls treasures in heaven, and on the last great day he will probably rely
+ on a certified copy of this charge. The fact that he thinks the Lord needs
+ help satisfies me that in that particular neighborhood I am a little
+ ahead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact is, I never delivered but one lecture in Delaware. That lecture,
+ however, had been preceded by a Republican stump speech; and, to tell you
+ the truth, I imagine that the stump speech is what a Yankee would call the
+ heft of the offence. It is really hard for me to tell whether I have
+ blasphemed the Deity or the Democracy. Of course I have no personal
+ feeling whatever against the Judge. In fact he has done me a favor. He has
+ called the attention of the civilized world to certain barbarian laws that
+ disfigure and disgrace the statute books of most of the States. These laws
+ were passed when our honest ancestors were burning witches, trading Quaker
+ children to the Barbadoes for rum and molasses, branding people upon the
+ forehead, boring their tongues with hot irons, putting one another in the
+ pillory, and, generally, in the name of God, making their neighbors as
+ uncomfortable as possible. We have outgrown these laws without repealing
+ them. They are, as a matter of fact, in most communities actually dead;
+ but in some of the States, like Delaware, I suppose they could be
+ enforced, though there might be trouble in selecting twelve men, even in
+ Delaware, without getting one man broad enough, sensible enough, and
+ honest enough, to do justice. I hardly think it would be possible in any
+ State to select a jury in the ordinary way that would convict any person
+ charged with what is commonly known as blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the so-called Christian churches have accused each other of being
+ blasphemers, in turn. The Catholics denounced the Presbyterians as
+ blasphemers, the Presbyterians denounced the Baptists; the Baptists, the
+ Presbyterians, and the Catholics all united in denouncing the Quakers, and
+ they all together denounced the Unitarians&mdash;called them blasphemers
+ because they did not acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ&mdash;the
+ Unitarians only insisting that three infinite beings were not necessary,
+ that one infinite being could do all the business, and that the other two
+ were absolutely useless. This was called blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then all the churches united to call the Universalists blasphemers. I can
+ remember when a Uni-versalist was regarded with a thousand times more
+ horror than an infidel is to-day. There is this strange thing about the
+ history of theology&mdash;nobody has ever been charged with blasphemy who
+ thought God bad. For instance, it never would have excited any theological
+ hatred if a man had insisted that God would finally damn everybody. Nearly
+ all heresy has consisted in making God better than the majority in the
+ churches thought him to be. The orthodox Christian never will forgive the
+ Univer-salist for saying that God is too good to damn anybody eternally.
+ Now, all these sects have charged each other with blasphemy, without
+ anyone of them knowing really what blasphemy is. I suppose they have
+ occasionally been honest, because they have mostly been ignorant. It is
+ said that Torquemada used to shed tears over the agonies of his victims
+ and that he recommended slow burning, not because he wished to inflict
+ pain, but because he really desired to give the gentleman or lady he was
+ burning a chance to repent of his or her sins, and make his or her peace
+ with God previous to becoming a cinder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The root, foundation, germ and cause of nearly all religious persecution
+ is the idea that some certain belief is necessary to salvation. If
+ orthodox Christians are right in this idea, then persecution of all
+ heretics and infidels is a duty. If I have the right to defend my body
+ from attack, surely I should have a like right to defend my soul. Under
+ our laws I could kill any man who was endeavoring, for example, to take
+ the life of my child. How much more would I be justified in killing any
+ wretch who was endeavoring to convince my child of the truth of a doctrine
+ which, if believed, would result in the eternal damnation of that child's
+ soul?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Christian religion, as it is commonly understood, is true, no
+ infidel should be allowed to live; every heretic should be hunted from the
+ wide world as you would hunt a wild beast. They should not be allowed to
+ speak, they should not be allowed to poison the minds of women and
+ children; in other words, they should not be allowed to empty heaven and
+ fill hell. The reason I have liberty in this country is because the
+ Christians of this country do not believe their doctrine. The passage from
+ the Bible, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
+ creature," coupled with the assurance that, "Whosoever believeth and is
+ baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned," is the
+ foundation of most religious persecution. Every word in that passage has
+ been fire and fagot, whip and sword, chain and dungeon. That one passage
+ has probably caused more agony among men, women and children, than all the
+ passages of all other books that were ever printed. Now, this passage was
+ not in the book of Mark when originally written, but was put there many
+ years after the gentleman who evolved the book of Mark from his inner
+ consciousness, had passed away. It was put there by the church&mdash;that
+ is to say, by hypocrisy and priestly craft, to bind the consciences of men
+ and force them to come under ecclesiastical and spiritual power; and that
+ passage has been received and believed, and been made binding by law in
+ most countries ever since.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would you think of a law compelling a man to admire Shakespeare, or
+ calling it blasphemy to laugh at Hamlet? Why is not a statute necessary to
+ uphold the reputation of Raphael or of Michael Angelo? Is it possible that
+ God cannot write a book good enough and great enough and grand enough not
+ to excite the laughter of his children? Is it possible that he is
+ compelled to have his literary reputation supported by the State of
+ Delaware?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another very strange thing about this business. Admitting that
+ the Bible is the work of God, it is not any more his work than are the
+ sun, the moon and the stars or the earth, and if for disbelieving this
+ Bible we are to be damned forever, we ought to be equally damned for a
+ mistake in geology or astronomy. The idea of allowing a man to go to
+ heaven who swears that the earth is flat, and damning a fellow who thinks
+ it is round, but who-has his honest doubts about Joshua, seems to me to be
+ perfectly absurd. It seems to me that in this view of it, it is just as
+ necessary to be right on the subject of the equator as on the doctrine of
+ infant baptism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What was in your judgment the motive of Judge Comegys? Is
+ he a personal enemy of yours? Have you ever met him? Have you any idea
+ what reason he had for attacking you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I do not know the gentleman, personally. Outside of the
+ political reason I have intimated, I do not know why he attacked me. I
+ once delivered a lecture entitled "What must we do to be Saved?" in the
+ city of Wilmington, and in that lecture I proceeded to show, or at least
+ tried to show, that Matthew, Mark and Luke knew nothing about
+ Christianity, as it is understood in Delaware; and I also endeavored to
+ show that all men have an equal right to think, and that a man is only
+ under obligations to be honest with himself, and with all men, and that he
+ is not accountable for the amount of mind that he has been endowed with&mdash;otherwise
+ it might be Judge Comegys himself would be damned&mdash;but that he is
+ only accountable for the use he makes of what little mind he has received.
+ I held that the safest thing for every man was to be absolutely honest,
+ and to express his honest thought. After the delivery of this lecture
+ various ministers in Wilmington began replying, and after the preaching of
+ twenty or thirty sermons, not one of which, considered as a reply, was a
+ success, I presume it occurred to these ministers that the shortest and
+ easiest way would be to have me indicted and imprisoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this I entirely agree with them. It is the old and time-honored way. I
+ believe it is, as it always has been, easier to kill two infidels than to
+ answer one; and if Christianity expects to stem the tide that is now
+ slowly rising over the intellectual world, it must be done by brute force,
+ and by brute force alone. And it must be done pretty soon, or they will
+ not have the brute force. It is doubtful if they have a majority of the
+ civilized world on their side to-day. No heretic ever would have been
+ burned if he could have been answered. No theologian ever called for the
+ help of the law until his logic gave out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose Judge Comegys to be a Presbyterian. Where did he get his right
+ to be a Presbyterian? Where did he get his right to decide which creed is
+ the correct one? How did he dare to pit his little brain against the word
+ of God? He may say that his father was a Presbyterian. But what was his
+ grandfather? If he will only go back far enough he will, in all
+ probability, find that his ancestors were Catholics, and if he will go
+ back a little farther still, that they were barbarians; that at one time
+ they were naked, and had snakes tattooed on their bodies. What right had
+ they to change? Does he not perceive that had the savages passed the same
+ kind of laws that now exist in Delaware, they could have prevented any
+ change in belief? They would have had a whipping-post, too, and they would
+ have said: "Any gentleman found without snakes tattooed upon his body
+ shall be held guilty of blasphemy;" and all the ancestors of this Judge,
+ and of these ministers, would have said, Amen!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What right had the first Presbyterian to be a Presbyterian? He must have
+ been a blasphemer first. A small dose of pillory might have changed his
+ religion. Does this Judge think that Delaware is incapable of any
+ improvement in a religious point of view? Does he think that the
+ Presbyterians of Delaware are not only the best now, but that they will
+ forever be the best that God can make? Is there to be no advancement? Has
+ there been no advancement? Are the pillory and the whipping-post to be
+ used to prevent an excess of thought in the county of New Castle? Has the
+ county ever been troubled that way? Has this Judge ever had symptoms of
+ any such disease? Now, I want it understood that I like this Judge, and my
+ principal reason for liking him is that he is the last of his race. He
+ will be so inundated with the ridicule of mankind that no other Chief
+ Justice in Delaware, or anywhere else, will ever follow his illustrious
+ example. The next Judge will say: "So far as I am concerned, the Lord may
+ attend to his own business, and deal with infidels as he may see proper."
+ Thus great good has been accomplished by this Judge, which shows, as Burns
+ puts it, "that a pot can be boiled, even if the devil tries to prevent
+ it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How will this action of Delaware, in your opinion, affect
+ the other States?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Probably a few other States needed an example exactly of
+ this kind. New Jersey, in all probability, will say: "Delaware is
+ perfectly ridiculous," and yet, had Delaware waited awhile, New Jersey
+ might have done the same thing. Maryland will exclaim: "Did you ever see
+ such a fool!" And yet I was threatened in that State. The average American
+ citizen, taking into consideration the fact that we are blest, or cursed,
+ with about one hundred thousand preachers, and that these preachers preach
+ on the average one hundred thousand sermons a week&mdash;some of which are
+ heard clear through&mdash;will unquestionably hold that a man who happens
+ to differ with all these parsons, ought to have and shall have the
+ privilege of expressing his mind; and that the one hundred thousand
+ clergymen ought to be able to put down the one man who happens to disagree
+ with them, without calling on the army or navy to do it, especially when
+ it is taken into consideration that an infinite God is already on their
+ side. Under these circumstances, the average American will say: "Let him
+ talk, and let the hundred thousand preachers answer him to their hearts'
+ content." So that in my judgment the result of the action of Delaware will
+ be: First, to liberalize all other States, and second, finally to
+ liberalize Delaware itself. In many of the States they have the same
+ idiotic kind of laws as those found in Delaware&mdash;with the exception
+ of those blessed institutions for the spread of the Gospel, known as the
+ pillory and the whipping-post. There is a law in Maine by which a man can
+ be put into the penitentiary for denying the providence of God, and the
+ day of judgment. There are similar laws in most of the New England States.
+ One can be imprisoned in Maryland for a like offence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In North Carolina no man can hold office that has not a certain religious
+ belief; and so in several other of the Southern States. In half the States
+ of this Union, if my wife and children should be murdered before my eyes,
+ I would not be allowed in a court of justice to tell who the murderer was.
+ You see that, for hundreds of years, Christianity has endeavored to put
+ the brand of infamy on every intellectual brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that one objection to your lectures urged by Judge
+ Comegys on the grand jury is, that they tend to a breach of the peace&mdash;to
+ riot and bloodshed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Yes; Judge Comegys seems to be afraid that people who love
+ their enemies will mob their friends. He is afraid that those disciples
+ who, when smitten on one cheek turn the other to be smitten also, will get
+ up a riot. He seems to imagine that good Christians feel called upon to
+ violate the commands of the Lord in defence of the Lord's reputation. If
+ Christianity produces people who cannot hear their doctrines discussed
+ without raising mobs, and shedding blood, the sooner it is stopped being
+ preached the better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not the slightest danger of any infidel attacking a Christian for
+ His belief, and there never will be an infidel mob for such a purpose.
+ Christians can teach and preach their views to their hearts' content. They
+ can send all unbelievers to an eternal hell, if it gives them the least
+ pleasure, and they may bang their Bibles as long as their fists last, but
+ no infidel will be in danger of raising a riot to stop them, or put them
+ down by brute force, or even by an appeal to the law, and I would advise
+ Judge Comegys, if he wishes to compliment Christianity, to change his
+ language and say that he feared a breach of the peace might be committed
+ by the infidels&mdash;not by the Christians. He may possibly have thought
+ that it was my intention to attack his State. But I can assure him, that
+ if ever I start a warfare of that kind, I shall take some State of my
+ size. There is no glory to be won in wringing the neck of a "Blue Hen!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I should judge, Colonel, that you are prejudiced against
+ the State of Delaware?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Not by any means. Oh, no! I know a great many splendid
+ people in Delaware, and since I have known more of their surroundings, my
+ admiration for them has increased. They are, on the whole, a very good
+ people in that State. I heard a story the other day: An old fellow in
+ Delaware has been for the last twenty or thirty years gathering peaches
+ there in their season&mdash;a kind of peach tramp. One day last fall, just
+ as the season closed, he was leaning sadly against a tree, "Boys!" said
+ he, "I'd like to come back to Delaware a hundred years from now." The boys
+ asked, "What for?" The old fellow replied: "Just to see how damned little
+ they'd get the baskets by that time." And it occurred to me that people
+ who insist that twenty-two quarts make a bushel, should be as quiet as
+ possible on the subject of blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read Chief Justice Comegys' compliments to you
+ before the Delaware grand jury?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Yes, I have read his charge, in which he relies upon the
+ law passed in 1740. After reading his charge it seemed to me as though he
+ had died about the date of the law, had risen from the dead, and had gone
+ right on where he had left off. I presume he is a good man, but compared
+ with other men, is something like his State when compared with other
+ States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great many people will probably regard the charge of Judge Comegys as
+ unchristian, but I do not. I consider that the law of Delaware is in exact
+ accord with the Bible, and that the pillory, the whip-ping-post, and the
+ suppression of free speech are the natural fruit of the Old and New
+ Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Delaware is right. Christianity can not succeed, can not exist, without
+ the protection of law. Take from orthodox Christianity the protection of
+ law, and all church property would be taxed like other property. The
+ Sabbath would be no longer a day devoted to superstition. Everyone could
+ express his honest thought upon every possible subject. Everyone,
+ notwithstanding his belief, could testify in a court of justice. In other
+ words, honesty would be on an equality with hypocrisy. Science would stand
+ on a level, so far as the law is concerned, with superstition. Whenever
+ this happens the end of orthodox Christianity will be near.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By Christianity I do not mean charity, mercy, kindness, forgiveness. I
+ mean no natural virtue, because all the natural virtues existed and had
+ been practiced by hundreds and thousands of millions before Christ was
+ born. There certainly were some good men even in the days of Christ in
+ Jerusalem, before his death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By Christianity I mean the ideas of redemption, atonement, a good man
+ dying for a bad man, and the bad man getting a receipt in full. By
+ Christianity I mean that system that insists that in the next world a few
+ will be forever happy, while the many will be eternally miserable.
+ Christianity, as I have explained it, must be protected, guarded, and
+ sustained by law. It was founded by the sword that is to say, by physical
+ force,&mdash;and must be preserved by like means.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In many of the States of the Union an infidel is not allowed to testify.
+ In the State of Delaware, if Alexander von Humboldt were living, he could
+ not be a witness, although he had more brains than the State of Delaware
+ has ever produced, or is likely to produce as long as the laws of 1740
+ remain in force. Such men as Huxley, Tyndall and Haeckel could be fined
+ and imprisoned in the State of Delaware, and, in fact, in many States of
+ this Union.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity, in order to defend itself, puts the brand of infamy on the
+ brow of honesty. Christianity marks with a letter "C," standing for
+ "convict" every brain that is great enough to discover the frauds. I have
+ no doubt that Judge Comegys is a good and sincere Christian. I believe
+ that he, in his charge, gives an exact reflection of the Jewish Jehovah. I
+ believe that every word he said was in exact accord with the spirit of
+ orthodox Christianity. Against this man personally I have nothing to say.
+ I know nothing of his character except as I gather it from this charge,
+ and after reading the charge I am forced simply to say, Judge Comegys is a
+ Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems, however, that the grand jury dared to take no action,
+ notwithstanding they had been counseled to do so by the Judge. Although
+ the Judge had quoted to them the words of George I. of blessed memory;
+ although he had quoted to them the words of Lord Mansfield, who became a
+ Judge simply because of his hatred of the English colonists, simply
+ because he despised liberty in the new world; notwithstanding the fact
+ that I could have been punished with insult, with imprisonment, and with
+ stripes, and with every form of degradation; notwithstanding that only a
+ few years ago I could have been branded upon the forehead, bored through
+ the tongue, maimed and disfigured, still, such has been the advance even
+ in the State of Delaware, owing, it may be, in great part to the one
+ lecture delivered by me, that the grand jury absolutely refused to indict
+ me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The grand jury satisfied themselves and their consciences simply by making
+ a report in which they declared that my lecture had "no parallel in the
+ habits of respectable vagabondism" that I was "an arch-blasphemer and
+ reviler of God and religion," and recommended that should I ever attempt
+ to lecture again I should be taught that in Delaware blasphemy is a crime
+ punishable by fine and imprisonment. I have no doubt that every member of
+ the grand jury signing this report was entirely honest; that he acted in
+ exact accord with what he understood to be the demand of the Christian
+ religion. I must admit that for Christians, the report is exceedingly mild
+ and gentle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have now in the house, letters that passed between certain bishops in
+ the fifteenth century, in which they discussed the propriety of cutting
+ out the tongues of heretics before they were burned. Some of the bishops
+ were in favor of and some against it. One argument for cutting out their
+ tongues which seemed to have settled the question was, that unless the
+ tongues of heretics were cut out they might scandalize the gentlemen who
+ were burning them, by blasphemous remarks during the fire. I would commend
+ these letters to Judge Comegys and the members of the grand jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want it distinctly understood that I have nothing against Judge Comegys
+ or the grand jury. They act as 'most anybody would, raised in Delaware, in
+ the shadow of the whipping-post and the pillory. We must remember that
+ Delaware was a slave State; that the Bible became extremely dear to the
+ people because it upheld that peculiar institution. We must remember that
+ the Bible was the block on which mother and child stood for sale when they
+ were separated by the Christians of Delaware. The Bible was regarded as
+ the title-pages to slavery, and as the book of all books that gave the
+ right to masters to whip mothers and to sell children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many offences now for which the punishment is whipping and
+ standing in the pillory; where persons are convicted of certain crimes and
+ sent to the penitentiary, and upon being discharged from the penitentiary
+ are furnished by the State with a dark jacket plainly marked on the back
+ with a large Roman "C," the letter to be of a light color. This they are
+ to wear for six months after being discharged, and if they are found at
+ any time without the dark jacket and the illuminated "C" they are to be
+ punished with twenty lashes upon the bare back. The object, I presume, of
+ this law, is to drive from the State all the discharged convicts for the
+ benefit of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland&mdash;that is to say,
+ other Christian communities. A cruel people make cruel laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The objection I have to the whipping-post is that it is a punishment which
+ cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. The person who administers the
+ punishment must, of necessity, be fully as degraded as the person who
+ receives it. I am opposed to any kind of punishment that cannot be
+ administered by a gentleman. I am opposed to corporal punishment
+ everywhere. It should be taken from the asylums and penitentiaries, and
+ any man who would apply the lash to the naked back of another is beneath
+ the contempt of honest people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you seen that Henry Bergh has introduced in the New
+ York Legislature a bill providing for whipping as a punishment for
+ wife-beating?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> The objection I have mentioned is fatal to Mr. Bergh's
+ bill. He will be able to get persons to beat wife-beaters, who, under the
+ same circumstances, would be wife-beaters themselves. If they are not
+ wife-beaters when they commence the business of beating others, they soon
+ will be. I think that wife-beating in great cities could be stopped by
+ putting all the wife-beaters at work at some government employment, the
+ value of the work, however, to go to the wives and children. The trouble
+ now is that most of the wife-beating is among the extremely poor, so that
+ the wife by informing against her husband, takes the last crust out of her
+ own mouth. If you substitute whipping or flogging for the prison here, you
+ will in the first place prevent thousands of wives from informing, and in
+ many cases, where the wife would inform, she would afterward be murdered
+ by the flogged brute. This brute would naturally resort to the same means
+ to reform his wife that the State had resorted to for the purpose of
+ reforming him. Flogging would beget flogging. Mr. Bergh is a man of great
+ kindness of heart. When he reads that a wife has been beaten, he says the
+ husband deserves to be beaten himself. But if Mr. Bergh was to be the
+ executioner, I imagine you could not prove by the back of the man that the
+ punishment had been inflicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another good remedy for wife-beating is the abolition of the Catholic
+ Church. We should also do away with the idea that a marriage is a
+ sacrament, and that there is any God who is rendered happy by seeing a
+ husband and wife live together, although the husband gets most of his
+ earthly enjoyment from whipping his wife. No woman should live with a man
+ a moment after he has struck her. Just as the idea of liberty enlarges,
+ confidence in the whip and fist, in the kick and blow, will diminish.
+ Delaware occupies toward freethinkers precisely the same position that a
+ wife-beater does toward the wife. Delaware knows that there are no reasons
+ sufficient to uphold Christianity, consequently these reasons are
+ supplemented with the pillory and the whipping-post. The whipping-post is
+ considered one of God's arguments, and the pillory is a kind of moral
+ suasion, the use of which fills heaven with a kind of holy and serene
+ delight. I am opposed to the religion of brute force, but all these
+ frightful things have grown principally out of a belief in eternal
+ punishment and out of the further idea that a certain belief is necessary
+ to avoid eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Christianity is right, Delaware is right. If God will damn every body
+ forever simply for being intellectually honest, surely he ought to allow
+ the good people of Delaware to imprison the same gentleman for two months.
+ Of course there are thousands and thousands of good people in Delaware,
+ people who have been in other States, people who have listened to
+ Republican speeches, people who have read the works of scientists, who
+ hold the laws of 1740 in utter abhorrence; people who pity Judge Comegys
+ and who have a kind of sympathy for the grand jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will see that at the last election Delaware lacked only six or seven
+ hundred of being a civilized State, and probably in 1884 will stand
+ redeemed and regenerated, with the laws of 1740 expunged from the statute
+ book. Delaware has not had the best of opportunities. You must remember
+ that it is next to New Jersey, which is quite an obstacle in the path of
+ progress. It is just beyond Maryland, which is another obstacle. I heard
+ the other day that God originally made oysters with legs, and afterward
+ took them off, knowing that the people of Delaware would starve to death
+ before they would run to catch anything. Judge Comegys is the last judge
+ who will make such a charge in the United States. He has immortalized
+ himself as the last mile-stone on that road. He is the last of his race.
+ No more can be born. Outside of this he probably was a very clever man,
+ and it may be, he does not believe a word he utters. The probability is
+ that he has underestimated the intelligence of the people of Delaware. I
+ am afraid to think that he is entirely honest, for fear that I may
+ underestimate him intellectually, and overestimate him morally. Nothing
+ could tempt me to do this man injustice, though I could hardly add to the
+ injury he has done himself. He has called attention to laws that ought to
+ be repealed, and to lectures that ought to be repeated. I feel in my heart
+ that he has done me a great service, second only to that for which I am
+ indebted to the grand jury. Had the Judge known me personally he probably
+ would have said nothing. Should I have the misfortune to be arrested in
+ his State and sentenced to two months of solitary confinement, the Judge
+ having become acquainted with me during the trial, would probably insist
+ on spending most of his time in my cell. At the end of the two months he
+ would, I think, lay himself liable to the charge of blasphemy, providing
+ he had honor enough to express his honest thought. After all, it is all a
+ question of honesty. Every man is right. I cannot convince myself there is
+ any God who will ever damn a man for having been honest. This gives me a
+ certain hope for the Judge and the grand jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For two or three days I have been thinking what joy there must have been
+ in heaven when Jehovah heard that Delaware was on his side, and remarked
+ to the angels in the language of the late Adjt. Gen. Thomas: "The eyes of
+ all Delaware are upon you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0012" id="link0012">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Col. Ingersoll filled McVickor's Theatre again yesterday
+ afternoon, when he answered the question "What Must We Do to
+ Be Saved?" But before doing so he replied to the recent
+ criticisms of city clergymen on his "Talmagian Theology"&mdash;
+ Chicago Tribune, Nov. 27, 1882.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Ladies and Gentlemen</i>:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHEREVER I lecture, as a rule, some ministers think it their duty to reply
+ for the purpose of showing either that I am unfair, or that I am
+ blasphemous, or that I laugh. And laughing has always been considered by
+ theologians as a crime. Ministers have always said you will have no
+ respect for our ideas unless you are solemn. Solemnity is a condition
+ precedent to believing anything without evidence. And if you can only get
+ a man solemn enough, awed enough, he will believe anything.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this city the Rev. Dr. Thomas has made a few remarks, and I may say by
+ way of preface that I have always held him in the highest esteem. He
+ struggles, according to his statement, with the problem of my sincerity,
+ and he about half concludes that I am not sincere. There is a little of
+ the minister left in Dr. Thomas. Ministers always account for a difference
+ of opinion by attacking the motive. Now, to him, it makes no difference
+ whether I am sincere or insincere; the question is, Can my argument be
+ answered? Suppose you could prove that the maker of the multiplication
+ table held mathematics in contempt; what of it? Ten times ten would be a
+ hundred still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My sincerity has nothing to do with the force of the argument&mdash;not
+ the slightest. But this gentleman begins to suspect that I am doing what I
+ do for the sake of applause. What a commentary on the Christian religion,
+ that, after they have been preaching it for sixteen or eighteen hundred
+ years, a man attacks it for the sake of popularity&mdash;a man attacks it
+ for the purpose of winning applause! When I commenced to speak upon this
+ subject there was no appreciable applause; most of my fellow-citizens
+ differed with me; and I was denounced as though I had been a wild beast.
+ But I have lived to see the majority of the men and women of intellect in
+ the United States on my side; I have lived to see the church deny her
+ creed; I have lived to see ministers apologize in public for what they
+ preached; and a great and glorious work is going on until, in a little
+ while, you will not find one of them, unless it is some old petrifaction
+ of the red-stone period, who will admit that he ever believed in the
+ Trinity, in the Atonement, or in the doctrine of Eternal Agony. The
+ religion preached in the pulpits does not satisfy the intellect of
+ America, and if Dr. Thomas wishes to know why people go to hear infidelity
+ it is this: Because they are not satisfied with the orthodox Christianity
+ of the day. That is the reason. They are beginning to hold it in contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this gentleman imagines that I am insincere because I attacked certain
+ doctrines of the Bible. I attacked the doctrine of eternal pain. I hold it
+ in infinite and utter abhorrence. And if there be a God in this universe
+ who made a hell; if there be a God in this universe who denies to any
+ human being the right of reformation, then that God is not good, that God
+ is not just, and the future of man is infinitely dark. I despise that
+ doctrine, and I have done what little I could to get that horror from the
+ cradle, that horror from the hearts of mothers, that horror from the
+ hearts of husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers, and sisters. It is
+ a doctrine that turns to ashes all the humanities of life and all the
+ hopes of mankind. I despise it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the gentleman also charges that I am wanting in reverence. I admit
+ here to-day that I have no reverence for a falsehood. I do not care how
+ old it is, and I do not care who told it, whether the men were inspired or
+ not. I have no reverence for what I believe to be false, and in
+ determining what is false I go by my reason. And whenever another man
+ gives me an argument I examine it. If it is good I follow it. If it is bad
+ I throw it away. I have no reverence for any book that upholds human
+ slavery. I despise such a book. I have no reverence for any book that
+ upholds or palliates the infamous institution of polygamy. I have no
+ reverence for any book that tells a husband to kill his wife if she
+ differs with him upon the subject of religion. I have no reverence for any
+ book that defends wars of conquest and extermination. I have no reverence
+ for a God that orders his legions to slay the old and helpless, and to
+ whet the edge of the sword with the blood of mothers and babes. I have no
+ reverence for such a book; neither have I any reverence for the author of
+ that book. No matter whether he be God or man, I have no reverence. I have
+ no reverence for the miracles of the Bible. I have no reverence for the
+ story that God allowed bears to tear children in pieces. I have no
+ reverence for the miraculous, but I have reverence for the truth, for
+ justice, for charity, for humanity, for intellectual liberty, and for
+ human progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have the right to do my own thinking. I am going to do it. I have never
+ met any minister that I thought had brain enough to think for himself and
+ for me too. I do my own. I have no reverence for barbarism, no matter how
+ ancient it may be, and no reverence for the savagery of the Old Testament;
+ no reverence for the malice of the New. And let me tell you here to-night
+ that the Old Testament is a thousand times better than the New. The Old
+ Testament threatened no vengeance beyond the grave. God was satisfied when
+ his enemy was? dead. It was reserved for the New Testament&mdash;it was
+ reserved for universal benevolence&mdash;to rend the veil between time and
+ eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the abyss of hell. The New
+ Testament is just as much worse than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep.
+ And yet it is the fashion to say that the Old Testament is bad and that
+ the New Testament is good. I have no reverence for any book that teaches a
+ doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a
+ doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how
+ many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no
+ matter how many live for it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am
+ glad of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Thomas seems to think that I should approach these things with
+ infinite care, that I should not attack slavery, or polygamy, or religious
+ persecution, but that I should "mildly suggest"&mdash;mildly,&mdash;should
+ not hurt anybody's feelings. When I go to church the ministers tell me I
+ am going to hell. When I meet one I tell him, "There is no hell," and he
+ says: "What do you want to hurt our feelings for?" He wishes me mildly to
+ suggest that the sun and moon did not stop, that may be the bears only
+ frightened the children, and that, after all, Lot's wife was only scared.
+ Why, there was a minister in this city of Chicago who imagined that his
+ congregation were progressive, and, in his pulpit, he said that he did not
+ believe the story of Lot's wife&mdash;said that he did not think that any
+ sensible man would believe that a woman was changed into salt; and they
+ tried him, and the congregation thought he was entirely too fresh. And
+ finally he went before that church and admitted that he was mistaken, and
+ owned up to the chloride of sodium, and said: "I not only take the Bible
+ <i>cum grano salis</i>, but with a whole barrelful."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My doctrine is, if you do not believe a thing, say so, say so; no need of
+ going away around the bush and suggesting may be, perhaps, possibly,
+ peradventure. That is the ministerial way, but I do not like it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am also charged with making an onslaught upon the good as well as the
+ bad. I say here today that never in my life have I said one word against
+ honesty, one word against liberty, one word against charity, one word
+ against any institution that is good. I attack the bad, not the good, and
+ I would like to have some minister point out in some lecture or speech
+ that I have delivered, one word against the good, against the highest
+ happiness of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have said all I was able to say in favor of justice, in favor of
+ liberty, in favor of home, in favor of wife and children, in favor of
+ progress, and in favor of universal kindness; but not one word in favor of
+ the bad, and I never expect to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Thomas also attacks my statement that the brain thinks in spite of us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Doesn't it? Can any man tell what he is going to think to-morrow? You see,
+ you hear, you taste, you feel, you smell&mdash;these are the avenues by
+ which Nature approaches the brain, the consequence of this is thought, and
+ you cannot by any possibility help thinking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither can you determine what you will think. These impressions are made
+ independently of your will. "But," says this reverend doctor, "Whence
+ comes this conception of space?" I can tell him. There is such a thing as
+ matter. We conceive that matter occupies room&mdash;space&mdash;and, in
+ our minds, space is simply the opposite of matter. And it comes naturally&mdash;not
+ supernaturally.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does the gentleman contend there had to be a revelation of God for us to
+ conceive of a place where there is nothing? We know there is something. We
+ can think of the opposite of something, and therefore we say space. "But,"
+ says this gentleman, "Where do we get the idea of good and bad?" I can
+ tell him; no trouble about that. Every man has the capacity to enjoy and
+ the capacity to suffer&mdash;every man. Whenever a man enjoys himself he
+ calls that good; whenever he suffers he calls that bad. The animals that
+ are useful to him he calls good; the poisonous, the hurtful, he calls bad.
+ The vegetables that he can eat and use he calls good; those that are of no
+ use except to choke the growth of the good ones, he calls bad. When the
+ sun shines, when everything in nature is out that ministers to him, he
+ says "this is good;" when the storm comes and blows down his hut, when the
+ frost comes and lays down his crop, he says "this is bad." And all
+ phenomena that affect men well he calls good; all that affect him ill he
+ calls bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, the foundation of the idea of right and wrong is the effect in
+ nature that we are capable of enjoying or capable of suffering. That is
+ the foundation of conscience; and if man could not suffer, if man could
+ not enjoy, we never would have dreamed of the word conscience; and the
+ words right and wrong never could have passed human lips. There are no
+ supernatural fields. We get our ideas from experience&mdash;some of them
+ from our forefathers, many from experience. A man works&mdash;food does
+ not come of itself. A man works to raise it, and, after he has worked in
+ the sun and heat, do you think it is necessary that he should have a
+ revelation from heaven before he thinks that he has a better right to it
+ than the man who did not work? And yet, according to these gentlemen, we
+ never would have known it was wrong to steal had not the Ten Commandments
+ been given from Mount Sinai.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You go into a savage country where they never heard of the Bible, and let
+ a man hunt all day for game, and finally get one little bird, and the
+ hungry man that staid at home endeavor to take it from him, and you would
+ see whether he would need a direct revelation from God in order to make up
+ his mind who had the better right to that bird. Our ideas of right and
+ wrong are born of our surroundings, and if a man will think for a moment
+ he will see it. But they deny that the mind thinks in spite of us. I heard
+ a story of a man who said, "No man can think of one thing a minute, he
+ will think of something else." Well, there was a little Methodist
+ preacher. He said he could think of a thing a minute&mdash;that he could
+ say the Lord's Prayer and never think of another thing. "Well," said the
+ man, "I'll tell you what I will do. There is the best road-horse in the
+ country. I will give you that horse if you will just say the Lord's
+ Prayer, and not think of another thing." And the little fellow shut up his
+ eyes: "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom
+ come, Thy will be done&mdash;I suppose you will throw in the saddle and
+ bridle?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have always insisted, and I shall always insist, until I find some fact
+ in Nature correcting the statement, that Nature sows the seeds of thought&mdash;that
+ every brain is a kind of field where the seeds are sown, and that some are
+ very poor, and some are very barren, and some are very rich. That is my
+ opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again he asks: "If one is not responsible for his thought, why is any one
+ blamed for thinking as he does?" It is not a question of blame, it is a
+ question of who is right&mdash;a question of who is wrong. Admit that
+ every one thinks exactly as he must, that does not show that his thought
+ is right; that does not show that his thought is the highest thought.
+ Admit that every piece of land in the world produces what it must; that
+ does not prove that the land covered with barren rocks and a little moss
+ is just as good as the land covered with wheat or corn; neither does it
+ prove that the mind has to act as the wheat or the corn; neither does it
+ prove that the land had any choice as to what it would produce. I hold men
+ responsible not for their thoughts; I hold men responsible for their
+ actions. And I have said a thousand times: Physical liberty is this&mdash;the
+ right to do anything that does not interfere with another&mdash;in other
+ words, to act right; and intellectual liberty is this&mdash;the right to
+ think right, and the right to think wrong, provided you do your best to
+ think right. I have always said it, and I expect to say it always.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reverend gentleman is also afflicted with the gradual theory. I
+ believe in that theory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you will leave out inspiration, if you will leave out the direct
+ interference of an infinite God, the gradual theory is right. It is a
+ theory of evolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that astronomy has been born of astrology, that chemistry came
+ from the black art; and I also contend that religion will be lost in
+ science. I believe in evolution. I believe in the budding of the seed, the
+ shining of the sun, the dropping of the rain; I believe in the spreading
+ and the growing; and that is as true in every other department of the
+ world as it is in vegetation. I believe it; but that does not account for
+ the Bible doctrine. We are told we have a book absolutely inspired, and it
+ will not do to say God gradually grows. If he is infinite now, he knows as
+ much as he ever will. If he has been always infinite, he knew as much at
+ the time he wrote the Bible as he knows to-day; and, consequently,
+ whatever he said then must be as true now as it was then. You see they mix
+ up now a little bit of philosophy with religion&mdash;a little bit of
+ science with the shreds and patches of the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hear this: I said in my lecture the other day that all the clergymen in
+ the world could not get one drop of rain out of the sky. I insist on it.
+ All the prayers on earth cannot produce one drop of rain. I also said all
+ the clergymen of the world could not save one human life. They tried it
+ last year. They tried it in the United States. The Christian world upon
+ its knees implored God to save one life, and the man died. The man died!
+ Had the man recovered the whole church would have claimed that it was in
+ answer to prayer. The man having died, what does the church say now? What
+ is the answer to this? The Rev. Dr. Thomas says: "There is prayer and
+ there is rain." Good. "Can he that is himself or any one else say there is
+ no possible relation between one and the other?" I do. Let us put it
+ another way. There is rain and there is infidelity; can any one say there
+ is no possible relation between the two? How does Dr. Thomas know that he
+ is not indebted to me for this year's crops? And yet this gentleman really
+ throws out the idea that there is some possible relation between prayer
+ and rain, between rain and health; and he tells us that he would have died
+ twenty-five years ago had it not been for prayer. I doubt it. Prayer is
+ not a medicine. Life depends upon certain facts&mdash;not upon prayer. All
+ the prayer in the world cannot take the place of the circulation of the
+ blood. All the prayer in the world is no substitute for digestion. All the
+ prayer in the world cannot take the place of food; and whenever a man
+ lives by prayer you will find that he eats considerable besides. It will
+ not do. Again: This reverend Doctor says: "Shall we say that all the love
+ of the unseen world"&mdash;how does he know there is any love in the
+ unseen world? "and the love of God"&mdash;how does he know there is any
+ love in God? "heed not the cries and tears of earth?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know; but let the gentleman read the history of religious
+ persecution. Let him read the history of those who were put in dungeons,
+ of those who lifted their chained hands to God and mingled prayer with the
+ clank of fetters; men that were in the dungeons simply for loving this
+ God, simply for worshiping this God. And what did God do? Nothing. The
+ chains remained upon the limbs of his worshipers. They remained in the
+ dungeons built by theology, by malice, and hatred; and what did God do?
+ Nothing. Thousands of men were taken from their homes, fagots were piled
+ around their bodies; they were consumed to ashes, and what did God do?
+ Nothing. The sword of extermination was unsheathed, hundreds and thousands
+ of men, women and children perished. Women lifted their hands to God and
+ implored him to protect their children, their daughters; and what did God
+ do?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing. Whole races were enslaved, and the cruel lash was put upon the
+ naked back of toil. What did God do? Nothing. Children were sold from the
+ arms of mothers. All the sweet humanities of life were trodden beneath the
+ brutal foot of creed; and what did God do? Nothing. Human beings, his
+ children, were tracked through swamps by bloodhounds; and what did God do?
+ Nothing. Wild storms sweep over the earth and the shipwrecked go down in
+ the billows; and what does God do? Nothing. There come plague and
+ pestilence and famine. What does God do? Thousands and thousands perish.
+ Little children die upon the withered breasts of mothers; and what does
+ God do? Nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What evidence has Dr. Thomas that the cries and tears of man have ever
+ touched the heart of God? Let us be honest. I appeal to the history of the
+ world; I appeal to the tears, and blood, and agony, and imprisonment, and
+ death of hundreds and millions of the bravest and best. Have they ever
+ touched the heart of the Infinite? Has the hand of help ever been reached
+ from heaven? I do not know; but I do not believe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Thomas tells me that is orthodox Christianity. What right has he to
+ tell what is orthodox Christianity? He is a heretic. He had too much brain
+ to remain in the Methodist pulpit. He had a doubt&mdash;and a doubt is
+ born of an idea. And his doctrine has been declared by his own church to
+ be unorthodox. They have passed on his case and they have found him
+ unconstitutional. What right has he to state what is orthodox? And here is
+ what he says: "Christianity"&mdash;orthodox Christianity I suppose he
+ means&mdash;"teaches, concerning the future world, that rewards and
+ punishments are carried over from time to eternity; that the principles of
+ the government of God are the same there as here; that character, and not
+ profession determines destiny; and that Humboldt, and Dickens, and all
+ others who have gone and shall go to that world shall receive their just
+ rewards; that souls will always be in the place in which for the time, be
+ it now or a million years hence, they are fitted. That is what
+ Christianity teaches."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it does, never will I have another word to say against Christianity. It
+ never has taught it. Christianity&mdash;orthodox Christianity&mdash;teaches
+ that when you draw your last breath you have lost the last opportunity for
+ reformation. Christianity teaches that this little world is the eternal
+ line between time and eternity, and if you do not get religion in this
+ life, you will be eternally damned in the next. That is Christianity. They
+ say: "Now is the accepted time." If you put it off until you die, that is
+ too late; and the doctrine of the Christian world is that there is no
+ opportunity for reformation in another world. The doctrine of orthodox
+ Christianity is that you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ here in
+ this life, and it will not do to believe on him in the next world. You
+ must believe on him here and that if you fail here, God in his infinite
+ wisdom will never give you another chance. That is orthodox Christianity;
+ and according to orthodox Christianity, the greatest, the best and the
+ sublimest of the world are now in hell. And why is it that they say it is
+ not orthodox Christianity? I have made them ashamed of their doctrine.
+ When I called to their attention the fact that such men as Darwin, such
+ men as Emerson, Dickens, Longfellow, Laplace, Shakespeare, and Humboldt,
+ were in hell, it struck them all at once that the company in heaven would
+ not be very interesting with such men left out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now they begin to say: "We think the Lord will give those men another
+ chance." I have succeeded in my mission beyond my most sanguine
+ expectations. I have made orthodox ministers deny their creeds; I have
+ made them ashamed of their doctrine&mdash;and that is glory enough. They
+ will let me in, a few years after I am dead. I admit that the doctrine
+ that God will treat us as we treat others&mdash;I admit that is taught by
+ Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but it is not taught by the Orthodox church. I
+ want that understood. I admit also that Dr. Thomas is not orthodox, and
+ that he was driven out of the church because he thought God too good to
+ damn men forever without giving them the slightest chance. Why, the
+ Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church
+ upon that question. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory&mdash;that
+ is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new
+ trial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Thomas, all I ask of you is to tell all that you think. Tell your
+ congregation whether you believe the Bible was written by divine
+ inspiration. Have the courage and the grandeur to tell your people
+ whether, in your judgment, God ever upheld slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not shrink. Do not shirk. Tell your people whether God ever upheld
+ polygamy. Do not shrink. Tell them whether God was ever in favor of
+ religious persecution. Stand right to it. Then tell your people whether
+ you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad one and the bad
+ one get the credit. Be honor bright. Tell what you really think and there
+ will not be as much difference between you and myself as you imagine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next gentleman, I believe, is the Rev. Dr. Lorimer. He comes to the
+ rescue, and I have an idea of his mental capacity from the fact that he is
+ a Baptist. He believes that the infinite God has a choice as to the manner
+ in which a man or babe shall be dampened. This gentleman regards modern
+ infidelity as "pitifully shallow" as to its intellectual conceptions and
+ as to its philosophical views of the universe and of the problems
+ regarding man's place in it and of his destiny. "Pitifully shallow!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the modern conception of the universe? The modern conception is
+ that the universe always has been and forever will be. The modern
+ conception of the universe is that it embraces within its infinite arms
+ all matter, all spirit, all forms of force, all that is, all that has
+ been, all that can be. That is the modern conception of this universe. And
+ this is called "pitiful."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the Christian conception? It is that all the matter in the
+ universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a Jewish Jehovah who made
+ it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs of this world. And they
+ even go so far as to say that that Being made experiments in which he
+ signally failed. That Being made man and woman and put them in a garden
+ and allowed them to become totally depraved. That Being of infinite wisdom
+ made hundreds and millions of people when he knew he would have to drown
+ them. That Being peopled a planet like this with men, women and children,
+ knowing that he would have to consign most of them to eternal fire. That
+ is a pitiful conception of the universe. That is an infamous conception of
+ the universe. Give me rather the conception of Spinoza, the conception of
+ Humboldt, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Tyndall and of every other man who has
+ thought. I love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal
+ fact. I love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is
+ itself a step toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into
+ blossom it feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and
+ full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old
+ bachelor for all eternity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing to which this gentleman objects is that I propose to banish
+ such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin and our relations to the
+ present and to the possible future from human thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have never said so. Never. I have said, One world at a time. Why? Do not
+ make yourself miserable about another. Why? Because I do not know anything
+ about it, and it may be good. So do not worry. That is all. Y or do not
+ know where you are going to land. It may be the happy port of heaven. Wait
+ until you get there. It will be time enough to make trouble then. This is
+ what I have said. I have said that the golden bridge of life from gloom
+ emerges, and on shadow rests. I do not know. I admit it. Life is a shadowy
+ strange and winding road on which we travel for a few short steps, just a
+ little way from the cradle with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet
+ wayside inn where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is
+ "Good-Night!" Whether there is a good morning I do not know, but I am
+ willing to wait.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us think these high and splendid thoughts. Let us build palaces for
+ the future, but do not let us spend time making dungeons for men who
+ happen to differ from us. I am willing to take the conceptions of Humboldt
+ and Darwin, of Haeckel and Spinoza, and I am willing to compare their
+ splendid conceptions with the doctrine embraced in the Baptist creed. This
+ gentleman has his ideas upon a variety of questions, and he tells me that,
+ "No one has a right to say that Dickens, Longfellow, and Darwin are
+ castaways!" Why not? They were not Christians. They did not believe in the
+ Lord Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the inspiration of the
+ Scriptures. And, if orthodox religion be true, they are castaways. But he
+ says: "No one has the right to say that orthodoxy condemns to perdition
+ any man who has struggled toward the right, and who has tried to bless the
+ earth he is raised on." That is what I say, but that is not what orthodoxy
+ says. Orthodoxy says that the best man in the world, if he fails to
+ believe in the existence of God, or in the divinity of Christ, will be
+ eternally lost. Does it not say it? Is there an orthodox minister in this
+ town now who will stand up and say that an honest atheist can be saved? He
+ will not. Let any preacher say it, and he will be tried for heresy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will tell you what orthodoxy is. A man goes to the day of judgment, and
+ they cross-examine him, and they say to him:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you believe the Bible?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you belong to the church?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you take care of your wife and children?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Pay your debts?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Love your country?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Love the whole world?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Never made anybody unhappy?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Not that I know of. If there is any man or woman that I ever wronged let
+ them stand up and say so. That is the kind of man I am; but," said he, "I
+ did not believe the Bible. I did not believe in the divinity of Jesus
+ Christ, and, to tell you the truth, I did not believe in the existence of
+ God. I now find I was mistaken; but that was my doctrine." Now, I want to
+ know what, according to the orthodox church, is done with that man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is sent to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is their doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the next fellow comes. He says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Where did you come from?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And he looks off kind of stiffly, with his head on one side and he says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I came from the gallows. I was just hung."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What were you hung for?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Murdering my wife. She wasn't a Christian either, she got left. The day I
+ was hung I was washed in the blood of the Lamb."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is Christianity. And they say to him: "Come in! Let the band play!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is orthodox Christianity. Every man that is hanged&mdash;there is a
+ minister there, and the minister tells him he is all right. All he has to
+ do is just to believe on the Lord.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another objection this gentleman has, and that is that I am scurrilous.
+ Scurrilous! And the gentleman, in order to show that he is not scurrilous,
+ calls infidels, "donkeys, serpents, buzzards." That is simply to show that
+ he is not scurrilous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Lorimer is also of the opinion that the mind thinks independently of
+ the will; and I propose to prove by him that it does. He is the last man
+ in the world to controvert that doctrine&mdash;the last man. In spite of
+ himself his mind absorbed the sermon of another man, and he repeated it as
+ his own. I am satisfied he is an honest man; consequently his mind acted
+ independently of his will, and he furnishes the strongest evidence in
+ favor of my position that it is possible to conceive. I am infinitely
+ obliged to him for the testimony he has unconsciously offered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also takes the ground that infidelity debases a man and renders him
+ unfit for the discharge of the highest duties pertaining to life, and that
+ we show the greatest shallowness when we endeavor to overthrow Calvinism.
+ What is Calvinism? It is the doctrine that an infinite God made millions
+ of people, knowing that they would be damned. I have answered that a
+ thousand times. I answer it again. No God has a right to make a mistake,
+ and then damn the mistake. No God has a right to make a failure, and a man
+ who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. No God has a
+ right to make an investment that will not finally pay a dividend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is getting better, and the ministers, all your life and all
+ mine, have been crying out from the pulpit that we are all going wrong,
+ that immorality was stalking through the land, that crime was about to
+ engulf the world, and yet, in spite of all their prophecies, the world has
+ steadily grown better, and there is more justice, more charity, more
+ kindness, more goodness, and more liberty in the world to-day than ever
+ before. And there is more infidelity in the world to-day than ever before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The attention of the Morning Advertiser readers was, in the
+ issue of February 27th, called to two sets of facts
+ transpiring contemporaneously in this city. One was the
+ starving condition of four hundred cloakmakers who had
+ struck because they could not live on reduced wages.
+ Arbitration had failed; two hundred of the number, seeing
+ starvation staring them in the face, were forced to give up
+ the fight, and the remaining number continued to do battle
+ for higher wages
+
+ While these cloakmakers were in the extremity of
+ destitution, millionaires were engaged in subscribing to a
+ fund "for the extension of the church." The extension
+ committee, received at the home of Jay Gould, had met with
+ such signal success as to cause comment throughout the city.
+ The host subscribed ten thousand dollars, his daughter
+ twenty-five hundred and the assembled guests sums ranging
+ between five hundred and one thousand. The Morning
+ Advertiser made inquiry as to whether any of the money
+ contributed for the extension of the church would find its
+ way into the pockets of the hungry cloakmakers.
+
+ Dr. John Hall said he did not have time to discuss the
+ matter of aiding the needy poor, as there were so many other
+ things that demanded his immediate attention.
+
+ Mr. Warner Van Norden, Treasurer of the Church Extension
+ Committee, was seen at his office in the North American
+ Bank, of which institution he is President.
+
+ He took the view that the cloakmakers had brought their
+ trouble upon themselves, and it was not the duty of the
+ charitable to extend to them direct aid.
+
+ Generally speaking, he was not in favor of helping the poor
+ and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the
+ church.
+
+ "The experience of centuries, said he, "teaches us that the
+ giving of alms to the poor only encourage them in their
+ idleness and their crimes. The duty of the church is to save
+ men's a souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally.
+
+ "It is best to teach people to rely upon their own
+ resources. If the poor felt that they could get material
+ help, they would want it always. In these days if a man or
+ woman can't get along it's their own fault. There is my
+ typewriter. She was brought up in a tenement house. Now she
+ gets two dollars a day, and dresses better than did the
+ lords and ladies of other times. You'll find that where
+ people are poor, it's their own fault.
+
+ "After all, happiness does not lie in the enjoyment of
+ material things&mdash;it is the soul that makes life worth
+ living. You should come to our Working Girls' Club and see
+ this fact illustrated. There you will see girls who have
+ been working all day, singing hymns and following the leader
+ in prayer."
+
+ Don't you think there are many worthy poor in this city who
+ need material help?" was asked.
+
+ "No, sir; I do not," said Mr. Van Norden. "If a man or woman
+ wants money, they should work for It."
+
+ "But is employment always to be had?"
+
+ "I think it is by Americans. You'll find that most of the
+ people out of work are those who are not adapted to the
+ conditions of this country.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Colonel Robert Ingersoll was asked what he thought of such philosophy.&mdash;New
+ York Morning Advertiser, March 10,1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read the article in the Morning Advertiser
+ entitled "Workers Starving"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I have read it, and was greatly surprised at the answers
+ made to the reporter of the Advertiser.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the remarks of the Rev. John Hall
+ and by Mr. Warner Van Norden, Treasurer of the "Church Extension
+ Committee"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> My opinion is that Dr. Hall must have answered under some
+ irritation, or that the reporter did not happen to take down all he said.
+ It hardly seems probable that Dr. Hall should have said that he had no
+ time to discuss the matter of aiding the needy poor, giving as a reason
+ that there were so many other things that demanded his immediate
+ attention. The church is always insisting that it is, above all things, a
+ charitable institution; that it collects and distributes many millions
+ every year for the relief of the needy, and it is always quoting: "Sell
+ that thou hast and give to the poor." It is hard to imagine anything of
+ more importance than to relieve the needy, or to succor the oppressed. Of
+ course, I know that the church itself produces nothing, and that it lives
+ on contributions; but its claim is that it receives from those who are
+ able to give, and gives to those who are in urgent need.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have sometimes thought, that the most uncharitable thing in the world is
+ an organized charity. It seems to have the peculiarities of a corporation,
+ and becomes as soulless as its kindred. To use a very old phrase, it
+ generally acts like "a beggar on horseback."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably Dr. Hall, in fact, does a great deal for the poor, and I imagine
+ that he must have been irritated or annoyed when he made the answer
+ attributed to him in the <i>Advertiser</i>. The good Samaritan may have
+ been in a hurry, but he said nothing about it. The Levites that passed by
+ on the other side seemed to have had other business. Understand me, I am
+ saying nothing against Dr. Hall, but it does seem to me that there are few
+ other matters more important than assisting our needy fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Mr. Warner Van Norden's sentiments
+ as expressed to the reporter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> In the first place, I think he is entirely mistaken. I do
+ not think the cloakmakers brought their trouble upon themselves. The wages
+ they receive were and are insufficient to support reasonable human beings.
+ They work for almost nothing, and it is hard for me to understand why they
+ live at all, when life is so expensive and death so cheap. All they can
+ possibly do is to earn enough one day to buy food to enable them to work
+ the next. Life with them is a perpetual struggle. They live on the edge of
+ death. Under their feet they must feel the side of the grave crumbling,
+ and thus they go through, day by day, month by month, year by year. They
+ are, I presume, sustained by a hope that is never realized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Van Norden says that he is not in favor of helping the poor and needy
+ of the city, save in the way employed by the church, and that the
+ experience of centuries teaches us that the giving of alms to the poor
+ only encourages them in their idleness and their crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is Mr. Van Norden ready to take the ground that when Christ said: "Sell
+ that thou hast and give to the poor," he intended to encourage idleness
+ and crime?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that when it was said, "It is better to give than to
+ receive," the real meaning was, It is better to encourage idleness and
+ crime than to receive assistance?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance, a man falls into the water. Why should one standing on the
+ shore attempt to rescue him? Could he not properly say: "If all who fall
+ into the water are rescued, it will only encourage people to fall into the
+ water; it will make sailors careless, and persons who stand on wharves,
+ will care very little whether they fall in or not. Therefore, in order to
+ make people careful who have not fallen into the water, let those in the
+ water drown." In other words, why should anybody be assisted, if
+ assistance encourages carelessness, or idleness, or negligence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Mr. Van Norden, charity is out of place in this world,
+ kindness is a mistake, and hospitality springs from a lack of philosophy.
+ In other words, all should take the consequences of their acts, not only,
+ but the consequences of the acts of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I knew this doctrine to be true, I should still insist that men should
+ be charitable on their own account. A man without pity, no matter how
+ intelligent he may be, is at best only an intellectual beast, and if by
+ withholding all assistance we could finally people the world with those
+ who are actually self-supporting, we would have a population without
+ sympathy, without charity&mdash;that is to say, without goodness. In my
+ judgment, it would be far better that none should exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Van Norden takes the ground that the duty of the church is to save
+ men's souls, and to minister to their bodies incidentally. I think that
+ conditions have a vast deal to do with morality and goodness. If you wish
+ to change the conduct of your fellow-men, the first thing to do is to
+ change their conditions, their surroundings; in other words, to help them
+ to help themselves&mdash;help them to get away from bad influences, away
+ from the darkness of ignorance, away from the temptations of poverty and
+ want, not only into the light intellectually, but into the climate of
+ prosperity. It is useless to give a hungry man a religious tract, and it
+ is almost useless to preach morality to those who are so situated that the
+ necessity of the present, the hunger of the moment, overrides every other
+ consideration. There is a vast deal of sophistry in hunger, and a good
+ deal of persuasion in necessity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Prosperity is apt to make men selfish. They imagine that because they have
+ succeeded, others and all others, might or may succeed. If any man will go
+ over his own life honestly, he will find that he has not always succeeded
+ because he was good, or that he has always failed because he was bad. He
+ will find that many things happened with which he had nothing to do, for
+ his benefit, and that, after all is said and done, he cannot account for
+ all of his successes by his absolute goodness. So, if a man will think of
+ all the bad things he has done&mdash;of all the bad things he wanted to do&mdash;of
+ all the bad things he would have done had he had the chance, and had he
+ known that detection was impossible, he will find but little foundation
+ for egotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you say to this language of Mr. Van Norden. "It
+ is best to teach people to rely upon their own resources. If the poor felt
+ that they could get material help they would want it always, and in this
+ day, if a man and woman cannot get along, it is their own fault"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> All I can say is that I do not agree with him. Often there
+ are many more men in a certain trade than there is work for such men.
+ Often great factories shut down, leaving many thousands out of employment.
+ You may say that it was the fault of these men that they learned that
+ trade; that they might have known it would be overcrowded; so you may say
+ it was the fault of the capitalist to start a factory in that particular
+ line, because he should have known that it was to be overdone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As no man can look very far into the future, the truth is it was nobody's
+ fault, and without fault thousands and thousands are thrown out of
+ employment. Competition is so sharp, wages are so small, that to be out of
+ employment for a few weeks means want. You cannot say that this is the
+ fault of the man who wants bread. He certainly did not wish to go hungry;
+ neither did he deliberately plan a failure. He did the best he could.
+ There are plenty of bankers who fail in business, not because they wish to
+ fail; so there are plenty of professional men who cannot make a living,
+ yet it may not be their fault; and there are others who get rich, and it
+ may not be by reason of their virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without doubt, there are many people in the city of New York who cannot
+ make a living. Competition is too sharp; life is too complex; consequently
+ the percentage of failures is large. In savage life there are few
+ failures, but in civilized life there are many. There are many thousands
+ out of work and out of food in Berlin to-day. It can hardly be said to be
+ their fault. So there are many thousands in London, and every other great
+ city of the world. You cannot account for all this want by saying that the
+ people who want are entirely to blame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man gets rich, and he is often egotistic enough to think that his wealth
+ was the result of his own unaided efforts; and he is sometimes heartless
+ enough to say that others should get rich by following his example.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Van Norden states that he has a typewriter who gets two dollars a day,
+ and that she dresses better than the lords and ladies did of olden times.
+ He must refer to the times of the Garden of Eden. Out of two dollars a day
+ one must live, and there is very little left for gorgeous robes. I hardly
+ think a lady is to be envied because she receives two dollars a day, and
+ the probability is that the manner in which she dresses on that sum&mdash;having
+ first deducted the expenses of living&mdash;is not calculated to excite
+ envy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The philosophy of Mr. Van Norden seems to be concentrated into this line:
+ "Where people are poor it is their own fault." Of course this is the death
+ of all charity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are then informed by this gentleman that "happiness does not lie in the
+ enjoyment of material things&mdash;that it is the soul that makes life
+ worth living."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it the soul without pity that makes life worth living? Is it the soul
+ in which the blossom of charity has never shed its perfume that makes life
+ so desirable? Is it the soul, having all material things, wrapped in the
+ robes of prosperity, and that says to all the poor: It is your own fault;
+ die of hunger if you must&mdash;that makes life worth living?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be asked whether it is worth while for such a soul to live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this is the philosophy of Mr. Van Norden, I do not wish to visit his
+ working girls' club, or to "hear girls who have been working all day
+ singing hymns and following the leader in prayer." Why should a soul
+ without pity pray? Why should any one ask God to be merciful to the poor
+ if he is not merciful himself? For my own part, I would rather see poor
+ people eat than to hear them pray. I would rather see them clothed
+ comfortably than to see them shivering, and at the same time hear them
+ sing hymns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem possible that any man can say that there are no worthy
+ poor in this city who need material help. Neither does it seem possible
+ that any man can say to one who is starving that if he wants money he must
+ work for it. There are hundreds and thousands in this city willing to work
+ who can find no employment. There are good and pure women standing between
+ their children and starvation, living in rooms worse than cells in
+ penitentiaries&mdash;giving their own lives to their children&mdash;hundreds
+ and hundreds of martyrs bearing the cross of every suffering, worthy of
+ the reverence and love of mankind. So there are men wandering about these
+ streets in search of work, willing to do anything to feed the ones they
+ love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Van Norden has not done himself justice. I do not believe that he
+ expresses his real sentiments. But, after all, why should we expect
+ charity in a church that believes in the dogma of eternal pain? Why cannot
+ the rich be happy here in their palaces, while the poor suffer and starve
+ in huts, when these same rich expect to enjoy heaven forever, with all the
+ unbelievers in hell? Why should the agony of time interfere with their
+ happiness, when the agonies of eternity will not and cannot affect their
+ joy? But I have nothing against Dr. John Hall or Mr. Van Norden&mdash;only
+ against their ideas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0014" id="link0014">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Boston, 1898.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Last Sunday the Rev. Dr. Plumb paid some attention to the
+ lecture which you delivered here on the 23rd of October. Have you read a
+ report of it, and what have you to say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> Dr. Plumb attacks not only myself, but the Rev. Mr. Mills.
+ I do not know the position that Mr. Mills takes, but from what Dr. Plumb
+ says, I suppose that he has mingled a little philosophy with his religion
+ and some science with his superstition. Dr. Plumb appears to have
+ successfully avoided both. His manners do not appear to me to be of the
+ best. Why should he call an opponent coarse and blasphemous, simply
+ because he does not happen to believe as he does? Is it blasphemous to say
+ that this "poor" world never was visited by a Redeemer from Heaven, a
+ majestic being&mdash;unique&mdash;peculiar&mdash;who "trod the sea and
+ hushed the storm and raised the dead"? Why does Dr. Plumb call this world
+ a "poor" world? According to his creed, it was created by infinite wisdom,
+ infinite goodness and infinite power. How dare he call the work of such a
+ being "poor"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not blasphemous for a Boston minister to denounce the work of the
+ Infinite and say to God that he made a "poor" world? If I believed this
+ world had been made by an infinitely wise and good Being, I should
+ certainly insist that this is not a poor world, but, on the contrary, a
+ perfect world. I would insist that everything that happens is for the
+ best. Whether it looks wise or foolish to us, I would insist that the
+ fault we thought we saw, lies in us and not in the infinitely wise and
+ benevolent Creator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Plumb may love God, but he certainly regards him as a poor mechanic
+ and a failure as a manufacturer. There Dr. Plumb, like all religious
+ preachers, takes several things for granted; things that have not been
+ established by evidence, and things which in their nature cannot be
+ established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He tells us that this poor world was visited by a mighty Redeemer from
+ Heaven. How does he know? Does he know where heaven is? Does he know that
+ any such place exists? Is he perfectly sure that an infinite God would be
+ foolish enough to make people who needed a redeemer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also says that this Being "trod the sea, hushed the storm and raised
+ the dead." Is there any evidence that this Being trod the sea? Any more
+ evidence than that Venus rose from the foam of the ocean? Any evidence
+ that he hushed the storm any more than there is that the storm comes from
+ the cave of &#65533;?olus? Is there any evidence that he raised the dead?
+ How would it be possible to prove that the dead were raised? How could we
+ prove such a thing if it happened now? Who would believe the evidence? As
+ a matter of fact, the witnesses themselves would not believe and could not
+ believe until raising of the dead became so general as to be regarded as
+ natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Plumb knows, if he knows anything, that gospel gossip is the only
+ evidence he has, or anybody has, that Christ trod the sea, hushed the
+ storm and raised the dead. He also knows, if he knows anything, that these
+ stories were not written until Christ himself had been dead for at least
+ four generations. He knows also that these accounts were written at a time
+ when the belief in miracles was almost universal, and when everything that
+ actually happened was regarded of no particular importance, and only the
+ things that did not happen were carefully written out with all the
+ details.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Dr. Plumb says that this man who hushed the storm "spake as never man
+ spake." Did the Doctor ever read Zeno? Zeno, who denounced human slavery
+ many years before Christ was born? Did he ever read Epicurus, one of the
+ greatest of the Greeks? Has he read anything from Buddha? Has he read the
+ dialogues between Arjuna and Krishna? If he has, he knows that every great
+ and splendid utterance of Christ was uttered centuries before he lived.
+ Did he ever read Lao-tsze? If he did&mdash;and this man lived many
+ centuries before the coming of our Lord&mdash;he knows that Lao-tsze said
+ "we should render benefits for injuries. We should love our enemies, and
+ we should not resist evil." So it will hardly do now to say that Christ
+ spake as never man spake, because he repeated the very things that other
+ men had said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So he says that I am endeavoring to carry people back to a dimly groping
+ Socrates or a vague Confucius. Did Dr. Plumb ever read Confucius? Only a
+ little while ago a book was published by Mr. For-long showing the origin
+ of the principal religion and the creeds that have been taught. In this
+ book you will find the cream of Buddha, of Christ, of Zoroaster, and you
+ will also find a few pages devoted to the philosophy of Confucius; and
+ after you have read the others, then read what Confucius says, and you
+ will find that his philosophy rises like a monolith touching the clouds,
+ while the creeds and sayings of the others appear like heaps of stone or
+ piles of rubbish. The reason of this is that Confucius was not simply a
+ sentimentalist. He was not controlled entirely by feeling, but he had
+ intelligence&mdash;a great brain in which burned the torch of reason. Read
+ Confucius, and you will think that he must have known the sciences of
+ to-day; that is to say, the conclusions that have been reached by modern
+ thinkers. It could have been easily said of Confucius in his day that he
+ spake as never man had spoken, and it may be that after you read him you
+ will change your mind just a little as to the wisdom and the intelligence
+ contained in many of the sayings of our Lord.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Plumb charges that Mr. Mills is trying to reconstruct theology.
+ Whether he is right in this charge I do not know, but I do know that I am
+ not trying to reconstruct theology. I am endeavoring to destroy it. I have
+ no more confidence in theology than I have in astrology or in the black
+ art. Theology is a science that exists wholly independent of facts, and
+ that reaches conclusions without the assistance of evidence. It also
+ scorns experience and does what little it can to do away with thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I make a very great distinction between theology and real religion. I can
+ conceive of no religion except usefulness. Now, here we are, men and women
+ in this world, and we have certain faculties, certain senses. There are
+ things that we can ascertain, and by developing our brain we can avoid
+ mistakes, keep a few thorns out of our feet, a few thistles out of our
+ hands, a few diseases from our flesh. In my judgment, we should use all
+ our senses, gathering information from every possible quarter, and this
+ information should be only used for the purpose of ascertaining the facts,
+ for finding out the conditions of well-being, to the end that we may add
+ to the happiness of ourselves and fellows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, I believe in intellectual veracity and also in mental
+ hospitality. To me reason is the final arbiter, and when I say reason, I
+ mean my reason. It may be a very poor light, the flame small and
+ flickering, but, after all, it is the only light I have, and never with my
+ consent shall any preacher blow it out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Dr. Plumb thinks that I am trying to despoil my fellow-men of their
+ greatest inheritance; that is to say, divine Christ. Why do you call
+ Christ good? Is it because he was merciful? Then why do you put him above
+ mercy? Why do you call Christ good? Is it because he was just? Why do you
+ put him before justice? Suppose it should turn out that no such person as
+ Christ ever lived. What harm would that do justice or mercy? Wouldn't the
+ tear of pity be as pure as now, and wouldn't justice, holding aloft her
+ scales, from which she blows even the dust of prejudice, be as noble, as
+ admirable as now? Is it not better to love, justice and mercy than to love
+ a name, and when you put a name above justice, above mercy, are you sure
+ that you are benefiting your fellow-men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Dr. Plumb wanted to answer me, why did he not take my argument instead
+ of my motive? Why did he not point out my weakness instead of telling the
+ consequences that would follow from my action? We have nothing to do with
+ the consequences. I said that to believe without evidence, or in spite of
+ evidence, was superstition. If that definition is correct, Dr. Plumb is a
+ superstitious man, because he believes at least without evidence. What
+ evidence has he that Christ was God? In the nature of things, how could he
+ have evidence? The only evidence he pretends to have is the dream of
+ Joseph, and he does not know that Joseph ever dreamed the dream, because
+ Joseph did not write an account of his dream, so that Dr. Plumb has only
+ hearsay for the dream, and the dream is the foundation of his creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, when I say that that is superstition, Dr. Plumb charges me with being
+ a burglar&mdash;a coarse, blasphemous burglar&mdash;who wishes to rob
+ somebody of some great blessing. Dr. Plumb would not hesitate to tell a
+ Mohammedan that Mohammed was an impostor. He would tell a Mormon in Utah
+ that Joseph Smith was a vulgar liar and that Brigham Young was no better.
+ In other words, if in Turkey, he would be a coarse and blasphemous
+ burglar, and he would follow the same profession in Utah. So probably he
+ would tell the Chinese that Confucius was an ignorant wretch and that
+ their religion was idiotic, and the Chinese priest would denounce Dr.
+ Plumb as a very coarse and blasphemous burglar, and Dr. Plumb would be
+ perfectly astonished that a priest could be so low, so impudent and
+ malicious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course my wonder is not excited. I have become used to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Dr. Plumb would think, if he would exercise his imagination a little
+ and put himself in the place of others, he would think, in all
+ probability, better things of his opponents. I do not know Dr. Plumb, and
+ yet I have no doubt that he is a good and sincere man; a little
+ superstitious, superficial, and possibly, mingled with his many virtues,
+ there may be a little righteous malice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Mills used to believe as Dr. Plumb does now, and I suppose he
+ has changed for reasons that were sufficient for him. So I believe him to
+ be an honest, conscientious man, and so far as I am concerned, I have no
+ objection to Mr. Mills doing what little he can to get all the churches to
+ act together. He may never succeed, but I am not responsible for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I have no objection to Dr. Plumb preaching what he believes to be the
+ gospel. I admit that he is honest when he says that an infinitely good God
+ made a poor world; that he made man and woman and put them in the Garden
+ of Eden, and that this same God before that time had manufactured a devil,
+ and that when he manufactured this devil, he knew that he would corrupt
+ the man and woman that he had determined to make; that he could have
+ defeated the devil, but that for a wise purpose, he allowed his Satanic
+ Majesty to succeed; that at the time he allowed him to succeed, he knew
+ that in consequence of his success that he (God) in about fifteen or
+ sixteen hundred years would be compelled to drown the whole world with the
+ exception of eight people. These eight people he kept for seed. At the
+ time he kept them for seed, he knew that they were totally depraved, that
+ they were saturated with the sin of Adam and Eve, and that their children
+ would be their natural heirs. He also knew at the time he allowed the
+ devil to succeed, that he (God), some four thousand years afterward, would
+ be compelled to be born in Palestine as a babe, to learn the carpenter's
+ trade, and to go about the country for three years preaching to the people
+ and discussing with the rabbis of his chosen people, and he also knew that
+ these chosen people&mdash;these people who had been governed and educated
+ by him, to whom he had sent a multitude of prophets, would at that time be
+ so savage that they would crucify him, although he would be at that time
+ the only sinless being who had ever stood upon the earth. This he knew
+ would be the effect of his government, of his education of his chosen
+ people. He also knew at the time he allowed the devil to succeed, that in
+ consequence of that success a vast majority of the human race would become
+ eternal convicts in the prison of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this he knew, and yet Dr. Plumb insists that he was and is infinitely
+ wise, infinitely powerful and infinitely good. What would this God have
+ done if he had lacked wisdom, or power, or goodness?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all the religions that man has produced, of all the creeds of savagery,
+ there is none more perfectly absurd than Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0015" id="link0015">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * New York Journal, 1898. An Interview.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you followed the controversy, or rather, the
+ interest manifested in the letters to the <i>Journal</i> which have
+ followed your lecture of Sunday, and what do you think of them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer.</i> I have read the letters and reports that have been
+ published in the <i>Journal</i>. Some of them seem to be very sincere,
+ some not quite honest, and some a little of both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Robert S. MacArthur takes the ground that very many Christians do
+ not believe in a personal devil, but are still Christians. He states that
+ they hold that the references in the New Testament to the devil are simply
+ to personifications of evil, and do not apply to any personal existence.
+ He says that he could give the names of a number of pastors who hold such
+ views. He does not state what his view is. Consequently, I do not know
+ whether he is a believer in a personal devil or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The statement that the references in the New Testament to a devil are
+ simply to personifications of evil, not applying to any personal
+ existence, seems to me utterly absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The references to devils in the New Testament are certainly as good and
+ satisfactory as the references to angels. Now, are the angels referred to
+ in the New Testament simply personifications of good, and are there no
+ such personal existences? If devils are only personifications of evil, how
+ is it that these personifications of evil could hold arguments with Jesus
+ Christ? How could they talk back? How could they publicly acknowledge the
+ divinity of Christ? As a matter of fact, the best evidences of Christ's
+ divinity in the New Testament are the declarations of devils. These devils
+ were supposed to be acquainted with supernatural things, and consequently
+ knew a God when they saw one, whereas the average Jew, not having been a
+ citizen of the celestial world, was unable to recognize a deity when he
+ met him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, these personifications of evil, as Dr. Mac-Arthur calls them, were of
+ various kinds. Some of them were dumb, while others could talk, and Christ
+ said, speaking of the dumb devils, that they were very difficult to expel
+ from the bodies of men; that it required fasting and prayer to get them
+ out. Now, did Christ mean that these dumb devils did not exist? That they
+ were only "personifications of evil"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we are also told in the New Testament that Christ was tempted by the
+ devil; that is, by a "personification of evil," and that this
+ personification took him to the pinnacle of the temple and tried to induce
+ him to jump off. Now, where did this personification of evil come from?
+ Was it an actual existence? Dr. MacArthur says that it may not have been.
+ Then it did not come from the outside of Christ. If it existed it came
+ from the inside of Christ, so that, according to MacArthur, Christ was the
+ creator of his own devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know that I have a right to say that this is Dr. MacArthur's
+ opinion, as he has wisely refrained from giving his opinion. I hope some
+ time he will tell us whether he really believes in a devil or not, or
+ whether he thinks all allusions and references to devils in the New
+ Testament can be explained away by calling the devils "personifications of
+ evil." Then, of course, he will tell us whether it was a "personification
+ of evil" that offered Christ all the kingdoms of the world, and whether
+ Christ expelled seven "personifications of evil" from Mary Magdalene, and
+ how did they come to count these "personifications of evil"? If the
+ devils, after all, are only "personifications of evil," then, of course,
+ they cannot be numbered. They are all one. There may be different
+ manifestations, but, in fact, there can be but one, and yet Mary Magdalene
+ had seven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. MacArthur states that I put up a man of straw, and then vigorously
+ beat him down. Now, the question is, do I attack a man of straw? I take it
+ for granted that Christians to some extent, at least, believe in their
+ creeds. I suppose they regard the Bible as the inspired word of God; that
+ they believe in the fall of man, in the atonement, in salvation by faith,
+ in the resurrection and ascension of Christ. I take it for granted that
+ they believe these things. Of course, the only evidence I have is what
+ they say. Possibly that cannot be depended upon. They may be dealing only
+ in the "personification of truth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I charge the orthodox Christians with believing these things, I am
+ told that I am far behind the religious thinking of the hour, but after
+ all, this "man of straw" is quite powerful. Prof. Briggs attacked this
+ "man of straw," and the straw man turned on him and put him out. A
+ preacher by the name of Smith, a teacher in some seminary out in Ohio,
+ challenged this "man of straw," and the straw man put him out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Both these reverend gentlemen were defeated by the straw man, and if the
+ Rev. Dr. MacArthur will explain to his congregation, I mean only explain
+ what he calls the "religious thinking of the hour," the "straw man" will
+ put him out too.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. MacArthur finds fault with me because I put into the minds of
+ representative thinkers of to-day the opinions of medieval monks, which
+ leading religious teachers long ago discarded. Will Dr. MacArthur have the
+ goodness to point out one opinion that I have put into the minds of
+ representative thinkers&mdash;that is, of orthodox thinkers&mdash;that any
+ orthodox religious teacher of to-day has discarded? Will he have the
+ kindness to give just one?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my lecture on "Superstition" I did say that to deny the existence of
+ evil spirits, or to deny the existence of the devil, is to deny the truth
+ of the New Testament; and that to deny the existence of these imps of
+ darkness is to contradict the words of Jesus Christ. I did say that if we
+ give up the belief in devils we must give up the inspiration of the Old
+ and New Testaments, and we must give up the divinity of Christ. Upon that
+ declaration I stand, because if devils do not exist, then Jesus Christ was
+ mistaken, or we have not in the New Testament a true account of what he
+ said and of what he pretended to do. If the New Testament gives a true
+ account of his words and pretended actions, then he did claim to cast out
+ devils. That was his principal business. That was his certificate of
+ divinity, casting out devils. That authenticated his mission and proved
+ that he was superior to the hosts of darkness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, take the devil out of the New Testament, and you also take the
+ veracity of Christ; with that veracity you take the divinity; with that
+ divinity you take the atonement, and when you take the atonement, the
+ great fabric known as Christianity becomes a shapeless ruin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let Dr. Mac Arthur answer this, and answer it not like a minister,
+ but like a man. Ministers are unconsciously a little unfair. They have a
+ little tendency to what might be called a natural crook. They become
+ spiritual when they ought to be candid. They become a little ingenious and
+ pious when they ought to be frank; and when really driven into a corner,
+ they clasp their hands, they look upward, and they cry "<i>Blasphemy!</i>"
+ I do not mean by this that they are dishonest. I simply mean that they are
+ illogical.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. MacArthur tells us also that Spain is not a representative of
+ progressive religious teachers. I admit that. There are no progressive
+ religious teachers in Spain, and right here let me make a remark. If
+ religion rests on an inspired revelation, it is incapable of progress. It
+ may be said that year after year we get to understand it better, but if it
+ is not understood when given, why is it called a "revelation"? There is no
+ progress in the multiplication table. Some men are better mathematicians
+ than others, but the old multiplication table remains the same. So there
+ can be no progress in a revelation from God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Spain&mdash;and that is the great mistake, the great misfortune&mdash;has
+ remained orthodox. That is to say, the Spaniards have been true to their
+ superstition. Of course the Rev. Dr. MacArthur will not admit that
+ Catholicism is Christianity, and I suppose that the pope would hardly
+ admit that a Baptist is a very successful Christian. The trouble with
+ Spain is, and the trouble with the Baptist Church is, that neither of them
+ has progressed to any great extent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in my judgment, what is called religion must grow better as man grows
+ better, simply because it was produced by man and the better man is, the
+ nearer civilized he is, the better, the nearer civilized, will be what he
+ calls his religion; and if the Baptist religion has progressed, it is a
+ demonstration that it was not originally founded on a revelation from God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my lecture I stated that we had no right to make any distinction
+ between the actions of infinite wisdom and goodness, and that if God
+ created and governs this world we ought to thank him, if we thanked him at
+ all, for all that happens; that we should thank him just as heartily for
+ famine and cyclone as for sunshine and harvest, and that if President
+ McKinley thanked God for the victory at Santiago, he also should have
+ thanked him for sending the yellow fever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I stand by these words. A finite being has no right to make any
+ distinction between the actions of the infinitely good and wise. If God
+ governs this world, then everything that happens is the very best that
+ could happen. When A murders B, the best thing that could happen to A is
+ to be a murderer and the best thing that could have happened to B was to
+ be murdered. There is no escape from this if the world is governed by
+ infinite wisdom and goodness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to try and dodge by saying that man is free. This God who
+ made man and made him free knew exactly how he would use his freedom, and
+ consequently this God cannot escape the responsibility for the actions of
+ men. He made them. He knew exactly what they would do. He is responsible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I could turn a piece of wood into a human being, and I knew that he
+ would murder a man, who is the real murderer? But if Dr. MacArthur would
+ think as much as he preaches, he would come much nearer agreeing with me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Parks is very sorry that he cannot discuss
+ Ingersoll's address, because to do so would be dignifying Ingersoll. Of
+ course I deeply regret the refusal of Dr. J. Lewis Parks to discuss the
+ address. I dislike to be compelled to go to the end of my life without
+ being dignified. At the same time I will forgive the Rev. Dr. J. Lewis
+ Parks for not answering me, because I know that he cannot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Dr. Moldehnke, whose name seems chiefly made of consonants,
+ denounces me as a scoffer and as illogical, and says that Christianity is
+ not founded upon the devil, but upon Christ. He further says that we do
+ not believe in such a thing as a devil in human form, but we know that
+ there is evil, and that evil we call the devil. He hides his head under
+ the same leaf with Dr. MacArthur by calling the devil evil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, is this gentleman willing to say that all the allusions to the devil
+ in the Old and New Testaments can be harmonized with the idea that the
+ devil is simply a personification of evil? Can he say this and say it
+ honestly?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the Rev. Dr. Moldehnke, I think, seems to be consistent; seems to go
+ along with the logic of his creed. He says that the yellow fever, if it
+ visited our soldiers, came from God, and that we should thank God for it.
+ He does not say the soldiers should thank God for it, or that those who
+ had it should thank God for it, but that we should thank God for it, and
+ there is this wonderful thing about Christianity. It enables us to bear
+ with great fortitude, with a kind of sublime patience, the misfortunes of
+ others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He says that this yellow fever works out God's purposes. Of course I am
+ not as well acquainted with the Deity as the Rev. Moldehnke appears to be.
+ I have not the faintest idea of what God's purposes are. He works, even
+ according to his messengers, in such a mysterious way, that with the
+ little reason I have I find it impossible to follow him. Why God should
+ have any purpose that could be worked out with yellow fever, or cholera,
+ or why he should ever ask the assistance of tapeworms, or go in
+ partnership with cancers, or take in the plague as an assistant, I have
+ never been able to understand. I do not pretend to know. I admit my
+ ignorance, and after all, the Rev. Dr. Moldehnke may be right. It may be
+ that everything that happens is for the best. At the same time, I do not
+ believe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a little old story on this subject that throws some light on the
+ workings of the average orthodox mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One morning the son of an old farmer came in and said to his father, "One
+ of the ewe lambs is dead."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well," said the father; "that is all for the best. Twins never do very
+ well, any how."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next morning the son reported the death of the other lamb, and the old
+ man said, "Well, that is all for the best; the old ewe will have more
+ wool."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next morning the son said, "The old ewe is dead."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well," replied the old man; "that may be for the best, but I don't see it
+ this morning."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Hamlin has the goodness to say that my influence is on the
+ wane. This is an admission that I have some, for which I am greatly
+ obliged to him. He further states that all my arguments are easily
+ refuted, but fails to refute them on the ground that such refutation might
+ be an advertisement for me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if Mr. Hamlin would think a little, he would see that there are some
+ things in the lecture on "Superstition" worth the while even of a
+ Methodist minister to answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does Mr. Hamlin believe in the existence of the devil? If he does, will he
+ Have the goodness to say who created the devil? He may say that God
+ created him, as he is the creator of all. Then I ask Mr. Hamlin this
+ question: Why did God create a successful rival? When God created the
+ devil, did he not know at that time that he was to make this world? That
+ he was to create Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden, and did
+ he not know that this devil would tempt this Adam and Eve? That in
+ consequence of that they would fall? That in consequence of that he would
+ have to drown all their descendants except eight? That in consequence of
+ that he himself would have to be born into this world as a Judean peasant?
+ That he would have to be crucified and suffer for the sins of these people
+ who had been misled by this devil that he deliberately created, and that
+ after all he would be able only to save a few Methodists?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will the Rev. Mr. Hamlin have the goodness to answer this? He can answer
+ it as mildly as he pleases, so that in any event it will be no
+ advertisement for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. F. J. Belcher pays me a great compliment, for which I now
+ return my thanks. He has the goodness to say, "Ingersoll in many respects
+ is like Voltaire." I think no finer compliment has been paid me by any
+ gentleman occupying a pulpit, for many years, and again I thank the Rev.
+ Mr. Belcher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. W. D. Buchanan, does not seem to be quite fair. He says that
+ every utterance of mine impresses men with my insincerity, and that every
+ argument I bring forward is specious, and that I spend my time in ringing
+ the changes on arguments that have been answered over and over again for
+ hundreds of years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Dr. Buchanan should remember that he ought not to attack motives;
+ that you cannot answer an argument by vilifying the man who makes it. You
+ must answer not the man, but the argument.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing this reverend gentleman should remember, and that is that no
+ argument is old until it has been answered. An argument that has not been
+ answered, although it has been put forward for many centuries, is still as
+ fresh as a flower with the dew on its breast. It never is old until it has
+ been answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is well enough for this gentleman to say that these arguments have been
+ answered, and if they have and he knows that they have, of course it will
+ be but a little trouble to him to repeat these answers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my dear Dr. Buchanan, I wish to ask you some questions. Do you
+ believe in a personal devil? Do you believe that the bodies of men and
+ women become tenements for little imps and goblins and demons? Do you
+ believe that the devil used to lead men and women astray? Do you believe
+ the stories about devils that you find in the Old and New Testaments?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, do not tell me that these questions have been answered long ago.
+ Answer them now. And if you say the devil does exist, that he is a person,
+ that he is an enemy of God, then let me ask you another question: Why
+ should this devil punish souls in hell for rebelling against God? Why
+ should the devil, who is an enemy of God, help punish God's enemies? This
+ may have been answered many times, but one more repetition will do but
+ little harm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing: Do you believe in the eternity of punishment? Do you
+ believe that God is the keeper of an eternal prison, the doors of which
+ open only to receive sinners, and do you believe that eternal punishment
+ is the highest expression of justice and mercy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you had the power to change a stone into a human being, and you knew
+ that that human being would be a sinner and finally go to hell and suffer
+ eternal torture, would you not leave it stone? And if, knowing this, you
+ changed the stone into a man, would you not be a fiend? Now, answer this
+ fairly. I want nothing spiritual; nothing with the Presbyterian flavor;
+ just good, honest talk, and tell us how that is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say to you that if there is a place of eternal torment or misery for any
+ of the children of men&mdash;I say to you that your God is a wild beast,
+ an insane fiend, whom I abhor and despise with every drop of my blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time you may say whether you are up, according to Dr. Mac
+ Arthur, with the religious thinking of the hour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. J. W. Campbell I rather like. He appears to be absolutely
+ sincere. He is orthodox&mdash;true blue. He believes in a devil; in an
+ acting, thinking devil, and a clever devil. Of course he does not think
+ this devil is as stout as God, but he is quicker; not quite as wise, but a
+ little more cunning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Mr. Campbell, the devil is the bunco steerer of the universe&mdash;king
+ of the green goods men; but, after all, Mr. Campbell will not admit that
+ if this devil does not exist the Christian creeds all crumble, but I think
+ he will admit that if the devil does not exist, then Christ was mistaken,
+ or that the writers of the New Testament did not truthfully give us his
+ utterances.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if Christ was mistaken about the existence of the devil, may be he
+ was mistaken about the existence of God. In other words, if Christ made a
+ mistake, then he was ignorant. Then we cannot say he was divine, although
+ ignorance has generally believed in divinity. So I do not see exactly how
+ Mr. Campbell can say that if the devil does not exist the Christian creeds
+ do not crumble, and when I say Christian creeds I mean orthodox creeds. Is
+ there any orthodox Christian creed without the devil in it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if we throw away the devil we throw away original sin, the fall of
+ man, and we throw away the atonement. Of this arch the devil is the
+ keystone. Remove him, the arch falls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, how can you say that an orthodox Christian creed remains intact
+ without crumbling when original sin, the fall of man, the atonement and
+ the existence of the devil are all thrown aside?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course if you mean by Christianity, acting like Christ, being good,
+ forgiving, that is another matter, but that is not Christianity. Orthodox
+ Christians say that a man must believe on Christ, must have faith, and
+ that to act as Christ did, is not enough; that a man who acts exactly as
+ Christ did, dying without faith, would go to hell. So when Mr. Campbell
+ speaks of a Christian, I suppose he means an orthodox Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Dr. Campbell not only knows that the devil exists, but he knows a
+ good deal about him. He knows that he can assume every conceivable
+ disguise or shape; that he can go about like a roaring lion; that at
+ another time he is a god of this world; on another occasion a dragon, and
+ in the afternoon of the same day may be Lucifer, an angel of light, and
+ all the time, I guess, a prince of lies. So he often assumes the disguise
+ of the serpent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the Doctor thinks that when the devil invited Christ into the
+ wilderness to tempt him, that he adopted some disguise that made him more
+ than usually attractive. Does the Doctor think that Christ could not see
+ through the disguise? Was it possible for the devil with a mask to fool
+ God, his creator? Was it possible for the devil to tempt Christ by
+ offering him the kingdoms of the earth when they already belonged to
+ Christ, and when Christ knew that the devil had no title, and when the
+ devil knew that Christ knew that he had no title, and when the devil knew
+ that Christ knew that he was the devil, and when the devil knew that he
+ was Christ? Does the reverend gentleman still think that it was the
+ disguise of the devil that tempted Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like some of these questions answered, because I have a very
+ inquiring mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Mr. Campbell tells us&mdash;and it is very good and comforting of him&mdash;that
+ there is a time coming when the devil shall deceive the nations no more.
+ He also tells us that God is more powerful than the devil, and that he is
+ going to put an end to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will Mr. Campbell have the goodness to tell me why God made the devil? If
+ he is going to put an end to him why did he start him? Was it not a waste
+ of raw material to make him? Was it not unfair to let this devil, so
+ powerful, so cunning, so attractive, into the Garden of Eden, and put Adam
+ and Eve, who were then scarcely half dry, within his power, and not only
+ Adam and Eve within his power, but their descendants, so that the slime of
+ the serpent has been on every babe, and so that, in consequence of what
+ happened in the Garden of Eden, flames will surround countless millions in
+ the presence of the most merciful God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it may be that the Rev. Dr. Campbell can explain all these things. He
+ may not care to do it for my benefit, but let him think of his own
+ congregation; of the lambs he is protecting from the wolves of doubt and
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Henry Frank appears to be a man of exceedingly good sense; one
+ who thinks for himself, and who has the courage of his convictions. Of
+ course I am sorry that he does not agree with me, but I have become used
+ to that, and so I thank him for the truths he utters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He does not believe in the existence of a personal devil, and I guess by
+ following him up we would find that he did not believe in the existence of
+ a personal God, or in the inspiration of the Scriptures. In fact, he tells
+ us that he has given up the infallibility of the Bible. At the same time,
+ he says it is the most perfect compendium of religious and moral thought.
+ In that I think he is a little mistaken. There is a vast deal of
+ irreligion in the Bible, and there is a good deal of immoral thought in
+ the Bible; but I agree with him that it is neither inspired nor
+ infallible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. E. C. J. Kraeling, pastor of the Zion Lutheran Church, declares
+ that those who do not believe in a personal God do not believe in a
+ personal Satan, and <i>vice versa</i>. The one, he says, necessitates the
+ other. In this I do not think he is quite correct. I think many people
+ believe in a personal God who do not believe in a personal devil, but I
+ know of none who do believe in a personal devil who do not also believe in
+ a personal God. The orthodox generally believe in both of them, and for
+ many centuries Christians spoke with great respect of the devil. They were
+ afraid of him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I agree with the Rev. Mr. Kraeling when he says that to deny a
+ personal Satan is to deny the infallibility of God's word. I agree with
+ this because I suppose by "God's word" he means the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He further says, and I agree with him, that a "Christian" needs no
+ scientific argument on which to base his belief in the personality of
+ Satan. That certainly is true, and if a Christian does need a scientific
+ argument it is equally true that he never will have one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see this word "Science" means something that somebody knows; not
+ something that somebody guesses, or wishes, or hopes, or believes, but
+ something that somebody knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there cannot be any scientific argument proving the existence of
+ the devil. At the same time I admit, as the Rev. Mr. Kraeling says, and I
+ thank him for his candor, that the Bible does prove the existence of the
+ devil from Genesis to the. Apocalypse, and I do agree with him that the
+ "revealed word" teaches the existence of a personal devil, and that all
+ truly orthodox Christians believe that there is a personal devil, and the
+ Rev. Mr. Kraeling proves this by the fall of man, and he proves that
+ without this devil there could be no redemption for the evil spirits; so
+ he brings forward the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. At the same
+ time that Mr. Kraeling agrees with me as to what the Bible says, he
+ insists that I bring no arguments, that I blaspheme, and then he drops
+ into humor and says that if any further arguments are needed to prove the
+ existence of the devil, that I furnish them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How a man believing the creed of the orthodox Mr. Kraeling can have
+ anything like a sense of humor is beyond even my imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I want to ask Mr. Kraeling a few questions, and I will ask him the
+ same questions that I ask all orthodox people in my lecture on
+ "Superstition."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Mr. Kraeling believes that this world was created by a being of
+ infinite wisdom, power and goodness, and that the world he created has
+ been governed by him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me ask the reverend gentleman a few plain questions, with the
+ request that he answer them without mist or mystery. If you, Mr. Kraeling,
+ had the power to make a world, would you make an exact copy of this? Would
+ you make a man and woman, put them in a garden, knowing that they would be
+ deceived, knowing that they would fall? Knowing that all the consequences
+ believed in by orthodox Christians would follow from that fall? Would you
+ do it? And would you make your world so as to provide for earthquakes and
+ cyclones? Would you create the seeds of disease and scatter them in the
+ air and water? Would you so arrange matters as to produce cancers? Would
+ you provide for plague and pestilence? Would you so make your world that
+ life should feed on life, that the quivering flesh should be torn by tooth
+ and beak and claw? Would you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, answer fairly. Do not quote Scripture; just answer, and be honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would you make different races of men? Would you make them of different
+ colors, and would you so make them that they would persecute and enslave
+ each other? Would you so arrange matters that millions and millions should
+ toil through many generations, paid only by the lash on the back? Would
+ you have it so that millions and millions of babes would be sold from the
+ breasts of mothers? Be honest, would you provide for religious
+ persecution? For the invention and use of instruments of torture? Would
+ you see to it that the rack was not forgotten, and that the fagot was not
+ overlooked or unlighted? Would you make a world in which the wrong would
+ triumph? Would you make a world in which innocence would not be a shield?
+ Would you make a world where the best would be loaded with chains? Where
+ the best would die in the darkness of dungeons? Where the best would make
+ scaffolds sacred with their blood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would you make a world where hypocrisy and cunning and fraud should
+ represent God, and where meanness would suck the blood of honest
+ credulity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would you provide for the settlement of all difficulties by war? Would you
+ so make your world that the weak would bear the burdens, so that woman
+ would be a slave, so that children would be trampled upon as though they
+ were poisonous reptiles? Would you fill the woods with wild beasts? Would
+ you make a few volcanoes to overwhelm your children? Would you provide for
+ earthquakes that would swallow them? Would you make them ignorant, savage,
+ and fill their minds with all the phantoms of horror? Would you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it will only take you a few moments to answer these questions, and if
+ you say you would, then I shall be satisfied that you believe in the
+ orthodox God, and that you are as bad as he. If you say you would not, I
+ will admit that there is a little dawn of intelligence in your brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time I want it understood with regard to all these ministers
+ that I am a friend of theirs. I am trying to civilize their congregations,
+ so that the congregations may allow the ministers to develop, to grow, to
+ become really and truly intelligent. The process is slow, but it is sure.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+7 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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+
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+ PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
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+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
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+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
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+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+</style>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 8
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 8 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Interviews
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38808]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h4>
+ "HAPPINESS IS THE ONLY GOOD, REASON THE ONLY<br /> TORCH, JUSTICE THE ONLY
+ WORSHIP, HUMANITY THE<br /> ONLY RELIGION, AND LOVE THE ONLY PRIEST."<br />
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME VIII.
+ </h3>
+ <h3>
+ INTERVIEWS
+ </h3>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <h3>
+ Dresden Edition
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38808/old/orig38808-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (62K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="frontispiece (64K)" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h4> "<i>With daughters' babes upon his knees, the white hair mingling
+ with the gold</i>."</h4>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">INTERVIEWS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">THE BIBLE AND A FUTURE LIFE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">MRS. VAN COTT, THE REVIVALIST</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">EUROPEAN TRIP AND GREENBACK QUESTION</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">THE SOLID SOUTH AND RESUMPTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">THE SUNDAY LAWS OF PITTSBURG.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">POLITICS AND GEN. GRANT</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">POLITICS, RELIGION AND THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">REPLY TO CHICAGO CRITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">THE REPUBLICAN VICTORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">INGERSOLL AND BEECHER.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">POLITICAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">RELIGION IN POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">MIRACLES AND IMMORTALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0018">MR. BEECHER, MOSES AND THE NEGRO.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0019">HADES, DELAWARE AND FREETHOUGHT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0020">A REPLY TO THE REV. MR. LANSING.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0021">BEACONSFIELD, LENT AND REVIVALS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0022">ANSWERING THE NEW YORK MINISTERS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0023">GUITEAU AND HIS CRIME.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0024">DISTRICT SUFFRAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0025">FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0026">STAR ROUTE AND POLITICS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0027">THE INTERVIEWER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0028">POLITICS AND PROHIBITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0029">THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0030">THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0031">JUSTICE HARLAN AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0032">POLITICS AND THEOLOGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0033">MORALITY AND IMMORTALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0034">POLITICS, MORMONISM AND MR. BEECHER</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0035">FREE TRADE AND CHRISTIANITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0036">THE OATH QUESTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0037">WENDELL PHILLIPS, FITZ JOHN PORTER AND BISMARCK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0038">GENERAL SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0039">REPLY TO KANSAS CITY CLERGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0040">SWEARING AND AFFIRMING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0041">REPLY TO A BUFFALO CRITIC.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0042">BLASPHEMY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0043">POLITICS AND BRITISH COLUMBIA.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0044">INGERSOLL CATECHISED.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0045">BLAINE'S DEFEAT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0046">BLAINE'S DEFEAT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0047">PLAGIARISM AND POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0048">RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0049">CLEVELAND AND HIS CABINET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0050">RELIGION, PROHIBITION, AND GEN. GRANT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0051">HELL OR SHEOL AND OTHER SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0052">INTERVIEWING, POLITICS AND SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0053">MY BELIEF.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0054">SOME LIVE TOPICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0055">THE PRESIDENT AND SENATE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0056">ATHEISM AND CITIZENSHIP.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0057">THE LABOR QUESTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0058">RAILROADS AND POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0059">PROHIBITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0060">HENRY GEORGE AND LABOR.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0061">LABOR QUESTION AND SOCIALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0062">HENRY GEORGE AND SOCIALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0063">REPLY TO THE REV. B. F. MORSE.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0064">INGERSOLL ON McGLYNN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0065">TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0066">THE STAGE AND THE PULPIT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0067">ROSCOE CONKLING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0068">THE CHURCH AND THE STAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0069">PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0070">LABOR, AND TARIFF REFORM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0071">CLEVELAND AND THURMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0072">THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1888.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0073">JAMES G. BLAINE AND POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0074">THE MILLS BILL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0075">SOCIETY AND ITS CRIMINALS*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0076">WOMAN'S RIGHT TO DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0077">SECULARISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0078">SUMMER RECREATION&mdash;MR. GLADSTONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0079">PROHIBITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0080">ROBERT ELSMERE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0081">WORKING GIRLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0082">PROTECTION FOR AMERICAN ACTORS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0083">LIBERALS AND LIBERALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0084">POPE LEO XIII.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0085">THE SACREDNESS OF THE SABBATH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0086">THE WEST AND SOUTH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0087">THE WESTMINSTER CREED AND OTHER SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0088">SHAKESPEARE AND BACON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0089">GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY, AND PRESBYTERIANISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0090">CREEDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0091">THE TENDENCY OF MODERN THOUGHT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0092">WOMAN SUFFRAGE, HORSE RACING, AND MONEY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0093">MISSIONARIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0094">MY BELIEF AND UNBELIEF.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0095">MUST RELIGION GO?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0096">WORD PAINTING AND COLLEGE EDUCATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0097">PERSONAL MAGNETISM AND THE SUNDAY QUESTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0098">AUTHORS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0099">INEBRIETY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0100">MIRACLES, THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0101">TOLSTOY AND LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0102">WOMAN IN POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0103">SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0104">PLAYS AND PLAYERS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0105">WOMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0106">STRIKES, EXPANSION AND OTHER SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0107">SUNDAY A DAY OF PLEASURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0108">THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0109">CLEVELAND'S HAWAIIAN POLICY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0110">ORATORS AND ORATORY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0111">CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM. THE POPE, THE A. P. A.,
+ AGNOSTICISM</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0112">WOMAN AND HER DOMAIN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0113">PROFESSOR SWING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0114">SENATOR SHERMAN AND HIS BOOK.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0115">REPLY TO THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORERS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0116">SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0117">A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0118">IS LIFE WORTH LIVING&mdash;CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND
+ POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0119">VIVISECTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0120">DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0121">MUSIC, NEWSPAPERS, LYNCHING AND ARBITRATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0122">A VISIT TO SHAW'S GARDEN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0123">THE VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISCUSSION AND THE
+ WHIPPING-POST.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0124">COLONEL SHEPARD'S STAGE HORSES.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0125">A REPLY TO THE REV. L. A. BANKS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0126">CUBA&mdash;ZOLA AND THEOSOPHY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0127">HOW TO BECOME AN ORATOR.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0128">JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG AND EXPANSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0129">PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE BIBLE.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0130">THIS CENTURY'S GLORIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0131">CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE WHIPPING-POST.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0132">EXPANSION AND TRUSTS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INTERVIEWS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE BIBLE AND A FUTURE LIFE
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, are your views of religion based upon the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I regard the Bible, especially the Old Testament, the same
+ as I do most other ancient books, in which there is some truth, a great
+ deal of error, considerable barbarism and a most plentiful lack of good
+ sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you found any other work, sacred or profane, which
+ you regard as more reliable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I know of no book less so, in my judgment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have studied the Bible attentively, have you not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have read the Bible. I have heard it talked about a good
+ deal, and am sufficiently well acquainted with it to justify my own mind
+ in utterly rejecting all claims made for its divine origin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you base your views upon?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. On reason, observation, experience, upon the discoveries in
+ science, upon observed facts and the analogies properly growing out of
+ such facts. I have no confidence in anything pretending to be outside, or
+ independent of, or in any manner above nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. According to your views, what disposition is made of man
+ after death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Upon that subject I know nothing. It is no more wonderful
+ that man should live again than he now lives; upon that question I know of
+ no evidence. The doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. We
+ love, therefore we wish to live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then you would not undertake to say what becomes of man
+ after death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If I told or pretended to know what becomes of man after
+ death, I would be as dogmatic as are theologians upon this question. The
+ difference between them and me is, I am honest. I admit that I do not
+ know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Judging by your criticism of mankind, Colonel, in your
+ recent lecture, you have not found his condition very satisfactory?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nature, outside of man, so far as I know, is neither cruel
+ nor merciful. I am not satisfied with the present condition of the human
+ race, nor with the condition of man during any period of which we have any
+ knowledge. I believe, however, the condition of man is improved, and this
+ improvement is due to his own exertions. I do not make nature a being. I
+ do not ascribe to nature intentions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is your theory, Colonel, the result of investigation of
+ the subject?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No one can control his own opinion or his own belief. My
+ belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. I am the product of all
+ circumstances that have in any way touched me. I believe in this world. I
+ have no confidence in any religion promising joys in another world at the
+ expense of liberty and happiness in this. At the same time, I wish to give
+ others all the rights I claim for myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If I asked for proofs for your theory, what would you
+ furnish?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The experience of every man who is honest with himself,
+ every fact that has been discovered in nature. In addition to these, the
+ utter and total failure of all religionists in all countries to produce
+ one particle of evidence showing the existence of any supernatural power
+ whatever, and the further fact that the people are not satisfied with
+ their religion. They are continually asking for evidence. They are asking
+ it in every imaginable way. The sects are continually dividing. There is
+ no real religious serenity in the world. All religions are opponents of
+ intellectual liberty. I believe in absolute mental freedom. Real religion
+ with me is a thing not of the head, but of the heart; not a theory, not a
+ creed, but a life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What punishment, then, is inflicted upon man for his
+ crimes and wrongs committed in this life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is no such thing as intellectual crime. No man can
+ commit a mental crime. To become a crime it must go beyond thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What punishment is there for physical crime?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Such punishment as is necessary to protect society and for
+ the reformation of the criminal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If there is only punishment in this world, will not some
+ escape punishment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I admit that all do not seem to be punished as they
+ deserve. I also admit that all do not seem to be rewarded as they deserve;
+ and there is in this world, apparently, as great failures in matter of
+ reward as in matter of punishment. If there is another life, a man will be
+ happier there for acting according to his highest ideal in this. But I do
+ not discern in nature any effort to do justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Post</i>, Washington, D. C., 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MRS. VAN COTT, THE REVIVALIST
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see, Colonel, that in an interview published this
+ morning, Mrs. Van Cott (the revivalist), calls you "a poor barking dog."
+ Do you know her personally?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have never met or seen her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you know the reason she applied the epithet?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose it to be the natural result of what is called
+ vital piety; that is to say, universal love breeds individual hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you intend making any reply to what she says?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have written her a note of which this is a copy:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ <i>Buffalo, Feb. 24th, 1878.</i>
+MRS. VAN COTT;
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ My dear Madam:&mdash;Were you constrained by the love of Christ to call a
+ man who has never injured you "a poor barking dog?" Did you make this
+ remark as a Christian, or as a lady? Did you say these words to illustrate
+ in some faint degree the refining influence upon women of the religion you
+ preach?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would you think of me if I should retort, using your language,
+ changing only the sex of the last word?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have the honor to remain,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yours truly,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ R. G. INGERSOLL
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Well, what do you think of the religious revival system
+ generally?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The fire that has to be blown all the time is a poor thing
+ to get warm by. I regard these revivals as essentially barbaric. I think
+ they do no good, but much harm, they make innocent people think they are
+ guilty, and very mean people think they are good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion concerning women as conductors of
+ these revivals?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose those engaged in them think they are doing good.
+ They are probably honest. I think, however, that neither men nor women
+ should be engaged in frightening people into heaven. That is all I wish to
+ say on the subject, as I do not think it worth talking about.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Express</i>, Buffalo, New York, Feb., 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ EUROPEAN TRIP AND GREENBACK QUESTION
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What did you do on your European trip, Colonel?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I went with my family from New York to Southampton,
+ England, thence to London, and from London to Edinburgh. In Scotland I
+ visited every place where Burns had lived, from the cottage where he was
+ born to the room where he died. I followed him from the cradle to the
+ coffin. I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the purpose of seeing all that I
+ could in any way connected with Shakespeare; next to London, where we
+ visited again all the places of interest, and thence to Paris, where we
+ spent a couple of weeks in the Exposition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. And what did you think of it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. So far as machinery&mdash;so far as the practical is
+ concerned, it is not equal to ours in Philadelphia; in art it is
+ incomparably beyond it. I was very much gratified to find so much evidence
+ in favor of my theory that the golden age in art is in front of us; that
+ mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect pair and
+ immediately commence to degenerate. The modern painters and sculptors are
+ far better and grander than the ancient. I think we excel in fine arts as
+ much as we do in agricultural implements. Nothing pleased me more than the
+ painting from Holland, because they idealized and rendered holy the
+ ordinary avocations of life. They paint cottages with sweet mothers and
+ children; they paint homes. They are not much on Ariadnes and Venuses, but
+ they paint good women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What did you think of the American display?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Our part of the Exposition is good, but nothing to what is
+ should and might have been, but we bring home nearly as many medals as we
+ took things. We lead the world in machinery and in ingenious inventions,
+ and some of our paintings were excellent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, crossing the Atlantic back to America, what do
+ you think of the Greenback movement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In regard to the Greenback party, in the first place, I am
+ not a believer in miracles. I do not believe that something can be made
+ out of nothing. The Government, in my judgment, cannot create money; the
+ Government can give its note, like an individual, and the prospect of its
+ being paid determines its value. We have already substantially resumed.
+ Every piece of property that has been shrinking has simply been resuming.
+ We expended during the war&mdash;not for the useful, but for the useless,
+ not to build up, but to destroy&mdash;at least one thousand million
+ dollars. The Government was an enormous purchaser; when the war ceased the
+ industries of the country lost their greatest customer. As a consequence
+ there was a surplus of production, and consequently a surplus of labor. At
+ last we have gotten back, and the country since the war has produced over
+ and above the cost of production, something near the amount that was lost
+ during the war. Our exports are about two hundred million dollars more
+ than our imports, and this is a healthy sign. There are, however, five or
+ six hundred thousand men, probably, out of employment; as prosperity
+ increases this number will decrease. I am in favor of the Government doing
+ something to ameliorate the condition of these men. I would like to see
+ constructed the Northern and Southern Pacific railroads; this would give
+ employment at once to many thousands, and homes after awhile to millions.
+ All the signs of the times to me are good. The wretched bankrupt law, at
+ last, is wiped from the statute books, and honest people in a short time
+ can get plenty of credit. This law should have been repealed years before
+ it was. It would have been far better to have had all who have gone into
+ bankruptcy during these frightful years to have done so at once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What will be the political effect of the Greenback
+ movement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The effect in Maine has been to defeat the Republican
+ party. I do not believe any party can permanently succeed in the United
+ States that does not believe in and advocate actual money. I want to see
+ the greenback equal with gold the world round. A money below par keeps the
+ people below par. No man can possibly be proud of a country that is not
+ willing to pay its debts. Several of the States this fall may be carried
+ by the Greenback party, but if I have a correct understanding of their
+ views, that party cannot hold any State for any great length of time. But
+ all the men of wealth should remember that everybody in the community has
+ got, in some way, to be supported. I want to see them so that they can
+ support themselves by their own labor. In my judgment real prosperity will
+ begin with actual resumption, because confidence will then return. If the
+ workingmen of the United States cannot make their living, cannot have the
+ opportunity to labor, they have got to be supported in some way, and in
+ any event, I want to see a liberal policy inaugurated by the Government. I
+ believe in improving rivers and harbors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe the trans-continental commerce of this country should
+ depend on one railroad. I want new territories opened. I want to see
+ American steamships running to all the great ports of the world. I want to
+ see our flag flying on all the seas and in all the harbors. We have the
+ best country, and, in my judgment, the best people in the world, and we
+ ought to be the most prosperous nation on the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then you only consider the Greenback movement a temporary
+ thing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; I do not believe that there is anything permanent in
+ anything that is not sound, that has not a perfectly sound foundation, and
+ I mean sound, sound in every sense of that word. It must be wise and
+ honest. We have plenty of money; the trouble is to get it. If the
+ Greenbackers will pass a law furnishing all of us with collaterals, there
+ certainly would be no trouble about getting the money. Nothing can
+ demonstrate more fully the plentifulness of money than the fact that
+ millions of four per cent. bonds have been taken in the United States. The
+ trouble is, business is scarce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But do you not think the Greenback movement will help the
+ Democracy to success in 1880?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the Greenback movement will injure the Republican
+ party much more than the Democratic party. Whether that injury will reach
+ as far as 1880 depends simply upon one thing. If resumption&mdash;in spite
+ of all the resolutions to the contrary&mdash; inaugurates an era of
+ prosperity, as I believe and hope it will, then it seems to me that the
+ Republican party will be as strong in the North as in its palmiest days.
+ Of course I regard most of the old issues as settled, and I make this
+ statement simply because I regard the financial issue as the only living
+ one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I have no idea who will be the Democratic candidate, but I
+ suppose the South will be solid for the Democratic nominee, unless the
+ financial question divides that section of the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. With a solid South do you not think the Democratic
+ nominee will stand a good chance?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly, he will stand the best chance if the Democracy
+ is right on the financial question; if it will cling to its old idea of
+ hard money, he will. If the Democrats will recognize that the issues of
+ the war are settled, then I think that party has the best chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But if it clings to soft money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Then I think it will be beaten, if by soft money it means
+ the payment of one promise with another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You consider Greenbackers inflationists, do you not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose the Greenbackers to be the party of inflation. I
+ am in favor of inflation produced by industry. I am in favor of the
+ country being inflated with corn, with wheat, good houses, books,
+ pictures, and plenty of labor for everybody. I am in favor of being
+ inflated with gold and silver, but I do not believe in the inflation of
+ promise, expectation and speculation. I sympathize with every man who is
+ willing to work and cannot get it, and I sympathize to that degree that I
+ would like to see the fortunate and prosperous taxed to support his
+ unfortunate brother until labor could be found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Greenback party seems to think credit is just as good as gold. While
+ the credit lasts this is so; but the trouble is, whenever it is
+ ascertained that the gold is gone or cannot be produced the credit takes
+ wings. The bill of a perfectly solvent bank may circulate for years. Now,
+ because nobody demands the gold on that bill it doesn't follow that the
+ bill would be just as good without any gold behind it. The idea that you
+ can have the gold whenever you present the bill gives it its value. To
+ illustrate: A poor man buys soup tickets. He is not hungry at the time of
+ purchase, and will not be for some hours. During those hours the Greenback
+ gentlemen argue that there is no use of keeping any soup on hand with
+ which to redeem these tickets, and from this they further argue that if
+ they can be good for a few hours without soup, why not forever? And they
+ would be, only the holder gets hungry. Until he is hungry, of course, he
+ does not care whether any soup is on hand or not, but when he presents his
+ ticket he wants his soup, and the idea that he can have the soup when he
+ does present the ticket gives it its value. And so I regard bank notes,
+ without gold and silver, as of the same value as tickets without soup.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Post</i>, Washington, D. C., 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Pre-Millennial Conference that
+ was held in New York City recently?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I think that all who attended it were believers in
+ the Bible, and any one who believes in prophecies and looks to their
+ fulfillment will go insane. A man that tries from Daniel's ram with three
+ horns and five tails and his deformed goats to ascertain the date of the
+ second immigration of Christ to this world is already insane. It all shows
+ that the moment we leave the realm of fact and law we are adrift on the
+ wide and shoreless sea of theological speculation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think there will be a second coming?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, not as long as the church is in power. Christ will
+ never again visit this earth until the Freethinkers have control. He will
+ certainly never allow another church to get hold of him. The very persons
+ who met in New York to fix the date of his coming would despise him and
+ the feeling would probably be mutual. In his day Christ was an Infidel,
+ and made himself unpopular by denouncing the church as it then existed. He
+ called them liars, hypocrites, thieves, vipers, whited sepulchres and
+ fools. From the description given of the church in that day, I am afraid
+ that should he come again, he would be provoked into using similar
+ language. Of course, I admit there are many good people in the church,
+ just as there were some good Pharisees who were opposed to the
+ crucifixion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Express</i>, Buffalo, New York, Nov. 4th, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE SOLID SOUTH AND RESUMPTION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, to start with, what do you think of the solid
+ South?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the South is naturally opposed to the Republican
+ party; more, I imagine, to the name, than to the personnel of the
+ organization. But the South has just as good friends in the Republican
+ party as in the Democratic party. I do not think there are any Republicans
+ who would not rejoice to see the South prosperous and happy. I know of
+ none, at least. They will have to get over the prejudices born of
+ isolation. We lack direct and constant communication. I do not recollect
+ having seen a newspaper from the Gulf States for a long time. They, down
+ there, may imagine that the feeling in the North is the same as during the
+ war. But it certainly is not. The Northern people are anxious to be
+ friendly; and if they can be, without a violation of their principles,
+ they will be. Whether it be true or not, however, most of the Republicans
+ of the North believe that no Republican in the South is heartily welcome
+ in that section, whether he goes there from the North, or is a Southern
+ man. Personally, I do not care anything about partisan politics. I want to
+ see every man in the United States guaranteed the right to express his
+ choice at the ballot-box, and I do not want social ostracism to follow a
+ man, no matter how he may vote. A solid South means a solid North. A
+ hundred thousand Democratic majority in South Carolina means fifty
+ thousand Republican majority in New York in 1880. I hope the sections will
+ never divide, simply as sections. But if the Republican party is not
+ allowed to live in the South, the Democratic party certainly will not be
+ allowed to succeed in the North. I want to treat the people of the South
+ precisely as though the Rebellion had never occurred. I want all that
+ wiped from the slate of memory, and all I ask of the Southern people is to
+ give the same rights to the Republicans that we are willing to give to
+ them and have given to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you account for the results of the recent
+ elections?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Republican party won the recent election simply because
+ it was for honest money, and it was in favor of resumption. And if on the
+ first of January next, we resume all right, and maintain resumption, I see
+ no reason why the Republican party should not succeed in 1880. The
+ Republican party came into power at the commencement of the Rebellion, and
+ necessarily retained power until its close; and in my judgment, it will
+ retain power so long as in the horizon of credit there is a cloud of
+ repudiation as large as a man's hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think resumption will work out all right?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do. I think that on the first of January the greenback
+ will shake hands with gold on an equality, and in a few days thereafter
+ will be worth just a little bit more. Everything has resumed, except the
+ Government. All the property has resumed, all the lands, bonds and
+ mortgages and stocks. All these things resumed long ago&mdash;that is to
+ say, they have touched the bottom. Now, there is no doubt that the party
+ that insists on the Government paying all its debts will hold control, and
+ no one will get his hand on the wheel who advocates repudiation in any
+ form. There is one thing we must do, though. We have got to put more
+ silver in our dollars. I do not think you can blame the New York banks&mdash;any
+ bank &mdash;for refusing to take eighty-eight cents for a dollar. Neither
+ can you blame any depositor who puts gold in the bank for demanding gold
+ in return. Yes, we must have in the silver dollar a dollar's worth of
+ silver.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Commercial</i>, Cincinnati, Ohio, November, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE SUNDAY LAWS OF PITTSBURG.*
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, what do you think of the course the Mayor has
+ pursued toward you in attempting to stop your lecture?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I know very little except what I have seen in the morning
+ paper. As a general rule, laws should be enforced or repealed; and so far
+ as I am personally concerned, I shall not so much complain of the
+ enforcing of the law against Sabbath breaking as of the fact that such a
+ law exists. We have fallen heir to these laws. They were passed by
+ superstition, and the enlightened people of to-day should repeal them.
+ Ministers should not expect to fill their churches by shutting up other
+ places. They can only increase their congregations by improving their
+ sermons. They will have more hearers when they say more worth hearing. I
+ have no idea that the Mayor has any prejudice against me personally and if
+ he only enforces the law, I shall have none against him. If my lectures
+ were free the ministers might have the right to object, but as I charge
+ one dollar admission and they nothing, they ought certainly be able to
+ compete with me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Don't you think it is the duty of the Mayor, as chief
+ executive of the city laws, to enforce the ordinances and pay no attention
+ to what the statutes say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose it to be the duty of the Mayor to enforce the
+ ordinance of the city and if the ordinance of the city covers the same
+ ground as the law of the State, a conviction under the ordinance would be
+ a bar to prosecution under the State law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If the ordinance exempts scientific, literary and
+ historical lectures, as it is said it does, will not that exempt you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, all my lectures are historical; that is, I speak of
+ many things that have happened. They are scientific because they are
+ filled with facts, and they are literary of course. I can conceive of no
+ address that is neither historical nor scientific, except sermons. They
+ fail to be historical because they treat of things that never happened and
+ they are certainly not scientific, as they contain no facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Suppose they arrest you what will you do?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I will examine the law and if convicted will pay the fine,
+ unless I think I can reverse the case by appeal. Of course I would like to
+ see all these foolish laws wiped from the statute books. I want the law so
+ that everybody can do just as he pleases on Sunday, provided he does not
+ interfere with the rights of others. I want the Christian, the Jew, the
+ Deist and the Atheist to be exactly equal before the law. I would fight
+ for the right of the Christian to worship God in his own way just as quick
+ as I would for the Atheist to enjoy music, flowers and fields. I hope to
+ see the time when even the poor people can hear the music of the finest
+ operas on Sunday. One grand opera with all its thrilling tones, will do
+ more good in touching and elevating the world than ten thousand sermons on
+ the agonies of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you ever been interfered with before in delivering
+ Sunday lectures?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, I postponed a lecture in Baltimore at the request of
+ the owners of a theatre because they were afraid some action might be
+ taken. That is the only case. I have delivered lectures on Sunday in the
+ principal cities of the United States, in New York, Boston, Buffalo,
+ Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati and many other places. I lectured here
+ last winter; it was on Sunday and I heard nothing of its being contrary to
+ law. I always supposed my lectures were good enough to be delivered on the
+ most sacred days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Leader</i>, Pittsburg, Pa., October 27, 1879.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* The manager of the theatre, where Col. Ingersoll
+ lectured, was fined fifty dollars which Col. Ingersoll
+ paid.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think about the recent election, and what
+ will be its effect upon political matters and the issues and candidates of
+ 1880?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the Republicans have met with this almost universal
+ success on account, first, of the position taken by the Democracy on the
+ currency question; that is to say, that party was divided, and was willing
+ to go in partnership with anybody, whatever their doctrines might be, for
+ the sake of success in that particular locality. The Republican party felt
+ it of paramount importance not only to pay the debt, but to pay it in that
+ which the world regards as money. The next reason for the victory is the
+ position assumed by the Democracy in Congress during the called session.
+ The threats they then made of what they would do in the event that the
+ executive did not comply with their demands, showed that the spirit of the
+ party had not been chastened to any considerable extent by the late war.
+ The people of this country will not, in my judgment, allow the South to
+ take charge of this country until they show their ability to protect the
+ rights of citizens in their respective States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then, as you regard the victories, they are largely due
+ to a firm adherence to principle, and the failure of the Democratic party
+ is due to their abandonment of principle, and their desire to unite with
+ anybody and everything, at the sacrifice of principle, to attain success?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes. The Democratic party is a general desire for office
+ without organization. Most people are Democrats because they hate
+ something, most people are Republicans because they love something.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the election has brought about any
+ particular change in the issues that will be involved in the campaign of
+ 1880?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the only issue is who shall rule the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think, then, the question of State Rights, hard or
+ soft money and other questions that have been prominent in the campaign
+ are practically settled, and so regarded by the people?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the money question is, absolutely. I think the
+ question of State Rights is dead, except that it can still be used to
+ defeat the Democracy. It is what might be called a convenient political
+ corpse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Now, to leave the political field and go to the religious
+ at one jump&mdash;since your last visit here much has been said and
+ written and published to the effect that a great change, or a considerable
+ change at least, had taken place in your religious, or irreligious views.
+ I would like to know if that is so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The only change that has occurred in my religious views is
+ the result of finding more and more arguments in favor of my position,
+ and, as a consequence, if there is any difference, I am stronger in my
+ convictions than ever before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I would like to know something of the history of your
+ religious views?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I may say right here that the Christian idea that any God
+ can make me his friend by killing mine is about a great mistake as could
+ be made. They seem to have the idea that just as soon as God kills all the
+ people that a person loves, he will then begin to love the Lord. What drew
+ my attention first to these questions was the doctrine of eternal
+ punishment. This was so abhorrent to my mind that I began to hate the book
+ in which it was taught. Then, in reading law, going back to find the
+ origin of laws, I found one had to go but a little way before the
+ legislator and priest united. This led me to a study of a good many of the
+ religions of the world. At first I was greatly astonished to find most of
+ them better than ours. I then studied our own system to the best of my
+ ability, and found that people were palming off upon children and upon one
+ another as the inspired word of God a book that upheld slavery, polygamy
+ and almost every other crime. Whether I am right or wrong, I became
+ convinced that the Bible is not an inspired book; and then the only
+ question for me to settle was as to whether I should say what I believed
+ or not. This really was not the question in my mind, because, before even
+ thinking of such a question, I expressed my belief, and I simply claim
+ that right and expect to exercise it as long as I live. I may be damned
+ for it in the next world, but it is a great source of pleasure to me in
+ this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is reported that you are the son of a Presbyterian
+ minister?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I am the son of a New School Presbyterian minister.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. About what age were you when you began this investigation
+ which led to your present convictions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I cannot remember when I believed the Bible doctrine of
+ eternal punishment. I have a dim recollection of hating Jehovah when I was
+ exceedingly small.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then your present convictions began to form themselves
+ while you were listening to the teachings of religion as taught by your
+ father?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, they did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Did you discuss the matter with him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I did for many years, and before he died he utterly gave up
+ the idea that this life is a period of probation. He utterly gave up the
+ idea of eternal punishment, and before he died he had the happiness of
+ believing that God was almost as good and generous as he was himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I suppose this gossip about a change in your religious
+ views arose or was created by the expression used at your brother's
+ funeral, "In the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can
+ hear the rustle of a wing"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I never willingly will destroy a solitary human hope. I
+ have always said that I did not know whether man was or was not immortal,
+ but years before my brother died, in a lecture entitled "The Ghosts,"
+ which has since been published, I used the following words: "The idea of
+ immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with
+ its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks
+ of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any
+ religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and
+ flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love
+ kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow&mdash;Hope, shining upon the
+ tears of grief."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The great objection to your teaching urged by your
+ enemies is that you constantly tear down, and never build up?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have just published a little book entitled, "Some
+ Mistakes of Moses," in which I have endeavored to give most of the
+ arguments I have urged against the Pentateuch in a lecture I delivered
+ under that title. The motto on the title page is, "A destroyer of weeds,
+ thistles and thorns is a benefactor, whether he soweth grain or not." I
+ cannot for my life see why one should be charged with tearing down and not
+ rebuilding simply because he exposes a sham, or detects a lie. I do not
+ feel under any obligation to build something in the place of a detected
+ falsehood. All I think I am under obligation to put in the place of a
+ detected lie is the detection. Most religionists talk as if mistakes were
+ valuable things and they did not wish to part with them without a
+ consideration. Just how much they regard lies worth a dozen I do not know.
+ If the price is reasonable I am perfectly willing to give it, rather than
+ to see them live and give their lives to the defence of delusions. I am
+ firmly convinced that to be happy here will not in the least detract from
+ our happiness in another world should we be so fortunate as to reach
+ another world; and I cannot see the value of any philosophy that reaches
+ beyond the intelligent happiness of the present. There may be a God who
+ will make us happy in another world. If he does, it will be more than he
+ has accomplished in this. I suppose that he will never have more than
+ infinite power and never have less than infinite wisdom, and why people
+ should expect that he should do better in another world than he has in
+ this is something that I have never been able to explain. A being who has
+ the power to prevent it and yet who allows thousands and millions of his
+ children to starve; who devours them with earthquakes; who allows whole
+ nations to be enslaved, cannot in my judgment be implicitly be depended
+ upon to do justice in another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do the clergy generally treat you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, of course there are the same distinctions among
+ clergymen as among other people. Some of them are quite respectable
+ gentlemen, especially those with whom I am not acquainted. I think that
+ since the loss of my brother nothing could exceed the heartlessness of the
+ remarks made by the average clergyman. There have been some noble
+ exceptions, to whom I feel not only thankful but grateful; but a very
+ large majority have taken this occasion to say most unfeeling and brutal
+ things. I do not ask the clergy to forgive me, but I do request that they
+ will so act that I will not have to forgive them. I have always insisted
+ that those who love their enemies should at least tell the truth about
+ their friends, but I suppose, after all, that religion must be supported
+ by the same means as those by which it was founded. Of course, there are
+ thousands of good ministers, men who are endeavoring to make the world
+ better, and whose failure is no particular fault of their own. I have
+ always been in doubt as to whether the clergy were a necessary or an
+ unnecessary evil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I would like to have a positive expression of your views
+ as to a future state?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Somebody asked Confucius about another world, and his reply
+ was: "How should I know anything about another world when I know so little
+ of this?" For my part, I know nothing of any other state of existence,
+ either before or after this, and I have never become personally acquainted
+ with anybody that did. There may be another life, and if there is, the
+ best way to prepare for it is by making somebody happy in this. God
+ certainly cannot afford to put a man in hell who has made a little heaven
+ in this world. I propose simply to take my chances with the rest of the
+ folks, and prepare to go where the people I am best acquainted with will
+ probably settle. I cannot afford to leave the great ship and sneak off to
+ shore in some orthodox canoe. I hope there is another life, for I would
+ like to see how things come out in the world when I am dead. There are
+ some people I would like to see again, and hope there are some who would
+ not object to seeing me; but if there is no other life I shall never know
+ it. I do not remember a time when I did not exist; and if, when I die,
+ that is the end, I shall not know it, because the last thing I shall know
+ is that I am alive, and if nothing is left, nothing will be left to know
+ that I am dead; so that so far as I am concerned I am immortal; that is to
+ say, I cannot recollect when I did not exist, and there never will be a
+ time when I shall remember that I do not exist. I would like to have
+ several millions of dollars, and I may say that I have a lively hope that
+ some day I may be rich, but to tell you the truth I have very little
+ evidence of it. Our hope of immortality does not come from any religion,
+ but nearly all religions come from that hope. The Old Testament, instead
+ of telling us that we are immortal, tells us how we lost immortality. You
+ will recollect that if Adam and Eve could have gotten to the Tree of Life,
+ they would have eaten of its fruit and would have lived forever; but for
+ the purpose of preventing immortality God turned them out of the Garden of
+ Eden, and put certain angels with swords or sabres at the gate to keep
+ them from getting back. The Old Testament proves, if it proves anything&mdash;which
+ I do not think it does&mdash;that there is no life after this; and the New
+ Testament is not very specific on the subject. There were a great many
+ opportunities for the Saviour and his apostles to tell us about another
+ world, but they did not improve them to any great extent; and the only
+ evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no
+ evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and
+ wish we had. That is about my position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. According to your observation of men, and your reading in
+ relation to the men and women of the world and of the church, if there is
+ another world divided according to orthodox principles between the
+ orthodox and heterodox, which of the two that are known as heaven and hell
+ would contain, in your judgment, the most good society?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Since hanging has got to be a means of grace, I would
+ prefer hell. I had a thousand times rather associate with the Pagan
+ philosophers than with the inquisitors of the Middle Ages. I certainly
+ should prefer the worst man in Greek or Roman history to John Calvin; and
+ I can imagine no man in the world that I would not rather sit on the same
+ bench with than the Puritan fathers and the founders of orthodox churches.
+ I would trade off my harp any minute for a seat in the other country. All
+ the poets will be in perdition, and the greatest thinkers, and, I should
+ think, most of the women whose society would tend to increase the
+ happiness of man; nearly all the painters, nearly all the sculptors,
+ nearly all the writers of plays, nearly all the great actors, most of the
+ best musicians, and nearly all the good fellows&mdash;the persons who know
+ stories, who can sing songs, or who will loan a friend a dollar. They will
+ mostly all be in that country, and if I did not live there permanently, I
+ certainly would want it so I could spend my winter months there. But,
+ after all, what I really want to do is to destroy the idea of eternal
+ punishment. That doctrine subverts all ideas of justice. That doctrine
+ fills hell with honest men, and heaven with intellectual and moral
+ paupers. That doctrine allows people to sin on credit. That doctrine
+ allows the basest to be eternally happy and the most honorable to suffer
+ eternal pain. I think of all doctrines it is the most infinitely infamous,
+ and would disgrace the lowest savage; and any man who believes it, and has
+ imagination enough to understand it, has the heart of a serpent and the
+ conscience of a hyena.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Your objective point is to destroy the doctrine of hell,
+ is it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, because the destruction of that doctrine will do away
+ with all cant and all pretence. It will do away with all religious bigotry
+ and persecution. It will allow every man to think and to express his
+ thought. It will do away with bigotry in all its slimy and offensive
+ forms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Chicago Tribune</i>, November 14, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICS AND GEN. GRANT
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Some people have made comparisons between the late
+ Senators O. P. Morton and Zach. Chandler. What did you think of them,
+ Colonel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Morton had the best intellectual grasp of a
+ question of any man I ever saw. There was an infinite difference between
+ the two men. Morton's strength lay in proving a thing; Chandler's in
+ asserting it. But Chandler was a strong man and no hypocrite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you any objection to being interviewed as to your
+ ideas of Grant, and his position before the people?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have no reason for withholding my views on that or any
+ other subject that is under public discussion. My idea is that Grant can
+ afford to regard the presidency as a broken toy. It would add nothing to
+ his fame if he were again elected, and would add nothing to the debt of
+ gratitude which the people feel they owe him. I do not think he will be a
+ candidate. I do not think he wants it. There are men who are pushing him
+ on their own account. Grant was a great soldier. He won the respect of the
+ civilized world. He commanded the largest army that ever fought for
+ freedom, and to make him President would not add a solitary leaf to the
+ wreath of fame already on his brow; and should he be elected, the only
+ thing he could do would be to keep the old wreath from fading.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think his reputation can ever be as great in any direction as in
+ the direction of war. He has made his reputation and has lived his great
+ life. I regard him, confessedly, as the best soldier the Anglo-Saxon blood
+ has produced. I do not know that it necessarily follows because he is a
+ great soldier he is great in other directions. Probably some of the
+ greatest statesmen in the world would have been the worst soldiers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you regard him as more popular now than ever before?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that his reputation is certainly greater and higher
+ than when he left the presidency, and mainly because he has represented
+ this country with so much discretion and with such quiet, poised dignity
+ all around the world. He has measured himself with kings, and was able to
+ look over the heads of every one of them. They were not quite as tall as
+ he was, even adding the crown to their original height. I think he
+ represented us abroad with wonderful success. One thing that touched me
+ very much was, that at a reception given him by the workingmen of
+ Birmingham, after he had been received by royalty, he had the courage to
+ say that that reception gave him more pleasure than any other. He has been
+ throughout perfectly true to the genius of our institutions, and has not
+ upon any occasion exhibited the slightest toadyism. Grant is a man who is
+ not greatly affected by either flattery or abuse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you believe to be his position in regard to the
+ presidency?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My own judgment is that he does not care. I do not think he
+ has any enemies to punish, and I think that while he was President he
+ certainly rewarded most of his friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are your views as to a third term?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have no objection to a third term on principle, but so
+ many men want the presidency that it seems almost cruel to give a third
+ term to anyone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then, if there is no objection to a third term, what
+ about a fourth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not know that that could be objected to, either. We
+ have to admit, after all, that the American people, or at least a majority
+ of them, have a right to elect one man as often as they please.
+ Personally, I think it should not be done unless in the case of a man who
+ is prominent above the rest of his fellow-citizens, and whose election
+ appears absolutely necessary. But I frankly confess I cannot conceive of
+ any political situation where one man is a necessity. I do not believe in
+ the one-man-on-horseback idea, because I believe in all the people being
+ on horseback.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What will be the effect of the enthusiastic receptions
+ that are being given to General Grant?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think these ovations show that the people are resolved
+ not to lose the results of the great victories of the war, and that they
+ make known this determination by their attention to General Grant. I think
+ that if he goes through the principal cities of this country the old
+ spirit will be revived everywhere, and whether it makes him President or
+ not the result will be to make the election go Republican. The revival of
+ the memories of the war will bring the people of the North together as
+ closely as at any time since that great conflict closed, not in the spirit
+ of hatred, or malice or envy, but in generous emulation to preserve that
+ which was fairly won. I do not think there is any hatred about it, but we
+ are beginning to see that we must save the South ourselves, and that that
+ is the only way we can save the nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But suppose they give the same receptions in the South?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. So much the better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there any split in the solid South?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Some of the very best people in the South are apparently
+ disgusted with following the Democracy any longer, and would hail with
+ delight any opportunity they could reasonably take advantage of to leave
+ the organization, if they could do so without making it appear that they
+ were going back on Southern interests, and this opportunity will come when
+ the South becomes enlightened, and sees that it has no interests except in
+ common with the whole country. That I think they are beginning to see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you like the administration of President Hayes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think its attitude has greatly improved of late. There
+ are certain games of cards&mdash;pedro, for instance, where you can not
+ only fail to make something, but be set back. I think that Hayes's veto
+ messages very nearly got him back to the commencement of the game&mdash;that
+ he is now almost ready to commence counting, and make some points. His
+ position before the country has greatly improved, but he will not develop
+ into a dark horse. My preference is, of course, still for Blaine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Where do you think it is necessary the Republican
+ candidate should come from to insure success?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Somewhere out of Ohio. I think it will go to Maine, and for
+ this reason: First of all, Blaine is certainly a competent man of affairs,
+ a man who knows what to do at the time; and then he has acted in such a
+ chivalric way ever since the convention at Cincinnati, that those who
+ opposed him most bitterly, now have for him nothing but admiration. I
+ think John Sherman is a man of decided ability, but I do not believe the
+ American people would make one brother President, while the other is
+ General of the Army. It would be giving too much power to one family.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are your conclusions as to the future of the
+ Democratic party?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the Democratic party ought to disband. I think they
+ would be a great deal stronger disbanded, because they would get rid of
+ their reputation without decreasing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But if they will not disband?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Then the next campaign depends undoubtedly upon New York
+ and Indiana. I do not see how they can very well help nominating a man
+ from Indiana, and by that I mean Hendricks. You see the South has one
+ hundred and thirty-eight votes, all supposed to be Democratic; with the
+ thirty-five from New York and fifteen from Indiana they would have just
+ three to spare. Now, I take it, that the fifteen from Indiana are just
+ about as essential as the thirty- five from New York. To lack fifteen
+ votes is nearly as bad as being thirty-five short, and so far as drawing
+ salary is concerned it is quite as bad. Mr. Hendricks ought to know that
+ he holds the key to Indiana, and that there cannot be any possibility of
+ carrying this State for Democracy without him. He has tried running for
+ the vice-presidency, which is not much of a place anyhow&mdash;I would
+ about as soon be vice-mother-in-law&mdash;and my judgment is that he knows
+ exactly the value of his geographical position. New York is divided to
+ that degree that it would be unsafe to take a candidate from that State;
+ and besides, New York has become famous for furnishing defeated candidates
+ for the Democracy. I think the man must come from Indiana.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would the Democracy of New York unite on Seymour?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. You recollect what Lincoln said about the powder that had
+ been shot off once. I do not remember any man who has once made a race for
+ the presidency and been defeated ever being again nominated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What about Bayard and Hancock as candidates?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not see how Bayard could possibly carry Indiana, while
+ his own State is too small and too solidly Democratic. My idea of Bayard
+ is that he has not been good enough to be popular, and not bad enough to
+ be famous. The American people will never elect a President from a State
+ with a whipping-post. As to General Hancock, you may set it down as
+ certain that the South will never lend their aid to elect a man who helped
+ to put down the Rebellion. It would be just the same as the effort to
+ elect Greeley. It cannot be done. I see, by the way, that I am reported as
+ having said that David Davis, as the Democratic candidate, could carry
+ Illinois. I did say that in 1876, he could have carried it against Hayes;
+ but whether he could carry Illinois in 1880 would depend altogether upon
+ who runs against him. The condition of things has changed greatly in our
+ favor since 1876.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Journal</i>, Indianapolis, Ind., November, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICS, RELIGION AND THOMAS PAINE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have traveled about this State more or less, lately,
+ and have, of course, observed political affairs here. Do you think that
+ Senator Logan will be able to deliver this State to the Grant movement
+ according to the understood plan?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the State is really for Grant, he will, and if it is
+ not, he will not. Illinois is as little "owned" as any State in this
+ Union. Illinois would naturally be for Grant, other things being equal,
+ because he is regarded as a citizen of this State, and it is very hard for
+ a State to give up the patronage naturally growing out of the fact that
+ the President comes from that State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will the instructions given to delegates be final?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think they will be considered final at all;
+ neither do I think they will be considered of any force. It was decided at
+ the last convention, in Cincinnati, that the delegates had a right to vote
+ as they pleased; that each delegate represented the district of the State
+ that sent him. The idea that a State convention can instruct them as
+ against the wishes of their constituents smacks a little too much of State
+ sovereignty. The President should be nominated by the districts of the
+ whole country, and not by massing the votes by a little chicanery at a
+ State convention, and every delegate ought to vote what he really believes
+ to be the sentiment of his constituents, irrespective of what the State
+ convention may order him to do. He is not responsible to the State
+ convention, and it is none of the State convention's business. This does
+ not apply, it may be, to the delegates at large, but to all the others it
+ certainly must apply. It was so decided at the Cincinnati convention, and
+ decided on a question arising about this same Pennsylvania delegation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Can you guess as to what the platform in going to
+ contain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose it will be a substantial copy of the old one. I
+ am satisfied with the old one with one addition. I want a plank to the
+ effect that no man shall be deprived of any civil or political right on
+ account of his religious or irreligious opinions. The Republican party
+ having been foremost in freeing the body ought to do just a little
+ something now for the mind. After having wasted rivers of blood and
+ treasure uncounted, and almost uncountable, to free the cage, I propose
+ that something ought to be done for the bird. Every decent man in the
+ United States would support that plank. People should have a right to
+ testify in courts, whatever their opinions may be, on any subject. Justice
+ should not shut any door leading to truth, and as long as just views
+ neither affect a man's eyesight or his memory, he should be allowed to
+ tell his story. And there are two sides to this question, too. The man is
+ not only deprived of his testimony, but the commonwealth is deprived of
+ it. There should be no religious test in this country for office; and if
+ Jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a
+ State Legislature, I think he ought to give it up.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there anything new about religion since you were last
+ here?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Since I was here I have spoken in a great many cities, and
+ to-morrow I am going to do some missionary work at Milwaukee. Many who
+ have come to scoff have remained to pray, and I think that my labors are
+ being greatly blessed, and all attacks on me so far have been overruled
+ for good. I happened to come in contact with a revival of religion, and I
+ believe what they call an "outpouring" at Detroit, under the leadership of
+ a gentleman by the name of Pentecost. He denounced me as God's greatest
+ enemy. I had always supposed that the Devil occupied that exalted
+ position, but it seems that I have, in some way, fallen heir to his shoes.
+ Mr. Pentecost also denounced all business men who would allow any
+ advertisements or lithographs of mine to hang in their places of business,
+ and several of these gentlemen thus appealed to took the advertisements
+ away. The result of all this was that I had the largest house that ever
+ attended a lecture in Detroit. Feeling that ingratitude is a crime, I
+ publicly returned thanks to the clergy for the pains they had taken to
+ give me an audience. And I may say, in this connection, that if the
+ ministers do God as little good as they do me harm, they had better let
+ both of us alone. I regard them as very good, but exceedingly mistaken
+ men. They do not come much in contact with the world, and get most of
+ their views by talking with the women and children of their congregations.
+ They are not permitted to mingle freely with society. They cannot attend
+ plays nor hear operas. I believe some of them have ventured to minstrel
+ shows and menageries, where they confine themselves strictly to the animal
+ part of the entertainment. But, as a rule, they have very few
+ opportunities of ascertaining what the real public opinion is. They read
+ religious papers, edited by gentlemen who know as little about the world
+ as themselves, and the result of all this is that they are rather behind
+ the times. They are good men, and would like to do right if they only knew
+ it, but they are a little behind the times. There is an old story told of
+ a fellow who had a post-office in a small town in North Carolina, and he
+ being the only man in the town who could read, a few people used to gather
+ in the post-office on Sunday, and he would read to them a weekly paper
+ that was published in Washington. He commenced always at the top of the
+ first column and read right straight through, articles, advertisements,
+ and all, and whenever they got a little tired of reading he would make a
+ mark of red ochre and commence at that place the next Sunday. The result
+ was that the papers came a great deal faster than he read them, and it was
+ about 1817 when they struck the war of 1812. The moment they got to that,
+ every one of them jumped up and offered to volunteer. All of which shows
+ that they were patriotic people, but a little show, and somewhat behind
+ the times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How were you pleased with the Paine meeting here, and its
+ results?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I was gratified to see so many people willing at last to do
+ justice to a great and a maligned man. Of course I do not claim that Paine
+ was perfect. All I claim is that he was a patriot and a political
+ philosopher; that he was a revolutionist and an agitator; that he was
+ infinitely full of suggestive thought, and that he did more than any man
+ to convince the people of American not only that they ought to separate
+ from Great Britain, but that they ought to found a representative
+ government. He has been despised simply because he did not believe the
+ Bible. I wish to do what I can to rescue his name from theological
+ defamation. I think the day has come when Thomas Paine will be remembered
+ with Washington, Franklin and Jefferson, and that the American people will
+ wonder that their fathers could have been guilty of such base ingratitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Chicago Times</i>, February 8, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0011" id="link0011">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ REPLY TO CHICAGO CRITICS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read the replies of the clergy to your recent
+ lecture in this city on "What Must we do to be Saved?" and if so what do
+ you think of them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 manufactured by the Catholic Church. For many years in
+ Europe there was not one person in twenty thousand 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 words, they did whatever in their opinion was
+ necessary to substantiate the faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The gentlemen who saw fit to reply did not answer the question, and I
+ again call upon the clergy to explain to the people why, if salvation
+ depends upon belief on the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew didn't mention it.
+ Some one has said that Christ didn't make known this doctrine of salvation
+ by belief or faith until after his resurrection. Certainly none of the
+ gospels were written until after his resurrection; and if he made that
+ doctrine known after his resurrection, and before his ascension, it should
+ have been in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in John.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated the
+ subject; that they are not well acquainted with the New Testament. In
+ other words, they have not read it except with the regulation theological
+ bias.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing I wish to correct here. In an editorial in the <i>Tribune</i>
+ it was stated that I had admitted that Christ was beyond and above Buddha,
+ Zoroaster, Confucius, and others. I did not 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, if 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 understood 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
+ account of Paul having been mobbed in the city of Jerusalem; that he was
+ protected by a chief captain and some soldiers; that, while 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 following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and beckoned
+ with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he
+ spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying,"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 certainly would not make that explanation in Choctaw, even
+ if I understood 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 Paul would not have addressed the mob in that
+ tongue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Did you read Mr. Courtney's answer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I read what Mr. Courtney read from others, and think some
+ of his quotations very good; and have no doubt that the authors will feel
+ complimented by being quoted. There certainly is no need of my answering
+ Dr. Courtney; sometime I may answer the French gentlemen from whom he
+ quoted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But what about there being "belief" in Matthew?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Courtney says that certain people were cured of
+ diseases on account of faith. Admitting that mumps, measles, and
+ whooping-cough could be cured in that way, there is not even a suggestion
+ that salvation depended upon a like faith. I think he can hardly afford to
+ rely upon the miracles of the New 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 Mr. 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 supernatural
+ power whatever. Neither do I believe that he claimed any supernatural
+ origin. He claimed simply to be a man; no less, no more. I do not believe
+ Mr. Courtney is satisfied with his own reply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. And now as to Prof. Swing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. 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 do not
+ 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 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 down churches. I have no objection to people building all
+ the churches they wish. While I admit 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 does not 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How did the card of Dr. Thomas strike you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the reply of Dr. Thomas is in the best possible
+ spirit. I regard him to-day as the best intellect in the Methodist
+ denomination. He seems to have what is generally understood as a Christian
+ 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 I have a profounder respect. Of
+ course, I don't agree with Dr. Thomas. I think in many things he is
+ mistaken. But I believe him to be perfectly sincere. There is one trouble
+ about him&mdash;he is growing; and this fact will no doubt give great
+ trouble to many of his brethren. Certain Methodist hazel-brush feel a
+ little uneasy in the shadow of this oak. To see the difference between him
+ and some others, all that is necessary is to read his reply, and then read
+ the remarks made at the Methodist ministers' meeting on the Monday
+ following. Compared with Dr. Thomas, they are as puddles by the sea. There
+ is the same difference that there is between sewers and rivers, cesspools
+ and springs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say to the remarks of the Rev. Dr.
+ Jewett before the Methodist ministers' meeting?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Dr. Jewett is extremely foolish. I did not say that
+ I would commence suit against a minister for libel. I can hardly conceive
+ of a proceeding that would be less liable to produce a dividend. The fact
+ about it is, that the Rev. Mr. Jewett seems to think anything true that he
+ hears against me. Mr. Jewett is probably ashamed of what he said by this
+ time. He must have known it to be entirely false. It seems to me by this
+ time even the most bigoted should lose their confidence in falsehood. Of
+ course there are times when a falsehood well told bridges over quite a
+ difficulty, but in the long run you had better tell the truth, even if you
+ swim the creek. I am astonished that these ministers were willing to
+ exhibit their wounds to the world. I supposed of course I would hit some,
+ but I had no idea of wounding so many.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Crafts stated that you were in the habit of swearing
+ in company and before your family?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I often swear. In other words, I take the name of God in
+ vain; that is to say, I take it without any practical thing resulting from
+ it, and in that sense I think most ministers are guilty of the same thing.
+ I heard an old story of a clergyman who rebuked a neighbor for swearing,
+ to whom the neighbor replied, "You pray and I swear, but as a matter of
+ fact neither of us means anything by it." As to the charge that I am in
+ the habit of using indecent language in my family, no reply is needed. I
+ am willing to leave that question to the people who know us both. Mr.
+ Crafts says he was told this by a lady. This cannot by any possibility be
+ true, for no lady will tell a falsehood. Besides, if this woman of whom he
+ speaks was a lady, how did she happen to stay where obscene language was
+ being used? No lady ever told Mr. Crafts any such thing. It may be that a
+ lady did tell him that I used profane language. I admit that I have not
+ always spoken of the Devil in a respectful way; that I have sometimes
+ referred to his residence when it was not a necessary part of the
+ conversation, and that a divers times I have used a good deal of the
+ terminology of the theologian when the exact words of the scientist might
+ have done as well. But if by swearing is meant the use of God's name in
+ vain, there are very few preachers who do not swear more than I do, if by
+ "in vain" is meant without any practical result. I leave Mr. Crafts to
+ cultivate the acquaintance of the unknown lady, knowing as I do, that
+ after they have talked this matter over again they will find that both
+ have been mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I sincerely regret that clergymen who really believe that an infinite God
+ is on their side think it necessary to resort to such things to defeat one
+ man. According to their idea, God is against me, and they ought to have
+ confidence in this infinite wisdom and strength to suppose that he could
+ dispose of one man, even if they failed to say a word against me. Had you
+ not asked me I should have said nothing to you on these topics. Such
+ charges cannot hurt me. I do not believe it possible for such men to
+ injure me. No one believes what they say, and the testimony of such
+ clergymen against an Infidel is no longer considered of value. I believe
+ it was Goethe who said, "I always know that I am traveling when I hear the
+ dogs bark."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you going to make a formal reply to their sermons?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Not unless something better is done than has been. Of
+ course, I don't know what another Sabbath may bring forth. I am waiting.
+ 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 except in two passages written
+ by <i>another</i> 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 cannot see why my forgiving spirit fails to gain their sincere praise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Chicago Tribune</i>, September 30, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0012" id="link0012">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE REPUBLICAN VICTORY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you really think, Colonel, that the country has just
+ passed through a crisis?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; there was a crisis and a great one. The question was
+ whether a Northern or Southern idea of the powers and duties of the
+ Federal Government was to prevail. The great victory of yesterday means
+ that the Rebellion was not put down on the field of war alone, but that we
+ have conquered in the realm of thought. The bayonet has been justified by
+ argument. No party can ever succeed in this country that even whispers
+ "State Sovereignty." That doctrine has become odious. The sovereignty of
+ the State means a Government without power, and citizens without
+ protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Can you see any further significance in the present
+ Republican victory other than that the people do not wish to change the
+ general policy of the present administration?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; the people have concluded that the lips of America
+ shall be free. There never was free speech at the South, and there never
+ will be until the people of that section admit that the Nation is superior
+ to the State, and that all citizens have equal rights. I know of hundreds
+ who voted the Republican ticket because they regarded the South as hostile
+ to free speech. The people were satisfied with the financial policy of the
+ Republicans, and they feared a change. The North wants honest money&mdash;gold
+ and silver. The people are in favor of honest votes, and they feared the
+ practices of the Democratic party. The tissue ballot and shotgun policy
+ made them hesitate to put power in the hands of the South. Besides, the
+ tariff question made thousands and thousands of votes. As long as Europe
+ has slave labor, and wherever kings and priests rule, the laborer will be
+ substantially a slave. We must protect ourselves. If the world were free,
+ trade would be free, and the seas would be the free highways of the world.
+ The great objects of the Republican party are to preserve all the liberty
+ we have, protect American labor, and to make it the undisputed duty of the
+ Government to protect every citizen at home and abroad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think was the main cause of the Republican
+ sweep?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The wisdom of the Republicans and the mistakes of the
+ Democrats. The Democratic party has for twenty years underrated the
+ intelligence, the patriotism and the honesty of the American people. That
+ party has always looked upon politics as a trade, and success as the last
+ act of a cunning trick. It has had no principles, fixed or otherwise. It
+ has always been willing to abandon everything but its prejudices. It
+ generally commences where it left off and then goes backward. In this
+ campaign English was a mistake, Hancock was another. Nothing could have
+ been more incongruous than yoking a Federal soldier with a
+ peace-at-any-price Democrat. Neither could praise the other without
+ slandering himself, and the blindest partisan could not like them both.
+ But, after all, I regard the military record of English as fully equal to
+ the views of General Hancock on the tariff. The greatest mistake that the
+ Democratic party made was to suppose that a campaign could be fought and
+ won by slander. The American people like fair play and they abhor ignorant
+ and absurd vituperation. The continent knew that General Garfield was an
+ honest man; that he was in the grandest sense a gentleman; that he was
+ patriotic, profound and learned; that his private life was pure; that his
+ home life was good and kind and true, and all the charges made and howled
+ and screeched and printed and sworn to harmed only those who did the
+ making and the howling, the screeching and the swearing. I never knew a
+ man in whose perfect integrity I had more perfect confidence, and in less
+ than one year even the men who have slandered him will agree with me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How about that "personal and confidential letter"? (The
+ Morey letter.)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It was as stupid, as devilish, as basely born as
+ godfathered. It is an exploded forgery, and the explosion leaves dead and
+ torn upon the field the author and his witnesses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there anything in the charge that the Republican party
+ seeks to change our form of government by gradual centralization?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nothing whatever. We want power enough in the Government to
+ protect, not to destroy, the liberties of the people. The history of the
+ world shows that burglars have always opposed an increase of the police.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Herald</i>, November 5, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INGERSOLL AND BEECHER.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* The sensation created by the speech of the Rev. Henry
+ Ward Beecher at the Academy of Music, in Brooklyn, when he
+ uttered a brilliant eulogy of Col. Robert Ingersoll and
+ publicly shook hands with him has not yet subsided. A
+ portion of the religious world is thoroughly stirred up at
+ what it considers a gross breach of orthodox propriety.
+ This feeling is especially strong among the class of
+ positivists who believe that
+
+ "An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange For Deity offended."
+
+ Many believe that Mr. Beecher is at heart in full sympathy
+ and accord with Ingersoll's teachings, but has not courage
+ enough to say so at the sacrifice of his pastoral position.
+ The fact that these two men are the very head and front of
+ their respective schools of thought makes the matter an
+ important one. The denouncement of the doctrine of eternal
+ punishment, followed by the scene at the Academy, has about
+ it an aroma of suggestiveness that might work much harm
+ without an explanation. Since Colonel Ingersoll's recent
+ attack upon the <i>personnel</i> of the clergy through the
+ "Shorter Catechism" the pulpit has been remarkably silent
+ regarding the great atheist. "Is the keen logic and broad
+ humanity of Ingersoll converting the brain and heart of
+ Christendom?" was recently asked. Did the hand that was
+ stretched out to him on the stage of the Academy reach
+ across the chasm which separates orthodoxy from infidelity?
+
+ Desiring to answer the last question if possible, a <i>Herald</i>
+ reporter visited Mr. Beecher and Colonel Ingersoll to learn
+ their opinion of each other. Neither of the gentlemen was
+ aware that the other was being interviewed.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Mr. Beecher?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I regard him as the greatest man in any pulpit of the
+ world. He treated me with a generosity that nothing can exceed. He rose
+ grandly above the prejudices supposed to belong to his class, and acted as
+ only a man could act without a chain upon his brain and only kindness in
+ his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I told him that night that I congratulated the world that it had a
+ minister with an intellectual horizon broad enough and a mental sky
+ studded with stars of genius enough to hold all creeds in scorn that
+ shocked the heart of man. I think that Mr. Beecher has liberalized the
+ English-speaking people of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think he agrees with me. He holds to many things that I most
+ passionately deny. But in common, we believe in the liberty of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My principal objections to orthodox religion are two&mdash;slavery here
+ and hell hereafter. I do not believe that Mr. Beecher on these points can
+ disagree with me. The real difference between us is&mdash; he says God, I
+ say Nature. The real agreement between us is&mdash;we both say&mdash;Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is his forte?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. He is of a wonderfully poetic temperament. In pursuing any
+ course of thought his mind is like a stream flowing through the scenery of
+ fairyland. The stream murmurs and laughs while the banks grow green and
+ the vines blossom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His brain is controlled by his heart. He thinks in pictures. With him
+ logic means mental melody. The discordant is the absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For years he has endeavored to hide the dungeon of orthodoxy with the ivy
+ of imagination. Now and then he pulls for a moment the leafy curtain aside
+ and is horrified to see the lizards, snakes, basilisks and abnormal
+ monsters of the orthodox age, and then he utters a great cry, the protest
+ of a loving, throbbing heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is a great thinker, a marvelous orator, and, in my judgment, greater
+ and grander than any creed of any church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides all this, he treated me like a king. Manhood is his forte, and I
+ expect to live and die his friend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ BEECHER ON INGERSOLL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Colonel Ingersoll?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think there should be any misconception as to my
+ motive for indorsing Mr. Ingersoll. I never saw him before that night,
+ when I clasped his hand in the presence of an assemblage of citizens. Yet
+ I regard him as one of the greatest men of this age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is his influence upon the world good or otherwise?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am an ordained clergyman and believe in revealed
+ religion. I am, therefore, bound to regard all persons who do not believe
+ in revealed religion as in error. But on the broad platform of human
+ liberty and progress I was bound to give him the right hand of fellowship.
+ I would do it a thousand times over. I do not know Colonel Ingersoll's
+ religious views precisely, but I have a general knowledge of them. He has
+ the same right to free thought and free speech that I have. I am not that
+ kind of a coward who has to kick a man before he shakes hands with him. If
+ I did so I would have to kick the Methodists, Roman Catholics and all
+ other creeds. I will not pitch into any man's religion as an excuse for
+ giving him my hand. I admire Ingersoll because he is not afraid to speak
+ what he honestly thinks, and I am only sorry that he does not think as I
+ do. I never heard so much brilliancy and pith put into a two hour speech
+ as I did on that night. I wish my whole congregation had been there to
+ hear it. I regret that there are not more men like Ingersoll interested in
+ the affairs of the nation. I do not wish to be understood as indorsing
+ skepticism in any form.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Herald</i>, November 7, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0014" id="link0014">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICAL.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it true, as rumored, that you intend to leave
+ Washington and reside in New York?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, I expect to remain here for years to come, so far as I
+ can now see. My present intention is certainly to stay here during the
+ coming winter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is this because you regard Washington as the pleasantest
+ and most advantageous city for a residence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, in the first place, I dislike to move. In the next
+ place, the climate is good. In the third place, the political atmosphere
+ has been growing better of late, and when you consider that I avoid one
+ dislike and reap the benefits of two likes, you can see why I remain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the moral atmosphere will improve with
+ the political atmosphere?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I would hate to say that this city is capable of any
+ improvement in the way of morality. We have a great many churches, a great
+ many ministers, and, I believe, some retired chaplains, so I take it that
+ the moral tone of the place could hardly be bettered. One majority in the
+ Senate might help it. Seriously, however, I think that Washington has as
+ high a standard of morality as any city in the Union. And it is one of the
+ best towns in which to loan money without collateral in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you know this from experience?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. This I have been told [was the solemn answer.]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the political features of the incoming
+ administration will differ from the present?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, I have no right to speak for General Garfield. I
+ believe his administration will be Republican, at the same time perfectly
+ kind, manly, and generous. He is a man to harbor no resentment. He knows
+ that it is the duty of statesmanship to remove causes of irritation rather
+ then punish the irritated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do I understand you to imply that there will be a neutral
+ policy, as it were, towards the South?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, I think that there will be nothing neutral about it. I
+ think that the next administration will be one-sided&mdash;that is, it
+ will be on the right side. I know of no better definition for a compromise
+ than to say it is a proceeding in which hypocrites deceive each other. I
+ do not believe that the incoming administration will be neutral in
+ anything. The American people do not like neutrality. They would rather a
+ man were on the wrong side than on neither. And, in my judgment, there is
+ no paper so utterly unfair, malicious and devilish, as one that claims to
+ be neutral. No politician is as bitter as a neutral politician. Neutrality
+ is generally used as a mask to hide unusual bitterness. Sometimes it hides
+ what it is&mdash;nothing. It always stands for hollowness of head or
+ bitterness of heart, sometimes for both. My idea is&mdash;and that is the
+ only reason I have the right to express it&mdash;that General Garfield
+ believes in the platform adopted by the Republican party. He believes in
+ free speech, in honest money, in divorce of church and state, and he
+ believes in the protection of American citizens by the Federal Government
+ wherever the flag flies. He believes that the Federal Government is as
+ much bound to protect the citizen at home as abroad. I believe he will do
+ the very best he can to carry these great ideas into execution and make
+ them living realities in the United States. Personally, I have no hatred
+ toward the Southern people. I have no hatred toward any class. I hate
+ tyranny, no matter whether it is South or North; I hate hypocrisy, and I
+ hate above all things, the spirit of caste. If the Southern people could
+ only see that they gained as great a victory in the Rebellion as the North
+ did, and some day they will see it, the whole question would be settled.
+ The South has reaped a far greater benefit from being defeated than the
+ North has from being successful, and I believe some day the South will be
+ great enough to appreciate that fact. I have always insisted that to be
+ beaten by the right is to be a victor. The Southern people must get over
+ the idea that they are insulted simply because they are out-voted, and
+ they ought by this time to know that the Republicans of the North, not
+ only do not wish them harm, but really wish them the utmost success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But has the Republican party all the good and the
+ Democratic all the bad?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, I do not think that the Republican party has all the
+ good, nor do I pretend that the Democratic party has all the bad; though I
+ may say that each party comes pretty near it. I admit that there are
+ thousands of really good fellows in the Democratic party, and there are
+ some pretty bad people in the Republican party. But I honestly believe
+ that within the latter are most of the progressive men of this country.
+ That party has in it the elements of growth. It is full of hope. It
+ anticipates. The Democratic party remembers. It is always talking about
+ the past. It is the possessor of a vast amount of political rubbish, and I
+ really believe it has outlived its usefulness. I firmly believe that your
+ editor, Mr. Hutchings, could start a better organization, if he would only
+ turn his attention to it. Just think for a moment of the number you could
+ get rid of by starting a new party. A hundred names will probably suggest
+ themselves to any intelligent Democrat, the loss of which would almost
+ insure success. Some one has said that a tailor in Boston made a fortune
+ by advertising that he did not cut the breeches of Webster's statue. A new
+ party by advertising that certain men would not belong to it, would have
+ an advantage in the next race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, were the causes which led to the
+ Democratic defeat?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the nomination of English was exceedingly
+ unfortunate. Indiana, being an October State, the best man in that State
+ should have been nominated either for President or Vice- President.
+ Personally, I know nothing of Mr. English, but I have the right to say
+ that he was exceedingly unpopular. That was mistake number one. Mistake
+ number two was putting a plank in the platform insisting upon a tariff for
+ revenue only. That little word "only" was one of the most frightful
+ mistakes ever made by a political party. That little word "only" was a
+ millstone around the neck of the entire campaign. The third mistake was
+ Hancock's definition of the tariff. It was exceedingly unfortunate,
+ exceedingly laughable, and came just in the nick of time. The fourth
+ mistake was the speech of Wade Hampton, I mean the speech that the
+ Republican papers claim he made. Of course I do not know, personally,
+ whether it was made or not. If made, it was a great mistake. Mistake
+ number five was made in Alabama, where they refused to allow a Greenbacker
+ to express his opinion. That lost the Democrats enough Greenbackers to
+ turn the scale in Maine, and enough in Indiana to change that election.
+ Mistake number six was in the charges made against General Garfield. They
+ were insisted upon, magnified and multiplied until at last the whole thing
+ assumed the proportions of a malicious libel. This was a great mistake,
+ for the reason that a number of Democrats in the United States had most
+ heartily and cordially indorsed General Garfield as a man of integrity and
+ great ability. Such indorsements had been made by the leading Democrats of
+ the North and South, among them Governor Hendricks and many others I might
+ name. Jere Black had also certified to the integrity and intellectual
+ grandeur of General Garfield, and when afterward he certified to the exact
+ contrary, the people believed that it was a persecution. The next mistake,
+ number seven, was the Chinese letter. While it lost Garfield California,
+ Nevada, and probably New Jersey, it did him good in New York. This letter
+ was the greatest mistake made, because a crime is greater than a mistake.
+ These, in my judgment, are the principal mistakes made by the Democratic
+ party in the campaign. Had McDonald been on the ticket the result might
+ have been different, or had the party united on some man in New York,
+ satisfactory to the factions, it might have succeeded. The truth, however,
+ is that the North to-day is Republican, and it may be that had the
+ Democratic party made no mistakes whatever the result would have been the
+ same. But that mistakes were made is now perfectly evident to the blindest
+ partisan. If the ticket originally suggested, Seymour and McDonald, had
+ been nominated on an unobjectionable platform, the result might have been
+ different. One of the happiest days in my life was the day on which the
+ Cincinnati convention did not nominate Seymour and did nominate English. I
+ regard General Hancock as a good soldier, but not particularly qualified
+ to act as President. He has neither the intellectual training nor the
+ experience to qualify him for that place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have doubtless heard of a new party, Colonel. What is
+ your idea in regard to it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have heard two or three speak of a new party to be called
+ the National party, or National Union party, but whether there is anything
+ in such a movement I have no means of knowing. Any party in opposition to
+ the Republican, no matter what it may be called, must win on a new issue,
+ and that new issue will determine the new party. Parties cannot be made to
+ order. They must grow. They are the natural offspring of national events.
+ They must embody certain hopes, they must gratify, or promise to gratify,
+ the feelings of a vast number of people. No man can make a party, and if a
+ new party springs into existence it will not be brought forth to gratify
+ the wishes of a few, but the wants of the many. It has seemed to me for
+ years that the Democratic party carried too great a load in the shape of
+ record; that its autobiography was nearly killing it all the time, and
+ that if it could die just long enough to assume another form at the
+ resurrection, just long enough to leave a grave stone to mark the end of
+ its history, to get a cemetery back of it, that it might hope for
+ something like success. In other words, that there must be a funeral
+ before there can be victory. Most of its leaders are worn out. They have
+ become so accustomed to defeat that they take it as a matter of course;
+ they expect it in the beginning and seem unconsciously to work for it.
+ There must be some new ideas, and this only can happen when the party as
+ such has been gathered to its fathers. I do not think that the advice of
+ Senator Hill will be followed. He is willing to kill the Democratic party
+ in the South if we will kill the Republican party in the North. This puts
+ me in mind of what the rooster said to the horse: "Let us agree not to
+ step on each other's feet."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Your views of the country's future and prospects must
+ naturally be rose colored?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, I look at things through Republican eyes and may
+ be prejudiced without knowing it. But it really seems to me that the
+ future is full of great promise. The South, after all, is growing more
+ prosperous. It is producing more and more every year, until in time it
+ will become wealthy. The West is growing almost beyond the imagination of
+ a speculator, and the Eastern and Middle States are much more than holding
+ their own. We have now fifty millions of people and in a few years will
+ have a hundred. That we are a Nation I think is now settled. Our growth
+ will be unparalleled. I myself expect to live to see as many ships on the
+ Pacific as on the Atlantic. In a few years there will probably be ten
+ millions of people living along the Rocky and Sierra Mountains. It will
+ not be long until Illinois will find her market west of her. In fifty
+ years this will be the greatest nation on the earth, and the most populous
+ in the civilized world. China is slowly awakening from the lethargy of
+ centuries. It will soon have the wants of Europe, and America will supply
+ those wants. This is a nation of inventors and there is more mechanical
+ ingenuity in the United States than on the rest of the globe. In my
+ judgment this country will in a short time add to its customers hundreds
+ of millions of the people of the Celestial Empire. So you see, to me, the
+ future is exceedingly bright. And besides all this, I must not forget the
+ thing that is always nearest my heart. There is more intellectual liberty
+ in the United States to-day than ever before. The people are beginning to
+ see that every citizen ought to have the right to express himself freely
+ upon every possible subject. In a little while, all the barbarous laws
+ that now disgrace the statute books of the States by discriminating
+ against a man simply because he is honest, will be repealed, and there
+ will be one country where all citizens will have and enjoy not only equal
+ rights, but all rights. Nothing gratifies me so much as the growth of
+ intellectual liberty. After all, the true civilization is where every man
+ gives to every other, every right that he claims for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Post</i>, Washington, D. C., November 14, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0015" id="link0015">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ RELIGION IN POLITICS.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you regard the present political situation?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My opinion is that the ideas the North fought for upon the
+ field have at last triumphed at the ballot-box. For several years after
+ the Rebellion was put down the Southern ideas traveled North. We lost West
+ Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and a great many congressional
+ districts in other States. We lost both houses of Congress and every
+ Southern State. The Southern ideas reached their climax in 1876. In my
+ judgment the tide has turned, and hereafter the Northern idea is going
+ South. The young men are on the Republican side. The old Democrats are
+ dying. The cradle is beating the coffin. It is a case of life and death,
+ and life is ahead. The heirs outnumber the administrators.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What kind of a President will Garfield make?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My opinion is that he will make as good a President as this
+ nation ever had. He is fully equipped. He is a trained statesman. He has
+ discussed all the great questions that have arisen for the last eighteen
+ years, and with great ability. He is a thorough scholar, a conscientious
+ student, and takes an exceedingly comprehensive survey of all questions.
+ He is genial, generous and candid, and has all the necessary qualities of
+ heart and brain to make a great President. He has no prejudices. Prejudice
+ is the child and flatterer of ignorance. He is firm, but not obstinate.
+ The obstinate man wants his own way; the firm man stands by the right.
+ Andrew Johnson was obstinate&mdash;Lincoln was firm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you think he will treat the South?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Just the same as the North. He will be the President of the
+ whole country. He will not execute the laws by the compass, but according
+ to the Constitution. I do not speak for General Garfield, nor by any
+ authority from his friends. No one wishes to injure the South. The
+ Republican party feels in honor bound to protect all citizens, white and
+ black. It must do this in order to keep its self-respect. It must throw
+ the shield of the Nation over the weakest, the humblest and the blackest
+ citizen. Any other course is suicide. No thoughtful Southern man can
+ object to this, and a Northern Democrat knows that it is right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there a probability that Mr. Sherman will be retained
+ in the Cabinet?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have no knowledge upon that question, and consequently
+ have nothing to say. My opinion about the Cabinet is, that General
+ Garfield is well enough acquainted with public men to choose a Cabinet
+ that will suit him and the country. I have never regarded it as the proper
+ thing to try and force a Cabinet upon a President. He has the right to be
+ surrounded by his friends, by men in whose judgment and in whose
+ friendship he has the utmost confidence, and I would no more think of
+ trying to put some man in the Cabinet that I would think of signing a
+ petition that a man should marry a certain woman. General Garfield will, I
+ believe, select his own constitutional advisers, and he will take the best
+ he knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, is the condition of the Democratic
+ party at present?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It must get a new set of principles, and throw away its
+ prejudices. It must demonstrate its capacity to govern the country by
+ governing the States where it is in power. In the presence of rebellion it
+ gave up the ship. The South must become Republican before the North will
+ willingly give it power; that is, the great ideas of nationality are
+ greater than parties, and if our flag is not large enough to protect every
+ citizen, we must add a few more stars and stripes. Personally I have no
+ hatreds in this matter. The present is not only the child of the past, but
+ the necessary child. A statesman must deal with things as they are. He
+ must not be like Gladstone, who divides his time between foreign wars and
+ amendments to the English Book of Common Prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you regard the religious question in politics?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Religion is a personal matter&mdash;a matter that each
+ individual soul should be allowed to settle for itself. No man shod in the
+ brogans of impudence should walk into the temple of another man's soul.
+ While every man should be governed by the highest possible considerations
+ of the public weal, no one has the right to ask for legal assistance in
+ the support of his particular sect. If Catholics oppose the public schools
+ I would not oppose them because they are Catholics, but because I am in
+ favor of the schools. I regard the public school as the intellectual bread
+ of life. Personally I have no confidence in any religion that can be
+ demonstrated only to children. I suspect all creeds that rely implicitly
+ on mothers and nurses. That religion is the best that commends itself the
+ strongest to men and women of education and genius. After all, the
+ prejudices of infancy and the ignorance of the aged are a poor foundation
+ for any system of morals or faith. I respect every honest man, and I think
+ more of a liberal Catholic than of an illiberal Infidel. The religious
+ question should be left out of politics. You might as well decide
+ questions of art and music by a ward caucus as to govern the longings and
+ dreams of the soul by law. I believe in letting the sun shine whether the
+ weeds grow or not. I can never side with Protestants if they try to put
+ Catholics down by law, and I expect to oppose both of these until
+ religious intolerance is regarded as a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the religious movement of which you are the chief
+ exponent spreading?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There are ten times as many Freethinkers this year as there
+ were last. Civilization is the child of free thought. The new world has
+ drifted away from the rotting wharf of superstition. The politics of this
+ country are being settled by the new ideas of individual liberty; and
+ parties and churches that cannot accept the new truths must perish. I want
+ it perfectly understood that I am not a politician. I believe in liberty
+ and I want to see the time when every man, woman and child will enjoy
+ every human right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The election is over, the passions aroused by the campaign will soon
+ subside, the sober judgment of the people will, in my opinion, indorse the
+ result, and time will indorse the indorsement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Evening Express</i>, New York City, November 19, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0016" id="link0016">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MIRACLES AND IMMORTALITY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have seen some accounts of the recent sermon of Dr.
+ Tyng on "Miracles," I presume, and if so, what is your opinion of the
+ sermon, and also what is your opinion of miracles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. From an orthodox standpoint, I think the Rev. Dr. Tyng is
+ right. If miracles were necessary eighteen hundred years ago, before
+ scientific facts enough were known to overthrow hundreds and thousands of
+ passages in the Bible, certainly they are necessary now. Dr. Tyng sees
+ clearly that the old miracles are nearly worn out, and that some new ones
+ are absolutely essential. He takes for granted that, if God would do a
+ miracle to found his gospel, he certainly would do some more to preserve
+ it, and that it is in need of preservation about now is evident. I am
+ amazed that the religious world should laugh at him for believing in
+ miracles. It seems to me just as reasonable that the deaf, dumb, blind and
+ lame, should be cured at Lourdes as at Palestine. It certainly is no more
+ wonderful that the law of nature should be broken now than that it was
+ broken several thousand years ago. Dr. Tyng also has this advantage. The
+ witnesses by whom he proves these miracles are alive. An unbeliever can
+ have the opportunity of cross- examination. Whereas, the miracles in the
+ New Testament are substantiated only by the dead. It is just as reasonable
+ to me that blind people receive their sight in France as that devils were
+ made to vacate human bodies in the holy land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For one I am exceedingly glad that Dr. Tyng has taken this position. It
+ shows that he is a believer in a personal God, in a God who is attending a
+ little to the affairs of this world, and in a God who did not exhaust his
+ supplies in the apostolic age. It is refreshing to me to find in this
+ scientific age a gentleman who still believes in miracles. My opinion is
+ that all thorough religionists will have to take the ground and admit that
+ a supernatural religion must be supernaturally preserved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have been asking for a miracle for several years, and have in a very
+ mild, gentle and loving way, taunted the church for not producing a little
+ one. I have had the impudence to ask any number of them to join in a
+ prayer asking anything they desire for the purpose of testing the
+ efficiency of what is known as supplication. They answer me by calling my
+ attention to the miracles recorded in the New Testament. I insist,
+ however, on a new miracle, and, personally, I would like to see one now.
+ Certainly, the Infinite has not lost his power, and certainly the Infinite
+ knows that thousands and hundreds of thousands, if the Bible is true, are
+ now pouring over the precipice of unbelief into the gulf of hell. One
+ little miracle would save thousands. One little miracle in Pittsburg, well
+ authenticated, would do more good than all the preaching ever heard in
+ this sooty town. The Rev. Dr. Tyng clearly sees this, and he has been
+ driven to the conclusion, first, that God can do miracles; second, that he
+ ought to, third, that he has. In this he is perfectly logical. After a man
+ believes the Bible, after he believes in the flood and in the story of
+ Jonah, certainly he ought not to hesitate at a miracle of to-day. When I
+ say I want a miracle, I mean by that, I want a good one. All the miracles
+ recorded in the New Testament could have been simulated. A fellow could
+ have pretended to be dead, or blind, or dumb, or deaf. I want to see a
+ good miracle. I want to see a man with one leg, and then I want to see the
+ other leg grow out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see a miracle like that performed in North Carolina. Two
+ men were disputing about the relative merits of the salve they had for
+ sale. One of the men, in order to demonstrate that his salve was better
+ than any other, cut off a dog's tail and applied a little of the salve to
+ the stump, and, in the presence of the spectators, a new tail grew out.
+ But the other man, who also had salve for sale, took up the piece of tail
+ that had been cast away, put a little salve at the end of that, and a new
+ dog grew out, and the last heard of those parties they were quarrelling as
+ to who owned the second dog. Something like that is what I call a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you believe about the immortality of the soul? Do
+ you believe that the spirit lives as an individual after the body is dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have said a great many times that it is no more wonderful
+ that we should live again than that we do live. Sometimes I have thought
+ it not quite so wonderful for the reason that we have a start. But upon
+ that subject I have not the slightest information. Whether man lives again
+ or not I cannot pretend to say. There may be another world and there may
+ not be. If there is another world we ought to make the best of it after
+ arriving there. If there is not another world, or if there is another
+ world, we ought to make the best of this. And since nobody knows, all
+ should be permitted to have their opinions, and my opinion is that nobody
+ knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we take the Old Testament for authority, man is not immortal. The Old
+ Testament shows man how he lost immortality. According to Genesis, God
+ prevented man from putting forth his hand and eating of the Tree of Life.
+ It is there stated, had he succeeded, man would have lived forever. God
+ drove him from the garden, preventing him eating of this tree, and in
+ consequence man became mortal; so that if we go by the Old Testament we
+ are compelled to give up immortality. The New Testament has but little on
+ the subject. In one place we are told to seek for immortality. If we are
+ already immortal, it is hard to see why we should go on seeking for it. In
+ another place we are told that they who are worthy to obtain that world
+ and the resurrection of the dead, are not given in marriage. From this one
+ would infer there would be some unworthy to be raised from the dead. Upon
+ the question of immortality, the Old Testament throws but little
+ satisfactory light. I do not deny immortality, nor would I endeavor to
+ shake the belief of anybody in another life. What I am endeavoring to do
+ is to put out the fires of hell. If we cannot have heaven without hell, I
+ am in favor of abolishing heaven. I do not want to go to heaven if one
+ soul is doomed to agony. I would rather be annihilated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My opinion of immortality is this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First.&mdash;I live, and that of itself is infinitely wonderful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second.&mdash;There was a time when I was not, and after I was not, I was.
+ Third.&mdash;Now that I am, I may be again; and it is no more wonderful
+ that I may be again, if I have been, than that I am, having once been
+ nothing. If the churches advocated immortality, if they advocated eternal
+ justice, if they said that man would be rewarded and punished according to
+ deeds; if they admitted that some time in eternity there would be an
+ opportunity given to lift up souls, and that throughout all the ages the
+ angels of progress and virtue would beckon the fallen upward; and that
+ some time, and no matter how far away they might put off the time, all the
+ children of men would be reasonably happy, I never would say a solitary
+ word against the church, but just as long as they preach that the majority
+ of mankind will suffer eternal pain, just so long I shall oppose them;
+ that is to say, as long as I live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe in a God; and, if so, what kind of a God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Let me, in the first place, lay a foundation for an answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First.&mdash;Man gets all food for thought through the medium of the
+ senses. The effect of nature upon the senses, and through the senses upon
+ the brain, must be natural. All food for thought, then, is natural. As a
+ consequence of this, there can be no supernatural idea in the human brain.
+ Whatever idea there is must have been a natural product. If, then, there
+ is no supernatural idea in the human brain, then there cannot be in the
+ human brain an idea of the supernatural. If we can have no idea of the
+ supernatural, and if the God of whom you spoke is admitted to be
+ supernatural, then, of course, I can have no idea of him, and I certainly
+ can have no very fixed belief on any subject about which I have no idea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There may be a God for all I know. There may be thousands of them. But the
+ idea of an infinite Being outside and independent of nature is
+ inconceivable. I do not know of any word that would explain my doctrine or
+ my views upon the subject. I suppose Pantheism is as near as I could go. I
+ believe in the eternity of matter and in the eternity of intelligence, but
+ I do not believe in any Being outside of nature. I do not believe in any
+ personal Deity. I do not believe in any aristocracy of the air. I know
+ nothing about origin or destiny. Between these two horizons I live,
+ whether I wish to or not, and must be satisfied with what I find between
+ these two horizons. I have never heard any God described that I believe
+ in. I have never heard any religion explained that I accept. To make
+ something out of nothing cannot be more absurd than that an infinite
+ intelligence made this world, and proceeded to fill it with crime and want
+ and agony, and then, not satisfied with the evil he had wrought, made a
+ hell in which to consummate the great mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that the world, and all that is in it came
+ by chance?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not believe anything comes by chance. I regard the
+ present as the necessary child of a necessary past. I believe matter is
+ eternal; that it has eternally existed and eternally will exist. I believe
+ that in all matter, in some way, there is what we call force; that one of
+ the forms of force is intelligence. I believe that whatever is in the
+ universe has existed from eternity and will forever exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secondly.&mdash;I exclude from my philosophy all ideas of chance. Matter
+ changes eternally its form, never its essence. You cannot conceive of
+ anything being created. No one can conceive of anything existing without a
+ cause or with a cause. Let me explain; a thing is not a cause until an
+ effect has been produced; so that, after all, cause and effect are twins
+ coming into life at precisely the same instant, born of the womb of an
+ unknown mother. The Universe in the only fact, and everything that ever
+ has happened, is happening, or will happen, are but the different aspects
+ of the one eternal fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Dispatch</i>, Pittsburg, Pa., December 11, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0017" id="link0017">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What phases will the Southern question assume in the next
+ four years?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The next Congress should promptly unseat every member of
+ Congress in whose district there was not a fair and honest election. That
+ is the first hard work to be done. Let notice, in this way, be given to
+ the whole country, that fraud cannot succeed. No man should be allowed to
+ hold a seat by force or fraud. Just as soon as it is understood that fraud
+ is useless it will be abandoned. In that way the honest voters of the
+ whole country can be protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An honest vote settles the Southern question, and Congress has the power
+ to compel an honest vote, or to leave the dishonest districts without
+ representation. I want this policy adopted, not only in the South, but in
+ the North. No man touched or stained with fraud should be allowed to hold
+ his seat. Send such men home, and let them stay there until sent back by
+ honest votes. The Southern question is a Northern question, and the
+ Republican party must settle it for all time. We must have honest
+ elections, or the Republic must fall. Illegal voting must be considered
+ and punished as a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Taking one hundred and seventy thousand as the basis of representation,
+ the South, through her astounding increase of colored population, gains
+ three electoral votes, while the North and East lose three. Garfield was
+ elected by the thirty thousand colored votes cast in New York.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will the negro continue to be the balance of power, and
+ if so, will it inure to his benefit?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The more political power the colored man has the better he
+ will be treated, and if he ever holds the balance of power he will be
+ treated as well as the balance of our citizens. My idea is that the
+ colored man should stand on an equality with the white before the law;
+ that he should honestly be protected in all his rights; that he should be
+ allowed to vote, and that his vote should be counted. It is a simple
+ question of honesty. The colored people are doing well; they are
+ industrious; they are trying to get an education, and, on the whole, I
+ think they are behaving fully as well as the whites. They are the most
+ forgiving people in the world, and about the only real Christians in our
+ country. They have suffered enough, and for one I am on their side. I
+ think more of honest black people than of dishonest whites, to say the
+ least of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you apprehend any trouble from the Southern leaders in
+ this closing session of Congress, in attempts to force pernicious
+ legislation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not. The Southern leaders know that the doctrine of
+ State Sovereignty is dead. They know that they cannot depend upon the
+ Northern Democrat, and they know that the best interests of the South can
+ only be preserved by admitting that the war settled the questions and
+ ideas fought for and against. They know that this country is a Nation, and
+ that no party can possibly succeed that advocates anything contrary to
+ that. My own opinion is that most of the Southern leaders are heartily
+ ashamed of the course pursued by their Northern friends, and will take the
+ first opportunity to say so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In what light do you regard the Chinaman?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am opposed to compulsory immigration, or cooley or slave
+ immigration. If Chinamen are sent to this country by corporations or
+ companies under contracts that amount to slavery or anything like it or
+ near it, then I am opposed to it. But I am not prepared to say that I
+ would be opposed to voluntary immigration. I see by the papers that a new
+ treaty has been agreed upon that will probably be ratified and be
+ satisfactory to all parties. We ought to treat China with the utmost
+ fairness. If our treaty is wrong, amend it, but do so according to the
+ recognized usage of nations. After what has been said and done in this
+ country I think there is very little danger of any Chinaman voluntarily
+ coming here. By this time China must have an exceedingly exalted opinion
+ of our religion, and of the justice and hospitality born of our most holy
+ faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of making ex-Presidents Senators for
+ life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am opposed to it. I am against any man holding office for
+ life. And I see no more reason for making ex-Presidents Senators, than for
+ making ex-Senators Presidents. To me the idea is preposterous. Why should
+ ex-Presidents be taken care of? In this country labor is not disgraceful,
+ and after a man has been President he has still the right to be useful. I
+ am personally acquainted with several men who will agree, in consideration
+ of being elected to the presidency, not to ask for another office during
+ their natural lives. The people of this country should never allow a great
+ man to suffer. The hand, not of charity, but of justice and generosity,
+ should be forever open to those who have performed great public service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the ex-Presidents of the future may not all be great and good men, and
+ bad ex-Presidents will not make good Senators. If the nation does
+ anything, let it give a reasonable pension to ex- Presidents. No man feels
+ like giving pension, power, or place to General Grant simply because he
+ was once President, but because he was a great soldier, and led the armies
+ of the nation to victory. Make him a General, and retire him with the
+ highest military title. Let him grandly wear the laurels he so nobly won,
+ and should the sky at any time be darkened with a cloud of foreign war,
+ this country will again hand him the sword. Such a course honors the
+ nation and the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are we not entering upon the era of our greatest
+ prosperity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We are just beginning to be prosperous. The Northern
+ Pacific Railroad is to be completed. Forty millions of dollars have just
+ been raised by that company, and new States will soon be born in the great
+ Northwest. The Texas Pacific will be pushed to San Diego, and in a few
+ years we will ride in a Pullman car from Chicago to the City of Mexico.
+ The gold and silver mines are yielding more and more, and within the last
+ ten years more than forty million acres of land have been changed from
+ wilderness to farms. This country is beginning to grow. We have just
+ fairly entered upon what I believe will be the grandest period of national
+ development and prosperity. With the Republican party in power; with good
+ money; with unlimited credit; with the best land in the world; with ninety
+ thousand miles of railway; with mountains of gold and silver; with
+ hundreds of thousands of square miles of coal fields; with iron enough for
+ the whole world; with the best system of common schools; with telegraph
+ wires reaching every city and town, so that no two citizens are an hour
+ apart; with the telephone, that makes everybody in the city live next
+ door, and with the best folks in the world, how can we help prospering
+ until the continent is covered with happy homes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of civil service reform?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am in favor of it. I want such civil service reform that
+ all the offices will be filled with good and competent Republicans. The
+ majority should rule, and the men who are in favor of the views of the
+ majority should hold the offices. I am utterly opposed to the idea that a
+ party should show its liberality at the expense of its principles. Men
+ holding office can afford to take their chances with the rest of us. If
+ they are Democrats, they should not expect to succeed when their party is
+ defeated. I believe that there are enough good and honest Republicans in
+ this country to fill all the offices, and I am opposed to taking any
+ Democrats until the Republican supply is exhausted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men should not join the Republican party to get office. Such men are
+ contemptible to the last degree. Neither should a Republican
+ administration compel a man to leave the party to get a Federal
+ appointment. After a great battle has been fought I do not believe that
+ the victorious general should reward the officers of the conquered army.
+ My doctrine is, rewards for friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Commercial</i>, Cincinnati, Ohio, December 6, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0018" id="link0018">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MR. BEECHER, MOSES AND THE NEGRO.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Beecher is here. Have you seen him?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, I did not meet Mr. Beecher. Neither did I hear him
+ lecture. The fact is, that long ago I made up my mind that under no
+ circumstances would I attend any lecture or other entertainment given at
+ Lincoln Hall. First, because the hall has been denied me, and secondly,
+ because I regard it as extremely unsafe. The hall is up several stories
+ from the ground, and in case of the slightest panic, in my judgment, many
+ lives would be lost. Had it not been for this, and for the fact that the
+ persons owning it imagined that because they had control, the brick and
+ mortar had some kind of holy and sacred quality, and that this holiness is
+ of such a wonderful character that it would not be proper for a man in
+ that hall to tell his honest thoughts, I would have heard him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then I assume that you and Mr. Beecher have made up?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is nothing to be made up for so far as I know. Mr.
+ Beecher has treated me very well, and, I believe, a little too well for
+ his own peace of mind. I have been informed that some members of Plymouth
+ Church felt exceedingly hurt that their pastor should so far forget
+ himself as to extend the right hand of fellowship to one who differs from
+ him upon what they consider very essential points in theology. You see I
+ have denied with all my might, a great many times, the infamous doctrine
+ of eternal punishment. I have also had the temerity to suggest that I did
+ not believe that a being of infinite justice and mercy was the author of
+ all that I find in the Old Testament. As, for instance, I have insisted
+ that God never commanded anybody to butcher women or to cut the throats of
+ prattling babes. These orthodox gentlemen have rushed to the rescue of
+ Jehovah by insisting that he did all these horrible things. I have also
+ maintained that God never sanctioned or upheld human slavery; that he
+ never would make one child to own and beat another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have also expressed some doubts as to whether this same God ever
+ established the institution of polygamy. I have insisted that the
+ institution is simply infamous; that it destroys the idea of home; that it
+ turns to ashes the most sacred words in our language, and leaves the world
+ a kind of den in which crawl the serpents of selfishness and lust. I have
+ been informed that after Mr. Beecher had treated me kindly a few members
+ of his congregation objected, and really felt ashamed that he had so
+ forgotten himself. After that, Mr. Beecher saw fit to give his ideas of
+ the position I had taken. In this he was not exceedingly kind, nor was his
+ justice very conspicuous. But I cared nothing about that, not the least.
+ As I have said before, whenever Mr. Beecher says a good thing I give him
+ credit. Whenever he does an unfair or unjust thing I charge it to the
+ account of his religion. I have insisted, and I still insist, that Mr.
+ Beecher is far better than his creed. I do not believe that he believes in
+ the doctrine of eternal punishment. Neither do I believe that he believes
+ in the literal truth of the Scriptures. And, after all, if the Bible is
+ not true, it is hardly worth while to insist upon its inspiration. An
+ inspired lie is not better than an uninspired one. If the Bible is true it
+ does not need to be inspired. If it is not true, inspiration does not help
+ it. So that after all it is simply a question of fact. Is it true? I
+ believe Mr. Beecher stated that one of my grievous faults was that I
+ picked out the bad things in the Bible. How an infinitely good and wise
+ God came to put bad things in his book Mr. Beecher does not explain. I
+ have insisted that the Bible is not inspired, and, in order to prove that,
+ have pointed out such passages as I deemed unworthy to have been written
+ even by a civilized man or a savage. I certainly would not endeavor to
+ prove that the Bible is uninspired by picking out its best passages. I
+ admit that there are many good things in the Bible. The fact that there
+ are good things in it does not prove its inspiration, because there are
+ thousands of other books containing good things, and yet no one claims
+ they are inspired. Shakespeare's works contain a thousand times more good
+ things than the Bible, but no one claims he was an inspired man. It is
+ also true that there are many bad things in Shakespeare&mdash;many
+ passages which I wish he had never written. But I can excuse Shakespeare,
+ because he did not rise absolutely above his time. That is to say, he was
+ a man; that is to say, he was imperfect. If anybody claimed now that
+ Shakespeare was actually inspired, that claim would be answered by
+ pointing to certain weak or bad or vulgar passages in his works. But every
+ Christian will say that it is a certain kind of blasphemy to impute
+ vulgarity or weakness to God, as they are all obliged to defend the weak,
+ the bad and the vulgar, so long as they insist upon the inspiration of the
+ Bible. Now, I pursued the same course with the Bible that Mr. Beecher has
+ pursued with me. Why did he want to pick out my bad things? Is it possible
+ that he is a kind of vulture that sees only the carrion of another? After
+ all, has he not pursued the same method with me that he blames me for
+ pursuing in regard to the Bible? Of course he must pursue that method. He
+ could not object to me and then point out passages that were not
+ objectionable. If he found fault he had to find faults in order to sustain
+ his ground. That is exactly what I have done with Scriptures&mdash;nothing
+ more and nothing less. The reason I have thrown away the Bible is that in
+ many places it is harsh, cruel, unjust, coarse, vulgar, atrocious,
+ infamous. At the same time, I admit that it contains many passages of an
+ excellent and splendid character &mdash;many good things, wise sayings,
+ and many excellent and just laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I would like to ask this: Suppose there were no passages in the Bible
+ except those upholding slavery, polygamy and wars of extermination; would
+ anybody then claim that it was the word of God? I would like to ask if
+ there is a Christian in the world who would not be overjoyed to find that
+ every one of these passages was an interpolation? I would also like to ask
+ Mr. Beecher if he would not be greatly gratified to find that after God
+ had written the Bible the Devil had got hold of it, and interpolated all
+ these passages about slavery, polygamy, the slaughter of women and babes
+ and the doctrine of eternal punishment? Suppose, as a matter of fact, the
+ Devil did get hold of it; what part of the Bible would Mr. Beecher pick
+ out as having been written by the Devil? And if he picks out these
+ passages could not the Devil answer him by saying, "You, Mr. Beecher, are
+ like a vulture, a kind of buzzard, flying through the tainted air of
+ inspiration, and pouncing down upon the carrion. Why do you not fly like a
+ dove, and why do you not have the innocent ignorance of the dove, so that
+ you could light upon a carcass and imagine that you were surrounded by the
+ perfume of violets?" The fact is that good things in a book do not prove
+ that it is inspired, but the presence of bad things does prove that it is
+ not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What was the real difficulty between you and Moses,
+ Colonel, a man who has been dead for thousands of years?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We never had any difficulty. I have always taken pains to
+ say that Moses had nothing to do with the Pentateuch. Those books, in my
+ judgment, were written several centuries after Moses had become dust in
+ his unknown sepulchre. No doubt Moses was quite a man in his day, if he
+ ever existed at all. Some people say that Moses is exactly the same as
+ "law-giver;" that is to say, as Legislature, that is to say as Congress.
+ Imagine somebody in the future as regarding the Congress of the United
+ States as one person! And then imagine that somebody endeavoring to prove
+ that Congress was always consistent. But, whether Moses lived or not makes
+ but little difference to me. I presume he filled the place and did the
+ work that he was compelled to do, and although according to the account
+ God had much to say to him with regard to the making of altars, tongs,
+ snuffers and candlesticks, there is much left for nature still to tell.
+ Thinking of Moses as a man, admitting that he was above his fellows, that
+ he was in his day and generation a leader, and, in a certain narrow sense,
+ a patriot, that he was the founder of the Jewish people; that he found
+ them barbarians and endeavored to control them by thunder and lightning,
+ and found it necessary to pretend that he was in partnership with the
+ power governing the universe; that he took advantage of their ignorance
+ and fear, just as politicians do now, and as theologians always will,
+ still, I see no evidence that the man Moses was any nearer to God than his
+ descendants, who are still warring against the Philistines in every
+ civilized part of the globe. Moses was a believer in slavery, in polygamy,
+ in wars of extermination, in religious persecution and intolerance and in
+ almost everything that is now regarded with loathing, contempt and scorn.
+ The Jehovah of whom he speaks violated, or commands the violation of at
+ least nine of the Ten Commandments he gave. There is one thing, however,
+ that can be said of Moses that cannot be said of any person who now
+ insists that he was inspired, and that is, he was in advance of his time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Buckner Bill for the
+ colonization of the negroes in Mexico?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Where does Mr. Buckner propose to colonize the white
+ people, and what right has he to propose the colonization of six millions
+ of people? Should we not have other bills to colonize the Germans, the
+ Swedes, the Irish, and then, may be, another bill to drive the Chinese
+ into the sea? Where do we get the right to say that the negroes must
+ emigrate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All such schemes will, in my judgment, prove utterly futile. Perhaps the
+ history of the world does not give an instance of the emigration of six
+ millions of people. Notwithstanding the treatment that Ireland has
+ received from England, which may be designated as a crime of three hundred
+ years, the Irish still love Ireland. All the despotism in the world will
+ never crush out of the Irish heart the love of home&mdash;the adoration of
+ the old sod. The negroes of the South have certainly suffered enough to
+ drive them into other countries; but after all, they prefer to stay where
+ they were born. They prefer to live where their ancestors were slaves,
+ where fathers and mothers were sold and whipped; and I don't believe it
+ will be possible to induce a majority of them to leave that land. Of
+ course, thousands may leave, and in process of time millions may go, but I
+ don't believe emigration will ever equal their natural increase. As the
+ whites of the South become civilized the reason for going will be less and
+ less.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see no reason why the white and black men cannot live together in the
+ same land, under the same flag. The beauty of liberty is you cannot have
+ it unless you give it away, and the more you give away the more you have.
+ I know that my liberty is secure only because others are free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am perfectly willing to live in a country with such men as Frederick
+ Douglass and Senator Bruce. I have always preferred a good, clever black
+ man to a mean white man, and I am of the opinion that I shall continue in
+ that preference. Now, if we could only have a colonization bill that would
+ get rid of all the rowdies, all the rascals and hypocrites, I would like
+ to see it carried out, thought some people might insist that it would
+ amount to a repudiation of the national debt and that hardly enough would
+ be left to pay the interest. No, talk as we will, the colored people
+ helped to save this Nation. They have been at all times and in all places
+ the friends of our flag; a flag that never really protected them. And for
+ my part, I am willing that they should stand forever beneath that flag,
+ the equal in rights of all other people. Politically, if any black men are
+ to be sent away, I want it understood that each one is to be accompanied
+ by a Democrat, so that the balance of power, especially in New York, will
+ not be disturbed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I notice that leading Republican newspapers are advising
+ General Garfield to cut loose from the machine in politics; what do you
+ regard as the machine?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. All defeated candidates regard the persons who defeated
+ them as constituting a machine, and always imagine that there is some
+ wicked conspiracy at the bottom of the machine. Some of the recent
+ reformers regard the people who take part in the early stages of a
+ political campaign&mdash;who attend caucuses and primaries, who speak of
+ politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and
+ regard only those as good and reliable American citizens who take no part
+ whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been
+ done by others. Not much can be accomplished in politics without an
+ organization, and the moment an organization is formed, and, you might
+ say, just a little before, leading spirits will be developed. Certain men
+ will take the lead, and the weaker men will in a short time, unless they
+ get all the loaves and fishes, denounce the whole thing as a machine, and,
+ to show how thoroughly and honestly they detest the machine in politics,
+ will endeavor to organize a little machine themselves. General Garfield
+ has been in politics for many years. He knows the principal men in both
+ parties. He knows the men who have not only done something, but who are
+ capable of doing something, and such men will not, in my opinion, be
+ neglected. I do not believe that General Garfield will do any act
+ calculated to divide the Republican party. No thoroughly great man carries
+ personal prejudice into the administration of public affairs. Of course,
+ thousands of people will be prophesying that this man is to be snubbed and
+ another to be paid; but, in my judgment, after the 4th of March most
+ people will say that General Garfield has used his power wisely and that
+ he has neither sought nor shunned men simply because he wished to pay
+ debts&mdash;either of love or hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;Washington correspondent, <i>Brooklyn Eagle</i>, January 31, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0019" id="link0019">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HADES, DELAWARE AND FREETHOUGHT.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Now that a lull has come in politics, I thought I would
+ come and see what is going on in the religious world?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, from what little I learn, there has not been much
+ going on during the last year. There are five hundred and twenty- six
+ Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, and two hundred of these
+ churches have not received a new member for an entire year, and the others
+ have scarcely held their own. In Illinois there are four hundred and
+ eighty-three Presbyterian Churches, and they have now fewer members than
+ they had in 1879, and of the four hundred and eighty-three, one hundred
+ and eighty-three have not received a single new member for twelve months.
+ A report has been made, under the auspices of the Pan-Presbyterian
+ Council, to the effect that there are in the whole world about three
+ millions of Presbyterians. This is about one-fifth of one per cent. of the
+ inhabitants of the world. The probability is that of the three million
+ nominal Presbyterians, not more than two or three hundred thousand
+ actually believe the doctrine, and of the two or three hundred thousand,
+ not more than five or six hundred have any true conception of what the
+ doctrine is. As the Presbyterian Church has only been able to induce
+ one-fifth of one per cent. of the people to even call themselves
+ Presbyterians, about how long will it take, at this rate, to convert
+ mankind? The fact is, there seems to be a general lull along the entire
+ line, and just at present very little is being done by the orthodox people
+ to keep their fellow-citizens out of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you really think that the orthodox people now believe
+ in the old doctrine of eternal punishment, and that they really think
+ there is a kind of hell that our ancestors so carefully described?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am afraid that the old idea is dying out, and that many
+ Christians are slowly giving up the consolations naturally springing from
+ the old belief. Another terrible blow to the old infamy is the fact that
+ in the revised New Testament the word Hades has been substituted. As
+ nobody knows exactly what Hades means, it will not be quite so easy to
+ frighten people at revivals by threatening them with something that they
+ don't clearly understand. After this, when the impassioned orator cries
+ out that all the unconverted will be sent to Hades, the poor sinners,
+ instead of getting frightened, will begin to ask each other what and where
+ that is. It will take many years of preaching to clothe that word in all
+ the terrors and horrors, pains, and penalties and pangs of hell. Hades is
+ a compromise. It is a concession to the philosophy of our day. It is a
+ graceful acknowledgment to the growing spirit of investigation, that hell,
+ after all, is a barbaric mistake. Hades is the death of revivals. It
+ cannot be used in song. It won't rhyme with anything with the same force
+ that hell does. It is altogether more shadowy than hot. It is not
+ associated with brimstone and flame. It sounds somewhat indistinct,
+ somewhat lonesome, a little desolate, but not altogether uncomfortable.
+ For revival purposes, Hades is simply useless, and few conversions will be
+ made in the old way under the revised Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you really think that the church is losing ground?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am not, as you probably know, connected with any orthodox
+ organization, and consequently have to rely upon them for my information.
+ If they can be believed, the church is certainly in an extremely bad
+ condition. I find that the Rev. Dr. Cuyler, only a few days ago, speaking
+ of the religious condition of Brooklyn &mdash;and Brooklyn, you know, has
+ been called the City of Churches&mdash; states that the great mass of that
+ Christian city was out of Christ, and that more professing Christians went
+ to the theatre than to the prayer meeting. This, certainly, from their
+ standpoint, is a most terrible declaration. Brooklyn, you know, is one of
+ the great religious centres of the world&mdash;a city in which nearly all
+ the people are engaged either in delivering or in hearing sermons; a city
+ filled with the editors of religious periodicals; a city of prayer and
+ praise; and yet, while prayer meetings are free, the theatres, with the
+ free list entirely suspended, catch more Christians than the churches; and
+ this happens while all the pulpits thunder against the stage, and the
+ stage remains silent as to the pulpit. At the same meeting in which the
+ Rev. Dr. Cuyler made his astounding statements the Rev. Mr. Pentecost was
+ the bearer of the happy news that four out of five persons living in the
+ city of Brooklyn were going down to hell with no God and with no hope. If
+ he had read the revised Testament he would have said "Hades," and the
+ effect of the statement would have been entirely lost. If four-fifths of
+ the people of that great city are destined to eternal pain, certainly we
+ cannot depend upon churches for the salvation of the world. At the meeting
+ of the Brooklyn pastors they were in doubt as to whether they should
+ depend upon further meetings, or upon a day of fasting and prayer for the
+ purpose of converting the city.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, it would be much better to devise ways and means to keep a
+ good many people from fasting in Brooklyn. If they had more meat, they
+ could get along with less meeting. If fasting would save a city, there are
+ always plenty of hungry folks even in that Christian town. The real
+ trouble with the church of to-day is, that it is behind the intelligence
+ of the people. Its doctrines no longer satisfy the brains of the
+ nineteenth century; and if the church proposes to hold its power, it must
+ lose its superstitions. The day of revivals is gone. Only the ignorant and
+ unthinking can hereafter be impressed by hearing the orthodox creed. Fear
+ has in it no reformatory power, and the more intelligent the world grows
+ the more despicable and contemptible the doctrine of eternal misery will
+ become. The tendency of the age is toward intellectual liberty, toward
+ personal investigation. Authority is no longer taken for truth. People are
+ beginning to find that all the great and good are not dead&mdash;that some
+ good people are alive, and that the demonstrations of to-day are fully
+ equal to the mistaken theories of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How are you getting along with Delaware?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. First rate. You know I have been wondering where Comegys
+ came from, and at last I have made the discovery. I was told the other day
+ by a gentleman from Delaware that many years ago Colonel Hazelitt died;
+ that Colonel Hazelitt was an old Revolutionary officer, and that when they
+ were digging his grave they dug up Comegys. Back of that no one knows
+ anything of his history. The only thing they know about him certainly, is,
+ that he has never changed one of his views since he was found, and that he
+ never will. I am inclined to think, however, that he lives in a community
+ congenial to him. For instance, I saw in a paper the other day that within
+ a radius of thirty miles around Georgetown, Delaware, there are about two
+ hundred orphan and friendless children. These children, it seems, were
+ indentured to Delaware farmers by the managers of orphan asylums and other
+ public institutions in and about Philadelphia. It is stated in the paper,
+ that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Many of these farmers are rough task-masters, and if a boy fails to
+ perform the work of an adult, he is almost certain to be cruelly treated,
+ half starved, and in the coldest weather wretchedly clad. If he does the
+ work, his life is not likely to be much happier, for as a rule he will
+ receive more kicks than candy. The result in either case is almost certain
+ to be wrecked constitutions, dwarfed bodies, rounded shoulders, and limbs
+ crippled or rendered useless by frost or rheumatism. The principal diet of
+ these boys is corn pone. A few days ago, Constable W. H. Johnston went to
+ the house of Reuben Taylor, and on entering the sitting room his attention
+ was attracted by the moans of its only occupant, a little colored boy, who
+ was lying on the hearth in front of the fireplace. The boy's head was
+ covered with ashes from the fire, and he did not pay the slightest
+ attention to the visitor, until Johnston asked what made him cry. Then the
+ little fellow sat up and drawing on old rag off his foot said, 'Look
+ there.' The sight that met Johnston's eye was horrible beyond description.
+ The poor boy's feet were so horribly frozen that the flesh had dropped off
+ the toes until the bones protruded. The flesh on the sides, bottoms, and
+ tops of his feet was swollen until the skin cracked in many places, and
+ the inflamed flesh was sloughing off in great flakes. The frost-bitten
+ flesh extended to his knees, the joints of which were terribly inflamed.
+ The right one had already begun suppurating. This poor little black boy,
+ covered with nothing but a cotton shirt, drilling pants, a pair of nearly
+ worn out brogans and a battered old hat, on the morning of December 30th,
+ the coldest day of the season, when the mercury was seventeen degrees
+ below zero, in the face of a driving snow storm, was sent half a mile from
+ home to protect his master's unshucked corn from the depredations of
+ marauding cows and crows. He remained standing around in the snow until
+ four o'clock, then he drove the cows home, received a piece of cold corn
+ pone, and was sent out in the snow again to chop stove wood till dark.
+ Having no bed, he slept that night in front of the fireplace, with his
+ frozen feet buried in the ashes. Dr. C. H. Richards found it necessary to
+ cut off the boy's feet as far back as the ankle and the instep."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was but one case in several. Personally, I have no doubt that Mr.
+ Reuben Taylor entirely agrees with Chief Justice Comegys on the great
+ question of blasphemy, and probably nothing would so gratify Mr. Reuben
+ Taylor as to see some man in a Delaware jail for the crime of having
+ expressed an honest thought. No wonder that in the State of Delaware the
+ Christ of intellectual liberty has been crucified between the pillory and
+ the whipping-post. Of course I know that there are thousands of most
+ excellent people in that State&mdash;people who believe in intellectual
+ liberty, and who only need a little help&mdash;and I am doing what I can
+ in that direction &mdash;to repeal the laws that now disgrace the statute
+ book of that little commonwealth. I have seen many people from that State
+ lately who really wish that Colonel Hazelitt had never died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What has the press generally said with regard to the
+ action of Judge Comegys? Do they, so far as you know, justify his charge?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A great many papers having articles upon the subject have
+ been sent to me. A few of the religious papers seem to think that the
+ Judge did the best he knew, and there is one secular paper called the <i>Evening
+ News</i>, published at Chester, Pa., that thinks "that the rebuke from so
+ high a source of authority will have a most excellent effect, and will
+ check religious blasphemers from parading their immoral creeds before the
+ people." The editor of this paper should at once emigrate to the State of
+ Delaware, where he properly belongs. He is either a native of Delaware, or
+ most of his subscribers are citizens of that country; or, it may be that
+ he is a lineal descendant of some Hessian, who deserted during the
+ Revolutionary war. Most of the newspapers in the United States are
+ advocates of mental freedom. Probably nothing on earth has been so potent
+ for good as an untrammeled, fearless press. Among the papers of importance
+ there is not a solitary exception. No leading journal in the United States
+ can be found upon the side of intellectual slavery. Of course, a few rural
+ sheets edited by gentlemen, as Mr. Greeley would say, "whom God in his
+ inscrutable wisdom had allowed to exist," may be found upon the other
+ side, and may be small enough, weak enough and mean enough to pander to
+ the lowest and basest prejudices of their most ignorant subscribers. These
+ editors disgrace their profession and exert about the same influence upon
+ the heads as upon the pockets of their subscribers &mdash;that is to say,
+ they get little and give less.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not think after all, the people who are in favor
+ of having you arrested for blasphemy, are acting in accordance with the
+ real spirit of the Old and New Testaments?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, they act in exact accordance with many of the
+ commands in the Old Testament, and in accordance with several passages in
+ the New. At the same time, it may be said that they violate passages in
+ both. If the Old Testament is true, and if it is the inspired word of God,
+ of course, an Infidel ought not be allowed to live; and if the New
+ Testament is true, an unbeliever should not be permitted to speak. There
+ are many passages, though, in the New Testament, that should protect even
+ an Infidel. Among them is this: "Do unto others as ye would that others
+ should do unto you." But that is a passage that has probably had as little
+ effect upon the church as any other in the Bible. So far as I am
+ concerned, I am willing to adopt that passage, and I am willing to extend
+ to every other human being every right that I claim for myself. If the
+ churches would act upon this principle, if they would say&mdash;every
+ soul, every mind, may think and investigate for itself; and around all,
+ and over all, shall be thrown the sacred shield of liberty, I should be on
+ their side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you stand with the clergymen, and what is their
+ opinion of you and of your views?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Most of them envy me; envy my independence; envy my
+ success; think that I ought to starve; that the people should not hear me;
+ say that I do what I do for money, for popularity; that I am actuated by
+ hatred of all that is good and tender and holy in human nature; think that
+ I wish to tear down the churches, destroy all morality and goodness, and
+ usher in the reign of crime and chaos. They know that shepherds are
+ unnecessary in the absence of wolves, and it is to their interest to
+ convince their sheep that they, the sheep, need protection. This they are
+ willing to give them for half the wool. No doubt, most of these minsters
+ are honest, and are doing what they consider their duty. Be this as it
+ may, they feel the power slipping from their hands. They know that the
+ idea is slowly growing that they are not absolutely necessary for the
+ protection of society. They know that the intellectual world cares little
+ for what they say, and that the great tide of human progress flows on
+ careless of their help or hindrance. So long as they insist upon the
+ inspiration of the Bible, they are compelled to take the ground that
+ slavery was once a divine institution; they are forced to defend cruelties
+ that would shock the heart of a savage, and besides, they are bound to
+ teach the eternal horror of everlasting punishment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They poison the minds of children; they deform the brain and pollute the
+ imagination by teaching the frightful and infamous dogma of endless
+ misery. Even the laws of Delaware shock the enlightened public of to-day.
+ In that State they simply fine and imprison a man for expressing his
+ honest thoughts; and yet, if the churches are right, God will damn a man
+ forever for the same offence. The brain and heart of our time cannot be
+ satisfied with the ancient creeds. The Bible must be revised again. Most
+ of the creeds must be blotted out. Humanity must take the place of
+ theology. Intellectual liberty must stand in every pulpit. There must be
+ freedom in all the pews, and every human soul must have the right to
+ express its honest thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;Washington correspondent, <i>Brooklyn Eagle</i>, March 19, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0020" id="link0020">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. MR. LANSING.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Rev. Isaac J. Lansing of Meriden, Conn., recently
+ denounced Col. Robert G. Ingersoll from the pulpit of the
+ Meriden Methodist Church, and had the Opera House closed
+ against him. This led a <i>Union</i> reporter to show Colonel
+ Ingersoll what Mr. Lansing had said and to interrogate him
+ with the following result.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Did you favor the sending of obscene matter through the
+ mails as alleged by the Rev. Mr. Lansing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course not, and no honest man ever thought that I did.
+ This charge is too malicious and silly to be answered. Mr. Lansing knows
+ better. He has made this charge many times and he will make it again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it a fact that there are thousands of clergymen in the
+ country whom you would fear to meet in fair debate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No; the fact is I would like to meet them all in one. The
+ pulpit is not burdened with genius. There a few great men engaged in
+ preaching, but they are not orthodox. I cannot conceive that a Freethinker
+ has anything to fear from the pulpit, except misrepresentation. Of course,
+ there are thousands of ministers too small to discuss with&mdash;ministers
+ who stand for nothing in the church&mdash;and with such clergymen I cannot
+ afford to discuss anything. If the Presbyterians, or the
+ Congregationalists, or the Methodists would select some man, and endorse
+ him as their champion, I would like to meet him in debate. Such a man I
+ will pay to discuss with me. I will give him most excellent wages, and pay
+ all the expenses at the discussion besides. There is but one safe course
+ for the ministers&mdash;they must assert. They must declare. They must
+ swear to it and stick to it, but they must not try to reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have never seen Rev. Mr. Lansing. To the people of
+ Meriden and thereabouts he is well-known. Judging from what has been told
+ you of his utterances and actions, what kind of a man would you take him
+ to be?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I would take him to be a Christian. He talks like one, and
+ he acts like one. If Christianity is right, Lansing is right. If salvation
+ depends upon belief, and if unbelievers are to be eternally damned, then
+ an Infidel has no right to speak. He should not be allowed to murder the
+ souls of his fellow-men. Lansing does the best he knows how. He thinks
+ that God hates an unbeliever, and he tries to act like God. Lansing knows
+ that he must have the right to slander a man whom God is to eternally
+ damn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Lansing speaks of you as a wolf coming with fangs
+ sharpened by three hundred dollars a night to tear the lambs of his flock.
+ What do you say to that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. All I have to say is, that I often get three times that
+ amount, and sometimes much more. I guess his lambs can take care of
+ themselves. I am not very fond of mutton anyway. Such talk Mr. Lansing
+ ought to be ashamed of. The idea that he is a shepherd &mdash;that he is
+ on guard&mdash;is simply preposterous. He has few sheep in his
+ congregation that know as little on the wolf question as he does. He ought
+ to know that his sheep support him&mdash;his sheep protect him; and
+ without the sheep poor Lansing would be devoured by the wolves himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Shall you sue the Opera House management for breach of
+ contract?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I guess not; but I may pay Lansing something for
+ advertising my lecture. I suppose Mr. Wilcox (who controls the Opera
+ House) did what he thought was right. I hear he is a good man. He probably
+ got a little frightened and began to think about the day of judgment. He
+ could not help it, and I cannot help laughing at him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Those in Meriden who most strongly oppose you are radical
+ Republicans. Is it not a fact that you possess the confidence and
+ friendship of some of the most respected leaders of that party?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that all the respectable ones are friends of mine.
+ I am a Republican because I believe in the liberty of the body, and I am
+ an Infidel because I believe in the liberty of the mind. There is no need
+ of freeing cages. Let us free the birds. If Mr. Lansing knew me, he would
+ be a great friend. He would probably annoy me by the frequency and length
+ of his visits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. During the recent presidential campaign did any clergymen
+ denounce you for your teachings, that you are aware of?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Some did, but they would not if they had been running for
+ office on the Republican ticket.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is most needed in our public men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Hearts and brains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would people be any more moral solely because of a
+ disbelief in orthodox teaching and in the Bible as an inspired book, in
+ your opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; if a man really believes that God once upheld slavery;
+ that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in
+ polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake; that he will punish
+ forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will
+ be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the
+ Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker, and this
+ belief has raised the devil with Mr. Lansing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe there will ever be a millennium, and if so
+ how will it come about?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It will probably start in Meriden, as I have been informed
+ that Lansing is going to leave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there anything else bearing upon the question at issue
+ or that would make good reading, that I have forgotten, that you would
+ like to say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes. Good-bye.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Sunday Union</i>, New Haven, Conn., April 10, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0021" id="link0021">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ BEACONSFIELD, LENT AND REVIVALS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say about the attack of Dr. Buckley on
+ you, and your lecture?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I never heard of Dr. Buckley until after I had lectured in
+ Brooklyn. He seems to think that it was extremely ill bred in me to
+ deliver a lecture on the "Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," during Lent.
+ Lent is just as good as any other part of the year, and no part can be too
+ good to do good. It was not a part of my object to hurt the feelings of
+ the Episcopalians and Catholics. If they think that there is some subtle
+ relation between hunger and heaven, or that faith depends upon, or is
+ strengthened by famine, or that veal, during Lent, is the enemy of virtue,
+ or that beef breeds blasphemy, while fish feeds faith&mdash;of course, all
+ this is nothing to me. They have a right to say that vice depends upon
+ victuals, sanctity on soup, religion on rice and chastity on cheese, but
+ they have no right to say that a lecture on liberty is an insult to them
+ because they are hungry. I suppose that Lent was instituted in memory of
+ the Savior's fast. At one time it was supposed that only a divine being
+ could live forty days without food. This supposition has been overthrown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been demonstrated by Dr. Tanner to be utterly without foundation.
+ What possible good did it do the world for Christ to go without food for
+ forty days? Why should we follow such an example? As a rule, hungry people
+ are cross, contrary, obstinate, peevish and unpleasant. A good dinner puts
+ a man at peace with all the world&mdash;makes him generous, good natured
+ and happy. He feels like kissing his wife and children. The future looks
+ bright. He wants to help the needy. The good in him predominates, and he
+ wonders that any man was ever stingy or cruel. Your good cook is a
+ civilizer, and without good food, well prepared, intellectual progress is
+ simply impossible. Most of the orthodox creeds were born of bad cooking.
+ Bad food produced dyspepsia, and dyspepsia produced Calvinism, and
+ Calvinism is the cancer of Christianity. Oatmeal is responsible for the
+ worst features of Scotch Presbyterianism. Half cooked beans account for
+ the religion of the Puritans. Fried bacon and saleratus biscuit underlie
+ the doctrine of State Rights. Lent is a mistake, fasting is a blunder, and
+ bad cooking is a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is stated that you went to Brooklyn while Beecher and
+ Talmage were holding revivals, and that you did so for the purpose of
+ breaking them up. How is this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I had not the slightest idea of interfering with the
+ revivals. They amounted to nothing. They were not alive enough to be
+ killed. Surely one lecture could not destroy two revivals. Still, I think
+ that if all the persons engaged in the revivals had spent the same length
+ of time in cleaning the streets, the good result would have been more
+ apparent. The truth is, that the old way of converting people will have to
+ be abandoned. The Americans are getting hard to scare, and a revival
+ without the "scare" is scarcely worth holding. Such maniacs as Hammond and
+ the "Boy Preacher" fill asylums and terrify children. After saying what he
+ has about hell, Mr. Beecher ought to know that he is not the man to
+ conduct a revival. A revival sermon with hell left out&mdash;with the
+ brimstone gone&mdash;with the worm that never dies, dead, and the Devil
+ absent&mdash;is the broadest farce. Mr. Talmage believes in the ancient
+ way. With him hell is a burning reality. He can hear the shrieks and
+ groans. He is of that order of mind that rejoices in these things. If he
+ could only convince others, he would be a great revivalist. He cannot
+ terrify, he astonishes. He is the clown of the horrible&mdash;one of
+ Jehovah's jesters. I am not responsible for the revival failure in
+ Brooklyn. I wish I were. I would have the happiness of knowing that I had
+ been instrumental in preserving the sanity of my fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you account for these attacks?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It was not so much what I said that excited the wrath of
+ the reverend gentlemen as the fact that I had a great house. They
+ contrasted their failure with my success. The fact is, the people are
+ getting tired of the old ideas. They are beginning to think for
+ themselves. Eternal punishment seems to them like eternal revenge. They
+ see that Christ could not atone for the sins of others; that belief ought
+ not to be rewarded and honest doubt punished forever; that good deeds are
+ better than bad creeds, and that liberty is the rightful heritage of every
+ soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Were you an admirer of Lord Beaconsfield?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In some respects. He was on our side during the war, and
+ gave it as his opinion that the Union would be preserved. Mr. Gladstone
+ congratulated Jefferson Davis on having founded a new nation. I shall
+ never forget Beaconsfield for his kindness, nor Gladstone for his malice.
+ Beaconsfield was an intellectual gymnast, a political athlete, one of the
+ most adroit men in the world. He had the persistence of his race. In spite
+ of the prejudices of eighteen hundred years, he rose to the highest
+ position that can be occupied by a citizen. During his administration
+ England again became a Continental power and played her game of European
+ chess. I have never regarded Beaconsfield as a man controlled by
+ principle, or by his heart. He was strictly a politician. He always acted
+ as though he thought the clubs were looking at him. He knew all the arts
+ belonging to his trade. He would have succeeded anywhere, if by
+ "succeeding" is meant the attainment of position and power. But after all,
+ such men are splendid failures. They give themselves and others a great
+ deal of trouble&mdash;they wear the tinsel crown of temporary success and
+ then fade from public view. They astonish the pit, they gain the applause
+ of the galleries, but when the curtain falls there is nothing left to
+ benefit mankind. Beaconsfield held convictions somewhat in contempt. He
+ had the imagination of the East united with the ambition of an Englishman.
+ With him, to succeed was to have done right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of him as an author?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Most of his characters are like himself&mdash;puppets moved
+ by the string of self-interest. The men are adroit, the women mostly
+ heartless. They catch each other with false bait. They have great worldly
+ wisdom. Their virtue and vice are mechanical. They have hearts like clocks&mdash;filled
+ with wheels and springs. The author winds them up. In his novels Disr&aelig;li
+ allows us to enter the greenroom of his heart. We see the ropes, the
+ pulleys and the old masks. In all things, in politics and in literature,
+ he was cold, cunning, accurate, able and successful. His books will, in a
+ little while, follow their author to their grave. After all, the good will
+ live longest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;Washington correspondent, <i>Brooklyn Eagle</i>, April 24, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0022" id="link0022">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ANSWERING THE NEW YORK MINISTERS.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Ever since Colonel Ingersoll began the delivery of his
+ lecture called <i>The Great Infidels</i>, the ministers of the
+ country have made him the subject of special attack. One
+ week ago last Sunday the majority of the leading ministers
+ in New York made replies to Ingersoll's latest lecture.
+ What he has to say to these replies will be found in a
+ report of an interview with Colonel Ingersoll.
+
+ No man is harder to pin down for a long talk than the
+ Colonel. He is so beset with visitors and eager office
+ seekers anxious for help, that he can hardly find five
+ minutes unoccupied during an entire day. Through the shelter
+ of a private room and the guardianship of a stout colored
+ servant, the Colonel was able to escape the crowd of seekers
+ after his personal charity long enough to give some time to
+ answer some of the ministerial arguments advanced against
+ him in New York.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you seen the attacks made upon you by certain
+ ministers of New York, published in the <i>Herald</i> last Sunday?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I read, or heard read, what was in Monday's <i>Herald</i>.
+ I do not know that you could hardly call them attacks. They are
+ substantially a repetition of what the pulpit has been saying for a great
+ many hundred years, and what the pulpit will say just so long as men are
+ paid for suppressing truth and for defending superstition. One of these
+ gentlemen tells the lambs of his flock that three thousand men and a few
+ women&mdash;probably with quite an emphasis on the word "Few"&mdash;gave
+ one dollar each to hear their Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed.
+ Probably nothing is so hard for the average preacher to bear as the fact
+ that people are not only willing to hear the other side, but absolutely
+ anxious to pay for it. The dollar that these people paid hurt their
+ feelings vastly more than what was said after they were in. Of course, it
+ is a frightful commentary on the average intellect of the pulpit that a
+ minister cannot get so large an audience when he preaches for nothing, as
+ an Infidel can draw at a dollar a head. If I depended upon a contribution
+ box, or upon passing a saucer that would come back to the stage enriched
+ with a few five cent pieces, eight or ten dimes, and a lonesome quarter,
+ these gentlemen would, in all probability, imagine Infidelity was not to
+ be feared.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The churches were all open on that Sunday, and all could go who desired.
+ Yet they were not full, and the pews were nearly as empty of people as the
+ pulpit of ideas. The truth is, the story is growing old, the ideas
+ somewhat moss-covered, and everything has a wrinkled and withered
+ appearance. This gentleman says that these people went to hear their Maker
+ cursed and their Savior ridiculed. Is it possible that in a city where so
+ many steeples pierce the air, and hundreds of sermons are preached every
+ Sunday, there are three thousand men, and a few women, so anxious to hear
+ "their Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed" that they are willing to
+ pay a dollar each? The gentleman knew that nobody cursed anybody's Maker.
+ He knew that the statement was utterly false and without the slightest
+ foundation. He also knew that nobody had ridiculed the Savior of anybody,
+ but, on the contrary, that I had paid a greater tribute to the character
+ of Jesus Christ than any minister in New York has the capacity to do.
+ Certainly it is not cursing the Maker of anybody to say that the God
+ described in the Old Testament is not the real God. Certainly it is not
+ cursing God to declare that the real God never sanctioned slavery or
+ polygamy, or commanded wars of extermination, or told a husband to
+ separate from his wife if she differed with him in religion. The people
+ who say these things of God&mdash;if there is any God at all&mdash;do what
+ little there is in their power, unwittingly of course, to destroy his
+ reputation. But I have done something to rescue the reputation of the
+ Deity from the slanders of the pulpit. If there is any God, I expect to
+ find myself credited on the heavenly books for my defence of him. I did
+ say that our civilization is due not to piety, but to Infidelity. I did
+ say that every great reformer had been denounced as an Infidel in his day
+ and generation. I did say that Christ was an Infidel, and that he was
+ treated in his day very much as the orthodox preachers treat an honest man
+ now. I did say that he was tried for blasphemy and crucified by bigots. I
+ did say that he hated and despised the church of his time, and that he
+ denounced the most pious people of Jerusalem as thieves and vipers. And I
+ suggested that should he come again he might have occasion to repeat the
+ remarks that he then made. At the same time I admitted that there are
+ thousands and thousands of Christians who are exceedingly good people. I
+ never did pretend that the fact that a man was a Christian even tended to
+ show that he was a bad man. Neither have I ever insisted that the fact
+ that a man is an Infidel even tends to show what, in other respects, his
+ character is. But I always have said, and I always expect to say, that a
+ Christian who does not believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a curse
+ to mankind, and that an Infidel who does believe in absolute intellectual
+ liberty is a blessing to this world. We cannot expect all Infidels to be
+ good, nor all Christians to be bad, and we might make some mistakes even
+ if we selected these people ourselves. It is admitted by the Christians
+ that Christ made a great mistake when he selected Judas. This was a
+ mistake of over eight per cent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Chaplain Newman takes pains to compare some great Christians with some
+ great Infidels. He compares Washington with Julian, and insists, I
+ suppose, that Washington was a great Christian. Certainly he is not very
+ familiar with the history of Washington, or he never would claim that he
+ was particularly distinguished in his day for what is generally known as
+ vital piety. That he went through the ordinary forms of Christianity
+ nobody disputes. That he listened to sermons without paying any particular
+ attention to them, no one will deny. Julian, of course, was somewhat
+ prejudiced against Christianity, but that he was one of the greatest men
+ of antiquity no one acquainted with the history of Rome can honestly
+ dispute. When he was made emperor he found at the palace hundreds of
+ gentlemen who acted as barbers, hair-combers, and brushers for the
+ emperor. He dismissed them all, remarking that he was able to wash
+ himself. These dismissed office-holders started the story that he was
+ dirty in his habits, and a minister of the nineteenth century was found
+ silly enough to believe the story. Another thing that probably got him
+ into disrepute in that day, he had no private chaplains. As a matter of
+ fact, Julian was forced to pretend that he was a Christian in order to
+ save his life. The Christians of that day were of such a loving nature
+ that any man who differed with them was forced to either fall a victim to
+ their ferocity or seek safety in subterfuge. The real crime that Julian
+ committed, and the only one that has burned itself into the very heart and
+ conscience of the Christian world, is, that he transferred the revenues of
+ the Christian churches to heathen priests. Whoever stands between a priest
+ and his salary will find that he has committed the unpardonable sin
+ commonly known as the sin against the Holy Ghost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gentleman also compares Luther with Voltaire. If he will read the
+ life of Luther by Lord Brougham, he will find that in his ordinary
+ conversation he was exceedingly low and vulgar, and that no respectable
+ English publisher could be found who would soil paper with the
+ translation. If he will take the pains to read an essay by Macaulay, he
+ will find that twenty years after the death of Luther there were more
+ Catholics than when he was born. And that twenty years after the death of
+ Voltaire there were millions less than when he was born. If he will take
+ just a few moments to think, he will find that the last victory of
+ Protestantism was in Holland; that there has never been one since, and
+ will never be another. If he would really like to think, and enjoy for a
+ few moments the luxury of having an idea, let him ponder for a little
+ while over the instructive fact that languages having their root in the
+ Latin have generally been spoken in Catholic countries, and that those
+ languages having their root in the ancient German are now mostly spoken by
+ people of Protestant proclivities. It may occur to him, after thinking of
+ this a while, that there is something deeper in the question than he has
+ as yet perceived. Luther's last victory, as I said before, was in Holland;
+ but the victory of Voltaire goes on from day to day. Protestantism is not
+ holding its own with Catholicism, even in the United States. I saw the
+ other day the statistics, I believe, of the city of Chicago, showing that,
+ while the city had increased two or three hundred per cent., Protestantism
+ had lagged behind at the rate of twelve per cent. I am willing for one, to
+ have the whole question depend upon a comparison of the worth and work of
+ Voltaire and Luther. It may be, too, that the gentleman forgot to tell us
+ that Luther himself gave consent to a person high in office to have two
+ wives, but prudently suggested to him that he had better keep it as still
+ as possible. Luther was, also, a believer in a personal Devil. He thought
+ that deformed children had been begotten by an evil spirit. On one
+ occasion he told a mother that, in his judgment, she had better drown her
+ child; that he had no doubt that the Devil was its father. This same
+ Luther made this observation: "Universal toleration is universal error,
+ and universal error is universal hell." From this you will see that he was
+ an exceedingly good man, but mistaken upon many questions. So, too, he
+ laughed at the Copernican system, and wanted to know if those fool
+ astronomers could undo the work of God. He probably knew as little about
+ science as the reverend gentleman does about history.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Does he compare any other Infidels with Christians?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Oh, yes; he compares Lord Bacon with Diderot. I have never
+ claimed that Diderot was a saint. I have simply insisted that he was a
+ great man; that he was grand enough to say that "incredulity is the
+ beginning of philosophy;" that he had sense enough to know that the God
+ described by the Catholics and Protestants of his day was simply an
+ impossible monster; and that he also had the brain to see that the little
+ selfish heaven occupied by a few monks and nuns and idiots they had
+ fleeced, was hardly worth going to; in other words, that he was a man of
+ common sense, greatly in advance of his time, and that he did what he
+ could to increase the sum of human enjoyment to the end that there might
+ be more happiness in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The gentleman compares him with Lord Bacon, and yet, if he will read the
+ trials of that day&mdash;I think in the year 1620&mdash;he will find that
+ the Christian Lord Bacon, the pious Lord Bacon, was charged with receiving
+ pay for his opinions, and, in some instances, pay from both sides; that
+ the Christian Lord Bacon, at first upon his honor as a Christian lord,
+ denied the whole business; that afterward the Christian Lord Bacon, upon
+ his honor as a Christian lord, admitted the truth of the whole business,
+ and that, therefore, the Christian Lord Bacon was convicted and sentenced
+ to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds, and rendered infamous and
+ incapable of holding any office. Now, understand me, I do not think Bacon
+ took bribes because he was a Christian, because there have been many
+ Christian judges perfectly honest; but, if the statement of the reverend
+ gentlemen of New York is true, his being a Christian did not prevent his
+ taking bribes. And right here allow me to thank the gentleman with all my
+ heart for having spoken of Lord Bacon in this connection. I have always
+ admired the genius of Bacon, and have always thought of his fall with an
+ aching heart, and would not now have spoken of his crime had not his
+ character been flung in my face by a gentleman who asks his God to kill me
+ for having expressed my honest thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same gentleman compares Newton with Spinoza. In the first place, there
+ is no ground of parallel. Newton was a very great man and a very justly
+ celebrated mathematician. As a matter of fact, he is not celebrated for
+ having discovered the law of gravitation. That was known for thousands of
+ years before he was born; and if the reverend gentleman would read a
+ little more he would find that Newton's discovery was not that there is
+ such a law as gravitation, but that bodies attract each other "with a
+ force proportional directly to the quantity of matter they contain, and
+ inversely to the squares of their distances." I do not think he made the
+ discoveries on account of his Christianity. Laplace was certainly in many
+ respects as great a mathematician and astronomer, but he was not a
+ Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Descartes was certainly not much inferior to Newton as a mathematician,
+ and thousands insist that he was his superior; yet he was not a Christian.
+ Euclid, if I remember right, was not a Christian, and yet he had quite a
+ turn for mathematics. As a matter of fact, Christianity got its idea of
+ algebra from the Mohammedans, and, without algebra, astronomical knowledge
+ of to-day would have been impossible. Christianity did not even invent
+ figures. We got those from the Arabs. The very word "algebra" is Arabic.
+ The decimal system, I believe, however, was due to a German, but whether
+ he was a Christian or not, I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find that the Chinese calculated eclipses long before Christ was born;
+ and, exactness being the rule at that time, there is an account of two
+ astronomers having been beheaded for failing to tell the coming of an
+ eclipse to the minute; yet they were not Christians. There is another fact
+ connected with Newton, and that is that he wrote a commentary on the Book
+ of Revelation. The probability is that a sillier commentary was never
+ written. It was so perfectly absurd and laughable that some one&mdash;I
+ believe it was Voltaire&mdash;said that while Newton had excited the envy
+ of the intellectual world by his mathematical accomplishments, it had
+ gotten even with him the moment his commentaries were published. Spinoza
+ was not a mathematician, particularly. He was a metaphysician, an honest
+ thinker, whose influence is felt, and will be felt so long as these great
+ questions have the slightest interest for the human brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also compares Chalmers with Hume. Chalmers gained his notoriety from
+ preaching what are known as the astronomical sermons, and, I suppose, was
+ quite a preacher in his day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Hume was a thinker, and his works will live for ages after Mr.
+ Chalmers' sermons will have been forgotten. Mr. Chalmers has never been
+ prominent enough to have been well known by many people. He may have been
+ an exceedingly good man, and derived, during his life, great consolation
+ from a belief in the damnation of infants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Newman also compares Wesley with Thomas Paine. When Thomas Paine was
+ in favor of human liberty, Wesley was against it. Thomas Paine wrote a
+ pamphlet called "Common Sense," urging the colonies to separate themselves
+ from Great Britain. Wesley wrote a treatise on the other side. He was the
+ enemy of human liberty; and if his advice could have been followed we
+ would have been the colonies of Great Britain still. We never would have
+ had a President in need of a private chaplain. Mr. Wesley had not a
+ scientific mind. He preached a sermon once on the cause and cure of
+ earthquakes, taking the ground that earthquakes were caused by sins, and
+ that the only way to stop them was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He
+ also laid down some excellent rules for rearing children, that is, from a
+ Methodist standpoint. His rules amounted to about this:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ <i>First</i>. Never give them what they want.
+ <i>Second</i>. Never give them what you intend to give them, at the time
+ they want it.
+ <i>Third</i>. Break their wills at the earliest possible moment.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Wesley made every family an inquisition, every father and mother
+ inquisitors, and all the children helpless victims. One of his homes would
+ give an exceedingly vivid idea of hell. At the same time, Mr. Wesley was a
+ believer in witches and wizards, and knew all about the Devil. At his
+ request God performed many miracles. On several occasions he cured his
+ horse of lameness. On others, dissipated Mr. Wesley's headaches. Now and
+ then he put off rain on account of a camp meeting, and at other times
+ stopped the wind blowing at the special request of Mr. Wesley. I have no
+ doubt that Mr. Wesley was honest in all this,&mdash;just as honest as he
+ was mistaken. And I also admit that he was the founder of a church that
+ does extremely well in new countries, and that thousands of Methodists
+ have been exceedingly good men. But I deny that he ever did anything for
+ human liberty. While Mr. Wesley was fighting the Devil and giving his
+ experience with witches and wizards, Thomas Paine helped to found a free
+ nation, helped to enrich the air with another flag. Wesley was right on
+ one thing, though. He was opposed to slavery, and, I believe, called it
+ the sum of all villainies. I have always been obliged to him for that. I
+ do not think he said it because he was a Methodist; but Methodism, as he
+ understood it, did not prevent his saying it, and Methodism as others
+ understood it, did not prevent men from being slaveholders, did not
+ prevent them from selling babes from mothers, and in the name of God
+ beating the naked back of toil. I think, on the whole, Paine did more for
+ the world than Mr. Wesley. The difference between an average Methodist and
+ an average Episcopalian is not worth quarreling about. But the difference
+ between a man who believes in despotism and one who believes in liberty is
+ almost infinite. Wesley changed Episcopalians into Methodists; Paine
+ turned lickspittles into men. Let it be understood, once for all, that I
+ have never claimed that Paine was perfect. I was very glad that the
+ reverend gentleman admitted that he was a patriot and the foe of tyrants;
+ that he sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless; that
+ he favored religious toleration, and that he weakened the power of the
+ Catholic Church. I am glad that he made these admissions. Whenever it can
+ be truthfully said of a man that he loved his country, hated tyranny,
+ sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless, nothing more
+ is necessary. If God can afford to damn such a man, such a man can afford
+ to be damned. While Paine was the foe of tyrants, Christians were the
+ tyrants. When he sympathized with the oppressed, the oppressed were the
+ victims of Christians. When he befriended the helpless, the helpless were
+ the victims of Christians. Paine never founded an inquisition; never
+ tortured a human being; never hoped that anybody's tongue would be
+ paralyzed, and was always opposed to private chaplains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It might be well for the reverend gentleman to continue his comparisons,
+ and find eminent Christians to put, for instance, along with Humboldt, the
+ Shakespeare of science; somebody by the side of Darwin, as a naturalist;
+ some gentleman in England to stand with Tyndall, or Huxley; some Christian
+ German to stand with Haeckel and Helmholtz. May be he knows some Christian
+ statesman that he would compare with Gambetta. I would advise him to
+ continue his parallels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say of the Rev. Dr. Fulton?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Rev. Dr. Fulton is a great friend of mine. I am
+ extremely sorry to find that he still believes in a personal Devil, and I
+ greatly regret that he imagines that this Devil has so much power that he
+ can take possession of a human being and deprive God of their services. It
+ is in sorrow and not in anger, that I find that he still believes in this
+ ancient superstition. I also regret that he imagines that I am leading
+ young men to eternal ruin. It occurs to me that if there is an infinite
+ God, he ought not to allow anybody to lead young men to eternal ruin. If
+ anything I have said, or am going to say, has a tendency to lead young men
+ to eternal ruin, I hope that if there is a God with the power to prevent
+ me, that he will use it. Dr. Fulton admits that in politics I am on the
+ right side. I presume he makes this concession because he is a Republican.
+ I am in favor of universal education, of absolute intellectual liberty. I
+ am in favor, also, of equal rights to all. As I have said before we have
+ spent millions and millions of dollars and rivers of blood to free the
+ bodies of men; in other words, we have been freeing the cages. My
+ proposition now is to give a little liberty to the birds. I am not willing
+ to stop where a man can simply reap the fruit of his hand. I wish him,
+ also, to enjoy the liberty of his brain. I am not against any truth in the
+ New Testament. I did say that I objected to religion because it made
+ enemies and not friends. The Rev. Dr. says that is one reason why he likes
+ religion. Dr. Fulton tells me that the Bible is the gift of God to man. He
+ also tells me that the Bible is true, and that God is its author. If the
+ Bible is true and God is its author, then God was in favor of slavery four
+ thousand years ago. He was also in favor of polygamy and religious
+ intolerance. In other words, four thousand years ago he occupied the exact
+ position the Devil is supposed to occupy now. If the Bible teaches
+ anything it teaches man to enslave his brother, that is to say, if his
+ brother is a heathen. The God of the Bible always hated heathens. Dr.
+ Fulton also says that the Bible is the basis of all law. Yet, if the
+ Legislature of New York would re-enact next winter the Mosaic code, the
+ members might consider themselves lucky if they were not hung upon their
+ return home. Probably Dr. Fulton thinks that had it not been for the Ten
+ Commandments, nobody would ever have thought that stealing was wrong. I
+ have always had an idea that men objected to stealing because the
+ industrious did not wish to support the idle; and I have a notion that
+ there has always been a law against murder, because a large majority of
+ people have always objected to being murdered. If he will read his Old
+ Testament with care, he will find that God violated most of his own
+ commandments&mdash;all except that "Thou shalt worship no other God before
+ me," and, may be, the commandment against work on the Sabbath day. With
+ these two exceptions I am satisfied that God himself violated all the
+ rest. He told his chosen people to rob the Gentiles; that violated the
+ commandment against stealing. He said himself that he had sent out lying
+ spirits; that certainly was a violation of another commandment. He ordered
+ soldiers to kill men, women and babes; that was a violation of another. He
+ also told them to divide the maidens among the soldiers; that was a
+ substantial violation of another. One of the commandments was that you
+ should not covet your neighbor's property. In that commandment you will
+ find that a man's wife is put on an equality with his ox. Yet his chosen
+ people were allowed not only to covet the property of the Gentiles, but to
+ take it. If Dr. Fulton will read a little more, he will find that all the
+ good laws in the Decalogue had been in force in Egypt a century before
+ Moses was born. He will find that like laws and many better ones were in
+ force in India and China, long before Moses knew what a bulrush was. If he
+ will think a little while, he will find that one of the Ten Commandments,
+ the one on the subject of graven images, was bad. The result of that was
+ that Palestine never produced a painter, or a sculptor, and that no Jew
+ became famous in art until long after the destruction of Jerusalem. A
+ commandment that robs a people of painting and statuary is not a good one.
+ The idea of the Bible being the basis of law is almost too silly to be
+ seriously refuted. I admit that I did say that Shakespeare was the
+ greatest man who ever lived; and Dr. Fulton says in regard to this
+ statement, "What foolishness!" He then proceeds to insult his audience by
+ telling them that while many of them have copies of Shakespeare's works in
+ their houses, they have not read twenty pages of them. This fact may
+ account for their attending his church and being satisfied with that
+ sermon. I do not believe to-day that Shakespeare is more influential than
+ the Bible, but what influence Shakespeare has, is for good. No man can
+ read it without having his intellectual wealth increased. When you read
+ it, it is not necessary to throw away your reason. Neither will you be
+ damned if you do not understand it. It is a book that appeals to
+ everything in the human brain. In that book can be found the wisdom of all
+ ages. Long after the Bible has passed out of existence, the name of
+ Shakespeare will lead the intellectual roster of the world. Dr. Fulton
+ says there is not one work in the Bible that teaches that slavery or
+ polygamy is right. He also states that I know it. If language has meaning&mdash;if
+ words have sense, or the power to convey thought,&mdash;what did God mean
+ when he told the Israelites to buy of the heathen round about, and that
+ the heathen should be their bondmen and bondmaids forever?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What did God mean when he said, If a man strike his servant so he dies, he
+ should not be punished, because his servant was his money? Passages like
+ these can be quoted beyond the space that any paper is willing to give.
+ Yet the Rev. Dr. Fulton denies that the Old Testament upholds slavery. I
+ would like to ask him if the Old Testament is in favor of religious
+ toleration? If God wrote the Old Testament and afterward came upon the
+ earth as Jesus Christ, and taught a new religion, and the Jews crucified
+ him, was this not in accordance with his own law, and was he not, after
+ all, the victim of himself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What about the other ministers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I see in the <i>Herald</i> that some ten have said
+ that they would reply to me. I have selected the two, simply because they
+ came first. I think they are about as poor as any; and you know it is
+ natural to attack those who are the easiest answered. All these ministers
+ are now acting as my agents, and are doing me all the good they can by
+ saying all the bad things about me they can think of. They imagine that
+ their congregations have not grown, and they talk to them as though they
+ were living in the seventeenth instead of the nineteenth century. The
+ truth is, the pews are beyond the pulpit, and the modern sheep are now
+ protecting the shepherds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you noticed a great change in public sentiment in
+ the last three or four years?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I think there are ten times as many Infidels to- day
+ as there were ten years ago. I am amazed at the great change that has
+ taken place in public opinion. The churches are not getting along well.
+ There are hundreds and hundreds who have not had a new member in a year.
+ The young men are not satisfied with the old ideas. They find that the
+ church, after all, is opposed to learning; that it is the enemy of
+ progress; that it says to every young man, "Go slow. Don't allow your
+ knowledge to puff you up. Recollect that reason is a dangerous thing. You
+ had better be a little ignorant here for the sake of being an angel
+ hereafter, than quite a smart young man and get damned at last." The
+ church warns them against Humboldt and Darwin, and tells them how much
+ nobler it is to come from mud than from monkeys; that they were made from
+ mud. Every college professor is afraid to tell what he thinks, and every
+ student detects the cowardice. The result is that the young men have lost
+ confidence in the creeds of the day and propose to do a little thinking
+ for themselves. They still have a kind of tender pity for the old folks,
+ and pretend to believe some things they do not, rather than hurt
+ grandmother's feelings. In the presence of the preachers they talk about
+ the weather or other harmless subjects, for fear of bruising the spirit of
+ their pastor. Every minister likes to consider himself as a brave shepherd
+ leading the lambs through the green pastures and defending them at night
+ from Infidel wolves. All this he does for a certain share of the wool.
+ Others regard the church as a kind of social organization, as a good way
+ to get into society. They wish to attend sociables, drink tea, and
+ contribute for the conversion of the heathen. It is always so pleasant to
+ think that there is somebody worse than you are, whose reformation you can
+ help pay for. I find, too, that the young women are getting tired of the
+ old doctrines, and that everywhere, all over this country, the power of
+ the pulpit wanes and weakens. I find in my lectures that the applause is
+ just in proportion to the radicalism of the thought expressed. Our war was
+ a great educator, when the whole people of the North rose up grandly in
+ favor of human liberty. For many years the great question of human rights
+ was discussed from every stump. Every paper was filled with splendid
+ sentiments. An application of those doctrines&mdash;doctrines born in war&mdash;will
+ forever do away with the bondage of superstition. When man has been free
+ in body for a little time, he will become free in mind, and the man who
+ says, "I have a equal right with other men to work and reap the reward of
+ my labor," will say, "I have, also, an equal right to think and reap the
+ reward of my thought."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In old times there was a great difference between a clergyman and a
+ layman. The clergyman was educated; the peasant was ignorant. The tables
+ have been turned. The thought of the world is with the laymen. They are
+ the intellectual pioneers, the mental leaders, and the ministers are
+ following on behind, predicting failure and disaster, sighing for the good
+ old times when their word ended discussion. There is another good thing,
+ and that is the revision of the Bible. Hundreds of passages have been
+ found to be interpolations, and future revisers will find hundreds more.
+ The foundation crumbles. That book, called the basis of all law and
+ civilization, has to be civilized itself. We have outgrown it. Our laws
+ are better; our institutions grander; our objects and aims nobler and
+ higher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do many people write to you upon this subject; and what
+ spirit do they manifest?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I get a great many anonymous letters&mdash;some
+ letters in which God is asked to strike me dead, others of an exceedingly
+ insulting character, others almost idiotic, others exceedingly malicious,
+ and others insane, others written in an exceedingly good spirit, winding
+ up with the information that I must certainly be damned. Others express
+ wonder that God allowed me to live at all, and that, having made the
+ mistake, he does not instantly correct it by killing me. Others prophesy
+ that I will yet be a minister of the gospel; but, as there has never been
+ any softening of the brain in our family, I imagine that the prophecy will
+ never by fulfilled. Lately, on opening a letter and seeing that it is upon
+ this subject, and without a signature, I throw it aside without reading. I
+ have so often found them to be so grossly ignorant, insulting and
+ malicious, that as a rule I read them no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Of the hundreds of people who call upon you nearly every
+ day to ask your help, do any of them ever discriminate against you on
+ account of your Infidelity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No one who has asked a favor of me objects to my religion,
+ or, rather, to my lack of it. A great many people do come to me for
+ assistance of one kind or another. But I have never yet asked a man or
+ woman whether they were religious or not, to what church they belonged, or
+ any questions upon the subject. I think I have done favors for persons of
+ most denominations. It never occurs to me whether they are Christians or
+ Infidels. I do not care. Of course, I do not expect that Christians will
+ treat me the same as though I belonged to their church. I have never
+ expected it. In some instances I have been disappointed. I have some
+ excellent friends who disagree with me entirely upon the subject of
+ religion. My real opinion is that secretly they like me because I am not a
+ Christian, and those who do not like me envy the liberty I enjoy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;New York correspondent, <i>Chicago Times</i>, May 29, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0023" id="link0023">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ GUITEAU AND HIS CRIME.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Our "Royal Bob" was found by <i>The Gazette</i>, in the
+ gloaming of a delicious evening, during the past week,
+ within the open portals of his friendly residence, dedicated
+ by the gracious presence within to a simple and cordial
+ hospitality, to the charms of friendship and the freedom of
+ an abounding comradeship. With intellectual and untrammeled
+ life, a generous, wise and genial host, whoever enters finds
+ a welcome, seasoned with kindly wit and Attic humor, a
+ poetic insight and a delicious frankness which renders an
+ evening there a veritable symposium. The wayfarer who
+ passes is charmed, and he who comes frequently, goes always
+ away with delighted memories.
+
+ What matters it that we differ? such as he and his make our
+ common life the sweeter. An hour or two spent in the
+ attractive parlors of the Ingersoll homestead, amid that
+ rare group, lends a newer meaning to the idea of home and a
+ more secure beauty to the fact of family life. During the
+ past exciting three weeks Colonel Ingersoll has been a busy
+ man. He holds no office. No position could lend him an
+ additional crown and even recognition is no longer
+ necessary. But it has been well that amid the first fierce
+ fury of anger and excitement, and the subsequent more bitter
+ if not as noble outpouring of faction's suspicions and
+ innuendoes, that so manly a man, so sagacious a counsellor,
+ has been enabled to hold so positive a balance. Cabinet
+ officers, legal functionaries, detectives, citizens&mdash;all
+ have felt the wise, humane instincts, and the capacious
+ brain of this marked man affecting and influencing for this
+ fair equipoise and calmer judgment.
+
+ Conversing freely on the evening of this visit, Colonel
+ Ingersoll, in the abundance of his pleasure at the White
+ House news, submitted to be interviewed, and with the
+ following result.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. By-the-way, Colonel, you knew Guiteau slightly, we
+ believe. Are you aware that it has been attempted to show that some money
+ loaned or given him by yourself was really what he purchased the pistol
+ with?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I knew Guiteau slightly; I saw him for the first time a few
+ days after the inauguration. He wanted a consulate, and asked me to give
+ him a letter to Secretary Blaine. I refused, on the ground that I didn't
+ know him. Afterwards he wanted me to lend him twenty-five dollars, and I
+ declined. I never loaned him a dollar in the world. If I had, I should not
+ feel that I was guilty of trying to kill the President. On the principle
+ that one would hold the man guilty who had innocently loaned the money
+ with which he bought the pistol, you might convict the tailor who made his
+ clothes. If he had had no clothes he would not have gone to the depot
+ naked, and the crime would not have been committed. It is hard enough for
+ the man who did lend him the money to lose that, without losing his
+ reputation besides. Nothing can exceed the utter absurdity of what has
+ been said upon this subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How did Guiteau impress you and what have you remembered,
+ Colonel, of his efforts to reply to your lectures?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not know that Guiteau impressed me in any way. He
+ appeared like most other folks in search of a place or employment. I
+ suppose he was in need. He talked about the same as other people, and
+ claimed that I ought to help him because he was from Chicago. The second
+ time he came to see me he said that he hoped I had no prejudice against
+ him on account of what he had said about me. I told him that I never knew
+ he had said anything against me. I suppose now that he referred to what he
+ had said in his lectures. He went about the country replying to me. I have
+ seen one or two of his lectures. He used about the same arguments that Mr.
+ Black uses in his reply to my article in the <i>North American Review</i>,
+ and denounced me in about the same terms. He is undoubtedly a man who
+ firmly believes in the Old Testament, and has no doubt concerning the New.
+ I understand that he puts in most of his time now reading the Bible and
+ rebuking people who use profane language in his presence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You most certainly do not see any foundation for the
+ accusations of preachers like Sunderland, Newman and Power, <i>et al</i>,
+ that the teaching of a secular liberalism has had anything to do with the
+ shaping of Guiteau's character or the actions of his vagabond life or the
+ inciting to his murderous deeds?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think that the sermon of Mr. Power was in good
+ taste. It is utterly foolish to charge the "Stalwarts" with committing or
+ inciting the crime against the life of the President. Ministers, though,
+ as a rule, know but little of public affairs, and they always account for
+ the actions of people they do not like or agree with, by attributing to
+ them the lowest and basest motives. This is the fault of the pulpit&mdash;always
+ has been, and probably always will be. The Rev. Dr. Newman of New York,
+ tells us that the crime of Guiteau shows three things: First, that
+ ignorant men should not be allowed to vote; second, that foreigners should
+ not be allowed to vote; and third, that there should not be so much
+ religious liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It turns out, first, the Guiteau is not an ignorant man; second, that he
+ is not a foreigner; and third, that he is a Christian. Now, because an
+ intelligent American Christian tries to murder the President, this person
+ says we ought to do something with ignorant foreigners and Infidels. This
+ is about the average pulpit logic. Of course, all the ministers hate to
+ admit the Guiteau was a Christian; that he belonged to the Young Men's
+ Christian Association, or at least was generally found in their rooms;
+ that he was a follower of Moody and Sankey, and probably instrumental in
+ the salvation of a great many souls. I do not blame them for wishing to
+ get rid of this record. What I blame them for is that they are impudent
+ enough to charge the crime of Guiteau upon Infidelity. Infidels and
+ Atheists have often killed tyrants. They have often committed crimes to
+ increase the liberty of mankind; but the history of the world will not
+ show an instance where an Infidel or an Atheist has assassinated any man
+ in the interest of human slavery. Of course, I am exceedingly glad that
+ Guiteau is not an Infidel. I am glad that he believes the Bible, glad that
+ he has delivered lectures against what he calls Infidelity, and glad that
+ he has been working for years with the missionaries and evangelists of the
+ United States. He is a man of small brain, badly balanced. He believes the
+ Bible to be the word of God. He believes in the reality of heaven and
+ hell. He believes in the miraculous. He is surrounded by the supernatural,
+ and when a man throws away his reason, of course no one can tell what he
+ will do. He is liable to become a devotee or an assassin, a saint or a
+ murderer; he may die in a monastery or in a penitentiary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. According to your view, then, the species of fanaticism
+ taught in sectarian Christianity, by which Guiteau was led to assert that
+ Garfield dead would be better off then living&mdash;being in Paradise
+ &mdash;is more responsible than office seeking or political factionalism
+ for his deed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Guiteau seemed to think that the killing of the President
+ would only open the gates of Paradise to him, and that, after all, under
+ such circumstances, murder was hardly a crime. This same kind of reasoning
+ is resorted to in the pulpit to account for death. If Guiteau had
+ succeeded in killing the President, hundreds of ministers would have said,
+ "After all, it may be that the President has lost nothing; it may be that
+ our loss is his eternal gain; and although it seems cruel that Providence
+ should allow a man like him to be murdered, still, it may have been the
+ very kindest thing that could have been done for him." Guiteau reasoned in
+ this way, and probably convinced himself, judging from his own life, that
+ this world was, after all, of very little worth. We are apt to measure
+ others by ourselves. Of course, I do not think Christianity is responsible
+ for this crime. Superstition may have been, in part &mdash;probably was.
+ But no man believes in Christianity because he thinks it sanctions murder.
+ At the same time, an absolute belief in the Bible sometimes produces the
+ worst form of murder. Take that of Mr. Freeman, of Poeasset, who stabbed
+ his little daughter to the heart in accordance with what he believed to be
+ the command of God. This poor man imitated Abraham; and, for that matter,
+ Jehovah himself. There have been in the history of Christianity thousands
+ and thousands of such instances, and there will probably be many thousands
+ more that have been and will be produced by throwing away our own reason
+ and taking the word of some one else &mdash;often a word that we do not
+ understand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion as to the effect of praying for the
+ recovery of the President, and have you any confidence that prayers are
+ answered?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My opinion as to the value of prayer is well known. I take
+ it that every one who prays for the President shows at least his sympathy
+ and good will. Personally, I have no objection to anybody's praying. Those
+ who think their prayers are answered should pray. For all who honestly
+ believe this, and who honestly implore their Deity to watch over, protect,
+ and save the life of the President, I have only the kindliest feelings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that a few will pray to be seen of men; but I suppose that most
+ people on a subject like this are honest. Personally, I have not the
+ slightest idea of the existence of the supernatural. Prayer may affect the
+ person who prays. It may put him in such a frame of mind that he can
+ better bear disappointment than if he had not prayed; but I cannot believe
+ that there is any being who hears and answers prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we remember the earthquakes that have devoured, the pestilences that
+ have covered the earth with corpses, and all the crimes and agonies that
+ have been inflicted upon the good and weak by the bad and strong, it does
+ not seem possible that anything can be accomplished by prayer. I do not
+ wish to hurt the feelings of anyone, but I imagine that I have a right to
+ my own opinion. If the President gets well it will be because the bullet
+ did not strike an absolutely vital part; it will be because he has been
+ well cared for; because he has had about him intelligent and skillful
+ physicians, men who understood their profession. No doubt he has received
+ great support from the universal expression of sympathy and kindness. The
+ knowledge that fifty millions of people are his friends has given him
+ nerve and hope. Some of the ministers, I see, think that God was actually
+ present and deflected the ball. Another minister tells us that the
+ President would have been assassinated in a church, but that God
+ determined not to allow so frightful a crime to be committed in so sacred
+ an edifice. All this sounds to me like perfect absurdity&mdash;simple
+ noise. Yet, I presume that those who talk in this way are good people and
+ believe what they say. Of course, they can give no reason why God did not
+ deflect the ball when Lincoln was assassinated. The truth is, the pulpit
+ first endeavors to find out the facts, and then to make a theory to fit
+ them. Whoever believes in a special providence must, of necessity, by
+ illogical and absurd; because it is impossible to make any theological
+ theory that some facts will not contradict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Won't you give us, then, Colonel, your analysis of this
+ act, and the motives leading to it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Guiteau wanted an office and was refused. He became
+ importunate. He was, substantially, put out of the White House. He became
+ malicious. He made up his mind to be revenged. This, in my judgment, is
+ the diagnosis of his case. Since he has been in jail he has never said one
+ word about having been put out of the White House; he is lawyer enough to
+ know he must not furnish any ground for malice. He is a miserable,
+ malicious and worthless wretch, infinitely egotistical, imagines that he
+ did a great deal toward the election of Garfield, and upon being refused
+ the house a serpent of malice coiled in his heart, and he determined to be
+ revenged. That is all!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you, in any way, see any reason or foundation for the
+ severe and bitter criticisms made against the Stalwart leaders in
+ connection with this crime? As you are well known to be a friend of the
+ administration, while not unfriendly to Mr. Conkling and those acting with
+ him, would you mind giving the public your opinion on this point?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, I do not hold Arthur, Conkling and Platt
+ responsible for Guiteau's action. In the first excitement a thousand
+ unreasonable things were said; and when passion has possession of the
+ brain, suspicion is a welcome visitor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think that any friend of the administration really believes
+ Conkling, Platt and Arthur responsible in the slightest degree. Conkling
+ wished to prevent the appointment of Robertson. The President stood by his
+ friend. One thing brought on another, Mr. Conkling petulantly resigned,
+ and made the mistake of his life. There was a good deal of feeling, but,
+ of course, no one dreamed that the wretch, Guiteau, was lying in wait for
+ the President's life. In the first place, Guiteau was on the President's
+ side, and was bitterly opposed to Conkling. Guiteau did what he did from
+ malice and personal spite. I think the sermon preached last Sunday in the
+ Campbellite Church was unwise, ill advised, and calculated to make enemies
+ instead of friends. Mr. Conkling has been beaten. He has paid for the
+ mistake he made. If he can stand it, I can; and why should there be any
+ malice on the subject? Exceedingly good men have made mistakes, and
+ afterward corrected them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it not true, Colonel Ingersoll, that the lesson of
+ this deed is to point the real and overwhelming need of re-knitting and
+ harmonizing the factions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is hardly enough faction left for "knitting." The
+ party is in harmony now. All that is necessary is to stop talking. The
+ people of this country care very little as to who holds any particular
+ office. They wish to have the Government administered in accordance with
+ certain great principles, and they leave the fields, the shops, and the
+ stores once in four years, for the purpose of attending to that business.
+ In the meantime, politicians quarrel about offices. The people go on. They
+ plow fields, they build homes, they open mines, they enrich the world,
+ they cover our country with prosperity, and enjoy the aforesaid quarrels.
+ But when the time comes, these gentlemen are forgotten.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Principles take the place of politicians, and the people settle these
+ questions for themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Sunday Gazette</i>, Washington, D. C., July 24, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0024" id="link0024">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DISTRICT SUFFRAGE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have heretofore incidentally expressed yourself on
+ the matter of local suffrage in the District of Columbia. Have you any
+ objections to giving your present views of the question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am still in favor of suffrage in the District. The real
+ trouble is, that before any substantial relief can be reached, there must
+ be a change in the Constitution of the United States. The mere right to
+ elect aldermen and mayors and policemen is of no great importance. It is a
+ mistake to take all political power from the citizens of the District.
+ Americans want to help rule the country. The District ought to have at
+ least one Representative in Congress, and should elect one presidential
+ elector. The people here should have a voice. They should feel that they
+ are a part of this country. They should have the right to sue in all
+ Federal courts, precisely as though they were citizens of a State. This
+ city ought to have half a million of inhabitants. Thousands would come
+ here every year from every part of the Union, were it not for the fact
+ that they do not wish to become political nothings. They think that
+ citizenship is worth something, and they preserve it by staying away from
+ Washington. This city is a "flag of truce" where wounded and dead
+ politicians congregate; the Mecca of failures, the perdition of claimants,
+ the purgatory of seekers after place, and the heaven only of those who
+ neither want nor do anything. Nothing is manufactured, no solid business
+ is done in this city, and there never will be until energetic, thrifty
+ people wish to make it their home, and they will not wish that until the
+ people of the District have something like the rights and political
+ prospects of other citizens. It is hard to see why the right to
+ representation should be taken from citizens living in the Capital of the
+ Nation. The believers in free government should believe in a free capital.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are there any valid reasons why the constitutional
+ limitations to the elective franchise in the District of Columbia should
+ not be removed by an amendment to that instrument?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I cannot imagine one. If our Government is founded upon a
+ correct principle there can be no objection urged against suffrage in the
+ District that cannot, with equal force, be urged against every part of the
+ country. If freedom is dangerous here, it is safe nowhere. If a man cannot
+ be trusted in the District, he is dangerous in the State. We do not trust
+ the place where the man happens to be; we trust the man. The people of
+ this District cannot remain in their present condition without becoming
+ dishonored. The idea of allowing themselves to be governed by
+ commissioners, in whose selection they have no part, is monstrous. The
+ people here beg, implore, request, ask, pray, beseech, intercede, crave,
+ urge, entreat, supplicate, memorialize and most humbly petition, but they
+ neither vote nor demand. They are not allowed to enter the Temple of
+ Liberty; they stay in the lobby or sit on the steps.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. They say Paris is France, because her electors or
+ citizens control that municipality. Do you foresee any danger of
+ centralization in the full enfranchisement of the citizens of Washington?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There was a time when the intelligence of France was in
+ Paris. The country was besotted, ignorant, Catholic; Paris was alive,
+ educated, Infidel, full of new theories, of passion and heroism. For two
+ hundred years Paris was an athlete chained to a corpse. The corpse was the
+ rest of France. It is different now, and the whole country is at last
+ filling with light. Besides, Paris has two millions of people. It is
+ filled with factories. It is not only the intellectual center, but the
+ center of money and business as well. Let the <i>Corps Legislatif</i> meet
+ anywhere, and Paris will continue to be in a certain splendid sense&mdash;France.
+ Nothing like that can ever happen here unless you expect Washington to
+ outstrip New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. If allowing the people of the
+ District of Columbia to vote was the only danger to the Republic, I should
+ be politically the happiest of men. I think it somewhat dangerous to
+ deprive even one American citizen of the right to govern himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would you have Government clerks and officials appointed
+ to office here given the franchise in the District? and should this, if
+ given, include the women clerks?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Citizenship should be determined here as in the States.
+ Clerks should not be allowed to vote unless their intention is to make the
+ District their home. When I make a government I shall give one vote to
+ each family. The unmarried should not be represented except by parents.
+ Let the family be the unit of representation. Give each hearthstone a
+ vote.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you regard the opposition of the local clergy and
+ of the Bourbon Democracy to enfranchising the citizens of the District?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I did not know that the clergy did oppose it. If, as you
+ say, they do oppose it because they fear it will extend the liquor
+ traffic, I think their reason exceedingly stupid. You cannot make men
+ temperate by shutting up a few of the saloons and leaving others wide
+ open. Intemperance must be met with other weapons. The church ought not to
+ appeal to force. What would the clergy of Washington think should the
+ miracle of Cana be repeated in their day? Had they been in that country,
+ with their present ideas, what would they have said? After all there is a
+ great deal of philosophy in the following: "Better have the whole world
+ voluntarily drunk then sober on compulsion." Of course the Bourbons
+ object. Objecting is the business of a Bourbon. He always objects. If he
+ does not understand the question he objects because he does not, and if he
+ does understand he objects because he does. With him the reason for
+ objecting is the fact that he does.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What effect, if any, would the complete franchise to our
+ citizens have upon real estate and business in Washington?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the people here had representation according to numbers&mdash;if
+ the avenues to political preferment were open&mdash;if men here could take
+ part in the real government of the country, if they could bring with them
+ all their rights, this would be a great and splendid Capital. We ought to
+ have here a University, the best in the world, a library second to none,
+ and here should be gathered the treasures of American art. The Federal
+ Government has been infinitely economical in the direction of information.
+ I hope the time will come when our Government will give as much to educate
+ two men as to kill one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Capital</i>, Washington, D. C., December 18, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0025" id="link0025">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Robert G. Ingersoll rarely takes the trouble to answer
+ critics. His recent address over the dead body of his friend
+ John G. Mills has called forth a storm of denunciation from
+ nearly every pulpit in the country. The writer called at
+ the Colonel's office in New York Avenue yesterday and asked
+ him to reply to some of the points made against him.
+ Reluctantly he assented.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you seen the recent clerical strictures upon your
+ doctrines?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There are always people kind enough to send me anything
+ they have the slightest reason to think I do not care to read. They seem
+ to be animated by a missionary spirit, and apparently want to be in a
+ position when they see me in hell to exclaim: "You can't blame me. I sent
+ you all the impudent articles I saw, and if you died unconverted it was no
+ fault of mine."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Did you notice that a Washington clergyman said that the
+ very fact that you were allowed to speak at the funeral was in itself a
+ sacrilege, and that you ought to have been stopped?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I saw some such story. Of course, the clergy regard
+ marriages and funerals as the perquisites of the pulpit, and they resent
+ any interference on the part of the pews. They look at these matters from
+ a business point of view. They made the same cry against civil marriages.
+ They denied that marriage was a contract, and insisted that it was a
+ sacrament, and that it was hardly binding unless a priest had blessed it.
+ They used to bury in consecrated ground, and had marks upon the graves, so
+ that Gabriel might know the ones to waken. The clergy wish to make
+ themselves essential. They must christen the babe&mdash;this gives them
+ possession of the cradle. They must perform the ceremony of marriage
+ &mdash;this gives them possession of the family. They must pronounce the
+ funeral discourse&mdash;this gives them possession of the dead. Formerly
+ they denied baptism to the children of the unbeliever, marriage to him who
+ denied the dogmas of the church, and burial to honest men. The church
+ wishes to control the world, and wishes to sacrifice this world for the
+ next. Of course I am in favor of the utmost liberty upon all these
+ questions. When a Presbyterian dies, let a follower of John Calvin console
+ the living by setting forth the "Five Points." When a Catholic becomes
+ clay, let a priest perform such ceremonies as his creed demands, and let
+ him picture the delights of purgatory for the gratification of the living.
+ And when one dies who does not believe in any religion, having expressed a
+ wish that somebody say a few words above his remains, I see no reason why
+ such a proceeding should be stopped, and, for my part, I see no sacrilege
+ in it. Why should the reputations of the dead, and the feelings of those
+ who live, be placed at the mercy of the ministers? A man dies not having
+ been a Christian, and who, according to the Christian doctrine, is doomed
+ to eternal fire. How would an honest Christian minister console the widow
+ and the fatherless children? How would he dare to tell what he claims to
+ be truth in the presence of the living? The truth is, the Christian
+ minister in the presence of death abandons his Christianity. He dare not
+ say above the coffin, "the soul that once inhabited this body is now in
+ hell." He would be denounced as a brutal savage. Now and then a minister
+ at a funeral has been brave enough and unmannerly enough to express his
+ doctrine in all its hideousness of hate. I was told that in Chicago, many
+ years ago, a young man, member of a volunteer fire company, was killed by
+ the falling of a wall, and at the very moment the wall struck him he was
+ uttering a curse. He was a brave and splendid man. An orthodox minister
+ said above his coffin, in the presence of his mother and mourning friends,
+ that he saw no hope for the soul of that young man. The mother, who was
+ also orthodox, refused to have her boy buried with such a sermon&mdash;stopped
+ the funeral, took the corpse home, engaged a Universalist preacher, and,
+ on the next day having heard this man say that there was no place in the
+ wide universe of God without hope, and that her son would finally stand
+ among the redeemed, this mother laid her son away, put flowers upon his
+ grave, and was satisfied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say to the charge that you are preaching
+ the doctrine of despair and hopelessness, when they have the comforting
+ assurances of the Christian religion to offer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. All I have to say is this: If the Christian religion is
+ true, as commonly preached&mdash;and when I speak of Christianity, I speak
+ of the orthodox Christianity of the day&mdash;if that be true, those whom
+ I have loved the best are now in torment. Those to whom I am most deeply
+ indebted are now suffering the vengeance of God. If this religion be true,
+ the future is of no value to me. I care nothing about heaven, unless the
+ ones I love and have loved are there. I know nothing about the angels. I
+ might not like them, and they might not like me. I would rather meet there
+ the ones who have loved me here&mdash;the ones who would have died for me,
+ and for whom I would have died; and if we are to be eternally divided
+ &mdash;not because we differed in our views of justice, not because we
+ differed about friendship or love or candor, or the nobility of human
+ action, but because we differed in belief about the atonement or baptism
+ or the inspiration of the Scriptures&mdash;and if some of us are to be in
+ heaven, and some in hell, then, for my part, I prefer eternal sleep. To me
+ the doctrine of annihilation is infinitely more consoling, than the
+ probable separation preached by the orthodox clergy of our time. Of
+ course, even if there be a God, I like persons that I know, better than I
+ can like him&mdash;we have more in common&mdash;I know more about them;
+ and how is it possible for me to love the infinite and unknown better than
+ the ones I know? Why not have the courage to say that if there be a God,
+ all I know about him I know by knowing myself and my friends&mdash;by
+ knowing others? And, after all, is not a noble man, is not a pure woman,
+ the finest revelation we have of God&mdash;if there be one? Of what use is
+ it to be false to ourselves? What moral quality is there in theological
+ pretence? Why should a man say that he loves God better than he does his
+ wife or his children or his brother or his sister or his warm, true
+ friend? Several ministers have objected to what I said about my friend Mr.
+ Mills, on the ground that it was not calculated to console the living. Mr.
+ Mills was not a Christian. He denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. He
+ believed that restitution was the best repentance, and that, after all,
+ sin is a mistake. He was not a believer in total depravity, or in the
+ atonement. He denied these things. He was an unbeliever. Now, let me ask,
+ what consolation could a Christian minister have given to his family? He
+ could have said to the widow and the orphans, to the brother and sister:
+ "Your husband, your father, your brother, is now in hell; dry your tears;
+ weep not for him, but try and save yourselves. He has been damned as a
+ warning to you, care no more for him, why should you weep over the grave
+ of a man whom God thinks fit only to be eternally tormented? Why should
+ you love the memory of one whom God hates?" The minister could have said:
+ "He had an opportunity&mdash;he did not take it. The life-boat was lowered&mdash;he
+ would not get in&mdash;he has been drowned, and the waves of God's wrath
+ will sweep over him forever." This is the consolation of Christianity and
+ the only honest consolation that Christianity can have for the widow and
+ orphans of an unbeliever. Suppose, however, that the Christian minister
+ has too tender a heart to tell what he believes to be the truth&mdash;then
+ he can say to the sorrowing friends: "Perhaps the man repented before he
+ died; perhaps he is not in hell, perhaps you may meet him in heaven;" and
+ this "perhaps" is a consolation not growing out of Christianity, but out
+ of the politeness of the preacher&mdash;out of paganism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not think that the Bible has consolation for those
+ who have lost their friends?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is about the Old Testament this strange fact&mdash;I
+ find in it no burial service. There is in it, I believe, from the first
+ mistake in Genesis to the last curse in Malachi, not one word said over
+ the dead as to their place and state. When Abraham died, nobody said: "He
+ is still alive&mdash;he is in another world." When the prophets passed
+ away, not one word was said as to the heaven to which they had gone. In
+ the Old Testament, Saul inquired of the witch, and Samuel rose. Samuel did
+ not pretend that he had been living, or that he was alive, but asked: "Why
+ hast thou disquieted me?" He did not pretend to have come from another
+ world. And when David speaks of his son, saying that he could not come
+ back to him, but that he, David, could go to his son, that is but saying
+ that he, too, must die. There is not in the Old Testament one hope of
+ immortality. It is expressly asserted that there is no difference between
+ the man and beast&mdash;that as the one dieth so dieth the other. There is
+ one little passage in Job which commentators have endeavored to twist into
+ a hope of immortality. Here is a book of hundreds and hundreds of pages,
+ and hundreds and hundreds of chapters&mdash;a revelation from God&mdash;and
+ in it one little passage, which, by a mistranslation, is tortured into
+ saying something about another life. And this is the Old Testament. I have
+ sometimes thought that the Jews, when slaves in Egypt, were mostly
+ occupied in building tombs for mummies, and that they became so utterly
+ disgusted with that kind of work, that the moment they founded a nation
+ for themselves they went out of the tomb business. The Egyptians were
+ believers in immortality, and spent almost their entire substance upon the
+ dead. The living were impoverished to enrich the dead. The grave absorbed
+ the wealth of Egypt. The industry of a nation was buried. Certainly the
+ Old Testament has nothing clearly in favor of immortality. In the New
+ Testament we are told about the "kingdom of heaven,"&mdash;that it is at
+ hand&mdash;and about who shall be worthy, but it is hard to tell what is
+ meant by the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven was apparently to be
+ in this world, and it was about to commence. The Devil was to be chained
+ for a thousand years, the wicked were to be burned up, and Christ and his
+ followers were to enjoy the earth. This certainly was the doctrine of Paul
+ when he says: "Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all <i>sleep</i>,
+ but we shall all be <i>changed</i>. In a moment, in the twinkling of an
+ eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the <i>dead</i>
+ shall be <i>raised</i> incorruptible, and <i>we</i> shall be <i>changed</i>.
+ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
+ immortality." According to this doctrine, those who were alive were to be
+ changed, and those who had died were to be raised from the dead. Paul
+ certainly did not refer to any other world beyond this. All these things
+ were to happen here. The New Testament is made up of the fragments of many
+ religions. It is utterly inconsistent with itself; and there is not a
+ particle of evidence of the resurrection and ascension of Christ&mdash;neither
+ in the nature of things could there be. It is a thousand times more
+ probable that people were mistaken than that such things occurred. If
+ Christ really rose from the dead, he should have shown himself, not simply
+ to his disciples, but to the very men who crucified him&mdash;to Herod, to
+ the high priest, to Pilate. He should have made a triumphal entry into
+ Jerusalem after his resurrection, instead of before. He should have shown
+ himself to the Sadducees,&mdash;to those who denied the existence of
+ spirit. Take from the New Testament its doctrine of eternal pain&mdash;the
+ idea that we can please God by acts of self-denial that can do no good to
+ others&mdash;take away all its miracles, and I have no objection to all
+ the good things in it&mdash;no objection to the hope of a future life, if
+ such a hope is expressed&mdash;not the slightest. And I would not for the
+ world say anything to take from any mind a hope in which dwells the least
+ comfort, but a doctrine that dooms a large majority of mankind to eternal
+ flames ought not to be called a consolation. What I say is, that the
+ writers of the New Testament knew no more about the future state than I
+ do, and no less. The horizon of life has never been pierced. The veil
+ between time and what is called eternity, has never been raised, so far as
+ I know; and I say of the dead what all others must say if they say only
+ what they know. There is no particular consolation in a guess. Not knowing
+ what the future has in store for the human race, it is far better to
+ prophesy good than evil. It is better to hope that the night has a dawn,
+ that the sky has a star, than to build a heaven for the few, and a hell
+ for the many. It is better to leave your dead in doubt than in fire&mdash;better
+ that they should sleep in shadow than in the lurid flames of perdition.
+ And so I say, and always have said, let us hope for the best. The minister
+ asks: "What right have you to hope? It is sacrilegious in you!" But,
+ whether the clergy like it or not, I shall always express my real opinion,
+ and shall always be glad to say to those who mourn: "There is in death, as
+ I believe, nothing worse than sleep. Hope for as much better as you can.
+ Under the seven-hued arch let the dead rest." Throw away the Bible, and
+ you throw away the fear of hell, but the hope of another life remains,
+ because the hope does not depend upon a book&mdash;it depends upon the
+ heart&mdash;upon human affection. The fear, so far as this generation is
+ concerned, is born of the book, and that part of the book was born of
+ savagery. Whatever of hope is in the book is born, as I said before, of
+ human affection, and the higher our civilization the greater the
+ affection. I had rather rest my hope of something beyond the grave upon
+ the human heart, than upon what they call the Scriptures, because there I
+ find mingled with the hope of something good the threat of infinite evil.
+ Among the thistles, thorns and briers of the Bible is one pale and sickly
+ flower of hope. Among all its wild beasts and fowls, only one bird flies
+ heavenward. I prefer the hope without the thorns, without the briers,
+ thistles, hyenas, and serpents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not know that it is claimed that immortality was
+ brought to light in the New Testament, that that, in fact, was the
+ principal mission of Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I know that Christians claim that the doctrine of
+ immortality was first taught in the New Testament. They also claim that
+ the highest morality was found there. Both these claims are utterly
+ without foundation. Thousands of years before Christ was born&mdash;thousands
+ of years before Moses saw the light&mdash;the doctrine of immortality was
+ preached by the priests of Osiris and Isis. Funeral discourses were
+ pronounced over the dead, ages before Abraham existed. When a man died in
+ Egypt, before he was taken across the sacred lake, he had a trial.
+ Witnesses appeared, and if he had done anything wrong, for which he had
+ not done restitution, he was not taken across the lake. The living
+ friends, in disgrace, carried the body back, and it was buried outside of
+ what might be called consecrated ground, while the ghost was supposed to
+ wander for a hundred years. Often the children of the dead would endeavor
+ to redeem the poor ghost by acts of love and kindness. When he came to the
+ spirit world there was the god Anubis, who weighed his heart in the scales
+ of eternal justice, and if the good deed preponderated he entered the
+ gates of Paradise; if the evil, he had to go back to the world, and be
+ born in the bodies of animals for the purpose of final purification. At
+ last, the good deeds would outweigh the evil, and, according to the
+ religion of Egypt, the latch-string of heaven would never be drawn in
+ until the last wanderer got home. Immortality was also taught in India,
+ and, in fact, in all the countries of antiquity. Wherever men have loved,
+ wherever they have dreamed, wherever hope has spread its wings, the idea
+ of immortality has existed. But nothing could be worse than the
+ immortality promised in the New Testament&mdash;admitting that it is so
+ promised&mdash;eternal joy side by side with eternal pain. Think of living
+ forever, knowing that countless millions are suffering eternal pain! How
+ much better it would be for God to commit suicide and let all life and
+ motion cease! Christianity has no consolation except for the Christian,
+ and if a Christian minister endeavors to console the widow of an
+ unbeliever he must resort, not to his religion, but to his sympathy&mdash;to
+ the natural promptings of the heart. He is compelled to say: "After all,
+ may be God is not so bad as we think," or, "May be your husband was better
+ than he appeared; perhaps somehow, in some way, the dear man has squeezed
+ in; he was a good husband, he was a kind father, and even if he is in
+ hell, may be he is in the temperate zone, where they have occasional
+ showers, and where, if the days are hot, the nights are reasonably cool."
+ All I ask of Christian ministers is to tell what they believe to be the
+ truth&mdash;not to borrow ideas from the pagans&mdash;not to preach the
+ mercy born of unregenerate sympathy. Let them tell their real doctrines.
+ If they will do that, they will not have much influence. If orthodox
+ Christianity is true, a large majority of the man who have made this world
+ fit to live in are now in perdition. A majority of the Revolutionary
+ soldiers have been damned. A majority of the man who fought for the
+ integrity of this Union&mdash;a majority who were starved at Libby and
+ Andersonville are now in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you deny the immortality of the soul?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have never denied the immortality of the soul. I have
+ simply been honest. I have said: "I do not know." Long ago, in my lecture
+ on "The Ghosts," I used the following language: "The idea of immortality,
+ that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its
+ countless waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of
+ time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any
+ religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and
+ flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love
+ kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow Hope, shining upon the tears
+ of grief."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Post</i>, Washington, D. C., April 30, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0026" id="link0026">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ STAR ROUTE AND POLITICS.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Col. Ingersoll entertains very pronounced ideas
+ concerning President Arthur, Attorney-General Brewster and
+ divers other people, which will be found presented herewith
+ in characteristically piquant style. With his family, the
+ eloquent advocate has a cottage here, and finds brain and
+ body rest and refreshment in the tumbling waves. This noon,
+ in the height of a tremendous thunder storm, I bumped
+ against his burly figure in the roaring crest, and, after
+ the first shock had passed, determined to utilize the
+ providential coincidence. The water was warm, our clothes
+ were in the bathing houses, and comfort was more certain
+ where we were than anywhere else. The Colonel is an expert
+ swimmer and as a floater he cannot be beaten. He was
+ floating when we bumped. Spouting a pint of salt water from
+ his mouth, he nearly choked with laughter as in answer to my
+ question he said:]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ No, I do not believe there will be any more Star Route trials. There is so
+ much talk about the last one, there will not be time for another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Did you anticipate a verdict?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I did anticipate a verdict, and one of acquittal. I knew
+ that the defendants were entitled to such a verdict. I knew that the
+ Government had signally failed to prove a case. There was nothing but
+ suspicion, from which malice was inferred. The direct proof was utterly
+ unworthy of belief. The direct witness was caught with letters he had
+ forged. This one fact was enough to cover the prosecution with confusion.
+ The fact that Rerdell sat with the other defendants and reported to the
+ Government from day to day satisfied the jury as to the value of his
+ testimony, and the animus of the Department of Justice. Besides, Rerdell
+ had offered to challenge such jurors as the Government might select. He
+ handed counsel for defendants a list of four names that he wanted
+ challenged. At that time it was supposed that each defendant would be
+ allowed to challenge four jurors. Afterward the Court decided that all the
+ defendants must be considered as one party and had the right to challenge
+ four and no more. Of the four names on Rerdell's list the Government
+ challenged three and Rerdell tried to challenge the other. This was what
+ is called a coincidence. Another thing had great influence with the jury&mdash;the
+ evidence of the defendants was upon all material points so candid and so
+ natural, so devoid of all coloring, that the jury could not help
+ believing. If the people knew the evidence they would agree with the jury.
+ When we remember that there were over ten thousand star routes, it is not
+ to be wondered at that some mistakes were made&mdash;that in some
+ instances too much was paid and in others too little.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What has been the attitude of President Arthur?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We asked nothing from the President. We wanted no help from
+ him. We expected that he would take no part&mdash;that he would simply
+ allow the matter to be settled by the court in the usual way. I think that
+ he made one very serious mistake. He removed officers on false charges
+ without giving them a hearing. He deposed Marshal Henry because somebody
+ said that he was the friend of the defendants. Henry was a good officer
+ and an honest man. The President removed Ainger for the same reason. This
+ was a mistake. Ainger should have been heard. There is always time to do
+ justice. No day is too short for justice, and eternity is not long enough
+ to commit a wrong. It was thought that the community could be terrorized:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. The President dismissed Henry and Ainger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. The Attorney-General wrote a letter denouncing the
+ defendants as thieves and robbers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>. Other letters from Bliss and MacVeagh were published.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth</i>. Dixon, the foreman of the first jury, was indicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fifth</i>. Members of the first jury voting "guilty" were in various
+ ways rewarded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Sixth</i>. Bargains were made with Boone and Rerdell. The cases against
+ Boone were to be dismissed and Rerdell was promised immunity. Under these
+ circumstances the second trial commenced. But of all the people in this
+ country the citizens of Washington care least for Presidents and members
+ of the Cabinets. They know what these officers are made of. They know that
+ they are simply folks&mdash;that they do not hold office forever&mdash;that
+ the Jupiters of to-day are often the pygmies of to-morrow. They have seen
+ too many people come in with trumpets and flags and go out with hisses and
+ rags to be overawed by the deities of a day. They have seen Lincoln and
+ they are not to be frightened by his successors. Arthur took part to the
+ extent of turning out men suspected of being friendly to the defence.
+ Arthur was in a difficult place. He was understood to be the friend of
+ Dorsey and, of course, had to do something. Nothing is more dangerous than
+ a friend in power. He is obliged to show that he is impartial, and it
+ always takes a good deal of injustice to establish a reputation for
+ fairness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Was there any ground to expect aid or any different
+ action on Arthur's part?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. All we expected was that Arthur would do as the soldier
+ wanted the Lord to do at New Orleans&mdash;"Just take neither side."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why did not Brewster speak?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Court would not allow two closings. The Attorney-
+ General did not care to speak in the "middle." He wished to close, and as
+ he could not do that without putting Mr. Merrick out, he concluded to
+ remain silent. The defendants had no objection to his speaking, but they
+ objected to two closing arguments for the Government, and the Court
+ decided they were right. Of course, I understand nothing about the way in
+ which the attorneys for the prosecution arranged their difficulties. That
+ was nothing to me; neither do I care what money they received&mdash;all
+ that is for the next Congress. It is not for me to speak of those
+ questions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will there be other trials?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think not. It does not seem likely that other attorneys
+ will want to try, and the old ones have. My opinion is that we have had
+ the last of the Star Route trials. It was claimed that the one tried was
+ the strongest. If this is so the rest had better be dismissed. I think the
+ people are tired of the whole business. It now seems probable that all the
+ time for the next few years will be taken up in telling about the case
+ that was tried. I see that Cook is telling about MacVeagh and James and
+ Brewster and Bliss; Walsh is giving his opinion of Kellogg and Foster;
+ Bliss is saying a few words about Cook and Gibson; Brewster is telling
+ what Bliss told him; Gibson will have his say about Garfield and MacVeagh,
+ and it now seems probable that we shall get the bottom facts about the
+ other jury&mdash;the actions of Messrs. Hoover, Bowen, Brewster Cameron
+ and others. Personally I have no interest in the business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How does the next campaign look?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Republicans are making all the mistakes they can, and
+ the only question now is, Can the Democrats make more? The tariff will be
+ one of the great questions, and may be the only one except success. The
+ Democrats are on both sides of the question. They hate to give up the word
+ "only." Only for that word they might have succeeded in 1880. If they can
+ let "only" alone, and say they want "a tariff for revenue" they will do
+ better. The fact is the people are not in favor of free trade, neither do
+ they want a tariff high enough to crush a class, but they do want a tariff
+ to raise a revenue and to protect our industries. I am for protection
+ because it diversifies industries and develops brain&mdash;allows us to
+ utilize all the muscle and brain we have. A party attacking the
+ manufacturing interests of this country will fail. There are too many
+ millions of dollars invested and too many millions of people interested.
+ The country is becoming alike interested in this question. We are no
+ longer divided, as in slavery times, into manufacturing and agricultural
+ districts or sections. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas
+ have manufacturing interests. And the Western States believe in the
+ protection of their industries. The American people have a genius for
+ manufacturing, a genius for invention. We are not the greatest painters or
+ sculptors or scientists, but we are without doubt the greatest inventors.
+ If we were all engaged in one business we would become stupid.
+ Agricultural countries produce great wealth, but are never rich. To get
+ rich it is necessary to mix thought with labor. To raise the raw material
+ is a question of strength; to manufacture, to put it in useful and
+ beautiful forms, is a question of mind. There is a vast difference between
+ the value of, say, a milestone and a statue, and yet the labor expended in
+ getting the raw material is about the same. The point, after all, is this:
+ First, we must have revenue; second, shall we get this by direct taxation
+ or shall we tax imports and at the same time protect American labor? The
+ party that advocates reasonable protection will succeed.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* At this point, with far away peals of thunder, the storm
+ ceased, the sun reappeared and a vault of heavenly blue
+ swung overhead. "Let us get out," said Colonel Ingersoll.
+ Suiting the action to the word, the Colonel struck out
+ lustily for the beach, on which, hard as a rock and firm as
+ flint, he soon planted his sturdy form. And as he lumbered
+ across the sand to the side door of his comfortable cottage,
+ some three hundred feet from the surf, the necessarily
+ suggested contrast between Ingersoll in court and Ingersoll
+ in soaked flannels was illustrated with forcible comicality.
+ Half an hour later he was found in the cozy library puffing
+ a high flavored Havana, and listening to home-made music of
+ delicious quality. Ingersoll at home is pleasant to
+ contemplate. His sense of personal freedom is there aptly
+ pictured. Loving wife and affectionate daughters form, with
+ happy-faced and genial-hearted father, a model circle into
+ which friends deem it a privilege to enter and a pleasure to
+ remain.
+
+ Continuing the conversation, ]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In view of all this, where do you think the presidential
+ candidate will come from?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. From the West.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The South and East must compromise. Both can trust the
+ West. The West represents the whole country. There is no provincialism in
+ the West. The West is not old enough to have the prejudice of section; it
+ is too prosperous to have hatred, too great to feel envy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You do not seem to think that Arthur has a chance?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No Vice-President was ever made President by the people. It
+ is natural to resent the accident that gave the Vice-President the place.
+ They regard the Vice-President as children do a stepmother. He is looked
+ upon as temporary&mdash;a device to save the election&mdash;a something to
+ stop a gap&mdash;a lighter&mdash;a political raft. He holds the horse
+ until another rider is found. People do not wish death to suggest nominees
+ for the presidency. I do not believe it will be possible for Mr. Arthur,
+ no matter how well he acts, to overcome this feeling. The people like a
+ new man. There is some excitement in the campaign, and besides they can
+ have the luxury of believing that the new man is a great man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not think Arthur has grown and is a greater man
+ than when he was elected?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Arthur was placed in very trying circumstances, and, I
+ think, behaved with great discretion. But he was Vice-President, and that
+ is a vice that people will not pardon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you regard the situation in Ohio?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I hear that the Republicans are attacking Hoadly, saying
+ that he is an Infidel. I know nothing about Mr. Hoadly's theological
+ sentiments, but he certainly has the right to have and express his own
+ views. If the Republicans of Ohio have made up their minds to disfranchise
+ the Liberals, the sooner they are beaten the better. Why should the
+ Republican party be so particular about religious belief? Was Lincoln an
+ orthodox Christian? Were the founders of the party&mdash;the men who gave
+ it heart and brain&mdash;conspicuous for piety? Were the abolitionists all
+ believers in the inspiration of the Bible? Is Judge Hoadly to be attacked
+ because he exercises the liberty that he gives to others? Has not the
+ Republican party trouble enough with the spirituous to let the spiritual
+ alone? If the religious issue is made, I hope that the party making it
+ will be defeated. I know nothing about the effect of the recent decision
+ of the Supreme Court of Ohio. It is a very curious decision and seems to
+ avoid the Constitution with neatness and despatch. The decision seems to
+ rest on the difference between the words tax and license&mdash;<i>I. e.</i>,
+ between allowing a man to sell whiskey for a tax of one hundred dollars or
+ giving him a license to sell whiskey and charging him one hundred dollars.
+ In this, the difference is in the law instead of the money. So far all the
+ prohibitory legislation on the liquor question has been a failure. Beer is
+ victorious, and Gambrinus now has Olympus all to himself. On his side is
+ the "bail"&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But who will win?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The present indications are favorable to Judge Hoadly. It
+ is an off year. The Ohio leaders on one side are not in perfect harmony.
+ The Germans are afraid, and they generally vote the Democratic ticket when
+ in doubt. The effort to enforce the Sunday law, to close the gardens, to
+ make one day in the week desolate and doleful, will give the Republicans a
+ great deal of hard work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How about Illinois?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Republican always. The Supreme Court of Illinois has just
+ made a good decision. That Court decided that a contract made on Sunday
+ can be enforced. In other words, that Sunday is not holy enough to
+ sanctify fraud. You can rely on a State with a Court like that. There is
+ very little rivalry in Illinois. I think that General Oglesby will be the
+ next Governor. He is one of the best men in that State or any other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What about Indiana?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In that State I think General Gresham is the coming man. He
+ was a brave soldier, an able, honest judge, and he will fill with honor
+ any position he may be placed in. He is an excellent lawyer, and has as
+ much will as was ever put in one man. McDonald is the most available man
+ for the Democrats. He is safe and in every respect reliable. He is without
+ doubt the most popular man in his party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Well, Colonel, what are you up to?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nothing. I am surrounded by sand, sea and sky. I listen to
+ music, bathe in the surf and enjoy myself. I am wondering why people take
+ interest in politics; why anybody cares about anything; why everybody is
+ not contented; why people want to climb the greased pole of office and
+ then dodge the brickbats of enemies and rivals; why any man wishes to be
+ President, or a member of Congress, or in the Cabinet, or do anything
+ except to live with the ones he loves, and enjoy twenty-four hours every
+ day. I wonder why all New York does not come to Long Beach and hear
+ Schreiner's Band play the music of Wagner, the greatest of all composers.
+ Finally, in the language of Walt Whitman, "I loaf and invite my soul."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Herald</i>, New York, July 1, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0027" id="link0027">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE INTERVIEWER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of newspaper interviewing?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I believe that James Redpath claims to have invented the
+ "interview." This system opens all doors, does away with political
+ pretence, batters down the fortifications of dignity and official
+ importance, pulls masks from solemn faces, compels everybody to show his
+ hand. The interviewer seems to be omnipresent. He is the next man after
+ the accident. If a man should be blown up he would likely fall on an
+ interviewer. He is the universal interrogation point. He asks questions
+ for a living. If the interviewer is fair and honest he is useful, if the
+ other way, he is still interesting. On the whole, I regard the interviewer
+ as an exceedingly important person. But whether he is good or bad, he has
+ come to stay. He will interview us until we die, and then ask the
+ "friends" a few questions just to round the subject off.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the tendency of newspapers is at
+ present?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The papers of the future, I think, will be "news" papers.
+ The editorial is getting shorter and shorter. The paragraphist is taking
+ the place of the heavy man. People rather form their own opinions from the
+ facts. Of course good articles will always find readers, but the dreary,
+ doleful, philosophical dissertation has had its day. The magazines will
+ fall heir to such articles; then religious weeklies will take them up, and
+ then they will cease altogether.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the people lead the newspapers, or do the
+ newspapers lead them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The papers lead and are led. Most papers have for sale what
+ people want to buy. As a rule the people who buy determine the character
+ of the thing sold. The reading public grow more discriminating every year,
+ and, as a result, are less and less "led." Violent papers&mdash;those that
+ most freely attack private character&mdash;are becoming less hurtful,
+ because they are losing their own reputations. Evil tends to correct
+ itself. People do not believe all they read, and there is a growing
+ tendency to wait and hear from the other side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do newspapers to-day exercise as much influence as they
+ did twenty-five years ago?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. More, by the facts published, and less, by editorials. As
+ we become more civilized we are governed less by persons and more by
+ principles&mdash;less by faith and more by fact. The best of all leaders
+ is the man who teaches people to lead themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What would you define public opinion to be?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. First, in the widest sense, the opinion of the majority,
+ including all kinds of people. Second, in a narrower sense, the opinion of
+ the majority of the intellectual. Third, in actual practice, the opinion
+ of those who make the most noise. Fourth, public opinion is generally a
+ mistake, which history records and posterity repeats.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you regard as the result of your lectures?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the last fifteen years I have delivered several hundred
+ lectures. The world is growing more and more liberal every day. The man
+ who is now considered orthodox, a few years ago would have been denounced
+ as an Infidel. People are thinking more and believing less. The pulpit is
+ losing influence. In the light of modern discovery the creeds are growing
+ laughable. A theologian is an intellectual mummy, and excites attention
+ only as a curiosity. Supernatural religion has outlived its usefulness.
+ The miracles and wonders of the ancients will soon occupy the same tent.
+ Jonah and Jack the Giant Killer, Joshua and Red Riding Hood, Noah and
+ Neptune, will all go into the collection of the famous Mother Hubbard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Morning Journal</i>, New York, July 3, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0028" id="link0028">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICS AND PROHIBITION.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the result in Ohio?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In Ohio prohibition did more harm to the Republican chances
+ than anything else. The Germans hold the Republicans responsible. The
+ German people believe in personal liberty. They came to America to get it,
+ and they regard any interference in the manner or quantity of their food
+ and drink as an invasion of personal rights. They claim they are not
+ questions to be regulated by law, and I agree with them. I believe that
+ people will finally learn to use spirits temperately and without abuse,
+ but teetotalism is intemperance in itself, which breeds resistance, and
+ without destroying the rivulet of the appetite only dams it and makes it
+ liable to break out at any moment. You can prevent a man from stealing by
+ tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him honest. Prohibition
+ breeds too many spies and informers, and makes neighbors afraid of each
+ other. It kills hospitality. Again, the Republican party in Ohio is
+ endeavoring to have Sunday sanctified by the Legislature. The working
+ people want freedom on Sunday. They wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws
+ now making to prevent innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment
+ among the common people. I feel like resenting all such laws, and unless
+ the Republican party reforms in that particular, it ought to be defeated.
+ I regard those two things as the principal causes of the Republican
+ party's defeat in Ohio.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that the Democratic success was due to the
+ possession of reverse principles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think that the Democratic party is in favor of
+ liberty of thought and action in these two regards, from principle, but
+ rather from policy. Finding the course pursued by the Republicans
+ unpopular, they adopted the opposite mode, and their success is a proof of
+ the truth of what I contend. One great trouble in the Republican party is
+ bigotry. The pulpit is always trying to take charge. The same thing exists
+ in the Democratic party to a less degree. The great trouble here is that
+ its worst element&mdash;Catholicism &mdash;is endeavoring to get control.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What causes operated for the Republican success in Iowa?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Iowa is a prohibition State and almost any law on earth as
+ against anything to drink, can be carried there. There are no large cities
+ in the State and it is much easier to govern, but even there the
+ prohibition law is bound to be a failure. It will breed deceit and
+ hypocrisy, and in the long run the influence will be bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will these two considerations cut any figure in the
+ presidential campaign of 1884?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The party, as a party, will have nothing to do with these
+ questions. These matters are local. Whether the Republicans are successful
+ will depend more upon the country's prosperity. If things should be
+ generally in pretty good shape in 1884, the people will allow the party to
+ remain in power. Changes of administration depend a great deal on the
+ feeling of the country. If crops are bad and money is tight, the people
+ blame the administration, whether it is responsible or not. If a ship
+ going down the river strikes a snag, or encounters a storm, a cry goes up
+ against the captain. It may not have been his fault, but he is blamed, all
+ the same, and the passengers at once clamor for another captain. So it is
+ in politics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If nothing interferes between this and 1884, the Republican party will
+ continue. Otherwise it will be otherwise. But the principle of prosperity
+ as applied to administrative change is strong. If the panic of 1873 had
+ occurred in 1876 there would have been no occasion for a commission to sit
+ on Tilden. If it had struck us in 1880, Hancock would have been elected.
+ Neither result would have its occasion in the superiority of the
+ Democratic party, but in the belief that the Republican party was in some
+ vague way blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a
+ change. The Republican party is not as strong as it used to be. The old
+ leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their places.
+ Blaine has dropped out, and is now writing a book. Conkling dropped out
+ and is now practicing law, and so I might go on enumerating leaders who
+ have severed their connection with the party and are no longer identified
+ with it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion regarding the Republican nomination
+ for President?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My belief is that the Republicans will have to nominate
+ some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and upon whom all
+ can unite. As a consequence he must be a new man. The Democrats must do
+ the same. They must nominate a new man. The old ones have been defeated so
+ often that they start handicapped with their own histories, and failure in
+ the past is very poor raw material out of which to manufacture faith for
+ the future. My own judgment is that for the Democrats, McDonald is as
+ strong a man as they can get. He is a man of most excellent sense and
+ would be regarded as a safe man. Tilden? He is dead, and he occupies no
+ stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. With no
+ magnetism, he has nothing save his smartness to recommend him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are your views, generally expressed, on the tariff?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There are a great many Democrats for protection and a great
+ many for so-called free trade. I think the large majority of American
+ people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue and protecting
+ our manufactures. I do not believe in tariff for revenue only, but for
+ revenue and protection. The Democrats would have carried the country had
+ they combined revenue and incidental protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are they rectifying the error now?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I believe they are, already. They will do it next fall. If
+ they do not put it in their platform they will embody it in their
+ speeches. I do not regard the tariff as a local, but a national issue,
+ notwithstanding Hancock inclined to the belief that it was the former.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Times</i>, Chicago, Illinois, October 13, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0029" id="link0029">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your explanation of the Republican disaster last
+ Tuesday?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Too much praying and not enough paying, is my explanation
+ of the Republican defeat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. I think the attempt to pass the Prohibition Amendment lost
+ thousands of votes. The people of this country, no matter how much they
+ may deplore the evils of intemperance, are not yet willing to set on foot
+ a system of spying into each other's affairs. They know that prohibition
+ would need thousands of officers&mdash;that it would breed informers and
+ spies and peekers and skulkers by the hundred in every county. They know
+ that laws do not of themselves make good people. Good people make good
+ laws. Americans do not wish to be temperate upon compulsion. The spirit
+ that resents interference in these matters is the same spirit that made
+ and keeps this a free country. All this crusade and prayer-meeting
+ business will not do in politics. We must depend upon the countless
+ influences of civilization, upon science, art, music&mdash;upon the
+ softening influences of kindness and argument. As life becomes valuable
+ people will take care of it. Temperance upon compulsion destroys something
+ more valuable than itself&mdash;liberty. I am for the largest liberty in
+ all things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. The Prohibitionists, in my opinion, traded with Democrats.
+ The Democrats were smart enough to know that prohibition could not carry,
+ and that they could safely trade. The Prohibitionists were insane enough
+ to vote for their worst enemies, just for the sake of polling a large vote
+ for prohibition, and were fooled as usual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Thirdly</i>. Certain personal hatreds of certain Republican
+ politicians. These were the causes which led to Republican defeat in Ohio.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will it necessitate the nomination of an Ohio Republican
+ next year?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think so. Defeat is apt to breed dissension, and
+ on account of that dissension the party will have to take a man from some
+ other State. One politician will say to another, "You did it," and another
+ will reply, "You are the man who ruined the party." I think we have given
+ Ohio her share; certainly she has given us ours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will this reverse seriously affect Republican chances
+ next year?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the country is prosperous next year, if the crops are
+ good, if prices are fair, if Pittsburg is covered with smoke, if the song
+ of the spindle is heard in Lowell, if stocks are healthy, the Republicans
+ will again succeed. If the reverse as to crops and forges and spindles,
+ then the Democrats will win. It is a question of "chich-bugs," and floods
+ and drouths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Who, in your judgment, would be the strongest man the
+ Republicans could put up?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Last year I thought General Sherman, but he has gone to
+ Missouri, and now I am looking around. The first day I find out I will
+ telegraph you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Democrat</i>, Dayton, Ohio, October 15, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0030" id="link0030">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the recent opinion of the Supreme
+ Court touching the rights of the colored man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think it is all wrong. The intention of the framers of
+ the amendment, by virtue of which the law was passed, was that no
+ distinction should be made in inns, in hotels, cars, or in theatres; in
+ short, in public places, on account of color, race, or previous condition.
+ The object of the men who framed that amendment to the Constitution was
+ perfectly clear, perfectly well known, perfectly understood. They intended
+ to secure, by an amendment to the fundamental law, what had been fought
+ for by hundreds of thousands of men. They knew that the institution of
+ slavery had cost rebellion; the also knew that the spirit of caste was
+ only slavery in another form. They intended to kill that spirit. Their
+ object was that the law, like the sun, should shine upon all, and that no
+ man keeping a hotel, no corporation running cars, no person managing a
+ theatre should make any distinction on account of race or color. This
+ amendment is above all praise. It was the result of a moral exaltation,
+ such as the world never before had seen. There were years during the war,
+ and after, when the American people were simply sublime; when their
+ generosity was boundless; when they were willing to endure any hardship to
+ make this an absolutely free country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This decision of the Supreme Court puts the best people of the colored
+ race at the mercy of the meanest portion of the white race. It allows a
+ contemptible white man to trample upon a good colored man. I believe in
+ drawing a line between good and bad, between clean and unclean, but I do
+ not believe in drawing a color line which is as cruel as the lash of
+ slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am willing to be on an equality in all hotels, in all cars, in all
+ theatres, with colored people. I make no distinction of race. Those make
+ the distinction who cannot afford not to. If nature has made no
+ distinction between me and some others, I do not ask the aid of the
+ Legislature. I am willing to associate with all good, clean persons,
+ irrespective of complexion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This decision virtually gives away one of the great principles for which
+ the war was fought. It carries the doctrine of "State Rights" to the
+ Democratic extreme, and renders necessary either another amendment or a
+ new court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I agree with Justice Harlan. He has taken a noble and patriotic stand.
+ Kentucky rebukes Massachusetts! I am waiting with some impatience&mdash;impatient
+ because I anticipate a pleasure&mdash;for his dissenting opinion. Only a
+ little while ago Justice Harlan took a very noble stand on the Virginia
+ Coupon cases, in which was involved the right of a State to repudiate its
+ debts. Now he has taken a stand in favor of the civil rights of the
+ colored man; and in both instances I think he is right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This decision may, after all, help the Republican party. A decision of the
+ Supreme Court aroused the indignation of the entire North, and I hope the
+ present decision will have a like effect. The good people of this country
+ will not be satisfied until every man beneath the flag, without the
+ slightest respect to his complexion, stands on a perfect equality before
+ the law with every other. Any government that makes a distinction on
+ account of color, is a disgrace to the age in which we live. The idea that
+ a man like Frederick Douglass can be denied entrance to a car, that the
+ doors of a hotel can be shut in his face; that he may be prevented from
+ entering a theatre; the idea that there shall be some ignominious corner
+ into which such a man can be thrown simply by a decision of the Supreme
+ Court! This idea is simply absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What remains to be done now, and who is going to do it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. For a good while people have been saying that the
+ Republican party has outlived its usefulness; that there is very little
+ difference now between the parties; that there is hardly enough left to
+ talk about. This decision opens the whole question. This decision says to
+ the Republican party, "Your mission is not yet ended. This is not a free
+ country. Our flag does not protect the rights of a human being." This
+ decision is the tap of a drum. The old veterans will fall into line. This
+ decision gives the issue for the next campaign, and it may be that the
+ Supreme Court has builded wiser than it knew. This is a greater question
+ than the tariff or free trade. It is a question of freedom, of human
+ rights, of the sacredness of humanity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real Americans, the real believers in Liberty, will give three cheers
+ for Judge Harlan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One word more. The Government is bound to protect its citizens, not only
+ when they are away from home, but when they are under the flag. In time of
+ war the Government has a right to draft any citizen; to put that citizen
+ in the line of battle, and compel him to fight for the nation. If the
+ Government when imperiled has the right to compel a citizen, whether white
+ or black, to defend with his blood the flag, that citizen, when imperiled,
+ has the right to demand protection from the Nation. The Nation cannot then
+ say, "You must appeal to your State." If the citizen must appeal to the
+ State for redress, then the citizen should defend the State and not the
+ General Government, and the doctrine of State Rights then becomes
+ complete.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The National Republican</i>, Washington, D. C., October 17,
+ 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0031" id="link0031">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ JUSTICE HARLAN AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Justice Harlan's dissenting opinion
+ in the Civil Rights case?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have just read it and think it admirable in every
+ respect. It is unanswerable. He has given to words their natural meaning.
+ He has recognized the intention of the framers of the recent amendments.
+ There is nothing in this opinion that is strained, insincere, or
+ artificial. It is frank and manly. It is solid masonry, without crack or
+ flaw. He does not resort to legal paint or putty, or to verbal varnish or
+ veneer. He states the position of his brethren of the bench with perfect
+ fairness, and overturns it with perfect ease. He has drawn an instructive
+ parallel between the decisions of the olden time, upholding the power of
+ Congress to deal with individuals in the interests of slavery, and the
+ power conferred on Congress by the recent amendments. He has shown by the
+ old decisions, that when a duty is enjoined upon Congress, ability to
+ perform it is given; that when a certain end is required, all necessary
+ means are granted. He also shows that the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and
+ of 1850, rested entirely upon the implied power of Congress to enforce a
+ master's rights; and that power was once implied in favor of slavery
+ against human rights, and implied from language shadowy, feeble and
+ uncertain when compared with the language of the recent amendments. He has
+ shown, too, that Congress exercised the utmost ingenuity in devising laws
+ to enforce the master's claim. Implication was held ample to deprive a
+ human being of his liberty, but to secure freedom, the doctrine of
+ implication is abandoned. As a foundation for wrong, implication was their
+ rock. As a foundation for right, it is now sand. Implied power then was
+ sufficient to enslave, while power expressly given is now impotent to
+ protect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the use he has made of the Dred
+ Scott decision?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I think he has shown conclusively that the present
+ decision, under the present circumstances, is far worse than the Dred
+ Scott decision was under the then circumstances. The Dred Scott decision
+ was a libel upon the best men of the Revolutionary period. That decision
+ asserted broadly that our forefathers regarded the negroes as having no
+ rights which white men were bound to respect; that the negroes were merely
+ merchandise, and that that opinion was fixed and universal in the
+ civilized portion of the white race, and that no one thought of disputing
+ it. Yet Franklin contended that slavery might be abolished under the
+ preamble of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson said that if the slave
+ should rise to cut the throat of his master, God had no attribute that
+ would side against the slave. Thomas Paine attacked the institution with
+ all the intensity and passion of his nature. John Adams regarded the
+ institution with horror. So did every civilized man, South and North.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Harlan shows conclusively that the Thirteenth Amendment was
+ adopted in the light of the Dred Scott decision; that it overturned and
+ destroyed, not simply the decision, but the reasoning upon which it was
+ based; that it proceeded upon the ground that the colored people had
+ rights that white men were bound to respect, not only, but that the Nation
+ was bound to protect. He takes the ground that the amendment was suggested
+ by the condition of that race, which had been declared by the Supreme
+ Court of the United States to have no rights which white men were bound to
+ respect; that it was made to protect people whose rights had been invaded,
+ and whose strong arms had assisted in the overthrow of the Rebellion; that
+ it was made for the purpose of putting these men upon a legal authority
+ with white citizens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Harland also shows that while legislation of Congress to enforce a
+ master's right was upheld by implication, the rights of the negro do not
+ depend upon that doctrine; that the Thirteenth Amendment does not rest
+ upon implication, or upon inference; that by its terms it places the power
+ in Congress beyond the possibility of a doubt&mdash;conferring the power
+ to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation in express terms; and
+ he also shows that the Supreme Court has admitted that legislation for
+ that purpose may be direct and primary. Had not the power been given in
+ express terms, Justice Harlan contends that the sweeping declaration that
+ neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist would by implication
+ confer the power. He also shows conclusively that, under the Thirteenth
+ Amendment, Congress has the right by appropriate legislation to protect
+ the colored people against the deprivation of any right on account of
+ their race, and that Congress is not necessarily restricted, under the
+ Thirteenth Amendment, to legislation against slavery as an institution,
+ but that power may be exerted to the extent of protecting the race from
+ discrimination in respect to such rights as belong to freemen, where such
+ discrimination is based on race or color.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Justice Harlan is wrong the amendments are left without force and
+ Congress without power. No purpose can be assigned for their adoption. No
+ object can be guessed that was to be accomplished. They become words, so
+ arranged that they sound like sense, but when examined fall meaninglessly
+ apart. Under the decision of the Supreme Court they are Quaker cannon&mdash;cloud
+ forts&mdash;"property" for political stage scenery&mdash;coats of mail
+ made of bronzed paper&mdash; shields of gilded pasteboard&mdash;swords of
+ lath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you wish to say anything as to the reasoning of
+ Justice Harlan on the rights of colored people on railways, in inns and
+ theatres?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I do. That part of the opinion is especially strong.
+ He shows conclusively that a common carrier is in the exercise of a sort
+ of public office and has public duties to perform, and that he cannot
+ exonerate himself from the performance of these duties without the consent
+ of the parties concerned. He also shows that railroads are public
+ highways, and that the railway company is the agent of the State, and that
+ a railway, although built by private capital, is just as public in its
+ nature as though constructed by the State itself. He shows that the
+ railway is devoted to public use, and subject to be controlled by the
+ State for the public benefit, and that for these reasons the colored man
+ has the same rights upon the railway that he has upon the public highway.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Harlan shows that the same law is applicable to inns that is
+ applicable to railways; that an inn-keeper is bound to take all travelers
+ if he can accommodate them; that he is not to select his guests; that he
+ has not right to say to one "you may come in," and to another "you shall
+ not;" that every one who conducts himself in a proper manner has a right
+ to be received. He shows conclusively that an inn-keeper is a sort of
+ public servant; that he is in the exercise of a <i>quasi</i> public
+ employment, that he is given special privileges, and charged with duties
+ of a public character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to theatres, I think his argument most happy. It is this: Theatres are
+ licensed by law. The authority to maintain them comes from the public. The
+ colored race being a part of the public, representing the power granting
+ the license, why should the colored people license a manager to open his
+ doors to the white man and shut them in the face of the black man? Why
+ should they be compelled to license that which they are not permitted to
+ enjoy? Justice Harlan shows that Congress has the power to prevent
+ discrimination on account of race or color on railways, at inns, and in
+ places of public amusements, and has this power under the Thirteenth
+ Amendment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In discussing the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Harlan points out that a
+ prohibition upon a State is not a power in Congress or the National
+ Government, but is simply a denial of power to the State; that such was
+ the Constitution before the Fourteenth Amendment. He shows, however, that
+ the Fourteenth Amendment presents the first instance in our history of the
+ investiture of Congress with affirmative power by legislation to enforce
+ an express prohibition upon the States. This is an important point. It is
+ stated with great clearness, and defended with great force. He shows that
+ the first clause of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment is of a
+ distinctly affirmative character, and that Congress would have had the
+ power to legislate directly as to that section simply by implication, but
+ that as to that as well as the express prohibitions upon the States,
+ express power to legislate was given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one other point made by Justice Harlan which transfixes as with a
+ spear the decision of the Court. It is this: As soon as the Thirteenth and
+ Fourteenth Amendments were adopted the colored citizen was entitled to the
+ protection of section two, article four, namely: "The citizens of each
+ State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens
+ of the several States." Now, suppose a colored citizen of Mississippi
+ moves to Tennessee. Then, under the section last quoted, he would
+ immediately become invested with all the privileges and immunities of a
+ white citizen of Tennessee. Although denied these privileges and
+ immunities in the State from which he emigrated, in the State to which he
+ immigrates he could not be discriminated against on account of his color
+ under the second section of the fourth article. Now, is it possible that
+ he gets additional rights by immigration? Is it possible that the General
+ Government is under a greater obligation to protect him in a State of
+ which he is not a citizen than in a State of which he is a citizen? Must
+ he leave home for protection, and after he has lived long enough in the
+ State to which he immigrates to become a citizen there, must he again move
+ in order to protect his rights? Must one adopt the doctrine of peripatetic
+ protection&mdash;the doctrine that the Constitution is good only <i>in
+ transitu</i>, and that when the citizen stops, the Constitution goes on
+ and leaves him without protection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Harlan shows that Congress had the right to legislate directly
+ while that power was only implied, but that the moment this power was
+ conferred in express terms, then according to the Supreme Court, it was
+ lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another splendid definition given by Justice Harlan&mdash;a line
+ drawn as broad as the Mississippi. It is the distinction between the
+ rights conferred by a State and rights conferred by the Nation. Admitting
+ that many rights conferred by a State cannot be enforced directly by
+ Congress, Justice Harlan shows that rights granted by the Nation to an
+ individual may be protected by direct legislation. This is a distinction
+ that should not be forgotten, and it is a definition clear and perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Harlan has shown that the Supreme Court failed to take into
+ consideration the intention of the framers of the amendment; failed to see
+ that the powers of Congress were given by express terms and did not rest
+ upon implication; failed to see that the Thirteenth Amendment was broad
+ enough to cover the Civil Rights Act; failed to see that under the three
+ amendments rights and privileges were conferred by the Nation on citizens
+ of the several States, and that these rights are under the perpetual
+ protection of the General Government, and that for their enforcement
+ Congress has the right to legislate directly; failed to see that all
+ implications are now in favor of liberty instead of slavery; failed to
+ comprehend that we have a new nation with a new foundation, with different
+ objects, ends, and aims, for the attainment of which we use different
+ means and have been clothed with greater powers; failed to see that the
+ Republic changed front; failed to appreciate the real reasons for the
+ adoption of the amendments, and failed to understand that the Civil Rights
+ Act was passed in order that a citizen of the United States might appeal
+ from local prejudice to national justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Harlan shows that it was the object to accomplish for the black
+ man what had been accomplished for the white man&mdash;that is, to protect
+ all their rights as free men and citizens; and that the one underlying
+ purpose of the amendments and of the congressional legislation has been to
+ clothe the black race with all the rights of citizenship, and to compel a
+ recognition of their rights by citizens and States&mdash;that the object
+ was to do away with class tyranny, the meanest and basest form of
+ oppression.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Justice Harlan was wrong in his position, then, it may truthfully be
+ said of the three amendments that:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "The law hath bubbles as the water has,
+ And these are of them."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The decision of the Supreme Court denies the protection of the Nation to
+ the citizens of the Nation. That decision has already borne fruit&mdash;the
+ massacre at Danville. The protection of the Nation having been withdrawn,
+ the colored man was left to the mercy of local prejudices and hatreds. He
+ is without appeal, without redress. The Supreme Court tells him that he
+ must depend upon his enemies for justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You seem to agree with all that Justice Harlan has said,
+ and to have the greatest admiration for his opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, a man rises from reading this dissenting opinion
+ refreshed, invigorated, and strengthened. It is a mental and moral tonic.
+ It was produced after a clear head had held conference with a good heart.
+ It will furnish a perfectly clear plank, without knot or wind-shake, for
+ the next Republican platform. It is written in good plain English, and
+ ornamented with good sound sense. The average man can and will understand
+ its every word. There is no subterfuge in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Each position is taken in the open field. There is no resort to quibbles
+ or technicalities&mdash;no hiding. Nothing is secreted in the sleeve&mdash;no
+ searching for blind paths&mdash;no stooping and looking for ancient
+ tracks, grass-grown and dim. Each argument travels the highway&mdash;"the
+ big road." It is logical. The facts and conclusions agree, and fall
+ naturally into line of battle. It is sincere and candid&mdash;unpretentious
+ and unanswerable. It is a grand defence of human rights&mdash;a brave and
+ manly plea for universal justice. It leaves the decision of the Supreme
+ Court without argument, without reason, and without excuse. Such an
+ exhibition of independence, courage and ability has won for Justice Harlan
+ the respect and admiration of "both sides," and places him in the front
+ rank of constitutional lawyers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Inter-Ocean</i>, Chicago, Illinois, November 29, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0032" id="link0032">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICS AND THEOLOGY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Brewster's administration?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I hardly think I ought to say much about the administration
+ of Mr. Brewster. Of course many things have been done that I thought, and
+ still think, extremely bad; but whether Mr. Brewster was responsible for
+ the things done, or not, I do not pretend to say. When he was appointed to
+ his present position, there was great excitement in the country about the
+ Star Route cases, and Mr. Brewster was expected to prosecute everybody and
+ everything to the extent of the law; in fact, I believe he was appointed
+ by reason of having made such a promise. At that time there were hundreds
+ of people interested in exaggerating all the facts connected with the Star
+ Route cases, and when there were no facts to be exaggerated, they made
+ some, and exaggerated them afterward. It may be that the Attorney-General
+ was misled, and he really supposed that all he heard was true. My
+ objection to the administration of the Department of Justice is, that a
+ resort was had to spies and detectives. The battle was not fought in the
+ open field. Influences were brought to bear. Nearly all departments of the
+ Government were enlisted. Everything was done to create a public opinion
+ in favor of the prosecution. Everything was done that the cases might be
+ decided on prejudice instead of upon facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everything was done to demoralize, frighten and overawe judges, witnesses
+ and jurors. I do not pretend to say who was responsible, possibly I am not
+ an impartial judge. I was deeply interested at the time, and felt all of
+ these things, rather than reasoned about them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly I cannot give a perfectly unbiased opinion. Personally, I have no
+ feeling now upon the subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Department of Justice, in spite of its methods, did not succeed. That
+ was enough for me. I think, however, when the country knows the facts,
+ that the people will not approve of what was done. I do not believe in
+ trying cases in the newspapers before they are submitted to jurors. That
+ is a little too early. Neither do I believe in trying them in the
+ newspapers after the verdicts have been rendered. That is a little too
+ late.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are Mr. Blaine's chances for the presidency?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My understanding is that Mr. Blaine is not a candidate for
+ the nomination; that he does not wish his name to be used in that
+ connection. He ought to have been nominated in 1876, and if he were a
+ candidate, he would probably have the largest following; but my
+ understanding is, that he does not, in any event, wish to be a candidate.
+ He is a man perfectly familiar with the politics of this country, knows
+ its history by heart, and is in every respect probably as well qualified
+ to act as its Chief Magistrate as any man in the nation. He is a man of
+ ideas, of action, and has positive qualities. He would not wait for
+ something to turn up, and things would not have to wait long for him to
+ turn them up.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Who do you think will be nominated at Chicago?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course I have not the slightest idea who will be
+ nominated. I may have an opinion as to who ought to be nominated, and yet
+ I may be greatly mistaken in that opinion. There are hundreds of men in
+ the Republican party, any one of whom, if elected, would make a good,
+ substantial President, and there are many thousands of men about whom I
+ know nothing, any one of whom would in all probability make a good
+ President. We do not want any man to govern this country. This country
+ governs itself. We want a President who will honestly and faithfully
+ execute the laws, who will appoint postmasters and do the requisite amount
+ of handshaking on public occasions, and we have thousands of men who can
+ discharge the duties of that position. Washington is probably the worst
+ place to find out anything definite upon the subject of presidential
+ booms. I have thought for a long time that one of the most valuable men in
+ the country was General Sherman. Everybody knows who and what he is. He
+ has one great advantage&mdash;he is a frank and outspoken man. He has
+ opinions and he never hesitates about letting them be known. There is
+ considerable talk about Judge Harlan. His dissenting opinion in the Civil
+ Rights case has made every colored man his friend, and I think it will
+ take considerable public patronage to prevent a good many delegates from
+ the Southern States voting for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are your present views on theology?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I think my views have not undergone any change that I
+ know of. I still insist that observation, reason and experience are the
+ things to be depended upon in this world. I still deny the existence of
+ the supernatural. I still insist that nobody can be good for you, or bad
+ for you; that you cannot be punished for the crimes of others, nor
+ rewarded for their virtues. I still insist that the consequences of good
+ actions are always good, and those of bad actions always bad. I insist
+ that nobody can plant thistles and gather figs; neither can they plant
+ figs and gather thistles. I still deny that a finite being can commit an
+ infinite sin; but I continue to insist that a God who would punish a man
+ forever is an infinite tyrant. My views have undergone no change, except
+ that the evidence of that truth constantly increases, and the dogmas of
+ the church look, if possible, a little absurder every day. Theology, you
+ know, is not a science. It stops at the grave; and faith is the end of
+ theology. Ministers have not even the advantage of the doctors; the
+ doctors sometimes can tell by a post-mortem examination whether they
+ killed the man or not; but by cutting a man open after he is dead, the
+ wisest theologians cannot tell what has become of his soul, and whether it
+ was injured or helped by a belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures.
+ Theology depends on assertion for evidence, and on faith for disciples.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Tribune</i>, Denver, Colorado, January 17, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0033" id="link0033">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MORALITY AND IMMORTALITY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that the clergy are still making all kinds of
+ charges against you and your doctrines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes. Some of the charges are true and some of them are not.
+ I suppose that they intend to get in the vicinity of veracity, and are
+ probably stating my belief as it is honestly misunderstood by them. I
+ admit that I have said and that I still think that Christianity is a
+ blunder. But the question arises, What is Christianity? I do not mean,
+ when I say that Christianity is a blunder, that the morality taught by
+ Christians is a mistake. Morality is not distinctively Christian, any more
+ than it is Mohammedan. Morality is human, it belongs to no ism, and does
+ not depend for a foundation upon the supernatural, or upon any book, or
+ upon any creed. Morality is itself a foundation. When I say that
+ Christianity is a blunder, I mean all those things distinctively Christian
+ are blunders. It is a blunder to say that an infinite being lived in
+ Palestine, learned the carpenter's trade, raised the dead, cured the
+ blind, and cast out devils, and that this God was finally assassinated by
+ the Jews. This is absurd. All these statements are blunders, if not worse.
+ I do not believe that Christ ever claimed that he was of supernatural
+ origin, or that he wrought miracles, or that he would rise from the dead.
+ If he did, he was mistaken&mdash;honestly mistaken, perhaps, but still
+ mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The morality inculcated by Mohammed is good. The immorality inculcated by
+ Mohammed is bad. If Mohammed was a prophet of God, it does not make the
+ morality he taught any better, neither does it make the immorality any
+ better or any worse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this time the whole world ought to know that morality does not need to
+ go into partnership with miracles. Morality is based upon the experience
+ of mankind. It does not have to learn of inspired writers, or of gods, or
+ of divine persons. It is a lesson that the whole human race has been
+ learning and learning from experience. He who upholds, or believes in, or
+ teaches, the miraculous, commits a blunder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what is morality? Morality is the best thing to do under the
+ circumstances. Anything that tends to the happiness of mankind is moral.
+ Anything that tends to unhappiness is immoral. We apply to the moral world
+ rules and regulations as we do in the physical world. The man who does
+ justice, or tries to do so&mdash;who is honest and kind and gives to
+ others what he claims for himself, is a moral man. All actions must be
+ judged by their consequences. Where the consequences are good, the actions
+ are good. Where the consequences are bad, the actions are bad; and all
+ consequences are learned from experience. After we have had a certain
+ amount of experience, we then reason from analogy. We apply our logic and
+ say that a certain course will bring destruction, another course will
+ bring happiness. There is nothing inspired about morality&mdash;nothing
+ supernatural. It is simply good, common sense, going hand in hand with
+ kindness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Morality is capable of being demonstrated. You do not have to take the
+ word of anybody; you can observe and examine for yourself. Larceny is the
+ enemy of industry, and industry is good; therefore larceny is immoral. The
+ family is the unit of good government; anything that tends to destroy the
+ family is immoral. Honesty is the mother of confidence; it united,
+ combines and solidifies society. Dishonesty is disintegration; it destroys
+ confidence; it brings social chaos; it is therefore immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also admit that I regard the Mosaic account of the creation as an
+ absurdity&mdash;as a series of blunders. Probably Moses did the best he
+ could. He had never talked with Humboldt or Laplace. He knew nothing of
+ geology or astronomy. He had not the slightest suspicion of Kepler's Three
+ Laws. He never saw a copy of Newton's Principia. Taking all these things
+ into consideration, I think Moses did the best he could.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religious people say now that "days" did not mean days. Of these "six
+ days" they make a kind of telescope, which you can push in or draw out at
+ pleasure. If the geologists find that more time was necessary they will
+ stretch them out. Should it turn out that the world is not quite as old as
+ some think, they will push them up. The "six days" can now be made to suit
+ any period of time. Nothing can be more childish, frivolous or
+ contradictory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago the Mosaic account was considered true, and Moses was
+ regarded as a scientific authority. Geology and astronomy were measured by
+ the Mosaic standard. The opposite is now true. The church has changed; and
+ instead of trying to prove that modern astronomy and geology are false,
+ because they do not agree with Moses, it is now endeavoring to prove that
+ the account by Moses is true, because it agrees with modern astronomy and
+ geology. In other words, the standard has changed; the ancient is measured
+ by the modern, and where the literal statement in the Bible does not agree
+ with modern discoveries, they do not change the discoveries, but give new
+ meanings to the old account. We are not now endeavoring to reconcile
+ science with the Bible, but to reconcile the Bible with science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing shows the extent of modern doubt more than the eagerness with
+ which Christians search for some new testimony. Luther answered Copernicus
+ with a passage of Scripture, and he answered him to the satisfaction of
+ orthodox ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that the Jews adopted the stories of Creation, the Garden of
+ Eden, Forbidden Fruit, and the Fall of Man. They were told by older
+ barbarians than they, and the Jews gave them to us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I never said that the Bible is all bad. I have always admitted that there
+ are many good and splendid things in the Jewish Scriptures, and many bad
+ things. What I insist is that we should have the courage and the common
+ sense to accept the good, and throw away the bad. Evil is not good because
+ found in good company, and truth is still truth, even when surrounded by
+ falsehood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that you are frequently charged with disrespect
+ toward your parents&mdash;with lack of reverence for the opinions of your
+ father?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think my father and mother upon several religious
+ questions were mistaken. In fact, I have no doubt that they were; but I
+ never felt under the slightest obligation to defend my father's mistakes.
+ No one can defend what he thinks is a mistake, without being dishonest.
+ That is a poor way to show respect for parents. Every Protestant clergyman
+ asks men and women who had Catholic parents to desert the church in which
+ they were raised. They have no hesitation in saying to these people that
+ their fathers and mothers were mistaken, and that they were deceived by
+ priests and popes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The probability is that we are all mistaken about almost everything; but
+ it is impossible for a man to be respectable enough to make a mistake
+ respectable. There is nothing remarkably holy in a blunder, or
+ praiseworthy in stubbing the toe of the mind against a mistake. Is it
+ possible that logic stands paralyzed in the presence of paternal
+ absurdity? Suppose a man has a bad father; is he bound by the bad father's
+ opinion, when he is satisfied that the opinion is wrong? How good does a
+ father have to be, in order to put his son under obligation to defend his
+ blunders? Suppose the father thinks one way, and the mother the other;
+ what are the children to do? Suppose the father changes his opinion; what
+ then? Suppose the father thinks one way and the mother the other, and they
+ both die when the boy is young; and the boy is bound out; whose mistakes
+ is he then bound to follow? Our missionaries tell the barbarian boy that
+ his parents are mistaken, that they know nothing, and that the wooden god
+ is nothing but a senseless idol. They do not hesitate to tell this boy
+ that his mother believed lies, and hugged, it may be to her dying heart, a
+ miserable delusion. Why should a barbarian boy cast reproach upon his
+ parents?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe it was Christ who commanded his disciples to leave father and
+ mother; not only to leave them, but to desert them; and not only to desert
+ father and mother, but to desert wives and children. It is also told of
+ Christ that he said that he came to set fathers against children and
+ children against fathers. Strange that a follower of his should object to
+ a man differing in opinion from his parents! The truth is, logic knows
+ nothing of consanguinity; facts have no relatives but other facts; and
+ these facts do not depend upon the character of the person who states
+ them, or upon the position of the discoverer. And this leads me to another
+ branch of the same subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers are continually saying that certain great men&mdash;kings,
+ presidents, statesmen, millionaires&mdash;have believed in the inspiration
+ of the Bible. Only the other day, I read a sermon in which Carlyle was
+ quoted as having said that "the Bible is a noble book." That all may be
+ and yet the book not be inspired. But what is the simple assertion of
+ Thomas Carlyle worth? If the assertion is based upon a reason, then it is
+ worth simply the value of the reason, and the reason is worth just as much
+ without the assertion, but without the reason the assertion is worthless.
+ Thomas Carlyle thought, and solemnly put the thought in print, that his
+ father was a greater man than Robert Burns. His opinion did Burns no harm,
+ and his father no good. Since reading his "Reminiscences," I have no great
+ opinion of his opinion. In some respects he was undoubtedly a great man,
+ in others a small one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man should give the opinion of another as authority and in place of
+ fact and reason, unless he is willing to take all the opinions of that
+ man. An opinion is worth the warp and woof of fact and logic in it and no
+ more. A man cannot add to the truthfulness of truth. In the ordinary
+ business of life, we give certain weight to the opinion of specialists&mdash;to
+ the opinion of doctors, lawyers, scientists, and historians. Within the
+ domain of the natural, we take the opinions of our fellow-men; but we do
+ not feel that we are absolutely bound by these opinions. We have the right
+ to re- examine them, and if we find they are wrong we feel at liberty to
+ say so. A doctor is supposed to have studied medicine; to have examined
+ and explored the questions entering into his profession; but we know that
+ doctors are often mistaken. We also know that there are many schools of
+ medicine; that these schools disagree with one another, and that the
+ doctors of each school disagree with one another. We also know that many
+ patients die, and so far as we know, these patients have not come back to
+ tell us whether the doctors killed them or not. The grave generally
+ prevents a demonstration. It is exactly the same with the clergy. They
+ have many schools of theology, all despising each other. Probably no two
+ members of the same church exactly agree. They cannot demonstrate their
+ propositions, because between the premise and the logical conclusion or
+ demonstration, stands the tomb. A gravestone marks the end of theology. In
+ some cases, the physician can, by a post- mortem examination, find what
+ killed the patient, but there is no theological post-mortem. It is
+ impossible, by cutting a body open, to find where the soul has gone; or
+ whether baptism, or the lack of it, had the slightest effect upon final
+ destiny. The church, knowing that there are no facts beyond the coffin,
+ relies upon opinions, assertions and theories. For this reason it is
+ always asking alms of distinguished people. Some President wishes to be
+ re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as "the corner- stone of
+ American Liberty." This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any
+ church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing
+ that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the
+ Scriptures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who accepts opinions because they have been entertained by
+ distinguished people, is a mental snob. When we blindly follow authority
+ we are serfs. When our reason is convinced we are freemen. It is rare to
+ find a fully rounded and complete man. A man may be a great doctor and a
+ poor mechanic, a successful politician and a poor metaphysician, a poor
+ painter and a good poet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The rarest thing in the world is a logician&mdash;that is to say, a man
+ who knows the value of a fact. It is hard to find mental proportion.
+ Theories may be established by names, but facts cannot be demonstrated in
+ that way. Very small people are sometimes right, and very great people are
+ sometimes wrong. Ministers are sometimes right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all the philosophies of the world there are undoubtedly contradictions
+ and absurdities. The mind of man is imperfect and perfect results are
+ impossible. A mirror, in order to reflect a perfect picture, a perfect
+ copy, must itself be perfect. The mind is a little piece of intellectual
+ glass the surface of which is not true, not perfect. In consequence of
+ this, every image is more or less distorted. The less we know, the more we
+ imagine that we can know; but the more we know, the smaller seems the sum
+ of knowledge. The less we know, the more we expect, the more we hope for,
+ and the more seems within the range of probability. The less we have, the
+ more we want. There never was a banquet magnificent enough to gratify the
+ imagination of a beggar. The moment people begin to reason about what they
+ call the supernatural, they seem to lose their minds. People seem to have
+ lost their reason in religious matters, very much as the dodo is said to
+ have lost its wings; they have been restricted to a little inspired
+ island, and by disuse their reason has been lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Jewish Scriptures you will find simply the literature of the Jews.
+ You will find there the tears and anguish of captivity, patriotic fervor,
+ national aspiration, proverbs for the conduct of daily life, laws,
+ regulations, customs, legends, philosophy and folly. These books, of
+ course, were not written by one man, but by many authors. They do not
+ agree, having been written in different centuries, under different
+ circumstances. I see that Mr. Beecher has at last concluded that the Old
+ Testament does not teach the doctrine of immortality. He admits that from
+ Mount Sinai came no hope for the dead. It is very curious that we find in
+ the Old Testament no funeral service. No one stands by the dead and
+ predicts another life. In the Old Testament there is no promise of another
+ world. I have sometimes thought that while the Jews were slaves in Egypt,
+ the doctrine of immortality became hateful. They built so many tombs; they
+ carried so many burdens to commemorate the dead; the saw a nation waste
+ its wealth to adorn its graves, and leave the living naked to embalm the
+ dead, that they concluded the doctrine was a curse and never should be
+ taught.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If the Jews did not believe in immortality, how do you
+ account for the allusions made to witches and wizards and things of that
+ nature?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. When Saul visited the Witch of Endor, and she, by some
+ magic spell, called up Samuel, the prophet said: "Why hast thou disquieted
+ me, to call me up?" He did not say: Why have you called me from another
+ world? The idea expressed is: I was asleep, why did you disturb that
+ repose which should be eternal? The ancient Jews believed in witches and
+ wizards and familiar spirits; but they did not seem to think that these
+ spirits had once been men and women. They spoke to them as belonging to
+ another world, a world to which man would never find his way. At that time
+ it was supposed that Jehovah and his angels lived in the sky, but that
+ region was not spoken of as the destined home of man. Jacob saw angels
+ going up and down the ladder, but not the spirits of those he had known.
+ There are two cases where it seems that men were good enough to be adopted
+ into the family of heaven. Enoch was translated, and Elijah was taken up
+ in a chariot of fire. As it is exceedingly cold at the height of a few
+ miles, it is easy to see why the chariot was of fire, and the same fact
+ explains another circumstance&mdash;the dropping of the mantle. The Jews
+ probably believed in the existence of other beings&mdash;that is to say,
+ in angels and gods and evil spirits &mdash;and that they lived in other
+ worlds&mdash;but there is no passage showing that they believed in what we
+ call the immortality of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe, or disbelieve, in the immortality of the
+ soul?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I neither assert nor deny; I simply admit that I do not
+ know. Upon that subject I am absolutely without evidence. This is the only
+ world that I was ever in. There may be spirits, but I have never met them,
+ and do not know that I would recognize a spirit. I can form no conception
+ of what is called spiritual life. It may be that I am deficient in
+ imagination, and that ministers have no difficulty in conceiving of angels
+ and disembodied souls. I have not the slightest idea how a soul looks,
+ what shape it is, how it goes from one place to another, whether it walks
+ or flies. I cannot conceive of the immaterial having form; neither can I
+ conceive of anything existing without form, and yet the fact that I cannot
+ conceive of a thing does not prove that the thing does not exist, but it
+ does prove that I know nothing about it, and that being so, I ought to
+ admit my ignorance. I am satisfied of a good many things that I do not
+ know. I am satisfied that there is no place of eternal torment. I am
+ satisfied that that doctrine has done more harm than all the religious
+ ideas, other than that, have done good. I do not want to take any hope
+ from any human heart. I have no objection to people believing in any good
+ thing&mdash;no objection to their expecting a crown of infinite joy for
+ every human being. Many people imagine that immortality must be an
+ infinite good; but, after all, there is something terrible in the idea of
+ endless life. Think of a river that never reaches the sea; of a bird that
+ never folds its wings; of a journey that never ends. Most people find
+ great pleasure in thinking about and in believing in another world. There
+ the prisoner expects to be free; the slave to find liberty; the poor man
+ expects wealth; the rich man happiness; the peasant dreams of power, and
+ the king of contentment. They expect to find there what they lack here. I
+ do not wish to destroy these dreams. I am endeavoring to put out the
+ everlasting fires. A good, cool grave is infinitely better than the fiery
+ furnace of Jehovah's wrath. Eternal sleep is better than eternal pain. For
+ my part I would rather be annihilated than to be an angel, with all the
+ privileges of heaven, and yet have within my breast a heart that could be
+ happy while those who had loved me in this world were in perdition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I most sincerely hope that the future life will fulfill all splendid
+ dreams; but in the religion of the present day there is no joy. Nothing is
+ so devoid of comfort, when bending above our dead, as the assertions of
+ theology unsupported by a single fact. The promises are so far away, and
+ the dead are so near. From words spoken eighteen centuries ago, the echoes
+ are so weak, and the sounds of the clods on the coffin are so loud. Above
+ the grave what can the honest minister say? If the dead were not a
+ Christian, what then? What comfort can the orthodox clergyman give to the
+ widow of an honest unbeliever? If Christianity is true, the other world
+ will be worse than this. There the many will be miserable, only the few
+ happy; there the miserable cannot better their condition; the future has
+ no star of hope, and in the east of eternity there can never be a dawn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If you take away the idea of eternal punishment, how do
+ you propose to restrain men; in what way will you influence conduct for
+ good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, the trouble with religion is that it postpones
+ punishment and reward to another world. Wrong is wrong, because it breeds
+ unhappiness. Right is right, because it tends to the happiness of man.
+ These facts are the basis of what I call the religion of this world. When
+ a man does wrong, the consequences follow, and between the cause and
+ effect, a Redeemer cannot step. Forgiveness cannot form a breastwork
+ between act and consequence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There should be a religion of the body&mdash;a religion that will prevent
+ deformity, that will refuse to multiply insanity, that will not propagate
+ disease&mdash;a religion that is judged by its consequences in this world.
+ Orthodox Christianity has taught, and still teaches, that in this world
+ the difference between the good and the bad is that the bad enjoy
+ themselves, while the good carry the cross of virtue with bleeding brows
+ bound and pierced with the thorns of honesty and kindness. All this, in my
+ judgment, is immoral. The man who does wrong carries a cross. There is no
+ world, no star, in which the result of wrong is real happiness. There is
+ no world, no star, in which the result of doing right is unhappiness.
+ Virtue and vice must be the same everywhere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Vice must be vice everywhere, because its consequences are evil; and
+ virtue must be virtue everywhere, because its consequences are good. There
+ can be no such thing as forgiveness. These facts are the only restraining
+ influences possible&mdash;the innocent man cannot suffer for the guilty
+ and satisfy the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you answer the argument, or the fact, that the
+ church is constantly increasing, and that there are now four hundred
+ millions of Christians?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. That is what I call the argument of numbers. If that
+ argument is good now, it was always good. If Christians were at any time
+ in the minority, then, according to this argument, Christianity was wrong.
+ Every religion that has succeeded has appealed to the argument of numbers.
+ There was a time when Buddhism was in a majority. Buddha not only had, but
+ has more followers then Christ. Success is not a demonstration. Mohammed
+ was a success, and a success from the commencement. Upon a thousand fields
+ he was victor. Of the scattered tribes of the desert, he made a nation,
+ and this nation took the fairest part of Europe from the followers of the
+ cross. In the history of the world, the success of Mohammed is
+ unparalleled, but this success does not establish that he was the prophet
+ of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is claimed that there are some four hundred millions of
+ Christians. To make that total I am counted as a Christian; I am one of
+ the fifty or sixty millions of Christians in the United States&mdash;excluding
+ Indians, not taxed. By this census report, we are all going to heaven&mdash;we
+ are all orthodox. At the last great day we can refer with confidence to
+ the ponderous volumes containing the statistics of the United States. As a
+ matter of fact, how many Christians are there in the United States&mdash;how
+ many believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures&mdash;how many real
+ followers of Christ? I will not pretend to give the number, but I will
+ venture to say that there are not fifty millions. How many in England?
+ Where are the four hundred millions found? To make this immense number,
+ they have counted all the Heretics, all the Catholics, all the Jews,
+ Spiritualists, Universalists and Unitarians, all the babes, all the
+ idiotic and insane, all the Infidels, all the scientists, all the
+ unbelievers. As a matter of fact, they have no right to count any except
+ the orthodox members of the orthodox churches. There may be more "members"
+ now than formerly, and this increase of members is due to a decrease of
+ religion. Thousands of members are only nominal Christians, wearing the
+ old uniform simply because they do not wish to be charged with desertion.
+ The church, too, is a kind of social institution, a club with a creed
+ instead of by-laws, and the creed is never defended unless attacked by an
+ outsider. No objection is made to the minister because he is liberal, if
+ he says nothing about it in his pulpit. A man like Mr. Beecher draws a
+ congregation, not because he is a Christian, but because he is a genius;
+ not because he is orthodox, but because he has something to say. He is an
+ intellectual athlete. He is full of pathos and poetry. He has more
+ description than divinity; more charity than creed, and altogether more
+ common sense than theology. For these reasons thousands of people love to
+ hear him. On the other hand, there are many people who have a morbid
+ desire for the abnormal&mdash;for intellectual deformities&mdash;for
+ thoughts that have two heads. This accounts for the success of some of Mr.
+ Beecher's rivals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians claim that success is a test of truth. Has any church succeeded
+ as well as the Catholic? Was the tragedy of the Garden of Eden a success?
+ Who succeeded there? The last best thought is not a success, if you mean
+ that only that is a success which has succeeded, and if you mean by
+ succeeding, that it has won the assent of the majority. Besides there is
+ no time fixed for the test. Is that true which succeeds to-day, or next
+ year, or in the next century? Once the Copernican system was not a
+ success. There is no time fixed. The result is that we have to wait. A
+ thing to exist at all has to be, to a certain extent, a success. A thing
+ cannot even die without having been a success. It certainly succeeded
+ enough to have life. Presbyterians should remember, while arguing the
+ majority argument, and the success argument, that there are far more
+ Catholics than Protestants, and that the Catholics can give a longer list
+ of distinguished names.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My answer to all this, however, is that the history of the world shows
+ that ignorance has always been in the majority. There is one right road;
+ numberless paths that are wrong. Truth is one; error is many. When a great
+ truth has been discovered, one man has pitted himself against the world. A
+ few think; the many believe. The few lead; the many follow. The light of
+ the new day, as it looks over the window sill of the east, falls at first
+ on only one forehead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing. A great many people pass for Christians who are
+ not. Only a little while ago a couple of ladies were returning from church
+ in a carriage. They had listened to a good orthodox sermon. One said to
+ the other: "I am going to tell you something&mdash;I am going to shock you&mdash;I
+ do not believe in the Bible." And the other replied: "Neither do I."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The News</i>, Detroit, Michigan, January 6, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0034" id="link0034">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICS, MORMONISM AND MR. BEECHER
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What will be the main issues in the next presidential
+ campaign?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that the principal issues will be civil rights and
+ protection for American industries. The Democratic party is not a unit on
+ the tariff question&mdash;neither is the Republican; but I think that a
+ majority of the Democrats are in favor of free trade and a majority of
+ Republicans in favor of a protective tariff. The Democratic Congressmen
+ will talk just enough about free trade to frighten the manufacturing
+ interests of the country, and probably not quite enough to satisfy the
+ free traders. The result will be that the Democrats will talk about
+ reforming the tariff, but will do nothing but talk. I think the tariff
+ ought to be reformed in many particulars; but as long as we need to raise
+ a great revenue my idea is that it ought to be so arranged as to protect
+ to the utmost, without producing monopoly in American manufacturers. I am
+ in favor of protection because it multiplies industries; and I am in favor
+ of a great number of industries because they develop the brain, because
+ they give employment to all and allow us to utilize all the muscle and all
+ the sense we have. If we were all farmers we would grow stupid. If we all
+ worked at one kind of mechanic art we would grow dull. But with a variety
+ of industries, with a constant premium upon ingenuity, with the promise of
+ wealth as the reward of success in any direction, the people become
+ intelligent, and while we are protecting our industries we develop our
+ brains. So I am in favor of the protection of civil rights by the Federal
+ Government, and that, in my judgment, will be one of the great issues in
+ the next campaign.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that you say that one of the great issues in the
+ coming campaign will be civil rights; what do you mean by that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I mean this. The Supreme Court has recently decided
+ that a colored man whose rights are trampled upon, in a State, cannot
+ appeal to the Federal Government for protection. The decision amounts to
+ this: That Congress has no right until a State has acted, and has acted
+ contrary to the Constitution. Now, if a State refuses to do anything upon
+ the subject, what is the citizen to do? My opinion is that the Government
+ is bound to protect its citizens, and as a consideration for this
+ protection, the citizen is bound to stand by the Government. When the
+ nation calls for troops, the citizen of each State is bound to respond, no
+ matter what his State may think. This doctrine must be maintained, or the
+ United States ceases to be a nation. If a man looks to his State for
+ protection, then he must go with his State. My doctrine is, that there
+ should be patriotism upon the one hand, and protection upon the other. If
+ a State endeavors to secede from the Union, a citizen of that State should
+ be in a position to defy the State and appeal to the Nation for
+ protection. The doctrine now is, that the General Government turns the
+ citizen over to the State for protection, and if the State does not
+ protect him, that is his misfortune; and the consequence of this doctrine
+ will be to build up the old heresy of State Sovereignty&mdash;a doctrine
+ that was never appealed to except in the interest of thieving or robbery.
+ That doctrine was first appealed to when the Constitution was formed,
+ because they were afraid the National Government would interfere with the
+ slave trade. It was next appealed to, to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law. It
+ was next appealed to, to give the territories of the United States to
+ slavery. Then it was appealed to, to support rebellion, and now out of
+ this doctrine they attempt to build a breastwork, behind which they can
+ trample upon the rights of free colored men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the sovereignty of the Nation. A nation that cannot protect
+ its citizens ought to stop playing nation. In the old times the Supreme
+ Court found no difficulty in supporting slavery by "inference," by
+ "intendment," but now that liberty has become national, the Court is
+ driven to less than a literal interpretation. If the Constitution does not
+ support liberty, it is of no use. To maintain liberty is the only
+ legitimate object of human government. I hope the time will come when the
+ judges of the Supreme Court will be elected, say for a period of ten
+ years. I do not believe in the legal monk system. I believe in judges
+ still maintaining an interest in human affairs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Mormon question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not believe in the bayonet plan. Mormonism must be
+ done away with by the thousand influences of civilization, by education,
+ by the elevation of the people. Of course, a gentleman would rather have
+ one noble woman than a hundred females. I hate the system of polygamy.
+ Nothing is more infamous. I admit that the Old Testament upholds it. I
+ admit that the patriarchs were mostly polygamists. I admit that Solomon
+ was mistaken on that subject. But notwithstanding the fact that polygamy
+ is upheld by the Jewish Scriptures, I believe it to be a great wrong. At
+ the same time if you undertake to get the idea out of the Mormons by force
+ you will not succeed. I think a good way to do away with that institution
+ would be for all the churches to unite, bear the expense, and send
+ missionaries to Utah; let these ministers call the people together and
+ read to them the lives of David, Solomon, Abraham and other patriarchs.
+ Let all the missionaries be called home from foreign fields and teach
+ these people that they should not imitate the only men with whom God ever
+ condescended to hold intercourse. Let these frightful examples be held up
+ to these people, and if it is done earnestly, it seems to me that the
+ result would be good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Polygamy exists. All laws upon the subject should take that fact into
+ consideration, and punishment should be provided for offences thereafter
+ committed. The children of Mormons should be legitimized. In other words,
+ in attempting to settle this question, we should accomplish all the good
+ possible, with the least possible harm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I agree mostly with Mr. Beecher, and I utterly disagree with the Rev. Mr.
+ Newman. Mr. Newman wants to kill and slay. He does not rely upon
+ Christianity, but upon brute force. He has lost his confidence in example,
+ and appeals to the bayonet. Mr. Newman had a discussion with one of the
+ Mormon elders, and was put to ignominious flight; no wonder that he
+ appeals to force. Having failed in argument, he calls for artillery;
+ having been worsted in the appeal to Scripture, he asks for the sword. He
+ says, failing to convert, let us kill; and he takes this position in the
+ name of the religion of kindness and forgiveness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Strange that a minister now should throw away the Bible and yell for a
+ bayonet; that he should desert the Scriptures and call for soldiers; that
+ he should lose confidence in the power of the Spirit and trust in a sword.
+ I recommend that Mormonism be done away with by distributing the Old
+ Testament throughout Utah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the investigation of the Department
+ of Justice now going on?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The result, in my judgment, will depend on its
+ thoroughness. If Mr. Springer succeeds in proving exactly what the
+ Department of Justice did, the methods pursued, if he finds out what their
+ spies and detectives and agents were instructed to do, then I think the
+ result will be as disastrous to the Department as beneficial to the
+ country. The people seem to have forgotten that a little while after the
+ first Star Route trial three of the agents of the Department of Justice
+ were indicted for endeavoring to bribe the jury. They forget that Mr.
+ Bowen, an agent of the Department of Justice, is a fugitive, because he
+ endeavored to bribe the foreman of the jury. They seem to forget that the
+ Department of Justice, in order to cover its own tracks, had the foreman
+ of the jury indicted because one of its agents endeavored to bribe him.
+ Probably this investigation will nudge the ribs of the public enough to
+ make people remember these things. Personally, I have no feelings on the
+ subject. It was enough for me that we succeeded in thwarting its methods,
+ in spite of the detectives, spies, and informers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Department is already beginning to dissolve. Brewster Cameron has left
+ it, and as a reward has been exiled to Arizona. Mr. Brewster will probably
+ be the next to pack his official valise. A few men endeavored to win
+ popularity by pursuing a few others, and thus far they have been
+ conspicuous failures. MacVeagh and James are to-day enjoying the oblivion
+ earned by misdirected energy, and Mr. Brewster will soon keep them
+ company. The history of the world does not furnish an instance of more
+ flagrant abuse of power. There never was a trial as shamelessly conducted
+ by a government. But, as I said before, I have no feeling now except that
+ of pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that Mr. Beecher is coming round to your views on
+ theology?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I would not have the egotism to say that he was coming
+ round to my views, but evidently Mr. Beecher has been growing. His head
+ has been instructed by his heart; and if a man will allow even the poor
+ plant of pity to grow in his heart he will hold in infinite execration all
+ orthodox religion. The moment he will allow himself to think that eternal
+ consequences depend upon human life; that the few short years we live in
+ the world determine for an eternity the question of infinite joy or
+ infinite pain; the moment he thinks of that he will see that it is an
+ infinite absurdity. For instance, a man is born in Arkansas and lives
+ there to be seventeen or eighteen years of age, is it possible that he can
+ be truthfully told at the day of judgment that he had a fair chance? Just
+ imagine a man being held eternally responsible for his conduct in
+ Delaware! Mr. Beecher is a man of great genius&mdash;full of poetry and
+ pathos. Every now and then he is driven back by the orthodox members of
+ his congregation toward the old religion, and for the benefit of those
+ weak disciples he will preach what is called "a doctrinal sermon;" but
+ before he gets through with it, seeing that it is infinitely cruel, he
+ utters a cry of horror, and protests with all the strength of his nature
+ against the cruelty of the creed. I imagine that he has always thought
+ that he was under great obligation to Plymouth Church, but the truth is
+ that the church depends upon him; that church gets its character from Mr.
+ Beecher. He has done a vast deal to ameliorate the condition of the
+ average orthodox mind. He excites the envy of the mediocre minister, and
+ he excites the hatred of the really orthodox, but he receives the
+ approbation of good and generous men everywhere. For my part, I have no
+ quarrel with any religion that does not threaten eternal punishment to
+ very good people, and that does not promise eternal reward to very bad
+ people. If orthodox Christianity is true, some of the best people I know
+ are going to hell, and some of the meanest I have ever known are either in
+ heaven or on the road. Of course, I admit that there are thousands and
+ millions of good Christians&mdash;honest and noble people, but in my
+ judgment, Mr. Beecher is the greatest man in the world who now occupies a
+ pulpit.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Speaking of a man's living in Delaware, a young man, some time ago, came
+ up to me on the street, in an Eastern city and asked for money. "What is
+ your business," I asked. "I am a waiter by profession." "Where do you come
+ from?" "Delaware." "Well, what was the matter &mdash;did you drink, or
+ cheat your employer, or were you idle?" "No." "What was the trouble?"
+ "Well, the truth is, the State is so small they don't need any waiters;
+ they all reach for what they want."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not think there are some dangerous tendencies in
+ Liberalism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I will first state this proposition: The credit system in
+ morals, as in business, breeds extravagance. The cash system in morals, as
+ well as in business, breeds economy. We will suppose a community in which
+ everybody is bound to sell on credit, and in which every creditor can take
+ the benefit of the bankrupt law every Saturday night, and the constable
+ pays the costs. In my judgment that community would be extravagant as long
+ as the merchants lasted. We will take another community in which everybody
+ has to pay cash, and in my judgment that community will be a very
+ economical one. Now, then, let us apply this to morals. Christianity
+ allows everybody to sin on a credit, and allows a man who has lived, we
+ will say sixty-nine years, what Christians are pleased to call a worldly
+ life, an immoral life. They allow him on his death-bed, between the last
+ dose of medicine and the last breath, to be converted, and that man who
+ has done nothing except evil, becomes an angel. Here is another man who
+ has lived the same length of time, doing all the good he possibly could
+ do, but not meeting with what they are pleased to call "a change of
+ heart;" he goes to a world of pain. Now, my doctrine is that everybody
+ must reap exactly what he sows, other things being equal. If he acts badly
+ he will not be very happy; if he acts well he will not be very sad. I
+ believe in the doctrine of consequences, and that every man must stand the
+ consequences of his own acts. It seems to me that that fact will have a
+ greater restraining influence than the idea that you can, just before you
+ leave this world, shift your burden on to somebody else. I am a believer
+ in the restraining influences of liberty, because responsibility goes hand
+ in hand with freedom. I do not believe that the gallows is the last step
+ between earth and heaven. I do not believe in the conversion and salvation
+ of murderers while their innocent victims are in hell. The church has
+ taught so long that he who acts virtuously carries a cross, and that only
+ sinners enjoy themselves, that it may be that for a little while after men
+ leave the church they may go to extremes until they demonstrate for
+ themselves that the path of vice is the path of thorns, and that only
+ along the wayside of virtue grow the flowers of joy. The church has
+ depicted virtue as a sour, wrinkled termagant; an old woman with nothing
+ but skin and bones, and a temper beyond description; and at the same time
+ vice has been painted in all the voluptuous outlines of a Greek statue.
+ The truth is exactly the other way. A thing is right because it pays; a
+ thing is wrong because it does not; and when I use the word "pays," I mean
+ in the highest and noblest sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Daily News</i>, Denver, Colorado, January 17, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0035" id="link0035">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ FREE TRADE AND CHRISTIANITY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Who will be the Republican nominee for President?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The correct answer to this question would make so many men
+ unhappy that I have concluded not to give it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Has not the Democracy injured itself irretrievably by
+ permitting the free trade element to rule it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think that the Democratic party weakened itself by
+ electing Carlisle, Speaker. I think him an excellent man, an exceedingly
+ candid man, and one who will do what he believes ought to be done. I have
+ a very high opinion of Mr. Carlisle. I do not suppose any party in this
+ country is really for free trade. I find that all writers upon the
+ subject, no matter which side they are on, are on that side with certain
+ exceptions. Adam Smith was in favor of free trade, with a few exceptions,
+ and those exceptions were in matters where he thought it was for England's
+ interest not to have free trade. The same may be said of all writers. So
+ far as I can see, the free traders have all the arguments and the
+ protectionists all the facts. The free trade theories are splendid, but
+ they will not work; the results are disastrous. We find by actual
+ experiment that it is better to protect home industries. It was once said
+ that protection created nothing but monopoly; the argument was that way,
+ but the facts are not. Take, for instance, steel rails; when we bought
+ them of England we paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton. I
+ believe there was a tariff of twenty-eight or twenty-nine dollars a ton,
+ and yet in spite of all the arguments going to show that protection would
+ simply increase prices in America, would simply enrich the capitalists and
+ impoverish the consumer, steel rails are now produced, I believe, right
+ here in Colorado for forty-two dollars a ton.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, it is a question of labor; a question of prices that shall be
+ paid the laboring man; a question of what the laboring man shall eat;
+ whether he shall eat meat or soup made from the bones. Very few people
+ take into consideration the value of raw material and the value of labor.
+ Take, for instance, your ton of steel rails worth forty-two dollars. The
+ iron in the earth is not worth twenty-five cents. The coal in the earth
+ and the lime in the ledge together are not worth twenty-five cents. Now,
+ then, of the forty-two dollars, forty-one and a half is labor. There is
+ not two dollars' worth of raw material in a locomotive worth fifteen
+ thousand dollars. By raw material I mean the material in the earth. There
+ is not in the works of a watch which will sell for fifteen dollars, raw
+ material of the value of one-half cent. All the rest is labor. A ship, a
+ man-of-war that costs one million dollars&mdash; the raw material in the
+ earth is not worth, in my judgment, one thousand dollars. All the rest is
+ labor. If there is any way to protect American labor, I am in favor of it.
+ If the present tariff does not do it, then I am in favor of changing to
+ one that will. If the Democratic party takes a stand for free trade or
+ anything like it, they will need protection; they will need protection at
+ the polls; that is to say, they will meet only with defeat and disaster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What should be done with the surplus revenue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My answer to that is, reduce internal revenue taxation
+ until the present surplus is exhausted, and then endeavor so to arrange
+ your tariff that you will not produce more than you need. I think the
+ easiest question to grapple with on this earth is a surplus of money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe in distributing it among the States. I do not think there
+ could be a better certificate of the prosperity of our country than the
+ fact that we are troubled with a surplus revenue; that we have the
+ machinery for collecting taxes in such perfect order, so ingeniously
+ contrived, that it cannot be stopped; that it goes right on collecting
+ money, whether we want it or not; and the wonderful thing about it is that
+ nobody complains. If nothing else can be done with the surplus revenue,
+ probably we had better pay some of our debts. I would suggest, as a last
+ resort, to pay a few honest claims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you getting nearer to or farther away from God,
+ Christianity and the Bible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, as Mr. Locke so often remarked, we will
+ define our terms. If by the word "God" is meant a person, a being, who
+ existed before the creation of the universe, and who controls all that is,
+ except himself, I do not believe in such a being; but if by the word God
+ is meant all that is, that is to say, the universe, including every atom
+ and every star, then I am a believer. I suppose the word that would
+ nearest describe me is "Pantheist." I cannot believe that a being existed
+ from eternity, and who finally created this universe after having wasted
+ an eternity in idleness; but upon this subject I know just as little as
+ anybody ever did or ever will, and, in my judgment, just as much. My
+ intellectual horizon is somewhat limited, and, to tell you the truth, this
+ is the only world that I was ever in. I am what might be called a
+ representative of a rural district, and, as a matter of fact, I know very
+ little about the district. I believe it was Confucius who said: "How
+ should I know anything about another world when I know so little of this?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest intellects of the world have endeavored to find words to
+ express their conception of God, of the first cause, or of the science of
+ being, but they have never succeeded. I find in the old Confession of
+ Faith, in the old Catechism, for instance, this description: That God is a
+ being without body, parts or passions. I think it would trouble anybody to
+ find a better definition of nothing. That describes a vacuum, that is to
+ say, that describes the absence of everything. I find that theology is a
+ subject that only the most ignorant are certain about, and that the more a
+ man thinks, the less he knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the Bible God, I do not know that I am going farther and farther
+ away. I have been about as far as a man could get for many years. I do not
+ believe in the God of the Old Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the next branch of your question, Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question arises, What is Christianity? I have no objection to the
+ morality taught as a part of Christianity, no objection to its charity,
+ its forgiveness, its kindness; no objection to its hope for this world and
+ another, not the slightest, but all these things do not make Christianity.
+ Mohammed taught certain doctrines that are good, but the good in the
+ teachings of Mohammed is not Mohammedism. When I speak of Christianity I
+ speak of that which is distinctly Christian. For instance, the idea that
+ the Infinite God was born in Palestine, learned the carpenter's trade,
+ disputed with the parsons of his time, excited the wrath of the
+ theological bigots, and was finally crucified; that afterward he was
+ raised from the dead, and that if anybody believes this he will be saved
+ and if he fails to believe it, he will be lost; in other words, that which
+ is distinctly Christian in the Christian system, is its supernaturalism,
+ its miracles, its absurdity. Truth does not need to go into partnership
+ with the supernatural. What Christ said is worth the reason it contains.
+ If a man raises the dead and then says twice two are five, that changes no
+ rule in mathematics. If a multiplication table was divinely inspired, that
+ does no good. The question is, is it correct? So I think that in the world
+ of morals, we must prove that a thing is right or wrong by experience, by
+ analogy, not by miracles. There is no fact in physical science that can be
+ supernaturally demonstrated. Neither is there any fact in the moral world
+ that could be substantiated by miracles. Now, then, keeping in mind that
+ by Christianity I mean the supernatural in that system, of course I am
+ just as far away from it as I can get. For the man Christ I have respect.
+ He was an infidel in his day, and the ministers of his day cried out
+ blasphemy, as they have been crying ever since, against every person who
+ has suggested a new thought or shown the worthlessness of an old one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the third part of the question, the Bible. People say that the
+ Bible is inspired. Well, what does inspiration mean? Did God write it? No;
+ but the men who did write it were guided by the Holy Spirit. Very well.
+ Did they write exactly what the Holy Spirit wanted them to write? Well,
+ religious people say, yes. At the same time they admit that the gentlemen
+ who were collecting, or taking down in shorthand what was said, had to use
+ their own words. Now, we all know that the same words do not have the same
+ meaning to all people. It is impossible to convey the same thoughts to all
+ minds by the same language, and it is for that reason that the Bible has
+ produced so many sects, not only disagreeing with each other, but
+ disagreeing among themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find, then, that it is utterly impossible for God (admitting that there
+ is one) to convey the same thoughts in human language to all people. No
+ two persons understand the same language alike. A man's understanding
+ depends upon his experience, upon his capacity, upon the particular bent
+ of his mind&mdash;in fact, upon the countless influences that have made
+ him what he is. Everything in nature tells everyone who sees it a story,
+ but that story depends upon the capacity of the one to whom it is told.
+ The sea says one thing to the ordinary man, and another thing to
+ Shakespeare. The stars have not the same language for all people. The
+ consequence is that no book can tell the same story to any two persons.
+ The Jewish Scriptures are like other books, written by different men in
+ different ages of the world, hundreds of years apart, filled with
+ contradictions. They embody, I presume, fairly enough, the wisdom and
+ ignorance, the reason and prejudice, of the times in which they were
+ written. They are worth the good that is in them, and the question is
+ whether we will take the good and throw the bad away. There are good laws
+ and bad laws. There are wise and foolish sayings. There are gentle and
+ cruel passages, and you can find a text to suit almost any frame of mind;
+ whether you wish to do an act of charity or murder a neighbor's babe, you
+ will find a passage that will exactly fit the case. So that I can say that
+ I am still for the reasonable, for the natural; and am still opposed to
+ the absurd and supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there any better or more ennobling belief than
+ Christianity; if so, what is it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There are many good things, of course, in every religion,
+ or they would not have existed; plenty of good precepts in Christianity,
+ but the thing that I object to more than all others is the doctrine of
+ eternal punishment, the idea of hell for many and heaven for the few. Take
+ from Christianity the doctrine of eternal punishment and I have no
+ particular objection to what is generally preached. If you will take that
+ away, and all the supernatural connected with it, I have no objection; but
+ that doctrine of eternal punishment tends to harden the human heart. It
+ has produced more misery than all the other doctrines in the world. It has
+ shed more blood; it has made more martyrs. It has lighted the fires of
+ persecution and kept the sword of cruelty wet with heroic blood for at
+ least a thousand years. There is no crime that that doctrine has not
+ produced. I think it would be impossible for the imagination to conceive
+ of a worse religion than orthodox Christianity&mdash;utterly impossible; a
+ doctrine that divides this world, a doctrine that divides families, a
+ doctrine that teaches the son that he can be happy, with his mother in
+ perdition; the husband that he can be happy in heaven while his wife
+ suffers the agonies of hell. This doctrine is infinite injustice, and
+ tends to subvert all ideas of justice in the human heart. I think it would
+ be impossible to conceive of a doctrine better calculated to make wild
+ beasts of men than that; in fact, that doctrine was born of all the wild
+ beast there is in man. It was born of infinite revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of preaching that you must believe that a certain being was the son
+ of God, no matter whether your reason is convinced or not. Suppose one
+ should meet, we will say on London Bridge, a man clad in rags, and he
+ should stop us and say, "My friend, I wish to talk with you a moment. I am
+ the rightful King of Great Britain," and you should say to him, "Well, my
+ dinner is waiting; I have no time to bother about who the King of England
+ is," and then he should meet another and insist on his stopping while the
+ pulled out some papers to show that he was the rightful King of England,
+ and the other man should say, "I have got business here, my friend; I am
+ selling goods, and I have no time to bother my head about who the King of
+ England is. No doubt you are the King of England, but you don't look like
+ him." And then suppose he stops another man, and makes the same statement
+ to him, and the other man should laugh at him and say, "I don't want to
+ hear anything on this subject; you are crazy; you ought to go to some
+ insane asylum, or put something on your head to keep you cool." And
+ suppose, after all, it should turn out that the man was King of England,
+ and should afterward make his claim good and be crowned in Westminster.
+ What would we think of that King if he should hunt up the gentlemen that
+ he met on London Bridge, and have their heads cut off because they had no
+ faith that he was the rightful heir? And what would we think of a God now
+ who would damn a man eighteen hundred years after the event, because he
+ did not believe that he was God at the time he was living in Jerusalem;
+ not only damn the fellows that he met and who did not believe him, but
+ gentlemen who lived eighteen hundred years afterward, and who certainly
+ could have known nothing of the facts except from hearsay?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The best religion, after all, is common sense; a religion for this world,
+ one world at a time, a religion for to-day. We want a religion that will
+ deal in questions in which we are interested. How are we to do away with
+ crime? How are we to do away with pauperism? How are we to do away with
+ want and misery in every civilized country? England is a Christian nation,
+ and yet about one in six in the city of London dies in almshouses,
+ asylums, prisons, hospitals and jails. We, I suppose, are a civilized
+ nation, and yet all the penitentiaries are crammed; there is want on every
+ hand, and my opinion is that we had better turn our attention to this
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity is charitable; Christianity spends a great deal of money; but
+ I am somewhat doubtful as to the good that is accomplished. There ought to
+ be some way to prevent crime; not simply to punish it. There ought to be
+ some way to prevent pauperism, not simply to relieve temporarily a pauper,
+ and if the ministers and good people belonging to the churches would spend
+ their time investigating the affairs of this world and let the New
+ Jerusalem take care of itself, I think it would be far better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church is guilty of one great contradiction. The ministers are always
+ talking about worldly people, and yet, were it not for worldly people, who
+ would pay the salary? How could the church live a minute unless somebody
+ attended to the affairs of this world? The best religion, in my judgment,
+ is common sense going along hand in hand with kindness, and not troubling
+ ourselves about another world until we get there. I am willing for one, to
+ wait and see what kind of a country it will be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Does the question of the inspiration of Scriptures affect
+ the beauty and benefits of Christianity here and hereafter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures has done, in
+ my judgment, great harm. The Bible has been the breastwork for nearly
+ everything wrong. The defenders of slavery relied on the Bible. The Bible
+ was the real auction block on which every negro stood when he was sold. I
+ never knew a minister to preach in favor of slavery that did not take his
+ text from the Bible. The Bible teaches persecution for opinion's sake. The
+ Bible&mdash;that is the Old Testament&mdash;upholds polygamy, and just to
+ the extent that men, through the Bible, have believed that slavery,
+ religious persecution, wars of extermination and polygamy were taught by
+ God, just to that extent the Bible has done great harm. The idea of
+ inspiration enslaves the human mind and debauches the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is not Christianity and the belief in God a check upon
+ mankind in general and thus a good thing in itself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. This, again, brings up the question of what you mean by
+ Christianity, but taking it for granted that you mean by Christianity the
+ church, then I answer, when the church had almost absolute authority, then
+ the world was the worst.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the other part of the question, "Is not a belief in God a check
+ upon mankind in general?" That is owing to what kind of God the man
+ believes in. When mankind believed in the God of the Old Testament, I
+ think that belief was a bad thing; the tendency was bad. I think that John
+ Calvin patterned after Jehovah as nearly as his health and strength would
+ permit. Man makes God in his own image, and bad men are not apt to have a
+ very good God if they make him. I believe it is far better to have a real
+ belief in goodness, in kindness, in honesty and in mankind than in any
+ supernatural being whatever. I do not suppose it would do any harm for a
+ man to believe in a real good God, a God without revenge, a God that was
+ not very particular in having a man believe a doctrine whether he could
+ understand it or not. I do not believe that a belief of that kind would do
+ any particular harm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a vast difference between the God of John Calvin and the God of
+ Henry Ward Beecher, and a great difference between the God of Cardinal
+ Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza and the God of Theodore Parker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Well, Colonel, is the world growing better or worse?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think better in some respects and worse in others; but on
+ the whole, better. I think that while events, like the pendulum of a
+ clock, go backward and forward, man, like the hands, goes forward. I think
+ there is more reason and less religion, more charity and less creed. I
+ think the church is improving. Ministers are ashamed to preach the old
+ doctrines with the old fervor. There was a time when the pulpit controlled
+ the pews. It is so no longer. The pews know what they want, and if the
+ minister does not furnish it they discharge him and employ another. He is
+ no longer an autocrat; he must bring to the market what his customers are
+ willing to buy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are you going to do to be saved?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I think I am safe, anyway. I suppose I have a right
+ to rely on what Matthew says, that if I will forgive others God will
+ forgive me. I suppose if there is another world I shall be treated very
+ much as I treat others. I never expect to find perfect bliss anywhere;
+ maybe I should tire of it if I should. What I have endeavored to do has
+ been to put out the fires of an ignorant and cruel hell; to do what I
+ could to destroy that dogma; to destroy the doctrine that makes the cradle
+ as terrible as the coffin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Denver Republican</i>, Denver, Colorado, January 17, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0036" id="link0036">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE OATH QUESTION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I suppose that your attention has been called to the
+ excitement in England over the oath question, and you have probably
+ wondered that so much should have been made of so little?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; I have read a few articles upon the subject, including
+ one by Cardinal Newman. It is wonderful that so many people imagine that
+ there is something miraculous in the oath. They seem to regard it as a
+ kind of verbal fetich, a charm, an "open sesame" to be pronounced at the
+ door of truth, a spell, a kind of moral thumbscrew, by means of which
+ falsehood itself is compelled to turn informer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The oath has outlived its brother, "the wager of battle." Both were born
+ of the idea that God would interfere for the right and for the truth.
+ Trial by fire and by water had the same origin. It was once believed that
+ the man in the wrong could not kill the man in the right; but, experience
+ having shown that he usually did, the belief gradually fell into
+ disrepute. So it was once thought that a perjurer could not swallow a
+ piece of sacramental bread; but, the fear that made the swallowing
+ difficult having passed away, the appeal to the corsned was abolished. It
+ was found that a brazen or a desperate man could eat himself out of the
+ greatest difficulty with perfect ease, satisfying the law and his own
+ hunger at the same time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The oath is a relic of barbarous theology, of the belief that a personal
+ God interferes in the affairs of men; that some God protects innocence and
+ guards the right. The experience of the world has sadly demonstrated the
+ folly of that belief. The testimony of a witness ought to be believed, not
+ because it is given under the solemnities of an oath, but because it is
+ reasonable. If unreasonable it ought to be thrown aside. The question
+ ought not to be, "Has this been sworn to?" but, "Is this true?" The moment
+ evidence is tested by the standard of reason, the oath becomes a useless
+ ceremony. Let the man who gives false evidence be punished as the
+ lawmaking power may prescribe. He should be punished because he commits a
+ crime against society, and he should be punished in this world. All honest
+ men will tell the truth if they can; therefore, oaths will have no effect
+ upon them. Dishonest men will not tell the truth unless the truth happens
+ to suit their purpose; therefore, oaths will have no effect upon them. We
+ punish them, not for swearing to a lie, but for telling it, and we can
+ make the punishment for telling the falsehood just as severe as we wish.
+ If they are to be punished in another world, the probability is that the
+ punishment there will be for having told the falsehood here. After all, a
+ lie is made no worse by an oath, and the truth is made no better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You object then to the oath. Is your objection based on
+ any religious grounds, or on any prejudice against the ceremony because of
+ its religious origin; or what is your objection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I care nothing about the origin of the ceremony. The
+ objection to the oath is this: It furnishes a falsehood with a letter of
+ credit. It supplies the wolf with sheep's clothing and covers the hands of
+ Jacob with hair. It blows out the light, and in the darkness Leah is taken
+ for Rachel. It puts upon each witness a kind of theological gown. This
+ gown hides the moral rags of the depraved wretch as well as the virtues of
+ the honest man. The oath is a mask that falsehood puts on, and for a
+ moment is mistaken for truth. It gives to dishonesty the advantage of
+ solemnity. The tendency of the oath is to put all testimony on an
+ equality. The obscure rascal and the man of sterling character both
+ "swear," and jurors who attribute a miraculous quality to the oath, forget
+ the real difference in the men, and give about the same weight to the
+ evidence of each, because both were "sworn." A scoundrel is delighted with
+ the opportunity of going through a ceremony that gives importance and
+ dignity to his story, that clothes him for the moment with respectability,
+ loans him the appearance of conscience, and gives the ring of true coin to
+ the base metal. To him the oath is a shield. He is in partnership, for a
+ moment, with God, and people who have no confidence in the witness credit
+ the firm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Of course you know the religionists insist that people
+ are more likely to tell the truth when "sworn," and that to take away the
+ oath is to destroy the foundation of testimony?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the use of the oath is defended on the ground that
+ religious people need a stimulus to tell the truth, then I am compelled to
+ say that religious people have been so badly educated that they mistake
+ the nature of the crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They should be taught that to defeat justice by falsehood is the real
+ offence. Besides, fear is not the natural foundation of virtue. Even with
+ religious people fear cannot always last. Ananias and Sapphira have been
+ dead so long, and since their time so many people have sworn falsely
+ without affecting their health that the fear of sudden divine vengeance no
+ longer pales the cheek of the perjurer. If the vengeance is not sudden,
+ then, according to the church, the criminal will have plenty of time to
+ repent; so that the oath no longer affects even the fearful. Would it not
+ be better for the church to teach that telling the falsehood is the real
+ crime, and that taking the oath neither adds to nor takes from its
+ enormity? Would it not be better to teach that he who does wrong must
+ suffer the consequences, whether God forgives him or not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He who tries to injure another may or may not succeed, but he cannot by
+ any possibility fail to injure himself. Men should be taught that there is
+ no difference between truth-telling and truth-swearing. Nothing is more
+ vicious than the idea that any ceremony or form of words&mdash;hand-lifting
+ or book-kissing&mdash;can add, even in the slightest degree, to the
+ perpetual obligation every human being is under to speak the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth, plainly told, naturally commends itself to the intelligent.
+ Every fact is a genuine link in the infinite chain, and will agree
+ perfectly with every other fact. A fact asks to be inspected, asks to be
+ understood. It needs no oath, no ceremony, no supernatural aid. It is
+ independent of all the gods. A falsehood goes in partnership with
+ theology, and depends on the partner for success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To show how little influence for good has been attributed to the oath, it
+ is only necessary to say that for centuries, in the Christian world, no
+ person was allowed to testify who had the slightest pecuniary interest in
+ the result of a suit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The expectation of a farthing in this world was supposed to outweigh the
+ fear of God's wrath in the next. All the pangs, pains, and penalties of
+ perdition were considered as nothing when compared with pounds, shillings
+ and pence in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You know that in nearly all deliberative bodies&mdash;in
+ parliaments and congresses&mdash;an oath or an affirmation is required to
+ support what is called the Constitution; and that all officers are
+ required to swear or affirm that they will discharge their duties; do
+ these oaths and affirmations, in your judgment, do any good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Men have sought to make nations and institutions immortal
+ by oaths. Subjects have sworn to obey kings, and kings have sworn to
+ protect subjects, and yet the subjects have sometimes beheaded a king; and
+ the king has often plundered the subjects. The oaths enabled them to
+ deceive each other. Every absurdity in religion, and all tyrannical
+ institutions, have been patched, buttressed, and reinforced by oaths; and
+ yet the history of the world shows the utter futility of putting in the
+ coffin of an oath the political and religious aspirations of the race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Revolutions and reformations care little for "So help me God." Oaths have
+ riveted shackles and sanctified abuses. People swear to support a
+ constitution, and they will keep the oath as long as the constitution
+ supports them. In 1776 the colonists cared nothing for the fact that they
+ had sworn to support the British crown. All the oaths to defend the
+ Constitution of the United States did not prevent the Civil War. We have
+ at last learned that States may be kept together for a little time, by
+ force; permanently only by mutual interests. We have found that the
+ Delilah of superstition cannot bind with oaths the secular Samson.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should a member of Parliament or of Congress swear to maintain the
+ Constitution? If he is a dishonest man, the oath will have no effect; if
+ he is an honest patriot, it will have no effect. In both cases it is
+ equally useless. If a member fails to support the Constitution the
+ probability is that his constituents will treat him as he does the
+ Constitution. In this country, after all the members of Congress have
+ sworn or affirmed to defend the Constitution, each political party charges
+ the other with a deliberate endeavor to destroy that "sacred instrument."
+ Possibly the political oath was invented to prevent the free and natural
+ development of a nation. Kings and nobles and priests wished to retain the
+ property they had filched and clutched, and for that purpose they
+ compelled the real owners to swear that they would support and defend the
+ law under color of which the theft and robbery had been accomplished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, in the church, creeds have been protected by oaths. Priests and laymen
+ solemnly swore that they would, under no circumstances, resort to reason;
+ that they would overcome facts by faith, and strike down demonstrations
+ with the "sword of the spirit." Professors of the theological seminary at
+ Andover, Massachusetts, swear to defend certain dogmas and to attack
+ others. They swear sacredly to keep and guard the ignorance they have.
+ With them, philosophy leads to perjury, and reason is the road to crime.
+ While theological professors are not likely to make an intellectual
+ discovery, still it is unwise, by taking an oath, to render that certain
+ which is only improbable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If all witnesses sworn to tell the truth, did so, if all members of
+ Parliament and of Congress, in taking the oath, became intelligent,
+ patriotic, and honest, I should be in favor of retaining the ceremony; but
+ we find that men who have taken the same oath advocate opposite ideas, and
+ entertain different opinions, as to the meaning of constitutions and laws.
+ The oath adds nothing to their intelligence; does not even tend to
+ increase their patriotism, and certainly does not make the dishonest
+ honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are not persons allowed to testify in the United States
+ whether they believe in future rewards and punishments or not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In this country, in most of the States, witnesses are
+ allowed to testify whether they believe in perdition and paradise or not.
+ In some States they are allowed to testify even if they deny the existence
+ of God. We have found that religious belief does not compel people to tell
+ the truth, and than an utter denial of every Christian creed does not even
+ tend to make them dishonest. You see, a religious belief does not affect
+ the senses. Justice should not shut any door that leads to truth. No one
+ will pretend that, because you do not believe in hell, your sight is
+ impaired, or your hearing dulled, or your memory rendered less retentive.
+ A witness in a court is called upon to tell what he has seen, what he has
+ heard, what he remembers, not what he believes about gods and devils and
+ hells and heavens. A witness substantiates not a faith, but a fact. In
+ order to ascertain whether a witness will tell the truth, you might with
+ equal propriety examine him as to his ideas about music, painting or
+ architecture, as theology. A man may have no ear for music, and yet
+ remember what he hears. He may care nothing about painting, and yet is
+ able to tell what he sees. So he may deny every creed, and yet be able to
+ tell the facts as he remembers them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Jefferson was wise enough so to frame the Constitution of Virginia
+ that no person could be deprived of any civil right on account of his
+ religious or irreligious belief. Through the influence of men like Paine,
+ Franklin and Jefferson, it was provided in the Federal Constitution that
+ officers elected under its authority could swear or affirm. This was the
+ natural result of the separation of church and state.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that your Presidents and Governors issue their
+ proclamations calling on the people to assemble in their churches and
+ offer thanks to God. How does this happen in a Government where church and
+ state are not united?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Jefferson, when President, refused to issue what is known
+ as the "Thanksgiving Proclamation," on the ground that the Federal
+ Government had no right to interfere in religious matters; that the people
+ owed no religious duties to the Government; that the Government derived
+ its powers, not from priests or gods, but from the people, and was
+ responsible alone to the source of its power. The truth is, the framers of
+ our Constitution intended that the Government should be secular in the
+ broadest and best sense; and yet there are thousands and thousands of
+ religious people in this country who are greatly scandalized because there
+ is no recognition of God in the Federal Constitution; and for several
+ years a great many ministers have been endeavoring to have the
+ Constitution amended so as to recognize the existence of God and the
+ divinity of Christ. A man by the name of Pollock was once superintendent
+ of the mint of Philadelphia. He was almost insane about having God in the
+ Constitution. Failing in that, he got the inscription on our money, "In
+ God we Trust." As our silver dollar is now, in fact, worth only
+ eighty-five cents, it is claimed that the inscription means that we trust
+ in God for the other fifteen cents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a constant effort on the part of many Christians to have their
+ religion in some way recognized by law. Proclamations are now issued
+ calling upon the people to give thanks, and directing attention to the
+ fact that, while God has scourged or neglected other nations, he has been
+ remarkably attentive to the wants and wishes of the United States.
+ Governors of States issue these documents written in a tone of pious
+ insincerity. The year may or may not have been prosperous, yet the degree
+ of thankfulness called for is always precisely the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago the Governor of Iowa issued an exceedingly rhetorical
+ proclamation, in which the people were requested to thank God for the
+ unparalleled blessings he had showered upon them. A private citizen,
+ fearing that the Lord might be misled by official correspondence, issued
+ his proclamation, in which he recounted with great particularity the
+ hardships of the preceding year. He insisted that the weather had been of
+ the poorest quality; that the spring came late, and the frost early; that
+ the people were in debt; that the farms were mortgaged; that the merchants
+ were bankrupt; and that everything was in the worst possible condition. He
+ concluded by sincerely hoping that the Lord would pay no attention to the
+ proclamation of the Governor, but would, if he had any doubt on the
+ subject, come down and examine the State for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These proclamations have always appeared to me absurdly egotistical. Why
+ should God treat us any better than he does the rest of his children? Why
+ should he send pestilence and famine to China, and health and plenty to
+ us? Why give us corn, and Egypt cholera? All these proclamations grow out
+ of egotism and selfishness, of ignorance and superstition, and are based
+ upon the idea that God is a capricious monster; that he loves flattery;
+ that he can be coaxed and cajoled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The conclusion of the whole matter with me is this: For truth in courts we
+ must depend upon the trained intelligence of judges, the right of
+ cross-examination, the honesty and common sense of jurors, and upon an
+ enlightened public opinion. As for members of Congress, we will trust to
+ the wisdom and patriotism, not only of the members, but of their
+ constituents. In religion we will give to all the luxury of absolute
+ liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The alchemist did not succeed in finding any stone the touch of which
+ transmuted baser things to gold; and priests have not invented yet an oath
+ with power to force from falsehood's desperate lips the pearl of truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Secular Review</i>, London, England, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0037" id="link0037">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WENDELL PHILLIPS, FITZ JOHN PORTER AND BISMARCK.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you seeking to quit public lecturing on religious
+ questions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. As long as I live I expect now and then to say my say
+ against the religious bigotry and cruelty of the world. As long as the
+ smallest coal is red in hell I am going to keep on. I never had the
+ slightest idea of retiring. I expect the church to do the retiring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Wendell Phillips as an orator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. He was a very great orator&mdash;one of the greatest that
+ the world has produced. He rendered immense service in the cause of
+ freedom. He was in the old days the thunderbolt that pierced the shield of
+ the Constitution. One of the bravest soldiers that ever fought for human
+ rights was Wendell Phillips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the action of Congress on Fitz John
+ Porter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Congress did right. I think they should have taken
+ this action long before. There was a question of his guilt, and he should
+ have been given the benefit of a doubt. They say he could have defeated
+ Longstreet. There are some people, you know, who would have it that an
+ army could be whipped by a good general with six mules and a blunderbuss.
+ But we do not regard those people. They know no more about it than a lady
+ who talked to me about Porter's case. She argued the question of Porter's
+ guilt for half an hour. I showed her where she was all wrong. When she
+ found she was beaten she took refuge with "Oh, well, anyhow he had no
+ genius." Well, if every man is to be shot who has no genius, I want to go
+ into the coffin business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your judgment, is necessary to be done to insure
+ Republican success this fall?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is only necessary for the Republican party to stand by
+ its principles. We must be in favor of protecting American labor not only,
+ but of protecting American capital, and we must be in favor of civil
+ rights, and must advocate the doctrine that the Federal Government must
+ protect all citizens. I am in favor of a tariff, not simply to raise a
+ revenue&mdash;that I regard as incidental. The Democrats regard protection
+ as incidental. The two principles should be, protection to American
+ industry and protection to American citizens. So that, after all, there is
+ but one issue&mdash;protection. As a matter of fact, that is all a
+ government is for&mdash;to protect. The Republican party is stronger
+ to-day than it was four years ago. The Republican party stands for the
+ progressive ideas of the American people. It has been said that the
+ administration will control the Southern delegates. I do not believe it.
+ This administration has not been friendly to the Southern Republicans, and
+ my opinion is there will be as much division in the Southern as in the
+ Northern States. I believe Blaine will be a candidate, and I do not
+ believe the Prohibitionists will put a ticket in the field, because they
+ have no hope of success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think generally of the revival of the bloody
+ shirt? Do you think the investigations of the Republicans of the Danville
+ and Copiah massacres will benefit them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I am in favor of the revival of that question just as
+ often as a citizen of the Republic is murdered on account of his politics.
+ If the South is sick of that question, let it stop persecuting men because
+ they are Republicans. I do not believe, however, in simply investigating
+ the question and then stopping after the guilty ones are found. I believe
+ in indicting them, trying them, and convicting them. If the Government can
+ do nothing except investigate, we might as well stop, and admit that we
+ have no government. Thousands of people think that it is almost vulgar to
+ take the part of the poor colored people in the South. What part should
+ you take if not that of the weak? The strong do not need you. And I can
+ tell the Southern people now, that as long as they persecute for opinion's
+ sake they will never touch the reins of political power in this country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you regard the action of Bismarck in returning the
+ Lasker resolutions? Was it the result of his hatred of the Jews?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Bismarck opposed a bill to do away with the disabilities of
+ the Jews on the ground that Prussia is a Christian nation, founded for the
+ purpose of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. I presume that it was his
+ hatred of the Jews that caused him to return the resolutions. Bismarck
+ should have lived several centuries ago. He belongs to the Dark Ages. He
+ is a believer in the sword and the bayonet&mdash;in brute force. He was
+ loved by Germany simply because he humiliated France. Germany gave her
+ liberty for revenge. It is only necessary to compare Bismarck with
+ Gambetta to see what a failure he really is. Germany was victorious and
+ took from France the earnings of centuries; and yet Germany is to-day the
+ least prosperous nation in Europe. France was prostrate, trampled into the
+ earth, robbed, and yet, guided by Gambetta, is to-day the most prosperous
+ nation in Europe. This shows the difference between brute force and brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Times</i>, Chicago, Illinois, February 21, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0038" id="link0038">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ GENERAL SUBJECTS.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you enjoy lecturing?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course I enjoy lecturing. It is a great pleasure to
+ drive the fiend of fear out of the hearts of men women and children. It is
+ a positive joy to put out the fires of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Where do you meet with the bitterest opposition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I meet with the bitterest opposition where the people are
+ the most ignorant, where there is the least thought, where there are the
+ fewest books. The old theology is becoming laughable. Very few ministers
+ have the impudence to preach in the old way. They give new meanings to old
+ words. They subscribe to the same creed, but preach exactly the other way.
+ The clergy are ashamed to admit that they are orthodox, and they ought to
+ be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do liberal books, such as the works of Paine and Infidel
+ scientists sell well?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, they are about the only books on serious subjects that
+ do sell well. The works of Darwin, Buckle, Draper, Haeckel, Tyndall,
+ Humboldt and hundreds of others, are read by intelligent people the world
+ over. Works of a religious character die on the shelves. The people want
+ facts. They want to know about the world, about all forms of life. They
+ want the mysteries of every day solved. They want honest thoughts about
+ sensible questions. They are tired of the follies of faith and the
+ falsehoods of superstition. They want a heaven here. In a few years the
+ old theological books will be sold to make paper on which to print the
+ discoveries of science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In what section of the country do you find the most
+ liberality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I find great freedom of thought in Boston, New York,
+ Chicago, San Francisco, in fact, all over what we call the North. The West
+ of course is liberal. The truth is that all the intelligent part of the
+ country is liberal. The railroad, the telegraph, the daily paper, electric
+ light, the telephone, and freedom of thought belong together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it true that you were once threatened with a criminal
+ prosecution for libel on religion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, in Delaware. Chief Justice Comegys instructed the
+ grand jury to indict me for blasphemy. I have taken by revenge on the
+ State by leaving it in ignorance. Delaware is several centuries behind the
+ times. It is as bigoted as it is small. Compare Kansas City with
+ Wilmington and you will see the difference between liberalism and
+ orthodoxy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. This is Washington's birthday. What do you think of
+ General Washington?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose that Washington was what was called religious. He
+ was not very strict in his conduct. He tried to have church and state
+ united in Virginia and was defeated by Jefferson. It should make no
+ difference with us whether Washington was religious or not. Jefferson was
+ by far the greater man. In intellect there was no comparison between
+ Washington and Franklin. I do not prove the correctness of my ideas by
+ names of dead people. I depend upon reason instead of gravestones. One
+ fact is worth a cemetery full of distinguished corpses. We ask not for the
+ belief of somebody, but for evidence, for facts. The church is a beggar at
+ the door of respectability. The moment a man becomes famous, the church
+ asks him for a certificate that the Bible is true. It passes its hat
+ before generals and presidents, and kings while they are alive. It says
+ nothing about thinkers and real philosophers while they live, except to
+ slander them, but the moment they are dead it seeks among their words for
+ a crumb of comfort.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will Liberalism ever organize in America?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I hope not. Organization means creed, and creed means
+ petrifaction and tyranny. I believe in individuality. I will not join any
+ society except an anti-society society.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider the religion of Bhagavat Purana of the
+ East as good as the Christian?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is far more poetic. It has greater variety and shows
+ vastly more thought. Like the Hebrew, it is poisoned with superstition,
+ but it has more beauty. Nothing can be more barren than the theology of
+ the Jews and Christians. One lonely God, a heaven filled with thoughtless
+ angels, a hell with unfortunate souls. Nothing can be more desolate. The
+ Greek mythology is infinitely better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the marriage institution is held in
+ less respect by Infidels than by Christians?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No; there was never a time when marriage was more believed
+ in than now. Never were wives treated better and loved more; never were
+ children happier than now. It is the ambition of the average American to
+ have a good and happy home. The fireside was never more popular than now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Beecher?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. He is a great man, but the habit of his mind and the bent
+ of his early education oppose his heart. He is growing and has been
+ growing every day for many years. He has given up the idea of eternal
+ punishment, and that of necessity destroys it all. The Christian religion
+ is founded upon hell. When the foundation crumbles the fabric falls.
+ Beecher was to have answered my article in the <i>North American Review</i>,
+ but when it appeared and he saw it, he agreed with so much of it that he
+ concluded that an answer would be useless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Times</i>, Kansas City, Missouri, February 23, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0039" id="link0039">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ REPLY TO KANSAS CITY CLERGY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will you take any notice of Mr. Magrath's challenge?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think it worth while to discuss with Mr. Magrath.
+ I do not say this in disparagement of his ability, as I do not know the
+ gentleman. He may be one of the greatest of men. I think, however, that
+ Mr. Magrath might better answer what I have already said. If he succeeds
+ in that, then I will meet him in public discussion. Of course he is an
+ eminent theologian or he would not think of discussing these questions
+ with anybody. I have never heard of him, but for all that he may be the
+ most intelligent of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How have the recently expressed opinions of our local
+ clergy impressed you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose you refer to the preachers who have given their
+ opinion of me. In the first place I am obliged to them for acting as my
+ agents. I think Mr. Hogan has been imposed upon. Tacitus is a poor witness&mdash;about
+ like Josephus. I say again that we have not a word about Christ written by
+ any human being who lived in the time of Christ&mdash;not a solitary word,
+ and Mr. Hogan ought to know it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Rev. Mr. Matthews is mistaken. If the Bible proves anything, it proves
+ that the world was made in six days and that Adam and Eve were built on
+ Saturday. The Bible gives the age of Adam when he died, and then gives the
+ ages of others down to the flood, and then from that time at least to the
+ return from the captivity. If the genealogy of the Bible is true it is
+ about six thousand years since Adam was made, and the world is only five
+ days older than Adam. It is nonsense to say that the days were long
+ periods of time. If that is so, away goes the idea of Sunday. The only
+ reason for keeping Sunday given in the Bible is that God made the world in
+ six days and rested on the seventh. Mr. Mathews is not candid. He knows
+ that he cannot answer the arguments I have urged against the Bible. He
+ knows that the ancient Jews were barbarians, and that the Old Testament is
+ a barbarous book. He knows that it upholds slavery and polygamy, and he
+ probably feels ashamed of what he is compelled to preach.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Jardine takes a very cheerful view of the subject. He expects the
+ light to dawn on the unbelievers. He speaks as though he were the superior
+ of all Infidels. He claims to be a student of the evidences of
+ Christianity. There are no evidences, consequently Mr. Jardine is a
+ student of nothing. It is amazing how dignified some people can get on a
+ small capital.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Haley has sense enough to tell the ministers not to attempt to answer
+ me. That is good advice. The ministers had better keep still. It is the
+ safer way. If they try to answer what I say, the "sheep" will see how
+ foolish the "shepherds" are. The best way is for them to say, "that has
+ been answered."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Wells agrees with Mr. Haley. He, too, thinks that silence is the best
+ weapon. I agree with him. Let the clergy keep still; that is the best way.
+ It is better to say nothing than to talk absurdity. I am delighted to
+ think that at last the ministers have concluded that they had better not
+ answer Infidels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Woods is fearful only for the young. He is afraid that I will hurt the
+ children. He thinks that the mother ought to stoop over the cradle and in
+ the ears of the babe shout, Hell! So he thinks in all probability that the
+ same word ought to be repeated at the grave as a consolation to mourners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am glad that Mr. Mann thinks that I am doing neither good nor harm. This
+ gives me great hope. If I do no harm, certainly I ought not to be
+ eternally damned. It is very consoling to have an orthodox minister
+ solemnly assert that I am doing no harm. I wish I could say as much for
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, all these ministers have kept back their real thoughts. They
+ do not tell their doubts&mdash;they know that orthodoxy is doomed &mdash;they
+ know that the old doctrine excites laughter and scorn. They know that the
+ fires of hell are dying out; that the Bible is ceasing to be an authority;
+ and that the pulpit is growing feebler and feebler every day. Poor
+ parsons!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would the Catholicism of General Sherman's family affect
+ his chances for the presidency?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think the religion of the family should have any
+ weight one way or the other. It would make no difference with me; although
+ I hate Catholicism with all my heart, I do not hate Catholics. Some people
+ might be so prejudiced that they would not vote for a man whose wife
+ belongs to the Catholic Church; but such people are too narrow to be
+ consulted. General Sherman says that he wants no office. In that he shows
+ his good sense. He is a great man and a great soldier. He has won laurels
+ enough for one brow. He has the respect and admiration of the nation, and
+ does not need the presidency to finish his career. He wishes to enjoy the
+ honors he has won and the rest he deserves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Matthew Arnold?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. He is a man of talent, well educated, a little fussy,
+ somewhat sentimental, but he is not a genius. He is not creative. He is a
+ critic&mdash;not an originator. He will not compare with Emerson.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Journal</i>, Kansas City, Missouri, February 23, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0040" id="link0040">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SWEARING AND AFFIRMING.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is the difference in the parliamentary oath of this
+ country which saves us from such a squabble as they have had in England
+ over the Bradlaugh case?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Our Constitution provides that a member of Congress may
+ swear or affirm. The consequence is that we can have no such controversy
+ as they have had in England. The framers of our Constitution wished
+ forever to divorce church and state. They knew that it made no possible
+ difference whether a man swore or affirmed, or whether he swore and
+ affirmed to support the Constitution. All the Federal officers who went
+ into the Rebellion had sworn or affirmed to support the Constitution. All
+ that did no good. The entire oath business is a mistake. I think it would
+ be a thousand times better to abolish all oaths in courts of justice. The
+ oath allows a rascal to put on the garments of solemnity, the mask of
+ piety, while he tells a lie. In other words, the oath allows the villain
+ to give falsehood the appearance of truth. I think it would be far better
+ to let each witness tell his story and leave his evidence to the
+ intelligence of the jury and judge. The trouble about an oath is that its
+ tendency is to put all witnesses on an equality; the jury says, "Why, he
+ swore to it." Now, if the oath were abolished, the jury would judge all
+ testimony according to the witness, and then the evidence of one man of
+ good reputation would outweigh the lies of thousands of nobodies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was at one time believed that there was something miraculous in the
+ oath, that it was a kind of thumbscrew that would torture the truth out of
+ a rascal, and at one time they believed that if a man swore falsely he
+ might be struck by lightning or paralyzed. But so many people have sworn
+ to lies without having their health impaired that the old superstition has
+ very little weight with the average witness. I think it would be far
+ better to let every man tell his story; let him be cross-examined, let the
+ jury find out as much as they can of his character, of his standing among
+ his neighbors&mdash;then weigh his testimony in the scale of reason. The
+ oath is born of superstition, and everything born of superstition is bad.
+ The oath gives the lie currency; it gives it for the moment the ring of
+ true metal, and the ordinary average juror is imposed upon and justice in
+ many instances defeated. Nothing can be more absurd than the swearing of a
+ man to support the Constitution. Let him do what he likes. If he does not
+ support the Constitution, the probability is that his constituents will
+ refuse to support him. Every man who swears to support the Constitution
+ swears to support it as he understands it, and no two understand it
+ exactly alike. Now, if the oath brightened a man's intellect or added to
+ his information or increased his patriotism or gave him a little more
+ honesty, it would be a good thing&mdash;but it doesn't. And as a
+ consequence it is a very useless and absurd proceeding. Nothing amuses me
+ more in a court than to see one calf kissing the tanned skin of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Courier</i>, Buffalo, New York, May 19, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0041" id="link0041">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ REPLY TO A BUFFALO CRITIC.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say in reply to the letter in to- day's
+ <i>Times</i> signed R. H. S.?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I find that I am accused of "four flagrant wrongs," and
+ while I am not as yet suffering from the qualms of conscience, nor do I
+ feel called upon to confess and be forgiven, yet I have something to say
+ in self-defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the first objection made by your correspondent, namely, that my
+ doctrine deprives people of the hope that after this life is ended they
+ will meet their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, long since passed
+ away, in the land beyond the grave, and there enjoy their company forever,
+ I have this to say: If Christianity is true we are not quite certain of
+ meeting our relatives and friends where we can enjoy their company
+ forever. If Christianity is true most of our friends will be in hell. The
+ ones I love best and whose memory I cherish will certainly be among the
+ lost. The trouble about Christianity is that it is infinitely selfish.
+ Each man thinks that if he can save his own little, shriveled, microscopic
+ soul, that is enough. No matter what becomes of the rest. Christianity has
+ no consolation for a generous man. I do not wish to go to heaven if the
+ ones who have given me joy are to be lost. I would much rather go with
+ them. The only thing that makes life endurable in this world is human
+ love, and yet, according to Christianity, that is the very thing we are
+ not to have in the other world. We are to be so taken up with Jesus and
+ the angels, that we shall care nothing about our brothers and sisters that
+ have been damned. We shall be so carried away with the music of the harp
+ that we shall not even hear the wail of father or mother. Such a religion
+ is a disgrace to human nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the second objection,&mdash;that society cannot be held together in
+ peace and good order without hell and a belief in eternal torment, I would
+ ask why an infinitely wise and good God should make people of so poor and
+ mean a character that society cannot be held together without scaring
+ them. Is it possible that God has so made the world that the threat of
+ eternal punishment is necessary for the preservation of society?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writer of the letter also says that it is necessary to believe that if
+ a man commits murder here he is destined to be punished in hell for the
+ offence. This is Christianity. Yet nearly every murderer goes directly
+ from the gallows to God. Nearly every murderer takes it upon himself to
+ lecture the assembled multitude who have gathered to see him hanged, and
+ invite them to meet him in heaven. When the rope is about his neck he
+ feels the wings growing. That is the trouble with the Christian doctrine.
+ Every murderer is told he may repent and go to heaven, and have the
+ happiness of seeing his victim in hell. Should heaven at any time become
+ dull, the vein of pleasure can be re-thrilled by the sight of his victim
+ wriggling on the gridiron of God's justice. Really, Christianity leads men
+ to sin on credit. It sells rascality on time and tells all the devils they
+ can have the benefit of the gospel bankrupt act.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next point in the letter is that I do not preach for the benefit of
+ mankind, but for the money which is the price of blood. Of course it makes
+ no difference whether I preach for money or not. That is to say, it makes
+ no difference to the preached. The arguments I advance are either good or
+ bad. If they are bad they can easily be answered by argument. If they are
+ not they cannot be answered by personalities or by ascribing to me selfish
+ motives. It is not a personal matter. It is a matter of logic, of sense&mdash;
+ not a matter of slander, vituperation or hatred. The writer of the letter,
+ R. H. S., may be an exceedingly good person, yet that will add no weight
+ to his or her argument. He or she may be a very bad person, but that would
+ not weaken the logic of the letter, if it had any logic to begin with. It
+ is not for me to say what my motives are in what I do or say; it must be
+ left to the judgment of mankind. I presume I am about as bad as most
+ folks, and as good as some, but my goodness or badness has nothing to do
+ with the question. I may have committed every crime in the world, yet that
+ does not make the story of the flood reasonable, nor does it even tend to
+ show that the three gentlemen in the furnace were not scorched. I may be
+ the best man in the world, yet that does not go to prove that Jonah was
+ swallowed by the whale. Let me say right here that if there is another
+ world I believe that every soul who finds the way to that shore will have
+ an everlasting opportunity to do right&mdash;of reforming. My objection to
+ Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and I
+ might add infinitely absurd. I deprive no one of any hope unless you call
+ the expectation of eternal pain a hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read the Rev. Father Lambert's "Notes on
+ Ingersoll," and if so, what have you to say of them or in reply to them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have read a few pages or paragraphs of that pamphlet, and
+ do not feel called upon to say anything. Mr. Lambert has the same right to
+ publish his ideas that I have, and the readers must judge. People who
+ believe his way will probably think that he has succeeded in answering me.
+ After all, he must leave the public to decide. I have no anxiety about the
+ decision. Day by day the people are advancing, and in a little while the
+ sacred superstitions of to-day will be cast aside with the foolish myths
+ and fables of the pagan world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact there can be no argument in favor of the supernatural.
+ Suppose you should ask if I had read the work of that gentleman who says
+ that twice two are five. I should answer you that no gentleman can prove
+ that twice two are five; and yet this is exactly as easy as to prove the
+ existence of the supernatural. There are no arguments in favor of the
+ supernatural. There are theories and fears and mistakes and prejudices and
+ guesses, but no arguments&mdash;plenty of faith, but no facts; plenty of
+ divine revelation, but no demonstration. The supernatural, in my judgment,
+ is a mistake. I believe in the natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Times</i>, Buffalo, New York, May 19, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0042" id="link0042">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ BLASPHEMY.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* "If Robert G. Ingersoll indulges in blasphemy to-night in
+ his lecture, as he has in other places and in this city
+ before, he will be arrested before he leaves the city." So
+ spoke Rev. Irwin H. Torrence, General Secretary of the
+ Pennsylvania Bible Society, yesterday afternoon to a <i>Press</i>
+ reporter. "We have consulted counsel; the law is with us,
+ and Ingersoll has but to do what he has done before, to find
+ himself in a cell. Here is the act of March 31, 1860:
+
+ "'If any person shall willfully, premeditatedly and
+ despitefully blaspheme or speak loosely and profanely of
+ Almighty God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or the
+ Scriptures of Truth, such person, on conviction thereof,
+ shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding one hundred
+ dollars, and undergo an imprisonment not exceeding three
+ months, or either, at the discretion of the court.'"
+
+ Last evening Colonel Ingersoll sat in the dining room at
+ Guy's Hotel, just in from New York City. When told of the
+ plans of Mr. Torrence and his friends, he laughed and said:]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I did not suppose that anybody was idiotic enough to want me arrested for
+ blasphemy. It seems to me that an infinite Being can take care of himself
+ without the aid of any agent of a Bible society. Perhaps it is wrong for
+ me to be here while the Methodist Conference is in session. Of course no
+ one who differs from the Methodist ministers should ever visit
+ Philadelphia while they are here. I most humbly hope to be forgiven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the law of 1860?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is exceedingly foolish. Surely, there is no need for the
+ Legislature of Pennsylvania to protect an infinite God, and why should the
+ Bible be protected by law? The most ignorant priest can hold Darwin up to
+ orthodox scorn. This talk of the Rev. Mr. Torrence shows that my lectures
+ are needed; that religious people do not know what real liberty is. I
+ presume that the law of 1860 is an old one re-enacted. It is a survival of
+ ancient ignorance and bigotry, and no one in the Legislature thought it
+ worth while to fight it. It is the same as the law against swearing, both
+ are dead letters and amount to nothing. They are not enforced and should
+ not be. Public opinion will regulate such matters. If all who take the
+ name of God in vain were imprisoned there would not be room in the jails
+ to hold the ministers. They speak of God in the most flippant and
+ snap-your-fingers way that can be conceived of. They speak to him as
+ though he were an intimate chum, and metaphorically slap him on the back
+ in the most familiar way possible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you ever had any similar experiences before?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Oh, yes&mdash;threats have been made, but I never was
+ arrested. When Mr. Torrence gets cool he will see that he has made a
+ mistake. People in Philadelphia have been in the habit of calling the
+ citizens of Boston bigots&mdash;but there is more real freedom of thought
+ and expression in Boston than in almost any other city of the world. I
+ think that as I am to suffer in hell forever, Mr. Torrence ought to be
+ satisfied and let me have a good time here. He can amuse himself through
+ all eternity by seeing me in hell, and that ought to be enough to satisfy,
+ not only an agent, but the whole Bible society. I never expected any
+ trouble in this State, and most sincerely hope that Mr. Torrence will not
+ trouble me and make the city a laughing stock.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Philadelphia has no time to waste in such foolish things. Let the Bible
+ take its chances with other books. Let everybody feel that he has the
+ right freely to express his opinions, provided he is decent and kind about
+ it. Certainly the Christians now ought to treat Infidels as well as Penn
+ did Indians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could be more perfectly idiotic than in this day and generation to
+ prosecute any man for giving his conclusions upon any religious subject.
+ Mr. Torrence would have had Huxley and Haeckel and Tyndall arrested; would
+ have had Humboldt and John Stuart Mill and Harriet Martineau and George
+ Eliot locked up in the city jail. Mr. Torrence is a fossil from the old
+ red sandstone of a mistake. Let him rest. To hear these people talk you
+ would suppose that God is some petty king, some Liliputian prince, who was
+ about to be dethroned, and who was nearly wild for recruits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But what would you do if they should make an attempt to
+ arrest you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nothing, except to defend myself in court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press</i>, May 24, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0043" id="link0043">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICS AND BRITISH COLUMBIA.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I understand that there was some trouble in connection
+ with your lecture in Victoria, B. C. What are the facts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The published accounts, as circulated by the Associated
+ Press, were greatly exaggerated. The affair was simply this: The
+ authorities endeavored to prevent the lecture. They refused the license,
+ on the ground that the theatre was unsafe, although it was on the ground
+ floor, had many exits and entrances, not counting the windows. The theatre
+ was changed to meet the objections of the fire commissioner, and the
+ authorities expressed their satisfaction and issued the license. Afterward
+ further objection was raised, and on the night of the lecture, when the
+ building was about two- thirds full, the police appeared and said that the
+ lecture would not be allowed to be delivered, because the house was
+ unsafe. After a good deal of talk, the policeman in authority said that
+ there should be another door, whereupon my friends, in a few minutes, made
+ another door with an ax and a saw, the crowd was admitted and the lecture
+ was delivered. The audience was well-behaved, intelligent and
+ appreciative. Beyond some talking in the hall, and the natural indignation
+ of those who had purchased tickets and were refused admittance, there was
+ no disturbance. I understand that those who opposed the lecture are now
+ heartily ashamed of the course pursued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you going to take any part in the campaign?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is not my intention to make any political speeches. I
+ have made a good many in the past, and, in my judgment, have done my part.
+ I have no other interest in politics than every citizen should have. I
+ want that party to triumph which, in my judgment, represents the best
+ interests of the country. I have no doubt about the issue of the election.
+ I believe that Mr. Blaine will be the next President. But there are plenty
+ of talkers, and I really think that I have earned a vacation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think Cleveland's chances are in New York?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. At this distance it is hard to say. The recent action of
+ Tammany complicates matters somewhat. But my opinion is that Blaine will
+ carry the State. I had a letter yesterday from that State, giving the
+ opinion of a gentleman well informed, that Blaine would carry New York by
+ no less than fifty thousand majority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What figure will Butler cut in the campaign?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I hardly think that Butler will have many followers on the
+ 4th of November. His forces will gradually go to one side or the other. It
+ is only when some great principle is at stake that thousands of men are
+ willing to vote with a known minority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But what about the Prohibitionists?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. They have a very large following. They are fighting for
+ something they believe to be of almost infinite consequence, and I can
+ readily understand how a Prohibitionist is willing to be in the minority.
+ It may be well enough for me to say here, that my course politically is
+ not determined by my likes or dislikes of individuals. I want to be
+ governed by principles, not persons. If I really thought that in this
+ campaign a real principle was at stake, I should take part. The only great
+ question now is protection, and I am satisfied that it is in no possible
+ danger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Not even in the case of a Democratic victory?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Not even in the event of a Democratic victory. No State in
+ the Union is for free trade. Every free trader has an exception. These
+ exceptions combined, control the tariff legislation of this country, and
+ if the Democrats were in power to-day, with the control of the House and
+ Senate and Executive, the exceptions would combine and protect protection.
+ As long as the Federal Government collects taxes or revenue on imports,
+ just so long these revenues will be arranged to protect home manufactures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You said that if there were a great principle at stake,
+ you would take part in the campaign. You think, then, that there is no
+ great principle involved?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If it were a matter of personal liberty, I should take
+ part. If the Republican party had stood by the Civil Rights Bill, I should
+ have taken part in the present campaign.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Still, I suppose we can count on you as a Republican?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly, I am a Republican.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Evening Post</i>, San Francisco, California, September 16, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0044" id="link0044">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INGERSOLL CATECHISED.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Does Christianity advance or retard civilization?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If by Christianity you mean the orthodox church, then I
+ unhesitatingly answer that it does retard civilization, always has
+ retarded it, and always will. I can imagine no man who can be benefitted
+ by being made a Catholic or a Presbyterian or a Baptist or a Methodist&mdash;or,
+ in other words, by being made an orthodox Christian. But by Christianity I
+ do not mean morality, kindness, forgiveness, justice. Those virtues are
+ not distinctively Christian. They are claimed by Mohammedans and
+ Buddhists, by Infidels and Atheists&mdash;and practiced by some of all
+ classes. Christianity consists of the miraculous, the marvelous, and the
+ impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The one thing that I most seriously object to in Christianity is the
+ doctrine of eternal punishment. That doctrine subverts every idea of
+ justice. It teaches the infinite absurdity that a finite offence can be
+ justly visited by eternal punishment. Another serious objection I have is,
+ that Christianity endeavors to destroy intellectual liberty. Nothing is
+ better calculated to retard civilization than to subvert the idea of
+ justice. Nothing is better calculated to retain barbarism than to deny to
+ every human being the right to think. Justice and Liberty are the two
+ wings that bear man forward. The church, for a thousand years, did all
+ within its power to prevent the expression of honest thought; and when the
+ church had power, there was in this world no civilization. We have
+ advanced just in the proportion that Christianity has lost power. Those
+ nations in which the church is still powerful are still almost savage&mdash;Portugal,
+ Spain, and many others I might name. Probably no country is more
+ completely under the control of the religious idea than Russia. The Czar
+ is the direct representative of God. He is the head of the church, as well
+ as of the state. In Russia every mouth is a bastille and every tongue a
+ convict. This Russian pope, this representative of God, has on earth his
+ hell (Siberia), and he imitates the orthodox God to the extent of his
+ health and strength.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everywhere man advances as the church loses power. In my judgment, Ireland
+ can never succeed until it ceases to be Catholic; and there can be no
+ successful uprising while the confessional exists. At one time in New
+ England the church had complete power. There was then no religious
+ liberty. And so we might make a tour of the world, and find that
+ superstition always has been, is, and forever will be, inconsistent with
+ human advancement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do not the evidences of design in the universe prove a
+ Creator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If there were any evidences of design in the universe,
+ certainly they would tend to prove a designer, but they would not prove a
+ Creator. Design does not prove creation. A man makes a machine. That does
+ not prove that he made the material out of which the machine is
+ constructed. You find the planets arranged in accordance with what you
+ call a plan. That does not prove that they were created. It may prove that
+ they are governed, but it certainly does not prove that they were created.
+ Is it consistent to say that a design cannot exist without a designer, but
+ that a designer can? Does not a designer need a design as much as a design
+ needs a designer? Does not a Creator need a Creator as much as the thing
+ we think has been created? In other words, is not this simply a circle of
+ human ignorance? Why not say that the universe has existed from eternity,
+ as well as to say that a Creator has existed from eternity? And do you not
+ thus avoid at least one absurdity by saying that the universe has existed
+ from eternity, instead of saying that it was created by a Creator who
+ existed from eternity? Because if your Creator existed from eternity, and
+ created the universe, there was a time when he commenced; and back of
+ that, according to Shelley, is "an eternity of idleness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people say that God existed from eternity, and has created eternity.
+ It is impossible to conceive of an act co-equal with eternity. If you say
+ that God has existed forever, and has always acted, then you make the
+ universe eternal, and you make the universe as old as God; and if the
+ universe be as old as God, he certainly did not create it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These questions of origin and destiny&mdash;of infinite gods&mdash;are
+ beyond the powers of the human mind. They cannot be solved. We might as
+ well try to travel fast enough to get beyond the horizon. It is like a man
+ trying to run away from his girdle. Consequently, I believe in turning our
+ attention to things of importance&mdash;to questions that may by some
+ possibility be solved. It is of no importance to me whether God exists or
+ not. I exist, and it is important to me to be happy while I exist.
+ Therefore I had better turn my attention to finding out the secret of
+ happiness, instead of trying to ascertain the secret of the universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say with regard to God, I do not know; and therefore I am accused of
+ being arrogant and egotistic. Religious papers say that I do know, because
+ Webster told me. They use Webster as a witness to prove the divinity of
+ Christ. They say that Webster was on the God side, and therefore I ought
+ to be. I can hardly afford to take Webster's ideas of another world, when
+ his ideas about this were so bad. When bloodhounds were pursuing a woman
+ through the tangled swamps of the South&mdash;she hungry for liberty&mdash;Webster
+ took the side of the bloodhounds. Such a man is no authority for me. Bacon
+ denied the Copernican system of astronomy; he is an unsafe guide. Wesley
+ believed in witches; I cannot follow him. No man should quote a name
+ instead of an argument; no man should bring forward a person instead of a
+ principle, unless he is willing to accept all the ideas of that person.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is not a pleasant illusion preferable to a dreary truth&mdash;a
+ future life being in question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think it is. I think that a pleasing illusion is better
+ then a terrible truth, so far as its immediate results are concerned. I
+ would rather think the one I love living, than to think her dead. I would
+ rather think that I had a large balance in bank than that my account was
+ overdrawn. I would rather think I was healthy than to know that I had a
+ cancer. But if we have an illusion, let us have it pleasing. The orthodox
+ illusion is the worst that can possibly be conceived. Take hell out of
+ that illusion, take eternal pain away from that dream, and say that the
+ whole world is to be happy forever&mdash;then you might have an excuse for
+ calling it a pleasant illusion; but it is, in fact, a nightmare &mdash;a
+ perpetual horror&mdash;a cross, on which the happiness of man has been
+ crucified.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are not religion and morals inseparable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Religion and morality have nothing in common, and yet there
+ is no religion except the practice of morality. But what you call religion
+ is simply superstition. Religion as it is now taught teaches our duties
+ toward God&mdash;our obligations to the Infinite, and the results of a
+ failure to discharge those obligations. I believe that we are under no
+ obligations to the Infinite; that we cannot be. All our obligations are to
+ each other, and to sentient beings. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
+ thou shalt be saved," has nothing to do with morality. "Do unto other as
+ ye would that others should do unto you" has nothing to do with believing
+ in the Lord Jesus Christ. Baptism has nothing to do with morality. "Pay
+ your honest debts." That has nothing to do with baptism. What is called
+ religion is simple superstition, with which morality has nothing to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The churches do not prevent people from committing natural offences, but
+ restrain them from committing artificial ones. As for instance, the
+ Catholic Church can prevent one of its members from eating meat on Friday,
+ but not from whipping his wife. The Episcopal Church can prevent dancing,
+ it may be, in Lent, but not slander. The Presbyterian can keep a man from
+ working on Sunday, but not from practicing deceit on Monday. And so I
+ might go through the churches. They lay the greater stress upon the
+ artificial offences. Those countries that are the most religious are the
+ most immoral. When the world was under the control of the Catholic Church,
+ it reached the very pit of immorality, and nations have advanced in morals
+ just in proportion that they have lost Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is frequently asserted that there is nothing new in
+ your objections against Christianity. What is your reply to such
+ assertions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, the editors of religious papers will say this;
+ Christians will say this. In my opinion, an argument is new until it has
+ been answered. An argument is absolutely fresh, and has upon its leaves
+ the dew of morning, until it has been refuted. All men have experienced,
+ it may be, in some degree, what we call love. Millions of men have written
+ about it. The subject is of course old. It is only the presentation that
+ can be new. Thousands of men have attacked superstition. The subject is
+ old, but the manner in which the facts are handled, the arguments grouped&mdash;these
+ may be forever new. Millions of men have preached Christianity. Certainly
+ there is nothing new in the original ideas. Nothing can be new except the
+ presentation, the grouping. The ideas may be old, but they may be clothed
+ in new garments of passion; they may be given additional human interest. A
+ man takes a fact, or an old subject, as a sculptor takes a rock; the rock
+ is not new. Of this rock he makes a statue; the statue is new. And yet
+ some orthodox man might say there is nothing new about that statue: "I
+ know the man that dug the rock; I know the owner of the quarry." Substance
+ is eternal; forms are new. So in the human mind certain ideas, or in the
+ human heart certain passions, are forever old; but genius forever gives
+ them new forms, new meanings; and this is the perpetual originality of
+ genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider that churches are injurious to the
+ community?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the exact proportion that churches teach falsehood; in
+ the exact proportion that they destroy liberty of thought, the free action
+ of the human mind; in the exact proportion that they teach the doctrine of
+ eternal pain, and convince people of its truth&mdash;they are injurious.
+ In the proportion that they teach morality and justice, and practice
+ kindness and charity&mdash;in that proportion they are a benefit. Every
+ church, therefore, is a mixed problem&mdash;part good and part bad. In one
+ direction it leads toward and sheds light; in the other direction its
+ influence is entirely bad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I would like to civilize the churches, so that they will be able to
+ do good deeds without building bad creeds. In other words, take out the
+ superstitious and the miraculous, and leave the human and the moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why do you not respond to the occasional clergyman who
+ replies to your lectures?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, no clergyman has ever replied to my
+ lectures. In the second place, no clergyman ever will reply to my
+ lectures. He does not answer my arguments&mdash;he attacks me; and the
+ replies that I have seen are not worth answering. They are far below the
+ dignity of the question under discussion. Most of them are ill-mannered,
+ as abusive as illogical, and as malicious as weak. I cannot reply without
+ feeling humiliated. I cannot use their weapons, and my weapons they do not
+ understand. I attack Christianity because it is cruel, and they account
+ for all my actions by putting behind them base motives. They make it at
+ once a personal question. They imagine that epithets are good enough
+ arguments with which to answer an Infidel. A few years ago they would have
+ imprisoned me. A few years before that they would have burned me. We have
+ advanced. Now they only slander; and I congratulate myself on the fact
+ that even that is not believed. Ministers do not believe each other about
+ each other. The truth has never yet been ascertained in any trial by a
+ church. The longer the trial lasts, the obscurer is the truth. They will
+ not believe each other, even on oath; and one of the most celebrated
+ ministers of this country has publicly announced that there is no use in
+ answering a lie started by his own church; that if he does answer it&mdash;if
+ he does kill it&mdash;forty more lies will come to the funeral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this connection we must remember that the priests of one religion never
+ credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests
+ instinctively know priests? Now, when a Christian tells a Buddhist some of
+ the miracles of the Testament, the Buddhist smiles. When a Buddhist tells
+ a Christian the miracles performed by Buddha, the Christian laughs. This
+ reminds me of an incident. A man told a most wonderful story. Everybody
+ present expressed surprise and astonishment, except one man. He said
+ nothing; he did not even change countenance. One who noticed that the
+ story had no effect on this man, said to him: "You do not seem to be
+ astonished in the least at this marvelous tale." The man replied, "No; I
+ am a liar myself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see, I am not trying to answer individual ministers. I am attacking
+ the whole body of superstition. I am trying to kill the entire dog, and I
+ do not feel like wasting any time killing fleas on that dog. When the dog
+ dies, the fleas will be out of provisions, and in that way we shall answer
+ them all at once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I do not bother myself answering religious newspapers. In the first
+ place, they are not worth answering; and in the second place, to answer
+ would only produce a new crop of falsehoods. You know, the editor of a
+ religious newspaper, as a rule, is one who has failed in the pulpit; and
+ you can imagine the brains necessary to edit a religious weekly from this
+ fact. I have known some good religious editors. By some I mean one. I do
+ not say that there are not others, but I do say I do not know them. I
+ might add, here, that the one I did know is dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since I have been in this city there have been some "replies" to me. They
+ have been almost idiotic. A Catholic priest asked me how I had the
+ impudence to differ with Newton. Newton, he says, believed in a God; and I
+ ask this Catholic priest how he has the impudence to differ with Newton.
+ Newton was a Protestant. This simply shows the absurdity of using men's
+ names for arguments. This same priest proves the existence of God by a
+ pagan orator. Is it possible that God's last witness died with Cicero? If
+ it is necessary to believe in a God now, the witnesses ought to be on hand
+ now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another man, pretending to answer me, quotes Le Conte, a geologist; and
+ according to this geologist we are "getting very near to the splendors of
+ the great white throne." Where is the great white throne? Can any one, by
+ studying geology, find the locality of the great white throne? To what
+ stratum does it belong? In what geologic period was the great white throne
+ formed? What on earth has geology to do with the throne of God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, there can be no reply to the argument that man should be
+ governed by his reason; that he should depend upon observation and
+ experience; that he should use the faculties he has for his own benefit,
+ and the benefit of his fellow-man. There is no answer. It is not within
+ the power of man to substantiate the supernatural. It is beyond the power
+ of evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why do the theological seminaries find it difficult to
+ get students?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I was told last spring, at New Haven, that the "theologs,"
+ as they call the young men there being fitted for the ministry, were not
+ regarded as intellectual by all the other students. The orthodox pulpit
+ has no rewards for genius. It has rewards only for stupidity, for belief&mdash;not
+ for investigation, not for thought; and the consequence is that young men
+ of talent avoid the pulpit. I think I heard the other day that of all the
+ students at Harvard only nine are preparing for the ministry. The truth
+ is, the ministry is not regarded as an intellectual occupation. The
+ average church now consists of women and children. Men go to please their
+ wives, or stay at home and subscribe to please their wives; and the wives
+ are beginning to think, and many of them are staying at home. Many of them
+ now prefer the theatre or the opera or the park or the seashore or the
+ forest or the companionship of their husbands and children at home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How does the religious state of California compare with
+ the rest of the Union?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I find that sensible people everywhere are about the same,
+ and the proportion of Freethinkers depends on the proportion of sensible
+ folks. I think that California has her full share of sensible people. I
+ find everywhere the best people and the brightest people&mdash;the people
+ with the most heart and the best brain&mdash;all tending toward free
+ thought. Of course, a man of brain cannot believe the miracles of the Old
+ and New Testaments. A man of heart cannot believe in the doctrine of
+ eternal pain. We have found that other religions are like ours, with
+ precisely the same basis, the same idiotic miracles, the same Christ or
+ Saviour. It will hardly do to say that all others like ours are false, and
+ ours the only true one, when others substantially like it are thousands of
+ years older. We have at last found that a religion is simply an effort on
+ the part of man to account for what he sees, what he experiences, what he
+ feels, what he fears, and what he hopes. Every savage has his philosophy.
+ That is his religion and his science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religions of to-day are the sciences of the past; and it may be that
+ the sciences of to-day will be the religions of the future, and that other
+ sciences will be as far beyond them as the science of to-day is beyond the
+ religion of to-day. As a rule, religion is a sanctified mistake, and
+ heresy a slandered fact. In other words, the human mind grows&mdash;and as
+ it grows it abandons the old, and the old gets its revenge by maligning
+ the new.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The San Franciscan</i>, San Francisco, October 4, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0045" id="link0045">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ BLAINE'S DEFEAT.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, the fact that you took no part in the late
+ campaign, is a subject for general comment, and knowing your former
+ enthusiastic advocacy and support of Blaine, the people are somewhat
+ surprised, and would like to know why?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, it was generally supposed that Blaine
+ needed no help. His friends were perfectly confident. They counted on a
+ very large Catholic support. The Irish were supposed to be spoiling to
+ vote for Blaine and Logan. All the Protestant ministers were also said to
+ be solid for the ticket. Under these circumstances it was hardly prudent
+ for me to say much.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was for Blaine in 1876. In 1880 I was for Garfield, and in 1884 I was
+ for Gresham or Harlan. I believed then and I believe now that either one
+ of these men could have been elected. Blaine is an exceedingly able man,
+ but he made some mistakes and some very unfortunate utterances. I took no
+ part in the campaign; first, because there was no very important issue, no
+ great principle at stake, and second, I thought that I had done enough,
+ and, third, because I wanted to do something else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, were the causes for Blaine's
+ defeat?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. First, because of dissension in the party. Second, because
+ party ties have grown weak. Third, the Prohibition vote. Fourth, the
+ Delmonico dinner&mdash;too many rich men. Fifth, the Rev. Dr. Burchard
+ with his Rum, Romanism and Rebellion. Sixth, giving too much attention to
+ Ohio and not enough to New York. Seventh, the unfortunate remark of Mr.
+ Blaine, that "the State cannot get along without the Church." Eighth, the
+ weakness of the present administration. Ninth, the abandonment by the
+ party of the colored people of the South. Tenth, the feeling against
+ monopolies, and not least, a general desire for a change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, will be the result of Cleveland's
+ election and administration upon the general political and business
+ interests of the country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The business interests will take care of themselves. A
+ dollar has the instinct of self-preservation largely developed. The tariff
+ will take care of itself. No State is absolutely for free trade. In each
+ State there is an exception. The exceptions will combine, as they always
+ have. Michigan will help Pennsylvania take care of iron, if Pennsylvania
+ will help Michigan take care of salt and lumber. Louisiana will help
+ Pennsylvania and Michigan if they help her take care of sugar. Colorado,
+ California and Ohio will help the other States if they will help them
+ about wool&mdash;and so I might make a tour of the States, ending with
+ Vermont and maple sugar. I do not expect that Cleveland will do any great
+ harm. The Democrats want to stay in power, and that desire will give
+ security for good behavior.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will he listen to or grant any demands made of him by the
+ alleged Independent Republicans of New York, either in his appointments or
+ policies?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of this I know nothing. The Independents&mdash;from what I
+ know of them&mdash;will be too modest to claim credit or to ask office.
+ They were actuated by pure principle. They did what they did to purify the
+ party, so that they could stay in it. Now that it has been purified they
+ will remain, and hate the Democratic party as badly as ever. I hardly
+ think that Cleveland would insult their motives by offering loaves and
+ fishes. All they desire is the approval of their own consciences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Commonwealth</i>, Topeka, Kansas, November 21, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0046" id="link0046">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ BLAINE'S DEFEAT.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you account for the defeat of Mr. Blaine?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. How do I account for the defeat of Mr. Blaine? I will
+ answer: St. John, the Independents, Burchard, Butler and Cleveland did it.
+ The truth is that during the war a majority of the people, counting those
+ in the South, were opposed to putting down the Rebellion by force. It is
+ also true that when the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued a majority
+ of the people, counting the whole country, were opposed to it, and it is
+ also true that when the colored people were made citizens a majority of
+ the people, counting the whole country, were opposed to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, while, in my judgment, an overwhelming majority of the whole people
+ have honestly acquiesced in the result of the war, and are now perfectly
+ loyal to the Union, and have also acquiesced in the abolition of slavery,
+ I doubt very much whether they are really in favor of giving the colored
+ man the right to vote. Of course they have not the power now to take that
+ right away, but they feel anything but kindly toward the party that gave
+ the colored man that right. That is the only result of the war that is not
+ fully accepted by the South and by many Democrats of the North.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing, the Republican party was divided&mdash;divided too by
+ personal hatreds. The party was greatly injured by the decision of the
+ Supreme Court in which the Civil Rights Bill was held void. Now, a great
+ many men who kept with the Republican party, did so because they believed
+ that that party would protect the colored man in the South, but as soon as
+ the Court decided that all the laws passed were unconstitutional, these
+ men felt free to vote for the other side, feeling that it would make no
+ difference. They reasoned this way: If the Republican party cannot defend
+ the colored people, why make a pretence that excites hatred on one side
+ and disarms the other? If the colored people have to depend upon the State
+ for protection, and the Federal Government cannot interfere, why say any
+ more about it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think that these men made a mistake and our party made a mistake in
+ accepting without protest a decision that was far worse than the one
+ delivered in the case of Dred Scott. By accepting this decision the most
+ important issue was abandoned. The Republican party must take the old
+ ground that it is the duty of the Federal Government to protect the
+ citizens, and that it cannot simply leave that duty to the State. It must
+ see to it that the State performs that duty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you seen the published report that Dorsey claims to
+ have paid you one hundred thousand dollars for your services in the Star
+ Route Cases?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have seen the report, but Dorsey never said anything like
+ that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there no truth in the statement, then?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, Dorsey never said anything of the kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Then you do not deny that you received such an enormous
+ fee?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. All I say is that Dorsey did not say I did.*
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Commercial</i>, Louisville, Kentucky, October 24, 1884.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Col. Ingersoll has been so criticised and maligned for
+ defending Mr. Dorsey in the Star Route cases, and so
+ frequently charged with having received an enormous fee,
+ that I think it but simple justice to his memory to say that
+ he received no such fee, and that the ridiculously small
+ sums he did receive were much more than offset by the amount
+ he had to pay as indorser of Mr. Dorsey's paper. &mdash;C. F.
+ FARRELL.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0047" id="link0047">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PLAGIARISM AND POLITICS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say about the charges published in this
+ morning's <i>Herald</i> to the effect that you copied your lecture about
+ "Mistakes of Moses" from a chapter bearing the same title in a book called
+ Hittell's "Evidences against Christianity"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. All I have to say is that the charge is utterly false. I
+ will give a thousand dollars reward to any one who will furnish a book
+ published before my lecture, in which that lecture can be found. It is
+ wonderful how malicious the people are who love their enemies. This charge
+ is wholly false, as all others of like nature are. I do not have to copy
+ the writings of others. The Christians do not seem to see that they are
+ constantly complimenting me by saying that what I write is so good that I
+ must have stolen it. Poor old orthodoxy!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the incoming administration, and
+ how will it affect the country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I feel disposed to give Cleveland a chance. If he does the
+ fair thing, then it is the duty of all good citizens to say so. I do not
+ expect to see the whole country go to destruction because the Democratic
+ party is in power. Neither do I believe that business is going to suffer
+ on that account. The times are hard, and I fear will be much harder, but
+ they would have been substantially the same if Blaine had been elected. I
+ wanted the Republican party to succeed and fully expected to see Mr.
+ Blaine President, but I believe in making the best of what has happened. I
+ want no office, I want good government&mdash;wise legislation. I believe
+ in protection, but I want the present tariff reformed and I hope the
+ Democrats will be wise enough to do so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How will the Democratic victory affect the colored people
+ in the South?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly their condition will not be worse than it has
+ been. The Supreme Court decided that the Civil Rights Bill was
+ unconstitutional and that the Federal Government cannot interfere. That
+ was a bad decision and our party made a mistake in not protesting against
+ it. I believe it to be the duty of the Federal Government to protect all
+ its citizens, at home as well as abroad. My hope is that there will be a
+ division in the Democratic party. That party has something now to divide.
+ At last it has a bone, and probably the fighting will commence. I hope
+ that some new issue will take color out of politics, something about which
+ both white and colored may divide. Of course nothing would please me
+ better than to see the Democratic party become great and grand enough to
+ give the colored people their rights.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why did you not take part in the campaign?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I was afraid of frightening the preachers away. I
+ might have done good by scaring one, but I did not know Burchard until it
+ was too late. Seriously, I did not think that I was needed. I supposed
+ that Blaine had a walkover, that he was certain to carry New York. I had
+ business of my own to attend to and did not want to interfere with the
+ campaign.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the policy of nominating Blaine in
+ 1888, as has been proposed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think it too early to say what will be done in 1888.
+ Parties do not exist for one man. Parties have certain ends in view and
+ they choose men as instruments to accomplish these ends. Parties belong to
+ principles, not persons. No party can afford to follow anybody. If in 1888
+ Mr. Blaine should appear to be the best man for the party then he will be
+ nominated, otherwise not. I know nothing about any intention to nominate
+ him again and have no idea whether he has that ambition. The Whig party
+ was intensely loyal to Henry Clay and forgot the needs of the country, and
+ allowed the Democrats to succeed with almost unknown men. Parties should
+ not belong to persons, but persons should belong to parties. Let us not be
+ too previous&mdash;let us wait.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the course pursued by the Rev. Drs.
+ Ball and Burchard?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In politics the preacher is somewhat dangerous. He has a
+ standard of his own; he has queer ideas of evidence, great reliance on
+ hearsay; he is apt to believe things against candidates, just because he
+ wants to. The preacher thinks that all who differ with him are instigated
+ by the Devil&mdash;that their intentions are evil, and that when they
+ behave themselves they are simply covering the poison with sugar. It would
+ have been far better for the country if Mr. Ball had kept still. I do not
+ pretend to say that his intentions were not good. He likely thought it his
+ duty to lift a warning voice, to bawl aloud and to spare not, but I think
+ he made a mistake, and he now probably thinks so himself. Mr. Burchard was
+ bound to say a smart thing. It sounded well, and he allowed his ears to
+ run away with his judgment. As a matter of fact, there is no connection
+ between rum and Romanism. Catholic countries do not use as much alcohol as
+ Protestant. England has far more drunkards than Spain. Scotland can
+ discount Italy or Portugal in good, square drinking. So there is no
+ connection between Romanism and rebellion. Ten times as many Methodists
+ and twenty times as many Baptists went into the Rebellion as Catholics.
+ Thousands of Catholics fought as bravely as Protestants for the
+ preservation of the Union. No doubt Mr. Burchard intended well. He thought
+ he was giving Blaine a battle-cry that would send consternation into the
+ hearts of the opposition. My opinion is that in the next campaign the
+ preachers will not be called to the front. Of course they have the same
+ right to express their views that other people have, but other people have
+ the right to avoid the responsibility of appearing to agree with them. I
+ think though that it is about time to let up on Burchard. He has already
+ unloaded on the Lord.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think Cleveland will put any Southern men in his
+ Cabinet?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do. Nothing could be in worse taste than to ignore the
+ section that gave him three-fourths of his vote. The people have put the
+ Democratic party in power. They intended to do what they did, and why
+ should the South not be recognized? Garland would make a good
+ Attorney-General; Lamar has the ability to fill any position in the
+ Cabinet. I could name several others well qualified, and I suppose that
+ two or three Southern men will be in the Cabinet. If they are good enough
+ to elect a President they are good enough to be selected by a President.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Mr. Conkling's course?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Conkling certainly had the right to keep still. He was
+ under no obligation to the party. The Republican papers have not tried to
+ secure his services. He has been very generally and liberally denounced
+ ever since his quarrel with Mr. Garfield, and it is only natural to resent
+ what a man feels to be an injustice. I suppose he has done what he
+ honestly thought was, under the circumstances, his duty. I believe him to
+ be a man of stainless integrity, and he certainly has as much independence
+ of character as one man can carry. It is time to put the party whip away.
+ People can be driven from, but not to, the Republican party. If we expect
+ to win in 1888 we must welcome recruits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Plain Dealer</i>, Cleveland, Ohio, Dec. 11, 1884.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0048" id="link0048">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will a time ever come when political campaigns will be
+ conducted independently of religious prejudice?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. As long as men are prejudiced, they will probably be
+ religious, and certainly as long as they are religious they will be
+ prejudiced, and every religionist who imagines the next world infinitely
+ more important than this, and who imagines that he gets his orders from
+ God instead of from his own reason, or from his fellow-citizens, and who
+ thinks that he should do something for the glory of God instead of for the
+ benefit of his fellow-citizens &mdash;just as long as they believe these
+ things, just so long their prejudices will control their votes. Every
+ good, ignorant, orthodox Christian places his Bible above laws and
+ constitutions. Every good, sincere and ignorant Catholic puts pope above
+ king and president, as well as above the legally expressed will of a
+ majority of his countrymen. Every Christian believes God to be the source
+ of all authority. I believe that the authority to govern comes from the
+ consent of the governed. Man is the source of power, and to protect and
+ increase human happiness should be the object of government. I think that
+ religious prejudices are growing weaker because religious belief is
+ growing weaker. And these prejudices &mdash;should men ever become really
+ civilized&mdash;will finally fade away. I think that a Presbyterian,
+ to-day, has no more prejudice against an Atheist than he has against a
+ Catholic. A Catholic does not dislike an Infidel any more than he does a
+ Presbyterian, and I believe, to-day, that most of the Presbyterians would
+ rather see and Atheist President than a pronounced Catholic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is Agnosticism gaining ground in the United States?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, there are thousands and thousands of men who
+ have now advanced intellectually to the point of perceiving the limit of
+ human knowledge. In other words, at last they are beginning to know enough
+ to know what can and cannot be known. Sensible men know that nobody knows
+ whether an infinite God exists or not. Sensible men know that an infinite
+ personality cannot, by human testimony, be established. Sensible men are
+ giving up trying to answer the questions of origin and destiny, and are
+ paying more attention to what happens between these questions&mdash;that
+ is to say, to this world. Infidelity increases as knowledge increases, as
+ fear dies, and as the brain develops. After all, it is a question of
+ intelligence. Only cunning performs a miracle, only ignorance believes it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that evolution and revealed religion are
+ compatible&mdash;that is to say, can a man be an evolutionist and a
+ Christian?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Evolution and Christianity may be compatible, provided you
+ take the ground that Christianity is only one of the links in the chain,
+ one of the phases of civilization. But if you mean by Christianity what is
+ generally understood, of course that and evolution are absolutely
+ incompatible. Christianity pretends to be not only the truth, but, so far
+ as religion is concerned, the whole truth. Christianity pretends to give a
+ history of religion and a prophecy of destiny. As a philosophy, it is an
+ absolute failure. As a history, it is false. There is no possible way by
+ which Darwin and Moses can be harmonized. There is an inexpressible
+ conflict between Christianity and Science, and both cannot long inhabit
+ the same brain. You cannot harmonize evolution and the atonement. The
+ survival of the fittest does away with original sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. From your knowledge of the religious tendency in the
+ United States, how long will orthodox religion be popular?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think that orthodox religion is popular to-day.
+ The ministers dare not preach the creed in all its naked deformity and
+ horror. They are endeavoring with the vines of sentiment to cover up the
+ caves and dens in which crawl the serpents of their creed. Very few
+ ministers care now to speak of eternal pain. They leave out the lake of
+ fire and brimstone. They are not fond of putting in the lips of Christ the
+ loving words, "Depart from me, ye cursed." The miracles are avoided. In
+ short, what is known as orthodoxy is already unpopular. Most ministers are
+ endeavoring to harmonize what they are pleased to call science and
+ Christianity, and nothing is now so welcome to the average Christian as
+ some work tending to show that, after all, Joshua was an astronomer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What section of the United States, East, West, North, or
+ South, is the most advanced in liberal religious ideas?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. That section of the country in which there is the most
+ intelligence is the most liberal. That section of the country where there
+ is the most ignorance is the most prejudiced. The least brain is the most
+ orthodox. There possibly is no more progressive city in the world, no more
+ liberal, than Boston. Chicago is full of liberal people. So is San
+ Francisco. The brain of New York is liberal. Every town, every city, is
+ liberal in the precise proportion that it is intelligent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will the religion of humanity be the religion of the
+ future?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; it is the only religion now. All other is
+ superstition. What they call religion rests upon a supposed relation
+ between man and God. In what they call religion man is asked to do
+ something for God. As God wants nothing, and can by no possibility accept
+ anything, such a religion is simply superstition. Humanity is the only
+ possible religion. Whoever imagines that he can do anything for God is
+ mistaken. Whoever imagines that he can add to his happiness in the next
+ world by being useless in this, is also mistaken. And whoever thinks that
+ any God cares how he cuts his hair or his clothes, or what he eats, or
+ whether he fasts, or rings a bell, or puts holy water on his breast, or
+ counts beads, or shuts his eyes and says words to the clouds, is laboring
+ under a great mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. A man in the Swaim Court Martial case was excluded as a
+ witness because he was an Atheist. Do you think the law in the next decade
+ will permit the affirmative oath?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If belief affected your eyes, your ears, any of your
+ senses, or your memory, then, of course, no man ought to be a witness who
+ had not the proper belief. But unless it can be shown that Atheism
+ interferes with the sight, the hearing, or the memory, why should justice
+ shut the door to truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In most of the States of this Union I could not give testimony. Should a
+ man be murdered before my eyes I could not tell a jury who did it.
+ Christianity endeavors to make an honest man an outlaw. Christianity has
+ such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man
+ can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in God. No lower opinion
+ of the human race has ever been expressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that bigotry would persecute now for
+ religious opinion's sake, if it were not for the law and the press?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that the church would persecute to-day if it had
+ the power, just as it persecuted in the past. We are indebted for nearly
+ all our religious liberty to the hypocrisy of the church. The church does
+ not believe. Some in the church do, and if they had the power, they would
+ torture and burn as of yore. Give the Presbyterian Church the power, and
+ it would not allow an Infidel to live. Give the Methodist Church the power
+ and the result would be the same. Give the Catholic Church the power&mdash;just
+ the same. No church in the United States would be willing that any other
+ church should have the power. The only men who are to be angels in the
+ next world are the ones who cannot be trusted with human liberty in this;
+ and the man who are destined to live forever in hell are the only
+ gentlemen with whom human liberty is safe. Why should Christians refuse to
+ persecute in this world, when their God is going to in the next?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Mail and Express</i>, New York, January 12, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0049" id="link0049">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CLEVELAND AND HIS CABINET.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Mr. Cleveland's Cabinet?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is a very good Cabinet. Some objections have been made
+ to Mr. Lamar, but I think he is one of the very best. He is a man of
+ ability, of unquestioned integrity, and is well informed on national
+ affairs. Ever since he delivered his eulogy on the life and services of
+ Sumner, I have had great respect for Mr. Lamar. He is far beyond most of
+ his constituents, and has done much to destroy the provincial prejudices
+ of Mississippi. He will without doubt make an excellent Secretary of the
+ Interior. The South has no better representative man, and I believe his
+ appointment will, in a little while, be satisfactory to the whole country.
+ Bayard stands high in his party, and will certainly do as well as his
+ immediate predecessor. Nothing could be better than the change in the
+ Department of Justice. Garland is an able lawyer, has been an influential
+ Senator and will, in my judgment, make an excellent Attorney-General. The
+ rest of the Cabinet I know little about, but from what I hear I believe
+ they are men of ability and that they will discharge their duties well.
+ Mr. Vilas has a great reputation in Wisconsin, and is one of the best and
+ most forcible speakers in the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will Mr. Cleveland, in your opinion, carry out the civil
+ service reform he professes to favor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have no reason to suspect even that he will not. He has
+ promised to execute the law, and the promise is in words that do not admit
+ of two interpretations. Of course he is sincere. He knows that this course
+ will save him a world of trouble, and he knows that it makes no difference
+ about the politics of a copyist. All the offices of importance will in all
+ probability be filled by Democrats. The President will not put himself in
+ the power of his opponents. If he is to be held responsible for the
+ administration he must be permitted to choose his own assistants. This is
+ too plain to talk about. Let us give Mr. Cleveland a fair show&mdash;and
+ let us expect success instead of failure. I admit that many Presidents
+ have violated their promises. There seems to be something in the
+ atmosphere of Washington that breeds promise and prevents performance. I
+ suppose it is some kind of political malarial microbe. I hope that some
+ political Pasteur will, one of these days, discover the real disease so
+ that candidates can be vaccinated during the campaign. Until them,
+ presidential promises will be liable to a discount.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the Republican party dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My belief is that the next President will be a Republican,
+ and that both houses will be Republican in 1889. Mr. Blaine was defeated
+ by an accident&mdash;by the slip of another man's tongue. But it matters
+ little what party is in power if the Government is administered upon
+ correct principles, and if the Democracy adopt the views of the
+ Republicans and carry out Republican measures, it may be that they can
+ keep in power&mdash;otherwise&mdash;otherwise. If the Democrats carry out
+ real Democratic measures, then their defeat is certain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the era of good feeling between the
+ North and the South has set in with the appointment of ex-rebels to the
+ Cabinet?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The war is over. The South failed. The Nation succeeded. We
+ should stop talking about South and North. We are one people, and whether
+ we agree or disagree one destiny awaits us. We cannot divide. We must live
+ together. We must trust each other. Confidence begets confidence. The
+ whole country was responsible for slavery. Slavery was rebellion. Slavery
+ is dead&mdash;so is rebellion. Liberty has united the country and there is
+ more real union, national sentiment to-day, North and South, than ever
+ before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is hinted that Mr. Tilden is really the power behind
+ the throne. Do you think so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I guess nobody has taken the hint. Of course Mr. Tilden has
+ retired from politics. The probability is that many Democrats ask his
+ advice, and some rely on his judgment. He is regarded as a piece of
+ ancient wisdom&mdash;a phenomenal persistence of the Jeffersonian type&mdash;the
+ connecting link with the framers, founders and fathers. The power behind
+ the throne is the power that the present occupant supposes will determine
+ who the next occupant shall be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. With the introduction of the Democracy into power, what
+ radical changes will take place in the Government, and what will be the
+ result?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the President carries out his inaugural promises there
+ will be no radical changes, and if he does not there will be a very
+ radical change at the next presidential election. The inaugural is a very
+ good Republican document. There is nothing in it calculated to excite
+ alarm. There is no dangerous policy suggested&mdash;no conceited vagaries&mdash;nothing
+ but a plain statement of the situation and the duty of the Chief
+ Magistrate as understood by the President. I think that the inaugural
+ surprised the Democrats and the Republicans both, and if the President
+ carries out the program he has laid down he will surprise and pacify a
+ large majority of the American people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Mail and Express</i>, New York, March 10, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0050" id="link0050">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ RELIGION, PROHIBITION, AND GEN. GRANT.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of prohibition, and what do you think
+ of its success in this State?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Few people understand the restraining influence of liberty.
+ Moderation walks hand in hand with freedom. I do not mean the freedom
+ springing from the sudden rupture of restraint. That kind of freedom
+ usually rushes to extremes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People must be educated to take care of themselves, and this education
+ must commence in infancy. Self-restraint is the only kind that can always
+ be depended upon. Of course intemperance is a great evil. It causes
+ immense suffering&mdash;clothes wives and children in rags, and is
+ accountable for many crimes, particularly those of violence. Laws to be of
+ value must be honestly enforced. Laws that sleep had better be dead. Laws
+ to be enforced must be honestly approved of and believed in by a large
+ majority of the people. Unpopular laws make hypocrites, perjurers and
+ official shirkers of duty. And if to the violation of such laws severe
+ penalties attach, they are rarely enforced. Laws that create artificial
+ crimes are the hardest to carry into effect. You can never convince a
+ majority of people that it is as bad to import goods without paying the
+ legal duty as to commit larceny. Neither can you convince a majority of
+ people that it is a crime or sin, or even a mistake, to drink a glass of
+ wine or beer. Thousands and thousands of people in this State honestly
+ believe that prohibition is an interference with their natural rights, and
+ they feel justified in resorting to almost any means to defeat the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this way people become somewhat demoralized. It is unfortunate to pass
+ laws that remain unenforced on account of their unpopularity. People who
+ would on most subjects swear to the truth do not hesitate to testify
+ falsely on a prohibition trial. In addition to this, every known device is
+ resorted to, to sell in spite of the law, and when some want to sell and a
+ great many want to buy, considerable business will be done, while there
+ are fewer saloons and less liquor sold in them. The liquor is poorer and
+ the price is higher. The consumer has to pay for the extra risk. More
+ liquor finds its way to homes, more men buy by the bottle and gallon. In
+ old times nearly everybody kept a little rum or whiskey on the sideboard.
+ The great Washingtonian temperance movement drove liquor out of the home
+ and increased the taverns and saloons. Now we are driving liquor back to
+ the homes. In my opinion there is a vast difference between distilled
+ spirits and the lighter drinks, such as wine and beer. Wine is a fireside
+ and whiskey a conflagration. These lighter drinks are not unhealthful and
+ do not, as I believe, create a craving for stronger beverages. You will, I
+ think, find it almost impossible to enforce the present law against wine
+ and beer. I was told yesterday that there are some sixty places in Cedar
+ Rapids where whiskey is sold. It takes about as much ceremony to get a
+ drink as it does to join the Masons, but they seem to like the ceremony.
+ People seem to take delight in outwitting the State when it does not
+ involve the commission of any natural offence, and when about to be
+ caught, may not hesitate to swear falsely to the extent of "don't
+ remember," or "can't say positively," or "can't swear whether it was
+ whiskey or not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One great trouble in Iowa is that the politicians, or many of them who
+ openly advocate prohibition, are really opposed to it. They want to keep
+ the German vote, and they do not want to lose native Republicans. They
+ feel a "divided duty" to ride both horses. This causes the contrast
+ between their conversation and their speeches. A few years ago I took
+ dinner with a gentleman who had been elected Governor of one of our States
+ on the Prohibition ticket. We had four kinds of wine during the meal, and
+ a pony of brandy at the end. Prohibition will never be a success until it
+ prohibits the Prohibitionists. And yet I most sincerely hope and believe
+ that the time will come when drunkenness shall have perished from the
+ earth. Let us cultivate the love of home. Let husbands and wives and
+ children be companions. Let them seek amusements together. If it is a good
+ place for father to go, it is a good place for mother and the children. I
+ believe that a home can be made more attractive than a saloon. Let the
+ boys and girls amuse themselves at home&mdash;play games, study music,
+ read interesting books, and let the parents be their playfellows. The best
+ temperance lecture, in the fewest words, you will find in Victor Hugo's
+ great novel "Les Miserables." The grave digger is asked to take a drink.
+ He refuses and gives this reason: "The hunger of my family is the enemy of
+ my thirst."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Many people wonder why you are out of politics. Will you
+ give your reasons?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A few years ago great questions had to be settled. The life
+ of the nation was at stake. Later the liberty of millions of slaves
+ depended upon the action of the Government. Afterward reconstruction and
+ the rights of citizens pressed themselves upon the people for solution.
+ And last, the preservation of national honor and credit. These questions
+ did not enter into the last campaign. They had all been settled, and
+ properly settled, with the one exception of the duty of the nation to
+ protect the colored citizens. The Supreme Court settled that, at least for
+ a time, and settled it wrong. But the Republican party submitted to the
+ civil rights decision, and so, as between the great parties, that question
+ did not arise. This left only two questions&mdash;protection and office.
+ But as a matter of fact, all Republicans were not for our present system
+ of protection, and all Democrats were not against it. On that question
+ each party was and is divided. On the other question&mdash;office&mdash;both
+ parties were and are in perfect harmony. Nothing remains now for the
+ Democrats to do except to give a "working" definition of "offensive
+ partisanship."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the American people are seeking after
+ truth, or do they want to be amused?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We have all kinds. Thousands are earnestly seeking for the
+ truth. They are looking over the old creeds, they are studying the Bible
+ for themselves, they have the candor born of courage, they are depending
+ upon themselves instead of on the clergy. They have found out that the
+ clergy do not know; that their sources of information are not reliable;
+ that, like the politicians, many ministers preach one way and talk
+ another. The doctrine of eternal pain has driven millions from the church.
+ People with good hearts cannot get consolation out of that cruel lie. The
+ ministers themselves are getting ashamed to call that doctrine "the
+ tidings of great joy." The American people are a serious people. They want
+ to know the truth. They fell that whatever the truth may be they have the
+ courage to hear it. The American people also have a sense of humor. They
+ like to see old absurdities punctured and solemn stupidity held up to
+ laughter. They are, on the average, the most intelligent people on the
+ earth. They can see the point. Their wit is sharp, quick and logical.
+ Nothing amuses them more that to see the mask pulled from the face of
+ sham. The average American is generous, intelligent, level-headed, manly,
+ and good- natured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your judgment, is the source of the greatest
+ trouble among men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Superstition. That has caused more agony, more tears,
+ persecution and real misery than all other causes combined. The other name
+ for superstition is ignorance. When men learn that all sin is a mistake,
+ that all dishonesty is a blunder, that even intelligent selfishness will
+ protect the rights of others, there will be vastly more happiness in this
+ world. Shakespeare says that "There is no darkness but ignorance."
+ Sometime man will learn that when he steals from another, he robs himself&mdash;that
+ the way to be happy is to make others so, and that it is far better to
+ assist his fellow-man than to fast, say prayers, count beads or build
+ temples to the Unknown. Some people tell us that selfishness is the only
+ sin, but selfishness grows in the soil of ignorance. After all, education
+ is the great lever, and the only one capable of raising mankind. People
+ ignorant of their own rights are ignorant of the rights of others. Every
+ tyrant is the slave of ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How soon do you think we would have the millennium if
+ every person attended strictly to his own business?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Now, if every person were intelligent enough to know his
+ own business&mdash;to know just where his rights ended and the rights of
+ others commenced, and then had the wisdom and honesty to act accordingly,
+ we should have a very happy world. Most people like to control the conduct
+ of others. They love to write rules, and pass laws for the benefit of
+ their neighbors, and the neighbors are pretty busy at the same business.
+ People, as a rule, think that they know the business of other people
+ better than they do their own. A man watching others play checkers or
+ chess always thinks he sees better moves than the players make. When all
+ people attend to their own business they will know that a part of their
+ own business is to increase the happiness of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is causing the development of this country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Education, the free exchange of ideas, inventions by which
+ the forces of nature become our servants, intellectual hospitality, a
+ willingness to hear the other side, the richness of our soil, the extent
+ of our territory, the diversity of climate and production, our system of
+ government, the free discussion of political questions, our social
+ freedom, and above all, the fact that labor is honorable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the religious tendency of the
+ people of this country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Using the word religion in its highest and best sense, the
+ people are becoming more religious. We are far more religious &mdash;using
+ the word in its best sense&mdash;than when we believed in human slavery,
+ but we are not as orthodox as we were then. We have more principle and
+ less piety. We care more for the right and less for the creed. The old
+ orthodox dogmas are mouldy. You will find moss on their backs. They are
+ only brought out when a new candidate for the ministry is to be examined.
+ Only a little while ago in New York a candidate for the Presbyterian
+ pulpit was examined and the following is a part of the examination:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. "Do you believe in eternal punishment, as set forth in
+ the confession of faith?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. (With some hesitation) "Yes, I do."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. "Have you preached on that subject lately?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. "No. I prepared a sermon on hell, in which I took the
+ ground that the punishment of the wicked will be endless, and have it with
+ me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. "Did you deliver it?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. "No. I thought that my congregation would not care to hear
+ it. The doctrine is rather unpopular where I have been preaching, and I
+ was afraid I might do harm, so I have not delivered it yet."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. "But you believe in eternal damnation, do you not?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. "O yes, with all my heart."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was admitted, and the admission proves the dishonesty of the examiners
+ and the examined. The new version of the Old and New Testaments has done
+ much to weaken confidence in the doctrine of inspiration. It has occurred
+ to a good many that if God took the pains to inspire men to write the
+ Bible, he ought to have inspired others to translate it correctly. The
+ general tendency today is toward science, toward naturalism, toward what
+ is called Infidelity, but is in fact fidelity. Men are in a transition
+ state, and the people, on the average, have more real good, sound sense
+ to-day than ever before. The church is losing its power for evil. The old
+ chains are wearing out, and new ones are not being made. The tendency is
+ toward intellectual freedom, and that means the final destruction of the
+ orthodox bastille.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of General Grant as he stands before
+ the people to-day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have always regarded General Grant as the greatest
+ soldier this continent has produced. He is to-day the most distinguished
+ son of the Republic. The people have the greatest confidence in his
+ ability, his patriotism and his integrity. The financial disaster
+ impoverished General Grant, but he did not stain the reputation of the
+ grand soldier who led to many victories the greatest army that ever fought
+ for the liberties of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Iowa State Register</i>, May 23, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0051" id="link0051">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HELL OR SHEOL AND OTHER SUBJECTS.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, have you read the revised Testament?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, but I don't believe the work has been fairly done. The
+ clergy are not going to scrape the butter off their own bread. The clergy
+ are offensive partisans, and those of each denomination will interpret the
+ Scriptures their way. No Baptist minister would countenance a "Revision"
+ that favored sprinkling, and no Catholic priest would admit that any
+ version would be correct that destroyed the dogma of the "real presence."
+ So I might go through all the denominations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why was the word sheol introduced in place of hell, and
+ how do you like the substitute?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The civilized world has outgrown the vulgar and brutal hell
+ of their fathers and founders of the churches. The clergy are ashamed to
+ preach about sulphurous flames and undying worms. The imagination of the
+ world has been developed, the heart has grown tender, and the old dogma of
+ eternal pain shocks all civilized people. It is becoming disgraceful
+ either to preach or believe in such a beastly lie. The clergy are
+ beginning to think that it is hardly manly to frighten children with a
+ detected falsehood. Sheol is a great relief. It is not so hot as the old
+ place. The nights are comfortable, and the society is quite refined. The
+ worms are dead, and the air reasonably free from noxious vapors. It is a
+ much worse word to hold a revival with, but much better for every day use.
+ It will hardly take the place of the old word when people step on tacks,
+ put up stoves, or sit on pins; but for use at church fairs and mite
+ societies it will do about as well. We do not need revision; excision is
+ what we want. The barbarism should be taken out of the Bible. Passages
+ upholding polygamy, wars of extermination, slavery, and religious
+ persecution should not be attributed to a perfect God. The good that is in
+ the Bible will be saved for man, and man will be saved from the evil that
+ is in that book. Why should we worship in God what we detest in man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the use of the word sheol will make any
+ difference to the preachers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course it will make no difference with Talmage. He will
+ make sheol just as hot and smoky and uncomfortable as hell, but the
+ congregations will laugh instead of tremble. The old shudder has gone.
+ Beecher had demolished hell before sheol was adopted. According to his
+ doctrine of evolution hell has been slowly growing cool. The cindered
+ souls do not even perspire. Sheol is nothing to Mr. Beecher but a new name
+ for an old mistake. As for the effect it will have on Heber Newton, I
+ cannot tell, neither can he, until he asks his bishop. There are people
+ who believe in witches and madstones and fiat money, and centuries hence
+ it may be that people will exist who will believe as firmly in hell as Dr.
+ Shedd does now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What about Beecher's sermons on "Evolution"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Beecher's sermons on "Evolution" will do good. Millions of
+ people believe that Mr. Beecher knows at least as much as the other
+ preachers, and if he regards the atonement as a dogma with a mistake for a
+ foundation, they may conclude that the whole system is a mistake. But
+ whether Mr. Beecher is mistaken or not, people know that honesty is a good
+ thing, that gratitude is a virtue, that industry supports the world, and
+ that whatever they believe about religion they are bound by every
+ conceivable obligation to be just and generous. Mr. Beecher can no more
+ succeed in reconciling science and religion, than he could in convincing
+ the world that triangles and circles are exactly the same. There is the
+ same relation between science and religion that there is between astronomy
+ and astrology, between alchemy and chemistry, between orthodoxy and common
+ sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read Miss Cleveland's book? She condemns George
+ Eliot's poetry on the ground that it has no faith in it, nothing beyond.
+ Do you imagine she would condemn Burns or Shelley for that reason?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have not read Miss Cleveland's book; but, if the author
+ condemns the poetry of George Eliot, she has made a mistake. There is no
+ poem in our language more beautiful than "The Lovers," and none loftier or
+ purer than "The Choir Invisible." There is no poetry in the "beyond." The
+ poetry is here&mdash;here in this world, where love is in the heart. The
+ poetry of the beyond is too far away, a little too general. Shelley's
+ "Skylark" was in our sky, the daisy of Burns grew on our ground, and
+ between that lark and that daisy is room for all the real poetry of the
+ earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Evening Record</i>, Boston, Mass., 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0052" id="link0052">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INTERVIEWING, POLITICS AND SPIRITUALISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the peculiar institution of
+ American journalism known as interviewing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the interviewers are fair, if they know how to ask
+ questions of a public nature, if they remember what is said, or write it
+ at the time, and if the interviewed knows enough to answer questions in a
+ way to amuse or instruct the public, then interviewing is a blessing. But
+ if the representative of the press asks questions, either impudent or
+ unimportant, and the answers are like the questions, then the institution
+ is a failure. When the journalist fails to see the man he wishes to
+ interview, or when the man refuses to be interviewed, and thereupon the
+ aforesaid journalist writes up an interview, doing the talking for both
+ sides, the institution is a success. Such interviews are always
+ interesting, and, as a rule, the questions are to the point and the
+ answers perfectly responsive. There is probably a little too much
+ interviewing, and to many persons are asked questions upon subjects about
+ which they know nothing. Mr. Smith makes some money in stocks or pork,
+ visits London, and remains in that city for several weeks. On his return
+ he is interviewd as to the institutions, laws and customs of the British
+ Empire. Of course such an interview is exceedingly instructive. Lord
+ Affanaff lands at the dock in North River, is driven to a hotel in a
+ closed carriage, is interviewed a few minutes after by a representative of
+ the <i>Herald</i> as to his view of the great Republic based upon what he
+ has seen. Such an interview is also instructive. Interviews with
+ candidates as to their chances of election is another favorite way of
+ finding out their honest opinion, but people who rely on those interviews
+ generally lose their bets. The most interesting interviews are generally
+ denied. I have been expecting to see an interview with the Rev. Dr.
+ Leonard on the medicinal properties of champagne and toast, or the
+ relation between old ale and modern theology, and as to whether
+ prohibition prohibits the Prohibitionists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you ever been misrepresented in interviews?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Several times. As a general rule, the clergy have selected
+ these misrepresentations when answering me. I never blamed them, because
+ it is much easier to answer something I did not say. Most reporters try to
+ give my real words, but it is difficult to remember. They try to give the
+ substance, and in that way change or destroy the sense. You remember the
+ Frenchman who translated Shakespeare's great line in Macbeth&mdash;"Out,
+ brief candle!"&mdash;into "Short candle, go out!" Another man, trying to
+ give the last words of Webster&mdash;"I still live"&mdash;said "I aint
+ dead yit." So that when they try to do their best they often make
+ mistakes. Now and then interviews appear not one word of which I ever
+ said, and sometimes when I really had an interview, another one has
+ appeared. But generally the reporters treat me well, and most of them
+ succeed in telling about what I said. Personally I have no cause for
+ complaint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the administration of President
+ Cleveland?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I know but very little about it. I suppose that he is doing
+ the best he can. He appears to be carrying out in good faith the
+ principles laid down in the platform on which he was elected. He is having
+ a hard road to travel. To satisfy an old Democrat and a new mugwump is a
+ difficult job. Cleveland appears to be the owner of himself&mdash;appears
+ to be a man of great firmness and force of character. The best thing that
+ I have heard about him is that he went fishing on Sunday. We have had so
+ much mock morality, dude deportment and hypocritical respectability in
+ public office, that a man with courage enough to enjoy himself on Sunday
+ is a refreshing and healthy example. All things considered I do not see
+ but that Cleveland is doing well enough. The attitude of the
+ administration toward the colored people is manly and fair so far as I can
+ see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you still a Republican in political belief?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I believe that this is a Nation. I believe in the equality
+ of all men before the law, irrespective of race, religion or color. I
+ believe that there should be a dollar's worth of silver in a silver
+ dollar. I believe in a free ballot and a fair count. I believe in
+ protecting those industries, and those only, that need protection. I
+ believe in unrestricted coinage of gold and silver. I believe in the
+ rights of the State, the rights of the citizen, and the sovereignty of the
+ Nation. I believe in good times, good health, good crops, good prices,
+ good wages, good food, good clothes and in the absolute and unqualified
+ liberty of thought. If such belief makes a Republican, than that is what I
+ am.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you approve of John Sherman's policy in the present
+ campaign with reference to the bloody shirt, which reports of his speeches
+ show that he is waving?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have not read Senator Sherman's speech. It seems to me
+ that there is a better feeling between the North and South than ever
+ before&mdash;better than at any time since the Revolutionary war. I
+ believe in cultivating that feeling, and in doing and saying what we can
+ to contribute to its growth. We have hated long enough and fought enough.
+ The colored people never have been well treated but they are being better
+ treated now than ever before. It takes a long time to do away with
+ prejudices that were based upon religion and rascality&mdash;that is to
+ say, inspiration and interest. We must remember that slavery was the crime
+ of the whole country. Now, if Senator Sherman has made a speech calculated
+ to excite the hatreds and prejudices of the North and South, I think that
+ he has made a mistake. I do not say that he has made such a speech,
+ because I have not read it. The war is over&mdash;it ended at Appomattox.
+ Let us hope that the bitterness born of the conflict died out forever at
+ Riverside. The people are tired almost to death of the old speeches. They
+ have been worn out and patched, and even the patches are threadbare. The
+ Supreme Court decided the Civil Rights Bill to be unconstitutional, and
+ the Republican party submitted. I regarded the decision as monstrous, but
+ the Republican party when in power said nothing and did nothing. I most
+ sincerely hope that the Democratic party will protect the colored people
+ at least as well as we did when we were in power. But I am out of politics
+ and intend to keep politics out of me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. We have been having the periodical revival of interest in
+ Spiritualism. What do you think of "Spiritualism," as it is popularly
+ termed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not believe in the supernatural. One who does not
+ believe in gods would hardly believe in ghosts. I am not a believer in any
+ of the "wonders" and "miracles" whether ancient or modern. There may be
+ spirits, but I do not believe there are. They may communicate with some
+ people, but thus far they have been successful in avoiding me. Of course,
+ I know nothing for certain on the subject. I know a great many excellent
+ people who are thoroughly convinced of the truth of Spiritualism.
+ Christians laugh at the "miracles" to-day, attested by folks they know,
+ but believe the miracles of long ago, attested by folks that they did not
+ know. This is one of the contradictions in human nature. Most people are
+ willing to believe that wonderful things happened long ago and will happen
+ again in the far future; with them the present is the only time in which
+ nature behaves herself with becoming sobriety.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In old times nature did all kinds of juggling tricks, and after a long
+ while will do some more, but now she is attending strictly to business,
+ depending upon cause and effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Who, in your opinion, is the greatest leader of the
+ "opposition" yclept the Christian religion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose that Mr. Beecher is the greatest man in the
+ pulpit, but he thinks more of Darwin than he does of David and has an idea
+ that the Old Testament is just a little too old. He has put evolution in
+ the place of the atonement&mdash;has thrown away the Garden of Eden,
+ snake, apples and all, and is endeavoring to save enough of the orthodox
+ wreck to make a raft. I know of no other genius in the pulpit. There are
+ plenty of theological doctors and bishops and all kinds of titled humility
+ in the sacred profession, but men of genius are scarce. All the ministers,
+ except Messrs. Moody and Jones, are busy explaining away the contradiction
+ between inspiration and demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What books would you recommend for the perusal of a young
+ man of limited time and culture with reference to helping him in the
+ development of intellect and good character?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The works of Darwin, Ernst Haeckel, Draper's "Intellectual
+ Development of Europe," Buckle's "History of Civilization in England,"
+ Lecky's "History of European Morals," Voltaire's "Philosophical
+ Dictionary," B&uuml;chner's "Force and Matter," "The History of the
+ Christian Religion" by Waite; Paine's "Age of Reason," D'Holbach's "System
+ of Nature," and, above all, Shakespeare. Do not forget Burns, Shelley,
+ Dickens and Hugo.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will you lecture the coming winter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, about the same as usual. Woe is me if I preach not my
+ gospel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you been invited to lecture in Europe? If so do you
+ intend to accept the "call"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, often. The probability is that I shall go to England
+ and Australia. I have not only had invitations but most excellent offers
+ from both countries. There is, however, plenty to do here. This is the
+ best country in the world and our people are eager to hear the other side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old kind of preaching is getting superannuated. It lags superfluous in
+ the pulpit. Our people are outgrowing the cruelties and absurdities of the
+ ancient Jews. The idea of hell has become shocking and vulgar. Eternal
+ punishment is eternal injustice. It is infinitely infamous. Most ministers
+ are ashamed to preach the doctrine, and the congregations are ashamed to
+ hear it preached. It is the essence of savagery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Plain Dealer</i>, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 5, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0053" id="link0053">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MY BELIEF.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is said that in the past four or five years you have
+ changed or modified your views upon the subject of religion; is this so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is not so. The only change, if that can be called a
+ change, is, that I am more perfectly satisfied that I am right&mdash;
+ satisfied that what is called orthodox religion is a simple fabrication of
+ mistaken men; satisfied that there is no such thing as an inspired book
+ and never will be; satisfied that a miracle never was and never will be
+ performed; satisfied that no human being knows whether there is a God or
+ not, whether there is another life or not; satisfied that the scheme of
+ atonement is a mistake, that the innocent cannot, by suffering for the
+ guilty, atone for the guilt; satisfied that the doctrine that salvation
+ depends on belief, is cruel and absurd; satisfied that the doctrine of
+ eternal punishment is infamously false; satisfied that superstition is of
+ no use to the human race; satisfied that humanity is the only true and
+ real religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No, I have not modified my views. I detect new absurdities every day in
+ the popular belief. Every day the whole thing becomes more and more
+ absurd. Of course there are hundreds and thousands of most excellent
+ people who believe in orthodox religion; people for whose good qualities I
+ have the greatest respect; people who have good ideas on most other
+ subjects; good citizens, good fathers, husbands, wives and children&mdash;good
+ in spite of their religion. I do not attack people. I attack the mistakes
+ of people. Orthodoxy is getting weaker every day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe in the existence of a Supreme Being?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not believe in any Supreme personality or in any
+ Supreme Being who made the universe and governs nature. I do not say that
+ there is no such Being&mdash;all I say is that I do not believe that such
+ a Being exists. I know nothing on the subject, except that I know that I
+ do not know and that nobody else knows. But if there is such a Being, he
+ certainly never wrote the Old Testament. You will understand my position.
+ I do not say that a Supreme Being does not exist, but I do say that I do
+ not believe such a Being exists. The universe&mdash;embracing all that is&mdash;all
+ atoms, all stars, each grain of sand and all the constellations, each
+ thought and dream of animal and man, all matter and all force, all doubt
+ and all belief, all virtue and all crime, all joy and all pain, all growth
+ and all decay&mdash;is all there is. It does not act because it is moved
+ from without. It acts from within. It is actor and subject, means and end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is infinite; the infinite could not have been created. It is
+ indestructible and that which cannot be destroyed was not created. I am a
+ Pantheist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Don't you think the belief of the Agnostic is more
+ satisfactory to the believer than that of the Atheist?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is no difference. The Agnostic is an Atheist. The
+ Atheist is an Agnostic. The Agnostic says: "I do not know, but I do not
+ believe there is any God." The Atheist says the same. The orthodox
+ Christian says he knows there is a God; but we know that he does not know.
+ He simply believes. He cannot know. The Atheist cannot know that God does
+ not exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Haven't you just the faintest glimmer of a hope that in
+ some future state you will meet and be reunited to those who are dear to
+ you in this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have no particular desire to be destroyed. I am willing
+ to go to heaven if there be such a place, and enjoy myself for ever and
+ ever. It would give me infinite satisfaction to know that all mankind are
+ to be happy forever. Infidels love their wives and children as well as
+ Christians do theirs. I have never said a word against heaven&mdash;never
+ said a word against the idea of immortality. On the contrary, I have said
+ all I could truthfully say in favor of the idea that we shall live again.
+ I most sincerely hope that there is another world, better than this, where
+ all the broken ties of love will be united. It is the other place I have
+ been fighting. Better that all of us should sleep the sleep of death
+ forever than that some should suffer pain forever. If in order to have a
+ heaven there must be a hell, then I say away with them both. My doctrine
+ puts the bow of hope over every grave; my doctrine takes from every
+ mother's heart the fear of hell. No good man would enjoy himself in heaven
+ with his friends in hell. No good God could enjoy himself in heaven with
+ millions of his poor, helpless mistakes in hell. The orthodox idea of
+ heaven&mdash;with God an eternal inquisitor, a few heartless angels and
+ some redeemed orthodox, all enjoying themselves, while the vast multitude
+ will weep in the rayless gloom of God's eternal dungeon&mdash;is not
+ calculated to make man good or happy. I am doing what I can to civilize
+ the churches, humanize the preachers and get the fear of hell out of the
+ human heart. In this business I am meeting with great success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Philadelphia Times</i>, September 25, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0054" id="link0054">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SOME LIVE TOPICS.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Shall you attend the Albany Freethought Convention?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have agreed to be present not only, but to address the
+ convention, on Sunday, the 13th of September. I am greatly gratified to
+ know that the interest in the question of intellectual liberty is growing
+ from year to year. Everywhere I go it seems to be the topic of
+ conversation. No matter upon what subject people begin to talk, in a
+ little while the discussion takes a religious turn, and people who a few
+ moments before had not the slightest thought of saying a word about the
+ churches, or about the Bible, are giving their opinions in full. I hear
+ discussions of this kind in all the public conveyances, at the hotels, on
+ the piazzas at the seaside&mdash;and they are not discussions in which I
+ take any part, because I rarely say anything upon these questions except
+ in public, unless I am directly addressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a general feeling that the church has ruled the world long
+ enough. People are beginning to see that no amount of eloquence, or faith,
+ or erudition, or authority, can make the records of barbarism satisfactory
+ to the heart and brain of this century. They have also found that a
+ falsehood in Hebrew in no more credible than in plain English. People at
+ last are beginning to be satisfied that cruel laws were never good laws,
+ no matter whether inspired or uninspired. The Christian religion, like
+ every other religion depending upon inspired writings, is wrecked upon the
+ facts of nature. So long as inspired writers confined themselves to the
+ supernatural world; so long as they talked about angels and Gods and
+ heavens and hells; so long as they described only things that man has
+ never seen, and never will see, they were safe, not from contradiction,
+ but from demonstration. But these writings had to have a foundation, even
+ for their falsehoods, and that foundation was in Nature. The foundation
+ had to be something about which somebody knew something, or supposed they
+ knew something. They told something about this world that agreed with the
+ then general opinion. Had these inspired writers told the truth about
+ Nature&mdash; had they said that the world revolved on its axis, and made
+ a circuit about the sun&mdash;they could have gained no credence for their
+ statements about other worlds. They were forced to agree with their
+ contemporaries about this world, and there is where they made the
+ fundamental mistake. Having grown in knowledge, the world has discovered
+ that these inspired men knew nothing about this earth; that the inspired
+ books are filled with mistakes&mdash;not only mistakes that we can
+ contradict, but mistakes that we can demonstrate to be mistakes. Had they
+ told the truth in their day, about this earth, they would not have been
+ believed about other worlds, because their contemporaries would have used
+ their own knowledge about this world to test the knowledge of these
+ inspired men. We pursue the same course; and what we know about this world
+ we use as the standard, and by that standard we have found that the
+ inspired men knew nothing about Nature as it is. Finding that they were
+ mistaken about this world, we have no confidence in what they have said
+ about another. Every religion has had its philosophy about this world, and
+ every one has been mistaken. As education becomes general, as scientific
+ modes are adopted, this will become clearer and clearer, until "ignorant
+ as inspiration" will be a comparison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you seen the memorial to the New York Legislature,
+ to be presented this winter, asking for the repeal of such laws as
+ practically unite church and state?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have seen a memorial asking that church property be taxed
+ like other property; that no more money should be appropriated from the
+ public treasury for the support of institutions managed by and in the
+ interest of sectarian denominations; for the repeal of all laws compelling
+ the observance of Sunday as a religious day. Such memorials ought to be
+ addressed to the Legislatures of all the States. The money of the public
+ should only be used for the benefit of the public. Public money should not
+ be used for what a few gentlemen think is for the benefit of the public.
+ Personally, I think it would be for the benefit of the public to have
+ Infidel or scientific&mdash;which is the same thing&mdash;lectures
+ delivered in every town, in every State, on every Sunday; but knowing that
+ a great many men disagree with me on this point, I do not claim that such
+ lectures ought to be paid for with public money. The Methodist Church
+ ought not to be sustained by taxation, nor the Catholic, nor any other
+ church. To relieve their property from taxation is to appropriate money,
+ to the extent of that tax, for the support of that church. Whenever a
+ burden is lifted from one piece of property, it is distributed over the
+ rest of the property of the State, and to release one kind of property is
+ to increase the tax on all other kinds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when people really supposed the churches were saving
+ souls from the eternal wrath of a God of infinite love. Being engaged in
+ such a philanthropic work, and at the time nobody having the courage to
+ deny it&mdash;the church being all-powerful&mdash;all other property was
+ taxed to support the church; but now the more civilized part of the
+ community, being satisfied that a God of infinite love will not be
+ eternally unjust, feel as though the church should support herself. To
+ exempt the church from taxation is to pay a part of the priest's salary.
+ The Catholic now objects to being taxed to support a school in which his
+ religion is not taught. He is not satisfied with the school that says
+ nothing on the subject of religion. He insists that it is an outrage to
+ tax him to support a school where the teacher simply teaches what he
+ knows. And yet this same Catholic wants his church exempted from taxation,
+ and the tax of an Atheist or of a Jew increased, when he teaches in his
+ untaxed church that the Atheist and Jew will both be eternally damned! Is
+ it possible for impudence to go further?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insist that no religion should be taught in any school supported by
+ public money; and by religion I mean superstition. Only that should be
+ taught in a school that somebody can learn and that somebody can know. In
+ my judgment, every church should be taxed precisely the same as other
+ property. The church may claim that it is one of the instruments of
+ civilization and therefore should be exempt. If you exempt that which is
+ useful, you exempt every trade and every profession. In my judgment,
+ theatres have done more to civilize mankind than churches; that is to say,
+ theatres have done something to civilize mankind&mdash;churches nothing.
+ The effect of all superstition has been to render men barbarous. I do not
+ believe in the civilizing effects of falsehood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when ministers were supposed to be in the employ of God,
+ and it was thought that God selected them with great care &mdash;that
+ their profession had something sacred about it. These ideas are no longer
+ entertained by sensible people. Ministers should be paid like other
+ professional men, and those who like their preaching should pay for the
+ preach. They should depend, as actors do, upon their popularity, upon the
+ amount of sense, or nonsense, that they have for sale. They should depend
+ upon the market like other people, and if people do not want to hear
+ sermons badly enough to build churches and pay for them, and pay the taxes
+ on them, and hire the preacher, let the money be diverted to some other
+ use. The pulpit should no longer be a pauper. I do not believe in carrying
+ on any business with the contribution box. All the sectarian institutions
+ ought to support themselves. These should be no Methodist or Catholic or
+ Presbyterian hospitals or orphan asylums. All these should be supported by
+ the State. There is no such thing as Catholic charity, or Methodist
+ charity. Charity belongs to humanity, not to any particular form of faith
+ or religion. You will find as charitable people who never heard of
+ religion, as you can find in the church. The State should provide for
+ those who ought to be provided for. A few Methodists beg of everybody they
+ meet&mdash;send women with subscription papers, asking money from all
+ classes of people, and nearly everybody gives something from politeness,
+ or to keep from being annoyed; and when the institution is finished, it is
+ pointed at as the result of Methodism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably a majority of the people in this country suppose that there was
+ no charity in the world until the Christian religion was founded. Great
+ men have repeated this falsehood, until ignorance and thoughtlessness
+ believe it. There were orphan asylums in China, in India, and in Egypt
+ thousands of years before Christ was born; and there certainly never was a
+ time in the history of the whole world when there was less charity in
+ Europe than during the centuries when the Church of Christ had absolute
+ power. There were hundreds of Mohammedan asylums before Christianity had
+ built ten in the entire world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All institutions for the care of unfortunate people should be secular&mdash;should
+ be supported by the State. The money for the purpose should be raised by
+ taxation, to the end that the burden may be borne by those able to bear
+ it. As it is now, most of the money is paid, not by the rich, but by the
+ generous, and those most able to help their needy fellow citizens are the
+ very ones who do nothing. If the money is raised by taxation, then the
+ burden will fall where it ought to fall, and these institutions will no
+ longer be supported by the generous and emotional, and the rich and stingy
+ will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the Sunday laws, we know that they are only spasmodically
+ enforced. Now and then a few people are arrested for selling papers or
+ cigars. Some unfortunate barber is grabbed by a policeman because he has
+ been caught shaving a Christian, Sunday morning. Now and then some poor
+ fellow with a hack, trying to make a dollar or two to feed his horses, or
+ to take care of his wife and children, is arrested as though he were a
+ murderer. But in a few days the public are inconvenienced to that degree
+ that the arrests stop and business goes on in its accustomed channels,
+ Sunday and all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now and then society becomes so pious, so virtuous, that people are
+ compelled to enter saloons by the back door; others are compelled to drink
+ beer with the front shutters up; but otherwise the stream that goes down
+ the thirsty throats is unbroken. The ministers have done their best to
+ prevent all recreation on the Sabbath. They would like to stop all the
+ boats on the Hudson, and on the sea&mdash; stop all the excursion trains.
+ They would like to compel every human being that lives in the city of New
+ York to remain within its limits twenty-four hours every Sunday. They hate
+ the parks; they hate music; they hate anything that keeps a man away from
+ church. Most of the churches are empty during the summer, and now most of
+ the ministers leave themselves, and give over the entire city to the Devil
+ and his emissaries. And yet if the ministers had their way, there would be
+ no form of human enjoyment except prayer, signing subscription papers,
+ putting money in contribution boxes, listening to sermons, reading the
+ cheerful histories of the Old Testament, imagining the joys of heaven and
+ the torments of hell. The church is opposed to the theatre, is the enemy
+ of the opera, looks upon dancing as a crime, hates billiards, despises
+ cards, opposes roller-skating, and even entertains a certain kind of
+ prejudice against croquet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the orthodox church gets its ideas of
+ the Sabbath from the teachings of Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not hold Christ responsible for these idiotic ideas
+ concerning the Sabbath. He regarded the Sabbath as something made for man&mdash;which
+ was a very sensible view. The holiest day is the happiest day. The most
+ sacred day is the one in which have been done the most good deeds. There
+ are two reasons given in the Bible for keeping the Sabbath. One is that
+ God made the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. Now that all
+ the ministers admit that he did not make the world in six days, but that
+ he made it in six "periods," this reason is no longer applicable. The
+ other reason is that he brought the Jews out of Egypt with a "mighty
+ hand." This may be a very good reason still for the observance of the
+ Sabbath by the Jews, but the real Sabbath, that is to say, the day to be
+ commemorated, is our Saturday, and why should we commemorate the wrong
+ day? That disposes of the second reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more inconsistent than the theories and practice of the
+ churches about the Sabbath. The cars run Sundays, and out of the profits
+ hundreds of ministers are supported. The great iron and steel works fill
+ with smoke and fire the Sabbath air, and the proprietors divide the
+ profits with the churches. The printers of the city are busy Sunday
+ afternoons and evenings, and the presses during the nights, so that the
+ sermons of Sunday can reach the heathen on Monday. The servants of the
+ rich are denied the privileges of the sanctuary. The coachman sits on the
+ box out-doors, while his employer kneels in church preparing himself for
+ the heavenly chariot. The iceman goes about on the holy day, keeping
+ believers cool, they knowing at the same time that he is making it hot for
+ himself in the world to come. Christians cross the Atlantic, knowing that
+ the ship will pursue its way on the Sabbath. They write letters to their
+ friends knowing that they will be carried in violation of Jehovah's law,
+ by wicked men. Yet they hate to see a pale-faced sewing girl enjoying a
+ few hours by the sea; a poor mechanic walking in the fields; or a tired
+ mother watching her children playing on the grass. Nothing ever was,
+ nothing ever will be, more utterly absurd and disgusting than a Puritan
+ Sunday. Nothing ever did make a home more hateful than the strict
+ observance of the Sabbath. It fills the house with hypocrisy and the
+ meanest kind of petty tyranny. The parents look sour and stern, the
+ children sad and sulky. They are compelled to talk upon subjects about
+ which they feel no interest, or to read books that are thought good only
+ because they are so stupid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say about the growth of Catholicism, the
+ activity of the Salvation Army, and the success of revivalists like the
+ Rev. Samuel Jones? Is Christianity really gaining a strong hold on the
+ masses?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Catholicism is growing in this country, and it is the only
+ country on earth in which it is growing. Its growth here depends entirely
+ upon immigration, not upon intellectual conquest. Catholic emigrants who
+ leave their homes in the Old World because they have never had any
+ liberty, and who are Catholics for the same reason, add to the number of
+ Catholics here, but their children's children will not be Catholics. Their
+ children will not be very good Catholics, and even these immigrants
+ themselves, in a few years, will not grovel quite so low in the presence
+ of a priest. The Catholic Church is gaining no ground in Catholic
+ countries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Salvation Army is the result of two things&mdash;the general belief in
+ what are known as the fundamentals of Christianity, and the heartlessness
+ of the church. The church in England&mdash;that is to say, the Church of
+ England&mdash;having succeeded&mdash;that is to say, being supported by
+ general taxation&mdash;that is to say, being a successful, well-fed
+ parasite&mdash;naturally neglected those who did not in any way contribute
+ to its support. It became aristocratic. Splendid churches were built;
+ younger sons with good voices were put in the pulpits; the pulpit became
+ the asylum for aristocratic mediocrity, and in this way the Church of
+ England lost interest in the masses and the masses lost interest in the
+ Church of England. The neglected poor, who really had some belief in
+ religion, and who had not been absolutely petrified by form and patronage,
+ were ready for the Salvation Army. They were not at home in the church.
+ They could not pay. They preferred the freedom of the street. They
+ preferred to attend a church where rags were no objection. Had the church
+ loved and labored with the poor the Salvation Army never would have
+ existed. These people are simply giving their idea of Christianity, and in
+ their way endeavoring to do what they consider good. I don't suppose the
+ Salvation Army will accomplish much. To improve mankind you must change
+ conditions. It is not enough to work simply upon the emotional nature. The
+ surroundings must be such as naturally produce virtuous actions. If we are
+ to believe recent reports from London, the Church of England, even with
+ the assistance of the Salvation Army, has accomplished but little. It
+ would be hard to find any country with less morality. You would search
+ long in the jungles of Africa to find greater depravity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I account for revivalists like the Rev. Samuel Jones in the same way.
+ There is in every community an ignorant class&mdash;what you might call a
+ literal class&mdash;who believe in the real blood atonement; who believe
+ in heaven and hell, and harps and gridirons; who have never had their
+ faith weakened by reading commentators or books harmonizing science and
+ religion. They love to hear the good old doctrine; they want hell
+ described; they want it described so that they can hear the moans and
+ shrieks; they want heaven described; they want to see God on a throne, and
+ they want to feel that they are finally to have the pleasure of looking
+ over the battlements of heaven and seeing all their enemies among the
+ damned. The Rev. Mr. Munger has suddenly become a revivalist. According to
+ the papers he is sought for in every direction. His popularity seems to
+ rest upon the fact that he brutally beat a girl twelve years old because
+ she did not say her prayers to suit him. Muscular Christianity is what the
+ ignorant people want. I regard all these efforts&mdash;including those
+ made by Mr. Moody and Mr. Hammond&mdash;as evidence that Christianity, as
+ an intellectual factor, has almost spent its force. It no longer governs
+ the intellectual world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are not the Catholics the least progressive? And are they
+ not, in spite of their professions to the contrary, enemies to republican
+ liberty?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Every church that has a standard higher than human welfare
+ is dangerous. A church that puts a book above the laws and constitution of
+ its country, that puts a book above the welfare of mankind, is dangerous
+ to human liberty. Every church that puts itself above the legally
+ expressed will of the people is dangerous. Every church that holds itself
+ under greater obligation to a pope than to a people is dangerous to human
+ liberty. Every church that puts religion above humanity&mdash;above the
+ well-being of man in this world&mdash;is dangerous. The Catholic Church
+ may be more dangerous, not because its doctrines are more dangerous, but
+ because, on the average, its members more sincerely believe its doctrines,
+ and because that church can be hurled as a solid body in any given
+ direction. For these reasons it is more dangerous than other churches; but
+ the doctrines are no more dangerous than those of the Protestant churches.
+ The man who would sacrifice the well- being of man to please an imaginary
+ phantom that he calls God, is also dangerous. The only safe standard is
+ the well-being of man in this world. Whenever this world is sacrificed for
+ the sake of another, a mistake has been made. The only God that man can
+ know is the aggregate of all beings capable of suffering and of joy within
+ the reach of his influence. To increase the happiness of such beings is to
+ worship the only God that man can know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say to the assertion of Dr. Deems that
+ there were never so many Christians as now?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose that the population of the earth is greater now
+ than at any other time within the historic period. This being so, there
+ may be more Christians, so-called, in this world than there were a hundred
+ years ago. Of course, the reverend doctor, in making up his aggregate of
+ Christians, counts all kinds and sects&mdash;Unitarians, Universalists,
+ and all the other "ans" and "ists" and "ics" and "ites" and "ers." But Dr.
+ Deems must admit that only a few years ago most of the persons he now
+ calls Christians would have been burnt as heretics and Infidels. Let us
+ compare the average New York Christian with the Christian of two hundred
+ years ago. It is probably safe to say that there is not now in the city of
+ New York a genuine Presbyterian outside of an insane asylum. Probably no
+ one could be found who will to-day admit that he believes absolutely in
+ the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. There is probably not an
+ Episcopalian who believes in the Thirty-nine Articles. Probably there is
+ not an intelligent minister in the city of New York, outside of the
+ Catholic Church, who believes that everything in the Bible is true.
+ Probably no clergyman, of any standing, would be willing to take the
+ ground that everything in the Old Testament&mdash;leaving out the question
+ of inspiration&mdash;is actually true. Very few ministers now preach the
+ doctrine of eternal punishment. Most of them would be ashamed to utter
+ that brutal falsehood. A large majority of gentlemen who attend church
+ take the liberty of disagreeing with the preacher. They would have been
+ very poor Christians two hundred years ago. A majority of the ministers
+ take the liberty of disagreeing, in many things, with their Presbyteries
+ and Synods. They would have been very poor preachers two hundred years
+ ago. Dr. Deems forgets that most Christians are only nominally so. Very
+ few believe their creeds. Very few even try to live in accordance with
+ what they call Christian doctrines. Nobody loves his enemies. No Christian
+ when smitten on one cheek turns the other. Most Christians do take a
+ little thought for the morrow. They do not depend entirely upon the
+ providence of God. Most Christians now have greater confidence in the
+ average life-insurance company than in God&mdash;feel easier when dying to
+ know that they have a policy, through which they expect the widow will
+ receive ten thousand dollars, than when thinking of all the Scripture
+ promises. Even church-members do not trust in God to protect their own
+ property. They insult heaven by putting lightning rods on their temples.
+ They insure the churches against the act of God. The experience of man has
+ shown the wisdom of relying on something that we know something about,
+ instead of upon the shadowy supernatural. The poor wretches to-day in
+ Spain, depending upon their priests, die like poisoned flies; die with
+ prayers between their pallid lips; die in their filth and faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say on the Mormon question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The institution of polygamy is infamous and disgusting
+ beyond expression. It destroys what we call, and all civilized people
+ call, "the family." It pollutes the fireside, and, above all, as Burns
+ would say, "petrifies the feeling." It is, however, one of the
+ institutions of Jehovah. It is protected by the Bible. It has inspiration
+ on its side. Sinai, with its barren, granite peaks, is a perpetual witness
+ in its favor. The beloved of God practiced it, and, according to the
+ sacred word, the wisest man had, I believe, about seven hundred wives.
+ This man received his wisdom directly from God. It is hard for the average
+ Bible worshiper to attack this institution without casting a certain stain
+ upon his own book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago slavery was upheld by the same Bible. Slavery having
+ been abolished, the passages in the inspired volume upholding it have been
+ mostly forgotten, but polygamy lives, and the polygamists, with great
+ volubility, repeat the passages in their favor. We send our missionaries
+ to Utah, with their Bibles, to convert the Mormons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Mormons show, by these very Bibles, that God is on their side. Nothing
+ remain now for the missionaries except to get back their Bibles and come
+ home. The preachers do not appeal to the Bible for the purpose of putting
+ down Mormonism. They say: "Send the army." If the people of this country
+ could only be honest; if they would only admit that the Old Testament is
+ but the record of a barbarous people; if the Samson of the nineteenth
+ century would not allow its limbs to be bound by the Delilah of
+ superstition, it could with one blow destroy this monster. What shall we
+ say of the moral force of Christianity, when it utterly fails in the
+ presence of Mormonism? What shall we say of a Bible that we dare not read
+ to a Mormon as an argument against legalized lust, or as an argument
+ against illegal lust?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am opposed to polygamy. I want it exterminated by law; but I hate to see
+ the exterminators insist that God, only a few thousand years ago, was as
+ bad as the Mormons are to-day. In my judgment, such a God ought to be
+ exterminated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of men like the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
+ and the Rev. R. Heber Newton? Do they deserve any credit for the course
+ they have taken?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Beecher is evidently endeavoring to shore up the walls
+ of the falling temple. He sees the cracks; he knows that the building is
+ out of plumb; he feels that the foundation is insecure. Lies can take the
+ place of stones only so long as they are thoroughly believed. Mr. Beecher
+ is trying to do something to harmonize superstition and science. He is
+ reading between the lines. He has discovered that Darwin is only a later
+ Saint Paul, or that Saint Paul was the original Darwin. He is endeavoring
+ to make the New Testament a scientific text-book. Of course he will fail.
+ But his intentions are good. Thousands of people will read the New
+ Testament with more freedom than heretofore. They will look for new
+ meanings; and he who looks for new meanings will not be satisfied with the
+ old ones. Mr. Beecher, instead of strengthening the walls, will make them
+ weaker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a
+ child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has
+ attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling,
+ palsied wreck says to the athlete: "Let us be friends." It reminds me of
+ the bargain the cock wished to make with the horse: "Let us agree not to
+ step on each other's feet." Mr. Beecher, having done away with hell,
+ substitutes annihilation. His doctrine at present is that only a fortunate
+ few are immortal, and that the great mass return to dreamless dust. This,
+ of course, is far better than hell, and is a great improvement on the
+ orthodox view. Mr. Beecher cannot believe that God would make such a
+ mistake as to make men doomed to suffer eternal pain. Why, I ask, should
+ God give life to men whom he knows are unworthy of life? Why should he
+ annihilate his mistakes? Why should he make mistakes that need
+ annihilation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It can hardly be said that Mr. Beecher's idea is a new one. It was taught,
+ with an addition, thousands of years ago, in India, and the addition
+ almost answers my objection. The old doctrine was that only the soul that
+ bears fruit, only the soul that bursts into blossom, will at the death of
+ the body rejoin the Infinite, and that all other souls&mdash;souls not
+ having blossomed&mdash;will go back into low forms and make the journey up
+ to man once more, and should they then blossom and bear fruit, will be
+ held worthy to join the Infinite, but should they again fail, they again
+ go back; and this process is repeated until they do blossom, and in this
+ way all souls at last become perfect. I suggest that Mr. Beecher make at
+ least this addition to his doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But allow me to say that, in my judgment, Mr. Beecher is doing great good.
+ He may not convince many people that he is right, but he will certainly
+ convince a great many people that Christianity is wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In what estimation do you hold Charles Watts and Samuel
+ Putnam, and what do you think of their labors in the cause of Freethought?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Watts is an extremely logical man, with a direct and
+ straightforward manner and mind. He has paid great attention to what is
+ called "Secularism." He thoroughly understands organization, and he is
+ undoubtedly one of the strongest debaters in the field. He has had great
+ experience. He has demolished more divines than any man of my
+ acquaintance. I have read several of his debates. In discussion he is
+ quick, pertinent, logical, and, above all, good natured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not in all he says a touch of malice. He can afford to be
+ generous to his antagonists, because he is always the victor, and is
+ always sure of the victory. Last winter wherever I went, I heard the most
+ favorable accounts of Mr. Watts. All who heard him were delighted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Putnam is one of the most thorough believers in intellectual liberty
+ in the world. He believes with all his heart, is full of enthusiasm, ready
+ to make any sacrifice, and to endure any hardship. Had he lived a few
+ years ago, he would have been a martyr. He has written some of the most
+ stirring appeals to the Liberals of this country that I have ever read. He
+ believes that Freethought has a future; that the time is coming when the
+ superstitions of the world will either be forgotten, or remembered&mdash;some
+ of them with smiles&mdash;most of them with tears. Mr. Putnam, although
+ endowed with a poetic nature, with poetic insight, clings to the known,
+ builds upon the experience of man, and believes in fancies only when they
+ are used as the wings of a fact. I have never met a man who appeared to be
+ more thoroughly devoted to the great cause of mental freedom. I have read
+ his books with great interest, and find in them many pages filled with
+ philosophy and pathos. I have met him often and I never heard him utter a
+ harsh word about any human being. His good nature is as unfailing as the
+ air. His abilities are of the highest order. It is a positive pleasure to
+ meet him. He is so enthusiastic, so unselfish, so natural, so appreciative
+ of others, so thoughtful for the cause, and so careless of himself, that
+ he compels the admiration of every one who really loves the just and true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Truth Seeker</i>, New York, September 5, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0055" id="link0055">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE PRESIDENT AND SENATE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say with reference to the respective
+ attitudes of the President and Senate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I don't think there is any doubt as to the right of the
+ Senate to call on the President for information. Of course that means for
+ what information he has. When a duty devolves upon two persons, one of
+ them has no right to withhold any facts calculated to throw any light on
+ the question that both are to decide. The President cannot appoint any
+ officer who has to be confirmed by the Senate; he can simply nominate. The
+ Senate cannot even suggest a name; it can only pass upon the person
+ nominated. If it is called upon for counsel and advice, how can it give
+ advice without knowing the facts and circumstances? The President must
+ have a reason for wishing to make a change. He should give that reason to
+ the Senate without waiting to be asked. He has assured the country that he
+ is a civil service reformer; that no man is to be turned out because he is
+ a Republican, and no man appointed because he is a Democrat. Now, the
+ Senate has given the President an opportunity to prove that he has acted
+ as he has talked. If the President feels that he is bound to carry out the
+ civil-service law, ought not the Senate to feel in the same way? Is it not
+ the duty of the Senate to see to it that the President does not, with its
+ advice and consent, violate the civil service law? Is the consent of the
+ Senate a mere matter of form? In these appointments the President is not
+ independent of or above the Senate; they are equal, and each has the right
+ to be "honor bright" with the other, at least.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as this foolish law is unrepealed it must be carried out. Neither
+ party is in favor of civil service reform, and never was. The Republican
+ party did not carry it out, and did not intend to. The President has the
+ right to nominate. Under the law as it is now, when the President wants to
+ appoint a clerk, or when one of his secretaries wants one, four names are
+ sent, and from these four names a choice has to be made. This is clearly
+ an invasion of the rights of the Executive. If they have the right to
+ compel the President to choose from four, why not from three, or two? Why
+ not name the one, and have done with it? The law is worse than
+ unconstitutional&mdash;it is absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in this contest the Senate, in my judgment, is right. In my opinion,
+ by the time Cleveland goes out most of the offices will be filled with
+ Democrats. If the Republicans succeed next time, I know, and everybody
+ knows, that they will never rest easy until they get the Democrats out.
+ They will shout "offensive partisanship." The truth is, the theory is
+ wrong. Every citizen should take an interest in politics. A good man
+ should not agree to keep silent just for the sake of an office. A man owes
+ his best thoughts to his country. If he ought to defend his country in
+ time of war, and under certain circumstances give his life for it, can we
+ say that in time of peace he is under no obligation to discharge what he
+ believes to be a duty, if he happens to hold an office? Must he sell his
+ birthright for the sake of being a doorkeeper? The whole doctrine is
+ absurd and never will be carried out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think as to the presidential race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. That is a good way off. I think the people can hardly be
+ roused to enthusiasm by the old names. Our party must take another step
+ forward. We cannot live on what we have done; we must seek power for the
+ sake, not of power, but for the accomplishment of a purpose. We must
+ reform the tariff. We must settle the question of silver. We must have
+ sense enough to know what the country needs, and courage enough to tell
+ it. By reforming the tariff, I mean protect that and that only that needs
+ protection&mdash; laws for the country and not for the few. We want honest
+ money; we want a dollar's worth of gold in a silver dollar, and a dollar's
+ worth of silver in a gold dollar. We want to make them of equal value.
+ Bi-metallism does not mean that eighty cents' worth of silver is worth one
+ hundred in gold. The Republican party must get back its conscience and be
+ guided by it in deciding the questions that arise. Great questions are
+ pressing for solution. Thousands of working people are in want. Business
+ is depressed. The future is filled with clouds. What does the Republican
+ party propose? Must we wait for mobs to inaugurate reform? Must we depend
+ on police or statesmen? Should we wait and crush by brute force or should
+ we prevent?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The toilers demand that eight hours should constitute a day's work. Upon
+ this question what does our party say? Labor saving machines ought to
+ lighten the burdens of the laborers. It will not do to say "over
+ production" and keep on inventing machines and refuse to shorten the
+ hours. What does our party say? The rich can take care of themselves if
+ the mob will let them alone, and there will be no mob if there is no
+ widespread want. Hunger is a communist. The next candidate of the
+ Republican party must be big enough and courageous enough to answer these
+ questions. If we find that kind of a candidate we shall succeed&mdash;if
+ we do not, we ought not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean</i>, February, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0056" id="link0056">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ATHEISM AND CITIZENSHIP.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you noticed the decision of Mr. Nathaniel Jarvis,
+ Jr., clerk of the Naturalization Bureau of the Court of Common Pleas, that
+ an Atheist cannot become a citizen?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, but I do not think it necessary for a man to be a
+ theist in order to become or to remain a citizen of this country. The
+ various laws, from 1790 up to 1828, provided that the person wishing to be
+ naturalized might make oath or affirmation. The first exception you will
+ find in the Revised Statutes of the United States passed in 1873-74,
+ section 2,165, as follows:&mdash;"An alien may be admitted to become a
+ citizen of the United States in the following manner, and not otherwise:&mdash;First,
+ he shall declare on oath, before a Circuit or District Court of the United
+ States, etc." I suppose Mr. Jarvis felt it to be his duty to comply with
+ this section. In this section there is nothing about affirmation &mdash;only
+ the word "oath" is used&mdash;and Mr. Jarvis came to the conclusion that
+ an Atheist could not take an oath, and, therefore, could not declare his
+ intention legally to become a citizen of the United States. Undoubtedly
+ Mr. Jarvis felt it his duty to stand by the law and to see to it that
+ nobody should become a citizen of this country who had not a well defined
+ belief in the existence of a being that he could not define and that no
+ man has ever been able to define. In other words, that he should be
+ perfectly convinced that there is a being "without body, parts or
+ passions," who presides over the destinies of this world, and more
+ especially those of New York in and about that part known as City Hall
+ Park.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Was not Mr. Jarvis right in standing by the law?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If Mr. Jarvis is right, neither Humboldt nor Darwin could
+ have become a citizen of the United States. Wagner, the greatest of
+ musicians, not being able to take an oath, would have been left an alien.
+ Under this ruling Haeckel, Spencer and Tyndall would be denied citizenship&mdash;that
+ is to say, the six greatest men produced by the human race in the
+ nineteenth century, were and are unfit to be citizens of the United
+ States. Those who have placed the human race in debt cannot be citizens of
+ the Republic. On the other hand, the ignorant wife beater, the criminal,
+ the pauper raised in the workhouse, could take the necessary oath and
+ would be welcomed by New York "with arms outstretched as she would fly."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You have quoted one statute. Is there no other applicable
+ to this case?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am coming to that. If Mr. Jarvis will take the pains to
+ read not only the law of naturalization in section 2,165 of the Revised
+ Statutes of the United States, but the very first chapter in the book,
+ "Title I.," he will find in the very first section this sentence: "The
+ requirements of any 'oath' shall be deemed complied with by making
+ affirmation in official form." This applies to section 2,165. Of course an
+ Atheist can affirm, and the statute provides that wherever an oath is
+ required affirmation may be made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Did you read the recent action of Judge O'Gorman, of the
+ Superior Court, in refusing naturalization papers to an applicant because
+ he had not read the Constitution of the United States?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I did. The United States Constitution is a very important
+ document, a good, sound document, but it is talked about a great deal more
+ than it is read. I'll venture that you may commence at the Battery to
+ interview merchants and other business men about the Constitution and you
+ will talk with a hundred before you will find one who has ever read it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Herald</i>, August 8, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0057" id="link0057">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE LABOR QUESTION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your remedy, Colonel, for the labor troubles of
+ the day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. One remedy is this: I should like to see the laboring men
+ succeed. I should like to see them have a majority in Congress and with a
+ President of their own. I should like to see this so that they could
+ satisfy themselves how little, after all, can be accomplished by
+ legislation. The moment responsibility should touch their shoulders they
+ would become conservative. They would find that making a living in this
+ world is an individual affair, and that each man must look out for
+ himself. They would soon find that the Government cannot take care of the
+ people. The people must support the Government. Everything cannot be
+ regulated by law. The factors entering into this problem are substantially
+ infinite and beyond the intellectual grasp of any human being. Perhaps
+ nothing in the world will convince the laboring man how little can be
+ accomplished by law until there is opportunity of trying. To discuss the
+ question will do good, so I am in favor of its discussion. To give the
+ workingmen a trial will do good, so I am in favor of giving them a trial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But you have not answered my question: I asked you what
+ could be done, and you have told me what could not be done. Now, is there
+ not some better organization of society that will help in this trouble?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Undoubtedly. Unless humanity is a failure, society will
+ improve from year to year and from age to age. There will be, as the years
+ go by, less want, less injustice, and the gifts of nature will be more
+ equally divided, but there will never come a time when the weak can do as
+ much as the strong, or when the mentally weak can accomplish as much as
+ the intellectually strong. There will forever be inequality in society;
+ but, in my judgment, the time will come when an honest, industrious person
+ need not want. In my judgment, that will come, not through governmental
+ control, not through governmental slavery, not through what is called
+ Socialism, but through liberty and through individuality. I can conceive
+ of no greater slavery than to have everything done by the Government. I
+ want free scope given to individual effort. In time some things that
+ governments have done will be removed. The creation of a nobility, the
+ giving of vast rights to corporations, and the bestowment of privileges on
+ the few will be done away with. In other words, governmental interference
+ will cease and man will be left more to himself. The future will not do
+ away with want by charity, which generally creates more want than it
+ alleviates, but by justice and intelligence. Shakespeare says, "There is
+ no darkness but ignorance," and it might be added that ignorance is the
+ mother of most suffering.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Enquirer</i>, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 30, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0058" id="link0058">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ RAILROADS AND POLITICS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You are intimately acquainted with the great railroad
+ managers and the great railroad systems, and what do you think is the
+ great need of the railways to-day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The great need of the railroads to-day is more business,
+ more cars, better equipments, better pay for the men and less gambling in
+ Wall Street.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it your experience that public men usually ride on
+ passes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, whenever they can get them. Passes are for the rich.
+ Only those are expected to pay who can scarcely afford it. Nothing
+ shortens a journey, nothing makes the road as smooth, nothing keeps down
+ the dust and keeps out the smoke like a pass.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Don't you think that the pass system is an injustice
+ &mdash;that is, that ordinary travelers are taxed for the man who rides on
+ a pass?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly, those who pay, pay for those who do not. This is
+ one of the misfortunes of the obscure. It is so with everything. The big
+ fish live on the little ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are not parallel railroads an evil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, unless they are too near together. Competition does
+ some good and some harm, but it must exist. All these things must be left
+ to take care of themselves. If the Government interferes it is at the
+ expense of the manhood and liberty of the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But wouldn't it be better for the people if the railroads
+ were managed by the Government as is the Post-Office?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, everything that individual can do should be left to
+ them. If the Government takes charge of the people they become weak and
+ helpless. The people should take charge of the Government. Give the folks
+ a chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In the next presidential contest what will be the main
+ issue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Maine issue!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would you again refuse to take the stump for Mr. Blaine
+ if he should be renominated, and if so, why?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not expect to take the stump for anybody. Mr. Blaine
+ is probably a candidate, and if he is nominated there will be plenty of
+ people on the stump&mdash;or fence&mdash;or up a tree or somewhere in the
+ woods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are the most glaring mistakes of Cleveland's
+ administration?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. First, accepting the nomination. Second, taking the oath of
+ office. Third, not resigning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Times Star</i>, Cincinnati, September 30, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0059" id="link0059">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROHIBITION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How much importance do you attach to the present
+ prohibition movement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No particular importance. I am opposed to prohibition and
+ always have been, and hope always to be. I do not want the Legislature to
+ interfere in these matters. I do not believe that the people can be made
+ temperate by law. Men and women are not made great and good by the law.
+ There is no good in the world that cannot be abused. Prohibition fills the
+ world with spies and tattlers, and, besides that, where a majority of the
+ people are not in favor of it the law will not be enforced; and where a
+ majority of the people are in favor of it there is not much need of the
+ law. Where a majority are against it, juries will violate their oath, and
+ witnesses will get around the truth, and the result is demoralization.
+ Take wine and malt liquors out of the world and we shall lose a vast deal
+ of good fellowship; the world would lose more than it would gain. There is
+ a certain sociability about wine that I should hate to have taken from the
+ earth. Strong liquors the folks had better let alone. If prohibition
+ succeeds, and wines and malt liquors go, the next thing will be to take
+ tobacco away, and the next thing all other pleasures, until prayer
+ meetings will be the only places of enjoyment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you care to say who your choice is for Republican
+ nominee for President in 1888?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I now promise that I will answer this question either in
+ May or June, 1888. At present my choice is not fixed, and is liable to
+ change at any moment, and I need to leave it free, so that it can change
+ from time to time as the circumstances change. I will, however, tell you
+ privately that I think it will probably be a new man, somebody on whom the
+ Republicans can unite. I have made a good many inquiries myself to find
+ out who this man is to be, but in every instance the answer has been
+ determined by the location in which the gentleman lived who gave the
+ answer. Let us wait.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the Republican party should take a decided
+ stand on the temperance issue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do; and that decided stand should be that temperance is
+ an individual question, something with which the State and Nation have
+ nothing to do. Temperance is a thing that the law cannot control. You
+ might as well try to control music, painting, sculpture, or metaphysics,
+ as the question of temperance. As life becomes more valuable, people will
+ learn to take better care of it. There is something more to be desired
+ even than temperance, and that is liberty. I do not believe in putting out
+ the sun because weeds grow. I should rather have some weeds than go
+ without wheat and corn. The Republican party should represent liberty and
+ individuality; it should keep abreast of the real spirit of the age; the
+ Republican party ought to be intelligent enough to know that progress has
+ been marked not by the enactment of new laws, but by the repeal of old
+ ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Evening Traveler</i>, Boston, October, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0060" id="link0060">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HENRY GEORGE AND LABOR.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is said, Colonel Ingersoll, that you are for Henry
+ George?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course; I think it the duty of the Republicans to defeat
+ the Democracy&mdash;a solemn duty&mdash;and I believe that they have a
+ chance to elect George; that is to say, an opportunity to take New York
+ from their old enemy. If the Republicans stand by George he will succeed.
+ All the Democratic factions are going to unite to beat the workingmen.
+ What a picture! Now is the time for the Republicans to show that all their
+ sympathies are not given to bankers, corporations and millionaires. They
+ were on the side of the slave&mdash;they gave liberty to millions. Let
+ them take another step and extend their hands to the sons of toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My heart beats with those who bear the burdens of this poor world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not think that capital is entitled to protection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am in favor of accomplishing all reforms in a legal and
+ orderly way, and I want the laboring people of this country to appeal to
+ the ballot. All classes and all interests must be content to abide the
+ result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want the laboring people to show that they are intelligent enough to
+ stand by each other. Henry George is their natural leader. Let them be
+ true to themselves by being true to him. The great questions between
+ capital and labor must be settled peaceably. There is no excuse for
+ violence, and no excuse for contempt and scorn. No country can be
+ prosperous while the workers want and the idlers waste. Those who do the
+ most should have the most. There is no civilized country, so far as I
+ know, but I believe there will be, and I want to hasten they day when the
+ map of the world will give the boundaries of that blessed land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you agree with George's principles? Do you believe in
+ socialism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not understand that George is a Socialist. He is on
+ the side of those that work&mdash;so am I. He wants to help those that
+ need help&mdash;so do I. The rich can take care of themselves. I shed no
+ tears over the miseries of capital. I think of the men in mines and
+ factories, in huts, hovels and cellars; of the poor sewing women; of the
+ poor, the hungry and the despairing. The world must be made better through
+ intelligence. I do not go with the destroyers, with those that hate the
+ successful, that hate the generous, simply because they are rich. Wealth
+ is the surplus produced by labor, and the wealth of the world should keep
+ the world from want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Herald</i>, October 13, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0061" id="link0061">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LABOR QUESTION AND SOCIALISM.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Henry George for mayor?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Several objections have been urged, not to what Mr. George
+ has done, but to what Mr. George has thought, and he is the only candidate
+ up to this time against whom a charge of this character could be made.
+ Among other things, he seems to have entertained an idea to the effect
+ that a few men should not own the entire earth; that a child coming into
+ the world has a right to standing room, and that before he walks, his
+ mother has a right to standing room while she holds him. He insists that
+ if it were possible to bottle the air, and sell it as we do mineral water,
+ it would be hardly fair for the capitalists of the world to embark in such
+ a speculation, especially where millions were allowed to die simply
+ because they were not able to buy breath at "pool prices." Mr. George
+ seems to think that the time will come when capital will be intelligent
+ enough and civilized enough to take care of itself. He has a dream that
+ poverty and crime and all the evils that go hand in hand with partial
+ famine, with lack of labor, and all the diseases born of living in huts
+ and cellars, born of poor food and poor clothing and of bad habits, will
+ disappear, and that the world will be really fit to live in. He goes so
+ far as to insist that men ought to have more than twenty-three or
+ twenty-four dollars a month for digging coal, and that they ought not to
+ be compelled to spend that money in the store or saloon of the proprietor
+ of the mine. He has also stated on several occasions that a man ought not
+ to drive a street car for sixteen or eighteen hours a day&mdash;that even
+ a street-car driver ought to have the privilege now and then of seeing his
+ wife, or at least one of the children, awake. And he has gone so far as to
+ say that a letter-carrier ought not to work longer in each day for the
+ United States than he would for a civilized individual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To people that imagine that this world is already perfection; that the
+ condition of no one should be bettered except their own, these ideas seem
+ dangerous. A man who has already amassed a million, and who has no fear
+ for the future, and who says: "I will employ the cheapest labor and make
+ men work as long as they can possibly endure the toil," will regard Mr.
+ George as an impractical man. It is very probable that all of us will be
+ dead before all the theories of Mr. George are put in practice. Some of
+ them, however, may at some time benefit mankind; and so far as I am
+ concerned, I am willing to help hasten the day, although it may not come
+ while I live. I do not know that I agree with many of the theories of Mr.
+ George. I know that I do not agree with some of them. But there is one
+ thing in which I do agree with him, and that is, in his effort to benefit
+ the human race, in his effort to do away with some of the evils that now
+ afflict mankind. I sympathize with him in his endeavor to shorten the
+ hours of labor, to increase the well- being of laboring men, to give them
+ better houses, better food, and in every way to lighten the burdens that
+ now bear upon their bowed backs. It may be that very little can be done by
+ law, except to see that they are not absolutely abused; to see that the
+ mines in which they work are supplied with air and with means of escape in
+ time of danger; to prevent the deforming of children by forcing upon them
+ the labor of men; to shorten the hours of toil, and to give all laborers
+ certain liens, above all other claims, for their work. It is easy to see
+ that in this direction something may be done by law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel Ingersoll, are you a Socialist?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am an Individualist instead of a Socialist. I am a
+ believer in individuality and in each individual taking care of himself,
+ and I want the Government to do just as little as it can consistently with
+ the safety of the nation, and I want as little law as possible&mdash;only
+ as much as will protect life, reputation and property by punishing
+ criminals and by enforcing honest contracts. But if a government gives
+ privileges to a few, the few must not oppress the many. The Government has
+ no right to bestow any privilege upon any man or upon any corporation,
+ except for the public good. That which is a special privilege to the few,
+ should be a special benefit to the many. And whenever the privileged few
+ abuse the privilege so that it becomes a curse to the many, the privilege,
+ whatever it is, should be withdrawn. I do not pretend to know enough to
+ suggest a remedy for all the evils of society. I doubt if one human mind
+ could take into consideration the almost infinite number of factors
+ entering into such a problem. And this fact that no one knows, is the
+ excuse for trying. While I may not believe that a certain theory will
+ work, still, if I feel sure it will do no harm, I am willing to see it
+ tried.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that Mr. George would make a good mayor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I presume he would. He is a thoughtful, prudent man. His
+ reputation for honesty has never, so far as I know, been called in
+ question. It certainly does not take a genius to be mayor of New York. If
+ so, there have been some years when there was hardly a mayor. I take it
+ that a clear-headed, honest man, whose only object is to do his duty, and
+ with courage enough to stand by his conscience, would make a good mayor of
+ New York or of any other city.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you in sympathy with the workingmen and their
+ objects?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am in sympathy with laboring men of all kinds, whether
+ they labor with hand or brain. The Knights of Labor, I believe, do not
+ allow a lawyer to become a member. I am somewhat wider in my sympathies.
+ No men in the world struggle more heroically; no men in the world have
+ suffered more, or carried a heavier cross, or worn a sharper crown of
+ thorns, than those that have produced what we call the literature of our
+ race. So my sympathies extend all the way from hod-carriers to sculptors;
+ from well-diggers to astronomers. If the objects of the laboring men are
+ to improve their condition without injuring others; to have homes and
+ firesides, and wives and children; plenty to eat, good clothes to wear; to
+ develop their minds, to educate their children&mdash;in short, to become
+ prosperous and civilized, I sympathize with them, and hope they will
+ succeed. I have not the slightest sympathy with those that wish to
+ accomplish all these objects through brute force. A Nihilist may be
+ forgiven in Russia&mdash;may even be praised in Russia; a Socialist may be
+ forgiven in Germany; and certainly a Home-ruler can be pardoned in
+ Ireland, but in the United States there is no place for Anarchist,
+ Socialist or Dynamiter. In this country the political power has been
+ fairly divided. Poverty has just as many votes as wealth. No man can be so
+ poor as not to have a ballot; no man is rich enough to have two; and no
+ man can buy another vote, unless somebody is mean enough and contemptible
+ enough to sell; and if he does sell his vote, he never should complain
+ about the laws or their administration. So the foolish and the wise are on
+ an equality, and the political power of this country is divided so that
+ each man is a sovereign.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the laboring people are largely in the majority in this country. If
+ there are any laws oppressing them, they should have them repealed. I want
+ the laboring people&mdash;and by the word "laboring" now, I include only
+ the men that they include by that word&mdash;to unite; I want them to show
+ that they have the intelligence to act together, and sense enough to vote
+ for a friend. I want them to convince both the other great parties that
+ they cannot be purchased. This will be an immense step in the right
+ direction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have sometimes thought that I should like to see the laboring men in
+ power, so that they would realize how little, after all, can be done by
+ law. All that any man should ask, so far as the Government is concerned,
+ is a fair chance to compete with his neighbors. Personally, I am for the
+ abolition of all special privileges that are not for the general good. My
+ principal hope of the future is the civilization of my race; the
+ development not only of the brain, but of the heart. I believe the time
+ will come when we shall stop raising failures, when we shall know
+ something of the laws governing human beings. I believe the time will come
+ when we shall not produce deformed persons, natural criminals. In other
+ words, I think the world is going to grow better and better. This may not
+ happen to this nation or to what we call our race, but it may happen to
+ some other race, and all that we do in the right direction hastens that
+ day and that race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the old parties are about to die?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is very hard to say. The country is not old enough for
+ tables of mortality to have been calculated upon parties. I suppose a
+ party, like anything else, has a period of youth, of manhood and decay.
+ The Democratic party is not dead. Some men grow physically strong as they
+ grow mentally weak. The Democratic party lived out of office, and in
+ disgrace, for twenty-five years, and lived to elect a President. If the
+ Democratic party could live on disgrace for twenty-five years it now looks
+ as though the Republican party, on the memory of its glory and of its
+ wonderful and unparalleled achievements, might manage to creep along for a
+ few years more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York World</i>, October 26, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0062" id="link0062">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HENRY GEORGE AND SOCIALISM.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the result of the election?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I find many dead on the field whose faces I recognize. I
+ see that Morrison has taken a "horizontal" position. Free trade seems to
+ have received an exceedingly black eye. Carlisle, in my judgment, one of
+ the very best men in Congress, has been defeated simply because he is a
+ free trader, and I suppose you can account for Hurd's defeat in the same
+ way. The people believe in protection although they generally admit that
+ the tariff ought to be reformed. I believe in protecting "infant
+ industries," but I do not believe in rocking the cradle when the infant is
+ seven feet high and wears number twelve boots.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you sympathize with the Socialists, or do you think
+ that the success of George would promote socialism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have said frequently that if I lived in Russia I should
+ in all probability be a Nihilist. I can conceive of no government that
+ would not be as good as that of Russia, and I would consider <i>no</i>
+ government far preferable to that government. Any possible state of
+ anarchy is better than organized crime, because in the chaos of anarchy
+ justice may be done by accident, but in a government organized for the
+ perpetuation of slavery, and for the purpose of crushing out of the human
+ brain every noble thought, justice does not live. In Germany I would
+ probably be a Socialist&mdash;to this extent, that I would want the
+ political power honestly divided among the people. I can conceive of no
+ circumstance in which I could support Bismarck. I regard Bismarck as a
+ projection of the Middle Ages, as a shadow that has been thrown across the
+ sunlight of modern civilization, and in that shadow grow all the bloodless
+ crimes. Now, in Ireland, of course, I believe in home rule. In this
+ country I am an Individualist. The political power here is equally
+ divided. Poverty and wealth have the same power at the ballot-box.
+ Intelligence and ignorance are on an equality here, simply because all men
+ have a certain interest in the government where they live. I hate above
+ all other things the tyranny of a government. I do not want a government
+ to send a policeman along with me to keep me from buying eleven eggs for a
+ dozen. I will take care of myself. I want the people to do everything they
+ can do, and the Government to keep its hands off, because if the
+ Government attends to all these matters the people lose manhood, and in a
+ little while become serfs, and there will arise some strong mind and some
+ powerful hand that will reduce them to actual slavery. So I am in favor or
+ personal liberty to the largest extent. Whenever the Government grants
+ privileges to the few, these privileges should be for the benefit of the
+ many, and when they cease to be for the benefit of the many, they should
+ be taken from the few and used by the government itself for the benefit of
+ the whole people. And I want to see in this country the Government so
+ administered that justice will be done to all as nearly as human
+ institutions can produce such a result. Now, I understand that in any
+ state of society there will be failures. We have failures among the
+ working people. We have had some failures in Congress. I will not mention
+ the names, because your space is limited. There have been failures in the
+ pulpit, at the bar; in fact, in every pursuit of life you will presume we
+ shall have failures with us for a great while; at least until the
+ establishment of the religion of the body, when we shall cease to produce
+ failures; and I have faith enough in the human race to believe that that
+ time will come, but I do not expect it during my life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the income tax as a step toward the
+ accomplishment of what you desire?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There are some objections to an income tax. First, the
+ espionage that it produces on the part of the Government. Second, the
+ amount of perjury that it annually produces. Men hate to have their
+ business inquired into if they are not doing well. They often pay a very
+ large tax to make their creditors think they are prosperous. Others by
+ covering up, avoid the tax. But I will say this with regard to taxation:
+ The great desideratum is stability. If we tax only the land, and that were
+ the only tax, in a little while every other thing, and the value of every
+ other thing, would adjust itself in relation to that tax, and perfect
+ justice would be the result. That is to say, if it were stable long enough
+ the burden would finally fall upon the right backs in every department.
+ The trouble with taxation is that it is continually changing&mdash;not
+ waiting for the adjustment that will naturally follow provided it is
+ stable. I think the end, so far as land is concerned, could be reached by
+ cumulative taxation&mdash;that is to say, a man with a certain amount of
+ land paying a very small per cent., with more land, and increased per
+ cent., and let that per cent. increase rapidly enough so that no man could
+ afford to hold land that he did not have a use for. So I believe in
+ cumulative taxation in regard to any kind of wealth. Let a man worth ten
+ million dollars pay a greater per cent. than one worth one hundred
+ thousand, because he is able to pay it. The other day a man was talking to
+ me about having the dead pay the expenses of the Government; that whenever
+ a man died worth say five million dollars, one million should go to the
+ Government; that if he died worth ten million dollars, three millions
+ should go to the Government; if he died worth twenty million dollars,
+ eight million should go to the Government, and so on. He said that in this
+ way the expenses of the Government could be borne by the dead. I should be
+ in favor of cumulative taxation upon legacies&mdash; the greater the
+ legacy, the greater the per cent. of taxation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, of course, I am not foolish enough to suppose that I understand these
+ questions. I am giving you a few guesses. My only desire is to guess
+ right. I want to see the people of this world live for this world, and I
+ hope the time will come when a civilized man will understand that he
+ cannot be perfectly happy while anybody else is miserable; that a
+ perfectly civilized man could not enjoy a dinner knowing that others were
+ starving; that he could not enjoy the richest robes if he knew that some
+ of his fellow-men in rags and tatters were shivering in the blast. In
+ other words, I want to carry out the idea there that I have so frequently
+ uttered with regard to the other world; that is, that no gentleman angel
+ could be perfectly happy knowing that somebody else was in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are the chances for the Republican party in 1888?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If it will sympathize with the toilers, as it did with the
+ slaves; if it will side with the needy; if it will only take the right
+ side it will elect the next President. The poor should not resort to
+ violence; the rich should appeal to the intelligence of the working
+ people. These questions cannot be settled by envy and scorn. The motto of
+ both parties should be: "Come, let us reason together." The Republican
+ party was the grandest organization that ever existed. It was brave,
+ intelligent and just. It sincerely loved the right. A certificate of
+ membership was a patent of nobility. If it will only stand by the right
+ again, its victorious banner will float over all the intelligent sons of
+ toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Times</i>, Chicago, Illinois, November 4, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0063" id="link0063">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ REPLY TO THE REV. B. F. MORSE.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* At the usual weekly meeting of the Baptist ministers at
+ the Publication Rooms yesterday, the Rev. Dr. B. F. Morse
+ read an essay on "Christianity vs. Materialism." His
+ contention was that all nature showed that design, not
+ evolution, was its origin.
+
+ In his concluding remarks Dr. Morse said that he knew from
+ unquestionable authority, that Robert G. Ingersoll did not
+ believe what he uttered in his lectures, and that to get out
+ of a financial embarrassment he looked around for a money
+ making scheme that could be put into immediate execution.
+ To lecture against Christianity was the most rapid way of
+ giving him the needed cash and, what was quite as acceptable
+ to him, at the same time, notoriety.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ This aquatic or web-footed theologian who expects to go to heaven by
+ diving is not worth answering. Nothing can be more idiotic than to answer
+ an argument by saying he who makes it does not believe it. Belief has
+ nothing to do with the cogency or worth of an argument. There is another
+ thing. This man, or rather this minister, says that I attacked
+ Christianity simply to make money. Is it possible that, after preachers
+ have had the field for eighteen hundred years, the way to make money is to
+ attack the clergy? Is this intended as a slander against me or the
+ ministers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble is that my arguments cannot be answered. All the preachers in
+ the world cannot prove that slavery is better than liberty. They cannot
+ show that all have not an equal right to think. They cannot show that all
+ have not an equal right to express their thoughts. They cannot show that a
+ decent God will punish a decent man for making the best guess he can. This
+ is all there is about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Herald</i>, New York, December 14, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0064" id="link0064">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INGERSOLL ON McGLYNN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ The attitude of the Roman Catholic Church in Dr. McGlynn's case is
+ consistent with the history and constitution of the Catholic Church
+ &mdash;perfectly consistent with its ends, its objects, and its means&mdash;
+ and just as perfectly inconsistent with intellectual liberty and the real
+ civilization of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a man becomes a Catholic priest, he has been convinced that he ought
+ not to think for himself upon religious questions. He has become convinced
+ that the church is the only teacher&mdash;that he has a right to think
+ only to enforce its teachings. From that moment he is a moral machine. The
+ chief engineer resides at Rome, and he gives his orders through certain
+ assistant engineers until the one is reached who turns the crank, and the
+ machine has nothing to do one way or the other. This machine is paid for
+ giving up his liberty by having machines under him who have also given up
+ theirs. While somebody else turns his crank, he has the pleasure of
+ turning a crank belonging to somebody below him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the Catholic Church is supposed to be the only perfect
+ institution on earth. All others are not only imperfect, but unnecessary.
+ All others have been made either by man, or by the Devil, or by a
+ partnership, and consequently cannot be depended upon for the civilization
+ of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Catholic Church gets its power directly from God, and is the only
+ institution now in the world founded by God. There was never any other, so
+ far as I know, except polygamy and slavery and a crude kind of monarchy,
+ and they have been, for the most part, abolished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Catholic Church must be true to itself. It must claim everything, and
+ get what it can. It alone is infallible. It alone has all the wisdom of
+ this world. It alone has the right to exist. All other interests are
+ secondary. To be a Catholic is of the first importance. Human liberty is
+ nothing. Wealth, position, food, clothing, reputation, happiness&mdash;all
+ these are less than worthless compared with what the Catholic Church
+ promises to the man who will throw all these away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A priest must preach what his bishop tells him. A bishop must preach what
+ his archbishop tells him. The pope must preach what he says God tells him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. McGlynn cannot make a compromise with the Catholic Church. It never
+ compromises when it is in the majority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not mean by this that the Catholic Church is worse than any other.
+ All are alike in this regard. Every sect, no matter how insignificant;
+ every church, no matter how powerful, asks precisely the same thing from
+ every member&mdash;that is to say, a surrender of intellectual freedom.
+ The Catholic Church wants the same as the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and
+ the Methodist&mdash;it wants the whole earth. It is ambitious to be the
+ one supreme power. It hopes to see the world upon its knees, with all its
+ tongues thrust out for wafers. It has the arrogance of humility and the
+ ferocity of universal forgiveness. In this respect it resembles every
+ other sect. Every religion is a system of slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the religionists say that they do not believe in persecution;
+ that they do not believe in burning and hanging and whipping or loading
+ with chains a man simply because he is an Infidel. They are willing to
+ leave all this with God, knowing that a being of infinite goodness will
+ inflict all these horrors and tortures upon an honest man who differs with
+ the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In case Dr. McGlynn is deprived of his priestly functions, it is hard to
+ say what effect it will have upon his church and the labor party in the
+ country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So long as a man believes that a church has eternal joy in store for him,
+ so long as he believes that a church holds within its hand the keys of
+ heaven and hell, it will be hard to make him trade off the hope of
+ everlasting happiness for a few good clothes and a little good food and
+ higher wages here. He finally thinks that, after all, he had better work
+ for less and go a little hungry, and be an angel forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hope, however, that a good many people who have been supporting the
+ Catholic Church by giving tithes of the wages of weariness will see, and
+ clearly see, that Catholicism is not their friend; that the church cannot
+ and will not support them; that, on the contrary, they must support the
+ church. I hope they will see that all the prayers have to be paid for,
+ although not one has ever been answered. I hope they will perceive that
+ the church is on the side of wealth and power, that the mitre is the
+ friend of the crown, that the altar is the sworn brother of the throne. I
+ hope they will finally know that the church cares infinitely more for the
+ money of the millionaire than for the souls of the poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, there are thousands of individual exceptions. I am speaking of
+ the church as an institution, as a corporation&mdash;and when I say the
+ church, I include all churches. It is said of corporations in general,
+ that they have no soul, and it may truthfully be said of the church that
+ it has less than any other. It lives on alms. It gives nothing for what it
+ gets. It has no sympathy. Beggars never weep over the misfortunes of other
+ beggars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could give me more pleasure than to see the Catholic Church on the
+ side of human freedom; nothing more pleasure than to see the Catholics of
+ the world&mdash;those who work and weep and toil&mdash; sensible enough to
+ know that all the money paid for superstition is worse than lost. I wish
+ they could see that the counting of beads, and the saying of prayers and
+ celebrating of masses, and all the kneelings and censer-swingings and
+ fastings and bell-ringing, amount to less than nothing&mdash;that all
+ these things tend only to the degradation of mankind. It is hard, I know,
+ to find an antidote for a poison that was mingled with a mother's milk.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The laboring masses, so far as the Catholics are concerned, are filled
+ with awe and wonder and fear about the church. This fear began to grow
+ while they were being rocked in their cradles, and they still imagine that
+ the church has some mysterious power; that it is in direct communication
+ with some infinite personality that could, if it desired, strike then
+ dead, or damn their souls forever. Persons who have no such belief, who
+ care nothing for popes or priests or churches or heavens or hells or
+ devils or gods, have very little idea of the power of fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old dogmas filled the brain with strange monsters. The soul of the
+ orthodox Christian gropes and wanders and crawls in a kind of dungeon,
+ where the strained eyes see fearful shapes, and the frightened flesh
+ shrinks from the touch of serpents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The good part of Christianity&mdash;that is to say, kindness, morality
+ &mdash;will never go down. The cruel part ought to go down. And by the
+ cruel part I mean the doctrine of eternal punishment&mdash;of allowing the
+ good to suffer for the bad&mdash;allowing innocence to pay the debt of
+ guilt. So the foolish part of Christianity&mdash;that is to say, the
+ miraculous&mdash;will go down. The absurd part must perish. But there will
+ be no war about it as there was in France. Nobody believes enough in the
+ foolish part of Christianity now to fight for it. Nobody believes with
+ intensity enough in miracles to shoulder a musket. There is probably not a
+ Christian in New York willing to fight for any story, no matter if the
+ story is so old that it is covered with moss. No mentally brave and
+ intelligent man believes in miracles, and no intelligent man cares whether
+ there was a miracle or not, for the reason that every intelligent man
+ knows that the miraculous has no possible connection with the moral. "Thou
+ shalt not steal," is just as good a commandment if it should turn out that
+ the flood was a drouth. "Thou shalt not murder," is a good and just and
+ righteous law, and whether any particular miracle was ever performed or
+ not has nothing to do with the case. There is no possible relation between
+ these things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am on the side not only of the physically oppressed, but of the mentally
+ oppressed. I hate those who put lashes on the body, and I despise those
+ who put the soul in chains. In other words, I am in favor of liberty. I do
+ not wish that any man should be the slave of his fellow-men, or that the
+ human race should be the slaves of any god, real or imaginary. Man has the
+ right to think for himself, to work for himself, to take care of himself,
+ to get bread for himself, to get a home for himself. He has a right to his
+ own opinion about God, and heaven and hell; the right to learn any art or
+ mystery or trade; the right to work for whom he will, for what he will,
+ and when he will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world belongs to the human race. There is to be no war in this country
+ on religious opinions, except a war of words&mdash;a conflict of thoughts,
+ of facts; and in that conflict the hosts of superstition will go down.
+ They may not be defeated to-day, or to-morrow, or next year, or during
+ this century, but they are growing weaker day by day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This priest, McGlynn, has the courage to stand up against the propaganda.
+ What would have been his fate a few years ago? What would have happened to
+ him in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy&mdash;in any other country that was
+ Catholic&mdash;only a few years ago? Yet he stands here in New York, he
+ refuses to obey God's vicegerent; he freely gives his mind to an
+ archbishop; he holds the holy Inquisition in contempt. He has done a great
+ thing. He is undoubtedly an honest man. He never should have been a
+ Catholic. He has no business in that church. He has ideas of his own&mdash;theories,
+ and seems to be governed by principles. The Catholic Church is not his
+ place. If he remains, he must submit, he must kneel in the humility of
+ abjectness; he must receive on the back of his independence the lashes of
+ the church. If he remains, he must ask the forgiveness of slaves for
+ having been a man. If he refuses to submit, the church will not have him.
+ He will be driven to take his choice&mdash; to remain a member,
+ humiliated, shunned, or go out into the great, free world a citizen of the
+ Republic, with the rights, responsibilities, and duties of an American
+ citizen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that Dr. McGlynn is an honest man, and that he really believes
+ in the land theories of Mr. George. I have no confidence in his theories,
+ but I have confidence that he is actuated by the best and noblest motives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you to go on the lecture platform again?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I expect to after a while. I am now waiting for the church
+ to catch up. I got so far ahead that I began almost to sympathize with the
+ clergy. They looked so helpless and talked in such a weak, wandering, and
+ wobbling kind of way that I felt as though I had been cruel. From the
+ papers I see that they are busy trying to find out who the wife of Cain
+ was. I see that the Rev. Dr. Robinson, of New York, is now wrestling with
+ that problem. He begins to be in doubt whether Adam was the first man,
+ whether Eve was the first woman; suspects that there were other races, and
+ that Cain did not marry his sister, but somebody else's sister, and that
+ the somebody else was not Cain's brother. One can hardly over- estimate
+ the importance of these questions, they have such a direct bearing on the
+ progress of the world. If it should turn out that Adam was the first man,
+ or that he was not the first man, something might happen&mdash;I am not
+ prepared to say what, but it might.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a curious kind of a spectacle to see a few hundred people paying a
+ few thousand dollars a year for the purpose of hearing these great
+ problems discussed: "Was Adam the first man?" "Who was Cain's wife?" "Has
+ anyone seen a map of the land of Nod?" "Where are the four rivers that ran
+ murmuring through the groves of Paradise?" "Who was the snake? How did he
+ walk? What language did he speak?" This turns a church into a kind of
+ nursery, makes a cradle of each pew, and gives to each member a rattle
+ with which he can amuse what he calls his mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great theologians of Andover&mdash;the gentlemen who wear the brass
+ collars furnished by the dead founder&mdash;have been disputing among
+ themselves as to what is to become of the heathen who fortunately died
+ before meeting any missionary from that institution. One can almost afford
+ to be damned hereafter for the sake of avoiding the dogmas of Andover
+ here. Nothing more absurd and childish has ever happened&mdash;not in the
+ intellectual, but in the theological world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no need of the Freethinkers saying anything at present. The work
+ is being done by the church members themselves. They are beginning to ask
+ questions of the clergy. They are getting tired of the old ideas&mdash;tired
+ of the consolations of eternal pain&mdash;tired of hearing about hell&mdash;tired
+ of hearing the Bible quoted or talked about&mdash;tired of the scheme of
+ redemption&mdash;tired of the Trinity, of the plenary inspiration of the
+ barbarous records of a barbarous people&mdash;tired of the patriarchs and
+ prophets&mdash;tired of Daniel and the goats with three horns, and the
+ image with the clay feet, and the little stone that rolled down the hill&mdash;tired
+ of the mud man and the rib woman&mdash;tired of the flood of Noah, of the
+ astronomy of Joshua, the geology of Moses&mdash;tired of Kings and
+ Chronicles and Lamentations&mdash;tired of the lachrymose Jeremiah&mdash;tired
+ of the monstrous, the malicious, and the miraculous. In short, they are
+ beginning to think. They have bowed their necks to the yoke of ignorance
+ and fear and impudence and superstition, until they are weary. They long
+ to be free. They are tired of the services&mdash; tired of the meaningless
+ prayers&mdash;tired of hearing each other say, "Hear us, good Lord"&mdash;tired
+ of the texts, tired of the sermons, tired of the lies about spontaneous
+ combustion as a punishment for blasphemy, tired of the bells, and they
+ long to hear the doxology of superstition. They long to have Common Sense
+ lift its hands in benediction and dismiss the congregation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Brooklyn Citizen</i>, April, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0065" id="link0065">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the trial of the Chicago Anarchists
+ and their chances for a new trial?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have paid some attention to the evidence and to the
+ rulings of the court, and I have read the opinion of the Supreme Court of
+ Illinois, in which the conviction is affirmed. Of course these men were
+ tried during a period of great excitement&mdash;tried when the press
+ demanded their conviction&mdash;when it was asserted that society was on
+ the edge of destruction unless these men were hanged. Under such
+ circumstances, it is not easy to have a fair and impartial trial. A judge
+ should either sit beyond the reach of prejudice, in some calm that storms
+ cannot invade, or he should be a kind of oak that before any blast he
+ would stand erect. It is hard to find such a place as I have suggested and
+ not easy to find such a man. We are all influenced more or less by our
+ surroundings, by the demands and opinions and feelings and prejudices of
+ our fellow- citizens. There is a personality made up of many individuals
+ known as society. This personality has prejudices like an individual. It
+ often becomes enraged, acts without the slightest sense, and repents at
+ its leisure. It is hard to reason with a mob whether organized or
+ disorganized, whether acting in the name of the law or of simple brute
+ force. But in any case, where people refuse to be governed by reason, they
+ become a mob.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not think that these men had a fair trial?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have no doubt that the court endeavored to be fair&mdash;
+ no doubt that Judge Gary is a perfectly honest, upright man, but I think
+ his instructions were wrong. He instructed the jury to the effect that
+ where men have talked in a certain way, and where the jury believed that
+ the result of such talk might be the commission of a crime, that such men
+ are responsible for that crime. Of course, there is neither law nor sense
+ in an instruction like this. I hold that it must have been the intention
+ of the man making the remark, or publishing the article, or doing the
+ thing&mdash;it must have been his intention that the crime should be
+ committed. Men differ as to the effect of words, and a man may say a thing
+ with the best intentions the result of which is a crime, and he may say a
+ thing with the worst of intentions and the result may not be a crime. The
+ Supreme Court of Illinois seemed to have admitted that the instructions
+ were wrong, but took the ground that it made no difference with the
+ verdict. This is a dangerous course for the court of last resort to
+ pursue; neither is it very complimentary to the judge who tried the case,
+ that his instructions had no effect upon the jury. Under the instructions
+ of the court below, any man who had been arrested with the seven
+ Anarchists and of whom it could be proved that he had ever said a word in
+ favor of any change in government, or of other peculiar ideas, no matter
+ whether he knew of the meeting at the Haymarket or not, would have been
+ convicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am satisfied that the defendant Fielden never intended to harm a human
+ being. As a matter of fact, the evidence shows that he was making a speech
+ in favor of peace at the time of the occurrence. The evidence also shows
+ that he was an exceedingly honest, industrious, and a very poor and
+ philanthropic man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you uphold the Anarchists?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly not. There is no place in this country for the
+ Anarchist. The source of power here is the people, and to attack the
+ political power is to attack the people. If the laws are oppressive, it is
+ the fault of the oppressed. If the laws touch the poor and leave them
+ without redress, it is the fault of the poor. They are in a majority. The
+ men who work for their living are the very men who have the power to make
+ every law that is made in the United States. There is no excuse for any
+ resort to violence in this country. The boycotting by trades unions and by
+ labor organizations is all wrong. Let them resort to legal methods and to
+ no other. I have not the slightest sympathy with the methods that have
+ been pursued by Anarchists, or by Socialists, or by any other class that
+ has resorted to force or intimidation. The ballot-box is the place to
+ assemble. The will of the people can be made known in that way, and their
+ will can be executed. At the same time, I think I understand what has
+ produced the Anarchist, the Socialist, and the agitator. In the old
+ country, a laboring man, poorly clad, without quite enough to eat, with a
+ wife in rags, with a few children asking for bread&mdash;this laboring man
+ sees the idle enjoying every luxury of this life; he sees on the breast of
+ "my lady" a bonfire of diamonds; he sees "my lord" riding in his park; he
+ sees thousands of people who from the cradle to the grave do no useful
+ act; add nothing to the intellectual or the physical wealth of the world;
+ he sees labor living in the tenement house, in the hut; idleness and
+ nobility in the mansion and the palace; the poor man a trespasser
+ everywhere except upon the street, where he is told to "move on," and in
+ the dusty highways of the country. That man naturally hates the government&mdash;the
+ government of the few, the government that lives on the unpaid labor of
+ the many, the government that takes the child from the parents, and puts
+ him in the army to fight the child of another poor man and woman in some
+ other country. These Anarchists, these Socialists, these agitators, have
+ been naturally produced. All the things of which I have spoken sow in the
+ breast of poverty the seeds of hatred and revolution. These poor men,
+ hunted by the officers of the law, cornered, captured, imprisoned, excite
+ the sympathy of other poor men, and if some are dragged to the gallows and
+ hanged, or beheaded by the guillotine, they become saints and martyrs, and
+ those who sympathize with them feel that they have the power, and only the
+ power of hatred&mdash;the power of riot, of destruction&mdash;the power of
+ the torch, of revolution, that is to say, of chaos and anarchy. The
+ injustice of the higher classes makes the lower criminal. Then there is
+ another thing. The misery of the poor excites in many noble breasts
+ sympathy, and the men who thus sympathize wish to better the condition of
+ their fellows. At first they depend upon reason, upon calling the
+ attention of the educated and powerful to the miseries of the poor.
+ Nothing happens, no result follows. The Juggernaut of society moves on,
+ and the wretches are still crushed beneath the great wheels. These men who
+ are really good at first, filled with sympathy, now become indignant&mdash;they
+ are malicious, then destructive and criminal. I do not sympathize with
+ these methods, but I do sympathize with the general object that all good
+ and generous people seek to accomplish&mdash;namely, to better the
+ condition of the human race. Only the other day, in Boston, I said that we
+ ought to take into consideration the circumstances under which the
+ Anarchists were reared; that we ought to know that every man is
+ necessarily produced; that man is what he is, not by accident, but
+ necessity; that society raises its own criminals&mdash;that it plows the
+ soil and cultivates and harvests the crop. And it was telegraphed that I
+ had defended anarchy. Nothing was ever further from my mind. There is no
+ place, as I said before, for anarchy in the United States. In Russia it is
+ another question; in Germany another question. Every country that is
+ governed by the one man, or governed by the few, is the victim of anarchy.
+ That <i>is</i> anarchy. That is the worst possible form of socialism. The
+ definition of socialism given by its bitterest enemy is, that idlers wish
+ to live on the labor and on the money of others. Is not this definition&mdash;a
+ definition given in hatred&mdash;a perfect definition of every monarchy
+ and of nearly every government in the world? That is to say: The idle few
+ live on the labor and the money of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will the Supreme Court take cognizance of this case and
+ prevent the execution of the judgment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course it is impossible for me to say. At the same time,
+ judging from the action of Justice Miller in the case of <i>The People vs.
+ Maxwell</i>, it seems probable that the Supreme Court may interfere, but I
+ have not examined the question sufficiently to form an opinion. My feeling
+ about the whole matter is this: That it will not tend to answer the ideas
+ advanced by these men, to hang them. Their execution will excite sympathy
+ among thousands and thousands of people who have never examined and knew
+ nothing of the theories advanced by the Anarchists, or the Socialists, or
+ other agitators. In my judgment, supposing the men to be guilty, it is far
+ better to imprison them. Less harm will be done the cause of free
+ government. We are not on the edge of any revolution. No other government
+ is as firmly fixed as ours. No other government has such a broad and
+ splendid foundation. We have nothing to fear. Courage and safety can
+ afford to be generous&mdash;can afford to act without haste and without
+ the feeling of revenge. So, for my part, I hope that the sentence may be
+ commuted, and that these men, if found guilty at last, may be imprisoned.
+ This course is, in my judgment, the safest to pursue. It may be that I am
+ led to this conclusion, because of my belief that every man does as he
+ must. This belief makes me charitable toward all the world. This belief
+ makes me doubt the wisdom of revenge. This belief, so far as I am
+ concerned, blots from our language the word "punishment." Society has a
+ right to protect itself, and it is the duty of society to reform, in so
+ far as it may be possible, any member who has committed what is called a
+ crime. Where the criminal cannot be reformed, and the safety of society
+ can be secured by his imprisonment, there is no possible excuse for
+ destroying his life. After these six or seven men have been, in accordance
+ with the forms of law, strangled to death, there will be a few pieces of
+ clay, and about them will gather a few friends, a few admirers&mdash;and
+ these pieces will be buried, and over the grave will be erected a
+ monument, and those who were executed as criminals will be regarded by
+ thousands as saints. It is far better for society to have a little mercy.
+ The effect upon the community will be good. If these men are imprisoned,
+ people will examine their teachings without prejudice. If they are
+ executed, seen through the tears of pity, their virtues, their sufferings,
+ their heroism, will be exaggerated; others may emulate their deeds, and
+ the gulf between the rich and the poor will be widened&mdash;a gulf that
+ may not close until it has devoured the noblest and the best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Mail and Express</i>, New York, November 3, 1887.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0066" id="link0066">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE STAGE AND THE PULPIT.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Methodist minister at Nashville,
+ Tenn., who, from his pulpit, denounced the theatrical profession, without
+ exception, as vicious, and of the congregation which passed resolutions
+ condemning Miss Emma Abbott for rising in church and contradicting him,
+ and of the Methodist bishop who likened her to a "painted courtesan," and
+ invoked the aid of the law "for the protection of public worship" against
+ "strolling players"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Methodist minister of whom you speak, without doubt
+ uttered his real sentiments. The church has always regarded the stage as a
+ rival, and all its utterances have been as malicious as untrue. It has
+ always felt that the money given to the stage was in some way taken from
+ the pulpit. It is on this principle that the pulpit wishes everything,
+ except the church, shut up on Sunday. It knows that it cannot stand free
+ and open competition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All well-educated ministers know that the Bible suffers by a comparison
+ with Shakespeare. They know that there is nothing within the lids of what
+ they call "the sacred book" that can for one moment stand side by side
+ with "Lear" or "Hamlet" or "Julius C&aelig;sar" or "Antony and Cleopatra"
+ or with any other play written by the immortal man. They know what a poor
+ figure the Davids and the Abrahams and the Jeremiahs and the Lots, the
+ Jonahs, the Jobs and the Noahs cut when on the stage with the great
+ characters of Shakespeare. For these reasons, among others, the pulpit is
+ malicious and hateful when it thinks of the glories of the stage. What
+ minister is there now living who could command the prices commanded by
+ Edwin Booth or Joseph Jefferson; and what two clergymen, by making a
+ combination, could contend successfully with Robson and Crane? How many
+ clergymen would it take to command, at regular prices, the audiences that
+ attend the presentation of Wagner's operas?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is very easy to see why the pulpit attacks the stage. Nothing could
+ have been in more wretched taste than for the minister to condemn Miss
+ Emma Abbott for rising in church and defending not only herself, but other
+ good women who are doing honest work for an honest living. Of course, no
+ minister wishes to be answered; no minister wishes to have anyone in the
+ congregation call for the proof. A few questions would break up all the
+ theology in the world. Ministers can succeed only when congregations keep
+ silent. When superstition succeeds, doubt must be dumb.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Methodist bishop who attacked Miss Abbott simply repeated the language
+ of several centuries ago. In the laws of England actors were described as
+ "sturdy vagrants," and this bishop calls them "strolling players." If we
+ only had some strolling preachers like Garrick, like Edwin Forrest, or
+ Booth or Barrett, or some crusade sisters like Mrs. Siddons, Madam
+ Ristori, Charlotte Cushman, or Madam Modjeska, how fortunate the church
+ would be!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the relative merits of the pulpit
+ and the stage, preachers and actors?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We must remember that the stage presents an ideal life. It
+ is a world controlled by the imagination&mdash;a world in which the
+ justice delayed in real life may be done, and in which that may happen
+ which, according to the highest ideal, should happen. It is a world, for
+ the most part, in which evil does not succeed, in which the vicious are
+ foiled, in which the right, the honest, the sincere, and the good prevail.
+ It cultivates the imagination, and in this respect is far better than the
+ pulpit. The mission of the pulpit is to narrow and shrivel the human mind.
+ The pulpit denounces the freedom of thought and of expression; but on the
+ stage the mind is free, and for thousands of years the poor, the
+ oppressed, the enslaved, have been permitted to witness plays wherein the
+ slave was freed, wherein the oppressed became the victor, and where the
+ downtrodden rose supreme.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there is another thing. The stage has always laughed at the spirit of
+ caste. The low-born lass has loved the prince. All human distinctions in
+ this ideal world have for the moment vanished, while honesty and love have
+ triumphed. The stage lightens the cares of life. The pulpit increases the
+ tears and groans of man. There is this difference: The pretence of honesty
+ and the honesty of pretence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you view the Episcopalian scheme of building a
+ six-million-dollar untaxed cathedral in this city for the purpose of
+ "uniting the sects," and, when that is accomplished, "unifying the world
+ in the love of Christ," and thereby abolishing misery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I regard the building of an Episcopal cathedral simply as a
+ piece of religious folly. The world will never be converted by Christian
+ palaces and temples. Every dollar used in its construction will be wasted.
+ It will have no tendency to unite the various sects; on the contrary, it
+ will excite the envy and jealousy of every other sect. It will widen the
+ gulf between the Episcopalian and the Methodist, between the Episcopalian
+ and the Presbyterian, and this hatred will continue until the other sects
+ build a cathedral just a little larger, and then the envy and the hatred
+ will be on the other side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion will never unify the world, and never will give peace to mankind.
+ There has been more war in the last eighteen hundred years than during any
+ similar period within historic times. War will be abolished, if it ever is
+ abolished, not by religion, but by intelligence. It will be abolished when
+ the poor people of Germany, of France, of Spain, of England, and other
+ countries find that they have no interest in war. When those who pay, and
+ those who do the fighting, find that they are simply destroying their own
+ interests, wars will cease.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There ought to be a national court to decide national difficulties. We
+ consider a community civilized when the individuals of that community
+ submit their differences to a legal tribunal; but there being no national
+ court, nations now sustain, as to each other, the relation of savages&mdash;that
+ is to say, each one must defend its rights by brute force. The
+ establishment of a national court civilizes nations, and tends to do away
+ with war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity caused so much war, so much bloodshed, that Christians were
+ forced to interpolate a passage to account for their history, and the
+ interpolated passage is, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." Suppose
+ that all the money wasted in cathedrals in the Middle Ages had been used
+ for the construction of schoolhouses, academies, and universities, how
+ much better the world would have been! Suppose that instead of supporting
+ hundreds of thousands of idle priests, the money had been given to men of
+ science, for the purpose of finding out something of benefit to the human
+ race here in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of "Christian charity" and the
+ "fatherhood of God" as an economic polity for abolishing poverty and
+ misery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, the world is not to be civilized and clothed and
+ fed through charity. Ordinary charity creates more want than it
+ alleviates. The greatest possible charity is the greatest possible
+ justice. When proper wages are paid, when every one is as willing to give
+ what a thing is worth as he is now willing to get it for less, the world
+ will be fed and clothed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in helping people to help themselves. I believe that
+ corporations, and successful men, and superior men intellectually, should
+ do all within their power to keep from robbing their fellow- men. The
+ superior man should protect the inferior. The powerful should be the
+ shield of the weak. To-day it is, for the most part, exactly the other
+ way. The failures among men become the food of success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is to grow better and better through intelligence, through a
+ development of the brain, through taking advantage of the forces of
+ nature, through science, through chemistry, and through the arts. Religion
+ can do nothing except to sow the seeds of discord between men and nations.
+ Commerce, manufactures, and the arts tend to peace and the well-being of
+ the world. What is known as religion &mdash;that is to say, a system by
+ which this world is wasted in preparation for another&mdash;a system in
+ which the duties of men are greater to God than to his fellow-men&mdash;a
+ system that denies the liberty of thought and expression&mdash;tends only
+ to discord and retrogression. Of course, I know that religious people
+ cling to the Bible on account of the good that is in it, and in spite of
+ the bad, and I know that Freethinkers throw away the Bible on account of
+ the bad that is in it, in spite of the good. I hope the time will come
+ when that book will be treated like other books, and will be judged upon
+ its merits, apart from the fiction of inspiration. The church has no right
+ to speak of charity, because it is an object of charity itself. It gives
+ nothing; all it can do is to receive. At best, it is only a respectable
+ beggar. I never care to hear one who receives alms pay a tribute to
+ charity. The one who gives alms should pay this tribute. The amount of
+ money expended upon churches and priests and all the paraphernalia of
+ superstition, is more than enough to drive the wolves from the doors of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you noticed the progress Catholics are making in the
+ Northwest, discontinuing public schools, and forcing people to send their
+ children to the parochial schools; also, at Pittsburg, Pa., a Roman
+ Catholic priest has been elected principal of a public school, and he has
+ appointed nuns as assistant teachers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Sectarian schools ought not to be supported by public
+ taxation. It is the very essence of religious tyranny to compel a
+ Methodist to support a Catholic school, or to compel a Catholic to support
+ a Baptist academy. Nothing should be taught in the public schools that the
+ teachers do not know. Nothing should be taught about any religion, and
+ nothing should be taught that can, in any way, be called sectarian. The
+ sciences are not religion. There is no such thing as Methodist
+ mathematics, or Baptist botany. In other words, no religion has anything
+ to do with facts. The facts are all secular; the sciences are all of this
+ world. If Catholics wish to establish their own schools for the purpose of
+ preserving their ignorance, they have the right to do so; so has any other
+ denomination. But in this country the State has no right to teach any form
+ of religion whatever. Persons of all religions have the right to advocate
+ and defend any religion in which they believe, or they have the right to
+ denounce all religions. If the Catholics establish parochial schools, let
+ them support such schools; and if they do, they will simply lessen or
+ shorten the longevity of that particular superstition. It has often been
+ said that nothing will repeal a bad law as quickly as its enforcement. So,
+ in my judgment, nothing will destroy any church as certainly, and as
+ rapidly, as for the members of that church to live squarely up to the
+ creed. The church is indebted to its hypocrisy to-day for its life. No
+ orthodox church in the United States dare meet for the purpose of revising
+ the creed. They know that the whole thing would fall to pieces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could be more absurd than for a Roman Catholic priest to teach a
+ public school, assisted by nuns. The Catholic Church is the enemy of human
+ progress; it teaches every man to throw away his reason, to deny his
+ observation and experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Your opinions have frequently been quoted with regard to
+ the Anarchists&mdash;with regard to their trial and execution. Have you
+ any objection to stating your real opinion in regard to the matter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Not in the least. I am perfectly willing that all civilized
+ people should know my opinions on any question in which others than myself
+ can have any interest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was anxious, in the first place, that the defendants should have a fair
+ and impartial trial. The worst form of anarchy is when a judge violates
+ his conscience and bows to a popular demand. A court should care nothing
+ for public opinion. An honest judge decides the law, not as it ought to
+ be, but as it is, and the state of the public mind throws no light upon
+ the question of what the law then is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thought that some of the rulings on the trial of the Anarchists were
+ contrary to law. I think so still. I have read the opinion of the Supreme
+ Court of Illinois, and while the conclusion reached by that tribunal is
+ the law of that case, I was not satisfied with the reasons given, and do
+ not regard the opinion as good law. There is no place for an Anarchist in
+ the United States. There is no excuse for any resort to force; and it is
+ impossible to use language too harsh or too bitter in denouncing the
+ spirit of anarchy in this country. But, no matter how bad a man is, he has
+ the right to be fairly tried; and if he cannot be fairly tried, then there
+ is anarchy on the bench. So I was opposed to the execution of these men. I
+ thought it would have been far better to commute the punishment to
+ imprisonment, and I said so; and I not only said so, but I wrote a letter
+ to Governor Oglesby, in which I urged the commutation of the death
+ sentence. In my judgment, a great mistake was made. I am on the side of
+ mercy, and if I ever make mistakes, I hope they will all be made on that
+ side. I have not the slightest sympathy with the feeling of revenge.
+ Neither have I ever admitted, and I never shall, that every citizen has
+ not the right to give his opinion on all that may be done by any servant
+ of the people, by any judge, or by any court, by any officer&mdash;however
+ small or however great. Each man in the United States is a sovereign, and
+ a king can freely speak his mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Words were put in my mouth that I never uttered with regard to the
+ Anarchists. I never said that they were saints, or that they would be
+ martyrs. What I said was that they would be regarded as saints and martyrs
+ by many people if they were executed, and that has happened which I said
+ would happen. I am, so far as I know, on the side of the right. I wish,
+ above all things, for the preservation of human liberty. This Government
+ is the best, and we should not lose confidence in liberty. Property is of
+ very little value in comparison with freedom. A civilization that rests on
+ slavery is utterly worthless. I do not believe in sacrificing all there is
+ of value in the human heart, or in the human brain, for the preservation
+ of what is called property, or rather, on account of the fear that what is
+ called "property" may perish. Property is in no danger while man is free.
+ It is the freedom of man that gives value to property. It is the happiness
+ of the human race that creates what we call value. If we preserve liberty,
+ the spirit of progress, the conditions of development, property will take
+ care of itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The Christian press during the past few months has been
+ very solicitous as to your health, and has reported you weak and feeble
+ physically, and not only so, but asserts that there is a growing
+ disposition on your part to lay down your arms, and even to join the
+ church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think the Christian press has been very solicitous
+ about my <i>health</i>. Neither do I think that my health will ever add to
+ theirs. The fact is, I am exceedingly well, and my throat is better than
+ it has been for many years. Any one who imagines that I am disposed to lay
+ down my arms can read by Reply to Dr. Field in the November number of the
+ <i>North American Review</i>. I see no particular difference in myself,
+ except this; that my hatred of superstition becomes a little more and more
+ intense; on the other hand, I see more clearly, that all the superstitions
+ were naturally produced, and I am now satisfied that every man does as he
+ must, including priests and editors of religious papers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gives me hope for the future. We find that certain soil, with a
+ certain amount of moisture and heat, produces good corn, and we find when
+ the soil is poor, or when the ground is too wet, or too dry, that no
+ amount of care can, by any possibility, produce good corn. In other words,
+ we find that the fruit, that is to say, the result, whatever it may be,
+ depends absolutely upon the conditions. This being so, we will in time
+ find out the conditions that produce good, intelligent, honest men. This
+ is the hope for the future. We shall know better than to rely on what is
+ called reformation, or regeneration, or a resolution born of ignorant
+ excitement. We shall rely, then, on the eternal foundation&mdash;the fact
+ in nature&mdash; that like causes produce like results, and that good
+ conditions will produce good people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Every now and then some one challenges you to a
+ discussion, and nearly every one who delivers lectures, or speeches,
+ attacking you, or your views, says that you are afraid publicly to debate
+ these questions. Why do you not meet these men, and why do you not answer
+ these attacks?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, it would be a physical impossibility to
+ reply to all the attacks that have been made&mdash;to all the "answers." I
+ receive these attacks, and these answers, and these lectures almost every
+ day. Hundreds of them are delivered every year. A great many are put in
+ pamphlet form, and, of course, copies are received by me. Some of them I
+ read, at least I look them over, and I have never yet received one worthy
+ of the slightest notice, never one in which the writer showed the
+ slightest appreciation of the questions under discussion. All these
+ pamphlets are about the same, and they could, for the matter, have all
+ been produced by one person. They are impudent, shallow, abusive,
+ illogical, and in most respects, ignorant. So far as the lecturers are
+ concerned, I know of no one who has yet said anything that challenges a
+ reply. I do not think a single paragraph has been produced by any of the
+ gentlemen who have replied to me in public, that is now remembered by
+ reason of its logic or beauty. I do not feel called upon to answer any
+ argument that does not at least appear to be of value. Whenever any
+ article appears worthy of an answer, written in a kind and candid spirit,
+ it gives me pleasure to reply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I should like to meet some one who speaks by authority, some one who
+ really understands his creed, but I cannot afford to waste time on little
+ priests or obscure parsons or ignorant laymen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Truth Seeker</i>, New York, January 14, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0067" id="link0067">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ROSCOE CONKLING.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is Mr. Conkling's place in the political history of
+ the United States?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Upon the great questions Mr. Conkling has been right.
+ During the war he was always strong and clear, unwavering and decided. His
+ position was always known. He was right on reconstruction, on civil
+ rights, on the currency, and, so far as I know, on all important
+ questions. He will be remembered as an honest, fearless man. He was
+ admired for his known integrity. He was never even suspected of being
+ swayed by an improper consideration. He was immeasurably above purchase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His popularity rested upon his absolute integrity. He was not adapted for
+ a leader, because he would yield nothing. He had no compromise in his
+ nature. He went his own road and he would not turn aside for the sake of
+ company. His individuality was too marked and his will too imperious to
+ become a leader in a republic. There is a great deal of individuality in
+ this country, and a leader must not appear to govern and must not demand
+ obedience. In the Senate he was a leader. He settled with no one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What essentially American idea does he stand for?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is a favorite saying in this country that the people are
+ sovereigns. Mr. Conkling felt this to be true, and he exercised what he
+ believed to be his rights. He insisted upon the utmost freedom for
+ himself. He settled with no one but himself. He stands for individuality&mdash;for
+ the freedom of the citizen, the independence of the man. No lord, no duke,
+ no king was ever prouder of his title or his place than Mr. Conkling was
+ of his position and his power. He was thoroughly American in every drop of
+ his blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say about his having died with sealed
+ lips?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Conkling was too proud to show wounds. He did not tell
+ his sorrows to the public. It seemed sufficient to him to know the facts
+ himself. He seemed to have great confidence in time, and he had the
+ patience to wait. Of course he could have told many things that would have
+ shed light on many important events, but for my part I think he acted in
+ the noblest way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a striking and original figure in our politics. He stood alone. I
+ know of no one like him. He will be remembered as a fearless and
+ incorruptible statesman, a great lawyer, a magnificent speaker, and an
+ honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Herald</i>, New York, April 19, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0068" id="link0068">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CHURCH AND THE STAGE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I have come to talk with you a little about the drama.
+ Have you any decided opinions on that subject?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nothing is more natural than imitation. The little child
+ with her doll, telling it stories, putting words in its mouth, attributing
+ to it the feelings of happiness and misery, is the simple tendency toward
+ the drama. Little children always have plays, they imitate their parents,
+ they put on the clothes of their elders, they have imaginary parties,
+ carry on conversation with imaginary persons, have little dishes filled
+ with imaginary food, pour tea and coffee out of invisible pots, receive
+ callers, and repeat what they have heard their mothers say. This is simply
+ the natural drama, an exercise of the imagination which always has been
+ and which, probably, always will be, a source of great pleasure. In the
+ early days of the world nothing was more natural than for the people to
+ re-enact the history of their country&mdash;to represent the great heroes,
+ the great battles, and the most exciting scenes the history of which has
+ been preserved by legend. I believe this tendency to re-enact, to bring
+ before the eyes the great, the curious, and pathetic events of history,
+ has been universal. All civilized nations have delighted in the theatre,
+ and the greatest minds in many countries have been devoted to the drama,
+ and, without doubt, the greatest man about whom we know anything devoted
+ his life to the production of plays.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I would like to ask you why, in your opinion as a student
+ of history, has the Protestant Church always been so bitterly opposed to
+ the theatre?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I believe the early Christians expected the destruction of
+ the world. They had no idea of remaining here, in the then condition of
+ things, but for a few days. They expected that Christ would come again,
+ that the world would be purified by fire, that all the unbelievers would
+ be burned up and that the earth would become a fit habitation for the
+ followers of the Saviour. Protestantism became as ascetic as the early
+ Christians. It is hard to conceive of anybody believing in the "Five
+ Points" of John Calvin going to any place of amusement. The creed of
+ Protestantism made life infinitely sad and made man infinitely
+ responsible. According to this creed every man was liable at any moment to
+ be summoned to eternal pain; the most devout Christian was not absolutely
+ sure of salvation. This life was a probationary one. Everybody was
+ considered as waiting on the dock of time, sitting on his trunk, expecting
+ the ship that was to bear him to an eternity of good or evil&mdash;probably
+ evil. They were in no state of mind to enjoy burlesque or comedy, and, so
+ far as tragedy was concerned, their own lives and their own creeds were
+ tragic beyond anything that could by any possibility happen in this world.
+ A broken heart was nothing to be compared with a damned soul; the
+ afflictions of a few years, with the flames of eternity. This, to say the
+ least of it, accounts, in part, for the hatred that Protestantism always
+ bore toward the stage. Of course, the churches have always regarded the
+ theatre as a rival and have begrudged the money used to support the stage.
+ You know that Macaulay said the Puritans objected to bear-baiting, not
+ because they pitied the bears, but because they hated to see the people
+ enjoy themselves. There is in this at least a little truth. Orthodox
+ religion has always been and always will be the enemy of happiness. This
+ world is not the place for enjoyment. This is the place to suffer. This is
+ the place to practice self-denial, to wear crowns of thorns; the other
+ world is the place for joy, provided you are fortunate enough to travel
+ the narrow, grass-grown path. Of course, wicked people can be happy here.
+ People who care nothing for the good of others, who live selfish and
+ horrible lives, are supposed by Christians to enjoy themselves;
+ consequently, they will be punished in another world. But whoever carried
+ the cross of decency, and whoever denied himself to that degree that he
+ neither stole nor forged nor murdered, will be paid for this self-denial
+ in another world. And whoever said that he preferred a prayer-meeting with
+ five or six queer old men and two or three very aged women, with one or
+ two candles, and who solemnly affirmed that he enjoyed that far more than
+ he could a play of Shakespeare, was expected with much reason, I think, to
+ be rewarded in another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that church people were justified in their
+ opposition to the drama in the days when Congreve, Wycherley and Ben
+ Jonson were the popular favorites?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In that time there was a great deal of vulgarity in many of
+ the plays. Many things were said on the stage that the people of this age
+ would not care to hear, and there was not very often enough wit in the
+ saying to redeem it. My principal objection to Congreve, Wycherley and
+ most of their contemporaries is that the plays were exceedingly poor and
+ had not much in them of real, sterling value. The Puritans, however, did
+ not object on account of the vulgarity; that was not the honest objection.
+ No play was ever put upon the English stage more vulgar then the "Table
+ Talk" of Martin Luther, and many sermons preached in that day were almost
+ unrivaled for vulgarity. The worst passages in the Old Testament were
+ quoted with a kind of unction that showed a love for the vulgar. And, in
+ my judgment, the worst plays were as good as the sermons, and the theatre
+ of that time was better adapted to civilize mankind, to soften the human
+ heart, and to make better men and better women, than the pulpit of that
+ day. The actors, in my judgment, were better people than the preachers.
+ They had in them more humanity, more real goodness and more appreciation
+ of beauty, of tenderness, of generosity and of heroism. Probably no
+ religion was ever more thoroughly hateful than Puritanism. But all
+ religionists who believe in an eternity of pain would naturally be opposed
+ to everything that makes this life better; and, as a matter of fact,
+ orthodox churches have been the enemies of painting, of sculpture, of
+ music and the drama.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your estimation, is the value of the drama as a
+ factor in our social life at the present time?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I believe that the plays of Shakespeare are the most
+ valuable things in the possession of the human race. No man can read and
+ understand Shakespeare without being an intellectually developed man. If
+ Shakespeare could be as widely circulated as the Bible&mdash;if all the
+ Bible societies would break the plates they now have and print
+ Shakespeare, and put Shakespeare in all the languages of the world,
+ nothing would so raise the intellectual standard of mankind. Think of the
+ different influence on men between reading Deuteronomy and "Hamlet" and
+ "King Lear"; between studying Numbers and the "Midsummer Night's Dream";
+ between pondering over the murderous crimes and assassinations in Judges,
+ and studying "The Tempest" or "As You Like It." Man advances as he
+ develops intellectually. The church teaches obedience. The man who reads
+ Shakespeare has his intellectual horizon enlarged. He begins to think for
+ himself, and he enjoys living in a new world. The characters of
+ Shakespeare become his acquaintances. He admires the heroes, the
+ philosophers; he laughs with the clowns, and he almost adores the
+ beautiful women, the pure, loving, and heroic women born of Shakespeare's
+ heart and brain. The stage has amused and instructed the world. It had
+ added to the happiness of mankind. It has kept alive all arts. It is in
+ partnership with all there is of beauty, of poetry, and expression. It
+ goes hand in hand with music, with painting, with sculpture, with oratory,
+ with philosophy, and history. The stage has humor. It abhors stupidity. It
+ despises hypocrisy. It holds up to laughter the peculiarities, the
+ idiosyncrasies, and the little insanities of mankind. It thrusts the spear
+ of ridicule through the shield of pretence. It laughs at the lugubrious
+ and it has ever taught and will, in all probability, forever teach, that
+ Man is more than a title, and that human love laughs at all barriers, at
+ all the prejudices of society and caste that tend to keep apart two loving
+ hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the progress of the drama in
+ educating the artistic sense of the community as compared with the
+ progress of the church as an educator of the moral sentiment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, the stage is not all good, nor is&mdash;and I
+ say this with becoming modesty&mdash;the pulpit all bad. There have been
+ bad actors and there have been good preachers. There has been no
+ improvement in plays since Shakespeare wrote. There has been great
+ improvement in theatres, and the tendency seems to me be toward higher
+ artistic excellence in the presentation of plays. As we become slowly
+ civilized we will constantly demand more artistic excellence. There will
+ always be a class satisfied with the lowest form of dramatic presentation,
+ with coarse wit, with stupid but apparent jokes, and there will always be
+ a class satisfied with almost anything; but the class demanding the
+ highest, the best, will constantly increase in numbers, and the other
+ classes will, in all probability, correspondingly decrease. The church has
+ ceased to be an educator. In an artistic direction it never did anything
+ except in architecture, and that ceased long ago. The followers of to-day
+ are poor copyists. The church has been compelled to be a friend of, or
+ rather to call in the assistance of, music. As a moral teacher, the church
+ always has been and always will be a failure. The pulpit, to use the
+ language of Frederick Douglass, has always "echoed the cry of the street."
+ Take our own history. The church was the friend of slavery. That
+ institution was defended in nearly every pulpit. The Bible was the
+ auction-block on which the slave-mother stood while her child was sold
+ from her arms. The church, for hundreds of years, was the friend and
+ defender of the slave-trade. I know of no crime that has not been defended
+ by the church, in one form or another. The church is not a pioneer; it
+ accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless.
+ The church preaches the doctrine of forgiveness. This doctrine sells crime
+ on credit. The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who
+ can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so
+ that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human
+ race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all
+ morality. Happiness ought to be the result of good actions. Happiness
+ ought to spring from the seed a man sows himself. It ought not to be a
+ reward, it ought to be a consequence, and there ought to be no idea that
+ there is any being who can step between action and consequence. To preach
+ that a man can abuse his wife and children, rob his neighbors, slander his
+ fellow-citizens, and yet, a moment or two before he dies, by repentance
+ become a glorified angel is, in my judgment, immoral. And to preach that a
+ man can be a good man, kind to his wife and children, an honest man,
+ paying his debts, and yet, for the lack of a certain belief, the moment
+ after he is dead, be sent to an eternal prison, is also immoral. So that,
+ according to my opinion, while the church teaches men many good things, it
+ also teaches doctrines subversive of morality. If there were not in the
+ whole world a church, the morality of man, in my judgment, would be the
+ gainer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the treatment of the actor by
+ society in his social relations?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. For a good many years the basis of society has been the
+ dollar. Only a few years ago all literary men were ostracized because they
+ had no money; neither did they have a reading public. If any man produced
+ a book he had to find a patron&mdash;some titled donkey, some lauded
+ lubber, in whose honor he could print a few well-turned lies on the
+ fly-leaf. If you wish to know the degradation of literature, read the
+ dedication written by Lord Bacon to James I., in which he puts him beyond
+ all kings, living and dead&mdash;beyond C&aelig;sar and Marcus Aurelius.
+ In those days the literary man was a servant, a hack. He lived in Grub
+ Street. He was only one degree above the sturdy vagrant and the escaped
+ convict. Why was this? He had no money and he lived in an age when money
+ was the fountain of respectability. Let me give you another instance:
+ Mozart, whose brain was a fountain of melody, was forced to eat at table
+ with coachmen, with footmen and scullions. He was simply a servant who was
+ commanded to make music for a pudding-headed bishop. The same was true of
+ the great painters, and of almost all other men who rendered the world
+ beautiful by art, and who enriched the languages of mankind. The basis of
+ respectability was the dollar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now that the literary man has an intelligent public he cares nothing for
+ the ignorant patron. The literary man makes money. The world is becoming
+ civilized and the literary man stands high. In England, however, if
+ Charles Darwin had been invited to dinner, and there had been present some
+ sprig of nobility, some titled vessel holding the germs of hereditary
+ disease, Darwin would have been compelled to occupy a place beneath him.
+ But I have hopes even for England. The same is true of the artist. The man
+ who can now paint a picture by which he receives from five thousand to
+ fifty thousand dollars, is necessarily respectable. The actor who may
+ realize from one to two thousand dollars a night, or even more, is
+ welcomed in the stupidest and richest society. So with the singers and
+ with all others who instruct and amuse mankind. Many people imagine that
+ he who amuses them must be lower than they. This, however, is hardly
+ possible. I believe in the aristocracy of the brain and heart; in the
+ aristocracy of intelligence and goodness, and not only appreciate but
+ admire the great actor, the great painter, the great sculptor, the
+ marvelous singer. In other words, I admire all people who tend to make
+ this life richer, who give an additional thought to this poor world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think this liberal movement, favoring the better
+ class of plays, inaugurated by the Rev. Dr. Abbott, will tend to soften
+ the sentiment of the orthodox churches against the stage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have not read what Dr. Abbott has written on this
+ subject. From your statement of his position, I think he entertains quite
+ a sensible view, and, when we take into consideration that he is a
+ minister, a miraculously sensible view. It is not the business of the
+ dramatist, the actor, the painter or the sculptor to teach what the church
+ calls morality. The dramatist and the actor ought to be truthful, ought to
+ be natural&mdash;that is to say, truthfully and naturally artistic. He
+ should present pictures of life properly chosen, artistically constructed;
+ an exhibition of emotions truthfully done, artistically done. If vice is
+ presented naturally, no one will fall in love with vice. If the better
+ qualities of the human heart are presented naturally, no one can fail to
+ fall in love with them. But they need not be presented for that purpose.
+ The object of the artist is to present truthfully and artistically. He is
+ not a Sunday school teacher. He is not to have the moral effect eternally
+ in his mind. It is enough for him to be truly artistic. Because, as I have
+ said, a great many times, the greatest good is done by indirection. For
+ instance, a man lives a good, noble, honest and lofty life. The value of
+ that life would be destroyed if he kept calling attention to it&mdash;if
+ he said to all who met him, "Look at me!" he would become intolerable. The
+ truly artistic speaks of perfection; that is to say, of harmony, not only
+ of conduct, but of harmony and proportion in everything. The pulpit is
+ always afraid of the passions, and really imagines that it has some
+ influence on men and women, keeping them in the path of virtue. No greater
+ mistake was ever made. Eternally talking and harping on that one subject,
+ in my judgment, does harm. Forever keeping it in the mind by reading
+ passages from the Bible, by talking about the "corruption of the human
+ heart," of the "power of temptation," of the scarcity of virtue, of the
+ plentifulness of vice&mdash;all these platitudes tend to produce exactly
+ what they are directed against.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I fear, Colonel, that I have surprised you into agreeing
+ with a clergyman. The following are the points made by the Rev. Dr. Abbott
+ in his editorial on the theatre, and it seems to me that you and he think
+ very much alike&mdash;on that subject. The points are these:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. It is not the function of the drama to teach moral lessons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. A moral lesson neither makes nor mars either a drama or a novel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. The moral quality of a play does not depend upon the result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. The real function of the drama is like that of the novel&mdash;not to
+ amuse, not to excite; but to portray life, and so minister to it. And as
+ virtue and vice, goodness and evil, are the great fundamental facts of
+ life, they must, in either serious story or serious play, be portrayed. If
+ they are so portrayed that the vice is alluring and the virtue repugnant,
+ the play or story is immoral; if so portrayed that the vice is repellant
+ and the virtue alluring, they play or story is moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. The church has no occasion to ask the theatre to preach; though if it
+ does preach we have a right to demand that its ethical doctrines be pure
+ and high. But we have a right to demand that in its pictures of life it so
+ portrays vice as to make it abhorrent, and so portrays virtue as to make
+ it attractive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I agree in most of what you have read, though I must
+ confess that to find a minister agreeing with me, or to find myself
+ agreeing with a minister, makes me a little uncertain. All art, in my
+ judgment, is for the sake of expression&mdash;equally true of the drama as
+ of painting and sculpture. No poem touches the human heart unless it
+ touches the universal. It must, at some point, move in unison with the
+ great ebb and flow of things. The same is true of the play, of a piece of
+ music or a statue. I think that all real artists, in all departments,
+ touch the universal and when they do the result is good; but the result
+ need not have been a consideration. There is an old story that at first
+ there was a temple erected upon the earth by God himself; that afterward
+ this temple was shivered into countless pieces and distributed over the
+ whole earth, and that all the rubies and diamonds and precious stones
+ since found are parts of that temple. Now, if we could conceive of a
+ building, or of anything involving all Art, and that it had been scattered
+ abroad, then I would say that whoever find and portrays truthfully a
+ thought, an emotion, a truth, has found and restored one of the jewels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Dramatic Mirror</i>, New York, April 21, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0069" id="link0069">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you take much interest in politics, Colonel Ingersoll?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I take as much interest in politics as a Republican ought
+ who expects nothing and who wants nothing for himself. I want to see this
+ country again controlled by the Republican party. The present
+ administration has not, in my judgment, the training and the political
+ intelligence to decide upon the great economic and financial questions.
+ There are a great many politicians and but few statesmen. Here, where men
+ have to be elected every two or six years, there is hardly time for the
+ officials to study statesmanship&mdash;they are busy laying pipes and
+ fixing fences for the next election. Each one feels much like a monkey at
+ a fair, on the top of a greased pole, and puts in the most of his time
+ dodging stones and keeping from falling. I want to see the party in power
+ best qualified, best equipped, to administer the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think will be the particular issue of the
+ coming campaign?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. That question has already been answered. The great question
+ will be the tariff. Mr. Cleveland imagines that the surplus can be gotten
+ rid of by a reduction of the tariff. If the reduction is so great as to
+ increase the demand for foreign articles, the probability is that the
+ surplus will be increased. The surplus can surely be done away with by
+ either of two methods; first make the tariff prohibitory; second, have no
+ tariff. But if the tariff is just at that point where the foreign goods
+ could pay it and yet undersell the American so as to stop home
+ manufactures, then the surplus would increase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule we can depend on American competition to keep prices at a
+ reasonable rate. When that fails we have at all times the governing power
+ in our hands&mdash;that is to say, we can reduce the tariff. In other
+ words, the tariff is not for the benefit of the manufacturer&mdash;the
+ protection is not for the mechanic or the capitalist &mdash;it is for the
+ whole country. I do not believe in protecting silk simply to help the town
+ of Paterson, but I am for the protection of the manufacture, because, in
+ my judgment, it helps the entire country, and because I know that it has
+ given us a far better article of silk at a far lower price than we
+ obtained before the establishment of those factories.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the protection of every industry that needs it, to the end
+ that we may make use of every kind of brain and find use for all human
+ capacities. In this way we will produce greater and better people. A
+ nation of agriculturalists or a nation of mechanics would become narrow
+ and small, but where everything is done, then the brain is cultivated on
+ every side, from artisan to artist. That is to say, we become thinkers as
+ well as workers; muscle and mind form a partnership.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I don't believe that England is particularly interested in the welfare of
+ the United States. It never seemed probable to me that men like Godwin
+ Smith sat up nights fearing that we in some way might injure ourselves. To
+ use a phrase that will be understood by theologians at least, we ought to
+ "copper" all English advice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The free traders say that there ought to be no obstructions placed by
+ governments between buyers and sellers. If we want to make the trade, of
+ course there should be no obstruction, but if we prefer that Americans
+ should trade with Americans&mdash;that Americans should make what
+ Americans want&mdash;then, so far as trading with foreigners is concerned,
+ there ought to be an obstruction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am satisfied that the United States could get along if the rest of the
+ world should be submerged, and I want to see this country in such a
+ condition that it can be independent of the rest of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is more mechanical genius in the United States than in the rest of
+ the world, and this genius has been fostered and developed by protection.
+ The Democracy wish to throw all this away&mdash;to make useless this
+ skill, this ingenuity, born of generations of application and thought.
+ These deft and marvelous hands that create the countless things of use and
+ beauty to be worth no more than the common hands of ignorant delvers and
+ shovelers. To the extent that thought is mingled with labor, labor becomes
+ honorable and its burden lighter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of millions of dollars have been invested on the faith of this
+ policy&mdash;millions and millions of people are this day earning their
+ bread by reason of protection, and they are better housed and better fed
+ and better clothed than any other workmen on the globe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligent people of this country will not be satisfied with
+ President Cleveland's platform&mdash;with his free trade primer. They
+ believe in good wages for good work, and they know that this is the
+ richest nation in the world. The Republic is worth at least sixty billion
+ dollars. This vast sum is the result of labor, and this labor has been
+ protected either directly or indirectly. This vast sum has been made by
+ the farmer, the mechanic, the laborer, the miner, the inventor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Protection has given work and wages to the mechanic and a market to the
+ farmer. The interests of all laborers in America&mdash;all men who work&mdash;are
+ identical. If the farmer pays more for his plow he gets more for his
+ plowing. In old times, when the South manufactured nothing and raised only
+ raw material&mdash;for the reason that its labor was enslaved and could
+ not be trusted with education enough to become skillful&mdash;it was in
+ favor of free trade; it wanted to sell the raw material to England and buy
+ the manufactured article where it could buy the cheapest. Even under those
+ circumstances it was a short-sighted and unpatriotic policy. Now
+ everything is changing in the South. They are beginning to see that he who
+ simply raises raw material is destined to be forever poor. For instance,
+ the farmer who sells corn will never get rich; the farmer should sell pork
+ and beef and horses. So a nation, a State, that parts with its raw
+ material, loses nearly all the profits, for the reason that the profit
+ rises with the skill requisite to produce. It requires only brute strength
+ to raise cotton; it requires something more to spin it, to weave it, and
+ the more beautiful the fabric the greater the skill, and consequently the
+ higher the wages and the greater the profit. In other words, the more
+ thought is mingled with labor the more valuable is the result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides all this, protection is the mother of economy; the cheapest at
+ last, no matter whether the amount paid is less or more. It is far better
+ for us to make glass than to sell sand to other countries; the profit on
+ sand will be exceedingly small.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The interests of this country are united; they depend upon each other. You
+ destroy one and the effect upon all the rest may be disastrous. Suppose we
+ had free trade to-day, what would become of the manufacturing interests
+ to-morrow? The value of property would fall thousands of millions of
+ dollars in an instant. The fires would die out in thousands and thousands
+ of furnaces, innumerable engines would stop, thousands and thousands would
+ stop digging coal and iron and steel. What would the city that had been
+ built up by the factories be worth? What would be the effect on farms in
+ that neighborhood? What would be the effect on railroads, on freights, on
+ business&mdash;what upon the towns through which they passed? Stop making
+ iron in Pennsylvania, and the State would be bankrupt in an hour. Give us
+ free trade, and New Jersey, Connecticut and many other States would not be
+ worth one dollar an acre.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a man will think of the connection between all industries&mdash;of the
+ dependence and inter-dependence of each on all; of the subtle relations
+ between all human pursuits&mdash;he will see that to destroy some of the
+ grand interest makes financial ruin and desolation. I am not talking now
+ about a tariff that is too high, because that tariff does not produce a
+ surplus&mdash;neither am I asking to have that protected which needs no
+ protection&mdash;I am only insisting that all the industries that have
+ been fostered and that need protection should be protected, and that we
+ should turn our attention to the interests of our own country, letting
+ other nations take care of themselves. If every American would use only
+ articles produced by Americans&mdash;if they would wear only American
+ cloth, only American silk&mdash;if we would absolutely stand by each
+ other, the prosperity of this nation would be the marvel of human history.
+ We can live at home, and we have now the ingenuity, the intelligence, the
+ industry to raise from nature everything that a nation needs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say about the claim that Mr. Cleveland
+ does not propose free trade?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I suppose that he means what he said. His argument was all
+ for free trade, and he endeavored to show to the farmer that he lost
+ altogether more money by protection, because he paid a higher price for
+ manufactured articles and received no more for what he had to sell. This
+ certainly was an argument in favor of free trade. And there is no way to
+ decrease the surplus except to prohibit the importation of foreign
+ articles, which certainly Mr. Cleveland is not in favor of doing, or to
+ reduce the tariff to a point so low that no matter how much may be
+ imported the surplus will be reduced. If the message means anything it
+ means free trade, and if there is any argument in it it is an argument in
+ favor of absolutely free trade. The party, not willing to say "free trade"
+ uses the word "reform." This is simply a mask and a pretence. The party
+ knows that the President made a mistake. The party, however, is so
+ situated that it cannot get rid of Cleveland, and consequently must take
+ him with his mistake&mdash;they must take him with his message, and then
+ show that all he intended by "free trade" was "reform."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Who do you think ought to be nominated at Chicago?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Personally, I am for General Gresham. I am saying nothing
+ against the other prominent candidates. They have their friends, and many
+ of them are men of character and capacity, and would make good Presidents.
+ But I know of no man who has a better record than Gresham, and of no man
+ who, in my judgment, would receive a larger number of votes. I know of no
+ Republican who would not support Judge Gresham. I have never heard one say
+ that he had anything against him or know of any reason why he should not
+ be voted for. He is a man of great natural capacity. He is candid and
+ unselfish. He has for many years been engaged in the examination and
+ decision of important questions, of good principles, and consequently he
+ has a trained mind. He knows how to take hold of a question, to get at a
+ fact, to discover in a multitude of complications the real principle&mdash;the
+ heart of the case. He has always been a man of affairs. He is not simply a
+ judge&mdash;that is to say, a legal pair of scales&mdash;he knows the
+ effect of his decision on the welfare of communities&mdash;he is not
+ governed entirely by precedents&mdash;he has opinions of his own. In the
+ next place, he is a man of integrity in all the relations of life. He is
+ not a seeker after place, and, so far as I know, he has done nothing for
+ the purpose of inducing any human being to favor his nomination. I have
+ never spoken to him on the subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the West he has developed great strength, in fact, his popularity has
+ astonished even his best friends. The great mass of people want a
+ perfectly reliable man&mdash;one who will be governed by his best judgment
+ and by a desire to do the fair and honorable thing. It has been stated
+ that the great corporations might not support him with much warmth for the
+ reason that he has failed to decide certain cases in their favor. I
+ believe that he has decided the law as he believed it to be, and that he
+ has never been influenced in the slightest degree, by the character,
+ position, or the wealth of the parties before him. It may be that some of
+ the great financiers, the manipulators, the creators of bonds and stocks,
+ the blowers of financial bubbles, will not support him and will not
+ contribute any money for the payment of election expenses, because they
+ are perfectly satisfied that they could not make any arrangements with him
+ to get the money back, together with interest thereon, but the people of
+ this country are intelligent enough to know what that means, and they will
+ be patriotic enough to see to it that no man needs to bow or bend or
+ cringe to the rich to attain the highest place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The possibility is that Mr. Blaine could have been nominated had he not
+ withdrawn, but having withdrawn, of course the party is released. Others
+ were induced to become candidates, and under these circumstances Mr.
+ Blaine has hardly the right to change his mind, and certainly other
+ persons ought not to change it for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the friends of Gresham would support
+ Blaine if he should be nominated?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Undoubtedly they would. If they go into convention they
+ must abide the decision. It would be dishonorable to do that which you
+ would denounce in others. Whoever is nominated ought to receive the
+ support of all good Republicans. No party can exist that will not be bound
+ by its own decision. When the platform is made, then is the time to
+ approve or reject. The conscience of the individual cannot be bound by the
+ action of party, church or state. But when you ask a convention to
+ nominate your candidate, you really agree to stand by the choice of the
+ convention. Principles are of more importance than candidates. As a rule,
+ men who refuse to support the nominee, while pretending to believe in the
+ platform, are giving an excuse for going over to the enemy. It is a
+ pretence to cover desertion. I hope that whoever may be nominated at
+ Chicago will receive the cordial support of the entire party, of every man
+ who believes in Republican principles, who believes in good wages for good
+ work, and has confidence in the old firms of "Mind and Muscle," of "Head
+ and Hand."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Press</i>, May 27, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0070" id="link0070">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LABOR, AND TARIFF REFORM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, is the condition of labor in this
+ country as compared with that abroad?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, it is self-evident that if labor
+ received more in other lands than in this the tide of emigration would be
+ changed. The workingmen would leave our shores. People who believe in free
+ trade are always telling us that the laboring man is paid much better in
+ Germany than in the United States, and yet nearly every ship that comes
+ from Germany is crammed with Germans, who, for some unaccountable reason,
+ prefer to leave a place where they are doing well and come to one where
+ they must do worse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same thing can be said of Denmark and Sweden, of England, Scotland,
+ Ireland and of Italy. The truth is, that in all those lands the laboring
+ man can earn just enough to-day to do the work of to-morrow; everything he
+ earns is required to get food enough in his body and rags enough on his
+ back to work from day to day, to toil from week to week. There are only
+ three luxuries within his reach&mdash;air, light, and water; probably a
+ fourth might be added &mdash;death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those countries the few own the land, the few have the capital, the few
+ make the laws, and the laboring man is not a power. His opinion in neither
+ asked nor heeded. The employers pay as little as they can. When the world
+ becomes civilized everybody will want to pay what things are worth, but
+ now capital is perfectly willing that labor shall remain at the starvation
+ line. Competition on every hand tends to put down wages. The time will
+ come when the whole community will see that justice is economical. If you
+ starve laboring men you increase crime; you multiply, as they do in
+ England, workhouses, hospitals and all kinds of asylums, and these public
+ institutions are for the purpose of taking care of the wrecks that have
+ been produced by greed and stinginess and meanness&mdash;that is to say,
+ by the ignorance of capital.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What effect has the protective tariff on the condition of
+ labor in this country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. To the extent that the tariff keeps out the foreign article
+ it is a direct protection to American labor. Everything in this country is
+ on a larger scale than in any other. There is far more generosity among
+ the manufacturers and merchants and millionaires and capitalists of the
+ United States than among those of any other country, although they are bad
+ enough and mean enough here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the great thing for the laboring man in the United States is that he
+ is regarded as a man. He is a unit of political power. His vote counts
+ just as much as that of the richest and most powerful. The laboring man
+ has to be consulted. The candidate has either to be his friend or to
+ pretend to be his friend, before he can succeed. A man running for the
+ presidency could not say the slightest word against the laboring man, or
+ calculated to put a stain upon industry, without destroying every possible
+ chance of success. Generally, every candidate tries to show that he is a
+ laboring man, or that he was a laboring man, or that his father was before
+ him. There is in this country very little of the spirit of caste&mdash;the
+ most infamous spirit that ever infested the heartless breast of the
+ brainless head of a human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What will be the effect on labor of a departure in
+ American policy in the direction of free trade?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If free trade could be adopted to-morrow there would be an
+ instant shrinkage of values in this country. Probably the immediate loss
+ would equal twenty billion dollars&mdash;that is to say, one-third of the
+ value of the country. No one can tell its extent. All thing are so
+ interwoven that to destroy one industry cripples another, and the
+ influence keeps on until it touches the circumference of human interests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that labor is a blessing. It never was and never will be a
+ curse. It is a blessed thing to labor for your wife and children, for your
+ father and mother, and for the ones you love. It is a blessed thing to
+ have an object in life&mdash;something to do&mdash; something to call into
+ play your best thoughts, to develop your faculties and to make you a man.
+ How beautiful, how charming, are the dreams of the young mechanic, the
+ artist, the musician, the actor and the student. How perfectly stupid must
+ be the life of a young man with nothing to do, no ambition, no enthusiasm&mdash;that
+ is to say, nothing of the divine in him; the young man with an object in
+ life, of whose brain a great thought, a great dream has taken possession,
+ and in whose heart there is a great, throbbing hope. He looks forward to
+ success&mdash;to wife, children, home&mdash;all the blessings and sacred
+ joys of human life. He thinks of wealth and fame and honor, and of a long,
+ genial, golden, happy autumn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Work gives the feeling of independence, of self-respect. A man who does
+ something necessarily puts a value on himself. He feels that he is a part
+ of the world's force. The idler&mdash;no matter what he says, no matter
+ how scornfully he may look at the laborer&mdash;in his very heart knows
+ exactly what he is; he knows that he is a counterfeit, a poor worthless
+ imitation of a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is a vast difference between work and what I call "toil." What
+ must be the life of a man who can earn only one dollar or two dollars a
+ day? If this man has a wife and a couple of children how can the family
+ live? What must they eat? What must they wear? From the cradle to the
+ coffin they are ignorant of any luxury of life. If the man is sick, if one
+ of the children dies, how can doctors and medicines be paid for? How can
+ the coffin or the grave be purchased? These people live on what might be
+ called "the snow line"&mdash;just at that point where trees end and the
+ mosses begin. What are such lives worth? The wages of months would hardly
+ pay for the ordinary dinner of the family of a rich man. The savings of a
+ whole life would not purchase one fashionable dress, or the lace on it.
+ Such a man could not save enough during his whole life to pay for the
+ flowers of a fashionable funeral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet how often hundreds of thousands of persons, who spend thousands of
+ dollars every year on luxuries, really wonder why the laboring people
+ should complain. They are astonished when a car driver objects to working
+ fourteen hours a day. Men give millions of dollars to carry the gospel to
+ the heathen, and leave their own neighbors without bread; and these same
+ people insist on closing libraries and museums of art on Sunday, and yet
+ Sunday is the only day that these institutions can be visited by the poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They even want to stop the street cars so that these workers, these men
+ and women, cannot go to the parks or the fields on Sunday. They want
+ stages stopped on fashionable avenues so that the rich may not be
+ disturbed in their prayers and devotions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The condition of the workingman, even in America, is bad enough. If free
+ trade will not reduce wages what will? If manufactured articles become
+ cheaper the skilled laborers of America must work cheaper or stop
+ producing the articles. Every one knows that most of the value of a
+ manufactured article comes from labor. Think of the difference between the
+ value of a pound of cotton and a pound of the finest cotton cloth; between
+ a pound of flax and enough point lace to weigh a pound; between a few
+ ounces of paint, two or three yards of canvas and a great picture; between
+ a block of stone and a statue! Labor is the principal factor in price;
+ when the price falls wages must go down.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not claim that protection is for the benefit of any particular class,
+ but that it is for the benefit not only of that particular class, but of
+ the entire country. In England the common laborer expects to spend his old
+ age in some workhouse. He is cheered through all his days of toil, through
+ all his years of weariness, by the prospect of dying a respectable pauper.
+ The women work as hard as the men. They toil in the iron mills. They make
+ nails, they dig coal, they toil in the fields.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Europe they carry the hod, they work like beasts and with beasts, until
+ they lose almost the semblance of human beings&mdash;until they look
+ inferior to the animals they drive. On the labor of these deformed
+ mothers, of these bent and wrinkled girls, of little boys with the faces
+ of old age, the heartless nobility live in splendor and extravagant
+ idleness. I am not now speaking of the French people, as France is the
+ most prosperous country in Europe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us protect our mothers, our wives and our children from the deformity
+ of toil, from the depths of poverty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is not the ballot an assurance to the laboring man that
+ he can get fair treatment from his employer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The laboring man in this country has the political power,
+ provided he has the intelligence to know it and the intelligence to use
+ it. In so far as laws can assist labor, the workingman has it in his power
+ to pass such laws; but in most foreign lands the laboring man has really
+ no voice. It is enough for him to work and wait and suffer and emigrate.
+ He can take refuge in the grave or go to America.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the old country, where people have been taught that all blessing come
+ from the king, it is very natural for the poor to believe the other side
+ of that proposition&mdash;that is to say, all evils come from the king,
+ from the government. They are rocked in the cradle of this falsehood. So
+ when they come to this country, if they are unfortunate, it is natural for
+ them to blame the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The discussion of these questions, however, has already done great good.
+ The workingman is becoming more and more intelligent. He is getting a
+ better idea every day of the functions and powers and limitations of
+ government, and if the problem is ever worked out&mdash; and by "problem"
+ I mean the just and due relations that should exist between labor and
+ capital&mdash;it will be worked out here in America.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What assurance has the American laborer that he will not
+ be ultimately swamped by foreign immigration?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Most of the immigrants that come to American come because
+ they want a home. Nearly every one of them is what you may call "land
+ hungry." In his country, to own a piece of land was to be respectable,
+ almost a nobleman. The owner of a little land was regarded as the founder
+ of a family&mdash;what you might call a "village dynasty." When they leave
+ their native shores for America, their dream is to become a land owner&mdash;to
+ have fields, to own trees, and to listen to the music of their own brooks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment they arrive the mass of them seek the West, where land can be
+ obtained. The great Northwest now is being filled with Scandinavian
+ farmers, with persons from every part of Germany&mdash;in fact from all
+ foreign countries&mdash;and every year they are adding millions of acres
+ to the plowed fields of the Republic. This land hunger, this desire to own
+ a home, to have a field, to have flocks and herds, to sit under your own
+ vine and fig tree, will prevent foreign immigration from interfering to
+ any hurtful degree with the skilled workmen of America. These land owners,
+ these farmers, become consumers of manufactured articles. They keep the
+ wheels and spindles turning and the fires in the forges burning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Cleveland's message?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Only the other day I read a speech made by the Hon. William
+ D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, upon this subject, in which he says in answer
+ to what he calls "the puerile absurdity of President Cleveland's
+ assumption" that the duty is always added to the cost, not only of
+ imported commodities, but to the price of like commodities produced in
+ this country, "that the duties imposed by our Government on sugar reduced
+ to <i>ad valorem</i> were never so high as now, and the price of sugar was
+ never in this country so low as it is now." He also showed that this tax
+ on sugar has made it possible for us to produce sugar from other plants
+ and he gives the facts in relation to corn sugar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are now using annually nineteen million bushels of corn for the purpose
+ of making glucose or corn sugar. He shows that in this industry alone
+ there has been a capital invested of eleven million dollars; that seven
+ hundred and thirty-two thousand acres of land are required to furnish the
+ supply, and that this one industry now gives employment to about
+ twenty-two thousand farmers, about five thousand laborers in factories,
+ and that the annual value of this product of corn sugar is over seventeen
+ million dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also shows what we may expect from the cultivation of the beet. I
+ advise every one to read that speech, so that they may have some idea of
+ the capabilities of this country, of the vast wealth asking for
+ development, of the countless avenues opened for ingenuity, energy and
+ intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Does the protective tariff cheapen the prices of
+ commodities to the laboring man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In this there are involved two questions. If the tariff is
+ so low that the foreign article is imported, of course this tariff is
+ added to the cost and must be paid by the consumer; but if the protective
+ tariff is so high that the importer cannot pay it, and as a consequence
+ the article is produced in America, then it depends largely upon
+ competition whether the full amount of the tariff will be added to the
+ article. As a rule, competition will settle that question in America, and
+ the article will be sold as cheaply as the producers can afford.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance: If there is a tariff, we will say of fifty cents on a pair
+ of shoes, and this tariff is so low that the foreign article can afford to
+ pay it, then that tariff, of course, must be paid by the consumer. But
+ suppose the tariff was five dollars on a pair of shoes&mdash;that is to
+ say, absolutely prohibitory&mdash;does any man in his senses say that five
+ dollars would be added to each pair of American shoes? Of course, the
+ statement is the answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think it is the duty of the laboring man in this country, first,
+ thoroughly to post himself upon these great questions, to endeavor to
+ understand his own interest as well as the interest of his country, and if
+ he does, I believe he will arrive at the conclusion that it is far better
+ to have the country filled with manufacturers than to be employed simply
+ in the raising of raw material. I think he will come to the conclusion
+ that we had better have skilled labor here, and that it is better to pay
+ for it than not to have it. I think he will find that it is better for
+ America to be substantially independent of the rest of the world. I think
+ he will conclude that nothing is more desirable than the development of
+ American brain, and that nothing better can be raised than great and
+ splendid men and women. I think he will conclude that the cloud coming
+ from the factories, from the great stacks and chimneys, is the cloud on
+ which will be seen, and always seen, the bow of American promise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say about tariff reform?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have this to say: That the tariff is for the most part
+ the result of compromises&mdash;that is, one State wishing to have
+ something protected agrees to protect something else in some other State,
+ so that, as a matter of fact, many things are protected that need no
+ protection, and many things are unprotected that ought to be cared for by
+ the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am in favor of a sensible reform of the tariff&mdash;that is to say, I
+ do not wish to put it in the power of the few to practice extortion upon
+ the many. Congress should always be wide awake, and whenever there is any
+ abuse it should be corrected. At the same time, next to having the tariff
+ just&mdash;next in importance is to have it stable. It does us great
+ injury to have every dollar invested in manufactures frightened every time
+ Congress meets. Capital should feel secure. Insecurity calls for a higher
+ interest, wants to make up for the additional risk, whereas, when a dollar
+ feels absolutely certain that it is well invested, that it is not to be
+ disturbed, it is satisfied with a very low rate of interest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The present agitation&mdash;the message of President Cleveland upon these
+ questions&mdash;will cost the country many hundred millions of dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that some one has been charging that Judge Gresham
+ is an Infidel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have known Judge Gresham for many years, and of course
+ have heard him talk upon many subjects, but I do not remember ever
+ discussing with him a religious topic. I only know that he believes in
+ allowing every man to express his opinions, and that he does not hate a
+ man because he differs with him. I believe that he believes in
+ intellectual hospitality, and that he would give all churches equal
+ rights, and would treat them all with the utmost fairness. I regard him as
+ a fair-minded, intelligent and honest man, and that is enough for me. I am
+ satisfied with the way he acts, and care nothing about his particular
+ creed. I like a manly man, whether he agrees with me or not. I believe
+ that President Garfield was a minister of the Church of the Disciples&mdash;that
+ made no difference to me. Mr. Blaine is a member of some church in Augusta&mdash;I
+ care nothing for that. Whether Judge Gresham belongs to any church, I do
+ not know. I never asked him, but I know he does not agree with me by a
+ large majority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this country, where a divorce has been granted between church and
+ state, the religious opinions of candidates should be let alone. To make
+ the inquiry is a piece of impertinence&mdash;a piece of impudence. I have
+ voted for men of all persuasions and expect to keep right on, and if they
+ are not civilized enough to give me the liberty they ask for themselves,
+ why I shall simply set them an example of decency.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the political outlook?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The people of this country have a great deal of
+ intelligence. Tariff and free trade and protection and home manufactures
+ and American industries&mdash;all these things will be discussed in every
+ schoolhouse of the country, and in thousands and thousands of political
+ meetings, and when next November comes you will see the Democratic party
+ overthrown and swept out of power by a cyclone. All other questions will
+ be lost sight of. Even the Prohibitionists would rather drink beer in a
+ prosperous country than burst with cold water and hard times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The preservation of what we have will be the great question. This is the
+ richest country and the most prosperous country, and I believe that the
+ people have sense enough to continue the policy that has given them those
+ results. I never want to see the civilization of the Old World, or rather
+ the barbarism of the Old World, gain a footing on this continent. I am an
+ American. I believe in American ideas&mdash;that is to say, in equal
+ rights, and in the education and civilization of all the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Press</i>, June 3, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0071" id="link0071">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CLEVELAND AND THURMAN.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Democratic nominations?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, I hope that this campaign is to be
+ fought on the issues involved, and not on the private characters of the
+ candidates. All that they have done as politicians&mdash;all measures that
+ they have favored or opposed&mdash;these are the proper subjects of
+ criticism; in all other respects I think it better to let the candidates
+ alone. I care but little about the private character of Mr. Cleveland or
+ of Mr. Thurman. The real question is, what do they stand for? What policy
+ do they advocate? What are the reasons for and against the adoption of the
+ policy they propose?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not regard Cleveland as personally popular. He has done nothing, so
+ far as I know, calculated to endear him to the popular heart. He certainly
+ is not a man of enthusiasm. He has said nothing of a striking or forcible
+ character. His messages are exceedingly commonplace. He is not a man of
+ education, of wide reading, of refined tastes, or of general cultivation.
+ He has some firmness and a good deal of obstinacy, and he was exceedingly
+ fortunate in his marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Four years ago he was distinctly opposed to a second term. He was then
+ satisfied that no man should be elected President more than once. He was
+ then fearful that a President might use his office, his appointing power,
+ to further his own ends instead of for the good of the people. He started,
+ undoubtedly, with that idea in his mind. He was going to carry out the
+ civil service doctrine to the utmost. But when he had been President a few
+ months he was exceedingly unpopular with his party. The Democrats who
+ elected him had been out of office for twenty-five years. During all those
+ years they had watched the Republicans sitting at the national banquet.
+ Their appetites had grown keener and keener, and they expected when the
+ 4th of March, 1885, came that the Republicans would be sent from the table
+ and that they would be allowed to tuck the napkins under their chins. The
+ moment Cleveland got at the head of the table he told his hungry followers
+ that there was nothing for them, and he allowed the Republicans to go on
+ as usual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a little while he began to hope for a second term, and gradually the
+ civil service notion faded from his mind. He stuck to it long enough to
+ get the principal mugwump papers committed to him and to his policy; long
+ enough to draw their fire and to put them in a place where they could not
+ honorably retreat without making themselves liable to the charge of having
+ fought only for the loaves and fishes. As a matter of fact, no men were
+ hungrier for office than the gentlemen who had done so much for civil
+ service reform. They were so earnest in the advocacy of that principle
+ that they insisted that only their followers should have place; but the
+ real rank and file, the men who had been Democrats through all the
+ disastrous years, and who had prayed and fasted, became utterly disgusted
+ with Mr. Cleveland's administration and they were not slow to express
+ their feelings. Mr. Cleveland saw that he was in danger of being left with
+ no supporters, except a few who thought themselves too respectable really
+ to join the Democratic party. So for the last two years, and especially
+ the last year, he turned his attention to pacifying the real Democrats. He
+ is not the choice of the Democratic party. Although unanimously nominated,
+ I doubt if he was the unanimous choice of a single delegate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another very great mistake, I think, has been made by Mr. Cleveland. He
+ seems to have taken the greatest delight in vetoing pension bills, and
+ they seem to be about the only bills he has examined, and he has examined
+ them as a lawyer would examine the declaration, brief or plea of his
+ opponent. He has sought for technicalities, to the end that he might veto
+ these bills. By this course he has lost the soldier vote, and there is no
+ way by which he can regain it. Upon this point I regard the President as
+ exceedingly weak. He has shown about the same feeling toward the soldier
+ now that he did during the war. He was not with them then either in mind
+ or body. He is not with them now. His sympathies are on the other side. He
+ has taken occasion to show his contempt for the Democratic party again and
+ again. This certainly will not add to his strength. He has treated the old
+ leaders with great arrogance. He has cared nothing for their advice, for
+ their opinions, or for their feelings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The principal vestige of monarchy or despotism in our Constitution is the
+ veto power, and this has been more liberally used by Mr. Cleveland than by
+ any other President. This shows the nature of the man and how narrow he
+ is, and through what a small intellectual aperture he views the world.
+ Nothing is farther from true democracy than this perpetual application of
+ the veto power. As a matter of fact, it should be abolished, and the
+ utmost that a President should be allowed to do, would be to return a bill
+ with his objections, and the bill should then become a law upon being
+ passed by both houses by a simple majority. This would give the Executive
+ the opportunity of calling attention to the supposed defects, and getting
+ the judgment of Congress a second time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am perfectly satisfied that Mr. Cleveland is not popular with his party.
+ The noise and confusion of the convention, the cheers and cries, were all
+ produced and manufactured for effect and for the purpose of starting the
+ campaign.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to Senator Thurman. During the war he occupied substantially the
+ same position occupied by Mr. Cleveland. He was opposed to putting down
+ the Rebellion by force, and as I remember it, he rather justified the
+ people of the South for going with their States. Ohio was in favor of
+ putting down the Rebellion, yet Mr. Thurman, by some peculiar logic of his
+ own, while he justified Southern people for going into rebellion because
+ they followed their States, justified himself for not following his State.
+ His State was for the Union. His State was in favor of putting down
+ rebellion. His State was in favor of destroying slavery. Certainly, if a
+ man is bound to follow his State, he is equally bound when the State is
+ right. It is hardly reasonable to say that a man is only bound to follow
+ his State when his State is wrong; yet this was really the position of
+ Senator Thurman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw the other day that some gentlemen in this city had given as a reason
+ for thinking that Thurman would strengthen the ticket, that he had always
+ been right on the financial question. Now, as a matter of fact, he was
+ always wrong. When it was necessary for the Government to issue
+ greenbacks, he was a hard money man&mdash;he believed in the mint drops&mdash;and
+ if that policy had been carried out, the Rebellion could not have been
+ suppressed. After the suppression of the Rebellion, and when hundreds and
+ hundreds of millions of greenbacks were afloat, and the Republican party
+ proposed to redeem them in gold, and to go back&mdash;as it always
+ intended to do&mdash;to hard money&mdash;to a gold and silver basis&mdash;then
+ Senator Thurman, holding aloft the red bandanna, repudiated hard money,
+ opposed resumption, and came out for rag currency as being the best. Let
+ him change his ideas&mdash;put those first that he had last&mdash;and you
+ might say that he was right on the currency question; but when the country
+ needed the greenback he was opposed to it, and when the country was able
+ to redeem the greenback, he was opposed to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gives me pleasure to say that I regard Senator Thurman as a man of
+ ability, and I have no doubt that he was coaxed into his last financial
+ position by the Democratic party, by the necessities of Ohio, and by the
+ force and direction of the political wind. No matter how much
+ respectability he adds to the ticket, I do not believe that he will give
+ any great strength. In the first place, he is an old man. He has
+ substantially finished his career. Young men cannot attach themselves to
+ him, because he has no future. His following is not an army of the young
+ and ambitious&mdash;it is rather a funeral procession. Yet,
+ notwithstanding this fact, he will furnish most of the enthusiasm for this
+ campaign&mdash;and that will be done with his handkerchief. The Democratic
+ banner is Thurman's red bandanna. I do not believe that it will be
+ possible for the Democracy to carry Ohio by reason of Thurman's
+ nomination, and I think the failure to nominate Gray or some good man from
+ that State, will lose Indiana. So, while I have nothing to say against
+ Senator Thurman, nothing against his integrity or his ability, still,
+ under the circumstances, I do not think his nomination a strong one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the nominations have been well received
+ throughout the United States?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Not as well as in England. I see that all the Tory papers
+ regard the nominations as excellent&mdash;especially that of Cleveland.
+ Every Englishman who wants Ireland turned into a penitentiary, and every
+ Irishman to be treated as a convict, is delighted with the action of the
+ St. Louis convention. England knows what she wants. Her market is growing
+ small. A few years ago she furnished manufactured articles to a vast
+ portion of the world. Millions of her customers have become ingenious
+ enough to manufacture many things that they need, so the next thing
+ England did was to sell them the machinery. Now they are beginning to make
+ their own machinery. Consequently, English trade is falling off. She must
+ have new customers. Nothing would so gratify her as to have sixty millions
+ of Americans buy her wares. If she could see our factories still and dead;
+ if she could put out the fires of our furnaces and forges; there would
+ come to her the greatest prosperity she has ever known. She would fatten
+ on our misfortunes &mdash;grow rich and powerful and arrogant upon our
+ poverty. We would become her servants. We would raise the raw material
+ with ignorant labor and allow her children to reap all the profit of its
+ manufacture, and in the meantime to become intelligent and cultured while
+ we grew poor and ignorant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest blow that can be inflicted upon England is to keep her
+ manufactured articles out of the United States. Sixty millions of
+ Americans buy and use more than five hundred millions of Asiatics &mdash;buy
+ and use more than all of China, all of India and all of Africa. One
+ civilized man has a thousand times the wants of a savage or of a
+ semi-barbarian. Most of the customers of England want a few yards of
+ calico, some cheap jewelry, a little powder, a few knives and a few
+ gallons of orthodox rum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day the United States is the greatest market in the world. The commerce
+ between the States is almost inconceivable in its immensity. In order that
+ you may have some idea of the commerce of this country, it is only
+ necessary to remember one fact. We have railroads enough engaged in this
+ commerce to make six lines around the globe. The addition of a million
+ Americans to our population gives us a better market than a monopoly of
+ ten millions of Asiatics. England, with her workhouses, with her labor
+ that barely exists, wishes this market, and wishes to destroy the
+ manufactures of America, and she expects Irish-Americans to assist her in
+ this patriotic business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the enthusiasm in this country. I fail to see it. The
+ nominations have fallen flat. It has been known for a long time that
+ Cleveland was to be nominated. That has all been discounted, and the
+ nomination of Judge Thurman has been received in a quite matter-of-fact
+ way. It may be that his enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by what might be
+ called the appearance above the horizon of the morning star of this
+ campaign&mdash;Oregon. What a star to rise over the work of the St. Louis
+ convention! What a prophecy for Democrats to commence business with!
+ Oregon, with the free trade issue, seven thousand to eight thousand
+ Republican majority&mdash;the largest ever given by that State&mdash;Oregon
+ speaks for the Pacific Coast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Democratic platform?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Watterson was kind enough to say that before they took
+ the roof off of the house they were going to give the occupants a chance
+ to get out. By the "house" I suppose he means the great workshop of
+ America. By the "roof" he means protection; and by the "occupants" the
+ mechanics. He is not going to turn them out at once, or take the roof off
+ in an instant, but this is to be done gradually.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, they will remove it shingle by shingle or tile by tile,
+ until it becomes so leaky or so unsafe that the occupants&mdash; that is
+ to say, the mechanics, will leave the building.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first thing in the platform is a reaffirmation of the platform of
+ 1884, and an unqualified endorsement of President Cleveland's message on
+ the tariff. And if President Cleveland's message has any meaning whatever,
+ it means free trade&mdash;not instantly, it may be&mdash;but that is the
+ object and the end to be attained. All his reasoning, if reasoning it can
+ be called, is in favor of absolute free trade. The issue is fairly made&mdash;shall
+ American labor be protected, or must the American laborer take his chances
+ with the labor market of the world? Must he stand upon an exact par with
+ the laborers of Belgium and England and Germany, not only, but with the
+ slaves and serfs of other countries? Must he be reduced to the diet of the
+ old country? Is he to have meat on holidays and a reasonably good dinner
+ on Christmas, and live the rest of the year on crusts, crumbs, scraps,
+ skimmed milk, potatoes, turnips, and a few greens that he can steal from
+ the corners of fences? Is he to rely for meat, on poaching, and then is he
+ to be transported to some far colony for the crime of catching a rabbit?
+ Are our workingmen to wear wooden shoes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, understand me, I do not believe that the Democrats think that free
+ trade would result in disaster. Their minds are so constituted that they
+ really believe that free trade would be a great blessing. I am not calling
+ in question their honesty. I am simply disputing the correctness of their
+ theory. It makes no difference, as a matter of fact, whether they are
+ honest or dishonest. Free trade established by honest people would be just
+ as injurious as if established by dishonest people. So there is no
+ necessity of raising the question of intention. Consequently, I admit that
+ they are doing the best they know now. This is not admitting much, but it
+ is something, as it tends to take from the discussion all ill feeling.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know that the tariff protects special interests in particular
+ States. Louisiana is not for free trade. It may be for free trade in
+ everything except sugar. It is willing that the rest of the country should
+ pay an additional cent or two a pound on sugar for its benefit, and while
+ receiving the benefit it does not wish to bear its part of the burden. If
+ the other States protect the sugar interests in Louisiana, certainly that
+ State ought to be willing to protect the wool interest in Ohio, the lead
+ and hemp interest in Missouri, the lead and wool interest in Colorado, the
+ lumber interest in Minnesota, the salt and lumber interest in Michigan,
+ the iron interest in Pennsylvania, and so I might go on with a list of the
+ States&mdash;because each one has something that it wishes to have
+ protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It sounds a little strange to hear a Democratic convention cry out that
+ the party "is in favor of the maintenance of an indissoluble union of free
+ and indestructible States." Only a little while ago the Democratic party
+ regarded it as the height of tyranny to coerce a free State. Can it be
+ said that a State is "free" that is absolutely governed by the Nation? Is
+ a State free that can make no treaty with any other State or country&mdash;that
+ is not permitted to coin money or to declare war? Why should such a State
+ be called free? The truth is that the States are not free in that sense.
+ The Republican party believes that this is a Nation and that the national
+ power is the highest, and that every citizen owes the highest allegiance
+ to the General Government and not to his State. In other words, we are not
+ Virginians or Mississippians or Delawareans &mdash;we are Americans. The
+ great Republic is a free Nation, and the States are but parts of that
+ Nation. The doctrine of State Sovereignty was born of the institution of
+ slavery. In the history of our country, whenever anything wrong was to be
+ done, this doctrine of State Sovereignty was appealed to. It protected the
+ slave-trade until the year 1808. It passed the Fugitive Slave Law. It made
+ every citizen in the North a catcher of his fellow-man&mdash;made it the
+ duty of free people to enslave others. This doctrine of State Rights was
+ appealed to for the purpose of polluting the Territories with the
+ institution of slavery. To deprive a man of his liberty, to put him back
+ into slavery, State lines were instantly obliterated; but whenever the
+ Government wanted to protect one of its citizens from outrage, then the
+ State lines became impassable barriers, and the sword of justice fell in
+ twain across the line of a State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People forget that the National Government is the creature of the people.
+ The real sovereign is the people themselves. Presidents and congressmen
+ and judges are the creatures of the people. If we had a governing class&mdash;if
+ men were presidents or senators by virtue of birth&mdash;then we might
+ talk about the danger of centralization; but if the people are
+ sufficiently intelligent to govern themselves, they will never create a
+ government for the destruction of their liberties, and they are just as
+ able to protect their rights in the General Government as they are in the
+ States. If you say that the sovereignty of the State protects labor, you
+ might as well say that the sovereignty of the county protects labor in the
+ State and that the sovereignty of the town protects labor in the county.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all subjects in the world the Democratic party should avoid speaking of
+ "a critical period of our financial affairs, resulting from over
+ taxation." How did taxation become necessary? Who created the vast debt
+ that American labor must pay? Who made this taxation of thousands of
+ millions necessary? Why were the greenbacks issued? Why were the bonds
+ sold? Who brought about "a critical period of our financial affairs"? How
+ has the Democratic party "averted disaster"? How could there be a disaster
+ with a vast surplus in the treasury? Can you find in the graveyard of
+ nations this epitaph: "Died of a Surplus"? Has any nation ever been known
+ to perish because it had too much gold and too much silver, and because
+ its credit was better than that of any other nation on the earth? The
+ Democrats seem to think&mdash;and it is greatly to their credit&mdash;that
+ they have prevented the destruction of the Government when the treasury
+ was full&mdash;when the vaults were overflowing. What would they have done
+ had the vaults been empty? Let them wrestle with the question of poverty;
+ let them then see how the Democratic party would succeed. When it is
+ necessary to create credit, to inspire confidence, not only in our own
+ people, but in the nations of the world&mdash;which of the parties is best
+ adapted for the task? The Democratic party congratulates itself that it
+ has not been ruined by a Republican surplus! What good boys we are! We
+ have not been able to throw away our legacy!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not a little curious that the convention plumed itself on having
+ paid out more for pensions and bounties to the soldiers and sailors of the
+ Republic than was ever paid before during an equal period? It goes wild in
+ its pretended enthusiasm for the President who has vetoed more pension
+ bills than all the other Presidents put together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The platform informs us that "the Democratic party has adopted and
+ consistently pursued and affirmed a prudent foreign policy, preserving
+ peace with all nations." Does it point with pride to the Mexican fiasco,
+ or does it rely entirely upon the great fishery triumph? What has the
+ administration done&mdash;what has it accomplished in the field of
+ diplomacy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we come to civil service, about how many Federal officials were at
+ the St. Louis convention? About how many have taken part in the recent
+ nominations? In other words, who has been idle?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have recently been told that the wages of workingmen are just as high
+ in the old country as in this, when you take into consideration the cost
+ of living. We have always been told by all the free trade papers and
+ orators, that the tariff has no bearing whatever upon wages, and yet, the
+ Democrats have not succeeded in convincing themselves. I find in their
+ platform this language: "A fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with
+ due allowance for the difference between the wages of American and foreign
+ labor, must promote and encourage every branch of such industries and
+ enterprises by giving them the assurance of an extended market and steady
+ and continuous operations."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would seem from this that the Democratic party admits that wages are
+ higher here than in foreign countries. Certainly they do not mean to say
+ that they are lower. If they are higher here than in foreign countries,
+ the question arises, why are they higher? If you took off the tariff, the
+ presumption is that they would be as low here as anywhere else, because
+ this very Democratic convention says: "A fair and careful revision of our
+ tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between wages." In other
+ words, they would keep tariff enough on to protect our workingmen from the
+ low wages of the foreigner&mdash;consequently, we have the admission of
+ the Democratic party that in order to keep wages in this country higher
+ than they are in Belgium, in Italy, in England and in Germany, we must
+ protect home labor. Then follows the <i>non sequitur</i>, which is a
+ Democratic earmark. They tell us that by keeping a tariff, "making due
+ allowance for the difference between wages, all the industries and
+ enterprises would be encouraged and promoted by giving them the assurance
+ of an extended market." What does the word "extended" mean? If it means
+ anything, it means a market in other countries. In other words, we will
+ put the tariff so low that the wages of American workingmen will be so low
+ that he can compete with the laborers of other countries; otherwise his
+ market could not be "extended." What does this mean? There is evidently a
+ lack of thought here. The two things cannot be accomplished in that way.
+ If the tariff raises American wages, the American cannot compete in
+ foreign markets with the men who work for half the price. What may be the
+ final result is another question. American industry properly protected,
+ American genius properly fostered, may invent ways and means&mdash;such
+ wonderful machinery, such quick, inexpensive processes, that in time
+ American genius may produce at a less rate than any other country, for the
+ reason that the laborers of other countries will not be as intelligent,
+ will not be as independent, will not have the same ambition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fine phrases will not deceive the people of this country. The American
+ mechanic already has a market of sixty millions of people, and, as I said
+ before, the best market in the world. This country is now so rich, so
+ prosperous, that it is the greatest market of the earth, even for
+ luxuries. It is the best market for pictures, for works of art. It is the
+ best market for music and song. It is the best market for dramatic genius,
+ and it is the best market for skilled labor, the best market for common
+ labor, and in this country the poor man to-day has the best chance&mdash;he
+ can look forward to becoming the proprietor of a home, of some land, to
+ independence, to respectability, and to an old age without want and
+ without disgrace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The platform, except upon this question of free trade, means very little.
+ There are other features in it which I have not at present time to
+ examine, but shall do so hereafter. I want to take it up point by point
+ and find really what it means, what its scope is, and what the intentions
+ were of the gentlemen who made it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it may be proper to say here, that in my judgment it is a very weak
+ and flimsy document, as Victor Hugo would say, "badly cut and badly
+ sewed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I know that the country will exist whatever party may be in
+ power. I know that all our blessings do not come from laws, or from the
+ carrying into effect of certain policies, and probably I could pay no
+ greater compliment to any country than to say that even eight years of
+ Democratic rule cannot materially affect her destiny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Press</i>, June 10, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0072" id="link0072">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1888.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the signs of the times so far as the
+ campaign has progressed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The party is now going through a period of
+ misrepresentation. Every absurd meaning that can be given to any
+ combination of words will be given to every plank of the platform. In the
+ heat of partisan hatred every plank will look warped and cracked. A great
+ effort is being made to show that the Republican party is in favor of
+ intemperance,&mdash;that the great object now is to lessen the price of
+ all intoxicants and increase the cost of all the necessaries of life. The
+ papers that are for nothing but reform of everything and everybody except
+ themselves, are doing their utmost to show that the Republican party is
+ the enemy of honesty and temperance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day, at a Republican ratification meeting, I stated among other
+ things, that we could not make great men and great women simply by keeping
+ them out of temptation&mdash;that nobody would think of tying the hands of
+ a person behind them and then praise him for not picking pockets; that
+ great people were great enough to withstand temptation, and in that
+ connection I made this statement: "Temperance goes hand in hand with
+ liberty"&mdash;the idea being that when a chain is taken from the body an
+ additional obligation is perceived by the mind. These good papers&mdash;the
+ papers that believe in honest politics&mdash;stated that I said:
+ "Temperance goes hand in hand with liquor." This was not only in the
+ reports of the meeting, but this passage was made the subject of several
+ editorials. It hardly seems possible that any person really thought that
+ such a statement had been expressed. The Republican party does not want
+ free whiskey &mdash;it wants free men; and a great many people in the
+ Republican party are great enough to know that temperance does go hand in
+ hand with liberty; they are great enough to know that all legislation as
+ to what we shall eat, as to what we shall drink, and as to wherewithal we
+ shall be clothed, partakes of the nature of petty, irritating and annoying
+ tyranny. They also know that the natural result is to fill a country with
+ spies, hypocrites and pretenders, and that when a law is not in accordance
+ with an enlightened public sentiment, it becomes either a dead letter, or,
+ when a few fanatics endeavor to enforce it, a demoralizer of courts, of
+ juries and of people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The attack upon the platform by temperance people is doing no harm, for
+ the reason that long before November comes these people will see the
+ mistake they have made. It seems somewhat curious that the Democrats
+ should attack the platform if they really believe that it means free
+ whiskey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tax was levied during the war. It was a war measure. The Government
+ was <i>in extremis</i>, and for that reason was obliged to obtain a
+ revenue from every possible article of value. The war is over; the
+ necessity has disappeared; consequently the Government should return to
+ the methods of peace. We have too many Government officials. Let us get
+ rid of collectors and gaugers and inspectors. Let us do away with all this
+ machinery, and leave the question to be settled by the State. If the
+ temperance people themselves would take a second thought, they would see
+ that when the Government collects eighty or ninety million dollars from a
+ tax on whiskey, the traffic becomes entrenched, it becomes one of the
+ pillars of the State, one of the great sources of revenue. Let the States
+ attend to this question, and it will be a matter far easier to deal with.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Prohibitionists are undoubtedly honest, and their object is to destroy
+ the traffic, to prevent the manufacture of whiskey. Can they do this as
+ long as the Government collects ninety million dollars per annum from that
+ one source? If there is anything whatever in this argument, is it not that
+ the traffic pays a bribe of ninety million dollars a year for its life?
+ Will not the farmers say to the temperance men: "The distilleries pay the
+ taxes, the distilleries raise the price of corn; is it not better for the
+ General Government to look to another direction for its revenues and leave
+ the States to deal as they may see proper with this question?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With me, it makes no difference what is done with the liquor&mdash;
+ whether it is used in the arts or not&mdash;it is a question of policy.
+ There is no moral principle involved on our side of the question, to say
+ the least of it. If it is a crime to make and sell intoxicating liquors,
+ the Government, by licensing persons to make and sell, becomes a party to
+ the crime. If one man poisons another, no matter how much the poison
+ costs, the crime is the same; and if the person from whom the poison was
+ purchased knew how it was to be used, he is also a murderer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There have been many reformers in this world, and they have seemed to
+ imagine that people will do as they say. They think that you can use
+ people as you do bricks or stones; that you can lay them up in walls and
+ they will remain where they are placed; but the truth is, you cannot do
+ this. The bricks are not satisfied with each other&mdash;they go away in
+ the night&mdash;in the morning there is no wall. Most of these reformers
+ go up what you might call the Mount Sinai of their own egotism, and there,
+ surrounded by the clouds of their own ignorance, they meditate upon the
+ follies and the frailties of their fellow-men and then come down with ten
+ commandments for their neighbors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this talk about the Republican platform being in favor of
+ intemperance, so far as the Democratic party is concerned, is pure,
+ unadulterated hypocrisy&mdash;nothing more, nothing less. So far as the
+ Prohibitionists are concerned, they may be perfectly honest, but, if they
+ will think a moment, they will see how perfectly illogical they are. No
+ one can help sympathizing with any effort honestly made to do away with
+ the evil of intemperance. I know that many believe that these evils can be
+ done away with by legislation. While I sympathize with the objects that
+ these people wish to attain, I do not believe in the means they suggest.
+ As life becomes valuable, people will become temperate, because they will
+ take care of themselves. Temperance is born of the countless influences of
+ civilization. Character cannot be forced upon anybody; it is a growth, the
+ seeds of which are within. Men cannot be forced into real temperance any
+ more than they can be frightened into real morality. You may frighten a
+ man to that degree that he will not do a certain thing, but you cannot
+ scare him badly enough to prevent his wanting to do that thing.
+ Reformation begins on the inside, and the man refrains because he
+ perceives that he ought to refrain, not because his neighbors say that he
+ ought to refrain. No one would think of praising convicts in jail for
+ being regular at their meals, or for not staying out nights; and it seems
+ to me that when the Prohibitionists&mdash;when the people who are really
+ in favor of temperance&mdash;look the ground all over they will see that
+ it is far better to support the Republican party than to throw their votes
+ away; and the Republicans will see that it is simply a proposition to go
+ back to the original methods of collecting revenue for the Government&mdash;that
+ it is simply abandoning the measures made necessary by war, and that it is
+ giving to the people the largest liberty consistent with the needs of the
+ Government, and that it is only leaving these questions where in time of
+ peace they properly belong &mdash;to the States themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the Knights of Labor will cut any
+ material figure in this election?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Knights of Labor will probably occupy substantially the
+ same position as other laborers and other mechanics. If they clearly see
+ that the policy advocated by the Republican party is to their interest,
+ that it will give them better wages than the policy advocated by the
+ Democrats, then they will undoubtedly support our ticket. There is more or
+ less irritation between employers and employed. All men engaged in
+ manufacturing and neither good nor generous. Many of them get work for as
+ little as possible, and sell its product for all they can get. It is
+ impossible to adopt a policy that will not by such people be abused. Many
+ of them would like to see the working man toil for twelve hours or
+ fourteen or sixteen in each day. Many of them wonder why they need sleep
+ or food, and are perfectly astonished when they ask for pay. In some
+ instances, undoubtedly, the working men will vote against their own
+ interests simply to get even with such employers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some laboring men have been so robbed, so tyrannized over, that they would
+ be perfectly willing to feel for the pillars and take a certain delight in
+ a destruction that brought ruin even to themselves. Such manufacturers,
+ however, I believe to be in a minority, and the laboring men, under the
+ policy of free trade, would be far more in their power. When wages fall
+ below a certain point, then comes degradation, loss of manhood, serfdom
+ and slavery. If any man has the right to vote for his own interests,
+ certainly the man who labors is that man, and every working man having in
+ his will a part of the sovereignty of this nation, having within him a
+ part of the lawmaking power, should have the intelligence and courage to
+ vote for his own interests; he should vote for good wages; he should vote
+ for a policy that would enable him to lay something by for the winter of
+ his life, that would enable him to earn enough to educate his children,
+ enough to give him a home and a fireside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He need not do this in anger or for revenge, but because it is just,
+ because it is right, and because the working people are in a majority.
+ They ought to control the world, because they have made the world what it
+ is. They have given everything there is of value. Labor plows every field,
+ builds every house, fashions everything of use, and when that labor is
+ guided by intelligence the world is prosperous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He who thinks good thoughts is a laborer&mdash;one of the greatest. The
+ man who invented the reaper will be harvesting the fields for thousands of
+ years to come. If labor is abused in this country the laborers have it
+ within their power to defend themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All my sympathies are with the men who toil. I shed very few tears over
+ bankers and millionaires and corporations&mdash;they can take care of
+ themselves. My sympathies are with the man who has nothing to sell but his
+ strength; nothing to sell but his muscle and his intelligence; who has no
+ capital except that which his mother gave him&mdash;a capital he must sell
+ every day; my sympathies are with him; and I want him to have a good
+ market; and I want it so that he can sell the work for more than enough to
+ take care of him to-morrow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that no corporation should be allowed to exist except for the
+ benefit of the whole people. The Government should always act for the
+ benefit of all, and when the Government gives a part of its power to an
+ aggregation of individuals, the accomplishment of some public good should
+ justify the giving of that power; and whenever a corporation becomes
+ subversive of the very end for which it was created, the Government should
+ put an end to its life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I believe that after these matters, these issues have been discussed&mdash;when
+ something is understood about the effect of a tariff, the effect of
+ protection, the laboring people of this country will be on the side of the
+ Republican party. The Republican party is always trying to do something&mdash;trying
+ to take a step in advance. Persons who care for nothing except themselves&mdash;who
+ wish to make no effort except for themselves&mdash;are its natural
+ enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Mr. Mills' Fourth of July speech on
+ his bill?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certain allowances should always be made for the Fourth of
+ July. What Mr. Mills says with regard to free trade depends, I imagine,
+ largely on where he happens to be. You remember the old story about the <i>Moniteur</i>.
+ When Napoleon escaped from Elba that paper said: "The ogre has escaped."
+ And from that moment the epithets grew a little less objectionable as
+ Napoleon advanced, and at last the <i>Moniteur</i> cried out: "The Emperor
+ has reached Paris." I hardly believe that Mr. Mills would call his bill in
+ Texas a war tariff measure. He might commence in New York with that
+ description, but as he went South that language, in my judgment, would
+ change, and when he struck the Brazos I think the bill would be described
+ as the nearest possible approach to free trade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Mills takes the ground that if raw material comes here free of duty,
+ then we can manufacture that raw material and compete with other countries
+ in the markets of the world&mdash;that is to say, under his bill. Now,
+ other countries can certainly get the raw material as cheaply as we can,
+ especially those countries in which the raw material is raised; and if
+ wages are less in other countries than in ours, the raw material being the
+ same, the product must cost more with us than with them. Consequently we
+ cannot compete with foreign countries simply by getting the raw material
+ at the same price; we must be able to manufacture it as cheaply as they,
+ and we can do that only by cutting down the wages of the American
+ workingmen. Because, to have raw material at the same price as other
+ nations, is only a part of the problem. The other part is how cheaply can
+ we manufacture it? And that depends upon wages. If wages are twenty-five
+ cents a day, then we can compete with those nations where wages are
+ twenty-five cents a day; but if our wages are five or six times as high,
+ then the twenty-five cent labor will supply the market. There is no
+ possible way of putting ourselves on an equality with other countries in
+ the markets of the world, except by putting American labor on an equality
+ with the other labor of the world. Consequently, we cannot obtain a
+ foreign market without lessening our wages. No proposition can be plainer
+ than this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It cannot be said too often that the real prosperity of a country depends
+ upon the well-being of those who labor. That country is not prosperous
+ where a few are wealthy and have all the luxuries that the imagination can
+ suggest, and where the millions are in want, clothed in rags, and housed
+ in tenements not fit for wild beasts. The value of our property depends on
+ the civilization of our people. If the people are happy and contented, if
+ the workingman receives good wages, then our houses and our farms are
+ valuable. If the people are discontented, if the workingmen are in want,
+ then our property depreciates from day to day, and national bankruptcy
+ will only be a question of time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Mr. Mills has given a true statement with regard to the measure
+ proposed by him, what relation does that measure bear to the President's
+ message? What has it to do with the Democratic platform? If Mr. Mills has
+ made no mistake, the President wrote a message substantially in favor of
+ free trade. The Democratic party ratified and indorsed that message, and
+ at the same time ratified and indorsed the Mills bill. Now, the message
+ was for free trade, and the Mills bill, according to Mr. Mills, is for the
+ purpose of sustaining the war tariff. They have either got the wrong child
+ or the wrong parents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that some people are objecting to your taking any
+ part in politics, on account of your religious opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Democratic party has always been pious. If it is noted
+ for anything it is for its extreme devotion. You have no idea how many
+ Democrats wear out the toes of their shoes praying. I suppose that in this
+ country there ought to be an absolute divorce between church and state and
+ without any alimony being allowed to the church; and I have always
+ supposed that the Republican party was perfectly willing that anybody
+ should vote its ticket who believed in its principles. The party was not
+ established, as I understand it, in the interest of any particular
+ denomination; it was established to promote and preserve the freedom of
+ the American citizen everywhere. Its first object was to prevent the
+ spread of human slavery; its second object was to put down the Rebellion
+ and preserve the Union; its third object was the utter destruction of
+ human slavery everywhere, and its fourth object is to preserve not only
+ the fruit of all that it has won, but to protect American industry to the
+ end that the Republic may not only be free, but prosperous and happy. In
+ this great work all are invited to join, no matter whether Catholics or
+ Presbyterians or Methodists or Infidels&mdash;believers or unbelievers.
+ The object is to have a majority of the people of the United States in
+ favor of human liberty, in favor of justice and in favor of an intelligent
+ American policy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not what is called strictly orthodox, and yet I am liberal enough to
+ vote for a Presbyterian, and if a Presbyterian is not liberal enough to
+ stand by a Republican, no matter what his religious opinions may be, then
+ the Presbyterian is not as liberal as the Republican party, and he is not
+ as liberal as an unbeliever; in other words, he is not a manly man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I object to no man who is running for office on the ticket of my party on
+ account of his religious convictions. I care nothing about the church of
+ which he is a member. That is his business. That is an individual matter&mdash;something
+ with which the State has no right to interfere&mdash;something with which
+ no party can rightfully have anything to do. These great questions are
+ left open to discussion. Every church must take its chance in the open
+ field of debate. No belief has the right to draw the sword&mdash;no dogma
+ the right to resort to force. The moment a church asks for the help of the
+ State, it confesses its weakness, it confesses its inability to answer the
+ arguments against it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the absolute equality before the law, of all religions and
+ all metaphysical theories; and I would no more control those things by law
+ than I would endeavor to control the arts and the sciences by legislation.
+ Man admires the beautiful, and what is beautiful to one may not be to
+ another, and this inequality or this difference cannot be regulated by
+ law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same is true of what is called religious belief. I am willing to give
+ all others every right that I claim for myself, and if they are not
+ willing to give me the rights they claim for themselves, they are not
+ civilized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man acknowledges the truth of my opinions because he votes the same
+ ticket that I do, and I certainly do not acknowledge the correctness of
+ the opinions of others because I vote the Republican ticket. We are
+ Republicans together. Upon certain political questions we agree, upon
+ other questions we disagree&mdash;and that is all. Only religious people,
+ who have made up their minds to vote the Democratic ticket, will raise an
+ objection of this kind, and they will raise the objection simply as a
+ pretence, simply for the purpose of muddying the water while they escape.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there may be some exceptions. There are a great many insane
+ people out of asylums. If the Republican party does not stand for absolute
+ intellectual liberty, it had better disband. And why should we take so
+ much pains to free the body, and then enslave the mind? I believe in
+ giving liberty to both. Give every man the right to labor, and give him
+ the right to reap the harvest of his toil. Give every man the right to
+ think, and to reap the harvest of his brain&mdash;that is to say, give him
+ the right to express his thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Press</i>, July 8, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0073" id="link0073">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ JAMES G. BLAINE AND POLITICS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that there has lately been published a long account
+ of the relations between Mr. Blaine and yourself, and the reason given for
+ your failure to support him for the nomination in 1884 and 1888?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Every little while some donkey writes a long article
+ pretending to tell all that happened between Mr. Blaine and myself. I have
+ never seen any article on the subject that contained any truth. They are
+ always the invention of the writer or of somebody who told him. The last
+ account is more than usually idiotic. An unpleasant word has never passed
+ between Mr. Blaine and myself. We have never had any falling out. I never
+ asked Mr. Blaine's influence for myself. I never asked President Hayes or
+ Garfield or Arthur for any position whatever, and I have never asked Mr.
+ Cleveland for any appointment under the civil service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With regard to the German Mission, about which so much has been said, all
+ that I ever did in regard to that was to call on Secretary Evarts and
+ inform him that there was no place in the gift of the administration that
+ I would accept. I could not afford to throw away a good many thousand
+ dollars a year for the sake of an office. So I say again that I never
+ asked, or dreamed of asking, any such favor of Mr. Blaine. The favors have
+ been exactly the other way&mdash; from me, and not from him. So there is
+ not the slightest truth in the charge that there was some difference
+ between our families.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have great respect for Mrs. Blaine, have always considered her an
+ extremely good and sensible woman; our relations have been of the
+ friendliest character, and such relations have always existed between all
+ the members of both families, so far as I know. Nothing could be more
+ absurd that the charge that there was some feeling growing out of our
+ social relations. We do not depend upon others to help us socially; we
+ need no help, and if we did we would not accept it. The whole story about
+ there having been any lack of politeness or kindness is without the
+ slightest foundation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1884 I did not think that Mr. Blaine could be elected. I thought the
+ same at the Chicago convention this year. I know that he has a great
+ number of ardent admirers and of exceedingly self-denying and unselfish
+ friends. I believe that he has more friends than any other man in the
+ Republican party; but he also has very bitter enemies&mdash;enemies with
+ influence. Taking this into consideration, and believing that the success
+ of the party was more important than the success of any individual, I was
+ in favor of nominating some man who would poll the entire Republican vote.
+ This feeling did not grow out of any hostility to any man, but simply out
+ of a desire for Republican success. In other words, I endeavored to take
+ an unprejudiced view of the situation. Under no circumstances would I
+ underrate the ability and influence of Mr. Blaine, nor would I endeavor to
+ deprecate the services he has rendered to the Republican party and to the
+ country. But by this time it ought to be understood that I belong to no
+ man, that I am the proprietor of myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are two kinds of people that I have no use for&mdash;leaders and
+ followers. The leader should be principle; the leader should be a great
+ object to be accomplished. The follower should be the man dedicated to the
+ accomplishment of a noble end. He who simply follows persons gains no
+ honor and is incapable of giving honor even to the one he follows. There
+ are certain things to be accomplished and these things are the leaders. We
+ want in this country an American system; we wish to carry into operation,
+ into practical effect, ideas, policies, theories in harmony with our
+ surroundings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a great country filled with intelligent, industrious, restless,
+ ambitious people. Millions came here because they were dissatisfied with
+ the laws, the institutions, the tyrannies, the absurdities, the poverty,
+ the wretchedness and the infamous spirit of caste found in the Old World.
+ Millions of these people are thinking for themselves, and only the people
+ who can teach, who can give new facts, who can illuminate, should be
+ regarded as political benefactors. This country is, in my judgment, in all
+ that constitutes true greatness, the nearest civilized of any country.
+ Only yesterday the German Empire robbed a woman of her child; this was
+ done as a political necessity. Nothing is taken into consideration except
+ some move on the political chess-board. The feelings of a mother are
+ utterly disregarded; they are left out of the question; they are not even
+ passed upon. They are naturally ignored, because in these governments only
+ the unnatural is natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our political life we have substantially outgrown the duel. There are
+ some small, insignificant people who still think it important to defend a
+ worthless reputation on the field of "honor," but for respectable members
+ of the Senate, of the House, of the Cabinet, to settle a political
+ argument with pistols would render them utterly contemptible in this
+ country; that is to say, the opinion that governs, that dominates in this
+ country, holds the duel in abhorrence and in contempt. What could be more
+ idiotic, absurd, childish, than the duel between Boulanger and Floquet?
+ What was settled? It needed no duel to convince the world that Floquet is
+ a man of courage. The same may be said of Boulanger. He has faced death
+ upon many fields. Why, then, resort to the duel? If Boulanger's wound
+ proves fatal, that certainly does not tend to prove that Floquet told the
+ truth, and if Boulanger recovers, it does not tend to prove that he did
+ not tell the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is settled. Two men controlled by vanity, that individual vanity
+ born of national vanity, try to kill each other; the public ready to
+ reward the victor; the cause of the quarrel utterly ignored; the hands of
+ the public ready to applaud the successful swordsman &mdash;and yet France
+ is called a civilized nation. No matter how serious the political
+ situation may be, no matter if everything depends upon one man, that man
+ is at the mercy of anyone in opposition who may see fit to challenge him.
+ The greatest general at the head of their armies may be forced to fight a
+ duel with a nobody. Such ideas, such a system, keeps a nation in peril and
+ makes every cause, to a greater or less extent, depend upon the sword or
+ the bullet of a criminal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Press</i>, New York, July 16, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0074" id="link0074">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE MILLS BILL.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, is the significance of the vote on
+ the Mills Bill recently passed in the House? In this I find there were one
+ hundred and sixty-two for it, and one hundred and forty-nine against it;
+ of these, two Republicans voted for, and five Democrats against.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, I think it somewhat doubtful whether
+ the bill could have been passed if Mr. Randall had been well. His sickness
+ had much to do with this vote. Had he been present to have taken care of
+ his side, to have kept his forces in hand, he, in my judgment, taking into
+ consideration his wonderful knowledge of parliamentary tactics, would have
+ defeated this bill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is somewhat hard to get the average Democrat, in the absence of his
+ leader, to throw away the prospect of patronage. Most members of Congress
+ have to pay tolerably strict attention to their political fences. The
+ President, although clinging with great tenacity to the phrase "civil
+ service," has in all probability pulled every string he could reach for
+ the purpose of compelling the Democratic members not only to stand in
+ line, but to answer promptly to their names. Every Democrat who has shown
+ independence has been stepped on just to the extent he could be reached;
+ but many members, had the leader been on the floor&mdash;and a leader like
+ Randall&mdash;would have followed him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are very few congressional districts in the United States not
+ intensely Democratic where the people want nothing protected. There are a
+ few districts where nothing grows except ancient politics, where they
+ cultivate only the memory of what never ought to have been, where the
+ subject of protection has not yet reached.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The impudence requisite to pass the Mills Bill is something phenomenal.
+ Think of the Representatives from Louisiana saying to the ranchmen of the
+ West and to the farmers of Ohio that wool must be on the free list, but
+ that for the sake of preserving the sugar interest of Louisiana and a
+ little portion of Texas, all the rest of the United States must pay
+ tribute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody admits that Louisiana is not very well adapted by nature for
+ raising sugar, for the reason that the cane has to be planted every year,
+ and every third year the frost puts in an appearance just a little before
+ the sugar. Now, while I think personally that the tariff on sugar has
+ stimulated the inventive genius of the country to find other ways of
+ producing that which is universally needed; and while I believe that it
+ will not be long until we shall produce every pound of sugar that we
+ consume, and produce it cheaper than we buy it now, I am satisfied that in
+ time and at no distant day sugar will be made in this country extremely
+ cheap, not only from beets, but from sorghum and corn, and it may be from
+ other products. At the same time this is no excuse for Louisiana, neither
+ is it any excuse for South Carolina asking for a tariff on rice, and at
+ the same time wishing to leave some other industry in the United States,
+ in which many more millions have been invested, absolutely without
+ protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Understand, I am not opposed to a reasonable tariff on rice, provided it
+ is shown that we can raise rice in this country cheaply and at a profit to
+ such an extent as finally to become substantially independent of the rest
+ of the world. What I object to is the impudence of the gentleman who is
+ raising the rice objecting to the protection of some other industry of far
+ greater importance than his.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, the whole thing must be a compromise. We must act together for
+ the common good. If we wish to make something at the expense of another
+ State we must allow that State to make something at our expense, or at
+ least we must be able to show that while it is for our benefit it is also
+ for the benefit of the country at large. Everybody is entitled to have his
+ own way up to the point that his way interferes with somebody else. States
+ are like individuals&mdash;their rights are relative&mdash;they are
+ subordinated to the good of the whole country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years it has been the American policy to do all that reasonably
+ could be done to foster American industry, to give scope to American
+ ingenuity and a field for American enterprise&mdash;in other words, a
+ future for the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Southern States were always in favor of something like free trade.
+ They wanted to raise cotton for Great Britain&mdash;raw material for other
+ countries. At that time their labor was slave labor, and they could not
+ hope ever to have skilled labor, because skilled labor cannot be enslaved.
+ The Southern people knew at that time that if a man was taught enough of
+ mathematics to understand machinery, to run locomotives, to weave cloth;
+ it he was taught enough of chemistry even to color calico, it would be
+ impossible to keep him a slave. Education always was and always will be an
+ abolitionist. The South advocated a system of harmony with slavery, in
+ harmony with ignorance&mdash;that is to say, a system of free trade, under
+ which it might raise its raw material. It could not hope to manufacture,
+ because by making its labor intelligent enough to manufacture it would
+ lose it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the North, men are working for themselves, and as I have often said,
+ they were getting their hands and heads in partnership. Every little
+ stream that went singing to the sea was made to turn a thousand wheels;
+ the water became a spinner and a weaver; the water became a blacksmith and
+ ran a trip hammer; the water was doing the work of millions of men. In
+ other words, the free people of the North were doing what free people have
+ always done, going into partnership with the forces of nature. Free people
+ want good tools, shapely, well made&mdash;tools with which the most work
+ can be done with the least strain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the South had been in favor of protection; suppose that all over
+ the Southern country there had been workshops, factories, machines of
+ every kind; suppose that her people had been as ingenious as the people of
+ the North; suppose that her hands had been as deft as those that had been
+ accustomed to skilled labor; then one of two things would have happened;
+ either the South would have been too intelligent to withdraw from the
+ Union, or, having withdrawn, it would have had the power to maintain its
+ position. My opinion is that is would have been too intelligent to
+ withdraw.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the South seceded it had no factories. The people of the South had
+ ability, but it was not trained in the direction then necessary. They
+ could not arm and equip their men; they could not make their clothes; they
+ could not provide them with guns, with cannon, with ammunition, and with
+ the countless implements of destruction. They had not the ingenuity; they
+ had not the means; they could not make cars to carry their troops, or
+ locomotives to draw them; they had not in their armies the men to build
+ bridges or to supply the needed transportation. They had nothing but
+ cotton &mdash;that is to say, raw material. So that you might say that the
+ Rebellion has settled the question as to whether a country is better off
+ and more prosperous, and more powerful, and more ready for war, that is
+ filled with industries, or one that depends simply upon the production of
+ raw material.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing in this connection that should never be forgotten&mdash;at
+ least, not until after the election in November, and then if forgotten,
+ should be remembered at every subsequent election &mdash;and that is, that
+ the Southern Confederacy had in its Constitution the doctrine of free
+ trade. Among other things it was fighting for free trade. As a matter of
+ fact, John C. Calhoun was fighting for free trade; the nullification
+ business was in the interest of free trade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Southern people are endeavoring simply to accomplish, with the aid of
+ New York, what they failed to accomplish on the field. The South is as
+ "solid" to-day as in 1863. It is now for free trade, and it purposes to
+ carry the day by the aid of one or two Northern States. History is
+ repeating itself. It was the same for many years, up to the election of
+ Abraham Lincoln.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Understand me, I do not blame the South for acting in accordance with its
+ convictions, but the North ought not to be misled. The North ought to
+ understand what the issue is. The South has a different idea of government&mdash;it
+ is afraid of what it calls "centralization"&mdash;it is extremely
+ sensitive about what are called "State Rights" or the sovereignty of the
+ State. But the North believes in a Union that is united. The North does
+ not expect to have any interest antagonistic to the Union. The North has
+ no mental reservation. The North believes in the Government and in the
+ Federal system, and the North believes that when a State is admitted into
+ the Union it becomes a part&mdash;an integral part&mdash;of the Nation;
+ that there was a welding, that the State, so far as sovereignty is
+ concerned, is lost in the Union, and that the people of that State become
+ citizens of the whole country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I see that by the vote two of the five Democrats who
+ voted for protection, and one of the two Republicans who voted for free
+ trade, were New Yorkers. What do you think is the significance of this
+ fact in relation to the question as to whether New York will join the
+ South in the opposition to the industries of the country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the city of New York there are a vast number of men
+ &mdash;importers, dealers in foreign articles, representatives of foreign
+ houses, of foreign interests, of foreign ideas. Of course most of these
+ people are in favor of free trade. They regard New York as a good market;
+ beyond that they have not the slightest interest in the United States.
+ They are in favor of anything that will give them a large profit, or that
+ will allow them to do the same business with less capital, or that will do
+ them any good without the slightest regard as to what the effect may be on
+ this country as a nation. They come from all countries, and they expect to
+ remain here until their fortunes are made or lost and all their ideas are
+ moulded by their own interests. Then, there are a great many natives who
+ are merchants in New York and who deal in foreign goods, and they probably
+ think&mdash;some of them&mdash;that it would be to their interest to have
+ free trade, and they will probably vote according to the ledger. With them
+ it is a question of bookkeeping. Their greed is too great to appreciate
+ the fact that to impoverish customers destroys trade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time, New York, being one of the greatest manufacturing States
+ of the world, will be for protection, and the Democrats of New York who
+ voted for protection did so, not only because the believed in it
+ themselves, but because their constituents believe in it, and the
+ Republicans who voted the other way must have represented some district
+ where the foreign influence controls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people of this State will protect their own industries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What will be the fate of the Mills Bill in the Senate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that unless the Senate has a bill prepared
+ embodying Republican ideals, a committee should be appointed, not simply
+ to examine the Mills Bill, but to get the opinions and the ideas of the
+ most intelligent manufacturers and mechanics in this country. Let the
+ questions be thoroughly discussed, and let the information thus obtained
+ be given to the people; let it be published from day to day; let the
+ laboring man have his say, let the manufacturer give his opinion; let the
+ representatives of the principal industries be heard, so that we may vote
+ intelligently, so that the people may know what they are doing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great many industries have been attacked. Let them defend themselves.
+ Public property should not be taken for Democratic use without due process
+ of law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly it is not the business of a Republican Senate to pull the donkey
+ of the Democrats out of the pit; the dug the pit, and we have lost no
+ donkey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think the Senate called upon to fix up this Mills Bill, to
+ rectify its most glaring mistakes, and then for the sake of saving a
+ little, give up a great deal. What we have got is safe until the Democrats
+ have the power to pass a bill. We can protect our rights by not passing
+ their bills. In other words, we do not wish to practice any great
+ self-denial simply for the purpose of insuring Democratic success. If the
+ bill is sent back to the House, no matter in what form, if it still has
+ the name "Mills Bill" I think the Democrats will vote for it simply to get
+ out of their trouble. They will have the President's message left.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I do hope that the Senate will investigate this business. It is hardly
+ fair to ask the Senate to take decided and final action upon this bill in
+ the last days of the session. There is no time to consider it unless it is
+ instantly defeated. This would probably be a safe course, and yet, by
+ accident, there may be some good things in this bill that ought to be
+ preserved, and certainly the Democratic party ought to regard it as a
+ compliment to keep it long enough to read it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The interests involved are great&mdash;there are the commercial and
+ industrial interests of sixty millions of people. These questions touch
+ the prosperity of the Republic. Every person under the flag has a direct
+ interest in the solution of these questions. The end that is now arrived
+ at, the policy now adopted, may and probably will last for many years. One
+ can hardly overestimate the immensity of the interests at stake. A man
+ dealing with his own affairs should take time to consider; he should give
+ himself the benefit of his best judgment. When acting for others he should
+ do no less. The Senators represent, or should represent, not only their
+ own views, but above these things they represent the material interests of
+ their constituents, of their States, and to this trust they must be true,
+ and in order to be true, they must understand the material interests of
+ their States, and in order to be faithful, they must understand how the
+ proposed changes in the tariff will affect these interests. This cannot be
+ done in a moment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, the best way is for the Senate, through the proper
+ committee, to hear testimony, to hear the views of intelligent men, of
+ interested men, of prejudiced men&mdash;that is to say, they should look
+ at the question from all sides.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The Senate is almost tied; do you think that any
+ Republicans are likely to vote in the interest of the President's policy
+ at this session?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course I cannot pretend to answer that question from any
+ special knowledge, or on any information that others are not in possession
+ of. My idea is simply this: That a majority of the Senators are opposed to
+ the President's policy. A majority of the Senate will, in my judgment,
+ sustain the Republican policy; that is to say, they will stand by the
+ American system. A majority of the Senate, I think, know that it will be
+ impossible for us to compete in the markets of the world with those
+ nations in which labor is far cheaper than it is in the United States, and
+ that when you make the raw material just the same, you have not overcome
+ the difference in labor, and until this is overcome we cannot successfully
+ compete in the markets of the world with those countries where labor is
+ cheaper. And there are only two ways to overcome this difficulty&mdash;either
+ the price of labor must go up in the other countries or must go down in
+ this. I do not believe that a majority of the Senate can be induced to
+ vote for a policy that will decrease the wages of American workingmen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is this curious thing: The President started out blowing the trumpet
+ of free trade. It gave, as the Democrats used to say, "no uncertain
+ sound." He blew with all his might. Messrs. Morrison, Carlisle, Mills and
+ many others joined the band. When the Mills Bill was introduced it was
+ heralded as the legitimate offspring of the President's message. When the
+ Democratic convention at St. Louis met, the declaration was made that the
+ President's message, the Mills Bill, the Democratic platform of 1884 and
+ the Democratic platform of 1888, were all the same&mdash;all segments of
+ one circle; in fact, they were like modern locomotives&mdash;"all the
+ parts interchangeable." As soon as the Republican convention met, made its
+ platform and named its candidates, it is not free trade, but freer trade;
+ and now Mr. Mills, in the last speech that he was permitted to make in
+ favor of his bill, endeavored to show that it was a high protective tariff
+ measure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is what lawyers call "a departure in pleading." That is to say, it is
+ a case that ought to be beaten on demurrer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Press</i>, July 29, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0075" id="link0075">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SOCIETY AND ITS CRIMINALS*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was greatly interested in
+ securing for Chiara Cignarale a commutation of the death
+ sentence to imprisonment for life. In view of the fact that
+ the great Agnostic has made a close study of capital
+ punishment, a reporter for the <i>World</i> called upon him a day
+ or two ago for an interview touching modern reformatory
+ measures and the punishment of criminals. Speaking
+ generally on the subject Colonel Ingersoll said:]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I suppose that society&mdash;that is to say, a state or a nation&mdash;has
+ the right of self-defence. It is impossible to maintain society&mdash;
+ that is to say, to protect the rights of individuals in life, in property,
+ in reputation, and in the various pursuits known as trades and
+ professions, without in some way taking care of those who violate these
+ rights. The principal object of all government should be to protect those
+ in the right from those in the wrong. There are a vast number of people
+ who need to be protected who are unable, by reason of the defects in their
+ minds and by the countless circumstances that enter into the question of
+ making a living, to protect themselves. Among the barbarians there was,
+ comparatively speaking, but little difference. A living was made by
+ fishing and hunting. These arts were simple and easily learned. The
+ principal difference in barbarians consisted in physical strength and
+ courage. As a consequence, there were comparatively few failures. Most men
+ were on an equality. Now that we are somewhat civilized, life has become
+ wonderfully complex. There are hundreds of arts, trades, and professions,
+ and in every one of these there is great competition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides all this, something is needed every moment. Civilized man has less
+ credit than the barbarian. There is something by which everything can be
+ paid for, including the smallest services. Everybody demands payment, and
+ he who fails to pay is a failure. Owing to the competition, owing to the
+ complexity of modern life, owing to the thousand things that must be known
+ in order to succeed in any direction, on either side of the great highway
+ that is called Progress, are innumerable wrecks. As a rule, failure in
+ some honest direction, or at least in some useful employment, is the dawn
+ of crime. People who are prosperous, people who by reasonable labor can
+ make a reasonable living, who, having a little leisure can lay in a little
+ for the winter that comes to all, are honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, reasonable prosperity is virtuous. I don't say great
+ prosperity, because it is very hard for the average man to withstand
+ extremes. When people fail under this law, or rather this fact, of the
+ survival of the fittest, they endeavor to do by some illegal way that
+ which they failed to do in accordance with law. Persons driven from the
+ highway take to the fields, and endeavor to reach their end or object in
+ some shorter way, by some quicker path, regardless of its being right or
+ wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have said this much to show that I regard criminals as unfortunates.
+ Most people regard those who violate the law with hatred. They do not take
+ into consideration the circumstances. They do not believe that man is
+ perpetually acted upon. They throw out of consideration the effect of
+ poverty, of necessity, and above all, of opportunity. For these reasons
+ they regard criminals with feelings of revenge. They wish to see them
+ punished. They want them imprisoned or hanged. They do not think the law
+ has been vindicated unless somebody has been outraged. I look at these
+ things from an entirely different point of view. I regard these people who
+ are in the clutches of the law not only as unfortunates, but, for the most
+ part, as victims. You may call them victims of nature, or of nations, or
+ of governments; it makes no difference, they are victims. Under the same
+ circumstances the very persons who punish them would be punished. But
+ whether the criminal is a victim or not, the honest man, the industrious
+ man, has the right to defend the product of his labor. He who sows and
+ plows should be allowed to reap, and he who endeavors to take from him his
+ harvest is what we call a criminal; and it is the business of society to
+ protect the honest from the dishonest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without taking into account whether the man is or is not responsible,
+ still society has the right of self-defence. Whether that right of
+ self-defence goes to the extent of taking life, depends, I imagine, upon
+ the circumstances in which society finds itself placed. A thousand men on
+ a ship form a society. If a few men should enter into a plot for the
+ destruction of the ship, or for turning it over to pirates, or for
+ poisoning and plundering the most of the passengers&mdash;if the
+ passengers found this out certainly they would have the right of
+ self-defence. They might not have the means to confine the conspirators
+ with safety. Under such circumstances it might be perfectly proper for
+ them to destroy their lives and to throw their worthless bodies into the
+ sea. But what society has the right to do depends upon the circumstances.
+ Now, in my judgment, society has the right to do two things&mdash;to
+ protect itself and to do what it can to reform the individual. Society has
+ no right to take revenge; no right to torture a convict; no right to do
+ wrong because some individual has done wrong. I am opposed to all corporal
+ punishment in penitentiaries. I am opposed to anything that degrades a
+ criminal or leaves upon him an unnecessary stain, or puts upon him any
+ stain that he did not put upon himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most people defend capital punishment on the ground that the man ought to
+ be killed because he has killed another. The only real ground for killing
+ him, even if that be good, is not that he has killed, but that he may
+ kill. What he has done simply gives evidence of what he may do, and to
+ prevent what he may do, instead of to revenge what he has done, should be
+ the reason given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another view. To what extent does it harden the community
+ for the Government to take life? Don't people reason in this way: That man
+ ought to be killed; the Government, under the same circumstances, would
+ kill him, therefore I will kill him? Does not the Government feed the mob
+ spirit&mdash;the lynch spirit? Does not the mob follow the example set by
+ the Government? The Government certainly cannot say that it hangs a man
+ for the purpose of reforming him. Its feelings toward that man are only
+ feelings of revenge and hatred. These are the same feelings that animate
+ the lowest and basest mob.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give you an example. In the city of Bloomington, in the State of
+ Illinois, a man confined in the jail, in his efforts to escape, shot and,
+ I believe, killed the jailer. He was pursued, recaptured, brought back and
+ hanged by a mob. The man who put the rope around his neck was then under
+ indictment for an assault to kill and was out on bail, and after the poor
+ wretch was hanged another man climbed the tree and, in a kind of derision,
+ put a piece of cigar between the lips of the dead man. The man who did
+ this had also been indicted for a penitentiary offence and was then out on
+ bail.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I mention this simply to show the kind of people you find in mobs. Now, if
+ the Government had a greater and nobler thought; if the Government said:
+ "We will reform; we will not destroy; but if the man is beyond reformation
+ we will simply put him where he can do no more harm," then, in my
+ judgment, the effect would be far better. My own opinion is, that the
+ effect of an execution is bad upon the community&mdash;degrading and
+ debasing. The effect is to cheapen human life; and, although a man is
+ hanged because he has taken human life, the very fact that his life is
+ taken by the Government tends to do away with the idea that human life is
+ sacred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give you an illustration. A man in the city of Washington went to
+ Alexandria, Va., for the purpose of seeing a man hanged who had murdered
+ an old man and a woman for the purpose of getting their money. On his
+ return from that execution he came through what is called the Smithsonian
+ grounds. This was on the same day, late in the evening. There he met a
+ peddler, whom he proceeded to murder for his money. He was arrested in a
+ few hours, in a little while was tried and convicted, and in a little
+ while was hanged. And another man, present at this second execution, went
+ home on that same day, and, in passing by a butcher-shop near his house,
+ went in, took from the shop a cleaver, went into his house and chopped his
+ wife's head off.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, I say, throws a little light upon the effect of public executions.
+ In the Cignarale case, of course the sentence should have been commuted. I
+ think, however, that she ought not to be imprisoned for life. From what I
+ read of the testimony I think she should have been pardoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard, I suppose, for a man fully to understand and enter into the
+ feelings of a wife who has been trampled upon, abused, bruised, and
+ blackened by the man she loved&mdash;by the man who made to her the vows
+ of eternal affection. The woman, as a rule, is so weak, so helpless. Of
+ course, it does not all happen in a moment. It comes on as the night
+ comes. She notices that he does not act quite as affectionately as he
+ formerly did. Day after day, month after month, she feels that she is
+ entering a twilight. But she hopes that she is mistaken, and that the
+ light will come again. The gloom deepens, and at last she is in midnight&mdash;a
+ midnight without a star. And this man, whom she once worshiped, is now her
+ enemy&mdash; one who delights to trample upon every sentiment she has&mdash;who
+ delights in humiliating her, and who is guilty of a thousand nameless
+ tyrannies. Under these circumstances, it is hardly right to hold that
+ woman accountable for what she does. It has always seemed to me strange
+ that a woman so circumstanced&mdash;in such fear that she dare not even
+ tell her trouble&mdash;in such fear that she dare not even run away&mdash;dare
+ not tell a father or a mother, for fear that she will be killed&mdash;I
+ say, that in view of all this, it has always seemed strange to me that so
+ few husbands have been poisoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The probability is that society raises its own criminals. It plows the
+ land, sows the seed, and harvests the crop. I believe that the shadow of
+ the gibbet will not always fall upon the earth. I believe the time will
+ come when we shall know too much to raise criminals&mdash;know too much to
+ crowd those that labor into the dens and dungeons that we call tenements,
+ while the idle live in palaces. The time will come when men will know that
+ real progress means the enfranchisement of the whole human race, and that
+ our interests are so united, so interwoven, that the few cannot be happy
+ while the many suffer; so that the many cannot be happy while the few
+ suffer; so that none can be happy while one suffers. In other words, it
+ will be found that the human race is interested in each individual. When
+ that time comes we will stop producing criminals; we will stop producing
+ failures; we will not leave the next generation to chance; we will not
+ regard the gutter as a proper nursery for posterity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People imagine that if the thieves are sent to the penitentiary, that is
+ the last of the thieves; that if those who kill others are hanged, society
+ is on a safe and enduring basis. But the trouble is here: A man comes to
+ your front door and you drive him away. You have an idea that that man's
+ case is settled. You are mistaken. He goes to the back door. He is again
+ driven away. But the case is not settled. The next thing you know he
+ enters at night. He is a burglar. He is caught; he is convicted; he is
+ sent to the penitentiary, and you imagine that the case is settled. But it
+ is not. You must remember that you have to keep all the agencies alive for
+ the purpose of taking care of these people. You have to build and maintain
+ your penitentiaries, your courts of justice; you have to pay your judges,
+ your district attorneys, your juries, you witnesses, your detectives, your
+ police&mdash;all these people must be paid. So that, after all, it is a
+ very expensive way of settling this question. You could have done it far
+ more cheaply had you found this burglar when he was a child; had you taken
+ his father and mother from the tenement house, or had you compelled the
+ owners to keep the tenement clean; or if you had widened the streets, if
+ you had planted a few trees, if you had had plenty of baths, if you had
+ had a school in the neighborhood. If you had taken some interest in this
+ family&mdash;some interest in this child&mdash;instead of breaking into
+ houses, he might have been a builder of houses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, and it cannot be said too often, no reforming influence in
+ punishment; no reforming power in revenge. Only the best of men should be
+ in charge of penitentiaries; only the noblest minds and the tenderest
+ hearts should have the care of criminals. Criminals should see from the
+ first moment that they enter a penitentiary that it is filled with the air
+ of kindness, full of the light of hope. The object should be to convince
+ every criminal that he has made a mistake; that he has taken the wrong
+ way; that the right way is the easy way, and that the path of crime never
+ did and never can lead to happiness; that that idea is a mistake, and that
+ the Government wishes to convince him that he has made a mistake; wishes
+ to open his intellectual eyes; wishes so to educate him, so to elevate
+ him, that he will look back upon what he has done, only with horror. This
+ is reformation. Punishment is not. When the convict is taken to Sing Sing
+ or to Auburn, and when a striped suit of clothes is put upon him&mdash;that
+ is to say, when he is made to feel the degradation of his position&mdash;no
+ step has been taken toward reformation. You have simply filled his heart
+ with hatred. Then, when he has been abused for several years, treated like
+ a wild beast, and finally turned out again in the community, he has no
+ thought, in a majority of cases, except to "get even" with those who have
+ persecuted him. He feels that it is a persecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that men are naturally criminals and
+ naturally virtuous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that man does all that he does naturally&mdash;that
+ is to say, a certain man does a certain act under certain circumstances,
+ and he does this naturally. For instance, a man sees a five dollar bill,
+ and he knows that he can take it without being seen. Five dollars is no
+ temptation to him. Under the circumstances it is not natural that he
+ should take it. The same man sees five million dollars, and feels that he
+ can get possession of it without detection. If he takes it, then under the
+ circumstances, that was natural to him. And yet I believe there are men
+ above all price, and that no amount of temptation or glory or fame could
+ mislead them. Still, whatever man does, is or was natural to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another view of the subject is this: I have read that out of fifty
+ criminals who had been executed it was found, I believe, in nearly all the
+ cases, that the shape of the skull was abnormal. Whether this is true or
+ not, I don't know; but that some men have a tendency toward what we call
+ crime, I believe. Where this has been ascertained, then, it seems to me,
+ such men should be placed where they cannot multiply their kind. Women who
+ have a criminal tendency should be placed where they cannot increase their
+ kind. For hardened criminals &mdash;that is to say, for the people who
+ make crime a business&mdash;it would probably be better to separate the
+ sexes; to send the men to one island, the women to another. Let them be
+ kept apart, to the end that people with criminal tendencies may fade from
+ the earth. This is not prompted by revenge. This would not be done for the
+ purpose of punishing these people, but for the protection of society
+ &mdash;for the peace and happiness of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My own belief is that the system in vogue now in regard to the treatment
+ of criminals in many States produces more crime than it prevents. Take,
+ for instance, the Southern States. There is hardly a chapter in the
+ history of the world the reading of which could produce greater
+ indignation than the history of the convict system in many of the Southern
+ States. These convicts are hired out for the purpose of building railways,
+ or plowing fields, or digging coal, and in some instances the death-rate
+ has been over twelve per cent. a month. The evidence shows that no respect
+ was paid to the sexes&mdash;men and women were chained together
+ indiscriminately. The evidence also shows that for the slightest offences
+ they were shot down like beasts. They were pursued by hounds, and their
+ flesh was torn from their bones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in some of the Northern prisons they have what they call the weighing
+ machine&mdash;an infamous thing, and he who uses it commits as great a
+ crime as the convict he punishes could have committed. All these things
+ are degrading, debasing, and demoralizing. There is no need of any such
+ punishment in any penitentiary. Let the punishment be of such kind that
+ the convict is responsible himself. For instance, if the convict refuses
+ to obey a reasonable rule he can be put into a cell. He can be fed when he
+ obeys the rule.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he goes hungry it is his own fault. It depends upon himself to say when
+ he shall eat. Or he may be placed in such a position that if he does not
+ work&mdash;if he does not pump&mdash;the water will rise and drown him. If
+ the water does rise it is his fault. Nobody pours it upon him. He takes
+ his choice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are suggested as desperate cases, but I can imagine no case where
+ what is called corporal punishment should be inflicted, and the reason I
+ am against it is this: I am opposed to any punishment that cannot be
+ inflicted by a gentleman. I am opposed to any punishment the infliction of
+ which tends to harden and debase the man who inflicts it. I am for no laws
+ that have to be carried out by human curs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take, for instance, the whipping-post. Nothing can be more degrading. The
+ man who applies the lash is necessarily a cruel and vulgar man, and the
+ oftener he applies it the more and more debased he will become. The whole
+ thing can be stated in the one sentence: I am opposed to any punishment
+ that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman, and by "gentleman" I mean a
+ self-respecting, honest, generous man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the efficacy or the propriety of
+ punishing criminals by solitary confinement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Solitary confinement is a species of torture. I am opposed
+ to all torture. I think the criminal should not be punished. He should be
+ reformed, if he is capable of reformation. But, whatever is done, it
+ should not be done as a punishment. Society should be too noble, too
+ generous, to harbor a thought of revenge. Society should not punish, it
+ should protect itself only. It should endeavor to reform the individual.
+ Now, solitary confinement does not, I imagine, tend to the reformation of
+ the individual. Neither can the person in that position do good to any
+ human being. The prisoner will be altogether happier when his mind is
+ engaged, when his hands are busy, when he has something to do. This keeps
+ alive what we call cheerfulness. And let me say a word on this point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I don't believe that the State ought to steal the labor of a convict. Here
+ is a man who has a family. He is sent to the penitentiary. He works from
+ morning till night. Now, in my judgment, he ought to be paid for the labor
+ over and above what it costs to keep him. That money should be sent to his
+ family. That money should be subject, at least, to his direction. If he is
+ a single man, when he comes out of the penitentiary he should be given his
+ earnings, and all his earnings, so that he would not have the feeling that
+ he had been robbed. A statement should be given to him to show what it had
+ cost to keep him and how much his labor had brought and the balance
+ remaining in his favor. With this little balance he could go out into the
+ world with something like independence. This little balance would be a
+ foundation for his honesty&mdash;a foundation for a resolution on his part
+ to be a man. But now each one goes out with the feeling that he has not
+ only been punished for the crime which he committed, but that he has been
+ robbed of the results of his labor while there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea is simply preposterous that the people sent to the penitentiary
+ should live in idleness. They should have the benefit of their labor, and
+ if you give them the benefit of their labor they will turn out as good
+ work as if they were out of the penitentiary. They will have the same
+ reason to do their best. Consequently, poor articles, poorly constructed
+ things, would not come into competition with good articles made by free
+ people outside of the walls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now many mechanics are complaining because work done in the penitentiaries
+ is brought into competition with their work. But the only reason that
+ convict work is cheaper is because the poor wretch who does it is robbed.
+ The only reason that the work is poor is because the man who does it has
+ no interest in its being good. If he had the profit of his own labor he
+ would do the best that was in him, and the consequence would be that the
+ wares manufactured in the prisons would be as good as those manufactured
+ elsewhere. For instance, we will say here are three or four men working
+ together. They are all free men. One commits a crime and he is sent to the
+ penitentiary. Is it possible that his companions would object to his being
+ paid for honest work in the penitentiary?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me say right here, all labor is honest. Whoever makes a useful
+ thing, the labor is honest, no matter whether the work is done in a
+ penitentiary or in a palace; in a hovel or the open field. Wherever work
+ is done for the good of others, it is honest work. If the laboring men
+ would stop and think, they would know that they support everybody. Labor
+ pays all the taxes. Labor supports all the penitentiaries. Labor pays the
+ warden. Labor pays everything, and if the convicts are allowed to live in
+ idleness labor must pay their board. Every cent of tax is borne by the
+ back of labor. No matter whether your tariff is put on champagne and
+ diamonds, it has to be paid by the men and women who work&mdash;those who
+ plow in the fields, who wash and iron, who stand by the forge, who run the
+ cars and work in the mines, and by those who battle with the waves of the
+ sea. Labor pays every bill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one little thing to which I wish to call the attention of all who
+ happen to read this interview, and that is this: Undoubtedly you think of
+ all criminals with horror and when you hear about them you are, in all
+ probability, filled with virtuous indignation. But, first of all, I want
+ you to think of what you have in fact done. Secondly, I want you to think
+ of what you have wanted to do. Thirdly, I want you to reflect whether you
+ were prevented from doing what you wanted to do by fear or by lack of
+ opportunity. Then perhaps you will have more charity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the new legislation in the State
+ changing the death penalty to death by electricity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If death by electricity is less painful than hanging, then
+ the law, so far as that goes, is good. There is not the slightest
+ propriety in inflicting upon the person executed one single unnecessary
+ pang, because that partakes of the nature of revenge&mdash;that is to say,
+ of hatred&mdash;and, as a consequence, the State shows the same spirit
+ that the criminal was animated by when he took the life of his neighbor.
+ If the death penalty is to be inflicted, let it be done in the most humane
+ way. For my part, I should like to see the criminal removed, if he must be
+ removed, with the same care and with the same mercy that you would perform
+ a surgical operation. Why inflict pain? Who wants it inflicted? What good
+ can it, by any possibility, do? To inflict unnecessary pain hardens him
+ who inflicts it, hardens each among those who witness it, and tends to
+ demoralize the community.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it not the fact that punishments have grown less and
+ less severe for many years past?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the old times punishment was the only means of
+ reformation. If anybody did wrong, punish him. If people still continued
+ to commit the same offence, increase the punishment; and that went on
+ until in what they call "civilized countries" they hanged people, provided
+ they stole the value of one shilling. But larceny kept right on. There was
+ no diminution. So, for treason, barbarous punishments were inflicted.
+ Those guilty of that offence were torn asunder by horses; their entrails
+ were cut out of them while they were yet living and thrown into their
+ faces; their bodies were quartered and their heads were set on pikes above
+ the gates of the city. Yet there was a hundred times more treason then
+ than now. Every time a man was executed and mutilated and tortured in this
+ way the seeds of other treason were sown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in the church there was the same idea. No reformation but by
+ punishment. Of course in this world the punishment stopped when the poor
+ wretch was dead. It was found that that punishment did not reform, so the
+ church said: "After death it will go right on, getting worse and worse,
+ forever and forever." Finally it was found that this did not tend to the
+ reformation of mankind. Slowly the fires of hell have been dying out. The
+ climate has been changing from year to year. Men have lost confidence in
+ the power of the thumbscrew, the fagot, and the rack here, and they are
+ losing confidence in the flames of perdition hereafter. In other words, it
+ is simply a question of civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When men become civilized in matters of thought, they will know that every
+ human being has the right to think for himself, and the right to express
+ his honest thought. Then the world of thought will be free. At that time
+ they will be intelligent enough to know that men have different thoughts,
+ that their ways are not alike, because they have lived under different
+ circumstances, and in that time they will also know that men act as they
+ are acted upon. And it is my belief that the time will come when men will
+ no more think of punishing a man because he has committed the crime of
+ larceny than they will think of punishing a man because he has the
+ consumption. In the first case they will endeavor to reform him, and in
+ the second case they will endeavor to cure him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligent people of the world, many of them, are endeavoring to find
+ out the great facts in Nature that control the dispositions of men. So
+ other intelligent people are endeavoring to ascertain the facts and
+ conditions that govern what we call health, and what we call disease, and
+ the object of these people is finally to produce a race without disease of
+ flesh and without disease of mind. These people look forward to the time
+ when there need to be neither hospitals nor penitentiaries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York World</i>, August 5, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0076" id="link0076">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WOMAN'S RIGHT TO DIVORCE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, the great Agnostic, has always
+ been an ardent defender of the sanctity of the home and of the marriage
+ relation. Apropos of the horrible account of a man's tearing out the eyes
+ of his wife at Far Rockaway last week, Colonel Ingersoll was asked what
+ recourse a woman had under such circumstances?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I read the account, and I don't remember of ever having
+ read anything more perfectly horrible and cruel. It is impossible for me
+ to imagine such a monster, or to account for such an inhuman human being.
+ How a man could deprive a human being of sight, except where some
+ religious question is involved, is beyond my comprehension. We know that
+ for many centuries frightful punishments were inflicted, and inflicted by
+ the pious, by the theologians, by the spiritual minded, and by those who
+ "loved their neighbors as themselves." We read the accounts of how the
+ lids of men's eyes were cut off and then the poor victims tied where the
+ sum would shine upon their lifeless orbs; of others who were buried alive;
+ of others staked out on the sands of the sea, to be drowned by the rising
+ tide; of others put in sacks filled with snakes. Yet these things appeared
+ far away, and we flattered ourselves that, to a great degree, the world
+ had outgrown these atrocities; and now, here, near the close of the
+ nineteenth century, we find a man&mdash;a husband&mdash;cruel enough to
+ put out the eyes of the woman he swore to love, protect and cherish. This
+ man has probably been taught that there is forgiveness for every crime,
+ and now imagines that when he repents there will be more joy in heaven
+ over him than over ninety and nine good and loving husbands who have
+ treated their wives in the best possible manner, and who, instead of
+ tearing out their eyes, have filled their lives with content and covered
+ their faces with kisses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You told me, last week, in a general way, what society
+ should do with the husband in such a case as that. I would like to ask you
+ to-day, what you think society ought to do with the wife in such a case,
+ or what ought the wife to be permitted to do for herself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. When we take into consideration the crime of the man who
+ blinded his wife, it is impossible not to think of the right of divorce.
+ Many people insist that marriage is an indissoluble tie; that nothing can
+ break it, and that nothing can release either party from the bond. Now,
+ take this case at Far Rockaway. One year ago the husband tore out one of
+ his wife's eyes. Had she then good cause for divorce? Is it possible that
+ an infinitely wise and good God would insist on this poor, helpless woman
+ remaining with the wild beast, her husband? Can anyone imagine that such a
+ course would add to the joy of Paradise, or even tend to keep one harp in
+ tune? Can the good of society require the woman to remain? She did remain,
+ and the result is that the other eye has been torn from its socket by the
+ hands of the husband. Is she entitled to a divorce now? And if she is
+ granted one, is virtue in danger, and shall we lose the high ideal of home
+ life? Can anything be more infamous than to endeavor to make a woman,
+ under such circumstances, remain with such a man? It may be said that she
+ should leave him&mdash;that they should live separate and apart. That is
+ to say, that this woman should be deprived of a home; that she should not
+ be entitled to the love of man; that she should remain, for the rest of
+ her days, worse than a widow. That is to say, a wife, hiding, keeping out
+ of the way, secreting herself from the hyena to whom she was married.
+ Nothing, in my judgment, can exceed the heartlessness of a law or of a
+ creed that would compel this woman to remain the wife of this monster. And
+ it is not only cruel, but it is immoral, low, vulgar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriages
+ were dissoluble. Is it necessary to lose your freedom in order to retain
+ your character, in order to be womanly or manly? Must a woman in order to
+ retain her womanhood become a slave, a serf, with a wild beast for a
+ master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for a master? Has
+ not the married woman the right of self-defence? Is it not the duty of
+ society to protect her from her husband? If she owes no duty to her
+ husband; if it is impossible for her to feel toward him any thrill of
+ affection, what is there of marriage left? What part of the contract
+ remains in force? She is not to live with him, because she abhors him. She
+ is not to remain in the same house with him, for fear he may kill her.
+ What, then, are their relations? Do they sustain any relation except that
+ of hunter and hunted&mdash;that is, of tyrant and victim? And is it
+ desirable that this relation should be rendered sacred by a church? Is it
+ desirable to have families raised under such circumstances? Are we really
+ in need of the children born of such parents? If the woman is not in
+ fault, does society insist that her life should be wrecked? Can the virtue
+ of others be preserved only by the destruction of her happiness, and by
+ what might be called her perpetual imprisonment? I hope the clergy who
+ believe in the sacredness of marriage&mdash;in the indissolubility of the
+ marriage tie&mdash;will give their opinions on this case. I believe that
+ marriage is the most important contract that human beings can make. I
+ always believe that a man will keep his contract; that a woman, in the
+ highest sense, will keep hers, But suppose the man does not. Is the woman
+ still bound?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there no mutuality? What is a contract? It is where one party promises
+ to do something in consideration that the other party will do something.
+ That is to say, there is a consideration on both sides, moving from one to
+ the other. A contract without consideration is null and void; and a
+ contract duly entered into, where the consideration of one party is
+ withheld, is voidable, and can be voided by the party who has kept, or who
+ is willing to keep, the contract. A marriage without love is bad enough.
+ But what can we say of a marriage where the parties hate each other? Is
+ there any morality in this&mdash;any virtue? Will any decent person say
+ that a woman, true, good and loving, should be compelled to live with a
+ man she detests, compelled to be the mother of his children? Is there a
+ woman in the world who would not shrink from this herself? And is there a
+ woman so heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear
+ what she would shudderingly avoid? Let us bring these questions home. In
+ other words, let us have some sense, some feeling, some heart&mdash;and
+ just a little brain. Marriages are made by men and women. They are not
+ made by the State, and they are not made by the gods. By this time people
+ should learn that human happiness is the foundation of virtue&mdash;the
+ foundation of morality. Nothing is moral that does not tend to the
+ well-being of sentient beings. Nothing is virtuous the result of which is
+ not a human good. The world has always been living for phantoms, for
+ ghosts, for monsters begotten by ignorance and fear. The world should
+ learn to live for itself. Man should, by this time, be convinced that all
+ the reasons for doing right, and all the reasons for doing wrong, are
+ right here in this world&mdash;all within the horizon of this life. And
+ besides, we should have imagination to put ourselves in the place of
+ another. Let a man suppose himself a helpless wife, beaten by a brute who
+ believes in the indissolubility of marriage. Would he want a divorce?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose that very few people have any adequate idea of the sufferings of
+ women and children; of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the
+ footsteps of a returning husband; of the number of children who hide when
+ they hear the voice of a father. Very few people know the number of blows
+ that fall on the flesh of the helpless every day. Few know the nights of
+ terror passed by mothers holding young children at their breasts. Compared
+ with this, the hardships of poverty, borne by those who love each other,
+ are nothing. Men and women, truly married, bear the sufferings of poverty.
+ They console each other; their affection gives to the heart of each
+ perpetual sunshine. But think of the others! I have said a thousand times
+ that the home is the unit of good government. When we have kind fathers
+ and loving mothers, then we shall have civilized nations, and not until
+ then. Civilization commences at the hearthstone. When intelligence rocks
+ the cradle&mdash;when the house is filled with philosophy and kindness&mdash;you
+ will see a world a peace. Justice will sit in the courts, wisdom in the
+ legislative halls, and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the
+ spirit of Liberty!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your idea with regard to divorce?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My idea is this: As I said before, marriage is the most
+ sacred contract&mdash;the most important contract&mdash;that human beings
+ can make. As a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth&mdash;with
+ all she has. From this contract the husband should never be released
+ unless the wife has broken a condition; that is to say, has failed to
+ fulfill the contract of marriage. On the other hand, the woman should be
+ allowed a divorce for the asking. This should be granted in public,
+ precisely as the marriage should be in public. Every marriage should be
+ known. There should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the
+ contract entered into should be understood; and as all marriage records
+ should be kept, so the divorce should be open, public and known. The
+ property should be divided by a court of equity, under certain regulations
+ of law. If there are children, they should be provided for through the
+ property and the parents. People should understand that men and women are
+ not virtuous by law. They should comprehend the fact that law does not
+ create virtue&mdash;that law is not the foundation, the fountain, of love.
+ They should understand that love is in the human heart, and that real love
+ is virtuous. People who love each other will be true to each other. The
+ death of love is the commencement of vice. Besides this, there is a public
+ opinion that has great weight. When that public opinion is right, it does
+ a vast amount of good, and when wrong, a great amount of harm. People
+ marry, or should marry, because it increases the happiness of each and
+ all. But where the marriage turns out to have been a mistake, and where
+ the result is misery, and not happiness, the quicker they are divorced the
+ better, not only for themselves, but for the community at large. These
+ arguments are generally answered by some donkey braying about free love,
+ and by "free love" he means a condition of society in which there is no
+ love. The persons who make this cry are, in all probability, incapable of
+ the sentiment, of the feeling, known as love. They judge others by
+ themselves, and they imagine that without law there would be no restraint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What do they say of natural modesty? Do they forget that people have a
+ choice? Do they not understand something of the human heart, and that true
+ love has always been as pure as the morning star? Do they believe that by
+ forcing people to remain together who despise each other they are adding
+ to the purity of the marriage relation? Do they not know that all marriage
+ is an outward act, testifying to that which has happened in the heart?
+ Still, I always believe that words are wasted on such people. It is
+ useless to talk to anybody about music who is unable to distinguish one
+ tune from another. It is useless to argue with a man who regards his wife
+ as his property, and it is hardly worth while to suggest anything to a
+ gentleman who imagines that society is so constructed that it really
+ requires, for the protection of itself, that the lives of good and noble
+ women should be wrecked, I am a believer in the virtue of women, in the
+ honesty of man. The average woman is virtuous; the average man is honest,
+ and the history of the world shows it. If it were not so, society would be
+ impossible. I don't mean by this that most men are perfect, but what I
+ mean is this: That there is far more good than evil in the average human
+ being, and that the natural tendency of most people is toward the good and
+ toward the right. And I most passionately deny that the good of society
+ demands that any good person should suffer. I do not regard government as
+ a Juggernaut, the wheels of which must, of necessity, roll over and crush
+ the virtuous, the self-denying and the good. My doctrine is the exact
+ opposite of what is known as free love. I believe in the marriage of true
+ minds and of true hearts. But I believe that thousands of people are
+ married who do not love each other. That is the misfortune of our century.
+ Other things are taken into consideration&mdash;position, wealth, title
+ and the thousand things that have nothing to do with real affection. Where
+ men and women truly love each other, that love, in my judgment, lasts as
+ long as life. The greatest line that I know of in the poetry of the world
+ is in the 116th sonnet of Shakespeare: "Love is not love which alters when
+ it alteration finds."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why do you make such a distinction between the rights of
+ man and the rights of women?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The woman has, as her capital, her youth, her beauty. We
+ will say that she is married at twenty or twenty-five. In a few years she
+ has lost her beauty. During these years the man, so far as capacity to
+ make money is concerned&mdash;to do something&mdash;has grown better and
+ better. That is to say, his chances have improved; hers have diminished.
+ She has dowered him with the Spring of her life, and as her life advances
+ her chances decrease. Consequently, I would give her the advantage, and I
+ would not compel her to remain with him against her will. It seems to me
+ far worse to be a wife upon compulsion than to be a husband upon
+ compulsion. Besides this, I have a feeling of infinite tenderness toward
+ mothers. The woman that bears children certainly should not be compelled
+ to live with a man whom she despises. The suffering is enough when the
+ father of the child is to her the one man of all the world. Many people
+ who have a mechanical apparatus in their breasts that assists in the
+ circulation of what they call blood, regard these views as sentimental.
+ But when you take sentiment out of the world nothing is left worth living
+ for, and when you get sentiment out of the heart it is nothing more or
+ less than a pump, an old piece of rubber that has acquired the habit of
+ contracting and dilating. But I have this consolation: The people that do
+ not agree with me are those that do not understand me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York World</i>, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0077" id="link0077">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SECULARISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, what is your opinion of Secularism? Do you
+ regard it as a religion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I understand that the word Secularism embraces everything
+ that is of any real interest or value to the human race. I take it for
+ granted that everybody will admit that well-being is the only good; that
+ is to say, that it is impossible to conceive of anything of real value
+ that does not tend either to preserve or to increase the happiness of some
+ sentient being. Secularism, therefore, covers the entire territory. It
+ fills the circumference of human knowledge and of human effort. It is, you
+ may say, the religion of this world; but if there is another world, it is
+ necessarily the religion of that, as well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man finds himself in this world naked and hungry. He needs food, raiment,
+ shelter. He finds himself filled with almost innumerable wants. To gratify
+ these wants is the principal business of life. To gratify them without
+ interfering with other people is the course pursued by all honest men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism teaches us to be good here and now. I know nothing better than
+ goodness. Secularism teaches us to be just here and now. It is impossible
+ to be juster than just.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man can be as just in this world as in any other, and justice must be the
+ same in all worlds. Secularism teaches a man to be generous, and
+ generosity is certainly as good here as it can be anywhere else.
+ Secularism teaches a man to be charitable, and certainly charity is as
+ beautiful in this world and in this short life as it could be were man
+ immortal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But orthodox people insist that there is something higher than Secularism;
+ but, as a matter of fact, the mind of man can conceive of nothing better,
+ nothing higher, nothing more spiritual, than goodness, justice,
+ generosity, charity. Neither has the mind of men been capable of finding a
+ nobler incentive to action than human love. Secularism has to do with
+ every possible relation. It says to the young man and to the young woman:
+ "Don't marry unless you can take care of yourselves and your children." It
+ says to the parents: "Live for your children; put forth every effort to
+ the end that your children may know more than you&mdash;that they may be
+ better and grander than you." It says: "You have no right to bring
+ children into the world that you are not able to educate and feed and
+ clothe." It says to those who have diseases that can be transmitted to
+ children: "Do not marry; do not become parents; do not perpetuate
+ suffering, deformity, agony, imbecility, insanity, poverty, wretchedness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism tells all children to do the best they can for their parents&mdash;to
+ discharge every duty and every obligation. It defines the relation that
+ should exist between husband and wife; between parent and child; between
+ the citizen and the Nation. And not only that, but between nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism is a religion that is to be used everywhere, and at all times&mdash;that
+ is to be taught everywhere and practiced at all times. It is not a
+ religion that is so dangerous that it must be kept out of the schools; it
+ is not a religion that is so dangerous that it must be kept out of
+ politics. It belongs in the schools; it belongs at the polls. It is the
+ business of Secularism to teach every child; to teach every voter. It is
+ its business to discuss all political problems, and to decide all
+ questions that affect the rights or the happiness of a human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Orthodox religion is a firebrand; it must be kept out of the schools; it
+ must be kept out of politics. All the churches unite in saying that
+ orthodox religion is not for every day use. The Catholics object to any
+ Protestant religion being taught to children. Protestants object to any
+ Catholic religion being taught to children. But the Secularist wants his
+ religion taught to all; and his religion can produce no feeling, for the
+ reason that it consists of facts&mdash;of truths. And all of it is
+ important; important for the child, important for the parent, important
+ for the politician &mdash;for the President&mdash;for all in power;
+ important to every legislator, to every professional man, to every laborer
+ and every farmer&mdash;that is to say, to every human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great benefit of Secularism is that is appeals to the reason of every
+ man. It asks every man to think for himself. It does not threaten
+ punishment if a man thinks, but it offers a reward, for fear that he will
+ not think. It does not say, "You will be damned in another world if you
+ think." But it says, "You will be damned in this world if you do not
+ think."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism preserves the manhood and the womanhood of all. It says to each
+ human being: "Stand upon your own feet. Count one! Examine for yourself.
+ Investigate, observe, think. Express your opinion. Stand by your judgment,
+ unless you are convinced you are wrong, and when you are convinced, you
+ can maintain and preserve your manhood or womanhood only by admitting that
+ you were wrong."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible that the whole world should agree on one creed. It may be
+ impossible that any two human beings can agree exactly in religious
+ belief. Secularism teaches that each one must take care of himself, that
+ the first duty of man is to himself, to the end that he may be not only
+ useful to himself, but to others. He who fails to take care of himself
+ becomes a burden; the first duty of man is not to be a burden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every Secularist can give a reason for his creed. First of all, he
+ believes in work&mdash;taking care of himself. He believes in the
+ cultivation of the intellect, to the end that he may take advantage of the
+ forces of nature&mdash;to the end that he may be clothed and fed and
+ sheltered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also believes in giving to every other human being every right that he
+ claims for himself. He does not depend on prayer. He has no confidence in
+ ghosts or phantoms. He knows nothing of another world, and knows just as
+ little of a First Cause. But what little he does know, he endeavors to
+ use, and to use for the benefit of himself and others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knows that he sustains certain relations to other sentient beings, and
+ he endeavors to add to the aggregate of human joy. He is his own church,
+ his own priest, his own clergyman and his own pope. He decides for
+ himself; in other words, he is a free man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also has a Bible, and this Bible embraces all the good and true things
+ that have been written, no matter by whom, or in what language, or in what
+ time. He accepts everything that he believes to be true, and rejects all
+ that he thinks is false. He knows that nothing is added to the probability
+ of an event, because there has been an account of it written and printed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that has been said that is true is part of his Bible. Every splendid
+ and noble thought, every good word, every kind action&mdash; all these you
+ will find in his Bible. And, in addition to these, all that is absolutely
+ known&mdash;that has been demonstrated&mdash;belongs to the Secularist.
+ All the inventions, machines&mdash;everything that has been of assistance
+ to the human race&mdash;belongs to his religion. The Secularist is in
+ possession of everything that man has. He is deprived only of that which
+ man never had. The orthodox world believes in ghosts and phantoms, in
+ dreams and prayers, in miracles and monstrosities; that is to say, in
+ modern theology. But these things do not exist, or if they do exist, it is
+ impossible for a human being to ascertain the fact. Secularism has no
+ "castles in Spain." It has no glorified fog. It depends upon realities,
+ upon demonstrations; and its end and aim is to make this world better
+ every day&mdash;to do away with poverty and crime, and to cover the world
+ with happy and contended homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me say, right here, that a few years ago the Secular Hall at
+ Leicester, England, was opened by a speech from George Jacob Holyoake,
+ entitled, "Secularism as a Religion." I have never read anything better on
+ the subject of Secularism than this address. It is so clear and so manly
+ that I do not see how any human being can read it without becoming
+ convinced, and almost enraptured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me quote a few lies from this address:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The mind of man would die if it were not for Thought, and were Thought
+ suppressed, God would rule over a world of idiots.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Nature feeds Thought, day and night, with a million hands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "To think is a duty, because it is a man's duty not to be a fool.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If man does not think himself, he is an intellectual pauper, living upon
+ the truth acquired by others, and making no contribution himself in
+ return. He has no ideas but such as he obtains by 'out- door relief,' and
+ he goes about the world with a charity mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The more thinkers there are in the world, the more truth there is in the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Progress can only walk in the footsteps of Conviction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Coercion in thought is not progress, it reduces to ignominious pulp the
+ backbone of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "By Religion I mean the simple creed of deed and duty, by which a man
+ seeks his own welfare in his own way, with an honest and fair regard to
+ the welfare and ways of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In these thinking and practical days, men demand a religion of daily
+ life, which stands on a business footing."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think nothing could be much better than the following, which shows the
+ exact relation that orthodox religion sustains to the actual wants of
+ human beings:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Churches administer a system of Foreign Affairs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Secularism dwells in a land of its own. It dwells in a land of Certitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In the Kingdom of Thought there is no conquest over man, but over
+ foolishness only."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will not quote more, but hope all who read this will read the address of
+ Mr. Holyoake, who has, in my judgment, defined Secularism with the
+ greatest possible clearness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, are the best possible means to
+ spread this gospel or religion of Secularism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. This can only be done by the cultivation of the mind&mdash;
+ only through intelligence&mdash;because we are fighting only the monsters
+ of the mind. The phantoms whom we are endeavoring to destroy do not exist;
+ they are all imaginary. They live in that undeveloped or unexplored part
+ of the mind that belongs to barbarism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have sometimes thought that a certain portion of the mind is cultivated
+ so that it rises above the surrounding faculties and is like some peak
+ that has lifted itself above the clouds, while all the valleys below are
+ dark or dim with mist and cloud. It is in this valley-region, amid these
+ mists, beneath these clouds, that these monsters and phantoms are born.
+ And there they will remain until the mind sheds light&mdash;until the
+ brain is developed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One exceedingly important thing is to teach man that his mind has
+ limitations; that there are walls that he cannot scale&mdash;that he
+ cannot pierce, that he cannot dig under. When a man finds the limitations
+ of his own mind, he knows that other people's minds have limitations. He,
+ instead of believing what the priest says, he asks the priest questions.
+ In a few moments he finds that the priest has been drawing on his
+ imagination for what is beyond the wall. Consequently he finds that the
+ priest knows no more than he, and it is impossible that he should know
+ more than he.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An ignorant man has not the slightest suspicion of what a superior man may
+ do. Consequently, he is liable to become the victim of the intelligent and
+ cunning. A man wholly unacquainted with chemistry, after having been shown
+ a few wonders, is ready to believe anything. But a chemist who knows
+ something of the limitations of that science&mdash;who knows what chemists
+ have done and who knows the nature of things&mdash;cannot be imposed upon.
+ When no one can be imposed upon, orthodox religion cannot exist. It is an
+ imposture, and there must be impostors and there must be victims, or the
+ religion cannot be a success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism cannot be a success, universally, as long as there is an
+ impostor or a victim. This is the difference: The foundation of orthodox
+ religion is imposture. The foundation of Secularism is demonstration. Just
+ to the extent that a man knows, he becomes a Secularist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the action of the Knights of Labor
+ in Indiana in turning out one of their members because he was an Atheist,
+ and because he objected to the reading of the Bible at lodge meetings?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In my judgment, the Knights of Labor have made a great
+ mistake. They want liberty for themselves&mdash;they feel that, to a
+ certain extent, they have been enslaved and robbed. If they want liberty,
+ they should be willing to give liberty to others. Certainly one of their
+ members has the same right to his opinion with regard to the existence of
+ a God, that the other members have to theirs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not blame this man for doubting the existence of a Supreme Being,
+ provided he understands the history of liberty. When a man takes into
+ consideration the fact that for many thousands of years labor was unpaid,
+ nearly all of it being done by slaves, and that millions and hundreds of
+ millions of human beings were bought and sold the same as cattle, and that
+ during all that time the religions of the world upheld the practice, and
+ the priests of the countless unknown gods insisted that the institution of
+ slavery was divine&mdash; I do not wonder that he comes to the conclusion
+ that, perhaps, after all, there is no Supreme Being&mdash;at least none
+ who pays any particular attention to the affairs of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If one will read the history of the slave-trade, of the cruelties
+ practiced, of the lives sacrificed, of the tortures inflicted, he will at
+ least wonder why "a God of infinite goodness and wisdom" did not interfere
+ just a little; or, at least, why he did not deny that he was in favor of
+ the trade. Here, in our own country, millions of men were enslaved, and
+ hundreds and thousands of ministers stood up in their pulpits, with their
+ Bibles in front of them, and proceeded to show that slavery was about the
+ only institution that they were absolutely certain was divine. And they
+ proved it by reading passages from this very Bible that the Knights of
+ Labor in Indiana are anxious to have read in their meetings. For their
+ benefit, let me call their attention to a few passages, and suggest that,
+ hereafter, they read those passages at every meeting, for the purpose of
+ convincing all the Knights that the Lord is on the side of those who work
+ for a living:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Both thy bondsmen and thy bondsmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of
+ the heathen round about you; of them shall ye buy bondsmen and bondmaids.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of
+ them shall ye buy, and of their families which are with you, which they
+ begat in your land; and they shall be your possession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after you to
+ inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondsmen forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing seems more natural to me than that a man who believes that labor
+ should be free, and that he who works should be free, should come to the
+ conclusion that the passages above quoted are not entirely on his side. I
+ don't see why people should be in favor of free bodies who are not also in
+ favor of free minds. If the mind is to remain in imprisonment, it is
+ hardly worth while to free the body. If the man has the right to labor, he
+ certainly has the right to use his mind, because without mind he can do no
+ labor. As a rule, the more mind he has, the more valuable his labor is,
+ and the freer his mind is the more valuable he is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Knights of Labor expect to accomplish anything in this world, they
+ must do it by thinking. They must have reason on their side, and the only
+ way they can do anything by thinking is to allow each other to think. Let
+ all the men who do not believe in the inspiration of the Bible, leave the
+ Knights of Labor and I do not know how many would be left. But I am
+ perfectly certain that those left will accomplish very little, simply from
+ their lack of sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligent clergymen have abandoned the idea of plenary inspiration. The
+ best ministers in the country admit that the Bible is full of mistakes,
+ and while many of them are forced to say that slavery is upheld by the Old
+ Testament they also insist that slavery was and is, and forever will be
+ wrong. What had the Knights of Labor to do with a question of religion?
+ What business is it of theirs who believes or disbelieves in the religion
+ of the day? Nobody can defend the rights of labor without defending the
+ right to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hope that in time these Knights will become intelligent enough to read
+ in their meetings something of importance; something that applies to this
+ century; something that will throw a little light on questions under
+ discussion at the present time. The idea of men engaged in a kind of
+ revolution reading from Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Haggai, for the purpose
+ of determining the rights of workingmen in the nineteenth century! No
+ wonder such men have been swallowed by the whale of monopoly. And no
+ wonder that, while that are in the belly of this fish, they insist on
+ casting out a man with sense enough to understand the situation! The
+ Knights of Labor have made a mistake and the sooner they reverse their
+ action the better for all concerned. Nothing should be taught in this
+ world that somebody does not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Secular Thought</i>, Toronto, Canada, August 25, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0078" id="link0078">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SUMMER RECREATION&mdash;MR. GLADSTONE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is the best philosophy of summer recreation?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. As a matter of fact, no one should be overworked.
+ Recreation becomes necessary only when a man has abused himself or has
+ been abused. Holidays grew out of slavery. An intelligent man ought not to
+ work so hard to-day that he is compelled to rest to-morrow. Each day
+ should have its labor and its rest. But in our civilization, if it can be
+ called civilization, every man is expected to devote himself entirely to
+ business for the most of the year and by that means to get into such a
+ state of body and mind that he requires, for the purpose of recreation,
+ the inconveniences, the poor diet, the horrible beds, the little towels,
+ the warm water, the stale eggs and the tough beef of the average "resort."
+ For the purpose of getting his mental and physical machinery in fine
+ working order, he should live in a room for two or three months that is
+ about eleven by thirteen; that is to say, he should live in a trunk, fight
+ mosquitoes, quarrel with strangers, dispute bills, and generally enjoy
+ himself; and this is supposed to be the philosophy of summer recreation.
+ He can do this, or he can go to some extremely fashionable resort where
+ his time is taken up in making himself and family presentable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seriously, there are few better summer resorts than New York City. If
+ there were no city here it would be the greatest resort for the summer on
+ the continent; with its rivers, its bay, with its wonderful scenery, with
+ the winds from the sea, no better could be found. But we cannot in this
+ age of the world live in accordance with philosophy. No particular theory
+ can be carried out. We must live as we must; we must earn our bread and we
+ must earn it as others do, and, as a rule, we must work when others work.
+ Consequently, if we are to take any recreation we must follow the example
+ of others; go when they go and come when they come. In other words, man is
+ a social being, and if one endeavors to carry individuality to an extreme
+ he must suffer the consequences. So I have made up my mind to work as
+ little as I can and to rest as much as I can.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Mr. Gladstone as a
+ controversialist?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Undoubtedly Mr. Gladstone is a man of great talent, of vast
+ and varied information, and undoubtedly he is, politically speaking, at
+ least, one of the greatest men in England&mdash;possibly the greatest. As
+ a controversialist, and I suppose by that you mean on religious questions,
+ he is certainly as good as his cause. Few men can better defend the
+ indefensible than Mr. Gladstone. Few men can bring forward more
+ probabilities in favor of the impossible, then Mr. Gladstone. He is, in my
+ judgment, controlled in the realm of religion by sentiment; he was taught
+ long ago certain things as absolute truths and he has never questioned
+ them. He has had all he can do to defend them. It is of but little use to
+ attack sentiment with argument, or to attack argument with sentiment. A
+ question of sentiment can hardly be discussed; it is like a question of
+ taste. A man is enraptured with a landscape by Corot; you cannot argue him
+ out of his rapture; the sharper the criticism the greater his admiration,
+ because he feels that it is incumbent upon him to defend the painter who
+ has given him so much real pleasure. Some people imagine that what they
+ think ought to exist must exist, and that what they really desire to be
+ true is true. We must remember that Mr. Gladstone has been what is called
+ a deeply religions man all his life. There was a time when he really
+ believed it to be the duty of the government to see to it that the
+ citizens were religious; when he really believed that no man should hold
+ any office or any position under the government who was not a believer in
+ the established religion; who was not a defender of the parliamentary
+ faith. I do not know whether he has ever changed his opinions upon these
+ subjects or not. There is not the slightest doubt as to his honesty, as to
+ his candor. He says what he believes, and for his belief he gives the
+ reasons that are satisfactory to him. To me it seems impossible that
+ miracles can be defended. I do not see how it is possible to bring forward
+ any evidence that any miracle was ever performed; and unless miracles have
+ been performed, Christianity has no basis as a system. Mr. Hume took the
+ ground that it was impossible to substantiate a miracle, for the reason
+ that it is more probable that the witnesses are mistaken, or are
+ dishonest, than that a fact in nature should be violated. For instance: A
+ man says that a certain time, in a certain locality, the attraction of
+ gravitation was suspended; that there were several moments during which a
+ cannon ball weighed nothing, during which when dropped from the hand, or
+ rather when released from the hand, it refused to fall and remained in the
+ air. It is safe to say that no amount of evidence, no number of witnesses,
+ could convince an intelligent man to-day that such a thing occurred. We
+ believe too thoroughly in the constancy of nature. While men will not
+ believe witnesses who testify to the happening of miracles now, they seem
+ to have perfect confidence in men whom they never saw, who have been dead
+ for two thousand years. Of course it is known that Mr. Gladstone has
+ published a few remarks concerning my religious views and that I have
+ answered him the best I could. I have no opinion to give as to that
+ controversy; neither would it be proper for me to say what I think of the
+ arguments advanced by Mr. Gladstone in addition to what I have already
+ published. I am willing to leave the controversy where it is, or I am
+ ready to answer any further objections that Mr. Gladstone may be pleased
+ to urge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, the "Age of Faith" is passing away. We are living in a
+ time of demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [NOTE: From an unfinished interview found among Colonel Ingersoll's
+ papers.]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0079" id="link0079">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROHIBITION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ It has been decided in many courts in various States that the traffic in
+ liquor can be regulated&mdash;that it is a police question. It has been
+ decided by the courts in Iowa that its manufacture and sale can be
+ prohibited, and, not only so, but that a distillery or a brewery may be
+ declared a nuisance and may legally be abated, and these decisions have
+ been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. Consequently, it
+ has been settled by the highest tribunal that States have the power either
+ to regulate or to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, and not only
+ so, but that States have the power to destroy breweries and distilleries
+ without making any compensation to owners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it has always been considered within the power of the State to license
+ the selling of intoxicating liquors. In other words, this question is one
+ that the States can decide for themselves. It is not, and it should not
+ be, in my judgment, a Federal question. It is something with which the
+ United States has nothing to do. It belongs to the States; and where a
+ majority of the people are in favor of prohibition and pass laws to that
+ effect, there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that
+ interferes with such action.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The remaining question, then, is not a question of power, but a question
+ of policy, and at the threshold of this question is another: Can
+ prohibitory laws be enforced? There are to-day in Kansas,&mdash;a
+ prohibition State&mdash;more saloons, that is to say, more places in which
+ liquor is sold, than there are in Georgia, a State without prohibition
+ legislation. There are more in Nebraska, according to the population, more
+ in Iowa, according to the population, than in many of the States in which
+ there is the old license system. You will find that the United States has
+ granted more licenses to wholesale and retail dealers in these prohibition
+ States,&mdash;according to the population,&mdash;than in many others in
+ which prohibition has not been adopted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These facts tend to show that it is not enough for the Legislature to say:
+ "Be it enacted." Behind every law there must be an intelligent and
+ powerful public opinion. A law, to be enforced, must be the expression of
+ such powerful and intelligent opinion; otherwise it becomes a dead letter;
+ it is avoided; judges continue the cases, juries refuse to convict, and
+ witnesses are not particular about telling the truth. Such laws demoralize
+ the community, or, to put it in another way, demoralized communities pass
+ such laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the prohibitory movement on general
+ principles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The trouble is that when a few zealous men, intending to
+ reform the world, endeavor to enforce unpopular laws, they are compelled
+ to resort to detectives, to a system of espionage. For the purpose of
+ preventing the sale of liquors somebody has to watch. Eyes and ears must
+ become acquainted with keyholes. Every neighbor suspects every other. A
+ man with a bottle or demijohn is followed. Those who drink get behind
+ doors, in cellars and garrets. Hypocrisy becomes substantially universal.
+ Hundreds of people become suddenly afflicted with a variety of diseases,
+ for the cure of which alcohol in some form is supposed to be
+ indispensable. Malaria becomes general, and it is perfectly astonishing
+ how long a few pieces of Peruvian bark will last, and how often the liquor
+ can be renewed without absorbing the medicinal qualities of the bark. The
+ State becomes a paradise for patent medicine&mdash;the medicine being poor
+ whiskey with a scientific name.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Physicians become popular in proportion as liquor of some kind figures in
+ their prescriptions. Then in the towns clubs are formed, the principal
+ object being to establish a saloon, and in many instances the drug store
+ becomes a favorite resort, especially on Sundays.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, however, another side to this question. It is this: Nothing in
+ the world is more important than personal liberty. Many people are in
+ favor of blotting out the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. This is the
+ mistake of all prohibitory fanaticism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is true temperance, Colonel Ingersoll?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Men have used stimulants for many thousand years, and as
+ much is used to-day in various forms as in any other period of the world's
+ history. They are used with more prudence now than ever before, for the
+ reason that the average man is more intelligent now than ever before.
+ Intelligence has much to do with temperance. The barbarian rushes to the
+ extreme, for the reason that but little, comparatively, depends upon his
+ personal conduct or personal habits. Now the struggle for life is so
+ sharp, competition is so severe, that few men can succeed who carry a
+ useless burden. The business men of our country are compelled to lead
+ temperate lives, otherwise their credit is gone. Men of wealth, men of
+ intelligence, do not wish to employ intemperate physicians. They are not
+ willing to trust their health or their lives with a physician who is under
+ the influence of liquor. The same is true of business men in regard to
+ their legal interests. They insist upon having sober attorneys; they want
+ the counsel of a sober man. So in every department. On the railways it is
+ absolutely essential that the engineer, that the conductor, the train
+ dispatcher and every other employee, in whose hands are the lives of men,
+ should be temperate. The consequence is that under the law of the survival
+ of the fittest, the intemperate are slowly but surely going to the wall;
+ they are slowly but surely being driven out of employments of trust and
+ importance. As we rise in the scale of civilization we continually demand
+ better and better service. We are continually insisting upon better
+ habits, upon a higher standard of integrity, of fidelity. These are the
+ causes, in my judgment, that are working together in the direction of true
+ temperance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe the people can be made to do without a
+ stimulant?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The history of the world shows that all men who have
+ advanced one step beyond utter barbarism have used some kind of stimulant.
+ Man has sought for it in every direction. Every savage loves it.
+ Everything has been tried. Opium has been used by many hundreds of
+ millions. Hasheesh has filled countless brains with chaotic dreams, and
+ everywhere that civilization has gone the blood of the grape has been
+ used. Nothing is easier now to obtain than liquor. In one bushel of corn
+ there are at least five gallons&mdash; four can easily be extracted. All
+ starch, all sugars, can be changed almost instantly into alcohol. Every
+ grain that grows has in it the intoxicating principle, and, as a matter of
+ fact, nearly all of the corn, wheat, sugar and starch that man eats is
+ changed into alcohol in his stomach. Whether man can be compelled to do
+ without a stimulant is a question that I am unable to answer. Of one thing
+ I am certain: He has never yet been compelled to do without one. The
+ tendency, I think, of modern times is toward a milder stimulant than
+ distilled liquors. Whisky and brandies are too strong; wine and beer
+ occupy the middle ground. Wine is a fireside, whisky a conflagration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that it would be far better if the Prohibitionists would
+ turn their attention toward distilled spirits. If they were willing to
+ compromise, the probability is that they would have public opinion on
+ their side. If they would say: "You may have all the beer and all the wine
+ and cider you wish, and you can drink them when and where you desire, but
+ the sale of distilled spirits shall be prohibited," it is possible that
+ this could be carried out in good faith in many if not in most of the
+ States&mdash;possibly in all. We all know the effect of wine, even when
+ taken in excess, is nothing near as disastrous as the effect of distilled
+ spirits. Why not take the middle ground? The wine drinkers of the old
+ country are not drunkards. They have been drinking wine for generations.
+ It is drunk by men, women and children. It adds to the sociability of the
+ family. It does not separate the husband from the rest, it keeps them all
+ together, and in that view is rather a benefit than an injury. Good wine
+ can be raised as cheaply here as in any part of the world. In nearly every
+ part of our country the grape grows and good wine can be made. If our
+ people had a taste for wine they would lose the taste for stronger drink,
+ and they would be disgusted with the surroundings of the stronger drink.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same may be said in favor of beer. As long as the Prohibitionists make
+ no distinction between wine and whisky, between beer and brandy, just so
+ long they will be regarded by most people as fanatics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Prohibitionists cannot expect to make this question a Federal one. The
+ United States has no jurisdiction of this subject. Congress can pass no
+ laws affecting this question that could have any force except in such
+ parts of our country as are not within the jurisdiction of States. It is a
+ question for the States and not for the Federal Government. The
+ Prohibitionists are simply throwing away their votes. Let us suppose that
+ we had a Prohibition Congress and a Prohibition President&mdash;what steps
+ could be taken to do away with drinking in the city of New York? What
+ steps could be taken in any State of this Union? What could by any
+ possibility be done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago the Prohibitionists demanded above all things that the tax
+ be taken from distilled spirits, claiming at that time that such a tax
+ made the Government a partner in vice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now when the Republican party proposes under certain circumstances to
+ remove that tax, the Prohibitionists denounce the movement as one in favor
+ of intemperance. We have also been told that the tax on whisky should be
+ kept for the reason that it increases the price, and that an increased
+ price tends to make a temperate people; that if the tax is taken off, the
+ price will fall and the whole country start on the downward road to
+ destruction. Is it possible that human nature stands on such slippery
+ ground? It is possible that our civilization to-day rests upon the price
+ of alcohol, and that, should the price be reduced, we would all go down
+ together? For one, I cannot entertain such a humiliating and disgraceful
+ view of human nature. I believe that man is destined to grow greater,
+ grander and nobler. I believe that no matter what the cost of alcohol may
+ be, life will grow too valuable to be thrown away. Men hold life according
+ to its value. Men, as a rule, only throw away their lives when they are
+ not worth keeping. When life becomes worth living it will be carefully
+ preserved and will be hoarded to the last grain of sand that falls through
+ the glass of time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is the reason for so much intemperance?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. When many people are failures, when they are distanced in
+ the race, when they fall behind, when they give up, when they lose
+ ambition, when they finally become convinced that they are worthless,
+ precisely as they are in danger of becoming dishonest. In other words,
+ having failed in the race of life on the highway, they endeavor to reach
+ to goal by going across lots, by crawling through the grass. Disguise this
+ matter as we may, all people are not successes, all people have not the
+ brain or the muscle or the moral stamina necessary to succeed. Some fall
+ in one way, some in another; some in the net of strong drink, some in the
+ web of circumstances and others in a thousand ways, and the world itself
+ cannot grow better unless the unworthy fail. The law is the survival of
+ the fittest, that is to say, the destruction of the unfit. There is no
+ scheme of morals, no scheme of government, no scheme of charity, that can
+ reverse this law. If it could be reversed, then the result would be the
+ survival of the unfittest, the speedy end of which would be the extinction
+ of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Temperance men say that it is wise, in so far as possible, to remove
+ temptation from our fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us look at this in regard to other matters. How do we do away with
+ larceny? We cannot remove property. We cannot destroy the money of the
+ world to keep people from stealing some of it. In other words, we cannot
+ afford to make the world valueless to prevent larceny. All strength by
+ which temptation is resisted must come from the inside. Virtue does not
+ depend upon the obstacles to be overcome; virtue depends upon what is
+ inside of the man. A man is not honest because the safe of the bank is
+ perfectly secure. Upon the honest man the condition of the safe has no
+ effect. We will never succeed in raising great and splendid people by
+ keeping them out of temptation. Great people withstand temptation. Great
+ people have what may be called moral muscle, moral force. They are poised
+ within themselves. They understand their relations to the world. The best
+ possible foundation for honesty is the intellectual perception that
+ dishonesty can, under no circumstances, be a good investment&mdash;that
+ larceny is not only wicked, but foolish&mdash;not only criminal, but
+ stupid&mdash;that crimes are committed only by fools.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On every hand there is what is called temptation. Every man has the
+ opportunity of doing wrong. Every man, in this country, has the
+ opportunity of drinking too much, has the opportunity of acquiring the
+ opium habit, has the opportunity of taking morphine every day&mdash;in
+ other words, has the opportunity of destroying himself. How are they to be
+ prevented? Most of them are prevented&mdash;at least in a reasonable
+ degree&mdash;and they are prevented by their intelligence, by their
+ surroundings, by their education, by their objects and aims in life, by
+ the people they love, by the people who love them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one will deny the evils of intemperance, and it is hardly to be
+ wondered at that people who regard only one side&mdash;who think of the
+ impoverished and wretched, of wives and children in want, of desolate
+ homes&mdash;become the advocates of absolute prohibition. At the same
+ time, there is a philosophic side, and the question is whether more good
+ cannot be done by moral influence, by example, by education, by the
+ gradual civilization of our fellow-men, than in any other possible way.
+ The greatest things are accomplished by indirection. In this way the idea
+ of force, of slavery, is avoided. The person influenced does not feel that
+ he has been trampled upon, does not regard himself as a victim&mdash;he
+ feels rather as a pupil, as one who receives a benefit, whose mind has
+ been enlarged, whose life has been enriched&mdash;whereas the direct way
+ of "Thou shalt not" produces an antagonism&mdash;in other words, produces
+ the natural result of "I will."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By removing one temptation you add strength to others. By depriving a man
+ of one stimulant, as a rule, you drive him to another, and the other may
+ be far worse than the one from which he has been driven. We have hundreds
+ of laws making certain things misdemeanors, which are naturally right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of people, honest in most directions, delight in outwitting the
+ Government&mdash;derive absolute pleasure from getting in a few clothes
+ and gloves and shawls without the payment of duty. Thousands of people buy
+ things in Europe for which they pay more than they would for the same
+ things in America, and then exercise their ingenuity in slipping them
+ through the custom-house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A law to have real force must spring from the nature of things, and the
+ justice of this law must be generally perceived, otherwise it will be
+ evaded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The temperance people themselves are playing into the hands of the very
+ party that would refuse to count their votes. Allow the Democrats to
+ remain in power, allow the Democrats to be controlled by the South, and a
+ large majority might be in favor of temperance legislation, and yet the
+ votes would remain uncounted. The party of reform has a great interest in
+ honest elections, and honest elections must first be obtained as the
+ foundation of reform. The Prohibitionists can take their choice between
+ these parties. Would it not be far better for the Prohibitionists to say:
+ "We will vote for temperance men; we will stand with the party that is the
+ nearest in favor of what we deem to be the right"? They should also take
+ into consideration that other people are as honest as they; that others
+ disbelieve in prohibition as honestly as they believe in it, and that
+ other people cannot leave their principles to vote for prohibition; and
+ they must remember, that these other people are in the majority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Fisk knows that he cannot be elected President&mdash;knows that it is
+ impossible for him to carry any State in the Union. He also knows that in
+ nearly every State in the Union&mdash;probably in all&mdash;a majority of
+ the people believe in stimulants. Why not work with the great and
+ enlightened majority? Why rush to the extreme for the purpose not only of
+ making yourself useless but hurtful?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man in the world is more opposed to intemperance than I am. No man in
+ the world feels more keenly the evils and the agony produced by the crime
+ of drunkenness. And yet I would not be willing to sacrifice liberty,
+ individuality, and the glory and greatness of individual freedom, to do
+ away with all the evils of intemperance. In other words, I believe that
+ slavery, oppression and suppression would crowd humanity into a thousand
+ deformities, the result of which would be a thousand times more disastrous
+ to the well-being of man. I do not believe in the slave virtues, in the
+ monotony of tyranny, in the respectability produced by force. I admire the
+ men who have grown in the atmosphere of liberty, who have the pose of
+ independence, the virtues of strength, of heroism, and in whose hearts is
+ the magnanimity, the tenderness, and the courage born of victory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York World</i>, October 21, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0080" id="link0080">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ROBERT ELSMERE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ Why do people read a book like "Robert Elsmere," and why do they take any
+ interest in it? Simply because they are not satisfied with the religion of
+ our day. The civilized world has outgrown the greater part of the
+ Christian creed. Civilized people have lost their belief in the reforming
+ power of punishment. They find that whips and imprisonment have but little
+ influence for good. The truth has dawned upon their minds that eternal
+ punishment is infinite cruelty&mdash;that it can serve no good purpose and
+ that the eternity of hell makes heaven impossible. That there can be in
+ this universe no perfectly happy place while there is a perfectly
+ miserable place&mdash;that no infinite being can be good who knowingly
+ and, as one may say, willfully created myriads of human beings, knowing
+ that they would be eternally miserable. In other words, the civilized man
+ is greater, tenderer, nobler, nearer just than the old idea of God. The
+ ideal of a few thousand years ago is far below the real of to-day. No good
+ man now would do what Jehovah is said to have done four thousand years
+ ago, and no civilized human being would now do what, according to the
+ Christian religion, Christ threatens to do at the day of judgment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Has the Christian religion changed in theory of late
+ years, Colonel Ingersoll?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the
+ Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they
+ were pleased to call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature
+ is as cruel as the Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the
+ Bible, this God at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine,
+ and this God has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another.
+ So that now we have arrived at the question&mdash;not as to whether the
+ Bible is inspired and not as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but
+ whether there is a God or not. The intelligence of Christendom to-day does
+ not believe in an inspired art or an inspired literature. If there be an
+ infinite God, inspiration in some particular regard would be a patch&mdash;it
+ would be the puttying of a crack, the hiding of a defect &mdash;in other
+ words, it would show that the general plan was defective.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider any religion adequate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A good man, living in England, drawing a certain salary for
+ reading certain prayers on stated occasions, for making a few remarks on
+ the subject of religion, putting on clothes of a certain cut, wearing a
+ gown with certain frills and flounces starched in an orthodox manner, and
+ then looking about him at the suffering and agony of the world, would not
+ feel satisfied that he was doing anything of value for the human race. In
+ the first place, he would deplore his own weakness, his own poverty, his
+ inability to help his fellow-men. He would long every moment for wealth,
+ that he might feed the hungry and clothe the naked&mdash;for knowledge,
+ for miraculous power, that he might heal the sick and the lame and that he
+ might give to the deformed the beauty of proportion. He would begin to
+ wonder how a being of infinite goodness and infinite power could allow his
+ children to die, to suffer, to be deformed by necessity, by poverty, to be
+ tempted beyond resistance; how he could allow the few to live in luxury,
+ and the many in poverty and want, and the more he wondered the more
+ useless and ironical would seem to himself his sermons and his prayers.
+ Such a man is driven to the conclusion that religion accomplishes but
+ little&mdash;that it creates as much want as it alleviates, and that it
+ burdens the world with parasites. Such a man would be forced to think of
+ the millions wasted in superstition. In other words, the inadequacy, the
+ uselessness of religion would be forced upon his mind. He would ask
+ himself the question: "Is it possible that this is a divine institution?
+ Is this all that man can do with the assistance of God? Is this the best?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. That is a perfectly reasonable question, is it not,
+ Colonel Ingersoll?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The moment a man reaches the point where he asks himself
+ this question he has ceased to be an orthodox Christian. It will not do to
+ say that in some other world justice will be done. If God allows injustice
+ to triumph here, why not there?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert Elsmere stands in the dawn of philosophy. There is hardly light
+ enough for him to see clearly; but there is so much light that the stars
+ in the night of superstition are obscured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. You do not deny that a religious belief is a comfort?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is one thing that it is impossible for me to
+ comprehend. Why should any one, when convinced that Christianity is a
+ superstition, have or feel a sense of loss? Certainly a man acquainted
+ with England, with London, having at the same time something like a heart,
+ must feel overwhelmed by the failure of what is known as Christianity.
+ Hundreds of thousands exist there without decent food, dwelling in
+ tenements, clothed with rags, familiar with every form of vulgar vice,
+ where the honest poor eat the crust that the vicious throw away. When this
+ man of intelligence, of heart, visits the courts; when he finds human
+ liberty a thing treated as of no value, and when he hears the judge
+ sentencing girls and boys to the penitentiary&mdash;knowing that a stain
+ is being put upon them that all the tears of all the coming years can
+ never wash away&mdash;knowing, too, and feeling that this is done without
+ the slightest regret, without the slightest sympathy, as a mere matter of
+ form, and that the judge puts this brand of infamy upon the forehead of
+ the convict just as cheerfully as a Mexican brands his cattle; and when
+ this man of intelligence and heart knows that these poor people are simply
+ the victims of society, the unfortunates who stumble and over whose bodies
+ rolls the Juggernaut&mdash;he knows that there is, or at least appears to
+ be, no power above or below working for righteousness&mdash;that from the
+ heavens is stretched no protecting hand. And when a man of intelligence
+ and heart in England visits the workhouse, the last resting place of
+ honest labor; when he thinks that the young man, without any great
+ intelligence, but with a good constitution, starts in the morning of his
+ life for the workhouse, and that it is impossible for the laboring man,
+ one who simply has his muscle, to save anything; that health is not able
+ to lay anything by for the days of disease&mdash;when the man of
+ intelligence and heart sees all this, he is compelled to say that the
+ civilization of to-day, the religion of to-day, the charity of to-day&mdash;no
+ matter how much of good there may be behind them or in them, are failures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago people were satisfied when the minister said: "All this
+ will be made even in another world; a crust-eater here will sit at the
+ head of the banquet there, and the king here will beg for the crumbs that
+ fall from the table there." When this was said, the poor man hoped and the
+ king laughed. A few years ago the church said to the slave: "You will be
+ free in another world, and your freedom will be made glorious by the
+ perpetual spectacle of your master in hell." But the people&mdash;that is,
+ many of the people&mdash;are no longer deceived by what once were
+ considered fine phrases. They have suffered so much that they no longer
+ wish to see others suffer and no longer think of the suffering of others
+ as a source of joy to themselves. The poor see that the eternal starvation
+ of kings and queens in another world will be no compensation for what they
+ have suffered there. The old religions appear vulgar and the ideas of
+ rewards and punishments are only such as would satisfy a cannibal chief or
+ one of his favorites.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the Christian religion has made the world
+ better?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. For many centuries there has been preached and taught in an
+ almost infinite number of ways a supernatural religion. During all this
+ time the world has been in the care of the Infinite, and yet every
+ imaginable vice has flourished, every imaginable pang has been suffered,
+ and every injustice has been done. During all these years the priests have
+ enslaved the minds, and the kings the bodies, of men. The priests did what
+ they did in the name of God, and the kings appeal to the same source of
+ authority. Man suffered as long as he could. Revolution, reformation, was
+ simply a re- action, a cry from the poor wretch that was between the upper
+ and the nether millstone. The liberty of man has increased just in the
+ proportion that the authority of the gods has decreased. In other words,
+ the wants of man, instead of the wishes of God, have inaugurated what we
+ call progress, and there is this difference: Theology is based upon the
+ narrowest and intensest form of selfishness. Of course, the theologian
+ knows, the Christian knows, that he can do nothing for God; consequently
+ all that he does must be and is for himself, his object being to win the
+ approbation of this God, to the end that he may become a favorite. On the
+ other side, men touched not only by their own misfortunes, but by the
+ misfortunes of others, are moved not simply by selfishness, but by a
+ splendid sympathy with their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Christianity certainly fosters charity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nothing is more cruel than orthodox theology, nothing more
+ heartless than a charitable institution. For instance, in England, think
+ for a moment of the manner in which charities are distributed, the way in
+ which the crust is flung at Lazarus. If that parable could be now retold,
+ the dogs would bite him. The same is true in this country. The institution
+ has nothing but contempt for the one it relieves. The people in charge
+ regard the pauper as one who has wrecked himself. They feel very much as a
+ man would feel rescuing from the water some hare-brained wretch who had
+ endeavored to swim the rapids of Niagara&mdash;the moment they reach him
+ they begin to upbraid him for being such a fool. This course makes charity
+ a hypocrite, with every pauper for its enemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Ward compelled Robert Elsmere to perceive, in some slight degree, the
+ failure of Christianity to do away with vice and suffering, with poverty
+ and crime. We know that the rich care but little for the poor. No matter
+ how religious the rich may be, the sufferings of their fellows have but
+ little effect upon them. We are also beginning to see that what is called
+ charity will never redeem this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor man willing to work, eager to maintain his independence, knows
+ that there is something higher than charity&mdash;that is to say, justice.
+ He finds that many years before he was born his country was divided out
+ between certain successful robbers, flatterers, cringers and crawlers, and
+ that in consequence of such division not only he himself, but a large
+ majority of his fellow-men are tenants, renters, occupying the surface of
+ the earth only at the pleasure of others. He finds, too, that these people
+ who have done nothing and who do nothing, have everything, and that those
+ who do everything have but little. He finds that idleness has the money
+ and that the toilers are compelled to bow to the idlers. He finds also
+ that the young men of genius are bribed by social distinctions &mdash;unconsciously
+ it may be&mdash;but still bribed in a thousand ways. He finds that the
+ church is a kind of waste-basket into which are thrown the younger sons of
+ titled idleness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider that society in general has been made
+ better by religious influences?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Society is corrupted because the laurels, the titles, are
+ in the keeping and within the gift of the corrupters. Christianity is not
+ an enemy of this system&mdash;it is in harmony with it. Christianity
+ reveals to us a universe presided over by an infinite autocrat&mdash;a
+ universe without republicanism, without democracy&mdash;a universe where
+ all power comes from one and the same source, and where everyone using
+ authority is accountable, not to the people, but to this supposed source
+ of authority. Kings reign by divine right. Priests are ordained in a
+ divinely appointed way&mdash;they do not get their office from man. Man is
+ their servant, not their master.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the story of Robert Elsmere all there is of Christianity is left except
+ the miraculous. Theism remains, and the idea of a protecting Providence is
+ left, together with a belief in the immeasurable superiority of Jesus
+ Christ. That is to say, the miracles are discarded for lack of evidence,
+ and only for lack of evidence; not on the ground that they are impossible,
+ not on the ground that they impeach and deny the integrity of cause and
+ effect, not on the ground that they contradict the self-evident
+ proposition that an effect must have an efficient cause, but like the
+ Scotch verdict, "not proven." It is an effort to save and keep in repair
+ the dungeons of the Inquisition for the sake of the beauty of the vines
+ that have overrun them. Many people imagine that falsehoods may become
+ respectable on account of age, that a certain reverence goes with
+ antiquity, and that if a mistake is covered with the moss of sentiment it
+ is altogether more credible than a parvenu fact. They endeavor to
+ introduce the idea of aristocracy into the world of thought, believing,
+ and honestly believing, that a falsehood long believed is far superior to
+ a truth that is generally denied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If Robert Elsmere's views were commonly adopted what
+ would be the effect?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The new religion of Elsmere is, after all, only a system of
+ outdoor relief, an effort to get successful piracy to give up a larger per
+ cent. for the relief of its victims. The abolition of the system is not
+ dreamed of. A civilized minority could not by any possibility be happy
+ while a majority of the world were miserable. A civilized majority could
+ not be happy while a minority were miserable. As a matter of fact, a
+ civilized world could not be happy while one man was really miserable. At
+ the foundation of civilization is justice&mdash;that is to say, the giving
+ of an equal opportunity to all the children of men. Secondly, there can be
+ no civilization in the highest sense until sympathy becomes universal. We
+ must have a new definition for success. We must have new ideals. The man
+ who succeeds in amassing wealth, who gathers money for himself, is not a
+ success. It is an exceedingly low ambition to be rich to excite the envy
+ of others, or for the sake of the vulgar power it gives to triumph over
+ others. Such men are failures. So the man who wins fame, position, power,
+ and wins these for the sake of himself, and wields this power not for the
+ elevation of his fellow-men, but simply to control, is a miserable
+ failure. He may dispense thousands of millions in charity, and his charity
+ may be prompted by the meanest part of his nature&mdash;using it simply as
+ a bait to catch more fish and to prevent the rising tide of indignation
+ that might overwhelm him. Men who steal millions and then give a small
+ percentage to the Lord to gain the praise of the clergy and to bring the
+ salvation of their souls within the possibilities of imagination, are all
+ failures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert Elsmere gains our affection and our applause to the extent that he
+ gives up what are known as orthodox views, and his wife Catherine retains
+ our respect in the proportion that she lives the doctrine that Elsmere
+ preaches. By doing what she believes to be right, she gains our
+ forgiveness for her creed. One is astonished that she can be as good as
+ she is, believing as she does. The utmost stretch of our intellectual
+ charity is to allow the old wine to be put in a new bottle, and yet she
+ regrets the absence of the old bottle&mdash;she really believes that the
+ bottle is the important thing&mdash;that the wine is but a secondary
+ consideration. She misses the label, and not having perfect confidence in
+ her own taste, she does not feel quite sure that the wine is genuine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, on the whole, is your judgment of the book?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the book conservative. It is an effort to save
+ something&mdash;a few shreds and patches and ravelings&mdash;from the
+ wreck. Theism is difficult to maintain. Why should we expect an infinite
+ Being to do better in another world than he has done and is doing in this?
+ If he allows the innocent to suffer here, why not there? If he allows
+ rascality to succeed in this world, why not in the next? To believe in God
+ and to deny his personality is an exceedingly vague foundation for a
+ consolation. If you insist on his personality and power, then it is
+ impossible to account for what happens. Why should an infinite God allow
+ some of his children to enslave others? Why should he allow a child of his
+ to burn another child of his, under the impression that such a sacrifice
+ was pleasing to him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unitarianism lacks the motive power. Orthodox people who insist that
+ nearly everybody is going to hell, and that it is their duty to do what
+ little they can to save their souls, have what you might call a spur to
+ action. We can imagine a philanthropic man engaged in the business of
+ throwing ropes to persons about to go over the falls of Niagara, but we
+ can hardly think of his carrying on the business after being convinced
+ that there are no falls, or that people go over them in perfect safety. In
+ this country the question has come up whether all the heathen are bound to
+ be damned unless they believe in the gospel. Many admit that the heathen
+ will be saved if they are good people, and that they will not be damned
+ for not believing something that they never heard. The really orthodox
+ people&mdash;that is to say, the missionaries&mdash;instantly see that
+ this doctrine destroys their business. They take the ground that there is
+ but one way to be saved&mdash;you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ&mdash;and
+ they are willing to admit, and cheerfully to admit, that the heathen for
+ many generations have gone in an unbroken column down to eternal wrath.
+ And they not only admit this, but insist upon it, to the end that
+ subscriptions may not cease. With them salary and salvation are
+ convertible terms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tone of this book is not of the highest. Too much stress is laid upon
+ social advantages&mdash;too much respect for fashionable folly and for
+ ancient absurdity. It is hard for me to appreciate the feelings of one who
+ thinks it difficult to give up the consolations of the gospel. What are
+ the consolations of the Church of England? It is a religion imposed upon
+ the people by authority. It is the gospel at the mouth of a cannon, at the
+ point of a bayonet, enforced by all authority, from the beadle to the
+ Queen. It is a parasite living upon tithes&mdash;these tithes being
+ collected by the army and navy. It produces nothing&mdash;is simply a
+ beggar&mdash;or rather an aggregation of beggars. It teaches nothing of
+ importance. It discovers nothing. It is under obligation not to
+ investigate. It has agreed to remain stationary not only, but to resist
+ all innovation. According to the creed of this church, a very large
+ proportion of the human race is destined to suffer eternal pain. This does
+ not interfere with the quiet, with the serenity and repose of the average
+ clergyman. They put on their gowns, they read the service, they repeat the
+ creed and feel that their duty has been done. How any one can feel that he
+ is giving up something of value when he finds that the Episcopal creed is
+ untrue is beyond my imagination. I should think that every good man and
+ woman would overflow with joy, that every heart would burst into countless
+ blossoms the moment the falsity of the Episcopal creed was established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity is the most heartless of all religions&mdash;the most
+ unforgiving, the most revengeful. According to the Episcopalian belief,
+ God becomes the eternal prosecutor of his own children. I know of no creed
+ believed by any tribe, not excepting the tribes where cannibalism is
+ practiced, that is more heartless, more inhuman than this. To find that
+ the creed is false is like being roused from a frightful dream, in which
+ hundreds of serpents are coiled about you, in which their eyes, gleaming
+ with hatred, are fixed on you, and finding the world bathed in sunshine
+ and the songs of birds in your ears and those you love about you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York World</i>, November 18, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0081" id="link0081">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WORKING GIRLS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the work undertaken by the <i>World</i>
+ in behalf of the city slave girl?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I know of nothing better for a great journal to do. The
+ average girl is so helpless, and the greed of the employer is such, that
+ unless some newspaper or some person of great influence comes to her
+ assistance, she is liable not simply to be imposed upon, but to be made a
+ slave. Girls, as a rule, are so anxious to please, so willing to work,
+ that they bear almost every hardship without complaint. Nothing is more
+ terrible than to see the rich living on the work of the poor. One can
+ hardly imagine the utter heartlessness of a man who stands between the
+ wholesale manufacturer and the wretched women who make their living&mdash;or
+ rather retard their death&mdash;by the needle. How a human being can
+ consent to live on this profit, stolen from poverty, is beyond my
+ imagination. These men, when known, will be regarded as hyenas and
+ jackals. They are like the wild beasts which follow herds of cattle for
+ the purpose of devouring those that are injured or those that have fallen
+ by the wayside from weakness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What effect has unlimited immigration on the wages of
+ women?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If our country were overpopulated, the effect of
+ immigration would be to lessen wages, for the reason that the working
+ people of Europe are used to lower wages, and have been in the habit of
+ practicing an economy unknown to us. But this country is not
+ overpopulated. There is plenty of room for several hundred millions more.
+ Wages, however, are too low in the United States. The general tendency is
+ to leave the question of labor to what is called the law of supply and
+ demand. My hope is that in time we shall become civilized enough to know
+ that there is a higher law, or rather a higher meaning in the law of
+ supply and demand, than is now perceived. Year after year what are called
+ the necessaries of life increase. Many things now regarded as necessaries
+ were formerly looked upon as luxuries. So, as man becomes civilized, he
+ increases what may be called the necessities of his life. When perfectly
+ civilized, one of the necessities of his life will be that the lives of
+ others shall be of some value to them. A good man is not happy so long as
+ he knows that other good men and women suffer for raiment and for food,
+ and have no roof but the sky, no home but the highway. Consequently what
+ is called the law of supply and demand will then have a much larger
+ meaning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In nature everything lives upon something else. Life feeds upon life.
+ Something is lying in wait for something else, and even the victim is
+ weaving a web or crouching for some other victim, and the other victim is
+ in the same business&mdash;watching for something else. The same is true
+ in the human world&mdash;people are living on each other; the cunning
+ obtain the property of the simple; wealth picks the pockets of poverty;
+ success is a highwayman leaping from the hedge. The rich combine, the poor
+ are unorganized, without the means to act in concert, and for that reason
+ become the prey of combinations and trusts. The great questions are: Will
+ man ever be sufficiently civilized to be honest? Will the time ever come
+ when it can truthfully be said that right is might? The lives of millions
+ of people are not worth living, because of their ignorance and poverty,
+ and the lives of millions of others are not worth living, on account of
+ their wealth and selfishness. The palace without justice, without charity,
+ is as terrible as the hovel without food.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What effect has the woman's suffrage movement had on the
+ breadwinners of the country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the women who have been engaged in the struggle for
+ equal rights have done good for women in the direction of obtaining equal
+ wages for equal work. There has also been for many years a tendency among
+ women in our country to become independent &mdash;a desire to make their
+ own living&mdash;to win their own bread. So many husbands are utterly
+ useless, or worse, that many women hardly feel justified in depending
+ entirely on a husband for the future. They feel somewhat safer to know how
+ to do something and earn a little money themselves. If men were what they
+ ought to be, few women would be allowed to labor&mdash;that is to say, to
+ toil. It should be the ambition of every healthy and intelligent man to
+ take care of, to support, to make happy, some woman. As long as women bear
+ the burdens of the world, the human race can never attain anything like a
+ splendid civilization. There will be no great generation of men until
+ there has been a great generation of women. For my part, I am glad to hear
+ this question discussed&mdash;glad to know that thousands of women take
+ some interest in the fortunes and in the misfortunes of their sisters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question of wages for women is a thousand times more important than
+ sending missionaries to China or to India. There is plenty for
+ missionaries to do here. And by missionaries I do not mean gentlemen and
+ ladies who distribute tracts or quote Scripture to people out of work. If
+ we are to better the condition of men and women we must change their
+ surroundings. The tenement house breeds a moral pestilence. There can be
+ in these houses no home, no fireside, no family, for the reason that there
+ is no privacy, no walls between them and the rest of the world. There is
+ no sacredness, no feeling, "this is ours."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Might not the rich do much?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It would be hard to overestimate the good that might be
+ done by the millionaires if they would turn their attention to sending
+ thousands and thousands into the country or to building them homes miles
+ from the city, where they could have something like privacy, where the
+ family relations could be kept with some sacredness. Think of the "homes"
+ in which thousands and thousands of young girls are reared in our large
+ cities. Think of what they see and what they hear; of what they come in
+ contact with. How is it possible for the virtues to grow in the damp and
+ darkened basements? Can we expect that love and chastity and all that is
+ sweet and gentle will be produced in these surroundings, in cellars and
+ garrets, in poverty and dirt? The surroundings must be changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are the fathers and brothers blameless who allow young
+ girls to make coats, cloaks and vests in an atmosphere poisoned by the
+ ignorant and low-bred?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The same causes now brutalizing girls brutalize their
+ fathers and brothers, and the same causes brutalize the ignorant and
+ low-lived that poison the air in which these girls are made to work. It is
+ hard to pick out one man and say that he is to blame, or one woman and say
+ that the fault is hers. We must go back of all this. In my opinion,
+ society raises its own failures, its own criminals, its own wretches of
+ every sort and kind. Great pains are taken to raise these crops. The
+ seeds, it may be, were sown thousands of years ago, but they were sown,
+ and the present is the necessary child of all the past. If the future is
+ to differ from the present, the seeds must now be sown. It is not simply a
+ question of charity, or a question of good nature, or a question of what
+ we call justice&mdash;it is a question of intelligence. In the first
+ place, I suppose that it is the duty of every human being to support
+ himself&mdash;first, that he may not become a burden upon others, and
+ second, that he may help others. I think all people should be taught
+ never, under any circumstances, if by any possibility they can avoid it,
+ to become a burden. Every one should be taught the nobility of labor, the
+ heroism and splendor of honest effort. As long as it is considered
+ disgraceful to labor, or aristocratic not to labor, the world will be
+ filled with idleness and crime, and with every possible moral deformity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Has the public school system anything to do with the army
+ of pupils who, after six years of study, willingly accept the injustice
+ and hardship imposed by capital?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The great trouble with the public school is that many
+ things are taught that are of no immediate use. I believe in manual
+ training schools. I believe in the kindergarten system. Every person ought
+ to be taught how to do something&mdash;ought to be taught the use of their
+ hands. They should endeavor to put in palpable form the ideas that they
+ gain. Such an education gives them a confidence in themselves, a
+ confidence in the future&mdash;gives them a spirit and feeling of
+ independence that they do not now have. Men go through college studying
+ for many years, and when graduated have not the slightest conception of
+ how to make a living in any department of human effort. Thousands of them
+ are to-day doing manual labor and doing it very poorly, whereas, if they
+ had been taught the use of tools, the use of their hands, they would
+ derive a certain pleasure from their work. It is splendid to do anything
+ well. One can be just as poetic working with iron and wood as working with
+ words and colors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What ought to be done, or what is to be the end?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The great thing is for the people to know the facts. There
+ are thousands and millions of splendid and sympathetic people who would
+ willingly help, if they only knew; but they go through the world in such a
+ way that they know but little of it. They go to their place of business;
+ they stay in their offices for a few hours; they go home; they spend the
+ evening there or at a club; they come in contact with the well-to-do, with
+ the successful, with the satisfied, and they know nothing of the thousands
+ and millions on every side. They have not the least idea how the world
+ lives, how it works, how it suffers. They read, of course, now and then,
+ some paragraph in which the misfortune of some wretch is set forth, but
+ the wretch is a kind of steel engraving, an unreal shadow, a something
+ utterly unlike themselves. The real facts should be brought home, the
+ sympathies of men awakened, and awakened to such a degree that they will
+ go and see how these people live, see how they work, see how they suffer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Does exposure do any good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I hope that <i>The World</i> will keep on. I hope that it
+ will express every horror that it can, connected with the robbery of poor
+ and helpless girls, and I hope that it will publish the names of all the
+ robbers it can find, and the wretches who oppress the poor and who live
+ upon the misfortunes of women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The crosses of this world are mostly born by wives, by mothers and by
+ daughters. Their brows are pierced by thorns. They shed the bitterest
+ tears. They live and suffer and die for others. It is almost enough to
+ make one insane to think of what woman, in the years of savagery and
+ civilization, has suffered. Think of the anxiety and agony of motherhood.
+ Maternity is the most pathetic fact in the universe. Think how helpless
+ girls are. Think of the thorns in the paths they walk&mdash;of the trials,
+ the temptations, the want, the misfortune, the dangers and anxieties that
+ fill their days and nights. Every true man will sympathize with woman, and
+ will do all in his power to lighten her burdens and increase the sunshine
+ of her life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there any remedy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have always wondered that the great corporations have
+ made no provisions for their old and worn out employees. It seems to me
+ that not only great railway companies, but great manufacturing
+ corporations, ought to provide for their workmen. Many of them are worn
+ out, unable longer to work, and they are thrown aside like old clothes.
+ They find their way to the poorhouses or die in tenements by the roadside.
+ This seems almost infinitely heartless. Men of great wealth, engaged in
+ manufacturing, instead of giving five hundred thousand dollars for a
+ library, or a million dollars for a college, ought to put this money
+ aside, invest it in bonds of the Government, and the interest ought to be
+ used in taking care of the old, of the helpless, of those who meet with
+ accidents in their work. Under our laws, if an employee is caught in a
+ wheel or in a band, and his arm or leg is torn off, he is left to the
+ charity of the community, whereas the profits of the business ought to
+ support him in his old age. If employees had this feeling&mdash;that they
+ were not simply working for that day, not simply working while they have
+ health and strength, but laying aside a little sunshine for the winter of
+ age&mdash;if they only felt that they, by their labor, were creating a
+ fireside in front of which their age and helplessness could sit, the
+ feeling between employed and employers would be a thousand times better.
+ On the great railways very few people know the number of the injured, of
+ those who lose their hands or feet, of those who contract diseases riding
+ on the tops of freight trains in snow and sleet and storm; and yet, when
+ these men become old and helpless through accident, they are left to shift
+ for themselves. The company is immortal, but the employees become
+ helpless. Now, it seems to me that a certain per cent. should be laid
+ aside, so that every brakeman and conductor could feel that he was
+ providing for himself, as well as for his fellow-workmen, so that when the
+ dark days came there would be a little light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men of wealth, the men who control these great corporations&mdash;
+ these great mills&mdash;give millions away in ostentatious charity. They
+ send missionaries to foreign lands. They endow schools and universities
+ and allow the men who earned the surplus to die in want. I believe in no
+ charity that is founded on robbery. I have no admiration for generous
+ highwaymen or extravagant pirates. At the foundation of charity should be
+ justice. Let these men whom others have made wealthy give something to
+ their workmen&mdash;something to those who created their fortunes. This
+ would be one step in the right direction. Do not let it be regarded as
+ charity&mdash;let it be regarded as justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York World</i>, December 2, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0082" id="link0082">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROTECTION FOR AMERICAN ACTORS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is reported that you have been retained as counsel for
+ the Actors' Order of Friendship&mdash;the Edwin Forrest Lodge of New York,
+ and the Shakespeare Lodge of Philadelphia&mdash;for the purpose of
+ securing the necessary legislation to protect American actors&mdash; is
+ that so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I have been retained for that purpose, and the object
+ is simply that American actors may be put upon an equal footing with
+ Americans engaged in other employments. There is a law now which prevents
+ contractors going abroad and employing mechanics or skilled workmen, and
+ bringing them to this country to take the places of our citizens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one objects to the English, German and French mechanics coming with
+ their wives and children to this country and making their homes here. Our
+ ports are open, and have been since the foundation of this Government.
+ Wages are somewhat higher in this country than in any other, and the man
+ who really settles here, who becomes, or intends to become an American
+ citizen, will demand American wages. But if a manufacturer goes to Europe,
+ he can make a contract there and bring hundreds and thousands of mechanics
+ to this country who will work for less wages than the American, and a law
+ was passed to prevent the American manufacturer, who was protected by a
+ tariff, from burning the laborer's candle at both ends. That is to say, we
+ do not wish to give him the American price, by means of a tariff, and then
+ allow him to go to Europe and import his labor at the European price.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the law, actors were excepted, and we now find the managers are
+ bringing entire companies from the old county, making contracts with them
+ there, and getting them at much lower prices than they would have had to
+ pay for American actors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one objects to a foreign actor coming here for employment, but we do
+ not want an American manager to go there, and employ him to act here. No
+ one objects to the importation of a star. We wish to see and hear the best
+ actors in the world. But the rest of the company&mdash;the support&mdash;should
+ be engaged in the United States, if the star speaks English.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see that it is contended over in England, that English actors are
+ monopolizing the American stage because they speak English, while the
+ average American actor does not. The real reason is that the English actor
+ works for less money&mdash;he is the cheaper article. Certainly no one
+ will accuse the average English actor of speaking English. The hemming and
+ hawing, the aristocratic stutter, the dropping of h's and picking them up
+ at the wrong time, have never been popular in the United States, except by
+ way of caricature. Nothing is more absurd than to take the ground that the
+ English actors are superior to the American. I know of no English actor
+ who can for a moment be compared with Joseph Jefferson, or with Edwin
+ Booth, or with Lawrence Barrett, or with Denman Thompson, and I could
+ easily name others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If English actors are so much better than American, how is it that an
+ American star is supported by the English? Mary Anderson is certainly an
+ American actress, and she is supported by English actors. Is it possible
+ that the superior support the inferior? I do not believe that England has
+ her equal as an actress. Her Hermione is wonderful, and the appeal to
+ Apollo sublime. In Perdita she "takes the winds of March with beauty."
+ Where is an actress on the English stage the superior of Julia Marlowe in
+ genius, in originality, in naturalness?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any better Mrs. Malaprop than Mrs. Drew, and better Sir Anthony
+ than John Gilbert? No one denies that the English actors and actresses are
+ great. No one will deny that the plays of Shakespeare are the greatest
+ that have been produced, and no one wishes in any way to belittle the
+ genius of the English people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this country the average person speaks fairly good English, and you
+ will find substantially the same English spoken in most of the country;
+ whereas in England there is a different dialect in almost every county,
+ and most of the English people speak the language as if was not their
+ native tongue. I think it will be admitted that the English write a good
+ deal better than they speak, and that their pronunciation is not
+ altogether perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These things, however, are not worth speaking of. There is no absolute
+ standard. They speak in the way that is natural to them, and we in the way
+ that is natural to us. This difference furnishes no foundation for a claim
+ of general superiority. The English actors are not brought here on account
+ of their excellence, but on account of their cheapness. It requires no
+ great ability to play the minor parts, or the leading roles in some plays,
+ for that matter. And yet acting is a business, a profession, a means of
+ getting bread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We protect our mechanics and makers of locomotives and of all other
+ articles. Why should we not protect, by the same means, the actor? You may
+ say that we can get along without actors. So we can get along without
+ painters, without sculptors and without poets. But a nation that gets
+ along without these people of genius amounts to but little. We can do
+ without music, without players and without composers; but when we take art
+ and poetry and music and the theatre out of the world, it becomes an
+ exceedingly dull place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Actors are protected and cared for in proportion that people are
+ civilized. If the people are intelligent, educated, and have imaginations,
+ they enjoy the world of the stage, the creations of poets, and they are
+ thrilled by great music, and, as a consequence, respect the dramatist, the
+ actor and the musician.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is claimed that an amendment to the law, such as is
+ desired, will interfere with the growth of art?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No one is endeavoring to keep stars from this country. If
+ they have American support, and the stars really know anything, the
+ American actors will get the benefit. If they bring their support with
+ them, the American actor is not particularly benefitted, and the star,
+ when the season is over, takes his art and his money with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Managers who insist on employing foreign support are not sacrificing
+ anything for art. Their object is to make money. They care nothing for the
+ American actor&mdash;nothing for the American drama. They look for the
+ receipts. It is the sheerest cant to pretend that they are endeavoring to
+ protect art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 26th of February, 1885, a law was passed making it unlawful "for
+ any person, company, partnership or corporation, in any manner whatsoever,
+ to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the
+ importation or emigration of any alien or aliens into the United States,
+ under contract or agreement, parol or special, previous to the importation
+ or emigration of such aliens to perform labor or services of any kind the
+ United States."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this act it was provided that its provisions should not apply to
+ professional actors, artists, lecturers or singers, in regard to persons
+ employed strictly as personal or domestic servants. The object now in view
+ is so to amend the law that its provision shall apply to all actors except
+ stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In this connection there has been so much said about the
+ art of acting&mdash;what is your idea as to that art?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Above all things in acting, there must be proportion. There
+ are no miracles in art or nature. All that is done&mdash;every inflection
+ and gesture&mdash;must be in perfect harmony with the circumstances.
+ Sensationalism is based on deformity, and bears the same relation to
+ proportion that caricature does to likeness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The stream that flows even with its banks, making the meadows green,
+ delights us ever; the one that overflows surprises for a moment. But we do
+ not want a succession of floods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In acting there must be natural growth, not sudden climax. The atmosphere
+ of the situation, the relation sustained to others, should produce the
+ emotions. Nothing should be strained. Beneath domes there should be
+ buildings, and buildings should have foundations. There must be growth.
+ There should be the bud, the leaf, the flower, in natural sequence. There
+ must be no leap from naked branches to the perfect fruit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most actors depend on climax&mdash;they save themselves for the supreme
+ explosion. The scene opens with a slow match and ends when the spark
+ reaches the dynamite. So, most authors fill the first act with
+ contradictions and the last with explanations. Plots and counter-plots,
+ violence and vehemence, perfect saints and perfect villains&mdash;that is
+ to say, monsters, impelled by improbable motives, meet upon the stage,
+ where they are pushed and pulled for the sake of the situation, and where
+ everything is so managed that the fire reaches the powder and the
+ explosion is the climax.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is neither time, nor climate, nor soil, in which the emotions and
+ intentions may grow. No land is plowed, no seed is sowed, no rain falls,
+ no light glows&mdash;the events are all orphans.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one would enjoy a sudden sunset&mdash;we want the clouds of gold that
+ float in the azure sea. No one would enjoy a sudden sunrise&mdash;we are
+ in love with the morning star, with the dawn that modestly heralds the day
+ and draws aside, with timid hands, the curtains of the night. In other
+ words, we want sequence, proportion, logic, beauty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are several actors in this country who are in perfect accord with
+ nature&mdash;who appear to make no effort&mdash;whose acting seems to give
+ them joy and rest. We do well what we do easily. It is a great mistake to
+ exhaust yourself, instead of the subject. All great actors "fill the
+ stage" because they hold the situation. You see them and nothing else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Speaking of American actors, Colonel, I believe you are
+ greatly interested in the playing of Miss Marlowe, and have given your
+ opinion of her as Parthenia; what do you think of her Julia and Viola?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A little while ago I saw Miss Marlowe as Julia, in "The
+ Hunchback." We must remember the limitations of the play. Nothing can
+ excel the simplicity, the joyous content of the first scene. Nothing could
+ be more natural than the excitement produced by the idea of leaving what
+ you feel to be simple and yet good, for what you think is magnificent,
+ brilliant and intoxicating. It is only in youth that we are willing to
+ make this exchange. One does not see so clearly in the morning of life
+ when the sun shines in his eyes. In the afternoon, when the sun is behind
+ him, he sees better &mdash;he is no longer dazzled. In old age we are not
+ only willing, but anxious, to exchange wealth and fame and glory and
+ magnificence, for simplicity. All the palaces are nothing compared with
+ our little cabin, and all the flowers of the world are naught to the wild
+ rose that climbs and blossoms by the lowly window of content.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Happiness dwells in the valleys with the shadows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment Julia is brought in contact with wealth, she longs for the
+ simple&mdash;for the true love of one true man. Wealth and station are
+ mockeries. These feelings, these emotions, Miss Marlowe rendered not only
+ with look and voice and gesture, but with every pose of her body; and when
+ assured that her nuptials with the Earl could be avoided, the only
+ question in her mind was as to the absolute preservation of her honor&mdash;not
+ simply in fact, but in appearance, so that even hatred could not see a
+ speck upon the shining shield of her perfect truth. In this scene she was
+ perfect&mdash;everything was forgotten except the desire to be absolutely
+ true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in the scene with Master Walter, when he upbraids her for forgetting
+ that she is about to meet her father, when excusing her forgetfulness on
+ the ground that he has been to her a father. Nothing could exceed the
+ delicacy and tenderness of this passage. Every attitude expressed love,
+ gentleness, and a devotion even unto death. One felt that there could be
+ no love left for the father she expected to meet&mdash;Master Walter had
+ it all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A greater Julia was never on the stage&mdash;one in whom so much passion
+ mingled with so much purity. Miss Marlowe never "o'ersteps the modesty of
+ nature." She maintains proportion. The river of her art flows even with
+ the banks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Viola, we must remember the character&mdash;a girl just rescued from
+ the sea&mdash;disguised as a boy&mdash;employed by the Duke, whom she
+ instantly loves&mdash;sent as his messenger to woo another for him&mdash;Olivia
+ enamored of the messenger&mdash;forced to a duel&mdash;mistaken for her
+ brother by the Captain, and her brother taken for herself by Olivia&mdash;and
+ yet, in the midst of these complications and disguises, she remains a pure
+ and perfect girl&mdash;these circumstances having no more real effect upon
+ her passionate and subtle self than clouds on stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Malvolio follows and returns the ring the whole truth flashes upon
+ her. She is in love with Orsino&mdash;this she knows. Olivia, she
+ believes, is in love with her. The edge of the situation, the dawn of this
+ entanglement, excites her mirth. In this scene she becomes charming&mdash;an
+ impersonation of Spring. Her laughter is as natural and musical as the
+ song of a brook. So, in the scene with Olivia in which she cries, "Make me
+ a willow cabin at your gate!" she is the embodiment of grace, and her
+ voice is as musical as the words, and as rich in tone as they are in
+ thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the duel with Sir Andrew she shows the difference between the delicacy
+ of woman and the cowardice of man. She does the little that she can, not
+ for her own sake, but for the sake of her disguise &mdash;she feels that
+ she owes something to her clothes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I have said enough about this actress to give you an idea of one who
+ is destined to stand first in her profession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We will now come back to the real question. I am in favor of protecting
+ the American actor. I regard the theatre as the civilizer of man. All the
+ arts united upon the stage, and the genius of the race has been lavished
+ on this mimic world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Star</i>, December 23, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0083" id="link0083">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LIBERALS AND LIBERALISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the prospects of Liberalism in this
+ country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The prospects of Liberalism are precisely the same as the
+ prospects of civilization&mdash;that is to say, of progress. As the people
+ become educated, they become liberal. Bigotry is the provincialism of the
+ mind. Men are bigoted who are not acquainted with the thoughts of others.
+ They have been taught one thing, and have been made to believe that their
+ little mental horizon is the circumference of all knowledge. The bigot
+ lives in an ignorant village, surrounded by ignorant neighbors. This is
+ the honest bigot. The dishonest bigot may know better, but he remains a
+ bigot because his salary depends upon it. A bigot is like a country that
+ has had no commerce with any other. He imagines that in his little head
+ there is everything of value. When a man becomes an intellectual explorer,
+ an intellectual traveler, he begins to widen, to grow liberal. He finds
+ that the ideas of others are as good as and often better than his own. The
+ habits and customs of other people throw light on his own, and by this
+ light he is enabled to discover at least some of his own mistakes. Now the
+ world has become acquainted. A few years ago, a man knew something of the
+ doctrines of his own church. Now he knows the creeds of others, and not
+ only so, but he has examined to some extent the religions of other
+ nations. He finds in other creeds all the excellencies that are in his
+ own, and most of the mistakes. In this way he learns that all creeds have
+ been produced by men, and that their differences have been accounted for
+ by race, climate, heredity&mdash;that is to say, by a difference in
+ circumstances. So we now know that the cause of Liberalism is the cause of
+ civilization. Unless the race is to be a failure, the cause of Liberalism
+ must succeed. Consequently, I have the same faith in that cause that I
+ have in the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Where are the most Liberals, and in what section of the
+ country is the best work for Liberalism being done?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The most Liberals are in the most intelligent section of
+ the United States. Where people think the most, there you will find the
+ most Liberals; where people think the least, you will find the most
+ bigots. Bigotry is produced by feeling&mdash;Liberalism by thinking&mdash;that
+ is to say, the one is a prejudice, the other a principle. Every geologist,
+ every astronomer, every scientist, is doing a noble work for Liberalism.
+ Every man who finds a fact, and demonstrates it, is doing work for the
+ cause. All the literature of our time that is worth reading is on the
+ liberal side. All the fiction that really interests the human mind is with
+ us. No one cares to read the old theological works. Essays written by
+ professors of theological colleges are regarded, even by Christians, with
+ a kind of charitable contempt. When any demonstration of science is
+ attacked by a creed, or a passage of Scripture, all the intelligent smile.
+ For these reasons I think that the best work for Liberalism is being done
+ where the best work for science is being done&mdash;where the best work
+ for man is being accomplished. Every legislator that assists in the repeal
+ of theological laws is doing a great work for Liberalism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In your opinion, what relation do Liberalism and
+ Prohibition bear to each other?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think they have anything to do with each other.
+ They have nothing in common except this: The Prohibitionists, I presume,
+ are endeavoring to do what they can for temperance; so all intelligent
+ Liberals are doing what they can for the cause of temperance. The
+ Prohibitionist endeavors to accomplish his object by legislation&mdash;the
+ Liberalist by education, by civilization, by example, by persuasion. The
+ method of the Liberalist is good, that of the Prohibitionist chimerical
+ and fanatical.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that Liberals should undertake a reform in
+ the marriage and divorce laws and relations?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that Liberals should do all in their power to
+ induce people to regard marriage and divorce in a sensible light, and
+ without the slightest reference to any theological ideas. They should use
+ their influence to the end that marriage shall be considered as a contract&mdash;the
+ highest and holiest that men and women can make. And they should also use
+ their influence to have the laws of divorce based on this fundamental
+ idea,&mdash;that marriage is a contract. All should be done that can be
+ done by law to uphold the sacredness of this relation. All should be done
+ that can be done to impress upon the minds of all men and all women their
+ duty to discharge all the obligations of the marriage contract faithfully
+ and cheerfully. I do not believe that it is to the interest of the State
+ or of the Nation, that people should be compelled to live together who
+ hate each other, or that a woman should be bound to a man who has been
+ false and who refuses to fulfill the contract of marriage. I do not
+ believe that any man should call upon the police, or upon the creeds, or
+ upon the church, to compel his wife to remain under his roof, or to compel
+ a woman against her will to become the mother of his children. In other
+ words, Liberals should endeavor to civilize mankind, and when men and
+ women are civilized, the marriage question, and the divorce question, will
+ be settled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Should Liberals vote on Liberal issues?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that, other things being anywhere near equal,
+ Liberals should vote for men who believe in liberty, men who believe in
+ giving to others the rights they claim for themselves&mdash;that is to
+ say, for civilized men, for men of some breadth of mind. Liberals should
+ do what they can to do away with all the theological absurdities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Can, or ought, the Liberals and Spiritualists to unite?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. All people should unite where they have objects in common.
+ They can vote together, and act together, without believing the same on
+ all points. A Liberal is not necessarily a Spiritualist, and a
+ Spiritualist is not necessarily a Liberal. If Spiritualists wish to
+ liberalize the Government, certainly Liberals would be glad of their
+ assistance, and if Spiritualists take any step in the direction of
+ freedom, the Liberals should stand by them to that extent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Which is the more dangerous to American institutions
+ &mdash;the National Reform Association (God-in-the-Constitution party) or
+ the Roman Catholic Church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Association and the Catholic Church are dangerous
+ according to their power. The Catholic Church has far more power than the
+ Reform Association, and is consequently far more dangerous. The
+ God-in-the-Constitution association is weak, fanatical, stupid, and
+ absurd. What God are we to have in the Constitution? Whose God? If we
+ should agree to-morrow to put God in the Constitution, the question would
+ then be: Which God? On that question, the religious world would fall out.
+ In that direction there is no danger. But the Roman Catholic Church is the
+ enemy of intellectual liberty. It is the enemy of investigation. It is the
+ enemy of free schools. That church always has been, always will be, the
+ enemy of freedom. It works in the dark. When in a minority it is humility
+ itself&mdash;when in power it is the impersonation of arrogance. In
+ weakness it crawls&mdash;in power it stands erect, and compels its victims
+ to fall upon their faces. The most dangerous institution in this world, so
+ far as the intellectual liberty of man is concerned, is the Roman Catholic
+ Church. Next to that is the Protestant Church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the Christian religion and the
+ Christian Church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My opinion upon this subject is certainly well known. The
+ Christian Church is founded upon miracles&mdash;that is to say, upon
+ impossibilities. Of course, there is a great deal that is good in the
+ creeds of the churches, and in the sermons delivered by its ministers; but
+ mixed with this good is much that is evil. My principal objection to
+ orthodox religion is the dogma of eternal pain. Nothing can be more
+ infamously absurd. All civilized men should denounce it&mdash;all women
+ should regard it with a kind of shuddering abhorrence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Secular Thought</i>, Toronto, Canada, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0084" id="link0084">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POPE LEO XIII.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you agree with the views of Pope Leo XIII. as
+ expressed in <i>The Herald</i> of last week?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am not personally acquainted with Leo XIII., but I have
+ not the slightest idea that he loves Americans or their country. I regard
+ him as an enemy of intellectual liberty. He tells us that where the church
+ is free it will increase, and I say to him that where others are free it
+ will not. The Catholic Church has increased in this country by immigration
+ and in no other way. Possibly the Pope is willing to use his power for the
+ good of the whole people, Protestants and Catholics, and to increase their
+ prosperity and happiness, because by this he means that he will use his
+ power to make Catholics out of Protestants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for the Catholic Church to be in favor of mental freedom.
+ That church represents absolute authority. Its members have no right to
+ reason&mdash;no right to ask questions&mdash;they are called upon simply
+ to believe and to pay their subscriptions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you agree with the Pope when he says that the result
+ of efforts which have been made to throw aside Christianity and live
+ without it can be seen in the present condition of society&mdash;
+ discontent, disorder, hatred and profound unhappiness?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Undoubtedly the people of Europe who wish to be free are
+ discontented. Undoubtedly these efforts to have something like justice
+ done will bring disorder. Those in power will hate those who are
+ endeavoring to drive them from their thrones. If the people now, as
+ formerly, would bear all burdens cheerfully placed upon their shoulders by
+ church and state&mdash;that is to say, if they were so enslaved mentally
+ that they would not even have sense enough to complain, then there would
+ be what the Pope might call "peace and happiness"&mdash;that is to say,
+ the peace of ignorance, and the happiness of those who are expecting pay
+ in another world for their agonies endured in this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the revolutionaries of Europe are not satisfied with the
+ Catholic religion; neither are they satisfied with the Protestant. Both of
+ these religions rest upon authority. Both discourage reason. Both say "Let
+ him that hath ears to hear, hear," but neither say let him that hath
+ brains to think, think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity has been thoroughly tried, and it is a failure. Nearly every
+ church has upheld slavery, not only of the body, but of the mind. When
+ Christian missionaries invade what they call a heathen country, they are
+ followed in a little while by merchants and traders, and in a few days
+ afterward by the army. The first real work is to kill the heathen or steal
+ their lands, or else reduce them to something like slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have no confidence in the reformation of this world by churches.
+ Churches for the most part exist, not for this world, but for another.
+ They are founded upon the supernatural, and they say: "Take no thought for
+ the morrow; put your trust in your Heavenly Father and he will take care
+ of you." On the other hand, science says: "You must take care of yourself,
+ live for the world in which you happen to be&mdash;if there is another,
+ live for that when you get there."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the plan to better the condition of
+ the workingmen, by committees headed by bishops of the Catholic Church, in
+ discussing their duties?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the bishops wish to discuss with anybody about duties
+ they had better discuss with the employers, instead of the employed. This
+ discussion had better take place between the clergy and the capitalist.
+ There is no need of discussing this question with the poor wretches who
+ cannot earn more than enough to keep their souls in their bodies. If the
+ Catholic Church has so much power, and if it represents God on earth, let
+ it turn its attention to softening the hearts of capitalists, and no
+ longer waste its time in preaching patience to the poor slaves who are now
+ bearing the burdens of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you agree with the Pope that: "Sound rules of life
+ must be founded on religion"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not. Sound rules of life must be founded on the
+ experience of mankind. In other words, we must live for this world. Why
+ should men throw away hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars in
+ building cathedrals and churches, and paying the salaries of bishops and
+ priests, and cardinals and popes, and get no possible return for all this
+ money except a few guesses about another world &mdash;those guesses being
+ stated as facts&mdash;when every pope and priest and bishop knows that no
+ one knows the slightest thing on the subject. Superstition is the greatest
+ burden borne by the industry of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nations of Europe to-day all pretend to be Christian, yet millions of
+ men are drilled and armed for the purpose of killing other Christians.
+ Each Christian nation is fortified to prevent other Christians from
+ devastating their fields. There is already a debt of about twenty-five
+ thousand millions of dollars which has been incurred by Christian nations,
+ because each one is afraid of every other, and yet all say: "It is our
+ duty to love our enemies."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This world, in my judgment, is to be reformed through intelligence &mdash;through
+ development of the mind&mdash;not by credulity, but by investigation; not
+ by faith in the supernatural, but by faith in the natural. The church has
+ passed the zenith of her power. The clergy must stand aside. Scientists
+ must take their places.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you agree with the Pope in attacking the present
+ governments of Europe and the memories of Mazzini and Saffi?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not. I think Mazzini was of more use to Italy than all
+ the popes that ever occupied the chair of St. Peter&mdash;which, by the
+ way, was not his chair. I have a thousand times more regard for Mazzini,
+ for Garibaldi, for Cavour, than I have for any gentleman who pretends to
+ be the representative of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another objection I have to the Pope, and that is that he was so
+ scandalized when a monument was reared in Rome to the memory of Giordano
+ Bruno. Bruno was murdered about two hundred and sixty years ago by the
+ Catholic Church, and such has been the development of the human brain and
+ heart that on the very spot where he was murdered a monument rises to his
+ memory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the vicar of God has remained stationary, and he regards this mark of
+ honor to one of the greatest and noblest of the human race as an act of
+ blasphemy. The poor old man acts as if America had never been discovered&mdash;as
+ if the world were still flat&mdash;and as if the stars had been made out
+ of little pieces left over from the creation of the world and stuck in the
+ sky simply to beautify the night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, after all, I do not blame this Pope. He is the victim of his
+ surroundings. He was never married. His heart was never softened by wife
+ or children. He was born that way, and, to tell you the truth, he has my
+ sincere sympathy. Let him talk about America and stay in Italy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Herald</i>, New York, April 22, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0085" id="link0085">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE SACREDNESS OF THE SABBATH.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the sacredness of the Sabbath?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think all days, all times and all seasons are alike
+ sacred. I think the best day in a man's life is the day that he is truly
+ the happiest. Every day in which good is done to humanity is a holy day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I were to make a calendar of sacred days, I would put down the days in
+ which the greatest inventions came to the mind of genius; the days when
+ scattered tribes became nations; the days when good laws were passed; the
+ days when bad ones were repealed; the days when kings were dethroned, and
+ the people given their own; in other words, every day in which good has
+ been done; in which men and women have truly fallen in love, days in which
+ babes were born destined to change the civilization of the world. These
+ are all sacred days; days in which men have fought for the right, suffered
+ for the right, died for the right; all days in which there were heroic
+ actions for good. The day when slavery was abolished in the United States
+ is holier than any Sabbath by reason of "divine consecration."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I care nothing about the sacredness of the Sabbath because it
+ was hallowed in the Old Testament, or because of that day Jehovah is said
+ to have rested from his labors. A space of time cannot be sacred, any more
+ than a vacuum can be sacred, and it is rendered sacred by deeds done in
+ it, and not in and of itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we should finally invent some means of traveling by which we could go a
+ thousand miles a day, a man could escape Sunday all his life by traveling
+ West. He could start Monday, and stay Monday all the time. Or, if he
+ should some time get near the North Pole, he could walk faster than the
+ earth turns and thus beat Sunday all the while.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Should not the museums and art galleries be thrown open
+ to the workingmen free on Sunday?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Undoubtedly. In all civilized countries this is done, and I
+ believe it would be done in New York, only it is said that money has been
+ given on condition that the museums should be kept closed on Sundays. I
+ have always heard it said that large sums will be withheld by certain old
+ people who have the prospect of dying in the near future if the museums
+ are open on Sunday.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, however, seems to me a very poor and shallow excuse. Money should
+ not be received under such conditions. One of the curses of our country
+ has been the giving of gifts to colleges on certain conditions. As, for
+ instance, the money given to Andover by the original founder on the
+ condition that a certain creed be taught, and other large amounts have
+ been given on a like condition. Now, the result of this is that the
+ theological professor must teach what these donors have indicated, or go
+ out of the institution; or &mdash;and this last "or" is generally the
+ trouble&mdash;teach what he does not believe, endeavoring to get around it
+ by giving new meaning to old words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think the cause of intellectual progress has been much delayed by these
+ conditions put in the wills of supposed benefactors, so that after they
+ are dead they can rule people who have the habit of being alive. In my
+ opinion, a corpse is a poor ruler, and after a man is dead he should keep
+ quiet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course all that he did will live, and should be allowed to have its
+ natural effect. If he was a great inventor or discoverer, or if he uttered
+ great truths, these became the property of the world; but he should not
+ endeavor, after he is dead, to rule the living by conditions attached to
+ his gifts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the museums and libraries should be opened, not only to workingmen,
+ but to all others. If to see great paintings, great statues, wonderful
+ works of art; if to read the thoughts of the greatest men&mdash;if these
+ things tend to the civilization of the race, then they should be put as
+ nearly as possible within the reach of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who works eight or ten or twelve hours a day has not time during
+ the six days of labor to visit libraries or museums. Sunday is his day of
+ leisure, his day of recreation, and on that day he should have the
+ privilege, and he himself should deem it a right to visit all the public
+ libraries and museums, parks and gardens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, I think the laboring man should have the same rights on
+ Sundays, to say the least of it, that wealthy people have on other days.
+ The man of wealth has leisure. He can attend these places on any day he
+ may desire; but necessity being the master of the poor man, Sunday is his
+ one day for such a purpose. For men of wealth to close the museums and
+ libraries on that day, shows that they have either a mistaken idea as to
+ the well-being of their fellow-men, or that they care nothing about the
+ rights of any except the wealthy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Personally, I have no sort of patience with the theological snivel and
+ drivel about the sacredness of the Sabbath. I do not understand why they
+ do not accept the words of their own Christ, namely, that "the Sabbath was
+ made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The hypocrites of Judea were great sticklers for the Sabbath, and the
+ orthodox Christians of New York are exactly the same. My own opinion is
+ that a man who has been at work all the week, in the dust and heat, can
+ hardly afford to waste his Sunday in hearing an orthodox sermon&mdash;a
+ sermon that gives him the cheerful intelligence that his chances for being
+ damned are largely in the majority. I think it is far better for the
+ workingman to go out with his family in the park, into the woods, to some
+ German garden, where he can hear the music of Wagner, or even the waltzes
+ of Strauss, or to take a boat and go down to the shore of the sea. I think
+ than in summer a few waves of the ocean are far more refreshing then all
+ the orthodox sermons of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, I believe the preachers leave the city in the summer
+ and let the Devil do his worst. Whether it is believed that the Devil has
+ less power in warm weather, I do not know. But I do know that, as the
+ mercury rises, the anxiety about souls decreases, and the hotter New York
+ becomes, the cooler hell seems to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want the workingman, no matter what he works at&mdash;whether at
+ doctoring people, or trying law suits, or running for office&mdash;to have
+ a real good time on Sunday. He, of course, must be careful not to
+ interfere with the rights of others. He ought not to play draw-poker on
+ the steps of a church; neither should he stone a Chinese funeral, nor go
+ to any excesses; but all the week long he should have it in his mind: Next
+ Sunday I am going to have a good time. My wife and I and the children are
+ going to have a happy time. I am going out with the girl I like; or my
+ young man is going to take me to the picnic. And this thought, and this
+ hope, of having a good time on Sunday&mdash;of seeing some great pictures
+ at the Metropolitan Art Gallery&mdash;together with a good many bad ones&mdash;
+ will make work easy and lighten the burden on the shoulders of toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I take a great interest, too, in the working women&mdash;particularly in
+ the working woman. I think that every workingman should see to it that
+ every working woman has a good time on Sunday. I am no preacher. All I
+ want is that everybody should enjoy himself in a way that he will not and
+ does not interfere with the enjoyment of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that we cannot trust the people. Our Government is
+ based upon the idea that the people can be trusted, and those who say that
+ the workingmen cannot be trusted, do not believe in Republican or
+ Democratic institutions. For one, I am perfectly willing to trust the
+ working people of the country. I do, every day. I trust the engineers on
+ the cars and steamers. I trust the builders of houses. I trust all
+ laboring men every day of my life, and if the laboring people of the
+ country were not trustworthy&mdash;if they were malicious or dishonest&mdash;life
+ would not be worth living.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Journal</i>, New York, June 6, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0086" id="link0086">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE WEST AND SOUTH.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the South will ever equal or surpass the
+ West in point of prosperity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not. The West has better soil and more of the elements
+ of wealth. It is not liable to yellow fever; its rivers have better banks;
+ the people have more thrift, more enterprise, more political hospitality;
+ education is more general; the people are more inventive; better traders,
+ and besides all this, there is no race problem. The Southern people are
+ what their surroundings made them, and the influence of slavery has not
+ yet died out. In my judgment the climate of the West is superior to that
+ of the South. The West has good, cold winters, and they make people a
+ little more frugal, prudent and industrious. Winters make good homes,
+ cheerful firesides, and, after all, civilization commences at the
+ hearthstone. The South is growing, and will continue to grow, but it will
+ never equal the West. The West is destined to dominate the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider the new ballot-law adapted to the needs
+ of our system of elections? If not, in what particulars does it require
+ amendment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Personally I like the brave and open way. The secret ballot
+ lacks courage. I want people to know just how I vote. The old <i>viva voce</i>
+ way was manly and looked well. Every American should be taught that he
+ votes as a sovereign&mdash;an emperor&mdash;and he should exercise the
+ right in a kingly way. But if we must have the secret ballot, then let it
+ be secret indeed, and let the crowd stand back while the king votes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the service pension movement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I see that there is a great deal of talk here in Indiana
+ about this service pension movement. It has always seemed to me that the
+ pension fund has been frittered away. Of what use is it to give a man two
+ or three dollars a month? If a man is rich why should he have any pension?
+ I think it would be better to give pensions only to the needy, and then
+ give them enough to support them. If the man was in the army a day or a
+ month, and was uninjured, and can make his own living, or has enough, why
+ should he have a pension? I believe in giving to the wounded and disabled
+ and poor, with a liberal hand, but not to the rich. I know that the nation
+ could not pay the men who fought and suffered. There is not money enough
+ in the world to pay the heroes for what they did and endured &mdash;but
+ there is money enough to keep every wounded and diseased soldier from
+ want. There is money enough to fill the lives of those who gave limbs or
+ health for the sake of the Republic, with comfort and happiness. I would
+ also like to see the poor soldier taken care of whether he was wounded or
+ not, but I see no propriety in giving to those who do not need.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Journal</i>, Indianapolis, Indiana, June 21, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0087" id="link0087">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE WESTMINSTER CREED AND OTHER SUBJECTS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the revision of the Westminster
+ creed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that the intelligence and morality of the age
+ demand the revision. The Westminster creed is infamous. It makes God an
+ infinite monster, and men the most miserable of beings. That creed has
+ made millions insane. It has furrowed countless cheeks with tears. Under
+ its influence the sentiments and sympathies of the heart have withered.
+ This creed was written by the worst of men. The civilized Presbyterians do
+ not believe it. The intelligent clergyman will not preach it, and all good
+ men who understand it, hold it in abhorrence. But the fact is that it is
+ just as good as the creed of any orthodox church. All these creeds must be
+ revised. Young America will not be consoled by the doctrine of eternal
+ pain. Yes, the creeds must be revised or the churches will be closed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the influence of the press on
+ religion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If you mean on orthodox religion, then I say the press is
+ helping to destroy it. Just to the extent that the press is intelligent
+ and fearless, it is and must be the enemy of superstition. Every fact in
+ the universe is the enemy of every falsehood. The press furnishes food
+ for, and excites thought. This tends to the destruction of the miraculous
+ and absurd. I regard the press as the friend of progress and consequently
+ the foe of orthodox religion. The old dogmas do not make the people happy.
+ What is called religion is full of fear and grief. The clergy are always
+ talking about dying, about the grave and eternal pain. They do not add to
+ the sunshine of life. If they could have their way all the birds would
+ stop singing, the flowers would lose their color and perfume, and all the
+ owls would sit on dead trees and hoot, "Broad is the road that leads to
+ death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If you should write your last sentence on religious
+ topics what would be your closing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I now in the presence of death affirm and reaffirm the
+ truth of all that I have said against the superstitions of the world. I
+ would say at least that much on the subject with my last breath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your opinion, will be Browning's position in the
+ literature of the future?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Lower than at present. Mrs. Browning was far greater than
+ her husband. He never wrote anything comparable to "Mother and Poet."
+ Browning lacked form, and that is as great a lack in poetry as it is in
+ sculpture. He was the author of some great lines, some great thoughts, but
+ he was obscure, uneven and was always mixing the poetic with the
+ commonplace. To me he cannot be compared with Shelley or Keats, or with
+ our own Walt Whitman. Of course poetry cannot be very well discussed. Each
+ man knows what he likes, what touches his heart and what words burst into
+ blossom, but he cannot judge for others. After one has read Shakespeare,
+ Burns and Byron, and Shelley and Keats; after he has read the "Sonnets"
+ and the "Daisy" and the "Prisoner of Chillon" and the "Skylark" and the
+ "Ode to the Grecian Urn"&mdash;the "Flight of the Duchess" seems a little
+ weak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Post-Express</i>, Rochester, New York, June 23, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0088" id="link0088">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SHAKESPEARE AND BACON.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Ignatius Donnelly as a literary
+ man irrespective of his Baconian theory?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I know that Mr. Donnelly enjoys the reputation of being a
+ man of decided ability and that he is regarded by many as a great orator.
+ He is known to me through his Baconian theory, and in that of course I
+ have no confidence. It is nearly as ingenious as absurd. He has spent
+ great time, and has devoted much curious learning to the subject, and has
+ at last succeeded in convincing himself that Shakespeare claimed that
+ which he did not write, and that Bacon wrote that which he did not claim.
+ But to me the theory is without the slightest foundation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Donnelly asks: "Can you imagine the author of such
+ grand productions retiring to that mud house in Stratford to live without
+ a single copy of the quarto that has made his name famous?" What do you
+ say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; I can. Shakespeare died in 1616, and the quarto was
+ published in 1623, seven years after he was dead. Under these
+ circumstances I think Shakespeare ought to be excused, even by those who
+ attack him with the greatest bitterness, for not having a copy of the
+ book. There is, however, another side to his. Bacon did not die until long
+ after the quarto was published. Did he have a copy? Did he mention the
+ copy in his will? Did he ever mention the quarto in any letter, essay, or
+ in any way? He left a library, was there a copy of the plays in it? Has
+ there ever been found a line from any play or sonnet in his handwriting?
+ Bacon left his writings, his papers, all in perfect order, but no plays,
+ no sonnets, said nothing about plays&mdash;claimed nothing on their
+ behalf. This is the other side. Now, there is still another thing. The
+ edition of 1623 was published by Shakespeare's friends, Heminge and
+ Condell. They knew him&mdash;had been with him for years, and they
+ collected most of his plays and put them in book form.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ben Jonson wrote a preface, in which he placed Shakespeare above all the
+ other poets&mdash;declared that he was for all time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The edition of 1623 was gotten up by actors, by the friends and associates
+ of Shakespeare, vouched for by dramatic writers&mdash;by those who knew
+ him. This is enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you explain the figure: "His soul, like Mazeppa,
+ was lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate"? Mr.
+ Donnelly does not understand you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It hardly seems necessary to explain a thing as simple and
+ plain as that. Men are carried away by some fierce passion&mdash; carried
+ away in spite of themselves as Mazeppa was carried by the wild horse to
+ which he was lashed. Whether the comparison is good or bad it is at least
+ plain. Nothing could tempt me to call Mr. Donnelly's veracity in question.
+ He says that he does not understand the sentence and I most cheerfully
+ admit that he tells the exact truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Donnelly says that you said: "Where there is genius,
+ education seems almost unnecessary," and he denounces your doctrine as the
+ most abominable doctrine ever taught. What have you to say to that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, I never made the remark. In the next
+ place, it may be well enough to ask what education is. Much is taught in
+ colleges that is of no earthly use; much is taught that is hurtful. There
+ are thousands of educated men who never graduated from any college or
+ university. Every observant, thoughtful man is educating himself as long
+ as he lives. Men are better then books. Observation is a great teacher. A
+ man of talent learns slowly. He does not readily see the necessary
+ relation that one fact bears to another. A man of genius, learning one
+ fact, instantly sees hundreds of others. It is not necessary for such a
+ man to attend college. The world is his university. Every man he meets is
+ a book&mdash;every woman a volume every fact a torch&mdash;and so without
+ the aid of the so-called schools he rises to the very top. Shakespeare was
+ such a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Donnelly says that: "The biggest myth ever on earth
+ was Shakespeare, and that if Francis Bacon had said to the people, I,
+ Francis Bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking in secret my
+ share of the coppers and shillings taken at the door of those low
+ playhouses, he would have been ruined. If he had put the plays forth
+ simply as poetry it would have ruined his legal reputation." What do you
+ think of this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I hardly think that Shakespeare was a myth. He was
+ certainly born, married, lived in London, belonged to a company of actors;
+ went back to Stratford, where he had a family, and died. All these things
+ do not as a rule happen to myths. In addition to this, those who knew him
+ believed him to be the author of the plays. Bacon's friends never
+ suspected him. I do not think it would have hurt Bacon to have admitted
+ that he wrote "Lear" and "Othello," and that he was getting "coppers and
+ shillings" to which he was justly entitled. Certainly not as much as for
+ him to have written this, which if fact, though not in exact form, he did
+ write: "I, Francis Bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking
+ coppers and shillings to which I was not entitled&mdash;but which I
+ received as bribes while sitting as a judge." He has been excused for two
+ reasons. First, because his salary was small, and, second, because it was
+ the custom for judges to receive presents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bacon was a lawyer. He was charged with corruption&mdash;with having taken
+ bribes, with having sold his decisions. He knew what the custom was and
+ knew how small his salary was. But he did not plead the custom in his
+ defense. He did not mention the smallness of the salary. He confessed that
+ he was guilty&mdash;as charged. His confession was deemed too general and
+ he was called upon by the Lords to make a specific confession. This he
+ did. He specified the cases in which he had received the money and told
+ how much, and begged for mercy. He did not make his confession, as Mr.
+ Donnelly is reported to have said, to get his fine remitted. The
+ confession was made before the fine was imposed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I think that the theatre in which the plays of Shakespeare were
+ represented could or should be called a "low play house." The fact that
+ "Othello," "Lear," "Hamlet," "Julius C&aelig;sar," and the other great
+ dramas were first played in that playhouse made it the greatest building
+ in the world. The gods themselves should have occupied seats in that
+ theatre, where for the first time the greatest productions of the human
+ mind were put upon the stage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Tribune</i>, Minneapolis, Minn., May 31, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0089" id="link0089">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY, AND PRESBYTERIANISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How have you acquired the art of growing old gracefully?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is very hard to live a great while without getting old,
+ and it is hardly worth while to die just to keep young. It is claimed that
+ people with certain incomes live longer than those who have to earn their
+ bread. But the income people have a stupid kind of life, and though they
+ may hang on a good many years, they can hardly be said to do much real
+ living. The best you can say is, not that they lived so many years, but
+ that it took them so many years to die. Some people imagine that regular
+ habits prolong life, but that depends somewhat on the habits. Only the
+ other day I read an article written by a physician, in which regular
+ habits &mdash;good ones, were declared to be quite dangerous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where life is perfectly regular, all the wear and tear comes on the same
+ nerves&mdash;every blow falls on the same place. Variety, even in a bad
+ direction, is a great relief. But living long has nothing to do with
+ getting old gracefully. Good nature is a great enemy of wrinkles, and
+ cheerfulness helps the complexion. If we could only keep from being
+ annoyed at little things, it would add to the luxury of living. Great
+ sorrows are few, and after all do not affect us as much as the many
+ irritating, almost nothings that attack from every side. The traveler is
+ bothered more with dust than mountains. It is a great thing to have an
+ object in life&mdash; something to work for and think for. If a man thinks
+ only about himself, his own comfort, his own importance, he will not grow
+ old gracefully. More and more his spirit, small and mean, will leave its
+ impress on his face, and especially in his eyes. You look at him and feel
+ that there is no jewel in the casket; that a shriveled soul is living in a
+ tumble-down house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The body gets its grace from the mind. I suppose that we are all more or
+ less responsible for our looks. Perhaps the thinker of great thoughts, the
+ doer of noble deeds, moulds his features in harmony with his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably the best medicine, the greatest beautifier in the world, is to
+ make somebody else happy. I have noticed that good mothers have faces as
+ serene as a cloudless day in June, and the older the serener. It is a
+ great thing to know the relative importance of things, and those who do,
+ get the most out of life. Those who take an interest in what they see, and
+ keep their minds busy are always young.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day I met a blacksmith who has given much attention to geology
+ and fossil remains. He told me how happy he was in his excursions. He was
+ nearly seventy years old, and yet he had the enthusiasm of a boy. He said
+ he had some very fine specimens, "but," said he, "nearly every night I
+ dream of finding perfect ones."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That man will keep young as long as he lives. As long as a man lives he
+ should study. Death alone has the right to dismiss the school. No man can
+ get too much knowledge. In that, he can have all the avarice he wants, but
+ he can get too much property. If the business men would stop when they got
+ enough, they might have a chance to grow old gracefully. But the most of
+ them go on and on, until, like the old stage horse, stiff and lame, they
+ drop dead in the road. The intelligent, the kind, the reasonably
+ contented, the courageous, the self-poised, grow old gracefully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are not the restraints to free religious thought being
+ worn away, as the world grows older, and will not the recent attacks of
+ the religious press and pulpit upon the unorthodoxy of Dr. Briggs, Rev. R.
+ Heber Newton and the prospective Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, Dr.
+ Phillips Brooks, and others, have a tendency still further to extend this
+ freedom?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course the world is growing somewhat wiser&mdash;getting
+ more sense day by day. It is amazing to me that any human being or beings
+ ever wrote the Presbyterian creed. Nothing can be more absurd&mdash;more
+ barbaric than that creed. It makes man the sport of an infinite monster,
+ and yet good people, men and women of ability, who have gained eminence in
+ almost every department of human effort, stand by this creed as if it were
+ filled with wisdom and goodness. They really think that a good God damns
+ his poor ignorant children just for his own glory, and that he sends
+ people to perdition, not for any evil in them, but to the praise of his
+ glorious justice. Dr. Briggs has been wicked enough to doubt this phase of
+ God's goodness, and Dr. Bridgman was heartless enough to drop a tear in
+ hell. Of course they have no idea of what justice really is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Presbyterian General Assembly that has just adjourned stood by
+ Calvinism. The "Five Points" are as sharp as ever. The members of that
+ assembly&mdash;most of them&mdash;find all their happiness in the "creed."
+ They need no other amusement. If they feel blue they read about total
+ depravity&mdash;and cheer up. In moments of great sorrow they think of the
+ tale of non-elect infants, and their hearts overflow with a kind of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They cannot imagine why people wish to attend the theatre when they can
+ read the "Confession of Faith," or why they should feel like dancing after
+ they do read it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is very sad to think of the young men and women who have been eternally
+ ruined by witnessing the plays of Shakespeare, and it is also sad to think
+ of the young people, foolish enough to be happy, keeping time to the pulse
+ of music, waltzing to hell in loving pairs&mdash;all for the glory of God,
+ and to the praise of his glorious justice. I think, too, of the thousands
+ of men and women who, while listening to the music of Wagner, have
+ absolutely forgotten the Presbyterian creed, and who for a little while
+ have been as happy as if the creed had never been written. Tear down the
+ theatres, burn the opera houses, break all musical instruments, and then
+ let us go to church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not at all surprised that the General Assembly took up this
+ progressive euchre matter. The word "progressive" is always obnoxious to
+ the ministers. Euchre under another name might go. Of course, progressive
+ euchre is a kind of gambling. I knew a young man, or rather heard of him,
+ who won at progressive euchre a silver spoon. At first this looks like
+ nothing, almost innocent, and yet that spoon, gotten for nothing, sowed
+ the seed of gambling in that young man's brain. He became infatuated with
+ euchre, then with cards in general, then with draw-poker in particular,&mdash;then
+ into Wall Street. He is now a total wreck, and has the impudence to say
+ that is was all "pre-ordained." Think of the thousands and millions that
+ are being demoralized by games of chance, by marbles &mdash;when they play
+ for keeps&mdash;by billiards and croquet, by fox and geese, authors,
+ halma, tiddledywinks and pigs in clover. In all these miserable games, is
+ the infamous element of chance&mdash;the raw material of gambling.
+ Probably none of these games could be played exclusively for the glory of
+ God. I agree with the Presbyterian General Assembly, if the creed is true,
+ why should anyone try to amuse himself? If there is a hell, and all of us
+ are going there, there should never be another smile on the human face. We
+ should spend our days in sighs, our nights in tears. The world should go
+ insane. We find strange combinations&mdash;good men with bad creeds, and
+ bad men with good ones&mdash;and so the great world stumbles along.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Blade</i>, Toledo, Ohio, June 4, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0090" id="link0090">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CREEDS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ There is a natural desire on the part of every intelligent human being to
+ harmonize his information&mdash;to make his theories agree&mdash;in other
+ words, to make what he knows, or thinks he knows, in one department, agree
+ and harmonize with what he knows, or thinks he knows, in every other
+ department of human knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The human race has not advanced in line, neither has it advanced in all
+ departments with the same rapidity. It is with the race as it is with an
+ individual. A man may turn his entire attention to some one subject&mdash;as,
+ for instance, to geology&mdash;and neglect other sciences. He may be a
+ good geologist, but an exceedingly poor astronomer; or he may know nothing
+ of politics or of political economy. So he may be a successful statesman
+ and know nothing of theology. But if a man, successful in one direction,
+ takes up some other question, he is bound to use the knowledge he has on
+ one subject as a kind of standard to measure what he is told on some other
+ subject. If he is a chemist, it will be natural for him, when studying
+ some other question, to use what he knows in chemistry; that is to say, he
+ will expect to find cause and effect everywhere &mdash;succession and
+ resemblance. He will say: It must be in all other sciences as in chemistry&mdash;there
+ must be no chance. The elements have no caprice. Iron is always the same.
+ Gold does not change. Prussic acid is always poison&mdash;it has no
+ freaks. So he will reason as to all facts in nature. He will be a believer
+ in the atomic integrity of all matter, in the persistence of gravitation.
+ Being so trained, and so convinced, his tendency will be to weigh what is
+ called new information in the same scales that he has been using.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, for the application of this. Progress in religion is the slowest,
+ because man is kept back by sentimentality, by the efforts of parents, by
+ old associations. A thousand unseen tendrils are twining about him that he
+ must necessarily break if he advances. In other departments of knowledge
+ inducements are held out and rewards are promised to the one who does
+ succeed&mdash;to the one who really does advance&mdash;to the one who
+ discovers new facts. But in religion, instead of rewards being promised,
+ threats are made. The man is told that he must not advance; that if he
+ takes a step forward, it is at the peril of his soul; that if he thinks
+ and investigates, he is in danger of exciting the wrath of God.
+ Consequently religion has been of the slowest growth. Now, in most
+ departments of knowledge, man has advanced; and coming back to the
+ original statement&mdash;a desire to harmonize all that we know&mdash;there
+ is a growing desire on the part of intelligent men to have a religion fit
+ to keep company with the other sciences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our creeds were made in times of ignorance. They suited very well a flat
+ world, and a God who lived in the sky just above us and who used the
+ lightning to destroy his enemies. This God was regarded much as a savage
+ regarded the head of his tribe&mdash;as one having the right to reward and
+ punish. And this God, being much greater than a chief of the tribe, could
+ give greater rewards and inflict greater punishments. They knew that the
+ ordinary chief, or the ordinary king, punished the slightest offence with
+ death. They also knew that these chiefs and kings tortured their victims
+ as long as the victims could bear the torture. So when they described
+ their God, they gave this God power to keep the tortured victim alive
+ forever &mdash;because they knew that the earthly chief, or the earthly
+ king, would prolong the life of the tortured for the sake of increasing
+ the agonies of the victim. In those savage days they regarded punishment
+ as the only means of protecting society. In consequence of this they built
+ heaven and hell on an earthly plan, and they put God&mdash;that is to say
+ the chief, that is to say the king&mdash;on a throne like an earthly king.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, these views were all ignorant and barbaric; but in that blessed
+ day their geology and astronomy were on a par with their theology. There
+ was a harmony in all departments of knowledge, or rather of ignorance.
+ Since that time there has been a great advance made in the idea of
+ government&mdash;the old idea being that the right to govern came from God
+ to the king, and from the king to his people. Now intelligent people
+ believe that the source of authority has been changed, and that all just
+ powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. So
+ there has been a great advance in the philosophy of punishment&mdash;in
+ the treatment of criminals. So, too, in all the sciences. The earth is no
+ longer flat; heaven is not immediately above us; the universe has been
+ infinitely enlarged, and we have at last found that our earth is but a
+ grain of sand, a speck on the great shore of the infinite. Consequently
+ there is a discrepancy, a discord, a contradiction between our theology
+ and the other sciences. Men of intelligence feel this. Dr. Briggs
+ concluded that a perfectly good and intelligent God could not have created
+ billions of sentient beings, knowing that they were to be eternally
+ miserable. No man could do such a thing, had he the power, without being
+ infinitely malicious. Dr. Briggs began to have a little hope for the human
+ race&mdash;began to think that maybe God is better than the creed
+ describes him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right here it may be well enough to remark that no one has ever been
+ declared a heretic for thinking God bad. Heresy has consisted in thinking
+ God better than the church said he was. The man who said God will damn
+ nearly everybody, was orthodox. The man who said God will save everybody,
+ was denounced as a blaspheming wretch, as one who assailed and maligned
+ the character of God. I can remember when the Universalists were denounced
+ as vehemently and maliciously as the Atheists are to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Dr. Briggs is undoubtedly an intelligent man. He knows that nobody on
+ earth knows who wrote the five books of Moses. He knows that they were not
+ written until hundreds of years after Moses was dead. He knows that two or
+ more persons were the authors of Isaiah. He knows that David did not write
+ to exceed three or four of the Psalms. He knows that the Book of Job is
+ not a Jewish book. He knows that the Songs of Solomon were not written by
+ Solomon. He knows that the Book of Ecclesiastes was written by a
+ Freethinker. He also knows that there is not in existence to-day&mdash;so
+ far as anybody knows&mdash;any of the manuscripts of the Old or New
+ Testaments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So about the New Testament, Dr. Briggs knows that nobody lives who has
+ ever seen an original manuscript, or who ever saw anybody that did see
+ one, or that claims to have seen one. He knows that nobody knows who wrote
+ Matthew or Mark or Luke or John. He knows that John did not write John,
+ and that that gospel was not written until long after John was dead. He
+ knows that no one knows who wrote the Hebrews. He also knows that the Book
+ of Revelation is an insane production. Dr. Briggs also knows the way in
+ which these books came to be canonical, and he knows that the way was no
+ more binding than a resolution passed by a political convention. He also
+ knows that many books were left out that had for centuries equal authority
+ with those that were put in. He also knows that many passages&mdash; and
+ the very passages upon which many churches are founded&mdash;are
+ interpolations. He knows that the last chapter of Mark, beginning with the
+ sixteenth verse to the end, is an interpolation; and he also knows that
+ neither Matthew nor Mark nor Luke ever said one word about the necessity
+ of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, or of believing anything&mdash;not
+ one word about believing the Bible or joining the church, or doing any
+ particular thing in the way of ceremony to insure salvation. He knows that
+ according to Matthew, God agreed to forgive us when we would forgive
+ others. Consequently he knows that there is not one particle of what is
+ called modern theology in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. He knows that the
+ trouble commenced in John, and that John was not written until probably
+ one hundred and fifty years&mdash;possibly two hundred years&mdash;after
+ Christ was dead. So he also knows that the sin against the Holy Ghost is
+ an interpolation; that "I came not to bring peace but a sword," if not an
+ interpolation, is an absolute contradiction. So, too, he knows that the
+ promise to forgive in heaven what the disciples should forgive on earth,
+ is an interpolation; and that if its not an interpolation, it is without
+ the slightest sense in fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Knowing these things, and knowing, in addition to what I have stated, that
+ there are thirty thousand or forty thousand mistakes in the Old Testament,
+ that there are a great many contradictions and absurdities, than many of
+ the laws are cruel and infamous, and could have been made only by a
+ barbarous people, Dr. Briggs has concluded that, after all, the torch that
+ sheds the serenest and divinest light is the human reason, and that we
+ must investigate the Bible as we do other books. At least, I suppose he
+ has reached some such conclusion. He may imagine that the pure gold of
+ inspiration still runs through the quartz and porphyry of ignorance and
+ mistake, and that all we have to do is to extract the shining metal by
+ some process that may be called theological smelting; and if so I have no
+ fault to find. Dr. Briggs has taken a step in advance&mdash;that is to
+ say, the tree is growing, and when the tree grows, the bark splits; when
+ the new leaves come the old leaves are rotting on the ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Presbyterian creed is a very bad creed. It has been the
+ stumbling-block, not only of the head, but of the heart for many
+ generations. I do not know that it is, in fact, worse than any other
+ orthodox creed; but the bad features are stated with an explicitness and
+ emphasized with a candor that render the creed absolutely appalling. It is
+ amazing to me that any man ever wrote it, or that any set of men ever
+ produced it. It is more amazing to me that any human being ever believed
+ in it. It is still more amazing that any human being ever thought it
+ wicked not to believe it. It is more amazing still, than all the others
+ combined, that any human being ever wanted it to be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This creed is a relic of the Middle Ages. It has in it the malice, the
+ malicious logic, the total depravity, the utter heartlessness of John
+ Calvin, and it gives me great pleasure to say that no Presbyterian was
+ ever as bad as his creed. And here let me say, as I have said many times,
+ that I do not hate Presbyterians&mdash;because among them I count some of
+ my best friends&mdash;but I hate Presbyterianism. And I cannot illustrate
+ this any better than by saying, I do not hate a man because he has the
+ rheumatism, but I hate the rheumatism because it has a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Presbyterian Church is growing, and is growing because, as I said at
+ first, there is a universal tendency in the mind of man to harmonize all
+ that he knows or thinks he knows. This growth may be delayed. The buds of
+ heresy may be kept back by the north wind of Princeton and by the early
+ frost called Patton. In spite of these souvenirs of the Dark Ages, the
+ church must continue to grow. The theologians who regard theology as
+ something higher than a trade, tend toward Liberalism. Those who regard
+ preaching as a business, and the inculcation of sentiment as a trade, will
+ stand by the lowest possible views. They will cling to the letter and
+ throw away the spirit. They prefer the dead limb to a new bud or to a new
+ leaf. They want no more sap. They delight in the dead tree, in its
+ unbending nature, and they mistake the stiffness of death for the vigor
+ and resistance of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as with Dr. Briggs, so with Dr. Bridgman, although it seems to me
+ that he has simply jumped from the frying-pan into the fire; and why he
+ should prefer the Episcopal creed to the Baptist, is more than I can
+ imagine. The Episcopal creed is, in fact, just as bad as the Presbyterian.
+ It calmly and with unruffled brow, utters the sentence of eternal
+ punishment on the majority of the human race, and the Episcopalian expects
+ to be happy in heaven, with his son or daughter or his mother or wife in
+ hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Bridgman will find himself exactly in the position of the Rev. Mr.
+ Newton, provided he expresses his thought. But I account for the Bridgmans
+ and for the Newtons by the fact that there is still sympathy in the human
+ heart, and that there is still intelligence in the human brain. For my
+ part, I am glad to see this growth in the orthodox churches, and the
+ quicker they revise their creeds the better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I oppose nothing that is good in any creed&mdash;I attack only that which
+ is ignorant, cruel and absurd, and I make the attack in the interest of
+ human liberty, and for the sake of human happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the action of the Presbyterian
+ General Assembly at Detroit, and what effect do you think it will have on
+ religious growth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. That General Assembly was controlled by the orthodox within
+ the church, by the strict constructionists and by the Calvinists; by
+ gentlemen who not only believe the creed, not only believe that a vast
+ majority of people are going to hell, but are really glad of it; by
+ gentlemen who, when they feel a little blue, read about total depravity to
+ cheer up, and when they think of the mercy of God as exhibited in their
+ salvation, and the justice of God as illustrated by the damnation of
+ others, their hearts burst into a kind of efflorescence of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gentlemen are opposed to all kinds of amusements except reading the
+ Bible, the Confession of Faith, and the creed, and listening to
+ Presbyterian sermons and prayers. All these things they regard as the food
+ of cheerfulness. They warn the elect against theatres and operas, dancing
+ and games of chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, if their doctrine is true, there ought to be no theatres, except
+ exhibitions of hell; there ought to be no operas, except where the music
+ is a succession of wails for the misfortunes of man. If their doctrine is
+ true, I do not see how any human being could ever smile again&mdash;I do
+ not see how a mother could welcome her babe; everything in nature would
+ become hateful; flowers and sunshine would simply tell us of our fate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My doctrine is exactly the opposite of this. Let us enjoy ourselves every
+ moment that we can. The love of the dramatic is universal. The stage has
+ not simply amused, but it has elevated mankind. The greatest genius of our
+ world poured the treasures of his soul into the drama. I do not believe
+ that any girl can be corrupted, or that any man can be injured, by
+ becoming acquainted with Isabella or Miranda or Juliet or Imogen, or any
+ of the great heroines of Shakespeare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I regard the opera as one of the great civilizers. No one can listen to
+ the symphonies of Beethoven, or the music of Schubert, without receiving a
+ benefit. And no one can hear the operas of Wagner without feeling that he
+ has been ennobled and refined.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why is it the Presbyterians are so opposed to music in the world, and yet
+ expect to have so much in heaven? Is not music just as demoralizing in the
+ sky as on the earth, and does anybody believe that Abraham or Isaac or
+ Jacob, ever played any music comparable to Wagner?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Thousands of people take
+ great pleasure in dancing, and I say let them dance. Dancing is better
+ than weeping and wailing over a theology born of ignorance and
+ superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so with games of chance. There is a certain pleasure in playing games,
+ and the pleasure is of the most innocent character. Let all these games be
+ played at home and children will not prefer the saloon to the society of
+ their parents. I believe in cards and billiards, and would believe in
+ progressive euchre, were it more of a game&mdash;the great objection to it
+ is its lack of complexity. My idea is to get what little happiness you can
+ out of this life, and to enjoy all sunshine that breaks through the clouds
+ of misfortune. Life is poor enough at best. No one should fail to pick up
+ every jewel of joy that can be found in his path. Every one should be as
+ happy as he can, provided he is not happy at the expense of another, and
+ no person rightly constituted can be happy at the expense of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So let us get all we can of good between the cradle and the grave; all
+ that we can of the truly dramatic; all that we can of music; all that we
+ can of art; all that we can of enjoyment; and if, when death comes, that
+ is the end, we have at least made the best of this life; and if there be
+ another life, let us make the best of that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am doing what little I can to hasten the coming of the day when the
+ human race will enjoy liberty&mdash;not simply of body, but liberty of
+ mind. And by liberty of mind I mean freedom from superstition, and added
+ to that, the intelligence to find out the conditions of happiness; and
+ added to that, the wisdom to live in accordance with those conditions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Morning Advertiser</i>, New York, June 12, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0091" id="link0091">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE TENDENCY OF MODERN THOUGHT.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you regard the Briggs trial as any evidence of the
+ growth of Liberalism in the church itself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. When men get together, and make what they call a creed, the
+ supposition is that they then say as nearly as possible what they mean and
+ what they believe. A written creed, of necessity, remains substantially
+ the same. In a few years this creed ceases to give exactly the new shade
+ of thought. Then begin two processes, one of destruction and the other of
+ preservation. In every church, as in every party, and as you may say in
+ every corporation, there are two wings&mdash;one progressive, the other
+ conservative. In the church there will be a few, and they will represent
+ the real intelligence of the church, who become dissatisfied with the
+ creed, and who at first satisfy themselves by giving new meanings to old
+ words. On the other hand, the conservative party appeals to emotions, to
+ memories, and to the experiences of their fellow- members, for the purpose
+ of upholding the old dogmas and the old ideas; so that each creed is like
+ a crumbling castle. The conservatives plant ivy and other vines, hoping
+ that their leaves will hide the cracks and erosions of time; but the
+ thoughtful see beyond these leaves and are satisfied that the structure
+ itself is in the process of decay, and that no amount of ivy can restore
+ the crumbling stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old Presbyterian creed, when it was first formulated, satisfied a
+ certain religious intellect. At that time people were not very merciful.
+ They had no clear conceptions of justice. Their lives were for the most
+ part hard; most of them suffered the pains and pangs of poverty; nearly
+ all lived in tyrannical governments and were the sport of nobles and
+ kings. Their idea of God was born of their surroundings. God, to them, was
+ an infinite king who delighted in exhibitions of power. At any rate, their
+ minds were so constructed that they conceived of an infinite being who,
+ billions of years before the world was, made up his mind as to whom he
+ would save and whom he would damn. He not only made up his mind as to the
+ number he would save, and the number that should be lost, but he saved and
+ damned without the slightest reference to the character of the individual.
+ They believed then, and some pretend to believe still, that God damns a
+ man not because he is bad, and that he saves a man not because he is good,
+ but simply for the purpose of self-glorification as an exhibition of his
+ eternal justice. It would be impossible to conceive of any creed more
+ horrible than that of the Presbyterians. Although I admit&mdash;and I not
+ only admit but I assert&mdash;that the creeds of all orthodox Christians
+ are substantially the same, the Presbyterian creed says plainly what it
+ means. There is no hesitation, no evasion. The horrible truth, so-called,
+ is stated in the clearest possible language. One would think after reading
+ this creed, that the men who wrote it not only believed it, but were
+ really glad it was true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ideas of justice, of the use of power, of the use of mercy, have greatly
+ changed in the last century. We are beginning dimly to see that each man
+ is the result of an infinite number of conditions, of an infinite number
+ of facts, most of which existed before he was born. We are beginning dimly
+ to see that while reason is a pilot, each soul navigates the mysterious
+ sea filled with tides and unknown currents set in motion by ancestors long
+ since dust. We are beginning to see that defects of mind are transmitted
+ precisely the same as defects of body, and in my judgment the time is
+ coming when we shall not more think of punishing a man for larceny than
+ for having the consumption. We shall know that the thief is a necessary
+ and natural result of conditions, preparing, you may say, the field of the
+ world for the growth of man. We shall no longer depend upon accident and
+ ignorance and providence. We shall depend upon intelligence and science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Presbyterian creed is no longer in harmony with the average sense of
+ man. It shocks the average mind. It seems too monstrous to be true; too
+ horrible to find a lodgment in the mind of the civilized man. The
+ Presbyterian minister who thinks, is giving new meanings to the old words.
+ The Presbyterian minister who feels, also gives new meanings to the old
+ words. Only those who neither think nor feel remain orthodox.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years the Christian world has been engaged in examining the
+ religions of other peoples, and the Christian scholars have had but little
+ trouble in demonstrating the origin of Mohammedanism and Buddhism and all
+ other isms except ours. After having examined other religions in the light
+ of science, it occurred to some of our theologians to examine their own
+ doctrine in the same way, and the result has been exactly the same in both
+ cases. Dr. Briggs, as I believe, is a man of education. He is undoubtedly
+ familiar with other religions, and has, to some extent at least, made
+ himself familiar with the sacred books of other people. Dr. Briggs knows
+ that no human being knows who wrote a line of the Old Testament. He knows
+ as well as he can know anything, for instance, that Moses never wrote one
+ word of the books attributed to him. He knows that the book of Genesis was
+ made by putting two or three stories together. He also knows that it is
+ not the oldest story, but was borrowed. He knows that in this book of
+ Genesis there is not one word adapted to make a human being better, or to
+ shed the slightest light on human conduct. He knows, if he knows anything,
+ that the Mosaic Code, so-called, was, and is, exceedingly barbarous and
+ not adapted to do justice between man and man, or between nation and
+ nation. He knows that the Jewish people pursued a course adapted to
+ destroy themselves; that they refused to make friends with their
+ neighbors; that they had not the slightest idea of the rights of other
+ people; that they really supposed that the earth was theirs, and that
+ their God was the greatest God in the heavens. He also knows that there
+ are many thousands of mistakes in the Old Testament as translated. He
+ knows that the book of Isaiah is made up of several books. He knows the
+ same thing in regard to the New Testament. He also knows that there were
+ many other books that were once considered sacred that have been thrown
+ away, and that nobody knows who wrote a solitary line of the New
+ Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides all this, Dr. Briggs knows that the Old and New Testaments are
+ filled with interpolations, and he knows that the passages of Scripture
+ which have been taken as the foundation stones for creeds, were written
+ hundreds of years after the death of Christ. He knows well enough that
+ Christ never said: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." He knows that
+ the same being never said: "Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build
+ my church." He knows, too, that Christ never said: "Whosoever believes
+ shall be saved, and whosoever believes not shall be damned." He knows that
+ these were interpolations. He knows that the sin against the Holy Ghost is
+ another interpolation. He knows, if he knows anything, that the gospel
+ according to John was written long after the rest, and that nearly all of
+ the poison and superstition of orthodoxy is in that book. He knows also,
+ if he knows anything, that St. Paul never read one of the four gospels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Knowing all these things, Dr. Briggs has had the honesty to say that there
+ was some trouble about taking the Bible as absolutely inspired in word and
+ punctuation. I do not think, however, that he can maintain his own
+ position and still remain a Presbyterian or anything like a Presbyterian.
+ He takes the ground, I believe, that there are three sources of knowledge:
+ First, the Bible; second, the church; third, reason. It seems to me that
+ reason should come first, because if you say the Bible is a source of
+ authority, why do you say it? Do you say this because your reason is
+ convinced that it is? If so, then reason is the foundation of that belief.
+ If, again, you say the church is a source of authority, why do you say so?
+ It must be because its history convinces your reason that it is.
+ Consequently, the foundation of that idea is reason. At the bottom of this
+ pyramid must be reason, and no man is under any obligation to believe that
+ which is unreasonable to him. He may believe things that he cannot prove,
+ but he does not believe them because they are unreasonable. He believes
+ them because he thinks they are not unreasonable, not impossible, not
+ improbable. But, after all, reason is the crucible in which every fact
+ must be placed, and the result fixes the belief of the intelligent man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that the whole Presbyterian creed must come down together.
+ It is a scheme based upon certain facts, so-called. There is in it the
+ fall of man. There is in it the scheme of the atonement, and there is the
+ idea of hell, eternal punishment, and the idea of heaven, eternal reward;
+ and yet, according to their creed, hell is not a punishment and heaven is
+ not a reward. Now, if we do away with the fall of man we do away with the
+ atonement; then we do away with all supernatural religion. Then we come
+ back to human reason. Personally, I hope that the Presbyterian Church will
+ be advanced enough and splendid enough to be honest, and if it is honest,
+ all the gentlemen who amount to anything, who assist in the trial of Dr.
+ Briggs, will in all probability agree with him, and he will be acquitted.
+ But if they throw aside their reason, and remain blindly orthodox, then he
+ will be convicted. To me it is simply miraculous that any man should
+ imagine that the Bible is the source of truth. There was a time when all
+ scientific facts were measured by the Bible. That time is past, and now
+ the believers in the Bible are doing their best to convince us that it is
+ in harmony with science. In other words, I have lived to see a change of
+ standards. When I was a boy, science was measured by the Bible. Now the
+ Bible is measured by science. This is an immense step. So it is impossible
+ for me to conceive what kind of a mind a man has, who finds in the history
+ of the church the fact that it has been a source of truth. How can any one
+ come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church has been a source of
+ truth, a source of intellectual light? How can anyone believe that the
+ church of John Calvin has been a source of truth? If its creed is not
+ true, if its doctrines are mistakes, if its dogmas are monstrous
+ delusions, how can it be said to have been a source of truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My opinion is that Dr. Briggs will not be satisfied with the step he has
+ taken. He has turned his face a little toward the light. The farther he
+ walks the harder it will be for him to turn back. The probability is that
+ the orthodox will turn him out, and the process of driving out men of
+ thought and men of genius will go on until the remnant will be as orthodox
+ as they are stupid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think mankind is drifting away from the
+ supernatural?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My belief is that the supernatural has had its day. The
+ church must either change or abdicate. That is to say, it must keep step
+ with the progress of the world or be trampled under foot. The church as a
+ power has ceased to exist. To-day it is a matter of infinite indifference
+ what the pulpit thinks unless there comes the voice of heresy from the
+ sacred place. Every orthodox minister in the United States is listened to
+ just in proportion that he preaches heresy. The real, simon-pure, orthodox
+ clergyman delivers his homilies to empty benches, and to a few ancient
+ people who know nothing of the tides and currents of modern thought. The
+ orthodox pulpit to-day has no thought, and the pews are substantially in
+ the same condition. There was a time when the curse of the church whitened
+ the face of a race, but now its anathema is the food of laughter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What, in your judgment, is to be the outcome of the
+ present agitation in religious circles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My idea is that people more and more are declining the
+ postponement of happiness to another world. The general tendency is to
+ enjoy the present. All religions have taught men that the pleasures of
+ this world are of no account; that they are nothing but husks and rags and
+ chaff and disappointment; that whoever expects to be happy in this world
+ makes a mistake; that there is nothing on the earth worth striving for;
+ that the principal business of mankind should be to get ready to be happy
+ in another world; that the great occupation is to save your soul, and when
+ you get it saved, when you are satisfied that you are one of the elect,
+ then pack up all your worldly things in a very small trunk, take it to the
+ dock of time that runs out into the ocean of eternity, sit down on it, and
+ wait for the ship of death. And of course each church is the only one that
+ sells a through ticket which can be depended on. In all religions, as far
+ as I know, is an admixture of asceticism, and the greater the quantity,
+ the more beautiful the religion has been considered, The tendency of the
+ world to- day is to enjoy life while you have it; it is to get something
+ out of the present moment; and we have found that there are things worth
+ living for even in this world. We have found that a man can enjoy himself
+ with wife and children; that he can be happy in the acquisition of
+ knowledge; that he can be very happy in assisting others; in helping those
+ he loves; that there is some joy in poetry, in science and in the
+ enlargement and development of the mind; that there is some delight in
+ music and in the drama and in the arts. We are finding, poor as the world
+ is, that it beats a promise the fulfillment of which is not to take place
+ until after death. The world is also finding out another thing, and that
+ is that the gentlemen who preach these various religions, and promise
+ these rewards, and threaten the punishments, know nothing whatever of the
+ subject; that they are as blindly ignorant as the people they pretend to
+ teach, and the people are as blindly ignorant as the animals below them.
+ We have finally concluded that no human being has the slightest conception
+ of origin or of destiny, and that this life, not only in its commencement
+ but in its end, is just as mysterious to-day as it was to the first man
+ whose eyes greeted the rising sun. We are no nearer the solution of the
+ problem than those who lived thousands of years before us, and we are just
+ as near it as those who will live millions of years after we are dead. So
+ many people having arrived at the conclusion that nobody knows and that
+ nobody can know, like sensible folks they have made up their minds to
+ enjoy life. I have often said, and I say again, that I feel as if I were
+ on a ship not knowing the port from which it sailed, not knowing the
+ harbor to which it was going, not having a speaking acquaintance with any
+ of the officers, and I have made up my mind to have as good a time with
+ the other passengers as possible under the circumstances. If this ship
+ goes down in mid- sea I have at least made something, and if it reaches a
+ harbor of perpetual delight I have lost nothing, and I have had a happy
+ voyage. And I think millions and millions are agreeing with me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, understand, I am not finding fault with any of these religions or
+ with any of these ministers. These religions and these ministers are the
+ necessary and natural products of sufficient causes. Mankind has traveled
+ from barbarism to what we now call civilization, by many paths, all of
+ which under the circumstances, were absolutely necessary; and while I
+ think the individual does as he must, I think the same of the church, of
+ the corporation, and of the nation, and not only of the nation, but of the
+ whole human race. Consequently I have no malice and no prejudices. I have
+ likes and dislikes. I do not blame a gourd for not being a cantaloupe, but
+ I like cantaloupes. So I do not blame the old hard-shell Presbyterian for
+ not being a philosopher, but I like philosophers. So to wind it all up
+ with regard to the tendency of modern thought, or as to the outcome of
+ what you call religion, my own belief is that what is known as religion
+ will disappear from the human mind. And by "religion" I mean the
+ supernatural. By "religion" I mean living in this world for another, or
+ living in this world to gratify some supposed being, whom we never saw and
+ about whom we know nothing, and of whose existence we know nothing. In
+ other words, religion consists of the duties we are supposed to owe to the
+ first great cause, and of certain things necessary for us to do here to
+ insure happiness hereafter. These ideas, in my judgment, are destined to
+ perish, and men will become convinced that all their duties are within
+ their reach, and that obligations can exist only between them and other
+ sentient beings. Another idea, I think, will force itself upon the mind,
+ which is this: That he who lives the best for this world lives the best
+ for another if there be one. In other words, humanity will take the place
+ of what is called "religion." Science will displace superstition, and to
+ do justice will be the ambition of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My creed is this: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is
+ here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others
+ so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is going to take the place of the pulpit?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have for a long time wondered why somebody didn't start a
+ church on a sensible basis. My idea is this: There are, of course, in
+ every community, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and people of all trades and
+ professions who have not the time during the week to pay any particular
+ attention to history, poetry, art, or song. Now, it seems to me that it
+ would be a good thing to have a church and for these men to employ a man
+ of ability, of talent, to preach to them Sundays, and let this man say to
+ his congregation: "Now, I am going to preach to you for the first few
+ Sundays&mdash;eight or ten or twenty, we will say&mdash;on the art,
+ poetry, and intellectual achievements of the Greeks." Let this man study
+ all the week and tell his congregation Sunday what he has ascertained. Let
+ him give to his people the history of such men as Plato, as Socrates, what
+ they did; of Aristotle, of his philosophy; of the great Greeks, their
+ statesmen, their poets, actors, and sculptors, and let him show the debt
+ that modern civilization owes to these people. Let him, too, give their
+ religions, their mythology&mdash;a mythology that has sown the seed of
+ beauty in every land. Then let him take up Rome. Let him show what a
+ wonderful and practical people they were; let him give an idea of their
+ statesmen, orators, poets, lawyers&mdash;because probably the Romans were
+ the greatest lawyers. And so let him go through with nation after nation,
+ biography after biography, and at the same time let there be a Sunday
+ school connected with this church where the children shall be taught
+ something of importance. For instance, teach them botany, and when a
+ Sunday is fair, clear, and beautiful, let them go into the fields and
+ woods with their teachers, and in a little while they will become
+ acquainted with all kinds of tress and shrubs and flowering plants. They
+ could also be taught entomology, so that every bug would be interesting,
+ for they would see the facts in science&mdash; something of use to them. I
+ believe that such a church and such a Sunday school would at the end of a
+ few years be the most intelligent collection of people in the United
+ States. To teach the children all of these things and to teach their
+ parents, too, the outlines of every science, so that every listener would
+ know something of geology, something of astronomy, so that every member
+ could tell the manner in which they find the distance of a star&mdash; how
+ much better that would be than the old talk about Abraham, Isaac, and
+ Jacob, and quotations from Haggai and Zephaniah, and all this eternal talk
+ about the fall of man and the Garden of Eden, and the flood, and the
+ atonement, and the wonders of Revelation! Even if the religious scheme be
+ true, it can be told and understood as well in one day as in a hundred
+ years. The church says, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear." I say:
+ "He that hath brains to think, let him think." So, too, the pulpit is
+ being displaced by what we call places of amusement, which are really
+ places where men go because they find there is something which satisfies
+ in a greater or less degree the hunger of the brain. Never before was the
+ theatre as popular as it is now. Never before was so much money lavished
+ upon the stage as now. Very few men having their choice would go to hear a
+ sermon, especially of the orthodox kind, when they had a chance to see a
+ great actor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man must be a curious combination who would prefer an orthodox sermon,
+ we will say, to a concert given by Theodore Thomas. And I may say in
+ passing that I have great respect for Theodore Thomas, because it was he
+ who first of all opened to the American people the golden gates of music.
+ He made the American people acquainted with the great masters, and
+ especially with Wagner, and it is a debt that we shall always owe him. In
+ this day the opera&mdash;that is to say, music in every form&mdash;is
+ tending to displace the pulpit. The pulpits have to go in partnership with
+ music now. Hundreds of people have excused themselves to me for going to
+ church, saying they have splendid music. Long ago the Catholic Church was
+ forced to go into partnership not only with music, but with painting and
+ with architecture. The Protestant Church for a long time thought it could
+ do without these beggarly elements, and the Protestant Church was simply a
+ dry-goods box with a small steeple on top of it, its walls as bleak and
+ bare and unpromising as the creed. But even Protestants have been forced
+ to hire a choir of ungodly people who happen to have beautiful voices, and
+ they, too, have appealed to the organ. Music is taking the place of creed,
+ and there is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the
+ mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered. Music, of all other
+ things, gives wings to thought and allows the soul to rise above all the
+ pains and troubles of this life, and to feel for a moment as if it were
+ absolutely free, above all clouds, destined to enjoy forever. So, too,
+ science is beckoning with countless hands. Men of genius are everywhere
+ beckoning men to discoveries, promising them fortunes compared with which
+ Aladdin's lamp was weak and poor. All these things take men from the
+ church; take men from the pulpit. In other words, prosperity is the enemy
+ of the pulpit. When men enjoy life, when they are prosperous here, they
+ are in love with the arts, with the sciences, with everything that gives
+ joy, with everything that promises plenty, and they care nothing about the
+ prophecies of evil that fall from the solemn faces of the parsons. They
+ look in other directions. They are not thinking about the end of the
+ world. They hate the lugubrious, and they enjoy the sunshine of to-day.
+ And this, in my judgment, is the highest philosophy: First, do not regret
+ having lost yesterday; second, do not fear that you will lose to-morrow;
+ third, enjoy to- day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Astrology was displaced by astronomy. Alchemy and the black art gave way
+ to chemistry. Science is destined to take the place of superstition. In my
+ judgment, the religion of the future will be Reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Tribune</i>, Chicago, Illinois, November, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0092" id="link0092">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WOMAN SUFFRAGE, HORSE RACING, AND MONEY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are your opinions on the woman's suffrage question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I claim no right that I am not willing to give to my wife
+ and daughters, and to the wives and daughters of other men. We shall never
+ have a generation of great men until we have a generation of great women.
+ I do not regard ignorance as the foundation of virtue, or uselessness as
+ one of the requisites of a lady. I am a believer in equal rights. Those
+ who are amenable to the laws should have a voice in making the laws. In
+ every department where woman has had an equal opportunity with man, she
+ has shown that she has equal capacity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ George Sand was a great writer, George Eliot one of the greatest, Mrs.
+ Browning a marvelous poet&mdash;and the lyric beauty of her "Mother and
+ Poet" is greater than anything her husband ever wrote&mdash;Harriet
+ Martineau a wonderful woman, and Ouida is probably the greatest living
+ novelist, man or woman. Give the women a chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [The Colonel's recent election as a life member of the Manhattan Athletic
+ Club, due strangely enough to a speech of his denouncing certain forms of
+ sport, was referred to, and this led him to express his contempt for
+ prize-fighting, and then he said on the subject of horse-racing: ]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only objection I have to horse racing is its cruelty. The whip and
+ spur should be banished from the track. As long as these are used, the
+ race track will breed a very low and heartless set of men. I hate to see a
+ brute whip and spur a noble animal. The good people object to racing,
+ because of the betting, but bad people, like myself, object to the
+ cruelty. Men are not forced to bet. That is their own business, but the
+ poor horse, straining every nerve, does not ask for the lash and iron.
+ Abolish torture on the track and let the best horse win.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Chilian insult to the United
+ States flag?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, I think that our Government was wrong
+ in taking the part of Balmaceda. In the next place, we made a mistake in
+ seizing the Itata. America should always side with the right. We should
+ care nothing for the pretender in power, and Balmaceda was a cruel,
+ tyrannical scoundrel. We should be with the people everywhere. I do not
+ blame Chili for feeling a little revengeful. We ought to remember that
+ Chili is weak, and nations, like individuals, are sensitive in proportion
+ that they are weak. Let us trust Chili just as we would England. We are
+ too strong to be unjust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you stand on the money question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am with the Republican party on the question of money. I
+ am for the use of gold and silver both, but I want a dollar's worth of
+ silver in a silver dollar. I do not believe in light money, or in cheap
+ money, or in poor money. These are all contradictions in terms. Congress
+ cannot fix the value of money. The most it can do is to fix its debt
+ paying power. It is beyond the power of any Congress to fix the purchasing
+ value of what it may be pleased to call money. Nobody knows, so far as I
+ know, why people want gold. I do not know why people want silver. I do not
+ know how gold came to be money; neither do I understand the universal
+ desire, but it exists, and we take things as we find them. Gold and silver
+ make up, you may say, the money of the world, and I believe in using the
+ two metals. I do not believe in depreciating any American product; but as
+ value cannot be absolutely fixed by law, so far as the purchasing power is
+ concerned, and as the values of gold and silver vary, neither being stable
+ any more than the value of wheat or corn is stable, I believe that
+ legislation should keep pace within a reasonable distance at least, of the
+ varying values, and that the money should be kept as nearly equal as
+ possible. Of course, there is one trouble with money to-day, and that is
+ the use of the word "dollar." It has lost its meaning. So many governments
+ have adulterated their own coin, and as many have changed weights, that
+ the word "dollar" has not to-day an absolute, definite, specific meaning.
+ Like individuals, nations have been dishonest. The only time the papal
+ power had the right to coin money&mdash;I believe it was under Pius IX.,
+ when Antonelli was his minister&mdash;the coin of the papacy was so
+ debased that even orthodox Catholics refused to take it, and it had to be
+ called in and minted by the French Empire, before even the Italians
+ recognized it as money. My own opinion is, that either the dollar must be
+ absolutely defined&mdash;it must be the world over so many grains of pure
+ gold, or so many grains of pure silver&mdash;or we must have other
+ denominations for our money, as for instance, ounces, or parts of ounces,
+ and the time will come, in my judgment, when there will be a money of the
+ world, the same everywhere; because each coin will contain upon its face
+ the certificate of a government that it contains such a weight&mdash;so
+ many grains or so many ounces&mdash;of a certain metal. I, for one, want
+ the money of the United States to be as good as that of any other country.
+ I want its gold and silver exactly what they purport to be; and I want the
+ paper issued by the Government to be the same as gold. I want its credit
+ so perfectly established that it will be taken in every part of the
+ habitable globe. I am with the Republican party on the question of money,
+ also on the question of protection, and all I hope is that the people of
+ this country will have sense enough to defend their own interests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Inter-Ocean</i>, Chicago, Illinois, October 27, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0093" id="link0093">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MISSIONARIES.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of foreign missions?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, there seems to be a pretty good opening
+ in this country for missionary work. We have a good many Indians who are
+ not Methodists. I have never known one to be converted. A good many have
+ been killed by Christians, but their souls have not been saved. Maybe the
+ Methodists had better turn their attention to the heathen of our own
+ country. Then we have a good many Mormons who rely on the truth of the Old
+ Testament and follow the example of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It seems to
+ me that the Methodists better convert the Mormons before attacking the
+ tribes of Central Africa. There is plenty of work to be done right here. A
+ few good bishops might be employed for a time in converting Dr. Briggs and
+ Professor Swing, to say nothing of other heretical Presbyterians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no need of going to China to convert the Chinese. There are
+ thousands of them here. In China our missionaries will tell the followers
+ of Confucius about the love and forgiveness of Christians, and when the
+ Chinese come here they are robbed, assaulted, and often murdered. Would it
+ not be a good thing for the Methodists to civilize our own Christians to
+ such a degree that they would not murder a man simply because he belongs
+ to another race and worships other gods?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, too, I think it would be a good thing for the Methodists to go South
+ and persuade their brethren in that country to treat the colored people
+ with kindness. A few efforts might be made to convert the "White-caps" in
+ Ohio, Indiana and some other States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My advice to the Methodists is to do what little good they can right here
+ and now. It seems cruel to preach to the heathen a gospel that is dying
+ out even here, and fill their poor minds with the absurd dogmas and cruel
+ creeds that intelligent men have outgrown and thrown away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Honest commerce will do a thousand times more good than all the
+ missionaries on earth. I do not believe that an intelligent Chinaman or an
+ intelligent Hindoo has ever been or ever will be converted into a
+ Methodist. If Methodism is good we need it here, and if it is not good, do
+ not fool the heathen with it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Press</i>, Cleveland, Ohio, November 12, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0094" id="link0094">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MY BELIEF AND UNBELIEF.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was in Toledo for a few hours
+ yesterday afternoon on railroad business. Whatever Mr.
+ Ingersoll says is always read with interest, for besides the
+ independence of his averments, his ideas are worded in a way
+ that in itself is attractive.
+
+ While in the court room talking with some of the officials
+ and others, he was saying that in this world there is rather
+ an unequal distribution of comforts, rewards, and
+ punishments. For himself, he had fared pretty well. He
+ stated that during the thirty years he has been married
+ there have been fifteen to twenty of his relatives under the
+ same roof, but never had there been in his family a death or
+ a night's loss of sleep on account of sickness.
+
+ "The Lord has been pretty good to you," suggested Marshall
+ Wade.
+
+ "Well, I've been pretty good to him," he answered.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I have heard people in discussing yourself and your
+ views, express the belief that way down in the depths of your mind you are
+ not altogether a "disbeliever." Are they in any sense correct?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am an unbeliever, and I am a believer. I do not believe
+ in the miraculous, the supernatural, or the impossible. I do not believe
+ in the "Mosaic" account of the creation, or in the flood, or the Tower of
+ Babel, or that General Joshua turned back the sun or stopped the earth. I
+ do not believe in the Jonah story, or that God and the Devil troubled poor
+ Job. Neither do I believe in the Mt. Sinai business, and I have my doubts
+ about the broiled quails furnished in the wilderness. Neither do I believe
+ that man is wholly depraved. I have not the least faith in the Eden, snake
+ and apple story. Neither do I believe that God is an eternal jailer; that
+ he is going to be the warden of an everlasting penitentiary in which the
+ most of men are to be eternally tormented. I do not believe that any man
+ can be justly punished or rewarded on account of his belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I do believe in the nobility of human nature. I believe in love and
+ home, and kindness and humanity. I believe in good fellowship and
+ cheerfulness, in making wife and children happy. I believe in good nature,
+ in giving to others all the rights that you claim for yourself. I believe
+ in free thought, in reason, observation and experience. I believe in
+ self-reliance and in expressing your honest thought. I have hope for the
+ whole human race. What will happen to one, will, I hope, happen to all,
+ and that, I hope, will be good. Above all, I believe in Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Blade</i>, Toledo, Ohio, January 9, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0095" id="link0095">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MUST RELIGION GO?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your idea as to the difference between honest
+ belief, as held by honest religious thinkers, and heterodoxy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, I believe that there are thousands of men and
+ women who honestly believe not only in the improbable, not only in the
+ absurd, but in the impossible. Heterodoxy, so-called, occupies the
+ half-way station between superstition and reason. A heretic is one who is
+ still dominated by religion, but in the east of whose mind there is a
+ dawn. He is one who has seen the morning star; he has not entire
+ confidence in the day, and imagines in some way that even the light he
+ sees was born of the night. In the mind of the heretic, darkness and light
+ are mingled, the ties of intellectual kindred bind him to the night, and
+ yet he has enough of the spirit of adventure to look toward the east. Of
+ course, I admit that Christians and heretics are both honest; a real
+ Christian must be honest and a real heretic must be the same. All men must
+ be honest in what they think; but all men are not honest in what they say.
+ In the invisible world of the mind every man is honest. The judgment never
+ was bribed. Speech may be false, but conviction is always honest. So that
+ the difference between honest belief, as shared by honest religious
+ thinkers and heretics, is a difference of intelligence. It is the
+ difference between a ship lashed to the dock, and on making a voyage; it
+ is the difference between twilight and dawn&mdash;that is to say, the
+ coming of the sight and the coming of the morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are women becoming freed from the bonds of sectarianism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Women are less calculating than men. As a rule they do not
+ occupy the territory of compromise. They are natural extremists. The woman
+ who is not dominated by superstition is apt to be absolutely free, and
+ when a woman has broken the shackles of superstition, she has no
+ apprehension, no fears. She feels that she is on the open sea, and she
+ cares neither for wind nor wave. An emancipated woman never can be
+ re-enslaved. Her heart goes with her opinions, and goes first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider that the influence of religion is better
+ than the influence of Liberalism upon society, that is to say, is society
+ less or more moral, is vice more or less conspicuous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Whenever a chain is broken an obligation takes its place.
+ There is and there can be no responsibility without liberty. The freer a
+ man is, the more responsible, the more accountable he feels; consequently
+ the more liberty there is, the more morality there is. Believers in
+ religion teach us that God will reward men for good actions, but men who
+ are intellectually free, know that the reward of a good action cannot be
+ given by any power, but that it is the natural result of the good action.
+ The free man, guided by intelligence, knows that his reward is in the
+ nature of things, and not in the caprice even of the Infinite. He is not a
+ good and faithful servant, he is an intelligent free man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The vicious are ignorant; real morality is the child of intelligence; the
+ free and intelligent man knows that every action must be judged by its
+ consequences; he knows that if he does good he reaps a good harvest; he
+ knows that if he does evil he bears a burden, and he knows that these good
+ and evil consequences are not determined by an infinite master, but that
+ they live in and are produced by the actions themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Evening Advertiser</i>, New York, February 6, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0096" id="link0096">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WORD PAINTING AND COLLEGE EDUCATION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is the history of the speech delivered here in 1876?
+ Was it extemporaneous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It was not born entirely of the occasion. It took me
+ several years to put the thoughts in form&mdash;to paint the pictures with
+ words. No man can do his best on the instant. Iron to be beaten into
+ perfect form has to be heated several times and turned upon the anvil many
+ more, and hammered long and often.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You might as well try to paint a picture with one sweep of the brush, or
+ chisel a statue with one stroke, as to paint many pictures with words,
+ without great thought and care. Now and then, while a man is talking,
+ heated with his subject, a great thought, sudden as a flash of lightning,
+ illumines the intellectual sky, and a great sentence clothed in words of
+ purple, falls, or rather rushes, from his lips&mdash;but a continuous
+ flight is born, not only of enthusiasm, but of long and careful thought. A
+ perfect picture requires more details, more lights and shadows, than the
+ mind can grasp at once, or on the instant. Thoughts are not born of
+ chance. They grow and bud and blossom, and bear the fruit of perfect form.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Genius is the soil and climate, but the soil must be cultivated, and the
+ harvest is not instantly after the planting. It takes time and labor to
+ raise and harvest a crop from that field called the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think young men need a college education to get
+ along?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Probably many useless things are taught in colleges. I
+ think, as a rule, too much time is wasted learning the names of the cards
+ without learning to play a game. I think a young man should be taught
+ something that he can use&mdash;something he can sell. After coming from
+ college he should be better equipped to battle with the world&mdash;to do
+ something of use. A man may have his brain stuffed with Greek and Latin
+ without being able to fill his stomach with anything of importance. Still,
+ I am in favor of the highest education. I would like to see splendid
+ schools in every State, and then a university, and all scholars passing a
+ certain examination sent to the State university free, and then a United
+ States university, the best in the world, and all graduates of the State
+ universities passing a certain examination sent to the United States
+ university free. We ought to have in this country the best library, the
+ best university, the best school of design in the world; and so I say,
+ more money for the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Was the peculiar conduct of the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, of
+ New York, justifiable, and do you think that it had a tendency to help
+ morality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If Christ had written a decoy letter to the woman to whom
+ he said: "Go and sin no more," and if he had disguised himself and visited
+ her house and had then lodged a complaint against her before the police
+ and testified against her, taking one of his disciples with him, I do not
+ think he would have added to his reputation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The News</i>, Indianapolis, Indiana, February 18, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0097" id="link0097">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PERSONAL MAGNETISM AND THE SUNDAY QUESTION.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [Colonel Ingersoll was a picturesque figure as he sat in his
+ room at the Gibson House yesterday, while the balmy May
+ breeze blew through the open windows, fluttered the lace
+ curtains and tossed the great Infidel's snowy hair to and
+ fro. The Colonel had come in from New York during the
+ morning and the keen white sunlight of a lovely May day
+ filled his heart with gladness. After breakfast, the man
+ who preaches the doctrine of the Golden Rule and the Gospel
+ of Humanity and the while chaffs the gentlemen of the
+ clerical profession, was in a fine humor. He was busy with
+ cards and callers, but not too busy to admire the vase full
+ of freshly-picked spring flowers that stood on the mantel,
+ and wrestled with clouds of cigar smoke, to see which
+ fragrance should dominate the atmosphere.
+
+ To a reporter of <i>The Commercial Gazette</i>, the Colonel spoke
+ freely and interestingly upon a variety of subjects, from
+ personal magnetism in politics to mob rule in Tennessee. He
+ had been interested in Colonel Weir's statement about the
+ lack of gas in Exposition Hall, at the 1876 convention, and
+ when asked if he believed there was any truth in the stories
+ that the gas supply had been manipulated so as to prevent
+ the taking of a ballot after he had placed James G. Blaine
+ in nomination, he replied: ]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ All I can say is, that I heard such a story the day after the convention,
+ but I do not know whether or not it is true. I have always believed, that
+ if a vote had been taken that evening, Blaine would have been nominated,
+ possibly not as the effect of my speech, but the night gave time for
+ trafficking, and that is always dangerous in a convention. I believed then
+ that Blaine ought to have been nominated, and that it would have been a
+ very wise thing for the party to have done. That he was not the candidate
+ was due partly to accident and partly to political traffic, but that is
+ one of the bygones, and I believe there is an old saying to the effect
+ that even the gods have no mastery over the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that eloquence is potent in a convention to
+ set aside the practical work of politics and politicians?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that all the eloquence in the world cannot affect a
+ trade if the parties to the contract stand firm, and when people have made
+ a political trade they are not the kind of people to be affected by
+ eloquence. The practical work of the world has very little to do with
+ eloquence. There are a great many thousand stone masons to one sculptor,
+ and houses and walls are not constructed by sculptors, but by masons. The
+ daily wants of the world are supplied by the practical workers, by men of
+ talent, not by men of genius, although in the world of invention, genius
+ has done more, it may be, than the workers themselves. I fancy the
+ machinery now in the world does the work of many hundreds of millions;
+ that there is machinery enough now to do several times the work that could
+ be done by all the men, women and children of the earth. The genius who
+ invented the reaper did more work and will do more work in the harvest
+ field than thousands of millions of men, and the same may be said of the
+ great engines that drive the locomotives and the ships. All these
+ marvelous machines were made by men of genius, but they are not the men
+ who in fact do the work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [This led the Colonel to pay a brilliant tribute to the great orators of
+ ancient and modern times, the peer of all of them being Cicero. He
+ dissected and defined oratory and eloquence, and explained with
+ picturesque figures, wherein the difference between them lay. As he
+ mentioned the magnetism of public speakers, he was asked as to his opinion
+ of the value of personal magnetism in political life.]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be difficult to define what personal magnetism is, but I think it
+ may be defined in this way: You don't always feel like asking a man whom
+ you meet on the street what direction you should take to reach a certain
+ point. You often allow three or four to pass, before you meet one who
+ seems to invite the question. So, too, there are men by whose side you may
+ sit for hours in the cars without venturing a remark as to the weather,
+ and there are others to whom you will commence talking the moment you sit
+ down. There are some men who look as if they would grant a favor, men
+ toward whom you are unconsciously drawn, men who have a real human look,
+ men with whom you seem to be acquainted almost before you speak, and that
+ you really like before you know anything about them. It may be that we are
+ all electric batteries; that we have our positive and our negative poles;
+ it may be that we need some influence that certain others impart, and it
+ may be that certain others have that which we do not need and which we do
+ not want, and the moment you think that, you feel annoyed and hesitate,
+ and uncomfortable, and possibly hateful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose there is a physical basis for everything. Possibly the best test
+ of real affection between man and woman, or of real friendship between man
+ and woman, is that they can sit side by side, for hours maybe, without
+ speaking, and yet be having a really social time, each feeling that the
+ other knows exactly what they are thinking about. Now, the man you meet
+ and whom you would not hesitate a moment to ask a favor of, is what I call
+ a magnetic man. This magnetism, or whatever it may be, assists in making
+ friends, and of course is a great help to any one who deals with the
+ public. Men like a magnetic man even without knowing him, perhaps simply
+ having seen him. There are other men, whom the moment you shake hands with
+ them, you feel you want no more; you have had enough. A sudden chill runs
+ up the arm the moment your hand touches theirs, and finally reaches the
+ heart; you feel, if you had held that hand a moment longer, an icicle
+ would have formed in the brain. Such people lack personal magnetism. These
+ people now and then thaw out when you get thoroughly acquainted with them,
+ and you find that the ice is all on the outside, and then you come to like
+ them very well, but as a rule first impressions are lasting. Magnetism is
+ what you might call the climate of a man. Some men, and some women, look
+ like a perfect June day, and there are others who, while the look quite
+ smiling, yet you feel that the sky is becoming overcast, and the signs all
+ point to an early storm. There are people who are autumnal&mdash;that is
+ to say, generous. They have had their harvest, and have plenty to spare.
+ Others look like the end of an exceedingly hard winter&mdash;between the
+ hay and grass, the hay mostly gone and the grass not yet come up. So you
+ will see that I think a great deal of this thing that is called magnetism.
+ As I said, there are good people who are not magnetic, but I do not care
+ to make an Arctic expedition for the purpose of discovering the north pole
+ of their character. I would rather stay with those who make me feel
+ comfortable at the first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [From personal magnetism to the lynching Saturday morning down at
+ Nashville, Tennessee, was a far cry, but when Colonel Ingersoll was asked
+ what he thought of mob law, whether there was any extenuation, any
+ propriety and moral effect resultant from it, he quickly answered: ]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe in mob law at any time, among any people. I believe in
+ justice being meted out in accordance with the forms of law. If a
+ community violates that law, why should not the individual? The example is
+ bad. Besides all that, no punishment inflicted by a mob tends to prevent
+ the commission of crime. Horrible punishment hardens the community, and
+ that in itself produces more crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There seems to be a sort of fascination in frightful punishments, but, to
+ say the least of it, all these things demoralize the community. In some
+ countries, you know, they whip people for petty offences. The whipping,
+ however, does no good, and on the other hand it does harm; it hardens
+ those who administer the punishment and those who witness it, and it
+ degrades those who receive it. There will be but little charity in the
+ world, and but little progress until men see clearly that there is no
+ chance in the world of conduct any more than in the physical world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Back of every act and dream and thought and desire and virtue and crime is
+ the efficient cause. If you wish to change mankind, you must change the
+ conditions. There should be no such thing as punishment. We should
+ endeavor to reform men, and those who cannot be reformed should be placed
+ where they cannot injure their fellows. The State should never take
+ revenge any more than the community should form itself into a mob and take
+ revenge. This does harm, not good. The time will come when the world will
+ no more think of sending men to the penitentiary for stealing, as a
+ punishment, that it will for sending a man to the penitentiary because he
+ has consumption. When that time comes, the object will be to reform men;
+ to prevent crime instead of punishing it, and the object then will be to
+ make the conditions such that honest people will be the result, but as
+ long as hundreds of thousands of human beings live in tenements, as long
+ as babes are raised in gutters, as long as competition is so sharp that
+ hundreds of thousands must of necessity be failures, just so long as
+ society gets down on its knees before the great and successful thieves,
+ before the millionaire thieves, just so long will it have to fill the
+ jails and prisons with the little thieves. When the "good time" comes, men
+ will not be judged by the money they have accumulated, but by the uses
+ they make of it. So men will be judged, not according to their
+ intelligence, but by what they are endeavoring to accomplish with their
+ intelligence. In other words, the time will come when character will rise
+ above all. There is a great line in Shakespeare that I have often quoted,
+ and that cannot be quoted too often: "There is no darkness but ignorance."
+ Let the world set itself to work to dissipate this darkness; let us flood
+ the world with intellectual light. This cannot be accomplished by mobs or
+ lynchers. It must be done by the noblest, by the greatest, and by the
+ best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [The conversation shifting around to the Sunday question; the opening of
+ the World's Fair on Sunday, the attacks of the pulpit upon the Sunday
+ newspapers, the opening of parks and museums and libraries on Sunday,
+ Colonel Ingersoll waxed eloquent, and in answer to many questions uttered
+ these paragraphs: ]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, people will think that I have some prejudice against the
+ parsons, but really I think the newspaper press is of far more importance
+ in the world than the pulpit. If I should admit in a kind of burst of
+ generosity, and simply for the sake of making a point, that the pulpit can
+ do some good, how much can it do without the aid of the press? Here is a
+ parson preaching to a few ladies and enough men, it may be, to pass the
+ contribution box, and all he says dies within the four walls of that
+ church. How many ministers would it take to reform the world, provided I
+ again admit in a burst of generosity, that there is any reforming power in
+ what they preach, working along that line?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Sunday newspaper, I think, is the best of any day in the week. That
+ paper keeps hundreds and thousands at home. You can find in it information
+ about almost everything in the world. One of the great Sunday papers will
+ keep a family busy reading almost all day. Now, I do not wonder that the
+ ministers are so opposed to the Sunday newspaper, and so they are opposed
+ to anything calculated to decrease the attendance at church. Why, they
+ want all the parks, all the museums, all the libraries closed on Sunday,
+ and they want the World's Fair closed on Sunday.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I am in favor of Sunday; in fact, I am perfectly willing to have two
+ of them a week, but I want Sunday as a day of recreation and pleasure. The
+ fact is we ought not to work hard enough during the week to require a day
+ of rest. Every day ought to be so arranged that there would be time for
+ rest from the labor of that day. Sunday is a good day to get business out
+ of your mind, to forget the ledger and the docket and the ticker, to
+ forget profits and losses, and enjoy yourself. It is a good day to go to
+ the art museums, to look at pictures and statues and beautiful things, so
+ that you may feel that there is something in this world besides money and
+ mud. It is a good day, is Sunday, to go to the libraries and spend a
+ little time with the great and splendid dead, and to go to the cemetery
+ and think of those who are sleeping there, and to give a little thought to
+ the time when you, too, like them, will fall asleep. I think it is a good
+ day for almost anything except going to church. There is no need of that;
+ everybody knows the story, and if a man has worked hard all the week, you
+ can hardly call it recreation if he goes to church Sunday and hears that
+ his chances are ninety-nine in a hundred in favor of being eternally
+ damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it is I am in favor of having the World's Fair open on Sunday. It will
+ be a good day to look at the best the world has produced; a good day to
+ leave the saloons and commune for a little while with the mighty spirits
+ that have glorified this world. Sunday is a good day to leave the
+ churches, where they teach that man has become totally depraved, and look
+ at the glorious things that have been wrought by these depraved beings.
+ Besides all this, it is the day of days for the working man and working
+ woman, for those who have to work all the week. In New York an attempt was
+ made to open the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday, and the pious
+ people opposed it. They thought it would interfere with the joy of heaven
+ if people were seen in the park enjoying themselves on Sunday, and they
+ also held that nobody would visit the Museum if it were opened on Sunday;
+ that the "common people" had no love for pictures and statues and cared
+ nothing about art. The doors were opened, and it was demonstrated that the
+ poor people, the toilers and workers, did want to see such things on
+ Sunday, and now more people visit the Museum on Sunday than on all the
+ other days of the week put together. The same is true of the public
+ libraries. There is something to me infinitely pharisaical, hypocritical
+ and farcical in this Sunday nonsense. The rich people who favor keeping
+ Sunday "holy," have their coachman drive them to church and wait outside
+ until the services end. What do they care about the coachman's soul? While
+ they are at church their cooks are busy at home getting dinner ready. What
+ do they care for the souls of cooks? The whole thing is pretence, and
+ nothing but pretence. It is the instinct of business. It is the
+ competition of the gospel shop with other shops and places of resort.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers, of course, are opposed to all shows except their own, for
+ they know that very few will come to see or hear them and the choice must
+ be the church or nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that one day can be more holy than another unless more
+ joyous than another. The holiest day is the happiest day&mdash; the day on
+ which wives and children and men are happiest. In that sense a day can be
+ holy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our idea of the Sabbath is from the Puritans, and they imagined that a man
+ has to be miserable in order to excite the love of God. We have outgrown
+ the old New England Sabbath&mdash;the old Scotch horror. The Germans have
+ helped us and have set a splendid example. I do not see how a poor
+ workingman can go to church for recreation&mdash;I mean an orthodox
+ church. A man who has hell here cannot be benefitted by being assured that
+ he is likely to have hell hereafter. The whole business I hold in perfect
+ abhorrence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They tell us that God will not prosper us unless we observe the Sabbath.
+ The Jews kept the Sabbath and yet Jehovah deserted them, and they are a
+ people without a nation. The Scotch kept Sunday; they are not independent.
+ The French never kept Sunday, and yet they are the most prosperous nation
+ in Europe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Commercial Gazette</i>, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 2, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0098" id="link0098">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ AUTHORS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Who, in your opinion, is the greatest novelist who has
+ written in the English language?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The greatest novelist, in my opinion, who has ever written
+ in the English language, was Charles Dickens. He was the greatest observer
+ since Shakespeare. He had the eyes that see, the ears that really hear. I
+ place him above Thackeray. Dickens wrote for the home, for the great
+ public. Thackeray wrote for the clubs. The greatest novel in our language&mdash;and
+ it may be in any other&mdash;is, according to my ideas, "A Tale of Two
+ Cities." In that, are philosophy, pathos, self-sacrifice, wit, humor, the
+ grotesque and the tragic. I think it is the most artistic novel that I
+ have read. The creations of Dickens' brain have become the citizens of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of American writers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Emerson was a fine writer, and he did this world a
+ great deal of good, but I do not class him with the first. Some of his
+ poetry is wonderfully good and in it are some of the deepest and most
+ beautiful lines. I think he was a poet rather than a philosopher. His
+ doctrine of compensation would be delightful if it had the facts to
+ support it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, Hawthorne was a great writer. His style is a little monotonous,
+ but the matter is good. "The Marble Faun" is by far his best effort. I
+ shall always regret that Hawthorne wrote the life of Franklin Pierce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman will hold a high place among American writers. His poem on
+ the death of Lincoln, entitled "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,"
+ is the greatest ever written on this continent. He was a natural poet and
+ wrote lines worthy of America. He was the poet of democracy and
+ individuality, and of liberty. He was worthy of the great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What about Henry George's books?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Henry George wrote a wonderful book and one that arrested
+ the attention of the world&mdash;one of the greatest books of the century.
+ While I do not believe in his destructive theories, I gladly pay a tribute
+ to his sincerity and his genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Bellamy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think what is called nationalism of the Bellamy
+ kind is making any particular progress in this country. We are believers
+ in individual independence, and will be, I hope, forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Boston was at one time the literary center of the country, but the best
+ writers are not living here now. The best novelists of our country are not
+ far from Boston. Edgar Fawcett lives in New York. Howells was born, I
+ believe, in Ohio, and Julian Hawthorne lives in New Jersey or in Long
+ Island. Among the poets, James Whitcomb Riley is a native of Indiana, and
+ he has written some of the daintiest and sweetest things in American
+ literature. Edgar Fawcett is a great poet. His "Magic Flower" is as
+ beautiful as anything Tennyson has ever written. Eugene Field of Chicago,
+ has written some charming things, natural and touching.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Westward the star of literature takes its course.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Star</i>, Kansas City, Mo., May 26, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0099" id="link0099">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INEBRIETY.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* Published from notes found among Colonel Ingersoll's
+ papers, evidently written soon after the discovery of the
+ "Keeley Cure."]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider inebriety a disease, or the result of
+ diseased conditions?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I believe that by a long and continuous use of stimulants,
+ the system gets in such a condition that it imperatively demands not only
+ the usual, but an increased stimulant. After a time, every nerve becomes
+ hungry, and there is in the body of the man a cry, coming from every
+ nerve, for nourishment. There is a kind of famine, and unless the want is
+ supplied, insanity is the result. This hunger of the nerves drowns the
+ voice of reason&mdash;cares nothing for argument&mdash;nothing for
+ experience&mdash;nothing for the sufferings of others&mdash;nothing for
+ anything, except for the food it requires. Words are wasted, advice is of
+ no possible use, argument is like reasoning with the dead. The man has
+ lost the control of his will &mdash;it has been won over to the side of
+ the nerves. He imagines that if the nerves are once satisfied he can then
+ resume the control of himself. Of course, this is a mistake, and the more
+ the nerves are satisfied, the more imperative is their demand. Arguments
+ are not of the slightest force. The knowledge&mdash;the conviction&mdash;that
+ the course pursued is wrong, has no effect. The man is in the grasp of
+ appetite. He is like a ship at the mercy of wind and wave and tide. The
+ fact that the needle of the compass points to the north has no effect&mdash;the
+ compass is not a force&mdash;it cannot battle with the wind and tide&mdash;and
+ so, in spite of the fact that the needle points to the north, the ship is
+ stranded on the rocks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the fact that the man knows that he should not drink has not the
+ slightest effect upon him. The sophistry of passion outweighs all that
+ reason can urge. In other words, the man is the victim of disease, and
+ until the disease is arrested, his will is not his own. He may wish to
+ reform, but wish is not will. He knows all of the arguments in favor of
+ temperance&mdash;he knows all about the distress of wife and child&mdash;all
+ about the loss of reputation and character&mdash;all about the chasm
+ toward which he is drifting&mdash;and yet, not being the master of
+ himself, he goes with the tide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years society has sought to do away with inebriety by
+ argument, by example, by law; and yet millions and millions have been
+ carried away and countless thousands have become victims of alcohol. In
+ this contest words have always been worthless, for the reason that no
+ argument can benefit a man who has lost control of himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. As a lawyer, will you express an opinion as to the moral
+ and legal responsibility of a victim of alcoholism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Personally, I regard the moral and legal responsibility of
+ all persons as being exactly the same. All persons do as they must. If you
+ wish to change the conduct of an individual you must change his conditions&mdash;otherwise
+ his actions will remain the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are beginning to find that there is no effect without a cause, and that
+ the conduct of individuals is not an exception to this law. Every hope,
+ every fear, every dream, every virtue, every crime, has behind it an
+ efficient cause. Men do neither right nor wrong by chance. In the world of
+ fact and in the world of conduct, as well as in the world of imagination,
+ there is no room, no place, for chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In the case of an inebriate who has committed a crime,
+ what do you think of the common judicial opinion that such a criminal is
+ as deserving of punishment as a person not inebriated?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I see no difference. Believing as I do that all persons act
+ as they must, it makes not the slightest difference whether the person so
+ acting is what we call inebriated, or sane, or insane &mdash;he acts as he
+ must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There should be no such thing as punishment. Society should protect itself
+ by such means as intelligence and humanity may suggest, but the idea of
+ punishment is barbarous. No man ever was, no man ever will be, made better
+ by punishment. Society should have two objects in view: First, the defence
+ of itself, and second, the reformation of the so-called criminal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world has gone on fining, imprisoning, torturing and killing the
+ victims of condition and circumstance, and condition and circumstance have
+ gone on producing the same kind of men and women year after year and
+ century after century&mdash;and all this is so completely within the
+ control of cause and effect, within the scope and jurisdiction of
+ universal law, that we can prophesy the number of criminals for the next
+ year&mdash;the thieves and robbers and murderers &mdash;with almost
+ absolute certainty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are just so many mistakes committed every year&mdash;so many crimes
+ &mdash;so many heartless and foolish things done&mdash;and it does not
+ seem to be&mdash;at least by the present methods&mdash;possible to
+ increase or decrease the number.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have thousands and thousands of pulpits, and thousands of moralists,
+ and countless talkers and advisers, but all these sermons, and all the
+ advice, and all the talk, seem utterly powerless in the presence of cause
+ and effect. Mothers may pray, wives may weep, children may starve, but the
+ great procession moves on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years the world endeavored to save itself from disease by
+ ceremonies, by genuflections, by prayers, by an appeal to the charity and
+ mercy of heaven&mdash;but the diseases flourished and the graveyards
+ became populous, and all the ceremonies and all the prayers were without
+ the slightest effect. We must at last recognize the fact, that not only
+ life, but conduct, has a physical basis. We must at last recognize the
+ fact that virtue and vice, genius and stupidity, are born of certain
+ conditions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In which way do you think the reformation or
+ reconstruction of the inebriate is to be effected&mdash;by punishment, by
+ moral suasion, by seclusion, or by medical treatment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, punishment simply increases the
+ disease. The victim, without being able to give the reasons, feels that
+ punishment is unjust, and thus feeling, the effect of the punishment
+ cannot be good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You might as well punish a man for having the consumption which he
+ inherited from his parents, or for having a contagious disease which was
+ given to him without his fault, as to punish him for drunkenness. No one
+ wishes to be unhappy&mdash;no one wishes to destroy his own well-being.
+ All persons prefer happiness to unhappiness, and success to failure,
+ Consequently, you might as well punish a man for being unhappy, and thus
+ increase his unhappiness, as to punish him for drunkenness. In neither
+ case is he responsible for what he suffers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither can you cure this man by what is called moral suasion. Moral
+ suasion, if it amounts to anything, is the force of argument &mdash;that
+ is to say, the result of presenting the facts to the victim. Now, of all
+ persons in the world, the victim knows the facts. He knows not only the
+ effect upon those who love him, but the effect upon himself. There are no
+ words that can add to his vivid appreciation of the situation. There is no
+ language so eloquent as the sufferings of his wife and children. All these
+ things the drunkard knows, and knows perfectly, and knows as well as any
+ other human being can know. At the same time, he feels that the tide and
+ current of passion are beyond his power. He feels that he cannot row
+ against the stream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is but one way, and that is, to treat the drunkard as the victim of
+ a disease&mdash;treat him precisely as you would a man with a fever, as a
+ man suffering from smallpox, or with some form of indigestion. It is
+ impossible to talk a man out of consumption, or to reason him out of
+ typhoid fever. You may tell him that he ought not to die, that he ought to
+ take into consideration the condition in which he would leave his wife.
+ You may talk to him about his children&mdash;the necessity of their being
+ fed and educated &mdash;but all this will have nothing to do with the
+ progress of the disease. The man does not wish to die&mdash;he wishes to
+ live&mdash;and yet, there will come a time in his disease when even that
+ wish to live loses its power to will, and the man drifts away on the tide,
+ careless of life or death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it is with drink. Every nerve asks for a stimulant. Every drop of blood
+ cries out for assistance, and in spite of all argument, in spite of all
+ knowledge, in this famine of the nerves, a man loses the power of will.
+ Reason abdicates the throne, and hunger takes its place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will you state your reasons for your belief?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, I will give a reason for my unbelief in
+ what is called moral suasion and in legislation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As I said before, for thousands and thousands of years, fathers and
+ mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers have been endeavoring to
+ prevent the ones they love from drink, and yet, in spite of everything,
+ millions have gone on and filled at last a drunkard's grave. So, societies
+ have been formed all over the world. But the consumption of ardent spirits
+ has steadily increased. Laws have been passed in nearly all the nations of
+ the world upon the subject, and these laws, so far as I can see, have done
+ but little, if any, good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the same old question is upon us now: What shall be done with the
+ victims of drink? There have been probably many instances in which men
+ have signed the pledge and have reformed. I do not say that it is not
+ possible to reform many men, in certain stages, by moral suasion.
+ Possibly, many men can be reformed in certain stages, by law; but the per
+ cent. is so small that, in spite of that per cent., the average increases.
+ For these reasons, I have lost confidence in legislation and in moral
+ suasion. I do not say what legislation may do by way of prevention, or
+ what moral suasion may do in the same direction, but I do say that after
+ man have become the victims of alcohol, advice and law seem to have lost
+ their force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that science is to become the savior of mankind. In other words,
+ every appetite, every excess, has a physical basis, and if we only knew
+ enough of the human system&mdash;of the tides and currents of thought and
+ will and wish&mdash;enough of the storms of passion&mdash;if we only knew
+ how the brain acts and operates&mdash;if we only knew the relation between
+ blood and thought, between thought and act&mdash;if we only knew the
+ conditions of conduct, then we could, through science, control the
+ passions of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I first heard of the cure of inebriety through scientific means, I
+ felt that the morning star had risen in the east&mdash;I felt that at last
+ we were finding solid ground. I did not accept&mdash;being of a skeptical
+ turn of mind&mdash;all that I heard as true. I preferred to hope, and
+ wait. I have waited, until I have seen men, the victims of alcohol, in the
+ very gutter of disgrace and despair, lifted from the mire, rescued from
+ the famine of desire, from the grasp of appetite. I have seen them
+ suddenly become men&mdash;masters and monarchs of themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0100" id="link0100">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MIRACLES, THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that there is such a thing as a miracle,
+ or that there has ever been?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Mr. Locke was in the habit of saying: "Define your terms."
+ So the first question is, What is a miracle? If it is something wonderful,
+ unusual, inexplicable, then there have been many miracles. If you mean
+ simply that which is inexplicable, then the world is filled with miracles;
+ but if you mean by a miracle, something contrary to the facts in nature,
+ then it seems to me that the miracle must be admitted to be an
+ impossibility. It is like twice two are eleven in mathematics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, again, we take the ground of some of the more advanced clergy, that a
+ miracle is in accordance with the facts in nature, but with facts unknown
+ to man, then we are compelled to say that a miracle is performed by a
+ divine sleight-of-hand; as, for instance, that our senses are deceived;
+ or, that it is perfectly simple to this higher intelligence, while
+ inexplicable to us. If we give this explanation, then man has been imposed
+ upon by a superior intelligence. It is as though one acquainted with the
+ sciences&mdash;with the action of electricity&mdash;should excite the
+ wonder of savages by sending messages to his partner. The savage would
+ say, "A miracle;" but the one who sent the message would say, "There is no
+ miracle; it is in accordance with facts in nature unknown to you." So
+ that, after all, the word miracle grows in the soil of ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question arises whether a superior intelligence ought to impose upon
+ the inferior. I believe there was a French saint who had his head cut off
+ by robbers, and this saint, after the robbers went away, got up, took his
+ head under his arm and went on his way until he found friends to set it on
+ right. A thing like this, if it really happened, was a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it may be said that nothing is much more miraculous than the fact that
+ intelligent men believe in miracles. If we read in the annals of China
+ that several thousand years ago five thousand people were fed on one
+ sandwich, and that several sandwiches were left over after the feast,
+ there are few intelligent men&mdash;except, it may be, the editors of
+ religious weeklies&mdash;who would credit the statement. But many
+ intelligent people, reading a like story in the Hebrew, or in the Greek,
+ or in a mistranslation from either of these languages, accept the story
+ without a doubt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So if we should find in the records of the Indians that a celebrated
+ medicine-man of their tribe used to induce devils to leave crazy people
+ and take up their abode in wild swine, very few people would believe the
+ story.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe it is true that the priest of one religion has never had the
+ slightest confidence in the priest of any other religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My own opinion is, that nature is just as wonderful one time as another;
+ that that which occurs to-day is just as miraculous as anything that ever
+ happened; that nothing is more wonderful than that we live&mdash;that we
+ think&mdash;that we convey our thoughts by speech, by gestures, by
+ pictures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is more wonderful than the growth of grass&mdash;the production of
+ seed&mdash;the bud, the blossom and the fruit. In other words, we are
+ surrounded by the inexplicable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that happens in conformity with what we know, we call natural; and
+ that which is said to have happened, not in conformity with what we know,
+ we say is wonderful; and that which we believe to have happened contrary
+ to what we know, we call the miraculous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think the truth is, that nothing ever happened except in a natural way;
+ that behind every effect has been an efficient cause, and that this
+ wondrous procession of causes and effects has never been, and never will
+ be, broken. In other words, there is nothing superior to the universe&mdash;nothing
+ that can interfere with this procession of causes and effects. I believe
+ in no miracles in the theological sense. My opinion is that the universe
+ is, forever has been, and forever will be, perfectly natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever a religion has been founded among barbarians and ignorant people,
+ the founder has appealed to miracle as a kind of credential &mdash;as an
+ evidence that he is in partnership with some higher power. The credulity
+ of savagery made this easy. But at last we have discovered that there is
+ no necessary relation between the miraculous and the moral. Whenever a
+ man's reason is developed to that point that he sees the reasonableness of
+ a thing, he needs no miracle to convince him. It is only ignorance or
+ cunning that appeals to the miraculous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing, and that is this: Truth relies upon itself &mdash;that
+ is to say, upon the perceived relation between itself and all other
+ truths. If you tell the facts, you need not appeal to a miracle. It is
+ only a mistake or a falsehood, that needs to be propped and buttressed by
+ wonders and miracles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your explanation of the miracles referred to in
+ the Old and New Testaments?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, a miracle cannot be explained. If it is
+ a real miracle, there is no explanation. If it can be explained, then the
+ miracle disappears, and the thing was done in accordance with the facts
+ and forces of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a time when not one it may be in thousands could read or write, when
+ language was rude, and when the signs by which thoughts were conveyed were
+ few and inadequate, it was very easy to make mistakes, and nothing is more
+ natural than for a mistake to grow into a miracle. In an ignorant age,
+ history for the most part depended upon memory. It was handed down from
+ the old in their dotage, to the young without judgment. The old always
+ thought that the early days were wonderful&mdash;that the world was
+ wearing out because they were. The past looked at through the haze of
+ memory, became exaggerated, gigantic. Their fathers were stronger than
+ they, and their grandfathers far superior to their fathers, and so on
+ until they reached men who had the habit of living about a thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, everything in the Old Testament contrary to the experience
+ of the civilized world, is false. I do not say that those who told the
+ stories knew that they were false, or that those who wrote them suspected
+ that they were not true. Thousands and thousands of lies are told by
+ honest stupidity and believed by innocent credulity. Then again, cunning
+ takes advantage of ignorance, and so far as I know, though all the history
+ of the world a good many people have endeavored to make a living without
+ work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am perfectly convinced of the integrity of nature&mdash;that the
+ elements are eternally the same&mdash;that the chemical affinities and
+ hatreds know no shadow of turning&mdash;that just so many atoms of one
+ kind combine with so many atoms of another, and that the relative numbers
+ have never changed and never will change. I am satisfied that the
+ attraction of gravitation is a permanent institution; that the laws of
+ motion have been the same that they forever will be. There is no chance,
+ there is no caprice. Behind every effect is a cause, and every effect must
+ in its turn become a cause, and only that is produced which a cause of
+ necessity produces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Madame Blavatsky and her school of
+ Theosophists? Do you believe Madame Blavatsky does or has done the
+ wonderful things related of her? Have you seen or known of any
+ Theosophical or esoteric marvels?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think wonders are about the same in this country that
+ they are in India, and nothing appears more likely to me simply because it
+ is surrounded with the mist of antiquity. In my judgment, Madame Blavatsky
+ has never done any wonderful things&mdash;that is to say, anything not in
+ perfect accordance with the facts of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know nothing of esoteric marvels. In one sense, everything that exists
+ is a marvel, and the probability is that if we knew the history of one
+ grain of sand we would know the history of the universe. I regard the
+ universe as a unit. Everything that happens is only a different aspect of
+ that unit. There is no room for the marvelous&mdash;there is no space in
+ which it can operate&mdash;there is no fulcrum for its lever. The universe
+ is already occupied with the natural. The ground is all taken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that all these people are perfectly honest, and imagine that
+ they have had wonderful experiences. I know but little of the Theosophists&mdash;but
+ little of the Spiritualists. It has always seemed to me that the messages
+ received by Spiritualists are remarkably unimportant&mdash;that they tell
+ us but little about the other world, and just as little about this&mdash;that
+ if all the messages supposed to have come from angelic lips, or spiritual
+ lips, were destroyed, certainly the literature of the world would lose but
+ little. Some of these people are exceedingly intelligent, and whenever
+ they say any good thing, I imagine that it was produced in their brain,
+ and that it came from no other world. I have no right to pass upon their
+ honesty. Most of them may be sincere. It may be that all the founders of
+ religions have really supposed themselves to be inspired&mdash;believed
+ that they held conversations with angels and Gods. It seems to be easy for
+ some people to get in such a frame of mind that their thoughts become
+ realities, their dreams substances, and their very hopes palpable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Personally, I have no sort of confidence in these messages from the other
+ world. There may be mesmeric forces&mdash;there may be an odic force. It
+ may be that some people can tell of what another is thinking. I have seen
+ no such people&mdash;at least I am not acquainted with them&mdash;and my
+ own opinion is that no such persons exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe the spirits of the dead come back to
+ earth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not. I do not say that the spirits do not come back. I
+ simply say that I know nothing on the subject. I do not believe in such
+ spirits, simply for the reason that I have no evidence upon which to base
+ such a belief. I do not say there are no such spirits, for the reason that
+ my knowledge is limited, and I know of no way of demonstrating the
+ non-existence of spirits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that man lives forever, and it may be that what we call life
+ ends with what we call death. I have had no experience beyond the grave,
+ and very little back of birth. Consequently, I cannot say that I have a
+ belief on this subject. I can simply say that I have no knowledge on this
+ subject, and know of no fact in nature that I would use as the
+ corner-stone of a belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My answer to that is about the same as to the other
+ question. I do not believe in the resurrection of the body. It seems to me
+ an exceedingly absurd belief&mdash;and yet I do not know. I am told, and I
+ suppose I believe, that the atoms that are in me have been in many other
+ people, and in many other forms of life, and I suppose at death the atoms
+ forming my body go back to the earth and are used in countless forms.
+ These facts, or what I suppose to be facts, render a belief in the
+ resurrection of the body impossible to me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We get atoms to support our body from what we eat. Now, if a cannibal
+ should eat a missionary, and certain atoms belonging to the missionary
+ should be used by the cannibal in his body, and the cannibal should then
+ die while the atoms of the missionary formed part of his flesh, to whom
+ would these atoms belong in the morning of the resurrection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then again, science teaches us that there is a kind of balance between
+ animal and vegetable life, and that probably all men and all animals have
+ been trees, and all trees have been animals; so that the probability is
+ that the atoms that are now in us have been, as I said in the first place,
+ in millions of other people. Now, if this be so, there cannot be atoms
+ enough in the morning of the resurrection, because, if the atoms are given
+ to the first men, that belonged to the first men when they died, there
+ will certainly be no atoms for the last men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Consequently, I am compelled to say that I do not believe in the
+ resurrection of the body.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* From notes found among Colonel Ingersoll's papers.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0101" id="link0101">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ TOLSTOY AND LITERATURE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Count Leo Tolstoy?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have read Tolstoy. He is a curious mixture of simplicity
+ and philosophy. He seems to have been carried away by his conception of
+ religion. He is a non-resistant to such a degree that he asserts that he
+ would not, if attacked, use violence to preserve his own life or the life
+ of a child. Upon this question he is undoubtedly insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So he is trying to live the life of a peasant and doing without the
+ comforts of life! This is not progress. Civilization should not endeavor
+ to bring about equality by making the rich poor or the comfortable
+ miserable. This will not add to the pleasures of the rich, neither will it
+ feed the hungry, not clothe the naked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The civilized wealthy should endeavor to help the needy, and help them in
+ a sensible way, not through charity, but through industry; through giving
+ them opportunities to take care of themselves. I do not believe in the
+ equality that is to be reached by pulling the successful down, but I do
+ believe in civilization that tends to raise the fallen and assists those
+ in need.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Should we all follow Tolstoy's example and live according to his
+ philosophy the world would go back to barbarism; art would be lost; that
+ which elevates and refines would be destroyed; the voice of music would
+ become silent, and man would be satisfied with a rag, a hut, a crust. We
+ do not want the equality of savages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No, in civilization there must be differences, because there is a constant
+ movement forward. The human race cannot advance in line. There will be
+ pioneers, there will be the great army, and there will be countless
+ stragglers. It is not necessary for the whole army to go back to the
+ stragglers, it is better that the army should march forward toward the
+ pioneers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that the sale of Tolstoy's works is on the increase in America,
+ but certainly the principles of Tolstoy are gaining no foothold here. We
+ are not a nation of non-resistants. We believe in defending our homes.
+ Nothing can exceed the insanity of non- resistance. This doctrine leaves
+ virtue naked and clothes vice in armor; it gives every weapon to the wrong
+ and takes every shield from the right. I believe that goodness has the
+ right of self- defence. As a matter of fact, vice should be left naked and
+ virtue should have all the weapons. The good should not be a flock of
+ sheep at the mercy of every wolf. So, I do not accept Tolstoy's theory of
+ equality as a sensible solution of the labor problem.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The hope of this world is that men will become civilized to that degree
+ that they cannot be happy while they know that thousands of their
+ fellow-men are miserable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time will come when the man who dwells in a palace will not be happy
+ if Want sits upon the steps at his door. No matter how well he is clothed
+ himself he will not enjoy his robes if he sees others in rags, and the
+ time will come when the intellect of this world will be directed by the
+ heart of this world, and when men of genius and power will do what they
+ can for the benefit of their fellow- men. All this is to come through
+ civilization, through experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men, after a time, will find the worthlessness of great wealth; they will
+ find it is not splendid to excite envy in others. So, too, they will find
+ that the happiness of the human race is so interdependent and so
+ interwoven, that finally the interest of humanity will be the interest of
+ the individual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that at present the lives of many millions are practically without
+ value, but in my judgment, the world is growing a little better every day.
+ On the average, men have more comforts, better clothes, better food, more
+ books and more of the luxuries of life than ever before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. It is said that properly to appreciate Rousseau,
+ Voltaire, Hugo and other French classics, a thorough knowledge of the
+ French language is necessary. What is your opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No; to say that a knowledge of French is necessary in order
+ to appreciate Voltaire or Hugo is nonsensical. For a student anxious to
+ study the works of these masters, to set to work to learn the language of
+ the writers would be like my building a flight of stairs to go down to
+ supper. The stairs are already there. Some other person built them for me
+ and others who choose to use them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men have spent their lives in the study of the French and English, and
+ have given us Voltaire, Hugo and all other works of French classics,
+ perfect in sentiment and construction as the originals are. Macaulay was a
+ great linguist, but he wrote no better than Shakespeare, and Burns wrote
+ perfect English, though virtually uneducated. Good writing is a matter of
+ genius and heart; reading is application and judgment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am of the opinion that Wilbur's English translation of "Les Miserables"
+ is better than Hugo's original, as a literary masterpiece.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What a grand novel it is! What characters, Jean Valjean and Javert!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Which in your opinion is the greatest English novel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the greatest novel ever written in English is "A
+ Tale of Two Cities," by Dickens. It is full of philosophy; its incidents
+ are dramatically grouped. Sidney Carton, the hero, is a marvelous creation
+ and a marvelous character. Lucie Manette is as delicate as the perfume of
+ wild violets, and cell 105, North Tower, and scenes enacted there, almost
+ touch the region occupied by "Lear." There, too, Mme. Defarge is the
+ impersonation of the French Revolution, and the nobleman of the chateau
+ with his fine features changed to stone, and the messenger at Tellson's
+ Bank gnawing the rust from his nails; all there are the creations of
+ genius, and these children of fiction will live as long as Imagination
+ spreads her many-colored wings in the mind of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Pope?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Pope! Alexander Pope, the word-carpenter, a mechanical
+ poet, or stay&mdash;rather a "digital poet;" that fits him best&mdash;one
+ of those fellows who counts his fingers to see that his verse is in
+ perfect rhythm. His "Essay on Man" strikes me as being particularly
+ defective. For instance:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "All discord, harmony not understood,
+ All partial evil, universal good,"
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ from the first epistle of his "Essay on Man." Anything that is evil cannot
+ by any means be good, and anything partial cannot be universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We see in libraries ponderous tomes labeled "Burke's Speeches." No person
+ ever seems to read them, but he is now regarded as being in his day a
+ great speaker, because now no one has pluck enough to read his speeches.
+ Why, for thirty years Burke was known in Parliament as the "Dinner Bell"&mdash;whenever
+ he rose to speak, everybody went to dinner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Evening Express</i>, Buffalo, New York, October 6, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0102" id="link0102">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WOMAN IN POLITICS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the influence of women in politics?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the influence of women is always good in politics,
+ as in everything else. I think it the duty of every woman to ascertain
+ what she can in regard to her country, including its history, laws and
+ customs. Woman above all others is a teacher. She, above all others,
+ determines the character of children; that is to say, of men and women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not the slightest danger of women becoming too intellectual or
+ knowing too much. Neither is there any danger of men knowing too much. At
+ least, I know of no men who are in immediate peril from that source. I am
+ a firm believer in the equal rights of human beings, and no matter what I
+ think as to what woman should or should not do, she has the same right to
+ decide for herself that I have to decide for myself. If women wish to
+ vote, if they wish to take part in political matters, if they wish to run
+ for office, I shall do nothing to interfere with their rights. I most
+ cheerfully admit that my political rights are only equal to theirs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when physical force or brute strength gave pre- eminence.
+ The savage chief occupied his position by virtue of his muscle, of his
+ courage, on account of the facility with which he wielded a club. As long
+ as nations depend simply upon brute force, the man, in time of war, is, of
+ necessity, of more importance to the nation than woman, and as the dispute
+ is to be settled by strength, by force, those who have the strength and
+ force naturally settle it. As the world becomes civilized, intelligence
+ slowly takes the place of force, conscience restrains muscle, reason
+ enters the arena, and the gladiator retires.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago the literature of the world was produced by men, and
+ men were not only the writers, but the readers. At that time the novels
+ were coarse and vulgar. Now the readers of fiction are women, and they
+ demand that which they can read, and the result is that women have become
+ great writers. The women have changed our literature, and the change has
+ been good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every field where woman has become a competitor of man she has either
+ become, or given evidence that she is to become, his equal. My own opinion
+ is that woman is naturally the equal of man and that in time, that is to
+ say, when she has had the opportunity and the training, she will produce
+ in the world of art as great pictures, as great statues, and in the world
+ of literature as great books, dramas and poems as man has produced or will
+ produce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is nothing very hard to understand in the politics of a country. The
+ general principles are for the most part simple. It is only in the
+ application that the complexity arises, and woman, I think, by nature, is
+ as well fitted to understand these things as man. In short, I have no
+ prejudice on this subject. At first, women will be more conservative than
+ men; and this is natural. Women have, through many generations, acquired
+ the habit of submission, of acquiescence. They have practiced what may be
+ called the slave virtues&mdash;obedience, humility&mdash;so that some time
+ will be required for them to become accustomed to the new order of things,
+ to the exercise of greater freedom, acting in accordance with perceived
+ obligation, independently of authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I say equal rights, equal education, equal advantages. I hope that
+ woman will not continue to be the serf of superstition; that she will not
+ be the support of the church and priest; that she will not stand for the
+ conservation of superstition, but that in the east of her mind the sun of
+ progress will rise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In your lecture on Voltaire you made a remark about the
+ government of ministers, and you stated that if the ministers of the city
+ of New York had to power to make the laws most people would prefer to live
+ in a well regulated penitentiary. What do you mean by this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, as a rule, ministers are quite severe. They have
+ little patience with human failures. They are taught, and they believe and
+ they teach, that man is absolutely master of his own fate. Besides, they
+ are believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the laws of the
+ Old Testament are exceedingly severe. Nearly every offence was punished by
+ death. Every offence was regarded as treason against Jehovah.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Pentateuch there is no pity. If a man committed some offence
+ justice was not satisfied with his punishment, but proceeded to destroy
+ his wife and children. Jehovah seemed to think that crime was in the
+ blood; that it was not sufficient to kill the criminal, but to prevent
+ future crimes you should kill his wife and babes. The reading of the Old
+ Testament is calculated to harden the heart, to drive the angel of pity
+ from the breast, and to make man a religious savage. The clergy, as a
+ rule, do not take a broad and liberal view of things. They judge every
+ offence by what they consider would be the result if everybody committed
+ the same offence. They do not understand that even vice creates
+ obstructions for itself, and that there is something in the nature of
+ crime the tendency of which is to defeat crime, and I might add in this
+ place that the same seems to be true of excessive virtue. As a rule, the
+ clergy clamor with great zeal for the execution of cruel laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give an instance in point: In the time of George III., in England,
+ there were two hundred and twenty-three offences punishable with death.
+ From time to time this cruel code was changed by Act of Parliament, yet no
+ bishop sitting in the House of Lords ever voted in favor of any one of
+ these measures. The bishops always voted for death, for blood, against
+ mercy and against the repeal of capital punishment. During all these years
+ there were some twenty thousand or more of the established clergy, and
+ yet, according to John Bright, no voice was ever raised in any English
+ pulpit against the infamous criminal code.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing: The orthodox clergy teach that man is totally depraved;
+ that his inclination is evil; that his tendency is toward the Devil.
+ Starting from this as a foundation, of course every clergyman believes
+ every bad thing said of everybody else. So, when some man is charged with
+ a crime, the clergyman taking into consideration the fact that the man is
+ totally depraved, takes it for granted that he must be guilty. I am not
+ saying this for the purpose of exciting prejudice against the clergy. I am
+ simply showing what is the natural result of a certain creed, of a belief
+ in universal depravity, or a belief in the power and influence of a
+ personal Devil. If the clergy could have their own way they would endeavor
+ to reform the world by law. They would re-enact the old statutes of the
+ Puritans. Joy would be a crime. Love would be an offence. Every man with a
+ smile on his face would be suspected, and a dimple in the cheek would be a
+ demonstration of depravity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the trial of a cause it is natural for a clergyman to start with the
+ proposition, "The defendant is guilty;" and then he says to himself, "Let
+ him prove himself innocent." The man who has not been poisoned with the
+ creed starts out with the proposition, "The defendant is innocent; let the
+ State prove that he is guilty." Consequently, I say that if I were
+ defending a man whom I knew to be innocent, I would not have a clergyman
+ on the jury if I could help it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Advertiser</i>, December 24, 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0103" id="link0103">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SPIRITUALISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you investigated Spiritualism, and what has been
+ your experience?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A few years ago I paid some attention to what is called
+ Spiritualism, and was present when quite mysterious things were supposed
+ to have happened. The most notable seance that I attended was given by
+ Slade, at which slate-writing was done. Two slates were fastened together,
+ with a pencil between them, and on opening the slates certain writing was
+ found. When the writing was done it was impossible to tell. So, I have
+ been present when it was claimed that certain dead people had again
+ clothed themselves in flesh and were again talking in the old way. In one
+ instance, I think, George Washington claimed to be present. On the same
+ evening Shakespeare put in an appearance. It was hard to recognize
+ Shakespeare from what the spirit said, still I was assured by the medium
+ that there was no mistake as to the identity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Can you offer any explanation of the extraordinary
+ phenomena such as Henry J. Newton has had produced at his own house under
+ his own supervision?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, I don't believe that anything such as
+ you describe has ever happened. I do not believe that a medium ever passed
+ into and out of a triple-locked iron cage. Neither do I believe that any
+ spirits were able to throw shoes and wraps out of the cage; neither do I
+ believe that any apparitions ever rose from the floor, or that anything
+ you relate has ever happened. The best explanation I can give of these
+ wonderful occurrences is the following: A little boy and girl were
+ standing in a doorway holding hands. A gentleman passing, stopped for a
+ moment and said to the little girl: "What relation is the little boy to
+ you?" and she replied, "We had the same father and we had the same mother,
+ but I am not his sister and he is not my brother." This at first seemed to
+ be quite a puzzle, but it was exceedingly plain when the answer was known:
+ The little girl lied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you had any experience with spirit photography,
+ spirit physicians, or spirit lawyers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I was shown at one time several pictures said to be the
+ photographs of living persons surrounded by the photographs of spirits. I
+ examined them very closely, and I found evidence in the photographs
+ themselves that they were spurious. I took it for granted that light is
+ the same everywhere, and that it obeys the angle of incidence in all
+ worlds and at all times. In looking at the spirit photographs I found, for
+ instance, that in the photograph of the living person the shadows fell to
+ the right, and that in the photographs of the ghosts, or spirits, supposed
+ to have been surrounding the living person at the time the picture was
+ taken, the shadows did not fall in the same direction, sometimes in the
+ opposite direction, never at the same angle even when the general
+ direction was the same. This demonstrated that the photographs of the
+ spirits and of the living persons were not taken at the same time. So much
+ for photographs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have had no experience with spirit physicians. I was once told by a
+ lawyer who came to employ me in a will case, that a certain person had
+ made a will giving a large amount of money for the purpose of spreading
+ the gospel of Spiritualism, but that the will had been lost and than an
+ effort was then being made to find it, and they wished me to take certain
+ action pending the search, and wanted my assistance. I said to him: "If
+ Spiritualism be true, why not ask the man who made the will what it was
+ and also what has become of it. If you can find that out from the
+ departed, I will gladly take a retainer in the case; otherwise, I must
+ decline." I have had no other experience with the lawyers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If you were to witness phenomena that seemed inexplicable
+ by natural laws, would you be inclined to favor Spiritualism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I would not. If I should witness phenomena that I could not
+ explain, I would leave the phenomena unexplained. I would not explain them
+ because I did not understand them, and say they were or are produced by
+ spirits. That is no explanation, and, after admitting that we do not know
+ and that we cannot explain, why should we proceed to explain? I have seen
+ Mr. Kellar do things for which I cannot account. Why should I say that he
+ has the assistance of spirits? All I have a right to say is that I know
+ nothing about how he does them. So I am compelled to say with regard to
+ many spiritualistic feats, that I am ignorant of the ways and means. At
+ the same time, I do not believe that there is anything supernatural in the
+ universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of Spiritualism and Spiritualists?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the Spiritualism of the present day is certainly in
+ advance of the Spiritualism of several centuries ago. Persons who now deny
+ Spiritualism and hold it in utter contempt insist that some eighteen or
+ nineteen centuries ago it had possession of the world; that miracles were
+ of daily occurrence; that demons, devils, fiends, took possession of human
+ beings, lived in their bodies, dominated their minds. They believe, too,
+ that devils took possession of the bodies of animals. They also insist
+ that a wish could multiply fish. And, curiously enough, the Spiritualists
+ of our time have but little confidence in the phenomena of eighteen
+ hundred years ago; and, curiously enough, those who believe in the
+ Spiritualism of eighteen hundred years ago deny the Spiritualism of
+ to-day. I think the Spiritualists of to-day have far more evidence of
+ their phenomena than those who believe in the wonderful things of eighteen
+ centuries ago. The Spiritualists of to-day have living witnesses, which is
+ something. I know a great many Spiritualists that are exceedingly good
+ people, and are doing what they can to make the world better. But I think
+ they are mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe in spirit entities, whether manifestible
+ or not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I believe there is such a thing as matter. I believe there
+ is a something called force. The difference between force and matter I do
+ not know. So there is something called consciousness. Whether we call
+ consciousness an entity or not makes no difference as to what it really
+ is. There is something that hears, sees and feels, a something that takes
+ cognizance of what happens in what we call the outward world. No matter
+ whether we call this something matter or spirit, it is something that we
+ do not know, to say the least of it, all about. We cannot understand what
+ matter is. It defies us, and defies definitions. So, with what we call
+ spirit, we are in utter ignorance of what it is. We have some little
+ conception of what we mean by it, and of what others mean, but as to what
+ it really is no one knows. It makes no difference whether we call
+ ourselves Materialists or Spiritualists, we believe in all there is, no
+ matter what you call it. If we call it all matter, then we believe that
+ matter can think and hope and dream. If we call it all spirit, then we
+ believe that spirit has force, that it offers a resistance; in other
+ words, that it is, in one of its aspects, what we call matter. I cannot
+ believe that everything can be accounted for by motion or by what we call
+ force, because there is something that recognizes force. There is
+ something that compares, that thinks, that remembers; there is something
+ that suffers and enjoys; there is something that each one calls himself or
+ herself, that is inexplicable to himself or herself, and it makes no
+ difference whether we call this something mind or soul, effect or entity,
+ it still eludes us, and all the words we have coined for the purpose of
+ expressing our knowledge of this something, after all, express only our
+ desire to know, and our efforts to ascertain. It may be that if we would
+ ask some minister, some one who has studied theology, he would give us a
+ perfect definition. The scientists know nothing about it, and I know of no
+ one who does, unless it be a theologian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Globe-Democrat</i>, St. Louis, Mo., 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0104" id="link0104">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PLAYS AND PLAYERS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <a name="image-0001" id="image-0001">
+ <!-- IMG --></a> <img src="images/theater.jpg" height="767" width="1248"
+ alt=" Chatham Street Theater " />
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Chatham Street Theater, New York City, N. Y., where Robert G. Ingersoll
+ was baptized in 1836 by his father, the Rev. John Ingersoll, who
+ temporarily preached at the theatre, his church having been destroyed by
+ fire</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What place does the theatre hold among the arts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nearly all the arts unite in the theatre, and it is the
+ result of the best, the highest, the most artistic, that man can do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, there must be the dramatic poet. Dramatic poetry is
+ the subtlest, profoundest, the most intellectual, the most passionate and
+ artistic of all. Then the stage must be prepared, and there is work for
+ the architect, the painter and sculptor. Then the actors appear, and they
+ must be gifted with imagination, with a high order of intelligence; they
+ must have sympathies quick and deep, natures capable of the greatest
+ emotion, dominated by passion. They must have impressive presence, and all
+ that is manly should meet and unite in the actor; all that is womanly,
+ tender, intense and admirable should be lavishly bestowed on the actress.
+ In addition to all this, actors should have the art of being natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me explain what I mean by being natural. When I say that an actor is
+ natural, I mean that he appears to act in accordance with his ideal, in
+ accordance with his nature, and that he is not an imitator or a copyist&mdash;that
+ he is not made up of shreds and patches taken from others, but that all he
+ does flows from interior fountains and is consistent with his own nature,
+ all having in a marked degree the highest characteristics of the man. That
+ is what I mean by being natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great actor must be acquainted with the heart, must know the motives,
+ ends, objects and desires that control the thoughts and acts of men. He
+ must be familiar with many people, including the lowest and the highest,
+ so that he may give to others, clothed with flesh and blood, the
+ characters born of the poet's brain. The great actor must know the
+ relations that exist between passion and voice, gesture and emphasis,
+ expression and pose. He must speak not only with his voice, but with his
+ body. The great actor must be master of many arts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then comes the musician. The theatre has always been the home of music,
+ and this music must be appropriate; must, or should, express or supplement
+ what happens on the stage; should furnish rest and balm for minds
+ overwrought with tragic deeds. To produce a great play, and put it
+ worthily upon the stage, involves most arts, many sciences and nearly all
+ that is artistic, poetic and dramatic in the mind of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Should the drama teach lessons and discuss social
+ problems, or should it give simply intellectual pleasure and furnish
+ amusement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Every great play teaches many lessons and touches nearly
+ all social problems. But the great play does this by indirection. Every
+ beautiful thought is a teacher; every noble line speaks to the brain and
+ heart. Beauty, proportion, melody suggest moral beauty, proportion in
+ conduct and melody in life. In a great play the relations of the various
+ characters, their objects, the means adopted for their accomplishment,
+ must suggest, and in a certain sense solve or throw light on many social
+ problems, so that the drama teaches lessons, discusses social problems and
+ gives intellectual pleasure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The stage should not be dogmatic; neither should its object be directly to
+ enforce a moral. The great thing for the drama to do, and the great thing
+ it has done, and is doing, is to cultivate the imagination. This is of the
+ utmost importance. The civilization of man depends upon the development,
+ not only of the intellect, but of the imagination. Most crimes of violence
+ are committed by people who are destitute of imagination. People without
+ imagination make most of the cruel and infamous creeds. They were the
+ persecutors and destroyers of their fellow-men. By cultivating the
+ imagination, the stage becomes one of the greatest teachers. It produces
+ the climate in which the better feelings grow; it is the home of the
+ ideal. All beautiful things tend to the civilization of man. The great
+ statues plead for proportion in life, the great symphonies suggest the
+ melody of conduct, and the great plays cultivate the heart and brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the French drama as compared with
+ the English, morally and artistically considered?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The modern French drama, so far as I am acquainted with it,
+ is a disease. It deals with the abnormal. It is fashioned after Balzac. It
+ exhibits moral tumors, mental cancers and all kinds of abnormal fungi,&mdash;excrescences.
+ Everything is stood on its head; virtue lives in the brothel; the good are
+ the really bad and the worst are, after all, the best. It portrays the
+ exceptional, and mistakes the scum-covered bayou for the great river. The
+ French dramatists seem to think that the ceremony of marriage sows the
+ seed of vice. They are always conveying the idea that the virtuous are
+ uninteresting, rather stupid, without sense and spirit enough to take
+ advantage of their privilege. Between the greatest French plays and the
+ greatest English plays of course there is no comparison. If a Frenchman
+ had written the plays of Shakespeare, Desdemona would have been guilty,
+ Isabella would have ransomed her brother at the Duke's price, Juliet would
+ have married the County Paris, run away from him, and joined Romeo in
+ Mantua, and Miranda would have listened coquettishly to the words of
+ Caliban. The French are exceedingly artistic. They understand stage
+ effects, love the climax, delight in surprises, especially in the
+ improbable; but their dramatists lack sympathy and breadth of treatment.
+ They are provincial. With them France is the world. They know little of
+ other countries. Their plays do not touch the universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What are your feelings in reference to idealism on the
+ stage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The stage ought to be the home of the ideal; in a word, the
+ imagination should have full sway. The great dramatist is a creator; he is
+ the sovereign, and governs his own world. The realist is only a copyist.
+ He does not need genius. All he wants is industry and the trick of
+ imitation. On the stage, the real should be idealized, the ordinary should
+ be transfigured; that is, the deeper meaning of things should be given. As
+ we make music of common air, and statues of stone, so the great dramatist
+ should make life burst into blossom on the stage. A lot of words, facts,
+ odds and ends divided into acts and scenes do not make a play. These
+ things are like old pieces of broken iron that need the heat of the
+ furnace so that they may be moulded into shape. Genius is that furnace,
+ and in its heat and glow and flame these pieces, these fragments, become
+ molten and are cast into noble and heroic forms. Realism degrades and
+ impoverishes the stage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What attributes should an actor have to be really great?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Intelligence, imagination, presence; a mobile and
+ impressive face; a body that lends itself to every mood in appropriate
+ pose, one that is oak or willow, at will; self-possession; absolute ease;
+ a voice capable of giving every shade of meaning and feeling, an intuitive
+ knowledge or perception of proportion, and above all, the actor should be
+ so sincere that he loses himself in the character he portrays. Such an
+ actor will grow intellectually and morally. The great actor should strive
+ to satisfy himself&mdash;to reach his own ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you enjoy Shakespeare more in the library than
+ Shakespeare interpreted by actors now on the boards?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I enjoy Shakespeare everywhere. I think it would give me
+ pleasure to hear those wonderful lines spoken even by phonographs. But
+ Shakespeare is greatest and best when grandly put upon the stage. There
+ you know the connection, the relation, the circumstances, and these bring
+ out the appropriateness and the perfect meaning of the text. Nobody in
+ this country now thinks of Hamlet without thinking of Booth. For this
+ generation at least, Booth is Hamlet. It is impossible for me to read the
+ words of Sir Toby without seeing the face of W. F. Owen. Brutus is
+ Davenport, Cassius is Lawrence Barrett, and Lear will be associated always
+ in my mind with Edwin Forrest. Lady Macbeth is to me Adelaide Ristori, the
+ greatest actress I ever saw. If I understood music perfectly, I would much
+ rather hear Seidl's orchestra play "Tristan," or hear Remenyi's matchless
+ rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria," than to read the notes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most people love the theatre. Everything about it from stage to gallery
+ attracts and fascinates. The mysterious realm, behind the scenes, from
+ which emerge kings and clowns, villains and fools, heroes and lovers, and
+ in which they disappear, is still a fairyland. As long as man is man he
+ will enjoy the love and laughter, the tears and rapture of the mimic
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it because we lack men of genius or because our life
+ is too material that no truly great American plays have been written?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No great play has been written since Shakespeare; that is,
+ no play has been written equal to his. But there is the same reason for
+ that in all other countries, including England, that there is in this
+ country, and that reason is that Shakespeare has had no equal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ America has not failed because life in the Republic is too material.
+ Germany and France, and, in fact, all other nations, have failed in the
+ same way. In the sense in which I am speaking, Germany has produced no
+ great play.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the dramatic world Shakespeare stands alone. Compared with him, even
+ the classic is childish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is plenty of material for plays. The Republic has lived a great play&mdash;a
+ great poem&mdash;a most marvelous drama. Here, on our soil, have happened
+ some of the greatest events in the history of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All human passions have been and are in full play here, and here as
+ elsewhere, can be found the tragic, the comic, the beautiful, the poetic,
+ the tears, the smiles, the lamentations and the laughter that are the
+ necessary warp and woof with which to weave the living tapestries that we
+ call plays.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are beginning. We have found that American plays must be American in
+ spirit. We are tired of imitations and adaptations. We want plays worthy
+ of the great Republic. Some good work has recently been done, giving great
+ hope for the future. Of course the realistic comes first; afterward the
+ ideal. But here in America, as in all other lands, love is the eternal
+ passion that will forever hold the stage. Around that everything else will
+ move. It is the sun. All other passions are secondary. Their orbits are
+ determined by the central force from which they receive their light and
+ meaning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Love, however, must be kept pure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great dramatist is, of necessity, a believer in virtue, in honesty, in
+ courage and in the nobility of human nature. He must know that there are
+ men and women that even a God could not corrupt; such knowledge, such
+ feeling, is the foundation, and the only foundation, that can support the
+ splendid structure, the many pillared stories and the swelling dome of the
+ great drama.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The New York Dramatic Mirror</i>, December 26, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0105" id="link0105">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WOMAN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ It takes a hundred men to make an encampment, but one woman can make a
+ home. I not only admire woman as the most beautiful object ever created,
+ but I reverence her as the redeeming glory of humanity, the sanctuary of
+ all the virtues, the pledge of all perfect qualities of heart and head. It
+ is not just or right to lay the sins of men at the feet of women. It is
+ because women are so much better than men that their faults are considered
+ greater.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The one thing in this world that is constant, the one peak that rises
+ above all clouds, the one window in which the light forever burns, the one
+ star that darkness cannot quench, is woman's love. It rises to the
+ greatest heights, it sinks to the lowest depths, it forgives the most
+ cruel injuries. It is perennial of life, and grows in every climate.
+ Neither coldness nor neglect, harshness nor cruelty, can extinguish it. A
+ woman's love is the perfume of the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the real love that subdues the earth; the love that has wrought
+ all the miracles of art, that gives us music all the way from the cradle
+ song to the grand closing symphony that bears the soul away on wings of
+ fire. A love that is greater than power, sweeter than life and stronger
+ than death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0106" id="link0106">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ STRIKES, EXPANSION AND OTHER SUBJECTS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say in regard to the decision of Judge
+ Billings in New Orleans, that strikes which interfere with interstate
+ commerce, are illegal?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. As a rule, men have a right to quit work at any time unless
+ there is some provision to the contrary in their contracts. They have not
+ the right to prevent other men from taking their places. Of course I do
+ not mean by this that strikers may not use persuasion and argument to
+ prevent other men from filling their places. All blacklisting and refusing
+ to work with other men is illegal and punishable. Of course men may
+ conspire to quit work, but how is it to be proved? One man can quit, or
+ five hundred men can quit together, and nothing can prevent them. The
+ decisions of Judge Ricks and Judge Billings are an acknowledgment, at
+ least, of the principle of public control or regulation of railroads and
+ of commerce generally. The railroads, which run for private profit, are
+ public carriers, and the public has a vested interest in them as such. The
+ same principle applies to the commerce of the country and can be dealt
+ with by the courts in the same way. It is unlikely, however, that Judge
+ Billings' decision will have any lasting effect upon organized labor. Law
+ cannot be enforced against such vast numbers of people, especially when
+ they have the general sympathy. Nearly all strikes have been illegal, but
+ the numbers involved have made the courts powerless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you in favor of the annexation of Canada?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, if Canada is. We do not want that country unless that
+ country wants us. I do not believe it to the interests of Canada to remain
+ a province. Canada should either be an independent nation, or a part of a
+ nation. Now Canada is only a province&mdash;with no career&mdash;with
+ nothing to stimulate either patriotism or great effort. Yes, I hope that
+ Canada will be annexed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By all means annex the Sandwich Islands, too. I believe in territorial
+ expansion. A prosperous farmer wants the land next him, and a prosperous
+ nation ought to grow. I believe that we ought to hold the key to the
+ Pacific and its commerce. We want to be prepared at all points to defend
+ our interests from the greed and power of England.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are going to have a navy, and we want that navy to be of use in
+ protecting our interests the world over. And we want interests to protect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a splendid feeling&mdash;this feeling of growth. By the annexation
+ of these islands we open new avenues to American adventure, and the
+ tendency is to make our country greater and stronger. The West Indian
+ Islands ought to be ours, and some day our flag will float there. This
+ country must not stop growing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the spirit of patriotism declining in America?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There has been no decline in the spirit of American
+ patriotism; in fact, it has increased rather then otherwise as the nation
+ has grown older, stronger, more prosperous, more glorious. If there were
+ occasion to demonstrate the truth of this statement it would be quickly
+ demonstrated. Let an attack be made upon the American flag, and you will
+ very quickly find out how genuine is the patriotic spirit of Americans.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think either that there has been a decline in the celebration of
+ the Fourth of July. The day is probably not celebrated with as much
+ burning of gunpowder and shooting of fire crackers in the large cities as
+ formerly, but it is celebrated with as much enthusiasm as ever all through
+ the West, and the feeling of rejoicing over the anniversary of the day is
+ as great and strong as ever. The people are tired of celebrating with a
+ great noise and I am glad of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Congress of Religions, to be
+ held in Chicago during the World's Fair?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It will do good, if they will honestly compare their creeds
+ so that each one can see just how foolish all the rest are. They ought to
+ compare their sacred books, and their miracles, and their mythologies, and
+ if they do so they will probably see that ignorance is the mother of them
+ all. Let them have a Congress, by all means, and let them show how priests
+ live on the labor of those they deceive. It will do good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that Cleveland's course as to appointments
+ has strengthened him with the people?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Patronage is a two-edged sword with very little handle. It
+ takes an exceedingly clever President to strengthen himself by its
+ exercise. When a man is running for President the twenty men in every town
+ who expect to be made postmaster are for him heart and soul. Only one can
+ get the office, and the nineteen who do not, feel outraged, and the lucky
+ one is mad on account of the delay. So twenty friends are lost with one
+ place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the Age of Chivalry dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The "Age of Chivalry" never existed except in the
+ imagination. The Age of Chivalry was the age of cowardice and crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is more chivalry to-day than ever. Men have a better, a clearer idea
+ of justice, and pay their debts better, and treat their wives and children
+ better than ever before. The higher and better qualities of the soul have
+ more to do with the average life. To-day men have greater admiration and
+ respect for women, greater regard for the social and domestic obligations
+ than their fathers had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What led you to begin lecturing on your present subject,
+ and what was your first lecture?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My first lecture was entitled "Progress." I began lecturing
+ because I thought the creeds of the orthodox church false and horrible,
+ and because I thought the Bible cruel and absurd, and because I like
+ intellectual liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;New York, May 5, 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0107" id="link0107">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SUNDAY A DAY OF PLEASURE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the religious spirit that seeks to
+ regulate by legislation the manner in which the people of this country
+ shall spend their Sundays?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The church is not willing to stand alone, not willing to
+ base its influence on reason and on the character of its members. It seeks
+ the aid of the State. The cross is in partnership with the sword. People
+ should spend Sundays as they do other days; that is to say, as they
+ please. No one has the right to do anything on Monday that interferes with
+ the rights of his neighbors, and everyone has the right to do anything he
+ pleases on Sunday that does not interfere with the rights of his
+ neighbors. Sunday is a day of rest, not of religion. We are under
+ obligation to do right on all days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more absurd than the idea that any particular space of time
+ is sacred. Everything in nature goes on the same on Sunday as on other
+ days, and if beyond nature there be a God, then God works on Sunday as he
+ does on all other days. There is no rest in nature. There is perpetual
+ activity in every possible direction. The old idea that God made the world
+ and then rested, is idiotic. There were two reasons given to the Hebrews
+ for keeping the Sabbath &mdash;one because Jehovah rested on that day, the
+ other because the Hebrews were brought out of Egypt. The first reason, we
+ know, is false, and the second reason is good only for the Hebrews.
+ According to the Bible, Sunday, or rather the Sabbath, was not for the
+ world, but for the Hebrews, and the Hebrews alone. Our Sunday is pagan and
+ is the day of the sun, as Monday is the day of the moon. All our day names
+ are pagan. I am opposed to all Sunday legislation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why should Sunday be observed otherwise than as a day of
+ recreation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Sunday is a day of recreation, or should be; a day for the
+ laboring man to rest, a day to visit museums and libraries, a day to look
+ at pictures, a day to get acquainted with your wife and children, a day
+ for poetry and art, a day on which to read old letters and to meet
+ friends, a day to cultivate the amenities of life, a day for those who
+ live in tenements to feel the soft grass beneath their feet. In short,
+ Sunday should be a day of joy. The church endeavors to fill it with gloom
+ and sadness, with stupid sermons and dyspeptic theology.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could be more cowardly than the effort to compel the observance of
+ the Sabbath by law. We of America have outgrown the childishness of the
+ last century; we laugh at the superstitions of our fathers. We have made
+ up our minds to be as happy as we can be, knowing that the way to be happy
+ is to make others so, that the time to be happy is now, whether that now
+ is Sunday or any other day in the week.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Under a Federal Constitution guaranteeing civil and
+ religious liberty, are the so-called "Blue Laws" constitutional?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No, they are not. But the probability is that the Supreme
+ Courts of most of the States would decide the other way. And yet all these
+ laws are clearly contrary to the spirit of the Federal Constitution and
+ the constitutions of most of the States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hope to live until all these foolish laws are repealed and until we are
+ in the highest and noblest sense a free people. And by free I mean each
+ having the right to do anything that does not interfere with the rights or
+ with the happiness of another. I want to see the time when we live for
+ this world and when all shall endeavor to increase, by education, by
+ reason, and by persuasion, the sum of human happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Times</i>, July 21, 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0108" id="link0108">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The Parliament of Religions was called with a view to
+ discussing the great religions of the world on the broad platform of
+ tolerance. Supposing this to have been accomplished, what effect is it
+ likely to have on the future of creeds?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It was a good thing to get the representatives of all
+ creeds to meet and tell their beliefs. The tendency, I think, is to do
+ away with prejudice, with provincialism, with egotism. We know that the
+ difference between the great religions, so far as belief is concerned,
+ amounts to but little. Their gods have different names, but in other
+ respects they differ but little. They are all cruel and ignorant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think likely that the time is coming when all the
+ religions of the world will be treated with the liberality that is now
+ characterizing the attitude of one sect toward another in Christendom?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, because I think that all religions will be found to be
+ of equal authority, and because I believe that the supernatural will be
+ discarded and that man will give up his vain and useless efforts to get
+ back of nature&mdash;to answer the questions of whence and whither? As a
+ matter of fact, the various sects do not love one another. The keenest
+ hatred is religious hatred. The most malicious malice is found in the
+ hearts of those who love their enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Bishop Newman, in replying to a learned Buddhist at the
+ Parliament of Religions, said that Buddhism had given to the world no
+ helpful literature, no social system, and no heroic virtues. Is this true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Bishop Newman is a very prejudiced man. Probably he got his
+ information from the missionaries. Buddha was undoubtedly a great teacher.
+ Long before Christ lived Buddha taught the brotherhood of man. He said
+ that intelligence was the only lever capable of raising mankind. His
+ followers, to say the least of them, are as good as the followers of
+ Christ. Bishop Newman is a Methodist&mdash;a follower of John Wesley&mdash;and
+ he has the prejudices of the sect to which he belongs. We must remember
+ that all prejudices are honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is Christian society, or rather society in Christian
+ countries, cursed with fewer robbers, assassins, and thieves,
+ proportionately, then countries where "heathen" religions predominate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think not. I do not believe that there are more
+ lynchings, more mob murders in India or Turkey or Persia than in some
+ Christian States of the great Republic. Neither will you find more train
+ robbers, more forgers, more thieves in heathen lands than in Christian
+ countries. Here the jails are full, the penitentiaries are crowded, and
+ the hangman is busy. All over Christendom, as many assert, crime is on the
+ increase, going hand in hand with poverty. The truth is, that some of the
+ wisest and best men are filled with apprehension for the future, but I
+ believe in the race and have confidence in man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How can society be so reconstructed that all this
+ horrible suffering, resultant from poverty and its natural associate,
+ crime, may be abolished, or at least reduced to a minimum?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place we should stop supporting the useless.
+ The burden of superstition should be taken from the shoulders of industry.
+ In the next place men should stop bowing to wealth instead of worth. Men
+ should be judged by what they do, by what they are, instead of by the
+ property they have. Only those able to raise and educate children should
+ have them. Children should be better born&mdash;better educated. The
+ process of regeneration will be slow, but it will be sure. The religion of
+ our day is supported by the worst, by the most dangerous people in
+ society. I do not allude to murderers or burglars, or even to the little
+ thieves. I mean those who debauch courts and legislatures and elections&mdash;
+ those who make millions by legal fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the Theosophists? Are they sincere&mdash;have
+ they any real basis for their psychological theories?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Theosophists may be sincere. I do not know. But I am
+ perfectly satisfied that their theories are without any foundation in fact&mdash;that
+ their doctrines are as unreal as their "astral bodies," and as absurd as a
+ contradiction in mathematics. We have had vagaries and theories enough. We
+ need the religion of the real, the faith that rests on fact. Let us turn
+ our attention to this world&mdash;the world in which we live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Herald</i>, September, 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0109" id="link0109">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CLEVELAND'S HAWAIIAN POLICY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, what do you think about Mr. Cleveland's Hawaiian
+ policy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think it exceedingly laughable and a little dishonest
+ &mdash;with the further fault that it is wholly unconstitutional. This is
+ not a one-man Government, and while Liliuokalani may be Queen, Cleveland
+ is certainly not a king. The worst thing about the whole matter, as it
+ appears to me, is the bad faith that was shown by Mr. Cleveland&mdash;the
+ double-dealing. He sent Mr. Willis as Minister to the Provisional
+ Government and by that act admitted the existence, and the rightful
+ existence, of the Provisional Government of the Sandwich Islands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Mr. Willis started he gave him two letters. One was addressed to
+ Dole, President of the Provisional Government, in which he addressed Dole
+ as "Great and good friend," and at the close, being a devout Christian, he
+ asked "God to take care of Dole." This was the first letter. The letter of
+ one President to another; of one friend to another. The second letter was
+ addressed to Mr. Willis, in which Mr. Willis was told to upset Dole at the
+ first opportunity and put the deposed Queen back on her throne. This may
+ be diplomacy, but it is no kin to honesty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, it is the worst thing connected with the Hawaiian affair.
+ What must "the great and good" Dole think of our great and good President?
+ What must other nations think when they read the two letters and mentally
+ exclaim, "Look upon this and then upon that?" I think Mr. Cleveland has
+ acted arrogantly, foolishly, and unfairly. I am in favor of obtaining the
+ Sandwich Islands&mdash;of course by fair means. I favor this policy
+ because I want my country to become a power in the Pacific. All my life I
+ have wanted this country to own the West Indies, the Bermudas, the Bahamas
+ and Barbadoes. They are our islands. They belong to this continent, and
+ for any other nation to take them or claim them was, and is, a piece of
+ impertinence and impudence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I would like to see the Sandwich Islands annexed to the United States.
+ They are a good way from San Francisco and our Western shore, but they are
+ nearer to us than they are to any other nation. I think they would be of
+ great importance. They would tend to increase the Asiatic trade, and they
+ certainly would be important in case of war. We should have fortifications
+ on those islands that no naval power could take.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some objection has been made on the ground that under our system the
+ people of those islands would have to be represented in Congress. I say
+ yes, represented by a delegate until the islands become a real part of the
+ country, and by that time, there would be several hundred thousand
+ Americans living there, capable of sending over respectable members of
+ Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I think that Mr. Cleveland has made a very great mistake. First, I
+ think he was mistaken as to the facts in the Sandwich Islands; second, as
+ to the Constitution of the United States, and thirdly, as to the powers of
+ the President of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In your experience as a lawyer what was the most unique
+ case in which you were ever engaged?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Star Route trial. Every paper in the country, but one,
+ was against the defence, and that one was a little sheet owned by one of
+ the defendants. I received a note from a man living in a little town in
+ Ohio criticizing me for defending the accused. In reply I wrote that I
+ supposed he was a sensible man and that he, of course, knew what he was
+ talking about when he said the accused were guilty; that the Government
+ needed just such men as he, and that he should come to the trial at once
+ and testify. The man wrote back: "Dear Colonel: I am a &mdash;&mdash;
+ fool."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will the church and the stage ever work together for the
+ betterment of the world, and what is the province of each?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The church and stage will never work together. The pulpit
+ pretends that fiction is fact. The stage pretends that fiction is fact.
+ The pulpit pretence is dishonest&mdash;that of the stage is sincere. The
+ actor is true to art, and honestly pretends to be what he is not. The
+ actor is natural, if he is great, and in this naturalness is his truth and
+ his sincerity. The pulpit is unnatural, and for that reason untrue. The
+ pulpit is for another world, the stage for this. The stage is good because
+ it is natural, because it portrays real and actual life; because "it holds
+ the mirror up to nature." The pulpit is weak because it too often
+ belittles and demeans this life; because it slanders and calumniates the
+ natural and is the enemy of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Inter-Ocean</i>, Chicago, February 2, 1894.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0110" id="link0110">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ORATORS AND ORATORY.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* It was at his own law office in New York City that I had
+ my talk with that very notable American, Col. Robert G.
+ Ingersoll. "Bob" Ingersoll, Americans call him
+ affectionately; in a company of friends it is "The Colonel."
+
+ A more interesting personality it would be hard to find, and
+ those who know even a little of him will tell you that a
+ bigger-hearted man probably does not live. Suppose a well-
+ knit frame, grown stouter than it once was, and a fine,
+ strong face, with a vivid gleam in the eyes, a deep,
+ uncommonly musical voice, clear cut, decisive, and a manner
+ entirely delightful, yet tinged with a certain reserve.
+ Introduce a smoking cigar, the smoke rising in little curls
+ and billows, then imagine a rugged sort of picturesqueness
+ in dress, and you get, not by any means the man, but, still,
+ some notion of "Bob" Ingersoll.
+
+ Colonel Ingersoll stands at the front of American orators.
+ The natural thing, therefore, was that I should ask him&mdash;a
+ master in the art&mdash;about oratory. What he said I shall give
+ in his own words precisely as I took them down from his
+ lips, for in the case of such a good commander of the old
+ English tongue that is of some importance. But the
+ wonderful limpidness, the charming pellucidness of Ingersoll
+ can only be adequately understood when you also have the
+ finishing touch of his facile voice.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I should be glad if you would tell me what you think the
+ differences are between English and American oratory?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is no difference between the real English and the
+ real American orator. Oratory is the same the world over. The man who
+ thinks on his feet, who has the pose of passion, the face that thought
+ illumines, a voice in harmony with the ideals expressed, who has logic
+ like a column and poetry like a vine, who transfigures the common, dresses
+ the ideals of the people in purple and fine linen, who has the art of
+ finding the best and noblest in his hearers, and who in a thousand ways
+ creates the climate in which the best grows and flourishes and bursts into
+ blossom&mdash;that man is an orator, no matter of what time, of what
+ country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If you were to compare individual English and American
+ orators&mdash;recent or living orators in particular&mdash;what would you
+ say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have never heard any of the great English speakers, and
+ consequently can pass no judgment as to their merits, except such as
+ depends on reading. I think, however, the finest paragraph ever uttered in
+ Great Britain was by Curran in his defence of Rowan. I have never read one
+ of Mr. Gladstone's speeches, only fragments. I think he lacks logic.
+ Bright was a great speaker, but he lacked imagination and the creative
+ faculty. Disr&aelig;li spoke for the clubs, and his speeches were
+ artificial. We have had several fine speakers in America. I think that
+ Thomas Corwin stands at the top of the natural orators. Sergeant S.
+ Prentiss, the lawyer, was a very great talker; Henry Ward Beecher was the
+ greatest orator that the pulpit has produced. Theodore Parker was a great
+ orator. In this country, however, probably Daniel Webster occupies the
+ highest place in general esteem.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Which would you say are the better orators, speaking
+ generally, the American people or the English people?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Americans are, on the average, better talkers than
+ the English. I think England has produced the greatest literature of the
+ world; but I do not think England has produced the greatest orators of the
+ world. I know of no English orator equal to Webster or Corwin or Beecher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would you mind telling me how it was you came to be a
+ public speaker, a lecturer, an orator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We call this America of ours free, and yet I found it was
+ very far from free. Our writers and our speakers declared that here in
+ America church and state were divorced. I found this to be untrue. I found
+ that the church was supported by the state in many ways, that people who
+ failed to believe certain portions of the creeds were not allowed to
+ testify in courts or to hold office. It occurred to me that some one ought
+ to do something toward making this country intellectually free, and after
+ a while I thought that I might as well endeavor to do this as wait for
+ another. This is the way in which I came to make speeches; it was an
+ action in favor of liberty. I have said things because I wanted to say
+ them, and because I thought they ought to be said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Perhaps you will tell me your methods as a speaker, for
+ I'm sure it would be interesting to know them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Sometimes, and frequently, I deliver a lecture several
+ times before it is written. I have it taken by a shorthand writer, and
+ afterward written out. At other times I have dictated a lecture, and
+ delivered it from manuscript. The course pursued depends on how I happen
+ to feel at the time. Sometimes I read a lecture, and sometimes I deliver
+ lectures without any notes&mdash;this, again, depending much on how I
+ happen to feel. So far as methods are concerned, everything should depend
+ on feeling. Attitude, gestures, voice, emphasis, should all be in accord
+ with and spring from feeling, from the inside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there any possibility of your coming to England, and,
+ I need hardly add, of your coming to speak?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have thought of going over to England, and I may do so.
+ There is an England in England for which I have the highest possible
+ admiration, the England of culture, of art, of principle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Sketch</i>, London, Eng., March 21, 1894.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0111" id="link0111">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM. THE POPE, THE A. P. A., AGNOSTICISM
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ AND THE CHURCH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Which do you regard as the better, Catholicism or
+ Protestantism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Protestantism is better than Catholicism because there is
+ less of it. Protestantism does not teach that a monk is better than a
+ husband and father, that a nun is holier than a mother. Protestants do not
+ believe in the confessional. Neither do they pretend that priests can
+ forgive sins. Protestantism has fewer ceremonies and less opera bouffe,
+ clothes, caps, tiaras, mitres, crooks and holy toys. Catholics have an
+ infallible man&mdash;an old Italian. Protestants have an infallible book,
+ written by Hebrews before they were civilized. The infallible man is
+ generally wrong, and the infallible book is filled with mistakes and
+ contradictions. Catholics and Protestants are both enemies of intellectual
+ freedom &mdash;of real education, but both are opposed to education enough
+ to make free men and women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Between the Catholics and Protestants there has been about as much
+ difference as there is between crocodiles and alligators. Both have done
+ the worst they could, both are as bad as they can be, and the world is
+ getting tired of both. The world is not going to choose either&mdash;both
+ are to be rejected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you willing to give your opinion of the Pope?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It may be that the Pope thinks he is infallible, but I
+ doubt it. He may think that he is the agent of God, but I guess not. He
+ may know more than other people, but if he does he has kept it to himself.
+ He does not seem satisfied with standing in the place and stead of God in
+ spiritual matters, but desires temporal power. He wishes to be Pope and
+ King. He imagines that he has the right to control the belief of all the
+ world; that he is the shepherd of all "sheep" and that the fleeces belong
+ to him. He thinks that in his keeping is the conscience of mankind. So he
+ imagines that his blessing is a great benefit to the faithful and that his
+ prayers can change the course of natural events. He is a strange mixture
+ of the serious and comical. He claims to represent God, and admits that he
+ is almost a prisoner. There is something pathetic in the condition of this
+ pontiff. When I think of him, I think of Lear on the heath, old, broken,
+ touched with insanity, and yet, in his own opinion, "every inch a king."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Pope is a fragment, a remnant, a shred, a patch of ancient power and
+ glory. He is a survival of the unfittest, a souvenir of theocracy, a relic
+ of the supernatural. Of course he will have a few successors, and they
+ will become more and more comical, more and more helpless and impotent as
+ the world grows wise and free. I am not blaming the Pope. He was poisoned
+ at the breast of his mother. Superstition was mingled with her milk. He
+ was poisoned at school&mdash;taught to distrust his reason and to live by
+ faith. And so it may be that his mind was so twisted and tortured out of
+ shape that he now really believes that he is the infallible agent of an
+ infinite God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you in favor of the A. P. A.?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In this country I see no need of secret political
+ societies. I think it better to fight in the open field. I am a believer
+ in religious liberty, in allowing all sects to preach their doctrines and
+ to make as many converts as they can. As long as we have free speech and a
+ free press I think there is no danger of the country being ruled by any
+ church. The Catholics are much better than their creed, and the same can
+ be said of nearly all members of orthodox churches. A majority of American
+ Catholics think a great deal more of this country than they do of their
+ church. When they are in good health they are on our side. It is only when
+ they are very sick that they turn their eyes toward Rome. If they were in
+ the majority, of course, they would destroy all other churches and
+ imprison, torture and kill all Infidels. But they will never be in the
+ majority. They increase now only because Catholics come in from other
+ countries. In a few years that supply will cease, and then the Catholic
+ Church will grow weaker every day. The free secular school is the enemy of
+ priestcraft and superstition, and the people of this country will never
+ consent to the destruction of that institution. I want no man persecuted
+ on account of his religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If there is no beatitude, or heaven, how do you account
+ for the continual struggle in every natural heart for its own betterment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Man has many wants, and all his efforts are the children of
+ wants. If he wanted nothing he would do nothing. We civilize the savage by
+ increasing his wants, by cultivating his fancy, his appetites, his
+ desires. He is then willing to work to satisfy these new wants. Man always
+ tries to do things in the easiest way. His constant effort is to
+ accomplish more with less work. He invents a machine; then he improves it,
+ his idea being to make it perfect. He wishes to produce the best. So in
+ every department of effort and knowledge he seeks the highest success, and
+ he seeks it because it is for his own good here in this world. So he finds
+ that there is a relation between happiness and conduct, and he tries to
+ find out what he must do to produce the greatest enjoyment. This is the
+ basis of morality, of law and ethics. We are so constituted that we love
+ proportion, color, harmony. This is the artistic man. Morality is the
+ harmony and proportion of conduct&mdash; the music of life. Man
+ continually seeks to better his condition &mdash;not because he is
+ immortal&mdash;but because he is capable of grief and pain, because he
+ seeks for happiness. Man wishes to respect himself and to gain the respect
+ of others. The brain wants light, the heart wants love. Growth is natural.
+ The struggle to overcome temptation, to be good and noble, brave and
+ sincere, to reach, if possible, the perfect, is no evidence of the
+ immortality of the soul or of the existence of other worlds. Men live to
+ excel, to become distinguished, to enjoy, and so they strive, each in his
+ own way, to gain the ends desired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that the race is growing moral or immoral?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The world is growing better. There is more real liberty,
+ more thought, more intelligence than ever before. The world was never so
+ charitable or generous as now. We do not put honest debtors in prison, we
+ no longer believe in torture. Punishments are less severe. We place a
+ higher value on human life. We are far kinder to animals. To this,
+ however, there is one terrible exception. The vivisectors, those who cut,
+ torture, and mutilate in the name of science, disgrace our age. They
+ excite the horror and indignation of all good people. Leave out the
+ actions of those wretches, and animals are better treated than ever
+ before. So there is less beating of wives and whipping of children. The
+ whip in no longer found in the civilized home. Intelligent parents now
+ govern by kindness, love and reason. The standard of honor is higher than
+ ever. Contracts are more sacred, and men do nearer as they agree. Man has
+ more confidence in his fellow-man, and in the goodness of human nature.
+ Yes, the world is getting better, nobler and grander every day. We are
+ moving along the highway of progress on our way to the Eden of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are the doctrines of Agnosticism gaining ground, and
+ what, in your opinion, will be the future of the church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The Agnostic is intellectually honest. He knows the
+ limitations of his mind. He is convinced that the questions of origin and
+ destiny cannot be answered by man. He knows that he cannot answer these
+ questions, and he is candid enough to say so. The Agnostic has good mental
+ manners. He does not call belief or hope or wish, a demonstration. He
+ knows the difference between hope and belief&mdash;between belief and
+ knowledge&mdash;and he keeps these distinctions in his mind. He does not
+ say that a certain theory is true because he wishes it to be true. He
+ tries to go according to evidence, in harmony with facts, without regard
+ to his own desires or the wish of the public. He has the courage of his
+ convictions and the modesty of his ignorance. The theologian is his
+ opposite. He is certain and sure of the existence of things and beings and
+ worlds of which there is, and can be, no evidence. He relies on assertion,
+ and in all debate attacks the motive of his opponent instead of answering
+ his arguments. All savages know the origin and destiny of man. About other
+ things they know but little. The theologian is much the same. The Agnostic
+ has given up the hope of ascertaining the nature of the "First Cause"&mdash;the
+ hope of ascertaining whether or not there was a "First Cause." He admits
+ that he does not know whether or not there is an infinite Being. He admits
+ that these questions cannot be answered, and so he refuses to answer. He
+ refuses also to pretend. He knows that the theologian does not know, and
+ he has the courage to say so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knows that the religious creeds rest on assumption, supposition,
+ assertion&mdash;on myth and legend, on ignorance and superstition, and
+ that there is no evidence of their truth. The Agnostic bends his energies
+ in the opposite direction. He occupies himself with this world, with
+ things that can be ascertained and understood. He turns his attention to
+ the sciences, to the solution of questions that touch the well-being of
+ man. He wishes to prevent and cure diseases; to lengthen life; to provide
+ homes and raiment and food for man; to supply the wants of the body.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also cultivates the arts. He believes in painting and sculpture, in
+ music and the drama&mdash;the needs of the soul. The Agnostic believes in
+ developing the brain, in cultivating the affections, the tastes, the
+ conscience, the judgment, to the end that man may be happy in this world.
+ He seeks to find the relation of things, the condition of happiness. He
+ wishes to enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may perform
+ the work of the world. Back of all progress are the real thinkers; the
+ finders of facts, those who turn their attention to the world in which we
+ live. The theologian has never been a help, always a hindrance. He has
+ always kept his back to the sunrise. With him all wisdom was in the past.
+ He appealed to the dead. He was and is the enemy of reason, of
+ investigation, of thought and progress. The church has never given
+ "sanctuary" to a persecuted truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There can be no doubt that the ideas of the Agnostic are gaining ground.
+ The scientific spirit has taken possession of the intellectual world.
+ Theological methods are unpopular to-day, even in theological schools. The
+ attention of men everywhere is being directed to the affairs of this
+ world, this life. The gods are growing indistinct, and, like the shapes of
+ clouds, they are changing as they fade. The idea of special providence has
+ been substantially abandoned. People are losing, and intelligent people
+ have lost, confidence in prayer. To-day no intelligent person believes in
+ miracles&mdash;a violation of the facts in nature. They may believe that
+ there used to be miracles a good while ago, but not now. The
+ "supernatural" is losing its power, its influence, and the church is
+ growing weaker every day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church is supported by the people, and in order to gain the support of
+ the people it must reflect their ideas, their hopes and fears. As the
+ people advance, the creeds will be changed, either by changing the words
+ or giving new meanings to the old words. The church, in order to live,
+ must agree substantially with those who support it, and consequently it
+ will change to any extent that may be necessary. If the church remains
+ true to the old standards then it will lose the support of progressive
+ people, and if the people generally advance the church will die. But my
+ opinion is that it will slowly change, that the minister will preach what
+ the members want to hear, and that the creed will be controlled by the
+ contribution box. One of these days the preachers may become teachers, and
+ when that happens the church will be of use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you regard as the greatest of all themes in
+ poetry and song?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Love and Death. The same is true of the greatest music. In
+ "Tristan and Isolde" is the greatest music of love and death. In
+ Shakespeare the greatest themes are love and death. In all real poetry, in
+ all real music, the dominant, the triumphant tone, is love, and the minor,
+ the sad refrain, the shadow, the background, the mystery, is death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What would be your advice to an intelligent young man
+ just starting out in life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I would say to him: "Be true to your ideal. Cultivate your
+ heart and brain. Follow the light of your reason. Get all the happiness
+ out of life that you possibly can. Do not care for power, but strive to be
+ useful. First of all, support yourself so that you may not be a burden to
+ others. If you are successful, if you gain a surplus, use it for the good
+ of others. Own yourself and live and die a free man. Make your home a
+ heaven, love your wife and govern your children by kindness. Be good
+ natured, cheerful, forgiving and generous. Find out the conditions of
+ happiness, and then be wise enough to live in accordance with them.
+ Cultivate intellectual hospitality, express your honest thoughts, love
+ your friends, and be just to your enemies."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Herald</i>, September 16, 1894.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0112" id="link0112">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WOMAN AND HER DOMAIN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the effect of the multiplicity of
+ women's clubs as regards the intellectual, moral and domestic status of
+ their members?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that women should have clubs and societies, that
+ they should get together and exchange ideas. Women, as a rule, are
+ provincial and conservative. They keep alive all the sentimental mistakes
+ and superstitions. Now, if they can only get away from these, and get
+ abreast with the tide of the times, and think as well as feel, it will be
+ better for them and their children. You know St. Paul tells women that if
+ they want to know anything they must ask their husbands. For many
+ centuries they have followed this orthodox advice, and of course they have
+ not learned a great deal, because their husbands could not answer their
+ questions. Husbands, as a rule, do not know a great deal, and it will not
+ do for every wife to depend on the ignorance of her worst half. The women
+ of to-day are the great readers, and no book is a great success unless it
+ pleases the women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a result of this, all the literature of the world has changed, so that
+ now in all departments the thoughts of women are taken into consideration,
+ and women have thoughts, because they are the intellectual equals of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are no statesmen in this country the equals of Harriet Martineau;
+ probably no novelists the equals of George Eliot or George Sand, and I
+ think Ouida the greatest living novelist. I think her "Ariadne" is one of
+ the greatest novels in the English language. There are few novels better
+ than "Consuelo," few poems better than "Mother and Poet."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in all departments women are advancing; some of them have taken the
+ highest honors at medical colleges; others are prominent in the sciences,
+ some are great artists, and there are several very fine sculptors, &amp;c.,
+ &amp;c.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So you can readily see what my opinion is on that point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am in favor of giving woman all the domain she conquers, and as the
+ world becomes civilized the domain that she can conquer will steadily
+ increase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But, Colonel, is there no danger of greatly interfering
+ with a woman's duties as wife and mother?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think that it is dangerous to think, or that
+ thought interferes with love or the duties of wife or mother. I think the
+ contrary is the truth; the greater the brain the greater the power to
+ love, the greater the power to discharge all duties and obligations, so I
+ have no fear for the future. About women voting I don't care; whatever
+ they want to do they have my consent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Democrat</i>, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1894.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0113" id="link0113">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROFESSOR SWING.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Since you were last in this city, Colonel, a
+ distinguished man has passed away in the person of Professor Swing. The
+ public will be interested to have your opinion of him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Professor Swing did a great amount of good. He
+ helped to civilize the church and to humanize the people. His influence
+ was in the right direction&mdash;toward the light. In his youth he was
+ acquainted with toil, poverty, and hardship; his road was filled with
+ thorns, and yet he lived and scattered flowers in the paths of many
+ people. At first his soul was in the dungeon of a savage creed, where the
+ windows were very small and closely grated, and though which struggled
+ only a few rays of light. He longed for more light and for more liberty,
+ and at last his fellow- prisoners drove him forth, and from that time
+ until his death he did what he could to give light and liberty to the
+ souls of men. He was a lover of nature, poetic in his temperament,
+ charitable and merciful. As an orator he may have lacked presence, pose
+ and voice, but he did not lack force of statement or beauty of expression.
+ He was a man of wide learning, of great admiration of the heroic and
+ tender. He did what he could to raise the standard of character, to make
+ his fellow-men just and noble. He lost the provincialism of his youth and
+ became in a very noble sense a citizen of the world. He understood that
+ all the good is not in our race or in our religion&mdash;that in every
+ land there are good and noble men, self- denying and lovely women, and
+ that in most respects other religions are as good as ours, and in many
+ respects better. This gave him breadth of intellectual horizon and
+ enlarged his sympathy for the failures of the world. I regard his death as
+ a great loss, and his life as a lesson and inspiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Inter-Ocean</i>, Chicago, October 13, 1894.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0114" id="link0114">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SENATOR SHERMAN AND HIS BOOK.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* No one is better qualified than Robert G. Ingersoll to
+ talk about Senator Sherman's book and the questions it
+ raises in political history. Mr. Ingersoll was for years a
+ resident of Washington and a next-door neighbor to Mr.
+ Sherman; he was for an even longer period the intimate
+ personal friend of James G. Blaine; he knew Garfield from
+ almost daily contact, and of the Republican National
+ Conventions concerning which Senator Sherman has raised
+ points of controversy Mr. Ingersoll can say, as the North
+ Carolinian said of the Confederacy: "Part of whom I am
+ which."
+
+ He placed Blaine's name before the convention at Cincinnati
+ in 1876. He made the first of the three great nominating
+ speeches in convention history, Conkling and Garfield making
+ the others in 1880.
+
+ The figure of the Plumed Knight which Mr. Ingersoll created
+ to characterize Mr. Blaine is part of the latter's memory.
+ At Chicago, four years later, when Garfield, dazed by the
+ irresistible doubt of the convention, was on the point of
+ refusing that in the acceptance of which he had no voluntary
+ part, Ingersoll was the adviser who showed him that duty to
+ Sherman required no such action.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Senator Sherman's book&mdash;especially
+ the part about Garfield?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, I have only read a few extracts from Mr.
+ Sherman's reminiscences, but I am perfectly satisfied that the Senator is
+ mistaken about Garfield's course. The truth is that Garfield captured the
+ convention by his course from day to day, and especially by the speech he
+ made for Sherman. After that speech, and it was a good one, the best
+ Garfield ever made, the convention said, "Speak for yourself, John."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was perfectly apparent that if the Blaine and Sherman forces should try
+ to unite, Grant would be nominated. It had to be Grant or a new man, and
+ that man was Garfield. It all came about without Garfield's help, except
+ in the way I have said. Garfield even went so far as to declare that under
+ no circumstances could he accept, because he was for Sherman, and honestly
+ for him. He told me that he would not allow his name to go before the
+ convention. Just before he was nominated I wrote him a note in which I
+ said he was about to be nominated, and that he must not decline. I am
+ perfectly satisfied that he acted with perfect honor, and that he did his
+ best for Sherman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Sherman expresses the opinion that if he had had the
+ "moral strength" of the Ohio delegation in his support he would have been
+ nominated?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We all know that while Senator Sherman had many friends,
+ and that while many thought he would make an excellent President, still
+ there was but little enthusiasm among his followers. Sherman had the
+ respect of the party, but hardly the love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In his book the Senator expresses the opinion that he was
+ quite close to the nomination in 1888, when Mr. Quay was for him. Do you
+ think that is so, Mr. Ingersoll?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think Mr. Sherman had a much better chance in 1888 than
+ in 1880, but as a matter of fact, he never came within hailing distance of
+ success at any time. He is not of the nature to sway great bodies of men.
+ He lacks the power to impress himself upon others to such an extent as to
+ make friends of enemies and devotees of friends. Mr. Sherman has had a
+ remarkable career, and I think that he ought to be satisfied with what he
+ has achieved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Ingersoll, what do you think defeated Blaine for the
+ nomination in 1876?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. On the first day of the convention at Cincinnati it was
+ known that Blaine was the leading candidate. All of the enthusiasm was for
+ him. It was soon known that Conkling, Bristow or Morton could not be
+ nominated, and that in all probability Blaine would succeed. The fact that
+ Blaine had been attacked by vertigo, or had suffered from a stroke of
+ apoplexy, gave an argument to those who opposed him, and this was used
+ with great effect. After Blaine was put in nomination, and before any vote
+ was taken, the convention adjourned, and during the night a great deal of
+ work was done. The Michigan delegation was turned inside out and the
+ Blaine forces raided in several States. Hayes, the dark horse, suddenly
+ developed speed, and the scattered forces rallied to his support. I have
+ always thought that if a ballot could have been taken on the day Blaine
+ was put in nomination he would have succeeded, and yet he might have been
+ defeated for the nomination anyway.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Blaine had the warmest friends and the bitterest enemies of any man in the
+ party. People either loved or hated him. He had no milk-and-water friends
+ and no milk-and-water enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If Blaine had been nominated at Cincinnati in 1876 would
+ he have made a stronger candidate than Hayes did?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If he had been nominated then, I believe that he would have
+ been triumphantly elected. Mr. Blaine's worst enemies would not have
+ supported Tilden, and thousands of moderate Democrats would have given
+ their votes to Blaine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Mr. Ingersoll, do you think that Mr. Blaine wanted the
+ nomination in 1884, when he got it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In 1883, Mr. Blaine told me that he did not want the
+ nomination. I said to him: "Is that honest?" He replied that he did not
+ want it, that he was tired of the whole business. I said: "If you do not
+ want it; if you have really reached that conclusion, then I think you will
+ get it." He laughed, and again said: "I do not want it." I believe that he
+ spoke exactly as he then felt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think defeated Mr. Blaine at the polls in
+ 1884?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Blaine was a splendid manager for another man, a great
+ natural organizer, and when acting for others made no mistake; but he did
+ not manage his own campaign with ability. He made a succession of
+ mistakes. His suit against the Indianapolis editor; his letter about the
+ ownership of certain stocks; his reply to Burchard and the preachers, in
+ which he said that history showed the church could get along without the
+ state, but the state could not get along without the church, and this in
+ reply to the "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" nonsense; and last, but not
+ least, his speech to the millionaires in New York&mdash;all of these
+ things weakened him. As a matter of fact many Catholics were going to
+ support Blaine, but when they saw him fooling with the Protestant clergy,
+ and accepting the speech of Burchard, they instantly turned against him.
+ If he had never met Burchard, I think he would have been elected. His
+ career was something like that of Mr. Clay; he was the most popular man of
+ his party and yet&mdash;&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you account for Mr. Blaine's action in allowing
+ his name to go before the convention at Minneapolis in 1892?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In 1892, Mr. Blaine was a sick man, almost worn out; he was
+ not his former self, and he was influenced by others. He seemed to have
+ lost his intuition; he was misled, yet in spite of all defeats, no name
+ will create among Republicans greater enthusiasm than that of James G.
+ Blaine. Millions are still his devoted, unselfish and enthusiastic friends
+ and defenders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Globe-Democrat</i>, St. Louis, October 27, 1895.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0115" id="link0115">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ REPLY TO THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORERS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How were you affected by the announcement that the united
+ prayers of the Salvationists and Christian Endeavorers were to be offered
+ for your conversion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The announcement did not affect me to any great extent. I
+ take it for granted that the people praying for me are sincere and that
+ they have a real interest in my welfare. Of course, I thank them one and
+ all. At the same time I can hardly account for what they did. Certainly
+ they would not ask God to convert me unless they thought the prayer could
+ be answered. And if their God can convert me of course he can convert
+ everybody. Then the question arises why he does not do it. Why does he let
+ millions go to hell when he can convert them all. Why did he not convert
+ them all before the flood and take them all to heaven instead of drowning
+ them and sending them all to hell. Of course these questions can be
+ answered by saying that God's ways are not our ways. I am greatly obliged
+ to these people. Still, I feel about the same, so that it would be
+ impossible to get up a striking picture of "before and after." It was
+ good-natured on their part to pray for me, and that act alone leads me to
+ believe that there is still hope for them. The trouble with the Christian
+ Endeavorers is that they don't give my arguments consideration. If they
+ did they would agree with me. It seemed curious that they would advise
+ divine wisdom what to do, or that they would ask infinite mercy to treat
+ me with kindness. If there be a God, of course he knows what ought to be
+ done, and will do it without any hints from ignorant human beings. Still,
+ the Endeavorers and the Salvation people may know more about God than I
+ do. For all I know, this God may need a little urging. He may be powerful
+ but a little slow; intelligent but sometimes a little drowsy, and it may
+ do good now and then to call his attention to the facts. The prayers did
+ not, so far as I know, do me the least injury or the least good. I was
+ glad to see that the Christians are getting civilized. A few years ago
+ they would have burned me. Now they pray for me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose God should answer the prayers and convert me, how would he bring
+ the conversion about? In the first place, he would have to change my brain
+ and give me more credulity&mdash;that is, he would be obliged to lessen my
+ reasoning power. Then I would believe not only without evidence, but in
+ spite of evidence. All the miracles would appear perfectly natural. It
+ would then seem as easy to raise the dead as to waken the sleeping. In
+ addition to this, God would so change my mind that I would hold all reason
+ in contempt and put entire confidence in faith. I would then regard
+ science as the enemy of human happiness, and ignorance as the soil in
+ which virtues grow. Then I would throw away Darwin and Humboldt, and rely
+ on the sermons of orthodox preachers. In other words, I would become a
+ little child and amuse myself with a religious rattle and a Gabriel horn.
+ Then I would rely on a man who has been dead for nearly two thousand years
+ to secure me a seat in Paradise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After conversion, it is not pretended that I will be any better so far as
+ my actions are concerned; no more charitable, no more honest, no more
+ generous. The great difference will be that I will believe more and think
+ less.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, the converted people do not seem to be better than the sinners.
+ I never heard of a poor wretch clad in rags, limping into a town and
+ asking for the house of a Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think that I had better remain as I am. I had better follow the light of
+ my reason, be true to myself, express my honest thoughts, and do the
+ little I can for the destruction of superstition, the little I can for the
+ development of the brain, for the increase of intellectual hospitality and
+ the happiness of my fellow-beings. One world at a time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Journal</i>, December 15, 1895.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0116" id="link0116">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SPIRITUALISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ There are several good things about Spiritualism. First, they are not
+ bigoted; second, they do not believe in salvation by faith; third, they
+ don't expect to be happy in another world because Christ was good in this;
+ fourth, they do not preach the consolation of hell; fifth, they do not
+ believe in God as an infinite monster; sixth, the Spiritualists believe in
+ intellectual hospitality. In these respects they differ from our Christian
+ brethren, and in these respects they are far superior to the saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think that the Spiritualists have done good. They believe in enjoying
+ themselves&mdash;in having a little pleasure in this world. They are
+ social, cheerful and good-natured. They are not the slaves of a book.
+ Their hands and feet are not tied with passages of Scripture. They are not
+ troubling themselves about getting forgiveness and settling their heavenly
+ debts for a cent on the dollar. Their belief does not make then mean or
+ miserable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They do not persecute their neighbors. They ask no one to have faith or to
+ believe without evidence. They ask all to investigate, and then to make up
+ their minds from the evidence. Hundreds and thousands of well-educated,
+ intelligent people are satisfied with the evidence and firmly believe in
+ the existence of spirits. For all I know, they may be right&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The Spiritualists have indirectly claimed, that you were
+ in many respects almost one of them. Have you given them reason to believe
+ so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am not a Spiritualist, and have never pretended to be.
+ The Spiritualists believe in free thought, in freedom of speech, and they
+ are willing to hear the other side&mdash;willing to hear me. The best
+ thing about the Spiritualists is that they believe in intellectual
+ hospitality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is Spiritualism a religion or a truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that Spiritualism may properly be called a
+ religion. It deals with two worlds&mdash;teaches the duty of man to his
+ fellows&mdash;the relation that this life bears to the next. It claims to
+ be founded on facts. It insists that the "dead" converse with the living,
+ and that information is received from those who once lived in this world.
+ Of the truth of these claims I have no sufficient evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are all mediums impostors?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I will not say that all mediums are impostors, because I do
+ not know. I do not believe that these mediums get any information or help
+ from "spirits." I know that for thousands of years people have believed in
+ mediums&mdash;in Spiritualism. A spirit in the form of a man appeared to
+ Samson's mother, and afterward to his father.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spirits, or angels, called on Abraham. The witch of Endor raised the ghost
+ of Samuel. An angel appeared with three men in the furnace. The
+ handwriting on the wall was done by a spirit. A spirit appeared to Joseph
+ in a dream, to the wise men and to Joseph again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So a spirit, an angel or a god, spoke to Saul, and the same happened to
+ Mary Magdalene.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religious literature of the world is filled with such things. Take
+ Spiritualism from Christianity and the whole edifice crumbles. All
+ religions, so far as I know, are based on Spiritualism&mdash;on
+ communications received from angels, from spirits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not say that all the mediums, ancient and modern, were, and are,
+ impostors&mdash;but I do think that all the honest ones were, and are,
+ mistaken. I do not believe that man has ever received any communication
+ from angels, spirits or gods. No whisper, as I believe, has ever come from
+ any other world. The lips of the dead are always closed. From the grave
+ there has come no voice. For thousands of years people have been
+ questioning the dead. They have tried to catch the whisper of a vanished
+ voice. Many say that they have succeeded. I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is the explanation of the startling knowledge
+ displayed by some so-called "mediums" of the history and personal affairs
+ of people who consult them? Is there any such thing as mind-reading or
+ thought-transference?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In a very general way, I suppose that one person may read
+ the thought of another&mdash;not definitely, but by the expression of the
+ face, by the attitude of the body, some idea may be obtained as to what a
+ person thinks, what he intends. So thought may be transferred by look or
+ language, but not simply by will. Everything that is, is natural. Our
+ ignorance is the soil in which mystery grows. I do not believe that
+ thoughts are things that can been seen or touched. Each mind lives in a
+ world of its own, a world that no other mind can enter. Minds, like ships
+ at sea, give signs and signals to each other, but they do not exchange
+ captains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is there any such thing as telepathy? What is the
+ explanation of the stories of mental impressions received at long
+ distances?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There are curious coincidences. People sometimes happen to
+ think of something that is taking place at a great distance. The stories
+ about these happenings are not very well authenticated, and seem never to
+ have been of the least use to anyone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Can these phenomena be considered aside from any
+ connection with, or form of, superstition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that mistake, emotion, nervousness, hysteria,
+ dreams, love of the wonderful, dishonesty, ignorance, grief and the
+ longing for immortality&mdash;the desire to meet the loved and lost, the
+ horror of endless death&mdash;account for these phenomena. People often
+ mistake their dreams for realities&mdash;often think their thoughts have
+ "happened." They live in a mental mist, a mirage. The boundary between the
+ actual and the imagined becomes faint, wavering and obscure. They mistake
+ clouds for mountains. The real and the unreal mix and mingle until the
+ impossible becomes common, and the natural absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that any sane man ever had a vision?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, the sane and insane have visions, dreams. I do
+ not believe that any man, sane or insane, was ever visited by an angel or
+ spirit, or ever received any information from the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Setting aside from consideration the so-called physical
+ manifestations of the mediums, has Spiritualism offered any proof of the
+ immortality of the soul?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course Spiritualism offers what it calls proof of
+ immortality. That is its principal business. Thousands and thousands of
+ good, honest, intelligent people think the proof sufficient. They receive
+ what they believe to be messages from the departed, and now and then the
+ spirits assume their old forms &mdash;including garments&mdash;and pass
+ through walls and doors as light passes through glass. Do these things
+ really happen? If the spirits of the dead do return, then the fact of
+ another life is established. It all depends on the evidence. Our senses
+ are easily deceived, and some people have more confidence in their reason
+ than in their senses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you not believe that such a man as Robert Dale Owen
+ was sincere? What was the real state of mind of the author of "Footfalls
+ on the Boundaries of Another World"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Without the slightest doubt, Robert Dale Owen was sincere.
+ He was one of the best of men. His father labored all his life for the
+ good of others. Robert Owen, the father, had a debate, in Cincinnati, with
+ the Rev. Alexander Campbell, the founder of the Campbellite Church.
+ Campbell was no match for Owen, and yet the audience was almost
+ unanimously against Owen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Robert Dale Owen was an intelligent, thoughtful, honest man. He was
+ deceived by several mediums, but remained a believer. He wanted
+ Spiritualism to be true. He hungered and thirsted for another life. He
+ explained everything that was mysterious or curious by assuming the
+ interference of spirits. He was a good man, but a poor investigator. He
+ thought that people were all honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you understand the Spiritualist means when he
+ claims that the soul goes to the "Summer land," and there continues to
+ work and evolute to higher planes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. No one pretends to know where "heaven" is. The celestial
+ realm is the blessed somewhere in the unknown nowhere. So far as I know,
+ the "Summer land" has no metes and bounds, and no one pretends to know
+ exactly or inexactly where it is. After all, the "Summer land" is a hope&mdash;a
+ wish. Spiritualists believe that a soul leaving this world passes into
+ another, or into another state, and continues to grow in intelligence and
+ virtue, if it so desires.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spiritualists claim to prove that there is another life. Christians
+ believe this, but their witnesses have been dead for many centuries. They
+ take the "hearsay" of legend and ancient gossip; but Spiritualists claim
+ to have living witnesses; witnesses that can talk, make music; that can
+ take to themselves bodies and shake hands with the people they knew before
+ they passed to the "other shore."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Has Spiritualism, through its mediums, ever told the
+ world anything useful, or added to the store of the world's knowledge, or
+ relieved its burdens?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not know that any medium has added to the useful
+ knowledge of the world, unless mediums have given evidence of another
+ life. Mediums have told us nothing about astronomy, geology or history,
+ have made no discoveries, no inventions, and have enriched no art. The
+ same may be said of every religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the orthodox churches believe in Spiritualism. Every now and then the
+ Virgin appears to some peasant, and in the old days the darkness was
+ filled with evil spirits. Christ was a Spiritualist, and his principal
+ business was the casting out of devils. All of his disciples, all of the
+ church fathers, all of the saints were believers in Spiritualism of the
+ lowest and most ignorant type. During the Middle Ages people changed
+ themselves, with the aid of spirits, into animals. They became wolves,
+ dogs, cats and donkeys. In those day all the witches and wizards were
+ mediums. So animals were sometimes taken possession of by spirits, the
+ same as Balaam's donkey and Christ's swine. Nothing was too absurd for the
+ Christians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Has not Spiritualism added to the world's stock of hope?
+ And in what way has not Spiritualism done good?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The mother holding in her arms her dead child, believing
+ that the babe has simply passed to another life, does not weep as bitterly
+ as though she thought that death was the eternal end. A belief in
+ Spiritualism must be a consolation. You see, the Spiritualists do not
+ believe in eternal pain, and consequently a belief in immortality does not
+ fill their hearts with fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity makes eternal life an infinite horror, and casts the glare of
+ hell on almost every grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Spiritualists appear to be happy in their belief. I have never known a
+ happy orthodox Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is natural to shun death, natural to desire eternal life. With all my
+ heart I hope for everlasting life and joy&mdash;a life without failures,
+ without crimes and tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If immortality could be established, the river of life would overflow with
+ happiness. The faces of prisoners, of slaves, of the deserted, of the
+ diseased and starving would be radiant with smiles, and the dull eyes of
+ despair would glow with light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it could be established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Journal</i>, New York, July 26, 1896.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0117" id="link0117">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the position taken by the United
+ States in the Venezuelan dispute? How should the dispute be settled?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think that we have any interest in the dispute
+ between Venezuela and England. It was and is none of our business. The
+ Monroe doctrine was not and is not in any way involved. Mr. Cleveland made
+ a mistake and so did Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What should be the attitude of the church toward the
+ stage?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It should be, what it always has been, against it. If the
+ orthodox churches are right, then the stage is wrong. The stage makes
+ people forget hell; and this puts their souls in peril. There will be
+ forever a conflict between Shakespeare and the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of the new woman?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I like her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Where rests the responsibility for the Armenian
+ atrocities?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Religion is the cause of the hatred and bloodshed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of international marriages, as between
+ titled foreigners and American heiresses?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. My opinion is the same as is entertained by the American
+ girl after the marriages. It is a great mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of England's Poet Laureate, Alfred
+ Austin?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have only read a few of his lines and they were not
+ poetic. The office of Poet Laureate should be abolished. Men cannot write
+ poems to order as they could deliver cabbages or beer. By poems I do not
+ mean jingles of words. I mean great thoughts clothed in splendor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your estimate of Susan B. Anthony?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Miss Anthony is one of the most remarkable women in the
+ world. She has the enthusiasm of youth and spring, the courage and
+ sincerity of a martyr. She is as reliable as the attraction of
+ gravitation. She is absolutely true to her conviction, intellectually
+ honest, logical, candid and infinitely persistent. No human being has done
+ more for women than Miss Anthony. She has won the respect and admiration
+ of the best people on the earth. And so I say: Good luck and long life to
+ Susan B. Anthony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Which did more for his country, George Washington or
+ Abraham Lincoln?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In my judgment, Lincoln was the greatest man ever
+ President. I put him above Washington and Jefferson. He had the genius of
+ goodness; and he was one of the wisest and shrewdest of men. Lincoln
+ towers above them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What gave rise to the report that you had been converted
+ &mdash;did you go to church somewhere?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I visited the "People's Church" in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
+ This church has no creed. The object is to make people happy in this
+ world. Miss Bartlett is the pastor. She is a remarkable woman and is
+ devoting her life to good work. I liked her church and said so. This is
+ all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are there not some human natures so morally weak or
+ diseased that they cannot keep from sin without the aid of some sort of
+ religion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not believe that the orthodox religion helps anybody
+ to be just, generous or honest. Superstition is not the soil in which
+ goodness grows. Falsehood is poor medicine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Would you consent to live in any but a Christian
+ community? If you would, please name one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I would not live in a community where all were orthodox
+ Christians. I would rather dwell in Central Africa. If I could have my
+ choice I would rather live among people who were free, who sought for
+ truth and lived according to reason. Sometime there will be such a
+ community.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is the noun "United States" singular or plural, as you
+ use English?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I use it in the singular.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read Nordau's "Degeneracy"? If so, what do you
+ think of it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think it is substantially insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Bishop Doane's advocacy of free rum
+ as a solution of the liquor problem?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am a believer in liberty. All the temperance legislation,
+ all the temperance societies, all the agitation, all these things have
+ done no good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you agree with Mr. Carnegie that a college education
+ is of little or no practical value to a man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. A man must have education. It makes no difference where or
+ how he gets it. To study the dead languages is time wasted so far as
+ success in business is concerned. Most of the colleges in this country are
+ poor because controlled by theologians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What suggestion would you make for the improvement of the
+ newspapers of this country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Every article in a newspaper should be signed by the
+ writer. And all writers should do their best to tell the exact facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Niagara Falls?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is a dangerous place. Those great rushing waters&mdash;
+ there is nothing attractive to me in them. There is so much noise; so much
+ tumult. It is simply a mighty force of nature&mdash;one of those
+ tremendous powers that is to be feared for its danger. What I like in
+ nature is a cultivated field, where men can work in the free open air,
+ where there is quiet and repose&mdash;no turmoil, no strife, no tumult, no
+ fearful roar or struggle for mastery. I do not like the crowded, stuffy
+ workshop, where life is slavery and drudgery. Give me the calm, cultivated
+ land of waving grain, of flowers, of happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is worse than death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Oh, a great many things. To be dishonored. To be worthless.
+ To feel that you are a failure. To be insane. To be constantly afraid of
+ the future. To lose the ones you love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Herald</i>, Rochester, New York, February 25, 1896.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0118" id="link0118">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IS LIFE WORTH LIVING&mdash;CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND POLITICS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. With all your experiences, the trials, the
+ responsibilities, the disappointments, the heartburnings, Colonel, is life
+ worth living?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I can only answer for myself. I like to be alive, to
+ breathe the air, to look at the landscape, the clouds and stars, to repeat
+ old poems, to look at pictures and statues, to hear music, the voices of
+ the ones I love. I like to talk with my wife, my girls, my grandchildren.
+ I like to sleep and to dream. Yes, you can say that life, to me, is worth
+ living.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Colonel, did you ever kill any game?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. When I was a boy I killed two ducks, and it hurt me as much
+ as anything I ever did. No, I would not kill any living creature. I am
+ sometimes tempted to kill a mosquito on my hand, but I stop and think what
+ a wonderful construction it has, and shoo it away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of political parties, Colonel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In a country where the sovereignty is divided among the
+ people, that is to say, among the men, in order to accomplish anything,
+ many must unite, and I believe in joining the party that is going the
+ nearest your way. I do not believe in being the slave or serf or servant
+ of a party. Go with it if it is going your road, and when the road forks,
+ take the one that leads to the place you wish to visit, no matter whether
+ the party goes that way or not. I do not believe in belonging to a party
+ or being the property of any organization. I do not believe in giving a
+ mortgage on yourself or a deed of trust for any purpose whatever. It is
+ better to be free and vote wrong than to be a slave and vote right. I
+ believe in taking the chances. At the same time, as long as a party is
+ going my way, I believe in placing that party above particular persons,
+ and if that party nominates a man that I despise, I will vote for him if
+ he is going my way. I would rather have a bad man belonging to my party in
+ place, than a good man belonging to the other, provided my man believes in
+ my principles, and to that extent I believe in party loyalty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I join in the general hue and cry against bosses. There has
+ always got to be a leader, even in a flock of wild geese. If anything is
+ to be accomplished, no matter what, somebody takes the lead and the others
+ allow him to go on. In that way political bosses are made, and when you
+ hear a man howling against bosses at the top of his lungs, distending his
+ cheeks to the bursting point, you may know that he has ambition to become
+ a boss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not belong to the Republican party, but I have been going with it,
+ and when it goes wrong I shall quit, unless the other is worse. There is
+ no office, no place, that I want, and as it does not cost anything to be
+ right, I think it better to be that way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your idea of Christian Science?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think it is superstition, pure and unadulterated. I think
+ that soda will cure a sour stomach better than thinking. In my judgment,
+ quinine is a better tonic than meditation. Of course cheerfulness is good
+ and depression bad, but if you can absolutely control the body and all its
+ functions by thought, what is the use of buying coal? Let the mercury go
+ down and keep yourself hot by thinking. What is the use of wasting money
+ for food? Fill your stomach with think. According to these Christian
+ Science people all that really exists is an illusion, and the only
+ realities are the things that do not exist. They are like the old fellow
+ in India who said that all things were illusions. One day he was speaking
+ to a crowd on his favorite hobby. Just as he said "all is illusion" a
+ fellow on an elephant rode toward him. The elephant raised his trunk as
+ though to strike, thereupon the speaker ran away. Then the crowd laughed.
+ In a few moments the speaker returned. The people shouted: "If all is
+ illusion, what made you run away?" The speaker replied: "My poor friends,
+ I said all is illusion. I say so still. There was no elephant. I did not
+ run away. You did not laugh, and I am not explaining now. All is
+ illusion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That man must have been a Christian Scientist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Inter-Ocean</i>, Chicago, November, 1897.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0119" id="link0119">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ VIVISECTION.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. Why are you so utterly opposed to vivisection?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Because, as it is generally practiced, it is an unspeakable
+ cruelty. Because it hardens the hearts and demoralizes those who inflict
+ useless and terrible pains on the bound and helpless. If these
+ vivisectionists would give chloroform or ether to the animals they
+ dissect; if they would render them insensible to pain, and if, by cutting
+ up these animals, they could learn anything worth knowing, no one would
+ seriously object.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble is that these doctors, these students, these professors, these
+ amateurs, do not give anesthetics. They insist that to render the animal
+ insensible does away with the value of the experiment. They care nothing
+ for the pain they inflict. They are so eager to find some fact that will
+ be of benefit to the human race, that they are utterly careless of the
+ agony endured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what I say is that no decent man, no gentleman, no civilized person,
+ would vivisect an animal without first having rendered that animal
+ insensible to pain. The doctor, the scientist, who puts his knives,
+ forceps, chisels and saws into the flesh, bones and nerves of an animal
+ without having used an anesthetic, is a savage, a pitiless, heartless
+ monster. When he says he does this for the good of man, because he wishes
+ to do good, he says what is not true. No such man wants to do good; he
+ commits the crime for his own benefit and because he wishes to gratify an
+ insane cruelty or to gain a reputation among like savages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These scientists now insist that they have done some good. They do not
+ tell exactly what they have done. The claim is general in its character&mdash;not
+ specific. If they have done good, could they not have done just as much if
+ they had used anesthetics? Good is not the child of cruelty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that the vivisectionists do their work
+ without anesthetics? Do they not, as a rule, give something to deaden
+ pain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Here is what the trouble is. Now and then one uses
+ chloroform, but the great majority do not. They claim that it interferes
+ with the value of the experiment, and, as I said before, they object to
+ the expense. Why should they care for what the animals suffer? They
+ inflict the most horrible and useless pain, and they try the silliest
+ experiments&mdash;experiments of no possible use or advantage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance: They flay a dog to see how long he can live without his
+ skin. Is this trifling experiment of any importance? Suppose the dog can
+ live a week or a month or a year, what then? What must the real character
+ of the scientific wretch be who would try an experiment like this? Is such
+ a man seeking the good of his fellow- men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, these scientists starve animals until they slowly die; watch them from
+ day to day as life recedes from the extremities, and watch them until the
+ final surrender, to see how long the heart will flutter without food;
+ without water. They keep a diary of their sufferings, of their whinings
+ and moanings, of their insanity. And this diary is published and read with
+ joy and eagerness by other scientists in like experiments. Of what
+ possible use is it to know how long a dog or horse can live without food?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, they take animals, dogs and horses, cut through the flesh with the
+ knife, remove some of the back bone with the chisel, then divide the
+ spinal marrow, then touch it with red hot wires for the purpose of
+ finding, as they say, the connection of nerves; and the animal, thus
+ vivisected, is left to die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A good man will not voluntarily inflict pain. He will see that his horse
+ has food, if he can procure it, and if he cannot procure the food, he will
+ end the sufferings of the animal in the best and easiest way. So, the good
+ man would rather remain in ignorance as to how pain is transmitted than to
+ cut open the body of a living animal, divide the marrow and torture the
+ nerves with red hot iron. Of what use can it be to take a dog, tie him
+ down and cut out one of his kidneys to see if he can live with the other?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These horrors are perpetrated only by the cruel and the heartless &mdash;so
+ cruel and so heartless that they are utterly unfit to be trusted with a
+ human life. They inoculate animals with a virus of disease; they put
+ poison in their eyes until rottenness destroys the sight; until the poor
+ brutes become insane. They given them a disease that resembles
+ hydrophobia, that is accompanied by the most frightful convulsions and
+ spasms. They put them in ovens to see what degree of heat it is that
+ kills. They also try the effect of cold; they slowly drown them; they
+ poison them with the venom of snakes; they force foreign substances into
+ their blood, and, by inoculation, into their eyes; and then watch and
+ record their agonies; their sufferings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Don't you think that some good has been accomplished,
+ some valuable information obtained, by vivisection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I don't think any valuable information has been obtained by
+ the vivisection of animals without chloroform that could not have been
+ obtained with chloroform. And to answer the question broadly as to whether
+ any good has been accomplished by vivisection, I say no.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the best information that I can obtain, the vivisectors have
+ hindered instead of helped. Lawson Tait, who stands at the head of his
+ profession in England, the best surgeon in Great Britain, says that all
+ this cutting and roasting and freezing and torturing of animals has done
+ harm instead of good. He says publicly that the vivisectors have hindered
+ the progress of surgery. He declares that they have not only done no good,
+ but asserts that they have done only harm. The same views according to
+ Doctor Tait, are entertained by Bell, Syme and Fergusson.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many have spoken of Darwin as though he were a vivisector. This is not
+ true. All that has been accomplished by these torturers of dumb and
+ helpless animals amounts to nothing. We have obtained from these gentlemen
+ Koch's cure for consumption, Pasteur's factory of hydrophobia and
+ Brown-Sequard's elixir of life. These three failures, gigantic, absurd,
+ ludicrous, are the great accomplishment of vivisection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surgery has advanced, not by the heartless tormentors of animals, but by
+ the use of anesthetics&mdash;that is to say, chloroform, ether and
+ cocaine. The cruel wretches, the scientific assassins, have accomplished
+ nothing. Hundreds of thousands of animals have suffered every pain that
+ nerves can feel, and all for nothing&mdash;nothing except to harden the
+ heart and to make criminals of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have not given anesthetics to these animals, but they have been
+ guilty of the last step in cruelty. They have given curare, a drug that
+ attacks the centers of motion, that makes it impossible for the animal to
+ move, so that when under its influence, no matter what the pain may be,
+ the animal lies still. This curare not only destroys the power of motion,
+ but increases the sensitiveness of the nerves. To give this drug and then
+ to dissect the living animal is the extreme of cruelty. Beyond this,
+ heartlessness cannot go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you know that you have been greatly criticized for
+ what you have said on this subject?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; I have read many criticisms; but what of that. It is
+ impossible for the ingenuity of man to say anything in defence of cruelty&mdash;of
+ heartlessness. So, it is impossible for the defenders of vivisection to
+ show any good that has been accomplished without the use of anesthetics.
+ The chemist ought to be able to determine what is and what is not poison.
+ There is no need of torturing the animals. So, this giving to animals
+ diseases is of no importance to man&mdash;not the slightest; and nothing
+ has been discovered in bacteriology so far that has been of use or that is
+ of benefit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Personally, I admit that all have the right to criticise; and my answer to
+ the critics is, that they do not know the facts; or, knowing them, they
+ are interested in preventing a knowledge of these facts coming to the
+ public. Vivisection should be controlled by law. No animal should be
+ allowed to be tortured. And to cut up a living animal not under the
+ influence of chloroform or ether, should be a penitentiary offence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A perfect reply to all the critics who insist that great good has been
+ done is to repeat the three names&mdash;Koch, Pasteur and Brown- Sequard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The foundation of civilization is not cruelty; it is justice, generosity,
+ mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Evening Telegram</i>, New York, September 30, 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0120" id="link0120">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DIVORCE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. The <i>Herald</i> would like to have you give your ideas
+ on divorce. On last Sunday in your lecture you said a few words on the
+ subject, but only a few. Do you think the laws governing divorce ought to
+ be changed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. We obtained our ideas about divorce from the Hebrews&mdash;
+ from the New Testament and the church. In the Old Testament woman is not
+ considered of much importance. The wife was the property of the husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ox or his wife." In this commandment
+ the wife is put on an equality with other property, so under certain
+ conditions the husband could put away his wife, but the wife could not put
+ away her husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the New Testament there is little in favor of marriage, and really
+ nothing as to the rights of wives. Christ said nothing in favor of
+ marriage, and never married. So far as I know, none of the apostles had
+ families. St. Paul was opposed to marriage, and allowed it only as a
+ choice of evils. In those days it was imagined by the Christians that the
+ world was about to be purified by fire, and that they would be changed
+ into angels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The early Christians were opposed to marriage, and the "fathers" looked
+ upon woman as the source of all evil. They did not believe in divorces.
+ They thought that if people loved each other better than they did God, and
+ got married, they ought to be held to the bargain, no matter what
+ happened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These "fathers" were, for the most part, ignorant and hateful savages, and
+ had no more idea of right and wrong than wild beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church insisted that marriage was a sacrament, and that God, in some
+ mysterious way, joined husband and wife in marriage&mdash;that he was one
+ of the parties to the contract, and that only death could end it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, this supernatural view of marriage is perfectly absurd. If
+ there be a God, there certainly have been marriages he did not approve,
+ and certain it is that God can have no interest in keeping husbands and
+ wives together who never should have married.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the preachers insist that God instituted marriage in the Garden of
+ Eden. We now know that there was no Garden of Eden, and that woman was not
+ made from the first man's rib. Nobody with any real sense believes this
+ now. The institution of marriage was not established by Jehovah. Neither
+ was it established by Christ, not any of his apostles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In considering the question of divorce, the supernatural should be
+ discarded. We should take into consideration only the effect upon human
+ beings. The gods should be allowed to take care of themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it to the interest of a husband and wife to live together after love
+ has perished and when they hate each other? Will this add to their
+ happiness? Should a woman be compelled to remain the wife of a man who
+ hates and abuses her, and whom she loathes? Has society any interest in
+ forcing women to live with men they hate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no real marriage without love, and in the marriage state there is
+ no morality without love. A woman who remains the wife of a man whom she
+ despises, or does not love, corrupts her soul. She becomes degraded,
+ polluted, and feels that her flesh has been soiled. Under such
+ circumstances a good woman suffers the agonies of moral death. It may be
+ said that the woman can leave her husband; that she is not compelled to
+ live in the same house or to occupy the same room. If she has the right to
+ leave, has she the right to get a new house? Should a woman be punished
+ for having married? Women do not marry the wrong men on purpose. Thousands
+ of mistakes are made&mdash;are these mistakes sacred? Must they be
+ preserved to please God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What good can it do God to keep people married who hate each other? What
+ good can it do the community to keep such people together?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you consider marriage a contract or a sacrament?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Marriage is the most important contract that human beings
+ can make. No matter whether it is called a contract or a sacrament, it
+ remains the same. A true marriage is a natural concord or agreement of
+ souls&mdash;a harmony in which discord is not even imagined. It is a
+ mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist. All other considerations
+ are lost. The present seems eternal. In this supreme moment there is no
+ shadow, or the shadow is as luminous as light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When two beings thus love, thus united, this is the true marriage of soul
+ and soul. The idea of contract is lost. Duty and obligation are instantly
+ changed into desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on
+ as one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is real marriage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the man turns out to be a wild beast, if he destroys the happiness
+ of the wife, why should she remain his victim?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If she wants a divorce, she should have it. The divorce will not hurt God
+ or the community. As a matter of fact, it will save a life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man not poisoned by superstition will object to the release of an
+ abused wife. In such a case only savages can object to divorce. The man
+ who wants courts and legislatures to force a woman to live with him is a
+ monster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe that the divorced should be allowed to
+ marry again?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. Has the woman whose rights have been outraged no
+ right to build another home? Must this woman, full of kindness, affection
+ and health, be chained until death releases her? Is there no future for
+ her? Must she be an outcast forever? Can she never sit by her own hearth,
+ with the arms of her children about her neck, and by her side a husband
+ who loves and protects her?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are no two sides to this question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All human beings should be allowed to correct their mistakes. If the wife
+ has flagrantly violated the contract of marriage, the husband should be
+ given a divorce. If the wife wants a divorce, if she loathes her husband,
+ if she no longer loves him, then the divorce should be granted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is immoral for a woman to live as the wife of a man whom she abhors.
+ The home should be pure. Children should be well-born. Their parents
+ should love one another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Marriages are made by men and women, not by society, not by the state, not
+ by the church, not by the gods. Nothing is moral, that does not tend to
+ the well-being of sentient beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The good home is the unit of good government. The hearthstone is the
+ corner-stone of civilization. Society is not interested in the
+ preservation of hateful homes. It is not to the interest of society that
+ good women should be enslaved or that they should become mothers by
+ husbands whom they hate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the laws about divorce are absurd or cruel, and ought to be
+ repealed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Herald</i>, New York, February, 1897.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0121" id="link0121">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MUSIC, NEWSPAPERS, LYNCHING AND ARBITRATION.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. How do you enjoy staying in Chicago?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I am about as happy as a man can be when he is away
+ from home. I was at the opera last night. I am always happy when I hear
+ the music of Wagner interpreted by such a genius as Seidl. I do not
+ believe there is a man in the world who has in his brain and heart more of
+ the real spirit of Wagner than Anton Seidl. He knows how to lead, how to
+ phrase and shade, how to rush and how to linger, and to express every
+ passion and every mood. So I was happy last night to hear him. Then I
+ heard Edouard de Reszke, the best of bass singers, with tones of a great
+ organ, and others soft and liquid, and Jean de Reszke, a great tenor, who
+ sings the "Swan Song" as though inspired; and I liked Bispham, but hated
+ his part. He is a great singer; so is Mme. Litvinne.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I can say that I am enjoying Chicago. In fact, I always did. I was
+ here when the town was small, not much more than huts and hogs, lumber and
+ mud; and now it is one of the greatest of cities. It makes me happy just
+ to think of the difference. I was born the year Chicago was incorporated.
+ In my time matches were invented. Steam navigation became really useful.
+ The telegraph was invented. Gas was discovered and applied to practical
+ uses, and electricity was made known in its practical workings to mankind.
+ Thus, it is seen the world is progressing; men are becoming civilized. But
+ the process of civilization even now is slow. In one or two thousand years
+ we may hope to see a vast improvement in man's condition. We may expect to
+ have the employer so far civilized that he will not try to make money for
+ money's sake, but in order that he may apply it to good uses, to the
+ amelioration of his fellow-man's condition. We may also expect the see the
+ workingman, the employee, so far civilized that he will know it is
+ impossible and undesirable for him to attempt to fix the wages paid by his
+ employer. We may in a thousand or more years reasonably expect that the
+ employee will be so far civilized and become sufficiently sensible to know
+ that strikes and threats and mob violence can never improve his condition.
+ Altruism is nonsense, craziness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is Chicago as liberal, intellectually, as New York?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think so. Of course you will find thousands of free,
+ thoughtful people in New York&mdash;people who think and want others to do
+ the same. So, there are thousands of respectable people who are centuries
+ behind the age. In other words, you will find all kinds. I presume the
+ same is true of Chicago. I find many liberal people here, and some not
+ quite so liberal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the papers here seem to be edited by real pious men. On last
+ Tuesday the <i>Times-Herald</i> asked pardon of its readers for having
+ given a report of my lecture. That editor must be pious. In the same
+ paper, columns were given to the prospective prize- fight at Carson City.
+ All the news about the good Corbett and the orthodox Fitzsimmons&mdash;about
+ the training of the gentlemen who are going to attack each others'
+ jugulars and noses; who are expected to break jaws, blacken eyes, and peel
+ foreheads in a few days, to settle the question of which can bear the most
+ pounding. In this great contest and in all its vulgar details, the readers
+ of the <i>Times-Herald</i> are believed by the editor of that religious
+ daily to take great interest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The editor did not ask the pardon of his readers for giving so much space
+ to the nose-smashing sport. No! He knew that would fill their souls with
+ delight, and, so knowing, he reached the correct conclusion that such
+ people would not enjoy anything I had said. The editor did a wise thing
+ and catered to a large majority of his readers. I do not think that we
+ have as religious a daily paper in New York as the <i>Times-Herald</i>. So
+ the editor of the <i>Times- Herald</i> took the ground that men with
+ little learning, in youth, might be agnostic, but as they grew sensible
+ they would become orthodox. When he wrote that he was probably thinking of
+ Humboldt and Darwin, of Huxley and Haeckel. May be Herbert Spencer was in
+ his mind, but I think that he must have been thinking of a few boys in his
+ native village.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think about prize-fighting anyway?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, I think that prize-fighting is worse, if possible,
+ than revival meetings. Next to fighting to kill, as they did in the old
+ Roman days, I think the modern prize-fight is the most disgusting and
+ degrading of exhibitions. All fights, whether cock- fights, bull-fights or
+ pugilistic encounters, are practiced and enjoyed only by savages. No
+ matter what office they hold, what wealth or education they have, they are
+ simply savages. Under no possible circumstances would I witness a
+ prize-fight or a bull- fight or a dog-fight. The Marquis of Queensbury was
+ once at my house, and I found his opinions were the same as mine. Everyone
+ thinks that he had something to do with the sport of prize-fighting, but
+ he did not, except to make some rules once for a college boxing contest.
+ He told me that he never saw but one prize-fight in his life, and that it
+ made him sick.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How are you on the arbitration treaty?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I am for it with all my heart. I have read it, and read it
+ with care, and to me it seems absolutely fair. England and America should
+ set an example to the world. The English-speaking people have reason
+ enough and sense enough, I hope, to settle their differences by argument&mdash;by
+ reason. Let us get the wild beast out of us. Two great nations like
+ England and America appealing to force, arguing with shot and shell! What
+ is education worth? Is what we call civilization a sham? Yes, I believe in
+ peace, in arbitration, in settling disputes like reasonable, human beings.
+ All that war can do is to determine who is the stronger. It throws no
+ light on any question, addresses no argument. There is a point to a
+ bayonet, but no logic. After the war is over the victory does not tell
+ which nation was right. Civilized men take their differences to courts or
+ arbitrators. Civilized nations should do the same. There ought to be an
+ international court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let every man do all he can to prevent war&mdash;to prevent the waste, the
+ cruelties, the horrors that follow every flag on every field of battle. It
+ is time that man was human&mdash;time that the beast was out of his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of McKinley's inaugural?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It is good, honest, clear, patriotic and sensible. There is
+ one thing in it that touched me; I agree with him that lynching has to be
+ stopped. You see that now we are citizens of the United States, not simply
+ of the State in which we happen to live. I take the ground that it is the
+ business of the United States to protect its citizens, not only when they
+ are in some other country, but when they are at home. The United States
+ cannot discharge this obligation by allowing the States to do as they
+ please. Where citizens are being lynched the Government should interfere.
+ If the Governor of some barbarian State says that he cannot protect the
+ lives of citizens, then the United States should, if it took the entire
+ Army and Navy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of charity organizations?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think that the people who support them are good and
+ generous&mdash;splendid&mdash;but I have a poor opinion of the people in
+ charge. As a rule, I think they are cold, impudent and heartless. There is
+ too much circumlocution, or too many details and too little humanity. The
+ Jews are exceedingly charitable. I think that in New York the men who are
+ doing the most for their fellow-men are Jews. Nathan Strauss is trying to
+ feed the hungry, warm the cold, and clothe the naked. For the most part,
+ organized charities are, I think, failures. A real charity has to be in
+ the control of a good man, a real sympathetic, a sensible man, one who
+ helps others to help themselves. Let a hungry man go to an organized
+ society and it requires several days to satisfy the officers that the man
+ is hungry. Meanwhile he will probably starve to death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you believe in free text-books in the public schools?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not care about the text-book question. But I am in
+ favor of the public school. Nothing should be taught that somebody does
+ not know. No superstitions&mdash;nothing but science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. There has been a good deal said lately about your suicide
+ theology, Colonel. Do you still believe that suicide is justifiable?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Certainly. When a man is useless to himself and to others
+ he has a right to determine what he will do about living. The only thing
+ to be considered is a man's obligation to his fellow- beings and to
+ himself. I don't take into consideration any supernatural nonsense. If God
+ wants a man to stay here he ought to make it more comfortable for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Since you expounded your justification of suicide,
+ Colonel, I believe you have had some cases of suicide laid at your door?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Oh, yes. Every suicide that has happened since that time
+ has been charged to me. I don't know how the people account for the
+ suicides before my time. I have not yet heard of my being charged with the
+ death of Cato, but that may yet come to pass. I was reading the other day
+ that the rate of suicide in Germany is increasing. I suppose my article
+ has been translated into German.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How about lying, Colonel? Is it ever right to lie?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, sometimes. In war when a man is captured by the
+ enemy he ought to lie to them to mislead them. What we call strategy is
+ nothing more than lies. For the accomplishment of a good end, for
+ instance, the saving of a woman's reputation, it is many times perfectly
+ right to lie. As a rule, people ought to tell the truth. If it is right to
+ kill a man to save your own life it certainly ought to be right to fool
+ him for the same purpose. I would rather be deceived than killed, wouldn't
+ you?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Inter-Ocean</i>, Chicago, Illinois, March, 1897.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0122" id="link0122">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A VISIT TO SHAW'S GARDEN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. I was told that you came to St. Louis on your wedding
+ trip some thirty years ago and went to Shaw's Garden?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes; we were married on the 13th of February, 1862. We were
+ here in St. Louis, and we did visit Shaw's Garden, and we thought it
+ perfectly beautiful. Afterward we visited the Kew Gardens in London, but
+ our remembrance of Shaw's left Kew in the shade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I have been in St. Louis many times, my first visit being, I
+ think, in 1854. I have always liked the town. I was acquainted at one time
+ with a great many of your old citizens. Most of them have died, and I know
+ but few of the present generation. I used to stop at the old Planter's
+ House, and I was there quite often during the war. In those days I saw
+ Hackett as Falstaff, the best Falstaff that ever lived. Ben de Bar was
+ here then, and the Maddern sisters, and now the daughter of one of the
+ sisters, Minnie Maddern Fiske, is one of the greatest actresses in the
+ world. She has made a wonderful hit in New York this season. And so the
+ ebb and flow of life goes on&mdash;the old pass and the young arrive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Death and progress!" It may be that death is, after all, a great
+ blessing. Maybe it gives zest and flavor to life, ardor and flame to love.
+ At the same time I say, "long life" to all my friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to live&mdash;I get great happiness out of life. I enjoy the
+ company of my friends. I enjoy seeing the faces of the ones I love. I
+ enjoy art and music. I love Shakespeare and Burns; love to hear the music
+ of Wagner; love to see a good play. I take pleasure in eating and
+ sleeping. The fact is, I like to breathe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to get all the happiness out of life that I can. I want to suck the
+ orange dry, so that when death comes nothing but the peelings will be
+ left, and so I say: "Long life!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Republic</i>, St. Louis, April 11, 1897.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0123" id="link0123">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISCUSSION AND THE WHIPPING-POST.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion as to the action of the President on
+ the Venezuelan matter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In my judgment, the President acted in haste and without
+ thought. It may be said that it would have been well enough for him to
+ have laid the correspondence before Congress and asked for an
+ appropriation for a commission to ascertain the facts, to the end that our
+ Government might intelligently act. There was no propriety in going
+ further than that. To almost declare war before the facts were known was a
+ blunder&mdash;almost a crime. For my part, I do not think the Monroe
+ doctrine has anything to do with the case. Mr. Olney reasons badly, and it
+ is only by a perversion of facts, and an exaggeration of facts, and by
+ calling in question the motives of England that it is possible to conclude
+ that the Monroe doctrine has or can have anything to do with the
+ controversy. The President went out of his way to find a cause of quarrel.
+ Nobody doubts the courage of the American people, and we for that reason
+ can afford to be sensible and prudent. Valor and discretion should go
+ together. Nobody doubts the courage of England.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ America and England are the leading nations, and in their keeping, to a
+ great extent, is the glory of the future. They should be at peace. Should
+ a difference arise it should be settled without recourse to war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fighting settles nothing but the relative strength. No light is thrown on
+ the cause of the conflict&mdash;on the question or fact that caused the
+ war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think that there is any danger of war?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. If the members of Congress really represent the people,
+ then there is danger. But I do not believe the people will really want to
+ fight about a few square miles of malarial territory in Venezuela&mdash;something
+ in which they have no earthly or heavenly interest. The people do not wish
+ to fight for fight's sake. When they understand the question they will
+ regard the administration as almost insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The message has already cost us more than the War of 1812 or the Mexican
+ war, or both. Stocks and bonds have decreased in value several hundred
+ millions, and the end is not yet. It may be that it will, on account of
+ the panic, be impossible for the Government to maintain the gold standard&mdash;the
+ reserve. Then gold would command a premium, the Government would be unable
+ to redeem the greenbacks, and the result would be financial chaos, and all
+ this the result of Mr. Cleveland's curiosity about a boundary line between
+ two countries, in neither of which we have any interest, and this
+ curiosity has already cost us more than both countries, including the
+ boundary line, are worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The President made a great mistake. So did the House and Senate, and the
+ poor people have paid a part of the cost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your opinion of the Gerry Whipping Post bill?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I see that it has passed the Senate, and yet I think it is
+ a disgrace to the State. How the Senators can go back to torture, to the
+ Dark Ages, to the custom of savagery, is beyond belief. I hope that the
+ House is nearer civilized, and that the infamous bill will be defeated.
+ If, however, the bill should pass, then I hope Governor Morton will veto
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is more disgusting, more degrading, than the whipping-post. It
+ degrades the whipped and the whipper. It degrades all who witness the
+ flogging. What kind of a person will do the whipping? Men who would apply
+ the lash to the naked backs of criminals would have to be as low as the
+ criminals, and probably a little lower.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The shadow of the whipping-post does not fall on any civilized country,
+ and never will. The next thing we know Mr. Gerry will probably introduce
+ some bill to brand criminals on the forehead or cut off their ears and
+ slit their noses. This is in the same line, and is born of the same
+ hellish spirit. There is no reforming power in torture, in bruising and
+ mangling the flesh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the bill becomes a law, I hope it will provide that the lash shall be
+ applied by Mr. Gerry and his successors in office. Let these pretended
+ enemies of cruelty enjoy themselves. If the bill passes, I presume Mr.
+ Gerry could get a supply of knouts from Russia, as that country has just
+ abolished the whipping-post.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Journal</i>, New York, December 24, 1895.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0124" id="link0124">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ COLONEL SHEPARD'S STAGE HORSES.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* One of Colonel Shepard's equine wrecks was picked up on
+ Fifth avenue yesterday by the Prevention of Cruelty Society,
+ and was laid up for repairs. The horse was about twenty-
+ eight years old, badly foundered, and its leg was cut and
+ bleeding. It was the leader of three that had been hauling
+ a Fifth avenue stage, and, according to the Society's
+ agents, was in about as bad a condition as a horse could be
+ and keep on his feet. The other two horses were little
+ better, neither of them being fit to drive.
+
+ Colonel Shepard's scrawny nags have long been an eyesore to
+ Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, who is compelled to see them
+ from his windows at number 400 Fifth avenue. He said last
+ night:]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ It might not be in good taste for me to say anything about Colonel
+ Shepard's horses. He might think me prejudiced. But I am satisfied horses
+ cannot live on faith or on the substance of things hoped for. It is far
+ better for the horse, to feed him without praying, than to pray without
+ feeding him. It is better to be kind even to animals, than to quote
+ Scripture in small capitals. Now, I am not saying anything against Colonel
+ Shepard. I do not know how he feeds his horses. If he is as good and kind
+ as he is pious, then I have nothing to say. Maybe he does not allow the
+ horses to break the Sabbath by eating. They are so slow that they make one
+ think of a fast. They put me in mind of the Garden of Eden&mdash;the rib
+ story. When I watch them on the avenue I, too, fall to quoting Scripture,
+ and say, "Can these dry bones live?" Still, I have a delicacy on this
+ subject; I hate to think about it, and I think the horses feel the same
+ way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Morning Advertiser</i>, New York, January 21, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0125" id="link0125">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. L. A. BANKS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Have you read the remarks made about you by the Rev. Mr.
+ Banks, and what do you think of what he said?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. The reverend gentleman pays me a great compliment by
+ comparing me to a circus. Everybody enjoys the circus. They love to see
+ the acrobats, the walkers on the tight rope, the beautiful girls on the
+ horses, and they laugh at the wit of the clowns. They are delighted with
+ the jugglers, with the music of the band. They drink the lemonade, eat the
+ colored popcorn and laugh until they nearly roll off their seats. Now the
+ circus has a few animals so that Christians can have an excuse for going.
+ Think of the joy the circus gives to the boys and girls. They look at the
+ show bills, see the men and women flying through the air, bursting through
+ paper hoops, the elephants standing on their heads, and the clowns, in
+ curious clothes, with hands on their knees and open mouths, supposed to be
+ filled with laughter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the boys and girls for many miles around know the blessed day. They
+ save their money, obey their parents, and when the circus comes they are
+ on hand. They see the procession and then they see the show. They are all
+ happy. No sermon ever pleased them as much, and in comparison even the
+ Sunday school is tame and dull.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To feel that I have given as much joy as the circus fills me with
+ pleasure. What chance would the Rev. Dr. Banks stand against a circus?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reverend gentleman has done me a great honor, and I tender him my
+ sincere thanks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Dr. Banks says that you write only one lecture a year,
+ while preachers write a brand new one every week&mdash;that if you did
+ that people would tire of you. What have you to say to that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It may be that great artists paint only one picture a year,
+ and it may be that sign painters can do several jobs a day. Still, I would
+ not say that the sign painters were superior to the artists. There is
+ quite a difference between a sculptor and a stone-cutter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are thousands of preachers and thousands and thousands of sermons
+ preached every year. Has any orthodox minister in the year 1898 given just
+ one paragraph to literature? Has any orthodox preacher uttered one great
+ thought, clothed in perfect English that thrilled the hearers like music&mdash;one
+ great strophe that became one of the treasures of memory?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will make the question a little clearer. Has any orthodox preacher, or
+ any preacher in an orthodox pulpit uttered a paragraph of what may be
+ called sculptured speech since Henry Ward Beecher died? I do not wonder
+ that the sermons are poor. Their doctrines have been discussed for
+ centuries. There is little chance for originality; they not only thresh
+ old straw, but the thresh straw that has been threshed a million times&mdash;straw
+ in which there has not been a grain of wheat for hundreds of years. No
+ wonder that they have nervous prostration. No wonder that they need
+ vacations, and no wonder that their congregations enjoy the vacations as
+ keenly as the ministers themselves. Better deliver a real good address
+ fifty-two times than fifty-two poor ones&mdash;just for the sake of
+ variety.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Dr. Banks says that the tendency at present is not toward
+ Agnosticism, but toward Christianity. What is your opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. When I was a boy "Infidels" were very rare. A man who
+ denied the inspiration of the Bible was regarded as a monster. Now there
+ are in this country millions who regard the Bible as the work of ignorant
+ and superstitious men. A few years ago the Bible was the standard. All
+ scientific theories were tested by the Bible. Now science is the standard
+ and the Bible is tested by that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Banks did not mention the names of the great scientists who are or
+ were Christians, but he probably thought of Laplace, Humboldt, Haeckel,
+ Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, Darwin, Helmholtz and Draper. When he spoke of
+ Christian statesmen he likely thought of Jefferson, Franklin, Washington,
+ Paine and Lincoln&mdash;or he may have thought of Pierce, Fillmore and
+ Buchanan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, after all, there is no argument in names. A man is not necessarily
+ great because he holds office or wears a crown or talks in a pulpit.
+ Facts, reasons, are better than names. But it seems to me that nothing can
+ be plainer than that the church is losing ground&mdash;that the people are
+ discarding the creeds and that superstition has passed the zenith of its
+ power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Dr. Banks says that Christ did not mention the Western
+ Hemisphere because God does nothing for men that they can do for
+ themselves. What have you to say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Christ said nothing about the Western Hemisphere because he
+ did not know that it existed. He did not know the shape of the earth. He
+ was not a scientist&mdash;never even hinted at any science&mdash; never
+ told anybody to investigate&mdash;to think. His idea was that this life
+ should be spent in preparing for the next. For all the evils of this life,
+ and the next, faith was his remedy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see from the report in the paper that Dr. Banks, after making the
+ remarks about me preached a sermon on "Herod the Villain in the Drama of
+ Christ." Who made Herod? Dr. Banks will answer that God made him. Did God
+ know what Herod would do? Yes. Did he know that he would cause the
+ children to be slaughtered in his vain efforts to kill the infant Christ?
+ Yes. Dr. Banks will say that God is not responsible for Herod because he
+ gave Herod freedom. Did God know how Herod would use his freedom? Did he
+ know that he would become the villain in the drama of Christ? Yes. Who,
+ then, is really responsible for the acts of Herod?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I could change a stone into a human being, and if I could give this
+ being freedom of will, and if I knew that if I made him he would murder a
+ man, and if with that knowledge I made him, and he did commit a murder,
+ who would be the real murderer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will Dr. Banks in his fifty-two sermons of next year show that his God is
+ not responsible for the crimes of Herod?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No doubt Dr. Banks is a good man, and no doubt he thinks that liberty of
+ thought leads to hell, and honestly believes that all doubt comes from the
+ Devil. I do not blame him. He thinks as he must. He is a product of
+ conditions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He ought to be my friend because I am doing the best I can to civilize his
+ congregation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Plain Dealer</i>, Cleveland, Ohio, 1898.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0126" id="link0126">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CUBA&mdash;ZOLA AND THEOSOPHY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think, Colonel, of the Cuban question?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. What I know about this question is known by all. I suppose
+ that the President has information that I know nothing about. Of course,
+ all my sympathies are with the Cubans. They are making a desperate&mdash;an
+ heroic struggle for their freedom. For many years they have been robbed
+ and trampled under foot. Spain is, and always has been, a terrible master&mdash;heartless
+ and infamous. There is no language with which to tell what Cuba has
+ suffered. In my judgment, this country should assist the Cubans. We ought
+ to acknowledge the independence of that island, and we ought to feed the
+ starving victims of Spain. For years we have been helping Spain. Cleveland
+ did all he could to prevent the Cubans from getting arms and men. This was
+ a criminal mistake&mdash;a mistake that even Spain did not appreciate. All
+ this should instantly be reversed, and we should give aid to Cuba. The war
+ that Spain is waging shocks every civilized man. Spain has always been the
+ same. In Holland, in Peru, in Mexico, she was infinitely cruel, and she is
+ the same to-day. She loves to torture, to imprison, to degrade, to kill.
+ Her idea of perfect happiness is to shed blood. Spain is a legacy of the
+ Dark Ages. She belongs to the den, the cave period. She has no business to
+ exist. She is a blot, a stain on the map of the world. Of course there are
+ some good Spaniards, but they are not in control.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want Cuba to be free. I want Spain driven from the Western World. She
+ has already starved five hundred thousand Cubans&mdash;poor, helpless
+ non-combatants. Among the helpless she is like a hyena&mdash;a tiger among
+ lambs. This country ought to stop this gigantic crime. We should do this
+ in the name of humanity&mdash;for the sake of the starving, the dying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think we are going to have war with Spain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not think there will be war. Unless Spain is insane,
+ she will not attack the United States. She is bankrupt. No nation will
+ assist her. A civilized nation would be ashamed to take her hand, to be
+ her friend. She has not the power to put down the rebellion in Cuba. How
+ then can she hope to conquer this country? She is full of brag and
+ bluster. Of course she will play her hand for all it is worth, so far as
+ talk goes. She will double her fists and make motions. She will assume the
+ attitude of war, but she will never fight. Should she commence
+ hostilities, the war would be short. She would lose her navy. The little
+ commerce she has would be driven from the sea. She would drink to the
+ dregs the cup of humiliation and disgrace. I do not believe that Spain is
+ insane enough to fire upon our flag. I know that there is nothing too
+ mean, too cruel for her to do, but still she must have sense enough to try
+ and save her own life. No, I think there will be no war, but I believe
+ that Cuba will be free. My opinion is that the Maine was blown up from the
+ outside&mdash;blown up by Spanish officers, and I think the report of the
+ Board will be to that effect. Such a crime ought to redden even the cheeks
+ of Spain. As soon as this fact is known, other nations will regard Spain
+ with hatred and horror. If the Maine was destroyed by Spain we will ask
+ for indemnity. The people insist that the account be settled and at once.
+ Possibly we may attack Spain. There is the only danger of war. We must
+ avenge that crime. The destruction of two hundred and fifty-nine Americans
+ must be avenged. Free Cuba must be their monument. I hope for the sake of
+ human nature that the Spanish did not destroy the Maine. I hope it was the
+ result of an accident. I hope there is to be no war, but Spain must be
+ driven from the New World.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What about Zola's trial and conviction?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. It was one of the most infamous trials in the history of
+ the world. Zola is a great man, a genius, the best man in France. His
+ trial was a travesty on justice. The judge acted like a bandit. The
+ proceedings were a disgrace to human nature. The jurors must have been
+ ignorant beasts. The French have disgraced themselves. Long live Zola.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Having expressed yourself less upon the subject of
+ Theosophy than upon other religious beliefs, and as Theosophy denies the
+ existence of a God as worshiped by Christianity, what is your idea of the
+ creed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Insanity. I think it is a mild form of delusion and
+ illusion; vague, misty, obscure, half dream, mixed with other mistakes and
+ fragments of facts&mdash;a little philosophy, absurdity&mdash; a few
+ impossibilities&mdash;some improbabilities&mdash;some accounts of events
+ that never happened&mdash;some prophecies that will not come to pass&mdash;
+ a structure without foundation. But the Theosophists are good people; kind
+ and honest. Theosophy is based on the supernatural and is just as absurd
+ as the orthodox creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Courier-Journal</i>, Louisville, Ky., February, 1898.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0127" id="link0127">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HOW TO BECOME AN ORATOR.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What advice would you give to a young man who was
+ ambitious to become a successful public speaker or orator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the first place, I would advise him to have something to
+ say&mdash;something worth saying&mdash;something that people would be glad
+ to hear. This is the important thing. Back of the art of speaking must be
+ the power to think. Without thoughts words are empty purses. Most people
+ imagine that almost any words uttered in a loud voice and accompanied by
+ appropriate gestures, constitute an oration. I would advise the young man
+ to study his subject, to find what others had thought, to look at it from
+ all sides. Then I would tell him to write out his thoughts or to arrange
+ them in his mind, so that he would know exactly what he was going to say.
+ Waste no time on the how until you are satisfied with the what. After you
+ know what you are to say, then you can think of how it should be said.
+ Then you can think about tone, emphasis, and gesture; but if you really
+ understand what you say, emphasis, tone, and gesture will take care of
+ themselves. All these should come from the inside. They should be in
+ perfect harmony with the feelings. Voice and gesture should be governed by
+ the emotions. They should unconsciously be in perfect agreement with the
+ sentiments. The orator should be true to his subject, should avoid any
+ reference to himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great column of his argument should be unbroken. He can adorn it with
+ vines and flowers, but they should not be in such profusion as to hide the
+ column. He should give variety of episode by illustrations, but they
+ should be used only for the purpose of adding strength to the argument.
+ The man who wishes to become an orator should study language. He should
+ know the deeper meaning of words. He should understand the vigor and
+ velocity of verbs and the color of adjectives. He should know how to
+ sketch a scene, to paint a picture, to give life and action. He should be
+ a poet and a dramatist, a painter and an actor. He should cultivate his
+ imagination. He should become familiar with the great poetry and fiction,
+ with splendid and heroic deeds. He should be a student of Shakespeare. He
+ should read and devour the great plays. From Shakespeare he could learn
+ the art of expression, of compression, and all the secrets of the head and
+ heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great orator is full of variety&mdash;of surprises. Like a juggler, he
+ keeps the colored balls in the air. He expresses himself in pictures. His
+ speech is a panorama. By continued change he holds the attention. The
+ interest does not flag. He does not allow himself to be anticipated. A
+ picture is shown but once. So, an orator should avoid the commonplace.
+ There should be no stuffing, no filling. He should put no cotton with his
+ silk, no common metals with his gold. He should remember that "gilded dust
+ is not as good as dusted gold." The great orator is honest, sincere. He
+ does not pretend. His brain and heart go together. Every drop of his blood
+ is convinced. Nothing is forced. He knows exactly what he wishes to do&mdash;knows
+ when he has finished it, and stops.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a great orator knows when and how to close. Most speakers go on after
+ they are through. They are satisfied only with a "lame and impotent
+ conclusion." Most speakers lack variety. They travel a straight and dusty
+ road. The great orator is full of episode. He convinces and charms by
+ indirection. He leaves the road, visits the fields, wanders in the woods,
+ listens to the murmurs of springs, the songs of birds. He gathers flowers,
+ scales the crags and comes back to the highway refreshed, invigorated. He
+ does not move in a straight line. He wanders and winds like a stream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, no one can tell a man what to do to become an orator. The great
+ orator has that wonderful thing called presence. He has that strange
+ something known as magnetism. He must have a flexible, musical voice,
+ capable of expressing the pathetic, the humorous, the heroic. His body
+ must move in unison with his thought. He must be a reasoner, a logician.
+ He must have a keen sense of humor &mdash;of the laughable. He must have
+ wit, sharp and quick. He must have sympathy. His smiles should be the
+ neighbors of his tears. He must have imagination. He should give eagles to
+ the air, and painted moths should flutter in the sunlight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While I cannot tell a man what to do to become an orator, I can tell him a
+ few things not to do. There should be no introduction to an oration. The
+ orator should commence with his subject. There should be no prelude, no
+ flourish, no apology, no explanation. He should say nothing about himself.
+ Like a sculptor, he stands by his block of stone. Every stroke is for a
+ purpose. As he works the form begins to appear. When the statue is
+ finished the workman stops. Nothing is more difficult than a perfect
+ close. Few poems, few pieces of music, few novels end well. A good story,
+ a great speech, a perfect poem should end just at the proper point. The
+ bud, the blossom, the fruit. No delay. A great speech is a crystallization
+ in its logic, an efflorescence in its poetry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have not heard many speeches. Most of the great speakers in our country
+ were before my time. I heard Beecher, and he was an orator. He had
+ imagination, humor and intensity. His brain was as fertile as the valleys
+ of the tropics. He was too broad, too philosophic, too poetic for the
+ pulpit. Now and then, he broke the fetters of his creed, escaped from his
+ orthodox prison, and became sublime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theodore Parker was an orator. He preached great sermons. His sermons on
+ "Old Age" and "Webster," and his address on "Liberty" were filled with
+ great thoughts, marvelously expressed. When he dealt with human events,
+ with realities, with things he knew, he was superb. When he spoke of
+ freedom, of duty, of living to the ideal, of mental integrity, he seemed
+ inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Webster I never heard. He had great qualities; force, dignity, clearness,
+ grandeur; but, after all, he worshiped the past. He kept his back to the
+ sunrise. There was no dawn in his brain. He was not creative. He had no
+ spirit of prophecy. He lighted no torch. He was not true to his ideal. He
+ talked sometimes as though his head was among the stars, but he stood in
+ the gutter. In the name of religion he tried to break the will of Stephen
+ Girard&mdash;to destroy the greatest charity in all the world; and in the
+ name of the same religion he defended the Fugitive Slave Law. His purpose
+ was the same in both cases. He wanted office. Yet he uttered a few very
+ great paragraphs, rich with thought, perfectly expressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Clay I never heard, but he must have had a commanding presence, a
+ chivalric bearing, an heroic voice. He cared little for the past. He was a
+ natural leader, a wonderful talker&mdash;forcible, persuasive, convincing.
+ He was not a poet, not a master of metaphor, but he was practical. He kept
+ in view the end to be accomplished. He was the opposite of Webster. Clay
+ was the morning, Webster the evening. Clay had large views, a wide
+ horizon. He was ample, vigorous, and a little tyrannical.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Benton was thoroughly commonplace. He never uttered an inspired word. He
+ was an intense egoist. No subject was great enough to make him forget
+ himself. Calhoun was a political Calvinist&mdash;narrow, logical,
+ dogmatic. He was not an orator. He delivered essays, not orations. I think
+ it was in 1851 that Kossuth visited this country. He was an orator. There
+ was no man, at that time, under our flag, who could speak English as well
+ as he. In the first speech I read of Kossuth's was this line: "Russia is
+ the rock against which the sigh for freedom breaks." In this you see the
+ poet, the painter, the orator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ S. S. Prentiss was an orator, but, with the recklessness of a gamester, he
+ threw his life away. He said profound and beautiful things, but he lacked
+ application. He was uneven, disproportioned, saying ordinary things on
+ great occasions, and now and then, without the slightest provocation,
+ uttering the sublimest and most beautiful thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, Corwin was the greatest orator of them all. He had more
+ arrows in his quiver. He had genius. He was full of humor, pathos, wit,
+ and logic. He was an actor. His body talked. His meaning was in his eyes
+ and lips. Gov. O. P. Morton of Indiana had the greatest power of statement
+ of any man I ever heard. All the argument was in his statement. The facts
+ were perfectly grouped. The conclusion was a necessity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The best political speech I ever heard was made by Gov. Richard J. Oglesby
+ of Illinois. It had every element of greatness&mdash;reason, humor, wit,
+ pathos, imagination, and perfect naturalness. That was in the grand years,
+ long ago. Lincoln had reason, wonderful humor, and wit, but his presence
+ was not good. His voice was poor, his gestures awkward&mdash;but his
+ thoughts were profound. His speech at Gettysburg is one of the
+ masterpieces of the world. The word "here" is used four or five times too
+ often. Leave the "heres" out, and the speech is perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I have heard a great many talkers, but orators are few and far
+ between. They are produced by victorious nations&mdash;born in the midst
+ of great events, of marvelous achievements. They utter the thoughts, the
+ aspirations of their age. They clothe the children of the people in the
+ gorgeous robes of giants. The interpret the dreams. With the poets, they
+ prophesy. They fill the future with heroic forms, with lofty deeds. They
+ keep their faces toward the dawn&mdash;toward the ever-coming day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>New York Sun</i>, April, 1898.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0128" id="link0128">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG AND EXPANSION.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ <i>Question</i>. You knew John Russell Young, Colonel?
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I knew him well and we were friends for many years. He
+ was a wonderfully intelligent man&mdash;knew something about everything,
+ had read most books worth reading. He was one of the truest friends. He
+ had a genius for friendship. He never failed to do a favor when he could,
+ and he never forgot a favor. He had the genius of gratitude. His mind was
+ keen, smooth, clear, and he really loved to think. I had the greatest
+ admiration for his character and I was shocked when I read of his death. I
+ did not know that he had been ill. All my heart goes out to his wife&mdash;a
+ lovely woman, now left alone with her boy. After all, life is a fearful
+ thing at best. The brighter the sunshine the deeper the shadow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Are you in favor of expansion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I have always wanted more&mdash;I love to see the
+ Republic grow. I wanted the Sandwich Islands, wanted Porto Rico, and I
+ want Cuba if the Cubans want us. I want the Philippines if the Filipinos
+ want us&mdash;I do not want to conquer and enslave those people. The war
+ on the Filipinos is a great mistake&mdash;a blunder&mdash;almost a crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the President had declared his policy, then, if his policy was right,
+ there was no need of war. The President should have told the Filipinos
+ just exactly what he wanted. It is a small business, after Dewey covered
+ Manila Bay with glory, to murder a lot of half- armed savages. We had no
+ right to buy, because Spain had no right to sell the Philippines. We
+ acquired no rights on those islands by whipping Spain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Do you think the President should have stated his policy
+ in Boston the other day?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Yes, I think it would be better if he would unpack his
+ little budget&mdash;I like McKinley, but I liked him just as well before
+ he was President. He is a good man, not because he is President, but
+ because he is a man&mdash;you know that real honor must be earned&mdash;
+ people cannot give honor&mdash;honor is not alms&mdash;it is wages. So,
+ when a man is elected President the best thing he can do is to remain a
+ natural man. Yes, I wish McKinley would brush all his advisers to one side
+ and say his say; I believe his say would be right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, don't change this interview and make me say something mean about
+ McKinley, because I like him. The other day, in Chicago, I had an
+ interview and I wrote it out. In that "interview" I said a few things
+ about the position of Senator Hoar. I tried to show that he was wrong&mdash;but
+ I took pains to express by admiration for Senator Hoar. When the interview
+ was published I was made to say that Senator Hoar was a mud-head. I never
+ said or thought anything of the kind. Don't treat me as that Chicago
+ reporter did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Atkinson's speech?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Well, some of it is good&mdash;but I never want to see the
+ soldiers of the Republic whipped. I am always on our side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Press</i>, Philadelphia, February 20, 1899.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0129" id="link0129">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE BIBLE.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* As an incident in the life of any one favored with the
+ privilege, a visit to the home of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll
+ is certain to be recalled as a most pleasant and profitable
+ experience. Although not a sympathizer with the great
+ Agnostic's religious views, yet I have long admired his
+ ability, his humor, his intellectual honesty and courage.
+ And it was with gratification that I accepted the good
+ offices of a common friend who recently offered to introduce
+ me to the Ingersoll domestic circle in Gramercy Park. Here
+ I found the genial Colonel, surrounded by his children, his
+ grandchildren, and his amiable wife, whose smiling greeting
+ dispelled formality and breathed "Welcome" in every
+ syllable. The family relationship seemed absolutely ideal&mdash;
+ the very walls emitting an atmosphere of art and music, of
+ contentment and companionship, of mutual trust, happiness
+ and generosity.
+
+ But my chief desire was to elicit Colonel Ingersoll's
+ personal views on questions related to the New Thought and
+ its attitude on matters on which he is known to have very
+ decided opinions. My request for a private chat was
+ cordially granted. During the conversation that ensued&mdash;(the
+ substance of which is presented to the readers of <i>Mind</i> in
+ the following paragraphs, with the Colonel's consent)&mdash;I was
+ impressed most deeply, not by the force of his arguments,
+ but by the sincerity of his convictions. Among some of his
+ more violent opponents, who presumably lack other
+ opportunities of becoming known, it is the fashion to accuse
+ Ingersoll of having really no belief in his own opinions.
+ But, if he convinced me of little else, he certainly,
+ without effort, satisfied my mind that this accusation is a
+ slander. Utterly mistaken in his views he may be; but if so,
+ his errors are more honest than many of those he points out
+ in the King James version of the Bible. If his pulpit
+ enemies could talk with this man by his own fireside, they
+ would pay less attention to Ingersoll himself and more to
+ what he says. They would consider his <i>meaning</i>, rather than
+ his motive.
+
+ As the Colonel is the most conspicuous denunciator of
+ intolerance and bigotry in America, he has been inevitably
+ the greatest victim of these obstacles to mental freedom.
+ "To answer Ingersoll" is the pet ambition of many a young
+ clergyman&mdash;the older ones have either acquired prudence or
+ are broad enough to concede the utility of even Agnostics in
+ the economy of evolution. It was with the very subject that
+ we began our talk&mdash;the uncharitableness of men, otherwise
+ good, in their treatment of those whose religious views
+ differ from their own.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What is your conception of true intellectual hospitality?
+ As Truth can brook no compromises, has it not the same limitations that
+ surround social and domestic hospitality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In the republic of mind we are all equals. Each one is
+ sceptered and crowned. Each one is the monarch of his own realm. By
+ "intellectual hospitality" I mean the right of every one to think and to
+ express his thought. It makes no difference whether his thought is right
+ or wrong. If you are intellectually hospitable you will admit the right of
+ every human being to see for himself; to hear with his own ears, see with
+ his own eyes, and think with his own brain. You will not try to change his
+ thought by force, by persecution, or by slander. You will not threaten him
+ with punishment&mdash;here or hereafter. You will give him your thought,
+ your reasons, your facts; and there you will stop. This is intellectual
+ hospitality. You do not give up what you believe to be the truth; you do
+ not compromise. You simply give him the liberty you claim for yourself.
+ The truth is not affected by your opinion or by his. Both may be wrong.
+ For many years the church has claimed to have the "truth," and has also
+ insisted that it is the duty of every man to believe it, whether it is
+ reasonable to him or not. This is bigotry in its basest form. Every man
+ should be guided by his reason; should be true to himself; should preserve
+ the veracity of his soul. Each human being should judge for himself. The
+ man that believes that all men have this right is intellectually
+ hospitable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In the sharp distinction between theology and religion
+ that is now recognized by many theologians, and in the liberalizing of the
+ church that has marked the last two decades, are not most of your
+ contentions already granted? Is not the "lake of fire and brimstone" an
+ obsolete issue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There has been in the last few years a great advance. The
+ orthodox creeds have been growing vulgar and cruel. Civilized people are
+ shocked at the dogma of eternal pain, and the belief in hell has mostly
+ faded away. The churches have not changed their creeds. They still pretend
+ to believe as they always have&mdash;but they have changed their tone. God
+ is now a father&mdash;a friend. He is no longer the monster, the savage,
+ described in the Bible. He has become somewhat civilized. He no longer
+ claims the right to damn us because he made us. But in spite of all the
+ errors and contradictions, in spite of the cruelties and absurdities found
+ in the Scriptures, the churches still insist that the Bible is <i>inspired</i>.
+ The educated ministers admit that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses;
+ that the Psalms were not written by David; that Isaiah was the work of at
+ least three; that Daniel was not written until after the prophecies
+ mentioned in that book had been fulfilled; that Ecclesiastes was not
+ written until the second century after Christ; that Solomon's Song was not
+ written by Solomon; that the book of Esther is of no importance; and that
+ no one knows, or pretends to know, who were the authors of Kings, Samuel,
+ Chronicles, or Job. And yet these same gentlemen still cling to the dogma
+ of inspiration! It is no longer claimed that the Bible is true&mdash;but
+ <i>inspired</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Yet the sacred volume, no matter who wrote it, is a mine
+ of wealth to the student and the philosopher, is it not? Would you have us
+ discard it altogether?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Inspiration must be abandoned, and the Bible must take its
+ place among the books of the world. It contains some good passages, a
+ little poetry, some good sense, and some kindness; but its philosophy is
+ frightful. In fact, if the book had never existed I think it would have
+ been far better for mankind. It is not enough to give up the Bible; that
+ is only the beginning. The <i>supernatural</i> must be given up. It must
+ be admitted that Nature has no master; that there never has been any
+ interference from without; that man has received no help from heaven; and
+ that all the prayers that have ever been uttered have died unanswered in
+ the heedless air. The religion of the supernatural has been a curse. We
+ want the religion of usefulness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But have you no use whatever for prayer&mdash;even in the
+ sense of aspiration&mdash;or for faith, in the sense of confidence in the
+ ultimate triumph of the right?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is a difference between wishing, hoping, believing,
+ and&mdash;knowing. We can wish without evidence or probability, and we can
+ wish for the impossible&mdash;for what we believe can never be. We cannot
+ hope unless there is in the mind a possibility that the thing hoped for
+ can happen. We can believe only in accordance with evidence, and we know
+ only that which has been demonstrated. I have no use for prayer; but I do
+ a good deal of wishing and hoping. I hope that some time the right will
+ triumph&mdash;that Truth will gain the victory; but I have no faith in
+ gaining the assistance of any god, or of any supernatural power. I never
+ pray.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. However fully materialism, as a philosophy, may accord
+ with the merely human <i>reason</i>, is it not wholly antagonistic to the
+ instinctive faculties of the mind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Human reason is the final arbiter. Any system that does not
+ commend itself to the reason must fall. I do not know exactly what you
+ mean by <i>materialism</i>. I do not know what matter is. I am satisfied,
+ however, that without matter there can be no force, no life, no thought,
+ no reason. It seems to me that mind is a form of force, and force cannot
+ exist apart from matter. If it is said that God created the universe, then
+ there must have been a time when he commenced to create. If at that time
+ there was nothing in existence but himself, how could he have exerted any
+ force? Force cannot be exerted except in opposition to force. If God was
+ the only existence, force could not have been exerted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. But don't you think, Colonel, that the materialistic
+ philosophy, even in the light of your own interpretation, is essentially
+ pessimistic?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I do not consider it so. I believe that the pessimists and
+ the optimists are both right. This is the worst possible world, and this
+ is the best possible world&mdash;because it is as it must be. The present
+ is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What have you to say concerning the operations of the
+ Society for Psychical Research? Do not its facts and conclusions prove, if
+ not immortality, at least the continuity of life beyond the grave? Are the
+ millions of Spiritualists deluded?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course I have heard and read a great deal about the
+ doings of the Society; so, I have some knowledge as to what is claimed by
+ Spiritualists, by Theosophists, and by all other believers in what are
+ called "spiritual manifestations." Thousands of wonderful tings have been
+ established by what is called "evidence" &mdash;the testimony of good men
+ and women. I have seen things done that I could not explain, both by
+ mediums and magicians. I also know that it is easy to deceive the senses,
+ and that the old saying "that seeing is believing" is subject to many
+ exceptions. I am perfectly satisfied that there is, and can be, no force
+ without matter; that everything that is&mdash;all phenomena&mdash;all
+ actions and thoughts, all exhibitions of force, have a material basis&mdash;that
+ nothing exists,&mdash;ever did, or ever will exist, apart from matter. So
+ I am satisfied that no matter ever existed, or ever will, apart from
+ force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We think with the same force with which we walk. For every action and for
+ every thought, we draw upon the store of force that we have gained from
+ air and food. We create no force; we borrow it all. As force cannot exist
+ apart from matter, it must be used <i>with</i> matter. It travels only on
+ material roads. It is impossible to convey a thought to another without
+ the assistance of matter. No one can conceive of the use of one of our
+ senses without substance. No one can conceive of a thought in the absence
+ of the senses. With these conclusions in my mind&mdash;in my brain&mdash;I
+ have not the slightest confidence in "spiritual manifestations," and do
+ not believe that any message has ever been received from the dead. The
+ testimony that I have heard&mdash;that I have read&mdash;coming even from
+ men of science&mdash;has not the slightest weight with me. I do not
+ pretend to see beyond the grave. I do not say that man is, or is not,
+ immortal. All I say is that there is no evidence that we live again, and
+ no demonstration that we do not. It is better ignorantly to hope than
+ dishonestly to affirm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. And what do you think of the modern development of
+ metaphysics&mdash;as expressed outside of the emotional and semi-
+ ecclesiastical schools? I refer especially to the power of mind in the
+ curing of disease&mdash;as demonstrated by scores of drugless healers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I have no doubt that the condition of the mind has some
+ effect upon the health. The blood, the heart, the lungs answer&mdash;
+ respond to&mdash;emotion. There is no mind without body, and the body is
+ affected by thought&mdash;by passion, by cheerfulness, by depression.
+ Still, I have not the slightest confidence in what is called "mind cure."
+ I do not believe that thought, or any set of ideas, can cure a cancer, or
+ prevent the hair from falling out, or remove a tumor, or even freckles. At
+ the same time, I admit that cheerfulness is good and depression bad. But I
+ have no confidence in what you call "drugless healers." If the stomach is
+ sour, soda is better than thinking. If one is in great pain, opium will
+ beat meditation. I am a believer in what you call "drugs," and when I am
+ sick I send for a physician. I have no confidence in the supernatural.
+ Magic is not medicine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. One great object of this movement, is to make religion
+ scientific&mdash;an aid to intellectual as well as spiritual progress. Is
+ it not thus to be encouraged, and destined to succeed&mdash;even though it
+ prove the reality and supremacy of the spirit and the secondary importance
+ of the flesh?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. When religion becomes scientific, it ceases to be religion
+ and becomes science. Religion is not intellectual&mdash;it is emotional.
+ It does not appeal to the reason. The founder of a religion has always
+ said: "Let him that hath ears to hear, hear!" No founder has said: "Let
+ him that hath brains to think, think!" Besides, we need not trouble
+ ourselves about "spirit" and "flesh." We know that we know of no spirit&mdash;without
+ flesh. We have no evidence that spirit ever did or ever will exist apart
+ from flesh. Such existence is absolutely inconceivable. If we are going to
+ construct what you call a "religion," it must be founded on observed and
+ known facts. Theories, to be of value, must be in accord with all the
+ facts that are known; otherwise they are worthless. We need not try to get
+ back of facts or behind the truth. The <i>why</i> will forever elude us.
+ You cannot move your hand quickly enough to grasp your image back of the
+ mirror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>Mind</i>, New York, March, 1899.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0130" id="link0130">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THIS CENTURY'S GLORIES.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ The laurel of the nineteenth century is on Darwin's brow. This century has
+ been the greatest of all. The inventions, the discoveries, the victories
+ on the fields of thought, the advances in nearly every direction of human
+ effort are without parallel in human history. In only two directions have
+ the achievements of this century been excelled. The marbles of Greece have
+ not been equalled. They still occupy the niches dedicated to perfection.
+ They sculptors of our century stand before the miracles of the Greeks in
+ impotent wonder. They cannot even copy. They cannot give the breath of
+ life to stone and make the marble feel and think. The plays of Shakespeare
+ have never been approached. He reached the summit, filled the horizon. In
+ the direction of the dramatic, the poetic, the human mind, in my judgment,
+ in Shakespeare's plays reached its limit. The field was harvested, all the
+ secrets of the heart were told. The buds of all hopes blossomed, all seas
+ were crossed and all the shores were touched.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With these two exceptions, the Grecian marbles and the Shakespeare plays,
+ the nineteenth century has produced more for the benefit of man than all
+ the centuries of the past. In this century, in one direction, I think the
+ mind has reached the limit. I do not believe the music of Wagner will ever
+ be excelled. He changed all passions, longing, memories and aspirations
+ into tones, and with subtle harmonies wove tapestries of sound, whereon
+ were pictured the past and future, the history and prophecy of the human
+ heart. Of course Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Kepler laid the
+ foundations of astronomy. It may be that the three laws of Kepler mark the
+ highest point in that direction that the mind has reached.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the other centuries there is now and then a peak, but through ours
+ there runs a mountain range with Alp on Alp&mdash;the steamship that has
+ conquered all the seas; the railway, with its steeds of steel with breath
+ of flame, covers the land; the cables and telegraphs, along which
+ lightning is the carrier of thought, have made the nations neighbors and
+ brought the world to every home; the making of paper from wood, the
+ printing presses that made it possible to give the history of the human
+ race each day; the reapers, mowers and threshers that superseded the
+ cradles, scythes and flails; the lighting of streets and houses with gas
+ and incandescent lamps, changing night into day; the invention of matches
+ that made fire the companion of man; the process of making steel, invented
+ by Bessemer, saving for the world hundreds of millions a year; the
+ discovery of anesthetics, changing pain to happy dreams and making surgery
+ a science; the spectrum analysis, that told us the secrets of the suns;
+ the telephone, that transports speech, uniting lips and ears; the
+ phonograph, that holds in dots and marks the echoes of our words; the
+ marvelous machines that spin and weave, that manufacture the countless
+ things of use, the marvelous machines, whose wheels and levers seem to
+ think; the discoveries in chemistry, the wave theory of light, the
+ indestructibility of matter and force; the discovery of microbes and
+ bacilli, so that now the plague can be stayed without the assistance of
+ priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The art of photography became known, the sun became an artist, gave us the
+ faces of our friends, copies of the great paintings and statues, pictures
+ of the world's wonders, and enriched the eyes of poverty with the spoil of
+ travel, the wealth of art. The cell theory was advanced, embryology was
+ studied and science entered the secret house of life. The biologists,
+ guided by fossil forms, followed the paths of life from protoplasm up to
+ man. Then came Darwin with the "Origin of Species," "Natural Selection,"
+ and the "Survival of the Fittest." From his brain there came a flood of
+ light. The old theories grew foolish and absurd. The temple of every
+ science was rebuilt. That which had been called philosophy became childish
+ superstition. The prison doors were opened and millions of convicts, of
+ unconscious slaves, roved with joy over the fenceless fields of freedom.
+ Darwin and Haeckel and Huxley and their fellow-workers filled the night of
+ ignorance with the glittering stars of truth. This is Darwin's victory. He
+ gained the greatest victory, the grandest triumph. The laurel of the
+ nineteenth century is on his brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. How does the literature of to-day compare with that of
+ the first half of the century, in your opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. There is now no poet of laughter and tears, of comedy and
+ pathos, the equal of Hood. There is none with the subtle delicacy, the
+ aerial footstep, the flame-like motion of Shelley; none with the
+ amplitude, sweep and passion, with the strength and beauty, the courage
+ and royal recklessness of Byron. The novelists of our day are not the
+ equals of Dickens. In my judgment, Dickens wrote the greatest of all
+ novels. "The Tale of Two Cities" is the supreme work of fiction. Its
+ philosophy is perfect. The characters stand out like living statues. In
+ its pages you find the blood and flame, the ferocity and self-sacrifice of
+ the French Revolution. In the bosom of the Vengeance is the heart of the
+ horror. In 105, North Tower, sits one whom sorrow drove beyond the verge,
+ rescued from death by insanity, and we see the spirit of Dr. Manette
+ tremblingly cross the great gulf that lies between the night of dreams and
+ the blessed day, where things are as they seem, as a tress of golden hair,
+ while on his hands and cheeks fall Lucie's blessed tears. The story is
+ filled with lights and shadows, with the tragic and grotesque. While the
+ woman knits, while the heads fall, Jerry Cruncher gnaws his rusty nails
+ and his poor wife "flops" against his business, and prim Miss Pross, who
+ in the desperation and terror of love held Mme. Defarge in her arms and
+ who in the flash and crash found that her burden was dead, is drawn by the
+ hand of a master. And what shall I say of Sidney Carton? Of his last walk?
+ Of his last ride, holding the poor girl by the hand? Is there a more
+ wonderful character in all the realm of fiction? Sidney Carton, the
+ perfect lover, going to his death for the love of one who loves another.
+ To me the three greatest novels are "The Tale of Two Cities," by Dickens,
+ "Les Miserables," by Hugo, and "Ariadne," by Ouida.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Les Miserables" is full of faults and perfections. The tragic is
+ sometimes pushed to the grotesque, but from the depths it brings the
+ pearls of truth. A convict becomes holier than the saint, a prostitute
+ purer than the nun. This book fills the gutter with the glory of heaven,
+ while the waters of the sewer reflect the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In "Ariadne" you find the aroma of all art. It is a classic dream. And
+ there, too, you find the hot blood of full and ample life. Ouida is the
+ greatest living writer of fiction. Some of her books I do not like. If you
+ wish to know what Ouida really is, read "Wanda," "The Dog of Flanders,"
+ "The Leaf in a Storm." In these you will hear the beating of her heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the novelists of our time write good stories. They are ingenious,
+ the characters are well drawn, but they lack life, energy. They do not
+ appear to act for themselves, impelled by inner force. They seem to be
+ pushed and pulled. The same may be said of the poets. Tennyson belongs to
+ the latter half of our century. He was undoubtedly a great writer. He had
+ no flame or storm, no tidal wave, nothing volcanic. He never overflowed
+ the banks. He wrote nothing as intense, as noble and pathetic as the
+ "Prisoner of Chillon;" nothing as purely poetic as "The Skylark;" nothing
+ as perfect as the "Grecian Urn," and yet he was one of the greatest of
+ poets. Viewed from all sides he was far greater than Shelley, far nobler
+ than Keats. In a few poems Shelley reached almost the perfect, but many
+ are weak, feeble, fragmentary, almost meaningless. So Keats in three poems
+ reached a great height&mdash;in "St. Agnes' Eve," "The Grecian Urn," and
+ "The Nightingale"&mdash;but most of his poetry is insipid, without
+ thought, beauty or sincerity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have had some poets ourselves. Emerson wrote many poetic and
+ philosophic lines. He never violated any rule. He kept his passions under
+ control and generally "kept off the grass." But he uttered some great and
+ splendid truths and sowed countless seeds of suggestion. When we remember
+ that he came of a line of New England preachers we are amazed at the
+ breadth, the depth and the freedom of his thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Walt Whitman wrote a few great poems, elemental, natural&mdash;poems that
+ seem to be a part of nature, ample as the sky, having the rhythm of the
+ tides, the swing of a planet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whitcomb Riley has written poems of hearth and home, of love and labor
+ worthy of Robert Burns. He is the sweetest, strongest singer in our
+ country and I do not know his equal in any land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But when we compare the literature of the first half of this century with
+ that of the last, we are compelled to say that the last, taken as a whole,
+ is best. Think of the volumes that science has given to the world. In the
+ first half of this century, sermons, orthodox sermons, were published and
+ read. Now reading sermons is one of the lost habits. Taken as a whole, the
+ literature of the latter half of our century is better than the first. I
+ like the essays of Prof. Clifford. They are so clear, so logical that they
+ are poetic. Herbert Spencer is not simply instructive, he is charming. He
+ is full of true imagination. He is not the slave of imagination.
+ Imagination is his servant. Huxley wrote like a trained swordsman. His
+ thrusts were never parried. He had superb courage. He never apologized for
+ having an opinion. There was never on his soul the stain of evasion. He
+ was as candid as the truth. Haeckel is a great writer because he reveres a
+ fact, and would not for his life deny or misinterpret one. He tells what
+ he knows with the candor of a child and defends his conclusions like a
+ scientist, a philosopher. He stands next to Darwin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Coming back to fiction and poetry, I have great admiration for Edgar
+ Fawcett. There is in his poetry thought, beauty and philosophy. He has the
+ courage of his thought. He knows our language, the energy of verbs, the
+ color of adjectives. He is in the highest sense an artist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Hall Caine's recent efforts to bring
+ about a closer union between the stage and pulpit?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Of course, I am not certain as to the intentions of Mr.
+ Caine. I saw "The Christian," and it did not seem to me that the author
+ was trying to catch the clergy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is certainly nothing in the play calculated to please the pulpit.
+ There is a clergyman who is pious and heartless. John Storm is the only
+ Christian, and he is crazy. When Glory accepts him at last, you not only
+ feel, but you know she has acted the fool. The lord in the piece is a dog,
+ and the real gentleman is the chap that runs the music hall. How the play
+ can please the pulpit I do not see. Storm's whole career is a failure. His
+ followers turn on him like wild beasts. His religion is a divine and
+ diabolical dream. With him murder is one of the means of salvation. Mr.
+ Caine has struck Christianity a stinging blow between the eyes. He has put
+ two preachers on the stage, one a heartless hypocrite and the other a
+ madman. Certainly I am not prejudiced in favor of Christianity, and yet I
+ enjoyed the play. If Mr. Caine says he is trying to bring the stage and
+ the pulpit together, then he is a humorist, with the humor of Rabelais.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do recent exhibitions in this city, of scenes from
+ the life of Christ, indicate with regard to the tendencies of modern art?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Nothing. Some artists love the sombre, the melancholy, the
+ hopeless. They enjoy painting the bowed form, the tear-filled eyes. To
+ them grief is a festival. There are people who find pleasure in funerals.
+ They love to watch the mourners. The falling clods make music. They love
+ the silence, the heavy odors, the sorrowful hymns and the preacher's
+ remarks. The feelings of such people do not indicate the general trend of
+ the human mind. Even a poor artist may hope for success if he represents
+ something in which many millions are deeply interested, around which their
+ emotions cling like vines. A man need not be an orator to make a patriotic
+ speech, a speech that flatters his audience. So, an artist need not be
+ great in order to satisfy, if his subject appeals to the prejudice of
+ those who look at his pictures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have never seen a good painting of Christ. All the Christs that I have
+ seen lack strength and character. They look weak and despairing. They are
+ all unhealthy. They have the attitude of apology, the sickly smile of
+ non-resistance. I have never seen an heroic, serene and triumphant Christ.
+ To tell the truth, I never saw a great religious picture. They lack
+ sincerity. All the angels look almost idiotic. In their eyes is no
+ thought, only the innocence of ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think that art is leaving the celestial, the angelic, and is getting in
+ love with the natural, the human. Troyon put more genius in the
+ representation of cattle than Angelo and Raphael did in angels. No picture
+ has been painted of heaven that is as beautiful as a landscape by Corot.
+ The aim of art is to represent the realities, the highest and noblest, the
+ most beautiful. The Greeks did not try to make men like gods, but they
+ made gods like men. So that great artists of our day go to nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Is it not strange that, with one exception, the most
+ notable operas written since Wagner are by Italian composers instead of
+ German?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. For many years German musicians insisted that Wagner was
+ not a composer. They declared that he produced only a succession of
+ discordant noises. I account for this by the fact that the music of Wagner
+ was not German. His countrymen could not understand it. They had to be
+ educated. There was no orchestra in Germany that could really play
+ "Tristan and Isolde." Its eloquence, its pathos, its shoreless passion was
+ beyond them. There is no reason to suppose that Germany is to produce
+ another Wagner. Is England expected to give us another Shakespeare?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Sun</i>, New York, March 19, 1899.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0131" id="link0131">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE WHIPPING-POST.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What do you think of Governor Roosevelt's decision in the
+ case of Mrs. Place?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I think the refusal of Governor Roosevelt to commute the
+ sentence of Mrs. Place is a disgrace to the State. What a spectacle of man
+ killing a woman&mdash;taking a poor, pallid, frightened woman, strapping
+ her to a chair and then arranging the apparatus so she can be shocked to
+ death. Many call this a Christian country. A good many people who believe
+ in hell would naturally feel it their duty to kill a wretched, insane
+ woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Society has a right to protect itself, but this can be done by
+ imprisonment, and it is more humane to put a criminal in a cell than in a
+ grave. Capital punishment degrades and hardens a community and it is a
+ work of savagery. It is savagery. Capital punishment does not prevent
+ murder, but sets an example&mdash;an example by the State&mdash;that is
+ followed by its citizens. The State murders its enemies and the citizen
+ murders his. Any punishment that degrades the punished, must necessarily
+ degrade the one inflicting the punishment. No punishment should be
+ inflicted by a human being that could not be inflicted by a gentleman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For instance, take the whipping-post. Some people are in favor of flogging
+ because they say that some offences are of such a frightful nature that
+ flogging is the only punishment. They forget that the punishment must be
+ inflicted by somebody, and that somebody is a low and contemptible cur. I
+ understand that John G. Shortall, president of the Humane Society of
+ Illinois, has had a bill introduced into the Legislature of the State for
+ the establishment of the whipping-post.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The shadow of that post would disgrace and darken the whole State. Nothing
+ could be more infamous, and yet this man is president of the Humane
+ Society. Now, the question arises, what is humane about this society?
+ Certainly not its president. Undoubtedly he is sincere. Certainly no man
+ would take that position unless he was sincere. Nobody deliberately
+ pretends to be bad, but the idea of his being president of the Humane
+ Society is simply preposterous. With his idea about the whipping-post he
+ might join a society of hyenas for the cultivation of ferocity, for
+ certainly nothing short of that would do justice to his bill. I have too
+ much confidence in the legislators of that State, and maybe my confidence
+ rests in the fact that I do not know them, to think that the passage of
+ such a bill is possible. If it were passed I think I would be justified in
+ using the language of the old Marylander, who said, "I have lived in
+ Maryland fifty years, but I have never counted them, and my hope is, that
+ God won't."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. What did you think of the late Joseph Medill?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. I was not very well acquainted with Mr. Medill. I had a
+ good many conversations with him, and I was quite familiar with his work.
+ I regard him as the greatest editor of the Northwestern States and I am
+ not sure that there was a greater one in the country. He was one of the
+ builders of the Republican party. He was on the right side of the great
+ question of Liberty. He was a man of strong likes and I may say dislikes.
+ He never surrendered his personality. The atom called Joseph Medill was
+ never lost in the aggregation known as the Republican party. He was true
+ to that party when it was true to him. As a rule he traveled a road of his
+ own and he never seemed to have any doubt about where the road led. I
+ think that he was an exceedingly useful man. I think the only true
+ religion is usefulness. He was a very strong writer, and when touched by
+ friendship for a man, or a cause, he occasionally wrote very great
+ paragraphs, and paragraphs full of force and most admirably expressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The Tribune</i>, Chicago, March 19, 1899.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0132" id="link0132">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ EXPANSION AND TRUSTS.*
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [* This was Colonel Ingersoll's last interview.]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I am an expansionist. The country has the land hunger and expansion is
+ popular. I want all we can honestly get.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I do not want the Philippines unless the Filipinos want us, and I feel
+ exactly the same about the Cubans.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We paid twenty millions of dollars to Spain for the Philippine Islands,
+ and we knew that Spain had no title to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question with me is not one of trade or convenience; it is a question
+ of right or wrong. I think the best patriot is the man who wants his
+ country to do right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Philippines would be a very valuable possession to us, in view of
+ their proximity to China. But, however desirable they may be, that cuts no
+ figure. We must do right. We must act nobly toward the Filipinos, whether
+ we get the islands or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see peace between us and the Filipinos; peace honorable to
+ both; peace based on reason instead of force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If control had been given to Dewey, if Miles had been sent to Manila, I do
+ not believe that a shot would have been fired at the Filipinos, and that
+ they would have welcomed the American flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Although you are not in favor of taking the Philippines
+ by force, how do you regard the administration in its conduct of the war?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. They have made many mistakes at Washington, and they are
+ still making many. If it has been decided to conquer the Filipinos, then
+ conquer them at once. Let the struggle not be drawn out and the drops of
+ blood multiplied. The Republican party is being weakened by inaction at
+ the Capital. If the war is not ended shortly, the party in power will feel
+ the evil effects at the presidential election.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. In what light do you regard the Philippines as an
+ addition to the territory of the United States?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Probably in the future, and possibly in the near future,
+ the value of the islands to this country could hardly be calculated. The
+ division of China which is bound to come, will open a market of four
+ hundred millions of people. Naturally a possession close to the open doors
+ of the East would be of an almost incalculable value to this country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It might perhaps take a long time to teach the Chinese that they need our
+ products. But suppose that the Chinese came to look upon wheat in the same
+ light that other people look upon wheat and its product, bread? What an
+ immense amount of grain it would take to feed four hundred million hungry
+ Chinamen!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same would be the case with the rest of our products. So you will
+ perhaps agree with me in my view of the immense value of the islands if
+ they could but be obtained by honorable means.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. If the Democratic party makes anti-imperialism the
+ prominent plank in its platform, what effect will it have on the party's
+ chance for success?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. Anti-imperialism, as the Democratic battle-cry, would
+ greatly weaken a party already very weak. It is the most unpopular issue
+ of the day. The people want expansion. The country is infected with
+ patriotic enthusiasm. The party that tries to resist the tidal wave will
+ be swept away. Anybody who looks can see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let a band at any of the summer resorts or at the suburban breathing spots
+ play a patriotic air. The listeners are electrified, and they rise and off
+ go their hats when "The Star-Spangled Banner" is struck up. Imperialism
+ cannot be fought with success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Question</i>. Will the Democratic party have a strong issue in its
+ anti-trust cry?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Answer</i>. In my opinion, both parties will nail anti-trust planks in
+ their platforms. But this talk is all bosh with both parties. Neither one
+ is honest in its cry against trusts. The one making the more noise in this
+ direction may get the votes of some unthinking persons, but every one who
+ is capable of reading and digesting what he reads, knows full well that
+ the leaders of neither party are sincere and honest in their
+ demonstrations against the trusts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should the Democratic party lay claim to any anti-trust glory? Is it
+ not a Republican administration that is at present investigating the
+ alleged evils of trusts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;<i>The North American</i>, Philadelphia, June 22, 1899.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+8 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 9 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
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+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 9
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 9 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Political
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38809]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h4>
+ "HE LOVES HIS COUNTRY BEST WHO STRIVES TO MAKE IT BEST."
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME IX.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICAL
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38809/old/orig38809-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a>
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (62K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (64K)" src="images/portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">SPEECH AT INDIANAPOLIS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">CENTENNIAL ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">BANGOR SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">CHICAGO SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">EIGHT TO SEVEN ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">HARD TIMES AND THE WAY OUT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">SUFFRAGE ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">WALL STREET SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">BROOKLYN SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">DECORATION DAY ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">DECORATION DAY ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">RATIFICATION SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">REUNION ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0018">THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1867.)<br /> Slavery and its Justification by Law and Religion&mdash;Its
+ Destructive<br /> Influence upon Nations&mdash;Inauguration of the Modern
+ Slave Trade by the<br /> Portuguese Gonzales&mdash;Planted upon American
+ Soil&mdash;The Abolitionists,<br /> Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Others&mdash;The
+ Struggle in England&mdash;Pioneers<br /> in San Domingo, Oge and
+ Chevannes&mdash;Early Op-posers of Slavery in<br /> America&mdash;William
+ Lloyd Garrison&mdash;Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John<br /> Brown&mdash;The
+ Fugitive Slave Law&mdash;The Emancipation Proclamation&mdash;Dread of<br />
+ Education in the South&mdash;Advice to the Colored People.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1868.)<br /> Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus&mdash;Precedent
+ Established by the<br /> Revolutionary Fathers&mdash;Committees of Safety
+ appointed by the<br /> Continental Congress&mdash;Arrest of Disaffected
+ Persons in Pennsylvania<br /> and Delaware&mdash;Interference with
+ Elections&mdash;Resolution of Continental<br /> Congress with respect to
+ Citizens who Opposed the sending of Deputies<br /> to the Convention of
+ New York&mdash;Penalty for refusing to take Continental<br /> Money or
+ Pray for the American Cause&mdash;Habeas Corpus Suspended during the<br />
+ Revolution&mdash;Interference with Freedom of the Press&mdash;Negroes
+ Freed and<br /> allowed to Fight in the Continental Army&mdash;Crispus
+ Attacks&mdash;An Abolition<br /> Document issued by Andrew Jackson&mdash;Majority
+ rule&mdash;Slavery and the<br /> Rebellion&mdash;Tribute to General
+ Grant.<br /> SPEECH NOMINATING BLAINE.<br /> (1876.)<br /> Note descriptive
+ of the Occasion&mdash;Demand of the Republicans of the<br /> United
+ States&mdash;Resumption&mdash;The Plumed Knight.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">CENTENNIAL ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> One Hundred Years ago, our Fathers retired the Gods
+ from Politics&mdash;The<br /> Declaration of Independence&mdash;Meaning
+ of the Declaration&mdash;The Old Idea<br /> of the Source of Political
+ Power&mdash;Our Fathers Educated by their<br /> Surroundings&mdash;The
+ Puritans&mdash;Universal Religious Toleration declared by<br /> the
+ Catholics of Maryland&mdash;Roger Williams&mdash;Not All of our Fathers
+ in<br /> favor of Independence&mdash;Fortunate Difference in Religious
+ Views&mdash;Secular<br /> Government&mdash;Authority derived from the
+ People&mdash;The Declaration and<br /> the Beginning of the War&mdash;What
+ they Fought For&mdash;Slavery&mdash;Results of<br /> a Hundred Years of
+ Freedom&mdash;The Declaration Carried out in Letter and<br /> Spirit.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">BANGOR SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> The Hayes Campaign&mdash;Reasons for Voting the
+ Republican Ticket&mdash;Abolition<br /> of Slavery&mdash;Preservation of
+ the Union&mdash;Reasons for Not Trusting the<br /> Democratic Party&mdash;Record
+ of the Republican Party&mdash;Democrats Assisted<br /> the South&mdash;Paper
+ Money&mdash;Enfranchisement of the Negroes&mdash;Samuel J.<br /> Tilden&mdash;His
+ Essay on Finance.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.<br /> (1876.)<br /> All Citizens
+ Stockholders in the United States of America&mdash;The<br /> Democratic
+ Party a Hungry Organization&mdash;Political Parties<br /> Contrasted&mdash;The
+ Fugitive Slave Law a Disgrace to Hell in its Palmiest<br /> Days&mdash;Feelings
+ of the Democracy Hurt on the Subject of Religion&mdash;Defence<br /> of
+ Slavery in a Resolution of the Presbyterians, South&mdash;State of the<br />
+ Union at the Time the Republican Party was Born&mdash;Jacob Thompson&mdash;The<br />
+ National Debt&mdash;Protection of Citizens Abroad&mdash;Tammany Hall:
+ Its Relation<br /> to the Penitentiary&mdash;The Democratic Party of New
+ York City&mdash;"What<br /> Hands!"&mdash;Free Schools.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> Address to the Veteran Soldiers of the Rebellion&mdash;Objections
+ to<br /> the Democratic Party&mdash;The Men who have been Democrats&mdash;Why
+ I am a<br /> Republican&mdash;Free Labor and Free Thought&mdash;A Vision
+ of War&mdash;Democratic<br /> Slander of the Greenback&mdash;Shall the
+ People who Saved the Country Rule<br /> It?&mdash;On Finance&mdash;Government
+ Cannot Create Money&mdash;The Greenback Dollar<br /> a Mortgage upon the
+ Country&mdash;Guarantees that the Debt will be Paid-'The<br />
+ Thoroughbred and the Mule&mdash;The Column of July, Paris&mdash;The
+ Misleading<br /> Guide Board, the Dismantled Mill, and the Place where
+ there had been a<br /> Hotel,<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">CHICAGO SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> The Plea of "Let Bygones be Bygones"&mdash;Passport
+ of the Democratic<br /> Party&mdash;Right of the General Government to
+ send Troops into Southern<br /> States for the Protection of Colored
+ People&mdash;Abram S. Hewitt's<br /> Congratulatory Letter to the Negroes&mdash;The
+ Demand for Inflation of the<br /> Currency&mdash;Record of Rutherford B.
+ Hayes&mdash;Contrasted with Samuel J.<br /> Tilden&mdash;Merits of the
+ Republican Party&mdash;Negro and Southern White&mdash;The<br /> Superior
+ Man&mdash;"No Nation founded upon Injustice can Permanently Stand."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">EIGHT TO SEVEN ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1877.)<br /> On the Electoral Commission&mdash;Reminiscences of
+ the Hayes-Tilden Camp&mdash;<br /> Constitution of the Electoral College&mdash;Characteristics
+ of the Members&mdash;<br /> Frauds at the Ballot Box Poisoning the
+ Fountain of Power&mdash;Reforms<br /> Suggested&mdash;Elections too
+ Frequent&mdash;The Professional Office-seeker&mdash;A<br /> Letter on
+ Civil Service Reform&mdash;Young Men Advised against Government<br />
+ Clerkships&mdash;Too Many Legislators and too Much Legislation&mdash;Defect
+ in the<br /> Constitution as to the Mode of Electing a President&mdash;Protection
+ of<br /> Citizens by State and General Governments&mdash;The Dual
+ Government in South<br /> Carolina&mdash;Ex-Rebel Key in the President's
+ Cabinet&mdash;Implacables and<br /> Bourbons South and North&mdash;"I
+ extend to you each and all the Olive Branch<br /> of Peace."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">HARD TIMES AND THE WAY OUT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1878.)<br /> Capital and Labor&mdash;What is a Capitalist?&mdash;The
+ Idle and the Industrious<br /> Artisans&mdash;No Conflict between Capital
+ and Labor&mdash;A Period of Inflation<br /> and Speculation&mdash;Life
+ and Fire Insurance Agents&mdash;Business done on<br /> Credit&mdash;The
+ Crash, Failure, and Bankruptcy&mdash;Fall in the Price of Real<br />
+ Estate a Form of Resumption&mdash;Coming back to Reality&mdash;Definitions
+ of<br /> Money Examined&mdash;Not Gold and Silver but Intelligent Labor
+ the Measure<br /> of Value&mdash;Government cannot by Law Create Wealth&mdash;A
+ Bill of Fare not<br /> a Dinner&mdash;Fiat Money&mdash;American Honor
+ Pledged to the Maintenance of the<br /> Greenbacks&mdash;The Cry against
+ Holders of Bonds&mdash;Criminals and Vagabonds to<br /> be supported&mdash;Duty
+ of Government to Facilitate Enterprise&mdash;More Men must<br />
+ Cultivate the Soil&mdash;Government Aid for the Overcoming of Obstacles
+ too<br /> Great for Individual Enterprise&mdash;The Palace Builders the
+ Friends of<br /> Labor&mdash;Extravagance the best Form of Charity&mdash;Useless
+ to Boost a Man<br /> who is not Climbing&mdash;The Reasonable Price for
+ Labor&mdash;The Vagrant and his<br /> strange and winding Path&mdash;What
+ to tell the Working Men.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">SUFFRAGE ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1880.)<br /> The Right to Vote&mdash;All Women who desire the
+ Suffrage should have<br /> It&mdash;Shall the People of the District of
+ Columbia Manage their Own<br /> Affairs&mdash;Their Right to a
+ Representative in Congress and an Electoral<br /> Vote&mdash;Anomalous
+ State of Affairs at the Capital of the Republic&mdash;Not the<br />
+ Wealthy and Educated alone should Govern&mdash;The Poor as Trustworthy
+ as the<br /> Rich&mdash;Strict Registration Laws Needed.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">WALL STREET SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1880.)<br /> Obligation of New York to Protect the Best Interests
+ of the<br /> Country&mdash;Treason and Forgery of the Democratic Party in
+ its Appeal to<br /> Sword and Pen&mdash;The One Republican in the
+ Penitentiary of Maine&mdash;The<br /> Doctrine of State Sovereignty&mdash;Protection
+ for American Brain and<br /> Muscle&mdash;Hancock on the Tariff&mdash;A
+ Forgery (the Morey letter) Committed<br /> and upheld&mdash;The Character
+ of James A. Garfield.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">BROOKLYN SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1880.)<br /> Introduced by Henry Ward Beecher (note)&mdash;Some
+ Patriotic<br /> Democrats&mdash;Freedom of Speech North and South&mdash;An
+ Honest Ballot&mdash;<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">DECORATION DAY ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">DECORATION DAY ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">RATIFICATION SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">REUNION ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0018">THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * An address delivered to the colored people at Galesburg,
+ Illinois, 1867.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ FELLOW-CITIZENS&mdash;Slavery has in a thousand forms existed in all ages,
+ and among all people. It is as old as theft and robbery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every nation has enslaved its own people, and sold its own flesh and
+ blood. Most of the white race are in slavery to-day. It has often been
+ said that any man who ought to be free, will be. The men who say this
+ should remember that their own ancestors were once cringing, frightened,
+ helpless slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When they became sufficiently educated to cease enslaving their own
+ people, they then enslaved the first race they could conquer. If they
+ differed in religion, they enslaved them. If they differed in color, that
+ was sufficient. If they differed even in language, it was enough. If they
+ were captured, they then pretended that having spared their lives, they
+ had the right to enslave them. This argument was worthless. If they were
+ captured, then there was no necessity for killing them. If there was no
+ necessity for killing them, then they had no right to kill them. If they
+ had no right to kill them, then they had no right to enslave them under
+ the pretence that they had saved their lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every excuse that the ingenuity of avarice could devise was believed to be
+ a complete justification, and the great argument of slaveholders in all
+ countries has been that slavery is a divine institution, and thus stealing
+ human beings has always been fortified with a "Thus saith the Lord."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slavery has been upheld by law and religion in every country. The word
+ Liberty is not in any creed in the world. Slavery is right according to
+ the law of man, shouted the judge. It is right according to the law of
+ God, shouted the priest. Thus sustained by what they were pleased to call
+ the law of God and man, slaveholders never voluntarily freed the slaves,
+ with the exception of the Quakers. The institution has in all ages been
+ clung to with the tenacity of death; clung to until it sapped and
+ destroyed the foundations of society; clung to until all law became
+ violence; clung to until virtue was a thing only of history; clung to
+ until industry folded its arms&mdash;until commerce reefed every sail&mdash;until
+ the fields were desolate and the cities silent, except where the poor free
+ asked for bread, and the slave for mercy; clung to until the slave forging
+ the sword of civil war from his fetters drenched the land in the master's
+ blood. Civil war has been the great liberator of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slavery has destroyed every nation that has gone down to death. It caused
+ the last vestige of Grecian civilization to disappear forever, and it
+ caused Rome to fall with a crash that shook the world. After the
+ disappearance of slavery in its grossest forms in Europe, Gonzales pointed
+ out to his countrymen, the Portuguese, the immense profits that they could
+ make by stealing Africans, and thus commenced the modern slave-trade&mdash;that
+ aggregation of all horror&mdash;that infinite of all cruelty, prosecuted
+ only by demons, and defended only by fiends. And yet the slave-trade has
+ been defended and sustained by every civilized nation, and by each and all
+ has been baptized "Legitimate commerce," in the name of the Father, the
+ Son and the Holy Ghost:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was even justified upon the ground that it tended to Christianize the
+ negro.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was of the poor hypocrites who had used this argument that Whittier
+ said,
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "They bade the slaveship speed from coast to coast,
+ Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Backed and supported by such Christian and humane arguments slavery was
+ planted upon our soil in 1620, and from that day to this it has been the
+ cause of all our woes, of all the bloodshed&mdash;of all the
+ heart-burnings&mdash;hatred and horrors of more than two hundred years,
+ and yet we hated to part with the beloved institution. Like Pharaoh we
+ would not let the people go. He was afflicted with vermin, with frogs&mdash;with
+ water turned to blood&mdash;with several kinds of lice, and yet would not
+ let the people go. We were afflicted with worse than all these combined&mdash;the
+ Northern Democracy&mdash;before we became grand enough to say, "Slavery
+ shall be eradicated from the soil of the Republic." When we reached this
+ sublime moral height we were successful. The Rebellion was crushed and
+ liberty established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A majority of the civilized world is for freedom&mdash;nearly all the
+ Christian denominations are for liberty. The world has changed&mdash;the
+ people are nobler, better and purer than ever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every great movement must be led by heroic and self-sacrificing pioneers.
+ In England, in Christian England, the soul of the abolition cause was
+ Thomas Clarkson. To the great cause of human freedom he devoted his life.
+ He won over the eloquent and glorious Wilberforce, the great Pitt, the
+ magnificent orator, Burke, and that far-seeing and humane statesman,
+ Charles James Fox.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1788 a resolution was introduced in the House of Commons declaring that
+ the slave trade ought to be abolished. It was defeated. Learned lords
+ opposed it. They said that too much capital was invested by British
+ merchants in the slave-trade. That if it were abolished the ships would
+ rot at the wharves, and that English commerce would be swept from the
+ seas. Sanctified Bishops&mdash;lords spiritual&mdash;thought the scheme
+ fanatical, and various resolutions to the same effect were defeated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The struggle lasted twenty years, and yet during all those years in which
+ England refused to abolish the hellish trade, that nation had the
+ impudence to send missionaries all over the world to make converts to a
+ religion that in their opinion, at least, allowed man to steal his brother
+ man&mdash;that allowed one Christian to rob another of his wife, his
+ child, and of that greatest of all blessings&mdash;his liberty. It was not
+ until the year 1808 that England was grand and just enough to abolish the
+ slave-trade, and not until 1833 that slavery was abolished in all her
+ colonies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The name of Thomas Clarkson should be remembered and honored through all
+ coming time by every black man, and by every white man who loves liberty
+ and hates cruelty and injustice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Clarkson, Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox, Burke, were the Titans that swept the
+ accursed slaver from that highway&mdash;the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In St. Domingo the pioneers were Oge and Chevannes; they headed a revolt;
+ they were unsuccessful, but they roused the slaves to resistance. They
+ were captured, tried, condemned and executed. They were made to ask
+ forgiveness of God, and of the King, for having attempted to give freedom
+ to their own flesh and blood. They were broken alive on the wheel, and
+ left to die of hunger and pain. The blood of these martyrs became the seed
+ of liberty; and afterward in the midnight assault, in the massacre and
+ pillage, the infuriated slaves shouted their names as their battle-cry,
+ until Toussaint, the greatest of the blacks, gave freedom to them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the United States, among the Revolutionary fathers, such men as John
+ Adams, and his son John Quincy&mdash;such men as Franklin and John Jay
+ were opposed to the institution of slavery. Thomas Jefferson said,
+ speaking of the slaves, "When the measure of their tears shall be full&mdash;when
+ their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness&mdash;doubtless
+ a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and
+ liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating
+ thunder manifest his attention to the things of this world, and that they
+ are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine said, "No man can be happy surrounded by those whose
+ happiness he has destroyed." And a more self-evident proposition was never
+ uttered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These and many more Revolutionary heroes were opposed to slavery and did
+ what they could to prevent the establishment and spread of this most
+ wicked and terrible of all institutions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You owe gratitude to those who were for liberty as a principle and not
+ from mere necessity. You should remember with more than gratitude that
+ firm, consistent and faithful friend of your downtrodden race, Wm. Lloyd
+ Garrison. He has devoted his life to your cause. Many years ago in Boston
+ he commenced the publication of a paper devoted to liberty. Poor and
+ despised&mdash;friendless and almost alone, he persevered in that grandest
+ and holiest of all possible undertakings. He never stopped, or stayed, or
+ paused until the chain was broken and the last slave could lift his
+ toil-worn face to heaven with the light of freedom shining down upon him,
+ and say, I am a Free Man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You should not forget that noble philanthropist, Wendell Phillips, and
+ your most learned and eloquent defender, Charles Sumner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the real pioneer in America was old John Brown. Moved not by
+ prejudice, not by love of his blood, or his color, but by an infinite love
+ of Liberty, of Right, of Justice, almost single-handed, he attacked the
+ monster, with thirty million people against him. His head was wrong. He
+ miscalculated his forces; but his heart was right. He struck the sublimest
+ blow of the age for freedom. It was said of him that, he stepped from the
+ gallows to the throne of God. It was said that he had made the scaffold to
+ Liberty what Christ had made the cross to Christianity. The sublime Victor
+ Hugo declared that John Brown was greater than Washington, and that his
+ name would live forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say, that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically
+ sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be greater than the
+ one who meets death face to face, and yet will not shrink from what he
+ believes to be his highest duty. If the black people want a patron saint,
+ let them take the brave old John Brown. And as the gentleman who preceded
+ me said, at all your meetings, never separate until you have sung the
+ grand song,
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
+ But his soul goes marching on."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ You do not, in my opinion, owe a great debt of gratitude to many of the
+ white people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago both parties agreed to carry out the Fugitive Slave
+ Law. If a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had fled from slavery&mdash;had
+ traveled through forests, crossed rivers, and through countless sufferings
+ had got within one step of Canada&mdash;of free soil&mdash;with the light
+ of the North Star shining in her eyes, and her babe pressed to her
+ withered breast, both parties agreed to clutch her and hand her back to
+ the dominion of the hound and lash. Both parties, as parties, were willing
+ to do this when the Rebellion commenced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, we had to give you your liberty. There came a time in the
+ history of the war when, defeated at the ballot box and in the field&mdash;driven
+ to the shattered gates of eternal chaos&mdash;we were forced to make you
+ free; and on the first day of January, 1863, the justice so long delayed
+ was done, and four millions of people were lifted from the condition of
+ beasts of burden to the sublime heights of freedom. Lincoln, the immortal,
+ issued, and the men of the North sustained the great proclamation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As in the war there came a time when we were forced to make you free, so
+ in the history of reconstruction came a time when we were forced to make
+ you citizens; when we were forced to say that you should vote, and that
+ you should have and exercise all the rights that we claim for ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And to-day I am in favor of giving you every right that I claim for
+ myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In reconstructing the Southern States, we could take our choice, either
+ give the ballot to the negro, or allow the rebels to rule. We preferred
+ loyal blacks to disloyal whites, because we believed liberty safer in the
+ hands of its friends than in those of its foes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must be for freedom everywhere. Freedom is progress&mdash;slavery is
+ desolation, cruelty and want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Freedom invents&mdash;slavery forgets. The problem of the slave is to do
+ the least work in the longest space of time. The problem of free men is to
+ do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time. The free
+ man, working for wife and children, gets his head and his hands in
+ partnership.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Freedom has invented every useful machine, from the lowest to the highest,
+ from the simplest to the most complex. Freedom believes in education&mdash;the
+ salvation of slavery is ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The South always dreaded the alphabet. They looked upon each letter as an
+ abolitionist, and well they might. With a scent keener than their own
+ bloodhounds they detected everything that could, directly or indirectly,
+ interfere with slavery. They knew that when slaves begin to think, masters
+ begin to tremble. They knew that free thought would destroy them; that
+ discussion could not be endured; that a free press would liberate every
+ slave; and so they mobbed free thought, and put an end to free discussion
+ and abolished a free press, and in fact did all the mean and infamous
+ things they could, that slavery might live, and that liberty might perish
+ from among men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are now citizens of many of the States, and in time you will be of
+ all. I am astonished when I think how long it took to abolish the
+ slave-trade, how long it took to abolish slavery in this country. I am
+ also astonished to think that a few years ago magnificent steamers went
+ down the Mississippi freighted with your fathers, mothers, brothers, and
+ sisters, and maybe some of you, bound like criminals, separated from
+ wives, from husbands, every human feeling laughed at and outraged, sold
+ like beasts, carried away from homes to work for another, receiving for
+ pay only the marks of the lash upon the naked back. I am astonished at
+ these things. I hate to think that all this was done under the
+ Constitution of the United States, under the flag of my country, under the
+ wings of the eagle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The flag was not then what it is now. It was a mere rag in comparison. The
+ eagle was a buzzard, and the Constitution sanctioned the greatest crime of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I wonder that you&mdash;the black people&mdash;have forgotten all this. I
+ wonder that you ask a white man to address you on this occasion, when the
+ history of your connection with the white race is written in your blood
+ and tears&mdash;is still upon your flesh, put there by the branding-iron
+ and the lash.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I feel like asking your forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has
+ inflicted upon yours. If, in the future, the wheel of fortune should take
+ a turn, and you should in any country have white men in your power, I pray
+ you not to execute the villainy we have taught you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One word in conclusion. You have your liberty&mdash;use it to benefit your
+ race. Educate yourselves, educate your children, send teachers to the
+ South. Let your brethren there be educated. Let them know something of art
+ and science. Improve yourselves, stand by each other, and above all be in
+ favor of liberty the world over.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time is coming when you will be' allowed to be good and useful
+ citizens of the Great Republic. This is your country as much as it is
+ mine. You have the same rights here that I have&mdash;the same interest
+ that I have. The avenues of distinction will be open to you and your
+ children. Great advances have been made. The rebels are now opposed to
+ slavery&mdash;the Democratic party is opposed to slavery, <i>as they say</i>.
+ There is going to be no war of races. Both parties want your votes in the
+ South, and there will be just enough negroes without principle to join the
+ rebels to make them think they will get more, and so the rebels will treat
+ the negroes well. And the Republicans will be sure to treat them well in
+ order to prevent any more joining the rebels.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great problem is solved. Liberty has solved it&mdash;and there will be
+ no more slavery. On the old flag, on every fold and on every star will be
+ liberty for all, equality before the law. The grand people are marching
+ forward, and they will not pause until the earth is without a chain, and
+ without a throne.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SPEECH AT INDIANAPOLIS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Hon. Robert G. Ingersoll, Attorney-General of Illinois,
+ spoke at the Rink last night to a large and appreciative
+ audience among whom were many ladies. The distinguished
+ speaker was escorted to the Rink by the battalion of the
+ Fighting Boys in Blue. Col. Ingersoll spoke at a great
+ disadvantage in having so large a hall to fill, but he has a
+ splendid voice and so overcame the difficulty. The audience
+ liberally applauded the numerous passages of eloquence and
+ humor in Col. Ingersoll's speeeh, and listened with the best
+ attention to his powerful argument, nor could they have done
+ otherwise, for the speaker has a national reputation and did
+ himself full justice last night&mdash;The Journal, Indianapolis,
+ Indiana, September 23, 1868.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ GRANT CAMPAIGN
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Democratic party, so-called, have several charges which they make
+ against the Republican party. They give us a variety of reasons why the
+ Republican party should no longer be entrusted with the control of this
+ country. Among other reasons they say that the Republican party during the
+ war was guilty of arresting citizens without due process of law&mdash;that
+ we arrested Democrats and put them in jail without indictment, in Lincoln
+ bastiles, without making an affidavit before a Justice of the Peace&mdash;that
+ on some occasions we suspended the writ of <i>habeas corpus</i>, that we
+ put some Democrats in jail without their being indicted. I am sorry we did
+ not put more. I admit we arrested some of them without an affidavit filed
+ before a Justice of the Peace. I sincerely regret that we did not arrest
+ more. I admit that for a few hours on one or two occasions we interfered
+ with the freedom of the press; I sincerely regret that the Government
+ allowed a sheet to exist that did not talk on the side of this Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that we did all these things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is only proper and fair that we should answer these charges. Unless the
+ Republican party can show that they did these things either according to
+ the strict letter of law, according to the highest precedent, or from the
+ necessity of the case, then we must admit that our party did wrong. You
+ know as well as I that every Democratic orator talks about the fathers,
+ about Washington and Jackson, Madison, Jefferson, and many others; they
+ tell us about the good old times when politicians were pure, when you
+ could get justice in the courts, when Congress was honest, when the
+ political parties differed, and differed kindly and honestly; and they are
+ shedding crocodile tears day after day&mdash;praying that the good old
+ honest times might return again. They tell you that the members of this
+ radical party are nothing like the men of the Revolution. Let us see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I lay this down as a proposition, that we had a right to do anything to
+ preserve this Government that our fathers had a right to do to found it.
+ If they had a right to put Tories in jail, to suspend the writ of <i>habeas
+ corpus</i>, and on some occasions <i>corpus</i>, in order to found this
+ Government, we had a right to put rebels and Democrats in jail and to
+ suspend the writ of <i>habeas corpus</i> in order to preserve the
+ Government they thus formed. If they had a right to interfere with the
+ freedom of the press in order that liberty might be planted upon this
+ soil, we had a right to do the same thing to prevent the tree from being
+ destroyed. In a word, we had a right to do anything to preserve this
+ Government which they had a right to do to found it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did our fathers arrest Tories without writs, without indictments&mdash;did
+ they interfere with the personal rights of Tories in the name of liberty&mdash;did
+ they have Washington bastiles, did they have Jefferson jails&mdash;did
+ they have dungeons in the time of the Revolution in which they put men
+ that dared talk against this country and the liberties of the colonies? I
+ propose to show that they did&mdash;that where we imprisoned one they
+ imprisoned a hundred&mdash;that where we interfered with personal liberty
+ once they did it a hundred times&mdash;that they carried on a war that <i>was</i>
+ a war&mdash;that they knew that when an appeal was made to force that was
+ the end of law&mdash;that they did not attempt to gain their liberties
+ through a Justice of the Peace or through a Grand Jury; that they appealed
+ to force and the God of battles, and that any man who sought their
+ protection and at the same time was against them and their cause they took
+ by the nape of the neck and put in jail, where he ought to have been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old Continental Congress in 1774 and 1776 had made up their minds that
+ we ought to have something like liberty in these colonies, and the first
+ step they took toward securing that end was to provide for the selection
+ of a committee in every county and township, with a view to examining and
+ finding out how the people stood touching the liberty of the colonies, and
+ if they found a man that was not in favor of it, the people would not have
+ anything to do with him politically, religiously, or socially. That was
+ the first step they took, and a very sensible step it was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the next step? They found that these men were so lost to every
+ principle of honor that they did not hurt them any by disgracing them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So they passed the following resolution which explains itself:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>. That it be recommended to the several provincial
+ assemblies or conventions or councils, or committees of safety, to arrest
+ and secure every person in their respective colonies whose going at large,
+ may, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony or the liberties
+ of America.&mdash;Journal of Congress, vol. 1, page 149.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the Committee of Safety? Was it a Justice of the Peace? No. Was
+ it a Grand Jury? No. It was simply a committee of five or seven persons,
+ more or less, appointed to watch over the town or county and see that
+ these Tories were attending to their business and not interfering with the
+ rights of the colonies. Whom were they to thus arrest and secure? Every
+ man that had committed murder&mdash;that had taken up arms against
+ America, or voted the Democratic or Tory ticket? No. "Every person whose
+ going at large might in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony
+ or the liberties of America." It was not necessary that they had committed
+ any overt act, but if in the opinion of this council of safety, it was
+ dangerous to let them run at large they were locked up. Suppose that we
+ had done that during the last war? You would have had to build several new
+ jails in this county. What a howl would have gone up all over this State
+ if we had attempted such a thing as that, and yet we had a perfect right
+ to do anything to preserve our liberties, which our fathers had a right to
+ do to obtain them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more did they do? In 1777 the same Congress that signed the immortal
+ Declaration of Independence (and I think they knew as much about liberty
+ and the rights of men as any Democrat in Marion county) adopted another
+ resolution:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>. That it be recommended to the Executive powers of the
+ several States, forthwith to apprehend and secure all persons who have in
+ their general conduct and conversation evinced a disposition inimical to
+ the cause of America, and that the persons so seized be confined in such
+ places and treated in such manner as shall be consistent with their
+ several characters and security of their persons.&mdash;-Journal of
+ Congress, vol. 2, p. 246.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If they had talked as the Democrats talked during the late war&mdash;if
+ they had called the soldiers, "Washington hirelings," and if when they
+ allowed a few negroes to help them fight, had branded the struggle for
+ liberty as an abolition war, they would be "apprehended and confined in
+ such places and treated in such manner as was consistent with their
+ characters and security of their persons," and yet all they did was to
+ show a disposition inimical to the independence of America. If we had
+ pursued a policy like that during the late war, nine out of ten of the
+ members of the Democratic party would have been in jail&mdash;there would
+ not have been jails and prisons enough on the face of the whole earth to
+ hold them. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, when a Democrat talks to you about Lincoln bastiles, just quote this
+ to him:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Whereas</i>, The States of Pennsylvania and Delaware are threatened
+ with an immediate invasion from a powerful army, who have already landed
+ at the head of Chesapeake Bay; and whereas, The principles of sound policy
+ and self-preservation require that persons who may be reasonably suspected
+ of aiding or abetting the cause of the enemy may be prevented from
+ pursuing measures injurious to the general weal,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>, That the executive authorities of the States of
+ Pennsylvania and Delaware be requested to cause all persons within their
+ respective States, notoriously disaffected, to be apprehended, disarmed
+ and secured until such time as the respective States think they may be
+ released without injury to the common cause.&mdash;-Journal of Congress,
+ vol. 2, p. 240.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is what they did with them. When there was an invasion threatened the
+ good State of Indiana, if we had said we will imprison all men who by
+ their conduct and conversation show that they are inimical to our cause,
+ we would have been obliged to import jails and corral Democrats as we did
+ mules in the army. Our fathers knew that the flag was never intended to
+ protect any man who wanted to assail it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more did they do? There was a man by the name of David Franks, who
+ wrote a letter and wanted to send it to England. In that letter he gave it
+ as his opinion that the colonies were becoming disheartened and sick of
+ the war. The heroic and chivalric fathers of the Revolution violated the
+ mails, took the aforesaid letter and then they took the aforesaid David
+ Franks by the collar and put him in jail. Then they passed a resolution in
+ Congress that inasmuch as the said letter showed a disposition inimical to
+ the liberties of the United States, Major General Arnold be requested to
+ cause the said David Franks to be forthwith arrested, put in jail and
+ confined till the further order of Congress. (Jour. Cong., vol. 3, p. 96
+ and 97.)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How many Democrats wrote letters during the war declaring that the North
+ never could conquer the South? How many wrote letters to the soldiers in
+ the army telling them to shed no more fraternal blood in that suicidal and
+ unchristian war? It would have taken all the provost marshals in the
+ United States to arrest the Democrats in Indiana who were guilty of that
+ offence. And yet they are talking about our fathers being such good men,
+ while they are cursing us fordoing precisely what they did, only to a less
+ extent than they did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are still on the track of the old Continental Congress. I want you to
+ understand the spirit that animated those men. They passed a resolution
+ which is particularly applicable to the Democrats during the war:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With respect to all such unworthy Americans as, regardless of their duty
+ to their Creator, their country, and their posterity, have taken part with
+ our oppressors, and, influenced by the hope or possession of ignominious
+ rewards, strive to recommend themselves to the bounty of the
+ administration by misrepresenting and traducing the conduct and principles
+ of the friends of American liberty, and opposing every measure formed for
+ its preservation and security,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>, That it be recommended to the different assemblies,
+ conventions and committees or councils of safety in the United Colonies,
+ by the most speedy and effectual measures, to frustrate the mischievous
+ machinations and restrain the wicked practices of these men. And it is the
+ opinion of this Congress that they ought to be disarmed and the more
+ dangerous among them either kept in safe custody or bound with sufficient
+ sureties for their good behavior.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in order that the said assemblies, conventions, committees or councils
+ of safety may be enabled with greater ease and facility to carry this
+ resolution into execution,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>, That they be authorized to call to their aid whatever
+ Continental troops stationed in or near their respective colonies that may
+ be conveniently spared from their more immediate duties, and commanding
+ officers of such troops are hereby directed to afford the said assemblies,
+ conventions, committees or councils of safety, all such assistance in
+ executing this resolution as they may require, and which, consistent with
+ the good of the service, may be supplied&mdash;Journal of Congress, vol.
+ i, p. 22,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you hear that, Democrat? The old Continental Congress said to these
+ committees and councils of safety: "Whenever you want to arrest any of
+ these scoundrels, call on the Continental troops." And General Washington,
+ the commander-in-chief of the army, and the officers under him, were
+ directed to aid in the enforcement of all the measures adopted with
+ reference to disaffected and dangerous persons. And what had these persons
+ done? Simply shown by their conversation, and letters directed to their
+ friends, that they were opposed to the cause of American liberty. They did
+ not even spare the Governors of States. They were not appalled by any
+ official position that a Tory might hold. They simply said, "If you are
+ not in favor of American liberty, we will put you 'where the dogs won't
+ bite you.'" One of these men was Governor Eden of Maryland. Congress
+ passed a resolution requesting the Council of Safety of Maryland to seize
+ and secure his person and papers, and send such of them as related to the
+ American dispute to Congress without delay. At the same time the person
+ and papers of another man, one Alexander Ross, were seized in the same
+ manner. Ross was put in jail, and his papers transmitted to Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a fellow by the name of Parke and another by the name of Morton,
+ who presumed to undertake a journey from Philadelphia to New York without
+ getting a pass. Congress ordered them to be arrested and imprisoned until
+ further orders. They did not wait to have an affidavit filed before a
+ Justice of the Peace. They took them by force and put them in jail, and
+ that was the end of it. So much for the policy of the fathers, in regard
+ to arbitrary arrests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the war there was a great deal said about our occasionally
+ interfering with the elections. Let us see how the fathers stood upon that
+ question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They held a convention in the State of New York in Revolutionary times,
+ and there were some gentlemen in Queens County that were playing the role
+ of Kentucky&mdash;they were going to be neutral&mdash;they refused to vote
+ to send deputies to the convention&mdash;they stood upon their dignity
+ just as Kentucky stood upon hers&mdash;a small place to stand on, the Lord
+ knows. What did our fathers do with them? They denounced them as unworthy
+ to be American citizens and hardly fit to live. Here is a resolution
+ adopted by the Continental Congress on the 3d of January, 1776:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>, That all such persons in Queens County aforesaid as voted
+ against sending deputies to the present Convention of New York, and named
+ in a list of delinquents in Queens County, published by the Convention of
+ New York, be put out of the protection of the United Colonies, and that
+ all trade and intercourse with them cease; that none of the inhabitants of
+ that county be permitted to travel or abide in any part of these United
+ Colonies out of their said colony without a certificate from the
+ Convention or Committee of Safety of the Colony of New York, setting forth
+ that such inhabitant is a friend of the American cause, and not of the
+ number of those who voted against sending deputies to the said Convention,
+ and that such of the inhabitants as shall be found out of the said county
+ without such certificate, be apprehended and imprisoned three months.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>, That no attorney or lawyer ought to commence, prosecute
+ or defend any action at law of any kind, for any of the said inhabitants
+ of Queens County, who voted against sending deputies to the Convention as
+ aforesaid, and such attorney or lawyer as shall countenance this
+ revolution, are enemies to the American cause, and shall be treated
+ accordingly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What had they done? Simply voted against sending delegates to the
+ convention, and yet the fathers not only put them out of the protection of
+ law, but prohibited any lawyer from appearing in their behalf in a court.
+ Democrats, don't you wish we had treated you that way during the war?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more did they do? They ordered a company of troops from Connecticut,
+ and two or three companies from New Jersey, to go into the State of New
+ York, and take away from every person who had voted against sending
+ deputies to the convention, all his arms, and if anybody refused to give
+ up his arms, they put him in jail. Don't you wish you had lived then, my
+ friend Democrat? Don't you wish you had prosecuted the war as our fathers
+ prosecuted the Revolution?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I now want to show you how far they went in this direction. A man by the
+ name of Sutton, who lived on Long Island, had been going around giving his
+ constitutional opinions upon the war. They had him arrested, and went on
+ to resolve that he should be taken from Philadelphia, pay the cost of
+ transportation himself, be put in jail there, and while in jail should
+ board himself. Wouldn't a Democrat have had a hard scramble for victuals
+ if we had carried out that idea? Just see what outrageous and terrible
+ things the fathers did. And why did they do it? Because they saw that in
+ order to establish the liberties of America it was necessary they should
+ take the Tory by the throat just as it was necessary for us to take rebels
+ by the throat during the late war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They had paper money in those days&mdash;shin-plasters&mdash;and some of
+ the Democrats of those times had legal doubts about this paper currency.
+ One of these Democrats, Thomas Harriott, was called before a Committee of
+ Safety of New York, and there convicted of having refused to receive in
+ payment the Continental bills. The committee of New York conceiving that
+ he was a dangerous person, informed the Provincial Congress of the facts
+ in the case, and inquired whether Congress thought he ought to go at
+ large. Upon receipt of this information by Congress an order for the
+ imprisonment of the offender was passed, as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Resolved</i>, That the General Committee of the city of New York be
+ requested and authorized, and are hereby requested and authorized to
+ direct that Thomas Harriott be committed to close jail in this city, there
+ to remain until further orders of this Congress.&mdash;Amer. Archives, 4th
+ series, vol. 6, P. i, 344.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet all that he had done was to refuse to take Continental money. He
+ had simply given his opinion on the legal tender law, just as the
+ Democrats of Indiana did in regard to greenbacks, and as a few circuit
+ judges decided when they declared the Legal Tender Act unconstitutional.
+ It would have been perfectly proper and right that they, every man of
+ them, should be, like Thomas Harriott, "committed to close jail, there to
+ remain until further orders."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did our forefathers ever interfere with religion? Yes, they did with a
+ preacher by the name of Daniels, because he would not pray for the
+ American cause. He thought he could coax the Lord to beat us. They said to
+ him, "You pray on our side, sir." He would not do it, and so they put him
+ in jail and gave him work enough to pray himself out, and it took him some
+ time to do it. They interfered with a <i>lack</i> of religion. They
+ believed that a Tory or traitor in the pulpit was no better than anybody
+ else. That is the way I have sometimes felt during the war. I have thought
+ that I would like to see some of those white cravatted gentlemen "snaked"
+ right out of the pulpits where they had dared to utter their treason, and
+ set to playing checkers through a grated window.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not possible that our fathers ever interfered with the writ of <i>habeas
+ corpus</i>, is it? Yes sir. Our fathers advocated the doctrine that the
+ good of the people is the supreme law of the land. They also advocated the
+ doctrine that in the midst of armies law falls to the ground; the doctrine
+ that when a country is in war it is to be governed by the laws of war.
+ They thought that laws were made for the protection of good citizens, for
+ the punishment of citizens that were bad, when they were not too bad or
+ too numerous; then they threw the law-book down while they took the cannon
+ and whipped the badness out of them; that is the next step, when the
+ stones you throw, and kind words, and grass have failed. They said, why
+ did we not appeal to law? We did; but it did no good. A large portion of
+ the people were up in arms in defiance of law, and there was only one way
+ to put them down, and that was by force of arms; and whenever an appeal is
+ made to force, that force is governed by the law of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fathers suspended the writ in the case of a man who had committed an
+ offence in the State of New York. They sent him to the State of
+ Connecticut to be confined, just as men were sent from Indiana to Fort
+ Lafayette. The attorneys came before the convention of New York to hear
+ the matter inquired into, but the committee of the convention to whom the
+ matter was referred refused to inquire into the original cause of
+ commitment&mdash;a direct denial of the authority of the writ. The writ of
+ <i>habeas corpus</i> merely brings the body before the judge that he may
+ inquire why he is imprisoned. They refused to make any such inquiry. Their
+ action was endorsed by the convention and the gentleman was sent to
+ Connecticut and put in jail. They not only did these things in one
+ instance, but in a thousand. They took men from Maryland and put them in
+ prison in Pennsylvania, and they took men from Pennsylvania and confined
+ them in Maryland, Whenever they thought the Tories were so thick at one
+ point that the rascals might possibly be released, they took them
+ somewhere else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They did not interfere with the freedom of the press, did they? Yes, sir.
+ They found a gentleman who was speaking and writing against the liberties
+ of the colonies, and they just took his paper away from him, and gave it
+ to a man who ran it in the interest of the colonies, using the Tory's type
+ and press. [A voice&mdash;That was right.] Right! of course it was right.
+ What right has a newspaper in Indiana to talk against the cause for which
+ your son is laying down his life on the field of battle? What right has
+ any man to make it take thousands of men more to crush a rebellion? What
+ right has any man protected by the American flag to do all in his power to
+ put it in the hands of the enemies of his country? The same right that any
+ man has to be a rascal, a thief and traitor&mdash;no other right under
+ heaven. Our fathers had sense enough to see that, and they said, "One
+ gentleman in the rear printing against our noble cause, will cost us
+ hundreds of noble lives at the front." Why have you a right to take a
+ rebel's horse? Because it helps you and weakens the enemy. That is by the
+ law of war. That is the principle upon which they seized the Tory printing
+ press. They had the right to do it. And if I had had the power in this
+ country, no man should have said a word, or written a line, or printed
+ anything against the cause for which the heroic men of the North
+ sacrificed their lives. I would have enriched the soil of this country
+ with him before he should have done it. A man by the name of James
+ Rivington undertook to publish a paper against the country. They would not
+ speak to him; they denounced him, seized his press, and made him ask
+ forgiveness and promise to print no more such stuff before they would let
+ him have his sheet again. No person but a rebel ever thought that was
+ wrong. There is no common sense in going to the field to fight and leaving
+ a man at home to undo all that you accomplish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers did not like these Tories, and when the war was over they
+ confiscated their estates&mdash;took their land and gave it over to good
+ Union men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How did they do it? Did they issue summons, and have a trial? No, sir.
+ They did it by wholesale&mdash;they did it by resolution, and the estates
+ of hundreds of men were taken from them without their having a day in
+ court or any notice or trial whatever. They said to the Tories: "You cast
+ your fortunes with the other side, let them pay you. The flag you fought
+ against protects the land you owned and it will prevent you from having
+ it." Nor is that all. They ran thousands of them out of the country away
+ up into Nova Scotia, and the old blue-nosed Tories are there yet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his letter to Governor Cooke of Rhode Island, Washington enumerates an
+ act of that colony, declaring that "none should speak, write, or act
+ against the proceedings of Congress or their Acts of Assembly, under
+ penalty of being disarmed and disqualified from holding any office, and
+ being further punished by imprisonment," as one that met his approbation,
+ and which should exist in other colonies. There is the doctrine for you
+ Democrats. So I could go on by the hour or by the day. I could show you
+ how they made domiciliary visits, interfered with travel, imprisoned
+ without any sort of writ or affidavit&mdash;in other words, did whatever
+ they thought was necessary to whip the enemy and establish their
+ independence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What next do they charge against us? That we freed negroes. So we did.
+ That we allowed those negroes to fight in the army. Yes, we did, That we
+ allowed them to vote. We did that too. That we have made them citizens.
+ Yes, we have, and what are you Democrats going to do about it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what did our fathers do? Did they free any of the negroes? Yes, sir.
+ Did they allow any of them to fight in the army? Yes, sir. Did they permit
+ any of them to vote? Yes, sir. Did they make them citizens? Yes, sir. Let
+ us see whether they did or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before we had the present Constitution we had what were called Articles of
+ Confederation. The fourth of those articles provided that every free
+ inhabitant of the colony should be a citizen. It did not make any
+ difference whether he was white or black; and negroes voted by the side of
+ Washington and Jefferson. Just here the question arises, if negroes were
+ good enough in 1787 and 1790 to vote by the side of such men, whether
+ rebels and their sympathizers are good enough now to vote alongside of the
+ negro.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did they let any of these negroes fight? In 1750, when Massachusetts had
+ slaves, there appeared in the Boston Gazette the following notice:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Ran away from his master, Wm. Brown, of Framingham, on the 30th September
+ last, a mulatto fellow, about 27 years of age, named Crispus, about 6 feet
+ high, short curly hair, had on a light colored bear-skin coat, brown
+ jacket, new buckskin breeches, blue yarn stockings and check woolen
+ shirt," etc.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This "mulatto fellow" did not come back, and so they advertised the next
+ week and the week following, but still the toes of the blue yarn socks
+ pointed the other way. That was in 1750. 1760 came and 1770, and the
+ people of this continent began to talk about having their liberties. And
+ while wise and thoughtful men were talking about it, making petitions for
+ popular rights and laying them at the foot of the throne, the King's
+ troops were in Boston. One day they marched down King street, on their way
+ to arrest some citizen. The soldiery were attacked by a mob, and at its
+ head was a "mulatto fellow" who shouted "here they are," and it was
+ observed that this "mulatto fellow" was about six feet high&mdash;that his
+ knees were nearer together than common, and that he was about 47 years of
+ age. The soldiers fired upon the mob and he fell, shot through with five
+ balls&mdash;the first man that led a charge against British aggression&mdash;the
+ first martyr whose blood was shed for American liberty upon this soil.
+ They took up that poor corpse, and as it lay in Faneuil Hall it did more
+ honor to the place than did Daniel Webster defending the Fugitive Slave
+ Law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They allowed him to fight. Would our fathers have been brutal enough, if
+ he had not been killed, to put him back into slavery? No! They would have
+ said that a man who fights for liberty should enjoy it. If a man fights
+ for that flag it shall protect him. Perish forever from the heavens the
+ flag that will not defend its defenders, be they white or black.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thus our fathers felt. They raised negro troops by the company and the
+ regiment, and gave his liberty to every man that fought for liberty. Not
+ only that, but they allowed them to vote. They voted in the Carolinas, in
+ Tennessee, in New York, in all the New England States. Our fathers had too
+ much decency to act upon the Democratic doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the war of 1812, negroes fought at Lake Erie and at New Orleans, and
+ then the fathers, as in the Revolution, were too magnanimous to turn them
+ back into slavery. You need not get mad, my Democratic friends, because
+ you hate Ben. Butler. Let me read you an abolition document.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will all say it is right; you cannot say anything else when you hear
+ it. Butler, you know, was down in New Orleans, and he made some of those
+ rebels dance a tune that they did not know, and he made them keep pretty
+ good time too:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana:</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through a mistaken policy you have heretofore been deprived of a
+ participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our
+ country is engaged. This shall no longer exist. As sons of freedom you are
+ now called upon to defend our most inestimable blessing. As Americans,
+ your country looks with confidence to her adopted children for a valorous
+ support as a faithful return for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and
+ equitable government. As fathers, husbands and brothers you are summoned
+ to rally around the standard of the eagle&mdash;to defend all which is
+ dear in existence. Your country, although calling for your exertions, does
+ not wish you to engage in her cause without amply remunerating you for the
+ services rendered. Your intelligent minds can not be led away by false
+ representations. Your love of honor would cause you to despise a man who
+ should attempt to deceive you. In the sincerity of a soldier and the
+ language of truth I address you. To every noble-hearted, generous free man
+ of color volunteering to serve during the present contest and no longer,
+ there will be paid the same bounty in money and lands now received by the
+ white soldiers of the United States, viz: $124 in money and one hundred
+ and sixty acres of land. The noncommissioned officers and privates will
+ also be entitled to the same monthly pay and daily rations and clothing
+ furnished any American soldier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On enrolling yourselves in companies, the Major General commanding will
+ select officers for your government from your white fellow-citizens. Your
+ non-commissioned officers will be appointed from among yourselves. Due
+ regard will be paid to their feelings as freemen and soldiers. You will
+ not by being associated with white men in the same corps, be exposed to
+ improper companions or unjust sarcasm. As a distinct battalion or regiment
+ pursuing the path of glory, you will undivided receive the applause and
+ gratitude of your countrymen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To assure you of the sincerity of my intentions and my anxiety to engage
+ your valuable services to our country, I have communicated my wishes to
+ the Governor of Louisiana, who is fully informed as to the manner of
+ enrollment, and give you every necessary information on the subject of
+ this address.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a terrible document to a Democrat. Let us look back over it a
+ little. "Through a mistaken policy." We had not sense enough to let the
+ negroes fight during the first part of the war. "As sons of freedom" we
+ had got sense by this time. "Americans." Oh! shocking! Think of calling
+ negroes Americans. "Your country!" Is that not enough to make a Democrat
+ sick? "As fathers, husbands, brothers." Negro brothers. That is too bad.
+ "Your intelligent minds." Now, just think of a negro having an intelligent
+ mind. "Are not to be led away by false representations." Then precious few
+ of them will vote the Democratic ticket. "Your sense of honor will lead
+ you to despise the man who should attempt to deceive you." Then how they
+ will hate the Democratic party. Then he goes on to say that the same
+ bounty, money and land that the white soldiers receive will be paid to
+ these negroes. Not only that, but they are to have the same pay, clothing
+ and rations. Only think of a negro having as much land, as much to eat and
+ as many clothes to wear as a white man. Is not this a vile abolition
+ document? And yet there is not a Democrat in Indiana that dare open his
+ mouth against it, full of negro equality as it is. Now, let us see when
+ and by whom this proclamation was issued. You will find that it is dated,
+ "Headquarters 7th Military District, Mobile, September 21st, 1814," and
+ signed "Andrew Jackson, Major General Commanding."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Oh, you Jackson Democrats. You gentlemen that are descended from
+ Washington and Jackson&mdash;great heavens, what a descent! Do you think.
+ Jackson was a Democrat? He generally passed for a good Democrat; yet he
+ issued that abominable abolition proclamation and put negroes on an
+ equality with white men. That is not the worst of it, either; for after he
+ got these negroes into the army he made a speech to them, and what did he
+ say in that speech? Here it is in full:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>To the Men of Color:</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Soldiers&mdash;From the shores of Mobile I called you to arms. I invited
+ you to share in the perils and to divide the glory with your white
+ countrymen. I expected much from you, for I was not uninformed of those
+ qualities which must render you so formidable to an invading foe. I knew
+ that you could endure hunger, thirst, and all the hardships of war. I knew
+ that you loved the land of your nativity, and that like ourselves you had
+ to defend all that is most dear to man. But you surpass my hopes. I have
+ found in you united to these qualities that noble enthusiasm which impels
+ to great deeds. Soldiers, the President of the United States shall be
+ informed of your conduct on the present occasion and the voice of the
+ representatives of the American nation shall applaud your valor as your
+ General now praises your ardor. The enemy is near. His sails cover the
+ lakes. But the brave are united, and if he finds' us contending among
+ ourselves, it will be only for the prize of valor, its noblest reward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is negro equality for you. There is the first man since the heroes
+ of the Revolution died that issued a proclamation and put negroes on an
+ equality with white men, and he was as good a Democrat as ever lived in
+ Indiana. I could go on and show where they voted, and who allowed them to
+ vote, but I have said enough on that question, and also upon the question
+ of their fighting in the army, and of their being citizens, and have
+ established, I think conclusively, this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>First</i>. That our fathers, in order to found this Government,
+ arrested men without warrant, indictment or affidavit by the hundred and
+ by the thousand; that we, in order to preserve the Government that they
+ thus founded, arrested a few people without warrant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>. That our fathers, for the purpose of founding the
+ Government, suspended the writ of <i>habeas corpus</i>; that we, for the
+ purpose of preserving the same Government, did the same thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Third</i>. That they, for the purpose of inaugurating this Government,
+ interfered with the liberty of the press; that we, on one or two
+ occasions, for the purpose of preserving the Government, interfered with
+ the liberty of the press.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fourth</i>. That our fathers allowed negroes to fight in order that
+ they might secure the liberties of America; that we, in order to preserve
+ those liberties, allow negroes to fight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Fifth</i>. That our fathers, out of gratitude to the negroes in the
+ Revolutionary war, allowed them to vote; that we have done the same. That
+ they made them citizens, and we have followed their example.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As far as I have gone, I have shown that the fathers of the Revolution and
+ the War of 1812 set us the example for everything we have done. Now, Mr.
+ Democrat, if you want to curse us, curse them too. Either quit yawping
+ about the fathers, or quit yawping about us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, was there any necessity, during this war, to follow the example
+ of our fathers? The question was put to us in 1861: "Shall the majority
+ rule?" and also the balance of that question: "Shall the minority submit?"
+ The minority said they would not. Upon the right of the majority to rule
+ rests the entire structure of our Government. Had we, in 1861, given up
+ that principle, the foundations of our Government would have been totally
+ destroyed. In fact there would have been no Government, even in the North.
+ It is no use to say the majority shall rule if the minority consents.
+ Therefore, if, when a man has been duly elected President, anybody
+ undertakes to prevent him from being President, it is your duty to protect
+ him and enforce submission to the will of the majority. In 1861 we had
+ presented to us the alternative, either to let the great principle that
+ lies at the foundation of our Government go by the board, or to appeal to
+ arms, and to the God of battles, and fight it through.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Southern people said they were going out of the Union; we implored
+ them to stay, by the common memories of the Revolution, by an apparent
+ common destiny; by the love of man, but they refused to listen to us&mdash;rushed
+ past us, and appealed to the arbitrament of the sword; and now I, for one,
+ say by the decision of the sword let them abide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I want to show how mean the American people were in 1861. The vile
+ and abominable institution of slavery had so corrupted us that we did not
+ know right from wrong. It crept into the pulpit until the sermon became
+ the echo of the bloodhound's bark. It crept upon the bench, and the judge
+ could not tell whether the corn belonged to the man that raised it, or to
+ the fellow that did not, but he rather thought it belonged to the latter.
+ We had lost our sense of justice. Even the people of Indiana were so far
+ gone as to agree to carry out the Fugitive Slave Law. Was it not low-lived
+ and contemptible? We agreed that if we found a woman ninety-nine one
+ hundredths white, who, inspired by the love of liberty, had run away from
+ her masters, and had got within one step of free soil, we would clutch her
+ and bring her back to the dominion of the Democrat, the bloodhound and the
+ lash. We were just mean enough to do it. We used to read that some
+ hundreds of years ago a lot of soldiers would march into a man's house,
+ take him out, tie him to a stake driven into the earth, pile fagots around
+ him, and let the thirsty flames consume him, and all because they differed
+ from him about religion. We said it was horrible; it made our blood run
+ cold to think of it; yet at the same time many a magnificent steamboat
+ floated down the Mississippi with wives and husbands, fragments of
+ families torn asunder, doomed to a life of toil, requited only by lashes
+ upon the naked back, and branding irons upon the quivering flesh, and we
+ thought little of it. When we set out to put down the Rebellion the
+ Democratic party started up all at once and said, "You are not going to
+ interfere with slavery, are you?" Now, it is remarkable that whenever we
+ were going to do a good thing, we had to let on that we were going to do a
+ mean one. If we had said at the outset, "We will break the shackles from
+ four millions of slaves" we never would have succeeded. We had to come at
+ it by degrees. The Democrats scented it out. They had a scent keener than
+ a bloodhound when anything was going to be done to affect slavery. "Put
+ down rebellion," they said, "but don't hurt slavery." We said, "We will
+ not; we will restore the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is."
+ We were in good faith about it. We had no better sense then than to think
+ that it was worth fighting for, to preserve the cause of quarrel&mdash;the
+ bone of contention&mdash;so as to have war all the time. Every blow we
+ struck for slavery was a blow against us. The Rebellion was simply slavery
+ with a mask on. We never whipped anybody but once so long as we stood upon
+ that doctrine; that was at Donelson; and the victory there was not owing
+ to the policy, but to the splendid genius of the next President of the
+ United States. After a while it got into our heads that slavery was the
+ cause of the trouble, and we began to edge up slowly toward slavery. When
+ Mr. Lincoln said he would destroy slavery if absolutely necessary for the
+ suppression of the Rebellion, people thought that was the most radical
+ thing that ever was uttered. But the time came when it was necessary to
+ free the slaves, and to put muskets into their hands. The Democratic party
+ opposed us with all their might until the draft came, and they wanted
+ negroes for substitutes; and I never heard a Democrat object to arming the
+ negroes after that.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [The speaker from this point presented the history of the
+ Republican policy of reconstruction, and touched lightly on
+ the subject of the national debt. He glanced at the
+ finances, reviewing in the most scathing manner the history
+ and character of Seymour, paid a most eloquent tribute to
+ the character and public services of General Grant, and
+ closed with the following words: ]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The hero of the Rebellion, who accomplished at Shiloh what Napoleon
+ endeavored at Waterloo; who captured Vicksburg by a series of victories
+ unsurpassed, taking the keystone from the rebel arch; who achieved at
+ Missionary Ridge a success as grand as it was unexpected to the country;
+ who, having been summoned from the death-bed of rebellion in the West,
+ marched like an athlete from the Potomac to the James, the grandest march
+ in the history of the world. This was all done without the least flourish
+ upon his part. No talk about destiny&mdash;without faith in a star&mdash;with
+ the simple remark that he would "fight it out on that line," without a
+ boast, modest to bashfulness, yet brave to audacity, simple as duty, firm
+ as war, direct as truth&mdash;this hero, with so much common sense that he
+ is the most uncommon man of his time, will be, in spite of Executive
+ snares and Cabinet entanglements, of competent false witnesses of the
+ Democratic party, the next President of the United States. He will be
+ trusted with the Government his genius saved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SPEECH AT CINCINNATI.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The nomination of Blaine was the passionately dramatic
+ scene of the day. Robert G. Ingersoll had been fixed upon to
+ present Blaine's name to the Convention, and, as the result
+ proved, a more effective champion could not have been
+ selected in the whole party conclave.
+
+ As the clerk, running down the list, reached Maine, an
+ extraordinary event happened. The applause and cheers which
+ had heretofore broken out in desultory patches of the
+ galleries and platform, broke in a simultaneous, thunderous
+ outburst from every part of the house.
+
+ Ingersoll moved out from the obscure corner and advanced to
+ the central stage. As he walked forward the thundering
+ cheers, sustained and swelling, never ceased. As he reached
+ the platform they took on an increased volume of sound, and
+ for ten minutes the surging fury of acclamation, the wild
+ waving of fans, hats, and handkerchiefs transformed the
+ scene from one of deliberation to that of a bedlam of
+ rapturous delirium. Ingersoll waited with unimpaired
+ serenity, until he should get a chance to be heard. * * *
+ And then began an appeal, impassioned, artful, brilliant,
+ and persuasive. * * *
+
+ Possessed of a fine figure, a face of winning, cordial
+ frankness, Ingersoll had half won his audience before he
+ spoke a word. It is the attestation of every man that heard
+ him, that so brilliant a master stroke was never uttered
+ before a political Convention. Its effect was indescribable.
+ The coolest-headed in the hall were stirred to the wildest
+ expression. The adversaries of Blaine, as well as his
+ friends, listened with unswerving, absorbed attention.
+ Curtis sat spell-bound, his eyes and mouth wide open, his
+ figure moving in unison to the tremendous periods that fell
+ in a measured, exquisitely graduated flow from the
+ Illinoisan's smiling lips. The matchless method and manner
+ of the man can never be imagined from the report in type. To
+ realize the prodigious force, the inexpressible power, the
+ irrestrainable fervor of the audience requires actual sight.
+
+ Words can do but meagre justice to the wizard power of this
+ extraordinary man. He swayed and moved and impelled and
+ restrained and worked in all ways with the mass before him
+ as if he possessed some key to the innermost mechanism that
+ moves the human heart, and when he finished, his fine, frank
+ face as calm as when he began, the overwrought thousands
+ sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable wonder and
+ delight.&mdash;Chicago Times, June 16, 1876.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ SPEECH NOMINATING BLAINE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ June 75, 1876.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MASSACHUSETTS may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow; so
+ am I; but if any man nominated by this convention can not carry the State
+ of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that State. If
+ the nominee of this convention cannot carry the grand old Commonwealth of
+ Massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority, I would advise them to
+ sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic headquarters. I would advise them to
+ take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in the great
+ contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of
+ well-known and approved political opinions. They demand a statesman; they
+ demand a reformer after as well as before the election. They demand a
+ politician in the highest, broadest and best sense&mdash;a man of superb
+ moral courage. They demand a man acquainted with public affairs&mdash;with
+ the wants of the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but
+ with the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to
+ comprehend the relations of this Government to the other nations of the
+ earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and
+ prerogatives of each and every department of this Government. They demand
+ a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States;
+ one who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through
+ the prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to know that all the
+ financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar; one who
+ knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law, but by
+ labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the United States
+ have the industry to make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as
+ fast as they make it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that
+ prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that when
+ they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields;
+ hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels; hand in hand
+ past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming forges; hand in
+ hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the
+ countless sons of toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by passing
+ resolutions in a political convention.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this
+ Government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows
+ that any government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its
+ protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who
+ believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and school.
+ They demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star; but
+ they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral
+ character signed by a Confederate congress. The man who has, in full,
+ heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications, is the
+ present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party&mdash;James G.
+ Blaine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first
+ century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and prophetic of her future;
+ asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who is the
+ grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath her flag&mdash;such
+ a man is James G. Blaine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a grand year&mdash;a year filled with recollections of the
+ Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with the
+ sacred legends of liberty&mdash;a year in which the sons of freedom will
+ drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call
+ for the man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the
+ field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat
+ of treason the tongue of slander&mdash;for the man who has snatched the
+ mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who,
+ like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and
+ challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down
+ the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and
+ fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the
+ maligners of his honor. For the Republican party to desert this gallant
+ leader now, is as though an army should desert their general upon the
+ field of battle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred
+ standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred, because no human being
+ can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great Republic, the only
+ republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her
+ defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers
+ living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and
+ in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at
+ Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers,
+ Illinois&mdash;Illinois nominates for the next President of this country,
+ that prince of parliamentarians&mdash;that leader of leaders&mdash;James
+ G. Blaine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CENTENNIAL ORATION.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Delivered on the one hundredth Anniversary of the
+ Declaration of Independence, at Peoria, Ill., July 4, 1876.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ July 4, 1876.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the
+ profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives
+ of a people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of
+ political wisdom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say of physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against the
+ most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by thirteen
+ weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few people, without
+ military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most
+ powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war made when the British
+ navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast
+ of America, looking after defenceless towns and villages to ravage and
+ destroy. It was made when thousands of English soldiers were upon our
+ soil, and when the principal cities of America were in the substantial
+ possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all things considered, it was the
+ bravest political document ever signed by man. And if it was physically
+ brave, the moral courage of the document is almost infinitely beyond the
+ physical. They had the courage not only, but they had the almost infinite
+ wisdom, to declare that all men are created equal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such things had occasionally been said by some political enthusiast in the
+ olden time, but, for the first time in the history of the world, the
+ representatives of a nation, the representatives of a real, living,
+ breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are created equal. With
+ one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel,
+ heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that kingcraft had
+ raised between man and man. They struck down with one immortal blow that
+ infamous spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a beast
+ almost a god. With one word, with one blow, they wiped away and utterly
+ destroyed, all that had been done by centuries of war&mdash;centuries of
+ hypocrisy&mdash;centuries of injustice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One hundred years ago our fathers retired the gods from politics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more did they do? They then declared that each man has a right to
+ live. And what does that mean? It means that he has the right to make his
+ living. It means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the
+ land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath the
+ shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor&mdash;the labor of his
+ hand and of his brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? That every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in his
+ own way. Grander words than these have never been spoken by man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what more did these men say? They laid down the doctrine that
+ governments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the
+ rights of the people. The old idea was that people existed solely for the
+ benefit of the state&mdash;that is to say, for kings and nobles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old idea was that the people were the wards of king and priest&mdash;that
+ their bodies belonged to one and their souls to the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what more? That the people are the source of political power. That was
+ not only a revelation, but it was a revolution. It changed the ideas of
+ people with regard to the source of political power. For the first time it
+ made human beings men. What was the old idea? The old idea was that no
+ political power came from, or in any manner belonged to, the people. The
+ old idea was that the political power came from the clouds; that the
+ political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that it came down
+ to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was the old idea. The nobles lived
+ upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights; the nobles stole
+ what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pretended to
+ divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then, of political
+ power was from above. The people were responsible to the nobles, the
+ nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no
+ more than the wild beasts of the forest. The kings were responsible to
+ God; not to the people. The kings were responsible to the clouds; not to
+ the toiling millions they robbed and plundered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And our forefathers, in this Declaration of Independence, reversed this
+ thing, and said: No; the people, they are the source of political power,
+ and their rulers, these presidents, these kings are but the agents and
+ servants of the great sublime people. For the first time, really, in the
+ history of the world, the king was made to get off the throne and the
+ people were royally seated thereon. The people became the sovereigns, and
+ the old sovereigns became the servants and the agents of the people. It is
+ hard for you and me now to even imagine the immense results of that
+ change. It is hard for you and for me, at this day, to understand how
+ thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of almost every man, that
+ the king had some wonderful right over him; that in some strange way the
+ king owned him; that in some miraculous manner he belonged, body and soul,
+ to somebody who rode on a horse&mdash;to somebody with epaulettes on his
+ shoulders and a tinsel crown upon his brainless head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when they first landed
+ on American shores they believed it. They thought they belonged to
+ somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief who could trace his
+ pedigree back to antiquity's most successful robber.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It took a long time for them to get that idea out of their heads and
+ hearts. They were three thousand miles away from the despotisms of the old
+ world, and every wave of the sea was an assistant to them. The distance
+ helped to disenchant their minds of that infamous belief, and every mile
+ between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy helped to put republican
+ ideas and thoughts into their minds. Besides that, when they came to this
+ country, when the savage was in the forest and three thousand miles of
+ waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on the one hand and famine
+ on the other, they learned that a man who had courage, a man who had
+ thought, was as good as any other man in the world, and they built up, as
+ it were, in spite of themselves, little republics. And the man that had
+ the most nerve and heart was the best man, whether he had any noble blood
+ in his veins or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been a favorite idea with me that our forefathers were educated by
+ Nature, that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed; that
+ the great rivers&mdash;the wide plains&mdash;the splendid lakes&mdash;the
+ lonely forests&mdash;the sublime mountains&mdash;that all these things
+ stole into and became a part of their being, and they grew great as the
+ country in which they lived. They began to hate the narrow, contracted
+ views of Europe. They were educated by their surroundings, and every
+ little colony had to be to a certain extent a republic. The kings of the
+ old world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. But there
+ were too many Indians. There was too much courage required for them to
+ take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with
+ the old country&mdash;who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied
+ with France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The kings' favorites
+ stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain
+ principles they entertained and held dearer than life. And they were
+ willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages,
+ willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new
+ country, of a new land; and the consequence was that our country was
+ settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of their
+ own and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of
+ expressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees,
+ rocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to the new.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When they first came over they did not have a great deal of political
+ philosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. We might as well tell the
+ truth. When the Puritans first came, they were narrow. They did not
+ understand what liberty meant&mdash;what religious liberty, what political
+ liberty, was; but they found out in a few years. There was one feeling
+ among them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the
+ clouds&mdash;they were in favor of universal education. Wherever they went
+ they built schoolhouses, introduced books and ideas of literature. They
+ believed that every man should know how to read and how to write, and
+ should find out all that his capacity allowed him to comprehend. That is
+ the glory of the Puritan fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot to
+ apply the principle of universal liberty&mdash;of toleration. Some of the
+ colonies did not forget it, and I want to give credit where credit should
+ be given. The Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the new
+ continent to declare universal religious toleration. Let this be
+ remembered to their eternal honor. Let it be remembered to the disgrace of
+ the Protestant government of England, that it caused this grand law to be
+ repealed. And to the honor and credit of the Catholics of Maryland let it
+ be remembered that the moment they got back into power they re-enacted the
+ old law. The Baptists of Rhode Island also, led by Roger Williams, were in
+ favor of universal religious liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No American should fail to honor Roger Williams. He was the first grand
+ advocate of the liberty of the soul. He was in favor of the eternal
+ divorce of church and state. So far as I know, he was the only man at that
+ time in this country who was in favor of real religious liberty. While the
+ Catholics of Maryland declared in favor of religious <i>toleration</i>,
+ they had no idea of religious liberty. They would not allow anyone to call
+ in question the doctrine of the Trinity, or the inspiration of the
+ Scriptures. They stood ready with branding-iron and gallows to burn and
+ choke out of man the idea that he had a right to think and to express his
+ thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So many religions met in our country&mdash;so many theories and dogmas
+ came in contact&mdash;so many follies, mistakes, and stupidities became
+ acquainted with each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into
+ disrepute. Besides this, the question of a new nation began to take
+ precedence of all others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people were too much interested in this world to quarrel about the
+ next. The preacher was lost in the patriot. The Bible was read to find
+ passages against kings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody was discussing the rights of man. Farmers and mechanics suddenly
+ became statesmen, and in every shop and cabin nearly every question was
+ asked and answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During these years of political excitement the interest in religion abated
+ to that degree that a common purpose animated men of all sects and creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last our fathers became tired of being colonists&mdash;tired of writing
+ and reading and signing petitions, and presenting them on their bended
+ knees to an idiot king. They began to have an aspiration to form a new
+ nation, to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects of an old
+ monarchy. They had the idea&mdash;the Puritans, the Catholics, the
+ Episcopalians, the Baptists, the Quakers, and a few Freethinkers, all had
+ the idea&mdash;that they would like to form a new nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, do not understand that all of our fathers were in favor of
+ independence. Do not understand that they were all like Jefferson; that
+ they were all like Adams or Lee; that they were all like Thomas Paine or
+ John Hancock. There were thousands and thousands of them who were opposed
+ to American independence. There were thousands and thousands who said:
+ "When you say men are created equal, it is a lie; when you say the
+ political power resides in the great body of the people, it is false."
+ Thousands and thousands of them said: "We prefer Great Britain." But the
+ men who were in favor of independence, the men who knew that a new nation
+ must be born, went on full of hope and courage, and nothing could daunt or
+ stop or stay the heroic, fearless few.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They met in Philadelphia; and the resolution was moved by Lee of Virginia,
+ that the colonies ought to be independent states, and ought to dissolve
+ their political connection with Great Britain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They made up their minds that a new nation must be formed. All nations had
+ been, so to speak, the wards of some church. The religious idea as to the
+ source of power had been at the foundation of all governments, and had
+ been the bane and curse of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the rest.
+ Fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies differed
+ widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who hated the
+ Episcopalians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics, and the
+ Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them all in contempt.
+ There they were, of every sort, and color and kind, and how was it that
+ they came together? They had a common aspiration. They wanted to form a
+ new nation. More than that, most of them cordially hated Great Britain;
+ and they pledged each other to forget these religious prejudices, for a
+ time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion until
+ they got through, and that was the religion of patriotism. They solemnly
+ agreed that the new nation should not belong to any particular church, but
+ that it should secure the rights of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in
+ this world. Recollect that. The first secular government; the first
+ government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more;
+ every religion has the same rights, and no more. In other words, our
+ fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to know that
+ no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be allowed
+ only to exert its moral influence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You might as well have a government united by force with Art, or with
+ Poetry, or with Oratory, as with Religion. Religion should have the
+ influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice,
+ its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more. Religion
+ should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has, and no more.
+ The religion that has to be supported by law is without value, not only,
+ but a fraud and curse. The religious argument that has to be supported by
+ a musket, is hardly worth making. A prayer that must have a cannon behind
+ it, better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not to go in partnership
+ with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and revolvers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So our fathers said: "We will form a secular government, and under the
+ flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man to
+ worship God as he thinks best." They said: "Religion is an individual
+ thing between each man and his creator, and he can worship as he pleases
+ and as he desires." And why did they do this? The history of the world
+ warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp
+ of any church. They had read of and seen the thumbscrews, the racks, and
+ the dungeons of the Inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of the
+ olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with the
+ throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings were
+ robbers. They also knew that if they gave power to any church, it would
+ corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power must not
+ reside in a church, or in a sect, but power must be wherever humanity is&mdash;in
+ the great body of the people. And the officers and servants of the people
+ must be responsible to them. And so I say again, as I said in the
+ commencement, this is the wisest, the pro-foundest, the bravest political
+ document that ever was written and signed by man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. They derived all
+ their authority from the people. They did away forever with the
+ theological idea of government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what more did they say? They said that whenever the rulers abused this
+ authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the people.
+ How did they come to say this? I will tell you. They were pushed into it.
+ How? They felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man feels that he
+ is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and wrong is
+ wonderfully quickened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ of <i>habeas
+ corpus</i>. Nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly having ideas
+ of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And they began to inquire what rights the king of Great Britain had. They
+ began to search for the charter of his authority. They began to
+ investigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be
+ founded, and when they got down there, forced there, too, by their
+ oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they found
+ at' the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not thrones,
+ but humanity and the rights of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so they said, We are men; we are men. They found out they were men.
+ And the next thing they said, was, "We will be free men; we are weary of
+ being colonists; we are tired of being subjects; we are men; and these
+ colonies ought to be states; and these states ought to be a nation; and
+ that nation ought to drive the last British soldier into the sea." And so
+ they signed that brave Declaration of Independence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing that
+ sublime declaration. I thank them for their courage&mdash;for their
+ patriotism&mdash;for their wisdom&mdash;for the splendid confidence in
+ themselves and in the human race. I thank them for what they were, and for
+ what we are&mdash;for what they did, and for what we have received&mdash;for
+ what they suffered, and for what we enjoy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? What
+ would we have been to-day? Nobodies&mdash;ready to get down on our knees
+ and crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to
+ have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed
+ marauder&mdash;that royal robber, William the Conqueror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They signed that Declaration of Independence, although they knew that it
+ would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. They looked forward and
+ saw poverty, deprivation, gloom, and death. But they also saw, on the
+ wrecked clouds of war, the beautiful bow of freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has been raised only by
+ enthusiasts. In every country there have been a few who have given a
+ national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts of 1776 were the
+ builders and framers of this great and splendid Government; and they were
+ the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle
+ of glory that will finally cover this world. They knew, they felt, they
+ believed that they would give a new constellation to the political heavens&mdash;that
+ they would make the Americans a grand people&mdash;grand as the continent
+ upon which they lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The war commenced. There was little money, and less credit. The new nation
+ had but few friends. To a great extent each soldier of freedom had to
+ clothe and feed himself. He was poor and pure, brave and good, and so he
+ went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What did the soldier leave when he went?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He left his wife and children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by civilization, in the
+ repose of law, in the security of a great and powerful republic?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No. He left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe of the
+ boundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red savage, who was at
+ that time the ally of the still more savage Briton. He left his wife to
+ defend herself, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their
+ mother and by nature. The mother made the living; she planted the corn and
+ the potatoes, and hoed them in the sun, raised the children, and, in the
+ darkness of night, told them about their brave father and the "sacred
+ cause." She told them that in a little while the war would be over and
+ father would come back covered with honor and glory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the women, of the sweet children who listened for the footsteps
+ of the dead&mdash;who waited through the sad and desolate years for the
+ dear ones who never came.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soldiers of 1776 did not march away with music and banners. They went
+ in silence, looked at and gazed after by eyes filled with tears. They went
+ to meet, not an equal, but a superior&mdash;to fight five times their
+ number&mdash;to make a desperate stand to stop the advance of the enemy,
+ and then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection of rocks, of
+ rivers, and of hills.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me say here: The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear
+ defeat without losing heart. That army is the bravest that can be whipped
+ the greatest number of times and fight again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Over the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers,
+ they were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the English
+ with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would
+ proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went on as best they
+ could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and somber gloom of
+ Valley Forge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There were very few hearts then beneath that flag that did not begin to
+ think that the struggle was useless; that all the blood and treasure had
+ been shed and spent in vain. But there were some men gifted with that
+ wonderful prophecy that fulfills itself, and with that wonderful magnetic
+ power that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so our fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and still
+ fought on. Brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent; brave men
+ did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man gave his life,
+ until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old banner won its place in
+ the air, and became glorious forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seven long years of war&mdash;fighting for what? For the principle that
+ all men are created equal&mdash;a truth that nobody ever disputed except a
+ scoundrel; nobody, nobody in the entire history of this world. No man ever
+ denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never,
+ never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? Simply that in
+ America every man should have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+ happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villain; never, never. It has
+ been denied by kings&mdash;they were thieves. It has been denied by
+ statesmen&mdash;they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by
+ clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops, and by popes&mdash;they were
+ hypocrites.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else were they fighting for? For the idea that all political power is
+ vested in the great body of the people. The great body of the people make
+ all the money; do all the work. They plow the land, cut down the forests;
+ they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say what shall be
+ done with what is produced except the producer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it the non-producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by vermin?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those were the things they were fighting for; and that is all they were
+ fighting for. They fought to build up a new, a great nation; to establish
+ an asylum for the oppressed of the world everywhere. They knew the history
+ of this world. They knew the history of human slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful
+ enfranchisement of the human race. In the olden times the family was a
+ monarchy, the father being the monarch. The mother and children were the
+ veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had the
+ power of life and death. It took thousands of years to civilize this
+ father, thousands of years to make the condition of wife and mother and
+ child even tolerable. A few families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a
+ chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the nation
+ was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong nation robbed,
+ plundered, and took captive the weaker ones. This was the commencement of
+ human slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors of
+ slavery. It has left no possible crime uncommitted, no possible cruelty
+ unperpetrated. It has been practiced and defended by all nations in some
+ form. It has been upheld by all religions. It has been defended by nearly
+ every pulpit. From the profits derived from the slave trade churches have
+ been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. Slavery has been blessed
+ by bishop, by cardinal, and by pope. It has received the sanction of
+ statesmen, of kings, and of queens. It has been defended by the throne,
+ the pulpit and the bench. Monarchs have shared in the profits. Clergymen
+ have taken their part of the spoils, reciting passages of Scripture in its
+ defence at the same time, and judges have taken their portion in the name
+ of equity and law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. Only a few years ago they
+ passed with and belonged to the soil, like the coal under it and rocks on
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago they were treated like beasts of burden, worse far
+ than we treat our animals at the present day. Only a few years ago it was
+ a crime in England for a man to have a Bible in his house, a crime for
+ which men were hanged, and their bodies afterward burned. Only a few years
+ ago fathers could and did sell their children. Only a few years ago our
+ ancestors were not allowed to speak or write their thoughts&mdash;that
+ being a crime. Only a few years ago to be honest, at least in the
+ expression of your ideas, was a felony. To do right was a capital offence;
+ and in those days chains and whips were the incentives to labor, and the
+ preventives of thought. Honesty was a vagrant, justice a fugitive, and
+ liberty in chains. Only a few years ago men were denounced because they
+ doubted the inspiration of the Bible&mdash;because they denied miracles,
+ and laughed at the wonders recounted by the ancient Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago a man had to believe in the total depravity of the
+ human heart in order to be respectable. Only a few years ago, people who
+ thought God too good to punish in eternal flames an unbaptized child were
+ considered infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As soon as our ancestors began to get free they began to enslave others.
+ With an inconsistency that defies explanation, they practiced upon others
+ the same outrages that had been perpetrated upon them. As soon as white
+ slavery began to be abolished, black slavery commenced. In this infamous
+ traffic nearly every nation of Europe embarked. Fortunes were quickly
+ realized; the avarice and cupidity of Europe were excited; all ideas of
+ justice were discarded; pity fled from the human breast; a few good, brave
+ men recited the horrors of the trade; avarice was deaf; religion refused
+ to hear; the trade went on; the governments of Europe upheld it in the
+ name of commerce&mdash;in the name of civilization and religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers knew the history of caste. They knew that in the despotisms of
+ the Old World it was a disgrace to be useful. They knew that a mechanic
+ was esteemed as hardly the equal of a hound, and far below a blooded
+ horse. They knew that a nobleman held a son of labor in contempt&mdash;that
+ he had no rights the royal loafers were bound to respect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world has changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day there came shoemakers, potters, workers in wood and iron,
+ from Europe, and they were received in the city of New York as though they
+ had been princes. They had been sent by the great republic of France to
+ examine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic of America.
+ They looked a thousand times better to me than the Edward Alberts and
+ Albert Edwards&mdash;the royal vermin, that live on the body politic. And
+ I would think much more of our Government if it would fete and feast them,
+ instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a royal line.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers devoted their lives and fortunes to the grand work of founding
+ a government for the protection of the rights of man. The theological idea
+ as to the source of political power had poisoned the web and woof of every
+ government in the world, and our fathers banished it from this continent
+ forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What we want to-day is what our fathers wrote down. They did not attain to
+ their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not reached it yet. We want,
+ not only the independence of a State, not only the independence of a
+ nation, but something far more glorious&mdash;the absolute independence of
+ the individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the
+ children of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that I can say
+ this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and I have a right to live, and
+ hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as much as
+ any individual or any nation on the face of the globe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We want every American to make to-day, on this hundredth anniversary, a
+ declaration of individual independence. Let each man enjoy his liberty to
+ the utmost&mdash;enjoy all he can; but be sure it is not at the expense of
+ another. The French Convention gave the best definition of liberty I have
+ ever read: "The liberty of one citizen ceases only where the liberty of
+ another citizen commences." I know of no better definition. I ask you
+ to-day to make a declaration of individual independence. And if you are
+ independent be just. Allow everybody else to make his declaration of
+ individual independence. Allow your wife, allow your husband, allow your
+ children to make theirs. Let everybody be absolutely free and independent,
+ knowing only the sacred obligations of honesty and affection. Let us be
+ independent of party, independent of everybody and everything except our
+ own consciences and our own brains. Do not belong to any clique. Have the
+ clear title-deeds in fee simple to yourselves, without any mortgage on the
+ premises to anybody in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. It is a grand thing to
+ protect the rights of others. It is a sublime thing to be free and just.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few days ago I stood in Independence Hall&mdash;in that little room
+ where was signed the immortal paper. A little room, like any other; and it
+ did not seem possible that from that room went forth ideas, like cherubim
+ and seraphim, spreading their wings over a continent, and touching, as
+ with holy fire, the hearts of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a few moments I was in the park, where are gathered the accomplishments
+ of a century. Our fathers never dreamed of the things I saw. There were
+ hundreds of locomotives, with their nerves of steel and breath of flame&mdash;every
+ kind of machine, with whirling wheels and curious cogs and cranks, and the
+ myriad thoughts of men that have been wrought in iron, brass and steel.
+ And going out from one little building were wires in the air, stretching
+ to every civilized nation, and they could send a shining messenger in a
+ moment to any part of the world, and it would go sweeping under the waves
+ of the sea with thoughts and words within its glowing heart. I saw all
+ that had been achieved by this nation, and I wished that the signers of
+ the Declaration&mdash;the soldiers of the Revolution&mdash;could see what
+ a century of freedom has produced. I wished they could see the fields we
+ cultivate&mdash;the rivers we navigate&mdash;the railroads running over
+ the Alleghanies, far into what was then the unknown forest&mdash;on over
+ the broad prairies&mdash;on over the vast plains&mdash;away over the
+ mountains of the West, to the Golden Gate of the Pacific. All this is the
+ result of a hundred years of freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are you not more than glad that in 1776 was announced the sublime
+ principle that political power resides with the people? That our fathers
+ then made up their minds nevermore to be colonists and subjects, but that
+ they would be free and independent citizens of America?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will not name any of the grand men who fought for liberty. All should be
+ named, or none. I feel that the unknown soldier who was shot down without
+ even his name being remembered&mdash;who was included only in a report of
+ "a hundred killed," or "a hundred missing," nobody knowing even the number
+ that attached to his august corpse&mdash;is entitled to as deep and
+ heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head of the host.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden
+ threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as grand as the
+ first? I believe it will, because we are growing more and more humane. I
+ believe there is more human kindness, more real, sweet human sympathy, a
+ greater desire to help one another, in the United States, than in all the
+ world besides.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The steam
+ engine&mdash;the telegraph&mdash;these are but the toys with which science
+ has been amused. Wait; there will be grander things, there will be wider
+ and higher culture&mdash;a grander standard of character, of literature
+ and art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have now half as many millions of people as we have years, and many of
+ us will live until a hundred millions stand beneath the flag. We are
+ getting more real solid sense. The schoolhouse is the finest building in
+ the village. We are writing and reading more books; we are painting and
+ buying more pictures; we are struggling more and more to get at the
+ philosophy of life, of things&mdash;trying more and more to answer the
+ questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction&mdash;investigating;
+ in short, we are thinking and working. Besides all this, I believe the
+ people are nearer honest than ever before. A few years ago we were willing
+ to live upon the labor of four million slaves. Was that honest? At last,
+ we have a national conscience. At last, we have carried out the
+ Declaration of Independence. Our fathers wrote it&mdash;we have
+ accomplished it. The black man was a slave&mdash;we made him a citizen. We
+ found four million human beings in manacles, and now the hands of a race
+ are held up in the free air without a chain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man&mdash;once a slave&mdash;sitting
+ in the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States. I
+ have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were filled with tears.
+ I felt that we had carried, out the Declaration of Independence&mdash;that
+ we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into its every
+ word. I felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man
+ and his little children, standing straight in the sun, just the same as
+ though he were white and worth a million. I would protect him more,
+ because the rich white man could protect himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the only flag that has
+ in reality written upon it: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality&mdash;the three
+ grandest words in all the languages of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty: Give to every man the fruit of his own labor&mdash;the labor of
+ his hands and of his brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fraternity: Every man in the right is my brother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Equality: The rights of all are equal: Justice, poised and balanced in
+ eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales in which are weighed the
+ acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: No race, no color, no
+ previous condition, can change the rights of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in letter and
+ in spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second century will be grander than the first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty millions of people are celebrating this day. To-day, the black man
+ looks upon his child and says: The avenues to distinction are open to you&mdash;upon
+ your brow may fall the civic wreath&mdash;this day belongs to you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad
+ shout of a free people the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the
+ Atlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of happy
+ homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty&mdash;thirteen
+ States to thirty-eight. We have better homes, better clothes, better food
+ and more of it, and more of the conveniences of life, than any other
+ people upon the globe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two
+ hundred years ago&mdash;and they have twice as much sense and heart.
+ Liberty and labor have given us all. I want every person here to believe
+ in the dignity of labor&mdash;to know that the respectable man is the
+ useful man&mdash;the man who produces or helps others to produce something
+ of value, whether thought of the brain or work of the hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to go away with an eternal hatred in your breast of injustice,
+ of aristocracy, of caste, of the idea that one man has more rights than
+ another because he has better clothes, more land, more money, because he
+ owns a railroad, or is famous and in high position. Remember that all men
+ have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part&mdash;who
+ loves his friends the best&mdash;is most willing to help others&mdash;truest
+ to the discharge of obligation&mdash;who has the best heart&mdash;the most
+ feeling&mdash;the deepest sympathies&mdash;and who freely gives to others
+ the rights that he claims for himself is the best man. I am willing to
+ swear to this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What has made this country? I say again, liberty and labor. What would we
+ be without labor? I want every farmer when plowing the rustling corn of
+ June&mdash;while mowing in the perfumed fields&mdash;to feel that he is
+ adding to the wealth and glory of the United States. I want every mechanic&mdash;every
+ man of toil, to know and feel that he is keeping the cars running, the
+ telegraph wires in the air; that he is making the statues and painting the
+ pictures; that he is writing and printing the books; that he is helping to
+ fill the world with honor, with happiness, with love and law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our country is founded upon the dignity of labor&mdash;upon the equality
+ of man. Ours is the first real Republic in the history of the world.
+ Beneath our flag the people are free. We have retired the gods from
+ politics. We have found that man is the only source of political power,
+ and that the governed should govern. We have disfranchised the aristocrats
+ of the air and have given one country to mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ BANGOR SPEECH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Yesterday was a glorious day for the Republicans of
+ Bangor. The weather was delightful and all the imposing
+ exercises of the day were conducted with a gratifying and
+ even inspiring success.
+
+ The noon train from Waterville brought Gov. Connor, Col.
+ Ingersoll and Senator Blaine.
+
+ At 3 p. m. the speakers arrived at the grounds and were
+ received with applause as they ascended the platform, where
+ a number of the most prominent citizens of Bangor and
+ vicinity were assembled. At this time the platform was
+ surrounded by a dense mass of people, numbering thousands.
+ The meeting was called to order by C. A. Boutelle, in behalf
+ of the Republican State Committee. As Col. Ingersoll was
+ introduced by Gov. Connor he was welcomed by tumultuous
+ cheers, which he gracefully acknowledged.
+
+ As we said before, no report could do justice to such a
+ masterly effort as that of the great Western Orator, and we
+ have not attempted to convey any adequate impression of an
+ address which is conceded on all hands to be the most
+ remarkable for originality, power and eloquence ever heard
+ in this section.
+
+ Such a speech by such a man&mdash;if there is another&mdash;must be
+ heard; the magnetism of the speaker must be felt; the
+ indescribable influence must be experienced, in order to
+ appreciate his wonderful power. The vast audience was
+ alternately swayed from enthusiasm for the grand principles
+ advocated, to indignation at the crimes of Democracy, as the
+ record of that party was scorched with his invective; from
+ laughter at the ludicrous presentment of Democratic
+ inconsistencies, to tears brought forth by the pathos and
+ eloquence of his appeals for justice and humanity. During
+ portions of his address there was moisture in the eyes of
+ every person in the audience, and from opening to close he
+ held the assemblage by a spell more potent than that of any
+ man we have ever heard speak. It was one of the grandest,
+ most cogent and thrilling appeals in behalf of the great
+ principles of liberty, loyalty and justice to all men, ever
+ delivered, and we wish it might have been heard by every
+ citizen of our beloved Republic. The Colonel was repeatedly
+ urged by the audience to go on, and he spoke for about two
+ hours with undiminished fervor. His hearers would gladly
+ have given him audience for two hours longer, but with a
+ splendid tribute to Mr. Blaine as the strongest tie between
+ New England and the West, he took his seat amid the ringing
+ cheers and plaudits of the assemblage.&mdash;The Whig and
+ Courier, Bangor, Maine, August 25,1876.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ HAYES CAMPAIGN 1876.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE the honor to belong to the Republican party; the grandest, the
+ sublimest party in the history of the world. This grand party is not only
+ in favor of the liberty of the body, but also the liberty of the soul.
+ This sublime party gives to all the labor of their hands and of their
+ brains. This party allows every person to think for himself and to express
+ his thoughts. The Republican party forges no chains for the mind, no
+ fetters for the souls of men. It declares that the intellectual domain
+ shall be forever free. In the free air there is room for every wing. The
+ Republican party endeavors to remove all obstructions on the highway of
+ progress. In this sublime undertaking it asks the assistance of all. Its
+ platform is Continental. Upon it there is room for the Methodist, the
+ Baptist, the Catholic, the Universalist, the Presbyterian, and the
+ Freethinker. There is room for all who are in favor of the preservation of
+ the sacred rights of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am going to give you a few reasons for voting the Republican ticket. The
+ Republican party depends upon reason, upon argument, upon education, upon
+ intelligence and upon patriotism. The Republican party makes no appeal to
+ ignorance and prejudice. It wishes to destroy both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the party of humanity, the party that hates caste, that honors
+ labor, that rewards toil, that believes in justice. It appeals to all that
+ is elevated and noble in man, to the higher instincts, to the nobler
+ aspirations. It has accomplished grand things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The horizon of the past is filled with the glory of Republican
+ achievement. The monuments of its wisdom, its power and patriotism crowd
+ all the fields of conflict. Upon the Constitution this party wrote equal
+ rights for all; upon every statute book, humanity; upon the flag, liberty.
+ The Republican party of the United States is the conscience of the
+ nineteenth century. It is the justice of this age, the embodiment of
+ social progress and honor. It has no knee for the past. Its face is toward
+ the future. It is the party of advancement, of the dawn, of the sunrise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party commenced its grand career by saying that the
+ institution of human slavery had cursed enough American soil; that the
+ territories should not be damned with that most infamous thing; that this
+ country was sacred to freedom; that slavery had gone far enough. Upon that
+ issue the great campaign of 1860 was fought and won. The Republican party
+ was born of wisdom and conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people of the South claimed that slavery should be protected; that the
+ doors of the territories should be thrown open to them and to their
+ institutions. They not only claimed this, but they also insisted that the
+ Constitution of the United States protected slave property, the same as
+ other property everywhere. The South was defeated, and then appealed to
+ arms. In a moment all their energies were directed toward the destruction
+ of this Government. They commenced the war&mdash;they fired upon the flag
+ that had protected them for nearly a century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The North was compelled to decide instantly between the destruction of the
+ nation and civil war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The division between the friends and enemies of the Union at once took
+ place. The Government began to defend itself. To carry on the war money
+ was necessary. The Government borrowed, and finally issued its notes and
+ bonds. The Democratic party in the North sympathized with the Rebellion.
+ Everything was done to hinder, embarrass, obstruct and delay. They
+ endeavored to make a rebel breastwork of the Constitution; to create a
+ fire in the rear. They denounced the Government; resisted the draft; shot
+ United States officers; declared the war a failure and an outrage;
+ rejoiced over our defeats, and wept and cursed at our victories.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To crush the Rebellion in the South and keep in subjection the Democratic
+ party at the North, thousands of millions of money were expended&mdash;the
+ nation burdened with a fearful debt, and the best blood of the country
+ poured out upon the fields of battle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to destroy the Rebellion it became necessary to destroy slavery.
+ As a matter of fact, slavery was the Rebellion. As soon as this truth
+ forced itself upon the Government&mdash;thrust as it were into the brain
+ of the North upon the point of a rebel bayonet&mdash;the Republican party
+ resolved to destroy forever the last vestige of that savage and cruel
+ institution; an institution that made white men devils and black men
+ beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party put down the Rebellion; saved the nation; destroyed
+ slavery; made the slave a citizen; put the ballot in the hands of the
+ black man; forgave the assassins of the Government; restored nearly every
+ rebel to citizenship, and proclaimed peace to, and for each and all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For sixteen years the country has been in the hands of that great party.
+ For sixteen years that grand party, in spite of rebels in arms&mdash;in
+ spite of the Democratic party of the North, has preserved the territorial
+ integrity, and the financial honor of the country. It has endeavored to
+ enforce the laws; it has tried to protect loyal men at the South; it has
+ labored to bring murderers and assassins to justice, and it is working now
+ to preserve the priceless fruits of its great victory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The present question is, whom shall we trust? To whom shall we give the
+ reins of power? What party will best preserve the rights of the people?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What party is most deserving of our confidence? There is but one way to
+ determine the character of a party, and that is, by ascertaining its
+ history.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could we have safely trusted the Democratic party in 1860? No. And why
+ not? Because it was a believer in the right of secession&mdash;a believer
+ in the sacredness of human slavery. The Democratic party then solemnly
+ declared&mdash;speaking through its most honored and trusted leaders&mdash;that
+ each State had the right to secede. This made the Constitution a <i>nudum
+ pactum</i>, a contract without a consideration, a Democratic promise, a
+ wall of mist, and left every State free to destroy at will the fabric of
+ American Government&mdash;the fabric reared by our fathers through years
+ of toil and blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could we have safely trusted that party in 1864, when, in convention
+ assembled, it declared the war a failure, and wished to give up the
+ contest at a moment when universal victory was within the grasp of the
+ Republic? Had the people put that party in power then, there would have
+ been a Southern Confederacy to-day, and upon the limbs of four million
+ people the chains of slavery would still have clanked. Is there one man
+ present who, to-day, regrets that the Vallandigham Democracy of 1864 was
+ spurned and beaten by the American people? Is there one man present who,
+ to-day, regrets the utter defeat of that mixture of slavery, malice and
+ meanness, called the Democratic party, in 1864?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could we have safely trusted that party in 1868?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time the Democracy of the South was trying to humble and frighten
+ the colored people or exterminate them. These inoffensive colored people
+ were shot down without provocation, without mercy. The white Democrats
+ were as relentless as fiends. They killed simply to kill. They murdered
+ these helpless people, thinking that they were in some blind way getting
+ their revenge upon the people of the North. No tongue can exaggerate the
+ cruelties practiced upon the helpless freedmen of the South. These white
+ Democrats had been reared amid and by slavery. Slavery knows no such thing
+ as justice, no such thing as mercy. Slavery does not dream of governing by
+ reason, by argument or persuasion. Slavery depends upon force, upon the
+ bowie-knife, the revolver, the whip, the chain and the bloodhound. The
+ white Democrats of the South had been reared amid slavery; they cared
+ nothing for reason; they knew of but one thing to be used when there was a
+ difference of opinion or a conflict of interest, and that was brute force.
+ It never occurred to them to educate, to inform, and to reason. It was
+ easier to shoot than to reason; it was quicker to stab than to argue;
+ cheaper to kill than to educate. A grave costs less than a schoolhouse;
+ bullets were cheaper than books; and one knife could stab more than forty
+ schools could convert.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They could not bear to see the negro free&mdash;to see the former slave
+ trampling on his old chains, holding a ballot in his hand. They could not
+ endure the sight of a negro in office. It was gall and wormwood to think
+ of a slave occupying a seat in Congress; to think of a negro giving his
+ ideas about the political questions of the day. And so these white
+ Democrats made up their minds that by a reign of terrorism they would
+ drive the negro from the polls, drive him from all official positions, and
+ put him back in reality in the old condition. To accomplish this they
+ commenced a system of murder, of assassination, of robbery, theft, and
+ plunder, never before equaled in extent and atrocity. All this was in its
+ height when in 1868 the Democracy asked the control of this Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there a man here who in his heart regrets that the Democrats failed in
+ 1868? Do you wish that the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of
+ night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down like a wild beast,
+ regardless of the prayers and tears of wife and children, were now holding
+ positions of honor and trust in this Government? Are you sorry that these
+ assassins were defeated in 1868?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1872 the Democratic party, bent upon victory, greedy for office, with
+ itching palms and empty pockets, threw away all principle&mdash;if
+ Democratic doctrines can be called principles&mdash;and nominated a
+ life-long enemy of their party for President. No one doubted or doubts the
+ loyalty and integrity of Horace Greeley. But all knew that if elected he
+ would belong to the party electing him; that he would have to use
+ Democrats as his agents, and all knew, or at least feared, that the agents
+ would own and use the principal. All believed that in the malicious clutch
+ of the Democratic party Horace Greeley would be not a President, but a
+ prisoner&mdash;not a ruler, but a victim. Against that grand man I have
+ nothing to say. I simply congratulate him upon his escape from being used
+ as a false key by the Democratic party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During all these years the Democratic party prophesied the destruction of
+ the Government, the destruction of the Constitution, and the banishment of
+ liberty from American soil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1864 that party declared that after four years of failure to restore
+ the Union by the experiment of war, there should be a cessation of
+ hostilities. They then declared "that the Constitution had been violated
+ in every part, and that public liberty and private rights had been trodden
+ down."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet the Constitution remained and still remains; public liberty still
+ exists, and private rights are still respected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1868, growing more desperate, and being still filled with the spirit of
+ prophecy, this same party in its platform said: "Under the repeated
+ assaults of the Republican party, the pillars of the Government are
+ rocking on their base, and should it succeed in November next, and
+ inaugurate its President, we will meet as a subjected and conquered
+ people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the
+ Constitution."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party did succeed in November, 1868, and did inaugurate its
+ President, and we did not meet as a subjected and conquered people amid
+ the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution. We
+ met as a victorious people, amid the proudest achievements of liberty,
+ protected by a Constitution spotless and stainless&mdash;pure as the
+ Alpine snow thrice sifted by the northern blast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must not forget the condition of the Government when it came into the
+ hands of the Republican party. Its treasury was empty, its means
+ squandered, its navy dispersed, its army unreliable, the offices filled
+ with rebels and rebel spies; the Democratic party of the North rubbing its
+ hands in a kind of hellish glee and shouting, "I told you so."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the Republican party came into power in 1861, it found the Southern
+ States in arms; it came into power when human beings were chained hand to
+ hand and driven like cattle to market; when white men were engaged in the
+ ennobling business of raising dogs to pursue and catch men and women; when
+ the bay of the bloodhound was considered as the music of the Union. It
+ came into power when, from thousands of pulpits, slavery was declared to
+ be a divine institution. It took the reins of Government when education
+ was an offence, when mercy, humanity and justice were political crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party came into power when the Constitution of the United
+ States upheld the crime of crimes, a Constitution that gave the lie direct
+ to the Declaration of Independence, and, as I said before, when the
+ Southern States were in arms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the fulfillment of its great destiny it gave all its energies. To the
+ almost superhuman task, it gave its every thought and power. For four long
+ and terrible years, with vast armies in the field against it; beset by
+ false friends; in constant peril; betrayed again and again; stabbed by the
+ Democratic party, in the name of the Constitution; reviled and slandered
+ beyond conception; attacked in every conceivable manner&mdash;the
+ Republican party never faltered for an instant. Its courage increased with
+ the difficulties to be overcome. Hopeful in defeat, confident in disaster,
+ merciful in victory; sustained by high aims and noble aspirations, it
+ marched forward, through storms of shot and shell&mdash;on to the last
+ fortification of treason and rebellion&mdash;forward to the shining goal
+ of victory, lasting and universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During these savage and glorious years, the Democratic party of the North,
+ as a party, assisted the South. Democrats formed secret societies to burn
+ cities&mdash;to release rebel prisoners. They shot down officers who were
+ enforcing the draft; they declared the war unconstitutional; they left
+ nothing undone to injure the credit of the Government; they persuaded
+ soldiers to desert; they went into partnership with rebels for the purpose
+ of spreading contagious diseases through the North. They were the friends
+ and allies of persons who regarded yellow fever and smallpox as weapons of
+ civilized warfare. In spite of all this, the Republicans succeeded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democrats declared slavery to be a divine institution; The Republican
+ party abolished it. The Constitution of the United States was changed from
+ a sword that stabbed the rights of four million people to a shield for
+ every human being beneath our flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democrats of New York burned orphan asylums and inaugurated a reign of
+ terror in order to co-operate with the raid of John Morgan. Remember, my
+ friends, that all this was done when the fate of our country trembled in
+ the balance of war; that all this was done when the great heart of the
+ North was filled with agony and courage; when the question was, "Shall
+ Liberty or Slavery triumph?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No words have ever passed the human lips strong enough to curse the
+ Northern allies of the South.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The United States wanted money. It wanted money to buy muskets and cannon
+ and shot and shell, it wanted money to pay soldiers, to buy horses,
+ wagons, ambulances, clothing and food. Like an individual, it had to
+ borrow this money; and, like an honest individual, it must pay this money.
+ Clothed with sovereignty, it had, or at least exercised, the power to make
+ its notes a legal tender. This quality of being a legal tender was the
+ only respect in which these notes differ from those signed by an
+ individual. As a matter of fact, every note issued was a forced loan from
+ the people, a forced loan from the soldiers in the field&mdash;in short, a
+ forced loan from every person that took a single dollar. Upon every one of
+ these notes is printed a promise. The belief that this promise will be
+ made good gives every particle of value to each note that it has. Although
+ each note, by law, is a legal tender, yet if the Government declared that
+ it never would redeem these notes, the people would not take them if
+ revolution could hurl such a Government from power. So that the belief
+ that these notes will finally be paid, added to the fact that in the
+ meantime they are a legal tender, gives them all the value they have. And,
+ although all are substantially satisfied that they will be paid, none know
+ at what time. This uncertainty as to the time, as to when, affects the
+ value of these notes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They must be paid, unless a promise can be delayed so long as to amount to
+ a fulfillment. They must be paid. The question is, "How?" The answer is,
+ "By the industry and prosperity of the people." They cannot be paid by
+ law. Law made them; labor must pay them; and they must be paid out of the
+ profits of the people. We must pay the debt with eggs, not with goose. In
+ a terrible war we spent thousands of millions; all the bullets thrown; all
+ the powder burned; all the property destroyed, of every sort, kind, and
+ character; all the time of the people engaged&mdash;all these things were
+ a dead loss. The debt represents the loss. Paying the debt is simply
+ repairing the loss. When we, as a people, shall have made a net amount,
+ equal to the amount thrown, as it were, away in war, or somewhere near
+ that amount, we will resume specie payment; we will redeem our promises.
+ We promised on paper, we shall pay in gold and silver. We asked the people
+ to hold this paper until we got the money, and they are holding the paper
+ and we are getting the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As soon as the slaves were free, the Republican party said, "They must be
+ citizens, not vagrants." The Democratic party opposed this just, this
+ generous measure. The freedmen were made citizens. The Republican party
+ then said, "These citizens must vote; they must have the ballot, to keep
+ what the bullet has won." The Democratic party said "No." The negroes
+ received the ballot. The Republican party then said, "These voters must be
+ educated, so that the ballot shall be the weapon of intelligence, not of
+ ignorance." The Democratic party objected. But schools were founded, and
+ books were put in the hands of the colored people, instead of whips upon
+ their backs. We said to the Southern people, "The colored men are
+ citizens; their rights must be respected; they are voters, they must be
+ allowed to vote; they were and are our friends, and we are their
+ protectors."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this was accomplished by the Republican party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It changed the organic law of the land, so that it is now a proper
+ foundation for a free government; it struck the cruel shackles from four
+ million human beings; it put down the most gigantic rebellion in the
+ history of the world; it expunged from the statute books of every State,
+ and of the Nation, all the cruel and savage laws that Slavery had enacted;
+ it took whips from the backs, and chains from the limbs, of men; it
+ dispensed with bloodhounds as the instruments of civilization; it banished
+ to the memory of barbarism the slave-pen, the auction block, and the
+ whipping-post; it purified a Nation; it elevated the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this was opposed by the Democratic party; opposed with a bitterness,
+ compared to which ordinary malice is sweet. I say the Democratic party,
+ because I consider those who fought against the Government, in the fields
+ of the South, and those who opposed in the North, as Democrats&mdash;one
+ and all. The Democratic party has been, during all these years, the enemy
+ of civilization, the hater of liberty, the despiser of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I say the Democratic party sympathized with the Rebellion, I mean a
+ majority of that party. I know there are in the Democratic party, soldiers
+ who fought for the Union. I do not know why they are there, but I have
+ nothing to say against them. I will never utter a word against any man who
+ bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, for the preservation of the
+ Republic. When I use the term Democratic party, I do not mean those
+ soldiers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are others in the Democratic party who are there just because their
+ fathers were Democrats. They do not mean any particular harm. Others are
+ there because they could not amount to anything in the Republican party. A
+ man only fit for a corporal in the Republican ranks, will make a leader in
+ the Democratic party. By the Democratic party, I mean that party that
+ sided with the South&mdash;that believed in secession&mdash;that loved
+ slavery&mdash;that hated liberty&mdash;that denounced Lincoln as a tyrant&mdash;that
+ burned orphan asylums&mdash;that gloried in our disasters&mdash;that
+ denounced every effort to save the nation&mdash;they are the gentlemen I
+ mean, and they constitute a large majority of the Democratic party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democrats hate the negro to-day, with a hatred begotten of a
+ well-grounded fear that the colored people are rapidly becoming their
+ superiors in industry, intellect and character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The colored people have suffered enough. They were and are our friends.
+ They are the friends of this country, and cost what it may they must be
+ protected. The white loyal man must be protected. They have been
+ ostracized, slandered, mobbed, and murdered. Their very blood cries from
+ the ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These two things&mdash;payment of the debt and protection of loyal
+ citizens, are the things to be done. Which party can be trusted?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Which will be the more apt to pay the debt?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Which will be the more apt to protect the colored and white loyalist at
+ the South?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who is Samuel J. Tilden?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Samuel J. Tilden is an attorney. He never gave birth to an elevated, noble
+ sentiment in his life. He is a kind of legal spider, watching in a web of
+ technicalities for victims. He is a compound of cunning and heartlessness&mdash;of
+ beak and claw and fang. He is one of the few men who can grab a railroad
+ and hide the deep cuts, tunnels and culverts in a single night. He is a
+ corporation wrecker. He is a demurrer filed by the Confederate congress.
+ He waits on the shores of bankruptcy to clutch the drowning by the throat.
+ He was never married. The Democratic party has satisfied the longings of
+ his heart. He has looked upon love as weakness. He has courted men because
+ women cannot vote. He has contented himself by adopting a rag-baby, that
+ really belongs to Mr. Hendricks, and his principal business at present is
+ explaining how he came to adopt this child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Samuel J. Tilden has been for years without number a New York Democrat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ New York has been, and still is, the worst governed city in the world.
+ Political influence is bought and sold like stocks and bonds. Nearly every
+ contract is larceny in disguise&mdash;nearly every appointment is a reward
+ for crime, and every election is a fraud. Among such men Samuel J. Tilden
+ has lived; with such men he has acted; by such men he has been educated;
+ such men have been his scholars, and such men are his friends. These men
+ resisted the draft, but Samuel J. Tilden remained their friend. They
+ burned orphan asylums, but Tilden's friendship never cooled. They
+ inaugurated riot and murder, but Tilden wavered not. They stole a hundred
+ millions, and when no more was left to steal&mdash;when the people could
+ not even pay the interest on the amount stolen&mdash;then these Democrats,
+ clapping their hands over their bursting pockets, began shouting for
+ reform. Mr. Tilden has been a reformer for years, especially of railroads.
+ The vital issue with him has been the issue of bogus stock. Although a
+ life-long Democrat, he has been an amalgamationist&mdash;of corporations.
+ While amassing millions, he has occasionally turned his attention to
+ national affairs. He left his private affairs (and his reputation depends
+ upon these affairs being kept private) long enough to assist the Democracy
+ to declare the war for the restoration of the Union a failure; long enough
+ to denounce Lincoln as a tyrant and usurper. He was generally too busy to
+ denounce the political murders and assassinations in the South&mdash;too
+ busy to say a word in favor of justice and liberty; but he found time to
+ declare the war for the preservation of the country an outrage. He managed
+ to spare time enough to revile the Proclamation of Emancipation&mdash;time
+ enough to shed a few tears over the corpse of slavery; time enough to
+ oppose the enfranchisement of the colored man; time enough to raise his
+ voice against the injustice of putting a loyal negro on a political level
+ with a pardoned rebel; time enough to oppose every forward movement of the
+ nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man should ever be elected President of this country who raised his
+ hand to dismember and destroy it. No man should be elected President who
+ sympathized with those who were endeavoring to destroy it. No man should
+ be elected President of this great nation who, when it was in deadly
+ peril, did not endeavor to save it by act and word. No man should be
+ elected President who does not believe that every negro should be free&mdash;that
+ the colored people should be allowed to vote. No man should be placed at
+ the head of the nation&mdash;in command of the army and navy&mdash;who
+ does not believe that the Constitution, with all its amendments, should be
+ sacredly enforced. No man should be elected President of this nation who
+ believes in the Democratic doctrine of "States Rights;" who believes that
+ this Government is only a federation of States. No man should be elected
+ President of our great country who aided and abetted her enemies in war&mdash;who
+ advised or countenanced resistance to a draft in time of war, who by
+ slander impaired her credit, sneered at her heroes, and laughed at her
+ martyrs. Samuel J. Tilden is the possessor of nearly every
+ disqualification mentioned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Tilden is the author of an essay on finance, commonly called a letter
+ of acceptance, in which his ideas upon the great subject are given in the
+ plainest and most direct manner imaginable. All through this letter or
+ essay there runs a vein of honest bluntness really refreshing. As a
+ specimen of bluntness and clearness, take the following extracts:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How shall the Government make these notes at all times as good as specie?
+ It has to provide in reference to the mass which would be kept in use by
+ the wants of business a central reservoir of coin, adequate to the
+ adjustment of the temporary fluctuations of the international balance, and
+ as a guaranty against transient drains, artificially created by panic or
+ by speculation. It has also to provide for the payment in coin of such
+ fractional currency as may be presented for redemption, and such
+ inconsiderable portion of legal tenders as individuals may from time to
+ time desire to convert for special use, or in order to lay by in coin
+ their little store of money. To make the coin now in the treasury
+ available for the objects of this reserve, to gradually strengthen and
+ enlarge that reserve, and to provide for such other exceptional demands
+ for coin as may arise, does not seem to me a work of difficulty. If wisely
+ planned and discreetly pursued, it ought not to cost any sacrifice to the
+ business of the country. It should tend, on the contrary, to the revival
+ of hope and confidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, the way to pay the debt is to get the money, and the way
+ to get the money is to provide a central reservoir of coin to adjust
+ fluctuations. As to the resumption he gives us this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The proper time for the resumption is the time when wise preparation shall
+ have ripened into perfect ability to accomplish the object with a
+ certainty and ease that will inspire confidence and encourage the reviving
+ of business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The earliest time in which such a result can be brought about is best.
+ Even when preparations shall have been matured, the exact date would have
+ to be chosen with reference to the then existing state of trade and credit
+ operations in our own country, and the course of foreign commerce and
+ condition of exchanges with other nations. The specific measure and actual
+ date are matters of details, having reference to ever-changing conditions.
+ They belong to the domain of practical, administrative statesmanship. The
+ captain of a steamer, about starting from New York to Liverpool, does not
+ assemble a council over his ocean craft, and fix an angle by which to lash
+ the rudder for the whole voyage. A human intelligence must be at the helm
+ to discern the shifting forces of water and winds. A human mind must be at
+ the helm to feel the elements day by day, and guide to a mastery over
+ them. Such preparations are everything. Without them a legislative command
+ fixing a day&mdash;an official promise fixing a day, are shams. They are
+ worse. They are a snare and a delusion to all who trust them. They destroy
+ all confidence among thoughtful men whose judgment will at last sway
+ public opinion. An attempt to act on such a command, or such a promise
+ without preparation, would end in a new suspension. It would be a fresh
+ calamity, prolific of confusion, distrust, and distress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is to say, Congress has not sufficient intelligence to fix the date
+ of resumption. They cannot fix the proper time. But a Democratic
+ convention has human intelligence enough to know that the first day of
+ January, 1879, is not the proper date. That convention knew what the state
+ of trade and credit in our country and the course of foreign commerce and
+ the condition of exchanges with other nations would be on the first day of
+ January, 1879. Of course they did, or else they never would have had the
+ impudence to declare that resumption would be impossible at that date.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next extract is more luminous still:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Government of the United States, in my opinion, can advance to a
+ resumption of specie payments on its legal tender notes by gradual and
+ safe processes tending to relieve the present business distress. If
+ charged by the people with the administration of the executive office, I
+ should deem it a duty so to exercise the powers with which it has or may
+ be invested by Congress, as the best and soonest to conduct the country to
+ that beneficent result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did not this great statesman tell us of some "gradual and safe
+ process"? He promises, if elected, to so administer the Government that it
+ will soon reach a beneficent result. How is this to be done? What is his
+ plan? Will he rely on "a human intelligence at the helm," or on "the
+ central reservoir," or on some "gradual and safe process"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I defy any man to read this letter and tell me what Mr. Tilden really
+ proposes to do. There is nothing definite said. He uses such general
+ terms, such vague and misty expressions, such unmeaning platitudes, that
+ the real idea, if he had one, is lost in fog and mist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose I should, in the most solemn and impressive manner, tell you that
+ the fluctuations caused in the vital stability of shifting financial
+ operations, not to say speculations of the wildest character, cannot be
+ rendered instantly accountable to a true financial theory based upon the
+ great law that the superfluous is not a necessity, except in vague
+ thoughts of persons unacquainted with the exigencies of the hour, and
+ cannot, in the absence of a central reservoir of coin with a human
+ intelligence at the head, hasten by any system of convertible bonds the
+ expectation of public distrust, no matter how wisely planned and
+ discreetly pursued, failure is assured whatever the real result may be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we wage this war for the right forever? Is there no time when the
+ soldiers of progress can rest? Will the bugles of the great army of
+ civilization never sound even a halt? It does seem as though there can be
+ no stop, no rest. It is in the world of mind as in the physical world.
+ Every plant of value has to be cultivated. The land must be plowed, the
+ seeds must be planted and watered. It must be guarded every moment. Its
+ enemies crawl in the earth and fly in the air. The sun scorches it, the
+ rain drowns it, the dew rusts it. He who wins it must fight. But the weeds
+ they grow in spite of all. Nobody plows for them except accident. The
+ winds sow the seeds, chance covers them, and they flourish and multiply.
+ The sun cannot burn them&mdash;they laugh at rain and frost&mdash;they
+ care not for birds and beasts. In spite of all they grow. It is the same
+ in politics. A true Republican must continue to grow, must work, must
+ think, must advance. The Republican party is the party of progress, of
+ ideas, of work. To make a Republican you must have schools, books, papers.
+ To make a Democrat, take all these away. Republicans are the useful;
+ Democrats the noxious&mdash;corn and wheat against the dog fennel and
+ Canada thistles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Republicans of Maine, do not forget that each of you has two votes in this
+ election&mdash;one in Maine and one in Indiana.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Remember that we are relying on you. There is no stronger tie between the
+ prairies of Illinois and the pines of Maine&mdash;between the Western
+ States and New England, than James G. Blaine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are relying on Maine for from twelve to fifteen thousand on the 12th of
+ September, and Indiana will answer with from fifteen to twenty thousand,
+ and hearing these two votes the Nation in November will declare for Hayes
+ and Wheeler.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This being a newspaper report, and never revised by the
+ author, is of necessity incomplete, but the publisher feels
+ that it should not be lost
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ *Col. Robert G. Ingersoll of Illinois last night, at Cooper
+ Union, spoke on the political issues of the day, at unusual
+ length, to the largest and most enthusiastic audience which,
+ during the last ten years, any single speaker has attracted.
+ His address was in his happiest epigrammatic style, and was
+ interrupted every few moments either by the most uproarious
+ laughter or enthusiastic cheering. It is no exaggeration to
+ say that the meeting was the largest Cooper Institute has
+ seen since the war. Not merely the main hall was filled, but
+ the wide corridor in Third Avenue, the entrance hall in
+ Eighth Street, and every Committee-room to which his voice
+ could reach, though the speaker was unseen, were crowded&mdash;in
+ fact, literally packed. Half an hour before the hour named
+ for the organization of the meeting, admission to the body
+ of the hall was almost impossible; and selected officers,
+ and the speaker of the evening himself had to beg their way
+ to the platform. The latter was as painfully crowded with
+ invited guests as the body of the hall; and ingress was
+ impossible after the speaker began, and egress was almost as
+ difficult owing to the pressure in the committee-room
+ through which the platform is approached.
+
+ Not only in numbers alone, but in the prominence of the
+ persons present, was the meeting impressive. Besides the
+ usual large quota of active politicians always seen at such
+ meetings, there were seen numbers of leading merchants,
+ financiers, and lawyers of New York, prominent officials not
+ only of the City but the State and National Government.
+
+ The speech was nearly two hours In length, but as the
+ interruptions were frequent, indeed almost continuous, it
+ seemed very short, and when Mr. Ingersoll concluded his fire
+ of epigrams, there were loud calls and appeals to him to go
+ on. There were suggestions by some of the managers, of other
+ speakers who might follow him, but the presiding officer
+ wisely decided to submit no other speaker to the too severe
+ test of speaking on the same occasion with Mr. Ingersoll.
+
+ Chauncey M. Depew, on leaving the hall, remarked that it was
+ the greatest speech he ever heard, and numbers of old
+ campaigners were equally enthusiastic. At its conclusion,
+ the reception which Mr. Ingersoll held on the platform
+ lasted over half-an-hour, and when finally Commissioner
+ Wheeler piloted him through the crowd to his coach, three or
+ four hundred of the audience followed and gave him lusty
+ cheers as he drove off.&mdash;New York Tribune, September
+ 11,1876.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I AM just on my way home from the grand old State of Maine, and there has
+ followed me a telegraphic dispatch which I will read to you. If it were
+ not good, you may swear I would not read it: "Every Congressional
+ district, every county in Maine, Republican by a large majority. The
+ victory is overwhelming, and the majority will exceed 15,000." That
+ dispatch is signed by that knight-errant of political chivalry, James G.
+ Blaine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose we are all stockholders in the great corporation known as the
+ United States of America, and as such stockholders we have a right to vote
+ the way we think will best subserve our own interests. Each one has
+ certain stock in this Government, whether he is rich, or whether he is
+ poor, and the poor man has the same interest in the United States of
+ America that the richest man in it has. It is our duty, conscientiously
+ and honestly, to hear the argument upon both sides of the political
+ question, and then go and vote conscientiously for the side that we
+ believe will best preserve our interest in the United States of America.
+ Two great parties are before you now asking your support&mdash;the
+ Democratic party and the Republican party. One wishes to be kept in power,
+ the other wishes to have a chance once more at the Treasury of the United
+ States. The Democratic party is probably the hungriest organization that
+ ever wandered over the desert of political disaster in the history of the
+ world. There never was, in all probability, a political stomach so
+ thoroughly empty, or an appetite so outrageously keen as the one possessed
+ by the Democratic party. The Democratic party has been howling like a pack
+ of wolves looking in with hungry and staring eyes at the windows of the
+ National Capitol, and scratching at the doors of the White House. They
+ have been engaged in these elegant pursuits for sixteen long, weary years.
+ Occasionally they have retired to some convenient eminence and
+ lugubriously howled about the Constitution. The Democratic party comes and
+ asks for your vote, not on account of anything it has done, not on account
+ of anything it has accomplished, but on account of what it promises to do;
+ the Democratic party can make just as good a promise as any other party in
+ the world, and it will come farther from fulfilling it than any other
+ party on this globe. The Republican party having held this Government for
+ sixteen years, proposes to hold it for four years more. The Republican
+ party comes to you with its record open, and asks every man, woman and
+ child in this broad country to read its every word. And I say to you, that
+ there is not a line, a paragraph, or a page of that record that is not
+ only an honor to the Republican party, but to the human race. On every
+ page of that record is written some great and glorious action, done either
+ for the liberty of man, or the preservation of our common country. We ask
+ every body to read its every word. The Democratic party comes before you
+ with its record closed, recording every blot and blur, and stain and
+ treason, and slander and malignity, and asks you not to read a single
+ word, but to be kind enough to take its infamous promises for the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, I propose to tell you, to-night, something that has been
+ done by the Democratic party, and then allow you to judge for yourselves.
+ Now, if a man came to you, you owning a steamboat on the Hudson River, and
+ he wished to hire out to you as an engineer, and you inquired about him,
+ and found he had blown up and destroyed and wrecked every steamboat he had
+ ever been engineer on, and you should tell him: "I can't hire you; you
+ blew up such an engine, you wrecked such a ship," he would say to you, "My
+ Lord! Mister, you must let bygones be bygones." If a man came to your
+ bank, or came to a solitary individual here to borrow a hundred dollars,
+ and you went and inquired about him and found he never paid a note in his
+ life, found he was a dead-beat, and you say to him, "I cannot loan you
+ money." "Why?" "Because, I have ascertained you never pay your debts."
+ "Ah, yes," he says, "you are no gentleman going prying into a man's
+ record," I tell you, my good friends, a good character rests upon a
+ record, and not upon a prospectus, a good record rests upon a deed
+ accomplished, and not upon a promise, a good character rests upon
+ something really done, and not upon a good resolution, and you cannot make
+ a good character in a day. If you could, Tilden would have one to-morrow
+ night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I propose now to tell you, my friends, a little of the history of the
+ Republican party, also a little of the history of the Democratic party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And first, the Republican party. The United States of America is a free
+ country, it is the only free country upon this earth; it is the only
+ republic that was ever established among men. We have read, we have heard,
+ of the republics of Greece, of Egypt, of Venice; we have heard of the free
+ cities of Europe. There never was a republic of Venice; there never was a
+ republic of Rome; there never was a republic of Athens; there never was a
+ free city in Europe; there never was a government not cursed with caste;
+ there never was a government not cursed with slavery; there never was a
+ country not cursed with almost every infamy, until the Republican party of
+ the United States made this a free country. It is the first party in the
+ world that contended that the respectable man was the useful man; it is
+ the first party in the world that said, without regard to previous
+ conditions, without regard to race, every human being is entitled to life,
+ to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and it is the only party in the
+ world that has endeavored to carry those sublime principles into actual
+ effect. Every other party has been allied to some piece of rascality;
+ every other party has been patched up with some thieving, larcenous,
+ leprous compromise. The Republican party keeps its forehead in the grand
+ dawn of perpetual advancement; the Republican party is the party of
+ reason; it is the party of argument; it is the party of education; it
+ believes in free schools, it believes in scientific schools; it believes
+ that the schools are for the public and all the public; it believes that
+ science never should be interfered with by any sectarian influence
+ whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party is in favor of science; the Republican party, as I
+ said before, is the party of reason; it argues; it does not mob; it
+ reasons; it does not murder; it persuades you, not with the shot gun, not
+ with tar and feathers, but with good sound reason, and argument.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order for you to ascertain what the Republican party has done for us,
+ let us refresh ourselves a little; we all know it, but it is well enough
+ to hear it now and then. Let us then refresh our recollection a little, in
+ order to understand what the grand and great Republican party has
+ accomplished in the land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We will consider, in the first place, the condition of the country when
+ the Republican party was born. When this Republican party was born there
+ was upon the statute books of the United States of America a law known as
+ the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, by which every man in the State of New
+ York was made by law a bloodhound, and could be set and hissed upon a
+ negro, who was simply attempting to obtain his birthright of freedom, just
+ as you would set a dog upon a wolf. That was the Fugitive Slave Law of
+ 1850. Around the neck of every man it put a collar as on a dog, but it had
+ not the decency to put the man's name on the collar. I said in the State
+ of Maine, and several other States, and expect to say it again although I
+ hurt the religious sentiment of the Democratic party, and shocked the
+ piety of that organization by saying it, but I did say then, and now say,
+ that the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 would have disgraced hell in its
+ palmiest days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you, my friends, you do not know how easy it is to shock the
+ religious sentiments of the Democratic party; there is a deep and pure
+ vein of piety running through that organization; it has been for years
+ spiritually inclined; there is probably no organization in the world that
+ really will stand by any thing of a spiritual character, at least until it
+ is gone, as that Democratic party will. Everywhere I have been I have
+ crushed their religious hopes. You have no idea how sorry I am that I hurt
+ their feelings so upon the subject of religion. Why, I did not suppose
+ that they cared anything about Christianity, but I have been deceived. I
+ now find that they do, and I have done what no other man in the United
+ States ever did&mdash;I have made the Democratic party come to the defence
+ of Christianity. I have made the Democratic party use what time they could
+ spare between drinks in quoting Scripture. But notwithstanding the fact
+ that I have shocked the religious sentiment of that party, I do not want
+ them to defend Christianity any more; they will bring it into universal
+ contempt if they do. Yes, yes, they will make the words honesty and reform
+ a stench in the nostrils of honest men. They made the words of the
+ Constitution stand almost for treason, during the entire war, and every
+ decent word that passes the ignorant, leprous, malignant lips of the
+ Democratic party, becomes dishonored from that day forth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time, in 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, in
+ nearly all of the Western States, there was a law by which the virtues of
+ pity and hospitality became indictable offences. There was a law by which
+ the virtue of charity became a crime, and the man who performed a kindness
+ could be indicted, imprisoned, and fined. It was the law of Illinois&mdash;of
+ my own State&mdash;that if one gave a drop of cold water, or a crust of
+ bread, to a fugitive from slavery, he could be indicted, fined and
+ imprisoned, under the infamous slave law of 1850, under the infamous black
+ laws of the Western States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the time the Republican party was born, (and I have told this many
+ times) if a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had escaped from
+ slavery, carrying her child on her bosom, having gone through morass and
+ brush and thorns and thickets, had crossed creeks and rivers, and had
+ finally got within one step of freedom, with the light of the North star
+ shining in her tear-filled eyes&mdash;with her child upon her withered
+ breast&mdash;it would have been an indictable offence to have given her a
+ drop of water or a crust of bread; not only that, but under the slave law
+ of 1850, it was the duty of every Northern citizen claiming to be a free
+ man, to clutch that woman and hand her back to the dominion of her master
+ and to the Democratic lash. The Democrats are sorry that those laws have
+ been repealed. The Republican party with the mailed hand of war tore from
+ the statute books of the United States, and from the statute books of each
+ State, every one of those infamous, hellish laws, and trampled them
+ beneath her glorious feet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such laws are infamous beyond expression; one would suppose they had been
+ passed by a Legislature, the lower house of which were hyenas, the upper
+ house snakes, and the executive a cannibal king. The institution of
+ slavery had polluted, had corrupted the church, not only in the South, but
+ a large proportion of the church in the North; so that ministers stood up
+ in their pulpits here in New York and defended the very infamy that I have
+ mentioned. Not only that, but the Presbyterians, South, in 1863, met in
+ General Synod, and passed two resolutions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first resolution read, "Resolved, that slavery is a divine
+ institution" (and as the boy said, "so is hell").
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>Second</i>, "Resolved, that God raised up the Presbyterian Church,
+ South, to protect and perpetuate that institution."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, all I have to say is that, if God did this, he never chose a more
+ infamous instrument to carry out a more diabolical object. What more had
+ slavery done? At that time it had corrupted the very courts, so that in
+ nearly every State in this Union if a Democrat had gone to the hut of a
+ poor negro, and had shot down his wife and children before his very eyes,
+ had strangled the little dimpled babe in the cradle, there was no court
+ before which this negro could come to give testimony. He was not allowed
+ to go before a magistrate and indict the murderer; he was not allowed to
+ go before a grand jury and swear an indictment against the wretch. Justice
+ was not only blind, but deaf; and that was the idea of justice in the
+ South, when the Republican party was born. When the Republican party was
+ born the bay of the bloodhound was the music of the Union; when this party
+ was born the dome of our Capitol at Washington cast its shadow upon
+ slave-pens in which crouched and shuddered women from whose breasts their
+ babes had been torn by wretches who are now crying for honesty and reform.
+ When the Republican party was born, a bloodhound was considered as one of
+ the instrumentalities of republicanism. When the Republican party was
+ born, the church had made the cross of Christ a whipping-post. When the
+ Republican party was born, courts of the United States had not the
+ slightest idea of justice, provided a black man was on the other side.
+ When this party came into existence, if a negro had a plot of ground and
+ planted corn in it, and the rain had fallen upon it, and the dew had lain
+ lovingly upon it, and the arrows of light shot from the exhaustless quiver
+ of the sun, had quickened the blade, and the leaves waved in the perfumed
+ air of June, and it finally ripened into the full ear in the golden air of
+ autumn, the courts of the United States did not know to whom the corn
+ belonged, and if a Democrat had driven the negro off and shucked the corn,
+ and that case had been left to the Supreme Court of many of the States in
+ this Union, they would have read all the authorities, they would have
+ heard all the arguments, they would have heard all the speeches, then
+ pushed their spectacles back on their bald and brainless heads and
+ decided, all things considered, the Democrat was entitled to that corn. We
+ pretended at that time to be a free country; it was a lie. We pretended at
+ that time to do justice in our courts; it was a lie, and above all our
+ pretence and hypocrisy rose the curse of slavery, like Chimborazo above
+ the clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, what is there about this great Republican party? It is
+ the party of intellectual freedom. It is one thing to bind the hands of
+ men; it is one thing to steal the results of physical labor of men, but it
+ is a greater crime to forge fetters for the souls of men. I am a free man;
+ I will do my own thinking or die; I give a mortgage on my soul to nobody;
+ I give a deed of trust on my soul to nobody; no matter whether I think
+ well or I think ill; whatever thought I have shall be my thought, and
+ shall be a free thought, and I am going to give cheerfully, gladly, the
+ same right to thus think to every other human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I despise any man who does not own himself. I despise any man who does not
+ possess his own spirit. I would rather die a beggar, covered with rags,
+ with my soul erect, fearless and free, than to live a king in a palace of
+ gold, clothed with the purple of power, with my soul slimy with hypocrisy,
+ crawling in the dust of fear. I will do my own thinking, and when I get it
+ thought, I will say it. These are the splendid things, my friends, about
+ the Republican party; intellectual and physical liberty for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, I have told you a little about the Republican party. Now,
+ I will tell you a little more about the Republican party. When that party
+ came into power it elected Abraham Lincoln President of the United States.
+ I live in the State that holds within its tender embrace the sacred ashes
+ of Abraham Lincoln, the best, the purest man that was ever President of
+ the United States. I except none. When he was elected President of the
+ United States, the Democratic party said: "We will not stand it;" the
+ Democratic party South said: "We will not bear it;" and the Democratic
+ party North said: "You ought not to bear it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ James Buchanan was then President. James Buchanan read the Constitution of
+ the United States, or a part of it, and read several platforms made by the
+ Democratic party, and gave it as his deliberate opinion that a State had a
+ right to go out of the Union. He gave it as his deliberate opinion that
+ this was a Confederacy and not a Nation, and when he said that, there was
+ another little, dried up, old bachelor sitting over in the amen corner of
+ the political meeting and he squeaked out: "That is my opinion too," and
+ the name of that man was Samuel J. Tilden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party then and now says that the Union is simply a
+ Confederacy; but I want this country to be a Nation. I want to live in a
+ great and splendid country. A great nation makes a great people. Your
+ surroundings have something to do with it. Great plains, magnificent
+ rivers, great ranges of mountains, a country washed by two oceans&mdash;all
+ these things make us great and grand as the continent on which we live.
+ The war commenced, and the moment the war commenced the whole country was
+ divided into two parties. No matter what they had been before, whether
+ Democrats, Freesoilers, Republicans, old Whigs, or Abolitionists&mdash;the
+ whole country divided into two parties&mdash;the friends and enemies of
+ the country&mdash;patriots and traitors, and they so continued until the
+ Rebellion was put down. I cheerfully admit that thousands of Democrats
+ went into the army, and that thousands of Democrats were patriotic men. I
+ cheerfully admit that thousands of them thought more of their country than
+ they did of the Democratic party, and they came with us to fight for the
+ country, and I honor every one of them from the bottom of my heart, and
+ nineteen out of twenty of them have voted the Republican ticket from that
+ day to this. Some of them came back and went to the Democratic party again
+ and are still in that party; I have not a word to say against them, only
+ this: They are swapping off respectability for disgrace. They give to the
+ Democratic party all the respectability it has, and the Democratic party
+ gives to them all the disgrace they have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Democratic soldier, come out of the Democratic party. There was a man in
+ my State got mad at the railroad and would not ship his hogs on it, so he
+ drove them to Chicago, and it took him so long to get them there that the
+ price had fallen; when he came back, they laughed at him, and said to him,
+ "You didn't make much, did you, driving your hogs to Chicago?" "No," he
+ said, "I didn't make anything except the company of the hogs on the way."
+ Soldier of the Republic, I say, with the Democratic party all you can make
+ is the company of the hogs on the way down. Come out, come out and leave
+ them alone in their putridity&mdash;in their rottenness. Leave them alone.
+ Do not try to put a new patch on an old garment. Leave them alone. I tell
+ you the Democratic party must be left alone; it must be left to enjoy the
+ primal curse, "On thy belly shalt thou crawl and dust shalt thou eat all
+ the days of thy life," O Democratic party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, I need not tell you how we put down the Rebellion. You
+ all know. I need not describe to you the battles you fought. I need not
+ tell you of the men who sacrificed their lives. I need not tell you of the
+ old men who are still waiting for footsteps that never will return. I need
+ not tell you of the women who are waiting for the return of their loved
+ ones. I need not tell you of all these things. You know we put down the
+ Rebellion; we fought until the old flag triumphed over every inch of
+ American soil redeemed from the clutch of treason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, what was the Democratic party doing when the Republican
+ party was doing these splendid things? When, the Republican party said
+ this was a nation; when the Republican party said we shall be free; when
+ the Republican party said slavery shall be extirpated from American soil;
+ when the Republican party said the negro shall be a citizen, and the
+ citizen shall have the ballot, and the citizen shall have the right to
+ cast that ballot for the government of his choice peaceably&mdash;what was
+ the Democratic party doing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will tell you a few things that the Democratic party has done within the
+ last sixteen years. In the first place, they were not willing that this
+ country should be saved unless slavery could be saved with it. There never
+ was a Democrat, North or South&mdash;and by Democrat I mean the fellows
+ who stuck to the party all during the war, the ones that stuck to the
+ party after it was a disgrace; the ones that stuck to the party from
+ simple, pure cussedness&mdash;there never was one who did not think more
+ of the institution of slavery than he did of the Government of the United
+ States; not one that I ever saw or read of. And so they said to us for all
+ those years: "If you can save the Union with slavery, and without any help
+ from us, we are willing you should do it; but we do not propose that this
+ shall be an abolition war." So the Democratic party from the first said,
+ "An effort to preserve this Union is unconstitutional," and they made a
+ breastwork of the Constitution for rebels to get behind and shoot down
+ loyal men, so that the first charge I lay at the feet of the Democratic
+ party, the first charge I make in the indictment, is that they thought
+ more of slavery than of liberty and of this Union, and in my judgment they
+ are in the same condition this moment. The next thing they did was to
+ discourage enlistments in the North. They did all in their power to
+ prevent any man's going into the army to assist in putting down the
+ Rebellion. And that grand reformer and statesman, Samuel J. Tilden, gave
+ it as his opinion that the South could sue, and that every soldier who put
+ his foot on sacred Southern soil would be a trespasser, and could be sued
+ before a Justice of the Peace. The Democratic party met in their
+ conventions in every State North, and denounced the war as an abolition
+ war, and Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. What more did they do? They went
+ into partnership with the rebels. They said to the rebels just as plainly
+ as though they had spoken it: "Hold on, hold out, hold hard, fight hard,
+ until we get the political possession of the North, and then you can go in
+ peace."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? A man by the name of Jacob Thompson&mdash;a nice man and a good
+ Democrat, who thinks that of all the men to reform the Government Samuel
+ J. Tilden is the best man&mdash;Jacob Thompson had the misfortune to be a
+ very vigorous Democrat, and I will show you what I mean by that. A
+ Democrat during the war who had a musket&mdash;you understand, a musket&mdash;he
+ was a rebel, and during the war a rebel that did not have a musket was a
+ Democrat. I call Mr. Thompson a vigorous Democrat, because he had a
+ musket. Jacob Thompson was the rebel agent in Canada, and when he went
+ there he took between six and seven hundred thousand dollars for the
+ purpose of co-operating with the Northern Democracy. He got himself
+ acquainted with and in connection with the Democratic party in Ohio, in
+ Indiana, and in Illinois. The vigorous Democrats, the real Democrats, in
+ these States had organized themselves under the heads of "Sons of
+ Liberty," "Knights of the Golden Circle," "Order of the Star," and various
+ other beautiful names, and their object was to release rebel prisoners
+ from Camp Chase, Camp Douglass in Chicago, and from one camp in
+ Indianapolis and another camp at Rock Island. Their object was to raise a
+ fire in the rear, as they called it&mdash;in other words, to burn down the
+ homes of Union soldiers while they were in the front fighting for the
+ honor of their country. That was their object, and they put themselves in
+ connection with Jacob Thompson. They were to have an uprising on the 16th
+ of August, 1864. It was thought best to hold a few public meetings for the
+ purpose of arousing the public mind. They held the first meeting in the
+ city of Peoria, where I live. That was August 3rd, 1864. Here they came
+ from every part of the State, and were addressed by the principal
+ Democratic politicians in Illinois.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To that meeting Fernando Wood addressed a letter, in which he said that
+ although absent in body he should be present in spirit. George Pendleton
+ of Ohio, George Pugh of the same State, Seymour of Connecticut, and
+ various other Democratic gentlemen, sent acknowledgments and expressions
+ of regret to this Democratic meeting that met at this time for the purpose
+ of organizing an uprising among the Democratic party. I saw that meeting,
+ and heard some of their speeches. They denounced the war as an abolition
+ nigger war. They denounced Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. They carried
+ transparencies that said, "Is there money enough in the land to pay this
+ nigger debt? Arouse, brothers, and hurl the tyrant Lincoln from the
+ throne." And the men that promulgated that very thing are running for the
+ most important political offices in the country, on the ground of honesty
+ and reform. And Jacob Thompson says that he furnished the money to pay the
+ expenses of that Democratic meeting. They were all paid by rebel gold, by
+ Jacob Thompson. He has on file the voucher from these Democratic gentlemen
+ in favor of Tilden and Hendricks. The next meetings were held in
+ Springfield, Illinois, and Indianapolis, Indiana, the expenses of which
+ were paid in the same way. They shipped to one town these weapons of our
+ destruction in boxes labeled Sunday school books!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That same rebel agent, Jacob Thompson, hired a Democrat by the name of
+ Churchill to burn the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Thompson coolly
+ remarked: "I don't think he has had much luck, as I have only heard of a
+ <i>few</i> fires."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Indianapolis a man named Dodds was arrested&mdash;a sound Democrat&mdash;so
+ sound that the Government had to take him by the nape of the neck and put
+ him in Fort Lafayette. The convention of Democrats then met in the city of
+ Chicago, and declared the war a failure. There never was a more infamous
+ lie on this earth than when the Democratic convention declared in 1864
+ that the war was a failure. It was but a few days afterward that the roar
+ of Grants cannon announced that a lie. Rise from your graves, Union
+ soldiers, one and all, that fell in support of your country&mdash;rise
+ from your graves, and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that
+ when the Democratic party resolved that the war for the preservation of
+ your country was a failure, that the Democratic party was a vast
+ aggregated liar. Well, we grew magnanimous, and let Dodds out of Fort
+ Lafayette; and where do you suppose Dodds is now? He is in Wisconsin. What
+ do you suppose Dodds is doing? Making speeches. Whom for? Tilden and
+ Hendricks&mdash;"Honesty and reform!" This same Jacob Thompson, Democrat,
+ hired men to burn New York, and they did set fire in some twenty places,
+ and they used Greek fire, as he said in his letter, and ingenuously adds:
+ "I shall never hereafter advise the use of Greek fire." They knew that in
+ the smoke and ruins would be found the charred remains of mothers and
+ children, and that the flames leaping like serpents would take the child
+ from the mothers arms, and they were ready to do it to preserve the
+ infamous institution of slavery; and the Democratic party has never
+ objected to it from that day to this. They burned steamboats, and many men
+ with them, and the hounds that did it are skulking in the woods of
+ Missouri. While these things were going on, Democrats in the highest
+ positions said: "Not one cent to prosecute the war."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question we have to consider is about paying the debt. This is
+ the first question. The second question is the protection of the citizen,
+ whether he is white or black. We owe a large debt. Two-thirds of that debt
+ was incurred in consequence of the action and the meanness of the
+ Democrats. There are some people who think that you can defer the payment
+ of a promise so long that the postponement of the debt will serve in lieu
+ of its liquidation&mdash;that you pay your debts by putting off your
+ creditors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people have to support the Government; the Government cannot support
+ the people. The Government has no money but what it received from the
+ people. It had therefore to borrow money to carry on the war. Every
+ greenback that it issued was a forced loan. My notes are not a legal
+ tender, though if I had the power I might possibly make them so. We
+ borrowed money and we have to pay the debt. That debt represents the
+ expenses of war. The horses and the gunpowder and the rifles and the
+ artillery are represented in that debt&mdash;it represents all the
+ munitions of war. Until we pay that debt we can never be a solvent nation.
+ Until our net profits amount to as much as we lost during the war we can
+ never be a solvent people. If a man cannot understand that, there is no
+ use in talking to him on the subject. The alchemists in olden times who
+ fancied that they could make gold out of nothing were not more absurd than
+ the American advocates of soft money. They resemble the early explorers of
+ our continent who lost years in searching for the fountain of eternal
+ youth, but the ear of age never caught the gurgle of that spring. We all
+ have heard of men who spent years of labor in endeavoring to produce
+ perpetual motion. They produced machines of the most ingenious character
+ with cogs and wheels, and pulleys without number, but these ingenious
+ machines had one fault, they would not go. You will never find a way to
+ make money out of nothing. It is as great nonsense as the fountain of
+ perpetual youth. You cannot do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gold is the best material which labor has yet found as a measure of value.
+ That measure of value must be as valuable as the object it measures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The value of gold arises from the amount of labor expended in producing
+ it. A gold dollar will buy as much labor as produced that dollar.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [Here the speaker opened a telegram from Maine, which he
+ read to the audience amid a perfect tempest of applause. It
+ contained the following words:] "We have triumphed by an
+ immense majority, something we have not achieved since
+ 1868." [The speaker resumed.] And this despatch is signed by
+ the man who clutched the throats of the Democrats and held
+ them until they grew black in the face, James G. Blaine. ***
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, to pass from the financial part of this, and I will say
+ one word before I do it. The Republican party intends to pay its debts in
+ coin on the 1st of January, 1879. Paper money means probably the payment
+ of the Confederate debt; a metallic currency, the discharge of honest
+ obligations. We have touched hard-pan prices in this country, and we want
+ to do a hard-pan business with hard money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now come to the protection of our citizens. A government that cannot
+ protect its citizens, at home and abroad, ought to be swept from the map
+ of the world. The Democrats tell you that they will protect any citizen if
+ he is only away from home, but if he is in Louisiana or any other State in
+ the Union, the Government is powerless to protect him. I say a government
+ has a right to protect every citizen at home as well as abroad, and the
+ Government has the right to take its soldiers across the State line, to
+ take its soldiers into any State, for the purpose of protecting even one
+ man. That is my doctrine with regard to the power of the Government. But
+ here comes a Democrat to-day and tells me, (and it is the old doctrine of
+ secession in disguise), that the State of Louisiana must protect its own
+ citizens, and that if it does not, the General Government has nothing to
+ do unless the Governor of that State asks assistance, no matter whether
+ anarchy prevails or not. That is infamous. The United States has the right
+ to draft you and me into the army and compel us to serve there, if its
+ powers are being usurped. It is the duty of this Government to see to it
+ that every citizen has all his rights in every State in this Union, and to
+ protect him in the enjoyment of those rights, peaceably if it can,
+ forcibly if it must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Democrats tell us that they treat the colored man very well. I have
+ frequently read stories relating how two white men were passing along the
+ road when suddenly they were set upon by ten or twelve negroes, who sought
+ their lives; but in the fight which ensued, the ten or twelve negroes were
+ killed, and not a white man hurt. I tell you it is infamous, and the
+ Democratic press of the North laughs at it, and Mr. Samuel J. Tilden does
+ not care. He knows that many of the Southern States are to be carried by
+ assassination and murder, and he knows that if he is elected it will be by
+ assassination and murder. It is infamous beyond the expression of
+ language. Now, I ask you which party will be the most likely to preserve
+ the liberty of the negro&mdash;the party who fought for slavery, or the
+ men who gave them freedom? These are the two great questions&mdash;the
+ payment of the debt, and the protection of our citizens. My friends, we
+ have to pay the debt, as I told you, but it is of greater importance to
+ make sacred American citizenship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, these two parties have a couple of candidates. The Democratic party
+ has put forward Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. Mr. Tilden is a Democrat who belongs
+ to the Democratic party of the city of New York; the worst party ever
+ organized in any civilized country. I wish you could see it. The
+ pugilists, the prizefighters, the plug-uglies, the fellows that run with
+ the "masheen;" nearly every nose is mashed, about half the ears have been
+ chawed off; and of whatever complexion they are, their eyes are nearly
+ always black. They have fists like tea-kettles and heads like bullets. I
+ wish you could see them. I have been in New York every few weeks for
+ fifteen years; and whenever I am here I see the old banner of Tammany
+ Hall, "Tammany Hall and Reform;" "John Morrissey and Reform;" "John Kelley
+ and Reform;" "William M. Tweed and Reform;" and the other day I saw the
+ same old flag; "Samuel J. Tilden and Reform." The Democratic party of the
+ city of New York never had but two objects&mdash;grand and petit larceny.
+ Tammany Hall bears the same relation to the penitentiary that the Sunday
+ school does to the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have heard that the Democratic party got control of the city when it did
+ not owe a dollar, and have stolen and stolen until it owes a hundred and
+ sixty millions, and I understand that every election they have had was a
+ fraud, every one. I understand that they stole everything they could lay
+ their hands on; and what hands! Grasped and grasped and clutched, until
+ they stole all it was possible for the people to pay, and now they are all
+ yelling for "Honesty and Reform."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I understand that Samuel J. Tilden was a pupil in that school, and that
+ now he is the head teacher. I understand that when the war commenced he
+ said he would never aid in the prosecution of that old outrage. I
+ understand that he said in 1860 and in 1861 that the Southern States could
+ snap the tie of confederation as a nation would break a treaty, and that
+ they could repel coercion as a nation would repel invasion. I understand
+ that during the entire war he was opposed to its prosecution, and that he
+ was opposed to the Proclamation of Emancipation, and demanded that the
+ document be taken back. I understand that he regretted to see the chains
+ fall from the limbs of the colored man. I understand that he regretted
+ when the Constitution of the United States was elevated and purified, pure
+ as the driven snow. I understand that he regretted when the stain was
+ wiped from our flag and we stood before the world the only pure Republic
+ that ever existed. This is enough for me to say about him, and since the
+ news from Maine you need not waste your time in talking about him.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [A voice: "How about free schools?"]
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I want every schoolhouse to be a temple of science in which shall be
+ taught the laws of nature, in which the children shall be taught actual
+ facts, and I do not want that schoolhouse touched, or that institution of
+ science touched, by any superstition whatever. Leave religion with the
+ church, with the family, and more than all, leave religion with each
+ individual heart and man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let every man be his own bishop, let every man be his own pope, let every
+ man do his own thinking, let every man have a brain of his own. Let every
+ man have a heart and conscience of his own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are growing better, and truer, and grander. And let me say, Mr.
+ Democrat, we are keeping the country for your children. We are keeping
+ education for your children. We are keeping the old flag floating for your
+ children; and let me say, as a prediction, there is only air enough on
+ this continent to float that one flag.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Note.&mdash;This address was not revised by the author for
+ publication.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Col. Ingersoll was introduced by Gen'l Noyes, who said: "I
+ have now the exquisite pleasure of introducing to you that
+ dashing cavalry officer, that thunderbolt of war, that
+ silver tongued orator, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll of Illinois."
+ The Journal, Indianapolis, Indiana. September 2lst, 1876.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Delivered to the Veteran Soldiers of the Rebellion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen, Fellow Citizens and Citizen Soldiers:&mdash;I am
+ opposed to the Democratic party, and I will tell you why. Every State that
+ seceded from the United States was a Democratic State. Every ordinance of
+ secession that was drawn was drawn by a Democrat. Every man that
+ endeavored to tear the old flag from the heaven that it enriches was a
+ Democrat. Every man that tried to destroy this nation was a Democrat.
+ Every enemy this great Republic has had for twenty years has been a
+ Democrat. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat. Every man
+ that denied to the Union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust of famine,
+ and when some poor, emaciated Union patriot, driven to insanity by famine,
+ saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and she beckoned him and he
+ followed, hoping to press her lips once again against his fevered face,
+ and when he stepped one step beyond the dead line the wretch that put the
+ bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was and is a Democrat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat. The man
+ that assassinated Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Every man that
+ sympathized with the assassin&mdash;every man glad that the noblest
+ President ever elected was assassinated, was a Democrat. Every man that
+ wanted the privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for
+ nothing and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every
+ man that raised bloodhounds to pursue human beings was a Democrat. Every
+ man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes
+ from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat. Every man
+ that impaired the credit of the United States, every man that swore we
+ would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would never redeem the
+ greenbacks, every maligner of his country's credit, every calumniator of
+ his country's honor, was a Democrat. Every man that resisted the draft,
+ every man that hid in the bushes and shot at Union men simply because they
+ were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their country, was a Democrat.
+ Every man that wept over the corpse of slavery was a Democrat. Every man
+ that cursed Abraham Lincoln because he issued the Proclamation of
+ Emancipation&mdash;the grandest paper since the Declaration of
+ Independence&mdash;every one of them was a Democrat. Every man that
+ denounced the soldiers that bared their breasts to the storms of shot and
+ shell for the honor of America and for the sacred rights of man; was a
+ Democrat. Every man that wanted an uprising in the North, that wanted to
+ release the rebel prisoners that they might burn down the homes of Union
+ soldiers above the heads of their wives and children, while the brave
+ husbands, the heroic fathers, were in the front fighting for the honor of
+ the old flag, every one of them was a Democrat. I am not through yet.
+ Every man that believed this glorious nation of ours is a confederacy,
+ every man that believed the old banner carried by our fathers over the
+ fields of the Revolution; the old flag carried by our fathers over the
+ fields of 1812; the glorious old banner carried by our brothers over the
+ plains of Mexico; the sacred banner carried by our brothers over the cruel
+ fields of the South, simply stood for a contract, simply stood for an
+ agreement, was a Democrat. Every man who believed that any State could go
+ out of the Union at its pleasure, every man that believed the grand fabric
+ of the American Government could be made to crumble instantly into dust at
+ the touch of treason, was a Democrat. Every man that helped to burn orphan
+ asylums in New York, was a Democrat; every man that tried to fire the city
+ of New York, although he knew that thousands would perish, and knew that
+ the great serpent of flame leaping from buildings would clutch children
+ from their mothers' arms&mdash;every wretch that did it was a Democrat.
+ Recollect it! Every man that tried to spread smallpox and yellow fever in
+ the North, as the instrumentalities of civilized war, was a Democrat.
+ Soldiers, every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a
+ Democrat. Every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone,
+ is a souvenir of a Democrat. I want you to recollect it. Every man that
+ was the enemy of human liberty in this country was a Democrat. Every man
+ that wanted the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages to turn to ashes
+ upon the lips&mdash;every one was a Democrat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am a Republican. I will tell you why: This is the only free Government
+ in the world. The Republican party made it so. The Republican party took
+ the chains from four millions of people. The Republican party, with the
+ wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became a schoolhouse.
+ The Republican party put down the Rebellion, saved the nation, kept the
+ old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind
+ should be extirpated from the face of this continent. What more? I am a
+ Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. It is a
+ party that has a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the
+ human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of
+ your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself, a party that
+ says, no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * At this point the rain began to descend, and it looked as
+ if a heavy shower was impending. Several umbrellas were put
+ up. Gov. Noyes&mdash;"God bless you! What is rain to soldiers"
+ Voice&mdash;"Go ahead; we don't mind the rain." It was proposed
+ to adjourn the meeting to Masonic Hall, but the motion was
+ voted down by an overwhelming majority, and Mr. Ingersoll
+ proceeded.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I am a Republican because the Republican party says this country is a
+ Nation, and not a confederacy. I am here in Indiana to speak, and I have
+ as good a right to speak here as though I had been born on this stand&mdash;not
+ because the State flag of Indiana waves over me&mdash;I would not know it
+ if I should see it. You have the same right to speak in Illinois, not
+ because the State flag of Illinois waves over you, but because that
+ banner, rendered sacred by the blood of all the heroes, waves over you and
+ me. I am in favor of this being a Nation. Think of a man gratifying his
+ entire ambition in the State of Rhode Island. We want this to be a Nation,
+ and you cannot have a great, grand, splendid people without a great,
+ grand, splendid country. The great plains, the sublime mountains, the
+ great rushing, roaring rivers, shores lashed by two oceans, and the grand
+ anthem of Niagara, mingle and enter, into the character of every American
+ citizen, and make him or tend to make him a great and grand character. I
+ am for the Republican party because it says the Government has as much
+ right, as much power, to protect its citizens at home as abroad. The
+ Republican party does not say that you have to go away from home to get
+ the protection of the Government. The Democratic party says the Government
+ cannot march its troops into the South to protect the rights of the
+ citizens. It is a lie. The Government claims the right, and it is conceded
+ that the Government has the right, to go to your house, while you are
+ sitting by your fireside with your wife and children about you, and the
+ old lady knitting, and the cat playing with the yarn, and everybody happy
+ and serene&mdash;the Government claims the right to go to your fireside
+ and take you by force and put you into the army; take you down to the
+ valley of the shadow of hell, put you by the ruddy, roaring guns, and make
+ you fight for your flag. Now, that being so, when the war is over and your
+ country is victorious, and you go back to your home, and a lot of
+ Democrats want to trample upon your rights, I want to know if the
+ Government that took you from your fireside and made you fight for it, I
+ want to know if it is not bound to fight for you. The flag that will not
+ protect its protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which
+ it waves. The government that will not defend its defenders is a disgrace
+ to the nations of the world. I am a Republican because the Republican
+ party says, "We will protect the rights of American citizens at home, and
+ if necessary we will march an army into any State to protect the rights of
+ the humblest American citizen in that State." I am a Republican because
+ that party allows me to be free&mdash;allows me to do my own thinking in
+ my own way. I am a Republican because it is a party grand enough and
+ splendid enough and sublime enough to invite every human being in favor of
+ liberty and progress to fight shoulder to shoulder for the advancement of
+ mankind. It invites the Methodist, it invites the Catholic, it invites the
+ Presbyterian and every kind of sectarian; it invites the Freethinker; it
+ invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every other
+ human being every chance and every right that he claims for himself. I am
+ a Republican, I tell you. There is room in the Republican air for every
+ wing; there is room on the Republican sea for every sail. Republicanism
+ says to every man: "Let your soul be like an eagle; fly out in the great
+ dome of thought, and question the stars for yourself." But the Democratic
+ party says; "Be blind owls, sit on the dry limb of a dead tree, and hoot
+ only when that party says hoot."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Republican party there are no followers. We are all leaders. There
+ is not a party chain. There is not a party lash. Any man that does not
+ love this country, any man that does not love liberty, any man that is not
+ in favor of human progress, that is not in favor of giving to others all
+ he claims for himself; we do not ask him to vote the Republican ticket.
+ You can vote it if you please, and if there is any Democrat within hearing
+ who expects to die before another election, we are willing that he should
+ vote one Republican ticket, simply as a consolation upon his death-bed.
+ What more? I am a Republican because that party believes in free labor. It
+ believes that free labor will give us wealth. It believes in free thought,
+ because it believes that free thought will give us truth. You do not know
+ what a grand party you belong to. I never want any holier or grander title
+ of nobility than that I belong to the Republican party, and have fought
+ for the liberty of man. The Republican party, I say, believes in free
+ labor. The Republican party also believes in slavery. What kind of
+ slavery? In enslaving the forces of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We believe that free labor, that free thought, have enslaved the forces of
+ nature, and made them work for man. We make old attraction of gravitation
+ work for us; we make the lightning do our errands; we make steam hammer
+ and fashion what we need. The forces of nature are the slaves of the
+ Republican party. They have no backs to be whipped, they have no hearts to
+ be torn&mdash;no hearts to be broken; they cannot be separated from their
+ wives; they cannot be dragged from the bosoms of their husbands; they work
+ night and day and they never tire. You cannot whip them, you cannot starve
+ them, and a Democrat even can be trusted with one of them. I tell you I am
+ a Republican. I believe, as I told you, that free labor will give us these
+ slaves. Free labor will produce all these things, and everything you have
+ to-day has been produced by free labor, nothing by slave labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slavery never invented but one machine, and that was a threshing machine
+ in the shape of a whip. Free labor has invented all the machines. We want
+ to come down to the philosophy of these things. The problem of free labor,
+ when a man works for the wife he loves, when he works for the little
+ children he adores&mdash;the problem is to do the most work in the
+ shortest space of time. The problem of slavery is to do the least work in
+ the longest space of time. That is the difference. Free labor, love,
+ affection&mdash;they have invented everything of use in this world. I am a
+ Republican.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you, my friends, this world is getting better every day, and the
+ Democratic party is getting smaller every day. See the advancement we have
+ made in a few years, see what we have done. We have covered this nation
+ with wealth, with glory and with liberty. This is the first free
+ Government in the world. The Republican party is the first party that was
+ not founded on some compromise with the devil. It is the first party of
+ pure, square, honest principle; the first one. And we have the first free
+ country that ever existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right here I want to thank every soldier that fought to make it free,
+ every one living and dead. I thank you again and again and again. You made
+ the first free Government in the world, and we must not forget the dead
+ heroes. If they were here they would vote the Republican ticket, every one
+ of them. I tell you we must not forget them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ * The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great
+ struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation&mdash;the
+ music of boisterous drums&mdash;the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see
+ thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see the pale
+ cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we
+ see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of
+ them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of
+ freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the
+ last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the
+ whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part
+ forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep.
+ Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers
+ who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say
+ nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses&mdash;divine mingling of agony
+ and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave
+ words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear.
+ We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in
+ her arms&mdash;standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a
+ hand waves&mdash;she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child.
+ He is gone, and forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags,
+ keeping time to the grand, wild music of war&mdash;marching down the
+ streets of the great cities&mdash;through the towns and across the
+ prairies&mdash;down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the
+ eternal right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields&mdash;in
+ all the hospitals of pain&mdash;on all the weary marches. We stand guard
+ with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in
+ ravines running with blood&mdash;in the furrows of old fields. We are with
+ them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life
+ ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls
+ and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of
+ the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can
+ never tell what they endured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden
+ in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man
+ bowed with the last grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings
+ governed by the lash&mdash;we see them bound hand and foot&mdash;we hear
+ the strokes of cruel whips&mdash;we see the hounds tracking women through
+ tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty
+ unspeakable! Outrage infinite!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Four million bodies in chains&mdash;four million souls in fetters. All the
+ sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the
+ brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner
+ of the free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting
+ shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of
+ slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the
+ auction-block, the slave-pen, the whipping-post, and we see homes and
+ firesides and schoolhouses and books, and where all was want and crime and
+ cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These heroes are dead. They died for liberty&mdash;they died for us. They
+ are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they
+ rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful
+ willows, and the embracing vines. They, sleep beneath the shadows of the
+ clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless
+ Palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars&mdash;they are at peace.
+ In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity
+ of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for
+ the living; tears for the dead.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This poetic flight of oratory has since become universally
+ known as "A. Vision of War."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, I have given you a few reasons why I am a Republican. I
+ have given you a few reasons why I am not a Democrat. Let me say another
+ thing. The Democratic party opposed every forward movement of the army of
+ the Republic, every one. Do not be fooled. Imagine the meanest resolution
+ that you can think of&mdash;that is the resolution the Democratic party
+ passed. Imagine the meanest thing you can think of&mdash;that is what they
+ did; and I want you to recollect that the Democratic party did these
+ devilish things when the fate of this nation was trembling in the balance
+ of war. I want you to recollect another thing; when they tell you about
+ hard times, that the Democratic party made the hard times; that every
+ dollar we owe to-day was made by the Southern and Northern Democracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we commenced to put down the Rebellion we had to borrow money, and
+ the Democratic party went into the markets of the world and impaired the
+ credit of the United States. They slandered, they lied, they maligned the
+ credit of the United States, and to such an extent did they do this, that
+ at one time during the war paper was only worth about thirty-four cents on
+ the dollar. Gold went up to $2.90. What did that mean? It meant that
+ greenbacks were worth thirty-four cents on the dollar. What became of the
+ other sixty-six cents? They were lied out of the greenback, they were
+ slandered out of the greenback, they were maligned out of the greenback,
+ they were calumniated out of the greenback, by the Democratic party of the
+ North. Two-thirds of the debt, two-thirds of the burden now upon the
+ shoulders of American industry, were placed there by the slanders of the
+ Democratic party of the North, and the other third by the Democratic party
+ of the South. And when you pay your taxes keep an account and charge
+ two-thirds to the Northern Democracy and one-third to the Southern
+ Democracy, and whenever you have to earn the money to pay the taxes, when
+ you have to blister your hands to earn that money, pull off the blisters,
+ and under each one, as the foundation, you will find a Democratic lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recollect that the Democratic party did all the things of which I have
+ told you, when the fate of our nation was submitted to the arbitrament of
+ the sword. Recollect that the Democratic party did these things when your
+ brothers, your fathers, and your chivalric sons were fighting, bleeding,
+ suffering, and dying upon the battle-fields of the South; when shot and
+ shell were crashing through their sacred flesh. Recollect that this
+ Democratic party was false to the Union when your husbands, your fathers,
+ and your brothers, and your chivalric sons were lying in the hospitals of
+ pain, dreaming broken dreams of home, and seeing fever pictures of the
+ ones they loved; recollect that the Democratic party was false to the
+ nation when your husbands, your fathers, and your brothers were lying
+ alone upon the field of battle at night, the life-blood slowly oozing from
+ the mangled and pallid lips of death; recollect that the Democratic party
+ was false to your country when your husbands, your brothers, your fathers,
+ and your sons were lying in the prison pens of the South, with no covering
+ but the clouds, with no bed but the frozen earth, with no food except such
+ as worms had re-p fused to eat, and with no friends except Insanity and
+ Death. Recollect it, and spurn that party forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure hatred out of which
+ I might construct sentences like snakes; out of which I might construct
+ sentences that had fanged mouths, and that had forked tongues; out of
+ which I might construct sentences that would writhe and hiss; and then I
+ could give my opinion of the Northern allies of the Southern rebels during
+ the great struggle for the preservation of the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are three questions now submitted to the American people. The first
+ is, Shall the people that saved this country rule it? Shall the men who
+ saved the old flag hold it? Shall the men who saved the ship of State sail
+ it, or shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the orders and sink
+ it? That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united South, united by
+ assassination and murder, a South solidified by the shot-gun; shall a
+ united South, with the aid of a divided North, shall they control this
+ great and splendid country? We are right back where we were in 1861. This
+ is simply a prolongation of the war. This is the war of the idea, the
+ other was the war of the musket. The other was the war of cannon, this is
+ the war of thought; and we have to beat them in this war of thought,
+ recollect that. The question is, Shall the men who endeavored to destroy
+ this country rule it? Shall the men that said, This is not a Nation, have
+ charge of the Nation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question is, Shall we pay our debts? We had to borrow some money
+ to pay for shot and shell to shoot Democrats with. We found that we could
+ get along with a few less Democrats, but not with any less country, and so
+ we borrowed the money, and the question now is, will we pay it? And which
+ party is the more apt to pay it, the Republican party that made the debt&mdash;the
+ party that swore it was constitutional, or the party that said it was
+ unconstitutional?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every time a Democrat sees a greenback, it says to him, "I vanquished
+ you." Every time a Republican sees a greenback, it says, "You and I put
+ down the Rebellion and saved the country."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, you have heard a great deal about finance. Nearly
+ everybody that talks about it gets as dry&mdash;as dry as if they had been
+ in the final home of the Democratic party for forty years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will now give you my ideas about finance. In the first place the
+ Government does not support the people, the people support the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Government is a perpetual pauper. It passes round the hat, and
+ solicits contributions; but then you must remember that the Government has
+ a musket behind the hat. The Government produces nothing. It does not plow
+ the land, it does not sow corn, it does not grow trees. The Government is
+ a perpetual consumer. We support the Government. Now, the idea that the
+ Government can make money for you and me to live on&mdash;why, it is the
+ same as though my hired man should issue certificates of my indebtedness
+ to him for me to live on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people tell me that the Government can impress its sovereignty on a
+ piece of paper, and that is money. Well, if it is, what's the use of
+ wasting it making one dollar bills? It takes no more ink and no more paper&mdash;why
+ not make one thousand dollar bills? Why not make a hundred million dollar
+ bills and all be billionaires?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes from
+ you and me for? Why does it not make what money it wants, take the taxes
+ out, and give the balance to us? Mr. Greenbacker, suppose the Government
+ issued a billion dollars to-morrow, how would you get any of it? [A voice,
+ "Steal it."] I was not speaking to the Democrats. You would not get any of
+ it unless you had something to exchange for it. The Government would not
+ go around and give you your aver-: age. You have to have some corn, or
+ wheat, or pork to give for it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do you get your money? By work. Where from? You have to dig it out of
+ the ground. That is where it comes from. Men have always had a kind of
+ hope that something could be made out of nothing. The old alchemists
+ sought, with dim eyes, for something that could change the baser metals to
+ gold. With tottering steps, they searched for the spring of Eternal Youth.
+ Holding in trembling hands retort and crucible, they dreamed of the Elixir
+ of Life. The baser metals are not gold. No human ear has ever heard the
+ silver gurgle of the spring of Immortal Youth. The wrinkles upon the brow
+ of Age are still waiting for the Elixir of Life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Inspired by the same idea, mechanics have endeavored, by curious
+ combinations of levers and inclined planes, of wheels and cranks and
+ shifting weights, to produce perpetual motion; but the wheels and levers
+ wait for force. And, in the financial world, there are thousands now
+ trying to find some way for promises to take the place of performance; for
+ some way to make the word dollar as good as the dollar itself; for some
+ way to make the promise to pay a dollar take the dollar's place. This
+ financial alchemy, this pecuniary perpetual motion, this fountain of
+ eternal wealth, are the same old failures with new names. Something cannot
+ be made out of nothing. Nothing is a poor capital to, carry on business
+ with, and makes a very unsatisfactory balance at your bankers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you another thing. The Democrats seem to think that you can
+ fail to keep a promise so long that it is as good as though you had kept
+ it. They say you can stamp the sovereignty of the Government upon paper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the stamp of the Roman Empire.
+ That Empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion,
+ but that piece of gold is as good as though Julius C&aelig;sar were still
+ riding at the head of the Roman Legions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it his sovereignty that made it valuable? Suppose he had put it upon a
+ piece of paper&mdash;it would have been of no more value than a Democratic
+ promise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing, my friends: this debt will be paid; you need not worry
+ about that. The Democrats ought to pay it. They lost the suit, and they
+ ought to pay the costs. But we in our patriotism are willing to pay our
+ share.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man that has a bond, every man that has a greenback dollar has a
+ mortgage upon the best continent of land on earth. Every one has a
+ mortgage on the honor of the Republican party, and it is on record. Every
+ spear of grass; every bearded head of golden wheat that grows upon this
+ continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every field of
+ bannered corn in the great, glorious West is a guarantee that the debt
+ will be paid; every particle of coal laid away by that old miser the sun,
+ millions-of years ago, is a guarantee that every dollar will be paid; all
+ the iron ore, all the gold and silver under the snow-capped Sierra
+ Nevadas, waiting for the miners pick to give back the flash of the sun,
+ every ounce is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; and all the cattle
+ on the prairies, pastures and plains which adorn our broad land are
+ guarantees that this debt will be paid; every pine standing in the sombre
+ forests of the North, waiting for the woodman's axe, is a guarantee that
+ this debt will be paid; every locomotive with its muscles of iron and
+ breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at
+ school, every dimpled babe in the cradle, every honest man, every noble
+ woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket is a guarantee that
+ the debt will be paid&mdash;these, all these, each and all, are the
+ guarantees that every promise of the United States will be sacredly
+ fulfilled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the next question? The next question is, will we protect the Union
+ men in the South? I tell you the white Union men have suffered enough. It
+ is a crime in the Southern States to be a Republican. It is a crime in
+ every Southern State to love this country, to believe in the sacred rights
+ of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The colored people have suffered enough. For more than two hundred years
+ they have suffered the fabled torments of the damned; for more than two
+ hundred years they worked and toiled without reward, bending, in the
+ burning sun, their bleeding backs; for more than two hundred years, babes
+ were torn from the breasts of mothers, wives from husbands, and every
+ human tie broken by the cruel hand of greed; for more than two hundred
+ years they were pursued by hounds, beaten with clubs, burned with fire,
+ bound with chains; two hundred years of toil, of agony, of tears; two
+ hundred years of hope deferred; two hundred years of gloom and shadow and
+ darkness and blackness; two hundred years of supplication, of entreaty;
+ two hundred years of infinite outrage, without a moment of revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The colored people have suffered enough. They were and are our friends.
+ They are the friends of this country, and, cost what it may, they must be
+ protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was not during the whole Rebellion a single negro that was not our
+ friend. We are willing to be reconciled to our Southern brethren when they
+ will treat our friends as men. When they will be just to the friends of
+ this country; when they are in favor of allowing every American citizen to
+ have his rights&mdash;then we are their friends. We are willing to trust
+ them with the Nation when they are the friends of the Nation. We are
+ willing to trust them with liberty when they believe in liberty. We are
+ willing to trust them with the black man when they cease riding in the
+ darkness of night, (those masked wretches,) to the hut of the freedman,
+ and notwithstanding the prayers and supplications of his family, shoot him
+ down; when they cease to consider the massacre of Hamburg as a Democratic
+ triumph, then, I say, we will be their friends, and not before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, thousands of the Southern people and thousands of the
+ Northern Democrats are afraid that the negroes are going to pass them in
+ the race of life. And, Mr. Democrat, he will do it unless you attend to
+ your business. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you always.
+ You have to be industrious, honest, to cultivate a sense of justice. If
+ you do not the colored race will pass you, as sure as you live. I am for
+ giving every man a chance. Anybody that can pass me is welcome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe, my friends, that the intellectual domain of the future, as the
+ land used to be in the State of Illinois, is open to pre-emption. The
+ fellow that gets a fact first, that is his; that gets an idea first, that
+ is his. Every round in the ladder of fame, from the one that touches the
+ ground to the last one that leans against the shining summit of human
+ ambition, belongs to the foot that gets upon it first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Democrat, (I point down because they are nearly all on the first round
+ of the ladder) if you can not climb, stand one side and let the deserving
+ negro pass.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I must tell you one thing. I have told it so much, and you have all heard
+ it fifty times, but I am going to tell it again because I like it. Suppose
+ there was a great horse race here to-day, free to every horse in the
+ world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs* and all the donkeys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is a
+ go." Let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with
+ nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swiftness, with his
+ mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out all over
+ him, as if a network of life had been cast upon him&mdash;with his thin
+ neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks&mdash;what does he care how
+ many mules and donkeys run on that track? But the Democratic scrub, with
+ his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of cockle-burrs, jumping
+ high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the breath of the
+ coming mule on his cockle-burr tail, he is the chap that jumps the track
+ and says, "I am down on mule equality."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I stood, a little while ago, in the city of Paris, where stood the
+ Bastile, where now stands the Column of July, surmounted by a figure of
+ liberty. In its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a banner;
+ upon its glorious forehead the glittering and shining star of progress&mdash;and
+ as I looked upon it I said: "Such is the Republican party of my country."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day going along the road I came to a place where the road had
+ been changed, but the guide-board did not know it. It had stood there for
+ twenty years pointing deliberately and solemnly in the direction of a
+ desolate field; nobody ever went that way, but the guide-board thought the
+ next man would. Thousands passed, but nobody heeded the hand on the
+ guide-post, and through sunshine and storm it pointed diligently into the
+ old field and swore to it the road went that way; and I said to myself:
+ "Such is the Democratic party of the United States."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day I came to a river where there had been a mill; a part of it
+ was there still. An old sign said: "Cash for wheat." The old water-wheel
+ was broken; it had been warped by the sun, cracked and split by many winds
+ and storms. There had not been a grain of wheat ground there for twenty
+ years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The door was gone, nobody had built a new dam, the mill was not worth a
+ dam; and I said to myself: "Such is the Democratic party."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw a little while ago a place on the road where there had once been an
+ hotel. But the hotel and barn had burned down and there was nothing
+ standing but two desolate chimneys, up the flues of which the fires of
+ hospitality had not roared for thirty years. The fence was gone, and the
+ post-holes even were obliterated, but in the road there was an old sign
+ upon which were these words: "Entertainment for man and beast." The old
+ sign swung and creaked in the winter wind, the snow fell upon it, the
+ sleet clung to it, and in the summer the birds sang and twittered and made
+ love upon it. Nobody ever stopped there, but the sign swore to it, the
+ sign certified to it! "Entertainment for man and beast," and I said to
+ myself: "Such is the Democratic party of the United States," and I further
+ said, "one chimney ought to be called Tilden and the other Hendricks."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, I want you to vote the Republican ticket. I want you to
+ swear you will not vote for a man who opposed putting down the Rebellion.
+ I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man opposed to the
+ Proclamation of Emancipation. I want you to swear that you will not vote
+ for a man opposed to the utter abolition of slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who called the
+ soldiers in the field, Lincoln hirelings. I want you to swear that you
+ will not vote for a man who denounced Lincoln as a tyrant. I want you to
+ swear that you will not vote for any enemy of human progress. Go and talk
+ to every Democrat that you can see; get him by the coatcollar, talk to
+ him, and hold him like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, with your glittering
+ eye; hold him, tell him all the mean things his party ever did; tell him
+ kindly; tell him in a Christian spirit, as I do, but tell him. Recollect,
+ there never was a more important election than the one you are going to
+ hold in Indiana. I tell you we must stand by the country. It is a glorious
+ country. It permits you and me to be free. It is the only country in the
+ world where labor is respected. Let us support it. It is the only country
+ in the world where the useful man is the only aristocrat. The man that
+ works for a dollar a day, goes home at night to his little ones, takes his
+ little boy on his knee, and he thinks that boy can achieve anything that
+ the sons of the wealthy man can achieve. The free schools are open to him;
+ he may be the richest, the greatest, and the grandest, and that thought
+ sweetens every drop of sweat that rolls down the honest face of toil. Vote
+ to save that country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My friends, this country is getting better every day. Samuel J. Tilden
+ says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to be
+ the President. But I denounce him as a calumniator of my country; a
+ maligner of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with
+ asylums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphans and wounded
+ soldiers. Thieves and rascals do not build such things. In the cities of
+ the Atlantic coast this summer, they built floating hospitals, great
+ ships, and took the little children from the sub-cellars and narrow, dirty
+ streets of New York City, where the Democratic party is the strongest&mdash;took
+ these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals out at sea, and let
+ the breezes of ocean kiss the roses of health back to their pallid cheeks.
+ Rascals and thieves do not so. When Chicago burned, railroads were blocked
+ with the charity of the American people. Thieves and rascals do not so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am a Republican. The world is getting better. Husbands are treating
+ their wives better than they used to; wives are treating their husbands
+ better. Children are better treated than they used to be; the old whips
+ and clubs are out of the schools, and they are governing children by love
+ and by sense. The world is getting better; it is getting better in Maine,
+ in Vermont. It is getting better in every State of the North, and I tell
+ you we are going to elect Hayes and Wheeler and the world will then be
+ better still. I have a dream that this world is growing better and better
+ every day and every year; that there is more charity, more justice, more
+ love every day. I have a dream that prisons will not always curse the
+ land; that the shadow of the gallows will not always fall upon the earth;
+ that the withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for
+ charity; that finally wisdom will sit in the legislatures, justice in the
+ courts, charity will occupy all the pulpits, and that finally the world
+ will be governed by justice and charity, and by the splendid light of
+ liberty. That is my dream, and if it does not come true, it shall not be
+ my fault. I am going to do my level best to give others the same chance I
+ ask for myself. Free thought will give us truth; Free labor will give us
+ wealth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CHICAGO SPEECH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Col. Robert G. Ingersoll spoke last night at the
+ Exposition Building to the largest audience ever drawn by
+ one man In Chicago. From 6.30 o'clock the sidewalks fronting
+ along the building were jammed. At every entrance there were
+ hundreds, and half-an-hour later thousands were clamoring
+ for admittance. So great was the pressure the doors were
+ finally closed, and the entrances at either end cautiously
+ opened to admit the select who knew enough to apply In those
+ directions. Occasionally a rush was made for the main door,
+ and as the crowd came up against the huge barricade they
+ were swept back only for another effort. Wabash Avenue,
+ Monroe, Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren Streets were jammed
+ with ladies and gentlemen who swept into Michigan Avenue and
+ swelled the sea that surged around the building.
+
+ At 7.30 the doors were flung open and the people rushed in.
+ Seating accommodations supposed to be adequate to all
+ demands, had been provided, but in an Instant they were
+ filled, the aisles were jammed and around the sides of the
+ building poured a steady stream of humanity, Intent only
+ upon some coign of vantage, some place, where they could see
+ and where they could hear. Prom the fountain, beyond which
+ the building lay in shadow to the northern end, was a
+ swaying, surging mass of people.
+
+ Such another attendance of ladies has never been known at a
+ political meeting in Chicago. They came by the hundreds, and
+ the speaker looked down from his perch upon thousands of
+ fair upturned faces, stamped with the most intense interest
+ in his remarks.
+
+ The galleries were packed. The frame of the huge elevator
+ creaked, groaned, and swayed with the crowd roosting upon
+ it. The trusses bore their living weight. The gallery
+ railings bent and cracked. The roof was crowded, and the sky
+ lights teemed with heads. Here and there an adventurous
+ youth crept out on the girders and braces. Towards the
+ northern end of the building, on the west side, is a smaller
+ gallery, dark, and not particularly strong-looking. It was
+ fairly packed&mdash;packed like a sardine-box&mdash;with men and boys.
+ Up in the organ-loft around the sides of the organ,
+ everywhere that a human being could sit, stand or hang, was
+ pre-empted and filled.
+
+ It was a magnificent, outpouring, at east 50,000 In number,
+ a compliment alike to the principle it represented, and the
+ orator.&mdash;Chicago Tribune., October 21st, 1876.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen:&mdash;Democrats and Republicans have a common
+ interest in the United States. We have a common interest in the
+ preservation of good order. We have a common interest in the preservation
+ of a common country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to
+ endeavor to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as
+ President and Vice-President of the United States the men and the parties,
+ which, in your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all
+ that is dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this
+ Government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the
+ reputation and character of the Democratic organization. The Democratic
+ party says, "Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a decent
+ action that wanted it forgotten. I never knew a man who did some great and
+ shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did not wish that
+ act remembered. Not only so, but he expected his loving children would
+ chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked his last resting
+ place. But whenever a man does an infamous thing; whenever a man commits
+ some crime; whenever a man does that which mantles the cheeks of his
+ children with shame; he is the man that says, "Let bygones be bygones."
+ The Democratic party admits that it has a record, but it says that any man
+ that will look into it, any man that will tell it, is not a gentleman. I
+ do not know whether, according to the Democratic standard, I am a
+ gentleman or not; but I do say that in a certain sense I am one of the
+ historians of the Democratic party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know that it is true that a man cannot give this record and be a
+ gentleman, but I admit that a gentleman hates to read this record; a
+ gentleman hates to give this record to the world; but I do it, not because
+ I like to do it, but because I believe the best interests of this country
+ demand that there shall be a history given of the Democratic party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, I claim that the Democratic party embraces within its
+ filthy arms the worst elements in American society. I claim that every
+ enemy that this Government has had for twenty years has been and is a
+ Democrat; every man in the Dominion of Canada that hates the great
+ Republic, would like to see Tilden and Hendricks successful. Every titled
+ thief in Great Britain would like to see Tilden and Hendricks the next
+ President and Vice-President of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say more; every State that seceded from this Union was a Democratic
+ State. Every man who hated to see bloodhounds cease to be the
+ instrumentalities of a free government&mdash;every one was a Democrat. In
+ short, every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years, every
+ enemy that liberty and progress has had in the United States for twenty
+ years, every hater of our flag, every despiser of our Nation, every man
+ who has been a disgrace to the great Republic for twenty years, has been a
+ Democrat. I do not say that they are all that way; but nearly all who are
+ that way are Democrats.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. This
+ political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket old dirty scraps of
+ paper as a kind of certificate of character. On one of these papers he
+ will show you the ordinance of 1789; on another one of those papers he
+ will have a part of the Fugitive Slave Law; on another one some of the
+ black laws that used to disgrace Illinois; on another Governor Tilden's
+ Letter to Kent; on another a certificate signed by Lyman Trumbull that the
+ Republican party is not fit to associate with&mdash;that certificate will
+ be endorsed by Governor John M. Palmer and my friend Judge Doolittle. He
+ will also have in his pocket an old wood-cut, somewhat torn, representing
+ Abraham Lincoln falling upon the neck of S. Corning Judd, and thanking him
+ for saving the Union as Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Liberty. This
+ political tramp will also have a letter dated Boston, Mass., saying: "I
+ hereby certify that for fifty years I have regarded the bearer as a thief
+ and robber, but I now look upon him as a reformer. Signed, Charles Francis
+ Adams." Following this tramp will be a bloodhound; and when he asks for
+ food, the bloodhound will crouch for employment on his haunches, and the
+ drool of anticipation will run from his loose and hanging lips. Study the
+ expression of that dog.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Translate it into English and it means "Oh! I want to bite a nigger!" And
+ when the dog has that expression he bears a striking likeness to his
+ master. The question is, Shall that tramp and that dog gain possession of
+ the White House?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party learns nothing; the Democratic party forgets nothing.
+ The Democratic party does not know that the world has advanced a solitary
+ inch since 1860. Time is a Democratic dumb watch. It has not given a tick
+ for sixteen years. The Democratic party does not know that we, upon the
+ great glittering highway of progress, have passed a single mile-stone for
+ twenty years. The Democratic party is incapable of learning. The
+ Democratic party is incapable of anything but prejudice and hatred. Every
+ man that is a Democrat is a Democrat because he hates something; every man
+ that is a Republican is a Republican because he loves something.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party is incapable of advancement; the only stock that it
+ has in trade to-day is the old infamous doctrine of Democratic State
+ Rights. There never was a more infamous doctrine advanced on this earth,
+ than the Democratic idea of State Rights. What is it? It has its
+ foundation in the idea that this is not a Nation; it has its foundation in
+ the idea that this is simply a confederacy, that this great Government is
+ simply a bargain, that this great splendid people have simply made a
+ trade, that the people of any one of the States are sovereign to the
+ extent that they have the right to trample upon the rights of their
+ fellow-citizens, and that the General Government cannot interfere. The
+ great Democratic heart is fired to-day, the Democratic bosom is bloated
+ with indignation because of an order made by General Grant sending troops
+ into the Southern States to defend the rights of American citizens! Who
+ objects to a soldier going? Nobody except a man who wants to carry an
+ election by fraud, by violence, by intimidation, by assassination, and by
+ murder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party is willing to-day that Tilden and Hendricks should be
+ elected by violence; they are willing to-day to go into partnership with
+ assassination and murder; they are willing to-day that every man in the
+ Southern States, who is a friend of this Union, and who fought for our
+ flag&mdash;that the rights of every one of these men should be trampled in
+ the dust, provided that Tilden and Hendricks be elected President and
+ Vice-President of this country. They tell us that a State line is sacred;
+ that you never can cross it unless you want to do a mean thing; that if
+ you want to catch a fugitive slave you have the right to cross it; but if
+ you wish to defend the rights of men, then it is a sacred line, and you
+ cannot cross it. Such is the infamous doctrine of the Democratic party.
+ Who, I say, will be injured by sending soldiers into the Southern States?
+ No one in the world except the man who wants to prevent an honest citizen
+ from casting a legal vote for the Government of his choice. For my part, I
+ think more of the colored Union men of the South than I do of the white
+ disunion men of the South. For my part, I think more of a black friend
+ than I do of a white enemy. For my part, I think more of a friend black
+ outside, and white in, than I do of a man who is white outside and black
+ inside. For my part, I think more of black justice, of black charity, and
+ of black patriotism, than I do of white cruelty, than I do of white
+ treachery and treason. As a matter of fact, all that is done in the South
+ to-day, of use, is done by the colored man. The colored man raises
+ everything that is raised in the South, except hell. And I say here
+ to-night that I think one hundred times more of the good, honest,
+ industrious black man of the South than I do of all the white men together
+ that do not love this Government, and I think more of the black man of the
+ South than I do of the white man of the North who sympathizes with the
+ white wretch that wishes to trample upon the rights of that black man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that this is a Government, first, not only of power, but that it
+ is the right of this Government to march all the soldiers in the United
+ States into any sovereign State of this Union to defend the rights of
+ every American citizen in that State. If it is the duty of the Government
+ to defend you in time of war, when you were compelled to go into the army,
+ how much more is it the duty of the Government to defend in time of peace
+ the man who, in time of war, voluntarily and gladly rushed to the rescue
+ and defence of his country; and yet the Democratic doctrine is that you
+ are to answer the call of the Nation, but the Nation will be deaf to your
+ cry, unless the Governor of your State makes request of your Government.
+ Suppose the Governors and every man trample upon your rights, is the
+ Nation then to let you be trampled upon? Will the Nation hear only the cry
+ of the oppressor, or will it heed the cry of the oppressed? I believe we
+ should have a Government that can hear the faintest wail, the faintest cry
+ for justice from the lips of the humblest citizen beneath the flag. But
+ the Democratic doctrine is that this Government can protect its citizens
+ only when they are away from home. This may account for so many Democrats
+ going to Canada during the war. I believe that the Government must protect
+ you, not only abroad but must protect you at home; and that is the
+ greatest question before the American people to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had thought that human impudence had reached its limit ages and ages
+ ago. I had believed that some time in the history of the world impudence
+ had reached its height, and so believed until I read the congratulatory
+ address of Abram S. Hewitt, Chairman of the National Executive Democratic
+ Committee, wherein he congratulates the negroes of the South on what he
+ calls a Democratic victory in the State of Indiana. If human impudence can
+ go beyond this, all I have to say is, it never has. What does he say to
+ the Southern people, to the colored people? He says to them in substance:
+ "The reason the white people trample upon you is because the white people
+ are weak. Give the white people more strength, put the white people in
+ authority, and, although they murder you now when they are weak, when they
+ are strong they will let you alone. Yes; the only trouble with our
+ Southern white brethren is that they are in the minority, and they kill
+ you now, and the only way to save your lives is to put your enemy in the
+ majority." That is the doctrine of Abram S. Hewitt, and he congratulates
+ the colored people of the South upon the Democratic victory in Indiana.
+ There is going to be a great crop of hawks next season&mdash;let us
+ congratulate the doves. That is it. The burglars have whipped the police&mdash;let
+ us congratulate the bank. That is it. The wolves have killed off almost
+ all the shepherds&mdash;let us congratulate the sheep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, the black people have suffered enough. They have been
+ slaves for two hundred years, and more than all, they have been compelled
+ to keep the company of the men that owned them. Think of that! Think of
+ being compelled to keep the society of the man who is stealing from you!
+ Think of being compelled to live with the man that sold your wife! Think
+ of being compelled to live with the man that stole your child from the
+ cradle before your very eyes! Think of being compelled to live with the
+ thief of your life, and spend your days with the white robber, and be
+ under his control! The black people have suffered enough. For two hundred
+ years they were owned and bought and sold and branded like cattle. For two
+ hundred years every human tie was rent and torn asunder by the bloody,
+ brutal hands of avarice and might. They have suffered enough. During the
+ war the black people were our friends not only, but whenever they were
+ entrusted with the family, with the wives and children of their masters,
+ they were true to them. They stayed at home and protected the wife and
+ child of the master while he went into the field and fought for the right
+ to sell the wife and the right to whip and steal the child of the very
+ black man that was protecting him. The black people, I say, have suffered
+ enough, and for that reason I am in favor of the Government protecting
+ them in every Southern State, if it takes another war to do it. We can
+ never compromise with the South at the expense of our friends. We never
+ can be friends with the men that starved and shot our brothers. We can
+ never be friends with the men that waged the most cruel war in the world;
+ not for liberty, but for the right to deprive other men of their liberty.
+ We never can be their friends until they are the friends of our friends,
+ until they treat the black man justly; until they treat the white Union
+ man respectfully; until Republicanism ceases to be a crime; until to vote
+ the Republican ticket ceases to make you a political and social outcast.
+ We want no friendship with the enemies of our country. The next question
+ is, who shall have possession of this country&mdash;the men that saved it,&mdash;or
+ the men that sought to destroy it? The Southern people lit the fires of
+ civil war. They who set the conflagration must be satisfied with the ashes
+ left. The men that saved this country must rule it. The men that saved the
+ flag must carry it. This Government is not far from destruction when it
+ crowns with its highest honor in time of peace, the man that was false to
+ it in time of war. This Nation is not far from the precipice of
+ annihilation and destruction when it gives its highest honor to a man
+ false, false to the country when everything we held dear trembled in the
+ balance of war, when everything was left to the arbitrament of the sword.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question prominently before the people&mdash;though I think the
+ great question is, whether citizens shall be protected at home&mdash;the
+ next question I say, is the financial question. With that there is no
+ trouble. We had to borrow money, and we have to pay it. That is all there
+ is of that, and we are going to pay it just as soon as we make the money
+ to pay it with, and we are going to make the money out of prosperity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have to dig it out of the earth. You cannot make a dollar by law. You
+ cannot redeem a cent by statute. You cannot pay one solitary farthing by
+ all the resolutions, by all the speeches ever made beneath the sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the greenback doctrine is right, that evidence of national indebtedness
+ is wealth, if that is their idea, why not go another step and make every
+ individual note a legal tender? Why not pass a law that every man shall
+ take every other man's note? Then I swear we would have money in plenty.
+ No, my friends, a promise to pay a dollar is not a dollar, no matter if
+ that promise is made by the greatest and most powerful nation on the
+ globe. A promise is not a performance. An agreement is not an
+ accomplishment and there never will come a time when a promise to pay a
+ dollar is as good as the dollar, unless everybody knows that you have the
+ dollar and will pay it whenever they ask for it. We want no more
+ inflation. We want simply to pay our debts as fast as the prosperity of
+ the country allows it and no faster. Every speculator that was caught with
+ property on his hands upon which he owed more than the property was worth,
+ wanted the game to go on a little longer. Whoever heard of a man playing
+ poker that wanted to quit when he was a loser? He wants to have a fresh
+ deal. He wants another hand, and he don't want any man that is ahead to
+ jump the game. It is so with the speculators in this country. They bought
+ land, they bought houses, they bought goods, and when the crisis and crash
+ came, they were caught with the property on their hands, and they want
+ another inflation, they want another tide to rise that will again sweep
+ this driftwood into the middle of the great financial stream. That is all.
+ Every lot in this city that was worth five thousand and that is now worth
+ two thousand&mdash;do you know what is the matter with that lot? It has
+ been redeeming. It has been resuming. That is what is the matter with that
+ lot. Every man that owned property that has now fallen fifty per cent.,
+ that property has been resuming; and if you could have another inflation
+ to-morrow, the day that the bubble burst would find thousands of
+ speculators who paid as much for property as property was worth, and they
+ would ask for another tide of affairs in men. They would ask for another
+ inflation. What for? To let them out and put somebody else in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We want no more inflation. We want the simple honest payment of the debt,
+ and to pay out of the prosperity of this country. But, says the greenback
+ man, "We never had as good times as when we had plenty of greenbacks."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose a farmer would buy a farm for ten thousand dollars and give his
+ note. He would buy carriages, horses, wagons and agricultural implements,
+ and give his note. He would send Mary, Jane and Lucy to school. He would
+ buy them pianos, and send them to college, and would give his note, and
+ the next year he would again give his note for the interest, and the next
+ year again his note, and finally they would come to him and say, "We must
+ settle up; we have taken your notes as long as we can; we want money."
+ "Why," he would say to the gentleman, "I never had as good a time in my
+ life as while I have been giving those notes. I never had a farm until the
+ man gave it to me for my note. My children have been clothed as well as
+ anybody's. We have had carriages; we have had fine horses; and our house
+ has been filled with music, and laughter, and dancing; and why not keep on
+ taking those notes?" So it is with the greenback man; he says, "When we
+ were running in debt we had a jolly time&mdash;let us keep it up." But, my
+ friends, there must come a time when inflation would reach that point when
+ all the Goverment notes in the world would not buy a pin; when all the
+ Government notes in the world would not be worth as much as the last
+ year's Democratic platform. I have no fear that these debts will not be
+ paid. I have no fear that every solitary greenback dollar will not be
+ redeemed; but, my friends, we shall have some trouble doing it. Why?
+ Because the debt is a great deal larger than it should have been. In the
+ first place, there should have been po debt. If it had not been for the
+ Southern Democracy there would have been no war. If it had not been for
+ the Northern Democracy the war would not have lasted one year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a man tried in court for having murdered his father and mother.
+ He was found guilty, and the judge asked him, "What have you to say that
+ sentence of death shall not be pronounced on you?" "Nothing in the world
+ Judge," said he, "only I hope your Honor will take pity on me and remember
+ that I am a poor orphan."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have no doubt that this debt will be paid. We have the honor to pay it,
+ and we do not pay it on account of the avarice or greed of the bondholder.
+ An honest man does not pay money to a creditor simply because the creditor
+ wants it. The honest man pays at the command of his honor and not at the
+ demand of the creditor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The United States will pay its debts, not because the creditor demands,
+ but because we owe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The United States will liquidate every debt at the command of its honor,
+ and every cent will be paid. War is destruction, war is loss, and all the
+ property destroyed, and the time that is lost, put together, amount to
+ what we call a national debt. When in peace we shall have made as much net
+ profit as there was wealth lost in the war, then we shall be a solvent
+ people. The greenback will be redeemed, we expect to redeem it on the
+ first day of January, 1879. We may fail; we will fail if the prosperity of
+ the country fails; but we intend to try to do it, and if we fail, we will
+ fail as a soldier fails to take a fort, high upon the rampart, with the
+ flag of resumption in our hands. We will not say that we cannot pay the
+ debt because there is a date fixed when the debt is to be paid. I have had
+ to borrow money myself; I have had to give my note, and I recollect
+ distinctly that every man I ever did give my note to insisted that
+ somewhere in that note there should be some vague hint as to the cycle, as
+ to the geological period, as to the time, as to the century and date when
+ I expected to pay those little notes. I never understood that having a
+ time fixed would prevent my being industrious; that it would interfere
+ with my honesty; or with my activity, or with my desire to discharge that
+ debt. And if any man in this great country owed you one thousand dollars,
+ due you the first day of next January, and he should come to you and say:
+ "I want to pay you that debt, but you must take that date out of that
+ note." "Why?" you would say. "Why," he would reply in the language of
+ Tilden, "I have to make wise preparation." "Well," you would say, "why
+ don't you do it?" "Oh," he says, "I cannot do it while you have that date
+ in that note." "Another thing," he says, "I have to get me a central
+ reservoir of coin." And do you know I have always thought I would like to
+ see the Democratic party around a central reservoir of coin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose this debtor would also tell you, "I want the date out of that
+ note, because I have to come at it by a very slow and gradual process."
+ "Well," you would say, "I do not care how slow or how gradual you are,
+ provided that you get around by the time the note is due."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would you think of a man that wanted the date out of the note? You
+ would think he was a mixture of rascal and Democrat. That is what you
+ would think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, the Democratic party (if you may call it a party) brings
+ forward as its candidate Samuel J. Tilden, of New York. I am opposed to
+ him, first, because he is an old bachelor. In a country like ours,
+ depending for its prosperity and glory upon an increase of the population,
+ to elect an old bachelor is a suicidal policy. Any man that will live in
+ this country for sixty years, surrounded by beautiful women with rosy lips
+ and dimpled cheeks, in every dimple lurking a Cupid, with pearly teeth and
+ sparkling eyes&mdash;any man that will push them all aside and be
+ satisfied with the embraces of the Democratic party, does not even know
+ the value of time. I am opposed to Samuel J. Tilden, because he is a
+ Democrat; because he belongs to the Democratic party of the city of New
+ York; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man should be President of this Nation who denies that it is a Nation.
+ Samuel J. Tilden denounced the war as an outrage. No man should be
+ President of this country that denounced a war waged in its defence as an
+ outrage. To elect such a man would be an outrage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Samuel J. Tilden said that the flag stands for a contract; that it stands
+ for a confederation; that it stands for a bargain. But the great, splendid
+ Republican party says, "No! That flag stands for a great, hoping,
+ aspiring, sublime Nation, not for a confederacy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am opposed, I say, to the election of Samuel J. Tilden for another
+ reason. If he is elected he will be controlled by his party, and his party
+ will be controlled by the Southern stockholders in that party. They own
+ nineteen-twentieths of the stock, and they will dictate the policy of the
+ Democratic Corporation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No Northern Democrat has the manliness to stand up before a Southern
+ Democrat. Every Democrat, nearly, has a face of dough, and the Southern
+ Democrat will swap his ears, change his nose, cut his mouth the other way
+ of the leather, so that his own mother would not know him, in fifteen
+ minutes. If Samuel J. Tilden is elected President of the United States, he
+ will be controlled by the Democratic party, and the Democratic party will
+ be controlled by the Southern Democracy&mdash;that is to say, the late
+ rebels; that is to say, the men that tried to destroy the Government; that
+ is to say, the men who are sorry they did not destroy the Government; that
+ is to say, the enemies of every friend of this Union; that is to say, the
+ murderers and the assassins of Union men living in the Southern country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me say another thing. If Mr. Tilden does not act in accordance with
+ the Southern Democratic command, the Southern Democracy will not allow a
+ single life to stand between them and the absolute control of this
+ country. Hendricks will then be their man. I say that it would be an
+ outrage to give this country into the control of men who endeavored to
+ destroy it, to give this country into the control of the Southern rebels
+ and haters of Union men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And on the other hand, the Republican party has put forward Rutherford B.
+ Hayes. He is an honest man. The Democrats will say, "That is nothing."
+ Well, let them try it. Rutherford B. Hayes has a good character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rutherford B. Hayes, when this war commenced, did not say with Tilden, "It
+ is an outrage." He did not say with Tilden, "I never will contribute to
+ the prosecution of this war." But he did say this, "I would go into this
+ war if I knew I would be killed in the course of it, rather than to live
+ through it and take no part in it." During the war Rutherford B. Hayes
+ received many wounds in his flesh, but not one scratch upon his honor.
+ Samuel J. Tilden received many wounds upon his honor, but not one scratch
+ on his flesh. Rutherford B. Hayes is a firm man; not an obstinate man, but
+ a firm man; and I draw this distinction: A firm man will do what he
+ believes to be right, because he wants to do right. He will stand firm
+ because he believes it to be right; but an obstinate man wants his own
+ way, whether it is right or whether it is wrong. Rutherford B. Hayes is
+ firm in the right, and obstinate only when he knows he is in the right. If
+ you want to vote for a man who fought for you, vote for Rutherford B.
+ Hayes. If you want to vote for a man that carried our flag through the
+ storm of shot and shell, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you believe
+ patriotism to be a virtue, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you believe
+ this country wants heroes, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you want a man
+ who turned against his country in time of war, vote for Samuel J. Tilden.
+ If you believe the war waged for the salvation of our Nation was an
+ outrage, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you believe it is better to stay at
+ home and curse the brave men in the field, fighting for the sacred rights
+ of man, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you want to pay a premium upon
+ treason, if you want to pay a premium upon hypocrisy, if you want to pay a
+ premium upon chicanery, if you want to pay a premium upon sympathizing
+ with the enemies of your country, vote for Samuel J. Tilden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you believe that patriotism is right, if you believe the brave defender
+ of liberty is better than the assassin of freedom, vote for Rutherford B.
+ Hayes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am proud that I belong to the Republican party. It is the only party
+ that has not begged pardon for doing right. It is the only party that has
+ said: "There shall be no distinction on account of race, on account of
+ color, on account of previous condition." It is the only party that ever
+ had a platform broad enough for all humanity to stand upon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the first decent party that ever lived. The Republican party made
+ the first free government that was ever made. The Republican party made
+ the first decent constitution that any nation ever had. The Republican
+ party gave to the sky the first pure flag that was ever kissed by the
+ waves of air. The Republican party is the first party that ever said:
+ "Every man is entitled to liberty," not because he is white, not because
+ he is black, not because he is rich, not because he is poor, but because
+ he is a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party is the first party that knew enough to know that
+ humanity is more than skin deep. It is the first party that said,
+ "Government should be for all, as the light, as the air, is for all."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it is the first party that had the sense to say, "What air is to the
+ lungs, what light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, liberty is to
+ the soul of man." The Republican party is the first party that ever was in
+ favor of absolute free labor, the first party in favor of giving to every
+ man, without distinction of race or color, the fruits of the labor of his
+ hands. The Republican party said, "Free labor will give us wealth, free
+ thought will give us truth." The Republican party is the first party that
+ said to every man, "Think for yourself, and express that thought." I am a
+ free man. I belong to the Republican party. This is a free country. I will
+ think my thought. I will speak my thought or die. I say the Republican
+ party is for free labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Free labor has invented all the machines that ever added to the power,
+ added to the wealth, added to the leisure, added to the civilization of
+ mankind. Every convenience, everything of use, everything of beauty in the
+ world, we owe to free labor and to free thought. Free labor, free thought!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science took the thunderbolt from the gods, and in the electric spark,
+ freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all
+ the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek of
+ unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns,
+ with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. Every solitary thing,
+ every solitary improvement made in the United States has been made by the
+ Republican party. Every reform accomplished was inaugurated, and was
+ accomplished by the great, grand, glorious Republican party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party does not say: "Let bygones be bygones." The
+ Republican party is proud of the past and confident of the future. The
+ Republican party brings its record before you and implores you to read
+ every page, every paragraph, every line and every shining word. On the
+ first page you will find it written: "Slavery has cursed American soil
+ long enough;" on the same page you will find it written: "Slavery shall go
+ no farther." On the same page you will find it written: "The bloodhounds
+ shall not drip their gore upon another inch of American soil." On the
+ second page you will find it written: "This is a Nation, not a
+ Confederacy; every State belongs to every citizen, and no State has a
+ right to take territory belonging to any citizens in the United States and
+ set up a separate Government." On the third page you will find the
+ grandest declaration ever made in this country: "Slavery shall be
+ extirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The Rebellion shall
+ be put down." On the next page: "The Rebellion has been put down." On the
+ next page: "Slavery has been extirpated from the American soil." On the
+ next page: "The freedmen shall not be vagrants; they shall be citizens."
+ On the next page: "They are citizens." On the next page: "The ballot shall
+ be put in their hands;" and now we will write on the next page: "Every
+ citizen that has a ballot in his hand, by the gods! shall have a right to
+ cast that ballot." That in short, that in brief, is the history of the
+ Republican party. The Republican party says, and it means what it says:
+ "This shall be a free country forever; every man in it twenty-one years of
+ age shall have the right to vote for the Government of his choice, and if
+ any man endeavors to interfere with that right, the Government of the
+ United States will see to it that the right of every American citizen is
+ protected at the polls."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, there is one thing that troubles the average Democrat,
+ and that is the idea that somehow, in some way, the negro will get to be
+ the better man. It is the trouble in the South to-day. And I say to my
+ Southern friends (and I admit that there are a great many good men in the
+ South, but the bad men are in an overwhelming majority; the great mass of
+ the population is vicious, violent, virulent and malignant; the great mass
+ of the population is cruel, revengeful, idle, hateful,) and I tell that
+ population: "If you do not go to work, the negro, by his patient industry,
+ will pass you." In the long run, the nation that is honest, the people who
+ are industrious, will pass the people who are dishonest, and the people
+ who are idle, no matter how grand an ancestry they may have had, and so I
+ say, Mr. Northern Democrat, look out!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The superior man is the man that loves his fellow-man; the superior man is
+ the useful man; the superior man is the kind man, the man who lifts up his
+ down-trodden brothers; and the greater the load of human sorrow and human
+ want you can get in your arms, the easier you can climb the great hill of
+ fame. The superior man is the man who loves his fellow-man. And let me say
+ right here, the good men, the superior men, the grand men are brothers the
+ world over, no matter what their complexion may be; centuries may separate
+ them, yet they are hand in hand; and all the good, and all the grand, and
+ all the superior men, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, are fighting
+ the great battle for the progress of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I pity the man, I execrate and hate the man who has only to boast that he
+ is white. Whenever I am reduced to that necessity, I believe shame will
+ make me red instead of white. I believe another thing. If I cannot hoe my
+ row, I will not steal corn from the fellow that hoes his row. If I belong
+ to the superior race, I will be so superior that I can make my living
+ without stealing from the inferior. I am perfectly willing that any
+ Democrat in the world that can, shall pass me. I have never seen one yet,
+ except when I looked over my shoulder. But if they can pass I shall be
+ delighted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever we stand in the presence of genius, we take off our hats.
+ Whenever we stand in the presence of the great, we do involuntary homage
+ in spite of ourselves. Any one who can go by is welcome, any one in the
+ world; but until somebody does go by, of the Democratic persuasion, I
+ shall not trouble myself about the fact that may be, in some future time,
+ they may get by. The Democrats are afraid of being passed, because they
+ are being passed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man whom he
+ robs. No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man he
+ steals from. I had rather be a slave than a slave-master. I had rather be
+ stolen from than be a thief. I had rather be the wronged than the
+ wrong-doer. And allow me to say again to impress it forever upon every man
+ that hears me, you will always be the inferior of the man you wrong. Every
+ race is inferior to the race it tramples upon and robs. There never was a
+ man that could trample upon human rights and be superior to the man upon
+ whom he trampled. And let me say another thing: No government can stand
+ upon the crushed rights of one single human being; and any compromise that
+ we make with the South, if we make it at the expense of our friends, will
+ carry in its own bosom the seeds of its own death and destruction, and
+ cannot stand. A government founded upon anything except liberty and
+ justice cannot and ought not to stand. All the wrecks on either side of
+ the stream of time, all the wrecks of the great cities and nations that
+ have passed away&mdash;all are a warning that no nation founded upon
+ injustice can stand. From sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the marble
+ wilderness of Athens, from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once
+ mighty Rome, comes as it were a wail, comes as it were the cry, "No nation
+ founded upon injustice can permanently stand." We must found this Nation
+ anew. We must fight our fight. We must cling to our old party until there
+ is freedom of speech in every part of the United States. We must cling to
+ the old party until I can speak in every State of the South as every
+ Southerner can speak in every State of the North. We must vote the grand
+ old Republican ticket until there is the same liberty in every Southern
+ State that there is in every Northern, Eastern and Western State. We must
+ stand by the party until every Southern man will admit that this country
+ belongs to every citizen of the United States as much as to the man that
+ is born in that country. One more thing. I do not want any man that ever
+ fought for this country to vote the Democratic ticket. You will swap your
+ respectability for disgrace. There are thousands of you&mdash;great,
+ grand, splendid men&mdash;that have fought grandly for this Union, and now
+ I beseech of you, I beg of you, do not give respectability to the enemies
+ and haters of your country. Do not do it. Do not vote with the Democratic
+ party, of the North. Sometimes I think a rebel sympathizer in the North
+ worse than a rebel, and I will tell you why. The rebel was carried into
+ the rebellion by public opinion at home,&mdash;his father, his mother, his
+ sweetheart, his brother, and everybody he knew; and there was a kind of
+ wind, a kind of tornado, a kind of whirlwind that took him into the army.
+ He went on the rebel side with his State. The Northern Democrat went
+ against his own State; went against his own Government; and went against
+ public opinion at home. The Northern Democrat rowed up stream against wind
+ and tide. The Southern rebel went with the current; the Northern rebel
+ rowed against the current from pure, simple cussedness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I beg every man that ever fought for the Union, every man that ever
+ bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, that the old flag might
+ float over every inch of American soil redeemed from the clutch of
+ treason; I beg him, I implore him, do not go with the Democratic party.
+ And to every young man within the sound of my voice I say, do not tie your
+ bright and shining prospects to that old corpse of Democracy. You will get
+ tired of dragging it around. Do not cast your first vote with the enemies
+ of your country. Do not cast your first vote with the Democratic party
+ that was glad when the Union army was defeated. Do not cast your vote with
+ that party whose cheeks flushed with the roses of joy when the old flag
+ was trailed in disaster upon the field of battle. Remember, my friends,
+ that that party did every mean thing it could, every dishonest and
+ treasonable thing it could. Recollect that that party did all it could to
+ divide this Nation, and destroy this country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For myself I have no fear; Hayes and Wheeler will be the next President
+ and Vice-President of the United States of America. Let me beg of you&mdash;let
+ me implore you&mdash;let me beseech you, every man, to come out on
+ election day. Every man, do your duty; every man do his duty with regard
+ to the State ticket of the great and glorious State of Illinois.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This year we need Republicans; this year we need men that will vote for
+ the party; and I tell you that a Republican this year, no matter what you
+ have against him, no matter whether you like him or do not like him, is
+ better for the country, no matter how much you hate him, he is better for
+ the country than any Democrat Nature can make, or ever has made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must, in this supreme election, we must at this supreme moment, vote
+ only for the men who are in favor of keeping this Government in the power,
+ in the custody, in the control of the great, the sublime Republican party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ladies and gentlemen, if I were insensible to the honor you have done me
+ by this magnificent meeting&mdash;the most magnificent I ever saw on earth&mdash;a
+ meeting such as only the marvelous City of Pluck could produce; if I were
+ insensible of the honor, I would be made of stone. I shall remember it
+ with delight; I shall remember it with thankfulness all the days of my
+ life. And I ask in return of every Republican here to remember all the
+ days of his life, every sacrifice made by this nation for liberty; every
+ sacrifice made by every private soldier, every sacrifice made by every
+ patriotic man and patriotic woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not ask you to remember in revenge, but I ask you never, never to
+ forget. As the world swings through the constellations year after year, I
+ want the memory, I want the patriotic memory of this country to sit by the
+ grave of every Union soldier, and, while her eyes are filled with tears,
+ to crown him again and again with the crown of everlasting honor. I thank
+ you, I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, a thousand times. Good-night.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Note:&mdash;There was no full report made of this speech, the
+ above are simply extracts.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ EIGHT TO SEVEN ADDRESS.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ (On the Electoral Commission.)
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The reputation of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll had taken
+ possession of the Boston mind to such an extent that his
+ expected address was spoken of as "The Lecture." People
+ talked about going to it, as If on that night all other
+ places were to be closed, and the whole population of the
+ City turned into Tremont Temple. Long before the appointed
+ hour a rare audience, for even lecture loving Boston, had
+ assembled. Col. Ingersoll stepped upon the platform preceded
+ by Governor Rice, and followed by William Lloyd Garrison,
+ James T. Fields and others. After the presentation of two
+ large and exquisite bouquets Governor Rice introduced
+ Colonel Ingersoll, and the audience, the most acute and
+ determined looking I ever saw In Boston, poured out their
+ welcome! It seemed as if all the cheers that had been
+ suppressed between the first of November and the decision of
+ the Electoral Commission, found vent at that moment and the
+ vigorous clapping was renewed and prolonged until it became
+ an unmistakable salute to the recent brilliant campaigning
+ of the great Western orator. It is hardly possible to speak
+ in too high terms of the lecture which, under the title of
+ "8 to 7," contained a witty, philosophical and intensely
+ patriotic review of the political contest preceding and
+ following the recent election, with wise and timely
+ suggestions for preventing similar perils in the future.&mdash;
+ Boston, October 22nd,1877.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ 1877.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE sometimes wondered whether our country was to be forever governed
+ by parties full of hatred, full of malice, full of slander. I have
+ sometimes wondered whether or not in the future there would not be
+ discovered such a science as the science of government. I do not know what
+ you think, but what little I do know, and what little experience has been
+ mine, is, I must admit, against it. We have passed through the most
+ remarkable campaign of our history&mdash;a campaign remarkable in every
+ respect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was bitter, passionate, relentless and desperate, and I admit, for one,
+ that I added to its bitterness and relentlessness. I told, and frankly
+ told, my real, honest opinion of the Democratic party of the North. I
+ told, and cheerfully told, my opinion of the Democratic party of the
+ South. And I have nothing to take back. But, to show you that my heart is
+ not altogether wicked; I am willing to forgive and do forgive with all my
+ heart, every person and every party that I ever said anything against. I
+ believe that the campaign of 1876 was the turning-point, the midnight in
+ the history of the American Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe, and firmly believe, that if the Democratic party had swept into
+ power, it would have been the end of progress, and the end of what I
+ consider human liberty, beneath our flag. I felt so, and I went into the
+ campaign simply because the rights of American citizens in at least
+ sixteen States of the Union were trampled under foot. I did what little I
+ could. I am glad I did it. We had, as I say, a wonderful campaign, and
+ each party said and did about all that could be said and done. Everybody
+ attended to politics. Business was suspended. Everything was given over to
+ processions and torches, and flags and transparencies; and resolutions and
+ conventions and speeches and songs. Old arguments were revamped. Old
+ stories were pressed into service. The old story of the Rebellion was told
+ again and again. The memories of the war were revived. The North was
+ arrayed against the South as though upon the field of battle. Party cries
+ were heard on every hand. Each party leaped like a tiger upon the
+ reputation of the other, and tore with tooth and claw, with might and
+ main, to the very end of the campaign.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I felt that it was necessary to arouse the North. I felt that it was
+ necessary to tell again the story of the Rebellion, from Bull Run to
+ Appomattox. I felt that it was necessary to describe what the Southern
+ people were doing with Union men, and with colored men; and I felt it
+ necessary so to describe it that the people of the North could hear the
+ whips, and could hear the drops of blood as they fell upon the withered
+ leaves. I did all I could to arouse the people of the North. I did all I
+ could to prevent the Democratic party from getting into power. The first
+ morning after the election, the Democracy had a banquet of joy, but all
+ through the feast they saw sitting at the head of the table the dim
+ outline of the skeleton of defeat. And, when the tide turned, Republicans
+ rejoiced with a face ready at any moment to express the profoundest grief.
+ Then came despatches and rumors, and estimated majorities, and vague talk
+ about Returning Boards, and intimidating voters, and stuffed ballot boxes,
+ and fraudulent returns, and bribed clerks, and injunctions, and contempts
+ of courts, and telegrams in cipher, and outrages, and octoroon balls in
+ which reverend Senators were whirled in love's voluptuous waltz. Everybody
+ discussed the qualifications of Electors and the value of Governors'
+ certificates, and how to get behind returns, and how to buy an Elector,
+ and who had the right to count; and persons expecting offices of trust,
+ honor and profit began to threaten war and extermination, calls were made
+ for a hundred thousand men, and there were no end of meetings, and
+ resolutions and denunciations, and the downfall of the country was
+ prophesied; and yet, notwithstanding all this, the name of the person who
+ really was elected remained unknown. The last scene of this strange,
+ eventful history, so far as the election by the people was concerned, was
+ Cronin. I see him now as he leaves the land "where rolls the Oregon and
+ hears no sound save his own dashings." Cronin, the last surviving veteran
+ of the grand army of "honesty and reform." Cronin, a quorum of one.
+ Cronin, who elected the two others by a plurality of his own vote.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see him now, armed with Hoadley's opinion and Grover's certificate,
+ trudging wearily and drearily over the wide and wasted saleratus deserts
+ of the West, with a little card marked "S. J. T. i5 G. P."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came the great question of who shall count the electoral vote. The
+ Vice-President being a Republican, it was generally contended, at least by
+ me, that he had a right to count that vote. My doctrine was, if the
+ Vice-President would count the vote right, he had the right to count it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Vice-President not being a Democrat, the members of that party claimed
+ that the House could prevent the Vice-President from counting it, and this
+ was simply because the House was not Republican. Nearly all decided
+ according to their politics. The Constitution is a little blind on this
+ point, and where anything is blind I always see it my way. It was about
+ this time that some of the Democrats began to talk about bringing one
+ hundred thousand unarmed men to Washington to superintend the count.
+ Others, however, got up a scheme to create, a court in the United States
+ where politics should have no earthly influence. Nothing could be easier,
+ they thought, after we had gone through such a hot and exciting campaign,
+ than to pick out men who have no prejudices whatever on the subject.
+ Finally a bill was passed creating a tribunal to count the vote, if any,
+ and hear testimony, if any, and declare what man had been elected
+ President, if any. This tribunal consisted of fifteen men, ten being
+ chosen on account of their politics&mdash;five from the Senate and five
+ from the House,&mdash;and they chose four judges from purely geographical
+ considerations. I was there, and I know exactly how it was. Those four men
+ were picked with a map of the United States in front of the pickers. The
+ Democrats chose Justice Field, not because he was a Democrat, but because
+ he lived on the Pacific slope. They chose Justice Clifford, not because he
+ was a Democrat, but because he lived on the Eastern slope; that was fair.
+ Thereupon the Republicans chose Justice Strong, not because he was a
+ Republican, but because he lived on the Eastern slope. You can see the
+ point. The Republicans chose Justice Miller, not because he was a
+ Republican, but because he represented the great West. They then allowed
+ these four to select a fifth man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, it was impossible to select the fifth man from geographical
+ considerations, you can see that yourselves. There was nothing left to
+ choose between, you know, as far as geography was concerned. They then
+ agreed that they would not take a Justice from any State in which the
+ candidate for President lived. They left out Justice Hunt, from New York,
+ and Justice Swayne, from Ohio. They knew of course that that would not
+ influence them, but they did that simply&mdash;well, they did not want
+ them there; that was all, and it would be unhandy to pick one man out of
+ four. So they left Swayne and Hunt out. And then they would pick one man
+ as between Justice Bradley and Justice Davis. Just at that time the people
+ of the State of Illinois happened to be out of a Senator, and Judge Davis
+ was there and expressed a willingness to go to the Senate. And the people
+ of the State of Illinois elected him, and therefore there was nobody to
+ choose from except Justice Bradley, and he was a Republican.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, you know this runs in families. His record was good&mdash;by
+ marriage. He married a daughter of Chief Justice Hornblower, of New
+ Jersey. Now, Hornblower was what you might call a partisan. Do you know
+ they went to him&mdash;it was in the old times, and he was a kind of Whig,&mdash;they
+ went to him with a petition, in the State of New Jersey, a petition
+ addressed to the Legislature for the abolition of capital punishment, and
+ Hornblower said, "I'll be damned if I sign it while there is a Democrat in
+ the State of New Jersey."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, however, I believe that Justice Bradley and all the
+ other Justices, and all other persons on that tribunal decided as they
+ honestly thought was right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Judge Davis is as broad mentally as he is physically; he has an immensity
+ of common sense, and as much judgment as any one man ever needs to use,
+ and, in my judgment, he would have come to the same conclusion as Judge
+ Bradley, precisely. These men were appointed&mdash;it was a Democratic
+ scheme, and I am glad they got it up&mdash;and during that entire
+ investigation, so much were the members of that party controlled by old
+ associations and habits, and by partisan feeling that there was not a
+ solitary one of the seven Democrats that ever once voted on the Republican
+ side. And, as a necessity, the Republicans had to stand together. And so,
+ notwithstanding the seven Democrats voted constantly together, the eight
+ Republicans kept having a majority of one, until the last disputed State
+ was given against the great party of "honesty and reform." And, finally,
+ when they found they were defeated, they made up their minds to prevent
+ the counting of the vote. They made up their minds to wear out the session
+ and prevent the election of a President. Just at that point, for a wonder,
+ (nothing ever astonished me more), the members from the South said: "We do
+ not want any more war; we have had war enough and we say that a President
+ shall be peacefully elected, and that he shall be peacefully inaugurated!"
+ As soon as I heard that I felt under a little obligation to the Democracy
+ of the South, and when they stood in the gap and prevented the Democracy
+ of the North from plunging this Government into the hell of civil war, I
+ felt like taking them by the hand and saying, "We have beaten the enemy
+ once, let us keep on. Let us join hands." I felt like saying to the
+ Democracy of the South, "You never will have a day's prosperity in the
+ South until you join the great, free, progressive party of the North&mdash;never!"
+ And they never will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I say, I felt as though I were under a certain obligation to these
+ people. They prevented this thing, and they made it possible for the
+ Vice-President to declare Rutherford B. Hayes President of the United
+ States. Now, right here, I want you to observe that this shows the real
+ defects in our system of government. In the first place, our Government is
+ being governed by fraud. If the very fountain of power is poisoned by
+ fraud, then the whole Government is impure. We must find out some way to
+ prevent fraudulent voting in the United States or our Government is a
+ failure. Great cities were the mothers of election frauds. They
+ inaugurated violence and intimidation. They produced the repeaters and the
+ false boxes. They invented fan-tail tickets and pasters, and gradually
+ these delightful and patriotic arts and practices have spread over almost
+ the entire country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box our form
+ of government must cease. The fountain of power is poisoned. The
+ sovereignty of the people is stolen and destroyed. The Government becomes
+ organized fraud, and all respect will soon be lost for the laws and
+ decisions of the courts. The legislators are elected in many instances by
+ fraud. The judges are in many instances chosen by fraud. Every department
+ of the Government becomes tainted and corrupt. It is no longer a Republic,
+ unless something can be devised to ascertain with certainty the really
+ honest will of the sovereign people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the accomplishment of this object the good and patriotic men of all
+ parties should most heartily unite. To cast an illegal vote should be
+ considered by all as a crime. We must if possible get rid of the mob&mdash;the
+ vagrants, the vagabonds who have no home and who take no interest in the
+ cities where they vote. We must get rid of the rich mob too; and by the
+ rich mob I mean the men who buy up these vagabonds. Various States have
+ passed laws for the registration of voters; but they all leave wide open
+ all the doors of fraud. Men are allowed to vote if they have been for one
+ year in the State, and thirty or sixty days in the ward or precinct; and
+ when they have failed to have their names registered before the day of
+ election, they can avoid the effect of this neglect by making a few
+ affidavits, certified to by reputable householders. Of course all
+ necessary affidavits are made, with hundreds and thousands to spare. My
+ idea is that the period of registration, in the first place, is too short,
+ and, in the second place, no way should be given by which they can vote
+ unless they have been properly registered, affidavit or no affidavit.
+ Every man, when he goes into a ward or precinct, should be registered. It
+ should be his duty to see that he is registered. Officers should be kept
+ for that purpose, and he should never be allowed to cast a vote until he
+ has been registered at least one year. Sixty days, say, or thirty days&mdash;sixty
+ would be better&mdash;sixty days before the election the registry lists
+ should be corrected, and every citizen should have the right to enter a
+ complaint or objection as against any name found upon that list. Thirty
+ days, or twenty days before the election, that list should be published
+ and should be exposed in several public places in each ward and each
+ precinct, and upon the day of election no man should be allowed to vote
+ whose name was not upon the registry list. Our wards and precincts should
+ be made smaller, so that people can vote without violence, without wasting
+ an entire day, so that the honest business man that wishes to cast his
+ ballot for the Government of his choice can walk to the polls like a
+ gentleman and deposit his vote and go about his affairs. Allow me to say
+ that unless some such plan is adopted in the United States, there never
+ will be another fair election in this country. During the last campaign
+ all the arts and artifices of the city, all the arts and artifices of the
+ lowest wards were spread over this entire country, and unless something is
+ done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box, and guard the sovereign
+ will of the people, we will cease to be a Republican Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing&mdash;and I cannot say it too often&mdash;fraud at the
+ ballot-box undermines all respect in the minds of the people for the
+ Government. When they are satisfied that the election is a fraud they
+ despise the officers elected. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they
+ despise the law made by the legislators. When they are satisfied it is a
+ fraud, they hold in utter contempt the decisions of our highest and most
+ august tribunals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another trouble in this country is that our terms of office are too short.
+ Our elections are too frequent. They interfere with the business of our
+ country. When elections are so frequent, men make a business of politics.
+ If they fail to get one office they immediately run for another, and they
+ keep running until the people elect them for the simple purpose of getting
+ rid of the annoyance. Lengthen the terms, purify the ballot, and the
+ present scramble for office will become contests for principles. A man who
+ cannot get a living&mdash;unless he has been disabled in the service of
+ his country or from some other cause&mdash;without holding office, is not
+ fit for an office.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A professional office-seeker is one of the meanest, and lowest, and basest
+ of human beings&mdash;a little higher than the lower animals and a little
+ lower than man. He has no earthly or heavenly independence; not a
+ particle; not a particle. A successful office-seeker is like the center of
+ the earth; he weighs nothing himself, and draws all things towards the
+ office he wants. He has not even a temper. You cannot insult him. Shut the
+ door in his face, and, so far as he is concerned, it is left wide open,
+ and you are standing on the threshold with a smile, extending the hand of
+ welcome. He crawls and cringes and flatters and lies and swaggers and
+ brags and tells of the influence he has in the ward he lives in. We cannot
+ too often repeat that splendid saying, "The office should seek the man,
+ not man the office." If you will lengthen the term of office it will be so
+ long between meals that he will have to do something else or starve. Adopt
+ the system of registration, as I have suggested; have small and convenient
+ election districts, so that, as I said before, the honest, law-abiding,
+ and peaceable citizen can attend the polls; so that he will not be
+ compelled to risk his life to deposit his ballot that will be stolen or
+ thrown out, or forced to keep the company of ballots caused by fraudulent
+ violence. Lengthen the term of office, drive the professional hunter and
+ seeker of office from the field, and you will go far toward strengthening
+ and vivifying and preserving the fabric of the Constitution. That is the
+ kind of civil service reform I am in favor of, and as I am on that
+ subject, I will say a word about it. There is but one vital question&mdash;but
+ one question of real importance&mdash;in fact I might say in the whole
+ world, and that is the great question of Civil Service Reform. There may
+ be some others indirectly affecting the human race, and in which some
+ people take a languid kind of interest, but the only question worth
+ discussing and comprehending in all its phases is the one I have
+ mentioned. This great question is in its infancy still. The doctrine as
+ yet has been applied only to politics.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Colonel Ingersoll then read the following letter, of which
+ he was the author.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ My Dear Sir:&mdash;In the olden times, during the purer days of the
+ Republic, the motto was, "To the victors belong the spoils." The great
+ object of civil service reform is to reverse this motto. Our people are
+ thoroughly disgusted with machine politics, and demand politics without
+ any machine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every precinct and ward there are persons going about lauding one party
+ and crying down the other. They make it their business to attend to the
+ affairs of the Nation. They call conventions, pass resolutions; they put
+ notices in papers of the times and places of meetings; they select
+ candidates for office, and then insist upon having them elected; they
+ distribute papers and political documents; they crowd the mails with
+ newspapers, platforms, resolutions, facts and figures, and with everything
+ calculated to help their party and hurt the other. In short, they are the
+ disturbers of the public peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They keep the community in a perpetual excitement. In the last campaign,
+ wherever they were was turmoil. They fired cannon, carried flags, torches
+ and transparencies; they subsidized brass bands, and shouted and hurrahed
+ as though the world had gone insane. They were induced to do these things
+ by the hope of success and office. Take away this hope and there will be
+ peace once more. This thing is unendurable. The staid, the quiet and
+ respectable people, the moderate and conservative men who always have an
+ idea of joining the other side just to show their candor, are heartily
+ tired of the entire performance. These gentlemen demand a rest. They are
+ not adventurers; they have incomes; they belong to families; they have
+ monograms and liveries. They have succeeded, and they want quiet. Growth
+ makes a noise; development, as they call it, is nothing but disturbance.
+ We want stability, we want political petrifaction, and we therefore demand
+ that these meetings shall be dismissed, that these processions shall halt,
+ that these flags shall be furled. But these things never will be stopped
+ until we stop paying men with office for making these disturbances. You
+ know that it has been the habit for men elected to bestow political favors
+ upon the men who elected them. This is a crying shame. It is a kind of
+ bribery and corruption. Men should not work with the expectation of reward
+ and success. The frightful consequences of rewarding one's friends cannot
+ be contemplated by a true patriot without a shudder. Exactly the opposite
+ course is demanded by the great principle of civil service reform. There
+ is no patriotism in working for place, for power and success. The true
+ lover of his country is stimulated to action by the hope of defeat, and
+ the prospect of office for his opponent. To such an extent has the
+ pernicious system of rewarding friends for political services gone in this
+ country, that until very lately it was difficult for a member of the
+ defeated party to obtain a respectable office.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The result of all this is, that the country is divided, that these
+ divisions are kept alive by these speakers, writers and convention
+ callers. The great mission of civil service reform is not to do away with
+ parties, but with conflicting opinion, by taking from all politicians the
+ hope of reward. There is no other hope for peace. What do the people know
+ about the wants of the nation? There are in every community a few quiet
+ and respectable men, who know all about the wants of the people&mdash;gentlemen
+ who have retired from business, who take no part in discussion and who are
+ therefore free from prejudice. Let these men attend to our politics. They
+ will not call conventions, except in the parlors of hotels. They will not
+ put out our eyes with flaring torches. They will not deafen us with
+ speeches. They will carry on a campaign without producing opposition. They
+ will have elections but no contests. All the offices will be given to the
+ defeated party. This of itself will insure tranquillity at the polls. No
+ one will be deprived of the privilege of casting a ballot. When campaigns
+ are conducted in this manner a gentleman can engage in politics with a
+ feeling that he is protected by the great principle of civil service
+ reform. But just so long as men persist in rewarding their friends, as
+ they call them, just so long will our country be cursed with political
+ parties. Nothing can be better calculated to preserve the peace than the
+ great principle of rewarding those who have confidence enough in our
+ institutions to keep silent while peace will sit with folded wings upon
+ the moss-covered political stump of a ruder age. I am satisfied that to
+ civil service reform the Republican party is indebted for the last great
+ victory. Upon this question the enthusiasm of the people was simply
+ unbounded. In the harvest field, the shop, the counting-room, in the
+ church, in the saloon, in, the palace and in the hut, nothing was heard
+ and nothing discussed except the great principle of civil service reform.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among the most touching incidents of the campaign was to see a few old
+ soldiers, sacred with scars, sit down, and while battles and hair-breadth
+ escapes, and prisons of want, were utterly forgotten, discuss with
+ tremulous lips and tearful eyes the great question of civil service
+ reform.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the great political contest I addressed several quite large and
+ intelligent audiences, and no one who did not has or can have the
+ slightest idea of the hold that civil service reform had upon the very
+ souls of our people. Upon all other subjects the indifference was marked.
+ I dwelt upon the glittering achievements of my party, but they were
+ indifferent. I pictured outrages perpetrated upon our citizens, but they
+ did not care. All this went idly by, but when I touched upon civil service
+ reform, old men, gray-haired and strong, broke down utterly&mdash;tears
+ fell like rain. The faces of women grew ashen with the intensity of
+ anguish, and even little children sobbed as though their hearts would
+ break. To one who has witnessed these affecting scenes, civil service
+ reform is almost a sacred thing. Even the speeches delivered upon this
+ subject in German affected to tears thousands of persons wholly
+ unacquainted with that language. In some instances those who did not
+ understand a word were affected even more than those who did. Surely there
+ must be something in the subject itself, apart from the words used to
+ explain it, that can under such circumstances lead captive the hearts of
+ men. During the entire campaign the cry of civil service reform was heard
+ from one end of our land to the other. The sailor nailed those words to
+ the mast. The miner repeated them between the strokes of the pick. Mothers
+ explained them to their children. Emigrants painted them upon their
+ wagons. They were mingled with the reaper's song and the shout of the
+ pioneer. Adopt this great principle and we can have quiet and lady-like
+ campaigns, a few articles in monthly magazines, a leader or two in the
+ "Nation," in the pictorial papers wood-cuts of the residences of the
+ respective candidates and now and then a letter from an old Whig would
+ constitute all the aggressive agencies of the contest. I am satisfied that
+ this great principle secured us our victories in Florida and Louisiana,
+ and its effect on the High Joint Commission was greater than is generally
+ supposed. It was this that finally decided the action of the returning
+ boards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cronin is the only man upon whom this great principle was an utter
+ failure. Let it be understood that friends are not to be rewarded. Let it
+ be settled that political services are a barrier to political preferment,
+ and my word for it, machine politics will never be heard of again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yours truly,&mdash;&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe in carrying civil service reform to the extent that you
+ will not allow an officer to resign. I do not believe that that principle
+ should be insisted upon to that degree that there would only be two ways
+ left to get out of office&mdash;death or suicide. I believe, other things
+ being equal, any party having any office within its gift will give that
+ office to the man that really believes in the principles of that party,
+ and who has worked to give those principles ultimate victory. That is
+ human nature. The man that plows, the man that sows, and the man that
+ cultivates, ought to be the man that reaps. But we have in this country a
+ multitude of little places, a multitude of clerkships in Washington; and
+ the question is whether on the incoming of a new administration, these men
+ shall all be turned out. In the first place, they are on starvation
+ salaries, just barely enough to keep soul and body together, and
+ respectability on the outside; and if there is a young man in this
+ audience, I beg of him:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Never accept a clerkship from this Government. Do not live on a little
+ salary; do not let your mind be narrowed; do not sell all the splendid
+ possibilities of the future; do not learn to cringe and fawn and crawl.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would rather have forty acres of land, with a log cabin on it and the
+ woman I love in the cabin&mdash;with a little grassy winding path leading
+ down to the spring where the water gurgles from the lips of earth
+ whispering day and night to the white pebbles a perpetual poem&mdash;with
+ holly-hocks growing at the corner of the house, and morning-glories
+ blooming over the low latched door&mdash;with lattice work over the window
+ so that the sunlight would fall checkered on the dimpled babe in the
+ cradle, and birds&mdash;like songs with wings hovering in the summer air&mdash;than
+ be the clerk of any government on earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I say, let us lengthen the term of office&mdash;I do not care much
+ how long&mdash;send a man to Congress at least for five years. And it
+ would be a great blessing if there were not half as many of them sent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have too many legislators and too much legislation; too little about
+ important matters, and too much about unimportant matters. Lengthen the
+ term of office so that the man can turn his attention to something else
+ when he gets in besides looking after his re-election. There is another
+ defect we must remedy in our Constitution, in my judgment, and that is as
+ to the mode of electing a President. I believe it of the greatest
+ importance that the Executive should be entirely independent of the
+ legislative and judicial departments of the country. I do not believe that
+ Congress should have the right to create a vacancy which it can fill. I do
+ not believe that the Senate of the United States, or the lower house of
+ Congress, by a simple objection, should have the right to deprive any
+ State of its electoral vote. Our Constitution now provides that the
+ electors chosen in each State shall meet in their respective States upon a
+ certain day and there cast their votes for President and Vice-President of
+ the United States. They shall properly certify to the votes which are
+ cast, and shall transmit lists of them, together with the proper
+ certificates, to the Vice-President of the United States. And it is then
+ declared that upon a certain day in the presence of both houses of
+ Congress, the Vice-President shall open the certificates and the votes
+ shall then be counted. It does not exactly say who shall count these
+ votes. It does not in so many words say the Vice-President shall do it, or
+ may do it, or that both houses of Congress shall do it, or may do it, or
+ that either house can prevent a count of the votes. It leaves us in the
+ dark, and, to a certain degree, in blindness. I believe there is a way,
+ and a very easy way, out of the entire trouble, and it is this: I do not
+ care whether the electors first meet in their respective States or not,
+ but I want the Constitution so amended that the electors of all the States
+ shall meet on a certain day in the city of Washington, and count the votes
+ themselves; to allow that body to be the judge of who are electors, to
+ allow it to choose a chairman, and to allow the person so chosen to
+ declare who is the President, and who is the Vice-President of the United
+ States. The Executive is then entirely free and independent of the
+ legislative department of Government. The Executive is then entirely free
+ from the judicial department, and I tell you, it is a public calamity to
+ have the ermine of the Supreme Court of the United States touched or
+ stained by a political suspicion. In my judgment, this country can never
+ stand such a strain again as it has now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, my friends, all these questions are upon us and they have to be
+ settled. We cannot go on as we have been going. We cannot afford to live
+ as we have lived&mdash;one section running against the other. We cannot go
+ along that way. It must be settled, either peaceably or there must again
+ be a resort to the boisterous sword of civil war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people of the South must stop trampling on the rights of the colored
+ men. It must not be a crime in any State of this Union to be a lover of
+ this country. I have seen it stated in several papers lately that it is
+ the duty of each State to protect its own citizens. Well, I know that.
+ Suppose that the State does not do it; what then I say? Well, then, say
+ these people, the Governor of the State has the right to call on the
+ General Government for assistance. But suppose the Governor will not call
+ for assistance, what then? Then, they tell us, the Legislature can do so
+ by a joint resolution. But suppose the Legislature will not do it, what
+ then? Then, say these people, it is a defect in the Constitution. In my
+ judgment, that is the absurdest kind of secession. If the State of
+ Illinois must protect me, if I have no right to call for the protection of
+ the General Government, all I have to say is that my allegiance must
+ belong to the Government that protects me. If Illinois protects me, and
+ the General Government has not the power, then my first allegiance is due
+ to Illinois; and should Illinois unsheathe the sword of civil war, I must
+ stand by my State, if that doctrine is true. I say, my first allegiance is
+ due to the General Government, and not to the State of Illinois, and if
+ the State of Illinois goes out of the Union, I swear to you that I will
+ not. What does the General Government propose to give me in exchange for
+ my allegiance? The General Government has a right to take my property. The
+ General Government has a right to take my body in its necessary defence.
+ What does that Government propose to give in exchange for that right?
+ Protection, or else our Government is a fraud. Who has a right to call for
+ the protection of the United States? I say, the citizen who needs it. Can
+ our Government obtain information only through the official sources? Must
+ our Government wait until the Government asks the proofs, while the State
+ tramples upon the rights of the citizens? Must it wait until the
+ Legislature calls for assistance to help it stop robbing and plundering
+ citizens of the United States? Is that the doctrine and the idea of the
+ Northern Democratic party? It is not mine. A Government that will not
+ protect its citizens is a disgrace to humanity. A Government that waits
+ until a Governor calls&mdash;a Government that cannot hear the cry of the
+ meanest citizen under its flag when his rights are being trampled upon,
+ even by citizens of a Southern State&mdash;has no right to exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the duty of the American citizen to see to it that every State has a
+ Government, not only republican in form, but it is the duty of the United
+ States to see to it that life, liberty and property are protected in each
+ State. If they are not protected, it is the duty of the United States to
+ protect them, if it takes all her military force both upon land and upon
+ the sea. The people whose Government cannot always hear the faintest wail
+ of the meanest man beneath its flag have no right to call themselves a
+ nation. The flag that will not protect its protectors and defend its
+ defenders is a rag that is not worth the air in which it waves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How are we going to do it? Do it by kindness if you can; by conciliation
+ if you can, but the Government is bound to try every way until it
+ succeeds. Now, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President. The Democracy
+ will say, of course, that he never was elected, but that does not make any
+ difference. He is President to-day, and all these things are about him to
+ be settled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What shall we do? What can we do? There are two Governors in South
+ Carolina and two Legislatures and not one cent of taxes has been collected
+ by either. A dual government would seem to be the most economical in the
+ world. Now, the question for us to decide, the question to be decided by
+ this administration is, how are we to ascertain which is the legal
+ Government of the State, and what department of the Government has a right
+ to ascertain that fact? Must it be left to Congress? Has the Senate alone
+ the right to determine it? Can it be left in any way to the Supreme Court,
+ or shall the Executive decide it himself? I do not say that the Executive
+ has the power to decide that question for himself. I do not say he has
+ not, but I do not say he has. The question, so far as Louisiana and South
+ Carolina are concerned&mdash;that question is now in the Senate of the
+ United States. Governor Kellogg is asking for admission as a Senator from
+ the State of Louisiana, and the question is to be decided by the Senate
+ first, whether he is entitled to his seat, and that question of course,
+ rests upon the one fact&mdash;was the Legislature that elected him the
+ legal Legislature of the State of Louisiana? It seems to me that when that
+ question is pending in the Senate of the United States the President has
+ not the right, or at least it would be improper for him to decide it on
+ his own motion, and say this or that Government is the real and legal
+ Government of the State of Louisiana. But some mode must be adopted, some
+ way must be discovered to settle this question, and to settle it
+ peacefully. We are an enlightened people. Force is the last thing that
+ civilized men should resort to. As long as courts can be created, as long
+ as courts of arbitration can be selected, as long as we can reason and
+ think, and urge all the considerations of humanity upon each other, there
+ should be no appeal to arms in the United States upon any question
+ whatever. What should the President do? He could only spare twenty-five
+ hundred men from the Indian war&mdash;that is the same army that has so
+ long been trampling on the rights of the South, the same army that the
+ Democratic Congress wished to reduce, and that army of twenty-five hundred
+ men is all he has to spare to protect American citizens in the Southern
+ States. Is there any sentiment in the North that would uphold the
+ Executive in calling for volunteers? Is there any sentiment here that
+ would respond to a call for twenty, fifty, or a hundred thousand men? Is
+ there any Congress to pass the necessary act to pay them if there was?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so the President of the United States appreciated the situation, and
+ the people of the South came to him and said, "We have had war enough, we
+ have had trouble enough, our country languishes, we have no trade, our
+ pockets are empty, something must be done for us, we are utterly and
+ perfectly disgusted with the leadership of the Democratic party of the
+ North. Now, will you let us be your friends?" And he had the sense to say,
+ "Yes." The President took the right hand of the North, and put it into the
+ right hand of the South and said "Let us be friends. We parted at the
+ cannon's mouth; we were divided by the edge of the glittering sword; we
+ must become acquainted again. We are equals. We are all fellow-citizens.
+ In a Government of the people, by the people and for the people, there
+ shall not be an outcast class, whether white or black. To this feast,
+ every child of the Republic shall be invited and welcomed." It was a grand
+ thing grandly done. If the President succeeds in his policy, it will be an
+ immense compliment to his brain. If he fails, it will be an equal
+ compliment to his heart. He has opened the door; he has advanced; he has
+ extended his hand, he has broken the silence of hatred with the words of
+ welcome. Actuated by this broad and catholic spirit he has selected his
+ constitutional advisors, and allow me to say right here, the President has
+ the right to select his constitutional advisors to suit himself, and the
+ idea of men endeavoring to force themselves or others into the Cabinet of
+ the President, against, as it were, his will, why I would as soon think of
+ circulating a petition to compel some woman to marry me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has gathered around him the men he considers the wisest and the best,
+ and I say, let us give them a fair chance. I say, let us be honest with
+ the President of the United States and his Cabinet, and give his policy a
+ fair and honest chance. In order to show his good faith with the South he
+ chose as a member of his Cabinet an ex-rebel from Tennessee. I confess,
+ when I heard of it I did not like it. It did not seem to be exactly what I
+ had been making all this fuss about. But I thought I would be honest about
+ it, and I went and called on Mr. Key, and really he begins already to look
+ a good deal like a Republican. A real honest looking man. And then I said
+ to myself that he had not done much more harm than as though he had been a
+ Democrat at the North during those four years, and had cursed and swore
+ instead of fought about it. And so I told him "I am glad you are
+ appointed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I am. Give him a chance, and so far as the whole Cabinet is concerned&mdash;I
+ have not the time to go over them one by one now, it is perfectly
+ satisfactory to me. The President made up his mind that to appoint that
+ man would be to say to the South: "I do not look upon you as pariahs in
+ this Government. I look upon you as fellow-citizens; I want you to wipe
+ forever the color line, or the Union line, from the records of this
+ Government on account of what has been done heretofore." What are you now?
+ is the only question that should be asked. It was a strange thing for the
+ President to appoint that man. It was an experiment. It is an experiment.
+ It has not yet been decided, but I believe it will simply be a proof of
+ the President's wisdom. I can stand that experiment taken in connection
+ with the appointment of Frederick Douglass as Marshal of the District of
+ Columbia. I was glad to see that man's appointment. He is a good, patient,
+ stern man. He has been fighting for the liberty of his race, and at the
+ same time for our liberty. This man has done something for the freedom of
+ my race as well as his own. This is no time for war. War settles nothing
+ except the mere question of strength. That is all war ever did settle. You
+ cannot shoot ideas into a man with a musket, or with cannon into one of
+ those old Bourbon Democrats of the North. You cannot let prejudices out of
+ a man with a sword.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the time for reason, for discussion, for compromise. This is the
+ time to repair, to rebuild, to preserve. War destroys. Peace creates. War
+ is decay and death. Peace is growth and life,&mdash;sunlight and air. War
+ kills men. Peace maintains them. Artillery does not reason; it asserts. A
+ bayonet has point enough, but no logic. When the sword is drawn, reason
+ remains in the scabbard. It is not enough to win upon the field of battle,
+ you must be victor within the realm of thought. There must be peace
+ between the North and South some time; not a conquered peace, but a peace
+ that conquers. The question is, can you and I forget the past? Can we
+ forget everything except the heroic sacrifices of the men who saved this
+ Government? Can we say to the South, "Let us be brothers"? Can we? I am
+ willing to do it because, in the first place, it is right, and in the
+ second place, it will pay if it can be carried out. We have fought and
+ hated long enough. Our country is prostrate. Labor is in rags. Energy has
+ empty hands. Industry has empty pockets. The wheels of the factory are
+ still. In the safe of prudence money lies idle, locked by the key of fear.
+ Confidence is what we need&mdash;confidence in each other; confidence in
+ our institutions; confidence in our form of government; in the great
+ future; confidence in law, confidence in liberty, confidence in progress,
+ and in the grand destiny of the Great Republic. Now, do not imagine that I
+ think this policy will please every body. Of course there are men South
+ and North who can never be conciliated. They are the Implacables in the
+ South&mdash;the Bourbons in the North.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing will ever satisfy them. The Implacables want to own negroes and
+ whip them; the Bourbons never will be satisfied until they can help catch
+ one. The Implacables with violent hands drive emigration from their
+ shores. They are poisoning the springs and sources of prosperity. They
+ dine on hatred and sup on regret. They mourn over the lost cause and
+ partake of the communion of revenge. They strike down the liberties of
+ their fellow-citizens and refuse to enjoy their own. They remember nothing
+ but wrongs, and they forget nothing but benefits. Their bosoms are filled
+ with the serpents of hate. No one can compromise with them. Nothing can
+ change them. They must be left to the softening influence of time and
+ death. The Bourbons are the allies of the Implacables. A Bourbon in the
+ majority is an Implacable in the minority. An Implacable in the minority
+ is a Bourbon. We do not appeal to, but from these men. But there are in
+ the South thousands of men who have accepted in good faith the results of
+ the war; men who love and wish to preserve this nation, men tired of
+ strife&mdash;men longing for a real Union based upon mutual respect and
+ confidence. These men are willing that the colored man shall be free&mdash;willing
+ that he shall vote, and vote for the Government of his choice&mdash;willing
+ that his children shall be educated&mdash;willing that he shall have all
+ the rights of an American citizen. These men are tired of the Implacables
+ and disgusted with the Bourbons. These men wish to unite with the
+ patriotic men of the North in the great work of reestablishing a
+ government of law. For my part, call me of what party you please, I am
+ willing to join hands with these men, without regard to race, color or
+ previous condition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With a knowledge of our wants&mdash;with a clear perception of our
+ difficulties, Rutherford B. Hayes became President.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nations have been saved by the grandeur of one man. Above all things a
+ President should be a patriot. Party at best is only a means&mdash;the
+ good of the country, the happiness of the people, the only end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I appeal to you Democrats here&mdash;not a great many, I suppose&mdash;do
+ not oppose this policy because you think it is going to increase the
+ Republican strength. If it strengthens the Government, no matter whether
+ it is Republican or Democratic, it is for the common good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And you Republicans, you who have had all these feelings of patriotism and
+ glory, I ask you to wait and let this experiment be tried. Do not prophesy
+ failure for it and then work to fulfill the prophecy. Give the President a
+ chance. I tell you to-night that he is as good a Republican as there is in
+ the United States; and I tell you that if this policy is not responded to
+ by the South, Rutherford B. Hayes will change it, just as soon and as
+ often as is necessary to accomplish the end. The President has offered the
+ Southern people the olive branch of peace, and so far as I am concerned, I
+ implore both the Southern people and the Northern people to accept it. I
+ extend to you each and all the olive branch of peace. Fellow-citizens of
+ the South, I beseech you to take it. By the memory of those who died for
+ naught; by the charred remains of your remembered homes; by the ashes of
+ your statesman dead; for the sake of your sons and your daughters and
+ their fair children yet to be, I implore you to take it with loving and
+ with loyal hands. It will cultivate your wasted fields. It will rebuild
+ your towns and cities. It will fill your coffers with gold. It will
+ educate your children. It will swell the sails of your commerce. It will
+ cause the roses of joy to clamber and climb over the broken cannon of war.
+ It will flood the cabins of the freedman with light, and clothe the weak
+ in more than coat of mail, and wrap the poor and lowly in "measureless
+ content." Take it. The North will forgive if the South will forget. Take
+ it! The negro will wipe from the tablet of memory the strokes and scars of
+ two hundred years, and blur with happy tears the record of his wrongs.
+ Take it! It will unite our nation. It will make us brothers once again.
+ Take it! And justice will sit in your courts under the outspread wings of
+ Peace. Take it! And the brain and lips of the future will be free. Take
+ it! It will bud and blossom in your hands and fill your land with
+ fragrance and with joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HARD TIMES AND THE WAY OUT.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Boston, October 20, 1878.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen:&mdash;The lovers of the human race, the
+ philanthropists, the dreamers of grand dreams, all predicted and all
+ believed that when man should have the right to govern himself, when every
+ human being should be equal before the law, pauperism, crime, and want
+ would exist only in the history of the past. They accounted for misery in
+ their time by the rapacity of kings and the cruelty of priests. Here, in
+ the United States, man at last is free. Here, man makes the laws, and all
+ have an equal voice. The rich cannot oppress the poor, because the poor
+ are in a majority. The laboring men, those who in some way work for their
+ living, can elect every Congressman and every judge; they can make and
+ interpret the laws, and if labor is oppressed in the United States by
+ capital, labor has simply itself to blame. The cry is now raised that
+ capital in some mysterious way oppresses industry; that the capitalist is
+ the enemy of the man who labors. What is a capitalist? Every man who has
+ good health; every man with good sense; every one who has had his dinner,
+ and has enough left for supper, is, to that extent, a capitalist. Every
+ man with a good character, who has the credit to borrow a dollar or to buy
+ a meal, is a capitalist; and nine out of ten of the great capitalists in
+ the United States are simply successful workingmen. There is no conflict,
+ and can be no conflict, in the United States between capital and labor;
+ and the men who endeavor to excite the envy of the unfortunate and the
+ malice of the poor are the enemies of law and order.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, wealth is the result of industry, economy, attention to
+ business; and as a rule, poverty is the result of idleness, extravagance,
+ and inattention to business, though to these rules there are thousands of
+ exceptions. The man who has wasted his time, who has thrown away his
+ opportunities, is apt to envy the man who has not. For instance, there are
+ six shoemakers working in one shop. One of them attends to his business.
+ You can hear the music of his hammer late and early. He is in love with
+ some girl on the next street. He has made up his mind to be a man; to
+ succeed; to make somebody else happy; to have a home; and while he is
+ working, in his imagination he can see his own fireside, with the
+ firelight falling upon the faces of wife and child. The other five
+ gentlemen work as little as they can, spend Sunday in dissipation, have
+ the headache Monday, and, as a result, never advance. The industrious one,
+ the one in love, gains the confidence of his employer, and in a little
+ while he cuts out work for the others. The first thing you know he has a
+ shop of his own, the next a store; because the man of reputation, the man
+ of character, the man of known integrity, can buy all he wishes in the
+ United States upon a credit. The next thing you know he is married, and he
+ has built him a house, and he is happy, and his dream has been realized.
+ After awhile the same five shoemakers, having pursued the old course,
+ stand on the corner some Sunday when he rides by. He has a carriage, his
+ wife sits by his side, her face covered with smiles, and they have two
+ children, their eyes beaming with joy, and the blue ribbons are fluttering
+ in the wind. And thereupon, these five shoemakers adjourn to some
+ neighboring saloon and pass a resolution that there is an irrepressible
+ conflict between capital and labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, in fact, no such conflict, and the laboring men of the United
+ States have the power to protect themselves. In the ballot-box the vote of
+ Lazarus is on an equality with the vote of Dives; the vote of a wandering
+ pauper counts the same as that of a millionaire. In a land where the poor,
+ where the laboring men have the right and have the power to make the laws,
+ and do, in fact, make the laws, certainly there should be no complaint. In
+ our country the people hold the power, and if any corporation in any State
+ is devouring the substance of the people, every State has retained the
+ power of eminent domain, under which it can confiscate the property and
+ franchise of any corporation by simply paying to that corporation what
+ such property is worth. And yet thousands of people are talking as though
+ the rich combined for the express purpose of destroying the poor, are
+ talking as though there existed a widespread conspiracy against industry,
+ against honest toil; and thousands and thousands of speeches have been
+ made and numberless articles have been written to fill the breasts of the
+ unfortunate with hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have passed through a period of wonderful and unprecedented inflation.
+ For years we enjoyed the luxury of going into debt, the felicity of living
+ upon credit. We have in the United States about eighty thousand miles of
+ railway, more than enough to make a treble track around the globe. Most of
+ these miles were built in a period of twenty-five years, and at a cost of
+ at least five thousand millions of dollars. Think of the ore that had to
+ be dug, of the iron that was melted; think of the thousands employed in
+ cutting bridge timber and ties, and giving to the wintry air the music of
+ the axe; think of the thousands and thousands employed in making cars, in
+ making locomotives, those horses of progress with nerves of steel and
+ breath of flame; think of the thousands and thousands of workers in brass
+ and steel and iron; think of the numberless industries that thrived in the
+ construction of eighty thousand miles of railway, of the streams bridged,
+ of the mountains tunneled, of the plains crossed; and think of the towns
+ and cities that sprang up, as if by magic, along these highways of iron.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the same time we had a war in which we expended thousands of
+ millions of dollars, not to create, not to construct, but to destroy. All
+ this money was spent in the work of demolition, and every shot and every
+ shell and every musket and every cannon was used to destroy. All the time
+ of every soldier was lost. An amount of property inconceivable was
+ destroyed, and some of the best and bravest were sacrificed. During these
+ years the productive power of the North was strained to the utmost; every
+ wheel was in motion; there was employment for every kind and description
+ of labor, and for every mechanic. There was a constantly rising market&mdash;speculation
+ was rife, and it seemed almost impossible to lose. As a consequence, the
+ men who had been toiling upon the farm became tired. It was too slow a way
+ to get rich. They heard of their neighbor, of their brother, who had gone
+ to the city and had suddenly become a millionaire. They became tired with
+ the slow methods of agriculture. The young men of intelligence, of vim, of
+ nerve became disgusted with the farms. On every hand fortunes were being
+ made. A wave of wealth swept over the United States; huts became houses;
+ houses became palaces with carpeted floors and pictured walls; tatters
+ became garments; rags became robes; and for the first time in the history
+ of the world, the poor tasted of the luxuries of wealth. We wondered how
+ our fathers could have endured their poor and barren lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every business was pressed to the snow line. Old life insurance
+ associations had been successful; new ones sprang up on every hand. The
+ agents filled every town. These agents were given a portion of the
+ premium. You could hardly go out of your house without being told of the
+ uncertainty of life and the certainty of death. You were shown pictures of
+ life insurance agents emptying vast bags of gold at the feet of a
+ disconsolate widow. You saw in imagination your own fatherless children
+ wiping away the tears of grief and smiling with joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These agents insured everybody and everything. They would have insured a
+ hospital or consumption in its last hemorrhage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fire insurance was managed in precisely the same way. The agents received
+ a part of the premium, and they insured anything and everything, no matter
+ what its danger might be. They would have insured powder in perdition, or
+ icebergs under the torrid zone with the same alacrity. And then there were
+ accident companies, and you could not go to the station to buy your ticket
+ without being shown a picture of disaster. You would see there four horses
+ running away with a stage, and old ladies and children being thrown out;
+ you would see a steamer being blown up on the Mississippi, legs one way
+ and arms the other, heads one side and hats the other; locomotives going
+ through bridges, good Samaritans carrying off the wounded on stretchers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The merchants, too, were not satisfied to do business in the old way. It
+ was too slow; they could not wait for customers. They filled the country
+ with drummers, and these drummers convinced all the country merchants that
+ they needed about twice as many goods as they could possibly sell, and
+ they took their notes on sixty and ninety days, and renewed them whenever
+ desired, provided the parties renewing the notes would take more goods.
+ And these country merchants pressed the goods upon their customers in the
+ same manner. Everybody was selling, everybody was buying, and nearly all
+ was done upon a credit. No one believed the day of settlement ever would
+ or ever could come. Towns must continue to grow, and in the imagination of
+ speculators there were hundreds of cities numbering their millions of
+ inhabitants. Land, miles and miles from the city, was laid out in blocks
+ and squares and parks; land that will not be occupied for residences
+ probably for hundreds of years to come, and these lots were sold, not by
+ the acre, not by the square mile, but by so much per foot. They were sold
+ on credit, with a partial payment down and the balance secured by a
+ mortgage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These values, of course, existed simply in the imagination; and a deed of
+ trust upon a cloud or a mortgage upon a last year's fog would have been
+ just as valuable. Everybody advertised, and those who were not selling
+ goods and real estate were in the medicine line, and every rock beneath
+ our flag was covered with advice to the unfortunate; and I have often
+ thought that if some sincere Christian had made a pilgrimage to Sinai and
+ climbed its venerable crags, and in a moment of devotion dropped upon his
+ knees and raised his eyes toward heaven, the first thing that would have
+ met his astonished gaze would in all probability have been:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "St. 1860 X Plantation Bitters."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Suddenly there came a crash. Jay Cooke failed, and I have heard thousands
+ of men account for the subsequent hard times from the fact that Cooke did
+ fail. As well might you account for the smallpox by saying that the first
+ pustule was the cause of the disease. The failure of Jay Cooke &amp; Co.
+ was simply a symptom of a disease universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No language can describe the agonies that have been endured since 1873. No
+ language can tell the sufferings of the men that have wandered over the
+ dreary and desolate desert of bankruptcy. Thousands and thousands supposed
+ that they had enough, enough for their declining years, enough for wife
+ and children, and suddenly found themselves paupers and vagrants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During all these years the bankruptcy law was in force, and whoever failed
+ to keep his promise had simply to take the benefit of this law. As a
+ consequence, there could be no real, solid foundation for business.
+ Property commenced to decline; that is to say, it commenced to resume;
+ that is to say, it began to be rated at its real instead of at its
+ speculative value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Land is worth what it will produce, and no more. It may have speculative
+ value, and, if the prophecy is fulfilled, the man who buys it may become
+ rich, and if the prophecy is not fulfilled, then the land is simply worth
+ what it will produce. Lots worth from five to ten thousand dollars apiece
+ suddenly vanished into farms worth twenty-five dollars per acre. These
+ lots resumed. The farms that before that time had been considered worth
+ one hundred dollars per acre, and are now worth twenty or thirty, have
+ simply resumed. Magnificent residences supposed to be worth one hundred
+ thousand dollars, that can now be purchased for twenty-five thousand, they
+ have simply resumed. The property in the United States has not fallen in
+ value, but its real value has been ascertained. The land will produce as
+ much as it ever would, and is as valuable to-day as it ever was; and every
+ improvement, every invention that adds to the productiveness of the soil
+ or to the facilities for getting that product to market, adds to the
+ wealth of the nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, the property kept pace with what we were pleased to
+ call our money. As the money depreciated, property appreciated; as the
+ money appreciated, property depreciated. The moment property began to fall
+ speculation ceased. There is but little speculation upon a falling market.
+ The stocks and bonds, based simply upon ideas, became worthless, the
+ collaterals became dust and ashes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the close of the war, when the Government ceased to be such a vast
+ purchaser and consumer, many of the factories had to stop. When the crash
+ came the men stopped digging ore; they stopped felling the forest; the
+ fires died out in the furnaces; the men who had stood in the glare of the
+ forge were in the gloom of want. There was no employment for them. The
+ employer could not sell his product; business stood still, and then came
+ what we call the hard times. Our wealth was a delusion and illusion, and
+ we simply came back to reality. Too many men were doing nothing, too many
+ men were traders, brokers, speculators. There were not enough producers of
+ the things needed; there were too many producers of the things no one
+ wished. There needed to be a re-distribution of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many remedies have been proposed, and chief among these is the remedy of
+ fiat money. Probably no subject in the world is less generally understood
+ than that of money. So many false definitions have been given, so many
+ strange, conflicting theories have been advanced, that it is not at all
+ surprising that men have come to imagine that money is something that can
+ be created by law. The definitions given by the hard-money men themselves
+ have been used as arguments by those who believe in the power of Congress
+ to create wealth. We are told that gold is an instrumentality or a device
+ to facilitate exchanges. We are told that gold is a measure of value. Let
+ us examine these definitions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Gold is an instrumentality or device to facilitate exchanges.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That sounds well, but I do not believe it. Gold and silver are
+ commodities. They are the products of labor. They are not
+ instrumentalities; they are not devices to facilitate exchanges; they are
+ the things exchanged for something else; and other things are exchanged
+ for them. The only device about it to facilitate exchanges is the coining
+ of these metals. Whenever the Government or any government certifies that
+ in a certain piece of gold or silver there are a certain number of grains
+ of a certain fineness, then he who gives it knows that he is not giving
+ too much, and he who receives, that he is receiving enough, so that I will
+ change the definition to this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The <i>coining</i> of the precious metals is a device to facilitate
+ exchanges.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The precious metals themselves are property; they are merchandise; they
+ are commodities, and whenever one commodity is exchanged for another it is
+ barter, and gold is the last refinement of barter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second definition is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Gold is the measure of value</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told by those who believe in fiat money that gold is a measure of
+ value just the same as a half bushel or a yardstick.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I deny that gold is a measure of value. The yardstick is not a measure of
+ value; it is simply a measure of quantity. It measures cloth worth fifty
+ dollars a yard precisely as it does calico worth four cents. It is,
+ therefore, not a measure of value, but of quantities. The same with the
+ half bushel. The half bushel measures wheat precisely the same, whether
+ that wheat is worth three dollars or one dollar. It simply measures
+ quantity; not quality, or value. The yardstick, the half bushel, and the
+ coining of money are all devices to facilitate exchanges. The yardstick
+ assures the man who sells that he has not sold too much; it assures the
+ man who buys that he has received enough; and in that way it facilitates
+ exchanges. The coining of money facilitates exchange, for the reason that
+ were it not coined, each man who did any business would have to carry a
+ pair of scales and be a chemist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It matters not whether the yardstick or half bushel are of gold, silver,
+ or wood, for the reason that the yardstick and half bushel are not the
+ things bought. We buy not them, but the things they measure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If gold and silver are not the measure of value, what is? I answer&mdash;intelligent
+ labor. Gold gets its value from labor. Of course, I cannot account for the
+ fact that mankind have a certain fancy for gold or for diamonds, neither
+ can I account for the fact that we like certain things better than others
+ to eat. These are simply facts in nature, and they are facts, whether they
+ can be explained or not. The dollar in gold represents, on the average,
+ the labor that it took to dig and mint it, together with all the time of
+ the men who looked for it without finding it. That dollar in gold, on the
+ average, will buy the product of the same amount of labor in any other
+ direction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing ever has been money, from the most barbarous to the most civilized
+ times, unless it was a product of nature, and a something to which the
+ people among whom it passed as money attached a certain value, a value not
+ dependent upon law, not dependent upon "fiat" in any degree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing has ever been considered money that man could produce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A bank bill is not money, neither is a check nor a draft. These are all
+ devices simply to facilitate business, but in or of themselves they have
+ no value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told, however, that the Government can create money. This I deny.
+ The Government produces nothing; it raises no wheat, no corn; it digs no
+ gold, no silver. It is not a producer, it is a consumer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Government cannot by law create wealth. And right here I wish to ask
+ one question, and I would like to have it answered some time. If the
+ Government can make money, if it can create money, if by putting its
+ sovereignty upon a piece of paper it can create absolute money, why should
+ the Government collect taxes? We have in every district assessors and
+ collectors; we have at every port customhouses, and we are collecting
+ taxes day and night for the support of this Government. Now, if the
+ Government can make money itself, why should it collect taxes from the
+ poor? Here is a man cultivating a farm&mdash;he is working among the
+ stones and roots, and digging day and night; why should the Government go
+ to that man and make him pay twenty or thirty or forty dollars taxes when
+ the Government, according to the theory of these gentlemen, could make a
+ thousand-dollar fiat bill quicker than that man could wink? Why impose
+ upon industry in that manner? Why should the sun borrow a candle?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And if the Government can create money, how much should it create, and if
+ it should create it who will get it? Money has a great liking for money. A
+ single dollar in the pocket of a poor man is lonesome; it never is
+ satisfied until it has found its companions. Money gravitates towards
+ money, and issue as much as you may, as much as you will, the time will
+ come when that money will be in the hands of the industrious, in the hands
+ of the economical, in the hands of the shrewd, in the hands of the
+ cunning; in other words, in the hands of the successful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day I had a conversation with one of the principal gentlemen
+ upon that side, and I told him, "Whenever you can successfully palm off on
+ a man a bill of fare for a dinner, I shall believe in your doctrine; and
+ when I can satisfy the pangs of hunger by reading a cook-book, I shall
+ join your party." Only that is money which stands for labor. Only that is
+ money which will buy, on the average, in all other directions the result
+ of the same labor expended in its production. As a matter of fact, there
+ is money enough in the country to transact the business. Never before in
+ the history of our Government was money so cheap; that is to say, was
+ interest so low; never. There is plenty of money, and we could borrow all
+ we wished had we the collaterals. We could borrow all we wish if there was
+ some business in which we could embark that promised a sure and reasonable
+ return. If we should come to a man who kept a ferry, and find his boat on
+ a sandbar and the river dry, what would he think of us should we tell him
+ he had not enough boat? He would probably reply that he had plenty of
+ boat, but not enough water. We have plenty of money, but not enough
+ business. The reason we have not enough business is, we have not enough
+ confidence, and the reason we have not confidence is because the market is
+ slowly falling, and the reason it is slowly falling is that things have
+ not yet quite resumed; that we have not quite touched the absolute bedrock
+ of valuation. Another reason is because those that left the cultivation of
+ the soil have not yet all returned, and they are living, some upon their
+ wits, some upon their relatives, some upon charity, and some upon crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question is: Suppose the Government should issue a thousand
+ millions of fiat money, how would it regulate the value thereof? Every
+ creditor could be forced to take it, but nobody else. If a man was in debt
+ one dollar for a bushel of wheat, he could compel the creditor to take the
+ fiat money; but if he wished to buy the wheat, then the owner could say,
+ "I will take one dollar in gold or fifty dollars in fiat money, or I will
+ not sell it for fiat money at any price." What will Congress do then? In
+ order to make this fiat money good it will have to fix the price of every
+ conceivable commodity; the price of painting a picture, of trying a
+ lawsuit, of chiseling a statue, the price of a day's work; in short, the
+ price of every conceivable thing. This even will not be sufficient. It
+ will be necessary, then, to provide by law that the prices fixed shall be
+ received, and that no man shall be allowed to give more for anything than
+ the price fixed by Congress. Now, I do not believe that any Congress has
+ sufficient wisdom to tell beforehand what will be the relative value of
+ all the products of labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the volume of currency is inflated it is at the expense of the
+ creditor class; when it is contracted it is contracted at the expense of
+ the debtor class. In other words, inflation means going into debt;
+ contraction means the payment of the debt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A gold dollar is a dollar's worth of gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A real paper dollar is a dollar's worth of paper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another remedy has been suggested by the same persons who advocate fiat
+ money. With a consistency perfectly charming, they say it would have been
+ much better had we allowed the Treasury notes to fade out. Why allow fiat
+ money to fade out when a simple act of Congress can make it as good as
+ gold? When greenbacks fade out the loss falls upon the chance holder, upon
+ the poor, the industrious, and the unfortunate. The rich, the cunning, the
+ well-informed manage to get rid of what they happen to hold. When,
+ however, the bills are redeemed, they are paid by the wealth and property
+ of the whole country. To allow them to fade out is universal robbery; to
+ pay them is universal justice. The greenback should not be allowed to fade
+ away in the pocket of the soldier or in the hands of his widow and
+ children. It is said that; the Continental money faded away. It was and is
+ a disgrace to our forefathers. When the greenback fades away there will
+ fade with it honor from the American heart, brain from the American head,
+ and our flag from the air of heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A great cry has been raised against the holders of bonds. They have been
+ denounced by every epithet that malignity can coin. During the war our
+ bonds were offered for sale and they brought all that they then appeared
+ to be worth. They had to be sold or the Rebellion would have been a
+ success. To the bond we are indebted as much as to the greenback. The fact
+ is, however, we are indebted to neither; we are indebted to the soldiers.
+ But every man who took a greenback at less than gold committed the same
+ crime, and no other, as he who bought the bonds at less than par in gold.
+ These bonds have changed hands thousands of times. They have been paid for
+ in gold again and again. They have been bought at prices far above par;
+ they have been laid away by loving husbands for wives, by toiling fathers
+ for children; and the man who seeks to repudiate them now, or to pay them
+ in fiat rags, is unspeakably cruel and dishonest. If the Government has
+ made a bad bargain it must live up to it. If it has made a foolish promise
+ the only way is to fulfill it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A dishonest government can exist only among dishonest people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When our money is below par we feel below par.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot bring prosperity by cheapening money; we cannot increase our
+ wealth by adding to the volume of a depreciated currency. If the
+ prosperity of a country depends upon the volume of its currency, and if
+ anything is money that people can be made to think is money, then the
+ successful counterfeiter is a public benefactor. The counterfeiter
+ increases the volume of currency; he stimulates business, and the money
+ issued by him will not be hoarded and taken from the channels of trade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the war, during the inflation&mdash;that is to say, during the
+ years that we were going into debt&mdash;fortunes were made so easily that
+ people left the farms, crowded to the towns and cities. Thousands became
+ speculators, traders, and merchants; thousands embarked in every possible
+ and conceivable scheme. They produced nothing; they simply preyed upon
+ labor and dealt with imaginary values. These men must go back; they must
+ become producers, and every producer is a paying consumer. Thousands and
+ thousands of them are unable to go back. To a man who begs of you a
+ breakfast you cannot say, "Why don't you get a farm?" You might as well
+ say, "Why don't you start a line of steamships?" To him both are
+ impossibilities. They must be helped.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We should all remember that society must support all of its members, all
+ of its robbers, thieves, and paupers. Every vagabond and vagrant has to be
+ fed and clothed, and society must support in some way all of its members.
+ It can support them in jails, in asylums, in hospitals, in penitentiaries;
+ but it is a very costly way. We have to employ judges to try them, juries
+ to sit upon their cases, sheriffs, marshals, and constables to arrest
+ them, policemen to watch them, and it may be, at last, a standing army to
+ put them down. It would be far cheaper, probably, to support them all at
+ some first-class hotel. We must either support them or help them support
+ themselves. They let us go upon the one hand simply to take us by the
+ other, and we can take care of them as paupers and criminals, or, by wise
+ statesmanship, help them to be honest and useful men. Of all the criminals
+ transported by England to Australia and Tasmania, the records show that a
+ very large per cent.&mdash;something over ninety&mdash;became useful and
+ decent people. In Australia they found homes; hope again spread its wings
+ in their breasts. They had different ambitions; they were removed from
+ vile and vicious associations. They had new surroundings; and, as a rule,
+ man does not morally improve without a corresponding improvement in his
+ physical condition. One biscuit, with plenty of butter, is worth all the
+ tracts ever distributed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands must be taken from the crowded streets and stifling dens, away
+ from the influences of filth and want, to the fields and forests of the
+ West and South. They must be helped to help themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While the Government cannot create gold and silver, while it cannot by its
+ fiat make money, it can furnish facilities for the creation of wealth. It
+ can aid in the distribution of products, and in the distribution of men;
+ it can aid in the opening of new territories; it can aid great and vast
+ enterprises that cannot be accomplished by individual effort. The
+ Government should see to it that every facility is offered to honorable
+ adventure, enterprise and industry. Our ships ought to be upon every sea;
+ our flag ought to be flying in every port. Our rivers and harbors ought to
+ be improved. The usefulness of the Mississippi should be increased, its
+ banks strengthened, and its channel deepened. At no distant day it will
+ bear the commerce of a hundred millions of people. That grand river is the
+ great guaranty of territorial integrity; it is the protest of nature
+ against disunion, and from its source to the sea it will forever flow
+ beneath one flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Northern Pacific Railway should be pushed to completion. In this way
+ labor would be immediately given to many thousands of men. Along the line
+ of that thoroughfare would spring up towns and cities; new communities
+ with new surroundings; and where now is the wilderness there would be
+ thousands and thousands of happy homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Texas Pacific should also be completed. A vast agricultural and
+ mineral region would be opened to the enterprise and adventure of the
+ American people. Probably Arizona holds within the miserly clutches of her
+ rocks greater wealth than any other State or territory of the world. The
+ construction of that road would put life and activity into a hundred
+ industries. It would give employment to many thousands of people, and
+ homes at last to many millions. It would cause the building of thousands
+ of miles of branches to open, not only new territory, but to connect with
+ roads already built. It would double the products of gold and silver, open
+ new fields to trade, create new industries, and make it possible for us to
+ supply eight millions of people in the Republic of Mexico with our
+ products. The construction of this great highway will enable the
+ Government to dispense with from ten to fifteen regiments of infantry and
+ cavalry now stationed along the border. People enough will settle along
+ this line to protect themselves. It will permanently settle the Indian
+ question, saving the people millions each year. It will effectually
+ destroy the present monopoly, and in this way greatly increase production
+ and consumption. It will double our trade with China and Japan, and with
+ the Pacific States as well. It will settle the Southern question by
+ filling the Southern States with immigrants, diversifying the industries
+ of that section, changing and rebuilding the commercial and social fabric;
+ it will do away with the conservatism of regret and the prejudice born of
+ isolation. It will transmute to wealth the unemployed muscle of the
+ country. It will rescue California from the control of a single
+ corporation, from the government of an oligarchy united, watchful,
+ despotic, and vindictive. It will liberate the farmers, the merchants, and
+ even the politicians of the Pacific coast. Besides, it must not be
+ forgotten so to frame the laws and charters that Congress shall forever
+ have the control of fares and freights. In this way the public will be
+ perfectly protected and the Government perfectly secured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Look at the map, and you will see the immense advantages its construction
+ will give to the entire country, not only to the South, but to the East
+ and West as well. It is one hundred and fifty miles nearer from Chicago to
+ San Diego than to San Francisco. You will see that the whole of Texas, a
+ State containing two hundred and ten thousand square miles; a State four
+ times as large as Illinois, five times as large as New York, capable of
+ supporting a population of twenty millions of people, is put in direct and
+ immediate communication with the whole country. Territory to the extent of
+ nearly a million square miles will be given to agriculture, trade,
+ commerce, and mining, by the construction of this line.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let this road be built, and we shall feel again the enthusiasm born of
+ enterprise. In the vast stagnation there will be at last a current.
+ Something besides waiting is necessary to secure, or to even hasten, the
+ return of prosperity. Secure the completion of this line and extend the
+ time for building the Northern Pacific, and confidence and employment will
+ return together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ More men must cultivate the soil. In the older States lands are too high.
+ It requires too much capital to commence. There are so many failures in
+ business; so many merchants, traders, and manufacturers have been wrecked
+ and stranded upon the barren shores of bankruptcy, that the people are
+ beginning to prefer the small but certain profits of agriculture to the
+ false and splendid promises of speculation. We must open new territories;
+ we must give the mechanics now out of employment an opportunity to
+ cultivate the soil&mdash;not as day-laborers but as owners; not as
+ tenants, but as farmers. Something must be done to develop the resources
+ of this country. With the best lands of the world; with a population
+ intellectual, energetic, and ingenious far beyond the average of mankind;
+ with the richest mines of the globe; with plenty of capital; with a
+ surplus of labor; with thousands of arms folded in enforced idleness; with
+ billions of gold asking to be dug; with millions of acres waiting for the
+ plow, thousands upon thousands are in absolute want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ New avenues must be opened. All our territory must be given to
+ immigration. Greater facilities must be offered. Obstacles that cannot be
+ overcome by individual enterprise must be conquered by the Government for
+ the good of all. Every man out of employment is impoverishing the country.
+ Labor transmutes muscle into wealth. Idleness is a rust that devours even
+ gold. For five years we have been wasting the labor of millions&mdash;wasting
+ it for lack of something to do. Prosperity has been changed to want and
+ discontent. On every hand the poor are asking for work. That is a wretched
+ government where the honest and industrious beg, unsuccessfully, for the
+ right to toil; where those who are willing, anxious, and able to work,
+ cannot get bread. If everything is to be left to the blind and heartless
+ working of the laws of supply and demand, why have governments? If the
+ nation leaves the poor to starve, and the weak and unfortunate to perish,
+ it is hard to see for what purpose the nation should be preserved. If our
+ statesmen are not wise enough to foster great enterprises, and to adopt a
+ policy that will give us prosperity, it may be that the laboring classes,
+ driven to frenzy by hunger, the bitterness of which will be increased by
+ seeing others in the midst of plenty, will seek a remedy in destruction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The transcontinental commerce of this country should not be in the clutch
+ and grasp of one corporation. All sections of the Union should, as far as
+ possible, be benefited. Cheap rates will come, and can be maintained only
+ by competition. We should cultivate commercial relations with China and
+ Japan. Six hundred millions of people are slowly awaking from a lethargy
+ of six thousand years. In a little while they will have the wants of
+ civilized men, and America will furnish a large proportion of the articles
+ demanded by these people. In a few years there will be as many ships upon
+ the Pacific as upon the Atlantic. In a few years our trade with China will
+ be far greater than with Europe. In a few years we will sustain the same
+ relation to the far East that Europe once sustained to us. America for
+ centuries to come will supply six hundred millions of people with the
+ luxuries of life. A country that expects to control the trade of other
+ countries must develop its own resources to the utmost. We have pursued a
+ small, a mean, and a penurious course. Demagogues have ridden into office
+ and power upon the cry of economy, by opposing every measure looking to
+ the improvement of the country, by endeavoring to see how cheaply nothing
+ could be done. A government, like an individual, should live up to its
+ privileges; it should husband its resources, simply that it may use them.
+ A nation that expects to control the commerce of half a world must have
+ its money equal with gold and silver. It must have the money of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever the laboring men are out of employment they begin to hate the
+ rich. They feel that the dwellers in palaces, the riders in carriages, the
+ wearers of broadcloth, silk, and velvet have in some way been robbing
+ them. As a matter of fact, the palace builders are the friends of labor.
+ The best form of charity is extravagance. When you give a man money, when
+ you toss him a dollar, although you get nothing, the man loses his
+ manhood. To help others help themselves is the only real charity. There is
+ no use in boosting a man who is not climbing. Whenever I see a splendid
+ home, a palace, a magnificent block, I think of the thousands who were fed&mdash;of
+ the women and children clothed, of the firesides made happy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A rich man living up to his privileges, having the best house, the best
+ furniture, the best horses, the finest grounds, the most beautiful
+ flowers, the best clothes, the best food, the best pictures, and all the
+ books that he can afford, is a perpetual blessing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The prodigality of the rich is the providence of the poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The extravagance of wealth makes it possible for the poor to save.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The rich man who lives according to his means, who is extravagant in the
+ best and highest sense, is not the enemy of labor. The miser, who lives in
+ a hovel, wears rags, and hoards his gold, is a perpetual curse. He is like
+ one who dams a river at its source.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment hard times come the cry of economy is raised. The press, the
+ platform, and the pulpit unite in recommending economy to the rich. In
+ consequence of this cry, the man of wealth discharges servants, sells
+ horses, allows his carriage to become a hen-roost, and after taking
+ employment and food from as many as he can, congratulates himself that he
+ has done his part toward restoring prosperity to the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In that country where the poor are extravagant and the rich economical
+ will be found pauperism and crime; but where the poor are economical and
+ the rich are extravagant, that country is filled with prosperity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who wants others to work to such an extent that their lives are
+ burdens, is utterly heartless. The toil of the world should continually
+ decrease. Of what use are your inventions if no burdens are lifted from
+ industry&mdash;if no additional comforts find their way to the home of
+ labor; why should labor fill the world with wealth and live in want?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every labor-saving machine should help the whole world. Every one should
+ tend to shorten the hours of labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Reasonable labor is a source of joy. To work for wife and child, to toil
+ for those you love, is happiness; provided you can make them happy. But to
+ work like a slave, to see your wife and children in rags, to sit at a
+ table where food is coarse and scarce, to rise at four in the morning, to
+ work all day and throw your tired bones upon a miserable bed at night, to
+ live without leisure, without rest, without making those you love
+ comfortable and happy&mdash;this is not living&mdash;it is dying&mdash;a
+ slow, lingering crucifixion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The hours of labor should be shortened. With the vast and wonderful
+ improvements of the nineteenth century there should be not only the
+ necessaries of life for those who toil, but comforts and luxuries as well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is a reasonable price for labor? I answer: Such a price as will
+ enable the man to live; to have the comforts of life; to lay by a little
+ something for his declining years, so that he can have his own home, his
+ own fireside; so that he can preserve the feelings of a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man ought to be willing to pay for what he gets. He ought to desire
+ to give full value received. The man who wants two dollars' worth of work
+ for one is not an honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I sympathize with every honest effort made by the children of labor to
+ improve their condition. That is a poorly governed country in which those
+ who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when men are
+ obliged to beg for leave to toil. We are not yet a civilized people; when
+ we are, pauperism and crime will vanish from our land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing, however, of which I am glad and proud, and that is,
+ that society is not, in our country, petrified; that the poor are not
+ always poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The children of the poor of this generation may, and probably will, be the
+ rich of the next. The sons of the rich of this generation may be the poor
+ of the next; so that after all, the rich fear and the poor hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I sympathize with the wanderers, with the vagrants out of employment; with
+ the sad and weary men who are seeking for work. When I see one of these
+ men, poor and friendless&mdash;no matter how bad he is&mdash;I think that
+ somebody loved him once; that he was once held in the arms of a mother;
+ that he slept beneath her loving eyes, and wakened in the light of her
+ smile. I see him in the cradle, listening to lullabies sung soft and low,
+ and his little face is dimpled as though touched by the rosy fingers of
+ Joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then I think of the strange and winding paths, the weary roads he has
+ traveled from that mother's arms to vagrancy and want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There should be labor and food for all. We invent; we take advantage of
+ the forces of nature; we enslave the winds and waves; we put shackles upon
+ the unseen powers and chain the energy that wheels the world. These slaves
+ should release from bondage all the children of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By invention, by labor&mdash;that is to say, by working and thinking&mdash;we
+ shall compel prosperity to dwell with us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not imagine that wealth can be created by law; do not for a moment
+ believe that paper can be changed to gold by the fiat of Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not preach the heresy that you can keep a promise by making another in
+ its place that is never to be kept. Do not teach the poor that the rich
+ have conspired to trample them into the dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell the workingmen that they are in the majority; that they can make and
+ execute the laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell them that since 1873 the employers have suffered about as much as the
+ employed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell them that the people who have the power to make the laws should never
+ resort to violence. Tell them never to envy the successful. Tell the rich
+ to be extravagant and the poor to be economical.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell every man to use his best efforts to get him a home. Without a home,
+ without some one to love, life and country are meaningless words. Upon the
+ face of the patriot must have fallen the firelight of home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell the people that they must have honest money, so that when a man has a
+ little laid by for wife and child, it will comfort him even in death; so
+ that he will feel that he leaves something for bread, something that, in
+ some faint degree, will take his place; that he has left the coined toil
+ of his hands to work for the loved when he is dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell your representatives in Congress to improve our rivers and harbors;
+ to release our transcontinental commerce from the grasp of monopoly; to
+ open all our territories, and to build up our trade with the whole world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell them not to issue a dollar of fiat paper, but to redeem every promise
+ the nation has made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If fiat money is ever issued it will be worthless, for the folly that
+ would issue has not the honor to pay when the experiment fails.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell them to put their trust in work. Debts can be created by law, but
+ they must be paid by labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell them that "fiat money" is madness and repudiation is death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SUFFRAGE ADDRESS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This address was delivered at a Suffrage Meeting in
+ Washington, D. C., January 24,1880
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen: I believe the people to be the only rightful source
+ of political power, and that any community, no matter where, in which any
+ citizen is not allowed to have his voice in the making of the laws he must
+ obey, that community is a tyranny. It is a matter of astonishment to me
+ that a meeting like this is necessary in the Capital of the United States.
+ If the citizens of the District of Columbia are not permitted to vote, if
+ they are not allowed to govern themselves, and if there is no sound reason
+ why they are not allowed to govern themselves, then the American idea of
+ government is a failure. I do not believe that only the rich should vote,
+ or that only the whites should vote, or that only the blacks should vote.
+ I do not believe that right depends upon wealth, upon education, or upon
+ color. It depends absolutely upon humanity. I have the right to vote
+ because I am a man, because I am an American citizen, and that right I
+ should and am willing to share equally with every human being. There has
+ been a great deal said in this country of late in regard to giving the
+ right of suffrage to women. So far as I am concerned I am willing that
+ every woman in the nation who desires that privilege and honor shall vote.
+ If any woman wants to vote I am too much of a gentleman to say she shall
+ not. She gets her right, if she has it, from precisely the same source
+ that I get mine, and there are many questions upon which I would deem it
+ desirable that women should vote, especially upon the question of peace or
+ war. If a woman has a child to be offered upon the altar of that Moloch, a
+ husband liable to be drafted, and who loves a heart that can be entered by
+ the iron arrow of death, she surely has as much right to vote for peace as
+ some thrice-besotted sot who reels to the ballot-box and deposits a vote
+ for war. I believe, and always have, that there is only one objection to a
+ woman voting, and that is, the men are not sufficiently civilized for her
+ to associate with them, and for several years I have been doing what
+ little I can to civilize them. The only question before this meeting, as I
+ understand it, is, Shall the people of this District manage their own
+ affairs&mdash;whether they shall vote their own taxes and select their own
+ officers who are to execute the laws they make? and for one, I say there
+ is no human being with ingenuity enough to frame an argument against this
+ question. It is all very well to say that Congress will do this, but
+ Congress has a great deal to do besides. There is enough before that body
+ coming from all the States and Territories of the Union, and the
+ numberless questions arising in the conduct of the General Government. I
+ am opposed to a government where the few govern the many. I am opposed to
+ a government that depends upon suppers, and upon flattery; upon crooking
+ the hinges of the knee; upon favors, upon subterfuges. We want to be manly
+ men in this District. We must direct and control our own affairs, and if
+ we are not capable of doing it, there is no part of the Union where they
+ are capable. It is said there is a vast amount of ignorance here. That is
+ true; but that is also true of every section of the United States. There
+ is too much ignorance and there will continue to be until the people
+ become great enough, generous enough, and splendid enough to see that no
+ child shall grow up in their midst without a good, common-school
+ education. The people of this District are capable of managing their
+ educational affairs if they are allowed to do so. The fact is, a man now
+ living in the District lives under a perpetual flag of truce. He is
+ nobody. He counts for nothing. He is not noticed except as a suppliant.
+ Nothing as a citizen. That day should pass away. It will be a perpetual
+ education for this people to govern themselves, and until they do they
+ cannot be manly men. They say, though, that there is a vast rabble here.
+ Very well. Make your election laws so as to exclude the vast rabble. Let
+ it be understood that no man shall vote who has not lived here at least
+ one year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let your registration laws prohibit any man from voting unless he has been
+ registered at least six months. We do not want to be governed by people
+ who have no abode here&mdash;who are political Bedouins of the desert. We
+ want to be governed by people who live with us&mdash;who live somewhere
+ among us, and whom somebody knows, and if a law is properly framed there
+ will be no trouble about self-government in the District of Columbia. Let
+ the experiment be tried here of a perfect, complete and honest
+ registration; let every man, no matter who he is or where he comes from,
+ vote only by strict compliance with a good registry law. We can have a
+ fair election, and wherever there is a fair election there will be good
+ government. Our Government depends for its stability upon honest
+ elections. The great principle underlying our system of government is that
+ the people have the virtue and the patriotism to govern themselves. That
+ is the foundation stone, the corner and the base of our edifice, and upon
+ it our Government is on trial to-day. And until a man is considered
+ infamous who casts an illegal vote, our Government will not be safe.
+ Whoever casts an illegal vote knowingly is a traitor to the principle upon
+ which our Government is founded. And whoever deprives a citizen of his
+ right to vote is also a traitor to our Government. When these things are
+ understood; when the finger of public scorn shall be pointed at every man
+ who votes illegally, or unlawfully prevents an honest vote, then you will
+ have a splendid Government. It is humiliating for one hundred and
+ seventy-five thousand people to depend simply upon the right of petition.
+ The few will disregard the petition of the many.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have not one word to say against the officers of the District. Not a
+ word. But let them do as well as they can; that is no justification. It is
+ no justification of a monarchy that the king is a good man; it is no
+ justification of a tyranny that the despot does justice. There may come
+ another who will do injustice; and a free people like ours should not be
+ satisfied to be governed by strangers. They would better have bad men of
+ their own choosing than to have good men forced upon them. You have
+ property here, and you have a right to protect it, and a right to improve
+ it. You have life and liberty and the right to protect it. You have a
+ right to say what money shall be assessed and collected and paid for that
+ protection. You have laws and you have a right to have them executed by
+ officers of your own selection, and by nobody else. In my judgment, all
+ that is necessary to have these things done is to have the subject
+ properly laid before Congress, and let that body thoroughly and perfectly
+ understand the situation. There is no member there, who rightly
+ understanding our wishes, will dare continue this disfranchisement of the
+ people. We have the same right to vote that their constituents have,
+ precisely&mdash;no more and no less.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This District ought to have one representative in Congress, a
+ representative with a right to speak&mdash;not a tongueless dummy. The
+ idea of electing a delegate who has simply the privilege of standing
+ around! We ought to have a representative who has not only the right to
+ talk, but who will talk. This District has the right to a vote in the
+ committees of Congress, and not simply the privilege of receiving a little
+ advice. And more than that, this District ought to have at least one
+ electoral vote in a selection of a President of the United States. A
+ smaller population than yours is represented not only in Congress, but in
+ the Electoral College. If it is necessary to amend the Constitution to
+ secure these rights let us try and have it amended; and when that question
+ is put to the people of the whole country they will be precisely as
+ willing that the people of the District of Columbia shall have an equal
+ voice as that they themselves should have a voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us stop at no half-way ground, but claim, and keep claiming all our
+ rights until somebody says we shall have them. And let me tell you another
+ thing: Once have the right of self-government recognized here, have a
+ delegate in Congress, and an electoral vote for President, and thousands
+ will be willing to come here and become citizens of the District. As it
+ is, the moment a man settles here his American citizenship falls from him
+ like dead leaves from a tree. From that moment he is nobody. Every
+ American citizen wants a little political power&mdash;wants to cast his
+ vote for the rulers of the nation. He wants to have something to say about
+ the laws he has to obey, and they are not willing to come here and
+ disfranchise themselves. The moment it is known that a man is from the
+ District he has no influence, and no one cares what his political opinions
+ may be. Now, let us have it so that we can vote and be on an equality with
+ the rest of the voters of the United States. This Government was founded
+ upon the idea that the only source of power is the people. Let us show at
+ the Capital that we have confidence in that principle; that every man
+ should have a vote and voice in the South, in the North, everywhere, no
+ matter how low his condition, no matter that he was a slave, no matter
+ what his color is, or whether he can read or write, he is clothed with the
+ right to name those who make the laws he is to obey. While the lowest and
+ most degraded in every State in this Union have that right, the best and
+ most intelligent in the District have not that right. It will not do.
+ There is no sense in it&mdash;there is no justice in it&mdash;nothing
+ American in it. If this were the case in some of the capitals of Europe we
+ would not be surprised; but here in the United States, where we have so
+ much to say about the right of self-government, that two hundred thousand
+ people should not have the right to say who shall make, and who shall
+ execute the laws is at least an anomaly and a contradiction of our theory
+ of government, and for one, I propose to do what little I can to correct
+ it. It has been said that you had once here the right of self-government.
+ If I understand it, the right you had was to elect somebody to some
+ office, and all the other officers were appointed. You had no control over
+ your Legislature; you had very little control over your other officers,
+ and the people of the District were held responsible for what was actually
+ done by the appointing power. We want no appointing power. If it is
+ necessary to have a police magistrate, I say the people are competent to
+ elect that magistrate; and if he is not a good man they are qualified to
+ select another in his place. You ought to elect your judges. I do not want
+ the office of the Judiciary so far from the people that it may feel
+ entirely independent. I want every officer in this District
+ held-accountable to the people, and, unless he discharges his duties
+ faithfully, the people will put him out, and select another in his stead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want it understood that no American citizen can be forced to pay a
+ dollar in a State or in the district where he lives who is not
+ represented, and where he has not the right to vote. It is all tyranny,
+ and all infamous. The people of the United States wonder to-day that you
+ have submitted to this outrage as long as you have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I believe that only the rich should have the right to vote;
+ that only they should govern; or that only the educated should govern. I
+ have noticed among educated men many who did not know enough to govern
+ themselves. I have known many wealthy men who did not believe in liberty,
+ in giving the people the same rights they claimed for themselves. I
+ believe in that government where the ballot of Lazarus counts as much as
+ the vote of Dives. Let the rich, let the educated, govern the people by
+ moral suasion and by example and by kindness, and not by brute force. And
+ in a community like this, where the avenues to distinction are open alike
+ to all, there will be many more reasons for acting like men. When you can
+ hold any position, when every citizen can have conferred upon him honor
+ and responsibility, there is some stimulus to be a man. But in a community
+ where but the few are clothed with power by appointment, no incentive
+ exists among the people. If the avenues to distinction and honor are open
+ to all, such a government is beneficial on every hand, and the poorest man
+ in the community may say to himself, "If I pursue the right course the
+ very highest place is open to me." And the poorest man, with his little
+ tow-headed boy on his knee, can say, "John, all the avenues are open to
+ you; although I am poor, you may be rich, and while I am obscure, you may
+ become distinguished."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That idea sweetens every hour of toil and renders holy every drop of sweat
+ that rolls down the face of labor. I hate tyranny in every form. I despise
+ it, and I execrate a tyrant wherever he may be, and in every country where
+ the people are struggling for the right of self-government I sympathize
+ with them in their struggle. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in
+ favor of human rights I am a rebel. I sympathize with all the people in
+ Europe who are endeavoring to push kings from thrones and struggling for
+ the right to govern themselves. America ought to send greeting to every
+ part of the world where such a struggle is pending, and we of the District
+ of Columbia ought to be able to join in the greeting, but we never shall
+ be until we have the right of self-government ourselves. No man who is a
+ good citizen can have any objection to self-government here. No man can be
+ opposed to it who believes that our people have enough wisdom, enough
+ virtue, enough patriotism to govern themselves. The man who doubts the
+ right of the people to govern themselves casts a little doubt upon the
+ question, simply because he is not man enough himself to believe in
+ liberty. I would trust the poor of this country with our liberties as soon
+ as I would the rich. I will trust the huts and hovels, just as soon as I
+ will the mansions and palaces. I will trust those who work by the day in
+ the street as soon as I will the bankers of the United States. I will
+ trust the ignorant&mdash;even the ignorant. Why? Because they want
+ education, and no people in this country are so anxious to have their
+ children educated as those who are not educated themselves. I will trust
+ the ignorant with the liberties of this country quicker than I would some
+ of the educated who doubt the principles upon which our Government is
+ founded. But let the intelligent do what they can to instruct the
+ ignorant. Let the wealthy do what they can to give the blessings of
+ liberty to the poor, and then this Government will remain forever. The
+ time is passing away when any man of genius can be respected who will not
+ use that genius in elevating his fellow-man. The time is passing away when
+ men, however wealthy, can be respected unless they use their millions for
+ the elevation of mankind. The time is coming when no man will be called an
+ honest man who is not willing to give to every other man, be he white or
+ black, every right that he asks for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I am willing to live under a government where all govern, and
+ am not willing to live under any other. I am willing to live where I am on
+ an equality with other men, where they have precisely my rights, and no
+ more; and I despise any government that is not based upon this principle
+ of human equality. Now, let us go just for that one thing, that we have
+ the same right as any other people in the United States&mdash;that is, to
+ govern this District ourselves. Let us be represented in the lawmaking
+ power, and let us advocate a change in the fundamental law so that the
+ people of this District shall be entitled to one vote as to who shall be
+ President of the United States. And when that is done and our people are
+ clothed with the panoply of citizenship, you will find this District
+ growing not to two hundred thousand, but in a little while one million of
+ people will live here. Now, for one, I have not the slightest feeling
+ against members of Congress for what has been done. I believe when this
+ matter is laid before them fully and properly you will find few men in
+ that august body who will vote against the proposition. They have had
+ trouble enough. They do not understand our affairs. They never did, never
+ will, never can. No one who does not live here will. The public interests
+ are so many and so conflicting, and touch the sides of so many, that the
+ people must attend to this matter themselves. They know when they want a
+ market, a judge, or a collector of taxes, and nobody else does and nobody
+ else has a right to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And instead of going up to Congress and standing around some
+ committee-room with a long petition in your hands, begging somebody to
+ wait just one moment, it will be far better that you should go to the
+ polls and elect your representative, who can attend to your interests in
+ Congress. But above all things, I want to warn you, charge you, beseech
+ you, that in any legislation upon this subject you must secure a
+ registration law that will prevent the casting of an illegal vote. Do this
+ before it is known whether the District is Republican or Democratic. I do
+ not care. No matter how much of a Republican I am, absolutely, I would
+ rather be governed by Democrats who live here than by Republicans who do
+ not. And now, while it is not known whether this is a Democratic or
+ Republican community, let us get up a registration that no one can
+ violate; because the moment you have an election, and it is ascertained to
+ be either Democratic or Republican, the victorious party may be opposed to
+ any registration or any legislation that will put in jeopardy their power.
+ I have lived long enough to be satisfied that any State in this Union, no
+ matter whether Democratic or Republican, will be safe as long as the
+ people have the right to vote, and to see that the ballots will be
+ counted. This country is now upon trial. In nearly every State in this
+ Union there is liable to happen just the same thing that only the other
+ day happened in Maine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every State there can be two legislatures, one in the State-house and
+ the other on the fence. Let us in this District so guard the right to vote
+ and the counting of the ballots, that we shall know after the election who
+ has been elected and know with certainty the men who have been elected by
+ the legal voters of the District.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It becomes us all, whether Republicans or Democrats, to unite in securing
+ such a law. Let us act together, Democrats and Republicans, black and
+ white, rich and poor, educated and ignorant&mdash;let us all unite upon
+ the principle that we have the right to govern ourselves. Then it will
+ make no difference whether the District of Columbia shall be Democratic or
+ Republican, provided it is the will of a legal majority of her people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0011" id="link0011">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WALL STREET SPEECH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * A political demonstration was made in Wall Street
+ yesterday afternoon that stands without a rival among the
+ many out-door meetings in that place, which for years have
+ been memorable features of Presidential campaigns.
+
+ Bankers and brokers, members of the Produce Exchange, and
+ dry goods merchants assembled at their respective rendezvous
+ and marched in Imposing processions to the open space in
+ front of the Sub-Treasury building, from the steps of which
+ Col. Ingersoll delivered an address. Written words are
+ entirely inadequate to describe this demonstration of Wall
+ Street business men. It never was equaled in point of
+ numbers, respectability or enthusiasm, even during the
+ excitement caused by the outbreak of the Rebellion.
+ Throughout the day the business houses, banking offices and
+ public buildings down town were gay with flags and bunting.
+ Business was practically suspended all day, and the
+ principal topic of conversation on the Exchanges and m
+ offices and stores was the coming meeting. Long before the
+ hour set, well-dressed people began to gather near the Sub-
+ Treasury Building and by two o'clock Wall Street, from Broad
+ and Nassau half way down to William, was passable only with
+ difficulty. While the crowd was fast gathering on every
+ hand, Graiulla's band, stationed upon the corner buttress
+ near the Sub-Treasury, struck up a patriotic air, and in a
+ few minutes the throngs had swelled to such proportions that
+ the police had all they could do to maintain a thoroughfare.
+ A few minutes more ana the distant strains of another band
+ attracted all eyes toward Broadway, where the head of the
+ procession was seen turning into Wall Street. Ten abreast
+ and every man a gentleman, they marched by. At this time
+ Wall street from half way to William Street to half way to
+ Broadway, Nassau Street half way to Pine, and Broad Street
+ as far as the eye could reach, were densely packed with
+ people from side to side. Everything else, except the
+ telegraph-poles and the tops of the lamp-posts, was hidden
+ from view. Every window, roof, stoop, and projecting point
+ was covered. The Produce Exchange men finding Broad Street
+ impassable made a detour to the east and marched up Wall
+ Street, filling that thoroughfare to William. It was a
+ tremendous crowd In point of numbers, and its composition
+ was entirely of gentlemen&mdash;men with refined, intelligent
+ faces&mdash;bankers, brokers, merchants of all kinds&mdash;real
+ business men. Thousands of millions of dollars were
+ represented in It. On the left of the Sub-Treasury steps a
+ platform had been erected, with a sounding board covering
+ the rear and top. A national flag floated from its roof, and
+ its railing was draped with other flags. After the arrival
+ of the several organizations the banners they bore were hung
+ at the sides by way of further ornamentation. Mr. Jackson S.
+ Schultz then introduced Col. Ingersoll, the speaker of the
+ day. The cheering was terrific for several minutes. Raising
+ his hand for silence, Col. Ingersoll then delivered his
+ address.&mdash;New York Times, October 29th, 1880.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ N.Y. CITY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (Garfield Campaign.)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FELLOW-CITIZENS of the Great City of New York: This is the grandest
+ audience I ever saw. This audience certifies that General James A.
+ Garfield is to be the next President of the United States. This audience
+ certifies that a Republican is to be the next mayor of the city of New
+ York. This audience certifies that the business men of New York understand
+ their interests, and that the business men of New York are not going to
+ let this country be controlled by the rebel South and the rebel North. In
+ 1860 the Democratic party appealed to force; now it appeals to fraud. In
+ 1860 the Democratic party appealed to the sword; now it appeals to the
+ pen. It was treason then, it is forgery now. The Democratic party cannot
+ be trusted with the property or with the honor of the people of the United
+ States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The city of New York owes a great debt to the country. Every man that has
+ cleared a farm has helped to build New York; every man that helped to
+ build a railway helped to build up the palaces of this city. Where I am
+ now speaking are the termini of all the railways in the United States.
+ They all come here. New York has been built up by the labor of the
+ country, and New York owes it to the country to protect the best interests
+ of the country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The farmers of Illinois depend upon the merchants, the brokers and the
+ bankers, upon the gentlemen of New York, to beat the rabble of New York.
+ You owe to yourselves; you owe to the great Re public; and this city that
+ does the business of a hemisphere&mdash;this city that will in ten years
+ be the financial centre of this world&mdash;owes it to itself, to be true
+ to the great principles that have allowed it to exist and flourish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republicans of New York ought to say that this shall forever be a free
+ country. The Republicans of New York ought to say that free speech shall
+ forever be held sacred in the United States. The Republicans of New York
+ ought to see that the party that defended the Nation shall still remain in
+ power. The Republicans of New York should see that the flag is safely held
+ by the hands that defended it in war. The Republicans of New York know
+ that the prosperity of the country depends upon good government, and they
+ also know that good government means protection to the people&mdash;rich
+ and poor, black and white. The Republicans of New York know that a black
+ friend is better than a white enemy. They know that a negro while fighting
+ for the Government, is better than any white man who will fight against
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republicans of New York know that the colored party in the South which
+ allows every man to vote as he pleases, is better than any white man who
+ is opposed to allowing a negro to cast his honest vote. A black man in
+ favor of liberty is better than a white man in favor of slavery. The
+ Republicans of New York must be true to their friends. This Government
+ means to protect all its citizens, at home and abroad, or it becomes a
+ byword in the mouths of the nations of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what do we want to do? We are going to have an election next Tuesday,
+ and every Republican knows why he is going to vote the Republican ticket;
+ while every Democrat votes his without knowing why. A Republican is a
+ Republican because he loves something; a Democrat is a Democrat because he
+ hates something. A Republican believes in progress; a Democrat in
+ retrogression. A Democrat is a "has been." He is a "used to be." The
+ Republican party lives on hope; the Democratic on memory. The Democrat
+ keeps his back to the sun and imagines himself a great man because he
+ casts a great shadow. Now, there are certain things we want to preserve&mdash;that
+ the business men of New York want to preserve&mdash;and, in the first
+ place, we want an honest ballot. And where the Democratic party has power
+ there never has been an honest ballot. You take the worst ward in this
+ city, and there is where you will find the greatest Democratic majority.
+ You know it, and so do I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not a university in the North, East or West that has not in it a
+ Republican majority. There is not a penitentiary in the United States that
+ has not in it a Democratic majority&mdash;and they know it. Two years ago,
+ about two hundred and eighty-three convicts were in the penitentiary of
+ Maine. Out of that whole number there was one Republican, and only one. [A
+ voice&mdash;"Who was the man?"] Well, I do not know, but he broke out. He
+ said that he did not mind being in the penitentiary, but the company was a
+ little more than he could stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You cannot rely upon that party for an honest ballot. Every law that has
+ been passed in this country in the last twenty years, to throw a safeguard
+ around the ballot-box, has been passed by the Republican party. Every law
+ that has been defeated has been defeated by the Democratic party. And you
+ know it. Unless we have an honest ballot the days of the Republic are
+ numbered; and the only way to get an honest ballot is to beat the
+ Democratic party forever. And that is what we are going to do. That party
+ can never carry its record; that party is loaded down with the infamies of
+ twenty years; yes, that party is loaded down with the infamies of fifty
+ years. It will never elect a President in this world. I give notice to the
+ Democratic party to-day that it will have to change its name before the
+ people of the United States will change the administration. You will have
+ to change your natures; you will have to change your personnel, and you
+ will have to get enough Republicans to join you and tell you how to run a
+ campaign. If you want an honest ballot&mdash;and every honest man does&mdash;then
+ you will vote to keep the Republican party in power. What else do you
+ want? You want honest money, and I say to the merchants and to the bankers
+ and to the brokers, the only party that will give you honest money is the
+ party that resumed specie payments. The only party that will give you
+ honest money is the party that said a greenback is a broken promise until
+ it is redeemed with gold. You can only trust the party that has been
+ honest in disaster. From 1863 to 1879&mdash;sixteen long years&mdash;the
+ Republican party was the party of honor and principle, and the Republican
+ party saved the honor of the United States. And you know it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During that time the Democratic party did what it could to destroy our
+ credit at home and abroad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are not only in favor of free speech, and an honest ballot and honest
+ money, but we are for law and order. What part of this country believes in
+ free speech&mdash;the South or the North? The South would never give free
+ speech to the country; there was no free speech in the city of New York
+ until the Republican party came into power. The Democratic party has not
+ intelligence enough to know that free speech is the germ of this Republic.
+ The Democratic party cares little for free speech because it has no
+ argument to make&mdash;no reasons to offer. Its entire argument is summed
+ up and ended in three words&mdash;"Hurrah for Hancock!" The Republican
+ party believes in free speech because it has something to say; because it
+ believes in argument; because it believes in moral suasion; because it
+ believes in education. Any man that does not believe in free speech is a
+ barbarian. Any State that does not support it is not a civilized State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have a right to express my opinion, in common with every other human
+ being, and I am willing to give to every other human being the right that
+ I claim for myself. Republicanism means justice in politics. Republicanism
+ means progress in civilization. Republicanism means that every man shall
+ be an educated patriot and a gentleman. I want to say to you to-day that
+ it is an honor to belong to the Republican party. It is an honor to have
+ belonged to it for twenty years; it is an honor to belong to the party
+ that elected Abraham Lincoln President. And let me say to you that Lincoln
+ was the greatest, the best, the purest, the kindest man that has ever sat
+ in the presidential chair. It is an honor to belong to the Republican
+ party that gave four millions of men the rights of freemen; it is an honor
+ to belong to the party that broke the shackles from four millions of men,
+ women and children. It is an honor to belong to the party that declared
+ that bloodhounds were not the missionaries of civilization. It is an honor
+ to belong to the party that said it was a crime to steal a babe from its
+ mother's breast. It is an honor to belong to the party that swore that
+ this is a Nation forever, one and indivisible. It is an honor to belong to
+ the party that elected U. S. Grant President of the United States. It is
+ an honor to belong to the party that issued thousands and thousands of
+ millions of dollars in promises&mdash;that issued promises until they
+ became as thick as the withered leaves of winter; an honor to belong to
+ the party that issued them to put down a rebellion; an honor to belong to
+ the party that put it down; an honor to belong to the party that had the
+ moral courage and honesty to make every one of the promises made in war,
+ as good as shining, glittering gold in peace. And I tell you that if there
+ is another life, and if there is a day of judgment, all you need say upon
+ that solemn occasion is, "I was in life and in my death a good square
+ Republican."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hate the doctrine of State Sovereignty because it fostered State pride;
+ because it fostered the idea that it is more to be a citizen of a State
+ than a citizen of this glorious country. I love the whole country. I like
+ New York because it is a part of the country, and I like the country
+ because it has New York in it. I am not standing here to-day because the
+ flag of New York floats over my head, but because that flag for which more
+ heroic blood has been shed than for any other flag that is kissed by the
+ air of heaven, waves forever over my head. That is the reason I am here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine of State Sovereignty was appealed to in defence of the
+ slave-trade; the next time in defence of the slave trade as between the
+ States; the next time in defence of the Fugitive Slave Law; and if there
+ is a Democrat in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law he should be ashamed&mdash;if
+ not of himself&mdash;of the ignorance of the time in which he lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That Fugitive Slave Law was a compromise so that we might be friends of
+ the South. They said in 1850-52: "If you catch the slave we will be your
+ friend;" and they tell us now: "If you let us trample upon the rights of
+ the black man in the South, we will be your friend." I do not want their
+ friendship upon such terms. I am a friend of my friend, and an enemy of my
+ enemy. That is my doctrine. We might as well be honest about it. Under
+ that doctrine of State Rights, such men as I see before me&mdash;bankers,
+ brokers, merchants, gentlemen&mdash;were expected to turn themselves into
+ hounds and chase a poor fugitive that had been lured by the love of
+ liberty and guided by the glittering North Star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party wanted you to keep your trade with the South, no
+ matter to what depths of degradation you had to sink, and the Democratic
+ party to-day says if you want to sell your goods to the Southern people,
+ you must throw your honor and manhood into the streets. The patronage of
+ the splendid North is enough to support the city of New York.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing: Why is this city filled with palaces, covered with
+ wealth? Because American labor has been protected. I am in favor of
+ protection to American labor, everywhere. I am in favor of protecting
+ American brain and muscle; I am in favor of giving scope to American
+ ingenuity and American skill. We want a market at home, and the only way
+ to have it is to have mechanics at home; and the only way to have
+ mechanics is to have protection; and the only way to have protection is to
+ vote the Republican ticket. You, business men of New York, know that
+ General Garfield understands the best interests not only of New York, but
+ of the entire country. And you want to stand by the men who will stand by
+ you. What does a simple soldier know about the wants of the city of New
+ York? What does he know about the wants of this great and splendid
+ country? If he does not know more about it than he knows about the tariff
+ he does not know much. I do not like to hit the dead. My hatred stops with
+ the grave, and I tell you we are going to bury the Democratic party next
+ Tuesday. The pulse is feeble now, and if that party proposes to take
+ advantage of the last hour, it is time it should go into the repenting
+ business. Nothing pleases me better than to see the condition of that
+ party to-day. What do the Democrats know on the subject of the tariff?
+ They are frightened; they are rattled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They swear their plank and platform meant nothing. They say in effect:
+ "When we put that in we lied; and now having made that confession we hope
+ you will have perfect confidence in us from this out." Hancock says that
+ the object of the party is to get the tariff out of politics. That is the
+ reason, I suppose, why they put that plank in the platform. I presume he
+ regards the tariff as a little local issue, but I tell you to-day that the
+ great question of protecting American labor never will be taken out of
+ politics. As long as men work, as long as the laboring man has a wife and
+ family to support, just so long will he vote for the man that will protect
+ his wages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And you can no more take it out of politics than you can take the question
+ of Government out of politics. I do not want any question taken out of
+ politics. I want the people to settle these questions for themselves, and
+ the people of this country are capable of doing it. If you do not believe
+ it, read the returns from Ohio and Indiana. There are other persons who
+ would take the question of office out of politics. Well, when we get the
+ tariff and office both out of politics, then, I presume, we will see two
+ parties on the same side. It will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ David A. Wells has come to the rescue of the Democratic party on the
+ tariff, and shed a few pathetic tears over scrap iron. But it will not do.
+ You cannot run this country on scraps.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We believe in the tariff because it gives skilled labor good pay. We
+ believe in the tariff because it allows the laboring man to have something
+ to eat. We believe in the tariff because it keeps the hands of the
+ producer close to the mouth of the devourer. We believe in the tariff
+ because it developed American brain; because it builds up our towns and
+ cities; because it makes Americans self-supporting; because it makes us an
+ independent Nation. And we believe in the tariff because the Democratic
+ party does not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That plank in the Democratic party was intended for a dagger to
+ assassinate the prosperity of the North. The Northern people have become
+ aroused and that is the plank that is broken in the Democratic platform;
+ and that plank was wide enough when it broke to let even Hancock through.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, they are gone. They are gone&mdash;honor bright. Look at the
+ desperate means that have been resorted to by the Democratic party, driven
+ to the madness of desperation. Not satisfied with having worn the tongue
+ of slander to the very tonsils, not satisfied with attacking the private
+ reputation of a splendid man, not satisfied with that, they have appealed
+ to a crime; a deliberate and infamous forgery has been committed. That
+ forgery has been upheld by some of the leaders of the Democratic party;
+ that forgery has been defended by men calling themselves respectable.
+ Leaders of the Democratic party have stood by and said that they were
+ acquainted with the handwriting of James A. Garfield; and that the
+ handwriting in the forged letter was his, when they knew that it was
+ absolutely unlike his. They knew it, and no man has certified that that
+ was the writing of James A. Garfield who did not know that in his throat
+ of throats he told a falsehood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every honest man in the city of New York ought to leave such a party if he
+ belongs to it. Every honest man ought to refuse to belong to the party
+ that did such an infamous crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Senator Barnum, chairman of the Democratic Committee, has lost control. He
+ is gone, and I will tell you what he puts me in mind of. There was an old
+ fellow used to come into town every Saturday and get drunk. He had a
+ little yoke of oxen, and the boys out of pity used to throw him into the
+ wagon and start the oxen for home. Just before he got home they had to go
+ down a long hill, and the oxen, when they got to the brow of it, commenced
+ to run. Now and then the wagon struck a stone and gave the old fellow an
+ awful jolt, and that would wake him up. After he had looked up and had one
+ glance at the cattle he would fall helplessly back to the bottom, and
+ always say, "Gee a little, if anything." And that is the only order Barnum
+ has been able to give for the last two weeks&mdash;"Gee a little, if
+ anything." I tell you now that forgery makes doubly sure the election of
+ James A. Garfield. The people of the North believe in honest dealing; the
+ people of the North believe in free speech and an honest ballot. The
+ people of the North believe that this is a Nation; the people of the North
+ hate treason; the people of the North hate forgery; the people of the
+ North hate slander. The people of the North have made up their minds to
+ give to General Garfield a vindication of which any American may be
+ forever proud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ James A. Garfield is to-day a poor man, and you know that there is not
+ money enough in this magnificent street to buy the honor and manhood of
+ James A. Garfield. Money cannot make such a man, and I will swear to you
+ that money cannot buy him. James A. Garfield to-day wears the glorious
+ robe of honest poverty. He is a poor man; I like to say it here in Wall
+ Street; I like to say it surrounded by the millions of America; I like to
+ say it in the midst of banks and bonds and stocks; I love to say it where
+ gold is piled&mdash;that although a poor man, he is rich in honor; in
+ integrity he is wealthy, and in brain he is a millionaire. I know him, and
+ I like him. So do you all, gentlemen. Garfield was a poor boy, he is a
+ certificate of the splendid form of our Government. Most of these
+ magnificent buildings have been built by poor boys; most of the success of
+ New York began almost in poverty. You know it. The kings of this street
+ were once poor, and they may be poor again; and if they are fools enough
+ to vote for Hancock they ought to be. Garfield is a certificate of the
+ splendor of our Government, that says to every poor boy, "All the avenues
+ of honor are open to you." I know him, and I like him. He is a scholar; he
+ is a statesman; he is a soldier; he is a patriot; and above all, he is a
+ magnificent man; and if every man in New York knew him as well as I do,
+ Garfield would not lose a hundred votes in this city.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compare him with Hancock, and then compare General Arthur with William H.
+ English. If there ever was a pure Republican in this world, General Arthur
+ is one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know in Wall Street, there are some men always prophesying disaster,
+ there are some men always selling "short." That is what the Democratic
+ party is doing to-day. You know as well as I do that if the Democratic
+ party succeeds, every kind of property in the United States will
+ depreciate. You know it. There is not a man on the street, who if he knew
+ Hancock was to be elected would not sell the stocks and bonds of every
+ railroad in the United States "short." I dare any broker here to deny it.
+ There is not a man in Wall or Broad Street, or in New York, but what knows
+ the election of Hancock will depreciate every share of railroad stock,
+ every railroad bond, every Government bond, in the United States of
+ America. And if you know that, I say it is a crime to vote for Hancock and
+ English.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I belong to the party that is prosperous when the country is prosperous. I
+ belong to the party that believes in good crops; that is glad when a
+ fellow finds a gold mine; that rejoices when there are forty bushels of
+ wheat to the acre; that laughs when every railroad declares dividends,
+ that claps both its hands when every investment pays; when the rain falls
+ for the farmer, when the dew lies lovingly on the grass. I belong to the
+ party that is happy when the people are happy; when the laboring man gets
+ three dollars a day; when he has roast beef on his table; when he has a
+ carpet on the floor; when he has a picture of Garfield on the wall. I
+ belong to the party that is happy when everybody smiles, when we have
+ plenty of money, good horses, good carriages; when our wives are happy and
+ our children feel glad. I belong to the party whose banner floats side by
+ side with the great flag of the country; that does not grow fat on defeat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party is a party of famine; it is a good friend of an early
+ frost, it believes in the Colorado beetle and the weevil. When the crops
+ are bad the Democratic mouth opens from ear to ear with smiles of joy; it
+ is in partnership with bad luck; a friend of empty pockets; rags help it.
+ I am on the other side. The Democratic party is the party of darkness. I
+ believe in the party of sunshine; and in the party that even in darkness
+ believes that the stars are shining and waiting for us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I have endeavored to give you a few reasons for voting the
+ Republican ticket; and I have given enough to satisfy any reasonable man.
+ And you know it. Do not go with the Democratic party, young man. You have
+ a character to make.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You cannot make it, as the Democratic party does, by passing a resolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If your father voted the Democratic ticket, that is disgrace enough for
+ one family. Tell the old man you can stand it no longer. Tell the old
+ gentleman that you have made up your mind to stand with the party of human
+ progress; and if he asks you why you cannot vote the Democratic ticket you
+ tell him: "Every man that tried to destroy the Government, every man that
+ shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers,
+ every keeper of Libby, Andersonville and Salisbury, every man that wanted
+ to burn the negro, every one that wanted to scatter yellow fever in the
+ North, every man that opposed human liberty, that regarded the
+ auction-block as an altar and the howling of the bloodhound as the music
+ of the Union, every man who wept over the corpse of slavery, that thought
+ lashes on the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed, every
+ one willing to rob a mother of her child&mdash;every solitary one was a
+ Democrat."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell him you cannot stand that party. Tell him you have to go with the
+ Republican party, and if he asks you why, tell him it destroyed slavery,
+ it preserved the Union, it paid the national debt; it made our credit as
+ good as that of any nation on the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tell him it makes every dollar in a four per cent, bond worth a dollar and
+ ten cents; that it satisfies the demands of the highest civilization. Tell
+ the old man that the Republican party preserved the honor of the Nation;
+ that it believes in education; that it looks upon the schoolhouse as a
+ cathedral. Tell him that the Republican party believes in absolute
+ intellectual liberty; in absolute religious freedom; in human rights, and
+ that human rights rise above States. Tell him that the Republican party
+ believes in humanity, justice, human equality, and that the Republican
+ party believes this is a Nation and will be forever and ever; that an
+ honest ballot is the breath of the Republic's life; that honest money is
+ the blood of the Republic; and that nationality is the great throbbing
+ beat of the heart of the Republic. Tell him that. And tell him that you
+ are going to stand by the flag that the patriots of the North carried upon
+ the battle-field of death. Tell him you are going to be true to the
+ martyred dead; that you are going to vote exactly as Lincoln would have
+ voted were he living. Tell him that if every traitor dead were living now,
+ there would issue from his lips of dust, "Hurrah for Hancock!" that could
+ every patriot rise, he would cry for Garfield and liberty; for union and
+ for human progress everywhere. Tell him that the South seeks to secure by
+ the ballot what it lost by the bayonet; to whip by the ballot those who
+ fought it in the field. But we saved the country; and we have the heart
+ and brains to take care of it. I will tell you what we are going to do. We
+ are going to treat them in the South just as well as we treat the people
+ in the North. Victors cannot afford to have malice. The North is too
+ magnanimous to have hatred. We will treat the South precisely as we treat
+ the North. There are thousands of good people there. Let us give them
+ money to improve their rivers and harbors; I want to see the sails of
+ their commerce filled with the breezes of prosperity; their fences
+ rebuilt; their houses painted. I want to see their towns prosperous; I
+ want to see schoolhouses in every town; I want to see books in the hands
+ of every child, and papers and magazines in every house; I want to see all
+ the rays of light, of civilization of the nineteenth century, enter every
+ home of the South; and in a little while you will see that country full of
+ good Republicans. We can afford to be kind; we cannot afford to be unkind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will shake hands cordially with every believer in human liberty; I will
+ shake hands with every believer in Nationality; I will shake hands with
+ every man who is the friend of the human race. That is my doctrine. I
+ believe in the great Republic; in this magnificent country of ours. I
+ believe in the great people of the United States. I believe in the muscle
+ and brain of America, in the prairies and forests. I believe in New York.
+ I believe in the brains of your city. I believe that you know enough to
+ vote the Republican ticket. I believe that you are grand enough to stand
+ by the country that has stood by you. But whatever you do, I never shall
+ cease to thank you for the great honor you have conferred upon me this
+ day.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Note.&mdash;This being a newspaper report it is necessarily
+ incomplete.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0012" id="link0012">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ BROOKLYN SPEECH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Colonel Robert G.
+ Ingersoll spoke from the same platform last night, and the
+ great preacher introduced the great orator and free-thinker
+ to the grandest political audience that was ever assembled
+ in Brooklyn. The reverend gentleman presided over the
+ Republican mass meeting held in the Academy of Music. When
+ he introduced Ingersoll he did it with a warmth and
+ earnestness of compliment that brought the six thousand
+ lookers-on to their feet to applaud. When the expounder of
+ the Gospel of Christ took the famous atheist by the hand,
+ and shook it fervently, saying that while he respected and
+ honored him for the honesty of his convictions and his
+ splendid labors for patriotism and the country, the
+ enthusiasm knew no bounds, and the great building trembled
+ and vibrated with the storm of applause. With such a scene
+ to harmonize the multitude at the outstart it is not strange
+ that the meeting continued to the end such a one as has no
+ parallel even in these days of feverish political excitement
+ and turmoil. The orator spoke in his best vein and his
+ audience was responsive to the wonderful magical spell of
+ his eloquence. And when his last glowing utterance had lost
+ its echo in the wild storm of applause that rewarded him at
+ the close, Mr. Beecher again stepped forward and, as if to
+ emphasize the earnestness of his previous compliments,
+ proposed a vote of thanks to the distinguished speaker. The
+ vote was a roar of affirmation, whose voice was not stronger
+ when Mr. Ingersoll in turn called upon the audience to give
+ three cheers for the great preacher. They were given, and
+ repeated three times over. Men waved their ats and
+ umbrellas, ladies, of whom there were many hundreds present,
+ waved their handkerchiefs, and men, strangers to each other,
+ shook hands with the fervency of brotherhood. It was indeed
+ a strange scene, and the principal actors in it seemed not
+ less than the most wildly excited man there to appreciate
+ its peculiar import and significance. Standing at the front
+ of the stage, underneath a canopy of nags, at either side
+ great baskets of flowers, they clasped each other's hands,
+ and stood thus for several minutes, while the excited
+ thousands cheered themselves hoarse and applauded wildly.
+
+ As Mr. Beecher began to speak, however, the applause that
+ broke out was deafening.
+
+ In substance Mr. Beecher spoke as follows:&mdash;"I am not
+ accustomed to preside at meetings like this; only the
+ exigency of the times could induce me to do It. I am not
+ here either to make a speech, but more especially to
+ introduce the eminent orator of the evening. * * * I stand
+ not as a minister, but as a man among men, pleading the
+ cause of fellowship and equal rights. We are not here as
+ mechanics, as artists, merchants, or professional men, but
+ as fellow-citizens. The gentleman who will speak to-night is
+ in no Conventicle or Church. He is to speak to a great body
+ of citizens, and I take the liberty of saying that I respect
+ him as the man that for a full score and more of years has
+ worked for the right in the great, broad field of humanity,
+ and for the cause of human rights. I consider it an honor to
+ extend to him, as I do now, the warm, earnest, right hand of
+ fellowship." (As Mr. Beecher said this he turned to Mr.
+ Ingersoll and extended his hand. The palms of the two men
+ met with a clasp that was heard all over the house, and was
+ the signal for tumultuous cheering and applause, which
+ continued for several minutes.)
+
+ "I now introduce to you," continued Mr. Beecher, leading Mr.
+ Ingersoll forward, "a man who&mdash;and I say it not
+ flatteringly&mdash;is the most brilliant speaker of the English
+ tongue of all men on this globe. But as under the brilliancy
+ of the blaze or light we find the living coals of fire,
+ under the lambent flow of his wit and magnificent antithesis
+ we find the glorious flame of genius and honest thought.
+ Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ingersoll."&mdash;New York Herald,
+ October 81st, 1880.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ (Garfield Campaign.)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen: Years ago I made up my mind that there was no
+ particular argument in slander. I made up my mind that for parties, as
+ well as for individuals, honesty in the long-run is the best policy. I
+ made up my mind that the people were entitled to know a man's honest
+ thoughts, and I propose to-night to tell you exactly what I think. And it
+ may be well enough, in the first place, for me to say that no party has a
+ mortgage on me. I am the sole proprietor of myself. No party, no
+ organization, has any deed of trust on what little brains I have, and as
+ long as I can get my part of the common air I am going to tell my honest
+ thoughts. One man in the right will finally get to be a majority. I am not
+ going to say a word to-night that every Democrat here will not know is
+ true, and, whatever he may say, I will compel him in his heart to give
+ three cheers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, I wish to admit that during the war there were
+ hundreds of thousands of patriotic Democrats. I wish to admit that if it
+ had not been for the War Democrats of the North, we never would have put
+ down the Rebellion. Let us be honest. I further admit that had it not been
+ for other than War Democrats there never would have been a rebellion to
+ put down. War Democrats!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did we call them War Democrats? Did you ever hear anybody talk about a
+ War Republican? We spoke of War Democrats to distinguish them from those
+ Democrats who were in favor of peace upon any terms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also wish to admit that the Republican party is not absolutely perfect.
+ While I believe that it is the best party that ever existed, while I
+ believe it has, within its organization, more heart, more brain, more
+ patriotism than any other organization that ever existed beneath the sun,
+ I still admit that it is not entirely perfect. I admit, in its great
+ things, in its splendid efforts to preserve this nation, in its grand
+ effort to keep our flag in heaven, in its magnificent effort to free four
+ millions of slaves, in its great and sublime effort to save the financial
+ honor of this Nation, I admit that it has made some mistakes. In its great
+ effort to do right it has sometimes by mistake done wrong. And I also wish
+ to admit that the great Democratic party, in its effort to get office has
+ sometimes by mistake done right. You see that I am inclined to be
+ perfectly fair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am going with the Republican party because it is going my way; but if it
+ ever turns to the right or left, I intend to go straight ahead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every government there is something that ought to be preserved, in
+ every government there are many things that ought to be destroyed. Every
+ good man, every patriot, every lover of the human race, wishes to preserve
+ the good and destroy the bad; and every one in this audience who wishes to
+ preserve the good will go with that section of our common country&mdash;with
+ that party in our country that he honestly believes will preserve the good
+ and destroy the bad. It takes a great deal of trouble to raise a good
+ Republican. It is a vast deal of labor. The Republican party is the fruit
+ of all ages&mdash;of self-sacrifice and devotion. The Republican party is
+ born of every good thing that was ever done in this world. The Republican
+ party is the result of all martyrdom, of all heroic blood shed for the
+ right. It is the blossom and fruit of the great world's best endeavor. In
+ order to make a Republican you have to have schoolhouses. You have to have
+ newspapers and magazines. A good Republican is the best fruit of
+ civilization, of all there is of intelligence, of art, of music and of
+ song. If you want to make Democrats, let them alone. The Democratic party
+ is the settlings of this country. Nobody hoes weeds. Nobody takes especial
+ pains to raise dog-fennel, and yet it grows under the very hoof of travel,
+ The seeds are sown by accident and gathered by chance. But if you want to
+ raise wheat and corn you must plough the ground. You must defend and you
+ must harvest the crop with infinite patience and toil. It is precisely
+ that way&mdash;if you want to raise a good Republican you must work. If
+ you wish to raise a Democrat give him wholesome neglect. The Democratic
+ party flatters the vices of mankind. That party says to the ignorant man,
+ "You know enough." It says to the vicious man, "You are good enough."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party says, "You must be better next year than you are
+ this." A Republican takes a man by the collar and says, "You must do your
+ best, you must climb the infinite hill of human progress as long as you
+ live." Now and then one gets tired. He says, "I have climbed enough and so
+ much better than I expected to do that I do not wish to travel any
+ farther." Now and then one gets tired and lets go all hold, and he rolls
+ down to the very bottom, and as he strikes the mud he springs upon his
+ feet transfigured, and says: "Hurrah for Hancock!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are things in this Government that I wish to preserve, and there are
+ things that I wish to destroy; and in order to convince you that you ought
+ to go the way that I am going: it is only fair that I give to you my
+ reasons. This is a Republic founded upon intelligence and the patriotism
+ of the people, and in every Republic it is absolutely necessary that there
+ should be free speech. Free speech is the gem of the human soul. Words are
+ the bodies of thought, and liberty gives to those words wings, and the
+ whole intellectual heavens are filled with light. In a Republic every
+ individual tongue has a right to the general ear. In a Republic every man
+ has the right to give his reasons for the course he pursues to all his
+ fellow-citizens, and when you say that a man shall not speak, you also say
+ that others shall not hear. When you say a man shall not express his
+ honest thought you say his fellow-citizens shall be deprived of honest
+ thoughts; for of what use is it to allow the attorney for the defendant to
+ address the jury if the jury has been bought? Of what use is it to allow
+ the jury to bring in a verdict of "not guilty," if the defendant is to be
+ hung by a mob? I ask you to-night, is not every solitary man here in favor
+ of free speech? Is there a solitary Democrat here who dares say he is not
+ in favor of free speech? In which part of this country are the lips of
+ thought free&mdash;in the South or in the North? Which section of our
+ country can you trust the inestimable gem of free speech with? Can you
+ trust it to the gentlemen of Mississippi or to the gentlemen of
+ Massachusetts? Can you trust it to Alabama or to New York? Can you trust
+ it to the South or can you trust it to the great and splendid North? Honor
+ bright&mdash;honor bright, is there any freedom of speech in the South?
+ There never was and there is none to-night&mdash;and let me tell you why.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They had the institution of human slavery in the South, which could not be
+ defended at the bar of public reason. It was an institution that could not
+ be defended in the high forum of human conscience. No man could stand
+ there and defend the right to rob the cradle&mdash;none to defend the
+ right to sell the babe from the breast of the agonized mother&mdash;none
+ to defend the claim that lashes on a bare back are a legal tender for
+ labor performed. Every man that lived upon the unpaid labor of another
+ knew in his heart that he was a thief. And for that reason he did not wish
+ to discuss that question. Thereupon the institution of slavery said, "You
+ shall not speak; you shall not reason," and the lips of free thought were
+ manacled. You know it. Every one of you. Every Democrat knows it as well
+ as every Republican. There never was free speech in the South.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what has been the result? And allow me to admit right here, because I
+ want to be fair, there are thousands and thousands of most excellent
+ people in the South&mdash;thousands of them. There are hundreds and
+ hundreds of thousands there who would like to vote the Republican ticket.
+ And whenever there is free speech there and whenever there is a free
+ ballot there, they will vote the Republican ticket. I say again, there are
+ hundreds of thousands of good people in the South; but the institution of
+ human slavery prevented free speech, and it is a splendid fact in nature
+ that you cannot put chains upon the limbs of others without putting
+ corresponding manacles upon your own brain. When the South enslaved the
+ negro, it also enslaved itself, and the result was an intellectual desert.
+ No book has been produced, with one exception, that has added to the
+ knowledge of mankind; no paper, no magazine, no poet, no philosopher, no
+ philanthropist, was ever raised in that desert. Now and then some one
+ protested against that infamous institution, and he came as near being a
+ philosopher as the society in which he lived permitted. Why is it that New
+ England, a rock-clad land, blossoms like a rose? Why is it that New York
+ is the Empire State of the great Union? I will tell you. Because you have
+ been permitted to trade in ideas. Because the lips of speech have been
+ absolutely free for twenty years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We never had free speech in any State in this Union until the Republican
+ party was born. That party was rocked in the cradle of intellectual
+ liberty, and that is the reason I say it is the best party that ever
+ existed in the wide, wide world. I want to preserve free speech, and, as
+ an honest man, I look about me and I say, "How can I best preserve it?" By
+ giving it to the South or North; to the Democracy or to the Republican
+ party? And I am bound, as an honest man, to say free speech is safest with
+ its earliest defenders. Where is there such a thing as a Republican mob to
+ prevent the expression of an honest thought? Where? The people of the
+ South are allowed to come to the North; they are allowed to express their
+ sentiments upon every stump in the great East, the great West, and in the
+ great Middle States; they go to Maine, to Vermont, and to all our States,
+ and they are allowed to speak, and we give them a respectful hearing, and
+ the meanest thing we do is to answer their arguments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say to-night that we ought to have the same liberty to discuss these
+ questions in the South that Southerners have in the North. And I say more
+ than that, the Democrats of the North ought to compel the Democrats of the
+ South to treat the Republicans of the South as well as the Republicans of
+ the North treat them. We treat the Democrats well in the North; we treat
+ them like gentlemen in the North; and yet they go into partnership with
+ the Democracy of the South, knowing that the Democracy of the South will
+ not treat Republicans in that section with fairness. A Democrat ought to
+ be ashamed of that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If my friends will not treat other people as well as the friends of the
+ other people treat me, I'll swap friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First, then, I am in favor of free speech, and I am going with that
+ section of my country that believes in free speech; I am going with that
+ party that has always upheld that sacred right. When you stop free speech,
+ when you say that a thought shall die in the womb of the brain,&mdash;why,
+ it would have the same effect upon the intellectual world that to stop
+ springs at their sources would have upon the physical world. Stop the
+ springs at their sources and they cease to gurgle, the streams cease to
+ murmur, and the great rivers cease rushing to the embrace of the sea. So
+ you stop thought. Stop thought in the brain in which it is born, and
+ theory dies; and the great ocean of knowledge to which all should be
+ permitted to contribute, and from which all should be allowed to draw,
+ becomes a vast desert of ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have always said, and I say again, that the more liberty there is given
+ away, the more you have. I endeavor to be consistent in my life and
+ action. I am a believer in intellectual liberty, and wherever the torch of
+ knowledge burns the whole horizon is filled with a glorious halo. I am a
+ free man. I would be less than a man if I did not wish to hand this flame
+ to my child with the flame increased rather than diminished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whom will we trust to take care of free speech? Let us consider and be
+ honest with one another. The gem of the brain is the innocence of the
+ soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of an
+ absolutely honest ballot. There is only one emperor in this country; there
+ is one czar; only one supreme crown and king, and that is the will, the
+ legally expressed will of the majority. Every American citizen is a
+ sovereign. The poorest and humblest may wear that crown, the beggar holds
+ in his hand that sceptre equally with the proudest and richest, and so far
+ as his sovereignty is concerned, the poorest American, he who earns but
+ one dollar a day, has the same voice in controlling the destiny of the
+ United States as the millionaire. The man who casts an illegal vote, the
+ man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power,
+ poisons the springs of justice, and is a traitor to the only king in this
+ land. The Government is upon the edge of Mexicanization through fraudulent
+ voting. The ballot-box is the throne of America; the ballot-box is the ark
+ of the covenant. Unless we see to it that every man who has a right to
+ vote, votes, and unless we see to it that every honest vote is counted,
+ the days of this Republic are numbered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When you suspect that a Congressman is not elected; when you suspect that
+ a judge upon the bench holds his place by fraud, then the people will hold
+ the law in contempt and will laugh at the decisions of courts, and then
+ come revolution and chaos.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot-box is kept
+ absolutely pure. It is the duty of every patriot, whether he is a Democrat
+ or Republican&mdash;and I want further to admit that I believe a large
+ majority of Democrats are honest in their opinions, and I know that all
+ Republicans <i>must</i> be honest in their opinions. It is the duty, then,
+ of all honest men of both parties to see to it that only honest votes are
+ cast and counted. Now, honor bright, which section of this Union can you
+ trust the ballot-box with?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you wish to trust Louisiana, or do you wish to trust Alabama that gave,
+ in 1872, thirty-four thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight Republican
+ majority and now gives ninety-two thousand Democratic majority? And of
+ that ninety-two thousand majority, every one is a lie! A contemptible,
+ infamous lie! Because if every voter had been allowed to vote, there would
+ have been forty thousand Republican majority. Honor bright, can you trust
+ it with the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut
+ of the freedman and shot him down, notwithstanding the supplication of his
+ wife and the tears of his babe? Can you trust it to the men who since the
+ close of our war have killed more men, simply because those men wished to
+ vote, simply because they wished to exercise a right with which they had
+ been clothed by the sublime heroism of the North&mdash;who have killed
+ more men than were killed on both sides in the Revolutionary war; than
+ were killed on both sides during the War of 1812; than were killed on both
+ sides in both wars? Can you trust them? Can you trust the gentlemen who
+ invented the tissue ballot? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the
+ keeping of the shot-gun, of the White-Liners, of the Ku Klux? Do you wish
+ to put the ballot-box in the keeping of men who openly swear that they
+ will not be ruled by a majority of American citizens if a portion of that
+ majority is made of black men? And I want to tell you right here, I like a
+ black man who loves this country better than I do a white man who hates
+ it. I think more of a black man who fought for our flag than for any white
+ man who endeavored to tear it out of heaven!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say, can you trust the ballot-box to the Democratic party? Read the
+ history of the State of New York. Read the history of this great and
+ magnificent city&mdash;the Queen of the Atlantic&mdash;read her history
+ and tell us whether you can implicitly trust Democratic returns? Honor
+ bright!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not only, then, for free speech, but I am for an honest ballot; and
+ in order that you may have no doubt left upon your minds as to which party
+ is in favor of an honest vote, I will call your attention to this striking
+ fact. Every law that has been passed in every State of this Union for
+ twenty long years, the object of which was to guard the American
+ ballot-box, has been passed by the Republican party, and in every State
+ where the Republican party has introduced such a bill for the purpose of
+ making it a law; in every State where such a bill has been defeated, it
+ has been defeated by the Democratic party. That ought to satisfy any
+ reasonable man to satiety.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, but I am in
+ favor of collecting and disbursing the revenues of the United States. I
+ want plenty of money to collect and pay the interest on our debt. I want
+ plenty of money to pay our debt and to preserve the financial honor of the
+ United States. I want money enough to be collected to pay pensions to
+ widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. And the question is, which
+ section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that
+ revenue? Let us be honest about it. Which section can you trust? In the
+ last four years we have collected four hundred and sixty-eight million
+ dollars of the internal revenue taxes. We have collected principally from
+ taxes upon high wines and tobacco, four hundred and sixty-eight million
+ dollars, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and destroyed in
+ the Southern States three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four illicit
+ distilleries. And during the same time the Southern people have shot to
+ death twenty-five revenue officers and wounded fifty-five others, and the
+ only offence that the wounded and dead committed was an honest effort to
+ collect the revenues of this country. Recollect it&mdash;don't you forget
+ it. And in several Southern States to-day every revenue collector or
+ officer connected with the revenue is furnished by the Internal Revenue
+ Department with a breech-loading rifle and a pair of revolvers, simply for
+ the purpose of collecting the revenue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I don't feel like trusting such people to collect the revenue of my
+ Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the same four years we have arrested and have indicted seven
+ thousand and eighty-four Southern Democrats for endeavoring to defraud the
+ revenue of the United States. Recollect&mdash;three thousand eight hundred
+ and seventy-four distilleries seized. Twenty-five revenue officers killed,
+ fifty-five wounded, and seven thousand and eighty-four Democrats arrested.
+ Can we trust them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The State of Alabama in its last Democratic convention passed a resolution
+ that no man should be tried in a Federal Court for a violation of the
+ revenue laws&mdash;that he should be tried in a State Court. Think of it&mdash;he
+ should be tried in a State Court! Let me tell you how it will come out if
+ we trust the Southern States to collect this revenue. A couple of
+ Methodist ministers had been holding a revival for a week, and at the end
+ of the week one said to the other that he thought it time to take up a
+ collection. When the hat was returned he found in it pieces of
+ slate-pencils and nails and buttons, but not a single solitary cent&mdash;not
+ one&mdash;and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribution,
+ and said, "Let us thank God!" And the owner of the hat said, "What for?"
+ And the brother replied, "Because you got your hat back." If we trust the
+ South we shan't get our hats back.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am next in favor of honest money. I am in favor of gold and silver, and
+ paper with gold and silver behind it. I believe in silver, because it is
+ one of the greatest of American products, and I am in favor of anything
+ that will add to the value of an American product. But I want a silver
+ dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to make it four
+ feet in diameter. No government can afford to be a clipper of coin. A
+ great Republic cannot afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold. Honest
+ money, an honest people, an honest Nation. When our money is only worth
+ eighty cents on the dollar, we feel twenty per cent, below par. When our
+ money is good we feel good. When our money is at par, that is where we
+ are. I am a profound believer in the doctrine that for nations as well as
+ men, honesty is the best policy, always, everywhere, and forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What section of this country, what party, will give us honest money&mdash;honor
+ bright&mdash;honor bright? I have been told that during the war, we had
+ plenty of money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a dollar. I
+ saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. And the greenback, unless you
+ have the gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill of fare is a
+ dinner. You cannot make a paper dollar without taking a dollar's worth of
+ paper. We must have paper that represents money. I want it issued by the
+ Government, and I want behind every one of these dollars either a gold or
+ silver dollar, so that every greenback under the flag can lift up its hand
+ and swear, "I know that my redeemer liveth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we were running into debt, thousands of people mistook that for
+ prosperity, and when we began paying they regarded it as adversity. Of
+ course we had plenty when we bought on credit. No man has ever starved
+ when his credit was good, if there were no famine in that country. As long
+ as we buy on credit we shall have enough. The trouble commences when the
+ pay-day arrives. And I do not wonder that after the war thousands of
+ people said, "Let us have another inflation." Which party said, "No, we
+ must pay the promise made in war"? Honor bright! The Democratic party had
+ once been a hard money party, but it drifted from its metallic moorings
+ and floated off in the ocean of inflation, and you know it. They said,
+ "Give us more money;" and every man that had bought on credit and owed a
+ little something on what he had purchased, when the property went down
+ commenced crying, or many of them did, for inflation. I understand it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man, say, bought a piece of land for six thousand dollars; paid five
+ thousand dollars on it; gave a mortgage for one thousand dollars, and
+ suddenly, in 1873, found that the land would not pay the other thousand.
+ The land had resumed, and then he said, looking lugubriously at his note
+ and mortgage, "I want another inflation." And I never heard a man call for
+ it that did not also say, "If it ever comes, and I don't unload, you may
+ shoot me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was very much as it is sometimes in playing poker, and I make this
+ comparison knowing that hardly a person here will understand it. I have
+ been told that along toward morning the man that is ahead suddenly says,
+ "I have got to go home. The fact is, my wife is not well." And the fellow
+ who is behind says, "Let us have another deal; I have my opinion of the
+ fellow that will jump a game." And so it was in the hard times of 1873.
+ They said: "Give us another deal; let us get our driftwood back into the
+ centre of the stream." And they cried out for more money. But the
+ Republican party said: "We do want more money, but not more promises. We
+ have got to pay this first, and if we start out again upon that wide sea
+ of promise we may never touch the shore." A thousand theories were born of
+ want; a thousand theories were born of the fertile brain of trouble; and
+ these people said, "After all, what is money? Why, it is nothing but a
+ measure of value, just the same as a half bushel or yardstick." True; and
+ consequently it makes no difference whether your half bushel is of wood or
+ gold or silver or paper; and it makes no difference whether your yardstick
+ is gold or paper. But the trouble about that statement is this: A half
+ bushel is not a measure of value; it is a measure of quantity, and it
+ measures rubies, diamonds and pearls precisely the same as corn and wheat.
+ The yardstick is not a measure of value; it is a measure of length, and it
+ measures lace worth one hundred dollars a yard precisely as it does cent
+ tape. And another reason why it makes no difference to the purchaser
+ whether the half bushel is gold or silver, or whether the yardstick is
+ gold or paper, you do not buy the yardstick; you do not get the half
+ bushel in the trade. And if it were so with money&mdash;if the people that
+ had the money at the start of the trade, kept it after the consummation of
+ the bargain&mdash;then it would not make any difference what you made your
+ money of. But the trouble is the money changes hands. And let me say
+ to-night, money is a thing&mdash;it is a product of nature&mdash;and you
+ can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you can make a fiat star. I am in
+ favor of honest money. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an honest
+ ballot is the breath of its life, and honest money is the blood that
+ courses through its veins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when I die, I want it to be a
+ good one. I do not wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of
+ widowhood, or become a Democratic broken promise in the pocket of the
+ orphan; I want it money. I want money that will outlive the Democratic
+ party. They told us&mdash;and they were honest about it&mdash;they said,
+ "When we have plenty of money, we are prosperous." And I said, "When we
+ are prosperous, we have plenty of money." When we are prosperous, then we
+ have credit, and credit inflates the currency. Whenever a man buys a pound
+ of sugar and says, "Charge it," he inflates the currency; whenever he
+ gives his note, he inflates the currency; whenever his word takes the
+ place of money, he inflates the currency. The consequence is that when we
+ are prosperous, credit takes the place of money, and we have what we call
+ "plenty."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But you cannot increase prosperity simply by using promises to pay.
+ Suppose you should come to a river that was about dry, so dry that the
+ turtle had to help the catfish over the shoals, and there you would see
+ the ferryboat, and the gentleman who kept the ferry, up on the sand, high
+ and dry, and the cracks all opening in the sun, filled with loose oakum,
+ looking like an average Democratic mouth listening to a constitutional
+ argument, and you should say to him, "How is business?" And he would say,
+ "Dull." And then you would say to him, "Now, what you want is more boat."
+ He would probably answer, "If I had a little more water I could get along
+ with this one."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose I next came to a man running a railroad, complaining of hard
+ times. "Why," said he, "I did a million dollars' worth of business the
+ first year and used five hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease. The
+ second year I did five hundred thousand dollars' worth of business and
+ used four hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease." "Well," said I, "the
+ reason your road fell off was because you did not use enough grease."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I want to be fair, and I wish to-night to return my thanks to the
+ Democratic party. You did a great and splendid work. You went all over the
+ United States and you said upon every stump that a greenback was better
+ than gold. You said, "We have at last found the money of the poor man.
+ Gold loves the rich; gold haunts banks and safes and vaults; but we have
+ money that will go around inquiring for a man that is dead broke. We have
+ finally found money that will stay in a pocket with holes in it." But,
+ after all, do you know that money is the most social thing in this world?
+ If a fellow has one dollar in his pocket, and he meets another with two,
+ do you know that dollar is absolutely homesick until it gets where the
+ other two are? And yet the Greenbackers told us that they had finally
+ invented money that would be the poor mans friend. They said, "It is
+ better than gold, better than silver," and they got so many men to believe
+ it that when we resumed and said, "Here is your gold for your greenback,"
+ the fellows who had the greenback said, "We don't want it. The greenbacks
+ are good enough for us." Do you know, if they had wanted it we could not
+ have given it to them? And so I return my thanks to the Greenback party.
+ But allow me to say in this connection, the days of their usefulness have
+ passed forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I am not foolish enough to claim that the Republican party resumed. I
+ am not silly enough to say that John Sherman resumed. But I will tell you
+ what I do say. I say that every man who raised a bushel of corn or a
+ bushel of wheat or a pound of beef or pork for sale helped to resume. I
+ say that the gentle rain and the loving dew helped to resume. The soil of
+ the United States impregnated by the loving sun helped to resume. The men
+ that dug the coal and the iron and the silver and the copper and the gold
+ helped to resume. And the men upon whose foreheads fell the light of
+ furnaces helped to resume. And the sailors who fought with the waves of
+ the seas helped to resume.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit to-night that the Democrats earned their share of the money to
+ resume with. All I claim is that the Republican party furnished the
+ honesty to pay it over. That is what I claim; and the Republican party set
+ the day, and the Republican party worked to the promise. That is what I
+ say. And had it not been for the Republican party this Nation would have
+ been financially dishonored. I am for honest money, and I am for the
+ payment of every dollar of our debt, and so is every Democrat now, I take
+ it. But what did you say a little while ago? Did you say we could resume?
+ No; you swore we could not, and you swore our bonds would be worthless as
+ the withered leaves of winter. And now when a Democrat goes to England and
+ sees an American four per cent, quoted at one hundred and ten he kind of
+ swells up, and says: "That's the kind of man I am." In that country he
+ pretends he was a Republican in this. And I do not blame him. I do not
+ begrudge him enjoying respectability when away from home. The Republican
+ party is entitled to the credit for keeping this Nation grandly and
+ splendidly honest. I say, the Republican party is entitled to the credit
+ of preserving the honor of this Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1873 came the crash, and all the languages of the world cannot describe
+ the agonies suffered by the American people from 1873 to 1879. A man who
+ thought he was a millionaire came to poverty; he found his stocks and
+ bonds ashes in the paralytic hand of old age. Men who expected to live all
+ their lives in the sunshine of joy found themselves beggars and paupers.
+ The great factories were closed, the workmen were demoralized, and the
+ roads of the United States were filled with tramps. In the hovel of the
+ poor and the palace of the rich came the serpent of temptation and
+ whispered in the American ear the terrible word "Repudiation." But the
+ Republican party said, "No; we will pay every dollar. No; we have started
+ toward the shining goal of resumption and we never will turn back." And
+ the Republican party struggled until it had the happiness of seeing upon
+ the broad shining forehead of American labor the words "Financial Honor."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party struggled until every paper promise was as good as
+ gold. And the moment we got back to gold then we commenced to rise again.
+ We could not jump until our feet touched something that they could be
+ pressed against. And from that moment to this we have been going, going,
+ going higher and higher, more prosperous every hour. And now they say,
+ "Let us have a change." When I am sick I want a change; when I am poor I
+ want a change; and if I were a Democrat I would have a personal change. We
+ are prosperous to-day, and must keep so. We are back to gold and silver.
+ Let us stay there; and let us stay with the party that brought us there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot-box and an
+ honest collection of the revenue of the United States, and an honest
+ money, but I am in favor of the idea, of the great and splendid truth,
+ that this is a Nation one and indivisible. I deny that we are a
+ confederacy bound together with ropes of cloud and chains of mist. This is
+ a Nation, and every man in it owes his first allegiance to the grand old
+ flag for which more brave blood was shed than for any other flag that
+ waves in the sight of heaven. There is another thing; we all want to live
+ in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that
+ will protect every citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be citizens of
+ a Government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the
+ civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our Government is the best
+ upon this earth. It is the only Government where manhood, and manhood
+ alone, is not made simply a condition of citizenship, but where manhood,
+ and manhood alone, permits its possessor to have his equal share in
+ control of the Government. It is the only Government in the world where
+ poverty is upon an exact equality with wealth, so far as controlling the
+ destiny of the Republic is concerned. It is the only Nation where the man
+ clothed in rags stands upon an equality with the one wearing purple. It is
+ the only country in the world where, politically, the hut is upon an
+ equality with the palace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For that reason every poor man should stand by this Government, and every
+ poor man who does not is a traitor to the best interests of his children;
+ every poor man who does not is willing his children should bear the badge
+ of political inferiority; and the only way to make this Government a
+ complete and perfect success is for the poorest man to think as much of
+ his manhood as the millionaire does of his wealth. A man does not vote in
+ this country simply because he is rich; he does not vote in this country
+ simply because he has an education; he does not vote simply because he has
+ talent or genius; we say that he votes because he is a man, and that he
+ has his manhood to support; and we admit in this country that nothing can
+ be more valuable to any human being than his manhood, and for that reason
+ we put poverty on an equality with wealth. We say in this country manhood
+ is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without Liberty the
+ Nation is not worth preserving. Now, I appeal to-day to every poor man; I
+ appeal to-day to every laboring man, and I ask him, is there another
+ country on this globe where you can have equal rights with others? There
+ is another thing; do you want a Government of law or of brute force? In
+ which part of this country do you find law supreme? In which part of this
+ country can a man find justice in the courts; in the North or in the
+ South? Where is crime punished? Where is innocence protected, in the North
+ or in the South? Which section of this country will you trust?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You can tell what a man is by the way he treats persons in his power, and
+ the man that will sneak and crawl in the presence of greatness, will
+ trample the weak when he gets them in his power. What class of people does
+ the State have in its power? Criminals and creditors; and you can judge of
+ a State by the way it treats its criminals and creditors. Georgia is the
+ best State in the South. They have a penitentiary system by which they
+ hire out their convict labor. Only two years ago the whole thing was
+ examined by a friend of mine, Col. Allston. He had been in the rebel army
+ and was my good friend. He used to come to my house day after day to see
+ me. He got converted and had the grit to say so. Being a member of the
+ Legislature, he had a committee of investigation appointed. Now, in order
+ that you may understand the difference, you must know that in the Northern
+ penitentiaries the average annual death rate is one per cent.; that is, of
+ one thousand convicts, ten will die in a year, on the average. That low
+ death rate is because we are civilized, because we do not kill; but in the
+ Georgia penitentiary it was as high as fifteen, twenty-seven and
+ forty-seven per cent., at a time when there was no typhoid or yellow
+ fever, or epidemic of any kind. They died for four months at a rate of ten
+ per cent, per month. They crowded the convicts in together, regardless of
+ sex. They treated them precisely as wild beasts, and many of them were
+ shot down. Persons high in authority, Senators of the United States, held
+ interests in those contracts, and Robert Allston denounced them. When on a
+ visit he said, "I believe when I get home I shall be killed." I told him
+ not to go back to Georgia, but to stay in the civilized North; but no, he
+ would go back, and on the very day of his arrival he was murdered in cold
+ blood. Do you want to trust such men? * * *
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Southern people say this is a Confederacy and they are honest in it.
+ They fought for it, they believed it. They believe in the doctrine of
+ State Sovereignty, and many Democrats of the North believe in the same
+ doctrine. No less a man than Horatio Seymour&mdash;standing it may be at
+ the head of Democratic statesmen&mdash;said, if he has been correctly
+ reported, only the other day, that he despised the word "Nation." I bless
+ that word. I owe my first allegiance to this Nation, and it owes its first
+ protection to me. I am talking here to-night, not because I am protected
+ by the flag of New York. I would not know that flag if I should see it. I
+ am talking here, and have the right to talk here, because the flag of my
+ country is above us. I have the same right as though I had been born upon
+ this very platform. I am proud of New York because it is a part of my
+ country. I am proud of my country because it has such a State as New York
+ in it, and I will be prouder of New York on a week from next Tuesday than
+ ever before in my life. I despise the doctrine of State Sovereignty. I
+ believe in the rights of the States, but not in the sovereignty of the
+ States. States are political conveniences. Rising above States, as the
+ Alps above valleys, are the rights of man. Rising above the rights of the
+ Government, even in this Nation, are the sublime rights of the people.
+ Governments are good only so long as they protect human rights. But the
+ rights of a man never should be sacrificed upon the altar of the State, or
+ upon the altar of the Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you a few objections that I have to State Sovereignty. That
+ doctrine has never been appealed to for any good. The first time it was
+ appealed to was when our Constitution was made. And the object then was to
+ keep the slave-trade open until the year 1808. The object then was to make
+ the sea the highway of piracy&mdash;the object then was to allow American
+ citizens to go into the business of selling men and women and children,
+ and feed their cargo to the sharks of the sea, and the sharks of the sea
+ were as merciful as they. That was the first time that the appeal to the
+ doctrine of State Sovereignty was made, and the next time was for the
+ purpose of keeping alive the interstate slave-trade, so that a gentleman
+ in Virginia could sell the slave who had nursed him, and rob the cradles
+ of their babes. Think of it! It was made so they could rob the cradle in
+ the name of law. Think of it! Think of it! And the next time they appealed
+ to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was in favor of the Fugitive Slave
+ Law&mdash;a law that made a bloodhound of every Northern man; that made
+ charity a crime; a law that made love a state-prison offence; that branded
+ the forehead of charity as if it were a felon. Think of it!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a part of my honor to hate such principles. I have no respect for
+ any man who is so mean, cruel and wicked, as to allow himself to be
+ transformed into a bloodhound to bay upon the tracks of innocent human
+ prey. I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has
+ consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling
+ the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A good man is pretty apt to be right; a perfectly honest man is like the
+ surface of the stainless mirror, that gives back by simply looking at him,
+ the image of the one who looks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next time they appealed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was to
+ increase the area of human slavery, so that the bloodhound, with clots of
+ blood dropping from his loose and hanging jaws, might traverse the billowy
+ plains of Kansas. Think of it!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democratic party then said the Federal Government had a right to cross
+ the State line. And the next time they appealed to that infamous doctrine
+ was in defence of secession and treason; a doctrine that cost us six
+ thousand millions of dollars; a doctrine that cost four hundred thousand
+ lives; a doctrine that filled our country with widows, our homes with
+ orphans. And I tell you, the doctrine of State Sovereignty is the viper in
+ the bosom of this Republic, and if we do not kill that viper it will kill
+ us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Democrats tell us that in the olden time the Federal Government had a
+ right to cross a State line to put shackles upon the limbs of men. It had
+ the right to cross a State line to trample upon the rights of human
+ beings, but now it has no right to cross those lines upon an errand of
+ mercy or justice. We are told that now, when the Federal Government wishes
+ to protect a citizen, a State line rises like a Chinese wall, and the
+ sword of Federal power turns to air the moment it touches one of those
+ lines. I deny it and I despise, abhor and execrate the doctrine of State
+ Sovereignty. The Democrats tell us if we wish to be protected by the
+ Federal Government we must leave home. I wish they would try it for about
+ ten days. They say the Federal Government can defend a citizen in England,
+ France, Spain or Germany, but cannot defend a child of the Republic
+ sitting around the family hearth. I deny it. A Government that cannot
+ protect its citizens at home is unfit to be called a Government. I want a
+ Government with an ear so good that it can hear the faintest cry of the
+ oppressed wherever its flag floats. I want a Government with an arm long
+ enough and a sword sharp enough to cut down treason wherever it may raise
+ its serpent head. I want a Government that will protect a freedman,
+ standing by his little log hut, with the same alacrity and with the same
+ efficiency that it would protect Vanderbilt, living in a palace of marble
+ and gold. Humanity is a sacred thing, and manhood is a thing to be
+ preserved. Let us look at it. For instance, here is a war, and the Federal
+ Government says to a man, "We want you," and he says, "No, I don't want to
+ go," and then they put a lot of pieces of paper in a wheel and on one of
+ those pieces is his name, and another man turns the crank, and then they
+ pull it out and there is his name, and they say, "Come," and so he goes.
+ And they stand him in front of the brazen-throated guns; they make him
+ fight for his native land, and when the war is over he goes home and he
+ finds the war has been unpopular in his neighborhood, and they trample on
+ his rights, and he says to the Federal Government, "Protect me." And he
+ says to the Government, "I owe my allegiance to you. You must protect me."
+ What will you say of that Government if it says to him, "You must look to
+ your State for protection"? "Ah, but," he says, "my State is the very
+ power trampling upon me," and, of course, the robber is not going to send
+ for the police, It is the duty of the Government to defend even its
+ drafted men; and if that is the duty of the Government, what shall I say
+ of the volunteer, who for one moment holds his wife in a tremulous and
+ agonized embrace, kisses his children, shoulders his musket, goes to the
+ field and says, "Here I am, ready to die for my native land"? A Nation
+ that will not defend its volunteer defenders is a disgrace to the map of
+ this world. This is a Nation. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an
+ honest ballot is the breath of its life; honest money is the blood of its
+ veins; and the idea of nationality is its great, beating, throbbing heart.
+ I am for a Nation. And yet the Democrats tell me that it is dangerous to
+ have centralized power. How would you have it? I believe in the
+ localization of power; I believe in having enough of it localized in one
+ place to be effectively used; I believe in a localization of brain. I
+ suppose Democrats would like to have it spread all over your body, and
+ they act as though theirs was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing in which I believe: I believe in the protection of
+ American labor. The hand that holds Aladdin's lamp must be the hand of
+ toil. This Nation rests upon the shoulders of its workers, and I want the
+ American laboring man to have enough to wear; I want him to have enough to
+ eat:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want him to have something for the ordinary misfortunes of life; I want
+ him to have the pleasure of seeing his wife well-dressed; I want him to
+ see a few blue ribbons fluttering about his children; I want him to see
+ the flags of health flying in their beautiful cheeks; I want him to feel
+ that this is his country, and the shield of protection is above his labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we were all farmers
+ we would be stupid. If we were all shoemakers we would be stupid. If we
+ all followed one business, no matter what it was, we would become stupid.
+ Protection to American labor diversifies American industry, and to have it
+ diversified touches and develops every part of the human brain. Protection
+ protects ingenuity; it protects intelligence; and protection raises sense;
+ and by protection we have greater men, better looking women and healthier
+ children. Free trade means that our laborer is upon an equality with the
+ poorest paid labor of this world. And allow me to tell you that for an
+ empty stomach, "Hurrah for Hancock!" is a poor consolation. I do not think
+ much of a Government where the people do not have enough to eat. I am a
+ materialist to that extent; I want something to eat. I have been in
+ countries where the laboring man had meat once a year; sometimes twice&mdash;Christmas
+ and Easter. And I have seen women carrying upon their heads a burden that
+ no man in this audience could carry, and at the same time knitting busily
+ with both hands, and those women lived without meat; and when I thought of
+ the American laborer, I said to myself, "After all, my country is the best
+ in the world." And when I came back to the sea and saw the old flag
+ flying, it seemed to me as though the air from pure joy had burst into
+ blossom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Labor has more to eat and more to wear in the United States than in any
+ other land of this earth. I want America to produce everything that
+ Americans need. I want it so that if the whole world should declare war
+ against us, if we were surrounded by walls of cannon and bayonets and
+ swords, we could supply all our material wants in and of ourselves. I want
+ to live to see the American woman dressed in American silk; the American
+ man in everything, from hat to boots, produced in America by the cunning
+ hand of American toil. I want to see the workingman have a good house,
+ painted white, grass in the front yard, carpets on the floor, pictures on
+ the wall. I want to see him a man, feeling that he is a king by the divine
+ right of living in the Republic. And every man here is just a little bit a
+ king, you know. Every man here is a part of the sovereign power. Every man
+ wears a little of purple; every man has a little of crown and a little of
+ sceptre; and every man that will sell his vote for money or be ruled by
+ prejudice is unfit to be an American citizen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in American labor, and I will tell you why. The other day a man
+ told me that we had produced in the United States of America one million
+ tons of steel rails. How much are they worth? Sixty dollars a ton. In
+ other words, the million tons are worth sixty million dollars. How much is
+ a ton of iron worth in the ground? Twenty-five cents. American labor takes
+ twenty-five cents worth of iron in the ground and adds to it fifty-nine
+ dollars and seventy-five cents. One million tons of rails, and the raw
+ material not worth twenty-four thousand dollars! We build a ship in the
+ United States worth five hundred thousand dollars, and the value of the
+ ore in the earth, of the trees in the great forest, of all that enters
+ into the composition of that ship bringing five hundred thousand dollars
+ in gold is only twenty thousand dollars; four hundred and eighty thousand
+ dollars by American labor, American muscle, coined into gold; American
+ brains made a legal tender the world round.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I propose to stand by the Nation. I want the furnaces kept hot. I want the
+ sky to be filled with the smoke of American industry, and upon that cloud
+ of smoke will rest forever the bow of perpetual promise. That is what I am
+ for. Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue only come from? From
+ the South. The South would like to stab the prosperity of the North. They
+ would rather trade with Old England than with New England. They would
+ rather trade with the people who were willing to help them in war than
+ with those who conquered the Rebellion. They knew what gave us our
+ strength in war. They knew that all the brooks and creeks and rivers of
+ New England were putting down the Rebellion. They knew that every wheel
+ that turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the army of
+ human progress. It won't do! They were so lured by the greed of office
+ that they were willing to trade upon the misfortunes of a Nation. It won't
+ do! I do not wish to belong to a party that succeeds only when my country
+ fails. I do not wish to belong to a party whose banner went up with the
+ banner of rebellion. I do not wish to belong to a party that was in
+ partnership with defeat and disaster. I do not. And there is not a
+ Democrat here who does not know that a failure of the crops this year
+ would have helped his party. You know that an early frost would have been
+ a godsend to them. You know that the potato-bug could have done them more
+ good than all their speakers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I wish to belong to that party which is prosperous when the country is
+ prosperous. I belong to that party which is not poor when the golden
+ billows are running over the seas of wheat. I belong to that party which
+ is prosperous when there are oceans of corn, and when the cattle are upon
+ the thousand hills. I belong to that party which is prosperous when the
+ furnaces are aflame, and when you dig coal and iron and silver; when
+ everybody has enough to eat; when everybody is happy; when the children
+ are all going to school, and when joy covers my Nation as with a garment.
+ That party which is prosperous then, is my party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, I have been telling you what I am for. I am for free speech,
+ and so ought you to be. I am for an honest ballot, and if you are not you
+ ought to be. I am for the collection of the revenue. I am for honest
+ money. I am for the idea that this is a Nation forever. I believe in
+ protecting American labor. I want the shield of my country above every
+ anvil, above every furnace, above every cunning head and above every deft
+ hand of American labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, which section of this country will be the more apt to carry
+ these ideas into execution? Which party will be the more apt to achieve
+ these grand and splendid things? Honor bright? Now we have not only to
+ choose between sections of the country; we have to choose between parties.
+ Here is the Democratic party, and I admit there are thousands of good
+ Democrats who went to the war, and some of those that stayed at home were
+ good men; and I want to ask you, and I want you to tell me in reply what
+ that party did during the war when the War Democrats were away from home.
+ What did they do? That is the question. I say to you, that every man who
+ tried to tear our flag out of heaven was a Democrat. The men who wrote the
+ ordinances of secession, who fired upon Fort Sumter; the men who starved
+ our soldiers, who fed them with the crumbs that the worms had devoured
+ before, they were Democrats. The keepers of Libby, the keepers of
+ Andersonville, were Democrats&mdash;Libby and Andersonville, the two
+ mighty wings that will bear the memory of the Confederacy to eternal
+ infamy! The men who wished to scatter yellow fever in the North and who
+ tried to fire the great cities of the North&mdash;they were all Democrats.
+ He who said that the greenback would never be paid and he who slandered
+ sixty cents out of every dollar of the Nation's promises were Democrats.
+ Who were joyful when your brothers and your sons and your fathers lay dead
+ on a field of battle that the country had lost? They were Democrats. The
+ men who wept when the old banner floated in triumph above the ramparts of
+ rebellion&mdash;they were Democrats. You know it. The men who wept when
+ slavery was destroyed, who believed slavery to be a divine institution,
+ who regarded bloodhounds as apostles and missionaries, and who wept at the
+ funeral of that infernal institution&mdash;they were Democrats. Bad
+ company&mdash;bad company!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me implore all the young men here not to join that party. Do not
+ give new blood to that institution. The Democratic party has a yellow
+ passport. On one side it says "dangerous." They imagine they have not
+ changed, and that is because they have not intellectual growth. That party
+ was once the enemy of my country, was once the enemy of our flag, and more
+ than that, it was once the enemy of human liberty, and that party to-night
+ is not willing that the citizens of the Republic should exercise all their
+ rights irrespective of their color. And allow me to say right here that I
+ am opposed to that party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have not only to choose between parties, but to choose between
+ candidates. The Democracy have put forward as the bearers of their
+ standard General Hancock and William H. English. The Democrats have at
+ last nominated a Union soldier. They nominated George B. McClellan once,
+ because he failed to whip the South; they nominated Mr. Greeley, when they
+ despised him, and now they have nominated General Hancock. Do they think
+ the South loves him? At Gettysburg they say he fought against them, and
+ that is one great reason why he should be President&mdash;that he shot
+ rebels. Do the men that fought at Gettysburg still believe in State
+ Sovereignty? Wade Hampton says, "We must vote as Lee and Jackson fought."
+ They fought for State Sovereignty. Has the South changed? Hancock went to
+ kill them then; they want to vote for him now. Who has changed? [A voice:
+ "Hancock."] I think so. They are using him as a figure-head. They have
+ dressed him in the noble blue, with the patriotic coat and Union buttons,
+ and they do not like him any better than they did at Gettysburg. It would
+ be just as consistent for the Republicans to have nominated Wade Hampton.
+ Did General Hancock believe in State Sovereignty when he was at
+ Gettysburg? If he did, he was a murderer, and not a Union soldier&mdash;he
+ was killing men he believed to be in the right, and a man cannot fight
+ unless his conscience approves of what his sword does, and if he was
+ honest at that time, he did not believe in State Sovereignty, and it seems
+ to me he would hate to have the men who tried to destroy this Government
+ cheering him. All the glory he ever got was in the service of the
+ Republican party, and if he does not look out he will lose it all in the
+ service of the Democratic party. He had a conversation with General Grant.
+ It was a time when he had been appointed at the head of the Department of
+ the Gulf. In that conversation he stated to General Grant that he was
+ opposed to "nigger domination." Grant said to him, "We must obey the laws
+ of Congress. We are soldiers." And that meant, the military is not above
+ the civil authority. And I tell you to-night, that the army and the navy
+ are the right and left hands of the civil power. Grant said to him: "Three
+ or four million ex-slaves, without property and without education, cannot
+ dominate over thirty or forty millions of white people, with education and
+ property." General Hancock replied to that: "I am opposed to 'nigger
+ domination.'" Allow me to say that I do not believe any man fit for the
+ presidency of the great Republic, who is capable of insulting a
+ down-trodden race. I never meet a negro that I do not feel like asking his
+ forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted on his. I remember
+ that from the white man he received for two hundred years agony and tears;
+ I remember that my race sold a child from the agonized breast of a mother;
+ I remember that my race trampled with the feet of greed upon all the holy
+ relations of life; and I do not feel like insulting the colored man; I
+ feel rather like asking the forgiveness of his race for the crimes that my
+ race have put upon him. "Nigger domination!" What a fine scabbard that
+ makes for the sword of Gettysburg! It won't do!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is General Hancock for, besides the presidency? How does he stand
+ upon the great questions affecting American prosperity? He told us the
+ other day that the tariff is a local question. The tariff affects every
+ man and woman, live they in hut, hovel or palace; it affects every man
+ that has a back to be covered or a stomach to be filled, and yet he says
+ it is a local question. So is death. He also told us that he heard that
+ question discussed once, in Pennsylvania. He must have been eavesdropping.
+ And he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will continue as long as
+ Nature lasts. Then Senator Randolph wrote him a letter. I do not know
+ whether Senator Randolph answered it or not; but that answer was worse
+ than the first interview; and I understand now that another letter is
+ going through a period of incubation at Governor's Island, upon the great
+ subject of the tariff. It won't do!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say one thing they are sure of, he is opposed to paying Southern
+ pensions and Southern claims. He says that a man that fought against this
+ Government has no right to a pension. Good! I say a man that fought
+ against this Government has no right to office. If a man cannot earn a
+ pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. [A Voice&mdash;"How
+ about Longstreet?"] Longstreet has repented of what he did. Longstreet
+ admits that he was wrong. And there was no braver officer in the Southern
+ Confederacy. Every man of the South who will say, "I made a mistake"&mdash;I
+ do not want him to say that he knew he was wrong&mdash;all I ask him to
+ say is that he now thinks he was wrong; and every man of the South to-day
+ who says he was wrong, and who says from this day forward, henceforth and
+ forever, he is for this being a Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will take him by the hand. But while he is attempting to do at the
+ ballot-box what he failed to accomplish upon the field of battle, I am
+ against him; while he uses a Northern general to bait a Southern trap, I
+ won't bite. I will forgive men when they deserve to be forgiven; but while
+ they insist that they were right, while they insist that State Sovereignty
+ is the proper doctrine, I am opposed to their climbing into power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hancock says that he will not pay these claims; he agrees to veto a bill
+ that his party may pass; he agrees in advance that he will defeat a party
+ that he expects will elect him; he, in effect, says to the people, "You
+ can not trust that party, but you can trust me." He says, "Look at them; I
+ admit they are a hungry lot; I admit that they haven't had a bite in
+ twenty years; I admit that an ordinary famine is satiety compared to the
+ hunger they feel. But between that vast appetite known as the Democratic
+ party, and the public treasury, I will throw the shield of my veto." No
+ man has a right to say in advance what he will veto, any more than a judge
+ has a right to say in advance how he will decide a case. The veto power is
+ a distinction with which the Constitution has clothed the Executive, and
+ no President has a right to say that he will veto until he has heard both
+ sides of the question. But he agrees in advance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would rather trust a party than a man. Death may veto Hancock, and Death
+ has not been a successful politician in the United States. Tyler,
+ Fillmore, Andy Johnson&mdash;I do not wish Death to elect any more
+ Presidents; and if he does, and if Hancock is elected, William H. English
+ becomes President of the United States. No, no, no! All I need to say
+ about him is simply to pronounce his name; that is all. You do not want
+ him. Whether the many stories that have been told about him are true or
+ not I do not know, and I will not give currency to a solitary word against
+ the reputation of an American citizen unless I know it to be true. What I
+ have against him is what he has done in public life. When Charles Sumner,
+ that great and splendid publicist&mdash;Charles Sumner, the
+ philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of his time and to the
+ history of the future&mdash;when he stood up in the United States Senate
+ and made a great and glorious plea for human liberty, there crept into the
+ Senate a villain and struck him down as though he had been a wild beast.
+ That man was a member of Congress, and when a resolution was introduced in
+ the House, to expel that man, William H. English voted "No." All the
+ stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that public act. That
+ is enough for me, and whatever his private life may be, let it be that of
+ an angel, never, never, never would I vote for a man that would defend the
+ assassin of free speech. General Hancock, they tell me, is a statesman;
+ that what little time he has had to spare from war he has given to the
+ tariff, and what little time he could spare from the tariff he has given
+ to the Constitution of his country; showing under what circumstances a
+ Major-General can put at defiance the Congress of the United States. It
+ won't do!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But while I am upon that subject it may be well for me to state that he
+ never will be President of the United States. Now, I say that a man who in
+ time of peace prefers peace, and prefers the avocations of peace; a man
+ who in the time of peace would rather look at the corn in the air of June,
+ rather listen to the hum of bees, rather sit by his door with his wife and
+ children; the man who in time of peace loves peace, and yet when the blast
+ of war blows in his ears, shoulders a musket and goes to the field of war
+ to defend his country, and when the war is over goes home and again
+ pursues the avocations of peace&mdash;that man is just as good, to say the
+ least of it, as a man who in a time of profound peace makes up his mind
+ that he would like to make his living killing other folks. To say the
+ least of it, he is as good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republicans have named as their standard bearers James A. Garfield and
+ Chester A. Arthur. James A. Garfield was a volunteer soldier, and he took
+ away from the field of Chickamauga as much glory as any one man could
+ carry. He is not only a soldier&mdash;7-he is a statesman. He has studied
+ and discussed all the great questions that affect the prosperity and
+ well-being of the American people. His opinions are well known, and I say
+ to you tonight that there is not in this Nation, there is not in this
+ Republic a man with greater brain and greater heart than James A.
+ Garfield. I know him and I like him. I know him as well as any other
+ public man, and I like him. The Democratic party say that he is not
+ honest. I have been reading some Democratic papers to-day, and you would
+ say that every one of their editors had a private sewer of his own into
+ which has been emptied for a hundred years the slops of hell. They tell me
+ that James A. Garfield is not honest. Are you a Democrat? Your party tried
+ to steal nearly half of this country. Your party stole the armament of a
+ nation. Your party was willing to live upon the unpaid labor of four
+ millions of people. You have no right to the floor for the purpose of
+ making a motion of honesty. James A. Garfield has been at the head of the
+ most important committees of Congress; he is a member of the most
+ important one of the whole House. He has no peer in the Congress of the
+ United States. And you know it. He is the leader of the House. With one
+ wave of his hand he can take millions from the pocket of one industry and
+ put it into the pocket of another; with a motion of his hand he could have
+ made himself a man of wealth, but he is to-night a poor man. I know him
+ and I like him. He is as genial as May and he is as generous as Autumn.
+ And the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors, the men whom he had
+ pity enough not to destroy with an argument, the men who, with his great
+ generosity, he has allowed, intellectually, to live, are now throwing
+ filth at the reputation of that great and splendid man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Several ladies and gentlemen were passing a muddy place around which were
+ gathered ragged and wretched urchins. And these little wretches began to
+ throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, "If you don't stop I will throw
+ it back at you." And a little fellow said, "You can't do it without
+ dirtying your hands, and it doesn't hurt us anyway."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I never was more profoundly happy than on the night of that 12th day of
+ October when I found that between an honest and a kingly man and his
+ maligners, two great States had thrown their shining shields. When Ohio
+ said, "Garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in the
+ cabins of Ohio a grander man"&mdash;and when Indiana held up her hands and
+ said, "Allow me to indorse that verdict," I was profoundly happy, because
+ that said to me, "Garfield will carry every Northern State;" that said to
+ me, "The Solid South will be confronted by a great and splendid North."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know Garfield&mdash;I like him. Some people have said, "How is it that
+ you support Garfield, when he was a minister?" "How is it that you support
+ Garfield when he is a Christian?" I will tell you. There are two reasons.
+ The first is I am not a bigot; and secondly, James A. Garfield is not a
+ bigot. He believes in giving to every other human being every right he
+ claims for himself. He believes in freedom of speech and freedom of
+ thought; untrammeled conscience and upright manhood. He believes in an
+ absolute divorce between church and state. He believes that every religion
+ should rest upon its morality, upon its reason, upon its persuasion, upon
+ its goodness, upon its charity, and that love should never appeal to the
+ sword of civil power. He disagrees with me in many things; but in the one
+ thing, that the air is free for all, we do agree. I want to do equal and
+ exact justice everywhere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want the world of thought to be without a chain, without a wall, and I
+ wish to say to you, [turning toward Mr. Beecher and directly addressing
+ him] that I thank you for what you have said to-night, and to congratulate
+ the people of this city and country that you have intellectual horizon
+ enough, intellectual sky enough to take the hand of a man, howsoever much
+ he may disagree in some things with you, on the grand platform and broad
+ principle of citizenship. James A. Garfield, believing with me as he does,
+ disagreeing with me as he does, is perfectly satisfactory to me. I know
+ him, and I like him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men are to-day blackening his reputation, who are not fit to blacken his
+ shoes. He is a man of brain. Since his nomination he must have made forty
+ or fifty speeches, and every one has been full of manhood and genius. He
+ has not said a word that has not strengthened him with the American
+ people. He is the first candidate who has been free to express himself and
+ who has never made a mistake. I will tell you why he does not make a
+ mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. Because he was guided by
+ the glittering Northern Star of principle. Lie after lie has been told
+ about him. Slander after slander has been hatched and put in the air, with
+ its little short wings, to fly its day, and the last lie is a forgery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pretend he wrote upon
+ the Chinese question. I know his writing; I know his signature; I am well
+ acquainted with his writing. I know handwriting, and I tell you to-night,
+ that letter and that signature are forgeries. A forgery for the benefit of
+ the Pacific States; a forgery for the purpose of convincing the American
+ workingman that Garfield is without heart. I tell you, my fellow-citizens,
+ that cannot take from him a vote. But Ohio pierced their centre and
+ Indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel line cannot re-form with a
+ forgery for a standard. They are gone!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, some people say to me, "How long are you going to preach the doctrine
+ of hate?" I never did preach it. In many States of this Union it is a
+ crime to be a Republican. I am going to preach my doctrine until every
+ American citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote as he may
+ desire in every State of this Union. I am going to preach my doctrine
+ until this is a civilized country. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will treat the gentlemen of the South precisely as we do the gentlemen
+ of the North. I want to treat every section of the country precisely as we
+ do ours-. I want to improve their rivers and their harbors; I want to fill
+ their land with commerce; I want them to prosper; I want them to build
+ schoolhouses; I want them to open the lands to immigration to all people
+ who desire to settle upon their soil. I want to be friends with them; I
+ want to let the past be buried forever; I want to let bygones be bygones,
+ but only upon the basis that we are now in favor of absolute liberty and
+ eternal justice. I am not willing to bury nationality or free speech in
+ the grave for the purpose of being friends. Let us stand by our colors;
+ let the old Republican party that has made this a Nation&mdash;the old
+ Republican party that has saved the financial honor of this country&mdash;let
+ that party stand by its colors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let that party say, "Free speech forever!" Let that party say, "An honest
+ ballot forever!" Let that party say, "Honest money forever! the Nation and
+ the flag forever!" And let that party stand by the great men carrying her
+ banner, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. I would rather trust a
+ party than a man. If General Garfield dies, the Republican party lives; if
+ General Garfield dies, General Arthur will take his place&mdash;a brave,
+ honest, and intelligent gentleman, upon whom every Republican can rely.
+ And if he dies, the Republican party lives, and as long as the Republican
+ party does not die, the great Republic will live. As long as the
+ Republican party lives, this will be the asylum of the world. Let me tell
+ you, Mr. Irishman, this is the only country on the earth where Irishmen
+ have had enough to eat. Let me tell you, Mr. German, that you have more
+ liberty here than you had in the Fatherland. Let me tell you, all men,
+ that this is the land of humanity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Oh! I love the old Republic, bounded by the seas, walled by the wide air,
+ domed by heaven's blue, and lit with the eternal stars. I love the
+ Republic; I love it because I love liberty. Liberty is my religion, and at
+ its altar I worship, and will worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This is only a fragment of a speech made by Col. Ingersoll
+ at Peoria, 111., in 1866, to the 86th Illinois Regiment, at
+ their anniversary meeting.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ PEORIA, ILLS. 1865.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE history of the past four years seems to me like a terrible dream. It
+ seems almost impossible that the events that have now passed into history
+ ever happened. That hundreds of thousands of men, born and reared under
+ one flag, with the same history, the same future, and, in truth, the same
+ interests, should have met upon the terrible field of death, and for four
+ long years should have fought with a bitterness and determination never
+ excelled; that they should have filled our land with orphans and widows,
+ and made our country hollow with graves, is indeed wonderful; but that the
+ people of the South should have thus fought&mdash;thus attempted to
+ destroy and overthrow the Government founded by the heroes of the
+ Revolution&mdash;merely for the sake of perpetuating the infamous
+ institution of slavery, is wonderful almost beyond belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Strange that people should be found in this, the nineteenth century, to
+ fight against freedom and to die for slavery! It is most wonderful that
+ the terrible war ceased as suddenly as it did, and that the soldiers of
+ the Republic, the moment that the angel of peace spread her white wings
+ over our country, dropped from their hands the instruments of war and
+ eagerly went back to the plough, the shop and the office, and are to-day,
+ with the same determination that characterized them in battle, engaged in
+ effacing every vestige of the desolation and destruction of war. But the
+ progress we have made as a people is if possible still more astonishing.
+ We pretended to be the lovers of freedom, yet we defended slavery. We
+ quoted the Declaration of Independence and voted for the compromise of
+ 1850.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From servility and slavishness we have marched to heroism. We were
+ tyrants. We are liberators. We were slave-catchers. We are now the
+ chivalrous breakers of chains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From slavery, over a bloody and terrible path, we have marched to freedom.
+ Hirelings of oppression, we have become the champions of justice&mdash;the
+ defenders of the right&mdash;the pillar upon which rests the hope of the
+ world. To whom are we indebted for this wonderful change? Most of all to
+ you, the soldiers of the great Republic. We thank you that the hands of
+ time were not turned back a thousand years&mdash;that the Dark Ages did
+ not again come upon the world&mdash;that Prometheus was not again chained&mdash;that
+ the river of progress was not stopped or stayed&mdash;that the dear blood
+ shed during all the past was not rendered vain&mdash;that the sublime
+ faith of all the grand and good did not become a bitter dream, but a
+ reality more glorious than ever entered into the imagination of the rapt
+ heroes of the past. Soldiers of the Eighty-sixth Illinois, we thank you,
+ and through you all the defenders of the Republic, living and dead. We
+ thank you that the deluge of blood has subsided, that the ark of our
+ national safety is at rest, that the dove has returned with the olive
+ branch of peace, and that the dark clouds of war are in the far distance,
+ covered with the beautiful bow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the name of humanity, in the name of progress, in the name of freedom,
+ in the name of America, in the name of the oppressed of the whole world,
+ we thank you again and again. We thank you, that in the darkest hour you
+ never despaired of the Republic, that you were not dismayed, that through
+ disaster and defeat, through cruelty and famine, through the serried ranks
+ of the enemy, in spite of false friends, you marched resolutely,
+ unflinchingly and bravely forward. Forward through shot and shell! Forward
+ through fire and sword! Forward past the corpses of your brave comrades,
+ buried in shallow graves by the hurried hands of heroes! Forward past the
+ scattered bones of starved captives! Forward through the glittering
+ bayonet lines, and past the brazen throats of the guns! Forward through
+ the din and roar and smoke and hell of war! Onward through blood and fire
+ to the shining, glittering mount of perfect and complete victory, and from
+ the top your august hands unfurled to the winds the old banner of the
+ stars, and it waves in triumph now, and shall forever, from the St.
+ Lawrence to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We thank you that our waving fields of golden wheat and rustling corn are
+ not trodden down beneath the bloody feet of invasion&mdash;that our homes
+ are not ashes&mdash;that our hearthstones are not desolate&mdash;that our
+ towns and cities still stand, that our temples and institutions of
+ learning are secure, that prosperity covers us as with a mantle, and, more
+ than all, we thank you that the Republic still lives; that law and order
+ reign supreme; that the Constitution is still sacred; that a republican
+ government has ceased to be only an experiment, and has become a certainty
+ for all time; that we have by your heroism established the sublime and
+ shining truth that a government by the people, for the people, can and
+ will stand until governments cease among men; that you have given the lie
+ to the impudent and infamous prophecy of tyranny, and that you have firmly
+ established the Republic upon the great ideas of National Unity and Human
+ Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We thank you for our commerce on the high seas, upon our lakes and
+ beautiful rivers, for the credit of our nation, for the value of our
+ money, and for the grand position that we now occupy among the nations of
+ the earth. We thank you for every State redeemed, for every star brought
+ back to glitter again upon the old flag, and we thank you for the grand
+ future that you have opened for us and for our children through all the
+ ages yet to come; and, not only for us and our children, but for mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thanks to your efforts our country is still an asylum for the oppressed of
+ the Old World; the arms of our charity are still open, we still beckon
+ them across the sea, and they come in multitudes,'leaving home, the graves
+ of their sires, and the dear memories of the heart, and with their wives
+ and little ones come to this, the only free land upon which the sun shines&mdash;and
+ with their countless hands of labor add to the wealth, the permanence and
+ the glory of our country. And let them come from the land of Luther, of
+ Hampden and Emmett. Whoever is for freedom and the sacred rights of man is
+ a true American, and as such, we welcome them all. We thank you to-day in
+ the name of four millions of people, whose shackles you have so nobly and
+ generously broken, and who, from the condition of beasts of burden, have
+ by your efforts become men. We thank you in the name of this poor and
+ hitherto despised and insulted race, and say that their emancipation was,
+ and is, the crowning glory of this most terrible war. Peace without
+ liberty could have been only a bloody delusion and a snare. Freedom is
+ peace; Slavery is war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must act justly and honorably with these emancipated men, knowing that
+ the eyes of the civilized world are upon us. We must do what is best for
+ both races. We must not be controlled merely by party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Government is founded upon principle, it will stand against the
+ shock of revolution and foreign war as long as liberty is sacred, the
+ rights of man respected, and honor dwells in the hearts of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We thank you for the lesson that has been taught the Old World by your
+ patriotism and valor; believing that when the people shall have learned
+ that sublime and divine lesson, thrones will become kingless, kings
+ crownless, royalty an epitaph, the purple of power the shroud of death,
+ the chains of tyranny will fall from the bodies of men, the shackles of
+ superstition from the souls of the people, the spirit of persecution will
+ fly from the earth, and the banner of Universal Freedom, with the words
+ "Civil and Religious Liberty for the World" written upon every fold,
+ blazing from every star, will float over every land and sea under the
+ whole heavens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We thank you for the glorious past, for the still more glorious future,
+ and will continue to thank you while our hearts are warm with life. We
+ will gather around you in the hour of your death and soothe your last
+ moments with our gratitude. We will follow you tearfully to the narrow
+ house of the dead, and over your sacred remains erect the whitest and
+ purest marble. The hands of love will adorn your last abode, and the
+ chisel will record that beneath rests the sacred dust of the Heroic
+ Saviors of the Great Republic. Such ground will be holy, and future
+ generations will draw inspiration from your tombs, courage from your
+ heroic examples, patience and fortitude from your sufferings, and strength
+ eternal from your success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot stop without speaking of the heroic dead. It seems to me as
+ though their spirits ought to hover over you to-day&mdash;that they might
+ join with us in giving thanks for the great victory,&mdash;that their
+ faces might grow radiant to think that their blood was not shed in vain,&mdash;that
+ the living are worthy to reap the benefits of their sacrifices, their
+ sufferings and death, and it almost seems as if their sightless eyes are
+ suffused with tears. Then we think of the dear mothers waiting for their
+ sons, of the devoted wives waiting for their husbands, of the orphans
+ asking for fathers whose returning footsteps they can never hear; that
+ while they can say "my country," they cannot say "my son," "my husband,"
+ or "my father."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My heart goes out to all the slain, to those heroic corpses sleeping far
+ away from home and kindred in unknown and lonely graves, to those poor
+ pieces of dear, bleeding earth that won for me the blessings I enjoy
+ to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall I recount their sufferings? They were starved day by day with a
+ systematic and calculating cruelty never equaled by the most savage
+ tribes. They were confined in dens as though they had been beasts, and
+ then they slowly faded and wasted from life. Some were released from their
+ sufferings by blessed insanity, until their parched and fevered lips,
+ their hollow and glittering eyes, were forever closed by the angel of
+ death. And thus they died, with the voices of loved ones in their ears;
+ the faces of the dear absent hovering over them; around them their dying
+ comrades, and the fiendish slaves of slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what shall I say more of the regiment before me? It is enough that you
+ were a part of the great army that accomplished so much for America and
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is but just, however, to say that you were at the bloody field of
+ Perryville, that you stood with Thomas at Chickamauga and kept at bay the
+ rebel host, that you marched to the relief of Knoxville through bitter
+ cold, hunger and privations, and had the honor of relieving that heroic
+ garrison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is but just to say that you were with Sherman in his wonderful march
+ through the heart of the Confederacy; that you were in the terrible charge
+ at Kenesaw Mountain, and held your ground for days within a few steps of
+ the rebel fortifications; that you were at Atlanta and took part in the
+ terrible conflict before that city and marched victoriously through her
+ streets; that you were at Savannah; that you had the honor of being
+ present when Johnson surrendered, and his ragged rebel horde laid down
+ their arms; that from there you marched to Washington and beneath the
+ shadow of the glorious dome of our Capitol, that lifts from the earth as
+ though jealous of the stars, received the grandest national ovation
+ recorded in the annals of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0014" id="link0014">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DECORATION DAY ORATION.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * At the Memorial Celebration of the Grand Army of the
+ Republic last evening the Academy of Music was filled to
+ overflowing, within a few minutes after the opening of the
+ doors.
+
+ Gen. Hancock was the first arrival of importance. The
+ Governor's Island band accepted this as a signal for the
+ overture. The Academy was tastefully decorated. The three
+ balconies were covered, the first with blue cloth, the
+ second with white and national bunting, studded with the
+ insignia of the original thirteen States, and the family
+ circle with red. Over the centre of the stage the national
+ flag and device hung suspended, and was held In its place by
+ flying streamers extending to the boxes. The latter were
+ draped with flags, relieved by antique armor and weapons&mdash;
+ shields, casques and battle axes and crossed swords and
+ pikes.
+
+ At 8.05 the curtain slowly rose, and discovered to the view
+ of the audience, a second audience reaching back to the
+ farthest depths of the scenes. These were the fortunate
+ holders of stage tickets, and comprised a great number of
+ distinguished men.
+
+ Among them were noticed Gen. Horace Porter, Gen. Lloyd
+ Aspinwall, Gen. Daniel Butterfield, Gen. D. D. Wylie, Gen.
+ Charles Roome, Gen. W. Palmer, Gen. John Cochrane, Gen. H.
+ G. Tremaine, the Hon. Edward Pierrepont, Dep't. Commander
+ James M. Fraser, the Hon. Carl Schurz, August Belmont, Henry
+ Clews, Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, Charles Scribner, Jesse Seligman,
+ William Dowa, Henry Bergh and George William Curtis. Gen.
+ Bamum came upon the stage followed by President Arthur,
+ Gen's. Grant and Hancock, Secretaries Folger and Brewster,
+ ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling, Mayor Grace and the Rev. J. P.
+ Newman. Gen. Hancock's brilliant uniform made him a very
+ conspicuous figure, and he served as a foil to the plain
+ evening dress of Gen. Grant, who was separated from him by
+ the portly form of the President.
+
+ Gen. James McQuade, the President of the day, rose and
+ uncovering a flag which draped a sort of patriotic altar in
+ front of him, announced that It was the genuine flag upon
+ which was written the famous order, "If any man pull down
+ the American flag, shoot him on the spot.' * This was the
+ signal for round after round of applause, while Gen. McQuade
+ waved this precious relic of the past. The time had now come
+ for the introduction of the orator of the evening, Col.
+ Robert G. Ingersoll. Col. Ingersoll stepped across the stage
+ to the reading desk, and was received with an ovation of
+ cheering and waving of handkerchiefs.
+
+ After the enthusiasm had somewhat abated, a gentleman in one
+ of the boxes shouted: "Three-cheers for Ingersoll."
+ These were given with a will, the excitement quieted down
+ and the orator spoke as follows '.&mdash;The New York Times. May
+ 31st, 1883.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ New York City.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1882.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THIS day is sacred to our heroes dead. Upon their tombs we have lovingly
+ laid the wealth of Spring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a day for memory and tears. A mighty Nation bends above its
+ honored graves, and pays to noble dust the tribute of its love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gratitude is the fairest flower that sheds its perfume in the heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we tell the history of our country's life&mdash;recount the lofty
+ deeds of vanished years&mdash;the toil and suffering, the defeats and
+ victories of heroic men,&mdash;of men who made our Nation great and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We see the first ships whose prows were gilded by the western sun. We feel
+ the thrill of discovery when the New World was found. We see the
+ oppressed, the serf, the peasant and the slave, men whose flesh had known
+ the chill of chains&mdash;the adventurous, the proud, the brave, sailing
+ an unknown sea, seeking homes in unknown lands. We see the settlements,
+ the little clearings, the blockhouse and the fort, the rude and lonely
+ huts. Brave men, true women, builders of homes, fellers of forests,
+ founders of States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Separated from the Old World,&mdash;away from the heartless distinctions
+ of caste,&mdash;away from sceptres and titles and crowns, they governed
+ themselves. They defended their homes; they earned their bread. Each
+ citizen had a voice, and the little villages became republics. Slowly the
+ savage was driven back. The days and nights were filled with fear, and the
+ slow years with massacre and war, and cabins' earthen floors were wet with
+ blood of mothers and their babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the savages of the New World were kinder than the kings and nobles of
+ the Old; and so the human tide kept coming, and the places of the dead
+ were filled. Amid common dangers and common hopes, the prejudiced and
+ feuds of Europe faded slowly from their hearts. From every land, of every
+ speech, driven by want and lured by hope, exiles and emigrants sought the
+ mysterious Continent of the West.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Year after year the colonists fought and toiled and suffered and
+ increased. They began to talk about liberty&mdash;to reason of the rights
+ of man. They * t asked no help from distant kings, and they began to doubt
+ the use of paying tribute to the useless. They lost respect for dukes and
+ lords, and held in high esteem all honest men. There was the dawn of a new
+ day. They began to dream of independence. They found that they could make
+ and execute the laws. They had tried the experiment of self-government.
+ They had succeeded. The Old World wished to dominate the New. In the care
+ and keeping of the colonists was the destiny of this Continent&mdash;of
+ half the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On this day the story of the great struggle between colonists and kings
+ should be told. We should tell our children of the contest&mdash;first for
+ justice, then for freedom. We should tell them the history of the
+ Declaration of Independence&mdash;the chart and compass of all human
+ rights:&mdash;All men are equal, and have the right to life, to liberty
+ and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This Declaration uncrowned kings, and wrested from the hands of titled
+ tyranny the sceptre of usurped and arbitrary power. It superseded royal
+ grants, and repealed the cruel statutes of a thousand years. It gave the
+ peasant a career; it knighted all the sons of toil; it opened all the
+ paths to fame, and put the star of hope above the cradle of the poor man's
+ babe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ England was then the mightiest of nations&mdash;mistress of every sea&mdash;and
+ yet our fathers, poor and few, defied her power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we remember the defeats, the victories, the disasters, the weary
+ marches, the poverty, the hunger, the sufferings, the agonies, and above
+ all, the glories of the Revolution. We remember all&mdash;from Lexington
+ to Valley Forge, and from that midnight of despair to Yorktown's cloudless
+ day. We remember the soldiers and thinkers&mdash;the heroes of the sword
+ and pen. They had the brain and heart, the wisdom and courage to utter and
+ defend these words: "Governments derive their just powers from the consent
+ of the governed." In defence of this sublime and self-evident truth the
+ war was waged and won.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we remember all the heroes, all the generous and chivalric men who
+ came from other lands to make ours free. Of the many thousands who shared
+ the gloom and glory of the seven sacred years, not one remains. The last
+ has mingled with the earth, and nearly all are sleeping now in unmarked
+ graves, and some beneath the leaning, crumbling stones from which their
+ names have been effaced by Time's irreverent and relentless hands. But the
+ Nation they founded remains. The United States are still free and
+ independent. The "government derives its just power from the consent of
+ the governed," and fifty millions of free people remember with gratitude
+ the heroes of the Revolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be truthful; let us be kind. When peace came, when the independence
+ of a new Nation was acknowledged, the great truth for which our fathers
+ fought was half denied, and the Constitution was inconsistent with the
+ Declaration. The war was waged for liberty, and yet the victors forged new
+ fetters for their fellow-men. The chains our fathers broke were put by
+ them upon the limbs of others. "Freedom for All" was the cloud by day and
+ the pillar of fire by night, through seven years of want and war. In peace
+ the cloud was forgotten and the pillar blazed unseen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be truthful; all our fathers were not true to themselves. In war
+ they had been generous, noble and self-sacrificing; with peace came
+ selfishness and greed. They were not great enough to appreciate the
+ grandeur of the principles for which they fought. They ceased to regard
+ the great truths as having universal application. "Liberty for All"
+ included only themselves. They qualified the Declaration. They
+ interpolated the word "white." They obliterated the word "All."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be kind. We will remember the age in which they lived. We will
+ compare them with the citizens of other nations. They made merchandise of
+ men. They legalized a crime. They sowed the seeds of war. But they founded
+ this Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us gratefully remember.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us gratefully forget.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we remember the heroes of the second war with England, in which our
+ fathers fought for the freedom of the seas&mdash;for the rights of the
+ American sailor. We remember with pride the splendid victories of Erie and
+ Champlain and the wondrous achievements upon the sea&mdash;achievements
+ that covered our navy with a glory that neither the victories nor defeats
+ of the future can dim. We remember the heroic services and sufferings of
+ those who fought the merciless savage of the frontier. We see the midnight
+ massacre, and hear the war-cries of the allies of England. We see the
+ flames climb around the happy homes, and in the charred and blackened
+ ruins the mutilated bodies of wives and children. Peace came at last,
+ crowned with the victory of New Orleans&mdash;a victory that "did redeem
+ all sorrows" and all defeats.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Revolution gave our fathers a free land&mdash;the War of 1812 a free
+ sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we remember the gallant men who bore our flag in triumph from the
+ Rio Grande to the heights of Chapultepec.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Leaving out of question the justice of our cause&mdash;the necessity for
+ war&mdash;we are yet compelled to applaud the marvelous courage of our
+ troops. A handful of men, brave, impetuous, determined, irresistible,
+ conquered a nation. Our history has no record of more daring deeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again peace came, and the Nation hoped and thought that strife was at an
+ end. We had grown too powerful to be attacked. Our resources were
+ boundless, and the future seemed secure. The hardy pioneers moved to the
+ great West. Beneath their ringing strokes the forests disappeared, and on
+ the prairies waved the billowed seas of wheat and corn. The great plains
+ were crossed, the mountains were conquered, and the foot of victorious
+ adventure pressed the shore of the Pacific. In the great North all the
+ streams went singing to the sea, turning wheels and spindles, and casting
+ shuttles back and forth. Inventions were springing like magic from a
+ thousand brains. From Labor's holy altars rose and leaped the smoke and
+ flame, and from the countless forges ran the chant of rhythmic stroke.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in the South, the negro toiled unpaid, and mothers wept while babes
+ were sold, and at the auction-block husbands and wives speechlessly looked
+ the last good-bye. Fugitives, lighted by the Northern Star, sought liberty
+ on English soil, and were, by Northern men, thrust back to whip and chain.
+ The great statesmen, the successful politicians, announced that law had
+ compromised with crime, that justice had been bribed, and that time had
+ barred appeal. A race was left without a right, without a hope. The future
+ had no dawn, no star&mdash;nothing but ignorance and fear, nothing but
+ work and want. This, was the conclusion of the statesmen, the philosophy
+ of the politicians&mdash;of constitutional expounders:&mdash;this was
+ decided by courts and ratified by the Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We had been successful in three wars. We had wrested thirteen colonies
+ from Great Britain. We had conquered our place upon the high seas. We had
+ added more than two millions of square miles to the national domain. We
+ had increased in population from three to thirty-one millions. We were in
+ the midst of plenty. We were rich and free. Ours appeared to be the most
+ prosperous of Nations. But it was only appearance. The statesmen and the
+ politicians were deceived. Real victories can be won only for the Right.
+ The triumph of Justice is the only Peace. Such is the nature of things. He
+ who enslaves another cannot be free. He who attacks the right, assaults
+ himself. The mistake our fathers made had not been corrected. The
+ foundations of the Republic were insecure. The great dome of the temple
+ was clad in the light of prosperity, but the corner-stones were crumbling.
+ Four millions of human beings were enslaved. Party cries had been mistaken
+ for principles&mdash;partisanship for patriotism&mdash;success for
+ justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Pity pointed to the scarred and bleeding backs of slaves; Mercy heard
+ the sobs of mothers reft of babes, and Justice held aloft the scales, in
+ which one drop of blood shed by a master's lash, outweighed a Nation's
+ gold. There were a few men, a few women, who had the courage to attack
+ this monstrous crime. They found it entrenched in constitutions, statutes,
+ and decisions&mdash;barricaded and bastioned by every department and by
+ every party. Politicians were its servants, statesmen its attorneys,
+ judges its menials, presidents its puppets, and upon its cruel altar had
+ been sacrificed our country's honor. It was the crime of the Nation&mdash;of
+ the whole country&mdash;North and South responsible alike.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we reverently thank the abolitionists. Earth has no grander men&mdash;no
+ nobler women. They were the real philanthropists, the true patriots. When
+ the will defies fear, when the heart applauds the brain, when duty throws
+ the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death,&mdash;this
+ is heroism. The abolitionists were heroes. He loves his country best who
+ strives to make it best. The bravest men are those who have the greatest
+ fear of doing wrong. Mere politicians wish the country to do something for
+ them. True patriots desire to do something for their country. Courage
+ without conscience is a wild beast. Patriotism without principle is the
+ prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to place. These men, these
+ women, had courage and conscience, patriotism and principle, heart and
+ brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The South relied upon the bond,&mdash;upon a barbarous clause that
+ stained, disfigured and defiled the Federal pact, and made the monstrous
+ claim that slavery was the Nation's ward. The spot of shame grew red in
+ Northern cheeks, and Northern men declared that slavery had poisoned,
+ cursed and blighted soul and soil enough, and that the Territories must be
+ free. The radicals of the South cried: "No Union without Slavery!" The
+ radicals of the North replied: "No Union without Liberty!" The Northern
+ radicals were right. Upon the great issue of free homes for free men, a
+ President was elected by the free States. The South appealed to the sword,
+ and raised the standard of revolt. For the first time in history the
+ oppressors rebelled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let us to-day be great enough to forget individuals,&mdash;great
+ enough to know that slavery was treason, that slavery was rebellion, that
+ slavery fired upon our flag and sought to wreck and strand the mighty ship
+ that bears the hope and fortune of this world. The first shot liberated
+ the North. Constitution, statutes and decisions, compromises, platforms,
+ and resolutions made, passed, and ratified in the interest of slavery
+ became mere legal lies, base and baseless. Parchment and paper could no
+ longer stop or stay the onward march of man. The North was free. Millions
+ instantly resolved that the Nation should not die&mdash;that Freedom
+ should not perish, and that Slavery should not live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions of our brothers, our sons, our fathers, our husbands, answered to
+ the Nation's call.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great armies have desolated the earth. The greatest soldiers have been
+ ambition's dupes. They waged war for the sake of place and pillage, pomp
+ and power,&mdash;for the ignorant applause of vulgar millions,&mdash;for
+ the flattery of parasites, and the adulation of sycophants and slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us proudly remember that in our time the greatest, the grandest, the
+ noblest army of the world fought, not to enslave, but to free; not to
+ destroy, but to save; not for conquest, but for conscience; not only for
+ us, but for every land and every race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With courage, with enthusiasm, with a devotion' never excelled, with an
+ exaltation and purity of purpose never equaled, this grand army fought the
+ battles of the Republic. For the preservation of this Nation, for the
+ destruction of slavery, these soldiers, these sailors, on land and sea,
+ disheartened by no defeat, discouraged by no obstacle, appalled by no
+ danger, neither paused nor swerved until a stainless flag, without a
+ rival, floated over all our wide domain, and until every human being
+ beneath its folds was absolutely free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great victory for human rights&mdash;the greatest of all the years&mdash;had
+ been won; won by the Union men of the North, by the Union men of the
+ South, and by those who had been slaves. Liberty was national, Slavery was
+ dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The flag for which the heroes fought, for which they died, is the symbol
+ of all we are, of all we hope to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the emblem of equal rights.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means free hands, free lips, self-government and the sovereignty of the
+ individual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means that this continent has been dedicated to freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means universal education,&mdash;light for every mind, knowledge for
+ every child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means that the schoolhouse is the fortress of Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of
+ the governed;" that each man is accountable to and for the Government;
+ that responsibility goes hand in hand with liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means that it is the duty of every citizen to bear his share of the
+ public burden,&mdash;to take part in the affairs of his town, his county,
+ his State and his country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means that the ballot-box is the Ark of the Covenant; that the source
+ of authority must not be poisoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means the perpetual right of peaceful revolution. It means that every
+ citizen of the Republic&mdash;native or naturalized&mdash;must be
+ protected; at home, in every State,&mdash;abroad, in every land, on every
+ sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means that all distinctions based on birth or blood, have perished from
+ our laws; that our Government shall stand between labor and capital,
+ between the weak and the strong, between the individual and the
+ corporation, between want and wealth, and give the guarantee of simple
+ justice to each and all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means that there shall be a legal remedy for every wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It means national hospitality,&mdash;that we must welcome to our shores
+ the exiles of the world, and that we may not drive them back. Some may be
+ deformed by labor, dwarfed by hunger, broken in spirit, victims of tyranny
+ and caste,&mdash;in whose sad faces may be read the touching record of a
+ weary life; and yet their children, born of liberty and love, will be
+ symmetrical and fair, intelligent and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That flag is the emblem of a supreme will&mdash;of a Nation's power.
+ Beneath its folds the weakest must be protected and the strongest must
+ obey. It shields and canopies alike the loftiest mansion and the rudest
+ hut. That flag was given to the air in the Revolution's darkest days. It
+ represents the sufferings of the past, the glories yet to be; and like the
+ bow of heaven, it is the child of storm and sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This day is sacred to the great heroic host who kept this flag above our
+ heads,&mdash;sacred to the living and the dead&mdash;sacred to the scarred
+ and maimed,&mdash;sacred to the wives who gave their husbands, to the
+ mothers who gave their sons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here in this peaceful land of ours,&mdash;here where the sun shines, where
+ flowers grow, where children play, millions of armed men battled for the
+ right and breasted on a thousand fields the iron storms of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These brave, these incomparable men, founded the first Republic. They
+ fulfilled the prophecies; they brought to pass the dreams; they realized
+ the hopes, that all the great and good and wise and just have made and had
+ since man was man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But what of those who fell? There is no language to express the debt we
+ owe, the love we bear, to all the dead who died for us. Words are but
+ barren sounds. We can but stand beside their graves and in the hush and
+ silence feel what speech has never told.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They fought, they died; and for the first time since man has kept a record
+ of events, the heavens bent above and domed a land without a serf, a
+ servant or a slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0015" id="link0015">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DECORATION DAY ADDRESS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Empty sleeves worn by veterans with scanty locks and
+ grizzled mustaches graced the Metropolitan Opera House last
+ night. On the breasts of their faded uniforms glittered the
+ badges of the legions in which they had fought and suffered,
+ and beside them sat the wives and daughters, whose hearts
+ had ached at home while they served their country at the
+ front.
+
+ Every seat in the great Opera House was filled, and hundreds
+ stood, glad to And any place where they could see and hear.
+ And the gathering and the proceedings were worthy of the
+ occasion.
+
+ Mr. Depew upon taking the chair said that he had the chief
+ treat of the evening to present to the audience, and that
+ was Robert G. Ingersoll, the greatest living orator, and one
+ of the great controversialists of the age.
+
+ Then came the orator of the occasion Col. Ingersoll, whose
+ speech is printed herewith.
+
+ Enthusiastic cheers greeted all his points, and his audience
+ simply went wild at the end. It was a grand oration, and it
+ was listened to by enthusiastic and appreciative hearers,
+ upon whom not a single word was lost, and in whose hearts
+ every word awoke a responsive echo.
+
+ Nor did the enthusiasm which Col. Ingersoll created end
+ until the very last, when the whole assemblage arose and
+ sang "America" in a way which will never be forgotten by any
+ one present. It was a great ending of a great evening.&mdash;The
+ New York Times, May 31st, 1888.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ New York City.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THIS is a sacred day&mdash;a day for gratitude and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we commemorate more than independence, more than the birth of a
+ nation, more than the fruits of the Revolution, more than physical
+ progress, more than the accumulation of wealth, more than national
+ prestige and power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We commemorate the great and blessed victory over ourselves&mdash;the
+ triumph of civilization, the reformation of a people, the establishment of
+ a government consecrated to the preservation of liberty and the equal
+ rights of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nations can win success, can be rich and powerful, can cover the earth
+ with their armies, the seas with their fleets, and yet be selfish, small
+ and mean. Physical progress means opportunity for doing good. It means
+ responsibility. Wealth is the end of the despicable, victory the purpose
+ of brutality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is something nobler than all these&mdash;something that rises
+ above wealth and power&mdash;something above lands and palaces&mdash;something
+ above raiment and gold&mdash;it is the love of right, the cultivation of
+ the moral nature, the desire to do justice, the inextinguishable love of
+ human liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be nobler than a nation governed by conscience, nothing more
+ infamous than power without pity, wealth without honor and without the
+ sense of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only by the soldiers of the right can the laurel be won or worn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On this day we honor the heroes who fought to make our Nation just and
+ free&mdash;who broke the shackles of the slave, who freed the masters of
+ the South and their allies of the North. We honor chivalric men who made
+ America the hope and beacon of the human race&mdash;the foremost Nation of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These heroes established the first republic, and demonstrated that a
+ government in which the legally expressed will of the people is sovereign
+ and supreme is the safest, strongest, securest, noblest and the best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They demonstrated the human right of the people, and of all the people, to
+ make and execute the laws&mdash;that authority does not come from the
+ clouds, or from ancestry, or from the crowned and titled, or from
+ constitutions and compacts, laws and customs&mdash;not from the admissions
+ of the great, or the concessions of the powerful and victorious&mdash;not
+ from graves, or consecrated dust&mdash;not from treaties made between
+ successful robbers&mdash;not from the decisions of corrupt and menial
+ courts&mdash;not from the dead, but from the living&mdash;not from the
+ past but from the present, from the people of to-day&mdash;from the brain,
+ from the heart and from the conscience of those who live and love and
+ labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of this world for the most part is the history of conflict and
+ war, of invasion, of conquest, of victorious wrong, of the many enslaved
+ by the few.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions have fought for kings, for the destruction and enslavement of
+ their fellow-men. Millions have battled for empire, and great armies have
+ been inspired by the hope of pillage; but for the first time in the
+ history of this world millions of men battled for the right, fought to
+ free not themselves, but others, not for prejudice, but for principle, not
+ for conquest, but for conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men whom we honor were the liberators of a Nation, of a whole country,
+ North and South&mdash;of two races. They freed the body and the brain,
+ gave liberty to master and to slave. They opened all the highways of
+ thought, and gave to fifty millions of people the inestimable legacy of
+ free speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They established the free exchange of thought. They gave to the air a flag
+ without a stain, and they gave to their country a Constitution that honest
+ men can reverently obey. They destroyed the hateful, the egotistic and
+ provincial&mdash;they established a Nation, a national spirit, a national
+ pride and a patriotism as broad as the great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They did away with that ignorant and cruel prejudice that human rights
+ depend on race or color, and that the superior race has the right to
+ oppress the inferior. They established the sublime truth that the superior
+ are the just, the kind, the generous, and merciful&mdash;that the really
+ superior are the protectors, the defenders, and the saviors of the
+ oppressed, of the fallen, the unfortunate, the weak and helpless. They
+ established that greatest of all truths that nothing is nobler than to
+ labor and suffer for others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we wish to know the extent of our debt to these heroes, these soldiers
+ of the right, we must know what we were and what we are. A few years ago
+ we talked about liberty, about the freedom of the world, and while so
+ talking we enslaved our fellow-men. We were the stealers of babes and the
+ whippers of women. We were in partnership with bloodhounds. We lived on
+ unpaid labor. We held manhood in contempt. Honest toil was disgraceful&mdash;sympathy
+ was a crime&mdash;pity was unconstitutional&mdash;humanity contrary to
+ law, and charity was treason. Men were imprisoned for pointing out in
+ heaven's dome the Northern Star&mdash;for giving food to the hungry, water
+ to the parched lips of thirst, shelter to the hunted, succor to the
+ oppressed. In those days criminals and courts, pirates and pulpits were in
+ partnership&mdash;liberty was only a word standing for the equal rights of
+ robbers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years we insisted that our fathers had founded a free Government,
+ that they were the lovers of liberty, believers in equal rights. We were
+ mistaken. The colonists did not believe in the freedom of to-day. Their
+ laws were filled with intolerance, with slavery and the infamous spirit of
+ caste. They persecuted and enslaved. Most of them were narrow, ignorant
+ and cruel. For the most part, their laws were more brutal than those of
+ the nations from which they came. They branded the forehead of
+ intelligence, bored with hot irons the tongue of truth. They persecuted
+ the good and enslaved the helpless. They were believers in pillories and
+ whipping-posts for honest, thoughtful men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When their independence was secured they adopted a Constitution that
+ legalized slavery, and they passed laws making it the duty of free men to
+ prevent others from becoming free. They followed the example of kings and
+ nobles. They knew that monarchs had been interested in the slave trade,
+ and that the first English commander of a slave-ship divided his profits
+ with a queen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They forgot all the splendid things they had said&mdash;the great
+ principles they had so proudly and eloquently announced. The sublime
+ truths faded from their hearts. The spirit of trade, the greed for office,
+ took possession of their souls. The lessons of history were forgotten. The
+ voices coming from all the wrecks of kingdoms, empires and republics on
+ the shores of the great river were unheeded and unheard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the foundation is not justice, the dome cannot be high enough, or
+ splendid enough, to save the temple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But above everything in the minds of our fathers was the desire for union&mdash;to
+ create a Nation, to become a Power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers compromised.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A compromise is a bargain in which each party defrauds the other, and
+ himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The compromise our fathers made was the coffin of honor and the cradle of
+ war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A brazen falsehood and a timid truth are the parents of compromise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But some&mdash;the greatest and the best&mdash;believed in liberty for
+ all. They repeated the splendid sayings of the Roman: "By the law of
+ nature all men are free;"&mdash;of the French King: "Men are born free and
+ equal;"&mdash;of the sublime Zeno: "All men are by nature equal, and
+ virtue alone establishes a difference between them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the year preceding the Declaration of Independence, a society for the
+ abolition of slavery was formed in Pennsylvania and its first President
+ was one of the wisest and greatest of men&mdash;Benjamin Franklin. A
+ society of the same character was established in New York in 1785; its
+ first President was John Jay&mdash;the second, Alexander Hamilton.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in a few years these great men were forgotten. Parties rivaled each
+ other in the defence of wrong. Politicians cared only for place and power.
+ In the clamor of the heartless, the voice of the generous was lost.
+ Slavery became supreme. It dominated legislatures, courts and parties; it
+ rewarded the faithless and little; it degraded the honest and great.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, through all these hateful years, thousands and thousands of noble
+ men and women denounced the degradation and the crime. Most of their names
+ are unknown. They have given a glory to obscurity. They have filled
+ oblivion with honor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the presence of death it has been the custom to speak of the
+ worthlessness, and the vanity, of life. I prefer to speak of its value, of
+ its importance, of its nobility and glory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Life is not merely a floating shadow, a momentary spark, a dream that
+ vanishes. Nothing can be grander than a life filled with great and noble
+ thoughts&mdash;with brave and honest deeds. Such a life sheds light, and
+ the seeds of truth sown by great and loyal men bear fruit through all the
+ years to be. To have lived and labored and died for the right&mdash;nothing
+ can be sublimer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ History is but the merest outline of the exceptional&mdash;of a few great
+ crimes, calamities, wars, mistakes and dramatic virtues. A few mountain
+ peaks are touched, while all the valleys of human life, where countless
+ victories are won, where labor wrought with love&mdash;are left in the
+ eternal shadow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But these peaks are not the foundation of nations. The forgotten words,
+ the unrecorded deeds, the unknown sacrifices, the heroism, the industry,
+ the patience, the love and labor of the nameless good and great have for
+ the most part founded, guided and defended States. The world has been
+ civilized by the unregarded poor, by the untitled nobles, by the uncrowned
+ kings who sleep in unknown graves mingled with the common dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have thought and wrought, have borne the burdens of the world. The
+ pain and labor have been theirs&mdash;the glory has been given to the few.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The conflict came. The South unsheathed the sword. Then rose the embattled
+ North, and these men who sleep to-night beneath the flowers of half the
+ world, gave all for us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They gave us a Nation&mdash;a republic without a slave&mdash;a republic
+ that is sovereign, and to whose will every citizen and every State must
+ bow. They gave us a Constitution for all&mdash;one that can be read
+ without shame and defended without dishonor. They freed the brain, the
+ lips and hands of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that could be done by force was done. All that could be accomplished
+ by the adoption of constitutions was done. The rest is left to education&mdash;the
+ innumerable influences of civilization&mdash;to the development of the
+ intellect, to the cultivation of the heart and the imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The past is now a hideous dream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The present is filled with pride, with gratitude, and hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty is the condition of real progress. The free man works for wife and
+ child&mdash;the slave toils from fear. Liberty gives leisure and leisure
+ refines, beautifies and ennobles. Slavery gives idleness and idleness
+ degrades, deforms and brutalizes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty and slavery&mdash;the right and wrong&mdash;the joy and grief&mdash;the
+ day and night&mdash;the glory and the gloom of all the years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty is the word that all the good have spoken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the hope of every loving heart&mdash;the spark and flame in every
+ noble breast&mdash;the gem in every splendid soul&mdash;the many-colored
+ dream in every honest brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This word has filled the dungeon with its holy light,&mdash;has put the
+ halo round the martyr's head,&mdash;has raised the convict far above the
+ king, and clad even the scaffold with a glory that dimmed and darkened
+ every throne.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the wise man, to the wise nation, the mistakes of the past are the
+ torches of the present. The war is over. The institution that caused it
+ has perished. The prejudices that fanned the flames are only ashes now. We
+ are one people. We will stand or fall together. At last, with clear eyes
+ we see that the triumph of right was a triumph for all. Together we reap
+ the fruits of the great victory. We are all conquerors. Around the graves
+ of the heroes&mdash;North and South, white and colored&mdash;together we
+ stand and with uncovered heads reverently thank the saviors of our native
+ land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are now far enough away from the conflict&mdash;from its hatreds, its
+ passions, its follies and its glories, to fairly and philosophically
+ examine the causes and in some measure at least to appreciate the results.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ States and nations, like individuals, do as they must. Back of revolution,
+ of rebellion, of slavery and freedom, are the efficient causes. Knowing
+ this, we occupy that serene height from which it is possible to calmly
+ pronounce a judgment upon the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know now that the seeds of our war were sown hundreds and thousands of
+ years ago&mdash;sown by the vicious and the just, by prince and peasant,
+ by king and slave, by all the virtues and by all the vices, by all the
+ victories and all the defeats, by all the labor and the love, the loss and
+ gain, by all the evil and the good, and by all the heroes of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of the great conflict we remember only its glory and its lessons. We
+ remember only the heroes who made the Republic the first of nations, and
+ who laid the foundation for the freedom of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This will be known as the century of freedom. Slowly the hosts of darkness
+ have been driven back.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1808 England and the United States united for the suppression of the
+ slave-trade. The Netherlands joined in this holy work in 1818. France lent
+ her aid in 1819 and Spain in 1820. In the same year the United States
+ declared the traffic to be piracy, and in 1825 the same law was enacted by
+ Great Britain. In 1826 Brazil agreed to suppress the traffic in human
+ flesh. In 1833 England abolished slavery in the West Indies, and in 1843
+ in her East Indian possessions, giving liberty to more than twelve
+ millions of slaves. In 1846 Sweden abolished slavery, and in 1848 it was
+ abolished in the colonies of Denmark and France. In 1861 Alexander II.,
+ Czar of all the Russias, emancipated the serfs, and on the first day of
+ January, 1863, the shackles fell from millions of the citizens of this
+ Republic. This was accomplished by the heroes we remember to-day&mdash;this,
+ in accordance with the Proclamation of Emancipation signed by Lincoln,&mdash;greatest
+ of our mighty dead&mdash;Lincoln the gentle and the just&mdash;and whose
+ name will be known and honored to "the last syllable of recorded time."
+ And this year, 1888, has been made blessed and memorable forever&mdash;in
+ the vast empire of Brazil there stands no slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope that when the next century looks from the sacred portals of
+ the East, its light will only fall upon the faces of the free.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * By request, Col. Ingersoll closed this address with his
+ "Vision of War," to which he added "A Vision of the
+ Future." This accounts for its repetition in this volume.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle
+ for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation&mdash;the music of
+ boisterous drums&mdash;the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see
+ thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see the pale
+ cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we
+ see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of
+ them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of
+ freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the
+ last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the
+ whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part
+ forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep.
+ Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers
+ who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say
+ nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses&mdash;divine mingling of agony
+ and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave
+ words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear.
+ We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in
+ her arms&mdash;standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a
+ hand waves&mdash;she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child.
+ He is gone, and forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags,
+ keeping time to the grand, wild music of war&mdash;marching-down the
+ streets of the great cities&mdash;through the towns and across the
+ prairies&mdash;down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the
+ eternal right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields&mdash;in
+ all the hospitals of pain&mdash;on all the weary marches. We stand guard
+ with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in
+ ravines running with blood&mdash;in the furrows of old fields. We are with
+ them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life
+ ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls
+ and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of
+ the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can
+ never tell what they endured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden
+ in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man
+ bowed with the last grief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings
+ governed by the lash&mdash;we see them bound hand and foot&mdash;we hear
+ the strokes of cruel whips&mdash;we see the hounds tracking women through
+ tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty
+ unspeakable! Outrage infinite!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Four million bodies in chains&mdash;four million souls in fetters. All the
+ sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the
+ brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner
+ of the free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting
+ shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of
+ slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the
+ auction block, the slave pen, the whipping post, and we see homes and
+ firesides and school-houses and books, and where all was want and crime
+ and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These heroes are dead. They died for liberty&mdash;they died for us. They
+ are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they
+ rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful
+ willows, and the embracing vines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine
+ or of storm, each in the windowless Palace of Rest. Earth may run red with
+ other wars&mdash;they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of
+ conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for
+ soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A vision of the future rises:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of content,&mdash;the
+ foremost land of all the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are dust. The
+ aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's forces have
+ by Science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave, frost and
+ flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth and air are the tireless
+ toilers for the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with music's
+ myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love and truth;
+ a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world on which the
+ gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world where labor reaps its full reward,
+ where work and worth go hand in hand, where the poor girl trying to win
+ bread with the needle&mdash;the needle that has been called "the asp for
+ the breast of the poor,"&mdash;is not driven to the desperate choice of
+ crime or death, of suicide or shame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's
+ heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of lies,
+ the cruel eyes of scorn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I see a race without disease of flesh or brain,&mdash;shapely and fair,&mdash;the
+ married harmony of form and function,&mdash;and, as I look, life
+ lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all, in the
+ great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0016" id="link0016">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ RATIFICATION SPEECH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, June
+ 29,1688.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Harrison and Morton.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FELLOW-CITIZENS, Ladies and Gentlemen&mdash;The speaker who is perfectly
+ candid, who tells his honest thought, not only honors himself, but
+ compliments his audience. It is only to the candid that man can afford to
+ absolutely open his heart. Most people, whenever a man is nominated for
+ the presidency, claim that they were for him from the very start&mdash;as
+ a rule, claim that they discovered him. They are so anxious to be with the
+ procession, so afraid of being left, that they insist that they got
+ exactly the man they wanted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will be frank enough with you to say that the convention did not
+ nominate my choice. I was for the nomination of General Gresham, believing
+ that, all things considered, he was the best and most available man&mdash;a
+ just judge, a soldier, a statesman. But there is something in the American
+ blood that bows to the will of the majority. There is that splendid fealty
+ and loyalty to the great principle upon which our Government rests; so
+ that when the convention reached its conclusion, every Republican was for
+ the nominee. There were good men from which to select this ticket. I made
+ my selection, and did the best I could to induce the convention to make
+ the same. Some people think, or say they think, that I made a mistake in
+ telling the name of the man whom I was for. But I always know whom I am
+ for, I always know what I am for, and I know the reasons why I am for the
+ thing or for the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it never once occurred to me that we could get a man nominated, or
+ elected, and keep his name a secret. When I am for a man I like to stand
+ by him, even while others leave, no matter if at last I stand alone. I
+ believe in doing things above board, in the light, in the wide air. No
+ snake ever yet had a skin brilliant enough, no snake ever crawled through
+ the grass secretly enough, silently or cunningly enough, to excite my
+ admiration. My admiration is for the eagle, the monarch of the empyrean,
+ who, poised on outstretched pinions, challenges the gaze of all the world.
+ Take your position in the sunlight; tell your neighbors and your friends
+ what you are for, and give your reasons for your position; and if that is
+ a mistake, I expect to live making only mistakes. I do not like the secret
+ way, but the plain, open way; and I was for one man, not because I had
+ anything against the others, who were all noble, splendid men, worthy to
+ be Presidents of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, leaving that subject, two parties again confront each other.
+ With parties as with persons goes what we call character. They have built
+ up in the nation in which they live reputation, and the reputation of a
+ party should be taken into consideration as well as the reputation of a
+ man. What is this party? What has it done? What has it endeavored to do?
+ What are the ideas in its brain? What are the hopes, the emotions and the
+ loves in its heart? Does it wish to make the world grander and better and
+ freer? Has it a high ideal? Does it believe in sunrise, or does it keep
+ its back to the sacred east of eternal progress? These are the questions
+ that every American should ask. Every man should take pride in this great
+ Nation&mdash;America, with a star of glory in her forehead!&mdash;and
+ every man should say, "I hope when I lie down in death I shall leave a
+ greater and grander country than when I was born."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the country of humanity. This is the Government of the poor. This
+ is where man has an even chance with his fellow-man. In this country the
+ poorest man holds in his hand at the day of election the same unit, the
+ same amount, of political power as the owner of a hundred millions. That
+ is the glory of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few days ago our party met in convention. Now, let us see who we are.
+ Let us see what the Republican party is. Let us see what is the spirit
+ that animates this great and splendid organization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I want you to think one moment, just one moment: What was this country
+ when the first Republican President was elected? Under the law then, every
+ Northern man was a bloodhound, pledged to catch human beings, who, led by
+ the light of the Northern Star, were escaping to free soil. Remember that.
+ And remember, too, that when our first President was elected we found a
+ treasury empty, the United States without credit, the great Republic
+ unable to borrow money from day to day to pay its current expenses.
+ Remember that. Think of the glory and grandeur of the Republican party
+ that took the country with an empty exchequer, and then think of what the
+ Democratic party says to-day of the pain and anguish it has suffered
+ administering the Government with a surplus!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember what the Republican party has done&mdash;what it has
+ accomplished for nationality, for liberty, for education and for the
+ civilization of our race. We must remember its courage in war, its honesty
+ in peace. Civil war tests to a certain degree the strength, the stability
+ and the patriotism of a country. After the war comes a greater strain. It
+ is a great thing to die for a cause, but it is a greater thing to live for
+ it. We must remember that the Republican party not only put down a
+ rebellion, not only created a debt of thousands and thousands of millions,
+ but that it had the industry and the intelligence to pay that debt, and to
+ give to the United States the best financial standing of any nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When this great party came together in Chicago what was the first thing
+ the convention did? What was the first idea in its mind? It was to honor
+ the memory of the greatest and grandest men the Republic has produced. The
+ first name that trembled upon the lips of the convention was that of
+ Abraham Lincoln&mdash;Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest and grandest
+ men who ever lived, and, in my judgment, the greatest man that ever sat in
+ the presidential chair. And why the greatest? Because the kindest, because
+ he had more mercy and love in his heart than were in the heart of any
+ other President. And so the convention paid its tribute to the great
+ soldier, to the man who led, in company with others, the great army of
+ freedom to victory, until the old flag floated over every inch of American
+ soil and every foot of that territory was dedicated to the eternal freedom
+ of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what next did this convention do? The next thing was to send fraternal
+ greetings to the Americans of Brazil. Why? Because Brazil had freed every
+ slave, and because that act left the New World, this hemisphere, without a
+ slave&mdash;left two continents dedicated to the freedom of man&mdash;so
+ that with that act of Brazil the New World, discovered only a few years
+ ago, takes the lead in the great march of human progress and liberty. That
+ is the second thing the convention did. Only a little while ago the
+ minister to this country from Brazil, acting under instructions from his
+ government, notified the President of the United States that this sublime
+ act had been accomplished&mdash;notified him that from the bodies of
+ millions of men the chains of slavery had fallen&mdash;an act great enough
+ to make the dull sky of half the world glow as though another morning had
+ risen upon another day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what did our President say? Was he filled with enthusiasm? Did his
+ heart beat quicker? Did the blood rush to his cheek? He simply said, as it
+ is reported, "that he hoped time would justify the wisdom of the measure."
+ It is precisely the same as though a man should quit a life of crime, as
+ though some gentleman in the burglar business should finally announce to
+ his friends: "I have made up my mind never to break into another house,"
+ and the friend should reply: "I hope that time will justify the propriety
+ of that resolution."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That was the first thing, with regard to the condition of the world, that
+ came into the mind of the Republican convention. And why was that? Because
+ the Republican party has fought for liberty from the day of its birth to
+ the present moment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what was the next? The next resolution passed by the convention was,
+ "that we earnestly hope, we shall soon congratulate our fellow-citizens of
+ Irish birth upon the peaceful recovery of home rule in Ireland."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wherever a human being wears a chain, there you will find the sympathy of
+ the Republican party. Wherever one languishes in a dungeon for having
+ raised the standard of revolt in favor of human freedom, there you will
+ find the sympathy of the Republican party. I believe in liberty for
+ Ireland, not because it is Ireland, but because they are human beings, and
+ I am for liberty, not as a prejudice, but as a principle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man rightfully in jail who wants to get out is a believer in liberty
+ as a prejudice; but when a man out of jail sees a man wrongfully in jail
+ and is willing to risk his life to give liberty to the man who ought to
+ have it, that is being in favor of liberty as a principle. So I am in
+ favor of liberty everywhere, all over the world, and wherever one man
+ tries to govern another simply because he has been born a lord or a duke
+ or a king, or wherever one governs another simply by brute force, I say
+ that that is oppression, and it is the business of Americans to do all
+ they can to give liberty to the oppressed everywhere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ireland should govern herself. Those who till the soil should own the
+ soil, or have an opportunity at least of becoming the owners. A few
+ landlords should not live in extravagance and luxury while those who toil
+ live on the leavings, on parings, on crumbs and crusts. The treatment of
+ Ireland by England has been one continuous crime. There is no meaner page
+ in history.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the next thing in this platform? And if there is anything in it
+ that anybody can object to, we will find it out to-night. The next thing
+ is the supremacy of the Nation.-Why, even the Democrats now believe in
+ that, and in their own platform are willing to commence that word with a
+ capital N. They tell us that they are in favor of an indissoluble Union&mdash;just
+ as I presume they always have been. But they now believe in a Union. So
+ does the Republican party. What else? The Republican party believes, not
+ in State Sovereignty, but in the preservation of all the rights reserved
+ to the States by the Constitution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me show you the difference: For instance, you make a contract with
+ your neighbor who lives next door&mdash;equal partners&mdash;and at the
+ bottom of the contract you put the following addition: "If there is any
+ dispute as to the meaning of this contract, my neighbor shall settle it,
+ and any settlement he shall make shall be final." Is there any use of
+ talking about being equal partners any longer? Any use of your talking
+ about being a sovereign partner? So, the Constitution of the United States
+ says: "If any question arises between any State and the Federal Government
+ it shall be decided by a Federal Court." That is the end of what they call
+ State Sovereignty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of a sovereign State that can make no treaty, that cannot levy war,
+ that cannot coin money. But we believe in maintaining the rights of the
+ States absolutely in their integrity, because we believe in local
+ self-government. We deny, however, that a State has any right to deprive a
+ citizen of his vote. We deny that the State has any right to violate the
+ Federal law, and we go further and we say that it is the duty of the
+ General Government to see to it that every citizen in every State shall
+ have the right to exercise all of his privileges as a citizen of the
+ United States&mdash;"the right of every lawful citizen," says our
+ platform, "native or foreign, white or black, to cast a free ballot."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me say one word about that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ballot is the king, the emperor, the ruler of America; it is the only
+ rightful sovereign of the Republic; and whoever refuses to count an honest
+ vote, or whoever casts a dishonest vote, is a traitor to the great
+ principle upon which our Government is founded. The man poisons, or
+ endeavors to poison, the springs of authority, the fountains of justice,
+ of rightful dominion and power; and until every citizen can cast his vote
+ everywhere in this land and have that vote counted, we are not a
+ republican people, we are not a civilized nation. The Republican party
+ will not have finished its mission until this country is civilized. That
+ is its business. It was born of a protest against barbarism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party was the organized conscience of the United States. It
+ had the courage to stand by what it believed to be right. There is
+ something better even than success in this world; or in other words, there
+ is only one kind of success, and that is to be for the right. Then
+ whatever happens, you have succeeded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, comes the next question. The Republican party not only wants to
+ protect every citizen in his liberty, in his right to vote, but it wants
+ to have that vote counted. And what else?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing in this platform is protection for American labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am going to tell you in a very brief way why I am in favor of
+ protection. First, I want this Republic substantially independent of the
+ rest of the world. You must remember that while people are civilized&mdash;some
+ of them&mdash;so that when they have a quarrel they leave it to the courts
+ to decide, nations still occupy the position of savages toward each other.
+ There is no national court to decide a question, consequently the question
+ is decided by the nations themselves, and you know what selfishness and
+ greed and power and the ideas of false glory will do and have done. So
+ that this Nation is not safe one moment from war. I want the Republic so
+ that it can live although at war with all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have every kind of climate that is worth having. Our country embraces
+ the marriage of the pine and palm; we have all there is of worth; it is
+ the finest soil in the world and the most ingenious people that ever
+ contrived to make the forces of nature do their work. I want this Nation
+ substantially independent, so that if every port were blockaded we would
+ be covered with prosperity as with a mantle. Then, too, the Nation that
+ cannot take care of itself in war is always at a disadvantage in peace.
+ That is one reason. Let me give you the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next reason is that whoever raises raw material and sells it will be
+ eternally poor. There is no State in this Union where the farmer raises
+ wheat and sells it, that the farmer is not poor. Why? He only makes one
+ profit, and, as a rule, that is a loss. The farmer that raises corn does
+ better, because he can sell, not corn, but pork and beef and horses. In
+ other words, he can make the second or third profit, and those farmers get
+ rich. There is a vast difference between the labor necessary to raise raw
+ material and the labor necessary to make the fabrics used by civilized
+ men. Remember that; and if you are confined simply to raw material your
+ labor will be unskilled; unskilled labor will be cheap, the raw material
+ will be cheap, and the result is that your country will grow poorer and
+ poorer, while the country that buys your raw material, makes it into
+ fabrics and sells it back to you, will grow intelligent and rich. I want
+ you to remember this, because it lies at the foundation of this whole
+ subject. Most people who talk on this point bring forward column after
+ column of figures, and a man to understand it would have to be a walking
+ table of logarithms. I do not care to discuss it that way. I want to get
+ at the foundation principles, so that you can give a reason, as well as
+ myself, why you are in favor of protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step. We will take a locomotive&mdash;a wonderful
+ thing&mdash;that horse of progress, with its flesh of iron and steel and
+ breath of flame&mdash;a wonderful thing. Let us see how it is made. Did
+ you ever think of the deft and cunning hands, of the wonderfully accurate
+ brains, that can make a thing like that? Did you ever think about it? How
+ much do you suppose the raw material lying in the earth was worth that was
+ changed into that locomotive? A locomotive that is worth, we will say,
+ twelve thousand dollars; how much was the raw material worth lying in the
+ earth, deposited there millions of years ago? Not as much as one dollar.
+ Let us, just for the sake of argument, say five dollars. What, then, has
+ labor added to the twelve thousand dollar locomotive? Eleven thousand nine
+ hundred and ninety-five dollars. Now, why? Because, just to the extent
+ that thought is mingled with labor, wages increase; just to the extent you
+ mix mind with muscle, you give value to labor; just to the extent that the
+ labor is skilled, deft, apt, just to that extent or in that proportion, is
+ the product valuable. Think about it. Raw material! There is a piece of
+ canvas five feet one way, three the other. Raw material would be to get a
+ man to whitewash it; that is raw material. Let a man of genius paint a
+ picture upon it; let him put in that picture the emotions of his heart,
+ the landscapes that have made poetry in his brain, the recollection of the
+ ones he loves, the prattle of children, a mother's tear, the sunshine of
+ her smile, and all the sweet and sacred memories of his life, and it is
+ worth five thousand dollars&mdash;ten thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Noise is raw material, but the great opera of "Tristan and Isolde" is the
+ result of skilled labor. There is the same difference between simple brute
+ strength and skilled labor that there is between noise and the symphonies
+ of Beethoven. I want you to get this in your minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, whoever sells raw material gives away the great profit. You
+ raise cotton and sell it; and just as long as the South does it and does
+ nothing more the South will be poor, the South will be ignorant, and it
+ will be solidly Democratic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, do not imagine that I am saying anything against the Democratic
+ party. I believe the Democratic party is doing the best it can under the
+ circumstances. You know my philosophy makes me very charitable. You find
+ out all about a man, all about his ancestors, and you can account for his
+ vote always. Why? Because there are causes and effects in nature. There
+ are sometimes antecedents and subsequents that have no relation to each
+ other, but at the same time, all through the web and woof of events, you
+ find these causes and effects, and if you only look far enough, you will
+ know why a man does as he does.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have nothing to say against the Democratic party. I want to talk against
+ ideas, not against people. I do not care anything about their candidates,
+ whether they are good, bad or indifferent. What, gentlemen, are your
+ ideas? What do you propose to do? What is your policy? That is what I want
+ to know, and I am willing to meet them upon the field of intellectual
+ combat. They are in possession; they are in the rifle pits of office; we
+ are in the open field, but we will plant our standard, the flag that we
+ love, without a stain, and under that banner, upon which so many dying men
+ have looked in the last hour when they thought of home and country&mdash;under
+ that flag we will carry the Democratic fortifications.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing; we want to get at this business so that we will understand
+ what we are doing. I do not believe in protecting American industry for
+ the sake of the capitalist, or for the sake of any class, but for the sake
+ of the whole Nation. And if I did not believe that it was for the best
+ interests of the whole Nation I should be opposed to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take this next step. Everybody, of course, cannot be a farmer.
+ Everybody cannot be a mechanic. All the people in the world cannot go at
+ one business. We must have a diversity of industry. I say, the greater
+ that diversity, the greater the development of brain in the country. We
+ then have what you might call a mental exchange; men are then pursuing
+ every possible direction in which the mind can go, and the brain is being
+ developed upon all sides; whereas, if you all simply cultivated the soil,
+ you would finally become stupid. If you all did only one business you
+ would become ignorant; but by pursuing all possible avocations that call
+ for taste, genius, calculation, discovery, ingenuity, invention&mdash;by
+ having all these industries open to the American people, we will be able
+ to raise great men and great women; and I am for protection, because it
+ will enable us to raise greater men and greater women. Not only because it
+ will make more money in less time, but because I would rather have greater
+ folks and less money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One man of genius makes a continent sublime. Take all the men of wealth
+ from Scotland&mdash;who would know it? Wipe their names from the pages of
+ history, and who would miss them? Nobody. Blot out one name, Robert Burns,
+ and how dim and dark would be the star of Scotland. The great thing is to
+ raise great folks. That is what we want to do, and we want to diversify
+ all the industries and protect them all. How much? Simply enough to
+ prevent the foreign article from destroying the domestic. But they say,
+ then the manufacturers will form a trust and put the prices up. If we
+ depend upon the foreign manufacturers will they not form trusts? We can
+ depend on competition. What do the Democrats want to do? They want to do
+ away with the tariff, so as to do away with the surplus. They want to put
+ down the tariff to do away with the surplus. If you put down the tariff a
+ small per cent, so that the foreign article comes to America, instead of
+ decreasing, you will increase the surplus. Where you get a dollar now, you
+ will get five then. If you want to stop getting anything from imports, you
+ want to put the tariff higher, my friend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let every Democrat understand this, and let him also understand that I
+ feel and know that he has the same interest in this great country that I
+ have, and let me be frank enough and candid enough and honest enough to
+ say that I believe the Democratic party advocates the policy it does
+ because it believes it will be the best for the country. But we differ
+ upon a question of policy, and the only way to argue it is to keep cool.
+ If a man simply shouts for his side, or gets mad, he is a long way from
+ any intellectual improvement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I am wrong in this, I want to be set right. If it is not to the
+ interest of America that the shuttle shall keep flying, that wheels shall
+ keep turning, that cloth shall be woven, that the forges shall flame and
+ that the smoke shall rise from the numberless chimneys&mdash;if that is
+ not to the interest of America, I want to know it. But I believe that upon
+ the great cloud of smoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of
+ this country, every man who will think can see the bow of national
+ promise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Oh, but," they say, "you put the prices so high." Let me give you two or
+ three facts: Only a few years ago I know that we paid one hundred and
+ twenty-five dollars a ton for Bessemer steel. At that time the tariff was
+ twenty-eight dollars a ton, I believe. I am not much on figures. I
+ generally let them add it up, and I pay it and go on about my business.
+ With the tariff at twenty-eight dollars a ton, that being a sufficient
+ protection against Great Britain, the ingenuity of America went to work.
+ Capital had the courage to try the experiment, and the result was that,
+ instead of buying thousands and thousands and thousands and tens of
+ thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of tons of steel from
+ Great Britain, we made it here in our own country, and it went down as low
+ as thirty dollars a ton. Under this "rascally protection" it went down to
+ one-fourth of what free trade England was selling it to us for.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so I might go on all night with a thousand other articles; all I want
+ to show you is that we want these industries here, and we want them
+ protected just as long as they need protection. We want to rock the cradle
+ just as long as there is a child in it. When the child gets to be seven or
+ eight feet high, and wears number twelve boots, we will say: "Now you will
+ have to shift for yourself." What we want is not simply for the
+ capitalist, not simply for the workingmen, but for the whole country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is any object worthy the attention of this or any other
+ government, it is the condition of the workingmen. What do they do? They
+ do all that is done. They are the Atlases upon whose mighty shoulders
+ rests the fabric of American civilization. The men of leisure are simply
+ the vines that run round this great sturdy oak of labor. If there is
+ anything noble enough, and splendid enough to claim the attention of a
+ nation, it is this question, and I hope the time will come when labor will
+ receive far more than it does to-day. I want you all to think of it&mdash;how
+ little, after all, the laboring man, even in America, receives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [A voice: "Under protection."]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, sir, even under protection. Take away that protection, and he is
+ instantly on a level with the European serf. And let me ask that good,
+ honest gentleman one question. If the laborer is better off in other
+ countries, why does not the American laborer emigrate to Europe?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no place in the wide world where, in my judgment, labor reaps its
+ true reward. There never has been. But I hope the time will come when the
+ American laborer will not only make a living for himself, for his wife and
+ children, but lay aside something to keep the roof above his head when the
+ winter of age may come. My sympathies are all with them, and I would
+ rather see thousands of... '' palaces of millionaires unroofed than to see
+ desolation in the cabins of the poor. I know that this world has been made
+ beautiful by those who have labored and those who have suffered. I know
+ that we owe to them the conveniences of life, and I have more
+ conveniences, I live a more luxurious life, than any monarch ever lived
+ one hundred years ago. I have more conveniences than any emperor could
+ have purchased with the revenue of his empire one hundred years ago. It is
+ worth something to live in this age of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what has made us such a great and splendid and progressive and
+ sensible people?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [A voice: "Free thought."]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Free thought, of course. Back of every invention is free thought. Why does
+ a man invent? Slavery never invents; freedom invents. A slave working for
+ his master tries to do the least work in the longest space of time, but a
+ free man, working for wife and children, tries to do the most work in the
+ shortest possible time. He is in love with what he is doing, consequently
+ his head and his hands go in partnership; muscle and brain unite, and the
+ result is that the head invents something to help the hands, and out of
+ the brain leaps an invention that makes a slave of the forces of nature&mdash;those
+ forces that have no backs to be whipped, those forces that shed no tears,
+ those forces that are destined to work forever for the happiness of the
+ human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Consequently I am for the protection of American labor, American genius,
+ American thought. I do not want to put our workingmen on a level with the
+ citizens of despotisms. Why do not the Democrats and others want the
+ Chinese to come here? Are they in favor of being protected? Why is it that
+ the Democrats and others object to penitentiary labor? I will tell you.
+ They say that a man in the penitentiary can produce cheaper. He has no
+ family to support, he has no children to look after; and they say, it is
+ hardly fair to make the father of a family and an honest man compete with
+ a criminal within the walls of a penitentiary. So they ask to be
+ protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the difference whether a man is in the penitentiary, or whether he
+ is in the despotism of some European state? "Ah, but," they say, "you let
+ the laborer of Europe come here himself." Yes, and I am in favor of it
+ always. Why? This world belongs to the human race. And when they come
+ here, in a little while they have our wants, and if they do not their
+ children do, and you will find the second generation of Irishmen or
+ Germans or of any other nationality just as patriotic as the tenth
+ generation from the first immigrant. I want them to come. Then they get
+ our habits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who wants free trade? Only those who want us for their customers, who
+ would like to sell us everything that we use&mdash;England, Germany, all
+ those countries. And why? Because one American will buy more than one
+ thousand, yes, five thousand Asiatics. America consumes more to-day than
+ China and India, more than ten billion would of semi-civilized and
+ barbarous peoples. What do they buy&mdash;what does England sell? A little
+ powder, a little whiskey, cheap calico, some blankets&mdash;a few things
+ of that kind. What does the American purchase? Everything that civilized
+ man uses or that civilized man can want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ England wants this market. Give her free trade, and she will become the
+ most powerful, the richest nation that ever had her territories marked
+ upon the map of the world. And what do we become? Nobodies. Poor.
+ Invention will be lost, our minds will grow clumsy, the wondrous, deft
+ hand of the mechanic paralyzed&mdash;a great raw material producing
+ country&mdash;ignorant, poor, barbaric. I want the cotton that is raised
+ in this country to be spun here, to be woven into cloth. I want everything
+ that we use to be made by Americans. We can make the cloth, we can raise
+ the food to feed and to clothe this Nation, and the Nation is now only in
+ its infancy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Somehow people do not understand this. They really think we are getting
+ filled up. Look at the map of this country. See the valley of the
+ Mississippi. Put your hand on it. Trace the rivers coming from the Rocky
+ Mountains and the Alleghanies, and sweeping down to the Gulf, and know
+ that in the valley of the Mississippi, with its wondrous tributaries,
+ there can live and there can be civilized and educated five hundred
+ millions of human beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us have some sense. I want to show you how far this goes beyond the
+ intellectual horizon of some people who hold office. For instance: We have
+ a tariff on lead, and by virtue of that tariff on lead nearly every silver
+ mine is worked in this country. Take the tariff from lead and there would
+ remain in the clutch of the rocks, of the quartz misers, for all time,
+ millions and millions of silver; but when that is put with lead, and lead
+ runs with silver, they can make enough on lead and silver to pay for the
+ mining, and the result is that millions and millions are added every year
+ to the wealth of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you another thing: There is not a State in the Union but has
+ something it wants protected. And Louisiana&mdash;a Democratic State, and
+ will be just as long as Democrats count the votes&mdash;Louisiana has the
+ impudence to talk about free trade and yet it wants its sugar protected.
+ Kentucky says free trade, except hemp; and if anything needs protection it
+ is hemp. Missouri says hemp and lead. Colorado, lead and wool; and so you
+ can make the tour of the States and every one is for free trade with an
+ exception&mdash;that exception being to the advantage of that State, and
+ when you put the exceptions together you have protected the industries of
+ all the States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the Democratic party is in favor of anything, it is in favor of
+ free trade. If President Clevelands message means anything it means free
+ trade. And why? Because it says to every man that gets protection: If you
+ will look about you, you will find that you pay for something else that is
+ protected more than you receive in benefits for what is protected of
+ yours; consequently the logic of that is free trade. They believe in it I
+ have no doubt. When the whole world is civilized, when men are everywhere
+ free, when they all have something like the same tastes and ambitions,
+ when they love their families and their children, when they want the same
+ kind of food and roofs above them&mdash;if that day shall ever come&mdash;the
+ world can afford to have its trade free, but do not put the labor of
+ America on a par with the labor of the Old World.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, about taxes&mdash;internal revenue. That was resorted to in time of
+ war. The Democratic party made it necessary. We had to tax everything to
+ beat back the Democratic hosts, North and South. Now, understand me. I
+ know that thousands and hundreds of thousands of individual Democrats were
+ for this country, and were as pure patriots as ever marched beneath the
+ flag. I know that&mdash;hundreds of thousands of them. I am speaking of
+ the party organization that staid at home and passed resolutions that
+ every time the Union forces won a victory the Constitution had been
+ violated. I understand that. Those taxes were put on in time of war,
+ because it was necessary. Direct taxation is always odious. A government
+ dislikes, to be represented among all the people by a tax gatherer, by an
+ official who visits homes carrying consternation and grief wherever he
+ goes. Everybody, from the most ancient times of which I have ever read,
+ until the present moment, dislikes a tax gatherer. I have never yet seen
+ in any cemetery a monument with this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of
+ the man who loved to pay his taxes." It is far better if we can collect
+ the needed revenue of this Government indirectly. But, they say, you must
+ not take the taxes off tobacco; you must not take the taxes off alcohol or
+ spirits or whiskey. Why? Because it is immoral to take off the taxes. Do
+ you believe that there was, on the average, any more drunkenness in this
+ country before the tax was put on than there is now? I do not. I believe
+ there is as much liquor drank to-day, per capita, as there ever was in the
+ United States. I will not blame the Democratic party. I do not care what
+ they drink. What they think is what I have to do with. I will be plain
+ with them, because I know lots of fellows in the Democratic party, and
+ that is the only bad thing about them&mdash;splendid fellows. And I know a
+ good many Republicans, and I am willing to take my oath that that is the
+ only good thing about them. So, let us all be fair.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want the taxes taken from tobacco and whiskey; and why? Because it is a
+ war measure that should not be carried on in peace; and in the second
+ place, I do not want that system inaugurated in this country, unless there
+ is an absolute necessity for it, and the moment the necessity is gone,
+ stop it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moral side of this question? Only a couple of years ago, I think it
+ was, the Prohibitionists said that they wanted this tax taken from
+ alcohol. Why? Because as long as the Government licensed, as long as the
+ Government taxed and received sixty millions of dollars in revenue, just
+ so long the Government would make this business respectable, just so long
+ the Government would be in partnership with this liquor crime. That is
+ what they said then. Now we say take the tax off, and they say it is
+ immoral. Now, I have a little philosophy about this. I may be entirely
+ wrong, but I am going to give it to you. You never can make great men and
+ great women, by keeping them out of the way of temptation. You have to
+ educate them to withstand temptation. It is all nonsense to tie a man's
+ hands behind him and then praise him for not picking pockets. I believe
+ that temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. Just as life becomes
+ valuable, people take care of it. Just as life is great, and splendid and
+ noble, as long as the future is a kind of gallery filled with the ideal,
+ just so long will we take care of ourselves and avoid dissipation of every
+ kind. Do you know, I believe, as much as I believe that I am living, that
+ if the Mississippi itself were pure whiskey and its banks loaf sugar, and
+ all the flats covered with mint, and all the bushes grew teaspoons and
+ tumblers, there would not be any more drunkenness than there is now!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as you say to your neighbor "you must not" there is something in
+ that neighbor that says, "Well I will determine that for myself, and you
+ just say that again and I will take a drink if it kills me." There is no
+ moral question involved in it, except this: Let the burden of government
+ rest as lightly as possible upon the shoulders of the people, and let it
+ cause as little irritation as possible. Give liberty to the people. I am
+ willing that the women who wear silks, satins and diamonds; that the
+ gentlemen who smoke Havana cigars and drink champagne and Chateau Yquem; I
+ am perfectly willing that they shall pay my taxes and support this
+ Government, and I am willing that the man who does not do that, but is
+ willing to take the domestic article, should go tax free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. You recollect that little old
+ story about a couple of men who were having a discussion on this
+ prohibition question, and the man on the other side said to the
+ Prohibitionist: "How would you like to live in a community where every
+ body attended to his own business, where every body went to bed regularly
+ at night, got up regularly in the morning; where every man, woman and
+ child was usefully employed during the day; no backbiting, no drinking of
+ whiskey, no cigars, and where they all attended divine services on Sunday,
+ and where no profane language was used?" "Why," said he, "such a place
+ would be a paradise, or heaven; but there is no such place." "Oh," said
+ the other man, "every well regulated penitentiary is that way." So much
+ for the moral side of the question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another point that the Republican party calls the attention of the country
+ to is the use that has been made of the public land. Oh, say the
+ Democratic party, see what States, what empires have been given away by
+ the Republican party&mdash;and see what the Republican party did with it.
+ Road after road built to the great Pacific. Our country unified&mdash;the
+ two oceans, for all practical purposes, washing one shore. That is what it
+ did, and what else? It has given homes to millions of people in a
+ civilized land, where they can get all the conveniences of civilization.
+ And what else? Fifty million acres have been taken back by the Government.
+ How was this done? It was by virtue of the provisions put in the original
+ grants by the Republican party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing to which the Republican party has called the
+ attention of the country, and that is the admission of new States where
+ there are people enough to form a State. Now, with a solid South, with the
+ assistance of a few Democrats from the North, comes a State, North Dakota,
+ with plenty of population, a magnificent State, filled with intelligence
+ and prosperity. It knocks at the door for admission, and what is the
+ question asked by this administration? Not "Have you the land, have you
+ the wealth, have you the men and women?" but "Are you Democratic or
+ Republican?" And being intelligent people, they answer: "We are
+ Republicans." And the solid South, assisted by the Democrats of the North,
+ says to that people: "The door is shut; we will not have you." Why?
+ "Because you would add two to the Republican majority in the Senate." Is
+ that the spirit in which a nation like this should be governed? When a
+ State asks for admission, no matter what the politics of its people may
+ be, I say, admit that State; put a star on the flag that will glitter for
+ her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing the Republican party says is, gold and silver shall both be
+ money. You cannot make every thing payable in gold&mdash;that would be
+ unfair to the poor man. You shall not make every thing payable in silver&mdash;that
+ would be unfair to the capitalist; but it shall be payable in gold and
+ silver. And why ought we to be in favor of silver? Because we are the
+ greatest silver producing nation in the world; and the value of a thing,
+ other things being equal, depends on its uses, and being used as money
+ adds to the value of silver. And why should we depreciate one of our own
+ products by saying that we will not take it as money? I believe in
+ bimetalism, gold and silver, and you cannot have too much of either or
+ both. No nation ever died of a surplus, and in all the national cemeteries
+ of the earth you will find no monument erected to a nation that died from
+ having too much silver. Give me all the silver I want and I am happy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Republican party has always been sound on finance. It always knew you
+ could not pay a promise with a promise. The Republican party always had
+ sense enough to know that money could not be created by word of mouth,
+ that you could not make it by a statute, or by passing resolutions in a
+ convention. It always knew that you had to dig it out of the ground by
+ good, honest work. The Republican party always knew that money is a
+ commodity, exchangeable for all other commodities, but a commodity just as
+ much as wheat or corn, and you can no more make money by law than you can
+ make wheat or corn by law. You can by law, make a promise that will to a
+ certain extent take the place of money until the promise is paid. It seems
+ to me that any man who can even understand the meaning of the word
+ democratic can understand that theory of money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing right in this platform. Free schools for the education of
+ all the children in the land. The Republican party believes in looking out
+ for the children. It knows that the a, b, c's are the breastworks of human
+ liberty. They know that every schoolhouse is an arsenal, a fort, where
+ missiles are made to hurl against the ignorance and prejudice of mankind;
+ so they are for the free school.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what else? They are for reducing the postage one-half. Why? Simply for
+ the diffusion of intelligence. What effect will that have? It will make us
+ more and more one people. The oftener we communicate with each other the
+ more homogeneous we become. The more we study the same books and read the
+ same papers the more we swap ideas, the more we become true Americans,
+ with the same spirit in favor of liberty, progress and the happiness of
+ the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What next? The Republican party says, let us build ships for America&mdash;for
+ American sailors. Let our fleets cover the seas, and let our men-of-war
+ protect the commerce of the Republic&mdash;not that we can wrong some weak
+ nation, but so that we can keep the world from doing wrong to us. This is
+ all. I have infinite contempt for civilized people who have guns carrying
+ balls weighing several hundred pounds, who go and fight poor, naked
+ savages that can only throw boomerangs and stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hold such a nation in infinite contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else is in this platform? You have no idea of the number of things in
+ it till you look them over. It wants to cultivate friendly feelings with
+ all the governments in North, Central and South America, so that the great
+ continents can be one&mdash;instigated, moved, pervaded, inspired by the
+ same great thoughts. In other words, we want to civilize this continent
+ and the continent of South America. And what else? This great platform is
+ in favor of paying&mdash;not giving, but paying&mdash;pensions to every
+ man who suffered in the great war. What would we have said at the time?
+ What, if the North could have spoken, would it have said to the heroes of
+ Gettysburg on the third day? "Stand firm! We will empty the treasures of
+ the Nation at your feet." They had the courage and the heroism to keep the
+ hosts of rebellion back without that promise, and is there an American
+ to-day that can find it in his heart to begrudge one solitary dollar that
+ has found its way into the pocket of a maimed soldier, or into the hands
+ of his widow or his orphan?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What would we have offered to the sailors under Farragut on condition that
+ they would pass Forts St. Phillip and Jackson? What would we have offered
+ to the soldiers under Grant in the Wilderness? What to the followers of
+ Sherman and Sheridan? Do you know, I can hardly conceive of a spirit
+ contemptible enough&mdash;and I am not now alluding to the President of
+ the United States&mdash;I can hardly conceive of a spirit contemptible
+ enough to really desire to keep a maimed soldier from the bounty of this
+ Nation. It would be a disgrace and a dishonor if we allowed them to die in
+ poorhouses, to drop by life's highway and to see their children mourning
+ over their poor bodies, glorious with scars, maimed into immortality. I
+ may do a great many bad things before I die, but I give you my word that
+ so long as I live I will never vote for any President that vetoed a
+ pension bill unless upon its face it was clear that the man was not a
+ wounded soldier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What next in this platform? For the protection of American homes. I am a
+ believer in the home. I have said, and I say again&mdash;the hearthstone
+ is the foundation of the great temple; the fireside is the altar where the
+ true American worships. I believe that the home, the family, is the unit
+ of good government, and I want to see the aegis of the great Republic over
+ millions of happy homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is all there is in this world worth living for. Honor, place, fame,
+ glory, riches&mdash;they are ashes, smoke, dust, disappointment, unless
+ there is somebody in the world you love, somebody who loves you; unless
+ there is some place that you can call home, some place where you can feel
+ the arms of children around your neck, some place that is made absolutely
+ sacred by the love of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I am for this platform. I am for the election of Harrison and Morton,
+ and although I did nothing toward having that ticket nominated, because, I
+ tell you, I was for Gresham, yet I will do as much toward electing the
+ candidates, within my power, as any man who did vote on the winning side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have a good ticket, a noble, gallant soldier at the head; that is
+ enough for me. He is in favor of liberty and progress. And you have for
+ Vice-President a man that you all know better than I do, but a good,
+ square, intelligent, generous man. That is enough for me. And these men
+ are standing on the best platform that was ever adopted by the Republican
+ party&mdash;a platform that stands for education, liberty, the free
+ ballot, American industry; for the American policy that has made us the
+ richest and greatest Nation of the globe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0017" id="link0017">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ REUNION ADDRESS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The Elmwood Reunion, participated in by six regiments,
+ came to a glorious close last evening. There were thousands
+ of people present. The city was gayly decorated with flags
+ and hunting, while pictures and busts of Col. Ingersoll were
+ in every show window. From early in the morning until noon,
+ delegations kept coming in, A special train arrived from
+ Peoria at 10.50 o'clock, bearing a large delegation of old
+ soldiers together with Col. Ingersoll and his daughter Maud.
+ He was met by the reception committee, and marched up the
+ street escorted by an army of veterans. When he arrived on
+ the west side of the public square, the lines were opened,
+ and he marched between, in review of his old friends and
+ comrades. The parade started as soon as it could be formed,
+ after the arrival of the special train.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll was greeted by a salute of thirteen guns from
+ Peoria's historic cannon, as he was escorted to the grand
+ stand by Spencer's band and the Peoria Veterans.
+
+ The reviewing stand was on the west side of the park. Here
+ the parade was seen by Col. Ingersoll and the other
+ distinguished guests, among whom were Congressmen Graff and
+ Prince, Mayor Day, Judges N. E. Worthington and I. C.
+ Pinkney, and the Hon. Clark E. Carr, who also made a speech
+ saying that the people cannot estimate the majesty of the
+ eloquence of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, keeping alive the
+ flame of patriotism from 1860 to the present time. .
+
+ The parade was an imposing one, there were fully two
+ thousand five hundred old veterans in line who passed In
+ review before Col. Ingersoll, each one doffing his hat as he
+ marched by. The most pleasing feature of the exercises of
+ the day was the representation of the Living Flag by one
+ hundred and fifty little girls of Elmwood, at ten o' clock
+ under the direction of Col. Lem. H. Wiley, of Peoria. The
+ flag was presented on a large Inclined amphitheatre at the
+ left of the grand stand, and was the finest thing ever
+ witnessed lu this part of the country.
+
+ Following the presentation of the Living Flag, Chairman
+ Brown called the Reunion to order, and Col. Lem. H. Wiley,
+ National Bugler gave the assembly call.
+
+ Following the assembly call a male chorus rendered a song,
+ "Ring O Bells." The song was composed for the occasion by
+ Mr. E. R. Brown and was as follows:
+
+ "Welcome now that leader fearless,
+ Free of thought and grand of brain,
+ King of hearts and speaker peerless,
+ Hail our Ingersoll again." ***
+
+ Then Chairman, E. R. Brown, took charge of the meeting and
+ introduced Col. Ingersoll as the greatest of living orators,
+ referring to the time that the Colonel declared, a quarter
+ of a century ago, in Rouse's Hall, Peoria, that from that
+ time forth there would be one free man in Illinois, and
+ expressing Indebtedness to him for what had been done since
+ for the freedom and happiness of mankind, by his mighty
+ brain, his great spirit and his gentle heart.
+
+ He then spoke of Col. Ingersoll's residence in Peoria
+ county, paying an eloquent tribute to him, and concluded by
+ leading the distinguished gentleman to the front of the
+ stand. The appearance of Col. Ingersoll was a signal for a
+ mighty shout, which was heartily joined in by everybody
+ present, even the little girls composing the living flag,
+ cheering and waving their banners.
+
+ It was fully ten minutes before the cheering had subsided,
+ and when Col. Ingersoll commenced to speak it was renewed
+ and he was forced to wait for several minutes more. When
+ quiet was restored, he opened his address, and for an hour
+ and a half he held the vast audience spell-bound with his
+ eloquence and wit.
+
+ After Col. Ingersoll's speech the veterans crowded around
+ the stand to meet and grasp the hand of their comrade, and
+ the boys of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, his old regiment,
+ were especially profuse in their congratulations and thanks
+ for the splendid address he had delivered. His speeeh was
+ off-hand, only occasional reference being made to his short
+ notes. The Colonel then left the Park amid the yells of
+ delight of the old soldiers, every man of whom endeavored to
+ grasp his hand.
+
+ In the afternoon the veterans assembled in Liberty Hall by
+ themselves, the room being filled. Col. Ingersoll appeared
+ and was greeted with such cheers as he had not received
+ during the entire day. He then said good-bye to his old
+ comrades.&mdash;Chicago Inter-ocean and Peoria papers, Sept. 6th,
+ 1896.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Elmwood, Ills.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1895.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen, Fellow-citizens, Old Friends and Comrades:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gives me the greatest pleasure to meet again those with whom I became
+ acquainted in the morning of my life. It is now afternoon. The sun of life
+ is slowly sinking in the west, and, as the evening comes, nothing can be
+ more delightful than to see again the faces that I knew in youth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When first I knew you the hair was brown; it is now white. The lines were
+ not quite so deep, and the eyes were not quite so dim. Mingled with this
+ pleasure is sadness,&mdash;sadness for those who have passed away&mdash;for
+ the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet I am not sure that we ought to mourn for the dead. I do not know
+ which is better&mdash;life or death. It may be that death is the greatest
+ gift that ever came from nature's open hands. We do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing of which I am certain, and that is, that if we could
+ live forever here, we would care nothing for each other. The fact that we
+ must die, the fact that the feast must end, brings our souls together, and
+ treads the weeds from out the paths between our hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so it may be, after all, that love is a little flower that grows on
+ the crumbling edge of the grave. So it may be, that were it not for death
+ there would be no love, and without love all life would be a curse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say it gives me great pleasure to meet you once again; great pleasure to
+ congratulate you on your good fortune&mdash;the good fortune of being a
+ citizen of the first and grandest republic ever established upon the face
+ of the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is a royal fortune. To be an heir of all the great and brave men of
+ this land, of all the good, loving and patient women; to be in possession
+ of the blessings that they have given, should make every healthy citizen
+ of the United States feel like a millionaire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, to-day, is the most prosperous country on the globe; and it is
+ something to be a citizen of this country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is well, too, whenever we meet, to draw attention to what has been done
+ by our ancestors. It is well to think of them and to thank them for all
+ their work, for all their courage, for all their toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three hundred years ago our country was a vast wilderness, inhabited by a
+ few savages. Three hundred years ago&mdash;how short a time; hardly a tick
+ of the great clock of eternity&mdash;three hundred years; not a second in
+ the life even of this planet&mdash;three hundred years ago, a wilderness;
+ three hundred years ago, inhabited by a few savages; three hundred years
+ ago a few men in the Old World, dissatisfied, brave and adventurous,
+ trusted their lives to the sea and came to this land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1776 there were only three millions of people all told. These men
+ settled on the shores of the sea. These men, by experience, learned to
+ govern themselves. These men, by experience, found that a man should be
+ respected in the proportion that he was useful. They found, by experience,
+ that titles were of no importance; that the real thing was the man, and
+ that the real things in the man were heart and brain. They found, by
+ experience, how to govern themselves, because there was nobody else here
+ when they came. The gentlemen who had been in the habit of governing their
+ fellow-men staid at home, and the men who had been in the habit of being
+ governed came here, and, consequently, they had to govern themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And finally, educated by experience, by the rivers and forests, by the
+ grandeur and splendor of nature, they began to think that this continent
+ should not belong to any other; that it was great enough to count one, and
+ that they had the intelligence and manhood to lay the foundations of a
+ nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would be impossible to pay too great and splendid a tribute to the
+ great and magnificent souls of that day. They saw the future. They saw
+ this country as it is now, and they endeavored to lay the foundation deep;
+ they endeavored to reach the bed-rock of human rights, the bed-rock of
+ justice. And thereupon they declared that all men were born equal; that
+ all the children of nature had at birth the same rights, and that all men
+ had the right to pursue the only good,&mdash;happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what did they say? They said that men should govern men; that the
+ power to govern should come from the consent of the governed, not from the
+ clouds, not from some winged phantom of the air, not from the aristocracy
+ of ether. They said that this power should come from men; that the men
+ living in this world should govern it, and that the gentlemen who were
+ dead should keep still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They took another step, and said that church and state should forever be
+ divorced. That is no harm to real religion. It never was, because real
+ religion means the doing of justice; real religion means the giving to
+ others every right you claim for yourself; real religion consists in
+ duties of man to man, in feeding the hungry, in clothing the naked, in
+ defending the innocent, and in saying what you believe to be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers had enough sense to say that, and a man to do that in 1776 had
+ to be a pretty big fellow. It is not so much to say it now, because they
+ set the example; and, upon these principles of which I have spoken, they
+ fought the war of the Revolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At no time, probably, were the majority of our forefathers in favor of
+ independence, but enough of them were on the right side, and they finally
+ won a victory. And after the victory, those that had not been even in
+ favor of independence became, under the majority rule, more powerful than
+ the heroes of the Revolution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then it was that our fathers made a mistake. We have got to praise them
+ for what they did that was good, and we will mention what they did that
+ was wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They forgot the principles for which they fought. They forgot the
+ sacredness of human liberty, and, in the name of freedom, they made a
+ mistake and put chains on the limbs of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That was their error; that was the poison that entered the American blood;
+ that was the corrupting influence that demoralized presidents and priests;
+ that was the influence that corrupted the United States of America.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That mistake, of course, had to be paid for, as all mistakes in nature
+ have to be paid for. And not only do you pay for your mistake itself, but
+ you pay at least ten per cent, compound interest. Whenever you do wrong,
+ and nobody finds it out, do not imagine you have gotten over it; you have
+ not. Nature knows it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The consequences of every bad act are the invisible police that no prayers
+ can soften, and no gold can bribe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recollect that. Recollect, that for every bad act, there will be laid upon
+ your shoulder the arresting hand of the consequences; and it is precisely
+ the same with a nation as it is with an individual. You have got to pay
+ for all of your mistakes, and you have got to pay to the uttermost
+ farthing. That is the only forgiveness known in nature. Nature never
+ settles unless she can give a receipt in full.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know a great many men differ with me, and have all sorts of bankruptcy
+ systems, but Nature is not built that way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Finally, slavery took possession of the Government. Every man who wanted
+ an office had to be willing to step between a fugitive slave and his
+ liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slavery corrupted the courts, and made judges decide that the child born
+ in the State of Pennsylvania, whose mother had been a slave, could not be
+ free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That was as infamous a decision as was ever rendered, and yet the people,
+ in the name of the law, did this thing, and the Supreme Court of the
+ United States did not know right from wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These dignified gentlemen thought that labor could be paid by lashes on
+ the back&mdash;which was a kind of legal tender&mdash;and finally an
+ effort was made to subject the new territory&mdash;the Nation&mdash;to the
+ institution of slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then we had a war with Mexico, in which we got a good deal of glory and
+ one million square miles of land, but little honor. I will admit that we
+ got but little honor out of that war. That territory they wanted to give
+ to the slaveholder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1803 we purchased from Napoleon the Great, one million square miles of
+ land, and then, in 1821, we bought Florida from Spain. So that, when the
+ war came, we had about three million square miles of new land. The object
+ was to subject all this territory to slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea was to go on and sell the babes from their mothers until time
+ should be no more. The idea was to go on with the branding-iron and the
+ whip. The idea was to make it a crime to teach men, human beings, to read
+ and write; to make every Northern man believe that he was a bulldog, a
+ bloodhound to track down men and women, who, with the light of the North
+ Star in their eyes, were seeking the free soil of Great Britain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, in these times we had lots of mean folks. Let us remember that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And all at once, under the forms of law, under the forms of our
+ Government, the greatest man under the flag was elected President. That
+ man was Abraham Lincoln. And then it was that those gentlemen of the South
+ said: "We will not be governed by the majority; we will be a law unto
+ ourselves."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me tell you here to-day&mdash;I am somewhat older than I used to
+ be; I have a little philosophy now that I had not at the nine o'clock in
+ the morning portion of my life&mdash;and I do not blame anybody. I do not
+ blame the South; I do not blame the Confederate soldier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She&mdash;the South&mdash;was the fruit of conditions. She was born to
+ circumstances stronger than herself; and do you know, according to my
+ philosophy, (which is not quite orthodox), every man and woman in the
+ whole world are what conditions have made them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So let us have some sense. The South said, "We will not submit; this is
+ not a nation, but a partnership of States." I am willing to go so far as
+ to admit that the South expressed the original idea of the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But now the question was, to whom did the newly acquired property belong?
+ New States had been carved out of that territory; the soil of these States
+ had been purchased with the money of the Republic, and had the South the
+ right to take these States out of the Republic? That was the question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great West had another interest, and that was that no enemy, no other
+ nation, should control the mouth of the Mississippi. I regard the
+ Mississippi River as Nature's protest against secession. The old
+ Mississippi River says, and swears to it, that this country shall be one,
+ now and forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was to be done? The South said, "We will never remain," and the North
+ said, "You shall not go." It was a little slow about saying it, it is
+ true. Some of the best Republicans in the North said, "Let it go." But the
+ second, sober thought of the great North said, "No, this is our country
+ and we are going to keep it on the map of the world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And some who had been Democrats wheeled into line, and hundreds and
+ thousands said, "This is our country," and finally, when the Government
+ called for volunteers, hundreds and thousands came forward to offer their
+ services. Nothing more sublime was ever seen in the history of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I congratulate you to-day that you live in a country that furnished the
+ greatest army that ever fought for human liberty in any country round the
+ world. I want you to know that. I want you to know that the North, East
+ and West furnished the greatest army that ever fought for human liberty. I
+ want you to know that Gen. Grant commanded more men, men fighting for the
+ right, not for conquest, than any other general who ever marshaled the
+ hosts of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us remember that, and let us be proud of it. The millions who poured
+ from the North for the defence of the flag&mdash;the story of their
+ heroism has been told to you again and again. I have told it myself many
+ times. It is known to every intelligent man and woman in the world.
+ Everybody knows how much we suffered. Everybody knows how we poured out
+ money like water; how we spent it like leaves of the forest. Everybody
+ knows how the brave blood was shed. Everybody knows the story of the
+ great, the heroic struggle, and everybody knows that at last victory came
+ to our side, and how the last sword of the Rebellion was handed to Gen.
+ Grant. There is no need to tell that story again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the question now, as we look back, is, was this country worth saving?
+ Was the blood shed in vain? Were the lives given for naught? That is the
+ question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This country, according to my idea, is the one success of the world. Men
+ here have more to eat, more to wear, better houses, and, on the average, a
+ better education than those of any other nation now living, or any that
+ has passed away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was the country worth saving?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ See what we have done in this country since 1860. We were not much of a
+ people then, to be honor bright about it. We were carrying, in the great
+ race of national life, the weight of slavery, and it poisoned us; it
+ paralyzed our best energies; it took from our politics the best minds; it
+ kept from the bench the greatest brains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But what have we done since 1860, since we really became a free people,
+ since we came to our senses, since we have been willing to allow a man to
+ express his honest thoughts on every subject?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you know how much good we did? The war brought men together from every
+ part of the country and gave them an opportunity to compare their
+ foolishness. It gave them an opportunity to throw away their prejudices,
+ to find that a man who differed with them on every subject might be the
+ very best of fellows. That is what the war did. We have been broadening
+ ever since.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I sometimes have thought it did men good to make the trip to California in
+ 1849. As they went over the plains they dropped their prejudices on the
+ way. I think they did, and that's what killed the grass.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But to come back to my question, what have we done since 1860?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From 1860 to 1880, in spite of the waste of war, in spite of all the
+ property destroyed by flame, in spite of all the waste, our profits were
+ one billion three hundred and seventy-four million dollars. Think of it!
+ From 1860 to 1880! That is a vast sum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From 1880 to 1890 our profits were two billion one hundred and thirty-nine
+ million dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men may talk against wealth as much as they please; they may talk about
+ money being the root of all evil, but there is little real happiness in
+ this world without some of it. It is very handy when staying at home and
+ it is almost indispensable when you travel abroad. Money is a good thing.
+ It makes others happy; it makes those happy whom you love, and if a man
+ can get a little together, when the night of death drops the curtain upon
+ him, he is satisfied that he has left a little to keep the wolf from the
+ door of those who, in life, were dear to him. Yes, money is a good thing,
+ especially since special providence has gone out of business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I can see to-day something beyond the wildest dream of any patriot who
+ lived fifty years ago. The United States to-day is the richest nation on
+ the face of the earth. The old nations of the world, Egypt, India, Greece,
+ Rome, every one of them, when compared with this great Republic, must be
+ regarded as paupers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How much do you suppose this Nation is worth to-day? I am talking about
+ land and cattle, products, manufactured articles and railways. Over
+ seventy thousand million dollars. Just think of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take a thousand dollars and then take nine hundred and ninety-nine
+ thousand; so you will have one thousand piles of one thousand each. That
+ makes only a million, and yet the United States today is worth seventy
+ thousand millions. This is thirty-five percent, more than Great Britain is
+ worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are a great Nation. We have got the land. This land was being made for
+ many millions of years. Its soil was being made by the great lakes and
+ rivers, and being brought down from the mountains for countless ages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This continent was standing like a vast pan of milk, with the cream rising
+ for millions of years, and we were the chaps that got there when the
+ skimming commenced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are rich, and we ought to be rich. It is our own fault if we are not.
+ In every department of human endeavor, along every path and highway, the
+ progress of the Republic has been marvelous, beyond the power of language
+ to express.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me show you: In 1860 the horse-power of all the engines, the
+ locomotives and the steamboats that traversed the lakes and rivers&mdash;the
+ entire power&mdash;was three million five hundred thousand. In 1890 the
+ horse-power of engines and locomotives and steamboats was over seventeen
+ million.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of that and what it means! Think of the forces at work for the
+ benefit of the United States, the machines doing the work of thousands and
+ millions of men!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And remember that every engine that puffs is puffing for you; every road
+ that runs is running for you. I want you to know that the average man and
+ woman in the United States to-day has more of the conveniences of life
+ than kings and queens had one hundred years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, we are getting along.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860 we used one billion eight hundred million dollars' worth of
+ products, of things manufactured and grown, and we sent to other countries
+ two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1893 we used three billion eighty-nine million dollars' worth, and we
+ sent to other countries six hundred and fifty-four million dollars' worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see, these vast sums are almost inconceivable. There is not a man
+ to-day with brains large enough to understand these figures; to understand
+ how many cars this money put upon the tracks, how much coal was devoured
+ by the locomotives, how many men plowed and worked in the fields, how many
+ sails were given to the wind, how many ships crossed the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you, there is no man able to think of the ships that were built,
+ the cars that were made, the mines that were opened, the trees that were
+ felled&mdash;no man has imagination enough to grasp the meaning of it all.
+ No man has any conception of the sea till he crosses it. I knew nothing of
+ how broad this country is until I went over it in a slow train.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since 1860 the productive power of the United States has more than
+ trebled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I like to talk about these things, because they mean good houses, carpets
+ on the floors, pictures on the walls, some books on the shelves. They mean
+ children going to school with their stomachs full of good food, prosperous
+ men and proud mothers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All my life I have taken a much deeper interest in what men produce than
+ in what nature does. I would rather see the prairies, with the oats and
+ the wheat and the waving corn, and the schoolhouse, and hear the thrush
+ sing amid the happy homes of prosperous men and women&mdash;I would rather
+ see these things than any range of mountains in the world. Take it as you
+ will, a mountain is of no great value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860 our land was worth four billion five hundred million dollars; in
+ 1890 it was worth fourteen billion dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860 all the railroads in the United States were worth four hundred
+ million dollars, now they are worth a little less than ten thousand
+ million dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to understand what these figures mean.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thirty years we spent, on an average, one million dollars a day in
+ building railroads.&mdash;I want you to think what that means. All that
+ money had to be dug out of the ground. It had to be made by raising
+ something or manufacturing something. We did not get it by writing essays
+ on finance, or discussing the silver question. It had to be made with the
+ ax, the plow, the reaper, the mower; in every form of industry; all to
+ produce these splendid results.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have railroads enough now to make seven tracks around the great globe,
+ and enough left for side tracks. That is what we have done here, in what
+ the European nations are pleased to call "the new world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am telling you these things because you may not know them, and I did not
+ know them myself until a few days ago. I am anxious to give away
+ information, for it is only by giving it away that you can keep it. When
+ you have told it, you remember it. It is with information as it is with
+ liberty, the only way to be dead sure of it is to give it to other people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860 the houses in the United States, the cabins on the frontier, the
+ buildings in the cities, were worth six thousand million dollars. Now they
+ are worth over twenty-two thousand million dollars. To talk about figures
+ like these is enough to make a man dizzy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860 our animals of all kinds, including the Illinois deer&mdash;commonly
+ called swine&mdash;the oxen and horses, and all others, were worth about
+ one thousand million dollars; now they are worth about four thousand
+ million dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are we not getting rich? Our national debt today is nothing. It is like a
+ man who owes a cent and has a dollar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Since 1860 we have been industrious. We have created two million five
+ hundred thousand new farms. Since 1860 we have done a good deal of
+ plowing; there have been a good many tired legs. I have been that way
+ myself. Since 1860 we have put in cultivation two hundred million acres of
+ land. Illinois, the best State in the Union, has thirty-five million acres
+ of land, and yet, since 1860, we have put in cultivation enough land to
+ make six States of the size of Illinois. That will give you some idea of
+ the quantity of work we have done. I will admit I have not done much of it
+ myself, but I am proud of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860 we had four million five hundred and sixty-five thousand farmers
+ in this country, whose land and implements were worth over sixteen
+ thousand million dollars. The farmers of this country, on an average, are
+ worth five thousand dollars, and the peasants of the Old World, who
+ cultivate the soil, are not worth, on an average, ten dollars beyond the
+ wants of the moment. The farmers of our country produce, on an average,
+ about one million four hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff a day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else? Have we in other directions kept pace with our physical
+ development? Have we developed the mind? Have we endeavored to develop the
+ brain? Have we endeavored to civilize the heart? I think we have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We spend more for schools per head than any nation in the world. And the
+ common school is the breath of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Great Britain spends one dollar and thirty cents per head on the common
+ schools; France spends eighty cents; Austria, thirty cents; Germany, fifty
+ cents; Italy, twenty-five cents, and the United States over two dollars
+ and fifty cents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you the schoolhouse is the fortress of liberty. Every schoolhouse
+ is an arsenal, filled with weapons and ammunition to destroy the monsters
+ of ignorance and fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As I have said ten thousand times, the school-house is my cathedral. The
+ teacher is my preacher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eighty-seven per cent, of all the people of the United States, over ten
+ years of age, can read and write. There is no parallel for this in the
+ history of the wide world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Over forty-two millions of educated citizens, to whom are opened all the
+ treasures of literature!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-two millions of people, able to read and write! I say, there is no
+ parallel for this. The nations of antiquity were very ignorant when
+ compared with this great Republic of ours. There is no other nation in the
+ world that can show a record like ours. We ought to be proud of it. We
+ ought to build more schools, and build them better. Our teachers ought to
+ be paid more, and everything ought to be taught in the public school that
+ is worth knowing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that the children of the Republic, no matter whether their
+ fathers are rich or poor, ought to be allowed to drink at the fountain of
+ education, and it does not cost more to teach everything in the free
+ schools than it does teaching reading and writing and ciphering.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have we kept up in other ways? The post office tells a wonderful story. In
+ Switzerland, going through the post office in each year, are letters,
+ etc., in the proportion of seventy-four to each inhabitant. In England the
+ number is sixty; in Germany, fifty-three; in France, thirty-nine; in
+ Austria, twenty-four; in Italy, sixteen, and in the United States, our own
+ home, one hundred and ten. Think of it. In Italy only twenty-five cents
+ paid per head for the support of the public schools and only sixteen
+ letters. And this is the place where God's agent lives. I would rather
+ have one good schoolmaster than two such agents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing. A great deal has been said, from time to time,
+ about the workingman. I have as much sympathy with the workingman as
+ anybody on the earth&mdash;who does not work. There has always been a
+ desire in this world to let somebody else do the work, nearly everybody
+ having the modesty to stand back whenever there is anything to be done. In
+ savage countries they make the women do the work, so that the weak people
+ have always the bulk of the burdens. In civilized communities the poor are
+ the ones, of course, that work, and probably they are never fully paid. It
+ is pretty hard for a manufacturer to tell how much he can pay until he
+ sells the stuff which he manufactures. Every man who manufactures is not
+ rich. I know plenty of poor corporations; I know tramp railroads that have
+ not a dollar. And you will find some of them as anarchistic as you will
+ find their men. What a man can pay, depends upon how much he can get for
+ what he has produced. What the farmer can pay his help depends upon the
+ price he receives for his stock, his corn and his wheat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But wages in this country are getting better day by day. We are getting a
+ little nearer to being civilized day by day, and when I want to make up my
+ mind on a subject I try to get a broad view of it, and not decide it on
+ one case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860 the average wages of the workingman were, per year, two hundred
+ and eighty-nine dollars. In 1890 the average was four hundred and
+ eighty-five. Thus the average has almost doubled in thirty years. The
+ necessaries of life are far cheaper than they were in 1860. Now, to my
+ mind, that is a hopeful sign. And when I am asked how can the dispute
+ between employer and employee be settled, I answer, it will be settled
+ when both parties become civilized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It takes a long time to educate a man up to the point where he does not
+ want something for nothing. Yet, when a man is civilized, he does not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He wants for a thing just what it is worth; he wants to give labor its
+ legitimate reward, and when he has something to sell he never wants more
+ than it is worth. I do not claim to be civilized myself; but all these
+ questions between capital and labor will be settled by civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are to-day accumulating wealth at the rate of more than seven million
+ dollars a day. Is not this perfectly splendid?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in the midst of prosperity let us never forget the men who helped to
+ save our country, the men whose heroism gave us the prosperity we now
+ enjoy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have one-seventh of the good land of this world. You see there is a
+ great deal of poor land in the world. I know the first time I went to
+ California, I went to the Sink of the Humboldt, and what a forsaken look
+ it had. There was nothing there but mines of brimstone. On the train,
+ going over, there was a fellow who got into a dispute with a minister
+ about the first chapter of Genesis. And when they got along to the Sink of
+ the Humboldt the fellow says to the minister:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Do you tell me that God made the world in six days, and then rested on
+ the seventh?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He said, "I do."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Well," said the fellow, "don't you think he could have put in another day
+ here to devilish good advantage?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, as I have said, we have got about one-seventh of the good land of the
+ world. I often hear people say that we have too many folks here; that we
+ ought to stop immigration; that we have no more room. The people who say
+ this know nothing of their country. They are ignorant of their native
+ land. I tell you that the valley of the Mississippi and the valleys of its
+ tributaries can support a population of five hundred millions of men,
+ women, and children. Don't talk of our being overpopulated; we have only
+ just started.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here, in this land of ours, five hundred million men and women and
+ children can be supported and educated without trouble. We can afford to
+ double two or three times more. But what have we got to do? We have got to
+ educate them when they come. That is to say, we have got to educate their
+ children, and in a few generations we will have them splendid American
+ citizens, proud of the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have no more patriotic men under the flag than the men who came from
+ other lands, the hundreds and thousands of those who fought to preserve
+ this country. And I think just as much of them as I would if they had been
+ born on American soil. What matters it where a man was born? It is what is
+ inside of him you have to look at&mdash;what kind of a heart he has, and
+ what kind of a head. I do not care where he was born; I simply ask, Is he
+ a man? Is he willing to give to others what he claims for himself? That is
+ the supreme test.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I have got a hobby. I do not suppose any of you have heard of it. I
+ think the greatest thing for a country is for all of its citizens to have
+ a home. I think it is around the fireside of home that the virtues grow,
+ including patriotism. We want homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Until a few years ago it was the custom to put men in prison for debt. The
+ authorities threw a man into jail when he owed something which he could
+ not pay, and by throwing him into jail they deprived him of an opportunity
+ to earn what would pay it. After a little time they got sense enough to
+ know that they could not collect a debt in this way, and that it was
+ better to give him his freedom and allow him to earn something, if he
+ could. Therefore, imprisonment for debt was done away with.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At another time, when a man owed anything, if he was a carpenter, a
+ blacksmith or a shoemaker, and not able to pay it, they took his tools, on
+ a writ of sale and execution, and thus incapacitated him so that he could
+ do nothing. Finally they got sense enough to abolish that law, to leave
+ the mechanic his tools and the farmer his plows, horses and wagons, and
+ after this, debts were paid better than ever they were before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then we thought of protecting the home-builder, and we said: "We will have
+ a homestead exemption. We will put a roof over wife and child, which shall
+ be exempt from execution and sale," and so we preserved hundreds of
+ thousands and millions of homes, while debts were paid just as well as
+ ever they were paid before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I want to take a step further. I want, the rich people of this
+ country to support it. I want the people who are well off to pay the
+ taxes. I want the law to exempt a homestead of a certain value, say from
+ two thousand dollars to two thousand five hundred, and to exempt it, not
+ only from sale on judgment and execution, but to exempt it from taxes of
+ all sorts and kinds. I want to keep the roof over the heads of children
+ when the man himself is gone. I want that homestead to belong not only to
+ the man, but to wife and children. I would like to live to see a roof over
+ the heads of all the families of the Republic. I tell you, it does a man
+ good to have a home. You are in partnership with nature when you plant a
+ hill of corn. When you set out a tree you have a new interest in this
+ world. When you own a little tract of land you feel as if you and the
+ earth were partners. All these things dignify human nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bad as I am, I have another hobby. There are thousands and thousands of
+ criminals in our country. I told you a little while ago I did not blame
+ the South, because of the conditions which prevailed in the South. The
+ people of the South did as they must. I am the same about the criminal. He
+ does as he must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you want to stop crime you must treat it properly. The conditions of
+ society must not be such as to produce criminals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a man steals and is sent to the penitentiary he ought to be sent
+ there to be reformed and not to be brutalized; to be made a better man,
+ not to be robbed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am in favor, when you put a man in the penitentiary, of making him work,
+ and I am in favor of paying him what his work is worth, so that in five
+ years, when he leaves the prison cell, he will have from two hundred
+ dollars to three hundred dollars as a breastwork between him and
+ temptation, and something for a foundation upon which to build a nobler
+ life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now he is turned out and before long he is driven back. Nobody will employ
+ him, nobody will take him, and, the night following the day of his release
+ he is without a roof over his head and goes back to his old ways. I would
+ allow him to change his name, to go to another State with a few hundred
+ dollars in his pocket and begin the world again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must recollect that it is the misfortune of a man to become a criminal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have hobbies and plenty of them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to see five hundred millions of people living here in peace. If we
+ want them to live in peace, we must develop the brain, civilize the heart,
+ and above all things, must not forget education. Nothing should be taught
+ in the school that somebody does not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I look about me to-day, when I think of the advance of my country,
+ then I think of the work that has been done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the millions who crossed the mysterious sea, of the thousands and
+ thousands of ships with their brave prows towards the West.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the little settlements on the shores of the ocean, on the banks
+ of rivers, on the edges of forests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the countless conflicts with savages&mdash;of the midnight
+ attacks&mdash;of the cabin floors wet with the blood of dead fathers,
+ mothers and babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the winters of want, of the days of toil, of the nights of fear,
+ of the hunger and hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the courage, the sufferings and hardships.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the homesickness, the disease and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the labor; of the millions and millions of trees that were
+ felled, while the aisles of the great forests were filled with the echoes
+ of the ax; of the many millions of miles of furrows turned by the plow; of
+ the millions of miles of fences built; of the countless logs changed to
+ lumber by the saw&mdash;of the millions of huts, cabins and houses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the work. Listen, and you will hear the hum of wheels, the wheels
+ with which our mothers spun the flax and wool. Listen, and you will hear
+ the looms and flying shuttles with which they wove the cloth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the thousands still pressing toward the West, of the roads they
+ made, of the bridges they built; of the homes, where the sunlight fell,
+ where the bees hummed, the birds sang and the children laughed; of the
+ little towns with mill and shop, with inn and schoolhouse; of the old
+ stages, of the crack of the whips and the drivers' horns; of the canals
+ they dug.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the many thousands still pressing toward the West, passing over
+ the Alleghanies to the shores of the Ohio and the great lakes&mdash;still
+ onward to the Mississippi&mdash;the Missouri.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ See the endless processions of covered wagons drawn by horses, by oxen,&mdash;men
+ and boys and girls on foot, mothers and babes inside. See the glimmering
+ camp fires at night; see the thousands up with the sun and away, leaving
+ the perfume of coffee on the morning air, and sometimes leaving the
+ new-made grave of wife or child. Listen, and you will hear the cry of
+ "Gold!" and you will see many thousands crossing the great plains,
+ climbing the mountains and pressing on to the Pacific.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the toil, the courage it has taken to possess this land!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the ore that was dug, the furnaces that lit the nights with
+ flame; of the factories and mills by the rushing streams.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the inventions that went hand in hand with the work; of the
+ flails that were changed to threshers; of the sickles that became cradles,
+ and the cradles that were changed to reapers and headers&mdash;of the
+ wooden plows that became iron and steel; of the spinning wheel that became
+ the jennie, and the old looms transformed to machines that almost think&mdash;of
+ the steamboats that traversed the rivers, making the towns that were far
+ apart neighbors and friends; of the stages that became cars, of the horses
+ changed to locomotives with breath of flame, and the roads of dust and mud
+ to highways of steel, of the rivers spanned and the mountains tunneled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the inventions, the improvements that changed the hut to the
+ cabin, the cabin to the house, the house to the palace, the earthen floors
+ and bare walls to carpets and pictures&mdash;that changed famine to feast&mdash;toil
+ to happy labor and poverty to wealth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the cost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the separation of families&mdash;of boys and girls leaving the
+ old home&mdash;taking with them the blessings and kisses of fathers and
+ mothers. Think of the homesickness, of the tears shed by the mothers left
+ by the daughters gone. Think of the millions of brave men deformed by
+ labor now sleeping in their honored graves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of all that has been wrought, endured and accomplished for our good,
+ and let us remember with gratitude, with love and tears the brave men, the
+ patient loving women who subdued this land for us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then think of the heroes who served this country; who gave us this
+ glorious present and hope of a still more glorious future; think of the
+ men who really made us free, who secured the blessings of liberty, not
+ only to us, but to billions yet unborn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This country will be covered with happy homes and free men and free women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we remember the heroic dead, those whose blood reddens the paths
+ and highways of honor; those who died upon the field, in the charge, in
+ prison-pens, or in famine's clutch; those who gave their lives that
+ liberty should not perish from the earth. And to-day we remember the great
+ leaders who have passed to the realm of silence, to the land of shadow.
+ Thomas, the rock of Chickamauga, self-poised, firm, brave, faithful;
+ Sherman, the reckless, the daring, the prudent and the victorious;
+ Sheridan, a soldier fit to have stood by Julius C&aelig;sar and to have
+ uttered the words of command; and Grant, the silent, the invincible, the
+ unconquered; and rising above them all, Lincoln, the wise, the patient,
+ the merciful, the grandest figure in the Western world. We remember them
+ all today and hundreds of thousands who are not mentioned, but who are
+ equally worthy, hundreds of thousands of privates, deserving of equal
+ honor with the plumed leaders of the host.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what shall I say to you, survivors of the death-filled days? To you,
+ my comrades, to you whom I have known in the great days, in the time when
+ the heart beat fast and the blood flowed strong; in the days of high hope&mdash;what
+ shall I say? All I can say is that my heart goes out to you, one and all.
+ To you who bared your bosoms to the storms of war; to you who left loved
+ ones to die, if need be, for the sacred cause. May you live long in the
+ land you helped to save; may the winter of your age be as green as spring,
+ as full of blossoms as summer, as generous as autumn, and may you,
+ surrounded by plenty, with your wives at your sides and your grandchildren
+ on your knees, live long. And when at last the fires of life burn low;
+ when you enter the deepening dusk of the last of many, many happy days;
+ when your brave hearts beat weak and slow, may the memory of your splendid
+ deeds; deeds that freed your fellow-men; deeds that kept your country on
+ the map of the world; deeds that kept the flag of the Republic in the air&mdash;may
+ the memory of these deeds fill your souls with peace and perfect joy. Let
+ it console you to know that you are not to be forgotten. Centuries hence
+ your story will be told in art and song, and upon your honored graves
+ flowers will be lovingly laid by millions' of men and women now unborn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again expressing the joy that I feel in having met you, and again saying
+ farewell to one and all, and wishing you all the blessings of life, I bid
+ you goodbye.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * At the last reunion of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, the
+ Colonel's old regiment, and the soldiers of Peoria county,
+ which Mr. Ingersoll attended, a little incident happened
+ which let us into the inner circle of his life. The meeting
+ was held at Elmwood. While the soldier were passing in
+ review the citizens and young people filled all the seats in
+ the park and crowded around the speaker's stand, so as to
+ occupy all available space. When the soldiers had finished
+ their parade and returned to the park, they found it
+ impossible to get near the speaker. Of course we were all
+ disappointed, but were forced to stand on the outskirts of
+ the vast throng.
+
+ As soon as he ceased speaking, Mr. Ingersoll said to a
+ soldier that he would like to meet his comrades in the hall
+ at a certain hour in the afternoon. The word spread quickly,
+ and at the appointed hour the hall was crowded with
+ soldiers. The guard stationed at tue door was ordered to let
+ none but soldiers pass into the hall. Some of the comrades,
+ however, brought their wives. The guards, true to their
+ orders, refused to let the ladies pass. Just as Mr.
+ Ingersoll was ready to speak, word came to him that some of
+ the comrades' wives were outside and wanted permission to
+ pass the guard. The hall was full, but Mr. Ingersoll
+ requested all comrades whose wives were within reach to go
+ and get them. When his order had been complied with even
+ standing room was at a premium. When Mr. Ingersoll arose to
+ speak to that great assemblage of white-haired veterans and
+ their aged companions his voice was unusually tender, and the
+ wave of emotion that passed through the hall cannot be told
+ in words. Tears and cheers blended as Mr. Ingersoll arose
+ and began his speech with the statement that all present
+ were nearing the setting sun of life, and in all probability
+ that was the last opportunity many of them would have of
+ taking each other by the hand.
+
+ In this half-hour impromptu speech the great-hearted man,
+ Robert G. Ingersoll, was seen at his best. It was not a
+ clash of opinions over party or creed, but it was a meeting
+ of hearts and communion together In the holy of holies of
+ human life. The address was a series of word-pictures that
+ still hang on the walls of memory. The speaker, in his most
+ sympathetic mood, drew a picture of the service of the G. A.
+ R., of the women of the republic, and then paid a beautiful
+ tribute to home and invoked the kindest and greatest
+ influence to guard his comrades and their companions during
+ the remainder of life's journey.
+
+ We got very close to the man that day, where we could see
+ the heart of Mr. Ingersoll. I have often wished that a
+ reporter could have been present to preserve the address.
+ Imagine four beautiful word-paintings entitled, "The Service
+ of the G. A. R.," "The Influence of Noble Womanhood," "The
+ Sacredness of Home," and "The Pilgrimage of Life." Imagine
+ these word-paintings as drawn by Mr. Ingersoll under the
+ most favorable circumstances, and you have an idea of that
+ address. Mr. Ingersoll the Agnostic is a very different man
+ from Mr. Ingersoll the man and patriot. I cannot share the
+ doubts of this Agnostic. I cannot help admiring the man and
+ patriot.&mdash;The Rev. Frank McAlpine, Peoria Star, August 1,
+ 1895.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0018" id="link0018">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "This world will see but one Ingersoll."
+
+ Such was the terse, laconic, yet potent utterance that came
+ spontaneously from a celebrated statesman whose head is now
+ pillowed in the dust of death, as he stood in the lobby of
+ the old Burnet House in Cincinnati after the famous
+ Republican Convention in that city in 1876, at which Colonel
+ Robert G. Ingersoll made that powerful speech nominating
+ Blaine for the Presidency, one which is read and reread to-
+ day, and will be read in the future, as an example of the
+ highest art of the platform.
+
+ That same sentiment in thought, emotion or vocal expression
+ emanated from upward of twenty thousand citizens last night
+ who heard the eloquent and magic Ingersoll in the great
+ tent stretched near the corner of Sacramento avenue and Lake
+ street as he expounded the living gospel of true
+ Republicanism.
+
+ The old warhorse, silvered by long years of faithful service
+ to his country, aroused the same all-pervading enthusiasm as
+ he did in the campaigns of Grant and Hayes and Garfield.
+
+ He has lost not one whit, not one iota of his striking
+ physical presence, his profound reasoning, his convincing
+ logic, his rollicking wit, grandiloquence&mdash;in fine, all the
+ graces of the orator of old, reenforced by increased
+ patriotism and the ardor of the call to battle for his
+ country, are still his in the fullest measure.
+
+ Ingersoll in his powerful speech at Cincinnati, spoke in
+ behalf of a friend; last night he plead for his country. In
+ 1876 he eulogized a man; last night, twenty years afterward,
+ he upheld the principles of democratic government. Such was
+ the difference in his theme; the logic, the eloquence of his
+ utterances was the more profound In the same ratio.
+
+ He came to the ground floor of human existence and talked as
+ man to man. His patriotism, be it religion, sentiment, or
+ that lofty spirit inseparable from man's soul, is his life.
+ Last night he sought to inspire those who heard him with the
+ same loyalty, and he succeeded.
+
+ Those passionate outbursts of eloquence, the wit that fairly
+ scintillated, the logic as Inexorable as heaven's decrees,
+ his rich rhetoric and immutable facts driven straight to his
+ hearers with the strength of bullets, aroused applause that
+ came as spontaneous as sunlight.
+
+ Now eliciting laughter, now silence, now cheers, the great
+ orator, with the singular charm of presence, manner and
+ voice, swayed his immense audience at his own volition.
+ Packed with potency was every sentence, each word a living
+ thing, and with them he flayed financial heresy, laid bare
+ the dire results of free trade, and exposed the dangers of
+ Populism.
+
+ It was an immense audience that greeted him. The huge tent
+ was packed from center-pole to circumference, and thousands
+ went away because they could not gain entrance. The houses
+ in the vicinity were beautifully illuminated decorated.
+
+ The Chairman, Wm. P. McCabe, in a brief but forcible speech,
+ presented Colonel Ingersoll to the vast audience. As the old
+ veteran of rebellion days arose from his seat, one
+ prolonged, tremendous cheer broke forth from the twenty
+ thousand throats. And it was fully fifteen minutes before
+ the great orator could begin to deliver his address.
+
+ In his introductory speech Mr. McCabe said:
+
+ "Friends and Fellow-Citizens: I have no set speech to make
+ to-night. My duty Is to introduce to you one whose big heart
+ and big brain is filled with love and patriotic care for the
+ things that concern the country he fought for and loved so
+ well. I now have the honor of introducing to you Hon. Robert
+ G. Ingersoll."&mdash;The Intrr-Ocean, Chicago, 111., October 9th,
+ 1895.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ 1896.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen: This is our country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The legally expressed will of the majority is the supreme law of the land.
+ We are responsible for what our Government does. We cannot excuse
+ ourselves because of the act of some king, or the opinions of nobles. We
+ are the kings. We are the nobles. We are the aristocracy of America, and
+ when our Government does right we are honored, and when our Government
+ does wrong the brand of shame is on the American brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again we are on the field of battle, where thought contends with thought,
+ the field of battle where facts are bullets and arguments are swords.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day there is in the United States a vast congress consisting of the
+ people, and in that congress every man has a voice, and it is the duty of
+ every man to inquire into all questions presented, to the end that he may
+ vote as a man and as a patriot should.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No American should be dominated by prejudice. No man standing under our
+ flag should follow after the fife and drum of a party. He should say to
+ himself: "I am a free man, and I will discharge the obligations of an
+ American citizen with all the intelligence I possess."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I love this country because the people are free; and if they are not free
+ it is their own fault.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-night I am not going to appeal to your prejudices, if you have any. I
+ am going to talk to the sense that you have. I am going to address myself
+ to your brain and to your heart. I want nothing of you except that you
+ will preserve the institutions of the Republic; that you will maintain her
+ honor unstained. That is all I ask.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that all the parties who disagree with me are honest. Large masses
+ of mankind are always honest, the leader not always, but the mass of
+ people do what they believe to be right. Consequently there is no argument
+ in abuse, nothing calculated to convince in calumny. To be kind, to be
+ candid, is far nobler, far better, and far more American. We live in a
+ Democracy, and we admit that every other human being has the same right to
+ think, the same right to express his thought, the same right to vote that
+ we have, and I want every one who hears me to vote in exact accord with
+ his sense, to cast his vote in accordance with his conscience. I want
+ every one to do the best he can for the great Republic, and no matter how
+ he votes, if he is honest, I shall find no fault.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the great thing is to understand what you are going to do; the great
+ thing is to use the little sense that we have. In most of us the capital
+ is small, and it ought to be turned often. We ought to pay attention, we
+ ought to listen to what is said and then think, think for ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Several questions have been presented to the American people for their
+ solution, and I propose to speak a little about those questions, and I do
+ not want you to pretend to agree with me. I want no applause unless you
+ honestly believe I am right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three great questions are presented: First, as to money; second, as to the
+ tariff, and third, whether this Government has the right of self-defence.
+ Whether this is a Government of law, or whether there shall be an appeal
+ from the Supreme Court to a mob. These are the three questions to be
+ answered next Tuesday by the American people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First, let us take up this money question. Thousands and thousands of
+ speeches have been made on the subject. Pamphlets thick as the leaves of
+ autumn have been scattered from one end of the Republic to the other, all
+ about money, as if it were an exceedingly metaphysical question, as though
+ there were something magical about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is money? Money is a product of nature. Money is a part of nature.
+ Money is something that man cannot create. All the legislatures and
+ congresses of the world cannot by any possibility create one dollar, any
+ more than they could suspend the attraction of gravitation or hurl a new
+ constellation into the concave sky. Money is not made. It has to be found.
+ It is dug from the crevices of rocks, washed from the sands of streams,
+ from the gravel of ancient valleys; but it is not made. It cannot be
+ created. Money is something that does not have to be redeemed. Money is
+ the redeemer. And yet we have a man running for the presidency on three
+ platforms with two Vice-Presidents, who says that money is the creature of
+ law. It may be that law sometimes is the creature of money, but money was
+ never the creature of law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A nation can no more create money by law than it can create corn and wheat
+ and barley by law, and the promise to pay money is no nearer money than a
+ warehouse receipt is grain, or a bill of fare is a dinner. If you can make
+ money by law, why should any nation be poor?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The supply of law is practically unlimited. Suppose one hundred people
+ should settle on an island, form a government, elect a legislature. They
+ would have the power to make law, and if law can make money, if money is
+ the creature of law, why should not these one hundred people on the island
+ be as wealthy as Great Britain? What is to hinder? And yet we are told
+ that money is the creature of law. In the financial world that is as
+ absurd as perpetual motion in mechanics; it is as absurd as the fountain
+ of eternal youth, the philosopher's stone, or the transmutation of metals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is a dollar? People imagine that a piece of paper with pictures on
+ it, with signatures, is money. The greenback is not money&mdash;never was;
+ never will be. It is a promise to pay money; not money. The note of the
+ nation is no nearer money than the note of an individual. A bank note is
+ not money. It is a promise to pay money; that is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, what is a dollar? In the civilized world it is twenty-three grains
+ and twenty-two one hundredths of pure gold. That is a dollar. Well, cannot
+ we make dollars out of silver? Yes, I admit it, but in order to make a
+ silver dollar you have got to put a dollars worth of silver in the silver
+ dollar, and you have to put as much silver in it as you can buy for
+ twenty-three grains and twenty-two one-hundredths' of a grain of pure
+ gold. It takes a dollar's worth of silver to make a dollar. It takes a
+ dollar's worth of paper to make a paper dollar. It takes a dollar's worth
+ of iron to make an iron dollar; and there is no way of making a dollar
+ without the value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me tell you another thing. You do not add to the value of gold by
+ coining it any more than you add to the value of wheat by measuring it;
+ any more than you add to the value of coal by weighing it. Why do you coin
+ gold? Because every man cannot take a chemist's outfit with him. He cannot
+ carry a crucible and retort, scales and acids, and so the Government coins
+ it, simply to certify how much gold there is in the piece.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ah, but, says this same gentleman, what gives our money&mdash;our silver&mdash;its
+ value? It is because it is a legal tender, he says. Nonsense; nonsense.
+ Gold was not given value by being made a legal tender, but being valuable
+ it was made a legal tender. And gold gets no value to-day from being a
+ legal tender. I not only say that, but I will prove it; and I will not
+ only prove it, but I will demonstrate it. Take a twenty dollar gold piece,
+ hammer it out of shape, mar the Goddess of Liberty, pound out the United
+ States of America and batter the eagle, and after you get it pounded how
+ much is it worth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is worth exactly twenty dollars. Is it a legal tender? No. Has its
+ value been changed? No. Take a silver dollar. It is a legal tender; now
+ pound it into a cube, and how much is it worth? A little less than fifty
+ cents. What gives it the value of a dollar? The fact that it is a legal
+ tender? No; but the promise of the Government to keep it on an equality
+ with gold. I will not only say this, but I will demonstrate it. I do not
+ ask you to take my word; just use the sense you have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Mexican silver dollar has a little more silver in it than one of our
+ dollars, and the Mexican silver dollar is a legal tender in Mexico. If
+ there is any magic about legal tender it ought to work as well in Mexico
+ as in the United States. I take an American silver dollar and I go to
+ Mexico. I buy a dinner for a dollar and I give to the Mexican the American
+ dollar and he gives me a Mexican dollar in change. Yet both of the dollars
+ are legal tender. Why is it that the Mexican dollar is worth only fifty
+ cents? Because the Mexican Government has not agreed to keep it equal with
+ gold; that is all, that is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We want the money of the civilized world, and I will tell you now that in
+ the procession of nations every silver nation lags behind&mdash;every one.
+ There is not a silver nation on the globe where decent wages are paid for
+ human labor&mdash;not one. The American laborer gets ten times as much
+ here in gold as a laborer gets in China in silver, twenty times as much as
+ a laborer does in India, four times as much as a laborer gets in Russia;
+ and yet we are told that the man who will "follow England" with the gold
+ standard lacks patriotism and manhood. What then shall we say of the man
+ that follows China, that follows India in the silver standard?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does that require patriotism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It certainly requires self-denial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet these gentlemen say that our money is too good. They might as well
+ say the air is too pure; they might as well say the soil is too rich. How
+ can money be too good? Mr. Bryan says that it is so good, people hoard it;
+ and let me tell him they always will. Mr. Bryan wants money so poor that
+ everybody will be anxious to spend it. He wants money so poor that the
+ rich will not have it. Then he thinks the poor can get it. We are willing
+ to toil for good money. Good money means the comforts and luxuries of
+ life. Real money is always good. Paper promises and silver substitutes may
+ be poor; words and pictures may be cheap and may fade to worthlessness&mdash;but
+ gold shines on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Chicago, many years ago, there was an old colored man at the Grand
+ Pacific. I met him one morning, and he looked very sad, and I said to him,
+ "Uncle, what is the matter?" "Well," he said, "my wife ran away last
+ night. Pretty good looking woman; a good deal younger than I am; but she
+ has run off." And he says: "Colonel, I want to give you my idea about
+ marriage. If a man wants to marry a woman and have a good time, and be
+ satisfied and secure in his mind, he wants to marry some woman that no
+ other man on God's earth would have."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the kind of money these gentlemen want in the United States. Cheap
+ money. Do you know that the words cheap money are a contradiction in
+ terms? Cheap money is always discounted when people find out that it is
+ cheap. We want good money, and I do not care how much we get. But we want
+ good money. Men are willing to toil for good money; willing to work in the
+ mines; willing to work in the heat and glare of the furnace; willing to go
+ to the top of the mast on the wild sea; willing to work in tenements;
+ women are willing to sew with their eyes filled with tears for the sake of
+ good money. And if anything is to be paid in good money, labor is that
+ thing. If any man is entitled to pure gold, it is the man who labors. Let
+ the big fellows take cheap money. Let the men living next the soil be paid
+ in gold. But I want the money of this country as good as that of any other
+ country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When our money is below par we feel below par. I want our money, no matter
+ how it is payable, to have the gold behind it. That is the money I want in
+ the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to teach the people of the world that a Democracy is honest. I want
+ to teach the people of the world that America is not only capable of
+ self-government, but that it has the self-denial, the courage, the honor,
+ to pay its debts to the last farthing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bryan tells the farmers who are in debt that they want cheap money.
+ What for? To pay their debts. And he thinks that is a compliment to the
+ tillers of the soil. The statement is an insult to the farmers, and the
+ farmers of Maine and Vermont have answered him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And if the farmers of those States with their soil can be honest, I think
+ a farmer in Illinois has no excuse for being a rascal. I regard the
+ farmers as honest men, and when the sun shines and the rains fall and the
+ frosts wait, they will pay their debts. They are good men, and I want to
+ tell you to-night that all the stories that have been told about farmers
+ being Populists are not true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will find the Populists in the towns, in the great cities, in the
+ villages. All the failures, no matter for what reason, are on the
+ Populist's side. They want to get rich by law. They are tired of work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet Mr. Bryan says vote for cheap money so that you can pay your debts
+ in fifty cent dollars. Will an honest man do it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose a man has borrowed a thousand bushels of wheat of his neighbor, of
+ sixty pounds to the bushel, and then Congress should pass a law making
+ thirty pounds of wheat a bushel. Would that farmer pay his debt with five
+ hundred bushels and consider himself an honest man?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bryan says, "Vote for cheap money to pay your debts," and thereupon
+ the creditor says, "What is to become of me?" Mr. Bryan says, "We will
+ make it one dollar and twenty-nine cents an ounce, and make it of the
+ ratio of sixteen to one, make it as good as gold." And thereupon the poor
+ debtor says, "How is that going to help me?" And in nearly all the
+ speeches that this man has made he has taken the two positions, first,
+ that we want cheap money to pay debts, and second, that the money would be
+ just as good as gold for creditors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the question is: Can Congress make fifty cents' worth of silver worth
+ one dollar? That is the question, and if Congress can, then I oppose the
+ scheme on account of its extravagance. What is the use of wasting all that
+ silver? Think about it. If Congress can make fifty cents' worth of silver
+ worth a dollar by law, why can it not make one cent's worth of silver
+ worth a dollar by law. Let us save the silver and use it for forks and
+ spoons. The supply even of silver is limited&mdash;the supply of law is
+ inexhaustible. Do not waste silver, use more law. You cannot fix values by
+ law any more than you can make cooler summers by shortening thermometers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another trouble. If Congress, by the free coinage of silver, can
+ double its value, why should we allow an Englishman with a million
+ dollars' worth of silver bullion at the market price, to bring it to
+ America, have it coined free of charge, and make it exactly double the
+ value? Why should we put a million dollars in his pocket? That is too
+ generous. Why not buy the silver from him in the open market and let the
+ Government make the million dollars? Nothing is more absurd; nothing is
+ more idiotic. I admit that Mr. Bryan is honest. I admit it. If he were not
+ honest his intellectual pride would not allow him to make these
+ statements.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, another thing says our friend, "Gold has been cornered"; and
+ thousands of people believe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have no idea of the credulity of some folks. I say that it has not
+ been cornered, and I will not only prove it, I will demonstrate it.
+ Whenever the Stock Exchange or some of the members have a corner on
+ stocks, that stock goes up, and if it does not, that corner bursts.
+ Whenever gentlemen in Chicago get up a corner on wheat in the Produce
+ Exchange, wheat goes up or the corner bursts. And yet they tell me there
+ has been a corner in gold for all these years, yet since 1873 to the
+ present time the rate of interest has steadily gone down.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there had been a corner the rate of interest would have steadily
+ advanced. There is a demonstration. But let me ask, for my own
+ information, if they corner gold what will prevent their cornering silver?
+ Or are you going to have it so poor that it will not be worth cornering?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then they say another thing, and that is that the demonetization of silver
+ is responsible for all the hardships we have endured, for all the
+ bankruptcy, for all the panics. That is not true, and I will not only
+ prove it, but I will demonstrate it. The poison of demonetization entered
+ the American veins, as they tell us, in 1873, and has been busy in its
+ hellish work from that time to this; and yet, nineteen years after we were
+ vaccinated, 1892, was the most prosperous year ever known by this
+ Republic. All the wheels turning, all the furnaces aflame, work at good
+ wages, everybody prosperous. How, Mr. Bryanite, how do you account for
+ that? Just be honest a minute and think about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there is another thing. In 1816 Great Britain demonetized silver, and
+ that wretched old government has had nothing but gold from that day to
+ this as a standard. And to show you the frightful results of that
+ demonetization, that government does not own now above one-third of the
+ globe, and all the winds are busy floating her flags. There is a
+ demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bryan tells us that free coinage will bring silver 16 to 1. What is
+ the use of stopping there? Why not make it 1 to 1? Why not make it equal
+ with gold and be done with it? And why should it stop at exactly one
+ dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. I am not well acquainted with
+ all the facts that enter into the question of value, but why should it
+ stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. And I
+ guess if he were cross-examined along toward the close of the trial he
+ would admit that he did not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet this statesman calls this silver the money of our fathers. Well,
+ let us see. Our fathers did some good things. In 1792 they made gold and
+ silver the standards, and at a ratio of 15 to 1. But where you have two
+ metals and endeavor to make a double standard it is very hard to keep them
+ even. They vary, and, as old Dogberry says, "An two men ride of a horse,
+ one must ride behind." They made the ratio 15 to 1, and who did it? Thomas
+ Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson, the greatest man, with one
+ exception, that ever sat in the presidential chair. With one exception. [A
+ voice: "Who was that?"] Abraham Lincoln. Alexander Hamilton, with more
+ executive ability than any other man that ever stood under the flag. And
+ how did they fix the ratio? They found the commercial value in the market;
+ that is how they did it. And they went on and issued American dollars 15
+ to 1; and in 1806, when Jefferson was President, the coinage was stopped.
+ Why? There was too much silver in the dollars, and people instead of
+ passing them around put them aside and sold them to the silversmiths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then in 1834 the ratios changed; not quite sixteen to one. That was based
+ again on the commercial value, and instead of sixteen to one they went
+ into the thousands in decimals. It was not quite sixteen to one. They
+ wanted to fix it absolutely on the commercial value. Then a few more
+ dollars were coined; and our fathers coined of these sacred dollars up to
+ 1873, eight millions, and seven millions had been melted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1853 the gold standard was in fact adopted, and, as I have told you,
+ from 1792 to 1873 only eight millions of silver had been coined.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What have the "enemies of silver" done since that time? Under the act of
+ 1878 we have coined over four hundred and thirty millions of these blessed
+ dollars. We bought four million ounces of silver in the open market every
+ month, and in spite of the vast purchases silver continued to go down. We
+ are coining about two millions a month now, and silver is still going
+ down. Even the expectation of the election of Bryan cannot add the tenth
+ of one per cent, to the value of silver bullion. It is going down day by
+ day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But what I want to say to-night is, if you want silver money, measure it
+ by the gold standard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I wish every one here would read the speech of Senator Sherman, delivered
+ at Columbus a little while ago, in which he gives the history of American
+ coinage, and every man who will read it will find that silver was not
+ demonetized in 1873. You will find that it was demonetized in 1853, and if
+ he will read back he will find that the apostles of silver now were in
+ favor of the gold standard in 1873. Senator Jones of Nevada in 1873 voted
+ for the law of 1873. He said from his seat in the Senate, that God had
+ made gold the standard. He said that gold was the mother of civilization.
+ Whether he has heard from God since or not I do not know. But now he is on
+ the other side. Senator Stewart of Nevada was there at the time; he voted
+ for the act of 1873, and said that gold was the only standard. He has
+ changed his mind. So they have said of me that I used to talk another way,
+ and they have published little portions of speeches, without publishing
+ all that was said. I want to tell you to-night that I have never changed
+ on the money question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On many subjects I have changed. I am very glad to feel that I have grown
+ a little in the last forty or fifty years. And a man should allow himself
+ to grow, to bud and blossom and bear new fruit, and not be satisfied with
+ the rotten apples under the tree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But on the money question I have not changed. Sixteen years ago in this
+ city at Cooper Union, in 1880, in discussing this precise question, I said
+ that I wanted gold and silver and paper; that I wanted the paper issued by
+ the General Government, and back of every paper dollar I wanted a gold
+ dollar or a silver dollar worth a dollar in gold. I said then, "I want
+ that silver dollar worth a dollar in gold if you have to make it four feet
+ in diameter." I said then, "I want our paper so perfectly secure that when
+ the savage in Central Africa looks upon a Government bill of the United
+ States his eyes will gleam as though he looked at shining gold." I said
+ then, "I want every paper dollar of the Union to be able to hold up its
+ hand and swear, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.'" I said then, "The
+ Republic cannot afford to debase money; cannot afford to be a clipper of
+ coin; an honest nation, honest money; for nations as well as individuals,
+ honesty is the best policy everywhere and forever." I have not changed on
+ that subject. As I told a gentleman the other day, "I am more for silver
+ than you are because I want twice as much of it in a dollar as you do."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ah, but they say, "free coinage would bring prosperity." I do not believe
+ it, and I will tell you why. Elect Bryan, come to the silver standard, and
+ what would happen? We have in the United States about six hundred million
+ dollars in gold. Every dollar would instantly go out of circulation. Why?
+ No man will use the best money when he can use cheaper. Remember that. No
+ carpenter will use mahogany when his contract allows pine. Gold will go
+ out of circulation, and what next would happen? All the greenbacks would
+ fall to fifty cents on the dollar. The only reason they are worth a dollar
+ now is because the Government has agreed to pay them in gold. When you
+ come to a silver basis they fall to fifty cents. What next? All the
+ national bank notes would be cut square in two. Why? Because they are
+ secured by United States bonds, and when we come to a silver basis, United
+ States bonds would be paid in silver, fifty cents on the dollar. And what
+ else would happen? What else? These sacred silver dollars would instantly
+ become fifty cent pieces, because they would no longer be redeemable in
+ gold; because the Government would no longer be under obligation to keep
+ them on a parity with gold. And how much currency and specie would that
+ leave for us in the United States? In value three hundred and fifty
+ million dollars. That is five dollars per capita. We have twenty dollars
+ per capita now, and yet they want to go to five dollars for the purpose of
+ producing prosperous times!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else would happen? Every human being living on an income would lose
+ just one-half. Every soldiers' pension would be cut in two. Every human
+ being who has a credit in the savings bank would lose just one-half. All
+ the life insurance companies would pay just one-half. All the fire
+ insurance companies would pay just one-half, and leave you the ashes for
+ the balance. That is what they call prosperity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what else? The Republic would be dishonored. The believers in monarchy&mdash;in
+ the divine right of kings&mdash;the aristocracies of the Old World&mdash;would
+ say, "Democracy is a failure, freedom is a fraud, and liberty is a liar;"
+ and we would be compelled to admit the truth. No; we want good, honest
+ money. We want money that will be good when we are dead. We want money
+ that will keep the wolf from the door, no matter what Congress does. We
+ want money that no law can create; that is what we want. There was a time
+ when Rome was mistress of the world, and there was a time when the arch of
+ the empire fell, and the empire was buried in the dust of oblivion; and
+ before those days the Roman people coined gold, and one of those coins is
+ as good to-night as when Julius C&aelig;sar rode at the head of his
+ legions. That is the money we want. We want money that is honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Mr. Bryan hates the bondholders. Who are the bondholders? Let us be
+ honest; let us have some sense. When this Government was in the flame of
+ civil war it was compelled to sell bonds, and everybody who bought a bond
+ bought it because he believed the great Republic would triumph at last.
+ Every man who bought a bond was our friend, and every bond that he
+ purchased added to the chances of our success. They were our friends, and
+ I respect them all. Most of them are dead, and the bonds they bought have
+ been sold and resold maybe hundreds of times, and the men who have them
+ now paid a hundred and twenty in gold, and why should they not be paid in
+ gold? Can any human being think of any reason? And yet Mr. Bryan says that
+ the debt is so great that it cannot be paid in gold. How much is the
+ Republic worth? Let me tell you? This Republic to-day&mdash;its lands in
+ cultivation, its houses, railways, canals, and money&mdash;is worth
+ seventy thousand million dollars. And what do we owe? One billion five
+ hundred million dollars, and what is the condition of the country? It is
+ the condition of a man who has seventy dollars and owes one dollar and a
+ half. This is the richest country on the globe. Have we any excuse for
+ being thieves? Have we any excuse for failing to pay the debt? No, sir;
+ no, sir. Mr. Bryan hates the bondholders of the railways. Why? I do not
+ know. What did those wretches do? They furnished the money to build the
+ one hundred and eighty thousand miles of railway in the United States;
+ that is what they did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They paid the money that threw up the road-bed, that shoveled the gravel;
+ they paid the men that turned the ore into steel and put it in form for
+ use; they paid the men that cut down the trees and made the ties, that
+ manufactured the locomotives and the cars. That is what they did. No
+ wonder that a presidential failure hates them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So this man hates bankers. Now, what is a banker? Here is a little town of
+ five thousand people, and some of them have a little money. They do not
+ want to keep it in the house because some Bryan man might find it; I mean
+ if it were silver. So one citizen buys a safe and rents a room and tells
+ all the people, "You deposit the overplus with me to hold it subject to
+ your order upon your orders signed as checks;" and so they do, and in a
+ little while he finds that he has on hand continually about one hundred
+ thousand dollars more than is called for, and thereupon he loans it to the
+ fellow who started the livery stable and to the chap that opened the
+ grocery and to the fellow with the store, and he makes this idle money
+ work for the good and prosperity of that town. And that is all he does.
+ And these bankers now, if Mr. Bryan becomes President, can pay the
+ depositors in fifty cent dollars; and yet they are such rascally wretches
+ that they say, "We prefer to pay back gold." You can see how mean they
+ are.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bryan hates the rich. Would he like to be rich? He hates the
+ bondholders. Would he like to have a million? He hates the successful man.
+ Does he want to be a failure? If he does, let him wait until the third day
+ of November. We want honest money because we are honest people; and there
+ never was any real prosperity for a nation or an individual without
+ honesty, without integrity, and it is our duty to preserve the reputation
+ of the great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Better be an honest bankrupt than a rich thief. Poverty can hold in its
+ hand the jewel, honor&mdash;a jewel that outshines all other gems. A
+ thousand times better be poor and noble than rich and fraudulent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there is another question&mdash;the question of the tariff. I admit
+ that there are a great many arguments in favor of free trade, but I assert
+ that all the facts are the other way. I want American people as far as
+ possible to manufacture everything that Americans use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The more industries we have the more we will develop the American brain,
+ and the best crop you can raise in every country is a crop of good men and
+ good women&mdash;of intelligent people. And another thing, I want to keep
+ this market for ourselves. A nation that sells raw material will grow
+ ignorant and poor; a nation that manufactures will grow intelligent and
+ rich. It only takes muscle to dig ore. It takes mind to manufacture a
+ locomotive, and only that labor is profitable that is mixed with thought.
+ Muscle must be in partnership with brain. I am in favor of keeping this
+ market for ourselves, and yet some people say: "Give us the market of the
+ world." Well, why don't you take it? There is no export duty on anything.
+ You can get things out of this country cheaper than from any other country
+ in the world. Iron is as cheap here in the ground, so are coal and stone,
+ as any place on earth. The timber is as cheap in the forest. Why don't you
+ make things and sell them in Central Africa, in China and Japan? Why don't
+ you do it? I will tell you why. It is because labor is too high; that is
+ all. Almost the entire value is labor. You make a ton of steel rails worth
+ twenty-five dollars; the ore in the ground is worth only a few cents, the
+ coal in the earth only a few cents, the lime in the cliff only a few cents&mdash;altogether
+ not one dollar and fifty cents; but the ton is worth twenty-five dollars;
+ twenty-three dollars and fifty cents labor! That is the trouble. The
+ steamship is worth five hundred thousand dollars, but the raw material is
+ not worth ten thousand dollars. The rest is labor. Why is labor higher
+ here than in Europe? Protection. And why do these gentlemen ask for the
+ trade of the world? Why do they ask for free trade? Because they want
+ cheaper labor. That is all; cheaper labor. The markets of the world! We
+ want our own markets. I would rather have the market of Illinois than all
+ of China with her four hundred millions. I would rather have the market of
+ one good county in New York than all of Mexico. What do they want in
+ Mexico? A little red calico, a few sombreros and some spurs. They make
+ their own liquor and they live on red pepper and beans. What do you want
+ of their markets? We want to keep our own. In other words, we want to
+ pursue the policy that has given us prosperity in the past. We tried a
+ little bit of free trade in 1892 when we were all prosperous. I said then:
+ "If Grover Cleveland is elected it will cost the people five hundred
+ million dollars." I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, nor a
+ profitable son, but I placed the figure too low. His election has cost a
+ thousand million dollars. There is an old song, "You Put the Wrong Man off
+ at Buffalo;" we took the wrong man on at Buffalo. We tried just a little
+ of it, not much. We tried the Wilson bill&mdash;a bill, according to Mr.
+ Cleveland, born of perfidy and dishonor&mdash;a bill that he was not quite
+ foolish enough to sign and not brave enough to veto. We tried it and we
+ are tired of it, and if experience is a teacher the American people know a
+ little more than they did. We want to do our own work, and we want to
+ mingle our thought with our labor. We are the most inventive of all the
+ peoples. We sustain the same relation to invention that the ancient Greeks
+ did to sculpture. We want to develop the brain; we want to cultivate the
+ imagination, and we want to cover our land with happy homes. A thing is
+ worth sometimes the thought that is in it, sometimes the genius. Here is a
+ man buys a little piece of linen for twenty-five cents, he buys a few
+ paints for fifteen cents, and a few brushes, and he paints a picture; just
+ a little one; a picture, maybe, of a cottage with a dear old woman, white
+ hair, serene forehead and satisfied eyes; at the corner a few hollyhocks
+ in bloom&mdash;may be a tree in blossom, and as you listen you seem to
+ hear the songs of birds&mdash;the hum of bees, and your childhood all
+ comes back to you as you look. You feel the dewy grass beneath your bare
+ feet once again, and you go back in your mind until the dear old woman on
+ the porch is once more young and fair. There is a soul there. Genius has
+ done its work. And the little picture is worth five, ten, may be fifty
+ thousand dollars. All the result of labor and genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And another thing we want is to produce great men and great women here in
+ our own country; then again we want business. Talk about charity, talk
+ about the few dollars that fall unconsciously from the hand of wealth,
+ talk about your poorhouses and your sewing societies and your poor little
+ efforts in the missionary line in the worst part of your town! Ah, there
+ is no charity like business. Business gives work to labor's countless
+ hands; business wipes the tears from the eyes of widows and orphans;
+ business dimples with joy the cheek of sorrow; business puts a roof above
+ the heads of the homeless; business covers the land with happy homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not want any populistic philanthropy. We want no fiat philosophy. We
+ want no silver swindles. We want business. Wind and wave are our servants;
+ let them work. Steam and electricity are our slaves; let them toil. Let
+ all the wheels whirl; let all the shuttles fly. Fill the air with the
+ echoes of hammer and saw. Fill the furnace with flame; the moulds with
+ liquid iron. Let them glow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Build homes and palaces of trade. Plow the fields, reap the waving grain.
+ Create all things that man can use. Business will feed the hungry, clothe
+ the naked, educate the ignorant, enrich the world with art&mdash;fill the
+ air with song. Give us Protection and Prosperity. Do not cheat us with
+ free trade dreams. Do not deceive us with debased coin. Give us good money&mdash;the
+ life blood of business&mdash;and let it flow through the veins and
+ arteries of commerce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me tell you to-night the smoke arising from the factories' great
+ plants forms the only cloud on which has ever been seen the glittering bow
+ of American promise. We want work, and I tell you to-night that my
+ sympathies are with the men who work, with the women who weep. I know that
+ labor is the Atlas on whose shoulders rests the great superstructure of
+ civilization and the great dome of science adorned with all there is of
+ art. Labor is the great oak, labor is the great column, and labor, with
+ its deft and cunning hands, has created the countless things of art and
+ beauty. I want to see labor paid. I want to see capital civilized until it
+ will be willing to give labor its share, and I want labor intelligent
+ enough to settle all these questions in the high court of reason. And let
+ me tell the workingman to-night: You will never help your self by
+ destroying your employer. You have work to sell. Somebody has to buy it,
+ if it is bought, and somebody has to buy it that has the money. Who is
+ going to manufacture something that will not sell. Nobody is going into
+ the manufacturing business through philanthropy, and unless your employer
+ makes a profit, the mill will be shut down and you will be out of work.
+ The interest of the employer and the employed should be one. Whenever the
+ employers of the continent are successful, then the workingman is better
+ paid, and you know it. I have some hope in the future for the workingman.
+ I know what it is to work. I do not think my natural disposition runs in
+ that direction, but I know what it is to work, and I have worked with all
+ my might at one dollar and a half a week. I did the work of a man for
+ fifty cents a day, and I was not sorry for it. In the horizon of my future
+ burned and gleamed the perpetual star of hope. I said to myself: I live in
+ a free country, and I have a chance; I live in a free country, and I have
+ as much liberty as any other man beneath the flag, and I have enjoyed it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Something has been done for labor. Only a few years ago a man worked
+ fifteen or sixteen hours a day, but the hours have been reduced to at
+ least ten and are on the way to still further reduction. And while the
+ hours have been decreased the wages have as certainly been increased. In
+ forty years&mdash;in less&mdash;the wages of American workingmen have
+ doubled. A little while ago you received an average of two hundred and
+ eighty-five dollars a year; now you receive an average of more than four
+ hundred and ninety dollars; there is the difference. So it seems to me
+ that the star of hope is still in the sky for every workingman. Then there
+ is another thing: every workingman in this country can take his little boy
+ on his knee and say, "John, all the avenues to distinction, wealth, and
+ glory are open to you. There is the free school; take your chances with
+ the rest." And it seems to me that that thought ought to sweeten every
+ drop of sweat that trickles down the honest brow of toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So let us have protection! How much? Enough, so that our income at least
+ will equal our outgo. That is a good way to keep house. I am tired of
+ depression and deficit. I do not like to see a President pawning bonds to
+ raise money to pay his own salary. I do not like to see the great Republic
+ at the mercy of anybody, so let us stand by protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another trouble. The gentleman now running for the presidency&mdash;a
+ tireless talker&mdash;oh, if he had a brain equal to his vocal chords,
+ what a man! And yet when I read his speeches it seems to me as though he
+ stood on his head and thought with his feet. This man is endeavoring to
+ excite class against class, to excite the poor against the rich. Let me
+ tell you something. We have no classes in the United States. There are no
+ permanent classes here. The millionaire may be a mendicant, the mendicant
+ may be a millionaire. The man now working for the millionaire may employ
+ that millionaire's sons to work for him. There is a chance for us all.
+ Sometimes a numskull is born in the mansion, and a genius rises from the
+ gutter. Old Mother Nature has a queer way of taking care of her children.
+ You cannot tell. You cannot tell. Here we have a free open field of
+ competition, and if a man passes me in the race I say: "Good luck. Get
+ ahead of me if you can, you are welcome."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And why should I hate the rich? Why should I make my heart a den of
+ writhing, hissing snakes of envy? Get rich. I do not care. I am glad I
+ live in a country where somebody can get rich. It is a spur in the flank
+ of ambition. Let them get rich. I have known good men that were quite
+ rich, and I have known some mean men who were in straitened circumstances.
+ So I have known as good men as ever breathed the air, who were poor. We
+ must respect the man; what is inside, not what is outside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is why I like this country. That is why I do not want it dishonored.
+ I want no class feeling. The citizens of America should be friends. Where
+ capital is just and labor intelligent, happiness dwells. Fortunate that
+ country where the rich are extravagant and the poor economical. Miserable
+ that country where the rich are economical and the poor are extravagant. A
+ rich spendthrift is a blessing. A rich miser is a curse. Extravagance is a
+ splendid form of charity. Let the rich spend, let them build, let them
+ give work to their fellow-men, and I will find no fault with their wealth,
+ provided they obtained it honestly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was an old fellow by the name of Socrates. He happened to be
+ civilized, living in a barbarous time, and he was tried for his life. And
+ in his speech in which he defended himself is a paragraph that ought to
+ remain in the memory of the human race forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He said to those judges, "During my life I have not sought ambition,
+ wealth. I have not sought to adorn my body, but I have endeavored to adorn
+ my soul with the jewels of patience and justice, and above all, with the
+ love of liberty." Such a man rises above all wealth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we envy the rich? Why envy a man who has no earthly needs? Why
+ envy a man that carries a hundred canes? Why envy a man who has that which
+ he cannot use? I know a great many rich men and I have read about a great
+ many others, and I do not envy them. They are no happier than I am. You
+ see, after all, few rich men own their property. The property owns them.
+ It gets them up early in the morning. It will not let them sleep; it makes
+ them suspect their friends. Sometimes they think their children would like
+ to attend a first-class funeral. Why should we envy the rich? They have
+ fear; we have hope. They are on the top of the ladder; we are close to the
+ ground. They are afraid of falling, and we hope to rise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we envy the rich? They never drank any colder water than I
+ have. They never ate any lighter biscuits or any better corn bread. They
+ never drank any better Illinois wine, or felt better after drinking it,
+ than I have; than you have. They never saw any more glorious sunsets with
+ the great palaces of amethyst and gold, and they never saw the heavens
+ thicker with constellations; they never read better poetry. They know no
+ more about the ecstasies of love than we do. They never got any more
+ pleasure out of courting than I did. Why should we envy the rich? I know
+ as much about the ecstasies of love of wife and child and friends as they.
+ They never had any better weather in June than I have, or you have. They
+ can buy splendid pictures. I can look at them. And who owns a great
+ picture or a great statue? The man who bought it? Possibly, and possibly
+ not. The man who really owns it, is the man who understands it, that
+ appreciates it, the man into whose heart its beauty and genius come, the
+ man who is ennobled and refined and glorified by it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have never heard any better music than I have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the great notes, winged like eagles, soar to the great dome of sound,
+ I have felt just as good as though I had a hundred million dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not try to divide this country into classes. The rich man that
+ endeavors to help his fellow-man deserves the honor and respect of the
+ great Republic. I have nothing against the man that got rich in the free
+ and open field of competition. Where they combine to rob their fellow-men,
+ then I want the laws enforced. That is all. Let them play fair and they
+ are welcome to all they get.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And why should we hate the successful? Why? We cannot all be first. The
+ race is a vast procession; a great many hundred millions are back of the
+ center, and in front there is only one human being; that is all. Shall we
+ wait for the other fellows to catch up? Shall the procession stop? I say,
+ help the fallen, assist the weak, help the poor, bind up the wounds, but
+ do not stop the procession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we envy the successful? Why should we hate them? And why should
+ we array class against class? It is all wrong. For instance, here is a
+ young man, and he is industrious. He is in love with a girl around the
+ corner. She is in his brain all day&mdash;in his heart all night, and
+ while he is working he is thinking. He gets a little ahead, they get
+ married. He is an honest man, he gets credit, and the first thing you know
+ he has a good business of his own and he gets rich; educates his children,
+ and his old age is filled with content and love. Good! His companions bask
+ in the sunshine of idleness. They have wasted their time, wasted their
+ wages in dissipation, and when the winter of life comes, when the snow
+ falls on the barren fields of the wasted days, then shivering with cold,
+ pinched with hunger, they curse the man who has succeeded. Thereupon they
+ all vote for Bryan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there is another question, and that is whether the Government has a
+ right to protect itself? And that is whether the employees of railways
+ shall have a right to stop the trains, a right to prevent interstate
+ commerce, a right to burn bridges and shoot engineers? Has the United
+ States the right to protect commerce between the States? I say, yes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the duty of the President to lay the mailed hand of the Republic
+ upon the mob. We want no mobs in this country. This is a Government of the
+ people and by the people, a Government of law, and these laws should be
+ interpreted by the courts in judicial calm. We have a supreme tribunal.
+ Undoubtedly it has made some bad decisions, but it has made a vast number
+ of good ones. The judges do the best they can. Of course they are not like
+ Mr. Bryan, infallible. But they are doing the best they can, and when they
+ make a decision that is wrong it will be attacked by reason, it will be
+ attacked by argument, and in time it will be reversed, but I do not
+ believe in attacking it with a torch or by a mob. I hate the mob spirit.
+ Civilized men obey the law. Civilized men believe in order. Civilized men
+ believe that a man that makes property by industry and economy has the
+ right to keep it. Civilized men believe that that man has the right to use
+ it as he desires, and they will judge of his character by the manner in
+ which he uses it. If he endeavors to assist his fellow-man he will have
+ the respect and admiration of his fellow-men. But we want a Government of
+ law. We do not want labor questions settled by violence and blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to civilize the capitalist so that he will be willing to give what
+ labor is worth. I want to educate the workingman so that he will be
+ willing to receive what labor is worth. I want to civilize them both to
+ that degree that they can settle all their disputes in the high court of
+ reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But when you tell me that they can stop the commerce of the Nation, then
+ you preach the gospel of the bludgeon, the gospel of torch and bomb. I do
+ not believe in that religion. I believe in a religion of kindness, reason
+ and law. The law is the supreme will of the supreme people, and we must
+ obey it or we go back to savagery and black night. I stand by the courts.
+ I stand by the President who endeavors to preserve the peace. I am against
+ mobs; I am against lynchings, and I believe it is the duty of the Federal
+ Government to protect all of its citizens at home and abroad; and I want a
+ Government powerful enough to say to the Governor of any State where they
+ are murdering American citizens without process of law&mdash;I want the
+ Federal Government to say to the Governor of that State: "Stop; stop
+ shedding the blood of American citizens. And if you cannot stop it, we
+ can." I believe in a Government that will protect the lowest, the poorest
+ and weakest as promptly as the mightiest and strongest. That is my
+ Government. This old doctrine of State Sovereignty perished in the flame
+ of civil war, and I tell you to-night that that infamous lie was
+ surrendered to Grant with Lee's sword at Appomattox.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in a strong Government, not in a Government that can make money,
+ but in a strong Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Oh, I forgot to ask the question, "If the Government can make money why
+ should it collect taxes?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be honest. Here is a poor man with a little yoke of cattle,
+ cultivating forty acres of stony ground, working like a slave in the heat
+ of summer, in the cold blasts of winter, and the Government makes him pay
+ ten dollars taxes, when, according to these gentlemen, it could issue a
+ one hundred thousand dollar bill in a second. Issue the bill and give the
+ fellow with the cattle a rest. Is it possible for the mind to conceive
+ anything more absurd than that the Government can create money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next question is, or the next thing is, you have to choose
+ between men. Shall Mr. Bryan be the next President or shall McKinley
+ occupy that chair? Who is Mr. Bryan? He is not a tried man. If he had the
+ capacity to reason, if he had logic, if he could spread the wings of
+ imagination, if there were in his heart the divine flower called pity, he
+ might be an orator, but lacking all these, he is as he is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Major McKinley was fighting under the flag, Bryan was in his mother's
+ arms, and judging from his speeches he ought to be there still. What is
+ he? He is a Populist. He voted for General Weaver.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a little while ago he denied being a Democrat. His mind is filled
+ with vagaries. A fiat money man. His brain is an insane asylum without a
+ keeper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagine that man President. Whom would he call about him? Upon whom would
+ he rely? Probably for Secretary of State he would choose Ignatius Donnelly
+ of Minnesota; for Secretary of the Interior, Henry George; for Secretary
+ of War, Tillman with his pitchforks; for Postmaster-General, Peffer of
+ Kansas. Once somebody said: "If you believe in fiat money, why don't you
+ believe in fiat hay, and you can make enough hay out of Peffer's whiskers
+ to feed all the cattle in the country." For Secretary of the Treasury,
+ Coin Harvey. For Secretary of the Navy, Coxey, and then he could keep off
+ the grass. And then would come the millennium. The great cryptogram and
+ the Bacon cipher; the single tax, State saloons, fiat money, free silver,
+ destruction of banks and credit, bondholders and creditors mobbed, courts
+ closed, debts repudiated and the rest of the folks made rich by law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And suppose Bryan should die, and then think, think of Thomas Watson
+ sitting in the chair of Abraham Lincoln. That is enough to give a patriot
+ political nightmare.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If McKinley dies there is an honest capable man to take his place. A man
+ who believes in business, in prosperity. A man who knows what money is. A
+ man who would never permit the laying of a land warrant on a cloud. A man
+ of good sense, a man of level head. A man that loves his country, a man
+ that will protect its honor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And is McKinley a tried man? Honest, candid, level-headed, putting on no
+ airs, saying not what he thinks somebody else thinks, but what he thinks,
+ and saying it in his own honest, forcible way. He has made hundreds of
+ speeches during this campaign, not to people whom he ran after, but to
+ people who came to see him. Not from the tail end of cars, but from the
+ doorstep of his home, and every speech has been calculated to make votes.
+ Every speech has increased the respect of the American people for him,
+ every one. He has never slopped over. Four years ago I read a speech made
+ by him at Cleveland, on the tariff. I tell you to-night that he is the
+ best posted man on the tariff under the flag. I tell you that he knows the
+ road to prosperity. I read that speech. It had foundation, proportion,
+ dome, and he handled his facts as skillfully as Caesar marshaled his hosts
+ on the fields of war, and ever since I read it I have had profound respect
+ for the intelligence and statesmanship of William McKinley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He will call about him the best, the wisest, and the most patriotic men,
+ and his cabinet will respect the highest and loftiest interests and
+ aspirations of the American people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then you have to make another choice. You have to choose between parties,
+ between the new Democratic and the old Republican. And I want to tell you
+ the new Democratic is worse than the old, and that is a good deal for me
+ to say. In 1861 hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Democrats thought
+ more of country than of party. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands
+ shouldered their muskets, rushed to the rescue of the Republic, and
+ sustained the administration of Abraham Lincoln. With their help the
+ Rebellion was crushed, and now hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
+ Democrats will hold country above party and will join with the Republicans
+ in saving the honor, the reputation, of the United States; and I want to
+ say to all the National Democrats who feel that they cannot vote for
+ Bryan, I want to say to you, vote for McKinley. This is no war for blank
+ cartridges. Your gun makes as much noise, but it does not do as much
+ execution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you vote for Palmer it is not to elect him, it is simply to defeat
+ Bryan, and the sure way to defeat Bryan is to vote for McKinley. You have
+ to choose between parties. The new Democratic party, with its allies, the
+ Populists and Socialists and Free Silverites, represents the follies, the
+ mistakes, and the absurdities of a thousand years. They are in favor of
+ everything that cannot be done. Whatever is, is wrong. They think
+ creditors are swindlers, and debtors who refuse to pay their debts are
+ honest men. Good money is bad and poor money is good. A promise is better
+ than a performance. They desire to abolish facts, punish success, and
+ reward failure. They are worse than the old. And yet I want to be honest.
+ I am like the old Dutchman who made a speech in Arkansas. He said: "Ladies
+ and Gentlemen, I must tell you the truth. There are good and bad in all
+ parties except the Democratic party, and in the Democratic party there are
+ bad and worse." The new Democratic party, a party that believes in
+ repudiation, a party that would put the stain of dishonesty on every
+ American brow and that would make this Government subject to the mob.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have to make your choice. I have made mine. I go with the party that
+ is traveling my way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not pretend to belong to anything or that anything belongs to me.
+ When a party goes my way I go with that party and I stick to it as long as
+ it is traveling my road. And let me tell you something. The history of the
+ Republican party is the glory of the United States. The Republican party
+ has the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of old age. The Republican
+ party has the genius of administration. The Republican party knows the
+ wants of the people. The Republican party kept this country on the map of
+ the world and kept our flag in the air. The Republican party made our
+ country free, and that one fact fills all the heavens with light. The
+ Republican party is the pioneer of progress; the grandest organization
+ that has ever existed among men. The Republican party is the conscience of
+ the nineteenth century. I am proud to belong to it. Vote the Republican
+ ticket and you will be happy here, and if there is another life you will
+ be happy there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had an old friend down in Woodford County, Charley Mulidore. He won a
+ coffin on Lincoln's election. He took it home and every birthday he called
+ in his friends. They had a little game of "sixty-six" on the coffin lid.
+ When the game was over they opened the coffin and took out the things to
+ eat and drink and had a festival, and the minister in the little town,
+ hearing of it, was scandalized, and he went to Charley Mulidore and he
+ said: "Mr. Mulidore, how can you make light of such awful things?" "What
+ things?" "Why," he said, "Mr. Mulidore, what did you do with that coffin?
+ In a little while you die, and then you come to the day of judgment."
+ "Well, Mr. Preacher, when I come to that day of judgment they will say,
+ 'What is your name?' I will tell them, 'Charley Mulidore.' And they will
+ say, 'Mr. Mulidore, are you a Christian?' 'No, sir, I was a Republican,
+ and the coffin I got out of this morning I won on Abraham Lincoln's
+ election.' And then they will say, 'Walk in, Mr. Mulidore, walk in, walk
+ in; here is your halo and there is your harp.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you want to live in good company vote the Republican ticket. Vote for
+ Black for Governor of the State of New York&mdash;a man in favor of
+ protection and honest money; a man that believes in the preservation of
+ the honor of the Nation. Vote for members of Congress that are true to the
+ great principles of the Republican party. Vote for every Republican
+ candidate from the lowest to the highest. This is a year when we mean
+ business. Vote, as I tell you, the Republican ticket if you want good
+ company.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you want to do some good to your fellow-men, if you want to say when
+ you die&mdash;when the curtain falls&mdash;when the music of the orchestra
+ grows dim&mdash;when the lights fade; if you want to live so at that time
+ you can say "the world is better because I lived," vote the Republican
+ ticket in 1896. Vote with the party of Lincoln&mdash;greatest of our
+ mighty dead; Lincoln the Merciful. Vote with the party of Grant, the
+ greatest soldier of his century; a man worthy to have been matched against
+ C&aelig;sar for the mastery of the world; as great a general as ever
+ planted on the field of war the torn and tattered flag of victory. Vote
+ with the party of Sherman and Sheridan and Thomas. But the time would fail
+ me to repeat even the names of the philosophers, the philanthropists, the
+ thinkers, the orators, the statesmen, and the soldiers who made the
+ Republican party glorious forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We love our country; dear to us for its reputation throughout the world.
+ We love our country for her credit in all the marts of the world. We love
+ our country, because under her flag we are free. It is our duty to hand
+ down the American institutions to our children unstained, unimpaired. It
+ is our duty to preserve them for ourselves, for our children, and for
+ their fair children yet to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the last speech that I shall make in this campaign, and to-night
+ there comes upon me the spirit of prophecy. On November 4th you will find
+ that by the largest majorities in our history, William McKinley has been
+ elected President of the United States.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The final rally of the McKinley League for the present
+ campaign, was held last night in Carnegie Music Hall, ana
+ the orator chosen to present the doctrines of the
+ Republican party was Robert G. Ingersoll. The meeting will
+ remain notable for the high character of the audience. The
+ great hall was filled to its utmost capacity. It was crowded
+ from the rear of the stage to the last row of seats in the
+ deep gallery.
+
+ The boxes were occupied by brilliantly attired women, and
+ hundreds of other women vied with the sterner sex In the
+ applause that greeted the numerous telling points of the
+ speaker. The audience was a very fashionable and exclusive
+ one, for admission was only to be had by ticket, and tickets
+ were hard to get.
+
+ On the stage a great company of men and women were gathered,
+ and over them waved rich masses of color, the American
+ colors, of course, predominating in the display Flags hung
+ from all the gallery rails, and the whole scheme of
+ decoration was consistent and beautiful. At 8.80 o'clock Mr.
+ John E. Milholland appeared upon the stage followed by Col.
+ Ingersoll.
+
+ Without any delay Mr. Milholland was presented as the
+ chairman of the meeting. He spoke briefly of the purpose of
+ the party and then said; "There is no Intelligent audience
+ under the flag or in any civilized country to whom it would
+ be necessary for me to introduce Robert G. Ingersoll." And
+ the cheers with which the audience greeted the orator proved
+ the truth of his words.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll rose impressively and advanced to the front
+ of the stage, from which the speaker's desk had been removed
+ in order to allow him full opportunity to indulge in his
+ habit of walking to and fro as he talked. He was greeted
+ with tremendous applause; the men cheered him and the women
+ waved their handkerchiefs and fans for several minutes.
+
+ He was able to secure instant command of his audience, and
+ while the applause was wildest, he waved his hand, and the
+ gesture was followed by a silence that was oppressive. Still
+ the speaker waited. He did not intend to waste any of his
+ ammunition. Then, convinced that every eye was centred upon
+ him, he spoke, declaring "This is our country." The assembly
+ was his from that instant. He followed it up with a summary
+ of the issues of the campaign. They were "money, the tariff,
+ and whether this Government has the right of self-defence."
+ As he said later on in his address, the Colonel has changed
+ in a good many things, but he has not changed his politics,
+ and he has not altered one whit in his masterful command of
+ forceful sayings.&mdash;New York Tribune, October 80th, 1896.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Note:&mdash;This was Col. Ingersoll's last political address.
+</pre>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+9 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
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+</html>
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+ PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <meta name="generator" content="HTML-Kit Tools HTML Tidy plugin" />
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 10 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 10
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 10 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Legal
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38810]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <h4>
+ "JUSTICE SHOULD REMOVE THE BANDAGE FROM HER EYES LONG ENOUGH
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE VICIOUS AND THE UNFORTUNATE."
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ In Twelve Volumes, Volume X.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ LEGAL
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Dresden Edition
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38810/old/orig38810-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (63K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (64K)" src="images/portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME X.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE
+ TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE
+ TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">CLOSING ADDRESS IN SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL
+ CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME X.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.<br /> Demoralization caused by
+ Alcohol&mdash;Note from the Chicago<br /> <i>Times</i>&mdash;Prejudice&mdash;Review
+ of the Testimony of Jacob Rehm&mdash;Perjury<br /> Characterized&mdash;The
+ Defendant and the Offence Charged (p. 21)&mdash;Testimony<br /> of Golsen
+ Reviewed&mdash;Rehm's Testimony before the Grand Jury&mdash;Good<br />
+ Character (p. 29)&mdash;Suspicion not Evidence.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE
+ TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.<br /> Note
+ from the Washington <i>Capital</i>&mdash;The Assertion Denied that we
+ are<br /> a Demoralized Country and that our Country is Distinguished
+ among<br /> the Nations only for Corruption&mdash;Duties of Jurors and
+ Duties of<br /> Lawyers&mdash;Section under which the Indictment is Found&mdash;Cases
+ cited to<br /> Show that Overt Acts charged and also the Crime itself
+ must be Proved<br /> as Described&mdash;Routes upon which Indictments are
+ Based and Overt Acts<br /> Charged (pp. 54-76)&mdash;Routes on which the
+ Making of False Claims is<br /> Alleged&mdash;Authorities on Proofs of
+ Conspiracy (pp. 91-94)&mdash;Examination<br /> of the Evidence against
+ Stephen W. and John W. Dorsey (pp. 96-117)&mdash;The<br /> Corpus Delicti
+ in a Case of Conspiracy and the Acts Necessary to be Done<br /> in Order
+ to Establish Conspiracy (pp. 120-123)&mdash;Testimony of Walsh<br /> and
+ the Confession of Rerdell&mdash;Extravagance in Mail Carrying (p.<br />
+ 128)&mdash;Productiveness of Mail Routes (p. 131)&mdash;Hypothesis of
+ Guilt and<br /> Law of Evidence&mdash;Dangerous Influence of Suspicion&mdash;Terrorizing
+ the<br /> Jury&mdash;The Woman at Her Husband's Side.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE
+ TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.<br /> Juries
+ the Bulwark of Civil Liberty&mdash;Suspicion Not Evidence&mdash;Brief<br />
+ Statement of the Case&mdash;John M. Peck, John W. Dorsey, Stephen W.
+ Dorsey,<br /> John R. Miner, Mr. (A. E. ) Boone (p.p. 150-156)&mdash;The
+ Clendenning<br /> Bonds&mdash;Miner's, Peck's, and Dorsey's Bids&mdash;Why
+ they Bid on Cheap<br /> Routes&mdash;Number of Routes upon which there
+ are Indictments&mdash;The<br /> Arrangement between Stephen W. Dorsey and
+ John R. Miner&mdash;Appearance<br /> of Mr. Vaile in the Contracts&mdash;Partnership
+ Formed&mdash;The Routes<br /> Divided&mdash;Senator Dorsey's Course after
+ Getting the Routes&mdash;His Routes<br /> turned over to James W. Bosler&mdash;Profits
+ of the Business (p. 181)&mdash;The<br /> Petitions for More Mails&mdash;Productive
+ and Unproductive Post-offices&mdash;Men<br /> who Add to the Wealth of
+ the World&mdash;Where the Idea of the Productiveness<br /> of Post routes
+ was Hatched&mdash;Cost of Letters to Recipients in 1843&mdash;The<br />
+ Overland Mail (p. 190)&mdash;Loss in Distributing the Mail in the
+ District<br /> of Columbia and Other Territories&mdash;Post-office the
+ only Evidence<br /> of National Beneficence&mdash;Profit and Loss of Mail
+ Carrying&mdash;Orders<br /> Antedated, and Why&mdash;Routes Increased and
+ Expedited&mdash;Additional Bonds for<br /> Additional Trips&mdash;The
+ Charge that Pay was Received when the Mail was<br /> not Carried&mdash;Fining
+ on Shares&mdash;Subcontracts for Less than the Original<br /> Contracts&mdash;Pay
+ on Discontinued Routes&mdash;Alleged False Affidavits&mdash;Right<br />
+ of Petition&mdash;Reviewing the Ground.<br /> CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY
+ IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.<br /> Scheme of the Indictment&mdash;Story
+ of the Case&mdash;What Constitutes Fraudulent<br /> Bidding&mdash;How a
+ Conspiracy Must be Proved&mdash;The Hypothesis of Guilt and<br /> Law of
+ Evidence&mdash;Conversation Unsatisfactory Evidence&mdash;Fallibility of<br />
+ Memory&mdash;Proposition to Produce Mr. Dorsey's Books&mdash;Interruption
+ of the<br /> Court to Decide that Primary Evidence, having Once been
+ Refused, can not<br /> afterwards be Introduced to Contradict Secondary
+ Evidence&mdash;A Defendant<br /> may not be Presumed into the
+ Penitentiary&mdash;A Decision by Justice<br /> Field&mdash;The Right of
+ Petition&mdash;Was there a Conspiracy?&mdash;Dorsey's<br /> Benevolence
+ (p. 250)&mdash;The Chico Springs Letter&mdash;Evidence of Moore<br />
+ Reviewed&mdash;Mr. Ker's Defective Memory&mdash;The Informer System&mdash;Testimony<br />
+ of Rerdell Reviewed&mdash;His Letter to Dorsey (p. 304)&mdash;The
+ Affidavit of<br /> Rerdell and Dorsey&mdash;Petitions for Faster Time&mdash;Uncertainty
+ Regarding<br /> Handwriting&mdash;Government Should be Incapable of
+ Deceit&mdash;Rerdell's<br /> withdrawal of the Plea of Not Guilty (p.
+ 362)&mdash;Informers, their Immunity<br /> and Evidence&mdash;Nailing
+ Down the Lid of Rerdell's Coffin&mdash;Mistakes of<br /> Messrs. Ker and
+ Merrick and the Court&mdash;Letter of H. M. Vaile to the<br /> Sixth
+ Auditor&mdash;Miner's Letter to Carey&mdash;Miner, Peck &amp; Co. to
+ Frank A.<br /> Tuttle&mdash;Answering Points Raised by Mr. Bliss (396 et
+ seq.)&mdash;Evidence<br /> regarding the Payment of Money by Dorsey to
+ Brady&mdash;A. E. Boone's<br /> Testimony Reviewed&mdash;Secrecy of
+ Contractors Regarding the Amount of their<br /> Bids&mdash;Boone's
+ Partnership Agreement with Dorsey&mdash;Explanation of Bids<br /> in
+ Different Names&mdash;Omission of Instructions from Proposals (p.<br />
+ 450)&mdash;Accusation that Senator Mitchell was the Paid Agent of<br />
+ the Defendants&mdash;Alleged Sneers at Things held Sacred&mdash;What is
+ a<br /> Conspiracy?&mdash;The Theory that there was a Conspiracy&mdash;Dorsey's
+ Alleged<br /> Interest&mdash;The Two Affidavits in Evidence&mdash;Inquiry
+ of General Miles&mdash;Why<br /> the Defendant's Books were not Produced&mdash;Tames
+ W. Bosler's Testimony<br /> Read (p. 500)&mdash;The Court shown to be
+ Mistaken Regarding a Decision<br /> Previously Made (pp. 496-502)&mdash;No
+ Logic in Abuse&mdash;Charges against John<br /> W. Miner&mdash;Testimony
+ of A. W. Moore Reviewed-The Verdict Predicted&mdash;The<br /> Defendants
+ in the Case&mdash;What is left for the Jury to Say&mdash;Remarks of<br />
+ Messrs. Henkle and Davidge&mdash;The Verdict.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.<br /> Note from the Anaconda
+ <i>Standard</i>&mdash;Senator Sander's Warning to the Jury<br /> Not to
+ be Enticed by Sinners&mdash;Evidence, based on Quality of Handwriting,<br />
+ that Davis did not Write the Will&mdash;Evidence of the Spelling&mdash;Assertion<br />
+ that the Will was Forged&mdash;Peculiarities of Eddy's Handwriting&mdash;Holes<br />
+ in Sconce's Signature and Reputation&mdash;His Memory&mdash;Business
+ Sagacity<br /> of Davis&mdash;His Alleged Children&mdash;Date of his
+ Death&mdash;Testimony of Mr.<br /> Knight&mdash;Ink used in Writing the
+ Will&mdash;Expert Evidence&mdash;Speechlessness<br /> of John A. Davis&mdash;Eddy's
+ Failure to take the Stand&mdash;Testimony of<br /> Carruthers&mdash;Relatives
+ of Sconce&mdash;Mary Ann Davis's Connections&mdash;The<br /> Family Tree&mdash;The
+ Signature of the Will&mdash;What the Evidence Shows&mdash;Duty<br /> and
+ Opportunity of the Jury.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL
+ CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Antenuptial Waiving of Dower by Women&mdash;A Case from Illinois&mdash;At
+ What<br /> Age Men and Women Cease to Feel the Tender Flame&mdash;Russell's
+ Bargain with<br /> Mrs. Russell&mdash;Antenuptial Contract and Parole
+ Agreement&mdash;Definition<br /> of "Liberal Provision "&mdash;The Woman
+ not Bound by a Contract Made in<br /> Ignorance of the Facts&mdash;Contract
+ Destroyed by Deception.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The United States vs. Daniel W. Munn, Deputy Supervisor of
+ Internal Revenue, who was indicted under Section 5440 of the
+ Revised Statutes of the United States.
+
+ There was an unusual rush to obtain admission to the United
+ States District Courtroom yesterday to listen to the closing
+ arguments of counsel in the Munn whiskey conspiracy trial
+ which has attracted so much attention during the past ten
+ days. The stalwart deputy who guards the entrance to this
+ judicial precinct was compelled to employ his entire
+ strength and power of persuasion to keep the eager, anxious
+ crowd from trespassing on the convenience and dignity of the
+ court. About ten o'clock the Court took the bench, and Col.
+ Ingersoll walked into the room, took off a broad-brimmed
+ felt hat, which gives the barrister, while he has it on,
+ somewhat the appearance of a full-grown, well-developed
+ Quaker in good standing in the society to which he belongs.
+ When he has the hat removed, however, the counsellor's
+ appearance undergoes a marked change. He then looks like the
+ crop-haired follower of the house of Montague in the
+ Shakespearean play. He sat down on a crazy old chair which
+ threatened every moment to break down beneath his weight,
+ and listened to the remarks of Judge Doolittle for the
+ remainder of the morning, until it came his time to talk.
+ Colonel Ingersoll never troubles himself to take notes of
+ anything. What he cannot recollect he does not have any use
+ for.
+
+ Judge Doolittle occupied the morning session until the time
+ for adjournment at one o'clock, with a review of the case on
+ the side of the defence. He was followed by Mr. Ingersoll in
+ the afternoon.
+
+ At two o' clock the court-room was more crowded than before,
+ and at that hour Mr. Ingersoll appeared in the forum and
+ delivered his speech in behalf of the defendant.&mdash;The Times,
+ Chicago, Ills., May 23, 1876.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IF the Court please and the gentlemen of the jury: Out of an abundance of
+ caution and, as it were, an extravagance of prudence, I propose to make a
+ few remarks to you in this case. The evidence has been gone over by my
+ associates, and arguments have been submitted to you which, in my
+ judgment, are perfectly convincing as far as the innocence of this
+ defendant is concerned. I am aware, however, that there is a prejudice
+ against a case of this character. I am aware that there is a prejudice
+ against any man engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. I know there is a
+ prejudice against a case of this kind; and there is a very good reason for
+ it. I believe to a certain degree with the district attorney in this case,
+ who has said that every man who makes whiskey is demoralized. I believe,
+ gentlemen, to a certain degree, it demoralizes those who make it, those
+ who sell it, and those who drink it. I believe from the time it issues
+ from the coiled and poisonous worm of the distillery, until it empties
+ into the hell of crime, dishonor, and death, that it demoralizes everybody
+ that touches it. I do not believe anybody can contemplate the subject
+ without becoming prejudiced against this liquid crime. All we have to do,
+ gentlemen, is to think of the wrecks upon either bank of the stream of
+ death&mdash;of the suicides, of the insanity, of the poverty, of the
+ ignorance, of the distress, of the little children tugging at the faded
+ dresses of weeping and despairing wives, asking for bread; of the men of
+ genius it has wrecked; the millions struggling with imaginary serpents
+ produced by this devilish thing. And when you think of the jails, of the
+ almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, of the scaffolds upon either
+ bank&mdash;I do not wonder that every thoughtful man is prejudiced against
+ the damned stuff called alcohol. And I know that we, to a certain degree,
+ have to fight that prejudice in this case; and so I say, for this reason
+ among others, I deem it proper that I should submit to you, gentlemen, the
+ ideas that occur to my mind upon this subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be proper for me to say here that I thank you, one and all, for the
+ patience you have shown during this trial. You have patiently heard this
+ testimony; you have patiently given your attention, I believe, to every
+ word that has fallen from the lips of these witnesses, and for one I am
+ grateful to you for it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, understanding that there is this prejudice, knowing at the
+ time the case commenced that it existed, I asked each one of you if there
+ was any prejudice in your minds which in your judgment would prevent your
+ giving a fair and candid verdict in this case, and you all, honestly, I
+ know, replied that there was not. The district attorney, Judge Bangs,
+ stated to you in the opening of this case, for the purpose of preparing
+ your minds for the examination of this testimony, that you must, first of
+ all, divest your minds of sympathy. I do not say that, gentlemen, neither
+ would I say it were I the attorney of the Government of the United States,
+ but I do say this: Divest yourselves of prejudice if you have it, but do
+ not, gentlemen, divest yourselves of sympathy. What is the great
+ distinguishing characteristic of man? What is it that distinguishes you
+ and me from the lower animals&mdash;from the beasts? More, I say, than
+ anything else, human sympathy&mdash;human sympathy. Were it not for
+ sympathy, gentlemen, the idea of justice never would have entered the
+ human brain. This thing called sympathy is the mother of justice, and
+ although justice has been painted blind, never has she been represented as
+ heartless until so represented by the district attorney in this case. I
+ tell you there is no more sacred, no more holy, and no purer thing than
+ what you and I call sympathy; and the man who is unsympathetic is not a
+ man. Gentlemen, the white breast of the lily is filthy as compared to the
+ human heart perfumed with love and sympathy. I do not want you to divest
+ yourselves of sympathy, neither do I want you to try the case entirely
+ upon sympathy, but I want you sympathetic enough to put yourselves
+ honestly in the place of this defendant. Now, gentlemen, as a matter of
+ fact, this case resolves itself into simply one point; all the rest is
+ nothing; all the rest is the merest fog that can be brushed from the mind
+ with a wave of the hand, and it is all resolved down to simply one point,
+ and that is: Is Jacob Rehin worthy of credit? Has Jacob Rehm told against
+ this defendant a true story?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, that is all there is in this case. The other points that they raise,
+ and which I shall allude to before I get through, are valuable only as
+ they cast a certain amount of suspicion upon the defendant, but the real
+ point is, and the attorneys for the Government know it, Is Mr. Jacob
+ Rehm's story worthy of credit? Did he tell the truth? Judge Bangs felt
+ that was the only question, and for that reason, in advance, he defended
+ the reputation of Jacob Rehm for truth and veracity; and he made to the
+ jury this remarkable statement: "The reputation of Jacob Rehm for truth
+ and veracity is good. It spreads all over the city of Chicago like
+ sunlight." That was the statement made by the district attorney of the
+ United States. I do not believe that he would swear to that part of his
+ speech. It was an insult to every person on this jury. It was an insult to
+ this court; it was an insult to the intelligence of every bystander, that
+ the reputation of Jacob Rehm spread like sunlight all over the city of
+ Chicago! My God! what kind of sunlight do you mean? Think of it!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, gentlemen, he knew it was necessary to defend the character of
+ Mr. Rehm; he knew it was necessary to defend that statement. He knew that
+ the testimony of Mr. Rehm was the only nail upon which the jury could
+ possibly hang a verdict of guilty in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now I propose to examine a little the testimony of Mr. Jacob Rehm. I
+ believe it was stated by Judge Bangs that one of the best tests of truth
+ was that a lie was at war with all the facts in the universe, and that
+ every fact standing, as it were, on guard, was a member of the police of
+ the universe to arrest all lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me state another truth. Every fact in the universe will fit every
+ other fact in the universe. A lie never did, never will, fit anything but
+ another lie made to fit it. Never, never! A lie is unnatural. A lie, in
+ the nature of things, is a monstrosity. A lie is no part of the great
+ circle, including the universe within its grasp, and consequently, as I
+ said before, will fit nothing except another lie. Now, then, to examine
+ the testimony of a witness, you examine into its naturalness, into its
+ probability, because you expect another man to act something as you would
+ under the same circumstances. We have no other way to judge other people
+ except by our own experience and an authenticated record of the experience
+ of others, consequently, when a man is telling a story, you have to apply
+ to it the test of your own experience, and as I say the recorded tests of
+ other honest men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us suppose just for a moment that the testimony of Mr. Jacob Rehm
+ is true. Let us suppose it. It has been stated to you, and admirably
+ stated, by Judge Doolittle,&mdash;admirably stated,&mdash;that it was the
+ height of absurdity to suppose that a man would do as he did for nothing.
+ But let me put it in another light somewhat. According to the testimony of
+ Mr. Jacob Rehm, he first tried to stop this stealing. Nobody offered him
+ any money to stop it, but he simply went to the collector, Irwin, and said
+ they were stealing, and that it must be stopped; and thereupon Collector
+ Irwin changed the gaugers for the purpose of stopping the stealing. A few
+ days thereafter, somebody came to him and wanted the stealing to commence,
+ and he told them they would have to pay for it, and the amount they would
+ have to pay for it, and he then went to Collector Irwin, whom he supposed
+ at that time to be a perfectly honest and upright man, and told him, in
+ short, that they wanted to steal, and would give five hundred dollars a
+ month. Irwin said, "Go ahead."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He admits that they did steal. He admits that they made a bargain with
+ him. He admits that that happened, and he assigned all these gaugers and
+ store-keepers. He admits that he did that for two years. He admits that he
+ received at least one hundred and twenty thousand dollars of this money.
+ He admits that in order to carry out this scheme he knew that every
+ distiller would have to sign a lie every time he made a report to the
+ Government. He admits that he knew every gauger would have to swear to a
+ lie at the end of every month in his report of the transactions of each
+ day. He admits that every store-keeper would be guilty of perjury every
+ time he made a report. He admits that he knew that the thing that he was
+ committing for two years was a daily penitentiary offence. He admits that
+ he put himself in the power of all these gaugers and all these
+ store-keepers, and all these distillers and rectifiers,&mdash;put it in
+ their power to have him arrested for a penitentiary offence at any moment
+ during the whole two years, and yet he tells you that he did this
+ absolutely for nothing! He tells you every cent he received he divided and
+ paid over; that he never kept a solitary dollar, except it may be for a
+ box of cigars. I want the attorney for the Government to tell this jury
+ that he believes that story. And if he does tell you so, gentlemen, I will
+ give you notice now that you need not believe any other word Mr. Ayer says&mdash;if
+ he says he believes that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, what more? He knew that all these men were committing these
+ penitentiary offences, and that he was putting himself in the power of all
+ these men; and what was his motive? What, gentlemen, was his object?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for me to imagine. If he got no money, if he made nothing
+ out of this transaction, it is impossible for me to imagine why he
+ embarked in such a course of crime. Why then did he say to you, gentlemen,
+ that he paid all this money over? It was to build up a reputation with
+ you. It was to make you think that whereas he paid this all over, that
+ whereas he did all this business simply to accommodate his friends, that
+ he was worthy of credit in his statement of this case. He told you that he
+ did not keep a dollar simply to make a reputation with you. What did he
+ want a reputation with you for? So that he would be believed. And what did
+ he want to be believed for? So that he could send Munn to the penitentiary
+ and, as the price of Munn's incarceration, get his own liberty. That is
+ the reason he swore it, and there is no other reason in the world. Is it
+ probable a man would commit all these crimes for nothing? Is it possible
+ that he would hire and bribe other men to commit these crimes for nothing?
+ I ask you; I ask your common sense; I appeal to your brains: Is it
+ probable that he would do all that absolutely for nothing? Is it probable
+ he would lay himself liable to the penitentiary every hour in the day for
+ two years for nothing? There is and can be but one answer to such a
+ question as that. Why, gentlemen, if his statement is true that he did all
+ this for nothing, he is the most disinterested villain, the most
+ self-sacrificing and self-denying thief of which the history of the world
+ gives any record. Is it possible?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible, I say, that a man would make himself the sewer of all the
+ official rot in this city, in which was deposited the excrement of frauds?
+ Is it possible he would turn himself into a scavenger cart into which
+ should be thrown all the moral offal of the city of Chicago for nothing?
+ Whoever answers that question in the affirmative is, in my judgment, an
+ idiot. Nobody can. Nobody has a mind so constructed that it can lodge an
+ affirmative answer to that question within its brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What next? He tells you that Munn was in this plot; and that he, Mr. Rehm,
+ at the same time was selling protection to these distillers. No distillers&mdash;and
+ you know it&mdash;would have given him ten dollars a barrel unless they
+ expected protection. He then was engaged in the sale of protection, was he
+ not? Did you ever know of a vender crying down his own wares? Did you ever
+ hear of a merchant crying down the quality of the cloth he wished to sell?
+ Did you ever hear of a grocery man endeavoring to cry down that which he
+ wished you to buy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jacob Rehm was selling protection at ten dollars a barrel, and sometimes
+ asking twelve dollars and fifty cents. Was it not natural for him to
+ endeavor to convince distillers that he had plenty of protection to sell?
+ Was it not natural for him to make the distillers believe, "If you will
+ give me ten dollars a barrel you will have perfect protection"? Would it
+ be natural for him to say, "I will protect you for ten dollars a barrel,
+ and yet I have none of the officers in my pay"? They would say, "What kind
+ of protection have you got, sir?" Would it not be natural for him to make
+ out his protection as good as he possibly could? Would it not be natural
+ for him to tell you, "I have got all these officers on my side, from the
+ lowest gauger to the gentleman who presides over the internal revenue
+ department at the city of Washington"? The more protection he had the more
+ money he could get, and consequently it would not be natural for him to
+ cry down his own protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Mr. Munn was in it, and if Mr. Munn at that time was the superior
+ officer of the collector, and this man had protection to sell, would he
+ not have said that Munn was also in the ring? When he was trying to sell
+ protection to George Burrows at ten dollars a barrel, George Burrows asked
+ him if Munn was in the ring and he said he was not. If Mr. Munn had been
+ why didn't he say that Munn was? For the reason that that would make his
+ protection appear to be of a better quality, and he could have sold it at
+ a better price. But he said "no," and that they did not need him, because
+ they could manage him, and fool him through this man Bridges, and you will
+ recollect that Bridges was appointed directly by the Government and not by
+ Munn; and Bridges reported directly to the Government and not to Munn. He
+ had nothing to do with him one way or the other, except that they were
+ both in the Revenue Department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I say if it is possible that a man can cry down his own wares that he
+ wishes to sell, then you may say that the statement of Rehm is natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, why should he inform Burrows that Munn was about to make a
+ visit here? In order that Burrows might have an opportunity to have his
+ house put in order. Why should he have sent notices to other distillers
+ that Munn was coming? Why should he tell them to put their houses in
+ order? So as to be ready for a visit from Mr. Munn. It may be that the
+ counsel for the Government will say, "This shows the infinite fidelity of
+ this infinite rascal."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I will come to this part of my argument again, but the next thing I
+ will speak of is his story, where he says that he actually paid the money
+ to Munn himself, and if there is anything left of that after I get through
+ with it you are at perfect liberty to find the defendant guilty. You must
+ recollect that he had a bargain. Now, according to his story, he paid this
+ money to Bridges. You must recollect, according to his story, that Munn at
+ that time was one of the conspirators, had been receiving money&mdash;a
+ half of thirty-five thousand dollars or forty-five thousand dollars having
+ gone into his pocket. Recollect that. He goes over one day to the
+ rectifying-house of Roelle &amp; Junker, and there are some barrels found,
+ the stamps of which had not been scratched. Mr. Munn was assured by Roelle
+ that there was no fraud. Roelle still swears that there was no fraud. He
+ was afterward assured by Junker that there was no fraud. Junker still
+ swears that there was no fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what does Rehm come in to swear? Rehm says that Bridges came to him
+ and told him that Munn was going to make trouble&mdash;going to make
+ trouble about these barrels that had the stamps on that were not scratched
+ off. Why did not Rehm say to him, "How is he going to make a fuss? He has
+ got twenty thousand dollars of money already. He is in the conspiracy. He
+ is a nice man to make a fuss! What is he going to make a fuss about?"
+ Would it not have been just as likely that Bridges should have made a fuss
+ as that Munn should have made it? Bridges, according to the testimony of
+ your immaculate witness, was in this no more than Munn&mdash;not one
+ particle. And why was Munn going to make trouble? Mr. Rehm has endeavored
+ to answer that question. Mr. Rehm then goes to Munn, sent there by Bridges&mdash;it
+ would be very hard to find out why he did not give the money to Bridges,&mdash;but
+ he went to Munn and says: "You are going to make some trouble about what
+ you found at Roelle &amp; Junker's?" "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Why?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Because," he says, "the men at work there&mdash;the persons employed
+ there&mdash;will make a fuss about it, but they will see it and say that
+ it is overlooked."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, that is the reason that Rehm puts in the mouth of the defendant.
+ Afterward he goes himself to Junker and advises him to give him five
+ hundred dollars, and Junker proposes one thousand dollars, and gives him
+ one thousand dollars, and then he sends for Munn and he comes to his
+ office, and he hands him one thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, the reason Munn gave was that the men there would notice
+ it and make a disturbance about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, then, why not pay the men? What is the use of paying Munn? If this
+ was done to prevent the men working at the rectifying-house from making
+ trouble, why not pay the men? Why not pay the men who were going to make
+ the trouble? Why give an extra thousand dollars to a conspirator to whom
+ you had already given twenty thousand dollars, and who, at that time,
+ according to the testimony of Rehm, was officially rotten? Why not give
+ the money to men who were going to make the trouble? And the next question
+ is this&mdash;and if you will recollect the testimony of Roelle, he swears
+ that when the defendant came to the rectifying-house, he (Roelle) was
+ alone. He swears that he was alone. He swears that all the rest had gone
+ to dinner, and according to Roelle's testimony there was nobody there but
+ himself. Where were the men that were going to make this disturbance?
+ Where were the men that were going to notice this oversight? Where were
+ the men that were going to stir up difficulties at Washington or any other
+ place? According to the testimony of Roelle those people were at dinner,
+ and where, gentlemen, is the philosophy of that lie which they have told?
+ Where is it? Why should he have paid Munn money? Why didn't he pay it to
+ Bridges? If it was for the purpose of stopping the men from making
+ trouble, why not pay it to the men they wished to stop? I ask the
+ gentlemen to answer that question. I ask the gentlemen to tell us what men
+ were in danger of making this trouble? Was it the gauger who received six
+ hundred dollars a month for being a liar and a thief? Was it the
+ book-keeper who, every report that he made, swore to a lie? Was there any
+ danger of these liars and of these thieves making a fuss on their own
+ account? Was there any danger of that gauger stopping his own pay? Was
+ there any danger of that book-keeper trying to throw himself out of
+ employment? Was there any danger of any thief or of any conspirator saying
+ anything calculated to bring this rascality to the surface? If a bribed
+ gauger would not tell it; if a bribed book-keeper would not tell it, I ask
+ the Attorney-General for the Government, would Munn tell it, who had
+ received, according to your evidence, over twenty thousand dollars of
+ fraudulent money? Was there any danger of Munn turning state's evidence
+ against himself? Was there not just as much danger of Bridges making a
+ fuss as Munn? Was there not, according to their testimony, the same danger
+ of Rehm himself going to Washington as there would be of a bribed gauger,
+ and of a lying book-keeper? Gentlemen, your story won't hang together.
+ There is no philosophy in it, and it will not fit anything except another
+ lie made on purpose to fit it; and it has got to be made by a better
+ mechanic than Jacob Rehm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, gentlemen, what more? The district attorney told you, and I was
+ astonished when he told it&mdash;I was astonished&mdash;he said that the
+ testimony of Jacob Rehm was not impeached; that, on the contrary, it was
+ sustained by these other witnesses. Had he made such a statement under
+ oath I am afraid an indictment for perjury would lie. He said that the
+ testimony had been sustained rather than impeached. How sustained?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Mr. Rehm, did you ever give Mr. Burroughs notice that Mr. Munn was coming
+ in order that he might put his house in order?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Rehm says, "No."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We then asked Mr. Burroughs, "Did Mr. Rehm ever give you such notice?" and
+ he corroborates Mr. Rehm by saying "Yes," if that is what you call
+ corroboration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you tell Mr. Hesing that Munn was not in it?" "I did not." "Mr.
+ Hesing, did Mr. Rehm tell you that Munn was not in it." "He did."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is another instance of the attorney's idea of corroboration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you tell Hesing that Hoyt was innocent?" "I did not." "Mr. Hesing,
+ did Mr. Rehm tell you that Hoyt was innocent?" "He did."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another corroboration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did you tell him that Munn never was in it&mdash;that Munn was innocent?"
+ "No."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We then asked him,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Did he tell you that?" "He did."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We say to Burroughs,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In 1874, in 1873, in 1872, did Rehm tell you that Munn was not in it?"
+ "He did."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is another idea I suppose of corroboration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Mr. Rehm, how much money did the house of Dickenson &amp;c Leach give
+ you? A. Twenty-five thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Will you swear they did not give you thirty? A. I will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Leach on the stand:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How much money did your house give Rehm? A. Between forty thousand and
+ fifty thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another instance of corroboration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We then called Mr. Burroughs upon the stand. He belonged to the same
+ house:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How much money did you give Jacob Rehm? A. Fifty-two thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another instance of corroboration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Mr. Rehm, did Mr. Abel ever give you any money? A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How many times? A. Once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How much? A. Five hundred dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Will you swear it was not a thousand? A. Yes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Abel take the stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did you ever pay Jacob Rehm any money? A. Yes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How often? A. Once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How much? A. Two thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that is another instance of the corroboration of Jacob Rehm. And when
+ a man is thus corroborated, gentlemen, his reputation for truth and
+ veracity "spreads like sunlight all over the city of Chicago." There was
+ not a circumstance, there was not a statement made by Mr. Rehm except it
+ was made in the presence of Bridges, who is in Canada; of Irwin, who is in
+ his grave, or in the presence of the defendant, who stands here with his
+ mouth closed&mdash;not one solitary circumstance, with those exceptions,
+ that has not been contradicted. Can you believe this man? Can you believe
+ this man who has been contradicted by every one brought upon the stand?
+ Can you take his word after he has sworn as he has? I tell you, gentlemen,
+ you cannot do it, and as Judge Doolittle told you, if there is an infamous
+ crime in the world, it is the crime of perjury. All the sneaking
+ instincts; all the groveling, crawling instincts unite and blend in this
+ one crime called perjury. It clothes itself, gentlemen, in the shining
+ vestments of an oath in order that it may tell a lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Perjury poisons the wells of truth, the sources of justice. Perjury leaps
+ from the hedges of circumstance, from the walls of fact, to assassinate
+ justice and innocence. Perjury is the basest and meanest and most cowardly
+ of crimes. What can it do? Perjury can change the common air that we
+ breathe into the axe of an executioner. Perjury out of this air can forge
+ manacles for free hands. Perjury out of a single word can make a hangman's
+ rope and noose. Perjury out of a word can build a scaffold upon which the
+ great and noble must suffer. It was told during the Middle Ages and in the
+ time of the Inquisition, that the inquisitors had a statue of the Virgin
+ Mary, and when a man was brave enough to think his own thoughts he was
+ brought before this tribunal and before this beautiful statue, robed in
+ gorgeous robes and decked with jewels, and as a punishment he was made to
+ embrace it. The inquisitor touched a hidden spring; the arms of the statue
+ clutched the victim and drew him to a breast filled with daggers. Such,
+ gentlemen, is perjury, and if you take into consideration the evidence of
+ this witness when you retire to the jury-room, you, in my judgment, will
+ commit an outrage. Every man here should spurn that man from the threshold
+ of his conscience as he would a rabid cur from the threshold of his house.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any safety in the world if you take the testimony of these men,
+ especially when character avails nothing? Is there any safety in human
+ society if you will take the testimony of a perjured man? Is there any
+ safety in living among mankind if this is the law,&mdash;if the statement
+ of a confessed conspirator makes the character of a great and good man
+ worthless? For one I had rather flee to the woods and live with wild
+ beasts and savage nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, I know that you will pay no attention to that kind of
+ testimony. I know it. I know that you cannot do it. And why? You know that
+ that man is swearing a lie for the purpose of protection. You know that
+ that man is swearing a lie under the smile of the Government of the United
+ States. You know it. You know he expects a benefit from it. You know it.
+ When the other witnesses, Burroughs and Hesing, that swear here&mdash;understand
+ that they are swearing beneath a frown. Understand that they know that no
+ mercy will be extended to them by the attorneys that they have offended.
+ Understand that, and when you understand that a man is swearing to protect
+ himself, and when he is a man that will swear to a lie for money, of
+ course he will swear to a lie to keep himself out of the penitentiary, or
+ to shorten his time&mdash;I say, when you know a man is placed in that
+ condition, you have no right to give the least weight to his testimony,
+ not one particle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more, gentlemen. Why, they have another witness, and he has sworn
+ nothing. He has sworn nothing that has anything to do with this conspiracy
+ one way or the other. Nothing! The only evidence against the defendant, I
+ tell you, is the evidence of Mr. Jacob Rehm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant, gentlemen, was an officer of the revenue for several years.
+ When he came to Chicago, in 1871, the district attorney said the
+ distillers were here in full blast making illicit whiskey. If he had read
+ the evidence he knew better; if he had not, he had no business to make any
+ statement about it. In 1871, when the defendant came here, according to
+ the testimony of all these men, the distilleries were running straight,
+ and the rascality did not commence until the fall of 1872, when Jacob Rehm
+ sold protection to these distillers. The defendant had been here a year
+ before any frauds were committed. He was then supervisor of internal
+ revenue up to May, 1875. During that time he did many official acts;
+ during that time he wrote hundreds and thousands of letters; during that
+ time he made hundreds and hundreds of visits to all these establishments.
+ They have searched the records; they have had every nook and cranny looked
+ at by a hired detective, and all that they can possibly bring forward is
+ the beggarly account presented in this case: First, that there were four
+ or five barrels of rum without the ten cent stamps, and that, you know, is
+ a thing that ought to send a man to the penitentiary; next, twenty-five
+ barrels of which the stamps had not been scratched, but about which there
+ was no fraud. Ought a man to be sent to the penitentiary because he does
+ not seize a house when there has been a technical violation without any
+ fraud? A supervisor that will do it ought to be kicked out of office; he
+ ought to be kicked out of the society of honest and decent men, and if
+ this defendant was satisfied from the story of Roelle and Junker that
+ there had been no fraud committed by leaving the stamps on the twenty-five
+ barrels unscratched, and had seized that house, that would have been an
+ act of meanness, an act of oppression, which I do not believe even a
+ Government attorney would uphold unless he was hired in the case. Now,
+ what next did he do? The next thing he did he went to Golsen &amp;
+ Eastman. Gentlemen, I do not care to speak much of Golsen. If there ever
+ was a man utterly devoid of such a thing as principle, if there ever was a
+ man that would read the statute against stealing, and stand in perfect
+ amazement that anybody ever thought of making such a statute, it certainly
+ must be Golsen. You heard him, and he is the man that said he told lies in
+ business; he is the man that said he did not think it was wrong to swear
+ lies in business, and his business now is to keep out of the penitentiary;
+ that is his principal business, that is one of the gentlemen they have
+ hired, that is one of the gentlemen they have brought forward here to
+ offend the nostrils of decent men. Now, then, he went to Golsen &amp;
+ Eastman. Judge Bangs told you in his speech that Golsen then and there
+ explained his infamy to Munn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is anything which makes my blood boil it is to have the evidence
+ misstated for the purpose of putting a man in the penitentiary. I never
+ will make a misstatement to add to my reputation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I recollect that evidence so perfectly. I recollected it so clearly that
+ it shocked me when he stated that the man Golsen explained all his
+ rascality and villainy to Munn. Why, I never heard of such evidence. What
+ was it? It was said by Mr. Ayer in the opening that in the presence of
+ Munn, Golsen said to Bridges, "It is not now all right," or something like
+ that, "but I can make it right," or that he said in the presence of Munn,
+ to Bridges, something that should have put Munn on his guard. I heard
+ that, and I heard Golsen, when he came on the stand, say that he said that
+ to Bridges, and you will bear me out when I say that I asked him in his
+ cross-examination, "Did Munn hear it? Did you say it thinking that Munn
+ did hear it?" and he did not pretend any such thing. He did not pretend
+ it, and I tell you I was hurt, I was touched, I admit it, when Judge Bangs
+ made the statement. I have an interest in this case. I am not only an
+ attorney in this case, but, gentlemen, I am proud to say I am the
+ defendant's friend. I am more than his attorney; I am his friend, and when
+ an attorney makes a statement like that I must say it shocks me. Golsen
+ did not swear that he explained his villainy to Munn&mdash;not a word of
+ that kind or character. On the contrary he simply said he told this to
+ Bridges, not to Munn, and that Munn did not hear it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? Col. Eastman was there at the same time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Col. Eastman says he did everything he could to impress upon Mr. Munn that
+ it was an honest transaction. What more? Then he went through the
+ rectifying-house like an honest man. How did he act? Like an honest man.
+ Did he act like somebody trying to cover up a fraud? No, he acted like an
+ honest man, and I tell you up to that time Mr. Eastman had borne a good
+ reputation&mdash;a good character in the state of Illinois. Munn believed
+ what he said. He believed there had been an accident. Munn believed they
+ made the charge in the books not for the purpose of covering up a fraud,
+ but for the purpose of making the books agree with the facts. So much for
+ that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not recollect any others. I do not recollect any others that amount
+ to anything&mdash;that can throw the slightest suspicion on this
+ defendant. If he were upon trial now for failing to make a report; if he
+ were on trial now for malfeasance or non-feasance or negligence as an
+ officer, it would be proper to bring all these things before this jury,
+ but that is not the case. He is here for entering into a conspiracy to
+ defraud the Government, and these things that they have shown outside,&mdash;and
+ it is perfectly amazing to me they have not shown more,&mdash;it is
+ perfectly amazing to me that a man could be in that position the years he
+ was without making more mistakes&mdash;I say, all they prove in the world
+ is (give them their very worst construction), that he was guilty of some
+ negligence as an officer, but they do not attempt to prove that he was in
+ a conspiracy with Mr. Jacob Rehm to steal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next point, gentlemen, to which I wish to call your attention is the
+ testimony of Mr. Rehm before the grand jury. You recollect when we put on
+ Mr. Ward to show what Rehm testified to before the grand jury, that Mr.
+ Ayer suggested that we had better have the notes. I saw then that he was
+ extremely anxious for Schlichter to get on the stand. Then we introduced
+ Mr. Oleson, and he still spoke about having the notes. I understood that
+ it was a part of his case to have Schlichter brought on the stand in some
+ way. Now, then, it does not make any difference to me whether Schlichter
+ swore to the truth or not. Not a particle, not a particle, but I think he
+ did. But if he did swear a lie, and he will swear a lie every chance he
+ gets, in the course of time he will get such a character and such a
+ reputation that a district attorney of the United States will stand up and
+ say: "Schlichter's reputation is good; it spreads like sunlight all over
+ the city of Chicago." Now, then, you have been told by Judge Doolittle all
+ the men who swore that he did swear before the grand jury, that he did not
+ know of any crookedness. You have heard the testimony of men who swear
+ that he did swear before the grand jury that he knew of no fraud. If he
+ did so swear he perjured himself or he has perjured himself now. But what
+ more? Whether he swore that or not, he swore this according to their own
+ statements:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. At the time you burned your books had you any knowledge that they
+ contained any evidence of fraud against the Government? A. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, he knew the distillers used a certain amount of malt to make a
+ certain amount of high-wines, and he knew the more malt they used the more
+ high-wines they would have to account for, and if they bought twice as
+ much malt as was necessary to make the whiskey upon which they paid the
+ tax, he knew that that was evidence that they had been running without
+ paying the tax. If it takes a certain amount of malt for a gallon of
+ high-wines, and his books would show they had used twice as much malt as
+ they had paid taxes, according to gallons, then he did know that his books
+ did contain evidence showing that they had committed fraud. And when he
+ said his books did not, he told what he knew was a deliberate lie. What
+ more does he say? He says these books were burned up about the first of
+ May just to get them out of the way,&mdash;for no earthly object except
+ simply to get them out of the way,&mdash;and he swears that he sold to
+ nearly all these distillers malt, and he knew that the amount of malt sold
+ to each of these distilleries would determine the amount of whiskey they
+ had made, that is, not into a barrel or into a gallon, but approximately,
+ and he knew the more malt they used the more tax they would have to show
+ that they had paid. And he knew that his books would be evidence against
+ every distiller in the city. He knew that, and yet he swears here,
+ squarely and fairly, that at the time he burned his books he did not know
+ that they were of any value as evidence against these distillers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I want to call your attention to another thing. When I
+ asked him, when he was called here on the stand, if he was not asked about
+ crookedness, whether he was not asked about fraud, at first he stumbled
+ into telling the truth, as far as that was concerned, as far as being
+ asked was concerned, and then told a lie as to how he answered it. Now,
+ let me read it to you; you may have forgotten it. There is nothing like
+ having these things printed:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Were you sworn before that grand jury by anybody? A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Were you asked any question about this whiskey business? A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Were you asked by one of the grand jurors whether you knew of any
+ illicit whiskey being made in this city by any of those distilleries? A.
+ No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. I ask you in regard to your answer to that, if you did not say you did
+ not? A. I did not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. What did you say? A. The question was not asked in that way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Well, wait until I ask you, and then you can tell. Were you not asked
+ if you knew of any crookedness about whiskey, and didn't you reply "No"?
+ A. No; I answered "Yes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is his testimony. He was afraid then that he was caught, and he was
+ going to swear deliberately that he swore before the grand jury, that he
+ did know of crookedness. Then he changed his idea, and says afterward that
+ it is about the one hundred and fifty barrels. He says now, "Put your
+ question." Then I put this question&mdash;"Put your question." [Question
+ repeated.] "A. The question was not put to me in that way."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, he gets out of it and says it was the one hundred and fifty barrels
+ he talked about; but I asked him then if he was not asked if he did not
+ know about any crookedness here and how he answered it, and he says that
+ he answered it "Yes." That is, before he found out that it was necessary
+ to change his answer or to change his mind upon that question. That is
+ what he says. And it is utterly impossible, gentlemen, to get out of the
+ fact that he did, before that grand jury, swear that he knew of no
+ crookedness. You can not get out upon Mr. Roelle's testimony. You can not
+ get out upon the idea that Schlichter put it in. Schlichter did not put it
+ into the memory of the old man Samson. Schlichter did not write it in the
+ memory of Mr. Hoag. Schlichter did not write it in the consciousness of
+ Mr. Oleson. Schlichter did not write it in short-hand in the head of J. D.
+ Ward. Schlichter, I tell you, by his short-hand necromancy, has not
+ changed six or seven men into liars whether he put that in the second line
+ from the top or not. He cannot do that with his short-hand, gentlemen. He
+ could not make old Mr. Samson come here and say, "I asked that question
+ myself; I thought that when he was there he was the head centre of all the
+ rascality. And so just before he went out I put one of those general,
+ pinching questions as to whether he knew anything. It was a kind of
+ conscience scraper." The old man put that question just as these witnesses
+ were going out: "Do you know anything about any fraud? Do you know
+ anything about any crookedness?" It was a kind of a last question that
+ would cover the case, and the old man recollects that he put it to Jacob
+ Rehm and he recollects why he put it to him, because he believed at that
+ time that he was the head centre of the villainy. Mr. Hoag says the same
+ thing. Mr. Hoag says that he looked upon him as the great rascal in the
+ business; and he recollects distinctly that he asked him that question;
+ and he recollects as distinctly how he answered it. J. D. Ward was the
+ attorney of the United States, and he swears to it that he recollects it
+ perfectly. Oleson was an attorney of the United States. He says that he
+ recollects it perfectly. And yet is this all to be accounted for,
+ gentlemen, by saying that Mr. Schlichter inserted it in his notes and that
+ all these other gentlemen are mistaken? The fact is, gentlemen, that Mr.
+ Rehm, when he was there, had not made up his mind to vomit; he had not yet
+ made up his mind that he could make a bargain with the United States to
+ get out of punishment. He did not know at that time that he need not go to
+ the penitentiary if he would furnish a substitute. He did not know,
+ gentlemen, at that time that he could have any understanding with anybody;
+ if he would bring better blood than his they would deal lightly with him.
+ He did not know at that time that two owls could be traded off for an
+ eagle. He did not know at that time that two snakes could be traded off
+ for a decent man. As soon as he found that out, then, instead of saying
+ that he did not know anything about any crookedness; instead of saying
+ that he did not know anything about any fraud, he said, gentlemen, "I know
+ all about it. I know all of them; every one of them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I want you to put against that man's testimony the lies he
+ swore to himself. I want you to put against that man's testimony the
+ improbability that he would commit numberless crimes for nothing. I want
+ you to put against that man's testimony the testimony of every one who has
+ contradicted and disputed him. I want you to put against that man's
+ testimony the idea and the fact that he warned these other men against the
+ approach of Munn. I want you to put against that man's testimony all the
+ circumstances of the lies he has sworn; and I want you, in addition to
+ that, to put against that man's testimony the evidence of this defendant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have been told by the district attorney&mdash;and if I have said
+ anything too strong in the warmth of this discussion I beg his pardon. I
+ have known Judge Bangs a long time, I have been his friend, I respect him;
+ but I must say I felt a little outraged at what he said, because he said
+ he had sympathy with this defendant. He got up here and said that the
+ defendant bore a most excellent reputation. He got up and said that he
+ sympathized with him, and all at once I saw his sympathy was a cloak under
+ which he concealed a dagger to stab him. Now, then, he says good character
+ is nothing. Good character is nothing! Good character, gentlemen, is not
+ made in a day. It is the work of a life. The walls of that grand edifice
+ called a good character have to be worked at during life. All the good
+ deeds, all the good words, everything right and true and honest that he
+ does, goes into this edifice, and it is domed and pinnacled with lofty
+ aspirations and grand ambitions. It is not made in a day, neither can it
+ be crumbled into blackened dust by a word from the putrid mouth of a
+ perjurer. Let these snakes writhe and hiss about it. Let the bats fly in
+ at its windows if they can. They cannot destroy it; but above them all
+ rises the grand dome of a good character, not with the bats and snakes,
+ but up, gentlemen, with eagles in the sunlight. They cannot prevail
+ against a good character. Is it worth anything? If ever I am indicted for
+ any offence and stand before a jury, I hope that I shall be able to prove
+ as unsullied a reputation as Daniel W. Munn has proved. And when I read
+ those letters, not only saying that his character was good, but adding
+ "above reproach," it thrilled me and I thought to myself then, "if ever
+ you get in trouble will anybody certify as splendidly and as grandly to
+ your reputation?" There is not a man of this jury that can prove a better
+ reputation. There is not a judge on the bench in the United States that
+ can prove a better reputation. There never was and there never will be an
+ attorney at this bar that can prove a better reputation. There is not one
+ in this audience that can prove a better reputation. And yet we are told
+ that that splendid fabric called a good character cannot stand for a
+ moment against a word from a gratuitous villain&mdash;not one moment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such, gentlemen, is not the law of this country. Such, gentlemen, never
+ will be the law of this land or of any other. I deny it, and I hurl it
+ back with scorn. A good character will stand against the testimony of all
+ the thieves on earth. A good character, like a Gibraltar, will stand
+ against the testimony of all the rascals in the universe, no matter how
+ they assail it. It will stand, and it will stand firmer and grander the
+ more it is assaulted. What is the use of doing honestly? What is the use
+ of working and toiling? What is the use of taking care of your wife and
+ your children? Where is the use, I say, of being honest in your business?
+ What is the use of always paying your debts as you agree? What is the use
+ of living for others? Character is made of duty and love and sympathy,
+ and, above all, of living and working for others. What is the use of being
+ true to principle? What is the use of taking a sublime stand in favor of
+ the right with the world against you? What is the use of being true to
+ yourself? What is the use, I say, if all this character, if all this noble
+ action, if all this efflorescence of soul can be blasted and blown from
+ the world simply by a word from the mouth of a confessed felon? And yet we
+ are assured here in this august tribunal, in a Federal court of the United
+ States, where the defendant stands under the protection of the the
+ Constitution of his country, that his character is absolutely worthless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say, "Why don't you bring somebody to impeach Mr. Jacob Rehm?" Why?
+ because he has impeached himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To impeach a man is the last method. If he tells an improbable story, that
+ impeaches him. If he tells an unnatural story, that impeaches him. If you
+ prove he has sworn a different way, that impeaches him. If you show he has
+ stated a different way, that impeaches him. What is the use of impeaching
+ him any more? That would be a waste of time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I say to you, and I say to you once for all, I want you to
+ get out of your minds and out of your hearts any prejudice against this
+ man on account of these times. I understand now that in every man's
+ pathway hiss and writhe the serpents of suspicion. I understand now that
+ every man in high place can be pointed at with the dirty finger of a
+ scurvy rascal. I understand that. I understand that no matter how high his
+ position is, that any man, no matter how low, how leprous he may be, what
+ a cancerous heart he may have, he can point his finger at the man high up
+ on the ladder of fame, and the man has to come down and explain to the
+ wretched villain. I understand that; but these prejudices I want out of
+ your mind. I want you to try this case according to the evidence and
+ nothing else. I want you to say whether you believe the testimony of these
+ conspirators and scoundrels. I want you to say whether you are going to
+ take the testimony of that man, and if you bring in a verdict of guilty I
+ want you to be able to defend yourselves when you go to the defendant and
+ tell him: "We found you guilty upon a man's testimony who admitted that he
+ was a thief: who admitted that he was a perjurer; who admitted that he
+ hired others to swear lies, and who committed crimes without number year
+ after year." I want you to say whether that is an excuse to give to him.
+ Is it an excuse to give to his pallid, invalid wife? Is it an excuse to
+ give to his father eighty years old, trembling upon the verge of the
+ grave: "I sent your son to the penitentiary upon the evidence of a
+ convicted thief"? I say is it an excuse to give to his weeping wife? Is it
+ an excuse to give to his child: "I sent your father to the penitentiary
+ upon the evidence of Jacob Rehm"? There is not one of you can go to the
+ child, or to the sick wife, or to the old man, or to the defendant
+ himself, and without the blush of shame say: "I sent you to the
+ penitentiary upon the evidence of Jacob Rehm." You cannot do it. It is not
+ in human nature to do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, there is one other thing I want to say. Suspicion is not
+ evidence. Suspicious circumstances are not evidence. All the suspicion in
+ the world, all the suspicious circumstances in the world, amount not to
+ evidence. I want to say one more thing. They say that the testimony of a
+ thief ought to be corroborated. By whom? another thief? No. Because that
+ other thief wants corroboration, and that other thief would want
+ corroboration, and so on until thieves ran out, which I think would be a
+ long time in this particular community at this particular time. Understand
+ that whatever one thief swears, that it is not corroborated because
+ another thief swears to the same thing, and upon the point upon which
+ Judge Doolittle dwelt so splendidly he must be corroborated upon the exact
+ point. For instance, Mr. Munn went to his house, Mr. Munn went to his
+ office, and another man says, I saw him there. That is not corroboration.
+ He must be corroborated in the fact that he gave him the money, not that
+ Munn went to his house&mdash;not that he had an opportunity to give him
+ the money&mdash;not that he was there, but he must be corroborated as to
+ the exact, identical point that makes the guilt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I am going to leave this case with you. I feel a great
+ interest in it. The defendant feels an infinite interest in it, infinite,
+ I tell you. It is all he has on earth, all he has is with you. You are
+ going to take his hopes; you are going to take his aspirations; you are
+ going to take his ambition; you are going to take his family; you are
+ going to take his child; you are going to take everything he has in this
+ world into your power. It is a fearful thing to take this responsibility.
+ I know it. But you are going to take it&mdash;his future, everything he
+ has dreamed and hoped for, everything that he has expected to attain&mdash;his
+ character, everything he has that is dear to him, and you are going to say
+ "Not guilty," or you are going to cover him with the mantle of infamy and
+ shame forever; you are going to disgrace his blood; you are going to bring
+ those that love him down with sorrow to their graves; you are either going
+ to do that or you are going to say, "We will not believe the testimony of
+ self-convicted robbers and thieves." And, gentlemen, I ask you, I implore
+ you, I beseech you, more than that, I demand of you that you find in this
+ case a verdict of "Not guilty." Put yourself in his place. Do you want to
+ be convicted on that kind of testimony? Do you want to go to the
+ penitentiary with that kind of witnesses against you? Do you want to be
+ locked up on that kind of testimony? Do you want to be separated from your
+ wife or your child on that kind of evidence? Do you want to be rendered
+ infamous during your life upon the testimony of such men as Golsen and
+ Conklin and Rehm? Do you? Do you? Do you? Does any man in the world
+ imagine that twelve honest men can be found that can rob another of his
+ citizenship, of his honor, of his character, of his home, and of his
+ entire fortune, simply upon the testimony of such scoundrels? No,
+ gentlemen. For myself, for this defendant, I have no fear. All I ask is
+ that you will give to this evidence the weight that it deserves. All I ask
+ of the prosecuting attorney in this case is that he do his duty. All I ask
+ of him is to state just as nearly as he can, as I have no doubt he will,
+ the evidence in the case. All I ask of him is that he give to all these
+ circumstances their due weight, and no more. I ask him to fight for
+ justice and not for his reputation. I ask him to fight for the honor of
+ the Government. I ask him to fight for the complete doing of justice, if
+ he can, but I hope he will leave out of the case all idea that he must win
+ a case or that I must lose a case. We are contending for too great a
+ stake. Personally, I care nothing about it, whether I make or lose what
+ you please to call reputation in this affair. I care everything for my
+ client. I care everything for his honor, and more than that, gentlemen, I
+ love the United States of America. I love this Government, I love this
+ form of government, and I do not want to see the sources of government
+ poisoned. I do not want to see a state of things in the United States of
+ America whereby a man can be consigned to a dungeon upon the testimony of
+ a robber and thief, simply upon a political issue, simply by the testimony
+ of some man who wishes to purchase immunity at the price of another's
+ liberty and honor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One more point, and I have done. I had forgotten it, or I should have
+ mentioned it before. They have appealed to you all along to say that the
+ fact that high-wines were so cheap during all this time put Mr. Munn upon
+ his information, so to speak, that there were frauds. Let me take those
+ books and let us see. On the 6th day of June, 1874, the tax on spirits was
+ seventy cents, and the price was ninety-four cents. That made them get
+ twenty-four cents a gallon for the whiskey. Understand, the tax was
+ seventy, the price was ninety-four. That made them get twenty-four cents
+ for the whiskey. Now, then, on the 10th of June it was ninety-six and a
+ half cents. That made twenty-six and a half for the whiskey. On the 10th
+ of June, 1874, twenty-six and a half they got for the whiskey. February
+ 11, 1874, ninety-six cents, which made twenty-six cents; and so it went on
+ in that way, until what? Until the tax was raised from seventy cents to
+ ninety cents, and what is it now? The tax on whiskey, gentlemen, is ninety
+ cents, and the price on the 10th day of May, 1876, is one dollar and seven
+ cents; so that the price of whiskey now is only seventeen cents above the
+ tax, and at the time that Mr. Munn ought to have known that everybody was
+ a thief and rascal, the price was twenty-six cents above the tax, ten
+ cents more than now. From these figures, gentlemen, you will see it, and
+ how high did it go? The day Mr. Munn was turned out of office&mdash;gentlemen,
+ on the tenth day of May, 1875,&mdash;the tax then being ninety cents,
+ whiskey was worth one dollar and fifteen cents. The day he was turned out.
+ It was nine cents more than it is today. You are welcome to all you can
+ make out of that argument. It was worth nine cents more a gallon above the
+ tax the day he was turned out than it is to-day, and if Mr. Munn was bound
+ to take judicial notice that there was nothing but frauds in the district,
+ and every distillery was running crooked, I say that the officers of the
+ Government are bound to take that notice to-day, and you must recollect,
+ gentlemen, that it was admitted in this case that there were frauds all
+ over the country, that there were distilleries running in St. Louis, in
+ San Francisco, in Milwaukee, in Peoria or Pekin, in Peoria, I believe, in
+ my town, not a sound has been heard, and not a solitary man, I believe,
+ charged with fraud&mdash;in St. Louis, in Louisville, in Cincinnati, in
+ all these towns. Now, where was the whiskey being made that was crooked?
+ Nobody could tell. If there was a vast amount being made in Cincinnati it
+ would lessen the price in Chicago, no matter whether the Chicago
+ distillers were running honestly or not. If there was a vast amount being
+ made in St. Louis it would lessen the price, no matter whether the other
+ distilleries were running honestly or not, consequently it was impossible
+ for the supervisor to tell it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing I forgot. During all the time Jacob Rehm was doing
+ this gratuitous rascality he was one of the bondsmen on the official bond
+ of Hoyt. He was not only helping Hoyt steal and giving him all the money,
+ but he was making himself responsible for the money he stole, and he did
+ not charge any commission on it. He did not charge for any shrinkage or
+ shortage or anything in the world, but made himself liable for the
+ uttermost farthing. He was on the bond of Collector Irwin, called the
+ stamp bond, and so do not forget that he did not only not take any money,
+ but he went on the acknowledgments of the thieves that stole it. He not
+ only did not take any himself, but he made himself liable as a bondsman
+ for what he gave to them. Do not forget these things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I believe I have said about all I wish to say to you; the
+ rest is for you. You must take the case, and, as I said, you do not want
+ to go off on any prejudice against the kind or the character of the case.
+ You do not want to go off on the idea that the air is full of rascality
+ because some of us are to be tried next. We don't know. Let us try this
+ case fairly and squarely on the evidence, and the next time I meet you,
+ gentlemen, every one of you will be glad that you found this defendant not
+ guilty, as you cannot avoid doing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [The Jury rendered a verdict of "Not Guilty."]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The most characteristic feature of the Star-route trial,
+ which has been the central point of interest in our city for
+ the past three months, was the marvelously powerful speech
+ of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll before the jury and the judge
+ last week.
+
+ People who knew this gifted gentleman only superficially,
+ had supposed that he was merely superficial as a lawyer.
+ While acknowledging his remarkable ability as an orator and
+ his vast accomplishments as a speaker, they doubted the
+ depth of his power. They heard him, and the doubt ceased. It
+ can be said of Ingersoll, as was written of Castelar, that
+ his eloquent utterances are as the finely-fashioned
+ ornamental designs upon the Damascus blade&mdash;the blade cuts
+ as keenly and the embellishments beautify without retarding
+ its power.
+
+ The following is Colonel Ingersoll's speech. Its swift
+ incisiveness, keen and comprehensive logic and apt
+ deductions from proper premises are only equaled by the
+ grand manner of its delivery, and under the circumstances
+ incidental to the case and the routes to be traversed, by
+ its expedition of action and brevity.&mdash;Washington, D. C.,
+ The Capital, Sept. 16th, 1882.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ MAY it please the Court and gentlemen of the jury: Let us understand each
+ other at the very threshold. For one I am as much opposed to official
+ dishonesty as any man in this world. The taxes in this country are paid by
+ labor and by industry, and they should be collected and disbursed by
+ integrity. The man that is untrue to his official oath, the man that is
+ untrue to the position the people have honored him with, ought to be
+ punished. I have not one word to say in defence of any man who I believe
+ has robbed the Treasury of the United States. I want it understood in the
+ first place that we are not defending; that we are not excusing; that we
+ are not endeavoring to palliate in the slightest degree dishonesty in any
+ Government official. I will go still further: I will not defend any
+ citizen who has committed what I believe to be a fraud upon the Treasury
+ of this Government. Let us understand each other at the commencement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have been told that we are a demoralized people; that the tide of
+ dishonesty is rising ready to sweep from one shore of our country to the
+ other. You have been appealed to to find innocent men guilty in order that
+ that tide may be successfully resisted. You have been told&mdash;and I
+ have heard the story a thousand times&mdash;that this country was
+ demoralized by what the gentlemen are pleased to call the war, and that
+ owing to the demoralization of the war it is necessary to make an example
+ of somebody that the country may take finally the road to honesty. We were
+ in a war lasting four years, but I take this occasion to deny that that
+ war demoralized the people of the United States. Whoever fights for the
+ right, or whoever fights for what he believes to be right, does not
+ demoralize himself. He ennobles himself. The war through which we passed
+ did not demoralize the people. It was not a demoralization; it was a
+ reformation. It was a period of moral enthusiasm, during which the people
+ of the United States became a thousand times grander and nobler than they
+ had ever been before. The effect of that war has been good, and only good.
+ We were not demoralized by it. When we broke the shackles from four
+ millions of men, women and children it did not demoralize us. When we
+ changed the hut of the slave into the castle of the freeman it did not
+ demoralize us. When we put the protecting arm of the law about that hut
+ and the flag of this nation above it, it was not very demoralizing. When
+ we stopped stealing babes the country did not suddenly become corrupted.
+ That war was the noblest affirmation of humanity in the history of this
+ world. We are a greater people, we are a grander people, than we were
+ before that war. That war repealed statutes that had been made by robbery
+ and theft. It made this country the home of man. We were not demoralized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing you have been told in order that you might find
+ somebody guilty. You have been told that our country is distinguished
+ among the nations of the world only for corruption. That is what you have
+ been told. I care not who said it first. It makes no difference to me that
+ it was quoted from a Republican Senator. I deny it. This country is not
+ distinguished for corruption. No true patriot believes it. This country is
+ distinguished for something else. The credit of the United States is
+ perfect. Its bonds are the highest in the world. Its promise is absolute
+ pure gold. Is that the result of being distinguished for corruption? I
+ have heard that nonsense, that intellectual rot all my life, that the
+ people used to be honest, but at present they are exceedingly bad. It is
+ the capital stock of every prosecuting lawyer; but in it there is not one
+ word of truth. Is this country distinguished only for its corruption
+ throughout Europe? No. It is respected by every prince and by every king;
+ it is loved by every peasant. Is it because we have such a reputation for
+ corruption that a million people from foreign lands sought homes under our
+ flag last year? Is corruption all we are distinguished for? Is it because
+ we are a nation of rascals that the word America sheds light in every hut
+ and in every tenement in Europe? Is it because we are distinguished for
+ corruption that that one word, America, is the dawn of a career to every
+ poor man in the Old World? I always supposed that we were distinguished
+ for free schools, for free speech, for just laws; not for corruption. A
+ country covered with schoolhouses, where the children of the poor are put
+ upon an exact equality with those of the rich, is not distinguished for
+ corruption. And yet in the name of this universal corruption you are
+ appealed to to become also corrupt. This nation is substantially a hundred
+ years old, and to-day the assessed property of the United States is valued
+ at $50,000,000,000. Is that the result of corruption, or is it the result
+ of labor, of integrity and of virtue? I deny that my country is
+ distinguished for corruption. I assert that it rises above the other
+ nations distinguished for humanity as high as Chimborazo above the plains.
+ Never will I put a stain upon the forehead of my country in order that I
+ may win some case, and in order that I may consign some honest man to the
+ penitentiary. I stand here to deny that this is a corrupt country. Let me
+ say that the only tribute that I ever heard paid to corruption was
+ indirectly paid by Mr. Merrick himself. He told you that official
+ corruption destroyed the French Empire, and upon the ruins of that empire
+ arose the French Republic. He makes official corruption the father of
+ French liberty. If it works that way I hope they will have it in every
+ monarchy on the globe. Napoleon stole something besides money; he stole
+ liberty, and the French people finally got to that condition of mind where
+ they preferred to be trampled on by Germany rather than to have their
+ liberty devoured by Napoleon. From that splendid sentiment sprang the
+ French Republic. This country is the land not of slavery, but of liberty,
+ not of unpaid toil, but of successful industry. There is not a poor man
+ to-day in all Europe or a poor boy who does not think about America. I
+ recollect one time in Ireland that I met with a little fellow about ten
+ years old with a couple of rags for pantaloons and a string for a
+ suspender. I said, "My little man, what are you going to do when you grow
+ up?" "<i>Going to America</i>." It is the dream of every peasant in
+ Germany. He will go to America; not because it is the land of corruption,
+ but because it is the land of plenty, the land of free schools, the land
+ where humanity is respected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing about this country. We have a king here, and that
+ king is the law. That king is the legally expressed will of a majority,
+ and that law is your sovereign and mine. You have no right to violate one
+ law to carry out another. We all stand equal before that law, and the law
+ must be upheld as an entirety, and in no other way. If in this case you
+ believe these defendants beyond a doubt to be guilty, it is your duty to
+ find them so, and you must find them so in order to preserve your own
+ respect. I do not agree with this prosecution in the idea that the
+ perpetuity of the Republic depends upon this verdict. Decide as badly as
+ you please, as horribly as you can, the Republic will stand. The Republic
+ will stand in spite of this verdict, and the Republic will stand until
+ people lose confidence in verdicts&mdash;until they lose confidence in
+ legal redress. When the time comes that we have no confidence in courts
+ and no confidence in juries, then the great temple will lean to its fall,
+ and not until then. As long as we can get redress in the courts, as long
+ as the laws shall be honestly administered, as long as honesty and
+ intelligence sit upon the bench, as long as intelligence sits in the
+ chairs of jurors, this country will stand, the law will be enforced and
+ the law will be respected. But so far as my clients are concerned,
+ everything they have, everything they love, everything for which they
+ hope, home, friends, wife, children, and that priceless something called
+ reputation, without which a man is simply living clay, everything they
+ have is at stake, and everything depends upon your verdict. I want you to
+ understand that everything depends upon your decision, and yet my clients
+ with their world at stake, home, everything, <i>everything</i>, ask only
+ at your hands the mercy of an honest verdict according to the evidence and
+ according to the law. That is all we ask, and that we expect. By an honest
+ verdict I mean a verdict in accordance with the testimony and in
+ accordance with the law, a verdict that is a true and honest transcript of
+ each juror's mind, a verdict that is the honest result of this evidence.
+ Whoever takes into consideration the desire, or the supposed desire, of
+ the outside public is bribed. Whoever finds a verdict to please power,
+ whoever violates his conscience that he may be in accord, or in supposed
+ accord, with an administration or with the Government, is bribed. Whoever
+ finds a verdict that he may increase his own reputation is bribed. Whoever
+ finds a verdict for fear he will lose his reputation is bribed. Whoever
+ bends to the public judgment, whoever bows before the public press, is
+ bribed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fear, prejudice, malice, and the love of approbation bribe a thousand men
+ where gold bribes one. An honest verdict is the result not of fear, but of
+ courage; not of prejudice, but of candor; not of malice, but of kindness.
+ Above all, it is the result of a love of justice. Allow me to say right
+ here that I believe every solitary man on this jury wishes to give a
+ verdict exactly in accordance with this testimony and exactly in
+ accordance with the law. Every man on this jury wishes to preserve his own
+ manhood. Every man on this jury wishes to give an honest verdict. There
+ are no words sufficiently base to describe a man who will knowingly give a
+ dishonest verdict. I believe every man upon this jury to be absolutely
+ honest in this case. The mind of every juror, like the needle to the pole,
+ should be governed simply by the evidence. That needle is not disturbed by
+ wind or wave, and the mind of the honest juror never should be disturbed
+ by clamor, nor by prejudice, nor by suspicion. Your minds should not be
+ affected by the fume, by the froth, by the fiction, or by the fury of this
+ prosecution. You should pay attention simply to the evidence, and to use
+ the language of one of my clients, you should be governed by the frozen
+ facts. That is all you have any right to think of and all you have any
+ right to examine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having now said thus much about the duties of jurors, let me say one word
+ about the duties of lawyers. I believe it is the duty of a lawyer, no
+ matter whether prosecuting or defending, to make the testimony as clear as
+ he can. If there is anything contradictory it is his business if he
+ possibly can to make it clear. If there is any question of law about which
+ there is a doubt, it is his right and it is his duty to give to the court
+ the result of his study and of his thoughts, for the purpose of
+ enlightening the court upon that particular branch of law. No matter if he
+ may believe the court understands it, if there is the slightest fear that
+ the court does not or has forgotten it, it is his duty to bring the
+ attention of the court to that law. It is not his duty to abuse anybody.
+ It is not my duty to abuse anybody. There is no logic in abuse; not the
+ slightest; and when a lawyer, under the pretext of explaining the evidence
+ to the jury, calls a defendant a thief and a robber, he steps beyond the
+ line of duty and, in my judgment, beyond the line of his privilege. What
+ light does that throw upon the case? In his effort to explain the law to
+ the court what cloud does it remove from the intellectual horizon of his
+ honor for the attorney to call the defendant a robber, a thief, or a
+ pickpocket? I shall in this case give you what I believe to be the facts.
+ I shall call your attention to the testimony. I shall endeavor to throw
+ what light I am capable of throwing upon this entire question. I shall not
+ deal in personalities. They are beneath me. I shall not deal in epithets.
+ Nobody worth convincing can be convinced in that way. Now, let us see what
+ the law is, and let us see what our facts are. In the beginning of this
+ dusty branch I shall ask the pardon of every juror in advance for going
+ over these facts once again. You see they strike every man in a peculiar
+ way. No two minds are exactly alike. No pair of eyes distinguish exactly
+ the same object or the same peculiarities of the objects. This is an
+ indictment under section 5440 of the Revised Statutes, and there must not
+ only be a conspiracy to defraud, but there must be an overt act done in
+ pursuance of that conspiracy for the purpose of effecting the object of
+ it. Now, then, how must these overt acts be stated in this indictment? Is
+ the overt act a part of the crime, and must it, be described with the same
+ particularity that you describe the offence? Which of the overt acts set
+ out in this indictment is the overt act depended upon, together with the
+ act of conspiring, to make this offence? I hold, may it please your Honor,
+ that every overt act set out in the indictment must be proved exactly as
+ it is alleged, no matter whether the description was necessary to be put
+ in the indictment or not. No matter how foolish, how unnecessary the
+ description, it must be substantiated, and it must be proven precisely as
+ it is charged. No matter whether the particular thing described is of
+ importance or not, no matter how infinitely unnecessary it was to speak of
+ it, still, if it is a matter of description, it must be proven precisely
+ as it is charged. Upon that subject I wish to call the attention of the
+ Court to some authorities, and it will take me but a few moments. I will
+ call the attention of the Court first to the case of the State against
+ Noble, 15 Maine, 476. Here a man was indicted for fraudulently and
+ willfully taking from the river and converting to his own use certain
+ logs. These logs were described as marked "W" with a cross, and "H" with
+ another cross, and with a girdle. Now, it seems that a part of this mark
+ was not found, according to the testimony upon the logs taken:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The description of these logs in the indictment is the only way the logs
+ could be distinguished and could not be rejected as surplusage. It has
+ been settled that if a man be indicted for stealing a black horse, and the
+ evidence be that he stole a white one, he cannot be convicted. The
+ description of a log by the mark is more essential than that of a horse by
+ its color. If it was not necessary to describe the log so particularly by
+ the mark, yet so having stated it, there can be no conviction without
+ proof of it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the court, in deciding this, says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It may be regarded as a general rule, both in criminal prosecutions and
+ in civil actions, that an unnecessary averment may be rejected where
+ enough remains to show that an offence has been committed, or that a cause
+ of action exists. In Ricketts vs. Solway, 2 Barn., &amp; Aid., 360,
+ Abbott, C. J., says: 'There is one exception, however, to this rule, which
+ is, where the allegation contains matter of description. Then, if the
+ proof given be different from the statement, the variance is fatal.' As an
+ illustration of this exception, Starkie puts the case of a man charged
+ with stealing a black horse. The allegation of color is unnecessary, yet
+ as it is descriptive of that, which is the subject-matter of the charge,
+ it cannot be rejected as surplusage, and the man convicted of stealing a
+ white horse. The color is not essential to the offence of larceny, but it
+ is made material to fix the identity of that, which the accused is charged
+ with stealing."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3 Stark., 1531. "In the case before us the subject-matter is a pine log
+ marked in a particular manner described. The marks determine the identity,
+ and are, therefore, matter purely of description. It would not be easy to
+ adduce a stronger case of this character. It' might have been sufficient
+ to have stated that the defendant took a log merely, in the words of the
+ statute. But under the charge of taking a pine log we are quite clear that
+ the defendant could not be convicted of taking an oak or a birch log. The
+ offence would be the same; but the charge to which the party was called to
+ answer, and which it was incumbent on him to meet, is for taking a log of
+ an entirely different description. The kind of timber and the artificial
+ marks by which it was distinguished are descriptive parts of the
+ subject-matter of the charge which cannot be disregarded, although they
+ may have been unnecessarily introduced. The log proved to have been taken
+ was a different one from that charged in the indictment; and the defendant
+ could be legally called upon to answer only for taking the log there
+ described. In our judgment, therefore, the jury were erroneously
+ instructed that the marks might be rejected as surplusage; and the
+ exceptions are accordingly sustained."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also cite the case of the State against Clark, 3 Foster, New Hampshire,
+ 429:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Indictment for fraudulently altering the assignment of a mortgage. The
+ indictment set forth the mortgage, and also the assignment, as it was
+ alleged to have been originally made from Miles Burnham to Noah Clark, the
+ respondent; and alleged that the assignment was signed, sealed, delivered,
+ witnessed by two witnesses, and duly and legally recorded at length, in
+ the registry of deeds of Rockingham county, on the 18th of September,
+ 1844. It then alleged that this assignment was fraudulently altered on the
+ 28th of June, 1844, by inserting the letter 'S' in two places, between the
+ words 'Noah' and 'Clark,' so that the assignment originally made to Noah
+ Clark, after the alteration appeared as if it were made to Noah S. Clark.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "On trial the records of deeds were produced, and there was found a record
+ of the assignment purporting to be made to Noah S. Clark, the record
+ bearing date September 18, 1844, but there was no record of any assignment
+ to Noah Clark. The respondent's counsel objected that this evidence did
+ not support the allegations of the indictment. The forgery was alleged to
+ have been committed on the 28th of June, 1844, and the court admitted
+ evidence that Miles Burnham, who executed the assignment, being applied to
+ about the 30th of July, 1846, for a loan of money upon a mortgage of the
+ same property, declined to make the loan unless he was satisfied there was
+ no mortgage of conveyance of the land by Noah Clark, and the person who
+ drew the assignment searched the records with Burnham, and found no such
+ deed on record. This evidence was objected to, but was understood to be
+ introductory to other material and pertinent evidence, and was therefore
+ admitted; but no such other evidence, to which it was introductory, was
+ offered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The jury found a verdict of guilty, which the defendant moved to set
+ aside."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon that the court says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We are not able to look upon this statement that the deed was duly
+ recorded as well as witnessed and acknowledged according to the statute,
+ in any other light than as part of the description of the deed and
+ conveyance which the defendant was charged with altering. We are,
+ therefore, of opinion that the evidence upon this point did not sustain
+ the indictment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the statement that the mortgage was recorded was such a material
+ part of the description that a failure to prove the record as charged was
+ fatal, so, I say, in these overt acts, if they charge that a thing was
+ done or a paper filed on a certain day and it turns out not to be so, that
+ is a fatal variance, and under that description in the indictment the
+ charge cannot be substantiated. I refer to the case against
+ Northumberland, 46 New Hampshire, 158, and also to the King against
+ Wennard, 6 Carrington &amp; Paine, 586.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Clark vs. Commonwealth, 16 B., Monroe, 213:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The doctrine seems to have been well settled in England and this country,
+ that in criminal cases, although words merely formal in their character
+ may be treated as surplusage and rejected as such, a descriptive averment
+ in an indictment must be proved as laid, and no allegation, whether it be
+ necessary or unnecessary, more or less particular, which is descriptive of
+ the identity of what is legally essential to the charge in the indictment,
+ can be rejected as surplusage."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in this case I cite Dorsett's case, 5th Roger's Record, 77:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "On an indictment for coining there was an alleged possession of a die
+ made of iron and steel, when, in fact, it was made of zinc and antimony.
+ The variance was deemed fatal."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet it was not necessary to state of what the die was made. If the
+ indictment had simply said he had in his possession this die, it would
+ have been enough, but the pleader went on and described it, saying it was
+ made of iron and steel. It turned out upon the trial that it was made of
+ zinc and antimony, and the variance was held to be fatal. So I cite the
+ court to Wharton's American Crim. Law, 3rd edition, page 291, and to
+ Roscoe on Criminal Evidence, 151. Now I cite the case of the United States
+ against Foye, 1st Curtis's Circuit Court Reports, 368, and I do not think
+ it will be easy to find a case going any further than this. It goes to the
+ end of the road:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A letter containing money deposited in the mail for the purpose of
+ ascertaining whether its contents were stolen on a particular route and
+ actually sent on a post-route, is a letter intended to be sent by post
+ within the meaning of the post-office act."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This I understand was a decoy letter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The description of the termini between which the letter was intended to
+ be sent by post cannot be rejected as surplusage, but must be proved as
+ laid."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon that the court says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But a far more difficult question arises under the other part of the
+ objection. The indictment alleges, not only that this letter was intended
+ to be conveyed by post, but describes where it was to be conveyed; it
+ fixes the termini as Georgetown and Ipswich. The allegation is, in
+ substance, that the letter was intended to be conveyed by post from
+ Georgetown to Ipswich. The question is, whether the words from Georgetown
+ to Ipswich can be treated as surplusage. It was necessary to allege that
+ the letter was intended to be conveyed by post. The words from Georgetown
+ to Ipswich are descriptive of this intent. They describe, more
+ particularly, that intent which it was necessary to allege. In United
+ States vs. Howard, 3 Sumner, 15, Mr. Justice Story lays down the following
+ rule, which we consider to be correct: 'No allegation, whether it be
+ necessary or unnecessary, whether it be more or less particular, which is
+ descriptive of the identity of that which is legally essential to the
+ charge in the indictment, can ever be rejected as surplusage.' Apply that
+ rule to this case. It is legally essential to the charge to allege some
+ intent to have the letter conveyed somewhere by post. Suppose the
+ indictment had alleged an intent to have it conveyed between two places
+ where no post-office existed, and over a post-route where no postroad was
+ established by law. Inasmuch as the court must take notice of the laws
+ establishing post-offices and post-roads, the indictment would then have
+ been bad; because this necessary allegation would, on its face, have been
+ false. Words, therefore, which describe the termini and the route, and
+ thus show what in particular was intended, do identify the intent, and
+ show it to be such an intent as was capable, in point of law, of existing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And we are obliged to conclude that they cannot be treated as surplusage,
+ and must be proved, substantially, as laid. We are of opinion, therefore,
+ that there was a variance between the indictment and the proof; and that,
+ for this cause, a new trial should be granted."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I refer to the State vs. Langley, 34th New Hampshire, 530.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I think, Colonel Ingersoll, there is no doubt about this
+ doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I do not want any doubt about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. There cannot be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Well, I will just read this because I do not want any doubt
+ about it in anybody's mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I have no doubt about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Very well:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If a recovery is to be had, it must be <i>secundum allegata et probata</i>;
+ and the rule is one of entire inflexibility in respect to all such
+ descriptive averments of material matters. The cases upon this point, many
+ of which are collected in the case of State vs. Copp, 15 N. H., 2F5, are
+ quite uniform."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the Court please, I not only read this with regard to the overt
+ acts, but with regard to the description of the crime itself&mdash;the
+ conspiracy. I will then refer to State against Copp, 15th New Hampshire. I
+ will also refer to the case of Rex against Whelpley, 4th Carrington &amp;
+ Payne, 132; to 3d Starkie on Evidence, sections 1542 to 1544, inclusive;
+ also to the United States against Denee and others, 3d Wood, page 48, and
+ a case under this exact section, 5440:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It seems clear that the statute upon which this indictment is based is
+ not intended to relieve the pleader from any supposed necessity of setting
+ out the means agreed upon to carry out the conspiracy by requiring him to
+ aver some overt act done in pursuance of the conspiracy and make such act
+ a necessary ingredient of the offence." The court then refers to the
+ Commonwealth against Shed, 7th Cushing, 514, and continues&mdash;in that
+ case it was different:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That difficulty does not exist here, for the overt act is part of the
+ offence, and must be proved as laid in the indictment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I find that the court passed upon this very question, and I wish to
+ call the attention of the Court again to one line on page 961 of the
+ record in this case:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But in all cases the principle is simply this: That where the act which
+ was done in pursuance of the conspiracy is described in the indictment it
+ must be described with accuracy and completeness, and if there is a
+ variance in the proof it is fatal to the prosecution."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I come to that part as to the necessity of describing offences then I
+ will cite the Court to some other authorities in connection with these.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, we have got it established, gentlemen of the jury. There is no
+ longer any doubt about that law, and the Court will so instruct you, that
+ wherever they set out in the indictment that we did a certain thing in
+ pursuance of the conspiracy, they must prove that thing precisely as
+ charged, no matter whether the description was necessary or unnecessary.
+ They must prove precisely as they state. They wrote the indictment, and
+ they wrote it knowing they must prove it, and if they wrote it badly it is
+ not the business of this jury to help them out of that dilemma.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as I say, we come to the dust and ashes of this case, the overt acts,
+ and I take up these routes precisely in the order in which they were
+ proved by the prosecution. First. I take up route 34149. Now, let us see
+ where we are. The first charge is that we filed false and altered
+ petitions by Peck, Miner, Vaile, and Rerdell. When did we file them? The
+ indictment charges that we filed them on the 10th day of July, 1879. When
+ did the evidence show they were filed? On the 3d day of April, 1878. That
+ is a fatal variance, and that is the end eternal, everlasting, of that
+ overt act. Without taking into consideration the fact that every petition
+ was true and genuine, the petitions were not sent by the persons as
+ charged. It was presented by Senator Saunders, and that is the absolute
+ end of that overt act, and you have no right to take it into consideration
+ any more than if nothing had been said upon the subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. That on the 10th of July a false oath was placed upon the records.
+ Now, that is an overt act, and you know as well as I do that the
+ description of that must be perfect. If they say it is of one date and the
+ evidence shows that it is of another, it is of no use. It is gone. They
+ say, then, that a false oath was filed. When? On the 10th day of July.
+ Suppose the oath to have been false. When was it filed? The evidence says
+ April 3, 1879. That is the end of the false oath, no matter whether that
+ oath is good or bad. No matter whether they committed perjury or wrote it
+ with perfect and absolute honesty, it is utterly and entirely worthless as
+ an overt act.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. An order for expedition July 10, 1879, alleged to have been made by
+ Brady. As a matter of fact the order was signed by French. There is a
+ misdescription. No matter if Brady told him to sign it, it was not as a
+ matter of fact signed by Brady&mdash;it was signed by French. They
+ described it as an order signed by Brady. It is an order signed by French,
+ and the misdescription of variance is absolutely fatal, and you have no
+ more right to consider it than you have the decree of some empire long
+ since vanished from the earth. Now, this is all the evidence on this
+ route. That is all of it with the exception of who received the money, and
+ I will come to that after awhile. That is route 34149.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to their statement in the indictment, holding them by that,
+ there is not the slightest testimony. We can consider that route out. We
+ have only eighteen now to look after. That is the end of that. It has not
+ a solitary prop; upon the roof of that route not a shingle is left&mdash;not
+ one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take the next route, 38135. What do we do in that according to the
+ indictment? And now, gentlemen, recollect, they wrote this indictment. You
+ would think we did, but we didn't. They wrote it, and they are bound by
+ it. But if I had been employed on behalf of the defendants to write it I
+ should have written it just in that way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. Sending and filing a false oath. When did we send it; when did we
+ file it? On the 26th day of June. That is what the indictment says. What
+ does the evidence say? April 18, 1879. Now, that is the end of that. It
+ was a true oath, but that does not make any difference. That oath is gone.
+ That has been sworn out of the case, and dated out of the case. What is
+ the next?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. Filing false petitions. When did we file them? The 26th day of
+ June, 1879. The last petition was filed the 8th of May, 1879, and it does
+ not make one particle of difference whether these dates were before or
+ after the conspiracy as set forth, but as a matter of fact, every one of
+ the petitions was true. That charge is gone, A fatal variance. What is the
+ next fraudulent order? That of June 20. There was never the slightest
+ evidence introduced to show that it was a fraudulent order&mdash;not the
+ slightest. And what is the next charge? Fraudulently filing a subcontract.
+ And right here I stop to ask the Court, of course not expecting an answer
+ now, but in the charge to the jury, is it possible to defraud the
+ Government of the United States by filing a subcontract?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I want you to think of it. How would you go to work to
+ defraud the Government by filing a subcontract? If the subcontract
+ provides for a greater amount of pay than the Government is giving the
+ original contractor, the Government will not pay it; it will only pay up
+ to the amount that it agreed to pay the contractor. It is like A giving an
+ order on B to pay C what A owes B. He need not pay him any more. That is
+ all. And if the ingenuity of malice can think of a way by which the
+ Government could be defrauded by the filing of a subcontract I will
+ abandon the case. It is an impossible, absurd charge, something that never
+ happened and never will happen. Well, that is the end of this route with
+ one exception. This is the Agate route. This is the route where thirty
+ dollars it is claimed has been taken from the Government. It is that
+ route. You remember the productiveness of that post-office. They
+ established an office and nobody found it out except the fellow that was
+ postmaster, and in his lonely grandeur I think he remained about eighteen
+ months and never sold a stamp. That is all that is left in that route,
+ that order putting Agate upon the route and taking it off, and then giving
+ one month's extra pay. That is all&mdash;another child washed&mdash;38135&mdash;that
+ is all there is to that route; no evidence except epithets, no testimony
+ except abuse. If anything is left under that it is simply "robber, thief,
+ pickpocket." That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we come to another route, and I again beg pardon for calling attention
+ to these little things. The Government has forced us to do it. It is like
+ a lawsuit among neighbors. Each is so anxious to beat the other they begin
+ to charge for things that they never dreamed of at the time they were
+ delivered. They will charge for neighborly acts, time lost in attending
+ the funeral of members of each other's family before they get through the
+ lawsuit. So the Government started out in this case, and not finding a
+ great point had to put in little ones, and we have to answer the kind of
+ points they make.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 41119. Overt acts. First. Filing a false oath. When did we file it? The
+ 25th day of June, the indictment says. Who filed it? Peck and Miner. Well,
+ when was it filed or when was it transmitted? According to their story,
+ June 23, 1879. This oath is marked 8 C, and an effort was made to prove by
+ a man by the name of Blois that it was a forgery. That was objected to,
+ first, that it was not charged to be forged in the indictment; and second,
+ that a notary public had already sworn that it was genuine, and that he
+ could not be impeached in that way, and thereupon that oath was withdrawn,
+ and you will never hear of it any more. I do not know whether it is true
+ or not. That is found on record, page 1469. Now, recollect that oath was
+ withdrawn. That is the end of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. Filing false petitions. When were they filed? July 8, 1879, and it
+ turned out that that charge was true, with two exceptions: First, that
+ they were not filed at that time; and, second, that all the petitions were
+ true. That is the only harm about that charge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. A fraudulent order made by Brady, July 8th. Now let us see what the
+ fraud consists in. The fraud is claimed to be in expediting to
+ thirty-three hours when the petition only called for forty-eight. You
+ remember the charge expediting to thirty-three hours, when the petition
+ only called for forty-eight. Now, let us see. It is claimed that to grant
+ more than the petitions ask is a crime; certainly it must be admitted that
+ to grant less is equally a crime. The only evidence now of fraud in this
+ is that he was asked to expedite the forty-eight hours, but he expedited
+ to thirty-three. That is to say, he violated the petitions, and if that is
+ good doctrine, then the petitions must settle whether expedition is to be
+ granted or not. If that is good doctrine there is no appeal from the
+ petition. I do not believe that doctrine, gentlemen. I believe it is the
+ business of the Post-Office Department to grant all the facilities to the
+ people of the United States that the people need. He must get his
+ information from the people, and from the representatives of the people;
+ and while he is not bound to give all they ask, if he does give what the
+ people want, and what their representatives indorse, you cannot twist or
+ torture it into a crime. That is what I insist. Now, the only charge is
+ here, and while they ask for forty-eight hours he gave thirty-three. That
+ is the only crime. Did he pay too much for it? There is no evidence of it.
+ Before I get through I will show you that there is no evidence that he
+ ever paid a dollar too much for any service whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, if the doctrine contended for by the Government is correct,
+ then a petition is the standard of duty and the warrant of action, and if
+ they gain upon this route they lose upon every other route. Let us
+ examine. There are three charges. First, false petitions. They were all
+ true. Second, false oaths. They offered to prove it, and then withdrew it.
+ Third, that while the petitions called for forty-eight hours he granted
+ thirty-three, and before you can find that that was fraudulent you must
+ understand the precise connections that this mail made with all others,
+ and it was incumbent upon them to prove, not an inference, but a fact,
+ that there was not only reason, but reason in money&mdash;sound reason for
+ expediting it instead of forty-eight to thirty-three. That is the end of
+ that route. There is not a jury on earth, let it be summoned by prejudice
+ and presided over by ignorance, that would find a verdict of guilty upon
+ the testimony in that route. It is impossible. Another child gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 44155. Let us see what we get there, and I have not got to my client yet.
+ First, filing false petitions, by Peck, Miner, Vaile and Rerdell. When? On
+ the 27th of June, 1879. Were they false? Let us see. Mr. Bliss, speaking
+ of these petitions contained in a jacket held in his hand, dated the 29th
+ of June, 1879, record, page 687, said: "We do not attack the genuineness
+ of these petitions." That is the end of that. So much for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. A fraudulent order increasing service, and yet all the petitions
+ are admitted to be genuine, and the order was in accordance with the
+ petitions on the route. Before the order was fraudulent because it was not
+ in accordance with the petitions, and in this route it is a fraud because
+ it is in accordance with the petitions. Now, just take it. Here is the
+ route. Every petition is genuine, the oath is true, not a petition
+ attacked, the order in accordance therewith, and the only evidence that
+ the order is a fraud is that it was in accordance with genuine petitions
+ recommended by the people and by the representatives of the people. That
+ is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you another thing. Expedition had been granted on the route
+ long before, and this was simply an increase of trips, and no charge was
+ made that the order granting the expedition ever was a fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. Another fraudulent order by Brady, of April 17, 1880, and it turns
+ out that this order was in fact made by French. That was the only evidence
+ that it was fraudulent, but the mere fact that French made it takes it out
+ of this case, and you have no more right to consider it than you would an
+ order made in the Treasury Department. The only objection to this order
+ now is what? That it was in violation of the petitions. How? That it took
+ off one or two of the trips. That was the fraud of the order of April 17,
+ 1880. The fraud consisted in taking off two or three trips that had been
+ put on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see. The next fraudulent order was July 16, 1880. What was
+ that for? For putting the service back precisely as it was. Now, I want
+ you, gentlemen, to understand that, every one of you. Here is a charge in
+ the indictment of a fraudulent order that took off, say, two trips from
+ the service. That is a fraud they say. Then the next order put those two
+ trips back, and that they say is another fraud. It would have been very
+ hard to have made an order in that case to have satisfied the Government;
+ it was an order to decrease it; it was an order to put it back where it
+ was; that is, it was a fraud, consequently it was a fraud to do anything
+ about it. That is all there is in that case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us boil it down. False petitions. That is the charge. The evidence is
+ that the petitions are all true. A false oath is the charge. The evidence
+ is that the oath is true. A fraudulent order decreasing the service,
+ another fraudulent order increasing the service, that is, leaving it just
+ where he found it. In other words, according to this indictment, Brady
+ committed a fraud in reducing the trips, and another fraud by putting the
+ trips back. I think it was only one trip that he reduced. Now, that is all
+ there is in that case. People may talk about it one day or one year. That
+ is all there is, and that is nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 38145. Fraudulently filing what? A subcontract with J. L. Sanderson. I say
+ you cannot fraudulently file a subcontract against the Government. It is
+ an impossibility. Besides all that, Mr. Sanderson filed his own
+ subcontract. There is no evidence that anybody else did file it or present
+ it for filing. It was not our contract; it was Sanderson's subcontract.
+ How comes that in his indictment? Let me tell you. In the first indictment
+ they had Sanderson; and when they copied that first indictment, with
+ certain variations to make this, they forgot this part and put in the
+ fraudulent filing of Sanderson's contract. It never should have been in
+ this case. It has not the slightest relationship. The real charge of fraud
+ in this route is that a retrospective order was made, and this order bore
+ date February 26, 1881, and was retrospective in this: that it was to take
+ effect from the 15th of January, 1881; but understand me, this was
+ Sanderson's route. He received that money, and it has nothing to do with
+ us. Still I will answer it. That retrospective order gave pay from the
+ 15th of January, 1881. Now, it seems that before the order of February 26,
+ an order had been made by telegraph, dated 15th of January, 1881, to
+ Sanderson, and this telegraphic order was for daily service on eighty-nine
+ miles. The jacket order of February 26, 1881, was for daily service on the
+ whole route from January 15, 1881. If that order had been carried out he
+ would have received pay for daily service on the whole route, instead of
+ for daily service on the eighty-nine miles to which he was entitled. It
+ turned out that the order of February 26, 1881, was signed by
+ Postmaster-General Maynard. The only possible charge is that Sanderson
+ received pay for a daily service on the whole route from January 15, 1881,
+ to February 26, 1881, instead of eighty-nine miles. But we find in the
+ table of payments introduced by the Government, that for that quarter a
+ deduction was made of three thousand four hundred and twenty-two dollars
+ and nineteen cents, showing that the department could only have paid for
+ the daily service on the eighty-nine miles, and that is exactly what the
+ daily service would come to on the balance of the route. That ends that
+ route. We had nothing to do with it anyway. It was Sanderson. He filed his
+ own contract, he got his own orders, he collected his own money and
+ settled with the department. We have nothing to do with it and we will bid
+ it farewell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next is No. 38156. First, filing false oath June 12, 1879. The oath
+ was filed May 6, 1879.. That is the end of that. I do not care whether it
+ is true or false, that is, so far as this verdict is concerned. I care
+ whether it is true or false, so far as my clients are concerned, but so
+ far as this verdict is concerned, it makes no difference. There is a fatal
+ variance. Second, it is alleged that Brady made a fraudulent order June
+ 12, 1879. The order of June 12, 1879, was made by French. There is another
+ fatal variance. You have no right to take it into consideration. French is
+ not one of the parties here. Third, sending a subcontract of Dorsey and
+ filing it. As I told you before, you cannot by any possibility thus
+ defraud the Government; not even if you set up nights to think about it.
+ There is no proof that the subcontract was a fraud. Let us have some
+ sense. It is an absolute impossibility to commit this offence, and
+ therefore we will talk no more about it. Fourth, the fraudulent order of
+ Brady increasing the distance four miles. This was done on the 20th of
+ December, 1880. That is the only real charge in this route. I turn to the
+ record and find from the evidence, on page 943, that the distance was from
+ five to six miles, according to the Government's own proof. Beside all
+ that, the order of which they complain is not in the record. It was never
+ proved by the Government and never offered by the Government, so far as I
+ can find. That is the end of that route. The only charge in it is that
+ they increased the distance four miles, and the evidence of the Government
+ is that it was from five to six.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next is 46132. Overt acts: Filing a false oath by everybody June 24,
+ 1879. The evidence shows it was filed April 11, 1879. That is the end of
+ that. No matter whether it is true or false, it is gone. Second, the
+ fraudulent filing of a subcontract. Well, I have shown you that that
+ cannot be fraudulent. The subcontract of Vaile shows that Vaile was to
+ receive one hundred per cent. It was executed April 1, 1878, in
+ consequence, as my friend General Henkle explained, of a conspiracy made
+ on the 23d of May following. The service commenced July 1, 1878. There
+ could have been no fraud in it. It was filed as a matter of fact May 24,
+ 1879, and not June 4. Even if it had been a fraud, which is an
+ impossibility, the description is wrong and the variance is fatal. There
+ is no evidence that any order was fraudulent. Every one in this case is
+ supported by petitions, and every petition is admitted to be honest, or
+ proved to be honest and genuine. There is no proof at all, and not the
+ slightest attempt on the part of the Government to prove that there was
+ any fraud on this route. So much for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No. 46247. Let us see just where we are. First, filing false and forged
+ petitions. When? July 26, 1879. By whom? By Peck, Dorsey, and Rerdell.
+ Now, after they had solemnly written that in the indictment, and after it
+ had been solemnly found to be a fact by the grand jury, the attorneys for
+ the Government come into court and admit during the trial that all the
+ petitions upon this route were genuine; every one. It was admitted, I say,
+ that every petition was genuine. Read from page 1008 of the record and
+ there you will find what the Court said about these very petitions:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I shall take the responsibility of dispensing with the reading of
+ petitions when there is no point made with regard to them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The petitions were so good, they were so honest, they were so genuine,
+ they were so sensible, that the curiosity of the Court was aroused to find
+ what on earth they were being read for on the part of the prosecution. You
+ remember it. Every one genuine, honor bright, from the first line to the
+ last. In reply to the Court at that time Mr. Bliss said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There is no point made as to the increase of trips. These&mdash;" Meaning
+ the petitions&mdash;"relate to the increase of trips. There is no point
+ made there."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is thus admitted that every petition was genuine. Second, a fraudulent
+ order increasing one trip. This order was never proved by the Government.
+ It was not even offered by the Government, so that the route stands in
+ this way: First, a charge of false petitions; second, an admission that
+ the petitions were all genuine; third, a charge that a fraudulent order
+ was made; fourth, no proof that the order was made. That is all there is
+ to that. And that is the end of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No. 38134. First, sending false and fraudulent petitions, and filing the
+ same. When? July 8,1879. On page 1031 of the record I find the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Mr. Bliss. The petitions under your Honor's ruling I am not going to
+ offer."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why? Because they were all genuine. The court had mildly suggested the
+ impropriety of the Government proving its case by reading honest
+ petitions. Consequently, when it came to this, the next route, he said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The petitions under your Honor's ruling I am not going to offer."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why? Because they are all honest, and under a charge in the indictment
+ that they are all fraudulent he did not see the propriety of reading them.
+ That is what he meant. This remark was made because the Government
+ admitted these petitions to be honest. When were these petitions filed?
+ The indictment says July 8. The evidence says May 6. So that if every
+ petition had been a forgery you could not take them into consideration on
+ this route. It is charged that Miner &amp; Co. signed and placed in
+ Brady's office a false oath on July 8. On record, page 1032, it appears
+ that it was filed May 8, 1879, and not as described in the indictment. The
+ pleader has the privilege of describing it right or describing it wrong.
+ If he describes it right it can go in evidence. If he describes it wrong
+ it cannot go in evidence, and they have no right to complain if you throw
+ out evidence that they make it impossible for you to receive. It has been
+ charged with regard to this affidavit that Dorsey was not at that time
+ contractor, and therefore had no right to make the affidavit. The
+ affidavit was made April 21, 1879, and the regulation that such affidavits
+ must be made by the contractors was made July 1, 1879. That is a
+ sufficient answer. The next charge is a fraudulent order made by Brady,
+ July 8. The petitions were all admitted to be genuine. There was no
+ evidence that the order was not asked for by the petitions. There was no
+ evidence that the order in and of itself was fraudulent; not the
+ slightest. There is nothing like taking these things up as we go and
+ seeing what the Government has established. I know that you want to know
+ exactly what has been done in this case and you want to find a verdict in
+ accordance with the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 38140. Overt acts: First, making, sending, and filing false
+ petitions. When were they made and sent? The 23d day of May, 1879. There
+ were some petitions filed May 10, 1879, and there was a letter of the same
+ date. They are misdescribed. They are all genuine but they are out of the
+ case as far as this is concerned. I will tell you after awhile where they
+ are applicable in this case. A letter of Belford, of April 29, 1879, and a
+ letter of Senator Chaffee, of April 24, 1879, we have, while the
+ indictment charges that they were all filed May 23, 1879. There is an
+ absolute and a fatal variance. All these petitions, however, are admitted
+ to be genuine and honest. See record, pages 1001-1003. The charge in the
+ indictment is that they were forged, false, and altered. The admission in
+ open court, by the representatives of the Government, is, that they were
+ genuine and honest. There is the difference between an indictment and
+ testimony. There is the difference between public rumor and fact. There is
+ the difference between the press and the evidence. The next is that a
+ false oath was filed by John W. Dorsey on the 23d of May, 1879. When was
+ that oath filed? April 30, 1879. A fatal variance. Yet the man who wrote
+ the indictment had the affidavit before him. Why did he not put in the
+ true date? I will tell you after awhile. Did he know it was not true when
+ he put it in the indictment? He did, undoubtedly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. Fraudulent order of May 23; reducing the time from nineteen and
+ three-quarter hours to twelve hours. As a matter of fact, no order was
+ made on the 23d of May upon this route. It is charged in the indictment
+ that it was made on the 23d of May. The evidence shows that it was on the
+ 9th of May. There is a fatal variance, and that order cannot be considered
+ by this jury as to this branch of the case. Here is an order of which they
+ complain. They charge that it was made on the 23d day of May, the same day
+ the conspiracy was entered into. As a matter of fact, it was made on the
+ 9th of May. On this description it goes out, and it goes out on a still
+ higher principle: That an order could not have been made on the 9th of May
+ in pursuance of a conspiracy made on the 23d of that month. But I am
+ speaking now simply as to the description of this offence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. A subcontract was fraudulently filed. I have shown you it is
+ impossible to fraudulently file a contract; utterly impossible. All the
+ agreements imaginable between the contractor and subcontractor cannot even
+ tend to defraud the Government of a solitary dollar. I make a bid and the
+ contract is awarded to me at so much. The mail has to be carried. The
+ Government pays, say five thousand dollars a year, it makes no difference
+ to the Government who carries the mail under that contract, so long as it
+ is carried. It is utterly impossible to defraud the Government by
+ contracting with A, B, C, or D. That is the end of that route. The order
+ itself is misdescribed, and that is all there is in it. When the order is
+ gone everything is gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No. 38113. Overt acts: Fraudulently filing a subcontract. We do not need
+ to talk about that any more. Second, Brady fraudulently made an order for
+ increase of trips. The evidence is that an increase was asked for by a
+ great many officers, a great many representatives, and by hundreds of
+ citizens, and that the increase was insisted upon not only by the officers
+ who were upon the ground, but by General Sherman himself. I do not know
+ how it is with you, but with me General Sherman's opinion would have great
+ weight. He is a man capable of controlling hundreds of thousands of men in
+ the field&mdash;a man with the genius, with the talent, with the courage,
+ and with the intrepidity to win the greatest victories, and to carry on
+ the greatest possible military operations. I would have nearly as much
+ confidence in his opinion as I would in the guess of this prosecution. In
+ my judgment, I would think as much of his opinion given freely as I would
+ of the opinion of a lawyer who was paid for giving it. General Sherman has
+ been spoken of slightingly in this case; but he will be remembered a long
+ time after this case is forgotten, after all engaged in it are forgotten,
+ and even after this indictment shall have passed from the memory of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No. 38152. Overt acts: Fraudulent orders of August 3, 1880, discontinuing
+ the service and allowing a month's extra pay for the service discontinued.
+ That is all. May it please your Honor, in this route the only point is,
+ had the Postmaster General the right to discontinue the service? And if he
+ did discontinue it, was he under any obligation to allow a month's extra
+ pay? It is the only question. I call your Honor's attention to the case of
+ the United States against Reeside, 8 Wallace, 38; Fullenwider against the
+ United States, 9 Court of Claims, 403; and Garfielde against the United
+ States, 3 Otto, 242. In those cases it is decided not only that the
+ Postmaster-General has the right to allow this month's extra pay, but he
+ must do it. That is in full settlement of all the damages that the
+ contractor may have sustained. The Court can see the very foundation of
+ that law. For illustration, I bid upon a route of one thousand miles. I am
+ supposed to get ready to carry the mail. Five hundred miles are taken from
+ that route. The law steps in and says that for that damage I shall have
+ one month's extra pay on the portion of the route discontinued. It makes
+ no difference whether I have made any preparation or not. The law gives me
+ that and no more. If I should go into the Supreme Court and say that my
+ preparations had cost me fifty thousand dollars, and the month's extra pay
+ was only five thousand dollars, I have no redress for the other forty-five
+ thousand dollars. That is all that is charged in this instance. And if the
+ Second Assistant Postmaster-General or any one else had done differently
+ he would have acted contrary to law. He is indicted for doing in this case
+ exactly what is in accordance with the law. Let us get to the next route.
+ That is all there is in this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No. 38015. Overt acts: Sending a false oath. When? May 21. The evidence
+ shows that on May 14 it was sent, on May 15 it was filed. A fatal
+ variance, no matter whether it is true or false. That oath is gone. That
+ is the end of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else? They did not show that the oath was false. First, it is
+ misdescribed in the indictment as to the date it is filed; second, the
+ evidence shows that it is honest and genuine, which is also fatal. That is
+ the end of this route, as far as the indictment is concerned. Second, that
+ Dorsey made and Rerdell filed false petitions. There is no proof that any
+ of the petitions were false, no proof that any were forged, and no proof
+ that John W. Dorsey or M. C. Rerdell had anything to do with that route
+ one way or the other. All the petitions on record, page 1160, are admitted
+ to be genuine except one. One petition asking for a ten-hour schedule was
+ attacked and only one. But this petition was filed May 14, 1879, and that
+ is out so far as the indictment is concerned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. What is the date of the indictment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. The 23d day of May. The indictment says that this was filed
+ July 10, 1879; the evidence says May 14, 1879. A fatal variance. It is not
+ the same one they were talking about. They did not find the petition they
+ described. It is their misfortune. Now, here is only one petition
+ attacked. Who attacked it? Mr. Shaw. See page 1159. They were going to
+ show that that was a forgery, and they were going to show it by Shaw. That
+ was the only one they attacked. What does Shaw say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I signed a petition for increase of service and expedition upon that
+ route, but I did not read the petition. If I had, I should have discovered
+ a ten-hour schedule."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He would not have discovered it if it had not been there, would he? That
+ shows it was there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I would not have recommended a ten-hour schedule on a seventy-mile
+ route."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the man that was going to prove that ten hours was not there. But
+ it shows that he was not able to do it, because he first swore that he
+ never read it, and second, that he would not have signed it if he had.
+ Good by, Mr. Shaw. That is all there is as to that matter. The Court will
+ understand I am going now upon what is in the indictment, and not what has
+ been thrown in from the outside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I understand that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I am going according to the strict letter of this
+ indictment. I am holding these gentlemen to the law. That is what the law
+ is for. You cannot come into this court and throw seven or eight cords of
+ paper at a man and say, "You are guilty." They have managed this case
+ after that fashion, but I propose to bring them back to the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 35051. First. Signing, sending and filing false petitions. When?
+ August 2, 1879. There is no evidence of any petitions being filed on that
+ day&mdash;none whatever. The only thing near it is a letter of Frederick
+ Billings, on record, page 1217. This letter was dated July 31, 1879. Under
+ the charge of signing, sending and filing false petitions, the only
+ evidence is that a man by the name of Billings wrote a letter, and there
+ is not the slightest testimony to show that a solitary word in that letter
+ was false&mdash;not one. Nothing to connect it with Mr. Billings; no
+ evidence that he ever spoke to him on the subject; no evidence that
+ Billings knew who was carrying the mail; no evidence that he ever knew or
+ did a thing except to write that letter, and he was interested, I believe,
+ in the Northern Pacific railroad. Now, that is everything there is there;
+ that is all there is in that case. Nobody has tried to show that the
+ letter of Billings was not true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else? A fraudulent order of August, 1879. Who made it? The indictment
+ says Brady made it. The evidence says it was signed by French, and it was
+ in accordance with Billings' letter. Is there any fraud now in that route?
+ Let us be honest. False petitions: Not one filed. False oath: Not one
+ attacked. Simply a letter that we did not write, and that there is no
+ evidence that we ever asked to have written. That is the end of that. But
+ they cannot even get the letter in, gentlemen. They did not describe it
+ right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next route is 40104. Overfacts: First. Fraudulently filing a
+ subcontract. That you cannot do. When did we file it? July. 23, 1879, the
+ indictment says. What does the evidence say? May 8, 1879. First, we could
+ not commit the offence; secondly, you could not prove it under this
+ description.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. Filing a false oath. When did we file it? July 23. That is what
+ the indictment says. What does the evidence say? November 26, 1878. A
+ fatal variance. See record, page 1305. That is the end of that. The
+ indictment is for something. You have got to follow it, and it certainly
+ is not as hard work to write an offence against a man as it is to prove
+ it. If they cannot write an offence, you certainly ought not to find the
+ man guilty. Besides all that, that oath was not even impeached, it was not
+ ever attacked. There was not a word said upon the subject except in the
+ indictment. It was charged to be false, and not one word of evidence was
+ offered to this jury to show that it was false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. An alleged fraudulent order of increase by Brady, July 23, 1879.
+ Brady never signed any such order. It was signed by French. That is the
+ end of it, no matter whether it was good or bad, honest or dishonest. That
+ is the end of it, and yet there is not a particle of evidence to show that
+ it was dishonest, but you must hold them to their own case as they have
+ written it, and not as they wish it was now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. A fraudulent order of April 10, 1880, allowing one month's extra
+ pay on the service reduced. This order was not even proved by the
+ Government. As a matter of fact, it was not offered by the Government; and
+ if it had been offered, and if it had been proved, it would have only
+ established the fact that Mr. Brady acted in accordance with law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we come to some more. 44160. First, filing false petitions. When did
+ we file them? July 16, 1880. The proof is that they were filed long before
+ that time The proof is that Peck, Dorsey and Rerdell had nothing to do
+ with this route after the 1st of April, 1879, and the petition claimed to
+ be signed by Utah people and claimed to be fraudulent in the petition
+ marked 19 Q. It was filed on the 7th day of May, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is a fatal variance. This indictment charges it was filed July 16,
+ 1880. The petition cannot be considered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another petition marked 20 Q, claimed to have been written by
+ Miner, upon which the name of Hall is said to have been forged. It has no
+ file mark whatever, and consequently cannot be the petition referred to in
+ the indictment. That was filed. That, however, has been explained by
+ General Henkle fully. This petition was identified by McBean, and was
+ signed by him, and he recognized the signatures of many of the citizens of
+ Canyon City. Mr. Merrick admitted that the petition, 19 Q, was never acted
+ upon. As a matter of fact, orders had been made before the petition was
+ received, which shows conclusively that they were not acted upon. The
+ petition marked 20 Q, to which Hall's name was, as is claimed, forged, was
+ never filed, and was consequently never acted upon. This charge stands as
+ follows: Two petitions, one being filed May 17, 1879&mdash;a fatal
+ variance&mdash;and the other not filed&mdash;another fatal variance. These
+ petitions are both described as having been filed July 16, 1880. The
+ variance is absolutely fatal, and these petitions cannot be considered.
+ Besides, the order was made before the petition 19 Q was filed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. The fraudulent order by Brady for increase of trips, July 16,
+ 1880. The only objection to this route is that the expedition was made
+ before service was put on. This was in the power of the
+ Postmaster-General. It has been done many times, and is still being done
+ by the Postoffice Department, and the fact that it was done in this case
+ does not even tend to show that any fraud was committed or intended. That
+ is all there is in that case. The petitions were never acted upon. One was
+ never filed, and the other is not described, or rather is misdescribed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 48150. Overt Acts: A fraudulent order by Brady reducing service to
+ three trips a week, and allowing a month's pay on service dispensed with
+ July 26, 1880. This point, gentlemen, I have already argued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever the Post-Office Department dispenses with any service it is bound
+ to give one month's extra pay any time after the contract has been made
+ and any time after the bid has been accepted. It is bound to give the
+ month's extra pay on the service dispensed with, and this question, as you
+ heard me say a little while ago, has been decided by the Supreme Court in
+ Garfield's case. This route was operated by Sanderson. He was the
+ subcontractor, and, according to the subcontract filed and presented here
+ in evidence, he received every cent of the pay. We could have had no
+ interest in perpetrating any fraud upon that route. Why? Because another
+ man, J. L. Sanderson, received every dollar, and we not one cent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another fraudulent order of increase, August 24, from Powderhorn to
+ Barnum, seven miles. No fraud was shown, but the order in fact, was made
+ for the benefit of Sanderson and not for the benefit of any of the
+ defendants in this case. In other words, it was made for the benefit of
+ the people, it was made because they wished to reach another post-office.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another charge is that the subcontract made by Sanderson was filed
+ September 18, 1878. Recollect the charge is about filing this subcontract.
+ The fact is it was filed in 1878 to take effect from July 1, 1878. See
+ record, page 1406. On this very route the subcontract took effect the 1st
+ of July, 1878, with Sanderson, and from that moment until now he has
+ received every dollar. This route, as a matter of fact, is out of the
+ scheme. Sanderson carried the mail from the 1st of July, 1878, until the
+ end of that contract, the last day of June, 1882. So much for that route.
+ It is gone. Nobody can get it back, either, in this scheme.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 40113. Overt Acts: Filing of a false oath. When? June 3, 1879. When
+ was it filed? May 7, 1879. That oath is gone. Was it false? They did not
+ attack it. They never impeached it. Good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. False petitions filed. When? June 3, 1879. All the petitions were
+ filed prior to May 10, 1879. They are gone. One was filed May 23, but none
+ was filed as alleged on June 3. They are gone. A magnificently written
+ instrument. A fatal variance as to every petition. And yet not a solitary
+ petition was attacked. Every petition was genuine and honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. A fraudulent order by Brady for increase and expedition. This order
+ was asked for by the petitions. No fraud was established. See record, page
+ 1503 on this route; also page 2159.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. They also charge that Brady made a fraudulent order on the 4th of
+ January, 1881. But the Government never proved that order, never offered
+ any order of that date. That is the end of that order.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. A fraudulent order of February 11, 1881. This was not offered by
+ the Government, and no evidence was offered as to the existence of the
+ order, neither the jacket, nor the order, nor the petitions, so far as I
+ can find. That is the end of that. Every overt act so far, except some of
+ the orders, wrong. The overt acts charged were filing fraudulent
+ petitions. When? May 23, 1879. These are the petitions said to have been
+ gotten up by Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox was a Government witness and he swore that
+ every petition was honest, that every name was genuine, and that in order
+ to get the names he did not circulate a falsehood, he circulated only the
+ truth. To use his own language, "I did only straightforward, honest work."
+ That is all there is on that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 44140 is the number of this route, and this evidence is on record, page
+ 1568, and in regard to getting up these petitions you will recollect the
+ language used by the Court. His Honor said in effect clearly, "Every man
+ carrying the mail has the right to take care of his business. He has the
+ right to get up petitions. He has the right to call the attention of the
+ people to what he supposes to be their needs in that regard. He has the
+ right to do it; and the fact that he does it is not the slightest evidence
+ that he has conspired with any human being." Deny me the right to attend
+ to my own affairs? If I have taken the route from the Government, and
+ contract to carry the mail, tell me that I cannot suggest to my
+ fellow-citizens that they ought to have a daily mail instead of a weekly?
+ Tell me that I have not the right to talk it on the corners, in every
+ postoffice for which I start, and that if I do I am liable to be pursued
+ and convicted of an infamous offence? Every man has the right to attend to
+ his own affairs, and he has the right to get all the people he can to help
+ him. He has no right to go around lying about it, but he has the right to
+ call their attention to the facts the same as you would have the right to
+ get a road by your house; just exactly the same as you would have the
+ right to get a school-house built in your district, no matter if you were
+ to have the contract for making the brick. You have a right to say what
+ you please in favor of education, no matter if you are an architect and
+ expect to be employed to build the schoolhouse, and any other doctrine is
+ infinitely absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another charge: That a false oath was filed on the 24th of May.
+ The affidavit was made by Mr. Peck, and I believe it has been admitted
+ that Mr. Peck never did anything wrong. Then there is alleged to be a
+ fraudulent order for increase, signed June 26, and they never introduced
+ the slightest evidence tending to show that there was fraud in the order.
+ It was made in accordance with the petitions. It was made in accordance
+ with what we believed to be the policy of the Post-Office Department. And
+ allow me to say to your Honor that I think that the general policy of the
+ Post-Office Department, as disclosed in the documents that have been
+ presented in the reports made to Congress that have become a part of this
+ case, I think even from that evidence I have the right to draw an
+ inference as to what the policy of the department was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I have no doubt in the world as to the views of the Post-Office
+ Department in regard to that subject. The Court refused to receive
+ evidence on that subject in defence, for the simple reason that the Court
+ was of opinion that no Second Assistant Postmaster-General had the
+ authority to establish any policy for this Government or for any branch of
+ this Government. The policy of the Government is to be found in its laws,
+ and the Court was unwilling to allow a Second Assistant Postmaster-General
+ to set up his policy in his defence against a charge in this court. He had
+ no right to have a policy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. We never set up the policy of the Second Assistant. We
+ never asked to be allowed to prove the policy of the Second Assistant. We
+ never imagined it, nor dreamed of it, nor heard of it until this moment.
+ What we wanted to show was the policy, not of the Second Assistant, but of
+ the Postmaster-General. But I am not speaking now upon that branch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. The Postmaster-General by law is the head of the department of
+ course. But several assistants were given him by law, and he had the
+ authority to apportion out the business of the department amongst those
+ several assistants. The particular business of the department pertaining
+ to the increase of service and expedition of routes belonged under this
+ apportionment to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. His acts,
+ therefore, are to be looked to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I do not claim, if the Court please, that his policy had
+ anything to do with it. I simply claim that from the orders that have been
+ introduced, not of the Second Assistant, from the books that have been
+ introduced, showing the views of the Postmaster-General, not of the Second
+ Assistant. I also admit that if the Postmaster-General had ordered by
+ direct order the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to expedite every one
+ of these routes, even then there could have been such a thing as a
+ conspiracy to expedite them too greatly, and to receive money from every
+ man for whom they were expedited. I understand that. But in the absence of
+ any proof that it is so, all I have ever insisted was that the general
+ policy of the head of the department might be followed by any subordinate
+ officer without laying himself open to the charge that he had been
+ purchased. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, all these things had been asked. They had been earnestly
+ solicited by hundreds of Congressmen, by Senators, by Judges, by
+ Governors, by Cabinet officers and by hundreds and hundreds of citizens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me recapitulate all the overt acts&mdash;and I have gone over
+ them all now excepting one, and I will come to that presently. In the
+ indictment there are twelve charges as to filing false petitions. There
+ are ten charges as to false oaths. There are seven charges as to
+ fraudulently filing subcontracts; and the evidence is that the ten oaths
+ are substantially true; that it is impossible to fraudulently file a
+ subcontract; and as to the petitions, that every one is absolutely genuine
+ and honest with the exception of three. They prove that the words
+ "schedule, thirteen hours," were inserted; that is, they tried to prove
+ that by Mr. Blois, who is an expert on handwriting, as has been
+ demonstrated to you. One with thirteen hours inserted in it, and the very
+ next paragraph in that same petition begs for faster time. I have not the
+ slightest idea that that ever was inserted by anybody. I believe it was in
+ there when it was signed. And why? There would have teen, there could have
+ been, there can be, no earthly reason for inserting those words. You
+ cannot imagine a reason for it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, that is thirteen hours. Then there is another one they say had some
+ names of persons living in Utah, and we say that that is not described
+ properly; not only that, but that it was never acted upon, and in my
+ judgment that whole thing is a mistake and not a crime, because there were
+ plenty of petitions without that. There was no need of it. All the other
+ petitions have either been proved, or have been admitted to be absolutely
+ genuine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I have gone over every overt act except payments, and when it was
+ said here in court, or when the objection was made to these being proved
+ as overt acts, the Court will remember that again and again and again, the
+ prosecution denied that they were offered as overt acts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I never understood them as being offered as overt acts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. At that time the Court made just the remark that your Honor
+ has made now. He said: "But what are the payments?" Now, I will take up
+ the payments, and we will see whether there are any overt acts in the
+ payments, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me call your attention to that magnificent rule that has been
+ laid down by the Court. When you describe an offence you are held by the
+ description. When it is said that I made a false claim against the
+ Government in a conspiracy case, for instance, that I conspired to defraud
+ the Government, that I presented a false claim, it may be that the laxity
+ or lenity of pleading might go the extent of saying that the pleader need
+ not state the amount of that false claim, but if the pleader does state
+ the amount of that false claim he is bound by that statement. Now, that is
+ my doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. What I understood in regard to the evidence of the payments is
+ this: The charge was a conspiracy to defraud and the averment was that the
+ fraud had been completed, and this evidence of payments was to show that
+ the fraud had been carried out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is all. Now, let us see if this can be tortured into
+ an overt act. I now come to the presentation of false claims charged to
+ have been presented and collected by these defendants. It is a short
+ business. On the route from Kearney to Kent the charge is that Peck and
+ Vaile presented false claims on the third quarter of 1879 for five hundred
+ and fifty dollars and seventy-two cents. The entire pay for that quarter,
+ three trips and expedition, was seven hundred and ninety-five dollars and
+ seventy-eight cents. And there is no charge that the increase of trips was
+ fraudulent. Only the expedition was attacked. The three trips, according
+ to the old schedule price, came to seven hundred and thirty-five dollars
+ and eighty-one cents, all of which was honestly carried, honestly earned.
+ Now, deducting from the pay seven hundred and ninety-five dollars and
+ seventy-eight cents, the amount of the three trips on the old schedule
+ honestly performed, seven hundred and thirty-five dollars and eighteen
+ cents, if the expedition was fraudulent, we have a fraudulent claim of
+ sixty dollars and sixteen cents. And yet the Government charges that we
+ made a claim of five hundred and fifty dollars and seventy-two cents. Not
+ one cent is allowed for carrying the two additional trips without
+ expedition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another trouble about this. It is charged that Peck and Vaile
+ presented this claim for their benefit. The record, page 386, shows that
+ Peck did not present this claim; that it was presented by H. M. Vaile;
+ that H. M. Vaile received the warrant for the full amount; that he held a
+ subcontract at that time for every dollar. This is another fatal variance,
+ and the evidence of Vaile is that every dollar belonged to him; that not a
+ dollar of that money was ever paid to any other one of the defendants;
+ that he paid all the expenses; that he paid the debts, and that there
+ never went a solitary cent to any Government official. So much for that
+ payment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next charge is that on route 41119, from Toquerville to Adairville,
+ Peck presented a false claim for the third quarter of 1879 for two
+ thousand four hundred and sixty dollars and fourteen cents. The pay for
+ that quarter was three thousand six hundred and twenty-eight dollars and
+ fourteen cents for seven trips and expedition. The pay for the three trips
+ on the old schedule was eight hundred and seventy-six dollars, a
+ difference of two thousand seven hundred and fifty-two dollars and
+ fourteen cents. And yet the Government charges that the false claim
+ presented was two thousand four hundred and sixty dollars and fourteen
+ cents. If they give the figures they must give them correctly. If I am
+ charged with presenting a claim against the Government for two thousand
+ four hundred and sixty dollars, that is not substantiated by showing that
+ I presented a claim for two thousand seven hundred dollars. If you give
+ the figures you must stand by the figures, and you are bound by them. You
+ cannot charge one thing and prove something else. This is a fatal
+ variance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In addition to this fact, we find the deductions for failures in that very
+ quarter amounted to five hundred and forty dollars and forty-two cents,
+ and this deducted from the other amount leaves two thousand, two hundred
+ and eleven dollars and seventy-two cents. So that in both cases the
+ variance is absolutely fatal. I am showing you these things, gentlemen, so
+ that you may see that there is in this case no evidence to fit the charges
+ in this indictment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 44140, Eugene City to Bridge Creek. It is charged that Peck and Dorsey
+ presented a false account for the third quarter of 1879 for four thousand
+ seven hundred and eighty-three dollars and ninety-nine cents. The pay for
+ three trips with expedition was four thousand, six hundred and eighty-nine
+ dollars and twenty-two cents; the pay for one trip on the old schedule was
+ six hundred and seventeen dollars, a difference of four thousand and
+ seventy-two dollars and twenty-two cents. The Government says the
+ difference was four thousand seven hundred and eighty-three dollars and
+ ninety-nine cents, an absolutely fatal variance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as a matter of fact, there were deductions in that quarter of one
+ thousand nine hundred and thirty-two dollars and eighty-three cents, and
+ this is deducted from the entire pay, leaving only as a claim three
+ thousand seven hundred and sixty-six dollars and thirty-nine cents. And
+ yet the Government charges that we presented a false claim for four
+ thousand seven hundred and eighty-three dollars and forty-nine cents. It
+ will not do. It is a fatal variance. But when we take into consideration
+ that there is no claim that the increase of trips was fraudulent, only the
+ expedition, and that by the old schedule one trip came to six hundred and
+ seventeen dollars, that three trips came to one thousand eight hundred and
+ fifty-one dollars, and that added to deductions would make three thousand
+ seven hundred and seventy-three dollars and eighty-three cents, to be
+ deducted from four thousand six hundred and eighty-nine dollars and
+ twenty-two cents, it would leave as a fraudulent claim, even if their
+ claim was true, nine hundred and fifteen dollars and thirty-nine cents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next is 44155, The Dalles to Baker City. The false claim was
+ eight thousand eight hundred and ninety-six dollars, by Peck. The pay per
+ quarter was sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars and nine
+ cents. The pay for three trips and expedition was seven thousand seven
+ hundred and seventy dollars&mdash;a difference of eight thousand eight
+ hundred and ninety-six dollars and nine cents. But there were deductions,
+ ninety-nine dollars and thirty-four cents, leaving eight thousand seven
+ hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy-five cents. But by making this
+ claim the Government concedes that the expedition was legal, and another
+ trouble is that the payment on this route was made to Vaile, not to Peck
+ or Miner. It was made to Vaile, who was the subcontractor for the full
+ amount, and this is another fatal variance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, route 46132, Julian to Colton. The charge is that Peck and Vaile
+ presented a fraudulent claim for the third quarter of 1879, for one
+ thousand six hundred and fifty seven dollars and seventy-one cents. The
+ pay for three trips and expedition is one thousand nine hundred and
+ fifty-four dollars and seventy-one cents. For three trips on the old
+ schedule it was eight hundred and ninety-one dollars, a difference of one
+ thousand and sixty-three dollars and seventy-three cents. A fatal
+ variance. Besides it was not Peck and Vaile. Vaile was the subcontractor
+ at full rates on this route. He presented the claim. He received the
+ entire pay. Another variance. Route 44160, Canyon City to Camp McDermitt.
+ The charge is that Peck and Vaile presented a false account for the fourth
+ quarter of 1879, for eleven thousand eight hundred and nineteen dollars
+ and sixty-six cents. It is charged in the indictment that this was paid in
+ pursuance of the order set out in the indictment, and we find on page
+ sixty-four that the order was dated July 16, 1880. That was the order. No
+ such payment was made in pursuance of that order for the reason that an
+ order was made nearly a year afterwards, and the order of July 16, 1880,
+ as set out in the indictment, was not retrospective, a fatal mistake in
+ their indictment. As a matter of fact, the pay for the fourth quarter of
+ 1879 was five thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars. There were
+ deductions to the amount of three hundred and fifty-two dollars and
+ seventy-two cents and the balance was five thousand and twenty-two dollars
+ and twenty-eight cents, instead of eleven thousand eight hundred and
+ nineteen dollars and sixty-six cents. And this was paid to Vaile, who was
+ a subcontractor at full rates, and the variance in the case is absurd and
+ fatal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 46247, Redding to Alturas. The charge is that Peck and Dorsey filed
+ a fraudulent account for the third quarter of 1879 for seven thousand four
+ hundred and eighty-five dollars and six cents. This was in pursuance of
+ the order set out in the indictment, and the only order set out in the
+ indictment is dated February 11, 1881. That is another fatal variance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next route is 35051, Bismarck to Miles City. The charge is that Miner
+ and Vaile presented a false account for the fourth quarter of 1879, for
+ fourteen thousand one hundred. The pay for the quarter for six trips was
+ seventeen thousand five hundred dollars. For three trips under the old
+ order the pay was eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, leaving
+ eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars as the outside sum that
+ could have been fraudulent, and yet the Government charges fourteen
+ thousand one hundred dollars, an absolutely fatal variance. Besides that,
+ there were deductions in that very quarter of four thousand five hundred
+ and three dollars. This amount deducted from eight thousand seven hundred
+ and fifty dollars leaves four thousand two hundred and fifty-six dollars
+ and eleven cents as the greatest amount that could by any possibility have
+ been fraudulent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three routes are lumped together next in the indictment, 38134, 38135,
+ 38140, 38134, Pueblo to Rosita; 38135, Pueblo to Greenhorn; and 38,140,
+ Trinidad to Madison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The charge here is on page eighty-one of the indictment that Miner
+ presented a fraudulent account for the fourth quarter of 1879 on routes
+ amounting to two thousand seven hundred and seventy-six dollars and
+ forty-seven cents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest possible difference that could be made on route 38135 is
+ seven hundred and sixty-seven dollars and twenty cents. The greatest
+ difference that could be made on route 38134 is one thousand nine hundred
+ and forty dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest difference that could be made on route 38140 is six hundred
+ and eighty-nine dollars and fifty-one cents. These three differences added
+ together do not make what is charged in the indictment, three thousand
+ seven hundred and seventy-six dollars and forty-seven cents, but as a
+ matter of fact they amount to three thousand three hundred and ninety-six
+ dollars and seventy-one cents. This cannot be the fraudulent claim
+ described in the indictment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I find that on the first route there was a reduction of twelve dollars
+ and sixty cents, on the second route of one hundred and fifty-four dollars
+ and thirty-eight cents, and on the third of thirty-eight dollars and two
+ cents, and these deductions added together make two hundred and five
+ dollars and ninety cents, and deducted from the three thousand three
+ hundred and ninety-six dollars and seventy-one cents leaves three thousand
+ one hundred and ninety dollars and eighty-one cents. And yet the
+ Government charges that the fraudulent claim was two thousand seven
+ hundred and seventy-six dollars and forty-seven cents. It is impossible
+ that the amount of the claim said to be fraudulent by the Government can
+ be correct; but, as a matter of fact, according to the evidence, there was
+ no fraud upon any claim in that route.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next is route 38150, Saguache to Lake City. The charge is that Miner
+ presented a false account for two thousand two hundred and two dollars and
+ seventy-seven cents, and that he did this in pursuance of the order set
+ out in the indictment, and the only order set out is dated August 24,
+ 1880. That is an absolutely fatal variance. As a matter of fact, Sanderson
+ was a subcontractor on this route from July 1, 1878, at full rates, and he
+ carried the mail from July 1, 1878. The route was expedited on his oath
+ and for his benefit. No point was made during the trial that the oath was
+ not true. And the pay was calculated upon Sanderson's oath, and the money
+ paid to him. The only claim is that there was an error in the order of
+ four thousand five hundred and sixty-eight dollars per year, and it is
+ admitted that the mistake was afterwards corrected and the money refunded.
+ You remember it, gentlemen. Mr. Turner, in making up the account showing
+ how much the expedition would come to&mdash;and you understand the way in
+ which they make up that expedition&mdash;made a mistake and added to the
+ expedition and the then schedule the amount of the then schedule, four
+ thousand and odd dollars. He made the mistake and it was honestly made. No
+ man would dishonestly do it because it was so easy of detection, and that
+ was his only fault, gentlemen. The only crime he ever committed in this
+ case was to make that mistake. That mistake was afterwards discovered, and
+ the money was paid back by Mr. Sanderson; and, yet, that man has been
+ indicted, has been taken from his home charged with a crime. He has been
+ pursued as though he were a wild beast. He made one mistake. They could
+ not prove the slightest thing against him. There was no evidence touching
+ him. There was only one way for them, and that was to dismiss him with an
+ insult. You remember the case. Not one thing against that man&mdash;not
+ one single thing. He stands as clear of any charge in this indictment as
+ any one upon this jury. He is an honest man. It is admitted now there was
+ no conspiracy on this route either. It is Sanderson's route, not ours. Not
+ only that, but the Government says that it was not one of the routes with
+ which Vaile had anything to do, or in which Vaile had any possible
+ interest. The failure here is fatal to the indictment, and I shall
+ endeavor to show that it is fatal to the entire case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next route is 35105, Vermillion to Sioux Falls. It is charged that
+ Vaile and Dorsey presented a false account for the third quarter of 1879,
+ for eight hundred and eighty-one dollars and fourteen cents. The pay for
+ six trips and expedition was one thousand and eighty-five dollars and
+ fifty-eight cents. The pay for two trips on the old schedule was two
+ hundred and four dollars and forty-four cents, showing a balance for once,
+ as stated in the indictment&mdash;it being the only time&mdash;of eight
+ hundred and eighty-one dollars and fourteen cents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Parties are entitled to pay for the extra trips, and the number of men and
+ horses has nothing to do with the value of an extra trip. You understand
+ that. If I agree to carry the mail once a week for five thousand dollars a
+ quarter, and you wanted me to carry it twice a week, then I get ten
+ thousand dollars a quarter, no matter if I do it with the same horses and
+ the same men. That is not the Government's business. You all understand
+ that, do you not? Every time you increase a trip you increase the pay to
+ the exact extent of that trip, no matter whether it takes more horses or
+ not. If I agree to carry the mail once a month for five thousand dollars a
+ year, and you want me to carry it once a week I am entitled to twenty
+ thousand dollars, no matter if I do it with all the same men and same
+ horses. It is nobody's business. But, if the Government wants the mail
+ carried faster, then I am entitled to pay according to the men and animals
+ required at a more rapid rate. You all understand that. But as a matter of
+ fact, upon this route, Vaile was the subcontractor at full rates, was so
+ recognized by the Government and received every dollar himself, and,
+ consequently, the charge that it was paid to John W. Dorsey is not true,
+ and is a fatal variance. The Government proved it was paid to Vaile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next we have two routes, 38145, Ojo Caliente to Parrot City, and 38156,
+ Silverton to Parrot City. These routes are put together in the indictment.
+ It is charged that a false account was presented of six thousand and four
+ dollars and seventeen cents, and that this was done in pursuance of an
+ order set out in the indictment. The order set out is on page forty-seven.
+ It is in relation to route 38145. The order was made not in relation to
+ the other route. No order as to the other route was made. This was made
+ February 26, 1881, consequently the claim presented for the third quarter
+ of 1879 could not by any possibility have been in pursuance of that order.
+ That order was made in 1881. The payment for the third quarter of 1879
+ could not by any possibility have been made in pursuance of that order.
+ The evidence shows that it was paid before, and consequently there is a
+ fatal variance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Routes 40104, Mineral Park to Pioche, and 40113, Wilcox to Clifton&mdash;two
+ routes put together. The charge is a fraudulent presentation for the third
+ quarter of 1879, of seven thousand and sixty-four dollars and seventy-two
+ cents. The pay on the first route was ten thousand five hundred and three
+ dollars and sixty-two cents, on the second route three thousand five
+ hundred and twenty-eight dollars. No proof has been offered that the
+ expedition was fraudulent. Not a witness was called on route 40113. Not a
+ solitary petition was objected to, the truth of no oath was called in
+ question, the honesty of no order was attacked, and how can you say that
+ the claim was fraudulent? No order attacked, no oath questioned, no
+ petition impeached. The only evidence upon these two routes was something
+ read in regard to productiveness and the size of the mail, and that is
+ all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 38113, Rawlins to White River. The charge is that John W. Dorsey and
+ Rerdell presented a false account for the third quarter of 1879 for two
+ thousand nine hundred and seventy-five dollars. The order set out in the
+ indictment was made March 8, 1881, consequently the variance is absolutely
+ fatal, and there is no allegation in the indictment that the expedition
+ was fraudulent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I have gone through every route with the payments. As to the general
+ allegation of the amount of money fraudulently claimed and received, the
+ allegation in the indictment is that J. W. Dorsey received, by virtue of
+ these fraudulent orders, made in pursuance of the conspiracy, brought to
+ perfection by these overt acts, for the year ending the 30th day of June,
+ 1880, one hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-one
+ dollars. Good. The evidence shows that there was paid on the seven Dorsey
+ routes in all sixty-two thousand eight hundred and thirty-one dollars and
+ forty-six cents. That is fatal as to that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we will go further. One of these routes was turned over to Vaile by
+ Dorsey, route 35015, and the amount paid to Vaile was two thousand eight
+ hundred and thirty-seven dollars and sixteen cents. So that the amount
+ paid on the Dorsey routes, instead of being one hundred and twenty-four
+ thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars, was in truth and in fact
+ fifty-eight thousand nine hundred and ninety-four dollars and thirty
+ cents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the charge is that this was all received by John W. Dorsey, whereas
+ the evidence shows that John W. Dorsey received three warrants, two for
+ eighty-seven dollars each, both of which were recouped, and one warrant
+ for three hundred and ninety-two dollars, and that is every cent he ever
+ received, according to the evidence in this case. There is what you might
+ call a discrepancy. The indictment says he got one hundred and twenty-four
+ thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars. The evidence shows that he
+ got three hundred and ninety-two dollars and not another copper. I shall
+ insist that that is a variance. If it is not a variance, I will take my
+ oath it is a difference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second claim is that John R. Miner received upon the routes awarded to
+ him, and claimed to be his in the indictment, ninety-three thousand and
+ sixty-seven dollars for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880. The evidence
+ is that as a matter of fact on all these routes the money was paid to
+ assignees and subcontractors, and that John R. Miner as a fact, received
+ not one cent from the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The third charge is that Peck received for the same fiscal year one
+ hundred and eight-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-eight dollars.
+ The evidence shows that he received nothing. There is another difference.
+ Thus it will be seen that every link in the chain in this indictment is
+ either a mistake or a falsehood. Every other one is a mistake and then
+ every other one is a falsehood, and this indictment was made by adding
+ mistakes to falsehoods, and what the indictment weaves the evidence
+ reveals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, why were these dates put in this indictment, gentlemen? We have now
+ gone over every overt act charged in this indictment. The result is that
+ not one of the charges set forth has really been sustained. Hereafter I
+ will notice some things that have been proved outside of the indictment.
+ Nearly every petition and letter is admitted to have been honest and
+ genuine. Those that have been attacked were misdescribed in the indictment
+ and the evidence has shown that they were substantially true. There is a
+ fatal variance between the allegation and the proof so far as these
+ charges in the indictment are concerned, and they are left absolutely
+ without a prop. The dates attached to the overt acts are false. There is
+ only one of the routes in which the petitions are properly described, and
+ that is route 44140, where the petitions are alleged to have been and were
+ filed on the 23d of May, and every one was proved to have been genuine and
+ honest. The dates in the indictment were false. Now, why? Let me tell you,
+ gentlemen. They had to deceive the grand jury. It would not do to tell the
+ grand jury these men conspired on the 23d of May, and in pursuance to that
+ conspiracy filed some affidavits on the third day preceding. They had
+ first to deceive the grand jury and put in false dates for the filing of
+ petitions, for the filing of subcontracts and for the drawing of money.
+ What else did they want these false dates for? To deceive the Circuit
+ Court, or rather the Supreme Court&mdash;to deceive his Honor, because if
+ the date of these petitions, the date of these oaths, had been set forth
+ in the indictment it would have been bad. The Court would have instantly
+ said, you cannot prove a conspiracy on the 23d of May by showing acts in
+ April previous. So these false dates were put in, in the first place, to
+ fool the grand jury, and in the next place to keep this Court in the dark.
+ It was necessary to have a good charge on paper, and why? Did they expect
+ to win this case on that indictment? No; but they could keep it in court
+ long enough to allow them to attack and malign the character of these
+ defendants; they could keep it in court long enough to vent their venom
+ and spleen upon good and honest men, and justify in part the commencement
+ of this prosecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This forenoon I tried to strip the green leaves off the tree of this
+ indictment. Now I propose to attack the principal limbs and trunk. What is
+ the scheme of this indictment? I insist that the law is precisely the same
+ as to the scheme of the conspiracy in its description that it is as to the
+ description of an overt act. Now, what is the scheme of this indictment?
+ That is to say, the scheme of this conspiracy? We want to know what we are
+ doing. It is the great bulwark of human liberty that the charge against a
+ man must be in writing, and must be truthfully described.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. For the defendants, with the exception of the officers Brady and
+ Turner, to write, and procure the writing of, fraudulent letters,
+ communications, and applications. Now, let us be honest. Is there the
+ slightest evidence that a fraudulent letter was ever written? Is there the
+ slightest evidence that a fraudulent communication was ever sent to the
+ department? Not the slightest evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. To attach to said petitions and applications forged names. Is
+ there any evidence of that except in one case, and the evidence in that
+ case is that the order was made before the petition was received and that
+ the petition was never acted upon. More than that, is there any evidence
+ as to who forged any names to any petitions? Not the slightest. Which of
+ these defendants are you going to find guilty upon that petition when
+ there is not the slightest evidence as to who wrote it? What next? To have
+ these petitions signed by fictitious names or with the names of persons
+ not residing upon the routes. Is there any evidence of that kind? Is there
+ any evidence that the signatures of real persons were attached, and the
+ real persons did not live upon the routes? I leave it to you, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. To make and procure false oaths, declarations, and statements.
+ Those I shall examine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. For William H. Turner falsely to indorse on the back of these
+ jackets false brief statements of the contents of genuine petitions. You
+ know what has become of that charge, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This indictment against Turner has been changed into a certificate of good
+ moral character. That is the end of the indictment, so far as he is
+ concerned, and I am glad of it. He is a man who fought to keep the flag of
+ my country in the air, and who lay upon the field of Gettysburg sixteen
+ days with the lead of the enemy in his body, and I am glad to have the
+ evidence show that he was not only a patriot, but an honest man with a
+ spotless reputation. I do not think that, in order to be a great man, you
+ have got to be as cold as an icicle. I do not think that if you wish to be
+ like God (if there is one) it is necessary to be heartless. That is not my
+ judgment. When I find that a man is honest I am glad of it. When I find
+ that a patriot has been sustained my heart throbs in unison with his. What
+ is the next? That Brady, for the benefit, gain, and profit of all the
+ defendants&mdash;and I emphasize the word all because upon that I am going
+ to cite to the court a little law&mdash;made fraudulent orders; that is,
+ for the benefit of Turner, Brady, and everybody else. Eighth. That he
+ caused these fraudulent orders to be certified to the Auditor of the
+ Treasury for the Post-Office Department. Ninth. That Brady refused to
+ enter fines against these contractors when they failed to perform their
+ service; that he fraudulently refused to impose these fines. What is the
+ evidence? The evidence is that the whole amount of fines imposed by Brady
+ was one hundred and twenty-six thousand eight hundred and sixty-five
+ dollars and eighty cents. That evidence is given in support of the charge
+ that he refused to impose them, yet the imposition amounts to one hundred
+ and twenty-six thousand dollars. How much of that vast sum did he relieve
+ the contractors from upon the evidence? Twenty-three thousand dollars,
+ leaving standing of fines that were paid, one hundred and three thousand
+ six hundred and seventy dollars and twelve cents. That evidence is offered
+ to show that he conspired not to impose the fines. One hundred and
+ twenty-six thousand dollars imposed in fines, and only twenty-three
+ thousand dollars remitted. Yet the charge was, and an argument has been
+ made upon it before this jury, that the contractors agreed that he was to
+ have fifty per cent, of all fines that he took off. Think of a man making
+ that contract with aman having power to impose the fines. "Now, all you
+ will take off I will give you fifty per cent. of." There is an old story
+ that a friend of a man who was bitten by a dog said to him, "If you will
+ take some bread and sop it in the blood and give it to the dog it will
+ cure the bite." "Yes," he says; "but, my God, suppose the other dogs
+ should hear of it?" Think of putting yourself in the power of a man who
+ has the right to fine you. And yet that is a part of the logic of this
+ prosecution. The next charge is of fraudulently cutting off service and
+ then fraudulently starting it and allowing a month's extra pay. That
+ happened, I believe, in two cases&mdash;thirty dollars in one case and
+ something more in the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Thirty-nine dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Then the case is nine dollars better than I thought.
+ Twelfth. By the defendants fraudulently filing, subcontracts. That I have
+ already shown is an impossible offence. All these things were done for the
+ purpose of deceiving the Postmaster-General. Now, the Court has already
+ intimated that we have no right to say that the Postmaster-General would
+ be a good witness to show whether he was deceived or not, and that it may
+ be that his eyes were sealed so tightly that he has not got them open yet.
+ But whether they can prove it by him or by somebody else they have got to
+ prove it in order to make out this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the scheme of this indictment. It makes no difference whether the
+ Postmaster-General has found out that he was deceived or not. The jury
+ have got to find it out before they find a verdict against the defendants.
+ It is possible that the Postmaster-General thinks he was not deceived or
+ that he was; I do not know what his opinion is and do not care. They have
+ got to prove it by somebody. I do not say they can prove it by him. I do
+ not know. This is the scheme, and what I insist is that this scheme must
+ be substantiated and must be proved precisely as it has been laid without
+ the variation of a hair. You must prove it as you have charged it, and you
+ must charge it as you prove it. It is simply a double statement. I wish to
+ submit some authorities to the Court upon this question: Must the exact
+ scheme be proved? First, I will refer the court to the tenth edition of
+ Starkie, page 627. * * *
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is a most general rule that no allegation which is descriptive of the
+ identity of that which is legally essential to the claim or charge can
+ ever be rejected. * * * As an absolute and natural identity of the claim
+ or charge alleged with that proved consists in the agreement between them
+ in all particulars, so their legal identity consists in their agreement in
+ all the particulars legally essential to support the charge or claim, and
+ the identity of those particulars depends wholly upon the proof of the
+ allegation and circumstances by which they are ascertained, limited and
+ described."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No matter whether the description was necessary or unnecessary:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "To reject any allegation descriptive of that which is essential to a
+ charge or a claim would obviously tend to mislead the adversary. * * * It
+ seems, indeed, to be a universal rule that a plaintiff or prosecutor shall
+ in no case be allowed to transgress those limits which in point of
+ description, limitation, and extent he has prescribed for himself; he
+ selects his own terms in order to express the nature and extent of his
+ charge or claim, he cannot therefore justly complain that he is limited by
+ them. * * * As no allegation therefore which is descriptive of any fact or
+ matter which is legally essential to the claim or charge can be rejected
+ altogether, inasmuch as the variance destroys the legal identity of the
+ claim or charge alleged with that which is proved, upon the same principle
+ no allegation can be proved partially in respect to the extent or
+ magnitude where the precise extent or magnitude is in its nature
+ descriptive of the charge or claim."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be plainer than that. I refer also to Starkie on Evidence, 7th
+ American edition, vol. 1, page 442. There he says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In the next place it is clear that no averment of any matter essential to
+ the claim or charge can ever be rejected, and this position extends to all
+ allegations which operate by way of description or limitation of that
+ which is material."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also cite Russell on Crimes, 9th American edition, vol. 3, page 305, and
+ Roscoe's Criminal Evidence, 7th edition, page 86.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I now call the attention of the Court to the case of Rex vs. Pollman and
+ others, 2 Campbell, 239. I may say before reading this decision that, in
+ my judgment, so far as the scheme of this indictment is concerned, it
+ should end this case:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This was an indictment against the defendants which charged that they
+ unlawfully and corruptly did meet, combine, conspire, consult, consent and
+ agree among themselves and together, with divers other evil-disposed
+ persons, to the jurors unknown, unlawfully and corruptly to procure,
+ obtain, receive, have and take, namely, to the use of them, the said F.
+ P., J. K. and S. H., and of certain other persons to the jurors likewise
+ unknown, large sums of money, namely, the sum of two thousand pounds, as a
+ compensation and reward for an appointment to be made by the lord's
+ commissioners of the treasury of our lord the king of some person to a
+ certain office, touching and concerning His Majesty's customs, to wit, the
+ office of a coast waiter in the port of London, through the corrupt means
+ and procurement of them, the said F. P., J. K. and S. H., and of certain
+ other persons to the jurors unknown, the said office then and there being
+ an office of public trust, touching the landing and shipping coastwise of
+ divers goods liable to certain duties of custom."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The indictment went on and stated various overt acts in furtherance of the
+ conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There were several other counts which all laid the conspiracy in the same
+ way."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I come to the part of the case which, in my judgment, affects this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It appears that the defendants Pollman, Keylock and Harvey had entered
+ into a negotiation with one Hesse to procure him the office mentioned in
+ the indictment for the sum of two thousand pounds, which they had agreed
+ to share among themselves in certain stipulated proportions; but although
+ this money was lodged at the banking house of Steyks, Snaith &amp; Co, in
+ which the defendant Watson was a partner, and he knew it was to be paid to
+ Pollman and Keylock upon Hesse's appointment, there was no evidence to
+ show that he knew that Sarah Harvey was to have a part of it, or that she
+ was at all implicated in the transaction."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a co-conspirator, and he knew that the money was to be deposited at
+ this place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that, but he did not know that Sarah Harvey was to have a part of
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Lord Ellenborough threw out a doubt whether as to Watson the indictment
+ was supported by the evidence."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The evidence being that Watson did not know that it was to be divided in
+ the precise way stated in the indictment. Manifestly, they need not have
+ stated in the indictment how it was to be divided; but having stated it,
+ the question is: Are they bound by the statement? Let us see:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The attorney-general contended that the words in italics coming under a
+ <i>videlicet</i> might be entirely rejected. The sense would be complete
+ without them. The indictment would then run that the defendants conspired
+ together to obtain a large sum of money as a consideration and reward for
+ appointment to be made by the lord's commissioners of the treasury. This
+ was the corpus delicti. The use to which the money might be applied was
+ wholly immaterial. The offence of conspiring together would be complete
+ however the money might be disposed of."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ True.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There was no occasion to state this, and the averment might be treated as
+ surplusage. Suppose the manner in which the money was to be disposed of
+ had been unknown. Would it have been impossible to convict those engaged
+ in the conspiracy? But, without rejecting the words, the variance was
+ immaterial. The charge in the indictment had been substantially made out
+ as laid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Dallas and Walton, of counsel for Watson, denied that the words could be
+ rejected, though laid under a videlicet, as they were material, and they
+ were not repugnant to anything that went before. The application of the
+ money might be of the very essence of the offence. Suppose it had been
+ obtained for the use of the lords of the treasury, who would make the
+ appointment: would not this be a much greater crime than if the money had
+ been obtained for the benefit of a public charity?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think that reasoning is bad. I think the crime is exactly the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But if the words were rejected then the variance was more palpable. In
+ that case, there being no mention of any persons to whose use the money
+ was obtained, the necessary presumption was that it was obtained to the
+ use of the defendants themselves."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is good sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The evidence shows, however, that Watson was to have no part of it, and
+ that he was utterly ignorant of the manner in which it was to be
+ distributed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Lord Ellenborough. There can be no doubt that the indictment might have
+ been so drawn as to include Watson in the conspiracy. Even if the manner
+ the money to be applied was unknown, this might have been stated on the
+ face of the indictment, and then no evidence of its application would have
+ been required. The question is, whether the conspiracy as actually laid be
+ proved by the evidence?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the question: Have they made out a case according to the scheme of
+ the indictment? Has the conspiracy as laid been proved by the evidence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I think that as to Watson it is not. He is charged with conspiring to
+ procure this appointment through the medium of Mrs. Harvey, of whose
+ existence for aught that appears he was utterly ignorant. When a
+ conspiracy is charged it must be charged truly."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not know that Mrs. Harvey was to have a portion of the money, and
+ yet she was a member of the conspiracy. The evidence showed that she was
+ to have a portion of it, and Lord Ellenborough says that they did not
+ prove the charge as laid, and that it cannot include Watson.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Garrow submitted that it was unnecessary to prove that each of the
+ defendants knew how the money was to be disposed of, and that it was
+ enough to show that the destination of the money was as stated in the
+ indictment. A fact of which all those engaged in the conspiracy must be
+ taken to be cognizant. Watson by engaging with the other conspirators to
+ gain the same end, had adopted the means by which the end was to be
+ accomplished."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is what the attorney for the Government says. Lord Ellenborough
+ replies:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "You must prove that all the defendants were cognizant of the object of
+ the conspiracy and the mode stated in the indictment by which it was to be
+ carried into effect. A contrary doctrine would be extremely dangerous. The
+ defendant Watson must be acquitted."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us apply that case to this. In the first place, they must not only
+ prove this indictment according to the scheme, but they must prove that
+ every defendant understood that scheme, knew the scheme, how it was to be
+ accomplished and what was done with the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. In that case Watson was acquitted. What was done with the
+ others?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. They, of course, were found guilty, because they were
+ guilty, as the indictment charged. They knew the exact scheme set forth in
+ the indictment. They were guilty exactly as the indictment said. They
+ divided the money exactly as the indictment charged they divided the
+ money, and they were cognizant of every fact set forth in the indictment.
+ But Watson, although a co-conspirator, did not know what was to be done
+ with the money, and consequently was to be discharged. Why? Because they
+ did not prove the conspiracy as to him as charged. They need not have set
+ forth in the indictment what was to be done with the money, but they did
+ set it forth, and then they had to prove it. They need not have said that
+ every man knew what was done with the money, but they did say that every
+ man knew, and they failed to prove it, and when they failed to prove it as
+ to Watson he was discharged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen of the jury, what I insist upon and what I shall ask the
+ Court to instruct you is that the Government, no matter how guilty the
+ defendant may be, no matter if he has robbed this Government of hundreds
+ of millions, is to be tried by this indictment, is to be guilty of this
+ charge as written in this indictment and nowhere else; and he has got to
+ understand it. They say he understood it, and they have got to prove that
+ he understood it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, upon that same subject they say that the money was to be divided
+ between all these parties&mdash;between Rerdell, Turner and everybody. I
+ think it was Mr. Bliss who said there was no evidence that Rerdell ever
+ had any of the money. Certainly they do not think that Turner obtained any
+ of the money. Is there any evidence of it? Not the slightest. Is there
+ evidence that there ever was any division, any evidence that there was
+ ever any money divided upon a solitary route mentioned in this indictment?
+ Not one particle. If you say there is evidence, when was the division
+ made?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. The question is not what was done. The question is with what
+ view the conspiracy was entered into.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Certainly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. 'The object of the conspiracy may have failed, and this money
+ might not have been divided as they intended, but still the conspiracy
+ would be here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Good, perfectly. But if they set forth in this indictment
+ that the money was divided, that statement is not worth a last year's dead
+ leaf unless they prove it. That is all I insist upon. You cannot find
+ anybody guilty of charges in an indictment unless you prove them. Unless
+ you prove them they amount to no more than charges written in water, than
+ characters engraved on fog or written on clouds. You have got to prove
+ them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, upon this same point I say that if the scheme has not been
+ established by the evidence, the case fails, no matter what the proof. The
+ offence must not only be proved as charged, but it must be charged as
+ proved, doubling the statement for the sake of doubling the idea of
+ accuracy. That is in Archibald's Criminal Pleadings, American edition,
+ page 36. The same thing is held in First Chitty's Criminal Law, 213. I
+ also refer to the case of King against Walker, 3d Campbell, 264; King vs.
+ Robinson, 1st Hope's Nisi Prius Reports, 595. I have the books here, but I
+ will not take up the time of this Court in reading them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if I am right, that is the language of that indictment. The overt
+ acts with the leaves are gone; the scheme with the branch and trunk are
+ gone. They prove no such scheme, they prove no such division.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will now proceed to examine the alleged evidence against my clients,
+ Stephen W. and John W. Dorsey, and I want to say right in the commencement
+ that suspicion is not evidence. You charge that a couple of persons
+ conspired. That they met about nine o'clock on the shadowy side of the
+ street.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>A suspicious circumstance</i>. Why did they not get <i>under the lamp?</i>
+ They were seen together once more, and the moment a man came up they
+ walked off. Guilty. They ran. And out of these idiotic suspicions that
+ never would have entered the mind, except for the reason that the persons
+ were charged, hundreds of people begin to say, "There is something in it.
+ They met four or five times. One of them wrote a letter to the other, and
+ so help me God it was not dated." Another suspicious circumstance. "There
+ was a heading on the paper. It was not the number of his office." So they
+ work it up, and ignorance begins to stare, and wonder to open its mouth,
+ and finally prejudice finds a verdict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suspicion, gentlemen, is not evidence. You want to go at this with this
+ idea. Whatever a man does, the presumption is it is an honest act until
+ the contrary is shown. These men wrote letters. They had a right to do it.
+ They met. They had a right to meet. They entered into contracts. They had
+ a right to do it, no matter whether they were dated or not dated. One of
+ the greatest judges of England said if you let out of the greatest man's
+ brains all the suspicions, all the rumors, all the mistakes, and all the
+ nonsense, the amount of pure knowledge left would be extremely small. If
+ you take out of this case all the suspicions, all the guesses, all the
+ rumors, all the epithets, all the arrogant declarations, the amount of
+ real evidence would be surprisingly small.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I want to try this case that way. I do not want to try it by
+ prejudice. Prejudice is born of ignorance and malice. One of the greatest
+ men of this country said prejudice is the spider of the mind. It weaves
+ its web over every window and over every crevice where light can enter,
+ and then disputes the existence of the light that it has excluded. That is
+ prejudice. Prejudice will give the lie to all the other senses. It will
+ swear the northern star out of the sky of truth. You must avoid it. It is
+ the womb of injustice, and a man who cannot rise above prejudice is not a
+ civilized man; he is simply a barbarian. I do not want this case tried on
+ prejudice. Prejudice will shut its eyes against the light. I want you to
+ try it without that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right here, although it is a subject about which most courts are a
+ little tender, the question arises as to the jury being judges of the law
+ and fact. One of the attorneys for the Government, Mr. Merrick, told us
+ that at one time he insisted that the jury was the judge of the law, and
+ made this remarkable declaration:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But even at the time I spoke the words to the jury I did not believe them
+ to be indicative of safe and true principles of law."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was he candid then? Is he candid now? I do not know. But his doctrine
+ appears to be this: "When I am afraid of the court I insist on the jury
+ judging the law. When I am afraid of the jury I turn the law over to the
+ court. But in this case, having confidence in both judge and jury, it is
+ wholly immaterial to me how the question is decided."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if it please the Court, I believe the law to be simply this: I
+ believe the jury to be absolute judges of the facts, and yet if on the
+ facts they find a man guilty whom the court thinks is not guilty, the
+ court will grant a new trial. The court has the power to set aside a
+ verdict because the jury find contrary to the evidence. The court cannot
+ do it, however, when the jury finds a verdict of not guilty. I do not
+ believe that the jury have a right to disregard the law from the court
+ unless a juryman upon his oath can say that he believes, he knows, or is
+ satisfied that is not the law; and he must be honest in that, and he must
+ not be acting upon caprice. He must be absolutely honest. He must be in
+ that condition of mind that to follow the law pointed out by the court
+ would trample upon his conscience, and that he has not the right to do.
+ That is all the distance I go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of the world will show that some of the grandest advances made
+ in law have been made by juries who would not allow their consciences to
+ be trampled into the earth by tyrannical judges. I am not saying that for
+ this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am simply saying that as a fact. There was a time in this country when
+ they used to try a man who helped another to gain his liberty, and there
+ was now and then a man on the jury who had sense enough, and heart enough,
+ and conscience enough to say, "I will die before I carry out that kind of
+ law." They did not carry it out either, and finally the law became so
+ contemptible, so execrable, that everybody despised it. All I ask this
+ jury to do is just to be governed by the evidence and by the law as the
+ Court will give it to them, honestly and fairly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I am coming to the evidence against John W. Dorsey. I am traveling
+ through this case now we have started it. As you have heard very little
+ about it, gentlemen, and there is nothing in the world like speaking on a
+ fresh subject. I feel-an interest in John W. Dorsey. He is my client. I
+ believe him to be an absolutely honest man. He is willing to take the
+ effect of all his acts. He is no sneak, no skulk. He will take it as it
+ is. Let us see what he has done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first witness is Mr. Boone. Mr. Boone swears that John W. Dorsey was
+ one of the original partners. Well, that is so. It is claimed that the
+ conspiracy was entered into before there was any bidding. Well, Boone does
+ not uphold that view. Now, if Boone and Miner and John W. Dorsey and Peck
+ had an arrangement with Brady whereby they were to bid and then have
+ expedition and increase, I want to ask you why did Boone write to all the
+ postmasters to find out about the roads and the cost of provender, and the
+ kind of weather they had in the winter in order to ascertain what bid to
+ make? If he had had an arrangement with the Second Assistant
+ Postmaster-General to expedite the route he would have simply made up his
+ mind to bid lower than anybody else, and he would not have cared a cent
+ what kind of roads they had there, or what kind of weather they had in the
+ winter, or how much horse provender cost, and yet he sent out thousands of
+ circulars to find out these facts. For what? To make bids. What for?
+ According to the Government these were routes on which they had already
+ conspired for expedition and increase without the slightest reference to
+ the horses and men, and of course, if that theory is true, Boone is one of
+ the conspirators. But I will come to that hereafter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ More routes, according to Boone's testimony, were awarded than they
+ anticipated. They got, I think, one hundred and twenty-six. They had no
+ money to stock the routes. They got more than they expected. Well, that
+ was not a crime. Boone left in August, 1878, and Mr. Merrick takes the
+ ground that Boone had done the work, manipulated all the machinery, and
+ yet could not be trusted with the secret. Boone had gathered all the
+ information, he had done the entire business, and yet the secret up to
+ that time had been successfully kept from him. Do you believe that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Vaile came, and another partnership was formed, and the second
+ partnership remained in force, I think, till the 1st of April, 1879, or
+ the last day of March, and then the routes were divided. Now, then, John
+ W. Dorsey is charged with conspiracy as to these routes, and these routes
+ were afterwards assigned to S. W. Dorsey to secure advances and
+ indorsements that were made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, of the routes mentioned in the indictment, John W. Dorsey was
+ interested in seven at the time of the division. From Vermillion to Sioux
+ Falls, from White River to Rawlins, from Garland to Parrott City, from
+ Ouray to Los Pinos, from Silverton to Parrott City, from Mineral Park to
+ Pioche, and from Tres Alamos to Clifton. How much money did he get on all
+ these routes? I have already shown you. He received two warrants for
+ eighty-seven dollars and they recouped them both. He received another
+ warrant for three hundred and ninety-two dollars and succeeded in keeping
+ it. That is all the money he got in these seven routes. Now, the testimony
+ of Mr. Vaile shows, if it shows anything, that after April, 1879, he took
+ those routes and kept them and never paid a dollar to any official in the
+ world, and he also swears that no matter how much he got, it made no
+ difference as to the routes that had been given to John W. Dorsey and
+ Peck. It could not in any way affect their amount, and that no person in
+ the world except themselves had any interest in them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is charged that false affidavits were made by John W. Dorsey, and
+ that the making of these false affidavits was the result of conspiracy.
+ Let us see. It has been shown by the evidence, and I have already shown
+ it, and conclusively shown it, that the affidavit was substantially
+ correct, so far as the proportion was concerned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me explain what I mean by proportion. For instance, I am getting
+ five thousand dollars a year on a route, and it takes five men and ten
+ horses. That is an aggregate of fifteen. Now, suppose I simply expedite it
+ a certain number of miles an hour, and say it will take fifteen men and
+ thirty horses. That makes an aggregate of forty-five, does it not? Then
+ the Government gives me three times as much for the expedited service as
+ for the then service. Now, suppose I am getting a thousand dollars, and it
+ only takes one man and one horse, and I make an affidavit that it takes
+ one hundred men and one hundred horses, and if it is expedited it will
+ take two hundred men and two hundred horses, how much more do I get? I get
+ just double, and the result of the affidavit is exactly the same as though
+ I said the one man and one horse that it then took, and it would require
+ two men and two horses. If you keep the proportion you cannot by any
+ possibility commit a fraud against the Government. Now we understand that.
+ Now let us see. When you make an affidavit, what do you do? When you make
+ an affidavit of how many horses it will take, you take into consideration
+ the length of the term, three or four years. You take into consideration
+ the life of a horse. You take into consideration the roads and the
+ weather. You take into consideration every risk, and find it is only a
+ matter of judgment, only a matter of opinion, and the fact that men differ
+ as to their judgment upon those points accounts for the fact that they
+ make different affidavits. If everybody made the same calculation as to
+ food, as to weather, as to roads, as to disease, everybody would make
+ substantially the same bid, but on the same route they differ thousands of
+ dollars a year, because they differ in judgment as to the number of horses
+ it will require and as to the number of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then there is another thing. Some men will make a horse do twice as
+ much as others. Some men are hard and fierce and merciless. Some men are
+ like they ask you to be in this case&mdash;icicles. Some men resemble the
+ gods so far that they will make a horse do five times the work they
+ should, and other men are merciful to the dumb beast. So they differ in
+ judgment. One man says he can go twenty-five miles every day, and another
+ man says he can only go fifteen. One man says stations ought to be built
+ twenty-five miles apart; another says they should be built ten miles
+ apart. They differ, and for that reason, gentlemen, the bids differ, and
+ for that reason the affidavits differ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I shall not speak of all these affidavits, but I shall speak of the ones
+ that have been attacked. Mr. Merrick called Mr Dorsey a perjurer because
+ he made two affidavits on route 38145. Now, no such charge is made in the
+ indictment, but I will answer it. Now, then, as to the two indictments&mdash;The
+ Court. Two affidavits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Two affidavits. Well, there ought to have been two
+ indictments to cover both cases. Now, this is on route 38145, Garland to
+ Parrott City. Now, there were two affidavits made on 38145, as is set
+ forth in the evidence, but it is not in the indictment. The first
+ affidavit was sworn to March 11, 1879, in Vermont, and filed April 16,
+ 1879. Neither could come in under this conspiracy anyway. The second was
+ made in Washington, April 26, 1879, and filed the same day, which is a
+ suspicious circumstance. The letter dated April 23, 1879, according to the
+ prosecution, purports to transmit an affidavit made on the 26. There is no
+ evidence that the affidavit dated the 26 was inclosed in the letter dated
+ the 23. The affidavit set forth the number of men and animals required to
+ run the route on a schedule of fifty hours, three trips a week. There is
+ no evidence as to the character of the paper transmitted, if any was
+ transmitted, nor in fact, is there any evidence that any paper was
+ transmitted with that letter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, on page 804 of the record, Mr. Bliss submitted two papers to Mr.
+ McSweeney, a witness, saying, "I show you two papers pinned together." Who
+ pinned them? I do not know. "One dated April 26, 1879, and the other dated
+ April 24, 1879." The paper dated April 26 is indorsed in the handwriting
+ of William H. Turner. The indorsement on the paper dated April 24 is in
+ the handwriting of Byron C. Coon. This fact shows that the papers that
+ were read by Mr. Bliss as one paper and marked 17 E, were treated by the
+ department as two separate papers received on separate dates, and so
+ marked and so filed, and they were marked at the time they were identified
+ as numbers 17 and 18. Now, the only question is whether the last affidavit
+ was made for the purpose of committing a fraud upon the Government and
+ whether the change in the figures in the last affidavit were intended to
+ or could in any way defraud the Government of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see what it is. Mr. Merrick charges that the second oath was
+ willful perjury. In order to show that this was an honest transaction, and
+ that Mr. Dorsey should be praised instead of blamed, I will call your
+ intention now to the exact state of facts. Now, if I do not make out from
+ this that it was a praiseworthy action instead of perjury, a good, honest
+ action, I will abandon the case. In the first affidavit Dorsey swore that
+ it would require three men and seven animals as the schedule then was, and
+ that for the proposed schedule it would take eleven men and twenty-six
+ animals. Now, three men and seven animals make ten, and eleven men and
+ twenty-six animals make thirty-seven. So that by the first affidavit he
+ swore that it would take three and seven-tenths more animals to carry the
+ mail on the expedited schedule than on the schedule as it then was, did he
+ not? Three men and seven animals as against eleven men and twenty-six
+ animals it would take three and seven-tenths more animals, consequently
+ you would get for that three and seven-tenths more pay. Now, let us
+ understand that. That is an increase in the ratio of ten to thirty-seven,
+ and if his pay had been calculated on that first affidavit it would have
+ been thirteen thousand four hundred and thirty-three dollars and four
+ cents. But it was not calculated on that. He made another affidavit. Now,
+ the second affidavit said that it would take twenty men and animals
+ instead of ten, as it then was, and for the expedition fifty-four men and
+ animals. Now, the ratio between twenty and fifty-four was two and
+ seven-tenths instead of three and seven-tenths, so that under that second
+ affidavit, which they say was willful and corrupt perjury, he would only
+ get eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars, and the change of
+ that affidavit, if the amount had been calculated on the first instead of
+ the second, would have cost him for the three years yet remaining of his
+ term fourteen thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars and sixty
+ cents, and that change saved, exactly as if they had made the calculation
+ on the other affidavit, about fifteen thousand dollars, and yet they tell
+ me that that was willful and corrupt perjury. There has nothing been shown
+ in the case more perfectly honorable. Nothing shown calculated to put John
+ W. Dorsey in a fairer, in a grander light, than this very affidavit that
+ is charged to have been willful perjury. Do you see? He made the first
+ affidavit, and in it he made a mistake against the Government of fourteen
+ thousand nine hundred and twenty-five dollars, and, then, like an honest
+ man, he corrected it, and for that honest correction he is held up as a
+ perjured scoundrel. It will not do, my friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, as a matter of fact, not one of these affidavits is set out in the
+ indictment, not one charged in the indictment. They are wandering tramps
+ that were picked up as they went along with this case, and have no
+ business here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In route 38152 he made no affidavit. In route 38113 there is no charge in
+ the indictment that he made any affidavit. In the route 38156 the
+ affidavit was not false. It was charged and was not successfully
+ impeached. In route 40104 the affidavit was never disputed and it was
+ never attacked. In route 40113 the affidavit was not attacked, not a
+ solitary witness was examined. In route 35105 no affidavit was made by
+ Dorsey. In route 38134 there are two more affidavits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us see. Here is some more fraud. Put it down, 38134&mdash;two
+ affidavits&mdash;a great fraud. The first affidavit said three men and
+ twelve animals. That made fifteen; that for the expedition it would take
+ seven men and thirty-eight animals. That made forty-five. In other words
+ the proportion was fifteen to forty-five, just three times as much. Three
+ times fifteen make forty-five. Then he made a second affidavit, filed with
+ a purpose to defraud the Government. Let us see. In the second affidavit
+ he said that it took two men and six animals. That makes eight. That on
+ the expedition it would take six men and eighteen animals. That makes
+ twenty-four. The proportion was eight to twenty-four. Three times eight
+ make twenty-four; and three times fifteen make forty-five. So that the
+ amount was raised exactly the same to a cent, under the second affidavit
+ that it was under the first, and consequently could not have been made for
+ the purpose of defrauding anybody. Impossible. The proportion of course is
+ the material thing in every affidavit, and it is only by that proportion
+ that you can tell whether they are trying to defraud this Government or
+ not. Suppose that second affidavit had changed the proportion so that he
+ was not to get just the amount of money, then you might say it was a
+ fraud. But it did not change the proportion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On route 38156 another affidavit is filed and not successfully impeached.
+ I went over that. I have got through with that. That is all there is to
+ it. That is all, that is everything&mdash;everything&mdash;everything.
+ There is no evidence tending to show that John W. Dorsey ever spoke to
+ Thomas J. Brady. There is no evidence to show that he ever saw him. There
+ is no evidence to show that he was ever seen in his company; no evidence
+ to show that he ever saw Turner; that he ever heard of Turner; that he
+ ever spoke to Turner; that he ever received a letter from Turner; that he
+ ever wrote anything to him; no evidence as a matter of fact that he ever
+ exchanged a word with these men; no evidence that he ever saw Harvey M.
+ Vaile; that he ever spoke to him. Certainly there is no evidence that he
+ ever conspired with him. No evidence that he ever made an agreement with
+ Thomas J. Brady or with Mr. Turner or with any officer&mdash;no agreement
+ of any sort, kind, character, or description at any place, upon any
+ subject, or for any purpose, not the slightest; no evidence that he
+ conspired with anybody; no evidence that he ever received from the United
+ States a solitary dollar, with the exception of three hundred and
+ ninety-two dollars&mdash;not the slightest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no evidence that he ever wrote a false communication to the
+ department&mdash;nothing of it. There is no evidence that he ever wrote a
+ petition; no evidence that he ever forged one; no evidence that he ever
+ signed anybody's name to one; no evidence that he did anything of the kind
+ or that he ever changed one; no evidence that he ever put a man's name to
+ it that did not live on the route; no evidence that he ever put in a
+ fictitious name; no evidence that he helped to deceive the
+ Postmaster-General&mdash;not the slightest. If there is I want somebody
+ just to put their finger upon the evidence. There is no evidence that he
+ ever made false statements at any time. There is no evidence that he ever
+ paid, as I say, a dollar to any official, and no evidence that he ever
+ promised to pay it. All the evidence is that he got three hundred and
+ ninety-two dollars. He made the affidavits in accordance with what he
+ believed to be the truth. The evidence shows that when he made the
+ affidavits on those routes he had no personal interest, that he received
+ not a dollar for making them. He made them because he supposed the
+ contractor or subcontractor had to make them. He made them because he
+ believed them to be true. He was guided by the little experience he had
+ himself and by the statements made to him by others; and in all this
+ evidence there is not a word, not a line, not a letter tending to show he
+ did a dishonest act, and the jury will bear me out that in the affidavits
+ attacked he was substantially right, while in the first instance he was
+ too high; in others he was too low. But there is no evidence that he
+ deliberately swore to what he believed to be untrue. The proportion sworn
+ to by him has always been substantially correct. In other words,
+ gentlemen, the testimony shows that John W. Dorsey is an honest man, and
+ there is no jury, there never was, there never will be, that will find a
+ man like that guilty upon evidence like this. It never happened; it never
+ will happen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I come to my other client, Stephen W. Dorsey, and I feel an interest
+ in him. He is my friend. I like him. He is a good man. He has good sense.
+ He is not simply a politician, he is a statesman; and I want you to
+ understand that he never did an act in this case that he did not
+ thoroughly understand as well as any lawyer in this prosecution ever will
+ understand; or as well as any lawyer of the defence ever will understand.
+ He knew exactly his liabilities. He knew exactly his responsibility. He
+ knew exactly what he did and he knew he did only what was right. In the
+ opening of this case Mr. McSweeney made a statement. He told you the exact
+ connection of Dorsey with this matter. He not only told you that, but he
+ told you that Dorsey had lost money on these routes, and that he had never
+ been repaid the money he had advanced, and in that connection he said that
+ he had turned the routes over to James W. Bosler, and the department knew
+ of James W. Bosler because they introduced testimony here that the
+ warrants were paid to James W. Bosler. Mr. McSweeney stated that Bosler
+ controlled the business, and now we are asked by the prosecution, "Why did
+ you not bring James W. Bosler on the stand and show that you had lost
+ money?" I return the compliment and say to them, why did you not bring
+ James W. Bosler on the stand and show that it was not true that we had
+ lost money, as he kept the books? I ask them that. Why did they not bring
+ James W. Bosler?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. If your Honor please, there is no evidence whatever as to
+ whether S. W. Dorsey lost money on those routes, and the statement of
+ counsel made in the opening, I respectfully submit, cannot be used as
+ evidence by the counsel in the case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Of course it is impossible for me to say after so long a time
+ spent in receiving evidence what evidence has been given on a disputed
+ question. I cannot say from recollection what evidence has been given on
+ this subject, but I understand the remarks now made are not made upon
+ evidence in the case, but in reply to remarks made in the opening in the
+ case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Partially so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. The opening by their counsel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. By their counsel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. By their counsel, Mr. McSweeney.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Let me just state it, and the Court will understand it
+ perfectly. Mr. McSweeney, in his opening, said that these routes had been
+ turned over to James W. Bosler; that he received the money and paid it
+ out, and that S. W. Dorsey on these very routes had not made money, but
+ lost money. Very well. But that statement was simply a statement. It was
+ never proved afterwards. The Government said to us, "Why did you not bring
+ James W. Bosler to prove that?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Where did they say that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. They said it in their speeches. Mr. Merrick said it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Not to prove as to the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Ay, "Why did you not bring James W. Bosler?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Yes, but not as to proof of money; but as to other questions
+ in reference to the distribution of routes and the loaning of money by
+ Dorsey, and by Bosler to Dorsey, and Dorsey's transfer of the routes to
+ Bosler as security for the loan as appeared in Vaile's testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I shall not interfere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. I shall not attempt to arrest the course of counsel unless
+ there is ground for it, and I ask the Court that, there being no evidence
+ of this fact, that the counsel shall not&mdash;Mr. Ingersoll.
+ [Interposing.] I am going to show there is some evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I understand it is a remark in reply to an observation of your
+ own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is principally it. Now, they introduced the warrants
+ that had been drawn by the contractors and subcontractors from the
+ Post-Office Department; they proved that these warrants had been paid to
+ James W. Bosler, and that one after the other, hundreds had been assigned
+ to James W. Bosler. Now, then, I say, they say to us, "Why do you not
+ bring in James W. Bosler and prove your innocence?" I say why did you not
+ bring in James W. Bosler and prove our guilt? We opened the door. We told
+ you the name of the witness. We told you that he had taken the routes;
+ that he kept the books; that he disbursed the money, and that we had lost
+ money. Instead of robbing the Government the Government has robbed us; and
+ they say, "Why did you not bring Bosler?" and I say to them, why did you
+ not bring him? They know him, and they know he is a reputable man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another point. I ask you all to remember what was said in
+ the opening, and I understand that a defence is bound by its opening,
+ bound by what it says to the jury. The question is, Has any fact been
+ substantiated in this case that contradicts a statement made in the
+ opening?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. The defence has no right to avail itself of&mdash;Mr.
+ Ingersoll. [Interposing.] Of what it says.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Of what it says in its opening unless it is followed by
+ evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Certainly not, but it has a right to show that no evidence
+ has been introduced by the Government that touches that opening statement.
+ It has the right to do that, surely.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, Mr. Boone was the witness for the Government&mdash;a smart man.
+ He swore who were interested in the bidding. He told and he positively
+ swore that Dorsey was not interested in these routes. He gave the names of
+ the persons interested, and he swore positively that he was not. Dorsey
+ then, I say, had not the slightest interest. He loaned money, he went
+ security, he assisted in getting sureties on bonds, and you recollect the
+ trouble that they have made about some bonds. Has there any evidence been
+ introduced to show that there was a bad bond? Has any evidence been
+ introduced to show that the name of an insolvent man was put upon any bond
+ as security? Has there been any evidence to show that any action was ever
+ commenced on any of these bonds; any evidence tending to show that every
+ bond was not absolutely good? As a matter of fact, the Government waived
+ all of that. In offering the contract on route 35015, Mr. Merrick made
+ this remark:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is offered for the purpose of showing the contract made. The contract
+ itself is not an overt act. That is all right. There is nothing criminal
+ about that."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing criminal about any contract, gentlemen. You will all admit they
+ had to make the bids, and if they were the lowest bidders it was the duty
+ of the Government to accept the bids and afterwards to make the contracts
+ in accordance with them. There was nothing wrong in that. That is Dorsey's
+ first step. His first step really was an act of kindness. What was the
+ second step? He was unable to advance any more money. Mr. Peck, Mr. Miner,
+ Mr. Dorsey, and Mr. Boone were unable to advance the money, so Mr. Boone
+ went out and Mr. Vaile came in, and the new partnership agreed to refund
+ this money that had been advanced; that is, the money advanced by the
+ other parties. What one gets another to advance is really advanced by him
+ as long as he is liable for it. Mr. Vaile, a man of large experience and
+ means, was taken in Boone's place. Is there anything suspicious up to this
+ time? That is the only test of this whole question. Is it natural? If it
+ is natural there is no chance for suspicion. After Mr. Vaile came in, a
+ written contract was made on August 16, 1878. There is no conspiracy up to
+ that time. Not the slightest evidence of it; no arrangement with any
+ officers up to that time. Now, under the August contract, Mr. Vaile took
+ the entire business in charge, and he ran it, as I understand, until the
+ first day of April, 1879. No officer had any interest in it then. There
+ was no conspiracy then. Vaile received all the money and paid it out. Here
+ we stand on the first day of April, 1879. Now, what is the history up to
+ this time? That John W. Dorsey, Peck, Miner, and Boone were bidders; that
+ certain routes had been awarded, they had not the money to stock the
+ routes, and that S. W. Dorsey advanced some money and went security; that
+ afterwards Boone went out and Vaile came in, and the contract was made by
+ virtue of which Vaile became the treasurer and knew everybody, and ran the
+ business to the first day of April, 1879. He swears positively that he
+ made no arrangement and that he paid no money. It is also in evidence that
+ in December, 1878, Stephen W. Dorsey and Vaile met for the first time, and
+ met in the German-American Bank for the purpose of settling the claim upon
+ which Dorsey was security, and replacing the notes upon which Dorsey was,
+ by notes of Vaile, Miner &amp; Co. Afterwards these notes were paid by
+ Vaile and the security of Dorsey released. Now, in April, 1879, a division
+ is made. The contract of August, 1878, was done away with and a division
+ 'of the routes was made, seventy per cent, being taken by Vaile and Miner
+ and thirty per cent, by John W. Dorsey and Peck. In April, 1879, the
+ parties divided instead of coming together. They do not conspire. They
+ separate. They do not unite. They go asunder. From that moment they agree
+ to have nothing in common. Each man takes his own, and each man attends to
+ his own and does not help anybody else except when they insist that a
+ contractor or subcontractor shall make the affidavit. They made affidavits
+ on the routes on which they were contractors. That is all there is to it
+ up to that time. Then these routes were assigned to Dorsey for the purpose
+ of securing him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I go to the overt acts charged against Stephen W. Dorsey. Do you know
+ I am delighted to get right to that page of my notes. I am delighted that
+ I now have the opportunity to answer and to answer forever all the
+ infamous things that have been charged against this man. Here we are,
+ before this jury, a jury of his fellow-citizens, a jury that has the
+ courage to do right. I have finally the chance of telling here before men
+ who know whether I am speaking the truth or not, what has been charged
+ against Stephen W. Dorsey and what has been proved against him. Let us
+ examine the overt acts charged. On route 38135 it is charged that Miner,
+ Rerdell and S. W. Dorsey transmitted a false affidavit. The evidence is
+ that the affidavit was made by Miner, not by Dorsey, transmitted by Miner,
+ not by Dorsey, and that it was not transmitted as charged in the
+ indictment, but transmitted on the 18th day of April, 1879. There is no
+ evidence that Dorsey even heard of that affidavit, that he ever made it,
+ that he ever transmitted it, that he ever saw it, that he ever knew of its
+ existence. That is the first charge. There is not one particle of evidence
+ to show that he ever knew there was such a paper. Upon that written lie,
+ upon that mistake these infamous charges affecting the character of this
+ man have been circulated over the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the next? That he with others filed false petitions. I am telling
+ you now all the charges; every one of them. What is the evidence? Oh, it
+ is splendid to get to the facts. The evidence is that every petition is
+ shown to have been genuine. There is no evidence that he ever filed one or
+ sent one, or asked to have one sent on that route; and every petition is
+ genuine and no charge made except as to one. In one they said the words
+ "quicker time" were inserted; but the very next paragraph asked for
+ quicker time, and nobody pretended that had been inserted. Besides that,
+ it was charged in the indictment to have been filed on the 26th day of
+ June. As a matter of fact, it was filed on the 8th day of May. It was
+ never filed by Stephen W. Dorsey; it was never gotten up by Stephen W.
+ Dorsey. There is no evidence that he ever knew of it or heard of it.
+ Third, that he fraudulently filed a subcontract. Two mistakes and an
+ impossible offence. That ends that route. That is everything on earth in
+ it. I defy any man to make anything more out of it than I have. I have
+ told every word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next route is No. 41119. It is charged that Stephen W. Dorsey with
+ others transmitted a false oath. The evidence is that the oath was made by
+ Peck, and it was transmitted by Peck and not by Stephen W. Dorsey. What
+ else? That it is true. There are three mistakes in that charge. They say
+ Dorsey made it. Peck made it They say Dorsey transmitted it. Peck
+ transmitted it. They say it was false. The evidence shows it true. Thai is
+ all there is to that route. It is the only charge on that route. No
+ petitions were claimed to be false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we come to route 38145. Let us see if we can do any better on that.
+ The first charge is, that Stephen W. Dorsey fraudulently filed a
+ subcontract. The subcontract was made with Sanderson, Sanderson got his
+ own contract filed. This charge was copied from the old indictment. It is
+ a mistake and that is all there is to it. These are the charges that have
+ carried sorrow to many hearts. These are the charges that have darkened
+ homes. These are the charges that have filled nights with grief and
+ horror; every one of them a lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next route is 38156. The first charge is that he transmitted a false
+ oath. The oath was made by John W. Dorsey, and is true. The second charge
+ is of fraudulently filing a subcontract, an impossible offence. That is
+ everything on that route. Absolutely untrue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we come to the next, No. 46217. The charge is filing base petitions.
+ The evidence is that every petition was genuine. Every one. Mr. Bliss said&mdash;"We
+ make no point about increase of trips on this route."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every petition was for increase of trips. You will see that on record,
+ page 1008. That is the only charge on that route, gentlemen. Utterly
+ false!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Come now to route 38140. Charge: Filing false and forged petitions.
+ Evidence: All the petitions genuine. Second charge: Transmitting a false
+ oath and making it. Evidence: Oath made by John W. Dorsey, and true. That
+ is all there is to that route. If they can rake up any more I want to see
+ it. I have been through this record.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 38113. Charge: Fraudulently filing a subcontract. That is all. You
+ cannot fraudulently file a subcontract.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Route 40113. Charge: Filing false and forged petitions. Evidence: Every
+ petition admitted by the Government to be genuine. Good. Second:
+ transmitting a false oath. Evidence: Oath made by John W. Dorsey, and the
+ Government introduced no witness to show that it was false. See how these
+ charges fall. See how they bite the ground. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have told you every one in this indictment; every one. You will hardly
+ believe it. Now let me give you the recapitulation. S. W. Dorsey is
+ charged on eight routes with having transmitted four false oaths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The evidence is he never made one nor transmitted one, and that the four
+ oaths were all true. On five routes he is charged with having filed false
+ petitions. The evidence is that all the petitions were genuine. None of
+ the petitions charged in the indictment to have been transmitted by him
+ were transmitted by him. He is charged with filing fraudulent
+ subcontracts, and the evidence is that the subcontracts were genuine, and
+ besides that, as I have said a dozen times, it is utterly impossible to
+ fraudulently file a subcontract. Not a single, solitary charge in this
+ indictment against Stephen W. Dorsey has been substantiated. Not one. He
+ has been called a robber, he has been called a thief, but the evidence
+ shows he is an honest man. Not one single thing alleged in that indictment
+ has been substantiated against him, and I defy any human being to point to
+ the evidence that does it. Now think of it. All this charge has been made
+ against that man upon that evidence; no other evidence; not another line
+ so far as the indictment is concerned. What is outside of the indictment?
+ That he wrote two letters, taking possession of routes that had been
+ turned over to him as security, which he had a right to do. What else?
+ That he got up some petitions, or had them gotten up, in the State of
+ Oregon. The man who got them up was brought here as a witness. I believe
+ his name was Wilcox. He swore that everything he did was honest, and that
+ every name to every petition was genuine. Now let us see. Another point
+ has been made upon S. W. Dorsey. I want to read it to you. This is from
+ the argument of Mr. Merrick:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Peck, John W. Dorsey and Miner, or some other one of Stephen W. Dorsey's
+ friends. Who was making up this conspiracy? Who was gathering around him
+ arms and hands to reach into the public Treasury for his benefit, while
+ his own were apparently unoccupied with pelf? S. W. Dorsey. 'My brother
+ and brother-in-law will go in, and Miner, or if not Miner, then one of my
+ other friends.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is quoted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "One-of S. W. Dorsey's other facile friends. That was in 1877, gentlemen,
+ the morning of this day of fraud and criminality. In that room where Boone
+ and S. W. Dorsey sat arose the sun, and there was marked his course. There
+ was fashioned the duration and the business of that criminal day."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see what the evidence is. The object of that speech is to
+ convince you that Dorsey said to Boone. "I will either put in Miner or one
+ of my friends." Do you know that there is not money enough in the Treasury
+ of the United States, there is not gold and silver enough in the veins of
+ this earth to tempt me to misstate evidence when a man is on trial for his
+ liberty or his life. Let us see what the evidence is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. Who else besides his brother-in-law and brother?&mdash;A. I could not
+ say positively whether Mr. Miner's name was mentioned. He either mentioned
+ his name or a friend of his from Sandusky, Ohio."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I submit to you, gentlemen, what does that mean? Mr. Boone, in
+ effect, says, "He told me either it was Miner or a friend of his from
+ Sandusky. That is, he either described Miner by his name or he described
+ him as a friend of his from Sandusky." Then there was objection made, and
+ after that comes another question:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. Was anything said of Mr. Miner's coming to Washington?&mdash;A. I
+ could not say whether his name was mentioned or a friend of his; a
+ personal friend."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What does that mean? Boone cannot remember Whether he called him Miner or
+ called him a friend of his from Sandusky. What else?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A. There was to be nobody that I understood outside of the parties I
+ spoke of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. You and John W. Dorsey and Peck?&mdash;A. And Mr. Miner."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. Or one of his friends?&mdash;A. Or Mr. Dorsey's friend. The
+ arrangement made was not made until they came here. It was only to prepare
+ the necessary blanks and papers pending their coming because the time was
+ getting short, and it was necessary to get the information to bid upon.
+ Nothing was said about any interest at all until after they came here, and
+ then there was a partnership entered into."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I ask you, gentlemen of the jury, what is the meaning of that
+ testimony. The meaning is simply this: Boone could not remember whether he
+ mentioned Miner's name or called him a friend of his from Sandusky, yet
+ the object has been to make you believe that the testimony was that S. W.
+ Dorsey said, "I will either have Miner or I will get another friend of
+ mine." Dorsey had no interest in it, not the interest of one cent, not the
+ interest of one dollar, directly, indirectly, or any other way. He had no
+ interest in having a friend of his. All that Mr. Boone said is that Mr.
+ Dorsey either called this man Miner or described him as a friend from
+ Sandusky, Ohio. The evidence is that Mr. Miner did come, and the evidence
+ is that the arrangement was made. What else is there outside in this case
+ against Stephen W. Dorsey? I ask you to put your hand upon it. I ask
+ anybody to point it out. What other suspicious circumstance is there? I
+ want you to understand that all the suspicious circumstances in the world
+ are good for nothing. All the evidence on earth tending to show a thing
+ does not show it. Anything that only tends that way never gets there;
+ never.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You cannot infer a conspiracy. Unless you have the facts proved, you
+ cannot infer the fact and then infer the conspiracy. There has not been&mdash;I
+ want to say it again&mdash;there has not been a solitary fraudulent act
+ proven against Stephen W. Dorsey. They have not done it and they cannot do
+ it. All I ask of you, gentlemen, is to find a verdict in accordance with
+ this testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ May it please the Court, it appears from the evidence in this case, I
+ think the evidence of Mr. James, that Stephen W. Dorsey at one time, about
+ sixteen or seventeen months ago, made a statement in writing of his
+ connection with all these routes. That statement he gave to the
+ Attorney-General and the Postmaster-General. There is no evidence of what
+ was in that statement. The only evidence is that such a statement was
+ made, embracing his connection with these routes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. You offered to prove that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Oh, no. The reason it was established was I wanted to show
+ whether that statement was made before or after Mr. Rerdell made a
+ statement. The fact simply appears that he made a statement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. You offered to prove the fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I do not remember offering to prove it. I proved it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. If it was not proven&mdash;Mr. Ingersoll. [Interposing.] I did
+ prove it as a fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. That he made a statement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes, sir. Right here it is [taking up the record].
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Oh, well, you cannot base any remarks upon that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Let me read what the evidence says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. Was this statement of Rerdell's made to you after you had received the
+ statements of S. W. Dorsey as to his connection with all these entire
+ routes or with this entire business?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Witness. To what statement do you refer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Mr. Ingersoll. To the statement that was made in writing and given to you
+ and the attorney-general by ex-Senator S. W. Dorsey?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A. It must have been after that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. You mean Rerdell's statement was after that?&mdash;A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. Did you ever see that statement made by Senator Dorsey?&mdash;A. It
+ was referred to the attorney-general.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. Did you ever see it?&mdash;A. Certainly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Q. Do you know where it now is?&mdash;A. I do not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not going to say a word about what was in that statement, but the
+ Court will see that that has a direct bearing upon their action with
+ regard to Rerdell's statement whether it was made before or after, which I
+ will endeavor to show, and the only point that I wanted to make upon that
+ statement now, was that the Government has not endeavored to prove that
+ anything in that statement was inconsistent with the evidence in this
+ case. I am not going to say what the statement was; simply that he made a
+ statement, and it follows as naturally as night follows morning, and
+ morning follows night, that if that statement had been incorrect it would
+ have been brought forward. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. For anything the Court knows it might have been a confession.
+ We do not know anything about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. If it had been a confession it would have been here. That
+ is the point I make. If there had been in that anything inconsistent with
+ the testimony it would have been here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Probably it would.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes, sir; that is my point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. When a man is charged with crime no man has a right to say that
+ because he did not deny it that is evidence of his guilt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. No, sir; and no man has a right to say that because he did
+ deny it is evidence of his innocence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. It is not evidence either way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. It is not evidence either way, and if I am charged with a
+ crime and I make a written statement to the Government of my entire
+ connection with that thing, and they go on and examine it for one year and
+ finally finish the trial without showing that that statement was
+ incorrect, it is a moral demonstration that my statement agreed with the
+ testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. On the principle, I suppose, of an account rendered and no
+ objection made?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Good. That is a good idea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I do not see anything in that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I see a great deal in it, and it is a question whether the
+ jury can see anything in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. It is a question whether the Court too&mdash;&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Interposing.] Very well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. [Continuing.] Whether the Court is going to allow an argument
+ to be based upon a mere vacuum&mdash;wind, nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That would seem to be stealing the foundation of this case.
+ [Laughter, and cries of "Silence" from the bailiffs.] We will consider the
+ argument made to the Court, and not to the jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question, then, is what is the <i>corpus delicti</i>; that is, in
+ a case of conspiracy? I do not believe the combination to be the corpus
+ delicti&mdash;the mere association. It may be the corpus, but it is not
+ the delicti, and under the law there must not only be a conspiracy, as I
+ understand it, but also an overt act done by one of the conspirators to
+ accomplish the object of the conspiracy. So that the conspiracy with the
+ fraudulent purpose and the overt act constitute the corpus delicti. Now, I
+ read from Best on Presumptions, page 279:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The corpus delicti, the body of an offence, is the fact of its actually
+ having been committed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dead body in a murder case is not the corpus delicti. It is the corpse
+ and nothing more. It must be followed by evidence that murder was
+ committed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The corpus delicti is the body, substance or foundation of the offence.
+ It is the substantial and fundamental fact of its having been committed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1 Haggard, 105, opinion by Lord Stowell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I now refer you to Peoples vs. Powell, 63, N. Y., page 92. It seems that
+ the defendants in this case were commissioners of charities of the county
+ of Kings, and they were indicted for conspiring together to buy supplies
+ contrary to law and without duly advertising. Their defence was that they
+ were not aware that such a law existed; that they were ignorant of the
+ law. The court below thought that made no difference. The court above said
+ before they could be guilty of this crime there must be the intention to
+ commit the crime, and this language is used:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The agreement must have been entered into with an evil purpose, as
+ distinguished from a purpose simply to do the act prohibited in ignorance
+ of the prohibition. This is implied in the meaning of the word conspiracy.
+ Mere concert is not conspiracy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So combination is not conspiracy; partnership is not conspiracy; neither
+ is it the corpus delicti of conspiracy. There must be the evil intent;
+ there must be the wicked conspiracy not only, but there must be one at
+ least overt act done in pursuance of it before the corpus delicti can be
+ established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The actual criminal intention belongs to the definition of the offence
+ and must be shown to justify a conviction for conspiracy. The offence
+ originally consisted in a combination to convict an innocent person by
+ perversion of the law. It has since been greatly extended, but I am of
+ opinion that proof that the defendants agreed to do an act prohibited by
+ statute, followed by overt acts in furtherance of the agreed purpose, did
+ not conclusively establish that they were guilty of the crime of
+ conspiracy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would be hard to find a stronger case, in my judgment, than that.
+ Although they agreed to violate a statute&mdash;they agreed to buy
+ supplies without complying with the statute by advertising&mdash;they
+ claimed they were in ignorance of it, and the question was whether they
+ were guilty of conspiracy, having no intent to do an illegal act, and the
+ court of appeals decided that that verdict could not stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Because the court below had instructed the jury that whether
+ what they did was done in ignorance or with knowledge it made no
+ difference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Certainly; it made no difference. Everybody is supposed to
+ know the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next point is, and great weight has been put upon it, gentlemen,
+ that concurrence of action establishes conspiracy; that if one does a part
+ and another another part and finally the culmination comes, that is
+ absolute evidence, or in other words, an inference. Admitting, now, that
+ they were perfectly honest, if any of these parties made a bid, that bid
+ had to be accepted by the Government. They had to act together. The
+ department and the man had to act together to have the bid accepted. The
+ department and the man had to act together to make the contract. The
+ department and the man had to act together to get the pay, and no matter
+ how perfectly honest the transaction was they had to act together from the
+ first step to the payment of the last dollar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in a business where they do have to act together, where one
+ necessarily does one thing, and the other necessarily does another, the
+ fact that that happens does not even tend to prove that there is any
+ fraud. Upon this concurrence of action I refer to the case of Metcalfe
+ against O'Connor and wife, in Little's Select Cases, 497. One of the men
+ confessed that a large party went to the house where there was a
+ disturbance and where they tried to take by force a boy from the custody
+ of a man and woman. Now, the fact that these men did go the house, the
+ fact that they were there at the time this happened, and the fact that one
+ of the conspirators or one of the trespassers had confessed that he went
+ there and that the other went with him for that purpose, the court decides
+ that you cannot infer the purpose of these men from the statement of the
+ other; neither can you infer it from the fact that they were there. You
+ must find out for what purpose they were there by ascertaining what they
+ did and when they were there, and that concurrence in actions shows
+ nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Did you not say that the decision there was that the conspiracy
+ might be inferred from the combination to do the act?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I will just read it and then there will be no guessing
+ about it:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This is a writ of error prosecuted by the defendants to a judgment for
+ the plaintiffs in an action of trespass for an assault and battery alleged
+ to have been committed upon the plaintiff Ann, the wife of the other
+ plaintiff.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We are of the opinion that the circuit court erred in refusing to
+ instruct the jury, at the instance of the defendants, to find for all of
+ them, except the defendant Metcalfe. He is the only one of the defendants
+ proven to have touched the defendant Ann, and against the other defendants
+ there is no evidence conducing in the slightest degree to prove them
+ guilty of committing any assault or battery upon her, or of any intention
+ to do so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is true that it was proved that the other defendants confessed that
+ they were at the house of Connor when the assault and battery charged is
+ alleged to have been committed, and it was also proved that Metcalfe
+ confessed that he and the other defendants had gone there for the purpose
+ of taking from Connor by force an idiot boy whom he had in his custody.
+ But the circumstances of the other defendants being at Connor's house,
+ there is no evidence they were there for any unlawful purpose; nor can it
+ of itself be sufficient to render them responsible for any act done by
+ Metcalfe in which they did not participate; and the confessions of
+ Metcalfe are certainly not legitimate evidence against the others to prove
+ the unlawful purpose with which they went to Connor's, and thereby to
+ charge them with the consequences of his act."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, to all appearances, they went there together; to all appearances,
+ they went there for the one purpose, and Metcalfe, the man who really did
+ the mischief, confessed that they all went there for the one purpose, but
+ the court held that that was not sufficient.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Where several agree or conspire to commit a trespass, or for any other
+ unlawful purpose, they will, no doubt, all be liable for the act of any
+ one of them done in execution of the unlawful purpose; and when the
+ agreement or conspiracy is first proved by other evidence, the confession
+ of one of them will be admissible evidence against the others. But it is
+ well settled that the confessions of one person cannot be admitted against
+ the others to prove that they had conspired with him for an unlawful
+ purpose."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next evidence that I wish to allude to, gentlemen, is the
+ evidence of Mr. Walsh, and I will only say a few words, because it has
+ been examined and it has been ground to powder. Everything in this world
+ is true in proportion that it agrees with human experience; and you can
+ safely say that everything is false or the probability is that it is false
+ in proportion that it is not in accordance with human experience. Other
+ things being equal, we act substantially alike.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, when anything really happens everything else that ever happened will
+ fit it. You take a spar crystal, I do not care how far north you get it,
+ and another spar crystal, no matter how far south you get it, and put them
+ together and they will exactly fit each other&mdash;exactly. The slope is
+ precisely the same. And it is so with facts. Every fact in this world will
+ fit every other fact&mdash;just exactly. Not a hair's difference. But a
+ lie will not fit anything but another lie made for the purpose&mdash;never.
+ It never did. And finally, there has to come a place where this lie, or
+ the lie made for the sake of it, has to join some truth, and there is a
+ bad joint always. And that is the only way to examine testimony. Is it
+ natural? Does it accord with what we know? Does it accord with our
+ experience?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, take the testimony of Mr. Walsh, and I find some improbabilities in
+ it. Just let me read you a few:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. Bankers and brokers do not, as a rule, loan money without taking at
+ least a note. That is my experience. And the poorer this broker is, the
+ less money he has, the more security he wants. He not only wants an
+ indorser but he would like to have a mortgage on your life, liberty, and
+ pursuit of happiness. That is the first improbability.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. Bankers and brokers do not, as a rule, take notes that bear no
+ interest, or in which the interest is not stated. People who live on
+ interest find it always to their interest to have the interest mentioned&mdash;always.
+ I never got a cent of a banker that I did not pay interest, and generally
+ in advance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. Bankers and brokers do not, as a rule, take notes payable on demand,
+ because such notes are not negotiable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. It is hardly probable that when a banker and broker holds the note of
+ another for twelve thousand dollars&mdash;the note being unpaid&mdash;he
+ would loan thirteen thousand five hundred dollars more, taking another
+ note on demand in which the rate of interest was not stated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. It is still more improbable that the same banker and broker, with a
+ note for twelve thousand dollars and one for thirteen thousand five
+ hundred dollars, being unpaid, would loan five thousand four hundred
+ dollars more without taking any note or asking any security.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. When such banker and broker called upon his debtor for a settlement,
+ and exhibited the two notes, and thereupon his debtor took the two notes
+ and put them in his pocket, it is highly improbable that the banker and
+ broker would submit to such treatment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. It is improbable that such banker and broker would afterwards commence
+ suit to recover the money, without mentioning to his attorney, in fact,
+ that the notes had been taken away from him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. It is also improbable that the banker and broker would commence another
+ suit for the same subject-matter and still keep the fact that the notes
+ had been taken from him by violence, a secret from his attorney.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. If Mr. Brady took the notes by force, it is improbable that he would
+ immediately put himself in the power of the man he had robbed, by stating
+ to him that he, Brady, was in the habit of taking bribes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. It is impossible that Mr. Brady could, in fact, have done this, which
+ amounted to saying this: "I have taken twenty-five thousand five hundred
+ dollars from you; of course, you are my enemy; of course, you will
+ endeavor to be revenged, and I now point out the way in which you can have
+ your revenge. I am Second Assistant Postmaster-General; I award contracts,
+ increases, and expedition, and upon these I receive twenty per cent, as a
+ bribe. I am a bribe-taker; I am a thief; make the most of it. I give you
+ these tacts in order that I may put a weapon in your hands with which you
+ can obtain your revenge."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are also other improbabilities connected with this testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Mr. Brady was receiving twenty per cent, of all increases and
+ expeditions, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum, it
+ is not easy to see why he would be borrowing money from Mr. Walsh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if that story is true, boil it down and it is this, because if he got
+ this twenty per cent, from everybody he had oceans of money&mdash;boil it
+ all down and it is this: A rich man borrows without necessity and a poor
+ banker loans without security. These twin improbabilities would breed
+ suspicion in credulity itself. No man ever believed that story, no man
+ ever will. There is something wrong about it somewhere, unnatural,
+ improbable, and it is for you to say, gentlemen, whether it is true or
+ not, not for me. What is the effect of that testimony? So far as my
+ clients are concerned it is admitted, I believe, by the prosecution&mdash;it
+ was so stated, I believe, by his Honor from the bench&mdash;that it could
+ not by any possibility affect any defendant except Mr. Brady, and the
+ question now is, can it even affect him? I call the attention of the Court
+ to 40th N. Y., page 228. I give the page from which I read:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "To make such admissions or declarations competent evidence, it must stand
+ as a fact in the cause, admitted or proved, that the assignor or assignees
+ were in a conspiracy to defraud the creditors. If that fact exist, then
+ the acts and declarations of either, made in execution of the common
+ purpose, and in aid of its fulfillment, are competent against either of
+ them. The principle of its admissibility assumes that fact."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the conspiracy has been established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In case of conspiracy, where the combination is proved, the acts and
+ declarations of the conspirators are not received as evidence of that
+ fact, but to show what was done, the means employed, the particular design
+ in respect to the parties to be affected or wronged, and generally those
+ details which, assuming the combination and the illegal purpose, unfold
+ its extent, scope, and influence either upon the public or the individuals
+ who suffer from the wrong, or show the execution of the illegal design.
+ But when the issue is simply and only, was there a conspiracy to defraud,
+ these declarations do not become evidence to establish it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "So far then, as the admission of the evidence in this case, of
+ declarations, subsequent to the assignment, is sought to be sustained as
+ evidence of the common fraud, on the ground of conspiracy, the argument
+ wholly fails. A conspiracy cannot be proved against three by evidence that
+ one admitted it, nor against assignees by proof that the assignor admitted
+ it; it is a fact that must be proved by evidence, the competency of which
+ does not depend upon an assumption that it exists."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So to the same point is the case of Cowles against Coe, 21st Connecticut,
+ 220. I will read that portion of the syllabus that conveys the idea:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "To prove the alleged conspiracy between the defendant and G., the
+ plaintiff offered the deposition of R., stating declarations made by G. to
+ R., while G. was engaged in purchasing goods of him, on credit, and
+ relative to G.'s responsibility and means of obtaining money through the
+ defendant's aid; these declarations were objected to, not on the ground
+ that the conspiracy had not been sufficiently proved, but because the
+ defendant was not present when they were made; it was held that they were
+ admissible, within the rule regarding declarations made by a conspirator
+ in furtherance of the common object."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see what the court says about it:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The remaining question is, whether the declarations of Gale to Edmund
+ Curtiss and William Ives were properly received. These declarations were
+ not offered as in any way tending to prove the combination claimed. The
+ motion shows that they were offered and received after the plaintiff's
+ evidence on that subject had been introduced. Had they been admitted for
+ that purpose, or if, under the circumstances, they could have had any
+ influence with the jury on that point, we should feel bound to advise a
+ new trial on this account."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that I have said in respect to Walsh applies to what is known or what
+ is called the confession of Rerdell. It was admitted by the prosecution
+ that not one word said by him could bind any other defendant in the case.
+ But, gentlemen, is there enough even to bind him? Did he confess that he
+ was guilty of the conspiracy set forth in this indictment? And I want to
+ make one other point. In this case there must be not only a conspiracy,
+ but an overt act, and no man can confess himself into it without
+ confessing that he was a conspirator, and that he knew that an overt act
+ was to be done; because it takes that conspiracy and the overt act to
+ 'make the offence. What overt act did Rerdell confess that he was guilty
+ of&mdash;what overt act charged in this indictment? One. Filing a
+ subcontract; and by no earthly method, by no earthly reasoning can you
+ come to the conclusion that that could carry it into conspiracy. He must
+ have confessed that he was guilty according to the scheme, according to
+ the indictment set forth, and in no other way. That indictment says that
+ the money was to be divided, that it was for the mutual benefit of certain
+ persons. Unless that has been substantiated this case falls. According to
+ the case of the King against Pomall the scheme of the indictment must be
+ established, otherwise the case goes. In that case they charged it was one
+ way, and they proved it was that way, and one of the defendants did not
+ understand it that way and he was acquitted. Now, suppose they had not
+ proved the scheme as they charged it, then all would have been acquitted,
+ and unless the jury believe beyond a reasonable doubt, from the evidence
+ that the scheme set forth in the indictment here was the scheme, then they
+ must find everybody not guilty. There is no other way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the next argument? The next argument is extravagance. What is
+ extravagance? If I pay more for a thing than it is worth that is
+ extravagance. If I buy a thing that I do not want, that is extravagance,
+ and if I do this knowing it to be wrong, if I do this understanding that I
+ am to have a part of the price, that is bribery, that is corruption, that
+ is rascality. Nobody disputes that. How do you know that a thing is
+ extravagant unless you know the price of it? For instance, an army officer
+ is charged with extravagance in buying corn upon the plains at five
+ dollars a bushel. How do you prove it is extravagance? You must prove that
+ he could have obtained it for less or that there was a cheaper substitute
+ that he should have obtained. How are you going to prove that too much was
+ paid for carrying the mail upon these routes? Only by showing that it
+ could have been carried for less. What witness was before this jury fixing
+ the price? How are we to establish the fact that it was extravagance? We
+ must show that it could have been obtained for less money. What witness
+ came here and swore that he would carry it for less? And would it be fair
+ to have the entire case decided upon one route when it is in evidence that
+ my clients had thirty per cent, of one hundred and twenty-six routes?
+ Would it be fair to decide the question whether they had made or lost
+ money on one route? Your experience tells you that upon one route they
+ might make a large sum of money and upon several other routes lose
+ largely. A man who has bid for one hundred routes takes into view the
+ average and says "upon some I shall lose and upon others I shall make."
+ How are you to find that this was extravagance unless you know what it
+ could have been done for? They may say that they subcontracted some of the
+ routes for much less. Yes; but what did they do with the rest of them? I
+ might take a contract to build a dozen houses in this city, and on the
+ first house make ten thousand dollars clear, and on the balance I might
+ lose twenty-five thousand dollars. You have a right to take these things
+ and to average them. When a man takes a contract he takes into
+ consideration the chances that he must run in that new and wild country.
+ It takes work to carry this mail. You ought to be there sometimes in the
+ winter when the wind comes down with an unbroken sweep of three or four
+ thousand miles, and then tell me what you think it is worth to carry the
+ mail. All these things must be taken into consideration. Another thing:
+ You must remember that every one of these routes was established by
+ Congress. Congress first said, "Here shall be a route; here the mail shall
+ be carried." It was the business then, I believe, of the First Assistant
+ Postmaster-General to name the offices, and the Second Assistant to put on
+ the service. Take that into consideration. Every one of these routes was
+ established by Congress. Take another thing into consideration: That the
+ increase of service and expedition was asked for, petitioned for, begged
+ for, and urged by the members of both houses of Congress, and according to
+ that book, which I believe is in evidence, a majority of both houses of
+ Congress asked, recommended, and urged increase of service and expedition
+ upon some of the nineteen routes in this indictment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. What evidence do you refer to?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I refer to the Star Route investigation in Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. That record is not in evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I thought that was in evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. It was used as if it was in evidence. I saw people reading
+ from it, and supposed it was in evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. It is not in evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Well, we will leave that out. Now, upon these nineteen
+ routes&mdash;this is in evidence&mdash;increase and expedition of service
+ were recommended by such Senators as Booth, Farley, Slater, Grover,
+ Chaffee, Chilcott, Saunders, and by the present Secretary of the Interior,
+ Henry M. Teller, and by such members of Congress as Whiteaker, Page,
+ Luttrell, Pacheco, Berry, Belford, Bingham, chairman of the postoffice
+ committee, by Stevens of Arizona, a delegate, and by Maginnis of Montana,
+ and Kidder of Dakota, by Generals Sherman, Terry, Miles, Hatch and Wilcox
+ In addition to these, recommendations were made and read by judges of
+ courts, by district attorneys, by governors of Territories, by governors
+ of States, and by members of State Legislatures, by colonels, by majors,
+ by captains, and by hundreds and hundreds of good, reputable, honest
+ citizens. They were the ones to decide as a matter of fact whether this
+ increase was or was not necessary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in carrying the mails. I believe in the diffusion of
+ intelligence. I believe the men in Colorado or Wyoming, or any other
+ Territory, that are engaged in digging gold or silver from the earth, or
+ any other pursuits, have just as much right, in the language of Henry M.
+ Teller, to their mail as any gentleman has to his in the city of New York.
+ We are a nation that believes in intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We believe in daily mail. That is about the only blessing we get from the
+ General Government, excepting the privilege of paying taxes. Free mail,
+ substantially free, is a blessing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another argument which has been used: Productiveness; but
+ that has been so perfectly answered that I allude to it only for one
+ purpose. How would the attorneys for the Government in this case like to
+ have their fees settled upon that basis? Productiveness. Is it possible
+ that this Government cannot afford to carry the mail? Is it possible that
+ the pioneer can get beyond the Government? Is is possible that we are not
+ willing to carry letters and papers to the men that make new Territories
+ and new States and put new stars upon our flag? I have heard all I wish on
+ the subject of productiveness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, that is all the evidence there is in this case, that I
+ have heard. What kind of evidence must we have in a conspiracy case? You
+ have been told during this trial that it is very hard to get evidence in a
+ conspiracy case, and therefore you must be economical enough to put up
+ with a little. They tell you that this is a very peculiar offence, and
+ people are very secret about it. Well, they are secret about most
+ offences. Very few people steal in public. Very few commit offences who
+ expect to be discovered. I know of no difference between this offence and
+ any other. You have got to prove it. No matter how hard it is to prove you
+ must prove it. It is harder to convict a man without testimony, or should
+ be, than to produce testimony to prove it if he is guilty. All these
+ crimes, of course, are committed in secret. That is always the way. But
+ you must prove them. There is no pretence here that there is any direct
+ evidence, any evidence of a meeting, any evidence of agreement, any
+ evidence of an understanding. It is all circumstantial. I lay down these
+ two propositions:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The hypothesis of guilt must flow naturally from the facts proved, and be
+ consistent, not with some of the facts, not with a majority of the facts,
+ but with every fact."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me read that again:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The hypothesis of guilt must flow naturally from the facts proved, and
+ must be consistent with them; not some of them, not the majority of them,
+ but all of them</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second proposition is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The evidence must be such as to exclude every single reasonable
+ hypothesis except that of the guilt of the defendant. In other words, all
+ the facts proved must be consistent with and point to the guilt of the
+ defendants not only, but every fact must be inconsistent with their
+ innocence."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the law, and has been since man spoke Anglo-Saxon. Let me read you
+ that last proposition again. I like to read it:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The evidence must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis
+ except that of the guilt of the defendants. In other words, all the facts
+ proved must be consistent with and point to the guilt of the defendants
+ not only, but they must be inconsistent, and every fact must be
+ inconsistent with their innocence."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, just apply that law to the case of John W. Dorsey. Apply that law to
+ the case of Stephen W. Dorsey. Let me read further. I read now from 1
+ Bishop's Criminal Procedure, paragraph 1077.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It matters not how clearly the circumstances point to guilt, still, if
+ they are reasonably explainable on a theory which excludes guilt, they
+ cannot satisfy the jury beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants are
+ guilty, and hence they will be insufficient."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just apply that to the case of Stephen W. Dorsey and John W. Dorsey. I
+ would be willing that this jury should render a verdict with that changed.
+ Change it. You are to find guilty if you have the slightest doubt of
+ innocence. Even under that rule you could not find a verdict of guilty
+ against John W. or Stephen W. Dorsey. If the rule were that you are to
+ find guilty if you have a doubt as to innocence you could not do it; how
+ much less when the rule is that you must have no doubt as to their guilt.
+ The proposition is preposterous and I will not insult your intelligence by
+ arguing it any further.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, there is another thing I want to keep before you. When a man
+ has a little suspicion in his mind he tortures everything; he tortures the
+ most innocent actions into the evidence of crime. Suspicion is a kind of
+ intellectual dye that colors every thought that comes in contact with it.
+ I remember I once had a conversation with Surgeon-General Hammond, in
+ which he went on to state that he thought many people were confined in
+ asylums, charged with insanity, who were perfectly sane. I asked him how
+ he accounted for it. Said he, "Physicians are sent for to examine the man,
+ and they are told before they get to him that he is crazy; therefore, the
+ moment they look upon him they are hunting for insane acts and not sane
+ acts; they are looking not to see how naturally he acts, but how
+ unnaturally he acts." They are poisoned with the suspicion that he is
+ insane, and if he coughs twice, or if he gets up and walks about uneasily&mdash;his
+ mind is a little unsettled; something wrong! If he suddenly gets angry&mdash;sure
+ thing! When a man believes himself to be or knows himself to be sane, and
+ is charged with insanity, the very warmth, the very heat of his denial
+ will convince thousands of people that he is insane. He suddenly finds
+ himself insecure, and the very insecurity that he feels makes him act
+ strangely. He finds in a moment that explanation only complicates. He
+ finds that his denial is worthless; that his friends are suspicious, and
+ that under pretence of his own good he is to be seized and incarcerated.
+ Many a man as sane as you or I has under such circumstances gone to
+ madness. It is a hard thing to explain. The more you talk about it the
+ more outsiders having a suspicion are convinced that you are insane. It is
+ much the same way when a man is charged with crime. It is heralded through
+ all the papers, "this man is a robber and a thief." Why do they put it in
+ the papers? Put anything good in a paper about Mr. Smith, and Mr. Smith is
+ the only man who will buy it. Put in something bad about Mr. Smith and
+ they will have to run the press nights to supply his neighbors with
+ copies. The bad sells. The good does not. Then you must remember another
+ thing: That these papers are large; some of them several hundred columns,
+ for all I know&mdash;sixty or a hundred. Just imagine the pains it would
+ take and the money it would cost to get facts enough to fill a paper like
+ that. Economy will not permit of it. They publish what they imagine they
+ can sell. As a rule, people would rather heaf-something bad than something
+ good. It is a splendid certificate to our race that rascality is still
+ considered news. If they only put in honest actions as news it would be a
+ certificate that honesty was rare; but as long as they publish the bad as
+ news it is a certificate that the majority of mankind is still good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, to be charged with a crime and to be suddenly deserted by your
+ friends, and to know that you are absolutely innocent, is almost enough to
+ drive the sanest man mad. I want you to think what these defendants have
+ suffered in these long months. If the men who started this prosecution, if
+ the men who originally poisoned the press of the country, feel that they
+ have been rewarded simply because innocent men have suffered agony, let
+ them so feel. I do not envy them their feelings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing, gentlemen: The prosecution have endeavored to
+ terrorize this jury. The effort has been deliberately made to terrorize
+ you and every one of you. It was plainly intimated by Mr. Ker that this
+ jury had been touched, and that if you failed to convict, you would be
+ suspected of having been bribed. That was an effort to terrorize you, and
+ the foundation of that argument was a belief in your moral cowardice. No
+ man would have made it to you unless he believed at heart you were
+ cowards. What does that argument mean? I cannot say whether you will be
+ suspected or not; but, in my opinion, a juror in the discharge of his duty
+ has no right to think of any consequence personal to himself. That is the
+ beauty of doing right. You need not think of anything else. The future
+ will take care of itself. I do not agree with the suggestion that it is
+ better that you should be applauded for a crime than blamed for a virtue.
+ Suppose you should gain the applause of the whole United States by giving
+ a false verdict; how would the echo of that applause strike your heart? I
+ do not believe that it is wiser to preserve the appearance of being honest
+ than to be honest with the appearance against you. I would rather be
+ absolutely honest, and have everybody in the world think I was dishonest,
+ than to be dishonest and have the whole world believe in my honesty. You
+ see you have got to stay with yourself all the time. You have to be your
+ own company, and to be compelled to know that your company is dishonest,
+ that your company is infamous, is not pleasant. I would rather know I was
+ honest and have the whole world put upon the forehead of my reputation the
+ brand of rascality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You were also told that the people generally have anticipated your
+ verdict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is simply an effort to terrorize you, so that you will say, "If the
+ people think that way, of course we must think that way. No matter about
+ the evidence. No matter if we have sworn to do justice. We will all try
+ and be popular." You were told in effect that the people were expecting a
+ conviction, and the only inference is that you ought not to disappoint the
+ public, and that it is your duty to piece and patch the testimony and
+ violate your oath, rather than to disappoint the general expectation. Mr.
+ Merrick told you you were trying these defendants, but that the people of
+ the whole country were trying you. What was the object of that statement?
+ Simply to terrorize this jury. What was the basis of that statement? Why,
+ that not one of you have got the pluck to do right. It was not a
+ compliment, gentlemen. It was intended for one, no doubt, but when you see
+ where it was born, it becomes an insult. I do not believe you are going to
+ care what the people say, or whether the people expect a verdict of
+ guilty, or not. You have been told that they do. I might with equal
+ propriety tell you that they do not. I might with equal propriety say
+ there is not a man in this court-house who expects a verdict of guilty.
+ With equal propriety I might say, and will say, that there is not a man on
+ this jury who expects there will be a verdict of guilty. But what has that
+ to do with us?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Try this case according to the evidence; and if you know that every man,
+ woman, and child in the United States want an acquittal, and you are
+ satisfied of the guilt of the defendants, it is your duty to find them
+ guilty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I were on the jury I would, in the language of the greatest man that
+ ever trod this earth&mdash;
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Strip myself to death, as to a bed
+ That longing have been sick for, before I would give a false verdict.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Again, Mr. Merrick said, after having stated in effect that a majority of
+ the people were convinced of the guilt of the defendants, that the
+ majority of the men of the United States do not often think wrong. What
+ was the object? To terrorize you. That is all. This verdict is to be
+ carried by universal suffrage; you are to let the men who are not on oath
+ decide for the men who are; to let the men who have not heard the
+ testimony give the verdict of the men who have heard the testimony. What
+ else? Again the same gentleman said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There is to be a verdict, a verdict of the people for or against us."
+ What is the object? To frighten you. Let the people have their verdict;
+ you must have yours. If your verdict is founded on the evidence it will be
+ upheld by every honest man in the world who knows the evidence. You need
+ certainly to place very little value upon the opinion of those who do not
+ know the evidence. Mr. Merrick also suggested&mdash;I will hardly put it
+ that way&mdash;he was brave enough to hope that you have not been bribed.
+ Brave enough to hope that! All this, gentlemen, is done simply for the
+ purpose of terrorizing you. I tell you to find a verdict according to the
+ evidence, no matter whom it hits, no matter whom it destroys, no matter
+ whom it kills. Save your own consciences alive. Your verdict must rest on
+ the evidence that has been introduced, and all else must be thrown aside,
+ disregarded, like forgotten dreams. All that you have read, all the press
+ has printed, must find no lodgment in your brains. You must regard them no
+ more than you would the noises of animals made in sleep. You must stand by
+ the testimony. You must stand by the law that the Court gives you. That is
+ all we ask. These articles in the newspapers were not printed in the hope
+ that justice might be done. They were printed in the hope that you may be
+ influenced to disregard the evidence, in the hope that finally slander
+ might be justified by your verdict. Gentlemen, you ought to remember that
+ in this case you are absolutely supreme. You have nothing to do with the
+ supposed desires of any men, or the supposed desires of any department, or
+ the supposed desires of any Government, or the supposed desires of any
+ President, or the supposed desires of the public. You have nothing to do
+ with those things. You have to do only with the evidence. Here all power
+ is powerless except your own. Position is naught. If the defendants are
+ guilty, and the evidence convinces you that they are, your verdict must be
+ in accordance with the evidence. You have no right to take into
+ consideration the consequences. When you are asked to find a verdict
+ contrary to the evidence, when you are asked to piece out the testimony
+ with your suspicions, then you are bound to take into consideration all
+ the consequences. When appeals are made to your prejudice and to your
+ fears, then the consequences should rise like mountains before you. Then
+ you should think of the lives you are asked to wreck, of the homes your
+ verdict would darken, of the hearts it would desolate, of the cheeks it
+ would wet with tears, and of the reputations it would blast and blacken,
+ of the wives it would worse than widow, and of the children it would more
+ than orphan. When you are asked to find a false verdict think of these
+ consesequences. When you are asked to please the public think of these
+ consequences. When you are asked to please the press think of these
+ consequences. When you are asked to act from fear, hatred, prejudice,
+ malice, or cowardice think then of these consequences. But whenever you do
+ right, consequences are nothing to you, because you are not responsible
+ for them. Whoever does right clothes himself in a suit of armor that the
+ arrows of consequences can never penetrate. When you do wrong you are
+ responsible for all the consequences, to the last sigh and the last tear.
+ If you do right nature is responsible. If you do wrong you are
+ responsible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You were told, too, by Mr. Merrick that you should have no sympathy; that
+ you should be like icicles; that you should be godlike. A cool conception
+ of deity! In that connection this heartless language, as it appears to me,
+ was used:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Man when he undertakes to judge his brother-man undertakes to perform the
+ highest duty given to humanity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Good!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He should perform that duty without fear, without prejudice, without
+ hatred, and without malice. He should perform that duty honestly, grandly,
+ nobly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read on:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Inclosed within the jury-box or on the bench he is separated from the
+ great mass of mankind&mdash;"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then you should not pay any attention to the opinion of the public. If you
+ are separated you should not be dominated by the press. If you are
+ separated you should not be disturbed by the desires of anybody. But he
+ continues:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "and sentiments of brotherhood die away."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ About that time you would be nice men:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Standing above humanity and nearest God he looks down upon his fellow,
+ and judges them without any reference to the sorrow his judgment may
+ bring."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is not my doctrine. The higher you get in the scale of being, the
+ grander, the nobler, and the tenderer you will become. Kindness is always
+ an evidence of greatness. Malice is the property of small souls. Whoever
+ allows the feeling of brotherhood to die in his heart becomes a wild
+ beast. You know it and so do I:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
+ The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
+ Become them with one-half so good a grace as mercy does."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And yet the only mercy we ask in this case, gentlemen, is the mercy of an
+ honest verdict. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I appeal to you for my clients, because the evidence shows that they are
+ honest men. I appeal to you for my client, Stephen W. Dorsey, because the
+ evidence shows that he is a man, a man with an intellectual horizon and a
+ mental sky, a man of genius, generous, and honest. And yet this
+ prosecution, this Government, these attorneys representing the majesty of
+ the Republic, representing the only real Republic that ever existed, have
+ asked you, gentlemen of the jury, not only to violate the law of the land,
+ they have asked you to violate the law of nature. They have maligned
+ mercy. They have laughed at mercy. They have trampled upon the holiest
+ human ties, and they have even made light of the fact that a wife in this
+ trial has sat by her husband's side. Think of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a painting in the Louvre, a painting of desolation, of despair
+ and love. It represents the night of the crucifixion. The world is
+ represented in shadow. The stars are dead, and yet in the darkness is seen
+ a kneeling form. It is Mary Magdalene with loving lips and hands pressed
+ against the bleeding feet of Christ. The skies were never dark enough nor
+ starless enough; the storm was never fierce enough nor wild enough, the
+ quick bolts of heaven were never lurid enough, and arrows of slander never
+ flew thick enough to drive a noble woman from her husband's side. And so
+ it is in all of human speech, the <i>holiest word is wife</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, gentlemen, I have examined this testimony, I have examined every
+ charge in the indictment against my clients not only, but every charge
+ made outside of the indictment. I have shown you that the indictment is
+ one thing and the evidence another. I have shown you that not one single
+ charge has been substantiated against John W. Dorsey. I have demonstrated
+ to you that not one solitary charge has been established against Stephen
+ W. Dorsey&mdash;not one. I believe that I have shown to you that there is
+ no foundation for a verdict of guilty against any defendant in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have spoken now, gentlemen, the last words that will be spoken in public
+ for my clients, the last words that will be spoken in public for any of
+ these defendants, the last words that will be heard in their favor until I
+ hear from the lips of this foreman two eloquent words&mdash;<i>Not Guilty</i>.
+ And now thanking the Court for many acts of personal kindness, and you,
+ gentlemen of the jury, for your almost infinite patience, I leave my
+ clients with all they have and with all they love and with all who love
+ them in your hands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C., Dec. 21, 1882.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MAY it please the Court and gentlemen of the jury: We consider that the
+ right to be tried by jury is the right preservative of all other rights.
+ The right to be tried by our peers, by men taken from the body of the
+ county, by men whose minds have not been saturated with prejudice, by men
+ who have no hatred, no malice to gratify, no revenge to wreak, no debts to
+ pay, we consider an inestimable right, regarding the jury as the bulwark
+ of civil liberty. Take that right from the defendants in any case and they
+ are left at the mercy of power, at the mercy of prejudice. The experience
+ of thousands of years, the experience of the English-speaking people, of
+ the Anglo-Saxon people, the only people now upon the globe with a genius
+ for law, is that the jury is a breastwork behind which an honest man is
+ safe from the attack of an entire nation. We esteem it, I say, a
+ privilege, a great and invaluable right, that we have you twelve men to
+ stand between us and the prejudice of the hour. We believe that you will
+ hear this case without passion, without hatred, and that you will decide
+ it absolutely in accordance with the law and with the evidence. This is
+ the tribunal absolutely supreme. In a case of this character, gentlemen,
+ you are the judges of what is the law; you are the judges of what are the
+ facts; you are the absolute judges of the worth of testimony; and you have
+ not only the right, but it is your duty to utterly disregard the testimony
+ of any man that you do not believe to be true. You, I say, are the
+ exclusive judges, and for that reason we ask, we beg you, to hear all this
+ testimony, to pay heed to every word, and then decide, not as somebody
+ else desires, but as your judgment dictates, and as your conscience
+ demands. Here before this jury all letters of Attorneys-General, all
+ desires of Presidents, all popular clamor, all prejudice, no matter from
+ what source, is turned simply to dust and ashes, and you are to regard
+ them all simply as though they never had been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one other thing. Some people are naturally suspicious. It is an
+ infinitely mean trait in human nature. Suspicion is only another form of
+ cowardice. The man who suspects constantly suspects because he is afraid.
+ Whenever you find a man with a free, frank, generous, brave nature, you
+ will find that man without suspicion. Suspicion is the soil in which
+ prejudice grows, and prejudice is the upas tree in whose shade reason
+ fails and justice dies. And allow me to say that no amount of suspicion
+ amounts to evidence. No case is to be tried upon suspicion. No case is to
+ be tried upon suspicious facts. No case is to be tried on scraps, and
+ patches, and shreds, and ravelings. There must be evidence; there must be
+ absolute, solid testimony. A case is tried according to the rocks of fact
+ and not according to the clouds and fogs of suspicion. No juror has a
+ right to make a decision until he feels his feet firmly fixed upon the
+ bed-rock of truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I say, gentlemen, that we are glad of the opportunity to make a
+ statement of this case to you, and to tell you exactly the manner in which
+ my clients became interested in what is known as the star-route service.
+ You have to be guided in this case by the indictment. That is the star and
+ compass of this trial. You cannot go outside of it. The evidence must be
+ confined to the charges contained in that instrument. If you find us
+ guilty of a conspiracy, it must be such a conspiracy as is set forth in
+ that indictment. That indictment is the charter of your authority, and you
+ have no right to find us guilty of anything in the world except that which
+ is therein charged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me give you an exceedingly brief statement of what we are here
+ for. It is charged in that indictment that all these defendants, including
+ one who has been discharged by a jury, who has been found not guilty, Mr.
+ Turner, including another who is dead, Mr. Peck, conspired together for
+ the purpose of defrauding the United States, and we are met at the
+ threshold with the statement that conspiracy is very hard to prove. It is
+ like any other offence, gentlemen. They say conspirators generally meet in
+ secret. My reply to that is that people generally steal in secret, and the
+ fact that they stole in secret was never deemed an excuse for not proving
+ the offence before they were found guilty. You can see that this is
+ precisely like any other offence in the world. Men when they commit crimes
+ endeavor to get away from the public eye. They are in love with darkness.
+ They do not carry torches in front of them. And it is so in every crime.
+ But whether conspiracy is difficult to prove or not, it must be
+ established before you can find the defendants guilty. That is a
+ difficulty that the Government must overcome by testimony. The jury must
+ not endeavor to overcome it by a verdict. And I say here to-day that the
+ same rule of evidence applies to this case as to any other, and you must
+ be satisfied by the testimony the Government will offer that these men
+ conspired together; that they entered into an arrangement wherein the part
+ of each was marked out, and that that arrangement was contrary to law; and
+ that the object of that arrangement was to defraud the Government of the
+ United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This indictment is kind enough to tell us the means that were employed to
+ carry out that conspiracy. How did they find these means, gentlemen? They
+ must have had some evidence on which they relied. If they had evidence
+ enough to convince them, they must introduce that evidence here, and if
+ that evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that these men
+ conspired, then you will find them guilty; otherwise not. The difficulty
+ of establishing it is something with which you have nothing to do. How did
+ they conspire? What were the means they had agreed to use? Let us see.
+ Thomas J. Brady was the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. The
+ Postmaster-General was not included in the scheme, consequently they must
+ deceive him. The Sixth Auditor was not included in this conspiracy, and as
+ by virtue of his office it was his duty to go over all of these accounts
+ and pass upon the legality of each item, it was necessary to deceive him.
+ According to the indictment Mr. Turner was a clerk in the department, and
+ his part of the rascality was, on the jackets inclosing petitions, to make
+ false statements in regard to the contents of the petitions inclosed. The
+ object of that being that when the Second Assistant Postmaster-General,
+ Mr. Brady, exhibited these jackets to the Postmaster-General, it being
+ considered that he would not have time to read the petition, he would be
+ misled by the false statements on the cover touching the contents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next step was for the contractors to get up false petitions; that is,
+ petitions to be signed by persons who did not live along the route upon
+ which the mail was to be carried. These petitions also to be forged; that
+ is to say, the names of persons put there by another, or the names of
+ fictitious persons written, when in fact no such persons existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing to do was to write false and fraudulent letters; to induce
+ others to write such letters; the next thing, to make false affidavits;
+ and the next thing, to make false orders&mdash;those to be made by Mr.
+ Brady&mdash;and these false orders were to have, as a false foundation,
+ false petitions, false letters, false communications, false affidavits,
+ and fraudulently written representations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the indictment. That is the scheme said to have been entered into
+ by my clients with all of these defendants, and the object being to
+ defraud the Government of the United States. Now, in order to establish
+ that scheme, it would be necessary for the Government to prove it. Not to
+ assert it. Neither have you the right to infer it. No man can be inferred
+ out of his liberty. No man can be inferred into the penitentiary. That is
+ not the way to deprive a man of his reputation and of liberty&mdash;by
+ inference. They must prove it. They must prove that the petitions were
+ false. They must prove that the letters were fraudulent. They must prove
+ that the orders rested upon those false and fraudulent petitions, letters,
+ and affidavits; and they must prove that Mr. Brady knew them to be false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also stated in this indictment that service was to be paid for when
+ it was not performed; that service was discontinued and a month's extra
+ pay allowed; that fines were imposed and afterwards set aside because the
+ contractors agreed to pay fifty per cent, of such fines to General Brady.
+ I will speak of them when I come to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is a clear statement. What part, then, did my clients play in
+ this scheme? I will tell you. It is charged in the indictment that John M.
+ Peck was in this scheme, and, although he is dead, whatever he did, I
+ imagine, can be established by the Government. A man can be found guilty,
+ I understand, of having entered into a conspiracy with another, although
+ the other be dead, and the living man can be convicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is stated in the outset that my clients never had been engaged in
+ carrying the mail and that is regarded as an exceedingly suspicious
+ circumstance. A man has got to commence some time, if he ever goes into
+ the business, and if this doctrine be true, the first bid that a man ever
+ makes is evidence that he has entered into a conspiracy. Suppose, on the
+ other hand, my clients have long been engaged in this business. What would
+ the Government counsel then have said? They would have said, gentlemen,
+ that they had been engaged for years in the business. They knew all the
+ tricks that were played, and consequently they were the very persons to
+ form a conspiracy. And that is the wonderful thing about suspicion. It
+ changes every fact. It colors every word it reads and every paper at which
+ it looks; and no matter what are the facts, the moment they are regarded
+ with a suspicious mind they prove what the man suspects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, then, the first charge is that we had never been in the business, and
+ consequently our going into the business must have been the result of a
+ conspiracy. Gentlemen, if the doctrine be laid down that it is dangerous
+ for a man to make a bid the result of that doctrine will be to double the
+ expenses of the Government in carrying the mails. All that will be
+ necessary, then, is for the old bidders to combine. They will know that
+ there is no danger of any new men interfering with them, because the new
+ men will be immediately indicted for conspiracy and the old men will have
+ the field to themselves. You can see that this is infinitely absurd. There
+ is only one step beyond such absurdity, and that is annihilation. No man
+ can possess his faculties and get beyond that absurdity, if it is evidence
+ of conspiracy, because it is the first thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, however, John M. Peck had been engaged in the mail
+ business. He was engaged in the business before 1874. He had been
+ interested with others before that time. He was interested in several
+ important routes from 1874 to 1878. It was in the fall of 1877 that he
+ made arrangements to bid at the next letting. He was a business man. He
+ was not an adventurer. He was secretary at that time of the Arkansas
+ Central Railroad. He had been, I believe, for two sessions a member of the
+ Ar-kansas Legislature. He was in good standing, solvent, and regarded as
+ an honest man. In 1874 he was interested in the bids and, as I said, was
+ engaged in carrying the mails at the time these contracts were entered
+ into. He became acquainted with John W. Dorsey, I believe, in 1874. When
+ he made up his mind to put in more bids for the letting of 1878 he went
+ after John W. Dorsey, and they met together in the city of New York, I
+ believe, in the month of September, and agreed that they would put in some
+ bids for the letting of 1878. Peck was acquainted with John R. Miner and
+ had been acquainted with him for a considerable time. Mr. Miner wanted to
+ go into some other business than that in which he was then engaged, and
+ those three men made up their minds to bid. Was there anything criminal in
+ that? Nothing. Any men anywhere have the right to combine; the right to
+ form a partnership; the right to come together for the purpose of making
+ proposals for carrying the United States mails. Of course you will all
+ admit that. Now, that is what they did. There was nothing criminal,
+ nothing secret, nothing underhanded. Everything was above board, open, and
+ in the daylight. There is no conspiracy yet, and we will show that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John M. Peck had been troubled with a lung disease. He had gotten much
+ better in September, and thought that he was almost well. Later in the
+ fall he took a severe cold and got much worse, and from that difficulty, I
+ believe, he never wholly recovered. He went, however, to Colorado and New
+ Mexico, and finally died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see about John W. Dorsey. I believe that great pains have been
+ taken to say that he was a tinsmith, which is a suspicious circumstance.
+ Why? Is there any law against a tinsmith bidding to carry the mails? Is
+ there any such provision in the statute? And yet that has been lugged
+ forward as one of the evidences of a conspiracy in this case, and it has
+ been lugged forward in a way to cast some disgrace upon this man&mdash;simply
+ because he was a tinsmith. Well, do you know I have as much respect for a
+ good tinsmith as for a good anything. What is the difference? Sometimes I
+ have thought I had more respect for a good tinsmith than a poor
+ professional man&mdash;sometimes. In this country of all others labor is
+ held to be absolutely honorable, and I think a thousand times more of a
+ man who works in the street and takes care of his wife and children than I
+ do of somebody else who dresses well and lives on the labor of others, and
+ then is impudent enough to endeavor to disgrace the source of his own
+ bread. I think the man who eats the bread of idleness is under a certain
+ obligation to speak well of labor. And yet we have the spectacle in this
+ very court of the Attorney General of the United States endeavoring to
+ cast a little stain upon this man. As a matter of fact, and I am almost
+ sorry to say it, John W. Dorsey is not a tinsmith. I am almost sorry to
+ make the admission. He happened to be a merchant, which is no more
+ honorable but somewhat easier. He dealt in stoves and tinware. That,
+ gentlemen, is his crime, and upon that rests the terrible suspicion that
+ he is a conspirator. And I want to say more, that his reputation for
+ honesty, his reputation for fair dealing, is as good as that of any other
+ man in the State in which he resides. He made up his mind to cast his
+ fortunes with John M. Peck and with John R. Miner and make some bids for
+ carrying the mails of the United States. That is all there is about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, however, another suspicious circumstance, and that is that John
+ W. Dorsey was the brother of Stephen W. Dorsey, and Stephen W. Dorsey at
+ that time was a Senator of the United States. That is another suspicious
+ circumstance. Whenever you find a man with a Senator for a brother, put
+ him down as a conspirator. Another suspicious circumstance, John M. Peck
+ was the brother-in law of S. W. Dorsey, absolutely married a sister of
+ Mrs. Dorsey, and that was the beginning of this hellish conspiracy. It was
+ suspicious. He intended to rob the Government when he was courting that
+ girl.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we come to another man, Mr. John R. Miner, and the suspicious thing
+ about Miner is that he lives in Sandusky. But that of itself would be
+ nothing. Dorsey lived there once, too. Now, do you not see how they moved
+ to that town with the diabolical purpose of swindling this great
+ Government? Miner was not in very good health&mdash;do you not see&mdash;pretended
+ to be sick so that he could leave Sandusky; and in some way Miner and
+ Dorsey were excellent friends&mdash;another suspicious circumstance; and
+ for several years whenever John R. Miner visited Washington he laid the
+ foundations of this conspiracy by always stopping at the house of Senator
+ Dorsey&mdash;another suspicious thing. And do you not recollect the
+ delight, the abandon with which Mr. Bliss emphasized the word house, when
+ he said that they met at Dorsey's house? I had a great notion to get up
+ and plead guilty on that emphasis.. Miner came here. He and Peck were
+ acquainted; and wherever you find four men acquainted, gentlemen, look
+ out, there is trouble. When Miner came here he went directly to the house
+ of Senator Dorsey. I admit it with all the damning consequences that flow
+ from that admission. He did not even go to a hotel. He went directly to
+ Dorsey's house. I want that in all your minds, because the prosecution
+ regards that as one of the foundation facts in this conspiracy, and while
+ admitting it, do you not see how much I save them in the way of evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there is another damning fact connected with this case. Dorsey in the
+ top of his house had set apart one room for an office. It was up two or
+ three pair of stairs. I think he established his office there to shield
+ himself a little from the people who usually call on a Senator in the city
+ of Washington. But he found that he put himself to more trouble than he
+ did them, so he moved his office to the lower part of the building, and
+ when John Miner got to that house he occupied a room right next to that
+ office upstairs, and sometimes he went in there and wrote. Now, you see,
+ gentlemen, how that conspiracy was planted; how the branches sprang out of
+ the windows of that room and covered all the territory of the United
+ States. I might as well admit that frightful fact. I do not know that they
+ know that, but I might as well admit it, because we want the worst to come
+ first. Before Miner came here he wrote a letter. There is another place to
+ put a pin of suspicion. He wrote a letter to S. W. Dorsey; that is, it was
+ Miner or Peck, I have forgotten which, and may be that very forgetfulness
+ of mine is another evidence of conspiracy. A letter was written either by
+ Miner or Peck to Stephen W. Dorsey, saying that they were going to bid;
+ that Peck was not well enough to be here at that particular time, and
+ would he be kind enough to hand that letter to some man in whom he had
+ confidence and let that man get such information as he could with regard
+ to the routes upon which they expected to bid&mdash;all these Western star
+ routes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what did S. W. Dorsey do? There was a man in town by the name of
+ Boone. He sent for Mr. Boone, and I believe that Mr. Boone went to Mr.
+ Dorsey's house, and that Dorsey handed him that letter in his house. And
+ what was the object of the letter? For Boone to get information regarding
+ these routes. Well, now, what did Boone do? Boone made up a circular which
+ he sent to all the postmasters, or most of them, through Oregon,
+ Washington Territory, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, California, Kansas,
+ Nebraska; that is to say, the Western States and Territories; and in this
+ circular a certain number of questions were propounded to each postmaster.
+ First, the distance from that post-office to the next, and from the next
+ to the next, and so through the route. Second, the condition of the roads,
+ whether hilly or level. Third, about the snows in winter and the floods in
+ spring. Fourth, the cost of hay and corn and oats. Fifth, the wages that
+ would have to be paid to the man or men; and it may be some other
+ questions in addition. Now, these circulars were sent by Boone to all the
+ postmasters in consequence of a letter that he received in Dorsey's house.
+ What for? So that by the time that Miner and Peck and John W. Dorsey came
+ they could sit down and bid intelligently upon these routes; so that they
+ would have some information that would guide them; in other words, that
+ they would not be compelled to bid at random.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we will show, gentlemen, that that was done, and if at that time
+ there had been a conspiracy, certainly such information was of no
+ particular value. Now, that is what Mr. Boone did, and I believe that is
+ about all he did at that time. There is no conspiracy yet, no fraud yet.
+ It is utterly impossible to defraud the Government by getting information
+ from postmasters as to the condition of the roads, and as to the distance
+ from one post-office to another. There is no fraud yet, no conspiracy up
+ to this point. In a little while Mr. Miner and Mr. John W. Dorsey
+ appeared. Ah, but they say Stephen W. Dorsey was at that time a Senator of
+ the United States Yes, he was, and I believe he remained Senator until the
+ 4th of March, 1879. When his brother came we will show to you that Stephen
+ W. Dorsey said to his brother, "I would rather you would not bid; I would
+ much rather that you would keep out of this business, because I am a
+ Senator and somebody may find fault. Somebody may suspect, and
+ consequently I would much rather you would get out of the business." John
+ W. Dorsey did not agree with him. He said he did not see how that could
+ interfere with him, and that he believed he could do well in that
+ business, and the consequence was he went on. There is nothing suspicious
+ so far as I can see in that. That is what we will show.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man being a member of the United States Senate did what he did out of
+ pure friendship; did what he did for his brother, what he did for Mr.
+ Peck, and what he did for Mr.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miner from pure friendship. I know it is very difficult for some people to
+ imagine that any man does anything for friendship. They put behind every
+ decent action the crawling snake of a mean and selfish motive. My opinion
+ of human nature is somewhat different. I have known thousands and
+ thousands of men capable of disinterested actions, thousands of men that
+ would help a brother, a brother-in-law, or a friend, and help them to the
+ extent of their fortune. I have known such men and I never supposed such
+ acts could be tortured into evidence of meanness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first charge against Stephen W. Dorsey is that he sent some bonds and
+ proposals for bids to a postmaster by the name of Clendenning, in the
+ State of Arkansas. The trouble with these bonds, as I understand it, was
+ that the amount of the bid was not put in the blank in the printed
+ proposal. It is claimed by the prosecution that according to the law the
+ postmaster has no right to certify to the solvency of the security until
+ that blank is filled. I want to explain this so that you will understand
+ it. I think I have one of the bonds and proposals here. I would like to
+ have the Court see exactly the scope of it. [Exhibiting blank form of
+ proposal and bond.] The proposal is that the undersigned,&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+ whose post-office address is&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, of the county of&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;,
+ and State of&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, proposes to carry the mails of
+ the United States from July 1, such a date, to June 30 of such a date,
+ being four years, between such and such a place, under the advertisement
+ of the Postmaster-General, for the sum of&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;dollars
+ per annum. Now, if I understand the matter of the Clendenning bonds, they
+ were filled up with the exception of the blank in which the amount of the
+ bid was to be written. That is the charge, as I understand it. Whenever a
+ man makes a proposal to carry the mail for four years on a certain route,
+ that proposal must be accompanied with a bond in a certain amount, and
+ certain men must sign that bond as sureties, and then a certain postmaster
+ must certify to the solvency of the sureties, the sureties having made
+ oath as to the value of their property. Now, understand that perfectly. It
+ is not the bond that a man gives after his bid has been accepted. It is a
+ bond that he gives to show that his bid is in good faith. That bond is
+ conditioned that if the contract is awarded to him he will give another
+ and sufficient bond not only, but I believe it is also conditioned that he
+ will carry the mail. The charge is&mdash;and let us get at it just exactly&mdash;that
+ some bonds were sent to a man by the name of Clendenning, who was a
+ postmaster, and this blank was not filled. Let me tell you why. It was the
+ custom&mdash;and I want your Honor to understand that perfectly, because
+ so much was made of it before in talk&mdash;to leave that blank unfilled.
+ It is the blank for the amount of the bid. In the advertisement of the
+ Government the penalty of the bond is stated, so that the amount of the
+ bid has nothing to do with the penalty in the bond. Understand me now. If
+ the bond was for ten thousand dollars, it was because that amount had been
+ put in the advertisement by the Government. It did not depend upon the
+ amount of the bid. It had nothing to do with it. The amount of the bid
+ threw no light upon the amount of the bond. The penalty of the bond was
+ fixed by the Government before the bid was made and inserted in the
+ advertisement published by the Government. Why then did they not wish to
+ fill up this blank? This blank, gentlemen, told the amount of the bid.
+ Where there are many bidders, and an important route, if you let the
+ postmaster who has to certify to the sureties know the amount of the bid
+ he might sell you. He could go and tell somebody else "I have certified to
+ all the sureties on this route, and the lowest bid up to this time is
+ fifteen thousand dollars," and the person whom he told might go and bid
+ fourteen thousand nine, hundred and ninety-nine dollars and take the
+ route. Ah, but they say the postmaster is not allowed to tell the amount
+ of the bid. No. What was the penalty if he did? He would lose his office.
+ Now, here is a postmaster holding an office worth, perhaps, a hundred
+ dollars a century, or, perhaps, fifty dollars a year, and by selling
+ information as to one bid he might make ten thousand dollars. I do not
+ know what he could have made. Certainly the bidders did not feel like
+ trusting the secret of their bids to the postmaster who certified to the
+ sureties. As a consequence the bond was filled up with the penalty
+ according to the advertisement, but the blank in which the amount of the
+ bid was to be written was not filled, because they wanted the postmaster's
+ mind left a blank upon that subject. In other words, that blank was left
+ unfilled, not to defraud the Government, but to prevent other people from
+ defrauding the bidder. That is all there is about it. That is everything
+ about the Cleudenning bonds. But it may be well enough to state,
+ gentlemen, that those Clendenning bonds were never used on a solitary
+ route in this indictment, and I believe never anywhere; that no contract
+ was ever awarded upon any one of those proposals. The only rascality in
+ the transaction, gentlemen, was the failure to fill a blank; and the
+ reason they failed to fill that blank was because they did not want the
+ postmaster to know the amount of the bid. Let us come right down to
+ practical matters and things. For instance, suppose one of this jury is in
+ the stone-cutting business, and the Government should issue an
+ advertisement calling for proposals to furnish dressed granite, and
+ specify that every man who bid must file a bond in a penalty of five
+ thousand dollars to carry out his contract, and that that bond must be
+ approved by the postmaster here. Suppose it was a contract of great
+ proportions. Would the man who bid be willing that the amount of the bid
+ should be inserted in the blank to be passed upon by the postmaster? No.
+ Why? He would not want the postmaster to know it. Who else would he not
+ want to know it? He would not want his sureties to know it. A man might be
+ standing by while the bond was being approved and read the amount of the
+ bid. The bidder would be afraid somebody would get at those figures and go
+ and underbid him. Every man of common, ordinary sense knows that. If you
+ made a bid you would not let your sureties know the amount and you would
+ not give the amount to the keeping of a postmaster, neither would you
+ leave it to chance or accident. You would say, "I will leave the amount a
+ blank. I will keep it in my mind, and when the paper comes into my hands
+ for the last time I will write, it in there and fold it and seal it and
+ give it to the Government." That is what every sensible and prudent man
+ would do, and what has been done for years. And yet that act is brought
+ forward as something to stain the reputation of an honest man; something
+ to strike down as with a sword the character of an ex-Senator. They even
+ say he wrote upon paper that had the mark of the United States Senate
+ Chamber upon it. That is only another evidence that there was nothing
+ wrong in it. It was stated, too, in the opening of this case, that an
+ affidavit was made upon paper that bore the mark of the National Hotel of
+ this city. Think of such a damning circumstance as that! Well, gentlemen,
+ so much for the Clendenning bonds. We will prove that the blank was left
+ unfilled on purpose, not to defraud the Government, but to prevent other
+ people from defrauding us. Let me say in that connection that there was an
+ investigation in 1878 upon this very question. The Clendenning bonds were
+ brought up. Testimony was heard, and we will be able to show you the facts
+ that I have stated. Then, if I am right, gentlemen, there is nothing in
+ it; and when the opening statement was made the Government knew, just as
+ well as I know, that there was nothing in it; at least they ought to have
+ known it. Probably it is not proper for me to say they knew it, because
+ men get so prejudiced, so warped, so twisted that it is hard to tell what
+ they know or what they do not know. But that has nothing to do with this
+ case and, in my judgment, will never be admitted by the Court. If it is
+ admitted by the Court we will establish exactly what I have told you. So
+ much for the Clendenning bonds. Do not forget that the penalty of the bond
+ was put in by the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not forget that the amount of the bid was left blank simply to protect
+ ourselves. Do not forget another thing: That leaving that blank unfilled
+ could not by any possible peradventure injure the Government. The bond was
+ just as good with that proposal unfilled at the time the sureties signed
+ it as though it had been filled. It had to be filled before it was finally
+ given to the Government or else there would be no bid. If there was no
+ bid, then no obligation rested upon the sureties. Certainly they could not
+ be harmed, and if there was no bid certainly the Government could not be
+ harmed; unless the bid should have happened to be lower than any received;
+ and yet out of that nothing, out of that one bramble, a forest of
+ rascality has been manufactured. Gentlemen, that is the result of
+ suspicion when it is hoed by malice and watered by hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next suspicious circumstance, gentlemen, is that we bid. That is a
+ suspicious circumstance. Miner bid, Peck bid, and John W. Dorsey bid. And
+ the suspicious circumstance is that they did not bid against each other.
+ Why should they? I was at an auction the other day and unconsciously bid
+ against myself, but I did not think it any evidence of rascality on my
+ part; I thought it tended to show that I was not attending strictly to
+ business, and yet it is brought forward as a suspicious circumstance that
+ these gentlemen did not bid against themselves. Another suspicious
+ circumstance is that they bid in their individual names. That is the way
+ all the bidding is done, I believe. I believe every bond has to be signed
+ by the individuals and not by any partnership. That I believe to be one of
+ the regulations of the department. Well, there is no rascality yet, as far
+ as I can see. Now, when the contract is accepted&mdash;I will come to the
+ bidding question again&mdash;the contractor has to give a bond. One of
+ those bonds will be put in evidence in this case. You will see what the
+ contractor is bound to do. Then it can be subcontracted. You will find
+ that the contract given by the subcontractor to the department is not a
+ hundredth part as severe as the bond the contractor gives to the
+ Government. In the contract that we give to the Government certain things
+ are provided. You will find that a copy of it will be intro duced. The
+ contractor is left to the mercy of discretion-I believe that is the word&mdash;of
+ the Postmaster-General You will find that if he fails to carry the mail
+ one trip, no matter by what he may be prevented, by flood or storm or
+ fire, he is not to be paid for it. Although he is there ready with his men
+ and horses, if he is prevented by the elements he has no pay. If the
+ Postmaster-General thinks he ought to have carried it when he did not, he
+ can take from his pay three times the value of the trip. He can take from
+ him one quarter's pay. He reserves in his own breast the power to declare
+ that contract null and void, because in his judgment the contractor has
+ not done his duty. Everything is left to him. The man who signs that
+ contract gives a mortgage on his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
+ He has no redress. I simply call your attention to this to show you the
+ obligation that a contractor takes upon himself. We will show you that he
+ is under obligation to discharge any carrier that the Government does not
+ like; that he has no right to carry any package or any letter that can go
+ by mail; that he is to forfeit a trip when it is not run, or not to exceed
+ three times the pay of a trip; that he is to forfeit one-quarter of a trip
+ if the running time is so far behind that he fails to make connection with
+ the next mail; that if he violates any of these provisions he forfeits a
+ penalty equal to a quarter's pay, or if he violates any other provision
+ touching the carriage of the mail and the time and manner thereof, without
+ a satisfactory explanation in due time to the Postmaster-General, he can
+ visit a penalty in his discretion, and the forfeitures may be increased in
+ the penalty to a higher amount, in the discretion of the
+ Postmaster-General, according to the nature or frequency of the failure
+ and the importance of the mail. Provided that, except as specified, and
+ except as provided by law, no penalty shall exceed three times the pay of
+ a trip in each case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also agreed by the said contractor and his sureties that the
+ Postmaster-General may annul the contract for repeated failures; for
+ violating the postal laws; for disobeying the instructions of the
+ Post-Office Department; for refusing to discharge a carrier when required
+ by the department; for transmitting commercial intelligence or matter
+ which should go by mail; for transporting persons so engaged as aforesaid;
+ whenever the contractor shall become a postmaster, &amp;c.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is further stipulated and agreed that such annulment shall not impair
+ the right to claim damages from said contractor and his sureties under
+ this contract; but such damages may, for the purpose of set-off or
+ counter-claim in the settlement of any claim of said contractor or his
+ sureties against the United States, whether arising under this contract or
+ otherwise, be assessed and liquidated by the Auditor of the Treasury for
+ the Post-Office Department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it is further stipulated and agreed by the said contractor and his
+ sureties that the contract may, in the discretion of the
+ Postmaster-General, be continued in force beyond its express terms for a
+ period not exceeding six months. You will see, gentlemen, how perfectly,
+ how absolutely, the contractor is in the power of the department. The
+ Government enforces its contracts. No matter how many years may elapse
+ they are still after the sureties and are still after the principal.
+ Nothing relieves a man but, death. Only a little while ago a case was
+ decided in the Supreme Court of which I will speak to you. An importer of
+ sugar gave the importers' bond to pay the duty upon that sugar. By the
+ custom of trade, sugar is sold in bond.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The importer sold to a third person and the third person went to get the
+ sugar. By law he could only take it after paying the tax; and yet one of
+ the officers of the Government, contrary to law, allowed him to take the
+ sugar without paying the tax. The Supreme Court has just held that the
+ original importer and his sureties are liable to pay that tax&mdash;the
+ man who took the sugar out having become bankrupt&mdash;although the sugar
+ was given to the second party simply by a violation of law, and that law
+ was violated by one of the officers of the custom-house without the
+ knowledge or consent of the original importer. I tell you, gentlemen,
+ whenever a man gives a bond to this Government the Government stays with
+ him. The Government does not die; the Government does not get tired; the
+ Government does not get weary. The Government can afford to wait, and the
+ poor man with the bond hanging over him cannot go into business, cannot
+ get credit, but just lingers out a life of expectation, of hope, and of
+ disappointment. I trust none of you will ever sign a bond to the
+ Government. There is another thing, gentlemen. If you bid on a hundred
+ routes and they are given to you and you put the service on ninety-nine of
+ the routes and carry it in accordance with the contract, and yet fail on
+ the hundredth route, the Postmaster-General has a right to declare you a
+ failing contractor. A failing contractor on the hundredth route? Yes. On
+ any more? Yes; on every one. And whoever is declared a failing contractor
+ on one route is by virtue of that declaration a failing contractor on all.
+ They are all taken from him. So that when a man bids for more than one
+ route, for instance, a hundred or a thousand, and gets them and carries
+ them all absolutely according to his contract but one, he can be declared
+ a failing contractor on all. What does that mean? It means not simply ruin
+ to him, but ruin to every one of his sureties, unless they are in a
+ condition to go on and carry the mail. I want you to understand something
+ of the obligation of a contractor with the Government of the United
+ States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I come to the bidding. These bids were made with a full understanding
+ of the obligation of a bidder. Messrs. Miner, Peck, and John W. Dorsey
+ bid, I believe, on about twelve hundred routes. You see you are in great
+ luck in bidding if you get one route in fifty that you bid upon. In the
+ first place, there are about ten thousand star routes. I do not know that
+ it is too much to say that the number of bids runs up into the hundreds of
+ thousands; somewhere in that neighborhood. Hundreds of men often bid on
+ one route. Consequently, nobody who bids expects to get more than a few of
+ the routes for which they bid. Now, is there the slightest evidence in the
+ statement of the Government as to the frauds in this bidding? Let me tell
+ you how some frauds have been committed. Suppose, for instance, this was a
+ fraudulent business, and Miner, Peck, and Dorsey were bidding. Let me
+ explain it to you. I want you to know it. All there is in this case is
+ simply to have you understand it. That is all there is. And if you do not
+ agree with me when we get through the case I shall simply think that you
+ have not comprehended it. Say that four men bid on the same route, one man
+ four thousand dol-ars, another man three thousand dollars, another man two
+ thousand dollars, and another man one thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the man who bids one thousand dollars is of no account, has not a
+ dollar in the world, and so when the bid is given to him he does not want
+ it. He is what they call a straw man. The law provides then that the next
+ man may have it. The law does not provide that he must take it. He may
+ have it if he wants to, but you cannot force him to take it, because he is
+ not the lowest bidder. He is the two thousand dollar man. He is another
+ straw gentleman. He does not want it. Then the Government offers it to the
+ next man at three thousand dollars. He is another chap made of hay. He
+ says he doesn't want it. Understand the Government cannot force these
+ straw and hay men to take it. Then they go to the fourth fellow, who bid
+ four thousand dollars. It is a good thing at four thousand, and he says,
+ "Yes; I will take it." That is what they call fraudulent bidding. If you
+ had found Dorsey and Miner and Peck bidding on the same route and one of
+ them failing and another one taking it, you would not only have suspected
+ fraud, but you would have known it. Now, if it is a badge of fraud for
+ them to bid upon the same route and apparently against each other, I will
+ ask you if it is not a badge of fair dealing that they were not found
+ bidding against each other. They bid on about twelve hundred routes, and
+ much to their astonishment they got one hundred and thirty-four contracts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have heard here a great deal of talk about the number of men and
+ horses. We will show you all about it. Men differ upon this subject. If
+ men did not differ upon it at all these bids would be alike. Instead of
+ being a dozen bids, all different, and differing sometimes as much as ten,
+ twenty, thirty, forty, or a hundred dollars or more, they would bid the
+ same. If they all agreed on the number of horses and men it would take,
+ and about what it would cost, they would bid about alike, wouldn't they?
+ But when they are bidding they honestly differ. One man says it would take
+ twenty horses, and another says "no, it will take forty." Do you not know
+ that the number of horses depends a great deal upon the kind of man who
+ makes the estimate. Here is a man who is hard and brutal, and he says a
+ horse can do so much work. He says it is cheaper to buy him and wear him
+ out than it is to feed him decently. You have known men who were perfectly
+ willing to make fortunes out of a horse's agony, and out of animal pain.
+ There are hundreds of them in the world. Now, take it on horse railroads,
+ and with freighters, and teamsters. Whenever you find a mean, infamous
+ man, if he cannot whip his wife, he will take his spite out on his horse.
+ If a man is a good, broad, generous, free fellow he will say, "I don't
+ want to work that horse to death; I think it will take four horses. I am
+ going to keep my horses fat, and I am going to treat them as a gentleman
+ should." Another man, a wretch, will come up and swear it would not take
+ more than fifteen horses. When his horses are through the service you will
+ simply see a pile of bones wrapped in a lamentable hide. You understand
+ that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, these men made twelve hundred bids and got one hundred and
+ thirty-four contracts. Ah, but they say, here is another badge of fraud,
+ another badge. Ah, they bid on small routes, on cheap routes, on routes
+ where the mail was carried infrequently and on slow time. If it is a badge
+ of fraud to bid on such routes the Government can never let out any more.
+ Most of these routes were cheap routes. Now, I owe it to you to give you
+ the reason for this. We will prove in the first place that these men were
+ not rich men. If they had been very rich they probably would not have gone
+ into the business at all. They would have gone into that perfectly
+ respectable business of buying Government bonds. They would have bought
+ Government bonds and made other fellows pay the interest, and twice a year
+ they would have formed a partnership with a pair of shears, and thus in
+ the sweat of their faces they would clip their coupons. They bid on poor
+ routes. Why? They were poor, comparatively speaking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They had not the money to stock the expensive routes where four horse
+ coaches were run. They preferred to take the cheaper lines. Why? Because
+ they could stock them. They would have been able to have stocked the
+ routes if they had only obtained the number they expected. But as I told
+ you, they got many more routes than they expected. Was that for the
+ benefit of the Government? How did these men come to bid so cheaply on
+ some of these routes? I will tell you. Because they had the information,
+ because they had received the facts from all the postmasters on the
+ routes, and consequently they made a good close calculation, and the
+ result was that their bids were below others, and the fact that their bids
+ were accepted saved the Government hundreds of thousands of dollars. When
+ they found themselves with all these contracts, the first hard work they
+ did was to give away all they could. That was the first hard work. They
+ had contracts, not for sale, but just to give, and they succeeded in
+ giving away several of them. I believe they sold two of these children of
+ conspiracy for the enormous sum of one hundred dollars each. That was the
+ highest sale they made at that time. Afterwards another route was sold
+ which I will explain when I come to it. Now there is no rascality yet. No
+ fraud yet. No conspiracy yet. Well, they then went to work to get their
+ bonds. But first let me say that there was another reason for bidding on
+ cheap routes. Whenever the bid is above five thousand dollars, then the
+ man who bids must, at the time he bids, put up a check for five per cent,
+ of the amount.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A check certified by a national bank. For instance, if it all comes to a
+ hundred thousand dollars he has got to put in a certified check for five
+ thousand dollars. Even in the little bids we made we had to deposit with
+ the Government some twenty-six or twenty-eight thousand dollars, and I do
+ not know but more, in cash, or what is the same as cash, for the bank
+ certifies that the money is there. That is another reason they bid on
+ smaller routes. What is the next? The Government asks such frightful
+ bonds, such terrible amounts, that a man must be almost a millionaire, or
+ else there must be a confidence in him that is universal, before he can
+ give these bonds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was one route at this very bidding where they had to give bonds for
+ six hundred and forty thousand dollars, and the sureties upon these bonds
+ under oath had to testify that they had real estate to the value of six
+ hundred and forty thousand dollars, exclusive of all debts, dues, and
+ demands. So there was another reason for bidding upon small routes. Where
+ the amount was under five thousand dollars no certified check had to be
+ deposited, and the smaller the route of course the smaller the bond.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I have endeavored to show you the reasons that we bid upon these
+ routes instead of upon the larger ones. The reasons as stated by the
+ Government are that we took these routes where the service was once a
+ week, so that we could have the service increased; that we took those
+ routes where the time was long so that we could have it shortened, that is
+ to say, expedited. But I tell you that when a perfectly good reason lies
+ at the very threshold of the question you have no right to go further. The
+ reasons I have given to you it seems to me are perfect and you need no
+ more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, we got, I say, about one hundred and thirty-four routes. Of
+ these, one hundred and fifteen are without complaint. There is not a word
+ about the other one hundred and fifteen. Recollect it. We got one hundred
+ and thirty-four routes. In this indictment are nineteen; one hundred and
+ fifteen appear to be perfectly satisfactory to this great Government.
+ There is not a word as to those routes, not one word, I say, as to one
+ hundred and fifteen routes, and they want you to believe that these
+ defendants deliberately selected nineteen routes out of one hundred and
+ thirty-four about which to make a conspiracy, and that they left one
+ hundred and fifteen to go honestly along, but picked out nineteen for the
+ purpose of defrauding the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, when these gentlemen found themselves with these routes, the
+ next thing was to put the stock and the carriers upon them. As I told you,
+ a good many more had been awarded to them than they anticipated. They had
+ not the money. So, in putting the stock upon several of the routes, they
+ found it necessary to borrow some money, and here comes another suspicious
+ circumstance. Mr. Miner borrowed some money of Stephen W. Dorsey, and
+ everybody is astonished that any man would be mean enough to loan money to
+ another; that any man could so far forget the dignity of the office that
+ he held as to help a friend. Their idea of a Senator is of such a lofty
+ and dignified character that he ceases to take interest in anything except
+ national affairs; that after he has been sworn in he forgets all the
+ relationships and friendships of the world, and the idea of asking him to
+ loan money seems, to the prosecution, to be the height of
+ unconstitutionality. But as a matter of fact he did loan some money, and
+ we will show you how that loan was treated, showing you that at that time
+ he had not the slightest interest in it. He loaned some money, and kept
+ loaning money until, I believe, he had given them about sixteen thousand
+ dollars to get these routes on. Then he, being on his way to New Mexico,
+ met in the city of Saint Louis John R. Miner, who at that time was coming
+ back, I think, from Montana or Dakota, where he had been putting stock on
+ a route. Miner saw Dorsey in Saint Louis, and said to him, "We have got to
+ have a little more money, and I want you to indorse my note or to loan me
+ your note and I can get it discounted in the German-American Bank in
+ Washington." Finally, Dorsey said to him, "You have already obtained from
+ me about sixteen thousand dollars: I will give you the note you ask, or
+ indorse your note upon one condition, and that is that you shall give me
+ orders"&mdash;what are called Post-Office drafts&mdash;"not only for the
+ amount of this note, but for the amount of the sixteen thousand dollars."
+ We shall insist, gentlemen, that that evidence shows exactly our position,
+ and that you are entitled not only to draw from it, but that you must draw
+ from it the inference, the fact, that we had no interest in those routes.
+ Finally that was agreed to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, understand it, at that time a contractor with the Government who had
+ agreed to carry the mail for a certain time could give what are called
+ post-office drafts or orders&mdash;you know, orders on his quarterly pay&mdash;and
+ they would be taken to the proper officer in the Post-Office Department
+ and they would be accepted, not for the full amount, understand, but for
+ any amount that might be due that contractor. For instance, he might fail
+ to carry the mail, he might be fined, and consequently the amount of that
+ draft might not be there, so that the only thing the Post-Office
+ Department agreed to do was to pay upon that order or draft anything that
+ was due to the contractor. That was done at that time, and why? Because
+ there was no way other than that to secure these advances. So he gave
+ these drafts. He came on to Washington. The note was put into the
+ German-American Bank. The orders on the Post-Office Department were filed
+ with it, and the money advanced by the bank and charged to Stephen W.
+ Dorsey. That made, then, at that time about twenty-five thousand dollars
+ that Dorsey had advanced. That being done he went on about his business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I will show you what happened after that. I think the note in the
+ German-American Bank was nine thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars, I
+ have forgotten which. Dorsey then went on to New Mexico from Saint Louis,
+ and remained there, I believe, until December, 1878. Now, I want you to
+ understand this, because here turns a very important question, and a very
+ important point. Now, you recollect the information about these bids was
+ collected in the autumn and winter of 1877. The last bid was to be put in,
+ I think, February 28, 1878. Now, this was in the August of that year,
+ 1878. Still being pressed for money, Miner, Peck, and J. W. Dorsey were in
+ danger of being declared failing contractors. Now, recollect it. We will
+ show that at that time Brady, who, according to the Government, was a
+ co-conspirator, threatened to declare Dorsey, Peck, and Miner failing
+ contractors, and if he had declared them failing contractors even on one
+ route that was the end of all. At that time Miner and John W. Dorsey
+ sought out Mr. Harvey M. Vaile, and let me say that is the first
+ appearance of Mr. Vaile in these contracts. He knew nothing about the
+ bidding, was not in Dorsey's house, knew nothing about the letting. That
+ is his first appearance in these contracts, August, 1878. Now let us see
+ what he did. He was a man of means. He had some money; had been, I
+ believe, for a long time engaged in carrying the mails; understood the
+ business. They will tell you that is a suspicious circumstance as to him,
+ and that the fact that that was John Dorsey's first experience is a
+ suspicious circumstance as to him. Really to avoid suspicion you would
+ have to have a man that had been in it a long time but never had anything
+ to do with it. They got him, and offered what? To give him a third
+ interest in this entire business. I think that was it. They were to give
+ him a third interest in this entire business, a business that had been
+ born of conspiracy, a business that had as a silent partner the man who
+ fixed the amount of money to be paid. Think of that. According to the
+ statement of the Government, here was a conspiracy full-fledged, perfect
+ in its every part, flanked by the Second Assistant Postmaster-General,
+ buttressed by all the clerks they desired, and yet that conspiracy got so
+ hard up that in August, 1878, nine or ten months after its creation, it
+ was willing to give a third to anybody who would advance a little money to
+ carry the thing on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Mr. Vaile came in. Now, then, they had to secure Vaile against any
+ loss, and it seems that on July 1, I believe, of that year, the law
+ allowed the subcontract to be filed. It was a little while before that
+ that a law had been passed for the protection of subcontractors. That was
+ all explained to you yesterday. You know it is something like a mechanic's
+ lien; that if the subcontractor would only file his subcontract in the
+ Post-Office Department and let that department know the terms of it they
+ would not pay the original contractor until this subcontractor was paid.
+ Now, that law had gone into effect a little while before August, 1878, and
+ the effect of that law, if anybody filed a subcontract on these routes,
+ was to cut out all those post-office orders that Miner had given to secure
+ Dorsey. You understand me now, do you not? It was when he met him in Saint
+ Louis that it was agreed that these post-office orders were to be given
+ and filed with the German-American Bank in this city. Now, then, the law
+ passed for the protection of subcontractors, and subsequently the filing
+ of subcontracts on those very routes, would render those post-office
+ orders absolutely worthless. Very well. When they made the contract with
+ Mr. Vaile they agreed to file the subcontracts with the department to
+ protect Vaile and that rendered S. W. Dorsey's security absolutely
+ nothing. That cut out all other claims, drafts, and everything else, and
+ at that time Mr. Miner was fully authorized by power of attorney from J.
+ W. Dorsey and from John M. Peck, who was at that time in New Mexico, to
+ make this transfer to Vaile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, see where we are on August 16, 1878. On Dorsey's return in December,
+ 1878&mdash;he had not been here from that time, and do you not see he had
+ nothing to do with it&mdash;he found that these subcontracts had been
+ filed. He found that the note in the German-American Bank had been
+ protested, and he found that his collateral security was not worth a
+ dollar, that it was all gone. Thereupon he demanded a settlement. The
+ matter drifted along for a little while, and a settlement was made with
+ the bank; and Mr. Vaile, holding the subcontract, undertook to pay that
+ Dorsey note, and he did pay it. He took it up, and gave, I believe, his
+ own instead, and that was finally paid. But the money due Dorsey, the
+ sixteen thousand dollars that at that time amounted to something more by
+ virtue of interest, was not provided for. The money that had been expended
+ by John W. Dorsey was not provided for. The money expended by Peck was not
+ provided for. Now, I want you to see exactly how that matter stood at that
+ time. We have got it up to that time and here it stands, and the chief
+ conspirator out sixteen thousand dollars and without any interest in one
+ of the routes. There is where he was at that time, and that is what we
+ will show. The brother of the chief conspirator ten thousand dollars out,
+ and not the interest of one cent in any route. The brother-in-law of the
+ conspirator about ten thousand dollars out, and not a cent in. That was
+ the condition of this conspiracy at this time, and when Vaile took these
+ routes Brady telegraphed him and asked him, "What routes of Miner, Dorsey,
+ and Peck, are you going to put the stock on? This thing can be continued
+ no longer. The stock must go on." We will show it. Now, having got to that
+ point, we will take another step. There is nothing like understanding
+ things as we go along.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, from the time Mr. Vaile took the route, to the settlement in 1879, to
+ which I will call your attention in a little while, Mr. Vaile had the
+ absolute control. Neither Peck nor S. W. Dorsey had the slightest thing to
+ do with one of those routes until the final settlement, and I say to these
+ gentlemen of the prosecution now, that in that time they can find no line,
+ no word from Stephen W. Dorsey upon the subject. They cannot find that he
+ wrote a word to any official, that he sent a petition to anybody, that he
+ wrote a letter to any human being upon the subject, or that he took any
+ more interest in it than in the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah. It went right
+ along.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, up to this time, Stephen W. Dorsey had made nothing. He was
+ only out about sixteen thousand dollars or eighteen thousand dollars. John
+ W. Dorsey was in the same healthy financial condition. John M. Peck had
+ reaped the same rich harvest of ten thousand dollars lost, and all the
+ things had been turned over to Mr. Vaile; John W. Dorsey put out&mdash;left
+ out&mdash;with nothing to show. That is the first chapter in this
+ conspiracy. [Resuming.]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe when I stopped, the principal conspirators were substantially
+ "broke." The head and front was out sixteen or eighteen thousand dollars,
+ and the other two ten thousand dollars each. Now, a contract was made, and
+ I propose to prove that contract in the course of this trial. When that
+ contract comes to be shown, it will be about this: That, on the 16th day
+ of August, 1878, H. M. Vaile, John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W.
+ Dorsey made an agreement That agreement made a partnership, and we will
+ show that a partnership was formed by and between Miner, Vaile, Peck, and
+ Dorsey on the 16th day of August, 1878. We will show by the articles of
+ that partnership that H. M. Vaile was made treasurer, and that all the
+ other partners agreed, by suitable powers of attorney, to put the
+ collection of all the money from the Government absolutely in his hands.
+ When he got the money he agreed, first, to pay all the subcontractors;
+ second, the expenses necessary and incident to the proper conduct of the
+ business; third, to divide the profits remain-, ing among the parties as
+ provided in that contract. The profits were to be divided as follows: From
+ routes in Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, to H. M. Vaile,
+ one-third; to John R. Miner, one-sixth; to John M. Peck, one-sixth; and to
+ John W. Dorsey, one-third. From routes in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New
+ Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Washington Territory, Oregon, Nevada, and
+ California, to H. M. Vaile, one-third; to John R. Miner, one-third, and to
+ John M. Peck, one-third. Before any division of profits was to be made,
+ the sums which before that time had been advanced were to be paid to the
+ parties so advancing such sums; and if the profits were not sufficient to
+ repay the entire sums so advanced, they were to be paid from time to time
+ during the existence of the life of these contracts. Now, you will find
+ that such contract was made on the 16th day of August, 1878, and that Mr.
+ H. M. Vaile then took absolute and complete control of every one of these
+ routes, and the only thing they asked of him was to repay the money that
+ had been advanced, which, as you know, and as I have told you, was the
+ sixteen or eighteen thousand dollars by S. W. Dorsey, the ten thousand
+ dollars by Peck, and about the same amount by John W. Dorsey. Now that is
+ understood. At that time certain papers were executed by all the parties.
+ I told you that a law had been passed by virtue of which a man could make
+ a subcontract and have that subcontract put on file, and thereupon he
+ could be protected by the Government. Now, when H. M. Vaile took these
+ routes, and they were to be managed by him, subcontracts were made by the
+ other parties to Mr. Vaile, and Mr. Vaile put those subcontracts on
+ record. Now you can see that they gave him the absolute and entire control
+ of every route. That was the condition. I have explained to you the the
+ liability of a contractor. He cannot put it off on a subcontractor. He is
+ the man primarily responsible to the Government during the life of that
+ contract, and for six months thereafter. Whenever a contract is awarded to
+ any person, he is regarded as the original contractor, and his name is
+ kept upon the books of the department during the life of that contract. No
+ matter how many subcontracts may be made, he is looked to primarily if
+ there is a failure of a a trip, or if there is a failure of the service,
+ and he is responsible for its complete performance. If there comes some
+ great storm and the road is obstructed by snow, or if the bridges are all
+ carried away by flood, and the subcontractor throws down the contract, the
+ original contractor must be ready to take it up; and if he fail to do so,
+ he can be fined three times what he has received for each trip. There is
+ one case in one of these nineteen routes, gentlemen, where the fines
+ exceeded the entire pay simply because they did not carry the mail
+ according to the contract. Now, then, these parties finally made a
+ settlement and they divided these routes. They divided them. They ceased
+ to have any interest in common. Recollect, that was in April, 1879. I want
+ you to know it because this entire case depends on your knowing it. This
+ entire case, gentlemen of the jury, depends on your understanding it. In
+ April, 1879, Mr. Vaile having had possession of these routes for several
+ months, a division was made of them, and all interest in common was at
+ that moment severed. At this time, I say, these routes were divided, and
+ all partnership and all partnership interest was absolutely destroyed. I
+ want to tell you why. When Dorsey returned from New Mexico and found that
+ his orders on the Post-Office Department had been superseded by
+ subcontracts and that his collateral security was worthless he was
+ indignant, and at that time he and Mr. Vaile had a quarrel. He did not
+ think he had been properly treated, and for that reason the moment he got
+ the note at the German-American Bank provided for, the moment he induced
+ Mr. Vaile to assume the payment of that note, he gave evidence that he
+ wanted a settlement. Not that he wanted the routes divided at that time,
+ because he did not dream of such a thing. He wanted the settlement. He
+ wanted his money. The arrangement that had been made with Mr. Vaile was
+ unknown to Mr. Dorsey, who at that time was in New Mexico; and, as I told
+ you before, when he returned and found that the note that had been given
+ to the German-American National Bank was protested, and found, as I told
+ you twice, his collateral security was worthless, he wanted a settlement.
+ He wanted his money refunded to him. They said to him, "We haven't the
+ money. We have just got the stock really upon these routes. We have just
+ got under way, and we cannot pay out the money." "Very well," said he,
+ "what will you give me?" I want you all to see that this was a simple,
+ natural, ordinary proceeding. Said he, "I want my money." Said Vaile to
+ him, "We haven't the money, but I will tell you what we will do. We will
+ divide the routes with you." Now, recollect at that time that they had a
+ hundred and thirty-four routes, and had given some of them away. At that
+ time they agreed upon a division, and they agreed how that division should
+ be made. We will prove the agreement to you. The agreement was that Mr.
+ Vaile should choose first, taking the route he wanted&mdash;he and Miner
+ being together at that time&mdash;that Mr. Dorsey should choose the next,
+ and Mr. Miner should choose the third route; and then that Mr. Vaile
+ should choose the fourth, Stephen W. Dorsey the fifth route, Mr. Miner the
+ sixth route, Mr. Vaile the seventh route, and so on. They finally
+ concluded it would be fair for Mr. Vaile to take the best route, Dorsey
+ the next best, and Miner the next best, and then again Vaile the best,
+ Dorsey the next best, and Miner the next best, and that that would be an
+ average that would do justice to each. In that way, gentlemen, they
+ divided these routes. There was no conspiracy; nothing secret. This
+ division was made on the 6th day of April, 1879, not only after Dorsey had
+ gone out of the Senate, but after he had advanced this money, after they
+ had failed to repay him, after he had failed to collect it, and when he
+ finally had said, "I must have some settlement that recognizes my claim."
+ Gentlemen, I want you to know that. In this case that fact will be one of
+ the great central facts. On the 6th day of April, 1879, these routes were
+ absolutely divided, and after that they had nothing in common. But you
+ recollect that these routes were divided by chance. Mr. Vaile chose the
+ first route. He might choose a route that had been bid off by Peck, or he
+ might choose a route that had been bid off by John W. Dorsey. Stephen W.
+ Dorsey took the next route, and that might have been a route that had
+ originally been awarded to his brother, or to Peck, or to Miner. You can
+ see how that is. The division was here complete. Mr. Miner did not have
+ the routes he had bid off and that had been given to him by the
+ Government. Mr. Vaile came in, and as Mr. Vaile was not an original bidder
+ he took routes that had been awarded to Miner and to Peck and to John W.
+ Dorsey. By the division Stephen W. Dorsey came into possession of routes
+ that he never had bid off, because he never bid for one. Consequently as
+ he went along with those routes, he needed and he had oftentimes the
+ affidavit or the certificate of the original contractor. That was a
+ necessity. Otherwise the division could not have been carried out.
+ Anything that arises from the necessity of the case does not tend to show
+ any conspiracy or any illegal partnership. I hope you understand perfectly
+ that on the 6th day of April, 1879, these routes were divided and Stephen
+ W. Dorsey took his share because they at that time owed him between
+ sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more did he do, gentlemen? He agreed at that time that he would
+ refund to John W. Dorsey all the money he had expended. That amount was
+ about ten thousand dollars. It was nine thousand and something. He also
+ agreed that he would refund to John M. Peck, who is now dead, the money he
+ had expended, which was between nine and ten thousand dollars. He also
+ agreed that he would take the routes for the money he had expended, and
+ that was between sixteen and eighteen thousand dollars. So, when those
+ routes were turned over to him they were taken in full of over sixteen
+ thousand dollars advanced by him, ten thousand dollars that he was to give
+ to his brother, and ten thousand dollars that he was to give to John M.
+ Peck&mdash;in the neighborhood of thirty-eight thousand dollars in all.
+ Speaking of the sum without interest it amounted to thirty-six thousand
+ dollars. Those routes were turned over to him. Gentlemen, it was not done
+ in secret. When that division was made, the law having provided no way for
+ A to assign a contract to B, that assignment had to be accomplished by a
+ subcontract, and consequently subcontracts had to be given to Vaile,
+ subcontracts to John R. Miner, and subcontracts to S. W. Dorsey, and yet
+ the original contractor was still held by the Government. When the
+ subcontract was made, it was for the entire amount of the pay; not one
+ dollar remained for the original contractor. Now, I want to state to you
+ what we are going to prove about that. After the division was made, to
+ show you the interest taken by the arch-conspirator, we will prove these
+ facts: That when the routes awarded to him by chance, on the 6th day of
+ April, 1879, had been awarded, he left the city of Washington in a few
+ days, and went to New Mexico; that he returned here on the 15th or 16th of
+ May; that he left again on the 19th of May, and went to Arkansas; that
+ from Arkansas he went to New Mexico, and returned to Washington on the
+ 21st day of June, and that on the 27th of June he left for New Mexico. The
+ next time he visited Washington was in July of the following year, 1880.
+ He remained here one day, left and returned again to witness the
+ inauguration of General Garfield. From June 27, 1879, up to the present
+ hour I challenge these gentlemen to show that Stephen W. Dorsey ever wrote
+ one line, one word, one letter, to any officer of the Post-Office
+ Department. I challenge them to show that he ever took the slightest
+ interest in any star route, or said one word to any human being about that
+ business, except in explanation when attacked by the Government or in the
+ newspapers. Now, gentlemen, after the division of these routes what did
+ Stephen W. Dorsey do? This is a story, complicated, it may seem, perfectly
+ plain when you understand the surroundings. It is a story necessary for
+ you to know. After he got these routes what did he do? Did he want them?
+ Did he want to engage in carrying the mail of the United States? Was that
+ his business? At that time he had a ranch in New Mexico where he was
+ raising cattle. That was his business, and is up to to-day. Did he want to
+ stay here? Did he want to attend to these contracts? That is for you to
+ determine. Did he want to enter into some partnership by which the
+ Government was to be fleeced? That is for you to say. I tell you he had
+ another business. I tell you he had a ranch in New Mexico, and we will
+ prove it to you, and that ranch was of more importance to him than all the
+ star routes in the United States. We will show you that at that time he
+ could not have afforded to waste his time on these routes; that the
+ business he was then engaged in was too profitable to waste any time in
+ the mail business. Profitable as these gentlemen appear to think it was,
+ what did he do? Just as soon as he could make the arrangement he went to a
+ gentleman living in Pennsylvania by the name of James W. Bosler. Who is
+ Bosler? He is a man well acquainted with the business of contracting with
+ the Government. He has been in that business for years and years. He is a
+ man of ample fortune, excellent reputation, considered by his friends and
+ neighbors to be a gentleman and an honest man. He went to him. That we
+ will show you. He said to Mr. Bosler, "I have advanced money by the
+ indorsement of a note. I am in a business that I do not understand. We
+ have had to divide the routes in order for me to have security for my
+ debt. I want to turn these routes over to you. I am not acquainted with
+ the business of carrying the mail. I know absolutely nothing about it. I
+ want you to take it." How did he turn it over? We will show. He said to
+ Mr. Bosler, "You take all the routes that have been given to me; every
+ one. You run them and you pay me back my money, and then we will divide
+ the profit." Mr. Bosler said he was not very well acquainted with
+ post-office business, but he understood how to transact any ordinary
+ business, and he would take them. That is all there is to it. He took the
+ routes; every one. I believe that he took absolute control within a few
+ months of the 6th day of April. I do not know but the warrants for the
+ first quarter were paid or came in some way to S. W. Dorsey. But for the
+ second quarter Mr. Bosler took them, and from that day to this Mr. Bosler
+ has controlled those routes. He has carried every mail or has contracted
+ with the man who did carry it. Every solitary thing that has been done
+ from that day to this has been done by him. Every dollar has been
+ collected by Mr. Bosler, and every dollar has been disbursed by Mr.
+ Bosler. And before we get through I am going to tell you how all the
+ routes that were given to Mr. S. W. Dorsey came out. Let me tell you how
+ they came out. Mr. Bosler has carried the mail, paid the expenses, kept
+ the accounts, and, gentlemen, I am going to tell you how much he made out
+ of this vast conspiracy that has convulsed that part of the moral world
+ that has been hired and paid to be convulsed. I am going to tell you
+ exactly how we came out on all this business. I will give you the product
+ of all this rascality, of all this conspiracy, of all the written and
+ spoken lies; I will tell you our joint profit on this entire business; a
+ business that promised to change the administration of this Government; a
+ business about which reputations have been lost, and no reputations will
+ be won; counting it all, every dollar, and taking into consideration the
+ midnight meetings, the whisperings in alleys, the strange grips and signs
+ that we have had to invent and practice, you will wonder at the amount. I
+ will give it to you all. Mr. Bosler has kept the books, has expended every
+ dollar, collected every warrant, and I say to you to-day that the entire
+ profit has been less than ten thousand dollars, not enough to pay ten
+ witnesses of the Government. Our profits have not been one-fiftieth of the
+ expense of the Government in this prosecution&mdash;not one-fiftieth, and
+ I say this, gentlemen, knowing what I am saying. It is charged by the
+ Government that these gentlemen were conspirators; that they dragged the
+ robes of office in the mire of rascality; that they swore lies; that they
+ made false petitions; that they forged the names of citizens; that they
+ did all this for the paltry profit of ten thousand dollars. That is what
+ we will show you. And the moment this reform administration swept into
+ power they cut down the service on these routes. They not only did that,
+ but they refused to pay the month's extra pay, and they committed all this
+ villainy in the name of reform. And do you know some of the meanest things
+ in this world have been done in the name of reform? They used to say that
+ patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel. I think reform is. And
+ whenever I hear a small politician talking about reform, borrowing soap to
+ wash his official hands, with his mouth full and his memory glutted with
+ the rascality of somebody else I begin to suspect him; I begin to think
+ that that gentleman is preparing to steal something. So much, then, for
+ the conspiracy up to this point, up to the division of these routes in
+ 1879. Now recollect it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next charge that is made against us, and it is a terrific one, is
+ that these defendants, my clients, have filled the Post-Office Department
+ with petitions&mdash;false petitions; forged petitions. I want to tell you
+ here to-day that these gentlemen will never present any petitions upon any
+ route upon which my clients are interested that they will claim was forged&mdash;not
+ one. Have we not the right, gentlemen, to petition? Has not the humblest
+ man in the United States a right to send a petition to Congress? Has not
+ the smallest man&mdash;I will go further&mdash;has not the meanest man the
+ right to petition Congress? Why, it is considered one of our
+ Constitutional rights not only, but a right back of the Constitution, to
+ make known your grievances to the governing power. Every man always had a
+ right to petition the king. There is no government so absolutely devoid of
+ the spirit of liberty that the meanest subject in it has not the right to
+ express his opinion to the king&mdash;to the czar. Upon what meat do these
+ officers feed that they are grown so great that an ordinary citizen may
+ not address a petition to one of them? Now, I ask you, if you were living
+ in Colorado and could get a mail once a week, have you not the right to
+ petition your member of Congress to have it three times a week? Do you not
+ know that every member of Congress from every State, every delegate from
+ every Territory, is judged by his constitutents by the standard of what he
+ does. By what he does for whom? By what he does for them. They send a man
+ to Congress to help them, and they expect that man to get them a mail just
+ as often as any other member of Congress gets his people a mail, do they
+ not? And if he cannot do that they will leave that young gentleman at
+ home. They will find another man. It is the boast of a member of Congress
+ when he returns to his constitutents, "I have done something for you. You
+ only had a mail here once a week. I have got it four times a week,
+ gentlemen." "Here is a river that was navigable. I have got a custom
+ house." "Here is a great district in which the United States holds a court
+ and I have an appropriation for a court-house." Up will go the caps; they
+ will say, "He is the man we want to represent us next session." But if he
+ sneaks back and says, "Gentlemen, you do not need a court-house, you have
+ mails often enough," the reply of the people is, "And you have been to
+ Congress often enough." That is nature, and no matter how highly we are
+ civilized when you scratch through the varnish you find a natural man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, every member of Congress felt it was his duty, his privilege,
+ and his leverage, to have the mails established, and when the people got
+ up petitions he would indorse them. He would look at the petitions. There
+ was the principal man, you know, in his town. He would look down a little
+ farther. There was a fellow that had an idea of running against him. He
+ would look down a little farther, and there was the man who presented his
+ name at the last convention; there is the fellow who subscribed three
+ hundred dollars towards the expenses of the campaign. That is enough. He
+ turns it right over&mdash;"I most earnestly recommend that this petition
+ be granted. So and so, M. C." Then he would put it in his coat-pocket, and
+ he would march down to General Brady with a smile on his face as broad as
+ the horizon of his countenance. He would just explain to the gentleman
+ that there are miner's camps springing up all over that country, towns
+ growing in a night like mushrooms, Providence just throwing prosperity
+ away in that valley; that they have to have a daily mail then and there,
+ and he would show this petition. In three weeks more there would come
+ fifty others, and it would be granted. Why, even the counsel for the
+ prosecution would have done the same, strange as it may appear. They would
+ have done just the same&mdash;maybe worse, maybe better. The Post-Office
+ officials might have granted more to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I have always had the idea that it was one of my rights to sign a
+ petition; that no man in this country could grow so great that I had not
+ the right just to hand the gentleman a paper with my opinion on it. Do you
+ know I do not think anybody can get so big that an American citizen cannot
+ send a letter to him if he pays the postage, and in that letter he can
+ give him his opinion. There is no fraud about that; not the slightest.
+ These men all out through the mountains, men that went out there, you
+ know, to hunt for silver and for gold, live in little camps of not more
+ than twenty or thirty, maybe, but they wanted to hear from home just as
+ bad as though there had been five hundred in that very place. And a fellow
+ that had dug in the ground about eleven feet and had found some rock with
+ a little stain on it and had had the stain assayed, wanted to hear from
+ home right off. He stayed there and dreamed about fortune, palaces,
+ pictures, carriages, statues, and the whole future was simply an avenue of
+ joy upon which he and his wife and the children would ride up and down. He
+ wanted to write a letter right off. He wanted to tell the folks how he
+ felt. Do you think that man would not sign a petition for another mail? Do
+ you think that fellow would vote to send a stupid man to Congress who
+ could not get another mail? He felt rich; he was sleeping right over a
+ hole that had millions in it, and he had not much respect for a Government
+ that could not afford to send a millionaire a letter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Mr. Bliss tells you that we forged petitions, and in only a few
+ moments, as the Court will remember, he had the kindness to say that
+ anybody in the world would sign a petition for anything, and the question
+ arises if people are so glad to sign petitions why should we forge their
+ names. Do you not see that doctrine kind of swallows itself. You certainly
+ would not forge the name of a man to a note who was hunting you up to sign
+ it. And yet the doctrine of the Government is that while the whole West
+ rose en masse, each man with a pen in his hand and inquiring for a
+ petition, these defendants deliberately went to work and forged it. It
+ won't do, gentlemen. Oh, my Lord, what a thing a little common sense is
+ when you come to think about it, when you come to place it before your
+ mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next great trouble in this case, gentlemen, is that we bid on
+ routes that were not productive. When you remember that Congress made all
+ these routes&mdash;now Congress did it; we did not do it&mdash;you will
+ protect us. We did not make a solitary route upon which we bid, strange as
+ it may appear. Congress, with the map of the Territories and the States of
+ the Union before it, marked out all the routes. Congress determined where
+ these routes should run. And yet this case has been tried as though in
+ reality we were the parties who determined it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me say something right here. It is for Congress to determine
+ first of all on what routes the mail shall be carried. I want you to
+ understand that, to get it into your heads, way in, that Congress
+ determined that question, and that there has to be a law passed that the
+ mail shall be carried from Toquerville to Adairville, from Rawlins to
+ White River. That law has to be passed first, and Congress has to say that
+ that route shall be established. Now, get that in your minds. I give you
+ my word we never established a mail on the earth. That was done by
+ Congress, and the moment Congress establishes a route it becomes the duty
+ of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to put the service upon that
+ route, and the duty of the First Assistant Postmaster-General to name the
+ offices on that route. Is not that true? That is the doctrine. Now, that
+ had all been done before we entered into a conspiracy. These routes had
+ not only been established, but the Government had advertised for service
+ on these routes, and we bid. That was our crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gentlemen said, I believe, at one time, that they were about to lift
+ a little of the curtain, to expose the action of Congress. You see this
+ suit has threatened the whole Government. If the Constitution weathers
+ this storm it will be in luck. They were going to raise the curtain. They
+ were going to be like children hanging around a circus tent. One lifts it
+ up and hallooes to another, "Come quick, I see a horse's foot." They said
+ that they were going to show the rascality of Congress. They have never
+ done it. I suppose the reason may be that their pay depends upon an act of
+ Congress, but they let that alone. Now, they say that Congress committed a
+ great mistake. Why, they say they were routes that were not productive,
+ and we knew it, and that when the people asked for expedition and increase
+ on a route that was not productive we were guilty of fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, let us see: There are not a great many productive
+ post-offices in the United States. They say that a post-office that is not
+ productive should be wiped out. Let me say to you, you cut off the
+ post-offices that are not productive and you will have thousands the next
+ day that are not productive. It is the unproductive offices that make
+ others productive. You cut off those that are not productive and you will
+ have double the number that are not productive. You cut off all those that
+ are unproductive and you will have nothing left but the mail line. You
+ might say that there is not a spring that flows into the Mississippi that
+ is navigable. Let us cut off the springs. Then what becomes of the
+ Mississippi? That is not navigable either. It is on account of the streams
+ not navigable, emptying into one, that the one into which they empty,
+ becomes navigable. And yet, these gentlemen say in the interest of
+ navigation, "Let us stop the springs because you cannot run a boat up
+ them." That is their doctrine. There is no sense in that. You have got to
+ treat this country as one country. You have got to treat the post-offices
+ business as a unit for an entire country. You have got to say that
+ wherever the flag floats the mail shall be carried, wherever American
+ citizens live they shall be visited with the intelligence of the
+ nineteenth century. That is what you have got to say. You have got to get
+ up on a good high plane, and you have got to run a great Government like
+ this that dominates the fortune of a continent, and you have got to run it
+ like great men. There has got to be some genius in this thing and not
+ little bits of suspicion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Productiveness! Let us see. We are informed by Mr. Bliss, who is paid for
+ saying it, otherwise he would not, that the West is perfectly willing to
+ have mail facilities at the expense of the East. I do not think the
+ gentleman comprehends the West. There is nothing so laughable, and
+ sometimes there is nothing so contemptible, as the egotism of a little
+ fellow who lives in a big town. Some people really think that New York
+ supports this country, and probably it never entered the mind of Mr. Bliss
+ that this country supported New York. But it does. All the clerks in that
+ city do not make anything, they do not manufacture anything, they do not
+ add to the wealth of this world. I tell you, the men who add to the wealth
+ of this world are the men who dig in the ground. The men who walk between
+ the rows of corn, the men who delve in the mines, the men who wrestle with
+ the winds and waves of the wide sea, the men on whose faces you find the
+ glare of forges and furnaces, the men who get something out of the ground,
+ and the men who take something rude and raw in nature and fashion it into
+ form for the use and convenience of men, are the men who add to the wealth
+ of this world. All the merchants in this world would not support this
+ country. My Lord! you could not get lawyers enough on a continent to run
+ one town. And yet, Mr. Bliss talks as though he thought that all the
+ mutton and beef of the United States were raised in Central Park, as
+ though we got all our wool from shearing lambs in Wall Street. It won't
+ do, gentlemen. There is a great deal produced in the Western country. I
+ was out there a few years ago, and found a little town like Minneapolis
+ with fifteen thousand people, and everybody dead-broke. I went there the
+ other day and found eighty thousand people, and visited one man who grinds
+ five thousand bushels of flour each day. I found there the Falls of Saint
+ Anthony doing work for a continent without having any back to ache,
+ grinding thirty thousand bushels of flour daily. Just think of the immense
+ power it is. Millions of feet of lumber in this very country, and Dakota,
+ over which some of these routes run, yielding a hundred million bushels of
+ wheat. Only a few years ago I was there and passed over an absolute
+ desert, a wilderness, and on this second visit found towns of five and six
+ and seven thousand inhabitants. There is not a man on this jury, there is
+ not a man in this house with imagination enough to prophesy the growth of
+ the great West, and before I get through I will show you that we have
+ helped to do something for that great country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Productiveness! Let me tell you where that idea of productiveness was
+ hatched, where it was born, the egg out of which it came. It was by the
+ act of March 2, 1799, just after the Revolution, and just after our
+ forefathers had refused to pay their debts, just after they had repudiated
+ the debt of the Confederation, just after they had allowed money to turn
+ to ashes in the pockets of the hero of Yorktown, or had allowed it to
+ become worthless in the hand of the widow and the orphan. In 1799, the
+ time when economy trod upon the heels almost of larceny, our Congress
+ provided that the Postmaster-General should report to Congress after the
+ second year of its establishment every post-road which should not have
+ produced one-third the expense of carrying the mail. Recollect it, and I
+ want you to recollect in this connection that we never established a
+ post-route in the world. We will show that, anyway, if we show nothing
+ else. By the act of 1825 a route was discontinued within three years that
+ did not produce a fourth of the expenses. Now, when those laws were in
+ force the postage was collected at the place of delivery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in old times, gentlemen, in Illinois, in 1843, it was considered a
+ misfortune to receive a letter. The neighbors sympathized with a man who
+ got a letter. He had to pay twenty-five cents for it. It took five bushels
+ of corn at that time, five bushels of oats, four bushels of potatoes, ten
+ dozen eggs to get one letter. I have myself seen a farmer in a perturbed
+ state of mind, going from neighbor to neighbor telling of his distress
+ because there was a letter in the post-office for him. In 1851 the postage
+ was reduced to three cents when it was prepaid, and the law provided that
+ the diminution of income should not discontinue any route, neither should
+ it affect the establishment of new routes, and for the first time in the
+ history of our Government the idea of productiveness was abandoned. It was
+ not a question of whether we would make money by it or not; the question
+ was, did the people deserve a mail and was it to the interest of the
+ Government to carry that mail? I am a believer in the diffusion of
+ intelligence. I believe in frequent mails. I believe in keeping every part
+ of this vast Republic together by a knowledge of the same ideas, by a
+ knowledge of the same facts, by becoming acquainted with the same
+ thoughts. If there is anything that is to perpetuate this Republic it is
+ the distribution of intelligence from one end to the other. Just as soon
+ as you stop that we grow provincial; we get little, mean, narrow
+ prejudices; we begin to hate people because we do not know them; we begin
+ to ascribe all our faults to other folks. I believe in the diffusion of
+ intelligence everywhere. I want to give to every man and to every woman
+ the opportunity to know what is happening in the world of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to carry the mail to the hut as well as to the palace. I want to
+ carry the mail to the cabin of the white man or the colored man, no matter
+ whether in Georgia, Alabama, or in the Territories. I want to carry him
+ the mail and hand it to him as I hand it to a Vanderbilt or to a Jay
+ Gould. That is my doctrine. The law of 1851 did away with your
+ productiveness nonsense, and when the mails were first put upon railways
+ in the year 1838, the law made a limit, not on account of productiveness,
+ but a limit of cost, and said the mail should not cost to exceed three
+ hundred dollars a mile. Let me correct myself. In 1838 a law was passed
+ that the mails might be carried by railroad provided they did not cost in
+ excess of twenty-five per cent, over the cost of mail coaches. In 1839
+ that law was repealed, and the law then provided that the pay on railways
+ should be limited to three hundred dollars a mile. So you see how much
+ productiveness has to do with this business. In 1861 Congress provided for
+ an overland mail. Did they look out for productiveness? The overland mail
+ in 1861 was a little golden thread by which the Pacific and the Atlantic
+ could be united through the great war. Just a mail, carrying now and then
+ a letter in 1861, and they were allowed, I think, twenty or thirty days to
+ cross. Was productiveness thought of? Congress provided that they might
+ pay for that service eight hundred thousand dollars a year. The mail did
+ not exceed a thousand pounds. Including everything. Some letters that were
+ carried from this side to the other cost the Government three hundred
+ dollars apiece. What was the object? It was simply that the hearts of the
+ Atlantic and the Pacific might feel each other's throb through the great
+ war. That is all. Suppose some poor misguided attorney had stood up at
+ that time and commenced talking about productiveness. In the presence of
+ these great national objects the cost fades, sinks. It is absolutely lost.
+ Wherever our flag flies I want to see the mail under it. After awhile we
+ established what is known as the free-delivery system. That was first
+ established on the idea of productiveness. Whenever you start a new idea,
+ as a rule, you have to appeal to all the meanness that is in conservatism.
+ Before you can induce conservatives to do a decent action you have to
+ prove to them that it will pay at least ten per cent. So they started that
+ way. They said, "We will only have this free delivery system where it
+ pays." We went on and found the system desirable, and that many people
+ wanted it, and that the revenues of the Post-Office Department were so
+ great that we could afford it, and we commenced having it where it did not
+ pay. Right here in the city of Washington, right here in the capital of
+ the great Republic, we have the free delivery system. Is it productive?
+ Last year we lost twenty-one thousand dollars distributing letters to the
+ attorneys for the prosecution and others. And yet now this District has
+ the impudence to talk about productiveness. If anybody wants to find that
+ fact it can be found on pages 42 and 45 of the Postmaster-General's
+ report. Productiveness! We have now a railway service in the United
+ States. I want to know if that is calculated upon the basis of
+ productiveness. A car starts from the city of New York, and runs twelve
+ hours ahead of the ordinary time to the city of Chicago for the simple
+ purpose of carrying the mail, stopping only where the engine needs water,
+ only when the monster whose bones are steel and whose breath is flame, is
+ tired. Do you suppose that pays? You could scarcely put letters enough
+ into the cars at three cents apiece to pay for the trip. At last we regard
+ this whole country as a unit for this business. We say the American people
+ are to be supplied. We do not care whether they live in New York or in
+ Durango; we do not care whether they are among the steeples of the East or
+ the crags of the West; we do not care whether they live in the villages of
+ New England or whether they are staked out on the plains of New Mexico.
+ For the purpose of the distribution of intelligence this great country is
+ one. Do you see what a big idea that is? When it gets into the heads of
+ some people you have no idea how uncomfortable they feel. I have as much
+ interest in this country as anybody, just exactly, and I am willing to
+ subscribe my share to have this mail carried so that the man on the very
+ western extreme, on the hem of the national garment, may have just as much
+ as the man who lives here in the shadow of the Capitol. You see whenever a
+ man gets to the height where he does not want anything that he is not
+ willing to give somebody else, then he first begins to appreciate what a
+ gentleman is and what an American should be. Productiveness! I say that
+ all the State and Territorial lines have been brushed aside. We do not
+ carry the mail in a State because it pays. We carry it because there are
+ people there; because there are American citizens there; not because it
+ pays. The post-office is not a miser; it is a national benefactor. There
+ are only seventeen States in this Union where the income of the
+ Post-Office Department is equal to the outlay; only seventeen States in
+ this Union. There are twenty-one States in which the mail is carried at a
+ loss. There are ten Territories in which we receive substantially nothing
+ in return for carrying the mail, and there is one District, the District
+ of Columbia. I do not know how many miles square this magnificent
+ territory is; I guess about six. Thirty-six square miles. How much is the
+ loss in this District per annum? About one thousand five hundred dollars a
+ square mile. The annual loss right here in this District is fifty-eight
+ thousand dollars, and yet the citizens of this town are rascally enough to
+ receive the mail, according to the prosecution. Why is it not stopped? Why
+ is not the Postmaster-General indicted for a conspiracy with some one?
+ This little territory, six miles square has a loss of fifty-eight thousand
+ dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there was a corresponding loss in Kansas, Nebraska, California, Dakota,
+ and Idaho, it would take more than the national debt to run the mail every
+ year. And yet here in thirty-six square miles comes the wail of
+ non-productiveness. It is almost a joke. We are carrying the mail in
+ Kansas at a loss of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and yet
+ Kansas has a hundred million bushels of wheat for sale. Good! I am willing
+ to send letters to such people. It is a vast and thriving country. It
+ contains men who have laid the foundation of future empires. I want people
+ big enough and broad enough and wide enough to understand that the valley
+ of the Mississippi will support five hundred millions of people. Let us
+ get some ideas, gentlemen. Let us get some sense. There is nothing like
+ it. We pay five hundred thousand dollars a year for the privilege of
+ carrying the mail in Nebraska. Do you know I am willing to pay my share.
+ Any man who will go out to Nebraska and just let the wind blow on him
+ deserves to have plenty of mail. You do not know here what wind is. You
+ have never felt anything but a zephyr. You have never felt anything but an
+ atmospheric caress. Go and try Nebraska. The wind there will blow a hole
+ out of the ground. Go out there and try one blizzard, a fellow that robs
+ the north pole and comes down on you, and you will be willing to carry the
+ mail to any man that will stay there and plow a hundred and sixty acres of
+ land. When I see a post-office clerk sitting in a good warm room and
+ making a fuss about a chap in Nebraska for not carrying the mail against a
+ blizzard, I have my sentiments. I know what I think of the man. In the
+ Territory of Utah we pay two hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year
+ for the privilege of carrying the mails, and the males in that country are
+ mostly polygamists. I want you to get an idea of this country. In the
+ State of California, that State of gold, that State of wheat, the State
+ that has added more to the metallic wealth of this nation than all others
+ combined, an empire of magnificence, we pay five hundred thousand dollars
+ a year for the privilege of distributing the mail. I am glad of it. I want
+ the pioneer fostered. I want the pioneer to feel the throb of national
+ generosity. I want him to feel that this is his country. You see the
+ post-office is about the only blessing he has. Every other visitor that
+ comes from the General Government wants taxes. The Post-Office Department
+ is the only evidence we possess of national beneficence. It is the only
+ thing that comes from the General Government that has not a warrant, that
+ does not intend to arrest us. In Texas, which is an empire of two hundred
+ and seventy-three thousand square miles, a territory greater than the
+ French empire, which at one time conquered Europe, we pay four hundred and
+ fifty-nine thousand dollars for the privilege of distributing the mail. I
+ am glad of it. It will not be long before that State will have millions of
+ people and give us back millions of dollars each year, and with that
+ surplus we will carry the mail to other Territories. A man who has not
+ pretty big ideas has no business in this country; not a bit. We pay one
+ hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars for the sake of carrying letters
+ and papers around Arkansas; one hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars
+ for the privilege of wandering up and down Alabama; one hundred and seven
+ thousand dollars in Missouri; two hundred and forty thousand dollars in
+ Ohio; two hundred and eight thousand dollars in Georgia; three hundred and
+ twelve thousand dollars in old Virginia. When I first went to Illinois the
+ Government had to pay for the privilege of carrying the mail in that
+ State. Now Illinois turns around and hands six hundred and sixty thousand
+ dollars of profit to the United States each year. She says, "You carry the
+ mail to the other fellows that cannot afford it just the same as you
+ carried it for us. You rocked our cradle, and we will pay for rocking
+ somebody else's cradle." That is sense. In other words, in seventeen
+ States we have a profit of seven million dollars. In twenty-one States,
+ ten Territories, and the District of Columbia we have a loss of five
+ million dollars. When we regard the country as a unit, then we make money
+ out of the whole business. That is good. We have in the United States
+ about a hundred and ten thousand miles of railroad now, and we pay about
+ two hundred dollars a mile for carrying the mail on those railroads. We
+ have two hundred and twenty-seven thousand miles of star routes, and we
+ pay on them between twenty and thirty dollars a mile. I want you to think
+ about it. In looking over the Post-master-General's report I accidentally
+ came across this fact. You know, gentlemen, the present period is a
+ paroxysmal period of reform. We are having what is known as a virtuous
+ spasm. We have that every little while. It is a kind of fiscal mumps or
+ whooping-cough. I find by this report that a mail averaging twenty pounds
+ carried in a baggage-car from Connellsville to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, is
+ paid for at the rate of forty-two dollars and seventy-two cents a mile.
+ Under General Brady the star routes cost between twenty and thirty dollars
+ a mile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I have told you our connection with the star-route
+ business. I have told it all to you freely, frankly, and fully. Some
+ charges have been made against us, and I want to speak to you about them.
+ You understand that it often takes quite awhile to explain a charge that
+ is made in only a few words. One man can say another did so and so. It is
+ only a lie, and yet it may take pages for the accused man to make his
+ explanation. The worst lie in the world is a lie which is partly true. You
+ understand that. When you explain a lie that has a little circumstance
+ going along with it, certifying to it, and attesting to its truth, it
+ takes you a great deal longer to explain it than it did to tell it. The
+ first great charge is that for us&mdash;and I limit myself to my clients&mdash;orders
+ were antedated. That is one great charge. Let me tell you just how that
+ was. Mr. Bliss calls attention to the fact that Mr. Brady made orders
+ relating back, and in one case he alleged that the order was made, for the
+ benefit of my clients, to take effect six weeks prior to its being issued.
+ I want to explain that. A railroad was being constructed along the line of
+ one of these routes. It may be well enough for me to say that it was the
+ Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The points from which the mail was carried
+ had to be changed as the road progressed. As it grew Mr. Brady increased
+ the service on the route to seven times a week. He increased it from the
+ end of the railroad, and he made it seven times a week because the mail on
+ the railroad was seven times a week. We were to carry the mail from the
+ end of the railroad, wherever that end might be. He increased the service
+ on this route from the end of the railroad to the other terminal point;
+ that is, he made it a daily mail so as to connect with the daily trains on
+ the railroad. At the time the seven trips were to be put on, distance
+ tables were sent out to postmasters at the terminal points to get the
+ distances. Let me tell you what a distance table is. The names of the
+ post-offices are on a circular, and the Post-Office Department sends that
+ circular to the postmasters along the route and they are asked to return
+ it with the distance from each station to every other marked upon it. Now,
+ until that table is returned it is impossible for the Second Assistant
+ Postmaster-General to tell how far they carry the mail. This railroad was
+ progressing every month, and as the railroad advanced the distance from
+ the end of the railroad to the other terminal point decreased. Now, the
+ Postmaster-General or the Second Assistant cannot fix that pay until he
+ has a return of the distance table. But before he has that return he can
+ order the contractor to carry the mail, and after the distance table is
+ returned then he can make up the formal order and have that order entered
+ upon the records of the department. That is all he ever did. I want you to
+ understand that perfectly. It might be four weeks after the contractor was
+ ordered to carry the mail from the termination of the railroad, or it
+ might be five or six weeks before the distance tables were returned and
+ the distance calculated. But do you not see it made no difference? There
+ was first an order either by telegraph or a short order, and after the
+ distance tables were returned then the distance was calculated, the amount
+ of money calculated, and the regular order written up and made of record,
+ and a warrant drawn for payment. That is all there is to it. And yet this
+ is what Mr. Bliss calls defrauding the Government. We are charged on that
+ kind of evidence with having defrauded the United States. We will show you
+ that no order of that kind was made except when the distance was unknown;
+ and that when the distance was ascertained, the formal order was made,
+ another order having been made before that time. Let me say right here
+ that orders of a similar nature have been made in the Post-Office
+ Department since its establishment. Since the construction of railways
+ there has not a month passed in that department&mdash;certainly not a year&mdash;when
+ such orders have not been made. And yet for the first time in the history
+ of the Government it is brought forward against us as an evidence of
+ fraud. We will show that the order was made exactly as I have stated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next badge of fraud that is charged is that after a route had been
+ awarded to us it was increased or expedited, or both, before the stock was
+ put on. Well, I will tell you just how that is, because you want to know.
+ This case, apparently complicated, is infinitely simple when it is
+ understood. There are in the United States, I believe, some ten thousand
+ of these star routes. They are all or nearly all in some way connected.
+ One depends upon another. It is a web woven over the entire West, and how
+ you run a mail here depends upon how one is run there, and the effort is
+ to have all these mails connect in a certain harmony so that time will not
+ be lost, and so that each letter will get to its destination in the
+ shortest possible time, and it requires not only a great deal of
+ experience, but it requires a great deal of ingenuity. It requires a great
+ deal of study and strict attention for a man so to arrange the routes and
+ the time in the United States that the letters can be gotten to their
+ destination in the shortest possible time. And yet that is the object. You
+ can see that. Now, you may be looking at the route from A to B, and say
+ that there is no sense in having it in that time; but if you will look at
+ the time of other routes, if you see with what routes that connects you
+ will say that it is sensible. Now, you go on to another route, and,
+ gentlemen, you see that every solitary route is touched, is compromised,
+ is affected by every other route. That is what I want you to understand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, Mr. Bliss says that it was a badge of fraud to increase the
+ time and the service on a route before the stock was put on. Now let me
+ show you. Here you have your scheme. Here is the route, we will say, from
+ A to E. You let that for a weekly route, once a week. How fast? A hundred
+ hours. When you get the other routes and look at this business you see
+ that that crosses several places where the mail is lost. That is where a
+ day is lost, and you see, if instead of that being a hundred hours it were
+ seventy-five hours the mail at many stations would save one day or two
+ days. Now, then, the law vests in you the power before a solitary horse or
+ carriage goes upon that route to say to the man to whom the contract was
+ awarded, "You must carry that in seventy-five hours instead of one hundred
+ hours, and you must carry it four times a week instead of once a week." If
+ you take that power from the Postmaster-General and from the Second
+ Assistant those offices become useless. It is impossible for any human
+ intellect to take into consideration all the facts growing out of this
+ service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing, gentlemen, which you must remember, and that is
+ that these advertisements for this service are not made the day the
+ service is wanted. These advertisements are put out six months before
+ there is to be any such service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is sometimes a year before that service is wanted, and if you know
+ anything about the West you know that in one year the whole thing may
+ change. That where there was not a city there may be a city, and where
+ there was a city nothing but desolation. Now, then, the law very wisely
+ has vested the power in the Second Assistant and the Postmaster-General to
+ rectify all the mistakes made either by themselves or by time, and to call
+ for faster time or for slower, that is, for less frequent trips. Now,
+ then, you see that that is no badge of fraud, do you not? If, before you
+ put a man or a horse on that route, the Government finds it wants twice as
+ many trips there is no fraud in saying so, and if they find they want to
+ go in fifty hours instead of a hundred hours there would be fraud in not
+ saying so. That has been the practice since this was a Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what is the next? The next great charge against us, gentlemen, is
+ that when they agreed to carry a greater number of trips, or any swifter
+ time for money, Mr. Brady did not make us give an additional bond, and Mr.
+ Bliss talked about that I should think about a day. Nearly all the time I
+ heard him he was on that subject. "Why did they not when they were to
+ carry additional trips give a new bond?" Well, I will tell you why:
+ Because there is no law for it. There never was a law for it&mdash;never.
+ And Mr. Brady had no right to demand a bond unless the statute provided
+ for it. When I give a bond to carry the mail once a week, and the
+ Government finds that it wants it carried three times a week, the
+ Government cannot make me give an additional bond. Why? Because the
+ statute does not provide for it, and Mr. Brady had not the power to enact
+ new laws. That is all. Why, there never was such a bond given, and any
+ bond that is given under duress, by compulsion, not having the foundation
+ of a statute, is absolutely null and void. Everybody knows it that knows
+ anything. And yet the gentleman comes before you and says it is a sign of
+ fraud that we did not give an additional bond. There never was such a bond
+ given in the history of this Government&mdash;never; and in all
+ probability never will be unless these gentlemen get into Congress. You
+ know the law prescribes every bond that the contractor must give, and it
+ is bad enough without ever being increased during the contract term.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much now for that frightful badge of fraud. I want to make this
+ statement so you will understand it. They have the unfairness, they have
+ the lack of candor to tell you that it is one of the evidences that we are
+ scoundrels, that we failed to give an additional bond, and when they made
+ that statement they knew that by law we could not give an additional bond,
+ and they knew that if we had given an additional bond it would not have
+ been worth the paper upon which it was written. And yet they lack candor
+ to that degree that they come into this court and tell you that that is
+ one of the evidences that we have conspired against the United States. It
+ won't do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the next badge of fraud? And I want to tell you this is a case of
+ badges, and patches, and ravelings, and remnants, and rags. It is a kind
+ of a mental garret, full of odd boots, and strange cats, thrown at us, and
+ altogether it is called a case of conspiracy. Another badge of fraud is
+ that whenever we carried the mail one trip a week, and it was increased to
+ two trips a week, Brady was such a villain that he gave us double pay; and
+ Mr. Bliss informed the jury that they knew just as well as he did that it
+ did not cost twice as much to give two trips a week as it did to give one.
+ Well, who said it did? And yet they say that is an evidence of fraud.
+ Well, let us see. There is nothing like finding the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, when we come to this case we will introduce a bond that we gave at
+ that time, and when the jury read that bond they will find this, or
+ substantially this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hereby agreed by the said contractor and his sureties that the
+ Postmaster-General may discontinue or extend this contract, change the
+ schedule, alter, increase, or extend the service, he allowing not to
+ exceed a pro rata increase of compensation for any additional service
+ thereby required, or for increased speed if the employment of additional
+ stock or carriers is rendered necessary, and in case of decrease,
+ curtailment, or discontinuance, as a full indemnity to said contractor,
+ one month's extra pay on the account of service dispensed with, and not to
+ exceed a pro rata compensation for the service retained: Provided,
+ however, That in case of increased expedition the contractor may, upon
+ timely notice, relinquish his contract.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is in that provided that if they call on him for double service he
+ is entitled to double pay. That is the law, and it has been the practice,
+ gentlemen, since we have had a Post-Office Department. And why? Let me
+ show you. Here is a man who carries a mail from A to Y. There are supposed
+ to be some commercial transactions between those two places. It is
+ supposed that now and then a human being goes from one of those places to
+ the other, and the man who carries the mail, as a rule carries passengers
+ and does the local business. Now, do you suppose that he would agree with
+ the Government that he would carry the mail once a week for a thousand
+ dollars a year, and that they might hire another man to carry it once a
+ week for a thousand dollars a year, and maybe that other man take all his
+ passengers and all his business. The understanding is that when I bid a
+ thousand dollars a year for once a week, if you put it to three times a
+ week I am to have three thousand dollars; four times a week, four thousand
+ dollars; seven times a week, seven thousand dollars, and that has been the
+ unbroken practice of this Government from the establishment of the
+ Post-Office Department until to-day. You can see the absolute propriety of
+ it, and you can see that any man would be almost crazy to take a contract
+ on any other terms, and that contract is this: "I will carry for you so
+ much a trip, and if you want more trips you can have them at the same
+ price as that fixed." That is fair. That is what we did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much for that badge of fraud. What is the next one? It is that the pay
+ was increased twice as much by the increase, and, as I said, that is the
+ law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us see what is the next great badge of fraud. That we received the
+ pay when the mail was not carried. I deny it, and we will show in this
+ case, gentlemen, that we never received pay except when the mail was
+ carried. And how do I know? Because General Brady established a system of
+ way-bills, so that a way-bill would accompany every pouch in which letters
+ were, and they would put on that way-bill the time that it got to the
+ post-office, and when that way-bill got to the terminal point it was sent
+ here to Washington and filed away, and at the end of every quarter a
+ report was made, and if a mail was behind at any post-office you would
+ find it on that way-bill, and if they had not made the trip then they were
+ fined. That way-bill system was inaugurated by General Brady, and under
+ that way-bill system we carried the mail, and we could not get pay unless
+ we had carried the mail. I call them way-bills. They are mail-bills that
+ go with the pouch and give a history of each mail that is carried. That is
+ all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now another great badge of fraud. The first was that he was to impose no
+ fines when the mail was not carried. The next was that he was to impose
+ fines and then take the fines off for half&mdash;fifty per cent. Now,
+ would not that be an intelligent contract? I carry the mails. You are the
+ Second Assistant Postmaster-General. I agree with you that if you fine me
+ and then will take the fine off I will give you half of it. About how long
+ would it take you to break me up? And yet that is honestly and solemnly
+ put forward here as a fact in the case. They tell a story of a man who was
+ bitten by a dog. Another man said to him, "I'll tell you what to do. You
+ just sop some bread in that blood and give it to the dog; it will cure
+ you." "Oh, my God!" says he, "if the other dogs hear of it they will eat
+ me up." And here it is, without a smile, urged before this jury that we
+ made a bargain that a fellow might fine us for the halves. Well, there may
+ be twelve men in this world who believe that. They are unfortunate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next charge is that a subcontract was made for less than the original
+ contract. Well, that is where most of the money in this world is made.
+ Thousands and millions of men have made fortunes by buying corn at sixty
+ cents a bushel to be delivered next February, and selling the same corn
+ for seventy cents. There is where fortunes live. The difference between a
+ contract and a subcontract is the territory of profit in which every
+ American loves to settle. You make a contract with the Government to
+ furnish, say, a thousand horses of a certain kind for one hundred and
+ fifty dollars apiece. You go and make a subcontract with some one to
+ furnish you those same horses for one hundred and twenty-five dollars
+ apiece. Is that a fraud? You have taken upon yourself the responsibility
+ and if your subcontractor fails you must make it good. There is no harm in
+ that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose I agree with you to-morrow that if you will furnish me one
+ thousand bushels of wheat on the first day of January, I will give you one
+ thousand five hundred dollars, and I find out that you made a bargain with
+ another fellow to do it for a thousand dollars. If I am an honest man I
+ suppose I will jump the contract, won't I? Not much. If I am an honest man
+ I will say, "Well, you made five hundred dollars; I am glad of it; good
+ for you." But the idea of the prosecution is that the moment Brady saw a
+ subcontract for less than the original contract he should have had a moral
+ spasm, and said, "I won't carry out the contract; I will swindle you, I
+ will rob you, and I will do it in the name of virtue." And that is the
+ meanest way a man ever did rob&mdash;in the name of virtue, reform. So
+ much for that. But if you ever make a contract with this Government and
+ can make a subcontract at the same price you do it as quick as you can.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next is, that whenever he discontinued a route or any part of a route,
+ rather, he gave us a month's extra pay; you heard that, did you not? He
+ was on that subject about a half a day. How did he come to do that? I will
+ tell you. There is nothing like looking:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in case of decrease, curtailment, or discontinuance of service, as a
+ full indemnity to said contractor one month's extra pay on the amount of
+ service dispensed with.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is first the law, secondly the contract, and thirdly it was made in
+ the interest of the United States. And why? Suppose the United States made
+ a contract with a man to carry a mail from New York to Liverpool, and in
+ consequence of that contract the man bought steamships to perform the
+ service, and then the United States made up its mind not to carry the
+ mail. That man might get damages to the amount of hundreds and thousands
+ of dollars. Therefore the United States endeavored to protect itself and
+ say the limit of damage shall be one month's pay, and that has been the
+ law for years, and that law has been passed upon by the Supreme Court of
+ the United States. It was passed upon in the case of Garfielde against the
+ United States, where he claimed greater damages because he had all the
+ steamships to carry the mail from San Francisco to Portland, and the
+ Supreme Court said it made no difference what his expense had been. He was
+ bound by the letter of the law and the contract, and could have only one
+ month's extra pay as his entire damage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, these gentlemen bring forward a law to protect the United States
+ Government, and they bring that forward as an evidence of conspiracy, as
+ evidence of a fraud. Nothing could be more unfair, nothing on earth could
+ show a greater want of character. Now, let us see what else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next great charge is false affidavits. They tell you that we made lots
+ of them; that we just had them for sale. False affidavits! And that Mr.
+ John W. Dorsey made two false affidavits in two cases. The evidence will
+ show that he did not. The evidence will show that he made only one in each
+ case, when we come to it. But I want to call your attention to this fact,
+ that in one case one affidavit was made where it said the number of men
+ and horses then necessary was eight, that on the expedited schedule it
+ would be twenty-four. Three times eight are twenty-four. The second
+ affidavit said the number of men and horses then was fifteen, and the
+ number on expedition and increase would be forty-five. Three times fifteen
+ are forty-five. So that the amount taken from the Government would be
+ exactly the same on both affidavits. You understand that. For instance, if
+ it took five horses and men to do the then business, and would require
+ fifteen to do the expedited and increased business, then you would be
+ entitled to three times the amount of pay. So in this case one affidavit
+ said it took eight and would take twenty-four, the other affidavit said it
+ took fifteen and would take forty-five. Three times eight are twenty-four.
+ Three times fifteen are forty-five. So that the amount of money taken from
+ the Government would be exactly the same under each affidavit. Now, that
+ is all there is of that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the next case, where he made two affidavits, I find that by the second
+ affidavit it took, I think, thirteen thousand dollars less from the
+ Government, and yet they call the second affidavit a piece of perjury. And
+ here is one thing that I want to impress upon all your minds. Where you
+ not only carry the mail but carry passengers, it is an exceedingly
+ difficult problem to say just how many horses and men it requires to carry
+ the mail, and then how many men and horses it requires to carry the
+ passengers. It is hard to make the divide you understand&mdash;very hard.
+ You can tell, for instance, the cost of mounting a railroad for a hundred
+ miles, but it is very difficult to tell the cost of the bridges or what
+ the spikes cost or what the deep cuts cost. You can take the whole
+ together and say it cost so much a year. So in this case we can say it
+ requires so many men and horses doing the business that we are doing, but
+ it is almost impossible for the brain to separate exactly the passengers,
+ the package business, from simply carrying the mail. As I said before, men
+ will differ in opinion. Some men will say it will take ten horses, others
+ twenty, others twenty-five, and then the next question arises, and I want
+ to call particular attention to that question, and that is, whether the
+ law means only the horses absolutely carrying the mail; whether the law
+ means by carriers only the men who ride the horses or drive the wagons.
+ Now, I will tell you what I mean. I undertake to carry the mail, we will
+ say from Omaha to San Francisco. How many men will it take? Now, I will
+ count all the men who are driving the stages, all the men who are
+ gathering forage, all the men who are attending to that business in any
+ way, and if on the way I have blacksmiths' shops where my horses are shod
+ I will count those men. If I have men engaged in drawing wood a hundred
+ miles, I will count those men. In other words, I will count all the men I
+ pay, no matter whether they are keeping books in New York or carrying the
+ mail across the desert. I will count all the men I pay; so will you. What
+ horses will you count? All the horses engaged in the business; those that
+ are drawing corn for the others, as well as the rest, will you not? There
+ is an old fable that a trumpeter was captured in the war and he said to
+ his captor, "I am not a soldier, I never shot anybody." "Ah," they said,
+ "but you incited others to shoot, and you are as much a soldier as
+ anybody; we want you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I say that we are entitled to count every man who carries the mail,
+ and every man necessary to perform that service. So do you. Now, there we
+ divide. The Government says we shall count simply the men carrying the
+ mail, nobody else, and we shall count simply the horses in actual service.
+ That is nonsense. For instance, you have got to have thirty horses. They
+ are going all the time. Do you depend on just that thirty? No, sir. If one
+ gets lame you cannot carry the mail. You have got to have twenty or thirty
+ horses in your corral, in the stables, so that if one of the others gives
+ out you will have enough. That is one great question in this case,
+ gentlemen. What I say to you now is that on every one of these routes in
+ which my clients are interested, or, I may say, in which anybody is
+ interested, the evidence will be that the affidavits were substantially
+ correct. In many cases there was a far greater difference between the men
+ and horses then used and the men and horses that were afterwards
+ necessary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You must take another thing into consideration. In a country where there
+ are Indian depredations one man will not stay at a station by himself. He
+ wants somebody with him; he wants two or three with him, and the more
+ frightened he is the more men he will want. On that route from Bismarck to
+ Tongue River, as to which it was sworn it would take a hundred and fifty
+ men, the statement was made at a time when the men would not stay
+ separately; that they wanted five or six together at one station; that
+ they wanted men out on guard and watch. You will find before we get
+ through, gentlemen, that the affidavits do not overstate the number. You
+ will find in addition that these petitions were signed by the best men;
+ that that service was asked for by the best men, not simply in the
+ Territories, but by some of the best men in the United States; by members
+ of Congress, by Senators, by generals, by great and splendid men, men of
+ national reputation. So when we come to that we will show to you that the
+ affidavits made were substantially true. There is another charge that has
+ been made, and that is that the affidavits in Mr. Peck's name were not
+ made by him; that he never signed these affidavits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, gentlemen, we will prove to you as the Government once proved by Mr.
+ Taylor, a notary public in New Mexico, that Mr. Peck appeared personally
+ before him; that he was personally acquainted with Mr. Peck, and that he
+ signed and swore to those affidavits in his presence. That we will
+ substantiate in this trial as the Government substantiated it in the
+ other. These gentlemen, are among the charges that have been made against
+ us. I say to you to-day they will not be able to show that we ever put
+ upon the files of the Post-Office Department a solitary letter, a solitary
+ petition, a solitary communication that was not genuine and true. Not one.
+ They cannot do it. They never will do it. You will be astonished when you
+ hear these petitions to find the Government admitting that they are true.
+ If they do not read them we will read them. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I have stated to you a few of the charges made against my clients up
+ to this point. I want to keep it in your mind. I want each man on this
+ jury to understand exactly what I say. Let us go over this ground a
+ little. I want to be sure you remember it. In the first place, S. W.
+ Dorsey was not interested in these routes. All the bids were made by John
+ W. Dorsey, John M. Peck, John R. Miner, and a man by the name of Boone.
+ All the information was gathered by Mr. Boone by sending circulars to
+ every postmaster on the routes. Upon that information John W. Dorsey, John
+ M. Peck, and John R. Miner made their calculations and made their bids,
+ numbering in all about twelve hundred. Of that number they had awarded to
+ them a hundred and thirty-four contracts. Recollect that. After those
+ contracts were awarded to them they were without the money to put the
+ stock on all the routes, because more contracts were awarded than they
+ expected. Thereupon John R. Miner borrowed some money from Stephen W.
+ Dorsey and kept up that borrowing until the amount reached some sixteen or
+ eighteen thousand dollars. Don't forget it. After it got to that point Mr.
+ Dorsey started for New Mexico. At Saint Louis he met John R. Miner, then
+ coming from Montana, and John R. Miner said to him, "We have got to have
+ some more money of you;" and Dorsey replied, "I have no more money to give
+ you." Miner then said, "You give your note or indorse mine for nine or ten
+ thousand dollars." Dorsey replied, "If you will give me post-office orders
+ and drafts, not only to secure the note I am about to indorse or make for
+ you, but also to the amount of the money I have advanced for you, I will
+ give the note." That was agreed upon. Thereupon he gave the note. It was
+ discounted in the German-American National Bank, and Mr. Miner deposited
+ with the note the orders on the Post-Office Department, not only to secure
+ the note, but the sixteen thousand dollars that Dorsey had before that
+ time advanced. Dorsey went on to New Mexico, and in May or July of that
+ year another law was passed, allowing a subcontractor to put his
+ subcontract on file. After he had advanced that money and indorsed or
+ signed the note, they made the contract with Mr. Vaile, turning these
+ routes over to him and giving him subcontracts on all these routes. When
+ Stephen W. Dorsey came back from New Mexico in December of that year he
+ found that the note at the German-American National Bank had been
+ protested, and that his collateral security was at that time worthless,
+ because the subcontracts had been filed and these subcontracts cut out the
+ post-office orders or drafts. Thereupon he wanted a settlement. Matters
+ drifted along until April, 1879, and a settlement was made. I have told
+ you that from the time the routes were given to Mr. Vaile until that time
+ nobody had the slightest thing to do with them except Mr. Vaile; that in
+ April, 1879, the division was made; that Mr. Vaile paid the note at the
+ German-American National Bank; that the division was made, as I told you,
+ by Mr. Vaile drawing one route, Mr. Dorsey one, and Mr. Miner one, and
+ keeping that up until they were all drawn. I forgot to tell you before
+ that Mr. S. W. Dorsey had sixteen thousand dollars, to which, if you add
+ the interest, it would be about eighteen thousand dollars; that John W.
+ Dorsey had ten thousand dollars and John M. Peck had ten thousand dollars,
+ and when that division was made Stephen W. Dorsey agreed to pay John W.
+ Dorsey ten thousand dollars, and to pay John M. Peck ten thousand dollars
+ for his interest. Gentlemen, he did pay John W. Dorsey ten thousand
+ dollars, and he did pay the same amount to Peck, and from that day to this
+ John W. Dorsey has never had the interest of one solitary cent in any one
+ of these routes. He was simply paid back the money that he expended. Not
+ another cent. John M. Peck never made by this business one solitary
+ dollar. He simply received back the money he had expended. After he had
+ paid back that money to both of these men, Stephen W. Dorsey took these
+ routes with a debt to him of between sixteen and eighteen thousand
+ dollars. Now, as to Mr. Rerdell. They say he was the private secretary of
+ Stephen W. Dorsey. He never was; not for a moment, not for a single moment
+ He attended to some of this business. I have no doubt that the Government
+ imagine they can debauch somebody in order to get information. I give them
+ notice now&mdash;GO on. There is no living man whose testimony we fear.
+ There is no living lawyer who has the genius to make perjury do us harm. I
+ want you to understand it. And I want them to understand that I know
+ precisely what they are endeavoring to do. There is only one way for them
+ to surprise me, and that is for them to do a kind thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, at that time&mdash;I want you to remember it; I do not
+ want you to forget it&mdash;when these routes came to Mr. Dorsey, he, not
+ understanding the business, turned it over to Mr. James W. Bosler. Mr.
+ Bosler, as I told you before, is a man of wealth. But, say these
+ gentlemen, "While these routes were in your possession, and while Stephen
+ W. Dorsey had an interest in them he asked men to sign petitions in favor
+ of an increase of trips and decrease of time." What if he did? Suppose you
+ have a house out here somewhere; you can petition to have a street opened,
+ even if you have the contract for paving the street. You have a right to
+ petition to have a schoolhouse located in your neighborhood even if you
+ have children. There is no harm about that. You certainly can petition to
+ have cows prevented from running at large even if there is no fence around
+ your yard. I think you could do so without being indicted for conspiracy.
+ I think a man might start a subscription for a church, even if he owned a
+ brick-yard and expected to sell bricks to build it. Now, suppose I had a
+ contract to carry the mail through the State of California from one end to
+ the other once a week, is there any harm in my asking the people of that
+ country to petition to have it carried twice a week? Do you not remember
+ what I told you? All the members of Congress out there, when they go home
+ want to say to the people when they meet at the convention with all the
+ delegates on hand. "Why, gentlemen, you did not used to get the New York
+ Herald or New York Times, or The Sun, until it was two weeks old, and now
+ it is only a week old. Where you only had one mail I have given you three.
+ I have got fifty thousand dollars to improve your harbor, and one hundred
+ thousand dollars for a new custom-house. Look at me, gentlemen, I am a
+ candidate for re-election." That is natural. This Court will instruct you
+ that any man who is carrying a mail anywhere in the United States has the
+ right to use his influence in getting up petitions for the increase of
+ that service or the expedition of that time. They say Dorsey did this.
+ What of it? They say Dorsey tried to manufacture public opinion. That is
+ what these gentlemen of the prosecution have been doing for eighteen
+ months, and now they object to the manufacture of public opinion. Public
+ opinion is their stock in trade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Leaving that charge, every man who has a contract for carrying the mail
+ has the right to call the attention of every editor in that country to the
+ fact that they need more mail service. He has the right to send his agents
+ there and if the people want to petition for more service, and if Congress
+ is willing to give them more service, no human being has a right to
+ complain in this manner and in a criminal court. If any offence has been
+ committed it is of a political nature. If a member of Congress gets too
+ much service his people can keep him at home. If he does too much for his
+ locality they need not elect him the next time. It is a political offence
+ for which there is a political punishment and a political remedy. So much
+ for the right of petition. I am perfectly willing to tell all he did in
+ regard to the increase of service and the expedition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While I am on that point I want you to distinctly understand what increase
+ is and what expedition is. Increase of service means more of the same
+ kind. Suppose I am to carry the mail from one place to another. We will
+ call it from Si-Wash to Oo-Ray. If I am to carry that mail once a week for
+ five hundred dollars and they want it twice a week, I have one thousand
+ dollars, but do not carry it any faster. That is an increase. Suppose I am
+ carrying it in say two hundred hours and they want it carried in half that
+ time. That is what they call expedition. Now, the question is as to the
+ difference in cost of carrying the mail at six miles an hour, or at two
+ and a half, or two, or one and a half. If I carry it slowly, I can go at a
+ reasonable rate in the day and can lie by at night. I want you to
+ understand distinctly the difference between increase of service, which is
+ more of the same kind, and expedition, which means the same kind at a
+ faster rate. Now, I can carry the mail twenty miles and back in a day and
+ do that a great deal easier than if I were to make the distance in four or
+ five hours. The difference is just about the same with a locomotive as
+ with a horse. If a train runs twenty miles an hour and you want to
+ increase its speed to thirty, it will cost altogether more than twice as
+ much as it does to run it at twenty. If you want to increase it still
+ further to forty or sixty, it will cost at sixty more than three times as
+ much as at twenty. The cost increases in an increased proportion. I want
+ you to understand that. Now, we are charged with having done some
+ frightful things on several of these routes, and for three days and a half
+ your ears were filled with charges of the rascality we have perpetrated.
+ We had some ten or eleven routes, and we are charged with having defrauded
+ the Government on those particular routes. Let us see what my clients did.
+ Do not understand me as saying that because my clients have done nothing
+ the other defendants have. I do not take that position. I take the
+ position that according to the evidence in this case there is nothing
+ against any of these defendants. Leave out passion, prejudice, falsehood,
+ and hatred and there is absolutely nothing left. If you will take from Mr.
+ Bliss's speech all the mistakes he made in law and fact, there will be
+ nothing left to answer; not a word. But I think it due to my client,
+ gentlemen, my client who is not able to be in this court, my client who
+ sits at home wrapped in darkness, that I should answer every allegation
+ touching every route in which he was interested. I think it due to him.
+ [Resuming]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will call your attention to a few of the routes, possibly to all, in
+ which my clients were interested. It will take but a short time. I want
+ you to know whether or not these routes were important, whether it was
+ proper to carry the mails as they were carried, whether it was proper that
+ they should be carried from once to seven times a week, and whether it was
+ proper that the speed should be expedited. Now, you may think after
+ hearing the evidence that there were some routes that never should have
+ been established; but that does not establish a conspiracy. That simply
+ establishes the fact that Congress created routes where they were not
+ absolutely necessary. You may come to the conclusion that General Brady
+ ordered more trips on some of these routes than he should have ordered.
+ That does not establish a conspiracy. The most that it could establish
+ would be extravagance, and extravagance is not a crime. If it were, the
+ penitentiaries of the day would not be large enough&mdash;or rather would
+ be large enough, and too large, to hold the honest men. You may say after
+ you have heard the evidence that the time was faster than it need be; but
+ you must take into consideration all the connecting routes, and even if
+ you should so feel, it is for you to say whether that establishes any
+ conspiracy. All these things must be taken into consideration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We will take first the route from Garland to Parrott City. ***
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I have gone over just a few of these charges. I have shown you that
+ they are false; that they are without the slightest shadow of foundation
+ in fact. Now, gentlemen, after you hear all this evidence, it is for you
+ to determine. It is for you to say whether these men entered into a
+ conspiracy to defraud this Government. It is for you to say whether our
+ testimony is to be believed, or whether you are to decide this case upon
+ the suspicions of the Government. It is for you to say whether you will
+ believe the contracts and the witnesses, or whether you will take the
+ prejudice of the public press; whether you will take the opinion of the
+ Attorney-General; whether you will take the letter of some counselor at
+ law, or whether you will be governed by the testimony in this case. It is
+ for you to say, gentlemen, whether a man shall be found guilty on
+ inference; whether a man shall be deprived of his liberty by prejudice. It
+ is for you to say whether reputation shall be destroyed by malice and by
+ ignorance. It is for you to say whether a man who fought to sustain this
+ Government shall not have the protection of the laws. It is for you
+ [indicating a juror] and it is for you [indicating another juror] and you
+ [indicating another juror] and you [indicating another juror] to say
+ whether a man who fought to take the chains off your body shall have
+ chains put upon his by your prejudice and by your ignorance. It is for you
+ to say whether you will be guided by law, by evidence, by justice, and by
+ reason, or whether you will be controlled by fear, by prejudice, and by
+ official power. That, gentlemen, is all I wish to say in this opening.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
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+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
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+ <h2>
+ CLOSING ADDRESS IN SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Closing Address to the Jury in the Second Star Route Trial.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MAY it please the Court and gentlemen of the jury: Perhaps some of you,
+ may be all of you, will remember that I made one of the opening speeches
+ of this case, and that in that opening speech I endeavored to give you the
+ scheme or plan of the indictment. I told you, I believe, at that time,
+ that all these defendants were indicted for having conspired together to
+ defraud the United States. In that indictment they were kind enough to
+ tell us how we agreed to accomplish that object; that we went into
+ partnership with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, he being one of
+ these defendants, and that we then and there agreed to get up false
+ petitions, to have them signed by persons who were not interested in the
+ mail service, to sign fictitious names to these petitions, those names
+ representing no actual, real, living persons; that we also agreed to have
+ false and fraudulent letters written to the department urging this
+ service; that in addition to all that we were to make and file false and
+ fraudulent affidavits, in which we were to swear falsely as to the number
+ of men and horses to be employed, and the number of men and horses then
+ necessary; that in addition to that we were to file fraudulent
+ subcontracts; that the Second Assistant Postmaster-General was to make
+ false and corrupt orders, and that all these things were to be done to
+ deceive, mislead, and blindfold the Postmaster-General. They also set out
+ that these orders so corruptly made were to be corruptly certified to the
+ Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department in order that we
+ might draw our pay. That is what is known as the general scheme or plan of
+ this indictment. You have heard the testimony, and remember some of it. Of
+ course you do not remember it all. Probably no man ever lived who could do
+ such a thing. You have heard the testimony discussed, I believe, for about
+ twenty days, so that I take it for granted you know something about it, or
+ at least have an idea that you do. The story that we told you in the first
+ place, and that we now tell you, is about this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1877 Mr. Peck, Mr. Miner, and John W. Dorsey made up their minds to
+ make bids and to go into the mail business. I want you to remember that
+ there is not one word in this indictment about any false bid ever having
+ been made. Remember that. There is nothing in this indictment about a
+ false bond having been given; not a thing. There is nothing in this
+ indictment charging that any of the original contracts were false. I want
+ you to remember that. There is no evidence that any person signing any one
+ of those contracts as security was not perfectly solvent. There is no
+ evidence, not one syllable, that any proposal was fraudulent, or that any
+ bid was fraudulent. How is it possible for a bid to be fraudulent? I will
+ tell you. If you make a bid, and make a contract or enter into an
+ agreement at the same time with some of the Post-Office officials so that
+ your bid will be accepted when it is not the lowest, there is a fraud, and
+ there is a fraudulent bid. There is one other way, and that is to put in a
+ bid to carry the mail at so many thousand dollars, and then have below
+ that straw bidders, men not responsible, and when the time comes to accept
+ the bid of those gentlemen they refuse to carry it out, and then the law
+ is that it shall be given to the next highest, and he refuses, and the
+ next, and he refuses, and the next highest, and he refuses, and so on
+ until it comes to the highest bidder. There are such combinations and have
+ been, I have no doubt, for many years in the Post-Office Department. That
+ is called straw bidding, and it is fraudulent bidding. There is no such
+ charge as that in this case. Every bid that was made was made in good
+ faith, and every bid that was accepted was followed by a good and
+ sufficient contract entered into by the party making the bid, and so that
+ is the end of that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in 1877, I say these men entered into an agreement among themselves
+ that they would bid on certain routes, and Mr. Peck, or Mr. Miner, or John
+ W. Dorsey&mdash;they may have it as they choose&mdash;somebody, wrote a
+ letter to Stephen W. Dorsey and in that letter told what they were going
+ to do and requested him to get some man to obtain information in regard to
+ these routes. You know that testimony. Stephen W. Dorsey was then in the
+ United States Senate. He sent for Mr. Boone and he showed him that letter.
+ In consequence of that Mr. Boone sent out his circulars to the postmasters
+ all over the country, or all over the portion as to which they were to
+ bid, and asked them about the roads, about the price of oats and corn,
+ about the price of labor, and about the winters; in other words, all the
+ questions necessary for an intelligent man, after having received
+ intelligent answers, to make up his mind as to the amount for which he
+ could carry that mail. Mr. Boone, you remember, says that he was to have
+ at that time a certain share. There is a conflict of testimony there. Mr.
+ Dorsey says that he told Boone that when John W. Dorsey came here they
+ could arrange that, and he had no doubt that they would be willing to give
+ him a share; but that he did not give it to him. The circulars were sent
+ out and the information in some instances, and I do not know but all, came
+ back. Then they agreed upon the amounts they were to bid. I believe Mr.
+ Miner came here in December, and John W. Dorsey, I think, in January, and
+ in February the bids were made. All the amounts were put in the
+ bidding-book issued by the Government, by Mr. Miner and Mr. Boone; all
+ with two exceptions, and those amounts had been placed there by them, but
+ under the advice of Stephen W. Dorsey those amounts were lowered. I
+ remember one was upon the Tongue River route, the other route I have
+ forgotten. Mr. Miner, Mr. Peck, and John W. Dorsey were together.
+ Afterwards a partnership was formed between John W. Dorsey and A. E.
+ Boone. Stephen W. Dorsey advanced some money. There is nothing criminal
+ about that. It is often foolish to advance money, but it is not a crime.
+ It is often foolish to indorse for another, and many a man has been
+ convinced of that, but it is not a crime. He advanced until, I believe, he
+ was responsible for some fourteen or fifteen thousand dollars, and
+ thereupon he declined to advance any more. He saw Mr. Miner in Saint
+ Louis, and said to Mr. Miner, "This is the last I am going to advance." I
+ think he gave him some notes that he hypothecated or discounted at the
+ German-American National Bank. He wanted security, and thereupon they gave
+ him Post-Office drafts for the purpose of securing his debt. He would
+ advance no more money and went away to New Mexico. Mr. Miner had a power
+ of attorney from John W. Dorsey who was absent, and a power of attorney
+ from John M. Peck who was absent. I believe on the 7th of August, or about
+ that time, Mr. Boone went out. Why? They had not the money at the time to
+ put on the service. Why? A great many more bids had been accepted than
+ they had anticipated, and instead of getting twenty or thirty routes they
+ got, I believe, one hundred and thirty-four routes. The consequence was
+ they did not have the money to stock the routes. There was another
+ difficulty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was an investigation by Congress, and that delayed them a month or
+ two, and the consequence was that when the 1st of July came, the day upon
+ which the service should have been put on, it was not only not put on, but
+ they had not the means to do it. Then what happened? Then it was that Mr.
+ Miner took in Mr. Vaile, and an agreement was made which bears date the
+ 16th day of August, 1878. It was not finally signed by all the parties, I
+ believe, until some time in September or October. Under that contract,
+ which you have all heard read, Mr. Vaile was given an interest in this
+ business. More than that; subcontracts were given to Mr. Vaile, and under
+ the subcontract law which was passed on the 17th day of May, 1878, I
+ believe, Vaile could file his subcontract in the Post-Office Department,
+ and that rendered all Post-Office drafts or orders that had been given
+ absolutely worthless. That was done. The subcontracts were given to Vaile
+ under the powers of attorney that Miner held from Peck and John W. Dorsey,
+ and of course he could act for himself. That was the situation. Stephen W.
+ Dorsey was not here. When he returned he found that everything had been
+ disposed of except his liability, and that he would have to pay the notes.
+ His security was gone, and the subcontracts were filed. At that time he
+ and Mr. Vaile had a quarrel. That is our story. In the meantime John W.
+ Dorsey was on the Tongue River route. I believe he visited Washington in
+ November and left word that he would like to sell out all his interests in
+ these routes, and I believe fixed the price. Some time in November or
+ December Mr. Vaile made up his mind to take the routes, and afterwards
+ changed his mind. Stephen W. Dorsey was then in the Senate. On the 4th of
+ March, 1879, his term expired. I believe on that very day, or about that
+ day, he wrote a letter to Brady calling his attention to these
+ subcontracts that had been filed for the protection of Vaile and
+ denouncing them. That was the first thing he did. Then a few days
+ afterwards the parties met. In a little while afterwards they made a
+ division of this entire business. You know how the division was made.
+ Stephen W. Dorsey fell heir to about thirty of these routes, I think. In
+ addition he had to pay ten thousand dollars to his brother and ten
+ thousand dollars to Peck. Mr. Vaile, I think, took forty per cent, and Mr.
+ Miner thirty per cent. Mr. Vaile and Mr. Miner went into partnership and
+ Stephen W. Dorsey took his routes, and that ended it. Mr. Peck was out and
+ John W. Dorsey was out. That is our story. When they divided those routes,
+ in order to vest the property of those routes in the persons to whom they
+ fell, it was necessary to execute subcontracts and give PostOffice drafts
+ and things of that character. All those necessary papers they then and
+ there agreed to make. Up to this point there is not one act established by
+ the evidence not entirely consistent with perfect innocence; not an act.
+ That is our story. After these routes fell to us we did what we had the
+ right to do and what we could to make the routes of value. As business men
+ we had the right to do it, and we did only what we had the right to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question that arises, and which of course is at the very
+ threshold of this case, is, did these parties conspire? That is the great
+ question. In my judgment you should settle that the first thing when you
+ go to the jury-room. After having heard the case as it will be presented
+ by the Government, and after having heard the charge of the Court, the
+ first thing for you to decide is, was there a conspiracy? How is a
+ conspiracy proved? Precisely as everything else is proved. You prove that
+ men conspire precisely as you prove them guilty of larceny or murder or
+ any other crime or misdemeanor. It has been suggested to you that as
+ conspiracy is very hard to prove you should not require much evidence;
+ that you should take into consideration the hardships of the Government in
+ proving a crime which in its nature is secret. Nearly all crimes are
+ secret. Very few men steal publicly, with a band of music and with a torch
+ in each hand. They generally need their hands for other purposes, if they
+ are in that business. All crime loves darkness. We all know that. One of
+ the troubles about proving that a man has committed a crime is that he
+ tries to keep it as secret as possible. He does not carry a placard on his
+ breast or on his back stating what he is about to do. The consequence is
+ that it is nearly always difficult to prove men guilty as stated in the
+ indictment. But that does not relieve the prosecution. That burden is
+ taken by the Government, and they must prove men guilty of conspiracy
+ precisely as they prove anything else. Is circumstantial evidence
+ sufficient? Certainly, certainly. Circumstantial evidence will prove
+ anything, provided the circumstances are right, and provided further that
+ all the circumstances are right. A chain of circumstances is no stronger
+ than the weakest circumstance, as a chain of iron is no stronger than the
+ weakest link. Where you establish or attempt to establish a fact by
+ circumstances, each circumstance must be proved not only beyond a
+ reasonable doubt, but each circumstance must be wholly inconsistent with
+ the innocence of the defendants. Now, let me call your attention to what I
+ claim to be the law upon the subject, and I will call the attention of the
+ Court to it at the same time. I will take this as a kind of test:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The hypothesis of guilt must flow naturally from the facts proved and must
+ be consistent with them; not with some of them, not with the majority of
+ them, but with all of them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words if they establish one hundred circumstances and ninety-nine
+ point to guilt and one circumstance thoroughly established is inconsistent
+ with guilt or perfectly consistent with innocence, that is the end of the
+ case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is as if you were building an arch. Every stone that you put into the
+ arch must fit with every other and must make that segment of the circle.
+ If one stone does not fit, the arch is not complete. So with
+ circumstantial evidence. Every circumstance must fit every other. Every
+ solitary circumstance must be of the exact shape to fit its neighbor, and
+ when they are all together the arch must be absolutely complete. Otherwise
+ you must find the defendants not guilty. The next sentence is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The evidence must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except
+ that of guilt. In other words, all the facts proved must be consistent
+ with and point to the guilt of the defendants not only, but they must be
+ inconsistent, and every fact proved must be inconsistent, with their
+ innocence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what does that mean? It means that every fact that is absolutely
+ established in this case, must point to the guilt of the defendants. It
+ means that if there is one established fact that is inconsistent with
+ their guilt, that fact becomes instantly an impenetrable shield that no
+ honest verdict can pierce. That is what it means. That being so&mdash;and
+ the Court in my judgment will instruct you that that is the law&mdash;let
+ us talk a little about what has been established.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, nearly all that has been established, or I will not
+ say established, but nearly all that has been said, for the purpose of
+ showing that our motives were corrupt, and that we actually conspired,
+ rests upon evidence of what we call conversations. Some witness had a
+ conversation with somebody, three years ago, four years ago, or five years
+ ago. The unsafest and the most unsatisfactory evidence in this world is
+ evidence of conversation. Words leave no trace. They leave no scar in the
+ air, no footsteps. Memory writes upon the secret tablet of the brain words
+ that no human eye can see. No man can look into the brain of another and
+ tell whether he is giving a true transcript of what is there. It is
+ absolutely impossible for you to tell whether it is memory or imagination.
+ No one can do it. Another thing: Probably there is not a man in the world
+ whose memory makes an absolutely perfect record. The moment it is written
+ it begins to fade, and as the days pass it grows dim, and as the years go
+ by, no matter how deeply it may have been engraven, it is covered by the
+ moss of forgetfulness. And yet you are asked to take from men their
+ liberty, to take from citizens their reputation, to tear down roof-trees,
+ on testimony about conversation that happened years and years ago, as to
+ which the party testifying had not the slightest interest. As a rule,
+ memory is the child of attention&mdash;memory is the child of interest.
+ Take the avaricious man. He sets down a debt in his brain, and he graves
+ it as deep as graving upon stone. A man must have interest. His attention
+ must be aroused. Tell me that a man can remember a conversation of four or
+ five years ago in which he had no interest. We have been in this trial I
+ don't know how many years. I have seen you, gentlemen, gradually growing
+ gray. You have, during this trial, heard argument after argument as to
+ what some witness said, as to some line embodied in this library.
+ [Indicating record.] You have heard the counsel for the prosecution say
+ one thing, the counsel for the defence another, and often his Honor,
+ holding the impartial scales of memory, differs from us both, and then we
+ have turned to the record and found that all were mistaken. That has
+ happened again and again, and yet when that witness was testifying every
+ attorney for the defence was watching him, and every attorney for the
+ prosecution was looking at him. How hard it would be for you, Mr. Juror,
+ or for any one of you to tell what a witness has said in this case. Yet
+ men are brought here who had a casual conversation with one of the
+ defendants five years ago about a matter in which no one of the witnesses
+ was interested to the extent of one cent, and pretend to give that
+ conversation entire. For ray part, were I upon the jury, I would pay no
+ more attention to such evidence than I would to the idle wind. Such men
+ are not giving a true transcript of their brains. It is the result of
+ imagination. They wish to say something. They recollect they had a
+ conversation upon a certain subject, and then they fill it out to suit the
+ prosecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I am told another thing; that after getting through with
+ conversations they then gave us notice that we must produce our books, our
+ papers, our letters, our stubs, and our checks; that we must produce
+ everything in which we have any interest, and hand them all over to this
+ prosecution. They say they only want what pertains to the mail business,
+ but who is to judge of that? They want to look at them to see if they do
+ pertain to the mail business. They won't take our word. We must produce
+ them all. It may be that with such a net they might bring in something
+ that would be calculated to get somebody in trouble about something, no
+ matter whether this business or not. They might find out something that
+ would annoy somebody. They gave us a notice wide enough and broad enough
+ to cover everything we had or were likely to have. What did they want with
+ those things? May be one of their witnesses wanted to see them. May be he
+ wanted to stake out his testimony. May be he did not entirely rely upon
+ his memory and wanted to find whether he should swear as to check-books or
+ a check-book, and whether he should swear as to one stub or as to many.
+ May be he wanted to look them all over so that he could fortify the story
+ he was going to tell. We did not give them the books. We would not do it.
+ We took the consequences. But what did we offer? That is the only way to
+ find out our motive. I believe that on page 3776 there is something upon
+ that subject. I will read what I said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, with regard to the books. As there has been a good deal
+ said on that subject I make this proposition: Mr. Dorsey has books
+ extending over a period of twenty years, or somewhere in that
+ neighborhood. He has had accounts with a great many people on a great many
+ subjects. He does not wish to bring those books into court, or to have
+ those accounts gone over by this prosecution, not for reasons in this
+ case, but for reasons entirely outside of the case. If the gentlemen on
+ the other side will agree, or if the Court will appoint any two men or any
+ three men, we will present to those men all our books, every one that we
+ ever had in the world, and allow them to go over every solitary item and
+ report to this court every item pertaining to John W. Dorsey &amp; Co.,
+ Miner, Peck &amp; Co., or Vaile, Miner &amp; Co., with regard to every
+ dollar connected, directly or indirectly, with this entire business from
+ November or December, 1877, to the present moment, and report to this
+ Court exactly every item just as it is. I make that proposition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That proposition was refused. What else did I do? I offered to bring into
+ court every check, including the time they said we drew money to pay
+ Brady. I offered to bring in every check on every bank in which we had one
+ dollar deposited; every one. That was not admitted. And why? Because the
+ Court distinctly said that it rests upon the oath of the defendant at
+ last; he may have had money in banks that we know nothing about. To which
+ I replied at the time that if we stated here in open court the name of
+ every bank in which we did business, and there is any other bank knowing
+ that we did do business with it, we will hear from it. So that we offered,
+ gentlemen, in this case, every check on every bank but one. I did not know
+ at that time that we had ever had an account with the German-American
+ Savings Bank; I did not find that out until afterwards. But you will
+ remember that Mr. Merrick held in his hand the account of Dorsey with that
+ bank; and Mr. Keyser, who, I believe, had charge of that bank, was here,
+ and if there had been anything upon those books, certainly the Government
+ would have shown it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ More than that; that bank went into the hands of a receiver, I think,
+ eight months before any of these checks are said to have been given for
+ money which was afterwards given to Brady. Now, they insist, that because
+ we failed to bring the books into court, therefore the law presumes that
+ the absolute evidence of our guilt is in those books. I believe they claim
+ that as the law. If my memory serves me rightly, Colonel Bliss so claimed
+ in his speech. In other words, that when they give us notice to produce a
+ book, and we do not produce it, there is a presumption against us. That is
+ not the law, gentlemen. When they give us notice to produce a book or
+ letter and we do not produce it, what can they do? They can prove the
+ contents of the book or letter. In other words, if we fail to produce what
+ is called the best evidence, then the Government can introduce secondary
+ evidence. They can prove the contents by the memory of some witness, by
+ some copy, no matter how; and that is the only possible consequence
+ flowing from a refusal to produce the book or letter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, in this case, gentlemen, Mr. Bliss wishes you to give a verdict
+ based upon two things: first, upon what we failed to prove; secondly, on
+ what the Court would not let them prove. He tells you that they offered to
+ prove so and so, but the Court would not let them; he wants you to take
+ that into consideration; and secondly, that there were certain things that
+ we did not prove; and that those two make up a case. That is their idea.
+ Now, let us see if I am right about the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first case to which I will call the attention of the Court is a very
+ small one, but the principle is clear. It is the case of Lawson and
+ another, assignees of Shiffner, vs. Sherwood, and it is found in 2 English
+ Common-Law Reports; 1 Starkie, 314.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Colonel Ingersoll, you cannot argue that question to the jury;
+ you cannot cite an authority and discuss it to the jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Then I will discuss it with the Court; it is immaterial to
+ me which way I turn when I am talking. I insist that the jury must at last
+ decide the law in this case. I will read another case to the Court, found
+ in 9 Maryland, Spring Garden Mutual Insurance Company, vs. Evans.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court decides in this case that the only consequence of their refusal
+ to produce the papers, they not denying that they had them, was to allow
+ the opposite party to prove their contents. That is all; that it could not
+ be patched out with a presumption.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. But if afterwards they should attempt to contradict the
+ secondary evidence the Court would not have allowed them to do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. It does not say so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. That is the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Suppose, after the other side had proved the contents,
+ there was an offer of the actual original papers. I can find plenty of
+ authority that they must be received.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I have never seen such authority, but I have seen a great many
+ to the contrary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I have never seen an authority to the contrary that was
+ very well reasoned. But, then, I will not argue about that, for that is
+ not a point in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. If you have the papers, and have received notice to produce
+ them, you are bound to produce them. If you do not produce them secondary
+ evidence is admissible to prove their contents. But after the secondary
+ evidence has been received, the Court will not allow you then, after
+ having first failed to produce the papers upon notice, to resort to the
+ primary evidence which you ought to have produced upon the notice, for the
+ purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence that was given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Now, let me give the Court a case in point: In this very
+ case that we are now trying, Mr. Rerdell in his statement to MacVeagh said
+ there was a check for seven thousand dollars; that the money was drawn
+ upon that check; that he and Dorsey went together to the Post-Office
+ Department and that Dorsey went into Brady's room; that that money was
+ drawn by Dorsey. That was his statement to MacVeagh and James.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. It was not his statement here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes, that was his statement here, as I will show hereafter.
+ But let me state my point. He was coming upon the stand. The check,
+ instead of being for seven thousand dollars, was for seven thousand five
+ hundred dollars; instead of being drawn to the order of Dorsey or to
+ bearer, it was drawn to the order of Rerdell himself; instead of being
+ drawn at the bank by Dorsey, it was drawn by Rerdell in person and had his
+ indorsement upon the back of it. We were asked to produce that. I
+ preferred not to do it until I heard the testimony of Mr. Rerdell. Why?
+ Because I wanted to put that little piece of dynamite under his testimony
+ and see where the fragments went, and I did. That is my answer to that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I find another case in the first volume of Curtis's Circuit Court
+ Reports, where it is said, on page 402, that&mdash;By the common law a
+ notice to produce a paper&mdash;The Court. [Interposing.] Before we part
+ from what you were saying, I wish to say that I do not think that the
+ other side gave you notice to produce the checks; that is my memory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes. Let me state my memory to the Court: I do not remember
+ exactly every one of these four thousand pages of testimony; there are
+ three or four that I may be a little dim about; but I do remember that a
+ notice was given to us to produce everything in the universe, nearly, and
+ that the Court held that the scope was a little too broad. I have
+ forgotten the page, but I will tell you where it comes in: It was where
+ Mr. Rerdell swore about the stub-book. I find the notice, may it please
+ your Honor, on page 2255, and it was dated the 13th of February. This is
+ the notice, and it gave the same notice to all the defendants:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are hereby notified to produce forthwith in court, in the above
+ entitled cause, all letters and communications, including all telegrams,
+ of every kind and description, purporting to come from any one of said
+ defendants and addressed to you or delivered to you, and all memoranda in
+ which reference is made to any contract or contracts of any one of said
+ defendants with the United States or with the Postmaster-General for
+ carrying the mail under the letting of 1878 on any route in the United
+ States, or in any way referring to any contract or contracts for so
+ carrying the mail, in which J. W. Bosler or any one of said defendants had
+ any interest, or in any way referring to any act, contract, or proceeding
+ thereunder, or to any payment, draft, warrant, check, or bill, or note, or
+ to any possible loss or profit in connection with such contract or
+ contracts, or to the management or execution thereof, or referring to any
+ possible gain or profit to be derived by any of said defendants from
+ contracts for carrying the mail of the United States, or to any payments
+ under such contract, or to the distribution of the proceeds made or to be
+ made of said payment, or to the management of any enterprise or
+ enterprises in connection with the transportation of the mail, or to
+ gains, profits, or losses accruing or likely to accrue from such
+ enterprises, or to the financial means for carrying on the same; and also
+ to produce any and all books containing any entry or entries in regard to
+ any of the subjects, matters, checks, drafts, or payments relating or
+ having reference to the subjects, &amp;c., hereinbefore referred to; and
+ also any letter-book or letter-books containing letter-press copies of
+ letters referring to the said subject or subjects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe just about that time, or a little after, another notice was
+ given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. If the counsel will allow me, my impression is that that
+ notice was deemed by the Court to be too broad.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. It was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Then another notice was given that specified all these
+ things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Curtis says in this case that&mdash;By the common law, a notice to produce
+ a paper, merely enables the party to give parol evidence of its contents,
+ if it be not produced. Its non-production has no other legal consequence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I find too, that in the Maryland case they make a reference to Cooper vs.
+ Gibson, 3 Camp., 303. I also have another case, to which I will call the
+ attention of the Court, United States vs. Chaffee, 18 Wallace, 516. I have
+ not the book here, but I can state what it is. My recollection of the case
+ is this: That an action was brought against some distillers; that by law
+ distillers have to keep certain books in which certain entries by law have
+ to be made. Notice was served upon the defendants to produce those books.
+ They refused so to do; and the question was whether any presumption arose
+ against the defendants on account of that refusal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I agree with you entirely that far in your law, that the mere
+ fact of the failure to produce books or papers has no effect at all
+ against the party declining to produce them. But it is a different
+ question altogether, after secondary evidence has been given, in
+ consequence of such refusal, to supply the place of the primary evidence.
+ If the books and papers have an existence, and the party who has received
+ the notice has refused to produce them, and the other party has given
+ secondary evidence of the contents of such books and papers, that
+ secondary evidence will have to stand, under those circumstances, as the
+ proof in the case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is not the point. Of course that will stand for what
+ it is worth. I was arguing this point: Can the jury hatch and putty and
+ plaster the secondary evidence with a presumption born of the failure to
+ produce the books and papers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. What I mean is just this: If you should fail to produce the
+ primary evidence, and then the secondary evidence of the contents is not
+ contradicted&mdash;&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Interposing.] It may not be contradicted, because it
+ happens to be inherently improbable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. The Government claims the law to be as your Honor has
+ intimated, and we have formulated it in one of our prayers. But that
+ abstract proposition is hardly applicable in the present case, for the
+ Government claims the application of another and plainer proposition: That
+ wherever a defendant himself takes the stand and has in his possession a
+ certain paper which, when called upon on cross-examination to produce, he
+ refuses, then a presumption unquestionably arises of such potency that it
+ is difficult to resist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. There is no difference, so far as the law is concerned,
+ whether the defendant, as a defendant, fails to produce the books and
+ papers, or whether, in his capacity as a witness, he fails to produce the
+ books and papers. The law, it seems to me, is exactly the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in this case of the United States vs. Chaffee et al. (18 Wall., 544),
+ Justice Field denounces that you should presume against the party because
+ he fails to produce books and papers known to be in his possession. And
+ why? I suppose a party can not be presumed out of his liberty; he cannot
+ be presumed into the penitentiary; and you cannot make a prison out of a
+ presumption any more than you can make a gibbet out of a suspicion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And again, the court instructed the jury that the law presumed that the
+ defendants kept the accounts usual and necessary for the correct
+ understanding of their large business and an accurate accounting between
+ the partners, and that the books were in existence and accessible to the
+ defendants unless the contrary were shown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That same thing has been claimed here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. No.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. We have heard it very often that this was a large business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. You have not heard anything of that kind from the Court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I am not saying that. I said "claimed"; if I had referred
+ to your Honor I should have said "decided." Here is another instruction of
+ the court:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you believe the books were kept which contained the facts necessary to
+ show the real amount of whiskey in the hands of the defendants in October,
+ 1865, and the amount which they had sold during the next ten months, or
+ that the defendants, or either of them, could by their own oath resolve
+ all doubts on this point; if you believe this, then the circumstances of
+ this case seem to come fully within this most necessary and beneficent
+ rule.,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He applied the word "beneficent" to a rule that put a man in the
+ penitentiary on a presumption.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. He was conservative.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. He ought to read some work on the use and abuse of words.
+ Now, Judge Field says further:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The purport of all this was to tell the jury that although the defendants
+ must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, yet if the Government had
+ made out a <i>prima facie</i> case against them, not one free from all
+ doubt, but one which disclosed circumstances requiring explanation, and
+ the defendants did not explain, the perplexing question of their guilt
+ need not disturb the minds of the jurors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is this case exactly: that is the exact claim of Colonel Bliss in
+ this case. Gentlemen, you have only to take into consideration, he says,
+ what we offered to prove and what the Court would not allow us, and what
+ the defendants failed to prove. "Why didn't they call Bosler?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, we claim the law to be this: That while notice is given us
+ to produce books and papers and we fail to do it, the only legal
+ consequence is that the Government may then prove the contents of such
+ books and papers, and that their proof of the contents must be passed upon
+ by you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next thing to which I call your attention is the crime laid at our
+ door, that we exercised the right of petition. It is regarded as a very
+ suspicious circumstance that petitions were circulated, signed, and sent
+ to the office of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. Why did these
+ people petition? Let me tell you. If you will look in every contract in
+ this case you will find certain provisions relative to carrying the mail.
+ Among others you will find this: That no contractor has any right to carry
+ any newspaper or any letter faster than the schedule time; that he has no
+ right to carry any commercial news, or to carry any man who has any
+ commercial news about his person, faster than the schedule time. No mail
+ can be carried by anybody except the United States, and if a community
+ wants more mail it has no right to establish an express that will carry
+ the mail faster, because the United States has the monopoly. Now, if you
+ want more mail, what are you to do? You cannot start one yourself; the
+ Government will not allow it. What have you to do? You have to petition
+ the Government to carry the mail faster or to carry it more frequently;
+ and the reason you have to ask the Government to do this is because the
+ Government will not permit you to do it; consequently you have only one
+ resort. What is that? Petition. And in this very case I believe his Honor
+ used this language:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every man carrying the mail has the right to take care of his business. He
+ has the right to get up petitions. He has the right to call the attention
+ of the people to what he supposes to be their needs in that regard. He has
+ the right to do it, and the fact that he does it is not the slightest
+ evidence that he has conspired with any human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the man carrying the mail has the right to call the attention of
+ the people to their needs, have not the people the right to do all that
+ themselves? If the man carrying the mail has the right to get up a
+ petition, surely the people have the right; and if the people have the
+ right, surely the man has that right. That is the only way we can find out
+ in this country what the people want&mdash;that is, to hear from them.
+ They have the right to tell what they want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But these gentlemen say, "Anybody will sign a petition." Well, if that is
+ true, there is no great necessity for forging one. Very few people will
+ steal what they can get for the asking. If a bank or a man offers you all
+ the money you want, you would hardly go and forge a check to get it. I
+ will come to that in a few moments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, according to this evidence, you have got to determine, as
+ I said in the outset, Was there a conspiracy? The second question you have
+ to determine is, When? In every crime in the world you have got to prove
+ the four W's&mdash;Who, When, What, Where? Who conspired? When? What
+ about? Where? Now I want to ask you a few questions, and I want you to
+ keep this evidence in mind. Was there a conspiracy when Dorsey received
+ the letter from Peck or Miner? Had the egg of this crime then been laid?
+ Had it been hatched at that time? Is there any evidence of it? The object
+ then was to make some bids. It is not necessary to conspire to make bids.
+ You cannot conspire to make fraudulent bids unless you enter into an
+ agreement that the lowest bid is not to be accepted, or agree upon some
+ machinery by which the lowest bid is not received, or put in a bid with
+ fraudulent and worthless security. Will the Government say that there was
+ a conspiracy at the time Peck or Miner wrote to S. W. Dorsey? What
+ evidence have you that there was? None. What evidence have you that there
+ was not? The evidence of Miner and the evidence of S. W. Dorsey. What
+ else? Boone had not been seen at that time. John W. Dorsey was not here.
+ Peck was not here. Peck or Miner had written the letter. Was there any
+ conspiracy then? Is there any evidence of it? Is there enough to make a
+ respectable suspicion even in the mind of jealousy? Does it amount even to
+ a "Trifle light as air."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was it when Dorsey sent for Boone? Boone says no. He ought to know. S. W.
+ Dorsey says no. John W. Dorsey was not here. Miner had not arrived. The
+ only suspicious thing up to that point is that Dorsey lived "in his
+ house;" that he received this letter "in his house," and that Boone
+ visited him "in his house." That is all. Now, if there is a particle of
+ evidence, I want the attorney for the Government who closes this case to
+ point it out, and to be fair. Was it when Miner got here in December,
+ 1877? Miner says no. Boone says no. Stephen W. Dorsey says no. John W.
+ Dorsey was not yet here. All the direct evidence says no. All the indirect
+ evidence says nothing. Now, let us keep our old text in view. I want to
+ ask you if there is a thing in all the evidence not consistent with
+ innocence? Was it not consistent with innocence that Peck and Miner and
+ John W. Dorsey should agree to bid? Was it not consistent with innocence
+ that John W. Dorsey met Peck at Oberlin, and that he met Miner in
+ Sandusky? Was not that consistent with innocence? Was it not consistent
+ with innocence for Peck to write S. W. Dorsey a letter? Was it not
+ consistent with innocence for Dorsey to open it and read it and then send
+ for Boone and give it to him? Boone in the meantime proceeded to get
+ information so that they could bid intelligently. Was that consistent with
+ innocence? Perfectly. More than that, it was inconsistent with guilt. What
+ next? May be this conspiracy was gotten up about the 16th of January, when
+ John W. Dorsey came here. Dorsey says no; Boone says no; Miner says no;
+ and S. W. Dorsey says no. That is the direct evidence. Where is the
+ indirect evidence? There is none. Ah, but they say, don't you remember
+ those Clendenning bonds? Yes. Is there anything in the indictment about
+ them? No. Was any contract granted upon those bonds or proposals? No. Was
+ the Government ever defrauded out of a cent by them? No. Is there any
+ charge in this case relative to them? No. Everybody says no. John W.
+ Dorsey entered into a partnership with A. E. Boone after he came here. Is
+ that consistent with innocence? Yes. No doubt many of the jury have been
+ in partnership with people. There is nothing wrong about that. He also
+ entered into partnership with Miner and Peck. There were two firms, John
+ W. Dorsey &amp; Co., which meant A. E. Boone and John W. Dorsey, and
+ Miner, Peck &amp; Co., which meant Miner, Peck and John W. Dorsey. Is
+ there anything criminal in that? No. They had a right to bid. They had a
+ right to form an association, a partnership. There was nothing more
+ suspicious in that than there would have been in evidence of their eating
+ and sleeping. Now, then, was this conspiracy entered into on August 7,
+ 1878, when Boone went out? Boone says no, and with charming frankness he
+ says if there had been a conspiracy he would have staid. He said, "If I
+ had even suspected one, I never would have gone out. If I had dreamed that
+ they had a good thing, I should have staid in." He swears that at that
+ time there was not any. Miner swears to it and S. W. Dorsey swears to it.
+ Everybody swears to it except the counsel for the prosecution. Rerdell
+ swears to it. That is the only suspicious thing about it. Now, at that
+ time, August 7, when Boone went out, S. W. Dorsey was not here and John W.
+ Dorsey was not here. Who was? Miner. What was the trouble? Brady told him,
+ "I want you to put on that service. If you don't I will declare you a
+ failing contractor." A little while before that Miner had met Dorsey in
+ Saint Louis, and Dorsey had said, "This is the last money I will furnish.
+ No matter whether I conspired or not, I am through. This magnificent
+ conspiracy, silver-plated and gold-lined, I give up. There are millions in
+ it, but I want no more. I am through." So Mr. Miner, using his power of
+ attorney from John W. Dorsey and Peck, took in Mr. Vaile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that Mr. Rerdell swears that the reason they took in Vaile was
+ that they wanted a man close to Brady. According to the Government they
+ had already conspired with Brady. They could not get much closer than
+ that, could they? Miner was a co-conspirator, and yet they wanted somebody
+ to introduce him to Brady. John W. Dorsey and S. W. Dorsey were in the
+ same position. They were conspirators. The bargain was all made, signed,
+ sealed, and delivered, and yet they went around hunting somebody that was
+ close to Brady. Brady said, "I will declare you all failing contractors. I
+ can't help it, though I have conspired with you. I give up all my
+ millions. This service has got to be put on. The only way to stop it is
+ for you to seek for a man that is close to me. You are not close enough."
+ Now, absurdity may go further than that, but I doubt it. You must
+ recollect that that contract was signed as of the 16th of August. You
+ remember its terms. At that time not a cent had been paid to S. W. Dorsey.
+ His Post-Office drafts had been cut out by the subcontracts. Afterwards he
+ had a quarrel with Vaile. We will call it December, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was the conspiracy flagrant then? Let us have some good judgment about
+ this, gentlemen. You are to decide this question the same as you decide
+ others, except that you are to take into consideration the gravity of the
+ consequences flowing from the verdict. You must decide it with your
+ faculties all about you, with your intellectual eyes wide open, without a
+ bit of prejudice in your minds, and without a bit of fear. You must decide
+ it like men. You must judge men as you know them. Was there a conspiracy
+ between these defendants in December, 1878, when S. W. Dorsey came back
+ here and found out the security for his money was gone, and when he had
+ the quarrel with Mr Vaile? Is there the slightest scintilla of testimony
+ to show that Mr. Vaile came into this business through any improper
+ motive? I challenge the prosecution to point to one line of testimony that
+ any reasonable man can believe even tending to show that Mr. Vaile was
+ actuated by an improper motive. I defy them to show a line tending to
+ prove that John R. Miner was actuated by an improper motive when he asked
+ Vaile to assist him in this business. I defy them to show that Brady was
+ actuated by an improper motive when he told them, "You must put on that
+ service or I will declare you all failing contractors." Was there a
+ conspiracy then? I ask you, Mr. Foreman, and I ask each of you, Was there
+ a conspiracy at that time? Have the prosecution introduced one particle of
+ testimony to show that there was? In March was there a conspiracy? Will
+ you call dividing, a conspiracy? Will you call going apart, coming
+ together? If you will, then there must have been a conspiracy in March. A
+ conspiracy to do what? A conspiracy to separate; a conspiracy to have
+ nothing in common from that day forward. Mr. Vaile entered into a
+ conspiracy then that he would have no more business relations with S. W.
+ Dorsey. He swears that at that time nothing on earth would have tempted
+ him to go on. That is what they call being in a conspiring frame of mind.
+ Not another step would he go. In March they separated, and each one went
+ his way. It was finally fixed up, and finally settled in May. John W.
+ Dorsey was out with his ten thousand dollars, and Peck was out with his
+ ten thousand dollars. S. W. Dorsey, for the first time became the owner of
+ thirty routes, or something more, and Miner and Vaile of the balance, I
+ think about ninety-six. According to that contract of August 16, John W.
+ Dorsey only had a third interest in the routes he had with Boone, and not
+ another cent. There was a division. If there was a conspiracy of such a
+ magnitude, why should Boone go out of it? Why should John W. Dorsey sell
+ out for ten thousand dollars? Why should John W. Dorsey offer Boone
+ one-third of it? Why was Mr. A. W. Moore offered one-quarter of it?&mdash;a
+ gentleman who could be employed for one hundred and fifty dollars a month?
+ I ask you these questions, gentlemen. I ask you to answer them all in your
+ own minds. Recollect, on the 16th of August there was a conspiracy
+ involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. In that conspiracy was the
+ Second Assistant Postmaster-General. They had the Post-Office Department
+ by the throat. They had the Postmaster-General blindfolded. Yet Miner went
+ to Vaile and said, "Now, just furnish a little money to put on these
+ routes and you may have forty percent, of this conspiracy." He was giving
+ him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Is that the way people talk that
+ conspire together? Would not Miner have gone to Brady and said, "Look
+ here, what is the use of acting like a fool? What do you want me to give
+ forty per cent, of this thing to Vaile for? I had better give twenty per
+ cent, more to you. That would allow me to keep twenty per cent, more too,
+ and then there will be one less to keep the secret." He never thought of
+ that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to think of these things, gentlemen, all of you, and see how
+ they will strike your mind. What did they want of Boone? S. W. Dorsey they
+ say was the prime mover. He hatched this conspiracy. Miner, his own
+ brother, Peck, and everybody else were simply his instruments, his tools.
+ What did he want Boone for? He had a magnificent conspiracy from which
+ millions were to come. He told Boone, "I will give you a third of it."
+ What for? He told Moore, "I will give you one-quarter." Seven-twelfths
+ gone already. T. J. B. thirty-three and one-third per cent. That is about
+ all. Then sixty-five per cent, more to the subcontractors. I want you to
+ think about these things, gentlemen. If they had such a conspiracy what
+ did they want of Mr. Moore?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Resuming.] Gentlemen, was it natural for S. W. Dorsey to
+ get the money back that he had advanced, or some security for it? Was that
+ natural? When a man seeks to have a debt secured is that a suspicious
+ circumstance? That is all he did. He was out several thousand dollars. He
+ wanted to secure that debt and he took another debt of twenty thousand
+ dollars upon him as a burden. If this had been a conspiracy he could have
+ furnished this money that he had to pay to others to put the service on
+ the route. I leave it to each one of you if that action to secure that
+ debt was not perfectly natural. I will ask you another question. If he was
+ the originator of the conspiracy would he have taken thirty per cent,
+ burdened with a debt of twenty thousand dollars? The way to find out
+ whether there is sense in anything or not is to ask yourself questions.
+ Put yourself in that place; you, the master of the situation; you, the
+ author of the entire scheme. Would you take one-third of what you yourself
+ had produced, and that third burdened with twenty thousand dollars worth
+ of debt, and then make your debt out of the proceeds? I want every one of
+ you to ask yourself the question, because you have got to decide this case
+ with your brains and with your intelligence; not somebody else, but you,
+ yourself. We want your verdict; we want your individual opinion; not
+ somebody else's. There is the safety of the jury trial. We are to have the
+ opinions of twelve men, and those opinions agreeing. Where twelve honest
+ men agree, if they are also independent men, the rule is that the verdict
+ is right. The opinion of an honest man is always valuable, if he is only
+ honest, and if it is his opinion, it is valuable. It is valuable if he
+ does not go to some mental second-hand store and buy cheap opinions from
+ somebody else, or take cheap opinions. In this case I ask the individual
+ opinion of each one of you. I want each one of you to pass upon this
+ evidence; I want each one of you to say whether if Dorsey had been the
+ author and finisher of this conspiracy he would have taken thirty per
+ cent., burdened with twenty thousand dollars of debt to others and fifteen
+ thousand dollars of debt to himself? If you can answer that question in
+ the affirmative you can do anything. After that nothing can be impossible
+ to you, except a reasonable verdict. You cannot answer it that way. Why
+ should he have cared so much about fifteen or sixteen thousand dollars
+ with a conspiracy worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Why run the risk
+ of making the whole conspiracy public? Why run the risk of his detection
+ and its destruction? You cannot answer it. Perhaps the prosecution can
+ answer it. I hope they will try.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker, on page 4493, makes a very important admission.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After they (meaning the defendants) had these contracts, there was a
+ combination, an agreement between all these people, that they were to do
+ certain things in order to get at the public Treasury and get more money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What does that mean? That means that this conspiracy was entered into
+ after the defendants obtained the contracts, so that Mr. Ker fixes the
+ birth of this conspiracy after these contracts had been awarded to the
+ defendants. That being so, all the bids, proposals, Clendenning letter,
+ Haycock letter, proposals in blank, and bidders' names left out fade away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Chico letter I will come to after awhile. I will not be as afraid of
+ it as were the counsel for the prosecution. I will not, like the Levite,
+ pass on by the other side of the Chico letter. I will not treat it as if
+ it were a leper, as if it had a contagious disease. When I get to it I
+ will speak about it. All these things, then, under that admission, go for
+ naught, and have nothing to do with the case, and consequently nobody need
+ argue with regard to them any more, although incidentally I may allude to
+ them again. There is no doubt, recollect, after this admission. There is
+ no clause in the indictment saying that we endeavored to defraud this
+ Government by bids, by proposals, by bonds, or by contracts. Not a word.
+ That is all out; in my judgment it never should have been in the case at
+ all. What is the next thing we did? It is alleged that the moment Dorsey
+ got these contracts he laid the foundation to defraud the Government by a
+ new form of subcontract. Let me answer that fully, and let that put an end
+ to it from this time on. Until May 17, 1878, the Post-Office Department
+ did not recognize subcontractors. After these contracts came into the
+ possession of these defendants Congress passed a law recognizing
+ subcontractors. Consequently the contracts of the subcontractors that were
+ to be recognized by the Government had to be somewhere near the same form
+ as the contracts with the original contractors. The moment the contract of
+ the subcontractor was to be recognized by the Government then it was
+ necessary and proper to put a clause in that subcontract for expedition
+ and a clause in that subcontract for increase of service. Why? So that the
+ Government should know, if the route was expedited, what percentage the
+ subcontractor was entitled to. Instead of that clause in the subcontract
+ being evidence that Mr. Dorsey was endeavoring to swindle the Government,
+ the evidence is exactly the other way. It was put there for the purpose of
+ protecting the subcontractor, so that if expedition was put upon the route
+ the Government would know what per cent, of the expedition to pay the
+ subcontractor. If that clause had not been in that subcontract the
+ Government could not have told how much money to pay the subcontractor,
+ and as a consequence the subcontract would have been worthless as security
+ for the subcontractor. And yet a clause put in for the protection of the
+ subcontractor is referred to in your presence as evidence that the man who
+ suggested it was a thief and a robber. What more? They say to these
+ witnesses, "Did you ever see such a clause as that in a subcontract
+ before?" No. Why? The Government never recognized a subcontractor before
+ that time, and consequently there was no necessity for such a clause.
+ Think how they have endeavored to torture every circumstance, no matter
+ how honest, no matter how innocent, no matter how sensible; how they have
+ endeavored to twist it and turn it against these defendants. Gentlemen,
+ whenever you start out on the ground that a man is guilty, everything
+ looks like it. If you hate a neighbor and anything happens to your lot you
+ say he did it. If your horse is poisoned he is the man who did it. If your
+ fence is torn down he is the fellow. You will go to work and get all the
+ little circumstances that have nothing to do with the matter braided and
+ woven into one string. Everything will be accounted for as coming from
+ that enemy, and as something he has done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say another thing: That we defrauded the Government by filing
+ subcontracts. You cannot do it. When this case is being closed I want
+ somebody to explain to the jury how it is possible for a man to defraud
+ this Government by filing a subcontract. I do not claim to have much
+ ingenuity. I claim that I have not enough to decide that question or to
+ answer it. I can lay down the proposition that it is an absolute,
+ infinite, eternal impossibility to fraudulently file a subcontract as
+ against the Government. It cannot he done. Oh, but they say, the
+ subcontractor did not take the oath. There is no law that he should take
+ an oath and there never was. There may be at some time, but there is not
+ now. The law that everybody engaged in carrying the mail and every
+ salaried officer of the department shall take an oath was passed before
+ the law of the 17th of May, 1879, allowing a subcontractor to file his
+ subcontract. Before that time the Government had nothing to do with the
+ subcontractor. If he actually carried the mail; if he actually took
+ possession of the mail, he had to take the oath of the carrier. But I defy
+ these gentlemen to find in the law any oath for a subcontractor. There
+ never was such an oath. If there is one, find it. The law that every
+ salaried officer and every carrier of the mail shall take the oath was
+ passed years and years and years before the law was passed allowing
+ subcontracts to be filed. What of it? Suppose a man who is a subcontractor
+ carries the mail and does not take any oath. That is as good as to take
+ the oath and not carry the mail. What possible evidence is it of fraud?
+ Suppose it should turn out that the carrier did not take the oath, but
+ carried the mail honestly. What of it? Is it any evidence of fraud? If a
+ man tells the truth without being sworn, is that evidence that he is a
+ dishonest man? If a man carries the mail properly and in accordance with
+ law without being sworn to do so, it seems to me that is evidence that he
+ is an honest fellow, and you don't need to swear him. So when a
+ subcontractor takes a subcontract and carries the mail according to law it
+ does not make any difference whether he swears to do so or not. Is there
+ any evidence in this case that the subcontractors stole any letters on
+ account of not having taken the oath? When they answer, let them point to
+ the law that the subcontractor is to take an oath. There is no such law
+ and never was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, according to this admission of Mr. Ker, the conspiracy commenced
+ after they got the contract. Very well. I need not talk about anything
+ back of that. I do not know whether the admission is binding upon the
+ Government or not. I believe the Court holds that the Government is not
+ bound by the admission of any agent, and that the Government only
+ authorizes an agent to admit facts. May be he is mistaken. The Government
+ only authorizes an agent to admit the law. At any rate Mr. Ker did the
+ very best he knew how, and he says this conspiracy commenced when they got
+ the contracts, and so we need not go back of that unless the Government is
+ now willing to say that Mr. Ker has made a mistake. I lay down the
+ proposition, gentlemen, that you need not go back of the division of these
+ routes. Then you must go forward. What was done after that? Recollect the
+ exact position of Senator Dorsey and the exact position of these other
+ people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next claim is, although there was no conspiracy until after they got
+ the contracts, that Senator Dorsey was interested in these contracts while
+ he was a Senator of the United States. If they could establish that fact
+ it would not tend to establish a conspiracy. There is nothing in this
+ indictment about it. I admit that if he were a Senator, and at the same
+ time interested in mail contracts, he might be tried and his robes of
+ office stripped from him, and that he could be rendered infamous. But that
+ is not what he is being tried for. They say he was in the Senate, and he
+ was anxious to keep it secret. Mr. Ker says he was so anxious to keep it
+ secret that he sent all these communications out West in Senate envelopes,
+ so they would think a Senator had something to do with it. Then it turned
+ out that all the envelopes were in blank; just plain white envelopes, with
+ nothing on them, and away went that theory. If he were in the Senate and
+ engaged in these routes also, and wished to keep it a profound secret,
+ because if known it would blast his reputation forever, do you think he
+ would have had all these circulars sent out in Senate envelopes and on
+ Senate paper? If he did allow that to be done, it is absolutely conclusive
+ evidence that he was not interested. Suppose I was trying to keep it an
+ absolute, profound, eternal, everlasting secret that I had anything to do
+ with a certain matter, would I write letters about it? Would I use paper
+ that had my name, the number of my office, and the character of my
+ business printed upon it? Would I? To ask that question is to answer it.
+ Another thing: They claim that he was in the Senate and infinitely anxious
+ to keep it a secret, and yet he found Mr. Moore, a perfect stranger, and
+ said to him in effect: "Yes, Mr. Moore; I don't know you, but I want you
+ to know me. I ama rascal. I am a member of the Senate, but I am engaged in
+ mail routes. I hope you will not tell anybody, because it would destroy
+ me. I have great confidence in you, because I don't know you." That is the
+ only way he could have had confidence in Moore. He would have to have it
+ the first time he saw him or it never would have come. To this perfect
+ stranger he said, "Here, I am in the Senate, but I am interested in these
+ routes. I am in a conspiracy. I want you to go out and attend to this
+ business. I want you to do all these things, and the reason I tell you is
+ because I am a Senator and I want it kept a profound secret. That is the
+ reason I tell you." That is what these gentlemen call probable. That is
+ their idea of reasonableness and of what is natural. That may be true in a
+ world where water always runs up hill. It can never be true in this world.
+ It is not in accordance with your experience. Not a man here has any
+ experience in accordance with that testimony or that doctrine; not one.
+ You never will have unless you become insane. If this trial lasts much
+ longer you may have that experience. It is a wonder to me it has not
+ happened already.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another queer circumstance connected with this case. While Dorsey
+ told it all to Moore he kept it a profound secret from Boone. Boone, you
+ know, was in at the first. Boone got up all this information. Boone was
+ interested in these bids, and yet he never told Boone. He had known Boone,
+ you see, for several weeks. He told Moore the first day, the first minute.
+ He wished to relieve his stuffed bosom of that secret. Moore was the first
+ empty thing he found, and he poured it into him. It is astonishing to me
+ that he succeeded in keeping that secret from Boone, but he did. He even
+ kept it from Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rerdell never heard of it&mdash;a gentleman who picks up every scrap, who
+ listens at the key-hole of an opportunity for the fragment of a sound. He
+ never heard it. John W. Dorsey did not even know anything about it. Nobody
+ but Moore. Now, I ask you, gentlemen, is there any sense in that story? I
+ ask you. I ask you, also, if the testimony of Stephen W. Dorsey with
+ regard to that transaction is not absolutely consistent with itself? Did
+ he not in every one of those transactions act like a reasonable, sensible,
+ good man? Oh, but they say it is not natural for a man to help his
+ brother; certainly it is not natural for a man to help his brother-in-law,
+ and nobody but a hardened scoundrel would help a friend, and Dorsey is not
+ that kind of a man. Occasionally in a case an accident will happen, and
+ from an unexpected quarter a side-light will be thrown upon the character
+ of a man, sometimes for good, and sometimes for evil. Sometimes a little
+ circumstance will come out that will cover a man with infamy, something
+ that nobody expected to prove, and that leaps out of the dark. Then,
+ again, sometimes by a similar accident a man will be covered with glory.
+ In this case there was a little fact that came to the surface about
+ Stephen W. Dorsey that made me proud that I was defending him. Oh, he is
+ not the man to help his brother; he is not the man to help his
+ brother-in-law; he is not the man to help a friend; and yet, when Torrey
+ was upon the stand, he was asked if he was working for Dorsey, and he said
+ no, and was asked if Dorsey paid him at a certain time, or if he owed him,
+ and he said no. He was asked why, and he replied, "Because only a little
+ while before, when I was not working for him, and my boy was dead, he gave
+ me a thousand dollars to put him beneath the sod." That is the kind of a
+ man Stephen W. Dorsey is. I like such people. A man capable of doing that
+ is capable of helping his brother, of helping his brother-in-law, and of
+ helping his friend. A man capable of doing that is capable of any great
+ and splendid action. Is there any other man connected with this trial that
+ ever did a more generous, nay, a more loving and lovely thing? How such a
+ man can excite the hatred of the prosecution is more than I can
+ understand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we have got to the division, and the question arises, was there a
+ division? Let us see. On page 5009 Mr. Bliss admits that Vaile,
+ immediately upon Dorsey's coming out of the Senate, came here for the
+ purpose of settling up this business; that he made up his mind to have no
+ more to do with Dorsey. Then Mr. Bliss makes this important admission, and
+ I do not want any attorney for the Government to deny it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He admits that in May there was a final division, and that that division
+ was to take effect as from the 1st day of April, and that after that each
+ party took the routes allotted to him, and they became the uncontrolled
+ property of that person, no other person having the right to interfere.
+ There is your admission, just as broad as it can be made. Mr. Bliss, after
+ having made that admission, which virtually gives up the Government's
+ case, then threw a sheet-anchor to the windward and said, "But when they
+ divided they made a bargain with each other that they would make the
+ necessary papers." What for? To carry out the division. That is all. Now,
+ the only corner-stone for this conspiracy, the only pebble left in the
+ entire foundation is the agreement to make the necessary papers after the
+ division. That is all that is left. The rest has been dissolved or dug up
+ and carted away by this admission. Let us see what that agreement was. Mr.
+ Bliss turned to the evidence of John W. Dorsey, on page 4105:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. At the time you sold out, was there any understanding about your making
+ papers?&mdash;A. That was a part of the agreement. I was to sign all the
+ necessary papers to carry on the business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he sold out he agreed to sign all the necessary papers. It is like
+ this: Mr. Bliss says on such a day, for instance, they divided. Suppose,
+ instead of being routes it was all land. They divided the land and then
+ they agreed to make the deeds. That was the conspiracy; not in the land;
+ not in the agreement about the land; not in the bargain, but in the
+ execution of the papers in consequence of the bargain. That was the
+ conspiracy. They agreed to make all the necessary papers. That was the
+ agreement. Then the Court asked John W. Dorsey a question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. You agreed to sign what?&mdash;A. All the necessary papers to carry on
+ the business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is what he agreed to do. What else? What were those papers? First,
+ they were to sign all the subcontracts that were necessary, all the
+ Post-Office drafts necessary, and they were to sign letters like this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Post-Office Department, in regard to this route, will hereafter send
+ all communications to the undersigned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, the object was to let the person who fell heir to a given
+ route in the division control that route. That was all. The man who was
+ the contractor agreed that he would sign all the necessary papers. For
+ what purpose? To allow each man who got a route to be the owner of it and
+ control it and draw the money. That is all. And yet it is considered
+ rascality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me call your attention to another piece of evidence on this subject.
+ On page 5016, Mr. Bliss is talking about all these papers and these
+ letters that were written and apparently signed by Peck, but really signed
+ by Miner, saying, "I want you to send all communications in reference to
+ such a route to post-office box No. so and so, John M. Peck," sometimes
+ with an M. under it and sometimes without. He did that in consideration of
+ the agreement at the time he got the routes that had been originally
+ allotted to Peck. Mr. Bliss brought here a vast number of these papers,
+ and then he continued, on page 5017:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All those, gentlemen, are orders, dated after the division, many of them
+ coming away down into 1881, and all of them relating to routes with which
+ Peck had no connection, because he severed his connection with all the
+ routes prior to the 1st of April, or as of the 1st of April, 1879. John W.
+ Dorsey tells you that he signed papers right along&mdash;Of course he did.
+ He agreed to&mdash;and I have here a series of them. Many of them are
+ orders not in blank. There are among the papers, orders signed in blank,
+ but these are dated, and they are witnessed not always by the same person
+ as indicating that they got together and signed a lot of orders at the
+ time of the division. There is every indication that the dates are
+ correct. The witnesses are different at different times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. These same orders would have been made if the division had been
+ perfectly honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is what I say. That is what we all say, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the transaction then had been perfectly honest the papers would have
+ been precisely as they are. From the papers being precisely as they are,
+ do they tend to show that the transaction was dishonest, when it is
+ admitted by everybody and decided by the Court, that if the transaction
+ had been perfectly honest the papers would have been just as they are?
+ Recollect my text. Every fact when you are proving a circumstantial case
+ has to point to the guilt of the defendants, and their guilt has to be
+ found from all the facts in the case beyond a reasonable doubt. If there
+ is one fact inconsistent with their guilt, the case is gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another little admission to which I call your attention. Nothing
+ delights me so much as to have the prosecution in a moment of
+ forgetfulness, or we will say on purpose, admit a fact. Mr. Bliss said, on
+ page 5018:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will bear in mind that the division took place some eight months
+ previous to that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That was January 1, 1880,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ However that may be, these papers are all papers which on their faces
+ might be innocent and fair and proper. They are papers which, under
+ ordinary circumstances, might be executed to enable others than the
+ contractor to draw the pay and to be tiled with the department, though it
+ appears, I think, by the evidence in this case that no draft could be
+ filed except shortly prior to the quarter as to which it applied. As to
+ these papers all that we have to say is this: they are papers on their
+ face apparently innocent, papers calculated to go through in the ordinary
+ practice as though there was nothing wrong about them. At the same time
+ the evidence shows that they were papers executed by these several parties
+ at the time of or in pursuance of the agreement of the division.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not want anything better. That settles the papers. They were made at
+ the time they agreed to make them. It was the only way in which they could
+ give the party who got the route absolute control of the route.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, apart from these papers, I believe they have three
+ witnesses, at least they are called witnesses, in this case. The first
+ witness that I will call your attention to, and who figures about as early
+ as anybody, is A. W. Moore. I want to ask you a few questions about his
+ testimony. I want you to understand exactly what he swears to and the
+ circumstances. Let us see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He swears first that he had a conversation with Miner, in which he told
+ Miner that he would work for him for one hundred and fifty dollars a month
+ and expenses, with permission to put on some of his own service, I think,
+ in Oregon and California, and that Mr. Miner accepted his terms, and
+ employed him as the agent of Miner, Peck &amp; Co. Recollect that, Miner,
+ Peck &amp; Co. Second, that Miner told him to report at Dorsey's house to
+ get instructions. Miner at that time was staying at Dorsey's house. I do
+ not know whether it was to get instructions from Dorsey or from the house,
+ or from Miner. I take it, from Miner. No matter. Mr. Moore then swears
+ that he reported to Dorsey and Dorsey asked him his opinion about the
+ service. Moore had never been there and did not know one of the routes,
+ but Dorsey was anxious for his opinion. How did he know any more about the
+ service than Dorsey? There is no evidence that Moore knew the price. There
+ is no evidence that he knew the amount the Government was to pay on a
+ single route. He was a stranger. Then he had another conversation with
+ Dorsey in which Dorsey told him that they had bid on the long routes with
+ slow time, because that was the way to make money. Not satisfied with
+ that, Mr. Dorsey showed him the subcontracts with the blanks and with the
+ changes, and then he explained to him the descending scale, and he
+ explained to him the percentage of expedition. He said Dorsey told him
+ forty per cent, of the expedition. Boone swears it was sixty-five per
+ cent. There is a little difference; not much. Moore swears that he himself
+ was to have twenty-five per cent, of the stealings. Let us see how that
+ is. Boone swears that the subcontractor was to have sixty-five per cent.
+ Rerdell swears that Brady was to have thirty-three and one-third per cent.
+ That leaves one and two-third per cent, for the contractor. Do you see?
+ The subcontractor got sixty-five dollars out of one hundred dollars, and
+ then Brady got thirty-three dollars and thirty-three and one-third cents.
+ That makes ninety-eight dollars and thirty-three and one-third cents,
+ leaving the contractor one dollar and sixty-six and two-third cents. That
+ was all he got. Did you ever know of anybody on earth doing business at a
+ smaller per cent, and paying for the trouble? Now, Mr. Moore comes in with
+ his statement. He says the subcontractor got forty per cent, and then he
+ himself got twenty-five per cent. That makes sixty-five. Then, according
+ to Rerdell, Brady was to have thirty-three and one-third per cent. That
+ makes ninety-eight and one-third. There is the most wonderful coincidence
+ in this whole trial. Rerdell and Boone and Moore agree exactly that the
+ contractor gave up ninety-eight and one-third per cent, to others and took
+ one and two-thirds himself. Did you ever know as much humanity in a
+ conspiracy as that? Did you ever know such a streak of benevolence to
+ strike anybody? It reminds me of a case of disinterested benevolence that
+ happened in Southern Illinois. A young man there went to a lawyer and said
+ to him, "I want to get a divorce, I was married at a time when I was
+ drunk, and when I sobered up I didn't like the marriage. I want a
+ divorce." The lawyer asked, "What do you want of a divorce?" "Well," he
+ said, "do you know the widow Thompson?" "Yes." "She has been a widow there
+ for about forty years. Do you know her boy? He is the biggest thief in
+ this county. He went over the Ohio River the other day and stole a set of
+ harness and a mule." "What has that to do with this divorce case?" "Well,"
+ he said, "I want to get a divorce and I want to marry that widow." "What
+ for?" "I want to get control of that boy and see if I can't break him from
+ stealing. I have got some humanity in me." Here are S. W. Dorsey, his
+ brother, his brother-in-law, Miner and Vaile starting a charity
+ conspiracy, and out of every hundred dollars that they steal they offer
+ ninety-eight dollars and thirty-three cents upon the altar of
+ disinterested friendship. You are asked to believe that. You will not do
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Moore also swears that he received some money by a check, but he does
+ not know whether the check was payable to him or payable to Miner, and he
+ got a power of attorney signed by Miner from John W. Dorsey and John M.
+ Peck, and then he started, S. W. Dorsey assuring him in the meantime that
+ he could tell the people out there that the service would be increased and
+ expedited in a few days. Mr. Moore is a peculiar man. He says that that
+ suited him exactly. He was willing to steal what little he could; he was
+ willing to steal for one hundred and fifty dollars a month if he couldn't
+ get any more, or he was willing to steal for a part of the stealing. If he
+ could not get that he would take an ordinary salary. I should think he was
+ a good man from what he says. You heard him. They were wonderfully anxious
+ to prove by Moore that Dorsey was the head and front of this whole
+ business. That was the object, and so he swore as to the instructions. He
+ said he was instructed to get up petitions so that they could be torn off
+ and the names pasted on other petitions. He swore he carried out those
+ instructions. He swore that Major agreed to do it, and I think a man by
+ the name of McBeau was going to do it. Yet, gentlemen, there never was
+ such a petition gotten up. Major swore here that he never heard of it;
+ that he never dreamed of it, and never agreed to it; that it was a lie;
+ that it was never suggested to him. Moore went out West and came back as
+ far as Denver, and at Denver met John R. Miner, and then came here and saw
+ Dorsey. What did he do with Dorsey? He swears that he went to Stephen W.
+ Dorsey and settled with him, and that Dorsey settled in a very generous
+ and magnanimous way, and did not want to look at his account, and did not
+ want to look at the book; had no anxiety or curiosity about the items. He
+ just said, "How much is it?" It happened to be even dollars&mdash;two
+ hundred and fifty dollars. When a man goes out West and has hotel bills
+ and all that sort of thing, when he comes to render his expense account it
+ is always even dollars. Moore said two hundred and fifty dollars. Dorsey
+ gave it to him; never looked at the book at all. Moore swears that he made
+ that settlement with Stephen W. Dorsey on the 11th day of July, 1878.
+ Dorsey was then in the Senate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Look at page 1417. You see that Moore had been smart; that is what people
+ call smart. You know it is never smart to tell a lie. Very few men have
+ the brains to tell a good lie. It is an awfully awkward thing to deal with
+ after you? have told it. You see it will not fit anything else except
+ another lie that you make, and you have to start a factory in a short time
+ to make lies enough to support that poor little bantling that you left on
+ the door-step of your honesty. A man that is going to tell a lie should be
+ ingenious and he should have an excellent memory. That man swore that he
+ settled with Dorsey to the 11th day of July, 1878; swore it for the
+ purpose of convincing you that Dorsey employed him; that Dorsey gave him
+ instructions; that Dorsey was the head and front of the conspiracy. I then
+ handed him a little paper, and asked him, "Do you know anything about
+ that? Did you ever sign that?" And here it is:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not July 11. That is the day he got the money of Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ July 24, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Received of Miner, Peck &amp; Co., one hundred and sixty-six dollars,
+ balance of salary and expenses in full to July 11, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A. W. MOORE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To when? To July 24? No, sir; he settled with Dorsey to July 11, 1878. The
+ gentlemen had forgotten that he gave that. If he had only had a little
+ more brains he would have avoided the two hundred and fifty dollars, that
+ even amount, and he would have said, "Dorsey did look over my books, and
+ we had a little dispute about some items, and we just jumped at two
+ hundred and fifty dollars." But he swears that was the actual settlement,
+ and then we bring in his receipt in writing, dated the 24th of July, 1878,
+ saying that he received one hundred and sixty-six dollars that day, and
+ that it was in full of his salary and expenses, not up to that date, but
+ up to the nth of July, 1878. If his testimony is true, he stole that one
+ hundred and sixty-six dollars. If his testimony is true, he settled with
+ Dorsey in full for two hundred and fifty dollars, and then he was mean
+ enough to go and get one hundred and sixty-six dollars more for the same
+ time. No, gentlemen, he was all right enough about it then; he told the
+ falsehood here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what does Dorsey swear? Dorsey swears that he received an order from
+ Miner to give this man two hundred and fifty dollars. Miner swears that if
+ Dorsey paid him anything it was on his, Miner's, request. That is a v
+ perfectly natural proceeding for Mr. Miner to request Dorsey to pay this
+ man two hundred and fifty dollars. The man came to Dorsey's house. Dorsey
+ gave him two hundred and fifty dollars upon Miner's order. He was trusting
+ John R. Miner for the money, and it was none of his business whether Miner
+ owed it or not, and consequently he did not look at his book. Now, every
+ fact is consistent with the truth of Mr. Dorsey's testimony; the fact is
+ consistent with the truth of Miner's testimony; and the receipt of this
+ man given to Miner on the 24th of July, 1878, demonstrates that he did not
+ tell the truth, under oath, in this court before you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the end of Mr. Moore; that is the end of him. You never need
+ bother about him again as long as you live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, they say, "Why didn't you impeach him?" He impeached himself. "Why
+ didn't you call so-and-so?" Because we had that receipt; that is why. No
+ need of killing a man that is dead. You need not give poison to a corpse.
+ When a thing is buried, let it go. When a man commits suicide, you need
+ not murder him. When he destroys his own testimony, let it alone; it will
+ not hurt you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not afraid of the testimony of Mr. Moore. If these gentlemen can
+ galvanize it into the appearance of life, I should be very happy to see
+ them do it. Everything that he swore upon this stand that in any way
+ touched the defendants is shown not to be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should Dorsey have told him in 1878 to get up fraudulent petitions?
+ Even Rerdell does not swear that in 1879 Dorsey instructed him to get up
+ fraudulent petitions, and certainly he would go to the limit of the truth.
+ After he made his story out of a piece of true cloth there would be very
+ few scraps left. He would certainly go clear to the line. And yet, even he
+ does not swear that when he went West to make contracts, to get up
+ petitions, he was instructed by Mr. Dorsey to get up a fraudulent petition&mdash;not
+ once. And yet Moore swears that in 1878, when Dorsey was in the Senate, he
+ told him to get up these fraudulent petitions. It will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Major swears that what he says about it is not true; Mr. McBean swears
+ that what he says about it is not true; and then we have Moore's own
+ receipt showing that it is not true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4757 Mr. Bliss says&mdash;Moore stands before you, therefore, so
+ far as all this testimony is concerned, wholly and absolutely
+ uncontradicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His testimony was that he was employed by Dorsey; his testimony was that
+ he was settled with by Dorsey, and the testimony of the receipt that he
+ signed is that he settled with Miner and not with Dorsey; the testimony of
+ Miner is that he was settled with by Miner, and not with by Dorsey; the
+ testimony of Dorsey is that he never had any conversation with him in the
+ world except at the time he paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars.
+ They say Rerdell was present at the conversation. Why did they not prove
+ it by Rerdell after Dorsey had sworn to the contrary? And yet Mr. Bliss
+ tells you that he is not contradicted&mdash;"utterly uncontradicted."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker, it seems, has an opinion of this same witness, I believe. He
+ says, on page 4511:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He says he started out and went to work, as these records show, and made
+ the subcontracts according to his instructions, and got up the petitions
+ according to his instructions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He swears he did not get up a petition at all, not one; he swears that he
+ had not time. And yet these gentlemen say that he got up petitions
+ according to his instructions, and he swears he did not. He swears he told
+ Major to, and that Major signified his willingness to do it. Major swears
+ that that is a falsehood. He swears the same with reference to McBean, and
+ McBean swears that it is a falsehood. Now Mr. Ker goes on:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He fixed them up and changed the language a little in some, and in some he
+ did not take the trouble to change, but he fixed them all so that there
+ was a space between the writing and the names, so that they could be cut
+ off and pasted on other papers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He expressly denies that he ever fixed a petition in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. What page?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. You ask the page! Talk to the jury seven days! I say that
+ this man never fixed up a petition, and he never says that he fixed up a
+ petition. Where is the page on which he says it? He was willing to do it,
+ but he had not the time. I will show you that language. There is what they
+ say about this man. Then he says he got a note from Miner, and went to
+ Denver and met Miner. That is right. Then Miner offered him a quarter
+ interest in the routes in this vast conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us find what Moore thinks of himself. We find that on page 1398. He is
+ a good man, worthy of this case, according to the eternal fitness of
+ things. I come to this quicker than I thought I would. It is page 1396:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did you get up any?&mdash;A. No, sir; I didn't have the time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There it is. Now, of course, Mr. Ker forgot. I call your attention to this
+ to show how little weight such evidence is entitled to in reference to a
+ conversation five years ago, when Mr. Ker could not remember this with the
+ book before him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. I asked you for the page on which Mr. McBean's testimony appears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Mr. Moore is the witness. Mr. Moore swears that he never
+ got up such a petition. Mr. Ker says he did. He and Mr. Ker will have to
+ settle their own difficulty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On last Friday, in reply, I think, to a question of Mr. Ker, I stated that
+ I thought McBean swore that Mr. Moore did not make any arrangement with
+ him to get up false petitions. In that I was mistaken. Mr. Moore swore
+ that he made an arrangement with McBean to get up petitions. He did not
+ quite swear that McBean agreed to get up false and fraudulent petitions.
+ He just came to the edge of it and did not quite swear to it. Afterwards
+ McBean was recalled by the Government and the Government did not ask
+ McBean whether he had ever agreed to get up any petitions or whether he
+ had ever made any such arrangement with Moore. They did not ask him and we
+ did not ask him. I do not know why they did not ask him. They probably
+ know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also stated that Moore swore that he got his instructions about these
+ petitions from Dorsey. The evidence is that he got his instructions not
+ from Dorsey but from Miner; that Miner so instructed him, and that
+ thereupon he made the bargain to get up such petitions with a man by the
+ name of Major on the Redding and Alturas route. I make this correction
+ because I do not want you or any one else to think that I wish any
+ misstatement made in our favor. We do not need it and consequently there
+ is no need of making it. You will remember that after Moore swore that he
+ made a bargain with Major to get up false petitions, Major swore that it
+ was untrue. You will also remember that Judge Carpenter called for the
+ petitions that were gotten up upon the routes that Moore had something to
+ do with, and I think he showed you on one route eleven or twelve
+ petitions. Mr. Major swears that every petition was honest, that the
+ statements in each petition were true, and that the signatures were
+ genuine. All those petitions were shown to you. So that the result of the
+ Moore testimony is this: Moore swears that Miner told him to get up such
+ petitions. He then swears that he made that bargain with Major. Major says
+ it is not true. Moore almost swears that he made the same bargain with
+ McBean. McBean says nothing on the subject. Then we bring here the
+ petitions upon those very routes, and especially upon the Redding and
+ Alturas route, and we find no such petitions as are described by Moore.
+ That is enough in regard to Mr. Moore upon that one point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one little piece of testimony to which I failed to call your
+ attention on Friday, and to which I will call your attention now. Moore
+ was the friend of Boone. Boone recommended him to Miner. It was through
+ Boone that Moore was employed. Now, I ask you if it is not wonderful that
+ Moore never told Boone that there was a conspiracy on foot? Is it not
+ wonderful that Moore did not tell Boone, his friend, the man to whom he
+ was indebted for the employment, "There is a conspiracy in this case.
+ Senator Dorsey as good as told me so. I know all about it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact is he never said one word, and the reason we know it, is that
+ Boone swears that when he went out on the 7th or 8th of August he never
+ even suspected it. I cannot, it seems to me, make this point too plain.
+ Boone had been known by Dorsey for a long time. They were very good
+ friends. Dorsey had enough confidence in him to select him as the man to
+ get the necessary information after he had been requested so to do in the
+ letter. Boone was the man who attended to this business more than anybody
+ else. Boone was interested with John W. Dorsey. Boone had every reason to
+ find out exactly what was happening. He was at Dorsey's house, where Miner
+ was. He talked with Miner day after day. He helped get up the bids. He did
+ a great deal of mechanical work. He had the subcontracts printed. Yet
+ during all that time Dorsey never let fall a chance expression that gave
+ Boone even the dimmest dawn of a hint that there was a conspiracy. Nobody
+ told Boone. Moore, his friend, never spoke of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is one other point with regard to Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore swears,
+ on page 1371, that Miner offered him a fourth interest in these routes.
+ That was the conversation in which he said Mr. Miner told him they were
+ good affidavit men. According to Moore's testimony he then knew there was
+ a conspiracy, and he understood that he was part and parcel of it. Let me
+ ask you right here, is it probable that Moore would have been offered a
+ quarter interest at that time if a conspiracy existed, and if they had
+ their plans laid to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if the
+ profits had depended upon the affidavits alone? I ask you, as sensible,
+ reasonable men, if he would have been offered a quarter interest under
+ those circumstances? Now conies in what I believe to be the falsehood. Mr.
+ Moore says that the interest was offered to him by Miner, but Miner said
+ it would have to be ratified by Stephen W. Dorsey. That is brought in for
+ the purpose of having some evidence against Dorsey. You must recollect,
+ gentlemen, that this evidence was all purchased. This evidence was all
+ bargained for in the open shamble. You must recollect that there are upon
+ the records of this court some seven or ten indictments against A. E.
+ Boone. You must remember that Moore was Boone's friend. You must remember
+ that Moore was a part of the consideration that Boone was giving to the
+ Government for immunity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Is there any proof of that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I think there is. Mr. Moore swears as to the number of
+ indictments against Boone. He was his friend. The jury have a right to
+ infer what motive prompts a witness. Moore wished to swear enough, so that
+ Mr. Boone would not be troubled. In my judgment, Mr. Boone, being under
+ indictment, gave evidence in this case in order that the Government would
+ take its clutch from his throat. He swore under pressure. That is the
+ system, gentlemen, that is dangerous in any country. Whenever a Government
+ advertises for witnesses; whenever a Government says to a guilty man, or
+ to a man who is indicted, "All we ask of you is to help us convict
+ somebody else;" whenever they advertise for a villain, they get him. That
+ is the result of what they call the informer system&mdash;an infamous
+ system. A court of justice, where justice is done between man and man, is
+ the holiest place on earth. The informer system turns it into a den, into
+ a cavern, into a dungeon, where crawl the slimy monsters of perjury and
+ treachery. That is the informer system. It makes a court a den of wild
+ beasts. What else does it do? Under its brood and hatch come spies; spies
+ to watch witnesses, spies to watch counsel, spies to follow jurymen, so
+ that a juror cannot leave his house without the shadow of the spy falling
+ upon his door-step. That is not the proper attitude of a Government. The
+ business of a Government is to protect its citizens, not to spread nets.
+ The business of a Government is to throw its shield of power in front of
+ the rights of every citizen. I hold in utter, infinite, and absolute
+ contempt any Government that calls for informers and spies. Every trial
+ should be in the free air. All the work should be done openly. These
+ sinister motions in the dark, the crawling of these abnormal and slimy
+ things, I abhor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, to come back to Moore. Upon my word I think he was trying to help his
+ friend. After Mr. Miner had offered him a quarter interest, then he came
+ back to Washington. He arrived here, according to his evidence, about the
+ 11th day of July, I think. He went immediately to see Stephen W. Dorsey.
+ Recollect that. That was the time Dorsey settled with him without looking
+ at his books. After he settled with him and gave him two hundred and fifty
+ dollars he asked him to telegraph to see if the service had been put on
+ The Dalles and Baker City route. He waited here until he received an
+ answer, and after that he talked with Dorsey not only about that matter,
+ but in that conversation Dorsey said, according to Moore, that it took a
+ good deal of money to keep up their influence in the department. When I
+ asked him when that conversation was, he said two or three days after the
+ first conversation. According to the evidence in this case Stephen W.
+ Dorsey left this city on the 12th of July. This man Moore arrived on the
+ nth, and he says two or three days after his arrival Dorsey said it took
+ money to keep up their influence here. When he swears that Dorsey told him
+ that, Dorsey was in the city of Oberlin, Ohio. Recollect these things.
+ Whoever tells stories of this character should have a most excellent
+ memory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another thing. When did Miner get back? He got back by the
+ 24th of July, because on the 24th of July he settled with Moore, and I
+ believe then Moore went West again. Now, remember there was a contract
+ made, as Moore swears. He has not got it. Nobody sees it. He says there
+ was a contract made by which he had a fourth interest in something. He got
+ back here I believe some time in November, and on the 20th of November he
+ and Miner settled. I will now look on page 1430 for that settlement. I
+ want you to see how everything was situated at that time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I find on page 1430 that Mr. Miner settled for everybody with Mr. A. W.
+ Moore. Remember the situation. Moore knew there was a conspiracy. All the
+ service was on. You see, this was November 20, 1880. Vaile was in. They
+ had a man who was close to Brady. Everything was running in magnificent
+ style. Mr. Moore understood that there was a conspiracy. What more did he
+ understand? That he had the claw of his avarice in the flesh of a United
+ States Senator and in the flesh of a Second Assistant Postmaster-General.
+ Hundreds of thousands of dollars were to be made. He came back here and
+ settled up and sold out his interest for how much? Six hundred and
+ eighty-two dollars. Do you believe that? Credulity would not believe it.
+ Nobody believes it, that is if the rest of the story is true. Why did he
+ settle with him for so little? He said Mr. Miner told him he hadn't a
+ dollar. He did not reply to him, "When this conspiracy is completed you
+ will have plenty. I can wait." No. Miner said he hadn't anything and so
+ Moore settled for six hundred and eighty-two dollars. Then I asked him,
+ "You had a contract with Dorsey, did you?" "Yes; verbally." "Did you ever
+ say anything to Dorsey about it?" "No." "Did you ever claim anything from
+ Dorsey?" "No." "Did you ever write to him?" "No." "Did you ever say
+ anything to anybody that you had any claim against Dorsey?" "No." You saw
+ Mr. Moore, gentlemen, here upon the stand. Do you think he is the kind of
+ man who would let such a chance slip? It is for you to judge. In my
+ judgment that is the eternal end of Moore's testimony. We can call him
+ buried. We can put the sod over his grave. We can raise a stone to the
+ memory of A. W. Moore. Let him rest in peace, or to use the initials only,
+ let him R. I. P. That is the end of him. If the Government wishes to dig
+ up the corpse hereafter let them dig.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. I would like&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Interposing.] I don't want to hear from you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. You do not know what he is going to say.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. He may be intending to make a motion that the jury be
+ instructed to find a verdict of not guilty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. As Mr. Merrick will have to answer, he simply wants to know the
+ page.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. If Mr. Merrick wants to know the page he shall have the
+ page, or anybody that wishes to answer. If counsel had simply asked me for
+ the page, without getting up in such a solemn manner, I would have told
+ him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 1406, Mr. Moore says that he went to Dorsey and got the money, and
+ that then Dorsey requested him to telegraph to The Dalles, and that he did
+ not see Dorsey after he got the answer to his dispatch, I think, for two
+ or three days. He reached Washington, he says, about the 11th. On page
+ 1372, he speaks of telegraphing to The Dalles by instructions from Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I am going to call your attention for a little while to
+ another witness, Mr. Rerdell. And in the commencement, I need not refresh
+ your minds with regard to the part he has played. I need not, in the first
+ instance, tell you about his affidavit of June, 1881, nor his affidavit of
+ July 13, 1882, nor his pencil memorandum, nor his Chico letter, nor his
+ offer to pack the jury on behalf of the Government, nor the signals he had
+ agreed upon, nor the reports he made from day to day, nor the affidavit of
+ September that he made for the Government, nor of November nor of
+ February. All these things you remember and remember perfectly. I will
+ speak of them as I reach them, but I want you to keep in your minds who he
+ is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I need not call any names. Epithets would glance from his reputation like
+ bird-shot from the turret of a monitor. The worst thing I can say about
+ him is to call him Mr. Rerdell. All epithets become meaningless in
+ comparison. The worst thing I can say after that would have the taint of
+ flattery in it. You will remember when Enobarbus was speaking to Agrippa
+ about C&aelig;sar, he says, "Would you praise C&aelig;sar, say C&aelig;sar.
+ Go no further." And I can say, "If you wish to abuse this witness, say Mr.
+ Rerdell. Go no further." That is as far as I shall go.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will remember that Mr. Rerdell was in the employ of Stephen W. Dorsey,
+ and had been for several years. He does not pretend that he was ever badly
+ used; he does not say before you that Mr. Dorsey ever did to him an unkind
+ act, ever said an unkind word. In all the record of the years that he was
+ with him he finds no page blotted with an unjust act, not one. He has no
+ complaint to make. Under those circumstances he voluntarily goes to see a
+ man by the name of Clayton, I think an ex-Senator from Arkansas, known to
+ him at that time to be an enemy of Stephen W. Dorsey, an enemy of his
+ employer, an enemy of his friend&mdash;his friend, whose bread this
+ witness had eaten for years, whose roof had protected him, who had trusted
+ and treated him like a human being. Yet he goes to this man Clayton, and
+ he says, in substance, "I want to sell out my friend to the Government."
+ He was not actuated exactly by patriotism, although he says he was. The
+ promptings of virtue may have started him, but after he got started he
+ said to himself, "I do not see that it hurts virtue to be rewarded." So he
+ said, "I want some pay for this; I want a steamboat route reinstated; I
+ want the Jennings claim allowed. Of course I am disinterested in what I am
+ doing, but I might as well have something, if it is going." "What else do
+ you want?" The disinterested patriot suggested that he would like to have
+ a clerkship for his father-in-law. "Anything else?" If you will read his
+ letter of July 5, 1882, which I will read to you before I get through, you
+ will see that he says, "If I had remained with the Government I have every
+ reason to believe I would have had a good position by this time." So he
+ must have demanded a clerkship for himself&mdash;good, honest man. At that
+ time he did not know, but swore it afterwards and swore it here upon the
+ stand, that Dorsey had never done anything wrong; and yet he was willing
+ to sell him to the Government, believing that he had never done anything
+ wrong. So he went and saw the Postmaster-General. The Postmaster-General
+ did not appear to take any great interest in the matter. He turned him
+ over to the Attorney-General. He showed the Postmaster-General what he
+ had, and read him, I believe, or showed him some memoranda. Then he went
+ and saw the Attorney-General. The Postmaster-General did not seem to give
+ him encouragement. Then when he went to see MacVeagh he took with him a
+ letter-book&mdash;I do not know but more than one&mdash;but we will say a
+ letter-book. Now, what was in that letter-book? And, gentlemen, the only
+ way to find whether a man tells the truth is to take all the circumstances
+ into consideration. What did he want to do? What was his object? And what
+ were the means at his command? For instance, it is said that a man left
+ his house with the intention of murdering another, and that he had on his
+ table a loaded revolver, and also had on his table a small walking-stick,
+ and he took with him the walking-stick. You would say he did not intend to
+ commit the murder; that if he had so intended he would have taken the
+ deadly weapon. In other words, you must believe that men, acting for the
+ accomplishment of a certain object, use the natural means within their
+ power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what did he have in that letter-book? He swears now that in that
+ letter-book there was a copy of a letter from Stephen W. Dorsey to James
+ W. Bosler; that the original letter was written by Stephen W. Dorsey. That
+ press-copy, of course, would show that the original letter was in the
+ handwriting of S. W. Dorsey. What does he swear was in that letter? He
+ swears that Dorsey made a proposition to Bosler to go into the business;
+ told him the profits, and told him that he had to give thirty-three and
+ one-third per cent, to T. J. B.; that he had already paid him, I think,
+ twenty thousand dollars, and had more to pay him. According to the
+ testimony of Mr. Rerdell, that was in the letter-book that he took to Mr.
+ MacVeagh. Now, recollect that. Why did he not show it? He had forgotten
+ it. He showed him what he had. Recollect now, that he had a tabular
+ statement. I think the letter showed so much money to T. J. B., and the
+ tabular statement thirty-three and one-third per cent, to T. J. B. He had
+ that tabular statement, and that was in Dorsey's handwriting. He says he
+ had it. Well, after that, the Attorney-General must have told him, "That
+ is not enough; I want some more." "Well," he says, "I can let you have
+ some more." "What more can you let us have?" Well, then he told him about
+ the red books; I do not know that he said they were red, but he told him
+ about the books and that those books were in New York, and he would go
+ over there and get them; that he was going to steal them; he says he went
+ over to get them, and afterwards admitted, I believe that lie was stealing
+ them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we must remember the position Rerdell was in. He had been to Clayton,
+ to the Postmaster-General in company with Mr. Woodward, and to the
+ Attorney-General in company with Mr. Woodward, and yet there was not
+ enough. Well, it was all he had. What more could he do? He suddenly found
+ himself caught in his own trap. He had furnished enough to trouble him,
+ but not enough to convict Dorsey, and not enough to be promised immunity.
+ Now, what had he to do? He did exactly as he did with Mr. Woodward in
+ September, when he made that affidavit, and when Woodward said it was not
+ enough; he said, "Very well, I will make another," the same as he did when
+ he made the affidavit of seventy pages in November and found it was a
+ little weak. He made another, and he would have made them right along. He
+ had a factory running night and day. Now, he tells you that while he was
+ talking with MacVeagh, just towards the last of the conversation, the idea
+ flashed into his brain that he might save Dorsey too. Don't you remember
+ that testimony? And as quick as he thought of that, he agreed to go to New
+ York and steal the books. The very last thing that MacVeagh said to him,
+ according to MacVeagh's testimony, and I believe according to his own, was
+ to be sure and get the books; that they were all important. So he went, as
+ he claims. Now, did it occur to him that he would save Dorsey in that way?
+ Did he think of saving Dorsey by going and getting these books? That was
+ the last thing, and he was going to get the books to be used as evidence
+ against Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a few days he says he started for New York, and the question arises,
+ why did Rerdell go to New York at all? Why did he want to see that the
+ books were in New York? Why did he pretend that he had any more evidence
+ unless he had it? You see you have got to get at the philosophy of this
+ man; you have got to find what actuated him; and although in many respects
+ he is abnormal, unnatural, monstrous, and morally deformed, still it may
+ be that we can find the philosophy upon which he acted. Why did he say he
+ was going to New York? Because the Attorney-General told him&mdash;he must
+ have told him&mdash;that the evidence he then had was not sufficient.
+ Rerdell could not break down right there and say, "That is all I have
+ got." That would give up the fight; that would tell him that he had
+ endeavored to sell out his friend and nobody would buy the evidence; that
+ would tell him that he had tried this and had failed; that he had simply
+ succeeded in showing his own treachery without involving his friend. He
+ could not stop there. You must recollect the evidence he had, and the
+ evidence he wanted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see what he had. Mr. Bliss says, "Why did he say the books were in
+ New York? Why did he not say they were in Washington?" That would not have
+ given him time, gentlemen. He would have been told, "Go and get them."
+ Then he could not have produced them. Consequently he put them in the
+ possession of somebody else, so that if he failed to get them, then he
+ could say that the other man destroyed them or had hid them; he could have
+ said, "I have done my best; they did exist, but they have been destroyed,
+ or they have been hidden, or they have been put out of the way." He wanted
+ time, and knowing that no such books existed, he could not say, "I have
+ them in Washington," because then he could give no excuse for their
+ non-production. He must state it in such a way that he could reasonably
+ fail; that is to say, that he could give a reason for his failure. He
+ could not say, "I have them in my house," because he would have been told
+ to go and get them. So he put them in the possession of another man, so
+ that, failing to get them, as fail he must, he could give a reasonable
+ excuse for the failure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he go to New York? I will tell you what my philosophy is: He found
+ that the Government did not wish to purchase the evidence that he had. He
+ found that, in the judgment of the expert of the Department of Justice, it
+ was not sufficient. The next thing was to retrace his steps. He did not
+ want to jump off of one boat into the sea and find no other boat to rescue
+ him. He said: "I have been too hasty; I will go to New York." Why? To find
+ out whether Dorsey had heard of this or not. That is what he went there
+ for. The inferior man always imagines that the superior knows what he is
+ doing, and knows what he has done. He found that he was about to fail with
+ the Government, and then the important question to him was: Has Dorsey
+ found this out? Can I go back to Dorsey? Or must I go on and be cast away
+ by him and be refused by the Government?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let me call another thing to your minds. I will come to it again, but
+ it forces itself upon me at this place, and it seems to me it ought to be
+ absolutely conclusive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He swears that on the day after he went to MacVeagh with that letter-book,
+ in looking it over he found the press-copy of the original letter that
+ Dorsey wrote to Bosler on the 13th of July, 1879. says that the next day
+ he found that copy in that copy-book. Why did he not steal the book?
+ Conscientious scruples, gentlemen! You see he was going to New York to
+ steal another. Why not steal one that he already had possession of? And
+ how much better that book would have been than the other that he was going
+ to get. This was a copy of a letter in Dorsey's handwriting, in which he
+ admitted that he had paid twenty thousand dollars to T. J. B., and was
+ going to pay him some more, while that book in New York was not in
+ Dorsey's handwriting&mdash;admitting, for the sake of the argument, that
+ there was a book&mdash;but was in the handwriting of Donnelly or Rerdell.
+ See? And right there he had the evidence, absolutely conclusive, in the
+ handwriting of S. W. Dorsey himself, and he did not even keep it, he did
+ not even steal it, but he gave it back and went to New York to steal a
+ book that Dorsey did not write. He threw away primary evidence to get
+ secondary evidence. He threw away that which would have convicted Dorsey
+ beyond a doubt, which would have made him a welcome recruit to the
+ Government. He threw that away and went to New York to get another, a line
+ of which Dorsey never wrote; and then he would have to establish, after he
+ got that book, that "William Smith" stood for Thomas J. Brady; he would
+ have to prove after they got that book that "John Smith" or "Samuel Jones"
+ stood for Turner. Now, gentlemen, do you believe that that man, with his
+ ideas of honor, with the kind of a conscience he has in his bosom, with
+ the copy of a letter in Dorsey's handwriting in his possession admitting
+ that Dorsey gave twenty thousand dollars to T. J. B., would give that up
+ and then go to the city of New York to steal a book not in Dorsey's
+ handwriting, and that did not prove that Dorsey had ever paid a cent to
+ Thomas J. Brady, in which there was one charge to "William Smith," and
+ that would have to be eked out by the testimony of Rerdell himself, when
+ he had right there in his own grasp and clutch the press-copy of the
+ original letter written by Dorsey himself? Do you believe it? There is not
+ a man on that jury believes it; there is not a lawyer prosecuting this
+ case who believes it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else did he have? He had a letter that he himself, as he claims,
+ wrote to Bosler on the 22d of May, 1880, after he, Rerdell, had been
+ summoned to appear before a committee of Congress. He had, he says, those
+ three sheets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else did he have the morning after he was talking with MacVeagh? He
+ had the tabular statement in the handwriting of Stephen W. Dorsey, and
+ over the Brady column, "T. J. B., thirty-three and one-third per cent."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more did that man have? He had the balance-sheets made out, as he
+ swears, by Donnelly, of those books. Were the balance-sheets just as good
+ as the books?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, just think what he had, according to his own testimony: A copy of the
+ original letter, written by Dorsey to Bosler, in which he admitted his
+ guilt; a copy of the tabular statement, written by Dorsey, in which he put
+ down thirty-three and one-third per cent, to T. J. B. What more? Copy of
+ the letter that he had written to Bosler on the 22d of May, 1880. He had
+ all that, and he must have had this memorandum, though I will show you
+ that he had not, and I think I will show you when he made it. And yet he
+ was going to New York to get some more evidence. He was going to steal
+ another book in New York that would simply create a suspicion, while he
+ gave up a book that was absolute certainty. That is the theory. But they
+ say, "Oh, he did not do that quite." What did he do? He went and had that
+ copied. He swears that he had copied that letter of May 13, 1879, that
+ Dorsey wrote to Bosler, in which he admitted that he gave twenty thousand
+ dollars to Brady. Now, a copy would not show in whose handwriting the
+ press-copy was, would it? That is a very important point. Who copied it? I
+ think he said Miss Nettie L. White copied it. We never hear of Miss Nettie
+ L. White again, though. These gentlemen admit that you are not to believe
+ Mr. Rerdell on any point that is not corroborated, and when he swears that
+ Miss Nettie L. White copied the letter you are not bound to believe there
+ was such a letter unless they bring Miss White or account for her absence.
+ They did not bring her. That is an extremely important point in their
+ case, infinitely more important than whether the red books ever existed.
+ Did Dorsey write a letter to Bosler in which he admitted his guilt? This
+ man says that he had complete and perfect evidence of it in his own hand;
+ that he gave that up; that he had that copied by Miss White. And they did
+ not bring Miss White. Certainly he had no scruples about tearing it out.
+ He says he tore out his letter to Bosler of the 22d of May, 1880. He had
+ no scruples about that. He did not refuse to keep the book because it
+ touched his honor, because in a day or two he was going to steal another
+ not half as good as that one, not one-tenth part as good. Just think. He
+ gave up evidence that was absolute and complete, and went to steal
+ evidence that was secondary and of the poorest character. You do not
+ believe it. He would have kept that book if he had kept any. If he was
+ going to steal any evidence, and had the best, he would have kept it. The
+ trouble was that there was no such letter in that book. There was his
+ letter of May 22, 1880; no doubt about that; and that man tore it out, and
+ then he made up one in his own mind, and had it of that date; that is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So he went to New York, and he swears that he went right up to the
+ Albemarle Hotel; that it was early in the morning; that Dorsey was not
+ then up; and that he had a conversation with Dorsey, in which Dorsey
+ charged him with having had something to do with the Government, with
+ having gone over to the Government. Dorsey had heard that there was
+ something going on about that time, and I suppose he asked Mr. Rerdell
+ about it. Rerdell denied it; said there was no truth in it; that nothing
+ of the kind, character, or sort had ever happened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us just see whether I can demonstrate to you that Rerdell, in the
+ conversation he had with Dorsey at the Albemarle Hotel, denied that he had
+ gone over to the Government, or that he had done anything that was not
+ perfectly honest, straightforward, and upright. I refer to it now,
+ although I may come to it again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, gentlemen, I am sorry for you; I pity every one of you, that you have
+ to hear all that has to be said in this case. But you must put yourselves,
+ for the moment, in our places. You must remember that these defendants
+ have borne this agony, have been roofed and surrounded with disorder for
+ two years. You must remember that the agents of the Government have
+ pursued them, they have watched over them and spied them night and day.
+ You must remember that they have been slandered for years in the public
+ press, although the tone of the public press is now changing, and changing
+ in such a marked degree that one of the attorneys here for the prosecution
+ claimed that we had bought up the correspondents. When you take into
+ consideration what my clients have suffered, the position they are now in,
+ fighting this great and powerful Government, I know you will excuse us for
+ inflicting upon you every thought and every argument that we think may be
+ for our defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am doing for my clients what I would do for you, or any of you, if you
+ were defendants, and I am doing for them what I would want them to do for
+ me were I a defendant and they my counsel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I am going to demonstrate this. When Mr. Rerdell got to Jersey City he
+ telegraphed back, according to the evidence of Mr. Dorsey:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Up to this moment I have been faithful to every trust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe Rerdell swears that he did not send that. He had a
+ memorandum-book which he took out of his pocket. I think a leaf was torn
+ from it, and he ran his pencil through this line on the page on which he
+ had taken a copy of this dispatch, "Up to this moment I have been faithful
+ to every trust," and says he did not send it. Why did he put his pencil
+ through that? Because that line would not agree with the testimony he had
+ given upon the stand. "Up to this moment I have been faithful to every
+ trust" was in that dispatch. I want to ask you if you believe that Rerdell
+ could have sent that dispatch to a man to whom he had admitted that very
+ morning that he had gone over to the Government? Do you believe it? How
+ perfectly natural it would have been for him to send a dispatch from
+ Jersey City that harmonized and accorded with his denial of that morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just look at that [handing the paper to the foreman of the jury.] Just
+ read it. I want the jury to look at it. He rubbed it out of his
+ memorandum-book. When? At the time? No, sir; when he found that he wanted
+ something to harmonize with his evidence here. Even he had not the brazen
+ effrontery to swear that he had told Dorsey that very morning that he
+ (Rerdell) had gone over to the Government, and then that very afternoon to
+ telegraph him&mdash;Up to this moment I have been faithful to every trust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, in comparison with that cheek brass is a liquid. What is the next
+ sentence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The affidavit story is a lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he leave that in? Because technically that was true. He had not
+ then made an affidavit, and there is nothing so pleases a man who has made
+ up his mind to tell a lie as to have mixed with the mortar of that lie one
+ hair of truth. It is delightful to smell the perfume of a fact in the
+ hell-broth of his perjury. Just look at that. These two things show that
+ he had not admitted to Dorsey that he had told the Government anything
+ against Dorsey. He wanted Dorsey to understand that he, Rerdell, had not
+ communicated with the Government. Now, if you admit his evidence to be
+ true, at the time he sent that dispatch he had the stolen book under his
+ arm, and you, gentlemen of the jury, are asked to believe a man who would
+ do that thing. I would not. I would not convict the meanest, lowest wretch
+ that ever crawled between heaven and earth upon such testimony. Never.
+ Neither can you do it. A verdict must rest upon a fact. The fact must rest
+ upon the testimony of a witness. That witness must be, or seem to be, an
+ honest man. And unless a verdict is based upon the bed-rock of honesty, it
+ is infinitely rotten, and the jury that will give a verdict not based upon
+ honesty is corrupt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr Crane (foreman of the jury.) I notice that this dispatch seems to have
+ been written with different pencils at different times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr Ingersoll&mdash;Up to this moment I have been faithful to every trust&mdash;Is
+ written very dimly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The affidavit story is a lie, but confidence between us is gone&mdash;Is
+ in still a different hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I resign my position and will turn everything over to any one you
+ designate&mdash;Is still another hand. Three hands, three pencils, in the
+ one memorandum. These papers have been manufactured, and when the
+ Government said, "This is not enough," another paragraph has been added.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How hard it is to perpetrate a piece of rascality and do it well. There
+ are an infinite number of things in this universe, and everything that is
+ in it is related to everything else; and when you get a falsehood in it
+ that does not belong to the family, it has not the family likeness; and
+ when anybody sees it who is acquainted with the family, he says, "That is
+ an adopted young one."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Rerdell now says, I believe, that he did not send that line, "Up to
+ this moment," &amp;c. Dorsey swears that he did. Rerdell then produces
+ this book and this paper which I have shown to you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us follow Mr. Rerdell from the Albemarle Hotel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will show that he crosses himself on almost every fact that he endeavors
+ to swear to. He swears that he went to Dorsey's; that from Dorsey's he
+ went immediately to Tor-rey's office; that he then went and got lunch and
+ then went to Jersey City. He also swears that he got his breakfast before
+ he went to Dorsey's. In the next examination he swears that he got his
+ breakfast after he went to Dorsey's, and after he got the book he went to
+ Jersey City, first walking up and down Broadway for about an hour. He had
+ forgotten about the lunch. There is nothing in it but a mass of
+ contradiction. He swears that he went down to Torrey's office. Why did he
+ not make it earlier, as soon as he got off the boat? Because he did not
+ have any key to the office. It would not do to swear that he broke into
+ the office and that nobody ever heard of it, and so he had to put the time
+ after the office would naturally be open. Well, now we have got him as far
+ as the office. He swears that he went in there and saw Mr. Torrey. After
+ chatting a little with Torrey, and telling him the object of his visit,
+ Torrey took him into the next room and took these books from a shelf or
+ desk, or something of that kind, and handed them both to him, and he
+ looked them over at his leisure, while Mr. Torrey went back to his
+ business. He finally took the journal and left the ledger. Why did he
+ leave the ledger? I will tell you after a while. Every lie, as well as
+ every truth, has its philosophy. He took the journal and came along out
+ with it under his arm, not wrapped up, not concealed. Then he had another
+ chat with Torrey about the weather or something, and then he went on. Why
+ did he swear that he had a conversation with Torrey in that office? I will
+ tell you. When he was giving that testimony, Torrey was in mid-ocean,
+ between New York and Liverpool. I guess Mr. Rerdell had heard that the man
+ was away. He thought he would be absolutely and perfectly safe, and so he
+ said he had a conversation with Torrey. The moment he repeated that
+ conversation with Torrey, I said, "Where is Torrey?" We telegraphed to New
+ York and we found that Torrey had left for the old country. We sent a
+ cablegram to Queenstown and we intercepted him. I think he staid a day in
+ the old country, and took the next ship and came back, arriving here in
+ time to swear that Rerdell never visited that office, that he never had
+ that conversation with him, and that he never got that book from that
+ office; more than that, that that book never was in that office. Who are
+ you going to believe, Torrey or Rerdell?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another man was there on that very day, Mr. Mullins. He never had any
+ recollection of seeing Rerdell until he saw him here. All the books were
+ kept in the safe except the books that Torrey had in his desk. No such
+ books were in the safe and no such books were in Torrey's desk. Gentlemen,
+ no such books existed, and I will demonstrate it to you before I get
+ through. No doubt the man had some little expense-books of his own. He has
+ widened them, he has lengthened them, he has thickened them, he has
+ colored them. He has refreshed other people. When the Government tells a
+ man, "You have got an office, haven't you?" "Yes." "Well, we want you to
+ remember this." Then he is refreshed on the subject. The words the
+ Government speaks are rain and dew and sunlight upon the dry grass of his
+ memory and it springs up green. He says he has been refreshed. Before I
+ get through I will show you that these things were proved only by
+ gentlemen who had been refreshed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, why did Rerdell say he took the journal and left the ledger? I will
+ tell you. There is more in the shirt theory than you would think. He had a
+ shirt in a paper, folded up just once over the bosom. Unexpectedly lie met
+ Mr. James on the train. He was very much surprised to meet him, because
+ James swears he was very much surprised to meet Rerdell. James knew that
+ he had gone over to New York to get those books, and he asked him, "Did
+ you get the books?" Rerdell had that beggarly little package. He could not
+ call that "books," because it was not large enough, and so he had to say
+ he had a book. That was the reason he said journal and not ledger. He had
+ too small a package for "books," and consequently he told James he had the
+ "book," and he is sticking to it; only one book. Another reason: He said
+ to James, and it was very smart of him, "I don't want to show you what I
+ have got in this package, because there is a fellow looking," and so the
+ shirt, in unconscious innocence, reposed unseen. Who was the fellow who
+ was looking? Chase Andrews. You recollect him. He came into the depot at
+ Jersey City at the time Rerdell was writing this virtuous dispatch, this
+ certificate of his honor and of his faithfulness. He shook hands with
+ Rerdell. Rerdell said he had a carpet-sack, but it was not big enough to
+ get one of these books in. He wanted the jury to think it was a pretty big
+ book. He hated to lose a chance of adding to the size of the book, and so
+ he swore that it was too big to put in the carpet-sack. If he had only had
+ sense enough to put it in the carpet-sack, and let it alone, we never
+ could have proven anything about it by Chase Andrews. Andrews would not
+ have sworn that he looked through the carpet-sack. But Rerdell in his
+ anxiety to have that book a big book said he could not get it into the
+ carpet-sack, and consequently must have held it in his hand. Chase Andrews
+ saw him in the depot at Jersey City, and rode in the next seat in the
+ Pullman car from Jersey City to Washington, and Rerdell had no book. Who
+ will you believe, Chase Andrews or Mr. Rerdell?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Resuming.] May it please the Court and gentlemen of the
+ jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also claimed by the prosecution that on the evening of the day on
+ which Rerdell was in New York and sent the telegram from Jersey City.
+ Dorsey wrote a letter to Rerdell in which he begged him for the sake of
+ his family, for the sake of his children, and everything to go no further.
+ I believe it is claimed that after Mr. Rerdell got back here to Washington
+ he showed that letter to his brother. It struck me as extremely wonderful
+ that he did not show his brother the book; that was such an important
+ thing, it being the thing that he went after, being something that was to
+ decide his fate with the Government. There was nothing about that. Let me
+ say right here: Suppose his story is true that he told Dorsey that he had
+ been to the Government. Would Dorsey write to that man a letter begging
+ him for God's sake not to go further? Would he not rather have sent some
+ man to see him? He knew at that time that he was utterly dishonest, having
+ received that very afternoon, according to Rerdell's testimony, a telegram
+ from Rerdell, in which Rerdell admitted that he had told a falsehood.
+ Would he then have put himself upon paper? Would he have put himself in
+ the power of that same man? I ask you, because you know there is about as
+ much human nature in one person as in another, on the average, and the
+ only way you can tell what another man will do is by thinking "What would
+ I do under the circumstances?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am going to demonstrate to you now with just one point that there were
+ no such books. When Rerdell came to make the affidavit of June 20, 1881,
+ Dorsey knew that Rerdell had talked with MacVeagh, James, and Clayton. He
+ also knew that Rerdell, according to his statement, had promised to go to
+ New York and get the red book. Rerdell swears in the affidavit of June,
+ 1881, that he promised MacVeagh to go to New York and get those books.
+ Dorsey knew at that time whether such books existed or not. If he knew
+ they did exist then he knew that Rerdell went after them. Why did not
+ Dorsey ask Rerdell at the time he made that affidavit, "Did you get a book
+ in New York?" Admitting, for the sake of the argument, that Rerdell's
+ story is true that the books were there and that Dorsey knew it, would not
+ Dorsey have asked him, when he was making the affidavit of June 20, 1881,
+ "Did you get a book in New York? What did you do with it, if you did?"
+ Rerdell swears that Dorsey did not mention that subject; that it was not
+ talked of between them. Why? Because both knew that no such books existed.
+ That is the reason he did not ask him if he got it. He knew that he did
+ not get it. Why? Because the book was not there to be obtained. Can you
+ explain that on any other hypothesis? Dorsey knew at this time, according
+ to the testimony of Rerdell, that Rerdell was dishonest; knew that Rerdell
+ had tried to sell him out to the Government; knew that Rerdell had
+ promised MacVeagh he would go to New York and get those books; knew that
+ Rerdell had been to New York; knew that Rerdell had gotten back, and yet
+ did not ask him, "Did you get a book?" Would he not naturally have said,
+ "I want that book that you got in New York. I want it now." It also
+ appears in evidence that on the very day that Rerdell was in New York and
+ says he was in Torrey's office, Torrey in the afternoon went to the
+ Albemarle Hotel to do some writing for Mr. Dorsey. Is it conceivable that
+ Torrey would not in that conversation have told Dorsey, "Your clerk,
+ Rerdell, came to the office to-day and I gave him the mail book or one of
+ those books"? Not a word. That affidavit was made in June, 1881, and was
+ the affidavit in which Rerdell disclosed what he had done with the
+ Government, and that he had agreed to get that very book, and yet Dorsey
+ did not take interest enough in the matter to ask him if he got a book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Is there any evidence of the conversation between Torrey and
+ Dorsey?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. No. The evidence is that Torrey went there that evening.
+ You claim that that was the topic of conversation, and that Dorsey sent
+ dispatches to Rerdell that night and wrote a letter to Rerdell. So, I say,
+ under the circumstances, and with the excitement then prevailing, it is
+ inconceivable that Torrey should not have said, "Your man Rerdell has been
+ at my office to-day, and got one of the books."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say it is inconceivable that he did not tell him, and therefore Dorsey
+ must have known it had it been a fact, and had it been a fact when Rerdell
+ made the affidavit of 1881, Dorsey would have said, "I want that book. I
+ want the book you stole from my office." He did not even mention it. It
+ was not the subject of conversation. Yet, in that same affidavit, he said
+ that he agreed to go and get it, and in that same affidavit he said that
+ no such book ever existed. He swore to that affidavit from friendship. You
+ see, gentlemen, about how much friendship that man is capable of. He swore
+ for friendship that no such book existed; he now swears that it did. What
+ is that for? You want to consider these things. Nobody asked about that
+ book. The matter drifted along. The summer wore away. Autumn touched the
+ woods with gold. Nobody ever mentioned the book. Winter came. That book
+ was in a little carpet-sack hanging in a woodshed. A magnificent place to
+ secrete property. The snows descended; the winds howled around that
+ woodshed. The carpet-sack hung there with the book in it. Nobody touched
+ it. I think the next year, may be that summer, he wrote or telegraphed to
+ Mrs. Cushman to get the book. It suddenly occurred to him that a woodshed
+ was not a safe place for it. She got a book. She looked into it enough to
+ find out it was about the mail business. She put it away; finally that
+ book was brought from its hiding-place on the 13th of July, 1882, when
+ Rerdell says he handed it over to Dorsey, and there is not one syllable of
+ evidence going to show that it was ever spoken of from the time he visited
+ New York until he brought it to Dorsey, as he claimed, at Willard's Hotel.
+ What made him give it to him? Dorsey was mad. Dorsey threatened that he
+ would have Rerdell arrested for perjury, because Rerdell had sworn that
+ he, Dorsey, was innocent. That is enough to excite the wrath of an
+ ordinary man. Dorsey was then on trial. The first trial was then going on.
+ We were right in the midst of it. The year before that Rerdell had
+ solemnly taken his oath that Dorsey was an innocent man, and here Dorsey
+ was in a court insisting that he was innocent. Yet he threatened to have
+ Rerdell then and there punished for perjury because he had sworn that he
+ was innocent. That frightened Rerdell. I think it was calculated to
+ frighten any man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did Dorsey allow Rerdell to keep that book? There is only one possible
+ explanation: The book never existed. That is all. Torrey would have told
+ about it if it had been taken from his office, because I believe the
+ evidence shows that that affidavit was shortly afterwards published.
+ Nobody seemed to have taken any interest in that book. All interest faded
+ away. Now, Mr. Rerdell made that affidavit on the 20th of June, 1881. I
+ believe, on page 2468, Rerdell swears that when he made the affidavit of
+ June 20, 1881, he had the copies of the original journal and ledger at
+ Dorsey's office. Afterwards he swears he had not. He swears that he then
+ gave them to Dorsey. Afterwards he says they were sent to New York the
+ year before. I will come to that after awhile. Now, let us see what the
+ position of affairs was on June 20, 1881. At this time Rerdell had
+ furnished the Government all the information he had, except the book. Then
+ they had said to him substantially, "The evidence is insufficient. We want
+ more." Rerdell agreed to furnish them the books, and went to New York to
+ get the books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, he had Dorsey absolutely in his power, according to his account. What
+ did he do? He had, according to his testimony, the copy of the letter
+ Dorsey had written to Bosler on the 13th of May, 1879, the copy having
+ been made by Miss Nettie L. White. He had the tabular statement in
+ Dorsey's own handwriting, showing thirty-three and one-third per cent, to
+ T. J. B. He had the letter that he himself wrote to Bosler on the 22d of
+ May, 1880. He had the red book. According to his statement, on that day he
+ had Dorsey in his power. All he had to do was to take the next step and
+ secure absolute safety for himself and crush his employer. What did he do?
+ He then said, "I went to the Government and played the detective." He
+ retreated. He voluntarily put himself in a position a thousand times as
+ perilous as he had been in before. He put himself in a place where he had
+ to swear that what he told the Government was a lie, and that he was
+ simply endeavoring to find out the Government's case and was acting as a
+ detective. You must recollect that Rerdell is a man who does nothing for
+ money. He will make an affidavit for unadulterated friendship. He will
+ make it also from fright. He will make it also, he says, in the interest
+ of truth. At that time he made an affidavit, as he says, for friendship,
+ and it is for the jury to determine how much a man like Rerdell&mdash;because
+ you know what he is just as well as I do&mdash;would do for friendship.
+ You have seen him here day after day. You saw him sitting right at the
+ door when Mr. Ker and Mr. Bliss were demonstrating to you that he was a
+ guilty wretch, and you saw his face beaming with pleasure. He was
+ absolutely delighted. Yet when Mr. Wilson stood here and endeavored to
+ show that the man was not as bad as he said he was, endeavored to show
+ that his plea of guilty was absolutely false, he slunk away, covered with
+ the shame of innocence. He did not want to hear that. He wanted it
+ understood that he was guilty, and that it was the proudest moment of his
+ life. Now, it is for you to determine how much such a man would do for
+ friendship. It is for you to determine how you can take advantage of his
+ finer nature. He had Dorsey in his power, according to his story, but
+ instead of carrying out his original design he turned against the
+ Government. Why did he do that? Because of patriotism? No. Why? He did it
+ for his own benefit, gentlemen. He never acted from any other motive. Why
+ did he not stay with the Government? Because they would not give him his
+ price for his evidence. Why would they not give him his price for his
+ evidence? Because his evidence was not worth it. If he had had the copy of
+ the letter from Dorsey to Bosler they would have given him his price. They
+ would have followed him all over the United States to have given him his
+ price. There was the absolute evidence against Dorsey. There was the
+ evidence against the man whom Mr. MacVeagh wished to drag down. Why did
+ they not buy it? Because the man did not have it. Why did he desert the
+ Government? Because the Government would not give him his price. Again I
+ ask why would not the Government give him his price? Because he had not
+ the goods; he had not the evidence. Then what did he do? He sneaked back
+ and asked protection of the man he had endeavored to betray. That is what
+ he did. He again asked Dorsey to stand by him. Dorsey did not need this
+ man. This man needed him, and he instantly deserted the Government and
+ went back to Dorsey. For the sake of saving Dorsey? No. For the purpose of
+ saving himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had not the evidence. Yet, according to this testimony of his, he did
+ what I told you. What else did he have? He had the route-book. What was
+ the route-book, gentlemen? From the evidence it appears that this man kept
+ a route-book, and that in it he had the name of each route, the number of
+ the route, where it started from, and where it went to, the name of the
+ contractor, the amount per year, the name of the subcontractor, the amount
+ per year, and then a column showing whether it had been increased, and, if
+ so, how much, and whether it had been expedited, and, if so, how much. He
+ had that book. He says he was subpoenaed to appear before the
+ Congressional committee. What book would that committee want? They would
+ want the book that showed the original contracts, the subcontracts, the
+ description of the routes, how much the Government paid to the contractor,
+ and how much the contractor paid to the subcontractor. That was the book
+ they wanted, and that was the book to hide if any hiding was to be done.
+ That was the book to have copied. That was the book in which figures
+ should have been changed, if in any. And yet he never said one word about
+ that route-book. He had it in his possession. Why should he not expect the
+ committee of Congress to call for that book? He did not tell you. He did
+ not have that book copied, and yet that was the book that had in it every
+ particle of information that the Congressional committee wanted. Not a
+ word on that subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It appears, too, in the evidence, that Mr. Rerdell had in his possession
+ certain notes that passed between him and Mr. Steele about the red books.
+ Why were not those notes produced in evidence? Mr. Steele was here on the
+ subpoena of the Government. Why were not those notes produced in evidence?
+ Not a word about that. Is it possible that those notes were about the
+ route-book? Why were they not produced? Rerdell went before that
+ Congressional committee. He did not take any route-book. What did he take?
+ He said that he had these books made up to take. Did they contain the
+ accounts of the subcontractors? No. Donnelly swears there were not more
+ than twelve accounts in the book. What was the use of taking that book, or
+ those books, before the committee? Another thing: He says that he went
+ immediately and got those books copied. Would he try to palm off the
+ copies as originals? Would not the committee ask him the very first thing,
+ "In whose handwriting are these books?" He could not say, "They are in
+ mine," because then he would be caught. He would have to say, "They are in
+ Mr. Donnelly's handwriting." The next question would be, "Where is Mr.
+ Donnelly?" And the answer would be, "Here in town." The committee would
+ send for him and would ask, "Mr. Donnelly, did you write in those books?"
+ "Yes." "Did you make the entries at the time they purport to have been
+ made?" "No, sir; I copied them from another set of books that Mr. Rerdell
+ gave to me." He would either say that or swear to a lie. Then they would
+ say, "Mr. Rerdell, we want the original books," and then he would be
+ caught. You cannot imagine a more shallow device. More than that, the
+ books would not have any information that the committee wanted, nothing
+ about these contracts, and nothing about the amount paid the
+ subcontractors. If the committee wanted anything they wanted to show that
+ the Government was paying a large price and the contractors were paying to
+ the subcontractors a small price. Rerdell says that when he was subpoenaed
+ to bring his books he never thought of the route-book. He thought of the
+ red books, and yet the route-book was the only book that had any
+ information that the committee wanted. How was he to palm that off? Is it
+ possible to think of a reason having in it less probability, less weight,
+ less human nature than the reason he gives for having those books copied?
+ There is another question. If Rerdell expected to palm off the copies as
+ the originals, why did he keep the originals? For instance. I have a book
+ here that I don't want Congress to see, and so I have it copied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am going to swear that that copy is the original; otherwise the device
+ is good for nothing. Why keep the original and run the perpetual danger of
+ discovery? Why not burn the original? Why keep the evidence of my own
+ guilt, liable to be found at any moment by accident, by a servant, by a
+ stranger? That is not human nature, gentlemen. Then there is another
+ question: If he were going to have a book copied and then swear that the
+ copy was the original, he would have copied it himself. If a man intends
+ to swear to a lie the first thing he does is not to take somebody into the
+ secret. Why should he have put himself in the power of Donnelly? He was
+ the man to be the witness before the committee, and if his device worked
+ he intended to swear before the committee that the copies were the
+ originals; and yet, by going to Donnelly to have the work done, he
+ manufactured a witness that would always stand ready to prove that he,
+ Rerdell, had sworn to a falsehood. What men work in that way? When a man
+ makes up his mind to swear to a lie does he take pains to go to one of his
+ neighbors and say, "I am going to swear to a lie to-morrow and I want to
+ give you the evidence of it. I am going to swear that a copy is an
+ original. I want you to make the copy so that I can swear to it." Would
+ not the neighbor then say, "I will be a witness against you in that case.
+ You had better copy it yourself." Just see what he did. He took pains to
+ have a witness so that if he swore falsely he could be contradicted and
+ convicted. Why did he not copy the books himself? After he got the
+ originals copied why did he not burn up the originals so that nobody could
+ ever find them in his possession?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step. Finally, he got before the committee. When he
+ got before the committee what did he swear? He swore that he kept some
+ expense-books showing how he stood with the contractors. I think that was
+ the truth. I think that is what he did keep. He did not tell the committee
+ about the route-book. Not a word. That was the only book that he concealed
+ in his testimony. He said he kept some expense-books and those were all
+ that he kept. He did not tell about the route-book. That is the only book
+ that he failed to mention. Consequently, it seems to me, that was the only
+ book he did not want to show. Why? Because he thought at that time they
+ were going to make a great outcry about what was paid to the subcontractor
+ and to the contractor and he had no advices from anybody, except from
+ whom? Except from Mr. Bosler. What did Bosler tell him? Bosler told him,
+ "I see no reason why you should not exhibit your books and papers." Now,
+ according to Rerdell's testimony, on the 13th of May the year before,
+ Dorsey had written a letter to Bosler informing him that he had given
+ twenty thousand dollars to T. J. B. Bosler knew, if the testimony of
+ Rerdell is true, that that letter had been written, and Bosler had that
+ information. He knew if the letter had been copied, too, because every
+ letter that one receives gives evidence whether it has been copied or not.
+ And yet, knowing of that letter, he wrote to Rerdell or telegraphed him
+ that he saw no reason why he should not show all his books and papers.
+ Nobody believes that. Nobody ever will believe it! The earth may revolve
+ in its orbit for millions of years, and generations may come and go,
+ countless as the leaves of all the forests, and there never will be found
+ a man of average intelligence to believe that story. Just think of it.
+ Bosler, according to the testimony of Rerdell, had gone into partnership
+ with Dorsey knowing there was a conspiracy, knowing Dorsey was paying to
+ Brady thirty-three and one-third per cent, of the profits, and thereupon
+ the clerk who attended to the business writes or telegraphs to him, and
+ says he has been subpoenaed to appear before the Congressional committee
+ with the books and papers, and Mr. Bosler knowing of the existence of the
+ conspiracy, and knowing that Brady is getting thirty-three and one-third
+ per cent, writes or telegraphs back that he sees no reason why all the
+ books and papers should not be presented to the committee. Gentlemen, that
+ is impossible; it never happened and it never will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ah, but they say these books did exist. Why? Because Mr. Donnelly copied
+ them. Let us see whether he did or not. There is nothing like examining
+ these questions. Mr. Rerdell says that in his interview with Brady, Brady
+ suggested to him that he had better have them copied. This, I believe, was
+ on the 21st of May, 1880. Now he swears that in accordance with that view
+ or suggestion that he received from Brady he had the books copied by
+ Donnelly. When did he have it done? He had it done after the 21st day of
+ May, 1880. On page 2638 Donnelly swears that he copied these books in the
+ latter part of April or the forepart of May. On page 2636, where he was
+ asked if he had anything to do with copying a book of accounts for
+ Rerdell, he says that he had; and on being asked what kind of books they
+ were, says they were a small set of books. Donnelly swears that they
+ related to the mail business, and seemed to be the books of a firm. At
+ that time nobody was interested in the matter except S. W. Dorsey. How did
+ they appear to be the books of a firm? Donnelly swears, on page 2640,
+ "there were not more than a dozen accounts in the book." Let us see if
+ these were the mail books. He says there was an account against S. W.
+ Dorsey; that is one. An account against John W. Dorsey; that is two.
+ Against Donnelly himself; that is three. M. C. Rerdell; that is four.
+ Interest account; five. A mail account; six. An expense account; seven. A
+ profit and loss account, eight; and an account with William Smith, nine.
+ That is all he gives. But he says they were not to exceed a dozen. On page
+ 2644 Gibbs says there was an account against Colonel Steele and Mrs.
+ Steele. I take it they would be in one account. That makes ten. Then there
+ was an account against Jennings, making eleven; and an account against
+ Perkins, making twelve. Let us see if we can go a little further. Mr.
+ Rerdell swears to a cash account; that is thirteen. Also an account
+ against J. H. Mitchell; that is fourteen; and one against Belford, making
+ fifteen. You can deduct your Jones and your Smith and have one more
+ account in the book then than Donnelly swears was in it. He swears they
+ were not to exceed a dozen. That was the book with all this mail business.
+ We will follow it up a little. Rerdell says he opened the books according
+ to the memorandum, and swears consequently that there was a cash account
+ and an account with J. H. Mitchell. J. B. Belford, I believe, he
+ afterwards mentioned. Now, according to Gibb's testimony there was an
+ account with Perkins. Understand I say that the only book he had, if he
+ had any, was a private book in which he kept his own expense accounts and
+ his own matters, and it was not a book with which Stephen W. Dorsey had
+ any connection. I say that the William Smith and Samuel Jones account he
+ has added for the purpose of having something to sell to the Government.
+ That is my claim. I say they were his private books. There was an account
+ with Perkins. You have heard all the testimony, gentlemen. You know all
+ the contracts in this case. You know all the subcontracts. There is not a
+ single solitary account in this book with any subcontractor mentioned in
+ any of these subcontracts except Perkins and possibly Jennings. Who was
+ Perkins? Perkins was a subcontractor on the route from Rawlins to White
+ River. That is the route that Rerdell had an interest in himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rerdell made the subcontract with Perkins himself, and consequently he had
+ an account with Perkins in his own private book, and had not any account
+ with the rest of the subcontractors. We also find, according to Gibbs,
+ that there was an account against Jennings. Who was Jennings?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That brings us to the Jennings's claim. That is the claim that he told Mr.
+ Woodward about, when he wanted to sell out in the first place, and that is
+ the claim that he told Mac-Veagh and the Postmaster-General about.
+ Strangely enough and wonderfully enough we find that claim in this very
+ book. That shows whether this was a private book or whether it was a book
+ kept for the accounts of Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, by looking at the Post-Office reports I find that nine hundred and
+ ninety-four dollars was paid to Rerdell for Jennings on the 14th day of
+ April, 1880, and the question I ask is did he keep two sets of books at
+ that time? He produced in court a book of his own, kept at that time with
+ the Jennings account in it. The book that was copied had the Perkins
+ account, and why? Because it was a special account in which Rerdell was
+ interested. They have failed to prove that there was in that other book
+ any account in which Dorsey was necessarily interested, except the account
+ kept with Rerdell showing Rerdell's transactions with Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now come to the testimony of Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs says his wife copied
+ a journal between Christmas, 1879, and the 1st of March, 1880. Rerdell
+ says that she copied the journal and ledger both. The witness, Gibbs,
+ gives the color of the book. He says it was not red; it was either brown
+ or black. Mr. Gibbs remembers nothing about the Smith account, whether it
+ was large or whether it was small. He finally swears that he does not
+ really recollect anything about it, except that Rerdell brought the book
+ there and said he wanted to get a copy made to send to Dorsey in New York,
+ and that he returned the book and the copy to Rerdell. He swears that he
+ remembers as names in this book Smith, Jones, and S. W. Dorsey, and M. C.
+ Rerdell. Those were all he could think of. He does not remember the name
+ of John H. Mitchell. On page 2646, he says he believes that Rerdell came
+ to him and asked him during the trial if he recollected the name of
+ William Smith, and he swears that when Rerdell asked him if he recollected
+ the name of William Smith, he distinctly told him that he did not. Then he
+ asked him if he recollected the name of Jones, and he swears that he told
+ Rerdell when he asked him that question that he did not. I read from page
+ 2646:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tried not to remember anything of this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can a man try not to remember? What mental muscle is it that he
+ contracts when he tries not to remember? That is a metaphysical question
+ that interested me greatly when the man was testifying, for he said he
+ tried not to remember. Why did he try not to remember?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I didn't want to be called into court if I could possibly help it, and for
+ quite a long time did not mention the fact that I knew anything of the
+ books. But when I was called into court, I thought of all the
+ circumstances connected with the time that I copied the books; and a few
+ days ago, or a week or so ago, in going home one night, and thinking this
+ thing over in my mind, and thinking of everything I could think of, my
+ mind reverted to a conversation I had had at the time, laughing and
+ looking over the books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was not only one book, then.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I wrote a great many letters, and read a great many names&mdash;They
+ must have been in the letter-books&mdash;and was laughing about the
+ peculiarity of the names, and even made the remark, "There is even Smith
+ and Jones in it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What a wonderful circumstance! In copying the books and making an index of
+ the three letter-books he found Smith and Jones. The difficulty would have
+ been not to find Smith or Jones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the evidence of that man. When Rerdell first went to him, he told
+ Rerdell distinctly, "I remember no name of Smith; I remember no name of
+ Jones." And then he waited until Rerdell went on the stand and swore that
+ he copied those books, and that the names of Smith and Jones were in them,
+ and then his memory was refreshed, and he came here and swore that the
+ names of Smith and Jones were there. All of a sudden it came to him, like
+ a flash, and he subsequently had the conversation with his wife.
+ Gentlemen, you may believe it; I do not; not a word of it. He is mistaken.
+ He has mistaken imagination for memory; he has mistaken what Mr. Rerdell
+ told him now for something he thinks happened long ago. He took the
+ letter-books, too. May be there is where he found some of his strange
+ names.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rerdell says, in swearing to the letter which he says was written by
+ Dorsey to Bosler on the 13th of May, 1879, that he (S. W. Dorsey) took
+ that book, all his own books that were not used for the mail business, and
+ boxed them up. When? In 1879. Mr. Kellogg swears that after they were
+ boxed up they were sent to New York. When? In 1879. And yet Rerdell swears
+ that between Christmas and New Year's, 1879, those books were at the house
+ of Mr. Gibbs to be indexed. It will not do. And Rerdell swears that he had
+ the letter-book containing the letter of May 13, here in 1881, when he
+ went to MacVeagh, and yet, according to his own testimony, that book was
+ sent to New York in 1879. And he swears that the three letter-books&mdash;and
+ I will call your attention to them after a while&mdash;that he had here,
+ commenced on the 15th of May, and ended, I think, in April or May, 1882.
+ He swears that the letter written by Dorsey to Bosler was written on the
+ 13th of May, 1879, and then he swears that the first letter in the three
+ letter-books was dated the 15th of May, two days afterward. So he had not
+ the book here. I knew he did not have it, because if he had had such a
+ book with such a letter, he never would have gone to New York to steal a
+ book; he would have stolen that one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Torrey took charge of the books January 27, 1880, and he kept them until
+ the 1st of May, 1880, in the Boreel Building, and then at that time moved
+ to 145 Broadway, and kept them there until the last of April, 1882.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I will come to those red books again in a moment. Here is
+ a little piece of evidence about the books. You know it was the hardest
+ thing in the world to find out how many books this man had, how many times
+ they were copied, who copied them, and what he did with the copies; and he
+ got us all mixed up&mdash;counsel for the prosecution, the Court, counsel
+ for the defence&mdash;none of us could understand it. "How many books did
+ you have? What did you do with them?" "Well, I took them to New York. No,
+ I did not; I had some of them here." Finally I manufactured out of my
+ imagination a carpet-sack for him. I said, "Didn't you take these books
+ over to New York in a carpet-sack?" He said "Yes," he did. He jumped at
+ that carpet-sack like a trout at a fly. Let me call your attention to some
+ other evidence, on page 2637, near the bottom. Donnelly is testifying:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Was it an exact copy of the book?&mdash;A. It was not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. In what did it differ from the book you were keeping?&mdash;There were
+ some items left out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. What accounts did you leave out?&mdash;A. I left the William Smith
+ account out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. What did you do with that amount in order to balance the books?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I want you to pay particular attention to this answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A. My recollection is that I carried it to profit and loss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. On the books or on the balance sheet?&mdash;A. On both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, remember, these were the books made out to fool the committee. I
+ suppose there are some book-keepers on this jury. I suppose Mr. Greene
+ knows something about book-keeping, and Mr. Evans, and Mr. Crane, and Mr.
+ Gill. I do not know but you all do. And you know that when you carry an
+ amount to profit and loss you do not throw the name away; you keep the
+ name. If you have charged against Robert G. Ingersoll five thousand
+ dollars, which you never expect to get, and you want to charge it to
+ profit and loss, you make the charge and you put my name against that. You
+ put profit and loss against Robert G. Ingersoll's debt. Everybody that
+ ever kept a book knows that. If you carry an amount to profit and loss you
+ rewrite the name of the person who owes the debt. So that when he says,
+ "My recollection is that I carried it to profit and loss," there would be
+ a name twice in the book instead of once. If it was simply in the book
+ once it would be, "William Smith, debtor, eighteen thousand dollars." But
+ if you carry that to profit and loss you must credit profit and loss by
+ this William Smith amount, and consequently get the name in the book twice
+ instead of once. And that is what they call covering it up. They were so
+ afraid that somebody would see an account against William Smith in one
+ part of the book that they opened another account in the profit and loss
+ business and put it in again. That would be twice. Now, let us go on a
+ little:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Were there any other accounts transferred in the same way?&mdash;A. I
+ rather think there were, but I am not certain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did you make the books balance on your copy?&mdash;A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How long were you working on that copy?&mdash;A. I was working on it
+ two evenings and all of one night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, recollect, in the copy that he made, he carried the account of
+ William Smith&mdash;and may be Jones, he does not remember&mdash;to profit
+ and loss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us take the next step. Let us go to page 2269. This is as good as
+ a play. Donnelly swears that when he made the first copy he carried the
+ William Smith account and some other to profit and loss. Rerdell swears
+ that acting upon the hint of General Brady he got a man to do&mdash;what?
+ To make another copy and leave out the items that had heretofore been
+ charged to profit and loss. Donnelly swears that he balanced the books,
+ and he is the only man that ever did balance the books, according to the
+ testimony. After Rerdell had been subpoenaed to appear before the
+ Congressional committee, he got another man, whom he swears he put to work
+ on the books, designating the entries to be left out by drawing a pencil
+ mark through them; that he told him to make up a new set of books, leaving
+ out those entries, but to leave the books so that they would balance,
+ taking the entries that were stricken out, and also the same amount that
+ had been carried to profit and loss, and leave them entirely out. Rerdell
+ swears that prior to that time these accounts had been carried to profit
+ and loss, and that he struck out the credits to Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the evidence as it stands is this: Rerdell swears that Mrs. Gibbs
+ copied the journal and ledger. Gibbs does not swear it, but Rerdell does.
+ That made four books. Then he got Donnelly to make another set of books
+ with the William Smith and Dorsey accounts carried to profit and loss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is six books. After he had been subpoenaed by the committee he got
+ another man to make a new set of books and leave out the William Smith and
+ Dorsey accounts and the profit and loss account, and that makes eight
+ books. And there we are, so far as that is concerned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I have come to one other view of this case. I hope that
+ you will not forget&mdash;because I do not want to speak of it all the
+ time&mdash;that this man Rerdell swears that he had the original
+ letter-press copy of that letter which he says Dorsey wrote to Bosler. Do
+ not forget that. He says he had that before he went to New York to steal
+ the red books; do not forget that. And that he gave that testimony away;
+ do not forget that. That he says he had it copied by Miss White, and they
+ do not introduce Miss White to show that she copied it; do not forget
+ that. Do not forget, too, that he had when he was there the tabular
+ statement in the handwriting of S. W. Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Resuming.] Gentlemen, on page 2286 Mr. Rerdell gives the
+ contents of a letter which he says Dorsey wrote to him the night he,
+ Rerdell, left New York, and when he says he had the book with him. He
+ swears, you remember, that afterwards Dorsey tore the letter up. Let me
+ read you the letter as he says it was written:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The letter started out by stating that he did not believe the report that
+ had been brought to him in reference to myself, and that he also believed
+ the affidavit story to be a lie. He plead in the letter for the sake of
+ his wife and children and himself, and his social and business relations,
+ and the friendship that had long existed between us not to do anything for
+ his injury; for God's sake to reconsider everything that I had done and
+ take no steps further until he could see me. It was in that strain, simply
+ begging me not to do anything further until he could see me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us analyze that letter, keeping in our minds what Rerdell has
+ sworn. Rerdell has sworn that when he went to the Albermarle Hotel he told
+ Dorsey what he had done; that he had had the conversations with MacVeagh
+ and James. Let me call your attention to the dispatch from Jersey City.
+ First, Dorsey wrote to Rerdell that he did not believe the report that had
+ been brought to him; <i>that had been brought to him</i>. He could not
+ have used that word "brought" if Rerdell had been the bringer. If Rerdell
+ had made the report to him in person he could not have written to Rerdell,
+ "I do not believe the report that has been brought to me." The use of the
+ word "brought" shows that somebody else told him; not the person to whom
+ he wrote. "The report." What report? There is only one answer. The report
+ that Rerdell had been in consultation with the Government. He writes to
+ Rerdell, "I don't believe that report that has been brought to me," and
+ yet when he wrote it, if Rerdell's testimony is true, he knew that Rerdell
+ had given him that very report and he knew that Rerdell would know that
+ he, Rerdell, had told Dorsey that very thing. Second, that he, Dorsey'',
+ believed the affidavit story to be a lie. There is again in this horizon
+ of falsehood one little cloud of truth. Rerdell had not made an affidavit.
+ He had told James, MacVeagh, Woodward, and Clayton what you know, but he
+ had not made any affidavit, and when he was charged, if he was, with
+ having made an affidavit, it delighted him to have one little speck of
+ truth, just one thing that he could honestly deny. That was the one thing.
+ He had not yet made an affidavit. Third, Dorsey plead with him in the
+ letter for the sake of his wife, his children, himself, his social and
+ business relations, and the friendship that had long existed between them,
+ not to do what? Not to do anything further. According to Rerdell, he told
+ him in the letter he did not believe he had done anything. Rerdell swears
+ that he wrote to him in the letter that he did not believe the report;
+ that is, that he had yet done anything, and then wound up the letter by
+ begging him, for God's sake, not to do anything <i>further</i>. How came
+ he to use the word "further"? "Don't take any further steps. I know that
+ you have not taken any step at all, but do not, I pray you, take any
+ further steps." That letter will not hang together. Dorsey swears he never
+ wrote it. Finally, the letter comes down to this: "I don't believe the
+ report. I do not believe you have done anything. But, for God's sake, do
+ not do anything more." It is like the old Scotch verdict when a man was
+ tried for larceny. The jury found him not guilty, but stated at the end of
+ the verdict, "We hope the defendant will never do so again." The first
+ part of this letter shows that Dorsey did not believe that he had done
+ anything. The last part of it shows that he did believe he had done
+ something and that he must not go further. No one can tell why he
+ introduced the word "further" into this letter upon any other hypothesis.
+ Now, I read to you, from page 2287, what Rerdell says happened at the
+ Albermarle Hotel:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He charged me with holding interviews with Mr. James, the
+ Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General, and asked me what I meant by
+ it. I told him my action was in his behalf; that I had been keeping up
+ with the newspapers, and knowing the facts in regard to this mail
+ business, what I had done was done in his behalf.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is, he did not deny that he had these conversations, did not deny the
+ report, did not deny that he had met the Attorney-General and the
+ Postmaster-General, but said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My action was in your behalf.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then, according to Rerdell, after that Dorsey wrote him a letter, in
+ which he said, "I do not believe the report," although Rerdell had made
+ the report to him himself. May be that is the reason he did not believe
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me read to you the conversation on his return from New York and
+ see how it agrees with the letter. It is on page 2288:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Dorsey immediately brought up the conversation that we had had over in
+ New York, and what I had done by going to Mr. Mac-Veagh, and asked me if I
+ intended to ruin him. I said no, I did not; it was not my intention to
+ ruin him; it was my intention to help him out of what I thought to be a
+ bad difficulty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. What did he say?&mdash;A. He then asked me if I had done anything
+ further since I had left him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet in the letter that he wrote him from the Albermarle Hotel he said that
+ he did not believe the report and did not believe that he had done
+ anything against him. The first thing he asked him when he got here was,
+ "Have you done anything further against me?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I said no, I had not; I had not been near Mr. MacVeagh. He then says,
+ "Well, how shall we get out of this?" I says. "Mr. Dorsey, I will do
+ anything that I can except to commit perjury."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A very natural remark for Mr. Rerdell to make. He would do anything but
+ that. That testimony shows that Dorsey never wrote the letter which
+ Rerdell says he did write from New York. That testimony shows that they
+ did not have the conversation in New York that Rerdell says they had. That
+ testimony shows that they did have exactly the conversation which Mr.
+ Dorsey swears they had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I come, gentlemen, to the affidavit of June 20,1881. I would like the
+ letter of July 5, 1882, which is on page 3733.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You understand this affidavit was made in consequence of the conversation,
+ as he says, that he had with Dorsey after Dorsey came back from New York,
+ in which he said he would do anything except commit perjury, and when
+ Dorsey told him, "Damn it, what does that amount to when a friend is
+ involved? I would not hesitate a moment." Consequently he swears that he
+ made up his mind for the sake of friendship to swear to a lie for Mr.
+ Dorsey. That is what he says now. On the 5th of July, 1882, while we were
+ in the midst of the other trial, and when Mr. Rerdell, as he says,
+ contemplated going over to the Government, and when he would not put
+ evidence in our hands against himself, he wrote this letter:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ July 5, 1882.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Senator: What I am going to say here may surprise you, while, judging from
+ certain circumstances that to me are easily to be seen, you may not be
+ taken by surprise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To commence with this, it will be necessary to go back about a year to the
+ time when, looking forward to the inevitable result of the star-route
+ matters&mdash;I started to put myself in accord with the Government. At
+ that time I had no thought of being included in any prosecution or
+ indictment, supposing that as an agent I could not be held criminally
+ responsible. Had I for one moment thought it possible nothing could have
+ changed my mind, even anxious as I was to benefit you. The consequence
+ was, I listened to Bosler and did what I will ever regret. First, because
+ of the unenviable notoriety given me in consequence of doing what he
+ persuaded me to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who persuaded him? Mr. Bosler. He writes that on the 5th of July, 1882,
+ when, as he said, he had made up his mind to go over to the Government,
+ and when he would not willingly put a club in our hands with which to dash
+ out his brains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second, because, let this case go as it may, I am still left under a cloud&mdash;That
+ is a pitiable statement. That man under a cloud!&mdash;both with your
+ friends and acquaintances, and the public generally.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here comes, gentlemen, the blossom and flower of this paragraph:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that, too, almost penniless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the letter goes on:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are stern facts, and cannot be ignored, while had I continued acting
+ with the Government my reputation would have been clear, and no doubt been
+ appointed to a good position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Government must have promised the gentleman an office when he went, in
+ June, 1881, to Woodward and to Clayton and to the Attorney-General and to
+ the Postmaster-General. According to this letter, among other things he
+ was to have an office, the steamboat route was to be reinstated, the
+ Jennings' claim was to be allowed, his father-in law was to get a
+ clerkship, and according to this letter he also was to have a position.
+ That is civil service reform! What does he say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At least I have every reason to believe such would have been the result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He would have had an office, he has every reason to believe. Why? They
+ must have promised it to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This now brings us to the present time. I have an opportunity to redeem
+ myself, and think it best to do so, as by so doing I can be entirely
+ relieved of the indictment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Government then must have promised him in 1882 that the indictment
+ should be dismissed as against him. Is it possible that he would tell a
+ lie, gentlemen? Is it possible the prosecution will say that he lied on
+ the 13th of July, 1882, but in 1883, having met with a change of heart, he
+ told the truth? No.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In taking this step let me say this: It is the result of much thought and
+ also of preparation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think so. The preparation of several papers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have realized the fact that all you and Bosler desired was to use me,
+ and when no longer needed I could go to the devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, I think that is where he has gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Therefore I have concluded to be used no longer, and propose to look out
+ for myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day I am putting things in order, so as to commence right tomorrow. I
+ regret this on your family's account, but I too have a family, and owe it
+ to them to put myself right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see, gentlemen, he wanted to leave an unspotted reputation to his
+ children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I deem it as being due to you that I should give you notice of my
+ intention. Very truly,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ M. C. RERDELL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, he comes on the stand and swears that he made this
+ affidavit, not being overpersuaded by Bosler, but because Dorsey with
+ tears and groans besought him to make it. Yet on the 5th of July, 1882, he
+ says he made it because he was overpersuaded by Bosler, and he says, too,
+ "Had I remained with the Government my reputation would have been clear,
+ and I have every reason to believe I would have had a good position." He
+ says, "I have another opportunity to be entirely relieved from the
+ indictment." These gentlemen say he never was promised immunity. That
+ simply shows you cannot believe Mr. Rerdell when he is not under oath, and
+ what he has sworn to here shows you cannot believe him when he is under
+ oath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I come to the affidavit. I will not spend a great deal of time upon
+ it. Mr. Rerdell, with extreme ease, without the slightest hesitation, went
+ through that entire affidavit, picking out with all the facility
+ imaginable, every paragraph written by Dorsey and every paragraph written
+ by himself. I was astonished at his exhibition of memory. I finally asked
+ to look at the copy of the paper he had, and when I got that in my hand I
+ found that every word that he swore was written by Dorsey had been
+ underscored with a blue pencil. That accounted for the facility with which
+ he testified. I found afterwards that that paper had been given him by Mr.
+ Woodward and that he had gone through and marked such portions as Mr.
+ Dorsey wrote, according to his testimony, or had marked those that he
+ wrote, leaving the others unmarked, so that at a glance he could tell
+ which way to swear. Before I get through with the papers in this case
+ there is another thing to which I want to call your attention. All the
+ papers as to which witnesses were called on the subject of handwriting are
+ marked. I will show you that every one has a little secret mark upon it,
+ so that the man who swore might know which way to swear simply by looking
+ at the signature and at no other part. There has been a great deal of
+ preparation in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Rerdell swears as to the parts of the affidavit that Dorsey wrote and
+ the parts that he wrote. His object in swearing was to entirely relieve
+ Messrs. James and MacVeagh from having made any bargain with him to steal
+ Mr. Dorsey's books, and to entirely relieve them from any suspicion, as
+ well as to relieve every other official of the Government from any
+ suspicion of having promised him any pay in any shape or manner for the
+ making of this affidavit. He swears in the first place, that Dorsey wrote
+ this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My story captured them completely, and I took occasion to refer to the
+ steamboat route and the Jennings' claim. Mr. James remarked that he knew
+ all about the Jennings' matter, that Jennings had been badly treated, and
+ he ought to get the money, and should; that he would investigate the
+ steamboat route and see if anything could be done; that that was the worst
+ part, and his special agents had reported it; nevertheless he would see if
+ something could not be done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2506, in his cross-examination, Mr. Rerdell swears that the words&mdash;Mr.
+ James remarked&mdash;were not written by Dorsey, but were written by
+ himself. On the same page he swears that the words&mdash;That Jennings had
+ been badly treated&mdash;were not written by Mr. Dorsey, but were written
+ by himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On his examination-in-chief he swore that these words were written by
+ Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On his examination-in-chief he swore that Dorsey wrote this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And to further deceive them and learn their plans, carried the letter-book
+ containing&mdash;And then he wrote&mdash;the much-talked of Oregon
+ correspondence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Afterward, when cross-examined, he swears, I think upon the same page,
+ 2506, that he himself wrote the words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Carried the letter-book containing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That Dorsey did not write them. He also swears in his examination-in-chief
+ that Dorsey wrote these words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Making only one mistake, or rather slip, by which Mr. MacVeagh could, as a
+ good lawyer, have detected me, and that was by stating that I had kept a
+ set of books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On his examination-in-chief he swears that Mr. Dorsey wrote those words.
+ On cross-examination he admits that Dorsey did not write them and that he
+ wrote them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On his examination-in-chief he swears that he wrote this himself:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He said, "Well, Mr. Rerdell, I am in a position where I cannot make
+ promises, but if you will place yourself in full accord with the
+ Government, you shall not lose by it, and I would advise you not to
+ receive any salary from Dorsey this month. It will be all right."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On cross-examination he takes it back, and swears, on page 2503, that
+ Dorsey wrote the words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will be all right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was afraid those words might be given too wide a significance and might
+ in some way touch the Attorney-General, and consequently he swore that he
+ swore wrong when he swore that he wrote them, and that as a matter of fact
+ Dorsey wrote them. Then, on his examination-in-chief with the marked paper
+ before him, and having plenty of time to manufacture his testimony, he
+ swore that he wrote the words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He asked me&mdash;In his own handwriting, and that Dorsey wrote these
+ words&mdash;when I was going to New York to get those books. I replied,
+ "On Sunday night." He said, "Don't put it off too long, as they are
+ all-important."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On his examination-in-chief he swore that Dorsey wrote those words, and on
+ cross-examination he admitted that he wrote every one of those words
+ himself. When he was cross-examined he had not the paper before him. His
+ memory was not refreshed by the blue pencil mark. So on his
+ examination-in-chief he swore that he wrote these words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As I was about leaving he&mdash;Meaning the Attorney-General&mdash;said,
+ "Mr. Rerdell, you have put yourself in full accord with us, and I have
+ this to say, you shall be well taken care of and your matters shall be
+ attended to."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On cross-examination, on page 2500, he swears that Dorsey wrote the words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Your matters shall be attended to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But he still admitted that he, Rerdell, wrote the words and put them in
+ the mouth of the Attorney-General:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You shall be well taken care of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He says in his letter of July 5, 1882:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I had remained with the Government I have every reason to believe I
+ would have a good position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What next? Mr. Rerdell, in his examination-in-chief, swears that he
+ himself wrote these words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next evening I called on Mr. Woodward to see if he had anything more
+ to say, and he told me a place had been found for my father-in-law, and to
+ give the application to Senator Clayton; to make the application for the
+ Interior Department, as it was best not to put him into the Post-Office
+ Department for fear of criticism; that the appointment should be made at
+ once. It was all arranged. The next day I saw Clayton, who said the same
+ thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On cross-examination, at page 2505, he swears that Dorsey wrote a part of
+ this; that Dorsey wrote the following words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As it was best not to put him into the Post-Office Department for fear of
+ criticism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he testified on direct examination he had this marked paper before
+ him; in the absence of the paper, on the cross-examination, he takes his
+ solemn oath that he did not write it, but that Senator Dorsey did. What
+ confidence can you put in that kind of testimony? I would like to have
+ you, gentlemen, some time, or I would like to have anybody who has the
+ slightest interest in the thing, read this affidavit and see whether it is
+ the work of two or the work of one. You let two men write, one writing one
+ paragraph and the other another paragraph, and then you read it; there is
+ no man in the world accustomed to read books that cannot instantly detect
+ the difference in style, the different mode of expression, the different
+ use of language. Nobody can see any difference in the writing; nobody can
+ see the slightest difference in the mode of expression; the sharpest
+ verbal mechanic that ever lived cannot see a joint between these
+ paragraphs. They emanated from the same brain; they were written by the
+ same hand; and if any man, who has ever read one book clear through, will
+ read that, he will see that one person wrote it all. But Mr. Bliss tells
+ you that here is a passage that shows the handiwork of S. W. Dorsey,
+ because Dorsey was a politician:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also said that you, Mr. President, had told Mr. Dorsey you could not
+ interfere in this investigation and prosecution; that if you did, the
+ public would say that the President and a Secretary, who shall be
+ nameless, but whose name I could guess, had taken the money of the
+ star-route ring while they were in Congress, or the Postmaster-General and
+ Attorney-General had taken it since, and therefore he (Dorsey) must look
+ to the courts for vindication.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the passage upon which Mr. Bliss relies, among others, to show
+ that this was formed in the brain of S. W. Dorsey; and yet Rerdell swears
+ that that passage he wrote himself. It will not do, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in order that you may know just about how much force to give to that,
+ let me read you a little from page 2379; and I read this for the purpose
+ of letting you know the ideas that this man Rerdell entertains of right
+ and wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to get at the moral nature of this man; I want you to
+ thoroughly understand him. When you examine these affidavits, when you
+ think of his testimony, I want you to know exactly the kind of nature he
+ has, and I want you to remember that he came here upon this stand and
+ swore in this case that he did not consider that it was wrong to interline
+ petitions; that he did not think it was wrong to fill up affidavits; and
+ that is the reason he made the affidavit of July 13, 1882. Although he
+ then knew that these things had been done, still he did not regard them as
+ wrong. You see it is worth something to get at a man, to get at his
+ philosophy of right and wrong; it is worth something to know how he
+ thinks; why he acts; and when you have found that out about a man, then
+ you know whether to believe him or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe the jury did look at this paper and saw all the parts that had
+ been marked by blue pencil, and those parts, I believe, he said Dorsey
+ wrote. That is the paper he had before him at the time he testified in
+ chief. But when he came to be cross-examined, not having the paper then
+ before his eyes, he swore in very many important things exactly the other
+ way. We were all astonished at the facility with which he remembered, he
+ pretending to know what parts he wrote and what parts Mr. Dorsey wrote. I
+ want you to understand this man, and before I get through with him, you
+ will. I want you to know him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we come to an exceedingly important thing in this case, in the eyes of
+ the prosecution. It is the principal pillar supporting the testimony of
+ Mr. Rerdell. Without that pillar absolutely nothing is left, everything
+ falls into perjured ruin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first question that arises with regard to the pencil memorandum (31 X)
+ is who wrote it, and in order to ascertain who wrote it we must take into
+ consideration all the facts and circumstances that have been established
+ in this case. It is already in evidence, as you remember it, that Rerdell
+ kept a route-book. You will also remember that Mr. Dorsey had books of his
+ own; that he had a bookkeeper of his own, Mr. Kellogg; that Mr. Kellogg
+ swears that he kept those books and that nobody else ever made a scratch
+ of the pen in them; that he kept them up till the fall of 1879; they were
+ then sent to New York; that Mr. Torrey took possession of those books on
+ the 27th of January, 1880, and kept them continuously to the last of
+ April, 1882, and that nobody else ever put a mark in them. That is the
+ evidence. The evidence also is that there was in those books a complete
+ mail account. The evidence is also that in those books kept by Mr. Kellogg
+ were the charges and credits growing out of the purchase of John W.
+ Dorsey's interest and Peck's interest in the mail routes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Pardon me; point me to that evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I will refer to it hereafter. I do not wonder, gentlemen,
+ that they dislike this pencil memorandum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. No, sir; I only want to keep you within correct limits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I understand that. I do not blame anybody for disliking
+ that pencil memorandum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. You can convict Rerdell as much as you like.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. When you come to show that he is guilty his countenance
+ will light up with the transfiguration of joy. There will be no more
+ delighted auditor than Mr. Rerdell when his crimes are painted blackest.
+ It shows you the moral nature of the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as I say, the evidence is that there was a route-book kept; that that
+ route book contained all the information that Mr. Dorsey or any one else
+ would want about the routes themselves; consequently, that there was no
+ propriety in keeping any other set of books. Mr. Rerdell could keep books
+ for himself, but not for S. W. Dorsey. Dorsey had a set of books, and had
+ another book-keeper. Why should he have another set opened by Rerdell?
+ Rerdell kept a route-book that gave him all the information that he could
+ possibly desire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Wilson. Rerdell did not handle the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Of course not; there was no money at that time to handle;
+ they had not got as far as the handle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another little point: Why should Dorsey voluntarily put
+ himself in the power of Rerdell by saying, "I have paid money to Brady"?
+ What was the necessity of it? What was the sense of it? Rerdell was his
+ clerk. Why should he take pains to put himself, the employer, absolutely
+ in the power of his clerk? Why should he take pains to make himself the
+ slave of the man he was hiring by the month? Why did he wish not only to
+ make Mr. Rerdell acquainted with his crime, but to put in the hands of
+ Rerdell evidence written by himself? See, gentlemen, you have got to look
+ at everything from a natural standpoint. Of what use was it to Mr. Dorsey
+ to keep that account? Dorsey at that time had no partner. Dorsey at that
+ time did not have to respond to anybody. Of what use was it to him to put
+ down in a book, "I paid Brady eighteen thousand dollars"? Was he afraid
+ Brady would forget it? Was he afraid he would forget it? Did he want his
+ clerk to help him keep the secret, knowing that if the secret got wings it
+ would render him infamous? Let us have some sense. The Government
+ introduced it. They also introduced a witness to prove that it was in
+ Dorsey's writing. Rerdell swore that it was. Their next witness, Boone,
+ thought part of it might be and part might not be; it did not look right
+ to him; he rather intimated that Mr. Rerdell wrote part of it. And right
+ there the Government dropped. No expert was brought. There were plenty of
+ experts right over here at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, plenty of
+ experts in Philadelphia and New York, plenty of judges of handwriting.
+ Right up here in Congress were twenty or thirty Senators who sat for six
+ years in the Senate with Stephen W. Dorsey, served on the same committees
+ with him and had seen him write every day; clerks of those committees who
+ had copied page after page of his writing. Not one of them was called. The
+ Government, with its almost infinite power, with everything at its
+ command, brought no expert. That was the most important piece of paper in
+ their case. And yet they allowed their own witness to discredit it; their
+ own witness swore, in fact, that Rerdell had manufactured the
+ incriminating part of it. And yet they sent for no expert to swear to this
+ writing. Don't you believe that they talked with somebody? Has not each
+ one of you in his mind a reason why they did not bring the ones that they
+ talked with? They left it right there without another word. Now, why?
+ Simply because they could get no man to swear, except Rerdell, that this
+ is in the handwriting of S. W. Dorsey. That is the reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know that Rerdell "kept this as a voucher." What for? Was any money
+ paid out on it? No. Was it a receipt for any money? No. But he "kept it as
+ a voucher." You see he was in a difficulty. How did he come to keep it all
+ this time? It would hardly do for him to say that he did not try to keep
+ it, that it had just been in the waste-basket of forgetfulness, and had
+ suddenly come to life by a conspiracy of chance and awkwardness. It would
+ not do for him to say that he made it. So that he had to say that he kept
+ it, and then he had to give a reason for keeping it. What was the reason?
+ He said he "kept it for a voucher." I suppose you [addressing Mr. Greene.,
+ a juror] have kept books. Is that what you would call a voucher? Yet that
+ is the reason the poor man had to give. I pitied the man when he got to
+ the point. I am of such a nature that I cannot entirely, absolutely, and
+ perfectly hate anybody, and when I see the worst man in trouble I do not
+ enjoy it much; at least I am soon satisfied, and would like to see him out
+ of it. Here he was swearing that he had this for a voucher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there are some little things about this to which I will call your
+ attention. Here is the name of J. H. Mitchell. An account was opened with
+ Mitchell, but he does not tell him to charge Mitchell with anything; there
+ is nothing opposite Mitchell's name. How would he open an account with
+ Mitchell without anything to be charged against him or to be credited? He
+ put in the index of the book, "J. H. Mitchell, page 21." You turn over to
+ page 21, and you find Mitchell debtor to nothing, creditor the same&mdash;silence.
+ Not a cent opposite the name on either side. Mitchell was not an employee.
+ Mitchell was not a fellow that they were to have an account with by the
+ day. Then John Smith is rubbed out and Samuel Jones written under it.
+ Rerdell says he wrote Samuel Jones. I say he did not. I want you to look
+ at it after awhile and see whether he wrote it or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, it so happened that when this pencil memorandum was
+ introduced it struck me that the M. C. R. looked a great deal like
+ Rerdell's handwriting, and you will remember that I suggested it
+ instantly, and said to the jury, "Look at the M. C. R." Now, gentlemen of
+ the jury, I want you to look at that M. C. R.; I want you to see how the
+ first line of the M. is brought around to the middle of the letter, and
+ then I want you to see exactly how the C. and the R. are made. Take it,
+ Mr. Foreman, and look at it carefully. And, in connection with that pencil
+ memorandum (31 X), I will ask the jury also to look at this settlement
+ with John W. Dorsey, made in 1879 (87 X), and compare the initials M. C.
+ R. where they occur on both papers. M. C. R. occurs twice, I believe, on
+ this (87 X.) Now look at the formation of the M. C. R. on both papers, Mr.
+ Lowery, and do a good job of looking, too.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, this is one of the most valuable pieces of paper I have
+ ever had in this case, and it is as good luck as ever happened. I want you
+ to look at the J. W. D. on that paper, and then compare it with the J. W.
+ D. on this paper; you cannot spend your time better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did not suppose I would ever find one paper that would have everything
+ on it. But, as if there had been a conspiracy as to this paper, there is
+ an S. W. D. on this paper which is substantially the same as the S. W. D.
+ on the other. The M. C. R., the S. W. D., and the J. W. D. on both these
+ papers are all substantially the same, and I think when the jury have
+ looked at it they will say they were written by the same hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, there was the testimony of Mr. Boone that he thinks the
+ upper portion of this pencil memorandum (31 X) was written by S. W.
+ Dorsey; that it looks like his handwriting down to and including "profit
+ and loss," I believe; I may be mistaken; it may be down to "cash;" and
+ then after "profit and loss" come the names of J. H. Mitchell and J. W.
+ D., exactly the same J. W. D. that appears on 87 X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what paper is that 87 X? That is an account of John W. Dorsey against
+ S. W. Dorsey in 1879. He had been out West to take care of some of the
+ routes, and when he came back he settled, and Mr. Rerdell wrote up the
+ account. That is 87 X, and I proved that it was made in 1879. I believe
+ the prosecution thought at first that it was 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That paper shows that it was manufactured by the one who wrote this paper,
+ and by nobody else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as I said before, there is no account against J. H. Mitchell.
+ Opposite William Smith there are the figures eighteen thousand. And
+ Rerdell says that he wrote Samuel Jones himself at the suggestion of Mr.
+ Dorsey. Again I ask you, gentlemen, why would Mr. Dorsey give such a paper
+ to Rerdell? Why would he give him this false name? Why would he put
+ himself in his power? It is very natural that he should give the amounts
+ ten thousand five hundred dollars, ten thousand dollars for John W. Dorsey
+ and ten thousand dollars for Peck, because the evidence shows that those
+ transactions actually occurred. The evidence shows, not only in one place
+ but in many, that the ten thousand dollars was paid to John W. Dorsey, the
+ ten thousand dollars was paid to Peck, and that the ten thousand five
+ hundred dollars was advanced at that time by S. W. Dorsey. Consequently
+ that is natural; it is proper. But my opinion is that he never wrote one
+ word, one line of the pencil memorandum. It was all made, every mark upon
+ it, by Mr. Rerdell. He is the man that made it. Did he have it when he
+ went to MacVeagh? No. Did he have it when he went to the
+ Postmaster-General? No. Did he have it when he went to Woodward? No. Did
+ he have it when he made his affidavit in July, 1882? No; or he would not
+ have made it. Did he have it when he went to Mr. Woodward in September?
+ No; or else Mr. Woodward would have taken the stand and sworn to it. Did
+ he have it when he made his affidavit in November? I say no. Who made it?
+ Rerdell manufactured it for this purpose: That he might have something to
+ dispose of to this Government; that he might have something to swap for
+ immunity. He "kept it as a voucher."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did not these gentlemen bring Senator Mitchell to show that he had
+ some account with Senator Dorsey in May, 1879? Why did not the Government
+ bring Mr. Mitchell? They knew that their witness had to be corroborated.
+ They knew that the law distinctly says that such a witness cannot be
+ believed unless he is corroborated. They also know that the law is that
+ unless such a witness is wholly corroborated he cannot be believed; that
+ you are not allowed to pick the raisins of truth out of the pudding of his
+ perjury. You must believe him all or not at all. He must be received
+ entire by the jury, or with the foot of indignation he must be kicked from
+ the threshold of belief. They know it. Why did they not bring Senator
+ Mitchell to show that he had some account with S. W. Dorsey in 1879? But
+ we heard not a word from them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? Rerdell says that was either in April, before he went West, or
+ in May, after his return; and at that time, according to his testimony&mdash;that
+ is, according to this memorandum&mdash;eighteen thousand dollars had been
+ paid to Mr. Brady for expedition. And then following, in the month of
+ June, before the quarter ended, eighteen thousand dollars more. That makes
+ thirty-six thousand dollars paid to Brady. What else? Ten thousand dollars
+ to John W. Dorsey; forty-six thousand dollars that makes. Ten thousand
+ dollars paid to Peck; fifty-six thousand dollars that makes. He had also
+ advanced himself ten thousand five hundred dollars; that makes sixty-six
+ thousand five hundred dollars advanced, and not a dollar yet received from
+ the Government. And that by a man who gave away seventy per cent, of a
+ magnificent conspiracy because he had not the money to go on. All you have
+ to do is to think about this. Just think of the situation of the parties
+ at the time. I tell you I am going to stick to this subject until you
+ understand it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Gibbs swears that the name of Mitchell was not in the books when he
+ saw them, and yet those books were opened from this memorandum. Gibbs is
+ the man who has such a control over his mind that he can "try not to
+ remember." When I was a boy I used to hear a story of a man going around
+ saying that nobody could control his mind for a minute; that nobody could
+ think of one thing for a minute without thinking of something else. But
+ there was one fellow who said, "I can; I can think of a thing a minute and
+ not think of anything else." He was told, "If you do it, I will give you
+ my horse, and he is the best riding-horse in the country; if you can say
+ the first verse of 'Mary had a little lamb,' and not think of anything
+ else, I will give you my horse, and he is the best riding-horse in the
+ country." The fellow says, "How will you tell?" "Oh, I will take your word
+ for it." So the fellow shut up his eyes and said:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Mary had a little lamb,
+ Its fleece was white as snow,
+ And everywhere that&mdash;
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ "I suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Gibbs is the man who had such control of his mind, and he tells you
+ that the name of J. H. Mitchell was not in the book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Donnelly says he does not remember any such name as J. H. Mitchell,
+ and yet he holds an office. He has the poorest memory for any one under
+ the present Administration, I ever saw. He does not remember the name of
+ J. H. Mitchell. Who does remember it? Mr. Rerdell. But Mr. Rerdell does
+ not say what he had charged to J. H. Mitchell; he does not say what was in
+ the book as against J. H. Mitchell; he fights clear of that charge. And
+ why? He was afraid that John H. Mitchell might testify. According, I
+ think, to Mr. Rerdell, there was a charge against Belford on those books.
+ I do not know why Belford's name did not appear on the memorandum, but I
+ will come to Belford afterwards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Mr. Ingersoll, Mr. Donnelly does not mention in any way and is
+ not asked on the subject of Mr. Mitchell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I think he is. I will find it after awhile if I can, and if
+ I cannot I will admit that you are right. I do not know where it is. I do
+ not wish to be interrupted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I claim the right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Well, go on; the poor man only had seven days in which to
+ make his speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I have before me Mr. Donnelly's evidence, and he does not
+ mention the name of Mitchell in any manner, and is not asked about it, so
+ far as I can see. I think when the statement is persisted in there should
+ be some reference given to the page.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. It is on page 2637.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Davidge. And at page 2639, about two inches from the top.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll.&mdash;It is sufficient for my purpose, which is this: That
+ he gave the names of all the accounts he could remember, and in that list
+ of names he did not give the name of J. H. Mitchell. So I think I can
+ fairly say to you that that man did not remember any account against J. H.
+ Mitchell. Mr. Gibbs was asked directly whether there was any account
+ against J. H. Mitchell, and he did not remember any such. Now, the only
+ person that swears to it at all is Mr. Rerdell. Then you come across this
+ contradiction: Why should the name of J. H. Mitchell be there with nothing
+ opposite to it? I do not know. The prosecution, of course, will be able to
+ find writing of S. W. Dorsey that will resemble some of the writing on
+ this pencil memorandum. There is no doubt about that. If it was written by
+ Rerdell in imitation of Dorsey's writing, it is not surprising that
+ writing really written by Dorsey can be found that looks like it. Why?
+ Because it was written in imitation of his writing, and therefore you can
+ find writing of Dorsey's that looks like it; otherwise it would not be an
+ imitation. The next question arises, Can you find writing of Rerdell's
+ that looks like it? Yes; 87 X. The M. C. R., the S. W. D., and the J. W.
+ D. are all exactly like it. Now, is it not infinitely surprising that
+ Dorsey should imitate Rerdell without trying and without an object? Is it
+ not perfectly wonderful that this memorandum should be in imitation of
+ Rerdell's writing, when it was written by Dorsey? But if it was forged by
+ Rerdell, it is not wonderful that it looks like Dorsey's writing. If
+ Dorsey wrote it without thinking of Rerdell, I say the accident is
+ infinitely wonderful that he imitated Rerdell. Which is the more probable&mdash;that
+ Dorsey imitated Rerdell without design and without trying, or that Rerdell
+ imitated Dorsey with a design, and when trying to do so? That is the way
+ to put this argument, and I hope the gentlemen will answer it. The
+ ingenuity that would be displayed in the answer would a thousand times pay
+ me for the loss of the point. I want them to account for this, how
+ Dorsey's natural handwriting comes to look like Rerdell's, and how it is
+ that this looks precisely like Rerdell's in many instances. Why is it,
+ gentlemen? I will tell you. Mr. Rerdell had written the initials J. W. D.,
+ S. W. D., and M. C. R. so often that when he came to put them upon this
+ memorandum he forgot to disguise his hand. That is the reason. You find on
+ 87 X the J. W. D. precisely as it is on the pencil memorandum. You find
+ the M. C. R. precisely as it is on the pencil memorandum. You see if you
+ have done the same thing many times with your hand, the hand gets a mind
+ of its own. It is in that way that you learn to play upon the piano. The
+ hand becomes educated and follows the keys through all the mazes of melody
+ without asking one question of the mind. You can write a name so often,
+ you can make initials so often, that when you come to write them, no
+ matter what your object is, the hand, educated with a mind of its own,
+ pursues the old accustomed motions and paths. That is the reason that J.
+ W. D. and S. W. D. and M. C. R. are exactly in the handwriting of Rerdell
+ in this pencil memorandum. According to that, Dorsey had paid out in all,
+ I think, about $65,000, or something like that There is no truth in it,
+ gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in order to prepare your mind for the next point I am going to make,
+ and in order that you may know something about this man Rerdell, I will
+ give you some further information about him. I do not think you are
+ sufficiently acquainted with his character, and any little points that I
+ have I want to give to you. I want to paint his portrait in every
+ lineament, every mark. I want to give you every hair in his head. Remember
+ that this witness is to be corroborated. He is to be propped and indorsed.
+ Everybody admits that he is the pewter of perjury and has to be plated
+ with the silver of respectability gotten from somebody else. They all
+ admit that. He is an empty bag. Somebody has to fill him up before he can
+ stand upright. They admit that. I want to call your attention to a few
+ things as to which he lacked corroboration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2215, Rerdell swears that Miner told him that the amounts in the
+ bids were filled in by S. W. Dorsey. On page 4177 Miner denies this, and
+ says that he filled in the bids with only two exceptions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2216 Rerdell swears that the mail matter for J. W. Dorsey, Peck,
+ and Miner was handed him by S. W. Dorsey, and that Dorsey said that he was
+ going to take the business out of Boone's hands. On page 3766, Dorsey
+ swears that he had no such conversation with Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2217, Rerdell swears that S. W. Dorsey applied to him to go West.
+ On page 3768 Dorsey swears that he did not employ him to go West.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2218, Rerdell swears that he received instructions from S. W.
+ Dorsey as to what to do on the Bismarck route. On page 3769, S. W. Dorsey
+ swears that that is utterly untrue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2219, Rerdell says that he was instructed to establish a <i>paper
+ post-office</i> sixty miles north of the route. What was that for?
+ According to his testimony there was a mistake in the advertisement, and
+ the route was too long, and this was a device to shorten it by adding
+ sixty miles to it to make a post-office thirty miles off the route, or
+ sixty altogether, so as to get pay for the increase of distance. If it was
+ to be a fraud, why put the post-office off the route? Why not have it on
+ the route? Where would the fraud be if they traveled the sixty miles
+ except in having a postoffice where none was needed? They certainly would
+ make nothing from the Government by traveling the sixty miles. If they
+ traveled the sixty miles they would be paid for that sixty miles, but if
+ they wanted pay for the sixty miles without traveling that sixty miles,
+ they would not have put the post-office so far off the route. They would
+ have put it on the route, or very near to it, and pretended that it was
+ off the route.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, it is infinitely absurd to suppose that Stephen W. Dorsey would
+ have instructed that man to go out in that country and get up a false
+ post-office. How long would a fraud like that last and live? How long
+ could the money be drawn for that service in that country? They say no
+ human being lived there. Who was to be postmaster? Who was to make the
+ reports? How long, in your judgment, would it be before the department
+ would find out that there was no such post-office, no postmaster, and no
+ mail? No one could think of a more shallow device than that Stephen W.
+ Dorsey, a man who is blest with as much brain as any man it is my pleasure
+ to know, would never dream of such an idiotic device. And yet, that is the
+ testimony of Mr. Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that Mr. Rerdell when he got out there thought he could start a
+ town and make money in some other way. But it will not do to say that
+ Stephen W. Dorsey told him to get up a false and fraudulent post-office
+ when Mr. Dorsey must have known that the mail could not have been carried
+ to it but a few days before it would have become known that there was no
+ such office. They would have to appoint a postmaster and he would have to
+ live there in his loneliness a hermit of the plain, and would have to make
+ a report like that from Agate that gave such delight to Mr. Bliss to read.
+ There was not a letter sent to that place; not one, nor would there be.
+ Mr. Dorsey knew if there was a postmaster appointed he would have to
+ report, and in three months from that time he would have to report, first,
+ that there was no post-office; second, that there had never been any mail;
+ and third, that he did not expect any. You see it is utterly absurd to lay
+ such a charge at the door of Stephen W. Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3769 Dorsey swears that the statement is a falsehood&mdash;that he
+ never did any such thing. He also denies it on page 3924.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2220 Rerdell swears that he gave Pennell a petition for a
+ post-office. On page 2156 Joseph Pennell swears that he never saw the
+ petition; and on page 2171 that he never signed it, and that none was
+ sent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2221 Rerdell swears that he was instructed by S. W. Dorsey to
+ build stations fifteen or sixteen miles apart, and use every third
+ station. On page 3769 S. W. Dorsey swears that no such instructions were
+ given. On page 4092 J. W. Dorsey swears that they started to build the
+ stations about thirty miles apart, and that after he saw General Miles and
+ was told by that officer that there would be, and must be a daily mail,
+ then he concluded to build stations between the stations that he had built
+ going over.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is a sensible, straight story. When he went out they built the
+ stations some thirty-odd miles apart, and when he talked with General
+ Miles, General Miles told him that there must be a daily service, and then
+ he determined to build intermediate stations as he went back. What was
+ that testimony sworn to by Rerdell for? To make you believe, gentlemen,
+ that Stephen W. Dorsey when he sent Rerdell out knew that there was to be
+ expedition, and knew it because he was in conspiracy with the Second
+ Assistant Postmaster-General. The testimony of John W. Dorsey lets the
+ light in upon that story. The sun rises, and the mist goes. What is his
+ story? "I went there and built the stations about thirty miles apart, and
+ when I talked with General Miles he assured me that there must be
+ expedition and a daily mail, and then I built stations at the intermediate
+ points as we went back." That is the story. It is consistent with itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not wonderful that the Government did not also prove by Pennell that
+ Rerdell gave him instructions to build the ranches, and told him that he
+ had been so instructed by S. W. Dorsey?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2233 Rerdell swears that Miner told him that Vaile was close to
+ Brady. On page 4177, Miner swears that it is not true; that he never had
+ any such conversation. Why did they want a man close to Brady? As I
+ explained to you before, gentlemen, they had already, according to their
+ testimony, as they claim, proved that Miner had conspired with Brady, and
+ yet he was going around trying to find a man close to Brady. Being a
+ co-conspirator was not close enough. So Mr. Rerdell is corroborated there
+ again by Mr. Miner who swears that what Rerdell swears is a lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2224 Rerdell swears that in November, 1878, Miner asked him to
+ write certain words in a line on petition 40104. On page 4178, Miner
+ swears that he never asked him to interline any petition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2225 Rerdell swears he had a conversation with Vaile and Miner on
+ the 20th of December, 1878, at the National Hotel, about his employment,
+ and that he had a great many conversations there. On page 4020, Vaile
+ swears that there never was any such conversation. On page 4021, Vaile
+ also swears that he has no recollection of such a conversation then or at
+ anytime. On page 4178, Miner swears that the talk was between Rerdell and
+ himself, and that Vaile was not there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2225 Rerdell swears that Vaile told him that the mail service they
+ had ought to reach six hundred thousand or seven hundred thousand dollars.
+ On page 4021, Vaile swears that he does not think he ever said any such
+ thing&mdash;does not think it was possible that he ever said any such
+ thing. On page 4179 Miner swears that Vaile never made any such statement
+ in his presence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2226 Rerdell swears that at the instance of Vaile and Miner he
+ went West, January 4, 1879, to put service on the Rawlins route. On 4022
+ Vaile swears that Rerdell did not go West at his instance; that Miner gave
+ him, Rerdell, a subcontract for the entire pay, for the whole term, and
+ that Rerdell undertook it on his own behalf. On 4179 Miner swears that he
+ made the arrangements with Rerdell himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2227 Rerdell says that Vaile and Miner both told him that the
+ service would be increased right away, and to make subcontracts with that
+ in view. On page 4180 Miner swears that he gave him no such directions,
+ and that Rerdell did all he did on his own responsibility, and that Vaile
+ did not give him any such authority. It is for you to say., gentlemen,
+ which of these men you will believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2228 Rerdell swears that in March, 1879, had a conversation with
+ Vaile about an affidavit, and received instructions from Vaile or Miner.
+ On page 4024 Vaile swears that he recollects no such conversation and does
+ not think he ever had it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2228 Rerdell swears that Vaile said in the presence of Miner that
+ he could get Brady to accept an affidavit from a subcontractor. On page
+ 4024 Vaile swears that he is very sure that he did not say so, and that he
+ never asked Brady any such question. On page 4182 Miner swears that he
+ never made any such statement in Vaile's presence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2228 Rerdell swears that a day or two after Vaile says he had seen
+ Brady, and that Brady had agreed to accept an affidavit from a
+ subcontractor. On page 4024 Vaile denies this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the same page, 2228, Rerdell swears that he was instructed by Vaile and
+ Miner to write to Perkins and get him to send his affidavit. On page 4024
+ Vaile swears, "Never!"&mdash;that he did not know Perkins was a
+ subcontractor. On page 4182 Miner swears that he has no recollection of
+ it, and that he never instructed Rerdell to send any form of affidavit to
+ Mr. Perkins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2230 Rerdell swears that Miner wrote a form of affidavit. On page
+ 4182 Miner swears that he has no recollection of it, and that he never
+ instructed Rerdell to send any form to Perkins. As a matter of fact the
+ Perkins affidavit is in the handwriting of Rerdell. Yet he tells you that
+ Miner wrote the form. It will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2231 Rerdell swears that he filled in blanks under the direction
+ of S. W. Dorsey&mdash;that is, of the Perkins affidavit&mdash;and filed it
+ under the direction of S. W. Dorsey. On page 3793 Dorsey swears that he
+ never knew there was such an affidavit, and that he never gave such
+ instructions; and more than that, that he never at any time or place gave
+ Rerdell authority to change any affidavit or any petition that was to be
+ filed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2233 Rerdell swears he was instructed to make the subcontract
+ without any reference to expedition; and that he, Dorsey, would guarantee
+ the payments if they were not filed. On page 3771 S. IV. Dorsey swears
+ that he gave him no such instructions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2234 Rerdell swears that affidavits of Peck and Dorsey were
+ acknowledged in blank. On page 4189 Miner swears that so far as he
+ remembers they were filled in before they were signed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, it may be proper for me to say here: Why did not the Government
+ call J. S. Taylor, the notary of New Mexico, to prove that the affidavits
+ were in blank when they were sworn to by John M. Peck? Why did they not?
+ The law presumes that every officer has done his duty, and when we find at
+ the foot of an affidavit the certificate of a notary public the law
+ presumes that the paper above it was in the precise condition at the time
+ the certificate was placed there in which it is then. That is the
+ presumption of law, and there is only one way to overcome that
+ presumption. You must prove to the contrary. One of the easiest ways on
+ earth to do that is to bring the officer. They did not bring J. S. Taylor
+ here from New Mexico, the man before whom Peck acknowledged the affidavit
+ in this case. It would have been easy to have him come, and to have asked
+ him whether Peck did not swear to all these affidavits in blank. They did
+ not call him. They had him here once and that was enough. They did not
+ call him this time. They did not call Rufus Wainwright, of Middlebury,
+ Vermont. He is the officer before whom John W. Dorsey swore to these
+ affidavits. The gentlemen of the prosecution say the affidavits were in
+ blank, and yet they dare not put upon the stand the notary before whom
+ they were sworn to. It was not because they did not think of it. It was
+ not because they had not the money. The Government had money by the
+ million and agents by the thousand. You recollect how they tried to prove
+ the destruction of those dispatches in the Western Union office. You
+ recollect how they brought here the superintendent, how they brought here
+ agent after agent, how they brought here the man that went around and
+ collected the dispatches, and the man that drove the wagon, and the man
+ that owned the wagon, and the boys that received the dispatches on the
+ street, and the man in the cellar that received them after they got there,
+ and the man that bought them, and the book-keeper that made out the check
+ to pay for them. They brought the man that receipted for them at the
+ railroad, and they followed them from the railroad to Holyoke,
+ Massachusetts, and brought the superintendent of the factory and the books
+ of the railroad to show they had arrived. They followed those dispatches
+ from paper to pulp and yet it never occurred to them to send to Middlebury
+ and get Rufus Wainwright. They never thought to have J. S. Taylor
+ subpoenaed from New Mexico. They had all the conveniences of modern
+ civilization at their command and yet they never thought of getting
+ Wainwright or Taylor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3771 S. W. Dorsey swears that he never instructed Rerdell to get
+ any affidavits in blank. On pages 4126, and 4107, J. W. Dorsey swears that
+ he made none in blank; that he has no recollection of any such thing. On
+ page 2240, Rerdell swears that he had a conversation with S. W. Dorsey
+ about getting blank affidavits. On page 3771 S. W. Dorsey denies it. On
+ page 2241 Rerdell swears that S. W. Dorsey instructed him to make up the
+ affidavit on route 41119 and gave him the per cent, of the increase of
+ pay. What does he say there? From one hundred and fifty to two hundred per
+ cent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. That was afterwards corrected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I thank you for the suggestion. That happened on Friday. We
+ adjourned until the next Monday morning. He came in the next Monday
+ morning, and he said that he had made a mistake, and that it ought to be
+ from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty per cent. I
+ immediately went and got the affidavits on the Toquerville route, because
+ I said the percentage must be over two hundred per cent, in that affidavit
+ or he would not have changed. I found in the affidavit that it was two
+ hundred and fifty-five per cent., and I found that was why he changed. I
+ followed that out, and I found that was the same route upon which Mr.
+ Rerdell stole nearly five thousand dollars, according to the testimony of
+ S. W. Dorsey, and Rerdell did not deny it. So much for Toquerville and
+ Adairville. We will come to it again perhaps.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me give the pages where all these matters are found. On page 3772
+ Dorsey denies the conversation about the affidavits, and also on page
+ 3773. Rerdell's, change of his evidence will be found on page 2277.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2243 Rerdell swears that while he was in jail S. W. Dorsey had a
+ key to what he called his, Rerdell's, office. On page 3735 S. W. Dorsey
+ swears that he never had a key to Rerdell's office, and that he never was
+ in the office but twice, both times with Rerdell, and that he never took a
+ paper out of the office except what Rerdell gave him. It will also be
+ remembered that when Rerdell was asked in his examination-in-chief whether
+ anybody had a key to his office he replied that S. W. Dorsey had a key to
+ his office. He did not at that time state that his wife had a key. Why?
+ Because he wanted it understood that S. W. Dorsey was the only person that
+ had a key, and that S. W. Dorsey, while Rerdell was in jail, went to that
+ office and opened it and robbed it. On cross-examination I made him swear
+ that his wife had a key, and we afterwards found that his wife went there.
+ He knew she had a key. Still, in his cross-examination, when asked who had
+ a key, he said S. W. Dorsey. What was that for, gentlemen?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So that you would Infer that S. W. Dorsey was the only person who had a
+ key, and that he went there and robbed that office, as I said before. On
+ pages 2634 and 2635 Mrs. Cushman swears that she went to Rerdell's office
+ with Mrs. Rerdell. When? About six o'clock in the morning. And that they
+ found the office open? No. They found the office locked, but found papers
+ in a confused condition, and took away some papers. They were there about
+ fifteen minutes. Recollect this was the third morning that Rerdell was in
+ jail. Rerdell went to jail Monday evening. That made the visit of Mrs.
+ Cushman and Mrs. Rerdell on Thursday morning, and they went there at six
+ o'clock. Keep that in mind. Rerdell got out of jail on Friday. George A.
+ Calvert, the janitor, visited every room frequently. His testimony is on
+ page 2672. He swears he found the door of Rerdell's room unlocked. When?
+ The day before Rerdell got out of jail. What time of day? In the morning.
+ What morning was that? Thursday morning. When did Rerdell get out of jail?
+ Friday morning. When did Mrs. Rerdell and Mrs. Cushman visit the room?
+ Thursday morning. What time in the morning? Six o'clock. When did Calvert
+ find the room open? That same morning. The women swear that when they went
+ there the room was locked. Now the question arises, who opened it? The
+ women. That is all there is to that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mrs. Rerdell, on page 2635, swears she got the key on the second day after
+ Rerdell's incarceration, in the evening. That would be Wednesday evening.
+ She used it the next morning, Thursday.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2247 Rerdell swears that on the 20th of December, 1878, Vaile
+ promised him a good salary. On page 4021 Vaile swears that he has no
+ recollection of any such promise. That is what they call corroboration. On
+ page 2348 Rerdell swears that in May, 1879, S. W. Dorsey said, "You know
+ that John is a man of very little judgment. He does not know how to talk
+ to these contractors." On page 3773 S. W. Dorsey swears that there never
+ was any such conversation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2249 Rerdell swears, "As secretary and manager, I kept the books
+ for a short time." On page 3636 W. F. Kellogg swears that he, Kellogg had
+ entire charge of Dorsey's books from the summer of 1872 to the fall of
+ 1879, and that nobody else ever made a scratch of a pen in those books. On
+ page 2270 Rerdell swears that Dorsey and Bosler were having a settlement
+ in New York and sent for the books, and that he took the original books
+ over and left them there, and that he went over to New York in June, 1881,
+ and saw both books there and brought the journal over and left the ledger.
+ On page 3955 Dorsey swears that the first settlement he had with Bosler
+ was in December, 1879, or January, 1880. Rerdell swears that the time he
+ got the copy made of his journal by the Gibbses, was between Christmas,
+ 1879, and 1880. Dorsey swears there was not another settlement until
+ November, 1882. The first settlement being in 1879, and Rerdell swearing
+ that he took the books over for a settlement, shows that he did not have
+ them here in Washington to be copied at the time he says and at the time
+ other people swear that they copied them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3788 S. W. Dorsey swears that he never sent for any transcript,
+ and that he, Dorsey, referred to the route-book, and that Rerdell never
+ sent any such book or books as he claimed. On page 2271 Rerdell swears
+ that he gave copies of the journal to Dorsey in June, 1881. That was the
+ time that he made the affidavit. His language by any natural
+ interpretation means that lie handed those copies over to Dorsey at the
+ time he made the affidavit on the 20th of June, 1881. On page 3988 Dorsey
+ swears that he did not, and on page 3785 he again swears that he never had
+ them. On page 3784 he again swears that Rerdell never brought any book to
+ him except the route-book. On page 2271 Rerdell swears that Dorsey, on the
+ 13th of May, 1879, him to make up a statement of the routes showing the
+ profits, and that he thinks he gave it to Bosler. On page 3875 Dorsey
+ swears that he never made up any such statement by his direction, and that
+ he never gave Rerdell such an order. Why should he? According to Rerdell's
+ own statement, in which there is not a particle of truth, Dorsey, on the
+ 13th of May, 1879, that very day, had written a letter to Bosler, in which
+ he told him about the profits, about how much it had cost him, and about
+ how much it would cost him, and about how much the profits would be, and
+ how much he paid to Brady. After writing such a letter to Bosler,
+ containing all the facts, why would he want Rerdell to make up a statement
+ that was already in the letter itself? Nobody can answer. There is not
+ genius enough in this world to make the answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2272 Rerdell swears that he saw 7 B, which is a petition, in 1879,
+ and that there were three words in his own handwriting that were not there
+ when he first saw it, the three words being "and faster time." He also
+ swears that he was instructed to put them in by S. W. Dorsey. I now say
+ that Mr. Rerdell never wrote those three words. On page 783 it appears
+ that 7 B was filed April 18, 1879. On page 3786 S. W. Dorsey swears that
+ Rerdell's statement is false. I will now turn to the testimony of George
+ Sears about the petition, 7 B, which Mr. Rerdell swears was altered by
+ interlineation or the addition of three words, "and faster time." The page
+ is 829.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here comes a witness of the Government, apparently a good and honest man,
+ and he swears that the words "and faster time" were in that petition when
+ he signed it. I will take his word for it. I will take his guess as
+ against the other man's oath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2273 Rerdell swears that he altered 11 B and 12 B by instructions
+ of S. W. Dorsey. Now, gentlemen, Stephen W. Dorsey got such a momentum of
+ crime on him and got running at such a rate that he could not stop, and
+ whenever a petition came in he had it altered without reading it. It did
+ not make a bit of difference what the petition asked for. He just said to
+ his clerk, "Look and see if there is not any line you can add something
+ to. I want something put in it, and I want it put in now." Mr. Rerdell
+ says he did these things without any thought. He just made the changes as
+ he was told, without considering whether it was right or wrong. He told
+ you here on the stand that at one time he was requested to get a petition,
+ and he had a lot of names on hand, and so he just wrote a petition and
+ stuck the names to it. He could not even remember the route it was on. It
+ was a matter of so little importance that he did not charge his memory
+ with it. He was told to get a petition in the regular way, and instead of
+ doing that he said he took some names that he had and just wrote a
+ petition and stuck the names on, because that was easier; and it was a
+ matter of so little importance he really did not remember. He was like the
+ gentleman in Texas who was tried for murder, but did not remember the name
+ of the man he killed; he did not charge his mind with it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now for 11 B:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hon. D. M. Key, Postmaster-General:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We, the undersigned, citizens of the State of Colorado, residing near and
+ getting our mail at Muddy Creek post-office, on route 38135, from Pueblo
+ to Greenhorn, respectfully represent&mdash;I never noticed before that the
+ "p" is interlined in the word "represent." I have no doubt that was done
+ by order of Dorsey&mdash;that it is necessary that the service on said
+ route should be increased from two trips per week to six trips per week,
+ and a faster schedule. This section of the country is being rapidly
+ settled by people of intelelgence, and we ask the increased service for
+ the benefit of us who have already made our homes here, and also as an
+ inducement to others to settle. We also request that the schedule time be
+ reduced so as to run from Pueblo to Greenhorn in eight hours, so that
+ citizens along the route may get their mail at a seasonable hour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have read the petition as it was in the first place. The Government
+ tells you that after that petition came here, and after it had been
+ submitted to Stephen W. Dorsey, he told his clerk to add in the first part
+ of the words "on quicker time;" and yet if he had read the last paragraph
+ he would have seen quicker time was there called for. Rerdell says Dorsey
+ told him to insert the words "on quicker time," and when I read this last
+ paragraph to him he was stuck. Then what did he say? When he got into that
+ little corner and was looking for a mouse-hole, he said he didn't read it
+ and didn't know it was there. Do you believe that a man like Stephen W.
+ Dorsey would deliberately have a petition changed, would deliberately
+ forge a petition, without knowing what was in it and without knowing
+ whether the necessity existed for changing it or not? That falsehood has
+ not even a fig-leaf to cover its absurdity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here is 12 B. It would not have taken long to have read that. Rerdell said
+ Dorsey had him put in the words "and a faster schedule." I will read the
+ last paragraph to that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We also respectfully request and urge that the running time be reduced so
+ as to run from Pueblo to Greenhorn in eight hours, so that citizens along
+ the line may get their mails in a seasonable hour.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He says Stephen W. Dorsey, a man of sense, got that petition, read it all
+ over, and then told this fellow to put in "and a faster schedule" when
+ right in the next paragraph it asked for eight hours. A man who will swear
+ that way had rather tell a lie on ninety days' credit than tell the truth
+ for cash. Just look at it. That is what they call a corroboration. The
+ more you look at this testimony the more absurdities you find. Every truth
+ has an infinite number of signs. Every truth has to fit an infinite number
+ of things. Infinite wisdom could not manufacture a falsehood that would
+ stand the test of investigation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2272 Rerdell says, speaking of the three petitions, 7 B, 11 B, and
+ 12 B, "We," meaning S. W. Dorsey and himself, "had examined these
+ petitions together, and he," meaning S. W. Dorsey, "told me to put in the
+ clause for expedition." Now, 7 B was filed April 18. That is the day he
+ left for the West, and 12 B were filed on the 8th of May. If they had them
+ all at one time together, and if he and Dorsey had talked about them, why
+ were they not filed at the same time? Why was one filed April 18th and the
+ other two on the 8th of May? That testimony of Rerdell's will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2279 Rerdell says that he found among Dorsey's papers the tabular
+ statement, about the middle of April, 1879. the first column was the
+ number of the route; in the second the termini; in the third the pay; in
+ the fourth the anticipated pay by percentages, and in the fifth the
+ percentage to T. J. B., thirty-three and one-third, with the figures
+ carried out at the end of the column. He tells you that he had that
+ tabular statement when he first went to MacVeagh. That tabular statement
+ was in the handwriting of S. W. Dorsey. Yet the Attorney-General was not
+ satisfied. He wanted that backed up by a book not in the handwriting of S.
+ W. Dorsey. That will not do. Rerdell also tells you that at the time he
+ went to the Attorney-General he not only had that tabular statement, but
+ he had a letter-press copy of the original letter that Dorsey wrote to
+ Bosler on the 13th day of May, 1879. He had that letter, the original of
+ which was in Dorsey's handwriting, in which he admitted he had paid Brady
+ twenty thousand dollars. He had the tabular statement in Dorsey's own
+ handwriting in which he was to pay thirty-three and one-third per cent, to
+ Brady. Yet the Attorney-General did not think there was sufficient
+ evidence, and said, "You had better go to New York and steal a book that
+ Dorsey never wrote a word in." Oh, no; that will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2280 Rerdell swears that he lost that memorandum. I guess he did.
+ On page 3785 S. W. Dorsey swears that he never made any such memorandum.
+ On page 2280 Rerdell swears that he employed Gibbs and wife to make a true
+ and correct copy of the books in March, 1880; that he was directed by S.
+ W. Dorsey to send him a true transcript of the books in order to settle
+ with Bosler, and that Gibbs and wife copied the journal and ledger, and
+ that he sent the copy to New York. On page 3788 Dorsey swears that he
+ never heard of the employment of Gibbs and wife, and that he never
+ received any such books or transcripts. On page 2644 Gibbs swears that his
+ wife copied only the journal, not the ledger. Yet Rerdell swears that he
+ copied the journal and the ledger. On page 2644 Gibbs again swears that
+ Rerdell brought him one book. What color was it, red, brown, or black?
+ Rerdell says he took him two red books. Gibbs swears he got one brown book
+ or one black book. That is what they call corroboration. On page 2320
+ Rerdell swears with regard to the paper 2 A, that the words, "schedule
+ thirteen hours" were written by Miner. If those words, "schedule thirteen
+ hours," were not written by Rerdell, then&mdash;they were written by
+ somebody else. [2 A handed to Mr. Ingersoll.] I guess this is the petition
+ that was fixed up. It looks as if it had been to a hospital. Rerdell says
+ Miner wrote the words "schedule thirteen hours." Just look at that word
+ "thirteen," gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have no idea how it affects your imagination and brain to be indicted
+ seven times. On page 2209 Boone swears with regard to this same paper and
+ the same words, that there is nothing in the handwriting to indicate that
+ it was written by Miner; that it is a back-hand; a changed handwriting. On
+ page 4186 Miner swears that it is absolutely not true; that the words
+ "schedule thirteen hours" are absolutely and positively not in his
+ handwriting, and further that he never filed the petition. Gentlemen,
+ evidence of handwriting is very unsatisfactory necessarily. Men do not
+ always write the same. The same man does not always write the same hand.
+ There is the difference of pen, the difference of ink, the difference of
+ paper, the difference of position, and the difference, too, of the man's
+ feelings. At one time he feels in splendid health and at another time he
+ may be tired and worn out. The paper may not be in the same position. The
+ slope of the desk may be different. Countless reasons change the
+ handwriting of a person, and when a man swears that certain handwriting is
+ or is not another's handwriting he must swear on the general appearance;
+ he must swear on the impression that it first makes upon him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know Mr. Smith and I know Mr. Jones, but it may be that I could not
+ describe the differences in the faces of the two men so that a stranger
+ could afterwards tell them. Yet I know them. It is the effect of all the
+ features upon me. I cannot say it is because of the ear of one, or his
+ nose, or his mouth. I know the combination. I remember the grouping of the
+ features and the form, and that is all I remember. If I am shown a paper
+ and asked, "Is that Mr. Smith's handwriting?" I say it is, or I say no.
+ Why? Because it looks like it or it does not look like it. I cannot
+ recognize it because an "e" is made in a certain way or because a "d" is
+ turned in a certain way, because the next day he may turn it the other
+ way. You have got to go upon the general impression. On page 2336 Rerdell
+ swears that the oath on route 38140, marked 5 E, was filled in by S. W.
+ Dorsey; that the word "twelve" was written by him, Rerdell, after it was
+ filed, and was written because Turner told him that the schedule must be
+ twelve hours; that Turner handed him the oath and he thereupon changed the
+ "fifteen" to "twelve." On page 3355 Turner swears that he has no knowledge
+ of any alteration in any affidavit. On page 3793 S. W. Dorsey swears that
+ he did not know there was any such affidavit; and he also frequently
+ swears that he never asked Rerdell to change any affidavit that had been
+ filed, and that he never gave any such orders. These gentlemen find one
+ affidavit about which we did not ask Mr. Dorsey particularly and they say,
+ "You have not contradicted that." When a man swears that he never gave an
+ order about any affidavit, that covers every affidavit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2337 Rerdell swears that the oath marked 20 F, on route 38145, was
+ filled in by him after it was signed, under the direction of S. W. Dorsey.
+ On page 3793 Dorsey denies giving any such directions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2338 Rerdell swears that blanks in the oath 22 F, the second oath,
+ were filled in by S. W. Dorsey, but will not say whether before or after
+ execution. On page 3771 Dorsey says he does not remember doing any such
+ thing; but certainly there is no evidence that Dorsey did this after the
+ affidavit had been made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2339 Rerdell swears that the words "ninety-six" in the petition 14
+ H, were written by Miner. Boone, on page 2709, declines to say that Miner
+ wrote them. On page 4273 Miner swears that the words are not in his
+ handwriting, that he never wrote them. On page 2298 Rerdell swears that he
+ signed a check "S. W. Dorsey by M. C. Rerdell," and that he had that check
+ at home. It may be that is one of the checks for June drawn upon
+ Middleton's bank that we could not find.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2340 Rerdell says that the oath marked 8 I, on route 44140, was
+ filled in by him in Washington after it was signed and sworn to, under the
+ direction of S. W. Dorsey. On page 3792 S. W. Dorsey denies that he gave
+ any such directions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2342 Rerdell swears that S. W. Dorsey signed the name of J. M.
+ Peck to the warrant 55 G. I have forgotten the day that the draft was
+ given, but I think it was the 2d day of August. It was paid on August 25,
+ 1880. All I have to say is that there was an abundance of time for that
+ draft to go to New Mexico and to be signed by John M. Peck; there was
+ thousands of time. It makes not the slightest difference who signed the
+ name of John M. Peck to that warrant. The question is, was that money
+ coming to John M. Peck? No. John M. Peck had sold out his interest. He was
+ not entitled to one dollar, and it made no difference who signed his name
+ to the check. Does it show that there was a conspiracy if Dorsey signed
+ his name after Peck had sold out his interest in the routes? Any draft
+ coming to him came to him simply as the trustee and the draft was for the
+ benefit of the person who bought him out. Suppose Mr. Dorsey had signed
+ his name. Would that prove that there was any conspiracy? It would simply
+ be in accordance with his right as the matter then stood. He was entitled
+ to that draft and Peck was not entitled to that draft. Why? Because he had
+ bought him out and paid him ten thousand dollars for his interest. That
+ was all. Yet they would claim if that draft happened to be indorsed by Mr.
+ Dorsey that it would be evidence of a conspiracy entered into in the fall
+ of 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On pages 2348 and 2361 Rerdell says that figures were inserted in all
+ affidavits given him by S. W. Dorsey, except on route 41119, and that
+ Dorsey told him, Rerdell, to put them in the blanks. On page 3793 S. W.
+ Dorsey denies that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2223 Rerdell says that in August, 1878, he had a talk with Miner,
+ who said that they could do nothing while Boone was in the combination;
+ that Brady was hostile to Boone, and that Boone's place was to be taken by
+ Vaile; and that Miner asked his opinion about Vaile, and asked what
+ Rerdell thought about Dorsey's approving it, adding that Vaile was very
+ close to Brady. On page 4177 Miner swears that he has no recollection of
+ the conversation, and does not believe any such conversation ever
+ occurred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ah, but they say that when a paper was handed to Mr. Miner, an affidavit,
+ for instance, he could not give you the history of it; he could not tell
+ you where he was when he wrote it; he could not tell you where he was when
+ he filled it. I would not have believed his testimony if he could. He had
+ to take care of some ninety-six routes. Upon those routes there were
+ numberless papers, notices from the department, notices of fines and
+ deductions, of remissions, and everything of that kind. On each route
+ there were probably a hundred papers, and may be more&mdash;petitions,
+ affidavits, and papers of all descriptions. If a man should stand up here
+ five years afterwards and pretend that he knew the history of each paper,
+ I would know he had not the slightest regard for truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Miner said when he was shown a paper, "I don't remember ever having
+ seen that paper before; I don't remember when it was written." That was
+ the truth. If he had wished to stain his heart with perjury he could have
+ said, "Yes, I remember it. I know absolutely the time I wrote it. I know I
+ sent it to New Mexico. I know it was filled up before it was sworn to";
+ but he was honest enough and he was brave enough to face the truth and
+ say, "I don't remember," and I respected him for it when he did it.
+ Whenever you hear the truth, as a rule the first thought is, "May be it
+ won't do." But if it is the truth, the longer you think about it the
+ better it seems, while if it is a lie, the longer you think about it the
+ worse it gets. It would have been, apparently, to Mr. Miner's interest to
+ say, "I remember it perfectly," but the man had honor enough to tell the
+ truth. And when you come to investigate his evidence it sounds much better
+ than though he had pretended to remember time and place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I call your attention to page 2446; that is about the affidavit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2384 Rerdell speaks of the charges made to Samuel Jones and James
+ B. Belford for two thousand dollars. Then Mr. Bliss in his speech, which I
+ will come to after a while, says that Mr. Rerdell spoke about a charge to
+ J. B. B. He never did, never. He said James B. Belford. I started the J.
+ B. B. business. I was the first one who ever said it, and Mr. Rerdell
+ never swore J. B. B. Then they sent out to Denver to get a fellow who had
+ the same initials. I will come to this man after a while.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On pages 2429 and 2430 Rerdell swears that he had two balance-sheets of
+ the books, made by Donnelly; that he showed them to MacVeagh and Woodward.
+ How does it happen that Woodward was not sworn about it? Nothing would
+ have been of more importance, if they wished to prove the existence of the
+ two red books, than to prove by Woodward that Mr. Rerdell, in June, 1881,
+ showed him copies of those balance-sheets or the balance-sheets
+ themselves. They did not bring Mr. Woodward on the stand. Why? Mr.
+ Woodward, in my judgment, had he come upon the stand, would have sworn to
+ the truth. Rerdell says, "I do not know where they are." Then he paused.
+ Then I saw the working of his mind just as plainly as though his skull had
+ been opened. He got himself together and swore that he gave them to Dorsey
+ in July, 1882. He had to get them out of his hands some way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3736 S. W. Dorsey swears that he, Rerdell, did not give him any
+ balance sheets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2434 Rerdell swears as to the papers he gave to Dorsey&mdash;the
+ original journal, and copy of the Oregon correspondence made by Miss
+ Nettie L. White. Miss White was not called. He gave these, he says, to
+ Dorsey, July 13, 1882. On page 2793 Dorsey swears that he did not give
+ them to him, nor did he give a paper of any kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2461 Rerdell is asked if he did not admit to Judge
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Carpenter, in January, 1882, that he had a memorandum written by himself,
+ which he showed to James and MacVeagh, and that he made it so much like
+ Dorsey's handwriting that he did not think anybody could tell it. What was
+ his answer? "I may have done so." Honest man!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2462, in answer to the question, "Did you not tell Carpenter that
+ you brought no book from New York?" the honest man answered:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Very likely I said I brought no book over from New York.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the same page, in answer to the question, "Did you not tell French that
+ you were trying to entrap James?" he admits that it is likely he was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2463 he admits that he may have told French that he had learned to
+ imitate the handwriting of Dorsey so well that Dorsey himself could not
+ tell the imitation; and that he wrote that memorandum in pencil because he
+ could the more easily deceive. Honest man!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss holds S. W. Dorsey up to scorn because he endeavored to turn two
+ men out of the Cabinet on the testimony of Rerdell; and yet he is trying
+ to put four men in the penitentiary on the same oath. Do you not think
+ that it is better to get a man out of the Cabinet than to put another into
+ the penitentiary? And do you not think it is better that a man be put out
+ of office than that he be put into the penitentiary, his family destroyed,
+ and his home left to ruin, upon the oath of a man who swears that the oath
+ was a lie? Dorsey was an awfully wicked man to try to get Mr. MacVeagh out
+ of office on Rerdell's testimony. But now they turn around and want to put
+ Mr. Vaile and Mr. Miner into the penitentiary on the same testimony. The
+ other testimony was the best, because we did not promise him immunity. I
+ will come to it after a while.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2465 Rerdell swears that he did not have any pencil memorandum
+ that he showed to MacVeagh, claiming that it was in the handwriting of
+ Dorsey, and was asked, "Did you not tell Bosler that you had?" What does
+ he say? "Possibly I did." "Did you not tell Bosler that you wrote it?"
+ "Possibly I did."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ S. W. Dorsey swears on page 3810 that Rerdell told Bosler that it was in
+ the waste-basket, and Bosler took the pieces out and put them together.
+ Rerdell says he had written it, and in pencil, so that it would look more
+ like Dorsey's handwriting. Why did you not ask Bosler about it, gentlemen,
+ when you had him on the stand to prove your letter? Even Mr. Bliss, in his
+ speech, asked, "Why didn't they call Bosler?" Why didn't you have the
+ fairness to tell all the circumstances? I will tell them all when I get to
+ that part of it. Why did you not tell them that you had looked all through
+ Mr. Bosler's books?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2466 Rerdell swears that he did not get that memorandum out of the
+ waste-basket, but got a note from Mac-Veagh, and that Dorsey was present.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3810 Dorsey swears that it was a pencil memorandum imitating his
+ (Dorsey's) hand closely.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2466 Rerdell admits that he very likely told Bosler in June, 1881,
+ that he had no book on the train and brought none from New York. In answer
+ to my question, he says, "Possibly I did," or "Probably I did," tell
+ Bosler. I cannot bring other witnesses to contradict him when he admits
+ that he did. That is enough for me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2467 he admits that he very likely told Judge Wilson about the
+ affidavit; that if he told him anything, he told him that no such book
+ existed, and that there was no necessity for any book except an expense
+ book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2469 Rerdell swears that he had a copy of the day-book and ledger
+ in June, 1881, in Dorsey's office; that Dorsey took them that day, and
+ that they had been there ever since they were made, to be carried to
+ Congress. Then he began to gather his ideas, and he says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hold on. I am mistaken. These books were all sent over to New York before
+ that, in the summer of 1880, when I carried the originals over for the
+ last settlement I was present at, between Dorsey and Bosler.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was no settlement in 1880, the time he speaks of. Mr. Merrick then
+ says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. There were two sets of those copies?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That would be four copies and two originals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3955, S. W. Dorsey swears that he had the first settlement with
+ Bosler in December, 1879, or January, 1880, and had no subsequent
+ adjustment until November or December, 1882; no settlement between those
+ dates. Yet Rerdell says that he took those books over in the summer of
+ 1880 for a settlement, when there was no settlement, and at the same time
+ carried the originals. A moment before he had sworn that the originals
+ were there in the office in June, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2470 Rerdell swears that he did not give the books to Dorsey in
+ 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2447 he swears that he did not have the balance-sheet in New York;
+ that he had it in the office in June, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2479, Rerdell, in speaking of the pencil memorandum, was cornered,
+ caught. He said, "I have kept it as a voucher." Then finally he admits
+ that it was not his property, but was the property of Dorsey; and the last
+ admission he made upon that subject was, "I stole it." He says that while
+ he was in jail somebody got into the office and destroyed his papers. And
+ yet, on page 2480, he tells that the first time it ever occurred to him to
+ use that pencil memorandum was after the first trial was over. Can you
+ believe that? He was trying to steal it on the 13th of July, 1882; was
+ trying to go over to the Government on the 5th day of July, 1882, and did
+ not think that he had that pencil memorandum! Writing a letter on that day
+ to Dorsey; giving him notice that he was going to desert him; saying in
+ that very letter that he had been persuaded by Bosler to make the first
+ affidavit; saying that he was making preparations to go to the Government,
+ was going to set himself right, and yet did not remember the pencil
+ memorandum! Why? Because he manufactured it afterwards. He says that
+ within a day or two after he was out of jail he found this paper a second
+ time. He found it before, and laid it carefully away as a voucher. Then he
+ lost sight of it. Then he was trying to sell it to the Government, and he
+ forgot it; trying to blackmail Bosler and Dorsey, and forgot it. When he
+ got out of jail he found it. That will not do. How does he say it got to
+ his house? His wife carried it from the office while he was in jail. And
+ yet he would have us believe that Dorsey broke into that office and stole
+ all the papers. And yet he says that was in the office, and Dorsey did not
+ take it. It will not do. He manufactured that paper after that time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2481 Rerdell swears that he did not know that he had that paper at
+ that time, at the time he says his wife got the papers. I say he did not;
+ I say he made it afterwards.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2490 Rerdell swears that he had those red books in the office at
+ 1121 I street; that he never made any effort to conceal them. And yet
+ Kellogg never saw one of those books; never saw Rerdell working upon them,
+ and never saw them in the office.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2491 Rerdell swears that he thinks Kellogg did some work on those
+ red books; that Kellogg helped him (Rerdell) make the first entries. On
+ page 3636 Kellogg swears not only that he did not help him to make those
+ entries, but positively swears that he never even saw any such books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3635 Kellogg swears positively that Rerdell did not keep any
+ books, but a private expense-book and a route-book; and that he (Kellogg)
+ never saw any other books; that he never saw a ledger or journal in red
+ leather, kept by Rerdell. He swears that he himself kept the three books
+ (the journal, ledger, and cash-book,) and that Rerdell never made an entry
+ in them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2512 Rerdell swears that he never imitated Dorsey's handwriting,
+ or tried to, in Kellogg's presence. On page 3636 Kellogg swears that he
+ saw him do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the same page (2512) Rerdell swears that he never signed Dorsey's name
+ to show Kellogg that he could imitate it. On page 3636 Kellogg swears that
+ he did do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have just given you a few, gentlemen, of the corroborations of this man
+ Rerdell. Recollect that you cannot believe him unless he is corroborated.
+ If you believe him at all you have got to believe all, unless you believe
+ he is mistaken. Where a man comes on the stand as an informer&mdash;and I
+ do not call him an informer&mdash;even in that capacity he has to be taken
+ altogether or not at all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, with all these contradictions upon his head, I will now come to the
+ affidavit of July 13, 1882. You will remember that I read you the letter
+ of July 5, in which he says that Bosler got him to make the affidavit of
+ 1881. At page 2374 Rerdell gives an account of this affidavit. Dorsey got
+ him in Willard's Hotel, locked the door, and had him. Now, he said to him,
+ "Mr. Rerdell, I will tell you what I am going to do with you: I am going
+ to have you prosecuted for perjury." Let us imagine that conversation.
+ Rerdell replies, "What are you going to have me prosecuted for?" "For
+ making the affidavit of June, 1881." "Why," says Rerdell, "in that
+ affidavit I swore you were innocent." Says Dorsey, "Don't you know you
+ swore to a lie? Do you think I would stand a lie of that kind, sir? Do you
+ think I will allow any man willfully, maliciously, and with malice
+ aforethought, to swear that I am an innocent man? I will have you arrested
+ to-night, sir." "Well," says Rerdell, "my good God, ain't there any way I
+ can get out of this?" "Yes; make another affidavit just like it. Now, sir,
+ you have perjured yourself and I will arrest you for perjury unless you do
+ it again." "Well," says Rerdell, "when I get that done you will have two
+ cases against me." "I can't help it," Dorsey says. "Is that the way you
+ treat a friend? I swore to that lie from pure friendship. Don't you
+ remember you took me by both hands and begged me, for God's sake, and for
+ your wife's sake and your children's sake, to make that affidavit? And now
+ are you going to be such a perfect devil as to have me arrested for
+ perjury for making that same affidavit?" Dorsey says, "Yes, sir; that is
+ the kind of man I am." "Well, but," says Rerdell, "don't you know the
+ trial is going on now? They are trying to prove, now, that you are guilty,
+ and in that affidavit of mine I swore you are innocent, and how are you
+ going to prove a man guilty when you swear that he is innocent?" Dorsey
+ says, "That is my business, not yours. I am going to have you arrested."
+ "But," says Rerdell, "you had better hold on, I tell you." "Why?" "I have
+ got the red book that I got in New York." Dorsey says, "I don't care."
+ Rerdell says, "I have got the pencil memorandum that you made for me to
+ open the books upon, and charge William Smith with eighteen thousand
+ dollars. And you wrote John Smith first, and I changed it to Sam Jones,
+ don't you recollect, as otherwise there would be two Smiths? And there is
+ the account against J. H. Mitchell, and J. W. D., and cash, and profit and
+ loss." Dorsey says, "I don't care about that. I am not going to allow a
+ man to commit perjury. I am going to have you arrested." Rerdell says,
+ "You had better not have me arrested." Dorsey says, "Why? What else have
+ you got?" "I have got a copy of the letter that you wrote to Bosler on the
+ 13th of May, 1879, which you say that you paid twenty thousand dollars to
+ Thomas J. Brady. That copy was made by Miss Nettie L. White." "Do you
+ believe I care anything about that? You have perjured yourself, and it is
+ no difference to me whether it was in my favor or not. Justice must be
+ done, and I am going to have you arrested." Rerdell says, "You had better
+ not. I have got a tabular statement in your handwriting, Dorsey, where you
+ had a column for the amount due and the amount received, and another
+ column for thirty-three and one-third per cent, given to Brady, and then
+ at the top, in your handwriting, 'T. J. B., thirty-three and one-third.'"
+ Dorsey says, "I don't care what you have got." Rerdell says, "That ain't
+ all I have got, Dorsey. I tore out of your copy-book a copy of the letter
+ I wrote to Bosler on the 21st or 22d of May, 1880, in which I told him
+ that I had gone to Brady, and that Brady said you were a damn fool for
+ keeping a set of books, and suggested to me to have some copies made, and
+ I had the copies made, and I can prove the copies by Gibbs if he does not
+ try not to remember that he made them. Now, go on with your rat-killing;
+ go on with your perjury suit." Dorsey had him already locked up there,
+ don't you see? But Dorsey was bent on having that man arrested for perjury
+ because he had sworn that he (Dorsey) was innocent. Dorsey was implacable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else did he do? He put his hand in his pocket and said, "Do you see
+ those letters to that woman?" Then, sir, when he saw the handwriting he
+ was like that other gentlemen that saw the handwriting on the wall, and he
+ began to get weak in the knees, and says, "Dorsey, I hope you are not
+ going to have me arrested for perjury. I am willing to do it again right
+ now, on the same subject."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it turns out that at that time Dorsey did not have those letters.
+ Dorsey swears that he never got those letters until after Rerdell was put
+ upon the stand. And after he swore that, the Government had the woman to
+ whom the letters were written subpoenaed. Why did they not place her on
+ the stand? That is for you to answer, gentlemen. That is the affidavit of
+ July 13. Recollect, there was a trial going on at that time in which
+ Dorsey was insisting that he was innocent, and although Rerdell had sworn
+ that he was, he was going to have him arrested right off.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else did he have against Dorsey at that time? Now, says Rerdell,
+ "Dorsey, don't you have me arrested for perjury. I have got a memorandum
+ of that mining stock that was to be given to McGrew and Tyner and Turner
+ and Lilley for corrupt purposes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else did he have? After he had agreed to make the affidavit, Dorsey
+ wrote out what he wanted him to swear to, in pencil, and gave it to him.
+ And when he got his liberty, when he walked out of that room a free
+ citizen, he had all the papers I have spoken of not only, but he had in
+ his possession a draft, in Dorsey's handwriting, of the affidavit Dorsey
+ wanted him to make. He made the first affidavit from friendship; the
+ second from fright. You know he never took a dollar for an affidavit. He
+ was not that kind of a man. You might get around him by talking friendship
+ or you might scare him, but you could not bribe him; he wasn't that kind
+ of a man. Armed with all these papers he was frightened; so he made the
+ affidavit of July 13&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see. He admits that&mdash;I will not say every word, but the
+ principal things in the affidavit of June, 1881, are false. He swore to
+ them knowing them to be false. But he tried to get out by saying he did
+ not write them all. Writing is not the crime. The crime is swearing that
+ they are true when they are not true. It does not make any difference who
+ wrote it. For instance, you swear to an affidavit, and you afterwards say,
+ "I did not write it." "Did you know the contents?" "Yes." "Did you swear
+ to it?" "Yes." What difference does it make who wrote it? And yet he
+ endeavors to get behind that breastwork and say, "I did not write all that
+ affidavit; I only wrote part of it. What I wrote was true, but what I
+ swore to was not." That will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the affidavit of July, 1882, he now swears was a lie. But he gives a
+ reason for writing that, that you know is utterly, perfectly, completely
+ false. You know that Dorsey never threatened to have him arrested for
+ perjury because he had sworn in favor of Dorsey. You know it, and all the
+ eloquence and all the genius of the world could not convince you that at
+ that time Rerdell was afraid that Dorsey would have him arrested for
+ perjury. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us take the next step. Mr. Rerdell testified, on page 2275, that
+ this letter (32 X) was received by him in due course of mail in 1878. Upon
+ being asked whether he did not know that S. W. Dorsey was here in
+ Washington at that time, he replied that he knew he was not. I will read
+ it to you, gentlemen:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Chico Springs, P. O.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mountain Spring Ranch, Colfax County, New Mexico,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "April 3, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "M. C. Rerdell, 1121 I Street:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Dear Rerdell: I wish you would get fullest information in regard to all
+ the new post-office lettings and keep posted as to the schemes going on in
+ the department. There are certain routes we want advertised and others we
+ do not. I shall be in Washington as soon as the 12th unless something
+ unexpectedly happens,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Faithfully,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "DORSEY."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. What Dorsey was that?&mdash;A. That is S. W. Dorsey's handwriting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. And signature?&mdash;A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is where he first speaks of it. At the time that letter was
+ introduced, or in a little time, gentlemen, they also introduced the
+ envelope. I do not know that I should have suspected the letter if they
+ had not introduced the envelope. Whenever there is an effort to make a
+ thing too certain I always suspect it. When that Morey letter was gotten
+ up, what made me suspect it was that they had the envelope, and I said to
+ myself, "Why did they want the envelope if it was clearly in the
+ handwriting of Garfield? What difference did it make whether it was sent
+ to Morey or to somebody else? What difference did it make when it came
+ from Washington?" The only question was, "Did Garfield write it?" And upon
+ that subject the envelope threw no light. When a man feels weak and thinks
+ that other people will know what he does not want them to know, then it is
+ that he wants to barricade and strengthen before the attack. So they got
+ up this envelope, and when I looked at that it did not look to me as if
+ that stamp had been through the mail. I noticed the handwriting of "Chico
+ Springs, N. M.," and then I noticed the 3 or the B on the postage stamp,
+ and then I knew that the man who wrote "Chico Springs" never made the
+ letter or figure on that stamp. It is utterly impossible for the man who
+ wrote that "Chico Springs" to make that mark on the stamp. This stamp
+ looked awfully clean, and I said, "Well, I wouldn't wonder if that was an
+ envelope used here in the city which has been got through the mail in some
+ way." They had it stamped on the back and I said, "Perhaps that was
+ written in 1879." No. You see, if it was not written in 1879 it did not do
+ any harm, because in 1879 Dorsey was not a member of the Senate. Having
+ gone out on the 4th of March, 1879, that letter was dated in April, 1879,
+ why then there was no harm in his writing to Mr. Rerdell and telling him
+ to look after the mail business. But if it was written on the 3d of April,
+ 1878, it went far to show that Dorsey was personally interested at that
+ time in mail routes. You will notice the printed date, April 3, 1878. They
+ introduced that letter. I noticed that that envelope was a funny looking
+ thing, and that the writing on it did not correspond with the mark on the
+ stamp. I noticed also that upon the back they had the stamp. I do not know
+ how they got it. When the Post-Office Department has possession of a paper
+ they can put almost anything on it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I said to Mr. Rerdell on cross-examination, not knowing anything
+ about the letter, "Was that not written in 1879?" he said, '"No, sir."
+ Said I, "Don't you know, as a matter of fact, that Dorsey was not here on
+ the 3d of April, 1879?" He said, "As a matter of fact I know that he was
+ here on the 3d of April, 1879." "Don't you know, as a matter of fact, that
+ he was here on the 3d of April, 1878?" He says, "I know as a matter of
+ fact that he was not here on the 3d of April, 1878; he was at Chico
+ Springs." He knew as a matter of fact that he was here in 1879, and he
+ swore that so as to preclude the possibility of his having written the
+ letter in 1879. And he swore to the positive fact that he was not here on
+ the 3d of April, 1878, so as to show that he wrote him that letter from
+ Chico Springs. They wanted some letter from Dorsey in 1878, to show that
+ he was personally interested in these routes while in the Senate. They
+ submitted that letter to Mr. Boone, who was their witness. He looks at it
+ and he tells you that Dorsey did not write that letter. A clear forgery.
+ Whom else do they bring now? They leave it right there, and by that admit
+ that Rerdell forged that letter. Mr. Boone, their witness, swears it.
+ Nobody swears to the contrary except Rerdell. Boone threw the letter from
+ him contemptuously, and said, "That is not Dorsey's handwriting," and they
+ dare not bring another witness. The country is filled with experts,
+ gentlemen, who know about handwriting; the United States had plenty of men
+ and plenty of money, and they never brought a solitary man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, do you want to know how this fellow got caught? I will
+ tell you. There is the letter, and they dare not put a man on the stand to
+ swear that it is in Dorsey's handwriting. Look it all over. But I want to
+ tell you how Rerdell got caught about Dorsey being present on the 3d of
+ April, 1878, and I might as well tell you how I found it out. I do not
+ want to pretend to be any more ingenious than I am. I found it out because
+ I made the same mistake myself. I stumbled on that same root. I hit my toe
+ of heedlessness on the same obstruction. I went up to look at the Senate
+ journal. I opened a book to see whether Dorsey was here on the 3d of
+ April, 1878. You see at the bottom there of the title page, Mr. Foreman&mdash;Washington:
+ Government Printing Office. 1877.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know I was not looking for the book of 1877, so I shut that book up. I
+ then took the next book and opened it, and it said at just the same place:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington: Government Printing Office. 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thought it was the book. So I looked over here, and I found that there
+ was no session of the Senate in April, and I said to myself, "Is that
+ possible that there was no session in April, 1878? Why, there must have
+ been." But the book said "no." I looked back here, and it still said 1878.
+ Then I happened to look back to this book that said 1877, and it said that
+ the session commenced December 3d, 1877, and consequently April 3d, would
+ be found in the book marked 1877 on the title page. So I turned right over
+ here and looked up at the top and saw the date, April 3d, 1878. He was
+ looking for the 1878 book, and that included April, 1879, and when he got
+ to April, 1879, there was no session of the Senate. So he came right in
+ here and swore that Dorsey was not here in 1878, but that he was here in
+ April, 1879. I looked in that book and found that Mr. Dorsey, on the 3d of
+ April, 1878, was appointed by the Vice-President on a committee of
+ conferees, on the part of the Senate, together with Senators Windoin and
+ Beck, and I saw exactly how Mr. Rerdell made his mistake. He opened the
+ book, and at the bottom-of the title page it said 1877. That was not what
+ he was looking for. He was looking for 1878. And the book that said 1878
+ showed that in April the Senate was not in session. The book that said
+ 1877 showed that in April the Senate was in session on April 3d, 1878.
+ That man thought he was backed by the records of the Senate, and thereupon
+ he manufactured that letter. And that is the letter sworn by Boone not to
+ be in the handwriting of S. W. Dorsey. Now, gentlemen, there is nothing in
+ this world that a man would be prevented from doing, for its baseness, who
+ would do that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is more evidence than this. I asked Mr. Rerdell, "When you got that
+ letter did you understand it?" He said, "No." "Did you do anything on
+ account of it?" "No." "Did you know what it meant?" "No." And yet he has
+ the temerity to swear that he received that on the 3d of April, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How did he come to spell the name Reddell? I will tell you. On page 2275
+ he had a letter to go by. That is the very page on which the Government
+ puts in that letter. This letter is a letter of introduction. When Rerdell
+ manufactured that letter he had this letter of introduction to go by:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hon. J. L. Routt, Denver:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My Dear Governor: I wish to introduce my friend, Mr. M. C. Reddell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was written Reddell in that letter, and when this man wanted to
+ manufacture one he had one in his possession that Dorsey wrote about that
+ time (April 14, 1879), and he noticed that in that he spelled the name
+ Reddell. So when he wanted to get up a fraud he spelled the name Reddell.
+ That is the way. There is no pretence that Dorsey wrote that letter, and
+ they dare not bring an expert or another man on earth acquainted with the
+ handwriting of Dorsey and submit it to him and expect him to say that that
+ is the handwriting of S. W. Dorsey. So much for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it is claimed that while Torrey was writing up Dorsey's books, having
+ in his possession the check stubs, he was uncertain as to whether a charge
+ was twenty-five dollars or twenty-five cents, and he thereupon sent to
+ Rerdell to ascertain the true state of the account, so that he might open
+ his books. Thereupon Rerdell made the calculation in the evidence marked
+ (94 X,) and Donnelly wrote under it that it was right. Donnelly made that
+ little certificate at the bottom. Here is the important paper [submitting
+ 94 X to the jury], another piece manufactured out of whole cloth, not
+ whole paper. Now, I ask a few questions about this. In the first place,
+ they knew that unless this was corroborated it was good for nothing, and
+ we find on it:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lewis Johnson &amp; Co., note due 28th October, three thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Was that note at Lewis Johnson &amp; Co.'s? Why did they not bring some of
+ the officers of that bank, if there was such a note for three thousand
+ dollars there? But no one was brought. And yet they knew that everything
+ coming from Rerdell must be corroborated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Rerdell had come to Donnelly to find what the account was, how did it
+ happen to be in Rerdell's handwriting before it got to Donnelly? Donnelly
+ wrote this certificate at the bottom. Rerdell had written all the facts
+ before. If he went to Donnelly to get the facts, how did Rerdell happen to
+ write this before it got to Donnelly? It is like me wanting to get some
+ information from a man, and writing the information before going to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if Donnelly wrote that after Rerdell had written, where did Rerdell
+ get the information? If Donnelly had the books, Donnelly should have given
+ the information. If Rerdell had the books, why did he want to go to
+ Donnelly for information? And if Donnelly had the books, how did Rerdell
+ write the information before he went to Donnelly? Then if he wanted that
+ information for Torrey, why did he not send it to him? How does it happen
+ that Rerdell wrote out the information for Donnelly, then got Donnelly to
+ certify it, because Torrey had asked it? And then how does it happen that
+ Rerdell kept it? It seems to me that that ought to have been sent to
+ Torrey. Torrey wrote to Rerdell for information; Rerdell wrote it all
+ down, and then got Mr. Donnelly to say it was so. If Donnelly had the
+ books, Donnelly should have given the information. If Rerdell had the
+ books, he did not have to go to Donnelly for information. That is another
+ manufactured paper. As I say, how does it happen to be in the possession
+ of Rerdell? They claim that it was for Torrey's benefit. I believe when
+ Torrey was on the stand they asked him if there was not some dispute about
+ thirty-five cents. Now they bring that here to show that there was a
+ dispute about twenty-five cents. Was there any reason for supposing that
+ it was twenty-five cents? No, except that it was in the dollar column,
+ that is all. Of what use was Donnelly's statement after Rerdell had made
+ the calculation? Nobody on earth can tell why that was given. Why did they
+ not bring some of the books or clerks from Lewis Johnson &amp; Co.'s Bank
+ to show that there was a note there in October for three thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another little matter, a conversation between Rerdell and Brady.
+ Rerdell said he had a conversation with Brady in which he told him about
+ the Congressional committee; that he was summoned to bring his books.
+ Brady was astonished that Dorsey would be "Damn fool enough to keep
+ books," and suggested to have them copied. If this is true, Brady at that
+ time made a confident of Rerdell. If it is true, Brady at that time
+ admitted to Rerdell that he (Brady) was a conspirator; that he had
+ conspired with Dorsey. And yet Brady says that he never had but three or
+ four conversations, I believe, with this man, and Rerdell himself admits
+ that he never had but four or five, and when he is pinned down on
+ cross-examination he accounts for enough of these interviews, without any
+ interviews on the subject of the books, to exceed all that he ever had. Do
+ you believe that he ever had any such conversation? Do you believe that
+ Brady would make a confident of him? Do you believe that Brady would
+ substantially admit in his presence that he had been bribed by Dorsey? I
+ do not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in order that you may know what this man is, I want you to have an
+ idea of his character. So we will come to the next point. Mr. Rerdell
+ admits that he sat with the defendants during the early part of this
+ trial; that he was willing to make a bargain with the Government; that he
+ proposed to the Government that he would sit with his co-defendants, and
+ would challenge from the jury the friends of the defendants. Did any man
+ wearing the human form ever propose a more corrupt and infamous bargain?
+ That proposition ought to have been written on the tanned hide of a
+ Tewksbury pauper. He went to the Government and deliberately said,
+ "Gentlemen, I am willing to make a bargain with you. I am willing to sit
+ with my co-defendants, pretending to be their friend, and while so
+ pretending I will challenge their friends from the jury. I will so arrange
+ it that their enemies may be upon the panel." "And why do you say that,
+ Mr. Rerdell?" "In order to show my good faith towards the Government." He
+ made the first affidavit for friendship, the second for fear, and he made
+ this proposition to show his good faith. There never was a meaner
+ proposition made by a human being, under the circumstances, than that. He
+ proposed to do it. Mr. Blackmar says that the proposition was rejected;
+ but that does not affect Mr. Rerdell. He was willing to carry it out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more does he swear? He swears that he tried to carry it out. In other
+ words, that although it had been rejected, that made no difference to him.
+ Mr. Blackmar says they would not do it. Rerdell swears that he tried to:
+ went right along and did his level best; and if the Court had allowed him
+ four challenges he would have challenged four friends of the defendants
+ from the jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more does he admit? That when the Court decided that all of us
+ together only had four, he endeavored to challenge one. Why? Because he
+ believed he was a friend of the defendants; because he believed he would
+ be against the prosecution; and he wanted to get the friends of the
+ defendants away. Why? To the end that the defendants might be tried by an
+ enemy. That is what he was trying to accomplish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step. That proposition reveals the entire man; that
+ takes his hide off; that takes his flesh all off; that leaves his heart
+ bare, naked; you can see what he is made of, and it shows the workings of
+ his spirit, the motions of his mind; and you see in there a den of vipers;
+ you see entangled, knotted adders. And yet that man is put upon the stand
+ stamped by the seal of the Department of Justice, and that department says
+ to twelve men, "Here is a gentleman that you can believe; that gentleman
+ proposes to sell out his co-defendants to us, but we would not buy; he is
+ an honorable kind of gentleman, but we would not buy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. It should be interpolated there&mdash;if you will pardon me a
+ moment&mdash;that the Government refused to accept Rerdell until he
+ himself had pleaded guilty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I understand that. I say now, Mr. Merrick, that I would not
+ for anything in the world, on a subject of that kind, go the millionth
+ part of an inch beyond the testimony. Although you and I have not been
+ very cordial friends during this trial, and neither have I and Mr. Bliss,
+ yet if I know myself I would not for anything in this world put a stain
+ upon your reputation, or upon the reputation of either of you, by
+ misstating a word of this testimony. I would not do it. I am incapable of
+ it. I admit that the evidence is that the proposition was rejected, but I
+ also insist that the Government knew the proposition had been made,
+ otherwise it could not have been rejected. And so I say that after this
+ man had made that proposition, infamous enough to put a blush upon the
+ cheek of total depravity, the Government put that witness upon the stand,
+ sealed with the seal of the Department of Justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we will go another step. He sat with us from day to day, gentlemen,
+ as you know, went in and out with us, as one of the co-defendants. In the
+ meantime&mdash;and there is a laughable side even to this infamy&mdash;he
+ borrowed money from Vaile. He went to him as a co-defendant, as a friend,
+ and said, "I want a hundred and forty dollars; I want to buy bread and
+ meat to give me strength to swear you into the penitentiary." And Vaile
+ gave him the money. Would you believe a man like that? You cannot think of
+ a man low enough, you cannot think of a defendant vile enough to be
+ convicted on such testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we will go another step. He wanted to make that bargain with Mr.
+ Blackmar. Mr. Blackmar swears that he told Mr. Merrick of it, and that Mr.
+ Merrick rejected it; would have nothing to do with it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time Mr. Woodward had two affidavits of Rerdell in his possession&mdash;an
+ affidavit of Rerdell, made in September, supplemented by another
+ affidavit, I believe, of November, that he made in the city of Hartford,
+ covering seventy pages. When Mr. Woodward saw Mr. Rerdell sitting with the
+ defendants, pretending to go with them, he (Woodward) had those two
+ affidavits of Rerdell in his pocket. Did the prosecution know that Rerdell
+ had made the two affidavits? I do not say they did, gentlemen. I only go
+ right to the line of the evidence; there I stop.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing: Mr. Blackmar swears that they had a signal to look at the
+ clock, and that night Rerdell would meet him at six or seven o'clock, I
+ have forgotten the hour; but Mr. Blackmar could not sit in his room all
+ the time waiting for him, and so he gave him a certain signal, so that he
+ would know he was to wait that night. Then what happened? Then Mr. Rerdell
+ came to Mr. Blackmar and gave to him written reports. Of what? I do not
+ know. He sat with the defendants; he gave to Mr. Blackmar written reports.
+ What were they? I do not know. What did Mr. Blackmar do with them? He
+ handed them to Colonel Bliss. What did he do with them? I do not know. Did
+ he read them? I do not know. Did he know that they were in the handwriting
+ of Mr. Rerdell? I do not know. That is for you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Still another point:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss, after this jury had been impaneled, stood before them while
+ Rerdell was sitting with us as a defendant, and said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ranks of the defendants are closed up, and he&mdash;Rerdell&mdash;stands
+ before you now as one of the defendants, whose testimony&mdash;Meaning the
+ confessions made to MacVeagh and to Postmaster-General James&mdash;will be
+ accepted by the Court and by you, &amp;c.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question arises, Did Mr. Bliss know at that time that Mr. Woodward had
+ in his pockets two affidavits made by Rerdell, one made in September and
+ the other in November? Did he know at that time that Rerdell had given his
+ papers over to Mr. Woodward? Did he know at that time that he had offered
+ to challenge the friends of the defendants from the panel? And so knowing,
+ did he give us to understand that Rerdell had passed from the influence of
+ the Government and was now acting as one of the co-defendants? Is it
+ possible that Mr. Bliss would furnish Rerdell with a mask behind which he
+ could gather information from the defendants and sell it to the Government
+ for immunity? Is it possible? Those were the circumstances. I do not say
+ that he knew. I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, I do not believe that it is the duty of a Government to
+ prosecute its citizens. I do not believe that it is the duty of a
+ Government to spread a net for one of the people whom it should protect. I
+ do not believe in the spy and informer system. I believe that every
+ Government should exist for the purpose of doing justice as between man
+ and man. The mission of a Government is to protect and preserve its
+ citizens from violence and fraud. The real object of a Government is to
+ enforce honest contracts, to protect the weak from the strong; not to
+ combine against the one, not to offer rewards for treachery, not to show
+ cold avarice in order that some citizen may have his liberty sworn away.
+ The objects of a good Government are the sublimest of which the
+ imagination can conceive. The means employed should be as pure as the ends
+ are noble and sacred. The Government should represent the opinions,
+ desires, and ideals of its greatest, its best, and its noblest citizens.
+ Every act of the Government should be a flower springing from the very
+ heart of honor. A Government should be incapable of deceit. The Department
+ of Justice should blow from the scales even the dust of prejudice.
+ Representing a supreme power, it should have the serenity and frankness of
+ omnipotence. Subterfuge is a confession of weakness. Behind every pretence
+ lurks cowardice. Our Government should be the incarnation of candor, of
+ courage, and of conscience. That is my idea of a great and noble
+ Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next point to which I call your attention is the withdrawal of the
+ plea of not guilty by Mr. Rerdell. You probably remember the occurrence. I
+ will read to you what he said upon that occasion. I find it on page 2202:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After mature reflection and a full consideration of the whole subject, I
+ have determined to abandon any further defence of myself in this case, and
+ put myself at the mercy of the Court and the Government; and if desired to
+ do so by the counsel for the Government, to testify to all my knowledge of
+ any facts with reference to any of the defendants either against or for
+ them, myself included. Therefore, I now in person ask leave to withdraw my
+ plea of not guilty, heretofore interposed, and enter my plea of guilty,
+ and in so doing put myself upon the mercy of the Court I feel this to be a
+ duty I owe to myself, my family, and to truth. I have arrived at this
+ fixed determination upon my own reflections and responsibilities, and
+ without any previous consultation with my counsel, who, I believe, would
+ not have advised me to this course, and whom I now relieve from all and
+ any responsibility for the course I have adopted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, is it not wonderful that if Mr. Rerdell was about to tell
+ the truth as a witness in this case, he could not even withdraw his plea
+ of not guilty without misstating the facts? Is it not wonderful that he
+ felt called upon at that time to tell several falsehoods? He says that he
+ took this step upon his own responsibility. He says that he did it without
+ the advice of his counsel. He tells you that he believes if he had asked
+ his counsel, his counsel would have been opposed to it. He says he is
+ willing to be a witness for the Government if the Government desires it,
+ leaving you to infer that at that time no arrangement had been made for
+ him to be a witness; that it was all in the regions of uncertainty; that
+ he had withdrawn into the recesses of his own mind, and consulting with
+ himself and nobody else had made up his mind to throw himself upon the
+ mercy of the Government and the Court, and took that step without even
+ allowing his counsel to know what he was about to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But he speaks further on the subject. I read from page 2523. I was then
+ examining him:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How did you come to do it?&mdash;A. I finally made up my mind to what I
+ would do. I talked it over the evening before with my counsel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He so states under oath; and yet when he stood up before this Court and
+ withdrew his plea of not guilty, he said he acted without the knowledge of
+ his counsel&mdash;I read this to show you that the statement he made to
+ the Court at the time he withdrew his plea was absolutely false. What
+ next? I will go on a little further. The same man Rerdell, after he had
+ made up his mind to go over to the Government; after he had made up his
+ mind to swear away, if it was within his power, the liberty of S. W.
+ Dorsey, admits, on page 2525, that he endeavored to get five thousand
+ dollars from Mr. Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2589 Mr. Rerdell swears positively that he did not know that he
+ was to be used as a witness for the Government until he was called in
+ court to take the stand. Let us look at the evidence of Mr. Bliss on page
+ 2590. I will read you what he said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, we propose to show, in substance, that this
+ witness, for reasons with which we have nothing to do, connected with his
+ own views of his own safety, from an early period was desirous of being
+ accepted by the Government as a witness; that the counsel in the case
+ refused to communicate with him or to have anything to do with him until,
+ in the presence of his own counsel, he was brought to Mr. Merrick's
+ office, and there the whole thing was explained; and that then for the
+ first time the Government accepted his willingness to be a witness; and
+ they did it under circumstances which held out to him no inducement and
+ which involved no training or anything of the kind by anybody representing
+ the prosecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us go to the next step. I want to be perfectly fair. On page 2591
+ Mr. Merrick asked Mr. Rerdell this question:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. When did you first learn that you would be put upon the stand after
+ pleading guilty?&mdash;A. It was the day before my plea was made in court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet when he rose to withdraw the plea he expressed his willingness to go
+ upon the stand for the Government, leaving you to infer that no
+ arrangement had been made, and he afterwards finally swore that he did not
+ know that he was to be called until he was called.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These things, gentlemen, you must remember.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2515 Rerdell swears that on the Sunday after he got out of jail he
+ proposed to Mr. Lilley to have Lilley act for him, and authorized Lilley
+ to say to the Government that if the Government would accept him he would
+ go on the stand and rebut Vaile. He told him that he had in his possession
+ a letter or two of Mr. Vaile's. Rerdell tells you that he made this
+ proposition on the 16th or 17th of September, 1882, which was after he
+ made the affidavit of June, 1881. On the same page he said it was just
+ after Vaile went off the stand. That is my recollection. In the last trial
+ Vaile testified on the 4th of August, 1882. So about that time Rerdell,
+ according to his testimony, went to Lilley and made a proposition to sell
+ out then. When he made the affidavit of July 13, 1882, the trial was then
+ in progress. The very next month, August, while the trial was still going
+ on, that same man, having made the affidavit of July 13, 1882, went to his
+ attorney, Mr. Lilley, and authorized him to say to the Government that Mr.
+ Rerdell would take the stand to swear against Mr. Vaile. Remember another
+ thing, gentlemen. The only thing he offered to do then to insure his own
+ safety was to swear against Vaile. He did not offer to swear against
+ Dorsey. He did not authorize Mr. Lilley to tell the Government about the
+ pencil memorandum and the tabular statement and his letter to Bosler and
+ Doisey's letter to Bosler and the Chico letter. Not a word. He simply went
+ and wanted to sell some letters he had that had been written by Vaile. Why
+ did he make that offer? Because that was all he had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2517 he says that nothing was said about pardon, but he says that
+ Lilley told him that he thought he could get him off. What does that mean?
+ That means pardon. On page 2518 he swears that he saw Woodward in November
+ in Hartford, and Woodward and he wrote out the statement, covering, I
+ believe, about seventy pages of legal cap. Then Mr. Rerdell, on page 2519,
+ swears that he never made an affidavit after that. Then he admits, on the
+ same page, that the day before he came into court he met Mr. Woodward and
+ made another affidavit. That was supplementary to the first. In the
+ meantime he found some new papers. So we find, according to his testimony,
+ these affidavits:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 2521 we find that he made an affidavit in June, 1881. Remember,
+ gentlemen, that he swore to that affidavit three or four times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He made another affidavit in July, 1882, and another in September and
+ November of the same year, and another in February, 1883. And yet he
+ swears that he was not to have immunity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, one point more about his plea of guilty. After having
+ withdrawn his plea of not guilty, after rising in court and solemnly
+ saying that he was guilty, and that he was guilty as charged in the
+ indictment, which says that Rerdell conspired with Brady and Vaile and
+ Miner and John W. Dorsey and S. W. Dorsey and Turner, that they all
+ conspired, and that all the false affidavits and false petitions and false
+ everything else mentioned in the indictment were made for the common
+ benefit of all, then on page 2570 he solemnly swears that he never entered
+ into any conspiracy or agreement with the defendants mentioned in the
+ indictment or any of them for the purpose of defrauding the Government.
+ When I asked him, With whom did you conspire, when did you conspire, and
+ what was the conspiracy? he could not tell; and yet he had stood up in
+ court and admitted that he was guilty, and then on oath denied it. Did he
+ not swear himself that after the division was made in the routes Stephen
+ W. Dorsey had not the interest of a cent in any route that went to Vaile
+ or Miner? Did he not also swear that Vaile and Miner had not the interest
+ of one cent in any route that went to Stephen W. Dorsey? Did he not swear
+ that they were not mutually interested, and yet did he not stand up in
+ court, and by a plea of guilty say that they were not only mutually
+ interested, but he was one of the interested parties himself? It seems
+ impossible for that man to tell the truth on any subject whatever. On page
+ 2571 he swears he never made any agreement with Vaile to defraud the
+ United States. He stood up in court and admitted, that he had. He swore
+ that he never made any agreement with John W. Dorsey. He admitted that he
+ had. He swore that he never made any agreement with S. W. Dorsey, and yet
+ stood up in court and admitted that he had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us see whether he expected immunity. He swears that he was taken
+ to Mr. Merrick's office by Mr. Woodward and his counsel. What Mr. Merrick
+ told him we find on page 2590:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. And did I not say that, under the circumstances, the Government would
+ have nothing to do with you unless you pleaded guilty?&mdash;A. You did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. And that if you pleaded guilty you had nothing to trust to but the
+ mercy of the Government and the Court?&mdash;A. That is what you did, sir,
+ exactly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, on page 2523:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Was it not arranged that Mr. Woodward was to come to your house and
+ then take you to one of the attorneys for the prosecution, for the purpose
+ of arranging the terms and conditions upon which you were to take the
+ stand?&mdash;A. It was not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In another place he swears that it was, and that the arrangement was
+ carried out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next point I wish to make, if the Court please, is that whenever what
+ is called an accomplice or an informer turns what is called State's
+ evidence, and whenever he is permitted by the court to be sworn as a
+ witness in a case, there is then upon the part of the Government an
+ implied promise that if he tells the truth he shall not be punished. I
+ read from the Whiskey cases, 9 Otto, page 595. Mr. Justice Clifford
+ delivers the opinion of the court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Courts of justice everywhere agree that the established usage is that an
+ accomplice duly admitted as a witness in a criminal prosecution against
+ his associates in guilt, if he testifies fully and fairly, will not be
+ prosecuted for the same offence, and some of the decided cases and
+ standard text-writers give very satisfactory explanations of the origin
+ and scope of the usage in its ordinary application in actual practice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. What point are you now making to the Court?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I am making this point: It appears from the evidence that
+ Mr. Wilshire, the attorney of Mr. Rerdell told him at the time he was
+ making up his mind whether he would go to the Government or not, about the
+ whiskey cases.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I make the point that when an accomplice turns State's evidence the State
+ cannot prosecute him after that if he testifies fully and fairly; that the
+ usage is immemorial, and that there is not an exception in the records of
+ all the cases in the books; consequently that when Mr. Merrick told him,
+ "You must look simply to the Government and to the Court and you will have
+ just exactly what the law gives you and no more," his remarks meant that
+ the law gave him perfect immunity, provided he went upon the stand and
+ swore truthfully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. You have demonstrated, as far as you have been able to, that he
+ has not sworn truthfully.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. He has not; he has not; and if the Government will act
+ fairly with him he will get no immunity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he went to the Government he understood the law to be that if he
+ swore fully and fairly, or if he swore in such a way that they could not
+ prove that he did not swear fully and fairly, he was to have immunity. He
+ understood that the more he swore against the defendants the better was
+ his chance for immunity. He knew that the Government would never complain
+ of any lie he swore against the defendants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next question is what is the law of accomplices, of informers?
+ There was a remark made by Mr. Bliss in his speech, that they had plenty
+ of evidence in this case without the testimony of Mr. Walsh or Mr. Moore
+ or Mr. Rerdell; plenty of evidence without the testimony of Mr. Rerdell.
+ If that had been so then the Government had no right to put Mr. Rerdell on
+ the stand. There is but one excuse for using the testimony of a man who
+ pleads guilty, and that is that without his testimony a conviction cannot,
+ in all probability, be obtained. And upon that point I refer to 10
+ Pickering, 478, and to 9 Cowen, 711; and not only upon that point, but
+ upon the point I made at first, that whenever you put such a man upon the
+ stand that of itself amounts to a promise of absolute immunity:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The object of admitting the evidence of accomplices is in order to effect
+ the discovery and punishment of crimes which cannot be proved against the
+ offenders without the aid of an accomplice's testimony. In order to
+ prevent this entire failure of justice recourse is had to the evidence of
+ accomplices.&mdash;I Phillips on Evidence, 107.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, therefore, there be sufficient evidence to convict without his
+ testimony, the court will refuse to admit him as a witness.&mdash;Roscoe's
+ Criminal Evidence, 127.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither do I believe that Mr. Rerdell had a right to go upon the stand
+ until his case was finally disposed of. Precisely the same language is
+ used by Wharton on Criminal Evidence, 439:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An accomplice is used by the Government because his evidence is necessary
+ to a conviction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the opinion of Mr. Justice MacLean, in 4 MacLean's Circuit Court
+ Reports, 103.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. If not improper I may remark that all those cases refer to a
+ condition of things prior to the trial in which the party appears as the
+ witness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. The usual question is&mdash;and the court determines that
+ question&mdash;whether a man shall be a witness or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. How can the court determine that without passing upon the
+ evidence in the case? That is not the duty of the court; it belongs to the
+ jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. The prosecuting attorney has to pass upon that himself when
+ he makes up his mind to put him upon the stand; and he only has the right
+ to do that when he believes that no conviction can be had without that
+ testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Then it belongs to the prosecuting attorney.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I go further than that, and say that the prosecuting
+ attorney cannot do that without consultation with the court, and without
+ saying to the court that he believes no conviction can be had without that
+ testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. May I be allowed to suggest a point which probably you would
+ like to comment upon&mdash;that all these cases refer to accomplices prior
+ to the trial. My own opinion in reference to the case was that I would not
+ put Rerdell upon the stand until he had pleaded guilty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I do not see the ground for the distinction between the cases.
+ Undoubtedly, when an accomplice goes over to the Government and offers his
+ testimony, he does it always in the hope of pardon or immunity from
+ prosecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is all I want at present. I want it understood, if the
+ Court please, that I shall argue to the jury that at the time he made up
+ his mind to go to the Government, he understood that that meant immunity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Oh, well, of course it did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. The next point is that the Court has to take all his story
+ or none; and I read from the second volume of Starkie on Evidence,
+ side-page 24:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In judging of the credit due to the testimony of an accomplice, it seems
+ to be a necessary principle that his testimony must be wholly received as
+ that of a credible witness or wholly rejected. His evidence on points
+ where he is confirmed by unimpeachable evidence is useless. The question
+ is whether he is to be believed upon points where he received no
+ confirmation. And of this the jury are to form their opinion from the
+ nature of the testimony, his manner of delivering it, and the confirmation
+ which it receives derived from other evidence which is unsuspected. If his
+ character be established as a witness of truth, he is credible in matters
+ where he is not corroborated. If, on the other hand, nothwithstanding the
+ corroboration upon particular points, doubts and suspicions still remain
+ as to his credit, his whole testimony becomes useless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the point I want to make. If they are only to take his evidence
+ where it is corroborated, they might as well have had the corroboration in
+ the first place without him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, the evidence, in my judgment, shows, and shows beyond a
+ doubt&mdash;and I believe it is now admitted&mdash;that at the time Mr.
+ Rerdell made up his mind to go to the Government he expected that he was
+ to have absolute immunity. You must judge of his evidence in the light of
+ that fact, in the light of that knowledge, in the light of what had been
+ told him by his counsel. Now, it is for you to say. You know something of
+ this man. You have seen him from day to day. You saw his manner upon the
+ stand. Why, they tell you that at one time he was overcome with emotion,
+ and that that is evidence that he was telling the truth. It may be that
+ there is left in that man some little spark of goodness still. When he was
+ swearing, or endeavoring to swear, away the liberty of the man who had
+ been his friend, may be at that time the memory of the past did for a
+ moment rush upon him. He may have remembered the thousand acts of
+ kindness; he may have remembered the years of liberality; he may have
+ remembered the days that he had spent beneath that hospitable roof; he may
+ have remembered the wife and children; he may have remembered all these
+ things, and for just that moment he may have realized what a wretch he
+ was. In no other way can you account for his having emotion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I am about through with that gentleman. I shall not take up your time
+ in the remainder of my speech by commenting upon Mr. Rerdell. Let us
+ finish his testimony now; let us put him out of sight; let us put him in
+ his coffin, close the lid, nail it down:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First nail&mdash;affidavit of June 20, 1881; drive it in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second nail&mdash;the letter of July 5, 1882, when he says that affidavit
+ of 1881 was made by the persuasion of Bosler; drive it in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third nail&mdash;affidavit of July 13, 1882, where he swears that they
+ were all perfectly innocent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth nail&mdash;the pencil memorandum; drive that in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth nail&mdash;the tabular statement that gave thirty-three and
+ one-third per cent, to Brady; drive it in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth nail&mdash;his pretended letter to Bosler telling about the advice
+ of Brady; drive that in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventh nail&mdash;the letter he pretends that Dorsey, on the 13th of May,
+ 1879, wrote to Bosler, the copies being made by Miss White; drive that in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wind his corpse up in the balance-sheets from the red books made by
+ Donnelly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then you want a plate for his coffin. Let us paste right on there the
+ Chico letter, April 3, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we want grave-stones. Let us take the red books, put one at his head
+ and one at his feet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let his epitaph, written upon the red book placed at his head, be&mdash;Up
+ to this moment I have been faithful to every trust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My prayer to Gabriel is, "When you pass over that grave don't blow." Let
+ him sleep. There are, there never were, there never will be twelve honest
+ men who will deprive any citizen of his liberty upon the evidence of a man
+ like Mr. Rerdell. It never happened; it never will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, gentlemen, it becomes my duty to answer a few points made by the
+ gentlemen who have addressed you on behalf of the Government. The first
+ gentleman who addressed you was Mr. Ker, and he had something to say&mdash;considerable
+ to say&mdash;about what are known as the Clendenning bonds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They claim, gentlemen, first, that an immense fraud was in view when these
+ proposals&mdash;I think they are proposals&mdash;with accompanying bonds
+ and oaths of sureties were sent to Mr. Clendenning. I wish to give you, in
+ the first place, my explanation of this paper. See if I understand it. If
+ you sent this paper to that officer or to that gentleman as a form to
+ guide him in making up the bonds, you would only fill up that portion of
+ the bond in giving him a sample which you wanted him to fill up, and you
+ would fill it up in order to show him exactly how he was to fill it up;
+ and you would leave out that part which was already filled up in the bond.
+ That is exactly what was done in this case. There was not one of those
+ bonds that had an oath of the surety or the names of the sureties, because
+ they were unknown. The names were unknown, and the amounts that the
+ postmaster would certify to, and so all that was left in blank in the bond
+ sent. But this being only a sample, it was sent to him so that he might
+ know how to fill up the bonds that were sent. Consequently that portion
+ which was absolutely blank in the bond sent would be filled up as a guide
+ to him, and that portion which was filled up in the bonds sent would be
+ left blank in the guide, because he had nothing to do with that part. Now,
+ that is all there is to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was left out, as they claim? Why they claim that the name of the
+ bidder was left out and the amount of the bid. It makes no difference.
+ That is not the slightest evidence of fraud, is it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the next thing? They were never used, never. No bond included in
+ that bundle was ever accepted by the Government. No bonds were ever made,
+ no contract ever based upon them, not a solitary cent taken from the
+ Government by those papers. Why, then, this secrecy? Because when a man is
+ in this business he does not want anybody else to know that he is bidding,
+ in the first place; and, in the second place, he does not want anybody to
+ know the amount of the bid. If the amount of the bid is put in, then the
+ persons going security will know it, and they may tell. The postmaster who
+ approves the security will know it, and he may tell. The object of the
+ secrecy is not to defraud the Government, but to prevent other people
+ finding the amount of the bid and then underbidding. That is the object,
+ and it is the only object. And yet this little, poor, dried-up bond,
+ soaked in the water of suspicion, swells almost to bursting in the minds
+ of the counsel for the prosecution. There is nothing of it. It was never
+ worthy of mention, in the first place. You will never think of it when you
+ retire. It will never enter your minds; but if it does, remember that the
+ object of the secrecy was simply as a precaution against other bidders,
+ and had nothing whatever to do with the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one other point. I believe Mr. Dorsey did say, in his
+ examination-in-chief, that he did not talk to anybody about it, and it
+ afterwards occurred that he did go and ask Mr. Edmunds whether what he had
+ asked Clendenning to do was illegal or improper. To that contradiction you
+ are welcome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker gives the date of Boone's circular to postmasters asking for
+ information, and says it was dated December 1, 1879. Thereupon Mr. Merrick
+ corrects him, and says it was in 1878. The Court does the same. As a
+ matter of fact, these circulars were dated December, 1877. Gentlemen, I
+ just simply speak of this to show how easy it is for people to be
+ mistaken. Those circulars were gotten up for the purpose of getting
+ information before bidding. All the bids were put in in February, 1878.
+ The circulars were sent out, I believe, in November and December, 1877.
+ And yet upon that one point Mr. Ker is mistaken two years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4512 Mr. Ker states that Miner, in April, 1878, said to Moore that
+ it all depended upon affidavits of the contractors, and that "they were
+ all good affidavit men." The object of this, if it had an object, was to
+ show that this conspiracy was entered into with Moore, and that S. W.
+ Dorsey was a part of it in April, 1878. The evidence of Moore is that the
+ conversation took place, not in April, but in July, 1878, at the city of
+ Denver. And yet Mr. Ker tells you that it was in April. 1878. It is not,
+ perhaps, a very material point, but it simply serves to show you the
+ manner in which this evidence is repeated to you by the counsel for the
+ prosecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 4537 Mr. Ker says that before J. W. Dorsey went West he made an
+ arrangement with his brother to sell out his interest for ten thousand
+ dollars; that he did this before he started West; that he did it before
+ there was any service put on; and that these contracts were taken at such
+ low figures; yet John W. Dorsey had raised his interest up to ten thousand
+ dollars. Mr. Ker tells you that the evidence shows that before any service
+ was put on and before John W. Dorsey went West he tried to sell out his
+ interest for ten thousand dollars. Now, what was the object in making this
+ statement, unless it was pure forgetfulness? Why it was to connect Vaile
+ with this business some time in April, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On pages 4100 and 4102 J. W. Dorsey swears that he was here in Washington
+ in November, 1878; before that time he had gone to the Tongue River route;
+ he had come back from Bismarck; and it was then, not in April; it was
+ then, not before he went West; it was then, not before any service was put
+ on, that he talked with Vaile about selling out to him for ten thousand
+ dollars; and it was in November that he left the instructions for his
+ brother to sell to Vaile. It was not in April; it was not before he went
+ West; it was not before any service was put on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 4540 Mr. Ker states that&mdash;Dorsey held thirty-three routes,
+ and there was not one of them, I suppose, that was not expedited to the
+ fullest extent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What evidence is there of that? Is there any evidence that any route of
+ Dorsey's was expedited not mentioned in this indictment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did not Mr. Ker know whether the routes had been expedited or not? Did not
+ I offer in this court to prove what was done with every solitary route we
+ had? I say to the gentleman that the other routes were not expedited. I
+ say to the gentleman that only two other routes were, and we were not
+ interested in them. And I say also that they know the record, and they
+ knew the record when this statement was made; but they may have forgotten
+ it. But is it fair, gentlemen, for a prosecuting officer to state to you
+ that he supposed all the routes of Dorsey were expedited? One of those in
+ the indictment was not expedited; and not a route outside of the
+ indictment belonging to Dorsey, in which he had an interest, was
+ expedited. So much for that statement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 4546 you are told by Mr. Ker that&mdash;Nobody ever heard of
+ expedition on a route before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We proved what form of contracts had been in the PostOffice Department for
+ twenty years, and proved that in every one of them there was a clause for
+ expedition. So much for that evidence, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 4546 Mr. Ker tells us that J. W. Dorsey testified&mdash;That the
+ routes were taken so low as to cut out other people, but that they knew
+ they were to be expedited, and they knew they were to be increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ J. W. Dorsey testified upon that subject, and his testimony will be found
+ at page 4085:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did you have an arrangement by which you should bid an extremely small
+ amount on the routes, with the further understanding that the service was
+ to be increased and expedited?&mdash;A. No, sir; I never thought of such a
+ thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And in his entire testimony in chief and cross, I believe there is not
+ another question on that subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4549, referring to the letter of John M. Peck, which was in fact
+ written by Miner, Mr. Ker says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Cedarville ought to have had as many mails as the other points between,
+ according to the order, but they were going to supply it only once a week.
+ .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, gentlemen, this letter was written on the 22d of
+ October, 1878, and at the time the letter was written the mail, according
+ to the contract, was carried only once a week on that route, and
+ consequently Cedarville would have had exactly the same mail as any other
+ point; that is to say, once a week.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Page 556 of the record shows that three trips a week were put upon this
+ route to Loup City with a schedule of thirteen hours, but not until the
+ 10th of July, 1879, nine months after this letter was written.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4609 Mr. Ker, in commenting upon an affidavit on the Toquerville
+ and Adairville route, reads from the evidence of John W. Dorsey, citing
+ page 3945, and ends at this question and answer:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. It was done so entirely, was it not?&mdash;A. It ought to have been so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me read you the balance:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Was it not so done?&mdash;A. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q It was not?&mdash;A. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q For whose benefit was it done?.&mdash;A. He&mdash;Meaning Rerdell&mdash;stole
+ five thousand dollars on that route, or very nearly that&mdash;four
+ thousand nine hundred dollars on that very route.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. When did he steal that five thousand dollars?&mdash;A. About a year ago
+ or a year and a half; I do not remember the time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. From whom?&mdash;A. From Mr. Bosler and myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. At what time?&mdash;A. I should think in February, 1882.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question now arises, did Mr. Rerdell take this money as charged? Read
+ now from the record, at pages 734 and 735, and you will find in the last
+ line of the tabular statement introduced in this case that on this very
+ route four thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven dollars and
+ eighty-three cents was paid to M. C. Rerdell as subcontractor on that
+ route. We also find that it was paid on the 4th of February, 1882. This is
+ the money that Dorsey swears Rerdell stole, and that gentleman never took
+ the stand to deny it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 4616, Mr. Ker, after going over all the evidence with regard to
+ the affidavits as to the impossibility of the number of men and horses
+ doing the service rendered necessary by the affidavit, comes to the
+ following conclusion: That under the oath the proportion was, as nine to
+ twenty-three; that under the oath of Johnson the real proportion should
+ have been, and was, eight to twenty-two.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, the real proportion, according to Mr. Ker's own statement,
+ would have taken more money from the Treasury than the wrong proportion
+ made under the fraudulent affidavit, and that was nine to twenty-three.
+ Nine into twenty-three goes twice and five-ninths; that is, two hundred
+ and fifty-five per cent, and a fraction. That is the fraudulent
+ proportion. Mr. Ker says that the real proportion was not as nine into
+ twenty-three, but as eight to twenty two. Eight into twenty-two goes twice
+ and six-eighths; that is to say, two and three-quarters; that is to say,
+ two hundred and seventy-five per cent. The fraudulent proportion,
+ according to his claim, only gave us two hundred and fifty-five per cent.
+ The real proportion, which Mr. Ker admits was right, according to the
+ evidence of Johnson, would have given us two hundred and seventy-five per
+ cent. In other words, we got twenty per cent, less under the fraud than we
+ would under the evidence of Johnson that Mr. Ker admits to be correct.
+ Finding that it is twenty per cent, less under the fraudulent affidavit
+ than under Johnson's estimate, he shouts fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4617 Mr. Ker tells us that Sanderson "had no more to do with the
+ route than you or I had." On page 731 I find that Mr. Sanderson drew all
+ the money on the route from Saguache to Lake City, I believe, with one
+ exception&mdash;the third quarter of one year&mdash;1878, it may be. He
+ drew every dollar upon that route, anyhow, up to February 17, 1882, except
+ for one quarter. And yet Mr. Ker stood up before you and said that
+ Sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or I had."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see if we have any more evidence. I find on page 3271 a subcontract
+ executed on route 38150, from Saguache to Lake City, by Miner, Peck &amp;
+ Company to Sanderson for the whole time until June 30, 1882. I find that
+ subcontract is signed by John R. Miner and J. L. Sanderson. This contract
+ was to be from the 1st of July, 1878, and was made the 15th of May, 1878,
+ and here it is in evidence. The evidence is that the contract was made
+ between Miner, Peck &amp; Company and Sanderson; the evidence also is that
+ Sanderson drew the pay. And yet Mr. Ker stands up before you and says that
+ Sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or I had."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The subcontract, gentlemen, states that Sanderson is to have the entire
+ pay, and it was before the contract term began. So much for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. When was it filed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Wilson. That does not make any difference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. "When was it filed?" There was a trial in my town of a suit
+ against the city, I believe, for allowing a culvert to get filled up and
+ flood a man's cellar. They brought in evidence to prove, don't you see,
+ that the culvert was not filled up, and one witness swore that the day
+ before the rain he saw a dog go through there. One of the jurors got up
+ and said that he would like to ask a question; he said, "What was the
+ color of that dog?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4631 Mr. Ker states that during the investigation by Congress&mdash;Contractors
+ got out printed letters and sent them to every subcontractor upon every
+ star route in the country, asking them to write to their members of
+ Congress urging their members of Congress to vote for this appropriation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 1346 is Rerdell's letter upon this very route, in which not one
+ word is said about the contractor doing anything one way or the other.
+ There is no evidence that any other letter was written on that route. I
+ call your attention to it to show how the prosecution strained every
+ possible point, and how they endeavored to patch and piece and putty and
+ veneer this evidence. Mr. Miner wrote a letter (page 669). I do not
+ remember any other evidence upon this subject. And certainly it would be
+ impossible to write a milder letter than Mr. Miner wrote. He did not ask
+ the people to get up petitions against reduction, or ask for more service.
+ Here is what he says, and I will read you Mr. Miner's letter:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will be well for the people of your section to send to the member of
+ Congress from your district such petitions as will express their opinions
+ on the subject of this reduction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Truly, yours,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ JNO. R. MINER, Ag't.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Could you write a milder letter than that, to save your life, and refer to
+ the subject? Could you write a fairer letter than that, to save your life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He does not say, "Get up petitions against it." He does not say, "Send
+ those petitions to your member of Congress and tell him to do what he can
+ to prevent it." Not one word of that kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet that is considered as evidence of fraud; that is considered as
+ evidence of conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next point made is that Mr. Ker states, at page 4632, that Brady
+ endeavored to bribe the members of Congress into making this appropriation
+ by doubling every star route in the Southern and Middle States, and did so
+ during the Congressional investigation. What are the facts? The deficiency
+ bill passed April 7, 1880.. That appropriated money only for the purpose
+ of carrying the mails up to June 30, 1880. The regular appropriation bill
+ was passed at the same session, and appropriated money to carry the mails
+ from the 1st of July, 1880. Now let us see if Brady doubled the trips in
+ these Southern and Middle States during that investigation. On page 3393
+ Brady says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Practically on July 1, 1880, we doubled up the entire service for all the
+ Southern and Middle States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was after the deficiency bill had passed; it was after the money
+ appropriated by that bill had been expended; and it was paid for out of
+ the regular appropriation for the Post-Office Department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet that was a bribe. It just shows that Congress by the regular
+ appropriation indorsed the policy of Mr. Key to have a daily mail to every
+ place where there was a county-seat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 4652, on the route from Mineral Park to Pioche, there were two
+ petitions, marked 17 K and 18 K. It is somewhat singular that the
+ Government brought no persons whose names are on these petitions to show
+ that they had not authorized their names to be signed thereto, but they
+ brought persons to show that the signatures were not genuine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 1621 the witness Wright swears that the names are the same on both
+ petitions. He is then asked if he knows the signatures of any other
+ people, and he says "Yes." He then says that the signature of John Deland
+ is not genuine. He swears that he knows nearly every one of the people. He
+ is then asked whether these signatures are in the handwriting of the
+ people, and he replies that he thinks not. Then he is asked as to the
+ signature of Cornell, and he says; That is not in his handwriting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here is his cross-examination, gentlemen: * * *
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I asked him, "Do you know these people;" made him swear that he knew Mr.
+ Street; that he knew the signatures of many; that he knew these people. I
+ proved where they were living; that they are living in the country now,
+ good, respectable, honest people. And yet the Government did not bring one
+ man whose name had been written here to prove that he had not authorized
+ it. Why? Because they could not. They knew by the testimony here that the
+ petitions were absolutely and perfectly honest. And it is in that way that
+ they seek to deprive men of their liberty. They did not call a man whose
+ name appeared on those petitions to say that his signature was not genuine
+ or not authorized. I proved that many of them are still living and
+ first-rate men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, you remember besides that, that Mr. H. S. Stevens, the
+ delegate from that Territory, recommended the same thing asked for by
+ those petitions (pages 1635, 1636), where it was admitted by counsel for
+ the Government that the letters of Stevens were genuine. It is upon that
+ same route that General Fremont also wrote a letter (page 1636). And I
+ will show you that the names are exactly or substantially the same on 18 K
+ as those found at pages 1638 and 1639.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker and Mr. Bliss both endeavored to show that there were no petitions
+ on this route, and that it was simply done on a letter. If you will look
+ at page 1603 you will find the evidence of Mr. Krider, who was postmaster
+ at Mineral Park, in which he says there were petitions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to show that there was a conspiracy between these parties, or
+ between Dorsey and Vaile, or Dorsey, Rerdell, and Vaile, Mr. Ker called
+ the attention of the jury to two letters, one written by Rerdell to the
+ Sixth Auditor, and one written by Vaile. Here is a letter dated the 21st
+ of August, 1880. It is introduced, of course, to show that there was a
+ conspiracy at that time between Mr. Vaile and Mr. Dorsey. It was written
+ by Mr. Rerdell to the Sixth Auditor:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the Sixth Auditor:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sir: H. M. Vaile was subcontractor on route 40104 during the first quarter
+ of 1879. In the first settlement for that quarter Vaile was paid for
+ certain expedited service&mdash;it was subsequently discovered that the
+ expedition thus paid for was never performed&mdash;the department
+ therefore, and very properly, too, charged back to the route the amount
+ thus paid for expedition never performed, viz, some two thousand eight
+ hundred dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Meanwhile Vaile, who alone was in fault, had ceased to have any connection
+ with the route&mdash;the charging back, therefore, fell on the wrong man,
+ the man who was in no way responsible for the non-performance of the
+ expedition, except so far as he stood between the department and the
+ subcontractor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is true that this payment was made by the regular contractor to the
+ subcontractor, but it is equally true that it was, in a measure, a
+ compulsory payment. By the rules of the Post-Office Department it is made
+ obligatory on the regular contractor to pay the subcontractor before the
+ department will settle with him&mdash;it is not, therefore, a payment as
+ between two individuals. The receipt is on the form prescribed by the
+ Post-Office Department, and is witnessed by (the then) Postmaster Edmunds,
+ as the rules prescribe. It is on file in the Post-Office Department, and I
+ maintain that our covenants were fulfilled when we put the receipt on
+ file. If Vaile had performed the service as he agreed he would do, and for
+ doing which he received this money, we should have been reimbursed by a
+ certificate of service from the contract office. Now, will you permit
+ Vaile to take advantage of his own wrong, and thus enable him to defraud
+ another man out of his money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I refrain from discussing the question as to what would be the duty of the
+ department if Vaile, who had received the money wrongfully, had ceased to
+ have any connection with the department, because it is not pertinent to
+ this issue; if it were, I could cite you to many authorities and
+ precedents to the effect that even then it would be your duty to refund
+ the money to me. But this is not necessary, because Vaile is still doing
+ business with the department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is subcontractor on route 44156 for the full contract pay, which is
+ twenty-two thousand dollars per annum, hence the department will have no
+ difficulty in reimbursing itself for what was, in simple truth, an
+ overpayment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think you will agree with me when I ask that this money be refunded to
+ the subcontractor on route 40104 and charged to route 44156, because it is
+ simply correcting an error. You have the same authority to charge it to
+ one as you have to charge it to the other, and you have already charged it
+ to me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The law-merchant would experience no difficulty in adjusting a matter of
+ this sort. The merchant who would refuse to correct an error of this
+ character would be justly called a lame duck, and would be scouted from
+ "'Change" Vaile was erroneously paid for the performance of a service
+ which he never did perform. Therefore I ask that he be compelled to render
+ unto Caesar the things that he ceasers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Respectfully,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ M. C. RERDELL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Acting for himself and for the regular contractor on route 40104.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is to show also, gentlemen, that there was a conspiracy between Vaile
+ and Rerdell. Now, Mr. Vaile wrote a letter also to the same man. I will
+ read it:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C., July 9, 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hon. J. McGrew:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sir: In reply to yours of July 8th, relating to the Jennings case, I would
+ state that I did not receive the money in manner and form as stated by one
+ M. C. Rerdell, nor was the draft of J. W. Dorsey, on said route 40104, for
+ the quarter named, to get an advance of money for myself or for my own
+ use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the time I receipted for my pay as subcontractor on said route I did
+ not, in fact, receive any money, but did so receipt that J. W. Dorsey
+ might negotiate his draft on said route, and for no other purpose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although I was subcontractor of record on said route at the time named, I
+ was not a subcontractor in my own behalf, but as trustee for J. W. Dorsey,
+ S. W. Dorsey, Isaac Jennings, and others, to collect said money and pay it
+ over as said parties should direct. I further state that all money that
+ ever came into my hands from said route I did pay over to the parties
+ named as trustee, as by them directed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Acting as trustee of said Jennings, and believing that he had performed
+ the mail service on said route as by him agreed, and in accordance with
+ the laws and regulations of the Post-Office Department, I did pay said
+ Jennings, on the 1st day of April, 1879, the sum of $1,257.73, a sum of
+ money he was entitled to provided he had carried the mail three days per
+ week on the schedule required, which I fully believed at that time he had
+ done, and for a long time after.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I further state that I am informed that said Jennings is not responsible;
+ that it would be utterly impossible for me to receive back the $2,800, or
+ any part thereof; that in fact this sum of money sought to be collected of
+ me, if collected for said Jennings's benefit, or go into his hands in
+ addition to the sum he now has unlawfully, doubly remunerating him for his
+ neglect of duty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I further state that all the money collected on said route not paid to
+ said Jennings was paid to liquidate the debts of J. W. Dorsey, S. W.
+ Dorsey, and others previously contracted, and not one dollar ever remained
+ in my hands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I further state I believe both J. W. Dorsey and S. W. Dorsey are
+ irresponsible, and it would be impossible for me to collect any part of
+ said money from them. As above stated, said money came into my hand only
+ as their agent or trustee, and at once paid out as they directed; that my
+ subcontract was put on file simply to enable J W. Dorsey to negotiate his
+ draft on said route, when in fact said Jennings was the real
+ subcontractor. Said Jennings agreed to perform the service on said route
+ strictly in accordance with the laws and regulations of the department,
+ for the annual sum of $12,600.00, the duplicate of which contract was
+ delivered over to S. W. Dorsey by myself, and which I believe is now in
+ the hands of M. C. Rerdell, and which, or a copy thereof, I demand shall
+ be filed with you in this case, that you may see what said Jennings agreed
+ to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is certainly a strange claim. Jennings agreed to perform mail service
+ on said route. I believed he had done it, and paid him accordingly. It
+ turns out long after he did not properly perform the service, but was
+ attempting a swindle, and a deduction is ordered for not performing the
+ service properly. Then this man, the guilty party, having got money from
+ me, as trustee, wrongfully, as well as from the Government, and asks that
+ the Auditor compel me to pay him the sum of $2,800.00, when, as I am
+ informed, he is seeking to get this same deduction remitted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely if he succeeded in all this he will make a good thing out of his
+ rascality and I a good victim without remedy. I state again I did not
+ hypothecate said draft for myself, did not receive one cent as
+ subcontractor, but became the payee of said draft that said J. W. Dorsey
+ might negotiate it, and I to dispose of the proceeds as he should direct,
+ all of which I did. Therefore I request you not to compel me to pay the
+ sum of money asked, but if I am liable at all let the parties seek their
+ redress at law, where all the facts can be obtained and justice rendered
+ me. And it is also well known that I am a man of means, and any judgment
+ rendered against me could and would be collected, dollar for dollar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am, very respectfully,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ H. M. VAILE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That was introduced to show that at the time Vaile was in a conspiracy
+ with S. W. Dorsey. Why did they introduce it? Simply for one line in it in
+ which he says he was acting as the trustee of S. W. Dorsey. He was. How?
+ Dorsey had advanced money. The routes were liable, and the persons who
+ held the routes had agreed to refund it. The subcontracts were made to
+ Vaile, and Vaile agreed out of the proceeds of the route to pay the debt
+ to S. W, Dorsey. To that extent he was the trustee of S. W. Dorsey. Dorsey
+ swears it. Vaile admits it, and we all claim it to be true. And yet they
+ introduced that letter simply because that line was there. Now, gentlemen,
+ I have read both of those letters, and I want you to remember them if you
+ can, and tell me whether at that time Vaile and Dorsey were in a
+ conspiracy together to defraud this Government. And yet the Government
+ introduced this letter just to prove that one thing, and no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the Julian and Colton route there is this peculiarity: The Government
+ failed to prove the number of men and horses necessary on the original
+ schedule for three-times-a-week service, and consequently we are left
+ without any standard by which to judge; without any standard by which to
+ measure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4685 Mr. Ker calls attention to the fact that the proposal marked
+ 6 P, originally contained an offer to carry the mail at thirty-six hours
+ for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars additional, but he
+ states that the thirty-six was rubbed out and twenty-six was put in its
+ place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is, they offered to carry it in thirty-six hours for seven thousand
+ and odd dollars, and then afterwards fraudulently, of course, rubbed out
+ the thirty-six and inserted twenty-six. But they did not change the sum
+ for which they offered to carry it. They offered to carry it in thirty-six
+ hours for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars, and
+ afterwards they rubbed out the thirty-six and put in twenty-six, and then
+ offered to carry it in twenty-six hours for seven thousand seven hundred
+ and twenty-two dollars. The question arises, how did that hurt the
+ Government? The question arises, was that a fraud? If it had been
+ originally twenty-six hours and they had rubbed out those figures and put
+ in thirty-six hours, then you might say the intention was to defraud the
+ Government. But the proposition had to be accepted after that was done,
+ and consequently in no event could the Government be defrauded by the
+ change of the proposal before the Government accepted the proposal. I
+ might say to a man, "I will let you have a house and lot for ten thousand
+ dollars." He does not accept the proposal. Have I not the right on the
+ next day to charge him twelve thousand dollars for it? Is that a fraud? If
+ I tell him, "You may have it for ten thousand dollars," and he accepts,
+ then, as an honorable man, I cannot change the proposal. But if I tell him
+ he may have it for twelve thousand dollars and then afterwards tell him he
+ may have it for ten thousand dollars, Mr. Ker calls that a fraud of two
+ thousand dollars. If one of the jury should give me a contract to deliver
+ one hundred horses for ten thousand dollars, and I should scratch out the
+ one hundred and put in seventy-five, certainly you would not consider
+ yourself defrauded. Or if I agreed to carry the mail in thirty hours for
+ the Government for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars,
+ and then afterwards changed and said I would carry it in ten hours less
+ time for the same price, can that be tortured into a fraud&mdash;unless I
+ might be indicted for defrauding myself?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4569 Mr. Ker says that Mr. Farrish, who was the subcontractor
+ says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I always carried the mail in from six to ten hours before expedition. I
+ carried the mail from Greenhorn to Pueblo. I did not stop at Saint
+ Charles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 835 Mr. Farrish says he carried the mail for three months in 1881.
+ That is the only time Farrish carried the mail. This route was expedited
+ on the 26th day of June, 1879, and yet Mr. Ker says that Farrish carried
+ the mail before it was expedited and carried it in from six to ten hours.
+ Mr. Farrish did not carry the mail until about two years after it had been
+ expedited.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4768 Mr. Ker, speaking of the two affidavits on the route from
+ Pueblo to Rosita, laughs at the idea that the proportion was the same in
+ both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what is the proportion in both? One affidavit says that on the then
+ schedule it would take eight men and horses; that is, the horses and men
+ added together make eight, and that on the proposed schedule it would take
+ twenty-four. Then they would be entitled to just three times the money
+ they were receiving on the original schedule, because three times eight
+ are twenty-four. Let me explain here what I mean by proportion. If I am
+ carrying the mail with, say, four horses and two men, making a total of
+ six, and if then that service is increased so that it takes twelve men and
+ horses, I get twice the original pay; if it takes eighteen men and horses,
+ I get three times the original pay. You understand that there is always a
+ relation between the pay and the number of men and horses used. If I am
+ using one man and one horse and am getting a thousand dollars for the
+ service, and if it is expedited so that I have to use two men and two
+ horses, I would get two thousand dollars. In the first affidavit they had
+ eight men and horses. If they put up the service to what they were going
+ to, it would take twenty-four. Three times eight are twenty-four. Then
+ they would get three times the original amount of money. In the second
+ affidavit he swears that it takes fifteen men and animals on the present
+ schedule, and on the proposed schedule it would take forty-five men and
+ animals. Three times fifteen are forty-five. Three times eight are
+ twenty-four. You see that on both affidavits you get the same amount of
+ money to a cent, because the proportion is absolutely and exactly the
+ same. Yet Mr. Ker laughs at the idea of the proportion being the same. It
+ took eight men and horses in the first affidavit on the present schedule,
+ and twenty-four on the proposed schedule. There the contractor would be
+ entitled to three times the original sum. In the next affidavit it took
+ fifteen men and horses on the original schedule and forty-five men and
+ horses on the proposed schedule. Again, he would be entitled to three
+ times the original sum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4579 Mr. Ker says the oath was put in for three trips. By looking
+ at page 867 we find that it was for seven trips and not three. There is
+ nothing like accuracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4580 Ker says that Brady had on the jacket before him the evidence
+ that Hansom was a subcontractor at three thousand one hundred dollars a
+ year, and the contract gave the contractor a clear profit of five thousand
+ and forty-eight dollars. The fact is, that Brady's order was made on July
+ 8, 1879. That order is on page 866. Hansom's subcontract was filed October
+ 22, 1879, about three month's after Brady's order was made. And yet Mr.
+ Ker tells you that on that jacket when Brady made the order he had notice
+ of Hansom's subcontract. Unless he had the gift of seeing into the future
+ he knew nothing about it. He would have had to see into the future three
+ months in order to have had it before him at that time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4703 Mr. Ker says that the letter of J. W. Dorsey, written April
+ 26, 1879, referred to the Perkin's affidavit as not putting the number of
+ men and animals high enough. Let us see. Another case of arithmetic. The
+ letter refers to Dorsey's statement transmitted with the letter. It could
+ not be the way stated by Mr. Ker for the following reasons: The affidavit
+ of Perkins said three men and six animals one trip a week on the then
+ time. That makes nine. On one trip a week with the reduction to
+ eighty-four hours, eight men and twenty-four animals would be required.
+ That makes thirty-two. The proportion then gives three and five-ninths or
+ three hundred and fifty-five per cent, increase of pay. That is the
+ affidavit, he says, that Dorsey wrote out and said was not high enough,
+ and then fixed up one that was. The affidavit that John W. Dorsey sent in
+ the letter says that it will require for three trips a week on the then
+ time four men and twelve animals, making sixteen; on the proposed schedule
+ for the same number of trips eleven men and thirty-two animals, making
+ forty-three. As sixteen is to forty-three&mdash;that is, two hundred and
+ sixty-nine per cent, increase of pay. Now, that letter, he says, claims
+ that the Perkins affidavit did not put it high enough. I say that he did
+ not refer to the Perkins affidavit. He could not say that did not put it
+ high enough, because that put it at three hundred and fifty-five per
+ cent., and the affidavit he inclosed in the letter, put it at two hundred
+ and sixty-nine per cent.&mdash;nearly one hundred per cent. less.
+ According to Mr. Ker he was complaining that that affidavit was too low,
+ and so he inclosed one, one hundred per cent, lower. That will not do.
+ Besides all that the affidavit of John W. Dorsey is for forty-five hours,
+ while the first affidavit, I believe, is for eighty-four hours. John W.
+ Dorsey offers to carry it in forty-five hours for two hundred and
+ sixty-nine per cent., and the other affidavit on the basis of eighty-five
+ hours calls for three hundred and fifty-five per cent. Do you not see,
+ gentlemen, it is utterly impossible to believe that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4738 Mr. Ker again falls into mathematics. He says that Mr. Brady
+ allowed on the Bismarck route for three hundred men and three hundred
+ horses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you this prosecution ought to go into the stock business. One
+ hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses were called for by
+ the affidavit. Now, Mr. Ker says when Brady doubled the trips he doubled
+ the horses, and when he doubled the trips he doubled the men. That would
+ make three hundred men and three hundred horses. If he had doubled the
+ trips again he would have had six hundred men and six hundred horses,
+ enough cavalry to have protected that entire frontier. Yet after all the
+ Bismarck and Tongue River business, Mr. Vaile comes in and swears, on page
+ 4062, that the loss on that route to Vaile and Miner was at least fifty
+ thousand dollars; and Mr. Miner swears that the loss on the route was
+ between forty and fifty thousand dollars. Vaile says if he had known at
+ that time of the clause in the contract by which he could have gotten out
+ of it he would have abandoned the route, but that he had not read a
+ contract for ten or twelve years. Now, as a matter of fact, gentlemen, and
+ it seems to me the prosecution ought to be perfectly fair, Brady allowed
+ only forty per cent, of the affidavit made in regard to the one hundred
+ and fifty men and the one hundred and fifty horses, and yet according to
+ Mr. Ker he allowed for three hundred men and three hundred horses; instead
+ of allowing for forty per cent, of one hundred and fifty men and one
+ hundred and fifty horses, he allowed for one hundred per cent. more. That
+ would have run the pay up, I should think, to about a million dollars. Mr.
+ Ker also says that Mr. Vaile swears that he induced Brady to give an
+ extension to August 15th, and thereupon Mr. Ker makes the remarkable
+ statement that Vaile did not do it; that Boone did it; I am very thankful
+ for the admission. From that it appears that Boone was more potent with
+ Brady than Vaile was.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he was, why did they have to get somebody close to Brady? Afterwards we
+ are told by Mr. Ker that Mr. Boone was kicked out to make a place for
+ Vaile, so as to get a man close to Brady.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. Will you tell me what page it was I spoke about Boone?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. It was Mr. Bliss. It is Mr. Bliss's turn to explain now.
+ The notes that I have were handed to me by another, and I supposed
+ referred to Mr. Ker. Mr. Bliss said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, I think, can leave no doubt in the minds of any one that the
+ extension was obtained by Mr. Boone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss says that on page 4899, and so I will relieve Mr. Ker of that
+ charge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. I am glad to be relieved of something.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I do not want to do any injustice to Mr. Ker; between Mr.
+ Bliss and Mr. Ker I am perfectly impartial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker attacks the affidavit made by Vaile on the Vermillion and Sioux
+ Falls route. Let us get at the facts. The route was let as fifty miles
+ long. That is the distance that was given in the advertisement by the
+ Government. They wanted expedition on that route. The Government asked for
+ it. Mr. Vaile asked if he could make the affidavit, and he made it,
+ supposing the route was fifty miles long. He never had been over it. It
+ turned out that it was about seventy-three miles long, and consequently
+ the affidavit provided for too fast time. The affidavit called for ten
+ hours. That made over seven miles an hour; or, including the stoppages, I
+ presume about ten miles an hour. The difficulty arose out of the mistake
+ in the distance. Vaile so swears, on page 4030. He also swears that he
+ went to the department and there saw Mr. Brewer, who was in charge of that
+ bureau, or at least of that business, and it was Brewer who suggested to
+ him to make the affidavit. Mr. Vaile did not ask for any expedition on
+ that route. Mr. Brewer spoke to him about it. Mr. Vaile swears that Brewer
+ spoke to him first. Mr. Vaile swears that he made the affidavit at the
+ instigation of Mr. Brewer. Mr. Bliss says Brewer is an honest man, and
+ calls him honest Brewer. Why did he not call honest Brewer to the stand
+ and let him deny that he asked Mr. Vaile to make that affidavit?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Yes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Resuming]. If the Court please, and gentlemen of the jury,
+ on page 4645 there is the letter from Miner to Carey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Carey, Esq.,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fort McDermitt, Nev.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dear Sir: One S. H. Abbott, who was postmaster at Alvord, I find, by
+ accident, is writing to the department that you do not pay your bills, and
+ that there is no need of anything more than a weekly mail.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I wish you would see this man at once and satisfy him; pay him whatever is
+ reasonable and report to R. C. Williamson, at The Dalles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose that is what he is after. He knows nothing of the through mail,
+ and probably a weekly is all he needs; but more likely he wants some
+ money. He complained once before to the department that he had to make a
+ special trip to Camp McDermitt to make his returns, and I sent him thirty
+ dollars, and it was all right. Now, I suppose, he wants a little more
+ money. Yours, &amp;c.,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ JOHN R. MINER.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That letter was introduced to show that there was a conspiracy between
+ Miner and Brady; and yet when that man complained that the service was not
+ put on at the time it should have been, and that he was postmaster, was
+ forced to carry his returns to the nearest post-office, and consequently
+ spent about thirty dollars, Miner sent him the money. Why? Because he and
+ Brady were not confederates; because they were not conspirators. For that
+ reason he sent the man thirty dollars. The letter says, "The man that was
+ postmaster." When this letter was written Mr. Abbott was not postmaster;
+ he had ceased to be postmaster. Yet they have endeavored to impress upon
+ you the idea that when this letter was written to Abbott he was then
+ postmaster. He had written a letter, stating that a weekly mail was all
+ that was wanted, and that Mr. Carey did not pay his bills. Mr. Miner wrote
+ to Carey on that account, "The man is trying to make trouble. He tried to
+ make trouble once before, and we sent him thirty dollars. He is not
+ postmaster now. He has no official position. Go and see him. Give him what
+ is reasonable, and tell him to mind his own business." Why? If he had been
+ in a conspiracy with Brady he would not care what Mr. Abbott wrote to the
+ department. If he was absolutely certain there he would not care anything
+ about it. But having no arrangement with the Second Assistant, having no
+ arrangement of the kind set forth in the indictment, he did not want Mr.
+ Abbott to write letters; he did not want Mr. Abbott to make trouble. That
+ letter, instead of showing that there was a conspiracy, shows absolutely
+ that there was not, and the letter was not written to him while he was an
+ official. The man was not then postmaster. He simply had been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next point made by Mr. Ker is a very powerful point, that Mr. Vaile
+ came from Independence, where the James boys came from, and where they
+ steal horses. Suppose I should say that Mr. Ker comes from Philadelphia,
+ the town that Mr. Phipps lives in, the man who stole the roof off of the
+ poorhouse. Would there be any argument in that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker says that J. W. Dorsey wrote in his letter that the profits would
+ be one hundred thousand dollars a year. That was a mistake. I turn to the
+ letter and I find that it says one hundred thousand dollars in the life of
+ the contract, and not one hundred thousand dollars a year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, I claim the right to call attention to the fact
+ that Mr. Ker read the letter in full referring to the one hundred thousand
+ dollars clear of expenses. He read it and then followed it by the
+ statement of one hundred thousand dollars a year, which was obviously a
+ mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That only makes it worse. After he had read the letter to
+ the jury, and while the echoes of the letter were still in the court-room,
+ he then said one hundred thousand dollars a year, while the letter said
+ one hundred thousand dollars within the life of the contract. Upon such
+ statements, gentlemen, they expect to strip a citizen of his liberty. [To
+ counsel for the Government.] You will have some work to do in a little
+ while. It may be that Mr. Ker forgets these things. I do not say how it
+ happened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker also tells you that Miner wanted to cut out S. W. Dorsey and J. W.
+ Dorsey and Mr. Peck. Was that because he was a co-conspirator? He also
+ tells you that Miner deserted his friend S. W. Dorsey. Was he at that time
+ a conspirator? Mr. Ker tells you that S. W. Dorsey wanted to gratify his
+ spite against Vaile and that the first thing he did after he got out of
+ the Senate was to write that letter to the Second Assistant
+ Postmaster-General against the subcontracts. Does that show they were
+ co-conspirators? Did he want to gratify his spite because he had made a
+ bargain with them by which they were to realize hundreds of thousands of
+ dollars?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker also says that Miner's letter to Tuttle shows the conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly wonderful, gentlemen, how suspicion changes and poisons
+ everything.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me read you the letter from which Mr. Ker draws the inference that
+ there was a conspiracy. It is on page 885:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C., August 19, 1878. Frank A. Tuttle, Box 44, Pueblo,
+ Colo.,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dear Sir: Yours 14th received. We accept your proposition, provided (so
+ that there shall be no conflict) that a friend of ours, who has recently
+ gone to Colorado, has not made different arrangements before we can get
+ him word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The petition for expedition should be separate from the petition for
+ increase of number of trips. We make no boast of being solid with anybody,
+ but can get what is reasonable. Yours, truly,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MINER, PECK &amp; CO.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are told that is evidence of a conspiracy. Suppose the letter had been
+ this way: "We boast of being solid. We can get anything, whether
+ reasonable or not." That probably would have been evidence of perfect
+ innocence. He writes a letter and says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We make no boast of being solid with anybody, but can get what is
+ reasonable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They say that is evidence of conspiracy. Suppose he had written the
+ opposite, "We do boast of being solid and we can get anything, whether it
+ is reasonable or not." According to their logic that would have been
+ evidence of absolute innocence. Whenever you are suspicious you extract
+ poison from the fairest and sweetest flowers. Prejudice and suspicion turn
+ every fact against a defendant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4557 Mr. Ker tells us that Vaile never saw Peck, and yet had the
+ impudence to write that his subcontract was signed by Peck in person. The
+ subcontract is in evidence here. Nobody pretends that it was not signed by
+ Peck, and yet that is brought forward as a suspicious circumstance against
+ Mr. Vaile, because there is no evidence that Mr. Vaile ever saw Mr. Peck.
+ Is there anything in a point like that? "My contract was signed by Mr.
+ Peck in person." He does not mean by that that he saw him sign it. The
+ evidence here is that it was signed by Peck, and yet the fact that he says
+ Peck did sign it, and the fact that he had never seen Peck, Mr. Ker
+ endeavors to torture so that you will think he wrote what he knew to be
+ untrue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3251 Mr. Ker says that Miner does not deny writing the letter
+ marked 63 E. This letter was dated the 10th day of May, 1879, and was on
+ one of the Dorsey routes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miner swears that he never signed a paper, never touched pen to paper on
+ any of the Dorsey routes after the 5th day of May, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, after having made all these statements to you, and I have
+ only taken up a few of them, these misstatements, these mistakes, Mr. Ker
+ winds up by telling you it is the safer plan to find a verdict of guilty,
+ because if you find them guilty wrongfully the Court will upset your
+ verdict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, you have sworn to try this case according to the law and the
+ evidence. You are the supreme arbiters of this case. It is for you to
+ decide upon this evidence, and for you alone. Yet you are told by Mr. Ker
+ to shirk that responsibility. You are told by him to violate your oaths
+ and find against these defendants, for the sake of certainty, and then
+ turn them over to the mercy of the Court. That is not the law. These
+ defendants are being tried before you. They have the right to your honest
+ judgment. If you have any doubt as to their guilt you must find them not
+ guilty or violate your oaths. You are told it is the safer way to find
+ them guilty and then let them appeal to the Court for mercy! That doctrine
+ is monstrous. It is deformed. Such a verdict would be the spawn of
+ prejudice, and cowardice, and perjury. You cannot give such a verdict and
+ retain your self-respect. You cannot give such a verdict and retain your
+ manhood! If you have any doubt as to the guilt of these defendants you
+ must say they are not guilty. You have no right to turn them over to the
+ Court, no matter whether the Court is merciful or unmerciful. You must
+ pass upon their guilt, and you must do it honestly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I never heard so preposterous, so cruel a sentiment uttered in a court of
+ justice. It amounts to this, gentlemen: If you have any doubt of guilt
+ resolve the doubt against the defendant. If the evidence is not quite
+ sufficient, find against the defendants and turn them over to the mercy of
+ the Court. Why should we have a jury at all? Why should you sit here at
+ all? Why should you hear this evidence, if after all you are to shirk the
+ responsibility and turn the defendants over to the Court? You never will
+ do it, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I wish to call your attention to a few points made by
+ Colonel Bliss. You must remember that Colonel Bliss has been very highly
+ complimented by his associates as a kind of peripatetic index of this
+ case, an encyclopedia of all the papers; that he never makes a mistake;
+ that he recollects amounts with absolute certainty, and that he is
+ infallible. Keeping all these things in your mind, I wish to call your
+ attention to some statements that he has made. First of all, I will refer
+ to a little of his philosophy, or law, and that is, that in every
+ affidavit you should state not the number necessary on the then schedule,
+ but the actual number, and that there could be no doubt about the number
+ of men and horses used at the time when an affidavit was made, and that
+ consequently anybody making an affidavit should put in the number then
+ actually used.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see how that will work. He says the oaths are false because they do
+ not state the actual number of men and horses employed in carrying the
+ mail at the time they were made. He says that the person making the
+ affidavit swore to the number actually employed, and that where that
+ number was not employed that fact of itself shows the affidavits to be
+ false. I say that is not the law. The law calls for the number necessary,
+ not the number actually employed. Let me show how easy it would be to
+ cheat the Government on the principle laid down by the gentleman. I will
+ show you how infinitely silly that is. Let me illustrate. Here is a route
+ one hundred and fifty miles long, once a week. You know it is possible for
+ one man and one horse for a little while to carry that mail and to go one
+ hundred and fifty miles one way and one hundred and fifty miles the other,
+ making three hundred miles in a week. You can take a magnificent horse and
+ a good, stout, tough man, and you can do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Or a boy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Or a stout, tough boy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. A boy would be best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. You do not need any boy. Just one man and one horse will
+ answer. The man can ride the horse one hundred and fifty miles in three
+ days, and then ride one hundred and fifty miles back in the next three
+ days. All you have to swear to, according to Mr. Bliss, is the number
+ actually used, and so you would come in and swear to two on this route.
+ Now, when you are making an affidavit as to the number to be used on a
+ schedule to be made, you cannot swear to the number actually in use,
+ because they are not then in use. You have to swear to the number
+ necessary. You have to swear to the number required.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, see. On a mail route one hundred and fifty miles long I would only
+ want a good smart horse, and one good active man or boy. I would not need
+ to carry it more than one week, because I could make the affidavit for
+ that week, and then the question would be how many men and horses would be
+ required for a daily mail on the same route. I would put in a reasonable
+ number, and the difference between the number then actually used and the
+ reasonable number to use would be the standard by which to fix my pay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you take the man and horse actually used, and then take the number that
+ would reasonably be used, you would make a difference of a thousand per
+ cent. And yet that is the doctrine laid down here to guide us as to these
+ affidavits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you what the law is. It does not make any difference what you
+ are really using at the time. You must swear to the number that would be
+ reasonably necessary to carry the mail on the then schedule. You must
+ swear to the number that would be reasonably necessary to carry the mail
+ on the proposed schedule. In the first place, if you put a great deal of
+ work on a man and horse, you must put the same proportion on man and horse
+ in the second schedule. If you are easy on man and horse in the first
+ schedule, you must be easy on man and horse in the second. The only
+ object, gentlemen, is to keep the proportion, because you are to be paid
+ according to the number of men and horses used.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, they say it would be necessary to go out there in order to tell how
+ many men and horses would be necessary, and that the men who made these
+ affidavits had never been on the routes. There was no need of being on the
+ routes. I could give you the number required on any route two hundred or
+ five hundred miles long. I could give you the number of men and horses
+ reasonably required to carry the mail once, twice, three times, or seven
+ times a week; and I could give you the number reasonably required to carry
+ it at the rate of three miles an hour or five miles an hour or six miles
+ an hour without going there. I need not go there for the purpose of the
+ affidavit. I can take it for granted that the road is good and level, and
+ I can keep exactly the same proportion and nobody can be defrauded. If you
+ take the rule of Colonel Bliss it would be the easiest thing on earth to
+ defraud the Government. That would be by taking the actual number in use
+ and then taking the number necessary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Oil page 4761 Mr. Bliss makes the point that according to law the Second
+ Assistant Postmaster-General was not bound to allow according to the
+ affidavits. He is right as to that. That is what Mr. Bliss says, and that
+ is what John W. Dorsey swore he thought, and that is what Mr. Thomas J.
+ Brady swore he did. He did not take the affidavit as a finality. Mr.
+ Thomas J. Brady said that he took it for granted that the man, when he
+ made the affidavit, thought it was true, and that the man, when he made
+ the affidavit, swore to the best of his knowledge and belief. But Thomas
+ J. Brady never swore that he considered himself bound by the affidavit. On
+ the contrary, he swore that he had a standard in his own mind, and that
+ expedition was to cost thirty dollars a mile, or something of that kind.
+ He went by that standard, and he gauged the affidavits by it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4762 Mr. Bliss says that Brady admitted that he made no inquiry as
+ to the truth of affidavits, and that he accepted them as absolutely
+ conclusive. On page 3434 Mr. Brady swears:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I accepted their statement as conclusive so far as they knew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Brady also swears that he had his standard in his own mind, as I said
+ before, and that he had an opinion of his own, and that by that standard
+ and opinion he was governed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4765 Mr. Bliss charges that Brady took the oath of Perkins on
+ route 38113 as the basis for the expedition. Mr. Turner's calculation on
+ file shows that that affidavit was not the basis of the calculation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, allow me to say that subsequently I stated to the
+ Court and to the jury distinctly that while the indorsement on the jacket
+ recited the Perkins affidavit as being the one used, or the affidavit of
+ the subcontractor, and while Mr. Brady transmitted to Congress that
+ Perkins affidavit as the one upon which he acted, I still believed that
+ the calculation showed that he used the other affidavit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Wilson. He never made that statement until he made it during the
+ progress of my argument when I was discussing that very point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. You are mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. He made it while I was here and I was not here during Mr.
+ Wilson's argument.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. If he has taken it back three times, that is enough. On
+ page 4766 Mr. Bliss charges Brady with having two affidavits on the Pueblo
+ and Greenhorn route, from John W. Dorsey, on the same day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Mr. Henkle called my attention to the fact that it was not the
+ Greenhorn route, but the Pueblo and Rosita route, and I corrected it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Good enough. I did not know about his taking it back. I was
+ not here at the time. The fact was, however, that only one affidavit was
+ ever filed, and that was an affidavit, not by J. W. Dorsey, but by John R.
+ Miner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. There were two on the Pueblo and Rosita route by John W.
+ Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. We will come to them. You will get tired of them before we
+ get through with them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4767 Mr. Bliss refers to two affidavits. The first affidavit, the
+ one not used, calls for three men and seven animals on the then schedule.
+ That makes ten. On the proposed schedule of eighty hours it called for
+ nine men and twenty-seven animals. That makes thirty-six. The proportion
+ then in this affidavit is 3.6, that is, the pay would be 3.6 times the
+ original pay. In the second affidavit five men and fifteen animals, twenty
+ in all, are called for on the then schedule, and on the proposed schedule
+ twelve men and forty-two animals. The proportion there is 2.7. So that the
+ affidavits, leaving out the fractions, which are substantially the same,
+ stand in this way: By the first the contract price would have been
+ multiplied by three and the contractor would have had three times the
+ original pay, and by the second he would have had twice the original pay.
+ Substituting an affidavit at only double the pay is called a fraud,
+ because they withdrew an affidavit for treble the pay. That is what Mr.
+ Bliss calls a fraud. He says still that it is a fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, there were two affidavits, and these two affidavits, gentlemen,
+ Mr. Bliss well knew were filed on different schedules. The first affidavit
+ was filed on a proposed schedule of eighty hours. The second affidavit was
+ filed on a proposed schedule of fifty hours. The affidavit agreeing to
+ carry the mail in fifty hours offered to do it at double the pay. The
+ affidavit on eighty hours wanted three times the pay, or substantially
+ that. One was 3.7 and the other was 2.6. Just think of trying to make that
+ a fraud on the Government. Suppose they had filed a third affidavit and
+ offered to carry it for nothing. That would have been carrying a fraud to
+ the extreme.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, with reference to that, I said, expressly referring
+ to these two affidavits: It is not a question of proportion. The question
+ is whether the mere existence of those double affidavits did not give
+ Brady conclusive notice that the man who could make those affidavits was
+ not a reliable man, because no matter what the time was to which it was to
+ be increased, he stated the number necessary on the then schedule, as so
+ and so in one affidavit and in the other he stated the number differently.
+ I referred to it solely in that connection, as the language shows on the
+ page referred to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. For instance, a man writes, "You owe me five hundred
+ dollars according to my books," and writes the next day, "I have made a
+ mistake. You don't owe me anything." Mr. Bliss insists that the second
+ letter would show that the man was not to be relied upon. That is his idea
+ of honesty. If in the first letter he had written that I did not owe him
+ anything, and in the second letter I did, that might be suspicious. But
+ when in the first he writes that I owe him and in the second that I do
+ not, there can be no suspicion as to his honesty. In the first affidavit
+ this man stated so much, and in the second affidavit he put it one-third
+ less. That simply shows the man was paying attention to it and wanted to
+ make an honest offer. And yet everything in this case is poisoned with
+ prejudice and suspicion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another point: Mr. Bliss, on page 4770, says that on the Pueblo and Rosita
+ route the number of trips was seven and that there was no increase. Upon
+ that statement he bases an argument of fraud. The argument is that there
+ was no increase of trips. Now, on page 866, the order shows that in the
+ first place there was one trip a week and there were six trips added. That
+ makes seven. The original pay was three hundred and eighty-eight dollars.
+ Six trips were added, and the value of the six trips, which gave two
+ thousand three hundred and twenty-eight dollars of additional pay. Yet Mr.
+ Bliss tells you that there was no increase of trips. As a matter of fact,
+ six trips were added, and that was all that could be added.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Were they added coincidently with the affidavit for expedition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. You say they were not added; I say they were.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. No, sir; I said at the time of the expedition there was no
+ increase of trips and the affidavit was based upon the seven trips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I say that at that time there was an increase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, the point is this: I think I am right in saying
+ that the increase of trips took place after the expedition. That is my
+ recollection about it. I have not referred to the record. I think Colonel
+ Ingersoll will find that is so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. We will see whether you are right. At the time the
+ affidavit was made there were just three trips, and afterward there were
+ four trips added. Let us get it exactly right. I read from page 866:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Date, July 8, 1879. State, Colorado.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Number of route, 38134.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Termini of route, Pueblo and Rosita.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Length of route, fifty miles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Number of trips per week, one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I see you are right. The trips were increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. When anybody gives it up I will stop. That is fair and that
+ is honorable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next point. On page 4771 Mr. Bliss says that the oath on the
+ Toquerville and Adairville route was made for seven trips, although the
+ order only gave them six trips, of course the inference being that they
+ got as much pay for six trips as they were entitled to for seven trips. On
+ page 3290 the original order was for one trip. Two trips were added. Look
+ on page 949 and you will find that more trips were added. The second order
+ increased four trips, and that made seven in all; and yet Mr. Bliss makes
+ the statement that there were only six. That is another mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another point. On page 4772 Mr. Bliss states that Mr. Rerdell spoke in his
+ testimony about J. B. B. I have referred to that. I have referred before
+ to the claim that Rerdell was sustained by the testimony of Mr. Bissell.
+ As a matter of fact, I do not remember that Mr. Rerdell ever said one word
+ in his testimony as to charging anything to J. B. B.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ninth point. At page 4778 Mr. Bliss states that Dorsey admitted in his
+ letter to Anthony Joseph that the average rate for mail service on star
+ routes was only five dollars a mile. Mr. Dorsey says in his letter no such
+ thing. He says the "average cost of horseback service"; he does not use
+ the language employed by Mr. Bliss, "The average rate for mail service on
+ star routes," but he says, "The average cost of horseback service." That
+ is a small point, but it shows how anxious the gentlemen are to get the
+ thing fully as big as it is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tenth point. At page 4783 Mr. Bliss says that Brady cut off forty-nine
+ thousand dollars of increase on the Mineral Park and Pioche route on the
+ 22d of January, 1879, because the mail bills showed so little business.
+ That is another mistake. The order cutting off the forty-nine thousand
+ dollars was made on the 22d of January, 1880, not 1879. I mention this
+ simply for the sake of accuracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eleventh point. At page 4785 Mr. Bliss says that the mail bills on the
+ Silverton and Parrott City route showed that Brady ran the service up from
+ seven hundred and forty-five dollars to fourteen thousand nine hundred
+ dollars, and that the fourteen thousand nine hundred dollars was
+ afterwards increased to thirty-one thousand three hundred and forty-three
+ dollars and seventy-six cents. The record shows nothing of the kind (see
+ pages 1894-5). The original pay was one thousand four hundred and
+ eighty-eight dollars (page 1854). The pay under the order of June 12,
+ 1879, was six thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and twenty-eight
+ cents (page 1855). No other increase was ever made. On page 1855 is the
+ increase and expedition, being in all fourteen thousand eight hundred and
+ eight dollars and sixty three cents. The original pay was one thousand
+ four hundred and eighty-eight dollars. A little change was made in the
+ route that brought it up to one thousand seven hundred and three dollars
+ and sixty-five cents. That, together with the expedition, makes a total of
+ sixteen thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents.
+ And yet Mr. Bliss told you that it was thirty-one thousand three hundred
+ and forty-three dollars and seventy-six cents. So that this encyclop&aelig;dia
+ of the papers made a mistake, in one year, of fourteen thousand eight
+ hundred and thirty-one dollars and forty-eight cents. For the whole
+ contract time it would be a mistake of forty-five thousand dollars. And
+ yet, strange as it may appear, that mistake was made against the
+ defendants. Well, let us go on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twelfth point. On page 4800, bottom line, Mr. Bliss says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They got so much in the way of offering petitions that Mr. Rerdell being
+ told by Stephen W. Dorsey, upon this route from Pueblo to Greenhorn, to go
+ to work and alter the petitions, inserted the words "and faster time."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to this petition, 7 B, in which are the words "and faster time," George
+ Sears swears, at pages 829 and 830, that it is in the same condition now
+ as when it was signed by him, he thinks. Thereupon Mr. Bliss told you that
+ he was mistaken in the paper. You must recollect these things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Are there not two petitions there altered?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is on another route. There were 7 B, 11 B, and 12 B. 7
+ B was the written paper, and you introduced 11 B and 12 B. One said
+ "quicker time," and one said "on faster schedule," and yet in the very
+ next paragraph they asked to have it run in eight hours. Mr. Rerdell had
+ to admit that he put in the words without knowing what the petition called
+ for, and that Dorsey instructed him to put them in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, in the very same paragraph, the very line, where I
+ said "faster schedule," I called attention to the fact that the words were
+ unnecessary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is not the only point. The point is, who wrote "faster
+ time"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. That is not what I said. You have not given the whole sentence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. You cannot expect me to read your whole seven days' speech.
+ That would be too much. This is what you said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They got so much in the way of altering petitions that Mr. Rerdell being
+ told by Stephen W. Dorsey, upon this route from Pueblo to Greenhorn, to go
+ to work and alter the petitions, inserted the words "and faster time."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is it exactly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Then follows this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He inserted "and faster schedule," "on quicker time," though there was not
+ any necessity for doing that, because if they had gone further down, after
+ some argument in the petition, to the request for expedition, they would
+ have seen that there was no necessity for that little forgery up there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is a magnificent admission. "There was no necessity
+ for" putting that in. I am glad he admits that. He would ask you to
+ believe that S. W. Dorsey, a man of intelligence and brains, would ask to
+ have a petition forged, altered, interlined, without knowing what was in
+ that petition. It will not do, gentlemen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirteenth point. At page 4810, Mr. Bliss says that McBean told Moore, in
+ reference to route No. 44140, Eugene City to Bridge Creek, "that he could
+ carry all the mail in his pocket."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as a matter of fact, Mr. McBean does not state any conversation with
+ Moore covering this route. That was another mistake. No matter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourteenth point. At page 4814, Mr. Bliss, in speaking of the Ojo Caliente
+ route, says the service in fact never was performed in fifty hours; that
+ the evidence of that is conclusive. Now, let us see. Here is a jacket on
+ page 3008, and that jacket shows that out of seventy-eight half trips,
+ expedition was lost on twenty-three and made on fifty-five. Yet Mr. Bliss
+ tells you it never was made. The jacket on page 3040 shows that expedition
+ was lost on twelve half trips and made on sixty-six. And yet Mr. Bliss
+ says it was never made. The jacket on page 3056 shows that at the time
+ they were carrying seven trips a week, nineteen expeditions were lost out
+ of one hundred and ninety-two half trips. And yet Mr. Bliss says the
+ fifty-hour schedule never was made. Another mistake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. That is long after the time I was referring to. As to the other
+ point, I simply repeat it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. It will not help it to repeat it. For every expedition lost
+ on this route or any other the Government did not pay. When the expedition
+ was lost, the pay was deducted; when the expedition was made the pay was
+ given, and not otherwise. You see, gentlemen, how they have endeavored to
+ get the facts before you; what a struggle it has been over all these
+ obstacles&mdash;lack of memory, the immensity of this record&mdash;how
+ they have climbed the Himalayas of difficulty; how they have gone over the
+ Andes and Rocky Mountains of trouble to get at the facts!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifteenth point. On page 4820 Mr. Bliss states that there could not have
+ been legally allowed, on the evidence on The Dalles route, on expedition
+ over $4,144. As a matter of fact, the evidence does not cover the whole
+ route as to the number of men and horses used. The Government never proved
+ the number of men and horses necessary to carry the mail over the whole
+ route, but only a part. Mr. Ker admits that the evidence is defective in
+ that regard. When you have no standard, gentlemen, you cannot measure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixteenth point. On page 4820 Mr. Bliss, in speaking of the route from
+ Eugene City to Bridge Creek, says that, taking the undisputed facts as
+ they were, before and after the expedition, Brady could not legally have
+ allowed more than $2,991.23. The evidence is (page 1343) that Wyckoff was
+ the subcontractor from July, 1878, to 1880. Powers first carried the mail
+ in 1880. The route was increased and expedited in June, 1879. Mr. Powers
+ never carried it from the expedition. Mr. Wyckoff was the only man who did
+ that, and Mr. Wyckoff was not called. Consequently there was no evidence
+ as to the number of men and horses used on either schedule. That left the
+ gentleman without a standard and without a measure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventeenth point. On page 4820 Mr. Bliss says that on the Silverton and
+ Parrott City route the oath was made for seven trips a week on the present
+ schedule, when it ought to have been two trips on the old schedule and
+ seven trips for the new schedule. As there is no evidence as to the number
+ of men and horses used on the old schedule, of course there is no evidence
+ in this record to impeach that oath; you cannot find it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eighteenth point. On page 4822 Mr. Bliss states that after the passage of
+ the act of April 7, 1880, there were two increases upon the White River
+ route. The fact is there was just one after the passage of that law. Of
+ course a little mistake like that does not make much difference in a case
+ of this magnitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nineteenth point. On page 4824 Mr. Bliss states that Raton was put on the
+ Trinidad route April 24, 1879 (Page 1031 ). The office was embraced on the
+ routes July 1, 1878. The first order in reference to it was made June 6,
+ 1878. It was put on the route from July 1, 1878, increasing the distance
+ twenty-three miles. Yet Mr. Bliss tells you that it was put on the route
+ April 24, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Is not that the date of the order?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. It may have been the date of your order.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Is not that the date of the order in the case?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I do not know anything about that. I give you the exact
+ facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twentieth point. On page 4825, Mr. Bliss, in speaking of the Ojo Caliente
+ route, charges that by the order increasing the trips on this route in
+ February, 1881, there was paid from the Treasury illegally two thousand
+ and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. As a matter of fact had we been
+ paid for that entire quarter it would have amounted to seven thousand one
+ hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one cents. The pay was not
+ adjusted until April 22&lt; 1881 (page 731). The amount that was then paid
+ was not seven thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one
+ cents, but it was three thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars
+ and twenty-two cents. It was not for the entire quarter, but simply for
+ the actual service rendered. The quarterly pay for the preceding quarter,
+ before the expedition, was three thousand three hundred and fifty-eight
+ dollars and twenty-six cents; showing that we received only for that
+ quarter an excess, on account of expedition, of three hundred and
+ sixty-eight dollars and ninety-six cents. But he told you that we got
+ illegally two thousand and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. That is a
+ small matter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-first point. On page 4897, Mr. Bliss says in effect that Dorsey
+ undertook to state that he kept no books; that he was doing a business
+ amounting, I think he says, to six million dollars a year, and yet he kept
+ no books. On the contrary, Dorsey swore that he did keep books; on the
+ contrary, he swore that Kellogg was his book-keeper. Kellogg swore that he
+ did keep the books. Torrey swore that he was his book-keeper, and kept the
+ books. And yet Mr. Bliss stood up before this jury and said to you that
+ Mr. Dorsey wanted you to believe, or stated that he kept no hooks of that
+ immense business. It will not do. No books but the red books, I suppose,
+ were kept.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-second point. At page 4883, Mr. Bliss says that in regard to one of
+ Vaile and Miner's routes (Canyon City to Fort McDermitt) there were large
+ profits, amounting to twenty thousand dollars a year. Then he says eighty
+ thousand dollars during the four years. And yet Mr. Bliss knew at that
+ time that that expedition lasted only eleven months. Trying to fool the
+ jury about sixty-two thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-third point. On page 4815 Mr. Bliss states that the fines on the
+ Bismarck and Tongue River route, during Brady's administration, were only
+ thirteen thousand dollars. If you will look at page 727 of this record,
+ where the table is put in evidence as to the fines, you will find that he
+ deducted from the pay twenty-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-four
+ dollars. Mr. Bliss made a mistake of sixteen thousand two hundred and
+ twenty-four dollars. But in a case like this that is not important.
+ Gentlemen, you know you cannot always be accurate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss is an accurate man, as a rule. He has been called the index of
+ this business for the Government. Twenty-fourth point. On page 4987 Mr.
+ Bliss says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The one fact of the evidence of the payment of money by Dorsey to Brady
+ remains the same whether the books were put out of the way by Dorsey or by
+ Rerdell. That is the great central point, so far as the books were
+ concerned; and as to that the testimony is absolutely uncontradicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Brady swears that Dorsey never gave him a dollar. Dorsey swears that
+ he never had a money transaction with Brady amounting to one cent. Mr.
+ Rerdell does not pretend to swear that he knows of Mr. Dorsey having paid
+ a dollar to Mr. Brady. He does not pretend to swear that he knows of any
+ one of these defendants having paid one dollar to Mr. Brady. And yet Mr.
+ Bliss will tell you that the fact that Dorsey paid Brady money is
+ uncontradicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I did not intend that, Colonel Ingersoll. I do not think it is
+ capable of that interpretation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. What did you mean?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. As to the statement being in the books it is uncontradicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Let me see. He now turns and says he did not mean the
+ money, he meant the books. The evidence is overwhelming on our side that
+ the books did not exist. When you deny the existence of the book I take it
+ you deny the existence of any item in it. It is a question whether any
+ such books ever existed, gentlemen. Rerdell swore in the affidavit of June
+ 20, 1881, and he swore to that affidavit three times hand-running, that no
+ such books existed. He swore substantially the same thing on the 13th of
+ July, 1882. He told Mr. French that no such books ever existed. He told
+ Judge Carpenter that no such books ever existed. He stated to Bosler that
+ no such books ever existed. And now this gentleman says the evidence is
+ uncontradicted that Brady was charged in those books. That is a good deal
+ worse than the other. Let us go on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-fifth point. At page 4962 Mr Bliss says that Mr. Dorsey, according
+ to his own statement&mdash;Had brought Rerdell up and led him to infamy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did Dorsey make any such statement? Did Mr. Dorsey, gentlemen, in your
+ presence, swear that he had brought Rerdell up? Did he, in your presence,
+ swear that he had led him to infamy? Did he, in your presence, swear that
+ he had done anything of the kind? I have got the exact words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who, according to his own statement, he, Dorsey, had brought up, had led
+ to infamy, and who, according to his own statement, had stated that
+ MacVeagh had told a lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A curious use of the English language. I believe it is in that connection,
+ though, that he speaks about Mr. Dorsey having the impudence to go to the
+ President of the United States. That is not a very impudent proceeding. In
+ this country a President is not so far above the citizen. In this country
+ we have not gotten to the sublimity of snobbery that a citizen cannot give
+ his opinion to the President; especially a citizen who did all he could to
+ make him President; especially a citizen in whom he had confidence. Not
+ much impudence in that. I do not think that during the campaign General
+ Garfield would have regarded it impudent on the part of Mr. Dorsey to
+ speak to him. I do not believe in a man, the moment he is elected
+ President, feeding upon meat that makes him so great that the man who
+ helped put him there cannot approach him, and every man who voted for him
+ helped to put him there. I am a believer in the doctrine that the
+ President is a servant of the people. I have not yet reached that other
+ refinement of snobbery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. In point of fact, Colonel Ingersoll, I made no such statement.
+ Now let me read the passage on the very page you refer to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Patched up the affidavit of Mr. Rerdell, addressed it to the President,
+ admittedly went to the President with it, and then had the impudence to
+ come here and malign the character of General Garfield by saying that upon
+ that affidavit of an accused man, instead of seeking a trial, he would
+ have removed two members of his Cabinet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I meant nothing about the impudence of going to the President.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. He had the impudence then to come here and malign Garfield
+ by saying that upon that statement he would have turned out two members of
+ his Cabinet. That is Mr. Bliss's idea of impudence; and yet, upon the
+ testimony of the same man, he wants to put five men in the penitentiary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Not upon the sole testimony, I suppose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Not upon the soulless testimony. Now, I think that Mr.
+ Dorsey had a right to go and see Mr. Garfield. I think he had a right to
+ take that affidavit with him. General Garfield was told what this man had
+ said concerning Mr. Dorsey. He had the right to take that affidavit of
+ that man with him so that General Garfield, or the then Attorney-General
+ rather, might know how much confidence to put in the statement of that
+ man. He had a right to do that. If he found in this way that his
+ Attorney-General and his Postmaster-General were seeking to have a man
+ convicted by means not entirely honorable, then it was not only his
+ privilege, but it was his duty to discharge them from his Cabinet. But I
+ am not saying anything in regard to them now, because they are not here to
+ defend themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I want to correct myself. Further down on that page I see I did
+ refer to the impudence of this man going to Garfield.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Well, as Mr. Bliss has been fair enough to state it, I will
+ not follow up my advantage. On another page Mr. Bliss says that the idea
+ that Mr. Vaile did what he did for Miner out of any sympathy is "too
+ thin." Mr. Bliss cannot believe that Vaile became Miner's friend so
+ suddenly, but he thinks it highly probable that they conspired instantly.
+ That is his view of human nature. Friendship is of slow growth; conspiracy
+ is a hot-house plant. Gentlemen, is that your view of human nature, that a
+ man cannot become the friend of another suddenly? Whenever he does become
+ his friend the friendship has to be formed suddenly, does it not? There is
+ a first time to everything. A moment before it did not exist; a moment
+ afterwards it is dead very suddenly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a boy came to town one morning and met an old friend. The old
+ friend asked the boy, "How is your father?" He says, "Pretty well, for
+ him." "How is your mother?" "Pretty well, for her." "Well, how is your
+ grandmother?" "She is dead." "Well," says the old man, "she must have died
+ suddenly." "Well," said the boy, "pretty sudden, for her."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whenever one man becomes the friend of another's, a moment before that he
+ was not, and a moment after he was. It must be sudden. But I imagine that
+ there was a friendship sprang up between Vaile and Miner, and I will tell
+ you why. They have been partners ever since. You, gentlemen, have had the
+ same experience a thousand times. It is not necessary to conspire with a
+ man in order to like him. Neither is it necessary to like him to conspire
+ with him. Men have conspired without friendship a thousand times more,
+ probably, than they have formed friendships without conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss says that because Miner failed to produce the power of attorney
+ that Moore swore was given to him when he went West, the jury have a right
+ to infer that instructions to get up false petitions were in writing and
+ were included in that power of attorney. Mr. Moore did not swear to the
+ contents of that power of attorney. Do you think that it is within the
+ realm of probability that a man ever gave a power of attorney to another
+ and inserted in it: "You are hereby authorized to get up false petitions;
+ you are further authorized to have them so written that you can tear them
+ off and paste others on?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "N. B. You will make such contracts with all contractors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "P. S. Don't tell anybody."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was another witness in this case, Mr. Grimes (page 808). Not the one
+ that wore the coat&mdash;All buttoned down before&mdash;but Mr. Grimes,
+ postmaster at Kearney. He came all the way here to swear that he stopped
+ using mail bills on the route from Kearney to Kent because he was so
+ ordered by a letter from the Post-Office Department. Then it was
+ discovered that he did not have the letter with him; he went home to get
+ the letter, but he never came back any more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We introduced Spangler (page 341) from the inspection division of the
+ Post-Office Department; I think he was in charge of that division. He
+ swore, as a matter of fact, that there never were any mail bills on that
+ route at all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. He was in charge of the mail bills on that route.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. The mail bills on that particular route. That man Grimes
+ was brought clear here to prove that he stopped using mail bills, and then
+ we proved that there never were any mail bills used on that route for him
+ to stop using. I do not suppose that that man was dishonest. These people
+ just got around him and talked to him until he "remembered it." They just
+ planted the seed in his mind, and then came the dew and the rain and the
+ lightning until it began to sprout and in time blossomed and bore fruit&mdash;mail
+ bills. When we come to find out that there never were any mail bills used,
+ away went Mr. Grimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4969 Mr. Bliss says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have not, up to this moment, dared to state under oath, I think, that
+ those books are not in their possession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 3784 Dorsey swears that he never received any such books. Never
+ saw any such books. He swore again and again that he never heard of any
+ such books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I stated distinctly that the defendants had not stated that in
+ the form required to excuse them from the production. I stated that
+ distinctly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. All right; away goes that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4983 Mr. Bliss says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not an absurdity to suppose that Dorsey would leave Rerdell in
+ charge of his business from July, 1879, to August, 1880, and then on from
+ that time until the close of the contract term in August, 1882; leave all
+ the business in that way, and then through Bosler settle the accounts with
+ Mr. Rerdell and have no knowledge in any way, not only of the entries
+ contained in the books which Rerdell kept, but have no knowledge that he
+ kept any books whatever? Is it not absurd to suppose any such thing? These
+ ten routes represented an income of two hundred and fifty-odd thousand
+ dollars a year, or a total business, including income and outgo, of five
+ hundred thousand dollars a year, for three years, going no further than
+ that. These ten routes alone represented transactions amounting to half a
+ million dollars a year. There were one hundred and thirty routes and Mr.
+ Dorsey took one-third in value if not in number. If the value was the
+ same, Mr. Dorsey took not less than forty routes. As ten routes involved a
+ business of one million five hundred thousand dollars in that period, the
+ forty routes involved in that proportion transactions amounting to six
+ million dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You made a calculation on the supposition that all the routes were
+ expedited the same as those in the indictment, and when you made that
+ calculation you knew they were not expedited.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I object, your Honor, to his making any such statement as that.
+ In the first place, it is not evidence; and in the second place, which is
+ of more importance, it is not true. I did not know any such thing, and I
+ do not know any such thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Do you say now that the other routes of his, to the number
+ you talked of, were expedited?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I am not on the stand to be cross-examined now. But I do say to
+ your Honor that there is no evidence of that in this case. And then I go
+ beyond that, and say that I did not know those things then and I do not
+ know them now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Very well; he made the argument on the supposition that all
+ the routes were expedited. I say that not one of them was expedited in
+ which Mr. Dorsey had an interest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. There is no evidence on that subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Is there any evidence of what you say?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I put a supposititious case; you have stated a fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I will put another supposititious case, and mine is that
+ the other routes were not expedited.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. That is the right way to meet it. Counsel ought not to turn to
+ counsel on the other side and make an appeal to his knowledge in regard to
+ matters not in evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I know, but he said he did not know it. Then I asked him,
+ as a matter of fact, if he did not know&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. [Interposing.] He stated his supposition, and you met that
+ supposition&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Interposing.] I am always glad to get information. Now,
+ then, I will go to another point, and that is the $7,500 check. Mr. Bliss
+ speaks of that check at page 4997, and he says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a question raised as to whether it was drawn in Mr. Rerdell's
+ presence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think there was. How could such a question be raised, gentlemen?
+ The check was made payable to M. C. Rerdell, or his order. On the back of
+ the check is Mr. Rerdell's name, put there by himself. He is the only
+ indorser. And yet Mr. Bliss tells you that there is a question raised as
+ to whether the money was drawn in Mr. Rerdell's presence or not. The check
+ shows, and the evidence is absolutely perfect, that the money was paid to
+ Rerdell in person. The question is this: Whether it was drawn in Mr.
+ Rerdell's presence. If it was paid to him in person, I imagine that he was
+ in that neighborhood at that time. The check was written by him,
+ everything except the signature of Dorsey. It was drawn to Mr. Rerdell, or
+ order, and indorsed by Rerdell himself. There was no other indorser. So
+ that it is absolutely certain that he drew the money in question. And yet
+ Mr. Bliss says the question is whether it was drawn in Rerdell's presence
+ or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss continues and states that the money went to S. W. Dorsey. Did
+ it? Mr. Dorsey, on page 3965, states the circumstances. He was packing to
+ go away. He had not the time to go to the bank himself. He had the check
+ written payable to Mr. Rerdell, or order, and he signed it. Rerdell went
+ to the bank, got the money, brought it back and put it in his carpet-sack.
+ That is the testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Mr. Bliss says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No evidence was given as to what Stephen W. Dorsey was wanting just at
+ that time with seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Mr. Rerdell, he wanted that money to give to Mr. Brady. That
+ is what Mr. Rerdell intended to swear. But when he found that that check
+ was made payable to him, and indorsed by him, then they had to take
+ another tack. They dare not say then, "That is the check." They dare not
+ say then, "That is the money." Rerdell had forgotten at the time he swore
+ that that check was payable to his order. When he told his seven thousand
+ dollar story to MacVeagh he forgot about that check. When he told it to
+ the Postmaster-General, if he did&mdash;I have forgotten whether he did or
+ not&mdash;he forgot about that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I will call your attention to the part to which I really
+ wish to direct your attention. It is an admission by the Government, an
+ admission by Colonel Bliss; it is in these words, on page 4997, speaking
+ of this very thing:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ However that may be, they themselves put in a check here for seven
+ thousand five hundred dollars, drawn about the time Mr. Rerdell spoke of,
+ the money upon which admittedly went to Stephen W. Dorsey, though there is
+ a question raised as to whether it was drawn in Mr. Rerdell's presence or
+ whether it was not drawn by him. But the money went to Stephen W. Dorsey,
+ and there was a promise made to show you what was done with that seven
+ thousand five hundred dollars. But, like many another promise in this
+ case, it remains unfulfilled to-day. No evidence was given as to what
+ Stephen W. Dorsey was wanting just at that time with seven thousand five
+ hundred dollars in bills.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Dorsey offered to tell you what he did with it, and you said you did
+ not want it; you did not want to know when he was on the stand. He offered
+ to tell you what he did with the money, and you would not take his
+ statement. Hear what he says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Dorsey was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills to
+ the West.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do you know? Who ever told Mr. Bliss that he was not taking seven
+ thousand five hundred dollars to the West? He must have got that from Mr.
+ Rerdell. May be that is the reason they would not allow Dorsey to tell,
+ because before that time they had been informed that he would swear that
+ he took the seven thousand five hundred dollars to the West. How else did
+ Mr. Bliss find this out?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not in the evidence, not a line. Somebody must have told him. Who
+ could have told him? Nobody, I think, except Mr. Rerdell. Is it possible,
+ then, that Mr. Bliss was afraid that Mr. Dorsey would swear that he took
+ it West? And was he afraid also that you would believe it? I do not know.
+ He did not want him to state. Now here is what I want to call your
+ attention to:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all the talk about that evidence, all the talk about the seven
+ thousand dollars, all the talk about the seven thousand five hundred
+ dollar check, Mr. Bliss at least, admits to this jury:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course all that transaction might have occurred precisely as Mr.
+ Rerdell testified, and there might have involved no corruption on Mr.
+ Brady's part.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, then, it may have occurred exactly as Rerdell swore, and involved no
+ corruption, certainly it might have occurred as Mr. S. W. Dorsey swore and
+ involved no corruption. I will go on now with a little more from Mr.
+ Bliss:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The drawing of the money and going to Mr. Brady's room might have been a
+ mere accident, as a call there to attend to some other business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, that is reasonable. I might go the bank and draw five thousand
+ dollars, and then I might stop in the Treasury Department, but that is no
+ evidence that I am bribing the Secretary of the Treasury. I might step
+ over to see the President; that would be no reason to believe that I
+ bribed the Executive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course that is not conclusive. It is only a little straw in this case,
+ as showing a transaction of that kind involved in connection with all the
+ evidence you have in this case&mdash;A little straw evidence of Mr.
+ Brady's acts, and particularly as at the time when that occurs evidence in
+ connection with the large increases which Mr. Brady was then ordering;
+ evidence in connection with the books, and the evidence they bear;
+ evidence in connection with the declarations of Brady to Walsh&mdash;evidence
+ all consistent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then he adds this piece of gratuitous information:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Dorsey was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills to
+ the West.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How does he know? How did he find that out? And has it come to, this? Has
+ all the testimony upon that point&mdash;has the confession of Rerdell to
+ MacVeagh and James shrunk to this little measure&mdash;that it is "only a
+ straw"? Has it shrunk to this measure that Mr. Bliss admits that the whole
+ thing might have been exactly as Rerdell swears, and yet have been
+ perfectly innocent? Has it shrunk to this little measure? The Government
+ would not tell us&mdash;I presume the Government will not tell us, what
+ check it was, the proceeds of which were taken by Mr. Dorsey to Mr. Brady.
+ Neither will they say whether that sum was made up in one check or by
+ adding together a number of checks; and, if so, what number?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 295 Mr. Bliss told you, in his opening speech, that Rerdell had on
+ one occasion gone with Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey to the bank, and that seven
+ thousand dollars had been drawn; that he had gone with Dorsey to the door
+ of the Post-Office Department, or to Brady's room, at the time&mdash;he
+ would not undertake to say which&mdash;Mr. Dorsey stating to him that he
+ intended to pay that money to Mr. Brady, and that he (Mr. Dorsey) then
+ went in. But when they come to put this man on the stand he will not swear
+ that Dorsey ever told him that he intended to pay the money to Brady.
+ Probably that part of the statement, that Dorsey told him that he was
+ going to pay that money to Brady, can be found in the affidavit made
+ before Mr. Woodward, in September, and repeated in the affidavit made at
+ Hartford in November. But it is not in evidence here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we brought all the checks that we had given on Middleton's bank, with
+ the exception of two, I believe, that amounted to some hundred and odd
+ dollars. We gave the Government counsel notice that there were two others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among those checks was this one for seven thousand five hundred dollars.
+ There were many others. I asked the gentlemen to pick out their check;
+ they would not do it. I asked the gentlemen to pick out the checks; they
+ did not do it. And now if we had failed to produce checks that were
+ important in this case, the Government could have produced the books and
+ clerks of Middleton &amp; Company, and shown exactly the checks we drew
+ upon that bank that month. They did not do it. As a matter of fact, I
+ offered all the checks on all the banks I could think of that we had any
+ business with in any way, except one, and that turned out to be the
+ German-American Savings Bank, and it turned out that that went into
+ bankruptcy eight months before this business; so there is no trouble about
+ that. Why did they not pick out the checks upon which they claimed that
+ the money was drawn that was paid to Brady?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Rerdell, on page 2254, in speaking of the money, swore that money was
+ charged to Brady on the stub. He says that Dorsey told him, "You will find
+ the amount on the stub of the check-book." The jury will notice that he
+ speaks of the "amount," the "stub," and the "book," all in the singular.
+ That was followed, I believe, by about six pages of discussion, and
+ everybody who took part in that discussion, the Court included, spoke of
+ the sum of money as an "amount," upon a "stub," in a "checkbook."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I call attention to 2254-'55-'56-'57-'58-'59. On all those pages it is
+ spoken of as a stub of a check-book, or amount on a stub in a check-book.
+ After the discussion was closed, then the witness began to talk about
+ "books," "checks," "stubs," and "amounts." Why did he do that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His object was to get the evidence broad enough&mdash;checks and
+ check-books enough&mdash;to fit their notice, to the end that they might
+ get possession of all the check-books, and of all the amounts on all the
+ stubs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? The discussion convinced Mr. Rerdell that it would be far safer
+ to say "stubs" than "stub"; that it would be far better to say
+ "check-books" than "checkbook," and far better to say "amounts" than
+ "amount"; because he would have a better chance in adding these up so as
+ to make six thousand five hundred dollars, or seven thousand dollars, or
+ six thousand dollars, than to be brought down to one check, one amount,
+ and one stub-book. So he went off into the region of safety, into the
+ domain of the plural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the last point&mdash;at least for this evening&mdash;so far as Mr.
+ Bliss is concerned, I believe, is about the red books. Mr. Bliss tells you
+ that Mrs. Cushman was telegraphed to from the far West. There was a little
+ anxiety, I believe, on the part of Rerdell about the book, and he
+ telegraphed her. She found it there in the wood-shed, you know, hanging
+ up, I think, in the old family carpet-sack&mdash;I have forgotten where
+ she found it&mdash;and she put it away. Now, there is a question I want to
+ ask here, and I know that Mr. Merrick when he closes will answer it to his
+ entire satisfaction; I do not know whether he will to yours or to mine:
+ How does it happen that Mrs. Rerdell never saw that red book? How does it
+ happen that Mrs. Rerdell, when she was put on the stand, never mentioned
+ that red book? How does it happen that she never heard of it when her
+ husband went to New York to get it; when everything he had in the world,
+ according to his idea, was depending upon it; when it was his
+ sheet-anchor; when it was the corner-stone of his safety? And yet his wife
+ never heard of it, never saw it, did not know it was in the wood-shed,
+ slept in that house night after night and did not even dream that her
+ husband's safety depended on any book in a carpet-sack hanging in the
+ wood-shed. She never said a word about it on the stand, not a word.
+ Gentlemen, nobody can answer that question except by admitting that the
+ book was not there and did not exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But perhaps I have said enough about the speeches of Mr. Ker and Mr.
+ Bliss. Of course, their business is to do what they can to convict. I do
+ not know that I ought to take up much more time with them. I feel a good
+ deal as that man did in Pennsylvania who was offered one-quarter of a
+ field of wheat if he would harvest it. He went out and looked at it.
+ "Well," he says, "I don't believe I will do it." The owner says, "Why?"
+ "Well," he says, "there is a good deal of straw, and I don't think there
+ is wheat enough to make a quarter."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So now, gentlemen, if the Court will permit, I would like to adjourn till
+ to-morrow morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, the next witness to whose testimony I will invite your
+ attention is Mr. Boone. Mr. Boone was relied upon by the Government to
+ show that this conspiracy was born in the brain of Mr. Dorsey; that these
+ other men were simply tools and instrumentalities directed by him; that he
+ was the man who devised this scheme to defraud the Government, and that it
+ was Dorsey who suggested the fraudulent subcontracts. They brought Mr.
+ Boone upon the stand for that purpose, and I do not think it is improper
+ for me to say that Mr. Boone was swearing under great pressure. It is
+ disclosed by his own testimony that he had eleven hundred routes, and that
+ he had been declared a failing contractor by the department; and it also
+ appeared in evidence that he had been indicted some seven or eight times.
+ Gentlemen, that man was swearing under great pressure. I told you once
+ before that the hand of the Government had him clutched by the throat, and
+ the Government relied upon his testimony to show how this conspiracy
+ originated. Now I propose to call your attention to the evidence of Mr.
+ Boone upon this subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 1352 Mr. Boone swears substantially that on his first meeting with
+ Stephen W. Dorsey&mdash;that is, after they met at the house&mdash;he said
+ to Dorsey that he (Boone) would be satisfied with a one-third interest.
+ Now, the testimony of Boone is that Mr. Dorsey then and there agreed that
+ he might have the one-third interest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Dorsey says it is not that way; that he told him that when the others
+ came they would probably give him that interest, or something to that
+ effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Boone further swears that when J. W. Dorsey did come there was a
+ contract&mdash;or articles of agreement you may call them&mdash;handed to
+ him by J. R. Miner, purporting to be articles of partnership between John
+ W. Dorsey and himself, and that he signed these articles; that that, I
+ believe, was on the 15th of January, 1878, and that it was by virtue of
+ that agreement that he had one-third. It was not by virtue of any talk he
+ had with S. W. Dorsey that he got an interest, and you will see how
+ perfectly that harmonizes with the statement of Stephen W. Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Dorsey's statement is: "I cannot make the bargain with you, but when
+ John W. Dorsey comes I think he will, or they will." It turned out that
+ when John W. Dorsey did come in January he did enter into articles of
+ partnership with A. E. Boone, and did give him the one-third interest. So
+ the fact stands out that he got the one-third interest from John W. Dorsey
+ and not from Stephen W. Dorsey. If the paper had been written and signed
+ by Stephen W. Dorsey that would uphold the testimony of Boone. If Boone
+ had said, "I made the bargain with Stephen W. Dorsey," and the articles of
+ co-partnership were signed by him, I submit that that would have been a
+ perfect corroboration of Boone. Stephen W. Dorsey swears that the bargain
+ was made with John W. Dorsey, and you find that the agreement was signed
+ by John W. Dorsey, and not by Stephen W. Dorsey. I submit, therefore, that
+ that is a perfect corroboration of the testimony of Stephen W. Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 1544 Mr. Boone says that, as a matter of fact, all contractors
+ endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all other contractors.
+ Think of the talk we have heard about secrecy. If the bidders upon any of
+ these routes did not want the whole world to know the amount they had bid,
+ that secrecy was tortured into evidence of a criminal conspiracy. If John
+ W. Dorsey did not want the world to know what he was doing, if Mr. Boone
+ wanted to keep a secret, these gentlemen say it is because they were
+ engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the Government, and crime loves the
+ darkness. What does Mr. Boone say? As a matter of fact, that all
+ contractors endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all other
+ contractors where they feared rivalry. Of course that is human nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Boone further says that he never knew of one contractor admitting even
+ that he was going to bid. He always pretended, don't you see, that he was
+ not going to bid. He wanted to throw the other contractors off their
+ guard. He did not want them to imagine that he was figuring upon that same
+ route, because if they thought he was, they might put in a much lower bid.
+ He wanted them to feel secure, so that they would put in a good high bid,
+ and then if he put in a tolerably low bid he would get the route. That is
+ simply human nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Boone further says that always when a letting came on he had his bids in;
+ that contractors keep their bids secret from rival contractors, not for
+ the purpose of defrauding the Government, but for the purpose of taking
+ care of their business. Now, gentlemen, when men make these proposals and
+ keep their business secret&mdash;as it turns out that in these cases they
+ were keeping their business secret&mdash;the fact that they are so doing
+ is not evidence going to show that they are keeping that business secret
+ because they have conspired. Have you not the right to draw the inference,
+ and is it not the law that you must draw the inference, that they kept
+ their business secret for the same reason that all honest men keep their
+ business secret?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 1545, Mr. Boone, swearing again about his talk with Mr. Dorsey
+ that night after the arrangement was concluded, says that he&mdash;Dorsey&mdash;told
+ me to be careful of Elkins, because Elkins was representing Roots &amp;
+ Kerens, large contractors, * * * the largest in the department, at that
+ time, in the Southwest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet that evidence has been alluded to as having in it the touch and
+ taint of crime, because S. W. Dorsey said to Boone to say nothing to
+ Elkins. Who was Elkins? He, at that time, as appears from the evidence,
+ was the attorney of Roots &amp; Kerens; and who were they? Among the
+ largest, if not the largest contractors in the department; that is, the
+ largest in the Southwest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Boone stated that the letter of Peck to S. W. Dorsey requested him to
+ get some man who knew the business to look after the bids or proposals.
+ Now, I want to ask you, gentlemen, and I want you to answer it like
+ sensible men, if Stephen W. Dorsey got up a conspiracy himself, why was it
+ that Peck wrote to him asking him to get some competent man to collect the
+ information about the bids&mdash;that is, about the country, about the
+ routes, about the cost of living, about wages, the condition of the roads,
+ and the topography of the country?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it was hatched in the brain of Stephen W. Dorsey, how is it possible,
+ gentlemen, that a letter was written to him by Peck asking him to get a
+ competent man to gather that information? Mr. Boone swears that he had
+ such a letter. Mr. Boone swears that Dorsey showed the letter to him. Mr.
+ Boone swears that, in consequence of that letter, he went to work to
+ gather this information. Did Mr. Dorsey do anything about gathering
+ information? Nothing. Did he give any advice? None. Did he ask any
+ questions? Not one. Did he interfere with Mr. Boone in the business?
+ Never.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know that was a very suspicious circumstance. I believe there was a
+ direction given that letters be sent to James H. Kepuer. That was another
+ suspicious circumstance. Mr. Boone swears that he was also in the mail
+ business; that he did not want the letters to go some place; that he had
+ to give at the department an address; that thereupon he chose the name of
+ James H. Kepner, his step-son, so that all the mail in regard to this
+ particular business would go in one box, and not be mingled with the mail
+ in reference to his individual business or the business represented by the
+ firm to which he belonged. What more does he swear? That neither Dorsey
+ nor any one of these defendants ever suggested that name, or ever
+ suggested that any such change be made; that it was made only as a matter
+ of convenience; that it was not intended to and could not in any way
+ defraud the Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Mr. Boone has cleared up a little of this. He has cleared up the
+ letter; he has cleared up the charge of secrecy; he has cleared up the
+ charge that we had the letters addressed to James H. Kepner &amp; Co.; he
+ has shown that everything done so far was perfectly natural, perfectly
+ innocent, and in accordance with the habits of men engaged in that
+ business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I come to the next thing (page 1550). The next great circumstance in
+ this case, the great suspicious circumstance, was that the amount of the
+ bid was left blank in the proposals. The moment they saw those blanks in
+ the bids they knew then that the Government was to be defrauded, and they
+ brought Mr. Boone here for the purpose of showing that that was done to
+ lay the foundation for a fraud. What does Boone swear? He swears that he
+ always left that part of the proposal blank; always had done so; had been
+ engaged in the mail business for years, and never filled that blank up in
+ his life, in which the amount of the bid should be inserted. It was not
+ left blank to defraud the Government, but to prevent the postmasters and
+ sureties, or any other persons, finding out the amount of the bid. Away
+ goes that suspicious circumstance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the bids had been properly executed and came back into the hands of
+ the contractors, from the time the figures were put into those routes,
+ what does he say they did?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We slept with them until we could get them to the department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He says they never allowed anybody to see them after the amount of the bid
+ had been inserted; that they would not allow anybody to see the amount of
+ the bids; that it was left out, however, only for self-protection, and for
+ no other reason. That is the Government's own witness. He is the man they
+ brought to show that this blank in the bid was a suspicious circumstance.
+ He is the man they brought here to show that because Stephen W. Dorsey had
+ told him to say nothing to Elkins, that injunction of secrecy was evidence
+ of a conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 1552, Mr. Boone, in speaking of these same things, says that
+ however they were made, whether the name of the bidder or the route was
+ put in, or whatever he did&mdash;that is, Boone&mdash;he did not do it for
+ the purpose of defrauding the Government. They say to him, "Don't you know
+ that you left out not only the amount of the bid, but the name of the
+ bidder?" He says, "Whatever I did, whether I left out the amount of the
+ bid or the name of the bidder, I did not do it for the purpose of
+ defrauding the Government; I had no such idea, no idea of defrauding the
+ Government by leaving any blank or any blanks." He did the work. Stephen
+ W. Dorsey left no blank; A. E. Boone left every blank; and yet they
+ brought him forward to prove that that was the result of a conspiracy; and
+ after he comes upon the stand he swears, "I left those blanks myself; I
+ always left them in proposals exactly in that way; and whether I left out
+ the amount of the bid or the name of the bidder, I did not do it to
+ defraud the Government; I did it simply to protect myself, as I had the
+ right to do." So much for that. That is gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, speaking of these other proposals (the Clendenning proposals) what
+ does Mr. Boone say&mdash;the witness for the Government, the very man who
+ got up those proposals, the man who wrote them, the man who wrapped them
+ up, and sealed them? What does he say? "Those proposals were not gotten up
+ for the purpose of defrauding the Government; I did not send them to
+ Clendenning for that purpose." That is the end of that. No conspiracy
+ there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The object, don't you see, gentlemen, was to show by Boone that he acted
+ under the direction of Dorsey; that Dorsey was responsible for everything
+ that Boone did; and that although Boone was guilty of no crime in leaving
+ the bid blank, still if he did it by authority of Dorsey, Dorsey had an
+ ulterior motive of which Boone was ignorant. Let us see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At page 1554, Mr. Boone swears that Dorsey never told him at any time or
+ any place that he wanted any blanks left. And yet they were endeavoring by
+ that witness to saddle that upon S. W. Dorsey. But that witness swears
+ that Dorsey never even told him that he wanted any blanks left in any
+ paper, proposal, bid, or bond. He says that Dorsey never at any time or
+ place told him (Boone) that he (Dorsey) wanted any blanks left, or any
+ proposals of any particular form printed, to the end that a fraud might be
+ perpetrated upon the Government&mdash;not a word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, gentlemen, I am now in that space of time where they say this
+ conspiracy was born. At page 1567, before Miner got here, Mr. Boone swears
+ that Dorsey told him that he would advance money for the other defendants,
+ and Mr. Boone swears that after he got here he never asked Dorsey for a
+ dollar except through Miner; that Dorsey never gave a dollar except
+ through Miner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? This is the witness that is going to establish the guilt of
+ Stephen W. Dorsey. Stephen W. Dorsey never told Boone at any time that he
+ had any interest whatever in those mail routes. Boone never heard of it.
+ Dorsey never told him to print a proposal with a blank; never told him to
+ leave a blank after it was printed; never told him to do anything for the
+ purpose of defrauding the Government in any way at any time. This is
+ extremely good reading, gentlemen, when you take into consideration that
+ this is the witness of the Government, their main prop until the paragon
+ of virtue made his appearance upon the stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Page 1558. Another great point: That in preparing the subcontracts, Dorsey
+ having it in his mind to conspire against the Government, or really having
+ conspired, according to their story, wanted a provision in a subcontract
+ for increase and expedition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, it strikes me, gentlemen, that that is evidence of honesty rather
+ than dishonesty. If these subcontracts were to hold good during the
+ contract term, and if in the contract given to the contractor by the
+ Government there was a clause for increase and expedition, why should not
+ the subcontract provide for the same contingencies that the contract
+ provided for with the Government? That looks honest, doesn't it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was advertising the subcontractor that the moment he signed his
+ subcontract the trips were liable to be increased and the time was liable
+ to be shortened, and that if the time was shortened or the trips increased
+ the pay was to be correspondingly increased. But I will go on with the
+ testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Page 1558: In preparing the subcontract Mr. Dorsey instructed Boone to
+ provide for an expedition clause. That was a suspicious circumstance. What
+ for? To conform to the expedition clause in the contract with the
+ Government. If making it like the Government contract is evidence of
+ conspiracy, the fact that the Government contracts have that clause is
+ evidence that the Government conspired with somebody. It is just as good
+ one way as the other. The Government made a contract with the contractor,
+ the contractor made one with the subcontractor, and the contractor so far
+ forgot his duties, so far forgot his moral obligations, that he made it
+ just the same as his contract with the Government. Gentlemen, is there any
+ depth of depravity below that? Absolutely copying the contract that the
+ Government was going to make with him, and treating the subcontractor, so
+ far as the contract was concerned, as the Government had treated him, he
+ (Boone) prepared a clause which he thought filled the bill, and which he
+ still thinks, I believe, would have been better to use than the other.
+ When he showed that to Stephen W. Dorsey, Dorsey suggested another form.
+ It was the same thing exactly, but in different words. There was the
+ testimony I have read to you, and now here is what Mr. Bliss states about
+ it at page 4865:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Stephen W. Dorsey, away back there, knew sufficient about expedition
+ to appreciate the importance of keeping for the contractors thirty-five
+ per cent, and giving to the men who were performing the service only
+ sixty-five per cent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why not? Is that a crime? Suppose I agreed to carry the mail four years
+ for $10,000 a year and I subcontract with another man. Have I not the
+ right to get it carried as cheaply as I can? I just ask you that as a
+ business proposition. Or has every mail to treat this Government as though
+ it was in its dotage? Must you do business with the Government as though
+ you were contracting with an infant or an idiot? Must you look at both
+ sides of the contract? That is the question. The Government, for instance,
+ advertises for so much granite, and I put in a bid which is accepted; at
+ the same time I know that I could furnish that granite for twenty-five per
+ cent. less. Is it my duty under such circumstances to go and notify the
+ Government that I have cheated it, and that I would like to have it put
+ the contract down? There may be heights of morality that would see the
+ propriety of such action, but it is not for every-day wear and tear. Very
+ few people have it; it scarcely ever comes into play in trading horses.
+ Must we treat the Government as though it were imbecile? I say it was a
+ simple business transaction. The Government advertises for proposals to
+ carry the mail; I make my bid for $10,000, and we will say that my bid is
+ accepted. Now, I admit that I could carry it for $5,000 and make money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Am I criminal if I go on and perform the contract as I agreed and draw the
+ money? Or suppose the people along the route do not want it expedited and
+ increased, and so I talk to them about it; I go to Mr. Brown and say, "Mr.
+ Brown, you are living in this smart, thriving town, and you need a daily
+ mail." I go to the next village and I say, "Why, gentlemen, you will never
+ have a town here until you have a daily mail; I am the fellow now carrying
+ the mail." And I keep talking about it, you know, and finally get a fellow
+ to get up a petition, or I write one myself, and send it around, and say
+ to them, "Gentlemen, what you want is more mail, faster mail; the mail is
+ the pioneer of civilization, gentlemen; have a daily mail, and along the
+ line at once towns and villages and cities will spring up, and all the
+ hillsides will be covered with farms, and school-houses will be here, and
+ wealth will be universal." Any crime about that. Every railroad has been
+ built just that way. Every park has been laid out in every city by just
+ such means. Nearly every street that has been improved has been improved
+ in that way, by men who had some interest in the property, by men who were
+ to be benefited by it themselves, and who ought to be benefited. Should
+ the men that get the public attention in that direction be benefited, or
+ the men who do nothing? I say that the men who give attention to the
+ business have a right to be benefited by it. And yet here is the crime,
+ gentlemen. And then we only gave these fellows sixty-five per cent, and
+ took thirty-five ourselves, because we were bound to the Government to
+ fulfill the contract, as was explained to you so admirably, so perfectly,
+ by Judge Wilson. The contract was to run for four years, and I believe in
+ a certain contingency for six months thereafter. We had to carry out the
+ contract, whether the subcontractor carried out his contract with us or
+ not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, this is what Mr. Bliss says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, after a large mass of subcontracts had been struck from the press,
+ which gave to the subcontractors all the increase&mdash;There never was a
+ subcontract that gave to the subcontractors all the increase; there is no
+ evidence that there ever was such a subcontract, he&mdash;That is, Stephen
+ W. Dorsey&mdash;directed them to be put back on the press.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I should think he would. If he found any subcontracts were printed that
+ gave to the subcontractor all the increase, I do not wonder that he had
+ them destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here you get, we will say, a contract for ten thousand dollars for one
+ trip, with the agreement that if there are two trips the compensation
+ shall be twenty thousand dollars. Thereupon you make a contract with a
+ subcontractor, and you agree in that subcontract that he shall have all
+ the increase. Of course, you want that made over again; of course, you
+ would not make that kind of a subcontract.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He directed them to be put back on the press, and this provision giving
+ the subcontractor his money struck out and this other clause put in.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, that is an entire and absolute mistake. There is no such
+ evidence, there never was in this case, and I take it there never will be.
+ The evidence was&mdash;and you remember it; and you remember it; and you
+ remember it; and you [addressing different jurors]&mdash;that Stephen W.
+ Dorsey allowed to the subcontractor sixty-five per cent, of the
+ expedition, and that same subcontractor provided what he should have for
+ one trip, and what he should have for two trips; that is to say, what he
+ should have for increase; and it provided at the same time for sixty-five
+ per cent, on expedition. Mr. Boone swears it; others swear it. Not only
+ that, but it is printed in the record again and again and again. Why did
+ Stephen W. Dorsey do that? I can tell you why: He did not. Why did Stephen
+ W. Dorsey do that, if it was not because his fertile imagination had
+ already conceived the plan of defrauding the United States, and he was
+ making an arrangement by which that fraud could be consummated? How would
+ that help him consummate a fraud? Suppose he struck out all the per cent,
+ to the subcontractors; suppose he had not had any subcontract printed;
+ suppose the subcontract was printed, and printed on purpose to deceive and
+ defraud the subcontractors; how does that show that he was trying to
+ defraud the United States? Why, if it proves anything it proves the other,
+ that he had not entered into a conspiracy by which he could get the money
+ from the United States, but had endeavored to get it from the
+ subcontractors. If it proves anything it proves that. But the reason it
+ does not prove anything is because the statement is not correct.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, just see how a conspiracy can be built of that material. A man that
+ can do that can make a cover for Barnum's Circus with one postage-stamp;
+ he can make a suit of clothes out of a rabbit-skin; he can make a grain of
+ mustard seed cover the whole air without growing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is given as an evidence that Dorsey had conspired. There is not a
+ thing on the earth that he could have done that would not prove conspiracy
+ just as well as that&mdash;just exactly&mdash;no other act. Humph! That is
+ the way they build a conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why not take another step? Why not have a little bit of ordinary good hard
+ sense? On the 17th day of May, I believe, 1878, the act was passed
+ allowing the subcontractor to put his subcontract on file. Now, that
+ contract ought to provide for all the contingencies of the service, so
+ that if the trips were increased the Government would know how much to pay
+ that subcontractor; so that if the time was expedited the Government would
+ know how much to pay the subcontractor. The subcontract ought to have been
+ made in that way, and it would be perfectly proper to make it in that way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I once went to see a friend of mine who had the erysipelas and who was a
+ little crazy. I sat down by his bedside, and he said, "Ingersoll, I have
+ made a discovery; I just tell you I am going to be a millionaire." Said I,
+ "What is it?" He says, "I have found out that if four persons take hold of
+ hands after they have had a hole made in the ground and put a piece of
+ stove-pipe in it, and then run around it as hard as they can from left to
+ right, a ball of butter will come out of the pipe." Now, I think that is
+ about as reasonable as the way conspiracies are made, according to Mr.
+ Bliss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we come to Mr. Boone (page 1560). He says that the action he had
+ taken was upon his own responsibility, and that at no time had any papers
+ been gotten up with any view of defrauding the Government. That was good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am like the Democrat who said, after hearing the returns from Berks
+ County, "That sounds good." Then, here is a question asked him:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. I understood you to say that the contract was made between you and
+ somebody, fixing your interest in all this business?&mdash;A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Do you recollect about the date of that?&mdash;A. I think it is on the
+ day John W. Dorsey got here in Washington.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 1561 he swears that at the time Boone made that contract with John
+ W. Dorsey he and Dorsey had not conspired to defraud the Government in any
+ way, nor did they ever do so after that contract was made. When was that
+ contract made? It was made on the 15th day of January, 1878. Who made it?
+ John W. Dorsey of the one part, and Albert E. Boone of the other. And they
+ tell exactly what that contract was for. Here is the contract, on page
+ 1561, and this shows that the statement of Stephen W. Dorsey, that the
+ matter was deferred until John W Dorsey should come, is absolutely
+ correct:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the parties to this agreement shall share in all the profits, gains,
+ and losses as follows: John W. Dorsey shall have two-thirds and Albert E.
+ Boone, share one-third.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, there was the original partnership agreement. Let us see
+ if that was ever dissolved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next contract was made on the 12th of September, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, therefore, in consideration of one dollar in hand paid, the receipt
+ whereof is hereby acknowledged, I hereby, sell, assign, and transfer to
+ Albert E. Boone all my said two-thirds interest in the routes in the name
+ of said Boone in the States of Texas, Louisiana Arkansas, Kansas, and
+ Nebraska, and in the name of said Dorsey in the States of Texas,
+ Louisiana, and Arkansas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reason he did that was because Mr. Miner had made a contract with
+ Boone to that effect; and probably I had better read that now so that you
+ will have it exactly and know what we are doing. I read from page 1569;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C, August 7, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whereas A. E. Boone has this day, for the purpose of saving a failure in
+ the routes in the name of John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W. Dorsey&mdash;"For
+ the purpose of saving a failure," recollect. Although Stephen W. Dorsey,
+ according to the prosecution, was a conspirator, and although John W.
+ Dorsey was another, and Peck was another, yet on the 7th day of August,
+ 1878, "for the purpose of saving a failure," they made this: assigned to
+ John R. Miner his one-third interest in the routes in their names, now,
+ therefore, I, John R. Miner, agree that John W. Dorsey shall assign his
+ interest in routes in the name of A. E. Boone in Kansas and Nebraska,
+ Texas and Louisiana, and Arkansas; in the name of John W. Dorsey, in
+ Texas, Louisiana, and Kansas. The latter clause not guaranteed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ JOHN R. MINER.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, he said to Mr. Boone, "I have got to have another man come in; we
+ haven't got the money to run these routes; I have got to get somebody with
+ us; if you will go out, I will agree that John W. Dorsey will assign to
+ you his two-thirds interest in all the routes in Kansas, Nebraska, Texas,
+ Louisiana, and Arkansas. I will agree that John W. Dorsey, although he has
+ a two-thirds interest in all these routes, shall assign them to you, A. E.
+ Boone, and they shall thereupon become your property." That agreement was
+ made on the 7th of August, 1878; and then, as I read you before, on the
+ 12th day of September, Miner made that promise good, and John W. Dorsey
+ did assign to Boone his two-thirds interest in all the routes that Miner
+ said he would. Then Boone was out of it. He had no more to do with Miner,
+ Peck &amp; Co., and no more to do with John W. Dorsey; he went his road
+ and they went theirs. He went out in consideration that John W. Dorsey
+ would give him (Boone) two-thirds of all the routes that he before that
+ time had one-third in. Then Miner took in Mr. Vaile, because he had the
+ money to go on with the business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Page 1562, still talking about Mr. Boone. There is another very suspicious
+ circumstance that was brought up by the prosecution. These bids were put
+ in in different names, and that was looked at as a very suspicious
+ circumstance. What does Boone say about that? He says that the object in
+ bidding in separate names was not to defraud the Government, but was to
+ have the service divided up and not to bid against each other. That was
+ reasonable. The arrangement was simply to keep from injuring themselves;
+ it was not made to defraud the Government, but it was made so that they
+ might not by accident injure each other. It was a common thing for members
+ of a firm to bid in that way, and it is a common thing for persons to
+ organize themselves for the purpose of bidding and running contracts, and
+ when they thus bid they always bid in their individual names. The fact
+ that we bid in our individual names was taken as a circumstance going to
+ show that we had conspired to defraud the Government, and a witness they
+ bring forward to prove that fact swears that it has been the custom for
+ all firms to bid in their individual names. Away goes that suspicion. The
+ coat-tail of that point horizontalizes in the dim distance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Page 1563. The point was made, gentlemen, that we bid on long routes with
+ slow time, knowing&mdash;understand, knowing&mdash;that the service would
+ be increased and that the time would be shortened. The only word I object
+ to there is the word "knowing." That we bid on long routes with slow time
+ thinking that the service would be increased and the time shortened was
+ undoubtedly true. That we bid expecting that the service might be
+ increased and the time shortened is undoubtedly true. That when we bid we
+ took into consideration the probability of the service being increased and
+ the time shortened is undoubtedly true. The only difference is the
+ difference between thinking and knowing; between taking into account
+ probabilities and making the bid because we had made a bargain with the
+ Second Assistant Postmaster-General. That is the difference. Let us see
+ what Boone says about it. I read from page 1563:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On all service of three times a week and under there is a chance for
+ improvement in getting it up to six or seven times a week.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody who has ordinary common sense knows that! If I bid on service
+ for once a week there is a great deal better chance for getting an
+ increase of trips than if there were seven when I started. Everybody knows
+ that. There is about six times as good a chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All contractors consider that&mdash;That chance&mdash;in their bids, and
+ bid lower on one, two, and three times a week service than on a daily
+ service&mdash;Why?&mdash;because the chances are the route will be
+ increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Boone swears on the same page that he always did that himself; that he
+ always had done it. Yet that is lugged in here as evidence of a
+ conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a great deal better chance for expedition when a route is let at
+ two or three miles an hour, than when it is let at six or seven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there is. The slower it is let the better chance of getting it
+ expedited. The faster it is let the less chance of getting it expedited.
+ There is no need of bringing a man here to show that. You know that. If
+ you thought there was more money in expedition and increase than on the
+ original schedule, you would, as I insist, bid on such routes as the
+ advertisement showed the time was to be slow and the service infrequent
+ upon. Now, gentlemen, to take advantage of such a perfectly apparent thing
+ as that will not do. You have heard a good deal about star routes,
+ gentlemen. Every one of you by this time ought to make a pretty good
+ guess.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Postmaster-General; every one of you. If you do not know all about this
+ subject, you never will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Foreman (Mr. Crane). We ought to be good lawyers, too.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. You also ought to be good lawyers, at least on this
+ subject! I do not know that you have all the testimony in your minds, as
+ there have been so many misstatements made, but if you ever are to know
+ anything on this subject you know something now; and if you, Mr. Foreman,
+ or you Mr Renshaw, were to-morrow to go to work to bid on some star routes
+ you would bid on the longest routes, on the slowest time, and with the
+ most infrequent trips. You would do that. Then would you say, "That is
+ evidence that we have conspired"? Has a man got to be so stupid that he
+ will not take advantage of a perfectly plain thing in order to escape the
+ charge of conspiracy? If you were to put your money in land in the Western
+ country you would not go where the country was settled up, and give one
+ hundred dollars an acre for land. You would go where you could get laud
+ for two, or three, or four, or five dollars an acre, and say, "There is a
+ chance for land to rise." That is not conspiracy. So if you were going to
+ bid on mail service you would bid where the time is slow, or the route
+ long, and the service once a week. Then you would say that the country
+ might grow, that railroads might be built and that they might get the
+ service up to seven trips a week; and that instead of going on two miles
+ an hour may be they would want to make it seven miles an hour. That is the
+ service to make money on. Is it a crime to make money? Is it a crime to
+ make a good bargain with the Government? I suppose these gentlemen of the
+ prosecution made the best bargain they could with the Government
+ themselves. Is it a crime? I say no. Is a man to be regarded as a
+ conspirator because some outsider thinks he got too good a bargain? That
+ will not do. Boone says he always did that. Of course he did. He says
+ another thing. These gentlemen say that we did not go above three trips,
+ and that is another evidence of fraud. They say we did not bid on any
+ route with more than three trips a week. Mr. Boone tells you, on page
+ 1565, that the department never advertised for four trips a week. That is
+ the reason I think they did not bid on any of these. He also swears that
+ they never advertised for five trips. That is a good reason for our not
+ taking any routes with five trips, is it not? There were not any
+ advertised. The Government did not offer to let us have any. That is a
+ good reason for not taking any of them. The Government had not any of that
+ kind. After you get beyond three trips Boone swears that the next number
+ is six or seven; never four, never five. Don't you see? And yet it is a
+ very suspicious circumstance that we did not bid on any four-trip routes,
+ or any five-trip routes; that we stopped at three. Why did we stop at
+ three? Because if we had not stopped at three we would have had to go to
+ six. Why did we not go to six? Because at six trips a week we would have
+ been obliged to put up too much money, and to put up too many certified
+ checks. It required too many men to go on the bonds. That is the reason.
+ Gentlemen, if there had been a conspiracy it would have been just about as
+ well for us to bid on six or seven trips to get the expedition of time. If
+ there had been a conspiracy to make money, and it had been understood by
+ the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, he could have just as well given
+ us routes with seven trips a week, and put the service up to seven, eight,
+ nine, or ten miles an hour, and he could have done that in the
+ thickly-populated parts of the country; if it had been the result of a
+ conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me read more from what Mr. Boone says on page 1565:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The proposals that I destroyed were upon routes of at least six times per
+ week.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How did he come to destroy them? Another suspicious circumstance against
+ Dorsey! Boone said when he went into the business he just took the
+ bidding-book and commenced at A, and was going right straight through to
+ X, Y, and Z, and make a bid, I believe, on every route that was in the
+ book. I think that is his testimony. Boone says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was going on without instructions. I was going on without authority from
+ anybody, working on the bids.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He thinks it was the same day that Miner got here, or the day afterwards,
+ and he&mdash;I suppose meaning Dorsey&mdash;came up to the room and saw
+ what the witness was doing. He was making up bids for every route in the
+ advertisement, going right along with big and little, when Dorsey said
+ there was a mistake. No proposals were to be made for over three times a
+ week or for routes under fifty miles. When Miner came into the room
+ witness asked what was the reason of that. I say upon this point that
+ Stephen W. Dorsey never said a word about it, and that Boone is mistaken.
+ But he says he asked Miner the reason. What did Miner say? Did he say to
+ him, "It is because we have got a conspiracy? We have got it fixed with
+ the Second Assistant Postmaster-General"? No. He said this, he said for
+ fear of failure in getting bonds; that they could not get the bonds for
+ all the service and could not get certified checks for all the service.
+ Boone was going clear through the book from preface to finis. They could
+ not get bonds for all the service and could not get certified checks for
+ all the service. You remember that for all the service over five thousand
+ dollars they had to put up five per cent., I think, in certified checks.
+ Now, there was an immense volume, of three or four thousand routes and he
+ was going to put in a bid on every one of them. That is what Boone was
+ going to do. He did not understand the conspiracy at that time. Miner
+ explained to him, "We cannot get the certified checks. We cannot get the
+ bondsmen." He did not tell him, "Good Lord, my friend, you don't understand
+ the terms of the conspiracy. We are taking no such service as that. We are
+ taking none over three times a week, because, don't you see, we want the
+ chance for increase. We want the lowest. If we can find any service where
+ the horses agree to stand still, that is the service to take. You must
+ look over the terms of the conspiracy and have some sense about it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Boone says he was starting in, taking the advertisements, going right
+ through the territory, all over that country, and bidding on every route,
+ not missing one. He never saw Stephen W. Dorsey do any work on the bids.
+ The proposals sent down to the postmasters in Arkansas, including those to
+ Clendenning, he (Boone) fixed himself and sealed them. Gentlemen, there is
+ no evidence that Mr. Dorsey, as I understand it, ever saw one of those
+ papers, but simply the form that was written out by Boone that was sent to
+ Clendenning with instructions what to do with the proposals. That I
+ understand to be the evidence. They proved by Boone that Dorsey never saw
+ them; never wrote them; never ordered them to be written; never ordered a
+ blank to be left unfilled. And yet, gentlemen, he was the man whom they
+ say had brooded over this conspiracy; the man that gave to it life and
+ form. He is the man that used Boone and John W. Dorsey and Peck and Miner
+ as instrumentalities and tools.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? Did Boone take those bonds up to Dorsey and show them to him?
+ He says that he did not open them; that he did not show them to Dorsey.
+ That is what Mr. Boone swears. Surely Mr. Boone is an honorable man,
+ stamped with the seal of the Department of Justice. He did not even show
+ them to Dorsey. Dorsey never saw anything except the form after Boone had
+ made it out. I showed you that form on yesterday, I think, marked 16 X.
+ That is the only thing that Dorsey saw. He did not know what blanks were
+ left in the bonds, or whether any were left. He never gave any orders
+ about them, and never saw them. Yet the prosecution want you to hold him
+ responsible as a conspirator for those bonds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more, gentlemen? Those bonds were never used. Nobody was ever
+ defrauded. Not a proposal was put in the Post-Office Department. They
+ never came to life. Dead! No contract, says Mr. Boone, was ever awarded on
+ those proposals, even the proposals sent back, unless it was a contract to
+ him, Boone. That is what he swears. And yet Dorsey is to be held
+ responsible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hurry along, gentlemen. See how Dorsey came to do this. How did
+ that arch-conspirator, as they claim him to be, happen to write that
+ letter to Clendenning? On page 1567 Boone says that he suggested to Dorsey
+ that he had better send a note with the proposals to Clendenning. Boone
+ suggested it. He was not a conspirator, but he suggested it. Dorsey was
+ the conspirator, but never dreamed of it. How fortunate for a conspirator
+ to have an innocent man think of the means of carrying out a conspiracy;
+ never thinking of crime, but having it all suggested by perfect innocence
+ and then crime taking advantage of it. That is the position! He suggested
+ that Dorsey would better send a note with the proposals to Clendenning. I
+ will read from page 1568:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Was there not danger that he would be declared a failing contractor?
+ Was it at that time the practice of the department if a man, for instance,
+ had fifty contracts and failed on one to declare him a failing contractor
+ on all?&mdash;A. No, sir; but they would declare him a failing contractor
+ on that one route and suspend his pay until he paid up the loss to the
+ Government&mdash;just my case now, exactly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. That was one of the reasons that you had. Now, you were informed at
+ that time that they had not the money to carry this on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When, as a matter of fact, did you go out of the concern?&mdash;A. The 8th
+ day of August, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Was S. W. Dorsey then in Washington?&mdash;A. No, sir; he was not. He
+ had been gone ten or twelve days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, we come to August 7, 1878, the time that Mr. Boone went out. He
+ did it for the purpose of saving a failure on the routes in the names of
+ Miner, Peck, Dorsey, and himself. That is what he went out for, and that
+ is his only reason. On page 1570 Mr. Boone swears that so far as he knows
+ neither John W. Dorsey, John R. Miner, John M. Peck, nor Stephen W. Dorsey
+ had any arrangement with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to
+ increase the service; none whatever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Boone went out on the 7th day of August, 1878. S. W. Dorsey was in New
+ Mexico. He did not return here until about the time Congress assembled in
+ December. Boone swears that he then learned from S. W. Dorsey that he,
+ Dorsey, did not know that Boone was out of the concern; did not know that
+ he had left on the 7th day of August, 1878. Now, gentlemen, if Stephen W.
+ Dorsey was the main conspirator, if he was doing this entire business, is
+ it possible that A. E. Boone went out on the 7th day of August, that John
+ W. Dorsey assigned his interest in all the routes mentioned in the
+ agreement, and John R. Miner took in Vaile, and the service was put on
+ those routes by the money furnished by Vaile, that all that was done and
+ yet Stephen W. Dorsey never heard of it and did not even know that Boone
+ was out, did not even know that Vaile was in? Besides that, gentlemen, as
+ I told you, Dorsey was not here. He was in New Mexico. He was in utter
+ ignorance of this entire business, and yet they claim that he was the
+ directing spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Boone further testifies, on page 1571, that Brady showed him a
+ telegram from the postmistress at The Dalles, saying that the service was
+ down. When I read that I thought may be that was where Moore got his hint
+ to swear that he telegraphed to find out what was done with that service.
+ Boone further swears that Brady said that it must be put on; that he said
+ it could not be put on at the contract price, and that Brady told him, "I
+ advise you to telegraph and put it on at any price," and that unless all
+ the service was on by the 15th day of August he would declare the
+ contractor a failing contractor on every route the service was down upon.
+ That is what Brady told him. Stephen W. Dorsey was not here. According to
+ the testimony of Moore he knew when he went away that the service in
+ Oregon was not put on, but he abandoned it, and paid no attention to it.
+ He happened to meet Miner at Saint Louis, and told him, I believe, "There
+ are my notes for eight thousand five hundred dollars. That is all I will
+ do. I am through! I have already advanced thirteen or fourteen thousand
+ dollars. I will not advance another dollar." Why did not Miner tell him,
+ "If you are not going on with this conspiracy I am going home"? Why didn't
+ Miner tell him then, "What did you get up a conspiracy like this for, just
+ to abandon it"? Why did not Miner say to him, "This is your child. I
+ became a criminal at your suggestion. I entered into this conspiracy
+ because you urged me to, and now after we have got the routes, you are
+ going to abandon it"? Why did he not say to him, "Dorsey, if you are not
+ going on with this conspiracy I am going back to Sandusky"? Did Dorsey at
+ Saint Louis treat it as his bantling? or did he say to Miner, "This is all
+ I will do"? Did he mean for himself? No. "All I will do for you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly he would not have made the threat to Miner that he would not do
+ anything more for himself. He then said to Miner, "I am through!" Miner
+ knew at that time that Stephen W. Dorsey had not the interest of one
+ solitary dollar except the money he had advanced. Stephen W. Dorsey,
+ according to the testimony of this prosecution, knew when he left this
+ city that the routes were not in operation in Eastern Oregon. He went away
+ knowing that J. W. Dorsey and John R. Miner and John M. Peck were in
+ danger of being declared failing contractors. Yet he never even called on
+ Brady to see about it. He never asked to have the time extended a minute.
+ He never took the least interest in the business. He started for New
+ Mexico, and went by way of Oberlin, Ohio. He happened to meet Miner in
+ Saint Louis, and for Miner's sake, for Peck's sake, for John W. Dorsey's
+ sake, and not for his own sake, he gave them some notes to the extent of
+ eight thousand five hundred dollars that they could have discounted, and
+ said to Miner then and there. "That is the last dollar. That is the last
+ cent." What more did he do? He abandoned the whole business. He went to
+ New Mexico. He never wrote about it; he never spoke about it; he never
+ received a dispatch concerning it until the following December, when he
+ came back to Washington, and then for the first time found that Boone had
+ gone out and that Vaile had come in. What more? Although he was interested
+ to the extent of thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars, he did not know
+ until he came back in December that his security had been rendered
+ worthless. He found that out then for the first time. That is a fine model
+ of a conspirator. Reading again from Boone's testimony, on page 1371:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fully a month and a half of the time had been taken up by the
+ Congressional investigation, and we&mdash;That is to say, Miner, Peck,
+ Boone, and the rest&mdash;did not know what to do with the service. We
+ dared not to move. We expected that the contracts would be taken from us.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you tell me that under such circumstances, if Stephen W. Dorsey had
+ conceived this thing, he would have gone off and left it? Do you tell me,
+ with the entire business trembling in the balance, without the money to
+ put the service on, at the mercy of Thomas J. Brady, that if Stephen W.
+ Dorsey had gotten up that conspiracy, and also put in thirteen or fourteen
+ thousand dollars, he would have gone away and left it, and told Miner and
+ the others, "I will have no more to do with it," and leave it so
+ effectually and so perfectly that he did not even know that Boone had gone
+ out and Vaile had come in until the following December, when he came here
+ to take his seat in the Senate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 1580, again quoting from Mr. Boone:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact&mdash;Here is something that rises like the Rock of Gibraltar. It
+ is one of those indications of truth that rascality never had ingenuity
+ enough to invent:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact that Dorsey refused to advance any more money on account of this
+ business was taken into consideration by me when I made up my mind to go
+ out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you want any better testimony than that, that Dorsey did refuse to
+ advance any more money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Don't you see how everything fits together when you get at the facts? How
+ naturally they all blend and harmonize when you get at the facts. Now,
+ here is some more from Mr. Boone:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I had not gone out the service would have undoubtedly failed, unless
+ they got the money to put it on. When Mr. Dorsey declined to furnish any
+ more money or to indorse any more notes, there was nothing else to do but
+ for me to go out and let somebody else come in who had the money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is a witness for the Government, and yet at the time that happened
+ they say there was a great conspiracy; that the Second Assistant
+ Postmaster-General was in it; that a Senator of the United States was in
+ it; and that these other men were simply tools. It will not do, gentlemen.
+ If that had been the case Stephen W. Dorsey would have remained here. He
+ would have gone to Mr. Brady and said, "I must have time," and Mr. Brady
+ would have given him all the time he desired, because, according to this
+ prosecution, it was their partnership business. Brady had ten times as
+ great an interest as Stephen W. Dorsey. According to the testimony of Mr.
+ Rerdell, Brady had an interest of thirty-three and one-third per cent.,
+ and according to the testimony of Rerdell and Boone, Dorsey only had an
+ interest of seven-eighths of one per cent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That means, as I understand it, according to their testimony, thirty-three
+ and one-third per cent, of the gross expedition; not profits, but of the
+ gross expedition. That is what they swear. When he gave on a route an
+ expedition of, say, six thousand dollars, two thousand dollars would go to
+ Brady each year. In other words, thirty-three and one-third per cent, of
+ the money paid for expedition went to Brady.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Walsh testified and gave the exact figures, and called the amount, if
+ the Court will recollect, sixty thousand dollars, and twenty per cent, he
+ said of that is twelve thousand dollars. That had to run, he says, for
+ three years, and that made thirty-six thousand dollars. That is the
+ testimony in this case, gentlemen. If you should have a row of men as long
+ as the row of kings that Banquo saw, stretching out "to the crack of
+ doom," and they should swear to it, I should still die an unbeliever; but
+ that is their testimony. Dorsey ran away and left his conspiracy and Brady
+ would not attend to his own business. Now, I read again from Boone:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With regard to the preparation of circulars, the sending of them to
+ postmasters, the printing of proposals, the printing of bonds and
+ subcontracts, there was nothing done differently from what I had always
+ done before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recollect that. He is a Government witness. Dorsey in a conspiracy got
+ Boone to help him, and in helping him Boone did nothing different from
+ what he had always done before. There is not much left of this case,
+ gentlemen, but I will keep going on just the same. Mr. Boone swears that
+ he followed the regular custom and practice of doing business.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, there is another suspicious circumstance. At the bottom of the
+ contracts published by the Government, for the purpose of informing
+ contractors as to how the bonds or contracts are to be signed, and exactly
+ what is to be done by each person, there are a lot of instructions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. On the proposals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. On the proposals. When they got up the proposals of their
+ own, they, understanding the business, left off all those directions that
+ the Government put upon its forms. Why? Those directions were put there
+ for the benefit of men who did not understand the business. These men did
+ understand the business, and consequently it was nonsense for them if they
+ had to have the printing done, to put on the bottom of the contracts two
+ or three paragraphs of directions to themselves. They understood exactly
+ how to do it without the directions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who left them off? Stephen W. Dorsey? No. John W. Dorsey? No. He had
+ nothing to do with it. Miner? No. He had nothing to do with it. Who left
+ them off? Boone says he did. Was he instructed to do it? No. Did it take a
+ conspiracy to leave them off? No. He left them off for two reasons, and
+ good ones, too. One was to save the expense of printing. That was a good
+ reason. There was no conspiracy needed for that. The other was, that
+ knowing how to perfect the proposals, and understanding all those
+ instructions, there was no need of having them printed for their benefit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next, on page 1582. What instructions as a matter of fact did Mr. Boone
+ receive from Mr. Dorsey, if he received any? The question arises, upon
+ what subject? In reference to what particular point? Boone says on this
+ page that he received no instructions from Dorsey in reference to the
+ business except in regard to the subcontract blanks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the one subject on which he received any instructions from S. W.
+ Dorsey. I have shown you that those instructions were in the interests of
+ honesty and fair dealing. Those were the only instructions he received. On
+ every other subject there is not a word. Why? Here Boone gives the reason.
+ "I did not require any." Why? Because he understood the business himself.
+ What else? "I was to go ahead and do whatever was necessary to be done."
+ He did it without consulting anybody. He did it in his own way. He did it
+ as he thought best for all concerned. Now, gentlemen, there will be an
+ effort made to convince you that Stephen W. Dorsey did everything during
+ all that period. If you are told that, when you are told it remember what
+ I tell you now: that Mr. Boone swears that he did it himself; that he
+ attended to the entire business, and that he was instructed by Dorsey in
+ no particular except as to that one blank, and that I have clearly
+ demonstrated was in the interests of honesty and in the interests of the
+ subcontractor, so that the subcontract might agree with or be similar to
+ the contract made with the Government. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we come to another point. You must recollect that Mr. Boone got out
+ the circulars. Mr. Boone sent to all the postmasters to know about the
+ roads and the price of grain and the price of labor, about the snow in
+ winter and the rain in the spring. He got all that up. He went through the
+ bidding-book originally and made the bids. He it was who prepared most of
+ these proposals. He did all the work until Miner came. S. W. Dorsey did
+ not do any of it. Boone never saw him working upon or touching the
+ proposals. What S. W. Dorsey did he did at Boone's request. What he did he
+ did at Miner's request. What he did he did simply because he was a friend.
+ Boone attended to it all. Now, what does Boone say on page 1584? He swears
+ that so far as he knew there never was any conspiracy on the part of these
+ defendants with him, with each other, or anybody else, in reference to
+ these routes, or any route bid for and awarded to them during that time.
+ There was no conspiracy to defraud the Government in any way. That is what
+ the Government witness swears to&mdash;a man brought here to stain the
+ reputation of Stephen W. Dorsey. That is what a Government witness swears;
+ swearing, too, under pressure; swearing, too, under circumstances where
+ the Post-Office Department could strip him of everything he had on earth;
+ swearing under circumstances where if he did not please the Government
+ they could pursue him as they have pursued us. Perhaps I had better read
+ what he says. I read from page 1583 of my examination:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, so far as you know, Mr. Boone, was there any conspiracy on the
+ part of any of these defendants with you, or with anybody else, to your
+ knowledge, in respect of these routes mentioned in the indictment or of
+ any routes bid for and awarded to them during that time&mdash;any
+ conspiracy to defraud the Government in any way?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And he answered:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That was a Government witness, acquainted with all the transactions during
+ that time. He was swearing under the shadow of power, with the sword
+ hanging over his head, and yet he swears he never knew or heard of any
+ such thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us go on. On page 1589 he swears that Mr. Dorsey told him to fix the
+ blanks and make them up and to write what he wanted done in Arkansas, and
+ that while he, Boone, was engaged in so doing he said to Dorsey, "Had you
+ not better write a note so that I can attach it to the blanks?" And Dorsey
+ did so. Dorsey told him to fill up what he wanted in Arkansas, and what
+ was necessary to be executed there, and he did so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Boone indicated exactly what he wanted put in. I showed you the
+ Clendenning bonds yesterday and showed you just what Boone did. He filled
+ up the blanks that he wanted to have filled down there. Of course, the
+ blanks that were already filled in he did not want interfered with. That
+ is what he says. There is another part of his testimony. I want to call
+ the attention of the gentlemen to it. "I hand you," said they, "32 X." Mr.
+ Bliss did the handing. What was that? That was the Chico letter. What did
+ they want to introduce that for? To show that S. W. Dorsey was interested
+ personally in these routes in 1878. That was a magnificent piece of
+ testimony for them to show that Dorsey in 1878 was writing to Rerdell to
+ watch the advertisement of these routes. So they introduced that letter.
+ Mr. Boone looked at it. He was a Government witness. The noose was around
+ his neck and the other end of the rope was in the hands of Mr. Bliss. What
+ did Mr. Boone say? "Mr. Dorsey never wrote that letter." Then said Mr.
+ Bliss to him, "That is not Mr. Dorsey's writing?" And Mr. Boone said "No,
+ sir." And at the same time threw the forged scrap away contemptuously.
+ What else? On April 3, 1878, Mr. Dorsey was here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Was Mr Dorsey here at that time?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Witness. He was here, sir; and I was in communication with him on that
+ very day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the evidence of a Government witness; a man who was depended upon
+ to show that not only my client, but that Mr. Miner entered into a
+ conspiracy in the fall of 1877 to defraud this Government. I want you to
+ remember one thing which I was about to forget. Mr. Ker, I believe, spoke
+ six or seven days and I do not remember of his having mentioned the Chico
+ letter. He acted as if it had a contagious disease. He was followed by Mr.
+ Bliss in another week, but he did not mention the Chico letter; at least I
+ have never happened to read it in his speech. Both of them are as dumb as
+ oysters after a clap of thunder. Not a word. They did not, either of them,
+ have the courage to refer to it. They did not have the nerve to ask you to
+ believe it. I tell you one thing, gentlemen, I would either admit that it
+ was a forgery, or I would swear that it was genuine. I would do something
+ with it. I would not allow that paper, blown by the wind, to scare me from
+ the highway of the argument! I would do one thing or the other. I would
+ either admit that Mr. Rerdell forged it, or I would insist that it was the
+ handwriting of Stephen W. Dorsey. Why was it left where it was, gentlemen?
+ They could not get anybody to swear that it was Dorsey's handwriting. That
+ is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we will take the next step. They had so much confidence in that
+ witness that they concluded they would prove the pencil memorandum by him.
+ They had such a clutch on him. So they stuck that up to him. Recollecting
+ the position he was in, recollecting the danger, recollecting all that
+ might probably follow speaking the truth, here is what he says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everything above "profit and loss" in that memorandum favors the
+ handwriting of S. W. Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And everything below favors the handwriting of M. C. Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fit conclusion for a Government witness, brought here to show that Stephen
+ W. Dorsey was the arch-conspirator. And they ended the witness; dismissed
+ him from the stand, after he had shown that Dorsey did not conspire; after
+ he had shown that he himself fixed the subcontracts, with the exception of
+ only one; after he had shown that he himself filled out the blanks to send
+ to Clendenning; after he had shown that he did everything without being
+ advised by S. W. Dorsey, and then he swore that their principal witness
+ was a forger. Then they dismissed him. That was the end of the Government
+ witness who was to brand the word "conspirator" upon the forehead of
+ Stephen W. Dorsey's reputation. But instead of putting "conspirator"
+ there, he put the word "forger" upon the principal witness for the
+ Government. Magnificent exchange! Now, gentlemen, you know as well as I do
+ that Mr. Boone knew all that was happening during that entire time. You
+ know as well as I do that he did not swear anything for the defence that
+ he could help swearing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else? Mr. Bliss, on page 303, says that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Parties conspiring make an informal verbal agreement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When did we make that agreement? When does the testimony show that we made
+ an informal verbal agreement? Who were present at the time? Where were we?
+ Do you recollect the number of the house? Do you recollect the day of the
+ month? Has any one of you ever had in his mind which side of the street
+ that was on? What town was it in? Could you locate it if you had a good
+ map? I do not care whether it is informal or formal. Did we make one? In
+ order to make a verbal agreement you have to use some words. Is there any
+ evidence as to the words we used? Not a word that I have heard, not a
+ word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else? He says that this is necessarily secret and intended to be
+ secret. The first thing done was that Dorsey told it to Moore. Then, for
+ fear it would get out, J. W. Dorsey told it to Pennell and to thirty
+ fellows around the camp-fire out in Dakota. And there was a suspicion in
+ Brady's mind that somebody might hear of it, and so he told Rerdell. He
+ says, "Get the books copied; this is a secret thing." Then Dorsey wrote it
+ to Bosler, and he was so awfully afraid that it would get out that he kept
+ a copy of the letter. You see, Mr. Bliss says the object was to keep it
+ secret. Then Miner and Vaile told it to Rerdell for fear he would not
+ believe it when Brady told him. They were bound the thing should not get
+ out. Yes, sir. And then Rerdell, just bursting with the importance of
+ keeping that secret, told it to Perkins and Taylor; went away out there
+ for that purpose. And then Moore, he gave it away to Major and McBean for
+ the purpose of keeping it secret. Then Miner told Moore. From whom did
+ they keep it secret? Nobody in God's world but Boone. He is the only
+ fellow that nobody told. Boone went through it all, saw all the plan and
+ heard all the whispering, and he is the only man in the country, I think,
+ that did not suspect it. And on the 7th day of August he left the concern
+ because there was not a conspiracy, and admits to you that if he had had
+ even a suspicion of it he would have staid&mdash;staid or died.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, was there ever a conspiracy published so widely, that one end of the
+ country kept so secret from the other? Was there ever a conspiracy like
+ that, the news of which ran through the West like wild-fire, while the
+ fellows at the East never heard of it? Everybody knew it out on the
+ plains. All you had to do was to subpoena a fellow that wanted to come to
+ Washington, and he would remember it. And yet that is the evidence that
+ the prosecution desires you to believe. I do not believe it. I do not
+ think I ever shall. But then they promised so much at the beginning, and
+ they have done so little in many respects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Something had to be said, and so Mr. Bliss, on page 265, in a little burst
+ of confidence to the jury, says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At least one United States Senator was the paid agent of these defendants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who was the Senator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Did I say that, sir?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Look at page 265 and see whether you did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Read all that I said there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I will do that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we shall show to you that at least one United States Senator, urging
+ such increase, was the paid agent of these defendants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I then went on and said we should show it if you put him on the
+ stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes, if we furnished you the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. No, sir; that is not what I said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Why didn't you produce the Senator?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Why didn't you put him on the stand?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. How did I know what Senator you meant?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Did you have two?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. No, sir; and we did not have the one. If you could have
+ proved it, it was your duty, as the attorney of the United States, to do
+ it, and if you did not do it, you did not do your duty in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Whose name is expressed in the memorandum?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Why did you not say that to the jury? You dared not do it.
+ That is like what was said here the other day before this jury, and taken
+ out of the record. We will come to it. These are the gentlemen who did not
+ wish to stain the names of citizens. These are the gentlemen who did not
+ wish to bring anybody into this case that had not been indicted. And yet
+ Mr. Bliss, in his opening, said that he would show you at least one
+ Senator who was the paid agent of these defendants; and now, having failed
+ to do it, he stands here before you and asks whose name was on the pencil
+ memorandum, meaning that J. H. Mitchell was the paid agent of these
+ defendants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ah, gentlemen, I would not, for the sake of convicting any man on this
+ earth, stain the reputation of another in a place and in a way where that
+ other could not defend himself. I would not do it. I do not think there is
+ any crime beyond that. It is as bad to stab the reputation as it is to
+ stab the flesh; it is as bad to kill the honor of the man as to put a
+ dagger into his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are so many things in these papers that I would never get through,
+ if I commented upon them all, if I talked forty years. I now refer to page
+ 4509. I have to change from one of these lawyers to the other. Now, on
+ this subject of subcontracts, showing how we are endeavoring to cheat and
+ defraud the Government, Mr. Ker says, at page 4509:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Acting upon Stephen W. Dorsey's advice he put in this clause giving the
+ subcontractors sixty-five per cent, of the increase. I want you to
+ remember the sixty-five per cent., because I will show you some
+ subcontracts with that amount in, but I do not want you to think for one
+ moment that the subcontractors ever got a dollar out of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, the evidence is that the subcontractors were paid the amount
+ mentioned in their subcontracts. I believe all of them are on file in this
+ case, and on all that were filed in the department the money was paid
+ directly to the subcontractor. And yet Mr. Ker tells you that he does not
+ want you to think for a moment that the subcontractors ever got one dollar
+ out of it. Is it possible, gentlemen, that there is any necessity for
+ resorting to such statements? Can you conceive of any reason for doing it,
+ except that they are actually mistaken, except for the fact that they know
+ they have not the evidence to convict these defendants?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are not begging of you. We are not upon our knees before you. But we do
+ want to be tried according to the evidence and according to the law. We do
+ not want your mind, nor yours, nor yours [addressing different jurors]
+ poisoned with a misstatement. We want to be tried, and we want the verdict
+ rendered by you when every fact is as luminous in your mind as the sun at
+ mid-day. We want every fact to stand out like stars in a perfect night,
+ without a cloud of doubt between you and the fact. That is the kind of a
+ verdict we want. We want a verdict that comes from a clear head and a
+ brave heart. We do not want a verdict simply from sympathy. We want a
+ verdict according to the evidence and according to the law. And when the
+ verdict is given we want every one of you to say, "That is my verdict; I
+ found it upon the evidence and upon the law; dig beneath it and you will
+ not find used as the corner-stone a misstatement, or a mistake, or a
+ falsehood; it stands upon the rock of fact, upon the foundation of
+ absolute truth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you know that if I were prosecuting a man, trying to take from him his
+ liberty, trying to take from him his home, trying to rob his fireside and
+ make it desolate, and if I should succeed and afterwards know that I had
+ made a misstatement of the evidence to the jury, I could not sleep until I
+ had done what was in my power to release that man; and after he was
+ released, or even if he were not released, I would go to him when he was
+ wearing the prison garb, and I would get down on my knees and beg him to
+ forgive me. I would rather be sent to the penitentiary myself, I would
+ rather wear the stripes of eternal degradation, than to send another man
+ there by a misstatement or a mistake that I had made. That is my feeling.
+ I may be wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that I am guilty, according to Colonel Bliss, of sneering at
+ everything that people hold sacred. But I do not sneer at justice. I
+ believe that over all, justice sits the eternal queen, holding in her hand
+ the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. I believe that it is my
+ duty to make the world a little better, because I have lived in it. I
+ believe in helping my fellow-men. I do no not sneer at charity; I do not
+ sneer at justice, and I do not sneer at liberty. And why did he make that
+ remark to you, gentlemen? Is it possible that for a moment he dreamed that
+ he might prejudice your minds against the case of my client, because, I,
+ his attorney, am not what is called a believer? Is it possible that he has
+ so mean an opinion of a Christian that a Christian would violate his oath
+ when upon the jury, simply to get even with a lawyer who happened to be an
+ infidel? Is that his idea of Christianity? It is not mine; it is not mine.
+ I stand before you to-day, gentlemen, as a man having the rights you have,
+ and no more; and I am willing to work and toil and suffer to give you
+ every right that I enjoy. And I know that not one of you will allow
+ himself to be prejudiced against my client because you and I happen to
+ disagree upon subjects about which none of us know anything for certain. I
+ do not believe you will. And yet, that remark was made, gentlemen&mdash;I
+ will not say that it was made, but may be it was&mdash;hoping that it
+ would lodge the seed of prejudice in your minds, hoping that it might
+ bring to life that little adder of hatred that sleeps unknown to us in
+ nearly all of our bosoms. I have too much confidence in you, too much
+ confidence in human nature to believe that can affect my client.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, there is no pretence, there is no evidence that every
+ subcontractor did not get the per cent, mentioned in his subcontract,
+ except one, and that was Mr. French, on the route from Kearney to Kent;
+ and the evidence there is that Miner settled with him, I believe, and gave
+ him a certain amount of money in lieu of expedition. That is the solitary
+ exception.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I come to a most interesting part of this discussion, and
+ I hope we will live through it. In the first place, what is a conspiracy?
+ Well, in this case, they must establish that it was an agreement entered
+ into between the persons mentioned in this indictment, or two of them, to
+ defraud the Government. How? By the means pointed out and described in the
+ indictment. While it may not be absolutely necessary to describe the
+ means, I hold that if they do describe them, tell how the conspiracy was
+ to be accomplished, they are bound by their description; they must prove
+ such a conspiracy as they describe. If a man is indicted for stealing a
+ horse and the color of the horse is given, it will not do to prove a horse
+ of another color. If they describe the offence they are bound by the
+ description.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, this is a conspiracy entered into, as they claim, by the persons
+ mentioned in the indictment, to do a certain thing. What is the object of
+ the conspiracy? To defraud the Government. And, gentlemen, I believe the
+ Court will instruct you that the conspiring is the crime. The object of
+ the conspiracy is to defraud the United States. What are the means?
+ According to this indictment false petitions, false oaths, false letters,
+ false orders. What I insist on is that the means cannot take the place of
+ the object; that the means cannot take the place of the conspiracy
+ described. When you describe a conspiracy by certain means to defraud the
+ Government, and set out the means so that the Second Assistant
+ Postmaster-General is a necessity, then you cannot turn and shift your
+ ground, and say that it was not the conspiracy set out in the indictment,
+ but that it was a conspiracy to do some of the things recited as means in
+ the indictment; you cannot say that it was not a conspiracy entered into
+ with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, but was a conspiracy entered
+ into with some others to make a false petition or a false affidavit. The
+ ostrich of this prosecution will not be allowed to hide its head under the
+ leaf of an affidavit. They must prove, in my judgment, the conspiracy that
+ they describe in the indictment, and none other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what else? You must be prepared, gentlemen, when you make up a
+ verdict, if you say that there was a conspiracy, to say when it was
+ entered into and who entered into it. And I suppose when you retire, the
+ first question for you to decide will be: Was there a conspiracy? Has any
+ conspiracy been established beyond a reasonable doubt? If you say yes,
+ then the next question for you to decide is, who conspired? Who were the
+ members of that conspiracy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After you do that there is one other thing you have to do: You have to
+ find that one of the conspirators, for the purpose of carrying the
+ conspiracy into effect, did something; that is called an overt act. You
+ have to find, that at least one of them did something to effect the object
+ of that conspiracy. You must remember, gentlemen, that the overt act must
+ come after the conspiracy. In other words, you cannot commit an overt act
+ and make a conspiracy to fit it; you must have the conspiracy first, and
+ then do an overt act for the purpose of accomplishing the object of that
+ conspiracy. The conspiracy must come first, and the overt act afterwards.
+ You all understand that now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, this indictment is so framed that the earliest time within the life
+ of the statute of limitations for an overt act is the 23d day of May,
+ 1879. Why? The indictment charges that as the day, the conspiracy was
+ entered into. Any overt act in consequence of that conspiracy must have
+ been done after the 23d of May, 1879. Now, get that in your heads, level
+ and square. The conspiracy, according to this, is not back of the 23d of
+ May, 1879, and any overt act done, in order to be considered an overt act,
+ must be done after the date of that conspiracy. If they prove any act done
+ before that time, it shows that it was not an overt act belonging to the
+ conspiracy mentioned in the indictment. If it is an overt act at all, it
+ is an overt act of another conspiracy entered into before the date
+ mentioned in this indictment, and consequently will not do for an overt
+ act in this case. Now, I want you all to understand that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I forget how many overt acts are charged in this indictment; some sixty or
+ seventy, I think. And understand me, now, gentlemen, no matter what date
+ they fix to an overt act in the indictment, no matter whether there is any
+ date to it or not in the indictment, if it turns out to have been done
+ before the time fixed for the conspiracy it is dead as an overt act: it is
+ good for nothing. The overt act is the fruit of the conspiracy; the
+ conspiracy is not the result of the overt act. Now let me make a statement
+ to you, so that you will understand it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every petition, every letter, every affidavit, upon which orders for
+ expedition were based, was filed before the 23d of May, 1879, except on
+ two routes&mdash;Toquerville to Adair-ville and Eugene City to Bridge
+ Creek. If that is true, then not a solitary petition filed in this case
+ can be considered as an overt act; and a conspiracy without an overt act
+ is nothing; it simply exists in the imagination; it is an agreement made
+ of words and air, and never was vitalized with an act done by one of the
+ conspirators for the purpose of giving it effect. Recollect that every
+ petition, every affidavit, every letter filed, was filed before the 23d
+ day of May, with the two exceptions I have mentioned. That is the date
+ when the conspiracy came into being. And consequently an overt act must be
+ after that time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now,'when they came to write this indictment, why did they not tell the
+ truth in it? I do not mean that in an offensive sense, because a man has
+ the right to write in that indictment what he wants to. That is a matter
+ of pleading. But why did they not tell the facts? Why did they put in the
+ indictment that a certain petition was filed on the 26th day of June, when
+ they had the petition before them and knew that it was filed in April,
+ 1879? Why did they put in that indictment that a certain affidavit was
+ filed on the 26th or 27th of May, I think it was, when they knew that it
+ was filed in April or March? Why? Because if they had put that in the
+ indictment the indictment would have been quashed, so far as their overt
+ acts were concerned. The Court would have said, "I cannot allow you to put
+ on paper that a man entered into a conspiracy on the 23d of May, and then
+ did an act to carry that conspiracy into effect in April before that time.
+ I cannot allow you to do that, because that is infinitely absurd, and
+ pleadings have to be reasonable on their face." But you see they stated
+ that this was done after the conspiracy. They had to do it or they would
+ be gone. I believe there is no dispute about this law that if they
+ describe the overt act&mdash;and they must describe it, because it is a
+ part of the offence&mdash;that is, the offence is not complete without it&mdash;they
+ must prove it exactly as they describe it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If they describe it with infinite minuteness, they must prove it with
+ infinite minuteness. If they set out that an affidavit was written on
+ bark, they must produce a bark affidavit. If they were foolish enough to
+ say it was written in red ink they must produce it in red ink. If they
+ allege that an oath was sworn to twice before two notaries public they
+ must produce an oath sworn to twice. They are bound to prove exactly what
+ they charge, and if they were too particular about it that is their fault,
+ not ours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say that all these, with the exception of the two routes I have named,
+ were filed too early to play any important part in this case. Now, I will
+ come to those routes. Remember, that every overt act must be after the
+ conspiracy. There are two exceptions, and those two exceptions include
+ petitions and affidavits. And there is a splendid kind of justice in the
+ way this thing is coming out, so far as that is concerned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The petitions filed on the Toquerville route and on Bridge Creek route, I
+ believe, are genuine; I believe the Government admits that they are
+ honest; and they were not attacked except upon one point, and that was
+ that a daily mail did not mean seven times a week. The point made by the
+ Government was that a daily mail meant six trips a week&mdash;that is,
+ where you have them every day. We took the ground that daily mail meant a
+ mail every day, and that in the Western country, as here, they have seven
+ days in a week.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We contended that you cannot have a daily mail without having seven trips
+ a week. I think that was the only point made against these petitions&mdash;that
+ they were for a daily mail, and that somebody put in a figure 7.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No petition for increase of service alone was ever attacked by the
+ Government in this case, except 25 L, on The Dalles route, and 20 H and 29
+ H, on the Canyon City route. 25 L was filed April 23, 1879. That was one
+ month before the conspiracy had life. Consequently that is mustered out of
+ this case as an overt act.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 23 L was filed June 27, 1879, and is in time, provided it had been a
+ dishonest petition. And it is the only petition filed on the date alleged
+ in the indictment, and it was not attacked. It was signed by the business
+ men of Baker City, and is set out, I believe, on page 1617.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 20 H was filed May 7th. That is not in time. That is gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 29 H has no file mark, and never was proved. So that goes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the allegations as to false petitions for increase of service&mdash;and
+ by that I mean additional trips&mdash;are shown to have been genuine,
+ honest, true petitions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are but two affidavits, one correctly described. Both were made by
+ Peck. Mr. Bliss admits that Peck had nothing to do with any of these
+ routes after April 1, 1879, and both of them were made by Peck, and were
+ sworn to before that date.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The affidavit on the Toquerville route was filed by M. C. Rerdell, who
+ swears that he was not in any conspiracy to defraud the United States;
+ that he was not in a conspiracy with Vaile and Miner and John W. Dorsey,
+ nor with anybody else. It was filed by the subcontractor of record, M. C.
+ Rerdell, and it is the same route on which Mr. Rerdell, by virtue of his
+ subcontract, appropriated about five thousand dollars of money belonging
+ to other people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other exception is on the Bridge Creek route, and, strange as it may
+ appear, that was also filed by Mr. Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, strange as it may appear, it has not been successfully impeached as
+ to the men and horses necessary under the existing and proposed schedule.
+ The overt act is not proved, because the oath is not proved to be false,
+ and because Peck and Rerdell, according to Mr. Bliss's admission and
+ according to Rerdell's oath, were not in the conspiracy, and the overt act
+ has to be done by one of the conspirators, of course.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I understood&mdash;I do not know whether I have been under a
+ delusion all this time or not&mdash;that the indictment charged that these
+ affidavits and false petitions were the means by which the conspiracy was
+ to be carried into execution; that they were not the overt acts. If they
+ had been set out as overt acts in the indictment, the Court would have
+ seen that they antedated the time, and if an objection had been made to
+ them the Court would not have received them as overt acts. The reason why
+ they have been admitted and regarded as in the case all along, to my mind,
+ was that they were acts tending to prove, so far as they tended to prove
+ anything, the nature of the combination between these parties anterior to
+ the 23d of May.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Before the conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Before the conspiracy. So that whatever character belonged to
+ that association anterior to that time, if it was continued on after that
+ time, carried out with overt acts done subsequently to that time, they
+ were properly received as evidence going to establish the conspiracy&mdash;not
+ as overt acts, but as means to show the character of the combination
+ amongst the parties anterior to that date.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That saves me a great deal of argument. Now, I understand,
+ gentlemen, that the Court will instruct you that you cannot take any
+ petition, any letter, any oath, any paper of any kind that was filed or
+ written or used prior to the 23d of May, 1879, as an overt act; that all
+ that that evidence is for is to show you the relation sustained by the
+ parties before that time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Yes; you are right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Now, that saves a great deal of trouble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are on the Toquerville and Adairville route, and on the Eugene City
+ and Bridge Creek route, petitions filed after the 23d of May, 1879, set
+ out in indictment as overt acts. I shall insist, if the Court will allow
+ me, that if there is no evidence that those petitions were dishonest, no
+ evidence going to show that they were not genuine, those petitions cannot
+ be used as overt acts for the reason that they are charged in the
+ indictment as false and fraudulent petitions. So, gentlemen, I take that
+ ground, that as to the petitions filed after the 23d day of May on the
+ only two routes left for these gentlemen to find overt acts upon (Eugene
+ City to Bridge Creek, and Toquerville to Adairville), if those petitions
+ have not been proved to be false they cannot be regarded as overt acts for
+ the reason that they were described in the indictment itself as false and
+ fraudulent petitions. It is perfectly clear, is it not?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else have we left? A couple of affidavits. Who made them? Mr. Peck.
+ When? Before the 1st day of April, 1879, and Mr. Bliss admits that from
+ that time on he never had anything to do with this business. Mr. Rerdell
+ filed them, and Mr. Rerdell swears that he was never in any conspiracy;
+ and Mr. Bliss admits that Peck, after the 1st of April, had nothing to do
+ with this business. That substantially knocks the bottom out of that dish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, they attacked the affidavit on the Bridge Creek route, but they did
+ not succeed in showing that it was not an honest affidavit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, after what the Court has decided I want to call your
+ attention to another thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not forget what the Court has decided&mdash;that all these things are
+ not overt acts, but that they simply show the relations of the parties.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if you go and find Vaile and Miner getting up petitions on their
+ routes, and you also find Dorsey getting up petitions on his routes, then
+ they claim that that is the result of an agreement between them. That is
+ not the law. Neither is there in that the scintilla of common sense. If I
+ find you plowing in your field and your neighbor plowing in his field, I
+ have no right to draw the conclusion that you have conspired to plow or to
+ help each other. But if I find your neighbor and you plowing in your
+ field, and I afterwards find you and your neighbor plowing in his field, I
+ have the right to conclude that you have swapped work and that you have
+ something in common. If I find you plowing in your field and your neighbor
+ walking behind you sowing grain or dropping corn, and then I find you in
+ the fall shucking out the corn together, and I find your neighbor taking
+ half of it to his barn and you taking half of it to your barn, I make up
+ my mind that you have had some dealings on the corn question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we find that on May 5, 1879, these parties absolutely divided, and
+ after that, when Vaile and Miner got up a petition on their route, Dorsey
+ did not help them; and when Dorsey got up one on his, Vaile and Miner did
+ not help him. That shows what the relations of the parties were. Does that
+ show that they were then in a conspiracy? Does it show that they had any
+ conspiracy before that time? They had separated their interest; they had
+ ceased to act together; one did nothing for the other. If there had been a
+ conspiracy before that time that conspiracy died on the 5th of May, 1879;
+ and if it did, then there is no possibility of any conviction in this
+ case, no matter what the evidence is&mdash;not the slightest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I want you to understand that ground exactly. I am not begging the
+ question. I am not afraid to meet every point, every paper, every scratch,
+ in this case. But I want you to understand it. All those things were
+ allowed for the purpose of showing the relations of the parties, the
+ relations that the defendants sustained to each other; and the evidence is
+ that they sustained no relations to each other after 1879; that each went
+ his own road to attend to his own business in his own way. That is the
+ evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now comes the next point. What are the overt acts in the indictment?
+ Really they are the orders made by Mr. Brady, unless you take this poor
+ little affidavit made by Peck and filed by Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then comes the next point. You cannot treat anything as an overt act
+ unless it was made by one of the conspirators. Is there any evidence in
+ this case that Mr. Brady ever conspired with anybody? Not the slightest.
+ And unless he conspired with us, any other made by him cannot be regarded
+ as an overt act in this case. I think everybody will admit that. Unless
+ Brady conspired with us, and we with him, any order of his cannot be
+ regarded as an overt act.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I ask you, gentlemen, what evidence is there in this case that Mr. Brady
+ ever conspired with any of these defendants? I will answer that question
+ before I get through, and I think I will answer it to your entire
+ satisfaction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will go a step further in this case, and I may go a little further than
+ the Court will go. I say that when they state in that indictment that an
+ order is made for the benefit of Miner, Vaile, and Dorsey, and the
+ evidence is that it was made for the benefit only of Vaile and Miner, that
+ is a fatal variance, and it cannot be treated as an overt act for any
+ conspiracy. And when the indictment charges that an order was made for the
+ benefit of S. W. Dorsey, and Vaile, and Miner, and it turns out that it
+ was made for the sole benefit of S. W. Dorsey, I claim that that is a
+ fatal variance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, I was going through all these overt acts and all these terrible
+ false claims. But the decision of the Court has utterly and entirely
+ relieved me from that duty. So I will turn my attention to another person.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next defendant to whom I may call your attention is Mr. John W.
+ Dorsey. It is claimed that John W. Dorsey was one of the original
+ conspirators; that he helped to hatch and plot this terrible design. Let
+ us see what interest John W. Dorsey had. You have heard me read the
+ agreement he made, have you not, with Miner? Now, let me read to you the
+ agreement that he made on the 16th day of August, 1878. Now, we will find
+ out what interest John W. Dorsey had in all this conspiracy. On the 16th
+ of August, 1878, there was no reason for telling any lie about it. They
+ could not get on the routes in August, 1878; they had not the money, and
+ so they took in Vaile. At that time, gentlemen, there was no reason for
+ their writing anything in this paper that was not true, not the slightest.
+ And I take it for granted that most people tell the truth when there is no
+ possible object in telling anything else, if their memory is good:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4th. The profits accruing from the business shall be divided as follows:
+ From routes in Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, to H. M.
+ Vaile, one-third.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To John R. Miner, one-sixth; to John M. Peck, one-sixth; and to John W.
+ Dorsey, one-third.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From routes in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah,
+ Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and California, to H. M. Vaile,
+ one-third; to John R. Miner, one-third; to John M. Peck, one-third. [Page
+ 4014.]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And to John W. Dorsey nothing. The entire interest of John W. Dorsey in
+ the whole business was one-third of the profits on routes in the Indian
+ Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota. This was signed by H. M. Vaile,
+ John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W. Dorsey, and I believe these are
+ all admitted to be the genuine signatures of the parties.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only routes mentioned in this indictment in which John W. Dorsey on
+ the 16th day of August, 1878, had any interest whatever were: Kearney to
+ Kent in Nebraska, Vermillion to Sioux Falls in Dakota, and Bismarck to
+ Tongue River in Dakota. Remember that, gentlemen. That is very important.
+ The evidence is that he sold out his interest in the following December,
+ made a bargain for ten thousand dollars, and the evidence is that he
+ received the money, and the evidence is that after that he never had any
+ interest in the profits, no matter how much was made. And yet these
+ gentlemen say that he was part and parcel of a conspiracy formed on the
+ 23d of May, 1879. Long before that time he had sold out every dollar's
+ interest he had, and had no more interest in it than though he had never
+ existed. He got his ten thousand dollars; that was all. Now let us see
+ what he did when the routes were divided.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. When did you say he sold out and got the money?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. The bargain was made in December, and his brother wrote to
+ him at first that Vaile would not give it to him, and then that he would.
+ Don't you recollect the two letters you asked Dorsey so much about?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It had been agreed to once, and then after S. W. Dorsey came out of the
+ Senate John W. Dorsey was paid ten thousand dollars, and Miner swears that
+ the division was absolute, perfect, and complete; and that nothing was
+ signed by one for the other after the 5th of May, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Miner does not say when. He swore that he, signed no papers
+ after the 5th of May, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. He says that he signed no papers for the other side, and
+ that the other side signed none for Vaile and Miner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Davidge. You are talking of two different things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I will show you after awhile that you are wrong, as I
+ always do. I never made a mistake on you yet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only routes mentioned in this indictment in which John W. Dorsey on
+ the 16th day of August, 1878, had any interest whatever were from Kearney
+ to Kent, in Nebraska; Vermillion to Sioux Falls, in Dakota; and Bismarck
+ to Tongue River, in Dakota. And I will say right here that if at any time
+ I do injustice to Mr. Bliss or anybody else, if it is pointed out I will
+ take it back cheerfully, and if it is not pointed out, and they show that
+ I did it, I will get up and admit it and say that I was mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. You will have a great deal to admit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Very well, I will do it, for I have the courage of
+ conviction, and I have the courage to say that I am mistaken when I am.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the evidence is that John W. Dorsey sold out his interest for ten
+ thousand dollars, and that he received the money, and that after that he
+ had no interest in the profits when the three routes were divided, and the
+ only three were the ones I have mentioned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the first route, from Vermillion to Sioux Falls, John W. Dorsey was the
+ subcontractor and he gave Mr. Vaile the entire pay for all increases and
+ all expeditions. John W. Dorsey had the right to subcontract, and Mr.
+ Vaile had the right to make the contract. The statement on page 726 shows
+ simply that John W. Dorsey never drew a dollar upon that route. That is
+ one route fairly and squarely disposed of. Understand, I cast no
+ imputation upon Mr. Vaile for having the contract and for getting the
+ money. When I come to it I will show you that he had a right to.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next route is from Kearney to Kent. John W. Dorsey had an interest in
+ that route, according to the agreement of August 16th, of one-third. You
+ will see from page 726 of the record that the first quarter John M. Peck
+ got the money, two hundred and forty-five dollars and six cents. John W.
+ Dorsey was entitled to one-third of that, if it was profit. The next
+ quarter was paid on the 22d of January, 1879&mdash;that is, for the fourth
+ quarter of 1878, and that was paid to H. M. Vaile. And never another
+ solitary cent was paid to anybody in such a way that John W. Dorsey was
+ entitled to any part or portion of it. That gets that route out of
+ trouble, so far as John W. Dorsey was concerned, no matter what the
+ increase may have been after that, no matter what the expedition was, no
+ matter whether French carried it for nothing, no matter what happened to
+ Cedarville or that city of Fitzalon; it was no interest to John W. Dorsey,
+ no matter whether the road ran direct from Fitzalon to Cedarville or not.
+ He was entitled to one-third of the profits on one payment to Peck, and
+ that payment was two hundred and forty-five dollars and six cents; whether
+ he ever got it I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see how he came out on the next route, from Bismarck to Tongue
+ River. He went out there to build stations. I will come to that in a
+ little while. Now, I call attention to page 727. The third quarter from
+ July 1 to September 30, 1878, was paid November 8, 1878, to H. M. Vaile.
+ Never a solitary dollar on the route was paid to John W. Dorsey, according
+ to this record, if you can rely on these books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the state of the case on these three routes. And yet it is
+ solemnly averred in the indictment that all the orders on these routes
+ were made for the joint benefit of John W. Dorsey and others. Now, before
+ another payment was made the division of the routes had been completed,
+ and John W. Dorsey sold out his interest in these routes and all others
+ for ten thousand dollars. So that he never received a dollar upon the
+ Bismarck route and the Vermillion route except as it is included in the
+ gross sum of ten thousand dollars which he received for his entire
+ interest, and that entire interest is described perfectly in the contract
+ of August 16, 1878. Now, it John W. Dorsey had no interest in any route
+ except as stated in the contract, of course nothing was done upon any
+ other route for his benefit; nothing was done in which he, by any
+ possibility, had the slightest pecuniary interest. How were the petitions
+ filed for his benefit? How were the affidavits made for his benefit? How
+ were the orders made for his benefit? He had no interest; he had parted
+ with it, and had nothing more to do with it than the attorneys for the
+ prosecution in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed by Mr. Bliss that when John W. Dorsey sold out he agreed to
+ make the necessary papers for the routes, and he tried to impress upon
+ your minds the idea that the bargain was that John W. Dorsey knew that for
+ ten thousand dollars he had to commit perjury and forgery and several
+ other cheerful crimes, from time to time, as he might be called upon by
+ the gentlemen who had been his co-conspirators.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ J. W. Dorsey frankly and cheerfully swore that he agreed to make the
+ necessary papers. He did not swear that he agreed to commit any frauds,
+ perjuries, or forgeries. Nothing of the kind. He agreed to execute, of
+ course, the necessary legal papers&mdash;the papers that, as contractor,
+ were necessary for him to make to vest title of the route in the person to
+ whom he had sold&mdash;just the necessary papers that would allow the man
+ who had paid him for the route to draw the money from the Government if he
+ performed the service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what were the papers? I say right here, gentlemen, that under the law
+ as it was then, under the law as it is now, it is impossible for a
+ contractor to assign his contract so as to be relieved from responsibility
+ to the Government; the Government will not permit it. The Government will
+ permit him to make a subcontract, and that is what John W. Dorsey did;
+ that is one of the things he agreed to do. In order to make that
+ subcontract absolutely certain; in order to put it beyond his power to do
+ anything with it, that subcontract was made for the entire pay, for the
+ entire increase and expedition. And what more? In order to make that
+ absolutely perfect, so they would not have a loop-hole anywhere, he signed
+ blank drafts upon the Post-Office Department for the entire pay of every
+ quarter during the contract term. And then, if they were fined&mdash;and
+ nobody knew how much they would be fined&mdash;they had the right to fill
+ up that order for the amount due them from the Post-Office Department
+ after deducting fines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He sold out in March, 1879. The regulation or order making it necessary
+ for the contractor to make an oath as to additional stock and men was not
+ in existence, was not a binding law or regulation, until the 1st day of
+ July, 1879. When he sold out in March, unless he were gifted with
+ prophecy, he would not know what the regulation of the 1st of July
+ following would be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there were two affidavits made by John W. Dorsey on route 38134,
+ Pueblo to Rosita. Around those affidavits Mr. Bliss hovered and Mr. Ker
+ remained. John W. Dorsey testifies that he received one of those
+ affidavits in the morning and swore to it, and that it was filled up when
+ he swore to it. Mr. Bliss and Mr. Ker, I believe, both say that it was not
+ filled up.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. Where does Mr. Dorsey say that it was filled up when he swore
+ to it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I have not the page here, but I will give it to you. He
+ swore that a dozen times, that he never swore to any blank affidavits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss. I undertake to say that it cannot be found in his evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. He testified that he received them both by mail, and that the
+ second one was contained in a letter which said that there was an error in
+ the first, and the second was sent for the purpose of correcting that
+ error.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. There could not have been any error in the first unless it
+ had been filled up. You cannot make an error in blank. On page 4838, Mr.
+ Rerdell swore that he left this city on the 17th or 18th of April for the
+ West, and then he adds, "I think on the 18th." Then the Government brought
+ the hotel-keepers from Sydney, Nebraska, and from Denver, and from some
+ other place, nearly as many witnesses as you had about the paper pulp. And
+ they proved that Rerdell was beyond the Missouri River on the 21 st of
+ April.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now see what Mr. Bliss says on page 4914:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, gentlemen, it is beyond dispute that as early as the 15th of
+ April, 1879, Mr. Rerdell had left this city and gone West.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did he have it stated on the 15th, gentlemen? I will tell you. Oh, I
+ tell you the human mind is a queer thing when it gets to working. John W.
+ Dorsey was in Middlebury, Vermont; if a letter had been sent from here on
+ the 15th, it certainly would have got up there before the 21st. So they
+ wanted Rerdell out of this town as early as possible, so that it would
+ make it highly improbable that it would take a letter from that time to
+ the 21st to get to Middlebury. Now, the evidence is that he left here, he
+ thinks, on the 18th. When did the letter get up there? I think the 20th or
+ 21st.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Davidge. There was a Sunday intervened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. They say, gentlemen, that there is no evidence that the
+ blanks were filled, and yet John W. Dorsey swears that he received a
+ letter stating that the first affidavit was erroneous, and the second one
+ was sent to him to correct it. How would you correct one affidavit in
+ blank by another affidavit in blank? How did he ever get those affidavits?
+ I will tell you. We will have that little matter settled. Here is what
+ Rerdell swears on page 2232:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. When did you return from that visit?&mdash;A. I returned about the 5th
+ of May.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. State whether or not after you returned, you found blank affidavits
+ among the papers connected with the business?&mdash;A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. How many did you find?&mdash;A. Well, there were several blank
+ affidavits of John W. Dorsey's and several of John M. Peck's. I don't know
+ how many there were.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Were they blank affidavits?&mdash;A. Well, sir, they were blank
+ affidavits similar to that one I sent, leaving out the number of men and
+ animals in each case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did they purport to have been sworn to?&mdash;A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Were those affidavits among the papers when you left here to go West?&mdash;A.
+ Some of them were. I think those of Peck's were here, probably four or
+ five, or half a dozen, and I had made out, before I left here, a lot of
+ them and sent them to John W. Dorsey. In the mean time, when I returned
+ here, John W. Dorsey was here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Rerdell swears that just before he went away he sent the affidavits to
+ John W. Dorsey, and the only question between them is, were they in blank,
+ or were they filled. John W. Dorsey swears that they were filled, because
+ when he received the second he received a letter stating that there was an
+ error in the first, and that error had been corrected in the second. The
+ last nail in the coffin of that doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. [Resuming.] May it please the Court and gentlemen of the
+ jury, before finishing what I am about to say in regard to the two
+ affidavits of John W. Dorsey I will now call your attention to a statement
+ made by Mr. Bliss, on page 304, in his opening speech to you:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Dorsey, while Senator, was, I think, chairman of the Committee on
+ Post-Offices, and chairman of the subcommittee in charge of all the
+ appropriations. That brought him, of course, directly in connection with
+ the Post-Office Department and its officials, and gave him, as we all
+ understand, necessarily, from the nature of the case, the possession of
+ some exceptional power over officials of the department&mdash;greater
+ power than a Senator would have when occupying som'-other position.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That statement was made to you, gentlemen, for the purpose of making you
+ believe that while Senator Dorsey was a member of the Senate he was also
+ chairman of the PostOffice Committee, and of the subcommittee having power
+ over the appropriations, and that he not only took advantage of being a
+ Senator, but by virtue of being chairman of that committee had exceptional
+ power over the officials of the Post-Office Department. He was trying to
+ convince you that, finding himself chairman of that committee, finding
+ himself with this power, he thereupon entered into a conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What evidence did the Government offer upon that point? Nothing. Did Mr.
+ Bliss at that time suppose that Mr. Dorsey was chairman of that committee?
+ The records were all here. The Government had plenty of agents to
+ ascertain what the fact was; and yet, without knowing the facts, Mr. Bliss
+ stated to this jury that he believed that; that Dorsey was chairman of the
+ Post-Office Committee and of the sub-committee; wanting to poison your
+ minds with the idea that Mr. Dorsey had taken advantage of having held
+ that position. Now, the only evidence upon that point I find on page 3992,
+ and that is the evidence of Mr. Dorsey himself. He is asked, Were you a
+ member of the Post-Office Committee in 1877? No. In 1878? No. Or chairman
+ of the subcommittee? Here is what he says, that he had not been on that
+ Post-Office Committee "for nearly two years" prior to July 1, 1878. And
+ yet an attorney representing the United States, representing the greatness
+ and honor, the grandeur and the glory of fifty millions of people, for the
+ purpose of poisoning your minds, there made that statement without knowing
+ anything about it or without caring anything about it. I thought I would
+ clear that point up the first thing this morning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now we will go on with the affidavits. You know these terrible affidavits
+ that were sworn to in Vermont. It was stated that the first affidavit was
+ wrong and that the second affidavit was substituted for the first. Now, if
+ the second affidavit took more money out of the Treasury than the first
+ affidavit you might say that there was a sinister motive, a dishonest
+ motive in withdrawing the first and substituting the second, unless it
+ appeared clearly that the second was true. But suppose it turns out that
+ the substitution did not take an extra dollar from the United States? Then
+ what motive do you say they had in doing it? Was it a motive to steal
+ something, or was it a motive simply to be correct? What other motive
+ could there have been?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see. The first affidavit said three men and twelve animals;
+ for the expedition, seven men and thirty-eight animals; and the proportion
+ was exactly three hundred per cent&mdash;that is, three times as much.
+ Now, then, they put in another affidavit. The second affidavit says two
+ men and six animals. That makes eight. And on the expedited schedule six
+ men and eighteen animals, which makes twenty-four; and three times eight
+ are twenty-four; exactly the same. Three times fifteen are forty-five, and
+ three times eight are twenty-four, and the amount of money drawn under the
+ second affidavit is precisely the same that would have been drawn under
+ the first affidavit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, do you pretend to tell me that they took the trouble to withdraw the
+ first affidavit and put in the second affidavit because they were trying
+ to defraud somebody? On the contrary, they took that trouble because there
+ was a mistake made in the first affidavit and they wanted to correct it,
+ not for the purpose of getting more money, but for the purpose of getting
+ a correct affidavit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Crane (foreman of the jury). Was not that first affidavit interlined?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there had been any fraud about it, would they not have withdrawn the
+ paper? They had a right to withdraw it. Yet they left the paper there;
+ they left it there as a witness. Why? Because it did not prove anything
+ against them; it only proved they desired to be correct.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My recollection is there were erasures in both affidavits. Let us find
+ them. Before I get through I will endeavor to show you that every erasure
+ and interlineation is an evidence of honesty instead of dishonesty. What
+ are the numbers of these affidavits? [Examining the papers.] They are
+ number 4 C and 5 C. Route 38134. I will read them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hon. Thomas J. Brady,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second Assistant Postmaster-General:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sir: The number of men and animals necessary to carry the mail on route
+ 38134 on the present schedule is three men and twelve animals. The number
+ necessary on a schedule of ten hours, seven times a week, is seven men and
+ thirty-eight animals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Respectfully,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ JOHN W. DORSEY,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Subcontractor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There does not appear to be any erasure or interlineation or anything else
+ in that affidavit. Now, here is the other one:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hon. Thomas J. Brady,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second Assistant Postmaster-General:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sir: The number of men and animals necessary to carry the mails on route
+ 38134 on the present schedule, seven times a week, is two men and six
+ animals. The number necessary on the schedule of ten hours, seven times a
+ week, is six men and eighteen animals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Respectfully,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ JOHN W. DORSEY,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Subcontractor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the second affidavit. The first was withdrawn. That is, they had
+ permission to withdraw it, and in the second affidavit is the
+ interlineation "seven times a week," isn't it? That is simply an
+ interlineation, because there had been an omission to state the service
+ that was then being performed or that was to be performed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Crane (foreman of the jury). That has puzzled me a good deal, to
+ understand the motive of those two affidavits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. There certainly could not be any motive for putting in
+ seven or three times a week, for this is simply to make it agree with the
+ truth. If I give a note to a man for five hundred dollars and should
+ happen to write in the word "hundred" and not the word "five," and then
+ should take it back and write in the word "five" above it, that is not a
+ sign of fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will somebody give me number 18 K; I just happened to see something there
+ which may be worth something, or may not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, here is a petition marked 2 A, that Rerdell swears that
+ the words "schedule thirteen hours" were written in by Miner. In one of
+ these papers I happened to see the word "schedule." Just notice the word
+ "schedule" on this paper [exhibiting to the jury,] and then have the
+ kindness to look at the word "schedule" in this other one [exhibiting to
+ the jury,] and see whether you think one man wrote them both. Rerdell says
+ he wrote the word "schedule" in that one [indicating,] and that Miner
+ wrote the word "schedule" in this other one [indicating.]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, there is another charge against John W. Dorsey, on route
+ 38145, and upon that route he made two affidavits. In the first affidavit
+ he swore it would require three men and seven animals on the schedule as
+ it then was, and that makes ten; that with the proposed schedule it would
+ take eleven men and twenty-six animals, making thirty-seven. Now, if it
+ took ten on the schedule as it then was, and thirty-seven on the proposed
+ schedule, then the Government, which accepted that affidavit, would have
+ to pay him three times and seven-tenths as much, which is the relation
+ between ten and thirty-seven. The proportion then is three and
+ seven-tenths. On the first affidavit his pay would have been twelve
+ thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty-two cents a year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I come to the second affidavit, which said that for the schedule as it
+ then stood ijt would take twenty men and animals. On the proposed schedule
+ he said it would take twelve men and forty-two animals, making fifty-four.
+ Now, the ratio of the second affidavit was as twenty is to fifty-four. The
+ ratio in the first affidavit was as ten is to thirty-seven, so that under
+ the second affidavit, which they say was willful and corrupt perjury, he
+ got eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars a year instead of
+ twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty-two cents.
+ There were three years for the contract to run, and a little over. Under
+ the first affidavit he would have received thirteen thousand nine hundred
+ and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents during the contract term
+ more than he took under the second. An affidavit was put in there that he
+ thought was erroneous. He withdrew that affidavit and put in a second one.
+ If he had allowed the first to remain and they had calculated the amount
+ on the first he would have received thirteen thousand nine hundred and
+ ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents more than he did under the
+ second affidavit. But he withdrew the first and put in the second, and
+ took from the Treasury thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two
+ dollars and seventy-five cents less, and they charge that as a fraud, as
+ an evidence of conspiracy and perjury. Now, that is all there is against
+ John W. Dorsey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 4090 John W. Dorsey swears that General Miles wanted to know how
+ far apart he (Dorsey) was building the stations on the Tongue River and
+ Bismarck route. Let us turn to page 4090. You know they were trying to
+ prove that when John W. Dorsey went out there and built the ranches that
+ he was going to build them about fifteen or seventeen miles apart, because
+ it was claimed that they knew there was to be increase and expedition. You
+ remember that. Now, when John W. Dorsey came upon the stand he swore that
+ when they went out there they started to build those stations, I believe,
+ somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or thirty-five miles apart, as
+ they could get water. Then he swore that when he went himself over, I
+ think, to Miles City, where General Miles was, that General Miles asked
+ him how far he was building his stations apart. John W. Dorsey told him.
+ Then General Miles gave him his advice. Now, I want to read this to you. I
+ asked him this question:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. When you got to Fort Keogh did you go to see General Miles?&mdash;A.
+ Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did you have any conversation with him in regard to this route, with
+ regard to the needs of the country for mail service; and, if so, what was
+ it? A. I told him all about the business generally. He seemed to
+ understand it pretty well. He wanted to know how far apart we were
+ building stations. I told him. He wanted to know how often the mails would
+ run, and I told him it would be weekly service, I thought. "We have been
+ pent up here two or three years," he says, "with mails from eighteen to
+ twenty days apart, reaching us by the way of Ogden and Bozeman." And he
+ says, "We can get it in seven or eight days over this line." And now I
+ would like to say that he did not say that he knew there would be an
+ increase, but he said he should like to have it increased to three trips a
+ week, or daily, and fifty hours' time. I told him there was no use to try
+ to get it at all; that it could not be done at present; that nobody knew
+ the distance through that country; that we expected to have it measured;
+ that it was claimed by everybody that it was a good deal more than two
+ hundred and fifty and probably over three hundred miles, and nobody would
+ undertake to carry it. Said I, "If you extend it the contractor can throw
+ up his contract and you will be without any mail." He said, "We are going
+ to ask for what we want, but we will take what they will give us."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Your stations are too far apart; you can't run any fast time with your
+ stations so far apart; you want more stations, and nearer together." The
+ result was that when I went back I met Mr. Pennell, who had built the
+ stations thirty to thirty-five miles apart, and going back we put in
+ intermediate stations. We only carried out lumber enough from Bismarck to
+ build eight or nine stations, for the windows, &amp;c.; we did not think
+ of building any more at that time. Mr. Pennell says the order was to build
+ the stations seventeen to twenty miles apart in going out. That is no such
+ thing. There was not a station built going out closer than thirty to
+ thirty-five miles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. What, if anything, did General Miles say that convinced you that you
+ ought to build stations nearer together?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then he testifies that on account of what he said he did this, and that he
+ had no instructions from Washington.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the testimony. Mr. Bliss endeavored to frighten the witness by
+ stating in his presence that he (Bliss) did not believe General Miles
+ would swear to any such thing, judging, of course, from the conversation
+ that he (Mr. Bliss) had had with General Miles. Notwithstanding that
+ threat, John W. Dorsey, confident that he was telling the truth, knowing
+ that he was telling the truth, told his story, and the Government never
+ brought General Miles to contradict him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next thing about John W. Dorsey is the conversation that he had
+ with some men in July or August out on the road, that I have spoken to you
+ about before. Nothing could be more perfectly improbable. It may be that
+ he did tell some man that he was a brother of Senator Dorsey, and,
+ perhaps, he did say that if he got into a tight place or hard up for money
+ he could borrow money from his brother. I do not know what he may have
+ said on that subject. But, gentlemen, there is not a man on this jury, not
+ one of you, who has the slightest suspicion that John W. Dorsey at that
+ time told those men substantially that his brother was in a conspiracy
+ with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, and that he, John W. Dorsey,
+ was also a conspirator. There is not one of you who believes that, not
+ one, and you never will. Why not? Because it is so utterly and infinitely
+ unreasonable and absurd. Now, that is the evidence against John W. Dorsey.
+ My attention is called to one other point in his case, and so I will call
+ your attention to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Bliss, gentlemen, on page 243, in speaking of the two affidavits on
+ the Pueblo and Rosita route, says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find this extraordinary condition of things. On route 38134, from
+ Pueblo to Rosita, which, I think, is the same route upon which the
+ obliging Mr. John W. Dorsey, as I have just stated to you, was allowed to
+ make the affidavit instead of Mr. Miner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, he goes on to describe these two affidavits, and then he says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those two affidavits were before Mr. Brady, made by John W. Dorsey on the
+ same day, and yet Mr. Brady chose to pick out one or the other of them and
+ say, "I believe that as the absolutely conclusive statement of the number
+ of men and animals that are now in use upon that route, and upon that
+ affidavit I will make my order taking from the Treasury thousands of
+ dollars of money." You will see that the first affidavit made the number
+ two men and six animals, making eight as the number of stock and carriers
+ then in use; but the other one called for three men and twelve animals,
+ making fifteen as the number then in use, and, therefore, according as he
+ accepted one or the other, by the rule of three, to which I called your
+ attention just now, there would be twice the amount of money allowed from
+ the Treasury under the one affidavit that there would be under the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just think of that, gentlemen. The number of men and animals then in use
+ has nothing to do with the number of men and animals stated in the other
+ affidavit; those amounts bear no relation to each other. The number of men
+ and animals in use in the first affidavit, and the number that would be
+ necessary on the next schedule, do bear a relation to each other. The
+ number of men and animals on the second affidavit on the then schedule
+ bears relation to the proposed number on the proposed schedule, and not to
+ the number on the other affidavit. And yet Mr. Bliss stood right before
+ you, with those two affidavits that would take the same amount of money
+ out of the Treasury, to a fraction, precisely the same&mdash;not the
+ difference of the billionth part of a farthing&mdash;and stated to you
+ that one would take twice as much money from the Treasury as the other.
+ You will think that he is as defective in mathematics as in law. I say to
+ you now that the amount that would be taken out of the Treasury on those
+ two affidavits is precisely the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I did not think that anybody could excel Mr. Ker in mathematics, but Mr.
+ Bliss bears off the palm. He bean, off the palm even in misstatement, and
+ bears off the palm in mistake. The two affidavits would call for the same
+ amount of money precisely, and yet Mr. Bliss stands up before you and says
+ there is twice as much on one as the other. Now, what is that for? That is
+ to prejudice you: that is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, you saw John W. Dorsey; you heard his testimony; you know
+ whether he is a man to be believed. It is for you to judge whether he is
+ honest or dishonest, and I leave his testimony with you. It was direct; it
+ was to the point; and his manner on the stand was absolutely and perfectly
+ honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another point made. You know you have to think of these
+ things as you can, and step on them and then go on. Another point is made,
+ and it was urged by Mr. Bliss day after day. And what is that? That Mr.
+ Brady took the affidavits of all these men as absolutely true; that he
+ allowed them to fix the limit of the money they would take out of the
+ Treasury; that he allowed interested men to make the affidavits, and then
+ he took the affidavits as absolutely true; that he allowed the contractors
+ themselves to fix the sum they would seize. Now let us see what that is.
+ Mr. Brady swears that he regarded the affidavit as the honest opinion of
+ the man who made it, but not as necessarily true; that he had a standard
+ of his own. Your views upon all such questions, gentlemen, will depend
+ upon which side of human nature you stand&mdash;whether you are a believer
+ in total depravity, or whether you think there is a little virtue left in
+ human nature. If you stand on the side of suspicion, if you allow the
+ snake of prejudice to forever whisper in your ear, why, your idea will be
+ that every man is a rascal; and whenever he does a decent action you will
+ say, "This action is a little velvet in the paw for the purpose of
+ covering the claw of some devilment that he has in store." If you judge
+ from that side you can torture any act, no matter what it is, into
+ evidence of guilt. But you may judge from the other side and say that men,
+ as a rule, are decent; that they would rather do a kind act than a mean
+ thing; that they would rather tell the truth than tell a lie. I tell you
+ to-day that there is an immensity of good in human nature. There are
+ hundreds and thousands and millions of men to-day who are honest, who
+ would not for anything stain the whiteness of their souls with a lie. They
+ are laboring-men, it may be, working by the day for a dollar or a dollar
+ and a half, and only taking enough of it to keep life and strength in
+ their bodies and giving the rest to wife and child. And there are battles
+ as grand as were ever won by a celebrated general, and just as bravely
+ fought, with poverty day after day; and the man who fights the battles
+ gains the victory and goes down to the grave with his manhood untarnished.
+ You know it, and so do I. And yet you are all the time told to suspect
+ everything, no matter what it is. There is a flower there; ah, but there
+ is a snake under it! Always making that remark; accounting for every
+ decent looking action by a base motive. That is not my view of human
+ nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Mr. Brady says that he had a standard of his own; that he let these
+ men make their statements, and he took their statements as being what they
+ believed to be the truth. And why not? Suppose I say to a man, "What will
+ you take for that horse?" And the man says, "That horse is worth a hundred
+ dollars." Suppose he goes and swears to it; that would not make any
+ difference in the price I would give for the horse, not a bit. You see I
+ am not buying an affidavit, I am buying a horse. So, when Brady says to
+ the contractor, "What will you carry the mail at six miles an hour for?"
+ and the man says "Twenty-five thousand dollars," and he swears to it,
+ Brady is not buying the affidavit; it is the service. If he does not
+ believe the service is worth that much, he says, "I can't do it," and that
+ is all. But they say "No; that is not what Brady did."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as a matter of fact, there are nineteen routes in this indictment,
+ and I believe eighteen of them were expedited. I have made a calculation
+ for the purpose of showing that the amount to be paid was a matter of
+ bargain; that it was a matter talked over between the parties; that it was
+ the result of agreement, and that Mr. Brady did not take the affidavit as
+ the actual amount, and that they were not bound to take the amount that he
+ actually said. Now, I have deducted what was allowed from what could have
+ been allowed on the affidavits, and I find that the price did not depend
+ upon the affidavits. I find that there was a difference between the amount
+ called for by the affidavits and the amount granted of over three hundred
+ thousand dollars. And yet these gentlemen say to you that Brady allowed
+ the men who made the affidavits absolutely to fix the amount. Gentlemen,
+ that will not do. It was a matter of agreement, a matter of bargain, the
+ same as any other agreement or any other bargain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, suppose they had had a conspiracy and said, "We want to
+ get all the money we can out of the Treasury." They would have agreed upon
+ a per cent.; they would have had all those affidavits showing
+ substantially the same per cent., wouldn't they? Because they would have
+ wanted harmony in it. They would have said, "It won't do for you to make
+ an affidavit on that route with one thousand two hundred per cent., on
+ this route with five hundred, on that route with two hundred and twenty
+ per cent., and on the other route with three hundred and forty per cent.
+ That won't do; that is nonsense; we are in a conspiracy and we want all
+ these things to agree and harmonize." And the result would have been that
+ they would have had about the same per cent, in all those affidavits. And
+ yet those affidavits vary in per cent, all the way from two hundred and
+ twenty to one thousand two hundred. They say, "Result of conspiracy." I do
+ not look at it in that way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also claimed that the persons who sold out&mdash;that is to say,
+ John M. Peck and John W. Dorsey&mdash;agreed to make the necessary papers
+ that the other parties required. That being so, why should not affidavits
+ have been made in blank? Now, I ask you if the other parties were willing
+ to swear to anything that these men would write, why were they made that
+ way? Why not avoid the suspicious circumstance of blanks and put the
+ amount in at first, knowing that the men would not hesitate to swear? Of
+ what use was it, gentlemen, to have an affidavit suspiciously made, to
+ have blanks suspiciously left, when the men were willing to swear to any
+ numbers they would put in? Why did not the parties who made the affidavits
+ write in the amounts? Does not that very fact, that blanks were left, show
+ that they were to take the judgment of the men who were to do the
+ swearing? Why would they leave blanks? Why did they not fill them up at
+ the time and have them sworn to?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why were they not continuously written? That is another point, if this was
+ a conspiracy. Guilt is always conscious that it is guilty. Guilt is always
+ suspecting detection. Guilt is infinitely suspicious. Guilt would make all
+ the papers as nearly right as possible. Guilt would look out for erasures.
+ Guilt would abhor blots. Guilt would have avoided having blanks filled in
+ with different colored inks. Guilt would want everything fitting
+ everything else, nothing to excite suspicion. Innocence is negligent. The
+ man with honest intentions is the one that does not care. But the guilty
+ man does not travel in the snow. He wants no tracks left.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, another thing: The fact that no effort was made to have the
+ affidavits in the same handwriting, no effort to have the blanks
+ apparently filled at the same time, that they were interlined, that there
+ were erasures&mdash;all those things tend to show that the parties were
+ honest in what they did. It was just as easy to have one without an
+ erasure as with it; ii was just as easy to have one continuously written
+ as to have the blanks filled up; just as easy to have one without any
+ interlineations as with it. And yet these parties, knowing that they were
+ conspirators (according to these gentlemen), Mr. Brady occupying a high
+ and responsible position, were so careless of their reputations, that they
+ did not even endeavor to make the papers passable upon their face.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing: These very routes were investigated by Congress in 1878&mdash;this
+ very business. If the parties at that time had been conscious of guilt,
+ why were any suspicious papers left on file? Why were not others
+ substituted that had no suspicious interlineations, no suspicious
+ erasures, no suspicious blanks that had been filed? Why were these very
+ affidavits at that time reported to Congress?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first investigation was in 1878, and on account of that investigation
+ the contractors for about a month and a half were left. Then there was
+ another investigation in 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Is there any evidence that they were all reported to
+ Congress?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I think so; I think that is here in the record. I
+ understand the evidence to be that it was all reported to Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. The investigation of 1880 was general, and not as to these
+ particular routes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. In 1878 there was a special investigation growing out of
+ these Clendenning bonds and out of the Peck bids, and out of the
+ connection that they said Stephen W. Dorsey had with this business. That
+ is what it grew out of. Now, in the light of that investigation, let us
+ take it for granted for one moment that according to their statement the
+ parties had conspired. If anything on earth would make them afraid about
+ papers I think it would have been that investigation; and yet no effort
+ was made to conceal one, not the slightest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then we will go another step. General Brady was Second Assistant
+ Postmaster-General. All these papers were absolutely in his power. He
+ could have called for them at any time. Every suspicious paper could have
+ been destroyed or an unsuspicious one substituted for it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I want to know if it is conceivable that General Brady, under these
+ charges, when the new administration came in, under the threat of the
+ Government, would voluntarily leave those papers upon the files if they
+ had been dishonest and he knew it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take another step. So far as we have learned from the prosecution I
+ believe there is one paper claimed by them to have been lost. They do
+ claim that there was a second affidavit on the Bismarck and Tongue River
+ route. One is gone and one remains. Which remains? The affidavit for one
+ hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses. It seems to me
+ absolutely capable of demonstration that we did not take the one that is
+ gone. Had we been going to take anything we would have taken the one for
+ one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses, and left the
+ other. But the other, about which nobody ever did complain, was taken, and
+ the one upon which they build their great argument of fraud upon that
+ route was left. And then it turned out that General Brady only allowed
+ forty per cent, of that affidavit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, this prosecution was not begun in a moment. It was talked about for
+ weeks and months, I might almost say for years. Talk, talk, talk in the
+ papers everywhere. These men were not suddenly charged with this offence.
+ They understood it; they knew it. I think I have been engaged in this
+ suit, or suits growing out of this business, for two years. It was a
+ matter of slow growth. Mr. Brady retired, I believe, some time in April,
+ 1881, knowing at that time that these charges had been made and that the
+ charges were being pressed. Mr. Dorsey knew it at the same time. All these
+ defendants knew it. Now they say that at that time we were in conspiracy
+ with Mr. Brady, and they say that at that time we were in conspiracy with
+ Mr. Turner. We had the papers in our power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if Mr. Dorsey was wicked enough to conspire, if Mr. Brady was
+ villainous enough to conspire, I ask you whether they would have left
+ behind the evidence of their conspiracy? Why were the papers left? Because
+ General Brady never dreamed that one of them was dishonest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did not Vaile and Miner, John W. Dorsey and Peck and Stephen W. Dorsey
+ ask for the papers? Because they believed every one to be honest, and they
+ had no use for them. They were willing that the Government should make out
+ of them what it could. I ask again, is it conceivable that John R. Miner,
+ if he knew there was on the files of the department a petition that he had
+ changed, that he had erased, that he had interlined or forged, is it
+ conceivable, if he had been wicked enough to enter into the conspiracy,
+ that he would have been foolish enough to leave the paper there? Would he
+ not have gone to Brady and said to him, "I conspired; you know it; I
+ changed the petition, and I want it; I erased a word in a petition, I want
+ it; I signed a name to a petition, I want it"? And Brady would have said,
+ "Yes, and you ought to have called for it long ago; you can have it." If
+ S. W. Dorsey had interlined an affidavit or had filled a blank, if S. W.
+ Dorsey had made an erasure or an interlineation, he, of course, must have
+ known it, and if he conspired with Brady he must have known it, and he
+ must have gone to General Brady and said, "I want that affidavit on such a
+ route; we can write another, and I want that; I want that petition;" and
+ it would have been given. You cannot conceive of such infinite stupidity
+ as to say that those people knew that those papers were dishonest, and
+ that they still left them on file as weapons for their enemies. You cannot
+ do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So much, gentlemen, for the affidavits, and so much for the papers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another question, and I have no doubt that you have asked it
+ yourselves. It has been asked a great many times by the prosecution. That
+ question is this: Why did Dorsey retain Rerdell in his employ after the
+ 20th of June, 1881? These gentleman tell you that it is evidence of guilt
+ that he did it. I will tell you why he did it. At that time the public
+ mind was almost infinitely excited on this question. At that time the
+ public was ready to believe anything. It had its mouth wide open, like a
+ young robin, ready for worms or shingle-nails&mdash;it made no difference&mdash;anything
+ that dropped in. Every newspaper was charging that these defendants were
+ guilty, that Stephen W. Dorsey was a conspirator, that millions had been
+ taken from the Treasury, and there were nearly as many mistakes in the
+ press then as in the speech of Mr. Bliss now. But I can excuse that,
+ because it was before the evidence. Now, what was Mr. Dorsey to do in the
+ then state of the public mind? That man, no matter how bad he was, how
+ base he was, had the power to have him indicted. That man could have gone
+ before the grand jury and had Mr. Dorsey or any other public man indicted
+ in the then state of excitement and feeling of the public. What was the
+ result of his going even to James and MacVeagh? I believe Mr. Turner says
+ that on account of the statement of this man Rerdell, he (Turner) was
+ turned out of his office. That is the effect. What became of McGrew? What
+ became of Lilley? What became of Lake? What became of twenty or thirty
+ other officials upon whose reputation this man had breathed the poison of
+ slander? Stephen W. Dorsey at that time knew that that man in the then
+ state of public excitement was powerful for mischief. That man made the
+ affidavit of June, 1881, at the request of James W. Bosler, as he himself
+ says, and swore that he went to the Government simply to find out the
+ Government's secrets; swore that he was still upon the side of Stephen W.
+ Dorsey; took back what he had said, and swore that it was a lie. The
+ question then was what to do with him? Stephen W. Dorsey made up his mind
+ not to do anything more, just to let him alone, just let him stay as he
+ was. That was the wise course. It was the course that any wise man, in my
+ judgment, would have pursued under the circumstances. What else could he
+ do? Let him alone. Let him alone. He did not at that time expect that he
+ would ever be indicted. He shrank from an indictment, as every sensitive
+ man does, because when you have indicted a man you have put a stain upon
+ him that even the verdict of not guilty does not altogether remove. He did
+ not want that stain. He was a man of power; he was a man of position, a
+ man of social and political standing, a man wielding as much influence as
+ any other one man in the United States. He did not wish to be indicted. He
+ did not wish his reputation to be soiled and stained. And so he allowed
+ that man to stay where he was. He may have made a mistake, but whether
+ mistake or not, that is what he did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another question. Why did we fail to produce our books and
+ papers? I will tell you. The notice to produce them was given to us on the
+ 13th day of February. We had noticed curious motions. Two days afterwards,
+ Mr. Rerdell went on the stand. What did they want the books and papers
+ for? For Mr. Rerdell to look at. Why did he want to look at the books and
+ papers? To stake out his testimony. He hated to depend upon his memory. We
+ took the responsibility of letting the witness swear to the contents of
+ the books and papers, and let them call that secondary evidence. We took
+ that responsibility rather than to furnish the books and papers to be
+ looked at by that man in order that he might make no mistakes in his
+ testimony. What happened afterwards justified our course. If we had shown
+ to him the books and papers, and checks, and stubs, do you think he would
+ have made any mistake about that seven thousand five hundred dollar check?
+ Would he have said that he went with Dorsey, and that Dorsey drew the
+ money, and that he looked over his shoulder, and that then he and Dorsey
+ walked down to the Post-Office Department, if he had known that that check
+ was drawn to his order? If he had known before he swore, that he indorsed
+ that check, he would have said he went down and got the money himself; he
+ would not have said that Dorsey did. He would have made no mistakes there.
+ He would not have been driven into the corner of saying "stub" or "stubs,"
+ "checkbook" or "check-books," "amount" or "amounts." No, sir. And that one
+ thing justified absolutely the wisdom of our course.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the Court decided that, having failed to produce our books on notice
+ and allowed the other side to introduce secondary evidence of their
+ contents, we would not be allowed then to produce them. I insisted that we
+ had the right then to produce them, and the Court decided that we had not.
+ We took the responsibility of refusing, and we took that responsibility
+ because we made up our minds that we would not allow that man to look over
+ the books, checks, and stubs for the purpose of manufacturing his
+ testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Where did you offer to produce the books?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Where did you offer the production of the books? That is just
+ what I was about to ask.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. The Court said we could not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Where did you make the offer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I want to know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. Mr. Ingersoll did not say he made the offer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. I think he did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I think he did.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. Just read it, Mr. Stenographer. He says nothing of the
+ kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Stenographer, (reading)
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insisted that we had the right then to produce them, and the Court
+ decided that we had not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is exactly what I say.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. The Court did not give any intimation at that time, but after
+ that point in the trial had passed, several days, several weeks, I think,
+ the attention of the Court was called to this question, and the Court
+ remarked, in the course of the opinion, that it understood the law to be
+ that after a party, upon whom notice had been given to produce books, had
+ failed to produce the books, and the other side had given secondary
+ evidence, then the Court would not allow the party having the books to
+ produce them for the purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That is all I claim.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. But there was no such offer made, so far as I recollect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Why should we make the offer after your Honor had decided
+ that we could not do it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. I will answer the question. Because whether it would have
+ been accepted or not was a question for the counsel for the Government
+ when the offer was made. And again, the learned counsel will recollect
+ that after the notice was given, when S. W. Dorsey was on the stand on
+ cross-examination, I demanded those books and those stubs, and he asked
+ leave to consult his counsel. The Court denied that request, and then
+ there was a peremptory refusal to produce any book or any paper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Oh, yes. Mr. Ingersoll and Mr. Davidge repeatedly announced to
+ the Court that they were not going to produce books to assist the
+ prosecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes; I said that twenty times, and the Court, as I
+ understood it, held that after we had refused to produce the books and
+ driven the other party to secondary evidence, we could not then produce
+ the books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. You made no offer to produce the books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I resisted the opinion of the Court and made the best
+ argument I could, but the Court said that was not the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. The remark of the Court arose upon an argument on the part of
+ Mr. Ingersoll, and if I am not mistaken, upon the effect of the refusal to
+ produce the books and papers, Mr. Ingersoll contending that there was no
+ presumption against his client on account of the refusal to produce the
+ books and papers, and that the jury ought to be instructed that the only
+ effect of refusing to produce the books and papers was to leave the case
+ upon the secondary evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I am not referring to that discussion, nor to that decision
+ of your Honor; I am referring to the decision you made during the trial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. That was the only occasion since this trial began, in which the
+ Court referred to that rule of law which denied the right to introduce
+ primary evidence for the purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence,
+ after the primary evidence had been withheld in the first instance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Of course, I am not absolutely certain, I never am; but I
+ will endeavor to find in the record exactly what you said on that subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, in order that we may be perfectly correct, and in order to show,
+ too, how easy it is to be mistaken, Mr. Merrick just said upon that very
+ subject of the books and papers, that while Mr. Dorsey was upon the stand,
+ he asked leave to consult his counsel. If Mr. Merrick will read the
+ testimony he will find that Mr. Dorsey made that remark when he was asked
+ about the affidavit of June 20, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. You are right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. That just shows how easy it is to make a mistake when it
+ comes to a matter of recollection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. I think it was upon a question of the insertion of the change
+ in the character of the affidavit&mdash;its being addressed to the
+ President; and when I asked him if he had not made that change he asked
+ leave to consult his counsel. For the moment I thought it was upon the
+ books. But the substance still remains, that, on the question of the
+ books, I asked him on his cross-examination&mdash;and the counsel will
+ state his recollection to be the same&mdash;about the stubs and the books,
+ and called upon him to produce them, and the counsel replied, "We will
+ not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I presume I did. I made that reply a good many times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Will the counsel be frank enough to state when that decision
+ was made?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Which decision?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. When he was on the stand on cross-examination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. And I said we would not produce them?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. After the testimony in chief and Rerdell was gone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Then I said we would not produce them. And now I will say
+ that the decision of the Court was made before that time that we could not
+ produce them, and if I do not show it then I will publicly take it back.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I do not think you can show it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. If I do not, then I will beg your Honor's pardon, and if I
+ do&mdash;if I do&mdash;Now, I think what happened afterwards in this case
+ with that very witness justifies the course that we pursued. He also
+ stated at the time that we had, I believe, some twenty thousand pages of
+ letters on all possible subjects to a great number of people. We knew that
+ there was a spirit abroad&mdash;and some of it in a part of the
+ prosecution&mdash;to find something against somebody else somewhere. We
+ made up our minds that our private books and correspondence never should
+ be ransacked by this Department of Justice. We took the consequences, and
+ we are willing to take them. We say that the inference from our refusal is
+ an inference of fact, and must be decided by the jury, and is not an
+ inference of law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have been asked a good many times why we did not put James W. Bosler on
+ the stand. The prosecution subpoenaed Mr. Bosler. They appeared to have an
+ affection for him. They subpoenaed him, and he came here. Afterwards they
+ issued an attachment for him. They had him, arrested at midnight and
+ brought here. He gave some testimony, and you will find it on page 2611.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. I do not know that there was an attachment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. You know you have a right to prove things by circumstances.
+ Now, it is said that he put the marshal out of the house; I think that is
+ evidence tending to show that an attachment was issued.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ker. And kept him out with a club.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I understood also that Mr. Dorsey kicked somebody else out of
+ his house about the same time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Oh, yes; it has been a very lively term of court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There were two very important things that they were to prove by Mr.
+ Bosler, and they were patting him on the back here for weeks. Friendship
+ sprang up between them. It was a very young plant at first, but the Bosler
+ ivy grew upon the oak of the prosecution. I saw him sitting here,
+ everything delightful. The prosecution, I hoped, began to flatter itself
+ that Mr. Bosler was on their side; I hoped that was so. Finally they put
+ Mr. Bosler on the stand. What did they want to prove by him? That Dorsey
+ wrote a letter to him on the 13th of May, 1879, telling how much money he
+ had given to Brady; that is one thing they wanted to prove by him. The
+ second thing was that Rerdell had written a letter to Bosler, I believe,
+ on the 20th of May or 22d of May, 1880, stating that he (Rerdell) had been
+ subpoenaed to go before the Congressional committee and take his books and
+ papers; that he got very much frightened; that he had taken the advice of
+ Brady and got a very valuable suggestion from Brady, which he was going to
+ follow. They wanted to prove that by Mr. Bosler.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rerdell had already sworn that Dorsey sent a letter to Bosler on the 13th
+ of May, 1879. Rerdell had sworn to the contents of that letter; that the
+ contents were that he had paid Brady so much money, &amp;c., which you
+ remember, and then that he, in 1880, had written a letter to Mr. Bosler,
+ and I believe he pretended to have a copy of it. Now, here comes Bosler's
+ testimony, on page 2611.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Have you made a search among your papers to find a letter alleged to
+ have been written to you by Stephen W. Dorsey, and dated on or about the
+ 13th of May, 1879?&mdash;Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the letter that Rerdell swore about.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Have you searched?&mdash;A. I have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did you find it?-A. No, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Have you made search for a letter purporting to have been written by
+ him to you, and dated on or about the 22d of May, 1880?&mdash;A. Yes, sir.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Q. Did you find that letter?&mdash;A. I did not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court: Was there ever such a letter?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Bosler replied: "There never was such a letter received by me."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is the testimony of Mr. Bosler, and on that testimony the two
+ letters of May 13, 1879, and May 22, 1880, turn to dust and ashes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, they say, "Why didn't you put Bosler on?" Not much necessity of Mr.
+ Bosler after that. And besides, gentlemen, I believe I will take you into
+ my confidence just a little bit. The evidence of Rerdell as to the
+ affidavit of June 20, 1881, and the affidavit of July 13, 1882 (an
+ affidavit in which he swore that there was nothing against Mr. Bosler, an
+ affidavit that was made apparently for the benefit of Bosler), all that
+ evidence, the evidence of Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey upon those questions,
+ advertised the prosecution that Mr. Bosler knew of many circumstances;
+ that he was present a portion of the time, and I did not know but finally
+ the prosecution would get so much confidence in Mr. Bosler that they would
+ call him. I was hoping they would. They did not. It did not work quite as
+ I expected. That is all there is about that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is one further point to which I wish to call your attention. I
+ want you to remember that a partnership is not a conspiracy, although all
+ the facts about a partnership are consistent with the idea of a conspiracy
+ up to a certain point; and all the facts about a conspiracy are consistent
+ with a partnership up to a certain point. The fact that men act together
+ does not show that they have conspired; does not show that they have a
+ wicked design. The fact that they are engaged in the same business does
+ not show that they have a wicked design or that they are there by
+ conspiracy. In other words, I want your minds so that you will distinguish
+ between a fact that may be innocent, and generally is innocent, and a fact
+ that must be evidence of guilt. I want you to distinguish between the
+ facts common to all partnerships, common to all agreements, and those
+ facts that necessarily imply a criminal intent. If you wil do that
+ gentlemen, you will have but little trouble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ [At this point a volume of the report of the trial was handed up to the
+ Court by Mr. Ingersoll with a reference to a certain page].
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Without looking at the book I take risk of saying that the
+ Court never announced its opinion on that question until the case referred
+ to a few moments ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I just gave my memory on the subject. It does not make any
+ great difference in this case, of course.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. This is during the cross-examination of Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Yes, the Court did state on that occasion:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is not the point here. If they are allowed to go on and cross-examine
+ this way without the production of the books, they cannot contradict the
+ witness afterwards by producing the books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had forgotten that I had announced it twice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. If the Court please, I did not want to bring this up,
+ because I knew you had, and so I thought I would slip you the book and let
+ you off easy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I do not think it weakens the position at all that the same
+ announcement has been made twice instead of once.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. We thought it made it stronger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Still, the books were not produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Now, if the Court please, I am not arguing&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. [Interposing.] I will leave you to the jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Your Honor knows that I have always shown great modesty
+ about trying to do anything against any decision.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. I do not dispute that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Now, the next question, gentlemen, is what is meant by
+ corroboration? If you tell a man that he is not a great painter, he does
+ not get angry. He says he does not pretend to paint, or is not a great
+ sculptor. But if you tell him he has no logic, he loses his temper. Yet
+ logic is perhaps the rarest quality of the human mind. There are thousands
+ of painters and sculptors where there is one logician. A man swears, for
+ instance, that he went down to a man's house in the morning at six
+ o'clock, and that Mr. Thomas was standing just in front of the house, and
+ when he went in the dog tried to bite him, and that after he got in he had
+ such and such conversation. Now, there are thousands of people who have
+ brains of that quality that they think the fact that he did go there at
+ six o'clock in the morning, and did see Mr. Thomas standing out in front
+ of the house, and especially the fact that the dog did try to bite him, is
+ a corroboration of the conversation that took place in the house. There
+ are just such people. In this case, for instance, in Mr. Brady's matter,
+ they say that the fact of Walsh being in his house is important. Suppose
+ that he was, what of it? Is that corroboration? Corroboration must be on
+ the very point in dispute. It must be the very hinge of the question. Then
+ it is corroboration, if the question is what did the man say. It is not
+ corroboration to prove that the man was there unless the man swears that
+ he was not there. Then the inference is drawn that if he would lie about
+ being there he might lie about what he said.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, understand me. They will say, for instance, "Here is an affidavit,
+ and these blanks have been filled up. Rerdell says they were filled up,
+ and he says they were filled up after they were sworn to." Now, the fact
+ that the affidavit is there and that the blanks are filled up is not
+ corroboration, because the point to be corroborated is that it was done
+ after it was sworn to. And so the existence of the affidavit, while it is
+ necessary, is no corroboration; the filling up of the blank is no
+ corroboration; its being on file is no corroboration. Why? The point to be
+ corroborated is not that the blanks were filled, but that they were filled
+ after the paper had been sworn to! That is the point. And when they begin
+ to talk to you about corroboration I want you to have it in your minds all
+ the time that to be corroborated about an immaterial matter is nothing; it
+ has nothing to do with the question; but there must be corroboration on
+ the very heart of the point at issue!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing, gentlemen. It does not make any difference what I
+ say about this man, or that man, or the other man, unless there is reason
+ in what I say. If I tell you that the evidence of a witness is not worthy
+ of belief, I must tell you why. I must give you the reason. If I simply
+ say the witness is a perjurer, that shows that I either underrate your
+ sense, or have none of my own, because that is not calculated to convince
+ any human mind one way or the other. You are not to take my statement; you
+ are to take the evidence, and such reasons as I give, and only such as
+ appeal to your good sense. If I say, "You must not believe that man," I
+ must give you the reason why. If the reason I give is a good one, you will
+ act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet
+ upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an
+ epithet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there is another thing. An attorney has a certain privilege; he is
+ protected by the court. He is given almost absolute liberty of speech, and
+ it is a privilege that he never should abuse. He should remember if he
+ attacks a defendant, that the defendant cannot open his mouth. He should
+ remember that it does not take as much courage to attack, as it does not
+ to attack. He should remember, too, that by the use of epithets, by abuse,
+ that he is appealing to the lowest and basest part of every juror's head
+ and heart. It is on a low level. It is a fight with the club of a
+ barbarian instead of with an intellectual cimeter. There is no logic in
+ abuse. There is no argument in epithet. Remember that. The weight and
+ worth of an argument is the effect it has upon an unprejudiced mind, and
+ that is all it is worth. Therefore I do not want you, gentlemen, to be
+ carried away by any assault that may be made&mdash;I do not say that any
+ will be made&mdash;but any that may be made, that is not absolutely
+ justified by the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has been one little thing said during this trial; that is, about the
+ testimony of defendants. I believe Mr. Bliss takes the ground that you
+ cannot believe a defendant; that defendants cannot be believed unless they
+ are corroborated. Mr. Bliss has the kindness to put the defendants in this
+ case on an equality with his witness Rerdell. Gentlemen, you cannot
+ believe any witness unless his evidence is reasonable. Every witness has
+ to be corroborated by the naturalness of his story. Every witness is to be
+ corroborated by his manner upon the stand and by the thousand little
+ indications that catch the eye of a juror or of a judge or of an attorney.
+ Congress has passed a law allowing defendants to swear when they are put
+ upon trial. Will you tell me that that law is a net, a snare, and a
+ delusion, and the moment a defendant takes the stand the prosecution is to
+ say, "Of course he will lie"? Why do they say that? Because he is a
+ defendant, and you cannot believe a word that he says; he is swearing in
+ his own behalf. There is that same low, slimy view of human nature again,
+ that a defendant who swears in his own behalf must swear falsely. I do not
+ take that view. The defendant has the same right upon the stand that
+ anybody else has, and if his character is not good his character can be
+ attacked; it can be impeached by the prosecution precisely as you would
+ impeach the reputation of any other witness. If he tells a story which is
+ reasonable you will believe it, and you will believe it notwithstanding he
+ is a defendant and notwithstanding he has an interest in the verdict. In
+ old times they would not allow a man to swear at all if he had the
+ interest of a cent in any civil suit. They would not allow him to testify
+ when he was on trial for his own liberty and his own life. That was
+ barbarism. The enemy&mdash;the man who hated him&mdash;he could tell his
+ story, but the man attacked, the man defending his own liberty and his own
+ life, his mouth was closed and sealed. We have gotten over that barbarism
+ in nearly all the States of this Union, and now we say, "Let every man
+ tell his story; don't allow any avenue to truth to be closed; let us hear
+ all sides, and whatever is reasonable take as the truth, and what is
+ unreasonable throw away." And, gentlemen, let me say here that it is not
+ your business to go to work picking a witness's testimony all apart and
+ saying, "Well, I guess there is a little scrap now that there is some
+ truth in," or "here is a line, and I guess that is so, but the next eleven
+ lines I do not believe; the next sentence, I think, will do." That is not
+ the way to do. If a witness is of that character you must throw his entire
+ evidence to the winds, for it is tainted and the fountains of justice
+ should not be tainted with such evidence, and a verdict should not be
+ touched and corrupted with such testimony. You will take the evidence of
+ these defendants as you would take that of any other man, and it is for
+ you to say whether that evidence is true. It is for you to say that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If corroboration was so necessary why were not their witnesses
+ corroborated? Why didn't they call Mr. Bosler to corroborate their
+ witness?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, one of the defendants in this case is Mr. John R. Miner, and I want
+ you to think of the terrible things they have against him. One of the
+ charges made against him is that he wrote a petition and wrote in six
+ names attached to it. His explanation is, that if he did anything of that
+ kind it was because he received a petition which was so worn that it could
+ not be presented, and he copied it, and that the six names were found on
+ that petition. There was no other way on earth for him to get those names,
+ and we find them on the same route in, I believe, seven other petitions
+ which were filed; we find that those very names are on the other
+ petitions, and I think Mr. Hall's name&mdash;the one the most trouble was
+ made about&mdash;was on three or four petitions of the other kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Carpenter. He admitted that he wrote them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes; Hall admitted that he wrote them. But I believe this
+ petition was never filed in the department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think Mr. Woodward said he found it among the papers at some other
+ place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a petition called the Utah petition that has some names in Utah.
+ I think Mr. Woodward swore that he tound it in room No. 22 or 23.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. In the case itself, in the department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes; but it has no file mark. Mr. Woodward says he does not
+ now remember how it got in there. As I was about to remark, there was a
+ petition called the Utah petition with some names of persons living off
+ the route, I believe&mdash;two or three sheets. The petition itself was
+ genuine, and was indorsed, I believe, by Senators Slater and Grover and by
+ Congressman Whiteaker. Now, then, how did these names come in there? The
+ petition is ample without those names; large enough. I will tell you what
+ I think. I think that it is a part of another petition, and that it was
+ the result of an accident. I think it was done in the Post-Office
+ Department, not intentionally, but as an accident. The evidence is that
+ they kept three routes in one pigeonhole, and that the papers sometimes
+ got mixed; that is Mr. Brewer's testimony. A very strange thing happened
+ to that petition. While it was before this jury it came apart again. And
+ if some clerk not absolutely familiar with the papers had taken it up, he
+ would have been just as liable to put it on the wrong petition as on the
+ right one. My plan is to account for a thing in some way consistent with
+ evidence, if I naturally can. I do not go out of my way hunting for
+ evidence of crime. And when there was a petition, large enough, with a
+ plenty of genuine names on it, I cannot imagine anybody would go and get
+ names from any other petition and paste them on to that. But being in this
+ same country, and the testimony being that they had three of these routes
+ in one pigeon-hole, my idea is that the papers got mixed and mingled
+ sometimes, and I say the probability is that it was an accident. That is
+ the best way to account for it. If Miner had known that that petition was
+ there that he had made, would he have allowed it to stay there? Why would
+ he want to do such a thing if he was in a conspiracy with Brady? Why would
+ he have to resort to perjury and interlineation in order to get Brady to
+ make orders that he, Brady, had conspired to make? Absurdity cannot go
+ beyond that. Here is the doctrine: "I have conspired with the Second
+ Assistant Postmaster-General. He will do anything for me that I want. Now,
+ I will go and forge some petitions." That seems to me perfectly idiotic.
+ This petition was indorsed by Senators Grover and Slater and Congressman
+ Whiteaker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, there is another petition; that one I showed you this morning, with
+ the words "schedule thirteen hours," and the evidence was (that is, if you
+ call what Rerdell stated evidence) that Miner wrote the words "schedule
+ thirteen hours." I have shown you, this morning, those words, and without
+ any other particle of argument I want to leave it to you who wrote those
+ words&mdash;whether Rerdell wrote them or Miner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, there is another wonderful thing about that petition. It is not on
+ any of the routes in this indictment, and has no business here&mdash;I
+ mean the Ehrenberg petition. The one I spoke of was the Kearney and Kent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next petition is the Ehrenberg and Mineral Park. They say that there
+ has been some word erased and another written in. Nobody pretends that it
+ is not a genuine petition. Nobody pretends that it was not signed by every
+ one of the persons by whom it purports to be signed. Then, another
+ peculiarity; it is not on any route in this indictment, and has no more to
+ do with this case than the last leaf of the Mormon Bible; not the least.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see if they have any more of these terrible things. Here is
+ petition 2 A, on the Kearney and Kent route. That is the petition that has
+ the words "schedule thirteen hours."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the one indorsed by Senator Saunders. Petition 18 K, on the route
+ from Ehrenberg to Mineral Park, is not a route in this case. It turned out
+ that the names on it are genuine, and the genuineness of the petition has
+ not been challenged. The only point made is that the word "Ehrenberg" has
+ been written by somebody else. There is no evidence to show that the
+ petition was not properly signed; that the persons on there did not sign
+ their names or authorize somebody else to do it. The probability is there
+ may have been some mistake in the name, or it may have been misspelled.
+ There was some mistake made, and the word "Ehrenberg" was written in. On
+ page 4186 Mr. Miner swears positively that in regard to the petition 2 A
+ he never wrote the words "schedule thirteen hours."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, there is another petition, I think it is on page 1247, the Camp
+ McDermitt petition. There are the words "ninety-six hours." And they get
+ that down there to a fine point. Mr. Boone swore that he did not know who
+ wrote the word "ninety," but that Miner wrote the word "six.." Well, that
+ is too fine a point, gentlemen, to put on handwriting. It seems there is
+ an interlineation there of the words "ninety-six," and they say they do
+ not know who wrote the word "ninety" and that Miner wrote the word "six."
+ But Miner swears that he did not write it at all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, you take away the evidence of Mr. Rerdell as to Miner, and what
+ is left? The evidence left is that of A. W. Moore. And what is that? It is
+ that Miner instructed him to get up false petitions. This was the first
+ time he ever went out. But Moore swore that he made arrangements to do
+ what Miner instructed him to do; that he made such arrangements with
+ Major; but Major swears he did not. Moore swore that he made some
+ arrangement with McBean, and the Government did not ask McBean whether he
+ did or not, but I will show that he did not. The testimony shows that on
+ the first trip, at the time he saw Major, he did not see McBean. Now, just
+ see. He swore, in the first place, that he made that arrangement with
+ Major and McBean. I find afterwards that his evidence shows that he did
+ not see McBean on the first trip, but he did see him on the second.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On page 1408 we find that when Moore went West the second time&mdash;when
+ he left here and had made a bargain with Dorsey for one-quarter interest
+ in his route, and Miner told him to go West and let Dorsey's routes go to
+ the devil, and he said he would, and never notified Dorsey that he was
+ going to do it&mdash;that man comes here now and swears that he made a
+ contract with Dorsey for one-quarter interest, and then started West and
+ made a contract with Miner, letting Dorsey's routes go. He did not have
+ the decency to even notify Dorsey that he was going to do so. That is the
+ man. On the first trip he did not agree with anybody about petitions. Now,
+ understand my point, because it kills Mr. Moore again. We have to keep
+ killing these people&mdash;keep killing them. It is something like the boy
+ who was found pounding a woodchuck. He was pounding him away in the road
+ with all his might, and a man came along and said to him, "What are you
+ pounding that woodchuck for?" He said, "Oh, I am just pounding him."
+ "But," the man said, "he is dead." "Yes, I know it," said the boy, "but I
+ am pounding him to show him that there is punishment after death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, on page 1408, we find that this man Moore went to the West a second
+ time. I have shown you that the first time, he swears that he did not see
+ McBean at all. He saw Major and made the arrangement with him, he says.
+ Major swears that he did not. They do not put McBean on the stand. Now, he
+ goes a second time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the second trip, he says he had nothing to do with the petition
+ business at all, and did not explain the petition business to anybody
+ because he had not the time, and on the first trip did not see McBean at
+ all. And yet he swears that he made an arrangement with McBean about these
+ very petitions. The proof that he did not see Mc-Bean on his first trip is
+ found on page 1398.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one other point about which we have heard an immensity of talk
+ and upon which a great deal of air has been wasted, and that is, that
+ there was a bargain that Brady was to have fifty per cent, of all the
+ fines that he remitted. In other words, that he made a bargain with his
+ co-conspirators that if he fined them a thousand dollars and then remitted
+ it, that he was to have five hundred dollars or one-half of that fine.
+ That is a nice bargain; for me to put myself in the power of a man and
+ say, "Now, you fine me what you want to, and then if you will take it off,
+ I will give you half of it." It seems to me that that would be quite an
+ inducement for him to fine me. Yet, here is a man who makes a bargain that
+ Brady may impose a fine upon them and that he may have half of it back&mdash;that
+ is, upon their doctrine, although they have never proved it, but they
+ state it just the same as though they had. But here are the facts. Here
+ are the fines and deductions on twelve routes. The fines amount to
+ eighty-nine thousand six hundred and thirty-eight dollars and twenty-two
+ cents and the remissions amount to seven thousand four hundred and
+ twenty-eight dollars and fifty-four cents; that is all. And yet they
+ pretend that we had a bargain. Now, come to the mail routes, and we find
+ that the fines amounted to sixty-one thousand two hundred and thirty-two
+ dollars and twenty cents and all that they could get their co-conspirators
+ to take off of that (although according to the doctrine of the prosecution
+ they were to have fifty per cent.) was thirteen thousand eight hundred and
+ fifty dollars and sixteen cents. That was all they could get off. There
+ are the figures. There has been talk enough on that subject, but all the
+ air that wraps the earth could not answer those facts. Words enough to
+ wear out all human lips could not change those facts. Fines eighty-nine
+ thousand dollars, remissions seven thousand dollars; fines sixty-one
+ thousand dollars, remissions thirteen thousand dollars. And yet they
+ pretend that he had a bargain by which he had fifty per cent, of all he
+ remitted. I need not make any more argument on that point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There have been one or two things in this trial that I have regretted, and
+ one I find in Mr. Ker's speech. And I find frequent reference to it in
+ other places, and that is the blindness of S. W. Dorsey. Affidavits were
+ made by Drs. Marmion, Bliss, and Sowers that Mr. Dorsey had lost at least
+ eleven-twelfths of his vision. And yet it has been constantly thrown out
+ to you that it was a ruse, a device, and I believe Mr. Ker said in his
+ speech that Mr. Dorsey saw a paper in Mr. Merrick's hand, Mr. Merrick, I
+ believe, holding a balance-sheet from the German-American Savings Bank&mdash;a
+ paper several feet wide or long&mdash;and because Mr. Dorsey said to him,
+ "I believe you have it in your hand," why they said this man is pretending
+ to be blind. His testimony was that he had been in a dark room for three
+ months; that his eyes had not been visited by one ray of light for three
+ months, and that for six months he had not read a solitary word. And yet
+ the prosecution sneeringly pretended that there was nothing the matter
+ with his eyes. They subpoenaed Dr. Marmion, but they dare not put him on
+ the stand. They threw out hints and innuendoes that these doctors had
+ sworn falsely, but they dare not put it to the test. It seems that nothing
+ in the world can satisfy them about Stephen W. Dorsey except to see him
+ convicted, except to have them put their feet upon his neck. Gentlemen,
+ you never will enjoy that pleasure. You never will while the world swings
+ in its orbit find twelve honest men to convict Stephen W. Dorsey&mdash;never.
+ This Government may put forth its utmost power; it may spend every dollar
+ in its Treasury; it may hire all the ingenuity and brain of the country,
+ and it can never find twelve men who will put Stephen W. Dorsey in the
+ penitentiary&mdash;never, and you might as well give it up one time as
+ another. Try it year after year; poison the mind of the entire public with
+ the newspapers; get all the informers you can; bring all the witnesses you
+ can find; put all of those whom you call accomplices on the stand, and I
+ give you notice that it never can be done, and I want you to know it.
+ Spend your millions, and you will end where you start. As long as the
+ average man runs there will always be one or two honest men in a dozen; so
+ you cannot convict one of these defendants. Go on, but it will never be
+ accomplished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one other thing which perhaps may be worth noticing. I believe
+ that they proved by Mr. Dorsey that he wrote an account of his relation to
+ this business, and published it in the <i>New York Herald</i>. The only
+ point with which Mr. Merrick quarreled in that entire paper was the
+ statement that Peck was a large contractor, and when Dorsey was put on the
+ stand he explained that while Peck had not many routes in his own name,
+ that he was the partner of a man named Chidester. That is the only thing
+ of which he complained, and yet that communication pretended to tell the
+ relation that Dorsey sustained to this entire business, and if that had
+ not accorded precisely with Dorsey's testimony on the stand every word of
+ it would have been read to you again and again. And Mr. Ker says that
+ letter was written for the purpose of poisoning public opinion. Was the
+ letter of the Attorney-General of the United States, written just before
+ this trial began, written to bias public opinion also?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Is there any evidence of that letter in this trial? If not I
+ object to any reference to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court, You cannot refer to that, because it is not in the case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I take it back. Was Dickson indicted to bias public
+ opinion?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. I object to that also. He was indicted by the grand jury on
+ competent testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. There is no evidence in this case that he was indicted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I will take it back then. I would ask the Court, however,
+ after the attorney for the Government has said that Dorsey wrote that
+ letter to bias public opinion, if I have not the right to say that he
+ wrote that letter because letters had been written by others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Not unless those letters are in proof.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. The fact that he wrote the letter is in evidence in the case.
+ That of course makes it the proper subject of comment on either side.
+ Anything else not in evidence is not a subject of controversy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I will take it for granted, however, that the jury
+ understand what is going on in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Merrick. Yes, they understand the evidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I understand that the jury, as members of this community,
+ as citizens of the United States, have at least a vague idea of what the
+ Department of Justice has done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also claimed, and has been claimed, and I have answered it again and
+ again and again, that S. W. Dorsey is the chief conspirator. Why? Is it
+ possible that it is because he was the chief man politically? Is it
+ possible that any politician was envious of his place and power? Is it
+ possible that any politician was envious of the influence he had with
+ President Garfield? Is it possible that he had interfered with the career
+ of some piece of mediocrity? Why is it that he is made the chief figure?
+ These are questions that are asked and questions that you can answer. How
+ does it happen that his name never figures in any division? That his name
+ never figures in any paper made in regard to this business? How does it
+ happen that when he was contending with the German-American National Bank
+ that he must be paid, how is it that it never occurred to Miner or Vaile
+ to tell him, "Why, this is a conspiracy of your own hatching. You advanced
+ this money to give life to your own bantling, and you have got to wait
+ until the conspiracy bears fruit, and if you are not willing to wait you
+ can do the next worse thing, have it made public"? If at that time, when
+ he was opposing and fighting Vaile because he had cut out his security,
+ Vaile had known that Dorsey was in the conspiracy, one word from him and
+ Stephen W. Dorsey's mouth would have remained shut forever. But it did not
+ occur to Miner, it did not occur to Vaile. That won't do. Why didn't Vaile
+ say to him, "Mr. Dorsey, you are making a great deal of fuss about a few
+ thousand dollars. You are in the Senate; you are interested in these
+ routes, and I want to hear no more from you"? Why didn't he say it?
+ Because it was not true; that is why.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, if what the prosecution claims is true, not only Stephen
+ W. Dorsey, not only Thomas J. Brady, not only John R. Miner, not only H.
+ M. Vaile, and John W. Dorsey are guilty of conspiracy, but hundreds and
+ hundreds of other people. Do you believe it is possible that all the
+ persons who petitioned for an increase of service, who petitioned for
+ expedition&mdash;do you believe they were in a conspiracy? Do you believe
+ they were dishonest men, and do you believe they asked for what they did
+ not want? Do you believe that these defendants had at their beck and call
+ the representatives of the entire great Northwest? Do you believe that
+ members of Congress of the Lower House and of the Senate were their agents
+ and tools? Was Senator Hill a conspirator? Was the present Secretary of
+ the Interior a conspirator? Were Senator Grover and Senator Slater also
+ conspirators? Were generals, judges, district attorneys, members of State
+ and Territorial Legislatures&mdash;were they all conspirators? Did they
+ indorse false petitions for the purpose of putting money in the pockets of
+ these defendants? Let us be honest. Do you believe that General Miles was
+ a conspirator, or that General Sherman, whose title is next to that of the
+ President, and whose name is one synonymous of victory, entered into a
+ conspiracy? Do you believe that he knows as much about the mail business
+ as Colonel Bliss? Do you believe that he knows as much about the wants of
+ the great Northwest as the gentlemen who are prosecuting this case? Was he
+ a conspirator with their Representative in Congress from Oregon? Was
+ Horace F. Page a conspirator? These are questions, gentlemen, that you
+ must answer. Were all these men, these officers of the Army, State
+ officers, Federal officers, and men of national reputation&mdash;were they
+ all engaged in a conspiracy; were they endeavoring to assist these
+ defendants in plundering the Treasury of these United States? These are
+ questions for you to ask and questions for you to answer. Is it not
+ wonderful that such a conspiracy should have existed in all the Western
+ States at one time?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, is it wonderful that all the people of the West want mails? Do
+ you not know, and do I not know, that the mail is the substantial benefit
+ we get from the General Government? Don't you know that the mail is the
+ pioneer of civilization? Do you not know that there ought to be a mail
+ wherever the flag floats? Do you not know that the only way to keep a
+ great country like this together, a vast territory of three million square
+ miles&mdash;three million five hundred thousand square miles&mdash;is by
+ the free distribution of the mail? If you are going to keep the people who
+ populate that territory together, if you are going to keep them of one
+ heart and one mind, if you are going to make them keep step to this Union
+ and to the progress of this nation, you must have frequent intercourse
+ with them all. The telegraph must reach to the remotest hamlet; the little
+ electric spark, freighted with intelligence and patriotism, must visit
+ every home; and the newspaper and the letter, bearing words of love from
+ home and news from abroad, must visit every house, so that every man,
+ whether digging in the mine or working on the farm, may feel the throb and
+ thrill of the great world, and be a citizen of a mighty nation instead of
+ an ignorant provincial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am in favor of frequent mails everywhere, all over the plains, all
+ through the mountains, everywhere, wherever the flag flies, I want the man
+ who sits under it to feel that the Government has not forgotten him; that
+ is what I want. I take pride in this country. I am one of the men who
+ believe that there is only air enough in this entire continent to float
+ one flag. I am one of the men who believe that it is the destiny of the
+ United States to control every inch of soil from the Arctic to the
+ Antarctic, and that when a nation loses its ambition to grow, increase,
+ and expand it begins to die. And what right has a man who is carrying the
+ mail to interfere with the policy of the Post-Office Department? These are
+ large questions, gentlemen of the jury, and I want you to deal with them
+ in a large and splendid American spirit. I want you to feel that we are
+ citizens of the greatest Government on this globe. I want you to feel that
+ here, to every man, no matter from what clime he may come, no matter of
+ what people, no matter of what religion, the soil will give emolument, the
+ sun will give its light and heat, the Government will give its protection.
+ I like to feel that way about the Government. And yet, because the
+ department adopted a splendid and generous policy, it is tortured into
+ evidence of conspiracy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let me speak just a moment about these people&mdash;the defendants in
+ this case. First, there is Stephen W. Dorsey. I take a great interest in
+ this case; I admit it. I would rather lose my right hand than have you
+ convict Stephen W. Dorsey. I admit it. I admit that if he were convicted I
+ would lose confidence in trial by jury; I would believe that there were no
+ twelve men in the world that had the honor and the manhood to stand by
+ what they believed to be the evidence and the law. I would feel as though
+ trial by jury was a failure. I admit I have that interest in it&mdash;all
+ that anybody can have in any case. You can only convict that man by the
+ testimony of A. W. Moore and M. C. Rerdell. That testimony withdrawn from
+ the record and there is not one word against him. I want you to know and I
+ want you to remember what kind of a man he is. You have seen him; you know
+ him; and you know something of him. It is for you to decide whether you
+ will take the testimony of Rerdell as against that man. It is for you to
+ decide whether you will take the testimony of A. W. Moore as against that
+ man. These men who are prosecuting him seem to forget who he is and what
+ he has been. Yet men disgrace the position that Stephen W. Dorsey helped
+ to give them, by attacking him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John W. Dorsey can be convicted by the testimony of nobody. There is no
+ testimony against him, except that of one man. He is an honest man. He
+ told exactly what he did, and he told it like an honest man. He told why
+ he did not put his money in the bank at Middlebury, Vermont, because they
+ thought that he owed a debt which he did not think he owed. He need not
+ have told it, but he is an honest man, and that is the reason he told it.
+ The prosecution does not appreciate that kind of man, that is, they say
+ they do not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only witnesses against Miner are Rerdell and Moore, and they being
+ dead, that is the end of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What evidence is there against Harvey M. Vaile? One witness, Mr. Rerdell.
+ What did Harvey M. Vaile do? At the solicitation of Mr. Miner he advanced
+ money to prevent his having a failing contract. What else did he do? He
+ wrote a letter saying that he was trustee for S. W. Dorsey, and he was,
+ because the concern owed S. W. Dorsey a few thousand dollars, and agreed
+ out of the profits to repay Stephen W. Dorsey. That is all. That is all.
+ You have seen Mr. Vaile here from day to day. You know that he is a man of
+ mind. I think he is an honest man. I think he testified to the exact
+ truth. He did what any other man had the right to do, he helped a man, not
+ entirely from charity, but believing after all that it might be a good
+ investment, as you have done if you have ever had the opportunity. And
+ there is not the slightest scintilla of evidence against him, not the
+ slightest. I believe every word that he testified, and so do you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then they come to Thomas J. Brady, and they tell you that that man is
+ to be convicted upon the testimony of whom? Mr. Walsh. And who else? Mr.
+ Rerdell. You have some idea of human nature. You have a little and I have
+ a little. Here is Mr. Walsh, an athlete; a man who, had he lived in Rome
+ in ancient times, might have been a gladiator. He loans Mr. Brady
+ twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand dollars. For some of this money he
+ has notes, for other portions he has not. He sends word to Brady that he
+ would like to fix the interest. He goes there and Brady takes these notes
+ and puts them in his pocket and they part as philosophers. If we believe
+ that, we must believe it as idiots. You do not believe it. You do not
+ believe any man ever allowed another to take twenty-five thousand dollars
+ in notes belonging to him and put them in his pocket and walk off, he
+ taking off his hat at the door and you bowing and wishing him a happy
+ voyage. My mind is so constructed that I cannot believe that; I cannot
+ help it. I imagine your minds are built a little after the same model. I
+ do not believe the story; you do not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who is the next witness against Mr. Brady? Mr. Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is sufficient for me to speak the name. I need argue no further. That
+ is enough. You saw Mr. Brady on the stand and you heard him give his
+ testimony. No man could listen to it without knowing it to be true. I say
+ now to each one of you that when you heard it you believed it, and every
+ one of you believed it was the truth. Take from this record the testimony
+ of Rerdell, Walsh, and Moore, and what is left? Some papers, petitions,
+ orders, affidavits, all made, signed and filed in the cloudless light of
+ day. That is all that is left. Where is your conspiracy? Faded into thin
+ air, nothing left.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I presume it will be said by the prosecution that I spent about three days
+ on Mr. Rerdell. I admit it. Why? Because I regarded Rerdell as your case.
+ Because I made up my mind that when I killed Rerdell the case had breathed
+ its last. That is the reason. And had it been necessary to spend a few
+ weeks more I should have done so. But it is not necessary. Probably I
+ wasted a great deal of time upon the subject, but if he is not dead I do
+ not want it in the power of any human being to say that it was my fault. I
+ went at him with intent to kill, and I kept at him after I knew that he
+ was dead. I admit it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, let us see what I have proved. Let us see what up to this
+ time I have substantiated in my judgment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First, I think I have shown that John W. Dorsey, John M. Peck, and John R.
+ Miner agreed in 1877, to go into the mail business. That Peck wrote a
+ letter to Stephen W. Dorsey, who was then a United States Senator, asking
+ him to get some competent man to get reliable information as to the cost
+ of service on routes in the Western States and Territories then advertised
+ by the General Government. That S. W. Dorsey gave that letter to A. E.
+ Boone. That he told him to say nothing about it to other contractors. That
+ Boone sent out circulars for the purpose of getting the requisite
+ information; that is, the cost of corn and oats and the wages of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That John R. Miner came to Washington on the 1st of December, 1877. That
+ he went to the house of Stephen W. Dorsey, as had been the custom for
+ several years. That he occupied a room in that house, and that he and Mr.
+ Boone went on with the business of making proposals and getting up forms
+ of contracts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That John W. Dorsey came here in the early part of January, 1878. That
+ after his arrival the partnership was formed between him and A. E. Boone,
+ and that the partnership was dated the 15th day of January, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That S. W. Dorsey, at the request of his brother and brother-in-law,
+ advanced the amount of money necessary to pay incidental expenses. That he
+ gave his advice whenever it was asked. That he assisted the parties all
+ that he conveniently could.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the last bids or proposals were put in by these parties on the 2d of
+ February, 1878. That the awards were made on the 15th day of March of the
+ same year. That Miner, Peck, Dorsey, and Boone received about five times
+ as many awards as they had anticipated. Thereupon another partnership was
+ formed with the style of Miner, Peck &amp; Co., and that the partners in
+ this firm were John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W. Dorsey. That
+ thereupon John W. Dorsey and John R. Miner went West for the purpose of
+ subcontracting the routes. That John R. Miner on his return from the West
+ met Stephen W. Dorsey at Saint Louis about the 16th of July, 1878. That
+ Stephen W. Dorsey up to that time had advanced eight thousand or nine
+ thousand dollars. That he then gave to Mr. Miner notes amounting to about
+ eight thousand five hundred dollars to be by him discounted at the
+ German-American National Bank of Washington. That Stephen W. Dorsey then
+ told Miner that he would advance no more and would indorse no more. That
+ Stephen W. Dorsey went from Saint Louis to New Mexico; that John R. Miner
+ came to the city of Washington, arriving here about the 20th of July. That
+ John R. Miner then found that service in eastern Oregon was not in
+ operation, although it had been subcontracted; but he then applied to
+ Thomas J. Brady for an extension of time. That Brady refused to give it.
+ That Miner, Peck &amp; Co. had not the money to stock the routes not then
+ in operation, and that Stephen W. Dorsey had refused to advance further
+ means. That John W. Dorsey was then in the West and that John M. Peck was
+ then in New Mexico. That thereupon Mr. Miner applied to Harvey M. Vaile,
+ and that Mr. Vaile went to Mr. Brady and asked whether an extension of
+ time could be given, provided he undertook to put the service on those
+ routes. That Brady then gave him until the 16th day of August, 1878. That
+ thereupon Miner, under the authority of powers of attorney from John M.
+ Peck and John W. Dorsey, agreed upon the terms on which H. M. Vaile should
+ advance the money necessary to put the service in operation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the contract bears date the 16th day of August, 1878, and was duly
+ executed by all the parties on the last of September or first of October
+ of that year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the service was not in operation by the 16th of August, and that in
+ August, Brady telegraphed to H. M. Vaile to know what routes he was going
+ to put service on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That thereupon Vaile replied that he would see that all the service of
+ Miner, Peck, and Dorsey was put in operation. That through the assistance
+ of Mr. Vaile the service was put in operation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That before that time Stephen W. Dorsey had been secured by Miner, Peck,
+ and John W. Dorsey executing PostOffice drafts upon the routes that had
+ been awarded to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That on the 17th day of May, 1878, an act was passed by the Congress of
+ the United States allowing subcontractors to place their subcontracts on
+ file.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That after Vaile came in and agreed to furnish the money necessary to put
+ the service in operation, John R. Miner having powers of attorney from
+ Peck and John W. Dorsey, executed to H. M. Vaile subcontracts for the
+ purpose of securing him for the money he had advanced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That H. M. Vaile put these subcontracts on file, thus cutting out and
+ rendering worthless as security the PostOffice drafts that had been given
+ to S. W. Dorsey for the purpose of securing him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That John W. Dorsey returned from the Bismarck and Tongue River route in
+ November, 1878, and that he then offered to sell out his entire interest
+ in the business to Vaile for ten thousand dollars, and left instructions
+ authorizing his brother, S. W. Dorsey, to make such sale for such amount.
+ That John W. Dorsey then returned to the Tongue River route.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That Stephen W. Dorsey returned to Washington in December, 1878, and for
+ the first time found that the subcontracts had been given to Vaile. That
+ he and Mr. Vaile had a quarrel with the German-American National Bank on
+ that question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That afterwards Dorsey was to give ten thousand dollars to John W. Dorsey,
+ and ten thousand dollars to John M. Peck. That he then concluded not to do
+ so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That on the 4th day of March, when S. W. Dorsey's Senatorial term expired,
+ he immediately wrote a letter to Brady insisting that the subcontracts
+ that had been filed by Vaile were in fraud of his rights. That thereupon
+ the parties in interest came together. That S. W. Dorsey acting for Peck,
+ his brother, and himself agreed with Vaile and Miner to a division of the
+ routes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That S. W. Dorsey paid Peck ten thousand dollars for his interest, paid
+ John W. Dorsey ten thousand dollars for his interest, and took
+ substantially thirty per cent, of the routes and paid himself the money
+ that was owing to him by Miner, Peck &amp; Co.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the parties at the time executed to each other subcontracts and such
+ other papers as were necessary to vest, as far as they then under the law
+ could vest, the routes so divided in the parties to whom they fell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That on the 5th of May, 1879, the division was completed, and that from
+ that time forward Vaile and Miner had no interest in the routes that fell
+ to Stephen W. Dorsey, and that from that time forward Stephen W. Dorsey
+ had no interest in the routes that fell to Vaile and Miner, and that John
+ W. Dorsey and John M. Peck had no interest in any route from that date
+ forward until the present moment. That S. W. Dorsey took entire and
+ absolute control of his routes, and that Miner and Vaile took entire
+ control of their routes. That from that time until the present neither
+ party interfered with the routes of the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That Vaile and Miner made no paper of any sort, character, or kind for
+ Stephen W. Dorsey after the 5th of May, 1879, and that neither John W.
+ Dorsey, nor John M. Peck, made any papers of any kind, sort or character
+ for Miner or Vaile after that date, no matter what date papers bear that
+ were made before that time. That S. W. Dorsey made no papers for Miner or
+ Vaile after that date. And that Miner and Vaile made no papers for S. W.
+ Dorsey after that date, May 5, 1879. That all the papers bearing date
+ after the 5th of May, were in fact signed by the parties at or before that
+ time. That they were so signed for the purpose of making the division
+ complete.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That Vaile and Miner on their routes got up petitions that they had a
+ right to do. That S. W. Dorsey upon his routes got up petitions, as he had
+ a right to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the routes were increased and expedited by the Second Assistant
+ Postmaster-General in accordance with the policy of the department and in
+ accordance with the petitions filed and the affidavits made, as he had a
+ right to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That it was not for the contractors to settle the policy of the
+ Post-Office Department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the evidence of A. W. Moore is unworthy of belief, and that his
+ statement that he settled with S. W. Dorsey is demonstrated to be false by
+ the receipts that he afterwards gave in final settlement to John R. Miner,
+ as admitted by himself. That his testimony as to the existence of a
+ conspiracy is rendered worthless and absurd by the fact that he sold out
+ not only his interest, but his services up to that time, for six hundred
+ and eighty-two dollars. That his conversations with Miner could not have
+ taken place. That he never made or offered to make such contracts with
+ Major as he pretended he was instructed to make, and as he swore that he
+ did make. That his conversation with S. W. Dorsey never occurred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the testimony of Rerdell is utterly and infinitely unworthy of
+ credit. That he is not only contradicted by all the evidence, but by
+ himself, and how can you corroborate a man who tells no truth? There must
+ be something to be corroborated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the red books never existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the pencil memorandum was forged by himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the Chico letter was written by him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that the letter from Dorsey to Bosler, said to have been dated May 13,
+ 1879, was born of the imagination of Mr. Rerdell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That Rerdell's letter to Bosler of the 22d of May, 1880, was never sent,
+ was never received, and was never written until after this man made up his
+ mind to become a witness for the Government. That Bosler never received
+ that letter, or the letter pretended to have been written by Dorsey on the
+ 13th of May, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That the tabular statement in which thirty-three and one-third per cent,
+ was allowed to Brady never existed. That Rerdell did not visit Dorsey's
+ office in New York in June, 1881, and that he had no conversation with
+ Torrey. That Rerdell was not there. That he did not have the conversation
+ detailed by him with Dorsey at the Albermarle Hotel. That Dorsey did not
+ write the letter of the 13th of June, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That Rerdell swore in June, 1881, that Dorsey was entirely innocent. That
+ he swore to three affidavits of the same kind. That he again swore to the
+ same thing on the 13th of July, 1882. That he admitted by his letter of
+ July 5, 1882, that S. W. Dorsey did not even ask him to make the affidavit
+ of June, 1881, but that he was persuaded to do it by James W. Bosler. That
+ he was not locked up at Willard's Hotel. That he was not threatened with a
+ prosecution for perjury. That he was not shown the letters he had written
+ to a woman. That the whole story with regard to the making of that
+ affidavit was utterly and unqualifiedly false. That he never had the
+ conversation with Thomas J. Brady that he claimed. That Brady never
+ suggested to to him to have any books copied. That there were no books of
+ Dorsey's that needed to be copied. That he did not see S. W. Dorsey draw
+ any money at Middleton's bank at the time he states. That he, Rerdell,
+ drew the money himself. And that his entire testimony is absurd,
+ contradictory, and utterly unworthy of credit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me say another thing to you, gentlemen, right here. It would be better
+ a thousand times that all the defendants tried in the next hundred years
+ should escape punishment than that one man should be convicted upon the
+ evidence of a man like this&mdash;a man who offered to the Government to
+ make a bargain while the trial was in progress, that he would challenge
+ from the jury all the friends of the defendants, and help the Government
+ to get the enemies of the defendants upon the jury. You never can afford
+ to take the evidence of such a man. It turns a court-house into a den of
+ wild beasts. You cannot do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have shown that the story of Walsh is improbable, and that all that
+ Boone swears against these defendants cannot be believed. That Walsh never
+ loaned the money to Brady that he claimed, and that Brady never took from
+ him the notes as he says. That Brady never made in his presence the
+ admissions that he swears to. Think of it; Brady robbing Walsh, and at the
+ same time saying to Walsh, "I am a thief and public robber."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have shown to you, gentlemen, it seems to me, that no reasonable human
+ being, taking all this evidence into consideration, can base upon it a
+ verdict of guilty. It cannot be done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, the responsibility is upon you, and what is that
+ responsibility? You are to decide a question involving all that these
+ defendants are. You are to decide a question involving all that these
+ defendants hope to be. Their fate is in your hands. Everything they love,
+ everything they hold dear, is in your power. With this fearful
+ responsibility upon you, you have no right to listen to the whispers of
+ suspicion. You have no right to be guided or influenced by prejudice. You
+ have no right to act from fear. You must act with absolute and perfect
+ honesty. You must beware of prejudice. You must beware of taking anything
+ into consideration except the sworn testimony in this case. You must not
+ be controlled by the last word instead of by the last argument! You must
+ not be controlled by the last epithet instead of by the last fact. You
+ must give to every argument, whether made by defendant or prosecution, its
+ full and honest weight. You must put the evidence in the scales of your
+ judgment, and your manhood must stand at the scales, and then you must
+ have the courage to tell which side goes down and which side rises.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is all we ask. We ask the mercy of an honest verdict, and of your
+ honest opinion. We ask the mercy of a verdict born of your courage, a
+ verdict born of your sense of justice, a verdict born of your manhood,
+ remembering that you are the peers of any in the world. And it is for you
+ to say, gentlemen, whether these defendants are worthy to live among their
+ fellow-citizens; whether they shall be taken from the sunshine and from
+ the free air, and whether they are worthy to be men among men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for you to say whether they are to be taken from their homes, from
+ their pursuits, from their wives, from their children. That responsibility
+ rests upon you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for you to say whether they shall be clothed in dishonor, whether
+ they shall be clad in shame, whether their day of life shall set without a
+ star in all the future's sky; that is for you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for you to say whether Stephen W. Dorsey, John W. Dorsey, John R.
+ Miner, Thomas J. Brady, and H. M. Vaile shall be branded as criminals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for you to say, after they have suffered what they have, after they
+ have been pursued by this Government as no defendants were ever pursued
+ before, whether they shall be branded as criminals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for you to say whether their homes shall be blasted and blackened by
+ the lightning of a false verdict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for you to say whether there shall be left to these defendants and
+ to those they love, a future of agony, of grief and tears. Nothing beneath
+ the stars of heaven is so profoundly sad as the wreck of a human being.
+ Nothing is so profoundly mournful as a home that has been covered with
+ shame&mdash;a wife that is worse than widowed&mdash;children worse than
+ orphaned. Nothing in this world is so infinitely sad as a verdict that
+ will cast a stain upon children yet unborn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for you to say, gentlemen, whether there shall be such a verdict, or
+ whether there shall be a verdict in accordance with the evidence and in
+ accordance with law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me say right here that I believe the attorneys for the
+ prosecution, eager as they are in the chase, excited with the hunt, after
+ the sober second thought, would be a thousand times better pleased with a
+ verdict of not guilty. Of course they want victory. They want to put in
+ their cap the little feather of success, and they want you to give in the
+ scales of your judgment greater weight to that feather than to the homes
+ and wives and children of these defendants. Do not do it. Do not do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want a verdict in accordance with the evidence. I want a verdict in
+ accordance with the law. I want a verdict that will relieve my clients
+ from the agony of two years. I want a verdict that will drive the darkness
+ from the heart of the wife. I want a verdict that will take the cloud of
+ agony from the roof and the home. I want a verdict that will fill the
+ coming days and nights with joy. I want a verdict that, like a splendid
+ flower, will fill the future of their lives with a sense of thankfulness
+ and gratitude to you, gentlemen, one and all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court. Let me inquire of the counsel for the defence if there are to
+ be any other arguments upon their side?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Henkle. May it please your Honor, inasmuch as I alone represent two of
+ the defendants, it is perhaps due to this jury and to myself to explain
+ why I do not propose to argue the case. I had prepared myself, with a good
+ deal of labor and painstaking, to submit an argument to the jury.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But after the exhaustive and able argument of my Brother Wilson, I and my
+ colleagues were of the opinion that there was room but for one more
+ argument on the part of the defence, and with entire unanimity we selected
+ our colleague, Brother Ingersoll, to make that argument. And how grandly
+ he has justified the choice, the jury, your Honor, and the spectators will
+ determine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I saw some time ago a little paragraph in a paper in this city, which
+ represents the interest of the Government, in which it was said that the
+ defendants' counsel were afraid to argue this case because they would come
+ in collision with each other; that each would try to throw the conspiracy
+ at the door of the others and exonerate himself, and that therefore they
+ were afraid to argue the case. I want to say to your Honor that so far
+ from being afraid to argue the case, I should have been very happy to
+ pursue the argument, so far as I am concerned. But out of tender
+ consideration to the jury, who have been kept for six long months from
+ their business and their interests, which I know are suffering, we have
+ unanimously concluded that we would close the argument with that which
+ your Honor has just heard. And I simply want to say further, that I not
+ only do not antagonize with anything that has been said by my Brother
+ Wilson, or by my eloquent friend who has just concluded, but I indorse
+ most fully and cordially every word that has been uttered. And so far as
+ my clients are concerned, gentlemen of the jury, the case is with you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Davidge. May it please your Honor, perhaps I ought to add a single
+ word. It was understood among counsel when Colonel Ingersoll, as stated by
+ General Henkle, was unanimously selected to represent the defendants, that
+ both Colonel Ingersoll and myself should have the privilege of addressing
+ the jury if, in the judgment of either, it should be necessary. I have
+ felt such a deep interest in the present case that I have almost hoped he
+ might leave unoccupied some portion of the field of argument. I have
+ listened to every word that has fallen from his lips. He has filled the
+ whole area of the case with such matchless ability and eloquence that I
+ have no ground upon which I could stand in making any further argument. He
+ has so fully uncovered the origin of this so-called prosecution, its
+ methods, and the character and weight of the evidence upon which a
+ conviction is sought, that I can add nothing whatever to what he has said.
+ I need not add that every syllable he has uttered receives my grateful
+ indorsement, as well as that of all the defendants and their counsel in
+ this case.*
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Twelve jury men decided this morning that the Government
+ had not legally established a case of conspiracy against the
+ Star Route defendants. This verdict of absolute acquittal
+ coming so unexpectedly has created a very marked sensation.
+ The announcement in the court room of the verdict was
+ followed by an uproarious scene of applause, tears,
+ hysterics and cheers. Every one expected the jury to
+ disagree. Judge Wylie himself, a week or ten days ago,
+ called up the counsel for the prosecution and said to them,
+ "I do not think you are going to get a verdict out of that
+ jury. I have watched it carefully, and I am certain that
+ four of the best men on it are in doubt." Last night an
+ employee of the Department of Justice reported that the jury
+ stood eleven to one for acquittal. This came from one of the
+ bailiffs, who claimed to have overheard a vote.
+
+ At any rate the prosecution had intended, if a disagreement
+ was reported, to ask to have the jury dismissed, on the
+ ground of the condition of Juror Vernon. Had this been
+ attempted, Dr. Sowers, who attended Vernon yesterday would
+ have testified that Vernon was all right mentally, after he
+ had braced him up with two drinks of brandy.
+
+ The court room was crowded when the jurors took their
+ places. Every one of the defendants was there. Dorsey sat by
+ his wife, flushed and expectant. Upon the left of Mrs.
+ Dorsey was her sister Mrs. Peck. Brady was just back of his
+ special counsel. Judge Wilson, looking as hard and grim as
+ ever. All of the counsel for the Star Route defendants were
+ in their seats. Colonel Ingersoll's face showed great self-
+ control, although he was evidently laboring under strong
+ nervous excitement. He was flanked by his entire family.
+
+ Mr. Farrell, Mr. Baker (Colonel Ingersoll's secretary), and
+ the white-haired and white-bearded Mr. Bush, the hard
+ working associate of Colonel Ingersoll, were also present.
+
+ When the jurors took their places in the court room
+ precisely at ten o'clock, Judge Wylie looked at them, and
+ said In his slow hesitating way: "Gentlemen, I have sent
+ for you to learn&mdash;ahem&mdash;to learn if you have agreed&mdash;ahem&mdash;
+ upon a verdict." Mr. Crane the foreman said: "We have
+ agreed."
+
+ Judge Wylie gave a start of surprise and looked towards the
+ seats for the counsel of the Government. Not one of them was
+ present. This looked very ominous for the Government's case,
+ and indicated besides that the bailiffs must have betrayed
+ the secrets of the jury room to the prosecution, as neither
+ Bliss nor Merrick came to the court room at all. Mr. Ker,
+ one of the counsel for the prosecution, came in and stood In
+ the door as the Judge said to the Clerk, "Receive this
+ verdict." There was the usual silence as every one turned
+ toward the foreman. Mr. Crane said very deliberately. "We
+ find the defendants not guilty."
+
+ Then there followed a scene of great confusion and uproar,
+ which the Judge could not restrain. Indeed he did not try.
+ The triumph of such an unexpected success after two years of
+ fighting in the face of the entire power of the Government,
+ made the humblest person connected in the most remote degree
+ with the defence crazy with joy. When Colonel Ingersoll came
+ out of the Court House a crowd gathered in front of him, and
+ then one stout-lunged, broad shouldered man cried out "Three
+ cheers for Colonel Ingersoll." There was a wild scene of
+ tiger-like cheering from the excited crowd. This
+ demonstration was a personal compliment to the Colonel, for
+ when the defendants passed out there was not the slightest
+ sign of approval or disapproval beyond the congratulations
+ of personal friends. Colonel Ingersoll stood on the broad
+ steps of the Court House and smiled with the benevolent air
+ of a popular orator in front of a congenial crowd, and
+ laughed outright when some over-euthusiastic admirer called,
+ "Speech, speech."
+
+ The morning was clear and bright. Colonel Ingersoll watched
+ the crowd a moment, himself a picture of radiant good
+ nature, as he stood with his white straw hut encircled with
+ a blue band, pushed back from his face. His short thin black
+ coat was partially buttoned over a white duck waistcoat. He
+ rested his hands in the pockets of his gray trousers. The
+ request for "Speech, speech" so amused him that he chuckled
+ over It all the way to his open carriage, which came up a
+ moment after. He was driven through Pennsylvania Avenue with
+ his family. People called out to him from the sidewalk, and
+ he was obliged to lift his hat so much that he finally sat
+ bareheaded, like a conquering hero, waving his hands to the
+ right and to the left. His house was thronged all day. Mrs.
+ Blaine and her daughter Margaret were among the first who
+ called. There was a profession of people all day long who
+ had no sympathy at all with the defendants, and who were
+ perfectly indifferent whether they went to the penitentiary
+ or not, but who were most heartily glad that their friend
+ Colonel Ingersoll had accomplished such a great personal
+ victory.
+
+ Now that the case is over, it is time to tell some facts
+ about the prosecution which have been withheld until the
+ case was closed. In the first place, the management of the
+ prosecution has been equally scandalous with the crimes
+ charged against the defendants. The District Attorney here
+ has always been allowed a five dollar fee for the
+ prosecution of cases. Attorney-Generals who preceded Mr.
+ Brewster ruled that this should be the official fee of
+ special counsel. This was made up by allowing the payment of
+ lump sums as retainers. When Bliss and Merrick were put upon
+ the extravagant pay of one hundred and fifty dollars per day
+ it was inevitable that they would prolong the case to the
+ uttermost. Bliss has, on top of all this pay, put in an
+ extraordinary list of personal expenses, which have been
+ allowed up to a very recent date. The amount of extra matter
+ run into this case only to prolong it has resulted in so
+ confusing the case as to materially aid the defence.
+
+ Then the reporting of the case has been turned into a huge
+ job. The stenographers will clear between thirty and forty
+ thousand dollars on their work.
+
+ The other day I estimated from official sources, the cost of
+ the Star Route trials at one million dollars. It will go
+ above that. It will foot up near one million two hundred
+ thousand dollars. This evening Col. Ingersoll was serenaded.
+
+ There was a large gathering of friends of the Star Route
+ defendants at Colonel Ingersoll's house to-night. Indoors
+ the acquitted men, their counsel, and a large number of
+ their more intimate friends, many of them women, met to
+ exchange mutual congratulations. And in the street a crowd
+ had gathered, partly out of curiosity&mdash;and partly to express
+ their sympathy with the defendants. They cheered Ingersoll
+ and the other counsel as well as the defendants and the
+ jury, and called for speeches. Colonel Ingersoll and Judges
+ Wilson and Carpenter spoke briefly.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll's speech was short and vigorous. He hailed
+ the verdict of the jury as a victory for truth and justice,
+ and as a notice to the administration that it could not
+ terrorize a jury by indicting jurymen, and a warning to the
+ President that he could not force a verdict by turning
+ honest servants out of office.
+
+ The Sun, New York, June 15,1883.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The matchless eloquence of Ingersoll! Where will one look
+ for the like of it? What other man living has the faculty of
+ blending wit and humor, pathos and fact and logic with such
+ exquisite grace, or with such impressive force? Senator
+ Sanders this morning begged the jury to beware of the
+ oratory of Ingersoll as it transcended that of Greece.
+ Sanders was not far amiss. In fierce and terrible invective
+ Ingersoll is not to be compared to Demosthenes. But in no
+ other respect is Demosthenes his superior. To a modern
+ audience, at least, Demosthenes on the Crown would seem a
+ pretty poor sort of affair by the side of Ingersoll on the
+ Davis will. It was a great effort, and its chief greatness
+ lay in its extreme simplicity.
+
+ Ingersoll stepped up to the jurors as near as he could get
+ and kept slowly walking up and down before them. At times he
+ would single out a single juryman, stop in front of him,
+ gaze steadily into his face and direct his remarks for a
+ minute or two to that one man alone. Again he would turn and
+ address himself to Senator Sanders, Judge Dixon or somebody
+ else of those interested in establishing the will as
+ genuine, At times the gravity of the jury and the audience
+ was so completely upset that Judge McHatton had to rap for
+ order, but presently the Colonel would change his mood and
+ the audience would be hushed into deepest silence. If the
+ jury could have retired immediately upon the conclusion of
+ Ingersoll's argument, there is little doubt as to what the
+ verdict would have been.
+
+ If Ingersoll himself is not absolutely convinced that the
+ will is a forgery, he certainly had the art of making people
+ believe that he was so convinced. He said he hoped he might
+ never win a case that he ought not to win as a matter of
+ right and justice. The idea which he sought to convey and
+ which he did convey was that he believed he was right, no
+ matter whether he could make others believe as he did or
+ not. In that lies Ingersoll's power.
+
+ Whether by accident or design the will got torn this
+ morning. A piece in the form of a triangle was torn from one
+ end. Ingersoll made quite a point this afternoon by passing
+ the pieces around among the jury, and asking each man of
+ them to note that the ink at the torn edges had not sunk
+ into, the paper. In doing this he adopted a conversational
+ tone and kept pressing the point until the juror he was
+ working upon nodded his head in approval.
+
+ Both Judge Dixon and Senator Sanders interrupted Ingersoll
+ early in his speech to take exception to certain of his
+ remarks, but the Colonel's dangerous repartee and delicate
+ art in twisting anything they might say to his own advantage
+ soon put a stop to the interruptions and the speaker had
+ full sway during the rest of the time at his disposal. The
+ crowd&mdash;it was as big as circumstances would permit, every
+ available inch of space in the room and in the court house
+ corridors being occupied&mdash;enjoyed Ingersoll' a speech
+ immensely, and only respect for the proprieties of the place
+ prevented frequent bursts of applause as an accompaniment to
+ the frequent bursts of eloquence.&mdash;Anaconda Standard, Butte,
+ Montana, Sept. 5,1891.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ MAY it please the Court and gentlemen of the jury, waiving
+ congratulations, reminiscences and animadversions, I will proceed to the
+ business in hand. There are two principal and important questions to be
+ decided by you: First, is the will sought to be probated, the will of
+ Andrew J. Davis? Is it genuine? Is it honest?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And second, did Andrew J. Davis make a will after 1866 revoking all former
+ wills, or were the provisions such that they were inconsistent with the
+ provisions of the will of 1866?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are the questions, and as we examine them, other questions arise
+ that have to be answered. The first question then is: Who wrote the will
+ of 1866? Whose work is it? When, where and by whom was it done? And I
+ don't want you, gentlemen, to pay any attention to what I say unless it
+ appeals to your reason and to your good sense. Don't be afraid of me
+ because I am a sinner.* I admit that I am. I am not like the other
+ gentleman who thanked God "that he was not as other men."
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Col. Ingersoll when speaking of himself as a sinner in
+ this address is referring to the remarks made by Senator
+ Sanders, who in the preceding address said:
+
+ "In an old book occur the words, 'My son if sinners entice
+ thee consent thou not.' I will not apply this to you,
+ gentlemen of the jury. But I have a right to demand of you
+ that you hold your minds and hearts free from all influences
+ calculated to swerve you until you have heard the last words
+ in this case." The Senator enjoined them not to be beguiled
+ by the eloquence of a man who was famed for his eloquence
+ over two continents and in the islands of the sea; a man
+ whose eloquence fittingly transcended that of Greece in the
+ time of Alexander.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I have the faults and frailties common to the human race, but in spite of
+ being a sinner I strive to be at least a good-natured one, and I am such a
+ sinner that if there is any good in any other world I am willing to share
+ it with all the children of men. To that extent at least I am a sinner;
+ and I hope, gentlemen, that you will not be prejudiced against me on that
+ account, or decide for the proponent simply upon the perfections of
+ Senator Sanders. Now, I say, the question is: Who wrote this will? The
+ testimony offered by the proponent is that it was written by Job Davis. We
+ have heard a great deal, gentlemen, of the difference between fact and
+ opinion. There is a difference between fact and opinion, but sometimes
+ when we have to establish a fact by persons, we are hardly as certain that
+ the fact ever existed as we are of the opinion, and although one swears
+ that he saw a thing or heard a thing we all know that the accuracy of that
+ statement must be decided by something besides his word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is this beautiful peculiarity in nature&mdash;a lie never fits a
+ fact, never. You only fit a lie with another lie, made for the express
+ purpose, because you can change a lie but you can't change a fact, and
+ after a while the time comes when the last lie you tell has to be fitted
+ to a fact, and right there is a bad joint; consequently you must test the
+ statements of people who say they saw, not by what they say but by other
+ facts, by the surroundings, by what are called probabilities; by the
+ naturalness of the statement. If we only had to hear what witnesses say,
+ jurymen would need nothing but ears. Their brains could be dispensed with;
+ but after you hear what they say you call a council in your brain and make
+ up your mind whether the statement, in view of all the circumstances, is
+ true or false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did Job Davis write the will? I would be willing to risk this entire case
+ on that one proposition. Did Job Davis write this will? And I propose to
+ demonstrate to you by the evidence on both sides that Job Davis did not
+ write that will. Why do I say so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First: The evidence of all the parties is that Job Davis wrote a very good
+ hand; that his letters were even. He wrote a good hand; a kind of
+ schoolmaster, copy-book hand. Is this will written in that kind of hand? I
+ ask Judge Woolworth to tell you whether that is written in a clerkly hand;
+ whether it was written by a man who wrote an even hand; whether it was
+ written by a man who closed his "a's" and "o's"; whether it was written by
+ one who made his "h's" and "b's" different. Job Davis was a good scholar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No good penman ever wrote the body of that will. If there were nothing
+ else I would be satisfied, and, in my judgment, you would be, that it is
+ not the writing of Job Davis.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the writing; of a poor penman; it is the writing of a careless
+ penman, who, for that time, endeavored to write a little smaller than
+ usual, and why? When people forge a will they write the names first on the
+ blank paper. They will not write the body of the will and then forge the
+ name to it, because if they are not successful in the forgery of the name
+ they would have to write the whole business over again; so the first thing
+ they would do would be to write the name and the next thing that they
+ would do would be to write the will so as to bring it within the space
+ that was left, and here they wrote it a little shorter even than was
+ necessary and quit there [indicating on the will] and made these six or
+ seven marks and then turned over, and on the other side they were a little
+ crowded before they got to the name of A. J. Davis.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the next question is, was Job Davis a good speller? Let us be honest
+ about it. How delighted they would have been to show that he was an
+ ignorant booby. But their witnesses and our witnesses both swear that he
+ was the best speller in the neighborhood; and when they brought men from
+ other communities to a spelling match, after all had fallen on the field,
+ after the floor was covered with dead and wounded, Job Davis stood proudly
+ up, not having missed a word. He was the best speller in that county, and
+ not only so, but at sixteen years of age he wasn't simply studying
+ arithmetic, he was in algebra; and not only so, after he had finished what
+ you may call this common school education in Salt Creek township, he went
+ to the Normal school of Iowa and prepared himself to be a teacher, and
+ came back and taught a school.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, did Job Davis write this will? Senator Sanders says there are three
+ or four misspelled words in this document, while the fact is there are
+ twenty words in the document that are clearly and absolutely misspelled.
+ And what kind of words are misspelled? Some of the easiest and most common
+ in the English language. Will you say upon your oaths that Job Davis,
+ having the reputation of the champion speller of the neighborhood&mdash;will
+ you, upon your oaths, say that when he wrote this will (probably the only
+ document of any importance, if he did write it, that he ever wrote) he
+ spelled shall "shal" every time it occurs in the will? Will you say that
+ this champion speller spelled the word whether with two "r's," and made it
+ "wherther," making two mistakes, first as to the word itself, and second,
+ as to the spelling? Will you say that this champion speller could not
+ spell the word dispose, but wrote it "depose"? And will you say the
+ ordinary word give was spelled by this educated young man "guive"? And it
+ seems that Colonel Sanders has ransacked the misspelled world to find
+ somebody idiotic enough to twist a "u" in the word give, and even in the
+ Century dictionary&mdash;I suppose they call it the Century dictionary
+ because they looked a hundred years to find that peculiarity of spelling&mdash;even
+ there, although give is spelled four ways, besides the right way, no "u"
+ is there. And will you say that Job Davis did not know the word
+ administrators?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us be honest about this matter&mdash;let us be fair. It is not a
+ personal quarrel between lawyers. I never quarrel with anybody; my
+ philosophy being that everybody does as he must, and if he is in bad luck
+ and does wrong, why, let us pity him, and if we happen to have good luck,
+ and take the path where roses bloom, why, let us be joyful. That is my
+ doctrine; no need of fighting about these little things. They are all over
+ in a little while anyway. Do you believe that Job Davis spelled sheet&mdash;a
+ sheet of paper&mdash;"sheat"? That is the way he spells it in this
+ document. Now, let us be honor bright with each other, and do not let the
+ lawyers on the other side treat you as if you were twelve imbeciles. You
+ would better be misled by a sensible sinner than by the most pious
+ absurdities that ever floated out from the lips of man. Let us have some
+ good, hard sense, as we would in ordinary business life. Do you believe
+ that Job Davis, the educated young man, the school teacher, the one who
+ attended the Normal school would put periods in the middle of sentences
+ and none at the end? That he would put a period on one side of an "n" and
+ then fearing the "n" might get away, put one on the other; and then when
+ he got the sentence done, be out of periods, so that he could not put one
+ there, and put so many periods in the writing that it looked as if it had
+ broken out with some kind of punctuation measles?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Job Davis, an educated man! And you are going to tell this jury that that
+ man wrote that will! I think your cheeks will get a little red while you
+ are doing it. This man, when he comes to this little word "is" in the
+ middle of a sentence, his desire for equality is so great that he wishes
+ to put that word on a level with others, and starts it with a capital, so
+ that it will not be ashamed to appear with longer words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet the will was written by Job Davis, and Sconce saw him write it,
+ and Mrs. Downey saw him write it. If there were one million Sconces, and a
+ million Mrs. Downeys, and they held their hands up high and swore that
+ they did, I know that they did not, unless all the witnesses who have
+ testified to the education of Job Davis have testified lies. There is
+ where I told you a little while ago that when a lie comes in contact with
+ a fact it will not fit. These other people in Salt Creek township that
+ have come here and sworn to that, did not know whether it was spelled
+ right or wrong. They did not take that into consideration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me utterly, absolutely, infinitely impossible that this will
+ was written by a good speller. I know it was not. So do you. There is not
+ a man on the jury that does not know it was not written by a good speller&mdash;not
+ a man. And you cannot, upon your oaths, say that you believe two things&mdash;first,
+ that Job Davis was a good speller, and, secondly, that he wrote this will.
+ Utterly impossible. There is another word here, "wordly"&mdash;"all my
+ wordly goods." "Worldly" it ought to be; but this Job Davis, this scholar,
+ did not know that there was such a word as worldly, he left out the "l"
+ and called it wordly, "all my wordly goods," and they want you to find on
+ your oath that it was written by a good speller. There are twenty words
+ misspelled in this short will, and the most common words, some of them, in
+ the English language. Now, I say that these twenty misspelled words are
+ twenty witnesses&mdash;twenty witnesses that tell the truth without being
+ on their oath, and that you cannot mix by cross-examination. Twenty
+ witnesses! Every misspelled word holds up its maimed and mutilated hand
+ and swears that Job Davis did not write that will&mdash;every one. Suppose
+ witnesses had sworn that Judge Woolworth wrote this will. How many Salt
+ Creekers do you think it would take to convince you that he was around
+ spelling sheet "sheat"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Woolworth. I have done worse than that a great many times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. You have acted worse than that, but you have never spelled
+ worse than that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, this Job Davis died in 1868. Nobody has seen him write for
+ twenty-three years, but everybody, their witnesses and ours, positively
+ swears that he was a good speller. Now, comes another question: Who wrote
+ this will? Colonel Sanders tells us that it is immaterial whether Job
+ Davis wrote it or not. To me that is a very strange remark. If Job Davis
+ did not write it, Mr. Sconce has sworn falsely. If Job Davis did not write
+ it, then there was no will on the 20th of July, 1866, and all the Glasgows
+ and Quigleys and Downeys and the rest are mistaken&mdash;not one word of
+ truth in their testimony unless Job Davis wrote that will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet a learned counsel, who says that his object is to assist you in
+ finding a correct verdict, says it don't make any difference whether Job
+ Davis wrote the will or not. I don't think it will in this case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who wrote the will? I am going to tell you, and I am going to demonstrate
+ it, so that you need not think anything about it&mdash;so that you will
+ know it; that is to say, it will be a moral certainty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who wrote this will? I will tell you who, and I have not the slightest
+ hesitation in saying it. James R. Eddy wrote this will. And why do I say
+ it? Many witnesses have sworn that they were well acquainted with Mr.
+ Eddy's handwriting&mdash;many. Several of the witnesses here had the
+ writing of Eddy with them. That writing was handed to the counsel on the
+ other side, so that they might frame questions for cross-examination.
+ Those witnesses founded their answers as to peculiarities upon the
+ writings given to the other side, and not on the writing in this will&mdash;just
+ on the writings of letters and documents they had in their possession, and
+ that we handed to the opposite counsel. Now, what do they say? Every
+ witness who has testified on that subject said that Eddy had this
+ peculiarity: First, that whenever a word ended with the letter "d," he
+ made that "d" separate from the rest of the word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, gentlemen, there are twenty-eight words in this short will ending
+ with the letter "d"; clearly, unequivocally, in twenty-seven of the words
+ ending in "d," the "d" is separate from the rest of the word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not include the twenty-eighth, because there is a little doubt about
+ it. The testimony is unvarying, except the writing that Eddy has done
+ since he has been found out to be the forger of that will. Nobody has
+ sworn that he had a letter from him in which that is not the fact, unless
+ that letter was written since the institution of this suit. Twenty-seven
+ of these words end with "d" and the "d" is made separate from the rest of
+ the word. Will Judge Woolworth please tell the jury whether any witness
+ testified that Job Davis made these separate from the rest of the word?
+ Poor Job, dead, and his tombstone is being ornamented with "guive," and he
+ is now made to appear as an ignorant nobody.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-eight words ending with "d." Now, if that were all, I would say
+ that might be an accident&mdash;a coincidence, and that we could not build
+ upon that as a rock. I would say we must go further, we must find whether
+ any more peculiarities exist in Eddy's writing that also exist in this
+ will. We must be honest with him. Now, let us see. He always had the
+ peculiarity of terminating that "d" abruptly, down just above the line, or
+ at the line, lifting his pen suddenly, making no mark to the right. Every
+ one of the "d's" in the will is made exactly that way. Corroboration
+ number two. These twenty-seven witnesses, the "d's," swear that Eddy is
+ their father, that they are the children of his hand, that he made them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another peculiarity: They say that Eddy always made a double "l" in a
+ peculiar manner. The last "l" came down to the line of the up stroke, and
+ that "l" as a rule stopped there. It did not go on to the right&mdash;a
+ peculiarity. Now, let us see. In this will there are nine words that end
+ with a double "l" (and I want you to look at that when you go out); each
+ one is made exactly the same way&mdash;each one. Nine more witnesses that
+ take the stand and swear to the authorship of this will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has anybody shown that that was Job Davis's habit? Poor, dead dust cannot
+ swear; nobody has said that. Another peculiarity is that Eddy made a "p"
+ without making any loop to the right in the middle of it. Now and then he
+ makes one with a loop, but his habit is to make one without. Moses Downey
+ swore that Job Davis made a "p" with three loops, a loop at the top, a
+ loop at the bottom and a loop in the middle. That is exactly what he
+ swore, and he was the one who taught Job to write; and he said he made his
+ letters carefully, he closed his "a's" at the top, he made his "o's"
+ round, he made his "h's" after the orthodox pattern, he was all right on
+ the "b's"&mdash;your witness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, you remember how that "p" looks, without any loop; and
+ there are twenty-one "p's" that have no loop to the right&mdash;twenty-one
+ in this will. Twenty-one more witnesses, and every one of them is worth a
+ hundred Sconces, with his sheep and hogs floating in the air. Twenty-one
+ witnesses that swear to the paternity of this will. Moses Downey, your own
+ witness, swears that Job made a "p" with three loops. There is not a "p"
+ in the will with three loops, and there are twenty-one without any, and
+ the evidence of all the witnesses on our side was that it was his habit to
+ make "p's" without any loop, and they were given the papers that they
+ might cross-examine every one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, do you see, we are getting along on the edge of demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These things cannot conspire and happen. They may in Omaha, but they can't
+ in Butte, or even in Salt Creek township. Nature is substantially the same
+ everywhere and I believe her laws are substantially the same everywhere,
+ from a grain of sand to the blazing Arcturus; everywhere the probabilities
+ are the same. Let us take another step.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also sworn by intelligent men who have the writing of Eddy in their
+ possession, (writing shown to the other side) that it was his habit to use
+ "a's," "o's" and "u's" indiscriminately. For instance, "thut" that, you
+ all remember in the will. When you go out you will see it. He often uses
+ an "o" where an "a" should be, an "a" where a "u" should be, a "u" where
+ an "a" or "o" should be; in other words, he uses them interchangeably or
+ indiscriminately. How many cases of that occur in this will? Twenty-two&mdash;twenty-two
+ instances in this will in which one of these vowels is used where another
+ ought to have been used.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-two more witnesses that James R. Eddy wrote this will. Twenty-two
+ more. They have taken the stand; they won't have to be sworn, because they
+ can't lie. It would be splendid if all witnesses were under that
+ disability&mdash;that they had to tell the truth. That cannot be answered
+ by logwood ink. Eddy made "p's" just the same, whether he used logwood or
+ nigrosin, and he used his "a's" and "o's" and "u's" indiscriminately, no
+ matter whether he was writing in ink, red, blue, brown, iron, Carter's,
+ Arnold's, Stafford's, or anybody else's. Another witness testified that he
+ used "r" where he ought to use "s," and that he used "s" where he ought to
+ use "r," or that he made his "r's" and "s's" the same. Many instances of
+ that kind occur in this will, and every "r" says to Eddy, "you are the
+ man"&mdash;every one. Every "s" swears that your will is a poor, ignorant,
+ impudent forgery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is what it is&mdash;the most ignorant forgery ever presented in a
+ court of justice since the art of writing was invented. It comes in
+ covered with the ear marks of fraud. And yet I am told that it requires
+ audacity to say that it is a forgery. What on earth does it require to say
+ that it is genuine? Audacity, in comparison with what is essential to say
+ that it is genuine, is rank meekness and cowardice. Words lose their
+ meaning. All swear that Eddy scattered his periods with a liberal hand,
+ like a farmer sowing his grain. Now, we will take the twenty-third line of
+ the will. "To their use (period) and (period) benefit (another period)
+ forever (another period)"; twenty-fifth line: "Davis (period) and (another
+ period) Job (another period) Davis (another period) of (another period)
+ Davis (another period) County (another period)." What a spendthrift of
+ punctuation this man was! And yet he was well educated, studying algebra,
+ going to the Normal school in Iowa, champion speller of the neighborhood.
+ Every period certifies and swears that Job Davis did not write that will.
+ He had studied grammar. Punctuation is a part of grammar and no one but
+ the most arrant, blundering, stumbling ignoramus, would think of putting
+ six or eight periods along in a sentence, and then leaving the end of that
+ sentence naked without anything. Another peculiarity is, Mr. Eddy uses "b"
+ and "h" interchangeably. He makes a "b" exactly like an "h," makes an "h"
+ exactly like a "b." You can see that all through the will. There are
+ several instances of it, and each one says that Job Davis did not write
+ it. Downey says he did not write that way, and each one says that Mr. Eddy
+ did write it, and nobody else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not through yet. The testimony is that Eddy was a poor speller.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the learned counsel, Mr. Dixon, says that in this case we must be
+ governed by the probable, by the natural, by the reasonable&mdash;three
+ splendid words, and they should be in the mind of every juror when
+ examining this testimony. Is it natural, is it probable, is it reasonable?
+ We have shown that Eddy was the poorest speller in the business. Whenever
+ they went to a spelling match, at the first fire he dropped; never
+ outlived, I think, the first volley. And one man by the name of Sharp
+ distinctly recollects that they gave out a sentence to be spelled: "Give
+ alms to the poor," and Eddy had to spell the first word, give; and he
+ lugged in his "u" with both ears&mdash;"guive," and he dropped dead the
+ first fire. The man remembers it because it is such a curious spelling of
+ give; and if I had heard anybody spell it with a "u" when I was six years
+ old it would linger in my memory still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us take Judge Dixon's test. It is a good one, well stated, and it
+ is for you to decide whether the misspelled words were misspelled by a
+ good speller or a poor speller. If you say Job Davis wrote it, then you
+ are unnatural, unreasonable and improbable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Isn't it altogether more natural, more reasonable, more probable, to say
+ that a bad speller misspelled the words than that a good speller did?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us stick to his standard, and see if Eddy spelled give "guive"&mdash;and,
+ gentlemen, you cannot find in all the writing of James R. Eddy, written
+ before he was charged with this forgery, where the word give appears, that
+ it is not written with a "u"&mdash;I defy you to find a line in the world
+ where "given" is "guivin." Now, let us go another step. Everybody admits
+ that he was a poor speller, and is it not more reasonable to say that he
+ wrote the will on the spelling, than that the champion speller did? We
+ have some more evidence on Mr. Eddy as good as anything I have stated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, do not be misled because I am a sinner. Let us stick to the facts.
+ William H. Davis testified to the spelling of Eddy, and while he
+ testified, held in his hand a will that he had seen James R. Eddy write.
+ In this will there were twenty words misspelled; shall, "shal" and in the
+ James Davis will, shall "shal." Good! Whether, in our will "wherther"; in
+ the other will, "wherther"&mdash;just the same; sheet of paper, "sheat" in
+ our will; "sheat" in the other will; in our will "guive," in that "guive."
+ Did Job Davis rise from the dead and write another will? Was one copied
+ from the other, and the copy so slavish that it was misspelled exactly the
+ same? You cannot say it was entirely copied, for now and then a word, by
+ accident, is right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Judge Dixon tells you that Eddy did not disguise his spelling. Good Lord!
+ How could he disguise his spelling? He spelled as he thought was right. No
+ man of his education would think of disguising his spelling. He knows how
+ to spell give; he believes it is with a "u" still There is a prejudice
+ against "u" since he was charged with forgery, and so he has dropped it;
+ but he thinks it is right, nevertheless. Now, isn't it perfectly
+ wonderful, is it not a miracle, that James R. Eddy made exactly the same
+ mistakes in spelling and writing one will that Job Davis did in writing
+ another?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Isn't it wonderful beyond the circumference of belief, that a good speller
+ and bad speller happened to misspell the same words? It won't do. There is
+ something rotten about this will, and the rotten thing about it is that
+ James R. Eddy wrote it, and he wrote it about March, 1890. That is when he
+ wrote it, and he let the proponent in this case have it. We will get to
+ that shortly. So, gentlemen, I tell you that every misspelled word is a
+ witness in our favor. There is something more. Eddy uses the character "&amp;"
+ in writing, instead of writing "and." The will is full of them; and it is
+ stated that sometimes when he endeavors to write out the word "and" he
+ only gets "an," and that peculiarity is in this will. "An" for "and"; that
+ you will find in the seventeenth line in the last word of the line.
+ Colonel Jacques swore that one of Eddy's misspelled words was the word
+ "judgment"; that he put in a superfluous "e," and in this case here is
+ "judgement"&mdash;"shall give the annuity that in the judgement of the
+ executors shall be final;" there is the superfluous "e"&mdash;judgement.
+ Now, there is another. Their witnesses swore that as a rule he turns the
+ bottom of his "y's" and "g's" to the left. Now, you will find the same
+ peculiarity in this will, and the amusing peculiarity that he turns the
+ "g's" a little more than he does the "y's." I don't want these things
+ answered by an essay on immutable justice. I want them to say how this is.
+ Another thing, how he makes a "t," with a little pot hook at the top, and
+ that hook has caught Mr. Eddy. You will find them made in the will,
+ exactly, where the "t" commences a word&mdash;where it is what we call the
+ initial letter. And what else? When he makes a small "e" commencing a
+ word, he always makes it like a capital "E," only smaller. That is the
+ testimony, and that happens in this will and it happens in the papers and
+ letters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I say, that all these peculiarities taken together, the same words
+ misspelled, the same letters used interchangeably, the same mistakes in
+ punctuation, the same mistakes in the words themselves&mdash;all these
+ things amount to an absolute demonstration. So, I told you, he uses the
+ capital "I" with the word "is" and that he does twice in this will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here are hundreds, almost, of witnesses that take the stand and swear that
+ Eddy is the author of that will. He wrote it&mdash;every word of it. He
+ negotiated with John A. Davis for it, and I will come to that after a
+ little. And how do they support this will that has in it the internal
+ evidence that it was written by James R. Eddy? Why do I say it is
+ impossible that he should have written it, and the will should be genuine?
+ Because at the date of that will, or the date it purports to bear, Eddy
+ was only eight years old. And we don't know the real date, gentlemen, of
+ that will yet. My opinion is that it was dated by mistake, so that it came
+ on a date that Davis was not there, or came on a day that was Sunday, and
+ then they folded up that will, and scratched it and rubbed it until the
+ date is absolutely illegible, and nobody can say whether it is June, July,
+ or January. There was a purpose. The day may have been Sunday, or they may
+ have afterward ascertained that he was not there. It is a suspicious
+ circumstance that the day is left loose so they can have a month to play
+ on, maybe more. Now, they say, can you impeach Sconce?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every misspelled word in the will impeaches Sconce, ever; period impeaches
+ Sconce, every "a" that is used as "o" impeaches him, and "o" as "u"; every
+ "b" that is made like an "h" impeaches him, every "h" that is made like a
+ "b" impeaches him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, every peculiarity of James R. Eddy that appears in that
+ will impeaches J. C. Sconce, Sr.&mdash;Captain Sconce. There is a thing
+ about this will which, to my mind, is a demonstration. It may be that it
+ is because I am a sinner, but I find, and so do you find it in the second
+ initial of Sconce, in the letter "C." There are two punctures, and you
+ will find that exactly where the punctures are there is a little spatter
+ in the ink&mdash;a disturbance of the line, in the capital first; in the
+ small "c" there is another puncture and another disturbance of the line.
+ Professor Elwell says that these holes were made afterwards. Let's see.
+ There is a hole, and there is a splatter and a change of the line. There
+ is another hole and there is another change. There is another hole and
+ there is another change. What is natural? What is reasonable? What is
+ probable? It is that the hole being there, interrupted the pen, and
+ accounts for the diversion of the line, and for the spatter. That is
+ natural, isn't it? but they take the unnatural side. They say that these
+ holes were made after the writing. Would it not be a miracle that just
+ three holes should happen to strike just the three places where there had
+ been a division of the line and a little spatter of the ink? Take up your
+ table of logarithms and figure away until you are blind, and such an
+ accident could not happen in as many thousand, billion, trillion,
+ quintillion years as you can express by figures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Three holes by accident hitting just the three places where the pen was
+ impeded and where the spatters were. Never such a thing in the world. It
+ might happen once. Nobody could make me believe that it happened twice&mdash;that
+ is, a hole might happen to get where the pen was interrupted once; as to
+ the second hole, I would bet all I have on earth, as to the third hole, I
+ know it did not. I just know it did not. And yet Mr. Elwell says that
+ these holes were made afterwards, and he goes still further, and says that
+ there is not any trouble in the line. If anybody will look at it, even
+ with the natural eye, they can see that there is; and, in a kind of
+ diversion, they called Professor Hagan, when he called attention to it,
+ Professor Pin-holes and pin-hole expert. He might have replied that that
+ was a pin-head objection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Elwell accounts for all the dirt on this will by perspiration,
+ all on one side and made by the thumb, and although there were four
+ fingers under it at the same time, the fingers were so contrary they
+ wouldn't perspire. This left the thumb to do all the sweating. I need not
+ call him a professor of perspiration, for that throws no light on the
+ subject; but I say to you, gentlemen, that those marks, those punctures,
+ were in that paper when Sconce wrote his name. Sconce says they were not&mdash;he
+ remembered. He has got a magnificent memory. I say that even that shows
+ that he is not telling the facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what else? We went around among the neighbors. He was charged with
+ passing counterfeit money, with stealing sheep, with stealing hogs, with
+ stealing cattle and with stealing harness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Woolworth. It was not proved that this man was accused of
+ counterfeiting, of passing counterfeit money.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I tell you how I prove it. A man by the name of Lanman was
+ on the stand. He swore he was acquainted with Sconce's reputation. Colonel
+ Sanders asked him who he had ever heard say anything about it. He said
+ Lewis Miller and Abraham Miller and a man by the name of Hopkins and
+ several others. What did they say? I asked them afterwards, and among
+ other things I recollect he was charged with passing counterfeit money,
+ stealing hogs, stealing sheep, stealing harness, killing another man's
+ heifer in the woods. I don't think I am mistaken, but if I am I will take
+ counterfeit money back. I won't try to pass counterfeit money myself,
+ although a sinner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Woolworth. (Interrupting): He was not charged with killing a heifer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. No, no; the heifer was there. I have a very good memory; I
+ suppose it comes from the habit of taking no notes. Lanman was the man,
+ and while we are on Sconce there is a thing almost too good to be passed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Jackson was on the stand, Senator Sanders asked him, "Whoever told you
+ anything against him?" "Well," Jackson answered, "I asked Hopkins&mdash;"
+ "Who else?" "Well," he said, "I had a private conversation, I don't like
+ to tell." "You have got to tell." Mr. Jackson said to the Court: "Must I
+ tell; it was a private conversation." "You must tell." "Well," he said,
+ "it was with Mr. Carruthers, one of the counsel for proponent;" and he
+ said that what Mr. Carruthers said had more influence upon him than
+ anything else, because Carruthers was in a position to know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Sanders. (Interrupting). Were those his exact words?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Yes, that he was an attorney. I tell you that was a
+ death-blow; that came like thunder out of a clear sky, when you haven't
+ seen a cloud for a month.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Besides that he was impeached in open court. What else? The witnesses that
+ came to the rescue of Sconce; how did they rescue him? They lived down
+ there and never heard anything against him. All these rumors, thick in the
+ air, the bleating of sheep following him wherever lie went; the low of
+ cattle and yet these people never heard it. Tried for stealing harness,
+ they never heard of it They were not acquainted with him. They said that
+ they had some personal dealings with him and he was all right and one man
+ endeavored to draw a distinction between truth and honesty. A man could be
+ a very truthful man and a very dishonest man. Just think of that
+ distinction, a man of truth but dishonest. That won't do. Even Senator
+ Sanders said: "Some accusations, probably a dozen," to use his excellent
+ language&mdash;what memories we have! Let me read the exact words: "Some
+ accusations; probably a dozen or more, of stealing sheep and hogs <i>lit
+ on</i> Sconce."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Sanders: I didn't say that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. I don't insist; but those are the exact words I remember.
+ And don't you remember that he went into a kind of homily on neighborhood
+ gossip, that hardly anybody escaped? I believe a good many of this jury
+ have escaped and a good many in this audience have escaped. You can pick
+ out a great many men that a dozen accusations of stealing hogs and sheep
+ and heifers have not lit on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, there is another thing about Sconce that I don't like, gentlemen.
+ Sconce, in giving the history of the affair in Arkansas, was asked if he
+ didn't say, "Did I say that Davis' name was on it when I signed it?" and
+ right there he skulked and stated under oath that when he said that he
+ alluded to the photograph. Could he by any possibility have alluded to the
+ photograph when he said: "Did I say that Davis's name was on it when I
+ signed it?" Did he ever sign the photograph? No; he never signed the
+ photograph. Davis never signed the photograph, and if he ever said those
+ words he said them with reference to the original will, and he knows it.
+ And yet, in your presence, under oath, he pretended that when he made that
+ remark he alluded to the photograph. I wish somebody would reply to that
+ and tell us whether, as a matter of fact, he alluded to the photograph.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Mr. Sconce, as you know, has the most peculiar memory in the world.
+ He remembers things that had nothing whatever to do with the subject,
+ photographed in all details, everywhere; and yet, gentlemen, your
+ knowledge of human nature is sufficient to tell you that that kind of
+ memory is not the possession of any human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of people imagine that detail in memory is evidence of truth. I
+ don't think it; if there is something in the details that is striking,
+ then there is; but naturalness, and, above all, probability, is the test
+ of truth. Probability is the torch that every juryman should hold, and by
+ the light of that torch he should march to his verdict. Probability! Now,
+ let us take that for a text. Probability is the test of truth. Let us
+ follow the natural, let us follow the reasonable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the time they say this will was made, Andrew J. Davis had removed from
+ Iowa years before; had settled, I believe, in Gallatin county. His
+ interests in Iowa were nothing compared with his interests in this
+ Territory at that time. From the time he left Iowa he began to make money;
+ I mean money of some account. He began to amass wealth. He was, I think, a
+ sagacious man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Judge Dixon says that he was a man of great business sagacity. I am
+ thankful for that admission. In a little while he became worth several
+ hundreds of thousands of dollars. Afterwards he acquired millions. Now,
+ during all that time, from the 20th of July, 1866, up to the day of his
+ death, he never inquired after the James Davis will. It is a little
+ curious he never wrote a letter to James Davis and said, "Where is the
+ will, have you got it?" Not once. They have not shown a letter of that
+ kind, not a word. Threw it in the waste-basket of forgetfulness and turned
+ his face to Montana. Years rolled by, he never wrote about it, never
+ inquired after it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They have brought no witnesses to show that A. J. Davis ever spoke of the
+ will; not a word. Gentlemen, let us be controlled by the natural, by the
+ reasonable, by the probable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1868 one of the executors died&mdash;Job Davis. I think Colonel Sanders
+ said that if a man of Judge Davis's intelligence, knowing what a difficult
+ thing a will is to write, should have allowed Mr. Knight, a Kentucky
+ lawyer, to draw his will, who had not had much practice, why, he is
+ astonished at that, and in the next breath tells you that Andrew J. Davis
+ employed a twenty-two year old boy who could not spell "give" to draw up
+ his will in 1866. Isn't it wonderful what strange things people can
+ swallow and then find fault with others! Now, remember:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1868 Job Davis died; then there was only one executor to that will. A.
+ J. Davis went on piling up his money, thousands on thousands. Greed grew
+ with age, as it generally does. Gold is spurned by the young and loved by
+ the old. There is something magnificent after all about the extravagance
+ of youth, and there is something pitiful about the greed of old age. But
+ he kept getting money, more and more, and in '85 he had sold the Lexington
+ mine. He was then a millionaire. In '85, I think. They say he sold that
+ mine in '81, maybe he was then a millionaire. There was the will of '66
+ down in Salt Creek township, used as a model for other wills, for the
+ purpose of teaching the neighbors spelling and elocution, to say nothing
+ of punctuation. They got up little will soirees down there&mdash;will
+ parties&mdash;and all the neighbors came in and Mrs. Downey read it aloud
+ and wept when she thought it was the writing of her brother Job. That
+ accounts for the tear drops, I suppose; the round spots on the will. 1885;
+ Andrew J. Davis worth millions. Then what happened? Then James Davis, the
+ other executor, died. Then there was a will floating around down in Salt
+ Creek township, sometimes in a trunk, sometimes in a box, other times in
+ an old envelope, other times in a wrapper, and when I think of the shadowy
+ adventures of that document it makes me lonesome. James is dead, poor Job
+ nothing but dust; a will down there with no executors at all; and A. J.
+ Davis did not know in whose possession it was, and never wrote to find
+ out. Let us be governed by the natural, gentlemen, by the probable. Never
+ found out, never inquired, and after James Davis died he lived four years
+ more. I think James Davis died on the 5th of December, 1885, then he lived
+ a little more than three years after he knew that both executors were dead
+ and did not know whether the will existed or not. Judge Dixon tells us
+ perhaps if he had made a will before he died it would have been different
+ from this. I think perhaps it would. What makes him think that it would
+ have been different? If that will existed in Salt Creek township he knew
+ it, and he knew it in 1885, 6, 7, 8, 9, and when death touched with his
+ icy finger his heart he knew it then, and if he made that will in '66, it
+ was his will when he died unless it had been revoked. He knew what he was
+ doing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you there was no will down in Salt Creek township at all; there
+ wasn't any here. There have been a good many since. Now, where is the
+ evidence that he ever thought of this will, that he ever spoke of it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What else? He appointed three executors of his will, that is, in '66, if
+ he made it, and in that he provided that a like maintenance should be
+ given to Thomas Jefferson, Pet Davis and Miss Bergett, all three of Van
+ Buren County, State of Iowa. What else did he say? That the executors
+ should have the right of fixing that amount, and whatever amount in their
+ judgment should be fixed should be final. What is the legal effect of
+ that? The legal effect of that is that the estate could not have passed to
+ John A. Davis until the last who had a life interest was dead. The
+ proceeds could have been taken, every cent of them, from that estate and
+ given to the three persons for life maintenance, and the youngest of those
+ persons was four years old. John A. Davis would have had to wait seventeen
+ years. And do you think that A. J. Davis ever made a will like that,
+ putting it into the power of two executors to divert the entire income to
+ certain persons and that there could be no division until they were all
+ dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, another improbability. Recollect, all the time, that we are to be
+ governed by reason and naturalness. Now, then, it was claimed that Judge
+ Davis held certain relations with a certain Miss Caroline Bergett. It was
+ claimed that a daughter known as Pet Davis was his. It was also claimed
+ that a boy, Thomas Jefferson Davis, was his son. Nobody tells the truth in
+ this will although it has been alluded to and argued as well, I think, as
+ could be. There is this trouble in the will that though the boy Jeff was
+ never in Van Buren County until he was twelve years old&mdash;was never
+ there until six years after the will was dated, yet his supposed father
+ describes him as of Van Buren County.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Next, Miss Caroline Bergett had married a man by the name of W. V. Smith
+ in 1853, and in 1858, W. V. Smith took his wife and children and moved to
+ Texas&mdash;eight years before this will was made, and yet A. J. Davis
+ forgot her name, forgot her residence, forgot the residence of the boy
+ that was imputed to him; that of itself is enough to show that he was not
+ present when the will was made. If there is anything on earth that he
+ would remember this is it, and you know it. Although Mrs. Downey could not
+ remember when she was married or when her first child was born, she does
+ remember the time it took her to dust the room where there was a
+ clothes-press, a table and three or four chairs. She recollects that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another improbability:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John A. Davis, the proponent, had charge of the Davis farm down in Iowa
+ and stayed there for six years after this alleged will was made, and
+ although he was acquainted with the Quigleys, the Henshaws, the Sconces,
+ and all the aristocracy of the neighborhood, he says he never heard of the
+ existence of this will which so many people of that section talked about.
+ What a place for keeping secrets!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Senator Sanders says that the reason Judge Davis made his will in Salt
+ Creek township was because in that township they knew about this woman or
+ these women and these children, and he didn't want to go into any other
+ community and make his will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Any need of publishing his will? Any need of reading any more than the
+ attesting clause to the attesting witnesses? Any need to divulge a line?
+ None. Ah, but Senator Sanders said that he wanted to keep the secret. That
+ is the reason he left the will upon that table and rode away in a
+ debonnair kind of style on his roan horse with the bobtail, leaving a
+ congregation of Salt Creek loafers to read his will. He wanted to keep it
+ secret; hoped that it would never get out. Imagine the scene, Job Davis
+ writing the will; Mrs. Downey with a duster tucked under her arm like the
+ soubrette in a theatre. Well, when he was writing the will she was looking
+ over his shoulder and read the will as fast as he wrote it. That makes me
+ think of the fellow who was writing a letter and there was a man looking
+ over his shoulder, so he said: "I would write more but there is a dirty
+ dog looking over my shoulder," and the fellow said: "You are a liar."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody read it. Mrs. Downey read it; she read it as Job wrote it; then
+ he read it aloud; and then he went and got Sconce and read it again; then
+ in comes Glasgow and he read it. I think Mrs. Downey must have read this
+ will ten or twelve times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Myers. She said twenty-five.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll. Oh, yes; twenty-five, because it was in Job's handwriting;
+ and whenever the twilight crept around the farm bringing a little sadness,
+ a little pathetic feeling, she would light a candle and hunt the will, and
+ read it just to think about Job. She would see the words "guive" and
+ "wherther" and all that brought back Job, and she used to wonder
+ "wherther" he was in Paradise or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, John A. lived down there and knew all these people and never heard of
+ that will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What do you think of that? Why is it that John never got any information
+ from Sconce? Sconce, who saw the will written and who was one of the
+ attesting witnesses. Why didn't he hear of it from old Downey? Why didn't
+ he hear of it from the Quigleys or the Dotsons? Why didn't he hear of it
+ in Salt Creek township, when it was seen and read and read and read again
+ until I think many of them knew it by heart? And yet the only person
+ really interested was walking around unconscious of his great good
+ fortune, and nobody ever told him. There is another thing: For four months
+ after Andrew J. Davis died nobody told John about the will. Nearly four
+ months passed away; I think he died on the 11th of March, 1890, and this
+ will came to John on the first day of July. All the neighbors knew it.
+ Just as soon as A. J. died, they all said: "John is coming right into the
+ fortune now" only nobody told John; and the first man we find with the
+ will is James R. Eddy, and the next man we find with the will is John A.
+ Davis, the proponent. When John A. Davis saw this will, leaving him four
+ or five million dollars, it did not take much to convince him that the
+ signature was genuine. Human nature is made that way. If it was leaving
+ four or five millions to either of us, including the sinner who addresses
+ you, the probability is that I would say, "Well, that looks pretty genuine&mdash;pretty
+ genuine." And then if I could get a few other fellows to swear that it
+ was, I would feel certain, and say, "That is my money."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, another improbability. All the evidence shows that Judge Davis was a
+ business-like, quiet, methodical, careful, suspicious man, secretive,
+ keeping his business to himself, keeper of his own counsels; and when he
+ did make a will it was sealed; it was given to one of his friends to put
+ away, and to keep. It did not become the common property of the
+ neighborhood. He did not mount his roan horse and ask the people of the
+ community to look at it. He was a methodical, business-like man, and I
+ suppose many of you, gentlemen of the jury, knew him; and I shall rely
+ somewhat on your knowledge of A. J. Davis, for you to say whether he made
+ this will, whether in 1866 he left his old father naked to the world;
+ whether he cared nothing for brothers and sisters; whether he cared
+ nothing for the children of the sister that raised him. I leave it for you
+ to say. You probably know something about this matter. Andrew J. Davis,
+ when he was a child, when all the children were gathered around the same
+ knee, the children that had been nourished at the same tender and holy
+ breast, he would not have done this then. If some good fortune came to
+ one, it was divided.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How beautiful the generosity, the hospitality of childhood! But as they
+ grow old there comes the love of gold, and the love of gold seems to have
+ the same effect upon the heart that it does upon the country where it is
+ found. All the roses fade, the beautiful green trees lose their leaves,
+ and there is nothing in the heart but sage brush. And so it is with the
+ land that holds within the miserly grip of rocks what we call the precious
+ metals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question in the case is the Knight will. Was any such will made?
+ And I say here to-day, knowing what I am saying, I never saw upon the
+ witness stand a man who appeared to be more candid, more anxious and
+ desirous of telling the exact truth than E. W. Knight, and from what I
+ have heard there is not a man in Montana with a better reputation. He has
+ no interest in this business, not one penny; and it was months and months
+ after the death of Judge Davis that we knew such a will ever existed&mdash;that
+ is, on our side. Either Mr. Knight was telling what he believed to be
+ true, or he was perjuring himself. No ifs and ands about it. He is a man
+ of intelligence and knows what he is saying. He swears that A. J. Davis
+ made a will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what else does he swear to? That there was also the draft of a will,
+ which gave away the mine or provided for its working, and then at the end
+ of that draft, provided that the rest of the property should be divided in
+ accordance with the statute. Thereupon Mr. Knight told him: "Your heirs
+ would interfere by injunction, and you had better bequeath your whole
+ property and fix the amount to be expended in the development of the
+ mine." Thereupon he made another will, and that will was signed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, Mr. Knight knows whether it was signed or not. The will was signed or
+ Mr Knight committed perjury knowingly, willfully and corruptly. What does
+ he say? That it was signed. What else? That it was attested. Then these
+ gentlemen came forward with Mr. Talbot, who says that Knight said that
+ when Davis came to the bank to get the will he thought he was going to
+ execute it. That is, the idea being, it was not signed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was it attested for if it was not signed? That is absurd to the verge
+ of idiocy. But they say that Mr. Knight is not corroborated. Let us see.
+ He says that Andrew J. Davis made a will. Mr. Keith swears that A. J.
+ Davis made a will. Knight says that Davis went out and brought Keith in,
+ and Keith swears that he lived next door and A. J. Davis did come in there
+ and get him and he knows the time on account of the sickness of his child.
+ Corroboration number two. Knight swears that Davis then went for another
+ man. Keith says that he did go and get Caleb Irvine. Corroboration number
+ three. Knight said one of the men who signed the will was in his working
+ clothes. Corroboration number four. Knight swears that Davis read the
+ attesting clause. Keith swears the same. Keith swears that Davis signed
+ it, that he signed it, and then Irvine signed it. What more? He swears
+ that Knight wrote it, and he was writing it when he went in. And yet they
+ have&mdash;and I will use an expression of one of the learned counsel&mdash;the
+ audacity to say that Mr. Knight has not been corroborated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And they would have you believe that Knight took that will over to Helena
+ and put it in the safe when it was not signed by A. J. Davis, and they
+ would make you think besides that, that it was attested by two witnesses,
+ and that two witnesses had to say that they saw A. J. Davis sign it, that
+ he signed it in their presence, and that they attested his signature in
+ his presence and in the presence of each other. They proved a little too
+ much, gentlemen. They proved that by Talbot. They proved that by Andrew J.
+ Davis, Jr., who expects to fall heir to all that is taken, and they proved
+ it also by John A. Davis, the proponent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recess.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ May it please the Court and gentlemen: When we adjourned I was talking
+ about the testimony of Mr. Knight, and the making of the Knight will. The
+ evidence is, the way that will came to be made, or what started it, is, as
+ follows: A. J. Davis borrowed of the First National Bank of Helena forty
+ thousand dollars to put in the mines, and Governor Hauser remarked when he
+ got the money: "Another old man going to fool with mines until he gets
+ broke." And that it seems piqued A. J. Davis, touched his vanity a little,
+ and then he said: "That mine shall be developed whether I live or die. I
+ am satisfied that it is a good mine, and I am going to make a will and I
+ am going to provide in that will for the mine being developed." And
+ thereupon he talked with Mr. Knight. And finally Knight drew up a draft of
+ a will, according to his testimony, providing for the working of that
+ mine. And what did he say when he got through with it? "Now as to the
+ balance of the property, let it be divided according to law. That makes a
+ good will." That is what he said. Then Mr. Knight said to him: "If you
+ make the will that way it may be that the heirs will come in and enjoin
+ the working of the mine on the ground that it is a waste of money. You had
+ better make a full will and dispose of all your property as you may
+ desire, and fix the amount to be used in the devolopment of that mine."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, this is either true or false. It is true if Mr. Knight can be
+ believed; and he can be believed if any gentleman can be trusted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What more? Knight says that A. J. Davis made the memoranda from which to
+ draw that will, had his manager come, and in that will it told how the
+ shafts should be run, how much work should be done, and charged his
+ trustees to do development work up to a certain amount.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is that all born of the fancy of this gentleman? And can you believe that
+ a man like Mr. Knight, who has run the largest bank in Montana for
+ twenty-five years&mdash;can you believe that such a man, who is not in any
+ necessity, who is not in need of money, comes here and swears to what he
+ knows to be a lie, and makes this all out of his own head, carves it out
+ of his imagination?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The second will was made, the second will was signed, the second will was
+ attested, the second will was given Mr. Knight to keep. They say it was
+ not signed, and yet Mr. Knight swears he told one man about it. He told
+ Mr. Kleinschmidt, so that if anything happened to him, Knight, he would
+ know that Knight had in that vault the will of Andrew J. Davis. Do you
+ think he would have done that if the will had not been signed, if it were
+ worth only waste paper? And yet they are driven to that absurdity for the
+ purpose of attacking the evidence of this man. It will not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Judge Knowles said that in a conversation at Garrison, he said that in the
+ will the mine was left to Erwin Davis, and the reason given for it was
+ that Erwin Davis was a business man. Now, the only way that can be
+ explained, is one of two ways. One is that Judge Knowles has gotten two
+ matters mixed; the other is that he is absolutely mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Judge Knowles, the President of the First National Bank of Butte&mdash;Judge
+ Knowles, who has been the attorney of Andrew J. Davis, Jr.&mdash;Judge
+ Knowles had this conversation, or some conversation, with Knight; and why
+ would Knight have taken pains to tell him a deliberate falsehood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is something more. After all this occurred, Andrew J. Davis, Jr.
+ went to Mr. Knight and asked him to write out what he remembered about
+ that will, and Knight dictated it on the spot and sent it to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where is that letter? Here it is. I want to read that letter to this jury.
+ That was a letter written long ago. A letter written before this will was
+ filed in this court. A letter written before Mr. Knight knew that A. J.
+ Davis, Jr. had any will. A letter written before Knight imagined there
+ could ever be a lawsuit on the subject. Andrew J. Davis Jr. went to him
+ and asked him to write out what he knew about that will, and he turned,
+ according to his own testimony, and dictated it, and sent it to him, like
+ a frank, candid, honest man; and before I get through I will read that
+ letter, and when it is read I want you to see how it harmonizes absolutely
+ and perfectly with his testimony here on the stand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will draw another distinction. Mr. Knight gave two depositions in this
+ case. These depositions have not been suppressed like the deposition taken
+ of Sconce. Not suppressed. Why? Because we are willing that the jury
+ should read the two depositions and hear his testimony besides, and there
+ is not the slightest contradiction in the depositions themselves, or
+ between the depositions or either one of them and his evidence that he
+ gave here&mdash;except two that they claim; and think what immense
+ contradictions they are.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In one deposition he says that A. J. Davis left some bequests to some
+ aunts. Mr. Knight swears on the stand that he never said aunts, he said
+ sisters, but if he did say aunts he meant sisters, because he never heard
+ of his having any aunts, and yet that is held up as a contradiction, and
+ to such an extent that you are to throw away the testimony of this man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, here is the letter. This will was filed July 24, 1890, and when he
+ wrote this letter he did not know that A. J. Davis Jr. knew of a will, or
+ that John A. Davis knew of a will. And this is what he writes:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Helena, Montana, July 22, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I beg to say that some time in 1877 or 1878, I made a draft of a will for
+ your uncle Andrew J. Davis, which he duly executed, and left the same on
+ file with me, as a special deposit for two or three years, when the same
+ was canceled and destroyed; when I was led to believe and to conclude that
+ he had made and executed a will to supersede and take the place of that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That explains Talbot's testimony. Instead of saying to Talbot that A. J.
+ Davis came there, as he thought, to execute the will, and destroyed that
+ will, it not being signed, what he said was that he destroyed the will,
+ but from the way he acted he thought he was going to make another, that he
+ was going to execute a will; and this is exactly what Mr. Talbot said. To
+ execute a will, and it took a re-direct examination to swap the "a" for
+ "the."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot satisfactorily recall the considerations and provisions of said
+ will drawn by me, but the main burden and desire was that the work on the
+ mine known as the Lexington, should be continued to a certain amount of
+ development, and that the mill should be carried on under a certain
+ management, and after providing for the payment of his just debts, he made
+ certain bequests naming certain nephews and nieces, running from ten
+ thousand to fifteen thousand dollars each, and you are especially named
+ for the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, and if the estate exceeded in
+ value the net sum of five hundred thousand dollars, then those bequests
+ were to be increased; and if in excess of one million dollars, the further
+ increase was named and specified.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the letter he wrote before he ever knew there would be this suit;
+ before he knew of the existence of this will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A certain boy named Jefferson&mdash;claimed to be his son&mdash;was given
+ the sum of twenty thousand dollars to be paid to him in yearly sums of
+ five thousand dollars for four years, and the same provision as to a
+ certain girl, claimed to be his child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is that not exactly what he swore to on this stand?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certain executors named E. W. Knight, S. T. Hauser, and W. W. Dixon, each
+ to receive the sum of ten thousand dollars for services.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yours truly,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ E. W. KNIGHT.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, they were informed of the existence of that will and of
+ its destruction, and were so informed before John A. Davis filed this
+ will. And when we pleaded this will, John A. Davis pleaded that it had
+ been republished, and yet no evidence was given in of any republication.
+ They knew that under the statute of Montana, when a man makes will number
+ one, and afterwards makes will number two, and afterwards destroys will
+ number two, that will number one is not revived; that the making of the
+ second will kills the first, and the destruction of the second kills that,
+ and leaves the man intestate and without any will. Now, there is the
+ letter of Mr. Knight&mdash;full, free, frank, candid, honorable, like the
+ man himself. He says there that he does not remember all the provisions,
+ but he does remember that he provided for some nephews and nieces, and
+ provided for Andrew J. Davis, Jr., twenty-five thousand dollars, for one
+ Jefferson twenty thousand, for the girl about the same, and that he
+ provided also for the executors of the will, and appointed Knight, Hauser,
+ and Dixon as his executors. That is exactly what he says here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, was that will made? Have they impeached Mr. Keith? I tell them now
+ that they cannot impeach him. He has sworn to the making of that will,
+ apart and separate from Mr. Knight. Oh, they say, why didn't they bring
+ Knight in, and prove by him that he then recollected Mr. Keith? What has
+ that to do with it? Mr. Keith recollected Mr. Knight, swore that he wrote
+ the will, and that he was writing it when he came in, and swore that he
+ attested it, that Davis signed it, and Irvine also signed it. What more do
+ we want on that will? I say, gentlemen, that the will of 1880 ends this
+ case. There is not ingenuity enough in the world to get around it, and
+ there was and never will be enough brains crammed into one head to dodge
+ it. That will was made, and every man on the jury knows it. That will was
+ executed by Andrew J. Davis, every man of you knows it, and the will was
+ afterwards destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the question is, did that second will revoke the first will? Had it a
+ revoking clause in it? E. W. Knight swears it had, and he swears that he
+ copied it from a will made by an uncle of his named John Knight, and he
+ had that will in his possession here and in that will there are two
+ revocation clauses, and Knight swears that he copied those clauses, and
+ right here it may be well enough to make another remark. When he read the
+ will to A. J. Davis, and the passage "hereby revoking all wills," Davis
+ said: "There is no need of putting that in. I never made any other will.
+ This is the first." Knight said to him, "Well, that is the way, that is
+ the form, and I think it is safer to have it that way." And Davis said:
+ "All right; let it go."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do you fix that? There is no way out of it, that the will was made in
+ 1880, revoking all former wills. What else? The conditions of the will of
+ 1880, with regard to working the mine, with regard to bequests to nephews,
+ with regard to bequests to others, with regard to the twenty thousand
+ dollars given to Jeff Davis, and the twenty thousand dollars given to the
+ girl; these provisions are absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of
+ this will of 1866. So on both grounds the will of 1880 destroys, cancels,
+ and forever renders null and void the will of 1866, even if it had been
+ the genuine will of A. J. Davis, and the Court will instruct you to that
+ effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And after Mr. Keith had testified, the proponents in this case subpoenaed
+ Mr. Knight, and if they thought that Knight would swear that Keith was not
+ the man, why did they not put him on the stand? They ran no risk. He is an
+ honest man. He would tell the truth. I never had the slightest fear in
+ bringing an honest man on the stand. Never. I want facts, and I hope as
+ long as I live that I shall never win a case that I ought not to win on
+ the facts. No man should wish or endeavor to win a case that he knows is
+ wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say there is not a man on this jury but believes in his heart and soul
+ this minute that this will was made. You have to throw aside the testimony
+ of a perfectly good man, and no matter whether what he said about Erwin
+ Davis to Judge Knowles was true or not&mdash;and I must say that I never
+ saw a witness on the stand in my life more eager to tell his story than
+ Judge Knowles was. Never. He was bound to get it in or die. He answered
+ questions over objections before the Court was allowed to pass upon the
+ objections. Why? Because he is the President of the First National Bank.
+ Now, without saying that he was dishonest about it, I say he was mistaken.
+ Knight never said one word of that kind to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was impossible that he could have said it. So is Mr. Talbot mistaken.
+ So is Andrew J. Davis, Jr. mistaken, and so is John A. Davis mistaken.
+ Think of the idiotic idea that a will, not signed, was given to Knight to
+ keep, attested by two witnesses, and not signed by the testator. Idiotic!
+ Now, as I understand it, gentlemen, you will have to find that that will
+ was made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what is the next great question in this case, and the question that
+ will be argued at some length, probably, by the other side? And why?
+ Because it is the first and only point, so far as facts are concerned,
+ that they have won in this case. Just one. And what is that? Our experts
+ said that they thought that the ink was nigrosin ink, and the fact that
+ they wanted a test proves that they were sincere. Their witnesses said
+ they did not think it was nigrosin ink. Mr. Hodges said it had too much
+ lustre, but that there was only one way in which it could be absolutely
+ determined and that was by a chemical test. But, say these gentlemen, or
+ rather said Judge Dixon, "the moment that ink turned red the whole case of
+ the contestants was wrecked." Let us see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there had been no logwood ink in existence&mdash;not a particle&mdash;after
+ the 20th day of July, 1866; if, on the night of the 20th of July, 1866,
+ all the logwood ink on earth had been destroyed and then this ink had
+ turned out to be logwood, why, of course, it would have been a
+ demonstration that this paper was written as far back as the 20th of July,
+ 1866. If it had turned out that it was written in nigrosin ink and that
+ that had only been invented in 1878, it would have been a demonstration
+ that the will was a forgery. But you must recollect the fact that it is
+ written in logwood ink is not only consistent with its genuineness, but
+ consistent with its being a forgery. Why? There was logwood ink in
+ existence in 1890, plenty of it, and if Mr. Eddy wrote this will in 1890,
+ he could have written it in logwood ink; and the fact that it is written
+ in logwood ink does not show that it was written in 1866. Why? Because
+ there was logwood ink in existence every year since 1866, till now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose I said that the paper was only ten years old and it turned out
+ that it was forty, is that a demonstration in favor of the other side? If
+ it turned out to be ten, it is a demonstration on our side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But if it turned out to be forty, is not that consistent with the
+ genuineness of the instrument, and also with the spuriousness of the same
+ instrument? You can see that. Nobody's smart enough to fool you on that.
+ Nobody. Take the whole question of ink out and the question is still
+ whether Eddy wrote it or not. Take the ink all out and it is still the
+ question whether Job Davis wrote it or not. Absolutely, and all the test
+ proved was, that our experts&mdash;some of them&mdash;were mistaken about
+ its being nigrosin ink. Mr. Tolman stated that it was impossible to tell
+ without a chemical test; that it looked like nigrosin ink and from the
+ manner in which it seemed to run he thought it was nigrosin ink, but that
+ it was impossible to tell without a test. Mr. Hodges, their expert, said
+ it looked to him like logwood ink; that it had too much lustre for
+ nigrosin, but he added that it was impossible to tell without a chemical
+ test. That is what he said. Mr. Ames said the same thing, and I appeal to
+ you, gentlemen, if Mr. Ames did not have the appearance of an honest, of a
+ candid, and of a fair man. Professor Hagan said that it was nigrosin ink,
+ but he admitted that the only way to know was to test it. And what else?
+ Their own expert, Mr. Hodges, said that logwood ink penetrates the paper.
+ If this ink has been on here twenty-five years it penetrates the paper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sometimes an accident happens in our favor; a piece of that will was torn
+ off this morning. You see the edge there torn off slanting. You see that
+ "o-f"; how much that ink has sunk into that paper. Not the millionth part
+ of a hair. It lies dead upon the top. Just see how the ink went in there&mdash;not
+ a particle. It lies right on top. I would call that "float." There is the
+ other edge. There is where the ink stops. It has not entered a particle.
+ And when you go to your room I want you to look at it. That ink has not
+ penetrated a particle. And let us see what this witness Hodges says:
+ "Logwood ink penetrates the paper."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There it is, "to determine the nature of the ink, use hydrochloric acid."
+ What else?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I think this will was written with Reimal's ink, and that was made in
+ Germany in the neighborhood of 1840. Reimal's ink penetrates the paper."
+ And then they say that we endeavored to draw a distinction between modern
+ and ancient. This is what Mr. Hodges says about it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the addition of hydrochloric acid to logwood ink it will turn to a
+ bright red. The old-fashioned ink was manufactured by mixing a decoction
+ of logwood with chromide of potash and formed a blue black solution.
+ Logwood inks as made to-day differ from those, in that the modern logwood
+ inks contain another sort of chrome than chromide of potash; they contain
+ chromium in the form of an acetate or a chlorine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hodges was the man that talked about ancient and modern logwood inks; and
+ he, before the test was made, said that the old logwood ink would turn a
+ bright red, modern logwood not so bright. And after the evidence was all
+ in, Professor Elwell came smilingly to the post and said, "they have got
+ it exactly wrong end to; the older the duller and the newer the brighter."
+ And after a moment said, "This was kind of dull." Before the test was
+ made, Mr. Tolman swore, "I agree with Professor Hodges that if it is an
+ old logwood ink it will turn a bright, scarlet red. In the case of modern
+ logwood inks I don't agree with him, but to that extent I think his tests
+ are good," and he drew that distinction before the test was made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, you saw this will. I want to call your attention to it again.
+ You see that "J" in Sconce's name, that is pretty red. Not so awfully
+ scarlet, though, that it would affect a turkey gobbler. You see it in
+ "Job"; you see it in "James Davis," but there it is brown, and not red,
+ and not scarlet, and no flame in it, and Professor Hodges himself said
+ that although both were logwood inks, he would not swear that Job Davis
+ and James Davis were written with the same ink. Do you see the red in that
+ "Job"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now find the red on that "s" of "James." He said he would not swear that
+ they were written in the same ink, but both in logwood ink, that is to
+ say, they might have been different inks. While I would not swear that
+ they were the same inks, I would swear that both inks contained logwood.
+ And that is all he swore to, and I must say that I believe he was a
+ perfectly honest, fair gentleman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, all that the ink test proves on earth is that it is logwood instead
+ of nigrosin, and that does not prove that Eddy did not write the will,
+ because there was plenty of logwood ink when he did write it. That is the
+ kind of ink he used. And it has no more bearing&mdash;the fact that it
+ turned out to be logwood&mdash;to show that it is a genuine will than
+ though it had turned out to be iron ink. Suppose the experts had been
+ wrong on both sides, and it had turned out to be iron ink, what would have
+ happened then? Is it a genuine will? Nothing can be more absurd than to
+ argue that that test settled the genuineness of this will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hodges says another thing; that perhaps the pen went to the bottom of the
+ ink bottle and got a little of the settlings of the ink on it, when he
+ wrote "James Davis," and consequently that has a different color. Well, if
+ the pen had gotten some of this sediment on it, the more sediment the more
+ logwood, and the more logwood the brighter the color. Instead of that, it
+ is dull.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another trouble: With regard to the experts, while undoubtedly
+ there are some men who do not swear to the exact truth, whether paid or
+ not, undoubtedly some men swear truthfully who are paid. I do not believe
+ that you doubt the testimony of Hodges simply because you paid him so much
+ a day. I don't. And certainly we have found no men philanthropic enough to
+ go around the country swearing for nothing. I judge of the man's oath, not
+ by what he is paid, but by the manner in which he gives his testimony&mdash;by
+ the reason there is behind it. That is the way I judge and yet Senator
+ Sanders judges otherwise, as he told you in a burst of Montana zeal. * * *
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I like Montana, too, and I believe the Montana people are big enough and
+ broad enough not to have prejudice against a man because he comes from
+ another State. Every State in this Union is represented in Montana, and
+ the people who left the old settled States and came out to the new
+ Territories, dropped their prejudices on the way&mdash;and sometimes I
+ have thought that that is what killed the grass. I like a good, brave,
+ free, candid, chivalric people. I don't care where you come from&mdash;I
+ don't care where you were born. We are all men, and we all have our
+ rights; and as long as the old flag floats over me, I have just as many
+ rights in Montana as I have in New York. And when you come to New York I
+ will see that you have as many rights, if you are in my neighborhood, as
+ you have in Montana. That is the kind of nationality I believe in. I hate
+ this little, provincial prejudice; and yet Senator Sanders invoked that
+ prejudice. That insults you. We did not insult you when we asked you when
+ you went on the jury, if you cared whether the money stayed in Butte or
+ not, or whether you were interested or not, or related or not. Those were
+ the questions asked every juror, and we relied absolutely on your answers
+ when you said that you were unprejudiced, and that you would give us a
+ fair trial; and we believe you will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, with regard to these experts, you have got to judge each one by
+ his testimony; and it is foolish it seems to me, to call them vipers and
+ pirates, as Senator Sanders did. A very strong expression&mdash;"vipers,
+ pirates" living off, he said, the substance of others; and yet he had an
+ expert on the stand, Mr. Dickinson; he had another, Mr. Elwell; he had
+ another, Mr. Hodges; and after that he rises up before this jury and calls
+ them "three vipers" and "three pirates." I never will do that, If I ask a
+ man to swear for me, and he does the best he can, I will leave the
+ "pirate" out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will drop the "viper," and I will stand by him, if I think he is telling
+ the truth; and if he is not I won't say much about him; I don't want to
+ hurt his feelings. But I want to call your attention again to the fact
+ that every expert on our side swore, knowing that they had three experts
+ on the other side, and that if we made a mistake they could catch us in
+ it; and we did make a mistake in that ink; and the test showed that we
+ made a mistake, and that is all the test did show; but it did not show
+ that the will is genuine any more than if it had turned out to be carbon
+ ink; then both sides would have been mistaken. And yet after all it did
+ turn out to be modern logwood ink, and it did turn out not to be Reimal's
+ logwood ink, made of the chromate of potassium; did turn out not to be
+ that, and I say on this will that there is an absolute, decided and
+ distinct difference between the color on the name Job Davis and the name
+ James Davis. And right here, I might as well say that that man Jackson,
+ who came here from Butler, Mo.&mdash;and when I said Butler was a pretty
+ tough place, rose up in his wrath and said it was as good as New York any
+ day&mdash;that man says that when he saw the will he does not remember of
+ seeing the names of James Davis and Sconce in it, but he did remember of
+ seeing the name of Job Davis. I don't think he saw any of it. Now, there
+ is another question here&mdash;because I have said enough about ink, at
+ least enough to give you an inkling of my views.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another question. Why didn't John A. Davis take the stand? That
+ is a serious question. John A. Davis had sworn, on the 13th of March,
+ 1890, that his brother died without a will. John A. Davis, on the 24th day
+ of July, 1890, filed a will in which he was the legatee. That will came
+ into his possession under suspicious circumstances. What would a perfectly
+ frank and candid man have done? What would you have done? You would not
+ have allowed yourself to remain under suspicion one moment. You would have
+ said, "I got that will so and so." You would have let in the light, "I
+ obtained it in such a place, it is an honest, genuine will, and here it
+ is, and here are the witnesses to that will." But instead of that, John A.
+ Davis never opened his mouth, except to file a petition swearing that it
+ came into his possession on the first day of July. He knew that he was
+ suspected, didn't he? He knew that the men in whose veins his blood flowed
+ believed that the will was a forgery&mdash;knew that good men and women
+ believed that he was a robber, and that he was endeavoring to steal their
+ portion. He knew that, and any man that loves his own reputation and any
+ man that ever felt the glow of honor in his heart one moment, would not
+ have been willing to rest under such a suspicion or under such an
+ imputation. He would have said: "Here is its history, here is where I got
+ it, it is not a forged will. It is genuine. Here are the witnesses that
+ know all about it. Here is how I came into possession of it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No, sir. Not a word. Speechless&mdash;tongueless. And he comes into this
+ court and comes on to this stand to be a witness, and is asked about a
+ conversation he had with Burchett, and then we asked him, "How did you
+ come into the possession of that will?" All his lawyers leaped between him
+ and the answer to that question. They objected. If he came by that will
+ honestly he would have said, "I am going to tell the whole story." He
+ wants you to believe that he came by it honestly, doesn't he? He wants you
+ to believe it. He not only wants you to believe it, gentlemen, but he asks
+ twelve men&mdash;you&mdash;to swear that he came by it honestly, doesn't
+ he? If you give your verdict that that is a genuine will, then you give
+ your oath that John A. Davis came by it honestly; and he wants you twelve
+ men to swear it. And yet he dare not swear it himself. He wants you to do
+ his swearing. He is afraid to stand in your presence and tell the history
+ of that will. He is afraid to tell the name of the man from whom he
+ received it. He is afraid to tell how much he gave for it; afraid to tell
+ how much he promised. He is afraid to tell how they obtained witnesses to
+ substantiate it in the way they have. Well, now, ought not you to let him
+ tell his own story, ought not you, gentlemen, to be clever enough to let
+ him do his own swearing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I will ask you again if he came by that will honestly, fairly, above
+ board, would he not be glad to tell you the story? Would he not be glad to
+ make it plain to you? If that was a perfectly honest will and came to him
+ through perfectly pure channels, would he not want you to know it? Would
+ he not want every man and woman in this city to know it? Would he not want
+ all his neighbors to know it? And yet, he is willing, when this case is
+ being tried, and when he is on the stand, and asked how he got the will&mdash;he
+ is willing to close his mouth&mdash;willing to admit that he is afraid to
+ tell; and I tell you to-day, gentlemen, that the silence of John A. Davis
+ is a confession of guilt, and he knows it, and his attorneys know it. A
+ client afraid to swear that he did not forge a will, or have it forged,
+ and then want to hire a man to defend him and call him honest! Well, he
+ would have to hire him; he would not get anybody for nothing. And yet he
+ is asking you to do it. If John A. Davis came properly by it, let him say
+ so under oath. Don't you swear to it for him, not one of you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another question. Why did not James R. Eddy take the stand?
+ We charged him with forging the will. We made an affidavit setting forth
+ that he did forge the will, and in this very court Mr. Dixon arose and
+ said he was glad that the charge had been fixed, and the man had been
+ designated. Judge Dixon said here, before this jury, when this case was
+ opened, "the man who was charged with forging this will will be here. He
+ will stand before this jury face to face; and he will explain his
+ connections with the will to your satisfaction." That is what Judge Dixon
+ said. Where is your witness? Where is James R. Eddy? Why did you not bring
+ him forward? I know he is here now&mdash;delighted with the notoriety that
+ this charge of forgery gives him&mdash;with a moral nature that is an
+ abyss of shallowness,&mdash;delighted to be charged with it, and he will
+ probably be my friend as long as he lives, because I have added to his
+ notoriety by saying he is a forger. Why did they not bring him on the
+ stand? Mr. Dixon gives one reason. Because the jury would not believe him.
+ And that is the man who is first found in possession of this will. That is
+ the man in whose hands it is, and it is from that man that John A. Davis
+ received it. And the reason that he is not put on the stand is that it is
+ the deliberate opinion of the learned counsel in this case that no jury
+ would believe him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How does that work with you? James R. Eddy here&mdash;his deposition here&mdash;and
+ they could not read his deposition because he was here&mdash;and they had
+ him here and kept him here, so that we could not read his deposition. They
+ were bound that he should not go on the stand. Why? Because the moment he
+ got there he could be asked, Where did you find the will? Who was present
+ when you found it? When did you first tell anybody about it? When did you
+ first show it to John A. Davis? How much did he agree to give you for it?
+ What witnesses have you talked to in this case? What witnesses have you
+ written to in this case? What work have you done in this case? What
+ affidavits have you made in this case? And what have you done with the
+ other three wills that you have in this case?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such questions might be asked him, and they were afraid to put him on the
+ stand. Every letter that he had written would have been identified by him
+ if he had been put on the stand. Maybe he would have been compelled to
+ write in the presence of the jury, to see whether he would spell words
+ correctly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew that the moment he went on the stand their case was as dead as
+ Julius C&aelig;sar. They knew it and kept him off.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is only one way for them to win this case. And that is to keep
+ out the evidence. Only one way to win the case&mdash;suppress John A.
+ Davis. Keep your mouth closed or defeat will leap out of it. Eddy, keep
+ still. Don't let anything be seen that will throw any light upon this. I
+ ask you, gentlemen of the jury, to take cognizance of what has been done
+ in this case. Who is it that has tried to get the light? Who is it that
+ has tried to get the evidence? Who is it that has objected? Who is it that
+ wants you to try this case in the dark? Who is it that wants you to guess
+ on your oaths? The failure of Eddy to testify is a confession of guilt.
+ They dare not put him on the stand&mdash;dare not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, there is a little more evidence in this case to which I am
+ going to call your attention. Something has been said about a conversation
+ in March, 1891. Sconce had his deposition taken in Bloomfield, Iowa. That
+ deposition has been suppressed. John A. Davis was there at the time it was
+ taken. John A. Davis and Sconce went into the passage leading up to the
+ office of Carruthers. Mr. Burchett, sheriff of the county, a man having no
+ possible earthly or heavenly interest in this business, happened to stop
+ at the corner to read his paper&mdash;looked at it as he opened it&mdash;and
+ he then and there heard John A. Davis say, "Stick to that story and I will
+ see that you get all the money you have been promised," and thereupon
+ Sconce replied, "All right I'll do it." Sconce denies it, and that denial
+ is not worth the breath that he wasted in forming the denial. John A.
+ Davis denies it. Of course he denies it. But he dare not tell where he got
+ that will. He dare not do it. He wants you to do that for him. He wants
+ you to lift him out of the gutter and wash the mud off him. He is afraid
+ to do it himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to call your attention to that conversation, and that of itself is
+ enough to impeach Sconce. That is enough of itself to show that John A.
+ Davis was entering into a conspiracy or rather had entered into one with
+ Mr. Sconce. Now, gentlemen, there is another thing, and we must not forget
+ it. Curious people down in Salt Creek township, on the other side; of
+ course there are plenty of good men there or the township could not exist,
+ and we had a good many of them here&mdash;good, straight, honest,
+ intelligent looking men. But the other side had some&mdash;all in the
+ family&mdash;all of them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Swaim, he was not in the family, but he is a clerk in Trimble's bank,
+ where Wallace is the cashier, where they suppress depositions; say they
+ are not finished when they are signed by the person who swears to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John C. Sconce, the only living witness, whose "ancient but ignoble blood
+ has crept through rascals ever since the flood," cousin to James Davis,
+ cousin to Job Davis, cousin to Mrs. Downey, cousin to Eddy, cousin to Dr.
+ Downey by marriage, brother to T. J. Sconce, Jr., brother-in-law to Abe
+ Wilkinson, cousin to Tom Glasgow and Sam, cousin to Moses Davis, cousin to
+ Alex. Davis, uncle to Henshaw's daughter, and father-in-law of George
+ Quigley. Every one of them united. Blood is thicker than water. Eddy stuck
+ to his family.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ James R. Eddy&mdash;cousin to Sconce, son of Mrs. Downey, (Mrs. Downey,
+ the duster lady, who remembers that Davis asked her to remain, but didn't
+ ask her advice, didn't have her sign the will, didn't give her any
+ bequest, but there she was with her duster), grandson of James Davis,
+ nephew of Job Davis, and related by blood or marriage to both the
+ Glasgows, Moses and Alexander Davis, to T. J. Scotice and J. C. Sconce,
+ Jr., Abe Wilkinson, George Quigley, S M. Henshaw, (the celebrated lawyer).
+ J. L. Hughes, and Eli Dye, brother-in-law to C. O. Hughes, and foster
+ brother to John Lisle, and Mrs. A. S. Bishop. And it is just lovely about
+ John Lisle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Lisle is one of the fellows that saw this will. "How did you come to
+ see it, John?" "James Davis," he says, "was my guardian and he had to give
+ a bond, and so one day when James Davis was away from home, I thought I
+ would go and see the bond."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course he thought James Davis kept the bond that he gave to somebody
+ else&mdash;to the county judge; but Mr. Lisle pretends that he thought the
+ bond would be in the possession of the man who gave it. And so he sneaked
+ in to look among the papers. Now, do you believe such a story&mdash;that
+ he thought that man had the bond? Didn't he know that the bond was given
+ to somebody else? Foolish! Bishop swears the same thing; James Davis was
+ guardian for his wife, and he was looking to see if James had the bond;
+ and another fellow by the name of Sconce, was looking for a note, and when
+ he opened this double sheet of paper folded four times and happened to see
+ Sconce's name he said: "Here it is&mdash;a promissory note."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mary Ann Davis&mdash;that is to say, Mrs. Eddy, that is to say, Mrs.
+ Downey, is the mother of J. R. Eddy, daughter of James Davis, sister to
+ Job, second cousin to Sconce, wife of Downey, and related by blood or
+ marriage to Tom and Sam Glasgow, Moses and Alexander Davis, Abe Wilkinson,
+ S. M. Henshaw, J. C. Sconce, Jr., T. J. Sconce, George Quigley and C. O.
+ Hughes. All right in there, woven together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ E. H. Downey&mdash;son-in-law of James Davis, brother-in-law of Job,
+ husband of Mary Ann Davis-Eddy-Downey, and step-father of Mr. Eddy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ J. C. Sconce. Jr.&mdash;cousin to Eddy, nephew of J. C. Sconce, Sr.,
+ cousin to Mrs. Downey, cousin of E. H. Downey, son-in-law of Henshaw,
+ cousin to George Quigley, related to Tom and Sam Glasgow, Abe Wilkinson
+ and Moses and Alex. Davis.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ George Quigley&mdash;son-in-law of Sconce.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sam Glasgow&mdash;cousin of Sconce, son-in-law of Dye, brother to Tom
+ Glasgow, brother-in-law to Moses and Alex. Davis, cousin to Abe Wilkinson,
+ and related by marriage to J. R. Eddy. Here they are, same blood. All have
+ the same kind of memory; runs in the blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Henshaw&mdash;father-in-law to J. C. Sconce, Jr. Lisle&mdash;adopted son
+ of James Davis, and his ward, and foster brother to Eddy. A. S. Bishop&mdash;married
+ to Allie Lisle, ward of James Davis, foster sister of James R. Eddy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ T. J. Sconce&mdash;Eddy's cousin, J. R. Sconce's brother, brother-in-law
+ and cousin to the Glasgows, cousin to Alex, and Moses Davis,
+ brother-in-law to Abe Wilkinson and uncle to J. C. Sconce, Jr.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Moses Davis&mdash;cousin of Sconce, brother-in-law to the Glasgows, cousin
+ to Abe Wilkinson, brother of Alex. Davis, and related to Eddy and Arthur
+ Quigley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Alexander Davis&mdash;cousin to Sconce, brother of Moses Davis,
+ brother-in-law to the Glasgows, cousin to Wilkinson and related by
+ marriage to Arthur Quigley.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Abe Wilkinson&mdash;brother-in-law to Sconce, cousin to Alex, and Moses
+ Davis, and cousin to the Glasgows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tom Glasgow&mdash;cousin to Sconce, and Abe Wilkinson, and a
+ brother-in-law of Moses Davis, and a brother to Sam Glasgow, and related
+ by marriage to Eddy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Arthur Quigley&mdash;brother-in-law to Alex. Davis, and brother to George
+ Quigley, who is a son-in-law of Sconce. John L. Hughes&mdash;his nephew
+ married Eddy's wife's sister. Eli Dye&mdash;father-in-law of Sam Glasgow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There they are, all of them related except Swaim and Duckworth and Taylor;
+ and Duckworth, he is in the tie business along with Eddy. There is the
+ family tree. All growing on the same tree, and there is a wonderful
+ likeness in the fruit. Why, that Glasgow has as good a memory as Sconce.
+ He remembers that this is the same will he saw&mdash;paper like that, and
+ he swears&mdash;I think it is Sam Glasgow&mdash;that he did not read the
+ contents or see a signature. And yet he comes here, twenty-five years
+ afterwards, and swears it is the same paper. And then the paper was clean
+ and now it is covered with all kinds and sorts of stains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, take the signature of A. J. Davis, and I want you all to
+ look at it. I say it is made of pieces. I say it is a patchwork. It is a
+ dead signature. It has no personality&mdash;no vitality in it, and I want
+ you to look at it, and look at it carefully. I say it is made of pieces.
+ Of course every counterfeit that is worth anything, looks like the
+ original, and the nearer it looks like the original the better the
+ counterfeit. All the witnesses on the side of the proponent who have sworn
+ that it is his signature, also swear that he wrote a rapid, firm hand&mdash;nervous,
+ bold, free, and that he scarcely ever took his pen from the paper from the
+ time he commenced his name until he finished; and I want you to look at
+ that name. I will risk your sense; I will risk your judgment&mdash;honest,
+ fair and free&mdash;whether that is a made signature, or whether it is the
+ honest signature of any human being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, gentlemen, one word more. I contend, first, that the evidence
+ shows beyond all doubt that Job Davis did not write this will. Second,
+ that it is shown beyond all doubt, that James R. Eddy did write this will,
+ and that that evidence amounts to a demonstration. I claim that the will
+ of 1880 was made precisely as E. W. Knight and Mr. Keith swear; that that
+ will was utterly inconsistent with the will of 1866, even if that had been
+ genuine; that it revokes that will, that its provisions were inconsistent,
+ and that afterwards that will was destroyed, and that there is not one
+ particle of evidence beneath the canopy of heaven to show that it was not
+ made and to show that it was not destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the Court will instruct you that the will of 1866, even if genuine, is
+ not revived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the end of the case. So I claim that the probabilities, the
+ reason, the naturalness, are all on the side of the contestants in this
+ case&mdash;all. And I tell you, that if the evidence can be depended on at
+ all, A. J. Davis went to his grave with the idea that the law made a will
+ good enough for him. Do you believe, if he were here, if he had a voice,
+ that he would take this property and give it to John A. Davis; that he
+ would leave out the children of the very woman who raised him; that he
+ would leave out his other sisters, that he would leave out the children of
+ his sisters and brothers? Do you believe it? I know that not one man on
+ that jury believes it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This case is in your hands. That property is in your hands. All the
+ millions, however many there may be, are in your hands; they are to be
+ disposed of by you under instructions from the Court as to the law. You
+ are to do it. And, do you know, there is no prouder position in the world,
+ there is no more splendid thing, than to be in a place where you can do
+ justice. Above everybody and above everything should be the idea of
+ justice; and whenever a man happens to sit on a jury in a case like this,
+ or in any other important case, he ought to congratulate himself that he
+ has the opportunity of showing, first, that he is a man, and second, of
+ doing what in his judgment ought to be done, and there will never be a
+ prouder recollection come to you hereafter than that you did your honest
+ duty in this case. Say to this proponent: "If you wanted to show us that
+ you got this will honestly, why didn't you swear it; if you wanted us to
+ believe it was a genuine will, why didn't you have the nerve to take your
+ oath that it is a genuine will?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, you have the opportunity, gentlemen, of doing what is right. Your
+ prejudice has been appealed to, but I say that you have the manhood, that
+ you have the intelligence, and that you have the honesty to do exactly
+ what you believe to be right; and whether you agree with me or not, I
+ shall not call in question your integrity or your manhood. I am generous
+ enough to allow for differences of opinion. But when you come to make up
+ your verdict, I implore you to demand of yourselves the reasons; to be
+ guided by what is natural; to be guided by what is reasonable. I want you
+ to find that this will was found in the possession of Eddy in April or
+ March, next in the hands of John A. Davis; and that John A. Davis dare not
+ tell how he came in possession of it. John A. Davis, on the edge of the
+ grave&mdash;for this world but a few days, and according to the law
+ without that will he could have had an income of over fifty thousand a
+ year. He was not satisfied with that. He wanted to take from his own
+ brothers and sisters, wanted to leave his own blood in beggary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He never saw the time in his life that he could earn five thousand a year&mdash;never.
+ And he was not satisfied with fifty thousand&mdash;he wanted four and a
+ half millions for himself. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, I want you to do justice between all these heirs. I want you to
+ show to the United States that you have the manhood, that you are free
+ from prejudice, that you are influenced only by the facts, only by the
+ evidence, and that being so influenced, you give a perfectly fair verdict&mdash;a
+ verdict that you will be proud of as long as you live. How would you feel,
+ to find a verdict here that this is a good will, and afterwards have it
+ turn out to be what it is&mdash;an impudent, ignorant forgery?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, all I ask of you is to take this evidence into consideration. Don't
+ be misled even by a Christian, or by a sinner, for that matter. Let us be
+ absolutely honest with each other. We have been together for several
+ weeks. We have gotten tolerably well acquainted. I have tried to treat
+ everybody fairly and kindly, and I have tried to do so in this address.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have had hard work to keep within certain limits. There would words get
+ into my mouth and insist on coming out, but I said: "go away; go away." I
+ don't want to hurt people's feelings if I can help it. I don't want anyone
+ unnecessarily humiliated, but I say whatever stands between you and
+ justice must give way; and if you have to walk over reputations&mdash;and
+ if they become pavement you cannot help it. You must do exactly what is
+ right, and let those who have done wrong bear the consequences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I have confidence in you. I have confidence in this
+ verdict. I think I know what it will be. It will be that the will is
+ spurious, and that the will of 1880 revoked it, whether spurious or not.
+ That is my judgment, and I don't think there is any man in the world smart
+ enough or ingenious enough to get any other verdict from you as long as
+ John A. Davis was afraid to swear that it was an honest will; as long as
+ James R. Eddy, the forger, dare not take the stand; and they will never
+ get a verdict in this world without taking the stand, and if they do take
+ it, that is the end. There is where they are.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, all I ask in the world, as I said, is a fair, honest, impartial
+ verdict at your hands. That I expect. More than that I do not ask. And
+ now, gentlemen, I may never see you again after this trial is over&mdash;separated
+ we may be forever&mdash;but I want to thank you from the bottom of my
+ heart for the attention you have paid to the evidence in this case and for
+ the patient hearing you have given me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Note: The Jury disagreed and the case was compromised.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL CASE.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Russell vs. Russell, before Martin P. Grey. V. C., Camden,
+ N. J., June 21, 1899. This was Colonel Ingersoll's last
+ appearance in public. The report of this argument has been
+ made from the stenographer's notes and therefore of
+ necessity incomplete. It was delivered without notes and the
+ proofs were not seen or corrected by the author. No
+ decision in this case has as yet been rendered, August 1,
+ 1900
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IF your Honor please: I agree with Mr. Pancoast at least in one remark
+ that he made&mdash;I think about the only one&mdash;that John Russell is
+ dead. I think there is no controversy about that. But as to the other
+ remarks made and the positions taken by him, I fail to agree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, for several hundred years the courts of England, and
+ for more than a hundred years the courts of this country, have very
+ jealously guarded the right of dower; and wherever a woman has by
+ antenuptial agreement given up her right of dower, all the courts have
+ decided&mdash;and I know of no exception, and Mr. Pancoast has brought
+ forward none&mdash;that at the time she made the contract waiving her
+ dower she must have been in the possession of all of the facts, so that
+ she could act with absolutely full knowledge. And where a man seeks to
+ make an agreement by virtue of which the wife, or the supposed wife, shall
+ waive her dower, decision after decision says that he must tell the truth,
+ and the whole truth, and that it is just as fraudulent to suppress a fact
+ as to manufacture one. He must tell the absolute truth. The relation of
+ the parties is such, and the dower right is such, that the courts will not
+ take the right away from the woman unless she gives it freely, and, at the
+ time she gives it, knows all the facts bearing upon the question as to
+ whether she should or should not release or waive her dower.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, on that same line the courts have taken another step. They do not put
+ upon the wife the burden of showing that the husband was guilty of fraud
+ directly; they simply put the burden upon the wife of showing what his
+ property was and what the consideration was in the agreement; and then the
+ court steps forward and says that if the amount is disproportionate when
+ you take into consideration his wealth, then the burden is immediately
+ shifted, and the person seeking something under his will, or seeking his
+ property, must show that when the woman signed the antenuptial agreement
+ she had been put in possession of all the facts; that she then knew, and
+ knew from him, what he was worth; and that if she did not and the amount
+ in the agreement is disproportionate to his estate, the agreement is null
+ and void. Then gentlemen who represented the heirs of the testator, or the
+ legatees, said: "Well, it was generally known that he was a rich man; that
+ was his reputation in the neighborhood; and she, if she had taken any
+ pains or acted with reasonable discretion, could have ascertained the
+ fact."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court then took another step in advance and said that it was not her
+ duty; she was not bound to inquire as to his wealth; and yet Mr. Pancoast
+ talks as though the maxim of caveat emptor applies in this business&mdash;as
+ though it had been a bargain between two sharpers, she making what she
+ could out of his admiration, and he cheapening her to the extent of his
+ power, driving the best possible bargain, saying that she should have
+ looked out for her rights; that she should have investigated and found out
+ about his property; that she should have called in a detective to
+ ascertain what it was, and that the courtship should have been carried on
+ in that commercial spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the law says: No; she is not obliged to ask a question. She is not
+ obliged to take into consideration any thing that is said in the
+ neighborhood. She relies upon one source for her information, and that is
+ the man whom she is going to marry. And the law says he shall meet her
+ with perfect candor, and there shall pass from his lips nothing but words
+ of truth; and then if, being in full possession of all the truth, she
+ makes the contract, that contract shall stand; otherwise, that it shall
+ not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no use of my quoting these decisions&mdash;there is no decision
+ any other way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first question that arises is as to the condition of this contract
+ under evidence&mdash;this antenuptial contract. Is the amount
+ disproportionate to his estate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we are to try this case relying on the notions of Mr. Russell, and say
+ that his opinion shall govern, why, it may be said that Russell imagined
+ that he was generous. That would be astonishing, but hardly as astonishing
+ as the fact that Mr. Pancoast thinks he is generous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Pancoast: You don't know me very well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll: I don't think you would do so badly as that. It may be that
+ Russell imagined that one thousand dollars in stock of some bank was a
+ liberal provision in his will. I don't know whether he did, and I do not
+ care whether he did or not. The question is not for Mr. Russell; it is not
+ a question for Mr. Pancoast, and it is not a question for myself; it is
+ for your Honor to decide. Is the amount mentioned in this antenuptial
+ contract, taken together, if you please, with the fifteen hundred dollars
+ in the will&mdash;is the amount made by the addition of the two amounts&mdash;disproportionate
+ to this estate?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a case here from Illinois, Achilles vs. Achilles (which ought to
+ be a strong case), in which I believe the man was worth seventeen or
+ eighteen thousand dollars; and my recollection is that he provided an
+ annuity of three hundred dollars for his wife, with rent free of a house;
+ also rent free of a vacant lot for a garden. That is what he gave her&mdash;what
+ would be about four hundred dollars or five hundred dollars a year; and he
+ had eighteen thousand dollars. The Supreme Court of Illinois thought that
+ amount so disproportionate to the value of the estate that the provision
+ was set aside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in this case, five thousand dollars or six thousand dollars&mdash;we
+ will say five thousand anyhow&mdash;is the amount; and there is an estate
+ worth a quarter of a million or, to come even within their own testimony,
+ worth two hundred thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first question for your Honor to decide is whether that amount is so
+ disproportionate to his estate that&mdash;unless the other side show that
+ she was put in possession of all the facts&mdash;it must be set aside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendants in this case have not endeavored to show that Mr. Russell
+ ever informed the complainant what he was worth. The only evidence we have
+ on that point is what he said with regard to his poverty&mdash;not one
+ word about how much he had, and as to his poverty, only indirectly. And
+ here is the way the old man's mind worked: They were first engaged to be
+ married. Mr. Pancoast believes, or at least he has expressed himself as
+ though he thought, that a man of seventy-five could not be in love (I do
+ not know what his experience is, but I hope no fate like that will
+ overtake me), and that a woman of fifty could not feel the tender flame. I
+ do not know enough about biology to state with accuracy how that is, but I
+ heard a story once about a colored woman having lived to be one hundred
+ and twenty-five, and a man interested in the question that Mr. Pancoast
+ has raised asked this aged lady how old a woman had to be before she
+ ceased to have thoughts about love?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And the old woman said: "I don't know, honey; you will have to ask
+ somebody older than I is." And I guess that is about the experience of the
+ race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Russell said to this woman: "I want to make a contract with you, and I
+ will give you fifteen thousand dollars." She said that was satisfactory,
+ and Russell&mdash;having a little Semitic blood in his veins, I guess&mdash;said
+ to himself, "I must have offered too much, she accepted so readily." So
+ the next time he saw her he said, "I do not think I can make it more than
+ ten thousand dollars." "Well," she said, "all right; ten thousand dollars
+ will do." In the meantime he was getting a little older, and the last time
+ he came he said he could not make it more than five thousand dollars,
+ because his estate was so entangled that he did not know that he would be
+ able to pay it&mdash;that it would be a pretty difficult job to pay that
+ amount within six months. Well, she accepted, and in order that she should
+ accept it, he said that, in addition, he would provide well for her in his
+ will&mdash;that he would make a liberal provision. There is the contract.
+ No evidence in the world that he told her what he was worth; the only
+ evidence is that he pleaded poverty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right at this point, I say that all the decisions I know of declare
+ the contract void unless the defence, on their part, show that she was put
+ in full possession of all the facts; and that the defence in this case did
+ not do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, so far as this contract is concerned, on the evidence it is void, and
+ void notwithstanding the fact that the trustees paid her five hundred
+ dollars; and Mr. Pancoast, according to my recollection, is mistaken when
+ he says that she demanded the balance. He offered her the balance, and she
+ stated that she had been informed that she had some rights against the
+ estate, and therefore refused to receive it. That is the fact about it. He
+ sent her five hundred dollars, and wanted to send her the balance, but she
+ would not have it. Then he asked her to take it, and showed her a receipt
+ to be signed, in which she waived everything, and she refused to sign it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under those circumstances I do not think it is possible for your Honor to
+ say that she has been estopped.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next point raised by Mr. Pancoast is that the oral agreement to
+ provide well for her in the will is void under the statute of frauds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, I am free to say that I do not know how it is in New Jersey, but in
+ every other State in which I am acquainted with the law, the statute of
+ frauds, to be operative, must always be pleaded. I do not know how it is
+ here. That statute has not been pleaded in this case, and I never heard of
+ it until the argument to-day. If it is to be pleaded before it can be
+ invoked, it is too late to cite it now. But let us go on the supposition
+ that he is right, that the antenuptial contract is void, and that the
+ other contract to provide for her in the will is also void. Then where
+ does that leave us? That leaves us exactly as though no contract had been
+ made. That leaves us without any antenuptial contract, without any
+ agreement to provide liberally for her in the will. Then what is our
+ condition? Then the wife is entitled to her dower in the real estate; that
+ follows as a necessity. She loses her interest in the personalty, because
+ that is given away by the will, but if the antenuptial contract and parole
+ agreement are both dead&mdash;one because disproportionate to the estate
+ and because of the fraud of Russell, and the other on account of the
+ statute of frauds, then she is left with her dower in the real estate. It
+ is impossible, it seems to me, to arrive at any other conclusion. It
+ certainly would be inequitable to say that she had been estopped on
+ account of what was done with the five thousand dollars in the hands of
+ the trustees.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another view of it. There has been, if the contracts are good, a
+ partial performance; and that of itself would take it out of the statute
+ of frauds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the question is, if it is out of the statute of frauds, and if it is
+ out because the contract has been partially performed, the next question,
+ and, it seems to me, the only question that arises, is, has a court of
+ equity the right to determine what the words "You shall be well provided
+ for," "I will provide for you liberally in my will," or "I will make a
+ liberal provision for you in my will"&mdash;what those words mean?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the idea of counsel on the other side, the Court is bound to
+ decide according to the meaning that was in the mind of Mr. Russell. But
+ there comes in here another principle. The only way we can find the
+ meaning in his mind is by finding the words that he used; and we are not
+ to import his meanness into the words, if he had meanness; neither would
+ we import his generosity, if he had generosity. We would give to those
+ words their natural meaning, apart from the thought of the one who used
+ them, and apart from the thought of the one who heard them, because the
+ words are known, their meaning is known and can be ascertained by the
+ Court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the word "reasonable" is about as hard a word to define as a court
+ was ever called upon to define, and yet courts of law and courts of
+ equity, in hundreds and thousands of instances, have passed upon the
+ meaning of the word "reasonable," and have not only passed upon its
+ meaning, but have given it from time to time definitions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man must give reasonable care to the property of another given into his
+ keeping. Well, what is reasonable care? Is it reasonable for him to take
+ such care of it as he does of his own? Not if he is unreasonably careless
+ of his own. And the law takes another step, and says you must take such
+ care of it as is reasonable, as a reasonable man would, and the courts
+ then go on to define what a reasonable man under the circumstances would
+ do. Now, there is no word in the language that courts have been called
+ upon to define that is vaguer&mdash;where the line between dawn and dusk,
+ between light and dawn, has to be drawn with greater care or greater
+ intelligence&mdash;than that word "reasonable." The word "appropriate" has
+ been decided again and again. The word "necessary," the word "convenient,"
+ the word "suitable"&mdash;"suitable to his or her condition in life"&mdash;"suitable
+ to the condition of the party"&mdash;all these words have been given
+ judicial meaning hundreds and thousands of times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now we come to the word "liberal," is that a hard word to define?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody in the world has his notion of what liberal means. Given the
+ circumstances and the actions of the man, and everyone you meet is ready
+ to decide whether he is liberal or illiberal. A man loses his pocketbook;
+ five thousand dollars in it; a boy finds it, returns it to him, and he
+ gives the boy five cents. There is not a man in the world, no matter
+ whether he is a judge or not, who would say that was liberal&mdash;nobody.
+ If there was only a dollar in the pocketbook and he gave him half of it,
+ you would say that was liberal. You would have to take the circumstances
+ into consideration. You also take into consideration the circumstances of
+ the man who found it. If he is a poor man you can not be liberal unless
+ you give him more than you would give the man who did not need it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is a liberal provision for a wife that has no means of making her own
+ living? If the man is able, nothing less than a sufficient sum to take
+ care of her. Suppose Mr. Vanderbilt, who is worth two or three hundred
+ millions&mdash;I do not know what he is worth, and I do not care, but I
+ suppose he is worth a hundred millions&mdash;should agree to make a
+ liberal provision for his wife, and make it so that he gets away from the
+ statute of frauds, and thereupon leaves her twenty-five hundred dollars.
+ Nobody would say that was liberal. Why? Because that word is capable of a
+ clear and reasonably exact definition. To be liberal, he would have to
+ leave her enough to live in the same style that she has been living in
+ with him, and enough to keep her during her life. Anything less than that
+ would be illiberal, mean, contemptible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I might go through all the actions of men in regard to contracts,
+ payments, divisions. We all know what liberal means, and it always means a
+ little more than the law could compel you to do. If a man hires another
+ and says, "I will give you five dollars a day," and the other works twenty
+ days, and he gives him one hundred dollars; nobody says he is liberal, and
+ nobody says he is mean. But when the man goes further and says, "You have
+ worked well; I am very much pleased with what you have done; there is
+ fifty dollars (or twenty-five dollars) as a present," everybody says,
+ "Why, that is liberal, that is generous." But no man ever yet got the
+ reputation of being generous by doing exactly what he was bound to do. He
+ may have the reputation of being just, honest, of keeping his contracts,
+ of being a good, fair, square man, but he never got the reputation of
+ being generous, and he never got the reputation of being liberal, by
+ simply doing what the law compelled him to do, or what his contract
+ compelled him to do, or what he did in consideration of that for which he
+ had received value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this case Russell said, "I will make a liberal provision for you in my
+ will." If he had made no will the law would have given her one-third of
+ his personal property. That would not have been liberal. That would simply
+ have been the law. That is the law, and that is what the law has said is
+ just. Whether the law is right or not, I do not know, but that is what the
+ law says. That is just, and no man can be liberal unless he goes just a
+ little beyond justness&mdash;just a little.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So when he says, "I will provide for you liberally in my will," in order
+ to comply with that agreement he has got to go somewhat beyond the law,
+ and the law says one-third; it is impossible for him to be liberal without
+ going a little beyond one-third, and then he is only liberal to the extent
+ that he does go beyond what the law fixes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, it seems to me that there is no escape from that. Neither does it
+ seem to me that there is the slightest difficulty in your Honor fixing
+ what is liberal&mdash;no more difficulty than you would have in saying
+ what is right; and we have hundreds of cases where a man has said, "If you
+ will do so and so I will do what is right," and it has been enforced&mdash;has
+ been enforced thousands and thousands of times. "I will do what is right,"
+ "I will do what is just," "I will do what is liberal," "I will do what is
+ necessary and proper"&mdash;all these words have been judicially
+ determined and their meaning fixed by hundreds and thousands of decisions.
+ I do not see the slightest trouble in that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, in this case, looking at the parole contract as bad&mdash;and it is
+ bad&mdash;the woman is at the very least entitled to her dower; and the
+ only way that she can be robbed of it is by holding that a contract is
+ good which was made by her without any knowledge of the value of the
+ property that he held. But every decision says that makes the contract
+ void, and that she is not bound to make examination herself; he is bound
+ to give her that information. The law says that when two hearts come
+ together in that way, and there is supposed to be affection, they must be
+ candid. He must conceal nothing. His hands must be open; not only must
+ what he says be the truth, but he must tell it all, and she cannot be
+ bound by any contract that she does not make in the full blaze of all the
+ facts. She must have them all, and if he keeps back any, if he makes
+ himself poorer than he is, he destroys the contract. If he tries to take
+ advantage of her the law says he only takes advantage of himself. The
+ Court is her attorney; the Court appears for her for the preservation of
+ her dower right; and the Court will not allow a man to take advantage of
+ any misstatement, of any suppression, of any fraud, no matter whether
+ active fraud, or a fraud that rests in non-action. The Court is her
+ attorney and says the contract is bad, and if you try to deceive her you
+ deceive yourself; and if you fail to put her in possession of all the
+ facts the consideration of the contract fails and it is dead and done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If these decisions have any meaning, that is the law, and if there is a
+ decision on the other side, I should like to hear it. I haven't found one,
+ not one; and in all the cases where applications have been made to set
+ aside an antenuptial contract, I have not found one where the
+ disproportion was as great as it appears in this case. The difference is
+ between six thousand five hundred dollars and an estate of a quarter of a
+ million. I have not found one that had anywhere near that disproportion,
+ and yet case after case is set aside on the disproportion of about four
+ hundred dollars or five hundred dollars a year and the fortune of eighteen
+ thousand dollars&mdash;one where it is thirty thousand and she gets about
+ five hundred dollars. I do not know of a solitary case where the deception
+ was as great as in this. I do not say that he intentionally deceived,
+ because I do not know, and, as Mr. Pancoast remarked, he is dead. We
+ simply go on the facts that are shown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the value of the property, I do not think there is any real
+ dispute about that. Mr. Russell is one of the executors, and when he went
+ over the real estate here on the stand he had in his hand a list of all
+ that real estate, with the values put upon it by our two witnesses; and he
+ was asked the value, and he looked at the parcel, and he looked at the
+ amount, and I tried it here myself, just to see if I could guess what his
+ answer would be. I deducted in my own mind fifty per cent, sometimes,
+ sometimes thirty per cent., sometimes forty per cent., and I hit it within
+ five dollars in fifteen cases, just guessing by myself what he would say,
+ because I knew that he was going by the figures without the slightest
+ reference, in many cases, to what the property was worth. He estimated one
+ parcel at two thousand two hundred dollars; I think it was worth about
+ five thousand dollars. He fixed another at three thousand two hundred and
+ fifty dollars; I think it is worth about five thousand dollars. He fixed a
+ third at four hundred dollars; I think it is worth about six hundred
+ dollars. When he was asked about those same parcels, without the figures
+ he sometimes went beyond the price that our experts had fixed; sometimes
+ he doubled his own price, and sometimes he fell below his price. I think
+ in one or two instances he even fell below; but that at the time he had in
+ his mind, any knowledge apart from the figures that had been made by the
+ experts, I do not believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Vice Chancellor: Is it of any significance? If your argument is right
+ the disproportion is so great that it makes no difference.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Ingersoll: Perhaps not. Then his co-executor was not called at all. So
+ I take it that we can safely say that the property was worth in all two
+ hundred thousand dollars, taking it according to their own estimate. The
+ estimate of the man who fixed it on account of the inheritance tax, I do
+ not think is of any weight. He did not go over it all and did not see it.
+ I say the disproportion is so great&mdash;they having failed to show that
+ the knowledge was in her possession, put there by him&mdash;that the
+ contract must be set aside. That we insist upon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of two things has to be done, it seems to me: Both those contracts set
+ aside and her dower in the real estate given to her, or both contracts
+ allowed to stand and the court to fix what is a liberal provision in the
+ will&mdash;and in that, for one, I see no difficulty. "Liberal" is a word
+ as easily understood at least as the word "reasonable"&mdash;certainly as
+ the word "necessary," certainly as the word "convenient," certainly as the
+ word "suitable," and in fact I might say as almost any other word except
+ some scientific term that limits its own definition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, we have already said that a liberal provision could not be less than
+ the law gives us. In that view of the case, she should have, in lieu of
+ her dower, the five thousand dollars, and, on account of the will she
+ should have at least whatever one-third of the personal property is worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that one of those two courses must be pursued. Here is an
+ old man who wants to get a woman some twenty-five years younger than he
+ is. Just think how Mr. Pancoast's blood would throb at a woman twenty-five
+ years younger than he. Think what visions would haunt his brain. Think of
+ the Cupids that, with outstretched wings, would follow in the darkness of
+ the night as he contemplated his happiness. Here was a man of that age who
+ wanted this woman, and taking into consideration his ideas of money&mdash;a
+ man that considered a thousand dollars a liberal provision; one worth two
+ hundred and thirty thousand dollars or two hundred and forty thousand
+ dollars, offering her five thousand dollars&mdash;he wanted her badly. You
+ can hardly think of a more wonderful thought visiting his brain than that
+ of giving all that money for a woman nearly twenty-five years younger than
+ himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to be kind to Mr. Russell; I want to say that he was honestly in
+ love with this woman. I want to be respectful to her by saying that the
+ affection was reciprocated, and that on her part it was absolutely honest.
+ But I do say that Mr. Russell withheld from her the information as to his
+ property. Mr. Russell endeavored to drive the best bargain he could, and I
+ say that by keeping back the facts that he was bound to make known to her,
+ he defeated himself&mdash;that while he did deceive her, he destroyed his
+ contract.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, by no way of reasoning I can think of can you arrive at any different
+ conclusion. All matters of this kind, of course, should be dealt with from
+ a high standard, the highest standard we have, the very highest. The
+ affection that man has for woman is, in my judgment, the holiest and the
+ most beautiful thing in nature; the affection that woman has for man&mdash;that
+ affection, that something that we call love&mdash;has done all there is of
+ value in the world. It has civilized mankind; made all the poems, painted
+ all the pictures, and composed all the music. Take it from the world and
+ we shall be simply wild beasts&mdash;far worse than wild beasts, for they
+ have affection for each other and for their young.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I say this should be treated from the highest possible standpoint, and
+ treating it in that way your Honor must say that a woman must act with a
+ full knowledge of every fact that had any bearing upon the question to be
+ decided by her; and if she was not put in possession of all of these
+ facts, by the man who said he loved her, then the contract is void.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the other hand, if the contract is held valid, and with it the
+ agreement to provide liberally for her in his will, then I say that there
+ can be no liberality that does not go beyond the law. In the one case she
+ is entitled to five thousand dollars and one-third of the personalty, and
+ in the other case she is entitled to her dower.
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+ <head>
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Miscellany
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38811]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ "TO PLOW IS TO PRAY; TO PLANT IS TO PROPHESY,<br /> AND THE HARVEST ANSWERS
+ AND FULFILLS."
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME XI.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ MISCELLANY
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38811/old/orig38811-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (64K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="frontispiece (64K)" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <h4>
+ <br /> North View of "Walston," Dobbs Ferry-on-Hudson, New York <br /> <br />
+ </h4>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkTOC">CONTENTS OF VOLUME XI.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">A REPLY TO BISHOP SPALDING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">A WOODEN GOD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">ART AND MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">ERNEST RENAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">TOLSTO&Iuml; AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">A WORD ABOUT EDUCATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0018">WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0019">FOOL FRIENDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0020">INSPIRATION</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0021">THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0022">HOW TO EDIT A LIBERAL PAPER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0023">SECULARISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0024">CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER,"
+ AND "AN AFRICAN FARM."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0025">THE LIBEL LAWS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0026">REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0027">AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0028">HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0029">THE IMPROVED MAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0030">EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0031">THE JEWS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0032">CRUMBLING CREEDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0033">OUR SCHOOLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0034">VIVISECTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0035">THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0036">THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0037">SPIRITUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0038">SUMTER'S GUN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0039">WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0040">CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0041">LAW'S DELAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0042">THE BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0043">A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0044">SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0045">SOWING AND REAPING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0046">SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0047">WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL
+ GUIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0048">GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0049">A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0050">POLITICAL MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0051">A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE
+ BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME XI.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Introduction by Frederick Douglass("Abou Ben Adhem")&mdash;Decision
+ of<br /> the United States Supreme Court pronouncing the Civil Rights Act<br />
+ Unconstitutional&mdash;Limitations of Judges&mdash;Illusion Destroyed by
+ the<br /> Decision in the Dred Scott Case&mdash;Mistake of Our Fathers in
+ adopting<br /> the Common Law of England&mdash;The 13th Amendment to the
+ Constitution<br /> Quoted&mdash;The Clause of the Constitution upholding
+ Slavery&mdash;Effect of<br /> this Clause&mdash;Definitions of a State by
+ Justice Wilson and Chief Justice<br /> Chase&mdash;Effect of the
+ Thirteenth Amendment&mdash;Justice Field on Involuntary<br /> Servitude&mdash;Civil
+ Rights Act Quoted&mdash;Definition of the Word Servitude by<br /> the
+ Supreme Court&mdash;Obvious Purpose of the Amendment&mdash;Justice
+ Miller<br /> on the 14th Amendment&mdash;Citizens Created by this
+ Amendment&mdash;Opinion<br /> of Justice Field&mdash;Rights and
+ Immunities guaranteed by the<br /> Constitution&mdash;Opinion delivered
+ by Chief-Justice Waite&mdash;Further Opinions<br /> of Courts on the
+ question of Citizenship&mdash;Effect of the 13th, 14th and<br /> 15th
+ Amendments&mdash;"Corrective" Legislation by Congress&mdash;Denial of
+ equal<br /> "Social" Privileges&mdash;Is a State responsible for the
+ Action of its Agent<br /> when acting contrary to Law?&mdash;The Word
+ "State" must include the People<br /> of the State as well as the
+ Officers of the State&mdash;The Louisiana Civil<br /> Rights Law, and a
+ Case tried under it&mdash;Uniformity of Duties essential to<br /> the
+ Carrier&mdash;Congress left Powerless to protect Rights conferred by the<br />
+ Constitution&mdash;Definition of "Appropriate Legislation"&mdash;Propositions
+ laid<br /> down regarding the Sovereignty of the State, the powers of the
+ General<br /> Government, etc.&mdash;A Tribute to Justice Harlan&mdash;A
+ Denial that Property<br /> exists by Virtue of Law&mdash;Civil Rights not
+ a Question of Social<br /> Equality&mdash;Considerations upon which
+ Social Equality depends&mdash;Liberty not<br /> a Question of Social
+ Equality&mdash;The Superior Man&mdash;Inconsistencies of the<br /> Past&mdash;No
+ Reason why we should Hate the Colored People&mdash;The Issues that<br />
+ are upon Us.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0002">TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> ADDRESS TO THE JURY.<br /> Report of the Case from the New York
+ Times (note)&mdash;The Right to express<br /> Opinions&mdash;Attempts to
+ Rule the Minds of Men by Force&mdash;Liberty the<br /> Greatest Good&mdash;Intellectual
+ Hospitality Defined&mdash;When the Catholic<br /> Church had Power&mdash;Advent
+ of the Protestants&mdash;The Puritans, Quakers.<br /> Unitarians,
+ Universalists&mdash;What is Blasphemy?&mdash;Why this Trial should not<br />
+ have Taken Place&mdash;Argument cannot be put in Jail&mdash;The
+ Constitution of<br /> New Jersey&mdash;A higher Law than Men can Make&mdash;The
+ Blasphemy Statute<br /> Quoted and Discussed&mdash;Is the Statute
+ Constitutional?&mdash;The Harm done<br /> by Blasphemy Laws&mdash;The
+ Meaning of this Persecution&mdash;Religions are<br /> Ephemeral&mdash;Let
+ us judge each other by our Actions&mdash;Men who have braved<br /> Public
+ Opinion should be Honored&mdash;The Blasphemy Law if enforced would<br />
+ rob the World of the Results of Scientific Research&mdash;It declares
+ the<br /> Great Men of to-day to be Criminals&mdash;The Indictment Read
+ and Commented<br /> upon&mdash;Laws that go to Sleep&mdash;Obsolete
+ Dogmas the Denial of which was<br /> once punished by Death&mdash;Blasphemy
+ Characterized&mdash;On the Argument<br /> that Blasphemy Endangers the
+ Public Peace&mdash;A Definition of real<br /> Blasphemy&mdash;Trials for
+ Blasphemy in England&mdash;The case of Abner<br /> Kneeland&mdash;True
+ Worship, Prayer, and Religion&mdash;What is Holy and<br /> Sacred&mdash;What
+ is Claimed in this Case&mdash;For the Honor of the State&mdash;The<br />
+ word Liberty&mdash;Result of the Trial (note).<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0003">GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Feudal System&mdash;Office and Purpose of our Constitution&mdash;Which
+ God<br /> shall we Select?&mdash;The Existence of any God a Matter of
+ Opinion&mdash;What is<br /> entailed by a Recognition of a God in the
+ Constitution&mdash;Can the Infinite<br /> be Flattered with a
+ Constitutional Amendment?&mdash;This government is<br /> Secular&mdash;The
+ Government of God a Failure&mdash;The Difference between the<br />
+ Theological and the Secular Spirit&mdash;A Nation neither Christian nor<br />
+ Infidel&mdash;The Priest no longer a Necessity&mdash;Progress of Science
+ and the<br /> Development of the Mind.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0004">A REPLY TO BISHOP SPALDING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> On God in the Constitution&mdash;Why the Constitutional Convention
+ ignored<br /> the Question of Religion&mdash;The Fathers Misrepresented&mdash;Reasons
+ why the<br /> Attributes of God should not form an Organic Part of the
+ Law of the<br /> Land&mdash;The Effect of a Clause Recognizing God.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0005">CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Three Pests of a Community&mdash;I. Forms of Punishment and
+ Torture&mdash;More<br /> Crimes Committed than Prevented by Governments&mdash;II.
+ Are not Vices<br /> transmitted by Nature?&mdash;111. Is it Possible for
+ all People to be<br /> Honest?&mdash;Children of Vice as the natural
+ Product of Society&mdash;Statistics:<br /> the Relation between Insanity,
+ Pauperism, and Crime&mdash;IV. The Martyrs of<br /> Vice&mdash;Franklin's
+ Interest in the Treatment of Prisoners&mdash;V. Kindness<br /> as a
+ Remedy&mdash;Condition of the Discharged Prisoner&mdash;VI. Compensation<br />
+ for Convicts&mdash;VII. Professional Criminals&mdash;Shall the Nation
+ take<br /> Life?&mdash;Influence of Public Executions on the Spectators&mdash;Lynchers<br />
+ for the Most Part Criminals at Heart&mdash;VIII. The Poverty of the Many
+ a<br /> perpetual Menace&mdash;Limitations of Land-holding.&mdash;IX.
+ Defective Education<br /> by our Schools&mdash;Hands should be educated
+ as well as Head&mdash;Conduct<br /> improved by a clearer Perception of
+ Consequences&mdash;X. The Discipline of<br /> the average Prison
+ Hardening and Degrading&mdash;While Society cringes before<br /> Great
+ Thieves there will be Little Ones to fill the Jails&mdash;XI. Our<br />
+ Ignorance Should make us Hesitate.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0006">A WOODEN GOD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> On Christian and Chinese worship&mdash;Report of the Select
+ Committee<br /> on Chinese Immigration&mdash;The only true God as
+ contrasted with<br /> Joss&mdash;Sacrifices to the "Living God"&mdash;Messrs.
+ Wright, Dickey, O'Connor<br /> and Murch on the "Religious System" of the
+ American Union&mdash;How to prove<br /> that Christians are better than
+ Heathens&mdash;Injustice in the Name of<br /> God&mdash;An honest
+ Merchant the best Missionary&mdash;A Few Extracts from<br /> Confucius&mdash;The
+ Report proves that the Wise Men of China who predicted<br /> that
+ Christians could not be Trusted were not only Philosophers but<br />
+ Prophets.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> A New Party and its Purpose&mdash;The Classes that Exist in every<br />
+ Country&mdash;Effect of Education on the Common People&mdash;Wants
+ Increased by<br /> Intelligence&mdash;The Dream of 1776&mdash;The
+ Monopolist and the Competitor&mdash;The<br /> War between the Gould and
+ Mackay Cables&mdash;Competition between<br /> Monopolies&mdash;All
+ Advance in Legislation made by Repealing Laws&mdash;Wages<br /> and
+ Values not to be fixed by Law&mdash;Men and Machines&mdash;The Specific
+ of<br /> the Capitalist: Economy&mdash;The poor Man and Woman devoured by<br />
+ their Fellow-men&mdash;Socialism one of the Worst Possible forms of<br />
+ Slavery&mdash;Liberty not to be exchanged for Comfort&mdash;Will the
+ Workers<br /> always give their Earnings for the Useless?&mdash;Priests,
+ Successful Frauds,<br /> and Robed Impostors.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">ART AND MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Origin of Man's Thoughts&mdash;The imaginative Man&mdash;"Medicinal
+ View" of<br /> Poetry&mdash;Rhyme and Religion&mdash;The theological
+ Poets and their Purpose in<br /> Writing&mdash;Moral Poets and their
+ "Unwelcome Truths"&mdash;The really Passionate<br /> are the Virtuous&mdash;Difference
+ between the Nude and the Naked&mdash;Morality<br /> the Melody of Conduct&mdash;The
+ inculcation of Moral Lessons not contemplated<br /> by Artists or great
+ Novelists&mdash;Mistaken Reformers&mdash;Art not a<br /> Sermon&mdash;Language
+ a Multitude of Pictures&mdash;Great Pictures and Great<br /> Statues
+ painted and chiseled with Words&mdash;Mediocrity moral from a<br />
+ Necessity which it calls Virtue&mdash;Why Art Civilizes&mdash;The Nude&mdash;The
+ Venus<br /> de Milo&mdash;This is Art.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Way in which Theological Seminaries were Endowed&mdash;Religious<br />
+ Guide-boards&mdash;Vast Interests interwoven with Creeds&mdash;Pretensions
+ of<br /> Christianity&mdash;Kepler's Discovery of his Three Great Laws&mdash;Equivocations<br />
+ and Evasions of the Church&mdash;Nature's Testimony against the<br />
+ Bible&mdash;The Age of Man on the Earth&mdash;"Inspired" Morality of the<br />
+ Bible&mdash;Miracles&mdash;Christian Dogmas&mdash;What the church has
+ been Compelled to<br /> Abandon&mdash;The Appeal to Epithets, Hatred and
+ Punishment&mdash;"Spirituality"<br /> the last Resource of the Orthodox&mdash;What
+ is it to be Spiritual?&mdash;Two<br /> Questions for the Defenders of
+ Orthodox Creeds.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Part I. Inharmony of Nature and the Lot of Man with the Goodness
+ and<br /> Wisdom of a supposed Deity&mdash;Why a Creator is Imagined&mdash;Difficulty
+ of the<br /> Act of Creation&mdash;Belief in Supernatural Beings&mdash;Belief
+ and Worship among<br /> Savages&mdash;Questions of Origin and Destiny&mdash;Progress
+ impossible without<br /> Change of Belief&mdash;Circumstances Determining
+ Belief&mdash;How may the<br /> True Religion be Ascertained?&mdash;Prosperity
+ of Nations nor Virtue<br /> of Individuals Dependent on Religions or Gods&mdash;Uninspired
+ Books<br /> Superior&mdash;Part II. The Christian Religion&mdash;Credulity&mdash;Miracles
+ cannot<br /> be Established&mdash;Effect of Testimony&mdash;Miraculous
+ Qualities of all<br /> Religions&mdash;Theists and Naturalists&mdash;The
+ Miracle of Inspiration&mdash;How<br /> can the alleged Fact of
+ Inspiration be Established?&mdash;God's work and<br /> Man's&mdash;Rewards
+ for Falsehood offered by the Church.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Statement by the Principal of King's College&mdash;On the
+ Irrelevancy of a<br /> Lack of Scientific Knowledge&mdash;Difference
+ between the Agnostic and<br /> the Christian not in Knowledge but in
+ Credulity&mdash;The real name of<br /> an Agnostic said to be "Infidel"&mdash;What
+ an Infidel is&mdash;"Unpleasant"<br /> significance of the Word&mdash;Belief
+ in Christ&mdash;"Our Lord and his Apostles"<br /> possibly Honest Men&mdash;Their
+ Character not Invoked&mdash;Possession by evil<br /> spirits&mdash;Professor
+ Huxley's Candor and Clearness&mdash;The splendid Dream<br /> of Auguste
+ Comte&mdash;Statement of the Positive Philosophy&mdash;Huxley and<br />
+ Harrison.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">ERNEST RENAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> His Rearing and his Anticipated Biography&mdash;The complex
+ Character of the<br /> Christ of the Gospels&mdash;Regarded as a Man by
+ Renan&mdash;The Sin against the<br /> Holy Ghost&mdash;Renan on the
+ Gospels&mdash;No Evidence that they were written<br /> by the Men whose
+ Names they Bear&mdash;Written long after the Events they<br /> Describe&mdash;Metaphysics
+ of the Church found in the Gospel of John&mdash;Not<br /> Apparent why
+ Four Gospels should have been Written&mdash;Regarded as<br /> legendary
+ Biographies&mdash;In "flagrant contradiction one with another"&mdash;The<br />
+ Divine Origin of Christ an After-growth&mdash;Improbable that he
+ intended to<br /> form a Church&mdash;Renan's Limitations&mdash;Hebrew
+ Scholarship&mdash;His "People of<br /> Israel"&mdash;His Banter and
+ Blasphemy.<br /> TOLSTOY AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."<br /> Tolstoy's Belief
+ and Philosophy&mdash;His Asceticism&mdash;His View of Human<br /> Love&mdash;Purpose
+ of "The Kreutzer Sonata"&mdash;Profound Difference between the<br /> Love
+ of Men and that of Women&mdash;Tolstoy cannot now found a Religion, but<br />
+ may create the Necessity for another Asylum&mdash;The Emotions&mdash;The
+ Curious<br /> Opinion Dried Apples have of Fruit upon the Tree&mdash;Impracticability
+ of<br /> selling All and giving to the Poor&mdash;Love and Obedience&mdash;Unhappiness
+ in<br /> the Marriage Relation not the fault of Marriage.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Life by Moncure D. Conway&mdash;Early Advocacy of Reforms against
+ Dueling<br /> and Cruelty to Animals&mdash;The First to write "The United
+ States of<br /> America"&mdash;Washington's Sentiment against Separation
+ from Great<br /> Britain&mdash;Paine's Thoughts in the Declaration of
+ Independence&mdash;Author of<br /> the first Proclamation of Emancipation
+ in America&mdash;Establishment of a<br /> Fund for the Relief of the Army&mdash;H's
+ "Farewell Address"&mdash;The "Rights of<br /> Man"&mdash;Elected to the
+ French Convention&mdash;Efforts to save the Life of the<br /> King&mdash;His
+ Thoughts on Religion&mdash;Arrested&mdash;The "Age of Reason" and the<br />
+ Weapons it has furnished "Advanced Theologians"&mdash;Neglect by
+ Gouverneur<br /> Morris and Washington&mdash;James Monroe's letter to
+ Paine and to the<br /> Committee of General Safety&mdash;The vaunted
+ Religious Liberty of<br /> Colonial Maryland&mdash;Orthodox Christianity
+ at the Beginning of the 19th<br /> Century&mdash;New Definitions of God&mdash;The
+ Funeral of Paine.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> I. Mr. A., the Professional Philanthropist, who established a
+ Colony<br /> for the Enslavement of the Poor who could not take care of
+ themselves,<br /> amassed a large Fortune thereby, built several
+ churches, and earned<br /> the Epitaph, "He was the Providence of the
+ Poor"&mdash;II. Mr. B.,<br /> the Manufacturer, who enriched himself by
+ taking advantage of the<br /> Necessities of the Poor, paid the lowest
+ Rate of Wages, considered<br /> himself one of God's Stewards, endowed
+ the "B Asylum" and the "B<br /> College," never lost a Dollar, and of
+ whom it was recorded, "He Lived<br /> for Others." III. Mr. C., who
+ divided his Profits with the People who had<br /> earned it, established
+ no Public Institutions, suppressed Nobody; and<br /> those who have
+ worked for him said, "He allowed Others to live for<br /> Themselves."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?<br /> Trampling on the Rights of
+ Inferiors&mdash;Rise of the Irish and Germans<br /> to Power&mdash;The
+ Burlingame Treaty&mdash;Character of Chinese Laborers&mdash;Their<br />
+ Enemies in the Pacific States&mdash;Violation of Treaties&mdash;The
+ Geary Law&mdash;The<br /> Chinese Hated for their Virtues&mdash;More
+ Piety than Principle among the<br /> People's Representatives&mdash;Shall
+ we go back to Barbarism?<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">A WORD ABOUT EDUCATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> What the Educated Man Knows&mdash;Necessity of finding out the
+ Facts<br /> of Nature&mdash;"Scholars" not always Educated Men; from
+ necessaries to<br /> luxuries; who may be called educated; mental misers;
+ the first duty of<br /> man; university education not necessary to
+ usefulness, no advantage in<br /> learning useless facts.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0018">WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Would have the Kings and Emperors resign, the Nobility drop their<br />
+ Titles, the Professors agree to teach only What they Know, the<br />
+ Politicians changed to Statesmen, the Editors print only the<br /> Truth&mdash;Would
+ like to see Drunkenness and Prohibition abolished,<br /> Corporal
+ Punishment done away with, and the whole World free.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0019">FOOL FRIENDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Fool Friend believes every Story against you, never denies a
+ Lie<br /> unless it is in your Favor, regards your Reputation as Common
+ Prey,<br /> forgets his Principles to gratify your Enemies, and is so
+ friendly that<br /> you cannot Kick him.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0020">INSPIRATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Nature tells a different Story to all Eyes and Ears&mdash;Horace
+ Greeley and<br /> the Big Trees&mdash;The Man who "always did like
+ rolling land"&mdash;What the<br /> Snow looked like to the German&mdash;Shakespeare's
+ different Story for each<br /> Reader&mdash;As with Nature so with the
+ Bible.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0021">THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> People who live by Lying&mdash;A Case in point&mdash;H. Hodson
+ Rugg's Account of<br /> the Conversion of Ingersoll and 5,000 of his
+ Followers&mdash;The "Identity of<br /> Lost Israel with the British
+ Nation"&mdash;Old Falsehoods about Infidels&mdash;The<br /> New York
+ Observer and Thomas Paine&mdash;A Rascally English Editor&mdash;The<br />
+ Charge that Ingersoll's Son had been Converted&mdash;The Fecundity of<br />
+ Falsehood.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0022">HOW TO EDIT A LIBERAL PAPER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Editor should not narrow his Horizon so that he can see only<br />
+ One Thing&mdash;To know the Defects of the Bible is but the Beginning of<br />
+ Wisdom&mdash;The Liberal Paper should not discuss Theological Questions<br />
+ Alone&mdash;A Column for Children&mdash;Candor and Kindness&mdash;Nothing
+ should be<br /> Asserted that is not Known&mdash;Above All, teach the
+ Absolute Freedom of the<br /> Mind.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0023">SECULARISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The religion of Humanity; what it Embraces and what it Advocates&mdash;A<br />
+ Protest against Ecclesiastical Tyranny&mdash;Believes in Building a Home<br />
+ here&mdash;Means Food and Fireside&mdash;The Right to express your
+ Thought&mdash;Its<br /> advice to every Human Being&mdash;A Religion
+ without Mysteries, Miracles, or<br /> Persecutions.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0024">CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD,
+ PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN FARM."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Religion unsoftened by Infidelity&mdash;The Orthodox Minister
+ whose Wife has<br /> a Heart&mdash;Honesty of Opinion not a Mitigating
+ Circumstance&mdash;Repulsiveness<br /> of an Orthodox Life&mdash;John
+ Ward an Object of Pity&mdash;Lyndall of the<br /> "African Farm"&mdash;The
+ Story of the Hunter&mdash;Death of Waldo&mdash;Women the<br /> Caryatides
+ of the Church&mdash;Attitude of Christianity toward other<br /> Religions&mdash;Egotism
+ of the ancient Jews.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0025">THE LIBEL LAWS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> All Articles appearing in a newspaper should be Signed by the<br />
+ Writer&mdash;The Law if changed should throw greater Safeguards around
+ the<br /> Reputation of the Citizen&mdash;Pains should be taken to give
+ Prominence to<br /> Retractions&mdash;The Libel Laws like a Bayonet in
+ War.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0026">REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.<br /> Mr. Newton not Regarded
+ as a Sceptic&mdash;New Meanings given to Old<br /> Words&mdash;The
+ vanishing Picture of Hell&mdash;The Atonement&mdash;Confidence being<br />
+ Lost in the Morality of the Gospel&mdash;Exclusiveness of the Churches&mdash;The<br />
+ Hope of Immortality and Belief in God have Nothing to do with Real<br />
+ Religion&mdash;Special Providence a Mistake.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0027">AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Day regarded as a Holiday&mdash;A Festival far older<br /> than
+ Christianity&mdash;Relics of Sun-worship in Christian<br /> Ceremonies&mdash;Christianity
+ furnished new Steam for an old Engine&mdash;Pagan<br /> Festivals
+ correspond to Ours&mdash;Why Holidays are Popular&mdash;They must be for<br />
+ the Benefit of the People.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0028">HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Object of Freethought&mdash;what the Religionist calls
+ "Affirmative<br /> and Positive"&mdash;The Positive Side of Freethought&mdash;Constructive
+ Work of<br /> Christianity.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0029">THE IMPROVED MAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> He will be in Favor of universal Liberty, neither Master nor
+ Slave; of<br /> Equality and Education; will develop in the Direction of
+ the Beautiful;<br /> will believe only in the Religion of this World&mdash;His
+ Motto&mdash;Will not<br /> endeavor to change the Mind of the "Infinite"&mdash;Will
+ have no Bells or<br /> Censers&mdash;Will be satisfied that the
+ Supernatural does not exist&mdash;Will be<br /> Self-poised, Independent,
+ Candid and Free.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0030">EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Working People should be protected by Law&mdash;Life of no
+ particular<br /> Importance to the Man who gets up before Daylight and
+ works till<br /> after Dark&mdash;A Revolution probable in the Relations
+ between Labor and<br /> Capital&mdash;Working People becoming Educated
+ and more Independent&mdash;The<br /> Government can Aid by means of Good
+ Laws&mdash;Women the worst Paid&mdash;There<br /> should be no Resort to
+ Force by either Labor or Capital.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0031">THE JEWS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Much like People of other Religions&mdash;Teaching given Christian
+ Children<br /> about those who die in the Faith of Abraham&mdash;Dr. John
+ Hall on<br /> the Persecution of the Jews in Russia as the Fulfillment of<br />
+ Prophecy&mdash;Hostility of Orthodox early Christians excited by Jewish<br />
+ Witnesses against the Faith&mdash;An infamous Chapter of History&mdash;Good<br />
+ and bad Men of every Faith&mdash;Jews should outgrow their own<br />
+ Superstitions&mdash;What the intelligent Jew Knows.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0032">CRUMBLING CREEDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ CRUMBLING CREEDS.<br /> The Common People called upon to Decide as
+ between the Universities and<br /> the Synods&mdash;Modern Medicine, Law,
+ Literature and Pictures as against the<br /> Old&mdash;Creeds agree with
+ the Sciences of their Day&mdash;Apology the Prelude<br /> to Retreat&mdash;The
+ Presbyterian Creed Infamous, but no worse than<br /> the Catholic&mdash;Progress
+ begins when Expression of Opinion is<br /> Allowed&mdash;Examining the
+ Religions of other Countries&mdash;The Pulpit's<br /> Position Lost&mdash;The
+ Dogma of Eternal Pain the Cause of the orthodox<br /> Creeds losing
+ Popularity&mdash;Every Church teaching this Infinite Lie must<br /> Fall.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0033">OUR SCHOOLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ OUR SCHOOLS.<br /> Education the only Lever capable of raising Mankind&mdash;The<br />
+ School-house more Important than the Church&mdash;Criticism of New
+ York's<br /> School-Buildings&mdash;The Kindergarten System Recommended&mdash;Poor
+ Pay of<br /> Teachers&mdash;The great Danger to the Republic is
+ Ignorance.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0034">VIVISECTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Hell of Science&mdash;Brutal Curiosity of Vivisectors&mdash;The
+ Pretence that<br /> they are working for the Good of Man&mdash;Have these
+ scientific Assassins<br /> added to useful Knowledge?&mdash;No Good to
+ the Race to be Accomplished by<br /> Torture&mdash;The Tendency to
+ produce a Race of intelligent Wild Beasts.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0035">THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Right of the Government to ask Questions and of the Citizen to
+ refuse<br /> to answer them&mdash;Matters which the Government has no
+ Right to pry<br /> into&mdash;Exposing the Debtor's financial Condition&mdash;A
+ Man might decline to<br /> tell whether he has a Chronic Disease or not.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0036">THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Natural Phenomena and Myths celebrated&mdash;The great Day of the
+ first<br /> Religion, Sun-worship&mdash;A God that Knew no Hatred nor
+ Sought Revenge&mdash;The<br /> Festival of Light.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0037">SPIRITUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> A much-abused Word&mdash;The Early Christians too Spiritual to be<br />
+ Civilized&mdash;Calvin and Knox&mdash;Paine, Voltaire and Humboldt not<br />
+ Spiritual&mdash;Darwin also Lacking&mdash;What it is to be really
+ Spiritual&mdash;No<br /> connection with Superstition.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0038">SUMTER'S GUN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> What were thereby blown into Rags and Ravelings&mdash;The Birth of
+ a<br /> new Epoch announced&mdash;Lincoln made the most commanding Figure
+ of the<br /> Century&mdash;Story of its Echoes.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0039">WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> What might have been Asked of a Christian 100 years after<br />
+ Christ&mdash;Hospitals and Asylums not all built for Charity&mdash;Girard<br />
+ College&mdash;Lick Observatory&mdash;Carnegie not an Orthodox Christian&mdash;Christian<br />
+ Colleges&mdash;Give us Time.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0040">CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Brockway a Savage&mdash;The Lash will neither develop the Brain
+ nor cultivate<br /> the Heart&mdash;Brutality a Failure&mdash;Bishop
+ Potter's apostolical Remark.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0041">LAW'S DELAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Object of a Trial&mdash;Justice can afford to Wait&mdash;The
+ right of<br /> Appeal&mdash;Case of Mrs. Maybrick&mdash;Life Imprisonment
+ for Murderers&mdash;American<br /> Courts better than the English.<br />
+ BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.<br /> Universities naturally Conservative&mdash;Kansas
+ State University's<br /> Objection to Ingersoll as a commencement Orator&mdash;Comment
+ by Mr. Depew<br /> (note)&mdash;Action of Cornell and the University of
+ Missouri.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0043">A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Chances a few Years ago&mdash;Capital now Required&mdash;Increasing<br />
+ competition in Civilized Life&mdash;Independence the first Object&mdash;If
+ he has<br /> something to say, there will be plenty to listen.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0044">SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Science goes hand in hand with Imagination&mdash;Artistic and
+ Ethical<br /> Development&mdash;Science destroys Superstition, not true
+ Religion&mdash;Education<br /> preferable to Legislation&mdash;Our
+ Obligation to our Children.<br /> "SOWING AND REAPING."<br /> Moody's
+ Belief accounted for&mdash;A dishonest and corrupting Doctrine&mdash;A<br />
+ want of Philosophy and Sense&mdash;Have Souls in Heaven no Regrets?&mdash;Mr.<br />
+ Moody should read some useful Books.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0046">SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY
+ SCHOOL?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Teachings of orthodox Sunday Schools&mdash;The ferocious God of
+ the<br /> Bible&mdash;Miracles&mdash;A Christian in Constantinople would
+ not send his<br /> Child to a Mosque&mdash;Advice to all Agnostics&mdash;Strangle
+ the Serpent of<br /> Superstition.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0047">WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL
+ GUIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Character of the Bible&mdash;Men and Women not virtuous because of
+ any<br /> Book&mdash;The Commandments both Good and Bad&mdash;Books that
+ do not help<br /> Morality&mdash;Jehovah not a moral God&mdash;What is
+ Morality?&mdash;Intelligence the<br /> only moral guide.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0048">GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Decline of the Christian Religion in New Hampshire&mdash;Outgrown<br />
+ Beliefs&mdash;Present-day Views of Christ and the Holy Ghost&mdash;Abandoned<br />
+ Notions about the Atonement&mdash;Salvation for Credulity&mdash;The
+ Miracles<br /> of the New Testament&mdash;The Bible "not true but
+ inspired"&mdash;The "Higher<br /> Critics" riding two Horses&mdash;Infidelity
+ in the Pulpit&mdash;The "restraining<br /> Influences of Religion" as
+ illustrated by Spain and Portugal&mdash;Thinking,<br /> Working and
+ Praying&mdash;The kind of Faith that has Departed.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0049">A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The <i>Truth Seeker</i> congratulated on its Twenty-fifth Birthday&mdash;Teachings<br />
+ of Twenty-five Years ago&mdash;Dodging and evading&mdash;The Clerical
+ Assault<br /> on Darwin&mdash;Draper, Buckle, Hegel, Spencer, Emerson&mdash;Comparison<br />
+ of Prejudices&mdash;Vanished Belief in the Devil&mdash;Matter and<br />
+ Force&mdash;Contradictions Dwelling in Unity&mdash;Substitutes for
+ Jehovah&mdash;A<br /> Prophecy.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0050">POLITICAL MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Argument in the contested Election Case of Strobach against
+ Herbert&mdash;The<br /> Importance of Honest Elections&mdash;Poisoning
+ the Source of Justice&mdash;The<br /> Fraudulent Voter a Traitor to his
+ Sovereign, the Will of the<br /> People&mdash;Political Morality
+ Imperative.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0051">A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE
+ BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Date and Manner of Composing the Old Testament&mdash;Other Books not now
+ in<br /> Existence, and Disagreements about the Canon&mdash;Composite
+ Character of<br /> certain Books&mdash;Various Versions&mdash;Why was
+ God's message given to the Jews<br /> alone?&mdash;The Story of the
+ Creation, of the Flood, of the Tower, and<br /> of Lot's wife&mdash;Moses
+ and Aaron and the Plagues of Egypt&mdash;Laws of<br /> Slavery&mdash;Instructions
+ by Jehovah Calculated to excite Astonishment and<br /> Mirth&mdash;Sacrifices
+ and the Scapegoat&mdash;Passages showing that the Laws of<br /> Moses
+ were made after the Jews had left the Desert&mdash;Jehovah's dealings<br />
+ with his People&mdash;The Sabbath Law&mdash;Prodigies&mdash;Joshua's
+ Miracle&mdash;Damned<br /> Ignorance and Infamy&mdash;Jephthah's
+ Sacrifice&mdash;Incredible Stories&mdash;The<br /> Woman of Endor and the
+ Temptation of David&mdash;Elijah and Elisha&mdash;Loss of<br /> the
+ Pentateuch from Moses to Josiah&mdash;The Jews before and after being<br />
+ Abandoned by Jehovah&mdash;Wealth of Solomon and other Marvels.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ ON the 22d of October, 1883, a vast number of citizens met at Lincoln
+ Hall, Washington, D. C., to give expression to their views concerning the
+ decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which it is held
+ that the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was one of the speakers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Hon. Frederick Douglass introduced him as follows:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Abou Ben Adhem&mdash;(may his tribe increase!)
+ Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
+ And saw within the moonlight of his room,
+ Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
+ An angel writing in a book of gold:
+ Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
+ And to the presence in the room he said,
+ "What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
+ And, with a look made all of sweet accord,
+ Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
+ "And is mine one?" asked Abou. "Nay, not so,"
+ Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
+ But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
+ Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
+ The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
+ It came again, with a great wakening light,
+ And showed the names whom love of God had blest;
+ And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I have the honor to introduce Robert G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MR. INGERSOLL'S SPEECH.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ladies and Gentlemen:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have met for the purpose of saying a few words about the recent
+ decision of the Supreme Court, in which that tribunal has held the first
+ and second sections of the Civil Rights Act to be unconstitutional; and so
+ held in spite of the fact that for years the people of the North and South
+ have, with singular unanimity, supposed the Act to be constitutional&mdash;supposed
+ that it was upheld by the 13th and 14th Amendments,&mdash;and so supposed
+ because they knew with certainty the intention of the framers of the
+ amendments. They knew this intention, because they knew what the enemies
+ of the amendments and the enemies of the Civil Rights Act claimed was the
+ intention. And they also knew what the friends of the amendments and the
+ law admitted the intention to be. The prejudices born of ignorance and of
+ slavery had died or fallen asleep, and even the enemies of the amendments
+ and the law had accepted the situation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I shall speak of the decision as I feel, and in the same manner as I
+ should speak even in the presence of the Court. You must remember that I
+ am not attacking persons, but opinions&mdash;not motives, but reasons&mdash;not
+ judges, but decisions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court has decided:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. That the first and second sections of the Civil Rights Act of March 1,
+ 1875, are unconstitutional, as applied to the States&mdash;not being
+ authorized by the 13th and 14th Amendments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. That the 14th Amendment is prohibitory upon the States only, and the
+ legislation forbidden to be adopted by Congress for enforcing it, is not
+ "direct" legislation, but "corrective,"&mdash;such as may be necessary or
+ proper for counteracting and restraining the effect of laws or acts passed
+ or done by the several States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. That the 13th Amendment relates only to slavery and involuntary
+ servitude, which it abolishes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. That the 13th Amendment establishes universal freedom in the United
+ States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. That Congress may probably pass laws directly enforcing its provisions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. That such legislative power in Congress extends only to the subject of
+ slavery, and its incidents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. That the denial of equal accommodations in inns, public conveyances and
+ places of public amusement, imposes no badge of slavery or involuntary
+ servitude upon the party, but at most infringes rights which are protected
+ from State aggression by the 14th Amendment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. The Court is uncertain whether the accommodations and privileges sought
+ to be protected by the first and second sections of the Civil Rights Act
+ are or are not rights constitutionally demandable,&mdash;and if they are,
+ in what form they are to be protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. Neither does the Court decide whether the law, as it stands, is
+ operative in the Territories and the District of Columbia.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. Neither does the Court decide whether Congress, under the commercial
+ power, may or may not pass a law securing to all persons equal
+ accommodations on lines of public conveyance between two or more States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. The Court also holds, in the present case, that until some State law
+ has been passed, or some State action through its officers or agents has
+ been taken adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected by the
+ 14th Amendment, no legislation of the United States under said amendment,
+ or any proceeding under such legislation, can be called into activity, for
+ the reason that the prohibitions of the amendment are against State laws
+ and acts done under State authority. The essence of said decision being,
+ that the managers and owners of inns, railways, and all public
+ conveyances, of theatres and all places of public amusement, may
+ discriminate on account of race, color, or previous condition of
+ servitude, and that the citizen so discriminated against, is without
+ redress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This decision takes from seven millions of people the shield of the
+ Constitution. It leaves the best of the colored race at the mercy of the
+ meanest of the white. It feeds fat the ancient grudge that vicious
+ ignorance bears toward race and color. It will be approved and quoted by
+ hundreds of thousands of unjust men. The masked wretches who, in the
+ darkness of night, drag the poor negro from his cabin, and lacerate with
+ whip and thong his quivering flesh, will, with bloody hands, applaud the
+ Supreme Court. The men who, by mob violence, prevent the negro from
+ depositing his ballot&mdash;who with gun and revolver drive him from the
+ polls, and those who insult with vile and vulgar words the inoffensive
+ colored girl, will welcome this decision with hyena joy. The basest will
+ rejoice&mdash;the noblest will mourn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But even in the presence of this decision, we must remember that it is one
+ of the necessities of government that there should be a court of last
+ resort; and while all courts will more or less fail to do justice, still,
+ the wit of man has, as yet, devised no better way. Even after reading this
+ decision, we must take it for granted that the judges of the Supreme Court
+ arrived at their conclusions honestly and in accordance with the best
+ light they had. While they had the right to render the decision, every
+ citizen has the right to give his opinion as to whether that decision is
+ good or bad. Knowing that they are liable to be mistaken, and honestly
+ mistaken, we should always be charitable enough to admit that others may
+ be mistaken; and we may also take another step, and admit that we may be
+ mistaken about their being mistaken. We must remember, too, that we have
+ to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices
+ are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased. No matter
+ whether a man wears a crown or a robe or a rag. Under the emblem of power
+ and the emblem of poverty, the man alike resides. The real thing is the
+ man&mdash;the distinction often exists only in the clothes. Take away the
+ crown&mdash;there is only a man. Remove the robe&mdash;there remains a
+ man. Take away the rag, and we find at least a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time in this country when all bowed to a decision of the
+ Supreme Court. It was unquestioned. It was regarded as "a voice from on
+ high." The people heard and they obeyed. The Dred Scott decision destroyed
+ that illusion forever. From that day to this the people have claimed the
+ privilege of putting the decisions of the Supreme Court in the crucible of
+ reason. These decisions are no longer exempt from honest criticism. While
+ the decision remains, it is the law. No matter how absurd, no matter how
+ erroneous, no matter how contrary to reason and justice, it remains the
+ law. It must be overturned either by the Court itself (and the Court has
+ overturned hundreds of its own decisions), or by legislative action, or by
+ an amendment to the Constitution. We do not appeal to armed revolution.
+ Our Government is so framed that it provides for what may be called
+ perpetual peaceful revolution. For the redress of any grievance, for the
+ purpose of righting any wrong, there is the perpetual remedy of an appeal
+ to the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember, too, that judges keep their backs to the dawn. They find
+ what has been, what is, but not what ought to be. They are tied and
+ shackled by precedent, fettered by old decisions, and by the desire to be
+ consistent, even in mistakes. They pass upon the acts and words of others,
+ and like other people, they are liable to make mistakes. In the olden time
+ we took what the doctors gave us, we believed what the preachers said; and
+ accepted, without question, the judgments of the highest court. Now it is
+ different. We ask the doctor what the medicine is, and what effect he
+ expects it to produce. We cross-examine the minister, and we criticise the
+ decision of the Chief-Justice. We do this, because we have found that some
+ doctors do not kill, that some ministers are quite reasonable, and that
+ some judges know something about law. In this country, the people are the
+ sovereigns. All officers&mdash;including judges&mdash;are simply their
+ servants, and the sovereign has always the right to give his opinion as to
+ the action of his agent. The sovereignty of the people is the rock upon
+ which rests the right of speech and the freedom of the press.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unfortunately for us, our fathers adopted the common law of England&mdash;a
+ law poisoned by kingly prerogative&mdash;by every form of oppression, by
+ the spirit of caste, and permeated, saturated, with the political heresy
+ that the people received their rights, privileges and immunities from the
+ crown. The thirteen original colonies received their laws, their forms,
+ their ideas of justice, from the old world. All the judicial, legislative,
+ and executive springs and sources had been touched and tainted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the struggle with England, our fathers justified their rebellion by
+ declaring that Nature had clothed all men with the right to life, liberty,
+ and the pursuit of happiness. The moment success crowned their efforts,
+ they changed their noble declaration of equal rights for all, and basely
+ interpolated the word "white." They adopted a Constitution that denied the
+ Declaration of Independence&mdash;a Constitution that recognized and
+ upheld slavery, protected the slave-trade, legalized piracy upon the high
+ seas&mdash;that demoralized, degraded, and debauched the nation, and that
+ at last reddened with brave blood the fields of the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers planted the seeds of injustice, and we gathered the harvest.
+ In the blood and flame of civil war, we retraced our fathers' steps. In
+ the stress of war, we implored the aid of Liberty, and asked once more for
+ the protection of Justice. We civilized the Constitution of our fathers.
+ We adopted three Amendments&mdash;the 13th, 14th and 15th&mdash;the
+ Trinity of Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us examine these amendments:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
+ crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
+ the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
+ legislation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before the adoption of this amendment, the Constitution had always been
+ construed to be the perfect shield of slavery. In order that slavery might
+ be protected, the slave States were considered as sovereign. Freedom was
+ regarded as a local prejudice, slavery as the ward of the Nation, the
+ jewel of the Constitution. For three-quarters of a century, the Supreme
+ Court of the United States exhausted judicial ingenuity in guarding,
+ protecting and fostering that infamous institution. For the purpose of
+ preserving that infinite outrage, words and phrases were warped, and
+ stretched, and tortured, and thumbscrewed, and racked. Slavery was the one
+ sacred thing, and the Supreme Court was its constitutional guardian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To show the faithfulness of that tribunal, I call your attention to the 3d
+ clause of the 2d section of the 4th article of the Constitution:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No person held to service or labor in any State under the laws thereof,
+ escaping to another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
+ therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
+ up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The framers of the Constitution were ashamed to use the word "slave," and
+ thereupon they said "person." They were ashamed to use the word "slavery,"
+ and they evaded it by saying, "held to service or labor." They were
+ ashamed to put in the word "master," so they called him "the party to whom
+ service or labor may be due."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can a slave owe service? How can a slave owe labor? How could a slave
+ make a contract? How could the master have a legal claim against a slave?
+ And yet, the Supreme Court of the United States found no difficulty in
+ upholding the Fugitive Slave Law by virtue of that clause. There were
+ hundreds of decisions declaring that Congress had power to pass laws to
+ carry that clause into effect, and it was carried into effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will observe the wording of this clause:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No person held to service or labor in any State under the laws thereof,
+ escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation
+ therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
+ up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To whom was this clause directed? To individuals or to States? It
+ expressly provides that the "person" held to service or labor shall not be
+ discharged from such service or labor in consequence of any law or
+ regulation in the "State" to which he has fled. Did that law apply to
+ States, or to individuals?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court held that it applied to individuals as well as to
+ States. Any "person," in any State, interfering with the master who was
+ endeavoring to steal the person he called his slave, was liable to
+ indictment, and hundreds and thousands were indicted, and hundreds
+ languished in prisons because they were noble enough to hold in infinite
+ contempt such infamous laws and such infamous decisions. The best men in
+ the United States&mdash;the noblest spirits under the flag&mdash;were
+ imprisoned because they were charitable, because they were just, because
+ they showed the hunted slave the path to freedom, and taught him where to
+ find amid the glittering host of heaven the blessed Northern Star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every fugitive slave carried that clause with him when he entered a free
+ State; carried it into every hiding place; and every Northern man was
+ bound, by virtue of that clause, to act as the spy and hound of slavery.
+ The Supreme Court, with infinite ease, made a club of that clause with
+ which to strike down the liberty of the fugitive and the manhood of the
+ North.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Dred Scott decision it was solemnly decided that a man of African
+ descent, whether a slave or not, was not, and could not be, a citizen of a
+ State or of the United States. The Supreme Court held on the even tenor of
+ its way, and in the Rebellion that tribunal was about the last fort to
+ surrender.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment the 13th Amendment was adopted, the slaves became freemen. The
+ distinction between "white" and "colored" vanished. The negroes became as
+ though they had never been slaves&mdash;as though they had always been
+ free&mdash;as though they had been white. They became citizens&mdash;they
+ became a part of "the people," and "the people" constituted the State, and
+ it was the State thus constituted that was entitled to the constitutional
+ guarantee of a republican government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These freed men became citizens&mdash;became a part of the State in which
+ they lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest and noblest definition of a State, in our Reports, was given
+ by Justice Wilson, in the case of Chisholm, &amp;c., vs. Georgia;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "By a State, I mean a complete body of free persons, united for their
+ common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to
+ others."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Chief Justice Chase declared that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The people, in whatever territory dwelling, whether temporarily or
+ permanently, or whether organized under regular government, or united by
+ less definite relations, constitute the State."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the people, the moment the 13th Amendment was adopted were all
+ free, and if these people constituted the State; if, under the
+ Constitution of the United States, every State is guaranteed a republican
+ government, then it is the duty of the General Government to see to it
+ that every State has such a government. If distinctions are made between
+ free men on account of race or color, the government is not republican.
+ The manner in which this guarantee of a republican form of government is
+ to be enforced or made good, must be left to the wisdom and discretion of
+ Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 13th Amendment not only destroyed, but it built. It destroyed the
+ slave-pen, and on its site erected the temple of Liberty. It did not
+ simply free slaves&mdash;it made citizens. It repealed every statute that
+ upheld slavery. It erased from every Report every decision against
+ freedom. It took the word "white" from every law, and blotted from the
+ Constitution all clauses acknowledging property in man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, then, all the people in each State, were, by virtue of the 13th
+ Amendment, free, what right had a majority to enslave a minority? What
+ right had a majority to make any distinctions between free men? What right
+ had a majority to take from a minority any privilege, or any immunity, to
+ which they were entitled as free men? What right had the majority to make
+ that unequal which the Constitution made equal?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not satisfied with saying that slavery should not exist, we find in the
+ amendment the words "nor involuntary servitude." This was intended to
+ destroy every mark and badge of legal inferiority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Field upon this very question, says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is, however, clear that the words 'involuntary servitude' include
+ something more than slavery, in the strict sense of the term. They include
+ also serfage, vassalage, villanage, peonage, and all other forms of
+ compulsory service for the mere benefit or pleasure of others. Nor is this
+ the full import of the term. The abolition of slavery and involuntary
+ servitude was intended to make every one born in this country a free man,
+ and as such to give him the right to pursue the ordinary avocations of
+ life without other restraint than such as affects all others, and to enjoy
+ equally with them the fruits of his labor. A person allowed to pursue only
+ one trade or calling, and only in one locality of the country, would not
+ be, in the strict sense of the term, in a condition of slavery, but
+ probably no one would deny that he would be in a condition of servitude.
+ He certainly would not possess the liberties, or enjoy the privileges of a
+ freeman."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Field also quotes with approval the language of the counsel for
+ the plaintiffs in the case:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Whenever a law of a State, or a law of the United States, makes a
+ discrimination between classes of persons which deprives the one class of
+ their freedom or their property, or which makes a caste of them, to
+ subserve the power, pride, avarice, vanity or vengeance of others&mdash;there
+ involuntary servitude exists within the meaning of the 13th Amendment."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To show that the framers of the 13th Amendment intended to blot out every
+ form of slavery and servitude, I call attention to the Civil Rights Act,
+ approved April 9, 1866, which provided, among other things, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign
+ power&mdash;excluding Indians not taxed&mdash;are citizens of the United
+ States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any
+ previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, are entitled to
+ the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of
+ person and property enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to
+ like punishments, pains and penalties&mdash;and to none other&mdash;any
+ law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to the contrary
+ notwithstanding; and they shall have the same rights in every State and
+ Territory of the United States as white persons."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court, in <i>The Slaughter-House Cases,</i> (16 Wallace, 69)
+ has said that the word servitude has a larger meaning than the word
+ slavery. "The word 'servitude' implies subjection to the will of another
+ contrary to the common right." A man is in a state of involuntary
+ servitude when he is forced to do, or prevented from doing, a thing, not
+ by the law of the State, but by the simple will of another. He who enjoys
+ less than the common rights of a citizen, he who can be forced from the
+ public highway at the will of another, who can be denied entrance to the
+ cars of a common carrier, is in a state of servitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 13th Amendment did away with slavery not only, and with involuntary
+ servitude, but with every badge and brand and stain and mark of slavery.
+ It abolished forever distinctions on account of race and color.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the language of the Supreme Court:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It was the obvious purpose of the 13th Amendment to forbid all shades and
+ conditions of African slavery."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And to that I add, it was the obvious purpose of that amendment to forbid
+ all shades and conditions of slavery, no matter of what sort or kind&mdash;all
+ marks of legal inferiority. Each citizen was to be absolutely free. All
+ his rights complete, whole, unmaimed and unabridged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the moment of the adoption of that amendment, the law became
+ color-blind. All distinctions on account of complexion vanished. It took
+ the whip from the hand of the white man, and put the nation's flag above
+ the negro's hut. It gave horizon, scope and dome to the lowest life. It
+ stretched a sky studded with stars of hope above the humblest head.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court has admitted, in the very case we are now discussing,
+ that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Under the 13th Amendment the legislation meaning the legislation of
+ Congress&mdash;so far as necessary or proper to eradicate all forms and
+ incidents of slavery and involuntary servitude, may be direct and primary,
+ operating upon the acts of individuals, whether sanctioned by State
+ legislation or not."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here we have the authority for dealing with individuals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only question then remaining is, whether an individual, being the
+ keeper of a public inn, or the agent of a railway corporation, created by
+ a State, can be held responsible in a Federal Court for discriminating
+ against a citizen of the United States on account of race, color, or
+ previous condition of servitude. If such discrimination is a badge of
+ slavery, or places the party discriminated against in a condition of
+ involuntary servitude, then the Civil Rights Act may be upheld by the 13th
+ Amendment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In The United Slates vs. Harris, 106 U. S., 640, the Supreme Court says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is clear that the 13th Amendment, besides abolishing forever slavery
+ and involuntary servitude within the United States, gives power to
+ Congress to protect all citizens from being in any way subjected to
+ slavery or involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime, and
+ in the enjoyment of that freedom which it was the object of the amendment
+ to secure."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This declaration covers the entire case.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I agree with Justice Field:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The 13th Amendment is not confined to African slavery. It is general and
+ universal in its application&mdash;prohibiting the slavery of white men as
+ well as black men, and not prohibiting mere slavery in the strict sense of
+ the term, but involuntary servitude in every form." 16 Wallace, 90.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 13th Amendment declares that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
+ shall exist. Who must see to it that this declaration is carried out?
+ There can be but one answer. It is the duty of Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the question narrows itself to this: Is a citizen of the United
+ States, when denied admission to public inns, railway cars and theatres,
+ on account of his race or color, in a condition of involuntary servitude?
+ If he is, then he is under the immediate protection of the General
+ Government, by virtue of the 13th Amendment; and the Civil Rights Act is
+ clearly constitutional.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If excluded from one inn, he may be from all; if from one car, why not
+ from all? The man who depends for the preservation of his privileges upon
+ a conductor, instead of the Constitution, is in a condition of involuntary
+ servitude. He who depends for his rights&mdash;not upon the laws of the
+ land, but upon a landlord, is in a condition of involuntary servitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The framers of the 13th Amendment knew that the negro would be persecuted
+ on account of his race and color&mdash;knew that many of the States could
+ not be trusted to protect the rights of the colored man; and for that
+ reason, the General Government was clothed with power to protect the
+ colored people from all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of what use are the declarations in the Constitution that slavery and
+ involuntary servitude shall not exist, and that all persons born or
+ naturalized in the United States shall be citizens&mdash;not only of the
+ United States, but of the States in which they reside&mdash;if, behind
+ these declarations, there is no power to act&mdash;no duty for the General
+ Government to discharge?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Notwithstanding the 13th Amendment had been adopted&mdash;notwithstanding
+ slavery and involuntary servitude had been legally destroyed&mdash;it was
+ found that the negro was still the helpless victim of the white man.
+ Another amendment was needed; and all the Justices of the Supreme Court
+ have told us why the 14th Amendment was adopted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Miller, speaking for the entire court, tells us that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In the struggle of the civil war, slavery perished, and perished as a
+ necessity of the bitterness and force of the conflict."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When the armies of freedom found themselves on the soil of slavery, they
+ could do nothing else than free the victims whose enforced servitude was
+ the foundation of the war."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also admits that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When hard pressed in the contest, the colored men (for they proved
+ themselves men in that terrible crisis) offered their services, and were
+ accepted, by thousands, to aid in suppressing the unlawful rebellion."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also informs us that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Notwithstanding the fact that the Southern States had formerly recognized
+ the abolition of slavery, the condition of the slave, without further
+ protection of the Federal Government, was almost as bad as it had been
+ before."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And he declares that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Southern States imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities
+ and burdens&mdash;curtailed their rights in the pursuit of liberty and
+ property, to such an extent that their freedom was of little value, while
+ the colored people had lost the protection which they had received from
+ their former owners from motives of interest."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The colored people in some States were forbidden to appear in the towns
+ in any other character than that of menial servants&mdash;that they were
+ required to reside on the soil without the right to purchase or own it&mdash;that
+ they were excluded from many occupations of gain and profit&mdash;that
+ they were not permitted to give testimony in the courts where white men
+ were on trial&mdash;and it was said that their lives were at the mercy of
+ bad men, either because laws for their protection were insufficient, or
+ were not enforced."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are informed by the Supreme Court that, "under these circumstances,"
+ the proposition for the 14th Amendment was passed through Congress, and
+ that Congress declined to treat as restored to full participation in the
+ Government of the Union, the States which had been in insurrection, until
+ they ratified that article by a formal vote of their legislative bodies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thus it will be seen that the rebel States were restored to the Union by
+ adopting the 14th Amendment. In order to become equal members of the
+ Federal Union, these States solemnly agreed to carry out the provisions of
+ that amendment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 14th Amendment provides that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
+ jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State
+ wherein they reside."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is affirmative in its character. That affirmation imposes the
+ obligation upon the General Government to protect its citizens everywhere.
+ That affirmation clothes the Federal Government with power to protect its
+ citizens. Under that clause, the Federal arm can reach to the boundary of
+ the Republic, for the purpose of protecting the weakest citizen from the
+ tyranny of citizens or States. That clause is a contract between the
+ Government and every man&mdash;a contract wherein the citizen promises
+ allegiance, and the nation promises protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this clause, the Federal Government adopted all the citizens of all the
+ States and Territories, including the District of Columbia, and placed
+ them under the shield of the Constitution&mdash;made each one a ward of
+ the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under this contract, the Government is under direct obligation to the
+ citizen. The Government cannot shirk its responsibility by leaving a
+ citizen to be protected in his rights, as a citizen of the United States,
+ by a State. The obligation of protection is direct. The obligation on the
+ part of the citizen to the Government is direct. The citizen cannot be
+ untrue to the Government because his State is, The action of the State
+ under the 14th Amendment is no excuse for the citizen. He must be true to
+ the Government. In war, the Government has a right to his service. In
+ peace, he has the right to be protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the citizen must depend upon the State, then he owes the first
+ allegiance to that government or power that is under obligation to protect
+ him. Then, if a State secedes from the Union, the citizen should go with
+ the State&mdash;should go with the power that protects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is not my doctrine. My doctrine is this: The first duty of the
+ General Government is to protect each citizen. The first duty of each
+ citizen is to be true&mdash;not to his State, but to the Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This clause of the 14th Amendment made us all citizens of the United
+ States&mdash;all children of the Republic. Under this decision, the
+ Republic refuses to acknowledge her children. Under this decision of the
+ Supreme Court, they are left upon the doorsteps of the States. Citizens
+ are changed to foundlings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the 14th Amendment created citizens of the United States, the power
+ that created must define the rights of the citizens thus created, and must
+ provide a remedy where such rights are infringed. The Federal Government
+ speaks through its representatives&mdash;through Congress; and Congress,
+ by the Civil Rights Act, defined some of the rights, privileges and
+ immunities of a citizen of the United States&mdash;and Congress provided a
+ remedy when such rights and privileges were invaded, and gave jurisdiction
+ to the Federal courts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No State, or the department of any State, can authoritatively define the
+ rights, privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States. These
+ rights and immunities must be defined by the United States, and when so
+ defined, they cannot be abridged by State authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the case of Bartemeyer vs. Iowa, 18 Wall., p. 140, Justice Field, in a
+ concurring opinion, speaking of the 14th Amendment, says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It grew out of the feeling that a nation which had been maintained by
+ such costly sacrifices was, after all, worthless, if a citizen could not
+ be protected in all his fundamental rights, everywhere&mdash;North and
+ South, East and West&mdash;throughout the limits of the Republic. The
+ amendment was not, as held in the opinion of the majority, primarily
+ intended to confer citizenship on the negro race. It had a much broader
+ purpose. It was intended to justify legislation extending the protection
+ of the National Government over the common rights of all citizens of the
+ United States, and thus obviate objection to the legislation adopted for
+ the protection of the emancipated race. It was intended to make it
+ possible for all persons&mdash;which necessarily included those of every
+ race and color&mdash;to live in peace and security wherever the
+ jurisdiction of the nation reached. It therefore recognized, if it did not
+ create, a national citizenship. This national citizenship is primary and
+ not secondary.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot refrain from calling attention to the splendor and nobility of
+ the truths expressed by Justice Field in this opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, Justice Field, in his dissenting opinion in what are known as <i>The
+ Slaughter-House Cases</i>, found in 16 Wallace, p. 95, still speaking of
+ the 14th Amendment, says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It recognizes in express terms&mdash;if it does not create&mdash;citizens
+ of the United States, and it makes their citizenship dependent upon the
+ place of their birth or the fact of their adoption, and not upon the
+ constitution or laws of any State, or the condition of their ancestry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A citizen of a State is now only a citizen of the United States residing
+ in that State. The fundamental rights, privileges and immunities which
+ belong to him as a free man and a free citizen of the United States, are
+ not dependent upon the citizenship of any State. * * *
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "They do not derive their existence from its legislation, and cannot be
+ destroyed by its power."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What are "the fundamental rights, privileges and immunities" which belong
+ to a free man? Certainly the rights of all citizens of the United States
+ are equal. Their immunities and privileges must be the same. He who makes
+ a discrimination between citizens on account of color, violates the
+ Constitution of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have all citizens the same right to travel on the highways of the country?
+ Have they all the same right to ride upon the railways created by State
+ authority? A railway is an improved highway. It was only by holding that
+ it was an improved highway that counties and States aided in their
+ construction. It has been decided, over and over again, that a railway is
+ an improved highway. A railway corporation is the creation of a State&mdash;an
+ agent of the State. It is under the control of the State&mdash;and upon
+ what principle can a citizen be prevented from using the highways of a
+ State on an equality with all other citizens?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are all rights and immunities guaranteed by the Constitution of the
+ United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, the question is&mdash;and it is the only question&mdash;can these
+ rights and immunities, thus guaranteed and thus confirmed, be protected by
+ the General Government?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the case of <i>The U. S. vs. Reese, et al.</i>, 92 U. S., p. 207, the
+ Supreme Court decided, the opinion having been delivered by Chief-Justice
+ Waite, as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Rights and immunities created by, and dependent upon, the Constitution of
+ the United States can be protected by Congress. The form and the manner of
+ the protection may be such as Congress in the legitimate exercise of its
+ legislative discretion shall provide. This may be varied to meet the
+ necessities of the particular right to be protected."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This decision was acquiesced in by Justices Strong, Bradley, Swayne,
+ Davis, Miller and Field. Dissenting opinions were filed by Justices
+ Clifford and Hunt, but neither dissented from the proposition that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Rights and immunities created by or dependent upon the Constitution of
+ the United States can be protected by Congress," and that "the form and
+ manner of the protection may be such as Congress in the exercise of its
+ legitimate discretion shall provide."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, in the same case, I find this language:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It follows that the Amendment"&mdash;meaning the 15th&mdash;"has invested
+ the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right, which
+ is within the protecting power of Congress. This, under the express
+ provisions of the second section of the Amendment, Congress may enforce by
+ appropriate legislation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the 15th Amendment invested the citizens of the United States with a
+ new constitutional right&mdash;that is, the right to vote&mdash;and if for
+ that reason that right is within the protecting power of Congress, then I
+ ask, if the 14th Amendment made certain persons citizens of the United
+ States, did such citizenship become a constitutional right? And is such
+ citizenship within the protecting power of Congress? Does citizenship mean
+ anything except certain "rights, privileges and immunities"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not an invasion of citizenship to invade the immunities or
+ privileges or rights belonging to a citizen? Are not, then, all the
+ immunities and privileges and rights under the protecting power of
+ Congress?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 13th Amendment found the negro a slave, and made him a free man. That
+ gave to him a new constitutional right, and according to the Supreme
+ Court, that right is within the protecting power of Congress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What rights are within the protecting power of Congress? All the rights
+ belonging to a free man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 14th Amendment made the negro a citizen. What then is under the
+ protecting power of Congress? All the rights, privileges and immunities
+ belonging to him as a citizen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, in the case of <i>Tennessee vs, Davis</i>, 100 U, S,, 263, the Supreme
+ Court, held that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The United States is a government whose authority extends over the whole
+ territory of the Union, acting upon all the States, and upon all the
+ people of all the States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No State can exclude the Federal Government from the exercise of any
+ authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, or withhold from it for a
+ moment the cognizance of any subject which the Constitution has committed
+ to it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This opinion was given by Justice Strong, and acquiesced in by
+ Chief-Justice Waite, Justices Miller, Swayne, Bradley and Harlan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in the case of <i>Pensacola Tel. Co. vs. Western Union Tel. Co</i>., 96
+ U. S., p. 10, the opinion having been delivered by Chief-Justice Waite, I
+ find this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Government of the United States, within the scope of its power,
+ operates upon every foot of territory under its jurisdiction. It
+ legislates for the whole Nation, and is not embarrassed by State lines."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was acquiesced in by Justices Clifford, Strong, Bradley, Swayne and
+ Miller.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So we are told by the entire Supreme Court in the case of <i>Tiernan vs.
+ Rynker</i>, 102 U. S., 126, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When the subject to which the power applies is national in its character,
+ or of such a nature as to admit of uniformity of regulation, the power is
+ exclusive of State authority."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Surely the question of citizenship is "national in its character." Surely
+ the question as to what are the rights, privileges and immunities of a
+ citizen of the United States is "national in its character."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unless the declarations and definitions, the patriotic paragraphs, and the
+ legal principles made, given, uttered and defined by the Supreme Court are
+ but a judicial jugglery of words, the Civil Rights Act is upheld by the
+ intent, spirit and language of the 14th Amendment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was found that the 13th Amendment did not protect the negro. Then the
+ 14th was adopted. Still the colored citizen was trodden under foot. Then
+ the 15th was adopted. The 13th made him free, and, in my judgment, made
+ him a citizen, and clothed him with all the rights of a citizen. That was
+ denied, and then the 14th declared that he was a citizen. In my judgment,
+ that gave him the right to vote. But that was denied&mdash;then the 15th
+ was adopted, declaring that his right to vote should never be denied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 13th Amendment made all free. It broke the chains, pulled up the
+ whipping-posts, overturned the auction-blocks, gave the colored mother her
+ child, put the shield of the Constitution over the cradle, destroyed all
+ forms of involuntary servitude, and in the azure heaven of our flag it put
+ the Northern Star.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 14th Amendment made us all citizens. It is a contract between the
+ Republic and each individual&mdash;a contract by which the Nation agrees
+ to protect the citizen, and the citizen agrees to defend the Nation. This
+ amendment placed the crown of sovereignty on every brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 15th Amendment secured the citizen in his right to vote, in his right
+ to make and execute the laws, and put these rights above the power of any
+ State. This amendment placed the ballot&mdash;the sceptre of authority&mdash;in
+ every sovereign hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told by the Supreme Court, in the case under discussion, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We must not forget that the province and scope of the 13th and 14th
+ Amendments are different;" that the 13th Amendment "simply abolished
+ slavery," and that the 14th Amendment "prohibited the States from
+ abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States;
+ from depriving them of life, liberty or property, without due process of
+ law; and from denying to any the equal protection of the laws."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The amendments are different, and the powers of Congress under them are
+ different. What Congress has power to do under one it may not have power
+ to do under the other." That "under the 13th Amendment it has only to do
+ with slavery and its incidents;" but that "under the 14th Amendment it has
+ power to counteract and render nugatory all State laws or proceedings
+ which have the effect to abridge any of the privileges or immunities of
+ the citizens of the United States, or to deprive them of life, liberty or
+ property, without due process of law, or to deny to any of them the equal
+ protection of the laws."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did not Congress have that power under the 13th Amendment? Could the
+ States, in spite of the 13th Amendment, deprive free men of life or
+ property without due process of law? Does the Supreme Court wish to be
+ understood, that until the 14th Amendment was adopted the States had the
+ right to rob and kill free men? Yet, in its effort to narrow and belittle
+ the 13th Amendment, it has been driven to this absurdity. Did not
+ Congress, under the 13th Amendment, have power to destroy slavery and
+ involuntary servitude? Did not Congress, under that amendment, have the
+ power to protect the lives, liberty and property of free men? And did not
+ Congress have the power "to render nugatory all State laws and proceedings
+ under which free men were to be deprived of life, liberty or property,
+ without due process of law"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Congress was not clothed with such power by the 13th Amendment, what
+ was the object of that amendment? Was that amendment a mere opinion, or a
+ prophecy, or the expression of a hope?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The 14th Amendment provides that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
+ or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any State
+ deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of
+ law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
+ of its laws."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told by the Supreme Court that Congress has no right to enforce the
+ 14th Amendment by direct legislation, but that the legislation under that
+ amendment can only be of a "corrective" character&mdash;such as may be
+ necessary or proper for counteracting and redressing the effect of
+ unconstitutional laws passed by the States. In other words, that Congress
+ has no duty to perform, except to counteract the effect of
+ unconstitutional laws by corrective legislation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court has also decided, in the present case, that Congress has
+ no right to legislate for the purpose of enforcing these clauses until the
+ States shall have taken action. What action can the State take? If a State
+ passes laws contrary to these provisions or clauses, they are void. If a
+ State passes laws in conformity to these provisions, certainly Congress is
+ not called on to legislate. Under what circumstances, then, can Congress
+ be called upon to act by way of "corrective" legislation, as to these
+ particular clauses? What can Congress do? Suppose the State passes no law
+ upon the subject, but allows citizens of the State&mdash;managers of
+ railways, and keepers of public inns, to discriminate between their
+ passengers and guests on account of race or color&mdash;what then?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again, what is the difference between a State that has no law on the
+ subject, and a State that has passed an unconstitutional law? In other
+ words, what is the difference between no law and a void law? If the
+ "corrective" legislation of Congress is not needed where the State has
+ passed an unconstitutional law, is it needed where the State has passed no
+ law? What is there in either case to correct? Surely it requires no
+ particular legislation on the part of Congress to kill a law that never
+ had life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The States are prohibited by the Constitution from making any regulations
+ of foreign commerce. Consequently, all regulations made by the States are
+ null and void, no matter what the motive of the States may have been, and
+ it requires no law of Congress to annul such laws or regulations. This was
+ decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, long ago, in what are
+ known as <i>The License Cases</i>. The opinion may be found in the 5th of
+ Howard, 583.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The nullity of any act inconsistent with the Constitution, is produced by
+ the declaration that the Constitution is supreme."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was decided by the Supreme Court, the opinion having been delivered
+ by Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of <i>Gibbons vs. Ogden</i>, 9
+ Wheat, 210.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same doctrine was held in the case of <i>Henderson et al., vs. Mayor
+ of New York, et al.</i>, 92 U. S. 272&mdash;the opinion of the Court being
+ delivered by Justice Miller.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it was held in the case of <i>The Board of Liquidation vs. McComb</i>&mdash;2
+ Otto, 541.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That an unconstitutional law will be treated by the courts as null and
+ void"&mdash;citing <i>Osborn vs. The Bank of the United States</i>, 9
+ Wheaton, 859, and <i>Davis vs. Gray</i>, 16 Wallace, 220.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the legislation of Congress must be "corrective," then I ask,
+ corrective of what? Certainly not of unconstitutional and void laws. That
+ which is void, cannot be corrected. That which is unconstitutional is not
+ the subject of correction. Congress either has the right to legislate
+ directly, or not at all; because indirect or corrective legislation can
+ apply only, according to the Supreme Court, to unconstitutional and void
+ laws that have been passed by a Stale; and as such laws cannot be
+ "corrected," the doctrine of "corrective legislation" dies an extremely
+ natural death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A State can do one of three things: 1. It can pass an unconstitutional
+ law; 2. It can pass a constitutional law; 3. It can fail to pass any law.
+ The unconstitutional law, being void, cannot be corrected. The
+ constitutional law does not need correction. And where no law has been
+ passed, correction is impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court insists that Congress can not take action until the
+ State does. A State that fails to pass any law on the subject, has not
+ taken action. This leaves the person whose immunities and privileges have
+ been invaded, with no redress except such as he may find in the State
+ Courts in a suit at law; and if the State Court takes the same view that
+ is apparently taken by the Supreme Court in this case,&mdash;namely, that
+ it is a "social question," one not to be regulated by law, and not covered
+ in any way by the Constitution&mdash;then, discrimination can be made
+ against citizens by landlords and railway conductors, and they are left
+ absolutely without remedy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court asks, in this decision,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Can the act of a mere individual&mdash;the owner of the inn, or public
+ conveyance, or place of amusement, refusing the accommodation, be justly
+ regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon the applicant,
+ or only as inflicting an ordinary civil injury properly cognizable by the
+ laws of the State, and presumably subject to redress by those laws, until
+ the contrary appears?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is "the contrary to appear"? Suppose a person denied equal privileges
+ upon the railway on account of race and color, brings suit and is
+ defeated? And suppose the highest tribunal of the State holds that the
+ question is of a "social" character&mdash;what then? If, to use the
+ language of the Supreme Court, it is "an ordinary civil injury, imposing
+ no badge of slavery or servitude," then, no Federal question is involved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why did not the Supreme Court tell us what may be done when "the contrary
+ appears"? Nothing is clearer than the intention of the Supreme Court in
+ this case&mdash;and that is, to decide that denying to a man equal
+ accommodations at public inns on account of race or color, is not an
+ abridgment of a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States,
+ and that such person, so denied, is not in a condition of involuntary
+ servitude, or denied the equal protection of the laws. In other words&mdash;that
+ it is a "social question."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have been told by one who heard the decision when it was read from the
+ bench, that the following phrase was in the opinion:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>There are certain physiological differences of race that cannot be
+ ignored</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That phrase is a lamp, in the light of which the whole decision should be
+ read.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that in one of the Southern States, the negroes being in a decided
+ majority and having entire control, had drawn the color line, had insisted
+ that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There were certain physiological differences between the races that could
+ not be ignored," and had refused to allow white people to enter their
+ hotels, to ride in the best cars, or to occupy the aristocratic portion of
+ a theatre; and suppose that a white man, thrust from the hotels, denied
+ the entrance to cars, had brought his suit in the Federal Court. Does any
+ one believe that the Supreme Court would have intimated to that man that
+ "there is only a social question involved,&mdash;a question with which the
+ Constitution and laws have nothing to do, and that he must depend for his
+ remedy upon the authors of the injury"? Would a white man, under such
+ circumstances, feel that he was in a condition of involuntary servitude?
+ Would he feel that he was treated like an underling, like a menial, like a
+ serf? Would he feel that he was under the protection of the laws, shielded
+ like other men by the Constitution? Of course, the argument of color is
+ just as strong on one side as on the other. The white man says to the
+ black, "You are not my equal because you are black;" and the black man can
+ with the same propriety, reply, "You are not my equal because you are
+ white." The difference is just as great in the one case as in the other.
+ The pretext that this question involves, in the remotest degree, a social
+ question, is cruel, shallow, and absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court, some time ago, held that the 4th Section of the Civil
+ Rights Act was constitutional. That section declares that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or maybe
+ prescribed by law, shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit
+ juror in any court of the United States or of any State, on account of
+ color or previous condition of servitude."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It also provides that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If any officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection or
+ summoning of jurors, shall exclude, or fail to summon, any citizen in the
+ case aforesaid, he shall, on conviction, be guilty of misdemeanor and be
+ fined not more than five hundred dollars."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the case known as <i>Ex-parte vs. Virginia</i>&mdash;found in 100 U. S.
+ 339&mdash;it was held that an indictment against a State officer, under
+ this section, for excluding persons of color from the jury, could be
+ sustained. Now, let it be remembered, there was no law of the State of
+ Virginia, by virtue of which a man was disqualified from sitting on the
+ jury by reason of race or color. The officer did exclude, and did fail to
+ summon, a citizen on account of race or color or previous condition of
+ servitude. And the Supreme Court held:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That whether the Statute-book of the State actually laid down any such
+ rule of disqualification or not, the State, through its officer, enforced
+ such rule; and that it was against such State action, through its officers
+ and agents, that the last clause of the section was directed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court further held that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This aspect of the law was deemed sufficient to divest it of any
+ unconstitutional character."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, the Supreme Court held that the officer was an agent of
+ the State, although acting contrary to the statute of the State; and that,
+ consequently, such officer, acting outside of law, was amenable to the
+ Civil Rights Act, under the 14th Amendment, that referred only to States.
+ The question arises: Is a State responsible for the action of its agent
+ when acting contrary to law? In other words: Is the principal bound by the
+ acts of his agent, that act not being within the scope of his authority?
+ Is a State liable&mdash;or is the Government liable&mdash;for the act of
+ any officer, that act not being authorized by law?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been decided a thousand times, that a State is not liable for the
+ torts and trespasses of its officers. How then can the agent, acting
+ outside of his authority, be prosecuted under a law deriving its entire
+ validity from a constitutional amendment applying only to States? Does an
+ officer, by acting contrary to State law, become so like a State that the
+ word State, used in the Constitution, includes him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it was held in the case of <i>Neal vs. Delaware</i>,&mdash;103 U. S.,
+ 307,&mdash;that an officer acting contrary to the laws of the State&mdash;in
+ defiance of those laws&mdash;would be amenable to the Civil Rights Act,
+ passed under an amendment to the Constitution now held applicable only to
+ States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is admitted, and expressly decided in the case of <i>The U. S. vs.
+ Reese et al.</i>, (already quoted) that when the wrongful refusal at an
+ election is because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,
+ Congress can interfere and provide for the punishment of any individual
+ guilty of such refusal, no matter whether such individual acted under or
+ against the authority of the State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With this statement I most heartily agree. I agree that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When the wrongful refusal is because of race, color, or previous
+ condition of servitude, Congress can interfere and provide for the
+ punishment of any individual guilty of such refusal."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the key that unlocks the whole question. Congress has power&mdash;full,
+ complete, and ample,&mdash;to protect all citizens from unjust
+ discrimination, and from being deprived of equal privileges on account of
+ race, color, or previous condition of servitude. And this language is just
+ as applicable to the 13th and 14th, as to the 15th Amendment. If a citizen
+ is denied the accommodations of a public inn, or a seat in a railway car,
+ on account of race or color, or deprived of liberty on account of race or
+ color, the Constitution has been violated, and the citizen thus
+ discriminated against or thus deprived of liberty, is entitled to redress
+ in a Federal Court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is held by the Supreme Court that the word "State" does not apply to
+ the "people" of the State&mdash;that it applies only to the agents of the
+ people of the State. And yet, the word "State," as used in the
+ Constitution, has been held to include not only the persons in office, but
+ the people who elected them&mdash;not only the agents, but the principals.
+ In the Constitution it is provided that "no State shall coin money; and no
+ State shall emit bills of credit." According to this decision, any person
+ in any State, unless prevented by State authority, has the right to coin
+ money and to emit bills of credit, and Congress has no power to legislate
+ upon the subject&mdash;provided he does not counterfeit any of the coins
+ or current money of the United States. Congress would have to deal&mdash;not
+ with the individuals, but with the State; and unless the State had passed
+ some act allowing persons to coin money, or emit bills of credit, Congress
+ could do nothing. Yet, long ago, Congress passed a statute preventing any
+ person in any State from coining money. No matter if a citizen should coin
+ it of pure gold, of the requisite fineness and weight, and not in the
+ likeness of United States coins, he would be a criminal. We have a silver
+ dollar, coined by the Government, worth eighty-five cents; and yet, if any
+ person, in any State, should coin what he called a dollar, not like our
+ money, but with a dollar's worth of silver in it, he would be guilty of a
+ crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said that the Constitution provides that Congress shall have
+ power to coin money, and provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the
+ securities and current coin of the United States; in other words, that the
+ Constitution gives power to Congress to coin money and denies it to the
+ States, not only, but gives Congress the power to legislate against
+ counterfeiting. So, in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, power is given
+ to Congress, and power is denied to the States, not only, but Congress is
+ expressly authorized to enforce the amendments by appropriate legislation.
+ Certainly the power is as broad in the one case as in the other; and in
+ both cases, individuals can be reached as well as States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the Constitution provides that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several States."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Under this clause Congress deals directly with individuals. The States are
+ not engaged in commerce, but the people are; and Congress makes rules and
+ regulations for the government of the people so engaged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Constitution also provides that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was held in the case of <i>The United States vs. Holliday</i>, 3 Wall.,
+ 407, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Commerce with the Indian tribes means commerce with the individuals
+ composing those tribes."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And under this clause it has been further decided that Congress has the
+ power to regulate commerce not only between white people and Indian
+ tribes, but between Indian tribes; and not only that, but between
+ individual Indians. <i>Worcester vs. The State, 6 Pet., 575; The United
+ States vs. 4.3 Gallons, 93 U. S., 188; The United States vs. Shawmux, 2
+ Saw., 304.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the word "tribe" includes individual Indians, may not the word
+ "State" include citizens?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this decision it is admitted by the Supreme Court that where a subject
+ is submitted to the general legislative power of Congress, then Congress
+ has plenary powers of legislation over the whole subject. Let us apply
+ these words to the 13th Amendment. In this very decision I find that the
+ 13th Amendment:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "By its own unaided force and effect, abolished slavery and established
+ universal freedom."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court admits that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various cases and
+ circumstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of
+ redress for its violation in letter or spirit."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Court further admits:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And such legislation may be primary and direct in its character."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then gives the reason:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "For the amendment is not a mere prohibition of State laws establishing or
+ upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary
+ servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I now ask, has that subject&mdash;that is to say, Liberty,&mdash;been
+ submitted to the general legislative power of Congress? The 13th Amendment
+ provides that Congress shall have power to enforce that amendment by
+ appropriate legislation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In construing the 13th and 14th Amendments and the Civil Rights Act, it
+ seems to me that the Supreme Court has forgotten the principle of
+ construction that has been laid down so often by courts, and that is this:
+ that in construing statutes, courts may look to the history and condition
+ of the country as circumstances from which to gather the intention of the
+ Legislature. So it seems to me that the Court failed to remember the rule
+ laid down by Story in the case of <i>Prigg vs. The Commonwealth of
+ Pennsylvania,</i> 16 Pet., 611, a rule laid down in the interest of
+ slavery&mdash;laid down for the purpose of depriving human beings of their
+ liberty:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Perhaps the safest rule of interpretation, after all, will be found to be
+ to look to the nature and objects of the particular powers, duties and
+ rights with all the lights and aids of contemporary history, and to give
+ to the words of each just such operation and force consistent with their
+ legitimate meaning, as may fairly secure and attain the ends proposed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be admitted that certain rights were conferred by the 13th
+ Amendment. Surely certain rights were conferred by the 14th Amendment; and
+ these rights should be protected and upheld by the Federal Government. And
+ it was held in the case last cited, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If by one mode of interpretation the right must become shadowy and
+ unsubstantial, and without any remedial power adequate to the end, and by
+ another mode it will attain its just end and secure its manifest purpose&mdash;it
+ would seem, upon principles of reasoning absolutely irresistable, that the
+ latter ought to prevail. No court of justice can be authorized so as to
+ construe any clauses of the Constitution as to defeat its obvious ends,
+ when another construction, equally accordant with the words and sense
+ thereof, will enforce and protect them."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the present case, the Supreme Court holds, that Congress can not
+ legislate upon this subject until the State has passed some law contrary
+ to the Constitution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I call attention in reply to this, to the case of <i>Hall vs. De Cuir,</i>
+ 95 U. S., 486. The State of Louisiana, in 1869, acting in the spirit of
+ these amendments to the Constitution, passed a law requiring that all
+ persons engaged within that State in the business of common carriers of
+ passengers, should make no discrimination on account of race, color, or
+ previous condition of servitude. Under this law, Mrs. De Cuir, a colored
+ woman, took passage on a steamer, buying a ticket from New Orleans to
+ Hermitage&mdash;the entire trip being within the limits of the State. The
+ captain of the boat refused to give her equal accommodations with other
+ passengers&mdash;the refusal being on the ground of her color. She
+ commenced suit against the captain in the State Court of Louisiana, and
+ recovered judgment for one thousand dollars. The defendant appealed to the
+ Supreme Court of that State, and the judgment of the lower court was
+ sustained. Thereupon, the captain died, and the case was taken to the
+ Supreme Court of the United States by his administrator, on the ground
+ that a Federal question was involved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will see that this was a case where the State had acted, and had acted
+ exactly in accordance with the constitutional amendments, and had by law
+ provided that the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the United
+ States&mdash;residing in the State of Louisiana&mdash;should not be
+ abridged, and that no distinction should be made on account of race or
+ color. But in that case the Supreme Court of the United States solemnly
+ decided that the legislation of the State was void&mdash;that the State of
+ Louisiana had no right to interfere&mdash;no right, by law, to protect a
+ citizen of the United States from being discriminated against under such
+ circumstances.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You will remember that the plaintiff, Mrs. De Cuir, was to be carried from
+ New Orleans to Hermitage, and that both places were within the State of
+ Louisiana. Notwithstanding this, the Supreme Court held:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That if the public good required such legislation, it must come from
+ Congress and not from the State."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What reason do you suppose was given? It was this: The Constitution gives
+ to Congress power to regulate commerce between the States; and it appeared
+ from the evidence given in that case, that the boat plied between the
+ ports of New Orleans and Vicksburg. Consequently, it was engaged in
+ interstate commerce. Therefore, it was under the protection of Congress;
+ and being under the protection of Congress, the State had no authority to
+ protect its citizens by a law in perfect harmony with the Constitution of
+ the United States, while such citizens were within the limits of
+ Louisiana. The Supreme Court scorns the protection of a State!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the case recently decided, and about which we are talking to-night, the
+ Supreme Court decides exactly the other way. It decides that if the public
+ good requires such legislation, it must come from the States, and not from
+ Congress; that Congress cannot act until the State has acted, and until
+ the State has acted wrong, and that Congress can then only act for the
+ purpose of "correcting" such State action. The decision in <i>Hall vs. De
+ Cuir</i> was rendered in 1877. The Civil Rights Act was then in force, and
+ applied to all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States, and
+ provided expressly that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be
+ entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations,
+ privileges, and facilities of inns, public conveyances on land or water,
+ theatres, and other places of public amusement, without regard to race or
+ color."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet the Supreme Court said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No carrier of passengers can conduct his business with satisfaction to
+ himself, or comfort to those employing him, if on one side of a State line
+ his passengers, both white and colored, must be permitted to occupy the
+ same cabin, and on the other to be kept separate."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What right had the other State to pass a law that passengers should be
+ kept separate, on account of race or color? How could such a law have been
+ constitutional? The Civil Rights Act applied to all States, and to both
+ sides of the lines between all States, and produced absolute uniformity&mdash;and
+ did not put the captain to the trouble of dividing his passengers. The
+ Court further said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Uniformity in the regulations by which the carrier is to be governed from
+ one end to the other of his route, is a necessity in his business."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The uniformity had been guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act, and the
+ statute of the State of Louisiana was in exact conformity with the 14th
+ Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. The Court also said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And to secure uniformity, Congress, which is untrammeled by State lines,
+ has been invested with the exclusive power of determining what such
+ regulations shall be."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes. Congress has been invested with such power, and Congress has used it
+ in passing the Civil Rights Act&mdash;and yet, under these circumstances,
+ the Court proceeds to imagine the difficulty that a captain would have in
+ dividing his passengers as he crosses a State line, keeping them apart
+ until he reaches the line of another State, and then bringing them
+ together, and so going on through the process of dispersing and huddling,
+ to the end of his unfortunate route.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is held by the Supreme Court, that uniformity of duties is essential to
+ the carrier, and so essential, that Congress has control of the whole
+ matter. If uniformity is so desirable for the carrier that Congress takes
+ control, then uniformity as to the rights of passengers is equally
+ desirable; and under the 13th and 14th Amendments, Congress has the
+ exclusive power to state what the rights, privileges and immunities of
+ passengers shall be. So that, in 1877, the Supreme Court decided that the
+ <i>States could not</i> legislate; and in 1883, that <i>Congress could not</i>,
+ unless the State had. If Congress controls interstate commerce upon the
+ navigable waters, it also controls interstate commerce upon the railways.
+ And if Congress has exclusive jurisdiction in the one case, it has in the
+ other. And if it has exclusive jurisdiction, it does not have to wait
+ until States take action. If it does not have to wait until States take
+ action, then the Civil Rights Act, in so far as it refers to the rights of
+ passengers going from one State to another, must be constitutional.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be remembered, in this discussion, that the 8th Section of the
+ Constitution conferred upon Congress the power:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "To make all laws that may be necessary and proper for carrying into
+ execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the
+ United States."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the 2nd Section of the 13th Article provides:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
+ legislation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same language is used in the 14th and 15th Amendments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This clause does not limit&mdash;it enlarges&mdash;the powers vested in
+ the General Government. It is an additional power&mdash;not a restriction
+ on those already granted. It does not impair the right of the Legislature
+ to exercise its best judgment in the selection of measures to carry into
+ execution the constitutional powers of the Government. A sound
+ construction of the Constitution must allow to the National Legislature
+ that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers
+ are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform
+ the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the
+ people. Let the end be legitimate&mdash;let it be within the scope of the
+ Constitution, and all means which are appropriate&mdash;which are plainly
+ adapted to that end&mdash;are constitutional."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the language of Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of <i>M'Caulay,
+ vs. The State</i>, 4 Wheaton, 316.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Congress must possess the choice of means, and must be empowered to use
+ any means which are in fact conducive to the exercise of a power granted
+ by the Constitution." U. S. vs. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The power of Congress to pass laws to enforce rights conferred by the
+ Constitution is not limited to the express powers of legislation
+ enumerated in the Constitution. The powers which are necessary and proper
+ as means to carry into effect rights expressly given and duties expressly
+ enjoined, are always implied. The end being given, the means to accomplish
+ it are given also." <i>Prigs vs. The Commonwealth</i>, 16 Peters, 539.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This decision was delivered by Justice Story, and is the same one already
+ referred to, in which liberty was taken from a human being by judicial
+ construction. It was held in that case that the 2nd Section of the 4th
+ Article of the Constitution, to which I have already called attention,
+ contained "a positive and unqualified recognition of the right" of the
+ owner in a slave, unaffected by any State law or regulation. If this is
+ so, then I assert that the 13th Amendment "contains a positive and
+ unqualified recognition of the right" of every human being to liberty;
+ that the 14th Amendment "contains a positive and unqualified recognition
+ of the right" to citizenship; and that the 15th Amendment "contains a
+ positive and unqualified recognition of the right" to vote.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice Story held in that case that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Under and by virtue of that section of the Constitution the owner of a
+ slave was clothed with entire authority in every State in the nation to
+ seize and recapture his slave."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also held that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In that sense, and to that extent, that clause of the Constitution might
+ properly be said to execute itself, and to require no aid from legislation&mdash;State
+ or National."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But," says Justice Story:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The clause of the Constitution does not stop there, but says that he, the
+ slave, shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
+ labor may be due."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And he holds that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Under that clause of the section Congress became clothed with the
+ appropriate authority to legislate for its enforcement."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us look at the 13th and 14th Amendments in the light of that
+ decision.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. Liberty and citizenship were given the colored people by this
+ amendment. And Justice Story tells us that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The power of Congress to enforce rights conferred by the Constitution is
+ not limited to the express powers of legislation enumerated in the
+ Constitution, but the powers which are necessary to protect such rights
+ are always implied."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Language cannot be stronger; words cannot be clearer. But now this
+ decision has been reversed by the Supreme Court, and Congress is left
+ powerless to protect rights conferred by the Constitution. It has been
+ shorn of implied powers. It has duties to perform, and no power to act. It
+ has rights to protect, but cannot choose the means. It is entangled in its
+ own strength. It is a prisoner in the bastile of judicial construction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us go further. Justice Story tells us that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The words 'but shall be given up on the claim of the person to whom such
+ labor or service may be due,' clothes Congress with the appropriate
+ authority to legislate for its enforcement."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the light of this remark, let us look at the 14th Amendment:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "All persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
+ jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
+ wherein they reside."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To which are added these words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
+ or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
+ deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of
+ law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
+ of the laws."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the words: "But shall be delivered up on claim of the party to
+ whom such service or labor may be due," clothes Congress with power to
+ legislate upon the entire subject, then I ask if the words in the 14th
+ Amendment declaring that "no law shall be made by any State, or enforced,
+ which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
+ States; and that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty or
+ property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
+ jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," does not clothe Congress
+ with the power to legislate upon the entire subject?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the two cases there is only this difference: The first decision was
+ made in the interest of human slavery&mdash;made to protect property in
+ man; and the second decision ought to have been made for exactly the
+ opposite purpose. Under the first decision, Congress had the right to
+ select the means&mdash;but now that is denied. And yet it was decided in
+ <i>M'Cauley vs. The State</i>, 4 Wheaton, 316, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "When the Government has a right to do an act, and has imposed on it the
+ duty of performing an act, then it must, according to the dictates of
+ reason, be allowed to select the means."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Government has the right to employ freely every means not prohibited,
+ for the fulfillment of its acknowledged duties."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <i>The Legal Tender Cases</i>&mdash;12 Wallace, 457.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will thus be seen that Congress has the undoubted right to make all
+ laws necessary for the exercise of all the powers vested in it by the
+ Constitution. When the Constitution imposes a duty upon Congress, it
+ grants the necessary means. Congress certainly, then, has the right to
+ pass all necessary laws for the enforcement of the 13th, 14th and 15th
+ Amendments. Any legislation is "appropriate" that is calculated to
+ accomplish the end sought and that is not repugnant to the Constitution.
+ Within these limits Congress has the sovereign power of choice. No better
+ definition of "appropriate legislation" has been given than that by the
+ Supreme Court of California, in the case of The People vs. Washington, 38
+ California, 658:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Legislation which practically tends to facilitate the securing to all,
+ through the aid of the judicial and executive departments of the
+ Government, the full enjoyment of personal freedom, is appropriate."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court despairingly asks:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "If this legislation is appropriate for enforcing the prohibitions of the
+ Amendment, it is difficult to see where it is to stop. Why may not
+ Congress, with equal show of authority, enact a code of laws for the
+ enforcement and vindication of all rights of life, liberty and property?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My answer is: The legislation will stop when and where the discriminations
+ on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, stop.
+ Whenever an immunity or privilege of a citizen of the United States is
+ trodden down by the State, or by an individual, under the circumstances
+ mentioned in the Civil Rights Act&mdash;that is to say, on account of
+ race, color, or previous condition of servitude&mdash;then the Federal
+ Government must interfere. The Government must defend the immunities and
+ privileges of its citizens, not only from State invasion, but from
+ individual invaders, when that invasion is based upon the distinction of
+ race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Government has taken
+ upon itself that duty. This duty can be discharged by a law making a
+ uniform rule, obligatory not only upon States, but upon individuals. All
+ this will stop when the discriminations stop.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After such examination of the authorities as I have been able to make, I
+ lay down the following propositions, namely:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 1. The sovereignty of a State extends only to that which exists by its own
+ authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 2. The powers of the General Government were not conferred by the people
+ of a single State; they were given by the people of the United States; and
+ the laws of the United States, in pursuance of the Constitution, are
+ supreme over the entire Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 3. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of each State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 4. The United States is a Government whose authority extends over the
+ whole territory of the Union, acting upon all the States and upon all the
+ people of all the States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 5. No State can exclude the Federal Government from the exercise of any
+ authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, or withhold from it, for
+ a moment, the cognizance of any subject which that instrument has
+ committed to it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 6. It is the duty of Congress to enforce the Constitution, and it has been
+ clothed with power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into
+ execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the General
+ Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 7. It is the duty of the Government to protect every citizen of the United
+ States in all his rights, everywhere, without regard to race, color, or
+ previous condition of servitude; and this the Government has the right to
+ do by direct legislation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 8. Every citizen, when his privileges and immunities are invaded by the
+ legislature of a State, has the right of appeal from such. State to the
+ Supreme Court of the nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 9. When a State fails to pass any law protecting a citizen from
+ discrimination on account of race or color, and fails, in fact, to protect
+ such citizen, then such citizen has the right to find redress in the
+ Federal Courts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 10. Whenever, in the Constitution, a State is prohibited from doing
+ anything that in the nature of the thing can be done by any citizen of
+ that State, then the word "State" embraces and includes all the people of
+ a State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 11. The 13th Amendment declares that neither slavery nor involuntary
+ servitude shall exist within the jurisdiction of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is not a mere negation&mdash;it is a splendid affirmation. The duty
+ is imposed upon the General Government by that amendment to see to it that
+ neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a question absolutely within the power of the Federal Government,
+ and the Federal Government is clothed with power to make all necessary
+ laws to enforce that amendment against States and persons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 12. The 14th Amendment provides that all persons born or naturalized in
+ the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
+ the United States and of the States wherein they reside. This is also an
+ affirmation. It is not a prohibition. The moment that amendment was
+ adopted, it became the duty of the United States to protect the citizens
+ recognized or created by that amendment. We are no longer citizens of the
+ United States because we are citizens of a State, but we are citizens of
+ the United States because we have been born or have been naturalized
+ within the jurisdiction of the United States. It therefore follows, that
+ it is not only the right, but it is the duty, of Congress, to pass all
+ laws necessary for the protection of citizens of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 13. Congress can not shirk this responsibility by leaving citizens of the
+ United States to the care and keeping of the several States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The recent decision of the Supreme Court cuts, as with a sword, the tie
+ that binds the citizen to the nation. Under the old Constitution, it was
+ not certainly known who were citizens of the United States. There were
+ citizens of the States, and such citizens looked to their several States
+ for protection. The Federal Government had no citizens. Patriotism did not
+ rest on mutual obligation. Under the 14th Amendment, we are all citizens
+ of a common country; and our first duty, our first obligation, our highest
+ allegiance, is not to the State in which we reside, but to the Federal
+ Government. The 14th Amendment tends to destroy State prejudices and lays
+ a foundation for national patriotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 14. All statutes&mdash;all amendments to the Constitution&mdash;in
+ derogation of natural rights, should be strictly construed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 15. All statutes and amendments for the preservation of natural rights
+ should be liberally construed. Every court should, by strict construction,
+ narrow the scope of every law that infringes upon any natural human right;
+ and every court should, by construction, give the broadest meaning to
+ every statute or constitutional provision passed or adopted for the
+ preservation of freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 16. In construing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the Supreme Court
+ need not go back to decisions rendered in the days of slavery&mdash;when
+ every statute was construed in favor of the sovereignty of the State and
+ the rights of the master. These amendments utterly obliterated such
+ decisions. The Supreme Court should begin with the amendments. It need not
+ look behind them. They are a part of the fundamental organic law of the
+ nation. They were adopted to destroy the old statutes, to obliterate the
+ infamous clauses in the Constitution, and to lay a new foundation for a
+ new nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 17. Congress has the power to eradicate all forms and incidents of slavery
+ and involuntary servitude, by direct and primary legislation binding upon
+ States and individuals alike. And when citizens are denied the exercise of
+ common rights and privileges&mdash;when they are refused admittance to
+ public inns and railway cars, on an equality with white persons&mdash;and
+ when such denial and refusal are based upon race and color, such citizens
+ are in a condition of involuntary servitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Supreme Court has failed to take into consideration the intention of
+ the framers of these amendments. It has failed to comprehend the spirit of
+ the age. It has undervalued the accomplishment of the war. It has not
+ grasped in all their height and depth the great amendments to the
+ Constitution and the real object of government. To preserve liberty is the
+ only use for government. There is no other excuse for legislatures, or
+ presidents, or courts, for statutes or decisions. Liberty is not simply a
+ means&mdash;it is an end. Take from our history, our literature, our laws,
+ our hearts&mdash;that word, and we are naught but moulded clay. Liberty is
+ the one priceless jewel. It includes and holds and is the weal and wealth
+ of life. Liberty is the soil and light and rain&mdash;it is the plant and
+ bud and flower and fruit&mdash;and in that sacred word lie all the seeds
+ of progress, love and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This decision, in my judgment, is not worthy of the Court by which it was
+ delivered. It has given new life to the serpent of State Sovereignty. It
+ has breathed upon the dying embers of ignorant hate. It has furnished food
+ and drink, breath and blood, to prejudices that were perishing of famine,
+ and in the old case of <i>Civilization vs. Barbarism</i>, it has given the
+ defendant a new trial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From this decision, John M. Harlan had the breadth of brain, the goodness
+ of heart, and the loyalty to logic, to dissent. By the fortress of
+ Liberty, one sentinel remains at his post. For moral courage I have
+ supreme respect, and I admire that intellectual strength that breaks the
+ cords and chains of prejudice and damned custom as though they were but
+ threads woven in a spider's loom. This judge has associated his name with
+ freedom, and he will be remembered as long as men are free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told by the Supreme Court that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Slavery cannot exist without law, any more than property and lands and
+ goods can exist without law."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I deny that property exists by virtue of law. I take exactly the opposite
+ ground. It was the fact that man had property in lands and goods, that
+ produced laws for the protection of such property. The Supreme Court has
+ mistaken an effect for a cause. Laws passed for the protection of
+ property, sprang from the possession and ownership of the thing to be
+ protected. When one man enslaves another, it is a violation of all justice&mdash;a
+ subversion of the foundation of all law. Statutes passed for the purpose
+ of enabling man to enslave his fellow-man, resulted from a conspiracy
+ entered into by the representatives of brute force. Nothing can be more
+ absurd than to call such a statute, born of such a conspiracy a law.
+ According to the idea of the Supreme Court, man never had property until
+ he had passed a law upon the subject. The first man who gathered leaves
+ upon which to sleep, did not own them, because no law had been passed on
+ the leaf subject. The first man who gathered fruit&mdash;the first man who
+ fashioned a club with which to defend himself from wild beasts, according
+ to the Supreme Court, had no property in these things, because no laws had
+ been passed, and no courts had published their decisions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the defenders of monarchy have taken the ground that societies were
+ formed by contract&mdash;as though at one time men all lived apart, and
+ came together by agreement and formed a government. We might just as well
+ say that the trees got into groves by contract or conspiracy. Man is a
+ social being. By living together there grow out of the relation, certain
+ regulations, certain customs. These at last hardened into what we call law&mdash;into
+ what we call forms of government&mdash;and people who wish to defend the
+ idea that we got everything from the king, say that our fathers made a
+ contract. Nothing can be more absurd. Men did not agree upon a form of
+ government and then come together; but being together, they made rules for
+ the regulation of conduct. Men did not make some laws and then get some
+ property to fit the laws, but having property they made laws for its
+ protection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hinted by the Supreme Court that this is in some way a question of
+ social equality. It is claimed that social equality cannot be enforced by
+ law. Nobody thinks it can. This is not a question of social equality, but
+ of equal rights. A colored citizen has the same right to ride upon the
+ cars&mdash;to be fed and lodged at public inns, and to visit theatres,
+ that I have. Social equality is not involved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Federal soldiers who escaped from Libby and Andersonville, and who in
+ swamps, in storm, and darkness, were rescued and fed by the slave, had no
+ scruples about eating with a negro. They were willing to sit beneath the
+ same tree and eat with him the food he brought. The white soldier was then
+ willing to find rest and slumber beneath the negro's roof. Charity has no
+ color. It is neither white nor black. Justice and Patriotism are the same.
+ Even the Confederate soldier was willing to leave his wife and children
+ under the protection of a man whom he was fighting to enslave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Danger does not draw these nice distinctions as to race or color. Hunger
+ is not proud. Famine is exceedingly democratic in the matter of food. In
+ the moment of peril, prejudices perish. The man fleeing for his life does
+ not have the same ideas about social questions, as he who sits in the
+ Capitol, wrapped in official robes. Position is apt to be supercilious.
+ Power is sometimes cruel. Prosperity is often heartless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This cry about social equality is born of the spirit of caste&mdash;the
+ most fiendish of all things. It is worse than slavery. Slavery is at least
+ justified by avarice&mdash;by a desire to get something for nothing&mdash;by
+ a desire to live in idleness upon the labor of others&mdash;but the spirit
+ of caste is the offspring of natural cruelty and meanness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Social relations depend upon almost an infinite number of influences and
+ considerations. We have our likes and dislikes. We choose our companions.
+ This is a natural right. You cannot force into my house persons whom I do
+ not want. But there is a difference between a public house and a private
+ house. The one is for the public. The private house is for the family and
+ those they may invite. The landlord invites the entire public, and he must
+ serve those who come if they are fit to be received. A railway is public,
+ not private. It derives its powers and its rights from the State. It takes
+ private land for public purposes. It is incorporated for the good of the
+ public, and the public must be served. The railway, the hotel, and the
+ theatre, have a right to make a distinction between people of good and bad
+ manners&mdash;between the clean and the unclean. There are white people
+ who have no right to be in any place except a bath-tub, and there are
+ colored people in the same condition. An unclean white man should not be
+ allowed to force himself into a hotel, or into a railway car&mdash;neither
+ should the unclean colored. What I claim is, that in public places, no
+ distinction should be made on account of race or color. The bad black man
+ should be treated like the bad white man, and the good black man like the
+ good white man. Social equality is not contended for&mdash;neither between
+ white and white, black and black, nor between white and black.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all social relations we should have the utmost liberty&mdash;but public
+ duties should be discharged and public rights should be recognized,
+ without the slightest discrimination on account of race or color. Riding
+ in the same cars, stopping at the same inns, sitting in the same theatres,
+ no more involve a social question, or social equality, than speaking the
+ same language, reading the same books, hearing the same music, traveling
+ on the same highway, eating the same food, breathing the same air, warming
+ by the same sun, shivering in the same cold, defending the same flag,
+ loving the same country, or living in the same world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, thousands of people are in deadly fear about social equality.
+ They imagine that riding with colored people is dangerous&mdash;that the
+ chance acquaintance may lead to marriage. They wish to be protected from
+ such consequences by law. They dare not trust themselves. They appeal to
+ the Supreme Court for assistance, and wish to be barricaded by a
+ constitutional amendment. They are willing that colored women shall
+ prepare their food&mdash;that colored waiters shall bring it to them&mdash;willing
+ to ride in the same cars with the porters and to be shown to their seats
+ in theatres by colored ushers&mdash;willing to be nursed in sickness by
+ colored servants. They see nothing dangerous&mdash;nothing repugnant, in
+ any of these relations,&mdash;but the idea of riding in the same car,
+ stopping at the same hotel, fills them with fear&mdash;fear for the future
+ of our race. Such people can be described only in the language of Walt
+ Whitman. "They are the immutable, granitic pudding-heads of the world.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty is not a social question. Civil equality is not social equality.
+ We are equal only in rights. No two persons are of equal weight, or
+ height. There are no two leaves in all the forests of the earth alike&mdash;no
+ two blades of grass&mdash;no two grains of sand&mdash;no two hairs. No two
+ any-things in the physical world are precisely alike. Neither mental nor
+ physical equality can be created by law, but law recognizes the fact that
+ all men have been clothed with equal rights by Nature, the mother of us
+ all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who hates the black man because he is black, has the same spirit
+ as he who hates the poor man because he is poor. It is the spirit of
+ caste. The proud useless despises the honest useful. The parasite idleness
+ scorns the great oak of labor on which it feeds, and that lifts it to the
+ light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are
+ not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are
+ superior who have the best heart&mdash;the best brain. Superiority is born
+ of honesty, of virtue, of charity, and above all, of the love of liberty.
+ The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the
+ blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenceless. He stands
+ erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this country all rights must be preserved, all wrongs redressed,
+ through the ballot. The colored man has in his possession in his care, a
+ part of the sovereign power of the Republic. At the ballot-box he is the
+ equal of judges and senators, and presidents, and his vote, when counted,
+ is the equal of any other. He must use this sovereign power for his own
+ protection, and for the preservation of his children. The ballot is his
+ sword and shield. It is his political providence. It is the rock on which
+ he stands, the column against which he leans. He should vote for no man
+ who dees not believe in equal rights for all&mdash;in the same privileges
+ and immunities for all citizens, irrespective of race or color.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He should not be misled by party cries, or by vague promises in political
+ platforms. He should vote for the men, for the party, that will protect
+ him; for congressmen who believe in liberty, for judges who worship
+ justice, whose brains are not tangled by technicalities, and whose hearts
+ are not petrified by precedents; and for presidents who will protect the
+ blackest citizen from the tyranny of the whitest State. As you cannot
+ trust the word of some white people, and as some black people do not
+ always tell the truth, you must compel all candidates to put their
+ principle' in black and white.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of one thing you can rest assured: The best white people are your friends.
+ The humane, the civilized, the just, the most intelligent, the grandest,
+ are on your side. The sympathies of the noblest are with you. Your enemies
+ are also the enemies of liberty, of progress and of justice. The white men
+ who make the white race honorable believe in equal rights for you. The
+ noblest living are, the noblest dead were, your friends. I ask you to
+ stand with your friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not hold the Republican party responsible for this decision, unless the
+ Republican party endorses it. Had the question been submitted to that
+ party, it would have been decided exactly the other way&mdash;at least a
+ hundred to one. That party gave you the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
+ They were given in good faith. These amendments put you on a
+ constitutional and political equality with white men. That they have been
+ narrowed in their application by the Supreme Court, is not the fault of
+ the Republican party. Let us wait and see what the Republican party will
+ do. That party has a strange history, and in that history is a mingling of
+ cowardice and courage. The army of progress always becomes fearful after
+ victory, and courageous after defeat. It has been the custom for principle
+ to apologize to prejudice. The Proclamation of Emancipation gave liberty
+ only to slaves beyond our lines&mdash;those beneath our flag were left to
+ wear their chains. We said to the Southern States: "Lay down your arms,
+ and you shall keep your slaves." We tried to buy peace at the expense of
+ the negro.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We offered to sacrifice the manhood of the North, and the natural rights
+ of the colored man, upon the altar of the Union. The rejection of that
+ offer saved us from infamy. At one time we refused to allow the loyal
+ black man to come within our lines. We would meet him at the outposts,
+ receive his information, and drive him back to chain and lash. The
+ Government publicly proclaimed that the war was waged to save the Union,
+ with slavery. We were afraid to claim that the negro was a man&mdash;afraid
+ to admit that he was property&mdash;and so we called him "contraband." We
+ hesitated to allow the negro to fight for his own freedom&mdash;hesitated
+ to let him wear the uniform of the nation while he battled for the
+ supremacy of its flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are some of the inconsistencies of the past. In spite of them we
+ advanced. We were educated by events, and at last we clearly saw that
+ slavery was rebellion; that the "institution" had borne its natural fruit&mdash;civil
+ war; that the entire country was responsible for slavery, and that slavery
+ was responsible for rebellion. We declared that slavery should be
+ extirpated from the Republic. The great armies led by the greatest
+ commander of the modern world, shattered, crushed and demolished the
+ Rebellion. The North grew grand. The people became sublime. The three
+ sacred amendments were adopted. The Republic was free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came a period of hesitation, apology and fear. The colored citizen
+ was left to his fate. For years the Federal arm, palsied by policy, was
+ powerless to protect; and this period of fear, of hesitation, of apology,
+ of lack of confidence in the right, has borne its natural fruit&mdash;this
+ decision of the Supreme Court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But it is not for me to give you advice. Your conduct has been above all
+ praise. You have been as patient as the earth beneath, as the stars above.
+ You have been law-abiding and industrious, You have not offensively
+ asserted your rights, or offensively borne your wrongs. You have been
+ modest and forgiving. You have returned good for evil. When I remember
+ that the ancestors of my race were in universities and colleges and common
+ schools while you and your fathers were on the auction-block, in the
+ slave-pen, or in the field beneath the cruel lash, in States where reading
+ and writing were crimes, I am astonished at the progress you have made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that I&mdash;all that any reasonable man&mdash;can ask is, that you
+ continue doing as you have done. Above all things&mdash;educate your
+ children&mdash;strive to make yourselves independent&mdash;work for homes&mdash;work
+ for yourselves&mdash;and wherever it is possible become the masters of
+ yourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see your little children with books
+ under their arms, going and coming from school.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is very easy to see why colored people should hate us, but why we
+ should hate them is beyond my comprehension. They never sold our wives.
+ They never robbed our cradles.. They never scarred our backs. They never
+ pursued us with bloodhounds. They never branded our flesh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been said that it is hard to forgive a man to whom we have done a
+ great injury. I can conceive of no other reason why we should hate the
+ colored people. To us they are a standing reproach. Their history is our
+ shame. Their virtues seem to enrage some white people&mdash;their patience
+ to provoke, and their forgiveness to insult. Turn the tables&mdash;change
+ places&mdash;and with what fierceness, with what ferocity, with what
+ insane and passionate intensity we would hate them!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The colored people do not ask for revenge&mdash;they simply ask for
+ justice. They are willing to forget the past&mdash;willing to hide their
+ scars&mdash;anxious to bury the broken chains, and to forget the miseries
+ and hardships, the tears and agonies, of two hundred years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old issues are again upon us. Is this a Nation? Have all citizens of
+ the United States equal rights, without regard to race or color? Is it the
+ duty of the General Government to protect its citizens? Can the Federal
+ arm be palsied by the action or non-action of a State?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another opportunity is given for the people of this country to take sides.
+ According to my belief, the supreme thing for every man to do is to be
+ absolutely true to himself. All consequences&mdash;whether rewards or
+ punishments, whether honor and power, or disgrace and poverty, are as
+ dreams undreamt. I have made my choice. I have taken my stand. Where my
+ brain and heart go, there I will publicly and openly walk. Doing this, is
+ my highest conception of duty. Being allowed to do this, is liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this is not now a free Government; if citizens cannot now be protected,
+ regardless of race or color; if the three sacred amendments have been
+ undermined by the Supreme Court&mdash;we must have another; and if that
+ fails, then another; and we must neither stop, nor pause, until the
+ Constitution shall become a perfect shield for every right, of every human
+ being, beneath our flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0002" id="link0002">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Address to the Jury.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Within thirty miles of New York, in the city of
+ Morristown, New Jersey, a man was put on trial yesterday for
+ distributing a pamphlet argument against the infallibility
+ of the Bible. The crime which the Indictment alleges Is
+ Blasphemy, for which the statutes of New Jersey provide a
+ penalty of two hundred dollars fine, or twelve months
+ imprisonment, or both. It is the first case of the kind ever
+ tried in New Jersey, although the law dates back to colonial
+ days. Charles B. Reynolds is the man on trial, and the State
+ of New Jersey, through the Prosecuting Attorney of Morris
+ County, is the prosecutor. The Circuit Court, Judge Francis
+ Child, assisted by County Judges Munson and Quimby, sit upon
+ the case. Prosecutor Wilder W. Cutler represents the State,
+ and Robert G. Ingersoll appears for the defendant.
+
+ Mr. Reynolds went to Boonton last summer to hold "free-
+ thought" meetings. Announcing his purpose without any
+ flourish, he secured a piece of ground, pitched a tent upon
+ it, and invited the towns-people to come and hear him. It
+ was understood that he had been a Methodist minister: that,
+ finding it impossible to reconcile his mind to some of the
+ historical parts of the Bible, and unable to accept it in
+ its entirety as a moral guide, he left the church and set
+ out to proclaim his conclusions. The churches in Boonton
+ arrayed themselves against him. The Catholics and Methodists
+ were especially active. Taking this opposition as an excuse,
+ one element of the town invaded his tent. They pelted
+ Reynolds with ancient eggs and vegetables. They chopped away
+ the guy ropes of the tent and slashed the canvas with their
+ knives. When the tent collapsed, the crowd rushed for the
+ speaker to inflict further punishment by plunging him in the
+ duck pond They rummaged the wrecked tent, but in vain. He
+ had made his way ont in the confusion and was no more seen
+ in Boonton.
+
+ But what he had said did not leave Boonton with him, and the
+ pamphlets he had distributed were read by many who probably
+ would not have looked between their covers had his visit
+ been attended by no unusual circumstances. Boonton was still
+ agitated up on the subject when Mr. Reynolds appeared in
+ Morristown. This time he did not try to hold meetings, but
+ had his pamphlets with him.
+
+ Mr. Reynolds appeared in Morristown with the pamphlets on
+ October thirteenth. A Boonton delegation was there,
+ clamoring for his indictment for blasphemy. The Grand Jury
+ heard of his visit and found two indictments against him;
+ one for blasphemy at
+
+ Boonton and the second for blasphemy at Morristown. He
+ furnished a five hundred dollar bond to appear for trial. On
+ account of Colonel Ingersoll's throat troubles the case was
+ adjourned several times through the winter and until Monday
+ last, when it was set peremptorily for trial yesterday.
+
+ The public feeling excited at Boonton was overshadowed by
+ that at Morristown and the neighboring region. For six
+ months no topic was so interesting to the public as this. It
+ monopolized attention at the stores, and became a fruitful
+ subject of gossip in social and church circles. Under such
+ circumstances it was to be expected that everybody who could
+ spare the time would go to court yesterday. Lines of people
+ began to climb the court house hill early in the morning. At
+ the hour of opening court the room set apart for the trial
+ was packed, and distaffs had to be stationed at the foot of
+ the stairs to keep back those who were not early enough.
+ From nine thirty to eleven o'clock the crowd inside talked
+ of blasphemy in all the phases suggested by this case, and
+ the outsiders waited patiently on the lawn and steps and
+ along the dusty approaches to the gray building.
+
+ Eleven o'clock brought the train from New York and on it
+ Colonel Ingersoll. His arrival at the court house with his
+ clerk opened a new chapter in the day's gossip. The event
+ was so absorbing indeed, that the crowd failed entirely to
+ notice an elderly man wearing a black frock snit, a silk
+ hat, with an army badge pinned to his coat, and looking like
+ a merchant of means, who entered the court house a few
+ minutes behind the famous lawyer. The last comer was the
+ defendant.
+
+ All was ready for the case. Within five minutes five jurors
+ were in the box. Then Colonel Ingersoll asked what were his
+ rights about challenges. He was informed that he might make
+ six peremptory challenges and must challenge before the
+ jurors took their seats. The only disqualification the Court
+ would recognize would be the inability of a juror to change
+ his opinion in spite of evidence. Colonel Ingersoll induced
+ the Court to let him examine the five in the box and
+ promptly ejected two Presbyterians.
+
+ Thereafter Colonel Ingersoll examined every juror as soon as
+ presented. He asked particularly about the nature of each
+ man's prejudice, if he had one. To a juror who did not know
+ that he understood the word, the Colonel replied: "I may not
+ define the word legally, but my own idea is that a man is
+ prejudiced when he has made up his mind on a case without
+ knowing anything about it." This juror thought that he came
+ under that category.
+
+ Presbyterians had a rather hard time with the examiner.
+ After twenty men had been examined and the defence had
+ exercised five of its peremptory challenges, the following
+ were sworn as jurymen. * * * *
+
+ The jury having been sworn, Prosecutor Cutler announced that
+ he would try only the indictment for the offence in
+ Morristown. He said that Reynolds was charged with
+ distributing pamphlets containing matter claimed to be
+ blasphemous under the law. If the charge could be proved he
+ asked a verdict of guilty. Then he called sixteen towns-
+ people, to most of whom Reynolds had given a pamphlet.
+
+ Colonel Ingersoll tried to get the Presbyterian witnesses to
+ say that they had read the pamphlet. Not one of them
+ admitted it. Further than this he attempted no
+ cross-examination.
+
+ "I do not know that I shall have any witnesses one way or
+ the other," Colonel Ingersoll said, rising to suggest a
+ recess. "Perhaps after dinner I may feel like making a few
+ remarks."
+
+ "There will be great disappointment if you do not" Judge
+ Child responded, in a tone that meant a word for himself as
+ well as for the other listeners. The spectators nodded
+ approval to this sentiment. At 4:20 o'clock Col. Ingersoll
+ having spoken since 2 o'clock, Judge Child adjourned court
+ until this morning.
+
+ As Colonel Ingersoll left the room a throng pressed after
+ him to offer congratulations. One old man said: "Colonel
+ Ingersoll I am a Presbyterian pastor, but I must say that
+ was the noblest speech in defence of liberty I ever heard!
+ Your hand, sir; your hand,"&mdash;The Times, New York, May
+ 20,1887.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ GENTLEMEN of the Jury: I regard this as one of the most important cases
+ that can be submitted to a jury. It is not a case that involves a little
+ property, neither is it one that involves simply the liberty of one man.
+ It involves the freedom of speech, the intellectual liberty of every
+ citizen of New Jersey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question to be tried by you is whether a man has the right to express
+ his honest thought; and for that reason there can be no case of greater
+ importance submitted to a jury. And it may be well enough for me, at the
+ outset, to admit that there could be no case in which I could take a
+ greater&mdash;a deeper interest. For my part, I would not wish to live in
+ a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to
+ others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I deny the right of any man, of any number of men, of any church, of any
+ State, to put a padlock on the lips&mdash;to make the tongue a convict. I
+ passionately deny the right of the Herod of authority to kill the children
+ of the brain. A man has a right to work with his hands, to plow the earth,
+ to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the harvest. If we have
+ not that right, then all are slaves except those who take these rights
+ from their fellow-men. If you have the right to work with your hands and
+ to gather the harvest for yourself and your children, have you not a right
+ to cultivate your brain? Have you not the right to read, to observe, to
+ investigate&mdash;and when you have so read and so investigated, have you
+ not the right to reap that field? And what is it to reap that field? It is
+ simply to express what you have ascertained&mdash;simply to give your
+ thoughts to your fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of
+ being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without
+ that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor, miserable
+ serfs and slaves. If you have not the right to express your opinions, if
+ the defendant has not this right, then no man ever walked beneath the blue
+ of heaven that had the right to express his thought. If others claim the
+ right, where did they get it? How did they happen to have it, and how did
+ you happen to be deprived of it? Where did a church or a nation get that
+ right?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are we not all children of the same Mother? Are we not all compelled to
+ think, whether we wish to or not? Can you help thinking as you do? When
+ you look out upon the woods, the fields,&mdash;when you look at the solemn
+ splendors of the night&mdash;these things produce certain thoughts in your
+ mind, and they produce them necessarily. No man can think as he desires.
+ No man controls the action of his brain, any more than he controls the
+ action of his heart. The blood pursues its old accustomed ways in spite of
+ you. The eyes see, if you open them, in spite of you. The ears hear, if
+ they are unstopped, without asking your permission. And the brain thinks
+ in spite of you. Should you express that thought? Certainly you should, if
+ others express theirs. You have exactly the same right. He who takes it
+ from you is a robber.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to
+ think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because
+ brute force is not an argument. You can stand with the lash over a man, or
+ you can stand by the prison door, or beneath the gallows, or by the stake,
+ and say to this man: "Recant or the lash descends, the prison door is
+ locked upon you, the rope is put about your neck, or the torch is given to
+ the fagot." And so the man recants. Is he convinced? Not at all. Have you
+ produced a new argument? Not the slightest. And yet the ignorant bigots of
+ this world have been trying for thousands of years to rule the minds of
+ men by brute force. They have endeavored to improve the mind by torturing
+ the flesh&mdash;to spread religion with the sword and torch. They have
+ tried to convince their brothers by putting their feet in iron boots, by
+ putting fathers, mothers, patriots, philosophers and philanthropists in
+ dungeons. And what has been the result? Are we any nearer thinking alike
+ to-day than we were then?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make people
+ think its way by force and flame. And yet every church that ever was
+ established commenced in the minority, and while it was in the minority
+ advocated free speech&mdash;every one. John Calvin, the founder of the
+ Presbyterian Church, while he lived in France, wrote a book on religious
+ toleration in order to show that all men had an equal right to think; and
+ yet that man afterward, clothed in a little authority, forgot all his
+ sentiments about religious liberty, and had poor Servetus burned at the
+ stake, for differing with him on a question that neither of them knew
+ anything about. In the minority, Calvin advocated toleration&mdash;in the
+ majority, he practiced murder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to understand what has been done in the world to force men to
+ think alike. It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants
+ us to think alike, he would have made us alike. Why did he not do so? Why
+ did he make your brain so that you could not by any possibility be a
+ Methodist? Why did he make yours so that you could not be a Catholic? And
+ why did he make the brain of another so that he is an unbeliever&mdash;why
+ the brain of another so that he became a Mohammedan&mdash;if he wanted us
+ all to believe alike?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, may be Nature is good enough and grand enough and broad enough
+ to give us the diversity born of liberty. May be, after all, it would not
+ be best for us all to be just the same. What a stupid world, if everybody
+ said yes to everything that everybody else might say.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than
+ food or clothes&mdash;more important than gold or houses or lands&mdash;more
+ important than art or science&mdash;more important than all religions, is
+ the liberty of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If civilization tends to do away with liberty, then I agree with Mr.
+ Buckle that civilization is a curse. Gladly would I give up the splendors
+ of the nineteenth century&mdash;gladly would I forget every invention that
+ has leaped from the brain of man&mdash;gladly would I see all books ashes,
+ all works of art destroyed, all statues broken, and all the triumphs of
+ the world lost&mdash;gladly, joyously would I go back to the abodes and
+ dens of savagery, if that were necessary to preserve the inestimable gem
+ of human liberty. So would every man who has a heart and brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself?
+ Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free
+ speech. And there never was such a statute that did not stain the book
+ that it was in, and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who
+ passed it. Never. By making a statute and by defining blasphemy, the
+ church sought to prevent discussion&mdash;sought to prevent argument&mdash;sought
+ to prevent a man giving his honest opinion. Certainly a tenet, a dogma, a
+ doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your
+ speaking against it. In the silence of slavery it exists. It lives because
+ lips are locked. It lives because men are slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If I understand myself, I advocate only the doctrines that in my judgment
+ will make this world happier and better. If I know myself, I advocate only
+ those things that will make a man a better citizen, a better father, a
+ kinder husband&mdash;that will make a woman a better wife, a better mother&mdash;doctrines
+ that will fill every home with sunshine and with joy. And if I believed
+ that anything I should say to-day would have any other possible tendency,
+ I would stop. I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion&mdash;to
+ give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I
+ grant to every other human being, not the right&mdash;because it is his
+ right&mdash;but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to
+ attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I
+ urge&mdash;in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am a believer in what I call "intellectual hospitality." A man comes to
+ your door. If you are a gentleman and he appears to be a good man, you
+ receive him with a smile. You ask after his health. You say: "Take a
+ chair; are you thirsty, are you hungry, will you not break bread with me?"
+ That is what a hospitable, good man does&mdash;he does not set the dog on
+ him. Now, how should we treat a new thought? I say that the brain should
+ be hospitable and say to the new thought: "Come in; sit down; I want to
+ cross-examine you; I want to find whether you are good or bad; if good,
+ stay; if bad, I don't want to hurt you&mdash;probably you think you are
+ all right,&mdash;but your room is better than your company, and I will
+ take another idea in your place." Why not? Can any man have the egotism to
+ say that he has found it all out? No. Every man who has thought, knows not
+ only how little he knows, but how little every other human being knows,
+ and how ignorant, after all, the world must be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time in Europe when the Catholic Church had power. And I want
+ it distinctly understood with this jury, that while I am opposed to
+ Catholicism I am not opposed to Catholics&mdash;while I am opposed to
+ Presbyterianism I am not opposed to Presbyterians. I do not fight people,&mdash;I
+ fight ideas, I fight principles, and I never go into personalities. As I
+ said, I do not hate Presbyterians, but Presbyterianism&mdash;that is, I am
+ opposed to their doctrine. I do not hate a man that has the rheumatism&mdash;I
+ hate the rheumatism when it has a man. So I attack certain principles
+ because I think they are wrong, but I always want it understood that I
+ have nothing against persons&mdash;nothing against victims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when the Catholic Church was in power in the Old World.
+ All at once there arose a man called Martin Luther, and what did the dear
+ old Catholics think? "Oh," they said, "that man and his followers are
+ going to hell." But they did not go. They were very good people. They may
+ have been mistaken&mdash;I do not know. I think they were right in their
+ opposition to Catholicism&mdash;but I have just as much objection to the
+ religion they founded as I have to the church they left. But they thought
+ they were right, and they made very good citizens, and it turned out that
+ their differing from the Mother Church did not hurt them. And then after
+ awhile they began to divide, and there arose Baptists; and-the other
+ gentlemen, who believed in this law that is now in New Jersey, began
+ cutting off their ears so that they could hear better; they began putting
+ them in prison so that they would have a chance to think. But the Baptists
+ turned out to be good folks&mdash;first rate&mdash;good husbands, good
+ fathers, good citizens. And in a little while, in England, the people
+ turned to be Episcopalians, on account of a little war that Henry VIII.
+ had with the Pope,&mdash;and I always sided with the Pope in that war&mdash;but
+ it made no difference; and in a little while the Episcopalians turned out
+ to be just about like other folks&mdash;no worse&mdash;and, as I know of,
+ no better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After awhile arose the Puritan, and the Episcopalian said, "We don't want
+ anything of him&mdash;he is a bad man;" and they finally drove some of
+ them away and they settled in New England, and there were among them
+ Quakers, than whom there never were better people on the earth&mdash;industrious,
+ frugal, gentle, kind and loving&mdash;and yet these Puritans began hanging
+ them. They said: "They are corrupting our children; if this thing goes on,
+ everybody will believe in being kind and gentle and good, and what will
+ become of us?" They were honest about it. So they went to cutting off
+ ears. But the Quakers were good people and none of the prophecies were
+ fulfilled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a little while there came some Unitarians and they said, "The world is
+ going to ruin, sure;"&mdash;but the world went on as usual, and the
+ Unitarians produced men like Channing&mdash;one of the tenderest spirits
+ that ever lived&mdash;they produced men like Theodore Parker&mdash;one of
+ the greatest brained and greatest hearted men produced upon this continent&mdash;a
+ good man&mdash;and yet they thought he was a blasphemer&mdash;they even
+ prayed for his death&mdash;on their bended knees they asked their God to
+ take time to kill him. Well, they were mistaken. Honest, probably.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After awhile came the Universalists, who said: "God is good. He will not
+ damn anybody always, just for a little mistake he made here. This is a
+ very short life; the path we travel is very dim, and a great many shadows
+ fall in the way, and if a man happens to stub his toe, God will not burn
+ him forever." And then all the rest of the sects cried out, "Why, if you
+ do away with hell, everybody will murder just for pastime&mdash;everybody
+ will go to stealing just to enjoy themselves." But they did not. The
+ Universalists were good people&mdash;just as good as any others. Most of
+ them much better. None of the prophecies were fulfilled, and yet the
+ differences existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so we go on until we find people who do not believe the Bible at all,
+ and when they say they do not, they come within this statute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I am going to try to show you, first, that this statute
+ under which Mr. Reynolds is being tried is unconstitutional&mdash;that it
+ is not in harmony with the constitution of New Jersey; and I am going to
+ try to show you in addition to that, that it was passed hundreds of years
+ ago, by men who believed it was right to burn heretics and tie Quakers to
+ the end of a cart; men and even modest women&mdash;stripped naked&mdash;and
+ lash them from town to town. They were the men who originally passed that
+ statute, and I want to show you that it has slept all this time, and I am
+ informed&mdash;I do not know how it is&mdash;that there never has been a
+ prosecution in this State for blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, what is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is,
+ unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in one
+ country would be a religious exhortation, in another. It is owing to where
+ you are and who is in authority. And let me call your attention to the
+ impudence and bigotry of the American Christians. We send missionaries to
+ other countries. What for? To tell them that their religion is false, that
+ their gods are myths and monsters, that their saviors and apostles were
+ impostors, and that our religion is true. You send a man from Morristown&mdash;a
+ Presbyterian, over to Turkey. He goes there, and he tells the Mohammedans&mdash;and
+ he has it in a pamphlet and he distributes it&mdash;that the Koran is a
+ lie, that Mohammed was not a prophet of God, that the angel Gabriel is not
+ so large that it is four hundred leagues between his eyes&mdash;that it is
+ all a mistake&mdash;there never was an angel so large as that. Then what
+ would the Turks do? Suppose the Turks had a law like this statute in New
+ Jersey. They would put the Morristown missionary in jail, and he would
+ send home word, and then what would the people of Morristown say? Honestly&mdash;what
+ do you think they would say? They would say, "Why, look at those poor,
+ heathen wretches. We sent a man over there armed with the truth, and yet
+ they were so blinded by their idolatrous religion, so steeped in
+ superstition, that they actually put that man in prison." Gentlemen, does
+ not that show the need of more missionaries? I would say, yes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us turn the tables. A gentleman comes from Turkey to Morristown.
+ He has got a pamphlet. He says, "The Koran is the inspired book, Mohammed
+ is the real prophet, your Bible is false and your Savior simply a myth."
+ Thereupon the Morristown people put him in jail. Then what would the Turks
+ say? They would say, "Morristown needs more missionaries," and I would
+ agree with them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, what we want is intellectual hospitality. Let the world
+ talk. And see how foolish this trial is. I have no doubt that the
+ prosecuting attorney-agrees with me to-day, that whether this law is good
+ or bad, this trial should not have taken place. And let me tell you why.
+ Here comes a man into your town and circulates a pamphlet. Now, if they
+ had just kept still, very few would ever have heard of it. That would have
+ been the end. The diameter of the echo would have been a few thousand
+ feet. But in order to stop the discussion of that question, they indicted
+ this man, and that question has been more discussed in this country since
+ this indictment than all the discussions put together since New Jersey was
+ first granted to Charles II.'s dearest brother James, the Duke of York..
+ And what else? A trial here that is to be reported and published all over
+ the United States, a trial that will give Mr. Reynolds a congregation of
+ fifty millions of people. And yet this was done for the purpose of
+ stopping a discussion of this subject. I want to show you that the thing
+ is in itself almost idiotic&mdash;that it defeats itself, and that you
+ cannot crush out these things by force. Not only so, but Mr. Reynolds has
+ the right to be defended, and his counsel has the right to give his
+ opinions on this subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that we put Mr. Reynolds in jail. The argument has not been sent
+ to jail. That is still going the rounds, free as the winds. Suppose you
+ keep him at hard labor a year&mdash;all the time he is there, hundreds and
+ thousands of people will be reading some account, or some fragment, of
+ this trial. There is the trouble. If you could only imprison a thought,
+ then intellectual tyranny might succeed. If you could only take an
+ argument and put a striped suit of clothes on it&mdash;if you could only
+ take a good, splendid, shining fact and lock it up in some dungeon of
+ ignorance, so that its light would never again enter the mind of man, then
+ you might succeed in stopping human progress. Otherwise, no.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see about this particular statute. In the first place, the State
+ has a constitution. That constitution is a rule, a limitation to the power
+ of the Legislature, and a certain breastwork for the protection of private
+ rights, and the constitution says to this sea of passions and prejudices:
+ "Thus far and no farther." The constitution says to each individual: "This
+ shall panoply you; this is your complete coat of mail; this shall defend
+ your rights." And it is usual in this country to make as a part of each
+ constitution several general declarations&mdash;called the Bill of Rights.
+ So I find that in the old constitution of New Jersey, which was adopted in
+ the year of grace 1776, although the people at that time were not educated
+ as they are now&mdash;the spirit of the Revolution at that time not having
+ permeated all classes of society&mdash;a declaration in favor of religious
+ freedom. The people were on the eve of a revolution. This constitution was
+ adopted on the third day of July, 1776, one day before the immortal
+ Declaration of Independence. Now, what do we find in this&mdash;and we
+ have got to go by this light, by this torch, when we examine the statute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I find in that constitution, in its Eighteenth Section, this: "No person
+ shall ever in this State be deprived of the inestimable privilege of
+ worshiping God, in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own
+ conscience; nor under any pretence whatever be compelled to attend any
+ place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he be
+ obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for the purpose of
+ building or repairing any church or churches, contrary to what he believes
+ to be true." That was a very great and splendid step. It was the divorce
+ of church and state. It no longer allowed the State to levy taxes for the
+ support of a particular religion, and it said to every citizen of New
+ Jersey: All that you give for that purpose must be voluntarily given, and
+ the State will not compel you to pay for the maintenance of a church in
+ which you do not believe. So far so good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next paragraph was not so good. "There shall be no establishment of
+ any one religious sect in this State in preference to another, and no
+ Protestant inhabitants of this State shall be denied the enjoyment of any
+ civil right merely on account of his religious principles; but all persons
+ professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean
+ themselves peaceably, shall be capable of being elected to any office of
+ profit or trust, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and
+ immunity enjoyed by other citizens."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What became of the Catholics under that clause, I do not know&mdash;whether
+ they had any right to be elected to office or not under this Act. But in
+ 1844, the State having grown civilized in the meantime, another
+ constitution was adopted. The word Protestant was then left out. There was
+ to be no establishment of one religion over another. But Protestantism did
+ not render a man capable of being elected to office any more than
+ Catholicism, and nothing is said about any religious belief whatever. So
+ far, so good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office of
+ public trust. No person shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right
+ on account of his religious principles."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is a very broad and splendid provision. "No person shall be denied
+ any civil right on account of his religious principles." That was copied
+ from the Virginia constitution, and that clause in the Virginia
+ constitution was written by Thomas Jefferson, and under that clause men
+ were entitled to give their testimony in the courts of Virginia whether
+ they believed in any religion or not, in any bible or not, or in any god
+ or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That same clause was afterward adopted by the State of Illinois, also by
+ many other States, and wherever that clause is, no citizen can be denied
+ any civil right on account of his religious principles. It is a broad and
+ generous clause. This statute, under which this indictment is drawn, is
+ not in accordance with the spirit of that splendid sentiment. Under that
+ clause, no man can be deprived of any civil right on account of his
+ religious principles, or on account of his belief. And yet, on account of
+ this miserable, this antiquated, this barbarous and savage statute, the
+ same man who cannot be denied any political or civil right, can be sent to
+ the penitentiary as a common felon for simply expressing his honest
+ thought. And before I get through I hope to convince you that this statute
+ is unconstitutional.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we will go another step: "Every person may freely speak, write, or
+ publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of
+ that right."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is in the constitution of nearly every State in the Union, and the
+ intention of that is to cover slanderous words&mdash;to cover a case where
+ a man under pretence of enjoying the freedom of speech falsely assails or
+ accuses his neighbor. Of course he should be held responsible for that
+ abuse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then follows the great clause in the constitution of 1844&mdash;more
+ important than any other clause in that instrument&mdash;a clause that
+ shines in that constitution like a star at night.&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of
+ the press."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can anything be plainer&mdash;anything be more forcibly stated?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No law shall be passed to abridge the liberty of speech."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, while you are considering this statute, I want you to keep in mind
+ this other statement:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of
+ the press."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right here there is another thing I want to call your attention to.
+ There is a constitution higher than any statute. There is a law higher
+ than any constitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and no man
+ who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of any
+ legislature. Above all things, one should maintain his selfrespect, and
+ there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with
+ your highest ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a law higher than men can make. The facts as they exist in this
+ poor world&mdash;the absolute consequences of certain acts&mdash;they are
+ above all. And this higher law is the breath of progress, the very
+ outstretched wings of civilization, under which we enjoy the freedom we
+ have. Keep that in your minds. There never was a legislature great enough&mdash;there
+ never was a constitution sacred enough, to compel a civilized man to stand
+ between a black man and his liberty. There never was a constitution great
+ enough to make me stand between any human being and his right to express
+ his honest thoughts. Such a constitution is an insult to the human soul,
+ and I would care no more for it than I would for the growl of a wild
+ beast. But we are not driven to that necessity here. This constitution is
+ in accord with the highest and noblest aspirations of the heart&mdash;"No
+ law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us come to this old law&mdash;this law that was asleep for a
+ hundred years before this constitution was adopted&mdash;this law coiled
+ like a snake beneath the foundations of the Government&mdash;this law,
+ cowardly, dastardly&mdash;this law passed by wretches who were afraid: to
+ discuss&mdash;this law passed by men who could not, and who knew they
+ could not, defend their creed&mdash;and so they said: "Give us the sword
+ of the State and we will cleave the heretic down." And this law was made
+ to control the minority. When the Catholics were in power they visited
+ that law upon their opponents. When the Episcopalians were in power, they
+ tortured and burned the poor Catholic who had scoffed and who had denied
+ the truth of their religion. Whoever was in power used that, and whoever
+ was out of power cursed that&mdash;and yet, the moment he got in power he
+ used it: The people became civilized&mdash;but that law was on the statute
+ book. It simply remained. There it was, sound asleep&mdash;its lips drawn
+ over its long and cruel teeth. Nobody savage enough to waken it. And it
+ slept on, and New Jersey has flourished. Men have done well. You have had
+ average health in this country. Nobody roused the statute until the
+ defendant in this case went to Boonton, and there made a speech in which
+ he gave his honest thought, and the people not having an argument handy,
+ threw stones. Thereupon Mr. Reynolds, the defendant, published a pamphlet
+ on Blasphemy and in it gave a photograph of the Boonton Christians. That
+ is his offence. Now let us read this infamous statute:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>If any person shall willfully blaspheme the holy name of God by
+ denying, cursing, or contumeliously reproaching his being</i>"&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want to say right here&mdash;many a man has cursed the God of another
+ man. The Catholics have cursed the God of the Protestant. The
+ Presbyterians have cursed the God of the Catholics&mdash;charged them with
+ idolatry&mdash;cursed their images, laughed at their ceremonies. And these
+ compliments have been interchanged between all the religions of the world.
+ But I say here to-day that no man, unless a raving maniac, ever cursed the
+ God in whom he believed. No man, no human being, has ever lived who cursed
+ his own idea of God. He always curses the idea that somebody else
+ entertains. No human being ever yet cursed what he believed to be infinite
+ wisdom and infinite goodness&mdash;and you know it. Every man on this jury
+ knows that. He feels that that must be an absolute certainty. Then what
+ have they cursed? Some God they did not believe in&mdash;that is all. And
+ has a man that right? I say, yes. He has a right to give his opinion of
+ Jupiter, and there is nobody in Morristown who will deny him that right.
+ But several thousands years ago it would have been very dangerous for him
+ to have cursed Jupiter, and yet Jupiter is just as powerful now as he was
+ then, but the Roman people are not powerful, and that is all there was to
+ Jupiter&mdash;the Roman people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So there was a time when you could have cursed Zeus, the god of the
+ Greeks, and like Socrates, they would have compelled you to drink hemlock.
+ Yet now everybody can curse this god. Why? Is the god dead? No. He is just
+ as alive as he ever was. Then what has happened? The Greeks have passed
+ away. That is all. So in all of our churches here. Whenever a church is in
+ the minority it clamors for free speech. When it gets in the majority, no.
+ I do not believe the history of the world will show that any orthodox
+ church when in the majority ever had the courage to face the free lips of
+ the world. It sends for a constable. And is it not wonderful that they
+ should do this when they preach the gospel of universal forgiveness&mdash;when
+ they say, "if a man strike you on one cheek turn to him the other also&mdash;but
+ if he laughs at your religion, put him in the penitentiary"? Is that the
+ doctrine? Is that the law?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, read this law. Do you know as I read it I can almost hear John Calvin
+ laugh in his grave. That would have been a delight to him. It is written
+ exactly as he would have written it. There never was an inquisitor who
+ would not have read that law with a malicious smile. The Christians who
+ brought the fagots and ran with all their might to be at the burning,
+ would have enjoyed that law. You know that when they used to burn people
+ for having said something against religion, they used to cut their tongues
+ out before they burned them. Why? For fear that if they did not, the poor,
+ burning victims might say something that would scandalize the Christian
+ gentlemen who were building the fire. All these persons would have been
+ delighted with this law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us read a little further:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "&mdash;<i>Or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, whoever did, since the poor man, or the poor God, was crucified? How
+ did they come to crucify him? Because they did not believe in free speech
+ in Jerusalem. How else? Because there was a law against blasphemy in
+ Jerusalem&mdash;a law exactly like this. Just think of it. Oh, I tell you
+ we have passed too many mile-stones on the shining road of human progress
+ to turn back and wallow in that blood, in that mire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No: Some men have said that he was simply a man. Some believed that he was
+ actually a God. Others believed that he was not only a man, but that he
+ stood as the representative of infinite love and wisdom. No man ever said
+ one word against that Being for saying "Do unto others as ye would that
+ others should do unto you." No man ever raised his voice against him
+ because he said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."
+ And are they the "merciful" who when some man endeavors to answer their
+ argument, put him in the penitentiary? No. The trouble is, the priests&mdash;the
+ trouble is, the ministers&mdash;the trouble is, the people whose business
+ it was to tell the meaning of these things, quarreled' with each other,
+ and they put meanings upon human expressions by malice, meanings that the
+ words will not bear. And let me be just to them. I believe that nearly all
+ that has been done in this world has been honestly done. I believe that
+ the poor savage who kneels down and prays to a stuffed snake&mdash;prays
+ that his little children may recover from the fever&mdash;is honest, and
+ it seems to me that a good God would answer his prayer if he could, if it
+ was in accordance with wisdom, because the poor savage was doing the best
+ he could, and no one can do any better than that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I believe that the Presbyterians who used to think that nearly
+ everybody was going to hell, said exactly what they believed. They were
+ honest about it, and I would not send one of them to jail&mdash;would
+ never think of such a thing&mdash;even if he called the unbelievers of the
+ world "wretches," "dogs," and "devils." What would I do? I would simply
+ answer him&mdash;that is all; answer him kindly. I might laugh at him a
+ little, but I would answer him in kindness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So these divisions of the human mind are natural. They are a necessity. Do
+ you know that all the mechanics that ever lived&mdash;take the best ones&mdash;cannot
+ make two clocks that will run exactly alike one hour, one minute? They
+ cannot make two pendulums that will beat in exactly the same time, one
+ beat. If you cannot do that, how are you going to make hundreds,
+ thousands, billions of people, each with a different quality and quantity
+ of brain, each clad in a robe of living, quivering flesh, and each driven
+ by passion's storm over the wild sea of life&mdash;how are you going to
+ make them all think alike? This is the impossible thing that Christian
+ ignorance and bigotry and malice have been trying to do. This was the
+ object of the Inquisition and of the foolish Legislature that passed this
+ statute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me read you another line from this ignorant statute:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Or the Christian religion</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, what is the Christian religion? "If you scoff at the Christian
+ religion&mdash;if you curse the Christian religion." Well what is it?
+ Gentlemen, you hear Presbyterians every day attack the Catholic Church. Is
+ that the Christian religion? The Catholic believes it is the Christian
+ religion, and you have to admit that it is the oldest one, and then the
+ Catholics turn round and scoff at the Protestants. Is that the Christian
+ religion? If so, every Christian religion has been cursed by every other
+ Christian religion. Is not that an absurd and foolish statute?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say that the Catholic has the right to attack the Presbyterian and tell
+ him, "Your doctrine is all wrong." I think he has the right to say to him,
+ "You are leading thousands to hell." If he believes it, he not only has
+ the right to say it, but it is his duty to say it; and if the Presbyterian
+ really believes the Catholics are all going to the devil, it is his duty
+ to say so. Why not? I will never have any religion that I cannot defend&mdash;that
+ is, that I do not believe I can defend. I may be mistaken, because no man
+ is absolutely certain that he knows. We all understand that. Every one is
+ liable to be mistaken. The horizon of each individual is very narrow, and
+ in his poor sky the stars are few and very small.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Or the Word of God</i>&mdash;"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The canonical Scriptures contained in the books of the Old and New
+ Testaments</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what has a man the right to say about that? Has he the right to show
+ that the book of Revelation got into the canon by one vote, and one only?
+ Has he the right to show that they passed in convention upon what books
+ they would put in and what they would not? Has he the right to show that
+ there were twenty-eight books called "The Books of the Hebrew's"? Has he
+ the right to show that? Has he the right to show that Martin Luther said
+ he did not believe there was one solitary word of gospel in the Epistle to
+ the Romans? Has he the right to show that some of these books were not
+ written till nearly two hundred years afterward? Has he the right to say
+ it, if he believes it? I do not say whether this is true or not, but has a
+ man the right to say it if he believes it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose I should read the Bible all through right here in Morristown, and
+ after I got through I should make up my mind that it is not a true book&mdash;what
+ ought I to say? Ought I to clap my hand over my mouth and start for
+ another State, and the minute I got over the line say, "It is not true, It
+ is not true"? Or, ought I to have the right and privilege of saying right
+ here in New Jersey, "My fellow-citizens, I have read the book&mdash;I do
+ not believe that it is the word of God"? Suppose I read it and think it is
+ true, then I am bound to say so. If I should go to Turkey and read the
+ Koran and make up my mind that it is false, you would all say that I was a
+ miserable poltroon if I did not say so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By force you can make hypocrites&mdash;men who will agree with you from
+ the teeth out, and in their hearts hate you. We want no more hypocrites.
+ We have enough in every community. And how are you going to keep from
+ having more? By having the air free,&mdash;by wiping from your statute
+ books such miserable and infamous laws as this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The Holy Scriptures</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are they holy? Must a man be honest? Has he the right to be sincere? There
+ are thousands of things in the Scriptures that everybody believes.
+ Everybody believes the Scriptures are right when they say, "Thou shalt not
+ steal"&mdash;everybody. And when they say "Give good measure, heaped up
+ and running over," everybody says, "Good!" So when they say "Love your
+ neighbor," everybody applauds that. Suppose a man believes that, and
+ practices it, does it make any difference whether he believes in the flood
+ or not? Is that of any importance? Whether a man built an ark or not&mdash;does
+ that make the slightest difference? A man might deny it and yet be a very
+ good man. Another might believe it and be a very mean man. Could it now,
+ by any possibility, make a man a good father, a good husband, a good
+ citizen? Does it make any difference whether you believe it or not? Does
+ it make any difference whether or not you believe that a man was going
+ through town, and his hair was a little short, like mine, and some little
+ children laughed at him, and thereupon two bears from the woods came down
+ and tore to pieces about forty of these children? Is it necessary to
+ believe that? Suppose a man should say, "I guess that is a mistake; they
+ did not copy that right; I guess the man that reported that was a little
+ dull of hearing and did not get the story exactly right." Any harm in
+ saying that? Is a man to be sent to the penitentiary for that? Can you
+ imagine an infinitely good God sending a man to hell because he did not
+ believe the bear story?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I say if you believe the Bible, say so; if you do not believe it, say
+ so. And here is the vital mistake, I might almost say, in Protestantism
+ itself. The Protestants when they fought the Catholics said: "Read the
+ Bible for yourselves&mdash;stop taking it from your priests&mdash;read the
+ sacred volume with your own eyes; it is a revelation from God to his
+ children, and you are the children." And then they said: "If after you
+ read it you do not believe it, and you say anything against it, we will
+ put you in jail, and God will put you in hell." That is a fine position to
+ get a man in. It is like a man who invited his neighbor to come and look
+ at his pictures, saying: "They are the finest in the place, and I want
+ your candid opinion. A man who looked at them the other day said they were
+ daubs, and I kicked him downstairs&mdash;now I want your candid judgment."
+ So the Protestant Church says to a man, "This Bible is a message from your
+ Father,&mdash;your Father in heaven. Read it. Judge for yourself. But if
+ after you have read it you say it is not true, I will put you in the
+ penitentiary for one year."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Catholic Church has a little more sense about that&mdash;at least more
+ logic. It says: "This Bible is not given to everybody. It is given to the
+ world, to be sure, but it must be interpreted by the church. God would not
+ give a Bible to the world unless he also appointed some one, some
+ organization, to tell the world what it means." They said: "We do not want
+ the world filled with interpretations, and all the interpreters fighting
+ each other." And the Protestant has gone to the infinite absurdity of
+ saying: "Judge for yourself, but if you judge wrong you will go to the
+ penitentiary here and to hell hereafter.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us see further:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Or by profane scoffing expose them to ridicule</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of such a law as that, passed under a constitution that says, "No
+ law shall abridge the liberty of speech." But you must not ridicule the
+ Scriptures. Did anybody ever dream of passing a law to protect Shakespeare
+ from being laughed at? Did anybody ever think of such a thing? Did anybody
+ ever want any legislative enactment to keep people from holding Robert
+ Burns in contempt? The songs of Burns will be sung as long as there is
+ love in the human heart. Do we need to protect him from ridicule by a
+ statute? Does he need assistance from New Jersey? Is any statute needed to
+ keep Euclid from being laughed at in this neighborhood? And is it possible
+ that a work written by an infinite Being has to be protected by a
+ legislature? Is it possible that a book cannot be written by a God so that
+ it will not excite the laughter of the human race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why, gentlemen, humor is one of the most valuable things in the human
+ brain. It is the torch of the mind&mdash;it sheds light. Humor is the
+ readiest test of truth&mdash;of the natural, of the sensible&mdash;and
+ when you take from a man all sense of humor, there will only be enough
+ left to make a bigot. Teach this man who has no humor&mdash;no sense of
+ the absurd&mdash;the Presbyterian creed, fill his darkened brain with
+ superstition and his heart with hatred&mdash;then frighten him with the
+ threat of hell, and he will be ready to vote for that statute. Such men
+ made that law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us read another clause:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>And every person so offending shall, on conviction, be fined nor
+ exceeding two hundred dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not exceeding
+ twelve months, or both</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want you to remember that this statute was passed in England hundreds of
+ years ago&mdash;just in that language. The punishment, however, has been
+ somewhat changed. In the good old days when the king sat on the throne&mdash;in
+ the good old days when the altar was the right-bower of the throne&mdash;then,
+ instead of saying: "Fined two hundred dollars and imprisoned one year," it
+ was: "All his goods shall be confiscated; his tongue shall be bored with a
+ hot iron, and upon his forehead he shall be branded with the letter B; and
+ for the second offence he shall suffer death by burning." Those were the
+ good old days when people maintained the orthodox religion in all its
+ purity and in all its ferocity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first question for you, gentlemen, to decide in this case is: Is this
+ statute constitutional? Is this statute in harmony with, the part of the
+ constitution of 1844 which says: "The liberty of speech shall not be
+ abridged"? That is for you to say. Is this law constitutional, or is it
+ simply an old statute that fell asleep, that was forgotten, that people
+ simply failed to repeal? I believe I can convince you, if you will think a
+ moment, that our fathers never intended to establish a government like
+ that. When they fought for what they believed to be religious liberty&mdash;when
+ they fought for what they believed to be liberty of speech, they believed
+ that all such statutes would be wiped from the statute books of all the
+ States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you another reason why I believe this. We have in this country
+ naturalization laws. People may come here irrespective of their religion.
+ They must simply swear allegiance to this country&mdash;they must forswear
+ allegiance to every other potentate, prince and power&mdash;but they do
+ not have to change their religion. A Hindoo may become a citizen of the
+ United States, and the Constitution of the United States, like the
+ constitution of New Jersey, guarantees religious liberty. That Hindoo
+ believes in a God&mdash;in a God that no Christian does believe in. He
+ believes in a sacred book that every Christian looks upon as a collection
+ of falsehoods. He believes, too, in a Savior&mdash;in Buddha. Now, I ask
+ you,&mdash;when that man comes here and becomes a citizen&mdash;when the
+ Constitution is about him, above him&mdash;has he the right to give his
+ ideas about his religion? Has he the right to say in New Jersey: "There is
+ no God except the Supreme Brahm&mdash;there is no Savior except Buddha,
+ the Illuminated, Buddha the Blest"? I say that he has that right&mdash;and
+ you have no right, because in addition to that he says, "You are mistaken;
+ your God is not God; your Bible is not true, and your religion is a
+ mistake," to abridge his liberty of speech. He has the right to say it,
+ and if he has the right to say it, I insist before this Court and before
+ this jury, that he has the right to give his reasons for saying it; and in
+ giving those reasons, in maintaining his side, he has the right, not
+ simply to appeal to history, not simply to the masonry of logic, but he
+ has the right to shoot the arrows of wit, and to use the smile of
+ ridicule. Anything that can be laughed out of this world ought not to stay
+ in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the Persian&mdash;the believer in Zoroaster, in the spirits of Good and
+ Evil, and that the spirit of Evil will finally triumph forever&mdash;if
+ that is his religion&mdash;has the right to state it, and the right to
+ give his reasons for his belief. How infinitely preposterous for you, one
+ of the States of this Union, to invite a Persian or a Hindoo to come to
+ your shores. You do not ask him to renounce his God. You ask him to
+ renounce the Shah. Then when he becomes a citizen, having the rights of
+ every other citizen, he has the right to defend his religion and to
+ denounce yours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing. What was the spirit of our Government at that
+ time? You must look at the leading men. Who were they? What were their
+ opinions? Were most of them as guilty of blasphemy as is the defendant in
+ this case? Thomas Jefferson&mdash;and there is, in my judgment, only one
+ name on the page of American history greater than his&mdash;only one name
+ for which I have a greater and tenderer reverence&mdash;and that is
+ Abraham Lincoln, because of all men who ever lived and had power, he was
+ the most merciful. And that is the way to test a man. How does he use
+ power? Does he want to crush his fellow citizens? Does he like to lock
+ somebody up in the penitentiary because he has the power of the moment?
+ Does he wish to use it as a despot, or as a philanthropist&mdash;like a
+ devil, or like a man? Thomas Jefferson entertained about the same views
+ entertained by the defendant in this case, and he was made President of
+ the United States. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence,
+ founder of the University of Virginia, writer of that clause in the
+ constitution of that State, that made all the citizens equal before the
+ law. And when I come to the very sentences here charged as blasphemy, I
+ will show you that these were the common sentiments of thousands of very
+ great, of very intellectual and admirable men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have no time, and it may be this is not the place and the occasion, to
+ call your attention to the infinite harm that has been done in almost
+ every religious nation by statutes such as this. Where that statute is,
+ liberty can not be; and if this statute is enforced by this jury and by
+ this Court, and if it is afterwards carried out, and if it could be
+ carried out in the States of this Union, there would be an end of all
+ intellectual progress. We would go back to the Dark Ages. Every man's
+ mind, upon these subjects at least, would become a stagnant pool, covered
+ with the scum of prejudice and meanness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And wherever such laws have been enforced, have the people been friends?
+ Here we are to-day in this blessed air&mdash;here amid these happy fields.
+ Can we imagine, with these surroundings, that a man for having been found
+ with a crucifix in his poor little home, had been taken from his wife and
+ children and burned&mdash;burned by Protestants? You cannot conceive of
+ such a thing now. Neither can you conceive that there was a time when
+ Catholics found some poor Protestant contradicting one of the dogmas of
+ the church, and took that poor honest wretch&mdash;while his wife wept&mdash;while
+ his children clung to his hands&mdash;to the public square, drove a stake
+ in the ground, put a chain or two about him, lighted the fagots, and let
+ the wife whom he loved and his little children see the flames climb around
+ his limbs&mdash;you cannot imagine that any such infamy was ever
+ practiced. And yet I tell you that the same spirit made this detestable,
+ infamous, devilish statute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You can hardly imagine that there was a time when the same kind of men
+ that made this law said to another man: "You say this world is round?"
+ "Yes, sir; I think it is, because I have seen its shadow on the moon."
+ "You have?"&mdash;Now, can you imagine a society, outside of hyenas and
+ boa-constrictors, that would take that man, put him in the penitentiary,
+ in a dungeon, turn the key upon him, and let his name be blotted from the
+ book of human life? Years afterward some explorer amid ruins finds a few
+ bones. The same spirit that did that, made this statute&mdash;the same
+ spirit that did that, went before the grand jury in this case&mdash;exactly.
+ Give the men that had this man indicted, the power, and I would not want
+ to live in that particular part of the country. I would not willingly live
+ with such men. I would go somewhere else, where the air is free, where I
+ could speak my sentiments to my wife, to my children, and to my neighbors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, this persecution differs only in degree from the infamies of the
+ olden times. What does it mean? It means that the State of New Jersey has
+ all the light it wants. And what does that mean? It means that the State
+ of New Jersey is absolutely infallible&mdash;that it has got its growth
+ and does not propose to grow any more. New Jersey knows enough, and it
+ will send teachers to the penitentiary.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hardly possible that this State has accomplished all that it is ever
+ going to accomplish. Religions are for a day. They are the clouds.
+ Humanity is the eternal blue. Religions are the waves of the sea. These
+ waves depend upon the force and direction of the wind&mdash;that is to
+ say, of passion; but Humanity is the great sea. And so our religions
+ change from day to day, and it is a blessed thing that they do. Why?
+ Because we grow, and we are getting a little more civilized every day,&mdash;and
+ any man that is not willing to let another man express his opinion, is not
+ a civilized man, and you know it. Any man that does not give to everybody
+ else the rights he claims for himself, is not in honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here is a man who says, "I am going to join the Methodist Church." What
+ right has he? Just the same right to join it that I have not to join it&mdash;no
+ more, no less. But if you are a Methodist and I am not, it simply proves
+ that you do not agree with me, and that I do not agree with you&mdash;that
+ is all. Another man is a Catholic. He was born a Catholic, or is convinced
+ that Catholicism is right. That is his business, and any man that would
+ persecute him on that account, is a poor barbarian&mdash;a savage; any man
+ that would abuse him on that account, is a barbarian&mdash;a savage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then I take the next step. A man does not wish to belong to any church.
+ How are you going to judge him? Judge him by the way he treats his wife,
+ his children, his neighbors. Does he pay his debts? Does he tell the
+ truth? Does he help the poor? Has he got a heart that melts when he hears
+ grief's story? That is the way to judge him. I do not care what he thinks
+ about the bears, or the flood, about bibles or gods. When some poor mother
+ is found wandering in the street with a babe at her breast, does he quote
+ Scripture, or hunt for his pocket-book? That is the way to judge. And
+ suppose he does not believe in any bible whatever? If Christianity is
+ true, that is his misfortune, and everybody should pity the poor wretch
+ that is going down the hill. Why kick him? You will get your revenge on
+ him through all eternity&mdash;is not that enough?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I say, let us judge each other by our actions, not by theories, not by
+ what we happen to believe&mdash;because that depends very much on where we
+ were born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you had been born in Turkey, you probably would have been a Mohammedan.
+ If I had been born among the Hindoos, I might have been a Buddhist&mdash;I
+ can't tell. If I had been raised in Scotland, on oatmeal, I might have
+ been a Covenanter&mdash;nobody knows. If I had lived in Ireland, and seen
+ my poor wife and children driven into the street, I think I might have
+ been a Home-ruler&mdash;no doubt of it. You see it depends on where you
+ were born&mdash;much depends on our surroundings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, there are men born in Turkey who are not Mohammedans, and there
+ are men born in this country who are not Christians&mdash;Methodists,
+ Unitarians, or Catholics, plenty of them, who are unbelievers&mdash;plenty
+ of them who deny the truth of the Scriptures&mdash;plenty of them who say:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I know not whether there be a God or not." Well, it is a thousand times
+ better to say that honestly than to say dishonestly that you believe in
+ God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you want to know the opinion of your neighbor, you want his honest
+ opinion. You do not want to be deceived. You do not want to talk with a
+ hypocrite. You want to get straight at his honest mind&mdash;and then you
+ are going to judge him, not by what he says but by what he does. It is
+ very easy to sail along with the majority&mdash;easy to sail the way the
+ boats are going&mdash;easy to float with the stream; but when you come to
+ swim against the tide, with the men on the shore throwing rocks at you,
+ you will get a good deal of exercise in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And do you know that we ought to feel under the greatest obligation to men
+ who have fought the prevailing notions of their day? There is not a
+ Presbyterian in Morristown that does not hold up for admiration the man
+ that carried the flag of the Presbyterians when they were in the minority&mdash;not
+ one. There is not a Methodist in this State who does not admire John and
+ Charles Wesley and Whitefield, who carried the banner of that new and
+ despised sect when it was in the minority. They glory in them because they
+ braved public opinion, because they dared to oppose idiotic, barbarous and
+ savage statutes like this. And there is not a Universalist that does not
+ worship dear old Hosea Ballou&mdash;I love him myself&mdash;because he
+ said to the Presbyterian minister: "You are going around trying to keep
+ people out of hell, and I am going around trying to keep hell out of the
+ people." Every Universalist admires him and loves him because when
+ despised and railed at and spit upon, he stood firm, a patient witness for
+ the eternal mercy of God. And there is not a solitary Protestant who does
+ not honor Martin Luther&mdash;who does not honor the Covenanters in poor
+ Scotland, and that poor girl who was tied out on the sand of the sea by
+ Episcopalians, and kept there till the rising tide drowned her, and all
+ she had to do to save her life was to say, "God save the king," but she
+ would not say it without the addition of the words, "If it be God's will."
+ No one, who is not a miserable, contemptible wretch, can fail to stand in
+ admiration before such courage, such self-denial&mdash;such heroism. No
+ matter what the attitude of your body may be, your soul falls on its knees
+ before such men and such women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take another step. Where would we have been if authority had always
+ triumphed? Where would we have been if such statutes had always been
+ carried out? We have now a science called astronomy. That science has done
+ more to enlarge the horizon of human thought than all things else. We now
+ live in an infinite universe. We know that the sun is a million times
+ larger than our earth, and we know that there are other great luminaries
+ millions of times larger than our sun. We know that there are planets so
+ far away that light, traveling at the rate of one hundred and eighty-five
+ thousand miles a second, requires fifteen thousand years to reach this
+ grain of sand, this tear, we call the earth&mdash;and we now know that all
+ the fields of space are sown thick with constellations. If that statute
+ had been enforced, that science would not now be the property of the human
+ mind. That science is contrary to the Bible, and for asserting the truth
+ you become a criminal. For what sum of money, for what amount of wealth,
+ would the world have the science of astronomy expunged from the brain of
+ man? We learned the story of the stars in spite of that statute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first men who said the world was round were scourged for scoffing at
+ the Scriptures. And even Martin Luther, speaking of one of the greatest
+ men that ever lived, said: "Does he think with his little lever to
+ overturn the Universe of God?" Martin Luther insisted that such men ought
+ to be trampled under foot. If that statute had been carried into effect,
+ Galileo would have been impossible. Kepler, the discoverer of the three
+ laws, would have died with the great secret locked in his brain, and
+ mankind would have been left ignorant, superstitious, and besotted. And
+ what else? If that statute had been carried out, the world would have been
+ deprived of the philosophy of Spinoza; of the philosophy, of the
+ literature, of the wit and wisdom, the justice and mercy of Voltaire, the
+ greatest Frenchman that ever drew the breath of life&mdash;the man who by
+ his mighty pen abolished torture in a nation, and helped to civilize a
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If that statute had been enforced, nearly all the books that enrich the
+ libraries of the world could not have been written. If that statute had
+ been enforced, Humboldt could not have delivered the lectures now known as
+ "The Cosmos." If that statute had been enforced, Charles Darwin would not
+ have been allowed to give to the world his discoveries that have been of
+ more benefit to mankind than all the sermons ever uttered. In England they
+ have placed his sacred dust in the great Abbey. If he had lived in New
+ Jersey, and this statute could have been enforced, he would have lived one
+ year at least in your penitentiary. Why? That man went so far as not
+ simply to deny the truth of your Bible, but absolutely to deny the
+ existence of your God. Was he a good man? Yes, one of the noblest and
+ greatest of men. Humboldt, the greatest German who ever lived, was of the
+ same opinion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so I might go on with the great men of to-day. Who are the men who are
+ leading the race upward and shedding light in the intellectual world? They
+ are the men declared by that statute to be criminals. Mr. Spencer could
+ not publish his books in the State of New Jersey. He would be arrested,
+ tried, and imprisoned; and yet that man has added to the intellectual
+ wealth of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So with Huxley, so with Tyndall, so with Helmholtz&mdash;so with the
+ greatest thinkers and greatest writers of modern times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may not agree with these men&mdash;and what does that prove? It simply
+ proves that they do not agree with you&mdash;that is all. Who is to blame?
+ I do not know. They may be wrong, and you may be right; but if they had
+ the power, and put you in the penitentiary simply because you differed
+ with them, they would be savages; and if you have the power and imprison
+ men because they differ from you, why then, of course, you are savages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No; I believe in intellectual hospitality. I love men that have a little
+ horizon to their minds&mdash;a little sky, a little scope. I hate anything
+ that is narrow and pinched and withered and mean and crawling, and that is
+ willing to live on dust. I believe in creating such an atmosphere that
+ things will burst into blossom. I believe in good will, good health, good
+ fellowship, good feeling&mdash;and if there is any God on the earth, or in
+ heaven, let us hope that he will be generous and grand. Do you not see
+ what the effect will be? I am not cursing you because you are a Methodist,
+ and not damning you because you are a Catholic, or because you are an
+ Infidel&mdash;a good man is more than all of these. The grandest of all
+ things is to be in the highest and noblest sense a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now let us see the frightful things that this man, the defendant in this
+ case, has done. Let me read the charges against him as set out in this
+ indictment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I shall insist that this statute does not cover any publication&mdash;that
+ it covers simply speech&mdash;not in writing, not in book or pamphlet. Let
+ us see:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>This Bible describes God as so loving that he drowned the whole world
+ in his mad fury</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, the great question about that is, is it true? Does the Bible
+ describe God as having drowned the whole world with the exception of eight
+ people? Does it, or does it not? I do not know whether there is anybody in
+ this county who has really read the Bible, but I believe the story of the
+ flood is there. It does say that God destroyed all flesh, and that he did
+ so because he was angry. He says so, himself, if the Bible be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant has simply repeated what is in the Bible. The Bible says
+ that God is loving, and says that he drowned the world, and that he was
+ angry. Is it blasphemy to quote from the "Sacred Scriptures"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Because it was so much worse than he, knowing all things, ever
+ supposed it could be.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, the Bible does say that he repented having made man. Now, is there
+ any blasphemy in saying that the Bible is true? That is the only question.
+ It is a fact that God, according to the Bible, did drown nearly everybody.
+ If God knows all things, he must have known at the time he made them that
+ he was going to drown them. Is it likely that a being of infinite wisdom
+ would deliberately do what he knew he must undo? Is it blasphemy to ask
+ that question? Have you a right to think about it at all? If you have, you
+ have the right to tell somebody what you think&mdash;if not, you have no
+ right to discuss it, no right to think about it. All you have to do is to
+ read it and believe it&mdash;to open your mouth like a young robin, and
+ swallow&mdash;worms or shingle nails&mdash;no matter which.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant further blasphemed and said that:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>An all-wise, unchangeable God, who got out of patience with a world
+ which was just what his own stupid blundering had made it, knew no better
+ way out of the muddle than to destroy it by drowning!</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is that true? Was not the world exactly as God made it? Certainly. Did he
+ not, if the Bible is true, drown the people? He did. Did he know he would
+ drown them when he made them? He did. Did he know they ought to be drowned
+ when they were made? He did. Where then, is the blasphemy in saying so?
+ There is not a minister in this world who could explain it&mdash;who would
+ be permitted to explain it&mdash;under this statute. And yet you would
+ arrest this man and put him in the penitentiary. But after you lock him in
+ the cell, there remains the question still. Is it possible that a good and
+ wise God, knowing that he was going to drown them, made millions of
+ people? What did he make them for? I do not know. I do not pretend to be
+ wise enough to answer that question. Of course, you cannot answer the
+ question. Is there anything blasphemous in that? Would it be blasphemy in
+ me to say I do not believe that any God ever made men, women and children&mdash;mothers,
+ with babes clasped to their breasts, and then sent a flood to fill the
+ world with death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A rain lasting for forty days&mdash;the water rising hour by hour, and the
+ poor wretched children of God climbing to the tops of their houses&mdash;then
+ to the tops of the hills. The water still rising&mdash;no mercy. The
+ people climbing higher and higher, looking to the mountains for salvation&mdash;the
+ merciless rain still falling, the inexorable flood still rising. Children
+ falling from the arms of mothers&mdash;no pity. The highest hills covered&mdash;infancy
+ and old age mingling in death&mdash;the cries of women, the sobs and sighs
+ lost in the roar of waves&mdash;the heavens still relentless. The
+ mountains are covered&mdash;a shoreless sea rolls round the world, and on
+ its billows are billions of corpses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the greatest crime that man has imagined, and this crime is called
+ a deed of infinite mercy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that? I do not believe one word of it, and I have the right
+ to say to all the world that this is false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be a good God, the story is not true. If there be a wise God, the
+ story is not true. Ought an honest man to be sent to the penitentiary for
+ simply telling the truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose we had a statute that whoever scoffed at science&mdash;whoever by
+ profane language should bring the rule of three into contempt, or whoever
+ should attack the proposition that two parallel lines will never include a
+ space, should be sent to the penitentiary&mdash;what would you think of
+ it? It would be just as wise and just as idiotic as this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what else says the defendant?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The Bible-God says that his people made him jealous." "Provoked him to
+ anger.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is that true? It is. If it is true, is it blasphemous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us read another line&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>And now he will raise the mischief with them; that his anger bums like
+ hell</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is true. The Bible says of God&mdash;"My anger burns to the lowest
+ hell." And that is all that the defendant says. Every word of it is in the
+ Bible. He simply does not believe it&mdash;and for that reason is a
+ "blasphemer."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say to you now, gentlemen,&mdash;and I shall argue to the Court,&mdash;that
+ there is not in what I have read a solitary blasphemous word&mdash;not a
+ word that has not been said in hundreds of pulpits in the Christian world.
+ Theodore Parker, a Unitarian, speaking of this Bible-God said: "Vishnu
+ with a necklace of skulls, Vishnu with bracelets of living, hissing
+ serpents, is a figure of Love and Mercy compared to the God of the Old
+ Testament." That, we might call "blasphemy," but not what I have read.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us read on:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>He would destroy them all were it not that he feared the wrath of the
+ enemy</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is in the Bible&mdash;word for word. Then the defendant in
+ astonishment says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The Almighty God afraid of his enemies!</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is what the Bible says. What does it mean? If the Bible is true, God
+ was afraid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Can the mind conceive of more horrid blasphemy?</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is not that true? If God be infinitely good and wise and powerful, is it
+ possible he is afraid of anything? If the defendant had said that God was
+ afraid of his enemies, that might have been blasphemy&mdash;but this man
+ says the Bible says that, and you are asked to say that it is blasphemy.
+ Now, up to this point there is no blasphemy, even if you were to enforce
+ this infamous statute&mdash;this savage law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The Old Testament records for our instruction in morals, the most foul
+ and bestial instances of fornication, incest, and polygamy, perpetrated by
+ God's own saints, and the New Testament indorses these lecherous wretches
+ as examples for all good Christians to follow</i>.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, is it not a fact that the Old Testament does uphold polygamy? Abraham
+ would have gotten into trouble in New Jersey&mdash;no doubt of that. Sarah
+ could have obtained a divorce in this State&mdash;no doubt of that. What
+ is the use of telling a falsehood about it? Let us tell the truth about
+ the patriarchs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody knows that the same is true of Moses. We have all heard of
+ Solomon&mdash;a gentleman with five or six hundred wives, and three or
+ four hundred other ladies with whom he was acquainted. This is simply what
+ the defendant says. Is there any blasphemy about that? It is only the
+ truth. If Solomon were living in the United States to-day, we would put
+ him in the penitentiary. You know that under the Edmunds Mormon law he
+ would be locked up. If you should present a petition signed by his eleven
+ hundred wives, you could not get him out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it was with David. There are some splendid things about David, of
+ course. I admit that, and pay my tribute of respect to his courage&mdash;but
+ he happened to have ten or twelve wives too many, so he shut them up, put
+ them in a kind of penitentiary and kept them there till they died. That
+ would not be considered good conduct even in Morristown. You know that. Is
+ it any harm to speak of it? There are plenty of ministers here to set it
+ right&mdash;thousands of them all over the country, every one with his
+ chance to talk all day Sunday and nobody to say a word back. The pew
+ cannot reply to the pulpit, you know; it has just to sit there and take
+ it. If there is any harm in this, if it is not true, they ought to answer
+ it. But it is here, and the only answer is an indictment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say that Lot was a bad man. So I say of Abraham, and of Jacob. Did you
+ ever know of a more despicable fraud practiced by one brother on another
+ than Jacob practiced on Esau? My sympathies have always been with Esau. He
+ seemed to be a manly man. Is it blasphemy to say that you do not like a
+ hypocrite, a murderer, or a thief, because his name is in the Bible? How
+ do you know what such men are mentioned for? May be they are mentioned as
+ examples, and you certainly ought not to be led away and induced to
+ imagine that a man with seven hundred wives is a pattern of domestic
+ propriety, one to be followed by yourself and your sons. I might go on and
+ mention the names of hundreds of others who committed every conceivable
+ crime, in the name of religion&mdash;who declared war, and on the field of
+ battle killed men, women and babes, even children yet unborn, in the name
+ of the most merciful God. The Bible is filled with the names and crimes of
+ these sacred savages, these inspired beasts. Any man who says that a God
+ of love commanded the commission of these crimes is, to say the least of
+ it, mistaken. If there be a God, then it is blasphemous to charge him with
+ the commission of crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let us read further from this indictment:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The aforesaid printed document contains other scandalous, infamous and
+ blasphemous matters and things, to the tenor and effect following, that is
+ to say&mdash;"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then comes this particularly blasphemous line:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Now, reader, take time and calmly think it over</i> ."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, there are many things I have read that I should not have
+ expressed in exactly the same language used by the defendant, and many
+ things that I am going to read I might not have said at all, but the
+ defendant had the right to say every word with which he is charged in this
+ indictment. He had the right to give his honest thought, no matter whether
+ any human being agreed with what he said or not, and no matter whether any
+ other man approved of the manner in which he said these things. I defend
+ his right to speak, whether I believe in what he spoke or not, or in the
+ propriety of saying what he did. I should defend a man just as cheerfully
+ who had spoken against my doctrine, as one who had spoken against the
+ popular superstitions of my time. It would make no difference to me how
+ unjust the attack was upon my belief&mdash;how maliciously ingenious; and
+ no matter how sacred the conviction that was attacked, I would defend the
+ freedom of speech. And why? Because no attack can be answered by force, no
+ argument can be refuted by a blow, or by imprisonment, or by fine. You may
+ imprison the man, but the argument is free; you may fell the man to the
+ earth, but the statement stands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the
+ Christian world to be sacred. Yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the
+ truth, and by truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes. The
+ defendant says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>Take time to calmly think it over: Was a Jewish girl the mother of
+ God, the mother of your God?</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant probably asked this question, supposing that it must be
+ answered by all sensible people in the negative. If the Christian religion
+ is true, then a Jewish girl was the mother of Almighty God. Personally, if
+ the doctrine is true, I have no fault to find with the statement that a
+ Jewish maiden was the mother of God.&mdash;Millions believe, that this is
+ true&mdash;I do not believe,&mdash;but who knows? If a God came from the
+ throne of the universe, came to this world and became the child of a pure
+ and loving woman, it would not lessen, in my eyes, the dignity or the
+ greatness of that God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no more perfect picture on the earth, or within the imagination
+ of man, than a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms a child, the
+ fruit of love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No matter how the statement is made, the fact remains the same. A Jewish
+ girl became the mother of God. If the Bible is true, that is true, and to
+ repeat it, even according to your law, is not blasphemous, and to doubt
+ it, or to express the doubt, or to deny it, is not contrary to your
+ constitution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To this defendant it seemed improbable that God was ever born of woman,
+ was ever held in the lap of a mother; and because he cannot believe this,
+ he is charged with blasphemy. Could you pour contempt on Shakespeare by
+ saying that his mother was a woman,&mdash;by saying that he was once a
+ poor, crying, little, helpless child? Of course he was; and he afterwards
+ became the greatest human being that ever touched the earth,&mdash;the
+ only man whose intellectual wings have reached from sky to sky; and he was
+ once a crying babe. What of it? Does that cast any scorn or contempt upon
+ him? Does this take any of the music from "Midsummer Night's Dream"?&mdash;any
+ of the passionate wealth from "Antony and Cleopatra," any philosophy from
+ "Macbeth," any intellectual grandeur from "King Lear"? On the contrary,
+ these great productions of the brain show the growth of the dimpled babe,
+ give every mother a splendid dream and hope for her child, and cover every
+ cradle with a sublime possibility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant is also charged with having said that: "<i>God cried and
+ screamed</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why not? If he was absolutely a child, he was like other children,&mdash;like
+ yours, like mine. I have seen the time, when absent from home, that I
+ would have given more to have heard my children cry, than to have heard
+ the finest orchestra that ever made the air burst into flower. What if God
+ did cry? It simply shows that his humanity was real and not assumed, that
+ it was a tragedy, real, and not a poor pretence. And the defendant also
+ says that if the orthodox religion be true, that the
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>God of the Universe kicked, and flung about his little arms, and made
+ aimless dashes into space with his little fists</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there anything in this that is blasphemous? One of the best pictures I
+ ever saw of the Virgin and Child was painted by the Spaniard, Murillo.
+ Christ appears to be a truly natural, chubby, happy babe. Such a picture
+ takes nothing from the majesty, the beauty, or the glory of the
+ incarnation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think it is the best thing about the Catholic Church that it lifts up
+ for adoration and admiration, a mother,&mdash;that it pays what it calls
+ "Divine honors" to a woman. There is certainly goodness in that, and where
+ a church has so few practices that are good, I am willing to point this
+ one out. It is the one redeeming feature about Catholicism, that it
+ teaches the worship of a woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant says more about the childhood of Christ. He goes so far as
+ to say, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>He was found staring foolishly at his own little toes.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And why not? The Bible says, that "he increased in wisdom and stature."
+ The defendant might have referred to something far more improbable. In the
+ same verse in which St. Luke says that Jesus increased in wisdom and
+ stature, will be found the assertion that he increased in favor with God
+ and man. The defendant might have asked how it was that the love of God
+ for God increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the defendant has simply stated that the child Jesus grew, as other
+ children grow; that he acted like other children, and if he did, it is
+ more than probable that he did stare at his own toes. I have laughed many
+ a time to see little children astonished with the sight of their feet.
+ They seem to wonder what on earth puts the little toes in motion.
+ Certainly there is nothing blasphemous in supposing that the feet of
+ Christ amused him, precisely as the feet of other children have amused
+ them. There is nothing blasphemous about this; on the contrary, it is
+ beautiful. If I believed in the existence of God, the Creator of this
+ world, the Being who, with the hand of infinity, sowed the fields of space
+ with stars, as a farmer sows his grain, I should like to think of him as a
+ little, dimpled babe, overflowing with joy, sitting upon the knees of a
+ loving mother. The ministers themselves might take a lesson even from the
+ man who is charged with blasphemy, and make an effort to bring an infinite
+ God a little nearer to the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant also says, speaking of the infant Christ, "<i>He was nursed
+ at Mary's breast.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, and if the story be true, that is the tenderest fact in it. Nursed at
+ the breast of woman. No painting, no statue, no words can make a deeper
+ and a tenderer impression upon the heart of man than this: The infinite
+ God, a babe, nursed at the holy breast of woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You see these things do not strike all people the same. To a man that has
+ been raised on the orthodox desert, these things are incomprehensible. He
+ has been robbed of his humanity. He has no humor, nothing but the stupid
+ and the solemn. His fancy sits with folded wings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagination, like the atmosphere of spring, woos every seed of earth to
+ seek the blue of heaven, and whispers of bud and flower and fruit.
+ Imagination gathers from every field of thought and pours the wealth of
+ many lives into the lap of one. To the contracted, to the cast-iron people
+ who believe in heartless and inhuman creeds, the words of the defendant
+ seem blasphemous, and to them the thought that God was a little child is
+ monstrous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They cannot bear to hear it said that he nursed at the breast of a maiden,
+ that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, that he had the joys and sorrows
+ of other babes. I hope, gentlemen, that not only you, but the attorneys
+ for the prosecution, have read what is known as the "Apocryphal New
+ Testament," books that were once considered inspired, once admitted to be
+ genuine, and that once formed a part of our New Testament. I hope you have
+ read the books of Joseph and Mary, of the Shepherd of Hermes, of the
+ Infancy and of Mary, in which many of the things done by the youthful
+ Christ are described&mdash;books that were once the delight of the
+ Christian world; books that gave joy to children, because in them they
+ read that Christ made little birds of clay, that would at his command
+ stretch out their wings and fly with joy above his head. If the defendant
+ in this case had said anything like that, here in the State of New Jersey,
+ he would have been indicted; the orthodox ministers would have shouted
+ "blasphemy," and yet, these little stories made the name of Christ dearer
+ to children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church of to-day lacks sympathy; the theologians are without
+ affection. After all, sympathy is genius. A man who really sympathizes
+ with another understands him. A man who sympathizes with a religion,
+ instantly sees the good that is in it, and the man who sympathizes with
+ the right, sees the evil that a creed contains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the defendant, still speaking of the infant Christ, is charged with
+ having said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>God smiled when he was comfortable. He lay in a cradle and was rocked
+ to sleep.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, and there is no more beautiful picture than that. Let some great
+ religious genius paint a picture of this kind&mdash;of a babe smiling with
+ content, rocked in the cradle by the mother who bends tenderly and proudly
+ above him. There could be no more beautiful, no more touching, picture
+ than this. What would I not give for a picture of Shakespeare as a babe,&mdash;a
+ picture that was a likeness,&mdash;rocked by his mother? I would give more
+ for this than for any painting that now enriches the walls of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defendant also says, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>God was sick when cutting his teeth.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what of that? We are told that he was tempted in all points, as we
+ are. That is to say, he was afflicted, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he
+ suffered the pains and miseries common to man. Otherwise, he was not
+ flesh, he was not human.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>He caught the measles, the mumps, the scarlet fever and the whooping
+ cough</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly he was liable to have these diseases, for he was, in fact, a
+ child. Other children have them. Other children, loved as dearly by their
+ mothers as Christ could have been by his, and yet they are taken from the
+ little family by fever; taken, it may be, and buried in the snow, while
+ the poor mother goes sadly home, wishing that she was lying by its side.
+ All that can be said of every word in this address, about Christ and about
+ his childhood, amounts to this; that he lived the life of a child; that he
+ acted like other children. I have read you substantially what he has said,
+ and this is considered blasphemous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has said, that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>According to the Old Testament, the God of the Christian world
+ commanded people to destroy each other.</i>"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is true, then the statement of the defendant is true. Is it
+ calculated to bring God into contempt to deny that he upheld polygamy,
+ that he ever commanded one of his generals to rip open with the sword of
+ war, the woman with child? Is it blasphemy to deny that a God of infinite
+ love gave such commandments? Is such a denial calculated to pour contempt
+ and scorn upon the God of the orthodox?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it blasphemous to deny that God commanded his children to murder each
+ other? Is it blasphemous to say that he was benevolent, merciful and just?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to say that the Bible is true and that God is good. I do
+ not believe that a God made this world, filled it with people and then
+ drowned them. I do not believe that infinite wisdom ever made a mistake.
+ If there be any God he was too good to commit such an infinite crime, too
+ wise, to make such a mistake. Is this blasphemy? Is it blasphemy to say
+ that Solomon was not a virtuous man, or that David was an adulterer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we say when this ancient King had one of his best generals placed in
+ the front of the battle&mdash;deserted him and had him murdered for the
+ purpose of stealing his wife, that he was "a man after God's own heart"?
+ Suppose the defendant in this case were guilty of something like that?
+ Uriah was fighting for his country, fighting the battles of David, the
+ King. David wanted to take from him his wife. He sent for Joab, his
+ commander-in-chief, and said to him:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Make a feint to attack a town. Put Uriah at the front of the attacking
+ force, and when the people sally forth from the town to defend its gate,
+ fall back so that this gallant, noble, patriotic man may be slain."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was done and the widow was stolen by the King. Is it blasphemy to
+ tell the truth and to say exactly what David was? Let us be honest with
+ each other; let us be honest with this defendant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years men have taught that the ancient patriarchs were
+ sacred, that they were far better than the men of modern times, that what
+ was in them a virtue, is in us a crime. Children are taught in Sunday
+ schools to admire and respect these criminals of the ancient days. The
+ time has come to tell the truth about these men, to call things by their
+ proper names, and above all, to stand by the right, by the truth, by mercy
+ and by justice. If what the defendant has said is blasphemy under this
+ statute then the question arises, is the statute in accordance with the
+ constitution? If this statute is constitutional, why has it been allowed
+ to sleep for all these years? I take this position: Any law made for the
+ preservation of a human right, made to guard a human being, cannot sleep
+ long enough to die; but any law that deprives a human being of a natural
+ right&mdash;if that law goes to sleep, it never wakes, it sleeps the sleep
+ of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I call the attention of the Court to that remarkable case in England
+ where, only a few years ago, a man appealed to trial by battle. The law
+ allowing trial by battle had been asleep in the statute book of England
+ for more than two hundred years, and yet the court held that, in spite of
+ the fact that the law had been asleep&mdash;it being a law in favor of a
+ defendant&mdash;he was entitled to trial by battle. And why? Because it
+ was a statute at the time made in defence of a human right, and that
+ statute could not sleep long enough or soundly enough to die. In
+ consequence of this decision, the Parliament of England passed a special
+ act, doing away forever with the trial by battle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a statute attacks an individual right, the State must never let it
+ sleep. When it attacks the right of the public at large and is allowed to
+ pass into a state of slumber, it cannot be raised for the purpose of
+ punishing an individual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, a few words more. I take an almost infinite interest in
+ this trial, and before you decide, I am exceedingly anxious that you
+ should understand with clearness the thoughts I have expressed upon this
+ subject I want you to know how the civilized feel, and the position now
+ taken by the leaders of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago almost everything spoken against the grossest possible
+ superstition was considered blasphemous. The altar hedged itself about
+ with the sword; the Priest went in partnership with the King. In those
+ days statutes were leveled against all human speech. Men were convicted of
+ blasphemy because they believed in an actual personal God; because they
+ insisted that God had body and parts. Men were convicted of blasphemy
+ because they denied that God had form. They have been imprisoned for
+ denying the doctrine of transubstantiation, and they have been torn in
+ pieces for defending that doctrine. There are but few dogmas now believed
+ by any Christian church that have not at some time been denounced as
+ blasphemous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Henry VIII. put himself at the head of the Episcopal Church a creed
+ was made, and in that creed there were five dogmas that must, of
+ necessity, be believed. Anybody who denied any one, was to be punished&mdash;for
+ the first offence, with fine, with imprisonment, or branding, and for the
+ second offence, with death. Not one of these five dogmas is now a part of
+ the creed of the Church of England.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I could go on for days and weeks and months, showing that hundreds and
+ hundreds of religious dogmas, to deny which was death, have been either
+ changed or abandoned for others nearly as absurd as the old ones were. It
+ may be, however, sufficient to say, that wherever the church has had power
+ it has been a crime for any man to speak his honest thought. No church has
+ ever been willing that any opponent should give a transcript of his mind.
+ Every church in power has appealed to brute force, to the sword, for the
+ purpose of sustaining its creed. Not one has had the courage to occupy the
+ open field. The church has not been satisfied with calling Infidels and
+ unbelievers blasphemers. Each church has accused nearly every other church
+ of being a blasphemer. Every pioneer has been branded as a criminal. The
+ Catholics called Martin Luther a blasphemer, and Martin Luther called
+ Copernicus a blasphemer. Pious ignorance always regards intelligence as a
+ kind of blasphemy. Some of the greatest men of the world, some of the
+ best, have been put to death for the crime of blasphemy, that is to say,
+ for the crime of endeavoring to benefit their fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as the church has the power to close the lips of men, so long and
+ no longer will superstition rule this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Blasphemy is the word that the majority hisses into the ear of the few."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After every argument of the church has been answered, has been refuted,
+ then the church cries, "blasphemy!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Blasphemy is what a withered last year's leaf says to a this year's bud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me say now, that the crime of blasphemy, as set out in this
+ statute, is impossible. No man can blaspheme a book. No man can commit
+ blasphemy by telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme a God, or a
+ Holy Ghost, or a Son of God. The Infinite cannot be blasphemed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden time, in the days of savagery and superstition, when some
+ poor man was struck by lightning, or when a blackened mark was left on the
+ breast of a wife and mother, the poor savage supposed that some god,
+ angered by something he had done, had taken his revenge. What else did the
+ savage suppose? He believed that this god had the same feelings, with
+ regard to the loyalty of his subjects, that an earthly chief had, or an
+ earthly king had, with regard to the loyalty or treachery of members of
+ his tribe, or citizens of his kingdom. So the savage said, when his
+ country was visited by a calamity, when the flood swept the people away,
+ or the storm scattered their poor houses in fragments: "We have allowed
+ some Freethinker to live; some one is in our town or village who has not
+ brought his gift to the priest, his incense to the altar; some man of our
+ tribe or of our country does not respect our god." Then, for the purpose
+ of appeasing the supposed god, for the purpose of again winning a smile
+ from heaven, for the purpose of securing a little sunlight for their
+ fields and homes, they drag the accused man from his home, from his wife
+ and children, and with all the ceremonies of pious brutality, shed his
+ blood. They did it in self-defence; they believed that they were saving
+ their own lives and the lives of their children; they did it to appease
+ their god. Most people are now beyond that point. Now when disease visits
+ a community, the intelligent do not say the disease came because the
+ people were wicked; when the cholera comes, it is not because of the
+ Methodists, of the Catholics, of the Presbyterians, or of the Infidels.
+ When the wind destroys a town in the far West, it is not because somebody
+ there had spoken his honest thoughts. We are beginning to see that the
+ wind blows and destroys without the slightest reference to man, without
+ the slightest care whether it destroys the good or the bad, the
+ irreligious or the religious. When the lightning leaps from the clouds it
+ is just as likely to strike a good man as a bad man, and when the great
+ serpents of flame climb around the houses of men, they burn just as gladly
+ and just as joyously, the home of virtue, as they do the den and lair of
+ vice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the reason for all these laws has failed. The laws were made on
+ account of a superstition. That superstition has faded from the minds of
+ intelligent men, and, as a consequence, the laws based on the superstition
+ ought to fail.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one splendid thing in nature, and that is that men and nations
+ must reap the consequences of their acts&mdash;reap them in this world, if
+ they live, and in another if there be one. The man who leaves this world a
+ bad man, a malicious man, will probably be the same man when he reaches
+ another realm, and the man who leaves this shore good, charitable and
+ honest, will be good, charitable and honest, no matter on what star he
+ lives again. The world is growing sensible upon these subjects, and as we
+ grow sensible, we grow charitable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another reason has been given for these laws against blasphemy, the most
+ absurd reason that can by any possibility be given. It is this: There
+ should be laws against blasphemy, because the man who utters blasphemy
+ endangers the public peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that Christians will break the peace? Is it possible that
+ they will violate the law? Is it probable that Christians will congregate
+ together and make a mob, simply because a man has given an opinion against
+ their religion? What is their religion? They say, "If a man smites you on
+ one cheek, turn the other also." They say, "We must love our neighbors as
+ we love ourselves." Is it possible then, that you can make a mob out of
+ Christians,&mdash;that these men, who love even their enemies, will attack
+ others, and will destroy life, in the name of universal love? And yet,
+ Christians themselves say that there ought to be laws against blasphemy,
+ for fear that Christians, who are controlled by universal love, will
+ become so outraged, when they hear an honest man express an honest
+ thought, that they will leap upon him and tear him in pieces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my
+ thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To live on the unpaid labor of other men&mdash;that is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body&mdash;that is
+ blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon
+ the lips&mdash;that is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe
+ to be a lie&mdash;that is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the
+ applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob&mdash;that is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many&mdash;that
+ is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men&mdash;that
+ is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain&mdash;that
+ is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To violate your conscience&mdash;that is blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an
+ unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against
+ his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we fear our fellow-men? Why should not each human being have
+ the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all the
+ world? What harm can come from an honest interchange of thought?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have been giving you my real ideas. I have spoken freely, and yet the
+ sun rose this morning, just the same as it always has. There is no
+ particular change visible in the world, and I do not see but that we are
+ all as happy to-day as though we had spent yesterday in making somebody
+ else miserable. I denounced on yesterday the superstitions of the
+ Christian world, and yet, last night I slept the sleep of peace. You will
+ pardon me for saying again that I feel the greatest possible interest in
+ the result of this trial, in the principle at stake. This is my only
+ apology, my only excuse, for taking your time. For years I have felt that
+ the great battle for human liberty, the battle that has covered thousands
+ of fields with heroic dead, had finally been won. When I read the history
+ of this world, of what has been endured, of what has been suffered, of the
+ heroism and infinite courage of the intellectual and honest few, battling
+ with the countless serfs and slaves of kings and priests, of tyranny, of
+ hypocrisy, of ignorance and prejudice, of faith and fear, there was in my
+ heart the hope that the great battle had been fought, and that the human
+ race, in its march towards the dawn, had passed midnight, and that the
+ "great balance weighed up morning." This hope, this feeling, gave me the
+ greatest possible joy. When I thought of the many who had been burnt, of
+ how often the sons of liberty had perished in ashes, of how many o! the
+ noblest and greatest had stood upon scaffolds, and of the countless
+ hearts, the grandest that ever throbbed in human breasts, that had been
+ broken by the tyranny of church and state, of how many of the noble and
+ loving had sighed themselves away in dungeons, the only consolation was
+ that the last bastile had fallen, that the dungeons of the Inquisition had
+ been torn down and that the scaffolds of the world could no longer be wet
+ with heroic blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know that sometimes, after a great battle has been fought, and one of
+ the armies has been broken, and its fortifications carried, there are
+ occasional stragglers beyond the great field, stragglers who know nothing
+ of the fate of their army, know nothing of the victory, and for that
+ reason, fight on. There are a few such stragglers in the State of New
+ Jersey. They have never heard of the great victory. They do not know that
+ in all civilized countries the hosts of superstition have been put to
+ flight. They do not know that Freethinkers, Infidels, are to-day the
+ leaders of the intellectual armies of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the last trials of this character, tried in Great Britain,&mdash;and
+ that is the country that our ancestors fought in the sacred name of
+ liberty,&mdash;one of the last trials in that country, a country ruled by
+ a state church, ruled by a woman who was born a queen, ruled by dukes and
+ nobles and lords, children of ancient robbers&mdash;was in the year 1843.
+ George Jacob Holyoake, one of the best of the human race, was imprisoned
+ on a charge of Atheism, charged with having written a pamphlet and having
+ made a speech in which he had denied the existence of the British God. The
+ judge who tried him, who passed sentence upon him, went down to his grave
+ with a stain upon his intellect and upon his honor. All the real
+ intelligence of Great Britain rebelled against the outrage. There was a
+ trial after that to which I will call your attention. Judge Coleridge,
+ father of the present Chief Justice of England, presided at this trial. A
+ poor man by the name of Thomas Pooley, a man who dug wells for a living,
+ wrote on the gate of a priest, that, if people would burn their Bibles and
+ scatter the ashes on the lands, the crops would be better, and that they
+ would also save a good deal of money in tithes. He wrote several sentences
+ of a kindred character. He was a curious man. He had an idea that the
+ world was a living, breathing animal. He would not dig a well beyond a
+ certain depth for fear he might inflict pain upon this animal, the earth.
+ He was tried before Judge Coleridge, on that charge. An infinite God was
+ about to be dethroned, because an honest well-digger had written his
+ sentiments on the fence of a parson. He was indicted, tried, convicted and
+ sentenced to prison. Afterward, many intelligent people asked for his
+ pardon, on the ground that he was in danger of becoming insane. The judge
+ refused to sign the petition. The pardon was refused. Long before his
+ sentence expired, he became a raving maniac. He was removed to an asylum
+ and there died. Some of the greatest men in England attacked that judge,
+ among these, Mr. Buckle, author of "The History of Civilization in
+ England," one of the greatest books in this world. Mr. Buckle denounced
+ Judge Coleridge. He brought him before the bar of English opinion, and
+ there was not a man in England, whose opinion was worth anything, who did
+ not agree with Mr. Buckle, and did not with him, declare the conviction of
+ Thomas Pooley to be an infamous outrage. What were the reasons given?
+ This, among others: The law was dead; it had been asleep for many years;
+ it was a law passed during the ignorance of the Middle Ages, and a law
+ that came out of the dungeon of religious persecution; a law that was
+ appealed to by bigots and by hypocrites, to punish, to imprison an honest
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In many parts of this country, people have entertained the idea that New
+ England was still filled with the spirit of Puritanism, filled with the
+ descendants of those who killed Quakers in the name of universal
+ benevolence, and traded Quaker children in the Barbadoes for rum, for the
+ purpose of establishing the fact that God is an infinite father.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, the last trial in Massachusetts on a charge like this, was when Abner
+ Kneeland was indicted on a charge of Atheism. He was tried for having
+ written this sentence: "The Universalists believe in a God which I do
+ not." He was convicted and imprisoned. Chief Justice Shaw upheld the
+ decision, and upheld it because he was afraid of public opinion; upheld
+ it, although he must have known that the statute under which Kneeland was
+ indicted was clearly and plainly in violation of the Constitution. No man
+ can read the decision of Justice Shaw without being convinced that he was
+ absolutely dominated, either by bigotry, or hypocrisy. One of the judges
+ of that court, a noble man, wrote a dissenting opinion, and in that
+ dissenting opinion is the argument of a civilized, of an enlightened
+ jurist. No man can answer the dissenting opinion of Justice Morton. The
+ case against Kneeland was tried more than fifty years ago, and there has
+ been none since in the New England States; and this case, that we are now
+ trying, is the first ever tried in New Jersey. The fact that it is the
+ first, certifies to my interpretation of this statute, and it also
+ certifies to the toleration and to the civilization of the people of this
+ State. The statute is upon your books. You inherited it from your ignorant
+ ancestors, and they inherited it from their savage ancestors. The people
+ of New Jersey were heirs of the mistakes and of the atrocities of ancient
+ England.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is too late to enforce a law like this. Why has it been allowed to
+ slumber? Who obtained this indictment? Were they actuated by good and
+ noble motives? Had they the public weal at heart, or were they simply
+ endeavoring to be revenged upon this defendant? Were they willing to
+ disgrace the State, in order that they might punish him?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have given you my definition of blasphemy, and now the question arises,
+ what is worship? Who is a worshiper? What is prayer? What is real
+ religion? Let me answer these questions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Good, honest, faithful work, is worship. The man who ploughs the fields
+ and fells the forests; the man who works in mines, the man who battles
+ with the winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the commerce of
+ the world; these men are worshipers. The man who goes into the forest,
+ leading his wife by the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home in
+ the wilderness, who helps to people and civilize and cultivate a
+ continent, is a worshiper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that
+ deserves an answer,&mdash;good, honest, noble work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A woman whose husband has gone down to the gutter, gone down to
+ degradation and filth; the woman who follows him and lifts him out of the
+ mire and presses him to her noble heart, until he becomes a man once more,
+ this woman is a worshiper. Her act is worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor man and the poor woman who work night and day, in order that they
+ may give education to their children, so that they may have a better life
+ than their father and mother had; the parents who deny themselves the
+ comforts of life, that they may lay up something to help their children to
+ a higher place&mdash;they are worshipers; and the children who, after they
+ reap the benefit of this worship, become ashamed of their parents, are
+ blasphemers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who sits by the bed of his invalid wife,&mdash;a wife prematurely
+ old and gray,&mdash;the husband who sits by her bed and holds, her thin,
+ wan hand in his as lovingly, and kisses it as rapturously, as
+ passionately, as when it was dimpled,&mdash;that is worship; that man is a
+ worshiper; that is real religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. He who adds to the
+ sum of human misery, is a blasphemer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Gentlemen, you can never make me believe&mdash;no statute can ever
+ convince me, that there is any infinite Being in this universe who hates
+ an honest man. It is impossible to satisfy me that there is any God, or
+ can be any God, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the courage to
+ express his thought. Neither can the whole world convince me that any man
+ should be punished, either in this world or in the next, for being candid
+ with his fellow-men. If you send men to the penitentiary for speaking
+ their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten their fellows, then the
+ penitentiary will become a place of honor, and the victim will step from
+ it&mdash;not stained, not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us take one more step.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is holy, what is sacred? I reply that human happiness is holy, human
+ rights are holy. The body and soul of man&mdash;these are sacred. The
+ liberty of man is of far more importance than any book; the rights of man
+ more sacred than any religion&mdash;than any Scriptures, whether inspired
+ or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What we want is the truth, and does any one suppose that all of the truth
+ is confined in one book&mdash;that the mysteries of the whole world are
+ explained by one volume?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that is&mdash;all that conveys information to man&mdash;all that has
+ been produced by the past&mdash;all that now exists&mdash;should be
+ considered by an intelligent man. All the known truths of this world&mdash;all
+ the philosophy, all the poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the
+ entrancing music&mdash;the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the
+ words of honest men, the trumpet calls to duty&mdash;all these make up the
+ bible of the world&mdash;everything that is noble and true and free, you
+ will find in this great book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we wish to be true to ourselves,&mdash;if we wish to benefit our
+ fellow-men&mdash;if we wish to live honorable lives&mdash;we will give to
+ every other human being every right that we claim for ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing that should be remembered by you. You are the
+ judges of the law, as well as the judges of the facts. In a case like
+ this, you are the final judges as to what the law is; and if you acquit,
+ no court can reverse your verdict. To prevent the least misconception, let
+ me state to you again what I claim:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. I claim that the constitution of New Jersey declares that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "<i>The liberty of speech shall not be abridged</i>." Second. That this
+ statute, under which this indictment is found, is unconstitutional,
+ because it does abridge the liberty of speech; it does exactly that which
+ the constitution emphatically says shall not be done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. I claim, also, that under this law&mdash;even if it be
+ constitutional&mdash;the words charged in this indictment do not amount to
+ blasphemy, read even in the light, or rather in the darkness, of this
+ statute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not, I pray you, forget this point. Do not forget, that, no matter what
+ the Court may tell you about the law&mdash;how good it is, or how bad it
+ is&mdash;no matter what the Court may instruct you on that subject&mdash;do
+ not forget one thing, and that is: That the words charged in the
+ indictment are the only words that you can take into consideration in this
+ case. Remember that no matter what else may be in the pamphlet&mdash;no
+ matter what pictures or cartoons there may be of the gentlemen in Boonton
+ who mobbed this man in the name of universal liberty and love&mdash;do not
+ forget that you have no right to take one word into account except the
+ exact words set out in this indictment&mdash;that is to say, the words
+ that I have read to you. Upon this point the Court will instruct you that
+ you have nothing to do with any other line in that pamphlet; and I now
+ claim, that should the Court instruct you that the statute is
+ constitutional, still I insist that the words set out in this indictment
+ do not amount to blasphemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another point. This statute says: "Whoever shall <i>willfully</i>
+ speak against." Now, in this case, you must find that the defendant
+ "willfully" did so and so&mdash;that is to say, that he made the
+ statements attributed to him knowing that they were not true. If you
+ believe that he was honest in what he said, then this statute does not
+ touch him. Even under this statute, a man may give his honest opinion.
+ Certainly, there is no law that charges a man with "willfully" being
+ honest&mdash;"willfully" telling his real opinion&mdash;"willfully" giving
+ to his fellow-men his thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where a man is charged with larceny, the indictment must set out that he
+ took the goods or the property with the intention to steal&mdash;with what
+ the law calls the <i>animus furandi</i>. If he took the goods with the
+ intention to steal, then he is a thief; but if he took the goods believing
+ them to be his own, then he is guilty of no offence. So in this case,
+ whatever was said by the defendant must have been "willfully" said. And I
+ claim that if you believe that what the man said was honestly said, you
+ cannot find him guilty under this statute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One more point: This statute has been allowed to slumber so long, that no
+ man had the right to awaken it. For more than one hundred years it has
+ slept; and so far as New Jersey is concerned, it has been sound asleep
+ since 1664. For the first time it is dug out of its grave. The breath of
+ life is sought to be breathed into it, to the end that some people may
+ wreak their vengeance on an honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any evidence&mdash;has there been any&mdash;to show that the
+ defendant was not absolutely candid in the expression of his opinions? Is
+ there one particle of evidence tending, to show that he is not a perfectly
+ honest and sincere man? Did the prosecution have the courage to attack his
+ reputation? No. The State has simply proved to you that he circulated that
+ pamphlet&mdash;that is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was claimed, among other things, that the defendant circulated this
+ pamphlet among children. There was no such evidence&mdash;not the
+ slightest. The only evidence about schools, or school-children was, that
+ when the defendant talked with the bill-poster,&mdash;whose business the
+ defendant was interfering with,&mdash;he asked him something about the
+ population of the town, and about the schools. But according to the
+ evidence, and as a matter of fact, not a solitary pamphlet was ever given
+ to any child, or to any youth. According to the testimony, the defendant
+ went into two or three stores,&mdash;laid the pamphlets on a show case, or
+ threw them upon a desk&mdash;put them upon a stand where papers were sold,
+ and in one instance handed a pamphlet to a man. That is all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, however, there would have been no harm in giving this
+ pamphlet to every citizen of your place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again I say, that a law that has been allowed to sleep for all these years&mdash;allowed
+ to sleep by reason of the good sense and by reason of the tolerant spirit
+ of the State of New Jersey, should not be allowed to leap into life
+ because a few are intolerant, or because a few lacked good sense and
+ judgment. This snake should not be warmed into vicious life by the blood
+ of anger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably not a man on this jury agrees with me about the subject of
+ religion. Probably not a member of this jury thinks that I am right in the
+ opinions that I have entertained and have so often expressed. Most of you
+ belong to some church, and I presume that those who do, have the good of
+ what they call Christianity at heart. There maybe among you some
+ Methodists. If so, they have read the history of their church, and they
+ know that when it was in the minority, it was persecuted, and they know
+ that they can not read the history of that persecution without becoming
+ indignant. They know that the early Methodists were denounced as heretics,
+ as ranters, as ignorant pretenders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are also on this jury, Catholics, and they know that there is a
+ tendency in many parts of this country to persecute a man now because he
+ is a Catholic. They also know that their church has persecuted in times
+ past, whenever and wherever it had the power; and they know that
+ Protestants, when in power, have always persecuted Catholics; and they
+ know, in their hearts, that all persecution, whether in the name of law,
+ or religion, is monstrous, savage, and fiendish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I presume that each one of you has the good of what you call Christianity
+ at heart. If you have, I beg of you to acquit this man. If you believe
+ Christianity to be a good, it never can do any church any good to put a
+ man in jail for the expression of opinion. Any church that imprisons a man
+ because he has used an argument against its creed, will simply convince
+ the world that it cannot answer the argument.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity will never reap any honor, will never reap any profit, from
+ persecution. It is a poor, cowardly, dastardly way of answering arguments.
+ No gentleman will do it&mdash;no civilized man ever did do it&mdash;no
+ decent human being ever did, or ever will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I take it for granted that you have a certain regard, a certain affection,
+ for the State in which you live&mdash;that you take a pride in the
+ Commonwealth of New Jersey. If you do, I beg of you to keep the record of
+ your State clean. Allow no verdict to be recorded against the freedom of
+ speech. At present there is not to be found on the records of any inferior
+ court, or on those of the Supreme tribunal&mdash;any case in which a man
+ has been punished for speaking his sentiments. The records have not been
+ stained&mdash;have not been polluted&mdash;with such a verdict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Keep such a verdict from the Reports of your State&mdash;from the Records
+ of your courts. No jury has yet, in the State of New Jersey, decided that
+ the lips of honest men are not free&mdash;that there is a manacle upon the
+ brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the sake of your State&mdash;for the sake of her reputation throughout
+ the world&mdash;for your own sakes&mdash;and those of your children, and
+ their children yet to be&mdash;say to the world that New Jersey shares in
+ the spirit of this age,&mdash;that New Jersey is not a survival of the
+ Dark Ages,&mdash;that New Jersey does not still regard the thumbscrew as
+ an instrument of progress,&mdash;that New Jersey needs no dungeon to
+ answer the arguments of a free man, and does not send to the penitentiary,
+ men who think, and men who speak. Say to the world, that where arguments
+ are without foundation, New Jersey has confidence enough in the brains of
+ her people to feel that such arguments can be refuted by reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the sake of your State, acquit this man. For the sake of something of
+ far more value to this world than New Jersey&mdash;for the sake of
+ something of more importance to mankind than this continent&mdash;for the
+ sake of Human Liberty, for the sake of Free Speech, acquit this man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, Liberty is to the
+ soul of man. Without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the name of Liberty, I implore&mdash;and not only so, but I insist&mdash;that
+ you shall find a verdict in favor of this defendant. Do not do the
+ slightest thing to stay the march of human progress. Do not carry us back,
+ even for a moment, to the darkness of that cruel night that good men hoped
+ had passed away forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only
+ barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right to
+ think that he thinks wrong. If every man has not the right to think, the
+ people of New Jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a
+ constitution&mdash;no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no court
+ to pass its sentence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right
+ to form a judgment. It is impossible that there should be such a thing as
+ real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing
+ as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions&mdash;all good,
+ all bad&mdash;have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without
+ Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy&mdash;no love, no
+ hatred, no justice, no progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become
+ poor, withered, meaningless sounds&mdash;but with that word realized&mdash;with
+ that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Understand me. I am not blaming the people. I am not blaming the
+ prosecution, or the prosecuting attorney. The officers of the court are
+ simply doing what they feel to be their duty. They did not find the
+ indictment. That was found by the grand jury. The grand jury did not find
+ the indictment of its own motion. Certain people came before the grand
+ jury and made their complaint&mdash;gave their testimony, and upon that
+ testimony, under this statute, the indictment was found.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While I do not blame these people&mdash;they not being on trial&mdash;I do
+ ask you to stand on the side of right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot conceive of much greater happiness than to discharge a public
+ duty, than to be absolutely true to conscience, true to judgment, no
+ matter what authority may say, no matter what public opinion may demand. A
+ man who stands by the right, against the world, cannot help applauding
+ himself, and saying: "I am an honest man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want your verdict&mdash;a verdict born of manhood, of courage; and I
+ want to send a dispatch to-day to a woman who is lying sick. I wish you to
+ furnish the words of this dispatch&mdash;only two words&mdash;and these
+ two words will fill an anxious heart with joy. They will fill a soul with
+ light. It is a very short message&mdash;only two words&mdash;and I ask you
+ to furnish them: "Not guilty."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are expected to do this, because I believe you will be true to your
+ consciences, true to your best judgment, true to the best interests of the
+ people of New Jersey, true to the great cause of Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I sincerely hope that it will never be necessary again, under the flag of
+ the United States&mdash;that flag for which has been shed the bravest and
+ best blood of the world&mdash;under that flag maintained by Washington, by
+ Jefferson, by Franklin and by Lincoln&mdash;under that flag in defence of
+ which New Jersey poured out her best and bravest blood&mdash;I hope it
+ will never be necessary again for a man to stand before a jury and plead
+ for the Liberty of Speech.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Note: The jury in this case brought in a verdict of guilty.
+ The Judge imposed a fine of twenty-five dollars and costs
+ amounting in all to seventy-five dollars, which Colonel
+ Ingersoll paid, giving his services free.&mdash;C. P. Farrell.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0003" id="link0003">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ "<i>All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
+ governed</i>."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN this country it is admitted that the power to govern resides in the
+ people themselves; that they are the only rightful source of authority.
+ For many centuries before the formation of our Government, before the
+ promulgation of the Declaration of Independence, the people had but little
+ voice in the affairs of nations. The source of authority was not in this
+ world; kings were not crowned by their subjects, and the sceptre was not
+ held by the consent of the governed. The king sat on his throne by the
+ will of God, and for that reason was not accountable to the people for the
+ exercise of his power. He commanded, and the people obeyed. He was lord of
+ their bodies, and his partner, the priest, was lord of their souls. The
+ government of earth was patterned after the kingdom on high. God was a
+ supreme autocrat in heaven, whose will was law, and the king was a supreme
+ autocrat on earth whose will was law. The God in heaven had inferior
+ beings to do his will, and the king on earth had certain favorites and
+ officers to do his. These officers were accountable to him, and he was
+ responsible to God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Feudal system was supposed to be in accordance with the divine plan.
+ The people were not governed by intelligence, but by threats and promises,
+ by rewards and punishments. No effort was made to enlighten the common
+ people; no one thought of educating a peasant&mdash;of developing the mind
+ of a laborer. The people were created to support thrones and altars. Their
+ destiny was to toil and obey&mdash;to work and want. They were to be
+ satisfied with huts and hovels, with ignorance and rags, and their
+ children must expect no more. In the presence of the king they fell upon
+ their knees, and before the priest they groveled in the very dust. The
+ poor peasant divided his earnings with the state, because he imagined it
+ protected his body; he divided his crust with the church, believing that
+ it protected his soul. He was the prey of Throne and Altar&mdash;one
+ deformed his body, the other his mind&mdash;and these two vultures fed
+ upon his toil. He was taught by the king to hate the people of other
+ nations, and by the priest to despise the believers in all other
+ religions. He was made the enemy of all people except his own. He had no
+ sympathy with the peasants of other lands, enslaved and plundered like
+ himself., He was kept in ignorance, because education is the enemy of
+ superstition, and because education is the foe of that egotism often
+ mistaken for patriotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligent and good man holds in his affections the good and true of
+ every land&mdash;the boundaries of countries are not the limitations of
+ his sympathies. Caring nothing for race, or color, he loves those who
+ speak other languages and worship other gods. Between him and those who
+ suffer, there is no impassable gulf. He salutes the world, and extends the
+ hand of friendship to the human race. He does not bow before a provincial
+ and patriotic god&mdash;one who protects his tribe or nation, and abhors
+ the rest of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through all the ages of superstition, each nation has insisted that it was
+ the peculiar care of the true God, and that it alone had the true religion&mdash;that
+ the gods of other nations were false and fraudulent, and that other
+ religions were wicked, ignorant and absurd. In this way the seeds of
+ hatred had been sown, and in this way have been kindled the flames of war.
+ Men have had no sympathy with those of a different complexion, with those
+ who knelt at other altars and expressed their thoughts in other words&mdash;and
+ even a difference in garments placed them beyond the sympathy of others.
+ Every peculiarity was the food of prejudice and the excuse for hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The boundaries of nations were at last crossed by commerce. People became
+ somewhat acquainted, and they found that the virtues and vices were quite
+ evenly distributed. At last, subjects became somewhat acquainted with
+ kings&mdash;peasants had the pleasure of gazing at princes, and it was
+ dimly perceived that the differences were mostly in rags and names.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. They
+ declared that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent
+ of the governed." This was a contradiction of the then political ideas of
+ the world; it was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy&mdash;a
+ renunciation of the Deity. It was in fact a declaration of the
+ independence of the earth. It was a notice to all churches and priests
+ that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically
+ it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every "sacred book,"
+ and appealed from the Providence of God to the Providence of Man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who promulgated the Declaration adopted a Constitution for the great
+ Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What was the office or purpose of that Constitution?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Admitting that all power came from the people, it was necessary, first,
+ that certain means be adopted for the purpose of ascertaining the will of
+ the people, and second, it was proper and convenient to designate certain
+ departments that should exercise certain powers of the Government. There
+ must be the legislative, the judicial and the executive departments. Those
+ who make laws should not execute them. Those who execute laws should not
+ have the power of absolutely determining their meaning or their
+ constitutionality. For these reasons, among others, a Constitution was
+ adopted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This Constitution also contained a declaration of rights. It marked out
+ the limitations of discretion, so that in the excitement of passion, men
+ shall not go beyond the point designated in the calm moment of reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When man is unprejudiced, and his passions subject to reason, it is well
+ he should define the limits of power, so that the waves driven by the
+ storm of passion shall not overbear the shore.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A constitution is for the government of man in this world. It is the chain
+ the people put upon their servants, as well as upon themselves. It defines
+ the limit of power and the limit of obedience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It follows, then, that nothing should be in a constitution that cannot be
+ enforced by the power of the state&mdash;that is, by the army and navy.
+ Behind every provision of the Constitution should stand the force of the
+ nation. Every sword, every bayonet, every cannon should be there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose, then, that we amend the Constitution and acknowledge the
+ existence and supremacy of God&mdash;what becomes of the supremacy of the
+ people, and how is this amendment to be enforced? A constitution does not
+ enforce itself. It must be carried out by appropriate legislation. Will it
+ be a crime to deny the existence of this constitutional God? Can the
+ offender be proceeded against in the criminal courts? Can his lips be
+ closed by the power of the state? Would not this be the inauguration of
+ religious persecution?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And if there is to be an acknowledgment of God in the Constitution, the
+ question naturally arises as to which God is to have this honor. Shall we
+ select the God of the Catholics&mdash;he who has established an infallible
+ church presided over by an infallible pope, and who is delighted with
+ certain ceremonies and placated by prayers uttered in exceedingly common
+ Latin? Is it the God of the Presbyterian with the Five Points of
+ Calvinism, who is ingenious enough to harmonize necessity and
+ responsibility, and who in some way justifies himself for damning most of
+ his own children? Is it the God of the Puritan, the enemy of joy&mdash;of
+ the Baptist, who is great enough to govern the universe, and small enough
+ to allow the destiny of a soul to depend on whether the body it inhabited
+ was immersed or sprinkled?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What God is it proposed to put in the Constitution? Is it the God of the
+ Old Testament, who was a believer in slavery and who justified polygamy?
+ If slavery was right then, it is right now; and if Jehovah was right then,
+ the Mormons are right now. Are we to have the God who issued a commandment
+ against all art&mdash;who was the enemy of investigation and of free
+ speech? Is it the God who commanded the husband to stone his wife to death
+ because she differed with him on the subject of religion? Are we to have a
+ God who will re-enact the Mosaic code and punish hundreds of offences with
+ death? What court, what tribunal of last resort, is to define this God,
+ and who is to make known his will? In his presence, laws passed by men
+ will be of no value. The decisions of courts will be as nothing. But who
+ is to make known the will of this supreme God? Will there be a supreme
+ tribunal composed of priests?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course all persons elected to office will either swear or affirm to
+ support the Constitution. Men who do not believe in this God, cannot so
+ swear or affirm. Such men will not be allowed to hold any office of trust
+ or honor. A God in the Constitution will not interfere with the oaths or
+ affirmations of hypocrites. Such a provision will only exclude honest and
+ conscientious unbelievers. Intelligent people know that 110 one knows
+ whether there is a God or not. The existence of such a Being is merely a
+ matter of opinion. Men who believe in the liberty of man, who are willing
+ to die for the honor of their country, will be excluded from taking any
+ part in the administration of its affairs. Such a provision would place
+ the country under the feet of priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To recognize a Deity in the organic law of our country would be the
+ destruction of religious liberty. The God in the Constitution would have
+ to be protected. There would be laws against blasphemy, laws against the
+ publication of honest thoughts, laws against carrying books and papers in
+ the mails in which this constitutional God should be attacked. Our land
+ would be filled with theological spies, with religious eavesdroppers, and
+ all the snakes and reptiles of the lowest natures, in this sunshine of
+ religious authority, would uncoil and crawl.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is proposed to acknowledge a God who is the lawful and rightful
+ Governor of nations; the one who ordained the powers that be. If this God
+ is really the Governor of nations, it is not necessary to acknowledge him
+ in the Constitution. This would not add to his power. If he governs all
+ nations now, he has always controlled the affairs of men. Having this
+ control, why did he not see to it that he was recognized in the
+ Constitution of the United States? If he had the supreme authority and
+ neglected to put himself in the Constitution, is not this, at least, <i>prima
+ facie</i> evidence that he did not desire to be there?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For one, I am not in favor of the God who has "ordained the powers that
+ be." What have we to say of Russia&mdash;of Siberia? What can we say of
+ the persecuted and enslaved? What of the kings and nobles who live on the
+ stolen labor of others? What of the priest and cardinal and pope who
+ wrest, even from the hand of poverty, the single coin thrice earned?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to flatter the Infinite with a constitutional amendment?
+ The Confederate States acknowledged God in their constitution, and yet
+ they were overwhelmed by a people in whose organic law no reference to God
+ is made. All the kings of the earth acknowledge the existence of God, and
+ God is their ally; and this belief in God is used as a means to enslave
+ and rob, to govern and degrade the people whom they call their subjects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Government of the United States is secular. It derives its power from
+ the consent of man. It is a Government with which God has nothing whatever
+ to do&mdash;and all forms and customs, inconsistent with the fundamental
+ fact that the people are the source of authority, should be abandoned. In
+ this country there should be no oaths&mdash;no man should be sworn to tell
+ the truth, and in no court should there be any appeal to any supreme
+ being. A rascal by taking the oath appears to go in partnership with God,
+ and ignorant jurors credit the firm instead of the man. A witness should
+ tell his story, and if he speaks falsely should be considered as guilty of
+ perjury. Governors and Presidents should not issue religious
+ proclamations. They should not call upon the people to thank God. It is no
+ part of their official duty. It is outside of and beyond the horizon of
+ their authority. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States
+ to justify this religious impertinence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years priests have attempted to give to our Government a
+ religious form. Zealots have succeeded in putting the legend upon our
+ money: "In God We Trust;" and we have chaplains in the army and navy, and
+ legislative proceedings are usually opened with prayer. All this is
+ contrary to the genius of the Republic, contrary to the Declaration of
+ Independence, and contrary really to the Constitution of the United
+ States. We have taken the ground that the people can govern themselves
+ without the assistance of any supernatural power. We have taken the
+ position that the people are the real and only rightful source of
+ authority. We have solemnly declared that the people must determine what
+ is politically right and what is wrong, and that their legally expressed
+ will is the supreme law. This leaves no room for national superstition&mdash;no
+ room for patriotic gods or supernatural beings&mdash;and this does away
+ with the necessity for political prayers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The government of God has been tried. It was tried in Palestine several
+ thousand years ago, and the God of the Jews was a monster of cruelty and
+ ignorance, and the people governed by this God lost their nationality.
+ Theocracy was tried through the Middle Ages. God was the Governor&mdash;the
+ pope was his agent, and every priest and bishop and cardinal was armed
+ with credentials from the Most High&mdash;and the result was that the
+ noblest and best were in prisons, the greatest and grandest perished at
+ the stake. The result was that vices were crowned with honor, and virtues
+ whipped naked through the streets. The result was that hypocrisy swayed
+ the sceptre of authority, while honesty languished in the dungeons of the
+ Inquisition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The government of God was tried in Geneva when John Calvin was his
+ representative; and under this government of God the flames climbed around
+ the limbs and blinded the eyes of Michael Servetus, because he dared to
+ express an honest thought. This government of God was tried in Scotland,
+ and the seeds of theological hatred were sown, that bore, through hundreds
+ of years, the fruit of massacre and assassination. This government of God
+ was established in New England, and the result was that Quakers were
+ hanged or burned&mdash;the laws of Moses re-enacted and the "witch was not
+ suffered to live." The result was that investigation was a crime, and the
+ expression of an honest thought a capital offence. This government of God
+ was established in Spain, and the Jews were expelled, the Moors were
+ driven out, Moriscoes were exterminated, and nothing left but the ignorant
+ and bankrupt worshipers of this monster. This government of God was tried
+ in the United States when slavery was regarded as a divine institution,
+ when men and women were regarded as criminals because they sought for
+ liberty by flight, and when others were regarded as criminals because they
+ gave them food and shelter. The pulpit of that day defended the buying and
+ selling of women and babes, and the mouths of slave-traders were filled
+ with passages of Scripture, defending and upholding the traffic in human
+ flesh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have entered upon a new epoch. This is the century of man. Every effort
+ to really better the condition of mankind has been opposed by the
+ worshipers of some God. The church in all ages and among all peoples has
+ been the consistent enemy of the human race. Everywhere and at all times,
+ it has opposed the liberty of thought and expression. It has been the
+ sworn enemy of investigation and of intellectual development. It has
+ denied the existence of facts, the tendency of which was to undermine its
+ power. It has always been carrying fagots to the feet of Philosophy. It
+ has erected the gallows for Genius. It has built the dungeon for Thinkers.
+ And to-day the orthodox church is as much opposed as it ever was to the
+ mental freedom of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, there is a distinction made between churches and individual
+ members. There have been millions of Christians who have been believers in
+ liberty and in the freedom of expression&mdash;millions who have fought
+ for the rights of man&mdash;but churches as organizations, have been on
+ the other side. It is true that churches have fought churches&mdash;that
+ Protestants battled with the Catholics for what they were pleased to call
+ the freedom of conscience; and it is also true that the moment these
+ Protestants obtained the civil power, they denied this freedom of
+ conscience to others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 'Let me show you the difference between the theological and the secular
+ spirit. Nearly three hundred years ago, one of the noblest of the human
+ race, Giordano Bruno, was burned at Rome by the Catholic Church&mdash;that
+ is to say, by the "Triumphant Beast." This man had committed certain
+ crimes&mdash;he had publicly stated that there were other worlds than this&mdash;other
+ constellations than ours. He had ventured the supposition that other
+ planets might be peopled. More than this, and worse than this, he had
+ asserted the heliocentric theory&mdash;that the earth made its annual
+ journey about the sun. He had also given it as his opinion that matter is
+ eternal. For these crimes he was found unworthy to live, and about his
+ body were piled the fagots of the Catholic Church. This man, this genius,
+ this pioneer of the science of the nineteenth century, perished as
+ serenely as the sun sets. The Infidels of to-day find excuses for his
+ murderers. They take into consideration the ignorance and brutality of the
+ times. They remember that the world was governed by a God who was then the
+ source of all authority. This is the charity of Infidelity,&mdash;of
+ philosophy. But the church of to-day is so heartless, is still so cold and
+ cruel, that it can find no excuse for the murdered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the difference between Theocracy and Democracy&mdash;between God
+ and man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God is allowed in the Constitution, man must abdicate. There is no room
+ for both. If the people of the great Republic become superstitious enough
+ and ignorant enough to put God in the Constitution of the United States,
+ the experiment of self-government will have failed, and the great and
+ splendid declaration that "all governments derive their just powers from
+ the consent of the governed" will have been denied, and in its place will
+ be found this: All power comes from God; priests are his agents, and the
+ people are their slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion is an individual matter, and each soul should be left entirely
+ free to form its own opinions and to judge of its accountability to a
+ supposed supreme being. With religion, government has nothing whatever to
+ do. Government is founded upon force, and force should never interfere
+ with the religious opinions of men. Laws should define the rights of men
+ and their duties toward each other, and these laws should be for the
+ benefit of man in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A nation can neither be Christian nor Infidel&mdash;a nation is incapable
+ of having opinions upon these subjects. If a nation is Christian, will all
+ the citizens go to heaven? If it is not, will they all be damned? Of
+ course it is admitted that the majority of citizens composing a nation may
+ believe or disbelieve, and they may call the nation what they please. A
+ nation is a corporation. To repeat a familiar saying, "it has no soul."
+ There can be no such thing as a Christian corporation. Several Christians
+ may form a corporation, but it can hardly be said that the corporation
+ thus formed was included in the atonement. For instance: Seven Christians
+ form a corporation&mdash;that is to say, there are seven natural persons
+ and one artificial&mdash;can it be said that there are eight souls to be
+ saved?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No human being has brain enough, or knowledge enough, or experience
+ enough, to say whether there is, or is not, a God. Into this darkness
+ Science has not yet carried its torch. No human being has gone beyond the
+ horizon of the natural. As to the existence of the supernatural, one man
+ knows precisely as much, and exactly as little as another. Upon this
+ question, chimpanzees and cardinals, apes and popes, are upon exact
+ equality. The smallest insect discernible only by the most powerful
+ microscope, is as familiar with this subject, as the greatest genius that
+ has been produced by the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Governments and laws are for the preservation of rights and the regulation
+ of conduct. One man should not be allowed to interfere with the liberty of
+ another. In the metaphysical world there should be no interference
+ whatever, The same is true in the world of art. Laws cannot regulate what
+ is or is not music, what is or what is not beautiful&mdash;and
+ constitutions cannot definitely settle and determine the perfection of
+ statues, the value of paintings, or the glory and subtlety of thought. In
+ spite of laws and constitutions the brain will think. In every direction
+ consistent with the well-being and peace of society, there should be
+ freedom. No man should be compelled to adopt the theology of another;
+ neither should a minority, however small, be forced to acquiesce in the
+ opinions of a majority, however large.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help&mdash;we need not
+ waste our energies in his defence. It is enough for us to give to every
+ other human being the liberty we claim for ourselves. There may or may not
+ be a Supreme Ruler of the universe&mdash;but we are certain that man
+ exists, and we believe that freedom is the condition of progress; that it
+ is the sunshine of the mental and moral world, and that without it man
+ will go back to the den of savagery, and will become the fit associate of
+ wild and ferocious beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have tried the government of priests, and we know that such governments
+ are without mercy. In the administration of theocracy, all the instruments
+ of torture have been invented. If any man wishes to have God recognized in
+ the Constitution of our country, let him read the history of the
+ Inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of millions of men, women
+ and children have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the
+ approbation of this God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has been in our country a divorce of church and state. This follows
+ as a natural sequence of the declaration that "governments derive their
+ just powers from the consent of the governed." The priest was no longer a
+ necessity. His presence was a contradiction of the principle on which the
+ Republic was founded. He represented, not the authority of the people, but
+ of some "Power from on High," and to recognize this other Power was
+ inconsistent with free government. The founders of the Republic at that
+ time parted company with the priests, and said to them: "You may turn your
+ attention to the other world&mdash;we will attend to the affairs of this."
+ Equal liberty was given to all. But the ultra theologian is not satisfied
+ with this&mdash;he wishes to destroy the liberty of the people&mdash;he
+ wishes a recognition of his God as the source of authority, to the end
+ that the church may become the supreme power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the sun will not be turned backward. The people of the United States
+ are intelligent. They no longer believe implicitly in supernatural
+ religion. They are losing confidence in the miracles and marvels of the
+ Dark Ages. They know the value of the free school. They appreciate the
+ benefits of science. They are believers in education, in the free play of
+ thought, and there is a suspicion that the priest, the theologian, is
+ destined to take his place with the necromancer, the astrologer, the
+ worker of magic, and the professor of the black art.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the
+ theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the
+ many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of
+ men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and
+ skins&mdash;they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science
+ dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day.
+ Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and
+ elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above
+ and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in
+ the brain of an average man of to-day&mdash;of a master-mechanic, of a
+ chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of
+ the world four hundred years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These blessings did not fall from the skies, These benefits did not drop
+ from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals
+ or behind altars&mdash;neither were they searched for with holy candles.
+ They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come
+ in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom,
+ the gifts of reason, observation and experience&mdash;and for them all,
+ man is indebted to man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hold fast to the sublime declaration of Lincoln. Let us insist that
+ this, the Republic, is "A government of the people, by the people, and for
+ the people."&mdash;The Arena, Boston, Mass., January, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0004" id="link0004">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A REPLY TO BISHOP SPALDING.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * An unfinished reply to Bishop J. L. Spalding's article
+ "God in the Constitution," which appeared in the Arena.
+ Boston, Mass., April, 1890.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ BISHOP SPALDING admits that "The introduction of the question of religion
+ would not only have brought discord into the Constitutional convention,
+ but would have also engendered strife throughout the land." Undoubtedly
+ this is true. I am compelled to admit this, for the reason that in all
+ times and in all lands the introduction of the question of religion has
+ brought discord and has engendered strife.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also says: "In the presence of such danger, like wise men and patriots,
+ they avoided irritating subjects"&mdash;the irritating subject being the
+ question of religion. I admit that it always has been, and promises always
+ to be, an "irritating subject," because it is not a subject decided by
+ reason, but by ignorance, prejudice, arrogance and superstition.
+ Consequently he says: "It was prudence, then, not skepticism, which
+ induced them to leave the question of religion to the several States." The
+ Bishop admits that it was prudent for the founders of this Government to
+ leave the question of religion entirely to the States. It was prudent
+ because the question of religion is irritating&mdash;because religious
+ questions engender strife and hatred. Now, if it was prudent for the
+ framers of the Constitution to leave religion out of the Constitution, and
+ allow that question to be settled by the several States themselves under
+ that clause preventing the establishment of religion or the free exercise
+ thereof, why is it not wise still&mdash;why is it not prudent now?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My article was written against the introduction of religion into the
+ Constitution of the United States. I am opposed to a recognition of God
+ and of Jesus Christ in that instrument; and the reason I am opposed to it
+ is, that: "The introduction of the question of religion would not only
+ bring discord, but would engender strife throughout the land." I am
+ opposed to it for the reason that religion is an "irritating subject," and
+ also because if it was prudent when the Constitution was made, to leave
+ God out, it is prudent now to keep him out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bishop is mistaken&mdash;as bishops usually are&mdash;when he says:
+ "Had our fathers been skeptics, or anti-theists, they would not have
+ required the President and Vice-President, the Senators and
+ Representatives in Congress, and all executive and judicial officers of
+ the United States, to call God to witness that they intended to perform
+ their duties under the Constitution like honest men and loyal citizens."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The framers of the Constitution did no such thing. They allowed every
+ officer, from the President down, either to swear or to affirm, and those
+ who affirmed did not call God to witness. In other words, our Constitution
+ allowed every officer to abolish the oath and to leave God out of the
+ question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bishop informs us, however, that: "The causes which would have made it
+ unwise to introduce any phase of religious controversy into the
+ Constitutional convention have long since ceased to exist." Is there as
+ much division now in the religious world as then? Has the Catholic Church
+ thrown away the differences between it and the Protestants? Are we any
+ better friends to-day than we were in 1789? As a matter of fact, is there
+ not now a cause which did not to the same extent exist then? Have we not
+ in the United States, millions of people who believe in no religion
+ whatever, and who regard all creeds as the work of ignorance and
+ superstition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble about putting God in the Constitution in 1789 was, that they
+ could not agree on the God to go in; and the reason why our fathers did
+ not unite church and state was, that they could not agree on which church
+ was to be the bride. The Catholics of Maryland certainly would not have
+ permitted the nation to take the Puritan Church, neither would the
+ Presbyterians of Pennsylvania have agreed to this, nor would the
+ Episcopalians of New York, or of any Southern State. Each church said:
+ "Marry me, or die a bachelor."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bishop asks whether there are "still reasons why an express
+ recognition of God's sovereignty and providence should not form part of
+ the organic law of the land"? I ask, were there any reasons, in 1789, why
+ an express recognition of God's sovereignty and providence should not form
+ part of the organic law of the land? Did not the Bishop say, only a few
+ lines back of that, "that the introduction of the question of religion
+ into that body would have brought discord, and would have engendered
+ strife throughout the land." What is the "question of religion" to which
+ he referred? Certainly "the recognition of God's sovereignty and
+ providence," with the addition of describing the God as the author of the
+ supposed providence. Thomas Jefferson would have insisted on having a God
+ in the Constitution who was not the author of the Old and New Testaments.
+ Benjamin Franklin would have asked for the same God; and on that question
+ John Adams would have voted yes. Others would have voted for a Catholic
+ God&mdash;others for an Episcopalian, and so on, until the representatives
+ of the various creeds were exhausted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I took the ground, and I still take the ground, that there is nothing in
+ the Constitution that cannot on occasion be enforced by the army and navy&mdash;that
+ is to say, that cannot be defended and enforced by the sword. Suppose God
+ is acknowledged in the Constitution, and somebody denies the existence of
+ this God&mdash;what are you to do with him? Every man elected to office
+ must swear or affirm that he will support the Constitution. Can one who
+ does not believe in this God, conscientiously take such oath, or make such
+ affirmation?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The effect, then, of such a clause in the Constitution would be to drive
+ from public life all except the believers in this God, and this
+ providence. The Government would be in fact a theocracy and would resort
+ for its preservation to one of the old forms of religious persecution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I took the ground in my article, and still maintain it, that all
+ intelligent people know that no one knows whether there is a God or not.
+ This cannot be answered by saying, "that nearly all intelligent men in
+ every age, including our own, have believed in God and have held that they
+ had rational grounds for such faith." This is what is called a departure
+ in pleading&mdash;it is a shifting of the issue. I did not say that
+ intelligent people do not believe in the existence of God. What I did say
+ is, that intelligent people know that no one knows whether there is a God
+ or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that we know the conditions of thought. Neither is it true
+ that we know that these conditions are unconditioned. There is no such
+ thing as the unconditioned conditional. We might as well say that the
+ relative is unrelated&mdash;that the unrelated is the absolute&mdash;and
+ therefore that there is no difference between the absolute and the
+ relative.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bishop says we cannot know the relative without knowing the absolute.
+ The probability is that he means that we cannot know the relative without
+ admitting the existence of the absolute, and that we cannot know the
+ phenomenal without taking the noumenal for granted. Still, we can neither
+ know the absolute nor the noumenal for the reason that our mind is limited
+ to relations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0005" id="link0005">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * "An Address delivered before the State Bar Association at
+ Albany, N. Y., January 1, 1890."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IN this brief address, the object is to suggest&mdash;there being no time
+ to present arguments at length. The subject has been chosen for the reason
+ that it is one that should interest the legal profession, because that
+ profession to a certain extent controls and shapes the legislation of our
+ country and fixes definitely the scope and meaning of all laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Lawyers ought to be foremost in legislative and judicial reform, and of
+ all men they should understand the philosophy of mind, the causes of human
+ action, and the real science of government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been said that the three pests of a community are: A priest without
+ charity; a doctor without knowledge, and, a lawyer without a sense of
+ justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All nations seem to have had supreme confidence in the deterrent power of
+ threatened and inflicted pain. They have regarded punishment as the
+ shortest road to reformation. Imprisonment, torture, death, constituted a
+ trinity under whose protection society might feel secure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In addition to these, nations have relied on confiscation and degradation,
+ on maimings, whippings, brandings, and exposures to public ridicule and
+ contempt. Connected with the court of justice was the chamber of torture.
+ The ingenuity of man was exhausted in the construction of instruments that
+ would surely reach the most sensitive nerve. All this was done in the
+ interest of civilization&mdash;for the protection of virtue, and the
+ well-being of states. Curiously it was found that the penalty of death
+ made little difference. Thieves and highwaymen, heretics and blasphemers,
+ went on their way. It was then thought necessary to add to this penalty of
+ death, and consequently, the convicted were tortured in every conceivable
+ way before execution. They were broken on the wheel&mdash;their joints
+ dislocated on the rack. They were suspended by their legs and arms, while
+ immense weights were placed upon their breasts. Their flesh was burned and
+ torn with hot irons. They were roasted at slow fires. They were buried
+ alive&mdash;given to wild beasts&mdash;molten lead was poured in their
+ ears&mdash;their eye-lids were cut off and, the wretches placed with their
+ faces toward the sun&mdash;others were securely bound, so that they could
+ move neither hand nor foot, and over their stomachs were placed inverted
+ bowls; under these bowls rats were confined; on top of the bowls were
+ heaped coals of fire, so that the rats in their efforts to escape would
+ gnaw into the bowels of the victims. They were staked out on the sands of
+ the sea, to be drowned by the slowly rising tide&mdash;and every means by
+ which human nature can be overcome slowly, painfully and terribly, was
+ conceived and carried into execution. And yet the number of so-called
+ criminals increased. Enough, the fact is that, no matter how severe the
+ punishments were, the crimes increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For petty offences men were degraded&mdash;given to the mercy of the
+ rabble. Their ears were cut off, their nostrils slit, their foreheads
+ branded. They were tied to the tails of carts and flogged from one town to
+ another. And yet, in spite of all, the poor wretches obstinately refused
+ to become good and useful citizens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Degradation has been thoroughly tried, with its maimings and brandings,
+ and the result was that those who inflicted the punishments became as
+ degraded as their victims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago there were more than two hundred offences in Great
+ Britain punishable by death. The gallows-tree bore fruit through all the
+ year, and the hangman was the busiest official in the kingdom&mdash;but
+ the criminals increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to
+ prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons, with
+ chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and racks,
+ with hangmen and headsmen&mdash;and yet these frightful means and
+ instrumentalities and crimes have accomplished little for the preservation
+ of property or life. It is safe to say that governments have committed far
+ more crimes than they have prevented.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why is it that men will suffer and risk so much for the sake of stealing?
+ Why will they accept degradation and punishment and infamy as their
+ portion? Some will answer this question by an appeal to the dogma of
+ original sin; others by saying that millions of men and women are under
+ the control of fiends&mdash;that they are actually possessed by devils;
+ and others will declare that all these people act from choice&mdash;that
+ they are possessed of free wills, of intelligence&mdash;that they know and
+ appreciate consequences, and that, in spite of all, they deliberately
+ prefer a life of crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have we not advanced far enough intellectually to deny the existence of
+ chance? Are we not satisfied now that back of every act and thought and
+ dream and fancy is an efficient cause? Is anything, or can anything, be
+ produced that is not necessarily produced? Can the fatherless and
+ motherless exist? Is there not a connection between all events, and is not
+ every act related to all other acts? Is it not possible, is it not
+ probable, is it not true, that the actions of all men are determined by
+ countless causes over which they have no positive control?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certain it is that men do not prefer unhappiness to joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It can hardly be said that man intends permanently to injure himself, and
+ that he does what he does in order that he may live a life of misery. On
+ the other hand, we must take it for granted that man endeavors to better
+ his own condition, and seeks, although by mistaken ways, his own
+ well-being. The poorest man would like to be rich&mdash;the sick desire
+ health&mdash;and no sane man wishes to win the contempt and hatred of his
+ fellow-men. Every human being prefers liberty to imprisonment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the brains of criminals exactly like the brains of honest men? Have
+ criminals the same ambitions, the same standards of happiness or of
+ well-being? If a difference exists in brain, will that in part account for
+ the difference in character? Is there anything in heredity? Are vices as
+ carefully transmitted by nature as virtues? Does each man in some degree
+ bear burdens imposed by ancestors? We know that diseases of flesh and
+ blood are transmitted&mdash;that the child is the heir of physical
+ deformity. Are diseases of the brain&mdash;are deformities of the soul, of
+ the mind, also transmitted?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We not only admit, but we assert, that in the physical world there are
+ causes and effects. We insist that there is and can be no effect without
+ an efficient cause. When anything happens in that world, we are satisfied
+ that it was naturally and necessarily produced. The causes may be obscure,
+ but we as implicitly believe in their existence as when we know positively
+ what they are. In the physical world we have taken the ground that there
+ is nothing miraculous&mdash;that everything is natural&mdash;and if we
+ cannot explain it, we account for our inability to explain, by our own
+ ignorance. Is it not possible, is it not probable, that what is true in
+ the physical world is equally true in the realm of mind&mdash;in that
+ strange world of passion and desire? Is it possible that thoughts or
+ desires or passions are the children of chance, born of nothing? Can we
+ conceive of nothing as a force, or as a cause? If, then, there is behind
+ every thought and desire and passion an efficient cause, we can, in part
+ at least, account for the actions of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A certain man under certain conditions acts in a certain way. There are
+ certain temptations that he, with his brain, with his experience, with his
+ intelligence, with his surroundings cannot withstand. He is irresistibly
+ led to do, or impelled to do, certain things; and there are other things
+ that he can not do. If we change the conditions of this man, his actions
+ will be changed. Develop his mind, give him new subjects of thought, and
+ you change the man; and the man being Changed, it follows of necessity
+ that his conduct will be different.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In civilized countries the struggle for existence is severe&mdash;the
+ competition far sharper than in savage lands. The consequence is that
+ there are many failures. These failures lack, it may be, opportunity or
+ brain or moral force or industry, or something without which, under the
+ circumstances, success is impossible. Certain lines of conduct are called
+ legal, and certain others criminal, and the men who fail in one line may
+ be driven to the other. How do we know that it is possible for all people
+ to be honest? Are we certain that all people can tell the truth? Is it
+ possible for all men to be generous or candid or courageous?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am perfectly satisfied that there are millions of people incapable of
+ committing certain crimes, and it may be true that there are millions of
+ others incapable of practicing certain virtues. We do not blame a man
+ because he is not a sculptor, a poet, a painter, or a statesman. We say he
+ has not the genius. Are we certain that it does not require genius to be
+ good? Where is the man with intelligence enough to take into consideration
+ the circumstances of each individual case? Who has the mental balance with
+ which to weigh the forces of heredity, of want, of temptation,&mdash;and
+ who can analyze with certainty the mysterious motions of the brain? Where
+ and what are the sources of vice and virtue? In what obscure and shadowy
+ recesses of the brain are passions born? And what is it that for the
+ moment destroys the sense of right and wrong?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who knows to what extent reason becomes the prisoner of passion&mdash;of
+ some strange and wild desire, the seeds of which were sown, it may be,
+ thousands of years ago in the breast of some savage? To what extent do
+ antecedents and surroundings affect the moral sense?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not possible that the tyranny of governments, the injustice of
+ nations, the fierceness of what is called the law, produce in the
+ individual a tendency in the same direction? Is it not true that the
+ citizen is apt to imitate his nation? Society degrades its enemies&mdash;the
+ individual seeks to degrade his. Society plunders its enemies, and now and
+ then the citizen has the desire to plunder his. Society kills its enemies,
+ and possibly sows in the heart of some citizen the seeds of murder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not true that the criminal is a natural product, and that society
+ unconsciously produces these children of vice? Can we not safely take
+ another step, and say that the criminal is a victim, as the diseased and
+ insane and deformed are victims? We do not think of punishing a man
+ because he is afflicted with disease&mdash;our desire is to find a cure.
+ We send him, not to the penitentiary, but to the hospital, to an asylum.
+ We do this because we recognize the fact that disease is naturally
+ produced&mdash;that it is inherited from parents, or the result of
+ unconscious negligence, or it may be of recklessness&mdash;but instead of
+ punishing, we pity. If there are diseases of the mind, of the brain, as
+ there are diseases of the body; and if these diseases of the mind, these
+ deformities of the brain, produce, and necessarily produce, what we call
+ vice, why should we punish the-criminal, and pity those who are physically
+ diseased?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Socrates, in some respects at least one of the wisest of men, said: "It is
+ strange that you should not be angry when you meet a man with an
+ ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with an
+ ill-conditioned soul."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know that there are deformed bodies, and we are equally certain that
+ there are deformed minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, society has the right to protect itself, no matter whether the
+ persons who attack its well-being are responsible or not, no matter
+ whether they are sick in mind, or deformed in brain. The right of
+ self-defence exists, not only in the individual, but in society. The great
+ question is, How shall this right of self-defence be exercised? What
+ spirit shall be in the nation, or in society&mdash;the spirit of revenge,
+ a desire to degrade and punish and destroy, or a spirit born of the
+ recognition of the fact that criminals are victims?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world has thoroughly tried confiscation, degradation, imprisonment,
+ torture and death, and thus far the world has failed. In this connection I
+ call your attention to the following statistics gathered in our own
+ country:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1850, we had twenty-three millions of people, and between six and seven
+ thousand prisoners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1860&mdash;thirty-one millions of people, and nineteen thousand
+ prisoners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1870&mdash;thirty-eight millions of people, and thirty-two thousand
+ prisoners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1880&mdash;fifty millions of people, and fifty-eight thousand
+ prisoners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be curious to note the relation between insanity, pauperism and
+ crime:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1850, there were fifteen thousand insane; in 1860, twenty-four
+ thousand; in 1870, thirty-seven thousand; in 1880, ninety-one thousand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the light of these statistics, we are not succeeding in doing away with
+ crime. There were in 1880, fifty-eight thousand prisoners, and in the same
+ year fifty-seven thousand homeless children, and sixty-six thousand
+ paupers in almshouses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that we must go to the same causes for these effects?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no reformation in degradation. To mutilate a criminal is to say
+ to all the world that he is a criminal, and to render his reformation
+ substantially impossible. Whoever is degraded by society becomes its
+ enemy. The seeds of malice are sown in his heart, and to the day of his
+ death he will hate the hand that sowed the seeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is also another side to this question. A punishment that degrades
+ the punished will degrade the man who inflicts the punishment, and will
+ degrade the government that procures the infliction. The whipping-post
+ pollutes, not only the whipped, but the whipper, and not only the whipper,
+ but the community at large. Wherever its shadow falls it degrades.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, then, there is no reforming power in degradation&mdash;no deterrent
+ power&mdash;for the reason that the degradation of the criminal degrades
+ the community, and in this way produces more criminals, then the next
+ question is, Whether there is any reforming power in torture? The trouble
+ with this is that it hardens and degrades to the last degree the ministers
+ of the law. Those who are not affected by the agonies of the bad will in a
+ little time care nothing for the sufferings of the good. There seems to be
+ a little of the wild beast in men&mdash;a something that is fascinated by
+ suffering, and that delights in inflicting pain. When a government
+ tortures, it is in the same state of mind that the criminal was when he
+ committed his crime. It requires as much malice in those who execute the
+ law, to torture a criminal, as it did in the criminal to torture and kill
+ his victim. The one was a crime by a person, the other by a nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is something in injustice, in cruelty, that tends to defeat itself.
+ There were never as many traitors in England as when the traitor was drawn
+ and quartered&mdash;when he was tortured in every possible way&mdash;when
+ his limbs, torn and bleeding, were given to the fury of mobs or exhibited
+ pierced by pikes or hung in chains. These frightful punishments produced
+ intense hatred of the government, and traitors continued to increase until
+ they became powerful enough to decide what treason was and who the
+ traitors were, and to inflict the same torments on others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think for a moment of what man has suffered in the cause of crime. Think
+ of the millions that have been imprisoned, impoverished and degraded
+ because they were thieves and forgers, swindlers and cheats. Think for a
+ moment of what they have endured&mdash;of the difficulties under which
+ they have pursued their calling, and it will be exceedingly hard to
+ believe that they were sane and natural people possessed of good brains,
+ of minds well-poised, and that they did what they did from a choice
+ unaffected by heredity and the countless circumstances that tend to
+ determine the conduct of human beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other day I was asked these questions: "Has there been as much heroism
+ displayed for the right as for the wrong? Has virtue had as many martyrs
+ as vice?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For hundreds of years the world has endeavored to destroy the good by
+ force. The expression of honest thought was regarded as the greatest of
+ crimes. Dungeons were filled by the noblest and the best, and the blood of
+ the bravest was shed by the sword or consumed by flame. It was impossible
+ to destroy the longing in the heart of man for liberty and truth. Is it
+ not possible that brute force and cruelty and revenge, imprisonment,
+ torture and death are as impotent to do away with vice as to destroy
+ virtue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our country there has been for many years a growing feeling that
+ convicts should neither be degraded nor tortured. It was provided in the
+ Constitution of the United States that "cruel and unusual punishments
+ should not be inflicted." Benjamin Franklin took great interest in the
+ treatment of prisoners, being a thorough believer in the reforming
+ influence of justice, having no confidence whatever in punishment for
+ punishment's sake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me it has always been a mystery how the average man, knowing something
+ of the weakness of human nature, something of the temptations to which he
+ himself has been exposed&mdash;remembering the evil of his life, the
+ things he would have done had there been opportunity, had he absolutely
+ known that discovery would be impossible&mdash;should have feelings of
+ hatred toward the imprisoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that the average man assaults the criminal in a spirit of
+ self-defence? Does he wish to convince his neighbors that the evil thought
+ and impulse were never in his mind? Are his words a shield that he uses to
+ protect himself from suspicion? For my part, I sympathize sincerely with
+ all failures, with the victims of society, with those who have fallen,
+ with the imprisoned, with the hopeless, with those who have been stained
+ by verdicts of guilty, and with those who, in the moment of passion have
+ destroyed, as with a blow, the future of their lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How perilous, after all, is the state of man. It is the work of a life to
+ build a great and splendid character. It is the work of a moment to
+ destroy it utterly, from turret to foundation stone. How cruel hypocrisy
+ is!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any remedy? Can anything be done for the reformation of the
+ criminal?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He should be treated with kindness. Every right should be given him,
+ consistent with the safety of society. He should neither be degraded nor
+ robbed. The State should set the highest and noblest example. The powerful
+ should never be cruel, and in the breast of the supreme there should be no
+ desire for revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man in a moment of want steals the property of another, and he is sent
+ to the penitentiary&mdash;first, as it is claimed, for the purpose of
+ deterring others; and secondly, of reforming him. The circumstances of
+ each individual case are rarely inquired into. Investigation stops when
+ the simple fact of the larceny has been ascertained. No distinctions are
+ made except as between first and subsequent offences. Nothing is allowed
+ for surroundings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All will admit that the industrious must be protected. In this world it is
+ necessary to work. Labor is the foundation of all prosperity. Larceny is
+ the enemy of industry. Society has the right to protect itself. The
+ question is, Has it the right to punish?&mdash;has it the right to
+ degrade?&mdash;or should it endeavor to reform the convict?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man is taken to the penitentiary. He is clad in the garments of a
+ convict. He is degraded&mdash;he loses his name&mdash;he is designated by
+ a number. He is no longer treated as a human being&mdash;he becomes the
+ slave of the State. Nothing is done for his improvement&mdash;nothing for
+ his reformation. He is driven like a beast of burden; robbed of his labor;
+ leased, it may be, by the State to a contractor, who gets out of his
+ hands, out of his muscles, out of his poor brain, all the toil that he
+ can. He is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. At night he is
+ alone in his cell. The relations that should exist between men are
+ destroyed. He is a convict. He is no longer worthy to associate even with
+ his keepers. The jailer is immensely his superior, and the man who turns
+ the key upon him at night regards himself, in comparison, as a model of
+ honesty, of virtue and manhood. The convict is pavement on which those who
+ watch him walk. He remains for the time of his sentence, and when that
+ expires he goes forth a branded man. He is given money enough to pay his
+ fare back to the place from whence he came.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the condition of this man? Can he get employment? Not if he
+ honestly states who he is and where he has been. The first thing he does
+ is to deny his personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by telling
+ falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good conduct. The average man
+ does not wish to employ an ex-convict, because the average man has no
+ confidence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. He believes that
+ the convict who comes out is worse than the convict who went in. He knows
+ that in the penitentiary the heart of this man has been hardened&mdash;that
+ he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual humiliation&mdash;that
+ he has been treated like a ferocious beast; and so he believes that this
+ ex-convict has in his heart hatred for society, that he feels he has been
+ degraded and robbed. Under these circumstances, what avenue is opened to
+ the ex-convict? If he changes his name, there will be some detective, some
+ officer of the law, some meddlesome wretch, who will betray his secret. He
+ is then discharged. He seeks employment again, and he must seek it by
+ again telling what is not true. He is again detected and again discharged.
+ And finally he becomes convinced that he cannot live as an honest man. He
+ naturally drifts back into the society of those who have had a like
+ experience; and the result is that in a little while he again stands in
+ the dock, charged with the commission of another crime. Again he is sent
+ to the penitentiary&mdash;and this is the end. He feels that his day is
+ done, that the future has only degradation for him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men in the penitentiaries do not work for themselves. Their labor
+ belongs to others. They have no interest in their toil&mdash;no reason for
+ doing the best they can&mdash;and the result is that the product of their
+ labor is poor. This product comes in competition with the work of
+ mechanics, honest men, who have families to support, and the cry is that
+ convict labor takes the bread from the mouths of virtuous people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should the State take without compensation the labor of these men; and
+ why should they, after having been imprisoned for years, be turned out
+ without the means of support? Would it not be far better, far more
+ economical, to pay these men for their labor, to lay aside their earnings
+ from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year&mdash;to put
+ this money at interest, so that when the convict is released after five
+ years of imprisonment he will have several hundred dollars of his own&mdash;not
+ merely money enough to pay his way back to the place from which he was
+ sent, but enough to make it possible for him to commence business on his
+ own account, enough to keep the wolf of crime from the door of his heart?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose the convict comes out with five hundred dollars. This would be to
+ most of that class a fortune. It would form a breastwork, a fortress,
+ behind which the man could fight temptation. This would give him food and
+ raiment, enable him to go to some other State or country where he could
+ redeem himself. If this were done, thousands of convicts would feel under
+ immense obligation to the Government. They would think of the penitentiary
+ as the place in which they were saved&mdash;in which they were redeemed&mdash;and
+ they would feel that the verdict of guilty rescued them from the abyss of
+ crime. Under these circumstances, the law would appear beneficent, and the
+ heart of the poor convict, instead of being filled with malice, would
+ overflow with gratitude. He would see the propriety of the course pursued
+ by the Government. He would recognize and feel and experience the benefits
+ of this course, and the result would be good, not only to him, but to the
+ nation as well.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the convict worked for himself, he would do the best he could, and the
+ wares produced in the penitentiaries would not cheapen the labor of other
+ men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are, however, men who pursue crime as a vocation&mdash;as a
+ profession&mdash;men who have been convicted again and again, and who will
+ persist in using the liberty of intervals to prey upon the rights of
+ others. What shall be done with these men and women?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Put one thousand hardened thieves on an island&mdash;compel them to
+ produce what they eat and use&mdash;and I am almost certain that a large
+ majority would be opposed to theft. Those who worked would not permit
+ those who did not, to steal the result of their labor. In other words,
+ self-preservation would be the dominant idea, and these men would
+ instantly look upon the idlers as the enemies of their society.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such a community would be self-supporting. Let women of the same class be
+ put by themselves. Keep the sexes absolutely apart. Those who are beyond
+ the power of reformation should not have the liberty to reproduce
+ themselves. Those who cannot be reached by kindness&mdash;by justice&mdash;those
+ who under no circumstances are willing to do their share, should be
+ separated. They should dwell apart, and dying, should leave no heirs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What shall be done with the slayers of their fellow-men&mdash;with
+ murderers? Shall the nation take life?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been contended that the death penalty deters others&mdash;that it
+ has far more terror than imprisonment for life. What is the effect of the
+ example set by a nation? Is not the tendency to harden and degrade not
+ only those who inflict and those who witness, but the entire community as
+ well?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago a man was hanged in Alexandria, Virginia. One who
+ witnessed the execution, on that very day, murdered a peddler in the
+ Smithsonian grounds at Washington. He was tried and executed, and one who
+ witnessed his hanging went home, and on the same day murdered his wife.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tendency of the extreme penalty is to prevent conviction. In the
+ presence of death it is easy for a jury to find a doubt. Technicalities
+ become important, and absurdities, touched with mercy, have the appearance
+ for a moment of being natural and logical. Honest and conscientious men
+ dread a final and irrevocable step. If the penalty were imprisonment for
+ life, the jury would feel that if any mistake were made it could be
+ rectified; but where the penalty is death a mistake is fatal. A
+ conscientious man takes into consideration the defects of human nature&mdash;the
+ uncertainty of testimony, and the countless shadows that dim and darken
+ the understanding, and refuses to find a verdict that, if wrong, cannot be
+ righted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The death penalty, inflicted by the Government, is a perpetual excuse for
+ mobs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest danger in a Republic is a mob, and as long as States inflict
+ the penalty of death, mobs will follow the example. If the State does not
+ consider life sacred, the mob, with ready rope, will strangle the
+ suspected. The mob will say: "The only difference is in the trial; the
+ State does the same&mdash;we know the man is guilty&mdash;why should time
+ be wasted in technicalities?" In other words, why may not the mob do
+ quickly that which the State does slowly?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every execution tends to harden the public heart&mdash;tends to lessen the
+ sacredness of human life. In many States of this Union the mob is supreme.
+ For certain offences the mob is expected to lynch the supposed criminal.
+ It is the duty of every citizen&mdash;and as it seems to me especially of
+ every lawyer&mdash;to do what he can to destroy the mob spirit. One would
+ think that men would be afraid to commit any crime in a community where
+ the mob is in the ascendency, and yet, such are the contradictions and
+ subtleties of human nature, that it is exactly the opposite. And there is
+ another thing in this connection&mdash;the men who constitute the mob are,
+ as a rule, among the worst, the lowest, and the most depraved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago, in Illinois, a man escaped from jail, and, in escaping,
+ shot the sheriff. He was pursued, overtaken&mdash;lynched. The man who put
+ the rope around his neck was then out on bail, having been indicted for an
+ assault to murder. And after the poor wretch was dead, another man climbed
+ the tree from which he dangled and, in derision, put a cigar in the mouth
+ of the dead; and this man was on bail, having been indicted for larceny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their fellow-men for having
+ committed crimes, are, for the most part, at heart, criminals themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as nations meet on the fields of war&mdash;as long as they sustain
+ the relations of savages to each other&mdash;as long as they put the
+ laurel and the oak on the brows of those who kill&mdash;just so long will
+ citizens resort to violence, and the quarrels of individuals be settled by
+ dagger and revolver.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VIII.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we are to change the conduct of men, we must change their conditions.
+ Extreme poverty and crime go hand in hand. Destitution multiplies
+ temptations and destroys the finer feelings. The bodies and souls of men
+ are apt to be clad in like garments. If the body is covered with rags, the
+ soul is generally in the same condition. Selfrespect is gone&mdash;the man
+ looks down&mdash;he has neither hope nor courage. He becomes sinister&mdash;he
+ envies the prosperous&mdash;hates the fortunate, and despises himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as children are raised in the tenement and gutter, the prisons
+ will be full. The gulf between the rich and poor will grow wider and
+ wider. One will depend on cunning, the other on force. It is a great
+ question whether those who live in luxury can afford to allow others to
+ exist in want. The value of property depends, not on the prosperity of the
+ few, but on the prosperity of a very large majority. Life and property
+ must be secure, or that subtle thing called "value" takes its leave. The
+ poverty of the many is a perpetual menace. If we expect a prosperous and
+ peaceful country, the citizens must have homes. The more homes, the more
+ patriots, the more virtue, and the more security for all that gives worth
+ to life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need not repeat the failures of the old world. To divide lands among
+ successful generals, or among favorites of the crown, to give vast estates
+ for services rendered in war, is no worse than to allow men of great
+ wealth to purchase and hold vast tracts of land. The result is precisely
+ the same&mdash;that is to say, a nation composed of a few landlords and of
+ many tenants&mdash;the tenants resorting from time to time to mob
+ violence, and the landlords depending upon a standing army. The property
+ of no man, however, should be taken for either private or public use
+ without just compensation and in accordance with law. There is in the
+ State what is known as the right of eminent domain. The State reserves to
+ itself the power to take the land of any private citizen for a public use,
+ paying to that private citizen a just compensation to be legally
+ ascertained. When a corporation wishes to build a railway, it exercises
+ this right of eminent domain, and where the owner of land refuses to sell
+ a right of way, or land for the establishment of stations or shops, and
+ the corporation proceeds to condemn the land to ascertain its value, and
+ when the amount thus ascertained is paid, the property vests in the
+ corporation. This power is exercised because in the estimation of the
+ people the construction of a railway is a public good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that this power should be exercised in another direction. It
+ would be well as it seems to me, for the Legislature to fix the amount of
+ land that a private citizen may own, that will not be subject to be taken
+ for the use of which I am about to speak. The amount to be thus held will
+ depend upon many local circumstances, to be decided by each State for
+ itself. Let me suppose that the amount of land that may be held for a
+ farmer for cultivation has been fixed at one hundred and sixty acres&mdash;and
+ suppose that A has several thousand acres. B wishes to buy one hundred and
+ sixty acres or less of this land, for the purpose of making himself a
+ home. A refuses to sell. Now, I believe that the law should be so that B
+ can invoke this right of eminent domain, and file his petition, have the
+ case brought before a jury, or before commissioners, who shall hear the
+ evidence and determine the value, and on the payment of the amount the
+ land shall belong to B.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would extend the same law to lots and houses in cities and villages&mdash;the
+ object being to fill our country with the owners of homes, so that every
+ child shall have a fireside, every father and mother a roof, provided they
+ have the intelligence, the energy and the industry to acquire the
+ necessary means.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tenements and flats and rented lands are, in my judgment, the enemies of
+ civilization. They make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. They put a
+ few in palaces, but they put many in prisons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would go a step further than this. I would exempt homes of a certain
+ value not only from levy and sale, but from every kind of taxation, State
+ and National&mdash;so that these poor people would feel that they were in
+ partnership with nature&mdash;that some of the land was absolutely theirs,
+ and that no one could drive them from their home&mdash;so that mothers
+ could feel secure. If the home increased in value, and exceeded the limit,
+ then taxes could be paid on the excess; and if the home were sold, I would
+ have the money realized exempt for a certain time in order that the family
+ should have the privilege of buying another home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The home, after all, is the unit of civilization, of good government; and
+ to secure homes for a great majority of our citizens, would be to lay the
+ foundation of our Government deeper and broader and stronger than that of
+ any nation that has existed among men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IX.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one places a higher value upon the free school than I do; and no one
+ takes greater pride in the prosperity of our colleges and universities.
+ But at the same time, much that is called education simply unfits men
+ successfully to fight the battle of life. Thousands are to-day studying
+ things that will be of exceedingly little importance to them or to others.
+ Much valuable time is wasted in studying languages that long ago were
+ dead, and histories in which there is no truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was an idea in the olden time&mdash;and it is not yet dead&mdash;that
+ whoever was educated ought not to work; that he should use his head and
+ not his hands. Graduates were ashamed to be found engaged in manual labor,
+ in ploughing fields, in sowing or in gathering grain. To this manly kind
+ of independence they preferred the garret and the precarious existence of
+ an unappreciated poet, borrowing their money from their friends, and their
+ ideas from the dead. The educated regarded the useful as degrading&mdash;they
+ were willing to stain their souls to keep their hands white.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The object of all education should be to increase the use fulness of man&mdash;usefulness
+ to himself and others. Every human being should be taught that his first
+ duty is to take care of himself, and that to be self-respecting he must be
+ self-supporting. To live on the labor of others, either by force which
+ enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by borrowing or begging, is wholly
+ dishonorable. Every man should be taught some useful art. His hands should
+ be educated as well as his head. He should be taught to deal with things
+ as they are&mdash;with life as it is. This would give a feeling of
+ independence, which is the firmest foundation of honor, of character.
+ Every man knowing that he is useful, admires himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all the schools children should be taught to work in wood and iron, to
+ understand the construction and use of machinery, to become acquainted
+ with the great forces that man is using to do his work. The present system
+ of education teaches names, not things. It is as though we should spend
+ years in learning the names of cards, without playing a game.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this way boys would learn their aptitudes&mdash;would ascertain what
+ they were fitted for&mdash;what they could do. It would not be a guess, or
+ an experiment, but a demonstration. Education should increase a boy's
+ chances for getting a living. The real good of it is to get food and roof
+ and raiment, opportunity to develop the mind and the body and live a full
+ and ample life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The more real education, the less crime&mdash;and the more homes, the
+ fewer prisons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ X.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fear of punishment may deter some, the fear of exposure others; but
+ there is no real reforming power in fear or punishment. Men cannot be
+ tortured into greatness, into goodness. All this, as I said before, has
+ been thoroughly tried. The idea that punishment was the only relief, found
+ its limit, its infinite, in the old doctrine of eternal pain; but the
+ believers in that dogma stated distinctly that the victims never would be,
+ and never could be, reformed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As men become civilized they become capable of greater pain and of greater
+ joy. To the extent that the average man is capable of enjoying or
+ suffering, to that extent he has sympathy with others. The average man,
+ the more enlightened he becomes, the more apt he is to put himself in the
+ place of another. He thinks of his prisoner, of his employee, of his
+ tenant&mdash;and he even thinks beyond these; he thinks of the community
+ at large. As man becomes civilized he takes more and more into
+ consideration circumstances and conditions. He gradually loses faith in
+ the old ideas and theories that every man can do as he wills, and in the
+ place of the word "wills," he puts the word "must." The time comes to the
+ intelligent man when in the place of punishments he thinks of
+ consequences, results&mdash;that is to say, not something inflicted by
+ some other power, but something necessarily growing out of what is done.
+ The clearer men perceive the consequences of actions, the better they will
+ be. Behind consequences we place no personal will, and consequently do not
+ regard them as inflictions, or punishments. Consequences, no matter how
+ severe they may be, create in the mind no feeling of resentment, no desire
+ for revenge.' We do not feel bitterly toward the fire because it burns, or
+ the frost that freezes, or the flood that overwhelms, or the sea that
+ drowns&mdash;because we attribute to these things no motives, good or bad.
+ So, when through the development of the intellect man perceives not only
+ the nature, but the absolute certainty of consequences, he refrains from
+ certain actions, and this may be called reformation through the intellect&mdash;and
+ surely there is no better reformation than this. Some may be, and probably
+ millions have been, reformed, through kindness, through gratitude&mdash;made
+ better in the sunlight of charity. In the atmosphere of kindness the seeds
+ of virtue burst into bud and flower. Cruelty, tyranny, brute force, do not
+ and can not by any possibility better the heart of man. He who is forced
+ upon his knees has the attitude, but never the feeling, of prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am satisfied that the discipline of the average prison hardens and
+ degrades. It is for the most part a perpetual exhibition of arbitrary
+ power. There is really no appeal. The cries of the convict are not heard
+ beyond the walls. The protests die in cells, and the poor prisoner feels
+ that the last tie between him and his fellow-men has been broken. He is
+ kept in ignorance of the outer world. The prison is a cemetery, and his
+ cell is a grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In many of the penitentiaries there are instruments of torture, and now
+ and then a convict is murdered. Inspections and investigations go for
+ naught, because the testimony of a convict goes for naught. He is
+ generally prevented by fear from telling his wrongs; but if he speaks, he
+ is not believed&mdash;he is regarded as less than a human being, and so
+ the imprisoned remain without remedy. When the visitors are gone, the
+ convict who has spoken is prevented from speaking again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every manly feeling, every effort toward real reformation, is trampled
+ under foot, so that when the convict's time is out there is little left on
+ which to build. He has been humiliated to the last degree, and his spirit
+ has so long been bent by authority and fear that even the desire to stand
+ erect has almost faded from the mind. The keepers feel that they are safe,
+ because no matter what they do, the convict when released will not tell
+ the story of his wrongs, for if he conceals his shame, he must also hide
+ their guilt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every penitentiary should be a real reformatory. That should be the
+ principal object for the establishment of the prison. The men in charge
+ should be of the kindest and noblest. They should be filled with divine
+ enthusiasm for humanity, and every means should be taken to convince the
+ prisoner that his good is sought&mdash;that nothing is done for revenge&mdash;nothing
+ for a display of power, and nothing for the gratification of malice. He
+ should feel that the warden is his unselfish friend. When a convict is
+ charged with a violation of the rules&mdash;with insubordination, or with
+ any offence, there should be an investigation in due and proper form,
+ giving the convict an opportunity to be heard. He should not be for one
+ moment the victim of irresponsible power. He would then feel that he had
+ some rights, and that some little of the human remained in him still. They
+ should be taught things of value&mdash;instructed by competent men. Pains
+ should be taken, not to punish, not to degrade, but to benefit and
+ ennoble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, if we know anything, that men in the penitentiaries are not
+ altogether bad, and that many out are not altogether good; and we feel
+ that in the brain and heart of all, there are the seeds of good and bad.
+ We know, too, that the best are liable to fall, and it may be that the
+ worst, under certain conditions, may be capable of grand and heroic deeds.
+ Of one thing we may be assured&mdash;and that is, that criminals will
+ never be reformed by being robbed, humiliated and degraded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as
+ dishonorable success outranks honest effort&mdash;as long as society bows
+ and cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to
+ fill the jails.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ XI.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the penalties, all the punishments, are inflicted under a belief that
+ man can do right under all circumstances&mdash;that his conduct is
+ absolutely under his control, and that his will is a pilot that can, in
+ spite of winds and tides, reach any port desired. All this is, in my
+ judgment, a mistake. It is a denial of the integrity of nature. It is
+ based upon the supernatural and miraculous, and as long as this mistake
+ remains the corner-stone of criminal jurisprudence, reformation will be
+ impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must take into consideration the nature of man&mdash;the facts of mind&mdash;the
+ power of temptation&mdash;the limitations of the intellect&mdash;the force
+ of habit&mdash;the result of heredity&mdash;the power of passion&mdash;the
+ domination of want&mdash;the diseases of the brain&mdash;the tyranny of
+ appetite&mdash;the cruelty of conditions&mdash;the results of association&mdash;the
+ effects of poverty and wealth, of helplessness and power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Until these subtle things are understood&mdash;until we know that man, in
+ spite of all, can certainly pursue the highway of the right, society
+ should not impoverish and degrade, should not chain and kill those who,
+ after all, may be the helpless victims of unknown causes that are deaf and
+ blind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know something of ourselves&mdash;of the average man&mdash;of his
+ thoughts, passions, fears and aspirations&mdash;something of his sorrows
+ and his joys, his weakness, his liability to fall&mdash;something of what
+ he resists&mdash;the struggles, the victories and the failures of his
+ life. We know something of the tides and currents of the mysterious sea&mdash;something
+ of the circuits of the wayward winds&mdash;but we do not know where the
+ wild storms are born that wreck and rend. Neither do we know in what
+ strange realm the mists and clouds are formed that darken all the heaven
+ of the mind, nor from whence comes the tempest of the brain in which the
+ will to do, sudden as the lightning's flash, seizes and holds the man
+ until the dreadful deed is done that leaves a curse upon the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We do not know. Our ignorance should make us hesitate. Our weakness should
+ make us merciful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot more fittingly close this address than by quoting the prayer of
+ the Buddhist: "I pray thee to have pity on the vicious&mdash;thou hast
+ already had pity on the virtuous by making them so."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0006" id="link0006">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A WOODEN GOD.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ To the Editor:
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ To-day Messrs. Wright, Dickey, O'Connor, and Murch, of the select
+ committee on the causes of the present depression of labor, presented the
+ majority special report upon Chinese immigration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These gentlemen are in great fear for the future of our most holy and
+ perfectly authenticated religion, and have, like faithful watchmen, from
+ the walls and towers of Zion, hastened to give the alarm. They have
+ informed Congress that "Joss has his temple of worship in the Chinese
+ quarters, in San Francisco. Within the walls of a dilapidated structure is
+ exposed to the view of the faithful the god of the Chinaman, and here are
+ his altars of worship. Here he tears up his pieces of paper; here he
+ offers up his prayers; here he receives his religious consolations, and
+ here is his road to the celestial land;" that "Joss is located in a long,
+ narrow room in a building in a back alley, upon a kind of altar;" that "he
+ is a wooden image, looking as much like an alligator as like a human
+ being;" that the Chinese "think there is such a place as heaven;" that
+ "all classes of Chinamen worship idols;" that "the temple is open every
+ day at all hours;" that "the Chinese have no Sunday;" that this heathen
+ god has "huge jaws, a big red tongue, large white teeth, a half-dozen
+ arms, and big, fiery eyeballs. About him are placed offerings of meat and
+ other eatables&mdash;a sacrificial offering."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ *A letter to the Chicago Times, written at Washington, D. C., March
+ 27,1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No wonder that these members of the committee were shocked at such an
+ image of God, knowing as they did that the only true God was correctly
+ described by the inspired lunatic of Patmos in the following words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And there sat in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks one like unto
+ the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about
+ the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like
+ wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet
+ like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the
+ sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of
+ his mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the
+ sun shineth in his strength."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly a large mouth filled with white teeth is preferable to one used
+ as the scabbard of a sharp, two-edged sword. Why should these gentlemen
+ object to a god with big, fiery eyeballs, when their own Deity has eyes
+ like a flame of fire?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not a little late in the day to object to people because they
+ sacrifice meat and other eatables to their god? We all know that for
+ thousands of years the "real" God was exceedingly fond of roasted meat;
+ that he loved the savor of burning flesh, and delighted in the perfume of
+ fresh, warm blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The following account of the manner in which the "living God" desired that
+ his chosen people should sacrifice, tends to show the degradation and
+ religious blindness of the Chinese:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Aaron therefore went unto the altar, and slew the calf of the sin
+ offering, which was for himself. And the sons of Aaron brought the blood
+ unto him: and he dipped his finger in the blood, and put it upon the horns
+ of the altar, and poured out the blood at the bottom of the altar: But the
+ fat, and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver of the sin offering, he
+ burnt upon the altar; as the Lord commanded Moses. And the flesh and the
+ hide he burnt with fire without the camp. And he slew the burnt offering;
+ and Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled round
+ about upon the altar. * * * And he brought the meat offering, and took a
+ handful thereof, and burnt it upon the altar. * * * He slew also the
+ bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offering, which was for the
+ people: and Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled
+ upon the altar round about, and the fat of the bullock and of the ram, the
+ rump, and that which covereth the inwards and the kidneys, and the caul
+ above the liver, and they put the fat upon the breasts, and he burnt the
+ fat upon the altar. And the breast and the right shoulder Aaron waved for
+ a wave offering before the Lord, as Moses commanded."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Chinese only did something like this, we would know that they
+ worshiped the "living" God. The idea that the supreme head of the
+ "American system of religion" can be placated with a little meat and
+ "ordinary eatables" is simply preposterous. He has always asked for blood,
+ and has always asserted that without the shedding of blood there is no
+ remission of sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is also informed by these gentlemen that "the idolatry of the
+ Chinese produces a demoralizing effect upon our American youth by bringing
+ sacred things into disrespect, and making religion a theme of disgust and
+ contempt."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In San Francisco there are some three hundred thousand people. Is it
+ possible that a few Chinese can bring our "holy religion" into disgust and
+ contempt? In that city there are fifty times as many churches as
+ joss-houses. Scores of sermons are uttered every week; religious books and
+ papers are plentiful as leaves in autumn, and somewhat dryer; thousands of
+ Bibles are within the reach of all. And there, too, is the example of a
+ Christian city.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we send missionaries to China if we can not convert the heathen
+ when they come here? When missionaries go to a foreign land, the poor,
+ benighted people have to take their word for the blessings showered upon a
+ Christian people; but when the heathen come here they can see for
+ themselves. What was simply a story becomes a demonstrated fact. They come
+ in contact with people who love their enemies. They see that in a
+ Christian land men tell the truth; that they will not take advantage of
+ strangers; that they are just and patient, kind and tender; that they
+ never resort to force; that they have no prejudice on account of color,
+ race, or religion; that they look upon mankind as brethren; that they
+ speak of God as a universal Father, and are willing to work, and even to
+ suffer, for the good not only of their own countrymen, but of the heathen
+ as well. All this the Chinese see and know, and why they still cling to
+ the religion of their country is to me a matter of amazement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know that the disciples of Jesus do unto others as they would that
+ others should do unto them, and that those of Confucius do not unto others
+ anything that they would not that others should do unto them. Surely, such
+ peoples ought to live together in perfect peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rising with the subject, growing heated with a kind of holy indignation,
+ these Christian representatives of a Christian people most solemnly
+ declare that:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Anyone who is really endowed with a correct knowledge of our religious
+ system, which acknowledges the existence of a living God and an
+ accountability to him, and a future state of reward and punishment, who
+ feels that he has an apology for this abominable pagan worship is not a
+ fit person to be ranked as a good citizen of the American Union. It is
+ absurd to make any apology for its toleration. It must be abolished, and
+ the sooner the decree goes forth by the power of this Government the
+ better it will be for the interests of this land."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I take this, the earliest opportunity, to inform these gentlemen composing
+ a majority of the committee, that we have in the United States no
+ "religious system"; that this is a secular Government. That it has no
+ religious creed; that it does not believe or disbelieve in a future state
+ of reward and punishment; that it neither affirms nor denies the existence
+ of a "living God"; and that the only god, so far as this Government is
+ concerned, is the legally expressed will of a majority of the people.
+ Under our flag the Chinese have the same right to worship a wooden god
+ that you have to worship any other. The Constitution protects equally the
+ church of Jehovah and the house of Joss. Whatever their relative positions
+ may be in heaven, they stand upon a perfect equality in the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This Government is an Infidel Government. We have a Constitution with man
+ put in and God left out; and it is the glory of this country that we have
+ such a Constitution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be surprising to you that I have an apology for pagan worship, yet
+ I have. And it is the same one that I have for the writers of this report.
+ I account for both by the word <i>superstition</i>. Why should we object
+ to their worshiping God as they please? If the worship is improper, the
+ protestation should come not from a committee of Congress, but from God
+ himself. If he is satisfied that is sufficient.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our religion can only be brought into contempt by the actions of those who
+ profess to be governed by its teachings. This report will do more in that
+ direction than millions of Chinese could do by burning pieces of paper
+ before a wooden image. If you wish to impress the Chinese with the value
+ of your religion, of what you are pleased to call "The American system,"
+ show them that Christians are better than heathens. Prove to them that
+ what you are pleased to call the "living God" teaches higher and holier
+ things, a grander and purer code of morals than can be found upon pagan
+ pages. Excel these wretches in industry, in honesty, in reverence for
+ parents, in cleanliness, in frugality; and above all by advocating the
+ absolute liberty of human thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not trample upon these people because they have a different conception
+ of things about which even this committee knows nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Give them the same privilege you enjoy of making a God after their own
+ fashion. And let them describe him as they will. Would you be willing to
+ have them remain, if one of their race, thousands of years ago, had
+ pretended to have seen God, and had written of him as follows:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth
+ devoured: coals were kindled by it, * * * and he rode upon a cherub and
+ did fly."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should you object to these people on account of their religion? Your
+ objection has in it the spirit of hate and intolerance. Of that spirit the
+ Inquisition was born. That spirit lighted the fagot, made the thumbscrew,
+ put chains upon the limbs, and lashes upon the backs of men. The same
+ spirit bought and sold, captured and kidnapped human beings; sold babes,
+ and justified all the horrors of slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Congress has nothing to do with the religion of the people. Its members
+ are not responsible to God for the opinions of their constituents, and it
+ may tend to the happiness of the constituents for me to state that they
+ are in no way responsible for the religion of the members. Religion is an
+ individual, not a national, matter. And where the nation interferes with
+ the right of conscience, the liberties of the people are devoured by the
+ monster superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you wish to drive out the Chinese, do not make a pretext of religion.
+ Do not pretend that you are trying to do God a favor. Injustice in his
+ name is doubly detestable. The assassin can not sanctify his dagger by
+ falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered as
+ a prayer. Religion, used to intensify the hatred of men toward men under
+ the pretence of pleasing God, has cursed this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A portion of this most remarkable report is intensely religious. There is
+ in it almost the odor of sanctity; and when reading it, one is impressed
+ with the living piety of its authors. But on the twenty-fifth page there
+ are a few passages that must pain the hearts of true believers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Leaving their religious views, the members immediately betake themselves
+ to philosophy and prediction. Listen:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The Chinese race and the American citizen, whether native-born or one who
+ is eligible to our naturalization laws and becomes a citizen, are in a
+ state of antagonism. They cannot, or will not, ever meet upon common
+ ground, and occupy together the same social level. This is impossible. The
+ pagan and the Christian travel different paths. This one believes in a
+ living God; and that one in a type of monsters and the worship of wood and
+ stone. Thus in the religion of the two races of men they are as wide apart
+ as the poles of the two hemispheres. They cannot now and never will
+ approach the same religious altar. The Christian will not recede to
+ barbarism, nor will the Chinese advance to the enlightened belt (whatever
+ it is) of civilization. * * * He cannot be converted to those modern ideas
+ of religious worship which have been accepted by Europe and which crown
+ the American system."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians used to believe that through their religion all the nations of
+ the earth were finally to be blest. In accordance with that belief
+ missionaries have been sent to every land, and untold wealth has been
+ expended for what has been called the spread of the gospel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am almost sure that I have read somewhere that "Christ died for <i>all</i>
+ men," and that "God is no respecter of persons." It was once taught that
+ it was the duty of Christians to tell all people the "tidings of great
+ joy." I have never believed these things myself, but have always contended
+ that an honest merchant was the best missionary. Commerce makes friends,
+ religion makes enemies; the one enriches and the other impoverishes; the
+ one thrives best where the truth is told, the other where falsehoods are
+ believed. For myself, I have but little confidence in any business or
+ enterprise or investment that promises dividends only after the death of
+ the stockholders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I am astonished that four Christian statesmen, four members of
+ Congress, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, who seriously
+ object to people on account of their religious convictions, should still
+ assert that the very religion in which they believe&mdash;and the only
+ religion established by the "living God," head of the American system&mdash;is
+ not adapted to the spiritual needs of one-third of the human race. It is
+ amazing that these four gentlemen have, in the defence of the Christian
+ religion, announced the discovery that it is wholly inadequate for the
+ civilization of mankind; that the light of the cross can never penetrate
+ the darkness of China; "that all the labors of the missionary, the example
+ of the good, the exalted character of our civilization, make no impression
+ upon the pagan life of the Chinese;" and that even the report of this
+ committee will not tend to elevate, refine, and Christianize the yellow
+ heathen of the Pacific coast. In the name of religion these gentlemen have
+ denied its power, and mocked at the enthusiasm of its founder. Worse than
+ this, they have predicted for the Chinese a future of ignorance and
+ idolatry in this world, and, if the "American system" of religion is true,
+ hell-fire in the next.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the benefit of these four philosophers and prophets I will give a few
+ extracts from the writings of Confucius, that will, in my judgment,
+ compare favorably with the best passages of their report:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "My doctrine is that man must be true to the principles of his nature, and
+ the benevolent exercise of them toward others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and with my bended arm for a
+ pillow, I still have joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Riches and honor acquired by injustice are to me but floating clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who, in view of gain, thinks of righteousness; who, in view of
+ danger, forgets life, and who remembers an old agreement, however far back
+ it extends, such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's
+ life: Reciprocity is that word."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the ancestors of the four Christian Congressmen were barbarians, when
+ they lived in caves, gnawed bones, and worshiped dried snakes, the
+ infamous Chinese were reading these sublime sentences of Confucius. When
+ the forefathers of these Christian statesmen were hunting toads to get the
+ jewels out of their heads, to be used as charms, the wretched Chinese were
+ calculating eclipses, and measuring the circumference of the earth. When
+ the progenitors of these representatives of the "American system of
+ religion" were burning women charged with nursing devils, the people
+ "incapable of being influenced by the exalted character of our
+ civilization," were building asylums for the insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither should it be forgotten that, for thousands of years, the Chinese
+ have honestly practiced the great principle known as Civil Service Reform&mdash;a
+ something that even the administration of Mr. Hayes has reached only
+ through the proxy of promise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we wish to prevent the immigration of the Chinese, let us reform our
+ treaties with the vast empire from whence they came. For thousands of
+ years the Chinese secluded themselves from the rest of the world. They did
+ not deem the Christian nations fit to associate with. We forced ourselves
+ upon them. We called, not with cards, but with cannon. The English
+ battered down the door in the names of opium and Christ. This infamy was
+ regarded as another triumph for the gospel. At last, in self-defence, the
+ Chinese allowed Christians to touch their shores. Their wise men, their
+ philosophers, protested, and prophesied that time would show that
+ Christians could not be trusted. This report proves that the wise men were
+ not only philosophers, but prophets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Treat China as you would England. Keep a treaty while it is in force.
+ Change it if you will, according to the laws of nations, but on no account
+ excuse a breach of national faith by pretending that we are dishonest for
+ God's sake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ A NEW party is struggling for recognition&mdash;a party with leaders who
+ are not politicians, with followers who are not seekers after place. Some
+ of those who suffer and some of those who sympathize, have combined. Those
+ who feel that they are oppressed are organized for the purpose of
+ redressing their wrongs. The workers for wages, and the seekers for work
+ have uttered a protest. This party is an instrumentality for the
+ accomplishment of certain things that are very near and very dear to the
+ hearts of many millions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The object to be attained is a fairer division of profits between
+ employers and employed. There is a feeling that in some way the workers
+ should not want&mdash;that the industrious should not be the indigent.
+ There is a hope that men and women and children are not forever to be the
+ victims of ignorance and want&mdash;that the tenement house is not always
+ to be the home of the poor, or the gutter the nursery of their babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As yet, the methods for the accomplishment of these aims have not been
+ agreed upon. Many theories have been advanced and none has been adopted.
+ The question is so vast, so complex, touching human interests in so many
+ ways, that no one has yet been great enough to furnish a solution, or, if
+ any one has furnished a solution, no one else has been wise enough to
+ understand it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 'The hope of the future is that this question will finally be understood.
+ It must not be discussed in anger. If a broad and comprehensive view is to
+ be taken, there is no place for hatred or for prejudice. Capital is not to
+ blame. Labor is not to blame. Both have been caught in the net of
+ circumstances. The rich are as generous as the poor would be if they
+ should change places. Men acquire through the noblest and the tenderest
+ instincts. They work and save not only for themselves, but for their wives
+ and for their children. There is but little confidence in the charity of
+ the world. The prudent man in his youth makes preparation for his age. The
+ loving father, having struggled himself, hopes to save his children from
+ drudgery and toil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every country there are classes&mdash;that is to say, the spirit of
+ caste, and this spirit will exist until the world is truly civilized.
+ Persons in most communities are judged not as individuals, but as members
+ of a class. Nothing is more natural, and nothing more heartless. These
+ lines that divide hearts on account of clothes or titles, are growing more
+ and more indistinct, and the philanthropists, the lovers of the human
+ race, believe that the time is coming when they will be obliterated. We
+ may do away with kings and peasants, and yet there may still be the rich
+ and poor, the intelligent and foolish, the beautiful and deformed, the
+ industrious and idle, and it may be, the honest and vicious. These
+ classifications are in the nature of things. They are produced for the
+ most part by forces that are now beyond the control of man&mdash;but the
+ old rule, that men are disreputable in the proportion that they are
+ useful, will certainly be reversed. The idle lord was always held to be
+ the superior of the industrious peasant, the devourer better than the
+ producer, and the waster superior to the worker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While in this country we have no titles of nobility, we have the rich and
+ the poor&mdash;no princes, no peasants, but millionaires and mendicants.
+ The individuals composing these classes are continually changing. The rich
+ of to-day may be the poor of to-morrow, and the children of the poor may
+ take their places. In this country, the children of the poor are educated
+ substantially in the same schools with those of the rich. All read the
+ same papers, many of the same books, and all for many years hear the same
+ questions discussed. They are continually being educated, not only at
+ schools, but by the press, by political campaigns, by perpetual
+ discussions on public questions, and the result is that those who are rich
+ in gold are often poor in thought, and many who have not whereon to lay
+ their heads have within those heads a part of the intellectual wealth of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Years ago the men of wealth were forced to contribute toward the education
+ of the children of the poor. The support of schools by general taxation
+ was defended on the ground that it was a means of providing for the public
+ welfare, of perpetuating the institutions of a free country by making
+ better men and women. This policy has been pursued until at last the
+ schoolhouse is larger than the church, and the common people through
+ education have become uncommon. They now know how little is really known
+ by what are called the upper classes&mdash;how little after all is
+ understood by kings, presidents, legislators, and men of culture. They are
+ capable not only of understanding a few questions, but they have acquired
+ the art of discussing those that no one understands. With the facility of
+ politicians they can hide behind phrases, make barricades of statistics,
+ and <i>chevaux-de-frise</i> of inferences and assertions. They understand
+ the sophistries of those who have governed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In some respects these common people are the superiors of the so-called
+ aristocracy. While the educated have been turning their attention to the
+ classics, to the dead languages, and the dead ideas and mistakes that they
+ contain&mdash;while they have been giving their attention to ceramics,
+ artistic decorations, and compulsory prayers, the common people have been
+ compelled to learn the practical things&mdash;to become acquainted with
+ facts&mdash;by doing the work of the world. The professor of a college is
+ no longer a match for a master mechanic. The master mechanic not only
+ understands principles, but their application. He knows things as they
+ are. He has come in contact with the actual, with realities. He knows
+ something of the adaptation of means to ends, and this is the highest and
+ most valuable form of education. The men who make locomotives, who
+ construct the vast engines that propel ships, necessarily know more than
+ those who have spent their lives in conjugating Greek verbs, looking for
+ Hebrew roots, and discussing the origin and destiny of the universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligence increases wants. By education the necessities of the people
+ become increased. The old wages will not supply the new wants. Man longs
+ for a harmony between the thought within and the things without. When the
+ soul lives in a palace the body is not satisfied with rags and patches.
+ The glaring inequalities among men, the differences in condition, the
+ suffering and the poverty, have appealed to the good and great of every
+ age, and there has been in the brain of the philanthropist a dream&mdash;a
+ hope, a prophecy, of a better day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was believed that tyranny was the foundation and cause of the
+ differences between men&mdash;that the rich were all robbers and the poor
+ all victims, and that if a society or government could be founded on equal
+ rights and privileges, the inequalities would disappear, that all would
+ have food and clothes and reasonable work and reasonable leisure, and that
+ content would be found by every hearth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a reliance on nature&mdash;an idea that men had interfered with
+ the harmonious action of great principles which if left to themselves
+ would work out universal wellbeing for the human race. Others imagined
+ that the inequalities between men were necessary&mdash;that they were part
+ of a divine plan, and that all would be adjusted in some other world&mdash;that
+ the poor here would be the rich there, and the rich here might be in
+ torture there. Heaven became the reward of the poor, of the slave, and
+ hell their revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When our Government was established it was declared that all men are
+ endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which were
+ life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was then believed that if
+ all men had an equal opportunity, if they were allowed to make and execute
+ their own laws, to levy their own taxes, the frightful inequalities seen
+ in the despotisms and monarchies of the old world would entirely
+ disappear. This was the dream of 1776. The founders of the Government knew
+ how kings and princes and dukes and lords and barons had lived upon the
+ labor of the peasants. They knew the history of those ages of want and
+ crime, of luxury and suffering. But in spite of our Declaration, in spite
+ of our Constitution, in spite of universal suffrage, the inequalities
+ still exist. We have the kings and princes, the lords and peasants, in
+ fact, if not in name. Monopolists, corporations, capitalists, workers for
+ wages, have taken their places, and we are forced to admit that even
+ universal suffrage cannot clothe and feed the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For thousands of years men have been talking and writing about the great
+ law of supply and demand&mdash;and insisting that in some way this
+ mysterious law has governed and will continue to govern the activities of
+ the human race. It is admitted that this law is merciless&mdash;that when
+ the demand fails, the producer, the laborer, must suffer, must perish&mdash;that
+ the law feels neither pity nor malice&mdash;it simply acts, regardless of
+ consequences. Under this law capital will employ the cheapest. The single
+ man can work for less than the married. Wife and children are luxuries not
+ to be enjoyed under this law. The ignorant have fewer wants than the
+ educated, and for this reason can afford to work for less. The great law
+ will give employment to the single and to the ignorant in preference to
+ the married and intelligent. The great law has nothing to do with food or
+ clothes, with filth or crime. It cares nothing for homes, for
+ penitentiaries, or asylums. It simply acts&mdash;and some men triumph,
+ some succeed, some fail, and some perish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Others insist that the curse of the world is monopoly. And yet, as long as
+ some men are stronger than others, as long as some are more intelligent
+ than others, they must be, to the extent of such advantage, monopolists.
+ Every man of genius is a monopolist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that the great remedy against monopoly&mdash;that is to say,
+ against extortion, is free and unrestricted competition. But after all,
+ the history of this world shows that the brutalities of competition are
+ equaled only by those of monopoly. The successful competitor becomes a
+ monopolist, and if competitors fail to destroy each other, the instinct of
+ self-preservation suggests a combination. In other words, competition is a
+ struggle between two or more persons or corporations for the purpose of
+ determining which shall have the uninterrupted privilege of extortion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this country the people have had the greatest reliance on competition.
+ If a railway company charged too much a rival road was built. As a matter
+ of fact, we are indebted for half the railroads of the United States to
+ the extortion of the other half, and the same may truthfully be said of
+ telegraph lines. As a rule, while the exactions of monopoly constructed
+ new roads and new lines, competition has either destroyed the weaker, or
+ produced the pool which is a means of keeping both monopolies alive, or of
+ producing a new monopoly with greater needs, supplied by methods more
+ heartless than the old. When a rival road is built the people support the
+ rival because the fares and freights are somewhat less. Then the old and
+ richer monopoly inaugurates war, and the people, glorying in the benefits
+ of competition, are absurd enough to support the old. In a little while
+ the new company, unable to maintain the contest, left by the people at the
+ mercy of the stronger, goes to the wall, and the triumphant monopoly
+ proceeds to make the intelligent people pay not only the old price, but
+ enough in addition to make up for the expenses of the contest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any remedy for this? None, except with the people themselves.
+ When the people become intelligent enough to support the rival at a
+ reasonable price; when they know enough to allow both roads to live; when
+ they are intelligent enough to recognize a friend and to stand by that
+ friend as against a known enemy, this question will be at least on the
+ edge of a solution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So far as I know, this course has never been pursued except in one
+ instance, and that is the present war between the Gould and Mackay cables.
+ The Gould system had been charging from sixty to eighty cents a word, and
+ the Mackay system charged forty. Then the old monopoly tried to induce the
+ rival to put the prices back to sixty. The rival refused, and thereupon
+ the Gould combination dropped to twelve and a half, for the purpose of
+ destroying the rival. The Mackay cable fixed the tariff at twenty-five
+ cents, saying to its customers, "You are intelligent enough to understand
+ what this war means. If our cables are defeated, the Gould system will go
+ back not only to the old price, but will add enough to reimburse itself
+ for the cost of destroying us. If you really wish for competition, if you
+ desire a reasonable service at a reasonable rate, you will support us."
+ Fortunately an exceedingly intelligent class of people does business by
+ the cables. They are merchants, bankers, and brokers, dealing with large
+ amounts, with intricate, complicated, and international questions. Of
+ necessity, they are used to thinking for themselves. They are not dazzled
+ into blindness by the glare of the present. They see the future. They are
+ not duped by the sunshine of a moment or the promise of an hour. They see
+ beyond the horizon of a penny saved. These people had intelligence enough
+ to say, "The rival who stands between us and extortion is our friend, and
+ our friend shall not be allowed to die."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does not this tend to show that people must depend upon themselves, and
+ that some questions can be settled by the intelligence of those who buy,
+ of those who use, and that customers are not entirely helpless?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing should not be forgotten, and that is this: there is the same
+ war between monopolies that there is between individuals, and the
+ monopolies for many years have been trying to destroy each other. They
+ have unconsciously been working for the extinction of monopolies. These
+ monopolies differ as individuals do. You find among them the rich and the
+ poor, the lucky and the unfortunate, millionaires and tramps. The great
+ monopolies have been devouring the little ones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago, the railways in this country were controlled by
+ local directors and local managers. The people along the lines were
+ interested in the stock. As a consequence, whenever any legislation was
+ threatened hostile to the interests of these railways, they had local
+ friends who used their influence with legislators, governors and juries.
+ During this time they were protected, but when the hard times came many of
+ these companies were unable to pay their interest. They suddenly became
+ Socialists. They cried out against their prosperous rivals. They felt like
+ joining the Knights of Labor. They began to talk about rights and wrongs.
+ But in spite of their cries, they have passed into the hands of the richer
+ roads&mdash;they were seized by the great monopolies. Now the important
+ railways are owned by persons living in large cities or in foreign
+ countries. They have no local friends, and when the time conies, and it
+ may come, for the General Government to say how much these companies shall
+ charge for passengers and freight, they will have no local friends. It may
+ be that the great mass of the people will then be on the other side. So
+ that after all, the great corporations have been busy settling the
+ question against themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Possibly a majority of the American people believe to-day that in some way
+ all these questions between capital and labor can be settled by
+ constitutions, laws, and judicial decisions. Most people imagine that a
+ statute is a sovereign specific for any evil. But while the theory has all
+ been one way, the actual experience has been the other&mdash;just as the
+ free traders have all the arguments and the protectionists most of the
+ facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is, as Mr. Buckle says, that for five hundred years all real
+ advance in legislation has been made by repealing laws. Of one thing we
+ must be satisfied, and that is that real monopolies have never been
+ controlled by law, but the fact that such monopolies exist, is a
+ demonstration that the law has been controlled. In our country,
+ legislators are for the most part controlled by those who, by their wealth
+ and influence, elect them. The few, in reality, cast the votes of the
+ many, and the few influence the ones voted for by the many. Special
+ interests, being active, secure special legislation, and the object of
+ special legislation is to create a kind of monopoly&mdash;that is to say,
+ to get some advantage. Chiefs, barons, priests, and kings ruled, robbed,
+ destroyed, and duped, and their places have been taken by corporations,
+ monopolists, and politicians. The large fish still live on the little
+ ones, and the fine theories have as yet failed to change the condition of
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Law in this country is effective only when it is the recorded will of a
+ majority. When the zealous few get control of the Legislature, and laws
+ are passed to prevent Sabbath-breaking, or wine-drinking, they succeed
+ only in putting their opinions and provincial prejudices in legal phrase.
+ There was a time when men worked from fourteen to sixteen hours a day.
+ These hours have not been lessened, they have not been shortened by law.
+ The law has followed and recorded, but the law is not a leader and not a
+ prophet. It appears to be impossible to fix wages&mdash;just as impossible
+ as to fix the values of all manufactured things, including works of art.
+ The field is too great, the problem too complicated, for the human mind to
+ grasp.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To fix the value of labor is to fix all values&mdash;labor being the
+ foundation of all values. The value of labor cannot be fixed unless we
+ understand the relations that all things bear to each other and to man. If
+ labor were a legal tender&mdash;if a judgment for so many dollars could be
+ discharged by so many days of labor,&mdash;and the law was that twelve
+ hours of work should be reckoned as one day, then the law could change the
+ hours to ten or eight, and the judgments could be paid in the shortened
+ days. But it is easy to see that in all contracts made after the passage
+ of such a law, the difference in hours would be taken into consideration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember that law is not a creative force. It produces nothing. It
+ raises neither corn nor wine. The legitimate object of law is to protect
+ the weak, to prevent violence and fraud, and to enforce honest contracts,
+ to the end that each person may be free to do as he desires, provided only
+ that he does not interfere with the rights of others. Our fathers tried to
+ make people religious by law. They failed. Thousands are now trying to
+ make people temperate in the same manner. Such efforts always have been
+ and probably always will be failures. People who believe that an infinite
+ God gave to the Hebrews a perfect code of laws, must admit that even this
+ code failed to civilize the inhabitants of Palestine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems impossible to make people just or charitable or industrious or
+ agreeable or successful, by law, any more than you can make them
+ physically perfect or mentally sound. Of course we admit that good people
+ intend to make good laws, and that good laws faithfully and honestly
+ executed, tend to the preservation of human rights and to the elevation of
+ the race, but the enactment of a law not in accordance with a sentiment
+ already existing in the minds and hearts of the people&mdash;the very
+ people who are depended upon to enforce this law&mdash;is not a help, but
+ a hindrance. A real law is but the expression, in an authoritative and
+ accurate form, of the judgment and desire of the majority. As we become
+ intelligent and kind, this intelligence and kindness find expression in
+ law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But how is it possible to fix the wages of every man? To fix wages is to
+ fix prices, and a government to do this intelligently, would necessarily
+ have to have the wisdom generally attributed to an infinite Being. It
+ would have to supervise and fix the conditions of every exchange of
+ commodities and the value of every conceivable thing. Many things can be
+ accomplished by law, employeers may be held responsible for injuries to
+ the employed. The mines can be ventilated. Children can be rescued from
+ the deformities of toil&mdash;burdens taken from the backs of wives and
+ mothers&mdash;houses made wholesome, food healthful&mdash;that is to say,
+ the weak can be protected from the strong, the honest from the vicious,
+ honest contracts can be enforced, and many rights protected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men who have simply strength, muscle, endurance, compete not only with
+ other men of strength, but with the inventions of genius. What would
+ doctors say if physicians of iron could be invented with curious cogs and
+ wheels, so that when a certain button was touched the proper prescription
+ would be written? How would lawyers feel if a lawyer could be invented in
+ such a way that questions of law, being put in a kind of hopper and a
+ crank being turned, decisions of the highest court could be prophesied
+ without failure? And how would the ministers feel if somebody should
+ invent a clergyman of wood that would to all intents and purposes answer
+ the purpose?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Invention has filled the world with the competitors not only of laborers,
+ but of mechanics&mdash;mechanics of the highest skill. To-day the ordinary
+ laborer is for the most part a cog in a wheel. He works with the tireless&mdash;he
+ feeds the insatiable. When the monster stops, the man is out of
+ employment, out of bread; He has not saved anything. The machine that he
+ fed was not feeding him, was not working for him&mdash;the invention was
+ not for his benefit. The other day I heard a man say that it was almost
+ impossible for thousands of good mechanics to get employment, and that, in
+ his judgment, the Government ought to furnish work for the people. A few
+ minutes after, I heard another say that he was selling a patent for
+ cutting out clothes, that one of his machines could do the work of twenty
+ tailors, and that only the week before he had sold two to a great house in
+ New York, and that over forty cutters had been discharged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On every side men are being discharged and machines are being invented to
+ take their places. When the great factory shuts down, the workers who
+ inhabited it and gave it life, as thoughts do the brain, go away and it
+ stands there like an empty skull. A few workmen, by the force of habit,
+ gather about the closed doors and broken windows and talk about distress,
+ the price of food and the coming winter. They are convinced that they have
+ not had their share of what their labor created. They feel certain that
+ the machines inside were not their friends. They look at the mansion of
+ the employeer and think of the places where they live. They have saved
+ nothing&mdash;nothing but themselves. The employeer seems to have enough.
+ Even when employeers fail, when they become bankrupt, they are far better
+ off than the laborers ever were. Their worst is better than the toilers'
+ best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The capitalist comes forward with his specific. He tells the workingman
+ that he must be economical&mdash;and yet, under the present system,
+ economy would only lessen wages. Under the great law of supply and demand
+ every saving, frugal, self-denying workingman is unconsciously doing what
+ little he can to reduce the compensation of himself and his fellows. The
+ slaves who did not wish to run away helped fasten chains on those who did.
+ So the saving mechanic is a certificate that wages are high enough. Does
+ the great law demand that every worker live on the least possible amount
+ of bread? Is it his fate to work one day, that he may get enough food to
+ be able to work another? Is that to be his only hope&mdash;that and death?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Capital has always claimed and still claims the right to combine.
+ Manufacturers meet and determine upon prices, even in spite of the great
+ law of supply and demand. Have the laborers the same right to consult and
+ combine? The rich meet in the bank, the clubhouse, or parlor. Workingmen,
+ when they combine, gather in the street. All the organized forces of
+ society are against them. Capital has the army and the navy, the
+ legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments. When the rich
+ combine, it is for the purpose of "exchanging ideas." When the poor
+ combine, it is a "conspiracy." If they act in concert, if they really do
+ something, it is a "mob." If they defend themselves, it is "treason." How
+ is it that the rich control the departments of government? In this country
+ the political power is equally divided among the men. There are certainly
+ more poor than there are rich. Why should the rich control? Why should not
+ the laborers combine for the purpose of controlling the executive,
+ legislative, and judicial departments? Will they ever find how powerful
+ they are?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every country there is a satisfied class&mdash;too satisfied to care.
+ They are like the angels in heaven, who are never disturbed by the
+ miseries of earth. They are too happy to be generous. This satisfied class
+ asks no questions and answers none. They believe the world is as it should
+ be. All reformers are simply disturbers of the peace. When they talk low,
+ they should not be listened to; when they talk loud, they should be
+ suppressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is to-day what it always has been&mdash;what it always will be&mdash;those
+ who feel are the only ones who think. A cry comes from the oppressed, from
+ the hungry, from the down-trodden, from the unfortunate, from men who
+ despair and from women who weep. There are times when mendicants become
+ revolutionists&mdash;when a rag becomes a banner, under which the noblest
+ and bravest battle for the right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How are we to settle the unequal contest between men and machines? Will
+ the machine finally go into partnership with the laborer? Can these forces
+ of nature be controlled for the benefit of her suffering children? Will
+ extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? Will the workers become intelligent
+ enough and strong enough to be the owners of the machines? Will these
+ giants, these Titans, shorten or lengthen the hours of labor? Will they
+ give leisure to the industrious, or will they make the rich richer, and
+ the poor poorer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is man involved in the "general scheme of things"? Is there no pity, no
+ mercy? Can man become intelligent enough to be generous, to be just; or
+ does the same law or fact control him that controls the animal and
+ vegetable world? The great oak steals the sunlight from the smaller trees.
+ The strong animals devour the weak&mdash;everything eating something else&mdash;everything
+ at the mercy of beak and claw and hoof and tooth&mdash;of hand and club,
+ of brain and greed&mdash;inequality, injustice, everywhere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The poor horse standing in the street with his dray, overworked,
+ over-whipped, and under-fed, when he sees other horses groomed to mirrors,
+ glittering with gold and silver, scorning with proud feet the very earth,
+ probably indulges in the usual socialistic reflections, and this same
+ horse, worn out and old, deserted by his master, turned into the dusty
+ road, leans his head on the topmost rail, looks at donkeys in a field of
+ clover, and feels like a Nihilist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the days of savagery the strong devoured the weak&mdash;actually ate
+ their flesh. In spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of all
+ advance in science, literature and art, the strong, the cunning, the
+ heartless still live on the weak, the unfortunate, and foolish. True, they
+ do not eat their flesh, they do not drink their blood, but they live on
+ their labor, on their self-denial, their weariness and want. The poor man
+ who deforms himself by toil, who labors for wife and child through all his
+ anxious, barren, wasted life&mdash;who goes to the grave without even
+ having had one luxury&mdash;has been the food of others. He has been
+ devoured by his fellow-men. The poor woman living in the bare and lonely
+ room, cheerless and fireless, sewing night and day to keep starvation from
+ a child, is slowly being eaten by her fellow-men. When I take into
+ consideration the agony of civilized life&mdash;the number of failures,
+ the poverty, the anxiety, the tears, the withered hopes, the bitter
+ realities, the hunger, the crime, the humiliation, the shame&mdash;I am
+ almost forced to say that cannibalism, after all, is the most merciful
+ form in which man has ever lived upon his fellow-man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the best and purest of our race have advocated what is known as
+ Socialism. They have not only taught, but, what is much more to the
+ purpose, have believed that a nation should be a family; that the
+ government should take care of all its children; that it should provide
+ work and food and clothes and education for all, and that it should divide
+ the results of all labor equitably with all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seeing the inequalities among men, knowing of the destitution and crime,
+ these men were willing to sacrifice, not only their own liberties, but the
+ liberties of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Socialism seems to be one of the worst possible forms of slavery. Nothing,
+ in my judgment, would so utterly paralyze all the forces, all the splendid
+ ambitions and aspirations that now tend to the civilization of man. In
+ ordinary systems of slavery there are some masters, a few are supposed to
+ be free; but in a socialistic state all would be slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the government is to provide work it must decide for the worker what he
+ must do. It must say who shall chisel statues, who shall paint pictures,
+ who shall compose music, and who shall practice the professions. Is any
+ government, or can any government, be capable of intelligently performing
+ these countless duties? It must not only control work, it must not only
+ decide what each shall do, but it must control expenses, because expenses
+ bear a direct relation to products. Therefore the government must decide
+ what the worker shall eat and wherewithal he shall be clothed; the kind of
+ house in which he shall live; the manner in which it shall be furnished,
+ and, if this government furnishes the work, it must decide on the days or
+ the hours of leisure. More than this, it must fix values; it must decide
+ not only who shall sell, but who shall buy, and the price that must be
+ paid&mdash;and it must fix this value not simply upon the labor, but on
+ everything that can be produced, that can be exchanged or sold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to conceive of a despotism beyond this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The present condition of the world is bad enough, with its poverty and
+ ignorance, but it is far better than it could by any possibility be under
+ any government like the one described. There would be less hunger of the
+ body, but not of the mind. Each man would simply be a citizen of a large
+ penitentiary, and, as in every well regulated prison, somebody would
+ decide what each should do. The inmates of a prison retire early; they
+ rise with the sun; they have something to eat; they are not dissipated;
+ they have clothes; they attend divine service; they have but little to say
+ about their neighbors; they do not suffer from cold; their habits are
+ excellent, and yet, no one envies their condition. Socialism destroys the
+ family. The children belong to the state. Certain officers take the places
+ of parents. Individuality is lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The human race cannot afford to exchange its liberty for any possible
+ comfort. You remember the old fable of the fat dog that met the lean wolf
+ in the forest. The wolf, astonished to see so prosperous an animal,
+ inquired of the dog where he got his food, and the dog told him that there
+ was a man who took care of him, gave him his breakfast, his dinner, and
+ his supper with the utmost regularity, and that he had all that he could
+ eat and very little to do. The wolf said, "Do you think this man would
+ treat me as he does you?" The dog replied, "Yes, come along with me." So
+ they jogged on together toward the dog's home. On the way the wolf
+ happened to notice that some hair was worn off the dog's neck, and he
+ said, "How did the hair become worn?" "That is," said the dog, "the mark
+ of the collar&mdash;my master ties me at night." "Oh," said the wolf, "Are
+ you chained? Are you deprived of your liberty? I believe I will go back. I
+ prefer hunger."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible for any man with a good heart to be satisfied with this
+ world as it now is. No one can truly enjoy even what he earns&mdash;what
+ he knows to be his own, knowing that millions of his fellow-men are in
+ misery and want. When we think of the famished we feel that it is almost
+ heartless to eat. To meet the ragged and shivering makes one almost
+ ashamed to be well dressed and warm&mdash;one feels as though his heart
+ was as cold as their bodies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a world filled with millions and millions of acres of land waiting to
+ be tilled, where one man can raise the food for hundreds, millions are on
+ the edge of famine. Who can comprehend the stupidity at the bottom of this
+ truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there to be no change? Are "the law of supply and demand," invention
+ and science, monopoly and competition, capital and legislation always to
+ be the enemies of those who toil?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will the workers always be ignorant enough and stupid enough to give their
+ earnings for the useless? Will they support millions of soldiers to kill
+ the sons of other workingmen? Will they always build temples for ghosts
+ and phantoms, and live in huts and dens themselves? Will they forever
+ allow parasites with crowns, and vampires with mitres, to live upon their
+ blood? Will they remain the slaves of the beggars they support? How long
+ will they be controlled by friends who seek favors, and by reformers who
+ want office? Will they always prefer famine in the city to a feast in the
+ fields? Will they ever feel and know that they have no right to bring
+ children into this world that they cannot support? Will they use their
+ intelligence for themselves, or for others? Will they become wise enough
+ to know that they cannot obtain their own liberty by destroying that of
+ others? Will they finally see that every man has a right to choose his
+ trade, his profession, his employment, and has the right to work when, and
+ for whom, and for what he will? Will they finally say that the man who has
+ had equal privileges with all others has no right to complain, or will
+ they follow the example that has been set by their oppressors? Will they
+ learn that force, to succeed, must have a thought behind it, and that
+ anything done, in order that it may endure, must rest upon the
+ corner-stone of justice?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will they, at the command of priests, forever extinguish the spark that
+ sheds a little light in every brain? Will they ever recognize the fact
+ that labor, above all things, is honorable&mdash;that it is the foundation
+ of virtue? Will they understand that beggars cannot be generous, and that
+ every healthy man must earn the right to live? Will honest men stop taking
+ off their hats to successful fraud? Will industry, in the presence of
+ crowned idleness, forever fall upon its knees, and will the lips unstained
+ by lies forever kiss the robed impostor's hand?&mdash;North American
+ Review, March, 1887.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ART AND MORALITY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ ART is the highest form of expression, and exists for the sake of
+ expression. Through art thoughts become visible. Back of forms are the
+ desire, the longing, the brooding creative instinct, the maternity of mind
+ and the passion that give pose and swell, outline and color.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there is no such thing as absolute beauty or absolute morality.
+ We now clearly perceive that beauty and conduct are relative. We have
+ outgrown the provincialism that thought is back of substance, as well as
+ the old Platonic absurdity, that ideas existed before the subjects of
+ thought. So far, at least, as man is concerned, his thoughts have been
+ produced by his surroundings, by the action and interaction of things upon
+ his mind; and so far as man is concerned, things have preceded thoughts.
+ The impressions that these things make upon us are what we know of them.
+ The absolute is beyond the human mind. Our knowledge is confined to the
+ relations that exist between the totality of things that we call the
+ universe, and the effect upon ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Actions are deemed right or wrong, according to experience and the
+ conclusions of reason. Things are beautiful by the relation that certain
+ forms, colors, and modes of expression bear to us. At the foundation of
+ the beautiful will be found the fact of happiness, the gratification of
+ the senses, the delight of intellectual discovery and the surprise and
+ thrill of appreciation. That which we call the beautiful, wakens into life
+ through the association of ideas, of memories, of experiences, of
+ suggestions of pleasure past and the perception that the prophecies of the
+ ideal have been and will be fulfilled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Art cultivates and kindles the imagination, and quickens the conscience.
+ It is by imagination that we put ourselves in the place of another. When
+ the wings of that faculty are folded, the master does not put himself in
+ the place of the slave; the tyrant is not locked in the dungeon, chained
+ with his victim. The inquisitor did not feel the flames that devoured the
+ martyr. The imaginative man, giving to the beggar, gives to himself. Those
+ who feel indignant at the perpetration of wrong, feel for the instant that
+ they are the victims; and when they attack the aggressor they feel that
+ they are defending themselves. Love and pity are the children of the
+ imagination.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers read with great approbation the mechanical sermons in rhyme
+ written by Milton, Young and Pollok. Those theological poets wrote for the
+ purpose of convincing their readers that the mind of man is diseased,
+ filled with infirmities, and that poetic poultices and plasters tend to
+ purify and strengthen the moral nature of the human race. Nothing to the
+ true artist, to the real genius, is so contemptible as the "medicinal
+ view."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poems were written to prove that the practice of virtue was an investment
+ for another world, and that whoever followed the advice found in those
+ solemn, insincere and lugubrious rhymes, although he might be exceedingly
+ unhappy in this world, would with great certainty be rewarded in the next.
+ These writers assumed that there was a kind of relation between rhyme and
+ religion, between verse and virtue; and that it was their duty to call the
+ attention of the world to all the snares and pitfalls of pleasure. They
+ wrote with a purpose. They had a distinct moral end in view. They had a
+ plan. They were missionaries, and their object was to show the world how
+ wicked it was and how good they, the writers, were. They could not
+ conceive of a man being so happy that everything in nature partook of his
+ feeling; that all the birds were singing for him, and singing by reason of
+ his joy; that everything sparkled and shone and moved in the glad rhythm
+ of his heart. They could not appreciate this feeling. They could not think
+ of this joy guiding the artist's hand, seeking expression in form and
+ color. They did not look upon poems, pictures, and statues as results, as
+ children of the brain fathered by sea and sky, by flower and star, by love
+ and light. They were not moved by gladness. They felt the responsibility
+ of perpetual duty. They had a desire to teach, to sermonize, to point out
+ and exaggerate the faults of others and to describe the virtues practiced
+ by themselves. Art became a colporteur, a distributer of tracts, a
+ mendicant missionary whose highest ambition was to suppress all heathen
+ joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Happy people were supposed to have forgotten, in a reckless moment, duty
+ and responsibility. True poetry would call them back to a realization of
+ their meanness and their misery. It was the skeleton at the feast, the
+ rattle of whose bones had a rhythmic sound. It was the forefinger of
+ warning and doom held up in the presence of a smile.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These moral poets taught the "unwelcome truths," and by the paths of life
+ put posts on which they painted hands pointing at graves. They loved to
+ see the pallor on the cheek of youth, while they talked, in solemn tones,
+ of age, decrepitude and lifeless clay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before the eyes of love they thrust, with eager hands, the skull of death.
+ They crushed the flowers beneath their feet and plaited crowns of thorns
+ for every brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to these poets, happiness was inconsistent with virtue. The
+ sense of infinite obligation should be perpetually present. They assumed
+ an attitude of superiority. They denounced and calumniated the reader.
+ They enjoyed his confusion when charged with total depravity. They loved
+ to paint the sufferings of the lost, the worthlessness of human life, the
+ littleness of mankind, and the beauties of an unknown world. They knew but
+ little of the heart. They did not know that without passion there is no
+ virtue, and that the really passionate are the virtuous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Art has nothing to do directly with morality or immorality. It is its own
+ excuse for being; it exists for itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The artist who endeavors to enforce a lesson, becomes a preacher; and the
+ artist who tries by hint and suggestion to enforce the immoral, becomes a
+ pander.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is an infinite difference between the nude and the naked, between
+ the natural and the undressed. In the presence of the pure, unconscious
+ nude, nothing can be more contemptible than those forms in which are the
+ hints and suggestions of drapery, the pretence of exposure, and the
+ failure to conceal. The undressed is vulgar&mdash;the nude is pure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old Greek statues, frankly, proudly nude, whose free and perfect limbs
+ have never known the sacrilege of clothes, were and are as free from
+ taint, as pure, as stainless, as the image of the morning star trembling
+ in a drop of perfumed dew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Morality is the harmony between act and circumstance. It is the melody of
+ conduct. A wonderful statue is the melody of proportion. A great picture
+ is the melody of form and color. A great statue does not suggest labor; it
+ seems to have been created as a joy. A great painting suggests no
+ weariness and no effort; the greater, the easier it seems. So a great and
+ splendid life seems to have been without effort. There is in it no idea of
+ obligation, no idea of responsibility or of duty. The idea of duty changes
+ to a kind of drudgery that which should be, in the perfect man, a perfect
+ pleasure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The artist, working simply for the sake of enforcing a moral, becomes a
+ laborer. The freedom of genius is lost, and the artist is absorbed in the
+ citizen. The soul of the real artist should be moved by this melody of
+ proportion as the body is unconsciously swayed by the rhythm of a
+ symphony. No one can imagine that the great men who chiseled the statues
+ of antiquity intended to teach the youth of Greece to be obedient to their
+ parents. We cannot believe that Michael Angelo painted his grotesque and
+ somewhat vulgar "Day of Judgment" for the purpose of reforming Italian
+ thieves. The subject was in all probability selected by his employeer, and
+ the treatment was a question of art, without the slightest reference to
+ the moral effect, even upon priests. We are perfectly certain that Corot
+ painted those infinitely poetic landscapes, those cottages, those sad
+ poplars, those leafless vines on weather-tinted walls, those quiet pools,
+ those contented cattle, those fields flecked with light, over which bend
+ the skies, tender as the breast of a mother, without once thinking of the
+ ten commandments. There is the same difference between moral art and the
+ product of true genius, that there is between prudery and virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The novelists who endeavor to enforce what they are pleased to call "moral
+ truths," cease to be artists. They create two kinds of characters&mdash;types
+ and caricatures. The first never has lived, and the second never will. The
+ real artist produces neither. In his pages you will find individuals,
+ natural people, who have the contradictions and inconsistencies
+ inseparable from humanity. The great artists "hold the mirror up to
+ nature," and this mirror reflects with absolute accuracy. The moral and
+ the immoral writers&mdash;that is to say, those who have some object
+ besides that of art&mdash;use convex or concave mirrors, or those with
+ uneven surfaces, and the result is that the images are monstrous and
+ deformed. The little novelist and the little artist deal either in the
+ impossible or the exceptional. The men of genius touch the universal.
+ Their words and works throb in unison with the great ebb and flow of
+ things. They write and work for all races and for all time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been the object of thousands of reformers to destroy the passions,
+ to do away with desires; and could this object be accomplished, life would
+ become a burden, with but one desire&mdash;that is to say, the desire for
+ extinction. Art in its highest forms increases passion, gives tone and
+ color and zest to life. But while it increases passion, it refines. It
+ extends the horizon. The bare necessities of life constitute a prison, a
+ dungeon. Under the influence of art the walls expand, the roof rises, and
+ it becomes a temple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Art is not a sermon, and the artist is not a preacher. Art accomplishes by
+ indirection. The beautiful refines. The perfect in art suggests the
+ perfect in conduct. The harmony in music teaches, without intention, the
+ lesson of proportion in life. The bird in his song has no moral purpose,
+ and yet the influence is humanizing. The beautiful in nature acts through
+ appreciation and sympathy. It does not browbeat, neither does it
+ humiliate. It is beautiful without regard to you. Roses would be
+ unbearable if in their red and perfumed hearts were mottoes to the effect
+ that bears eat bad boys and that honesty is the best policy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Art creates an atmosphere in which the proprieties, the amenities, and the
+ virtues unconsciously grow. The rain does not lecture the seed. The light
+ does not make rules for the vine and flower.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The heart is softened by the pathos of the perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is a dictionary of the mind, and in this dictionary of things
+ genius discovers analogies, resemblances, and parallels amid opposites,
+ likeness in difference, and corroboration in contradiction. Language is
+ but a multitude of pictures. Nearly every word is a work of art, a picture
+ represented by a sound, and this sound represented by a mark, and this
+ mark gives not only the sound, but the picture of something in the outward
+ world and the picture of something within the mind, and with these words
+ which were once pictures, other pictures are made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest pictures and the greatest statues, the most wonderful and
+ marvelous groups, have been painted and chiseled with words. They are as
+ fresh to-day as when they fell from human lips. Penelope still ravels,
+ weaves, and waits; Ulysses' bow is bent, and through the level rings the
+ eager arrow flies. Cordelia's tears are falling now. The greatest gallery
+ of the world is found in Shakespeare's book. The pictures and the marbles
+ of the Vatican and Louvre are faded, crumbling things, compared with his,
+ in which perfect color gives to perfect form the glow and movement of
+ passion's highest life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everything except the truth wears, and needs to wear, a mask. Little souls
+ are ashamed of nature. Prudery pretends to have only those passions that
+ it cannot feel. Moral poetry is like a respectable canal that never
+ overflows its banks. It has weirs through which slowly and without damage
+ any excess of feeling is allowed to flow. It makes excuses for nature, and
+ regards love as an interesting convict. Moral art paints or chisels feet,
+ faces, and rags. It regards the body as obscene. It hides with drapery
+ that which it has not the genius purely to portray. Mediocrity becomes
+ moral from a necessity which it has the impudence to call virtue. It
+ pretends to regard ignorance as the foundation of purity and insists that
+ virtue seeks the companionship of the blind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Art creates, combines, and reveals. It is the highest manifestation of
+ thought, of passion, of love, of intuition. It is the highest form of
+ expression, of history and prophecy. It allows us to look at an unmasked
+ soul, to fathom the abysses of passion, to understand the heights and
+ depths of love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Compared with what is in the mind of man, the outward world almost ceases
+ to excite our wonder. The impression produced by mountains, seas, and
+ stars is not so great, so thrilling, as the music of Wagner. The
+ constellations themselves grow small when we read "Troilus and Cres-sida,"
+ "Hamlet," or "Lear." What are seas and stars in the presence of a heroism
+ that holds pain and death as naught? What are seas and stars compared with
+ human hearts? What is the quarry compared with the statue?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Art civilizes because it enlightens, develops, strengthens, ennobles. It
+ deals with the beautiful, with the passionate, with the ideal. It is the
+ child of the heart. To be great, it must deal with the human. It must be
+ in accordance with the experience, with the hopes, with the fears, and
+ with the possibilities of man. No one cares to paint a palace, because
+ there is nothing in such a picture to touch the heart. It tells of
+ responsibility, of the prison, of the conventional. It suggests a load&mdash;it
+ tells of apprehension, of weariness and ennui. The picture of a cottage,
+ over which runs a vine, a little home thatched with content, with its
+ simple life, its natural sunshine and shadow, its trees bending with
+ fruit, its hollyhocks and pinks, its happy children, its hum of bees, is a
+ poem&mdash;a smile in the desert of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great lady, in velvet and jewels, makes but a poor picture. There is
+ not freedom enough in her life. She is constrained. She is too far away
+ from the simplicity of happiness. In her thought there is too much of the
+ mathematical. In all art you will find a touch of chaos, of liberty; and
+ there is in all artists a little of the vagabond&mdash;that is to say,
+ genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nude in art has rendered holy the beauty of woman. Every Greek statue
+ pleads for mothers and sisters. From these marbles come strains of music.
+ They have filled the heart of man with tenderness and worship. They have
+ kindled reverence, admiration and love. The Venus de Milo, that even
+ mutilation cannot mar, tends only to the elevation of our race. It is a
+ miracle of majesty and beauty, the supreme idea of the supreme woman. It
+ is a melody in marble. All the lines meet in a kind of voluptuous and glad
+ content. The pose is rest itself. The eyes are filled with thoughts of
+ love. The breast seems dreaming of a child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The prudent is not the poetic; it is the mathematical. Genius is the
+ spirit of abandon; it is joyous, irresponsible. It moves in the swell and
+ curve of billows; it is careless of conduct and consequence. For a moment,
+ the chain of cause and effect seems broken; the soul is free. It gives an
+ account not even to itself. Limitations are forgotten; nature seems
+ obedient to the will; the ideal alone exists; the universe is a symphony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every brain is a gallery of art, and every soul is, to a greater or less
+ degree, an artist. The pictures and statues that now enrich and adorn the
+ walls and niches of the world, as well as those that illuminate the pages
+ of its literature, were taken originally from the private galleries of the
+ brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soul&mdash;that is to say the artist&mdash;compares the pictures in
+ its own brain with the pictures that have been taken from the galleries of
+ others and made visible. This soul, this artist, selects that which is
+ nearest perfection in each, takes such parts as it deems perfect, puts
+ them together, forms new pictures, new statues, and in this way creates
+ the ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To express desires, longings, ecstasies, prophecies and passions in form
+ and color; to put love, hope, heroism and triumph in marble; to paint
+ dreams and memories with words; to portray the purity of dawn, the
+ intensity and glory of noon, the tenderness of twilight, the splendor and
+ mystery of night, with sounds; to give the invisible to sight and touch,
+ and to enrich the common things of earth with gems and jewels of the mind&mdash;this
+ is Art.&mdash;North American Review, March, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ "Let determined things to destiny hold unbewailed their way." THERE is a
+ continual effort in the mind of man to find the harmony that he knows must
+ exist between all known facts. It is hard for the scientist to implicitly
+ believe anything that he suspects to be inconsistent with a known fact. He
+ feels that every fact is a key to many mysteries&mdash;that every fact is
+ a detective, not only, but a perpetual witness. He knows that a fact has a
+ countless number of sides, and that all these sides will match all other
+ facts, and he also suspects that to understand one fact perfectly&mdash;like
+ the fact of the attraction of gravitation&mdash;would involve a knowledge
+ of the universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It requires not only candor, but courage, to accept a fact. When a new
+ fact is found it is generally denied, resisted, and calumniated by the
+ conservatives until denial becomes absurd, and then they accept it with
+ the statement that they always supposed it was true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old is the ignorant enemy of the new. The old has pedigree and
+ respectability; it is filled with the spirit of caste; it is associated
+ with great events, and with great names; it is intrenched; it has an
+ income&mdash;it represents property. Besides, it has parasites, and the
+ parasites always defend themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long ago frightened wretches who had by tyranny or piracy amassed great
+ fortunes, were induced in the moment of death to compromise with God and
+ to let their money fall from their stiffening hands into the greedy palms
+ of priests. In this way many theological seminaries were endowed, and in
+ this way prejudices, mistakes, absurdities, known as religious truths,
+ have been perpetuated. In this way the dead hypocrites have propagated and
+ supported their kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most religions&mdash;no matter how honestly they originated&mdash;have
+ been established by brute force. Kings and nobles have used them as a
+ means to enslave, to degrade and rob. The priest, consciously and
+ unconsciously, has been the betrayer of his followers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Near Chicago there is an ox that betrays his fellows. Cattle&mdash;twenty
+ or thirty at a time&mdash;are driven to the place of slaughter. This ox
+ leads the way&mdash;the others follow. When the place is reached, this
+ Bishop Dupanloup turns and goes back for other victims.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the worst side: There is a better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Honest men, believing that they have found the whole truth&mdash;the real
+ and only faith&mdash;filled with enthusiasm, give all for the purpose of
+ propagating the "divine creed." They found colleges and universities, and
+ in perfect, pious, ignorant sincerity, provide that the creed, and nothing
+ but the creed, must be taught, and that if any professor teaches anything
+ contrary to that, he must be instantly dismissed&mdash;that is to say, the
+ children must be beaten with the bones of the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These good religious souls erect guide-boards with a provision to the
+ effect that the guide-boards must remain, whether the roads are changed or
+ not, and with the further provision that the professors who keep and
+ repair the guide-boards must always insist that the roads have not been
+ changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professors do not wish to lose their salaries. They love their families
+ and have some regard for themselves. There is a compromise between their
+ bread and their brain. On pay-day they believe&mdash;at other times they
+ have their doubts. They settle with their own consciences by giving old
+ words new meanings. They take refuge in allegory, hide behind parables,
+ and barricade themselves with oriental imagery. They give to the most
+ frightful passages a spiritual meaning&mdash;and while they teach the old
+ creed to their followers, they speak a new philosophy to their equals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A vast number of clergymen and laymen are perfectly satisfied. They have
+ no doubts. They believe as their fathers and mothers did. The "scheme of
+ salvation" suits them because they are satisfied that they are embraced
+ within its terms. They give themselves no trouble. They believe because
+ they do not understand. They have no doubts because they do not think.
+ They regard doubt as a thorn in the pillow of orthodox slumber. Their
+ souls are asleep, and they hate only those who disturb their dreams. These
+ people keep their creeds for future use. They intend to have them ready at
+ the moment of dissolution. They sustain about the same relation to daily
+ life that the small-boats carried by steamers do to ordinary navigation&mdash;they
+ are for the moment of shipwreck. Creeds, like life-preservers, are to be
+ used in disaster.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must also remember that everything in nature&mdash;bad as well as good&mdash;has
+ the instinct of self-preservation. All lies go armed, and all mistakes
+ carry concealed weapons. Driven to the last corner, even non-resistance
+ appeals to the dagger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Vast interests&mdash;political, social, artistic, and individual&mdash;are
+ interwoven with all creeds. Thousands of millions of dollars have been
+ invested; many millions of people obtain their bread by the propagation
+ and support of certain religious doctrines, and many millions have been
+ educated for that purpose and for that alone. Nothing is more natural than
+ that they should defend themselves&mdash;that they should cling to a creed
+ that gives them roof and raiment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago Christianity was a complete system. It included and
+ accounted for all phenomena; it was a philosophy satisfactory to the
+ ignorant world; it had an astronomy and geology of its own; it answered
+ all questions with the same readiness and the same inaccuracy; it had
+ within its sacred volumes the history of the past, and the prophecies of
+ all the future; it pretended to know all that was, is, or ever will be
+ necessary for the well-being of the human race, here and hereafter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a religion has been founded, the founder admitted the truth of
+ everything that was generally believed that did not interfere with his
+ system. Imposture always has a definite end in view, and for the sake of
+ the accomplishment of that end, it will admit the truth of anything and
+ everything that does not endanger its success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writers of all sacred books&mdash;the inspired prophets&mdash;had no
+ reason for disagreeing with the common people about the origin of things,
+ the creation of the world, the rising and setting of the sun, and the uses
+ of the stars, and consequently the sacred books of all ages have indorsed
+ the belief general at the time. You will find in our sacred books the
+ astronomy, the geology, the philosophy and the morality of the ancient
+ barbarians. The religionist takes these general ideas as his foundation,
+ and upon them builds the supernatural structure. For many centuries the
+ astronomy, geology, philosophy and morality of our Bible were accepted.
+ They were not questioned, for the reason that the world was too ignorant
+ to question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few centuries ago the art of printing was invented. A new world was
+ discovered. There was a complete revolution in commerce. The arts were
+ born again. The world was filled with adventure; millions became
+ self-reliant; old ideas were abandoned&mdash;old theories were put aside&mdash;and
+ suddenly, the old leaders of thought were found to be ignorant, shallow
+ and dishonest. The literature of the classic world was discovered and
+ translated into modern languages. The world was circumnavigated;
+ Copernicus discovered the true relation sustained by our earth to the
+ solar system, and about the beginning of the seventeenth century many
+ other wonderful discoveries were made. In 1609, a Hollander found that two
+ lenses placed in a certain relation to each other magnified objects seen
+ through them. This discovery was the foundation of astronomy. In a little
+ while it came to the knowledge of Galileo; the result was a telescope,
+ with which man has read the volume of the skies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 8th day of May, 1618, Kepler discovered the greatest of his three
+ laws. These were the first great blows struck for the enfranchisement of
+ the human mind. A few began to suspect that the ancient Hebrews were not
+ astronomers. From that moment the church became the enemy of science. In
+ every possible way the inspired ignorance was defended&mdash;the lash, the
+ sword, the chain, the fagot and the dungeon were the arguments used by the
+ infuriated church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To such an extent was the church prejudiced against the new philosophy,
+ against the new facts, that priests refused to look through the telescope
+ of Galileo.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last it became evident to the intelligent world that the inspired
+ writings, literally translated, did not contain the truth&mdash;the Bible
+ was in danger of being driven from the heavens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church also had its geology. The time when the earth was created had
+ been definitely fixed and was certainly known. This fact had not only been
+ stated by inspired writers, but their statement had been indorsed by
+ priests, by bishops, cardinals, popes and ecumenical councils; that was
+ settled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But a few men had learned the art of seeing. There were some eyes not
+ always closed in prayer. They looked at the things about them; they
+ observed channels that had been worn in solid rock by streams; they saw
+ the vast territories that had been deposited by rivers; their attention
+ was called to the slow inroads upon continents by seas&mdash;to the
+ deposits by volcanoes&mdash;to the sedimentary rocks&mdash;to the vast
+ reefs that had been built by the coral, and to the countless evidences of
+ age, of the lapse of time&mdash;and finally it was demonstrated that this
+ earth had been pursuing its course about the sun for millions and millions
+ of ages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church disputed every step, denied every fact, resorted to every
+ device that cunning could suggest or ingenuity execute, but the conflict
+ could not be maintained. The Bible, so far as geology was concerned, was
+ in danger of being driven from the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beaten in the open field, the church began to equivocate, to evade, and to
+ give new meanings to inspired words. Finally, falsehood having failed to
+ harmonize the guesses of barbarians with the discoveries of genius, the
+ leading churchmen suggested that the Bible was not written to teach
+ astronomy, was not written to teach geology, and that it was not a
+ scientific book, but that it was written in the language of the people,
+ and that as to unimportant things it contained the general beliefs of its
+ time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ground was then taken that, while it was not inspired in its science,
+ it was inspired in its morality, in its prophecy, in its account of the
+ miraculous, in the scheme of salvation, and in all that it had to say on
+ the subject of religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment it was suggested that the Bible was not inspired in everything
+ within its lids, the seeds of suspicion were sown. The priest became less
+ arrogant. The church was forced to explain. The pulpit had one language
+ for the faithful and another for the philosophical, i. e., it became
+ dishonest with both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next question that arose was as to the origin of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible was being driven from the skies. The testimony of the stars was
+ against the sacred volume. The church had also been forced to admit that
+ the world was not created at the time mentioned in the Bible&mdash;so that
+ the very stones of the earth rose and united with the stars in giving
+ testimony against the sacred volume.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the creation of the world, the church resorted to the artifice of
+ saying that "days" in reality meant long periods of time; so that no
+ matter how old the earth was, the time could be spanned by six periods&mdash;in
+ other words, that the years could not be too numerous to be divided by
+ six.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But when it came to the creation of man, this evasion, or artifice, was
+ impossible. The Bible gives the date of the creation of man, because it
+ gives the age at which the first man died, and then it gives the
+ generations from Adam to the flood, and from the flood to the birth of
+ Christ, and in many instances the actual age of the principal ancestor is
+ given. So that, according to this account&mdash;according to the inspired
+ figures&mdash;man has existed upon the earth only about six thousand
+ years. There is no room left for any people beyond Adam.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is true, certainly Adam was the first man; consequently, we
+ know, if the sacred volume be true, just how long man has lived and
+ labored and suffered on this earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church cannot and dare not give up the account of the creation of Adam
+ from the dust of the earth, and of Eve from the rib of the man. The church
+ cannot give up the story of the Garden of Eden&mdash;the serpent&mdash;the
+ fall and the expulsion; these must be defended because they are vital.
+ Without these absurdities, the system known as Christianity cannot exist.
+ Without the fall, the atonement is a <i>non sequitur.</i> Facts bearing
+ upon these questions were discovered and discussed by the greatest and
+ most thoughtful of men. Lamarck, Humboldt, Haeckel, and above all, Darwin,
+ not only asserted, but demonstrated, that man is not a special creation.
+ If anything can be established by observation, by reason, then the fact
+ has been established that man is related to all life below him&mdash;that
+ he has been slowly produced through countless years&mdash;that the story
+ of Eden is a childish myth&mdash;that the fall of man is an infinite
+ absurdity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If anything can be established by analogy and reason, man has existed upon
+ the earth for many millions of ages. We know now, if we know anything,
+ that people not only existed before Adam, but that they existed in a
+ highly civilized state; that thousands of years before the Garden of Eden
+ was planted men communicated to each other their ideas by language, and
+ that artists clothed the marble with thoughts and passions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a demonstration that the origin of man given in the Old Testament
+ is untrue&mdash;that the account was written by the ignorance, the
+ prejudice and the egotism of the olden time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, if anything outside of the senses can be known, we do know that
+ civilization is a growth&mdash;that man did not commence a perfect being,
+ and then degenerate, but that from small beginnings he has slowly risen,
+ to the intellectual height he now occupies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church, however, has not been willing to accept these truths, because
+ they contradict the sacred word. Some of the most ingenious of the clergy
+ have been endeavoring for years to show that there is no conflict&mdash;that
+ the account in Genesis is in perfect harmony with the theories of Charles
+ Darwin, and these clergymen in some way manage to retain their creed and
+ to accept a philosophy that utterly destroys it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in a few years the Christian world will be forced to admit that the
+ Bible is not inspired in its astronomy, in its geology, or in its
+ anthropology&mdash;that is to say, that the inspired writers knew nothing
+ of the sciences, knew nothing of the origin of the earth, nothing of the
+ origin of man&mdash;in other words, nothing of any particular value to the
+ human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is, however, still insisted that the Bible is inspired in its morality.
+ Let us examine this question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must admit, if we know anything, if we feel anything, if conscience is
+ more than a word, if there is such a thing as right and such a thing as
+ wrong beneath the dome of heaven&mdash;we must admit that slavery is
+ immoral. If we are honest, we must also admit that the Old Testament
+ upholds slavery. It will be cheerfully admitted that Jehovah was opposed
+ to the enslavement of one Hebrew by another. Christians may quote the
+ commandment "Thou shalt not steal" as being opposed to human slavery, but
+ after that commandment was given, Jehovah himself told his chosen people
+ that they might "buy their bondmen and bondwomen of the heathen round
+ about, and that they should be their bondmen and their bondwomen forever."
+ So all that Jehovah meant by the commandment "Thou shalt not steal" was
+ that one Hebrew should not steal from another Hebrew, but that all Hebrews
+ might steal from the people of any other race or creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly apparent that the Ten Commandments were made only for the
+ Jews, not for the world, because the author of these commandments
+ commanded the people to whom they were given to violate them nearly all as
+ against the surrounding people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago it did not occur to the Christian world that slavery was
+ wrong. It was upheld by the church. Ministers bought and sold the very
+ people for whom they declared that Christ had died. Clergymen of the
+ English church owned stock in slave-ships, and the man who denounced
+ slavery was regarded as the enemy of morality, and thereupon was duly
+ mobbed by the followers of Jesus Christ. Churches were built with the
+ results of labor stolen from colored Christians. Babes were sold from
+ mothers and a part of the money given to send missionaries from America to
+ heathen lands with the tidings of great joy. Now every intelligent man on
+ the earth, every decent man, holds in abhorrence the institution of human
+ slavery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So with the institution of polygamy. If anything on the earth is immoral,
+ that is. If there is anything calculated to destroy home, to do away with
+ human love, to blot out the idea of family life, to cover the hearthstone
+ with serpents, it is the institution of polygamy. The Jehovah of the Old
+ Testament was a believer in that institution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Can we now say that the Bible is inspired in its morality? Consider for a
+ moment the manner in which, under the direction of Jehovah, wars were
+ waged. Remember the atrocities that were committed. Think of a war where
+ everything was the food of the sword. Think for a moment of a deity
+ capable of committing the crimes that are described and gloated over in
+ the Old Testament. The civilized man has outgrown the sacred cruelties and
+ absurdities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another side to this question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few centuries ago nothing was more natural than the unnatural. Miracles
+ were as plentiful as actual events. In those blessed days, that which
+ actually occurred was not regarded of sufficient importance to be
+ recorded. A religion without miracles would have excited derision. A creed
+ that did not fill the horizon&mdash;that did not account for everything&mdash;that
+ could not answer every question, would have been regarded as worthless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the birth of Protestantism, it could not be admitted by the leaders
+ of the Reformation that the Catholic Church still had the power of working
+ miracles. If the Catholic Church was still in partnership with God, what
+ excuse could have been made for the Reformation? The Protestants took the
+ ground that the age of miracles had passed. This was to justify the new
+ faith. But Protestants could not say that miracles had never been
+ performed, because that would take the foundation not only from the
+ Catholics but from themselves; consequently they were compelled to admit
+ that miracles were performed in the apostolic days, but to insist that, in
+ their time, man must rely upon the facts in nature. Protestants were
+ compelled to carry on two kinds of war; they had to contend with those who
+ insisted that miracles had never been performed; and in that argument they
+ were forced to insist upon the necessity for miracles, on the probability
+ that they were performed, and upon the truthfulness of the apostles. A
+ moment afterward, they had to answer those who contended that miracles
+ were performed at that time; then they brought forward against the
+ Catholics the same arguments that their first opponents had brought
+ against them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This has made every Protestant brain "a house divided against itself."
+ This planted in the Reformation the "irrepressible conflict."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we have learned more and more about what we call Nature&mdash;about
+ what we call facts. Slowly it dawned upon the mind that force is
+ indestructible&mdash;that we cannot imagine force as existing apart from
+ matter&mdash;that we cannot even think of matter existing apart from force&mdash;that
+ we cannot by any possibility conceive of a cause without an effect, of an
+ effect without a cause, of an effect that is not also a cause. We find no
+ room between the links of cause and effect for a miracle. We now perceive
+ that a miracle must be outside of Nature&mdash;that it can have no father,
+ no mother&mdash;that is to say, that it is an impossibility.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intellectual world has abandoned the miraculous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most ministers are now ashamed to defend a miracle. Some try to explain
+ miracles, and yet, if a miracle is explained, it ceases to exist. Few
+ congregations could keep from smiling were the minister to seriously
+ assert the truth of the Old Testament miracles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miracles must be given up. That field must be abandoned by the religious
+ world. The evidence accumulates every day, in every possible direction in
+ which the human mind can investigate, that the miraculous is simply the
+ impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Confidence in the eternal constancy of Nature increases day by day. The
+ scientist has perfect confidence in the attraction of gravitation&mdash;in
+ chemical affinities&mdash;in the great fact of evolution, and feels
+ absolutely certain that the nature of things will remain forever the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood;
+ that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply
+ transparent falsehoods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real miracles are the facts in nature. No one can explain the
+ attraction of gravitation. No one knows why soil and rain and light become
+ the womb of life. No one knows why grass grows, why water runs, or why the
+ magnetic needle points to the north. The facts in nature are the eternal
+ and the only mysteries. There is nothing strange about the miracles of
+ superstition. They are nothing but the mistakes of ignorance and fear, or
+ falsehoods framed by those who wished to live on the labor of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our time the champions of Christianity, for the most part, take the
+ exact ground occupied by the Deists. They dare not defend in the open
+ field the mistakes, the cruelties, the immoralities and the absurdities of
+ the Bible. They shun the Garden of Eden as though the serpent was still
+ there. They have nothing to say about the fall of man. They are silent as
+ to the laws upholding slavery and polygamy. They are ashamed to defend the
+ miraculous. They talk about these things to Sunday schools and to the
+ elderly members of their congregations; but when doing battle for the
+ faith, they misstate the position of their opponents and then insist that
+ there must be a God, and that the soul is immortal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We may admit the existence of an infinite Being; we may admit the
+ immortality of the soul, and yet deny the inspiration of the Scriptures
+ and the divine origin of the Christian religion. These doctrines, or these
+ dogmas, have nothing in common. The pagan world believed in God and taught
+ the dogma of immortality. These ideas are far older than Christianity, and
+ they have been almost universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity asserts more than this. It is based upon the inspiration of
+ the Bible, on the fall of man, on the atonement, on the dogma of the
+ Trinity, on the divinity of Jesus Christ, on his resurrection from the
+ dead, on his ascension into heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity teaches not simply the immortality of the soul&mdash;not
+ simply the immortality of joy&mdash;but it teaches the immortality of
+ pain, the eternity of sorrow. It insists that evil, that wickedness, that
+ immorality and that every form of vice are and must be perpetuated
+ forever. It believes in immortal convicts, in eternal imprisonment and in
+ a world of unending pain. It has a serpent for every breast and a curse
+ for nearly every soul. This doctrine is called the dearest hope of the
+ human heart, and he who attacks it is denounced as the most infamous of
+ men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see what the church, within a few years, has been compelled
+ substantially to abandon,&mdash;that is to say, what it is now almost
+ ashamed to defend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First, the astronomy of the sacred Scriptures; second, the geology; third,
+ the account given of the origin of man; fourth, the doctrine of original
+ sin, the fall of the human race; fifth, the mathematical contradiction
+ known as the Trinity; sixth, the atonement&mdash;because it was only on
+ the ground that man is accountable for the sin of another, that he could
+ be justified by reason of the righteousness of another; seventh, that the
+ miraculous is either the misunderstood or the impossible; eighth, that the
+ Bible is not inspired in its morality, for the reason that slavery is not
+ moral, that polygamy is not good, that wars of extermination are not
+ merciful, and that nothing can be more immoral than to punish the innocent
+ on account of the sins of the guilty; and ninth, the divinity of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this must be given up by the really intelligent, by those not afraid
+ to think, by those who have the courage of their convictions and the
+ candor to express their thoughts. What then is left?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you. Everything in the Bible that is true, is left; it still
+ remains and is still of value. It cannot be said too often that the truth
+ needs no inspiration; neither can it be said too often that inspiration
+ cannot help falsehood. Every good and noble sentiment uttered in the Bible
+ is still good and noble. Every fact remains. All that is good in the
+ Sermon on the Mount is retained. The Lord's Prayer is not affected. The
+ grandeur of self-denial, the nobility of forgiveness, and the ineffable
+ splendor of mercy are with us still. And besides, there remains the great
+ hope for all the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is lost? All the mistakes, all the falsehoods, all the absurdities,
+ all the cruelties and all the curses contained in the Scriptures. We have
+ almost lost the "hope" of eternal pain&mdash;the "consolation" of
+ perdition; and in time we shall lose the frightful shadow that has fallen
+ upon so many hearts, that has darkened so many lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great trouble for many years has been, and still is, that the clergy
+ are not quite candid. They are disposed to defend the old creed. They have
+ been educated in the universities of the Sacred Mistake&mdash;universities
+ that Bruno would call "the widows of true learning." They have been taught
+ to measure with a false standard; they have weighed with inaccurate
+ scales. In youth, they became convinced of the truth of the creed. This
+ was impressed upon them by the solemnity of professors who spoke in tones
+ of awe. The enthusiasm of life's morning was misdirected. They went out
+ into the world knowing nothing of value. They preached a creed outgrown.
+ Having been for so many years entirely certain of their position, they met
+ doubt with a spirit of irritation&mdash;afterward with hatred. They are
+ hardly courageous enough to admit that they are wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once the pulpit was the leader&mdash;it spoke with authority. By its side
+ was the sword of the state, with the hilt toward its hand. Now it is
+ apologized for&mdash;it carries a weight. It is now like a living man to
+ whom has been chained a corpse. It cannot defend the old, and it has not
+ accepted the new. In some strange way it imagines that morality cannot
+ live except in partnership with the sanctified follies and falsehoods of
+ the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old creeds cannot be defended by argument. They are not within the
+ circumference of reason&mdash;they are not embraced in any of the facts
+ within the experience of man. All the subterfuges have been exposed; all
+ the excuses have been shown to be shallow, and at last the church must
+ meet, and fairly meet, the objections of our time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Solemnity is no longer an argument. Falsehood is no longer sacred. People
+ are not willing to admit that mistakes are divine. Truth is more important
+ than belief&mdash;far better than creeds, vastly more useful than
+ superstitions. The church must accept the truths of the present, must
+ admit the demonstrations of science, or take its place in the mental
+ museums with the fossils and monstrosities of the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time for personalities has passed; these questions cannot be
+ determined by ascertaining the character of the disputants; epithets are
+ no longer regarded as arguments; the curse of the church produces
+ laughter; theological slander is no longer a weapon; argument must be
+ answered with argument, and the church must appeal to reason, and by that
+ standard it must stand or fall. The theories and discoveries of Darwin
+ cannot be answered by the resolutions of synods, or by quotations from the
+ Old Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world has advanced. The Bible has remained the same. We must go back
+ to the book&mdash;it cannot come to us&mdash;or we must leave it forever.
+ In order to remain orthodox we must forget the discoveries, the
+ inventions, the intellectual efforts of many centuries; we must go back
+ until our knowledge&mdash;or rather our ignorance&mdash;will harmonize
+ with the barbaric creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not pretended that all the creeds have not been naturally produced.
+ It is admitted that under the same circumstances the same religions would
+ again ensnare the human race. It is also admitted that under the same
+ circumstances the same efforts would be made by the great and intellectual
+ of every age to break the chains of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no necessity of attacking people&mdash;we should combat error. We
+ should hate hypocrisy, but not the hypocrite&mdash;larceny, but not the
+ thief&mdash;superstition, but not its victim. We should do all within our
+ power to inform, to educate, and to benefit our fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no elevating power in hatred. There is no reformation in
+ punishment. The soul grows greater and grander in the air of kindness, in
+ the sunlight of intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must rely upon the evidence of our senses, upon the conclusions of our
+ reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries the church has insisted that man is totally depraved,
+ that he is naturally wicked, that all of his natural desires are contrary
+ to the will of God. Only a few years ago it was solemnly asserted that our
+ senses were originally honest, true and faithful, but having been
+ debauched by original sin, were now cheats and liars; that they constantly
+ deceived and misled the soul; that they were traps and snares; that no man
+ could be safe who relied upon his senses, or upon his reason;&mdash;he
+ must simply rely upon faith; in other words, that the only way for man to
+ really see was to put out his eyes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There has been a rapid improvement in the intellectual world. The
+ improvement has been slow in the realm of religion, for the reason that
+ religion was hedged about, defended and barricaded by fear, by prejudice
+ and by law. It was considered sacred. It was illegal to call its truth in
+ question. Whoever disputed the priest became a criminal; whoever demanded
+ a reason, or an explanation, became a blasphemer, a scoffer, a moral
+ leper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church defended its mistakes by every means within its power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in spite of all this there has been advancement, and there are enough
+ of the orthodox clergy left to make it possible for us to measure the
+ distance that has been traveled by sensible people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The world is beginning to see that a minister should be a teacher, and
+ that "he should not endeavor to inculcate a particular system of dogmas,
+ but to prepare his hearers for exercising their own judgments."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a last resource, the orthodox tell the thoughtful that they are not
+ "spiritual"&mdash;that they are "of the earth, earthy"&mdash;that they
+ cannot perceive that which is spiritual. They insist that "God is a
+ spirit, and must be worshiped in spirit."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let me ask, What is it to be spiritual? In order to be really
+ spiritual, must a man sacrifice this world for the sake of another? Were
+ the selfish hermits, who deserted their wives and children for the
+ miserable purpose of saving their own little souls, spiritual? Were those
+ who put their fellow-men in dungeons, or burned them at the state* on
+ account of a difference of opinion, all spiritual people? Did John Calvin
+ give evidence of his spirituality by burning Servetus? Were they spiritual
+ people who invented and used instruments of torture&mdash;who denied the
+ liberty of thought and expression&mdash;who waged wars for the propagation
+ of the faith? Were they spiritual people who insisted that Infinite Love
+ could punish his poor, ignorant children forever? Is it necessary to
+ believe in eternal torment to understand the meaning of the word
+ spiritual? Is it necessary to hate those who disagree with you, and to
+ calumniate those whose argument you cannot answer, in order to be
+ spiritual? Must you hold a demonstrated fact in contempt; must you deny or
+ avoid what you know to be true, in order to substantiate the fact that you
+ are spiritual?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is it to be spiritual? Is the man spiritual who searches for the
+ truth&mdash;who lives in accordance with his highest ideal&mdash;who loves
+ his wife and children&mdash;who discharges his obligations&mdash;who makes
+ a happy fireside for the ones he loves&mdash;who succors the oppressed&mdash;who
+ gives his honest opinions&mdash;who is guided by principle&mdash;who is
+ merciful and just?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is the man spiritual who loves the beautiful&mdash;who is thrilled by
+ music, and touched to tears in the presence of the sublime, the heroic and
+ the self-denying? Is the man spiritual who endeavors by thought and deed
+ to ennoble the human race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defenders of the orthodox faith, by this time, should know that the
+ foundations are insecure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They should have the courage to defend, or the candor to abandon. If the
+ Bible is an inspired book, it ought to be true. Its defenders must admit
+ that Jehovah knew the facts not only about the earth, but about the stars,
+ and that the Creator of the universe knew all about geology and astronomy
+ even four thousand years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The champions of Christianity must show that the Bible tells the truth
+ about the creation of man, the Garden of Eden, the temptation, the fall
+ and the flood. They must take the ground that the sacred book is
+ historically correct; that the events related really happened; that the
+ miracles were actually performed; that the laws promulgated from Sinai
+ were and are wise and just, and that nothing is upheld, commanded,
+ indorsed, or in any way approved or sustained that is not absolutely
+ right. In other words, if they insist that a being of infinite goodness
+ and intelligence is the author of the Bible, they must be ready to show
+ that it is absolutely perfect. They must defend its astronomy, geology,
+ history, miracle and morality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is true, man is a special creation, and if man is a special
+ creation, millions of facts must have conspired, millions of ages ago, to
+ deceive the scientific world of to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the Bible is true, slavery is right, and the world should go back to
+ the barbarism of the lash and chain. If the Bible' is true, polygamy is
+ the highest form of virtue. If the Bible is true, nature has a master, and
+ the miraculous is independent of and superior to cause and effect. If the
+ Bible is true, most of the children of men are destined to suffer eternal
+ pain. If the Bible is true, the science known as astronomy is a collection
+ of mistakes&mdash;the telescope is a false witness, and light is a
+ luminous liar. If the Bible is true, the science known as geology is false
+ and every fossil is a petrified perjurer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The defenders of orthodox creeds should have the courage to candidly
+ answer at least two questions: First, Is the Bible inspired? Second, Is
+ the Bible true? And when they answer these questions, they should remember
+ that if the Bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and that if not true,
+ inspiration can do it no good.&mdash;North American Review, August, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ I.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ "With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious questions
+ as in others. There is no subject&mdash;and can be none&mdash;concerning
+ which any human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence.
+ Neither is there any intelligent being who can, by any possibility, be
+ flattered by the exercise of ignorant credulity. The man who, without
+ prejudice, reads and understands the Old and New Testaments will cease to
+ be an orthodox Christian. The intelligent man who investigates the
+ religion of any country without fear and without prejudice will not and
+ cannot be a believer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most people, after arriving at the conclusion that Jehovah is not God,
+ that the Bible is not an inspired book, and that the Christian religion,
+ like other religions, is the creation of man, usually say: "There must be
+ a Supreme Being, but Jehovah is not his name, and the Bible is not his
+ word. There must be somewhere an over-ruling Providence or Power."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This position is just as untenable as the other. He who cannot harmonize
+ the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah, cannot harmonize
+ the cruelties of Nature with the goodness and wisdom of a supposed Deity.
+ He will find it impossible to account for pestilence and famine, for
+ earthquake and storm, for slavery, for the triumph of the strong over the
+ weak, for the countless victories of injustice. He will find it impossible
+ to account for martyrs&mdash;for the burning of the good, the noble, the
+ loving, by the ignorant, the malicious, and the infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can the Deist satisfactorily account for the sufferings of women and
+ children? In what way will he justify religious persecution&mdash;the
+ flame and sword of religious hatred? Why did his God sit idly on his
+ throne and allow his enemies to wet their swords in the blood of his
+ friends? Why did he not answer the prayers of the imprisoned, of the
+ helpless? And when he heard the lash upon the naked back of the slave, why
+ did he not also hear the prayer of the slave? And when children were sold
+ from the breasts of mothers, why was he deaf to the mother's cry?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems to me that the man who knows the limitations of the mind, who
+ gives the proper value to human testimony, is necessarily an Agnostic. He
+ gives up the hope of ascertaining first or final causes, of comprehending
+ the supernatural, or of conceiving of an infinite personality. From out
+ the words Creator, Preserver, and Providence, all meaning falls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mind of man pursues the path of least resistance, and the conclusions
+ arrived at by the individual depend upon the nature and structure of his
+ mind, on his experience, on hereditary drifts and tendencies, and on the
+ countless things that constitute the difference in minds. One man, finding
+ himself in the midst of mysterious phenomena, comes to the conclusion that
+ all is the result of design; that back of all things is an infinite
+ personality&mdash;that is to say, an infinite man; and he accounts for all
+ that is by simply saying that the universe was created and set in motion
+ by this infinite personality, and that it is miraculously and
+ supernaturally governed and preserved. This man sees with perfect
+ clearness that matter could not create itself, and therefore he imagines a
+ creator of matter. He is perfectly satisfied that there is design in the
+ world, and that consequently there must have been a designer. It does not
+ occur to him that it is necessary to account for the existence of an
+ infinite personality. He is perfectly certain that there can be no design
+ without a designer, and he is equally certain that there can be a designer
+ who was not designed. The absurdity becomes so great that it takes the
+ place of a demonstration. He takes it for granted that matter was created
+ and that its creator was not. He assumes that a creator existed from
+ eternity, without cause, and created what is called matter out of nothing;
+ or, whereas there was nothing, this creator made the something that we
+ call substance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality?
+ Can it imagine a beginningless being, infinitely powerful and intelligent?
+ If such a being existed, then there must have been an eternity during
+ which nothing did exist except this being; because, if the Universe was
+ created, there must have been a time when it was not, and back of that
+ there must have been an eternity during which nothing but an infinite
+ personality existed. Is it possible to imagine an infinite intelligence
+ dwelling for an eternity in infinite nothing? How could such a being be
+ intelligent? What was there to be intelligent about? There was but one
+ thing to know, namely, that there was nothing except this being. How could
+ such a being be powerful? There was nothing to exercise force upon. There
+ was nothing in the universe to suggest an idea. Relations could not exist&mdash;except
+ the relation between infinite intelligence and infinite nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next great difficulty is the act of creation. My mind is so that I
+ cannot conceive of something being created out of nothing. Neither can I
+ conceive of anything being created without a cause. Let me go one step
+ further. It is just as difficult to imagine something being created with,
+ as without, a cause. To postulate a cause does not in the least lessen the
+ difficulty. In spite of all, this lever remains without a fulcrum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot conceive of the destruction of substance. The stone can be
+ crushed to powder, and the powder can be ground to such a fineness that
+ the atoms can only be distinguished by the most powerful microscope, and
+ we can then imagine these atoms being divided and subdivided again and
+ again and again; but it is impossible for us to conceive of the
+ annihilation of the least possible imaginable fragment of the least atom
+ of which we can think. Consequently the mind can imagine neither creation
+ nor destruction. From this point it is very easy to reach the
+ generalization that the indestructible could not have been created.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These questions, however, will be answered by each individual according to
+ the structure of his mind, according to his experience, according to his
+ habits of thought, and according to his intelligence or his ignorance, his
+ prejudice or his genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably a very large majority of mankind believe in the existence of
+ supernatural beings, and a majority of what are known as the civilized
+ nations, in an infinite personality. In the realm of thought majorities do
+ not determine. Each brain is a kingdom, each mind is a sovereign.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The universality of a belief does not even tend to prove its truth. A
+ large majority of mankind have believed in what is known as God, and an
+ equally large majority have as implicitly believed in what is known as the
+ Devil. These beings have been inferred from phenomena. They were produced
+ for the most part by ignorance, by fear, and by selfishness. Man in all
+ ages has endeavored to account for the mysteries of life and death, of
+ substance, of force, for the ebb and flow of things, for earth and star.
+ The savage, dwelling in his cave, subsisting on roots and reptiles, or on
+ beasts that could be slain with club and stone, surrounded by countless
+ objects of terror, standing by rivers, so far as he knew, without source
+ or end, by seas with but one shore, the prey of beasts mightier than
+ himself, of diseases strange and fierce, trembling at the voice of
+ thunder, blinded by the lightning, feeling the earth shake beneath him,
+ seeing the sky lurid with the volcano's glare,&mdash;fell prostrate and
+ begged for the protection of the Unknown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the long night of savagery, in the midst of pestilence and famine,
+ through the long and dreary winters, crouched in dens of darkness, the
+ seeds of superstition were sown in the brain of man. The savage believed,
+ and thoroughly believed, that everything happened in reference to him;
+ that he by his actions could excite the anger, or by his worship placate
+ the wrath, of the Unseen. He resorted to flattery and prayer. To the best
+ of his ability he put in stone, or rudely carved in wood, his idea of this
+ god. For this idol he built a hut, a hovel, and at last a cathedral.
+ Before these images he bowed, and at these shrines, whereon he lavished
+ his wealth, he sought protection for himself and for the ones he loved.
+ The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have
+ received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless
+ multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the
+ court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the
+ deceived they lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian of to-day wonders at the savage who bowed before his idol;
+ and yet it must be confessed that the god of stone answered prayer and
+ protected his worshipers precisely as the Christian's God answers prayer
+ and protects his worshipers to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My mind is so that it is forced to the conclusion that substance is
+ eternal; that the universe was without beginning and will be without end;
+ that it is the one eternal existence; that relations are transient and
+ evanescent; that organisms are produced and vanish; that forms change,&mdash;but
+ that the substance of things is from eternity to eternity. It may be that
+ planets are born and die, that constellations will fade from the infinite
+ spaces, that countless suns will be quenched,&mdash;but the substance will
+ remain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The questions of origin and destiny seem to be beyond the powers of the
+ human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Heredity is on the side of superstition. All our ignorance pleads for the
+ old. In most men there is a feeling that their ancestors were exceedingly
+ good and brave and wise, and that in all things pertaining to religion
+ their conclusions should be followed. They believe that their fathers and
+ mothers were of the best, and that that which satisfied them should
+ satisfy their children. With a feeling of reverence they say that the
+ religion of their mother is good enough and pure enough and reasonable
+ enough for them. In this way the love of parents and the reverence for
+ ancestors have unconsciously bribed the reason and put out, or rendered
+ exceedingly dim, the eyes of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a kind of longing in the heart of the old to live and die where
+ their parents lived and died&mdash;a tendency to go back to the homes of
+ their youth. Around the old oak of manhood grow and cling these vines. Yet
+ it will hardly do to say that the religion of my mother is good enough for
+ me, any more than to say the geology or the astronomy or the philosophy of
+ my mother is good enough for me. Every human being is entitled to the best
+ he can obtain; and if there has been the slightest improvement on the
+ religion of the mother, the son is entitled to that improvement, and he
+ should not deprive himself of that advantage by the mistaken idea that he
+ owes it to his mother to perpetuate, in a reverential way, her ignorant
+ mistakes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we are to follow the religion of our fathers and mothers, our fathers
+ and mothers should have followed the religion of theirs. Had this been
+ done, there could have been no improvement in the world of thought. The
+ first religion would have been the last, and the child would have died as
+ ignorant as the mother. Progress would have been impossible, and on the
+ graves of ancestors would have been sacrificed the intelligence of
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, too, that there has been the religion of the tribe, of the
+ community, and of the nation, and that there has been a feeling that it
+ was the duty of every member of the tribe or community, and of every
+ citizen of the nation, to insist upon it that the religion of that tribe,
+ of that community, of that nation, was better than that of any other. We
+ know that all the prejudices against other religions, and all the egotism
+ of nation and tribe, were in favor of the local superstition. Each citizen
+ was patriotic enough to denounce the religions of other nations and to
+ stand firmly by his own. And there is this peculiarity about man: he can
+ see the absurdities of other religions while blinded to those of his own.
+ The Christian can see clearly enough that Mohammed was an impostor. He is
+ sure of it, because the people of Mecca who were acquainted with him
+ declared that he was no prophet; and this declaration is received by
+ Christians as a demonstration that Mohammed was not inspired. Yet these
+ same Christians admit that the people of Jerusalem who were acquainted
+ with Christ rejected him; and this rejection they take as proof positive
+ that Christ was the Son of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The average man adopts the religion of his country, or, rather, the
+ religion of his country adopts him. He is dominated by the egotism of
+ race, the arrogance of nation, and the prejudice called patriotism. He
+ does not reason&mdash;he feels. He does not investigate&mdash;he believes.
+ To him the religions of other nations are absurd and infamous, and their
+ gods monsters of ignorance and cruelty. In every country this average man
+ is taught, first, that there is a supreme being; second, that he has made
+ known his will; third, that he will reward the true believer; fourth, that
+ he will punish the unbeliever, the scoffer, and the blasphemer; fifth,
+ that certain ceremonies are pleasing to this god; sixth, that he has
+ established a church; and seventh, that priests are his representatives on
+ earth. And the average man has no difficulty in determining that the God
+ of his nation is the true God; that the will of this true God is contained
+ in the sacred scriptures of his nation; that he is one of the true
+ believers, and that the people of other nations&mdash;that is, believing
+ other religions&mdash;are scoffers; that the only true church is the one
+ to which he belongs; and that the priests of his country are the only ones
+ who have had or ever will have the slightest influence with this true God.
+ All these absurdities to the average man seem self-evident propositions;
+ and so he holds all other creeds in scorn, and congratulates himself that
+ he is a favorite of the one true God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the average Christian had been born in Turkey, he would have been a
+ Mohammedan; and if the average Mohammedan had been born in New England and
+ educated at Andover, he would have regarded the damnation of the heathen
+ as the "tidings of great joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nations have eccentricities, peculiarities, and hallucinations, and these
+ find expression in their laws, customs, ceremonies, morals, and religions.
+ And these are in great part determined by soil, climate, and the countless
+ circumstances that mould and dominate the lives and habits of insects,
+ individuals, and nations. The average man believes implicitly in the
+ religion of his country, because he knows nothing of any other and has no
+ desire to know. It fits him because he has been deformed to fit it, and he
+ regards this fact of fit as an evidence of its inspired truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has a man the right to examine, to investigate, the religion of his own
+ country&mdash;the religion of his father and mother? Christians admit that
+ the citizens of all countries not Christian have not only this right, but
+ that it is their solemn duty. Thousands of missionaries are sent to
+ heathen countries to persuade the believers in other religions not only to
+ examine their superstitions, but to renounce them, and to adopt those of
+ the missionaries. It is the duty of a heathen to disregard the religion of
+ his country and to hold in contempt the creed of his father and of his
+ mother. If the citizens of heathen nations have the right to examine the
+ foundations of their religion, it would seem that the citizens of
+ Christian nations have the same right. Christians, however, go further
+ than this; they say to the heathen: You must examine your religion, and
+ not only so, but you must reject it; and, unless you do reject it, and, in
+ addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned. Then
+ these same Christians say to the inhabitants of a Christian country: You
+ must not examine; you must not investigate; but whether you examine or
+ not, you must believe, or you will be eternally damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be one true religion, how is it possible to ascertain which of
+ all the religions the true one is? There is but one way. We must
+ impartially examine the claims of all. The right to examine involves the
+ necessity to accept or reject. Understand me, not the right to accept or
+ reject, but the necessity. From this conclusion there is no possible
+ escape. If, then, we have the right to examine, we have the right to tell
+ the conclusion reached. Christians have examined other religions somewhat,
+ and they have expressed their opinion with the utmost freedom&mdash;that
+ is to say, they have denounced them all as false and fraudulent; have
+ called their gods idols and myths, and their priests impostors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian does not deem it worth while to read the Koran. Probably not
+ one Christian in a thousand ever saw a copy of that book. And yet all
+ Christians are perfectly satisfied that the Koran is the work of an
+ impostor, No Presbyterian thinks it is worth his while to examine the
+ religious systems of India; he knows that the Brahmins are mistaken, and
+ that all their miracles are falsehoods. No Methodist cares to read the
+ life of Buddha, and no Baptist will waste his time studying the ethics of
+ Confucius. Christians of every sort and kind take it for granted that
+ there is only one true religion, and that all except Christianity are
+ absolutely without foundation. The Christian world believes that all the
+ prayers of India are unanswered; that all the sacrifices upon the
+ countless altars of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome were without effect.
+ They believe that all these mighty nations worshiped their gods in vain;
+ that their priests were deceivers or deceived; that their ceremonies were
+ wicked or meaningless; that their temples were built by ignorance and
+ fraud, and that no God heard their songs of praise, their cries of
+ despair, their words of thankfulness; that on account of their religion no
+ pestilence was stayed; that the earthquake and volcano, the flood and
+ storm went on their ways of death&mdash;while the real God looked on and
+ laughed at their calamities and mocked at their fears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We find now that the prosperity of nations has depended, not upon their
+ religion, not upon the goodness or providence of some god, but on soil and
+ climate and commerce, upon the ingenuity, industry, and courage of the
+ people, upon the development of the mind, on the spread of education, on
+ the liberty of thought and action; and that in this mighty panorama of
+ national life, reason has built and superstition has destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Being satisfied that all believe precisely as they must, and that
+ religions have been naturally produced, I have neither praise nor blame
+ for any man. Good men have had bad creeds, and bad men have had good ones.
+ Some of the noblest of the human race have fought and died for the wrong.
+ The brain of man has been the trysting-place of contradictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Passion often masters reason, and "the state of man, like to a little
+ kingdom, suffers then the nature of an insurrection."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the discussion of theological or religious questions, we have almost
+ passed the personal phase, and we are now weighing arguments instead of
+ exchanging epithets and curses. They who really seek for truth must be the
+ best of friends. Each knows that his desire can never take the place of
+ fact, and that, next to finding truth, the greatest honor must be won in
+ honest search.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We see that many ships are driven in many ways by the same wind. So men,
+ reading the same book, write many creeds and lay out many roads to heaven.
+ To the best of my ability, I have examined the religions of many countries
+ and the creeds of many sects. They are much alike, and the testimony by
+ which they are substantiated is of such a character that to those who
+ believe is promised an eternal reward. In all the sacred books there are
+ some truths, some rays of light, some words of love and hope. The face of
+ savagery is sometimes softened by a smile&mdash;the human triumphs, and
+ the heart breaks into song. But in these books are also found the words of
+ fear and hate, and from their pages crawl serpents that coil and hiss in
+ all the paths of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I prefer the books that inspiration has not claimed. Such is
+ the nature of my brain that Shakespeare gives me greater joy than all the
+ prophets of the ancient world. There are thoughts that satisfy the hunger
+ of the mind. I am convinced that Humboldt knew more of geology than the
+ author of Genesis; that Darwin was a greater naturalist than he who told
+ the story of the flood; that Laplace was better acquainted with the habits
+ of the sun and moon than Joshua could have been, and that Haeckel, Huxley,
+ and Tyndall know more about the earth and stars, about the history of man,
+ the philosophy of life&mdash;more that is of use, ten thousand times&mdash;than
+ all the writers of the sacred books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the religion of reason&mdash;the gospel of this world; in the
+ development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to
+ the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that
+ he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us be honest with ourselves. In the presence of countless mysteries;
+ standing beneath the boundless heaven sown thick with constellations;
+ knowing that each grain of sand, each leaf, each blade of grass, asks of
+ every mind the answer-less question; knowing that the simplest thing
+ defies solution; feeling that we deal with the superficial and the
+ relative, and that we are forever eluded by the real, the absolute,&mdash;let
+ us admit the limitations of our minds, and let us have the courage and the
+ candor to say: We do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ North American Review, December, 1889.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE Christian religion rests on miracles. There are no miracles in the
+ realm of science. The real philosopher does not seek to excite wonder, but
+ to make that plain which was wonderful. He does not endeavor to astonish,
+ but to enlighten. He is perfectly confident that there are no miracles in
+ nature. He knows that the mathematical expression of the same relations,
+ contents, areas, numbers and proportions must forever remain the same. He
+ knows that there are no miracles in chemistry; that the attractions and
+ repulsions, the loves and hatreds, of atoms are constant. Under like
+ conditions, he is certain that like will always happen; that the product
+ ever has been and forever will be the same; that the atoms or particles
+ unite in definite, unvarying proportions,&mdash;so many of one kind mix,
+ mingle, and harmonize with just so many of another, and the surplus will
+ be forever cast out. There are no exceptions. Substances are always true
+ to their natures. They have no caprices, no prejudices, that can vary or
+ control their action. They are "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this fixedness, this constancy, this eternal integrity, the intelligent
+ man has absolute confidence. It is useless to tell him that there was a
+ time when fire would not consume the combustible, when water would not
+ flow in obedience to the attraction of gravitation, or that there ever was
+ a fragment of a moment during which substance had no weight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Credulity should be the servant of intelligence. The ignorant have not
+ credulity enough to believe the actual, because the actual appears to be
+ contrary to the evidence of their senses. To them it is plain that the sun
+ rises and sets, and they have not credulity enough to believe in the
+ rotary motion of the earth&mdash;that is to say, they have not
+ intelligence enough to comprehend the absurdities involved in their
+ belief, and the perfect harmony between the rotation of the earth and all
+ known facts. They trust their eyes, not their reason. Ignorance has always
+ been and always will be at the mercy of appearance. Credulity, as a rule,
+ believes everything except the truth. The semi-civilized believe in
+ astrology, but who could convince them of the vastness of astronomical
+ spaces, the speed of light, or the magnitude and number of suns and
+ constellations? If Hermann, the magician, and Humboldt, the philosopher,
+ could have appeared before savages, which would have been regarded as a
+ god?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When men knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of the correlation of force,
+ and of its indestructibility, they were believers in perpetual motion. So
+ when chemistry was a kind of sleight-of-hand, or necromancy, something
+ accomplished by the aid of the supernatural, people talked about the
+ transmutation of metals, the universal solvent, and the philosopher's
+ stone. Perpetual motion would be a mechanical miracle; and the
+ transmutation of metals would be a miracle in chemistry; and if we could
+ make the result of multiplying two by two five, that would be a miracle in
+ mathematics. No one expects to find a circle the diameter of which is just
+ one fourth of the circumference. If one could find such a circle, then
+ there would be a miracle in geometry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, there are no miracles in any science. The moment we
+ understand a question or subject, the miraculous necessarily disappears.
+ If anything actually happens in the chemical world, it will, under like
+ conditions, happen again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one need take an account of this result from the mouths of others: all
+ can try the experiment for themselves. There is no caprice, and no
+ accident.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is admitted, at least by the Protestant world, that the age of miracles
+ has passed away, and, consequently, miracles cannot at present be
+ established by miracles; they must be substantiated by the testimony of
+ witnesses who are said by certain writers&mdash;or, rather, by uncertain
+ writers&mdash;to have lived several centuries ago; and this testimony is
+ given to us, not by the witnesses themselves, not by persons who say that
+ they talked with those witnesses, but by unknown persons who did not give
+ the sources of their information.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question is: Can miracles be established except by miracles? We know
+ that the writers may have been mistaken. It is possible that they may have
+ manufactured these accounts themselves. The witnesses may have told what
+ they knew to be untrue, or they may have been honestly deceived, or the
+ stories may have been true as at first told. Imagination may have added
+ greatly to them, so that after several centuries of accretion a very
+ simple truth was changed to a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must admit that all probabilities must be against miracles, for the
+ reason that that which is probable cannot by any possibility be a miracle.
+ Neither the probable nor the possible, so far as man is concerned, can be
+ miraculous. The probability therefore says that the writers and witnesses
+ were either mistaken or dishonest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must admit that we have never seen a miracle ourselves, and we must
+ admit that, according to our experience, there are no miracles. If we have
+ mingled with the world, we are compelled to say that we have known a vast
+ number of persons&mdash;including ourselves&mdash;to be mistaken, and many
+ others who have failed to tell the exact truth. The probabilities are on
+ the side of our experience, and, consequently, against the miraculous; and
+ it is a necessity that the free mind moves along the path of least
+ resistance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The effect of testimony depends on the intelligence and honesty of the
+ witness and the intelligence of him who weighs. A man living in a
+ community where the supernatural is expected, where the miraculous is
+ supposed to be of almost daily occurrence, will, as a rule, believe that
+ all wonderful things are the result of supernatural agencies. He will
+ expect providential interference, and, as a consequence, his mind will
+ pursue the path of least resistance, and will account for all phenomena by
+ what to him is the easiest method. Such people, with the best intentions,
+ honestly bear false witness. They have been imposed upon by appearances,
+ and are victims of delusion and illusion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In an age when reading and writing were substantially unknown, and when
+ history itself was but the vaguest hearsay handed down from dotage to
+ infancy, nothing was rescued from oblivion except the wonderful, the
+ miraculous. The more marvelous the story, the greater the interest
+ excited. Narrators and hearers were alike ignorant and alike honest. At
+ that time nothing was known, nothing suspected, of the orderly course of
+ nature&mdash;of the unbroken and unbreakable chain of causes and effects.
+ The world was governed by caprice. Everything was at the mercy of a being,
+ or beings, who were themselves controlled by the same passions that
+ dominated man. Fragments of facts were taken for the whole, and the
+ deductions drawn were honest and monstrous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is probably certain that all of the religions of the world have been
+ believed, and that all the miracles have found credence in countless
+ brains; otherwise they could not have been perpetuated. They were not all
+ born of cunning. Those who told were as honest as those who heard. This
+ being so, nothing has been too absurd for human credence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All religions, so far as I know, claim to have been miraculously founded,
+ miraculously preserved, and miraculously propagated. The priests of all
+ claimed to have messages from God, and claimed to have a certain
+ authority, and the miraculous has always been appealed to for the purpose
+ of substantiating the message and the authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If men believe in the supernatural, they will account for all phenomena by
+ an appeal to supernatural means or power. We know that formerly everything
+ was accounted for in this way except some few simple things with which man
+ thought he was perfectly acquainted. After a time men found that under
+ like conditions like would happen, and as to those things the supposition
+ of supernatural interference was abandoned; but that interference was
+ still active as to all the unknown world. In other words, as the circle of
+ man's knowledge grew, supernatural interference withdrew and was active
+ only just beyond the horizon of the known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there are some believers in universal special providence&mdash;that
+ is, men who believe in perpetual interference by a supernatural power,
+ this interference being for the purpose of punishing or rewarding, of
+ destroying or preserving, individuals and nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Others have abandoned the idea of providence in ordinary matters, but
+ still believe that God interferes on great occasions and at critical
+ moments, especially in the affairs of nations, and that his presence is
+ manifest in great disasters. This is the compromise position. These people
+ believe that an infinite being made the universe and impressed upon it
+ what they are pleased to call "laws," and then left it to run in
+ accordance with those laws and forces; that as a rule it works well, and
+ that the divine maker interferes only in cases of accident, or at moments
+ when the machine fails to accomplish the original design.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are others who take the ground that all is natural; that there never
+ has been, never will be, never can be any interference from without, for
+ the reason that nature embraces all, and that there can be no without or
+ beyond.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first class are Theists pure and simple; the second are Theists as to
+ the unknown, Naturalists as to the known; and the third are Naturalists
+ without a touch or taint of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What can the evidence of the first class be worth? This question is
+ answered by reading the history of those nations that believed thoroughly
+ and implicitly in the supernatural. There is no conceivable absurdity that
+ was not established by their testimony. Every law or every fact in nature
+ was violated. Children were bom without parents; men lived for thousands
+ of years; others subsisted without food, without sleep; thousands and
+ thousands were possessed with evil spirits controlled by ghosts and
+ ghouls; thousands confessed themselves guilty of impossible offences, and
+ in courts, with the most solemn forms, impossibilities were substantiated
+ by the oaths, affirmations, and confessions of men, women, and children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These delusions were not confined to ascetics and peasants, but they took
+ possession of nobles and kings; of people who were at that time called
+ intelligent; of the then educated. No one denied these wonders, for the
+ reason that denial was a crime punishable generally with death. Societies,
+ nations, became insane&mdash;victims of ignorance, of dreams, and, above
+ all, of fears. Under these conditions human testimony is not and cannot be
+ of the slightest value. We now know that nearly all of the history of the
+ world is false, and we know this because we have arrived at that phase or
+ point of intellectual development where and when we know that effects must
+ have causes, that everything is naturally produced, and that,
+ consequently, no nation could ever have been great, powerful, and rich
+ unless it had the soil, the people, the intelligence, and the commerce.
+ Weighed in these scales, nearly all histories are found to be fictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same is true of religions. Every intelligent American is satisfied
+ that the religions of India, of Egypt, of Greece and Rome, of the Aztecs,
+ were and are false, and that all the miracles on which they rest are
+ mistakes. Our religion alone is excepted. Every intelligent Hindoo
+ discards all religions and all miracles except his own. The question is:
+ When will people see the defects in their own theology as clearly as they
+ perceive the same defects in every other?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the so-called false religions were substantiated by miracles, by signs
+ and wonders, by prophets and martyrs, precisely as our own. Our witnesses
+ are no better than theirs, and our success is no greater. If their
+ miracles were false, ours cannot be true. Nature was the same in India and
+ in Palestine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the corner-stones of Christianity is the miracle of inspiration,
+ and this same miracle lies at the foundation of all religions. How can the
+ fact of inspiration be established? How could even the inspired man know
+ that he was inspired? If he was influenced to write, and did write, and
+ did express thoughts and facts that to him were absolutely new, on
+ subjects about which he had previously known nothing, how could he know
+ that he had been influenced by an infinite being? And if he could know,
+ how could he convince others?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is meant by inspiration? Did the one inspired set down only the
+ thoughts of a supernatural being? Was he simply an instrument, or did his
+ personality color the message received and given? Did he mix his ignorance
+ with the divine information, his prejudices and hatreds with the love and
+ justice of the Deity? If God told him not to eat the flesh of any beast
+ that dieth of itself, did the same infinite being also tell him to sell
+ this meat to the stranger within his gates?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man says that he is inspired&mdash;that God appeared to him in a dream,
+ and told him certain things. Now, the things said to have been
+ communicated may have been good and wise; but will the fact that the
+ communication is good or wise establish the inspiration? If, on the other
+ hand, the communication is absurd or wicked, will that conclusively show
+ that the man was not inspired? Must we judge from the communication? In
+ other words, is our reason to be the final standard?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How could the inspired man know that the communication was received from
+ God? If God in reality should appear to a human being, how could this
+ human being know who had appeared? By what standard would he judge? Upon
+ this question man has no experience; he is not familiar enough with the
+ supernatural to know gods even if they exist. Although thousands have
+ pretended to receive messages, there has been no message in which there
+ was, or is, anything above the invention of man. There are just as
+ wonderful things in the uninspired as in the inspired books, and the
+ prophecies of the heathen have been fulfilled equally with those of the
+ Judean prophets. If, then, even the inspired man cannot certainly know
+ that he is inspired, how is it possible for him to demonstrate his
+ inspiration to others? The last solution of this question is that
+ inspiration is a miracle about which only the inspired can have the least
+ knowledge, or the least evidence, and this knowledge and this evidence not
+ of a character to absolutely convince even the inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is certainly nothing in the Old or the New Testament that could not
+ have been written by uninspired human beings. To me there is nothing of
+ any particular value in the Pentateuch. I do not know of a solitary
+ scientific truth contained in the five books commonly attributed to Moses.
+ There is not, as far as I know, a line in the book of Genesis calculated
+ to make a human being better. The laws contained in Exodus, Leviticus,
+ Numbers, and Deuteronomy are for the most part puerile and cruel. Surely
+ there is nothing in any of these books that could not have been produced
+ by uninspired men. Certainly there is nothing calculated to excite
+ intellectual admiration in the book of Judges or in the wars of Joshua;
+ and the same may be said of Samuel, Chronicles, and Kings. The history is
+ extremely childish, full of repetitions of useless details, without the
+ slightest philosophy, without a generalization bom of a wide survey.
+ Nothing is known of other nations; nothing imparted of the slightest
+ value; nothing about education, discovery, or invention. And these idle
+ and stupid annals are interspersed with myth and miracle, with flattery
+ for kings who supported priests, and with curses and denunciations for
+ those who would not hearken to the voice of the prophets. If all the
+ historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind,
+ nothing of value would be lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that the writer or writers of First and Second Kings were
+ inspired, and that Gibbon wrote "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
+ without supernatural assistance? Is it possible that the author of Judges
+ was simply the instrument of an infinite God, while John W. Draper wrote
+ "The Intellectual Development of Europe" without one ray of light from the
+ other world? Can we believe that the author of Genesis had to be inspired,
+ while Darwin experimented, ascertained, and reached conclusions for
+ himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ought not the work of a God to be vastly superior to that of a man? And if
+ the writers of the Bible were in reality inspired, ought not that book to
+ be the greatest of books? For instance, if it were contended that certain
+ statues had been chiselled by inspired men, such statues should be
+ superior to any that uninspired man has made. As long as it is admitted
+ that the Venus de Milo is the work of man, no one will believe in inspired
+ sculptors&mdash;at least until a superior statue has been found. So in the
+ world of painting. We admit that Corot was uninspired. Nobody claims that
+ Angelo had supernatural assistance. Now, if some one should claim that a
+ certain painter was simply the instrumentality of God, certainly the
+ pictures produced by that painter should be superior to all others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude
+ that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear
+ was the work of an uninspired man. We are all liable to be mistaken, but
+ the Iliad seems to me a greater work than the Book of Esther, and I prefer
+ it to the writings of Haggai and Hosea. &#65533;?schylus is superior to
+ Jeremiah, and Shakespeare rises immeasurably above all the sacred books of
+ the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem possible that any human being ever tried to establish a
+ truth&mdash;anything that really happened&mdash;by what is called a
+ miracle. It is easy to understand how that which was common became
+ wonderful by accretion,&mdash;by things added, and by things forgotten,&mdash;and
+ it is easy to conceive how that which was wonderful became by accretion
+ what was called supernatural. But it does not seem possible that any
+ intelligent, honest man ever endeavored to prove anything by a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, miracles could only satisfy people who demanded no
+ evidence; else how could they have believed the miracle? It also appears
+ to be certain that, even if miracles had been performed, it would be
+ impossible to establish that fact by human testimony. In other words,
+ miracles can only be established by miracles, and in no event could
+ miracles be evidence except to those who were actually present; and in
+ order for miracles to be of any value, they would have to be perpetual. It
+ must also be remembered that a miracle actually performed could by no
+ possibility shed any light on any moral truth, or add to any human
+ obligation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If any man has, ever been inspired, this is a secret miracle, known to no
+ person, and suspected only by the man claiming to be inspired. It would
+ not be in the power of the inspired to give satisfactory evidence of that
+ fact to anybody else.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The testimony of man is insufficient to establish the supernatural.
+ Neither the evidence of one man nor of twelve can stand when contradicted
+ by the experience of the intelligent world. If a book sought to be proved
+ by miracles is true, then it makes no difference whether it was inspired
+ or not; and if it is not true, inspiration cannot add to its value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that the church has always&mdash;unconsciously, perhaps&mdash;offered
+ rewards for falsehood. It was founded upon the supernatural, the
+ miraculous, and it welcomed all statements calculated to support the
+ foundation. It rewarded the traveller who found evidences of the
+ miraculous, who had seen the pillar of salt into which the wife of Lot had
+ been changed, and the tracks of Pharaoh's chariots on the sands of the Red
+ Sea. It heaped honors on the historian who filled his pages with the
+ absurd and impossible. It had geologists and astronomers of its own who
+ constructed the earth and the constellations in accordance with the Bible.
+ With sword and flame it destroyed the brave and thoughtful men who told
+ the truth. It was the enemy of investigation and of reason. Faith and
+ fiction were in partnership.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day the intelligence of the world denies the miraculous. Ignorance is
+ the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of Christianity has crumbled,
+ has disappeared, and the entire fabric must fall. The natural is true. The
+ miraculous is false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ North American Review, March, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0011" id="link0011">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ PROFESSOR HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IN the February number of the Nineteenth Century, 1889, is an article by
+ Professor Huxley, entitled "Agnosticism." It seems that a church congress
+ was held at Manchester in October, 1888, and that the Principal of King's
+ College brought the topic of Agnosticism before the assembly and made the
+ following statement:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "But if this be so, for a man to urge as an escape from this article of
+ belief that he has no means of a scientific knowledge of an unseen world,
+ or of the future, is irrelevant. His difference from Christians lies, not
+ in the fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that he does not
+ believe the authority on which they are stated. He may prefer to call
+ himself an Agnostic, but his real name is an older one&mdash;he is an
+ infidel; that is to say, an unbeliever. The word infidel, perhaps, carries
+ an unpleasant significance. Perhaps it is right that it should. It is, and
+ it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say plainly that
+ he does not believe in Jesus Christ."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us examine this statement, putting it in language that is easily
+ understood; and for that purpose we will divide it into several
+ paragraphs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First.&mdash;"For a man to urge that he has no means of a scientific
+ knowledge of the unseen world, or of the future, is irrelevant."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there any other knowledge than a scientific knowledge? Are there
+ several kinds of knowing? Is there such a thing as scientific ignorance?
+ If a man says, "I know nothing of the unseen world because I have no
+ knowledge upon that subject," is the fact that he has no knowledge
+ absolutely irrelevant? Will the Principal of King's College say that
+ having no knowledge is the reason he knows? When asked to give your
+ opinion upon any subject, can it be said that your ignorance of that
+ subject is irrelevant? If this be true, then your knowledge of the subject
+ is also irrelevant?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible to put in ordinary English a more perfect absurdity? How
+ can a man obtain any knowledge of the unseen world? He certainly cannot
+ obtain it through the medium of the senses. It is not a world that he can
+ visit. He cannot stand upon its shores, nor can he view them from the
+ ocean of imagination. The Principal of King's College, however, insists
+ that these impossibilities are irrelevant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No person has come back from the unseen world. No authentic message has
+ been delivered. Through all the centuries, not one whisper has broken the
+ silence that lies beyond the grave. Countless millions have sought for
+ some evidence, have listened in vain for some word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is most cheerfully admitted that all this does not prove the
+ non-existence of another world&mdash;all this does not demonstrate that
+ death ends all. But it is the justification of the Agnostic, who candidly
+ says, "I do not know."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second.&mdash;The Principal of King's College states that the difference
+ between an Agnostic and a Christian "lies, not in the fact that he has no
+ knowledge of these things, but that he does not believe the authority on
+ which they are stated."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this a difference in knowledge, or a difference in belief&mdash;that is
+ to say, a difference in credulity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian believes the Mosaic account. He reverently hears and admits
+ the truth of all that he finds within the Scriptures. Is this knowledge?
+ How is it possible to know whether the reputed authors of the books of the
+ Old Testament were the real ones? The witnesses are dead. The lips that
+ could testify are dust. Between these shores roll the waves of many
+ centuries. Who knows whether such a man as Moses existed or not? Who knows
+ the author of Kings and Chronicles? By what testimony can we substantiate
+ the authenticity of the prophets, or of the prophecies, or of the
+ fulfillments? Is there any difference between the knowledge of the
+ Christian and of the Agnostic? Does the Principal of King's College know
+ any more as to the truth of the Old Testament than the man who modestly
+ calls for evidence? Has not a mistake been made? Is not the difference one
+ of belief instead of knowledge? And is not this difference founded on the
+ difference in credulity? Would not an infinitely wise and good being&mdash;where
+ belief is a condition to salvation&mdash;supply the evidence? Certainly
+ the Creator of man&mdash;if such exist&mdash;knows the exact nature of the
+ human mind&mdash;knows the evidence necessary to convince; and,
+ consequently, such a being would act in accordance with such conditions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is a relation between evidence and belief. The mind is so
+ constituted that certain things, being in accordance with its nature, are
+ regarded as reasonable, as probable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is also this fact that must not be overlooked: that is, that just in
+ the proportion that the brain is developed it requires more evidence, and
+ becomes less and less credulous. Ignorance and credulity go hand in hand.
+ Intelligence understands something of the law of average, has an idea of
+ probability. It is not swayed by prejudice, neither is it driven to
+ extremes by suspicion. It takes into consideration personal motives. It
+ examines the character of the witnesses, makes allowance for the ignorance
+ of the time,&mdash;for enthusiasm, for fear,&mdash;and comes to its
+ conclusion without fear and without passion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What knowledge has the Christian of another world? The senses of the
+ Christian are the same as those of the Agnostic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He hears, sees, and feels substantially the same. His vision is limited.
+ He sees no other shore and hears nothing from another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Knowledge is something that can be imparted. It has a foundation in fact.
+ It comes within the domain of the senses. It can be told, described,
+ analyzed, and, in addition to all this, it can be classified. Whenever a
+ fact becomes the property of one mind, it can become the property of the
+ intellectual world. There are words in which the knowledge can be
+ conveyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian is not a supernatural person, filled with supernatural
+ truths. He is a natural person, and all that he knows of value can be
+ naturally imparted. It is within his power to give all that he has to the
+ Agnostic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Principal of King's College is mistaken when he says that the
+ difference between the Agnostic and the Christian does not lie in the fact
+ that the Agnostic has no knowledge, "but that he does not believe the
+ authority on which these things are stated."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real difference is this: the Christian says that he has knowledge; the
+ Agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the Christian accuses the
+ Agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit the
+ limitations of his mind. To the Agnostic every fact is a torch, and by
+ this light, and this light only, he walks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is also true that the Agnostic does not believe the authority relied on
+ by the Christian. What is the authority of the Christian? Thousands of
+ years ago it is supposed that certain men, or, rather, uncertain men,
+ wrote certain things. It is alleged by the Christian that these men were
+ divinely inspired, and that the words of these men are to be taken as
+ absolutely true, no matter whether or not they are verified by modern
+ discovery and demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we know that any human being was divinely inspired? There has been
+ no personal revelation to us to the effect that certain people were
+ inspired&mdash;it is only claimed that the revelation was to them. For
+ this we have only their word, and about that there is this difficulty: we
+ know nothing of them, and, consequently, cannot, if we desire, rely upon
+ their character for truth. This evidence is not simply hearsay&mdash;it is
+ far weaker than that. We have only been told that they said these things;
+ we do not know whether the persons claiming to be inspired wrote these
+ things or not; neither are we certain that such persons ever existed. We
+ know now that the greatest men with whom we are acquainted are often
+ mistaken about the simplest matters. We also know that men saying
+ something like the same things, in other countries and in ancient days,
+ must have been impostors. The Christian has no confidence in the words of
+ Mohammed; the Mohammedan cares nothing about the declarations of Buddha;
+ and the Agnostic gives to the words of the Christian the value only of the
+ truth that is in them. He knows that these sayings get neither truth nor
+ worth from the person who uttered them. He knows that the sayings
+ themselves get their entire value from the truth they express. So that the
+ real difference between the Christian and the Agnostic does not lie in
+ their knowledge,&mdash;for neither of them has any knowledge on this
+ subject,&mdash;but the difference does lie in credulity, and in nothing
+ else. The Agnostic does not rely on the authority of Moses and the
+ prophets. He finds that they were mistaken in most matters capable of
+ demonstration. He finds that their mistakes multiply in the proportion
+ that human knowledge increases. He is satisfied that the religion of the
+ ancient Jews is, in most things, as ignorant and cruel as other religions
+ of the ancient world. He concludes that the efforts, in all ages, to
+ answer the questions of origin and destiny, and to account for the
+ phenomena of life, have all been substantial failures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the presence of demonstration there is no opportunity for the exercise
+ of faith. Truth does not appeal to credulity&mdash;it appeals to evidence,
+ to established facts, to the constitution of the mind. It endeavors to
+ harmonize the new fact with all that we know, and to bring it within the
+ circumference of human experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has never cultivated investigation. It has never said: Let him
+ who has a mind to think, think; but its cry from the first until now has
+ been: Let him who has ears to hear, hear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pulpit does not appeal to the reason of the pew; it speaks by
+ authority and it commands the pew to believe, and it not only commands,
+ but it threatens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to
+ establish what is known as the miraculous. We would not believe to-day the
+ testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised. The
+ church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. If we cannot
+ believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who have been
+ dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third.&mdash;The Principal of King's College, growing somewhat severe,
+ declares that "he may prefer to call himself an Agnostic, but his real
+ name is an older one&mdash;he is an infidel; that is to say, an
+ unbeliever."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is spoken in a kind of holy scorn. According to this gentleman, an
+ unbeliever is, to a certain extent, a disreputable person.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this sense, what is an unbeliever? He is one whose mind is so
+ constituted that what the Christian calls evidence is not satisfactory to
+ him. Is a person accountable for the constitution of his mind, for the
+ formation of his brain? Is any human being responsible for the weight that
+ evidence has upon him? Can he believe without evidence? Is the weight of
+ evidence a question of choice? Is there such a thing as honestly weighing
+ testimony? Is the result of such weighing necessary? Does it involve moral
+ responsibility? If the Mosaic account does not convince a man that it is
+ true, is he a wretch because he is candid enough to tell the truth? Can he
+ preserve his manhood only by making a false statement?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Mohammedan would call the Principal of King's College an unbeliever,&mdash;so
+ would the tribes of Central Africa,&mdash;and he would return the
+ compliment, and all would be equally justified. Has the Principal of
+ King's College any knowledge that he keeps from the rest of the world? Has
+ he the confidence of the Infinite? Is there anything praiseworthy in
+ believing where the evidence is sufficient, or is one to be praised for
+ believing only where the evidence is insufficient? Is a man to be blamed
+ for not agreeing with his fellow-citizen? Were the unbelievers in the
+ pagan world better or worse than their neighbors? It is probably true that
+ some of the greatest Greeks believed in the gods of that nation, and it is
+ equally true that some of the greatest denied their existence. If
+ credulity is a virtue now, it must have been in the days of Athens. If to
+ believe without evidence entities one to eternal reward in this century,
+ certainly the same must have been true in the days of the Pharaohs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An infidel is one who does not believe in the prevailing religion. We now
+ admit that the infidels of Greece and Rome were right. The gods that they
+ refused to believe in are dead. Their thrones are empty, and long ago the
+ sceptres dropped from their nerveless hands. To-day the world honors the
+ men who denied and derided these gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth.&mdash;The Principal of King's College ventures to suggest that
+ "the word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance; perhaps it
+ is right that it should."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago the word infidel did carry "an unpleasant significance." A
+ few years ago its significance was so unpleasant that the man to whom the
+ word was applied found himself in prison or at the stake. In particularly
+ kind communities he was put in the stocks, pelted with offal, derided by
+ hypocrites, scorned by ignorance, jeered by cowardice, and all the priests
+ passed by on the other side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when Episcopalians were regarded as infidels; when a true
+ Catholic looked upon a follower of Henry VIII. as an infidel, as an
+ unbeliever; when a true Catholic held in detestation the man who preferred
+ a murderer and adulterer&mdash;a man who swapped religions for the sake of
+ exchanging wives&mdash;to the Pope, the head of the universal church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is easy enough to conceive of an honest man denying the claims of a
+ church based on the caprice of an English king. The word infidel "carries
+ an unpleasant significance" only where the Christians are exceedingly
+ ignorant, intolerant, bigoted, cruel, and unmannerly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real gentleman gives to others the rights that he claims for himself.
+ The civilized man rises far above the bigotry of one who has been "born
+ again." Good breeding is far gentler than "universal love."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is natural for the church to hate an unbeliever&mdash;natural for the
+ pulpit to despise one who refuses to subscribe, who refuses to give. It is
+ a question of revenue instead of religion. The Episcopal Church has the
+ instinct of self-preservation. It uses its power, its influence, to compel
+ contribution. It forgives the giver.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth.&mdash;The Principal of King's College insists that "it is, and it
+ ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say plainly that he
+ does not believe in Jesus Christ."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Should it be an unpleasant thing for a man to say plainly what he
+ believes? Can this be unpleasant except in an uncivilized community&mdash;a
+ community in which an uncivilized church has authority?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should not a man be as free to say that he does not believe as to say
+ that he does believe? Perhaps the real question is whether all men have an
+ equal right to express their opinions. Is it the duty of the minority to
+ keep silent? Are majorities always right? If the minority had never
+ spoken, what to-day would have been the condition of this world? Are the
+ majority the pioneers of progress, or does the pioneer, as a rule, walk
+ alone? Is it his duty to close his lips? Must the inventor allow his
+ inventions to die in the brain? Must the discoverer of new truths make of
+ his mind a tomb? Is man under any obligation to his fellows? Was the
+ Episcopal religion always in the majority? Was it at any time in the
+ history of the world an unpleasant thing to be called a Protestant? Did
+ the word Protestant "carry an unpleasant significance"? Was it "perhaps
+ right that it should"? Was Luther a misfortune to the human race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a community is thoroughly civilized, why should it be an unpleasant
+ thing for a man to express his belief in respectful language? If the
+ argument is against him, it might be unpleasant; but why should simple
+ numbers be the foundation of unpleasantness? If the majority have the
+ facts,&mdash;if they have the argument,&mdash;why should they fear the
+ mistakes of the minority? Does any theologian hate the man he can answer?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is claimed by the Episcopal Church that Christ was in fact God; and it
+ is further claimed that the New Testament is an inspired account of what
+ that being and his disciples did and said. Is there any obligation resting
+ on any human being to believe this account? Is it within the power of man
+ to determine the influence that testimony shall have upon his mind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If one denies the existence of devils, does he, for that reason, cease to
+ believe in Jesus Christ? Is it not possible to imagine that a great and
+ tender soul living in Palestine nearly twenty centuries ago was
+ misunderstood? Is it not within the realm of the possible that his words
+ have been inaccurately reported? Is it not within the range of the
+ probable that legend and rumor and ignorance and zeal have deformed his
+ life and belittled his character?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the man Christ lived and taught and suffered, if he was, in reality,
+ great and noble, who is his friend&mdash;the one who attributes to him
+ feats of jugglery, or he who maintains that these stories were invented by
+ zealous ignorance and believed by enthusiastic credulity?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he claimed to have wrought miracles, he must have been either dishonest
+ or insane; consequently, he who denies miracles does what little he can to
+ rescue the reputation of a great and splendid man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Agnostic accepts the good he did, the truth he said, and rejects only
+ that which, according to his judgment, is inconsistent with truth and
+ goodness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Principal of King's College evidently believes in the necessity of
+ belief. He puts conviction or creed or credulity in place of character.
+ According to his idea, it is impossible to win the approbation of God by
+ intelligent investigation and by the expression of honest conclusions. He
+ imagines that the Infinite is delighted with credulity, with belief
+ without evidence, faith without question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has but little reason, at best; but this little should be used. No
+ matter how small the taper is, how feeble the ray of light it casts, it is
+ better than darkness, and no man should be rewarded for extinguishing the
+ light he has.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know now, if we know anything, that man in this, the nineteenth
+ century, is better capable of judging as to the happening of any event,
+ than he ever was before. We know that the standard is higher to-day&mdash;we
+ know that the intellectual light is greater&mdash;we know that the human
+ mind is better equipped to deal with all questions of human interest, than
+ at any other time within the known history of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do to say that "our Lord and his apostles must at least be
+ regarded as honest men." Let this be admitted, and what does it prove?
+ Honesty is not enough. Intelligence and honesty must go hand in hand. We
+ may admit now that "our Lord and his apostles" were perfectly honest men;
+ yet it does not follow that we have a truthful account of what they said
+ and of what they did. It is not pretended that "our Lord" wrote anything,
+ and it is not known that one of the apostles ever wrote a word.
+ Consequently, the most that we can say is that somebody has written
+ something about "our Lord and his apostles." Whether that somebody knew or
+ did not know is unknown to us. As to whether what is written is true or
+ false, we must judge by that which is written.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First of all, is it probable? is it within the experience of mankind? We
+ should judge of the gospels as we judge of other histories, of other
+ biographies. We know that many biographies written by perfectly honest men
+ are not correct. We know, if we know anything, that honest men can be
+ mistaken, and it is not necessary to believe everything that a man writes
+ because we believe he was honest. Dishonest men may write the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the standard or criterion is for each man to judge according to
+ what he believes to be human experience. We are satisfied that nothing
+ more wonderful has happened than is now happening. We believe that the
+ present is as wonderful as the past, and just as miraculous as the future.
+ If we are to believe in the truth of the Old Testament, the word evidence
+ loses its meaning; there ceases to be any standard of probability, and the
+ mind simply accepts or denies without reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told that certain miracles were performed for the purpose of
+ attesting the mission and character of Christ. How can these miracles be
+ verified? The miracles of the Middle Ages rest upon substantially the same
+ evidence. The same may be said of the wonders of all countries and of all
+ ages. How is it a virtue to deny the miracles of Mohammed and to believe
+ those attributed to Christ?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may say of St. Augustine that what he said was true or false. We know
+ that much of it was false; and yet we are not justified in saying that he
+ was dishonest. Thousands of errors have been propagated by honest men. As
+ a rule, mistakes get their wings from honest people. The testimony of a
+ witness to the happening of the impossible gets no weight from the honesty
+ of the witness. The fact that falsehoods are in the New Testament does not
+ tend to prove that the writers were knowingly untruthful. No man can be
+ honest enough to substantiate, to the satisfaction of reasonable men, the
+ happening of a miracle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For this reason it makes not the slightest difference whether the writers
+ of the New Testament were honest or not. Their character is not involved.
+ Whenever a man rises above his contemporaries, whenever he excites the
+ wonder of his fellows, his biographers always endeavor to bridge over the
+ chasm between the people and this man, and for that purpose attribute to
+ him the qualities which in the eyes of the multitude are desirable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Miracles are demanded by savages, and, consequently, the savage biographer
+ attributes miracles to his hero. What would we think now of a man who, in
+ writing the life of Charles Darwin, should attribute to him supernatural
+ powers? What would we say of an admirer of Humboldt who should claim that
+ the great German could cast out devils? We would feel that Darwin and
+ Humboldt had been belittled; that the biographies were written for
+ children and by men who had not outgrown the nursery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the reputation of "our Lord" is to be preserved&mdash;if he is to stand
+ with the great and splendid of the earth&mdash;if he is to continue a
+ constellation in the intellectual heavens, all claim to the miraculous, to
+ the supernatural, must be abandoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one can overestimate the evils that have been endured by the human race
+ by reason of a departure from the standard of the natural. The world has
+ been governed by jugglery, by sleight-of-hand. Miracles, wonders, tricks,
+ have been regarded as of far greater importance than the steady, the
+ sublime and unbroken march of cause and effect. The improbable has been
+ established by the impossible. Falsehood has furnished the foundation for
+ faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is the human body at present the residence of evil spirits, or have these
+ imps of darkness perished from the world? Where are they? If the New
+ Testament establishes anything, it is the existence of innumerable devils,
+ and that these satanic beings absolutely took possession of the human
+ mind. Is this true? Can anything be more absurd? Does any intellectual man
+ who has examined the question believe that depraved demons live in the
+ bodies of men? Do they occupy space? Do they live upon some kind of food?
+ Of what shape are they? Could they be classified by a naturalist? Do they
+ run or float or fly? If to deny the existence of these supposed beings is
+ to be an infidel, how can the word infidel "carry an unpleasant
+ significance"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course it is the business of the principals of most colleges, as well
+ as of bishops, cardinals, popes, priests, and clergymen to insist upon the
+ existence of evil spirits. All these gentlemen are employeed to counteract
+ the influence of these supposed demons. Why should they take the bread out
+ of their own mouths? Is it to be expected that they will unfrock
+ themselves?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church, like any other corporation, has the instinct of
+ self-preservation. It will defend itself; it will fight as long as it has
+ the power to change a hand into a fist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of
+ morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or
+ who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his scheme
+ of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied that "the
+ miraculous" is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly
+ incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had
+ possession of their minds, that "the miraculous" was expected, that it was
+ their daily food.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this is very clearly and delightfully stated by Professor Huxley, and
+ it hardly seems possible that any intelligent man can read what he says
+ without feeling that the foundation of all superstition has been weakened.
+ The article is as remarkable for its candor as for its clearness. Nothing
+ is avoided&mdash;everything is met. No excuses are given.. He has left all
+ apologies for the other side. When you have finished what Professor Huxley
+ has written, you feel that your mind has been in actual contact with the
+ mind of another, that nothing has been concealed; and not only so, but you
+ feel that this mind is not only willing, but anxious, to know the actual
+ truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me, the highest uses of philosophy are, first, to free the mind of
+ fear, and, second, to avert all the evil that can be averted, through
+ intelligence&mdash;that is to say, through a knowledge of the conditions
+ of well-being.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are satisfied that the absolute is beyond our vision, beneath our
+ touch, above our reach. We are now convinced that we can deal only with
+ phenomena, with relations, with appearances, with things that impress the
+ senses, that can be reached by reason, by the exercise of our faculties.
+ We are satisfied that the reasonable road is "the straight road," the only
+ "sacred way."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there is faith in the world&mdash;faith in this world&mdash;and
+ always will be, unless superstition succeeds in every land. But the faith
+ of the wise man is based upon facts. His faith is a reasonable conclusion
+ drawn from the known. He has faith in the progress of the race, in the
+ triumph of intelligence, in the coming sovereignty of science. He has
+ faith in the development of the brain, in the gradual enlightenment of the
+ mind. And so he works for the accomplishment of great ends, having faith
+ in the final victory of the race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has honesty enough to say that he does not know. He perceives and
+ admits that the mind has limitations. He doubts the so-called wisdom of
+ the past. He looks for evidence, and he endeavors to keep his mind free
+ from prejudice. He believes in the manly virtues, in the judicial spirit,
+ and in his obligation to tell his honest thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is useless to talk about a destruction of consolations. That which is
+ suspected to be untrue loses its power to console. A man should be brave
+ enough to bear the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Huxley has stated with great clearness the attitude of the
+ Agnostic. It seems that he is somewhat severe on the Positive Philosophy,
+ While it is hard to see the propriety of worshiping Humanity as a being,
+ it is easy to understand the splendid dream of August Comte. Is the human
+ race worthy to be worshiped by itself&mdash;that is to say, should the
+ individual worship himself? Certainly the religion of humanity is better
+ than the religion of the inhuman. The Positive Philosophy is better far
+ than Catholicism. It does not fill the heavens with monsters, nor the
+ future with pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said that Luther and Comte endeavored to reform the Catholic
+ Church. Both were mistaken, because the only reformation of which that
+ church is capable is destruction. It is a mass of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mission of Positivism is, in the language of its founder, "to
+ generalize science and to systematize sociality." It seems to me that
+ Comte stated with great force and with absolute truth the three phases of
+ intellectual evolution or progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First.&mdash;"In the supernatural phase the mind seeks causes&mdash;aspires
+ to know the essence of things, and the How and Why of their operation. In
+ this phase, all facts are regarded as the productions of supernatural
+ agents, and unusual phenomena are interpreted as the signs of the pleasure
+ or displeasure of some god."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here at this point is the orthodox world of to-day. The church still
+ imagines that phenomena should be interpreted as the signs of the pleasure
+ or displeasure of God. Nearly every history is deformed with this childish
+ and barbaric view.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second.&mdash;The next phase or modification, according to Comte, is the
+ metaphysical. "The supernatural agents are dispensed with, and in their
+ places we find abstract forces or entities supposed to inhere in
+ substances and capable of engendering phenomena."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this phase people talk about laws and principles as though laws and
+ principles were forces capable of producing phenomena.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third.&mdash;"The last stage is the Positive. The mind, convinced of the
+ futility of all enquiry into causes and essences, restricts itself to the
+ observation and classification of phenomena, and to the discovery of the
+ invariable relations of succession and similitude&mdash;in a word, to the
+ discovery of the relations of phenomena."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why is not the Positive stage the point reached by the Agnostic? He has
+ ceased to inquire into the origin of things. He has perceived the
+ limitations of the mind. He is thoroughly convinced of the uselessness and
+ futility and absurdity of theological methods, and restricts himself to
+ the examination of phenomena, to their relations, to their effects, and
+ endeavors to find in the complexity of things the true conditions of human
+ happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although I am not a believer in the philosophy of Auguste Comte, I cannot
+ shut my eyes to the value of his thought; neither is it possible for me
+ not to applaud his candor, his intelligence, and the courage it required
+ even to attempt to lay the foundation of the Positive Philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Huxley and Frederic Harrison are splendid soldiers in the army
+ of Progress. They have attacked with signal success the sacred and solemn
+ stupidities of superstition. Both have appealed to that which is highest
+ and noblest in man. Both have been the destroyers of prejudice. Both have
+ shed light, and both have won great victories on the fields of
+ intellectual conflict. They cannot afford to waste time in attacking each
+ other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, the Agnostic and the Positivist have the same end in view&mdash;both
+ believe in living for this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theologians, finding themselves unable to answer the arguments that
+ have been urged, resort to the old subterfuge&mdash;to the old cry that
+ Agnosticism takes something of value from the life of man. Does the
+ Agnostic take any consolation from the world? Does he blot out, or dim,
+ one star in the heaven of hope? Can there be anything more consoling than
+ to feel, to know, that Jehovah is not God&mdash;that the message of the
+ Old Testament is not from the infinite?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not enough to fill the brain with a happiness unspeakable to know
+ that the words, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," will
+ never be spoken to one of the children of men?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it a small thing to lift from the shoulders of industry the burdens of
+ superstition? Is it a little thing to drive the monster of fear from the
+ hearts of men?&mdash;North American Review, April, 1889.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0012" id="link0012">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ERNEST RENAN.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Blessed are those
+ Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled
+ That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
+ To sound what stop she please."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ ERNEST RENAN is dead. Another source of light; another force of
+ civilization; another charming personality; another brave soul, graceful
+ in thought, generous in deed; a sculptor in speech, a colorist in words&mdash;clothing
+ all in the poetry born of a delightful union of heart and brain&mdash;has
+ passed to the realm of rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Reared under the influences of Catholicism, educated for the priesthood,
+ yet by reason of his natural genius, he began to think. Forces that
+ utterly subjugate and enslave the mind of mediocrity sometimes rouse to
+ thought and action the superior soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan began to think&mdash;a dangerous thing for a Catholic to do. Thought
+ leads to doubt, doubt to investigation, investigation to truth&mdash;the
+ enemy of all superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lifted the Catholic extinguisher from the light and flame of reason. He
+ found that his mental vision was improved. He read the Scriptures for
+ himself, examined them as he did other books not claiming to be inspired.
+ He found the same mistakes, the same prejudices, the same miraculous
+ impossibilities in the book attributed to God that he found in those known
+ to have been written by men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Into the path of reason, or rather into the highway, Renan was led by
+ Henriette, his sister, to whom he pays a tribute that has the perfume of a
+ perfect flower.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I was," writes Renan, "brought up by women and priests, and therein lies
+ the whole explanation of my good qualities and of my defects." In most
+ that he wrote is the tenderness of woman, only now and then a little touch
+ of the priest showing itself, mostly in a reluctance to spoil the ivy by
+ tearing down some prison built by superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of the heartless "scheme" of things he still found it in his
+ heart to say, "When God shall be complete, He will be just," at the same
+ time saying that "nothing proves to us that there exists in the world a
+ central consciousness&mdash;a soul of the universe&mdash;and nothing
+ proves the contrary." So, whatever was the verdict of his brain, his heart
+ asked for immortality. He wanted his dream, and he was willing that others
+ should have theirs. Such is the wish and will of all great souls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew the church thoroughly and anticipated what would finally be
+ written about him by churchmen: "Having some experience of ecclesiastical
+ writers I can sketch out in advance the way my biography will be written
+ in Spanish in some Catholic review, of Santa F&eacute;, in the year 2,000.
+ Heavens! how black I shall be! I shall be so all the more, because the
+ church when she feels that she is lost will end with malice. She will bite
+ like a mad dog."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He anticipated such a biography because he had thought for himself, and
+ because he had expressed his thoughts&mdash;because he had declared that
+ "our universe, within the reach of our experience, is not governed by any
+ intelligent reason. God, as the common herd understand him, the living
+ God, the acting God&mdash;the God-Providence, does not show himself in the
+ universe"&mdash;because he attacked the mythical and the miraculous in the
+ life of Christ and sought to rescue from the calumnies of ignorance and
+ faith a serene and lofty soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time has arrived when Jesus must become a myth or a man. The idea that
+ he was the infinite God must be abandoned by all who are not religiously
+ insane. Those who have given up the claim that he was God, insist that he
+ was divinely appointed and illuminated; that he was a perfect man&mdash;the
+ highest possible type of the human race and, consequently, a perfect
+ example for all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As time goes on, as men get wider or grander or more complex ideas of
+ life, as the intellectual horizon broadens, the idea that Christ was
+ perfect may be modified.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The New Testament seems to describe several individuals under the same
+ name, or at least one individual who passed through several stages or
+ phases of religious development. Christ is described as a devout Jew, as
+ one who endeavored to comply in all respects with the old law. Many
+ sayings are attributed to him consistent with this idea. He certainly was
+ a Hebrew in belief and feeling when he said, "Swear not by Heaven, because
+ it is God's throne, nor by earth, for it is his footstool; nor by
+ Jerusalem, for it is his holy city." These reasons were in exact
+ accordance with the mythology of the Jews. God was regarded simply as an
+ enormous man, as one who walked in the garden in the cool of the evening,
+ as one who had met man face to face, who had conversed with Moses for
+ forty days upon Mount Sinai, as a great king, with a throne in the
+ heavens, using the earth to rest his feet upon, and regarding Jerusalem as
+ his holy city.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then we find plenty of evidence that he wished to reform the religion of
+ the Jews; to fulfill the law, not to abrogate it Then there is still
+ another change: he has ceased his efforts to reform that religion and has
+ become a destroyer. He holds the Temple in contempt and repudiates the
+ idea that Jerusalem is the holy city. He concludes that it is unnecessary
+ to go to some mountain or some building to worship or to find God, and
+ insists that the heart is the true temple, that ceremonies are useless,
+ that all pomp and pride and show are needless, and that it is enough to
+ worship God under heaven's dome, in spirit and in truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is impossible to harmonize these views unless we admit that Christ was
+ the subject of growth and change; that in consequence of growth and change
+ he modified his views; that, from wanting to preserve Judaism as it was,
+ he became convinced that it ought to be reformed. That he then abandoned
+ the idea of reformation, and made up his mind that the only reformation of
+ which the Jewish religion was capable was destruction. If he was in fact a
+ man, then the course he pursued was natural; but if he was God, it is
+ perfectly absurd. If we give to him perfect knowledge, then it is
+ impossible to account for change or growth. If, on the other hand, the
+ ground is taken that he was a perfect man, then, it might be asked, Was he
+ perfect when he wished to preserve, or when he wished to reform, or when
+ he resolved to destroy, the religion of the Jews? If he is to be regarded
+ as perfect, although not divine, when did he reach perfection?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is perfectly evident that Christ, or the character that bears that
+ name, imagined that the world was about to be destroyed, or at least
+ purified by fire, and that, on account of this curious belief, he became
+ the enemy of marriage, of all earthly ambition and of all enterprise. With
+ that view in his mind, he said to himself, "Why should we waste our
+ energies in producing food for destruction? Why should we endeavor to
+ beautify a world that is so soon to perish?" Filled with the thought of
+ coming change, he insisted that there was but one important thing, and
+ that was for each man to save his soul. He should care nothing for the
+ ties of kindred, nothing for wife or child or property, in the shadow of
+ the coming disaster. He should take care of himself. He endeavored, as it
+ is said, to induce men to desert all they had, to let the dead, bury the
+ dead, and follow him. He told his disciples, or those he wished to make
+ his disciples, according to the Testament, that it was their duty to
+ desert wife and child and property, and if they would so desert kindred
+ and wealth, he would reward them here and hereafter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know now&mdash;if we know anything&mdash;that Jesus was mistaken about
+ the coming of the end, and we know now that he was greatly controlled in
+ his ideas of life, by that mistake. Believing that the end was near, he
+ said, "Take no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat or what ye shall
+ drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." It was in view of the
+ destruction of the world that he called the attention of his disciples to
+ the lily that toiled not and yet excelled Solomon in the glory of its
+ raiment. Having made this mistake, having acted upon it, certainly we
+ cannot now say that he was perfect in knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is regarded by many millions as the impersonation of patience, of
+ forbearance, of meekness and mercy, and yet, according to the account, he
+ said many extremely bitter words, and threatened eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We also know, if the account be true, that he claimed to have supernatural
+ power, to work miracles, to cure the blind and to raise the dead, and we
+ know that he did nothing of the kind. So if the writers of the New
+ Testament tell the truth as to what Christ claimed, it is absurd to say
+ that he was a perfect man. If honest, he was deceived, and those who are
+ deceived are not perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is nothing in the New Testament, so far as we know, that touches on
+ the duties of nation to nation, or of nation to its citizens; nothing of
+ human liberty; not one word about education; not the faintest hint that
+ there is such a thing as science; nothing calculated to stimulate
+ industry, commerce, or invention; not one word in favor of art, of music
+ or anything calculated to feed or clothe the body, nothing to develop the
+ brain of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When it is assumed that the life of Christ, as described in the New
+ Testament, is perfect, we at least take upon ourselves the burden of
+ deciding what perfection is. People who asserted that Christ was divine,
+ that he was actually God, reached the conclusion, without any laborious
+ course of reasoning, that all he said and did was absolute perfection.
+ They said this because they had first been convinced that he was divine.
+ The moment his divinity is given up and the assertion is made that he was
+ perfect, we are not permitted to reason in that way. They said he was God,
+ therefore perfect. Now, if it is admitted that he was human, the
+ conclusion that he was perfect does not follow. We then take the burden
+ upon ourselves of deciding what perfection is. To decide what is perfect
+ is beyond the powers of the human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan, in spite of his education, regarded Christ as a man, and did the
+ best he could to account for the miracles that had been attributed to him,
+ for the legends that had gathered about his name, and the impossibilities
+ connected with his career, and also tried to account for the origin or
+ birth of these miracles, of these legends, of these myths, including the
+ resurrection and ascension. I am not satisfied with all the conclusions he
+ reached or with all the paths he traveled. The refraction of light caused
+ by passing through a woman's tears is hardly a sufficient foundation for a
+ belief in so miraculous a miracle as the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing attributed to Christ that seems to me conclusive
+ evidence against the claim of perfection. Christ is reported to have said
+ that all sins could be forgiven except the sin against the Holy Ghost.
+ This sin, however, is not defined. Although Christ died for the whole
+ world, that through him all might be saved, there is this one terrible
+ exception: There is no salvation for those who have sinned, or who may
+ hereafter sin, against the Holy Ghost. Thousands of persons are now in
+ asylums, having lost their reason because of their fear that they had
+ committed this unknown, this undefined, this unpardonable sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is said that a Roman Emperor went through a form of publishing his laws
+ or proclamations, posting them so high on pillars that they could not be
+ read, and then took the lives of those who ignorantly violated these
+ unknown laws. He was regarded as a tyrant, as a murderer. And yet, what
+ shall we say of one who declared that the sin against the Holy Ghost was
+ the only one that could not be forgiven, and then left an ignorant world
+ to guess what that sin is? Undoubtedly this horror is an interpolation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is something like it in the Old Testament. It is asserted by
+ Christians that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law and of
+ all civilization, and you will find lawyers insisting that the Mosaic Code
+ was the first information that man received on the subject of law; that
+ before that time the world was without any knowledge of justice or mercy.
+ If this be true the Jews had no divine laws, no real instruction on any
+ legal subject until the Ten Commandments were given. Consequently, before
+ that time there had been proclaimed or published no law against the
+ worship of other gods or of idols. Moses had been on Mount Sinai talking
+ with Jehovah. At the end of the dialogue he received the Tables of Stone
+ and started down the mountain for the purpose of imparting this
+ information to his followers. When he reached the camp he heard music. He
+ saw people dancing, and he found that in his absence Aaron and the rest of
+ the people had cast a molten calf which they were then worshiping. This so
+ enraged Moses that he broke the Tables of Stone and made preparations for
+ the punishment of the Jews. Remember that they knew nothing about this
+ law, and, according to the modern Christian claims, could not have known
+ that it was wrong to melt gold and silver and mould it in the form of a
+ calf. And yet Moses killed about thirty thousand of these people for
+ having violated a law of which they had never heard; a law known only to
+ one man and one God. Nothing could be more unjust, more ferocious, than
+ this; and yet it can hardly be said to exceed in cruelty the announcement
+ that a certain sin was unpardonable and then fail to define the sin.
+ Possibly, to inquire what the sin is, is the sin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan regards Jesus as a man, and his work gets its value from the fact
+ that it is written from a human standpoint. At the same time he,
+ consciously or unconsciously, or may be for the purpose of sprinkling a
+ little holy water on the heat of religious indignation, now and then seems
+ to speak of him as more than human, or as having accomplished something
+ that man could not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He asserts that "the Gospels are in part legendary; that they contain many
+ things not true; that they are full of miracles and of the supernatural."
+ At the same time he insists that these legends, these miracles, these
+ supernatural things do not affect the truth of the probable things
+ contained in these writings. He sees, and sees clearly, that there is no
+ evidence that Matthew or Mark or Luke or John wrote the books attributed
+ to them; that, as a matter of fact, the mere title of "according to
+ Matthew," "according to Mark," shows that they were written by others who
+ claimed them to be in accordance with the stories that had been told by
+ Matthew or by Mark. So Renan takes the ground that the Gospel of Luke is
+ founded on anterior documents and "is the work of a man who selected,
+ pruned and combined, and that the same man wrote the Acts of the Apostles
+ and in the same way."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The gospels were certainly written long after the events described, and
+ Renan finds the reason for this in the fact that the Christians believed
+ that the world was about to end; that, consequently, there was no need of
+ composing books; it was only necessary for them to preserve in their
+ hearts during the little margin of time that remained a lively image of
+ Him whom they soon expected to meet in the clouds. For this reason the
+ gospels themselves had but little authority for 150 years, the Christians
+ relying on oral traditions. Renan shows that there was not the slightest
+ scruple about inserting additions in the gospels, variously combining
+ them, and in completing some by taking parts from others; that the books
+ passed from hand to hand, and that each one transcribed in the margin of
+ his copy the words and parables he had found elsewhere which touched him;
+ that it was not until human tradition became weakened that the text
+ bearing the names of the apostles became authoritative.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan has criticised the gospels somewhat in the same spirit that he would
+ criticise a modern work. He saw clearly that the metaphysics filling the
+ discourses of John were deformities and distortions, full of mysticism,
+ having nothing to do really with the character of Jesus. He shows too
+ "that the simple idea of the Kingdom of God, at the time the Gospel
+ according to St. John was written, had faded away; that the hope of the
+ advent of Christ was growing dim, and that from belief the disciples
+ passed into discussion, from discussion to dogma, from dogma to ceremony,"
+ and, finding that the new Heaven and the new Earth were not coming as
+ expected, they turned their attention to governing the old Heaven and the
+ old Earth. The disciples were willing to be humble for a few days, with
+ the expectation of wearing crowns forever. They were satisfied with
+ poverty, believing that the wealth of the world was to be theirs. The
+ coming of Christ, however, being for some unaccountable reason delayed,
+ poverty and humility grew irksome, and human nature began to assert
+ itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Gospel of John you will find the metaphysics of the church. There
+ you find the Second Birth. There you find the doctrine of the atonement
+ clearly set forth. There you find that God died for the whole world, and
+ that whosoever believeth not in him is to be damned. There is nothing of
+ the kind in Matthew. Matthew makes Christ say that, if you will forgive
+ others, God will forgive you. The Gospel "according to Mark" is the same.
+ So is the Gospel "according to Luke." There is nothing about salvation
+ through belief, nothing about the atonement. In Mark, in the last chapter,
+ the apostles are told to go into all the world and preach the gospel, with
+ the statement that whoever believed and was baptised should be saved, and
+ whoever failed to believe should be damned. But we now know that that is
+ an interpolation. Consequently, Matthew, Mark and Luke never had the
+ faintest conception of the "Christian religion." They knew nothing of the
+ atonement, nothing of salvation by faith&mdash;nothing. So that if a man
+ had read only Matthew, Mark and Luke, and had strictly followed what he
+ found, he would have found himself, after death, in perdition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan finds that certain portions of the Gospel "according to John" were
+ added later; that the entire twenty-first chapter is an interpolation;
+ also, that many places bear the traces of erasures and corrections. So he
+ says that it would be "impossible for any one to compose a life of Jesus,
+ with any meaning in it, from the discourses which John attributes to him,
+ and he holds that this Gospel of John is full of preaching, Christ
+ demonstrating himself; full of argumentation, full of stage effect, devoid
+ of simplicity, with long arguments after each miracle, stiff and awkward
+ discourses, the tone of which is often false and unequal." He also insists
+ that there are evidently "artificial portions, variations like that of a
+ musician improvising on a given theme."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of all this, Renan, willing to soothe the prejudice of his time,
+ takes the ground that the four canonical gospels are authentic, that they
+ date from the first century, that the authors were, generally speaking,
+ those to whom they are attributed; but he insists that their historic
+ value is very diverse. This is a back-handed stroke. Admitting, first,
+ that they are authentic; second, that they were written about the end of
+ the first century; third, that they are not of equal value, disposes, so
+ far as he is concerned, of the dogma of inspiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One is at a loss to understand why four gospels should have been written.
+ As a matter of fact there can be only one true account of any occurrence,
+ or of any number of occurrences. Now, it must be taken for granted, that
+ an inspired account is true. Why then should there be four inspired
+ accounts? It may be answered that all were not to write the entire story.
+ To this the reply is that all attempted to cover substantially the same
+ ground.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many years ago the early fathers thought it necessary to say why there
+ were four inspired books, and some of them said, because there were four
+ cardinal directions and the gospels fitted the north, south, east and
+ west. Others said that there were four principal winds&mdash;a gospel for
+ each wind. They might have added that some animals have four legs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan admits that the narrative portions have not the same authority;
+ "that many legends proceeded from the zeal of the second Christian
+ generation; that the narrative of Luke is historically weak; that
+ sentences attributed to Jesus have been distorted and exaggerated; that
+ the book was written outside of Palestine and after the siege of
+ Jerusalem; that Luke endeavors to make the different narratives agree,
+ changing them for that purpose; that he softens the passages which had
+ become embarrassing; that he exaggerated the marvelous, omitted errors in
+ chronology; that he was a compiler, a man who had not been an eye-witness
+ himself, and who had not seen eye-witnesses, but who labors at texts and
+ wrests their sense to make them agree." This certainly is very far from
+ inspiration. So "Luke interprets the documents according to his own idea;
+ being a kind of anarchist, opposed to property, and persuaded that the
+ triumph of the poor was approaching; that he was especially fond of the
+ anecdotes showing the conversion of sinners, the exaltation of the humble,
+ and that he modified ancient traditions to give them this meaning."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan reached the conclusion that the gospels are neither biographies
+ after the manner of Suetonius nor fictitious legends in the style of
+ Philostratus, but that they are legendary biographies like the legends of
+ the saints, the lives of Plotinus and Isidore, in which historical truth
+ and the desire to present models of virtue are combined in various
+ degrees; that they are "inexact" that they "contain numerous errors and
+ discordances." So he takes the ground that twenty or thirty years after
+ Christ, his reputation had greatly increased, that "legends had begun to
+ gather about Him like clouds," that "death added to His perfection,
+ freeing Him from all defects in the eyes of those who had loved Him, that
+ His followers wrested the prophecies so that they might fit Him. They
+ said, 'He is the Messiah.' The Messiah was to do certain things; therefore
+ Jesus did certain things. Then an account would be given of the doing."
+ All of which of course shows that there can be maintained no theory of
+ inspiration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is admitted that where individuals are witnesses of the same
+ transaction, and where they agree upon the vital points and disagree upon
+ details, the disagreement may be consistent with their honesty, as tending
+ to show that they have not agreed upon a story; but if the witnesses are
+ inspired of God then there is no reason for their disagreeing on anything,
+ and if they do disagree it is a demonstration that they were not inspired,
+ but it is not a demonstration that they are not honest. While perfect
+ agreement may be evidence of rehearsal, a failure to perfectly agree is
+ not a demonstration of the truth or falsity of a story; but if the
+ witnesses claim to be inspired, the slightest disagreement is a
+ demonstration that they were not inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan reaches the conclusion, proving every step that he takes, that the
+ four principal documents&mdash;that is to say, the four gospels&mdash;are
+ in "flagrant contradiction one with another." He attacks, and with perfect
+ success, the miracles of the Scriptures, and upon this subject says:
+ "Observation, which has never once been falsified, teaches us that
+ miracles never happen, but in times and countries in which they are
+ believed and before persons disposed to believe them. No miracle ever
+ occurred in the presence of men capable of testing its miraculous
+ character." He further takes the ground that no contemporary miracle will
+ bear inquiry, and that consequently it is probable that the miracles of
+ antiquity which have been performed in popular gatherings would be shown
+ to be simple illusion, were it possible to criticise them in detail. In
+ the name of universal experience he banishes miracles from history. These
+ were brave things to do, things that will bear good fruit. As long as men
+ believe in miracles, past or present they remain the prey of superstition.
+ The Catholic is taught that miracles were performed anciently not only,
+ but that they are still being performed. This is consistent inconsistency.
+ Protestants teach a double doctrine: That miracles used to be performed,
+ that the laws of nature used to be violated, but that no miracle is
+ performed now. No Protestant will admit that any miracle was performed by
+ the Catholic Church. Otherwise, Protestants could not be justified in
+ leaving a church with whom the God of miracles dwelt. So every Protestant
+ has to adopt two kinds of reasoning: that the laws of Nature used to be
+ violated and that miracles used to be performed, but that since the
+ apostolic age Nature has had her way and the Lord has allowed facts to
+ exist and to hold the field. A supernatural account, according to Renan,
+ "always implies credulity or imposture,"&mdash;probably both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It does not seem possible to me that Christ claimed for himself what the
+ Testament claims for him. These claims were made by admirers, by
+ followers, by missionaries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the early Christians went to Rome they found plenty of demigods. It
+ was hard to set aside the religion of a demigod by telling the story of a
+ man from Nazareth. These missionaries, not to be outdone in ancestry,
+ insisted&mdash;and this was after the Gospel "according to St. John" had
+ been written&mdash;that Christ was the Son of God. Matthew believed that
+ he was the son of David, and the Messiah, and gave the genealogy of
+ Joseph, his father, to support that claim.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the time of Christ no one imagined that he was of divine origin. This
+ was an after-growth. In order to place themselves on an equality with
+ Pagans they started the claim of divinity, and also took the second step
+ requisite in that country: First, a god for his father, and second, a
+ virgin for his mother. This was the Pagan combination of greatness, and
+ the Christians added to this that Christ was God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to agree with the conclusion reached by Renan, that Christ
+ formed and intended to form a church. Such evidence, it seems to me, is
+ hard to find in the Testament. Christ seemed to satisfy himself, according
+ to the Testament, with a few statements, some of them exceedingly wise and
+ tender, some utterly impracticable and some intolerant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we accept the conclusions reached by Renan we will throw away, the
+ legends without foundation; the miraculous legends; and everything
+ inconsistent with what we know of Nature. Very little will be left&mdash;a
+ few sayings to be found among those attributed to Confucius, to Buddha, to
+ Krishna, to Epictetus, to Zeno, and to many others. Some of these sayings
+ are full of wisdom, full of kindness, and others rush to such extremes
+ that they touch the borders of insanity. When struck on one cheek to turn
+ the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure the triumph of
+ brutality. To agree not to resist evil is to become an accomplice of all
+ injustice. We must not take from industry, from patriotism, from virtue,
+ the right of self-defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Undoubtedly Renan gave an honest transcript of his mind, the road his
+ thought had followed, the reasons in their order that had occurred to him,
+ the criticisms born of thought, and the qualifications, softening phrases,
+ children of old sentiments and emotions that had not entirely passed away.
+ He started, one might say, from the altar and, during a considerable part
+ of the journey, carried the incense with him. The farther he got away, the
+ greater was his clearness of vision and the more thoroughly he was
+ convinced that Christ was merely a man, an idealist. But, remembering the
+ altar, he excused exaggeration in the "inspired" books, not because it was
+ from heaven, not because it was in harmony with our ideas of veracity, but
+ because the writers of the gospel were imbued with the Oriental spirit of
+ exaggeration, a spirit perfectly understood by the people who first read
+ the gospels, because the readers knew the habits of the writers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It had been contended for many years that no one could pass judgment on
+ the veracity of the Scriptures who did not understand Hebrew. This
+ position was perfectly absurd. No man needs to be a student of Hebrew to
+ know that the shadow on the dial did not go back several degrees to
+ convince a petty king that a boil was not to be fatal. Renan, however,
+ filled the requirement. He was an excellent Hebrew scholar. This was a
+ fortunate circumstance, because it answered a very old objection.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The founder of Christianity was, for his own sake, taken from the divine
+ pedestal and allowed to stand like other men on the earth, to be judged by
+ what he said and did, by his theories, by his philosophy, by his spirit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No matter whether Renan came to a correct conclusion or not, his work did
+ a vast deal of good. He convinced many that implicit reliance could not be
+ placed upon the gospels, that the gospels themselves are of unequal worth;
+ that they were deformed by ignorance and falsehood, or, at least, by
+ mistake; that if they wished to save the reputation of Christ they must
+ not rely wholly on the gospels, or on what is found in the New Testament,
+ but they must go farther and examine all legends touching him. Not only
+ so, but they must throw away the miraculous, the impossible and the
+ absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also has shown that the early followers of Christ endeavored to add to
+ the reputation of their Master by attributing to him the miraculous and
+ the foolish; that while these stories added to his reputation at that
+ time, since the world has advanced they must be cast aside or the
+ reputation of the Master must suffer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will not do now to say that Christ himself pretended to do miracles.
+ This would establish the fact at least that he was mistaken. But we are
+ compelled to say that his disciples insisted that he was a worker of
+ miracles. This shows, either that they were mistaken or untruthful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know that a sleight-of-hand performer could gain a greater
+ reputation among savages than Darwin or Humboldt; and we know that the
+ world in the time of Christ was filled with barbarians, with people who
+ demanded the miraculous, who expected it; with people, in fact, who had a
+ stronger belief in the supernatural than in the natural; people who never
+ thought it worth while to record facts. The hero of such people, the
+ Christ of such people, with his miracles, cannot be the Christ of the
+ thoughtful and scientific.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan was a man of most excellent temper; candid; not striving for
+ victory, but for truth; conquering, as far as he could, the old
+ superstitions; not entirely free, it may be, but believing himself to be
+ so. He did great good. He has helped to destroy the fictions of faith. He
+ has helped to rescue man from the prison of superstition, and this is the
+ greatest benefit that man can bestow on man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did another great service, not only to Jews, but to Christendom, by
+ writing the history of "The People of Israel." Christians for many
+ centuries have persecuted the Jews. They have charged them with the
+ greatest conceivable crime&mdash;with having crucified an infinite God.
+ This absurdity has hardened the hearts of men and poisoned the minds of
+ children. The persecution of the Jews is the meanest, the most senseless
+ and cruel page in history. Every civilized Christian should feel on his
+ cheeks the red spots of shame as he reads the wretched and infamous story.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The flame of this prejudice is fanned and fed in the Sunday schools of our
+ day, and the orthodox minister points proudly to the atrocities
+ perpetrated against the Jews by the barbarians of Russia as evidences of
+ the truth of the inspired Scriptures. In every wound God puts a tongue to
+ proclaim the truth of his book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the charge that the Jews killed God were true, it is hardly reasonable
+ to hold those who are now living responsible for what their ancestors did
+ nearly nineteen centuries ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is another point in connection with this matter: If Christ was
+ God, then the Jews could not have killed him without his consent; and,
+ according to the orthodox creed, if he had not been sacrificed, the whole
+ world would have suffered eternal pain. Nothing can exceed the meanness of
+ the prejudice of Christians against the Jewish people. They should not be
+ held responsible for their savage ancestors, or for their belief that
+ Jehovah was an intelligent and merciful God, superior to all other gods.
+ Even Christians do not wish to be held responsible for the Inquisition,
+ for the Torquemadas and the John Calvins, for the witch-burners and the
+ Quaker-whippers, for the slave-traders and child-stealers, the most of
+ whom were believers in our "glorious gospel," and many of whom had been
+ bom the second time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Renan did much to civilize the Christians by telling the truth in a
+ charming and convincing way about the "People of Israel." Both sides are
+ greatly indebted to him: one he has ably defended, and the other greatly
+ enlightened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having done what good he could in giving what he believed was light to his
+ fellow-men, he had no fear of becoming a victim of God's wrath, and so he
+ laughingly said: "For my part I imagine that if the Eternal in his
+ severity were to send me to hell I should succeed in escaping from it. I
+ would send up to my Creator a supplication that would make him smile. The
+ course of reasoning by which I would prove to him that it was through his
+ fault that I was damned would be so subtle that he would find some
+ difficulty in replying. The fate which would suit me best is Purgatory&mdash;a
+ charming place, where many delightful romances begun on earth must be
+ continued."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such cheerfulness, such good philosophy, with cap and bells, such banter
+ and blasphemy, such sound and solid sense drive to madness the priest who
+ thinks the curse of Rome can fright the world. How the snake of
+ superstition writhes when he finds that his fangs have lost their poison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was one of the gentlest of men&mdash;one of the fairest in discussion,
+ dissenting from the views of others with modesty, presenting his own with
+ clearness and candor. His mental manners were excellent. He was not
+ positive as to the "unknowable." He said "Perhaps." He knew that knowledge
+ is good if it increases the happiness of man; and he felt that
+ superstition is the assassin of liberty and civilization. He lived a life
+ of cheerfulness, of industry, devoted to the welfare of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a seeker of happiness by the highway of the natural, a destroyer of
+ the dogmas of mental deformity, a worshiper of Liberty and the Ideal. As
+ he lived, he died&mdash;hopeful and serene&mdash;and now, standing in
+ imagination by his grave, we ask: Will the night be eternal? The brain
+ says, Perhaps; while the heart hopes for the Dawn.&mdash;North American
+ Review, November, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ TOLSTO&Iuml; AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ COUNT TOLSTO&Iuml; is a man of genius. He is acquainted with Russian life
+ from the highest to the lowest&mdash;that is to say, from the worst to the
+ best. He knows the vices of the rich and the virtues of the poor. He is a
+ Christian, a real believer in the Old and New Testaments, an honest
+ follower of the Peasant of Palestine. He denounces luxury and ease, art
+ and music; he regards a flower with suspicion, believing that beneath
+ every blossom lies a coiled serpent. He agrees with Lazarus and denounces
+ Dives and the tax-gatherers. He is opposed, not only to doctors of
+ divinity, but of medicine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the Mount of Olives he surveys the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is not a Christian like the Pope in the Vatican, or a cardinal in a
+ palace, or a bishop with revenues and retainers, or a millionaire who
+ hires preachers to point out the wickedness of the poor, or the director
+ of a museum who closes the doors on Sunday. He is a Christian something
+ like Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To him this life is but a breathing-spell between the verdict and the
+ execution; the sciences are simply sowers of the seeds of pride, of
+ arrogance and vice. Shocked by the cruelties and unspeakable horrors of
+ war, he became a non-resistant and averred that he would not defend his
+ own body or that of his daughter from insult and outrage. In this he
+ followed the command of his Master: "Resist not evil." He passed, not
+ simply from war to peace, but from one extreme to the other, and advocated
+ a doctrine that would leave the basest of mankind the rulers of the world.
+ This was and is the error of a great and tender soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not accept all the teachings of Christ at once. His progress has
+ been, judging from his writings, somewhat gradual; but by accepting one
+ proposition he prepared himself for the acceptance of another. He is not
+ only a Christian, but has the courage of his convictions, and goes without
+ hesitation to the logical conclusion. He has another exceedingly rare
+ quality; he acts in accordance with his belief. His creed is translated
+ into deed. He opposes the doctors of divinity, because they darken and
+ deform the teachings of the Master. He denounces the doctors of medicine,
+ because he depends on Providence and the promises of Jesus Christ. To him
+ that which is called progress is, in fact, a profanation, and property is
+ a something that the organized few have stolen from the unorganized many.
+ He believes in universal labor, which is good, each working for himself.
+ He also believes that each should have only the necessaries of life&mdash;which
+ is bad. According to his idea, the world ought to be filled with peasants.
+ There should be only arts enough to plough and sow and gather the harvest,
+ to build huts, to weave coarse cloth, to fashion clumsy and useful
+ garments, and to cook the simplest food. Men and women should not adorn
+ their bodies. They should not make themselves desirable or beautiful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But even under such circumstances they might, like the Quakers, be proud
+ of humility and become arrogantly meek.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tolstoi would change the entire order of human development. As a matter of
+ fact, the savage who adorns himself or herself with strings of shells, or
+ with feathers, has taken the first step towards civilization. The tatooed
+ is somewhat in advance of the unfrescoed. At the bottom of all this is the
+ love of approbation, of the admiration of their fellows, and this feeling,
+ this love, cannot be torn from the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of ourselves we are attracted by what to us is beautiful, because
+ beauty is associated with pleasure, with enjoyment. The love of the
+ well-formed, of the beautiful, is prophetic of the perfection of the human
+ race. It is impossible to admire the deformed. They may be loved for their
+ goodness or genius, but never because of their deformity. There is within
+ us the love of proportion. There is a physical basis for the appreciation
+ of harmony, which is also a kind of proportion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The love of the beautiful is shared with man by most animals. The wings of
+ the moth are painted by love, by desire. This is the foundation of the
+ bird's song. This love of approbation, this desire to please, to be
+ admired, to be loved, is in some way the cause of all heroic,
+ self-denying, and sublime actions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Count Tolsto&iuml;, following parts of the New Testament, regards love as
+ essentially impure. He seems really to think that there is a love superior
+ to human love; that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, is, after
+ all, a kind of glittering degradation; that it is better to love God than
+ woman; better to love the invisible phantoms of the skies than the
+ children upon our knees&mdash;in other words, that it is far better to
+ love a heaven somewhere else than to make one here. He seems to think that
+ women adorn themselves simply for the purpose of getting in their power
+ the innocent and unsuspecting men. He forgets that the best and purest of
+ human beings are controlled, for the most part unconsciously, by the
+ hidden, subtle tendencies of nature. He seems to forget the great fact of
+ "natural selection," and that the choice of one in preference to all
+ others is the result of forces beyond the control of the individual. To
+ him there seems to be no purity in love, because men are influenced by
+ forms, by the beauty of women; and women, knowing this fact, according to
+ him, act, and consequently both are equally guilty. He endeavors to show
+ that love is a delusion; that at best it can last but for a few days; that
+ it must of necessity be succeeded by indifference, then by disgust, lastly
+ by hatred; that in every Garden of Eden is a serpent of jealousy, and that
+ the brightest days end with the yawn of ennui.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course he is driven to the conclusion that life in this world is
+ without value, that the race can be perpetuated only by vice, and that the
+ practice of the highest virtue would leave the world without the form of
+ man. Strange as it may sound to some, this is the same conclusion reached
+ by his Divine Master: "They did eat, they drank, they married, they were
+ given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered the ark and the flood
+ came and destroyed them all." "Every one that hath forsaken houses, or
+ brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or
+ lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit
+ everlasting life."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to Christianity, as it really is and really was, the Christian
+ should have no home in this world&mdash;at least none until the earth has
+ been purified by fire. His affections should be given to God; not to wife
+ and children, not to friends or country. He is here but for a time on a
+ journey, waiting for the summons. This life is a kind of dock running out
+ into the sea of eternity, on which he waits for transportation. Nothing
+ here is of any importance; the joys of life are frivolous and corrupting,
+ and by losing these few gleams of happiness in this world he will bask
+ forever in the unclouded rays of infinite joy. Why should a man risk an
+ eternity of perfect happiness for the sake of enjoying himself a few days
+ with his wife and children? Why should he become an eternal outcast for
+ the sake of having a home and fireside here?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "Fathers" of the church had the same opinion of marriage. They agreed
+ with Saint Paul, and Tolsto&iuml; agrees with them. They had the same
+ contempt for wives and mothers, and uttered the same blasphemies against
+ that divine passion that has filled the world with art and song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this is to my mind a kind of insanity; nature soured or withered&mdash;deformed
+ so that celibacy is mistaken for virtue. The imagination becomes polluted,
+ and the poor wretch believes that he is purer than his thoughts, holier
+ than his desires, and that to outrage nature is the highest form of
+ religion. But nature imprisoned, obstructed, tormented, always has sought
+ for and has always found revenge. Some of these victims, regarding the
+ passions as low and corrupting, feeling humiliated by hunger and thirst,
+ sought through maimings and mutilations the purification of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Count Tolstoi in "The Kreutzer Sonata," has drawn, with a free hand, one
+ of the vilest and basest of men for his hero. He is suspicious, jealous,
+ cruel, infamous. The wife is infinitely too good for such a wild
+ unreasoning beast, and yet the writer of this insane story seems to
+ justify the assassin. If this is a true picture of wedded life in Russia,
+ no wonder that Count Tolsto&iuml; looks forward with pleasure to the
+ extinction of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all passions that can take possession of the heart or brain jealousy is
+ the worst. For many generations the chemists sought for the secret by
+ which all metals could be changed to gold, and through which the basest
+ could become the best. Jealousy seeks exactly the opposite. It endeavors
+ to transmute the very gold of love into the dross of shame and crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The story of "The Kreutzer Sonata" seems to have been written for the
+ purpose of showing that woman is at fault; that she has no right to be
+ attractive, no right to be beautiful; and that she is morally responsible
+ for the contour of her throat, for the pose of her body, for the symmetry
+ of her limbs, for the red of her lips, and for the dimples in her cheeks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The opposite of this doctrine is nearer true. It would be far better to
+ hold people responsible for their ugliness than for their beauty. It may
+ be true that the soul, the mind, in some wondrous way fashions the body,
+ and that to that extent every individual is responsible for his looks. It
+ may be that the man or woman thinking high thoughts will give,
+ necessarily, a nobility to expression and a beauty to outline.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that the sins of man can be laid justly at the feet of
+ woman. Women are better than men; they have greater responsibilities; they
+ bear even the burdens of joy. This is the real reason why their faults are
+ considered greater.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men and women desire each other, and this desire is a condition of
+ civilization, progress, and happiness, and of everything of real value.
+ But there is this profound difference in the sexes: in man this desire is
+ the foundation of love, while in woman love is the foundation of this
+ desire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tolsto&iuml; seems to be a stranger to the heart of woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not wonderful that one who holds self-denial in such high esteem
+ should say, "That life is embittered by the fear of one's children, and
+ not only on account of their real or imaginary illnesses, but even by
+ their very presence"?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has the father no real love for the children? Is he not paid a thousand
+ times through their caresses, their sympathy, their love? Is there no joy
+ in seeing their minds unfold, their affections develop? Of course, love
+ and anxiety go together. That which we love we wish to protect. The
+ perpetual fear of death gives love intensity and sacredness. Yet Count
+ Tolsto&iuml; gives us the feelings of a father incapable of natural
+ affection; of one who hates to have his children sick because the orderly
+ course of his wretched life is disturbed. So, too, we are told that modern
+ mothers think too much of their children, care too much for their health,
+ and refuse to be comforted when they die. Lest these words may be thought
+ libellous, the following extract is given;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In old times women consoled themselves with the belief, The Lord hath
+ given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. They
+ consoled themselves with the thought that the soul of the departed had
+ returned to him who gave it; that it was better to die innocent than to
+ live in sin. If women nowadays had such a comfortable faith to support
+ them, they might take their misfortunes less hard."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The conclusion reached by the writer is that without faith in God, woman's
+ love grovels in the mire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this case the mire is made by the tears of mothers falling on the clay
+ that hides their babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The one thing constant, the one peak that rises above all clouds, the one
+ window in which the light forever burns, the one star that darkness cannot
+ quench, is woman's love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This one fact justifies the existence and the perpetuation of the human
+ race. Again I say that women are better than men; their hearts are more
+ unreservedly given; in the web of their lives sorrow is inextricably woven
+ with the greatest joys; self-sacrifice is a part of their nature, and at
+ the behest of love and maternity they walk willingly and joyously down to
+ the very gates of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is there nothing in this to excite the admiration, the adoration, of a
+ modern reformer? Are the monk and nun superior to the father and mother?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The author of "The Kreutzer Sonata" is unconsciously the enemy of mankind.
+ He is filled with what might be called a merciless pity, a sympathy almost
+ malicious. Had he lived a few centuries ago, he might have founded a
+ religion; but the most he can now do is, perhaps, to create the necessity
+ for another asylum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Count Tolstoi objects to music&mdash;not the ordinary kind, but to great
+ music, the music that arouses the emotions, that apparently carries us
+ beyond the limitations of life, that for the moment seems to break the
+ great chain of cause and effect, and leaves the soul soaring and free.
+ "Emotion and duty," he declares, "do not go hand in hand." All art touches
+ and arouses the emotional nature. The painter, the poet, the sculptor, the
+ composer, the orator, appeal to the emotions, to the passions, to the
+ hopes and fears. The commonplace is transfigured; the cold and angular
+ facts of existence take form and color; the blood quickens; the fancies
+ spread their wings; the intellect grows sympathetic; the river of life
+ flows full and free; and man becomes capable of the noblest deeds. Take
+ emotion from the heart of man and the idea of obligation would be lost;
+ right and wrong would lose their meaning, and the word "ought" would never
+ again be spoken. We are subject to conditions, liable to disease, pain,
+ and death. We are capable of ecstasy. Of these conditions, of these
+ possibilities, the emotions are born.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only the conditionless can be the emotionless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are conditioned beings; and if the conditions are changed, the result
+ may be pain or death or greater joy. We can only live within certain
+ degrees of heat. If the weather were a few degrees hotter or a few degrees
+ colder, we could not exist. We need food and roof and raiment. Life and
+ happiness depend on these conditions. We do not certainly know what is to
+ happen, and consequently our hopes and fears are constantly active&mdash;that
+ is to say, we are emotional beings. The generalization of Tolsto&iuml;,
+ that emotion never goes hand in hand with duty, is almost the opposite of
+ the truth. The idea of duty could not exist without emotion. Think of men
+ and women without love, without desires, without passions? Think of a
+ world without art or music&mdash;a world without beauty, without emotion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet there are many writers busy pointing out the loathsomeness of love
+ and their own virtues. Only a little while ago an article appeared in one
+ of the magazines in which all women who did not dress according to the
+ provincial prudery of the writer were denounced as impure. Millions of
+ refined and virtuous wives and mothers were described as dripping with
+ pollution because they enjoyed dancing and were so well formed that they
+ were not obliged to cover their arms and throats to avoid the pity of
+ their associates. And yet the article itself is far more indelicate than
+ any dance or any dress, or even lack of dress. What a curious opinion
+ dried apples have of fruit upon the tree!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Count Tolsto&iuml; is also the enemy of wealth, of luxury. In this he
+ follows the New Testament. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye
+ of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." He
+ gathers his inspiration from the commandment, "Sell all that thou hast and
+ give to the poor."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wealth is not a crime any more than health or bodily or intellectual
+ strength. The weak might denounce the strong, the sickly might envy the
+ healthy, just as the poor may denounce or envy the rich. A man is not
+ necessarily a criminal because he is wealthy. He is to be judged, not by
+ his wealth, but by the way he uses his wealth. The strong man can use his
+ strength, not only for the benefit of himself, but for the good of others.
+ So a man of intelligence can be a benefactor of the human race.
+ Intelligence is often used to entrap the simple and to prey upon the
+ unthinking, but we do not wish to do away with intelligence. So strength
+ is often used to tyrannize over the weak, and in the same way wealth may
+ be used to the injury of mankind. To sell all that you have and give to
+ the poor is not a panacea for poverty. The man of wealth should help the
+ poor man to help himself. Men cannot receive without giving some
+ consideration, and if they have not labor or property to give, they give
+ their manhood, their self-respect. Besides, if all should obey this
+ injunction, "Sell what thou hast and give to the poor," who would buy? We
+ know that thousands and millions of rich men lack generosity and have but
+ little feeling for their fellows. The fault is not in the money, not in
+ the wealth, but in the individuals. They would be just as bad were they
+ poor. The only difference is that they would have less power. The good man
+ should regard wealth as an instrumentality, as an opportunity, and he
+ should endeavor to benefit his fellow-men, not by making them the
+ recipients of his charity, but by assisting them to assist themselves. The
+ desire to clothe and feed, to educate and protect, wives and children, is
+ the principal reason for making money&mdash;one of the great springs of
+ industry, prudence, and economy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who labor have a right to live. They have a right to what they earn.
+ He who works has a right to home and fireside and to the comforts of life.
+ Those who waste the spring, the summer, and the autumn of their lives must
+ bear the winter when it comes. Many of our institutions are absurdly
+ unjust. Giving the land to the few, making tenants of the many, is the
+ worst possible form of socialism&mdash;of paternal government. In most of
+ the nations of our day the idlers and non-producers are either beggars or
+ aristocrats, paupers or princes, and the great middle laboring class
+ support them both. Rags and robes have a liking for each other. Beggars
+ and kings are in accord; they are all parasites, living on the same blood,
+ stealing the same labor&mdash;one by beggary, the other by force. And yet
+ in all this there can be found no reason for denouncing the man who has
+ accumulated. One who wishes to tear down his bams and build greater has
+ laid aside something to keep the wolf of want from the door of home when
+ he is dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even the beggars see the necessity of others working, and the nobility see
+ the same necessity with equal clearness. But it is hardly reasonable to
+ say that all should do the same kind of work, for the reason that all have
+ not the same aptitudes, the same talents. Some can plough, others can
+ paint; some can reap and mow, while others can invent the instruments that
+ save labor; some navigate the seas; some work in mines; while others
+ compose music that elevates and refines the heart of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the worst thing in "The Kreutzer Sonata" is the declaration that a
+ husband can by force compel the wife to love and obey him. Love is not the
+ child of fear; it is not the result of force. No one can love on
+ compulsion. Even Jehovah found that it was impossible to compel the Jews
+ to love him. He issued his command to that effect, coupled with threats of
+ pain and death, but his chosen people failed to respond.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Love is the perfume of the heart; it is not subject to the will of
+ husbands or kings or God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Count Tolsto&iuml; would establish slavery in every house; he would make
+ every husband a tyrant and every wife a trembling serf. No wonder that he
+ regards such marriage as a failure. He is in exact harmony with the curse
+ of Jehovah when he said unto the woman: "I will greatly multiply thy
+ sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and
+ thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the destruction of the family, the pollution of home, the
+ crucifixion of love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who are truly married are neither masters nor servants. The idea of
+ obedience is lost in the desire for the happiness of each. Love is not a
+ convict, to be detained with bolts and chains. Love is the highest
+ expression of liberty. Love neither commands nor obeys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The curious thing is that the orthodox world insists that all men and
+ women should obey the injunctions of Christ; that they should take him as
+ the supreme example, and in all things follow his teachings. This is
+ preached from countless pulpits, and has been for many centuries. And yet
+ the man who does follow the Savior, who insists that he will not resist
+ evil, who sells what he has and gives to the poor, who deserts his wife
+ and children for the love of God, is regarded as insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tolsto&iuml;, on most subjects, appears to be in accord with the founder
+ of Christianity, with the apostles, with the writers of the New Testament,
+ and with the Fathers of the church; and yet a Christian teacher of a
+ Sabbath school decides, in the capacity of Postmaster-General, that "The
+ Kreutzer Sonata" is unfit to be carried in the mails.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Although I disagree with nearly every sentence in this book, regard the
+ story as brutal and absurd, the view of life presented as cruel, vile, and
+ false, yet I recognize the right of Count Tolsto&iuml; to express his
+ opinions on all subjects, and the right of the men and women of America to
+ read for themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the sincerity of the author, there is not the slightest doubt. He is
+ willing to give all that he has for the good of his fellow-men. He is a
+ soldier in what he believes to be a sacred cause, and he has the courage
+ of his convictions. He is endeavoring to organize society in accordance
+ with the most radical utterances that have been attributed to Jesus
+ Christ. The philosophy of Palestine is not adapted to an industrial and
+ commercial age. Christianity was born when the nation that produced it was
+ dying. It was a requiem&mdash;a declaration that life was a failure, that
+ the world was about to end, and that the hopes of mankind should be lifted
+ to another sphere. Tolsto&iuml; stands with his back to the sunrise and
+ looks mournfully upon the shadow. He has uttered many tender, noble, and
+ inspiring words. There are many passages in his works that must have been
+ written when his eyes were filled with tears. He has fixed his gaze so
+ intently on the miseries and agonies of life that he has been driven to
+ the conclusion that nothing could be better than the effacement of the
+ human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some men, looking only at the faults and tyrannies of government, have
+ said: "Anarchy is better." Others, looking at the misfortunes, the
+ poverty, the crimes, of men, have, in a kind of pitying despair, reached
+ the conclusion that the best of all is death. These are the opinions of
+ those who have dwelt in gloom&mdash;of the self-imprisoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By comparing long periods of time, we see that, on the whole, the race is
+ advancing; that the world is growing steadily, and surely, better; that
+ each generation enjoys more and suffers less than its predecessor. We find
+ that our institutions have the faults of individuals. Nations must be
+ composed of men and women; and as they have their faults, nations cannot
+ be perfect. The institution of marriage is a failure to the extent, and
+ only to the extent, that the human race is a failure. Undoubtedly it is
+ the best and the most important institution that has been established by
+ the civilized world. If there is unhappiness in that relation, if there is
+ tyranny upon one side and misery upon the other, it is not the fault of
+ marriage. Take homes from the world and only wild beasts are left.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot cure the evils of our day and time by a return to savagery. It
+ is not necessary to become ignorant to increase our happiness. The highway
+ of civilization leads to the light. The time will come when the human race
+ will be truly enlightened, when labor will receive its due reward, when
+ the last institution begotten of ignorance and savagery will disappear.
+ The time will come when the whole world will say that the love of man for
+ woman, of woman for man, of mother for child, is the highest, the noblest,
+ the purest, of which the heart is capable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Love, human love, love of men and women, love of mothers fathers, and
+ babes, is the perpetual and beneficent force. Not the love of phantoms,
+ the love that builds cathedrals and dungeons, that trembles and prays,
+ that kneels and curses; but the real love, the love that felled the
+ forests, navigated the seas, subdued the earth, explored continents, built
+ countless homes, and founded nations&mdash;the love that kindled the
+ creative flame and wrought the miracles of art, that gave us all there is
+ of music, from the cradle-song that gives to infancy its smiling sleep to
+ the great symphony that bears the soul away with wings of fire&mdash;the
+ real love, mother of every virtue and of every joy.&mdash;North American
+ Review, September, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0014" id="link0014">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THOMAS PAINE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ A MAGAZINE ARTICLE.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "A great man's memory may outlive his life half a year,
+ But, by'r lady, he must build churches then."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ EIGHTY-THREE years ago Thomas Paine ceased to defend himself. The moment
+ he became dumb all his enemies found a tongue. He was attacked on every
+ hand. The Tories of England had been waiting for their revenge. The
+ believers in kings, in hereditary government, the nobility of every land,
+ execrated his memory. Their greatest enemy was dead. The believers in
+ human slavery, and all who clamored for the rights of the States as
+ against the sovereignty of a Nation, joined in the chorus of denunciation.
+ In addition to this, the believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures,
+ the occupants of orthodox pulpits, the professors in Christian colleges,
+ and the religious historians, were his sworn and implacable foes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man had gratified no ambition at the expense of his fellow-men; he
+ had desolated no country with the flame and sword of war; he had not wrung
+ millions from the poor and unfortunate; he had betrayed no trust, and yet
+ he was almost universally despised. He gave his life for the benefit of
+ mankind. Day and night for many, many weary years, he labored for the good
+ of others, and gave himself body and soul to the great cause of human
+ liberty. And yet he won the hatred of the people for whose benefit, for
+ whose emancipation, for whose civilization, for whose exaltation he gave
+ his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against him every slander that malignity could coin and hypocrisy pass was
+ gladly and joyously taken as genuine, and every truth with regard to his
+ career was believed to be counterfeit. He was attacked by thousands where
+ he was defended by one, and the one who defended him was instantly
+ attacked, silenced, or destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last his life has been written by Moncure D. Conway, and the real
+ history of Thomas Paine, of what he attempted and accomplished, of what he
+ taught and suffered, has been intelligently, truthfully and candidly given
+ to the world. Henceforth the slanderer will be without excuse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He who reads Mr. Conway's pages will find that Thomas Paine was more than
+ a patriot&mdash;that he was a philanthropist&mdash;a lover not only of his
+ country, but of all mankind. He will find that his sympathies were with
+ those who suffered, without regard to religion or race, country or
+ complexion. He will find that this great man did not hesitate to attack
+ the governing class of his native land&mdash;to commit what was called
+ treason against the king, that he might do battle for the rights of men;
+ that in spite of the prejudices of birth, he took the side of the American
+ Colonies; that he gladly attacked the political abuses and absurdities
+ that had been fostered by altars and thrones for many centuries; that he
+ was for the people against nobles and kings, and that he put his life in
+ pawn for the good of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the winter of 1774, Thomas Paine came to America. After a time he was
+ employeed as one of the writers on the <i>Pennsylvania Magazine.</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see what he did, calculated to excite the hatred of his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first article he ever wrote in America, and the first ever published
+ by him anywhere, appeared in that magazine on the 8th of 'March, 1775. It
+ was an attack on American slavery&mdash;a plea for the rights of the
+ negro. In that article will be found substantially all the arguments that
+ can be urged against that most infamous of all institutions. Every is full
+ of humanity, pity, tenderness, and love of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Five days after this article appeared the American Anti-Slavery Society
+ was formed. Certainly this should not excite our hatred. To-day the
+ civilized world agrees with the essay written by Thomas Paine in 1775.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time great interests were against him. The owners of slaves became
+ his enemies, and the pulpits, supported by slave labor, denounced this
+ abolitionist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next article published by Thomas Paine, in the same magazine, and for
+ the next month, was an attack on the practice of dueling, showing that it
+ was barbarous, that it did not even tend to settle the right or wrong of a
+ dispute, that it could not be defended on any just grounds, and that its
+ influence was degrading and cruel. The civilized world now agrees with the
+ opinions of Thomas Paine upon that barbarous practice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In May, 1775, appeared in the same magazine another article written by
+ Thomas Paine, a Protest Against Cruelty to Animals. He began the work that
+ was so successfully and gloriously carried out by Henry Bergh, one of the
+ noblest, one of the grandest, men that this continent has produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The good people of this world agree with Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In August of the same year he wrote a plea for the Rights of Woman, the
+ first ever published in the New World. Certainly he should not be hated
+ for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the first to suggest a union of the colonies. Before the
+ Declaration of Independence was issued, Paine had written of and about the
+ Free and Independent States of America. He had also spoken of the United
+ Colonies as the "Glorious Union," and he was the first to write these
+ words: "The United States of America."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In May, 1775, Washington said: "If you ever hear of me joining in any such
+ measure (as separation from Great Britain) you have my leave to set me
+ down for everything wicked." He had also said; "It is not the wish or
+ interest of the government (meaning Massachusetts), or of any other upon
+ this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence."
+ And in the same year Benjamin Franklin assured Chatham that no one in
+ America was in favor of separation. As a matter of fact, the people of the
+ colonies wanted a redress of their grievances&mdash;they were not dreaming
+ of separation, of independence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1775 Paine wrote the pamphlet known as "Common Sense." This was
+ published on the 10th of January, 1776. It was the first appeal for
+ independence, the first cry for national life, for absolute separation. No
+ pamphlet, no book, ever kindled such a sudden conflagration,&mdash;a
+ purifying flame, in which the prejudices and fears of millions were
+ consumed. To read it now, after the lapse of more than a hundred years,
+ hastens the blood. It is but the meagre truth to say that Thomas Paine did
+ more for the cause of separation, to sow the seeds of independence, than
+ any other man of his time. Certainly we should not despise him for this.
+ The Declaration of Independence followed, and in that declaration will be
+ found not only the thoughts, but some of the expressions of Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the war, and in the very darkest hours, Paine wrote what is called
+ "The Crisis," a series of pamphlets giving from time to time his opinion
+ of events, and his prophecies. These marvelous publications produced an
+ effect nearly as great as the pamphlet "Common Sense." These strophes,
+ written by the bivouac fires, had in them the soul of battle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all he wrote, Paine was direct and natural. He touched the very heart
+ of the subject. He was not awed by names or titles, by place or power. He
+ never lost his regard for truth, for principle&mdash;never wavered in his
+ allegiance to reason, to what he believed to be right. His arguments were
+ so lucid, so unanswerable, his comparisons and analogies so apt, so
+ unexpected, that they excited the passionate admiration of friends and the
+ unquenchable hatred of enemies. So great were these appeals to patriotism,
+ to the love of liberty, the pride of independence, the glory of success,
+ that it was said by some of the best and greatest of that time that the
+ American cause owed as much to the pen of Paine as to the sword of
+ Washington.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 2d day of November, 1779, there was introduced into the Assembly of
+ Pennsylvania an act for the abolition of slavery. The preamble was written
+ by Thomas Paine. To him belongs the honor and glory of having written the
+ first Proclamation of Emancipation in America&mdash;Paine the first,
+ Lincoln the last.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine, of all others, succeeded in getting aid for the struggling colonies
+ from France. "According to Lamartine, the King, Louis XVI., loaded Paine
+ with favors, and a gift of six millions was confided into the hands of
+ Franklin and Paine. On the 25th of August, 1781, Paine reached Boston
+ bringing two million five hundred thousand livres in silver, and in convoy
+ a ship laden with clothing and military stores."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In November, 1779, Paine was elected clerk to the General Assembly of
+ Pennsylvania. In 1780, the Assembly received a letter from General
+ Washington in the field, saying that he feared the distresses in the army
+ would lead to mutiny in the ranks. This letter was read by Paine to the
+ Assembly. He immediately wrote to Blair McClenaghan, a Philadelphia
+ merchant, explaining the urgency, and inclosing five hundred dollars, the
+ amount of salary due him as clerk, as his contribution towards a relief
+ fund. The merchant called a meeting the next day, and read Paine's letter.
+ A subscription list was immediately circulated, and in a short time about
+ one million five hundred thousand dollars was raised. With this capital
+ the Pennsylvania bank&mdash;afterwards the bank of North America&mdash;was
+ established for the relief of the army."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1783 "Paine wrote a memorial to Chancellor Livingston, Secretary of
+ Foreign Affairs, Robert Morris, Minister of Finance, and his assistant,
+ urging the necessity of adding a Continental Legislature to Congress, to
+ be elected by the several States. Robert Morris invited the Chancellor and
+ a number of eminent men to meet Paine at dinner, where his plea for a
+ stronger Union was discussed and approved. This was probably the earliest
+ of a series of consultations preliminary to the Constitutional
+ Convention."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "On the 19th of April, 1783, it being the eighth anniversary of the Battle
+ of Lexington, Paine printed a little pamphlet entitled 'Thoughts on Peace
+ and the Probable Advantages Thereof.'" In this pamphlet he pleads for "a
+ supreme Nationality absorbing all cherished sovereignties." Mr. Conway
+ calls this pamphlet Paine's "Farewell Address," and gives the following
+ extract:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which
+ it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition in which the country was
+ in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those
+ who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only
+ line that could save her,&mdash;a Declaration of Independence.&mdash;made
+ it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent; and if, in the
+ course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have
+ likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and
+ disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind.... But as the
+ scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier
+ times, I therefore take leave of the subject. I have most sincerely
+ followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings;
+ and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest
+ pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and
+ providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine had made some enemies, first, by attacking African slavery, and,
+ second, by insisting upon the sovereignty of the Nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the Revolution our forefathers, in order to justify making war on
+ Great Britain, were compelled to take the ground that all men are entitled
+ to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In no other way could they
+ justify their action. After the war, the meaner instincts began to take
+ possession of the mind, and those who had fought for their own liberty
+ were perfectly willing to enslave others. We must also remember that the
+ Revolution was begun and carried on by a noble minority&mdash;that the
+ majority were really in favor of Great Britain and did what they dared to
+ prevent the success of the American cause. The minority, however, had
+ control of affairs. They were active, energetic, enthusiastic, and
+ courageous, and the majority were overawed, shamed, and suppressed. But
+ when peace came, the majority asserted themselves and the interests of
+ trade and commerce were consulted. Enthusiasm slowly died, and patriotism
+ was mingled with the selfishness of traffic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, after all, the enemies of Paine were few, the friends were many. He
+ had the respect and admiration of the greatest and the best, and was
+ enjoying the fruits of his labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Revolution was ended, the colonies were free. They had been united,
+ they formed a Nation, and the United States of America had a place on the
+ map of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine was not a politician. He had not labored for seven years to get an
+ office. His services were no longer needed in America. He concluded to
+ educate the English people, to inform them of their rights, to expose the
+ pretences, follies and fallacies, the crimes and cruelties of nobles,
+ kings, and parliaments. In the brain and heart of this man were the dream
+ and hope of the universal republic. He had confidence in the people. He
+ hated tyranny and war, despised the senseless pomp and vain show of
+ crowned robbers, laughed at titles, and the "honorable" badges worn by the
+ obsequious and servile, by fawners and followers; loved liberty with all
+ his heart, and bravely fought against those who could give the rewards of
+ place and gold, and for those who could pay only with thanks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hoping to hasten the day of freedom, he wrote the "Rights of Man"&mdash;a
+ book that laid the foundation for all the real liberty that the English
+ now enjoy&mdash;a book that made known to Englishmen the Declaration of
+ Nature, and convinced millions that all are children of the same mother,
+ entitled to share equally in her gifts. Every Englishman who has outgrown
+ the ideas of 1688 should remember Paine with love and reverence. Every
+ Englishman who has sought to destroy abuses, to lessen or limit the
+ prerogatives of the crown, to extend the suffrage, to do away with "rotten
+ boroughs," to take taxes from knowledge, to increase and protect the
+ freedom of speech and the press, to do away with bribes under the name of
+ pensions, and to make England a government of principles rather than of
+ persons, has been compelled to adopt the creed and use the arguments of
+ Thomas Paine. In England every step toward freedom has been a triumph of
+ Paine over Burke and Pitt. No man ever rendered a greater service to his
+ native land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book called the "Rights of Man" was the greatest contribution that
+ literature had given to liberty. It rests on the bed-rock. No attention is
+ paid to precedents except to show that they are wrong. Paine was not
+ misled by the proverbs that wolves had written for sheep. He had the
+ intelligence to examine for himself, and the courage to publish his
+ conclusions. As soon as the "Rights of Man" was published the Government
+ was alarmed. Every effort was made to suppress it. The author was
+ indicted; those who published, and those who sold, were arrested and
+ imprisoned. But the new gospel had been preached&mdash;a great man had
+ shed light&mdash;a new force had been born, and it was beyond the power of
+ nobles and kings to undo what the author-hero had done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To avoid arrest and probable death, Paine left England. He had sown with
+ brave hand the seeds of thought, and he knew that he had lighted a fire
+ that nothing could extinguish until England should be free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fame of Thomas Paine had reached France in many ways&mdash;principally
+ through Lafayette. His services in America were well known. The pamphlet
+ "Common Sense" had been published in French, and its effect had been
+ immense. "The Rights of Man" that had created, and was then creating, such
+ a stir in England, was also known to the French. The lovers of liberty
+ everywhere were the friends and admirers of Thomas Paine. In America,
+ England, Scotland, Ireland, and France he was known as the defender of
+ popular rights. He had preached a new gospel. He had given a new Magna
+ Charta to the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So popular was Paine in France that he was elected by three constituencies
+ to the National Convention. He chose to represent Calais. From the moment
+ he entered French territory he was received with almost royal honors. He
+ at once stood with the foremost, and was welcomed by all enlightened
+ patriots. As in America, so in France, he knew no idleness&mdash;he was an
+ organizer and worker. The first thing he did was to found the first
+ Republican Society, and the next to write its Manifesto, in which the
+ ground was taken that France did not need a king; that the people should
+ govern themselves. In this Manifesto was this argument:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What kind of office must that be in a government which requires neither
+ experience nor ability to execute? that may be abandoned to the desperate
+ chance of birth; that may be filled with an idiot, a madman, a tyrant,
+ with equal effect as with the good, the virtuous, the wise? An office of
+ this nature is a mere nonentity; it is a place of show, not of use."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I am not the personal enemy of kings. Quite the contrary. No man wishes
+ more heartily than myself to see them all in the happy and honorable state
+ of private individuals; but I am the avowed, open and intrepid enemy of
+ what is called monarchy; and I am such by principles which nothing can
+ either alter or corrupt, by my attachment to humanity, by the anxiety
+ which I feel within myself for the dignity and honor of the human race."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the grandest things done by Thomas Paine was his effort to save the
+ life of Louis XVI. The Convention was in favor of death. Paine was a
+ foreigner. His career had caused some jealousies. He knew the danger he
+ was in&mdash;that the tiger was already crouching for a spring&mdash;but
+ he was true to his principles. He was opposed to the death penalty. He
+ remembered that Louis XVI. had been the friend of America, and he very
+ cheerfully risked his life, not only for the good of France, not only to
+ save the king, but to pay a debt of gratitude. He asked the Convention to
+ exile the king to the United States. He asked this as a member of the
+ Convention and as a citizen of the United States. As an American he felt
+ grateful not only to the king, but to every Frenchman. He, the adversary
+ of all kings, asked the Convention to remember that kings were men, and
+ subject to human frailties. He took still another step, and said: "As
+ France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let us
+ also be the first to abolish the punishment of death."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even after the death of Louis had been voted, Paine made another appeal.
+ With a courage born of the highest possible sense of duty he said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "France has but one ally&mdash;the United States of America. That is the
+ only nation that can furnish France with naval provisions, for the
+ kingdoms of Northern Europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. It
+ happens that the person now under discussion is regarded in America as a
+ deliverer of their country. I can assure you that his execution will there
+ spread universal sorrow, and it is in your power not thus to wound the
+ feelings of your ally. Could I speak the French language I would descend
+ to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to respite the
+ execution of your sentence on Louis. Ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of
+ England the triumph of seeing the man perish on the scaffold who helped my
+ dear brothers of America to break his chains."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was worthy of the man who had said: "Where Liberty is <i>not</i>,
+ there is my country."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine was second on the committee to prepare the draft of a constitution
+ for France to be submitted to the Convention. He was the real author, not
+ only of the draft of the Constitution, but of the Declaration of Rights.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In France, as in America, he took the lead. His first thoughts seemed to
+ be first principles. He was clear because he was profound. People without
+ ideas experience great difficulty in finding words to express them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the moment that Paine cast his vote in favor of mercy&mdash;in favor
+ of life&mdash;the shadow of the guillotine was upon him. He knew that when
+ he voted for the King's life, he voted for his own death. Paine remembered
+ that the king had been the friend of America, and to him ingratitude
+ seemed the worst of crimes. He worked to destroy the monarch, not the man;
+ the king, not the friend. He discharged his duty and accepted death. This
+ was the heroism of goodness&mdash;the sublimity of devotion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Believing that his life was near its close, he made up his mind to give to
+ the world his thoughts concerning "revealed religion." This he had for
+ some time intended to do, but other matters had claimed his attention.
+ Feeling that there was no time to be lost, he wrote the first part of the
+ "Age of Reason," and gave the manuscript to Joel Barlow. Six hours after,
+ he was arrested. The second part was written in prison while he was
+ waiting for death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine clearly saw that men could not be really free, or defend the freedom
+ they had, unless they were free to think and speak. He knew that the
+ church was the enemy of liberty, that the altar and throne were in
+ partnership, that they helped each other and divided the spoils.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He felt that, being a man, he had the right to examine the creeds and the
+ Scriptures for himself, and that, being an honest man, it was his duty and
+ his privilege to tell his fellow-men the conclusions at which he arrived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He found that the creeds of all orthodox churches were absurd and cruel,
+ and that the Bible was no better. Of course he found that there were some
+ good things in the creeds and in the Bible. These he defended, but the
+ infamous, the inhuman, he attacked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In matters of religion he pursued the same course that he had in things
+ political. He depended upon experience, and above all on reason. He
+ refused to extinguish the light in his own soul. He was true to himself,
+ and gave to others his honest thoughts. He did not seek wealth, or place,
+ or fame. He sought the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had felt it to be his duty to attack the institution of slavery in
+ America, to raise his voice against dueling, to plead for the rights of
+ woman, to excite pity for the sufferings of domestic animals, the
+ speechless friends of man; to plead the cause of separation, of
+ independence, of American nationality, to attack the abuses and crimes of
+ mon-archs, to do what he could to give freedom to the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He thought it his duty to take another step. Kings asserted that they
+ derived their power, their right to govern, from God. To this assertion
+ Paine replied with the "Rights of Man." Priests pretended that they were
+ the authorized agents of God. Paine replied with the "Age of Reason."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This book is still a power, and will be as long as the absurdities and
+ cruelties of the creeds and the Bible have defenders. The "Age of Reason"
+ affected the priests just as the "Rights of Man" affected nobles and
+ kings. The kings answered the arguments of Paine with laws, the priests
+ with lies. Kings appealed to force, priests to fraud. Mr. Conway has
+ written in regard to the "Age of Reason" the most impressive and the most
+ interesting chapter in his book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine contended for the rights of the individual,&mdash;tor the
+ jurisdiction of the soul. Above all religions he placed Reason, above all
+ kings, Men, and above all men, Law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first part of the "Age of Reason" was written in the shadow of a
+ prison, the second part in the gloom of death. From that shadow, from that
+ gloom, came a flood of light. This testament, by which the wealth of a
+ marvelous brain, the love of a great and heroic heart were given to the
+ world, was written in the presence of the scaffold, when the writer
+ believed he was giving his last message to his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The "Age of Reason" was his crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Franklin, Jefferson, Sumner and Lincoln, the four greatest statesmen that
+ America has produced, were believers in the creed of Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Universalists and Unitarians have found their best weapons, their best
+ arguments, in the "Age of Reason."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slowly, but surely, the churches are adopting not only the arguments, but
+ the opinions of the great Reformer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theodore Parker attacked the Old Testament and Calvinistic theology with
+ the same weapons and with a bitterness excelled by no man who has
+ expressed his thoughts in our language.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine was a century in advance of his time. If he were living now his
+ sympathy would be with Savage, Chadwick, Professor Briggs and the
+ "advanced theologians." He, too, would talk about the "higher criticism"
+ and the latest definition of "inspiration." These advanced thinkers
+ substantially are repeating the "Age of Reason." They still wear the old
+ uniform&mdash;clinging to the toggery of theology&mdash;but inside of
+ their religious rags they agree with Thomas Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Not one argument that Paine urged against the inspiration of the Bible,
+ against the truth of miracles, against the barbarities and infamies of the
+ Old Testament, against the pretensions of priests and the claims of kings,
+ has ever been answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His arguments in favor of the existence of what he was pleased to call the
+ God of Nature were as weak as those of all Theists have been. But in all
+ the affairs of this world, his clearness of vision, lucidity of
+ expression, cogency of argument, aptness of comparison, power of statement
+ and comprehension of the subject in hand, with all its bearings and
+ consequences, have rarely, if ever, been excelled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had no reverence for mistakes because they were old. He did not admire
+ the castles of Feudalism even when they were covered with ivy. He not only
+ said that the Bible was not inspired, but he demonstrated that it could
+ not all be true. This was "brutal." He presented arguments so strong, so
+ clear, so convincing, that they could not be answered. This was "vulgar."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood for liberty against kings, for humanity against creeds and gods.
+ This was "cowardly and low." He gave his life to free and civilize his
+ fellow-men. This was "infamous."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine was arrested and imprisoned in December, 1793. He was, to say the
+ least, neglected by Gouverneur Morris and Washington. He was released
+ through the efforts of James Monroe, in November, 1794. He was called back
+ to the Convention, but too late to be of use. As most of the actors had
+ suffered death, the tragedy was about over and the curtain was falling.
+ Paine remained in Paris until the "Reign of Terror" was ended and that of
+ the Corsican tyrant had commenced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine came back to America hoping to spend the remainder of his life
+ surrounded by those for whose happiness and freedom he had labored so many
+ years. He expected to be rewarded with the love and reverence of the
+ American people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1794 James Monroe had written to Paine these words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is unnecessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, I
+ speak of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare.
+ They have not forgot the history of their own Revolution and the difficult
+ scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its several stages
+ without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those
+ who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The crime of
+ ingratitude has not yet stained, and I hope never will stain, our national
+ character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered
+ important services in our own Revolution, but as being on a more extensive
+ scale the friend of human rights and a distinguished and able advocate of
+ public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine we are not and cannot be
+ indifferent."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the same year Mr. Monroe wrote a letter to the Committee of General
+ Safety, asking for the release of Mr. Paine, in which, among other things,
+ he said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The services Thomas Paine rendered to his country in its struggle for
+ freedom have implanted in the hearts of his countrymen a sense of
+ gratitude never to be effaced as long as they shall deserve the title of a
+ just and generous people."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On reaching America, Paine found that the sense of gratitude had been
+ effaced. He found that the Federalists hated him with all their hearts
+ because he believed in the rights of the people and was still true to the
+ splendid principles advocated during the darkest days of the Revolution.
+ In almost every pulpit he found a malignant and implacable foe, and the
+ pews were filled with his enemies. The slaveholders hated him. He was held
+ responsible even for the crimes of the French Revolution. He was regarded
+ as a blasphemer, an Atheist, an enemy of God and man. The ignorant
+ citizens of Bordentown, as cowardly as orthodox, longed to mob the author
+ of "Common Sense" and "The Crisis." They thought he had sold himself to
+ the Devil because he had defended God against the slanderous charges that
+ he had inspired the writers of the Bible&mdash;because he had said that a
+ being of infinite goodness and purity did not establish slavery and
+ polygamy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine had insisted that men had the right to think for themselves. This so
+ enraged the average American citizen that he longed for revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1802 the people of the United States had exceedingly crude ideas about
+ the liberty of thought and expression Neither had they any conception of
+ religious freedom. Their highest thought on that subject was expressed by
+ the word "toleration," and even this toleration extended only to the
+ various Christian sects. Even the vaunted religious liberty of colonial
+ Maryland was only to the effect that one kind of Christian should not
+ fine, imprison and kill another kind of Christian, but all kinds of
+ Christians had the right, and it was their duty, to brand, imprison and
+ kill Infidels of every kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine had been guilty of thinking for himself and giving his conclusions
+ to the world without having asked the consent of a priest&mdash;just as he
+ had published his political opinions without leave of the king. He had
+ published his thoughts on religion and had appealed to reason&mdash;to the
+ light in every mind, to the humanity, the pity, the goodness which he
+ believed to be in every heart. He denied the right of kings to make laws
+ and of priests to make creeds. He insisted that the people should make
+ laws, and that every human being should think for himself. While some
+ believed in the freedom of religion, he believed in the religion of
+ freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Paine had been a hypocrite, if he had concealed his opinions, if he had
+ defended slavery with quotations from the "sacred Scriptures"&mdash;if he
+ had cared nothing for the liberties of men in other lands&mdash;if he had
+ said that the state could not live without the church&mdash;if he had
+ sought for place instead of truth, he would have won wealth and power, and
+ his brow would have been crowned with the laurel of fame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He made what the pious call the "mistake" of being true to himself&mdash;of
+ living with an unstained soul. He had lived and labored for the people.
+ The people were untrue' to him. They returned evil for good, hatred for
+ benefits received, and yet this great chivalric soul remembered their
+ ignorance and loved them with all his heart, and fought their oppressors
+ with all his strength.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember what the churches and creeds were in that day, what the
+ theologians really taught, and what the people believed. To save a few in
+ spite of their vices, and to damn the many without regard to their
+ virtues, and all for the glory of the Damner:&mdash;<i>this was Calvinism</i>.
+ "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," but he that hath a brain to
+ think must not think. He that believeth without evidence is good, and he
+ that believeth in spite of evidence is a saint. Only the wicked doubt,
+ only the blasphemer denies. <i>This was orthodox Christianity</i>.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine had the courage, the sense, the heart, to denounce these
+ horrors, these absurdities, these infinite infamies. He did what he could
+ to drive these theological vipers, these Calvinistic cobras, these fanged
+ and hissing serpents of superstition from the heart of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few civilized men agreed with him then, and the world has progressed
+ since 1809. Intellectual wealth has accumulated; vast mental estates have
+ been left to the world. Geologists have forced secrets from the rocks,
+ astronomers from the stars, historians from old records and lost
+ languages. In every direction the thinker and the investigator have
+ ventured and explored, and even the pews have begun to ask questions of
+ the pulpits. Humboldt has lived, and Darwin and Haeckel and Huxley, and
+ the armies led by them, have changed the thought of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The churches of 1809 could not be the friends of Thomas Paine. No church
+ asserting that belief is necessary to salvation ever was, or ever will be,
+ the champion of true liberty. A church founded on slavery&mdash;that is to
+ say, on blind obedience, worshiping irresponsible and arbitrary power,
+ must of necessity be the enemy of human freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The orthodox churches are now anxious to save the little that Paine left
+ of their creed. If one now believes in God, and lends a little financial
+ aid, he is considered a good and desirable member. He need not define God
+ after the manner of the catechism. He may talk about a "Power that works
+ for righteousness," or the tortoise Truth that beats the rabbit Lie in the
+ long run, or the "Unknowable," or the "Unconditioned," or the "Cosmic
+ Force," or the "Ultimate Atom," or "Protoplasm," or the "What"&mdash;provided
+ he begins this word with a capital.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must also remember that there is a difference between independence and
+ liberty. Millions have fought for independence&mdash;to throw off some
+ foreign yoke&mdash;and yet were at heart the enemies of true liberty. A
+ man in jail, sighing to be free, may be said to be in favor of liberty,
+ but not from principle; but a man who, being free, risks or gives his life
+ to free the enslaved, is a true soldier of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of
+ his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on every
+ side, execrated, shunned and abhorred&mdash;his virtues denounced as vices&mdash;his
+ services forgotten&mdash;his character blackened, he preserved the poise
+ and balance of his soul. He was a victim of the people, but his
+ convictions remained unshaken. He was still a soldier in the army of
+ freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were
+ impatiently waiting for his death. Even those who loved their enemies
+ hated him, their friend&mdash;the friend of the whole world&mdash;with all
+ their hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the 8th of June, 1809, death came&mdash;Death, almost his only friend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military
+ display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of
+ the dead&mdash;On horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart
+ dominated the creed of his head&mdash;and, following on foot, two negroes
+ filled with gratitude&mdash;constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas
+ Paine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He who had received the gratitude of many millions, the thanks of generals
+ and statesmen&mdash;he who had been the friend and companion of the wisest
+ and best&mdash;he who had taught a people to be free, and whose words had
+ inspired armies and enlightened nations, was thus given back to Nature,
+ the mother of us all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the people of the great Republic knew the life of this generous, this
+ chivalric man, the real story of his services, his sufferings and his
+ triumphs&mdash;of what he did to compel the robed and crowned, the priests
+ and kings, to give back to the people liberty, the jewel of the soul; if
+ they knew that he was the first to write, "The Religion of Humanity"; if
+ they knew that he, above all others, planted and watered the seeds of
+ independence, of union, of nationality, in the hearts of our forefathers&mdash;that
+ his words were gladly repeated by the best and bravest in many lands; if
+ they knew that he attempted, by the purest means, to attain the noblest
+ and loftiest ends&mdash;that he was original, sincere, intrepid, and that
+ he could truthfully say: "The world is my country, to do good my religion"&mdash;if
+ the people only knew all this&mdash;the truth&mdash;they would repeat the
+ words of Andrew Jackson: "Thomas Paine needs no monument made with hands;
+ he has erected a monument in the hearts of all lovers of liberty."&mdash;North
+ American Review, August, 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0015" id="link0015">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Well, while I am a beggar, I will rail,
+ And say there is no sin but to be rich."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ MR. A. lived in the kingdom of&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;. He was a
+ sincere professional philanthropist. He was absolutely certain that he
+ loved his fellow-men, and that his views were humane and scientific. He
+ concluded to turn his attention to taking care of people less fortunate
+ than himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With this object in view he investigated the common people that lived
+ about him, and he found that they were extremely ignorant, that many of
+ them seemed to take no particular interest in life or in business, that
+ few of them had any theories of their own, and that, while many had
+ muscle, there was only now and then one who had any mind worth speaking
+ of. Nearly all of them were destitute of ambition. They were satisfied if
+ they got something to eat, a place to sleep, and could now and then
+ indulge in some form of dissipation. They seemed to have great confidence
+ in to-morrow&mdash;trusted to luck, and took no thought for the future.
+ Many of them were extravagant, most of them dissipated, and a good many
+ dishonest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. A. found that many of the husbands not only failed to support their
+ families, but that some of them lived on the labor of their wives; that
+ many of the wives were careless of their obligations, knew nothing about
+ the art of cooking; nothing about keeping house; and that parents, as a
+ general thing, neglected their children or treated them with cruelty. He
+ also found that many of the people were so shiftless that they died of
+ want and exposure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After having obtained this information Mr. A. made up his mind to do what
+ little he could to better their condition. He petitioned the king to
+ assist him, and asked that he be allowed to take control of five hundred
+ people in consideration that he would pay a certain amount into the
+ treasury of the kingdom. The king being satisfied that Mr. A. could take
+ care of these people better than they were taking care of themselves,
+ granted the petition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. A., with the assistance of a few soldiers, took these people from
+ their old homes and haunts to a plantation of his own. He divided them
+ into groups, and over each group placed a superintendent. He made certain
+ rules and regulations for their conduct. They were only compelled to work
+ from twelve to fourteen hours a day, leaving ten hours for sleep and
+ recreation. Good and substantial food was provided. Their houses were
+ comfortable and their clothing sufficient. Their work was laid out from
+ day to day and from month to month, so that they knew exactly what they
+ were to do in each hour of every day. These rules were made for the good
+ of the people, to the end that they might not interfere with each other,
+ that they might attend to their duties, and enjoy themselves in a
+ reasonable way. They were not allowed to waste their time, or to use
+ stimulants or profane language. They were told to be respectful to the
+ superintendents, and especially to Mr. A.; to be obedient, and, above all,
+ to accept the position in which Providence had placed them, without
+ complaining, and to cheerfully perform their tasks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. A. had found out all that the five hundred persons had earned the year
+ before they were taken control of by him&mdash;just how much they had
+ added to the wealth of the world. He had statistics taken for the year
+ before with great care showing the number of deaths, the cases of sickness
+ and of destitution, the number who had committed suicide, how many had
+ been convicted of crimes and misdemeanors, how many days they had been
+ idle, and how much time and money they had spent in drink and for
+ worthless amusements.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During the first year of their enslavement he kept like statistics. He
+ found that they had earned several times as much; that there had been no
+ cases of destitution, no drunkenness; that no crimes had been committed;
+ that there had been but little sickness, owing to the regular course of
+ their lives; that few had been guilty of misdemeanors, owing to the
+ certainty of punishment; and that they had been so watched and
+ superintended that for the most part they had traveled the highway of
+ virtue and industry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. A. was delighted, and with a vast deal of pride showed these
+ statistics to his friends. He not only demonstrated that the five hundred
+ people were better off than they had been before, but that his own income
+ was very largely increased. He congratulated himself that he had added to
+ the well-being of these people not only, but had laid the foundation of a
+ great fortune for himself. On these facts and these figures he claimed not
+ only to be a philanthropist, but a philosopher; and all the people who had
+ a mind to go into the same business agreed with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some denounced the entire proceeding as unwarranted, as contrary to reason
+ and justice. These insisted that the five hundred people had a right to
+ live in their own way provided they did not interfere with others; that
+ they had the right to go through the world with little food and with poor
+ clothes, and to live in huts, if such was their choice. But Mr. A. had no
+ trouble in answering these objectors. He insisted that well-being is the
+ only good, and that every human being is under obligation, not only to
+ take care of himself, but to do what little he can towards taking care of
+ others; that where five hundred people neglect to take care of themselves,
+ it is the duty of somebody else, who has more intelligence and more means,
+ to take care of them; that the man who takes five hundred people and
+ improves their condition, gives them on the average better food, better
+ clothes, and keeps them out of mischief, is a benefactor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "These people," said Mr. A., "were tried. They were found incapable of
+ taking care of themselves. They lacked intelligence or will or honesty or
+ industry or ambition or something, so that in the struggle for existence
+ they fell behind, became stragglers, dropped by the wayside, died in
+ gutters; while many were destined to end their days either in dungeons or
+ on scaffolds. Besides all this, they were a nuisance to their prosperous
+ fellow-citizens, a perpetual menace to the peace of society. They
+ increased the burden of taxation; they filled the ranks of the criminal
+ classes, they made it necessary to build more jails, to employ more
+ policemen and judges; so that I, by enslaving them, not only assisted
+ them, not only protected them against themselves, not only bettered their
+ condition, not only added to the well-being of-society at large, but
+ greatly increased my own fortune."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. A. also took the ground that Providence, by giving him superior
+ intelligence, the genius of command, the aptitude for taking charge of
+ others, had made it his duty to exercise these faculties for the
+ well-being of the people and for the glory of God. Mr. A. frequently
+ declared that he was God's steward. He often said he thanked God that he
+ was not governed by a sickly sentiment, but that he was a man of sense, of
+ judgment, of force of character, and that the means employeed by him were
+ in accordance with the logic of facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the people thus enslaved objected, saying that they had the same
+ right to control themselves that Mr. A. had to control himself. But it
+ only required a little discipline to satisfy them that they were wrong.
+ Some of the people were quite happy, and declared that nothing gave them
+ such perfect contentment as the absence of all responsibility. Mr. A.
+ insisted that all men had not been endowed with the same capacity; that
+ the weak ought to be cared for by the strong; that such was evidently the
+ design of the Creator, and that he intended to do what little he could to
+ carry that design into effect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. A. was very successful. In a few years he had several thousands of
+ men, women, and children working for him. He amassed a large fortune. He
+ felt that he had been intrusted with this money by Providence. He
+ therefore built several churches, and once in a while gave large sums to
+ societies for the spread of civilization. He passed away regretted by a
+ great many people&mdash;not including those who had lived under his
+ immediate administration. He was buried with great pomp, the king being
+ one of the pall-bearers, and on his tomb was this:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HE WAS THE PROVIDENCE OF THE POOR. II.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "And, being rich, my virtue then shall be
+ To say there is no vice but beggary."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. did not believe in slavery. He despised the institution with every
+ drop of his blood, and was an advocate of universal freedom. He held all
+ the ideas of Mr. A. in supreme contempt, and frequently spent whole
+ evenings in denouncing the inhumanity and injustice of the whole business.
+ He even went so far as to contend that many of A.'s slaves had more
+ intelligence than A. himself, and that, whether they had intelligence or
+ not, they had the right to be free. He insisted that Mr. A.'s philanthropy
+ was a sham; that he never bought a human being for the purpose of
+ bettering that being's condition; that he went into the business simply to
+ make money for himself; and that his talk about his slaves committing less
+ crime than when they were free was simply to justify the crime committed
+ by himself in enslaving his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. was a manufacturer, and he employeed some five or six thousand men.
+ He used to say that these men were not forced to work for him; that they
+ were at perfect liberty to accept or reject the terms; that, so far as he
+ was concerned, he would just as soon commit larceny or robbery as to force
+ a man to work for him. "Every laborer under my roof," he used to say, "is
+ as free to choose as I am."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr B. believed in absolutely free trade; thought it an outrage to
+ interfere with the free interplay of forces; said that every man should
+ buy, or at least have the privilege of buying, where he could buy
+ cheapest, and should have the privilege of selling where he could get the
+ most. He insisted that a man who has labor to sell has the right to sell
+ it to the best advantage, and that the purchaser has the right to buy it
+ at the lowest price. He did not enslave men&mdash;he hired them. Some said
+ that he took advantage of their necessities; but he answered that he
+ created no necessities, that he was not responsible for their condition,
+ that he did not make them poor, that he found them poor and gave them
+ work, and gave them the same wages that he could employ others for. He
+ insisted that he was absolutely just to all; he did not give one man more
+ than another, and he never refused to employ a man on account of the man's
+ religion or politics; all that he did was simply to employ that man if the
+ man wished to be employed, and give him the wages, no more and no less,
+ that some other man of like capacity was willing to work for.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. also said that the price of the article manufactured by him fixed
+ the wages of the persons employed, and that he, Mr. B., was not
+ responsible for the price of the article he manufactured; consequently he
+ was not responsible for the wages of the workmen. He agreed to pay them a
+ certain price, he taking the risk of selling his articles, and he paid
+ them regularly just on the day he agreed to pay them, and if they were not
+ satisfied with the wages, they were at perfect liberty to leave. One of
+ his private sayings was: "The poor ye have always with you." And from this
+ he argued that some men were made poor so that others could be generous.
+ "Take poverty and suffering from the world," he said, "and you destroy
+ sympathy and generosity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. made a large amount of money. Many of his workmen complained that
+ their wages did not allow them to live in comfort. Many had large
+ families, and therefore but little to eat. Some of them lived in crowded
+ rooms. Many of the children were carried off by disease; but Mr. B. took
+ the ground that all these people had the right to go, that he did not
+ force them to remain, that if they were not healthy it was not his fault,
+ and that whenever it pleased Providence to remove a child, or one of the
+ parents, he, Mr. B., was not responsible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. insisted that many of his workmen were extravagant; that they
+ bought things that they did not need; that they wasted in beer and
+ tobacco, money that they should save for funerals; that many of them
+ visited places of amusement when they should have been thinking about
+ death, and that others bought toys to please the children when they hardly
+ had bread enough to eat. He felt that he was in no way accountable for
+ this extravagance, nor for the fact that their wages did not give them the
+ necessaries of life, because he not only gave them the same wages that
+ other manufacturers gave, but the same wages that other workmen were
+ willing to work for.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. said,&mdash;and he always said this as though it ended the
+ argument,&mdash;and he generally stood up to say it: "The great law of
+ supply and demand is of divine origin; it is the only law that will work
+ in all possible or conceivable cases; and this law fixes the price of all
+ labor, and from it there is no appeal. If people are not satisfied with
+ the operation of the law, then let them make a new world for themselves."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of Mr. B.'s friends reported that on several occasions, forgetting
+ what he had said on others, he did declare that his confidence was
+ somewhat weakened in the law of supply and demand; but this was only when
+ there seemed to be an over-production of the things he was engaged in
+ manufacturing, and at such times he seemed to doubt the absolute equity of
+ the great law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. made even a larger fortune than Mr. A., because when his workmen
+ got old he did not have to care for them, when they were sick he paid no
+ doctors, and when their children died he bought no coffins. In this way he
+ was relieved of a large part of the expenses that had to be borne by Mr.
+ A. When his workmen became too old, they were sent to the poorhouse; when
+ they were sick, they were assisted by charitable societies; and when they
+ died, they were buried by pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a few years Mr. B. was the owner of many millions. He also considered
+ himself as one of God's stewards; felt that Providence had given him the
+ intelligence to combine interests, to carry out great schemes, and that he
+ was specially raised up to give employment to many thousands of people. He
+ often regretted that he could do no more for his laborers without
+ lessening his own profits, or, rather, without lessening his fund for the
+ blessing of mankind&mdash;the blessing to begin immediately after his
+ death. He was so anxious to be the providence of posterity that he was
+ sometimes almost heartless in his dealings with contemporaries. He felt
+ that it was necessary for him to be economical, to save every dollar that
+ he could, because in this way he could increase the fund that was finally
+ to bless mankind. He also felt that in this way he could lay the
+ foundations of a permanent fame&mdash;that he could build, through his
+ executors, an asylum to be called the "B. Asylum," that he could fill a
+ building with books to be called the "B. Library," and that he could also
+ build and endow an institution of learning to be called the "B. College,"
+ and that, in addition, a large amount of money could be given for the
+ purpose of civilizing the citizens of less fortunate countries, to the end
+ that they might become imbued with that spirit of combination and
+ manufacture that results in putting large fortunes in the hands of those
+ who have been selected by Providence, on account of their talents, to make
+ a better distribution of wealth than those who earned it could have done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. spent many thousands of dollars to procure such legislation as
+ would protect him from foreign competition. He did not believe the law of
+ supply and demand would work when interfered with by manufacturers living
+ in other countries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B., like Mr. A., was a man of judgment. He had what is called a level
+ head, was not easily turned aside from his purpose, and felt that he was
+ in accord with the general sentiment of his time. By his own exertions he
+ rose from poverty to wealth. He was born in a hut and died in a palace. He
+ was a patron of art and enriched his walls with the works of the masters.
+ He insisted that others could and should follow his example. For those who
+ failed or refused he had no sympathy. He accounted for their poverty and
+ wretchedness by saying: "These paupers have only themselves to blame." He
+ died without ever having lost a dollar. His funeral was magnificent, and
+ clergymen vied with each other in laudations of the dead. Over his dust
+ rises a monument of marble with the words:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HE LIVED FOR OTHERS. III
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "But there are men who steal, and vainly try
+ To gild the crime with pompous charity."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ There was another man, Mr. C., who also had the genius for combination. He
+ understood the value of capital, the value of labor; knew exactly how much
+ could be done with machinery; understood the economy of things; knew how
+ to do everything in the easiest and shortest way. And he, too, was a
+ manufacturer and had in his employ many thousands of men, women, and
+ children. He was what is called a visionary, a sentimentalist, rather weak
+ in his will, not very obstinate, had but little egotism; and it never
+ occurred to him that he had been selected by Providence, or any
+ supernatural power, to divide the property of others. It did not seem to
+ him that he had any right to take from other men their labor without
+ giving them a full equivalent. He felt that if he had more intelligence
+ than his fellow-men he ought to use that intelligence not only for his own
+ good but for theirs; that he certainly ought not to use it for the purpose
+ of gaining an advantage over those who were his intellectual inferiors. He
+ used to say that a man strong intellectually had no more right to take
+ advantage of a man weak intellectually than the physically strong had to
+ rob the physically weak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also insisted that we should not take advantage of each other's
+ necessities; that you should not ask a drowning man a greater price for
+ lumber than you would if he stood on the shore; that if you took into
+ consideration the necessities of your fellow-man, it should be only to
+ lessen the price of that which you would sell to him, not to increase it.
+ He insisted that honest men do not take advantage of their fellows. He was
+ so weak that he had not perfect confidence in the great law of supply and
+ demand as applied to flesh and blood. He took into consideration another
+ law of supply and demand; he knew that the workingman had to be supplied
+ with food, and that his nature demanded something to eat, a house to live
+ in, clothes to wear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. C. used to think about this law of supply and demand as applicable to
+ individuals. He found that men would work for exceedingly small wages when
+ pressed for the necessaries of life; that under some circumstances they
+ would give their labor for half of what it was worth to the employer,
+ because they were in a position where they must do something for wife or
+ child. He concluded that he had no right to take advantage of the
+ necessities of others, and that he should in the first place honestly find
+ what the work was worth to him, and then give to the man who did the work
+ that amount.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Other manufacturers regarded Mr. C. as substantially insane, while most of
+ his workmen looked upon him as an exceedingly good-natured man, without
+ any particular genius for business. Mr. C., however, cared little about
+ the opinions of others, so long as he maintained his respect for himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the end of the first year he found that he had made a large profit, and
+ thereupon he divided this profit with the people who had earned it. Some
+ of his friends said to him that he ought to endow some public institution;
+ that there should be a college in his native town; but Mr. C. was of such
+ a peculiar turn of mind that he thought justice ought to go before
+ charity, and a little in front of egotism, and a desire to immortalize
+ one's self. He said that it seemed to him that of all persons in the world
+ entitled to this profit were the men who had earned it, the men who had
+ made it by their labor, by days of actual toil. He insisted that, as they
+ had earned it, it was really theirs, and if it was theirs, they should
+ have it and should spend it in their own way. Mr. C. was told that he
+ would make the workmen in other factories dissatisfied, that other
+ manufacturers would become his enemies, and that his course would
+ scandalize some of the greatest men who had done so much for the
+ civilization of the world and for the spread of intelligence. Mr. C.
+ became extremely unpopular with men of talent, with those who had a genius
+ for business. He, however, pursued his way, and carried on his business
+ with the idea that the men who did the work were entitled to a fair share
+ of the profits; that, after all, money was not as sacred as men, and that
+ the law of supply and demand, as understood, did not apply to flesh and
+ blood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. C. said: "I cannot be happy if those who work for me are defrauded. If
+ I feel I am taking what belongs to them, then my life becomes miserable.
+ To feel that I have done justice is one of the necessities of my nature. I
+ do not wish to establish colleges. I wish to establish no public
+ institution. My desire is to enable those who work for me to establish a
+ few thousand homes for themselves. My ambition is to enable them to buy
+ the books they really want to read. I do not wish to establish a hospital,
+ but I want to make it possible for my workmen to have the services of the
+ best physicians&mdash;physicians of their own choice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "It is not for me to take their money and use it for the good of others or
+ for my own glory. It is for me to give what they have earned to them.
+ After I have given them the money that belongs to them, I can give them my
+ advice&mdash;I can tell them how I hope they will use it; and after I have
+ advised them, they will use it as they please. You cannot make great men
+ and great women by suppression. Slavery is not the school in which genius
+ is born. Every human being must make his own mistakes for himself, must
+ learn for himself, must have his own experience; and if the world
+ improves, it must be from choice, not from force; and every man who does
+ justice, who sets the example of fair dealing, hastens the coming of
+ universal honesty, of universal civilization."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. C. carried his doctrine out to the fullest extent, honestly and
+ faithfully. When he died, there were at the funeral those who had worked
+ for him, their wives and their children. Their tears fell upon his grave.
+ They planted flowers and paid to him the tribute of their love. Above his
+ silent dust they erected a monument with this inscription:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ HE ALLOWED OTHERS TO LIVE FOR THEMSELVES.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ North American Review, December, 1831.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0016" id="link0016">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE average American, like the average man of any country, has but little
+ imagination. People who speak a different language, or worship some other
+ god, or wear clothing unlike his own, are beyond the horizon of his
+ sympathy. He cares but little or nothing for the sufferings or misfortunes
+ of those who are of a different complexion or of another race. His
+ imagination is not powerful enough to recognize the human being, in spite
+ of peculiarities. Instead of this he looks upon every difference as an
+ evidence of inferiority, and for the inferior he has but little if any
+ feeling. If these "inferior people" claim equal rights he feels insulted,
+ and for the purpose of establishing his own superiority tramples on the
+ rights of the so-called inferior.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our own country the native has always considered himself as much better
+ than the immigrant, and as far superior to all people of a different
+ complexion. At one time our people hated the Irish, then the Germans, then
+ the Italians, and now the Chinese. The Irish and Germans, however, became
+ numerous. They became citizens, and, most important of all, they had
+ votes. They combined, became powerful, and the political parties sought
+ their aid. They had something to give in exchange for protection&mdash;in
+ exchange for political rights. In consequence of this they were flattered
+ by candidates, praised by the political press, and became powerful enough
+ not only to protect themselves, but at last to govern the principal cities
+ in the United States. As a matter of fact the Irish and the Germans drove
+ the native Americans out of the trades and from the lower forms of labor.
+ They built the railways and canals. They became servants. Afterward the
+ Irish and the Germans were driven from the canals and railways by the
+ Italians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Irish and Germans improved their condition. They went into other
+ businesses, into the higher and more lucrative trades. They entered the
+ professions, turned their attention to politics, became merchants,
+ brokers, and professors in colleges. They are not now building railroads
+ or digging on public works. They are contractors, legislators, holders of
+ office, and the Italians and Chinese are doing the old work.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If matters had been allowed to work in a natural way, without the
+ interference of mobs or legislators, the Chinese would have driven the
+ Italians to better employments, and all menial labor would, in time, be
+ done by the Mongolians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In olden times each nation hated all others. This was considered natural
+ and patriotic. Spain, after many centuries of war, expelled the Moors,
+ then the Moriscoes, and then the Jews. And Spain, in the name of religion
+ and patriotism, succeeded in driving from its territory its industry, its
+ taste and its intelligence, and by these mistakes became poor, ignorant
+ and weak. France started on the same path when the Huguenots were
+ expelled, and even England at one time deported the Jews. In those days a
+ difference of race or religion was sufficient to justify any absurdity and
+ any cruelty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our country, as a matter of fact, there is but little prejudice against
+ emigrants coming from Europe, except among naturalized citizens; but
+ nearly all foreign-born citizens are united in their prejudice against the
+ Chinese.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The truth is that the Chinese came to this country by invitation. Under
+ the Burlingame Treaty, China and the United States recognized:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and
+ allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of free migration and emigration
+ of their citizens and subjects respectively from one country to the other
+ for purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it was provided:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That the citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China and
+ Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States should
+ reciprocally enjoy the same privileges, immunities and exemptions, in
+ respect to travel or residence, as shall be enjoyed by the citizens or
+ subjects of the most favored nation, in the country in which they shall
+ respectively be visiting or residing."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, by the treaty of 1880, providing for the limitation or suspension of
+ emigration of Chinese labor, it was declared:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "That the limitation or suspension should apply only to Chinese who
+ emigrated to the United States as laborers; but that Chinese laborers who
+ were then in the United States should be allowed to go and come of their
+ own free will and should be accorded all the rights, privileges,
+ immunities and exemptions, which were accorded to the citizens and
+ subjects of the most favored nations."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will thus be seen that all Chinese laborers who came to this country
+ prior to the treaty of 1880 were to be treated the same as the citizens
+ and subjects of the most favored nation; that is to say, they were to be
+ protected by our laws the same as we protect our own citizens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These Chinese laborers are inoffensive, peaceable and law-abiding. They
+ are honest, keeping their contracts, doing as they agree. They are
+ exceedingly industrious, always ready to work and always giving
+ satisfaction to their employers. They do not interfere with other people.
+ They cannot become citizens. They have no voice in the making or the
+ execution of the laws. They attend to their own business. They have their
+ own ideas, customs, religion and ceremonies&mdash;about as foolish as our
+ own; but they do not try to make converts or to force their dogmas on
+ others. They are patient, uncomplaining, stoical and philosophical. They
+ earn what they can, giving reasonable value for the money they receive,
+ and as a rule, when they have amassed a few thousand dollars, they go back
+ to their own country. They do not interfere with our ideas, our ways or
+ customs. They are silent workers, toiling without any object, except to do
+ their work and get their pay. They do not establish saloons and run for
+ Congress. Neither do they combine for the purpose of governing others. Of
+ all the people on our soil they are the least meddlesome. Some of them
+ smoke opium, but the opium-smoker does not beat his wife. Some of them
+ play games of chance, but they are not members of the Stock Exchange. They
+ eat the bread that they earn; they neither beg nor steal, but they are of
+ no use to parties or politicians except as they become fuel to supply the
+ flame of prejudice. They are not citizens and they cannot vote. Their
+ employers are about the only friends they have.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the Pacific States the lowest became their enemies and asked for their
+ expulsion. They denounced the Chinese and those who gave them work. The
+ patient followers of Confucius were treated as outcasts&mdash;stoned by
+ boys in the streets and mobbed by the fathers. Few seemed to have any
+ respect for their rights or their feelings. They were unlike us. They wore
+ different clothes. They dressed their hair in a peculiar way, and
+ therefore they were beyond our sympathies. These ideas, these practices,
+ demoralized many communities; the laboring people became cruel and the
+ small politicians infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the rights of even one human being are held in contempt the rights of
+ all are in danger. We cannot destroy the liberties of others without
+ losing our own. By exciting the prejudices of the ignorant we at last
+ produce a contempt for law and justice, and sow the seeds of violence and
+ crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Both of the great political parties pandered to the leaders of the crusade
+ against the Chinese for the sake of electoral votes, and in the Pacific
+ States the friends of the Chinese were forced to keep still or to publicly
+ speak contrary to their convictions. The orators of the "Sand Lots" were
+ in power, and the policy of the whole country was dictated by the most
+ ignorant and prejudiced of our citizens. Both of the great parties
+ ratified the outrages committed by the mobs, and proceeded with alacrity
+ to violate the treaties and solemn obligations of the Government. These
+ treaties were violated, these obligations were denied, and thousands of
+ Chinamen were deprived of their rights, of their property, and hundreds
+ were maimed or murdered. They were driven from their homes. They were
+ hunted like wild beasts. All this was done in a country that sends
+ missionaries to China to tell the benighted savages of the blessed
+ religion of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At first a demand was made that the Chinese should be driven out, then
+ that no others should be allowed to come, and laws with these objects in
+ view were passed, in spite of the treaties, preventing the coming of any
+ more. For a time that satisfied the haters of the Mongolian. Then came a
+ demand for more stringent legislation, so that many of the Chinese already
+ here could be compelled to leave. The answer or response to this demand is
+ what is known as the Geary Law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By this act it is provided, among other things, that any Chinaman
+ convicted of not being lawfully in the country shall be removed to China,
+ after having been imprisoned at hard labor for not exceeding one year.
+ This law also does away with bail on <i>habeas corpus</i>, proceedings
+ where the right to land has been denied to a Chinaman. It also compels all
+ Chinese laborers to obtain, within one year after the passage of the law,
+ certificates of residence from the revenue collectors, and if found
+ without such certificate they shall be held to be unlawfully in the United
+ States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is further provided that if a Chinaman claims that he failed to get
+ such certificate by "accident, sickness or other unavoidable cause," then
+ he must clearly establish such claim to the satisfaction of the judge "by
+ at least one credible white witness."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we were at war with China then we might legally consider every Chinaman
+ as an enemy, but we were and are at peace with that country. The Geary Act
+ was passed by Congress and signed by the President simply for the sake of
+ votes. The Democrats in Congress voted for it to save the Pacific States
+ to the Democratic column; and a Republican President signed it so that the
+ Pacific States should vote the Republican ticket. Principle was forgotten,
+ or rather it was sacrificed, in the hope of political success. It was then
+ known, as now, that China is a peaceful nation, that it does not believe
+ in war as a remedy, that it relies on negotiation and treaty. It is also
+ known that the Chinese in this country were helpless, without friends,
+ without power to defend themselves. It is possible that many members of
+ Congress voted in favor of the Act believing that the Supreme Court would
+ hold it unconstitutional, and that in the meantime it might be politically
+ useful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The idea of imprisoning a man at hard labor for a year, and this man a
+ citizen of a friendly nation, for the crime of being found in this country
+ without a certificate of residence, must be abhorrent to the mind of every
+ enlightened man. Such punishment for such an "offence" is barbarous and
+ belongs to the earliest times of which we know. This law makes industry a
+ crime and puts one who works for his bread on a level with thieves and the
+ lowest criminals, treats him as a felon, and clothes him in the stripes of
+ a convict,&mdash;and all this is done at the demand of the ignorant, of
+ the prejudiced, of the heartless, and because the Chinese are not voters
+ and have no political power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Chinese are not driven away because there is no room for them. Our
+ country is not crowded. There are many millions of acres waiting for the
+ plow. There is plenty of room here under our flag for five hundred
+ millions of people. These Chinese that we wish to oppress and imprison are
+ people who understand the art of irrigation. They can redeem the deserts.
+ They are the best of gardeners. They are modest and willing to occupy the
+ lowest seats. They only ask to be day-laborers, washers and ironers. They
+ are willing to sweep and scrub. They are good cooks. They can clear lands
+ and build railroads. They do not ask to be masters&mdash;they wish only to
+ serve. In every capacity they are faithful; but in this country their
+ virtues have made enemies, and they are hated because of their patience,
+ their honesty and their industry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Geary Law, however, failed to provide the ways and means for carrying
+ it into effect, so that the probability is it will remain a dead letter
+ upon the statute book. The sum of money required to carry it out is too
+ large, and the law fails to create the machinery and name the persons
+ authorized to deport the Chinese. Neither is there any mode of trial
+ pointed out. According to the law there need be no indictment by a grand
+ jury, no trial by a jury, and the person found guilty of being here
+ without a certificate of residence can be imprisoned and treated as a
+ felon without the ordinary forms of trial.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This law is contrary to the laws and customs of nations. The punishment is
+ unusual, severe, and contrary to our Constitution, and under its
+ provisions aliens&mdash;citizens of a friendly nation&mdash;can be
+ imprisoned without due process of law. The law is barbarous, contrary to
+ the spirit and genius of American institutions, and was passed in
+ violation of solemn treaty stipulations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Congress-that passed it is the same that closed the gates of the
+ World's Fair on the "blessed Sabbath," thinking it wicked to look at
+ statues and pictures on that day. These representatives of the people seem
+ to have had more piety than principle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the passage of such a law by the United States is it not indecent
+ for us to send missionaries to China? Is there not work enough for them at
+ home? We send ministers to China to convert the heathen; but when we find
+ a Chinaman on our soil, where he can be saved by our example, we treat him
+ as a criminal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is to the interest of this country to maintain friendly relations with
+ China. We want the trade of nearly one-fourth of the human race. We want
+ to pay for all we get from that country in articles of our own
+ manufacture. We lost the trade of Mexico and the South American Republics
+ because of slavery, because we hated people in whose veins was found a
+ drop of African blood, and now we are losing the trade of China by
+ pandering to the prejudices of the ignorant and cruel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, it pays to do right. This is a hard truth to learn&mdash;especially
+ for a nation. A great nation should be bound by the highest conception of
+ justice and honor. Above all things it should be true to its treaties, its
+ contracts, its obligations. It should remember that its responsibilities
+ are in accordance with its power and intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our Government is founded on the equality of human rights&mdash;on the
+ idea, the sacred truth, that all are entitled to life, liberty and the
+ pursuit of happiness. Our country is an asylum for the oppressed of all
+ nations&mdash;of all races. Here, the Government gets its power from the
+ consent of the governed. After the abolition of slavery these great truths
+ were not only admitted, but they found expression in our Constitution and
+ laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall we now go back to barbarism?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Russia is earning the hatred of the civilized world by driving the Jews
+ from their homes. But what can the United States say? Our mouths are
+ closed by the Geary Law. We are in the same business. Our law is as
+ inhuman as the order or ukase of the Czar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us retrace our steps, repeal the law and accomplish what we justly
+ desire by civilized means. Let us treat China as we would England; and,
+ above all, let us respect the rights of men,&mdash;North American Review,
+ July, 1893.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0017" id="link0017">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A WORD ABOUT EDUCATION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE end of life&mdash;the object of life&mdash;is happiness. Nothing can
+ be better than that&mdash;nothing higher. In order to be really happy, man
+ must be in harmony with his surroundings, with the conditions of
+ well-being. In order to know these surroundings, he must be educated, and
+ education is of value only as it contributes to the wellbeing of man, and
+ only that is education which increases the power of man to gratify his
+ real wants&mdash;wants of body and of mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The educated man knows the necessity of finding out the facts in nature,
+ the relations between himself and his fellow-men, between himself and the
+ world, to the end that he may take advantage of these facts and relations
+ for the benefit of himself and others. He knows that a man may understand
+ Latin and Greek, Hebrew and Sanscrit, and be as ignorant of the great
+ facts and forces in nature as a native of Central Africa.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The educated man knows something that he can use, not only for the benefit
+ of himself, but for the benefit of others. Every skilled mechanic, every
+ good farmer, every man who knows some of the real facts in nature that
+ touch him, is to that extent an educated man. The skilled mechanic and the
+ intelligent farmer may not be what we call "scholars," and what we call
+ scholars may not be educated men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man is in constant need. He must protect himself from cold and heat, from
+ sun and storm. He needs food and raiment for the body, and he needs what
+ we call art for the development and gratification of his brain. Beginning
+ with what are called the necessaries of life, he rises to what are known
+ as the luxuries, and the luxuries become necessaries, and above luxuries
+ he rises to the highest wants of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who is fitted to take care of himself, in the conditions he may be
+ placed, is, in a very important sense, an educated man. The savage who
+ understands the habits of animals, who is a good hunter and fisher, is a
+ man of education, taking into consideration his circumstances. The
+ graduate of a university who cannot take care of himself&mdash;no matter
+ how much he may have studied&mdash;is not an educated man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our time, an educated man, whether a mechanic, a farmer, or one who
+ follows a profession, should know something about what the world has
+ discovered. He should have an idea of the outlines of the sciences. He
+ should have read a little, at least, of the best that has been written. He
+ should know something of mechanics, a little about politics, commerce, and
+ metaphysics; and in addition to all this, he should know how to make
+ something. His hands should be educated, so that he can, if necessary,
+ supply his own wants by supplying the wants of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are mental misers&mdash;men who gather learning all their lives and
+ keep it to themselves. They are worse than hoarders of gold, because when
+ they die their learning dies with them, while the metal miser is compelled
+ to leave his gold for others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first duty of man is to support himself&mdash;to see to it that he
+ does not become a burden. His next duty is to help others if he has a
+ surplus, and if he really believes they deserve to be helped.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not necessary to have what is called a university education in order
+ to be useful or to be happy, any more than it is necessary to be rich, to
+ be happy. Great wealth is a great burden, and to have more than you can
+ use, is to care for more than you want. The happiest are those who are
+ prosperous, and who by reasonable endeavor can supply their reasonable
+ wants and have a little surplus year by year for the winter of their
+ lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it is no use to learn thousands and thousands of useless facts, or to
+ fill the brain with unspoken tongues. This is burdening yourself with more
+ than you can use. The best way is to learn the useful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We all know that men in moderate circumstances cau have just as
+ comfortable houses as the richest, just as comfortable clothing, just as
+ good food. They can see just as fine paintings, just as marvelous statues,
+ and they can hear just as good music. They can attend the same theatres
+ and the same operas. They can enjoy the same sunshine, and above all, can
+ love and be loved just as well as kings and millionaires.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the conclusion of the whole matter is, that he is educated who knows
+ how to take care of himself; and that the happy man is the successful man,
+ and that it is only a burden to have more than you want, or to learn those
+ things that you cannot use.&mdash;The High School Register, Omaha,
+ Nebraska, January. 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0018" id="link0018">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IF I had the power to produce exactly what I want for next Christmas, I
+ would have all the kings and emperors resign and allow the people to
+ govern themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would have all the nobility drop their titles and give their lands back
+ to the people. I would have the Pope throw away his tiara, take off his
+ sacred vestments, and admit that he is not acting for God&mdash;is not
+ infallible&mdash;but is just an ordinary Italian. I would have all the
+ cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and clergymen admit that they
+ know nothing about theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about
+ the destiny of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods or
+ angels. I would have them tell all their "flocks" to think for themselves,
+ to be manly men and womanly women, and to do all in their power to
+ increase the sum of human happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools
+ of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would
+ teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as
+ demonstrated truths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see all the politicians changed to statesmen,&mdash;to men
+ who long to make their country great and free,&mdash;to men who care more
+ for public good than private gain&mdash;men who long to be of use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see all the editors of papers and magazines agree to print
+ the truth and nothing but the truth, to avoid all slander and
+ misrepresentation, and to let the private affairs of the people alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see drunkenness and prohibition both abolished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see corporal punishment done away with in every home, in
+ every school, in every asylum, reformatory, and prison. Cruelty hardens
+ and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see the millionaires unite and form a trust for the public
+ good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see a fair division of profits between capital and labor,
+ so that the toiler could save enough to mingle a little June with the
+ December of his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see an international court established in which to settle
+ disputes between nations, so that armies could be disbanded and the great
+ navies allowed to rust and rot in perfect peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see the whole world free&mdash;free from injustice&mdash;free
+ from superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This will do for next Christmas. The following Christmas, I may want more.&mdash;The
+ Arena, Boston, December, 1897.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0019" id="link0019">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ FOOL FRIENDS.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ NOTHING hurts a man, nothing hurts a party so terribly as fool friends.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ A fool friend is the sewer of bad news, of slander and all base and
+ unpleasant things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A fool friend always knows every mean thing that has been said against you
+ and against the party.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He always knows where your party is losing, and the other is making large
+ gains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He always tells you of the good luck your enemy has had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He implicitly believes every story against you, and kindly suspects your
+ defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A fool friend is always full of a kind of stupid candor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is so candid that he always believes the statement of an enemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He never suspects anything on your side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing pleases him like being shocked by horrible news concerning some
+ good man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He never denies a lie unless it is in your favor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is always finding fault with his party, and is continually begging
+ pardon for not belonging to the other side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is frightfully anxious that all his candidates should stand well with
+ the opposition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is forever seeing the faults of his party and the virtues of the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He generally shows his candor by scratching the ticket.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He always searches every nook and comer of his conscience to find a reason
+ for deserting a friend or a principle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the moment of victory he is magnanimously on your side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In defeat he consoles you by repeating prophecies made after the event.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fool friend regards your reputation as common prey for all the
+ vultures, hyenas and jackals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He takes a sad pleasure in your misfortunes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He forgets his principles to gratify your enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He forgives your maligner, and slanders you with all his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He is so friendly that you cannot kick him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He generally talks for you but always bets the other way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0020" id="link0020">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ INSPIRATION
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ WE are told that we have in our possession the inspired will of God. What
+ is meant by the word "inspired" is not exactly known; but whatever else it
+ may mean, certainly it means that the "inspired" must be the true. If it
+ is true, there is in fact no need of its being inspired&mdash;the truth
+ will take care of itself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church is forced to say that the Bible differs from all other books;
+ it is forced to say that it contains the actual will of God. Let us then
+ see what inspiration really is. A man looks at the sea, and the sea says
+ something to him. It makes an impression upon his mind. It awakens memory,
+ and this impression depends upon the man's experience&mdash;upon his
+ intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a different
+ brain; he has had a different experience. The sea may speak to him of joy;
+ to the other of grief and tears. The sea cannot tell the same thing to any
+ two human beings, because no two human beings have had the same
+ experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another, standing upon the shore, listening to what the great Greek
+ tragedian called "The multitudinous laughter of the sea," may say: Every
+ drop has visited all the shores of the earth; every one has been frozen in
+ the vast and icy North; every one has fallen in snow, has been whirled by
+ storms around mountain peaks; every one has been kissed to vapor by the
+ sun; every one has worn the seven-hued garment of light; every one has
+ fallen in pleasant rain, gurgled from springs and laughed in brooks while
+ lovers wooed upon the banks, and every one has rushed with mighty rivers
+ back to the sea's embrace. Everything in Nature tells a different story to
+ all eyes that see, and to all ears that hear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Once in my life, and once only, I heard Horace Greeley deliver a lecture.
+ I think the title was "Across the Continent." At last he reached the
+ mammoth trees of California, and I thought, "Here is an opportunity for
+ the old man to indulge his fancy. Here are trees that have outlived a
+ thousand human governments. There are limbs above his head older than the
+ pyramids. While man was emerging from barbarism to something like
+ civilization, these trees were growing. Older than history, every one
+ appeared to be a memory, a witness, and a prophecy. The same wind that
+ filled the sails of the Argonauts had swayed these trees." But these trees
+ said nothing of this kind to Mr. Greeley. Upon these subjects not a word
+ was told him. Instead, he took his pencil, and after figuring awhile,
+ remarked: "One of these trees, sawed into inch boards, would make more
+ than three hundred thousand feet of lumber."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was once riding in the cars in Illinois. There had been a violent
+ thunder storm. The rain had ceased, the sun was going down. The great
+ clouds had floated toward the west, and there they assumed most wonderful
+ architectural shapes. There were temples and palaces domed and turreted,
+ and they were touched with silver, with amethyst and gold. They looked
+ like the homes of the Titans, or the palaces of the gods. A man was
+ sitting near me. I touched him and said, "Did you ever see anything so
+ beautiful?" He looked out. He saw nothing of the cloud, nothing of the
+ sun, nothing of the color; he saw only the country, and replied, "Yes, it
+ is beautiful; I always did like rolling land."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On another occasion I was riding in a stage. There had been a snow, and
+ after the snow a sleet, and all the trees were bent, and all the boughs
+ were arched. Every fence, every log cabin, had been transfigured, touched
+ with a glory almost beyond this world. The great fields were a pure and
+ perfect white; the forests, drooping beneath their load of gems, made
+ wonderful caves, from which one almost expected to see troops of fairies
+ come. The whole world looked like a bride, jeweled from head to foot. A
+ German on the back seat, hearing our talk, and our exclamations of wonder,
+ leaned forward, looked out of the stage window, and said, "Y-a-a-s; it
+ looks like a clean table cloth!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, when we look upon a flower, a painting, a statue, a star, or a violet,
+ the more we know, the more we have experienced, the more we have thought,
+ the more we remember,&mdash;the more the statue, the star, the painting,
+ the violet, has to tell. Nature says to me all that I am capable of
+ understanding&mdash;gives all that I can receive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As with star or flower or sea, so with a book. A man reads Shakespeare.
+ What does he get from him? All that he has the mind to understand. He gets
+ his little cup full. Let another read him who knows nothing of the drama,
+ nothing of the impersonations of passion, and what does he get? Almost
+ nothing. Shakespeare has a different story for each reader. He is a world
+ in which each recognizes his acquaintances&mdash;he may know a few&mdash;he
+ may know all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The impression that Nature makes upon the mind, the stories told by sea
+ and star and flower, must be the natural food of thought. Leaving out for
+ the moment the impression gained from ancestors, the hereditary fears and
+ drifts and trends&mdash;the natural food of thought must be the impression
+ made upon the brain by coming in contact, through the medium of the five
+ senses, with what we call the outward world. The brain is natural. Its
+ food is natural. The result&mdash;thought&mdash;must be natural. The
+ supernatural can be constructed with no material except the natural. Of
+ the supernatural we can have no conception.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Thought" may be deformed, and the thought of one may be strange to, and
+ denominated as unnatural by, another; but it cannot be supernatural. It
+ may be weak, it may be insane, but it is not supernatural. Above the
+ natural, man cannot rise. There can be deformed ideas, as there are
+ deformed persons. There can be religious monstrosities and misshapen, but
+ they must be naturally produced. Some people have ideas about what they
+ are pleased to call the supernatural; what they call the supernatural is
+ simply the deformed. The world is to each man according to each man. It
+ takes the world as it really is, and that man to make that man's world,
+ and that man's world cannot exist without that man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may ask, and what of all this? I reply: As with everything in Nature,
+ so with the Bible. It has a different story for each reader. Is then, the
+ Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It is. Can God,
+ then, through the Bible, make the same revelation to two persons? He
+ cannot. Why? Because the man who reads it is the man who inspires.
+ Inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. God should have
+ "inspired" readers as well as writers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may reply, God knew that his book would be understood differently by
+ each one; really intended that it should be understood as it is understood
+ by each. If this is so, then my understanding of the Bible is the real
+ revelation to me. If this is so, I have no right to take the understanding
+ of another. I must take the revelation made to me through my
+ understanding, and by that revelation I must stand. Suppose, then, that I
+ do read this Bible honestly, carefully, and when I get through I am
+ compelled to say, "The book is not true!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this is the honest result, then you are compelled to say, either that
+ God has made no revelation to me, or that the revelation that it is not
+ true is the revelation made to me, and by which I am bound. If the book
+ and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it
+ that the book and the brain do not agree? Either God should have written a
+ book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of him who reads.&mdash;The
+ Truth Seeker Annual, New York, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0021" id="link0021">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THOUSANDS of Christians have asked: How was it possible for Christ and his
+ apostles to deceive the people of Jerusalem? How came the miracles to be
+ believed? Who had the impudence to say that lepers had been cleansed, and
+ that the dead had been raised? How could such impostors have escaped
+ exposure?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I ask: How did Mohammed deceive the people of Mecca? How has the Catholic
+ Church imposed upon millions of people? Who can account for the success of
+ falsehood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions of people are directly interested in the false. They live by
+ lying. To deceive is the business of their lives. Truth is a cripple; lies
+ have wings. It is almost impossible to overtake and kill and bury a lie.
+ If you do, some one will erect a monument over the grave, and the lie is
+ born again as an epitaph. Let me give you a case in point.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few days ago the Matlock <i>Register</i>, a paper published in England,
+ printed the following:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ CONVERSION OF THE ARCH ATHEIST.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Mr. Isaac Loveland, of Shoreham, desires us to insert the following:&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "November 27, 1886.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Dear Mr. Loveland.&mdash;A day or two since, I received from Mr. Hine the
+ exhilarating intelligence that through his lectures on the 'Identity of
+ the British Nation with Lost Israel,' in Canada and the United States,
+ that Col. Bob Ingersoll, the arch Atheist, has been converted to
+ Christianity, and has joined the Episcopal Church. Praise the Lord!!!
+ 5,000 of his followers <i>have been won for Christ</i> through Mr. Hine's
+ grand mission work, the other side of the Atlantic. The Colonel's cousin,
+ the Rev. Mr. Ingersoll, wrote to Mr. Hine soon after he began lecturing in
+ America, informing him that his lectures had made a great impression on
+ the Colonel and other Atheists. I noted it at the time in the Messenger.
+ Bradlaugh will yet be converted; his brother has been, and has joined a
+ British Israel Identity Association. This is progress, and shows what an
+ energetic, determined man (like Mr. Hine), who is earnest in his faith,
+ can do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Very faithfully yours,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "H. HODSON RUGG.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Grove-road, St. John's Wood, London."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can we account for an article like that? Who made up this story? Who
+ had the impudence to publish it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, I never saw Mr. Hine, never heard of him until this
+ extract was received by me in the month of December. I never read a word
+ about the "Identity of Lost Israel with the British Nation." It is a
+ question in which I never had, and never expect to have, the slightest
+ possible interest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more preposterous than that the Englishman in whose veins
+ can be found the blood of the Saxon, the Dane, the Norman, the Piet, the
+ Scot and the Celt, is the descendant of "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." The
+ English language does not bear the remotest resemblance to the Hebrew, and
+ yet it is claimed by the Reverend Hod-son Rugg that not only myself, but
+ five thousand other Atheists, were converted by the Rev. Mr. Hine, because
+ of his theory that Englishmen and Americans are simply Jews in disguise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This letter, in my judgment, was published to be used by missionaries in
+ China, Japan, India and Africa.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If stories like this can be circulated about a living man, what may we not
+ expect concerning the dead who have opposed the church?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Countless falsehoods have been circulated about all the opponents of
+ superstition. Whoever attacks the popular falsehoods of his time will find
+ that a lie defends itself by telling other lies. Nothing is so prolific,
+ nothing can so multiply itself, nothing can lay and hatch as many eggs, as
+ a good, healthy, religious lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And nothing is more wonderful than the credulity of the believers in the
+ supernatural. They feel under a kind of obligation to believe everything
+ in favor of their religion, or against any form of what they are pleased
+ to call "Infidelity."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old falsehoods about Voltaire, Paine, Hume, Julian, Diderot and
+ hundreds of others, grow green every spring. They are answered; they are
+ demonstrated to be without the slightest foundation; but they rarely die.
+ And when one does die there seems to be a kind of C&aelig;sarian
+ operation, so that in each instance although the mother dies the child
+ lives to undergo, if necessary, a like operation, leaving another child,
+ and sometimes two.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are thousands and thousands of tongues ready to repeat what the
+ owners know to be false, and these lies are a part of the stock in trade,
+ the valuable assets, of superstition. No church can afford to throw its
+ property away. To admit that these stories are false now, is to admit that
+ the church has been busy lying for hundreds of years, and it is also to
+ admit that the word of the church is not and cannot be taken as evidence
+ of any fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago, I had a little controversy with the editor of the New
+ York <i>Observer</i>, the Rev. Irenaeus Prime, (who is now supposed to be
+ in heaven enjoying the bliss of seeing Infidels in hell), as to whether
+ Thomas Paine recanted his religious opinions. I offered to deposit a
+ thousand dollars for the benefit of a charity, if the reverend doctor
+ would substantiate the charge that Paine recanted. I forced the New York
+ <i>Observer</i> to admit that Paine did not recant, and compelled that
+ paper to say that "Thomas Paine died a blaspheming Infidel."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few months afterward an English paper was sent to me&mdash;a religious
+ paper&mdash;and in that paper was a statement to the effect that the
+ editor of the New York <i>Observer</i> had claimed that Paine recanted;
+ that I had offered to give a thousand dollars to any charity that Mr.
+ Prime might select, if he would establish the fact that Paine did recant;
+ and that so overwhelming was the testimony brought forward by Mr. Prime,
+ that I admitted that Paine did recant, and paid the thousand dollars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is another instance of what might be called the truth of history.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I wrote to the editor of that paper, telling the exact facts, and offering
+ him advertising rates to publish the denial, and in addition, stated that
+ if he would send me a copy of his paper with the denial, I would send him
+ twenty-five dollars for his trouble. I received no reply, and the lie is
+ in all probability still on its travels, going from Sunday school to
+ Sunday school, from pulpit to pulpit, from hypocrite to savage,&mdash;that
+ is to say, from missionary to Hottentot&mdash;without the slightest
+ evidence of fatigue&mdash;fresh and strong, and in its cheeks the roses
+ and lilies of perfect health.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some person, expecting to add another gem to his crown of glory, put in
+ circulation the story that one of my daughters had joined the Presbyterian
+ Church,&mdash;a story without the slightest foundation&mdash;and although
+ denied a hundred times, it is still being printed and circulated for the
+ edification of the faithful. Every few days I receive some letter of
+ inquiry as to this charge, and I have industriously denied it for years,
+ but up to the present time, it shows no signs of death&mdash;not even of
+ weakness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another religious gentleman put in print the charge that my son, having
+ been raised in the atmosphere of Infidelity, had become insane and died in
+ an asylum. Notwithstanding the fact that I never had a son, the story
+ still goes right on, and is repeated day after day without the semblance
+ of a blush.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if all this is done while I am alive and well, and while I have all
+ the facilities of our century for spreading the denials, what will be done
+ after my lips are closed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mendacity of superstition is almost enough to make a man believe in
+ the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so I might go on for a hundred columns. Billions of falsehoods have
+ been told and there are trillions yet to come. The doctrines of Malthus
+ have nothing to do with this particular kind of reproduction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And there are also many other falsehoods which the church has told, the
+ which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world
+ itself could not contain the books that should be written."&mdash;The
+ Truth Seeker, New York, February, 19,1887.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0022" id="link0022">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HOW TO EDIT A LIBERAL PAPER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ A LIBERAL paper should be edited by a Liberal man.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ And by the word Liberal I mean, not only free, not only one who thinks for
+ himself, not only one who has escaped from the prisons of customs and
+ creed, but one who is candid, intelligent and kind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This Liberal editor should not forever play upon one string, no matter how
+ wonderful the music. He should not have his attention forever fixed upon
+ one question&mdash;that is to say, he should not look through a reversed
+ telescope and narrow his horizon to that degree that he sees only one
+ thing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know
+ that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and
+ cannot exist&mdash;all this is but the beginning of wisdom. This only lays
+ the foundation for unprejudiced observation. To kill weeds, to fell
+ forests, to drive away or exterminate wild beasts&mdash;this is
+ preparatory to doing something of greater value. Of course the weeds must
+ be killed, the forests must be felled, and the beasts must be destroyed
+ before the building of homes and the cultivation of fields.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A Liberal paper should not discuss theological questions alone.
+ Intelligent people everywhere have given up most of the old superstitions.
+ They have pretty well made up their minds what is false, and they want to
+ know some others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is to say, liberal toward everything that is true. For this reason, a
+ Liberal paper should keep abreast of the discoveries of the human mind. No
+ science should be neglected; no fact should be overlooked. Inventions
+ should be described and understood. And not only this, but the beautiful
+ in thought, in form and color, should be preserved. The paper should be
+ filled with things calculated to interest thoughtful, intelligent and
+ serious people. There should be a column for children as well as for men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Above all, it should be perfectly kind and candid. In discussion there is
+ no place for hatred, no opportunity for slander. A personality is always
+ out of place. An angry man can neither reason himself, nor perceive the
+ reason of what another says. The orthodox world has always dealt in
+ personalities. Every minister can answer the argument of an opponent by
+ attacking the character of the opponent. This example should never be
+ followed by a Liberal man. Nobody can be bad enough to prove that the
+ Bible is uninspired, and nobody can be good enough to prove that it is the
+ word of God. These facts have no relation. They neither stand nor fall
+ together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing should be asserted that is not known. Nothing should be denied,
+ the falsity of which has not been, or cannot be, demonstrated. Opinions
+ are simply given for what they are worth. They are guesses, and one
+ guesser should give to another guesser all the right of guessing that he
+ claims for himself. Upon the great questions of origin, of destiny, of
+ immortality, of punishment and reward in other worlds, every honest man
+ must say, "I do not know." Upon these questions, this is the creed of
+ intelligence. Nothing is harder to bear than the egotism of ignorance and
+ the arrogance of superstition. The man who has some knowledge of the
+ difficulties surrounding these subjects, who knows something of the
+ limitations of the human mind, must, of necessity, be mentally modest. And
+ this condition of mental modesty is the only one consistent with
+ individual progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Above all, and over all, a Liberal paper should teach the absolute freedom
+ of the mind, the utter independence of the individual, the perfect liberty
+ of speech. We should remember that the world is as it must be; that the
+ present is the necessary offspring of the past; that the future must be
+ what the present makes it, and that the real work of the reformer, of the
+ philanthropist, is to change the conditions of the present, to the end
+ that the future may be better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secular Thought, Toronto, January 8,1887.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0023" id="link0023">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SECULARISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ SEVERAL people have asked me the meaning of this term.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism is the religion of humanity; it embraces the affairs of this
+ world; it is interested in everything that touches the welfare of a
+ sentient being; it advocates attention to the particular planet in which
+ we happen to live; it means that each individual counts for something; it
+ is a declaration of intellectual independence; it means that the pew is
+ superior to the pulpit, that those who bear the burdens shall have the
+ profits and that they who fill the purse shall hold the strings. It is a
+ protest against theological oppression, against ecclesiastical tyranny,
+ against being the serf, subject or slave of any phantom, or of the priest
+ of any phantom. It is a protest against wasting this life for the sake of
+ one that we know not of. It proposes to let the gods take care of
+ themselves. It is another name for common sense; that is to say, the
+ adaptation of means to such ends as are desired and understood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism believes in building a home here, in this world. It trusts to
+ individual effort, to energy, to intelligence, to observation and
+ experience rather than to the unknown and the supernatural. It desires to
+ be happy on this side of the grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism means food and fireside, roof and raiment, reasonable work and
+ reasonable leisure, the cultivation of the tastes, the acquisition of
+ knowledge, the enjoyment of the arts, and it promises for the human race
+ comfort, independence, intelligence, and above all, liberty. It means the
+ abolition of sectarian feuds, of theological hatreds. It means the
+ cultivation of friendship and intellectual hospitality. It means the
+ living for ourselves and each other; for the present instead of the past,
+ for this world rather than for another. It means the right to express your
+ thought in spite of popes, priests, and gods. It means that impudent
+ idleness shall no longer live upon the labor of honest men. It means the
+ destruction of the business of those who trade in fear. It proposes to
+ give serenity and content to the human soul. It will put out the fires of
+ eternal pain. It is striving to do away with violence and vice, with
+ ignorance, poverty and disease. It lives for the ever present to-day, and
+ the ever coming to-morrow. It does not believe in praying and receiving,
+ but in earning and deserving. It regards work as worship, labor as prayer,
+ and wisdom as the savior of mankind. It says to every human being, Take
+ care of yourself so that you may be able to help others; adorn your life
+ with the gems called good deeds; illumine your path with the sunlight
+ called friendship and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no
+ mysteries, no mummeries, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no
+ miracles, and no persecutions. It considers the lilies of the field, and
+ takes thought for the morrow. It says to the whole world, Work that you
+ may eat, drink, and be clothed; work that you may enjoy; work that you may
+ not want; work that you may give and never need.&mdash;The Independent
+ Pulpit, Waco, Texas, 1887.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0024" id="link0024">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN
+ FARM."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IF one wishes to know what orthodox religion really is&mdash;I mean that
+ religion unsoftened by Infidelity, by doubt&mdash;let him read "John Ward,
+ Preacher." This book shows exactly what the love of God will do in the
+ heart of man. This shows what the effect of the creed of Christendom is,
+ when absolutely believed. In this case it is the woman who is free and the
+ man who is enslaved. In "Robert Els-mere" the man is breaking chains,
+ while the woman prefers the old prison with its ivy-covered walls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should a man allow human love to stand between his soul and the will
+ of God&mdash;between his soul and eternal joy? Why should not the true
+ believer tear every blossom of pity, of charity, from his heart, rather
+ than put in peril his immortal soul?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An orthodox minister has a wife with a heart. Having a heart she cannot
+ believe in the orthodox creed. She thinks God better than he is. She
+ flatters the Infinite. This endangers the salvation of her soul. If she is
+ upheld in this the souls of others may be lost. Her husband feels not only
+ accountable for her soul, but for the souls of others that may be injured
+ by what she says, and by what she does. He is compelled to choose between
+ his wife and his duty, between the woman and God. He is not great enough
+ to go with his heart. He is selfish enough to side with the
+ administration, with power. He lives a miserable life and dies a miserable
+ death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble with Christianity is that it has no element of compromise&mdash;it
+ allows no room for charity so far as belief is concerned. Honesty of
+ opinion is not even a mitigating circumstance. You are not asked to
+ understand&mdash;you are commanded to believe. There is no common ground.
+ The church carries no flag of truce. It does not say, Believe you must,
+ but, You must believe. No exception can be made in favor of wife or
+ mother, husband or child. All human relations, all human love must, if
+ necessary, be sacrificed with perfect cheerfulness. "Let the dead bury
+ their dead&mdash;follow thou me. Desert wife and child. Human love is
+ nothing&mdash;nothing but a snare. You must love God better than wife,
+ better than child." John Ward endeavored to live in accordance with this
+ heartless creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more repulsive than an orthodox life&mdash;than one who
+ lives in exact accordance with the creed. It is hard to conceive of a more
+ terrible character than John Calvin. It is somewhat difficult to
+ understand the Puritans, who made themselves unhappy by way of recreation,
+ and who seemed to enjoy themselves when admitting their utter
+ worthlessness and in telling God how richly they deserved to be eternally
+ damned. They loved to pluck from the tree of life every bud, every
+ blossom, every leaf. The bare branches, naked to the wrath of God, excited
+ their admiration. They wondered how birds could sing, and the existence of
+ the rainbow led them to suspect the seriousness of the Deity. How can
+ there be any joy if man believes that he acts and lives under an infinite
+ responsibility, when the only business of this life is to avoid the
+ horrors of the next? Why should the lips of men feel the ripple of
+ laughter if there is a bare possibility that the creed of Christendom is
+ true?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I take it for granted that all people believe as they must&mdash;that all
+ thoughts and dreams have been naturally produced&mdash;that what we call
+ the unnatural is simply the uncommon. All religions, poems, statues, vices
+ and virtues, have been wrought by nature with the instrumentalities called
+ men. No one can read "John Ward, Preacher," without hating with all his
+ heart the creed of John Ward; and no one can read the creed of John Ward,
+ preacher, without pitying with all his heart John Ward; and no one can
+ read this book without feeling how much better the wife was than the
+ husband&mdash;how much better the natural sympathies are than the
+ religions of our day, and how much superior common sense is to what is
+ called theology.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When we lay down the book we feel like saying: No matter whether God
+ exists or not; if he does, he can take care of himself; if he does, he
+ does not take care of us; and whether he lives or not we must take care of
+ ourselves. Human love is better than any religion. It is better to love
+ your wife than to love God. It is better to make a happy home here than to
+ sunder hearts with creeds. This book meets the issues far more frankly,
+ with far greater candor. This book carries out to its logical sequence the
+ Christian creed. It shows how uncomfortable a true believer must be, and
+ how uncomfortable he necessarily makes those with whom he comes in
+ contact. It shows how narrow, how hard, how unsympathetic, how selfish,
+ how unreasonable, how unpoetic, the creed of the orthodox church is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In "Robert Elsmere" there is plenty of evidence of reading and
+ cultivation, of thought and talent. So in "John Ward, Preacher," there is
+ strength, purpose, logic, power of statement, directness and courage. But
+ "The Story of an African Farm" has but little in common with the other
+ two.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a work apart&mdash;belonging to no school, and not to be judged by
+ the ordinary rules and canons of criticism. There are some puerilities and
+ much philosophy, trivialities and some of the profoundest reflections. In
+ addition to this, there is a vast and wonderful sympathy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The following upon love is beautiful and profound: "There is a love that
+ begins in the head and goes down to the heart, and grows slowly, but it
+ lasts till death and asks less than it gives. There is another love that
+ blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the sweetness of life and bitter with
+ the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour; but it is worth having lived
+ a whole life for that hour. It is a blood-red flower, with the color of
+ sin, but there is always the scent of a god about it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no character in "Robert Elsmere" or in "John Ward, Preacher,"
+ comparable for a moment to Lyndall in the "African Farm." In her there is
+ a splendid courage. She does not blame others for her own faults; she
+ accepts. There is that splendid candor that you find in Juliet in "Measure
+ for Measure." She is asked:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Love you the man that wronged you?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And she replies:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Yes; as I love the woman that wronged him."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The death of this wonderful girl is extremely pathetic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ None but an artist could have written it:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then slowly, without a sound, the beautiful eyes closed. The dead face
+ that the glass reflected was a thing of marvellous beauty and
+ tranquillity. The gray dawn crept in over it and saw it lying there."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the story of the hunter is wonderfully told. This hunter climbs above
+ his fellows&mdash;day by day getting away from human sympathy, away from
+ ignorance. He lost at last his fellow-men, and truth was just as far away
+ as ever. Here he found the bones of another hunter, and as he looked upon
+ the poor remains the wild faces said:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He
+ put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you
+ are asleep, neither do your hands ache nor your heart."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the death of Waldo is most wonderfully told. The book is filled with
+ thought, and with thoughts of the writer&mdash;nothing is borrowed. It is
+ original, true and exceedingly sad. It has the pathos of real life. There
+ is in it the hunger of the heart, the vast difference between the actual
+ and the ideal:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I like to feel that strange life beating up against me. I like to realize
+ forms of life utterly unlike my own. When my own life feels small and I am
+ oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see it in a picture, in an
+ instant, a multitude of disconnected, unlike phases of human life&mdash;a
+ mediaeval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet orchard, and
+ looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit trees; little
+ Malay boys playing naked on a shining sea-beach; a Hindoo philosopher
+ alone under his banyan tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the
+ thought of God he may lose himself; a troop of Bacchanalians dressed in
+ white, with crowns of vine-leaves, dancing along the Roman streets; a
+ martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the
+ sky and feeling that already he has the wings that shall bear him up; an
+ epicurean discoursing at a Roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the
+ nature of happiness; a Kafir witch-doctor seeking for herbs by moonlight,
+ while from the huts on the hillside come the sound of dogs barking and the
+ voices of women and children; a mother giving bread and milk to her
+ children in little wooden basins and singing the evening song. I like to
+ see it all; I feel it run through me&mdash;that life belongs to me; it
+ makes my little life larger, it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me
+ in."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The author, Olive Schreiner, has a tropic zone in her heart. She sometimes
+ prattles like a child, then suddenly, and without warning, she speaks like
+ a philosopher&mdash;like one who had guessed the riddle of the Sphinx.
+ She, too, is overwhelmed with the injustice of the world&mdash;with the
+ negligence of nature&mdash;and she finds that it is impossible to find
+ repose for heart or brain in any Christian creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These books show what the people are thinking&mdash;the tendency of modern
+ thought. Singularly enough the three are written by women. Mrs. Ward, the
+ author of "Robert Elsmere," to say the least is not satisfied with the
+ Episcopal Church. She feels sure that its creed is not true. At the same
+ time, she wants it denied in a respectful tone of voice, and she really
+ pities people who are compelled to give up the consolation of eternal
+ punishment, although she has thrown it away herself and the tendency of
+ her book is to make other people do so. It is what the orthodox call "a
+ dangerous book." It is a flank movement calculated to suggest a doubt to
+ the unsuspecting reader, to some sheep who has strayed beyond the
+ shepherd's voice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard for any one to read "John Ward, Preacher," without hating
+ Puritanism with all his heart and without feeling certain that nothing is
+ more heartless than the "scheme of salvation;" and whoever finishes "The
+ Story of an African Farm" will feel that he has been brought in contact
+ with a very great, passionate and tender soul. Is it possible that women,
+ who have been the Caryatides of the church, who have borne its insults and
+ its burdens, are to be its destroyers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man is a being capable of pleasure and pain. The fact that he can enjoy
+ himself&mdash;that he can obtain good&mdash;gives him courage&mdash;courage
+ to defend what he has, courage to try to get more. The fact that he can
+ suffer pain sows in his mind the seeds of fear. Man is also filled with
+ curiosity. He examines. He is astonished by the uncommon. He is forced to
+ take an interest in things because things affect him. He is liable at
+ every moment to be injured. Countless things attack him. He must defend
+ himself. As a consequence his mind is at work; his experience in some
+ degree tells him what may happen; he prepares; he defends himself from
+ heat and cold. All the springs of action lie in the fact that he can
+ suffer and enjoy. The savage has great confidence in his senses. He has
+ absolute confidence in his eyes and ears. It requires many years of
+ education and experience before he becomes satisfied that things are not
+ always what they appear. It would be hard to convince the average
+ barbarian that the sun does not actually rise and set&mdash;hard to
+ convince him that the earth turns. He would rely upon appearances and
+ would record you as insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As man becomes civilized, educated, he finally has more confidence in his
+ reason than in his eyes. He no longer believes that a being called Echo
+ exists. He has found out the theory of sound, and he then knows that the
+ wave of air has been returned to his ear, and the idea of a being who
+ repeats his words fades from his mind; he begins then to rely, not upon
+ appearances, but upon demonstration, upon the result of investigation. At
+ last he finds that he has been deceived in a thousand ways, and he also
+ finds that he can invent certain instruments that are far more accurate
+ than his senses&mdash;instruments that add power to his sight, to his
+ hearing and to the sensitiveness of his touch. Day by day he gains
+ confidence in himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is in the life of the individual, as in the life of the race, a
+ period of credulity, when not only appearances are accepted without
+ question, but the declarations of others. The child in the cradle or in
+ the lap of its mother, has implicit confidence in fairy stories&mdash;believes
+ in giants and dwarfs, in beings who can answer wishes, who create castles
+ and temples and gardens with a thought. So the race, in its infancy,
+ believed in such beings and in such creations. As the child grows, facts
+ take the place of the old beliefs, and the same is true of the race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, the attention of man is drawn first, not to his own mistakes,
+ not to his own faults, but to the mistakes and faults of his neighbors.
+ The same is true of a nation&mdash;it notices first the eccentricities and
+ peculiarities of other nations. This is especially true of religious
+ systems. Christians take it for granted that their religion is true, that
+ there can be about that no doubt, no mistake. They begin to examine the
+ religions of other nations. They take it for granted that all these other
+ religions are false. They are in a frame of mind to notice contradictions,
+ to discover mistakes and to apprehend absurdities. In examining other
+ religions they use their common sense. They carry in the hand the lamp of
+ probability. The miracles of other Christs, or of the founders of other
+ religions, appear unreasonable&mdash;they find that they are not supported
+ by evidence. Most of the stories excite their laughter. Many of the laws
+ seem cruel, many of the ceremonies absurd. These Christians satisfy
+ themselves that they are right in their first conjecture&mdash;that is,
+ that other religions are all made by men. Afterward the same arguments
+ they have used against other religions were found to be equally forcible
+ against their own. They find that the miracles of Buddha rest upon the
+ same kind of evidence as the miracles in the Old Testament, as the
+ miracles in the New&mdash;that the evidence in the one case is just as
+ weak and unreliable as in the other. They also find that it is just as
+ easy to account for the existence of Christianity as for the existence of
+ any other religion, and they find that the human mind in all countries has
+ traveled substantially the same road and has arrived at substantially the
+ same conclusions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be truthfully said that Christianity by the examination of other
+ religions laid the foundation for its own destruction. The moment it
+ examined another religion it became a doubter, a sceptic, an investigator.
+ It began to call for proof. This course being pursued in the examination
+ of Christianity itself, reached the result that had been reached as to
+ other religions. In other words, it was impossible for Christians
+ successfully to attack other religions without showing that their own
+ religion could be destroyed. The fact that only a few years ago we were
+ all provincial should be taken into consideration. A few years ago nations
+ were unacquainted with each other&mdash;no nation had any conception of
+ the real habits, customs, religions and ideas of any other. Each nation
+ imagined itself to be the favored of heaven&mdash;the only one to whom God
+ had condescended to make known his will&mdash;the only one in direct
+ communication with angels and deities. Since the circumnavigation of the
+ globe, since the invention of the steam engine, the discovery of
+ electricity, the nations of the world have become acquainted with each
+ other, and we now know that the old ideas were born of egotism, and that
+ egotism is the child of ignorance and savagery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the egotism of the ancient Jews, who imagined that they were "the
+ chosen people"&mdash;the only ones in whom God took the slightest
+ interest! Imagine the egotism of the Catholic Church, claiming that it is
+ the only church&mdash;that it is continually under the guidance of the
+ Holy Ghost, and that the pope is infallible and occupies the place of God.
+ Think of the egotism of the Presbyterian, who imagines that he is one of
+ "the elect," and that billions of ages before the world was created, God,
+ in the eternal counsel of his own good pleasure, picked out this
+ particular Presbyterian, and at the same time determined to send billions
+ and billions to the pit of eternal pain. Think of the egotism of the man
+ who believes in special providence. The old philosophy, the old religion,
+ was made in about equal parts of ignorance and egotism. This earth was the
+ universe. The sun rose and set simply for the benefit of "God's chosen
+ people." The moon and stars were made to beautify the night, and all the
+ countless hosts of heaven were for no other purpose than to decorate what
+ might be called the ceiling of the earth. It was also believed that this
+ firmament was solid&mdash;that up there the gods lived, and that they
+ could be influenced by the prayers and desires of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have now found that the earth is only a grain of sand, a speck, an atom
+ in an infinite universe. We now know that the sun is a million times
+ larger than the earth, and that other planets are millions of times larger
+ than the sun; and when we think of these things, the old stories of the
+ Garden of Eden and Sinai and Calvary seem infinitely out of proportion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last we have reached a point where we have the candor and the
+ intelligence to examine the claims of our own religion precisely as we
+ examine those of other countries. We have produced men and women great
+ enough to free themselves from the prejudices born of provincialism&mdash;from
+ the prejudices, we might almost say, of patriotism. A few people are great
+ enough not to be controlled by the ideas of the dead&mdash;great enough to
+ know that they are not bound by the mistakes of their ancestors&mdash;and
+ that a man may actually love his mother without accepting her belief. We
+ have even gone further than this, and we are now satisfied that the only
+ way to really honor parents is to tell our best and highest thoughts.
+ These thoughts ought to be in the mind when reading the books referred to.
+ There are certain tendencies, certain trends of thought, and these
+ tendencies&mdash;these trends&mdash;bear fruit; that is to say, they
+ produce the books about which I have spoken as well as many others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0025" id="link0025">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE LIBEL LAWS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ Question. Have you any suggestions to make in regard to remodeling the
+ libel laws?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Answer. I believe that every article appearing in a paper should be signed
+ by the writer. If it is libelous, then the writer and the publisher should
+ both be held responsible in damages. The law on this subject, if changed,
+ should throw greater safeguards around the reputation of the citizen. It
+ does not seem to me that the papers have any right to complain. Probably a
+ good many suits are brought that should not be instituted, but just think
+ of the suits that are not brought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Personally I have no complaint to make, as it would be very hard to find
+ anything in any paper against me, but it has never occurred to me that the
+ press needed any greater liberty than it now enjoys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It might be a good thing for a paper to publish each week, a list of
+ mistakes, if this could be done without making that edition too large. But
+ certainly when a false and scandalous charge has been made by mistake or
+ as the result of imposition, great pains should be taken to give the
+ retraction at once and in a way to attract attention.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose the papers are liable to be imposed upon&mdash;liable to print
+ thousands of articles to which the attention of the editor or proprietor
+ was not called. Still, that is not the fault of the man whose character is
+ attacked. On the whole I think the papers have the advantage of the
+ average citizen as the law now is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If all articles had to be signed by the writer, I am satisfied the writer
+ would be more careful and less liable to write anything of a libelous
+ nature. I am willing to admit that I have given but little attention to
+ the subject, probably for the reason that I have never been a sufferer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would hardly do to hold only the writer responsible. Suppose a man
+ writes a libelous article, leaves the country, and then the article is
+ published; is there no remedy? A suit for libel is not much of a remedy, I
+ admit, but it is some. It is like the bayonet in war. Very few are injured
+ by bayonets, but a good many are afraid that they may be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ &mdash;The Herald, New York, October 26,1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0026" id="link0026">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE read the report of the Rev. R. Heber Newton's sermon and I am
+ satisfied, first, that Mr. Newton simply said what he thoroughly believes
+ to be true, and second, that some of the conclusions at which he arrives
+ are certainly correct. I do not regard Mr. Newton as a heretic or sceptic.
+ Every man who reads the Bible must, to a greater or less extent, think for
+ himself. He need not tell his thoughts; he has the right to keep them to
+ himself. But if he undertakes to tell them, then he should be absolutely
+ honest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Episcopal creed is a few ages behind the thought of the world. For
+ many, years the foremost members and clergymen in that church have been
+ giving some new meanings to the old words and phrases. Words are no more
+ exempt from change than other things in nature. A word at one time rough,
+ jagged, harsh and cruel, is finally worn smooth. A word known as slang,
+ picked out of the gutter, is cleaned, educated, becomes respectable and
+ finally is found in the mouths of the best and purest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must remember that in the world of art the picture depends not alone on
+ the painter, but on the one who sees it. So words must find some part of
+ their meaning in the man who hears or the man who reads. In the old times
+ the word "hell" gave to the hearer or reader the picture of a vast pit
+ filled with an ocean of molten brimstone, in which innumerable souls were
+ suffering the torments of fire, and where millions of devils were engaged
+ in the cheerful occupation of increasing the torments of the damned. This
+ was the real old orthodox view.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As man became civilized, however, the picture grew less and less vivid.
+ Finally, some expressed their doubts about the brimstone, and others began
+ to think that if the Devil was, and is, really an enemy of God he would
+ not spend his time punishing sinners to please God. Why should the Devil
+ be in partnership with his enemy, and why should he inflict torments on
+ poor souls who were his own friends, and who shared with him the feeling
+ of hatred toward the Almighty?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As men became more and more civilized, the idea began to dawn in their
+ minds that an infinitely good and wise being would not have created
+ persons, knowing that they would be eternal failures, or that they were to
+ suffer eternal punishment, because there could be no possible object in
+ eternal punishment&mdash;no reformation, no good to be accomplished&mdash;and
+ certainly the sight of all this torment would not add to the joy of
+ heaven, neither would it tend to the happiness of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the more civilized adopted the idea that punishment is a consequence
+ and not an infliction. Then they took another step and concluded that
+ every soul, in every world, in every age, should have at least the chance
+ of doing right. And yet persons so believing still used the word "hell,"
+ but the old meaning had dropped out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So with regard to the atonement. At one time it was regarded as a kind of
+ bargain in which so much blood was shed for so many souls. This was a
+ barbaric view. Afterward, the mind developing a little, the idea got in
+ the brain that the life of Christ was worth its moral effect. And yet
+ these people use the word "atonement," but the bargain idea has been lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take for instance the word "justice." The meaning that is given to that
+ word depends upon the man who uses it&mdash;depends for the most part on
+ the age in which he lives, the country in which he was born. The same is
+ true of the word "freedom." Millions and millions of people boasted that
+ they were the friends of freedom, while at the same time they enslaved
+ their fellow-men. So, in the name of justice every possible crime has been
+ perpetrated and in the name of mercy every instrument of torture has been
+ used.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Newton realizes the fact that everything in the world changes; that
+ creeds are influenced by civilization, by the acquisition of knowledge, by
+ the progress of the sciences and arts&mdash;in other words, that there is
+ a tendency in man to harmonize his knowledge and to bring about a
+ reconciliation between what he knows and what he believes. This will be
+ fatal to superstition, provided the man knows anything.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Newton, moreover, clearly sees that people are losing confidence in
+ the morality of the gospel; that its foundation lacks common sense; that
+ the doctrine of forgiveness is unscientific, and that it is impossible to
+ feel that the innocent can rightfully suffer for the guilty, or that the
+ suffering of innocence can in any way justify the crimes of the wicked. I
+ think he is mistaken, however, when he says that the early church softened
+ or weakened the barbaric passions. I think the early church was as
+ barbarous as any institution that ever gained a footing in this world. I
+ do not believe that the creed of the early church, as understood, could
+ soften anything. A church that preaches the eternity of punishment has
+ within it the seed of all barbarism and the soil to make it grow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Mr. Newton is undoubtedly right when he says that the organized
+ Christianity of to-day is not the leader in social progress. No one now
+ goes to a synod to find a fact in science or on any subject. A man in
+ doubt does not ask the average minister; he regards him as behind the
+ times. He goes to the scientist, to the library. He depends upon the
+ untrammelled thought of fearless men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church, for the most part, is in the control of the rich, of the
+ respectable, of the well-to-do, of the unsympathetic, of the men who,
+ having succeeded themselves, think that everybody ought to succeed. The
+ spirit of caste is as well developed in the church as it is in the average
+ club. There is the same exclusive feeling, and this feeling in the next
+ world is to be heightened and deepened to such an extent that a large
+ majority of our fellow-men are to be eternally excluded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The peasants of Europe&mdash;the workingmen&mdash;do not go to the church
+ for sympathy. If they do they come home empty, or rather empty hearted.
+ So, in our own country the laboring classes, the mechanics, are not
+ depending on the churches to right their wrongs. They do not expect the
+ pulpits to increase their wages. The preachers get their money from the
+ well-to-do&mdash;from the employeer class&mdash;and their sympathies are
+ with those from whom they receive their wages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers attack the pleasures of the world. They are not so much
+ scandalized by murder and forgery as by dancing and eating meat on Friday.
+ They regard unbelief as the greatest of all sins. They are not touching
+ the real, vital issues of the day, and their hearts do not throb in unison
+ with the hearts of the struggling, the aspiring, the enthusiastic and the
+ real believers in the progress of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is all well enough to say that we should depend on Providence, but
+ experience has taught us that while it may do no harm to say it, it will
+ do no good to do it. We have found that man must be the Providence of man,
+ and that one plow will do more, properly pulled and properly held, toward
+ feeding the world, than all the prayers that ever agitated the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, Mr. Newton is correct in saying, as I understand him to say, that the
+ hope of immortality has nothing to do with orthodox religion. Neither, in
+ my judgment, has the belief in the existence of a God anything in fact to
+ do with real religion. The old doctrine that God wanted man to do
+ something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children
+ of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is
+ gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have
+ what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon
+ the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits
+ at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort,
+ while the virtuous are often clad in rags.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man is beginning to find that he must take care of himself; that special
+ providence is a mistake. This being so, the old religions must go down,
+ and in their place man must depend upon intelligence, industry, honesty;
+ upon the facts that he can ascertain, upon his own experience, upon his
+ own efforts. Then religion becomes a thing of this world&mdash;a religion
+ to put a roof above our heads, a religion that gives to every man a home,
+ a religion that rewards virtue here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Mr. Newton's sermon is in accordance with the Episcopal creed, I
+ congratulate the creed. In any event, I think Mr. Newton deserves great
+ credit for speaking his thought. Do not understand that I imagine that he
+ agrees with me. The most I will say is that in some things I agree with
+ him, and probably there is a little too much truth and a little too much
+ humanity in his remarks to please the bishop.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is this wonderful fact, no man has ever yet been persecuted for
+ thinking God bad. When any one has said that he believed God to be so good
+ that he would, in his own time and way, redeem the entire human race, and
+ that the time would come when every soul would be brought home and sit on
+ an equality with the others around the great fireside of the universe,
+ that man has been denounced as a poor, miserable, wicked wretch.&mdash;New
+ York Herald, December 13,1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0027" id="link0027">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ MY family and I regard Christmas as a holiday&mdash;that is to say, a day
+ of rest and pleasure&mdash;a day to get acquainted with each other, a day
+ to recall old memories, and for the cultivation of social amenities. The
+ festival now called Christmas is far older than Christianity. It was known
+ and celebrated for thousands of years before the establishment of what is
+ known as our religion. It is a relic of sun-worship. It is the day on
+ which the sun triumphs over the hosts of darkness, and thousands of years
+ before the New Testament was written, thousands of years before the
+ republic of Rome existed, before one stone of Athens was laid, before the
+ Pharaohs ruled in Egypt, before the religion of Brahma, before Sanscrit
+ was spoken, men and women crawled out of their caves, pushed the matted
+ hair from their eyes, and greeted the triumph of the sun over the powers
+ of the night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many relics of this worship&mdash;among which is the shaving of
+ the priest's head, leaving the spot shaven surrounded by hair, in
+ imitation of the rays of the sun. There is still another relic&mdash;the
+ ministers of our day close their eyes in prayer. When men worshiped the
+ sun&mdash;when they looked at that luminary and implored its assistance&mdash;they
+ shut their eyes as a matter of necessity. Afterward the priests looking at
+ their idols glittering with gems, shut their eyes in flattery, pretending
+ that they could not bear the effulgence of the presence; and to-day,
+ thousands of years after the old ideas have passed away, the modern
+ parson, without knowing the origin of the custom, closes his eyes when he
+ prays.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many other relics and souvenirs of the dead worship of the sun,
+ and this festival was adopted by Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and by
+ Christians. As a matter of fact, Christianity furnished new steam for an
+ old engine, infused a new spirit into an old religion, and, as a matter of
+ course, the old festival remained.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For all of our festivals you will find corresponding pagan festivals. For
+ instance, take the eucharist, the communion, where persons partake of the
+ body and blood of the Deity. This is an exceedingly old custom. Among the
+ ancients they ate cakes made of corn, in honor of Ceres and they called
+ these cakes the flesh of the goddess, and they drank wine in honor of
+ Bacchus, and called this the blood of their god. And so I could go on
+ giving the pagan origin of every Christian ceremony and custom. The
+ probability is that the worship of the sun was once substantially
+ universal, and consequently the festival of Christ was equally wide
+ spread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As other religions have been produced, the old customs have been adopted
+ and continued, so that the result is, this festival of Christmas is almost
+ world-wide. It is popular because it is a holiday. Overworked people are
+ glad of days that bring rest and recreation and allow them to meet their
+ families and their friends. They are glad of days when they give and
+ receive gifts&mdash;evidences of friendship, of remembrance and love. It
+ is popular because it is really human, and because it is interwoven with
+ our customs, habits, literature, and thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part I am willing to have two or three a year&mdash;the more
+ holidays the better. Many people have an idea that I am opposed to Sunday.
+ I am perfectly willing to have two a week. All I insist on is that these
+ days shall be for the benefit of the people, and that they shall be kept
+ not in a way to make folks miserable or sad or hungry, but in a way to
+ make people happy, and to add a little to the joy of life. Of course, I am
+ in favor of everybody keeping holidays to suit himself, provided he does
+ not interfere with others, and I am perfectly willing that everybody
+ should go to church on that day, provided he is willing that I should go
+ somewhere else.&mdash;The Tribune, New York, December, 1889.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0028" id="link0028">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE object of the Freethinker is to ascertain the truth&mdash;the
+ conditions of well-being&mdash;to the end that this life will be made of
+ value. This is the affirmative, positive, and constructive side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without liberty there is no such thing as real happiness. There may be the
+ contentment of the slave&mdash;of one who is glad that he has passed the
+ day without a beating&mdash;one who is happy because he has had enough to
+ eat&mdash;but the highest possible idea of happiness is freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are demanded&mdash;certain
+ things must be believed&mdash;certain things must be done&mdash;and the
+ man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up
+ all idea of individuality or hope of intellectual growth and progress.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religionist informs us that there is somewhere in the universe an
+ orthodox God, who is endeavoring to govern the world, and who for this
+ purpose resorts to famine and flood, to earthquake and pestilence&mdash;and
+ who, as a last resort, gets up a revival of religion. That is called
+ "affirmative and positive."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man of sense knows that no such God exists, and thereupon he affirms
+ that the orthodox doctrine is infinitely absurd. This is called a
+ "negation." But to my mind it is an affirmation, and is a part of the
+ positive side of Freethought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man who compels this Deity to abdicate his throne renders a vast and
+ splendid service to the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as men believe in tyranny in heaven they will practice tyranny on
+ earth. Most people are exceedingly imitative, and nothing is so gratifying
+ to the average orthodox man as to be like his God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These same Christians tell us that nearly everybody is to be punished
+ forever, while a few fortunate Christians who were elected and selected
+ billions of ages before the world was created, are to be happy. This they
+ call the "tidings of great joy." The Freethinker denounces this doctrine
+ as infamous beyond the power of words to express. He says, and says
+ clearly, that a God who would create a human being, knowing that that
+ being was to be eternally miserable, must of necessity be an infinite
+ fiend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The free man, into whose brain the serpent of superstition has not crept,
+ knows that the dogma of eternal pain is an infinite falsehood. He also
+ knows&mdash;if the dogma be true&mdash;that every decent human being
+ should hate, with every drop of his blood, the creator of the universe. He
+ also knows&mdash;if he knows anything&mdash;that no decent human being
+ could be happy in heaven with a majority of the human race in hell. He
+ knows that a mother could not enjoy the society of Christ with her
+ children in perdition; and if she could, he knows that such a mother is
+ simply a wild beast. The free man knows that the angelic hosts, under such
+ circumstances, could not enjoy themselves unless they had the hearts of
+ boa-constrictors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It will thus be seen that there is an affirmative, a positive, a
+ constructive side to Freethought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the positive side?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First: A denial of all orthodox falsehoods&mdash;an exposure of all
+ superstitions. This is simply clearing the ground, to the end that seeds
+ of value may be planted. It is necessary, first, to fell the trees, to
+ destroy the poisonous vines, to drive out the wild beasts. Then comes
+ another phase&mdash;another kind of work. The Freethinker knows that the
+ universe is natural&mdash;that there is no room, even in infinite space,
+ for the miraculous, for the impossible. The Freethinker knows, or feels
+ that he knows, that there is no sovereign of the universe, who, like some
+ petty king or tyrant, delights in showing his authority. He feels that all
+ in the universe are conditioned beings, and that only those are happy who
+ live in accordance with the conditions of happiness, and this fact or
+ truth or philosophy embraces all men and all gods&mdash;if there be gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The positive side is this: That every good action has good consequences&mdash;that
+ it bears good fruit forever&mdash;and that every bad action has evil
+ consequences, and bears bad fruit. The Freethinker also asserts that every
+ man must bear the consequences of his actions&mdash;that he must reap what
+ he sows, and that he cannot be justified by the goodness of another, or
+ damned for the wickedness of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is still another side, and that is this: The Freethinker knows that
+ all the priests and cardinals and popes know nothing of the supernatural&mdash;they
+ know nothing about gods or angels or heavens or hells&mdash;nothing about
+ inspired books or Holy Ghosts, or incarnations or atonements. He knows
+ that all this is superstition pure and simple. He knows also that these
+ people&mdash;from pope to priest, from bishop to parson, do not the
+ slightest good in this world&mdash;that they live upon the labor of others&mdash;that
+ they earn nothing themselves&mdash;that they contribute nothing toward the
+ happiness, or well-being, or the wealth of mankind. He knows that they
+ trade and traffic in ignorance and fear, that they make merchandise of
+ hope and grief&mdash;and he also knows that in every religion the priest
+ insists on five things&mdash;First: There is a God. Second: He has made
+ known his will. Third: He has selected me to explain this message. Fourth:
+ We will now take up a collection; and Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe
+ will certainly be damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The positive side of Freethought is to find out the truth&mdash;the facts
+ of nature&mdash;to the end that we may take advantage of those truths, of
+ those facts&mdash;for the purpose of feeding and clothing and educating
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, we wish to find that which will lengthen human life&mdash;that
+ which will prevent or kill disease&mdash;that which will do away with pain&mdash;that
+ which will preserve or give us health.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We also want to go in partnership with these forces of nature, to the end
+ that we may be well fed and clothed&mdash;that we may have good houses
+ that protect us from heat and cold. And beyond this&mdash;beyond these
+ simple necessities&mdash;there are still wants and aspirations, and
+ free-thought will give us the highest possible in art&mdash;the most
+ wonderful and thrilling in music&mdash;the greatest paintings, the most
+ marvelous sculpture&mdash;in other words, free-thought will develop the
+ brain to its utmost capacity. Freethought is the mother of art and
+ science, of morality and happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is charged by the worshipers of the Jewish myth, that we destroy, that
+ we do not build.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What have we destroyed? We have destroyed the idea that a monster created
+ and governs this world&mdash;the declaration that a God of infinite mercy
+ and compassion upheld slavery and polygamy and commanded the destruction
+ of men, women, and babes. We have destroyed the idea that this monster
+ created a few of his children for eternal joy, and the vast majority for
+ everlasting pain. We have destroyed the infinite absurdity that salvation
+ depends upon belief, that investigation is dangerous, and that the torch
+ of reason lights only the way to hell. We have taken a grinning devil from
+ every grave, and the curse from death&mdash;and in the place of these
+ dogmas, of these infamies, we have put that which is natural and that
+ which commends itself to the heart and brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Instead of loving God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the
+ sky&mdash;the religion of this world&mdash;the religion of the family&mdash;the
+ love of husband for wife, of wife for husband&mdash;the love of all for
+ children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other;
+ let us live for this world, without regard for the past and without fear
+ for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of
+ ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same
+ philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more absurd than the idea that we can do something to
+ please or displease an infinite Being. If our thoughts and actions can
+ lessen or increase the happiness of God, then to that extent God is the
+ slave and victim of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The energies of the world have been wasted in the service of a phantom&mdash;millions
+ of priests have lived on the industry of others and no effort has been
+ spared to prevent the intellectual freedom of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We know, if we know anything, that supernatural religion has no foundation
+ except falsehood and mistake. To expose these falsehoods&mdash;to correct
+ these mistakes&mdash;to build the fabric of civilization on the foundation
+ of demonstrated truth&mdash;is the task of the Freethinker. To destroy
+ guide-boards that point in the wrong direction&mdash;to correct charts
+ that lure to reef and wreck&mdash;to drive the fiend of fear from the mind&mdash;to
+ protect the cradle from the serpent of superstition and dispel the
+ darkness of ignorance with the sun of science&mdash;is the task of the
+ Freethinker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What constructive work has been done by the church? Christianity gave us a
+ flat world a few thousand years ago&mdash;a heaven above it where Jehovah
+ dwells and a hell below it where most people will dwell. Christianity took
+ the ground that a certain belief was necessary to salvation and that this
+ belief was far better and of more importance than the practice of all the
+ virtues. It became the enemy of investigation&mdash;the bitter and
+ relentless foe of reason and the liberty of thought. It committed every
+ crime and practiced every cruelty in the propagation of its creed. It drew
+ the sword against the freedom of the world. It established schools and
+ universities for the preservation of ignorance. It claimed to have within
+ its keeping the source and standard of all truth. If the church had
+ succeeded the sciences could not have existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Freethought has given us all we have of value. It has been the great
+ constructive force. It is the only discoverer, and every science is its
+ child.&mdash;The Truth Seeker, New York 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0029" id="link0029">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE IMPROVED MAN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE Improved Man will be in favor of universal liberty, that is to say, he
+ will be opposed to all kings and nobles, to all privileged classes. He
+ will give to all others the rights he claims for himself. He will neither
+ bow nor cringe, nor accept bowing and cringing from others. He will be
+ neither master nor slave, neither prince nor peasant&mdash;simply man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He will be the enemy of all caste, no matter whether its foundation be
+ wealth, title or power, and of him it will be said: "Blessed is that man
+ who is afraid of no man and of whom no man is afraid."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Improved Man will be in favor of universal education. He will believe
+ it the duty of every person to shed all the light he can, to the end that
+ no child may be reared in darkness. By education he will mean the gaining
+ of useful knowledge, the development of the mind along the natural paths
+ that lead to human happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He will not waste his time in ascertaining the foolish theories of extinct
+ peoples or in studying the dead languages for the sake of understanding
+ the theologies of ignorance and fear, but he will turn his attention to
+ the affairs of life, and will do his utmost to see to it that every child
+ has an opportunity to learn the demonstrated facts of science, the true
+ history of the world, the great principles of right and wrong applicable
+ to human conduct&mdash;the things necessary to the preservation of the
+ individual and of the state, and such arts and industries as are essential
+ to the preservation of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He will also endeavor to develop the mind in the direction of the
+ beautiful&mdash;of the highest art&mdash;so that the palace in which the
+ mind dwells may be enriched and rendered beautiful, to the end that these
+ stones, called facts, may be changed into statues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Improved Man will believe only in the religion of this world. He will
+ have nothing to do with the miraculous and supernatural. He will find that
+ there is no room in the universe for these things. He will know that
+ happiness is the only good, and that everything that tends to the
+ happiness of sentient beings is good, and that to do the things&mdash;and
+ no other&mdash;that add to the happiness of man is to practice the highest
+ possible religion. His motto will be: "Sufficient unto each world is the
+ evil thereof." He will know that each man should be his own priest, and
+ that the brain is the real cathedral. He will know that in the realm of
+ mind there is no authority&mdash;that majorities in this mental world can
+ settle nothing&mdash;that each soul is the sovereign of its own world, and
+ that it cannot abdicate without degrading itself. He will not bow to
+ numbers or force; to antiquity or custom. He, standing under the flag of
+ nature, under the blue and stars, will decide for himself. He will not
+ endeavor by prayers and supplication, by fastings and genuflections, to
+ change the mind of the "Infinite" or alter the course of nature, neither
+ will he employ others to do those things in his place. He will have no
+ confidence in the religion of idleness, and will give no part of what he
+ earns to support parson or priest, archbishop or pope. He will know that
+ honest labor is the highest form of prayer. He will spend no time in
+ ringing bells or swinging censers, or in chanting the litanies of
+ barbarism, but he will appreciate all that is artistic&mdash;that is
+ beautiful&mdash;that tends to refine and ennoble the human race. He will
+ not live a life of fear. He will stand in awe neither of man nor ghosts.
+ He will enjoy not only the sunshine of life, but will bear with fortitude
+ the darkest days. He will have no fear of death. About the grave, there
+ will be no terrors, and his life will end as serenely as the sun rises.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Improved Man will be satisfied that the supernatural does not exist&mdash;that
+ behind every fact, every thought and dream is an efficient cause. He will
+ know that every human action is a necessary product, and he will also know
+ that men cannot be reformed by punishment, by degradation or by revenge.
+ He will regard those who violate the laws of nature and the laws of States
+ as victims of conditions, of circumstances, and he will do what he can for
+ the wellbeing of his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Improved Man will not give his life to the accumulation of wealth. He
+ will find no happiness in exciting the envy of his neighbors. He will not
+ care to live in a palace while others who are good, industrious and kind
+ are compelled to huddle in huts and dens. He will know that great wealth
+ is a great burden, and that to accumulate beyond the actual needs of a
+ reasonable human being is to increase not wealth, but responsibility and
+ trouble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Improved Man will find his greatest joy in the happiness of others and
+ he will know that the home is the real temple. He will believe in the
+ democracy of the fireside, and will reap his greatest reward in being
+ loved by those whose lives he has enriched.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Improved Man will be self-poised, independent, candid and free. He
+ will be a scientist. He will observe, investigate, experiment and
+ demonstrate. He will use his sense and his senses. He will keep his mind
+ open as the day to the hints and suggestions of nature. He will always be
+ a student, a learner and a listener&mdash;a believer in intellectual
+ hospitality. In the world of his brain there will be continuous summer,
+ perpetual seed-time and harvest. Facts will be the foundation of his
+ faith. In one hand he will carry the torch of truth, and with the other
+ raise the fallen.&mdash;The World, New York, February 28,1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0030" id="link0030">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I HARDLY know enough on the subject to give an opinion as to the time when
+ eight hours are to become a day's work, but I am perfectly satisfied that
+ eight hours will become a labor day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The working people should be protected by law; if they are not, the
+ capitalists will require just as many hours as human nature can bear. We
+ have seen here in America street-car drivers working sixteen and seventeen
+ hours a day. It was necessary to have a strike in order to get to
+ fourteen, another strike to get to twelve, and nobody could blame them for
+ keeping on striking till they get to eight hours.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For a man to get up before daylight and work till after dark, life is of
+ no particular importance. He simply earns enough one day to prepare
+ himself to work another. His whole life is spent in want and toil, and
+ such a life is without value.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, I cannot say that the present effort is going to succeed&mdash;all
+ I can say is that I hope it will. I cannot see how any man who does
+ nothing&mdash;who lives in idleness&mdash;can insist that others should
+ work ten or twelve hours a day. Neither can I see how a man who lives on
+ the luxuries of life can find it in his heart, or in his stomach, to say
+ that the poor ought to be satisfied with the crusts and crumbs they get.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe there is to be a revolution in the relations between labor and
+ capital. The laboring people a few generations ago were not very
+ intellectual. There were no schoolhouses, no teachers except the church,
+ and the church taught obedience and faith&mdash;told the poor people that
+ although they had a hard time here, working for nothing, they would be
+ paid in Paradise with a large interest. Now the working people are more
+ intelligent&mdash;they are better educated&mdash;they read and write. In
+ order to carry on the works of the present, many of them are machinists of
+ the highest order. They must be reasoners. Every kind of mechanism insists
+ upon logic. The working people are reasoners&mdash;their hands and heads
+ are in partnership. They know a great deal more than the capitalists. It
+ takes a thousand times the brain to make a locomotive that it does to run
+ a store or a bank. Think of the intelligence in a steamship and in all the
+ thousand machines and devices that are now working for the world. These
+ working people read. They meet together&mdash;they discuss. They are
+ becoming more and more independent in thought. They do not believe all
+ they hear. They may take their hats off their heads to the priests, but
+ they keep their brains in their heads for themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The free school in this country has tended to put men on an equality, and
+ the mechanic understands his side of the case, and is able to express his
+ views. Under these circumstances there must be a revolution. That is to
+ say, the relations between capital and labor must be changed, and the time
+ must come when they who do the work&mdash;they who make the money&mdash;will
+ insist on having some of the profits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not expect this remedy to come entirely from the Government, or from
+ Government interference. I think the Government can aid in passing good
+ and wholesome laws&mdash;laws fixing the length of a labor day; laws
+ preventing the employment of children; laws for the safety and security of
+ workingmen in mines and other dangerous places. But the laboring people
+ must rely upon themselves; on their intelligence, and especially on their
+ political power. They are in the majority in this country. They can if
+ they wish&mdash;if they will stand together&mdash;elect Congresses and
+ Senates, Presidents and Judges. They have it in their power to administer
+ the Government of the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The laboring man, however, ought to remember that all who labor are their
+ brothers, and that all women who labor are their sisters, and whenever one
+ class of workingmen or working women is oppressed all other laborers ought
+ to stand by the oppressed class. Probably the worst paid people in the
+ world are the working-women. Think of the sewing women in this city&mdash;and
+ yet we call ourselves civilized! I would like to see all working people
+ unite for the purpose of demanding justice, not only for men, but for
+ women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All my sympathies are on the side of those who toil&mdash;of those who
+ produce the real wealth of the world&mdash;of those who carry the burdens
+ of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Any man who wishes to force his brother to work&mdash;to toil&mdash;more
+ than eight hours a day is not a civilized man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My hope for the workingman has its foundation in the fact that he is
+ growing more and more intelligent. I have also the same hope for the
+ capitalist. The time must come when the capitalist will clearly and
+ plainly see that his interests are identical with those of the laboring
+ man. He will finally become intelligent enough to know that his prosperity
+ depends on the prosperity of those who labor. When both become intelligent
+ the matter will be settled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither labor nor capital should resort to force.&mdash;The Morning
+ Journal, April 27, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0031" id="link0031">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE JEWS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ WHEN I was a child, I was taught that the Jews were an exceedingly
+ hard-hearted and cruel people, and that they were so destitute of the
+ finer feelings that they had a little while before that time crucified the
+ only perfect man who had appeared upon the earth; that this perfect man
+ was also perfect God, and that the Jews had really stained their hands
+ with the blood of the Infinite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I got somewhat older, I found that nearly all people had been guilty
+ of substantially the same crime&mdash;that is, that they had destroyed the
+ progressive and the thoughtful; that religionists had in all ages been
+ cruel; that the chief priests of all people had incited the mob, to the
+ end that heretics&mdash;that is to say, philosophers&mdash;that is to say,
+ men who knew that the chief priests were hypocrites&mdash;might be
+ destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also found that Christians had committed more of these crimes than all
+ other religionists put together.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I also became acquainted with a large number of Jewish people, and I found
+ them like other people, except that, as a rule, they were more
+ industrious, more temperate, had fewer vagrants among them, no beggars,
+ very few criminals; and in addition to all this, I found that they were
+ intelligent, kind to their wives and children, and that, as a rule, they
+ kept their contracts and paid their debts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The prejudice was created almost entirely by religious, or rather
+ irreligious, instruction. All children in Christian countries are taught
+ that all the Jews are to be eternally damned who die in the faith of
+ Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; that it is not enough to believe in the
+ inspiration of the Old Testament&mdash;not enough to obey the Ten
+ Commandments&mdash;not enough to believe the miracles performed in the
+ days of the prophets, but that every Jew must accept the New Testament and
+ must be a believer in Christianity&mdash;that is to say, he must be
+ regenerated&mdash;or he will simply be eternal kindling wood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church has taught, and still teaches, that every Jew is an outcast;
+ that he is to-day busily fulfilling prophecy; that he is a wandering
+ witness in favor of "the glad tidings of great joy;" that Jehovah is
+ seeing to it that the Jews shall not exist as a nation&mdash;that they
+ shall have no abiding place, but that they shall remain scattered, to the
+ end that the inspiration of the Bible may be substantiated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. John Hall of this city, a few years ago, when the Jewish people were
+ being persecuted in Russia, took the ground that it was all fulfillment of
+ prophecy, and that whenever a Jewish maiden was stabbed to death, God put
+ a tongue in every wound for the purpose of declaring the truth of the Old
+ Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just as long as Christians take these positions, of course they will do
+ what they can to assist in the fulfillment of what they call prophecy, and
+ they will do their utmost to keep the Jewish people in a state of exile,
+ and then point to that fact as one of the corner-stones of Christianity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My opinion is that in the early days of Christianity all sensible Jews
+ were witnesses against the faith, and in this way excited the hostility of
+ the orthodox. Every sensible Jew knew that no miracles had been performed
+ in Jerusalem. They all knew that the sun had not been darkened, that the
+ graves had not given up their dead, that the veil of the temple had not
+ been rent in twain&mdash;and they told what they knew. They were then
+ denounced as the most infamous of human beings, and this hatred has
+ pursued them from that day to this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no other chapter in history so infamous, so bloody, so cruel, so
+ relentless, as the chapter in which is told the manner in which Christians&mdash;those
+ who love their enemies&mdash;have treated the Jewish people. This story is
+ enough to bring the blush of shame to the cheek, and the words of
+ indignation to the lips of every honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be more unjust than to generalize about nationalities, and to
+ speak of a race as worthless or vicious, simply because you have met an
+ individual who treated you unjustly. There are good people and bad people
+ in all races, and the individual is not responsible for the crimes of the
+ nation, or the nation responsible for the actions of the few. Good men and
+ honest men are found in every faith, and they are not honest or dishonest
+ because they are Jews or Gentiles, but for entirely different reasons.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the best people I have ever known are Jews, and some of the worst
+ people I have known are Christians. The Christians were not bad simply
+ because they were Christians, neither were the Jews good because they were
+ Jews. A man is far above these badges of faith and race. Good Jews are
+ precisely the same as good Christians, and bad Christians are wonderfully
+ like bad Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Personally, I have either no prejudices about religion, or I have equal
+ prejudice against all religions. The consequence is that I judge of people
+ not by their creeds, not by their rites, not by their mummeries, but by
+ their actions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, at the bottom of this prejudice lies the coiled
+ serpent of superstition. In other words, it is a religious question. It
+ seems impossible for the people of one religion to like the people
+ believing in another religion. They have different gods, different
+ heavens, and a great variety of hells. For the followers of one god to
+ treat the followers of another god decently is a kind of treason. In order
+ to be really true to his god, each follower must not only hate all other
+ gods, but the followers of all other gods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jewish people should outgrow their own superstitions. It is time for
+ them to throw away the idea of inspiration. The intelligent jew of to-day
+ knows that the Old Testament was written by barbarians., and he knows that
+ the rites and ceremonies are simply absurd. He knows that no intelligent
+ man should care anything about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three dead
+ barbarians. In other words, the Jewish people should leave their
+ superstition and rely on science and philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christian should do the same. He, by this time, should know that his
+ religion is a mistake, that his creed has no foundation in the eternal
+ verities. The Christian certainly should give up the hopeless task of
+ converting the Jewish people, and the Jews should give up the useless task
+ of converting the Christians. There is no propriety in swapping
+ superstitions&mdash;neither party can afford to give any boot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the Christian throws away his cruel and heartless superstitions, and
+ when the Jew throws away his, then they can meet as man to man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the meantime, the world will go on in its blundering way, and I shall
+ know and feel that everybody does as he must, and that the Christian, to
+ the extent that he is prejudiced, is prejudiced by reason of his
+ ignorance, and that consequently the great lever with which to raise all
+ mankind into the sunshine of philosophy, is intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0032" id="link0032">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CRUMBLING CREEDS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THERE is a desire in each brain to harmonize the knowledge that it has. If
+ a man knows, or thinks he knows, a few facts, he will naturally use those
+ facts for the purpose of determining the accuracy of his opinions on other
+ subjects. This is simply an effort to establish or prove the unknown by
+ the known&mdash;a process that is constantly going on in the minds of all
+ intelligent people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is natural for a man not governed by fear, to use what he knows in one
+ department of human inquiry, in every other department that he
+ investigates. The average of intelligence has in the last few years
+ greatly increased. Man may have as much credulity as he ever had, on some
+ subjects, but certainly on the old subjects he has less. There is not as
+ great difference to-day between the members of the learned professions and
+ the common people. Man is governed less and less by authority. He cares
+ but little for the conclusions of the universities. He does not feel bound
+ by the actions of synods or ecumenical councils&mdash;neither does he bow
+ to the decisions of the highest tribunals, unless the reasons given for
+ the decision satisfy his intellect. One reason for this is, that the
+ so-called "learned" do not agree among themselves&mdash;that the
+ universities dispute each other&mdash;that the synod attacks the
+ ecumenical council&mdash;that the parson snaps his fingers at the priest,
+ and even the Protestant bishop holds the pope in contempt. If the learned
+ cau thus disagree, there is no reason why the common people should hold to
+ one opinion. They are at least called upon to decide as between the
+ universities or synods; and in order to decide, they must examine both
+ sides, and having examined both sides, they generally have an opinion of
+ their own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when the average man knew nothing of medicine&mdash;he
+ simply opened his mouth and took the dose. If he died, it was simply a
+ dispensation of Providence&mdash;if he got well, it was a triumph of
+ science. Now this average man not only asks the doctor what is the matter
+ with him&mdash;not only asks what medicine will be good for him,&mdash;but
+ insists on knowing the philosophy of the cure&mdash;asks the doctor why he
+ gives it&mdash;what result he expects&mdash;and, as a rule, has a judgment
+ of his own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So in law. The average business man has an exceedingly good idea of the
+ law affecting his business. There is nothing now mysterious about what
+ goes on in courts or in the decisions of judges&mdash;they are published
+ in every direction, and all intelligent people who happen to read these
+ opinions have their ideas as to whether the opinions are right or wrong.
+ They are no longer the victims of doctors, or of lawyers, or of courts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same is true in the world of art and literature. The average man has
+ an opinion of his own. He is no longer a parrot repeating what somebody
+ else says. He not only has opinions, but he has the courage to express
+ them. In literature the old models fail to satisfy him. He has the courage
+ to say that Milton is tiresome&mdash;that Dante is prolix&mdash;that they
+ deal with subjects having no human interest. He laughs at Young's "Night
+ Thoughts" and Pollok's "Course of Time"&mdash;knowing that both are filled
+ with hypocrisies and absurdities. He no longer falls upon his knees before
+ the mechanical poetry of Mr. Pope. He chooses&mdash;and stands by his own
+ opinion. I do not mean that he is entirely independent, but that he is
+ going in that direction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same is true of pictures. He prefers the modern to the old masters. He
+ prefers Corot to Raphael. He gets more real pleasure from Millet and
+ Troyon than from all the pictures of all the saints and donkeys of the
+ Middle Ages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, the days of authority are passing away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same is true in music. The old no longer satisfies, and there is a
+ breadth, color, wealth, in the new that makes the old poor and barren in
+ comparison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To a far greater extent this advance, this individual independence, is
+ seen in the religious world. The religion of our day&mdash;that is to say,
+ the creeds&mdash;at the time they were made, were in perfect harmony with
+ the knowledge, or rather with the ignorance, of man in all other
+ departments of human inquiry. All orthodox creeds agreed with the sciences
+ of their day&mdash;with the astronomy and geology and biology and
+ political conceptions of the Middle Ages. These creeds were declared to be
+ the absolute and eternal truth. They could not be changed without
+ abandoning the claim that made them authority. The priests, through a kind
+ of unconscious self-defence, clung to every word. They denied the truth of
+ all discovery. They measured every assertion in every other department by
+ their creeds. At last the facts against them became so numerous&mdash;their
+ congregations became so intelligent&mdash;that it was necessary to give
+ new meanings to the old words. The cruel was softened&mdash;the absurd was
+ partially explained, and they kept these old words, although the original
+ meanings had fallen out. They became empty purses, but they retained them
+ still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slowly but surely came the time when this course could not longer be
+ pursued. The words must be thrown away&mdash;the creeds must be changed&mdash;they
+ were no longer believed&mdash;only occasionally were they preached. The
+ ministers became a little ashamed&mdash;they began to apologize. Apology
+ is the prelude to retreat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of all the creeds, the Presbyterian, the old Congregational, were the most
+ explicit, and for that reason the most absurd. When these creeds were
+ written, those who wrote them had perfect confidence in their truth. They
+ did not shrink because of their cruelty. They cared nothing for what
+ others called absurdity. They failed not to declare what they believed to
+ be "the whole counsel of God."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time, cruel punishments were inflicted by all governments. People
+ were torn asunder, mutilated, burned. Every atrocity was perpetrated in
+ the name of justice, and the limit of pain was the limit of endurance.
+ These people imagined that God would do as they would do. If they had had
+ it in their power to keep the victim alive for years in the flames, they
+ would most cheerfully have supplied the fagots. They believed that God
+ could keep the victim alive forever, and that therefore his punishment
+ would be eternal. As man becomes civilized he becomes merciful, and the
+ time came when civilized Presbyterians and Congregationalists read their
+ own creeds with horror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not saying that the Presbyterian creed is any worse than the
+ Catholic. It is only a little more specific. Neither am I saying that it
+ is more horrible than the Episcopal. It is not. All orthodox creeds are
+ alike infamous. All of them have good things, and all of them have bad
+ things. You will find in every creed the blossom of mercy and the oak of
+ justice, but under the one and around the other are coiled the serpents of
+ infinite cruelty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time came when orthodox Christians began dimly to perceive that God
+ ought at least to be as good as they were. They felt that they were
+ incapable of inflicting eternal pain, and they began to doubt the
+ propriety of saying that God would do that which a civilized Christian
+ would be incapable of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have improved in all directions for the same reasons. We have better
+ laws now because we have a better sense of justice. We are believing more
+ and more in the government of the people. Consequently we are believing
+ more and more in the education of the people, and from that naturally
+ results greater individuality and a greater desire to hear the honest
+ opinions of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The moment the expression of opinion is allowed in any department,
+ progress begins. We are using our knowledge in every direction. The
+ tendency is to test all opinions by the facts we know. All claims are put
+ in the crucible of investigation&mdash;the object being to separate the
+ true from the false. He who objects to having his opinions thus tested is
+ regarded as a bigot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the professors of all the sciences had claimed that the knowledge they
+ had was given by inspiration&mdash;that it was absolutely true, and that
+ there was no necessity of examining further, not only, but that it was a
+ kind of blasphemy to doubt&mdash;all the sciences would have remained as
+ stationary as religion has. Just to the extent that the Bible was appealed
+ to in matters of science, science was retarded; and just to the extent
+ that science has been appealed to in matters of religion, religion has
+ advanced&mdash;so that now the object of intelligent religionists is to
+ adopt a creed that will bear the test and criticism of science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing may be alluded to in this connection. All the countries of
+ the world are now, and have been for years, open to us. The ideas of other
+ people&mdash;their theories, their religions&mdash;are now known; and we
+ have ascertained that the religions of all people have exactly the same
+ foundation as our own&mdash;that they all arose in the same way, were
+ substantiated in the same way, were maintained by the same means, having
+ precisely the same objects in view.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years, the learned of the religious world were examining the
+ religions of other countries, and in that work they established certain
+ rules of criticism&mdash;pursued certain lines of argument&mdash;by which
+ they overturned the claims of those religions to supernatural origin.
+ After this had been successfully done, others, using the same methods on
+ our religion, pursuing the same line of argument, succeeded in overturning
+ ours. We have found that all miracles rest on the same basis&mdash;that
+ all wonders were born of substantially the same ignorance and the same
+ fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligence of the world is far better distributed than ever before.
+ The historical outlines of all countries are well known. The arguments for
+ and against all systems of religion are generally understood. The average
+ of intelligence is far higher than ever before. All discoveries become
+ almost immediately the property of the whole civilized world, and all
+ thoughts are distributed by the telegraph and press with such rapidity,
+ that provincialism is almost unknown. The egotism of ignorance and
+ seclusion is passing away. The prejudice of race and religion is growing
+ feebler, and everywhere, to a greater extent than ever before, the light
+ is welcome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are a few of the reasons why creeds are crumbling, and why such a
+ change has taken place in the religious world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago the pulpit was an intellectual power. The pews
+ listened with wonder, and accepted without question. There was something
+ sacred about the preacher. He was different from other mortals. He had
+ bread to eat which they knew not of. He was oracular, solemn, dignified,
+ stupid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The pulpit has lost its position. It speaks no longer with authority. The
+ pews determine what shall be preached. They pay only for that which they
+ wish to buy&mdash;for that which they wish to hear. Of course in every
+ church there is an advance guard and a conservative party, and nearly
+ every minister is obliged to preach a little for both. He now and then
+ says a radical thing for one part of his congregation, and takes it mostly
+ back on the next Sabbath, for the sake of the others. Most of them ride
+ two horses, and their time is taken up in urging one forward and in
+ holding the other back.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great reason why the orthodox creeds have become unpopular is, that
+ all teach the dogma of eternal pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In old times, when men were nearly wild beasts, it was natural enough for
+ them to suppose that God would do as they would do in his place, and so
+ they attributed to this God infinite cruelty, infinite revenge. This
+ revenge, this cruelty, wore the mask of justice. They took the ground that
+ God, having made man, had the right to do with him as he pleased. At that
+ time they were not civilized to the extent of seeing that a God would not
+ have the right to make a failure, and that a being of infinite wisdom and
+ power would be under obligation to do the right, and that he would have no
+ right to create any being whose life would not be a blessing. The very
+ fact that he made man, would put him under obligation to see to it that
+ life should not be a curse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery
+ of the men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with torture,
+ with flaying alive and with burnings. The men who burned their fellow-men
+ for a moment, believed that God would burn his enemies forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No civilized men ever believed in this dogma. The belief in eternal
+ punishment has driven millions from the church. It was easy enough for
+ people to imagine that the children of others had gone to hell; that
+ foreigners had been doomed to eternal pain; but when it was brought home&mdash;when
+ fathers and mothers bent above their dead who had died in their sins&mdash;when
+ wives shed their tears on the faces of husbands who had been born but once&mdash;love
+ suggested doubts and love fought the dogma of eternal revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This doctrine is as cruel as the hunger of hyenas, and is infamous beyond
+ the power of any language to express&mdash;yet a creed with this doctrine
+ has been called "the glad tidings of great joy"&mdash;a consolation to the
+ weeping world. It is a source of great pleasure to me to know that all
+ intelligent people are ashamed to admit that they believe it&mdash;that no
+ intelligent clergyman now preaches it, except with a preface to the effect
+ that it is probably untrue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have been blamed for taking this consolation from the world&mdash;for
+ putting out, or trying to put out, the fires of hell; and many orthodox
+ people have wondered how I could be so wicked as to deprive the world of
+ this hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church clung to the doctrine because it seemed a necessary excuse for
+ the existence of the church. The ministers said: "No hell, no atonement;
+ no atonement, no fall of man; no fall of man, no inspired book; no
+ inspired book, no preachers; no preachers, no salary; no hell, no
+ missionaries; no sulphur, no salvation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last, the people are becoming enlightened enough to ask for a better
+ philosophy. The doctrine of hell is now only for the poor, the ragged, the
+ ignorant. Well-dressed people won't have it. Nobody goes to hell in a
+ carriage&mdash;they foot it. Hell is for strangers and tramps. No soul
+ leaves a brown-stone front for hell&mdash;they start from the tenements,
+ from jails and reformatories. In other words, hell is for the poor. It is
+ easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a poor man
+ to get into heaven, or for a rich man to get into hell. The ministers
+ stand by their supporters. Their salaries are paid by the well-to-do, and
+ they can hardly afford to send the subscribers to hell. Every creed in
+ which is the dogma of eternal pain is doomed. Every church teaching the
+ infinite lie must fall, and the sooner the better.&mdash;The Twentieth
+ Century, N, Y., April 21,1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0033" id="link0033">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ OUR SCHOOLS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I BELIEVE that education is the only lever capable of raising mankind. If
+ we wish to make the future of the Republic glorious we must educate the
+ children of the present. The greatest blessing conferred by our Government
+ is the free school. In importance it rises above everything else that the
+ Government does. In its influence it is far greater.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The schoolhouse is infinitely more important than the church, and if all
+ the money wasted in the building of churches could be devoted to education
+ we should become a civilized people. Of course, to the extent that
+ churches disseminate thought they are good, and to the extent that they
+ provoke discussion they are of value, but the real object should be to
+ become acquainted with nature&mdash;with the conditions of happiness&mdash;to
+ the end that man may take advantage of the forces of nature. I believe in
+ the schools for manual training, and that every child should be taught not
+ only to think, but to do, and that the hand should be educated with the
+ brain. The money expended on schools is the best investment made by the
+ Government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The schoolhouses in New York are not sufficient. Many of them are small,
+ dark, unventilated, and unhealthy. They should be the finest public
+ buildings in the city. It would be far better for the Episcopalians to
+ build a university than a cathedral. Attached to all these schoolhouses
+ there should be grounds for the children&mdash;places for air and
+ sunlight. They should be given the best. They are the hope of the Republic
+ and, in my judgment, of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need far more schoolhouses than we have, and while money is being
+ wasted in a thousand directions, thousands of children are left to be
+ educated in the gutter. It is far cheaper to build schoolhouses than
+ prisons, and it is much better to have scholars than convicts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Kindergarten system should be adopted, especially for the young;
+ attending school is then a pleasure&mdash;the children do not run away
+ from school, but to school. We should educate the children not simply in
+ mind, but educate their eyes and hands, and they should be taught
+ something that will be of use, that will help them to make a living, that
+ will give them independence, confidence&mdash;that is to say, character.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cost of the schools is very little, and the cost of land&mdash;giving
+ the children, as I said before, air and light&mdash;would amount to
+ nothing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing: Teachers are poorly paid. Only the best should be
+ employeed, and they should be well paid. Men and women of the highest
+ character should have charge of the children, because there is a vast deal
+ of education in association, and it is of the utmost importance that the
+ children should associate with real gentlemen&mdash;that is to say, with
+ real men; with real ladies&mdash;that is to say, with real women.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every schoolhouse should be inviting, clean, well ventilated, attractive.
+ The surroundings should be delightful. Children forced to school, learn
+ but little. The schoolhouse should not be a prison or the teachers
+ turnkeys.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that the common school is the bread of life, and all should be
+ commanded to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. It would have been
+ far better to have expelled those who refused to eat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest danger to the Republic is ignorance. Intelligence is the
+ foundation of free government.&mdash;The World, New York, September 7,
+ 1800.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0034" id="link0034">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ VIVISECTION.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ *A letter written to Philip G. Peabody. May 27, 1800.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ VIVISECTION is the Inquisition&mdash;the Hell&mdash;of Science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the cruelty which the human&mdash;or rather the inhuman&mdash;heart is
+ capable of inflicting, is in this one word. Below this there is no depth.
+ This word lies like a coiled serpent at the bottom of the abyss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We can excuse, in part, the crimes of passion. We take into consideration
+ the fact that man is liable to be caught by the whirlwind, and that from a
+ brain on fire the soul rushes to a crime. But what excuse can ingenuity
+ form for a man who deliberately&mdash;with an unaccelerated pulse&mdash;with
+ the calmness of John Calvin at the murder of Servetus&mdash;seeks, with
+ curious and cunning knives, in the living, quivering flesh of a dog, for
+ all the throbbing nerves of pain? The wretches who commit these infamous
+ crimes pretend that they are working for the good of man; that they are
+ actuated by philanthropy; and that their pity for the sufferings of the
+ human race drives out all pity for the animals they slowly torture to
+ death. But those who are incapable of pitying animals are, as a matter of
+ fact, incapable of pitying men. A physician who would cut a living rabbit
+ in pieces&mdash;laying bare the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling
+ them out with forceps&mdash;would not hesitate to try experiments with men
+ and women for the gratification of his curiosity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To settle some theory, he would trifle with the life of any patient in his
+ power. By the same reasoning he will justify the vivisection of animals
+ and patients. He will say that it is better that a few animals should
+ suffer than that one human being should die; and that it is far better
+ that one patient should die, if through the sacrifice of that one, several
+ may be saved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart without brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Have these scientific assassins discovered anything of value? They may
+ have settled some disputes as to the action of some organ, but have they
+ added to the useful knowledge of the race?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not necessary for a man to be a specialist in order to have and
+ express his opinion as to the right or wrong of vivisection. It is not
+ necessary to be a scientist or a naturalist to detest cruelty and to love
+ mercy. Above all the discoveries of the thinkers, above all the inventions
+ of the ingenious, above all the victories won on fields of intellectual
+ conflict, rise human sympathy and a sense of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that good for the human race can never be accomplished by torture.
+ I also know that all that has been ascertained by vivisection could have
+ been done by the dissection of the dead. I know that all the torture has
+ been useless. All the agony inflicted has simply hardened the hearts of
+ the criminals, without enlightening their minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that the human race might be physically improved if all the
+ sickly and deformed babes were killed, and if all the paupers, liars,
+ drunkards, thieves, villains, and vivisectionists were murdered. All this
+ might, in a few ages, result in the production of a generation of
+ physically perfect men and women; but what would such beings be worth,&mdash;men
+ and women healthy and heartless, muscular and cruel&mdash;that is to say,
+ intelligent wild beasts?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Never can I be the friend of one who vivisects his fellow-creatures. I do
+ not wish to touch his hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the angel of pity is driven from the heart; when the fountain of
+ tears is dry,&mdash;the soul becomes a serpent crawling in the dust of a
+ desert.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0035" id="link0035">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I SUPPOSE the Government has a right to ask all of these questions, and
+ any more it pleases, but undoubtedly the citizen would have the right to
+ refuse to answer them. Originally the census was taken simply for the
+ purpose of ascertaining the number of people&mdash;first, as a basis of
+ representation; second, as a basis of capitation tax; third, as a basis to
+ arrive at the number of troops that might be called from each State; and
+ it may be for some other purposes, but I imagine that all are embraced in
+ the foregoing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Government has no right to invade the privacy of the citizen; no right
+ to inquire into his financial condition, as thereby his credit might be
+ injured; no right to pry into his affairs, into his diseases, or his
+ deformities; and, while the Government may have the right to ask these
+ questions, I think it was foolish to instruct the enumerators to ask them,
+ and that the citizens have a perfect right to refuse to answer them.
+ Personally, I have no objection to answering any of these questions, for
+ the reason that nothing is the matter with me that money will not cure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that it is thought advisable by many to find out the amount of
+ mortgages in the United States, the rate of interest that is being paid,
+ the general indebtedness of individuals, counties, cities and States, and
+ I see no impropriety in finding this out in any reasonable way. But I
+ think it improper to insist on the debtor exposing his financial
+ condition. My opinion is that Mr. Porter only wants what is perfectly
+ reasonable, and if left to himself, would ask only those questions that
+ all people would willingly answer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I presume we can depend on medical statistics&mdash;on the reports of
+ hospitals, etc., in regard to diseases and deformities, without
+ interfering with the patients. As to the financial standing of people,
+ there are already enough of spies in this country attending to that
+ business. I don't think there is any danger of the courts compelling a man
+ to answer these questions. Suppose a man refuses to tell whether he has a
+ chronic disease or not, and he is brought up before a United States Court
+ for contempt. In my opinion the judge would decide that the man could not
+ be compelled to answer. It is bad enough to have a chronic disease without
+ publishing it to the world. All intelligent people, of course, will be
+ desirous of giving all useful information of a character that cannot be
+ used to their injury, but can be used for the benefit of society at large.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If, however, the courts shall decide that the enumerators have the right
+ to ask these questions, and that everybody must answer them, I doubt if
+ the census will be finished for many years. There are hundreds and
+ thousands of people who delight in telling all about their diseases, when
+ they were attacked, what they have taken, how many doctors have given them
+ up to die, etc., and if the enumerators will stop to listen, the census of
+ 1890 will not be published until the next century.&mdash;The World, New
+ York, June 8, 1890.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0036" id="link0036">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the God of day
+ over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over Delilah, and
+ Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris
+ rises from the dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more. Again
+ Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of light,
+ destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival of Thor, of Baldur
+ and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of
+ Madura, Zoroaster foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus,
+ and Chrishna eludes the tyrant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be
+ universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all religions&mdash;the
+ worship of the sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and most
+ reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most reasonable,
+ but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth, of
+ happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying, the
+ all-loving.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness, of shadow,
+ of night. And so I say again, this is the festival of Light. This is the
+ anniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the hosts of Darkness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us all hope for the triumph of Light&mdash;of Right and Reason&mdash;for
+ the victory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over Superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the Sun.&mdash;The
+ Journal, New York, December 25,1892.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0037" id="link0037">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SPIRITUALITY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IF there is an abused word in our language, it is "spirituality."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It has been repeated over and over for several hundred years by pious
+ pretenders and snivelers as though it belonged exclusively to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the early days of Christianity, the "spiritual" renounced the world
+ with all its duties and obligations. They deserted their wives and
+ children. They became hermits and dwelt in caves. They spent their useless
+ years in praying for their shriveled and worthless souls. They were too
+ "spiritual" to love women, to build homes and to labor for children. They
+ were too "spiritual" to earn their bread, so they became beggars and stood
+ by the highways of Life and held out their hands and asked alms of
+ Industry and Courage. They were too "spiritual" to be merciful. They
+ preached the dogma of eternal pain and gloried in "the wrath to come."
+ They were too "spiritual" to be civilized, so they persecuted their
+ fellow-men for expressing their honest thoughts. They were so "spiritual"
+ that they invented instruments of torture, founded the Inquisition,
+ appealed to the whip, the rack, the sword and the fagot. They tore the
+ flesh of their fellow-men with hooks of iron, buried their neighbors
+ alive, cut off their eyelids, dashed out the brains of babes and cut off
+ the breasts of mothers. These "spiritual" wretches spent day and night on
+ their knees, praying for their own salvation and asking God to curse the
+ best and noblest of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Calvin was intensely "spiritual" when he warmed his fleshless hands
+ at the flames that consumed Servetus.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ John Knox was constrained by his "spirituality" to utter low and loathsome
+ calumnies against all women. All the witch-burners and Quaker-maimers and
+ mutilators were so "spiritual" that they constantly looked heavenward and
+ longed for the skies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These lovers of God&mdash;these haters of men&mdash;looked upon the Greek
+ marbles as unclean, and denounced the glories of Art as the snares and
+ pitfalls of perdition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These "spiritual" mendicants hated laughter and smiles and dimples, and
+ exhausted their diseased and polluted imaginations in the effort to make
+ love loathsome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From almost every pulpit was heard the denunciation of all that adds to
+ the wealth, the joy and glory of life. It became the fashion for the
+ "spiritual" to malign every hope and passion that tends to humanize and
+ refine the heart. Man was denounced as totally depraved. Woman was
+ declared to be a perpetual temptation&mdash;her beauty a snare and her
+ touch pollution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even in our own time and country some of the ministers, no matter how
+ radical they claim to be, retain the aroma, the odor, or the smell of the
+ "spiritual."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They denounce some of the best and greatest&mdash;some of the benefactors
+ of the race&mdash;for having lived on the low plane of usefulness&mdash;and
+ for having had the pitiful ambition to make their fellows happy in this
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thomas Paine was a groveling wretch because he devoted his life to the
+ preservation of the rights of man, and Voltaire lacked the "spiritual"
+ because he abolished torture in France and attacked, with the enthusiasm
+ of a divine madness, the monster that was endeavoring to drive the hope of
+ liberty from the heart of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Humboldt was not "spiritual" enough to repeat with closed eyes the
+ absurdities of superstition, but was so lost to all the "skyey influences"
+ that he was satisfied to add to the intellectual wealth of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Darwin lacked "spirituality," and in its place had nothing but sincerity,
+ patience, intelligence, the spirit of investigation and the courage to
+ give his honest conclusions to the world. He contented himself with giving
+ to his fellow-men the greatest and the sublimest truths that man has
+ spoken since lips have uttered speech.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we are now told that these soldiers of science, these heroes of
+ liberty, these sculptors and painters, these singers of songs, these
+ composers of music, lack "spirituality" and after all were only common
+ clay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This word "spirituality" is the fortress, the breastwork, the rifle-pit of
+ the Pharisee. It sustains the same relation to sincerity that Dutch metal
+ does to pure gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There seems to be something about a pulpit that poisons the occupant&mdash;that
+ changes his nature&mdash;that causes him to denounce what he really loves
+ and to laud with the fervor of insanity a joy that he never felt&mdash;a
+ rapture that never thrilled his soul. Hypnotized by his surroundings, he
+ unconsciously brings to market that which he supposes the purchasers
+ desire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every church, whether orthodox or radical, there are two parties&mdash;one
+ conservative, looking backward, one radical, looking forward, and
+ generally a minister "spiritual" enough to look both ways.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A minister who seems to be a philosopher on the street, or in the home of
+ a sensible man, cannot withstand the atmosphere of the pulpit. The moment
+ he stands behind the Bible cushion, like Bottom, he is "translated" and
+ the Titania of superstition "kisses his large, fair ears."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is more amusing than to hear a clergyman denounce worldliness&mdash;ask
+ his hearers what it will profit them to build railways and palaces and
+ lose their own souls&mdash;inquire of the common folks before him why they
+ waste their precious years in following trades and professions, in
+ gathering treasures that moths corrupt and rust devours, giving their days
+ to the vulgar business of making money,&mdash;and then see him take up a
+ collection, knowing perfectly well that only the worldly, the very people
+ he has denounced, can by any possibility give a dollar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Spirituality" for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance and
+ greed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people imagine that they are "spiritual" when they are sickly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be well enough to ask: What is it to be really spiritual?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The spiritual man lives to his ideal. He endeavors to make others happy.
+ He does not despise the passions that have filled the world with art and
+ glory. He loves his wife and children&mdash;home and fireside. He
+ cultivates the amenities and refinements of life. He is the friend and
+ champion of the oppressed. His sympathies are with the poor and the
+ suffering. He attacks what he believes to be wrong, though defended by the
+ many, and he is willing to stand for the right against the world. He
+ enjoys the beautiful. In the presence of the highest creations of Art his
+ eyes are suffused with tears. When he listens to the great melodies, the
+ divine harmonies, he feels the sorrows and the raptures of death and love.
+ He is intensely human. He carries in his heart the burdens of the world.
+ He searches for the deeper meanings. He appreciates the harmonies of
+ conduct, the melody of a perfect life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He loves his wife and children better than any god. He cares more for the
+ world he lives in than for any other. He tries to discharge the duties of
+ this life, to help those that he can reach. He believes in being useful&mdash;in
+ making money to feed and clothe and educate the ones he loves&mdash;to
+ assist the deserving and to support himself. He does not wish to be a
+ burden on others. He is just, generous and sincere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spirituality is all of this world. It is a child of this earth, born and
+ cradled here. It comes from no heaven, but it makes a heaven where it is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no possible connection between superstition and the spiritual, or
+ between theology and the spiritual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The spiritually-minded man is a poet. If he does not write poetry, he
+ lives it. He is an artist. If he does not paint pictures or chisel
+ statues, he feels them, and their beauty softens his heart. He fills the
+ temple of his soul with all that is beautiful, and he worships at the
+ shrine of the Ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all the relations of life he is faithful and true. He asks for nothing
+ that he does not earn. He does not wish to be happy in heaven if he must
+ receive happiness as alms He does not rely on the goodness of another. He
+ is not ambitious to become a winged pauper.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spirituality is the perfect health of the soul. It is noble, manly,
+ generous, brave, free-spoken, natural, superb.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is more sickening than the "spiritual" whine&mdash;the pretence
+ that crawls at first and talks about humility and then suddenly becomes
+ arrogant and says: "I am 'spiritual.' I hold in contempt the vulgar joys
+ of this life. You work and toil and build homes and sing songs and weave
+ your delicate robes. You love women and children and adorn yourselves. You
+ subdue the earth and dig for gold. You have your theatres, your operas and
+ all the luxuries of life; but I, beggar that I am, Pharisee that I am, am
+ your superior because I am 'spiritual.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Above all things, let us be sincere.&mdash;The Conservator, Philadelphia,
+ 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0038" id="link0038">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SUMTER'S GUN.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ 1861&mdash;April 12th&mdash;1891
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FOR about three-quarters of a century the statesmen, that is to say, the
+ politicians, of the North and South', had been busy making compromises,
+ adopting constitutions and enacting laws; busy making speeches, framing
+ platforms and political pretences, to the end that liberty and slavery
+ might dwell in peace and friendship under the same flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Arrogance on one side, hypocrisy on the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Right apologized to Wrong for the sake of the Union.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sources of justice were poisoned, and patriotism became the defender
+ of piracy. In the name of humanity mothers were robbed of their babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty years ago to-day a shot was fired, and in a moment all the
+ promises, all the laws, all the constitutional amendments, and all the
+ idiotic and heartless decisions of courts, and all the speeches of orators
+ inspired by the hope of place and power, were blown into rags and
+ ravelings, pieces and patches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The North and South had been masquerading as friends, and in a moment,
+ while the sound of that shot was ringing in their ears, they faced each
+ other as enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The roar of that cannon announced the birth of a new epoch. The echoes of
+ that shot went out, not only over the bay of Charleston, but over the
+ hills, the prairies and forests of the continent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These echoes said marvelous things and uttered prophecies that none were
+ wise enough to understand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who at that time had the slightest conception of the immediate future? Who
+ then was great enough to see the end? Who then was wise enough to know
+ that the echoes would be kept alive and repeated for years by thousands
+ and thousands of cannon, by millions of muskets, on the fields of ruthless
+ war?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, was barely a month in
+ the President's chair, and that shot made him the most commanding and
+ majestic figure of the nineteenth century&mdash;a figure that stands
+ alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who could have guessed the names of the heroes to be repeated by countless
+ lips before the echoes of that shot should have died away?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was at that time a young man at Galena, silent, unobtrusive,
+ unknown; and yet, the moment that shot was fired he was destined to lead
+ the greatest host ever marshaled on a field of war, destined to receive
+ the final sword of the Rebellion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was another, in the Southwest, who heard one of the echoes of that
+ shot, and who afterward marched from Atlanta to the sea; and another, far
+ away by the Pacific, who also heard one of the echoes, and who became one
+ of the immortal three.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, above all, the echoes were heard by millions of men and women in the
+ fields of unpaid toil, and they knew not the meaning, but felt that they
+ had heard a prophecy of freedom. And the echoes told of death and glory
+ for many thousands&mdash;of the agonies of women&mdash;the sobs of orphans&mdash;the
+ sighs of the imprisoned, and the glad shouts of the delivered, the
+ enfranchised, the redeemed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They who fired that gun did not dream that they were giving liberty to
+ millions of people, including themselves, white as well as black, North as
+ well as South, and that before the echoes should die away, all the
+ shackles would be broken, all the constitutions and statutes of slavery
+ repealed, and all the compromises merged and lost in a great compact made
+ to preserve the liberties of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0039" id="link0039">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ ONE HUNDRED years after Christ had died suppose some one had asked a
+ Christian, What hospitals have you built? What asylums have you founded?
+ They would have said "None." Suppose three hundred years after the death
+ of Christ the same questions had been asked the Christian, he would have
+ said "None, not one." Two hundred years more and the answer would have
+ been the same. And at that time the Christian could have told the
+ questioner that the Mohammedans had built asylums before the Christians.
+ He could also have told him that there had been orphan asylums in China
+ for hundreds and hundreds of years, hospitals in India, and hospitals for
+ the sick at Athens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here it may be well enough to say that all hospitals and asylums are not
+ built for charity. They are built because people do not want to be annoyed
+ by the sick and the insane. If a sick man should come down the street and
+ sit upon your doorstep, what would you do with him? You would have to take
+ him into your house or leave him to suffer. Private families do not wish
+ to take the burden of the sick. Consequently, in self-defence, hospitals
+ are built so that any wanderer coming to a house, dying, or suffering from
+ any disease, may immediately be packed off to a hospital and not become a
+ burden upon private charity. The fact that many diseases are contagious
+ rendered hospitals necessary for the preservation of the lives of the
+ citizens. The same thing is true of the asylums. People do not, as a rule,
+ want to take into their families, all the children who happen to have no
+ fathers and mothers. So they endow and build an asylum where those
+ children can be sent&mdash;and where they can be whipped according to law.
+ Nobody wants an insane stranger in his house. The consequence is, that the
+ community, to get rid of these people, to get rid of the trouble, build
+ public institutions and send them there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, to come to the point, to answer the interrogatory often flung
+ at us from the pulpit, What institutions have Infidels built? In the first
+ place, there have not been many Infidels for many years and, as a rule, a
+ known Infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the Christians are
+ so forgiving and loving they boycott him. If the average Infidel, freely
+ stating his opinion, could get through the world himself, for the last
+ several hundred years, he has been in good luck. But as a matter of fact
+ there have been some Infidels who have done some good, even from a
+ Christian standpoint. The greatest charity ever established in the United
+ States by a man&mdash;not by a community to get rid of a nuisance, but by
+ a man who wished to do good and wished that good to last after his death&mdash;is
+ the Girard College in the city of Philadelphia. Girard was an Infidel. He
+ gained his first publicity by going like a common person into the
+ hospitals and taking care of those suffering from contagious diseases&mdash;from
+ cholera and smallpox. So there is a man by the name of James Lick, an
+ Infidel, who has given the finest observatory ever given to the world. And
+ it is a good thing for an Infidel to increase the sight of men. The reason
+ people are theologians is because they cannot see. Mr. Lick has increased
+ human vision, and I can say right here that nothing has been seen through
+ the telescope, calculated to prove the astronomy of Joshua. Neither can
+ you see with that telescope a star that bears a Christian name. The reason
+ is that Christianity was opposed to astronomy. So astronomers took their
+ revenge, and now there is not one star that glitters in all the vast
+ firmament of the boundless heavens that has a Christian name. Mr. Carnegie
+ has been what they call a public-spirited man. He has given millions of
+ dollars for libraries and other institutions, and he certainly is not an
+ orthodox Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infidels, however, have done much better even than that. They have
+ increased the sum of human knowledge. John W. Draper, in his work on "The
+ Intellectual Development of Europe," has done more good to the American
+ people and to the civilized world than all the priests in it. He was an
+ Infidel. Buckle is another who has added to the sum of human knowledge.
+ Thomas Paine, an Infidel, did more for this country than any other man who
+ ever lived in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the colleges in this country have, I admit, been founded by
+ Christians, and the money for their support has been donated by
+ Christians, but most of the colleges of this country have simply
+ classified ignorance, and I think the United States would be more learned
+ than it is to-day if there never had been a Christian college in it. But
+ whether Christians gave or Infidels gave has nothing to do with the
+ probability of the Jonah story or with the probability that the mark on
+ the dial went back ten degrees to prove that a little Jewish king was not
+ going to die of a boil. And if the Infidels are all stingy and the
+ Christians are all generous it does not even tend to prove that three men
+ were in a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than was its wont
+ without even scorching their clothes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The best college in this country&mdash;or, at least, for a long time the
+ best&mdash;was the institution founded by Ezra Cornell. That is a school
+ where people try to teach what they know instead of what they guess. Yet
+ Cornell University was attacked by every orthodox college in the United
+ States at the time it was founded, because they said it was without
+ religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Everybody knows that Christianity does not tend to generosity.
+ Christianity says: "Save your own soul, whether anybody else saves his or
+ not." Christianity says: "Let the great ship go down. You get into the
+ little life-boat of the gospel and paddle ashore, no matter what becomes
+ of the rest." Christianity says you must love God, or something in the
+ sky, better than you love your wife and children. And the Christian, even
+ when giving, expects to get a very large compound interest in another
+ world. The Infidel who gives, asks no return except the joy that comes
+ from relieving the wants of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again the Christians, although they have built colleges, have built them
+ for the purpose of spreading their superstitions, and have poisoned the
+ minds of the world, while the Infidel teachers have filled the world with
+ light. Darwin did more for mankind than if he had built a thousand
+ hospitals. Voltaire did more than if he had built a thousand asylums for
+ the insane. He will prevent thousands from going insane that otherwise
+ might be driven into insanity by the "glad tidings of great joy." Haeckel
+ is filling the world with light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am perfectly willing that the results of the labors of Christians and
+ the labors of Infidels should be compared. Then let it be understood that
+ Infidels have been in this world but a very short time. A few years ago
+ there were hardly any. I can remember when I was the only Infidel in the
+ town where I lived. Give us time and we will build colleges in which
+ something will be taught that is of use. We hope to build temples that
+ will be dedicated to reason and common sense, and where every effort will
+ be made to reform mankind and make them better and better in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am saying nothing against the charity of Christians; nothing against any
+ kindness or goodness. But I say the Christians, in my judgment, have done
+ more harm than they have done good. They may talk of the asylums they have
+ built, but they have not built asylums enough to hold the people who have
+ been driven insane by their teachings. Orthodox religion has opposed
+ liberty. It has opposed investigation and free thought. If all the
+ churches in Europe had been observatories, if the cathedrals had been
+ universities where facts were taught and where nature was studied, if all
+ the priests had been real teachers, this world would have been far, far
+ beyond what it is to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is an idea that Christianity is positive, and Infidelity is
+ negative. If this be so, then falsehood is positive and truth is negative.
+ What I contend is that Infidelity is a positive religion; that
+ Christianity is a negative religion. Christianity denies and Infidelity
+ admits. Infidelity stands by facts; it demonstrates by the conclusions of
+ the reason. Infidelity does all it can to develop the brain and the heart
+ of man. That is positive. Religion asks man to give up this world for one
+ he knows nothing about. That is negative. I stand by the religion of
+ reason. I stand by the dogmas of demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0040" id="link0040">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IN my judgment, no human being was ever made better, nobler, by being
+ whipped or clubbed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Brockway, according to his own testimony, is simply a savage. He
+ belongs to the Dark Ages&mdash;to the Inquisition, to the torture-chamber,
+ and he needs reforming more than any prisoner under his control. To put
+ any man within his power is in itself a crime. Mr. Brockway is a believer
+ in cruelty&mdash;an apostle of brutality. He beats and bruises flesh to
+ satisfy his conscience&mdash;his sense of duty. He wields the club himself
+ because he enjoys the agony he inflicts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a poor wretch, having reached the limit of endurance, submits or
+ becomes unconscious, he is regarded as reformed. During the remainder of
+ his term he trembles and obeys. But he is not reformed. In his heart is
+ the flame of hatred, the desire for revenge; and he returns to society far
+ worse than when he entered the prison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Brockway should either be removed or locked up, and the Elmira
+ Reformatory should be superintended by some civilized man&mdash;some man
+ with brain enough to know, and heart enough to feel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that one brute, by whipping, beating and lacerating the
+ flesh of another, can reform him. The lash will neither develop the brain
+ nor cultivate the heart. There should be no bruising, no scarring of the
+ body in families, in schools, in reformatories, or prisons. A civilized
+ man does not believe in the methods of savagery. Brutality has been tried
+ for thousands of years and through all these years it has been a failure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Criminals have been flogged, mutilated and maimed, tortured in a thousand
+ ways, and the only effect was to demoralize, harden and degrade society
+ and increase the number of crimes. In the army and navy, soldiers and
+ sailors were flogged to death, and everywhere by church and state the
+ torture of the helpless was practiced and upheld.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago there were two hundred and twenty-three offences
+ punished with death in England. Those who wished to reform this savage
+ code were denounced as the enemies of morality and law. They were regarded
+ as weak and sentimental.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the English code was reformed through the efforts of men who had
+ brain and heart. But it is a significant fact that no bishop of the
+ Episcopal Church, sitting in the House of Lords, ever voted for the repeal
+ of one of those savage laws. Possibly this fact throws light on the recent
+ poetic and Christian declaration by Bishop Potter to the effect that
+ "there are certain criminals who can only be made to realize through their
+ hides the fact that the State has laws to which the individual must be
+ obedient."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This orthodox remark has the true apostolic ring, and is in perfect accord
+ with the history of the church. But it does not accord with the
+ intelligence and philanthropy of our time. Let us develop the brain by
+ education, the heart by kindness. Let us remember that criminals are
+ produced by conditions, and let us do what we can to change the conditions
+ and to reform the criminals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0041" id="link0041">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LAW'S DELAY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE object of a trial is not to convict&mdash;neither is it to acquit. The
+ object is to ascertain the truth by legal testimony and in accordance with
+ law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this country we give the accused the benefit of all reasonable doubts.
+ We insist that his guilt shall be really established by competent
+ testimony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We also allow the accused to take exceptions to the rulings of the judge
+ before whom he is tried, and to the verdict of the jury, and to have these
+ exceptions passed upon by a higher court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We also insist that he shall be tried by an impartial jury, and that
+ before he can be found guilty all the jurors must unite in the verdict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people, not on trial for any crime, object to our methods. They say
+ that time is wasted in getting an impartial jury; that more time is wasted
+ because appeals are allowed, and that by reason of insisting on a strict
+ compliance with law in all respects, trials sometimes linger for years,
+ and that in many instances the guilty escape.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one, so far as I know, asks that men shall be tried by partial and
+ prejudiced jurors, or that judges shall be allowed to disregard the law
+ for the sake of securing convictions, or that verdicts shall be allowed to
+ stand unsupported by sufficient legal evidence. Yet they talk as if they
+ asked for these very things. We must remember that revenge is always in
+ haste, and that justice can always afford to wait until the evidence is
+ actually heard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There should be no delay except that which is caused by taking the time to
+ find the truth. Without such delay courts become mobs, before which,
+ trials in a legal sense are impossible. It might be better, in a city like
+ New York, to have the grand jury in almost perpetual session, so that a
+ man charged with crime could be immediately indicted and immediately
+ tried. So, the highest court to which appeals are taken should be in
+ almost constant session, in order that all appeals might be quickly
+ decided.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we do not wish to take away the right of appeal. That right tends to
+ civilize the trial judge, reduces to a minimum his arbitrary power, puts
+ his hatreds and passions in the keeping and control of his intelligence.
+ That right of appeal has an excellent effect on the jury, because they
+ know that their verdict may not be the last word. The appeal, where the
+ accused is guilty, does not take the sword from the State, but it is a
+ shield for the innocent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In England there is no appeal. The trials are shorter, the judges more
+ arbitrary, the juries subservient, and the verdict often depends on the
+ prejudice of the judge. The judge knows that he has the last guess&mdash;that
+ he cannot be reviewed&mdash;and in the passion often engendered by the
+ conflict of trial he acts much like a wild beast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The case of Mrs. Maybrick is exactly in point, and shows how dangerous it
+ is to clothe the trial judge with supreme power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Without doubt there is in this country too much delay, and this, it seems
+ to me, can be avoided without putting the life or liberty of innocent
+ persons in peril. Take only such time as may be necessary to give the
+ accused a fair trial, before an impartial jury, under and in accordance
+ with the established forms of law, and to allow an appeal to the highest
+ court.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The State in which a criminal cannot have an impartial trial is not
+ civilized. People who demand the conviction of the accused without regard
+ to the forms of law are savages.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is another side to this question. Many people are losing
+ confidence in the idea that punishment reforms the convict, or that
+ capital punishment materially decreases capital crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My own opinion is that ordinary criminals should, if possible, be
+ reformed, and that murderers and desperate wretches should be imprisoned
+ for life. I am inclined to believe that our prisons make more criminals
+ than they reform; that places like the Reformatory at Elmira plant and
+ cultivate the seeds of crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The State should never seek revenge; neither should it put in peril the
+ life or liberty of the accused for the sake of a hasty trial, or by the
+ denial of appeal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, defective as our criminal courts and methods are, they are
+ far better than the English.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our judges are kinder, more humane; our juries nearer independent, and our
+ methods better calculated to ascertain the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0042" id="link0042">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * A newspaper dispatch from Lawrence, Kansas, published
+ yesterday, stated that Col. Robert O. Ingersoll had been
+ invited by the law students of the Kansas State University
+ to address them at the commencement exercises, and that the
+ faculty council had objected and had invited Chauncey M.
+ Depew instead.
+
+ The dispatch also stared that the council had notified
+ representatives of the law school that if they insisted on
+ the great Agnostic speaking before the school, the faculty
+ would take heroic measures to thwart their design.
+
+ It was also stated that the law students had made it clearly
+ understood that the lecture Ingersoll had been invited to
+ deliver was to be on the subject of law, and that his views
+ on religion, the Bible and the Deity were not to be alluded
+ to, and they considered that the faculty council had
+ "subjected them to an insult," and had gone out of its way,
+ also, to affront Colonel Ingersoll without cause.
+
+ Colonel Ingersoll, when seen yesterday and questioned about
+ the matter, took it, as he does all things of that nature,
+ philosophically and in a true manly spirit.
+
+ Chauncey M. Depew was seen at his residence, No. 43 West
+ Fifty-fourth Street, last night and asked if he had been
+ invited to address the students of the Kansas University in
+ the place of Colonel Ingersoll. He said he had not.
+
+ "Would you go if you were invited?" he was asked.
+
+ "No; I would not," he answered. "You see, I am so busy here;
+ besides, my social and semi-political engagements are such
+ that I would not have time to go to such a distant point,
+ anyhow.
+
+ "No, I do not care to express any opinion regarding the
+ action of the faculty council of the Kansas University, but
+ I consider Colonel Ingersoll one of the greatest intellects
+ of the century, from whose teaching all can profit."&mdash;The
+ Journal, New York, January 24, im.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ UNIVERSITIES are naturally conservative. They know that if suspected of
+ being really scientific, orthodox Christians will keep their sons away, so
+ they pander to the superstitions of the times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the universities are exceedingly poor, and poverty is the enemy of
+ independence. Universities, like people, have the instinct of
+ self-preservation. The University of Kansas is like the rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The faculty of Cornell, upon precisely the same question, took exactly the
+ same action, and the faculty of the University of Missouri did the same.
+ These institutions must be the friends and defenders of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Vanderbilt College, or University of Tennessee, discharged Professor
+ Winchell because he differed with the author of Genesis on geology.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These colleges act as they must, and we should blame nobody. If Humboldt
+ and Darwin were now alive they would not be allowed to teach in these
+ institutions of "learning."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need not find fault with the president and professors. They want to
+ keep their places. The probability is that they would like to do better&mdash;that
+ they desire to be free, and, if free, would, with all their hearts,
+ welcome the truth. Still, these universities seem to do good. The minds of
+ their students are developed to that degree, that they naturally turn to
+ me as the defender of their thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This gives me great hope for the future. The young, the growing, the
+ enthusiastic, are on my side. All the students who have selected me are my
+ friends, and I thank them with all my heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0043" id="link0043">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Col. Robert G. Ingersoll represents what is intellectually
+ highest among the whole world's opponents of religion. He
+ counts theology as the science of a superstition. He decries
+ religion as it exists, and holds that the broadest thing a
+ man, or all human nature, can do is to acknowledge ignorance
+ when it cannot know. He accepts nothing on faith. He is the
+ American who is forever asking, "Why?"&mdash;who demands a reason
+ and material proof before believing.
+
+ As Christianity's corner-stone is faith, he rejects
+ Christianity, and argues that all men who are broad enough
+ to know when to narrow their ideas down to fact or
+ demonstrable theory must reject it. Believe as he does or
+ not, all Americans must be interested in him. His mind is
+ marvelous, his tongue is silvern, his logic is invincible&mdash;
+ as logic.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll is a shining example of the oft-quoted fact
+ that, given mental ability, health and industry, a young man
+ may make for himself whatever place in life he desires and
+ is fitted to fill. His early advantages were limited, for
+ his father, a Congregational minister whose field of labor
+ often changed, was a man of far too small an income to send
+ his sons to college. Whatever of mental training the young
+ man had he was obliged to get by reason of his own exertion,
+ and his splendid triumphs as an orator, and his solid
+ achievements as a lawyer are all the result of his own
+ efforts. The only help he had was that which is the common
+ heritage of all American young men&mdash;the chance to fight even
+ handed for success. It is not surprising, therefore, that
+ Col. Ingersoll feels a deep interest in every bright young
+ man of his acquaintance who is struggling manfully for the
+ glittering prize so brilliantly won by the great Agnostic
+ himself. He does not believe, however, that the young man
+ who goes out mto the world nowadays to seek his fortune has
+ so easy a battle to fight as had the young men of thirty
+ years ago. In conversation with the writer Col. Ingersoll
+ spoke earnestly upon this subject.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll's views regarding the Bible and Christianity
+ were not generally understood by the public for some time
+ after he had become famous as an orator, although he began
+ to diverge from orthodoxy when quite young, and was as
+ pronounced an Agnostic when he went into the army, as he is
+ now.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll is an inch less than six feet tall, and
+ weighs ten more than two hundred pounds. He will be sixty-
+ one next August, and his hair is snowy. His shoulders are
+ broad and as straight as they were eighteen years ago when
+ he electrified a people and place! his own name upon the
+ list of a nation's greatest orators with his matchless
+ "Plumed Knight" speech in nominating
+
+ James G. Blaine for the presidency. His blue eyes look
+ straight into yours when he speaks to you, and his sentences
+ are punctuated by engaging little tricks of facial
+ expression&mdash;now the brow is criss-crossed with the lines of
+ a frown, sometimes quizzical and sometimes indignant&mdash;next,
+ the smooth-shaven lips break into a curving smile, which may
+ grow into a broad grin if the point just made were a
+ humorous one, and this is quite likely to be followed by a
+ look of sueh intense earnestness that you wonder if he will
+ ever smile again. And all the time his eyes flash,
+ illuminating, sometimes anticipatory, glances that add
+ immensely to the clearness with which the thought he is
+ expressing is set before you. He delights to tell a story,
+ and he never tells any but good ones, but&mdash;and in this he is
+ like Lincoln&mdash;he is apt to use his stories to drive some
+ proposition home. This is almost invariably true, even when
+ he sets out to spin a yarn for the story's simple sake. His
+ mentality seems to be duplex, quadruplex, multiplex, if you
+ please&mdash;and while his lips and tongue are effectively
+ delivering the story, his wonderful brain is, seemingly,
+ unconsciously applying the point of the story to the proving
+ of a pet theory, and when the tale has been told the verbal
+ application follows.
+
+ His birthplace was Dresden, N. Y. His early boyhood was
+ passed in New York State and his youth and young manhood in
+ Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin.
+
+ His handgrasp is hearty and his manner and words are the
+ very essence of straightforward directness. I called at his
+ office once when the Colonel was closeted with a person who
+ wished to retain him in a law case involving a good deal of
+ money. After a bit I was told that I could see him, and as I
+ entered he was saying: "The case can't be won, for you are
+ in the wrong. I don't want it."
+
+ "But," pleaded the would-be client, "It seems to me that a
+ good deal can be done in such a case by the way it is
+ handled before the jury, and I thought if you were to be the
+ man I might get a verdict."
+
+ "No, sir," was the reply, and the words fell like the lead
+ of a plumb line; "I won't take it. Good morning, sir."
+
+ It has been sometimes said, indulgently, of Col. Ingersoll
+ that he is indolent, but no one can hold that view who is at
+ all familiar with him or his work. As a matter of fact, his
+ industry is phenomenal, though, indeed, it is not carried on
+ after the fashion of less brainy men. When he has an
+ important case ahead of him his devotion to the mastery of
+ its details absorbs him at once and completely. It sometimes
+ becomes necessary for him to take up a line of chemical
+ inquiry entirely new to him; again, to elaborate
+ genealogical researches are necessary; still again, it may
+ be essential for him to thoroughly inform himself concerning
+ hitherto uninvestigated local historical records. But
+ whatever is needful to be studied he studies, and so
+ thoroughly that his mind becomes saturated with the
+ knowledge required. And once acquired no sort of information
+ ever leaves him, for he has a memory quite as marvelous as
+ any other of his altogether marvelous characteristics.
+
+ It is the same when he has an address to prepare. Every
+ authority that can be consulted upon the subject to be
+ treated in the address, is consulted, and often the material
+ that suggests some of the most telling points is one which
+ no one but Ingersoll himself would think of referring to.
+ Here again his wonderful memory stands him in good stead for
+ he has packed away within the convolutions of his brain a
+ lot of facts that bear upon almost every conceivable branch
+ of human thought or investigation.
+
+ His memory is quite as retentive of the features of a man he
+ has seen as of other matters; it retains voices also, as a
+ war time friend of his discovered last summer. It was a busy
+ day with the Colonel, who had given instructions to his
+ office boy that under no circumstances was he to be
+ disturbed; so when his old friend called he was told that
+ Col. Ingersoll could not see him "But," said the visitor: "I
+ must see him. I haven't seen him for twenty years; I am
+ going out of town this afternoon, and I wouldn't miss
+ talking with him for a few minutes for a good deal of
+ money."
+
+ "Well," said the boy, "he wasn't to be disturbed by
+ anybody."
+
+ At this moment the door of the Colonel's private office
+ opened, and the Colonel's portly form appeared upon the
+ scene.
+
+ "Why, Maj. Blank," he said, "come in. I did tell the boy I
+ wouldn't see anybody, but you are more important than the
+ biggest law case in the world."
+
+ The Colonel's memory had retained the sound of the major's
+ voice, and because of that, the latter was not obliged to
+ leave New York without seeing and renewing his old
+ acquaintance.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll's retorts are as quick as a flash-light and
+ as searching. One of them was so startling and so effective
+ as to give a certain famous long drawn out railroad suit the
+ nickname. "The Ananias and Sapphira ease." Ingersoll was
+ speaking and had made certain statements highly damaging to
+ the other side, in such a way as to thoroughly anger a
+ member of the opposing counsel, who suddenly interrupted the
+ speaker with the abrupt and sarcastic remark:
+
+ "I suppose the Colonel, in the nature of things, never heard
+ of the story of Ananias ana Sapphira."
+
+ There were those present who expected to witness an angry
+ outburst on the part of Ingersoll in response to this plain
+ implication that his statement had not the quality of
+ veracity, but they were disappointed. Ingersoll didn't even
+ get angry. He turned slightly, fixed his limpid blue eyes
+ upon the speaker, and looked cherubically. Then he gently
+ drawled out.
+
+ "Oh, yes, I have, yes, I have. And I've watched the
+ gentleman who has just spoken all through this case with a
+ curious Interest. I've been expecting every once in a while
+ to see him drop dead, but he seems to be all right down to
+ the present moment."
+
+ Ingersoll never gets angry when he is interrupted, even if
+ it is in the middle of an address or a lecture. A man
+ interrupted him in Cincinnati once, cutting right into one
+ of the lecturer's most resonant periods with a yell:
+
+ "That's a lie. Bob lngersoll, and you know it."
+
+ The audience was in an uproar in an instant, and cries of
+ "Put him out!" "Throw him down stairs!" and the like were
+ heard from all parts of the house. Ingersoll stopped talking
+ for a moment, and held up his hands, smiling.
+
+ "Don't hurt the man," he said. "He thinks he is right. But
+ let me explain this thing for his especial benefit."
+
+ Then he reasoned the matter out in language so simple and
+ plain that no one of any intelligence whatever could fail to
+ comprehend. The man was not ejected, but sat through the
+ entire address, and at the close asked the privilege of
+ begging the lecturer's pardon.
+
+ Like most men of genius, Colonel lngersoll is a passionate
+ lover of music, and the harmonies of Wagner seem to him to
+ be the very acme of musical expression....
+
+ Notwithstanding his thoroughly heretical beliefs or lack of
+ beliefs, or, as he would say, because of them, Colonel
+ lngersoll is a very tender-hearted man. No one has ever made
+ so strong an argument against vivisection in the alleged
+ interests of science as lngersoll did in a speech a few
+ years ago. To the presentation of his views against the
+ refinements of scientific cruelty he brought his most vivid
+ imagination, his most careful thought and his most
+ impassioned oratory.
+
+ Colonel Ingersoll's popularity with those who know him is
+ proverbial. The clerks in his offices not only admire him
+ for his ability and his achievements, but they esteem him
+ for his kindliness of heart and his invariable courtesy in
+ his intercourse with them. His offices are located in one of
+ the buildings devoted to corporations and professional men
+ on the lower part of Nassau street and consist of three
+ rooms. The one used by the head of the firm is farthest from
+ the entrance. All are furnished in solid black walnut. In
+ the Colonel's room there is a picture of his loved brother
+ Ebon, and hanging below the frame thereof is the tin sign
+ that the two brothers hung out for a shingle when they went
+ into the law business in Peoria. There are also pictures of
+ a judge or two. The desks in all the rooms are littered with
+ papers. Books are piled to the ceiling. Everywhere there is
+ an air of personal freedom. There is no servility either to
+ clients or the head of the business, but there is everywhere
+ an informal courtesy somewhat akin to that which is born of
+ a fueling of great comradeship.
+
+ Of the Colonel's ideal home life the world has often been
+ told. He lives during the winter at his town house in Fifth
+ Avenue; in the summer at Dobbs Ferry, a charming place a few
+ miles up the Hudson from New York.&mdash;Boston Herald, July,
+ 1894.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ A FEW years ago there were many thousand miles of railroads to be built, a
+ great many towns and cities to be located, constructed and filled; vast
+ areas of uncultivated land were waiting for the plow, vast forests the
+ axe, and thousands of mines were longing to be opened. In those days every
+ young man of energy and industry had a future. The professions were not
+ overcrowded; there were more patients than doctors, more litigants than
+ lawyers, more buyers of goods than merchants. The young man of that time
+ who was raised on a farm got a little education, taught school, read law
+ or medicine&mdash;some of the weaker ones read theology&mdash;and there
+ seemed to be plenty of room, plenty of avenues to success and distinction.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, too, a few years ago a political life was considered honorable, and so
+ in politics there were many great careers. So, hundreds of towns wanted
+ newspapers, and in each of those towns there was an opening for some
+ energetic young man. At that time the plant cost but little; a few dollars
+ purchased the press&mdash;the young publisher could get the paper stock on
+ credit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now the railroads have all been built; the canals are finished; the cities
+ have been located; the outside property has been cut into lots, and sold
+ and mortgaged many times over. Now it requires great capital to go into
+ business. The individual is counting for less and less; the corporation,
+ the trust, for more and more. Now a great merchant employs hundreds of
+ clerks; a few years ago most of those now clerks would have been
+ merchants. And so it seems to be in nearly every department of life. Of
+ course, I do not know what inventions may leap from the brains of the
+ future; there may be millions and millions of fortunes yet to be made in
+ that direction, but of that I am not speaking.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I think that a few years ago the chances were far more numerous and
+ favorable to young men who wished to make a name for themselves, and to
+ succeed in some department of human energy than now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In savage life a living is very easy to get. Most any savage can hunt or
+ fish; consequently there are few failures. But in civilized life
+ competition becomes stronger and sharper; consequently, the percentage of
+ failures increases, and this seems to be the law. The individual is
+ constantly counting for less. It may be that, on the average, people live
+ better than they did formerly, that they have more to eat, drink and wear;
+ but the individual horizon has lessened; it is not so wide and cloudless
+ as formerly. So I say that the chances for great fortunes, for great
+ success, are growing less and less.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think a young man should do that which is easiest for him to do,
+ provided there is an opportunity; if there is none, then he should take
+ the next. The first object of every young man should be to be
+ self-supporting, no matter in what direction&mdash;be independent. He
+ should avoid being a clerk and he should avoid giving his future into the
+ hands of any one person. He should endeavor to get a business in which the
+ community will be his patron, and whether he is to be a lawyer, a doctor
+ or a day-laborer depends on how much he has mixed mind with muscle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a young man imagines that he has an aptitude for public speaking&mdash;that
+ is, if he has a great desire to make his ideas known to the world&mdash;the
+ probability is that the desire will choose the way, time and place for him
+ to make the effort.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he really has something to say, there will be plenty to listen. If he
+ is so carried away with his subject, is so in earnest that he becomes an
+ instrumentality of his thought&mdash;so that he is forgotten by himself;
+ so that he cares neither for applause nor censure&mdash;simply caring to
+ present his thoughts in the highest and best and most comprehensive way,
+ the probability is that he will be an orator.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think oratory is something that cannot be taught. Undoubtedly a man can
+ learn to be a fair talker. He can by practice learn to present his ideas
+ consecutively, clearly and in what you may call "form," but there is as
+ much difference between this and an oration as there is between a skeleton
+ and a living human being clad in sensitive, throbbing flesh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are millions of skeleton makers, millions of people who can express
+ what may be called "the bones" of a discourse, but not one in a million
+ who can clothe these bones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You can no more teach a man to be an orator than you can teach him to be
+ an artist or a poet of the first class. When you teach him, there is the
+ same difference between the man who is taught, and the man who is what he
+ is by virtue of a natural aptitude, that there is between a pump and a
+ spring&mdash;between a canal and a river&mdash;between April rain and
+ water-works. It is a question of capacity and feeling&mdash;not of
+ education. There are some things that you can tell an orator not to do.
+ For instance, he should never drink water while talking, because the
+ interest is broken, and for the moment he loses control of his audience.
+ He should never look at his watch for the same reason. He should never
+ talk about himself. He should never deal in personalities. He should never
+ tell long stories, and if he tells any story he should never say that it
+ is a true story, and that he knew the parties. This makes it a question of
+ veracity instead of a question of art. He should never clog his discourse
+ with details. He should never dwell upon particulars&mdash;he should touch
+ universals, because the great truths are for all time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If he wants to know something, if he wishes to feel something, let him
+ read Shakespeare. Let him listen to the music of Wagner, of Beethoven, or
+ Schubert. If he wishes to express himself in the highest and most perfect
+ form, let him become familiar with the great paintings of the world&mdash;with
+ the great statues&mdash;all these will lend grace, will give movement and
+ passion and rhythm to his words. A great orator puts into his speech the
+ perfume, the feelings, the intensity of all the great and beautiful and
+ marvelous things that he has seen and heard and felt. An orator must be a
+ poet, a metaphysician, a logician&mdash;and above all, must have sympathy
+ with all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0044" id="link0044">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IT was thought at one time by many that science would do away with poetry&mdash;that
+ it was the enemy of the imagination. We know now that is not true. We know
+ that science goes hand in hand with imagination. We know that it is in the
+ highest degree poetic and that the old ideas once considered so beautiful
+ are flat and stale. Compare Kepler's laws with the old Greek idea that the
+ planets were boosted or pushed by angels. The more we know, the more
+ beauty, the more poetry we find. Ignorance is not the mother of the poetic
+ or artistic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, some people imagine that science will do away with sentiment. In my
+ judgment, science will not only increase sentiment but sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A person will be attracted to another for a thousand reasons, and why a
+ person is attracted to another, may, and in some degree will, depend upon
+ the intellectual, artistic and ethical development of each.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The handsomest girl in Zululand might not be attractive to Herbert
+ Spencer, and the fairest girl in England might not be able to hasten the
+ pulse of a Choctaw brave. This does not prove that there is any lack of
+ sentiment. Men are influenced according to their capacity, their
+ temperament, their knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some men fall in love with a small waist, an arched instep or curly hair,
+ without the slightest regard to mind or muscle. This we call sentiment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, educate such men, develop their brains, enlarge their intellectual
+ horizon, teach them something of the laws of health, and then they may
+ fall in love with women because they are developed grandly in body and
+ mind. The sentiment is still there&mdash;still controls&mdash;but back of
+ the sentiment is science.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sentiment can never be destroyed, and love will forever rule the human
+ race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands, millions of people fear that science will destroy not only
+ poetry, not only sentiment, but religion. This fear is idiotic. Science
+ will destroy superstition, but it will not injure true religion. Science
+ is the foundation of real religion. Science teaches us the consequences of
+ actions, the rights and duties of all. Without science there can be no
+ real religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of
+ science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The
+ more we know the safer all good things are.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do I think that the marriage of the sickly and diseased ought to be
+ prevented by law?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have not much confidence in law&mdash;in law that I know cannot be
+ carried out. The poor, the sickly, the diseased, as long as they are
+ ignorant, will marry and help fill the world with wretchedness and want.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must rely on education instead of legislation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must teach the consequences of actions. We must show the sickly and
+ diseased what their children will be. We must preach the gospel of the
+ body. I believe 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&mdash;to leave a legacy of agony.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe the time will come when men will refuse to fill the future with
+ consumption and insanity. Yes, we shall study ourselves. We shall
+ understand the conditions of health and then we shall say: We are under
+ obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even if I should get to heaven and have a harp, I know that I could not
+ bear to see my descendants still on the earth, diseased, deformed, crazed&mdash;all
+ suffering the penalties of my ignorance. Let us have more science and more
+ sentiment&mdash;more knowledge and more conscience&mdash;more liberty and
+ more love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0045" id="link0045">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SOWING AND REAPING.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE read the sermon on "Sowing and Reaping," and I now understand Mr.
+ Moody better than I did before. The other day, in New York, Mr. Moody said
+ that he implicitly believed the story of Jonah and really thought that he
+ was in the fish for three days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I read it I was surprised that a man living in the century of
+ Humboldt, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and Haeckel, should believe such an
+ absurd and idiotic story.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I understand the whole thing. I can account for the amazing credulity
+ of this man. Mr. Moody never read one of my lectures. That accounts for it
+ all, and no wonder that he is a hundred years behind the times. He never
+ read one of my lectures; that is a perfect explanation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poor man! He has no idea of what he has lost. He has been living on
+ miracles and mistakes, on falsehood and foolishness, stuffing his mind
+ with absurdities when he could have had truth, facts and good, sound
+ sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poor man!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably Mr. Moody has never read one word of Darwin and so he still
+ believes in the Garden of Eden and the talking snake and really thinks
+ that Jehovah took some mud, moulded the form of a man, breathed in its
+ nostrils, stood it up and called it Adam, and that he then took one of
+ Adam's ribs and some more mud and manufactured Eve. Probably he has never
+ read a word written by any great geologist and consequently still believes
+ in the story of the flood. Knowing nothing of astronomy, he still thinks
+ that Joshua stopped the sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poor man! He has neglected Spencer and has no idea of evolution. He thinks
+ that man has, through all the ages, degenerated, the first pair having
+ been perfect. He does not believe that man came from lower forms and has
+ gradually journeyed upward.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He really thinks that the Devil outwitted God and vaccinated the human
+ race with the virus of total depravity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Poor man!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knows nothing of the great scientists&mdash;of the great thinkers, of
+ the emancipators of the human race; knows nothing of Spinoza, of Voltaire,
+ of Draper, Buckle, of Paine or Renan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Moody ought to read something besides the Bible&mdash;ought to find
+ out what the really intelligent have thought. He ought to get some new
+ ideas&mdash;a few facts&mdash;and I think that, after he did so, he would
+ be astonished to find how ignorant and foolish he had been. He is a good
+ man. His heart is fairly good, but his head is almost useless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble with this sermon, "Sowing and Reaping," is that he contradicts
+ it. I believe that a man must reap what he sows, that every human being
+ must bear the natural consequences of his acts. Actions are good or bad
+ according to their consequences. That is my doctrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no forgiveness in nature. But Mr. Moody tells us that a man may
+ sow thistles and gather figs, that having acted like a fiend tor seventy
+ years, he can, between his last dose of medicine and his last breath,
+ repent; that he can be washed clean by the blood of the lamb, and that
+ myriads of angels will carry his soul to heaven&mdash;in other words, that
+ this man will not reap what he sowed, but what Christ sowed, that this
+ man's thistles will be changed to figs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This doctrine, to my mind, is not only absurd, but dishonest and
+ corrupting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is one of the absurdities in Mr. Moody's theology. The other is that
+ a man can justly be damned for the sin of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can exceed the foolishness of these two ideas&mdash;first: "Man
+ can be justly punished forever for the sin of Adam." Second: "Man can be
+ justly rewarded with eternal joy for the goodness of Christ."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet the man who believes this, preaches a sermon in which he says that a
+ man must reap what he sows. Orthodox Christians teach exactly the
+ opposite. They teach that no matter what a man sows, no matter how wicked
+ his life has been, that he can by repentance change the crop. That all his
+ sins shall be forgotten and that only the goodness of Christ will be
+ remembered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us see how this works:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. A. has lived a good and useful life, kept his contracts, paid his
+ debts, educated his children, loved his wife and made his home a heaven,
+ but he did not believe in the inspiration of Mr. Moody's Bible. He died
+ and his soul was sent to hell. Mr. Moody says that as a man sows so shall
+ he reap.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. B. lived a useless and wicked life. By his cruelty he drove his wife
+ to insanity, his children became vagrants and beggars, his home was a
+ perfect hell, he committed many crimes, he was a thief, a burglar, a
+ murderer. A few minutes before he was hanged he got religion and his soul
+ went from the scaffold to heaven. And yet Mr. Moody says that as a man
+ sows so shall he reap.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Moody ought to have a little philosophy&mdash;a little good sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Mr. Moody says that only in this life can a man secure the reward of
+ repentance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Just before a man dies, God loves him&mdash;loves him as a mother loves
+ her babe&mdash;but a moment after he dies, he sends his soul to hell. In
+ the other world nothing can be done to reform him. The society of God and
+ the angels can have no good effect. Nobody can be made better in heaven.
+ This world is the only place where reform is possible. Here, surrounded by
+ the wicked in the midst of temptations, in the darkness of ignorance, a
+ human being may reform if he is fortunate enough to hear the words of some
+ revival preacher, but when he goes before his maker&mdash;before the
+ Trinity&mdash;he has no chance. God can do nothing for his soul except to
+ send it to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This shows that the power for good is confined to people in this world and
+ that in the next world God can do nothing to reform his children. This is
+ theology. This is what they call "Tidings of great joy."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every orthodox creed is savage, ignorant and idiotic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the orthodox heaven there is no mercy, no pity. In the orthodox hell
+ there is no hope, no reform. God is an eternal jailer, an everlasting
+ turnkey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet Christians now say that while there may be no fire in hell&mdash;no
+ actual flames&mdash;yet the lost souls will feel forever the tortures of
+ conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What will conscience trouble the people in hell about? They tell us that
+ they will remember their sins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, what about the souls in heaven? They committed awful sins, they made
+ their fellow-men unhappy. They took the lives of others&mdash;sent many to
+ eternal torment. Will they have no conscience? Is hell the only place
+ where souls regret the evil they have done? Have the angels no regret, no
+ remorse, no conscience?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this be so, heaven must be somewhat worse than hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In old times, if people wanted to know anything they asked the preacher.
+ Now they do if they don't.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible has, with intelligent men, lost its authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The miracles are now regarded by sensible people as the spawn of ignorance
+ and credulity. On every hand people are looking for facts&mdash;for truth&mdash;and
+ all religions are taking their places in the museum of myths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, the people are becoming civilized, and so they are putting out the
+ fires of hell. They are ceasing to believe in a God who seeks eternal
+ revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people are becoming sensible. They are asking for evidence. They care
+ but little for the winged phantoms of the air&mdash;for the ghosts and
+ devils and supposed gods. The people are anxious to be happy here and they
+ want a little heaven in this life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology is a curse. Science is a blessing. We do not need preachers, but
+ teachers; not priests, but thinkers; not churches, but schools; not
+ steeples, but observatories. We want knowledge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope that Mr. Moody will read some really useful books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0046" id="link0046">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ SHOULD parents, who are Infidels, unbelievers or Atheists, send their
+ children to Sunday schools and churches to give them the benefit of
+ Christian education?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Parents who do not believe the Bible to be an inspired book should not
+ teach their children that it is. They should be absolutely honest.
+ Hypocrisy is not a virtue, and, as a rule, lies are less valuable than
+ facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An unbeliever should not allow the mind of his child to be deformed,
+ stunted and shriveled by superstition. He should not allow the child's
+ imagination to be polluted. Nothing is more outrageous than to take
+ advantage of the helplessness of childhood to sow in the brain the seeds
+ of falsehoods, to imprison the soul in the dungeon of Fear, to teach
+ dimpled infancy the infamous dogma of eternal pain&mdash;filling life with
+ the glow and glare of hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the orthodox
+ inquisitions. He should defend the mind from attack as he would the body.
+ He should recognize the rights of the soul. In the orthodox Sunday
+ schools, children are taught that it is a duty to believe&mdash;that
+ evidence is not essential&mdash;that faith is independent of facts and
+ that religion is superior to reason. They are taught not to use their
+ natural sense&mdash;not to tell what they really think&mdash;not to
+ entertain a doubt&mdash;not to ask wicked questions, but to accept and
+ believe what their teachers say. In this way the minds of the children are
+ invaded, corrupted and conquered. Would an educated man send his child to
+ a school in which Newton's statement in regard to the attraction of
+ gravitation was denied&mdash;in which the law of falling bodies, as given
+ by Galileo, was ridiculed&mdash;Kepler's three laws declared to be
+ idiotic, and the rotary motion of the earth held to be utterly absurd?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why then should an intelligent man allow his child to be taught the
+ geology and astronomy of the Bible? Children should be taught to seek for
+ the truth&mdash;to be honest, kind, generous, merciful and just. They
+ should be taught to love liberty and to live to the ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why then should an unbeliever, an Infidel, send his child to an orthodox
+ Sunday school where he is taught that he has no right to seek for the
+ truth&mdash;no right to be mentally honest, and that he will be damned for
+ an honest doubt&mdash;where he is taught that God was ferocious,
+ revengeful, heartless as a wild beast&mdash;that he drowned millions of
+ his children&mdash;that he ordered wars of extermination and told his
+ soldiers to kill gray-haired and trembling age, mothers and children, and
+ to assassinate with the sword of war the babes unborn?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should an unbeliever in the Bible send his child to an orthodox Sunday
+ school where he is taught that God was in favor of slavery and told the
+ Jews to buy of the heathen and that they should be their bondmen and
+ bondwomen forever; where he is taught that God upheld polygamy and the
+ degradation of women?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should an unbeliever, who believes in the uniformity of Nature, in the
+ unbroken and unbreakable chain of cause and effect, allow his child to be
+ taught that miracles have been performed; that men have gone bodily to
+ heaven; that millions have been miraculously fed with manna and quails;
+ that fire has refused to burn clothes and flesh of men; that iron has been
+ made to float; that the earth and moon have been stopped and that the
+ earth has not only been stopped, but made to turn the other way; that
+ devils inhabit the bodies of men and women; that diseases have been cured
+ with words, and that the dead, with a touch, have been made to live again?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The thoughtful man knows that there is not the slightest evidence that
+ these miracles ever were performed. Why should he allow his children to be
+ stuffed with these foolish and impossible falsehoods? Why should he give
+ his lambs to the care and keeping of the wolves and hyenas of
+ superstition?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Children should be taught only what somebody knows. Guesses should not be
+ palmed off on them as demonstrated facts. If a Christian lived in
+ Constantinople he would not send his children to the mosque to be taught
+ that Mohammed was a prophet of God and that the Koran is an inspired book.
+ Why? Because he does not believe in Mohammed or the Koran. That is reason
+ enough. So, an Agnostic, living in New York, should not allow his children
+ to be taught that the Bible is an inspired book. I use the word "Agnostic"
+ because I prefer it to the word Atheist. As a matter of fact, no one knows
+ that God exists and no one knows that God does not exist. To my mind there
+ is no evidence that God exists&mdash;that this world is governed by a
+ being of infinite goodness, wisdom and power, but I do not pretend to
+ know. What I insist upon is that children should not be poisoned&mdash;should
+ not be taken advantage of&mdash;that they should be treated fairly,
+ honestly&mdash;that they should be allowed to develop from the inside
+ instead of being crammed from the outside&mdash;that they should be taught
+ to reason, not to believe&mdash;to think, to investigate and to use their
+ senses, their minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Would a Catholic send his children to a school to be taught that
+ Catholicism is superstition and that Science is the only savior of
+ mankind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why then should a free and sensible believer in Science, in the
+ naturalness of the universe, send his child to a Catholic school?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing could be more irrational, foolish and absurd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My advice to all Agnostics is to keep their children from the orthodox
+ Sunday schools, from the orthodox churches, from the poison of the
+ pulpits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Teach your children the facts you know. If you do not know, say so. Be as
+ honest as you are ignorant. Do all you can to develop their minds, to the
+ end that they may live useful and happy lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Strangle the serpent of superstition that crawls and hisses about the
+ cradle. Keep your children from the augurs, the soothsayers, the
+ medicine-men, the priests of the supernatural. Tell them that all
+ religions have been made by folks and that all the "sacred books" were
+ written by ignorant men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Teach them that the world is natural. Teach them to be absolutely honest.
+ Do not send them where they will contract diseases of the mind&mdash;the
+ leprosy of the soul. Let us do all we can to make them intelligent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0047" id="link0047">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Written for The Boston Investigator.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ YOU ask me what I would "substitute for the Bible as a moral guide.".
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that many people regard the Bible as the only moral guide and
+ believe that in that book only can be found the true and perfect standard
+ of morality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many good precepts, many wise sayings and many good regulations
+ and laws in the Bible, and these are mingled with bad precepts, with
+ foolish sayings, with absurd rules and cruel laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But we must remember that the Bible is a collection of many books written
+ centuries apart, and that it in part represents the growth and tells in
+ part the history of a people. We must also remember that the writers treat
+ of many subjects. Many of these writers have nothing to say about right or
+ wrong, about vice or virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book of Genesis has nothing about morality. There is not a line in it
+ calculated to shed light on the path of conduct. No one can call that book
+ a moral guide. It is made up of myth and miracle, of tradition and legend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Exodus we have an account of the manner in which Jehovah delivered the
+ Jews from Egyptian bondage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We now know that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians; that the
+ entire story is a fiction. We know this, because there is not found in
+ Hebrew a word of Egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language
+ of the Egyptians a word of Hebrew origin. This being so, we know that the
+ Hebrews and Egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Certainly Exodus was not written to teach morality. In that book you
+ cannot find one word against human slavery. As a matter of fact, Jehovah
+ was a believer in that institution.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The killing of cattle with disease and hail, the murder of the first-born,
+ so that in every house was death, because the king refused to let the
+ Hebrews go, certainly was not moral; it was fiendish. The writer of that
+ book regarded all the people of Egypt, their children, their flocks and
+ herds, as the property of Pharaoh, and these people and these cattle were
+ killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but simply for the
+ purpose of punishing the king. Is it possible to get any morality out of
+ this history?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the laws found in Exodus, including the Ten Commandments, so far as
+ they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all
+ the peoples of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Murder is, and always was, a crime, and always will be, as long as a
+ majority of people object to being murdered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Industry always has been and always will be the enemy of larceny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nature of man is such that he admires the teller of truth and despises
+ the liar. Among all tribes, among all people, truth-telling has been
+ considered a virtue and false swearing or false speaking a vice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The love of parents for children is natural, and this love is found among
+ all the animals that live. So the love of children for parents is natural,
+ and was not and cannot be created by law. Love does not spring from a
+ sense of duty, nor does it bow in obedience to commands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So men and women are not virtuous because of anything in books or creeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the Ten Commandments that are good were old, were the result of
+ experience. The commandments that were original with Jehovah were foolish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The worship of "any other God" could not have been worse than the worship
+ of Jehovah, and nothing could have been more absurd than the sacredness of
+ the Sabbath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If commandments had been given against slavery and polygamy, against wars
+ of invasion and extermination, against religious persecution in all its
+ forms, so that the world could be free, so that the brain might be
+ developed and the heart civilized, then we might, with propriety, call
+ such commandments a moral guide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before we can truthfully say that the Ten Commandments constitute a moral
+ guide, we must add and subtract. We must throw away some, and write others
+ in their places.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The commandments that have a known application here, in this world, and
+ treat of human obligations are good, the others have no basis in fact, or
+ experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many of the regulations found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
+ Deuteronomy, are good. Many are absurd and cruel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The entire ceremonial of worship is insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the punishment for violations of laws are un-philosophic and
+ brutal.... The fact is that the Pentateuch upholds nearly all crimes, and
+ to call it a moral guide is as absurd as to say that it is merciful or
+ true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing of a moral nature can be found in Joshua or Judges. These books
+ are filled with crimes, with massacres and murders. They are about the
+ same as the real history of the Apache Indians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The story of Ruth is not particularly moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In first and second Samuel there is not one word calculated to develop the
+ brain or conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah murdered seventy thousand Jews because David took a census of the
+ people. David, according to the account, was the guilty one, but only the
+ innocent were killed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In first and second Kings can be found nothing of ethical value. All the
+ kings who refused to obey the priests were denounced, and all the crowned
+ wretches who assisted the priests, were declared to be the favorites of
+ Jehovah. In these books there cannot be found one word in favor of
+ liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are some good Psalms, and there are some that are infamous. Most of
+ these Psalms are selfish. Many of them, are passionate appeals for
+ revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The story of Job shocks the heart of every good man. In this book there is
+ some poetry, some pathos, and some philosophy, but the story of this drama
+ called Job, is heartless to the last degree. The children of Job are
+ murdered to settle a little wager between God and the Devil. Afterward,
+ Job having remained firm, other children are given in the place of the
+ murdered ones. Nothing, however, is done for the children who were
+ murdered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book of Esther is utterly absurd, and the only redeeming feature in
+ the book is that the name of Jehovah is not mentioned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I like the Song of Solomon because it tells of human love, and that is
+ something I can understand. That book in my judgment, is worth all the
+ ones that go before it, and is a far better moral guide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are some wise and merciful Proverbs. Some are selfish and some are
+ flat and commonplace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I like the book of Ecclesiastes because there you find some sense, some
+ poetry, and some philosophy. Take away the interpolations and it is a good
+ book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there is nothing in Nehemiah or Ezra to make men better, nothing
+ in Jeremiah or Lamentations calculated to lessen vice, and only a few
+ passages in Isaiah that can be used in a good cause.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Ezekiel and Daniel we find only ravings of the insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In some of the minor prophets there is now and then a good verse, now and
+ then an elevated thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You can, by selecting passages from different books, make a very good
+ creed, and by selecting passages from different books, you can make a very
+ bad creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble is that the spirit of the Old Testament, its disposition, its
+ temperament, is bad, selfish and cruel. The most fiendish things are
+ commanded, commended and applauded.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The stories that are told of Joseph, of Elisha, of Daniel and Gideon, and
+ of many others, are hideous; hellish.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the whole, the Old Testament cannot be considered a moral guide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Jehovah was not a moral God. He had all the vices, and he lacked all the
+ virtues. He generally carried out his threats, but he never faithfully
+ kept a promise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time, we must remember that the Old Testament is a natural
+ production, that it was written by savages who were slowly crawling toward
+ the light. We must give them credit for the noble things they said, and we
+ must be charitable enough to excuse their faults and even their crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that many Christians regard the Old Testament as the foundation and
+ the New as the superstructure, and while many admit that there are faults
+ and mistakes in the Old Testament, they insist that the New is the flower
+ and perfect fruit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admit that there are many good things in the New Testament, and if we
+ take from that book the dogmas of eternal pain, of infinite revenge, of
+ the atonement, of human sacrifice, of the necessity of shedding blood; if
+ we throw away the doctrine of non-resistance, of loving enemies, the idea
+ that prosperity is the result of wickedness, that poverty is a preparation
+ for Paradise, if we throw all these away and take the good, sensible
+ passages, applicable to conduct, then we can make a fairly good moral
+ guide,&mdash;narrow, but moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, many important things would be left out. You would have nothing
+ about human rights, nothing in favor of the family, nothing for education,
+ nothing for investigation, for thought and reason, but still you would
+ have a fairly good moral guide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On the other hand, if you would take the foolish passages, the extreme
+ ones, you could make a creed that would satisfy an insane asylum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you take the cruel passages, the verses that inculcate eternal hatred,
+ verses that writhe and hiss like serpents, you can make a creed that would
+ shock the heart of a hyena.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that no book contains better passages than the New Testament,
+ but certainly no book contains worse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Below the blossom of love you find the thorn of hatred; on the lips that
+ kiss, you find the poison of the cobra.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible is not a moral guide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Any man who follows faithfully all its teachings is an enemy of society
+ and will probably end his days in a prison or an asylum.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is morality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this world we need certain things. We have many wants. We are exposed
+ to many dangers. We need food, fuel, raiment and shelter, and besides
+ these wants, there is, what may be called, the hunger of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are conditioned beings, and our happiness depends upon conditions.
+ There are certain things that diminish, certain things that increase,
+ well-being. There are certain things that destroy and there are others
+ that preserve.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Happiness, including its highest forms, is after all the only good, and
+ everything, the result of which is to produce or secure happiness, is
+ good, that is to say, moral. Everything that destroys or diminishes
+ well-being is bad, that is to say, immoral. In other words, all that is
+ good is moral, and all that is bad is immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible
+ answer is one word: Intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want
+ the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical, of
+ the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We want to
+ know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached,
+ the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would form
+ the best conceivable moral guide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We cannot depend on what are called "inspired books," or the religions of
+ the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and according to
+ them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being,
+ or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty.
+ They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They
+ destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for
+ credulity, for what they call faith.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is not only absurd, but it is immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These religions teach the slave virtues. They make inanimate things holy,
+ and falsehoods sacred. They create artificial crimes. To eat meat on
+ Friday, to enjoy yourself on Sunday, to eat on fast-days, to be happy in
+ Lent, to dispute a priest, to ask for evidence, to deny a creed, to
+ express your sincere thought, all these acts are sins, crimes against some
+ god. To give your honest opinion about Jehovah, Mohammed or Christ, is far
+ worse than to maliciously slander your neighbor. To question or doubt
+ miracles, is far worse than to deny known facts. Only the obedient, the
+ credulous, the cringers, the kneelers, the meek, the unquestioning, the
+ true believers, are regarded as moral, as virtuous. It is not enough to be
+ honest, generous and useful; not enough to be governed by evidence, by
+ facts. In addition to this, you must believe. These things are the foes of
+ morality. They subvert all natural conceptions of virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All "inspired books," teaching that what the supernatural commands is
+ right, and right because commanded, and that what the supernatural
+ prohibits is wrong, and wrong because prohibited, are absurdly
+ unphilosophic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And all "inspired books," teaching that only those who obey the commands
+ of the supernatural are, or can be, truly virtuous, and that unquestioning
+ faith will be rewarded with eternal joy, are grossly immoral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again I say: Intelligence is the only moral guide.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0048" id="link0048">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE Governor of New Hampshire, undoubtedly a good and sincere man, issued
+ a Fast-Day Proclamation to the people of his State, in which I find the
+ following paragraph:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The decline of the Christian religion, particularly in our rural
+ communities, is a marked feature of the times, and steps should be taken
+ to remedy it. No matter what our belief may be in religious matters, every
+ good citizen knows that when the restraining influences of religion are
+ withdrawn from a community, its decay, moral, mental and financial, is
+ swift and sure. To me this is one of the strongest evidences of the
+ fundamental truth of Christianity. I suggest to-day, as far as possible on
+ Fast-Day, union meetings be held, made up of all shades of belief,
+ including all who are interested in the welfare of our State, and that in
+ your prayers and other devotions and in your mutual councils you remember
+ and consider the problem of the condition of religion in the rural
+ communities. There are towns where no church bell sends forth its solemn
+ call from January to January. There are villages where children grow to
+ manhood unchristened. There are communities where the dead are laid away
+ without the benison of the name of the Christ, and where marriages are
+ solemnized only by Justices of the Peace. This is a matter worthy of your
+ thoughtful consideration, citizens of New Hampshire. It does not augur
+ well for the future. You can afford to devote one day in the year to your
+ fellow-men, to work and thought and prayer for your children and your
+ children's children."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These words of the Governor have caused surprise, discussion and danger.
+ Many ministers have denied that Christianity is declining, and have
+ attacked the Governor with the malice of meekness and the savagery of
+ humility. The question is: Is Christianity declining?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to answer this question we must state what Christianity is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christians tell us that there are certain fundamental truths that must be
+ believed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must believe in God, the creator and governor of the universe; in Jesus
+ Christ, his only begotten son; in the Holy Ghost; in the atonement made by
+ Christ; in salvation by faith; in the second birth; in heaven for
+ believers, in hell for deniers and doubters, and in the inspiration of the
+ Old and New Testaments. They must also believe in a prayer-hearing and
+ prayer-answering God, in special providence, and in addition to all this
+ they must practice a few ceremonies. This, I believe, is a fair skeleton
+ of Christianity. Of course I cannot give an exact definition. Christians
+ do not and never have agreed among themselves. They have been disputing
+ and fighting for many centuries, and to-day they are as far apart as ever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago Christians believed the "fundamental truths" They had no
+ doubts. They knew that God existed; that he made the world. They knew when
+ he commenced to work at the earth and stars and knew when he finished.
+ They knew that he, like a potter, mixed and moulded clay into the shape of
+ a man and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life. They knew that he
+ took from this man a rib and framed the first woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must be admitted that sensible Christians have outgrown this belief.
+ Jehovah the gardener, the potter, the tailor, has been dethroned. The
+ story of creation is believed only by the provincial, the stupid, the
+ truly orthodox. People who have read Darwin and Haeckel and had sense
+ enough to understand these great men, laugh at the legends of the Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago most Christians believed that Christ was the son of God,
+ and not only the son of God, but God himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This belief is slowly fading from the minds of Christians, from the minds
+ of those who have minds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many Christians now say that Christ was simply a man&mdash;a perfect man.
+ Others say that he was divine, but not actually God&mdash;a union of God
+ and man. Some say that while Christ was not God, he was as nearly like God
+ as it is possible for man to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old belief that he was actually God&mdash;that he sacrificed himself
+ unto himself&mdash;that he deserted himself; that he bore the burden of
+ his own wrath; that he made it possible to save a few of his children by
+ shedding his own blood; that he could not forgive the sins of men until
+ they murdered him&mdash;this frightful belief is slowly dying day by day.
+ Most ministers are ashamed to preach these cruel and idiotic absurdities.
+ The Christ of our time is not the Christ of the New Testament&mdash;not
+ the Christ of the Middle Ages; nor of Luther, Wesley or the Puritan
+ fathers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Christ who was God&mdash;who was his own son and his own father&mdash;who
+ was born of a virgin, cast out devils, rose from the dead, and ascended
+ bodily to heaven&mdash;is not the Christ of to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Holy Ghost has never been accurately defined or described. He has
+ always been a winged influence&mdash;a divine aroma; a disembodied
+ essence; a spiritual climate; an enthusiastic flame; a something sensitive
+ and unforgiving; the real father of Jesus Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago the clergy had a great deal to say about the Holy Ghost,
+ but now the average minister, while he alludes to this shadowy deity to
+ round out a prayer, seems ta have but little confidence in him. This deity
+ is and always has been extremely vague. He has been represented in the
+ form of a dove; but this form is not associated with much intelligence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Formerly it was believed that all men were by nature wicked, and that it
+ would be perfectly just for God to damn the entire human race. In fact, it
+ was thought that God, feeling that he had to damn all his children,
+ invented a scheme by which some could be saved and at the same time
+ justice could be satisfied. God knew that without the shedding of blood
+ there could be no remission of sin. For many centuries he was satisfied
+ with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves. But the sins continued to
+ increase. A greater sacrifice was necessary. So God concluded to make the
+ greatest possible sacrifice&mdash;to shed his own blood, that is to say,
+ to have it shed by his chosen people. This was the atonement&mdash;the
+ scheme of salvation&mdash;a scheme that satisfied justice and partially
+ defeated the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No intelligent Christians believe in this atonement. It is utterly
+ unphilosophic. The idea that man made salvation possible by murdering God
+ is infinitely absurd. This makes salvation the blossom of a crime&mdash;the
+ blessed fruit of murder. According to this the joys of heaven are born of
+ the agonies of innocence. If the Jews had been civilized&mdash;if they had
+ believed in freedom of conscience and had listened kindly and calmly to
+ the teachings of Christ, the whole world, including Christ's mother, would
+ have gone to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our fathers had two absurdities. They balanced each other. They said that
+ God could justly damn his children for the sin of Adam, and that he could
+ justly save his children on account of the sufferings and virtues of
+ Christ; that is to say, on account of his own sufferings and virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This view of the atonement has mostly been abandoned. It is now preached,
+ not that Christ bought souls with his blood, but that he has ennobled
+ souls by his example. The supernatural part of the atonement has, by the
+ more intelligent, been thrown away. So the idea of imputed sin&mdash;of
+ vicarious vice&mdash;has been by many abandoned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Salvation by faith is growing weak. People are beginning to see that
+ character is more important than belief; that virtue is above all creeds.
+ Civilized people no longer believe in a God who will damn an honest,
+ generous man. They see that it is not honest to offer a reward for belief.
+ The promise of reward is not evidence. It is an attempt to bribe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God wishes his children to believe, he should furnish evidence. He
+ should not endeavor to make promises and threats take the place of facts.
+ To offer a reward for credulity is dishonest and immoral&mdash;infamous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To say that good people who never heard of Christ ought to be damned for
+ not believing on him is a mixture of idiocy and savagery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People are beginning to perceive that happiness is a result, not a reward;
+ that happiness must be earned; that it is not alms. It is also becoming
+ apparent that sins cannot be forgiven; that no power can step between
+ actions and consequences; that men must "reap what they sow;" that a man
+ who has lived a cruel life cannot, by repenting between the last dose of
+ medicine and the last breath, be washed in the blood of the Lamb, and
+ become an angel&mdash;an angel entitled to an eternity of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this is absurd, but you may say that it is not cruel. But to say that
+ a man who has lived a useful life; who has made a happy home; who has
+ lifted the fallen, succored the oppressed and battled to uphold the right;
+ to say that such a man, because he failed to believe without evidence,
+ will suffer eternal pain, is to say that God is an infinite wild beast.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Salvation for credulity means damnation for investigation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At one time the "second birth" was regarded as a divine mystery&mdash;as a
+ miracle&mdash;a something done by a supernatural power; probably by the
+ Holy Ghost. Now ministers are explaining this mystery. A change of heart
+ is a change of ideas. About this there is nothing miraculous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This happens to most men and women&mdash;happens many times in the life of
+ one man. If this happens without excitement&mdash;as the result of thought&mdash;it
+ is called reformation. If it occurs in a revival&mdash;if it is the result
+ of fright&mdash;it is called the "second birth."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago Christians believed in the inspiration of the Bible. They
+ had no doubts. The Bible was the standard. If some geologist found a fact
+ inconsistent with the Scriptures he was silenced with a text. If some
+ doubter called attention to a contradiction in the Bible he was denounced
+ as an ungodly and blaspheming wretch. Christians then knew that the
+ universe was only about six thousand years old, and any man who denied
+ this was an enemy of Christ and a friend of the Devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this has changed. The Bible is no longer the standard. Science has
+ dethroned the inspired volume. Even theologians are taking facts into
+ consideration. Only ignorant bigots now believe in the plenary inspiration
+ of the Bible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligent ministers know that the Holy Scriptures are filled with
+ mistakes, contradictions and interpolations. They no longer believe in the
+ flood, in Babel, in Lot's wife or in the fire and brimstone storm. They
+ are not sure about the burning bush, the plagues of Egypt, the division of
+ the Red Sea or the miracles in the wilderness. All these wonders are
+ growing foolish. They belong to the Mother Goose of the past, and many
+ clergymen are ashamed to say that they believe them. So, the lengthening
+ of the day in order that General Joshua might have more time to kill, the
+ journey of Elijah to heaven, the voyage of Jonah in the fish, and many
+ other wonders of a like kind, have become so transparently false that even
+ a theologian refuses to believe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same is true of many of the miracles of the New Testament. No sensible
+ man now believes that Christ cast devils and unclean spirits out of the
+ bodies of men and women. A few years ago all Christians believed all these
+ devil miracles with all the mind they had. A few years ago only Infidels
+ denied these miracles, but now the theologians who are studying the
+ "Higher Criticism" are reaching the conclusions of Voltaire and Paine.
+ They have just discovered that the objections made to the Bible by the
+ Deists are supported by the facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time these "Higher Critics," while they admit that the Bible
+ is not true, still insist that it is inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other evening I attended Forepaugh &amp; Sell's Circus at Madison
+ Square Garden and saw a magnificent panorama of performances. While
+ looking at a man riding a couple of horses I thought of the "Higher
+ Critics." They accept Darwin and cling to Genesis. They admit that Genesis
+ is false in fact, and then assert that in a higher sense it is absolutely
+ true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A lie bursts into blossom and has the perfume of truth. These critics
+ declare that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and then establish the
+ truth of the declaration by showing that it is filled with contradictions,
+ absurdities and false prophecies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The horses they ride, sometimes get so far apart that it seems to me that
+ walking would be easier on the legs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I saw at the circus the "Snake Man." I saw him tie himself into all
+ kinds of knots; saw him make a necktie of his legs; saw him throw back his
+ head and force it between his knees; saw him twist and turn as though his
+ bones were made of rubber, and as I watched him I thought of the mental
+ doublings and contortions of the preachers who have answered me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let Christians say what they will, the Bible is no longer the actual word
+ of God; it is no longer perfect; it is no longer quite true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most that is now claimed for the Bible by the "Higher Critics" is,
+ that some passages are inspired; that some passages are true, and that God
+ has left man free to pick these passages out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers are preaching Infidelity. What would Lyman Beecher have
+ thought of a man like Dr. Abbott? he would have consigned him to hell.
+ What would John Wesley have thought of a Methodist like Dr. Cadman? He
+ would have denounced him as a child of the Devil. What would Calvin have
+ thought of a Presbyterian like Professor Briggs? He would have burned him
+ at the stake, and through the smoke and flame would have shouted, "You are
+ a dog of Satan." How would Jeremy Taylor have treated an Episcopalian like
+ Heber Newton?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Governor of New Hampshire is right when he says that Christianity has
+ declined. The flames of faith are flickering, zeal is cooling and even
+ bigotry is beginning to see the other side. I admit that there are still
+ millions of orthodox Christians whose minds are incapable of growth, and
+ who care no more for facts than a monitor does for bullets. Such
+ obstructions on the highway of progress are removed only by death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dogma of eternal pain is no longer believed by the reasonably
+ intelligent. People who have a sense of justice know that eternal revenge
+ cannot be enjoyed by infinite goodness. They know that hell would make
+ heaven impossible. If Christians believed in hell as they once did, the
+ fagots would be lighted again, heretics would be stretched on the rack,
+ and all the instruments of torture would again be stained with innocent
+ blood. Christianity has declined because intelligence has increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Men and women who know something of the history of man, of the horrors of
+ plague, famine and flood, of earthquake, volcano and cyclone, of religious
+ persecution and slavery, have but little confidence in special providence.
+ They do not believe that a prayer was ever answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of people who accept Christ as a moral guide have thrown, away
+ the supernatural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity does not satisfy the brain and heart. It contains too many
+ absurdities. It is unphilosophic, unnatural, impossible. Not to resist
+ evil is moral suicide. To love your enemies is impossible. To desert wife
+ and children for the sake of heaven is cowardly and selfish. To promise
+ rewards for belief is dishonest. To threaten torture for honest unbelief
+ is infamous. Christianity is declining because men and women are growing
+ better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Governor was not satisfied with saying that Christianity had declined,
+ but he added this: "Every good citizen knows that when the restraining
+ influences of religion are withdrawn from a community, its decay, moral,
+ mental and financial is swift and sure."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The restraining influences of religion have never been withdrawn from
+ Spain or Portugal, from Austria or Italy. The "restraining influences" are
+ still active in Russia. Emperor William relies on them in Germany, and the
+ same influences are very busy taking care of Ireland. If these influences
+ should be withdrawn from Spain there would be "mental, moral and financial
+ decay." Is not this statement perfectly absurd?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact is that religion has reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand
+ organ and Ireland to exile. What are the restraining influences of
+ religion? I admit that religion can prevent people from eating meat on
+ Friday, from dancing in Lent, from going to the theatre on holy days and
+ from swearing in public. In other words, religion can restrain people from
+ committing artificial offences. But the real question is: Can religion
+ restrain people from committing natural crimes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church teaches that God can and will forgive sins.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity sells sin on a credit. It says to men and women, "Be good; do
+ right; but no matter how many crimes you commit you can be forgiven." How
+ can such a religion be regarded as a restraining influence! There was a
+ time when religion had power; when the church ruled Christendom; when
+ popes crowned and uncrowned kings. Was there at that time moral, mental
+ and financial growth? Did the nations thus restrained by religion,
+ prosper? When these restraining influences were weakened, when popes were
+ humbled, when creeds were denied, did morality, intelligence and
+ prosperity begin to decay?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What are the restraining influences of religion? Did anybody ever hear of
+ a policeman being dismissed because a new church had been organized?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity teaches that the man who does right carries a cross. The
+ exact opposite of this is true. The cross is carried by the man who does
+ wrong. I believe in the restraining influences of intelligence.
+ Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind. If you wish to
+ make men moral and prosperous develop the brain. Men must be taught to
+ rely on themselves. To supplicate the supernatural is a waste of time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only evils that have been caused by the decline of Christianity, as
+ pointed out by the Governor, are that in some villages they hear no solemn
+ bells, that the dead are buried without Christian ceremony, that marriages
+ are contracted before Justices of the Peace, and that children go
+ unchristened.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These evils are hardly serious enough to cause moral, mental and financial
+ decay. The average church bell is not very musical&mdash;not calculated to
+ develop the mind or quicken the conscience. The absence of the ordinary
+ funeral sermon does not add to the horror of death, and the failure to
+ hear a minister say, as he stands by the grave, "One star differs in glory
+ from another star. There is a difference between the flesh of fowl and
+ fish. Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners," does not
+ necessarily increase the grief of the mourners. So far as children are
+ concerned, if they are vaccinated, it does not make much difference
+ whether they are christened or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Marriage is a civil contract, and God is not one of the contracting
+ parties. It is a contract with which the church has no business to
+ interfere. Marriage with us is regulated by law. The real marriage&mdash;the
+ uniting of hearts, the lighting of the sacred flame in each&mdash;is the
+ work of Nature, and it is the best work that nature does. The ceremony of
+ marriage gives notice to the world that the real marriage has taken place.
+ Ministers have no real interest in marriages outside of the fees.
+ Certainly marriages by Justices of the Peace cannot cause the mental,
+ moral and financial decay of a State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The things pointed out by the Governor were undoubtedly produced by the
+ decline of Christianity, but they are not evils, and they cannot possibly
+ injure the people morally, mentally or financially. The Governor calls on
+ the people to think, work and pray. With two-thirds of this I agree. If
+ the people of New Hampshire will think and work without praying they will
+ grow morally, mentally and financially. If they pray without working and
+ thinking, they will decay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Prayer is beggary&mdash;an effort to get something for nothing. Labor is
+ the honest prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think that the good and true in Christianity are declining. The
+ good and true are more clearly perceived and more precious than ever. The
+ supernatural, the miraculous part of Christianity is declining. The New
+ Testament has been compelled to acknowledge the jurisdiction of reason. If
+ Christianity continues to decline at the same rate and ratio that it has
+ declined in this generation, in a few years all that is supernatural in
+ the Christian religion will cease to exist. There is a conflict&mdash;a
+ battle between the natural and the supernatural. The natural was baffled
+ and beaten for thousands of years. The flag of defeat was carried by the
+ few, by the brave and wise, by the real heroes of our race. They were
+ conquered, captured, imprisoned, tortured and burned. Others took their
+ places. The banner was kept in the air. In spite of countless defeats the
+ army of the natural increased. It began to gain victories. It did not
+ torture and kill the conquered. It enlightened and blessed. It fought
+ ignorance with science, cruelty with kindness, slavery with justice, and
+ all vices with virtues. In this great conflict we have passed midnight.
+ When the morning comes its rays will gild but one flag&mdash;the flag of
+ the natural.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All over Christendom religions are declining. Only children and the
+ intellectually undeveloped have faith&mdash;the old faith that defies
+ facts. Only a few years ago to be excommunicated by the pope blanched the
+ cheeks of the bravest. Now the result would be laughter. Only a few years
+ ago, for the sake of saving heathen souls, priests would brave all dangers
+ and endure all hardships.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I once read the diary of a priest&mdash;one who long ago went down the
+ Illinois River, the first white man to be borne on its waters. In this
+ diary he wrote that he had just been paid for all that he had suffered. He
+ had added a gem to the crown of his glory&mdash;had saved a soul for
+ Christ. He had baptized a papoose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That kind of faith has departed from the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The zeal that flamed in the hearts of Calvin, Luther and Knox, is cold and
+ dead. Where are the Wesleys and Whitfields? Where are the old evangelists,
+ the revivalists who swayed the hearts of their hearers with words of
+ flame? The preachers of our day have lost the Promethean fire. They have
+ lost the tone of certainty, of authority. "Thus saith the Lord" has
+ dwindled to "perhaps." Sermons, messages from God, promises radiant with
+ eternal joy, threats lurid with the flames of hell&mdash;have changed to
+ colorless essays; to apologies and literary phrases; to inferences and
+ peradventures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The blood-dyed vestures of the Redeemer are not waving in triumph over
+ the ramparts of sin and rebellion," but over the fortresses of faith float
+ the white flags of truce. The trumpets no longer sound for battle, but for
+ parley. The fires of hell have been extinguished, and heaven itself is
+ only a dream. The "eternal verities" have changed to doubts. The torch of
+ inspiration, choked with ashes, has lost its flame. There is no longer in
+ the church "a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind;" no "cloven
+ tongues like as of fire;" no "wonders in the heaven above," and no "signs
+ in the earth beneath." The miracles have faded away and the sceptre is
+ passing from superstition to science&mdash;science, the only possible
+ savior of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0049" id="link0049">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Written for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Number of the
+ New York Truth Seeker, September 3, 1898.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I CONGRATULATE <i>The Truth Seeker</i> on its twenty-fifth birthday. It
+ has fought a good fight. It has always been at the front. It has carried
+ the flag, and its flag is a torch that sheds light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-five years ago the people of this country, for the most part, were
+ quite orthodox. The great "fundamental" falsehoods of Christianity were
+ generally accepted. Those who were not Christians, as a rule, admitted
+ that they ought to be; that they ought to repent and join the church, and
+ this they generally intended to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers had few doubts. The most of them had been educated not to
+ think, but to believe. Thought was regarded as dangerous, and the clergy,
+ as a rule, kept on the safe side. Investigation was discouraged. It was
+ declared that faith was the only road that led to eternal joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the schools and colleges were under sectarian control, and the
+ presidents and professors were defenders of their creeds. The people were
+ crammed with miracles and stuffed with absurdities. They were taught that
+ the Bible was the "inspired" word of God, that it was absolutely perfect,
+ that the contradictions were only apparent, and that it contained no
+ mistakes in philosophy, none in science. The great scheme of salvation was
+ declared to be the result of infinite wisdom and mercy. Heaven and hell
+ were waiting for the human race. Only those could be saved who had faith
+ and who had been born twice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most of the ministers taught the geology of Moses, the astronomy of
+ Joshua, and the philosophy of Christ. They regarded scientists as enemies,
+ and their principal business was to defend miracles and deny facts. They
+ knew, however, that men were thinking, investigating in every direction,
+ and they feared the result. They became a little malicious&mdash;somewhat
+ hateful. With their congregations they relied on sophistry, and they
+ answered their enemies with epithets, with misrepresentations and
+ slanders; and yet their minds were filled with a vague fear, with a
+ sickening dread. Some of the people were reading and some were thinking.
+ Lyell had told them something about geology, and in the light of facts
+ they were reading Genesis again. The clergy called Lyell an Infidel, a
+ blasphemer, but the facts seemed to care nothing for opprobrious names.
+ Then the "called," the "set apart," the "Lord's anointed" began changing
+ the "inspired" word. They erased the word "day" and inserted "period," and
+ then triumphantly exclaimed: "The world was created in six periods." This
+ answer satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest ignorance, but honest
+ intelligence was not satisfied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ More and more was being found about the history of life, of living things,
+ the order in which the various forms had appeared and the relations they
+ had sustained to each other. Beneath the gaze of the biologist the fossils
+ were again clothed with flesh, submerged continents and islands
+ reappeared, the ancient forest grew once more, the air was filled with
+ unknown birds, the seas with armored monsters, and the land with beasts of
+ many forms that sought with tooth and claw each other's flesh.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Haeckel and Huxley followed life through all its changing forms from monad
+ up to man. They found that men, women, and children had been on this poor
+ world for hundreds of thousands of years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The clergy could not dodge these facts, this conclusion, by calling "days"
+ periods, because the Bible gives the age of Adam when he died, the lives
+ and ages to the flood, to Abraham, to David, and from David to Christ, so
+ that, according to the Bible, man at the birth of Christ had been on this
+ earth four thousand and four years and no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was no way in which the sacred record could be changed, but of
+ course the dear ministers could not admit the conclusion arrived at by
+ Haeckel and Huxley. If they did they would have to give up original sin,
+ the scheme of the atonement, and the consolation of eternal fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They took the only course they could. They promptly and solemnly, with
+ upraised hands, denied the facts, denounced the biologists as irreverent
+ wretches, and defended the Book. With tears in their voices they talked
+ about "Mother's Bible," about the "faith of the fathers," about the
+ prayers that the children had said, and they also talked about the
+ wickedness of doubt. This satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest
+ ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The works of Humboldt had been translated, and were being read; the
+ intellectual horizon was enlarged, and the fact that the endless chain of
+ cause and effect had never been broken, that Nature had never been
+ interfered with, forced its way into many minds. This conception of nature
+ was beyond the clergy. They did not believe it; they could not comprehend
+ it. They did not answer Humboldt, but they attacked him with great
+ virulence. They measured his works by the Bible, because the Bible was
+ then the standard.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In examining a philosophy, a system, the ministers asked: "Does it agree
+ with the sacred book?" With the Bible they separated the gold from the
+ dross. Every science had to be tested by the Scriptures. Humboldt did not
+ agree with Moses. He differed from Joshua. He had his doubts about the
+ flood. That was enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, after all, the ministers felt that they were standing on thin ice,
+ that they were surrounded by masked batteries, and that something
+ unfortunate was liable at any moment to happen. This increased their
+ efforts to avoid, to escape. The truth was that they feared the truth.
+ They were afraid of facts. They became exceedingly anxious for morality,
+ for the young, for the inexperienced. They were afraid to trust human
+ nature. They insisted that without the Bible the world would rush to
+ crime. They warned the thoughtless of the danger of thinking. They knew
+ that it would be impossible for civilization to exist without the Bible.
+ They knew this because their God had tried it. He gave no Bible to the
+ antediluvians, and they became so bad that he had to destroy them. He gave
+ the Jews only the Old Testament, and they were dispersed. Irreverent
+ people might say that Jehovah should have known this without a trial, but
+ after all that has nothing to do with theology.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Attention had been called to the fact that two accounts of creation are in
+ Genesis, and that they do not agree and cannot be harmonized, and that, in
+ addition to that, the divine historian had made a mistake as to the order
+ of creation; that according to one account Adam was made before the
+ animals, and Eve last of all, from Adam's rib; and by the other account
+ Adam and Eve were made after the animals, and both at the same time. A
+ good many people were surprised to find that the Creator had written
+ contradictory accounts of the creation, and had forgotten the order in
+ which he created.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there was another difficulty. Jehovah had declared that on Tuesday,
+ or during the second period, he had created the "firmament" to divide the
+ waters which were below the firmament from the waters above the firmament.
+ It was found that there is no firmament; that the moisture in the air is
+ the result of evaporation, and that there was nothing to divide the waters
+ above, from the waters below. So that, according to the facts, Jehovah did
+ nothing on the second day or period, because the moisture above the earth
+ is not prevented from falling by the firmament, but because the mist is
+ lighter than air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The preachers, however, began to dodge, to evade, to talk about "oriental
+ imagery." They declared that Genesis was a "sublime poem," a divine
+ "panorama of creation," an "inspired vision;" that it was not intended to
+ be exact in its details, but that it was true in a far higher sense, in a
+ poetical sense, in a spiritual sense, conveying a truth much higher, much
+ grander than simple, fact. The contradictions were covered with the mantle
+ of oriental imagery. This satisfied bigotry, hypocrisy, and honest
+ ignorance, but honest intelligence was not satisfied.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People were reading Darwin. His works interested not only the scientific,
+ but the intelligent in all the walks of life. Darwin was the keenest
+ observer of all time, the greatest naturalist in all the world. He was
+ patient, modest, logical, candid, courageous, and absolutely truthful. He
+ told the actual facts. He colored nothing. He was anxious only to
+ ascertain the truth. He had no prejudices, no theories, no creed. He was
+ the apostle of the real.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ministers greeted him with shouts of derision. From nearly all the
+ pulpits came the sounds of ignorant laughter, one of the saddest of all
+ sounds. The clergy in a vague kind of way believed the Bible account of
+ creation; they accepted the Miltonic view; they believed that all animals,
+ including man, had been made of clay, fashioned by Jehovah's hands, and
+ that he had breathed into all forms, not only the breath of life, but
+ instinct and reason. They were not in the habit of descending to
+ particulars; they did not describe Jehovah as kneading the clay or
+ modeling his forms like a sculptor, but what they did say included these
+ things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The theory of Darwin contradicted all their ideas on the subject, vague as
+ they were. He showed that man had not appeared at first as man, that he
+ had not fallen from perfection, but had slowly risen through many ages
+ from lower forms. He took food, climate, and all conditions into
+ consideration, and accounted for difference of form, function, instinct,
+ and reason, by natural causes. He dispensed with the supernatural. He did
+ away with Jehovah the potter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course the theologians denounced him as a blasphemer, as a dethroner of
+ God. They even went so far as to smile at his ignorance. They said: "If
+ the theory of Darwin is true the Bible is false, our God is a myth, and
+ our religion a fable."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In that they were right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against Darwin they rained texts of Scripture like shot and shell. They
+ believed that they were victorious and their congregations were delighted.
+ Poor little frightened professors in religious colleges sided with the
+ clergy. Hundreds of backboneless "scientists" ranged themselves with the
+ enemies of Darwin. It began to look as though the church was victorious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Slowly, steadily, the ideas of Darwin gained ground. He began to be
+ understood. Men of sense were reading what he said. Men of genius were on
+ his side. In a little while the really great in all departments of human
+ thought declared in his favor. The tide began to turn. The smile on the
+ face of the theologian became a frozen grin. The preachers began to hedge,
+ to dodge. They admitted that the Bible was not inspired for the purpose of
+ teaching science&mdash;only inspired about religion, about the spiritual,
+ about the divine. The fortifications of faith were crumbling, the old guns
+ had been spiked, and the armies of the "living God" were in retreat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Great questions were being discussed, and freely discussed. People were
+ not afraid to give their opinions, and they did give their honest
+ thoughts. Draper had shown in his "Intellectual Development of Europe"
+ that Catholicism had been the relentless enemy of progress, the bitter foe
+ of all that is really useful. The Protestants were delighted with this
+ book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Buckle had shown in his "History of Civilization in England" that
+ Protestantism had also enslaved the mind, had also persecuted to the
+ extent of its power, and that Protestantism in its last analysis was
+ substantially the same as the creed of Rome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This book satisfied the thoughtful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hegel in his first book had done a great work and it did great good in
+ spite of the fact that his second book was almost a surrender. Lecky in
+ his first volume of "The History of Rationalism" shed a flood of light on
+ the meanness, the cruelty, and the malevolence of "revealed religion," and
+ this did good in spite of the fact that he almost apologizes in the second
+ volume for what he had said in the first.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Universalists had done good. They had civilized a great many
+ Christians. They declared that eternal punishment was infinite revenge,
+ and that the God of hell was an infinite savage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some of the Unitarians, following the example of Theodore Parker,
+ denounced Jehovah as a brutal, tribal God. All these forces worked
+ together for the development of the orthodox brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Herbert Spencer was being read and understood. The theories of this great
+ philosopher were being adopted. He overwhelmed the theologians with facts,
+ and from a great height he surveyed the world. Of course he was attacked,
+ but not answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Emerson had sowed the seeds of thought&mdash;of doubt&mdash;in many minds,
+ and from many directions the world was being flooded with intellectual
+ light. The clergy became apologetic; they spoke with less certainty; with
+ less emphasis, and lost a little confidence in the power of assertion.
+ They felt the necessity of doing something, and they began to harmonize as
+ best they could the old lies and the new truths. They tried to get the
+ wreck ashore, and many of them were willing to surrender if they could
+ keep their side-arms; that is to say, their salaries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Conditions had been reversed. The Bible had ceased to be the standard.
+ Science was the supreme and final test.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was no peace for the pulpit; no peace for the shepherds. Students of
+ the Bible in England and Germany had been examining the inspired
+ Scriptures. They had been trying to find when and by whom the books of the
+ Bible were written. They found that the Pentateuch was not written by
+ Moses; that the authors of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings,
+ Chronicles, Esther, and Job were not known; that the Psalms were not
+ written by David; that Solomon had nothing to do with Proverbs,
+ Ecclesiastes, or the Song; that Isaiah was the work of at least three
+ authors; that the prophecies of Daniel were written after the happening of
+ the events prophesied. They found many mistakes and contradictions, and
+ some of them went so far as to assert that the Hebrews had never been
+ slaves in Egypt; that the story of the plagues, the exodus, and the
+ pursuit was only a myth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The New Testament fared no better than the Old. These critics found that
+ nearly all of the books of the New Testament had been written by unknown
+ men; that it was impossible to fix the time when they were written; that
+ many of the miracles were absurd and childish, and that in addition to all
+ of this, the gospels were found filled with mistakes, with interpolations'
+ and contradictions; that the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not
+ understand the Christian religion as it was understood by the author of
+ the gospel according to John.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the critics were denounced from most of the pulpits, and the
+ religious papers, edited generally by men who had failed as preachers,
+ were filled with bitter denials and vicious attacks. The religious editors
+ refused to be enlightened. They fought under the old flag. When dogmas
+ became too absurd to be preached, they were taught in the Sunday schools;
+ when worn out there, they were given to the missionaries; but the dear old
+ religious weeklies, the Banners, the Covenants, the Evangelists, continued
+ to feed their provincial subscribers with known mistakes and refuted lies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another fact that should be taken into consideration. All
+ religions are provincial. Mingled with them all and at the foundation of
+ all are the egotism of ignorance, of isolation, the pride of race, and
+ what is called patriotism. Every religion is a natural product&mdash;the
+ result of conditions. When one tribe became acquainted with another, the
+ ideas of both were somewhat modified. So when nations and races come into
+ contact a change in thought, in opinion, is a necessary result.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago nations were strangers, and consequently hated each
+ other's institutions and religions. Commerce has done a great work in
+ destroying provincialism. To trade commodities is to exchange ideas. So
+ the press, the steamships, the railways, cables, and telegraphs have
+ brought the nations together and enabled them to compare their prejudices,
+ their religions, laws and customs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Recently many scholars have been studying the religions of the world and
+ have found them much the same. They have also found that there is nothing
+ original in Christianity; that the legends, miracles, Christs, and
+ conditions of salvation, the heavens, hells, angels, devils, and gods were
+ the common property of the ancient world. They found that Christ was a new
+ name for an old biography; that he was not a life, but a legend; not a
+ man, but a myth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People began to suspect that our religion had not been supernaturally
+ revealed, while others, far older and substantially the same, had been
+ naturally produced. They found it difficult to account for the fact that
+ poor, ignorant savages had in the darkness of nature written so well that
+ Jehovah thousands of years afterwards copied it and adopted it as his own.
+ They thought it curious that God should be a plagiarist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These scholars found that all the old religions had recognized the
+ existence of devils, of evil spirits, who sought in countless ways to
+ injure the children of men. In this respect they found that the sacred
+ books of other nations were just the same as our Bible, as our New
+ Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take the Devil from our religion and the entire fabric falls. No Devil, no
+ fall of man. No Devil, no atonement. No Devil, no hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Devil is the keystone of the arch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet for many years the belief in the existence of the Devil&mdash;of
+ evil spirits&mdash;has been fading from the minds of intelligent people.
+ This belief has now substantially vanished. The minister who now seriously
+ talks about a personal Devil is regarded with a kind of pitying contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Devil has faded from his throne and the evil spirits have vanished
+ from the air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who has really given up a belief in the existence of the Devil
+ cannot believe in the inspiration of the New Testament&mdash;in the
+ divinity of Christ. If Christ taught anything, if he believed in anything,
+ he taught a belief in the existence of the Devil..His principal business
+ was casting out devils. He himself was taken possession of by the Devil
+ and carried to the top of the temple.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands and thousands of people have ceased to believe the account in
+ the New Testament regarding devils, and yet continue to believe in the
+ dogma of "inspiration" and the divinity of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the brain of the average Christian, contradictions dwell in unity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While a belief in the existence of the Devil has almost faded away, the
+ belief in the existence of a personal God has been somewhat weakened. The
+ old belief that back of nature, back of all substance and force, was and
+ is a personal God, an infinite intelligence who created and governs the
+ world, began to be questioned. The scientists had shown the
+ indestructibility of matter and force. B&uuml;chner's great work had
+ convinced most readers that matter and force could not have been created.
+ They also became satisfied that matter cannot exist apart from force and
+ that force cannot exist apart from matter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They found, too, that thought is a form of force, and that consequently
+ intelligence could not have existed before matter, because without matter,
+ force in any form cannot and could not exist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The creator of anything is utterly unthinkable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago God was supposed to govern the world. He rewarded the
+ people with sunshine, with prosperity and health, or he punished with
+ drought and flood, with plague and storm. He not only attended to the
+ affairs of nations, but he watched the actions of individuals. He sank
+ ships, derailed trains, caused conflagrations, killed men and women with
+ his lightnings, destroyed some with earthquakes, and tore the homes and
+ bodies of thousands into fragments with his cyclones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of the church, in spite of the ministers, the people began to
+ lose confidence in Providence. The right did not seem always to triumph.
+ Virtue was not always rewarded and vice was not always punished. The good
+ failed; the vicious succeeded; the strong and cruel enslaved the weak;
+ toil was paid with the lash; babes were sold from the breasts of mothers,
+ and Providence seemed to be absolutely heartless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, people began to think that the God of the Christians and
+ the God of nature were about the same, and that neither appeared to take
+ any care of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Deists of the last century scoffed at the Bible God. He was too cruel,
+ too savage. At the same time they praised the God of nature. They laughed
+ at the idea of inspiration and denied the supernatural origin of the
+ Scriptures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if the Bible is not inspired, then it is a natural production, and
+ nature, not God, should be held responsible for the Scriptures. Yet the
+ Deists denied that God was the author and at the same time asserted the
+ perfection of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This shows that even in the minds of Deists contradictions dwell in unity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Against all these facts and forces, these theories and tendencies, the
+ clergy fought and prayed. It is not claimed that they were consciously
+ dishonest, but it is claimed that they were prejudiced&mdash;that they
+ were incapable of examining the other side&mdash;that they were utterly
+ destitute of the philosophic spirit. They were not searchers for the
+ facts, but defenders of the creeds, and undoubtedly they were the product
+ of conditions and surroundings, and acted as they must.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of everything a few rays of light penetrated the orthodox mind.
+ Many ministers accepted some of the new facts, and began to mingle with
+ Christian mistakes a few scientific truths. In many instances they excited
+ the indignation of their congregations. Some were tried for heresy and
+ driven from their pulpits, and some organized new churches and gathered
+ about them a few people willing to listen to the sincere thoughts of an
+ honest man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great body of the church, however, held to the creed&mdash;not quite
+ believing it, but still insisting that it was true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In private conversation they would apologize and admit that the old ideas
+ were outgrown, but in public they were as orthodox as ever. In every
+ church, however, there were many priests who accepted the new gospel; that
+ is to say, welcomed the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day it may truthfully be said that the Bible in the old sense is no
+ longer regarded as the inspired word of God. Jehovah is no longer accepted
+ or believed in as the creator of the universe. His place has been taken by
+ the Unknown, the Unseen, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible Something,
+ the Cosmic Dust, the First Cause, the Inconceivable, the Original Force,
+ the Mystery. The God of the Bible, the gentleman who walked in the cool of
+ the evening, who talked face to face with Moses, who revenged himself on
+ unbelievers and who gave laws written with his finger on tables of stone,
+ has abdicated. He has become a myth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, too, the New Testament has lost its authority. People reason about it
+ now as they do about other books, and even orthodox ministers pick out the
+ miracles that ought to be believed, and when anything is attributed to
+ Christ not in accordance with their views, they take the liberty of
+ explaining it away by saying "interpolation."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In other words, we have lived to see Science the standard instead of the
+ Bible. We have lived to see the Bible tested by Science, and, what is
+ more, we have lived to see reason the standard not only in religion, but
+ in all the domain of science. Now all civilized scientists appeal to
+ reason. They get their facts, and then reason from the foundation. Now the
+ theologian appeals to reason. Faith is no longer considered a foundation.
+ The theologian has found that he must build upon the truth and that he
+ must establish this truth by satisfying human reason.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is where we are now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is to be the result? Is progress to stop? Are we to retrace our
+ steps? Are we going back to superstition? Are we going to take authority
+ for truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me prophesy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In modern times we have slowly lost confidence in the supernatural and
+ have slowly gained confidence in the natural. We have slowly lost
+ confidence in gods and have slowly gained confidence in man. For the cure
+ of disease, for the stopping of plague, we depend on the natural&mdash;on
+ science. We have lost confidence in holy water and religious processions.
+ We have found that prayers are never answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, all belief in the supernatural will be driven from the
+ human mind. All religions must pass away. The augurs, the soothsayers, the
+ seers, the preachers, the astrologers and alchemists will all lie in the
+ same cemetery and one epitaph will do for them all. In a little while all
+ will have had their day. They were naturally produced and they will be
+ naturally destroyed. Man at last will depend entirely upon himself&mdash;on
+ the development of the brain&mdash;to the end that he may take advantage
+ of the forces of nature&mdash;to the end that he may supply the wants of
+ his body and feed the hunger of his mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, teachers will take the place of preachers and the
+ interpreters of nature will be the only priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0050" id="link0050">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ POLITICAL MORALITY.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE room of the House Committee on Elections was crowded this morning with
+ committeemen and spectators to listen to an argument by Col. Robert G.
+ Ingersoll in the contested election case of Strobach against Herbert, of
+ the IId Alabama district. Colonel Ingersoll appeared for Strobach, the
+ contestant. While most of his argument was devoted to the dry details of
+ the testimony, he entered into some discussion of the general principles
+ involved in contested election cases, and spoke with great eloquence and
+ force.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mere personal controversy, as between Herbert and Strobach, is not
+ worth talking about. It is a question as to whether or not the republican
+ system is a failure. Unless the will of the majority can be ascertained,
+ and surely ascertained, through the medium of the ballot, the foundation
+ of this Government rests upon nothing&mdash;the Government ceases to be. I
+ would a thousand time rather a Democrat should come to Congress from this
+ district, or from any district, than that a Republican should come who was
+ not honestly elected. I would a thousand times rather that this country
+ should honestly go to destruction than dishonestly and fraudulently go
+ anywhere. We want it settled whether this form of government is or is not
+ a failure. That is the real question, and it is the question at issue in
+ every one of these cases. Has Congress power and has Congress the sense to
+ say to-day, that no man shall sit as a maker of laws for the people who
+ has not been honestly elected? Whenever you admit a man to Congress and
+ allow him to vote and make laws, you poison the source of justice&mdash;you
+ poison the source of power; and the moment the people begin to think that
+ many members of Congress are there through fraud, that moment they cease
+ to have respect for the legislative department of this Government&mdash;that
+ moment they cease to have respect for the sovereignty of the people
+ represented by fraud.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as I have said, I care nothing about the personal part of it, and,
+ maybe you will not believe me, but I care nothing about the political
+ part. The question is, Who has the right on his side? Who is honestly
+ entitled to this seat? That is infinitely more important than any personal
+ or party question. My doctrine is that a majority of the people must
+ control&mdash;that we have in this country a king, that we have in this
+ country a sovereign, just as truly as they can have in any other, and, as
+ a matter of fact, a republic is the only country that does in truth have a
+ sovereign, and that sovereign is the legally expressed will of the people.
+ So that any man that puts in a fraudulent vote is a traitor to that
+ sovereign; any man that knowingly counts an illegal vote is a traitor to
+ that sovereign, and is not fit to be a citizen of the great Republic. Any
+ man who fraudulently throws out a vote, knowing it to be a legal vote,
+ tampers with the source of power, and is, in fact, false to our
+ institutions. Now, these are the questions to be decided, and I want them
+ decided, not because this case happens to come from the South any more
+ than if it came from the North. It is a matter that concerns the whole
+ country. We must decide it. There must be a law on the subject. We have
+ got to lay down a stringent rule that shall apply to these cases. There
+ should be&mdash;there must be&mdash;such a thing as political morality so
+ far as voting is concerned.&mdash;New York Tribune, May 13, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0051" id="link0051">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Printed from manuscript notes found among Colonel
+ Ingersoll's papers, evidently written in the early '80's.
+ While much of the argument and criticism will be found
+ embodied in his various lectures magazine articles and
+ contributions to the press, it was thought too valuable in
+ its present form to be left out of a complete edition of his
+ works, on account of too much repetition. Undoubtedly it was
+ the author's intention to go through the Bible in this same
+ manner and to publish in book form. "A few Reasons for
+ doubting the Inspiration of the Bible."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ THE Old Testament must have been written nearly two thousand years before
+ the invention of printing. There were but few copies, and these were in
+ the keeping of those whose interest might have prompted interpolations,
+ and whose ignorance might have led to mistakes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. The written Hebrew was composed entirely of consonants, without
+ any points or marks standing for vowels, so that anything like accuracy
+ was impossible. Anyone can test this for himself by writing an English
+ sentence, leaving out the vowels. It will take far more inspiration to
+ read than to write a book with consonants alone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. The books composing the Old Testament were not divided into
+ chapters or verses, and no system of punctuation was known. Think of this
+ a moment and you will see how difficult it must be to read such a book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. There was not among the Jews any dictionary of their language, and
+ for this reason the accurate meaning of words could not be preserved. Now
+ the different meanings of words are preserved so that by knowing the age
+ in which a writer lived we can ascertain with reasonable certainty his
+ meaning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. The Old Testament was printed for the first time in 1488. Until
+ this date it existed only in manuscript, and was constantly exposed to
+ erasures and additions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth. It is now admitted by the most learned in the Hebrew language that
+ in our present English version of the Old Testament there are at least one
+ hundred thousand errors. Of course the believers in inspiration assert
+ that these errors are not sufficient in number to cast the least suspicion
+ upon any passages upholding what are called the "fundamentals."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventh. It is not certainly known who in fact wrote any of the books of
+ the Old Testament. For instance, it is now generally conceded that Moses
+ was not the author of the Pentateuch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eighth. Other books, not now in existence, are referred to in the Old
+ Testament as of equal authority, such as the books of Jasher, Nathan,
+ Ahijah, Iddo, Jehu, Sayings of the Seers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ninth. The Christians are not agreed among themselves as to what books are
+ inspired. The Catholics claim as inspired the books of Maccabees, Tobit,
+ Esdras, etc. Others doubt the inspiration of Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the
+ Song of Solomon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Tenth. In the book of Esther and the Song of Solomon the name of God is
+ not mentioned, and no reference is made to any supreme being, nor to any
+ religious duty. These omissions would seem sufficient to cast a little
+ doubt upon these books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eleventh. Within the present century manuscript copies of the Old
+ Testament have been found throwing new light and changing in many
+ instances the present readings. In consequence a new version is now being
+ made by a theological syndicate composed of English and American divines,
+ and after this is published it may be that our present Bible will fall
+ into disrepute.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twelfth. The fact that language is continually changing, that words are
+ constantly dying and others being born; that the same word has a variety
+ of meanings during its life, shows hew hard it is to preserve the original
+ ideas that might have been expressed in the Scriptures, for thousands of
+ years, without dictionaries, without the art of printing, and without the
+ light of contemporaneous literature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirteenth. Whatever there was of the Old Testament seems to have been
+ lost from the time of Moses until the days of Josiah, and it is probable
+ that nothing like the Bible existed in any permanent form among the Jews
+ until a few hundred years before Christ. It is said that Ezra gave the
+ Pentateuch to the Jews, but whether he found or originated it is unknown.
+ So it is claimed that Nehemiah gathered up the manuscripts about the kings
+ and prophets, while the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ruth,
+ Ecclesiastes, and some others were either collected or written long after.
+ The Jews themselves did not agree as to what books were really inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourteenth. In the Old Testament we find several contradictory laws about
+ the same thing, and contradictory accounts of the same occurrences. In the
+ twentieth chapter of Exodus we find the first account of the giving of the
+ Ten Commandments. In the thirty-fourth chapter another account is given.
+ These two accounts could never have been written by the same person. Read
+ these two accounts and you will be forced to admit that one of them cannot
+ be true. So there are two histories of the creation, of the flood, and of
+ the manner in which Saul became king.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifteenth. It is now generally admitted that Genesis must have been
+ written by two persons, and the parts written by each can be separated,
+ and when separated they are found to contradict each other in many
+ important particulars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixteenth. It is also admitted that copyists made verbal changes not only,
+ but pieced out fragments; that the speeches of Elihu in the book of Job
+ were all interpolated, and that most of the prophecies were made by
+ persons whose names we have never known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventeenth. The manuscripts of the Old Testament were not alike, and the
+ Greek version differed from the Hebrew, and there was no absolutely
+ received text of the Old Testament until after the commencement of the
+ Christian era. Marks and points to denote vowels were invented probably
+ about the seventh century after Christ. Whether these vowels were put in
+ the proper places or not is still an open question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Eighteenth. The Alexandrian version, or what is known as the Septuagint,
+ translated by seventy learned Jews, assisted by "miraculous power," about
+ two hundred years before Christ, could not have been, it is said,
+ translated from the Hebrew text that we now have. The differences can only
+ be accounted for by supposing that they had a different Hebrew text. The
+ early Christian Churches adopted the Septuagint, and were satisfied for a
+ time. But so many errors were found, and so many were scanning every word
+ in search of something to sustain their peculiar views, that several new
+ versions appeared, all different somewhat from the Hebrew manuscripts,
+ from the Septuagint, and from each other. All these versions were in
+ Greek. The first Latin Bible originated in Africa, but no one has ever
+ found out which Latin manuscript was the original. Many were produced, and
+ all differed from each other. These Latin versions were compared with each
+ other and with the Hebrew, and a new Latin version was made in the fifth
+ century, but the old Latin versions held their own for about four hundred
+ years, and no one yet knows which were right. Besides these there were
+ Egyptian, Ethiopie, Armenian, and several others, all differing from each
+ other as well as from all others in the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was not until the fourteenth century that the Bible was translated into
+ German, and not until the fifteenth that Bibles were printed in the
+ principal languages of Europe. Of these Bibles there were several kinds&mdash;Luther's,
+ the Dort, King James's, Genevan, French, besides the Danish and Swedish.
+ Most of these differed from each other, and gave rise to infinite disputes
+ and crimes without number. The earliest fragment of the Bible in the
+ "Saxon" language known to exist was written sometime in the seventh
+ century. The first Bible was printed in England in 1538. In 1560 the first
+ English Bible was printed that was divided into verses. Under Henry VIII.
+ the Bible was revised; again under Queen Elizabeth, and once again under
+ King James. This last was published in 1611, and is the one now in general
+ use.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nineteenth. No one in the world has learning enough, nor has he time
+ enough even if he had the learning, and could live a thousand years, to
+ find out what books really belong to and constitute the Old Testament, the
+ authors of these books, when they were written, and what they really mean.
+ And until a man has the learning and the time to do all this he cannot
+ certainly tell whether he believes the Bible or not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twentieth. If a revelation from God was actually necessary to the
+ happiness of man here and to his salvation hereafter, it is not easy to
+ see why such revelation was not given to all the nations of the earth. Why
+ were the millions of Asia, Egypt, and America left to the insufficient
+ light of nature. Why was not a written, or what is still better, a printed
+ revelation given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? And why were the
+ Jews themselves without a Bible until the days of Ezra the scribe? Why was
+ nature not so made that it would give light enough? Why did God make men
+ and leave them in darkness&mdash;a darkness that he, knew would fill the
+ world with want and crime, and crowd with damned souls the dungeons of his
+ hell? Were the Jews the only people who needed a revelation? It may be
+ said that God had no time to waste with other nations, and gave the Bible
+ to the Jews that other nations through them might learn of his existence
+ and his will. If he wished other nations to be informed, and revealed
+ himself to but one, why did he not choose a people that mingled with
+ others? Why did he give the message to those who had no commerce, who were
+ obscure and unknown, and who regarded other nations with the hatred born
+ of bigotry and weakness? What would we now think of a God who made his
+ will known to the South Sea Islanders for the benefit of the civilized
+ world? If it was of such vast importance for man to know that there is a
+ God, why did not God make himself known? This fact could have been
+ revealed by an infinite being instantly to all, and there certainly was no
+ necessity of telling it alone to the Jews, and allowing millions for
+ thousands of years to die in utter ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-first. The Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Tartars, Africans, Eskimo,
+ Persians, Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Polynesians, and many other peoples, are
+ substantially ignorant of the Bible. All the Bible societies of the world
+ have produced only about one hundred and twenty millions of Bibles, and
+ there are about fourteen hundred million people. There are hundreds of
+ languages and tongues in which no Bible has yet been printed. Why did God
+ allow, and why does he still allow, a vast majority of his children to
+ remain in ignorance of his will?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-second. If the Bible is the foundation of all civilization, of all
+ just ideas of right and wrong, of our duties to God and each other, why
+ did God not give to each nation at least one copy to start with? He must
+ have known that no nation could get along successfully without a Bible,
+ and he also knew that man could not make one for himself. Why, then, were
+ not the books furnished? He must have known that the light of nature was
+ not sufficient to reveal the scheme of the atonement, the necessity of
+ baptism, the immaculate conception, transubstantiation, the arithmetic of
+ the Trinity, or the resurrection of the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-third. It is probably safe to say that not one-third of the
+ inhabitants of this world ever heard of the Bible, and not one-tenth ever
+ read it. It is also safe to say that no two persons who ever read it
+ agreed as to its meaning, and it is not likely that even one person has
+ ever understood it. Nothing is more needed at the present time than an
+ inspired translator. Then we shall need an inspired commentator, and the
+ translation and the commentary should be written in an inspired universal
+ language, incapable of change, and then the whole world should be inspired
+ to understand this language precisely the same. Until these things are
+ accomplished, all written revelations from God will fill the world with
+ contending sects, contradictory creeds and opinions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-fourth. All persons who know anything of constitutions and laws
+ know how impossible it is to use words that will convey the same ideas to
+ all. The best statesmen, the profoundest lawyers, differ as widely about
+ the real meaning of treaties and statutes as do theologians about the
+ Bible. When the differences of lawyers are left to courts, and the courts
+ give written decisions, the lawyers will again differ as to the real
+ meaning of the opinions. Probably no two lawyers in the United States
+ understand our Constitution alike. To allow a few men to tell what the
+ Constitution means, and to hang for treason all who refuse to accept the
+ opinions of these few men, would accomplish in politics what most churches
+ have asked for in religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-fifth. Is it very wicked to deny that the universe was created of
+ nothing by an infinite being who existed from all eternity? The human mind
+ is such that it cannot possibly conceive of creation, neither can it
+ conceive of an infinite being who dwelt in infinite space an infinite
+ length of time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-sixth. The idea that the universe was made in six days, and is but
+ about six thousand years old, is too absurd for serious refutation.
+ Neither will it do to say that the six days were six periods, because this
+ does away with the Sabbath, and is in direct violation of the text.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-seventh. Neither is it reasonable that this God made man out of
+ dust, and woman out of one of the ribs of the man; that this pair were put
+ in a garden; that they were deceived by a snake that had the power of
+ speech; that they were turned out of this garden to prevent them from
+ eating of the tree of life and becoming immortal; that God himself made
+ them clothes; that the sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men;
+ that to destroy all life upon the earth a flood was sent that covered the
+ highest mountains; that Noah and his sons built an ark and saved some of
+ all animals as well as themselves; that the people tried to build a tower
+ that would reach to heaven; that God confounded their language, and in
+ this way frustrated their design.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-eighth. It is hard to believe that God talked to Abraham as one man
+ talks to another; that he gave him land that he pointed out; that he
+ agreed to give him land that he never did; that he ordered him to murder
+ his own son; that angels were in the habit of walking about the earth
+ eating veal dressed with butter and milk, and making bargains about the
+ destruction of cities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Twenty-ninth. Certainly a man ought not to be eternally damned for
+ entertaining an honest doubt about a woman having been turned into a
+ pillar of salt, about cities being destroyed by storms of fire and
+ brimstone, and about people once having lived for nearly a thousand years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirtieth. Neither is it probable that God really wrestled with Jacob and
+ put his thigh out of joint, and that for that reason the Jews refused "to
+ eat the sinew that shrank," as recounted in the thirty-second chapter of
+ Genesis; that God in the likeness of a flame inhabited a bush; that he
+ amused himself by changing the rod of Moses into a serpent, and making his
+ hand leprous as snow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-first. One can scarcely be blamed for hesitating to believe that
+ God met Moses at a hotel and tried to kill him that afterward he made this
+ same Moses a god to Pharaoh, and gave him his brother Aaron for a
+ prophet;2 that he turned all the ponds and pools and streams and all the
+ rivers into blood,3 and all the water in vessels of wood and stone; that
+ the rivers thereupon brought forth frogs;4 that the frogs covered the
+ whole land of Egypt; that he changed dust into lice, so that all the men,
+ women, children, and animals were covered with them;6 that he sent swarms
+ of flies upon the Egyptians;8 that he destroyed the innocent cattle with
+ painful diseases; that he covered man and beast with blains and boils;7
+ that he so covered the magicians of Egypt with boils that they could not
+ stand before Moses for the purpose of performing the same feats, that he
+ destroyed every beast and every man that was in the fields, and every
+ herb, and broke every tree with storm of hail and fire;9 that he sent
+ locusts that devoured every herb that escaped the hail, and devoured every
+ tree that grew;10 that he caused thick darkness over the land and put
+ lights in the houses of the Jews;11 that he destroyed all of the firstborn
+ of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh upon the throne to the firstborn
+ of the maidservant that sat behind the mill,"12 together with the
+ firstborn of all beasts, so that there was not a house in which the dead
+ were not."
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Ex. iv, 24. 5 Ex. viii, 16, 17. 9 Ex. ix, 25.
+
+ 2 Ex. vii. 1. 6 Ex. viii, 21. 10 Ex. x, 15.
+
+ 3 Ex. viii, 19. 7 Ex. ix, 9. 11 Ex. x, 22, 23.
+
+ 4 Ex. viii, 3. 8 Ex. ix, 11. 12 Ex. xi, 5.
+
+ 13 Ex. xii, 29.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-second. It is very hard to believe that three millions of people
+ left a country and marched twenty or thirty miles all in one day. To
+ notify so many people would require a long time, and then the sick, the
+ halt, and the old would be apt to impede the march. It seems impossible
+ that such a vast number&mdash;six hundred thousand men, besides women and
+ children&mdash;could have been cared for, could have been fed and clothed,
+ and the sick nursed, especially when we take into consideration that "they
+ were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared
+ for themselves any victual." 1
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-third. It seems cruel to punish a man forever for denying that God
+ went before the Jews by day "in a pillar of a cloud to lead' them the way,
+ and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to go by day and
+ night," or for denying that Pharaoh pursued the Jews with six hundred
+ chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and that the six hundred
+ thousand men of war of the Jews were sore afraid when they saw the
+ pursuing hosts. It does seems strange that after all the water in a
+ country had been turned to blood&mdash;after it had been overrun with
+ frogs and devoured with flies; after all the cattle had died with the
+ murrain, and the rest had been killed by the fire and hail and the
+ remainder had suffered with boils, and the firstborn of all that were left
+ had died; that after locusts had devoured every herb and eaten up every
+ tree of the field, and the firstborn had died, from the firstborn of the
+ king on the throne to the firstborn of the captive in the dungeon; that
+ after three millions of people had left, carrying with them the jewels of
+ silver and gold and the raiment of their oppressors, the Egyptians still
+ had enough soldiers and chariots and horses left to pursue and destroy an
+ army of six hundred thousand men, if God had not interfered.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Ex. xii, 37-39
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-fourth. It certainly ought to satisfy God to torment a man for four
+ or five thousand years for insisting that it is but a small thing for an
+ infinite being to vanquish an Egyptian army; that it was rather a small
+ business to trouble people with frogs, flies, and vermin; that it looked
+ almost malicious to cover people with boils and afflict cattle with
+ disease; that a real good God would not torture innocent beasts on account
+ of something the owners had done; that it was absurd to do miracles before
+ a king to induce him to act in a certain way, and then harden his heart so
+ that he would refuse; and that to kill all the firstborn of a nation was
+ the act of a heartless fiend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-fifth. Certainly one ought to be permitted to doubt that twelve
+ wells of water were sufficient for three millions of people, together with
+ their flocks and herds,1 and to inquire a little into the nature of manna
+ that was cooked by baking and seething and yet would melt in the sun,2 and
+ that would swell or shrink so as to make an exact omer, no matter how much
+ or how little there really was.3 Certainly it is not a crime to say that
+ water cannot be manufactured by striking a rock with a stick, and that the
+ fate of battle cannot be decided by lifting one hand up or letting it
+ fall.4 Must we admit that God really did come down upon Mount Sinai in the
+ sight of all the people; that he commanded that all who should go up into
+ the Mount or touch the border of it should be put to death, and that even
+ the beasts that came near it should be killed?5 Is it wrong to laugh at
+ this? Is it sinful to say that God never spoke from the top of a mountain
+ covered with clouds these words to Moses, "Go down, charge the people,
+ lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish;
+ and let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify
+ themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them"?6
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Ex. xv, 27. 3 Ex. xix. 12. 5 Ex. xix, 13, 13.
+
+ 2 Ex. xvi, 23, 21 4 Ex. xvii, 11, 13. 6 Ex. xix, 21, 22
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Can it be that an infinite intelligence takes delight in scaring savages,
+ and that he is happy only when somebody trembles? Is it reasonable to
+ suppose that God surrounded himself with thunderings and lightnings and
+ thick darkness to tell the priests that they should not make altars of
+ hewn stones, nor with stairs? And that this God at the same time he gave
+ the Ten Commandments ordered the Jews to break the most of them? According
+ to the Bible these infamous words came from the mouth of God while he was
+ wrapped and clothed in darkness and clouds upon the Mount of Sinai:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If thou buy an Hebrew servant six years he shall serve: and in the seventh
+ he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself he shall go out
+ by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If
+ his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or
+ daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall
+ go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master,
+ my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall
+ bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door or unto the
+ doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he
+ shall serve him forever.2 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid,
+ with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished.
+ Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished;
+ for he is his money.3
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you really think that a man will be eternally damned for endeavoring to
+ wipe from the record of God those barbaric words?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-sixth. Is it because of total depravity that some people refuse to
+ believe that God went into partnership with insects and granted letters of
+ marque and reprisal to hornets;4 that he wasted forty days and nights
+ furnishing Moses with plans and specifications for a tabernacle, an ark, a
+ mercy seat and two cherubs of gold, a table, four rings, some dishes and
+ spoons, one candlestick, three bowls, seven lamps, a pair of tongs, some
+ snuff dishes (for all of which God had patterns), ten curtains with fifty
+ loops, a roof for the tabernacle of rams' skins dyed red, a lot of boards,
+ an altar with horns, ash pans, basins, and flesh hooks, and fillets of
+ silver and pins of brass; that he told Moses to speak unto all the
+ wise-hearted that he had filled with wisdom, that they might make a suit
+ of clothes for Aaron, and that God actually gave directions that an ephod
+ "shall have the two shoulder-pieces thereof joined at the two edges
+ thereof."
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Ex. xix, 25, 26. 3 Ex. xxi, 20, 21
+
+ 2 Ex. xxi, 2-6, 4 Ex, xxiii, 28
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ And gave all the orders concerning mitres, girdles, and onyx stones,
+ ouches, emeralds, breastplates, chains, rings, Urim and Thummim, and the
+ hole in the top of the ephod like the hole of a habergeon?1
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-seventh. Is there a Christian missionary who could help laughing if
+ in any heathen country he had seen the following command of God carried
+ out? "And thou shalt take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put
+ their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram and
+ take of his blood and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and
+ upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their
+ right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot."2 Does one have to
+ be born again to appreciate the beauty and solemnity of such a
+ performance? Is not the faith of the most zealous Christian somewhat
+ shaken while reading the recipes for cooking mutton, veal, beef, birds,
+ and unleavened dough, found in the cook book that God made for Aaron and
+ his sons?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-eighth. Is it to be wondered at that some people have doubted the
+ statement that God told Moses how to make some ointment, hair oil, and
+ perfume, and then made it a crime punishable with death to make any like
+ them? Think of a God killing a man for imitating his ointment!3 Think of a
+ God saying that he made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the
+ seventh day and was refreshed!4 Think of this God threatening to destroy
+ the Jews, and being turned from his purpose because Moses told him that
+ the Egyptians might mock him!5
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Ex. xxvii and xxviii. 3 Ex. xxx, 23. 5 Ex. xxxii, 11, 12
+
+ 2 Ex. xxix, 19, 20 4 Ex. xxxi, 17.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Thirty-ninth. What must we think of a man impudent enough to break in
+ pieces tables of stone upon which God had written with his finger? What
+ must we think of the goodness of a man that would issue the following
+ order: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his
+ side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay
+ every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his
+ neighbor. Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man upon
+ his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this
+ day"?1 Is it true that the God of the Bible demanded human sacrifice? Did
+ it please him for man to kill his neighbor, for brother to murder his
+ brother, and for the father to butcher his sou? If there is a God let him
+ cause it to be written in the book of his memory, opposite my name, that I
+ refuted this slander and denied this lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fortieth. Can it be true that God was afraid to trust himself with the
+ Jews for fear he would consume them? Can it be that in order to keep from
+ devouring them he kept away and sent one of his angels in his place?2 Can
+ it be that this same God talked to Moses "face to face, as a man speaketh
+ unto his friend," when it is declared in the same chapter, by God himself,
+ "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live"?3
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-first. Why should a man, because he has done a bad action, go and
+ kill a sheep? How can man make friends with God by cutting the throats of
+ bullocks and goats? Why should God delight in the shedding of blood? Why
+ should he want his altar sprinkled with blood, and the horns of his altar
+ tipped with blood, and his priests covered with blood? Why should burning
+ flesh be a sweet savor in the nostrils of God? Why did he compel his
+ priests to be butchers, cutters and stabbers?
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Ex. xxxii, 27-29. 2 Ex. xxxiii, 2, 3.
+
+ 3 Ex. xxxiii, 11, 20.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Why should the same God kill a man for eating the fat of an ox, a sheep,
+ or a goat?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-second. Could it be a consolation to a man when dying to think that
+ he had always believed that God told Aaron to take two goats and draw cuts
+ to see which goat should be killed and which should be a scapegoat?1 And
+ that upon the head of the scapegoat Aaron should lay both his hands and
+ confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all
+ their transgressions, and put them all on the head of the goat, and send
+ him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness; and that the goat
+ should bear upon him all the iniquities of the people into a land not
+ inhabited?2 How could a goat carry away a load of iniquities and
+ transgressions? Why should he carry them to a land uninhabited? Were these
+ sins contagious? About how many sins could an average goat carry? Could a
+ man meet such a goat now without laughing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-third. Why should God object to a man wearing a garment made of
+ woolen and linen? Why should he care whether a man rounded the corners of
+ his beard?3 Why should God prevent a man from offering the sacred bread
+ merely because he had a flat nose, or was lame, or had five fingers on one
+ hand, or had a broken foot, or was a dwarf? If he objected to such people,
+ why did he make them?4
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-fourth. Why should we believe that God insisted upon the sacrifice
+ of human beings? Is it a sin to deny this, and to deny the inspiration of
+ a book that teaches it? Read the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth verses of
+ the last chapter of Leviticus, a book in which there is more folly and
+ cruelty, more stupidity and tyranny, than in any other book in this world
+ except some others in the same Bible. Read the thirty-second chapter of
+ Exodus and you will see how by the most infamous of crimes man becomes
+ reconciled to this God.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Lev, xvi, 8. 2 Lev. xvi, 21, 22. 3 Lev. xix, 19, 27,
+
+ 4 Lev. xxi, 18-20.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ You will see that he demands of fathers the blood of their sons. Read the
+ twelfth and thirteenth verses of the third chapter of Numbers, "And I,
+ behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel," etc.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How, in the desert of Sinai, did the Jews obtain curtains of fine linen?
+ How did these absconding slaves make cherubs of gold? Where did they get
+ the skins of badgers, and how did they dye them red? How did they make
+ wreathed chains and spoons, basins and tongs? Where did they get the blue
+ cloth and their purple? Where did they get the sockets of brass? How did
+ they coin the shekel of the sanctuary? How did they overlay boards with
+ gold? Where did they get the numberless instruments and tools necessary to
+ accomplish all these things? Where did they get the fine flour and the
+ oil? Were all these found in the desert of Sinai? Is it a sin to ask these
+ questions? Are all these doubts born of a malignant and depraved heart?
+ Why should God in this desert prohibit priests from drinking wine, and
+ from eating moist grapes? How could these priests get wine?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do not these passages show that these laws were made long after the Jews
+ had left the desert, and that they were not given from Sinai? Can you
+ imagine a God silly enough to tell a horde of wandering savages upon a
+ desert that they must not eat any fruit of the trees they planted until
+ the fourth year?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-fifth. Ought a man to be despised and persecuted for denying that
+ God ordered the priests to make women drink dirt and water to test their
+ virtue? 1 Or for denying that over the tabernacle there was a cloud during
+ the day and fire by night, and that the cloud lifted up when God wished
+ the Jews to travel, and that until it was lifted they remained in their
+ tents?2
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Num. v, 12-31. 2 Num. ix, 16-18.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Can it be possible that the "ark of the covenant" traveled on its own
+ account, and that "when the ark set forward" the people followed, as is
+ related in the tenth chapter of the holy book of Numbers?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-sixth. Was it reasonable for God to give the Jews manna, and nothing
+ else, year after year? He had infinite power, and could just as easily
+ have given them something good, in reasonable variety, as to have fed them
+ on manna until they loathed the sight of it, and longingly remembered the
+ fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic of Egypt. And yet when
+ the poor people complained of the diet and asked for a little meat, this
+ loving and merciful God became enraged, sent them millions of quails in
+ his wrath, and while they were eating, while the flesh was yet between
+ their teeth, before it was chewed, this amiable God smote the people with
+ a plague and killed all those that lusted after meat. In a few days after,
+ he made up his mind to kill the rest, but was dissuaded when Moses told
+ him that the Canaanites would laugh at him.1 No wonder the poor Jews
+ wished they were back in Egypt. No wonder they had rather be the slaves of
+ Pharaoh than the chosen people of God. No wonder they preferred the wrath
+ of Egypt to the love of heaven. In my judgment, the Jews would have fared
+ far better if Jehovah had let them alone, or had he even taken the side of
+ the Egyptians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the poor Jews were told by their spies that the Canaanites were
+ giants, they, seized with fear, said, "Let us go back to Egypt." For this,
+ their God doomed all except Joshua and Caleb to a wandering death. Hear
+ the words of this most merciful God: "But as for you, your carcasses they
+ shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall wander in the
+ wilderness forty years and bear your sins until your carcasses be wasted
+ in the wilderness."2 And yet this same God promised to give unto all these
+ people a land flowing with milk and honey.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Num. xiv, 15, 16. 2 Num. xiv. 32-33.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Forty-seventh. "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness
+ they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and
+ Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done
+ to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death; all
+ the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him
+ with stones, and he died." 1
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the last stone was thrown, and he that was a man was but a mangled,
+ bruised, and broken mass, this God turned, and, <i>touched with pity</i>,
+ said: "Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them
+ fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and
+ that they put upon the fringe of the borders a riband of blue."2
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the next chapter, this Jehovah, whose loving kindness is over all his
+ works, because Korah, Dathan, and Abiram objected to being starved to
+ death in the wilderness, made the earth open and swallow not only them,
+ but their wives and their little ones. Not yet satisfied, he sent a plague
+ and killed fourteen thousand seven hundred more. There never was in the
+ history of the world such a cruel, revengeful, bloody, jealous, fickle,
+ unreasonable, and fiendish ruler, emperor, or king as Jehovah. No wonder
+ the children of Israel cried out, "Behold we die, we perish, we all
+ perish."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-eighth. I cannot believe that a dry stick budded, blossomed, and
+ bore almonds; that the ashes of a red heifer are a purification for sin;3
+ that God gave the cities into the hands of the Jews because they solemnly
+ agreed to murder all the inhabitants; that God became enraged and induced
+ snakes to bite his chosen people; that God told Balaam to go with the
+ Princess of Moab, and then got angry because he did go; that an animal
+ ever saw an angel and conversed with a man.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Num. xv, 32-36. 2 Num. xv, 38, 3 Num. xix, 2-10.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I cannot believe that thrusting a spear through the body of a woman ever
+ stayed a plague;1 that any good man ever ordered his soldiers to slay the
+ men and keep the maidens alive for themselves; that God commanded men not
+ to show mercy to each other; that he induced men to obey his commandments
+ by promising them that he would assist them in murdering the wives and
+ children of their neighbors; or that he ever commanded a man to kill his
+ wife because she differed with him about religion;2 or that God was
+ mistaken about hares chewing the cud;3 or that he objected to the people
+ raising horses 4 or that God wanted a camp kept clean because he walked
+ through it at night;5 or that he commanded widows to spit in the faces of
+ their brothers-in-law;6 or that he ever threatened to give anybody the
+ itch;7 or that he ever secretly buried a man and allowed the corpse to
+ write an account of the funeral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Forty-ninth. Does it necessarily follow that a man wishes to commit some
+ crime if he refuses to admit that the river Jordan cut itself in two and
+ allowed the lower end to run away? Or that seven priests could blow seven
+ ram's horns loud enough to throw down the walls of a city;8 or that God,
+ after Achan had confessed that he had secreted a garment and a wedge of
+ gold, became good natured as soon as Achan and his sons and daughters had
+ been stoned to death and their bodies burned?10 Is it not a virtue to
+ abhor such a God?
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Num. XXV, 8. 4 Deut. xvii, 16. 7 Deut. xxviii, 27.
+
+ 2 Deut. xiii, 6-10. 5 Deut. xxiii, 13, 14. 8 Josh, iii, 16.
+
+ 3 Deut. xiv, 7. 6 Deut. xxv, 9., 9 Josh. vi, 20.
+
+ 10 Josh, vii, 24, 25.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Must we believe that God sanctioned and commanded all the cruelties and
+ horrors described in the Old Testament; that he waged the most relentless
+ and heartless wars; that he declared mercy a crime; that to spare life was
+ to excite his wrath; that he smiled when maidens were violated, laughed
+ when mothers were ripped open with a sword, and shouted with joy when
+ babes were butchered in their mothers' arms? Read the infamous book of
+ Joshua, and then worship the God who inspired it if you can.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fiftieth. Can any sane man believe that the sun stood still in the midst
+ of heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day, and that the moon
+ stayed?1 That these miracles were performed in the interest of massacre
+ and bloodshed; that the Jews destroyed men, women, and children by the
+ million, and practiced every cruelty that the ingenuity of their God could
+ suggest? Is it possible that these things really happened? Is it possible
+ that God commanded them to be done? Again I ask you to read the book of
+ Joshua. After reading all its horrors you will feel a grim satisfaction in
+ the dying words of Joshua to the children of Israel: "Know for a certainty
+ that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from
+ before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in
+ your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good
+ land."2
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of a God who boasted that he gave the Jews a land for which they did
+ not labor, cities which they did not build, and allowed them to eat of
+ oliveyards and vineyards which they did not plant.3 Think of a God who
+ murders some of his children for the benefit of the rest, and then kills
+ the rest because they are not thankful enough. Think of a God who had the
+ power to stop the sun and moon, but could not defeat an army that had iron
+ chariots.4
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Josh, x, 13. 2 Josh, xiii, 13. 3 Josh. xxiv, 13.
+
+ 4 Judges i, 19.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-first. Can we blame the Hebrews for getting tired of their God?
+ Never was a people so murdered, starved, stoned, burned, deceived,
+ humiliated, robbed, and outraged. Never was there so little liberty among
+ men. Never did the meanest king so meddle, eavesdrop, spy out, harass,
+ torment, and persecute his people. Never was ruler so jealous,
+ unreasonable, contemptible, exacting, and ignorant as this God of the
+ Jews. Never was such ceremony, such mummery, such stuff about bullocks,
+ goats, doves, red heifers, lambs, and unleavened dough&mdash;never was
+ such directions about kidneys and blood, ashes and fat, about curtains,
+ tongs, fringes, ribands, and brass pins&mdash;never such details for
+ killing of animals and men and the sprinkling of blood and the cutting of
+ clothes. Never were such unjust laws, such punishments, such damned
+ ignorance and infamy! Fifty-second. Is it not wonderful that the creator
+ of all worlds, infinite in power and wisdom, could not hold his own
+ against the gods of wood and stone? Is it not strange that after he had
+ appeared to his chosen people, delivered them from slavery, fed them by
+ miracles, opened the sea for a path, led them by cloud and fire, and
+ overthrown their pursuers, they still preferred a calf of their own
+ making? Is it not beyond belief that this God, by statutes and
+ commandments, by punishments and penalties, by rewards and promises, by
+ wonders and plagues, by earthquakes and pestilence, could not in the least
+ civilize the Jews&mdash;could not get them beyond a point where they
+ deserved killing? What shall we think of a God who gave his entire time
+ for forty years to the work of converting three millions of people, and
+ succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough
+ to enter the promised land? Was there ever in the history of man so
+ detestible an administration of public affairs? Is it possible that God
+ sold his children to the king of Mesopotamia; that he sold them to Jabin,
+ king of Canaan, to the Philistines, and to the children of Ammon? Is it
+ possible that an angel of the Lord devoured unleavened cakes and broth
+ with fire that came out of the end of a stick as he sat under an
+ oak-tree?1 Can it be true that God made known his will by making dew fall
+ on wool without wetting the ground around it?2 Do you really believe that
+ men who lap water like a dog make the best soldiers?3 Do you think that a
+ man could hold a lamp in his left hand, a trumpet in his right hand, blow
+ his trumpet, shout "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon," and break
+ pitchers at the same time? 4
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-third. Read the story of Jephthah and his daughter, and then tell me
+ what you think of a father who would sacrifice his daughter to God, and
+ what you think of a God who would receive such a sacrifice. This one story
+ should be enough to make every tender and loving father hold this book in
+ utter abhorrence. Is it necessary, in order to be saved, that one must
+ believe that an angel of God appeared unto Manoah in the absence of her
+ husband; that this angel afterward went up in a flame of fire; that as a
+ result of this visit a child was born whose strength was in his hair? a
+ child that made beehives of lions, incendiaries of foxes, and had a wife
+ that wept seven days to get the answer to his riddle? Will the wrath of
+ God abide forever upon a man for doubting the story that Samson killed a
+ thousand men with a new jawbone? Is there enough in the Bible to save a
+ soul with this story left out? Is hell hungry for those who deny that
+ water gushed from a "hollow place" in a dry bone? Is it evidence of a new
+ heart to believe that one man turned over a house so large that over three
+ thousand people were on the roof? For my part, I cannot believe these
+ things, and if my salvation depends upon my credulity I am as good as
+ damned already. I cannot believe that the Philistines took back the ark
+ with a present of five gold mice, and that thereupon God relented.5
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 Judges vi, 21. 2 Judges vi, 37. 3 Judges vii, 5.
+
+ 4 Judges vii, 20. 5 I Sam. vi. 4.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I can not believe that God killed fifty thousand men for looking into a
+ box.1 It seems incredible, after all the Jews had done, after all their
+ wars and victories, even when Saul was king, that there was not among them
+ one smith who could make a sword or spear, and that they were compelled to
+ go to the Philistines to sharpen every plowshare, coulter, and mattock.2
+ Can you believe that God said to Saul, "Now go and smite Amalek, and
+ utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man
+ and woman, infant and suckling"? Can you believe that because Saul took
+ the king alive after killing every other man, woman, and child, the ogre
+ called Jehovah was displeased and made up his mind to hurl Saul from the
+ throne and give his place to another?3 I cannot believe that the
+ Philistines all ran away because one of their number was killed with a
+ stone. I cannot justify the conduct of Abigail, the wife of Nabal, who
+ took presents to David. David hardly did right when he said to this woman,
+ "I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person." It could
+ hardly have been chance that made Nabal so deathly sick next morning and
+ killed him in ten days. All this looks wrong, especially as David married
+ his widow before poor Nabal was fairly cold.4
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-fourth. Notwithstanding all I have heard of Katie King, I cannot
+ believe that a witch at Endor materialized the ghost of Samuel and caused
+ it to appear with a cloak on.5 I cannot believe that God tempted David to
+ take the census, and then gave him his choice of three punishments: First,
+ Seven years of famine; Second, Flying three months before their enemies;
+ Third, A pestilence of three days; that David chose the pestilence, and
+ that God destroyed seventy thousand men.6
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 I Sam. vi, 19. 3 I Sam. xv. 5 I Sam. xxviii.
+
+ 2 I Sam. xiii, 19, 20. 4 I Sam. xxv. 6 2 Sam. xxiv.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Why should God kill the people for what David did? Is it a sin to be
+ counted? Can anything more brutally hellish be conceived? Why should man
+ waste prayers upon such a God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-fifth. Must we admit that Elijah was fed by ravens; that they
+ brought him bread and flesh every morning and evening? Must we believe
+ that this same prophet could create meal and oil, and induce a departed
+ soul to come back and take up its residence once more in the body? That he
+ could get rain by praying for it; that he could cause fire to burn up a
+ sacrifice and altar, together with twelve barrels of water?1 Can we
+ believe that an angel of the Lord turned cook and prepared two suppers in
+ one night for Elijah, and that the prophet ate enough to last him forty
+ days and forty nights?* Is it true that when a captain with fifty men went
+ after Elijah, this prophet caused fire to come down from heaven and
+ consume them all? Should God allow such wretches to manage his fire? Is it
+ true that Elijah consumed another captain with fifty men in the same way?3
+ Is it a fact that a river divided because the water was struck with a
+ cloak? Did a man actually go to heaven in a chariot of fire drawn by
+ horses of fire, or was he carried to Paradise by a whirlwind? Must we
+ believe, in order to be good and tender fathers and mothers, that because
+ some "little children" mocked at an old man with a bald head, God&mdash;the
+ same God who said, "Suffer little children to come unto me"&mdash;sent two
+ she-bears out of the wood and tare forty-two of these babes? Think of the
+ mothers that watched and waited for their children. Think of the wailing
+ when these mangled ones were found, when they were brought back and
+ pressed to the breasts of weeping women. What an amiable gentleman Mr.
+ Elisha must have been.4
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-sixth. It is hard to believe that a prophet by lying on a dead body
+ could make it sneeze seven times.5
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 I Kings xviii. 3 2 Kings i. 5 2 Kings iv.
+
+ 2 I Kings xix. 4 2 Kings ii.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to believe that being dipped seven times in the Jordan could
+ cure the leprosy.1 Would a merciful God curse children, and children's
+ children yet unborn, with leprosy for a father's fault?2 Is it possible to
+ make iron float in water?3 Is it reasonable to say that when a corpse
+ touched another corpse it came to life?4 Is it a sign that a man wants to
+ commit a crime because he refuses to believe that a king had a boil and
+ that God caused the sun to go backward in heaven so that the shadow on a
+ sun-dial went back ten degrees as a sign that the aforesaid would get
+ well?5 Is it true that this globe turned backward, that its motion was
+ reversed as a sign to a Jewish king? If it did not, this story is false,
+ and that part of the Bible is not true even if it is inspired.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-seventh. How did the Bible get lost?5 Where was the precious
+ Pentateuch from Moses to Josiah? How was it possible for the Jews to get
+ along without the directions as to fat and caul and kidney contained in
+ Leviticus? Without that sacred book in his possession a priest might take
+ up ashes and carry them out without changing his pantaloons. Such mistakes
+ kindled the wrath of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As soon as the Pentateuch was found Josiah began killing wizards and such
+ as had familiar spirits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-eighth. I cannot believe that God talked to Solomon, that he visited
+ him in the night and asked him what he should give him; I cannot believe
+ that he told him, "I will give thee riches and wealth and honor, such as
+ none of the kings have had before thee, neither shall there any after thee
+ have the like."7 If Jehovah said this he was mistaken. It is not true that
+ Solomon had fourteen hundred chariots of war in a country without roads.
+ It is not true that he made gold and silver at Jerusalem as plenteous as
+ stones. There were several kings in his day, and thousands since, that
+ could have thrown away the value of Palestine without missing the amount.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 2 Kings v. 3 2 Kings, vi. 6. 5 2 Kings xx, 1-11.
+
+ 2 2 Kings v. 27. 4 2 Kings xiii, 21. 6 2 Kings xxii, 8.
+
+ 7 2 Chron. i, 7, 12.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The Holy Land was and is a wretched country. There are no monuments, no
+ ruins attesting former wealth and greatness. The Jews had no commerce,
+ knew nothing of other nations, had no luxuries, never produced a painter,
+ a sculptor, architect, scientist, or statesman until after the destruction
+ of Jerusalem. As long as Jehovah attended to their affairs they had
+ nothing but civil war, plague, pestilence, and famine. After he abandoned,
+ and the Christians ceased to persecute them, they became the most
+ prosperous of people. Since Jehovah, in anger and disgust, cast them away
+ they have produced painters, sculptors, scientists, statesmen, composers,
+ and philosophers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty-ninth. I cannot admit that Hiram, the King of Tyre, wrote a letter
+ to Solomon in which he admitted that the "God of Israel made heaven and
+ earth." 1 This King was not a Jew. It seems incredible that Solomon had
+ eighty thousand men hewing timber for the temple, with seventy thousand
+ bearers of burdens, and thirty-six hundred overseers.2
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixtieth. I cannot believe that God shuts up heaven and prevents rain, or
+ that he sends locusts to devour a land, or pestilence to destroy the
+ people.3 I cannot believe that God told Solomon that his eyes and heart
+ should perpetually be in the house that Solomon had built.4
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixty-first. I cannot believe that Solomon passed all the kings of the
+ earth in riches; that all the kings of the earth sought his presence and
+ brought presents of silver and gold, raiment, harness, spices, and mules&mdash;a
+ rate year by year.5 Is it possible that Shishak, a King of Egypt, invaded
+ Palestine with seventy thousand horsemen and twelve hundred chariots of
+ war?6
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 2 Chron. ii, 12. 3 2 Chron. vii, 13. 5 2 Chron. ix, 22-24.
+
+ 2 2 Chron. ii, 18. 4 2 Chron. vii, 16. 6 2 Chron. xii, 2, 3.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I cannot believe that in a battle between Jeroboam and Abijah, the army of
+ Abijah actually slew in one day five hundred thousand chosen men.1 Does
+ anyone believe that Zerah, the Ethiopian, invaded Palestine with a million
+ men?2 I cannot believe that Jehoshaphat had a standing army of nine
+ hundred and sixty thousand men.3 I cannot believe that God advertised for
+ a liar to act as his messenger.4 I cannot believe that King Amaziah did
+ right in the sight of the Lord, and that he broke in pieces ten thousand
+ men by casting them from a precipice.5 I cannot think that God smote a
+ king with leprosy because he tried to burn incense.6 I cannot think that
+ Pekah slew one hundred and twenty thousand men in one day.7
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ 1 2 Chron. xiii, 17. 3 2 Chron. xvii, 14-19. 5 2 Chron. xxv, 12.
+
+ 2 2 Chron. xiv, 9. 4 2 Chron. xviii, 19-22. 6 2 Chron. xxvi, 19.
+
+ 7 2 Chron. xxviii, 6.
+</pre>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+11 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
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+ </body>
+</html>
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+ <head>
+ <meta name="generator" content="HTML-Kit Tools HTML Tidy plugin" />
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12) by Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
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+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12
+(of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12)
+ Dresden Edition--Miscellany
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38812]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF INGERSOLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ <a name="title" id="title"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ "MY CREED IS THIS: HAPPINESS IS THE ONLY GOOD.<br /> THE PLACE TO BE HAPPY
+ IS HERE. THE TIME TO BE HAPPY<br /> IS NOW. THE WAY TO BE HAPPY IS TO HELP
+ MAKE OTHERS SO."
+ </h3>
+ <h4>
+ IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME XII.
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ MISCELLANY
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <h3>
+ Dresden Edition
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38812/old/orig38812-h/main.htm">This
+ file has been formatted in a very plain format for use with tablet
+ readers. Those wishing to view this eBook in its normal more
+ appealing format for laptops and other computers may click on this
+ line to to view the original HTML file.</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="titlepage (254K)" src="images/titlepage.png" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="portrait (276K)" src="images/portrait.png" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ Contents
+ </h2>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0001">PROF. VAN BUREN DENSLOW'S "MODERN THINKERS."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkPREF1">PREFACE TO DR. EDGAR C. BEALL'S "THE BRAIN AND THE
+ BIBLE."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkPREF2">PREFACE TO "MEN, WOMEN AND GODS."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkPREF3">PREFACE TO "FOR HER DAILY BREAD."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkPREF4">PREFACE TO "AGNOSTICISM AND OTHER ESSAYS."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#linkPREF5">PREFACE TO "FAITH OR FACT."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0007">THE GRANT BANQUET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0008">THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0009">ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0010">THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0011">GENERAL GRANT'S BIRTHDAY DINNER</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0012">LOTOS CLUB DINNER, TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0013">MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0014">THE LIEDERKRANZ CLUB, SEIDL-STANTON BANQUET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0015">THE FRANK B. CARPENTER DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0016">UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0017">WESTERN SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC BANQUET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0018">LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF ANTON SEIDL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0019">LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF REAR ADMIRAL SCHLEY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0020">ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0021">THE CHILDREN OF THE STAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0022">ADDRESS TO THE PRESS CLUB.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0023">THE CIRCULATION OF OBSCENE LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0024">CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL LIBERAL LEAGUE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0025">CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN SECULAR UNION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0026">THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0027">ORGANIZED CHARITIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0028">SPAIN AND THE SPANIARDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0029">OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0030">A FEW FRAGMENTS ON EXPANSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0031">IS IT EVER RIGHT FOR HUSBAND OR WIFE TO KILL RIVAL?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0032">PROFESSOR BRIGGS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0033">FRAGMENTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0034">EFFECT OF THE WORLD'S FAIR ON THE HUMAN RACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0035">SABBATH SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0036">A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0037">AT THE GRAVE OF BENJAMIN W. PARKER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0038">A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0039">A TRIBUTE TO THE REV. ALEXANDER CLARK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0040">AT A CHILD'S GRAVE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0041">A TRIBUTE TO JOHN G. MILLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0042">A TRIBUTE TO ELIZUR WRIGHT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0043">A TRIBUTE TO MRS. IDA WHITING KNOWLES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0044">A TRIBUTE TO HENRY WARD BEECHER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0045">A TRIBUTE TO ROSCOE CONKLING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0046">A TRIBUTE TO RICHARD H. WHITING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0047">A TRIBUTE TO COURTLANDT PALMER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0048">A TRIBUTE TO MRS. MARY H. FISKE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0049">A TRIBUTE TO HORACE SEAVER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0050">A TRIBUTE TO LAWRENCE BARRETT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0051">A TRIBUTE TO WALT WHITMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0052">A TRIBUTE TO PHILO D. BECKWITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0053">A TRIBUTE TO ANTON SEIDL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0054">A TRIBUTE TO DR. THOMAS SETON ROBERTSON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0055">A TRIBUTE TO THOMAS CORWIN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0056">A TRIBUTE TO ISAAC H. BAILEY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0057">JESUS CHRIST.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="#link0058">LIFE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="link0001" id="link0001">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROF. VAN BUREN DENSLOW'S "MODERN THINKERS."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ IF others who read this book get as much information as I did from the
+ advance sheets, they will feel repaid a hundred times. It is perfectly
+ delightful to take advantage of the conscientious labors of those who go
+ through and through volume after volume, divide with infinite patience the
+ gold from the dross, and present us with the pure and shining coin. Such
+ men may be likened to bees who save us numberless journeys by giving us
+ the fruit of their own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While this book will greatly add to the information of all who read it, it
+ may not increase the happiness of some to find that Swedenborg was really
+ insane. But when they remember that he was raised by a bishop, and
+ disappointed in love, they will cease to wonder at his mental condition.
+ Certainly an admixture of theology and "dis-prized love" is often
+ sufficient to compel reason to abdicate the throne of the mightiest soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble with Swedenborg was that he changed realities into dreams, and
+ then out of the dreams made facts upon which he built, and with which he
+ constructed his system.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He regarded all realities as shadows cast by ideas. To him the material
+ was the unreal, and things were definitions of the ideas of God. He seemed
+ to think that he had made a discovery when he found that ideas were back
+ of words, and that language had a subjective as well as an objective
+ origin; that is that the interior meaning had been clothed upon. Of
+ course, a man capable of drawing the conclusion that natural reason cannot
+ harmonize with spiritual truth because in a dream, he had seen a beetle
+ that could not use its feet, is capable of any absurdity of which the
+ imagination can conceive. The fact is, that Swedenborg believed the Bible.
+ That was his misfortune. His mind had been overpowered by the bishop, but
+ the woman had not utterly destroyed his heart. He was shocked by the
+ liberal interpretation of the Scriptures, and sought to avoid the
+ difficulty by giving new meanings consistent with the decency and goodness
+ of God. He pointed out a way to preserve the old Bible with a new
+ interpretation. In this way Infidelity could be avoided; and, in his day,
+ that was almost a necessity. Had Swedenborg taken the ground that the
+ Bible was not inspired, the ears of the world would have been stopped. His
+ readers believed in the dogma of inspiration, and asked, not how to
+ destroy the Scriptures, but for some way in which they might be preserved.
+ He and his followers unconsciously rendered immense service to the cause
+ of intellectual enfranchisement by their efforts to show the necessity of
+ giving new meanings to the barbarous laws, and cruel orders of Jehovah.
+ For this purpose they attacked with great fury the literal text, taking
+ the ground that if the old interpretation was right, the Bible was the
+ work of savage men. They heightened in every way the absurdities,
+ cruelties and contradictions of the Scriptures for the purpose of showing
+ that a new interpretation must be found, and that the way pointed out by
+ Swedenborg was the only one by which the Bible could be saved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Great men are, after all the instrumentalities of their time. The heart of
+ the civilized world was beginning to revolt at the cruelties ascribed to
+ God, and was seeking for some interpretation of the Bible that kind and
+ loving people could accept. The method of interpretation found by
+ Swedenborg was suitable for all. Each was permitted to construct his own
+ "science of correspondence" and gather such fruits as he might prefer. In
+ this way the ravings of revenge can instantly be changed to mercy's
+ melting tones, and murder's dagger to a smile of love. In this way and in
+ no other, can we explain the numberless mistakes and crimes ascribed to
+ God. Thousands of most excellent people, afraid to throw away the idea of
+ inspiration, hailed with joy a discovery that allowed them to write a
+ Bible for themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, whether Swedenborg was right or not, every man who reads a book,
+ necessarily gets from that book all that he is capable of receiving. Every
+ man who walks in the forest, or gathers a flower, or looks at a picture,
+ or stands by the sea, gets all the intellectual wealth he is capable of
+ receiving. What the forest, the flower, the picture or the sea is to him,
+ depends upon his mind, and upon the stage of development he has reached.
+ So that after all, the Bible must be a different book to each person who
+ reads it, as the revelations of nature depend upon the individual to whom
+ they are revealed, or by whom they are discovered. And the extent of the
+ revelation or discovery depends absolutely upon the intellectual and moral
+ development of the person to whom, or by whom, the revelation or discovery
+ is made. So that the Bible cannot be the same to any two people, but each
+ one must necessarily interpret it for himself. Now, the moment the
+ doctrine is established that we can give to this book such meanings as are
+ consistent with our highest ideals; that we can treat the old words as
+ purses or old stockings in which to put our gold, then, each one will, in
+ effect, make a new inspired Bible for himself, and throw the old away. If
+ his mind is narrow, if he has been raised by ignorance and nursed by fear,
+ he will believe in the literal truth of what he reads. If he has a little
+ courage he will doubt, and the doubt will with new interpretations modify
+ the literal text; but if his soul is free he will with scorn reject it
+ all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Swedenborg did one thing for which I feel almost grateful. He gave an
+ account of having met John Calvin in hell. Nothing connected with the
+ supernatural could be more perfectly natural than this. The only thing
+ detracting from the value of this report is, that if there is a hell, we
+ know without visiting the place that John Calvin must be there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All honest founders of religions have been the dreamers of dreams, the
+ sport of insanity, the prey of visions, the deceivers of others and of
+ themselves. All will admit that Swedenborg was a man of great intellect,
+ of vast acquirements and of honest intentions; and I think it equally
+ clear that upon one subject, at least, his mind was touched, shattered and
+ shaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Misled by analogies, imposed upon by the bishop, deceived by the woman,
+ borne to other worlds upon the wings of dreams, living in the twilight of
+ reason and the dawn of insanity, he regarded every fact as a patched and
+ ragged garment with a lining of the costliest silk, and insisted that the
+ wrong side, even of the silk, was far more beautiful than the right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Herbert Spencer is almost the opposite of Swedenborg. He relies upon
+ evidence, upon demonstration, upon experience, and occupies himself with
+ one world at a time. He perceives that there is a mental horizon that we
+ cannot pierce, and that beyond that is the unknown&mdash;possibly the
+ unknowable. He endeavors to examine only that which is capable of being
+ examined, and considers the theological method as not only useless, but
+ hurtful. After all, God is but a guess, throned and established by
+ arrogance and assertion. Turning his attention to those things that have
+ in some way affected the condition of mankind, Spencer leaves the
+ unknowable to priests and to the believers in the "moral government" of
+ the world. He sees only natural causes and natural results, and seeks to
+ induce man to give up gazing into void and empty space, that he may give
+ his entire attention to the world in which he lives. He sees that right
+ and wrong do not depend upon the arbitrary will of even an infinite being,
+ but upon the nature of things; that they are relations, not entities, and
+ that they cannot exist, so far as we know, apart from human experience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that men will finally see that selfishness and self-sacrifice
+ are both mistakes; that the first devours itself; that the second is not
+ demanded by the good, and that the bad are unworthy of it. It may be that
+ our race has never been, and never will be, deserving of a martyr.
+ Sometime we may see that justice is the highest possible form of mercy and
+ love, and that all should not only be allowed, but compelled to reap
+ exactly what they sow; that industry should not support idleness, and that
+ they who waste the spring and summer and autumn of their lives should bear
+ the winter when it comes. The fortunate should assist the victims of
+ accident; the strong should defend the weak, and the intellectual should
+ lead, with loving hands, the mental poor; but Justice should remove the
+ bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and
+ the unfortunate.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Spencer is wise enough to declare that "acts are called good or bad
+ according as they are well or ill adjusted to ends;" and he might have
+ added, that ends are good or bad according as they affect the happiness of
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would be hard to over-estimate the influence of this great man. From an
+ immense intellectual elevation he has surveyed the world of thought. He
+ has rendered absurd the idea of special providence, born of the egotism of
+ savagery. He has shown that the "will of God" is not a rule for human
+ conduct; that morality is not a cold and heartless tyrant; that by the
+ destruction of the individual will, a higher life cannot be reached, and
+ that after all, an intelligent love of self extends the hand of help and
+ kindness to all the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But had it not been for such men as Thomas Paine, Herbert Spencer could
+ not have existed for a century to come. Some one had to lead the way, to
+ raise the standard of revolt, and draw the sword of war. Thomas Paine was
+ a natural revolutionist. He was opposed to every government existing in
+ his day. Next to establishing a wise and just republic based upon the
+ equal rights of man, the best thing that can be done is to destroy a
+ monarchy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine had a sense of justice, and had imagination enough to put himself in
+ the place of the oppressed. He had, also, what in these pages is so
+ felicitously expressed, "a haughty intellectual pride, and a willingness
+ to pit his individual thought against the clamor of a world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I cannot believe that he wrote the letters of "Junius," although the two
+ critiques combined in this volume, entitled "Paine" and "Junius," make by
+ far the best argument upon that subject I have ever read. First, Paine
+ could have had no personal hatred against the men so bitterly assailed by
+ Junius. Second, He knew, at that time, but little of English politicians,
+ and certainly had never associated with men occupying the highest
+ positions, and could not have been personally acquainted with the leading
+ statesmen of England. Third., He was not an unjust man. He was neither a
+ coward, a calumniator, nor a sneak. All these delightful qualities must
+ have lovingly united in the character of Junius. Fourth, Paine could have
+ had no reason for keeping the secret after coming to America.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have always believed that Junius, after having written his letters,
+ accepted office from the very men he had maligned, and at last became a
+ pensioner of the victims of his slander. "Had he as many mouths as Hydra,
+ such a course must have closed them all." Certainly the author must have
+ kept the secret to prevent the loss of his reputation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It cannot be denied that the style of Junius is much like that of Paine.
+ Should it be established that Paine wrote the letters of Junius, it would
+ not, in my judgment, add to his reputation as a writer. Regarded as
+ literary efforts they cannot be compared with "Common Sense," "The
+ Crisis," or "The Rights of Man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The claim that Paine was the real author of the Declaration of
+ Independence is much better founded. I am inclined to think that he
+ actually wrote it; but whether this is true or not, every idea contained
+ in it had been written by him long before. It is now claimed that the
+ original document is in Paine's handwriting. It certainly is not in
+ Jefferson's. Certain it is, that Jefferson could not have written anything
+ so manly, so striking, so comprehensive, so clear, so convincing, and so
+ faultless in rhetoric and rhythm as the Declaration of Independence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine was the first man to write these words, "The United States of
+ America." He was the first great champion of absolute separation from
+ England. He was the first to urge the adoption of a Federal Constitution;
+ and, more clearly than any other man of his time, he perceived the future
+ greatness of this country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has been blamed for his attack on Washington. The truth is, he was in
+ prison in France. He had committed the crime of voting, against the
+ execution of the king It was the grandest act of his life, but at that
+ time to be merciful was criminal. Paine; being an American citizen, asked
+ Washington, then President, to say a word to Robespierre in his behalf.
+ Washington remained silent. In the calmness of power, the serenity, of
+ fortune, Washington the President, read the request of Paine, the
+ prisoner, and with the complacency of assured fame, consigned to the
+ wastebasket of forgetfulness the patriot's cry for help.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
+ Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
+ A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
+ Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'd
+ As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
+ As done."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ In this controversy, my sympathies are with the prisoner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Paine did more to free the mind, to destroy the power of ministers and
+ priests in the New World, than any other man. In order to answer his
+ arguments, the churches found it necessary to attack his character. There
+ was a general resort to falsehood. In trying to destroy the reputation of
+ Paine, the churches have demoralized themselves. Nearly every minister has
+ been a willing witness against the truth. Upon the grave of Thomas Paine,
+ the churches of America have sacrificed their honor. The influence of the
+ Hero author increases every day, and there are more copies of the "Age of
+ Reason" sold in the United States, than of any work written in defence of
+ the Christian religion. Hypocrisy, with its forked tongue, its envious and
+ malignant heart, lies coiled upon the memory of Paine, ready to fasten its
+ poisonous fangs in the reputation of any man who dares defend the great
+ and generous dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Leaving the dust and glory of revolutions, let us spend a moment of quiet
+ with Adam Smith. I was glad to find that a man's ideas upon the subject of
+ protection and free trade depend almost entirely upon the country in which
+ he lives, or the business in which he happens to be engaged, and that,
+ after all, each man regards the universe as a circumference of which he is
+ the center. It gratified me to learn that even Adam Smith was no exception
+ to this rule, and that he regarded all "protection as a hurtful and
+ ignorant interference," except when exercised for the good of Great
+ Britain. Owing to the fact that his nationality quarreled with his
+ philosophy, he succeeded in writing a book that is quoted with equal
+ satisfaction by both parties. The protectionists rely upon the exceptions
+ he made for England, and the free traders upon the doctrines laid down for
+ other countries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He seems to have reasoned upon the question of money precisely as we have,
+ of late years, in the United States; and he has argued both sides equally
+ well. Poverty asks for inflation. Wealth is conservative, and always says
+ there is money enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Upon the question of money, this volume contains the best thing I have
+ ever read: "The only mode of procuring the service of others, on any large
+ scale, in the absence of money, is by force, which is slavery. Money, by
+ constituting a medium in which the smallest services can be paid for,
+ substitutes wages for the lash, and renders the liberty of the individual
+ consistent with the maintenance and support of society." There is more
+ philosophy in that one paragraph than Adam Smith expresses in his whole
+ work. It may truthfully be said, that without money, liberty is
+ impossible. No one, whatever his views may be, can read the article on
+ Adam Smith without profit and delight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The discussion of the money question is in every respect admirable, and is
+ as candid as able. The world will sooner or later learn that there is
+ nothing miraculous in finance; that money is a real and tangible thing, a
+ product of labor, serving not merely as a medium of exchange but as a
+ basis of credit as well; that it cannot be created by an act of the
+ Legislature; that dreams cannot be coined, and that only labor, in some
+ form, can put, upon the hand of want, Alladin's magic ring.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Adam Smith wrote upon the wealth of nations, while Charles Fourier labored
+ for the happiness of mankind. In this country, few seem to understand
+ communism. While here, it may be regarded as vicious idleness, armed with
+ the assassin's knife and the incendiary's torch, in Europe, it is a
+ different thing. There, it is a reaction from Feudalism. Nobility is
+ communism in its worst possible form. Nothing can be worse than for
+ idleness to eat the bread of industry. Communism in Europe is not the
+ "stand and deliver" of the robber, but the protest of the robbed.
+ Centuries ago, kings and priests, that is to say, thieves and hypocrites,
+ divided Europe among themselves. Under this arrangement, the few were
+ masters and the many slaves. Nearly every government in the Old World
+ rests upon simple brute force. It is hard for the many to understand why
+ the few should own the soil. Neither can they clearly see why they should
+ give their brain and blood to those who steal their birthright and their
+ bread. It has occurred to them that they who do the most should not
+ receive the least, and that, after all, an industrious peasant is of far
+ more value to the world than a vain and idle king.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Communists of France, blinded as they were, made the Republic
+ possible. Had they joined with their countrymen, the invaders would have
+ been repelled, and some Napoleon would still have occupied the throne.
+ Socialism perceives that Germany has been enslaved by victory, while
+ France found liberty in defeat. In Russia the Nihilists prefer chaos to
+ the government of the bayonet, Siberia and the knout, and these intrepid
+ men have kept upon the coast of despotism one beacon fire of hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a matter of fact, every society is a species of communism&mdash;a kind
+ of co-operation in which selfishness, in spite of itself, benefits the
+ community. Every industrious man adds to the wealth, not only of his
+ nation, but to that of the world. Every inventor increases human power,
+ and every sculptor, painter and poet adds to the value of human life.
+ Fourier, touched by the sufferings of the poor as well as by the barren
+ joys of hoarded wealth, and discovering the vast advantages of combined
+ effort, and the immense economy of co-operation, sought to find some way
+ for men to help themselves by helping each other. He endeavored to do away
+ with monopoly and competition, and to ascertain some method by which the
+ sensuous, the moral, and the intellectual passions of man could be
+ gratified.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part I can place no confidence in any system that does away, or
+ tends to do away, with the institution of marriage. I can conceive of no
+ civilization of which the family must not be the unit.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Societies cannot be made; they must grow. Philosophers may predict, but
+ they cannot create. They may point out as many ways as they please; but
+ after all, humanity will travel in paths of its own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourier sustained about the same relation to this world that Swedenborg
+ did to the other. There must be something wrong about the brain of one who
+ solemnly asserts that, "the elephant, the ox and the diamond, were created
+ by the sun; the horse, the lily and the ruby, by Saturn; the cow, the
+ jonquil and the topaz by Jupiter; and the dog, the violet and the opal
+ stones by the earth itself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, forgetting these aberrations of the mind, this lunacy of a great
+ and loving soul, for one, I hold in tender-est regard the memory of
+ Charles Fourier, one of the best and noblest of our race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While Fourier was in his cradle, Jeremy Bentham, who read history when
+ three years old, played on the violin at five, "and at fifteen detected
+ the fallacies of Blackstone," was demonstrating that the good was the
+ useful; that a thing was right because it paid in the highest and best
+ sense; that utility was the basis of morals; that without allowing
+ interest to be paid upon money commerce could not exist; and that the
+ object of all human governments should be to secure the greatest happiness
+ of the greatest number. He read Hume and Helvetius, threw away the
+ Thirty-nine Articles, and endeavored to impress upon the English Law the
+ fact that its ancestor was a feudal savage. He held the past in contempt,
+ hated Westminster and despised Oxford. He combated the idea that
+ governments were originally founded on contract. Locke and Blackstone
+ talked as though men originally lived apart, and formed societies by
+ agreement. These writers probably imagined that at one time the trees were
+ separated like telegraph poles, and finally came together and made groves
+ by agreement. I believe that it was Pufendorf who said that slavery was
+ originally founded on contract. To which Voltaire replied:&mdash;"If my
+ lord Pufendorf will produce the original contract <i>signed by the party
+ who was to be the slave</i>, I will admit the truth of his statement."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A contract back of society is a myth manufactured by those in power to
+ serve as a title to place, and to impress the multitude with the idea that
+ they are, in some mysterious way, bound, fettered, and even benefited by
+ its terms.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The glory of Bentham is, that he gave the true basis of morals, and
+ furnished statesmen with the star and compass of this sentence:&mdash;"The
+ greatest happiness of the greatest number."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most scientists have deferred to the theologians. They have admitted that
+ some questions could not, at present, be solved. These admissions have
+ been thankfully received by the clergy, who have always begged for some
+ curtain to be left, behind which their God could still exist. Men calling
+ themselves "scientific" have tried to harmonize the "apparent"
+ discrepancies between the Bible and the <i>other</i> works of Jehovah. In
+ this way they have made reputations. They were at once quoted by the
+ ministers as wonderful examples of piety and learning. These men
+ discounted the future that they might enjoy the ignorant praise of the
+ present. Agassiz preferred the applause of Boston, while he lived, to the
+ reverence of a world after he was dead. Small men appear great only when
+ they agree with the multitude.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The last Scientific Congress in America was opened with prayer. Think of a
+ science that depends upon the efficacy of words addressed to the Unknown
+ and Unknowable!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our country, most of the so-called scientists are professors in
+ sectarian colleges, in which Moses is considered a geologist, and Joshua
+ an astronomer. For the most part their salaries depend upon the ingenuity
+ with which they can explain away facts and dodge demonstration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The situation is about the same in England. When Mr. Huxley saw fit to
+ attack the Mosaic account of the creation, he did not deem it advisable to
+ say plainly what he meant. He attacked the account of creation as given by
+ Milton, although he knew that the Mosaic and Miltonic were substantially
+ the same. Science has acted like a guest without a wedding garment, and
+ has continually apologized for existing. In the presence of arrogant
+ absurdity, overawed by the patronizing airs of a successful charlatan, it
+ has played the role of a "poor relation," and accepted, while sitting
+ below the salt, insults as honors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There can be no more pitiable sight than a scientist in the employ of
+ superstition dishonoring himself without assisting his master. But there
+ are a multitude of brave and tender men who give their honest thoughts,
+ who are true to nature, who give the facts and let consequences shirk for
+ themselves, who know the value and meaning of a truth, and who have
+ bravely tried the creeds by scientific tests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among the bravest, side by side with the greatest of the world, in
+ Germany, the land of science, stands Ernst Haeckel, who may be said to
+ have not only demonstrated the theories of Darwin, but the Monistic
+ conception of the world. Rejecting all the puerile ideas of a personal
+ Creator, he has had the courage to adopt the noble words of Bruno:&mdash;"A
+ spirit exists in all things, and no body is so small but it contains a
+ part of the divine substance within itself, by which it is animated." He
+ has endeavored&mdash;and I think with complete success&mdash;to show that
+ there is not, and never was, and never can be the <i>Creator</i> of
+ anything. There is no more a personal Creator than there is a personal
+ destroyer. Matter and force must have existed from eternity, all
+ generation must have been spontaneous, and the simplest organisms must
+ have been the ancestors of the most perfect and complex.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Haeckel is one of the bitterest enemies of the church, and is, therefore,
+ one of the bravest friends of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Catholicism was, at one time, the friend of education&mdash;of an
+ education sufficient to make a Catholic out of a barbarian. Protestantism
+ was also in favor of education&mdash;of an education sufficient to make a
+ Protestant out of a Catholic. But now, it having been demonstrated that
+ real education will make Freethinkers, Catholics and Protestants both are
+ the enemies of true learning.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In all countries where human beings are held in bondage, it is a crime to
+ teach a slave to read and write. Masters know that education is an
+ abolitionist, and theologians know that science is the deadly foe of every
+ creed in Christendom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the age of Faith, a personal god stood at the head of every department
+ of ignorance, and was supposed to be the King of kings, the rewarder and
+ punisher of individuals, and the governor of nations.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The worshipers of this god have always regarded the men in love with
+ simple facts, as Atheists in disguise. And it must be admitted that
+ nothing is more Atheistic than a fact. Pure science is necessarily
+ godless, It is incapable of worship. It investigates, and cannot afford to
+ shut its eyes even long enough to pray. There was a time when those who
+ disputed the divine right of kings were denounced as blasphemous; but the
+ time came when liberty demanded that a personal god should be retired from
+ politics. In our country this was substantially done in 1776, when our
+ fathers declared that all power to govern came from the consent of the
+ governed. The cloud-theory was abandoned, and one government has been
+ established for the benefit of mankind. Our fathers did not keep God out
+ of the Constitution from principle, but from jealousy. Each church, in
+ colonial times, preferred to live in single blessedness rather than see
+ some rival wedded to the state. Mutual hatred planted our tree of
+ religious liberty. A constitution without a god has at last given us a
+ nation without a slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A personal god sustains the same relation to religion as to politics. The
+ Deity is a master, and man a serf; and this relation is inconsistent with
+ true progress. The Universe ought to be a pure democracy&mdash;an infinite
+ republic without a tyrant and without a chain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Auguste Comte endeavored to put humanity in the place of Jehovah, and no
+ conceivable change can be more desirable than this. This great man did
+ not, like some of his followers, put a mysterious something called law in
+ the place of God, which is simply giving the old master a new name. Law is
+ this side of phenomena, not the other. It is not the cause, neither is it
+ the result of phenomena. The fact of succession and resemblance, that is
+ to say, the same thing happening under the same conditions, is all we mean
+ by law. No one can conceive of a law existing apart from matter, or
+ controlling matter, any more than he can understand the eternal procession
+ of the Holy Ghost, or motion apart from substance. We are beginning to see
+ that law does not, and cannot exist as an entity, but that it is only a
+ conception of the mind to express the fact that the same entities, under
+ the same conditions, produce the same results. Law does not produce the
+ entities, the conditions, or the results, or even the sameness of the
+ results. Neither does it affect the relations of entities, nor the result
+ of such relations, but it stands simply for the fact that the same causes,
+ under the same conditions, eternally have produced and eternally will
+ produce the same results.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The metaphysicians are always giving us explanations of phenomena which
+ are as difficult to understand as the phenomena they seek to explain; and
+ the believers in God establish their dogmas by miracles, and then
+ substantiate the miracles by assertion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Designer of the teleologist, the First Cause of the religious
+ philosopher, the Vital Force of the biologist, and the law of the
+ half-orthodox scientist, are all the shadowy children of ignorance and
+ fear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Universe is all there is. It is both subject and object; contemplator
+ and contemplated; creator and created; destroyer and destroyed; preserver
+ and preserved; and within itself are all causes, modes, motions and
+ effects.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Unable in some things to rise above the superstitions of his day, Comte
+ adopted not only the machinery, but some of the prejudices, of
+ Catholicism. He made the mistake of Luther. He tried to reform the Church
+ of Rome. Destruction is the only reformation of which that church is
+ capable. Every religion is based upon a misconception, not only of the
+ cause of phenomena, but of the real object of life; that is to say, upon
+ falsehood; and the moment the truth is known and understood, these
+ religions must fall. In the field of thought, they are briers, thorns, and
+ noxious weeds; on the shores of intellectual discovery, they are sirens,
+ and in the forests that the brave thinkers are now penetrating, they are
+ the wild beasts, fanged and monstrous.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You cannot reform these weeds. Sirens cannot be changed into good
+ citizens; and such wild beasts, even when tamed, are of no possible use.
+ Destruction is the only remedy. Reformation is a hospital where the new
+ philosophy exhausts its strength nursing the old religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was, in the brain of the great Frenchman, the dawn of that happy day
+ in which humanity will be the only religion, good the only god, happiness
+ the only object, restitution the only atonement, mistake the only sin, and
+ affection, guided by intelligence, the only savior of mankind. This dawn
+ enriched his poverty, illuminated the darkness of his life, peopled his
+ loneliness with the happy millions yet to be, and filled his eyes with
+ proud and tender tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago I asked the superintendent of Pere La Chaise if he knew
+ where I could find the tomb of Auguste Comte. He had never heard even the
+ name of the author of the "Positive Philosophy." I asked him if he had
+ ever heard of Napoleon Bonaparte. In a half-insulted tone, he replied, "Of
+ course I have, why do you ask me such a question?" "Simply," was my
+ answer, "that I might have the opportunity of saying, that when everything
+ connected with Napoleon, except his crimes, shall have been forgotten,
+ Auguste Comte will be lovingly remembered as a benefactor of the human
+ race."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jewish God must be dethroned! A personal Deity must go back to the
+ darkness of barbarism from whence he came. The theologians must abdicate,
+ and popes, priests, and clergymen, labeled as "extinct species," must
+ occupy the mental museums of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, this book, filled with original thought, will hasten the
+ coming of that blessed time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C., Nov. 29,1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkPREF1" id="linkPREF1">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE TO DR. EDGAR C. BEALL'S "THE BRAIN AND THE BIBLE."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THIS book, written by a brave and honest man, is filled with brave and
+ honest thoughts. The arguments it presents can not be answered by all the
+ theologians in the world. The author is convinced that the universe is
+ natural, that man is naturally produced, and that there is a necessary
+ relation between character and brain. He sees, and clearly sees, that the
+ theological explanation of phenomena is only a plausible absurdity, and,
+ at best, as great a mystery as it tries to solve. I thank the man who
+ breaks, or tries to break, the chains of custom, creed, and church, and
+ gives in plain, courageous words, the product of his brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is almost impossible to investigate any subject without somewhere
+ touching the religious prejudices of ourselves or others. Most people
+ judge of the truth of a proposition by the consequences upon some
+ preconceived opinion. Certain things they take as truths, and with this
+ little standard in their minds, they measure all other theories. If the
+ new facts do not agree with the standard, they are instantly thrown away,
+ because it is much easier to dispose of the new facts than to reconstruct
+ an entire philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago, when men began to say that character could be determined
+ by the form, quantity, and quality of the brain, the religious world
+ rushed to the conclusion that this fact might destroy what they were
+ pleased to call the free moral agency of man. They admitted that all
+ things in the physical world were links in the infinite chain of causes
+ and effects, and that not one atom of the material universe could, by any
+ possibility, be entirely exempt from the action of every other. They
+ insisted that, if the motions of the spirit&mdash;the thoughts, dreams,
+ and conclusions of the brain, were as necessarily produced as stones and
+ stars, virtue became necessity, and morality the result of forces capable
+ of mathematical calculation. In other words, they insisted that, while
+ there were causes for all material phenomena, a something called the Will
+ sat enthroned above all law, and dominated the phenomena of the
+ intellectual world. They insisted that man was free; that he controlled
+ his brain; that he was responsible for thought as well as action; that the
+ intellectual world of each man was a universe in which his will was king.
+ They were afraid that phrenology might, in some way, interfere with the
+ scheme of salvation, or prevent the eternal torment of some erring soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is insisted that man is free, and is responsible, because he knows
+ right from wrong. But the compass does not navigate the ship; neither does
+ it, in any way, of itself, determine the direction that is taken. When
+ winds and waves are too powerful, the compass is of no importance. The
+ pilot may read it correctly, and may know the direction the ship ought to
+ take, but the compass is not a force. So men, blown by the tempests of
+ passion, may have the intellectual conviction that they should go another
+ way; but, of what use, of what force, is the conviction?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of persons have gathered curious statistics for the purpose of
+ showing that man is absolutely dominated by his surroundings. By these
+ statistics is discovered what is called "the law of average." They show
+ that there are about so many suicides in London every year, so many
+ letters misdirected at Paris, so many men uniting themselves In marriage
+ with women older than themselves in Belgium, so many burglaries to one
+ murder in France, or so many persons driven insane by religion in the
+ United States. It is asserted that these facts conclusively show that man
+ is acted upon; that behind each thought, each dream, is the efficient
+ cause, and that the doctrine of moral responsibility has been destroyed by
+ statistics.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, does the fact that about so many crimes are committed on the average,
+ in a given population, or that so many any things are done, prove that
+ there is no freedom in human action?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose a population of ten thousand persons; and suppose, further, that
+ they are free, and that they have the usual wants of mankind. Is it not
+ reasonable to say that they would act in some way? They certainly would
+ take measures to obtain food, clothing, and shelter. If these people
+ differed in intellect, in surroundings, in temperament, in strength, it is
+ reasonable to suppose that all would not be equally successful. Under such
+ circumstances, may we not safely infer that, in a little while, if the
+ statistics were properly taken, a law of average would appear? In other
+ words, free people would act; and, being different in mind, body, and
+ circumstances, would not all act exactly alike. All would not be alike
+ acted upon. The deviations from what might be thought wise, or right,
+ would sustain such a relation to time and numbers that they could be
+ expressed by a law of average.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If this is true, the law of average does not establish necessity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, in my supposed case, the people, after all, are not free. They have
+ wants. They are under the necessity of feeding, clothing, and sheltering
+ themselves. To the extent of their actual wants, they are not free. Every
+ limitation is a master. Every finite being is a prisoner, and no man has
+ ever yet looked above or beyond the prison walls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our highest conception of liberty is to be free from the dictation of
+ fellow prisoners.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the extent that we have wants, we are not free. To the extent that we
+ do not have wants, we do not act.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we are responsible for our thoughts, we ought not only to know how they
+ are formed, but we ought to form them. If we are the masters of our own
+ minds, we ought to be able to tell what we are going to think at any
+ future time. Evidently, the food of thought&mdash;its very warp and woof&mdash;is
+ furnished through the medium of the senses. If we open our eyes, we cannot
+ help seeing. If we do not stop our ears, we cannot help hearing. If
+ anything touches us, we feel it. The heart beats in spite of us. The lungs
+ supply themselves with air without our knowledge. The blood pursues its
+ old accustomed rounds, and all our senses act without our leave. As the
+ heart beats, so the brain thinks. The will is not its king. As the blood
+ flows, as the lungs expand, as the eyes see, as the ears hear, as the
+ flesh is sensitive to touch, so the brain thinks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had a dream, in which I debated a question with a friend. I thought to
+ myself: "This is a dream, and yet I can not tell what my opponent is going
+ to say. Yet, if it is a dream, I am doing the thinking for both sides, and
+ therefore ought to know in advance what my friend will urge." But, in a
+ dream, there is some one who seems to talk to us. Our own brain tells us
+ news, and presents an unexpected thought. Is it not possible that each
+ brain is a field where all the senses sow the seeds of thought? Some of
+ these fields are mostly barren, poor, and hard, producing only worthless
+ weeds; and some grow sturdy oaks and stately palms; and some are like the
+ tropic world, where plants and trees and vines seem royal children of the
+ soil and sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing seems more certain than that the capacity of a human being
+ depends, other things being equal, upon the amount, form, and quality of
+ his brain. We also know that health, disposition, temperament, occupation,
+ food, surroundings, ancestors, quality, form, and texture of the brain,
+ determine what we call character. Man is, collectively and individually,
+ what his surroundings have made him. Nations differ from each other as
+ greatly as individuals in the same nation. Nations depend upon soil,
+ climate, geographical position, and countless other facts. Shakespeare
+ would have been impossible without the climate of England. There is a
+ direct relation between Hamlet and the Gulf Stream. Dr. Draper has shown
+ that the great desert of Sahara made negroes possible in Africa. If the
+ Caribbean Sea had been a desert, negroes might have been produced in
+ America.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the effects of climate upon man necessary effects? Is it possible for
+ man to escape them? Is he responsible for what he does as a consequence of
+ his surroundings? Is the mind dependent upon causes? Does it act without
+ cause? Is every thought a necessity? Can man choose without reference to
+ any quality in the thing chosen?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one will blame Mr. Brown or Mr. Jones for not writing like Shakespeare.
+ Should they be blamed for not acting like Christ? We say that a great
+ painter has genius. Is it not possible that a certain genius is required
+ to be what is called "good"? All men cannot be great. All men cannot be
+ successful. Can all men be kind? Can all men be honest?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that a crime appears terrible in proportion as we realize its
+ consequences. If this is true, morality may depend largely upon the
+ imagination. Man cannot have imagination at will; that, certainly, is a
+ natural product. And yet, a man's action may depend largely upon the want
+ of imagination. One man may feel that he really wishes to kill another. He
+ may make preparations to commit the deed; and yet, his imagination may
+ present such pictures of horror and despair; he may so vividly see the
+ widow clasping the mangled corpse; he may so plainly hear the cries and
+ sobs of orphans, while the clods fall upon the coffin, that his hand is
+ stayed. Another, lacking imagination, thirsting only for revenge, seeing
+ nothing beyond the accomplishment of the deed, buries, with blind-and
+ thoughtless hate, the dagger in his victim's heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Morality, for the most part, is the verdict of the majority. This verdict
+ depends upon the intelligence of the people; and the intelligence depends
+ upon the amount, form, and quality of the average brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the mind depends upon certain organs for the expression of its thought,
+ does it have thought independently of those organs? Is there any mind
+ without brain? Does the mind think apart from the brain, and then express
+ its thought through the instrumentality of the brain? Theologians tell us
+ that insanity is not a disease of the soul, but of the brain; that the
+ soul is perfectly untouched; but that the instrument with which, and
+ through which, it manifests itself, is impaired. The fact, however, seems
+ to be, that the mind, the something that is the man, is unconscious of the
+ fact that anything is out of order in the brain. Insane people insist that
+ they are sane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we should find a locomotive off the track, and the engineer using the
+ proper appliances to put it back, we would say that the machine is out of
+ order, but the engineer is not. But, if we found the locomotive upside
+ down, with wheels in air, and the engineer insisting that it was on the
+ track, and never running better, we would then conclude that something was
+ wrong, not only with the locomotive, but with the engineer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are told in medical books of a girl, who, at about the age of nine
+ years, was attacked with some cerebral disease. When she recovered, she
+ had forgotten all she ever knew, and had to relearn the alphabet, and the
+ names of her parents and kindred. In this abnormal state, she was not a
+ good girl; in the normal state, she was. After having lived in the second
+ state for several years, she went back to the first; and all she had
+ learned in the second state was forgotten, and all she had learned in the
+ first was remembered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe she changed once more, and died in the abnormal state. In which
+ of these states was she responsible? Were her thoughts and actions as free
+ in one as in the other? It may be contended that, in her diseased state,
+ the mind or soul could not correctly express itself. If this is so, it
+ follows that, as no one is perfectly healthy, and as no one has a perfect
+ brain, it is impossible that the soul should ever correctly express
+ itself. Is the soul responsible for the defects of the brain? Is it not
+ altogether more rational to say, that what we call mind depends upon the
+ brain, and that the child&mdash;mind, inherits the defects of its parent&mdash;brain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are certain physical conditions necessary to the production of what we
+ call virtuous actions? Is it possible for anything to be produced without
+ what we call cause, and, if the cause was sufficient, was it not
+ necessarily produced? Do not most people mistake for freedom the right to
+ examine their own chains? If morality depends upon conditions, should it
+ not be the task of the great and good to discover such conditions? May it
+ not be possible so to understand the brain that we can stop producing
+ criminals?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be insisted that there is something produced by the brain besides
+ thought&mdash;a something that takes cognizance of thoughts&mdash;a
+ something that weighs, compares, reflects and pronounces judgment. This
+ something cannot find the origin of itself. Does it exist independently of
+ the brain? Is it merely a looker-on? If it is a product of the brain, then
+ its power, perception, and judgment depend upon the quantity, form, and
+ quality of the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man, including all his attributes, must have been necessarily produced,
+ and the product was the child of conditions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most reformers have infinite confidence in creeds, resolutions, and laws.
+ They think of the common people as raw material, out of which they propose
+ to construct institutions and governments, like mechanical contrivances,
+ where each person will stand for a cog, rope, wheel, pulley, bolt, or
+ fuel, and the reformers will be the managers and directors. They forget
+ that these cogs and wheels have opinions of their own; that they fall out
+ with other cogs, and refuse to turn with other wheels; that the pulleys
+ and ropes have ideas peculiar to themselves, and delight in mutiny and
+ revolution. These reformers have theories that can only be realized when
+ other people have none.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some time, it will be found that people can be changed only by changing
+ their surroundings. It is alleged that, at least ninety-five per cent. of
+ the criminals transported from England to Australia and other penal
+ colonies, became good and useful citizens in a new world. Free from former
+ associates and associations, from the necessities of a hard, cruel, and
+ competitive civilization, they became, for the most part, honest people.
+ This immense fact throws more light upon social questions than all the
+ theories of the world. All people are not able to support themselves. They
+ lack intelligence, industry, cunning&mdash;in short, capacity. They are
+ continually falling by the way. In the midst of plenty, they are hungry.
+ Larceny is born of want and opportunity. In passion's storm, the will is
+ wrecked upon the reefs and rocks of crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The complex, tangled web of thought and dream, of perception and memory,
+ of imagination and judgment, of wish and will and want&mdash;the woven
+ wonder of a life&mdash;has never yet been raveled back to simple threads.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Shall we not become charitable and just, when we know that every act is
+ but condition's fruit; that Nature, with her countless hands, scatters the
+ seeds of tears and crimes&mdash;of every virtue and of every joy; that all
+ the base and vile are victims of the Blind, and that the good and great
+ have, in the lottery of life, by chance or fate, drawn heart and brain?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, December 21, 1881.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkPREF2" id="linkPREF2">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE TO "MEN, WOMEN AND GODS."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ NOTHING gives me more pleasure, nothing gives greater promise for the
+ future, than the fact that woman is achieving intellectual and physical
+ liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is refreshing to know that here, in our country, there are thousands of
+ women who think, and express their thoughts&mdash;who are thoroughly free
+ and thoroughly conscientious&mdash;who have neither been narrowed nor
+ corrupted by a heartless creed&mdash;who do not worship a being in heaven
+ whom they would shudderingly loathe on earth&mdash;women who do not stand
+ before the altar of a cruel faith, with downcast eyes of timid
+ acquiescence, and pay to impudent authority the tribute of a thoughtless
+ yes. They are no longer satisfied with being told. They examine for
+ themselves. They have ceased to be the prisoners of society&mdash;the
+ satisfied serfs of husbands, or the echoes of priests. They demand the
+ rights that naturally belong to intelligent human beings. If wives, they
+ wish to be the equals of husbands. If mothers, they wish to rear their
+ children in the atmosphere of love, liberty and philosophy. They believe
+ that woman can discharge all her duties without the aid of superstition,
+ and preserve all that is true, pure, and tender, without sacrificing in
+ the temple of absurdity the convictions of the soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Woman is not the intellectual inferior of man. She has lacked, not mind,
+ but opportunity. In the long night of barbarism, physical strength and the
+ cruelty to use it, were the badges of superiority. Muscle was more than
+ mind. In the ignorant age of Faith, the loving nature of woman was abused.
+ Her conscience was rendered morbid and diseased. It might almost be said
+ that she was betrayed by her own virtues. At best she secured, not
+ opportunity, but flattery&mdash;the preface to degradation. She was
+ deprived of liberty, and without that, nothing is worth the having. She
+ was taught to obey without question, and to believe without thought. There
+ were universities for men before the alphabet had been taught to women. At
+ the intellectual feast, there were no places for wives and mothers. Even
+ now they sit at the second table and eat the crusts and crumbs. The
+ schools for women, at the present time, are just far enough behind those
+ for men, to fall heirs to the discarded; on the same principle that when a
+ doctrine becomes too absurd for the pulpit, it is given to the
+ Sunday-school.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ages of muscle and miracle&mdash;of fists and faith&mdash;are passing
+ away. Minerva occupies at last a higher niche than Hercules. Now a word is
+ stronger than a blow. At last we see women who depend upon themselves&mdash;who
+ stand, self poised, the shocks of this sad world, without leaning for
+ support against a church&mdash;who do not go to the literature of
+ barbarism for consolation, or use the falsehoods and mistakes of the past
+ for the foundation of their hope&mdash;women brave enough and tender
+ enough to meet and bear the facts and fortunes of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men who declare that woman is the intellectual inferior of man, do
+ not, and cannot, by offering themselves in evidence, substantiate their
+ declaration.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, I must admit that there are thousands of wives who still have faith
+ in the saving power of superstition&mdash;who still insist on attending
+ church while husbands prefer the shores, the woods, or the fields. In this
+ way, families are divided. Parents grow apart, and unconsciously the pearl
+ of greatest price is thrown away. The wife ceases to be the intellectual
+ companion of the husband. She reads <i>The Christian Register</i>, sermons
+ in the Monday papers, and a little gossip about folks and fashions, while
+ he studies the works of Darwin, Haeckel, and Humboldt. Their sympathies
+ become estranged. They are no longer mental friends. The husband smiles at
+ the follies of the wife, and she weeps for the supposed sins of the
+ husband. Such wives should read this book. They should not be satisfied to
+ remain forever in the cradle of thought, amused with the toys of
+ superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The parasite of woman is the priest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It must also be admitted that there are thousands of men who believe that
+ superstition is good for women and children&mdash;who regard falsehood as
+ the fortress of virtue, and feel indebted to ignorance for the purity of
+ daughters and the fidelity of wives. These men think of priests as
+ detectives in disguise, and regard God as a policeman who prevents
+ elopements. Their opinions about religion are as correct as their estimate
+ of woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church furnishes but little food for the mind. People of intelligence
+ are growing tired of the platitudes of the pulpit&mdash;the iterations of
+ the itinerants. The average sermon is "as tedious as a twice told tale
+ vexing the ears of a drowsy man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One Sunday a gentleman, who is a great inventor, called at my house. Only
+ a few words had passed between us, when he arose, saying that he must go
+ as it was time for church. Wondering that a man of his mental wealth could
+ enjoy the intellectual poverty of the pulpit, I asked for an explanation,
+ and he gave me the following: "You know that I am an inventor. Well, the
+ moment my mind becomes absorbed in some difficult problem, I am afraid
+ that something may happen to distract my attention. Now, I know that I can
+ sit in church for an hour without the slightest danger of having the
+ current of my thought disturbed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most women cling to the Bible because they have been taught that to give
+ up that book is to give up all hope of another life&mdash;of ever meeting
+ again the loved and lost. They have also been taught that the Bible is
+ their friend, their defender, and the real civilizer of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if they will only read this book&mdash;these three lectures, without
+ fear, and then read the Bible, they will see that the truth or falsity of
+ the dogma of inspiration has nothing to do with the question of
+ immortality. Certainly the Old Testament does not teach us that there is
+ another life, and upon that question even the New is obscure and vague.
+ The hunger of the heart finds only a few small and scattered crumbs. There
+ is nothing definite, solid, and satisfying. United with the idea of
+ immortality we find the absurdity of the resurrection. A prophecy that
+ depends for its fulfillment upon an impossibility, cannot satisfy the
+ brain or heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are but few who do not long for a dawn beyond the night. And this
+ longing is born of and nourished by the heart. Love wrapped in shadow&mdash;bending
+ with tear-filled eyes above its dead, convulsively clasps the outstretched
+ hand of hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I had the pleasure of introducing Miss Gardener to her first audience, and
+ in that introduction said a few words that I will repeat.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We do not know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the
+ beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions to soar, or the
+ folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an endless life
+ that brings the rapture of love to every one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Under the seven-hued arch of hope let the dead sleep."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They will also discover, as they read the "Sacred Volume," that it is not
+ the friend of woman. They will find that the writers of that book, for the
+ most part, speak of woman as a poor beast of burden, a serf, a drudge, a
+ kind of necessary evil&mdash;as mere property. Surely, a book that upholds
+ polygamy is not the friend of wife and mother.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even Christ did not place woman on an equality with man. He said not one
+ word about the sacredness of home, the duties of the husband to the wife&mdash;nothing
+ calculated to lighten the hearts of those who bear the saddest burdens of
+ this life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They will also find that the Bible has not civilized mankind. A book that
+ establishes and defends slavery and wanton war is not calculated to soften
+ the hearts of those who believe implicitly that it is the work of God. A
+ book that not only permits, but commands, religious persecution, has not,
+ in my judgment, developed the affectional nature of man. Its influence has
+ been bad and bad only. It has filled the world with bitterness, revenge
+ and crime, and retarded in countless ways the progress of our race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The writer of this volume has read the Bible with open eyes. The mist of
+ sentimentality has not clouded her vision. She has had the courage to tell
+ the result of her investigations. She has been quick to discover
+ contradictions. She appreciates the humorous side of the stupidly solemn.
+ Her heart protests against the cruel, and her brain rejects the childish,
+ the unnatural and absurd. There is no misunderstanding between her head
+ and heart. She says what she thinks, and feels what she says.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No human being can answer her arguments. There is no answer. All the
+ priests in the world cannot explain away her objections. There is no
+ explanation. They should remain dumb, unless they can show that the
+ impossible is the probable&mdash;that slavery is better than freedom&mdash;that
+ polygamy is the friend of woman&mdash;that the innocent can justly suffer
+ for the guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love
+ and worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wives who cease to learn&mdash;who simply forget and believe&mdash;will
+ fill the evening of their lives with barren sighs and bitter tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The mind should outlast youth. If when beauty fades, Thought, the deft and
+ unseen sculptor, hath not left his subtle lines upon the face, then all is
+ lost. No charm is left. The light is out. There is no flame within to
+ glorify the wrinkled clay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Hoffman House, New York, July, 22, 1885.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkPREF3" id="linkPREF3">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE TO "FOR HER DAILY BREAD."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE read, this story, this fragment of a life mingled with fragments of
+ other lives, and have been pleased, interested, and instructed. It is
+ filled with the pathos of truth, and has in it the humor that accompanies
+ actual experience. It has but little to do with the world of imagination;
+ certain feelings are not attributed to persons born of fancy, but it is
+ the history of a heart and brain interested in the common things of life.
+ There are no kings, no lords, no titled ladies, but there are real people,
+ the people of the shop and street whom every reader knows, and there are
+ lines intense and beautiful, and scenes that touch the heart. You will
+ find no theories of government, no hazy outlines of reform, nothing but
+ facts and folks, as they have been, as they are, and probably will be for
+ many centuries to come.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If you read this book you will be convinced that men and women are good or
+ bad, charitable or heartless, by reason of something within, and not by
+ virtue of any name they bear, or any trade or profession they follow, or
+ of any creed they may accept. You will also find that men sometimes are
+ honest and mean; that women may be very virtuous and very cruel; that
+ good, generous and sympathetic men are often disreputable, and that some
+ exceedingly worthy citizens are extremely mean and uncomfortable
+ neighbors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It takes a great deal of genius and a good deal of selfdenial to be very
+ bad or to be very good. Few people understand the amount of energy,
+ industry, and self-denial it requires to be consistently vicious. People
+ who have a pride in being good and fail, and those who have a pride in
+ being bad and fail, in order to make their records consistent generally
+ rely upon hypocrisy. The people that live and hope and fear in this book,
+ are much like the people who live and hope and fear in the actual world.
+ The professor is much like the professor in the ordinary college. You will
+ find the conscientious, half-paid teacher, the hopeful poor, the anxious
+ rich, the true lover, the stingy philanthropist, who cares for people only
+ in the aggregate,&mdash;the individual atom being too small to attract his
+ notice or to enlist his heart; the sympathetic man who loves himself, and
+ gives, not for the sake of the beggar, but for the sake of getting rid of
+ the beggar, and you will also find the man generous to a fault&mdash;with
+ the money of others. And the reader will find these people described
+ naturally, truthfully and without exaggeration, and he will feel certain
+ that all these people have really lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reader of this story will get some idea as to what is encountered by a
+ girl in an honest effort to gain her daily bread. He will find how steep,
+ how devious and how difficult is the path she treads.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are so few occupations open to woman, so few things in which she can
+ hope for independence, that to be thrown upon her own resources is almost
+ equivalent to being cast away. Besides, she is an object of continual
+ suspicion, watched not only by men but by women. If she does anything that
+ other women are not doing, she is at once suspected, her reputation is
+ touched, and other women, for fear of being stained themselves, withdraw
+ not only the hand of help, but the smile of recognition. A young woman
+ cannot defend herself without telling the charge that has been made
+ against her. This, of itself, gives a kind of currency to slander. To
+ speak of the suspicion that has crawled across her path, is to plant the
+ seeds of doubt in other minds; to even deny it, admits that it exists. To
+ be suspected, that is enough. There is no way of destroying this
+ suspicion. There is no court in which suspicions are tried; no juries that
+ can render verdicts of not guilty. Most women are driven at last to the
+ needle, and this does not allow them to live; it simply keeps them from
+ dying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to appreciate the dangers and difficulties that lie in wait for
+ woman. Even in this Christian country of ours, no girl is safe in the
+ streets of any city after the sun has gone down. After all, the sun is the
+ only god that has ever protected woman. In the darkness she has been the
+ prey of the wild beast in man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly all charitable people, so-called, imagine that nothing is easier
+ than to obtain work. They really feel that anybody, no matter what his
+ circumstances may be, can get work enough to do if he is only willing to
+ do the work. They cannot understand why any healthy human being should
+ lack food or clothes. Meeting the unfortunate and the wretched in the
+ streets of the great city, they ask them in a kind of wondering way, why
+ they do not go to the West, why they do not cultivate the soil, and why
+ they are so foolish, stupid, and reckless as to remain in the town. It
+ would be just as sensible to ask a beggar why he does not start a bank or
+ a line of steamships, as to ask him why he does not cultivate the soil, or
+ why he does not go to the West. The man has no money to pay his fare, and
+ if his fare were paid he would be, when he landed in the West, in
+ precisely the same condition as he was when he left the East. Societies
+ and institutions and individuals supply the immediate wants of the hungry
+ and the ragged, but they afford only the relief of the moment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Articles by the thousand have been written for the purpose of showing that
+ women should become servants in houses, and the writers of these articles
+ are filled with astonishment that any girl should hesitate to enter
+ domestic service. They tell us that nearly every family needs a good cook,
+ a good chambermaid, a good sweeper of floors and washer of dishes, a good
+ stout girl to carry the baby and draw the wagon, and these good people
+ express the greatest astonishment that all girls are not anxious to become
+ domestics. They tell them that they will be supplied with good food, that
+ they will have comfortable beds and warm clothing, and they ask, "What
+ more do you want?" These people have not, however, solved the problem. If
+ girls, as a rule, keep away from kitchens and chambers, if they hate to be
+ controlled by other women, there must be a reason. When we see a young
+ woman prefer a clerkship in a store,&mdash;a business which keeps her upon
+ her feet all day, and sends her to her lonely room, filled with weariness
+ and despair, and when we see other girls who are willing to sew for a few
+ cents a day rather than become the maid of "my lady," there must be some
+ reason, and this reason must be deemed sufficient by the persons who are
+ actuated by it. What is it?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every human being imagines that the future has something in store for him.
+ It is natural to build these castles in Spain. It is natural for a girl to
+ dream of being loved by the noble, by the superb, and it is natural for
+ the young man to dream of success, of a home, of a good, a beautiful and
+ loving wife. These dreams are the solace of poverty; they keep back the
+ tears in the eyes of the young and the hungry. To engage in any labor that
+ degrades, in any work that leaves a stain, in any business the mention of
+ which is liable to redden the cheek, seems to be a destruction of the
+ foundation of hope, a destruction of the future; it seems to be a
+ crucifixion of his or her better self. It assassinates the ideal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be said that labor is noble, that work is a kind of religion, and
+ whoever says this tells the truth, But after all, what has the truth to do
+ with this question? What is the opinion of society?&mdash;What is the
+ result? It cures no wound to say that it was wrongfully inflicted. The
+ opinion of sensible people is one way, the action of society is
+ inconsistent with that opinion. Domestic servants are treated as though
+ their employment was and is a degradation. Bankers, merchants,
+ professional men, ministers of the gospel, do not want their sons to
+ become the husbands of chambermaids and cooks. Small hands are beautiful;
+ they do not tell of labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have given one reason; there is another. The work of a domestic is never
+ done. She is liable to be called at any moment, day or night. She has no
+ time that she can call her own. A woman who works by the piece can take a
+ little rest; if she is a clerk she has certain hours of labor and the rest
+ of the day is her own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there is still another reason that I almost hate to give, and that is
+ this: As a rule, woman is exacting with woman. As a rule, woman does not
+ treat woman as well as man treats man, or as well as man treats woman.
+ There are many other reasons, but I have given enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years, women have been seeking employment other than that of
+ domestic service. They have so hated this occupation, that they have
+ sought in every possible direction for other ways to win their bread. At
+ last hundreds of employments are open to them, and, as a consequence,
+ domestic servants are those who can get nothing else to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the olden time, servants sat at the table with the family; they were
+ treated something like human beings, harshly enough to be sure, but in
+ many cases almost as equals. Now the kitchen is far away from the parlor.
+ It is another world, occupied by individuals of a different race. There is
+ no bond of sympathy&mdash;no common ground. This is especially true in a
+ Republic. In the Old World, people occupying menial places account for
+ their positions by calling attention to the laws&mdash;to the hereditary
+ nobility and the universal spirit of caste. Here, there are no such
+ excuses. All are supposed to have equal opportunities, and those who are
+ compelled to labor for their daily bread, in avocations that require only
+ bodily strength, are regarded as failures. It is this fact that stabs like
+ a knife. And yet in the conclusion drawn, there is but little truth. Some
+ of the noblest and best pass their lives in daily drudgery and
+ unremunerative toil&mdash;while many of the mean, vicious and stupid reach
+ place and power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This story is filled with sympathy for the destitute, for the struggling,
+ and tends to keep the star of hope above the horizon of the unfortunate.
+ After all, we know but little of the world, and have but a faint
+ conception of the burdens that are borne, and of the courage and heroism
+ displayed by the unregarded poor. Let the rich read these pages; they will
+ have a kinder feeling toward those who toil; let the workers read them,
+ and they will think better of themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkPREF4" id="linkPREF4">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE TO "AGNOSTICISM AND OTHER ESSAYS."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ EDGAR FAWCETT&mdash;a great poet, a metaphysician and logician&mdash;has
+ been for years engaged in exploring that strange world wherein are
+ supposed to be the springs of human action. He has sought for something
+ back of motives, reasons, fancies, passions, prejudices, and the countless
+ tides and tendencies that constitute the life of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has found some of the limitations of mind, and knows that beginning at
+ that luminous centre called consciousness, a few short steps bring us to
+ the prison wall where vision fails and all light dies. Beyond this wall
+ the eternal darkness broods. This gloom is "the other world" of the
+ supernaturalist. With him, real vision begins where the sight fails. He
+ reverses the order of nature. Facts become illusions, and illusions the
+ only realities. He believes that the cause of the image, the reality, is
+ behind the mirror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few centuries ago the priests said to their followers: The other world
+ is above you; it is just beyond where you see. Afterward, the astronomer
+ with his telescope looked, and asked the priests: Where is the world of
+ which you speak? And the priests replied: It has receded&mdash;it is just
+ beyond where you see.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As long as there is "a beyond," there is room for the priests' world.
+ Theology is the geography of this beyond.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Between the Christian and the Agnostic there is the difference of
+ assertion and question&mdash;between "There is a God" and "Is there a
+ God?" The Agnostic has the arrogance to admit his ignorance, while the
+ Christian from the depths of humility impudently insists that he knows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Fawcett has shown that at the root of religion lies the coiled serpent
+ of fear, and that ceremony, prayer, and worship are ways and means to gain
+ the assistance or soften the heart of a supposed deity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He also shows that as man advances in knowledge he loses confidence in the
+ watchfulness of Providence and in the efficacy of prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ II. SCIENCE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The savage is certain of those things that cannot be known. He is
+ acquainted with origin and destiny, and knows everything except that which
+ is useful. The civilized man, having outgrown the ignorance, the
+ arrogance, and the provincialism of savagery, abandons the vain search for
+ final causes, for the nature and origin of things.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In nearly every department of science man is allowed to investigate, and
+ the discovery of a new fact is welcomed, unless it threatens some creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course there can be no advance in a religion established by infinite
+ wisdom. The only progress possible is in the comprehension of this
+ religion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many generations, what is known under a vast number of disguises and
+ behind many masks as the Christian religion, has been propagated and
+ preserved by the sword and bayonet&mdash;that is to say, by force. The
+ credulity of man has been bribed and his reason punished. Those who
+ believed without the slightest question, and whose faith held evidence in
+ contempt, were saints; those who investigated were dangerous, and those
+ who denied were destroyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every attack upon this religion has been made in the shadow of human and
+ divine hatred&mdash;in defiance of earth and heaven. At one time
+ Christendom was beneath the ignorant feet of one man, and those who denied
+ his infallibility were heretics and Atheists. At last, a protest was
+ uttered. The right of conscience was proclaimed, to the extent of making a
+ choice between the infallible man and the infallible book. Those who
+ rejected the man and accepted the book became in their turn as merciless,
+ as tyrannical and heartless, as the followers of the infallible man. The
+ Protestants insisted that an infinitely wise and good God would not allow
+ criminals and wretches to act as his infallible agents.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Afterward, a few protested against the infallibility of the book, using
+ the same arguments against the book that had formerly been used against
+ the pope. They said that an infinitely wise and good God could not be the
+ author of a cruel and ignorant book. But those who protested against the
+ book fell into substantially the same error that had been fallen into by
+ those who had protested against the man. While they denounced the book,
+ and insisted that an infinitely wise and good being could not have been
+ its author, they took the ground that an infinitely wise and good being
+ was the creator and governor of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then was used against them the same argument that had been used by the
+ Protestants against the pope and by the Deists against the Protestants.
+ Attention was called to the fact that Nature is as cruel as any pope or
+ any book&mdash;that it is just as easy to account for the destruction of
+ the Canaanites consistently with the goodness of Jehovah as to account for
+ pestilence, earthquake, and flood consistently with the goodness of the
+ God of Nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Protestant and Deist both used arguments against the Catholic that
+ could in turn be used with equal force against themselves. So that there
+ is no question among intelligent people as to the infallibility of the
+ pope, as to the inspiration of the book, or as to the existence of the
+ Christian's God&mdash;for the conclusion has been reached that the human
+ mind is incapable of deciding as to the origin and destiny of the
+ universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many generations the mind of man has been traveling in a circle. It
+ accepted without question the dogma of a First Cause&mdash;of the
+ existence of a Creator&mdash;of an Infinite Mind back of matter, and
+ sought in many ways to define its ignorance in this behalf. The most
+ sincere worshipers have declared that this being is incomprehensible,&mdash;that
+ he is "without body, parts, or passions"&mdash;that he is infinitely
+ beyond their grasp, and at the same time have insisted that it was
+ necessary for man not only to believe in the existence of this being, but
+ to love him with all his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity having always been in partnership with the state,&mdash;having
+ controlled kings and nobles, judges and legislators&mdash;having been in
+ partnership with armies and with every form of organized destruction,&mdash;it
+ was dangerous to discuss the foundation of its authority. To speak lightly
+ of any dogma was a crime punishable by death. Every absurdity has been
+ bastioned and barricaded by the power of the state. It has been protected
+ by fist, by club, by sword and cannon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years Christianity succeeded in substantially closing the mouths
+ of its enemies, and lived and flourished only where investigation and
+ discussion were prevented by hypocrisy and bigotry. The church still talks
+ about "evidence," about "reason," about "freedom of conscience" and the
+ "liberty of speech," and yet denounces those who ask for evidence, who
+ appeal to reason, and who honestly express their thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we know that the miracles of Christianity are as puerile and false
+ as those ascribed to the medicine-men of Central Africa or the Fiji
+ Islanders, and that the "sacred Scriptures" have the same claim to
+ inspiration that the Koran has, or the Book of Mormon&mdash;no less, no
+ more. These questions have been settled and laid aside by free and
+ intelligent people. They have ceased to excite interest; and the man who
+ now really believes in the truth of the Old Testament is regarded with a
+ smile&mdash; looked upon as an aged child&mdash;still satisfied with the
+ lullabys and toys of the cradle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ III. MORALITY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is contended that without religion&mdash;that is to say, without
+ Christianity&mdash;all ideas of morality must of necessity perish, and
+ that spirituality and reverence will be lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is morality?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it to obey without question, or is it to act in accordance with
+ perceived obligation? Is it something with which intelligence has nothing
+ to do? Must the ignorant child carry out the command of the wise father&mdash;the
+ rude peasant rush to death at the request of the prince?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it impossible for morality to exist where the brain and heart are in
+ partnership? Is there no foundation for morality except punishment
+ threatened or reward promised by a superior to an inferior? If this be
+ true, how can the superior be virtuous? Cannot the reward and the threat
+ be in the nature of things? Can they not rest in consequences perceived by
+ the intellect? How can the existence or non-existence of a deity change my
+ obligation to keep my hands out of the fire?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The results of all actions are equally certain, but not equally known, not
+ equally perceived. If all men knew with perfect certainty that to steal
+ from another was to rob themselves, larceny would cease. It cannot be said
+ too often that actions are good or bad in the light of consequences, and
+ that a clear perception of consequences would control actions. That which
+ increases the sum of human happiness is moral; and that which diminishes
+ the sum of human happiness is immoral. Blind, unreasoning obedience is the
+ enemy of morality. Slavery is not the friend of virtue. Actions are
+ neither right nor wrong by virtue of what men or gods can say&mdash;the
+ right or wrong lives in results&mdash;in the nature of things, growing out
+ of relations violated or caused.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Accountability lives in the nature of consequences&mdash;in their absolute
+ certainty&mdash;in the fact that they cannot be placated, avoided, or
+ bribed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The relations of human life are too complicated to be accurately and
+ clearly understood, and, as a consequence, rules of action vary from age
+ to age. The ideas of right and wrong change with the experience of the
+ race, and this change is wrought by the gradual ascertaining of
+ consequences&mdash;of results. For this reason the religion of one age
+ fails to meet the standard of another, precisely as the laws that
+ satisfied our ancestors are repealed by us; so that, in spite of all
+ efforts, religion itself is subject to gradual and perpetual change.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The miraculous is no longer the basis of morals. Man is a sentient being&mdash;he
+ suffers and enjoys. In order to be happy he must preserve the conditions
+ of well-being&mdash;must live in accordance with certain facts by which he
+ is surrounded. If he violates these conditions the result is unhappiness,
+ failure, disease, misery.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man must have food, roof, raiment, fireside, friends&mdash;that is to say,
+ prosperity; and this he must earn&mdash;this he must deserve. He is no
+ longer satisfied with being a slave, even of the Infinite. He wishes to
+ perceive for himself, to understand, to investigate, to experiment; and he
+ has at last the courage to bear the consequences that he brings upon
+ himself. He has also found that those who are the most religious are not
+ always the kindest, and that those who have been and are the worshipers of
+ God enslave their fellow-men. He has found that there is no necessary
+ connection between religion and morality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Morality needs no supernatural assistance&mdash;needs neither miracle nor
+ pretence. It has nothing to do with awe, reverence, credulity, or blind,
+ unreasoning faith. Morality is the highway perceived by the soul, the
+ direct road, leading to success, honor, and happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The best thing to do under the circumstances is moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest possible standard is human. We put ourselves in the places of
+ others. We are made happy by the kindness of others, and we feel that a
+ fair exchange of good actions is the wisest and best commerce. We know
+ that others can make us miserable by acts of hatred and injustice, and we
+ shrink from inflicting the pain upon others that we have felt ourselves;
+ this is the foundation of conscience.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If man could not suffer, the words right and wrong could never have been
+ spoken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Agnostic, the Infidel, clearly perceives the true basis of morals,
+ and, so perceiving, he knows that the religious man, the superstitious
+ man, caring more for God than for his fellows, will sacrifice his fellows,
+ either at the supposed command of his God, or to win his approbation. He
+ also knows that the religionist has no basis for morals except these
+ supposed commands. The basis of morality with him lies not in the nature
+ of things, but in the caprice of some deity. He seems to think that, had
+ it not been for the Ten Commandments, larceny and murder might have been
+ virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IV. SPIRITUALITY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is it to be spiritual?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is this fine quality of the mind destroyed by the development of the
+ brain? As the domain wrested by science from ignorance increases&mdash;as
+ island after island and continent after continent are discovered&mdash;as
+ star after star and constellation after constellation in the intellectual
+ world burst upon the midnight of ignorance, does the spirituality of the
+ mind grow less and less? Like morality, is it only found in the company of
+ ignorance and superstition? Is the spiritual man honest, kind, candid?&mdash;or
+ dishonest, cruel and hypocritical? Does he say what he thinks? Is he
+ guided by reason? Is he the friend of the right?&mdash;the champion of the
+ truth? Must this splendid quality called spirituality be retained through
+ the loss of candor? Can we not truthfully say that absolute candor is the
+ beginning of wisdom?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To recognize the finer harmonies of conduct&mdash;to live to the ideal&mdash;to
+ separate the incidental, the evanescent, from the perpetual&mdash;to be
+ enchanted with the perfect melody of truth&mdash;open to the influences of
+ the artistic, the beautiful, the heroic&mdash;to shed kindness as the sun
+ sheds light&mdash;to recognize the good in others, and to include the
+ world in the idea of self&mdash;this is to be spiritual.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is nothing spiritual in the worship of the unknown and unknowable,
+ in the self-denial of a slave at the command of a master whom he fears.
+ Fastings, prayings, mutilations, kneelings, and mortifications are either
+ the results of, or result in, insanity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the spirituality of Bedlam, and is of no kindred with the soul
+ that finds its greatest joy in the discharge of obligation perceived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ V. REVERENCE.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is reverence?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the feeling produced when we stand in the presence of our ideal, or
+ of that which most nearly approaches it&mdash;that which is produced by
+ what we consider the highest degree of excellence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The highest is reverenced, praised, and admired without qualification.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Each man reverences according to his nature, his experience, his
+ intellectual development. He may reverence' Nero or Marcus Aurelius,
+ Jehovah or Buddha, the author of Leviticus or Shakespeare. Thousands of
+ men reverence John Calvin, Torquemada, and the Puritan fathers; and some
+ have greater respect for Jonathan Edwards than for Captain Kidd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A vast number of people have great reverence for anything that is covered
+ by mould, or moss, or mildew. They bow low before rot and rust, and adore
+ the worthless things that have been saved by the negligence of oblivion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They are enchanted with the dull and fading daubs of the old masters, and
+ hold in contempt those miracles of art, the paintings of to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They worship the ancient, the shadowy, the mysterious, the wonderful. They
+ doubt the value of anything that they understand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The creed of Christendom is the enemy of morality. It teaches that the
+ innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, that consequences can be
+ avoided by repentance, and that in the world of mind the great fact known
+ as cause and effect does not apply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the enemy of spirituality, because it teaches that credulity is of
+ more value than conduct, and because it pours contempt upon human love by
+ raising far above it the adoration of a phantom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the enemy of reverence. It makes ignorance the foundation of virtue.
+ It belittles the useful, and cheapens the noblest of! the virtues. It
+ teaches man to live on mental alms, and glorifies the intellectual pauper.
+ It holds candor in contempt, and is the malignant foe of mental manhood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ VI. EXISTENCE OF GOD.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Fawcett has shown conclusively that it is no easier to establish the
+ existence of an infinitely wise and good being by the existence of what we
+ call "good" than to establish the existence of an infinitely bad being by
+ what we call "bad."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be surer than that the history of this world furnishes no
+ foundation on which to base an inference that it has been governed by
+ infinite wisdom and goodness. So terrible has been the condition of man,
+ that religionists in all ages have endeavored to excuse God by accounting
+ for the evils of the world by the wickedness of men. And the fathers of
+ the Christian Church were forced to take the ground that this world had
+ been filled with briers and thorns, with deadly serpents and with
+ poisonous weeds, with disease and crime and earthquake and pestilence and
+ storm, by the curse of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The probability is that no God has cursed, and that no God will bless,
+ this earth. Man suffers and enjoys according to conditions. The sun shines
+ without love, and the lightning blasts without hate. Man is the Providence
+ of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature gives to our eyes all they can see, to our ears all they can hear,
+ and to the mind what it can comprehend. The human race reaps the fruit of
+ every victory won on the fields of intellectual or physical conflict. We
+ have no right to expect something for nothing. Man will reap no harvest
+ the seeds of which he has not sown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The race must be guided by intelligence, must be free to investigate, and
+ must have the courage and the candor not only to state what is known, but
+ to cheerfully admit the limitations of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No intelligent, honest man can read what Mr. Fawcett has written and then
+ say that he knows the origin and destiny of things&mdash;that he knows
+ whether an infinite Being exists or not, and that he knows whether the
+ soul of man is or is not immortal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the land of&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, the geography of which is not
+ certainly known, there was for many years a great dispute among the
+ inhabitants as to which road led to the city of Miragia, the capital of
+ their country, and known to be the most delightful city on the earth. For
+ fifty generations the discussion as to which road led to the city had been
+ carried on with the greatest bitterness, until finally the people were
+ divided into a great number of parties, each party claiming that the road
+ leading to the city had been miraculously made known to the founder of
+ that particular sect. The various parties spent most of their time putting
+ up guide-boards on these roads and tearing down the guide-boards of
+ others. Hundreds of thousands had been killed, prisons were filled, and
+ the fields had been ravaged by the hosts of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One day, a wise man, a patriot, wishing to bring peace to his country, met
+ the leaders of the various sects and asked them whether it was absolutely
+ certain that the city of Miragia existed. He called their attention to the
+ facts that no resident of that city had ever visited them and that none of
+ their fellow-men who had started for the capital had ever returned, and
+ modestly asked whether it would not be better to satisfy themselves beyond
+ a doubt that there was such a city, adding that the location of the city
+ would determine which of all the roads was the right one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The leaders heard these words with amazement. They denounced the speaker
+ as a wretch without morality, spirituality, or reverence, and thereupon he
+ was torn in pieces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkPREF5" id="linkPREF5">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PREFACE TO "FAITH OR FACT."
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I LIKE to know the thoughts, theories and conclusions of an honest,
+ intelligent man; candor is always charming, and it is a delight to feel
+ that you have become acquainted with a sincere soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have read this book with great pleasure, not only because I know, and
+ greatly esteem the author, not only because he is my unwavering friend,
+ but because it is full of good sense, of accurate statement, of sound
+ logic, of exalted thoughts happily expressed, and for the further reason
+ that it is against tyranny, superstition, bigotry, and every form of
+ injustice, and in favor of every virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Henry M. Taber, the author, has for many years taken great interest in
+ religious questions. He was raised in an orthodox atmosphere, was
+ acquainted with many eminent clergymen from whom he endeavored to find out
+ what Christianity is&mdash;and the facts and evidence relied on to
+ establish the truth of the creeds. He found that the clergy of even the
+ same denomination did not agree&mdash;that some of them preached one way
+ and talked another, and that many of them seemed to regard the creed as
+ something to be accepted whether it was believed or not. He found that
+ each one gave his own construction to the dogmas that seemed heartless or
+ unreasonable. While some insisted that the Bible was absolutely true and
+ the creed without error, others admitted that there were mistakes in the
+ sacred volume and that the creed ought to be revised. Finding these
+ differences among the ministers, the shepherds, and also finding that no
+ one pretended to have any evidence except faith, or any facts but
+ assertions, he concluded to investigate the claims of Christianity for
+ himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For half a century he has watched the ebb and flow of public opinion, the
+ growth of science, the crumbling of creeds&mdash;the decay of the
+ theological spirit, the waning influence of the orthodox pulpit, the loss
+ of confidence in special providence and the efficacy of prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has lived to see the church on the defensive&mdash;to hear faith asking
+ for facts&mdash;and to see the shot and shell of science batter into
+ shapelessness the fortresses of superstition. He has lived to see
+ Infidels, blasphemers and Agnostics the leaders of the intellectual world.
+ In his time the supernaturalists have lost the sceptre and have taken
+ their places in the abject rear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifty years ago the orthodox Christians believed their creeds. To them the
+ Bible was an actual revelation from God. Every word was true. Moses and
+ Joshua were regarded as philosophers and scientists. All the miracles and
+ impossibilities recorded in the Bible were accepted as facts. Credulity
+ was the greatest of virtues. Everything, except the reasonable, was
+ believed, and it was considered wickedly presumptuous to doubt anything
+ except facts. The reasonable things in the Bible could safely be doubted,
+ but to deny the miracles was like the sin against the Holy Ghost. In those
+ days the preachers were at the helm. They spoke with authority. They knew
+ the origin and destiny of the soul. They were on familiar terms with the
+ Trinity&mdash;the three-headed God. They knew the narrow path that led to
+ heaven and the great highway along which the multitude were traveling to
+ the Prison of Pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While these reverend gentlemen were busy trying to prevent the development
+ of the brain and to convince the people that the good in this life were
+ miserable, that virtue wore a crown of thorns and carried a cross, while
+ the wicked and ungodly walked in the sunshine of joy, yet that after death
+ the wicked would be eternally tortured and the good eternally rewarded.
+ According to the pious philosophy the good God punished virtue, and
+ rewarded vice, in this world&mdash;and in the next, rewarded virtue and
+ punished vice. These divine truths filled their hearts with holy peace&mdash;with
+ pious resignation. It would be difficult to determine which gave them the
+ greater joy&mdash;the hope of heaven for themselves, or the certainty of
+ hell for their enemies. For the grace of God they were fairly thankful,
+ but for his "justice" their gratitude was boundless. From the heights of
+ heaven they expected to witness the eternal tragedy in hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While these good divines, these doctors of divinity, were busy
+ misinterpreting the Scriptures, denying facts and describing the glories
+ and agonies of eternity, a good many other people were trying to find out
+ something about this world. They were busy with retort and crucible,
+ searching the heavens with the telescope, examining rocks and craters,
+ reefs and islands, studying plant and animal life, inventing ways to use
+ the forces of nature for the benefit of man, and in every direction
+ searching for the truth. They were not trying to destroy religion or to
+ injure the clergy. Many of them were members of churches and believed the
+ creeds. The facts they found were honestly given to the world. Of course
+ all facts are the enemies of superstition. The clergy, acting according to
+ the instinct of self-preservation, denounced these "facts" as dangerous
+ and the persons who found and published them, as Infidels and scoffers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology was arrogant and bold. Science was timid. For some time the
+ churches seemed to have the best of the controversy. Many of the
+ scientists surrendered and did their best to belittle the facts and patch
+ up a cowardly compromise between Nature and Revelation&mdash;that is,
+ between the true and the false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Day by day more facts were found that could not be reconciled with the
+ Scriptures, or the creeds. Neither was it possible to annihilate facts by
+ denial. The man who believed the Bible could not accept the facts, and the
+ man who believed the facts could not accept the Bible. At first, the Bible
+ was the standard, and all facts inconsistent with that standard were
+ denied. But in a little while science became the standard, and the
+ passages in the Bible contrary to the standard had to be explained or
+ given up. Great efforts were made to harmonize the mistakes in the Bible
+ with the demonstrations of science. It was difficult to be ingenious
+ enough to defend them both. The pious professors twisted and turned but
+ found it hard to reconcile the creation of Adam with the slow development
+ of man from lower forms. They were greatly troubled about the age of the
+ universe. It seemed incredible that until about six thousand years ago
+ there was nothing in existence but God&mdash;and nothing. And yet they
+ tried to save the Bible by giving new meanings to the inspired texts, and
+ casting a little suspicion on the facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This course has mostly been abandoned, although a few survivals, like Mr.
+ Gladstone, still insist there is no conflict between Revelation and
+ Science. But these champions of Holy Writ succeed only in causing the
+ laughter of the intelligent and the amazement of the honest. The more
+ intelligent theologians confessed that the inspired writers could not be
+ implicitly believed. As they personally know nothing of astronomy or
+ geology and were forced to rely entirely on inspiration, it is wonderful
+ that more mistakes were not made. So it was claimed that Jehovah cared
+ nothing about science, and allowed the blunders and mistakes of the
+ ignorant people concerning everything except religion, to appear in his
+ supernatural book as inspired truths.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible, they said, was written to teach religion in its highest and
+ purest form&mdash;to make mankind fit to associate with God and his
+ angels. True, polygamy was tolerated and slavery established, yet Jehovah
+ believed in neither, but on account of the wickedness of the Jews was in
+ favor of both.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time quite a number of real scholars were investigating other
+ religions, and in a little while they were enabled to show that these
+ religions had been manufactured by men&mdash;that their Christs and
+ apostles were myths and that all their sacred books were false and
+ foolish. This pleased the Christians. They knew that theirs was the only
+ true religion and that their Bible was the only inspired book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The fact that there is nothing original in Christianity, that all the
+ dogmas, ceremonies and festivals had been borrowed, together with some
+ mouldy miracles used as witnesses, weakened the faith of some and sowed
+ the seeds of doubt in many minds. But the pious petrifactions, the fossils
+ of faith, still clung to their book and creed. While they were quick to
+ see the absurdities in other sacred books, they were either unconsciously
+ blind or maliciously shut their eyes to the same absurdities in the Bible.
+ They knew that Mohammed was an impostor, because the citizens of Mecca,
+ who knew him, said he was, and they knew that Christ was not an impostor,
+ because the people of Jerusalem who knew him, said he was. The same fact
+ was made to do double duty. When they attacked other religions it was a
+ sword and when their religion was attacked it became a shield.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The men who had investigated other religions turned their attention to
+ Christianity. They read our Bible as they had read other sacred books.
+ They were not blinded by faith or paralyzed by fear, and they found that
+ the same arguments they had used against other religions destroyed our
+ own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the real old-fashioned orthodox ministers denounced the investigators
+ as Infidels and denied every fact that was inconsistent with the creed.
+ They wanted to protect the young and feeble minded. They were anxious
+ about the souls of the "thoughtless."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some ministers changed their views just a little, not enough to be driven
+ from their pulpits&mdash;but just enough to keep sensible people from
+ thinking them idiotic. These preachers talked about the "higher criticism"
+ and contended that it was not necessary to believe every word in the
+ Bible, that some of the miracles might be given up and some of the books
+ discarded. But the stupid doctors of divinity had the Bible and the creeds
+ on their side and the machinery of the churches was in their control. They
+ brought some of the offending clergymen to the bar, and had them tried for
+ heresy, made some recant and closed the mouths of others. Still, it was
+ not easy to put the heretics down. The congregations of ministers found
+ guilty, often followed the shepherds. Heresy grew popular, the liberal
+ preachers had good audiences, while the orthodox addressed a few bonnets,
+ bibs and benches.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years the pulpit has been losing influence and the sacred calling
+ no longer offers a career to young men of talent and ambition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When people believed in "special providence," they also believed that
+ preachers had great influence with God. They were regarded as celestial
+ lobbyists and they were respected and feared because of their supposed
+ power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now no one who has the capacity to think, believes in special providence.
+ Of course there are some pious imbeciles who think that pestilence and
+ famine, cyclone and earthquake, flood and fire are the weapons of God, the
+ tools of his trade, and that with these weapons, these tools, he kills and
+ starves, rends and devours, drowns and burns countless thousands of the
+ human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If God governs this world, if he builds and destroys, if back of every
+ event is his will, then he is neither good nor wise, He is ignorant and
+ malicious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few days ago, in Paris, men and women had gathered together in the name
+ of Charity. The building in which they, were assembled took fire and many
+ of these men and women perished in the flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A French priest called this horror an act of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it not strange that Christians speak of their God as an assassin?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How can they love and worship this monster who murders, his children?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligence seems to be leaving the orthodox church. The great divines
+ are growing smaller, weaker, day by day. Since the death of Henry Ward
+ Beecher no man of genius has stood in the orthodox pulpit. The ministers
+ of intelligence are found in the liberal churches where they are allowed
+ to express their thoughts and preserve their manhood. Some of these
+ preachers keep their faces toward the East and sincerely welcome the
+ light, while their orthodox brethren stand with their backs to the sunrise
+ and worship the sunset of the day before.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During these years of change, of decay and growth, the author of this book
+ looked and listened, became familiar with the questions raised, the
+ arguments offered and the results obtained. For his work a better man
+ could not have been found. He has no prejudice, no hatred. He is by nature
+ candid, conservative, kind and just. He does not attack persons. He knows
+ the difference between exchanging epithets and thoughts. He gives the
+ facts as they appear to him and draws the logical conclusions. He charges
+ and proves that Christianity has not always been the friend of morality,
+ of civil liberty, of wives and mothers, of free though and honest speech.
+ He shows that intolerance is its nature, that it always has, and always
+ will persecute to the extent of its power, and that Christianity will
+ always despise the doubter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet we know that doubt must inhabit every finite mind. We know that doubt
+ is as natural as hope, and that man is no more responsible for his doubts
+ than for the beating of his heart. Every human being who knows the nature
+ of evidence, the limitations of the mind, must have "doubts" about gods
+ and devils, about heavens and hells, and must know that there is not the
+ slightest evidence tending to show that gods and devils ever existed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God is a guess.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ An undesigned designer, an uncaused cause, is as incomprehensible to the
+ human mind as a circle without a diameter.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dogma of the Trinity multiplies the difficulty by three.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theologians do not, and cannot believe that the authority to govern comes
+ from the consent of the governed. They regard God as the monarch, and
+ themselves as his agents. They always have been the enemies of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They claim to have a revelation from their God, a revelation that is the
+ rightful master of reason. As long as they believe this, they must be the
+ enemies of mental freedom. They do not ask man to think, but command him
+ to obey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the claims of the theologians are admitted, the church becomes the
+ ruler of the world, and to support and obey priests will be the business
+ of mankind. All these theologians claim to have a revelation from their
+ God, and yet they cannot agree as to what the revelation reveals. The
+ other day, looking from my window at the bay of New York, I saw many
+ vessels going in many directions, and yet all were moved by the same wind.
+ The direction in which they were going did not depend on the direction of
+ the breeze, but on the set of the sails. In this way the same Bible
+ furnishes creeds for all the Christian sects. But what would we say if the
+ captains of the boats I saw, should each swear that his boat was the only
+ one that moved in the same direction the wind was blowing?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I agree with Mr. Taber that all religions are founded on mistakes,
+ misconceptions and falsehoods, and that superstition is the warp and woof
+ of every creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This book will do great good. It will furnish arguments and facts against
+ the supernatural and absurd. It will drive phantoms from the brain, fear
+ from the heart, and many who read these pages will be emancipated,
+ enlightened and ennobled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Christianity, with its ignorant and jealous God&mdash;its loving and
+ revengeful Christ&mdash;its childish legends&mdash;its grotesque miracles&mdash;its
+ "fall of man"&mdash;its atonement&mdash;its salvation by faith&mdash;its
+ heaven for stupidity and its hell for genius, does not and cannot satisfy
+ the free brain and the good heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0007" id="link0007">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE GRANT BANQUET.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Chicago, November 13, 1879.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ TWELFTH TOAST.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The meteoric display predicted to take place last Thursday
+ night did not occur, but there did occur on that evening a
+ display of oratorical brilliancy at Chicago seldom if ever
+ surpassed. The speeches at the banquet of the Army of the
+ Tennessee, taken together, constitute one of the most
+ remarkable collections of extemporaneous eloquence on
+ record. The principal speakers of the evening were Gen. U.
+ S. Grant, Gen. John A. Logan Col. Win, F. Vilas, Gen.
+ Stewart L. Woodford, General Pope, Col. R. G. Ingersoll,
+ Gen. J. H. Wilson, and "Mark Twain." In an oratorical
+ tournament General Grant is, of course, better as a listener
+ than as a talker; he is a man of deeds rather than of words.
+ The same might be said of General Sherman, though, as
+ presiding officer and toast-master of the occasion, his
+ impromptu remarks were always pertinent and keen. His advice
+ to speakers not to talk longer than they could hold their
+ audience, and to the auditors not to drag out their applause
+ or to drawl out their laughter, would serve as a good
+ standing rule for all similar occasions Colonel Ingersoll
+ responded to the twelfth toast, "The Volunteer Soldiers of
+ the Union Army, whose Valor and Patriotism saved to the
+ world a Government of the People, by the People, and for the
+ people."
+
+ Colonel Ingersoll's position was a difficult one. His
+ reputation as the first orator in America caused the
+ distinguished audience to expect a wonderful display of
+ oratory from him. He proved fully equal to the occasion and
+ delivered a speech of wonderful eloquence, brilliancy and
+ power. To say it was one of the best he ever delivered is
+ equivalent to saying it was one of the best ever delivered
+ by any man, for few greater orators have ever lived than
+ Colonel Ingersoll. The speech is both an oration and a poem.
+ It bristles with ideas and sparkles with epigrammatic
+ expressions. It is full of thoughts that breathe and words
+ that burn. The closing sentences read like blank verse. It
+ is wonderful oratory, marvelous eloquence. Colonel
+ Ingersoll fully sustained his reputation as the finest
+ orator In America.
+
+ Editorial from The Journal Indianapolis, Ind., November
+ 17,1879.
+
+ The Inter-Ocean remarked yesterday that the gathering and
+ exercises at the Palmer House banquet on Thursday evening
+ constituted one of the most remarkable occasions known in
+ the history of this country. This was not alone because of
+ the distinguished men who lent their presence to the scone;
+ they were indeed illustrious; but they only formed a part of
+ the grand picture that must endure while the memory of our
+ great conflict survives. To the eminent men assembled may be
+ traced the signal success of the affair, for they gave
+ inspiration to the minds and the tongues of others; but it
+ was the fruit of that inspiration that rolled like a glad
+ surprise across the banqueting sky, and made the 13th of
+ November renowned in the calendar of days... When Robert G.
+ Ingersoll rose after the speech of General Pope, to respond
+ to the toast, "The Volunteer Soldiers," a large part of the
+ audience rose with him, and the cheering was long and loud.
+ Colonel Ingersoll may fairly be regarded as the foremost
+ orator of America, and there was the keenest interest to
+ hear him after all the brilliant speeches that had preceded;
+ and this interest was not unnmixed with a fear that he would
+ not be able to successfully strive against both his own
+ great reputation and the fresh competitors who had leaped
+ suddenly into the oratorical arena like mighty gladiators
+ and astonished the audience by their unexpected eloquence.
+ But Ingersoll had not proceeded far when the old fire broke
+ out, and flashing metaphor, bold denunciation, and all the
+ rich imagery and poetical beauty which mark his great
+ efforts stood revealed before the delighted listeners: Long
+ before the last word was uttered, all doubt as to the
+ ability of the great orator to sustain himself had departed,
+ and rising to their feet, the audience cheered till the hall
+ rang with shouts. Like Henry, "The forest-born Demosthenes,
+ whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas," Ingersoll still
+ held the crown within his grasp.
+
+ Editorial from The Inter-Ocean, Chicago, November 15, 1879.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ The Volunteer Soldiers of the Union Army, whose Valor and Patriotism saved
+ to the world "a Government of the People, by the People, and for the
+ People."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ WHEN the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the
+ insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our country, the
+ question "Will the great Republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of
+ every lover of mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The North, filled with intelligence and wealth&mdash;children of liberty&mdash;marshaled
+ her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil life a man, silent,
+ thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth, and with the lips of victory
+ voiced the Nation's first and last demand: "Unconditional and immediate
+ surrender." From that 'moment' the end was known. That utterance was the
+ first real declaration of real war, and, in accordance with the dramatic
+ unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received the
+ final sword of the Rebellion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soldiers of the Republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. They
+ were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They
+ fought to preserve the homestead of liberty and that their children might
+ have peace. They were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of
+ prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they slew
+ the monster of their time. They finished what the soldiers of the
+ Revolution commenced. They re-lighted the torch that fell from their
+ august hands and filled the world again with light. They blotted from the
+ statute-book laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of
+ robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the Constitution that infamous
+ clause that made men the catchers of their fellow-men. They made it
+ possible for judges to be just, for statesmen to be humane, and for
+ politicians to be honest. They broke the shackles from the limbs of
+ slaves, from the souls of masters, and from the Northern brain. They kept
+ our country on the map of the world, and our flag in heaven. They rolled
+ the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and found therein two angels
+ clad in shining garments&mdash;Nationality and Liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soldiers were the saviors of the Nation; they were the liberators of
+ men. In writing the Proclamation of Emancipation, Lincoln, greatest of our
+ mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air when reapers,
+ sing amid the gathered sheaves, copied with the pen what Grant and his
+ brave comrades wrote with swords.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of the
+ Republic, with patriotism as shoreless as the air, battled for the rights
+ of others, for the nobility of labor; fought that mothers might own their
+ babes, that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil,
+ and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring
+ States, but a Nation, sovereign, great, and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Blood was water, money was leaves, and life, was only common air until one
+ flag floated over a Republic without a master and without a slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then was asked the question: "Will a free, people tax themselves to
+ pay a Nation's debt?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and
+ to the girls they loved&mdash;they went back-to the fields, the shops, and
+ mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled. They were as
+ honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at poverty,
+ laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the
+ Nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They worked and wrought
+ with all of labor's royal sons that every pledge the Nation gave might be
+ redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining band of friendship&mdash;a
+ girdle of clasped and happy hands&mdash;around the globe, comes home and
+ finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another question still:&mdash;Will all the wounds of war be
+ healed? I answer, Yes. The Southern people must submit,&mdash;not to the
+ dictation of the North, but to the Nation's will and to the verdict of
+ mankind. They were wrong, and the time will come when they will say that
+ they are victors who have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered
+ them, and freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children,
+ weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their
+ land with happy homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the North. They made
+ us a Nation. Their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every
+ other land as insecure as snow upon volcanoes' lips.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now let us drink to the volunteers&mdash;to those who sleep in
+ unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they
+ loved and left&mdash;of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps
+ of return. Let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at
+ want; to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue; to all who
+ dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives; to all the
+ living and to all the dead,&mdash;to Sherman, to Sheridan, and to Grant,
+ the laureled soldier of the world, and last, to Lincoln, whose loving
+ life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0008" id="link0008">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Response of Col. R. G. Ingersoll to the sentiment "The
+ Superstitions of Public Men," at the regular monthly dinner
+ of the Thirteen Club. Monday evening, December 18, 1886.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ New York, December 13, 1886,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE SUPERSTITIONS OF PUBLIC MEN,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MR. CHIEF RULER-AND GENTLEMEN: I suppose that the superstition most
+ prevalent with public men, is the idea that they are of great importance
+ to the public. As a matter of fact, public men,&mdash;that is to say, men
+ in office,&mdash;reflect the average intelligence of the people, and no
+ more. A public man, to be successful, must not assert anything unless it
+ is exceedingly popular. And he need not deny anything unless everybody is
+ against it. Usually he has to be like the center of the earth,&mdash;draw
+ all things his way, without weighing anything himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the difficulties, or rather, one of the objections, to a government
+ republican in form, is this: Everybody imagines that he is everybody's:
+ master. And the result has been to make most of our public men exceedingly
+ conservative in the expression of their real opinions. A man, wishing to
+ be elected to an office, generally agrees with 'most everybody he meets.
+ If he meets a Prohibitionist, he says: "Of course I am a temperance man. I
+ am opposed to all excesses; my dear friend, and no one knows better than
+ myself the evils that have been caused by intemperance." The next man
+ happens to keep a saloon, and happens to be quite influential in that part
+ of the district, and the candidate immediately says to him:&mdash;"The
+ idea that these Prohibitionists can take away the personal liberty of the
+ citizen is simply monstrous!" In a moment after, he is greeted by a
+ Methodist, and he hastens to say, that while he does not belong to that
+ church himself, his wife does; that he would gladly be a member, but does
+ not feel that he is good enough. He tells a Presbyterian that his
+ grandfather was of that faith, and that he was a most excellent man, and
+ laments from the bottom of his heart that he himself is not within that
+ fold. A few moments after, on meeting a skeptic, he declares, with the
+ greatest fervor, that reason is the only guide, and that he looks forward
+ to the time when superstition will be dethroned. In other words, the
+ greatest superstition now entertained by public men is, that hypocrisy is
+ the royal road to success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, there are many other superstitions, and one is, that the
+ Democratic party has not outlived its usefulness. Another is, that the
+ Republican party should have power for what it has done, instead of what
+ it proposes to do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment, these statesmen are mistaken. The people of the United
+ States, after all, admire intellectual honesty and have respect for moral
+ courage. The time has come for the old ideas and superstitions in politics
+ to be thrown away&mdash;not in phrase, not in pretence, but in fact; and
+ the time has come when a man can safely rely on the intelligence and
+ courage of the American people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most significant fact in this world to-day, is, that in nearly every
+ village under the American flag the school-house is larger than the
+ church. People are beginning to have a little confidence in intelligence
+ and in facts. Every public man and every private man, who is actuated in
+ his life by a belief in something that no one can prove,&mdash;that no one
+ can demonstrate,&mdash;is, to that extent, a superstitious man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that I go further than most of you, because if I have any
+ superstition, it is a superstition against superstition. It seems to me
+ that the first things for every man, whether in or out of office, to
+ believe in,&mdash;the first things to rely on, are demonstrated facts.
+ These are the corner stones,&mdash;these are the columns that nothing can
+ move,&mdash;these are the stars that no darkness can hide,&mdash;these are
+ the true and only foundations of belief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the
+ Probable, and in the world of the Probable every man has the right to
+ guess for himself. Beyond the region of the Probable is the Possible, and
+ beyond the Possible is the Impossible, and beyond the Impossible are the
+ religions of this world. My idea is this: Any man who acts in view of the
+ Improbable or of the Impossible&mdash;that is to say of the Supernatural&mdash;is
+ a superstitious man. Any man who believes that he can add to the happiness
+ of the Infinite, by depriving himself of innocent pleasure, is
+ superstitious. Any man who imagines that he can make some God happy, by
+ making himself miserable, is superstitious. Any one who thinks he can gain
+ happiness in another world, by raising hell with his fellow-men in this,
+ is simply superstitious. Any man who believes in a Being of infinite
+ wisdom and goodness, and yet belives that that Being has peopled a world
+ with failures, is superstitious. Any man who believes that an infinitely
+ wise and good God would take pains to make a man, intending at the time
+ that the man should be eternally damned, is absurdly superstitious. In
+ other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any
+ other religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this
+ world, now and here, is superstitious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have known a great many private men who were not men of genius. I have
+ known some men of genius about whom it was kept private, and I have known
+ many public men, and my wonder increased the better I knew them, that they
+ occupied positions of trust and honor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, after all, it is the people's fault. They who demand hypocrisy must
+ be satisfied with mediocrity... Our public men will be better and greater,
+ and less superstitious, when the people become greater and better and less
+ superstitious. There is an old story, that we have all heard, about
+ Senator Nesmith. He was elected a Senator from Oregon. When he had been in
+ Washington a little while, one of the other Senators said to him: "How did
+ you feel when you found yourself sitting here in the United States
+ Senate?" He replied: "For the first two months, I just sat and wondered
+ how a damned fool like me ever, broke into the Senate. Since that, I have
+ done nothing but wonder how the other fools got here."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day the need of our civilization is public men who have the courage to
+ speak as they think. We need a man for President who will not publicly
+ thank God for earthquakes. We need somebody with the courage to say that
+ all that happens in nature happens without design, and without reference
+ to man; somebody who will say that the men and women killed are not
+ murdered by supernatural beings, and that everything that happens in
+ nature, happens without malice and without mercy. We want somebody who
+ will have courage enough not to charge, an infinitely good and wise Being
+ with all the cruelties and agonies and sufferings of this world. We want
+ such men in public places,&mdash;men who will appeal to the reason of
+ their fellows, to the highest intelligence of the people; men who will
+ have courage enough, in this the nineteenth century, to agree with the
+ conclusions of science. We want some man who will not pretend to believe,
+ and who does not in fact believe, the stories that Superstition has told
+ to Credulity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The most important thing in this world is the destruction of superstition.
+ Superstition interferes with the happiness of mankind. Superstition is a
+ terrible serpent, reaching in frightful coils from heaven to earth and
+ thrusting its poisoned fangs into the hearts of men. While I live, I am
+ going to do what little I can for the destruction of this monster.
+ Whatever may happen in another world&mdash;and I will take my chances
+ there,&mdash;I am opposed to superstition in this. And if, when I reach
+ that other world, it needs reforming, I shall do what little I can there
+ for the destruction of the false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me tell you one thing more, and I am done. The only way to have brave,
+ honest, intelligent, conscientious public men, men without superstition,
+ is to do what we can to make the average citizen brave, conscientious and
+ intelligent. If you wish to see courage in the presidential chair,
+ conscience upon the bench, intelligence of the highest order in Congress;
+ if you expect public men to be great enough to reflect honor upon the
+ Republic, private citizens must have the courage and the intelligence to
+ elect, and to sustain, such men. I have said, and I say it again, that
+ never while I live will I vote for any man to be President of the United
+ States, no matter if he does belong to my party, who has not won his spurs
+ on some field of intellectual conflict. We have had enough mediocrity,
+ enough policy, enough superstition, enough prejudice, enough
+ provincialism, and the time has come for the American citizen to say:
+ "Hereafter I will be represented by men who are worthy, not only of the
+ great Republic, but of the Nineteenth Century."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0009" id="link0009">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, November 21, 1887.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The theatre party and supper given by Charles P. Palmer,
+ brother of Courtlandt Palmer, on Monday evening were
+ unusually attractive in many ways. Mr Palmer has recently
+ returned from Europe, and took this opportunity to gather
+ around him his old club associates and friends, and to show
+ his admiration of the acting of Messrs. Robson and Crane.
+ The appearance of Mr. Palmer's fifty guests in the theatre
+ excited much interest in all parts of the house. It is not
+ often that theatre-goers have the opportunity of seeing in a
+ single row, Channcey M. Depew, Gen. William T. Sherman, Gen.
+ Horace Porter and Robert G. Ingersoll, with Leonard Jerome
+ and his brother Lawrence, Murat Halstead and other well-
+ known men in close proximity
+
+ The supper table at Delmonico's was decorated with a lavish
+ profusion of flowers rarely approached even at that famous
+ restaurant.
+
+ Mr. Palmer was a charming host, full of humor, jollity and
+ attention to every guest. He opened the speaking with a few
+ apt words. Then Stuart Rodson made some witty remarks, and
+ called upon William H. Crane, whose well-rounded speech was
+ heartily applauded General Sherman, Chauncey M. Depew,
+ General Porter, Lawrence Jerome and Colonel Ingersoll were
+ all in their best moods, and the sallies of wit and the
+ abundance of genuine humor in their informal addresses kept
+ their hearers in almost continuous laughter. Lawrence Jerome
+ was in especially fine form. He sang songs, told stories and
+ said: "Depew and Ingersoll know so much that intelligence
+ has become a drag in the market, and it's no use to tell you
+ what a good speech I would have made." J. Seaver Page made
+ an uncommonly witty and effective speech. Murat Halstead
+ related some reminiscences of his last European tour and of
+ his experiences in London with Lawrence and Leonard Jerome,
+ which were received with shouts of laughter. Altogether the
+ supper was one to be long remembered by all present.&mdash;The
+ Tribune, New York, November 23, 1887;
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ TOAST: COMEDY AND TRAGEDY.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I BELIEVE in the medicine of mirth, and in what I might call the longevity
+ of laughter. Every man who has caused real, true, honest mirth, has been a
+ benefactor of the human race. In a world like this, where there is so much
+ trouble&mdash;a world gotten up on such a poor plan&mdash;where sometimes
+ one is almost inclined to think that the Deity, if there be one, played a
+ practical joke&mdash;to find, I say, in such a world, something that for
+ the moment allows laughter to triumph over sorrow, is a great piece of
+ good fortune. I like the stage, not only because General Sherman likes it&mdash;and
+ I do not think I was ever at the theatre in my life but I saw him&mdash;I
+ not only like it because General Washington liked it, but because the
+ greatest man that ever touched this grain of sand and tear we call the
+ world, wrote for the stage, and poured out a very Mississippi of
+ philosophy and pathos and humor, and everything calculated to raise and
+ ennoble mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I like to see the stage honored, because actors are the ministers, the
+ apostles, of the greatest man who ever lived, and because they put flesh
+ upon and blood and passion within the greatest characters that the
+ greatest man drew. This is the reason I like the stage. It makes us human.
+ A rascal never gained applause on the stage. A hypocrite never commanded
+ admiration, not even when he was acting a clergyman&mdash;except for the
+ naturalness of the acting. No one has ever yet seen any play in which, in
+ his heart, he did not applaud honesty, heroism, sincerity, fidelity,
+ courage, and self-denial. Never. No man ever heard a great play who did
+ not get up a better, wiser, and more humane man; and no man ever went to
+ the theatre and heard Robson and Crane, who did not go home
+ better-natured, and treat his family that night a little better than on a
+ night when he had not heard these actors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I enjoy the stage; I always did enjoy it. I love the humanity of it. I
+ hate solemnity; it is the brother of stupidity&mdash;always. You never
+ knew a solemn man who was not stupid, and you never will. There never was
+ a man of true genius who had not the simplicity of a child, and over whose
+ lips had not rippled the river of laughter&mdash;never, and there never
+ will be. I like, I say, the stage for its wit and for its humor. I do not
+ like sarcasm; I do not like mean humor. There is as much difference
+ between humor and malicious wit as there is between a bee's honey and a
+ bee's sting, and the reason I like Robson and Crane is that they have the
+ honey without the sting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing that makes me glad is, that I live in an age and generation
+ and day that has sense enough to appreciate the stage; sense enough to
+ appreciate music; sense enough to appreciate everything that lightens the
+ burdens of this life. Only a few years ago our dear ancestors looked upon
+ the theatre as the vestibule of hell; and every actor was going "the
+ primrose way to the everlasting bonfire." In those good old days, our
+ fathers, for the sake of relaxation, talked about death and graves and
+ epitaphs and worms and shrouds and dust and hell. In those days, too, they
+ despised music, cared nothing for art; and yet I have lived long enough to
+ hear the world&mdash;that is, the civilized world&mdash;say that
+ Shakespeare wrote the greatest book that man has ever read. I have lived
+ long enough to see men like Beethoven and Wagner put side by side with the
+ world's greatest men&mdash;great in imagination&mdash;and we must remember
+ that imagination makes the great difference between men. I have lived long
+ enough to see actors placed with the grandest and noblest, side by side
+ with the greatest benefactors of the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one thing in which I cannot quite agree with what has been said.
+ I like tragedy, because tragedy is only the other side of the shield and I
+ like both sides. I love to spend an evening on the twilight boundary line
+ between tears and smiles. There is nothing that pleases me better than
+ some scene, some act, where the smile catches the tears in the eyes; where
+ the eyes are almost surprised by the smile, and the smile touched and
+ softened by the tears. I like that. And the greatest comedians and the
+ greatest tragedians have that power; and, in conclusion, let me say, that
+ it gives me more than pleasure to acknowledge the debt of gratitude I owe,
+ not only to the stage, but to the actors whose health we drink to-night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0010" id="link0010">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, January 24, 1888.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ TOAST: DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF THE PRESS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ONLY a little while ago, the nations of the world were ignorant and
+ provincial. Between these nations there were the walls and barriers of
+ language, of prejudice, of custom, of race and of religion. Each little
+ nation had the only perfect form of government&mdash;the only genuine
+ religion&mdash;all others being adulterations or counterfeits.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These nations met only as enemies. They had nothing to exchange but blows&mdash;nothing
+ to give and take but wounds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Movable type was invented, and "civilization was thrust into the brain of
+ Europe on the point of a Moorish lance." The Moors gave to our ancestors
+ paper, and nearly all valuable inventions that were made for a thousand
+ years.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a little while, books began to be printed&mdash;the nations began to
+ exchange thoughts instead of blows. The classics were translated. These
+ were read, and those who read them began to imitate them&mdash;began to
+ write themselves; and in this way there was produced in each nation a
+ local literature. There came to be an exchange of facts, of theories, of
+ ideas.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years this was accomplished by books, but after a time the
+ newspaper was invented, and the exchange increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before this, every peasant thought his king the greatest being in the
+ world. He compared this king&mdash;his splendor, his palace&mdash;with the
+ peasant neighbor, with his rags and with his hut. All his thoughts were
+ provincial, all his knowledge confined to his own neighborhood&mdash;the
+ great world was to him an unknown land.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long after papers were published, the circulation was small, the means of
+ intercommunication slow, painful, few and costly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same was true in our own country, and here, too, was in a great
+ degree, the provincialism of the Old World.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Finally, the means of intercommunication increased, and they became
+ plentiful and cheap.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the peasant found that he must compare his king with the kings of
+ other nations&mdash;the statesmen of his country with the statesmen of
+ others&mdash;and these comparisons were not always favorable to the men of
+ his own country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This enlarged his knowledge and his vision, and the tendency of this was
+ to make him a citizen of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here in our own country, a little while ago, the citizen of each State
+ regarded his State as the best of all. To love that State more than all
+ others, was considered the highest evidence of patriotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Press finally informed him of the condition of other States. He found
+ that other States were superior to his in many ways&mdash;in climate, in
+ production, in men, in invention, in commerce and in influence. Slowly he
+ transferred the love of State, the prejudice of locality&mdash;what I call
+ mud patriotism&mdash;to the Nation, and he became an American in the best
+ and highest sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, then, is one of the greatest things to be accomplished by the Press
+ in America&mdash;namely, the unification of the country&mdash;the
+ destruction of provincialism, and the creation of a patriotism broad as
+ the territory covered by our flag.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same ideas, the same events, the same news, are carried to millions of
+ homes every day. The result of this is to fix the attention of all upon
+ the same things, the same thoughts and theories, the same facts&mdash;and
+ the result is to get the best judgment of a nation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a great and splendid object, but not the greatest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Europe the same thing is taking place. The nations are becoming
+ acquainted with each other. The old prejudices are dying out. The people
+ cf each nation are beginning to find that they are not the enemies of any
+ other. They are also beginning to suspect that where they have no cause of
+ quarrel, they should neither be called upon to fight, nor to pay the
+ expenses of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another thing: The kings and statesmen no longer act as they formerly did.
+ Once they were responsible only to their poor and wretched-subjects, whose
+ obedience they compelled at the point of the bayonet. Now a king knows,
+ and his minister knows, that they must give account for what they do to
+ the civilized world. They know that kings and rulers must be tried before
+ the great bar of public opinion&mdash;a public opinion that has been
+ formed by the facts given to them in the Press of the world. They do not
+ wish to be condemned at that great bar. They seek not only not to be
+ condemned&mdash;not only to be acquitted&mdash;but they seek to be
+ crowned. They seek the applause, not simply of their own nation, but of
+ the civilized world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was for uncounted centuries a conflict between civilization and
+ barbarism. Barbarism was almost universal, civilization local. The torch
+ of progress was then held by feeble hands, and barbarism extinguished it
+ in the blood of its founders. But civilizations arose, and kept rising,
+ one after another, until now the great Republic holds and is able to hold
+ that torch against a hostile world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By its invention, by its weapons of war, by its intelligence, civilization
+ became capable of protecting itself, and there came a time when in the
+ struggle between civilization and barbarism the world passed midnight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then came another struggle,&mdash;the struggle between the people and
+ their rulers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most peoples sacrificed their liberty through gratitude to some great
+ soldier who rescued them from the arms of the barbarian. But there came a
+ time when the people said: "We have a right to govern ourselves." And that
+ conflict has been waged for centuries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I say, protected and corroborated by the flag of the greatest of all
+ Republics, that in that conflict the world has passed midnight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Despotisms were softened by parliaments, by congresses&mdash;but at last
+ the world is beginning to say: "The right to govern rests upon the consent
+ of the governed. The power comes from the people&mdash;not from kings. It
+ belongs to man, and should be exercised by man."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this conflict we have passed midnight. The world is destined to be
+ republican. Those who obey the laws will make the laws.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our country&mdash;the United States&mdash;the great Republic&mdash;owns
+ the fairest portion of half the world. We have now sixty millions of free
+ people. Look upon the map of our country. Look upon the great valley of
+ the Mississippi&mdash;stretching from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. See
+ the great basin drained by that mighty river. There you will see a
+ territory large enough to feed and clothe and educate five hundred
+ millions of human beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This country is destined to remain as one. The Mississippi River is
+ Nature's protest against secession and against division.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We call that nation civilized when its subjects submit their differences
+ of opinion, in accordance with the forms of law, to fellow-citizens who
+ are disinterested and who accept the decision as final.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nations, however, sustain no such relation to each other. Each nation
+ concludes for itself. Each nation defines its rights and its obligations;
+ and nations will not be civilized in respect of their relations to each
+ other, until there shall have been established a National Court to decide
+ differences between nations, to the judgment of which all shall bow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is for the Press&mdash;the Press that photographs the human activities
+ of every day&mdash;the Press that gives the news of the world to each
+ individual&mdash;to bend its mighty energies to the unification and the
+ civilization of mankind; to the destruction of provincialism, of prejudice&mdash;to
+ the extirpation of ignorance and to the creation of a great and splendid
+ patriotism that embraces the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Press presents the daily thoughts of men. It marks the progress of
+ each hour, and renders a relapse into ignorance and barbarism impossible.
+ No catastrophe can be great enough, no ruin wide-spread enough, to engulf
+ or blot out the wisdom of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Feeling that it is called to this high destiny, the Press should appeal
+ only to the highest and to the noblest in the human heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should not be the bat of suspicion, a raven, hoarse with croaking
+ disaster, a chattering jay of gossip, or a vampire fattening on the
+ reputations of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It should remain the eagle, rising and soaring high in the cloudless blue,
+ above all mean and sordid things, and grasping only the bolts and arrows
+ of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let the Press have the courage always to defend the right, always to
+ defend the people&mdash;and let it always have the power to clutch and
+ strangle any combination of men, however intellectual or cunning or rich,
+ that feeds and fattens on the flesh and blood of honest men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a little while, under our flag there will be five hundred millions of
+ people. The great Republic will then dictate to the world&mdash;that is to
+ say, it will succor the oppressed&mdash;it will see that justice is done&mdash;it
+ will say to the great nations that wish to trample upon the weak: "You
+ must not&mdash;you shall not&mdash;strike." It will be obeyed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All I ask is&mdash;all I hope is&mdash;that the Press will always be
+ worthy of the great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0011" id="link0011">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ GENERAL GRANT'S BIRTHDAY DINNER
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, April 27, 1888.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The tribute at Delmonico's last night was to the man
+ Grant as a supreme type of the confidence of the American
+ Republic in its own strength and destiny. Soldiers over
+ whose lost cause the wheels of a thousand cannons rolled,
+ and whose doctrines were ground to dust under the heels of
+ conquering legions, poured out their souls at the feet of
+ the great commander. Magnanimity, mercy, faith&mdash;these were
+ the themes of every orator. Christian and Infidel, blue and
+ gray, Republican and Democrat talked of Grant almost as men
+ have come to talk of Washington.
+
+ And, alas! In the midst of it all, with its soft glow of
+ lights, its sweet breath of flowers, its throb of music and
+ bewildering radiance of banners, there was a vacant chair.
+ Upon it hung a wreath of green, tied with a knot of white
+ ribbon. Soldier and statesman and orator walked past that
+ chair and seemed to reverence it. It was the seat intended
+ for the trumpet tongued advocate of Grant in war, Grant in
+ victory, Grant in peace, Grant in adversity&mdash;the seat of
+ Roscoe Conkling. A little later and a clergyman jostled into
+ the vacant chair and brushed the green circlet to the floor.
+
+ Gray and grim old General Sherman presided. About the nine
+ round, flower heaped tables were grouped the long list of
+ distinguisned men from every walk or life and from every
+ section of the country.
+
+ Among the speakers was Ex-Minister Edwards Pierrepont who
+ was one of Grant's cabinet and who made a long speech, part
+ of which was devoted to explaining the court etiquette of
+ dukes and earls and ministers in England, and how an ex-
+ President of the United States ranks in Europe when an
+ American Minister helps him out. The rest of the speech
+ seemed to be an attempt to get up a presidential boom for
+ the Prince of Wales.
+
+ When Mr. Pierrepont sat down, General Sherman explained that
+ Col. Robert Ingersoll did not want to speak, but a group of
+ gentlemen lifted the orator up and carried him forward by
+ main force.&mdash;New York Herald, April 28,1888.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ TOAST: GENERAL GRANT
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ GEN. SHERMAN and Gentlemen: I firmly believe that any nation great enough
+ to produce and appreciate a great and splendid man is great enough to keep
+ his memory green. No man admires more than I do men who have struggled and
+ fought for what they believed to be right. I admire General Grant, as well
+ as every soldier who fought in the ranks of the Union,&mdash;not simply
+ because they were fighters, not simply because they were willing to march
+ to the mouth of the guns, but because they fought for the greatest cause
+ that can be expressed in human language&mdash;the liberty of man. And
+ to-night while General Mahone was speaking, I could not but think that the
+ North was just as responsible for the war as the South. The South upheld
+ and maintained what is known as human slavery, and the North did the same;
+ and do you know, I have always found in my heart a greater excuse for the
+ man who held the slave, and lived on his labor, and profited by the
+ rascality, than I did for a Northern man that went into partnership with
+ him with a distinct understanding that he was to have none of the profits
+ and half of the disgrace. So I say, that, in a larger sense&mdash;that is,
+ when we view the question from a philosophic height&mdash;the North was as
+ responsible as the South; and when I remember that in this very city, <i>in
+ this very city</i>, men were mobbed simply for advocating the abolition of
+ slavery, I cannot find it in my heart to lay a greater blame upon the
+ South than upon the North. If this had been a war of conquest, a war
+ simply for national aggrandizement, then I should not place General Grant
+ side by side with or in advance of the greatest commanders of the world.
+ But when I remember that every blow was to break a chain, when I remember
+ that the white man was to be civilized at the same time the black man was
+ made free, when I remember that this country was to be made absolutely
+ free, and the flag left without a stain, then I say that the great General
+ who commanded the greatest army ever marshaled in the defence of human
+ rights, stands at the head of the commanders of this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is one other idea,&mdash;and it was touched upon and beautifully
+ illustrated by Mr. Depew. I do not believe that a more merciful general
+ than Grant ever drew his sword. All greatness is merciful. All greatness
+ longs to forgive. All true grandeur and nobility is capable of shedding
+ the divine tear of pity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me say one more word in that direction. The man in the wrong defeated,
+ and who sees the justice of his defeat, is a victor; and in this view&mdash;and
+ I say it understanding my words fully&mdash;the South was as victorious as
+ the North.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No man, in my judgment, is more willing to do justice to all parts of this
+ country than I; but, after all, I have a little sentiment&mdash;a little.
+ I admire great and splendid deeds, the dramatic effect of great victories;
+ but even more than that I admire that "touch of nature which makes the
+ whole world kin." I know the names of Grant's victories. I know that they
+ shine like stars in the heaven of his fame. I know them all. But there is
+ one thing in the history of that great soldier that touched me nearer and
+ more deeply than any victory he ever won, and that is this: When about to
+ die, he insisted that his dust should be laid in no spot where his wife,
+ when she sleeps in death, could not lie by his side. That tribute to the
+ great and splendid institution that rises above all others, the
+ institution of the family, touched me even more than the glories won upon
+ the fields of war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now let me say, General Sherman, as the years go by, in America, as
+ long as her people are great, as long as her people are free, as long as
+ they admire patriotism and courage, as long as they admire deeds of
+ self-denial, as long as they can remember the sacred blood shed for the
+ good of the whole nation, the birthday of General Grant will be
+ celebrated. And allow me to say, gentlemen, that there is another with us
+ to-night whose birthday will be celebrated. Americans of the future, when
+ they read the history of General Sherman, will feel the throb and thrill
+ that all men feel in the presence of the patriotic and heroic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One word more&mdash;when General Grant went to England, when he sat down
+ at the table with the Ministers of her Britannic Majesty, he conferred
+ honor upon them. There is one change I wish to see in the diplomatic
+ service&mdash;and I want the example to be set by the great Republic&mdash;I
+ want precedence given here in Washington to the representatives of
+ Republics. Let us have some backbone ourselves. Let the representatives of
+ Republics come first and the ambassadors of despots come in next day. In
+ other words, let America be proud of American institutions, proud of a
+ Government by the people. We at last have a history, we at last are a
+ civilized people, and on the pages of our annals are found as glorious
+ names as have been written in any language.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0012" id="link0012">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LOTOS CLUB DINNER, TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, March 22, 1890.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ YOU have talked so much of old age and gray hairs and thin locks, so much
+ about the past, that I feel sad. Now, I want to destroy the impression
+ that baldness is a sign of age. The very youngest people I ever saw were
+ bald.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sometimes I think, and especially when I am at a meeting where they have
+ what they call reminiscences, that a world with death in it is a mistake.
+ What would you think of a man who built a railroad, knowing that every
+ passenger was to be killed&mdash;knowing that there was no escape? What
+ would you think of the cheerfulness of the passengers if every one knew
+ that at some station, the name of which had not been called out, there was
+ a hearse waiting for him; backed up there, horses fighting flies, driver
+ whistling, waiting for you? Is it not wonderful that the passengers on
+ that train really enjoy themselves? Is it not magnificent that every one
+ of them, under perpetual sentence of death, after all, can dimple their
+ cheeks with laughter; that we, every one doomed to become dust, can yet
+ meet around this table as full of joy as spring is full of life, as full
+ of hope as the heavens are full of stars?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I tell you we have got a good deal of pluck.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, after all, what would this world be without death? It may be from
+ the fact that we are all victims, from the fact that we are all bound by
+ common fate; it may be that friendship and love are born of that fact; but
+ Whatever the fact is, I am perfectly satisfied that the highest possible
+ philosophy is to enjoy to-day, not regretting yesterday, and not fearing
+ to-morrow. So, let us suck this orange of life dry, so that when death
+ does come, we can politely say to him, "You are welcome to the peelings.
+ What little there was we have enjoyed."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But there is one splendid thing about the play called Life. Suppose that
+ when you die, that is the end. The last thing that you will know is that
+ you are alive, and the last thing that will happen to you is the curtain,
+ not falling, but the curtain rising on another thought, so that as far as
+ your consciousness is concerned you will and must live forever. No man can
+ remember when he commenced, and no man can remember when he ends. As far
+ as we are concerned we live both eternities, the one past and the one to
+ come, and it is a delight to me to feel satisfied, and to feel in my own
+ heart, that I can never be certain that I have seen the faces I love for
+ the last time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I am at such a gathering as this, I almost wish I had had the making
+ of the world. What a world I would have made! In that world unhappiness
+ would have been the only sin; melancholy the only crime; joy the only
+ virtue. And whether there is another world, nobody knows. Nobody can
+ affirm it; nobody can deny it. Nobody can collect tolls from me, claiming
+ that he owns a turnpike, and nobody can certainly say that the crooked
+ path that I follow, beside which many roses are growing, does not lead to
+ that place. He doesn't know. But if there is such a place, I hope that all
+ good fellows will be welcome.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0013" id="link0013">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, December 27, 1890.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ TOAST: ATHLETICS AMONG THE ANCIENTS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE first record of public games is found in the twentythird Book of the
+ Iliad. These games were performed at the funeral of Patroclus, and there
+ were:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. A chariot race, and the first prize was:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "A woman fair, well skilled in household care."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. There was a pugilistic encounter, and the first prize,
+ appropriately enough, was a mule.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It gave me great pleasure to find that Homer did not hold in high esteem
+ the victor. I have reached this conclusion, because the poet put these
+ words in the mouth of Eppius, the great boxer winding up with the
+ following refined declaration concerning his opponent:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I mean to pound his flesh and smash his bones."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After the battle, the defeated was helped from the field. He spit forth
+ clotted gore. His head rolled from side to side, until he fell
+ unconscious.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third, wrestling; fourth, foot-race; fifth, fencing; sixth, throwing the
+ iron mass or bar; seventh, archery, and last, throwing the javelin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All of these games were in honor of Patroclus. This is the same Patroclus
+ who, according to Shakespeare, addressed Achilles in these words:
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "In the battle-field I claim no special praise;
+ 'Tis not for man in all things to excel&mdash;"
+
+ "Rouse yourself, and the weak wanton Cupid
+ Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
+ And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
+ Be shook to air."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ These games were all born of the instinct of self-defence. The chariot was
+ used in war. Man should know the use of his hands, to the end that he may
+ repel assault. He should know the use of the sword, to the end that he may
+ strike down his enemy. He should be skillful with the arrow, to the same
+ end. If overpowered, he seeks safety in flight&mdash;he should therefore
+ know how to run. So, too, he could preserve himself by the skillful
+ throwing of the javelin, and in the close encounter a knowledge of
+ wrestling might save his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man has always been a fighting animal, and the art of self-defence is
+ nearly as important now as ever&mdash;and will be, until man rises to that
+ supreme height from which he will be able to see that no one can commit a
+ crime against another without injuring himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Greeks knew that the body bears a certain relation to the soul&mdash;that
+ the better the body&mdash;other things being equal&mdash;the greater the
+ mind. They also knew that the body could be developed, and that such
+ development would give or add to the health, the courage, the endurance,
+ the self-confidence, the independence and the morality of the human race.
+ They knew, too, that health was the foundation, the corner-stone, of
+ happiness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They knew that human beings should know something about themselves,
+ something of the capacities of body and mind, to the end that they might
+ ascertain the relation between conduct and happiness, between temperance
+ and health.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is needless to say that the Greeks were the most intellectual of all
+ races, and that they were in love with beauty, with proportion, with the
+ splendor of the body and of mind; and so great was their admiration for
+ the harmoniously developed, that Sophocles had the honor of walking naked
+ at the head of a great procession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Greeks, through their love of physical and mental development, gave us
+ the statues&mdash;the most precious of all inanimate things&mdash;of far
+ more worth than all the diamonds and rubies and pearls that ever glittered
+ in crowns and tiaras, on altars or thrones, or, flashing, rose and fell on
+ woman's billowed breast. In these marbles we find the highest types of
+ life, of superb endeavor and supreme repose. In looking at them we feel
+ that blood flows, that hearts throb and souls aspire. These miracles of
+ art are the richest legacies the ancient world has left our race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nations in love with life, have games. To them existence is
+ exultation. They are fond of nature. They, seek the woods and streams.
+ They love the winds and waves of the sea. They enjoy the poem of the day,
+ the drama of the year.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our Puritan fathers were oppressed with a sense of infinite
+ responsibility. They were disconsolate and sad, and no more thought of
+ sport, except the flogging of; Quakers, than shipwrecked wretches huddled
+ on a raft would turn their attention to amateur theatricals.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many centuries the body was regarded as a decaying; casket, in which
+ had been placed the gem called the soul, and the nearer rotten the casket
+ the more brilliant the jewel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those blessed days, the diseased were sainted and insanity born of
+ fasting and self-denial and abuse of the body, was looked upon as evidence
+ of inspiration. Cleanliness was not next to godliness&mdash;it was the
+ opposite; and in those days, what was known as "the odor of sanctity" had
+ a substantial foundation. Diseased bodies produced all kinds of mental
+ maladies. There is a direct relation between sickness and superstition.
+ Everybody knows that Calvinism was the child of indigestion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spooks and phantoms hover about the undeveloped and diseased, as vultures
+ sail above the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our ancestors had the idea that they ought to be spiritual, and that good
+ health was inconsistent with the highest forms of piety. This heresy crept
+ into the minds even of secular writers, and the novelists described their
+ heroines as weak and languishing, pale as lilies, and in the place of
+ health's brave flag they put the hectic flush.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Weakness was interesting, and fainting captured the hearts of all. Nothing
+ was so attractive as a society belle with a drug-store attachment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ People became ashamed of labor, and consequently, of the evidences of
+ labor. They avoided "sun-burnt mirth"&mdash;were proud of pallor, and
+ regarded small, white hands as proof that they had noble blood within
+ their veins. It was a joy to be too weak to work, too languishing to
+ labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The tide has turned. People are becoming sensible enough to desire health,
+ to admire physical development, symmetry of form, and we now know that a
+ race with little feet and hands has passed the climax and is traveling
+ toward the eternal night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the central force is strong, men and women are full of life to the
+ finger tips. When the fires burn low, they begin to shrivel at the
+ extremities&mdash;the hands and feet grow small, and the mental flame
+ wavers and wanes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To be self-respecting we must be self-supporting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nobility is a question of character, not of birth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Honor cannot be received as alms&mdash;it must be earned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is the brow that makes the wreath of glory green.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All exercise should be for the sake of development&mdash;that is to say,
+ for the sake of health, and for the sake of the mind&mdash;all to the end
+ that the person may become better, greater, more useful. The gymnast or
+ the athelete should seek for health as the student should seek for truth;
+ but when athletics degenerate into mere personal contests, they become
+ dangerous, because the contestants lose sight of health, as in the
+ excitement of debate the students prefer personal victory to the
+ ascertainment of truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another thing to be avoided by all athletic clubs, and that is,
+ anything that tends to brutalize, destroy or dull the finer feelings.
+ Nothing is more disgusting, more disgraceful, than pugilism&mdash;nothing
+ more demoralizing than an exhibition of strength united with ferocity, and
+ where the very body developed by exercise is mutilated and disfigured.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sports that can by no possibility give pleasure, except to the unfeeling,
+ the hardened and the really brainless, should be avoided. No gentleman
+ should countenance rabbit-coursing, fighting of dogs, the shooting of
+ pigeons, simply as an exhibition of skill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these things are calculated to demoralize and brutalize not only the
+ actors, but the lookers on. Such sports are savage, fit only to be
+ participated in and enjoyed by the cannibals of Central Africa or the
+ anthropoid apes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Find what a man enjoys&mdash;what he laughs at&mdash;what he calls
+ diversion&mdash;and you know what he is. Think of a man calling himself
+ civilized, who is in raptures at a bull fight&mdash;who smiles when he
+ sees the hounds pursue and catch and tear in pieces the timid hare, and
+ who roars with laughter when he watches the pugilists pound each other's
+ faces, closing each other's eyes, breaking jaws and smashing noses. Such
+ men are beneath the animals they torture&mdash;on a level with the
+ pugilists they applaud. Gentlemen should hold such sports in unspeakable
+ contempt. No man finds pleasure in inflicting pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In every public school there should be a gymnasium.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is useless to cram minds and deform bodies. Hands should be educated as
+ well as heads. All should be taught the sports and games that require
+ mind, muscle, nerve and judgment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even those who labor should take exercise, to the end that the whole body
+ may be developed. Those who work at one employment become deformed.
+ Proportion is lost. But where harmony is preserved by the proper exercise,
+ even old age is beautiful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the well developed, to the strong, life seems rich, obstacles small,
+ and success easy. They laugh at cold and storm. Whatever the season may be
+ their hearts are filled with summer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Millions go from the cradle to the coffin without knowing what it is to
+ live. They simply succeed in postponing death. Without appetites, without
+ passions, without struggle, they slowly rot in a waveless pool. They never
+ know the glory of success, the rapture of the fight.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To become effeminate is to invite misery. In the most delicate bodies may
+ be found the most degraded souls. It was the Duchess Josiane whose
+ pampered flesh became so sensitive that she thought of hell as a place
+ where people were compelled to sleep between coarse sheets.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We need the open air&mdash;we need the experience of heat and cold. We
+ need not only the rewards and caresses, but the discipline of our mother
+ Nature. Life is not all sunshine, neither is it all storm, but man should
+ be enabled to enjoy the one and to withstand the other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in the religion of the body&mdash;of physical development&mdash;in
+ devotional exercise&mdash;in the beatitudes of cheerfulness, good health,
+ good food, good clothes, comradeship, generosity, and above all, in
+ happiness. I believe in salvation here and now. Salvation from deformity
+ and disease&mdash;from weakness and pain&mdash;from ennui and insanity. I
+ believe in heaven here and now&mdash;the heaven of health and good
+ digestion&mdash;of strength and long life&mdash;of usefulness and joy. I
+ believe in the builders and defenders of homes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The gentlemen whom we honor to-night have done a great work. To their
+ energy we are indebted for the nearest perfect, for the grandest athletic
+ clubhouse in the world. Let these clubs multiply. Let the example be
+ followed, until our country is filled with physical and intellectual
+ athletes&mdash;superb fathers, perfect mothers, and every child an heir to
+ health and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0014" id="link0014">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE LIEDERKRANZ CLUB, SEIDL-STANTON BANQUET.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, April 2, 1891
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ TOAST: MUSIC, NOBLEST OF THE ARTS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ IT is probable that I was selected to speak about music, because, not
+ knowing one note from another, I have no prejudice on the subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All I can say is, that I know what I like, and, to tell the truth, I like
+ every kind, enjoy it all, from the hand organ to the orchestra.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Knowing nothing of the science of music, I am not always looking for
+ defects, or listening for discords. As the young robin cheerfully swallows
+ whatever comes, I hear with gladness all that is played.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Music has been, I suppose, a gradual growth, subject to the law of
+ evolution; as nearly everything, with the possible exception of theology,
+ has been and is under this law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Music may be divided into three kinds: First, the music of simple time,
+ without any particular emphasis&mdash;and this may be called the music of
+ the heels; second, music in which time is varied, in which there is the
+ eager haste and the delicious delay, that is, the fast and slow, in
+ accordance with our feelings, with our emotions&mdash;and this may be
+ called the music of the heart; third, the music that includes time and
+ emphasis, the hastening and the delay, and something in addition, that
+ produces not only states of feeling, but states of thought. This may be
+ called the music of the head,&mdash;the music of the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Music expresses feeling and thought, without language. It was below and
+ before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. Beneath the waves is
+ the sea&mdash;above the clouds is the sky.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and fears
+ and passions, and these were rudely expressed in tones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is, that Music was born of
+ Love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have
+ been uttered a strain of music. Possibly some mother, looking in the eyes
+ of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel;
+ and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated
+ into music. Music is the sunshine&mdash;the climate&mdash;of the soul, and
+ it floods the heart with a perfect June.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvelous mingling
+ of Love and Death. Love is the greatest of all passions, and Death is its
+ shadow. Death gets all its terror from Love, and Love gets its intensity,
+ its radiance, its glory and its rapture, from the darkness of Death. Love
+ is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The old music, for the most part, expresses emotion, or feeling-, through
+ time and emphasis, and what is known as melody. Most of the old operas
+ consist of a few melodies connected by unmeaning recitative. There should
+ be no unmeaning music. It is as though a writer should suddenly leave his
+ subject and write a paragraph consisting of nothing but a repetition of
+ one word like "the," "the," "the," or "if," "if." "if," varying the
+ repetition of these words, but without meaning,&mdash;and then resume the
+ subject of his article.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not saying that great music was not produced before Wagner, but I am
+ simply endeavoring to show-the steps that have been taken. It was
+ necessary that all the music should have been written, in order that the
+ greatest might be produced. The same is true of the drama, Thousands and
+ thousands prepared the way for the supreme dramatist, as millions prepared
+ the way for the supreme composer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I read Shakespeare, I am astonished that he has expressed so much
+ with common words, to which he gives new meaning; and so when I hear
+ Wagner, I exclaim: Is it possible that all this is done with common air?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Wagner's music there is a touch of chaos that suggests the infinite.
+ The melodies seem strange and changing forms, like summer clouds, and
+ weird harmonies come like sounds from the sea brought by fitful winds, and
+ others moan like waves on desolate shores, and mingled with these, are
+ shouts of joy, with sighs and sobs and ripples of laughter, and the
+ wondrous voices of eternal love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wagner is the Shakespeare of Music.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The funeral march for Siegfried is the funeral music for all the dead;
+ Should all the gods die, this music would be perfectly appropriate. It is
+ elemental, universal, eternal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The love-music in Tristan and Isolde is, like Romeo and Juliet, an
+ expression of the human heart for all time. So the love-duet in The Flying
+ Dutchman has in it the consecration, the infinite self-denial, of love.
+ The whole heart is given; every note has wings, and rises and poises like
+ an eagle in the heaven of sound.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I listen to the music of Wagner, I see pictures, forms, glimpses of
+ the perfect, the swell of a hip, the wave of a breast, the glance of an
+ eye. I am in the midst of great galleries. Before me are passing, the
+ endless panoramas. I see vast landscapes with valleys of verdure and vine,
+ with soaring crags, snow-crowned. I am on the wide seas, where countless
+ billows burst into the white caps of joy. I am in the depths of caverns
+ roofed with mighty crags, while through some rent I see the eternal stars.
+ In a moment the music, becomes a river of melody, flowing through some
+ wondrous land; suddenly it falls in strange chasms, and the mighty
+ cataract is changed to seven-hued foam. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Great music is always sad, because it tells us of the perfect; and such is
+ the difference between what we are and that which music suggests, that
+ even in the vase of joy we find some tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The music of Wagner has color, and when I hear the violins, the morning
+ seems to slowly come. A horn puts a star above the horizon. The night, in
+ the purple hum of the bass, wanders away like some enormous bee across
+ wide fields of dead clover. The light grows whiter as the violins
+ increase. Colors come from other instruments, and then the full orchestra
+ floods the world with day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wagner seems not only to have given us new tones, new combinations, but
+ the moment the orchestra begins to play his music, all the instruments are
+ transfigured. They seem to utter the sounds that they have been longing to
+ utter. The horns run riot; the drums and cymbals join in the general joy;
+ the old bass viols are alive with passion; the 'cellos throb with love;
+ the violins are seized with a divine fury, and the notes rush out as eager
+ for the air as pardoned prisoners for the roads and fields.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The music of Wagner is filled with landscapes. There are some strains,
+ like midnight, thick with constellations, and there are harmonies like
+ islands in the far seas, and others like palms on the desert's edge. His
+ music satisfies the heart and brain. It is not only for memory; not only
+ for the present, but for prophecy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Wagner was a sculptor, a painter, in sound. When he died, the greatest
+ fountain of melody that ever enchanted the world, ceased. His music will
+ instruct and refine forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All that I know about the operas of Wagner I have learned from Anton
+ Seidl. I believe that he is the noblest, tenderest and the most artistic
+ interpreter of the great composer that has ever lived.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0015" id="link0015">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE FRANK B. CARPENTER DINNER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, December 1, 1891
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * There was a notable gathering of leading artists, authors,
+ scientists, journalists, lawyer, clergymen and other
+ professional men at Sherry's last evening. The occasion was
+ a dinner tendered to Mr. F. B. Carpenter, the famous
+ portrait and portrait group artist, by his immediate friends
+ to celebrate the completion of his new historical painting,
+ entitled "International Arbitration," which is to be sent to
+ Queen Victoria next week as the gift of a wealthy American
+ lady. No such tribute has ever been paid before to an artist
+ of-this country. Let us hope that the extraordinary
+ attention thus paid to Mr. Carpenter will give our "English
+ cousins" some idea of how he is prized and his work indorsed
+ at home. The dinner to Mr. Carpenter was a great success&mdash;
+ most enjoyable in every way. The table was laid in the form
+ ol a horse shoe with a train of smilax, and sweet flowers
+ extending the entire length of the table, amid pots of
+ chrysanthemums and roses. Ex-Minister Andrew D White
+ presided in the absence of John Russell
+
+ Young..........Mr. White said: "During the entire course of
+ these proceedings we have been endeavoring to find a
+ representative of the great Fourth Estate who would present
+ its claims in relation to arbitration on this occasion.
+ There are present men whose names are household words in
+ connection with the press throughout this land. There is
+ certainly one distinguished as orator: there is another
+ distinguished as a scholar. But they prefer to be silent. We
+ will therefore consider that the toast of 'The Press in
+ Connection with War and Peace' has been duly honored
+ although it has not been responded to, and now there is one
+ subject which I think you will consider as coming strangely
+ at this late hour. It is a renewal of the subject with which
+ we began, and I am to ask to speak to it a man who is
+ admired and feared throughout the country. At one moment he
+ smashes the most cherished convictions of the country, and
+ at another he raises our highest aspirations for the future
+ of humanity.
+
+ "It happened several years ago that I was crossing the
+ Atlantic, and when I had sufficiently recovered from
+ seasickness to sit out on the deck I came across Colonel
+ Ingersoll, and of all subjects of discussion you can imagine
+ we fell upon the subject of art, and we went at it hot and
+ heavy. So I said to him to-night that I had a rod in pickle
+ for him and that he was not to know anything about it until
+ it was displayed.
+
+ "I now call upon him to talk to us about art, and if he
+ talks now as he talked on the deck of the steamer I do not
+ know whether it would clear the room, but it would make a
+ sensation in this State and country. I have great pleasure
+ in announcing Colonel Ingersoll, to speak on the subject of
+ art&mdash;or on any other subject, for no matter upon what he
+ speaks his words are always welcome."
+
+ New York Press, December 2, 1891.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ TOAST: ART.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I PRESUME I take about as much interest in what that picture represents as
+ anybody else. I believe that it has been said this evening that the world
+ will never be civilized so long as differences between nations are settled
+ by gun or cannon or sword. Barbarians still settle their personal
+ differences with clubs or arms, and finally, when they agree to submit
+ their differences to their peers, to a court, we call them civilized. Now,
+ nations sustain the same relations to each other that barbarians sustain;
+ that is, they settle their differences by force; each nation being the
+ judge of the righteousness of its cause, and its judgment depending
+ entirely&mdash;or for the most part&mdash;on its strength; and the
+ strongest nation is the nearest right. Now, until nations submit their
+ differences to an international court&mdash;a court with the power to
+ carry its judgment into effect by having the armies and navies of all the
+ rest of the world pledged to support it&mdash;the world will not be
+ civilized. Our differences will not be settled by arbitration until more
+ of the great nations set the example, and until that is done, I am in
+ favor of the United States being armed. Until that is done it will give me
+ joy to know that another magnificent man-of-war has been launched upon our
+ waters. And I will tell you why. Look again at that picture. There is
+ another face; it is not painted there, and yet without it that picture
+ would not have been painted, and that is the face of U. S. Grant. The
+ olive branch, to be of any force, to be of any beneficent power, must be
+ offered by the mailed hand. It must be offered by a nation which has back
+ of the olive branch the force. It cannot be offered by weakness, because
+ then it will excite only ridicule. The powerful, the imperial, must offer
+ that branch. Then it will be accepted in the true spirit; otherwise not.
+ So, until the world is a little more civilized I am in favor of the
+ largest guns that can be made and the best navy that floats. I do not want
+ any navy unless we have the best, because if you have a poor one you will
+ simply make a present of it to the enemy as soon as war opens. We should
+ be ready to defend ourselves against the world. Not that I think there is
+ going to be any war, but because I think that is the best way to prevent
+ it. Until the whole world shall have entered into the same spirit as the
+ artist when he painted that picture, until that spirit becomes general we
+ have got to be prepared for war. And we cannot depend upon war suasion. If
+ a fleet of men-of-war should sail into our harbor, talk would not be of
+ any good; we must be ready to answer them in their own way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose I have been selected to speak on art because I can speak on that
+ subject without prejudice, knowing nothing about it. I have on this
+ subject no hobbies, no pet theories, and consequently will give you not
+ what I know, but what I think. I am an Agnostic in many things, and the
+ way I understand art is this: In the first place we are all invisible to
+ each other. There is something called soul; something that thinks and
+ hopes and loves. It is never seen. It occupies a world that we call the
+ brain, and is forever, so far as we know, invisible. Each soul lives in a
+ world of its own, and it endeavors to communicate with another soul living
+ in a world of its own, each invisible to the other, and it does this in a
+ variety of ways. That is the noblest art which expresses the noblest
+ thought, that gives to another the noblest emotions that this unseen soul
+ has. In order to do this we have to seize upon the seen, the visible. In
+ other words, nature is a vast dictionary that we use simply to convey from
+ one invisible world to another what happens in our invisible world. The
+ man that lives in the greatest world and succeeds in letting other worlds
+ know what happens in his world, is the greatest artist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that all arts have the same father and the same mother, and no
+ matter whether you express what happens in these unseen worlds in mere
+ words&mdash;because nearly all pictures have been made with words&mdash;or
+ whether you express it in marble, or form and color in what we call
+ painting, it is to carry on that commerce between these invisible worlds,
+ and he is the greatest artist who expresses the tenderest, noblest
+ thoughts to the unseen worlds about him. So that all art consists in this
+ commerce, every soul being an artist and every brain that is worth talking
+ about being an art gallery, and there is no gallery in this world, not in
+ the Vatican or the Louvre or any other place, comparable with the gallery
+ in every great brain. The millions of pictures that are in every brain
+ to-night; the landscapes, the faces, the groups, the millions of millions
+ of millions of things that are now living here in every brain, all unseen,
+ all invisible forever! Yet we communicate with each other by showing each
+ other these pictures, these studies, and by inviting others into our
+ galleries and showing them what we have, and the greatest artist is he who
+ has the most pictures to show to other artists.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I love anything in art that suggests the tender, the beautiful. What is
+ beauty? Of course there is no absolute beauty. All beauty is relative.
+ Probably the most beautiful thing to a frog is the speckled belly of
+ another frog, or to a snake the markings of another snake. So there is no
+ such thing as absolute beauty. But what I call beauty is what suggests to
+ me the highest and the tenderest thought; something that answers to
+ something in my world. So every work of art has to be born in some brain,
+ and it must be made by the unseen artist we call the soul. Now, if a man
+ simply copies what he sees, he is nothing but a copyist. That does not
+ require genius. That requires industry and the habit of observation. But
+ it is not genius; it is not art. Those little daubs and shreds and patches
+ we get by copying, are pieces of iron that need to be put into the flame
+ of genius to be molten and then cast in noble forms; otherwise there is no
+ genius.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great picture should have, not only the technical part of art, which
+ is neither moral nor immoral, but in addition some great thought, some
+ great event. It should contain not only a history but a prophecy. There
+ should be in it soul, feeling, thought I love those little pictures of the
+ home, of the fireside, of the old lady, boiling the kettle, the vine
+ running over the cottage door, scenes suggesting to me happiness,
+ contentment. I think more of them than of the great war pieces, and I hope
+ I shall have a few years in some such scenes, during which I shall not
+ care what time it is, what day of the week or month it is. Just that
+ feeling of content when it is enough to live, to breathe, to have the blue
+ sky above you and to hear the music of the water. All art that gives us
+ that content, that delight, enriches this world and makes life better and
+ holier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That, in a general kind of way, as I said before, is my idea of art, and I
+ hope that the artists of America&mdash;and they ought to be as good here
+ as in any place on earth&mdash;will grow day by day and year by year
+ independent of all other art in the world, and be true to the American or
+ republican spirit always. As to this picture, it is representative, it is
+ American. There is one word Mr. Daniel Dougherty said to which I would
+ like to refer. I have never said very much in my life in defence of
+ England, at the same time I have never blamed England for being against us
+ during our war, and I will tell you why. We had been a nation of
+ hypocrites. We pretended to be in favor of liberty and yet we had four or
+ five millions of our people enslaved. That was a very awkward position. We
+ had bloodhounds to hunt human beings and the apostles setting them on; and
+ while this was going on these poor wretches sought and found liberty on
+ British soil. Now, why not be honest about it? We were rather a
+ contemptible people, though Mr. Dougherty thinks the English were wholly
+ at fault. But England abolished the slave-trade in 1803; she abolished
+ slavery in her colonies in 1833. We were lagging behind. That is all there
+ is about it. No matter why, we put ourselves in the position of pretending
+ to be a free people while we had millions of slaves, and it was only
+ natural that England should dislike it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think the chairman said that there had been no great historic picture of
+ the signing of the Constitution. There never should be, never! It was fit,
+ it was proper, to have a picture of the signing of the Declaration of
+ Independence. That was an honest document. Our people wanted to give a
+ good reason for fighting Great Britain, and in order to do that they had
+ to dig down to the bed-rock of human rights, and then they said all men
+ are created equal. But just as soon as we got our independence we made a
+ Constitution that gave the lie to the Declaration of Independence, and
+ that is why the signing of the Constitution never ought to be painted. We
+ put in that Constitution a clause that the slave-trade should not be
+ interfered with for years, and another clause that this entire Government
+ was pledged to hand back to slavery any poor woman with a child at her
+ breast, seeking freedom by flight. It was a very poor document. A little
+ while ago they celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of that business
+ and talked about the Constitution being such a wonderful thing; yet what
+ was in that Constitution brought on the most terrible civil war ever
+ known, and during that war they said: "Give us the Constitution as it is
+ and the Union as it was." And I said then: "Curse the Constitution as it
+ is and the Union as it was. Don't talk to me about fighting for a
+ Constitution that has brought on a war like this; let us make a new one."
+ No, I am in favor of a painting that would celebrate the adoption of the
+ amendment to the Constitution that declares that there shall be no more
+ slavery on this soil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that we are getting a little more free every day&mdash;a little
+ more sensible all the time. A few years ago a woman in Germany made a
+ speech, in which she asked: "Why should the German mother in pain and
+ agony give birth to a child and rear that child through industry and
+ poverty, and teach him that when he arrives at the age of twenty-one it
+ will be his duty to kill the child of the French mother? And why should
+ the French mother teach her son, that it will be his duty sometime to kill
+ the child of the German mother?" There is more sense in that than in all
+ the diplomacy I ever read, and I think the time is coming when that
+ question will be asked by every mother&mdash;Why should she raise a child
+ to kill the child of another mother?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time is coming when we will do away with all this. Man has been taught
+ that he ought to fight for the country where he was born; no matter about
+ that country being wrong, whether it supported him or not, whether it
+ enslaved him and trampled on every right he had, still it was his duty to
+ march up in support of that country. The time will come when the man will
+ make up his mind himself whether the country is worth while fighting for,
+ and he is the greatest patriot who seeks to make his country worth
+ fighting for, and not he who says, I am for it anyhow, whether it is right
+ or not. These patriots will be the force Mr. George was speaking about. If
+ war between this country and Great Britain were declared, and there were
+ men in both countries sufficient to take a right view of it, that would be
+ the end of war. The thing would be settled by arbitration&mdash;settled by
+ some court&mdash;and no one would dream of rushing to the field of battle.
+ So, that is my hope for the world; more policy, more good, solid, sound
+ sense and less mud patriotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think that this country is going to grow. I think it will take in Mr.
+ Wiman's country. I do not mean that we are going to take any country. I
+ mean that they are going to come to us. I do not believe in conquest.
+ Canada will come just as soon as it is to her interest to come, and I
+ think she will come or be a great country to herself. I do not believe in
+ those people, intelligent as they are, sending three thousand miles for
+ information they have at home. I do not believe in their being governed by
+ anybody except themselves. So if they come we shall be glad to have them,
+ if they don't want to come I don't want them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yes, we are growing. I don't know how many millions of people we have now,
+ probably over sixty-two if they all get counted; and they are still
+ coming. I expect to live to see one hundred millions here. I know some say
+ that we are getting too many foreigners, but I say the more that come the
+ better. We have got to have somebody to take the places of the sons of our
+ rich people. So I say let them come. There is plenty of land here,
+ everywhere. I say to the people of every country, come; do your work here,
+ and we will protect you against other countries. We will give you all the
+ work to supply yourselves and your neighbors.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then if we have differences with another country we shall have a strong
+ navy, big ships, big guns, magnificent men and plenty of them, and if we
+ put out the hand of fellowship and friendship they will know there is no
+ foolishness about it. They will know we are not asking any favor. We will
+ just say: We want peace, and we tell you over the glistening leaves of
+ this olive branch that if you don't compromise we will mop the earth with
+ you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is the sort of arbitration I believe in, and it is the only sort, in
+ my judgment, that will be effectual for all time. And I hope that we may
+ still grow, and grow more and more artistic, and more and more in favor of
+ peace, and I pray that we may finally arrive at being absolutely worthy of
+ having presented that picture, with all that it implies, to the most
+ warlike nation in the world&mdash;to the nation that first sends the
+ gospel and then the musket immediately after, and says: You have got to be
+ civilized, and the only evidence of civilization that you can give is to
+ buy our goods and to buy them now, and to pay for them. I wish us to be
+ worthy of the picture presented to such a nation, and my prayer is that
+ America may be worthy to have sent such a token in such a spirit, and my
+ second prayer is that England may be worthy to receive it and to keep it,
+ and that she may receive it in the same spirit that it is sent.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am glad that it is to be sent by a woman. The gentleman who spoke to the
+ toast, "Woman as a Peacemaker," seemed to believe that woman brought all
+ the sorrows that ever happened, not only of war, but troubles of every
+ kind. I want to say to him that I would rather live with the woman I love
+ in a world of war, in a world full of troubles and sorrows, than to live
+ in heaven with nobody but men. I believe that woman is a peacemaker, and
+ so I am glad that a woman presents this token to another woman; and woman
+ is a far higher title than queen, in my judgment; far higher. There are no
+ higher titles than woman, mother, wife, sister, and when they come to
+ calling them countesses and duchesses and queens, that is all rot. That
+ adds nothing to that unseen artist who inhabits the world called the
+ brain. That unseen artist is great by nature and cannot be made greater by
+ the addition of titles. And so one woman gives to another woman the
+ picture that prophesies war is finally to cease, and the civilized nations
+ of the world will henceforth arbitrate their differences and no longer
+ strew the plains with corpses of brethren. That is the supreme lesson that
+ is taught by this picture, and I congratulate Mr. Carpenter that his name
+ is associated with it and also with the "Proclamation of Emancipation." In
+ the latter work he has associated his name with that of Lincoln, which is
+ the greatest name in history, and the gentlest memory in this world. Mr.
+ Carpenter has associated his name with that and with this and with that of
+ General Grant, for I say that this picture would never have been possible
+ had there not been behind it Grant; if there had not been behind it the
+ victorious armies of the North and the great armies of the South, that
+ would have united instantly to repel any foreign foe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0016" id="link0016">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, January 15,1892.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ TOAST: THE IDEAL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ MR. PRESIDENT, Ladies and Gentlemen: In the first place, I wish to tender
+ my thanks to this club for having generosity and sense enough to invite me
+ to speak this evening. It is probably the best thing the club has ever
+ done. You have shown that you are not afraid of a man simply because he
+ does not happen to agree entirely with you, although in a very general way
+ it may be said that I come within one of you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I think, not only that you have honored me&mdash;that, I most
+ cheerfully and gratefully admit&mdash;but, upon my word, I think that you
+ have honored yourselves. And imagine the distance the religious world has
+ traveled in the last few years to make a thing of this kind possible! You
+ know&mdash;I presume every one of you knows&mdash;that I have no religion&mdash;not
+ enough to last a minute&mdash;none whatever&mdash;that is, in the ordinary
+ sense of that word. And yet you have become so nearly civilized that you
+ are willing to hear what I have to say; and I have become so nearly
+ civilized that I am willing to say what I think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, in the second place, let me say that I have great respect for the
+ Unitarian Church. I have great respect for the memory of Theodore Parker.
+ I have great respect for every man who has assisted in reaving the heavens
+ of an infinite monster. I have great respect for every man who has helped
+ to put out the fires of hell. In other words, I have great respect for
+ every man who has tried to civilize my race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church&mdash;and may be
+ more than all other churches&mdash;to substitute character for creed, and
+ to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by the climate of his
+ heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the spring of his hope; that he
+ should be judged by what he does; by the influence that he exerts, rather
+ than by the mythology he may believe. And whether there be one God or a
+ million, I am perfectly satisfied that every duty that devolves upon me is
+ within my reach; it is something that I can do myself, without the help of
+ anybody else, either in this world or any other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in order to make myself plain on this subject&mdash;I think I was to
+ speak about the Ideal&mdash;I want to thank the Unitarian Church for what
+ it has done; and I want to thank the Universalist Church, too. They at
+ least believe in a God who is a gentleman; and that is much more than was
+ ever done by an orthodox church. They believe, at least, in a heavenly
+ father who will leave the latch string out until the last child gets home;
+ and as that lets me in&mdash;especially in reference to the "last"&mdash;I
+ have great respect for that church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But now I am coming to the Ideal; and in what I may say you may not all
+ agree. I hope you won't, because that would be to me evidence that I am
+ wrong. You cannot expect everybody to agree in the right, and I cannot
+ expect to be always in the right myself. I have to judge with the standard
+ called my reason, and I do not know whether it is right or not; I will
+ admit that. But as opposed to any other man's, I will bet on mine. That is
+ to say, for home use. In the first place, I think it is said in some book&mdash;and
+ if I am wrong there are plenty here to correct me&mdash;that "the fear of
+ the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." I think a knowledge of the
+ limitations of the human mind is the beginning of wisdom, and, I may
+ almost say, the end of it&mdash;really to understand yourself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me lay down this proposition. The imagination of man has the
+ horizon of experience; and beyond experience or nature man cannot go, even
+ in imagination. Man is not a creator. He combines; he adds together; he
+ divides; he subtracts; he does not create, even in the world of
+ imagination. Let me make myself a little plainer: Not one here&mdash;not
+ one in the wide, wide world can think of a color that he never saw. No
+ human being can imagine a sound that he has not heard, and no one can
+ think of a taste that he has not experienced. He can add to&mdash;that is
+ add together&mdash;combine; but he cannot, by any possibility, create.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Man originally, we will say&mdash;go back to the age of barbarism, and you
+ will not have to go far; our own childhood, probably, is as far as is
+ necessary&mdash;but go back to what is called the age of savagery; every
+ man was an idealist, as every man is to-day an idealist. Every man in
+ savage or civilized time, commencing with the first that ever crawled out
+ of a cave and pushed the hair back from his forehead to look at the sun&mdash;commence
+ with him and end with Judge Wright&mdash;the last expression on the God
+ question&mdash;and from that cave to the soul that lives in this temple,
+ everyone has been an idealist and has endeavored to account in some way
+ for what he saw and for what he felt; in other words, for the phenomena of
+ nature. The easiest way to account for it by the rudest savage, is the way
+ it has been accounted for to-night. What makes the river run? There's a
+ god in it. What makes the tree grow? There's a god in it. What makes the
+ star shine? There's a god in it. What makes the sun rise? Why, he is a god
+ himself. And what makes the nightingale sing until the air is faint with
+ melody? There's a god in it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They commenced making gods to account for everything that happens; gods of
+ dreams and gods of love and friendship, and heroism and courage. Splendid!
+ They kept making more and more. The more they found out in nature, up to a
+ certain point, the more gods they needed; and they kept on making gods
+ until almost every wave of the sea bore a god. Gods on every mountain, and
+ in every vale and field, and by every stream! Gods in flowers, gods in
+ grass; gods everywhere! All accounting for this world and for what
+ happened in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then, when they had got about to the top, when their ingenuity had been
+ exhausted, they had not produced anything, and they did not produce
+ anything beyond their own experience. We are told that they were
+ idolaters. That is a mistake, except in the sense that we are all
+ idolaters. They said, "Here is a god; let us express our idea of him. He
+ is stronger than a man; let us give him the body of a lion. He is swifter
+ than a man; let us give him the wings of an eagle. He is wiser than a man"&mdash;and
+ when a man was very savage he said, "let us give him the head of a
+ serpent;" a serpent is wonderfully wise; he travels without feet; he
+ climbs without claws; he lives without food, and he is of the simplest
+ conceivable form.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that was simply to represent their idea of power, of swiftness, of
+ wisdom. And yet this impossible monster was simply made of what man had
+ seen in nature, and he put the various attributes or parts together by his
+ imagination. He created nothing. He simply took these parts of certain
+ beasts, when beasts were supposed to be superior to man in some
+ particulars, and in that way expressed his thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You go into the territory of Arizona to-day, and you will find there
+ pictures of God. He was clothed in stone, through which no arrow could
+ pierce, and so they called God the Stone-Shirted whom no Indian could
+ kill. That was for the simple and only reason that it was impossible to
+ get an arrow through his armor. They got the idea from the armadillo.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I am simply saying this to show that they were making gods for all
+ these centuries, and making them out of something they found in nature.
+ Then, after they got through with the beast business, they made gods after
+ the image of man; and they are the best gods, so far as I know, that have
+ been made.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The gods that were first made after the image of man were not made after
+ the pattern of very good men; but they were good men according to the
+ standard of that time, because, as I will show you in a moment, all these
+ things are relative. The qualities or things that we call mercy, justice,
+ charity and religion are all relative. There was a time when the victor on
+ the field of battle was exceedingly merciful if he failed to eat his
+ prisoner; he was regarded as a very charitable gentleman if he refused to
+ eat the man he had captured in battle. Afterward he was regarded as an
+ exceedingly benevolent person if he would spare a prisoner's life and make
+ him a slave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So that&mdash;but you all know it as well as I do or you would not be
+ Unitarians&mdash;all this has been simply a growth from year to year, from
+ generation to generation, from age to age. And let me tell you the first
+ thing about these gods that they made after the image of men. After a time
+ there were men on the earth who were better than these gods in heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then those gods began to die, one after another, and dropped from their
+ thrones. The time will probably come in the history of this world when an
+ insurance company can calculate the average life of gods as well as they
+ do now of men; because all these gods have been made by folks. And, let me
+ say right here, the folks did the best they could. I do not blame them.
+ Everybody in the business has always done his best. I admit it. I admit
+ that man has traveled from the first conception up to Unitarianism by a
+ necessary road. Under the conditions he could have come up in no other
+ way. I admit all that. I blame nobody. But I am simply trying to tell, in
+ a very feeble manner, how it is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, in a little while, I say, men got better than their gods. Then the
+ gods began to die. Then we began to find out a few things in nature, and
+ we found out that we were supporting more gods than were necessary&mdash;that
+ fewer gods could do the business&mdash;and that, from an economical point
+ of view, expenses ought to be cut down. There were too many temples, too
+ many priests, and you always had to give tithes of something to each one,
+ and these gods were about to eat up the substance of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there came a time when it got to that point that either the gods would
+ eat up the people or the people must destroy some gods, and of course they
+ destroyed the gods&mdash;one by one and in their places they put forces of
+ nature to do the business&mdash;forces of nature that needed no church,
+ that needed no theologians; forces of nature that you are under no
+ obligation to; that you do not have to pay anything to keep working. We
+ found that the attraction of gravitation would attend to its business,
+ night and day, at its own expense. There was a great saving. I wish it
+ were the same with all kinds of law, so that we could all go into some
+ useful business, including myself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So day by day, they dispensed with this expense of deities; and the world
+ got along just as well&mdash;a good deal better. They used to think&mdash;a
+ community thought&mdash;that if a man was allowed to say a word against a
+ deity, the god would visit his vengeance upon the entire nation. But they
+ found out, after a while, that no harm came of it; so they went on
+ destroying the gods. Now, all these things are relative; and they made
+ gods a little better all the time&mdash;I admit that&mdash;till we struck
+ the Presbyterian, which is probably the worst ever made. The Presbyterians
+ seem to have bred back.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But no matter. As man became more just, or nearer just, as he became more
+ charitable, or nearer charitable, his god grew to be a little better and a
+ little better. He was very bad in Geneva&mdash;the three that we then had.
+ They were very bad in Scotland&mdash;horrible! Very bad in New England&mdash;infamous!
+ I might as well tell the truth about it&mdash;very bad! And then men went
+ to work, finally, to civilize their gods, to civilize heaven, to give
+ heaven the benefit of the freedom of this brave world. That's what we did.
+ We wanted to civilize religion&mdash;civilize what is known as
+ Christianity. And nothing on earth needed civilization more; and nothing
+ needs it more than that to-night. Civilization! I am not so much for the
+ freedom of religion as I am for the religion of freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there was a time when our ancestors&mdash;good people, away back, all
+ dead, no great regret expressed at this meeting on that account&mdash;there
+ was a time when our ancestors were happy in their belief that nearly
+ everybody was to be lost, and that a few, including themselves, were to be
+ saved. That religion, I say, fitted that time. It fitted their geology. It
+ was a very good running mate for their astronomy. It was a good match for
+ their chemistry. In other words, they were about equal in every department
+ of human ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And they insisted that there lived up there somewhere&mdash;generally up&mdash;exactly
+ where nobody has, I believe, yet said&mdash;a being, an infinite person
+ "without body, parts, or passions," and yet without passions he was angry
+ at the wicked every day; without body he inhabited a certain place; and
+ without parts he was, after all, in some strange and miraculous manner,
+ organized so that he thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I don't know that it is possible for anyone here&mdash;I don't know
+ that anyone here is gifted with imagination enough&mdash;to conceive of
+ such a being. Our fathers had not imagination enough to do so, at least,
+ and so they said of this God, that he loves and he hates; he punishes and
+ he rewards; and that religion has been described perfectly tonight by
+ Judge Wright as really making God a monster, and men poor, helpless
+ victims. And the highest possible conception of the orthodox man was,
+ finally, to be a good servant&mdash;just lucky enough to get in&mdash;feathers
+ somewhat singed, but enough left to fly. That was the idea of our fathers.
+ And then came these divisions, simply because men began to think.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And why did they begin to think? Because in every direction, in all
+ departments, they were getting more and more information. And then the
+ religion did not fit. When they found out something of the history of this
+ globe they found out that the Scriptures were not true. I will not say not
+ inspired, because I do not know whether they are inspired or not. It is a
+ question, to me, of no possible importance, whether they are inspired or
+ not. The question is: Are they true? If they are true, they do not need
+ inspiration; and if they are not true, inspiration will not help them. So
+ that is a matter that I care nothing about.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ On every hand, I say, they studied and thought. They began to grow&mdash;to
+ have new ideas of mercy, kindness, justice; new ideas of duty&mdash;new
+ ideas of life. The old gods, after we got past the civilization of the
+ Greeks, past their mythology&mdash;and it is the best mythology that man
+ has ever made&mdash;after we got past that, I say, the gods cared very
+ little about women. Women occupied no place in the state&mdash;no place by
+ the hearth, except one of subordination, and almost of slavery. So the
+ early churches made God after that image who held women in contempt. It
+ was only natural&mdash;I am not blaming anybody&mdash;they had to do it,
+ it was part of the <i>must!</i>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I say that we have advanced up to the point that we demand not only
+ intelligence, but justice and mercy, in the sky; we demand that&mdash;that
+ idea of God. Then comes my trouble. I want to be honest about it. Here is
+ my trouble&mdash;and I want it also understood that if I should see a man
+ praying to a stone image or to a stuffed serpent, with that man's wife or
+ daughter or son lying at the point of death, and that poor savage on his
+ knees imploring that image or that stuffed serpent to save his child or
+ his wife, there is nothing in my heart that could suggest the slightest
+ scorn, or any other feeling than that of sympathy; any other feeling than
+ that of grief that the stuffed serpent could not answer the prayer and
+ that the stone image did not feel; I want that understood. And wherever
+ man prays for the right&mdash;no matter to whom or to what he prays; where
+ he prays for strength to conquer the wrong, I hope his prayer may be
+ heard; and if I think there is no one else to hear it I will hear it, and
+ I am willing to help answer it to the extent of my power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I want it distinctly understood that that is my feeling. But here is my
+ trouble: I find this world made on a very cruel plan. I do not say it is
+ wrong&mdash;I just say that that is the way it seems to me. I may be wrong
+ myself, because this is the only world I was ever in; I am provincial.
+ This grain of sand and tear they call the earth is the only world I have
+ ever lived in. And you have no idea how little I know about the rest of
+ this universe; you never will know how little I know about it until you
+ examine your own minds on the same subject.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The plan is this: Life feeds on life. Justice does not always triumph:
+ Innocence is not a perfect shield. There is my trouble. No matter now,
+ whether you agree with me or not; I beg of you to be honest and fair with
+ me in your thought, as I am toward you in mine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hope, as devoutly as you, that there is a power somewhere in this
+ universe that will finally bring everything as it should be. I take a
+ little consolation in the "perhaps"&mdash;in the guess that this is only
+ one scene of a great drama, and that when the curtain rises on the fifth
+ act, if I live that long, I may see the coherence and the relation of
+ things. But up to the present writing&mdash;or speaking&mdash;I do not. I
+ do not understand it&mdash;a God that has life feed on life; every joy in
+ the world born of some agony! I do not understand why in this world, over
+ the Niagara of cruelty, should run this ocean of blood. I do not
+ understand it. And, then, why does not justice always triumph? Why is not
+ innocence a perfect shield? These are my troubles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose a man had control of the atmosphere, knew enough of the secrets of
+ nature, had read enough in "nature's infinite book of secrecy" so that he
+ could control the wind and rain; suppose a man had that power, and suppose
+ that last year he kept the rain from Russia and did not allow the crops to
+ ripen when hundreds of thousands were famishing and when little babes were
+ found with their lips on the breasts of dead mothers! What would you think
+ of such a man? Now, there is my trouble. If there be a God he understood
+ this. He knew when he withheld his rain that the famine would come. He saw
+ the dead mothers, he saw the empty breasts of death, and he saw the
+ helpless babes. There is my trouble. I am perfectly frank with you and
+ honest. That is my trouble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, understand me! I do not say there is no God. I do not know. As I told
+ you before, I have traveled but very little&mdash;only in this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want it understood that I do not pretend to know. I say I think. And in
+ my mind the idea expressed by Judge Wright so eloquently and so
+ beautifully is not exactly true. I cannot conceive of the God he endeavors
+ to describe, because he gives to that God will, purpose, achievement,
+ benevolence, love, and no form&mdash;no organization&mdash;no wants.
+ There's the trouble. No wants. And let me say why that is a trouble. Man
+ acts only because he wants. You civilize man by increasing his wants, or,
+ as his wants increase he becomes civilized. You find a lazy savage who
+ would not hunt an elephant tusk to save your life. But let him have a few
+ tastes of whiskey and tobacco, and he will run his legs off for tusks. You
+ have given him another want and he is willing to work. And they nearly all
+ started on the road toward Unitarianism&mdash;that is to say, toward
+ civilization&mdash;in that way. You must increase their wants.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The question arises: Can an infinite being want anything? If he does and
+ cannot get it, he is not happy. If he does not want anything, I cannot
+ help him. I am under no obligation to do anything for anybody who does not
+ need anything and who does not want anything. Now, there is my trouble. I
+ may be wrong, and I may get paid for it some time, but that is my trouble.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not see&mdash;admitting that all is true that has been said about the
+ existence of God&mdash;I do not see what I can do for him; and I do not
+ see either what he can do for me, judging by what he has done for others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then I come to the other point, that religion so-called, explains our
+ duties to this supposed being, when we do not even know that he exists;
+ and no human being has got imagination enough to describe him, or to use
+ such words that you understand what he is trying to say. I have listened
+ with great pleasure to Judge Wright this evening, and I have heard a great
+ many other beautiful things on the same subject&mdash;none better than
+ his. But I never understood them&mdash;never.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, then, what is religion? I say, religion is all here in this world&mdash;right
+ here&mdash;and that all our duties are right here to our fellow-men; that
+ the man that builds a home; marries the girl that he loves; takes good
+ care of her; likes the family; stays home nights, as a general thing; pays
+ his debts; tries to find out what he can; gets all the ideas and beautiful
+ things that his mind will hold; turns a part of his brain into a gallery
+ of fine arts; has a host of paintings and statues there; then has another
+ niche devoted to music&mdash;a magnificent dome, filled with winged notes
+ that rise to glory&mdash;now, the man who does that gets all he can from
+ the great ones dead; swaps all the thoughts he can with the ones that are
+ alive; true to the ideal that he has here in his brain&mdash;he is what I
+ call a religious man, because he makes the world better, happier; he puts
+ the dimples of joy in the cheeks of the ones he loves, and he lets the
+ gods run heaven to suit themselves. And I am not saying that he is right;
+ I do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is all the religion that I have; to make somebody else happier if I
+ can.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I divide this world into two classes&mdash;the cruel and the kind; and I
+ think a thousand times more of a kind man than I do of an intelligent man.
+ I think more of kindness than I do of genius, I think more of real, good,
+ human nature in that way&mdash;of one who is willing to lend a helping
+ hand and who goes through the world with a face that looks as if its owner
+ were willing to answer a decent question&mdash;I think a thousand times
+ more of that than I do of being theologically right; because I do not care
+ whether I am theologically right or not. It is something that is not worth
+ talking about, because it is something that I never, never, never shall
+ understand; and every one of you will die and you won't understand it
+ either&mdash;until after you die at any rate. I do not know what will
+ happen then.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not denying anything. There is another ideal, and it is a beautiful
+ ideal. It is the greatest dream that ever entered the heart or brain of
+ man&mdash;the Dream of Immortality. It was born of human affection. It did
+ not come to us from heaven. It was born of the human heart. And when he
+ who loved, kissed the lips of her who was dead, there came into his heart
+ the dream: We may meet again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, let me tell you, that hope of immortality never came from any
+ religion. That hope of immortality has helped make religion. It has been
+ the great oak around which have climbed the poisonous vines of
+ superstition&mdash;that hope of immortality is the great oak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet the moment a man expresses a doubt about the truth of Joshua or
+ Jonah or the other three fellows in a furnace, up hops some poor little
+ wretch and says, "Why, he doesn't want to live any more; he wants to die
+ and go down like a dog, and that is the end of him and his wife and
+ children." They really seem to think that the moment a man is what they
+ call an Infidel he has no affections, no heart, no feeling, no hope&mdash;nothing&mdash;nothing.
+ Just anxious to be annihilated! But, if the orthodox creed be true, I make
+ my choice to-night. I take hell. And if it is between hell and
+ annihilation, I take annihilation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I will tell you why I take hell in making the first choice. We have heard
+ from both of those places&mdash;heaven and hell. According to the New
+ Testament there was a rich man in hell, and a poor man, Lazarus, in
+ heaven. And there was another gentleman by the name of Abraham. The rich
+ man in hell was in flames, and he called for water, and they told him they
+ couldn't give him any. No bridge! But they did not express the slightest
+ regret that they could not give him any water. Mr. Abraham was not decent
+ enough to say he would if he could; no, sir; nothing. It did not make any
+ difference to him. But this rich man in hell&mdash;in torment&mdash;his
+ heart was all right, for he remembered his brothers; and he said to this
+ Abraham, "If you cannot go, why, send a man to my five brethren, so that
+ they will not come to this place!" Good fellow, to think of his five
+ brothers when he was burning up. Good fellow. Best fellow we ever heard
+ from on the other side&mdash;in either world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I say there is my place. And, incidentally, Abraham at that time gave
+ his judgment as to the value of miracles. He said, "Though one should
+ arise from the dead he wouldn't help your five brethren!" "There are Moses
+ and the prophets." No need of raising people from the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is my idea, in a general way, about religion; and I want the
+ imagination to go to work upon it, taking the perfections of one church,
+ of one school, of one system, and putting them together, just as the
+ sculptor makes a great statue by taking the eyes from one, the nose from
+ another, the limbs from another, and so on; just as they make a great
+ painting from a landscape by putting a river in this place, instead of
+ over there, changing the location of a tree and improving on what they
+ call nature&mdash;that is to say, simply by adding to, taking from; that
+ is all we can do. But let us go on doing that until there shall be a
+ church in sympathy with the best human heart and in harmony with the best
+ human brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And, what is more, let us have that religion for the world we live in.
+ Right here! Let us have that religion until it cannot be said that they
+ who do the most work have the least to eat. Let us have that religion here
+ until hundreds and thousands of women are not compelled to make a living
+ with the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor,"
+ and to live in tenements, in filth, where modesty is impossible.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I say, let us preach that religion here until men will be ashamed to have
+ forty or fifty millions, or any more than they need, while their brethren
+ lack bread&mdash;while their sisters die from want. Let us preach that
+ religion here until man will have more ambition to become wise and good
+ than to become rich and powerful. Let us preach that religion here among
+ ourselves until there are no abused and beaten wives. Let us preach that
+ religion until children are no longer afraid of their own parents and
+ until there is no back of a child bearing the scars of a father's lash.
+ Let us preach it, I say, until we understand and know that every man does
+ as he must, and that, if we want better men and women, we must have better
+ conditions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us preach this grand religion until everywhere, the world over, men
+ are just and kind to each other. And then, if there be another world, we
+ shall be prepared for it. And if I come into the presence of an infinite,
+ good, and wise being, he will say, "Well, you did the best you could. You
+ did very well, indeed. There is plenty of work for you to do here. Try and
+ get a little higher than you were before." Let us preach that one drop of
+ restitution is worth an ocean of repentance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And if there is a life of eternal progress before us, I shall be as glad
+ as any other angel to find that out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I will not sacrifice the world I have for one I know not of. I will
+ not live here in fear, when I do not know that that which I fear lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am going to live a perfectly free man. I am going to reap the harvest of
+ my mind, no matter how poor it is, whether it is wheat or corn or
+ worthless weeds. And I am going to scatter it. Some may "fall on stony
+ ground." But I think I have struck good soil to-night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you a thousand times for your
+ attention. I beg that you will forgive the time that I have taken, and
+ allow me to say, once more, that this event marks an epoch in Religious
+ Liberty in the United States.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0017" id="link0017">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ WESTERN SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC BANQUET.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Chicago, January 31, 1894.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Every soldier of the Army of the Potomac: remembers, the
+ colors that for two years floated over the headquarters of
+ Gen. Meade. Last night when one hundred and fifty men who
+ fought in that army gathered around the banquet board at the
+ Grand Pacific hotel a fac-simile of that flag floated over
+ them. It was a handsome guidon, on one side a field of
+ solferino red bearing a life-sized golden eagle surrounded
+ by a silver wreath of laurel; on the other were the national
+ colors with the names of the corps of the army.
+
+ The fifth annual banquet of the Western Society of the Army
+ of the Potomac will be remembered on account of the presence
+ of many distinguished men. The cigars had not been lighted
+ when Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, escorted by Gen. Newberry and
+ Col. Burbanks, came in. The bald head and sparse gray hair
+ of the famous orator were recognized by all, and he was
+ given a mighty welcome.
+
+ Save for the emblems of the Union and the fac-simile of Gen.
+ Meade's flag the decorations were simple. There were no
+ flowers, but the soldiers could read on little signs stuck
+ up around the tables such names as "Petersburg," "White
+ Oak," "Mine Run," "Cold Harbor," "Fair Oaks" and "South
+ Mountain." The exercises began and ended with bugle call and
+ military song, and the heroes of the Potomac showed that
+ they still remembered the words of the songs sung in camp.
+
+ Col. Freeman Connor, the retiring president, acted as
+ toastmaster. Seated near him were Maj.-Gen. Nelson Miles,
+ United States army; Gen. Newberry, Col. Ingersoll, Thomas B.
+ Bryan, Col. James A.. Sexton, Maj. E. A. Blodgett, Fred W.
+ Spink, Col. Williston and Maj. Heyle.
+
+ The exercises began with the singing of "America" by all
+ Col. Conner made a few remarks and then Col. C. S. McEntee
+ presented the new-comer to the society. When Colonel
+ Ingersoll was introduced, the veterans jumped up on chairs,
+ waved their handkerchiefs and greeted him with a mighty
+ shout. The Colonel spoke only fifteen minutes.
+
+ At the conclusion of Colonel Ingersoll's speech he was again
+ cheered for several minutes. A motion was made to make him
+ an honorary member of the Western Society of the Army of the
+ Potomac. The toastmaster in putting the question said: "All
+ who are in favor will rise and yell," and every comrade
+ yelled.
+
+ &mdash;Chicago Record, February 1, 1894.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ FIRST of all, I wish to thank you for allowing me to be present. Next, I
+ wish to congratulate you that you are all alive. I congratulate you that
+ you were born in this century, the greatest century in the world's
+ history, the greatest century of intellectual genius and of physical,
+ mental and moral progress that the world ever knew. I congratulate you all
+ that you are members of the Army of the Potomac. I believe that no better
+ army ever marched under the flag of any nation. There was no difficulty
+ that discouraged you; no defeat that disheartened you. For years you bore
+ the heat and burden of battle; for years you saw your comrades torn by
+ shot and shell, but wiping the tears, from your cheeks you marched on with
+ greater determination than ever to fight to the end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the Army of the Potomac belongs the eternal honor of having obtained
+ finally the sword of Rebellion. I congratulate you because you fought for
+ the Republic, and I thank you for your courage. For by you the United
+ States was kept on the map of the world, and our flag was kept floating.
+ If not for your work, neither would have been there. You removed from it
+ the only stain that was ever on it. You fought not only the battle of the
+ Union, but of the whole world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I congratulate you that you live in a period when the North has attained a
+ higher moral altitude than was ever attained by any nation. You now live
+ in a country which believes in absolute freedom for all. In this country
+ any man may reap what he sows and may give his honest thought to his
+ fellow-men. It is wonderful to think what this Nation was before the Army
+ of the Potomac came into existence. It believed in liberty as the convict
+ believes in liberty. It was a country where men that had honest thoughts
+ were ostracized. I thank you and your courage for what we are. Nothing
+ ennobles a man so much as fighting for the right. Whoever fights for the
+ wrong wounds himself. I believe that every man who fought in the Union
+ army came out a stronger and a better and a nobler man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in this country. I am so young and so full of enthusiasm that I
+ am a believer in National growth. I want this country to be territorial
+ and to become larger than it is. I want a country worthy of Chicago. I
+ want to pick up the West Indies, take in the Bermudas, the Bahamas and
+ Barbadoes. They are our islands. They belong to this continent and it is a
+ piece of impudence for any other nation to think of owning them. We want
+ to grow. Such is the extravagance of my ambition that I even want the
+ Sandwich Islands. They say that these islands are too far away from us;
+ that they are two thousand miles from our shores. But they are nearer to
+ our shores than to any other. I want them. I want a naval station there. I
+ want America to be mistress of the Pacific. Then there is another thing in
+ my mind. I want to grow North and South. I want Canada&mdash;good people&mdash;good
+ land. I want that country. I do not want to steal it, but I want it. I
+ want to go South with this Nation. My idea is this: There is only air
+ enough between the Isthmus of Panama and the North Pole for one flag. A
+ country that guarantees liberty to all cannot be too large. If any of
+ these people are ignorant, we will educate them; give them the benefit of
+ our free schools. Another thing&mdash;I might as well sow a few seeds for
+ next fall. I have heard many reasons why the South failed in the
+ Rebellion, and why with the help of Northern dissensions and a European
+ hatred the South did not succeed. I will tell you. In my judgment, the
+ South failed, not on account of its army, but from other conditions.
+ Luckily for us, the South had always been in favor of free trade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Secondly&mdash;The South raised and sold raw material, and when the war
+ came it had no foundries, no factories, and no looms to weave the cloth
+ for uniforms; no shops to make munitions of war, and it had to get what
+ supplies it could by running the blockade. We of the North had the cloth
+ to clothe our soldiers, shops to make our bayonets; we had all the curious
+ wheels that invention had produced, and had labor and genius, the power of
+ steam, and the water to make what we needed, and we did not require
+ anything from any other country. Suppose this whole country raised raw
+ material and shipped it out, we would be in the condition that the South
+ was. We want this Nation to be independent of the whole world. A nation to
+ be ready to settle questions of dispute by war should be in a condition of
+ absolute independence. For that reason I want all the wheels turning in
+ this country, all the chimneys full of fire, all the looms running, the
+ iron red hot everywhere. I want to see all mechanics having plenty of work
+ with good wages and good homes for their families, good food, schools for
+ their children, plenty of clothes, and enough to take care of a child if
+ it happens to take sick. I am for the independence of America, the growth
+ of America physically, mentally, and every other way. The time will come
+ when all nations combined cannot take that flag out of the sky. I want to
+ see this country so that if a deluge sweeps every other nation from the
+ face of the globe we would have all we want made right here by our
+ factories, by American brain and hand.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thank you that the Republic still lives. I thank you that we are all
+ lovers of freedom. I thank you for having helped establish a Government
+ where every child has an opportunity, and where every avenue of
+ advancement if open to all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0018" id="link0018">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF ANTON SEIDL.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, February 2, 1895.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MR. PRESIDENT, Mr. Anton Seidl, and Gentlemen: I was enjoying myself with
+ music and song; why I should be troubled, why I should be called upon to
+ trouble you, is a question I can hardly answer. Still, as the president
+ has remarked, the American people like to hear speeches. Why, I don't
+ know. It has always been a matter of amazement that anybody wanted to hear
+ me. Talking is so universal; with few exceptions&mdash;the deaf and dumb&mdash;everybody
+ seems to be in the business. Why they should be so anxious to hear a rival
+ I never could understand. But, gentlemen, we are all pupils of nature; we
+ are taught by the countless things that touch us on every side; by field
+ and flower and star and cloud and river and sea, where the waves break
+ into whitecaps, and by the prairie, and by the mountain that lifts its
+ granite forehead to the sun; all things in nature touch us, educate us,
+ sharpen us, cause the heart to bud, to burst, it may be, into blossom; to
+ produce fruit. In common with the rest of the world I have been educated a
+ little that way; by the things I have seen and by the things I have heard
+ and by the people I have met. But there are a few things that stand out in
+ my recollection as having touched me more deeply than others, a few men to
+ whom I feel indebted for the little I know, and for the little I happen to
+ be. Those men, those things, are forever present in my mind. But I want to
+ tell you to-night that the first man that let up the curtain in my mind,
+ that ever opened a blind, that ever allowed a little sunshine to straggle
+ in, was Robert Burns. I went to get my shoes mended, and I had to go with
+ them. And I had to wait till they were done. I was like the fellow
+ standing by the stream naked washing his shirt. A lady and gentleman were
+ riding by in a carriage, and upon seeing him the man indignantly shouted,
+ "Why don't you put on another shirt when you are washing one?" The fellow
+ said, "I suppose you think I've got a hundred shirts!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I went into the shop of the old Scotch shoemaker he was reading a
+ book, and when he took my shoes in hand I took his book, which was "Robert
+ Burns." In a few days I had a copy; and, indeed, gentlemen, from that time
+ if "Burns" had been destroyed I could have restored more than half of it.
+ It was in my mind day and night. Burns you know is a little valley, not
+ very wide, but full of sunshine; a little stream runs down making music
+ over the rocks, and children play upon the banks; narrow roads overrun
+ with vines, covered with blossoms, happy children, the hum of bees, and
+ little birds pour out their hearts and enrich the air. That is Burns.
+ Then, you must know that I was raised respectably. Certain books were not
+ thought to be good for the young person; only such books as would start
+ you in the narrow road for the New Jerusalem. But one night I stopped at a
+ little hotel in Illinois, many years ago, when we were not quite
+ civilized, when the footsteps of the red man were still in the prairies.
+ While I was waiting for supper an old man was reading from a book, and
+ among others who were listening was myself. I was filled with wonder. I
+ had never heard anything like it. I was ashamed to ask him what he was
+ reading; I supposed that an intelligent boy ought to know. So I waited,
+ and when the little bell rang for supper I hung back and they went out. I
+ picked up the book; it was Sam Johnson's edition of Shakespeare. The next
+ day I bought a copy for four dollars. My God! more than the national debt.
+ You talk about the present straits of the Treasury! For days, for nights,
+ for months, for years, I read those books, two volumes, and I commenced
+ with the introduction. I haven't read that introduction for nearly fifty
+ years, certainly forty-five, but I remember it still. Other writers are
+ like a garden diligently planted and watered, but Shakespeare a forest
+ where the oaks and elms toss their branches to the storm, where the pine
+ towers, where the vine bursts into blossom at its foot. That book opened
+ to me a new world, another nature. While Burns was the valley, here was a
+ range of mountains with thousands of such valleys; while Burns was as
+ sweet a star as ever rose into the horizon, here was a heaven filled with
+ constellations. That book has been a source of perpetual joy to me from
+ that day to this; and whenever I read Shakespeare&mdash;if it ever happens
+ that I fail to find some new beauty, some new presentation of some
+ wonderful truth, or another word that bursts into blossom, I shall make up
+ my mind that my mental faculties are failing, that it is not the fault of
+ the book. Those, then, are two things that helped to educate me a little.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Afterward I saw a few paintings by Rembrandt, and all at once I was
+ overwhelmed with the genius of the man that could convey so much thought
+ in form and color. Then I saw a few landscapes by Corot, and I began to
+ think I knew something about art. During all my life, of course, like
+ other people, I had heard what they call music, and I had my favorite
+ pieces, most of those favorite pieces being favorites on account of
+ association; and nine-tenths of the music that is beautiful to the world
+ is beautiful because of the association, not because the music is good,
+ but because of association.. We cannot write a very poetic thing about a
+ pump or about water works; they are not old enough.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We can write a poetic thing about a well and a sweep and an old
+ moss-covered bucket, and you can write a poem about a spring, because a
+ spring seems a gift of nature, something that cost no trouble and no work,
+ something that will sing of nature under the quiet stars of June. So, it
+ is poetic on account of association. The stage coach is more poetic than
+ the car, but the time will come when cars will be poetic, because human
+ feelings, love's remembrances, will twine around them, and consequently
+ they will become beautiful. There are two pieces of music, "The Last Rose
+ of Summer," and "Home Sweet Home," with the music a little weak in the
+ back; but association makes them both beautiful. So, in the "Marseillaise"
+ is the French Revolution, that whirlwind and flame of war, of heroism the
+ highest possible, of generosity, of self-denial, of cruelty, of all of
+ which the human heart and brain are capable; so that music now sounds as
+ though its notes were made of stars, and it is beautiful mostly by
+ association.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I always felt that there must be some greater music somewhere,
+ somehow. You know this little music that comes back with recurring
+ emphasis every two inches or every three-and-a-half inches; I thought
+ there ought to be music somewhere with a great sweep from horizon to
+ horizon, and that could fill the great dome of sound with winged notes
+ like the eagle; if there was not such music, somebody, sometime, would
+ make it, and I was waiting for it. One day I heard it, and I said, "What
+ music is that?" "Who wrote that?" I felt it everywhere. I was cold. I was
+ almost hysterical. It answered to my brain, to my heart; not only to
+ association, but to all there was of hope and aspiration, all my future;
+ and they said this is the music of Wagner. I never knew one note from
+ another&mdash;of course I would know it from a promissory note&mdash;and
+ was utterly and absolutely ignorant of music until I heard Wagner
+ interpreted by the greatest leader, in my judgment, in the world&mdash;Anton
+ Seidl. He not only understands Wagner in the brain, but he feels him in
+ the heart, and there is in his blood the same kind of wild and splendid
+ independence that was in the brain of Wagner. I want to say to-night,
+ because there are so many heresies, Mr. President, creeping into this
+ world, I want to say and say it with all my might, that Robert Burns was
+ not Scotch. He was far wider than Scotland: he had in him the universal
+ tide, and wherever it touches the shore of a human being it finds access.
+ Not Scotch, gentlemen, but a man, a man! I can swear to it, or rather
+ affirm, that Shakespeare was not English, but another man, kindred of all,
+ of all races and peoples, and who understood the universal brain and heart
+ of the human race, and who had imagination enough to put himself in the
+ place of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so I want to say to-night, because I want to be consistent, Richard
+ Wagner was not a German, and his music is not German; and why? Germany
+ would not have it. Germany denied that it was music. The great German
+ critics said it was nothing in the world but noise. The best interpreter
+ of Wagner in the world is not German, and no man has to be German to
+ understand Richard Wagner. In the heart of nearly every man is an &#65533;?olian
+ harp, and when the breath of true genius touches that harp, every man that
+ has one, or that knows what music is or has the depth and height of
+ feeling necessary to appreciate it, appreciates Richard Wagner. To
+ understand that music, to hear it as interpreted by this great leader, is
+ an education. It develops the brain; it gives to the imagination wings;
+ the little earth grows larger; the people grow important; and not only
+ that, it civilizes the heart; and the man who understands that music can
+ love better and with greater intensity than he ever did before. The man
+ who understands and appreciates that music, becomes in the highest sense
+ spiritual&mdash;and I don't mean by spiritual, worshiping some phantom, or
+ dwelling upon what is going to happen to some of us&mdash;I mean spiritual
+ in the highest sense; when a perfume arises from the heart in gratitude,
+ and when you feel that you know what there is of beauty, of sublimity, of
+ heroism and honor and love in the human heart. This is what I mean by
+ being spiritual. I don't mean denying yourself here and living on a crust
+ with the expectation of eternal joy&mdash;that is not what I mean. By
+ spiritual I mean a man that has an ideal, a great ideal, and who is
+ splendid enough to live to that ideal; that is what I mean by spiritual.
+ And the man who has heard the music of Wagner, that music of love and
+ death, the greatest music, in my judgment, that ever issued from the human
+ brain, the man who has heard that and understands it has been civilized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another man to whom I feel under obligation whose name I do not know&mdash;I
+ know Burns, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and Wagner, but there are some other
+ fellows whose names I do not know&mdash;is he who chiseled the Venus de
+ Milo. This man helped to civilize the world; and there is nothing under
+ the sun so pathetic as the perfect. Whoever creates the perfect has
+ thought and labored and suffered; and no perfect thing has ever been done
+ except through suffering and except through the highest and holiest
+ thought, and among this class of men is Wagner. Let me tell you something
+ more. You know I am a great believer. There is no man in the world who
+ believes more in human nature than I do. No man believes more in the
+ nobility and splendor of humanity than I do; no man feels more grateful
+ than I to the self-denying, heroic, splendid souls who have made this
+ world fit for ladies and gentlemen to live in. But I believe that the
+ human mind has reached its top in three departments. I don't believe the
+ human race&mdash;no matter if it lives millions of years more upon this
+ wheeling world&mdash;I don't believe the human race will ever produce in
+ the world anything greater, sublimer, than the marbles of the Greeks. I do
+ not believe it. I believe they reach absolutely the perfection of form and
+ the expression of force and passion in stone. The Greeks made marble as
+ sensitive as flesh and as passionate as blood. I don't believe that any
+ human being of any coming race&mdash;no matter how many suns may rise and
+ set, or how many religions may rise and fall, or how many languages be
+ born and decay&mdash;I don't believe any human being will ever excel the
+ dramas of Shakespeare. Neither do I believe that the time will ever come
+ when any man with such instruments of music as we now have, and having
+ nothing but the common air that we now breathe, will ever produce greater
+ pictures in sound, greater music, than Wagner. Never! Never! And I don't
+ believe he will ever have a better interpreter than Anton Seidl. Seidl is
+ a poet in sound, a sculptor in sound. He is what you might call an
+ orchestral orator, and as such he expresses the deepest feelings, the
+ highest aspirations and the in-tensest and truest love of which the brain
+ and heart of man are capable.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I am glad, I am delighted, that the people here in this city and in
+ various other cities of our great country are becoming civilized enough to
+ appreciate these harmonies; I am glad they are civilized at last enough to
+ know that the home of music is tone, not tune; that the home of music is
+ in harmonies where you braid them like rainbows; I am glad they are great
+ enough and civilized enough to appreciate the music of Wagner, the
+ greatest music in this world. Wagner sustains the same relation to other
+ composers that Shakespeare does to other dramatists, and any other
+ dramatist compared with Shakespeare is like one tree compared with an
+ immeasurable forest, or rather like one leaf compared with a forest; and
+ all the other composers of the world are embraced in the music of Wagner.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Nobody has written anything more tender than he, nobody anything sublimer
+ than he. Whether it is the song of the deep, or the warble of the mated
+ bird, nobody has excelled Wagner; he has expressed all that the human
+ heart is capable of appreciating. And now, gentlemen, having troubled you
+ long enough, and saying long live Anton Seidl, I bid you good-night."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0019" id="link0019">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF REAR ADMIRAL SCHLEY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, November 26, 1898.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The Lotos Club did honor to Rear Admiral Winfield Scott
+ Schley, and incidentally, to the United States, at its
+ clubhouse in Fifth Avenue last night. All day long the
+ square, blue pennant, blazoned with the two stars of a Rear
+ Admiral, snapped in the wind, signifying to all who saw it
+ that the Lotos Clubhouse was for the time being the flagship
+ of the erstwhile Flying Squadron.
+
+ Within the home of the club were gathered men who like the
+ guest of the evening were prominent in the war with Spain,
+ The navy was represented by Capt. Charles D. Sigs-Dee, Capt.
+ A. T. Mahan and Captain Goodrich. From the army there was
+ Brig. Gen. W F. Randolph, and from civil life many men
+ prominent in the business, professional and social life of
+ the city. The one impulse that led these men to brave the
+ storm was their desire to pay their respects to one of the
+ men who had done so much to win laurels for the American
+ arms.
+
+ The parlors and dining rooms of the clubhouse wore thrown
+ into one in order to accommodate the three hundred men
+ present fit the dinner. Smilax covered the walls, save hero
+ and there where the American flag was draped in graceful
+ folds. From the archway under which the table of honor was
+ spread, hung a large National ensign and a Rear Admiral's
+ pennant.
+
+ The menu was unique. Etched on a cream-tinted paper appeared
+ an open nook, and on the tops of the pages was inscribed,
+ "Logge of the Goode Ship Lotos." "Dinner to Rear Admiral
+ Winfield Scott Schley, given in the cabin of ye Shippe, Nov.
+ 26, l898, Lat. 40 degrees 42 minutes 43 seconds north;
+ longitude, 74 degrees 3 seconds west."
+
+ On each side of the menu was stretched a string of signal
+ flags, giving the orders made famous by Admiral Schley in
+ the naval engagement of July 3, 1898. On the second page of
+ the menu was a fine etching of the Brooklyn, Admiral
+ Schley's flagship. The souvenir menu was inclosed in blue
+ paper, upon which were two white stars, the whole
+ representing Rear Admiral Schley's pennant.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ MR.PRESIDENT, Gentlemen of the Club&mdash;Boys: I congratulate all of you
+ and I congratulate myself, and I will tell you why. In the first place, we
+ were well born, and we were all born rich, all of us. We belong to a great
+ race. That is something; that is having a start, to feel that in your
+ veins flows heroic blood, blood that has accomplished great things and has
+ planted the flag of victory on the field of war. It is a great thing to
+ belong to a great race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I congratulate you and myself on another thing; we were born in a great
+ nation, and you can't be much of a man without having a nation behind you,
+ with you; Just think about it! What would Shakespeare have been, if he had
+ been born in Labrador? I used to know an old lawyer in southern Illinois,
+ a smart old chap, who mourned his unfortunate surroundings. He lived in
+ Pinkneyville, and occasionally drank a little too freely of Illinois wine;
+ and when in his cups he sometimes grew philosophic and egotistic. He said
+ one day, "Boys, I have got more brains than you have, I have, but I have
+ never had a chance. I want you just to think of it. What would Daniel
+ Webster have been, by God, if he had settled in Pinkneyville?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I congratulate you all that you were born in a great nation, born rich;
+ and why do I say rich? Because you fell heir to a great, expressive,
+ flexible language; that is one thing. What could a man do who speaks a
+ poor language, a language of a few words that you could almost count on
+ your fingers? What could he do? You were born heirs to a great literature,
+ the greatest in the world&mdash;in all the world. All the literature of
+ Greece and Rome would not make one act of "Hamlet." All the literature of
+ the ancient world added to all of the modern world, except England, would
+ not equal the literature that we have. We were born to it, heirs to that
+ vast intellectual possession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I say you were all born rich, all. And then you were very fortunate in
+ being born in this country, where people have some rights, not as many as
+ they should have, not as many as they would have if it were not for the
+ preachers, may be, but where we have some; and no man yet was ever great
+ unless a great drama was being played on some great stage and he got a
+ part. Nature deals you a hand, and all she asks is for you to have the
+ sense to play it. If no hand is dealt to you, you win no money. You must
+ have the opportunity, must be on the stage, and some great drama must be
+ there. Take it in our own country. The Revolutionary war was a drama, and
+ a few great actors appeared; the War of 1812 was another, and a few
+ appeared; the Civil war another. Where would have been the heroes whose
+ brows we have crowned with laurel had there been no Civil war? What would
+ have become of Lincoln, a lawyer in a country town? What would have become
+ of Grant? He would have been covered with the mantle of absolute
+ obscurity, tucked in at all the edges, his name never heard of by any
+ human being not related to him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, you have got to have the chance, and you cannot create it. I heard a
+ gentleman say here a few minutes ago that this war could have been
+ averted. That is not true. I am not doubting his veracity, but rather his
+ philosophy. Nothing ever happened beneath the dome of heaven that could
+ have been avoided. Everything that is possible happens. That may not suit
+ all the creeds, but it is true. And everything that is possible will
+ continue to happen. The war could not have been averted, and the thing
+ that makes me glad and proud is that it was not averted. I will tell you
+ why.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was the first war in the history of this world that was waged
+ unselfishly for the good of others; the first war. Almost anybody will
+ fight for himself; a great many people will fight for their country, their
+ fellow-men, their fellow-citizens; but it requires something besides
+ courage to fight for the rights of aliens; it requires not only courage,
+ but principle and the highest morality. This war was waged to compel Spain
+ to take her bloody hands from the throat of Cuba. That is exactly what it
+ was waged for. Another great drama was put upon the boards, another play
+ was advertised, and the actors had their opportunity. Had there been no
+ such war, many of the actors would never have been heard of.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the thing is to take advantage of the occasion when it arrives. In
+ this war we added to the greatness and the glory of our history. That is
+ another thing that we all fell heirs to&mdash;the history of our people,
+ the history of our Nation. We fell heirs to all the great and grand things
+ that had been accomplished, to all the great deeds, to the splendid
+ achievements either in the realm of mind or on the field of battle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then there was another great drama. The first thing we knew, a man in the
+ far Pacific, a gentleman from Vermont, sailed one May morning into the bay
+ of Manila, and the next news was that the Spanish fleet had been beached,
+ burned, destroyed, and nothing had happened to him. I have read a little
+ history, not much, and a good deal that I have read was not true. I have
+ read something about our own navy, not much. I recollect when I was a boy
+ my hero was John Paul Jones; he covered the ocean; and afterward I knew of
+ Hull and Perry and Decatur and Bainbridge and a good many others that I
+ don't remember now. And then came the Civil war, and I remember a little
+ about Farragut, a great Admiral, as great as ever trod a deck, in my
+ judgment. And I have also read about other admirals and sailors of the
+ world. I knew something of Drake and I have read the "Life of Nelson" and
+ several other sea dogs; but when I got the news from Manila I said, "There
+ is the most wonderful victory ever won upon the sea;" and I did not think
+ it would ever be paralleled. I thought such things come one in a box. But
+ a little while afterward another of Spain's fleets was heard from. Oh,
+ those Spaniards! They have got the courage of passion, but that is not the
+ highest courage. They have got plenty of that; but it is necessary to be
+ coolly courageous, and to have the brain working with the accuracy of an
+ engine&mdash;courageous, I don't care how mad you get, but there must not
+ be a cloud in the heaven of your judgment. That is Anglo-Saxon courage,
+ and there is no higher type. The Spaniards sprinkled the holy water on
+ their guns, then banged away and left it to the Holy Ghost to direct the
+ rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another fleet, at Santiago, ventured out one day, and another great
+ victory was won by the American Navy. I don't know which victory was the
+ more wonderful, that at Manila Bay or that at Santiago. The Spanish ships
+ were, some of them, of the best class and type, and had fine guns, yet in
+ a few moments they were wrecks on the shore of defeat, gone, lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, when I used to read about these things in the olden times, what ideas
+ I had of the hero! I never expected to see one; and yet to-night I have
+ the happiness of dining with one, with one whose name is associated with
+ as great a victory, in my judgment, as was ever won; a victory that
+ required courage, intelligence, that power of will that holds itself firm
+ until the thing sought has been accomplished; and that has my greatest
+ admiration. I thank Admiral Schley for having enriched my country, for
+ having added a little to my own height, to my own pride, so that I utter
+ the word America with a little more unction than I ever did before, and
+ the old flag looks a little brighter, better, and has an added glory. When
+ I see it now, it looks as if the air had burst into blossom, and it stands
+ for all that he has accomplished.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Admiral Schley has added not only to our wealth, but to the wealth of the
+ children yet unborn that are going to come into the great heritage not
+ only of wealth, but of the highest possible riches, glory, honor,
+ achievement. That is the reason I congratulate you to-night. And I
+ congratulate you on another thing, that this country has entered upon the
+ great highway, I believe, of progress. I believe that the great nation has
+ the sentiment, the feeling of growth. The successful farmer wants to buy
+ the land adjoining him; the great nation loves to see its territory
+ increase. And what has been our history? Why, when we bought Louisiana
+ from Napoleon, in 1803, thousands of people were opposed to "imperialism,"
+ to expansion; the poor old moss-backs were opposed to it. When we bought
+ Florida, it was the same. When we took the vast West from Mexico in 1848
+ it was the same. When we took Alaska it was the same. Now, is anybody in
+ favor of modifying that sentiment?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have annexed Hawaii, and we have got the biggest volcano in the
+ business. A man I know visited that volcano some years ago and came back
+ and told me about his visit. He said that at the little hotel they had a
+ guest-book in which the people wrote their feelings on seeing the volcano
+ in action. "Now," he said, "I will tell you this so that you may know how
+ you are spreading out yourself. One man had written in that book, 'if Bob
+ Ingersoll were here, I think he would change his mind about hell.'"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want that volcano. I want the Philippines. It would be simply infamous
+ to hand those people back to the brutality of Spain. Spain has been
+ Christianizing them for about four hundred years. The first thing the poor
+ devils did was to sign a petition asking for the expulsion of the priests.
+ That was their idea of the commencement of liberty. They are not quite so
+ savage as some people imagine. I want those islands; I want all of them,
+ and I don't know that I disagree with the Rev. Mr. Slicer as to the use we
+ can put them to. I don't know that they will be of any use, but I want
+ them; they might come handy. And I wanted to pick up the small change, the
+ Ladrones and the Carolines. I am glad we have got Porto Rico. I don't know
+ as it will be of any use, but there's no harm in having the title. I want
+ Cuba whenever Cuba wants us, and I favor the idea of getting her in the
+ notion of wanting us. I want it in the interest, as I believe, of
+ humanity, of progress; in other words, of human liberty. That is what the
+ war was waged for, and the fact that it was waged for that, gives an
+ additional glory to these naval officers and to the officers in the army.
+ They fought in the first righteous war; I mean righteous in the sense that
+ we fought for the liberty of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, gentlemen, I feel that we have all honored ourselves to-night by
+ honoring Rear Admiral Schley. I want you to know that long after we are
+ dead and long after the Admiral has ceased to sail, he will be remembered,
+ and in the constellation of glory one of the brightest stars will stand
+ for the name of Winfield Scott Schley, as brave an officer as ever sailed
+ a ship. I am glad I am here to-night, and again, gentlemen, I congratulate
+ you all upon being here. I congratulate you that you belong to this race,
+ to this nation, and that you are equal heirs in the glory of the great
+ Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0020" id="link0020">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, June 5, 1888.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MR. PRESIDENT, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have addressed, or annoyed, a great
+ many audiences in my life and I have not the slightest doubt that I stand
+ now before more ability, a greater variety of talent, and more real genius
+ than I ever addressed in my life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know all about respectable stupidity, and I am perfectly acquainted with
+ the brainless wealth and success of this life, and I know, after all, how
+ poor the world would be without that divine thing that we call genius&mdash;what
+ a worthless habitation, if you take from it all that genius has given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know also that all joy springs from a love of nature. I know that all
+ joy is what I call Pagan. The natural man takes delight in everything that
+ grows, in everything that shines, in everything that enjoys&mdash;he has
+ an immense sympathy with the whole human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of that feeling, of that spirit, the drama is born. People must first be
+ in love with life before they can think it worth representing. They must
+ have sympathy with their fellows before they can enter into their feelings
+ and know what their heart throbs about. So, I say, back of the drama is
+ this love of life, this love of nature. And whenever a country becomes
+ prosperous&mdash;and this has been pointed cut many times&mdash;when a
+ wave of wealth runs over a land,&mdash;behind it you will see all the sons
+ and daughters of genius. When a man becomes of some account he is worth
+ painting. When by success and prosperity he gets the pose of a victor, the
+ sculptor is inspired; and when love is really in his heart, words burst
+ into blossom and the poet is born. When great virtues appear, when
+ magnificent things are done by heroines and heroes, then the stage is
+ built, and the life of a nation is compressed into a few hours, or&mdash;to
+ use the language of the greatest&mdash;"turning the accomplishment of many
+ years into an hour-glass"; the stage is born, and we love it because we
+ love life&mdash;and he who loves the stage has a kind of double life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The drama is a crystallization of history, an epitome of the human heart.
+ The past is lived again and again, and we see upon the stage, love,
+ sacrifice, fidelity, courage&mdash;all the virtues mingled with all the
+ follies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And what is the great thing that the stage does? It cultivates the
+ imagination. And let me say now, that the imagination constitutes the
+ great difference between human beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The imagination is the mother of pity, the mother of generosity, the
+ mother of every possible virtue. It is by the imagination that you are
+ enabled to put yourself in the place of another. Every dollar that has
+ been paid into your treasury came from an imagination vivid enough to
+ imagine himself or herself lying upon the lonely bed of pain, or as having
+ fallen by the wayside of life, dying alone. It is this imagination that
+ makes the difference in men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Do you believe that a man would plunge the dagger into the heart of
+ another if he had imagination enough to see him dead&mdash;imagination
+ enough to see his widow throw her arms about the corpse and cover his face
+ with sacred tears&mdash;imagination enough to see them digging his grave,
+ and to see the funeral and to hear the clods fall upon the coffin and the
+ sobs of those who stood about&mdash;do you believe he would commit the
+ crime? Would any man be false who had imagination enough to see the woman
+ that he once loved, in the darkness of night, when the black clouds were
+ floating through the sky hurried by the blast as thoughts and memories
+ were hurrying through her poor brain&mdash;if he could see the white
+ flutter of her garment as she leaped to the eternal, blessed sleep of
+ death&mdash;do you believe that he would be false to her? I tell you that
+ he would be true.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So that, in my judgment, the great mission of the stage is to cultivate
+ the human imagination. That is the reason fiction has done so much good.
+ Compared with the stupid lies-called history, how beautiful are the
+ imagined things with painted wings. Everybody detests a thing that
+ pretends to be true and is not; but when it says, "I am about to create,"
+ then it is beautiful in the proportion that it is artistic, in the
+ proportion that it is a success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagination is the mother of enthusiasm. Imagination fans the little spark
+ into a flame great enough to warm the human race; and enthusiasm is to the
+ mind what spring is to the world. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now I am going to say a few words because I want to, and because I have
+ the chance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is known as "orthodox religion" has always been the enemy of the
+ theatre. It has been the enemy of every possible comfort, of every
+ rational joy&mdash;that is to say, of amusement. And there is a reason for
+ this. Because, if that religion be true, there should be no amusement. If
+ you believe that in every moment is the peril of eternal pain&mdash;do not
+ amuse yourself. Stop the orchestra, ring down the curtain, and be as
+ miserable as you can. That idea puts an infinite responsibility upon the
+ soul&mdash;an infinite responsibility&mdash;and how can there be any art,
+ how can there be any joy, after that? You might as well pile all the Alps
+ on one unfortunate ant, and then say, "Why don't you play? Enjoy
+ yourself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If that doctrine be true, every one should regard time as a kind of dock,
+ a pier running out into the ocean of eternity, on which you sit on your
+ trunk and wait for the ship of death&mdash;solemn, lugubrious, melancholy
+ to the last degree.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And that is why I have said joy is Pagan. It comes from a love of nature,
+ from a love of this world, from a love of this life. According to the idea
+ of some good people, life is a kind of green-room, where you are getting
+ ready for a "play" in some other country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You all remember the story of "Great Expectations," and I presume you have
+ all had them. That is another thing about this profession of acting that I
+ like&mdash;you do not know how it is coming out&mdash;and there is this
+ delightful uncertainty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You have all read the book called "Great Expectations," written, in my
+ judgment, by the greatest novelist that ever wrote the English language&mdash;the
+ man who created a vast realm of joy. I love the joy-makers&mdash;not the
+ solemn, mournful wretches. And when I think of the church asking something
+ of the theatre, I remember that story of "Great Expectations." You
+ remember Miss Haversham&mdash;she was to have been married some fifty or
+ sixty years before that time&mdash;sitting there in the darkness, in all
+ of her wedding finery, the laces having turned yellow by time, the old
+ wedding cake crumbled, various insects having made it their palatial
+ residence&mdash;you remember that she sent for that poor little boy Pip,
+ and when he got there in the midst of all these horrors, she looked at him
+ and said, "Pip, play!" And if their doctrine be true, every actor is in
+ that situation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have always loved the theatre&mdash;loved the stage, simply because it
+ has added to the happiness of this life. "Oh, but," they say, "is it
+ moral?" A superstitious man suspects everything that is pleasant. It seems
+ inbred in his nature, and in the nature of most people. You let such a man
+ pull up a little weed and taste it, and if it is sweet and good, he says,
+ "I'll bet it is poison." But if it tastes awful, so that his face becomes
+ a mask of disgust, he says, "I'll bet you that it is good medicine."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I believe that everything in the world that tends to make man happy,
+ is moral. That is my definition of morality. Anything that bursts into bud
+ and blossom, and bears the fruit of joy, is moral.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some people expect to make the world good by destroying desire&mdash;by a
+ kind of pious petrifaction, feeling that if you do not want anything, you
+ will not want anything bad. In other words, you will be good and moral if
+ you will only stop growing, stop wishing, turn all your energies in the
+ direction of repression, and if from the tree of life you pull every leaf,
+ and then every bud&mdash;and if an apple happens to get ripe in spite of
+ you, don't touch it&mdash;snakes!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I insist that happiness is the end&mdash;virtue the means&mdash;and
+ anything that wipes a tear from the face of man is good. Everything that
+ gives laughter to the world&mdash;laughter springing from good nature,
+ that is the most wonderful music that has ever enriched the ears of man.
+ And let me say that nothing can be more immoral than to waste your own
+ life, and sour that of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is the theatre moral? I suppose you have had an election to-day. They had
+ an election at the Metropolitan Opera House for bishops, and they voted
+ forged tickets; and after the election was over, I suppose they asked the
+ old question in the same solemn tone: "Is the theatre moral?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last, all the intelligence of the world admits that the theatre is a
+ great, a splendid instrumentality for increasing the well-being of man.
+ But only a few years ago our fathers were poor barbarians. They only
+ wanted the essentials of life, and through nearly all the centuries Genius
+ was a vagabond&mdash;Art was a servant. He was the companion of the clown.
+ Writers, poets, actors, either sat "below the salt" or devoured the
+ "remainder biscuit," and drank what drunkenness happened to leave, or
+ lived on crumbs, and they had less than the crumbs of respect. The painter
+ had to have a patron, and then in order to pay the patron, he took the
+ patron's wife for Venus&mdash;and the man, he was the Apollo! So the
+ writer had to have a patron, and he endeavored to immortalize him in a
+ preface of obsequious lies. The writer had no courage. The painter, the
+ sculptor&mdash;poor wretches&mdash;had "patrons." Some of the greatest of
+ the world were treated as servants, and yet they were the real kings of
+ the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now the public is the patron. The public has the intelligence to see what
+ it wants. The stage does not have to flatter any man. The actor now does
+ not enroll himself as the servant of duke or lord. He has the great
+ public, and if he is a great actor, he stands as high in the public
+ estimation as any other man in any other walk of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And these men of genius, these "vagabonds," these "sturdy vagrants" of the
+ old law&mdash;and let me say one thing right here: I do not believe that
+ there ever was a man of genius that had not a little touch of the vagabond
+ in him somewhere&mdash;just a little touch of chaos&mdash;that is to say,
+ he must have generosity enough now and then absolutely to forget himself&mdash;he
+ must be generous to that degree that he starts out without thinking of the
+ shore and without caring for the sea&mdash;and that is that touch of
+ chaos. And yet, through all those years the poets and the actors lacked
+ bread. Imagine the number of respectable dolts who felt above them. The
+ men of genius lived on the bounty of the few, grudgingly given.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, just think what would happen, what we would be, if you could blot
+ from this world what these men have done. If you could take from the walls
+ the pictures; from the niches the statues; from the memory of man the
+ songs that have been sung by "The Plowman"&mdash;take from the memory of
+ the world what has been done by the actors and play-writers, and this
+ great globe would be like a vast skull emptied of all thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And let me say one word more, and that is as to the dignity of your
+ profession.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The greatest genius of this world has produced your literature. I am not
+ now alluding simply to one&mdash;but there has been more genius lavished
+ upon the stage&mdash;more real genius, more creative talent, than upon any
+ other department of human effort. And when men and women belong to a
+ profession that can count Shakespeare in its number, they should feel
+ nothing but pride.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing gives me more pleasure than to speak of Shakespeare&mdash;Shakespeare,
+ in whose brain were the fruits of all thoughts past, the seeds of all to
+ be&mdash;Shakespeare, an intellectual ocean toward which all rivers ran,
+ and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew
+ and rain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A profession that can boast that Shakespeare was one of its members, and
+ that from his brain poured out that mighty intellectual cataract&mdash;that
+ Mississippi that will enrich all coming generations&mdash;the man that
+ belongs to that profession&mdash;should feel that no other man by reason
+ of belonging to some other, can be his superior.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And such a man, when he dies&mdash;or the friend of such a man, when that
+ man dies&mdash;should not imagine that it is a very generous and liberal
+ thing for some minister to say a few words above the corpse&mdash;and I do
+ not want to see this profession cringe before any other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One word more. I hope that you will sustain this splendid charity. I do
+ not believe that more generous people exist than actors. I hope you will
+ sustain this charity. And yet, there was one little thing I saw in your
+ report of last year, that I want to call attention to. You had "benefits"
+ all over this country, and of the amount raised, one hundred and
+ twenty-five thousand dollars were given to religious societies and twelve
+ thousand dollars to the Actors' Fund&mdash;and yet they say actors are not
+ Christians! Do you not love your enemies? After this, I hope that you will
+ also love your friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0021" id="link0021">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CHILDREN OF THE STAGE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, March 23, 1899.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was the special star among stars
+ at the benefit given yesterday afternoon at the Fifth Avenue
+ Theatre for the Actors' Fund. There were a great many other
+ stars and a very long programme. The consequence was that
+ the performance began before one o'clock and was not over
+ until almost dinner time.
+
+ Usually in such cases the least important performers are
+ placed at the beginning and the audience straggles in
+ leisurely without worrying a great deal over what it has
+ missed. Yesterday, however, it had been announced in advance
+ that Col. Ingersoll would start the ball a-rolling and the
+ result was that before the overture was finished the house
+ was packed to the doors.
+
+ Col. Ingersoll's contribution was a short address delivered
+ in his characteristic style of florid eloquence.&mdash;The World,
+ New York, March 24, 1899.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Disguise it as we may, we live in a frightful world, with evils, with
+ enemies, on every side. From the hedges along the path of life, leap the
+ bandits that murder and destroy; and every human being, no matter how
+ often he escapes, at last will fall beneath the assassin's knife.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To change the figure: We are all passengers on the train of life. The
+ tickets give the names of the stations where we boarded the car, but the
+ destination is unknown. At every station some passengers, pallid,
+ breathless, dead, are put away, and some with the light of morning in
+ their eyes, get on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To change the figure again: On the wide sea of life we are all on ships or
+ rafts or spars, and some by friendly winds are borne to the fortunate
+ isles, and some by storms are wrecked on the cruel rocks. And yet upon the
+ isles the same as upon the rocks, death waits for all. And death alone can
+ truly say, "All things come to him who waits."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, strangely enough, there is in this world of misery, of misfortune
+ and of death, the blessed spirit of mirth. The travelers on the path, on
+ the train, on the ships, the rafts and spars, sometimes forget their
+ perils and their doom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All blessings on the man whose face was first illuminated by a smile!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All blessings on the man who first gave to the common air the music of
+ laughter&mdash;the music that for the moment drove fears from the heart,
+ tears from the eyes, and dimpled cheeks with joy!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All blessings on the man who sowed with merry hands the seeds of humor,
+ and at the lipless skull of death snapped the reckless fingers of disdain!
+ Laughter is the blessed boundary line between the brute and man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Who are the friends of the human race? They who hide with vine and flower
+ the cruel rocks of fate&mdash;the children of genius, the sons and
+ daughters of mirth and laughter, of imagination, those whose thoughts,
+ like moths with painted wings, fill the heaven of the mind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among these sons and daughters are the children of the stage, the citizens
+ of the mimic world&mdash;the world enriched by all the wealth of genius&mdash;enriched
+ by painter, orator, composer and poet. The world of which Shakespeare, the
+ greatest of human beings, is still the unchallenged emperor. These
+ children of the stage have delighted the weary travelers on the thorny
+ path, amused the passengers on the fated train, and filled with joy the
+ hearts of the clingers to spars, and the floaters on rafts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These, children of the stage, with fancy's wand rebuild the past. The dead
+ are brought to life and made to act again the parts they played. The
+ hearts and lips that long ago were dust, are made to beat and speak again.
+ The dead kings are crowned once more, and from the shadows of the past
+ emerge the queens, jeweled and sceptred as of yore. Lovers leave their
+ graves and breathe again their burning vows; and again the white breasts
+ rise and fall in passion's storm. The laughter that died away beneath the
+ touch of death is heard again and lips that fell to ashes long ago are
+ curved once more with mirth. Again the hero bares his breast to death;
+ again the patriot falls, and again the scaffold, stained with noble blood,
+ becomes a shrine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The citizens of the real world gain joy and comfort from the stage. The
+ broker, the speculator ruined by rumor, the lawyer baffled by the
+ intelligence of a jury or the stupidity of a judge, the doctor who lost
+ his patience because he lost his patients, the merchant in the dark days
+ of depression, and all the children of misfortune, the victims of hope
+ deferred, forget their troubles for a little while when looking on the
+ mimic world. When the shaft of wit flies like the arrow of Ulysses through
+ all the rings and strikes the centre; when words of wisdom mingle with the
+ clown's conceits; when folly laughing shows her pearls, and mirth holds
+ carnival; when the villain fails and the right triumphs, the trials and
+ the griefs of life for the moment fade away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so the maiden longing to be loved, the young man waiting for the "Yes"
+ deferred; the unloved wife, hear the old, old story told again,&mdash;and
+ again within their hearts is the ecstasy of requited love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The stage brings solace to the wounded, peace to the troubled, and with
+ the wizard's wand touches the tears of grief and they are changed to the
+ smiles of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The stage has ever been the altar, the pulpit, the cathedral of the heart.
+ There the enslaved and the oppressed, the erring, the fallen, even the
+ outcast, find sympathy, and pity gives them all her tears&mdash;and there,
+ in spite of wealth and power, in spite of caste and cruel pride, true love
+ has ever triumphed over all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The stage has taught the noblest lesson, the highest truth, and that is
+ this: It is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without
+ deserving. As a matter of fact, it is better to be the victim of villainy
+ than to be a villain. Better to be stolen from than to be a thief, and in
+ the last analysis the oppressed, the slave, is less unfortunate than the
+ oppressor, the master.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The children of the stage, these citizens of the mimic world, are not the
+ grasping, shrewd and prudent people of the mart; they are improvident
+ enough to enjoy the present and credulous enough to believe the promises
+ of the universal liar known as Hope. Their hearts and hands are open. As a
+ rule genius is generous, luxurious, lavish, reckless and royal. And so,
+ when they have reached the ladder's topmost round, they think the world is
+ theirs and that the heaven of the future can have no cloud. But from the
+ ranks of youth the rival steps. Upon the veteran brows the wreaths begin
+ to fade, the leaves to fall; and failure sadly sups on memory. They tread
+ the stage no more. They leave the mimic world, fair fancy's realm; they
+ leave their palaces and thrones; their crowns are gone, and from their
+ hands the sceptres fall. At last, in age and want, in lodgings small and
+ bare, they wait the prompter's call; and when the end is reached, maybe a
+ vision glorifies the closing scene. Again they are on the stage; again
+ their hearts throb high; again they utter perfect words; again the flowers
+ fall about their feet; and as the curtain falls, the last sound that
+ greets their ears, is the music of applause, the "bravos" for an encore.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then the silence falls on darkness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some loving hands should close their eyes, some loving lips should leave
+ upon their pallid brows a kiss; some friends should lay the breathless
+ forms away, and on the graves drop blossoms jeweled with the tears of
+ love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the work of the generous men and women who contribute to the
+ Actors' Fund. This is charity; and these generous men and women have
+ taught, and are teaching, a lesson that all the world should learn, and
+ that is this: The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0022" id="link0022">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ADDRESS TO THE PRESS CLUB.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New Orleans, February 1, 1898.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN of the New Orleans
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Press Club: I do not remember to have agreed or consented to make any
+ remarks about the press or anything else on the present occasion, but I am
+ glad of this opportunity to say a word or two. Of course, I have the very
+ greatest respect for this profession, the profession of the press, knowing
+ it, as I do, to be one of the greatest civilizers of the world. Above all
+ other institutions and all other influences, it is the greatest agency in
+ breaking down the hedges of provincialism. In olden times one nation had
+ no knowledge or understanding of another nation, and no insight or
+ understanding into its life; and, indeed, various parts of one nation held
+ the other parts of it somewhat in the attitude of hostility, because of a
+ lack of more thorough knowledge; and, curiously enough, we are prone to
+ look upon strangers more or less in the light of enemies. Indeed, enemy
+ and stranger in the old vocabularies are pretty much of the same
+ significance. A stranger was an enemy. I think it is Darwin who alludes to
+ the instinctive fear a child has of a stranger as one of the heritages of
+ centuries of instinctive cultivation, the handed-down instinct of years
+ ago. And even now it is a fact that we have very little sympathy with
+ people of a different country, even people speaking the same language,
+ having the same god with a different name, or another god with the same
+ name, recognizing the same principles of right and wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the moment people began to trade with each other, the moment they
+ began to enjoy the results of each other's industry and brain, the moment
+ that, through this medium, they began to get an insight into each other's
+ life, people began to see each other as they were; and so commerce became
+ the greatest of all missionaries of civilization, because, like the press,
+ it tended to do away with provincialism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know there is no one else in the world so egotistic as the man who
+ knows nothing. No man is more certain than the man who knows nothing. The
+ savage knows everything. The moment man begins to be civilized he begins
+ to appreciate how little he knows, how very circumscribed in its very
+ nature human knowledge is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, after commerce came the press. From the Moors, I believe, we learned
+ the first rudiments of that art which has civilized the world. With the
+ invention of movable type came an easy and cheap method of preserving the
+ thoughts and history of one generation to another and transmitting the
+ life of one nation to another. Facts became immortal, and from that day to
+ this the intelligence of the world has rapidly and steadily increased.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, if we are provincial, it is our own fault, and if we are hateful
+ and odious and circumscribed and narrow and peevish and limited in the
+ light we get from the known universe, it is our own fault.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Day by day the world is growing smaller and men larger. But a few years
+ ago the State of New York was as large as the United States is to-day. It
+ required as much time to reach Albany from New York as it now requires to
+ reach San Francisco from the same city, and so far as the transmission of
+ thought goes the world is but a hamlet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I count as one of the great good things of the modern press&mdash;as one
+ of the specific good things&mdash;that the same news, the same direction
+ of thought is transmitted to many millions of people each day. So that the
+ thoughts of multitudes of men are substantially tending at the same time
+ along the same direction. It tends more and more to make us citizens in
+ the highest sense of the term, and that is the reason that I have so much
+ respect for the press.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course I know that the news and opinions are written by folks liable to
+ the same percentage of error as characterizes all mankind. No one makes no
+ mistakes but the man who knows everything&mdash;no one makes no mistakes
+ but the hypocrite.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I must confess, however, that there are things about the press of to-day
+ that I would have changed&mdash;that I do not like.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hate to see brain the slave of the material god. I hate to see money own
+ genius. So I think that every writer on every paper should be compelled to
+ sign his name to everything he writes. There are many reasons why he has a
+ right to the reputation he makes. His reputation is his property, his
+ capital, his stock in trade, and it is not just or fair or right that it
+ should be absorbed by the corporation which employs him. After giving
+ great thoughts to the world, after millions of people have read his
+ thoughts with delight, no one knows this lonely man or his solitary name.
+ If he loses the good will of his employer, he loses his place and with it
+ all that his labor and time and brain have earned for himself as his own
+ inalienable property, and his corporation or employer reaps the benefit of
+ it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another reason establishing the absolute equity of this
+ proposition, a reason pointing in other directions than to the writer and
+ his rights. It is no more than right to the reader that the opinion or the
+ narrative should be that of Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown or Mr. So and So, and
+ not that of, say, the <i>Picayune</i>. That is too impersonal. It is no
+ more than right that a single man should have his honor at stake for what
+ is said, and not an impersonal something. I know that we are all liable to
+ believe it if the <i>Picayune</i> says it, and yet, after all, it is the
+ individual man who is saying it and it is in the interest of justice that
+ the reader be apprised of the fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe I have just a little fault to find with the tendency of the
+ modern press to go into personal affairs&mdash;into so-called private
+ affairs. In saying this, I have no complaint to lodge on my own behalf,
+ for I have no private affairs. I am not so much opposed to what is called
+ sensationalism, for that must exist as long as crime is considered news,
+ and believe me, when virtue becomes news it can only be when this will
+ have become an exceedingly bad world. At the same time I think that the
+ publication of crime may have more or less the tendency of increasing it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I read not long ago that if some heavy piece of furniture were dropped in
+ a room in which there was a string instrument, the strings in harmony with
+ the vibrations of the air made by that noise would take up the sound. Now
+ a man with a tendency to crime would pick up that criminal feeling
+ inspiring the act which he sees blazoned forth in all its detail in the
+ press. In that view of the matter it seems to me better not to give
+ details of all offences.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, as to the matter of being too personal, I think that one of the
+ results of that sort of journalism is to drive a great many capable and
+ excellent men out of public life. I heard a little story quite recently of
+ a man who was being urged for the Legislature, and yet hesitated because
+ of his fear of newspaper criticism of this character. "I don't want to
+ run," said he to his wife, who urged that this was an opportunity to do
+ himself and his friends honor, and that it was a sort of duty in him. "I
+ would if I were you," said his wife. "Well, but there is no saying," he
+ responded, "what the newspapers might print about me." "Why, your life has
+ always been honorable," said she; "they could not say anything to your
+ disparagement." "But they might attack my father." "Well, there was
+ nothing in his career of which any one might feel ashamed. He was as
+ irreproachable as you." "Ay, but they might attack you and tell of some
+ devilment you went into before we were married." "Then you better not
+ run," said his wife promptly. I think this fear on the part of husband and
+ wife is identical with that which keeps many a great man out of public
+ service.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, there is another thing which every one ought to abhor. All men and
+ newspapers are entirely too apt to criticise the motives of men. It is a
+ fault common to all good men&mdash;except the clergy, of course&mdash;this
+ habit of attacking motives. And whenever we see a man do something which
+ is great and praiseworthy, let us talk about the act itself and not go
+ into a speculation or an attack upon the motive which prompted the act.
+ Attack what a man actually does.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But these are only small matters. The press is the most powerful of all
+ agencies for the dissemination of intelligence, and as such I hail it
+ always. It has nearly always been very friendly and kind to me and
+ certainly I have received at the hands of the New Orleans press a
+ treatment I shall never forget.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our Sunday newspapers, to my mind, rank among the greatest institutions of
+ the present day. One finds in them matter that could not be found in
+ several hundreds of books,&mdash;beautiful thoughts, broad intelligence, a
+ range of information perfectly startling in its usefulness and perfectly
+ charming in its entertainment. Contrast, please, how we are enabled by
+ their good offices to spend the Sabbath, with the descriptions of hell
+ with all its terrors and all the gloom characterizing the Sabbaths our
+ forefathers had to spend. The Sunday newspaper is an absolute blessing to
+ the American people, a picture gallery, short stories, little poems, a
+ symposium of brain and intelligence and refinement and&mdash;divorce
+ proceedings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As I have said, the good will and the fair treatment of the American press
+ have nearly always been my lot. There have been some misguided people who
+ have said harsh things, but when I remember all the misguided things I
+ have done, I am inclined to be charitable for their shortcomings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not know that I have anything else to say, except that I wish you all
+ good luck and sunshine and prosperity, and enough of it to last you
+ through a long life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0023" id="link0023">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE CIRCULATION OF OBSCENE LITERATURE.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * From "Ingersoll As He Is," by E. M. Macdonald.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ "ONE of the charges most persistently made against Colonel Ingersoll is
+ that during and after the trial of D. M. Bennett, persecuted by Anthony
+ Comstock, the Colonel endeavored to have the law against sending obscene
+ literature through the mail repealed. That the charge is maliciously false
+ is fully shown by the following brief history of events connected with the
+ prosecution of D. M. Bennett, and Mr. Ingersoll's efforts in his
+ behalf....
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "After Mr. Bennett's arrest in 1877, he printed a petition to Congress,
+ written by T. B. Wakeman, asking for the <i>repeal or modification</i> of
+ Comstock's law by which he expected to stamp out the publications of
+ Freethinkers....
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The connection of Mr. Ingersoll with this petition is soon explained. Mr.
+ Ingersoll knew of Comstock's attempts to suppress heresy by means of this
+ law, and when called upon by the Washington committee in charge of the
+ petition, he allowed his name to go on the petition for modification, but
+ he told them distinctly and plainly that he was <i>not</i> in favor of the
+ <i>repeal</i> of the law, as he was willing and anxious that obscenity
+ should be suppressed by all legal means. His sentiments are best expressed
+ by himself in a letter to the <i>Boston Journal</i>. He says:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Washington, March 18, 1878.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'To the Editor of the Boston Journal:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'My attention has been called to the following article that recently
+ appeared in your paper:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, and others, feel aggrieved because Congress,
+ in 1873, enacted a law for the suppression of obscene literature, and,
+ believing it an infringement of the rights of certain citizens, and an
+ effort to muzzle the press and conscience, petition for its repeal. When a
+ man's conscience permits him to spread broadcast obscene literature, it is
+ time that conscience was muzzled. The law is a terror only to evil-doers."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'No one wishes the repeal of any law for the suppression of obscene
+ literature. For my part, I wish all such laws rigidly enforced. The only
+ objection I have to the law of 1873 is, that it has been construed to
+ include books and pamphlets written against the religion of the day,
+ although containing nothing that can be called obscene or impure. Certain
+ religious fanatics, taking advantage of the word "immoral" in the law,
+ have claimed that all writings against what they are pleased to call
+ orthodox religion are immoral, and such books have been seized and their
+ authors arrested. To this, and this only, I object.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Your article does me great injustice, and I ask that you will have the
+ kindness to publish this note.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'From the bottom of my heart I despise the publishers of obscene
+ literature. Below them there is no depth of filth. And I also despise
+ those, who, under the pretence of suppressing obscene literature, endeavor
+ to prevent honest and pure men from writing and publishing honest and pure
+ thoughts. Yours truly.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'R. G. Ingersoll.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "This is sufficiently easy of comprehension even for ministers, but of
+ course they misrepresented and lied about the writer. From that day to
+ this he has been accused of favoring the dissemination of obscene
+ literature. That the friends of Colonel Ingersoll may know just how
+ infamous this is, we will give a brief history of the repeal or
+ modification movement....
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "On October 26, the National Liberal League held its Congress in Syracuse.
+ At this Congress the League left the matter of repeal or modification of
+ the laws open, taking no action as an organization, either way, but
+ elected officers known to be in favor of repeal. On December 10, Mr.
+ Bennett was again arrested. He was tried, and found guilty; he appealed,
+ the conviction was affirmed, and he was sentenced to thirteen months'
+ imprisonment at hard labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "After the trial Colonel Ingersoll interposed, and endeavored to get a
+ pardon for Mr. Bennett, who was held in Ludlow street jail pending
+ President Hayes's reply. The man who occupied the President's office
+ promised to pardon the Infidel editor; then he went back on his word, and
+ Mr. Bennett served his term of imprisonment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Then preachers opened the sluiceways of vituperation and billingsgate
+ upon Colonel Ingersoll for having interceded for a man convicted of
+ mailing obscene literature. The charges were as infamously false then as
+ they are now, and to show it, it is only necessary to quote Colonel
+ Ingersoll's words during the year or two succeeding, when the Freethinkers
+ and the Christians were not only opposing each other vigorously, but the
+ Freethinkers themselves were divided on the question. In 1879, while Mr.
+ Bennett was in prison, a correspondent of the Nashville, Tenn., <i>Banner</i>
+ said that the National Liberal League and Colonel Ingersoll were in favor
+ of disseminating obscene literature. To this Colonel Ingersoll replied in
+ a letter to a friend:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "1417 G St., Washington, Aug. 21, 1879.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'My Dear Sir: The article in the Nashville <i>Banner</i> by "J. L." is
+ utterly and maliciously false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'A petition was sent to Congress praying for the repeal or modification
+ of certain postal laws, to the end that the freedom of conscience and of
+ the press should not be abridged.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Nobody holds in greater contempt than I the writers, publishers, or
+ dealers in obscene literature. One of my objections to the Bible is that
+ it contains hundreds of grossly obscene passages not fit to be read by any
+ decent man, thousands of passages, in my judgment, calculated to corrupt
+ the minds of youth. I hope the time will soon come when the good sense of
+ the American people will demand a Bible with all obscene passages left
+ out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'The only reason a modification of the postal laws is necessary is that
+ at present, under color of those laws, books and pamphlets are excluded
+ from the mails simply because they are considered heterodox and
+ blasphemous. In other words, every man should be allowed to write,
+ publish, and send through the mails his thoughts upon any subject,
+ expressed in a decent and becoming manner. As to the propriety of giving
+ anybody authority to overhaul mails, break seals, and read private
+ correspondence, that is another question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Every minister and every layman who charges me with directly or
+ indirectly favoring the dissemination of anything that is impure, retails
+ what he knows to be a wilful and malicious lie. I remain, Yours truly,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'R. G. Ingersoll.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Three weeks after this letter was written the National Liberal League
+ held its third annual Congress at Cincinnati. Colonel Ingersoll was
+ chairman of the committee on resolutions and platform and unfinished
+ business of the League. One of the subjects to be dealt with was these
+ Comstock laws. The following are Colonel Ingersoll's remarks and the
+ resolutions he presented:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'It may be proper, before presenting the resolutions of the committee, to
+ say a word in explanation. The committee were charged with the
+ consideration of the unfinished business of the League. It seems that at
+ Syracuse there was a division as to what course should be taken in regard
+ to the postal laws of the United States. These laws were used as an engine
+ of oppression against the free circulation of what we understand to be
+ scientific literature. Every honest man in this country is in favor of
+ allowing every other human being every right that he claims for himself.
+ The majority at Syracuse were at that time simply in favor of the absolute
+ repeal of those laws, believing them to be unconstitutional&mdash;not
+ because they were in favor of anything obscene, but because they were
+ opposed to the mails of the United States being under the espionage and
+ bigotry of the church. They therefore demanded an absolute repeal of the
+ law. Others, feeling that they might be misunderstood, and knowing that
+ theology can coin the meanest words to act as the vehicle of the lowest
+ lies, were afraid of being misunderstood, and therefore they said, Let us
+ amend these laws so that our literature shall be upon an equality with
+ that of theology. I know that there is not a Liberal here, or in the
+ United States, that is in favor of the dissemination of obscene
+ literature. One of the objections which we have to the book said to be
+ written by God is that it is obscene.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'The Liberals of this country believe in purity, and they believe that
+ every fact in nature and in science is as pure as a star. We do not need
+ to ask for any more than we want. We simply want the laws of our country
+ so framed that we are not discriminated against. So, taking that view of
+ the vexed question, we want to put the boot upon the other foot. We want
+ to put the charge of obscenity where it belongs, and the committee, of
+ which I have the honor to be one of the members, have endeavored to do
+ just that thing. Men have no right to talk to me about obscenity who
+ regard the story of Lot and his daughters as a fit thing for men, women,
+ and children to read, and who worship a God in whom the violation of [<i>Cheers
+ drowned the conclusion of this sentence so the reporters could not hear
+ it.</i>] Such a God I hold in infinite contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Now I will read you the resolutions recommended by the committee.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'RESOLUTIONS.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Your committee have the honor to submit the following report: "'First,
+ As to the unfinished business of the League, your committee submits the
+ following resolutions:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Resolved., That we are in favor of such postal laws as will allow the
+ free transportation through the mails of the United States of all books,
+ pamphlets, and papers, irrespective of the religious, irreligious,
+ political, and scientific views they may contain, so that the literature
+ of science may be placed upon an equality with that of superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Resolved, That we are utterly opposed to the dissemination, through the
+ mails, or by any other means, of obscene literature, whether "inspired" or
+ uninspired, and hold in measureless contempt its authors and
+ disseminators.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Resolved, That we call upon the Christian world to expunge from the
+ so-called "sacred" Bible every passage that cannot be read without
+ covering the cheek of modesty with the blush of shame; and until such
+ passages are expunged, we demand that the laws against the dissemination
+ of obscene literature be impartially enforced. '...
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "We believe that lotteries and obscenity should be dealt with by State and
+ municipal legislation, and offenders punished in the county in which they
+ commit their offence. So in those days we argued for the repeal of the
+ Comstock laws, as did dozens of others&mdash;James Parton, Elizur Wright,
+ O. B. Frothingham, T. C. Leland, Courtlandt Palmer, and many more whose
+ names we do not recall. But Colonel Ingersoll did not, and when the
+ National Liberal League met the next year at Chicago (September 17, 1880),
+ he was opposed to the League's making a pledge to defend every case under
+ the Comstock laws, and he was opposed to a resolution demanding a repeal
+ of those laws. The following is what Colonel Ingersoll said upon the
+ subject:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Chairman, I wish to offer the following resolution in place and
+ instead of resolutions numbered 5 and 6:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Resolved, That the committee of defence, whenever a person has been
+ indicted for what he claims to have been an honest exercise of the freedom
+ of thought and expression, shall investigate the case, and if it appears
+ that such person has been guilty of no offence, then it shall be the duty
+ of said committee to defend such person if he is unable to defend
+ himself.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Now, allow me one moment to state my reasons. I do not, I have not, I
+ never shall, accuse or suspect a solitary member of the Liberal League of
+ the United States of being in favor of doing any act under heaven that he
+ is not thoroughly convinced is right. We all claim freedom of speech, and
+ it is the gem of the human soul. We all claim a right to express our
+ honest thoughts. Did it ever occur to any Liberal that he wished to
+ express any thought honestly, truly, and legally that he considered
+ immoral? How does it happen that <i>we</i> have any interest in what is
+ known as immoral literature? I deny that the League has any interest in
+ that kind of literature. Whenever we mention it, whenever we speak of it,
+ we put ourselves in a false position. What do we want? We want to see to
+ it that the church party shall not smother the literature of Liberalism.
+ We want to see to it that the viper of intellectual slavery shall not
+ sting our cause. We want it so that every honest man, so that every honest
+ woman, can express his or her honest thought upon any subject in the
+ world. And the question, and the only question, as to whether they are
+ amenable to the law, in my mind, is, Were they honest? Was their effort to
+ benefit mankind? Was that their intention? And no man, no woman, should be
+ convicted of any offence that that man or woman did not intend to commit.
+ Now, then, suppose some person is arrested, and it is claimed that a work
+ written by him is immoral, is illegal. Then, I say, let our committee of
+ defence examine that case, and if our enemies are seeking to trample out
+ Freethought under the name of immorality, and under the cover and shield
+ of our criminal law, then let us defend that man to the last dollar we
+ have. But we do not wish to put ourselves in the position of general
+ defenders of all the slush that may be written in this or any other
+ country. You cannot afford to do it. You cannot afford to put into the
+ mouth of theology a perpetual and continual slur. You cannot afford to do
+ it. And this meeting is not the time to go into the question of what
+ authority the United States may have over the mails. It is a very wide
+ question. It embraces many others. Has the Government a right to say what
+ shall go into the mails? Why, in one sense, assuredly. Certainly they have
+ a right to say you shall not send a horse and wagon by mail. They have a
+ right to fix some limit; and the only thing we want is that the literature
+ of liberty, the literature of real Freethought, shall not be discriminated
+ against. And we know now as well as if it had been perfectly and
+ absolutely demonstrated, that the literature of Freethought will be
+ absolutely pure. We know it, We call upon the Christian world to expunge
+ obscenity from their book, and until that is expunged we demand that the
+ laws against obscene literature shall be executed. And how can we, in the
+ next resolution, say those laws ought all to be repealed? We cannot do
+ that. I have always been in favor of such an amendment of the law that by
+ no trick, by no device, by no judicial discretion, an honest, high,
+ pure-minded man should be subjected to punishment simply for giving his
+ best and his honest thought. What more do we need? What more can we ask? I
+ am as much opposed as my friend Mr. Wakeman can be to the assumption of
+ the church that it is the guardian of morality. If our morality is to be
+ guarded by that sentiment alone, then is the end come. The natural
+ instinct of self-defence in mankind and in all organized society is the
+ fortress of the morality in mankind. The church itself was at one time the
+ outgrowth of that same feeling, but now the feeling has outgrown the
+ church. Now, then, we will have a Committee of Defence. That committee
+ will examine every case. Suppose some man has been indicted, and suppose
+ he is guilty. Suppose he has endeavored to soil the human mind. Suppose he
+ has been willing to make money by pandering to the lowest passions in the
+ human breast. What will that committee do with him then? We will say, "Go
+ on; let the law take its course." But if, upon reading his book, we find
+ that he is all wrong, horribly wrong, idiotically wrong, but make up our
+ minds that he was honest in his error, I will give as much as any other
+ living man of my means to defend that man. And I believe you will all bear
+ me witness when I say that I have the cause of intellectual liberty at
+ heart as much as I am capable of having anything at heart. And I know
+ hundreds of others here just the same. I understand that. I understand
+ their motive. I believe it to be perfectly good, but I truly and honestly
+ think they are mistaken.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we have an interest in the business, I would fight for it. If our cause
+ were assailed by law, then I say fight; and our cause is assailed, and I
+ say fight. They will not allow me, in many States of this Union, to
+ testify. I say fight until every one of those laws is repealed. They
+ discriminate against a man simply because he is honest. Repeal such laws.
+ The church, if it had the power to-day, would trample out every particle
+ of free literature in this land. And when they endeavor to do that, I say
+ fight. But there is a distinction wide as the Mississippi&mdash;yes, wider
+ than the Atlantic, wider than all the oceans&mdash;between the literature
+ of immorality and the literature of Freethought. One is a crawling, slimy
+ lizard, and the other an angel with wings of light. Now, let us draw this
+ distinction, let us understand ourselves, and do not give to the common
+ enemy a word covered with mire, a word stained with cloaca, to throw at
+ us. We thought we had settled that question a year ago. We buried it then,
+ and I say let it rot.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'This question is of great importance. It is the most important one we
+ have here. I have fought this question; I am ever going to do so, and I
+ will not allow anybody to put a stain upon me. This question must be
+ understood if it takes all summer. Here is a case in point. Some lady has
+ written a work which, I am informed, is a good work, and that has nothing
+ wrong about it. Her opinions may be foolish or wise. Let this committee
+ examine that case. If they find that she is a good woman, that she had
+ good intentions, no matter how terrible the work may be, if her intentions
+ are good, she has committed no crime. I want the honest thought. I think I
+ have always been in favor of it. But we haven't the time to go into all
+ these questions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Then comes the question for this house to decide in a moment whether
+ these cases should have been tried in the State or Federal court. I want
+ it understood that I have confidence in the Federal courts of the nation.
+ There may be some bad judges, there may be some idiotic jurors. I think
+ there was in that case [of Mr. Bennett]. But the Committee of Defence, if
+ I understand it, supplied means, for the defence of that man. They did,
+ but are we ready now to decide in a moment what courts shall have
+ jurisdiction? Are we ready to say that the Federal courts shall be denied
+ jurisdiction in any case arising about the mails? Suppose somebody robs
+ the mails? Before whom shall we try the robber? Try him before a Federal
+ judge. Why? Because he has violated a Federal law. We have not any time
+ for such an investigation as this. What we want to do is to defend free
+ speech everywhere. What we want to do is to defend the expression of
+ thought in papers, in pamphlets, in books. What we want to do is to see to
+ it that these books, papers, and pamphlets are on an equality with all
+ other books, papers, and pamphlets in the United States mails. And then
+ the next step we want to take, if any man is indicted under the pretence
+ that he is publishing immoral books, is to have our Committee of Defence
+ well examine the case; and if we believe the man to be innocent we will
+ help defend him if he is unable to defend himself; and if we find that the
+ law is wrong in that particular, we will go for the amendment of that law.
+ I beg of you to have some sense in this matter. We must have it. If we
+ don't, upon that rock we shall split&mdash;upon that rock we shall again
+ divide. Let us not do it. The cause of intellectual liberty is the highest
+ to the human mind. Let us stand by it, and we can help all these people by
+ this resolution. We can do justice everywhere with it, while if we agree
+ to the fifth and sixth resolutions that have been offered I say we lay
+ ourselves open to the charge, and it will be hurled against us, no matter
+ how unjustly, that we are in favor of widespread immorality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Clarke: We are not afraid of it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: You may say we are not afraid. I am not afraid. He
+ only is a fool who rushes into unnecessary danger.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Clarke: What are you talking about, anyway?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: I am talking with endeavor to put a little sense into
+ such men as you. Your very question shows that it was necessary that I
+ should talk. And now I move that my resolution be adopted.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Wakeman moved that it be added to that portion of the sixth
+ resolution which recommended the constitution of the Committee of Defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Col. Ingersoll: I cannot agree to the sixth resolution. I think nearly
+ every word of it is wrong in principle. I think it binds us to a course of
+ action that we shall not be willing to follow; and my resolution covers
+ every possible case. My resolution binds us to defend every honest man in
+ the exercise of his right. I can't be bound to say that the Government
+ hasn't control of its morals&mdash;that we cannot trust the Federal courts&mdash;that,
+ under any circumstances, at any time, I am bound to defend, either by word
+ or money, any man who violates the laws of this country.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Wakeman: We do not say that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: I beg of you, I beseech you, not to pass the sixth
+ resolution. If you do, I wouldn't give that [snapping his fingers] for the
+ platform. A part of the Comstock law authorizes the vilest possible trick.
+ We are all opposed to that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Leland: What is the question?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: Don't let us be silly. Don't let us say we are
+ opposed to what we are not opposed to. If any man here is opposed to
+ putting down the vilest of all possible trash he ought to go home. We are
+ opposed to only a part of the law&mdash;opposed to it whenever they
+ endeavor to trample Freethought under foot in the name of immorality.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Afterward, at the same session of the Congress, the following colloquy
+ took place between Colonel Ingersoll and T. B. Wakeman:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: You know as well as I that there are certain books
+ not fit to go through the mails&mdash;books and pictures not fit to be
+ delivered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Wakeman: That is so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: There is not a man here who is not in favor, when
+ these books and pictures come into the control of the United States, of
+ burning them up when they are manifestly obscene. You don't want any grand
+ jury there.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Mr. Wakeman: Yes, we do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: No, we don't. When they are manifestly obscene, burn
+ them up.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'A delegate: Who is to be judge of that?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'Colonel Ingersoll: There are books that nobody differs about. There are
+ certain things about which we can use discretion. If that discretion is
+ abused, a man has his remedy. We stand for the free thought of this
+ country. We stand for the progressive spirit of the United States. We
+ can't afford to say that all these laws should be repealed. If we had time
+ to investigate them we could say in what they should be amended. Don't tie
+ us to this nonsense&mdash;to the idea that we have an interest in immoral
+ literature. Let us remember that Mr. Wakeman is sore. He had a case before
+ the Federal courts, and he imagines, having lost that case, you cannot
+ depend on them. I have lost hundreds of cases. I have as much confidence
+ in the Federal courts as in the State courts. I am not to be a party to
+ throwing a slur upon the Federal judiciary. All we want is fair play. We
+ want the same chance for our doctrines that others have for theirs. And
+ how this infernal question of obscenity ever got into the Liberal League I
+ could never understand. If an innocent man is convicted of larceny, should
+ we repeal all the laws on the subject? I don't pretend to be better than
+ other people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is easy to talk right&mdash;so easy to be right that I never care to
+ have the luxury of being wrong. I am advocating something that we can
+ stand upon. I do not misunderstand Mr. Wakeman's motives. I believe they
+ are perfectly good&mdash;that he is thoroughly honest. Why not just say we
+ will stand by freedom of thought and its expression? Why not say that we
+ are in favor of amending any law that is wrong? But do not make the
+ wholesale statement that all these laws ought to be repealed. They ought
+ not to be repealed. Some of them are good." The law against sending
+ instruments of vice in the mails is good, as is the law against sending
+ obscene books and pictures, and the law against letting ignorant hyenas
+ prey upon sick people, and the law which prevents the getters up of bogus
+ lotteries sending their letters through the mail.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "At the evening session of the Congress, on the same day, Mr. Ingersoll
+ made this speech in opposition to the resolution demanding the repeal of
+ the Comstock laws:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'I am not in favor of the repeal of those laws. I have never been, and I
+ never expect to be. But I do wish that every law providing for the
+ punishment of a criminal offence should distinctly define the offence.
+ That is the objection to this law, that it does not define the offence, so
+ that an American citizen can readily know when he is about to violate it
+ and consequently the law ought in all probability to be modified in that
+ regard. I am in favor of every law defining with perfect distinctness the
+ offence to be punished, but I cannot say by wholesale these laws should be
+ repealed. I have the cause of Freethought too much at heart. Neither will
+ I consent to the repeal simply because the church is in favor of those
+ laws. In so far as the church agrees with me, I congratulate the church.
+ In so far as superstition is willing to help me, good! I am willing to
+ accept it. I believe, also, that this League is upon a secular basis, and
+ there should be nothing in our platform that would prevent any Christian
+ from acting with us. What is our platform?&mdash;and we ought to leave it
+ as it is. It needs no amendment. Our platform is for a secular government.
+ Is it improper in a secular government to endeavor to prevent the spread
+ of obscene literature? It is the business of a secular government to do
+ it, but if that government attempts to stamp out Freethought in the name
+ of obscenity, it is then for the friends of Freethought to call for a
+ definition of the word, and such a definition as will allow Freethought to
+ go everywhere through all the mails of the United States. We are also in
+ favor of secular schools. Good! We are in favor of doing away with every
+ law that discriminates against a man on account of his belief. Good! We
+ are in favor of universal education. Good! We are in favor of the taxation
+ of church property. Good!&mdash;because the experience of the world shows
+ that where you allow superstition to own property without taxing it, it
+ will absorb the net profits. Is it time now that we should throw into the
+ scale, against all these splendid purposes, an effort to repeal some
+ postal laws against obscenity? As well might we turn the League into an
+ engine to do away with all laws against the sale of stale eggs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'What have we to do with those things? Is it possible that Freethought
+ can be charged with being obscene? Is it possible that, if the charge is
+ made, it can be substantiated? Can you not attack any superstition in the
+ world in perfectly pure language? Can you not attack anything you please
+ in perfectly pure language? And where a man intends right, no law should
+ find him guilty; and if the law is weak in that respect, let it be
+ modified. But I say to you that I cannot go with any body of men who
+ demand the unconditional repeal of these laws. I believe in liberty as
+ much as any man that breathes. I will do as much, according to my ability,
+ as any other man to make this an absolutely free and secular government I
+ will do as much as any other man of my strength and of my intellectual
+ power to give every human being every right that I claim for myself. But
+ this obscene law business is a stumbling block. Had it not been for this,
+ instead of the few people voting here&mdash;less than one hundred&mdash;we
+ would have had a Congress numbered by thousands. Had it not been for this
+ business, the Liberal League of the United States would to-night hold in
+ its hand the political destiny of the United States. Instead of that, we
+ have thrown away our power upon a question in which we are not interested.
+ Instead of that, we have wasted our resources and our brain for the repeal
+ of a law that we don't want repealed. If we want anything, we simply want
+ a modification. Now, then, don't stain this cause by such a course. And
+ don't understand that I am pretending, or am insinuating, that anyone here
+ is in favor of obscene literature. It is a question, not of principle, but
+ of means, and I beg pardon of this Convention if I have done anything so
+ horrible as has been described by Mr. Pillsbury. I regret it if I have
+ ever endeavored to trample upon the rights of this Convention.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "'There is one thing I have not done&mdash;I have not endeavored to cast
+ five votes when I didn't have a solitary vote. Let us be fair; let us be
+ fair. I have simply given my vote. I wish to trample upon the rights of no
+ one; and when Mr. Pillsbury gave those votes he supposed he had a right to
+ give them; and if he had a right, the votes would have been counted. I
+ attribute nothing wrong to him, but I say this: I have the right to make a
+ motion in this Congress, I have the right to argue that motion, but I have
+ no more rights than any other member, and I claim none. But I want to say
+ to you&mdash;and I want you to know and feel it&mdash;that I want to act
+ with every Liberal man and woman in this world. I want you to know and
+ feel it that I want to do everything I can to get every one of these
+ statutes off our books that discriminates against a man because of his
+ religious belief&mdash;that I am in favor of a secular government, and of
+ all these rights. But I cannot, and I will not, operate with any
+ organization that asks for the unconditional repeal of those laws. I will
+ stand alone, and I have stood alone. I can tell my thoughts to my
+ countrymen, and I will do it, and whatever position you take, whether I am
+ with you or not, you will find me battling everywhere for the absolute
+ freedom of the human mind. You will find me battling everywhere to make
+ this world better and grander; and whatever my personal conduct may be, I
+ shall endeavor to keep my theories right. I beg of you, I implore you, do
+ not pass the resolution No. 6. It is not for our interest; it will do us
+ no good. It will lose us hosts of honest, splendid friends. Do not do it;
+ it will be a mistake; and the only reason I offered the motion was to give
+ the members time to think this over. I am not pretending to know more than
+ other people. I am perfectly willing to say that in many things I know
+ less. But upon this subject I want you to think. No matter whether you are
+ afraid of your sons, your daughters, your wives, or your husbands, that
+ isn't it&mdash;I don't want the splendid prospects of this League put in
+ jeopardy upon such an issue as this. I have no more to say. But if that
+ resolution is passed, all I have to say is that, while I shall be for
+ liberty everywhere, I cannot act with this organization, and I will not.'
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "The resolution was finally adopted, and Colonel Ingersoll resigned his
+ office of vice-president in the League, and never acted with it again
+ until the League dropped all side issues, and came back to first
+ principles&mdash;the enforcement of the Nine Demands of Liberalism."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1892, writing upon this subject in answer to a minister who had
+ repeated these absurd charges, Colonel Ingersoll made this offer:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I will pay a premium of one thousand dollars a word for each and every
+ word I ever said or wrote in favor of sending obscene publications through
+ the mails."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0024" id="link0024">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL LIBERAL LEAGUE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Cincinnati, O., September 14.1878.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Allow me to say that the cause nearest my heart, and
+ to which I am willing to devote the remainder of my life, is the absolute,
+ the <i>absolute</i>, enfranchisement of the human mind. I believe that the
+ family is the unit of good government, and that every good government is
+ simply an aggregation of good families. I therefore not only believe in
+ perfect civil and religious liberty, but I believe in the one man loving
+ the one woman. I believe the real temple of the human heart is the
+ hearthstone, and that there is where the sacrifice of life should be made;
+ and just in proportion as we have that idea in this country, just in that
+ proportion we shall advance and become a great, glorious and splendid
+ nation. I do not want the church or the state to come between the man and
+ wife. I want to do what little I can while I live to strengthen and render
+ still more sacred the family relation. I am also in favor of granting
+ every right to every other human being that I claim for myself; and when I
+ look about upon the world and see how the children that are born to-day,
+ or this year, or this age, came into a world that has nearly all been
+ taken up before their arrival; when I see that they have not even an
+ opportunity to labor for bread; when I see that in our splendid country
+ some who do the most have the least, and others who do the least have the
+ most; I say to myself there is something wrong somewhere, and I hope the
+ time will come when every child that nature has invited to our feast will
+ have an equal right with all the others. There is only one way, in my
+ judgment, to bring that about; and that is, first, not simply by the
+ education of the head, but by the universal education of the heart. The
+ time will come when a man with millions in his possession will not be
+ respected unless with those millions he improves the condition of his
+ fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The time will come when it will be utterly impossible for a man to go down
+ to death, grasping millions in the clutch of avarice. The time will come
+ when it will be impossible for such a man to exist, for he will be
+ followed by the scorn and execration of mankind. The time will come when
+ such a man when stricken by death, cannot purchase the favor of posterity
+ by leaving a portion of the gains which he has wrung from the poor, to
+ some church or Bible society for the glory of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let me say that we have met together as a Liberal League. We have
+ passed the same platform again; but if you will read that platform you
+ will see that it covers nearly every word that I have spoken&mdash;universal
+ education&mdash;the laws of science included, not the guesses of
+ superstition&mdash;universal education, not for the next world but for
+ this&mdash;happiness, not so much for an unknown land beyond the clouds as
+ for this life in this world. I do not say that there is not another life.
+ If there is any God who has allowed his children to be oppressed in this
+ world he certainly needs another life to reform the blunders he has made
+ in this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, let us all agree that we will stand by each other splendidly,
+ grandly; and when we come into convention let us pass resolutions that are
+ broad, kind, and genial, because, if you are true Liberals, you will hold
+ in a kind of tender pity the most outrageous superstitions in the world. I
+ have said some things in my time that were not altogether charitable; but,
+ after all, when I think it over, I see that men are as they are, because
+ they are the result of every thing that has ever been.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sometimes I think the clergy a necessary evil; but I say, let us be genial
+ and kind, and let us know that every other person has the same right to be
+ a Catholic or a Presbyterian, and gather consolation from the doctrine of
+ reprobation, that he has the same right to be a Methodist or a Christian
+ Disciple or a Baptist; the same right to believe these phantasies and
+ follies and superstitions&mdash;[<i>A voice&mdash;"And to burn heretics?"</i>]
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No&mdash;The same right that we have to believe that it is all
+ superstition. But when that Catholic or Baptist or Methodist endeavors to
+ put chains on the bodies or intellects of men, it is then the duty of
+ every Liberal to prevent it at all hazards. If we can do any good in our
+ day and generation, let us do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no office I want in this world. I will make up my mind as to the
+ next when I get there, because my motto is&mdash;and with that motto I
+ will close what I have to say&mdash;My motto is: One world at a time!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0025" id="link0025">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN SECULAR UNION.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Albany, N. Y., September 13, 1885.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: While I have never sought any place in any
+ organization, and while I never intended to accept any place in any
+ organization, yet as you have done me the honor to elect me president of
+ the American Secular Union, I not only accept the place, but tender to you
+ each and all my sincere thanks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a position that a man cannot obtain by repressing his honest
+ thought. Nearly all other positions he obtains in that way. But I am glad
+ that the time has come when men can afford to preserve their manhood in
+ this country. Maybe they cannot be elected to the Legislature, cannot
+ become errand boys in Congress, cannot be placed as weather-vanes in the
+ presidential chair, but the time has come when a man can express his
+ honest thought and be treated like a gentleman in the United States. We
+ have arrived at a point where priests do not govern, and have reached that
+ stage of our journey where we, as Harriet Martineau expressed it, are
+ "free rovers on the breezy common of the universe." Day by day we are
+ getting rid of the aristocracy of the air. We have been the slaves of
+ phantoms long enough, and a new day, a day of glory, has dawned upon this
+ new world&mdash;this new world which is far beyond the old in the real
+ freedom of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the selection of your officers, without referring to myself, I think
+ you have shown great good sense. The first man chosen as vice-president,
+ Mr. Charles Watts, is a gentleman of sound, logical mind; one who knows
+ what he wants to say and how to say it; who is familiar with the
+ organization of Secular societies, knows what we wish to accomplish and
+ the means to attain it. I am glad that he is about to make this country
+ his home, and I know of no man who, in my judgment, can do more for the
+ cause of intellectual liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The next vice-president, Mr. Remsburg, has done splendid work all over the
+ country. He is an absolutely fearless man, and tells really and truly what
+ his mind produces. We need such men everywhere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know it is almost a rule, or at any rate the practice, in political
+ parties and in organizations generally, to be so anxious for success that
+ all the offices and places of honor are given to those who will come in at
+ the eleventh hour. The rule is to hold out these honors as bribes for
+ newcomers instead of conferring them upon those who have borne the heat
+ and burden of the day. I hope that the American Secular Union will not be
+ guilty of any such injustice. Bestow your honors upon the men who stood by
+ you when you had few friends, the men who enlisted for the war when the
+ cause needed soldiers. Give your places to them, and if others want to
+ join your ranks, welcome them heartily to the places of honor in the rear
+ and let them learn how to keep step.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this particular, leaving out myself as I have said, you have done
+ magnificently well. Mrs. Mattie Krekel, another vice-president, is a woman
+ who has the courage to express her opinions, and she is all the more to be
+ commended because, as you know, women have to suffer a little more
+ punishment than men, being amenable to social laws that are more exacting
+ and tyrannical than those passed by Legislatures.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of Mr. Wakeman it is not necessary to speak. You all know him to be an
+ able, thoughtful, and experienced man, capable in every respect; one who
+ has been in this organization from the beginning, and who is now president
+ of the New York society. Elizur Wright, one of the patriarchs of
+ Freethought, who was battling for liberty before I was born, and who will
+ be found in the front rank until he ceases to be. You have honored
+ yourselves by electing James Parton, a thoughtful man, a scholar, a
+ philosopher, and a philanthropist&mdash;honest, courageous, and logical&mdash;with
+ a mind as clear as a cloudless sky. Parker Pillsbury, who has always been
+ on the side of liberty, always willing, if need be, to stand alone&mdash;a
+ man who has been mobbed many times because he had the goodness and courage
+ to denounce the institution of slavery&mdash;a man possessed of the true
+ martyr spirit. Messrs. Algie and Adams, our friends from Canada, men of
+ the highest character, worthy of our fullest confidence and esteem&mdash;conscientious,
+ upright, and faithful.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And permit me to say that I know of no man of kinder heart, of gentler
+ disposition, with more real, good human feeling toward all the world, with
+ a more forgiving and tender spirit, than Horace Seaver. He and Mr. Mendum
+ are the editors of the <i>Investigator</i>, the first Infidel paper I ever
+ saw, and I guess the first that any one of you ever saw&mdash;a paper once
+ edited by Abner Kneeland, who was put in prison for saying, "The
+ Universalists believe in a God which I do not." The court decided that he
+ had denied the existence of a Supreme Being, and at that time it was not
+ thought safe to allow a remark of that kind to be made, and so, for the
+ purpose of keeping an infinite God from tumbling off his throne, Mr.
+ Kneeland was put in jail. But Horace Seaver and Mr. Mendum went on with
+ his work. They are pioneers in this cause, and they have been absolutely
+ true to the principles of Freethought from the first day until now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is anybody belonging to our Secular Union more enthusiastic and
+ better calculated to impart something of his enthusiasm to others than
+ Samuel P. Putnam, our secretary, I do not know him. Courtlandt Palmer,
+ your treasurer, you all know, and you will presently know him better when
+ you hear the speech he is about to make, and that speech will speak better
+ for him than I possibly can. Wait until you hear him, as he is now waiting
+ for me to get through that you may hear him. He will give you the
+ definition of the true gentleman, and that definition will be a truthful
+ description of himself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Reynolds is on our side if anybody is or ever was, and Mr. Macdonald,
+ editor of <i>The Truth Seeker</i>, aiming not only to seek the truth but
+ to expose error, has done and is doing incalculable good in the cause of
+ mental freedom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All these men and women are men and women of character, of high purpose;
+ in favor of Freethought not as a peculiarity or as an eccentricity of the
+ hour, but with all their hearts, through and through, to the very center
+ and core of conviction, life, and purpose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so I can congratulate you on your choice, and believe that you have
+ entered upon the most prosperous year of your existence. I believe that
+ you will do all you can to have every law repealed that puts a hypocrite
+ above an honest mail. We know that no man is thoroughly honest who does
+ not tell his honest thought. We want the Sabbath day for ourselves and our
+ families. Let the gods have the heavens. Give us the earth. If the gods
+ want to stay at home Sundays and look solemn, let them do it; let us have
+ a little wholesome recreation and pleasure. If the gods wish to go out
+ with their wives and children, let them go. If they want to play billiards
+ with the stars, so they don't carom on us, let them play.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We want to do what we can to compel every church to pay taxes on its
+ property as other people pay on theirs. Do you know that if church
+ property is allowed to go without taxation, it is only a question of time
+ when they will own a large per cent, of the property of the civilized
+ world? It is the same as compound interest; only give it time. If you
+ allow it to increase without taxing it for its protection, its growth can
+ only be measured by the time in which it has to grow. The church builds an
+ edifice in some small town, gets several acres of land. In time a city
+ rises around it. The labor of others has added to the value of this
+ property, until it is worth millions. If this property is not taxed, the
+ churches will have so much in their hands that they will again become
+ dangerous to the liberties of mankind. There never will be real liberty in
+ this country until all property is put upon a perfect equality. If you
+ want to build a Joss house, pay taxes. If you want to build churches, pay
+ taxes. If you want to build a hall or temple in which Freethought and
+ science are to be taught, pay taxes. Let there be no property untaxed.
+ When you fail to tax any species of property, you increase the tax of
+ other people owning the rest. To that extent, you unite church and state.
+ You compel the Infidel to support the Catholic. I do not want to support
+ the Catholic Church. It is not worth supporting. It is an unadulterated
+ evil. Neither do I want to reform the Catholic Church. The only
+ reformation of which that church or any orthodox church is capable, is
+ destruction. I want to spend no more money on superstition. Neither should
+ our money be taken to support sectarian schools. We do not wish to employ
+ any chaplains in the navy, or in the army, or in the Legislatures, or in
+ Congress. It is useless to ask God to help the political party that
+ happens to be in power. We want no President, no Governor "clothed with a
+ little brief authority," to issue a proclamation as though he were an
+ agent of God, authorized to tell all his loving subjects to fast on a
+ certain day, or to enter their churches and pray for the accomplishment of
+ a certain object. It is none of his business. When they called on Thomas
+ Jefferson to issue a proclamation, he said he had no right to do it, that
+ religion was a personal, individual matter, and that the state had no
+ right, no power, to interfere.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I now have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Courtlandt Palmer, who will
+ speak to you on the "Aristocracy of Freethought," in my judgment the
+ aristocracy not only of the present, but the aristocracy of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0026" id="link0026">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, May 28, 1896.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY DEAR MR. SEIP: I have carefully read your article on the religious
+ belief of Abraham Lincoln, and in accordance with your request I will not
+ only give you my opinion of the evidence upon which you rely, as set out
+ in your article, but my belief as to the religious opinions of Mr.
+ Lincoln, and the facts on which my belief rests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You speak of a controversy between myself and General Collis upon this
+ subject. A few years ago I delivered a lecture on Mr. Lincoln, in this
+ city, and in that lecture said that Lincoln, so far as his religious
+ opinions were concerned, substantially agreed with Franklin, Jefferson,
+ Paine and Voltaire. Thereupon General Collis wrote me a note contradicting
+ what I had said and asserting that "Lincoln invoked the power of Almighty
+ God, not the Deist God, but the God whom he worshiped under the forms of
+ the Christian church of which he was a member." To this I replied saying
+ that Voltaire and Paine both believed in God, and that Lincoln was never a
+ member of any Christian church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ General Collis wrote another letter to which, I think, I made no reply,
+ for the reason that the General had demonstrated that he knew nothing
+ whatever on the subject. It was evident that he had never read the life of
+ Lincoln, because if he had, he would not have said that he was a member of
+ a church. It was also evident that he knew nothing about the religious
+ opinions of Franklin, Voltaire or Paine, or he would have known that they
+ were believers in the existence of a Supreme Being. It did not seem to me
+ that his letter was worthy of a reply.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now as to your article: I find in what you have written very little that
+ is new. I do not remember ever to have seen anything about the statement
+ of the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Gurley in regard to Lincoln's letters. The
+ daughter, however, does not pretend to know the contents of the letters
+ and says that they were destroyed by fire; consequently these letters, so
+ far as this question is concerned, are of no possible importance. The only
+ thing in your article tending to show that Lincoln was a Christian is the
+ following: "I think I can say with sincerity that I hope I am a Christian.
+ I had lived until my Willie died without fully realizing these things.
+ That blow overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had never felt it
+ before, and I think I can safely say that I know something of a change of
+ heart, and I will further add that it has been my intention for some time,
+ at a suitable opportunity, to make a public religious profession."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if you had given the name of the person to whom this was said, and if
+ that person had told you that Lincoln did utter these words, then the
+ evidence would have been good; but you are forced to say that this was
+ said to an eminent Christian lady. You do not give this lady's name. I
+ take it for granted that her name is unknown, and that the name of the
+ person to whom she told the story is also unknown, and that the name of
+ the man who gave the story to the world is unknown. This falsehood,
+ according to your own showing, is an orphan, a lonely lie without father
+ or mother. Such testimony cannot be accepted. It is not even good hearsay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the next point you make, you also bring forward the remarks claimed to
+ have been made by Mr. Lincoln when some colored people of Baltimore
+ presented him with a Bible. You say that he said that the Bible was God's
+ best gift to man, and but for the Bible we could not know right from
+ wrong. It is impossible that Lincoln should have uttered these words. He
+ certainly would not have said to some colored people that the book that
+ instituted human slavery was God's best gift to man; neither could he have
+ said that but for this book we could not know right from wrong. If he said
+ these things he was temporarily insane. Mr. Lincoln was familiar with the
+ lives of Socrates, Epictetus, Epicurus, Zeno, Confucius, Zoroaster and
+ Buddha, not one of whom ever heard of the Bible. Certainly these men knew
+ right from wrong. In my judgment they would compare favorably with
+ Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and the Jews that crucified Christ. These
+ pretended remarks must be thrown away; they could have been uttered only
+ by an ignorant and thoughtless zealot, not by a sensible, thoughtful man.
+ Neither can we rely on any new evidence given by the Rev. Mr. Gurley. If
+ Mr. Gurley at any time claimed that Lincoln was a Christian, such claim
+ was born of an afterthought. Mr. Gurley preached a funeral sermon over the
+ body of Lincoln at the White House, and in that sermon he did not claim
+ that Mr. Lincoln was in any sense a Christian. He said nothing about
+ Christ. So, the testimony of the Rev. Mr. Sunderland amounts to nothing.
+ Lincoln did not tell him that he was a Christian or that he believed in
+ Christ. Not one of the ministers that claim that Lincoln was a Christian,
+ not one, testifies that Lincoln so said in his hearing. So, the lives that
+ have been written of Lincoln by Holland and Arnold are of no possible
+ authority. Holland knew nothing about Lincoln; he relied on gossip, and
+ was exceedingly anxious to make Lincoln a Christian so that his Life would
+ sell. As a matter of fact, Mr. Arnold knew little of Lincoln, and knew no
+ more of his religious opinions than he seems to have known about the
+ opinions of Washington.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I find also in your article a claim that Lincoln said to somebody that
+ under certain conditions, that is to say, if a church had the Golden Rule
+ for its creed, he would join that church; but you do not give the name of
+ the friend to whom Lincoln made this declaration. Still, if he made it, it
+ does not tend to show that he was a Christian. A church founded on the
+ Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you,"
+ would not in any sense be a Christian church. It would be an ethical
+ society. The testimony of Mr. Bateman has been changed by himself, he
+ having admitted that it was colored, that he was not properly reported; so
+ the night-walking scene given by James E. Murdoch, does not even tend to
+ show that Lincoln was a Christian. According to Mr. Murdoch he was praying
+ to the God of Solomon and he never mentioned the name of Christ. I think,
+ however, Mr. Murdoch's story is too theatrical, and my own opinion is that
+ it was a waking dream. I think Lincoln was a man of too much sense, too
+ much tact, to have said anything to God about Solomon. Lincoln knew that
+ what God did for Solomon ended in failure, and if he wanted God to do
+ something for him (Lincoln) he would not have called attention to the
+ other case. So Bishop Simpson, in his oration or funeral sermon, said
+ nothing about Lincoln's having been a Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what is the testimony that you present that Lincoln was a Christian?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First, Several of your witnesses say that he believed in God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second, Some say that he believed in the efficacy of prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third, Some say that he was a believer in Providence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth, An unknown person says that he said to another unknown person that
+ he was a Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth, You also claim that he said the Bible was the best gift of God to
+ man, and that without it we could not have known right from wrong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The anonymous testimony has to be thrown away, so nothing is left except
+ the remarks claimed to have been made when the Bible was presented by the
+ colored people, and these remarks destroy themselves. It is absolutely
+ impossible that Lincoln could have uttered the words attributed to him on
+ that occasion. I know of no one who heard the words, I know of no witness
+ who says he heard them or that he knows anybody who did. These remarks
+ were not even heard by an "eminent Christian lady," and we are driven to
+ say that if Lincoln was a Christian he took great pains to keep it a
+ secret.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that I am familiar with the material facts bearing upon the
+ religious belief of Mr. Lincoln, and that I know what he thought of
+ orthodox Christianity. I was somewhat acquainted with him and well
+ acquainted with many of his associates and friends, and I am familiar with
+ Mr. Lincoln's public utterances. Orthodox Christians have the habit of
+ claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of
+ reputation, men of wealth. As soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin
+ to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little
+ while the great man is changed to a Christian&mdash;possibly to a saint.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All this happened in Mr. Lincoln's case. Many pious falsehoods were told,
+ conversations were manufactured, and suddenly the church claimed that the
+ great President was an orthodox Christian. The truth is that Lincoln in
+ his religious views agreed with Franklin, Jefferson, and Voltaire. He did
+ not believe in the inspiration of the Bible or the divinity of Christ or
+ the scheme of salvation, and he utterly repudiated the dogma of eternal
+ pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In making up my mind as to what Mr. Lincoln really believed, I do not take
+ into consideration the evidence of unnamed persons or the contents of
+ anonymous letters; I take the testimony of those who knew and loved him,
+ of those to whom he opened his heart and to whom he spoke in the freedom
+ of perfect confidence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Herndon was his friend and partner for many years. I knew Mr. Herndon
+ well. I know that Lincoln never had a better, warmer, truer friend.
+ Herndon was an honest, thoughtful, able, studious man, respected by all
+ who knew him. He was as natural and sincere as Lincoln himself. On several
+ occasions Mr. Herndon told me what Lincoln believed and what he rejected
+ in the realm of religion. He told me again and again that Mr. Lincoln did
+ not believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, or in
+ the existence of a personal God. There was no possible reason for Mr.
+ Herndon to make a mistake or to color the facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Justice David Davis was a life-long friend and associate of Mr. Lincoln,
+ and Judge Davis knew Lincoln's religious opinions and knew Lincoln as well
+ as anybody did. Judge Davis told me that Lincoln was a Freethinker, that
+ he denied the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, and all
+ miracles. Davis also told me that he had talked with Lincoln on these
+ subjects hundreds of times.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I was well acquainted with Col. Ward H. Lamon and had many conversations
+ with him about Mr. Lincoln's religious belief, before and after he wrote
+ his life of Lincoln. He told me that he had told the exact truth in his
+ life of Lincoln, that Lincoln never did believe in the Bible, or in the
+ divinity of Christ, or in the dogma of eternal pain; that Lincoln was a
+ Freethinker.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For many years I was well acquainted with the Hon. Jesse W. Fell, one of
+ Lincoln's warmest friends. Mr. Fell often came to my house and we had many
+ talks about the religious belief of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Fell told me that
+ Lincoln did not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and that he
+ denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Mr. Fell was very liberal in his own
+ ideas, a great admirer of Theodore Parker and a perfectly sincere and
+ honorable man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For several years I was well acquainted with William G. Green, who was a
+ clerk with Lincoln at New Salem in the early days, and who admired and
+ loved Lincoln with all his heart. Green told me that Lincoln was always an
+ Infidel, and that he had heard him argue against the Bible hundreds of
+ times. Mr. Green knew Lincoln, and knew him well, up to the time of
+ Lincoln's death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Hon. James Tuttle of Illinois was a great friend of Lincoln, and he
+ is, if living, a friend of mine, and I am a friend of his. He knew Lincoln
+ well for many years, and he told me again and again that Lincoln was an
+ Infidel. Mr. Tuttle is a Freethinker himself and has always enjoyed the
+ respect of his neighbors. A man with purer motives does not live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So I place great reliance on the testimony of Col. John G. Nicolay. Six
+ weeks after Mr. Lincoln's death Colonel Nicolay said that he did not in
+ any way change his religious ideas, opinions or belief from the time he
+ left Springfield until the day of his death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In addition to all said by the persons I have mentioned, Mrs. Lincoln said
+ that her husband <i>was not a Christian</i>. There are many other
+ witnesses upon this question whose testimony can be found in a book
+ entitled "Abraham Lincoln, was he a Christian?" written by John E.
+ Remsburg, and published in 1893. In that book will be found all the
+ evidence on both sides. Mr. Remsburg states the case with great clearness
+ and demonstrates that Lincoln was not a Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, what is a Christian?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First. He is a believer in the existence of God, the Creator and Governor
+ of the Universe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. He believes in the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. He believes in the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ; that the Holy
+ Ghost was his father.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. He believes that this Christ was offered as a sacrifice for the
+ sins of men, that he was crucified, dead and buried, that he arose from
+ the dead and that he ascended into heaven.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. He believes in the "fall of man," in the scheme of redemption
+ through the atonement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth. He believes in salvation by faith, that the few are to be eternally
+ happy, and that the many are to be eternally damned.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventh. He believes in the Trinity, in God the Father, God the Son and
+ God the Holy Ghost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, is there the slightest evidence to show that Lincoln believed in the
+ inspiration of the Old and New Testaments?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has anybody said that he was heard to say that he so believed?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does anybody testify that Lincoln believed in the miraculous birth of
+ Jesus Christ, that the Holy Ghost was the father or that Christ was or is
+ God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Has anybody testified that Lincoln believed that Christ was raised from
+ the dead?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Did anyone ever hear him say that he believed in the ascension of Jesus
+ Christ? Did anyone ever hear him assert that he believed in the
+ forgiveness of sins, or in salvation by faith, or that belief was a virtue
+ and investigation a crime?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Where, then, is the evidence that he was a Christian?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another reason for thinking that Lincoln never became a
+ Christian.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All will admit that he was an honest man, that he discharged all
+ obligations perceived, and did what he believed to be his duty. If he had
+ become a Christian it was his duty publicly to say so. He was President;
+ he had the ear of the nation; every citizen, had he spoken, would have
+ listened. It was his duty to make a clear, explicit statement of his
+ conversion, and it was his duty to join some orthodox church, and he
+ should have given his reasons. He should have endeavored to reach the
+ heart and brain of the Republic. It was unmanly for him to keep his
+ "second birth" a secret and sneak into heaven leaving his old friends to
+ travel the road to hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Great pains have been taken to show that Mr. Lincoln believed in, and
+ worshiped the one true God. This by many is held to have been his greatest
+ virtue, the foundation of his character, and yet, the God he worshiped,
+ the God to whom he prayed, allowed him to be assassinated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it possible that God will not protect his friends?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0027" id="link0027">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ ORGANIZED CHARITIES.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ I HAVE no great confidence in organized charities. Money is left and
+ buildings are erected and sinecures provided for a good many worthless
+ people. Those in immediate control are almost, or when they were appointed
+ were almost, in want themselves, and they naturally hate other beggars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They regard persons who ask assistance as their enemies. There is an old
+ story of a tramp who begged a breakfast. After breakfast another tramp
+ came to the same place to beg his breakfast, and the first tramp with
+ blows and curses drove him away, saying at the same time: "I expect to get
+ dinner here myself."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the general attitude of beggar toward beggar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another trouble with organized charities is the machinery, the various
+ methods they have adopted to prevent what they call fraud. They are
+ exceedingly anxious that the needy, that those who ask help, who have been
+ without fault, shall be attended to, their rule apparently being to assist
+ only the unfortunate perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The trouble is that Nature produces very few specimens of that kind. As a
+ rule, men come to want on account of their imperfections, on account of
+ their ignorance, on account of their vices, and their vices are born of
+ their lack of capacity, of their want of brain. In other words, they are
+ failures of Nature, and the fact that they need help is not their own
+ fault, but the fault of their construction, their surroundings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Very few people have the opportunity of selecting their parents, and it is
+ exceedingly difficult in the matter of grandparents. Consequently, I do
+ not hold people responsible for hereditary tendencies, traits and vices.
+ Neither do I praise them for having hereditary virtues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A man going to one of these various charitable establishments is
+ cross-examined. He must give his biography. And after he has answered all
+ the supercilious, impudent questions, he is asked for references.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the people referred to are sought out, to find whether the statements
+ made by the applicant are true. By the time the thing is settled the man
+ who asked aid has either gotten it somewhere else or has, in the language
+ of the Spiritualists, "passed over to the other side."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course this does not trouble the persons in charge of the organized
+ charities, because their salaries are going on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, these charities were commenced by the best of people. Some
+ generous, philanthropic man or woman gave a life to establish a "home," it
+ may be, for aged women, for orphans, for the waifs of the pavements.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These generous people, filled with the spirit of charity, raised a little
+ money, succeeded in hiring or erecting a humble building, and the money
+ they collected, so honestly given, they honestly used to bind up the
+ wounds and wipe away the tears of the unfortunate, and to save, if
+ possible, some who had been wrecked on the rocks and reefs of crime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then some very rich man dies who had no charity and who would not have
+ left a dollar could he have taken his money with him. This rich man, who
+ hated his relatives and the people he actually knew, gives a large sum of
+ money to some particular charity&mdash;not that he had any charity, but
+ because he wanted to be remembered as a philanthropist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then the organized charity becomes rich, and the richer the meaner, the
+ richer the harder of heart and the closer of fist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I believe that Trinity Church, in this city, would be called an
+ organized charity. The church was started to save, if possible, a few
+ souls from eternal torment, and on the plea of saving these souls money
+ was given to the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Finally the church became rich. It is now a landlord&mdash;has many
+ buildings to rent. And if what I hear is true there is no harder landlord
+ in the city of New York.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, I have heard it said of Dublin University, that it is about the
+ hardest landlord in Ireland.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think you will find that all such institutions try to collect the very
+ last cent, and, in the name of pity, drive pity from their hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think it is Shakespeare who says, "Pity drives out pity," and he must
+ have had organized charities in his mind when he uttered this remark. Of
+ course a great many really good and philanthropic people leave vast sums
+ of money to charities.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I find that it is sometimes very difficult to get an injured man, or one
+ seized with some sudden illness, taken into a city hospital. There are so
+ many rules and so many regulations, so many things necessary to be done,
+ that while the rules are being complied with the soul of the sick or
+ injured man, weary of the waiting, takes its flight. And after the man is
+ dead, the doctors are kind enough to certify that he died of heart
+ failure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So&mdash;in a general way&mdash;I speak of all the asylums, of all the
+ homes for orphans. When I see one of those buildings I feel that it is
+ full of petty tyranny, of what might be called pious meanness, devout
+ deviltry, where the object is to break the will of every recipient of
+ public favor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I may be all wrong. I hope I am. At the same time I fear that I am
+ somewhere near right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You may take our prisons; the treatment of prisoners is often infamous.
+ The Elmira Reformatory is a worthy successor of the Inquisition, a
+ disgrace, in my judgment, to the State of New York, to the civilization of
+ our day. Every little while something comes to light showing the cruelty,
+ the tyranny, the meanness, of these professional distributers of public
+ charity&mdash;of these professed reformers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that they are visited now and then by committees from the
+ Legislature, and I know that the keepers of these places know when the
+ "committee" may be expected.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know that everything is scoured and swept and burnished for the
+ occasion; and I know that the poor devils that have been abused or whipped
+ or starved, fear to open their mouths, knowing that if they do they may
+ not be believed and that they will be treated afterward as though they
+ were wild beasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think these public institutions ought to be open to inspection at all
+ times. I think the very best men ought to be put in control of them. I
+ think only those doctors who have passed, and recently passed,
+ examinations as to their fitness, as to their intelligence and
+ professional acquirements, ought to be put in charge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not think that hospitals should be places for young doctors to
+ practice sawing off the arms and legs of paupers or hunting in the
+ stomachs of old women for tumors. I think only the skillful, the
+ experienced, should be employed in such places. Neither do I think
+ hospitals should be places where medicine is distributed by students to
+ the poor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorance is a poor doctor, even for the poor, and if we pretend to be
+ charitable we ought to carry it out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to see tyranny done away with in prisons, in the
+ reformatories, and in all places under the government or supervision of
+ the State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I would like to have all corporal punishment abolished, and I would also
+ like to see the money that is given to charity distributed by charity and
+ by intelligence. I hope all these institutions will be overhauled.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I hope all places where people are pretending to take care of the poor and
+ for which they collect money from the public, will be visited, and will be
+ visited unexpectedly and the truth told.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In my judgment there is some better way. I think every hospital, every
+ asylum, every home for waifs and orphans should be supported by taxation,
+ not by charity; should be under the care and control of the State
+ absolutely.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe in these institutions being managed by any individual or
+ by any society, religious or secular, but by the State. I would no more
+ have hospitals and asylums depend on charity than I would have the public
+ school depend on voluntary contributions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I want the schools supported by taxation and to be controlled by the
+ State, and I want the hospitals and asylums and charitable institutions
+ founded and controlled and carried on in the same way. Let the property of
+ the State do it.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let those pay the taxes who are able. And let us do away forever with the
+ idea that to take care of the sick, of the helpless, is a charity. It is
+ not a charity. It is a duty. It is something to be done for our own sakes.
+ It is no more a charity than it is to pave or light the streets, no more a
+ charity than it is to have a system of sewers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is all for the purpose of protecting society and of civilizing
+ ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0028" id="link0028">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SPAIN AND THE SPANIARDS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ SPAIN has always been exceedingly religious and exceedingly cruel. That
+ country had an unfortunate experience. The Spaniards fought the Moors for
+ about seven hundred or eight hundred years, and during that time
+ Catholicism and patriotism became synonymous. They were fighting the
+ Moslems. It was a religious war. For this reason they became intense in
+ their Catholicism, and they were fearful that if they should grant the
+ least concession to the Moor, God would destroy them. Their idea was that
+ the only way to secure divine aid was to have absolute faith, and this
+ faith was proved by their hatred of all ideas inconsistent with their own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spain has been and is the victim of superstition. The Spaniards expelled
+ the Jews, who at that time represented a good deal of wealth and
+ considerable intelligence. This expulsion was characterized by infinite
+ brutality and by cruelties that words can not express. They drove out the
+ Moors at last. Not satisfied with this, they drove out the Moriscoes.
+ These were Moors who had been converted to Catholicism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Spaniards, however, had no confidence in the honesty of the
+ conversion, and for the purpose of gaining the good will of God, they
+ drove them out. They had succeeded in getting rid of Jews, Moors and
+ Moriscoes; that is to say, of the intelligence and industry of Spain.
+ Nothing was left but Spaniards; that is to say, indolence, pride, cruelty
+ and infinite superstition. So Spain destroyed all freedom of thought
+ through the Inquisition, and for many years the sky was livid with the
+ flames of the <i>Auto da fe</i>; Spain was busy carrying fagots to the
+ feet of philosophy, busy in burning people for thinking, for
+ investigating, for expressing honest opinions. The result was that a great
+ darkness settled over Spain, pierced by no star and shone upon by no
+ rising sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At one time Spain was the greatest of powers, owner of half the world, and
+ now she has only a few islands, the small change of her great fortune, the
+ few pennies in the almost empty purse, souvenirs of departed wealth, of
+ vanished greatness. Now Spain is bankrupt, bankrupt not only in purse, but
+ in the higher faculties of the mind, a nation without progress, without
+ thought; still devoted to bull fights and superstition, still trying to
+ affright contagious diseases by religious processions. Spain is a part of
+ the medi&aelig;val ages, belongs to an ancient generation. It really has
+ no place in the nineteenth century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spain has always been cruel. S. S. Prentice, many years ago, speaking of
+ Spain said: "On the shore of discovery it leaped an armed robber, and
+ sought for gold even in the throats of its victims." The bloodiest pages
+ in the history of this world have been written by Spain. Spain in Peru, in
+ Mexico, Spain in the low countries&mdash;all possible cruelties come back
+ to the mind when we say Philip II., when we say the Duke of Alva, when we
+ pronounce the names of Ferdinand and Isabella. Spain has inflicted every
+ torture, has practiced every cruelty, has been guilty of every possible
+ outrage. There has been no break between Torquemada and Weyler, between
+ the Inquisition and the infamies committed in Cuba.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When Columbus found Cuba, the original inhabitants were the kindest and
+ gentlest of people. They practiced no inhuman rites, they were good,
+ contented people. The Spaniards enslaved them or sought to enslave them.
+ The people rising, they were hunted with dogs, they were tortured, they
+ were murdered, and finally exterminated. This was the commencement of
+ Spanish rule on the island of Cuba. The same spirit is in Spain to-day
+ that was in Spain then. The idea is not to conciliate, but to coerce, not
+ to treat justly, but to rob and enslave. No Spaniard regards a Cuban as
+ having equal rights with himself. He looks upon the island as property,
+ and upon the people as a part of that property, both equally belonging to
+ Spain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Spain has kept no promises made to the Cubans and never will. At last the
+ Cubans know exactly what Spain is, and they have made up their minds to be
+ free or to be exterminated. There is nothing in history to equal the
+ atrocities and outrages that have been perpetrated by Spain upon Cuba.
+ What Spain does now, all know is only a repetition of what Spain has done,
+ and this is a prophecy of what Spain will do if she has the power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So far as I am concerned, I have no idea that there is to be any war
+ between Spain and the United States. A country that can't conquer Cuba,
+ certainly has no very flattering chance of overwhelming the United States.
+ A man that cannot whip one of his own boys is foolish when he threatens to
+ clean out the whole neighborhood. Of course, there is some wisdom even in
+ Spain, and the Spaniards who know anything of this country know that it
+ would be absolute madness and the utmost extreme of folly to attack us. I
+ believe in treating even Spain with perfect fairness. I feel about the
+ country as Burns did about the Devil: "O wad ye tak' a thought an' mend!"
+ I know that nations, like people, do as they must, and I regard Spain as
+ the victim and result of conditions, the fruit of a tree that was planted
+ by ignorance and watered by superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe that Cuba is to be free, and I want that island to give a new
+ flag to the air, whether it ever becomes a part of the United States or
+ not. My sympathies are all with those who are struggling for their rights,
+ trying to get the clutch of tyranny from their throats; for those who are
+ defending their homes, their firesides, against tyrants and robbers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whether the Maine was blown up by the Spaniards is still a question. I
+ suppose it will soon be decided. In my own opinion, the disaster came from
+ the outside, but I do not know, and not knowing, I am willing to wait for
+ the sake of human nature. I sincerely hope that it was an accident. I hate
+ to think that there are people base and cruel enough to commit such an
+ act. Still, I think that all these matters will be settled without war.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am in favor of an international court, the members to be selected by the
+ ruling nations of the world; and before this court I think all questions
+ between nations should be decided, and the only army and the only navy
+ should be under its direction, and used only for the purpose of enforcing
+ its decrees. Were there such a court now, before which Cuba could appear
+ and tell the story of her wrongs, of the murders, the assassinations, the
+ treachery, the starvings, the cruelty, I think that the decision would
+ instantly be in her favor and that Spain would be driven from the island.
+ Until there is such a court there is no need of talking about the world
+ being civilized.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am not a Christian, but I do believe in the religion of justice, of
+ kindness. I believe in humanity. I do believe that usefulness is the
+ highest possible form of worship. The useful man is the good man, the
+ useful man is the real saint. I care nothing about supernatural myths and
+ mysteries, but I do care for human beings. I have a little short creed of
+ my own, not very hard to understand, that has in it no contradictions, and
+ it is this: Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The
+ place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think this creed if adopted, would do away with war. I think it would
+ destroy superstition, and I think it would civilize even Spain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0029" id="link0029">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ AS I understand it, the United States went into this war against Spain in
+ the cause of freedom. For three years Spain has been endeavoring to
+ conquer these people. The means employed were savage. Hundreds of
+ thousands were starved. Yet the Cubans, with great heroism, were
+ continuing the struggle. In spite of their burned homes, their wasted
+ fields, their dead comrades, the Cubans were not conquered and still waged
+ war. Under those circumstances we said to Spain, "You must withdraw from
+ the Western World. The Cubans have the right to be free!" They have been
+ robbed and enslaved by Spanish officers and soldiers. Undoubtedly they
+ were savages when first found, and undoubtedly they are worse now than
+ when discovered&mdash;more barbarous. They wouldn't make very good
+ citizens of the United States; they are probably incapable of
+ self-government, but no people can be ignorant enough to be justly robbed
+ or savage enough to be rightly enslaved. I think that we should keep the
+ islands, not for our own sake, but for the sake of these people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was understood and declared at the time, that we were not waging war
+ for the sake of territory, that we were not trying to annex Cuba, but that
+ we were moved by compassion&mdash;a compassion that became as stern as
+ justice. I did not think at the time there would be war. I supposed that
+ the Spanish people had some sense, that they knew their own condition and
+ the condition of this Republic. But the improbable happened, and now,
+ after the successes we have had, the end of the war appears to be in
+ sight, and the question arises: What shall we do with the Spanish islands
+ that we have taken already, or that we may take before peace comes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, we could not, without stultifying ourselves and committing the
+ greatest of crimes, hand back Cuba to Spain. But to do that would be no
+ more criminal, no more infamous, than to hand back the Philippines. In
+ those islands there are from eight to ten millions of people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As far as the Philippines are concerned, I think that we should endeavor
+ to civilize them, and to do this we should send teachers, not preachers.
+ We should not endeavor to give them our superstition in place of Spanish
+ superstition. They have had superstition enough. They don't need churches,
+ they need schools. We should teach them our arts; how to cultivate the
+ soil, how to manufacture the things they need. In other words, we should
+ deal honestly with them, and try our best to make them a self-supporting
+ and a self-governing people. The eagle should spread its wings over those
+ islands for that and for no other purpose. We can not afford to give them
+ to other nations or to throw fragments of them to the wild beasts of
+ Europe. We can not say to Russia, "You may have a part," and to Germany,
+ "You may have a share," and to France, "You take something," and so divide
+ out these people as thieves divide plunder. That we will never do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is, moreover, in my mind, a little sentiment mixed with this matter.
+ Manila Bay has been filled with American glory. There was won one of our
+ greatest triumphs, one of the greatest naval victories of the world&mdash;won
+ by American courage and genius. We can not allow any other nation to
+ become the owner of the stage on which this American drama was played. I
+ know that we can be of great assistance to the inhabitants of the
+ Philippines. I know that we can be an unmixed blessing to them, and that
+ is the only ambition I have in regard to those islands. I would no more
+ think of handing them back to Spain than I would of butchering the entire
+ population in cold blood. Spain is unfit to govern. Spain has always been
+ a robber. She has never made an effort to civilize a human being. The
+ history of Spain, I think, is the darkest page in the history of the
+ world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At the same time I have a kind of pity for the Spanish people. I feel that
+ they have been victims&mdash;victims of superstition. Their blood has been
+ sucked, their energies have been wasted and misdirected, and they excite
+ my sympathies. Of course, there are many good Spaniards, good men, good
+ women. Cervera appears to be a civilized man, a gentleman, and I feel
+ obliged to him for his treatment of Hobson. The great mass of the
+ Spaniards, however, must be exceedingly ignorant. Their so-called leaders
+ dare not tell them the truth about the progress of this war. They seem to
+ be afraid to state the facts. They always commence with a lie, then change
+ it a little, then change it a little more, and may be at last tell the
+ truth. They never seem to dare to tell the truth at first, if the truth is
+ bad. They put me in mind of the story of a man telegraphing to a wife
+ about the condition of her husband. The first dispatch was, "Your husband
+ is well, never better." The second was, "Your husband is sick, but not
+ very." The third was, "Your husband is much worse, but we still have
+ hope." The fourth was, "You may as well know the truth&mdash;we buried
+ your husband yesterday." That is about the way the Spanish people get
+ their war news.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That is why it may be incorrect to assume that peace is coming quickly. If
+ the Spaniards were a normal people, who acted as other folks do, we might
+ prophesy a speedy peace, but nobody has prophetic vision enough to tell
+ what such a people will do. In spite of all appearances, and all our
+ successes, and of all sense, the war may drag on. But I hope not, not only
+ for our own sake, but for the sake of the Spaniards themselves. I can't
+ help thinking of the poor peasants who will be killed, neither can I help
+ thinking of the poor peasants who will have to toil for many years on the
+ melancholy fields of Spain to pay the cost of this war. I am sorry for
+ them, and I am sorry also for the widows and orphans, and no one will be
+ more delighted when peace comes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The argument has been advanced in the National Senate and elsewhere, that
+ the Federal Constitution makes no provision for the holding of colonies or
+ dependencies, such as the Philippines would be; that we can only acquire
+ them as territories, and eventually must take them in as States, with
+ their population of mixed and inferior races. That is hardly an effective
+ argument.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When this country was an infant, still in its cradle, George Washington
+ gave the child some very good advice; told him to beware of entangling
+ alliances, to stay at home and attend to his own business. Under the
+ circumstances this was all very good. But the infant has been growing, and
+ the Republic is now one of the most powerful nations in the world, and
+ yet, from its infant days until now, good, conservative people have been
+ repeating the advice of Washington. It was repeated again and again when
+ we were talking about purchasing Louisiana, and many Senators and
+ Congressmen became hysterical and predicted the fall of the Republic if
+ that was done. The same thing took place when we purchased Florida, and
+ again when we got one million square miles from Mexico, and still again
+ when we bought Alaska. These ideas about violating the Constitution and
+ wrecking the Republic were promulgated by our great and wise statesmen on
+ all these previous occasions, but, after all, the Constitution seems to
+ have borne the strain. There seems to be as much liberty now as there was
+ then, and, in fact, a great deal more. Our Territories have given us no
+ trouble, while they have greatly added to our population and vastly
+ increased our wealth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beside this, the statesmen of the olden time, the wise men with whom
+ wisdom was supposed to have perished, could not and did not imagine the
+ improvements that would take place after they were gone. In their time,
+ practically speaking, it was farther from New York to Buffalo than it is
+ now from New York to San Francisco, and so far as the transportation of
+ intelligence is concerned, San Francisco is as near New York as it would
+ have been in their day had it been just across the Harlem River. Taking
+ into consideration the railways, the telegraphs and the telephones, this
+ country now, with its area of three million five hundred thousand square
+ miles, is not so large as the thirteen original colonies were; that is to
+ say, the distances are more easily traveled and more easily overcome. In
+ those days it required months and months to cross the continent. Now it is
+ the work of four or five days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, when we came to talk about annexing the Hawaiian Islands, the advice
+ of George Washington was again repeated, and the older the Senator the
+ fonder he was of this advice. These Senators had the idea that the
+ Constitution, having nothing in favor of it, must contain something, at
+ least in spirit, against it. Of course, our fathers had no idea of the
+ growth of the Republic. We have, because with us it is a matter of
+ experience. I don't see that Alaska has imperiled any of the liberties of
+ New York. We need not admit Alaska as a State unless it has a population
+ entitling it to admission, and we are not bound to take in the Sandwich
+ Islands until the people are civilized, until they are fit companions of
+ free men and free women. It may be that a good many of our citizens will
+ go to the Sandwich Islands, and that, in a short time, the people there
+ will be ready to be admitted as a State. All this the Constitution can
+ stand, and in it there is no danger of imperialism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in national growth. As a rule, the prosperous farmer wants to
+ buy the land that adjoins him, and I think a prosperous nation has the
+ ambition of growth. It is better to expand than to shrivel; and, if our
+ Constitution is too narrow to spread over the territory that we have the
+ courage to acquire, why we can make a broader one. It is a very easy
+ matter to make a constitution, and no human happiness, no prosperity, no
+ progress should be sacrificed for the sake of a piece of paper with
+ writing on it; because there is plenty of paper and plenty of men to do
+ the writing, and plenty of people to say what the writing should be. I
+ take more interest in people than I do in constitutions. I regard
+ constitutions as secondary; they are means to an end, but the dear, old,
+ conservative gentlemen seem to regard constitutions as ends in themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have read what ex-President Cleveland had to say on this important
+ subject, and I am happy to say that I entirely disagree with him. So, too,
+ I disagree with Senator Edmunds, and with Mr. Bryan, and with Senator
+ Hoar, and with all the other gentlemen who wish to stop the growth of the
+ Republic. I want it to grow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As to the final destiny of the island possessions won from Spain, my idea
+ is that the Philippine Islands will finally be free, protected, it may be
+ for a long time, by the United States. I think Cuba will come to us for
+ protection, naturally, and, so far as I am concerned, I want Cuba only
+ when Cuba wants us. I think that Porto Rico and some of those islands will
+ belong permanently to the United States, and I believe Cuba will finally
+ become a part of our Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the opponents of progress found that they couldn't make the American
+ people take the back track by holding up their hands over the
+ Constitution, they dragged in the Monroe doctrine. When we concluded not
+ to allow Spain any longer to enslave her colonists, or the people who had
+ been her colonists, in the New World, that was a very humane and wise
+ resolve, and it was strictly in accord with the Monroe doctrine. For the
+ purpose of conquering Spain, we attacked her fleet in Manila Bay, and
+ destroyed it. I can not conceive how that action of ours can be twisted
+ into a violation of the Monroe doctrine. The most that can be said is,
+ that it is an extension of that doctrine, and that we are now saying to
+ Spain, "You shall not enslave, you shall not rob, anywhere that we have
+ the power to prevent it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Having taken the Philippines, the same humanity that dictated the
+ declaration of what is called the Monroe doctrine, will force us to act
+ there in accordance with the spirit of that doctrine. The other day I saw
+ in the paper an extract, I think, from Goldwin Smith, in which he says
+ that if we were to bombard Cadiz we would give up the Monroe doctrine. I
+ do not see the application. We are at war with Spain, and we have a right
+ to invade that country, and the invasion would have nothing whatever to do
+ with the Monroe doctrine. War being declared, we have the right to do
+ anything consistent with civilized warfare to gain the victory. The
+ bombardment of Cadiz would have no more to do with the Monroe doctrine
+ than with the attraction of gravitation. If, by the Monroe doctrine is
+ meant that we have agreed to stay in this hemisphere, and to prevent other
+ nations from interfering with any people on this hemisphere, and if it is
+ said that, growing out of this, is another doctrine, namely, that we are
+ pledged not to interfere with any people living on the other hemisphere,
+ then it might be called a violation of the Monroe doctrine for us to
+ bombard Cadiz. But such is not the Monroe doctrine. If, we being at war
+ with England, she should bombard the city of New York, or we should
+ bombard some city of England, would anybody say that either nation had
+ violated the Monroe doctrine? I do not see how that doctrine is involved,
+ whether we fight at sea or on the territory of the enemy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the first war, so far as I know, in the history of the world that
+ has been waged absolutely in the interest of humanity; the only war born
+ of pity, of sympathy; and for that reason I have taken a deep interest in
+ it, and I must say that I was greatly astonished by the victory of Admiral
+ Dewey in Manila Bay. I think it one of the most wonderful in the history
+ of the world, and I think all that Dewey has done shows clearly that he is
+ a man of thought, of courage and of genius. So, too, the victory over the
+ fleet of Cervera by Commodore Schley, is one of the most marvelous and the
+ most brilliant in all the annals of the world. The marksmanship, the
+ courage, the absolute precision with which everything was done, is to my
+ mind astonishing. Neither should we forget Wainwright's heroic exploit, as
+ commander of the Gloucester, by which he demonstrated that torpedo
+ destroyers have no terrors for a yacht manned by American pluck. Manila
+ Bay and Santiago both are surpassingly wonderful. There are no words with
+ which to describe such deeds&mdash;deeds that leap like flames above the
+ clouds and glorify the whole heavens.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Spanish have shown in this contest that they possess courage, and they
+ have displayed what you might call the heroism of desperation, but the
+ Anglo-Saxon has courage and coolness&mdash;courage not blinded by passion,
+ courage that is the absolute servant of intelligence. The Anglo-Saxon has
+ a fixedness of purpose that is never interfered with by feeling; he does
+ not become enraged&mdash;he becomes firm, unyielding, his mind is
+ absolutely made up, clasped, locked, and he carries out his will. With the
+ Spaniard it is excitement, nervousness; he becomes frantic. I think this
+ war has shown the superiority, not simply of our ships, or our armor, or
+ our guns, but the superiority of our men, of our officers, of our gunners.
+ The courage of our army about Santiago was splendid, the steadiness and
+ bravery of the volunteers magnificent. I think that what has already been
+ done has given us the admiration of the civilized world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know, of course, that some countries hate us. Germany is filled with
+ malice, and has been just on the crumbling edge of meanness for months,
+ wishing but not daring to interfere; hateful, hostile, but keeping just
+ within the overt act. We could teach Germany a lesson and her ships would
+ go down before ours just the same as the Spanish ships have done.
+ Sometimes I have almost wished that a hostile German shot might be fired.
+ But I think we will get even with Germany and with France&mdash;at least I
+ hope so.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And there is another thing I hope&mdash;that the good feeling now existing
+ between England and the United States may be eternal. In other words, I
+ hope it will be to the interests of both to be friends. I think the
+ English-speaking peoples are to rule this world. They are the kings of
+ invention, of manufactures, of commerce, of administration, and they have
+ a higher conception of human liberty than any other people. Of course,
+ they are not entirely free; they still have some of the rags and tatters
+ and ravelings of superstition; but they are tatters and they are rags and
+ they are ravelings, and the people know it. And, besides all this, the
+ English language holds the greatest literature of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0030" id="link0030">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A FEW FRAGMENTS ON EXPANSION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ A NATION rises from infancy to manhood and sinks from dotage to death. I
+ think that the great Republic is in the morning of her life&mdash;the sun
+ just above the horizon&mdash;the grass still wet with dew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our country has the courage and enthusiasm of youth&mdash;her blood flows
+ full&mdash;her heart beats strong and her brow is fair. We stand on the
+ threshold of a great, a sublime career. All the conditions are favorable&mdash;the
+ environment kind. The best part of this hemisphere is ours. We have a
+ thousand million acres of fertile land, vast forests, whole States
+ underlaid with coal; ranges of mountains filled with iron, silver and
+ gold, and we have seventy-five millions of the most energetic, active,
+ inventive, progressive and practical people in the world. The great
+ Republic is a happy combination of mind and muscle, of head and heart, of
+ courage and good nature. We are growing. We have the instinct of
+ expansion. We are full of life and health. We are about to take our
+ rightful place at the head of the nations. The great powers have been
+ struggling to obtain markets. They are fighting for the trade of the East.
+ They are contending for China. We watched, but we did not act. They paid
+ no attention to us or we to them. Conditions have changed. We own the
+ Hawaiian Islands. We will own the Philippines.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Japan and China will be our neighbors&mdash;our customers. Our interests
+ must be protected. In China we want the "open door," and we will see to it
+ that the door is kept open. The nation that tries to shut it, will get its
+ fingers pinched. We have taught the Old World that the Republic must be
+ consulted. We have entered on the great highway, and we are destined to
+ become the most powerful, the most successful and the most generous of
+ nations. I am for expansion. The more people beneath the flag the better.
+ Let the Republic grow..
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I BELIEVE in growth. Of course there are many moss-back conservatives who
+ fear expansion. Thousands opposed the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon,
+ thousands were against the acquisition of Florida and of the vast
+ territory we obtained from Mexico. So, thousands were against the purchase
+ of Alaska, and some dear old mummies opposed the annexation of the
+ Sandwich Islands, and yet, I do not believe that there is an intelligent
+ American who would like to part with one acre that has been acquired by
+ the Government. Now, there are some timid, withered statesmen who do not
+ want Porto Rico&mdash;who beg us in a trembling, patriotic voice not to
+ keep the Philippines. But the sensible people feel exactly the other way.
+ They love to see our borders extended. They love to see the flag floating
+ over the islands of the tropics,&mdash;showering its blessings upon the
+ poor people who have been robbed and tortured by the Spanish. Let the
+ Republic grow! Let us spread the gospel of Freedom! In a few years I hope
+ that Canada will be ours&mdash;I want Mexico&mdash;in other words, I want
+ all of North America. I want to see our flag waving from the North Pole.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I think it was a mistake to appoint a peace commission. The President
+ should have demanded the unconditional surrender of Cuba, Porto Rico and
+ the Philippines. Spain was helpless. The war would have ended on our
+ terms, and all this commission nonsense would have been saved. Still, I
+ make no complaint. It will probably come out right, though it would have
+ been far better to have ended the business when we could&mdash;when Spain
+ was prostrate. It was foolish to let her get up and catch her breath and
+ hunt for friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ ONLY a few days ago our President, by proclamation, thanked God for giving
+ us the victory at Santiago. He did not thank him for sending the yellow
+ fever. To be consistent the President should have thanked him equally for
+ both. Man should think; he should use all his senses; he should examine;
+ he should reason. The man who cannot think is less than man; the man who
+ will not think is a traitor to himself; the man who fears to think is
+ superstition's slave. I do not thank God for the splendid victory in
+ Manila Bay. I don't know whether he had anything to do with it; if I find
+ out that he did I will thank him readily. Meanwhile, I will thank Admiral
+ George Dewey and the brave fellows who were with him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not thank God for the destruction of Cervera's fleet at Santiago. No,
+ I thank Schley and the men with the trained eyes and the nerves of steel,
+ who stood behind the guns. I do not thank God because we won the battle of
+ Santiago. I thank the Regular Army, black and white&mdash;the Volunteers&mdash;the
+ Rough Riders, and all the men who made the grand charge at San Juan Hill.
+ I have asked, "Why should God help us to whip Spain?" and have been
+ answered: "For the sake of the Cubans, who have been crushed and
+ ill-treated by their Spanish masters." Then why did not God help the
+ Cubans long before? Certainly, they were fighting long enough and needed
+ his help badly enough. But, I am told, God's ways are inscrutable. Suppose
+ Spain had whipped us; would the Christians then say that God did it? Very
+ likely they would, and would have as an excuse, that we broke the Sabbath
+ with our base-ball, our bicycles and bloomers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0031" id="link0031">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ IS IT EVER RIGHT FOR HUSBAND OR WIFE TO KILL RIVAL?
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ HOW far should a husband or wife go in defending the sanctity of home?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it right for the husband to kill the paramour of his wife?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it right for the wife to kill the paramour of her husband?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These three questions are in substance one, and one answer will be
+ sufficient for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, we should have an understanding of the real relation
+ that exists, or should exist, between husband and wife.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real good orthodox people, those who admire St. Paul, look upon the
+ wife as the property of the husband. He owns, not only her body, but her
+ very soul. This being the case, no other man has the right to steal or try
+ to steal this property. The owner has the right to defend his possession,
+ even to the death. In the olden time the husband was never regarded as the
+ property of the wife. She had a claim on him for support, and there was
+ usually some way to enforce the claim. If the husband deserted the wife
+ for the sake of some other woman, or transferred his affections to
+ another, the wife, as a rule, suffered in silence. Sometimes she took her
+ revenge on the woman, but generally she did nothing. Men killed the
+ "destroyers" of their homes, but the women, having no homes, being only
+ wives, nothing but mothers&mdash;bearers of babes for masters&mdash;allowed
+ their destroyers to live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In recent years women have advanced. They have stepped to the front. Wives
+ are no longer slaves. They are the equals of husbands. They have homes to
+ defend, husbands to protect and "destroyers" to kill. The rights of
+ husbands and wives are now equal. They live under the same moral code.
+ Their obligations to each other are mutual. Both are bound, and equally
+ bound, to live virtuous lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, if A falls in love with the wife of B, and she returns his love, has
+ B the right to kill him? Or if A falls in love with the husband of B, and
+ he returns her love, has B the right to kill her?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the wronged husband has the right to kill, so has the wronged wife.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that a young man and woman are engaged to be married, and that she
+ falls in love with another and marries him, has the first lover a right to
+ kill the last?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This leads me to another question: What is marriage? Men and women cannot
+ truly be married by any set or form of words, or by any ceremonies however
+ solemn, or by contract signed, sealed and witnessed, or by the words or
+ declarations of priests or judges. All these put together do not
+ constitute marriage. At the very best they are only evidences of the fact
+ of marriage&mdash;something that really happened between the parties.
+ Without pure, honest, mutual love there can be no real marriage. Marriage
+ without love is only a form of prostitution. Marriage for the sake of
+ position or wealth is immoral. No good, sensible man wants to marry a
+ woman whose heart is not absolutely his, and no good, sensible woman wants
+ to marry a man whose heart is not absolutely hers. Now, if there can be no
+ real marriage without mutual love, does the marriage outlast the love? If
+ it is immoral for a woman to marry a man without loving him, is it moral
+ for her to live as the wife of a man whom she has ceased to love? Is she
+ bound by the words, by the ceremony, after the real marriage is dead? Is
+ she so bound that the man she hates has the right to be the father of her
+ babes?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If a girl is engaged and afterward meets her ideal, a young man whose
+ presence is joy, whose touch is ecstasy, is it her duty to fulfill her
+ engagement? Would it not be a thousand times nobler and purer for her to
+ say to the first lover: "I thought I loved you; I was mistaken. I belong
+ heart and soul to another, and if I married you I could not be yours."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, if a young man is engaged and finds that he has made a mistake, is it
+ honorable for him to keep his contract? Would it not be far nobler for him
+ to tell her the truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The civilized man loves a woman not only for his own sake, but for her
+ sake. He longs to make her happy&mdash;to fill her life with joy. He is
+ willing to make sacrifices for her, but he does not want her to sacrifice
+ herself for him. The civilized husband wants his wife to be free&mdash;wants
+ the love that she cannot help giving him. He does not want her, from a
+ sense of duty, or because of the contract or ceremony, to act as though
+ she loved him, when in fact her heart is far away. He does not want her to
+ pollute her soul and live a lie for his sake. The civilized husband places
+ the happiness of his wife above his own. Her love is the wealth of his
+ heart, and to guard her from evil is the business of his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the civilized husband knows when his wife ceases to love him that the
+ real marriage has also ceased. He knows that it is then infamous for him
+ to compel her to remain his wife. He knows that it is her right to be free&mdash;that
+ her body belongs to her, that her soul is her own. He knows, too, if he
+ knows anything, that her affection is not the slave of her will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a case like this, the civilized husband would, so far as he had the
+ power, release his wife from the contract of marriage, divide his property
+ fairly with her and do what he could for her welfare. Civilized love never
+ turns to hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose he should find that there was a man in the case, that another had
+ won her love, or that she had given her love to another, would it then be
+ his right or duty to kill that man? Would the killing do any good? Would
+ it bring back her love? Would it reunite the family? Would it annihilate
+ the disgrace or the memory of the shame? Would it lessen the husband's
+ loss?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Society says that the husband should kill the man because he led the woman
+ astray.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How do we know that he betrayed the woman? Mrs. Potiphar left many
+ daughters, and Joseph certainly had but few sons. How do we know that it
+ was not the husband's fault? She may for years have shivered in the winter
+ of his neglect. She may have borne his cruelties of word and deed until
+ her love w'as dead and buried side by side with hope. Another man comes
+ into her life. He pities her. She looks and loves. He lifts her from the
+ grave. Again she really lives, and her poor heart is rich with love's red
+ blood. Ought this man to be killed? He has robbed no husband, wronged no
+ man. He has rescued a victim, released an innocent prisoner and made a
+ life worth living. But the brutal husband says that the wife has been led
+ astray; that he has been wronged and dishonored, and that it is his right,
+ his duty, to shed the seducer's blood. He finds the facts himself. He is
+ witness, jury, judge and executioner. He forgets his neglect, his
+ cruelties, his faithlessness; forgets that he drove her from his heart,
+ remembers only that she loves another, and then in the name of justice he
+ takes the life of the one she loves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A husband deserts his wife, leaves her without money, without the means to
+ live, with his babes in her arms. She cannot get a divorce; she must wait,
+ and in the meantime she must live. A man falls in love with her and she
+ with him. He takes care of her and the deserted children. The "wronged"
+ husband returns and kills the "betrayer" of his wife. He believes in the
+ sacredness of marriage, the holiness of home.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be admitted that the deserted wife did wrong, and that the man who
+ cared for her and her worse than fatherless children also did wrong, but
+ certainly he had done nothing for which he deserved to be murdered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A woman finds that her husband is in love with another woman, that he is
+ false, and the question is whether it is her right to kill the other
+ woman. The wronged husband has always claimed that the man led his wife
+ astray, that he had crept and crawled into his Eden, but now the wronged
+ wife claims that the woman seduced her husband, that she spread the net,
+ wove the web and baited the trap in which the innocent husband was caught.
+ Thereupon she kills the other woman.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the first place, how can she be sure of the facts? How does she know
+ whose fault it was? Possibly she was to blame herself.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But what good has the killing done? It will not give her back her
+ husband's love. It will not cool the fervor of her jealousy. It will not
+ give her better sleep or happier dreams.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It would have been far better if she had said to her husband: "Go with the
+ woman you love. I do not want your body without your heart, your presence
+ without your love."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, it would be better for the wronged husband to say to the unfaithful
+ wife: "Go with the man you love. Your heart is his, I am not your master.
+ You are free."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, murder is a poor remedy. If you kill a man for one wrong, why
+ not for another? If you take the law into your own hands and kill a man
+ because he loves your wife and your wife loves him, why not kill him for
+ any injury he may inflict on you or yours?...
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a civilized nation the people are governed by law. They do not redress
+ their own wrongs. They submit their differences to courts. If they are
+ wronged they appeal to the law. Savages redress what they call their
+ wrongs. They appeal to knife or gun. They kill, they assassinate, they
+ murder; and they do this to preserve their honor. Admit that the seducer
+ of the wife deserves death, that the woman who leads the husband astray
+ deserves death, admit that both have justly forfeited their lives, the
+ question yet remains whether the wronged husband and the wronged wife have
+ the right to commit murder.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If they have this right, then there ought to be some way provided for
+ ascertaining the facts. Before the husband kills the "betrayer," the fact
+ that the wife was really led astray should be established, and the
+ "wronged" husband who claims the right to kill, should show that he had
+ been a good, loving and true husband.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As a rule, the wives of good and generous men are true and faithful. They
+ love their homes, they adore their children. In poverty and disaster they
+ cling the closer. But when husbands are indolent and mean, when they are
+ cruel and selfish, when they make a hell of home, why should we insist
+ that their wives should love them still?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the civilized man finds that his wife loves another he does not kill,
+ he does not murder. He says to his wife, "You are free."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the civilized woman finds that her husband loves another she does not
+ kill, she does not murder. She says to her husband, "I am free." This, in
+ my judgment, is the better way. It is in accordance with a far higher
+ philosophy of life, of the real rights of others. The civilized man is
+ governed by his reason, his intelligence; the savage by his passions. The
+ civilized, man seeks for the right, regardless of himself; the savage for
+ revenge, regardless of the rights of others.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not believe that murder guards the sacredness of home, the purity of
+ the fireside. I do not believe that crime wins victories for virtue. I
+ believe in liberty and I believe in law. That country is free where the
+ people make and honestly uphold the law. I am opposed to a redress of
+ grievances or the punishment of criminals by mobs and I am equally opposed
+ to giving the "wronged" husbands and the "wronged" wives the right to kill
+ the men and women they suspect. In other words, I believe in civilization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few years ago a merchant living in the West suspected that his wife and
+ bookkeeper were in love. One morning he started for a distant city,
+ pretending that he would be absent for a couple of weeks. He came back
+ that night and found the lovers occupying the same room. He did not kill
+ the man, but said to him: "Take her; she is yours. Treat her well and you
+ will not be troubled. Abuse or desert her and I will be her avenger."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not kill his wife, but said: "We part forever. You are entitled to
+ one-half of the property we have accumulated. You shall have it.
+ Farewell!"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The merchant was a civilized man&mdash;a philosopher.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0032" id="link0032">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ PROFESSOR BRIGGS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ To the study of the Bible he has given the best years of his life. When he
+ commenced this study he was probably a devout believer in the plenary
+ inspiration of the Scripture&mdash;thought that the Bible was without an
+ error; that all the so-called contradictions could be easily explained. He
+ had been educated by Presbyterians and had confidence in his teachers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of his early training, in spite of his prejudices, he was led, in
+ some mysterious way, to rely a little on his own reason. This was a
+ dangerous thing to do. The moment a man talks about reason he is on
+ dangerous ground. He is liable to contradict the "Word of God." Then he
+ loses spirituality and begins to think more of truth than creed. This is a
+ step toward heresy&mdash;toward Infidelity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs began to have doubts about some of the miracles. These
+ doubts, like rats, began to gnaw the foundations of his faith. He examined
+ these wonderful stories in the light of what is known to have happened,
+ and in the light of like miracles found in the other sacred books of the
+ world. And he concluded that they were not quite true. He was not ready to
+ say that they were actually false; that would be too brutally candid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I once read of an English lord who had a very polite gamekeeper. The lord
+ wishing to show his skill with the rifle fired at a target. He and the
+ gamekeeper went to see where the bullet had struck. The gamekeeper was
+ first at the target, and the lord cried out: "Did I miss it?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "I would not," said the gamekeeper, "go so far as to say that your
+ lordship missed it, but&mdash;but&mdash;you didn't hit it."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs saw clearly that the Bible was the product, the growth of
+ many centuries; that legends and facts, mistakes, contradictions,
+ miracles, myths and history, interpolations, prophecies and dreams,
+ wisdom, foolishness, justice, cruelty, poetry and bathos were mixed,
+ mingled and interwoven. In other words, that the gold of truth was
+ surrounded by meaner metals and worthless stones.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He saw that it was necessary to construct what might be called a sacred
+ smelter to divide the true from the false.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Undoubtedly he reached this conclusion in the interest of what he believed
+ to be the truth. He had the mistaken but honest idea that a Christian
+ should really think. Of course, we know that all heresy has been the
+ result of thought. It has always been dangerous to grow. Shrinking is
+ safe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Studying the Bible was the first mistake that Professor Briggs made,
+ reasoning was the second, and publishing his conclusions was the third. If
+ he had read without studying, if he had believed without reasoning, he
+ would have remained a good, orthodox Presbyterian. He probably read the
+ works of Humboldt, Darwin and Haeckel, and found that the author of
+ Genesis was not a geologist, not a scientist. He seems to have his doubts
+ about the truth of the story of the deluge. Should he be blamed for this?
+ Is there a sensible man in the wide world who really believes in the
+ flood?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This flood business puts Jehovah in such an idiotic light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, he must have known, after the "fall" of Adam and Eve, that he
+ would have to drown their descendants. Certainly it would have been more
+ merciful to have killed Adam and Eve, made a new pair and kept the serpent
+ out of the Garden of Eden. If Jehovah had been an intelligent God he never
+ would have created the serpent. Then there would have been no fall, no
+ flood, no atonement, no hell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of a God who drowned a world! What a merciless monster! The cruelty
+ of the flood is exceeded only by its stupidity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thousands of little theologians have tried to explain this miracle. This
+ is the very top of absurdity. To explain a miracle is to destroy it. Some
+ have said that the flood was local. How could water that rose over the
+ mountains remain local?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we expect mercy from a God who drowned millions of men, women
+ and babes? I would no more think of softening the heart of such a God by
+ prayer than of protecting myself from a hungry tiger by repeating poetry.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs has sense enough to see that the story of the flood is
+ but an ignorant legend. He is trying to rescue Jehovah from the frightful
+ slander. After all, why should we believe the unreasonable? Must we be
+ foolish to be virtuous? The rain fell for forty days; this caused the
+ flood. The water was at least thirty thousand feet in depth. Seven hundred
+ and fifty feet a day&mdash;more than thirty feet an hour, six inches a
+ minute; the rain fell for forty days. Does any man with sense enough to
+ eat and breathe believe this idiotic lie?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs knows that the Jews got the story of the flood from the
+ Babylonians, and that it is no more inspired than the history of "Peter
+ Wilkins and His Flying Wife." The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is
+ another legend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If those cities were destroyed sensible people believe the phenomenon was
+ as natural as the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii. They do not
+ believe that in either case it was the result of the wickedness of the
+ people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Neither does any thinking man believe that the wife of Lot was changed or
+ turned into a pillar of salt as a punishment for having looked back at her
+ burning home. How could flesh, bones and blood be changed to salt? This
+ presupposes two miracles. First, the annihilation of the woman, and
+ second, the creation of salt. A God cannot annihilate or create matter.
+ Annihilation and creation are both impossible&mdash;unthinkable. A grain
+ of sand can defy all the gods. What was Mrs. Lot turned to salt for? What
+ good was achieved? What useful lesson taught? What man with a head fertile
+ enough to raise one hair can believe a story like this?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Does a man who denies the truth of this childish absurdity weaken the
+ foundation of virtue? Does he discourage truth-telling by denouncing lies?
+ Should a man be true to himself? If reason is not the standard, what is?
+ Can a man think one way and believe another? Of course he can talk one way
+ and think another. If a man should be honest with himself he should be
+ honest with others. A man who conceals his doubts lives a dishonest life.
+ He defiles his own soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a truth-loving man reads about the plagues of Egypt, should he reason
+ as he reads? Should he take into consideration the fact that like stories
+ have been told and believed by savages for thousands of years? Should he
+ ask himself whether Jehovah in his efforts to induce the Egyptian King to
+ free the Hebrews acted like a sensible God? Should he ask himself whether
+ a good God would kill the babes of the people on account of the sins of
+ the king? Whether he would torture, mangle and kill innocent cattle to get
+ even with a monarch?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it better to believe without thinking than to think without believing?
+ If there be a God can we please him by believing that he acted like a
+ fiend?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Probably Professor Briggs has a higher conception of God than the author
+ of Exodus. The writer of that book was a barbarian&mdash;an honest
+ barbarian, and he wrote what he supposed was the truth. I do not blame him
+ for having written falsehoods. Neither do I blame Professor Briggs for
+ having detected these falsehoods. In our day no man capable of reasoning
+ believes the miracles wrought for the Hebrews in their flight through the
+ wilderness. The opening of the sea, the cloud and pillar, the quails, the
+ manna, the serpents and hornets are no more believed than the miracles of
+ the Mormons when they crossed the plains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The probability is that the Hebrews never were in Egypt. In the Hebrew
+ language there are no Egyptian words, and in the Egyptian no Hebrew. This
+ proves that the Hebrews could not have mingled with the Egyptians for four
+ hundred and thirty years. As a matter of fact, Moses is a myth. The
+ enslavement of the Hebrews, the flight, the journey through the wilderness
+ existed only in the imagination of ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So Professor Briggs has his doubts about the sun and moon having been
+ stopped for a day in order that Gen. Joshua might kill more heathen.
+ Theologians have gathered around this miracle like moths around a flame.
+ They have done their best to make it reasonable. They have talked about
+ refraction and reflection, about the nature of the air having been changed
+ so that the sun was visible all night. They have even gone so far as to
+ say that Joshua and his soldiers killed so many that afterward, when
+ thinking about it, they concluded that it must have taken them at least
+ two days.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This miracle can be accounted for only in one way. Jehovah must have
+ stopped the earth. The earth, turning over at about one thousand miles an
+ hour&mdash;weighing trillions of tons&mdash;had to be stopped. Now we know
+ that all arrested motion changes instantly to heat. It has been calculated
+ that to stop the earth would cause as much heat as could be produced by
+ burning three lumps of coal, each lump as large as this world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, is it possible that a God in his right mind would waste all that
+ force? The Bible also tells us that at the same time God cast hailstones
+ from heaven on the poor heathen. If the writer had known something of
+ astronomy he would have had more hailstones and said nothing about the sun
+ and moon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Is it wise for ministers to ask their congregations to believe this story?
+ Is it wise for congregations to ask their ministers to believe this story?
+ If Jehovah performed this miracle he must have been insane. There should
+ be some relation, some proportion, between means and ends. No sane general
+ would call into the field a million soldiers and a hundred batteries to
+ kill one insect. And yet the disproportion of means to the end sought
+ would be reasonable when compared with what Jehovah is claimed to have
+ done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If Jehovah existed let us admit that he had some sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If it should be demonstrated that the book of Joshua is all false, what
+ harm could follow? There would remain the same reasons for living a useful
+ and virtuous life; the same reasons against theft and murder. Virtue would
+ lose no prop and vice would gain no crutch. Take all the miracles from the
+ Old Testament and the book would be improved. Throw away all its cruelties
+ and absurdities and its influence would be far better.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs seems to have doubts about the inspiration of Ruth. Is
+ there any harm in that? What difference does it make whether the story of
+ Ruth is fact or fiction; history or poetry? Its value is just the same.
+ Who cares whether Hamlet or Lear lived? Who cares whether Imogen and
+ Perdita were real women or the creation of Shakespeare's imagination?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The book of Esther is absurd and cruel. It has no ethical value. There is
+ not a line, a word in it calculated to make a human being better. The king
+ issued a decree to kill the Jews. Esther succeeded in getting this decree
+ set aside, and induced the king to issue another decree that the Jews
+ should kill the other folks, and so the Jews killed some seventy-five
+ thousand of the king's subjects. Is it really important to believe that
+ the book of Esther is inspired? Is it possible that Jehovah is proud of
+ having written this book? Does he guard his copyright with the fires of
+ hell? Why should the facts be kept from the people? Every intelligent
+ minister knows that Moses did not write the Pentateuch; that David did not
+ write the Psalms, and that Solomon was not the author of the song or the
+ book of Ecclesiastes. Why not say so?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No intelligent minister believes the story of Daniel in the Lion's den, or
+ of the three men who were cast into the furnace, or the story of Jonah.
+ These miracles seem to have done no good&mdash;seem to have convinced
+ nobody and to have had no consequences. Daniel w'as miraculously saved
+ from the lions, and then the king sent for the men who had accused Daniel,
+ for their wives and their children, and threw them all into the den of
+ lions and they were devoured by beasts almost as cruel as Jehovah. What a
+ beautiful story! How can any man be wicked enough to doubt its truth?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ God told Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah ran away, took a boat for another
+ place. God raised a storm, the sailors became frightened, threw Jonah
+ overboard, and the poor wretch was swallowed and carried ashore by a fish
+ that God had prepared. Then he made his proclamation in Nineveh. Then the
+ people repented and Jonah was disappointed. Then he became malicious and
+ found fault with God. Then comes the story of the gourd, the worm and the
+ east wind, and the effect of the sun on a bald-headed prophet. Would not
+ this story be just as beautiful with the storm and fish left out? Could we
+ not dispense with the gourd, the worm and the east wind?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs does not believe this story. He does not reject it
+ because he is wicked or because he wishes to destroy religion, but
+ because, in his judgment, it is not true. This may not be religious, but
+ it is honest. It may not become a minister, but it certainly becomes a
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs wishes to free the Old Testament from interpolations,
+ from excrescences, from fungus growths, from mistakes and falsehoods.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I am satisfied that he is sincere, actuated by the noblest motives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Suppose that all the interpolations in the Bible should be found and the
+ original be perfectly restored, what evidence would we have that it was
+ written by inspired men? How can the fact of inspiration be established?
+ When was it established? Did Jehovah furnish anybody with a list of books
+ he had inspired? Does anybody know that he ever said that he had inspired
+ anybody? Did the writer of Genesis claim that he was inspired? Did any
+ writer of any part of the Pentateuch make the claim? Did the authors of
+ Joshua, Judges, Kings or Chronicles pretend that they had obtained their
+ facts from Jehovah? Does the author of Job or of the Psalms pretend to
+ have received assistance from God?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not the slightest reference to God in Esther or in Solomon's
+ Song. Why should theologians say that those books were inspired? The dogma
+ of inspiration rests on no established fact. It rests only on assertion&mdash;the
+ assertion of those who have no knowledge on the subject. Professor Briggs
+ calls the Bible a "holy" book. He seems to think that much of it was
+ inspired; that it is in some sense a message from God. The reasons he has
+ for thinking so I cannot even guess. He seems also to have his doubts
+ about certain parts of the New Testament. He is not certain that the angel
+ who appeared to Joseph in a dream was entirely truthful, or he is not
+ certain that Joseph had the dream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It seems clear that when the gospel according to Matthew was first written
+ the writer believed that Christ was a lineal descendant of David, through
+ his father, Joseph. The genealogy is given for the purpose of showing that
+ the blood of David flowed in the veins of Christ. The man who wrote that
+ genealogy had never heard that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ.
+ That was an afterthought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How is it possible to prove that the Holy Ghost was the father of Christ?
+ The Holy Ghost said nothing on the subject. Mary wrote nothing and we have
+ no evidence that Joseph had a dream.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The divinity of Christ rests upon a dream that somebody said Joseph had.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the New Testament, Mary herself called Joseph the father of
+ Christ. She told Christ that Joseph, his father, had been looking for him.
+ Her statement is better evidence than Joseph's dream&mdash;if he really
+ had it. If there are legends in Holy Scripture, as Professor Briggs
+ declares, certainly the divine parentage of Christ is one of them. The
+ story lacks even originality. Among the Greeks many persons had gods for
+ fathers. Among Hindoos and Egyptians these god-men were common. So in many
+ other countries the blood of gods was in the veins of men. Such wonders,
+ told in Sanscrit, are just as reasonable as when told in Hebrew&mdash;just
+ as reasonable in India as in Palestine. Of course, there is no evidence
+ that any human being had a god for a father, or a goddess for a mother.
+ Intelligent people have outgrown these myths. Centaurs, satyrs, nymphs and
+ god-men have faded away. Science murdered them all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are many contradictions in the gospels. They differ not only on
+ questions of fact, but as to Christianity itself. According to Matthew,
+ Mark and Luke, if you will forgive others God will forgive you. This is
+ the one condition of salvation. But in John we find an entirely different
+ religion. According to John you must be born again and believe in Jesus
+ Christ. There you find for the first time about the atonement&mdash;that
+ Christ died to save sinners. The gospel of John discloses a regular
+ theological system&mdash;a new one. To forgive others is not enough. You
+ must have faith. You must be born again.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The four gospels cannot be harmonized. If John is true the others are
+ false. If the others are true John is false. From this there is no escape.
+ I do not for a moment suppose that Professor Briggs agrees with me on
+ these questions. He probably regards me as a very bad and wicked man, and
+ my opinions as blasphemies. I find no fault with him for that. I believe
+ him to be an honest man; right in some things and wrong in many. He seems
+ to be true to his thought and I honor him for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He would like to get all the stumbling-blocks out of the Bible, so that a
+ really thoughtful man can "believe." If theologians cling to the miracles
+ recorded in the New Testament the entire book will be disparaged and
+ denied. The "Gospel ship" is overloaded. Somethings must be thrown
+ overboard or the boat will go down. If the churches try to save all they
+ will lose all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They must throw the miracles away. They must admit that Christ did not
+ cast devils out of the bodies of men and women&mdash;that he did not cure
+ diseases with a word, or blindness with spittle and clay; that he had no
+ power over winds and waves; that he did not raise the dead; that he was
+ not raised from the dead himself, and that he did not ascend bodily to
+ heaven. These absurdities must be given up, or in a little while the
+ orthodox ministers will be preaching the "tidings of great joy" to
+ benches, bonnets and bibs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Professor Briggs, as I understand him, is willing to give up the absurdest
+ absurdities, but wishes to keep all the miracles that can possibly be
+ believed. He is anxious to preserve the important miracles&mdash;the great
+ central falsehoods&mdash;but the little lies that were told just to
+ embellish the story&mdash;to furnish vines for the columns&mdash;he is
+ willing to cast aside.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But Professor Briggs was honest enough to say that we do not know the
+ authors of most of the books in the Bible; that we do not know who wrote
+ the Psalms or Job or Proverbs or the Song of Songs or Ecclesiastes or the
+ Epistle to the Hebrews. He also said that no translation can ever take the
+ place of the original Scriptures, because a translation is at best the
+ work of men. In other words, that God has not revealed to us the names of
+ the inspired books. That this must be determined by us. Professor Briggs
+ puts reason above revelation. By reason we are to decide what books are
+ inspired. By reason we are to decide whether anything has been improperly
+ added to those books. By reason we are to decide the real meaning of those
+ books.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It therefore follows that if the books are unreasonable they are
+ uninspired. It seems to me that this position is absolutely correct. There
+ is no other that can be defended. The Presbyterians who pretend to answer
+ Professor Briggs seem to be actuated by hatred.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dr. Da Costa answers with vituperation and epithet. He answers no
+ argument; brings forward no fact; points out no mistake. He simply attacks
+ the man. He exhibits the ordinary malice of those who love their enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ President Patton, of Princeton, is a despiser of reason; a hater of
+ thought. Progress is the only thing that he fears. He knows that the Bible
+ is absolutely true. He knows that every word is inspired. According to
+ him, all questions have been settled, and criticism said its last word
+ when the King James Bible was printed. The Presbyterian Church is
+ infallible, and whoever doubts or denies will be damned. Morality is
+ worthless without the creed. This, is the religion, the philosophy, of Dr.
+ Patton. He fights with the ancient weapons, with stone and club. He is a
+ private in Captain Calvin's company, and he marches to defeat with the
+ courage of invincible ignorance.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I do not blame the Presbyterian Church for closing the mouth of Professor
+ Briggs. That church believes the Bible&mdash;all of it&mdash;and the
+ members did not feel like paying a man for showing that it was not all
+ inspired. Long ago the Presbyterians stopped growing. They have been
+ petrified for many years. Professor Briggs had been growing. He had to
+ leave the church or shrink. He left. Then he joined the Episcopal Church.
+ He probably supposed that that church preferred the living to the dead. He
+ knew about Colenso, Stanley, Temple, Heber Newton, Dr. Rainsford and
+ Farrar, and thought that the finger and thumb of authority would not
+ insist on plucking from the mind the buds of thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whether he was mistaken or not remains to be seen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Episcopal Church may refuse to ordain him, and by such refusal put the
+ bigot brand upon its brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The refusal cannot injure Professor Briggs. It will leave him where it
+ found him&mdash;with too much science for a churchman and too much
+ superstition for a scientist; with his feet in the gutter and his head in
+ the clouds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I admire every man who is true to himself, to his highest ideal, and who
+ preserves unstained the veracity of his soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in growth. I prefer the living to the dead. Men are superior to
+ mummies. Cradles are more beautiful than coffins. Development is grander
+ than decay. I do not agree with Professor Briggs. I do not believe in
+ inspired books, or in the Holy Ghost, or that any God has ever appeared to
+ man. I deny the existence of the supernatural. I know of no religion that
+ is founded on facts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But I cheerfully admit that Professor Briggs appears to be candid, good
+ tempered and conscientious&mdash;the opposite of those who attack him. He
+ is not a Freethinker, but he honestly thinks that he is free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0033" id="link0033">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ FRAGMENTS.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ CLOVER.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * A letter written to Col. Thomas Donaldson, of Philadelphia,
+ declining an invitation to be a guest of the Clover Club of
+ that city.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I regret that I cannot be "in clover" with you on the 28th instant.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A wonderful thing is clover! It means honey and cream,&mdash;that is to
+ say, industry and contentment,&mdash;that is to say, the happy bees in
+ perfumed fields, and at the cottage gate "bos" the bountiful serenely
+ chewing satisfaction's cud, in that blessed twilight pause that like a
+ benediction falls between all toil and sleep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This clover makes me dream of happy hours; of childhood's rosy cheeks; of
+ dimpled babes; of wholesome, loving wives; of honest men; of springs and
+ brooks and violets and all there is of stainless joy in peaceful human
+ life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A wonderful word is "clover"! Drop the "c," and you have the happiest of
+ mankind. Drop the "r," and "c," and you have left the only thing that
+ makes a heaven of this dull and barren earth. Drop the "r," and there
+ remains a warm, deceitful bud that sweetens breath and keeps the peace in
+ countless homes whose masters frequent clubs. After all, Bottom was right:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yours sincerely and regretfully,
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ R. G. INGERSOLL.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Washington, D. C., January 16, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ SUPERSTITION puts belief above goodness&mdash;credulity above virtue.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Here are two men. One is industrious, frugal, honest, generous. He has a
+ happy home&mdash;loves his wife and children&mdash;fills their lives with
+ sunshine. He enjoys study, thoughts, music, and all the subtleties of Art&mdash;but
+ he does not believe the creed&mdash;cares nothing for sacred books,
+ worships no god and fears no devil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The other is ignorant, coarse, brutal, beats his wife and children&mdash;but
+ he believes&mdash;regards the Bible as inspired&mdash;bows to the priests,
+ counts his beads, says his prayers, confesses and contributes, and the
+ Catholic Church declares and the Protestant Churches declare that he is
+ the better man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ignorant believer, coarse and brutal as he is, is going to heaven. He
+ will be washed in the blood of the Lamb. He will have wings&mdash;a harp
+ and a halo.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The intelligent and generous man who loves his fellow-men&mdash;who
+ develops his brain, who enjoys the beautiful, is going to hell&mdash;to
+ the eternal prison.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such is the justice of God&mdash;the mercy of Christ.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ WHILE reading the accounts of the coronation of the Czar, of the pageants,
+ processions and feasts, of the pomp and parade, of the barbaric splendor,
+ of cloth of gold and glittering gems, I could not help thinking of the
+ poor and melancholy peasants, of the toiling, half-fed millions, of the
+ sad and ignorant multitudes who belong body and soul to this Czar.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thought of the backs that have been scarred by the knout, of the
+ thousands in prisons for having dared to say a whispered word for freedom,
+ of the great multitude who had been driven like cattle along the weary
+ roads that lead to the hell of Siberia.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The cannon at Moscow were not loud enough, nor the clang of the bells, nor
+ the blare of the trumpets, to drown the groans of the captives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I thought of the fathers that had been torn from wives and children for
+ the crime of speaking like men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And when the priests spoke of the Czar as the "God-selected man," the
+ "God-adorned man," my blood grew warm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When I read of the coronation of the Czarina I thought of Siberia. I
+ thought of girls working in the mines, hauling ore from the pits with
+ chains about their waists; young girls, almost naked, at the mercy of
+ brutal officials; young girls weeping and moaning their lives away because
+ between their pure lips the word Liberty had burst into blossom.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet law neglects, forgets them, and crowns the Czarina. The injustice, the
+ agony and horror in this poor world are enough to make mankind insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ignorance and superstition crown impudence and tyranny. Millions of money
+ squandered for the humiliation of man, to dishonor the people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Back of the coronation, back of all the ceremonies, back of all the
+ hypocrisy there is nothing but a lie.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that God "selected" this Czar to rule and rob a hundred
+ millions of human beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is all an ignorant, barbaric, superstitious lie&mdash;a lie that pomp
+ and pageant, and flaunting flags, and robed priests, and swinging censers,
+ cannot change to truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Those who are not blinded by the glare and glitter at Moscow see millions
+ of homes on which the shadows fall; see millions of weeping mothers, whose
+ children have been stolen by the Czar; see thousands of villages without
+ schools, millions of houses without books, millions and millions of men,
+ women and children in whose future there is no star and whose only friend
+ is death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The coronation is an insult to the nineteenth century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Long live the people of Russia!
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ MUSIC.&mdash;The savage enjoys noises&mdash;explosion&mdash;the imitation
+ of thunder. This noise expresses his feeling. He enjoys concussion. His
+ ear and brain are in harmony. So, he takes cognizance of but few colors.
+ The neutral tints make no impression on his eyes. He appreciates the
+ flames of red and yellow. That is to say, there is a harmony between his
+ brain and eye. As he advances, develops, progresses, his ear catches other
+ sounds, his eye other colors. He becomes a complex being, and there has
+ entered into his mind the idea of proportion. The music of the drum no
+ longer satisfies him. He sees that there is as much difference between
+ noises and melodies as between stones and statues. The strings in Corti's
+ Harp become sensitive and possibly new ones are developed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The eye keeps pace with the ear, and the worlds of sound and sight
+ increase from age to age.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first idea of music is the keeping of time&mdash;a recurring emphasis
+ at intervals of equal length or duration. This is afterward modified&mdash;the
+ music of joy being fast, the emphasis at short intervals, and that of
+ sorrow slow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, this music of time corresponds to the action of the blood and
+ muscles. There is a rise and fall under excitement of both. In joy the
+ heart beats fast, and the music corresponding to such emotion is quick. In
+ grief&mdash;in sadness, the blood is delayed. In music the broad division
+ is one of time. In language, words of joy are born of light&mdash;that
+ which shines&mdash;words of grief of darkness and gloom. There is still
+ another division: The language of happiness comes also from heat, and that
+ of sadness from cold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These ideas or divisions are universal. In all art are the light and
+ shadow&mdash;the heat and cold.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ OF COURSE ENGLAND has no love for America. By England I mean the governing
+ class. Why should monarchy be in love with republicanism, with democracy?
+ The monarch insists that he gets his right to rule from what he is pleased
+ to call the will of God, whereas in a republic the sovereign authority is
+ the will of the people. It is impossible that there should be any real
+ friendship between the two forms of government.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We must, however, remember one thing, and that is, that there is an
+ England within England&mdash;an England that does not belong to the titled
+ classes&mdash;an England that has not been bribed or demoralized by those
+ in authority; and that England has always been our friend, because that
+ England is the friend of liberty and of progress everywhere. But the
+ lackeys, the snobs, the flatterers of the titled, those who are willing to
+ crawl that they may rise, are now and always have been the enemies of the
+ great Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is a curious fact that in monarchical governments the highest and
+ lowest are generally friends. There may be a foundation for this
+ friendship in the fact that both are parasites&mdash;both live on the
+ labor of honest men. After all, there is a kinship between the prince and
+ the pauper. Both extend the hand for alms, and the fact that one is
+ jeweled and the other extremely dirty makes no difference in principle&mdash;and
+ the owners of these hands have always been fast friends, and, in
+ accordance with the great law of ingratitude, both have held in contempt
+ the people who supported them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One thing we must not forget, and that is that the best people of England
+ are our friends. The best writers, the best thinkers are on our side. It
+ is only natural that all who visit America should find some fault. We find
+ fault ourselves, and to be thin-skinned is almost a plea of guilty. For my
+ part, I have no doubt about the future of America. It not only is, but is
+ to be for many, many generations, the greatest nation of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I DO not care so much where, as with whom, I live. If the right folks are
+ with me I can manage to get a good deal of happiness in the city or in the
+ country. Cats love places and become attached to chimney-corners and all
+ sorts of nooks&mdash;but I have but little of the cat in me, and am not
+ particularly in love with places. After all, a palace without affection is
+ a poor hovel, and the meanest hut with love in it is a palace for the
+ soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the time comes when poverty and want cease for the most part to exist,
+ then the city will be far better than the country. People are always
+ talking about the beauties of nature and the delights of solitude, but to
+ me some people are more interesting than rocks and trees. As to city and
+ country life I think that I substantially agree with Touchstone:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "In respect that it is solitary I like it very well; but in respect that
+ it is private it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields
+ it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court it is tedious."
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ WHAT do I think of the lynchings in Georgia?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I suppose these outrages&mdash;these frightful crimes&mdash;make the same
+ impression on my mind that they do on the minds of all civilized people. I
+ know of no words strong enough, bitter enough, to express my indignation
+ and horror. Men who belong to the "superior" race take a negro&mdash;a
+ criminal, a supposed murderer, one alleged to have assaulted a white woman&mdash;chain
+ him to a tree, saturate his clothing with kerosene, pile fagots about his
+ feet. This is the preparation for the festival. The people flock in from
+ the neighborhood&mdash;come in special trains from the towns. They are
+ going to enjoy themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Laughing and cursing they gather about the victim. A man steps from the
+ crowd&mdash;a man who hates crime and loves virtue. He draws his knife,
+ and in a spirit of merry sport cuts off one of the victim's ears. This he
+ keeps for a trophy&mdash;a souvenir. Another gentlemen fond of a jest cuts
+ off the other ear. Another cuts off the nose of the chained and helpless
+ wretch. The victim suffered in silence. He uttered no groan, no word&mdash;the
+ one man of the two thousand who had courage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Other white heroes cut and slashed his flesh. The crowd cheered. The
+ people were intoxicated with joy. Then the fagots were lighted and the
+ bleeding and mutilated man was clothed in flame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The people were wild with hideous delight. With greedy eyes they watched
+ him burn; with hungry ears they listened for his shrieks&mdash;for the
+ music of his moans and cries. He did not shriek. The festival was not
+ quite perfect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But they had their revenge. They trampled on the charred and burning
+ corpse. They divided among themselves the broken bones. They wanted
+ mementos&mdash;keepsakes that they could give to their loving wives and
+ gentle babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These horrors were perpetrated in the name of justice. The savages who did
+ these things belong to the superior race. They are citizens of the great
+ Republic. And yet, it does not seem possible that such fiends are human
+ beings. They are a disgrace to our country, our century and the human
+ race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Ex-Governor Atkinson protested against this savagery. He was threatened
+ with death. The good people were helpless. While these lynchers murder the
+ blacks they will destroy their own country. No civilized man wishes to
+ live where the mob is supreme. He does not wish to be governed by
+ murderers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let me say that what I have said is flattery compared with what I feel.
+ When I think of the other lynching&mdash;of the poor man mutilated and
+ hanged without the slightest evidence, of the negro who said that these
+ murders would be avenged, and who was brutally murdered for the utterance
+ of a natural feeling&mdash;I am utterly at a loss for words.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Are the white people insane? Has mercy fled to beasts? Has the United
+ States no power to protect a citizen? A nation that cannot or will not
+ protect its citizens in time of peace has no right to ask its citizens to
+ protect it in time of War.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ OUR COUNTRY.&mdash;Our country is all we hope for&mdash;all we are. It is
+ the grave of our father, of our mother, of each and every one of the
+ sacred dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is every glorious memory of our race. Every heroic deed. Every act of
+ self-sacrifice done by our blood. It is all the accomplishments of the
+ past&mdash;all the wise things said&mdash;all the kind things done&mdash;all
+ the poems written and all the poems lived&mdash;all the defeats sustained&mdash;all
+ the victories won&mdash;the girls we love&mdash;the wives we adore&mdash;the
+ children we carry in our hearts&mdash;all the firesides of home&mdash;all
+ the quiet springs, the babbling brooks, the rushing rivers, the mountains,
+ plains and woods&mdash;the dells and dales and vines and vales.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ GIFT GIVING.&mdash;I believe in the festival called Christmas&mdash;not in
+ the celebration of the birth of any man, but to celebrate the triumph of
+ light over darkness&mdash;the victory of the sun.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I believe in giving gifts on that day, and a real gift should be given to
+ those who cannot return it; gifts from the rich to the poor, from the
+ prosperous to the unfortunate, from parents to children.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no need of giving water to the sea or light to the sun. Let us
+ give to those who need, neither asking nor expecting return, not even
+ asking gratitude, only asking that the gift shall make the receiver happy&mdash;and
+ he who gives in that way increases his own joy.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ We have no right to enslave our children. We have no right to bequeath
+ chains and manacles to our heirs. We have no right to leave a legacy of
+ mental degradation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Liberty is the birthright of all. Parents should not deprive their
+ children of the great gifts of nature. We cannot all leave lands and gold
+ to those we love; but we can leave Liberty, and that is of more value than
+ all the wealth of India.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dead have no right to enslave the living. To worship ancestors is to
+ curse posterity. He who bows to the Past insults the Future; and allows,
+ so to speak, the dead to rob the unborn. The coffin is good enough in its
+ way, but the cradle is far better. With the bones of the fathers they beat
+ out the brains of the children.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ RANDOM THOUGHTS.&mdash;The road is short to anything we fear.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Joy lives in the house beyond the one we reach.
+ In youth the time is halting, slow and lame.
+ In age the time is winged and eager as a flame.
+ The sea seems narrow as we near the farther shore.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Youth goes hand in hand with hope&mdash;old age with fear. .
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Youth has a wish&mdash;old age a dread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In youth the leaves and buds seem loath to grow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Youth shakes the glass to speed the lingering sands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Youth says to Time: O crutched and limping laggard, get thee wings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The dawn comes slowly, but the Westering day leaps like a lover to the
+ dusky bosom of the Ethiop night.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ I THINK that all days are substantially alike in the long run. It is no
+ worse to drink on Sunday than on Monday. The idea that one day in the week
+ is holy is wholly idiotic. Besides, these closing laws do no good.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Laws are not locks and keys. Saloon doors care nothing about laws. Law or
+ no law, people will slip in, and then, having had so much trouble getting
+ there, they will stay until they stagger out. These nasty, meddlesome,
+ Pharisaic, hypocritical laws make sneaks and hypocrites. The children of
+ these laws are like the fathers of the laws. Ever since I can remember,
+ people have been trying to make other people temperate by intemperate
+ laws. I have never known of the slightest success. It is a pity that
+ Christ manufactured wine, a pity that Paul took heart and thanked God when
+ he saw the sign of the Three Taverns; a pity that Jehovah put alcohol in
+ almost everything that grows; a great pity that prayer-meetings are not
+ more popular than saloons; a pity that our workingmen do not amuse
+ themselves reading religious papers and the genealogies in the Old
+ Testament.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Rum has caused many quarrels and many murders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Religion has caused many wars and covered countless fields with dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, all men should be temperate,&mdash;should avoid excess&mdash;should
+ keep the golden path between extremes&mdash;should gather roses, not
+ thorns. The only way to make men temperate is to develop the brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect, men are
+ savages; when the intellect governs the passions, when the passions are
+ servants, men are civilized. The people need education&mdash;facts&mdash;philosophy.
+ Drunkenness is one form of intemperance, prohibition is another form.
+ Another trouble is that these little laws and ordinances can not be
+ enforced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Both parties want votes, and to get votes they will allow unpopular laws
+ to sleep, neglected, and finally refuse to enforce them. These spasms of
+ virtue, these convulsions of conscience are soon over, and then comes a
+ long period of neglectful rest.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE OLD AND NEW YEAR.&mdash;For countless ages the old earth has been
+ making, in alternating light and shade, in gleam and gloom, the whirling
+ circuit of the sun, leaving the record of its flight in many forms&mdash;in
+ leaves of stone, in growth of tree and vine and flower, in glittering gems
+ of many hues, in curious forms of monstrous life, in ravages of flood and
+ flame, in fossil fragments stolen from decay by chance, in molten masses
+ hurled from lips of fire, in gorges worn by waveless, foamless cataracts
+ of ice, in coast lines beaten back by the imprisoned sea, in mountain
+ ranges and in ocean reefs, in islands lifted from the underworld&mdash;in
+ continents submerged and given back to light and life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another year has joined his shadowy fellows in the wide and voiceless
+ desert of the past, where, from the eternal hour-glass forever fall the
+ sands of time. Another year, with all its joy and grief, of birth and
+ death, of failure and success&mdash;of love and hate. And now, the first
+ day of the new o'er arches all. Standing between the buried and the babe,
+ we cry, "Farewell and Hail!"&mdash;January 1,1893.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ KNOWLEDGE consists in the perception of facts, their relations&mdash;conditions,
+ modes and results of action. Experience is the foundation of knowledge&mdash;without
+ experience it is impossible to know. It may be that experience can be
+ transmitted&mdash;inherited. Suppose that an infinite being existed in
+ infinite space. He being the only existence, what knowledge could he gain
+ by experience? He could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. He would
+ have no use for what we call the senses. Could he use what we call the
+ faculties of the mind? He could not compare, remember, hope or fear. He
+ could not reason. How could he know that he existed? How could he use
+ force? There was in the universe nothing that would resist&mdash;nothing.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Most men are economical when dealing with abundance, hoarding gold and
+ wasting time&mdash;throwing away the sunshine of life&mdash;the few
+ remaining hours, and hugging to their shriveled hearts that which they do
+ not and cannot even expect to use. Old age should enjoy the luxury of
+ giving. How divine to live in the atmosphere, the climate of gratitude!
+ The men who clutch and fiercely hold and look at wife and children with
+ eyes dimmed by age and darkened by suspicion, giving naught until the end,
+ then give to death the gratitude that should have been their own.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ DEATH OF THE AGED.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * From a letter of condolence written to a friend on the
+ death of his mother.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ After all, there is something tenderly appropriate in the serene death of
+ the old. Nothing is more touching than the death of the young, the strong.
+ But when the duties of life have all been nobly done; when the sun touches
+ the horizon; when the purple twilight falls upon the past, the present,
+ and the future; when memory, with dim eyes, can scarcely spell the blurred
+ and faded records of the vanished days&mdash;then, surrounded by kindred
+ and by friends, death comes like a strain of music. The day has been long,
+ the road weary, and the traveler gladly stops at the welcome inn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nearly forty-eight years ago, under the snow, in the little town of
+ Cazenovia, my poor mother was buried. I was but two years old. I remember
+ her as she looked in death. That sweet, cold face has kept my heart warm
+ through all the changing years.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ There is no cunning art to trace
+ In any feature, form or face,
+
+ Or wrinkled palm, with criss-cross lines
+ The good or bad in peoples' minds.
+
+ Nor can we guess men's thoughts or aims
+ By seeing how they write their names.
+
+ We could as well foretell their acts
+ By getting outlines of their tracks.
+
+ Ourselves we do not know&mdash;how then
+ Can we find out our fellow-men?
+
+ And yet&mdash;although the reason laughs&mdash;
+
+ We like to look at autographs&mdash;
+
+ And almost think that we can guess
+ What lines and dots of ink express.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * From the autograph collection of Miss Eva Ingersoll
+ Farrell.
+
+ August 11, 1892. R. G. Ingersoll.
+</pre>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ The World is Growing Poor.&mdash;Darwin the naturalist, the observer, the
+ philosopher, is dead. Wagner the greatest composer the world has produced,
+ is silent. Hugo the poet, patriot and philanthropist, is at rest. Three
+ mighty rivers have ceased to flow. The smallest insect was made
+ interesting by Darwin's glance; the poor blind worm became the farmer's
+ friend&mdash;the maker of the farm,&mdash;and even weeds began to dream
+ and hope.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ But if we live beyond life's day and reach the dusk, and slowly travel in
+ the shadows of the night, the way seems long, and being weary we ask for
+ rest, and then, as in our youth, we chide the loitering hours. When eyes
+ are dim and memory fails to keep a record of events; when ears are dull
+ and muscles fail to obey the will; when the pulse is low and the tired
+ heart is weak, and the poor brain has hardly power to think, then comes
+ the dream, the hope of rest, the longing for the peace of dreamless sleep.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ SAINTS.&mdash;The saints have poisoned life with piety. They have soured
+ the mother's milk. They have insisted that joy is crime&mdash;that beauty
+ is a bait with which the Devil captures the souls of men&mdash;that
+ laughter leads to sin&mdash;that pleasure, in its every form, degrades,
+ and that love itself is but the loathsome serpent of unclean desire. They
+ have tried to compel men to love shadows rather than women&mdash;phantoms
+ rather than people.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The saints have been the assassins of sunshine,&mdash;the skeletons at
+ feasts. They have been the enemies of happiness. They have hated the
+ singing birds, the blossoming plants. They have loved the barren and the
+ desolate&mdash;the croaking raven and the hooting owl&mdash;tombstones,
+ rather than statues.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet, with a strange inconsistency, happiness was to be enjoyed
+ forever, in another world. There, pleasure, with all its corrupting
+ influences, was to be eternal. No one pretended that heaven was to be
+ filled with self-denial, with fastings and scourgings, with weepings and
+ regrets, with solemn and emaciated angels, with sad-eyed seraphim, with
+ lonely parsons, with mumbling monks, with shriveled nuns, with days of
+ penance and with nights of prayer.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet all this self-denial on the part of the saints was founded in the
+ purest selfishness. They were to be paid for all their sufferings in
+ another world. They were "laying up treasures in heaven." They had made a
+ bargain with God. He had offered eternal joy to those who would make
+ themselves miserable here. The saints gladly and cheerfully accepted the
+ terms. They expected pay for every pang of hunger, for every groan, for
+ every tear, for every temptation resisted; and this pay was to bean
+ eternity of joy. The selfishness of the saints was equaled only by the
+ stupidity of the saints.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is not true that character is the aim of life. Happiness should be the
+ aim&mdash;and as a matter of fact is and always has been the aim, not only
+ of sinners, but of saints. The saints seemed to think that happiness was
+ better in another world than here, and they expected this happiness beyond
+ the clouds. They looked upon the sinner as foolish to enjoy himself for
+ the moment here, and in consequence thereof to suffer forever. Character
+ is not an end, it is a means to an end. The object of the saint is
+ happiness hereafter&mdash;the means, to make himself miserable here. The
+ object of the philosopher is happiness here and now, and hereafter,&mdash;if
+ there be another world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If struggle and temptation, misery and misfortune, are essential to the
+ formation of what you call character, how do you account for the
+ perfection of your angels, or for the goodness of your God? Were the
+ angels perfected through misfortune? If happiness is the only good in
+ heaven, why should it not be considered the only good here?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In order to be happy, we must be in harmony with the conditions of
+ happiness. It cannot be obtained by prayer,&mdash;it does not come from
+ heaven&mdash;it must be found here, and nothing should be done, or left
+ undone, for the sake of any supernatural being, but for the sake of
+ ourselves and other natural beings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The early Christians were preparing for the end of the world. In their
+ view, life was of no importance except as it gave them time to prepare for
+ "The Second Coming." They were crazed by fear. Since that time, the world
+ not coming to the expected end, they have been preparing for "The Day of
+ Judgment," and have, to the extent of their ability, filled the world with
+ horror. For centuries, it was, and still is, their business to destroy the
+ pleasures of this life. In the midst of prosperity they have prophesied
+ disaster. At every feast they have spoken of famine, and over the cradle
+ they have talked of death. They have held skulls before the faces of
+ terrified babes. On the cheeks of health they see the worms of the grave,
+ and in their eyes the white breasts of love are naught but corruption and
+ decay.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE WASTE FORCES OF NATURE.&mdash;For countless years the great cataracts,
+ as for instance, Niagara, have been singing their solemn songs, filling
+ the savage with terror, the civilized with awe; recording its achievements
+ in books of stone&mdash;useless and sublime; inspiring beholders with the
+ majesty of purposeless force and the wastefulness of nature.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Force great enough to turn the wheels of the world, lost, useless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So with the great tides that rise and fall on all the shores of the world&mdash;lost
+ forces. And yet man is compelled to use to exhaustion's point the little
+ strength he has.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This will be changed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great cataracts and the great tides will submit to the genius of man.
+ They are to be for use. Niagara will not be allowed to remain a barren
+ roar. It must become the servant of man. It will weave robes for men and
+ women. It will fashion implements for the farmer and the mechanic. It will
+ propel coaches for rich and poor. It will fill streets and homes with
+ light, and the old barren roar will be changed to songs of success, to the
+ voices of love and content and joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Science at last has found that all forces are convertible into each other,
+ and that all are only different aspects of one fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So the flood is still a terror, but, in my judgment, the time will come
+ when the floods will be controlled by the genius of man, when the
+ tributaries of the great rivers and their tributaries will be dammed in
+ such a way as to collect the waters of every flood and give them out
+ gradually through all the year, maintaining an equal current at all times
+ in the great rivers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have at last found that force occupies a circle, that Niagara is a
+ child of the Sun&mdash;that the sun shines, the mist rises, clouds form,
+ the rain falls, the rivers flow to the lakes, and Niagara fills the
+ heavens with its song. Man will arrest the falling flood; he will change
+ its force to electricity; that is to say, to light, and then force will
+ have made the circuit from light to light.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ ARE Men's characters fully determined at the age of thirty?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It depends, first, on what their opportunities have been&mdash;that is to
+ say, on their surroundings, their education, their advantages; second, on
+ the shape, quality and quantity of brain they happen to possess; third, on
+ their mental and moral courage; and, fourth, on the character of the
+ people among whom they live.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The natural man continues to grow. The longer he lives, the more he ought
+ to know, and the more he knows, the more he changes the views and opinions
+ held by him in his youth. Every new fact results in a change of views more
+ or less radical. This growth of the mind may be hindered by the "tyrannous
+ north wind" of public opinion; by the bigotry of his associates; by the
+ fear that he cannot make a living if he becomes unpopular; and it is to
+ some extent affected by the ambition of the person; that is to say, if he
+ wishes to hold office the tendency is to agree with his neighbor, or at
+ least to round off and smooth the corners and angles of difference. If a
+ man wishes to ascertain the truth, regardless of the opinions of his
+ fellow-citizens, the probability is that he will change from day to day
+ and from year to year&mdash;that is, his intellectual horizon will widen&mdash;and
+ that what he once deemed of great importance will be regarded as an
+ exceedingly small segment of a greater circle.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Growth means change. If a man grows after thirty years he must necessarily
+ change. Many men probably reach their intellectual height long before they
+ have lived thirty years, and spend the balance of their lives in defending
+ the mistakes of their youth. A great man continues to grow until his
+ death, and growth&mdash;as I said before&mdash;means change. Darwin was
+ continually finding new facts, and kept his mind as open to a new truth as
+ the East is to the rising of another sun. Humboldt at the age of ninety
+ maintained the attitude of a pupil, and was, until the moment of his
+ death, willing to learn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn. The less a man
+ knows, the more positive, a? is that he knows everything.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The smallest minds mature the earliest. The less there is to a man the
+ quicker he attains his growth. I have known many people who reached their
+ intellectual height while in their mother's arms. I have known people who
+ were exceedingly smart babies to become excessively stupid people. It is
+ with men as with other things. The mullein needs only a year, but the oak
+ a century, and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow as
+ long as they have lived. Small people delight in what they call
+ consistency&mdash;that is, it gives them immense pleasure to say that they
+ believe now exactly as they did ten years ago. This simply amounts to a
+ certificate that they have not grown&mdash;that they have not developed&mdash;and
+ that they know just as little now as they ever did. The highest possible
+ conception of consistency is to be true to the knowledge of to-day,
+ without the slightest reference to what your opinion was years ago.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is another view of this subject. Few men have settled opinions
+ before or at thirty. Of course, I do not include persons of genius. At
+ thirty the passions have, as a rule, too much influence; the intellect is
+ not the pilot. At thirty most men have prejudices rather than opinions&mdash;that
+ is to say, rather than judgments&mdash;and few men have lived to be sixty
+ without materially modifying the opinions they held at thirty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As I said in the first place, much depends on the shape, quality and
+ quantity of brain; much depends on mental and moral courage. There are
+ many people with great physical courage who are afraid to express their
+ opinions; men who will meet death without a tremor and will yet hesitate
+ to express their views.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So, much depends on the character of the people among whom we live. A man
+ in the old times living in New England thought several times before he
+ expressed any opinion contrary to the views of the majority. But if the
+ people have intellectual hospitality, then men express their views&mdash;and
+ it may be that we change somewhat in proportion to the decency of our
+ neighbors. In the old times it was thought that God was opposed to any
+ change of opinion, and that nothing so excited the auger of the deity as
+ the expression of a new thought. That idea is fading away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The real truth is that men change their opinions as long as they grow, and
+ only those remain of the same opinion still who have reached the
+ intellectual autumn of their lives; who have gone to seed, and who are
+ simply waiting for the winter of death. Now and then there is a brain in
+ which there is the climate of perpetual spring&mdash;men who never grow
+ old&mdash;and when such a one is found we say, "Here is a genius."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the sowing of the
+ seeds; summer, growth; autumn, the harvest; winter, intellectual death.
+ But there is now and then a genius who has no winter, and, no matter how
+ many years he may live, on the blossom of his thought no snow falls.
+ Genius has the climate of perpetual growth.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE MOIETY SYSTEM.&mdash;The Secretary of the Treasury recommends a
+ revival of the moiety system. Against this infamous step every honest
+ citizen ought to protest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this country, taxes cannot be collected through such instrumentalities.
+ An <i>informer</i> is not indigenous to our soil. He always has been and
+ always will be held in merited contempt.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every inducement, by this system, is held out to the informer to become a
+ liar. The spy becomes an officer of the Government. He soon becomes the
+ terror of his superior. He is a sword without a hilt and without a
+ scabbard. Every taxpayer becomes the lawful prey of a detective whose
+ property depends upon the destruction of his prey.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These informers and spies are corrupters of public morals. They resort to
+ all known dishonest means for the accomplishment of what they pretend to
+ be an honest object. With them perjury becomes a fine art. Their words are
+ a commodity bought and sold in courts of justice.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the first phase. In a little while juries will refuse to believe
+ them, and every suit in which they are introduced will be lost by the
+ Government. Of this the real thieves will be quick to take advantage. So
+ many honest men will have been falsely charged by perjured informers and
+ moiety miscreants, that to convict the guilty will become impossible. If
+ the Government wishes to collect the taxes it must set an honorable
+ example. It must deal kindly and honestly with the people. It must not
+ inaugurate a vampire system of espionage. It must not take it for granted
+ that every manufacturer and importer is a thief, and that all spies and
+ informers are honest men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The revenues of this country are as honestly paid as they are expended.
+ There has been as much fair dealing outside as inside of the Treasury
+ Department.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But, however that may be, the informer system will not make them honest
+ men, but will in all probability produce exactly the opposite result. If
+ our system of taxation is so unpopular that the revenues cannot be
+ collected without bribing men to tell the truth; if our officers must be
+ offered rewards beyond their salaries to state the facts; if it is
+ impossible to employ men to discharge their duties honestly, then let us
+ change the system. The moiety system makes the Treasury Department a vast
+ vampire sucking the blood of the people upon shares. Americans detest
+ informers, spies, detectives, turners of State's evidence, eavesdroppers,
+ paid listeners, hypocrites, public smellers, trackers, human hounds and
+ ferrets. They despise men who "suspect" for a living; they hate legal
+ lyers-in-wait and the highwaymen of the law. They abhor the betrayers of
+ friends and those who lead and tempt others to commit a crime in order
+ that they may detect it. In a monarchy, the detective system is a
+ necessity. The great thief has to be sustained by smaller ones.&mdash;December
+ 4,1877.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ LANGUAGE.&mdash;Most people imagine that men have always talked; that
+ language is as old as the race; and it is supposed that some language was
+ taught by some mythological god to the first pair. But we now know, if we
+ know anything, that language is a growth; that every word had to be
+ created by man, and that back of every word is some want, some wish, some
+ necessity of the body or mind, and also a genius to embody that want or
+ that wish, to express that thought in some sound that we call a word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At first, the probability is that men uttered sounds of fear, of content,
+ of anger, or happiness. And the probability is that the first sounds or
+ cries expressed such feelings, and these sounds were nouns, adjectives,
+ and verbs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After a time, man began to give his ideas to others by rude pictures,
+ drawings of animals and trees and the various other things with which he
+ could give rude thoughts. At first he would make a picture of the whole
+ animal. Afterward some part of the animal would stand for the whole, and
+ in some of the old picture-writings the curve of the nostril of a horse
+ stands for the animal. This was the shorthand of picture-writing. But it
+ was a long journey to where marks would stand, not for pictures, but for
+ sounds. And then think of the distance still to the alphabet. Then to
+ writing, so that marks took entirely the place of pictures. Then the
+ invention of movable type, and then the press, making it possible to save
+ the wealth of the brain; making it possible for a man to leave not simply
+ his property to his fellow-man, not houses and lands and dollars, but his
+ ideas, his thoughts, his theories, his dreams, the poetry and pathos of
+ his soul. Now each generation is heir to all the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If we had free thought, then we could collect the wealth of the
+ intellectual world. In the physical world, springs make the creeks and
+ brooks, and they the rivers, and the rivers empty into the great sea. So
+ each brain should add to the sum of human knowledge. If we deny freedom of
+ thought, the springs cease to gurgle, the rivers to run, and the great
+ ocean of knowledge becomes a desert of barren, ignorant sand.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THIS IS AN AGE OF MONEY-GETTING, of materialism, of cold, unfeeling
+ science. The question arises, Is the world growing less generous, less
+ heroic, less chivalric?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us answer this. The experience of the individual is much like the
+ experience of a generation, or of a race. An old man imagines that
+ everything was better when he was young; that the weather could then be
+ depended on; that sudden changes are recent inventions. So he will tell
+ you that people used to be honest; that the grocers gave full weight and
+ the merchants full measure, and that the bank cashier did not spend the
+ evening of his days in Canada.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He will also tell you that the women were handsome and virtuous. There
+ were no scandals then, no divorces, and that in religion all were orthodox&mdash;no
+ Infidels. Before he gets through, he will probably tell you that the art
+ of cooking has been lost&mdash;that nobody can make biscuit now, and that
+ he never expects to eat another slice of good bread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He mistakes the twilight of his own life for the coming of the night of
+ universal decay and death. He imagines that that has happened to the
+ world, which has only happened to him. It does not occur to him that
+ millions at the moment he is talking are undergoing the experience of his
+ youth, and that when they become old they will praise the very days that
+ he denounces.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Garden of Eden has always been behind us. The Golden Age, after all,
+ is the memory of youth&mdash;it is the result of remembered pleasure in
+ the midst of present pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To old age youth is divine, and the morning of life cloudless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So now thousands and millions of people suppose that the age of true
+ chivalry has gone by and that honesty has about concluded to leave the
+ world. As a matter of fact, the age known as the age of chivalry was the
+ age of tyranny, of arrogance and cowardice. Men clad in complete armor cut
+ down the peasants that were covered with leather, and these soldiers of
+ the chivalric age armored themselves to that degree that if they fell in
+ battle they could not rise, held to the earth by the weight of iron that
+ their bravery had got itself entrenched within. Compare the difference in
+ courage between going to war in coats of mail against sword and spear, and
+ charging a battery of Krupp guns!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ideas of justice have grown larger and nobler. Charity now does,
+ without a thought, what the average man a few centuries ago was incapable
+ of imagining. In the old times slavery was upheld, and imprisonment for
+ debt. Hundreds of crimes&mdash;or rather misdemeanors&mdash;were
+ punishable by death. Prisons were loathsome beyond description. Thousands
+ and thousands died in chains. The insane were treated like wild beasts; no
+ respect was paid to sex or age. Women were burned and beheaded and torn
+ asunder as though they had been hyenas, and children were butchered with
+ the greatest possible cheerfulness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it seems to me that the world is more chivalric, more generous, nearer
+ just and fair, more charitable, than ever before.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE COLORED MAN is doing well. He is hungry for knowledge. Their children
+ are going to school. Colored boys are taking prizes in the colleges. A
+ colored man was the orator of Harvard. They are industrious, and in the
+ South many are becoming rich. As the people, black and white, become
+ educated they become better friends. The old prejudice is the child of
+ ignorance. The colored man will succeed if the South succeeds. The South
+ is richer to-day than ever before, more prosperous, and both races are
+ really improving. The greatest danger in the South, and for that matter
+ all over the country, is the mob. It is the duty of every good citizen to
+ denounce the mob. Down with the mob.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ FREEDOM OF RELIGION is the destruction of religion. In Rome, after people
+ were allowed to worship their own gods, all gods fell into disrepute. It
+ will be so in America. Here is freedom of religion, and all devotees find
+ that the gods of other devotees are just as good as theirs. They find that
+ the prayers of others are answered precisely as their prayers are
+ answered.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Protestant God is no better than the Catholic, and the Catholic is no
+ better than the Mormon, and the Mormon is no better than Nature for
+ answering prayers. In other words, all prayers die in the air which they
+ uselessly agitate. There is undoubtedly a tendency among the Protestant
+ denominations to unite. This tendency is born of weakness, not of
+ strength. In a few years, if all should unite, they would hardly have
+ power enough to obstruct, for any considerable time, the march of the
+ intellectual host destined to conquer the world. But let us all be good
+ natured; let us give to others all the rights that we claim for ourselves.
+ The future, I believe, has both hands full of blessings for the human
+ race.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE DEISTS AND NATURE.&mdash;We who deny the supernatural origin of the
+ Bible, must admit not only that it exists, but that it was naturally
+ produced. If it is not supernatural, it is natural. It will hardly do for
+ the worshipers of Nature to hold the Bible in contempt, simply because it
+ is not a supernatural book.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Deists of the last century made a mistake. They proceeded to show that
+ the Bible is immoral, untrue, cruel and absurd, and therefore came to the
+ conclusion that it could not have been written by a being of infinite
+ wisdom and goodness,&mdash;the being whom they believed to be the author
+ of Nature. Could not infinite wisdom and goodness just as easily command
+ crime as to permit it? Is it really any worse to order the strong to slay
+ the weak, than to stand by and refuse to protect the weak?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After all, is Nature, taken together, any better than the Bible? If God
+ did not command the Jews to murder the Canaanites, Nature, to say the
+ least, did not prevent it. If God did not uphold the practice of polygamy,
+ Nature did. The moment we deny the supernatural origin of the Bible, we
+ declare that Nature wrote its every word, commanded all its cruelties,
+ told all its falsehoods. The Bible is, like Nature, a mixture of what we
+ call "good" and "bad,"&mdash;of what appears, and of what in reality is.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Bible must have been a perfectly natural production not only, but a
+ necessary one. There was, and is, no power in the universe that could have
+ changed one word. All the mistakes in translation were necessarily made,
+ and not one, by any possibility, could have been avoided. That book, like
+ all other facts in Nature, could not have been otherwise than it is. The
+ fact being that Nature has produced all superstitions, all persecution,
+ all slavery, and every crime, ought to be sufficient to deter the average
+ man from imagining that this power, whatever it may be, is worthy of
+ worship.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is good in Nature. It is the nature in us that perceives the evil,
+ that pursues the right. In man, Nature not only contemplates herself, but
+ approves or condemns her actions. Of course, "good" and "bad" are relative
+ terms, and things are "good" or "bad" as they affect man well or ill.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Infidels, skeptics,&mdash;that is to say, Freethinkers, have opposed the
+ Bible on account of the bad things in it, and Christians have upheld it,
+ not on account of the bad, but on account of the good. Throw away the
+ doctrine of inspiration, and the Bible will be more powerful for good and
+ far less for evil. Only a few years ago, Christians looked upon the Bible
+ as the bulwark of human slavery. It was the word of God, and for that
+ reason was superior to the reason of uninspired man. Had it been
+ considered simply as the work of man, it would not have been quoted to
+ establish that which the man of this age condemns. Throw away the idea of
+ inspiration, and all passages in conflict with liberty, with science, with
+ the experience of the intelligent part of the human race, instantly become
+ harmless. They are no longer guides for man. They are simply the opinions
+ of dead barbarians. The good passages not only remain, but their influence
+ is increased, because they are relieved of a burden.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one cares whether the truth is inspired or not. The truth is
+ independent of man, not only, but of God. And by truth I do not mean the
+ absolute, I mean this: Truth is the relation between things and thoughts,
+ and between thoughts and thoughts. The perception of this relation bears
+ the same relation to the logical faculty in man, that music does to some
+ portion of the brain&mdash;that is to say, it is a mental melody. This
+ sublime strain has been heard by a few, and I am enthusiastic enough to
+ believe that it will be the music of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For the good and for the true in the Old and New Testaments I have the
+ same regard that I have for the good and true, no matter where they may be
+ found. We who know how false the history of to-day is; we who know the
+ almost numberless mistakes that men make who are endeavoring to tell the
+ truth; we who know how hard it is, with all the facilities we now have&mdash;with
+ the daily press, the telegraph, the fact that nearly all can read and
+ write&mdash;to get a truthful report of the simplest occurrence, must see
+ that nothing short of inspiration (admitting for the moment the
+ possibility of such a thing,) could have prevented the Scriptures from
+ being filled with error.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ AT LAST, THE SCHOOLHOUSE is larger than the church. The common people
+ have, through education, become uncommon. They now know how little is
+ really known by kings, presidents, legislators, and professors. At last,
+ they are capable of not only understanding a few questions, but they have
+ acquired the art of discussing those that no one understands. With the
+ facility of the cultured, they can now hide behind phrases and make
+ barricades of statistics. They understand the sophistries of the upper
+ classes; and while the cultured have been turning their attention to the
+ classics, to the dead languages, and the dead ideas that they contain,&mdash;while
+ they have been giving their attention to ceramics, artistic decorations,
+ and compulsory prayers, the common people have been compelled to learn the
+ practical things. They are acquainted with facts, because they have done
+ the work of the world.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ CRUELTY.&mdash;Sometimes it has seemed to me that cruelty is the climate
+ of crime, and that generosity is the Spring, Summer and Autumn of virtue.
+ Every form of wickedness, of meanness, springs from selfishness, that is
+ to say, from cruelty. Every good man hates and despises the wretch who
+ abuses wife and child&mdash;who rules by curses and blows and makes his
+ home a kind of hell. So, no generous man wishes to associate with one who
+ overworks his horse and feeds the lean and fainting beast with blows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The barbarian delights in inflicting pain. He loves to see his victim
+ bleed,&mdash;but the civilized man staunches blood, binds up wounds and
+ decreases pain. He pities the suffering animal as well as the suffering
+ man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He would no more inflict wanton wounds upon a dog than on a man. The heart
+ of the civilized man speaks for the dumb and helpless.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A good man would no more think of flaying a living animal than of
+ murdering his mother. The man who cuts a hoof from the leg of a horse is
+ capable of committing any crime that does not require courage. Such an
+ experiment can be of no use. Under no circumstances are hoofs taken from
+ horses for the good of the horses any more than their heads would be cut
+ off.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the pain inflicted by separating the hoof of a living horse from
+ the flesh! If the poor beast could speak what would he say? The same
+ knowledge could be obtained by cutting away the hoof of a dead horse.
+ Knowledge of every bone, ligament, artery and vein, of every cartilage and
+ joint can be obtained by the dissection of the dead. "But," says the
+ biologist, "we must dissect the living."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Well, millions of living animals have been cut in pieces; millions of
+ experiments have been tried; all the nerves have been touched; every
+ possible agony has been inflicted that ingenuity could invent and cruelty
+ accomplish. Many volumes have been published filled with accounts of these
+ experiments, giving all the details and the results. People who are
+ curious about such things can read these reports. There is no need of
+ repeating these savage experiments. It is now known how long a dog can
+ live with all the pores of his skin closed, how long he can survive the
+ loss of his skin, or one lobe of his brain, or both of his kidneys, or
+ part of his intestines, or without his liver, and there is no necessity of
+ mutilating and mangling thousands of other dogs to substantiate what is
+ already known.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of what possible use is it to know just how long an animal can live
+ without water&mdash;at what time he becomes insane from thirst, or blind
+ or deaf?
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE WORLD'S FAIR will do great good. A great many thousand people of the
+ Old World will for the first time understand the new; will for the first
+ time appreciate what a free people can do. For the first time they will
+ know the value of free institutions, of individual independence, of a
+ country where people express their thoughts, are not afraid of each other,
+ not afraid to try&mdash;a people so accustomed to success that disaster is
+ not taken into calculation. Of course, we have great advantages. We have a
+ new half of the world. We have soil better than is found in other
+ countries, and the soil is new and generous and anxious to be cultivated.
+ So we have everything in hill and mountain that man can need&mdash;silver,
+ and gold, and iron beyond computation&mdash;and, in addition to all that,
+ our people are the most inventive. We sustain about the same relation to
+ invention that Italy in her palmy days did to art, or that Spain did to
+ superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And right here it may be well enough to say that I think it was
+ exceedingly unfortunate that this country was discovered under the
+ auspices of Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella were a couple of wretches. The
+ same year that Columbus discovered America, these sovereigns expelled the
+ Jews from Spain, and the expulsion was accompanied by every outrage, by
+ every atrocity to which man&mdash;that is to say, savage man&mdash;that is
+ to say, the superstitious savage&mdash;is capable of inflicting.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Spaniards came to America and destroyed two civilizations far better
+ than their own. They were natural robbers, buccaneers, and thought nothing
+ of murdering thousands for gold. I am perfectly willing to celebrate the
+ fact of discovery, but for the sovereigns of Spain I am not willing to
+ celebrate, except, perhaps their deaths. There is at least some joy to be
+ extracted from that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In spite of the untoward circumstances under which the continent was
+ discovered and settled, there is one thing that counteracted to a certain
+ degree the influence of the Old World in the New. Possibly we owe our
+ liberty to the Indians. If there had been no hostile savages on this
+ continent, the kings and princes of the Old World would have taken
+ possession and would have divided it out among their favorites. They tried
+ to do that, but their favorites could not take possession. They had to
+ fight for the soil and in the conflict of centuries they found that a good
+ fighter was a good citizen, and the ideas of caste were slowly lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then another thing was of benefit to us. The settlers felt that they had
+ earned the soil; that they had fought for it, gained it by their
+ sufferings, their courage, their selfdenial, and their labor; and the idea
+ crept into their heads that the kings in Europe, who had done nothing, had
+ no right to dictate to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Thus at first the spirit of caste was destroyed by respectability resting
+ on usefulness. The spirit of subserviency to the Old World also died, and
+ the people who had rescued the land made up their minds not only to own
+ it, but to control it. They were also firmly convinced that the profits
+ belonged to them. In this way manhood was recognized in the New World. In
+ this way grew up the feeling of nationality here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What I wish to see celebrated in this great exposition are the triumphs
+ that have been achieved in this New World. These I wish to see above all.
+ At the same time I want the best that labor and thought have produced in
+ all countries. It seems to me that in the presence of the wonderful
+ machines, of those marvelous mechanical contrivances by which we take
+ advantage of the forces of nature, by which we make servants of the
+ elemental powers&mdash;in the presence, I say, of these, it seems to me
+ respect for labor must be born. We shall begin to appreciate the men of
+ use instead of those who have posed as decorations. All the beautiful
+ things, all the useful things, come from labor, and it is labor that has
+ made the world a fit habitation for the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take from the World's Fair what labor has produced&mdash;the work of the
+ great artists&mdash;and nothing will be left. What have the great
+ conquerors to show in this great exhibition? What shall we get from the
+ Caesars and the Napoleons? What shall we get from popes and cardinals?
+ What shall we get from the nobility? From princes and lords and dukes?
+ What excuse have they for having existence and for having lived on the
+ bread earned by honest men? They stand in the show-windows of history, lay
+ figures, on which fine goods are shown, but inside the raiment there is
+ nothing, and never was. This exposition will be the apotheosis of labor.
+ No man can attend it without losing, if he has any sense at all, the
+ spirit of caste; or, if he still maintains it, he will put the useful in
+ the highest class, and the useless, whether carrying sceptres or dishes
+ for alms, in the lowest.&mdash;October, 1892.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE SAVAGE made of the river, the tree, the mountain, a fetich. He put
+ within, or behind these things, a spirit&mdash;according to Mr. Spencer,
+ the spirit of a dead ancestor. This is considered by the modern Christian,
+ and in fact by the modern philosopher, as the lowest possible phase of the
+ religious idea. To put behind the river or the tree, or within them, a
+ spirit, a something, is considered the religion of savagery; but to put
+ behind the universe, or within it, the same kind of fetich, is considered
+ the height of philosophy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For my part, I see no possible distinction in these systems, except that
+ the view of the savage is altogether the more poetic. The <i>fetich</i> of
+ the savage is the <i>noumenon</i> of the Greek, the <i>God</i> of the
+ theologian, the <i>First Cause</i> of the metaphysician, the <i>Unknowable</i>
+ of Spencer.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE UNTHINKABLE.&mdash;It is admitted by all who have thought upon the
+ question that a First Cause is unthinkable&mdash;that a creative power is
+ beyond the reach of human thought. It therefore follows that the
+ miraculous is unthinkable. There is no possible way in which the human
+ mind can even think of a miracle. It is infinitely beyond our power of
+ conception. We can conceive of the statement, but not of the thing. It is
+ impossible for the intellect to conceive of a clay pot producing oil. It
+ is impossible to conceive even, of human life being perpetuated in the
+ midst of fire. This is just as unthinkable as that twice two are
+ twenty-seven. A man can say that three times three are two, but it is
+ impossible to think of any such thing&mdash;that is, to think of such a
+ statement as true. A man may say that he heard a stone sing a song and
+ heard it afterward repeat a part of Milton's "Paradise Lost." Now, I can
+ conceive of a man telling such a falsehood, but I cannot conceive of the
+ thing having happened.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ CAN HUMAN TESTIMONY Overcome the Apparently Impossible Without
+ Explanation?&mdash;It can only be believed by a philosophic mind when
+ explained&mdash;that is to say, by being destroyed as a miracle, and
+ persisting simply as a fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now, I say that a miracle is unthinkable because a power above Nature, a
+ power that created Nature, is unthinkable. And if a power above Nature be
+ unthinkable, the miracles claiming to be supernatural are unthinkable. In
+ other words, all consequences flowing from a belief in an infinite Creator
+ are necessarily unthinkable.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ EDOUARD REMENYI.&mdash;This week the great violinist, Edouard Remenyi, as
+ my guest, visited the Bass Rocks House, Cape Ann, Mass., and for three
+ days delighted and entranced the fortunate idlers of the beach. He played
+ nearly all the time, night and day, seemingly carried away with his own
+ music. Among the many selections given, were the andante from the Tenth
+ Sonata in E flat, also from the Twelfth Sonata in G minor, by Mozart.
+ Nothing could exceed the wonderful playing of the selections from the
+ Twelfth Sonata. A hush as of death fell upon the audience, and when he
+ ceased, tears fell upon applauding hands. Then followed the Elegie from
+ Ernst; then "The Ideal Dance" composed by himself&mdash;a fairy piece,
+ full of wings and glancing feet, moonlight and melody, where fountains
+ fall in showers of pearl, and waves of music die on sands of gold&mdash;then
+ came the "Barcarole" by Schubert, and he played this with infinite spirit,
+ in a kind of inspired frenzy, as though music itself were mad with joy;
+ then the grand Sonata in G, in three movements, by Beethoven.&mdash;August,
+ 1880.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Remenyi's Playing.&mdash;In my mind the old tones are still rising and
+ falling&mdash;still throbbing, pleading, beseeching, imploring, wailing
+ like the lost&mdash;rising winged and triumphant, superb and victorious&mdash;then
+ caressing, whispering every thought of love&mdash;intoxicated, delirious
+ with joy&mdash;panting with passion&mdash;fading to silence as softly and
+ imperceptibly as consciousness is lost in sleep.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE KINDERGARTEN is perfectly adapted to the natural needs and desires of
+ children. Most children dislike the old system and go "unwillingly to
+ school." They feel imprisoned and wait impatiently for their liberty. They
+ learn without understanding and take no interest in their lessons. In the
+ Kindergarten there is perfect liberty, and study is transformed into play.
+ To learn is a pleasure. There are no wearisome tasks&mdash;no mental
+ drudgery&mdash;nothing but enjoyment,&mdash;the enjoyment of natural
+ development in natural ways. Children do not have to be driven to the
+ Kindergarten. To be kept away is a punishment.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The experience in many towns and cities justifies our belief that the
+ Kindergarten is the only valuable school for little children. They are
+ brought in contact with actual things&mdash;with forms and colors&mdash;things
+ that can be seen and touched, and they are taught to use their hands and
+ senses&mdash;to understand qualities and relations, and all is done under
+ the guise of play. We agree with Froebel who said: "Let us live for our
+ children."
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE METHODIST CHURCH STATISTICS.&mdash;First. In 1800, a resolution in
+ favor of gradual emancipation was defeated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Second. In 1804, resolutions passed requiring ministers to exhort slaves
+ to be obedient to their masters.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Third. In 1808, everything about laymen owning slaves Stricken out.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fourth. In 1820, a resolution that ministers should not hold slaves was
+ defeated.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fifth. In 1836, a resolution passed that the Methodist Church opposed,
+ abolition of slavery&mdash;one hundred and twenty to fourteen.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sixth. In 1845-1846, the Methodist Church divided&mdash;Bishop Andrews
+ owned slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Seventh. As late as 1860 there were over ten thousand Methodists who were
+ slaveholders in the M. E. Church, North.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ 117 East 21st Str., N. Y.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Response to an invitation to a dinner and a billiard
+ tournament at the Manhattan Athletic Club, New York City.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Feby. 18, 1899.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My Dear Dr. Ranney:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I go to Boston to-morrow. So, you see it is impossible for me to be with
+ you on the 22d inst. I would like to make a few remarks on "orthodox
+ billiards." The fact is that the whole world is a table, we are the balls
+ and Fate plays the game. We are knocked and whacked against each other,&mdash;followed
+ and drawn&mdash;whirled and twisted, pocketed and spotted, and all the
+ time we think that we are doing the playing. But no matter, we feel that
+ we are in the game, and a real good illusion is, after all, it may be, the
+ only reality that we know. At the same time, I feel that Fate is a
+ careless player&mdash;that he is always a little nervous and generally
+ forgets to chalk his cue. I know that he has made lots of mistakes with me&mdash;lots
+ of misses.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With many thanks, I remain, yours always.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ R. G. Ingersoll.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THOUGHTS ON CHRISTMAS, 1891.&mdash;It is beautiful to give one day to the
+ ideal&mdash;to have one day apart; one day for generous deeds, for good
+ will, for gladness; one day to forget the shadows, the rains, the storms
+ of life; to remember the sunshine, the happiness of youth and health; one
+ day to forget the briers and thorns of the winding path, to remember the
+ fruits and flowers; one day in which to feed the hungry, to salute the
+ poor and lowly; one day to feel the brotherhood of man; one day to
+ remember the heroic and loving deeds of the dead; one day to get
+ acquainted with children, to remember the old, the unfortunate and the
+ imprisoned; one day in which to forget yourself and think lovingly of
+ others; one day for the family, for the fireside, for wife and children,
+ for the love and laughter, the joy and rapture, of home; one day in which
+ bonds and stocks and deeds and notes and interest and mortgages and all
+ kinds of business and trade are forgotten, and all stores and shops and
+ factories and offices and banks and ledgers and accounts and lawsuits are
+ cast aside, put away and locked up, and the weary heart and brain are
+ given a voyage to fairyland.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope that such a day is a prophecy of what all days will be.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE ORTHODOX PREACHERS are several centuries in the rear. They all love
+ the absurd, and glory in believing the impossible. They are also as
+ conservative as though they were dead&mdash;good people&mdash;the leaders
+ of those who are going backward.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ The Man who builds a home erects a temple.
+ The flame upon the hearth is the sacred fire.
+ He who loves wife and children is the true worshiper.
+ Forms and ceremonies, kneelings and fastings are born of selfish fear.
+ A good deed is the best prayer.
+ A loving life is the best religion.
+ No one knows whether the Unknown is worthy of worship or not.
+</pre>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ WE TWO, THE DOUBTING BRAIN AND HOPING HEART, with somber thought and
+ radiant wish, in dusk and dawn, in light and shade 'neath star and sun,
+ together journeying toward the night. And then the end, sighs the doubting
+ brain&mdash;but there is no end, says the hoping heart. O Brain! if you
+ knew, you would not doubt. O Heart! if you knew, you would not hope.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ RIGHTS AND DUTIES spring from the same source. He who has no rights has no
+ duties. Without liberty there can be no responsibility and no conscience.
+ Man calls himself to an account for the use of his power, and passes
+ judgment upon himself. The standard of such judgment we call conscience.
+ In the proportion that man uses his liberty, his power, for the good of
+ all, he advances, becomes civilized. Civilization does not consist merely
+ in invention, discovery, material advancement, but in doing justice. By
+ civilization is meant all discoveries, facts, theories, agencies, that add
+ to the happiness of man.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ AT BAY.&mdash;Sometimes in the darkness of night I feel as though
+ surrounded by the great armies of effacement&mdash;that the horizon is
+ growing smaller every moment&mdash;that the final surrender is only
+ postponed&mdash;that everything is taking something from me&mdash;that
+ Nature robs me with her countless hands&mdash;that my heart grows weaker
+ with every beat&mdash;that even kisses wear me away, and that every
+ thought takes toll of my brief life.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY.*&mdash;One year of perfect health&mdash;of
+ countless smiles&mdash;of wonder and surprise&mdash;of growing thought and
+ love&mdash;was duly celebrated on this day, and all paid tribute to the
+ infant queen. There were whirling things that scattered music as they
+ turned&mdash;and boxes filled with tunes&mdash;and curious animals of
+ whittled wood&mdash;and ivory rings with tinkling bells&mdash;and little
+ dishes for a fairy-feast&mdash;horses that rocked, and bleating sheep and
+ monstrous elephants of painted tin. A baby-tender, for a tender babe,
+ garments of silk and cushions wrought with flowers, and pictures of her
+ mother when a babe&mdash;and silver dishes for another year&mdash;and
+ coach and four and train of cars&mdash;and bric-a-brac for a baby's house&mdash;and
+ last of all, a pearl, to mark her first round year of life and love.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Written on the first anniversary of his grandchild, Eva
+ Ingersoll-Brown, August 27, 1892.
+</pre>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ SHELLEY.&mdash;The light of morn beyond the purple hills&mdash;a palm that
+ lifts its coronet of leaves above the desert's sands&mdash;an isle of
+ green in some far sea&mdash;a spring that waits for lips of thirst&mdash;a
+ strain of music heard within some palace wrought of dreams&mdash;a cloud
+ of gold above a setting sun&mdash;a fragrance wafted from some unseen
+ shore.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ FATE.&mdash;Never hurried, never delayed, passionless, pitiless, patient,
+ keeping the tryst&mdash;neither early nor late&mdash;there, on the very
+ stroke and center of the instant fixed.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ QUIET, and introspective calm come with the afternoon. Toward evening the
+ mind grows satisfied and still. The flare and flicker of youth are gone,
+ and the soul is like the flame of a lamp where the air is at rest. Age
+ discards the superfluous, the immaterial, the straw and chaff, and hoards
+ the golden grain. The highway is known, and the paths no longer mislead.
+ Clouds are not mistaken for mountains.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE OLD MAN has been long at the fair. He is acquainted with the jugglers
+ at the booths. His curiosity has been satisfied. He no longer cares for
+ the exceptional, the monstrous, the marvelous and deformed. He looks
+ through and beyond the gilding, the glitter and gloss, not only of things,
+ but of conduct, of manners, theories, religions and philosophies. He sees
+ clearer. The light no longer shines in his eyes.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ The time will come when even selfishness will be charitable for its own
+ sake, because at that time the man will have grown and developed to that
+ degree that selfishness demands generosity and kindness and justice. The
+ self becomes so noble that selfishness is a virtue. The lowest form of
+ selfishness is when one is willing to be happy, or wishes to be happy, at
+ the expense or the misery of another. The highest form of selfishness is
+ when a man becomes so noble that he finds his happiness in making others
+ so. This is the nobility of selfishness.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ CUBA fell upon her knees&mdash;stretched her thin hands toward the great
+ Republic. We saw her tear-filled eyes&mdash;her withered breasts&mdash;her
+ dead babes&mdash;her dying&mdash;her buried and unburied dead. We heard
+ her voice, and pity, roused to action by her grief, became as stern as
+ justice, and the great Republic cried to Spain: "Sheathe the dagger of
+ assassination; take your bloody hand from the throat of the helpless; and
+ take your flag from the heaven of the Western World."
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Perhaps I have reached the years of discretion. But it may be that
+ discretion is the enemy of happiness. If the buds had discretion there
+ might be no fruit. So it may be that the follies committed in the spring
+ give autumn the harvest.&mdash;August 11,1892.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Dickens wrote for homes&mdash;Thackeray for clubs. Byron did not care for
+ the fireside&mdash;for the prattle of babes&mdash;for the smiles and tears
+ of humble life. He was touched by grandeur rather than goodness,&mdash;loved
+ storm and crag and the wild sea. But Burns lived in the valley, touched by
+ the joys and griefs of lowly lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Imagine amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and opals mingled as liquids&mdash;then
+ imagine these marvelous glories of light and color changed to a tone, and
+ you have the wondrous, the incomparable voice of Scalchi.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE ORGAN.&mdash;The beginnings&mdash;the timidities&mdash;the half
+ thoughts&mdash;blushes&mdash;suggestions&mdash;a phrase of grace and
+ feeling&mdash;a sustained note&mdash;the wing on the wind&mdash;confidence&mdash;the
+ flight&mdash;rising with many harmonies that unite in the voluptuous swell&mdash;in
+ the passionate tremor&mdash;rising still higher&mdash;flooding the great
+ dome with the soul of enraptured sound.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ NEW MEXICO is a most wonderful country. It is a ragged miser with billions
+ of buried treasure. It looks as if Nature had guarded her silver and gold
+ with enough desolation to deter all but the brave.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ WHY SHOULD THE INDIAN SUMMER of a life be lost&mdash;the long, serene, and
+ tender days when earth and sky are friends? The falling leaves disclose
+ the ripened fruit&mdash;and so the flight of youth with dreams and fancies
+ should show the wealth of bending bough.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Give milk to babes, and wine to youth. But for old age, when ghosts of
+ more than two-score years are wandering on the traveled road, the fragrant
+ tea, that loosens gossip's tongue, is best.&mdash;December 25,1892.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ [From a letter thanking a friend for a Christmas present of
+ a chest of tea.]
+</pre>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ ON MEMORIAL DAY our hearts blossom in gratitude as we lovingly remember
+ the brave men upon whose brows Death, with fleshless hands, placed the
+ laurel wreath of fame.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE SOUL IS AN ARCHITECt&mdash;it builds a habitation for itself&mdash;and
+ as the soul is, is the habitation. Some live in dens and caves, and some
+ in lowly homes made rich with love, and overrun with vine and flower.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ SCIENCE at last holds with honest hand the scales wherein are weighed the
+ facts and fictions of the world. She neither kneels nor prays, she stands
+ erect and thinks. Her tongue is not a traitor to her brain. Her thought
+ and speech agree.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE NEGRO who can pass me in the race of life will receive my admiration,
+ and he can count on my friendship. No man ever lived who proved his
+ superiority by trampling on the weak.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ RELIGION is like a palm tree&mdash;it grows at the top. The dead leaves
+ are all orthodox, while the new ones and the buds are all heretics.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ MEMORY is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ HOPE is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ THE FIRES OF THE NEXT WORLD sustain the same relation to churches that
+ those in this world sustain to insurance companies.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Now and then there arises a man who on peril's edge draws from the
+ scabbard of despair the sword of victory.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ The falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a
+ prophecy of spring.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Vice lives either before Love is born, or after Love is dead.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Intellectual freedom is only the right to be honest.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ I believe that finally man will go through the phase of religion before
+ birth.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ When shrill chanticleer pierces the dull ear of morn.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Orthodoxy is the refuge of mediocrity.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ The ocean is the womb of all that will be, the tomb of all that has been.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Jealousy never knows the value of a fact.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Envy cannot reason, malice cannot prophesy.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ Love has a kind of second sight.
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ I have never given to any one a sketch of my life. According to my idea a
+ life should not be written until it has been lived.&mdash;July 1, 1888.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0034" id="link0034">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ EFFECT OF THE WORLD'S FAIR ON THE HUMAN RACE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE Great Fair should be for the intellectual, mechanical, artistic,
+ political and social advancement of the world. Nations, like small
+ communities, are in danger of becoming provincial, and must become so,
+ unless they exchange commodities, theories, thoughts, and ideals.
+ Isolation is the soil of ignorance, and ignorance is the soil of egotism;
+ and nations, like individuals who live apart, mistake provincialism for
+ perfection, and hatred of all other nations for patriotism. With most
+ people, strangers are not only enemies, but inferiors. They imagine that
+ they are progressive because they know little of others, and compare their
+ present, not with the present of other nations, but with their own past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Few people have imagination enough to sympathize with those of a different
+ complexion, with those professing another religion or speaking another
+ language, or even wearing garments unlike their own. Most people regard
+ every difference between themselves and others as an evidence of the
+ inferiority of the others. They have not intelligence enough to put
+ themselves in the place of another if that other happens to be outwardly
+ unlike themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Countless agencies have been at work for many years destroying the hedges
+ of thorn that have so long divided nations, and we at last are beginning
+ to see that other people do not differ from us, except in the same
+ particulars that we differ from them. At last, nations are becoming
+ acquainted with each other, and they now know that people everywhere are
+ substantially the same. We now know that while nations differ outwardly in
+ form and feature, somewhat in theory, philosophy and creed, still,
+ inwardly&mdash;that is to say, so far as hopes and passions are concerned&mdash;they
+ are much the same, having the same fears, experiencing the same joys and
+ sorrows. So we are beginning to find that the virtues belong exclusively
+ to no race, to no creed, and to no religion; that the humanities dwell in
+ the hearts of men, whomever and whatever they may happen to worship. We
+ have at last found that every creed is of necessity a provincialism,
+ destined to be lost in the universal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last, Science extends an invitation to all nations, and places at their
+ disposal its ships and its cars; and when these people meet&mdash;or
+ rather, the representatives of these people&mdash;they will find that, in
+ spite of the accidents of birth, they are, after all, about the same; that
+ their sympathies, their ideas' of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, of
+ heroism and honor, are substantially alike. They will find that in every
+ land honesty is honored, truth respected and admired, and that generosity
+ and charity touch all hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So it is of the greatest importance that the inventions of the world
+ should be brought beneath one roof. These inventions, in my judgment, are
+ destined to be the liberators of mankind. They enslave forces and compel
+ the energies of nature to work for man. These forces have no backs to feel
+ the lash, no tears to shed, no hearts to break.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of the world demonstrates that man becomes What we call
+ civilized by increasing his wants. As his necessities increase, he becomes
+ industrious and energetic. If his heart does not keep pace with his brain,
+ he is cruel, and the physically or mentally strong enslave the physically
+ or mentally weak. At present these inventions, while they have greatly
+ increased the countless articles needed by man, have to a certain extent
+ enslaved mankind. In a savage state there are few failures. Almost any one
+ succeeds in hunting and fishing. The wants are few, and easily supplied.
+ As man becomes civilized, wants increase; or rather as wants increase, man
+ becomes civilized. Then the struggle for existence becomes complex;
+ failures increase.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first result of the invention of machinery has been to increase the
+ wealth of the few. The hope of the world is that through invention man can
+ finally take such advantage of these forces of nature, of the weight of
+ water, of the force of wind, of steam, of electricity, that they will do
+ the work of the world; and it is the hope of the really civilized that
+ these inventions will finally cease to be the property of the few, to the
+ end that they may do the work of all for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When those who do the work own the machines, when those who toil control
+ the invention, then, and not till then, can the world be civilized or
+ free. When these forces shall do the bidding of the individual, when they
+ become the property of the mechanic instead of the monopoly, when they
+ belong to labor instead of what is called capital, when these great powers
+ are as free to the individual laborer as the air and light are now free to
+ all, then, and not until then, the individual will be restored and all
+ forms of slavery will disappear.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another great benefit will come from the Fair. Other nations in some
+ directions are more artistic than we, but no other nation has made the
+ common as beautiful as we have. We have given beauty of form to machines,
+ to common utensils, to the things of every day, and have thus laid the
+ foundation for producing the artistic in its highest possible forms. It
+ will be of great benefit to us to look upon the paintings and marbles of
+ the Old World. To see them is an education.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The great Republic has lived a greater poem than the brain and heart of
+ man have as yet produced, and we have supplied material for artists and
+ poets yet unborn; material for form and color and song. The Republic is
+ to-day Art's greatest market.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing else is so well calculated to make friends of all nations as
+ really to become acquainted with the best that each has produced.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The nation that has produced a great poet, a great artist, a great
+ statesman, a great thinker, takes its place on an equality with other
+ nations of the world, and transfers to all of its citizens some of the
+ genius of its most illustrious men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This great Fair will be an object lesson to other nations. They will see
+ the result of a government, republican in form, where the people are the
+ source of authority, where governors and presidents are servants&mdash;not
+ rulers. We want all nations to see the great Republic as it is, to study
+ and understand its growth, development and destiny. We want them to know
+ that here, under our flag, are sixty-five millions of people and that they
+ are the best fed, the best clothed and the best housed in the world. We
+ want them to know that we are solving the great social problems, and that
+ we are going to demonstrate the right and power of man to govern himself.
+ We want the subjects of other nations to see aland filled with citizens&mdash;not
+ subjects; aland in which the pew is above the pulpit; where the people are
+ superior to the state; where legislators are representatives and where
+ authority means simply the duty to enforce the people's will.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope above all things that this Fair will bind the nations together
+ closer and stronger; and let us hope that this will result in the
+ settlement of all national difficulties by arbitration instead of war. In
+ a savage state, individuals settle their own difficulties by an appeal to
+ force. After a time these individuals agree that their difficulties shall
+ be settled by others. This is the first great step toward civilization.
+ The result is the establishment of courts. Nations at present sustain to
+ each other the same relation that savage does to savage. Each nation is
+ left to decide for itself, and it generally decides according to its
+ strength&mdash;not the strength of its side of the case, but the strength
+ of its army. The consequence is that what is called "the Law of Nations"
+ is a savage code. The world will never be civilized until there is an
+ international court. Savages begin to be civilized when they submit their
+ difficulties to their peers. Nations will become civilized when they
+ submit their difficulties to a great court, the judgments of which can be
+ carried out, all nations pledging the co-operation of their armies and
+ their navies for that purpose.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If the holding of the great Fair shall result in hastening the coming of
+ that time it will be a blessing to the whole world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And here let me prophesy: The Fair will be worthy of Chicago, the most
+ wonderful city of the world&mdash;of Illinois, the best State in the Union&mdash;of
+ the United States, the best country on the earth. It will eclipse all
+ predecessors in every department. It will represent the progressive spirit
+ of the nineteenth century. Beneath its ample roofs will be gathered the
+ treasures of Art, and the accomplishments of Science. At the feet of the
+ Republic will be laid the triumphs of our race, the best of every land.&mdash;The
+ illustrated World's Fair, Chicago, November, 1891.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0035" id="link0035">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ SABBATH SUPERSTITION.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ THE idea that one day in the week is better than the others and should be
+ set apart for religious purposes; that it should be considered holy; that
+ no useful work should be done on that day; that it should be given over to
+ pious idleness and sad ceremonies connected with the worship of a supposed
+ Being, seems to have been originated by the Jews.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to the Old Testament, the Sabbath was marvelously sacred for two
+ reasons; the first being, that Jehovah created the universe in six days
+ and rested on the seventh: and the second, because the Jews had been
+ delivered from the Egyptians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The first of these reasons we now know to be false; and the second has
+ nothing, so far as we are concerned, to do with the question.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no reason for our keeping the seventh day because the Hebrews
+ were delivered from the Egyptians.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Sabbath was a Jewish institution, and, according to the Bible, only
+ the Jews were commanded to keep that day. Jehovah said nothing to the
+ Egyptians on that subject; nothing to the Philistines, nothing to the
+ Gentiles.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Jews kept that day with infinite strictness, and with them this space
+ of time known as the Sabbath became so holy that he who violated it by
+ working was put to death. Sabbath-breaking and murder were equal crimes.
+ On the Sabbath the pious Jew would not build a fire in his house. He ate
+ cold victuals and thanked God. The gates of the city were closed. No
+ business was done, and the traveler who arrived at the city on that day
+ remained outside until evening. If he happened to fall, he remained where
+ he fell until the sun had gone done.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The early Christians did not hold the seventh day in such veneration. As a
+ matter of fact, they ceased to regard it as holy, and changed the sacred
+ day from the seventh to the first. This change was really made by
+ Constantine, because the first day of the week was the Sunday of the
+ Pagans; and this day had been given to pleasure and recreation and to
+ religious ceremonies for many centuries.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ After Constantine designated the first day to be kept and observed by
+ Christians, our Sunday became the sacred time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The early Christians, however, kept the day much as it had been kept by
+ the Pagans. They attended church in the morning, and in the afternoon
+ enjoyed themselves as best they could..
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Catholic Church fell in with the prevailing customs, and to
+ accommodate itself to Pagan ways and superstitions, it agreed, as far as
+ it could, with the ideas of the Pagan.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Up to the time of the Reformation, Sunday had been divided between the
+ discharge of religious duties and recreation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Luther did not believe in the sacredness of the Sabbath. After church he
+ enjoyed himself by playing games, and wanted others to do the same.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Even John Calvin, whose view had been blurred by the "Five Points,"
+ allowed the people to enjoy themselves on Sunday afternoon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The reformers on the continent never had the Jewish idea of the sacredness
+ of the Sabbath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Geneva, Germany and France, all kinds of innocent amusement were
+ allowed on that day; and I believe the same was true of Holland.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in Scotland the Jewish idea was adopted to the fullest extent. There
+ Sabbath-breaking was one of the blackest and one of the most terrible
+ crimes. Nothing was considered quite as sacred as the Sabbath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Scotch went so far as to take the ground that it was wrong to save
+ people who were drowning on Sunday, the drowning being a punishment
+ inflicted by God. Upon the question of keeping the Sabbath most of the
+ Scottish people became insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The same notions about the holy day were adopted by the Dissenters in
+ England, and it became the principal tenet in their creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Puritans and Pilgrims were substantially crazy about the sacredness of
+ Sunday. With them the first day of the week was set apart for preaching,
+ praying, attending church, reading the Bible and studying the catechism.
+ Walking, riding, playing on musical instruments, boating, swimming and
+ courting, were all crimes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one had the right to be happy on that blessed day. It was a time of
+ gloom, sacred, solemn and religiously stupid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They did their best to strip their religion of every redeeming feature.
+ They hated art and music&mdash;everything calculated to produce joy. They
+ despised everything except the Bible, the church, God, Sunday and the
+ creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The influence of these people has been felt in every part of our country.
+ The Sabbath superstition became almost universal. No laughter, no smiles
+ on that day; no games, no recreation, no riding, no walking through the
+ perfumed fields or by the winding streams or the shore of the sea. No
+ communion with the subtile beauties of nature; no wandering in the woods
+ with wife and children, no reading of poetry and fiction; nothing but
+ solemnity and gloom, listening to sermons, thinking about sin, death,
+ graves, coffins, shrouds, epitaphs and ceremonies and the marvelous truths
+ of sectarian religion, and the weaknesses of those who were natural enough
+ and sensible enough to enjoy themselves on the Sabbath day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ So universal became the Sabbath superstition that the Legislatures of all
+ the States, or nearly all, passed laws to prevent work and enjoyment on
+ that day, and declared all contracts void relating to business entered
+ into on Sunday.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Germans gave us the first valuable lesson on this subject. They came
+ to this country in great numbers; they did not keep the American Sabbath.
+ They listened to music and they drank beer on that holy day. They took
+ their wives and children with them and enjoyed themselves; yet they were
+ good, kind, industrious people. They paid their debts and their credit was
+ the best.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our people saw that men could be good and women virtuous without "keeping"
+ the Sabbath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This did us great good, and changed the opinions of hundreds of thousands
+ of Americans.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But the churches insisted on the old way. Gradually our people began to
+ appreciate the fact that one-seventh of the time was being stolen by
+ superstition. They began to ask for the opening of libraries, for music in
+ the parks and to be allowed to visit museums and public places on the
+ Sabbath.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In several States these demands were granted, and the privileges have
+ never been abused. The people were orderly, polite to officials and to
+ each other.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1876, when the Centennial was held at Philadelphia, the Sabbatarians
+ had control. Philadelphia was a Sunday city, and so the gates of the
+ Centennial were closed on that day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was in Philadelphia where the Sabbath superstition had been so
+ virulent that chains had been put across the streets to prevent stages and
+ carriages from passing at that holy time.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At that time millions of Americans felt that a great wrong was done by
+ closing the Centennial to the laboring people; but the managers&mdash;most
+ of them being politicians&mdash;took care of themselves and kept the gates
+ closed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In 1876 the Sabbatarians triumphed, and when it was determined to hold a
+ world's fair at Chicago they made up their minds that no one should look
+ upon the world's wonders on the Sabbath day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To accomplish this pious and foolish purpose committees were appointed all
+ over the country; money was raised to make a campaign; persons were
+ employed to go about and arouse the enthusiasm of religious people;
+ petitions by the thousand were sent to Congress and to the officers of the
+ World's Fair, signed by thousands of people who never saw them;
+ resolutions were passed in favor of Sunday closing by conventions,
+ presbyteries, councils and associations. Lobbyists were employed to
+ influence members of Congress. Great bodies of Christians threatened to
+ boycott the fair and yet the World's Fair is open on Sunday.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What is the meaning of this? Let me tell you. It means that in this
+ country the Scotch New England Sabbath has ceased to be; it means that it
+ is dead. The last great effort for its salvation has been put forth, and
+ has failed. It belonged to the creed of Jonathan Edwards and the belief of
+ the witch-burners, and in this age it is out of place.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was a time when the minister and priest were regarded as the
+ foundation of wisdom; when information came from the altar, from the
+ pulpit; and when the sheep were the property of the shepherd.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ That day in intelligent communities has passed. We no longer go to the
+ minister or the church for information. The orthodox minister is losing
+ his power, and the Sabbath is now regarded as a day of rest, of recreation
+ and of pleasure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The church must keep up with the people. The minister must take another
+ step. The multitude care but little about controversies in churches, but
+ they do care about the practical questions that directly affect their
+ daily lives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Must we waste one day in seven; must we make ourselves unhappy or
+ melancholy one-seventh of the time?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ These are important questions and for many years the church in our country
+ has answered them both in the affirmative, and a vast number of people not
+ Christians have also said "yes" because they wanted votes, or because they
+ feared to incite the hatred of the church.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Now in this year of 1893 a World's Fair answered this question in the
+ negative, and a large majority of the citizens of the Republic say that
+ the officers of the Fair have done right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This marks an epoch in the history of the Sabbath. It is to be sacred in a
+ religious sense in this country no longer. Henceforth in the United States
+ the Sabbath is for the use of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Many of those who labored for the closing of the Fair on Sunday took the
+ ground that if the gates were opened, God would visit this nation with
+ famine, flood and fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It hardly seems possible that God will destroy thousands of women and
+ children who had nothing to do with the opening of the Fair; still, if he
+ is the same God described in the Christian Bible, he may destroy our babes
+ as he did those of the Egyptians. It is a little hard to tell in advance
+ what a God of that kind will do.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It was believed for many centuries that God punished the Sabbath-breaking
+ individual and the Sabbath-breaking nation. Of course facts never had
+ anything to do with this belief, and the prophecies of the pulpit were
+ never fulfilled. People who were drowned on Sunday, according to the
+ church, lost their lives by the will of God. Those drowned on other days
+ were the victims of storm or accident. The nations that kept the Sabbath
+ were no more prosperous than those that broke the sacred day. Certainly
+ France is as prosperous as Scotland.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us hope, however, that these zealous gentlemen who have predicted
+ calamities were mistaken; let us be glad that hundreds of thousands of
+ workingmen and women will be delighted and refined by looking at the
+ statues, the paintings, the machinery, and the countless articles of use
+ and beauty gathered together at the great Fair, and let us be glad that on
+ the one day that they can spare from toil, the gates will be open to them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0036" id="link0036">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ TWO articles have recently appeared attacking the motives of George Jacob
+ Holyoake. He is spoken of as a man governed by a desire to please the rich
+ and powerful, as one afraid of public opinion and who in the perilous hour
+ denies or conceals his convictions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In these attacks there is not one word of truth. They are based upon
+ mistakes and misconceptions.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is not in this world a nobler, braver man. In England he has done
+ more for the great cause of intellectual liberty than any other man of
+ this generation. He has done more for the poor, for the children of toil,
+ for the homeless and wretched than any other living man. He has attacked
+ all abuses, all tyranny and all forms of hypocrisy. His weapons have been
+ reason, logic, facts, kindness, and above all, example. He has lived his
+ creed. He has won the admiration and respect of his bitterest antagonists.
+ He has the simplicity of childhood, the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom
+ of age. He is not abusive, but he is clear and conclusive.. He is intense
+ without violence&mdash;firm without anger. He has the strength of perfect
+ kindness. He does not hate&mdash;he pities. He does not attack men and
+ women, but dogmas and creeds. And he does not attack them to get the
+ better of people, but to enable people to get the better of them. He gives
+ the light he has. He shares his intellectual wealth with the orthodox
+ poor. He assists without insulting, guides without arrogance, and
+ enlightens without outrage. Besides, he is eminent for the exercise of
+ plain common sense. He knows that there are wrongs besides those born of
+ superstition&mdash;that people are not necessarily happy because they have
+ renounced the Thirty-nine Articles&mdash;and that the priest is not the
+ only enemy of mankind. He has for forty years been preaching and
+ practicing industry, economy, self-reliance, and kindness. He has done all
+ within his power to give the workingman a better home, better food, better
+ wages, and better opportunities for the education of his children. He has
+ demonstrated the success of co-operation&mdash;of intelligent combination
+ for the common good. As a rule, his methods have been perfectly legal. In
+ some instances he has knowingly violated the law, and did so with the
+ intention to take the consequences. He would neither ask nor accept a
+ pardon, because to receive a pardon carries with it the implied promise to
+ keep the law, and an admission that you were in the wrong. He would not
+ agree to desist from doing what he believed ought to be done, neither
+ would he stain his past to brighten his future, nor imprison his soul to
+ free his body. He has that happy mingling of gentleness and firmness found
+ only in the highest type of moral heroes. He is an absolutely just man,
+ and will never do an act that he would condemn in another. He admits that
+ the most bigoted churchman has a perfect right to express his opinions not
+ only, but that he must be met with argument couched in kind and candid
+ terms. Mr. Holyoake is not only the enemy of a theological hierarchy, but
+ he is also opposed to mental mobs. He will not use the bludgeon of
+ epithet.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Perfect fairness is regarded by many as weakness. Some people have
+ altogether more confidence in their beliefs than in their own arguments.
+ They resort to assertion. If what they assert be denied, the "debate"
+ becomes a question of veracity. On both sides of most questions there are
+ plenty of persons who imagine that logic dwells only in adjectives, and
+ that to speak kindly of an opponent is a virtual surrender.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mr. Holyoake attacks the church because it has been, is, and ever will be
+ the enemy of mental freedom, but he does not wish to deprive the church
+ even of its freedom to express its opinion against freedom. He is true to
+ his own creed, knowing that when we have freedom we can take care of all
+ its enemies.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In one of the articles to which I have referred it is charged that Mr.
+ Holyoake refused to sign a petition for the pardon of persons convicted of
+ blasphemy. If this is true, he undoubtedly had a reason satisfactory to
+ himself. You will find that his action, or his refusal to act, rests upon
+ a principle that he would not violate in his own behalf.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we suspect the motives of this man who has given his life for
+ the good of others? I know of no one who is his mental or moral superior.
+ He is the most disinterested of men. His name is a synonym of candor. He
+ is a natural logician&mdash;an intellectual marksman. Like an unerring
+ arrow his thought flies to the heart and center. He is governed by
+ principle, and makes no exception in his own favor. He is intellectually
+ honest. He shows you the cracks and flaws in his own wares. He calls
+ attention to the open joints and to the weakest links. He does not want a
+ victory for himself, but for truth. He wishes to expose and oppose, not
+ men, but error. He is blessed with that cloudless mental vision that
+ appearances cannot deceive, that interest cannot darken, and that even
+ ingratitude cannot blur. Friends cannot induce and enemies cannot drive
+ this man to do an act that his heart and brain would not applaud. That
+ such a character was formed without the aid of the church, without the
+ hope of harp or fear of flame, is a demonstration against the necessity of
+ superstition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Whoever is opposed to mental bondage, to the shackles wrought by cruelty
+ and worn by fear, should be the friend of this heroic and unselfish man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know something of his life&mdash;something of what he has suffered&mdash;of
+ what he has accomplished for his fellow-men. He has been maligned,
+ imprisoned and impoverished. "He bore the heat and burden of the
+ unregarded day" and "remembered the misery of the many." For years his
+ only recompense was ingratitude. At last he was understood. He was
+ recognized as an earnest, honest, gifted, generous, sterling man, loving
+ his country, sympathizing with the poor, honoring the useful, and holding
+ in supreme abhorrence tyranny and falsehood in all their forms. The idea
+ that this man could for a moment be controlled by any selfish motive, by
+ the hope of preferment, by the fear of losing a supposed annuity, is
+ simply absurd. The authors of these attacks are not acquainted with Mr.
+ Holyoake. Whoever dislikes him does not know him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Read his "Trial of Theism"&mdash;his history of "Co-operation in England"&mdash;if
+ you wish to know his heart&mdash;to discover the motives of his life&mdash;the
+ depth and tenderness of his sympathy&mdash;the nobleness of his nature&mdash;the
+ subtlety of his thought&mdash;the beauty of his spirit&mdash;the force and
+ volume of his brain&mdash;the extent of his information&mdash;his candor,
+ his kindness, his genius, and the perfect integrity of his stainless soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is no man for whom I have greater respect, greater reverence,
+ greater love, than George Jacob Holyoake.&mdash;
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ August 8, 1883.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0037" id="link0037">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ AT THE GRAVE OF BENJAMIN W. PARKER.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * This was the first tribute ever delivered by Colonel
+ Ingersoll at a grave. Mr. Parker himself was an Agnostic,
+ was the father of Mrs. Ingersoll, and was always a devoted
+ friend and admirer of the Colonel even before the latter's
+ marriage with his daughter.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ Peoria, Ill., May 24, 1876.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: To fulfill a promise made many years ago, I wish to
+ say a word.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He whom we are about to lay in the earth, was gentle, kind and loving in
+ his life. He was ambitious only to live with those he loved. He was
+ hospitable, generous, and sincere. He loved his friends, and the friends
+ of his friends. He returned good for good. He lived the life of a child,
+ and died without leaving in the memory of his family the record of an
+ unkind act. Without assurance, and without fear, we give him back to
+ Nature, the source and mother of us all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With morn, with noon, with night; with changing clouds and changeless
+ stars; with grass and trees and birds, with leaf and bud, with flower and
+ blossoming vine,&mdash;with all the sweet influences of nature, we leave
+ our dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Husband, father, friend, farewell.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0038" id="link0038">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Washington, D. C., May 31, 1879.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The funeral of the Hon. E. C. Ingersoll took place
+ yesterday afternoon at four o'clock, from his late
+ residence, 1403 K Street The only ceremony at the house,
+ other than the viewing of the remains, was a most affecting
+ pathetic, and touching address by Col. Robert G. ingersoll,
+ brother of the deceased. Not only the speaker, but every one
+ of his hearers were deeply affected. When he began to read
+ his eloquent characterization of the dead man his eyes at
+ once filled with tears. He tried to hide them, but he could
+ not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's
+ coffin in uncontrollable grief It was only after some delay,
+ and the greatest efforts a self-mastery, that Colonel
+ Ingersoll was able to finish reading his address. When he
+ had ceased speaking, the members of the bereaved family
+ approached the casket and looked upon the form which it
+ contained, for the last time. The scene was heartrending.
+ The devotion of all connected with the household excited
+ the sympathy of all and there was not a dry eye to be seen.
+ The pall-bearers&mdash;Senator William B. Allison, Senator James
+ G. Blaine, Senator David Davis, Senator Daniel W Voorhees.
+ Representative James A. Garfield, Senator A. S Paddock,
+ Representative Thomas Q. Boyd of Illinois, the Hon. Ward H.
+ Lermon, ex-Congressman Jere Wilson, and Representative Adlai
+ E. Stevenson of Illinois&mdash;then bore the remains to the
+ hearse, and the lengthy cortege proceeded to the Oak Hill
+ Cemetery, where the remains were interred, in the presence
+ of the family and friends, without further ceremony.&mdash;
+ National Republican, Washington, D. C., June 3, 1879.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ DEAR FRIENDS: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would
+ do for me.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest
+ point; but being weary for a moment, he lay 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, 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 above a sunken ship.
+ For whether in mid-sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck
+ at last must mark 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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 the grander day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to
+ tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave
+ alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged
+ all public trusts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times
+ I have heard him quote these words: "<i>For Justice all place a temple,
+ and all season, summer</i>." He believed that happiness is the only good,
+ reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only
+ religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and
+ were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to
+ his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ 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, of fears and tears, that these
+ dear words are true of all the countless dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our
+ dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved,
+ to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger,
+ manlier man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0039" id="link0039">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO THE REV. ALEXANDER CLARK.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Washington, D. C. July 13, 1879.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ UPON the grave of the Reverend Alexander Clark I wish to place one flower.
+ Utterly destitute of cold, dogmatic pride, that often passes for the love
+ of God; without the arrogance of the "elect;" simple, free, and kind&mdash;this
+ earnest man made me his friend by being mine. I forgot that he was a
+ Christian, and he seemed to forget that I was not, while each remembered
+ that the other was at least a man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Frank, candid, and sincere, he practiced what he preached, and looked with
+ the holy eyes of charity upon the failings and mistakes of men. He
+ believed in the power of kindness, and spanned with divine sympathy the
+ hideous gulf that separates the fallen from the pure.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Giving freely to others the rights that he claimed for himself, it never
+ occurred to him that his God hated a brave and honest unbeliever. He
+ remembered that even an Infidel had rights that love respects; that hatred
+ has no saving power, and that in order to be a Christian it is not
+ necessary to become less than a human being. He knew that no one can be
+ maligned into kindness; that epithets cannot convince; that curses are not
+ arguments, and that the finger of scorn never points toward heaven. With
+ the generosity of an honest man, he accorded to all the fullest liberty of
+ thought, knowing, as he did, that in the realm of mind a chain is but a
+ curse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For this man I felt the greatest possible regard. In spite of the taunts
+ and jeers of his brethren, he publicly proclaimed that he would treat
+ Infidels with fairness and respect; that he would endeavor to convince
+ them by argument and win them with love. He insisted that the God he
+ worshiped loved the well-being even of an Atheist. In this grand position
+ he stood almost alone. Tender, just, and loving where others were harsh,
+ vindictive, and cruel, he challenged the admiration of every honest man. A
+ few more such clergymen might drive calumny from the lips of faith and
+ render the pulpit worthy of esteem.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The heartiness and kindness with which this generous man treated me can
+ never be excelled. He admitted that I had not lost, and could not lose, a
+ single right by the expression of my honest thought. Neither did he
+ believe that a servant could win the respect of a generous master by
+ persecuting and maligning those whom the master would willingly forgive.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ While this good man was living, his brethren blamed him for having treated
+ me with fairness. But, I trust, now that he has left the shore touched by
+ the mysterious sea that never yet has borne, on any wave, the image of a
+ homeward sail, this crime will be forgiven him by those who still remain
+ to preach the love of God.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His sympathies were not confined within the prison, of a creed, but ran
+ out and over the walls like vines, hiding the cruel rocks and rusted bars
+ with leaf and flower. He could not echo with his heart the fiendish
+ sentence of eternal fire. In spite of book and creed, he read "between the
+ lines" the words of tenderness and love, with promises for all the world..
+ Above, beyond, the dogmas of his church&mdash;humane even to the verge of
+ heresy&mdash;causing some to doubt his love of God because he failed to
+ hate his unbelieving fellow-men, he labored for the welfare of mankind and
+ to his work gave up his life with all his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0040" id="link0040">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ AT A CHILD'S GRAVE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Washington, D. C., January 8, 1882.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I
+ wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and
+ death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the
+ dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted
+ by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and
+ blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth,
+ patriarchs and babes sleep side by side.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? We cannot tell, we
+ do not know, which is the greater blessing&mdash;life or death. We cannot
+ say that death is not a good. We do not know whether the grave is the end
+ of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not
+ somewhere else a dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate&mdash;the
+ child dying in its mother's arms, before its lips have learned to form a
+ word, or he who journeys all the length of life's uneven road, painfully
+ taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Every cradle asks us "Whence?" and every coffin "Whither?" The poor
+ barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions just as well
+ as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignorance of
+ the one, is as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other.
+ No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any
+ right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ May be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press
+ and strain within our arms could never die, perhaps that love would wither
+ from the earth. May be this common fate treads from out the paths between
+ our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate. And I had rather live and
+ love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.
+ Another life is nought, unless we know and love again the ones who love us
+ here.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no
+ fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells
+ us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that
+ through the common wants of life&mdash;the needs and duties of each hour&mdash;their
+ grief will lessen day by day, until at last this grave will be to them a
+ place of rest and peace&mdash;almost of joy. There is for them this
+ consolation: The dead do not suffer. If they live again, their lives will
+ surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the
+ same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion,
+ and it is this: Help for the living&mdash;Hope for the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0041" id="link0041">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO JOHN G. MILLS.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Washington, D. C., April 15, 1883.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: Again we are face to face with the great mystery that shrouds
+ this world. We question, but there is no reply. Out on the wide waste
+ seas, there drifts no spar. Over the desert of death the sphinx gazes
+ forever, but never speaks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the very May of life another heart has ceased to beat. Night has fallen
+ upon noon. But he lived, he loved, he was loved. Wife and children pressed
+ their kisses on his lips. This is enough. The longest life contains no
+ more. This fills the vase of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He who lies here, clothed with the perfect peace of death, was a kind and
+ loving husband, a good father, a generous neighbor, an honest man,&mdash;and
+ these words build a monument of glory above the humblest grave. He was
+ always a child, sincere and frank, as full of hope as Spring. He divided
+ all time into to-day and to-morrow. To-morrow was without a cloud, and of
+ to-morrow he borrowed sunshine for to-day. He was my friend. He will
+ remain so. The living oft become estranged; the dead are true. He was not
+ a Christian. In the Eden of his hope there did not crawl and coil the
+ serpent of eternal pain. In many languages he sought the thoughts of men,
+ and for himself he solved the problems of the world. He accepted the
+ philosophy of Auguste Comte. Humanity was his God; the human race was his
+ Supreme Being. In that Supreme Being he put his trust. He believed that we
+ are indebted for what we enjoy to the labor, the self-denial, the heroism
+ of the human race, and that as we have plucked the fruit of what others
+ planted, we in thankfulness should plant for others yet to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With him immortality was the eternal consequences of his own acts. He
+ believed that every pure thought, every disinterested deed, hastens the
+ harvest of universal good. This is a religion that enriches poverty; that
+ enables us to bear the sorrows of the saddest life; that peoples even
+ solitude with the happy millions yet to live,&mdash;a religion born not of
+ selfishness and fear, but of love, of gratitude, and hope,&mdash;a
+ religion that digs wells to slake the thirst of others, and gladly bears
+ the burdens of the unborn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But in the presence of death, how beliefs and dogmas wither and decay! How
+ loving words and deeds burst into blossom! Pluck from the tree of any life
+ these flowers, and there remain but the barren thorns of bigotry and
+ creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All wish for happiness beyond this life. All hope to meet again the loved
+ and lost. In every heart there grows this sacred flower. Immortality is a
+ word that Hope through all the ages has been whispering to Love. The
+ miracle of thought we cannot understand. The mystery of life and death we
+ cannot comprehend. This chaos called the world has never been explained.
+ The golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. Beyond
+ this we do not know. Fate is speechless, destiny is dumb, and the secret
+ of the future has never yet been told. We love; we wait; we hope. The more
+ we love, the more we fear. Upon the tenderest heart the deepest shadows
+ fall. All paths, whether filled with thorns or flowers, end here. Here
+ success and failure are the same. The rag of Wretchedness and the purple
+ robe of power all difference and distinction lose in this democracy of
+ death. Character survives; goodness lives; love is immortal.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet to all a time may come when the fevered lips of life will long for
+ the cool, delicious kiss of death&mdash;when tired of the dust and glare
+ of day we all shall hear with joy the rustling garments of the night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What can we say of death? What can we say of the dead? Where they have
+ gone, reason cannot go, and from thence revelation has not come. But let
+ us believe that over the cradle Nature bends and smiles, and lovingly
+ above the dead in benediction holds her outstretched hands.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0042" id="link0042">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO ELIZUR WRIGHT.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York. December 19, 1885.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ ANOTHER hero has fallen asleep&mdash;one who enriched the world with an
+ honest life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Elizur Wright was one of the Titans who attacked the monsters, the Gods,
+ of his time&mdash;one of the few whose confidence in liberty was never
+ shaken, and who, with undimmed eyes, saw the atrocities and barbarisms of
+ his day and the glories of the future.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When New York was degraded enough to mob Arthur Tappan, the noblest of her
+ citizens; when Boston was sufficiently infamous to howl and hoot at
+ Harriet Martineau, the grandest Englishwoman that ever touched our soil;
+ when the North was dominated by theology and trade, by piety and piracy;
+ when we received our morals from merchants, and made merchandise of our
+ morals, Elizur Wright held principle above profit, and preserved his
+ manhood at the peril of his life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the rich, the cultured, and the respectable,&mdash;when church
+ members and ministers, who had been "called" to preach the "glad tidings,"
+ and when statesmen like Webster joined with bloodhounds, and in the name
+ of God hunted men and mothers, this man rescued the fugitives and gave
+ asylum to the oppressed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During those infamous years&mdash;years of cruelty and national
+ degradation&mdash;years of hypocrisy and greed and meanness beneath the
+ reach of any English word, Elizur Wright became acquainted with the
+ orthodox church. He found that a majority of Christians were willing to
+ enslave men and women for whom they said that Christ had died&mdash;that
+ they would steal the babe of a Christian mother, although they believed
+ that the mother would be their equal in heaven forever. He found that
+ those who loved their enemies would enslave their friends&mdash;that
+ people who when smitten on one cheek turned the other, were ready, willing
+ and anxious to mob and murder those who simply said: "The laborer is
+ worthy of his hire."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days the church was in favor of slavery, not only of the body but
+ of the mind. According to the creeds, God himself was an infinite master
+ and all his children serfs. He ruled with whip and chain, with pestilence
+ and fire. Devils were his bloodhounds, and hell his place of eternal
+ torture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Elizur Wright said to himself, why should we take chains from bodies and
+ enslave minds&mdash;why fight to free the cage and leave the bird a
+ prisoner? He became an enemy of orthodox religion&mdash;that is to say, a
+ friend of intellectual liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived to see the destruction of legalized larceny; to read the
+ Proclamation of Emancipation; to see a country without a slave, a flag
+ without a stain. He lived long enough to reap the reward for having been
+ an honest man; long enough for his "disgrace" to become a crown of glory;
+ long enough to see his views adopted and his course applauded by the
+ civilized world; long enough for the hated word "abolitionist" to become a
+ title of nobility, a certificate of manhood, courage and true patriotism.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago, the heretic was regarded as an enemy of the human
+ race. The man who denied the inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures was
+ looked upon as a moral leper, and the Atheist as the worst of criminals.
+ Even in that day, Elizur Wright was grand enough to speak his honest
+ thought, to deny the inspiration of the Bible; brave enough to defy the
+ God of the orthodox church&mdash;the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the
+ Eternal Jailer, the Everlasting Inquisitor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He contended that a good God would not have upheld slavery and polygamy;
+ that a loving Father would not assist some of his children to enslave or
+ exterminate their brethren; that an infinite being would not be unjust,
+ irritable, jealous, revengeful, ignorant, and cruel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it was his great good fortune to live long enough to find the
+ intellectual world on his side; long enough to know that the greatest'
+ naturalists, philosophers, and scientists agreed with him; long enough to
+ see certain words change places, so that "heretic" was honorable and
+ "orthodox" an epithet. To-day, the heretic is known to be a man of
+ principle and courage&mdash;one blest with enough mental independence to
+ tell his thought. To-day, the thoroughly orthodox means the thoroughly
+ stupid.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only a few years ago it was taken for granted that an "unbeliever" could
+ not be a moral man; that one who disputed the inspiration of the legends
+ of Judea could not be sympathetic and humane, and could not really love
+ his fellow-men. Had we no other evidence upon this subject, the noble life
+ of Elizur Wright would demonstrate the utter baselessness of these views.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His life was spent in doing good&mdash;in attacking the hurtful, in
+ defending what he believed to be the truth. Generous beyond his means;
+ helping others to help themselves; always hopeful, busy, just, cheerful;
+ filled with the spirit of reform; a model citizen&mdash;always thinking of
+ the public good, devising ways and means to save something for posterity,
+ feeling that what he had he held in trust; loving Nature, familiar with
+ the poetic side of things, touched to enthusiasm by the beautiful thought,
+ the brave word, and the generous deed; friendly in manner, candid and kind
+ in speech, modest but persistent; enjoying leisure as only the industrious
+ can; loving and gentle in his family; hospitable,&mdash;judging men and
+ women regardless of wealth, position or public clamor; physically
+ fearless, intellectually honest, thoroughly informed; unselfish, sincere,
+ and reliable as the attraction of gravitation. Such was Elizur Wright,&mdash;one
+ of the staunchest soldiers that ever faced and braved for freedom's sake
+ the wrath and scorn and lies of place and power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A few days ago I met this genuine man. His interest in all human things
+ was just as deep and keen, his hatred of oppression, his love of freedom,
+ just as intense, just as fervid, as on the day I met him first. True, his
+ body was old, but his mind was young, and his heart, like a spring in the
+ desert, bubbled over as joyously as though it had the secret of eternal
+ youth. But it has ceased to beat, and the mysterious veil that hangs where
+ sight and blindness are the same&mdash;the veil that revelation has not
+ drawn aside&mdash;that science cannot lift, has fallen once again between
+ the living and the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And yet we hope and dream. May be the longing for another life is but the
+ prophecy forever warm from Nature's lips, that love, disguised as death,
+ alone fulfills. We cannot tell. And yet perhaps this Hope is but an antic,
+ following the fortunes of an uncrowned king, beguiling grief with jest and
+ satisfying loss with pictured gain. We do not know.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But from the Christian's cruel hell, and from his heaven more heartless
+ still, the free and noble soul, if forced to choose, should loathing turn,
+ and cling with rapture to the thought of endless sleep.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this we know: good deeds are never childless. A noble life is never
+ lost. A virtuous action does not die. Elizur Wright scattered with
+ generous hand the priceless seeds, and we shall reap the golden grain. His
+ words and acts are ours, and all he nobly did is living still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farewell, brave soul! Upon thy grave I lay this tribute of respect and
+ love. When last our hands were joined, I said these parting words: "Long
+ life!" And I repeat them now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0043" id="link0043">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO MRS. IDA WHITING KNOWLES.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, Dec, 16, 1887.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: Again we stand in the shadow of the great mystery&mdash;a
+ shadow as deep and dark as when the tears of the first mother fell upon
+ the pallid face of her lifeless babe&mdash;a mystery that has never yet
+ been solved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We have met in the presence of the sacred dead, to speak a word of praise,
+ of hope, of consolation.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Another life of love is now a blessed memory&mdash;a lingering strain of
+ music.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The loving daughter, the pure and consecrated wife, the sincere friend,
+ who with tender faithfulness discharged the duties of a life, has reached
+ her journey's end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A braver, a more serene, a more chivalric spirit&mdash;clasping the loved
+ and by them clasped&mdash;never passed from life to enrich the realm of
+ death. No field of war ever witnessed greater fortitude, more perfect,
+ smiling courage, than this poor, weak and helpless woman displayed upon
+ the bed of pain and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Her life was gentle and her death sublime. She loved the good and all the
+ good loved her.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There is this consolation: she can never suffer more; never feel again the
+ chill of death; never part again from those she loves. Her heart can break
+ no more. She has shed her last tear, and upon her stainless brow has been
+ set the wondrous seal of everlasting peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the Angel of Death&mdash;the masked and voiceless&mdash;enters the
+ door of home, there come with her all the daughters of Compassion, and of
+ these Love and Hope remain forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You are about to take this dear dust home&mdash;to the home of her
+ girlhood, and to the place that was once my home. You will lay her with
+ neighbors whom I have loved, and who are now at rest. You will lay her
+ where my father sleeps.
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ "Lay her i' the earth,
+ And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
+ May violets spring."
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ I never knew, I never met, a braver spirit than the one that once
+ inhabited this silent form of dreamless clay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0044" id="link0044">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO HENRY WARD BEECHER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, June 26,1887.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ HENRY WARD BEECHER was born in a Puritan penitentiary, of which his father
+ was one of the wardens&mdash;a prison with very narrow and closely-grated
+ windows. Under its walls were the rayless, hopeless and measureless
+ dungeons of the damned, and on its roof fell the shadow of God's eternal
+ frown. In this prison the creed and catechism were primers for children,
+ and from a pure sense of duty their loving hearts were stained and scarred
+ with the religion of John Calvin.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In those days the home of an orthodox minister was an inquisition in which
+ babes were tortured for the good of their souls. Children then, as now,
+ rebelled against the infamous absurdities and cruelties of the creed. No
+ Calvinist was ever able, unless with blows, to answer the questions of his
+ child. Children were raised in what was called "the nurture and admonition
+ of the Lord"&mdash;that is to say, their wills were broken or subdued,
+ their natures were deformed and dwarfed, their desires defeated or
+ destroyed, and their development arrested or perverted. Life was robbed of
+ its Spring, its Summer and its Autumn. Children stepped from the cradle
+ into the snow. No laughter, no sunshine, no joyous, free, unburdened days.
+ God, an infinite detective, watched them from above, and Satan, with
+ malicious leer, was waiting for their souls below. Between these monsters
+ life was passed. Infinite consequences were predicated of the smallest
+ action, and a burden greater than a God could bear was placed upon the
+ heart and brain of every child. To think, to ask questions, to doubt, to
+ investigate, were acts of rebellion. To express pity for the lost,
+ writhing in the dungeons below, was simply to give evidence that the enemy
+ of souls had been at work within their hearts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Among all the religions of this world&mdash;from the creed of cannibals
+ who devoured flesh, to that of Calvinists who polluted souls&mdash;there
+ is none, there has been none, there will be none, more utterly heartless
+ and inhuman than was the orthodox Congregationalism of New England in the
+ year of grace 1813. It despised every natural joy, hated pictures,
+ abhorred statues as lewd and lustful things, execrated music, regarded
+ nature as fallen and corrupt, man as totally depraved and woman as
+ somewhat worse. The theatre was the vestibule of perdition, actors the
+ servants of Satan, and Shakespeare a trifling wretch whose words were
+ seeds of death. And yet the virtues found a welcome, cordial and sincere;
+ duty was done as understood; obligations were discharged; truth was told;
+ self-denial was practiced for the sake of others, and many hearts were
+ good and true in spite of book and creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this atmosphere of theological miasma, in this hideous dream of
+ superstition, in this penitentiary, moral and austere, this babe first saw
+ the imprisoned gloom. The natural desires ungratified, the laughter
+ suppressed, the logic brow-beaten by authority, the humor frozen by fear&mdash;of
+ many generations&mdash;were in this child, a child destined to rend and
+ wreck the prison's walls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Through the grated windows of his cell, this child, this boy, this man,
+ caught glimpses of the outer world, of fields and skies. New thoughts were
+ in his brain, new hopes within his heart. Another heaven bent above his
+ life. There came a revelation of the beautiful and real.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Theology grew mean and small. Nature wooed and won and saved this mighty
+ soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Her countless hands were sowing seeds within his tropic brain. All sights
+ and sounds&mdash;all colors, forms and fragments&mdash;were stored within
+ the treasury of his mind. His thoughts were moulded by the graceful curves
+ of streams, by winding paths in woods, the charm of quiet country roads,
+ and lanes grown indistinct with weeds and grass&mdash;by vines that cling
+ and hide with leaf and flower the crumbling wall's decay&mdash;by cattle
+ standing in the summer pools like statues of content.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There was within his words the subtle spirit of the season's change&mdash;of
+ everything that is, of everything that lies between the slumbering seeds
+ that, half awakened by the April rain, have dreams of heaven's blue, and
+ feel the amorous kisses of the sun, and that strange tomb wherein the
+ alchemist doth give to death's cold dust the throb and thrill of life
+ again. He saw with loving eyes the willows of the meadow-streams grow red
+ beneath the glance of Spring&mdash;the grass along the marsh's edge&mdash;the
+ stir of life beneath the withered leaves&mdash;the moss below the drip of
+ snow&mdash;the flowers that give their bosoms to the first south wind that
+ wooes&mdash;the sad and timid violets that only bear the gaze of love from
+ eyes half closed&mdash;the ferns, where fancy gives a thousand forms with
+ but a single plan&mdash;the green and sunny slopes enriched with daisy's
+ silver and the cowslip's gold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ As in the leafless woods some tree, aflame with life, stands like a rapt
+ poet in the heedless crowd, so stood this man among his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All there is of leaf and bud, of flower and fruit, of painted insect life,
+ and all the winged and happy children of the air that Summer holds beneath
+ her dome of blue, were known and loved by him. He loved the yellow Autumn
+ fields, the golden stacks, the happy homes of men, the orchard's bending
+ boughs, the sumach's flags of flame, the maples with transfigured leaves,
+ the tender yellow of the beech, the wondrous harmonies of brown and gold&mdash;the
+ vines where hang the clustered spheres of wit and mirth. He loved the
+ winter days, the whirl and drift of snow&mdash;all forms of frost&mdash;the
+ rage and fury of the storm, when in the forest, desolate and stripped, the
+ brave old pine towers green and grand&mdash;a prophecy of Spring. He heard
+ the rhythmic sounds of Nature's busy strife, the hum of bees, the songs of
+ birds, the eagle's cry, the murmur of the streams, the sighs and
+ lamentations of the winds, and all the voices of the sea. He loved the
+ shores, the vales, the crags and cliffs, the city's busy streets, the
+ introspective, silent plain, the solemn splendors of the night, the silver
+ sea of dawn, and evening's clouds of molten gold. The love of nature freed
+ this loving man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One by one the fetters fell; the gratings disappeared, the sunshine smote
+ the roof, and on the floors of stone, light streamed from open doors. He
+ realized the darkness and despair, the cruelty and hate, the starless
+ blackness of the old, malignant creed. The flower of pity grew and
+ blossomed in his heart. The selfish "consolation" filled his eyes with
+ tears. He saw that what is called the Christian's hope is, that, among the
+ countless billions wrecked and lost, a meagre few perhaps may reach the
+ eternal shore&mdash;a hope that, like the desert rain, gives neither leaf
+ nor bud&mdash;a hope that gives no joy, no peace, to any great and loving
+ soul. It is the dust on which the serpent feeds that coils in heartless
+ breasts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Day by day the wrath and vengeance faded from the sky&mdash;the Jewish God
+ grew vague and dint&mdash;the threats of torture and eternal pain grew
+ vulgar and absurd, and all the miracles seemed strangely out of place.
+ They clad the Infinite in motley garb, and gave to aureoled heads the cap
+ and bells.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Touched by the pathos of all human life, knowing the shadows that fall on
+ every heart&mdash;the thorns in every path, the sighs, the sorrows, and
+ the tears that lie between a mother's arms and death's embrace&mdash;this
+ great and gifted man denounced, denied, and damned with all his heart the
+ fanged and frightful dogma that souls were made to feed the eternal hunger&mdash;ravenous
+ as famine&mdash;of a God's revenge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Take out this fearful, fiendish, heartless lie&mdash;compared with which
+ all other lies are true&mdash;and the great arch of orthodox religion
+ crumbling falls.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To the average man the Christian hell and heaven are only words. He has no
+ scope of thought. He lives but in a dim, impoverished now. To him the past
+ is dead&mdash;the future still unborn. He occupies with downcast eyes that
+ narrow line of barren, shifting sand that lies between the flowing seas.
+ But Genius knows all time. For him the dead all live and breathe, and act
+ their countless parts again. All human life is in his now, and every
+ moment feels the thrill of all to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one can overestimate the good accomplished by this marvelous,
+ many-sided man. He helped to slay the heart-devouring monster of the
+ Christian world. He tried to civilize the church, to humanize the creeds,
+ to soften pious breasts of stone, to take the fear from mothers' hearts,
+ the chains of creed from every brain, to put the star of hope in every sky
+ and over every grave. Attacked on every side, maligned by those who
+ preached the law of love, he wavered not, but fought whole-hearted to the
+ end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Obstruction is but virtue's foil. From thwarted light leaps color's flame.
+ The stream impeded has a song.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He passed from harsh and cruel creeds to that serene philosophy that has
+ no place for pride or hate, that threatens no revenge, that looks on sin
+ as stumblings of the blind and pities those who fall, knowing that in the
+ souls of all there is a sacred yearning for the light. He ceased to think
+ of man as something thrust upon the world&mdash;an exile from some other
+ sphere. He felt at last that men are part of Nature's self&mdash;kindred
+ of all life&mdash;the gradual growth of countless years; that all the
+ sacred books were helps until outgrown, and all religions rough and
+ devious paths that man has worn with weary feet in sad and painful search
+ for truth and peace. To him these paths were wrong, and yet all gave the
+ promise of success. He knew that all the streams, no matter how they
+ wander, turn and curve amid the hills or rocks, or linger in the lakes and
+ pools, must some time reach the sea. These views enlarged his soul and
+ made him patient with the world, and while the wintry snows of age were
+ falling on his head, Spring, with all her wealth of bloom, was in his
+ heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The memory of this ample man is now a part of Nature's wealth. He battled
+ for the rights of men. His heart was with the slave. He stood against the
+ selfish greed of millions banded to protect the pirate's trade. His voice
+ was for the right when freedom's friends were few. He taught the church to
+ think and doubt. He did not fear to stand alone. His brain took counsel of
+ his heart. To every foe he offered reconciliation's hand. He loved this
+ land of ours, and added to its glory through the world. He was the
+ greatest orator that stood within the pulpit's narrow curve. He loved the
+ liberty of speech. There was no trace of bigot in his blood. He was a
+ brave and generous man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With reverent hands, I place this tribute on his tomb.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0045" id="link0045">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO ROSCOE CONKLING.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ Delivered before the New York State Legislature, at Albany,
+ N. Y, May 9,1888.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ ROSCOE CONKLING&mdash;a great man, an orator, a statesman, a lawyer, a
+ distinguished citizen of the Republic, in the zenith of his fame and power
+ has reached his journey's end; and we are met, here in the city of his
+ birth, to pay our tribute to his worth and work. He earned and held a
+ proud position in the public thought. He stood for independence, for
+ courage, and above all for absolute integrity, and his name was known and
+ honored by many millions of his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The literature of many lands is rich with the tributes that gratitude,
+ admiration and love have paid to the great and honored dead. These
+ tributes disclose the character of nations, the ideals of the human race.
+ In them we find the estimates of greatness&mdash;the deeds and lives that
+ challenged praise and thrilled the hearts of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the presence of death, the good man judges as he would be judged. He
+ knows that men are only fragments&mdash;that the greatest walk in shadow,
+ and that faults and failures mingle with the lives of all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the grave should be buried the prejudices and passions born of
+ conflict. Charity should hold the scales in which are weighed the deeds of
+ men. Peculiarities, traits born of locality and surroundings&mdash;these
+ are but the dust of the race&mdash;these are accidents, drapery, clothes,
+ fashions, that have nothing to do with the man except to hide his
+ character. They are the clouds that cling to mountains. Time gives us
+ clearer vision. That which was merely local fades away. The words of envy
+ are forgotten, and all there is of sterling worth remains. He who was
+ called a partisan is a patriot. The revolutionist and the outlaw are the
+ founders of nations, and he who was regarded as a scheming, selfish
+ politician becomes a statesman, a philosopher, whose words and deeds shed
+ light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fortunate is that nation great enough to know the great.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When a great man dies&mdash;one who has nobly fought the battle of a life,
+ who has been faithful to every trust, and has uttered his highest, noblest
+ thought&mdash;one who has stood proudly by the right in spite of jeer and
+ taunt, neither stopped by foe nor swerved by friend&mdash;in honoring him,
+ in speaking words of praise and love above his dust, we pay a tribute to
+ ourselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How poor this world would be without its graves, without the memories of
+ its mighty dead. Only the voiceless speak forever.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Intelligence, integrity and courage are the great pillars that support the
+ State.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Above all, the citizens of a free nation should honor the brave and
+ independent man&mdash;the man of stainless integrity, of will and
+ intellectual force. Such men are the Atlases on whose mighty shoulders
+ rest the great fabric of the Republic. Flatterers, cringers, crawlers,
+ time-servers are the dangerous citizens of a democracy. They who gain
+ applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and
+ passions of the multitude, are the enemies of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the intelligent submit to the clamor of the many, anarchy begins and
+ the Republic reaches the edge of chaos. Mediocrity, touched with ambition,
+ flatters the base and calumniates the great, while the true patriot, who
+ will do neither, is often sacrificed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In a government of the people a leader should be a teacher&mdash;he should
+ carry the torch of truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Most people are the slaves of habit&mdash;followers of custom&mdash;believers
+ in the wisdom of the past&mdash;and were it not for brave and splendid
+ souls, "the dust of antique time would lie unswept, and mountainous error
+ be too highly heaped for truth to overpeer." Custom is a prison, locked
+ and barred by those who long ago were dust, the keys of which are in the
+ keeping of the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing is grander than when a strong, intrepid man breaks chains, levels
+ walls and breasts the many-headed mob like some great cliff that meets and
+ mocks the innumerable billows of the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The politician hastens to agree with the majority&mdash;insists that their
+ prejudice is patriotism, that their ignorance is wisdom;&mdash;not that he
+ loves them, but because he loves himself. The statesman, the real
+ reformer, points out the mistakes of the multitude, attacks the prejudices
+ of his countrymen, laughs at their follies, denounces their cruelties,
+ enlightens and enlarges their minds and educates the conscience&mdash;not
+ because he loves himself, but because he loves and serves the right and
+ wishes to make his country great and free.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With him defeat is but a spur to further effort. He who refuses to stoop,
+ who cannot be bribed by the promise of success, or the fear of failure&mdash;who
+ walks the highway of the right, and in disaster stands erect, is the only
+ victor. Nothing is more despicable than to reach fame by crawling,&mdash;position
+ by cringing.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When real history shall be written by the truthful and the wise, these
+ men, these kneelers at the shrines of chance and fraud, these brazen idols
+ worshiped once as gods, will be the very food of scorn, while those who
+ bore the burden of defeat, who earned and kept their self-respect, who
+ would not bow to man or men for place or power, will wear upon their brows
+ the laurel mingled with the oak.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Roscoe Conkling was a man of superb courage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He not only acted without fear, but he had that fortitude of soul that
+ bears the consequences of the course pursued without complaint. He was
+ charged with being proud. The charge was true&mdash;he was proud. His
+ knees were as inflexible as the "unwedgeable and gnarled oak," but he was
+ not vain. Vanity rests on the opinion of others&mdash;pride, on our own.
+ The source of vanity is from without&mdash;of pride, from within. Vanity
+ is a vane that turns, a willow that bends, with every breeze&mdash;pride
+ is the oak that defies the storm. One is cloud&mdash;the other rock. One
+ is weakness&mdash;the other strength.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This imperious man entered public life in the dawn of the reformation&mdash;at
+ a time when the country needed men of pride, of principle and courage. The
+ institution of slavery had poisoned all the springs of power. Before this
+ crime ambition fell upon its knees,&mdash;politicians, judges, clergymen,
+ and merchant-princes bowed low and humbly, with their hats in their hands.
+ The real friend of man was denounced as the enemy of his country&mdash;the
+ real enemy of the human race was called a statesman and a patriot. Slavery
+ was the bond and pledge of peace, of union, and national greatness. The
+ temple of American liberty was finished&mdash;the auction-block was the
+ corner-stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political
+ blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and
+ degradation of a people who supplemented the incomparable Declaration of
+ Independence with the Fugitive Slave Law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Think of the honored statesmen of that ignoble time who wallowed in this
+ mire and who, decorated with dripping filth, received the plaudits of
+ their fellow-men. The noble, the really patriotic, were the victims of
+ mobs, and the shameless were clad in the robes of office.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But let us speak no word of blame&mdash;let us feel that each one acted
+ according to his light&mdash;according to his darkness.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ At last the conflict came. The hosts of light and darkness prepared to
+ meet upon the fields of war. The question was presented: Shall the
+ Republic be slave or free? The Republican party had triumphed at the
+ polls. The greatest man in our history was President elect. The victors
+ were appalled&mdash;they shrank from the great responsibility of success.
+ In the presence of rebellion they hesitated&mdash;they offered to return
+ the fruits of victory. Hoping to avert war they were willing that slavery
+ should become immortal. An amendment to the Constitution was proposed, to
+ the effect that no subsequent amendment should ever be made that in anyway
+ should interfere with the right of man to steal his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This, the most marvelous proposition ever submitted to a Congress of
+ civilized men, received in the House an overwhelming majority, and the
+ necessary two-thirds in the Senate. The Republican party, in the moment of
+ its triumph, deserted every principle for which it had so gallantly
+ contended, and with the trembling hands of fear laid its convictions on
+ the altar of compromise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The Old Guard, numbering but sixty-five in the House, stood as firm as the
+ three hundred at Thermopylae. Thad-deus Stevens&mdash;as maliciously right
+ as any other man was ever wrong&mdash;refused to kneel. Owen Lovejoy,
+ remembering his brother's noble blood, refused to surrender, and on the
+ edge of disunion, in the shadow of civil war, with the air filled with
+ sounds of dreadful preparation, while the Republican party was retracing
+ its steps, Roscoe Conkling voted No. This puts a wreath of glory on his
+ tomb. From that vote to the last moment of his life he was a champion of
+ equal rights, staunch and stalwart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From that moment he stood in the front rank. He never wavered and he never
+ swerved. By his devotion to principle&mdash;his courage, the splendor of
+ his diction,&mdash;by his varied and profound knowledge, his conscientious
+ devotion to the great cause, and by his intellectual scope and grasp, he
+ won and held the admiration of his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Disasters in the field, reverses at the polls, did not and could not shake
+ his courage or his faith. He knew the ghastly meaning of defeat. He knew
+ that the great ship that slavery sought to strand and wreck was freighted
+ with the world's sublimest hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He battled for a nation's life&mdash;for the rights of slaves&mdash;the
+ dignity of labor, and the liberty of all. He guarded with a father's care
+ the rights of the hunted, the hated and despised. He attacked the savage
+ statutes of the reconstructed States with a torrent of invective, scorn
+ and execration. He was not satisfied until the freedman was an American
+ Citizen&mdash;clothed with every civil right&mdash;until the Constitution
+ was his shield&mdash;until the ballot was his sword.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And long after we are dead, the colored man in this and other lands will
+ speak his name in reverence and love. Others wavered, but he stood firm;
+ some were false, but he was proudly true&mdash;fearlessly faithful unto
+ death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He gladly, proudly grasped the hands of colored men who stood with him as
+ makers of our laws, and treated them as equals and as friends. The cry of
+ "social equality" coined and uttered by the cruel and the base, was to him
+ the expression of a great and splendid truth. He knew that no man can be
+ the equal of the one he robs&mdash;that the intelligent and unjust are not
+ the superiors of the ignorant and honest&mdash;and he also felt, and
+ proudly felt, that if he were not too great to reach the hand of help and
+ recognition to the slave, no other Senator could rightfully refuse.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We rise by raising others&mdash;and he who stoops above the fallen, stands
+ erect.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nothing can be grander than to sow the seeds of noble thoughts and
+ virtuous deeds&mdash;to liberate the bodies and the souls of men&mdash;to
+ earn the grateful homage of a race&mdash;and then, in life's last shadowy
+ hour, to know that the historian of Liberty will be compelled to write
+ your name.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ There are no words intense enough,&mdash;with heart enough&mdash;to
+ express my admiration for the great and gallant souls who have in every
+ age and every land upheld the right, and who have lived and died for
+ freedom's sake.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In our lives have been the grandest years that man has lived, that Time
+ has measured by the flight of worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The history of that great Party that let the oppressed go free&mdash;that
+ lifted our nation from the depths of savagery to freedom's cloudless
+ heights, and tore with holy hands from every law the words that sanctified
+ the cruelty of man, is the most glorious in the annals of our race. Never
+ before was there such a moral exaltation&mdash;never a party with a
+ purpose so pure and high. It was the embodied conscience of a nation, the
+ enthusiasm of a people guided by wisdom, the impersonation of justice; and
+ the sublime victory achieved loaded even the conquered with all the rights
+ that freedom can bestow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Roscoe Conkling was an absolutely honest man. Honesty is the oak around
+ which all other virtues cling. Without that they fall, and groveling die
+ in weeds and dust. He believed that a nation should discharge its
+ obligations. He knew that a promise could not be made often enough, or
+ emphatic enough, to take the place of payment. He felt that the promise of
+ the Government was the promise of every citizen&mdash;that a national
+ obligation was a personal debt, and that no possible combination of words
+ and pictures could take the place of coin. He uttered the splendid truth
+ that "the higher obligations among men are not set down in writing signed
+ and sealed, but reside in honor." He knew that repudiation was the
+ sacrifice of honor&mdash;the death of the national soul. He knew that
+ without character, without integrity, there is no wealth, and that below
+ poverty, below bankruptcy, is the rayless abyss of repudiation. He upheld
+ the sacredness of contracts, of plighted national faith, and helped to
+ save and keep the honor of his native land. This adds another laurel to
+ his brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the ideal representative, faithful and incorruptible. He believed
+ that his constituents and his country were entitled to the fruit of his
+ experience, to his best and highest thought. No man ever held the standard
+ of responsibility higher than he. He voted according to his judgment, his
+ conscience. He made no bargains&mdash;he neither bought nor sold.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To correct evils, abolish abuses and inaugurate reforms, he believed was
+ not only the duty, but the privilege, of a legislator. He neither sold nor
+ mortgaged himself. He was in Congress during the years of vast
+ expenditure, of war and waste&mdash;when the credit of the nation was
+ loaned to individuals&mdash;when claims were thick as leaves in June, when
+ the amendment of a statute, the change of a single word, meant millions,
+ and when empires were given to corporations. He stood at the summit of his
+ power&mdash;peer of the greatest&mdash;a leader tried and trusted. He had
+ the tastes of a prince, the fortune of a peasant, and yet he never
+ swerved. No corporation was great enough or rich enough to purchase him.
+ His vote could not be bought "for all the sun sees, or the close earth
+ wombs, or the profound seas hide." His hand was never touched by any
+ bribe, and on his soul there never was a sordid stain. Poverty was his
+ priceless crown.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Above his marvelous intellectual gifts&mdash;above all place he ever
+ reached,&mdash;above the ermine he refused,&mdash;rises his integrity like
+ some great mountain peak&mdash;and there it stands, firm as the earth
+ beneath, pure as the stars above.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a great lawyer. He understood the frame-work, the anatomy, the
+ foundations of law; was familiar with the great streams and currents and
+ tides of authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew the history of legislation&mdash;the principles that have been
+ settled upon the fields of war. He knew the maxims,&mdash;those
+ crystallizations of common sense, those hand-grenades of argument. He was
+ not a case-lawyer&mdash;a decision index, or an echo; he was original,
+ thoughtful and profound. He had breadth and scope, resource, learning,
+ logic, and above all, a sense of justice. He was painstaking and
+ conscientious&mdash;anxious to know the facts&mdash;preparing for every
+ attack, ready for every defence. He rested only when the end was reached.
+ During the contest, he neither sent nor received a flag of truce. He was
+ true to his clients&mdash;making their case his. Feeling responsibility,
+ he listened patiently to details, and to his industry there were only the
+ limits of time and strength. He was a student of the Constitution. He knew
+ the boundaries of State and Federal jurisdiction, and no man was more
+ familiar with those great decisions that are the peaks and promontories,
+ the headlands and the beacons, of the law.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an orator,&mdash;logical, earnest, intense and picturesque. He laid
+ the foundation with care, with accuracy and skill, and rose by "cold
+ gradation and well balanced form" from the corner-stone of statement to
+ the domed conclusion. He filled the stage. He satisfied the eye&mdash;the
+ audience was his. He had that indefinable thing called presence. Tall,
+ commanding, erect&mdash;ample in speech, graceful in compliment, Titanic
+ in denunciation, rich in illustration, prodigal of comparison and metaphor&mdash;and
+ his sentences, measured and rhythmical, fell like music on the enraptured
+ throng.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He abhorred the Pharisee, and loathed all conscientious fraud. He had a
+ profound aversion for those who insist on putting base motives back of the
+ good deeds of others. He wore no mask. He knew his friends&mdash;his
+ enemies knew him.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had no patience with pretence&mdash;with patriotic reasons for unmanly
+ acts. He did his work and bravely spoke his thought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sensitive to the last degree, he keenly felt the blows and stabs of the
+ envious and obscure&mdash;of the smallest, of the weakest&mdash;but the
+ greatest could not drive him from conviction's field. He would not stoop
+ to ask or give an explanation. He left his words and deeds to justify
+ themselves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He held in light esteem a friend who heard with half-believing ears the
+ slander of a foe. He walked a highway of his own, and kept the company of
+ his self-respect. He would not turn aside to avoid a foe&mdash;to greet or
+ gain a friend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his nature there was no compromise. To him there were but two paths&mdash;the
+ right and wrong. He was maligned, misrepresented and misunderstood&mdash;but
+ he would not answer. He knew that character speaks louder far than any
+ words. He was as silent then as he is now&mdash;and his silence, better
+ than any form of speech, refuted every charge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an American&mdash;proud of his country, that was and ever will be
+ proud of him. He did not find perfection only in other lands. He did not
+ grow small and shrunken, withered and apologetic, in the presence of those
+ upon whom greatness had been thrust by chance. He could not be overawed by
+ dukes or lords, nor flattered into vertebrate-less subserviency by the
+ patronizing smiles of kings. In the midst of conventionalities he had the
+ feeling of suffocation. He believed in the royalty of man, in the
+ sovereignty of the citizen, and in the matchless greatness of this
+ Republic.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was of the classic mould&mdash;a figure from the antique world. He had
+ the pose of the great statues&mdash;the pride and bearing of the
+ intellectual Greek, of the conquering Roman, and he stood in the wide free
+ air as though within his veins there flowed the blood of a hundred kings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And as he lived he died. Proudly he entered the darkness&mdash;or the dawn&mdash;that
+ we call death. Unshrinkingly he passed beyond our horizon, beyond the
+ twilight's purple hills, beyond the utmost reach of human harm or help&mdash;to
+ that vast realm of silence or of joy where the innumerable dwell, and he
+ has left with us his wealth of thought and deed&mdash;the memory of a
+ brave, imperious, honest man, who bowed alone to death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0046" id="link0046">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO RICHARD H. WHITING.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, May 24., 1888.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: The river of another life has reached the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Again we are in the presence of that eternal peace that we call death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ My life has been rich in friends, but I never had a better or a truer one
+ than he who lies in silence here. He was as steadfast, as faithful, as the
+ stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Richard H. Whiting was an absolutely honest man. His word was gold&mdash;his
+ promise was fulfillment&mdash;and there never has been, there never will
+ be, on this poor earth, any thing nobler than an honest, loving soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man was as reliable as the attraction of gravitation&mdash;he knew no
+ shadow of turning. He was as generous as autumn, as hospitable as summer,
+ and as tender as a perfect day in June. He forgot only himself, and asked
+ favors only for others. He begged for the opportunity to do good&mdash;to
+ stand by a friend, to support a cause, to defend what he believed to be
+ right.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a lover of nature&mdash;of the woods, the fields and flowers. He
+ was a home-builder. He believed in the family and the fireside&mdash;in
+ the sacredness of the hearth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a believer in the religion of deed, and his creed was to do good.
+ No man has ever slept in death who nearer lived his creed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I have known him for many years, and have yet to hear a word spoken of him
+ except in praise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His life was full of honor, of kindness and of helpful deeds. Besides all,
+ his soul was free. He feared nothing, except to do wrong. He was a
+ believer in the gospel of help and hope. He knew how much better, how much
+ more sacred, a kind act is than any theory the brain has wrought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The good are the noble. His life filled the lives of others with sunshine.
+ He has left a legacy of glory to his children. They can truthfully say
+ that within their veins is right royal blood&mdash;the blood of an honest,
+ generous man, of a steadfast friend, of one who was true to the very gates
+ of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there be another world, another life beyond the shore of this,&mdash;if
+ the great and good who died upon this orb are there,&mdash;then the
+ noblest and the best, with eager hands, have welcomed him&mdash;the equal
+ in honor, in generosity, of any one that ever passed beyond the veil.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To me this world is growing poor. New friends can never fill the places of
+ the old.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farewell! If this is the end, then you have left to us the sacred memory
+ of a noble life. If this is not the end, there is no world in which you,
+ my friend, will not be loved and welcomed. Farewell!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0047" id="link0047">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO COURTLANDT PALMER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, July 26, 1888.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: A thinker of pure thoughts, a speaker of brave words, a doer
+ of generous deeds has reached the silent haven that all the dead have
+ reached, and where the voyage of every life must end; and we, his friends,
+ who even now are hastening after him, are met to do the last kind acts
+ that man may do for man&mdash;to tell his virtues and to lay with
+ tenderness and tears lay ashes in the sacred place of rest and peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some one has said, that in the open hands of death we find only what they
+ gave away.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Let us believe that pure thoughts, brave words and generous deeds can
+ never die. Let us believe that they bear fruit and add forever to the
+ well-being of the human race. Let us believe that a noble, self-denying
+ life increases the moral wealth of man, and gives assurance that the
+ future will be grander than the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the monotony of subservience, in the multitude of blind followers,
+ nothing is more inspiring than a free and independent man&mdash;one who
+ gives and asks reasons; one who demands freedom and gives what he demands;
+ one who refuses to be slave or master. Such a man was Courtlandt Palmer,
+ to whom we pay the tribute of respect and love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an honest man&mdash;he gave the rights he claimed. This was the
+ foundation on which he built. To think for himself&mdash;to give his
+ thought to others; this was to him not only a privilege, not only a right,
+ but a duty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed in self-preservation&mdash;in personal independence&mdash;that
+ is to say, in manhood.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He preserved the realm of mind from the invasion of brute force, and
+ protected the children of the brain from the Herod of authority.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He investigated for himself the questions, the problems and the mysteries
+ of life. Majorities were nothing to him. No error could be old enough&mdash;popular,
+ plausible or profitable enough&mdash;to bribe his judgment or to keep his
+ conscience still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that, next to finding truth, the greatest joy is honest search.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a believer in intellectual hospitality, in the fair exchange of
+ thought, in good mental manners, in the amenities of the soul, in the
+ chivalry of discussion.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He insisted that those who speak should hear; that those who question
+ should answer; that each should strive not for a victory over others, but
+ for the discovery of truth, and that truth when found should be welcomed
+ by every human soul.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that truth has no fear of investigation&mdash;of being understood.
+ He knew that truth loves the day&mdash;that its enemies are ignorance,
+ prejudice, egotism, bigotry, hypocrisy, fear and darkness, and that
+ intelligence, candor, honesty, love and light are its eternal friends.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed in the morality of the useful&mdash;that the virtues are the
+ friends of man&mdash;the seeds of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that consequences determine the quality of actions, and "that
+ whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the positive philosophy of Auguste Comte he found the framework of his
+ creed. In the conclusions of that great, sublime and tender soul he found
+ the rest, the serenity and the certainty he sought.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The clouds had fallen from his life. He saw that the old faiths were but
+ phases in the growth of man&mdash;that out from the darkness, up from the
+ depths, the human race through countless ages and in every land had
+ struggled toward the ever-growing light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He felt that the living are indebted to the noble dead, and that each
+ should pay his debt; that he should pay it by preserving to the extent of
+ his power the good he has, by destroying the hurtful, by adding to the
+ knowledge of the world, by giving better than he had received; and that
+ each should be the bearer of a torch, a giver of light for all that is,
+ for all to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This was the religion of duty perceived, of duty within the reach of man,
+ within the circumference of the known&mdash;a religion without mystery,
+ with experience for the foundation of belief&mdash;a religion understood
+ by the head and approved by the heart&mdash;a religion that appealed to
+ reason with a definite end in view&mdash;the civilization and development
+ of the human race by legitimate, adequate and natural means&mdash;that is
+ to say, by ascertaining the conditions of progress and by teaching each to
+ be noble enough to live for all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is the gospel of man; this is the gospel of this world; this is the
+ religion of humanity; this is a philosophy that comtemplates not with
+ scorn, but with pity, with admiration and with love all that man has done,
+ regarding, as it does, the past with all its faults and virtues, its
+ sufferings, its cruelties and crimes, as the only road by which the
+ perfect could be reached.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He denied the supernatural&mdash;the phantoms and the ghosts that fill the
+ twilight-land of fear. To him and for him there was but one religion&mdash;the
+ religion of pure thoughts, of noble words, of self-denying deeds, of
+ honest work for all the world&mdash;the religion of Help and Hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Facts were the foundation of his faith; history was his prophet; reason
+ his guide; duty his deity; happiness the end; intelligence the means.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that man must be the providence of man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not believe in Religion and Science, but in the Religion of Science&mdash;that
+ is to say, wisdom glorified by love, the Savior of our race&mdash;the
+ religion that conquers prejudice and hatred, that drives all superstition
+ from the mind, that ennobles, lengthens and enriches life, that drives
+ from every home the wolves of want, from every heart the fiends of
+ selfishness and fear, and from every brain the monsters of the night.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived and labored for his fellow-men. He sided with the weak and poor
+ against the strong and rich. He welcomed light. His face was ever toward
+ the East.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ According to his light he lived. "The world was his country&mdash;to do
+ good his religion." There is no language to express a nobler creed than
+ this; nothing can be grander, more comprehensive, nearer perfect. This was
+ the creed that glorified his life and made his death sublime.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was afraid to do wrong, and for that reason was not afraid to die.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that the end was near. He knew that his work was done. He stood
+ within the twilight, within the deepening gloom, knowing that for the last
+ time the gold was fading from the West and that there could not fall again
+ within his eyes the trembling lustre of another dawn. He knew that night
+ had come, and yet his soul was filled with light, for in that night the
+ memory of his generous deeds shone out like stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What can we say? What words can solve the mystery of life, the mystery of
+ death? What words can justly pay a tribute to the man who lived to his
+ ideal, who spoke his honest thought, and who was turned aside neither by
+ envy, nor hatred, nor contumely, nor slander, nor scorn, nor fear?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ What words will do that life the justice that we know and feel?
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A heart breaks, a man dies, a leaf falls in the far forest, a babe is
+ born, and the great world sweeps on.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By the grave of man stands the angel of Silence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one can tell which is better&mdash;Life with its gleams and shadows,
+ its thrills and pangs, its ecstasy and tears, its wreaths and thorns, its
+ crowns, its glories and Golgothas, or Death, with its peace, its rest, its
+ cool and placid brow that hath within no memory or fear of grief or pain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farewell, dear friend. The world is better for your life&mdash;The world
+ is braver for your death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farewell! We loved you living, and we love you now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0048" id="link0048">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO MRS. MARY H. FISKE.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ At Scottish Rite Hall, New York, February 6, 1889.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: In the presence of the two great mysteries, Life and Death, we
+ are met to say above this still, unconscious house of clay, a few words of
+ kindness, of regret, of love, and hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this presence, let us speak of the goodness, the charity, the
+ generosity and the genius of the dead.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Only flowers should be laid upon the tomb. In life's last pillow there
+ should be no thorns.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mary Fiske was like herself&mdash;she patterned after none. She was a
+ genius, and put her soul in all she did and wrote. She cared nothing for
+ roads, nothing for beaten paths, nothing for the footsteps of others&mdash;she
+ went across the fields and through the woods and by the winding streams,
+ and down the vales, or over crags, wherever fancy led. She wrote lines
+ that leaped with laughter and words that were wet with tears. She gave us
+ quaint thoughts, and sayings filled with the "pert and nimble spirit of
+ mirth." Her pages were flecked with sunshine and shadow, and in every word
+ were the pulse and breath of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Her heart went out to all the wretched in this weary world&mdash;and yet
+ she seemed as joyous as though grief and death were nought but words. She
+ wept where others wept, but in her own misfortunes found the food of hope.
+ She cared for the to-morrow of others, but not for her own. She lived for
+ to-day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some hearts are like a waveless pool, satisfied to hold the image of a
+ wondrous star&mdash;but hers was full of motion, life and light and storm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She longed for freedom. Every limitation was a prison's wall. Rules were
+ shackles, and forms were made for serfs and slaves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She gave her utmost thought. She praised all generous deeds; applauded the
+ struggling and even those who failed.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She pitied the poor, the forsaken, the friendless. No one could fall below
+ her pity, no one could wander beyond the circumference of her sympathy. To
+ her there were no outcasts&mdash;they were victims. She knew that the
+ inhabitants of palaces and penitentiaries might change places without
+ adding to the injustice of the world. She knew that circumstances and
+ conditions determine character&mdash;that the lowest and the worst of our
+ race were children once, as pure as light, whose cheeks dimpled with
+ smiles beneath the heaven of a mother's eyes. She thought of the road they
+ had traveled, of the thorns that had pierced their feet, of the deserts
+ they had crossed, and so, instead of words of scorn she gave the eager
+ hand of help.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ No one appealed to her in vain. She listened to the story of the poor, and
+ all she had she gave. A god could do no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The destitute and suffering turned naturally to her. The maimed and hurt
+ sought for her open door, and the helpless put their hands in hers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She shielded the weak&mdash;she attacked the strong.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Her heart was open as the gates of day. She shed kindness as the sun sheds
+ light. If all her deeds were flowers, the air would be faint with perfume.
+ If all her charities could change to melodies, a symphony would fill the
+ sky.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Mary Fiske had within her brain the divine fire called genius, and in her
+ heart the "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ She wrote as a stream runs, that winds and babbles through the shadowy
+ fields, that falls in foam of flight and haste and laughing joins the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ A little while ago a babe was found&mdash;one that had been abandoned by
+ its mother&mdash;left as a legacy to chance or fate. The warm heart of
+ Mary Fiske, now cold in death, was touched. She took the waif and held it
+ lovingly to her breast and made the child her own.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We pray thee, Mother Nature, that thou wilt take this woman and hold her
+ as tenderly in thy arms, as she held and pressed against her generous,
+ throbbing heart, the abandoned babe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We ask no more.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In this presence, let us remember our faults, our frailties, and the
+ generous, helpful, self-denying, loving deeds of Mary Fiske.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0049" id="link0049">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO HORACE SEAVER.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ At Paine Hall, Boston, August 25, 1889.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * The eulogy pronounced at the funeral of Horace Shaver In
+ Paine Hall last Sunday was the tribute of one great man to
+ another. To have Robert G. Ingersoll speak words of praise
+ above the silent form is fame; to deserve these words is
+ immortality.&mdash;The Boston Investigator, August 28, 1889.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ HORACE SEAVER was a pioneer, a torch-bearer, a toiler in that great field
+ we call the world&mdash;a worker for his fellow-men. At the end of his
+ task he has fallen asleep, and we are met to tell the story of his long
+ and useful life&mdash;to pay our tribute to his work and worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was one who saw the dawn while others lived in night. He kept his face
+ toward the "purpling east" and watched the coming of the blessed day.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He always sought for light. His object was to know&mdash;to find a reason
+ for his faith&mdash;a fact on which to build.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In superstition's sands he sought the gems of truth; in superstition's
+ night he looked for stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Born in New England&mdash;reared amidst the cruel superstitions of his age
+ and time, he had the manhood and the courage to investigate, and he had
+ the goodness and the courage to tell his honest thoughts.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was always kind, and sought to win the confidence of men by sympathy
+ and love. There was no taint or touch of malice in his blood. To him his
+ fellows did not seem depraved&mdash;they were not wholly bad&mdash;there
+ was within the heart of each the seeds of good. He knew that back of every
+ thought and act were forces uncontrolled. He wisely said: "Circumstances
+ furnish the seeds of good and evil, and man is but the soil in which they
+ grow." Horace Seaver was crowned with the wreath of his own deeds, woven
+ by the generous hand of a noble friend. He fought the creed, and loved the
+ man. He pitied those who feared and shuddered at the thought of death&mdash;who
+ dwelt in darkness and in dread.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The religion of his day filled his heart with horror.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was kind, compassionate, and tender, and could not fall upon his knees
+ before a cruel and revengeful God&mdash;he could not bow to one who slew
+ with famine, sword and fire&mdash;to one pitiless as pestilence,
+ relentless as the lightning stroke. Jehovah had no attribute that he could
+ love.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He attacked the creed of New England&mdash;a creed that had within it the
+ ferocity of Knox, the malice of Calvin, the cruelty of Jonathan Edwards&mdash;a
+ religion that had a monster for a God&mdash;a religion whose dogmas would
+ have shocked cannibals feasting upon babes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Horace Seaver followed the light of his brain&mdash;the impulse of his
+ heart. He was attacked, but he answered the insulter with a smile; and
+ even he who coined malignant lies was treated as a friend misled. He did
+ not ask God to forgive his enemies&mdash;he forgave them himself. He was
+ sincere. Sincerity is the true and perfect mirror of the mind. It reflects
+ the honest thought. It is the foundation of character, and without it
+ there is no moral grandeur.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Sacred are the lips from which has issued only truth. Over all wealth,
+ above all station, above the noble, the robed and crowned, rises the
+ sincere man. Happy is the man who neither paints nor patches, veils nor
+ veneers. Blessed is he who wears no mask.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who lies before us wrapped in perfect peace, practiced no art to
+ hide or half conceal his thought. He did not write or speak the double
+ words that might be useful in retreat. He gave a truthful transcript of
+ his mind, and sought to make his meaning clear as light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To use his own words, he had "the courage which impels a man to do his
+ duty, to hold fast his integrity, to maintain a conscience void of
+ offence, at every hazard and at every sacrifice, in defiance of the
+ world."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived to his ideal. He sought the approbation of himself. He did not
+ build his character upon the opinions of others, and it was out of the
+ very depths of his nature that he asked this profound question:
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ "What is there in other men that makes us desire their approbation, and
+ fear their censure more than our own?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Horace Seaver was a good and loyal citizen of the mental republic&mdash;a
+ believer in, intellectual hospitality, one who knew that bigotry is born
+ of ignorance and fear&mdash;the provincialisms of the brain. He did not
+ belong to the tribe, or to the nation, but to the human race. His sympathy
+ was wide as want, and, like the sky, bent above the suffering world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This man had that superb thing called moral courage&mdash;courage in its
+ highest form. He knew that his thoughts were not the thoughts of others&mdash;that
+ he was with the few, and that where one would take his side, thousands
+ would be his eager foes. He knew that wealth would scorn and cultured
+ ignorance deride, and that believers in the creeds, buttressed by law and
+ custom, would hurl the missiles of revenge and hate. He knew that lies,
+ like snakes, would fill the pathway of his life&mdash;and yet he told his
+ honest thought&mdash;told it without hatred and without contempt&mdash;told
+ it as it really was. And so, through all his days, his heart was sound and
+ stainless to the core.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When he enlisted in the army whose banner is light, the honest
+ investigator was looked upon as lost and cursed, and even Christian
+ criminals held him in contempt. The believing embezzler, the orthodox
+ wife-beater, even the murderer, lifted his bloody hands and thanked God
+ that on his soul there was no stain of unbelief.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In nearly every State of our Republic, the man who denied the absurdities
+ and impossibilities lying at the foundation of what is called orthodox
+ religion, was denied his civil rights. He was not canopied by the &aelig;gis
+ of the law. He stood beyond the reach of sympathy. He was not allowed to
+ testify against the invader of his home, the seeker for his life&mdash;his
+ lips were closed. He was declared dishonorable, because he was honest. His
+ unbelief made him a social leper, a pariah, an outcast. He was the victim
+ of religious hate and scorn. Arrayed against him were all the prejudices
+ and all the forces and hypocrisies of society. All mistakes and lies were
+ his enemies. Even the Theist was denounced as a disturber of the peace,
+ although he told his thoughts in kind and candid words. He was called a
+ blasphemer, because he sought to rescue the reputation of his God from the
+ slanders of orthodox priests.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Such was the bigotry of the time, that natural love was lost. The
+ unbelieving son was hated by his pious sire, and even the mother's heart
+ was by her creed turned into stone.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Horace Seaver pursued his way. He worked and wrought as best he could, in
+ solitude and want. He knew the day would come. He lived to be rewarded for
+ his toil&mdash;to see most of the laws repealed that had made outcasts of
+ the noblest, the wisest, and the best. He lived to see the foremost
+ preachers of the world attack the sacred creeds. He lived to see the
+ sciences released from superstition's clutch. He lived to see the orthodox
+ theologian take his place with the professor of the black art, the
+ fortune-teller, and the astrologer. He lived to see the greatest of the
+ world accept his thought&mdash;to see the theologian displaced by the true
+ priests of Nature&mdash;by Humboldt and Darwin, by Huxley and Haeckel.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Within the narrow compass of his life the world was changed. The railway,
+ the steamship, and the telegraph made all nations neighbors. Countless
+ inventions have made the luxuries of the past the necessities of to-day.
+ Life has been enriched, and man ennobled. The geologist has read the
+ records of frost and flame, of wind and wave&mdash;the astronomer has told
+ the story of the stars&mdash;the biologist has sought the germ of life,
+ and in every department of knowledge the torch of science sheds its sacred
+ light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ancient creeds have grown absurd. The miracles are small and mean. The
+ inspired book is filled with fables told to please a childish world, and
+ the dogma of eternal pain now shocks the heart and brain.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived to see a monument unveiled to Bruno in the city of Rome&mdash;to
+ Giordano Bruno&mdash;that great man who two hundred and eighty-nine years
+ ago suffered death for having proclaimed the truths that since have filled
+ the world with joy. He lived to see the victim of the church a victor&mdash;lived
+ to see his memory honored by a nation freed from papal chains.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He worked knowing what the end must be&mdash;expecting little while he
+ lived&mdash;but knowing that every fact in the wide universe was on his
+ side. He knew that truth can wait, and so he worked patient as eternity.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had the brain of a philosopher and the heart of a child.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Horace Seaver was a man of common sense.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By that I mean, one who knows the law of average. He denied the Bible, not
+ on account of what has been discovered in astronomy, or the length of time
+ it took to form the delta of the Nile&mdash;but he compared the things he
+ found with what he knew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that antiquity added nothing to probability&mdash;that lapse of
+ time can never take the place of cause, and that the dust can never gather
+ thick enough upon mistakes to make them equal with the truth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He knew that the old, by no possibility, could have been more wonderful
+ than the new, and that the present is a perpetual torch by which we know
+ the past.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To him all miracles were mistakes, whose parents were cunning and
+ credulity. He knew that miracles were not, because they are not.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed in the sublime, unbroken, and eternal march of causes and
+ effects&mdash;denying the chaos of chance, and the caprice of power.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He tested the past by the now, and judged of all the men and races of the
+ world by those he knew.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed in the religion of free thought and good deed&mdash;of
+ character, of sincerity, of honest endeavor, of cheerful help&mdash;and
+ above all, in the religion of love and liberty&mdash;in a religion for
+ every day&mdash;for the world in which we live&mdash;for the present&mdash;the
+ religion of roof and raiment, of food, of intelligence, of intellectual
+ hospitality&mdash;the religion that gives health and happiness, freedom
+ and content&mdash;in the religion of work, and in the ceremonies of honest
+ labor.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He lived for this world; if there be another, he will live for that.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did what he could for the destruction of fear&mdash;the destruction of
+ the imaginary monster who rewards the few in heaven&mdash;the monster who
+ tortures the many in perdition.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a friend of all the world, and sought to civilize the human race.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ For more than fifty years he labored to free the bodies and the souls of
+ men&mdash;and many thousands have read his words with joy. He sought the
+ suffering and oppressed. He sat by those in pain&mdash;and his helping
+ hand was laid in pity on the brow of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He asked only to be treated as he treated others. He asked for only what
+ he earned, and had the manhood cheerfully to accept the consequences of
+ his actions. He expected no reward for the goodness of another.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But he has lived his life. We should shed no tears except the tears of
+ gratitude. We should rejoice that he lived so long.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In Nature's course, his time had come. The four seasons were complete in
+ him. The Spring could never come again. The measure of his years was full.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the day is done&mdash;when the work of a life is finished&mdash;when
+ the gold of evening meets the dusk of night, beneath the silent stars the
+ tired laborer should fall asleep. To outlive usefulness is a double death.
+ "Let me not live after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger
+ spirits."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ When the old oak is visited in vain by Spring&mdash;when light and rain no
+ longer thrill&mdash;it is not well to stand leafless, desolate, and alone.
+ It is better far to fall where Nature softly covers all with woven moss
+ and creeping vine.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ How little, after all, we know of what is ill or well! How little of this
+ wondrous stream of cataracts and pools&mdash;this stream of life, that
+ rises in a world unknown, and flows to that mysterious sea whose shore the
+ foot of one who comes has never pressed! How little of this life we know&mdash;this
+ struggling ray of light 'twixt gloom and gloom&mdash;this strip of land by
+ verdure clad, between the unknown wastes&mdash;this throbbing moment
+ filled with love and pain&mdash;this dream that lies between the shadowy
+ shores of sleep and death!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We stand upon this verge of crumbling time. We love, we hope, we
+ disappear. Again we mingle with the dust, and the "knot intrinsicate"
+ forever falls apart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But this we know: A noble life enriches all the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Horace Seaver lived for others. He accepted toil and hope deferred.
+ Poverty was his portion. Like Socrates, he did not seek to adorn his body,
+ but rather his soul with the jewels of charity, modesty, courage, and
+ above all, with a love of liberty.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farewell, O brave and modest man!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Your lips, between which truths burst into blossom, are forever closed.
+ Your loving heart has ceased to beat. Your busy brain is still, and from
+ your hand has dropped the sacred torch.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Your noble, self-denying life has honored us, and we will honor you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You were my friend, and I was yours. Above your silent clay I pay this
+ tribute to your worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Farewell!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0050" id="link0050">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO LAWRENCE BARRETT.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ At the Broadway Theatre, New York, March 22, 1891.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY heart tells me that on the threshold of my address it will be
+ appropriate for me to say a few words about the great actor who has just
+ fallen into that sleep that we call death. Lawrence Barrett was my friend,
+ and I was his. He was an interpreter of Shakespeare, to whose creations he
+ gave flesh and blood. He began at the foundation of his profession, and
+ rose until he stood next to his friend&mdash;next to one who is regarded
+ as the greatest tragedian of our time&mdash;next to Edwin Booth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The life of Lawrence Barrett was a success, because he honored himself and
+ added glory to the stage.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He did not seek for gain by pandering to the thoughtless, ignorant or
+ base. He gave the drama in its highest and most serious form. He shunned
+ the questionable, the vulgar and impure, and gave the intellectual, the
+ pathetic, the manly and the tragic. He did not stoop to conquer&mdash;he
+ soared. He was fitted for the stage. He had a thoughtful face, a vibrant
+ voice and the pose of chivalry, and besides he had patience, industry,
+ courage and the genius of success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a graceful and striking Bassanio, a thoughtful Hamlet, an intense
+ Othello, a marvelous Harebell, and the best Cassius of his century.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the drama of human life, all are actors, and no one knows his part. In
+ this great play the scenes are shifted by unknown forces, and the
+ commencement, plot and end are still unknown&mdash;are still unguessed.
+ One by one the players leave the stage, and others take their places.
+ There is no pause&mdash;the play goes on. No prompter's voice is heard,
+ and no one has the slightest clue to what the next scene is to be.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Will this great drama have an end? Will the curtain fall at last? Will it
+ rise again upon some other stage? Reason says perhaps, and Hope still
+ whispers yes. Sadly I bid my friend farewell, I admired the actor, and I
+ loved the man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0051" id="link0051">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO WALT WHITMAN.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Camden, N. J., March 30, 1892.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: Again we, in the mystery of Life, are brought face to face
+ with the mystery of Death. A great man, a great American, the most eminent
+ citizen of this Republic, lies dead before us, and we have met to pay a
+ tribute to his greatness and his worth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ I know he needs no words of mine. His fame is secure. He laid the
+ foundations of it deep in the human heart and brain. He was, above all I
+ have known, the poet of humanity, of sympathy. He was so great that he
+ rose above the greatest that he met without arrogance, and so great that
+ he stooped to the lowest without conscious condescension. He never claimed
+ to be lower or greater than any of the sous of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit, with sympathy for
+ all. His arm was beneath the form of the sick. He sympathized with the
+ imprisoned and despised, and even on the brow of crime he was great enough
+ to place the kiss of human sympathy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One of the greatest lines in our literature is his, and the line is great
+ enough to do honor to the greatest genius that has ever lived. He said,
+ speaking of an outcast: "Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His charity was as wide as the sky, and wherever there was human
+ suffering, human misfortune, the sympathy of Whitman bent above it as the
+ firmament bends above the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was built on a broad and splendid plan&mdash;ample, without appearing
+ to have limitations&mdash;passing easily for a brother of mountains and
+ seas and constellations; caring nothing for the little maps and charts
+ with which timid pilots hug the shore, but giving himself freely with
+ recklessness of genius to winds and waves and tides; caring for nothing as
+ long as the stars were above him. He walked among men, among writers,
+ among verbal varnishers and veneerers, among literary milliners and
+ tailors, with the unconscious majesty of an antique god.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the poet of that divine democracy which gives equal rights to all
+ the sons and daughters of men. He uttered the great American voice;
+ uttered a song worthy of the great Republic. No man ever said more for the
+ rights of humanity, more in favor of real democracy, of real justice. He
+ neither scorned nor cringed, was neither tyrant nor slave. He asked only
+ to stand the equal of his fellows beneath the great flag of nature, the
+ blue and stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the poet of Life. It was a joy simply to breathe. He loved the
+ clouds; he enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the
+ winding streams. He loved to look at the sea when the waves burst into the
+ whitecaps of joy. He loved the fields, the hills; he was acquainted with
+ the trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects of the earth. He not
+ only saw these objects, but understood their meaning, and he used them
+ that he might exhibit his heart to his fellow-men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the poet of Love. He was not ashamed of that divine passion that
+ has built every home in the world; that divine passion that has painted
+ every picture and given us every real work of art; that divine passion
+ that has made the world worth living in and has given some value to human
+ life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the poet of the natural, and taught men not to be ashamed of that
+ which is natural. He was not only the poet of democracy, not only the poet
+ of the great Republic, but he was the poet of the human race. He was not
+ confined to the limits of this country, but his sympathy went out over the
+ seas to all the nations of the earth.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stretched out his hand and felt himself the equal of all kings and of
+ all princes, and the brother of all men, no matter how high, no matter how
+ low.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has uttered more supreme words than any writer of our century, possibly
+ of almost any other. He was, above all things, a man, and above genius,
+ above all the snow-capped peaks of intelligence, above all art, rises the
+ true man. Greater than all is the true man, and he walked among his
+ fellow-men as such.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the poet of Death. He accepted all life and all death, and he
+ justified all. He had the courage to meet all, and was great enough and
+ splendid enough to harmonize all and to accept all there is of life as a
+ divine melody.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ You know better than I what his life has been, but let me say one thing.
+ Knowing, as he did, what others can know and what they cannot, he accepted
+ and absorbed all theories, all creeds, all religions, and believed in
+ none. His philosophy was a sky that embraced all clouds and accounted for
+ all clouds. He had a philosophy and a religion of his own, broader, as he
+ believed&mdash;and as I believe&mdash;than others. He accepted all, he
+ understood all, and he was above all.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was absolutely true to himself. He had frankness and courage, and he
+ was as candid as light. He was willing that all the sons of men should be
+ absolutely acquainted with his heart and brain. He had nothing to conceal.
+ Frank, candid, pure, serene, noble, and yet for years he was maligned and
+ slandered, simply because he had the candor of nature. He will be
+ understood yet, and that for which he was condemned&mdash;his frankness,
+ his candor&mdash;will add to the glory and greatness of his fame.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He wrote a liturgy for mankind; he wrote a great and splendid psalm of
+ life, and he gave to us the gospel of humanity&mdash;the greatest gospel
+ that can be preached.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was not afraid to live, not afraid to die. For many years he and death
+ were near neighbors. He was always willing and ready to meet and greet
+ this king called death, and for many months he sat in the deepening
+ twilight waiting for the night, waiting for the light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He never lost his hope. When the mists filled the valleys, he looked upon
+ the mountain tops, and when the mountains in darkness disappeared, he
+ fixed his gaze upon the stars.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his brain were the blessed memories of the day, and in his heart were
+ mingled the dawn and dusk of life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was not afraid; he was cheerful every moment. The laughing nymphs of
+ day did not desert him. They remained that they might clasp the hands and
+ greet with smiles the veiled and silent sisters of the night. And when
+ they did come, Walt Whitman stretched his hand to them. On one side were
+ the nymphs of the day, and on the other the silent sisters of the night,
+ and so, hand in hand, between smiles and tears, he reached his journey's
+ end.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ From the frontier of life, from the western wave-kissed shore, he sent us
+ messages of content and hope, and these messages seem now like strains of
+ music blown by the "Mystic Trumpeter" from Death's pale realm.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To-day we give back to Mother Nature, to her clasp and kiss, one of the
+ bravest, sweetest souls that ever lived in human clay.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Charitable as the air and generous as Nature, he was negligent of all
+ except to do and say what he believed he should do and should say.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And I to-day thank him, not only for you but for myself, for all the brave
+ words he has uttered. I thank him for all the great and splendid words lie
+ has said in favor of liberty, in favor of man and woman, in favor of
+ motherhood, in favor of fathers, in favor of children, and I thank him for
+ the brave words that he has said of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He has lived, he has died, and death is less terrible than it was before.
+ Thousands and millions will walk down into the "dark valley of the shadow"
+ holding Walt Whitman by the hand. Long after we are dead the brave words
+ he has spoken will sound like trumpets to the dying.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so I lay this little wreath upon this great mans tomb. I loved him
+ living, and I love him still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0052" id="link0052">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO PHILO D. BECKWITH.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Dowagiac, Mich., January 25, 1893.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen: Nothing is nobler than to plant the flower of
+ gratitude on the grave of a generous man&mdash;of one who labored for the
+ good of all&mdash;whose hands were open and whose heart was full.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Praise for the noble dead is an inspiration for the noble living.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Loving words sow seeds of love in every gentle heart. Appreciation is the
+ soil and climate of good and generous deeds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are met to-night not to pay, but to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to
+ one who lived and labored here&mdash;who was the friend of all and who for
+ many years was the providence of the poor. To one who left to those who
+ knew him best, the memory of countless loving deeds&mdash;the richest
+ legacy that man can leave to man.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We are here to dedicate this monument to the stainless memory of Philo D.
+ Beckwith&mdash;one of the kings of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This monument&mdash;this perfect theatre&mdash;this beautiful house of
+ cheerfulness and joy&mdash;this home and child of all the arts&mdash;this
+ temple where the architect, the sculptor and painter united to build and
+ decorate a stage whereon the drama with a thousand tongues will tell the
+ frailties and the virtues of the human race, and music with her thrilling
+ voice will touch the source of happy tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ This is a fitting monument to the man whose memory we honor&mdash;to one,
+ who broadening with the years, outgrew the cruel creeds, the heartless
+ dogmas of his time&mdash;to one who passed from superstition to science&mdash;from
+ religion to reason&mdash;from theology to humanity&mdash;from slavery to
+ freedom&mdash;from the shadow of fear to the blessed light of love and
+ courage. To one who believed in intellectual hospitality&mdash;in the
+ perfect freedom of the soul, and hated tyranny, in every form, with all
+ his heart.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To one whose head and hands were in partnership constituting the firm of
+ Intelligence and Industry, and whose heart divided the profits with his
+ fellow-men. To one who fought the battle of life alone, without the aid of
+ place or wealth, and yet grew nobler and gentler with success.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ To one who tried to make a heaven here and who believed in the blessed
+ gospel of cheerfulness and love&mdash;of happiness and hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And it is fitting, too, that this monument should be adorned with the
+ sublime faces, wrought in stone, of the immortal dead&mdash;of those who
+ battled for the rights of man&mdash;who broke the fetters of the slave&mdash;of
+ those who filled the minds of men with poetry, art, and light&mdash;of
+ Voltaire, who abolished torture in France and who did more for liberty
+ than any other of the sons of men&mdash;of Thomas Paine, whose pen did as
+ much as any sword to make the New World free&mdash;of Victor Hugo, who
+ wept for those who weep&mdash;of Emerson, a worshiper of the Ideal, who
+ filled the mind with suggestions of the perfect&mdash;of Goethe, the
+ poet-philosopher&mdash;of Whitman, the ample, wide as the sky&mdash;author
+ of the tenderest, the most pathetic, the sublimest poem that this
+ continent has produced&mdash;of Shakespeare, the King of all&mdash;of
+ Beethoven, the divine,&mdash;of Chopin and Verdi and of Wagner, grandest
+ of them all, whose music satisfies the heart and brain and fills
+ imagination's sky&mdash;of George Eliot, who wove within her brain the
+ purple robe her genius wears&mdash;of George Sand, subtle and sincere,
+ passionate and free&mdash;and with these&mdash;faces of those who, on the
+ stage, have made the mimic world as real as life and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Beneath the loftiest monuments may be found ambition's worthless dust,
+ while those who lived the loftiest lives are sleeping now in unknown
+ graves.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ It may be that the bravest of the brave who ever fell upon the field of
+ ruthless war, was left without a grave to mingle slowly with the land he
+ saved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But here and now the Man and Monument agree, and blend like sounds that
+ meet and melt in melody&mdash;a monument for the dead&mdash;a blessing for
+ the living&mdash;a memory of tears&mdash;a prophecy of joy.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fortunate the people where this good man lived, for they are all his heirs&mdash;and
+ fortunate for me that I have had the privilege of laying this little
+ laurel leaf upon his unstained brow.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And now, speaking for those he loved&mdash;for those who represent the
+ honored dead&mdash;I dedicate this home of mirth and song&mdash;of poetry
+ and art&mdash;to the memory of Philo D. Beckwith&mdash;a true philosopher&mdash;a
+ real philanthropist.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0053" id="link0053">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO ANTON SEIDL.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ A telegram read at the funeral services in the Metropolitan
+ Opera House, New York City, March 31, 1898.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ IN the noon and zenith of his career, in the flush and glory of success,
+ Anton Seidl, the greatest orchestral leader of all time, the perfect
+ interpreter of Wagner, of all his subtlety and sympathy, his heroism and
+ grandeur, his intensity and limitless passion, his wondrous harmonies that
+ tell of all there is in life, and touch the longings and the hopes of
+ every heart, has passed from the shores of sound to the realm of silence,
+ borne by the mysterious and resistless tide that ever ebbs but never
+ flows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All moods were his. Delicate as the perfume of the first violet, wild as
+ the storm, he knew the music of all sounds, from the rustle of leaves, the
+ whisper of hidden springs, to the voices of the sea.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was the master of music, from the rhythmical strains of irresponsible
+ joy to the sob of the funeral march.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He stood like a king with his sceptre in his hand, and we knew that every
+ tone and harmony were in his brain, every passion in his breast, and yet
+ his sculptured face was as calm, as serene as perfect art. He mingled his
+ soul with the music and gave his heart to the enchanted air.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He appeared to have no limitations, no walls, no chains. He seemed to
+ follow the pathway of desire, and the marvelous melodies, the sublime
+ harmonies, were as free as eagles above the clouds with outstretched
+ wings.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He educated, refined, and gave unspeakable joy to many thousands of his
+ fellow-men. He added to the grace and glory of life. He spoke a language
+ deeper, more poetic than words&mdash;the language of the perfect, the
+ language of love and death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But he is voiceless now; a fountain of harmony has ceased. Its inspired
+ strains have died away in night, and all its murmuring melodies are
+ strangely still.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ We will mourn for him, we will honor him, not in words, but in the
+ language that he used.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Anton Seidl is dead. Play the great funeral march. Envelop him in music.
+ Let its wailing waves cover him. Let its wild and mournful winds sigh and
+ moan above him. Give his face to its kisses and its tears.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Play the great funeral march, music as profound as death. That will
+ express our sorrow&mdash;that will voice our love, our hope, and that will
+ tell of the life, the triumph, the genius, the death of Anton Seidl.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0054" id="link0054">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO DR. THOMAS SETON ROBERTSON.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York September 8, 1898.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ IN the pulseless hush of death, silence seems more expressive, more
+ appropriate&mdash;than speech. In the presence of the Great Mystery, the
+ great mystery that waits to enshroud us all, we feel the uselessness of
+ words. But where a fellow-mortal has reached his journey's end&mdash;where
+ the darkness from which he emerged has received him again, it is but
+ natural for his friends to mingle with their grief, expressions of their
+ love and loss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He who lies before us in the sleep of death was generous to his
+ fellow-men. His hands were always stretched to help, to save. He pitied
+ the friendless, the unfortunate, the hopeless&mdash;proud of his skill&mdash;of
+ his success. He was quick to decide&mdash;to act&mdash;prompt, tireless,
+ forgetful of self. He lengthened life and conquered pain&mdash;hundreds
+ are well and happy now because he lived. This is enough. This puts a star
+ above the gloom of death.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was sensitive to the last degree&mdash;quick to feel a slight&mdash;to
+ resent a wrong&mdash;but in the warmth of kindness the thorn of hatred
+ blossomed. He was not quite fashioned for this world. The flints and
+ thorns on life's highway bruised and pierced his flesh, and for his wounds
+ he did not have the blessed balm of patience. He felt the manacles, the
+ limitations&mdash;the imprisonments of life and so within the walls and
+ bars he wore his very soul away. He could not bear the storms. The tides,
+ the winds, the waves, in the morning of his life, dashed his frail bark
+ against the rocks.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He fought as best he could, and that he failed was not his fault.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was honest, generous and courageous. These three great virtues were
+ his. He was a true and steadfast friend, seeing only the goodness of the
+ ones he loved. Only a great and noble heart is capable of this.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But he has passed beyond the reach of praise or blame&mdash;passed to the
+ realm of rest&mdash;to the waveless calm of perfect peace.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The storm is spent&mdash;the winds are hushed&mdash;the waves have died
+ along the shore&mdash;the tides are still&mdash;the aching heart has
+ ceased to beat, and within the brain all thoughts, all hopes and fears&mdash;ambitions,
+ memories, rejoicings and regrets&mdash;all images and pictures of the
+ world, of life, are now as though they had not been. And yet Hope, the
+ child of Love&mdash;the deathless, beyond the darkness sees the dawn. And
+ we who knew and loved him, we, who now perform the last sad rites&mdash;the
+ last that friendship can suggest&mdash;"will keep his memory green."
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Dear Friend, farewell! "If we do meet again we shall smile indeed&mdash;if
+ not, this parting is well made." Farewell!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0055" id="link0055">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO THOMAS CORWIN.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ Lebanon, Ohio, March 5, 1899.
+ </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * An Impromptu preface to Colonel Ingersoll's lecture at
+ Lebanon, Ohio.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ LADIES and Gentlemen: Being for the first time where Thomas Corwin lived
+ and where his ashes rest, I cannot refrain from saying something of what I
+ feel. Thomas Corwin was a natural orator&mdash;armed with the sword of
+ attack and the shield of defence.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature filled his quiver with perfect arrows. He was the lord of logic and
+ laughter. He had the presence, the pose, the voice, the face that mirrored
+ thoughts, the unconscious gesture of the orator. He had intelligence&mdash;a
+ wide horizon&mdash;logic as unerring as mathematics&mdash;humor as rich as
+ autumn when the boughs and vines bend with the weight of ripened fruit,
+ while the forests flame with scarlet, brown and gold. He had wit as quick
+ and sharp as lightning, and like the lightning it filled the heavens with
+ sudden light.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his laughter there was logic, in his wit wisdom, and in his humor
+ philosophy and philanthropy. He was a supreme artist. He painted pictures
+ with words. He knew the strength, the velocity of verbs, the color, the
+ light and shade of adjectives.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was a sculptor in speech&mdash;changing stones to statues. He had in
+ his heart the sacred something that we call sympathy. He pitied the
+ unfortunate, the oppressed and the outcast His words were often wet with
+ tears&mdash;tears that in a moment after were glorified by the light of
+ smiles. All moods were his. He knew the heart, its tides and currents, its
+ calms and storms, and like a skillful pilot he sailed emotion's troubled
+ sea. He was neither solemn nor dignified, because he was neither stupid
+ nor egotistic. He was natural, and had the spontaneity of winds and waves.
+ He was the greatest orator of his time, the grandest that ever stood
+ beneath our flag. Reverently I lay this leaf upon his grave.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0056" id="link0056">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ A TRIBUTE TO ISAAC H. BAILEY.
+ </h2>
+ <h3>
+ New York, March 27, 1899.
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ MY FRIENDS: When one whom we hold dear has reached the end of life and
+ laid his burden down, it is but natural for us, his friends, to pay the
+ tribute of respect and love; to tell his virtues, to express our sense of
+ loss and speak above the sculptured clay some word of hope.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Our friend, about whose bier we stand, was in the highest, noblest sense a
+ man. He was not born to wealth&mdash;he was his own providence, his own
+ teacher. With him work was worship and labor was his only prayer. He
+ depended on himself, and was as independent as it is possible for man to
+ be. He hated debt, and obligation was a chain that scarred his flesh. He
+ lived a long and useful life. In age he reaped with joy what he had cown
+ in youth. He did not linger "until his flame lacked oil," but with his
+ senses keen, his mind undimmed, and with his arms filled with gathered
+ sheaves, in an instant, painlessly, unconsciously, he passed from
+ happiness and health to the realm of perfect peace. We need not mourn for
+ him, but for ourselves, for those he loved.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was an absolutely honest man&mdash;a man who kept his word, who
+ fulfilled his contracts, gave heaped and rounded measure and discharged
+ all obligations with the fabled chivalry of ancient knights. He was
+ absolutely honest, not only with others but with himself. To his last
+ moment his soul was stainless. He was true to his ideal&mdash;true to his
+ thought, and what his brain conceived his lips expressed. He refused to
+ pretend. He knew that to believe without evidence was impossible to the
+ sound and sane, and that to say you believed when you did not, was
+ possible only to the hypocrite or coward. He did not believe in the
+ supernatural. He was a natural man and lived a natural life. He had no
+ fear of fiends. He cared nothing for the guesses of inspired savages;
+ nothing for the threats or promises of the sainted and insane.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He enjoyed this life&mdash;the good things of this world&mdash;the clasp
+ and smile of friendship, the exchange of generous deeds, the reasonable
+ gratification of the senses&mdash;of the wants of the body and mind. He
+ was neither an insane ascetic nor a fool of pleasure, but walked the
+ golden path along the strip of verdure that lies between the deserts of
+ extremes.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ With him to do right was not simply a duty, it was a pleasure. He had
+ philosophy enough to know that the quality of actions depends upon their
+ consequences, and that these consequences are the rewards and punishments
+ that no God can give, inflict, withhold or pardon.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He loved his country, he was proud of the heroic past, dissatisfied with
+ the present, and confident of the future. He stood on the rock of
+ principle. With him the wisest policy was to do right. He would not
+ compromise with wrong. He had no respect for political failures who became
+ reformers and decorated fraud with the pretence of philanthropy, or sought
+ to gain some private end in the name of public good. He despised
+ time-servers, trimmers, fawners and all sorts and kinds of pretenders.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed in national honesty; in the preservation of public faith. He
+ believed that the Government should discharge every obligation&mdash;the
+ implied as faithfully as the expressed. And I would be unjust to his
+ memory if I did not say that he believed in honest money, in the best
+ money in the world, in pure gold, and that he despised with all his heart
+ financial frauds, and regarded fifty cents that pretended to be a dollar,
+ as he would a thief in the uniform of a policeman, or a criminal in the
+ robe of a judge.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He believed in liberty, and liberty for all. He pitied the slave and hated
+ the master; that is to say, he was an honest man. In the dark days of the
+ Rebellion he stood for the right. He loved Lincoln with all his heart&mdash;loved
+ him for his genius, his courage and his goodness. He loved Conkling&mdash;loved
+ him for his independence, his manhood, for his unwavering courage, and
+ because he would not bow or bend&mdash;loved him because he accepted
+ defeat with the pride of a victor. He loved Grant, and in the temple of
+ his heart, over the altar, in the highest niche, stood the great soldier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Nature was kind to our friend. She gave him the blessed gift of humor.
+ This filled his days with the climate of Autumn, so that to him even
+ disaster had its sunny side. On account of his humor he appreciated and
+ enjoyed the great literature of the world. He loved Shakespeare, his
+ clowns and heroes. He appreciated and enjoyed Dickens. The characters of
+ this great novelist were his acquaintances. He knew them all; some were
+ his friends and some he dearly loved. He had wit of the keenest and
+ quickest. The instant the steel of his logic smote the flint of absurdity
+ the spark glittered. And yet, his wit was always kind. The flower went
+ with the thorn. The targets of his wit were not made enemies, but
+ admirers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was social, and after the feast of serious conversation he loved the
+ wine of wit&mdash;the dessert of a good story that blossomed into mirth.
+ He enjoyed games&mdash;was delighted by the relations of chance&mdash;the
+ curious combinations of accident. He had the genius of friendship. In his
+ nature there was no suspicion. He could not be poisoned against a friend.
+ The arrows of slander never pierced the shield of his confidence. He
+ demanded demonstration. He defended a friend as he defended himself.
+ Against all comers he stood firm, and he never deserted the field until
+ the friend had fled. I have known many, many friends&mdash;have clasped
+ the hands of many that I loved, but in the journey of my life I have never
+ grasped the hand of a better, truer, more unselfish friend than he who
+ lies before us clothed in the perfect peace of death. He loved me living
+ and I love him now.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In youth we front the sun; we live in light without a fear, without a
+ thought of dusk or night. We glory in excess. There is no dread of loss
+ when all is growth and gain. With reckless hands we spend and waste and
+ chide the flying hours for loitering by the way.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The future holds the fruit of joy; the present keeps us from the feast,
+ and so, with hurrying feet we climb the heights and upward look with eager
+ eyes. But when the sun begins to sink and shadows fall in front, and
+ lengthen on the path, then falls upon the heart a sense of loss, and then
+ we hoard the shreds and crumbs and vainly long for what was cast away. And
+ then with miser care we save and spread thin hands before December's
+ half-fed flickering flames, while through the glass of time we moaning
+ watch the few remaining grains of sand that hasten to their end. In the
+ gathering gloom the fires slowly die, while memory dreams of youth, and
+ hope sometimes mistakes the glow of ashes for the coming of another morn.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But our friend was an exception. He lived in the present; he enjoyed the
+ sunshine of to-day. Although his feet had touched the limit of four-score,
+ he had not reached the time to stop, to turn and think: about the traveled
+ road. He was still full of life and hope, and had the interest of youth in
+ all the affairs of men.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He had no fear of the future&mdash;no dread. He was ready for the end. I
+ have often heard him repeat the words of Epicurus: "Why should I fear
+ death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear
+ that which cannot exist when I do?"
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ If there is, beyond the veil, beyond the night called death, another world
+ to which men carry all the failures and the triumphs of this life; if
+ above and over all there be a God who loves the right, an honest man has
+ naught to fear. If there be another world in which sincerity is a virtue,
+ in which fidelity is loved and courage honored, then all is well with the
+ dear friend whom we have lost.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ But if the grave ends all; if all that was our friend is dead, the world
+ is better for the life he lived. Beyond the tomb we cannot see. We listen,
+ but from the lips of mystery there comes no word. Darkness and silence
+ brooding over all. And yet, because we love we hope. Farewell! And yet
+ again, Farewell!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And will there, sometime, be another world? We have our dream. The idea of
+ immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart,
+ beating with its countless waves against the sands and rocks of time and
+ fate, was not born of any book or of any creed. It was born of affection.
+ And it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt
+ and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death. We have our dream!
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0057" id="link0057">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ JESUS CHRIST.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * An unfinished lecture which Colonel Ingersoll commenced a
+ few days before his death.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ FOR many centuries and by many millions of people, Christ has been
+ worshiped as God. Millions and millions of eulogies on his character have
+ been pronounced by priest and layman, in all of which his praises were
+ measured only by the limitations of language&mdash;words were regarded as
+ insufficient to paint his perfections.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In his praise it was impossible to be extravagant. Sculptor, poet and
+ painter exhausted their genius in the portrayal of the peasant, who was in
+ fact the creator of all worlds.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ His wisdom excited the wonder, his sufferings the pity and his
+ resurrection and ascension the astonishment of the world.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He was regarded as perfect man and infinite God. It was believed that in
+ the gospels was found the perfect history of his life, his words and
+ works, his death, his triumph over the grave and his return to heaven. For
+ many centuries his perfection, his divinity&mdash;have been defended by
+ sword and fire.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ By the altar was the scaffold&mdash;in the cathedral, the dungeon&mdash;the
+ chamber of torture.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The story of Christ was told by mothers to their babes. For the most part
+ his story was the beginning and end of education. It was wicked to doubt&mdash;infamous
+ to deny.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Heaven was the reward for belief and hell the destination of the denier.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ All the forces of what we call society, were directed against
+ investigation. Every avenue to the mind was closed. On all the highways of
+ thought, Christians placed posts and boards, and on the boards were the
+ words "No Thoroughfare," "No Crossing." The windows of the soul were
+ darkened&mdash;the doors were barred. Light was regarded as the enemy of
+ mankind.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ During these Christian years faith was rewarded with position, wealth and
+ power. Faith was the path to fame and honor. The man who investigated was
+ the enemy, the assassin of souls. The creed was barricaded on every side,
+ above it were the glories of heaven&mdash;below were the agonies of hell.
+ The soldiers of the cross were strangers to pity. Only traitors to God
+ were shocked by the murder of an unbeliever. The true Christian was a
+ savage. His virtues were ferocious, and compared with his vices were
+ beneficent. The drunkard was a better citizen than the saint. The
+ libertine and prostitute were far nearer human, nearer moral, than those
+ who pleased God by persecuting their fellows.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The man who thought, and expressed his thoughts, died in a dungeon&mdash;on
+ the scaffold or in flames.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The sincere Christian was insane. His one object was to save his soul. He
+ despised all the pleasures of sense. He believed that his nature was
+ depraved and that his desires were wicked.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ He fasted and prayed&mdash;deserted his wife and children&mdash;inflicted
+ tortures on himself and sought by pain endured to gain the crown. * * *
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="link0058" id="link0058">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ LIFE.
+ </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ * Written for Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske, editor of The New
+ York Dramatic Mirror, December 18,1886.
+</pre>
+ <p>
+ BORN of love and hope, of ecstasy and pain, of agony and fear, of tears
+ and joy&mdash;dowered with the wealth of two united hearts&mdash;held in
+ happy arms, with lips upon life's drifted font, blue-veined and fair,
+ where perfect peace finds perfect form&mdash;rocked by willing feet and
+ wooed to shadowy shores of sleep by siren mother singing soft and low&mdash;looking
+ with wonder's wide and startled eyes at common things of life and day&mdash;taught
+ by want and wish and contact with the things that touch the dimpled flesh
+ of babes&mdash;lured by light and flame, and charmed by color's wondrous
+ robes&mdash;learning the use of hands and feet, and by the love of mimicry
+ beguiled to utter speech&mdash;releasing prisoned thoughts from crabbed
+ and curious marks on soiled and tattered leaves&mdash;puzzling the brain
+ with crooked numbers and their changing, tangled worth&mdash;and so
+ through years of alternating day and night, until the captive grows
+ familiar with the chains and walls and limitations of a life.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And time runs on in sun and shade, until the one of all the world is wooed
+ and won, and all the lore of love is taught and learned again. Again a
+ home is built with the fair chamber wherein faint dreams, like cool and
+ shadowy vales, divide the billowed hours of love. Again the miracle of a
+ birth&mdash;the pain and joy, the kiss of welcome and the cradle-song
+ drowning the drowsy prattle of a babe.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then the sense of obligation and of wrong&mdash;pity for those who
+ toil and weep&mdash;tears for the imprisoned and despised&mdash;love for
+ the generous dead, and in the heart the rapture of a high resolve.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And then ambition, with its lust of pelf and place and power, longing to
+ put upon its breast distinction's worthless badge. Then keener thoughts of
+ men, and eyes that see behind the smiling mask of craft&mdash;flattered no
+ more by the obsequious cringe of gain and greed&mdash;knowing the
+ uselessness of hoarded gold&mdash;of honor bought from those who charge
+ the usury of self-respect&mdash;of power that only bends a coward's knees
+ and forces from the lips of fear the lies of praise. Knowing at last the
+ unstudied gesture of esteem, the reverent eyes made rich with honest
+ thought, and holding high above all other things&mdash;high as hope's
+ great throbbing star above the darkness of the dead&mdash;the love of wife
+ and child and friend.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Then locks of gray, and growing love of other days and half-remembered
+ things&mdash;then holding withered hands of those who first held his,
+ while over dim and loving eyes death softly presses down the lids of rest.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ And so, locking in marriage vows his children's hands and crossing others
+ on the breasts of peace, with daughters' babes upon his knees, the white
+ hair mingling with the gold, he journeys on from day to day to that
+ horizon where the dusk is waiting for the night.&mdash;At last, sitting by
+ the holy hearth of home as evening's embers change from red to gray, he
+ falls asleep within the arms of her he worshiped and adored, feeling upon
+ his pallid lips love's last and holiest kiss.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <img alt="letter1 (418K)" src="images/letter1.png"
+ height="714" width="952" /><br /> <img alt="lertter2 (445K)"
+ src="images/lertter2.png" height="695" width="920" /> <br /> Fac-simile of
+ the Last Letter written by Ingersoll <br /> <img alt="urn (281K)"
+ src="images/urn.png" height="829" width="506" /> <br /> Urn Containing the
+ Ashes of Ingersoll
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 6em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <big><big><a
+ href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38813/38813-h/38813-h.htm">
+ TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ALL 12 EBOOKS IN THIS SET</a></big></big>
+ </td>
+ <td></td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol.
+12 (of 12), by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+ PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
+ <head>
+ <meta name="generator" content="HTML-Kit Tools HTML Tidy plugin" />
+ <title>
+ The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Contents of the 12 Volumes by Robert G.
+ Ingersoll
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+ body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+ P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+ H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+ hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+ .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+ blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+ .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+ .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+ .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;}
+ div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+ .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+ .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+ .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+ margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+ text-align: right;}
+ pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete
+Contents, by Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents
+ Dresden Edition--Twelve Volumes
+
+Author: Robert G. Ingersoll
+
+Editor: David Widger
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2012 [EBook #38813]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTENTS OF INGERSOLL'S WORKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+ <h1>
+ THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL,
+ </h1>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF THE 12 VOLUMES
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ By Robert G. Ingersoll
+ </h2>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Edited and Compiled by David Widger
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ "The Destroyer Of Weeds, Thistles And Thorns Is A Benefactor,<br /> Whether
+ He Soweth Grain Or Not."
+ </h3>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ 1900
+ </h3>
+ <h4>
+ THE DRESDEN EDITION
+ </h4>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Titlepage (64K)" src="images/Titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Birthplace (64K)" src="images/Birthplace.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Portrait (62K)" src="images/Portrait.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+ <img alt="Frontispiece (64K)" src="images/Frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+ </div>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_1">VOLUME I.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_2">VOLUME II.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_3">VOLUME III.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_4">VOLUME IV.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_5">VOLUME V.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_6">VOLUME VI.</a><br />
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+ <tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_7">VOLUME VII.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_8">VOLUME VIII.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_9">VOLUME IX.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_10">VOLUME X.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_11">VOLUME XI.</a>
+ </td>
+ <td>
+ <a href="#vol_12">VOLUME XII.</a><br />
+ </td>
+ </tr>
+ </tbody>
+ </table>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_1" id="vol_1"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ I.--LECTURES</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0001">
+ PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0002">
+ THE GODS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0003">
+ HUMBOLDT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0004">
+ THOMAS PAINE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0005">
+ INDIVIDUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0006">
+ HERETICS AND HERESIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0007">
+ THE GHOSTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0010">
+ LIBERTY OF WOMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0011">
+ THE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#linkCONC">CONCLUSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0013">
+ ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0014">
+ WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0016">
+ I. WHAT WE MUST DO TO BE SAVED</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0017">
+ II. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0018">
+ III. THE GOSPEL OF MARK</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0019">
+ IV. THE GOSPEL OF LUKE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0020">
+ V. THE GOSPEL OF JOHN</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0021">
+ VI. THE CATHOLICS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0022">
+ VII. THE EPISCOPALIANS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0023">
+ VIII. THE METHODISTS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0024">
+ IX. THE PRESBYTERIANS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0025">
+ X. THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc2">
+ <a href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0026">
+ XI. WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0002">
+ THE GODS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1872.)<br /> An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man&mdash;Resemblance
+ of Gods to<br /> their Creators&mdash;Manufacture and Characteristics of
+ Deities&mdash;Their<br /> Amours&mdash;Deficient in many Departments of
+ Knowledge&mdash;Pleased with the<br /> Butchery of Unbelievers&mdash;A
+ Plentiful Supply&mdash;Visitations&mdash;One God's<br /> Laws of War&mdash;The
+ Book called the Bible&mdash;Heresy of Universalism&mdash;Faith<br /> an
+ unhappy mixture of Insanity and Ignorance&mdash;Fallen Gods, or<br />
+ Devils&mdash;Directions concerning Human Slavery&mdash;The first
+ Appearance of<br /> the Devil&mdash;The Tree of Knowledge&mdash;Give me
+ the Storm and Tempest of<br /> Thought&mdash;Gods and Devils Natural
+ Productions&mdash;Personal Appearance<br /> of Deities&mdash;All Man's
+ Ideas suggested by his Surroundings&mdash;Phenomena<br /> Supposed to be
+ Produced by Intelligent Powers&mdash;Insanity and Disease<br />
+ attributed to Evil Spirits&mdash;Origin of the Priesthood&mdash;Temptation
+ of<br /> Christ&mdash;Innate Ideas&mdash;Divine Interference&mdash;Special
+ Providence&mdash;The<br /> Crane and the Fish&mdash;Cancer as a proof of
+ Design&mdash;Matter and<br /> Force&mdash;Miracle&mdash;Passing the Hat
+ for just one Fact&mdash;Sir William Hamilton<br /> on Cause and Effect&mdash;The
+ Phenomena of Mind&mdash;Necessity and Free Will&mdash;The<br /> Dark Ages&mdash;The
+ Originality of Repetition&mdash;Of what Use have the Gods been<br /> to
+ Man?&mdash;Paley and Design&mdash;Make Good Health Contagious&mdash;Periodicity
+ of<br /> the Universe and the Commencement of Intellectual Freedom&mdash;Lesson
+ of<br /> the ineffectual attempt to rescue the Tomb of Christ from the<br />
+ Mohammedans&mdash;The Cemetery of the Gods&mdash;Taking away Crutches&mdash;Imperial<br />
+ Reason<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0003">
+ HUMBOLDT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1869.)<br /> The Universe is Governed by Law&mdash;The Self-made Man&mdash;Poverty
+ generally<br /> an Advantage&mdash;Humboldt's Birth-place&mdash;His
+ desire for Travel&mdash;On what<br /> Humboldt's Fame depends&mdash;His
+ Companions and Friends&mdash;Investigations<br /> in the New World&mdash;A
+ Picture&mdash;Subjects of his Addresses&mdash;Victory of the<br /> Church
+ over Philosophy&mdash;Influence of the discovery that the World is<br />
+ governed by Law&mdash;On the term Law&mdash;Copernicus&mdash;Astronomy&mdash;Aryabhatta&mdash;<br />
+ Descartes&mdash;Condition of the World and Man when the morning of
+ Science<br /> Dawned&mdash;Reasons for Honoring Humboldt&mdash;The World
+ his Monument<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0004">
+ THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1870.)<br /> With his Name left out the History of Liberty cannot be
+ Written&mdash;Paine's<br /> Origin and Condition&mdash;His arrival in
+ America with a Letter of<br /> Introduction by Franklin&mdash;Condition
+ of the Colonies&mdash;"Common Sense"&mdash;A<br /> new Nation Born&mdash;Paine
+ the Best of Political Writers&mdash;The "Crisis"&mdash;War<br /> not to
+ the Interest of a trading Nation&mdash;Paine's Standing at the Close<br />
+ of the Revolution&mdash;Close of the Eighteenth Century in France-The<br />
+ "Rights of Man"&mdash;Paine Prosecuted in England&mdash;"The World is my<br />
+ Country"&mdash;Elected to the French Assembly&mdash;Votes against the
+ Death of<br /> the King&mdash;Imprisoned&mdash;A look behind the Altar&mdash;The
+ "Age of Reason"&mdash;His<br /> Argument against the Bible as a
+ Revelation&mdash;Christianity of Paine's<br /> Day&mdash;A Blasphemy Law
+ in Force in Maryland&mdash;The Scotch "Kirk"&mdash;Hanging<br /> of
+ Thomas Aikenhead for Denying the Inspiration of the<br /> Scriptures&mdash;"Cathedrals
+ and Domes, and Chimes and Chants"&mdash;Science&mdash;"He<br /> Died in
+ the Land his Genius Defended,"<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0005">
+ INDIVIDUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1873.)<br /> "His Soul was like a Star and Dwelt Apart"&mdash;Disobedience
+ one of the<br /> Conditions of Progress.&mdash;Magellan&mdash;The Monarch
+ and the Hermit-Why<br /> the Church hates a Thinker&mdash;The Argument
+ from Grandeur and<br /> Prosperity-Travelers and Guide-boards&mdash;A
+ Degrading Saying&mdash;Theological<br /> Education&mdash;Scotts, Henrys
+ and McKnights&mdash;The Church the Great<br /> Robber&mdash;Corrupting
+ the Reason of Children&mdash;Monotony of Acquiescence: For<br /> God's
+ sake, say No&mdash;Protestant Intolerance: Luther and Calvin&mdash;Assertion<br />
+ of Individual Independence a Step toward Infidelity&mdash;Salute to<br />
+ Jupiter&mdash;The Atheistic Bug-Little Religious Liberty in America&mdash;God
+ in<br /> the Constitution, Man Out&mdash;Decision of the Supreme Court of
+ Illinois<br /> that an Unbeliever could not testify in any Court&mdash;Dissimulation&mdash;Nobody<br />
+ in this Bed&mdash;The Dignity of a Unit<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0006">
+ HERETICS AND HERESIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1874.)<br /> Liberty, a Word without which all other Words are Vain&mdash;The
+ Church, the<br /> Bible, and Persecution&mdash;Over the wild Waves of War
+ rose and fell<br /> the Banner of Jesus Christ&mdash;Highest Type of the
+ Orthodox<br /> Christian&mdash;Heretics' Tongues and why they should be
+ Removed before<br /> Burning&mdash;The Inquisition Established&mdash;Forms
+ of Torture&mdash;Act of Henry<br /> VIII for abolishing Diversity of
+ Opinion&mdash;What a Good Christian was<br /> Obliged to Believe&mdash;The
+ Church has Carried the Black Flag&mdash;For what Men<br /> and Women have
+ been Burned&mdash;John Calvin's Advent into the<br /> World&mdash;His
+ Infamous Acts&mdash;Michael Servetus&mdash;Castalio&mdash;Spread of<br />
+ Presbyterianism&mdash;Indictment of a Presbyterian Minister in Illinois
+ for<br /> Heresy&mdash;Specifications&mdash;The Real Bible<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0007">
+ THE GHOSTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1877.)<br /> Dedication to Ebon C. Ingersoll&mdash;Preface&mdash;Mendacity
+ of the Religious<br /> Press&mdash;"Materialism"&mdash;Ways of Pleasing
+ the Ghosts&mdash;The Idea of<br /> Immortality not Born of any Book&mdash;Witchcraft
+ and Demon-ology&mdash;Witch<br /> Trial before Sir Matthew Hale&mdash;John
+ Wesley a Firm Believer in<br /> Ghosts&mdash;"Witch-spots"&mdash;Lycanthropy&mdash;Animals
+ Tried and Convicted&mdash;The<br /> Governor of Minnesota and the
+ Grasshoppers&mdash;A Papal Bull against<br /> Witchcraft&mdash;Victims of
+ the Delusion&mdash;Sir William Blackstone's<br /> Affirmation&mdash;Trials
+ in Belgium&mdash;Incubi and Succubi&mdash;A Bishop<br /> Personated by
+ the Devil&mdash;The Doctrine that Diseases are caused by<br /> Ghosts&mdash;Treatment&mdash;Timothy
+ Dwight against Vaccination&mdash;Ghosts as<br /> Historians&mdash;The
+ Language of Eden&mdash;Leibnitz, Founder of the Science<br /> of Language&mdash;Cosmas
+ on Astronomy&mdash;Vagaries of Kepler and Tycho<br /> Brahe&mdash;Discovery
+ of Printing, Powder, and America&mdash;Thanks to the<br /> Inventors&mdash;The
+ Catholic Murderer and the Meat&mdash;Let the Ghosts Go<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1877.)<br /> Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does
+ to<br /> Matter&mdash;The History of Man a History of Slavery&mdash;The
+ Infidel Our<br /> Fathers in the good old Time&mdash;The iron Arguments
+ that Christians<br /> Used&mdash;Instruments of Torture&mdash;A Vision of
+ the Inquisition&mdash;Models of<br /> Man's Inventions&mdash;Weapons,
+ Armor, Musical Instruments, Paintings,<br /> Books, Skulls&mdash;The
+ Gentleman in the Dug-out&mdash;Homage to Genius and<br /> Intellect&mdash;Abraham
+ Lincoln&mdash;What I mean by Liberty&mdash;The Man who cannot<br />
+ afford to Speak his Thought is a Certificate of the Meanness of the<br />
+ Community in which he Resides&mdash;Liberty of Woman&mdash;Marriage and
+ the<br /> Family&mdash;Ornaments the Souvenirs of Bondage-The Story of
+ the Garden of<br /> Eden&mdash;Adami and Heva&mdash;Equality of the
+ Sexes-The word "Boss"&mdash;The Cross<br /> Man-The Stingy Man&mdash;Wives
+ who are Beggars&mdash;How to Spend Money&mdash;By<br /> the Tomb of the
+ Old Napoleon&mdash;The Woman you Love will never Grow<br /> Old&mdash;Liberty
+ of Children&mdash;When your Child tells a Lie&mdash;Disowning<br />
+ Children&mdash;Beating your own Flesh and Blood&mdash;Make Home Pleasant&mdash;Sunday<br />
+ when I was a Boy&mdash;The Laugh of a Child&mdash;The doctrine of
+ Eternal<br /> Punishment&mdash;Jonathan Edwards on the Happiness of
+ Believing Husbands<br /> whose Wives are in Hell&mdash;The Liberty of
+ Eating and Sleeping&mdash;Water in<br /> Fever&mdash;Soil and Climate
+ necessary to the production of Genius&mdash;Against<br /> Annexing Santo
+ Domingo&mdash;Descent of Man&mdash;Conclusion<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0013">
+ ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1877.)<br /> To Plow is to Pray; to Plant is to Prophesy, and the
+ Harvest Answers and<br /> Fulfills&mdash;The Old Way of Farming&mdash;Cooking
+ an Unknown Art-Houses, Fuel,<br /> and Crops&mdash;The Farmer's Boy&mdash;What
+ a Farmer should Sell&mdash;Beautifying<br /> the Home&mdash;Advantages of
+ Illinois as a Farming State&mdash;Advantages of the<br /> Farmer over the
+ Mechanic&mdash;Farm Life too Lonely-On Early Rising&mdash;Sleep<br /> the
+ Best Doctor&mdash;Fashion&mdash;Patriotism and Boarding Houses&mdash;The
+ Farmer and<br /> the Railroads&mdash;Money and Confidence&mdash;Demonetization
+ of Silver-Area of<br /> Illinois&mdash;Mortgages and Interest&mdash;Kindness
+ to Wives and Children&mdash;How<br /> a Beefsteak should be Cooked&mdash;Decorations
+ and Comfort&mdash;Let the Children<br /> Sleep&mdash;Old Age<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38801-h/38801-h.htm#link0014">
+ WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1880.)<br /> Preface&mdash;The Synoptic Gospels&mdash;Only Mark Knew of
+ the Necessity of<br /> Belief&mdash;Three Christs Described&mdash;The
+ Jewish Gentleman and the Piece of<br /> Bacon&mdash;Who Wrote the New
+ Testament?&mdash;Why Christ and the Apostles wrote<br /> Nothing&mdash;Infinite
+ Respect for the Man Christ&mdash;Different Feeling for<br /> the
+ Theological Christ&mdash;Saved from What?&mdash;Chapter on the Gospel of<br />
+ Matthew&mdash;What this Gospel says we must do to be Saved&mdash;Jesus
+ and the<br /> Children&mdash;John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards conceived
+ of as Dimpled<br /> Darlings&mdash;Christ and the Man who inquired what
+ Good Thing he should<br /> do that he might have Eternal Life&mdash;Nothing
+ said about Belief&mdash;An<br /> Interpolation&mdash;Chapter on the
+ Gospel of Mark&mdash;The Believe or be Damned<br /> Passage, and why it
+ was written&mdash;The last Conversation of Christ with<br /> his
+ Disciples&mdash;The Signs that Follow them that Believe&mdash;Chapter on<br />
+ the Gospel of Luke&mdash;Substantial Agreement with Matthew and Mark&mdash;How<br />
+ Zaccheus achieved Salvation&mdash;The two Thieves on the Cross&mdash;Chapter<br />
+ on the Gospel of John&mdash;The Doctrine of Regeneration, or the New<br />
+ Birth&mdash;Shall we Love our Enemies while God Damns His?&mdash;Chapter
+ on the<br /> Catholics&mdash;Communication with Heaven through Decayed
+ Saints&mdash;Nuns and<br /> Nunneries&mdash;Penitentiaries of God should
+ be Investigated&mdash;The<br /> Athanasian Creed expounded&mdash;The
+ Trinity and its Members&mdash;Chapter on the<br /> Episcopalians&mdash;Origin
+ of the Episcopal Church&mdash;Apostolic Succession<br /> an Imported
+ Article&mdash;Episcopal Creed like the Catholic, with a<br /> few
+ Additional Absurdities&mdash;Chapter on the Methodists&mdash;Wesley and<br />
+ Whitfield&mdash;Their Quarrel about Predestination&mdash;Much Preaching
+ for Little<br /> Money&mdash;Adapted to New Countries&mdash;Chapter on
+ the Presbyterians&mdash;John<br /> Calvin, Murderer&mdash;Meeting between
+ Calvin and Knox&mdash;The Infamy of<br /> Calvinism&mdash;Division in the
+ Church&mdash;The Young Presbyterian's Resignation<br /> to the Fate of
+ his Mother&mdash;A Frightful, Hideous, and Hellish<br /> Creed&mdash;Chapter
+ on the Evangelical Alliance&mdash;Jeremy Taylor's Opinion of<br />
+ Baptists&mdash;Orthodoxy not Dead&mdash;Creed of the Alliance&mdash;Total
+ Depravity,<br /> Eternal Damnation&mdash;What do You Propose?&mdash;The
+ Gospel of Good-fellowship,<br /> Cheerfulness, Health, Good Living,
+ Justice&mdash;No Forgiveness&mdash;God's<br /> Forgiveness Does not Pay
+ my Debt to Smith&mdash;Gospel of Liberty, of<br /> Intelligence, of
+ Humanity&mdash;One World at a Time&mdash;"Upon that Rock I<br /> Stand"<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_2" id="vol_2"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ II.--LECTURES</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#linkPREF">PREFACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0002">
+ SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0003">
+ SOME REASONS WHY</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0004">
+ ORTHODOXY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0005">
+ MYTH AND MIRACLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC_">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0002">
+ SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1879.)<br /> Preface&mdash;I. He who endeavors to control the Mind
+ by Force is a<br /> Tyrant, and he who submits is a Slave&mdash;All I Ask&mdash;When
+ a Religion<br /> is Founded&mdash;Freedom for the Orthodox Clergy&mdash;Every
+ Minister an<br /> Attorney&mdash;Submission to the Orthodox and the Dead&mdash;Bounden
+ Duty of<br /> the Ministry&mdash;The Minister Factory at Andover&mdash;II.
+ Free Schools&mdash;No<br /> Sectarian Sciences&mdash;Religion and the
+ Schools&mdash;Scientific<br /> Hypocrites&mdash;III. The Politicians and
+ the Churches&mdash;IV. Man and Woman the<br /> Highest Possible Titles&mdash;Belief
+ Dependent on Surroundings&mdash;Worship of<br /> Ancestors&mdash;Blindness
+ Necessary to Keeping the Narrow Path&mdash;The Bible the<br /> Chain that
+ Binds&mdash;A Bible of the Middle Ages and the Awe it Inspired&mdash;V.<br />
+ The Pentateuch&mdash;Moses Not the Author&mdash;Belief out of which Grew<br />
+ Religious Ceremonies&mdash;Egypt the Source of the Information of Moses&mdash;VI.<br />
+ Monday&mdash;Nothing, in the Light of Raw Material&mdash;The Story of
+ Creation<br /> Begun&mdash;The Same Story, substantially, Found in the
+ Records of Babylon,<br /> Egypt, and India&mdash;Inspiration Unnecessary
+ to the Truth&mdash;Usefulness of<br /> Miracles to Fit Lies to Facts&mdash;Division
+ of Darkness and Light&mdash;VII.<br /> Tuesday&mdash;The Firmament and
+ Some Biblical Notions about it&mdash;Laws of<br /> Evaporation Unknown to
+ the Inspired Writer&mdash;VIII. Wednesday&mdash;The Waters<br /> Gathered
+ into Seas&mdash;Fruit and Nothing to Eat it&mdash;Five Epochs in the<br />
+ Organic History of the Earth&mdash;Balance between the Total Amounts of<br />
+ Animal and Vegetable Life&mdash;Vegetation Prior to the Appearance of
+ the<br /> Sun&mdash;IX. Thursday&mdash;Sun and Moon Manufactured&mdash;Magnitude
+ of the Solar<br /> Orb&mdash;Dimensions of Some of the Planets&mdash;Moses'
+ Guess at the Size of Sun<br /> and Moon&mdash;Joshua's Control of the
+ Heavenly Bodies&mdash;A Hypothesis Urged<br /> by Ministers&mdash;The
+ Theory of "Refraction"&mdash;Rev. Henry Morey&mdash;Astronomical<br />
+ Knowledge of Chinese Savants&mdash;The Motion of the Earth Reversed by<br />
+ Jehovah for the Reassurance of Ahaz&mdash;"Errors" Renounced by Button&mdash;X.<br />
+ "He made the Stars Also"&mdash;Distance of the Nearest Star&mdash;XI.<br />
+ Friday&mdash;Whales and Other Living Creatures Produced&mdash;XII.<br />
+ Saturday&mdash;Reproduction Inaugurated&mdash;XIII. "Let Us Make Man"&mdash;Human<br />
+ Beings Created in the Physical Image and Likeness of God&mdash;Inquiry
+ as<br /> to the Process Adopted&mdash;Development of Living Forms
+ According to<br /> Evolution&mdash;How Were Adam and Eve Created?&mdash;The
+ Rib Story&mdash;Age of<br /> Man Upon the Earth&mdash;A Statue Apparently
+ Made before the World&mdash;XIV.<br /> Sunday&mdash;Sacredness of the
+ Sabbath Destroyed by the Theory of Vast<br /> "Periods"&mdash;Reflections
+ on the Sabbath&mdash;XV. The Necessity for a Good<br /> Memory&mdash;The
+ Two Accounts of the Creation in Genesis I and II&mdash;Order<br /> of
+ Creation in the First Account&mdash;Order of Creation in the Second<br />
+ Account&mdash;Fastidiousness of Adam in the Choice of a Helpmeet&mdash;Dr.<br />
+ Adam Clark's Commentary&mdash;Dr. Scott's Guess&mdash;Dr. Matthew
+ Henry's<br /> Admission&mdash;The Blonde and Brunette Problem&mdash;The
+ Result of Unbelief and<br /> the Reward of Faith&mdash;"Give Him a Harp"&mdash;XVI.
+ The Garden&mdash;Location of<br /> Eden&mdash;The Four Rivers&mdash;The
+ Tree of Knowledge&mdash;Andover Appealed<br /> To&mdash;XVII. The Fall&mdash;The
+ Serpent&mdash;Dr. Adam Clark Gives a Zoological<br /> Explanation&mdash;Dr.
+ Henry Dissents&mdash;Whence This Serpent?&mdash;XVIII.<br /> Dampness&mdash;A
+ Race of Giants&mdash;Wickedness of Mankind&mdash;An Ark Constructed&mdash;A<br />
+ Universal Flood Indicated&mdash;Animals Probably Admitted to the Ark&mdash;How
+ Did<br /> They Get There?&mdash;Problem of Food and Service&mdash;A
+ Shoreless Sea Covered<br /> with Innumerable Dead&mdash;Drs. Clark and
+ Henry on the Situation&mdash;The Ark<br /> Takes Ground&mdash;New
+ Difficulties&mdash;Noah's Sacrifice&mdash;The Rainbow as a<br />
+ Memorandum&mdash;Babylonian, Egyptian, and Indian Legends of a Flood&mdash;XIX.<br />
+ Bacchus and Babel&mdash;Interest Attaching to Noah&mdash;Where Did Our
+ First<br /> Parents and the Serpent Acquire a Common Language?&mdash;Babel
+ and the<br /> Confusion of Tongues&mdash;XX. Faith in Filth&mdash;Immodesty
+ of Biblical<br /> Diction&mdash;XXI. The Hebrews&mdash;God's Promises to
+ Abraham&mdash;The Sojourning<br /> of Israel in Egypt&mdash;Marvelous
+ Increase&mdash;Moses and Aaron&mdash;XXII.<br /> The Plagues&mdash;Competitive
+ Miracle Working&mdash;Defeat of the Local<br /> Magicians&mdash;XXIII.
+ The Flight Out of Egypt&mdash;Three Million People in a<br /> Desert&mdash;Destruction
+ of Pharaoh ana His Host&mdash;Manna&mdash;A Superfluity of<br /> Quails&mdash;Rev.
+ Alexander Cruden's Commentary&mdash;Hornets as Allies of the<br />
+ Israelites&mdash;Durability of the Clothing of the Jewish People&mdash;An
+ Ointment<br /> Monopoly&mdash;Consecration of Priests&mdash;The Crime of
+ Becoming a Mother&mdash;The<br /> Ten Commandments&mdash;Medical Ideas of
+ Jehovah&mdash;Character of the God of<br /> the Pentateuch&mdash;XXIV.
+ Confess and Avoid&mdash;XXV. "Inspired" Slavery&mdash;XXVI.<br />
+ "Inspired" Marriage-XXVII. "Inspired" War-XXVIII. "Inspired" Religious<br />
+ Liberty&mdash;XXIX. Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0003">
+ SOME REASONS WHY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1881.)<br /> I&mdash;Religion makes Enemies&mdash;Hatred in the
+ Name of Universal<br /> Benevolence&mdash;No Respect for the Rights of
+ Barbarians&mdash;Literal<br /> Fulfillment of a New Testament Prophecy&mdash;II.
+ Duties to God&mdash;Can we<br /> Assist God?&mdash;An Infinite
+ Personality an Infinite Impossibility-Ill.<br /> Inspiration&mdash;What
+ it Really Is&mdash;Indication of Clams&mdash;Multitudinous<br /> Laughter
+ of the Sea&mdash;Horace Greeley and the Mammoth Trees&mdash;A Landscape<br />
+ Compared to a Table-cloth&mdash;The Supernatural is the Deformed&mdash;Inspiration<br />
+ in the Man as well as in the Book&mdash;Our Inspired Bible&mdash;IV.
+ God's<br /> Experiment with the Jews&mdash;Miracles of One Religion never
+ astonish the<br /> Priests of Another&mdash;"I am a Liar Myself"&mdash;V.
+ Civilized Countries&mdash;Crimes<br /> once regarded as Divine
+ Institutions&mdash;What the Believer in the<br /> Inspiration of the
+ Bible is Compelled to Say&mdash;Passages apparently<br /> written by the
+ Devil&mdash;VI. A Comparison of Books&mdash;Advancing a Cannibal<br />
+ from Missionary to Mutton&mdash;Contrast between the Utterances of
+ Jehovah<br /> and those of Reputable Heathen&mdash;Epictetus, Cicero,
+ Zeno,<br /> Seneca&mdash;the Hindu, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius&mdash;The
+ Avesta&mdash;VII.<br /> Monotheism&mdash;Egyptians before Moses taught
+ there was but One God<br /> and Married but One Wife&mdash;Persians and
+ Hindoos had a Single Supreme<br /> Deity&mdash;Rights of Roman Women&mdash;Marvels
+ of Art achieved without the<br /> Assistance of Heaven&mdash;Probable
+ Action of the Jewish Jehovah incarnated<br /> as Man&mdash;VIII. The New
+ Testament&mdash;Doctrine of Eternal Pain brought to<br /> Light&mdash;Discrepancies&mdash;Human
+ Weaknesses cannot be Predicated of<br /> Divine Wisdom&mdash;Why there
+ are Four Gospels according to Iren&aelig;us&mdash;The<br /> Atonement&mdash;Remission
+ of Sins under the Mosaic Dispensation&mdash;Christians<br /> say, "Charge
+ it"&mdash;God's Forgiveness does not Repair an Injury&mdash;Suffering<br />
+ of Innocence for the Guilty&mdash;Salvation made Possible by Jehovah's<br />
+ Failure to Civilize the Jews&mdash;Necessity of Belief not taught in the<br />
+ Synoptic Gospels&mdash;Non-resistance the Offspring of Weakness&mdash;IX.
+ Christ's<br /> Mission&mdash;All the Virtues had been Taught before his
+ Advent&mdash;Perfect and<br /> Beautiful Thoughts of his Pagan
+ Predecessors&mdash;St. Paul Contrasted<br /> with Heathen Writers&mdash;"The
+ Quality of Mercy"&mdash;X. Eternal Pain&mdash;An<br /> Illustration of
+ Eternal Punishment&mdash;Captain Kreuger of the Barque<br /> Tiger&mdash;XI.
+ Civilizing Influence of the Bible&mdash;Its Effects on the<br /> Jews&mdash;If
+ Christ was God, Did he not, in his Crucifixion, Reap what<br /> he had
+ Sown?&mdash;Nothing can add to the Misery of a Nation whose King is<br />
+ Jehovah<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0004">
+ ORTHODOXY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1884.)<br /> Orthodox Religion Dying Out&mdash;Religious Deaths
+ and Births&mdash;The Religion<br /> of Reciprocity&mdash;Every Language
+ has a Cemetery&mdash;Orthodox Institutions<br /> Survive through the
+ Money invested in them&mdash;"Let us tell our Real<br /> Names"&mdash;The
+ Blows that have Shattered the Shield and Shivered the Lance<br /> of
+ Superstition&mdash;Mohammed's Successful Defence of the Sepulchre of<br />
+ Christ&mdash;The Destruction of Art&mdash;The Discovery of America&mdash;Although<br />
+ he made it himself, the Holy Ghost was Ignorant of the Form of this<br />
+ Earth&mdash;Copernicus and Kepler&mdash;Special Providence&mdash;The Man
+ and the Ship<br /> he did not Take&mdash;A Thanksgiving Proclamation
+ Contradicted&mdash;Charles<br /> Darwin&mdash;Henry Ward Beecher&mdash;The
+ Creeds&mdash;The Latest Creed&mdash;God as<br /> a Governor&mdash;The
+ Love of God&mdash;The Fall of Man&mdash;We are Bound<br /> by
+ Representatives without a Chance to Vote against Them&mdash;The<br />
+ Atonement&mdash;The Doctrine of Depravity a Libel on the Human Race&mdash;The<br />
+ Second Birth&mdash;A Unitarian Universalist&mdash;Inspiration of the<br />
+ Scriptures&mdash;God a Victim of his own Tyranny&mdash;In the New
+ Testament<br /> Trouble Commences at Death&mdash;The Reign of Truth and
+ Love&mdash;The Old<br /> Spaniard who Died without an Enemy&mdash;The
+ Wars it Brought&mdash;Consolation<br /> should be Denied to Murderers&mdash;At
+ the Rate at which Heathen are being<br /> Converted, how long will it
+ take to Establish Christ's Kingdom on<br /> Earth?&mdash;The Resurrection&mdash;The
+ Judgment Day&mdash;Pious Evasions&mdash;"We shall<br /> not Die, but we
+ shall all be Hanged"&mdash;"No Bible, no Civilization"<br /> Miracles of
+ the New Testament&mdash;Nothing Written by Christ or his<br />
+ Contemporaries&mdash;Genealogy of Jesus&mdash;More Miracles&mdash;A
+ Master of<br /> Death&mdash;Improbable that he would be Crucified&mdash;The
+ Loaves and Fishes&mdash;How<br /> did it happen that the Miracles
+ Convinced so Few?&mdash;The Resurrection&mdash;The<br /> Ascension&mdash;Was
+ the Body Spiritual&mdash;Parting from the Disciples&mdash;Casting<br />
+ out Devils&mdash;Necessity of Belief&mdash;God should be consistent in
+ the<br /> Matter of forgiving Enemies&mdash;Eternal Punishment&mdash;Some
+ Good Men who are<br /> Damned&mdash;Another Objection&mdash;Love the only
+ Bow on Life's dark Cloud&mdash;"Now<br /> is the accepted Time"&mdash;Rather
+ than this Doctrine of Eternal Punishment<br /> Should be True&mdash;I
+ would rather that every Planet should in its Orbit<br /> wheel a barren
+ Star&mdash;What I Believe&mdash;Immortality&mdash;It existed long before<br />
+ Moses&mdash;Consolation&mdash;The Promises are so Far Away, and the Dead
+ are so<br /> Near&mdash;Death a Wall or a Door&mdash;A Fable&mdash;Orpheus
+ and Eurydice.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38802-h/38802-h.htm#link0005">
+ MYTH AND MIRACLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1885.)<br /> I. Happiness the true End and Aim of Life&mdash;Spiritual
+ People and<br /> their Literature&mdash;Shakespeare's Clowns superior to
+ Inspired<br /> Writers&mdash;Beethoven's Sixth Symphony Preferred to the
+ Five Books of<br /> Moses&mdash;Venus of Milo more Pleasing than the
+ Presbyterian Creed&mdash;II.<br /> Religions Naturally Produced&mdash;Poets
+ the Myth-makers&mdash;The Sleeping<br /> Beauty&mdash;Orpheus and
+ Eurydice&mdash;Red Riding Hood&mdash;The Golden Age&mdash;Elysian<br />
+ Fields&mdash;The Flood Myth&mdash;Myths of the Seasons&mdash;III. The
+ Sun-god&mdash;Jonah,<br /> Buddha, Chrisnna, Horus, Zoroaster&mdash;December
+ 25th as a Birthday of<br /> Gods&mdash;Christ a Sun-God&mdash;The Cross a
+ Symbol of the Life to Come&mdash;When<br /> Nature rocked the Cradle of
+ the Infant World&mdash;IV. Difference between<br /> a Myth and a Miracle&mdash;Raising
+ the Dead, Past and Present&mdash;Miracles<br /> of Jehovah&mdash;Miracles
+ of Christ&mdash;Everything Told except the Truth&mdash;The<br /> Mistake
+ of the World&mdash;V. Beginning of Investigation&mdash;The Stars as<br />
+ Witnesses against Superstition&mdash;Martyrdom of Bruno&mdash;Geology&mdash;Steam
+ and<br /> Electricity&mdash;Nature forever the Same&mdash;Persistence of
+ Force&mdash;Cathedral,<br /> Mosque, and Joss House have the same
+ Foundation&mdash;Science the<br /> Providence of Man&mdash;VI. To Soften
+ the Heart of God&mdash;Martyrs&mdash;The God was<br /> Silent&mdash;Credulity
+ a Vice&mdash;Develop the Imagination&mdash;"The Skylark" and<br /> "The
+ Daisy"&mdash;VII. How are we to Civilize the World?&mdash;Put Theology
+ out<br /> of Religion&mdash;Divorce of Church and State&mdash;Secular
+ Education&mdash;Godless<br /> Schools&mdash;VIII. The New Jerusalem&mdash;Knowledge
+ of the Supernatural<br /> possessed by Savages&mdash;Beliefs of Primitive
+ Peoples&mdash;Science is<br /> Modest&mdash;Theology Arrogant&mdash;Torque-mada
+ and Bruno on the Day of<br /> Judgment&mdash;IX. Poison of Superstition
+ in the Mother's Milk&mdash;Ability<br /> of Mistakes to take Care of
+ Themselves&mdash;Longevity of Religious<br /> Lies&mdash;Mother's
+ religion pleaded by the Cannibal&mdash;The Religion of<br /> Freedom&mdash;O
+ Liberty, thou art the God of my Idolatry<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_3" id="vol_3"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ III--LECTURES</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <h3>
+ Contents
+ </h3>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0001">
+ SHAKESPEARE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0002">
+ ROBERT BURNS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0003">
+ ABRAHAM LINCOLN</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0004">
+ VOLTAIRE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0005">
+ LIBERTY IN LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0006">
+ THE GREAT INFIDELS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#linkCONC">CONCLUSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0008">
+ WHICH WAY?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0009">
+ ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC__">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0001">
+ SHAKESPEARE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1891.)<br /> I. The Greatest Genius of our World&mdash;Not of
+ Supernatural Origin or<br /> of Royal Blood&mdash;Illiteracy of his
+ Parents&mdash;Education&mdash;His Father&mdash;His<br /> Mother a Great
+ Woman&mdash;Stratford Unconscious of the Immortal<br /> Child&mdash;Social
+ Position of Shakespeare&mdash;Of his Personal<br /> Peculiarities&mdash;Birth,
+ Marriage, and Death&mdash;What we Know of Him&mdash;No Line<br /> written
+ by him to be Found&mdash;The Absurd Epitaph&mdash;II. Contemporaries<br />
+ by whom he was Mentioned&mdash;III. No direct Mention of any of his<br />
+ Contemporaries in the Plays&mdash;Events and Personages of his Time&mdash;IV.<br />
+ Position of the Actor in Shakespeare's Time&mdash;Fortunately he was Not<br />
+ Educated at Oxford&mdash;An Idealist&mdash;His Indifference to
+ Stage-carpentry<br /> and Plot&mdash;He belonged to All Lands&mdash;Knew
+ the Brain and Heart of Man&mdash;An<br /> Intellectual Spendthrift&mdash;V.
+ The Baconian Theory&mdash;VI. Dramatists before<br /> and during the Time
+ of Shakespeare&mdash;Dramatic Incidents Illustrated in<br /> Passages
+ from "Macbeth" and "Julius C&aelig;sar"&mdash;VII. His Use of the Work
+ of<br /> Others&mdash;The Pontic Sea&mdash;A Passage from "Lear"&mdash;VIII.
+ Extravagance that<br /> touches the Infinite&mdash;The Greatest
+ Compliment&mdash;"Let me not live after<br /> my flame lacks oil"&mdash;Where
+ Pathos almost Touches the Grotesque&mdash;IX.<br /> An Innovator and
+ Iconoclast&mdash;Disregard of the "Unities"&mdash;Nature<br /> Forgets&mdash;Violation
+ of the Classic Model&mdash;X. Types&mdash;The Secret of<br /> Shakespeare&mdash;Characters
+ who Act from Reason and Motive&mdash;What they Say<br /> not the Opinion
+ of Shakespeare&mdash;XI. The Procession that issued from<br />
+ Shakespeare's Brain&mdash;His Great Women&mdash;Lovable Clowns&mdash;His
+ Men&mdash;Talent<br /> and Genius&mdash;XII. The Greatest of all
+ Philosophers&mdash;Master of the<br /> Human Heart&mdash;Love&mdash;XIII.
+ In the Realm of Comparison&mdash;XIV. Definitions:<br /> Suicide, Drama,
+ Death, Memory, the Body, Life, Echo, the<br /> World, Rumor&mdash;The
+ Confidant of Nature&mdash;XV. Humor and<br /> Pathos&mdash;Illustrations&mdash;XVI.
+ Not a Physician, Lawyer, or Botanist&mdash;He was<br /> a Man of
+ Imagination&mdash;He lived the Life of All&mdash;The Imagination had a<br />
+ Stage in Shakespeare's Brain.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0002">
+ ROBERT BURNS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1878.)<br /> Poetry and Poets&mdash;Milton, Dante, Petrarch&mdash;Old-time
+ Poetry in<br /> Scotland&mdash;Influence of Scenery on Literature&mdash;Lives
+ that are<br /> Poems&mdash;Birth of Burns&mdash;Early Life and Education&mdash;Scotland
+ Emerging from<br /> the Gloom of Calvinism&mdash;A Metaphysical Peasantry&mdash;Power
+ of the Scotch<br /> Preacher&mdash;Famous Scotch Names&mdash;John
+ Barleycorn vs. Calvinism&mdash;Why Robert<br /> Burns is Loved&mdash;His
+ Reading&mdash;Made Goddesses of Women&mdash;Poet of Love: His<br />
+ "Vision," "Bonnie Doon," "To Mary in Heaven"&mdash;Poet of Home:<br />
+ "Cotter's Saturday Night," "John Anderson, My Jo"&mdash;Friendship:
+ "Auld<br /> Lang-Syne"&mdash;Scotch Drink: "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut"&mdash;Burns
+ the<br /> Artist: The "Brook," "Tam O'Shanter"&mdash;A Real Democrat: "A
+ man's a man<br /> for a' that"&mdash;His Theology: The Dogma of Eternal
+ Pain, "Morality,"<br /> "Hypocrisy," "Holy Willie's Prayer"&mdash;On the
+ Bible&mdash;A Statement of his<br /> Religion&mdash;Contrasted with
+ Tennyson&mdash;From Cradle to Coffin&mdash;His Last<br /> words&mdash;Lines
+ on the Birth-place of Burns.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0003">
+ ABRAHAM LINCOLN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1894.)<br /> I. Simultaneous Birth of Lincoln and Darwin&mdash;Heroes
+ of Every<br /> Generation&mdash;Slavery&mdash;Principle Sacrificed to
+ Success&mdash;Lincoln's<br /> Childhood&mdash;His first Speech&mdash;A
+ Candidate for the Senate against<br /> Douglass&mdash;II. A Crisis in the
+ Affairs of the Republic&mdash;The South Not<br /> Alone Responsible for
+ Slavery&mdash;Lincoln's Prophetic Words&mdash;Nominated for<br />
+ President and Elected in Spite of his Fitness&mdash;III. Secession and<br />
+ Civil War&mdash;The Thought uppermost in his Mind&mdash;IV. A Crisis in
+ the<br /> North&mdash;Proposition to Purchase the Slaves&mdash;V. The
+ Proclamation of<br /> Emancipation&mdash;His Letter to Horace Greeley&mdash;Waited
+ on by Clergymen&mdash;VI.<br /> Surrounded by Enemies&mdash;Hostile
+ Attitude of Gladstone, Salisbury,<br /> Louis Napoleon, and the Vatican&mdash;VII.
+ Slavery the Perpetual<br /> Stumbling-block&mdash;Confiscation&mdash;VIII.
+ His Letter to a Republican<br /> Meeting in Illinois&mdash;Its Effect&mdash;IX.
+ The Power of His Personality&mdash;The<br /> Embodiment of Mercy&mdash;Use
+ of the Pardoning Power&mdash;X. The Vallandigham<br /> Affair&mdash;The
+ Horace Greeley Incident&mdash;Triumphs of Humor&mdash;XI. Promotion of<br />
+ General Hooker&mdash;A Prophecy and its Fulfillment&mdash;XII.&mdash;States
+ Rights vs.<br /> Territorial Integrity&mdash;XIII. His Military Genius&mdash;The
+ Foremost Man in<br /> all the World: and then the Horror Came&mdash;XIV.
+ Strange Mingling of Mirth<br /> and Tears&mdash;Deformation of Great
+ Historic Characters&mdash;Washington now<br /> only a Steel Engraving&mdash;Lincoln
+ not a Type&mdash;Virtues Necessary in a<br /> New Country&mdash;Laws of
+ Cultivated Society&mdash;In the Country is the Idea<br /> of Home&mdash;Lincoln
+ always a Pupil&mdash;A Great Lawyer&mdash;Many-sided&mdash;Wit and<br />
+ Humor&mdash;As an Orator&mdash;His Speech at Gettysburg contrasted with
+ the<br /> Oration of Edward Everett&mdash;Apologetic in his Kindness&mdash;No
+ Official<br /> Robes&mdash;The gentlest Memory of our World.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0004">
+ VOLTAIRE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1894.)<br /> I. Changes wrought by Time&mdash;Throne and Altar
+ Twin Vultures&mdash;The King and<br /> the Priest&mdash;What is
+ Greatness?&mdash;Effect of Voltaire's Name on Clergyman<br /> and Priest&mdash;Born
+ and Baptized&mdash;State of France in 1694&mdash;The Church<br /> at the
+ Head&mdash;Efficacy of Prayers and Dead Saints&mdash;Bells and Holy<br />
+ Water&mdash;Prevalence of Belief in Witches, Devils, and Fiends&mdash;Seeds
+ of<br /> the Revolution Scattered by Noble and Priest&mdash;Condition in
+ England&mdash;The<br /> Inquisition in full Control in Spain&mdash;Portugal
+ and Germany burning<br /> Women&mdash;Italy Prostrate beneath the
+ Priests, the Puritans in America<br /> persecuting Quakers, and stealing
+ Children&mdash;II. The Days of Youth&mdash;His<br /> Education&mdash;Chooses
+ Literature as a Profession and becomes a Diplomat&mdash;In<br /> Love and
+ Disinherited&mdash;Unsuccessful Poem Competition&mdash;Jansenists<br />
+ and Molinists&mdash;The Bull Unigenitus&mdash;Exiled to Tulle&mdash;Sent
+ to the<br /> Bastile&mdash;Exiled to England&mdash;Acquaintances made
+ there&mdash;III. The Morn<br /> of Manhood&mdash;His Attention turned to
+ the History of the Church&mdash;The<br /> "Triumphant Beast" Attacked&mdash;Europe
+ Filled with the Product of his<br /> Brain&mdash;What he Mocked&mdash;The
+ Weapon of Ridicule&mdash;His Theology&mdash;His<br /> "Retractions"&mdash;What
+ Goethe said of Voltaire&mdash;IV. The Scheme of<br /> Nature&mdash;His
+ belief in the Optimism of Pope Destroyed by the Lisbon<br /> Earthquake&mdash;V.
+ His Humanity&mdash;Case of Jean Calas&mdash;The Sirven Family&mdash;The<br />
+ Espenasse Case&mdash;Case of Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde&mdash;Voltaire<br />
+ Abandons France&mdash;A Friend of Education&mdash;An Abolitionist&mdash;Not<br />
+ a Saint&mdash;VI. The Return&mdash;His Reception&mdash;His Death&mdash;Burial
+ at<br /> Romilli-on-the-Seine&mdash;VII. The Death-bed Argument&mdash;Serene
+ Demise of<br /> the Infamous&mdash;God has no Time to defend the Good and
+ protect the<br /> Pure&mdash;Eloquence of the Clergy on the Death-bed
+ Subject&mdash;The<br /> Second Return&mdash;Throned upon the Bastile&mdash;The
+ Grave Desecrated by<br /> Priests&mdash;Voltaire.<br /> A Testimonial to
+ Walt Whitman&mdash;Let us put Wreaths on the Brows of the<br /> Living&mdash;Literary
+ Ideals of the American People in 1855&mdash;"Leaves of<br /> Grass"&mdash;Its
+ reception by the Provincial Prudes&mdash;The Religion of the<br /> Body&mdash;Appeal
+ to Manhood and Womanhood&mdash;Books written for the<br /> Market&mdash;The
+ Index Expurgatorius&mdash;Whitman a believer in<br /> Democracy&mdash;Individuality&mdash;Humanity&mdash;An
+ Old-time Sea-fight&mdash;What is<br /> Poetry?&mdash;Rhyme a Hindrance to
+ Expression&mdash;Rhythm the Comrade of<br /> the Poetic&mdash;Whitman's
+ Attitude toward Religion&mdash;Philosophy&mdash;The Two<br /> Poems&mdash;"A
+ Word Out of the Sea"&mdash;"When Lilacs Last in the Door"&mdash;"A Chant<br />
+ for Death"&mdash;<br /> The History of Intellectual Progress is written
+ in the Lives of<br /> Infidels&mdash;The King and the Priest&mdash;The
+ Origin of God and Heaven, of<br /> the Devil and Hell&mdash;The Idea of
+ Hell born of Ignorance, Brutality,<br /> Cowardice, and Revenge&mdash;The
+ Limitations of our Ancestors&mdash;The Devil<br /> and God&mdash;Egotism
+ of Barbarians&mdash;The Doctrine of Hell not an Exclusive<br />
+ Possession of Christianity&mdash;The Appeal to the Cemetery&mdash;Religion
+ and<br /> Wealth, Christ and Poverty&mdash;The "Great" not on the Side of
+ Christ and<br /> his Disciples&mdash;Epitaphs as Battle-cries&mdash;Some
+ Great Men in favor of<br /> almost every Sect&mdash;Mistakes and
+ Superstitions of Eminent Men&mdash;Sacred<br /> Books&mdash;The Claim
+ that all Moral Laws came from God through<br /> the Jews&mdash;Fear&mdash;Martyrdom&mdash;God's
+ Ways toward Men&mdash;The Emperor<br /> Constantine&mdash;The Death Test&mdash;Theological
+ Comity between Protestants and<br /> Catholics&mdash;Julian&mdash;A
+ childish Fable still Believed&mdash;Bruno&mdash;His Crime,<br /> his
+ Imprisonment and<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0005">
+ LIBERTY IN LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1890.)<br /> "Old Age"&mdash;"Leaves of Grass"<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0006">
+ THE GREAT INFIDELS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1881.)<br /> Martyrdom&mdash;The First to die for Truth without
+ Expectation of Reward&mdash;The<br /> Church in the Time of Voltaire&mdash;Voltaire&mdash;Diderot&mdash;David
+ Hume&mdash;Benedict<br /> Spinoza&mdash;Our Infidels&mdash;Thomas Paine&mdash;Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0008">
+ WHICH WAY?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1884.)<br /> I. The Natural and the Supernatural&mdash;Living for
+ the Benefit of<br /> your Fellow-Man and Living for Ghosts&mdash;The
+ Beginning of Doubt&mdash;Two<br /> Philosophies of Life&mdash;Two
+ Theories of Government&mdash;II. Is our God<br /> superior to the Gods of
+ the Heathen?&mdash;What our God has done&mdash;III. Two<br /> Theories
+ about the Cause and Cure of Disease&mdash;The First Physician&mdash;The<br />
+ Bones of St. Anne Exhibited in New York&mdash;Archbishop Corrigan and<br />
+ Cardinal Gibbons Countenance a Theological Fraud&mdash;A Japanese Story&mdash;The<br />
+ Monk and the Miraculous Cures performed by the Bones of a Donkey<br />
+ represented as those of a Saint&mdash;IV.&mdash;Two Ways of accounting
+ for Sacred<br /> Books and Religions&mdash;V-Two Theories about Morals&mdash;Nothing
+ Miraculous<br /> about Morality&mdash;The Test of all Actions&mdash;VI.
+ Search for the<br /> Impossible&mdash;Alchemy&mdash;"Perpetual Motion"&mdash;Astrology&mdash;Fountain
+ of Perpetual<br /> Youth&mdash;VII. "Great Men" and the Superstitions in
+ which they have<br /> Believed&mdash;VIII. Follies and Imbecilities of
+ Great Men&mdash;We do not know<br /> what they Thought, only what they
+ Said&mdash;Names of Great Unbelievers&mdash;Most<br /> Men Controlled by
+ their Surroundings&mdash;IX. Living for God in Switzerland,<br />
+ Scotland, New England&mdash;In the Dark Ages&mdash;Let us Live for Man&mdash;X.
+ The<br /> Narrow Road of Superstition&mdash;The Wide and Ample Way&mdash;Let
+ us Squeeze the<br /> Orange Dry&mdash;This Was, This Is, This Shall Be.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38803-h/38803-h.htm#link0009">
+ ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1894.)<br /> The Truth about the Bible Ought to be Told&mdash;I. The
+ Origin of the<br /> Bible&mdash;Establishment of the Mosaic Code&mdash;Moses
+ not the Author of the<br /> Pentateuch&mdash;Some Old Testament Books of
+ Unknown Origin&mdash;II. Is the Old<br /> Testament Inspired?&mdash;What
+ an Inspired Book Ought to Be&mdash;What the Bible<br /> Is&mdash;Admission
+ of Orthodox Christians that it is not Inspired as to<br /> Science&mdash;The
+ Enemy of Art&mdash;III. The Ten Commandments&mdash;Omissions and<br />
+ Redundancies&mdash;The Story of Achan&mdash;The Story of Elisha&mdash;The
+ Story of<br /> Daniel&mdash;The Story of Joseph&mdash;IV. What is it all
+ Worth?&mdash;Not True, and<br /> Contradictory&mdash;Its Myths Older than
+ the Pentateuch&mdash;Other Accounts<br /> of the Creation, the Fall, etc.&mdash;Books
+ of the Old Testament Named<br /> and Characterized&mdash;V. Was Jehovah a
+ God of Love?&mdash;VI. Jehovah's<br /> Administration&mdash;VII. The New
+ Testament&mdash;Many Other Gospels besides<br /> our Four&mdash;Disagreements&mdash;Belief
+ in Devils&mdash;Raising of the Dead&mdash;Other<br /> Miracles&mdash;Would
+ a real Miracle-worker have been Crucified?&mdash;VIII.<br /> The
+ Philosophy of Christ&mdash;Love of<br /> Enemies&mdash;Improvidence&mdash;Self-Mutilation&mdash;The
+ Earth as a<br /> Footstool&mdash;Justice&mdash;A Bringer of War&mdash;Division
+ of Families&mdash;IX. Is Christ<br /> our Example?&mdash;X. Why should we
+ place Christ at the Top and Summit of the<br /> Human Race?&mdash;How did
+ he surpass Other Teachers?&mdash;What he left Unsaid,<br /> and Why&mdash;Inspiration&mdash;Rejected
+ Books of the New Testament&mdash;The Bible and<br /> the Crimes it has
+ Caused.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_4" id="vol_4"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ IV.--LECTURES</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0001">
+ WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0002">
+ THE TRUTH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0004">
+ HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0005">
+ A THANKSGIVING SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0006">
+ A LAY SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0007">
+ THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0008">
+ SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE DEVIL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0010">
+ PROGRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0012">
+ WHAT IS RELIGION?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC___">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0001">
+ WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1896.)<br /> I. Influence of Birth in determining Religious Belief&mdash;Scotch,
+ Irish,<br /> English, and Americans Inherit their Faith&mdash;Religions
+ of Nations<br /> not Suddenly Changed&mdash;People who Knew&mdash;What
+ they were Certain<br /> About&mdash;Revivals&mdash;Character of Sermons
+ Preached&mdash;Effect of Conversion&mdash;A<br /> Vermont Farmer for whom
+ Perdition had no Terrors&mdash;The Man and his<br /> Dog&mdash;Backsliding
+ and Re-birth&mdash;Ministers who were Sincere&mdash;A Free Will<br />
+ Baptist on the Rich Man and Lazarus&mdash;II. The Orthodox God&mdash;The<br />
+ Two Dispensations&mdash;The Infinite Horror&mdash;III. Religious Books&mdash;The<br />
+ Commentators&mdash;Paley's Watch Argument&mdash;Milton, Young, and
+ Pollok&mdash;IV.<br /> Studying Astronomy&mdash;Geology&mdash;Denial and
+ Evasion by the Clergy&mdash;V. The<br /> Poems of Robert Burns&mdash;Byron,
+ Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare&mdash;VI.<br /> Volney, Gibbon, and
+ Thomas Paine&mdash;Voltaire's Services to Liberty&mdash;Pagans<br />
+ Compared with Patriarchs&mdash;VII. Other Gods and Other Religions&mdash;Dogmas,<br />
+ Myths, and Symbols of Christianity Older than our Era&mdash;VIII. The
+ Men<br /> of Science, Humboldt, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel&mdash;IX.
+ Matter and<br /> Force Indestructible and Uncreatable&mdash;The Theory of
+ Design&mdash;X. God an<br /> Impossible Being&mdash;The Panorama of the
+ Past&mdash;XI. Free from Sanctified<br /> Mistakes and Holy Lies.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0002">
+ THE TRUTH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1897.)<br /> I. The Martyrdom of Man&mdash;How is Truth to be
+ Found&mdash;Every Man should be<br /> Mentally Honest&mdash;He should be
+ Intellectually Hospitable&mdash;Geologists,<br /> Chemists, Mechanics,
+ and Professional Men are Seeking for the Truth&mdash;II.<br /> Those who
+ say that Slavery is Better than Liberty&mdash;Promises are not<br />
+ Evidence&mdash;Horace Greeley and the Cold Stove&mdash;III. "The Science
+ of<br /> Theology" the only Dishonest Science&mdash;Moses and Brigham
+ Young&mdash;Minds<br /> Poisoned and Paralyzed in Youth&mdash;Sunday
+ Schools and Theological<br /> Seminaries&mdash;Orthodox Slanderers of
+ Scientists&mdash;Religion has nothing<br /> to do with Charity&mdash;Hospitals
+ Built in Self-Defence&mdash;What Good has the<br /> Church Accomplished?&mdash;Of
+ what use are the Orthodox Ministers, and<br /> What are they doing for
+ the Good of Mankind&mdash;The Harm they are<br /> Doing&mdash;Delusions
+ they Teach&mdash;Truths they Should Tell about the<br /> Bible&mdash;Conclusions&mdash;Our
+ Christs and our Miracles.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0004">
+ HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1896.)<br /> I. "There is no Darkness but Ignorance"&mdash;False
+ Notions Concerning<br /> All Departments of Life&mdash;Changed Ideas
+ about Science, Government and<br /> Morals&mdash;II. How can we Reform
+ the World?&mdash;Intellectual Light the First<br /> Necessity&mdash;Avoid
+ Waste of Wealth in War&mdash;III. Another Waste&mdash;Vast Amount<br />
+ of Money Spent on the Church&mdash;IV. Plow can we Lessen Crime?&mdash;Frightful<br />
+ Laws for the Punishment of Minor Crimes&mdash;A Penitentiary should be a<br />
+ School&mdash;Professional Criminals should not be Allowed to Populate
+ the<br /> Earth&mdash;V. Homes for All-Make a Nation of Householders&mdash;Marriage<br />
+ and Divorce-VI. The Labor Question&mdash;Employers cannot Govern<br />
+ Prices&mdash;Railroads should Pay Pensions&mdash;What has been
+ Accomplished<br /> for the Improvement of the Condition of Labor&mdash;VII.
+ Educate the<br /> Children&mdash;Useless Knowledge&mdash;Liberty cannot
+ be Sacrificed for the Sake<br /> of Anything&mdash;False worship of
+ Wealth&mdash;VIII. We must Work and Wait.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0005">
+ A THANKSGIVING SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1897.)<br /> I. Our fathers Ages Ago&mdash;From Savagery to
+ Civilization&mdash;For the<br /> Blessings we enjoy, Whom should we
+ Thank?&mdash;What Good has the Church<br /> Done?-Did Christ add to the
+ Sum of Useful Knowledge&mdash;The Saints&mdash;What<br /> have the
+ Councils and Synods Done?&mdash;What they Gave us, and What they<br />
+ did Not&mdash;Shall we Thank them for the Hell Here and for the Hell of<br />
+ the Future?&mdash;II. What Does God Do?&mdash;The Infinite Juggler and
+ his<br /> Puppets&mdash;What the Puppets have Done&mdash;Shall we Thank
+ these<br /> Gods?&mdash;Shall we Thank Nature?&mdash;III. Men who deserve
+ our Thanks&mdash;The<br /> Infidels, Philanthropists and Scientists&mdash;The
+ Discoverers and<br /> Inventors&mdash;Magellan&mdash;Copernicus&mdash;Bruno&mdash;Galileo&mdash;Kepler,
+ Herschel,<br /> Newton, and LaPlace&mdash;Lyell&mdash;What the Worldly
+ have Done&mdash;Origin and<br /> Vicissitudes of the Bible&mdash;The
+ Septuagint&mdash;Investigating the Phenomena<br /> of Nature&mdash;IV. We
+ thank the Good Men and Good Women of the Past&mdash;The<br /> Poets,
+ Dramatists, and Artists&mdash;The Statesmen&mdash;Paine, Jefferson,<br />
+ Ericsson, Lincoln. Grant&mdash;Voltaire, Humboldt, Darwin.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0006">
+ A LAY SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1886.)<br /> Prayer of King Lear&mdash;When Honesty wears a Rag
+ and Rascality a Robe-The<br /> Nonsense of "Free Moral Agency "&mdash;Doing
+ Right is not Self-denial-Wealth<br /> often a Gilded Hell&mdash;The Log
+ House&mdash;Insanity of Getting<br /> More&mdash;Great Wealth the Mother
+ of Crime&mdash;Separation of Rich and<br /> Poor&mdash;Emulation&mdash;Invention
+ of Machines to Save Labor&mdash;Production and<br /> Destitution&mdash;The
+ Remedy a Division of the Land&mdash;Evils of Tenement<br /> Houses&mdash;Ownership
+ and Use&mdash;The Great Weapon is the Ballot&mdash;Sewing<br /> Women&mdash;Strikes
+ and Boycotts of No Avail&mdash;Anarchy, Communism, and<br /> Socialism&mdash;The
+ Children of the Rich a Punishment for Wealth&mdash;Workingmen<br /> Not a
+ Danger&mdash;The Criminals a Necessary Product&mdash;Society's Right<br />
+ to Punish&mdash;The Efficacy of Kindness&mdash;Labor is Honorable&mdash;Mental<br />
+ Independence.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0007">
+ THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1895.)<br /> I. The Old Testament&mdash;Story of the Creation&mdash;Age
+ of the Earth and<br /> of Man&mdash;Astronomical Calculations of the
+ Egyptians&mdash;The Flood&mdash;The<br /> Firmament a Fiction&mdash;Israelites
+ who went into Egypt&mdash;Battles of the<br /> Jews&mdash;Area of
+ Palestine&mdash;Gold Collected by David for the Temple&mdash;II. The<br />
+ New Testament&mdash;Discrepancies about the Birth of Christ&mdash;Herod
+ and<br /> the Wise Men&mdash;The Murder of the Babes of Bethlehem&mdash;When
+ was Christ<br /> born&mdash;Cyrenius and the Census of the World&mdash;Genealogy
+ of Christ<br /> according to Matthew and Luke&mdash;The Slaying of
+ Zacharias&mdash;Appearance of<br /> the Saints at the Crucifixion&mdash;The
+ Death of Judas Iscariot&mdash;Did<br /> Christ wish to be Convicted?&mdash;III.
+ Jehovah&mdash;IV. The Trinity&mdash;The<br /> Incarnation&mdash;Was
+ Christ God?&mdash;The Trinity Expounded&mdash;"Let us pray"&mdash;V.<br />
+ The Theological Christ&mdash;Sayings of a Contradictory Character&mdash;Christ
+ a<br /> Devout Jew&mdash;An ascetic&mdash;His Philosophy&mdash;The
+ Ascension&mdash;The Best that Can<br /> be Said about Christ&mdash;The
+ Part that is beautiful and Glorious&mdash;The Other<br /> Side&mdash;VI.
+ The Scheme of Redemption&mdash;VII. Belief&mdash;Eternal Pain&mdash;No
+ Hope<br /> in Hell, Pity in Heaven, or Mercy in the Heart of God&mdash;VIII.
+ Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0008">
+ SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1898.)<br /> I. What is Superstition?&mdash;Popular Beliefs about
+ the Significance<br /> of Signs, Lucky and Unlucky Numbers, Days,
+ Accidents, Jewels,<br /> etc.&mdash;Eclipses, Earthquakes, and Cyclones
+ as Omens&mdash;Signs and Wonders<br /> of the Heavens&mdash;Efficacy of
+ Bones and Rags of Saints&mdash;Diseases and<br /> Devils&mdash;II.
+ Witchcraft&mdash;Necromancers&mdash;What is a Miracle?&mdash;The
+ Uniformity<br /> of Nature&mdash;III. Belief in the Existence of Good
+ Spirits or Angels&mdash;God<br /> and the Devil&mdash;When Everything was
+ done by the Supernatural&mdash;IV. All<br /> these Beliefs now Rejected
+ by Men of Intelligence&mdash;The Devil's Success<br /> Made the Coming of
+ Christ a Necessity&mdash;"Thou shalt not Suffer a Witch<br /> to Live"&mdash;Some
+ Biblical Angels&mdash;Vanished Visions&mdash;V. Where are Heaven<br />
+ and Hell?&mdash;Prayers Never Answered&mdash;The Doctrine of Design&mdash;Why
+ Worship<br /> our Ignorance?&mdash;Would God Lead us into Temptation?&mdash;President
+ McKinley's<br /> Thanks giving for the Santiago Victory&mdash;VI. What
+ Harm Does Superstition<br /> Do?&mdash;The Heart Hardens and the Brain
+ Softens&mdash;What Superstition has Done<br /> and Taught&mdash;Fate of
+ Spain&mdash;Of Portugal, Austria, Germany&mdash;VII. Inspired<br /> Books&mdash;Mysteries
+ added to by the Explanations of Theologians&mdash;The<br /> Inspired
+ Bible the Greatest Curse of Christendom&mdash;VIII. Modifications<br />
+ of Jehovah&mdash;Changing the Bible&mdash;IX. Centuries of Darkness&mdash;The
+ Church<br /> Triumphant&mdash;When Men began to Think&mdash;X. Possibly
+ these Superstitions are<br /> True, but We have no Evidence&mdash;We
+ Believe in the Natural&mdash;Science is the<br /> Real Redeemer.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE DEVIL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1899.)<br /> I. If the Devil should Die, would God Make Another?&mdash;How
+ was the Idea<br /> of a Devil Produced&mdash;Other Devils than Ours&mdash;Natural
+ Origin of these<br /> Monsters&mdash;II. The Atlas of Christianity is The
+ Devil&mdash;The Devil of the<br /> Old Testament&mdash;The Serpent in
+ Eden&mdash;"Personifications" of Evil&mdash;Satan<br /> and Job&mdash;Satan
+ and David&mdash;III. Take the Devil from the Drama<br /> of Christianity
+ and the Plot is Gone&mdash;Jesus Tempted by the Evil<br /> One&mdash;Demoniac
+ Possession&mdash;Mary Magdalene&mdash;Satan and Judas&mdash;Incubi<br />
+ and Succubi&mdash;The Apostles believed in Miracles and Magic&mdash;The
+ Pool of<br /> Bethesda&mdash;IV. The Evidence of the Church&mdash;The
+ Devil was forced to<br /> Father the Failures of God&mdash;Belief of the
+ Fathers of the Church<br /> in Devils&mdash;Exorcism at the Baptism of an
+ Infant in the Sixteenth<br /> Century&mdash;Belief in Devils made the
+ Universe a Madhouse presided over by<br /> an Insane God&mdash;V.
+ Personifications of the Devil&mdash;The Orthodox Ostrich<br /> Thrusts
+ his Head into the Sand&mdash;If Devils are Personifications so are<br />
+ all the Other Characters of the Bible&mdash;VI. Some Queries about the<br />
+ Devil, his Place of Residence, his Manner of Living, and his Object in<br />
+ Life&mdash;Interrogatories to the Clergy&mdash;VII. The Man of Straw the
+ Master<br /> of the Orthodox Ministers&mdash;His recent Accomplishments&mdash;VIII.
+ Keep the<br /> Devils out of Children&mdash;IX. Conclusion.&mdash;Declaration
+ of the Free.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0010">
+ PROGRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1860-64.)<br /> The Prosperity of the World depends upon its
+ Workers&mdash;Veneration for the<br /> Ancient&mdash;Credulity and Faith
+ of the Middle Ages&mdash;Penalty for Reading<br /> the Scripture in the
+ Mother Tongue&mdash;Unjust, Bloody, and Cruel Laws&mdash;The<br />
+ Reformers too were Persecutors&mdash;Bigotry of Luther and Knox&mdash;Persecution<br />
+ of Castalio&mdash;Montaigne against Torture in France&mdash;"Witchcraft"
+ (chapter<br /> on)&mdash;Confessed Wizards&mdash;A Case before Sir
+ Matthew Hale&mdash;Belief<br /> in Lycanthropy&mdash;Animals Tried and
+ Executed&mdash;Animals received<br /> as Witnesses&mdash;The Corsned or
+ Morsel of Execution&mdash;Kepler an<br /> Astrologer&mdash;Luther's
+ Encounter with the Devil&mdash;Mathematician<br /> Stoefflers,
+ Astronomical Prediction of a Flood&mdash;Histories Filled with<br />
+ Falsehood&mdash;Legend about the Daughter of Pharaoh invading Scotland
+ and<br /> giving the Country her name&mdash;A Story about Mohammed&mdash;A
+ History of the<br /> Britains written by Archdeacons&mdash;Ingenuous
+ Remark of Eusebius&mdash;Progress<br /> in the Mechanic Arts&mdash;England
+ at the beginning of the Eighteenth<br /> Century&mdash;Barbarous
+ Punishments&mdash;Queen Elizabeth's Order Concerning<br /> Clergymen and
+ Servant Girls&mdash;Inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and<br /> Others&mdash;Solomon's
+ Deprivations&mdash;Language (chapter on)&mdash;Belief that the<br />
+ Hebrew was&lt; the original Tongue&mdash;Speculations about the Language<br />
+ of Paradise&mdash;Geography (chapter on)&mdash;The Works of Cosmas&mdash;Printing<br />
+ Invented&mdash;Church's Opposition to Books&mdash;The Inquisition&mdash;The<br />
+ Reformation&mdash;"Slavery" (chapter on)&mdash;Voltaire's Remark on
+ Slavery as<br /> a Contract&mdash;White Slaves in Greece, Rome, England,
+ Scotland, and<br /> France&mdash;Free minds make Free Bodies&mdash;Causes
+ of the Abolition of White<br /> Slavery in Europe&mdash;The French
+ Revolution&mdash;The African Slave Trade,<br /> its Beginning and End&mdash;Liberty
+ Triumphed (chapter head)&mdash;Abolition of<br /> Chattel Slavery&mdash;Conclusion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38804-h/38804-h.htm#link0012">
+ WHAT IS RELIGION?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1899.)<br /> I. Belief in God and Sacrifice&mdash;Did an Infinite God
+ Create the Children<br /> of Men and is he the Governor of the Universe?&mdash;II.
+ If this God Exists,<br /> how do we Know he is Good?&mdash;Should both
+ the Inferior and the Superior<br /> thank God for their Condition?&mdash;III.
+ The Power that Works for<br /> Righteousness&mdash;What is this Power?&mdash;The
+ Accumulated Experience of the<br /> World is a Power Working for Good?&mdash;Love
+ the Commencement of the Higher<br /> Virtues&mdash;IV. What has our
+ Religion Done?&mdash;Would Christians have been<br /> Worse had they
+ Adopted another Faith?&mdash;V. How Can Mankind be Reformed<br /> Without
+ Religion?&mdash;VI. The Four Corner-stones of my Theory&mdash;VII.
+ Matter<br /> and Force Eternal&mdash;Links in the Chain of Evolution&mdash;VIII.
+ Reform&mdash;The<br /> Gutter as a Nursery&mdash;Can we Prevent the Unfit
+ from Filling the World<br /> with their Children?&mdash;Science must make
+ Woman the Owner and Mistress<br /> of Herself&mdash;Morality Born of
+ Intelligence&mdash;IX. Real Religion and Real<br /> Worship.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_5" id="vol_5"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ V.--DISCUSSIONS</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#linkPREF">PREFACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0002">
+ <big><b>INGERSOLL'S INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0003">
+ FIRST INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0004">
+ SECOND INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0005">
+ THIRD INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0006">
+ FOURTH INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0007">
+ FIFTH INTERVIEW,</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0008">
+ SIXTH INTERVIEW.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0010">
+ <big><b>A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#linkCONC">CONCLUSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0012">
+ THE OBSERVER'S SECOND ATTACK</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0013">
+ INGERSOLL'S SECOND REPLY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC____">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0002">
+ INGERSOLL'S SIX INTERVIEWS ON TALMAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1882.)<br /> Preface&mdash;First Interview: Great Men as Witnesses<br />
+ to the Truth of the Gospel&mdash;No man should quote<br /> the Words of
+ Another unless he is willing to<br /> Accept all the Opinions of that Man&mdash;Reasons
+ of<br /> more Weight than Reputations&mdash;Would a general<br />
+ Acceptance of Unbelief fill the Penitentiaries?&mdash;<br /> My Creed&mdash;Most
+ Criminals Orthodox&mdash;Relig-ion and<br /> Morality not Necessarily
+ Associates&mdash;On the<br /> Creation of the Universe out of Omnipotence&mdash;Mr.<br />
+ Talmage's Theory about the Pro-duction of Light<br /> prior to the
+ Creation of the Sun&mdash;The Deluge and<br /> the Ark&mdash;Mr.
+ Talmage's tendency to Belittle the<br /> Bible Miracles&mdash;His
+ Chemical, Geological, and<br /> Agricultural Views&mdash;His Disregard of
+ Good Manners-<br /> -Second Interview: An Insulting Text&mdash;God's
+ Design<br /> in Creating Guiteau to be the Assassin of<br /> Garfield&mdash;Mr.
+ Talmage brings the Charge of<br /> Blasphemy&mdash;Some Real Blasphemers&mdash;The
+ Tabernacle<br /> Pastor tells the exact Opposite of the Truth about<br />
+ Col. Ingersoll's Attitude toward the Circulation<br /> of Immoral Books&mdash;"Assassinating"
+ God&mdash;Mr.<br /> Talmage finds Nearly All the Invention of Modern<br />
+ Times Mentioned in the Bible&mdash;The Reverend<br /> Gentleman corrects
+ the Translators of the Bible in<br /> the Matter of the Rib Story&mdash;Denies
+ that Polygamy<br /> is permitted by the Old Testament&mdash;His De-fence
+ of<br /> Queen Victoria and Violation of the Grave of<br /> George Eliot&mdash;Exhibits
+ a Christian Spirit&mdash;Third<br /> Interview: Mr. Talmage's Partiality
+ in the<br /> Bestowal of his Love&mdash;Denies the Right of Laymen<br />
+ to Examine the Scriptures&mdash;Thinks the Infidels<br /> Victims of
+ Bibliophobia &mdash;He explains the Stopping<br /> of the Sun and Moon at
+ the Command of Joshua&mdash;<br /> Instances a Dark Day in the Early Part
+ of the<br /> Century&mdash;Charges that Holy Things are Made Light<br />
+ of&mdash;Reaffirms his Confidence in the Whale and<br /> Jonah Story&mdash;The
+ Commandment which Forbids the<br /> making of Graven Images&mdash;Affirmation
+ that the<br /> Bible is the Friend of Woman&mdash;The Present<br />
+ Condition of Woman&mdash;Fourth Interview: Colonel<br /> Ingersoll
+ Compared by Mr. Talmage tojehoiakim, who<br /> Consigned Writings of
+ Jeremiah to the Flames&mdash;An<br /> Intimation that Infidels wish to
+ have all copies<br /> of the Bible Destroyed by Fire&mdash;Laughter<br />
+ Deprecated&mdash;Col. Ingersoll Accused of Denouncing<br /> his Father&mdash;Mr.
+ Talmage holds that a Man may be<br /> Perfectly Happy in Heaven with His
+ Mother in Hell-<br /> -Challenges the Infidel to Read a Chapter from St.<br />
+ John&mdash;On the "Chief Solace of the World"&mdash;Dis-<br /> covers an
+ Attempt is being made to Put Out the<br /> Light-houses of the Farther
+ Shore&mdash;Affirms our<br /> Debt to Christianity for Schools,
+ Hospitals,<br /> etc.&mdash;Denies that Infidels have ever Done any<br />
+ Good&mdash;<br /> Fifth Interview: Inquiries if Men gather Grapes of<br />
+ Thorns, or Figs of Thistles, and is Answered in<br /> the Negative&mdash;Resents
+ the Charge that the Bible is<br /> a Cruel Book&mdash;Demands to Know
+ where the Cruelty of<br /> the Bible Crops out in the Lives of Christians&mdash;<br />
+ Col. Ingersoll Accused of saying that the Bible<br /> is a Collection of
+ Polluted Writings&mdash;Mr. Talmage<br /> Asserts the Orchestral Harmony
+ of the Scriptures<br /> from Genesis to Revelation, and Repudiates the<br />
+ Theory of Contradictions&mdash;His View of Mankind<br /> Indicated in
+ Quotations from his Confession of<br /> Faith&mdash;He Insists that the
+ Bible is Scientific&mdash;<br /> Traces the New Testament to its Source
+ with St.<br /> John&mdash;Pledges his Word that no Man ever Died for a<br />
+ Lie Cheerfully and Triumphantly&mdash;As to Prophecies<br /> and
+ Predictions&mdash;Alleged "Prophetic" Fate of the<br /> Jewish People&mdash;Sixth
+ Interview: Dr. Talmage takes<br /> the Ground that the Unrivalled
+ Circulation of the<br /> Bible Proves that it is Inspired&mdash;Forgets'
+ that a<br /> Scientific Fact does not depend on the Vote of<br /> Numbers&mdash;Names
+ some Christian Millions&mdash;His<br /> Arguments Characterized as the
+ Poor-est, Weakest,<br /> and Best Possible in Support of the Doctrine of<br />
+ Inspira-tion&mdash;Will God, in Judging a Man, take<br /> into
+ Consideration the Cir-cumstances of that<br /> Man's Life?&mdash;Satisfactory
+ Reasons for Not Believ-<br /> ing that the Bible is inspired.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ THE TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.<br /> The Pith and Marrow of what Mr. Talmage
+ has been<br /> Pleased to Say, set forth in the form of a Shorter<br />
+ Catechism.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38805-h/38805-h.htm#link0010">
+ A VINDICATION OF THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1877.)<br /> Letter to the New York Observer&mdash;An Offer to Pay<br />
+ One Thousand Dollars in Gold for Proof that Thomas<br /> Paine or
+ Voltaire Died in Terror because of any<br /> Religious Opinions Either
+ had Expressed&mdash;<br /> Proposition to Create a Tribunal to Hear the<br />
+ Evidence&mdash;The Ob-server, after having Called upon<br /> Col.
+ Ingersoll to Deposit the Money, and<br /> Characterized his Talk as
+ "Infidel 'Buncombe,'"<br /> Denies its Own Words, but attempts to Prove
+ them&mdash;<br /> Its Memory Refreshed by Col. Ingersoll and the<br />
+ Slander Refuted&mdash;Proof that Paine did Not Recant -<br /> -Testimony
+ of Thomas Nixon, Daniel Pelton, Mr.<br /> Jarvis, B. F. Has-kin, Dr.
+ Manley, Amasa<br /> Woodsworth, Gilbert Vale, Philip Graves, M. D.,<br />
+ Willet Hicks, A. C. Hankinson, John Hogeboom, W.<br /> J. Hilton, Tames
+ Cheetham, Revs. Milledollar and<br /> Cunningham, Mrs. Hedden, Andrew A.
+ Dean, William<br /> Carver,&mdash;The Statements of Mary Roscoe and Mary<br />
+ Hindsdale Examined&mdash;William Cobbett's Account of a<br /> Call upon
+ Mary Hinsdale&mdash;Did Thomas Paine live the<br /> Life of a Drunken
+ Beast, and did he Die a Drunken,<br /> Cowardly, and Beastly Death?&mdash;Grant
+ Thorbum's<br /> Charges Examined&mdash;Statement of the Rev. J. D.<br />
+ Wickham, D.D., shown to be Utterly False&mdash;False<br /> Witness of the
+ Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D.&mdash;W. H.<br /> Ladd, James Cheetham, and
+ Mary Hinsdale&mdash;Paine's<br /> Note to Cheetham&mdash;Mr-Staple, Mr.
+ Purdy, Col. John<br /> Fellows, James Wilburn, Walter Morton, Clio<br />
+ Rickman, Judge Herttell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer,<br /> Mr.<br /> XV<br />
+ Lovett, all these Testified that Paine was a<br /> Temperate Man&mdash;Washington's
+ Letter to Paine&mdash;<br /> Thomas Jefferson's&mdash;Adams and
+ Washing-ton on<br /> "Common Sense"&mdash;-James Monroe's Tribute&mdash;<br />
+ Quotations from Paine&mdash;Paine's Estate and His<br /> Will&mdash;The
+ Observer's Second Attack (p. 492):<br /> Statements of Elkana Watson,
+ William Carver, Rev.<br /> E. F. Hatfield, D.D., James Cheetham, Dr. J.
+ W.<br /> Francis, Dr. Manley, Bishop Fenwick&mdash;Ingersoll's<br />
+ Second Reply (p. 516): Testimony Garbled by the<br /> Editor of the
+ Observer&mdash;Mary Roscoeand Mary Hins-<br /> dale the Same Person&mdash;Her
+ Reputation for Veracity-<br /> -Letter from Rev. A. W. Cornell&mdash;Grant
+ Thorburn<br /> Exposed by James Parton&mdash;The Observer's Admission<br />
+ that Paine did not Recant&mdash;Affidavit of<br /> William B. Barnes.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_6" id="vol_6"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ VI.--DISCUSSIONS</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0001">
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; INGERSOLL'S OPENING PAPER</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0002">
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY JEREMIAH S. BLACK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0003">
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0004">
+ FAITH OR AGNOSTICISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0005">
+ THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0006">
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. HENRY M. FIELD, D.D.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0007">
+ A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0008">
+ LETTER TO DR. FIELD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0009">
+ CONTROVERSY ON CHRISTIANTY</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0010">
+ COL. INGERSOLL TO MR. GLADSTONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0011">
+ ROME OR REASON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0012">
+ THE CHURCH ITS OWN WITNESS, By Cardinal Manning.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0013">
+ ROME OR REASON: A REPLY TO CARDINAL MANNING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0014">
+ IS DIVORCE WRONG?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0016">
+ DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0017">
+ IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC_____">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0001">
+ THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; INGERSOLL'S OPENING PAPER</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1881.)<br /> I. Col. Ingersoll's Opening Paper&mdash;Statement of
+ the Fundamental Truths<br /> of Christianity&mdash;Reasons for Thinking
+ that Portions of the Old Testament<br /> are the Product of a Barbarous
+ People&mdash;Passages upholding<br /> Slavery, Polygamy, War, and
+ Religious Persecution not Evidences of<br /> Inspiration&mdash;If the
+ Words are not Inspired, What Is?&mdash;Commands of<br /> Jehovah compared
+ with the Precepts of Pagans and Stoics&mdash;Epictetus,<br /> Cicero,
+ Zeno, Seneca, Brahma&mdash;II. The New Testament&mdash;Why were<br />
+ Four Gospels Necessary?&mdash;Salvation by Belief&mdash;The Doctrine of<br />
+ the Atonement&mdash;The Jewish System Culminating in the Sacrifice of<br />
+ Christ&mdash;Except for the Crucifixion of her Son, the Virgin Mary
+ would be<br /> among the Lost&mdash;What Christ must have Known would
+ Follow the Acceptance<br /> of His Teachings&mdash;The Wars of Sects, the
+ Inquisition, the Fields of<br /> Death&mdash;Why did he not Forbid it
+ All?&mdash;The Little that he Revealed&mdash;The<br /> Dogma of Eternal
+ Punishment&mdash;Upon Love's Breast the Church has Placed<br /> the
+ Eternal Asp&mdash;III. The "Inspired" Writers&mdash;Why did not God
+ furnish<br /> Every Nation with a Bible?<br /> II. Judge Black's Reply&mdash;His
+ Duty that of a Policeman&mdash;The Church not<br /> in Danger&mdash;Classes
+ who Break out into Articulate Blasphemy&mdash;The<br /> Sciolist&mdash;Personal
+ Remarks about Col. Ingersoll&mdash;Chief-Justice Gibson of<br />
+ Pennsylvania Quoted&mdash;We have no Jurisdiction or Capacity to Rejudge
+ the<br /> Justice of God&mdash;The Moral Code of the Bible&mdash;Civil
+ Government of the<br /> Jews&mdash;No Standard of Justice without Belief
+ in a God&mdash;Punishments for<br /> Blasphemy and Idolatry Defended&mdash;Wars
+ of Conquest&mdash;Allusion to Col.<br /> Ingersoll's War Record&mdash;Slavery
+ among the Jews&mdash;Polygamy Discouraged by<br /> the Mosaic
+ Constitution&mdash;Jesus of Nazareth and the Establishment of<br /> his
+ Religion&mdash;Acceptance of Christianity and Adjudication upon its<br />
+ Divinity&mdash;The Evangelists and their Depositions&mdash;The
+ Fundamental Truths<br /> of Christianity&mdash;Persecution and Triumph of
+ the Church&mdash;Ingersoll's<br /> Propositions Compressed and the
+ Compressions Answered&mdash;Salvation as a<br /> Reward of Belief&mdash;Punishment
+ of Unbelief&mdash;The Second Birth, Atonement,<br /> Redemption,
+ Non-resistance, Excessive Punishment of Sinners, Christ and<br />
+ Persecution, Christianity and Freedom of Thought, Sufficiency of the<br />
+ Gospel, Miracles, Moral Effect of Christianity.<br /> III. Col.
+ Ingersoll's Rejoinder&mdash;How this Discussion Came About&mdash;Natural<br />
+ Law&mdash;The Design Argument&mdash;The Right to Rejudge the Justice
+ even of a<br /> God&mdash;Violation of the Commandments by Jehovah&mdash;Religious
+ Intolerance<br /> of the Old Testament&mdash;Judge Black's Justification
+ of Wars of<br /> Extermination&mdash;His Defence of Slavery&mdash;Polygamy
+ not "Discouraged" by the<br /> Old Testament&mdash;Position of Woman
+ under the Jewish System and under that<br /> of the Ancients&mdash;a
+ "Policeman's" View of God&mdash;Slavery under Jehovah<br /> and in Egypt&mdash;The
+ Admission that Jehovah gave no Commandment against<br /> Polygamy&mdash;The
+ Learned and Wise Crawl back in Cribs&mdash;Alleged Harmony of<br /> Old
+ and New Testaments&mdash;On the Assertion that the Spread of
+ Christianity<br /> Proves the Supernatural Origin of the Gospel&mdash;The
+ Argument applicable to<br /> All Religions&mdash;Communications from
+ Angels ana Gods&mdash;Authenticity of<br /> the Statements of the
+ Evangelists&mdash;Three Important Manuscripts&mdash;Rise<br /> of
+ Mormonism&mdash;Ascension of Christ&mdash;The Great Public Events
+ alleged<br /> as Fundamental Truths of Christianity&mdash;Judge Black's
+ System<br /> of "Compression"&mdash;"A Metaphysical Question"&mdash;Right
+ and<br /> Wrong&mdash;Justice&mdash;Christianity and Freedom of Thought&mdash;Heaven
+ and<br /> Hell&mdash;Production of God and the Devil&mdash;Inspiration of
+ the Bible<br /> dependent on the Credulity of the Reader&mdash;Doubt of
+ Miracles&mdash;The<br /> World before Christ's Advent&mdash;Respect for
+ the Man Christ&mdash;The Dark<br /> Ages&mdash;Institutions of Mercy&mdash;Civil
+ Law.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0005">
+ THE FIELD-INGERSOLL DISCUSSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1887.)<br /> An Open Letter to Robert G. Ingersoll&mdash;Superstitions&mdash;Basis
+ of<br /> Religion&mdash;Napoleon's Question about the Stars&mdash;The
+ Idea of God&mdash;Crushing<br /> out Hope&mdash;Atonement, Regeneration,
+ and Future Retribution&mdash;Socrates and<br /> Jesus&mdash;The Language
+ of Col. Ingersoll characterized as too Sweeping&mdash;The<br /> Sabbath&mdash;But
+ a Step from Sneering at Religion to Sneering at Morality.<br /> A Reply
+ to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D. D.&mdash;Honest Differences of<br />
+ Opinion&mdash;Charles Darwin&mdash;Dr. Field's Distinction between
+ Superstition<br /> and Religion&mdash;The Presbyterian God an Infinite
+ Torquemada&mdash;Napoleon's<br /> Sensitiveness to the Divine Influence&mdash;The
+ Preference of Agassiz&mdash;The<br /> Mysterious as an Explanation&mdash;The
+ Certainty that God is not what he<br /> is Thought to Be&mdash;Self-preservation
+ the Fibre of Society&mdash;Did<br /> the Assassination of Lincoln
+ Illustrate the Justice of God's<br /> Judgments?&mdash;Immortality&mdash;Hope
+ and the Presbyterian Creed&mdash;To a Mother<br /> at the Grave of Her
+ Son&mdash;Theological Teaching of Forgiveness&mdash;On<br /> Eternal
+ Retribution&mdash;Jesus and Mohammed&mdash;Attacking the Religion of<br />
+ Others&mdash;Ananias and Sapphira&mdash;The Pilgrims and Freedom to
+ Worship&mdash;The<br /> Orthodox Sabbath&mdash;Natural Restraints on
+ Conduct&mdash;Religion and<br /> Morality&mdash;The Efficacy of Prayer&mdash;Respect
+ for Belief of Father and<br /> Mother&mdash;The "Power behind Nature"&mdash;Survival
+ of the Fittest&mdash;The Saddest<br /> Fact&mdash;"Sober Second Thought."<br />
+ A Last Word to Robert G. Ingersoll, by Dr. Field&mdash;God not a<br />
+ Presbyterian&mdash;Why Col. Ingersoll's Attacks on Religion are Resented&mdash;God<br />
+ is more Merciful than Man&mdash;Theories about the Future Life&mdash;Retribution<br />
+ a Necessary Part of the Divine Law&mdash;The Case of Robinson<br />
+ Crusoe&mdash;Irresistible Proof of Design&mdash;Col. Ingersoll's View of<br />
+ Immortality&mdash;An Almighty Friend.<br /> Letter to Dr. Field&mdash;The
+ Presbyterian God&mdash;What the Presbyterians<br /> Claim&mdash;The
+ "Incurably Bad"&mdash;Responsibility for not seeing Things<br /> Clearly&mdash;Good
+ Deeds should Follow even Atheists&mdash;No Credit in<br /> Belief&mdash;Design
+ Argument that Devours Itself&mdash;Belief as a Foundation<br /> of Social
+ Order&mdash;No Consolation in Orthodox Religion&mdash;The "Almighty<br />
+ Friend" and the Slave Mother&mdash;a Hindu Prayer&mdash;Calvinism&mdash;Christ
+ not the<br /> Supreme Benefactor of the Race.<br /> COLONEL INGERSOLL ON
+ CHRISTIANITY.<br /> (1888.)<br /> Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field
+ by the Hon. Wm. E.<br /> Gladstone&mdash;External Triumph and Prosperity
+ of the Church&mdash;A Truth Half<br /> Stated&mdash;Col. Ingersoll's
+ Tumultuous Method and lack of Reverential<br /> Calm&mdash;Jephthah's
+ Sacrifice&mdash;Hebrews xii Expounded&mdash;The Case of<br /> Abraham&mdash;Darwinism
+ and the Scriptures&mdash;Why God demands Sacrifices of<br /> Man&mdash;Problems
+ admitted to be Insoluble&mdash;Relation of human Genius<br /> to Human
+ Greatness&mdash;Shakespeare and Others&mdash;Christ and the Family<br />
+ Relation&mdash;Inaccuracy of Reference in the Reply&mdash;Ananias and<br />
+ Sapphira&mdash;The Idea of Immortality&mdash;Immunity of Error in Belief
+ from<br /> Moral Responsibility&mdash;On Dishonesty in the Formation of
+ Opinion&mdash;A<br /> Plausibility of the Shallowest kind&mdash;The
+ System of Thuggism&mdash;Persecution<br /> for Opinion's Sake&mdash;Riding
+ an Unbroken Horse.<br /> Col. Ingersoll to Mr. Gladstone&mdash;On the
+ "Impaired" State of the human<br /> Constitution&mdash;Unbelief not Due
+ to Degeneracy&mdash;Objections to the<br /> Scheme of Redemption&mdash;Does
+ Man Deserve only Punishment?&mdash;"Reverential<br /> Calm"&mdash;The
+ Deity of the Ancient Jews&mdash;Jephthah and Abraham&mdash;Relation<br />
+ between Darwinism and the Inspiration of the Scriptures&mdash;Sacrifices
+ to<br /> the Infinite&mdash;What is Common Sense?&mdash;An Argument that
+ will Defend every<br /> Superstition&mdash;The Greatness of Shakespeare&mdash;The
+ Absolute Indissolubility<br /> of Marriage&mdash;Is the Religion of
+ Christ for this Age?&mdash;As to Ananias and<br /> Sapphira&mdash;Immortality
+ and People of Low Intellectual Development&mdash;Can<br /> we Control our
+ Thought?&mdash;Dishonest Opinions Cannot be Formed&mdash;Some<br />
+ Compensations for Riding an "Unbroken Horse."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0011">
+ ROME OR REASON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1888.)<br /> "The Church Its Own Witness," by Cardinal Manning&mdash;Evidence<br />
+ that Christianity is of Divine Origin&mdash;The Universality of the<br />
+ Church&mdash;Natural Causes not Sufficient to Account for the Catholic<br />
+ Church&mdash;-The World in which Christianity Arose&mdash;Birth of
+ Christ&mdash;From<br /> St Peter to Leo XIII.&mdash;The First Effect of
+ Christianity&mdash;Domestic<br /> Life's Second Visible Effect&mdash;Redemption
+ of Woman from traditional<br /> Degradation&mdash;Change Wrought by
+ Christianity upon the Social, Political<br /> and International Relations
+ of the World&mdash;Proof that Christianity is of<br /> Divine Origin and
+ Presence&mdash;St. John and the Christian Fathers&mdash;Sanctity<br /> of
+ the Church not Affected by Human Sins.<br /> A Reply to Cardinal Manning&mdash;I.
+ Success not a Demonstration of either<br /> Divine Origin or Supernatural
+ Aid&mdash;Cardinal Manning's Argument<br /> More Forcible in the Mouth of
+ a Mohammedan&mdash;Why Churches Rise and<br /> Flourish&mdash;Mormonism&mdash;Alleged
+ Universality of the Catholic Church&mdash;Its<br /> "inexhaustible
+ Fruitfulness" in Good Things&mdash;The Inquisition and<br /> Persecution&mdash;Not
+ Invincible&mdash;Its Sword used by Spain&mdash;Its Unity not<br />
+ Unbroken&mdash;The State of the World when Christianity was Established&mdash;The<br />
+ Vicar of Christ&mdash;A Selection from Draper's "History of the
+ Intellectual<br /> Development of Europe"&mdash;Some infamous Popes&mdash;Part
+ II. How the Pope<br /> Speaks&mdash;Religions Older than Catholicism and
+ having the Same Rites<br /> and Sacraments&mdash;Is Intellectual
+ Stagnation a Demonstration of Divine<br /> Origin?&mdash;Integration and
+ Disintegration&mdash;The Condition of the World 300<br /> Years Ago&mdash;The
+ Creed of Catholicism&mdash;The "One true God" with a Knowledge<br /> of
+ whom Catholicism has "filled the World"&mdash;Did the Catholic Church<br />
+ overthrow Idolatry?&mdash;Marriage&mdash;Celibacy&mdash;Human Passions&mdash;The
+ Cardinal's<br /> Explanation of Jehovah's abandonment of the Children of
+ Men for<br /> four thousand Years&mdash;Catholicism tested by Paganism&mdash;Canon
+ Law<br /> and Convictions had Under It&mdash;Rival Popes&mdash;Importance
+ of a Greek<br /> "Inflection"&mdash;The Cardinal Witnesses.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0014">
+ IS DIVORCE WRONG?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1889.)<br /> Preface by the Editor of the North American Review&mdash;Introduction,
+ by the<br /> Rev. S. W. Dike, LL. D.&mdash;A Catholic View by Cardinal
+ Gibbons&mdash;Divorce<br /> as Regarded by the Episcopal Church, by
+ Bishop, Henry C. Potter&mdash;Four<br /> Questions Answered, by Robert G.
+ Ingersoll.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0016">
+ DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Reply to Cardinal Gibbons&mdash;Indissolubility of Marriage a Reaction<br />
+ from Polygamy&mdash;Biblical Marriage&mdash;Polygamy Simultaneous and<br />
+ Successive&mdash;Marriage and Divorce in the Light of Experience&mdash;Reply<br />
+ to Bishop Potter&mdash;Reply to Mr. Gladstone&mdash;Justice Bradley&mdash;Senator<br />
+ Dolph&mdash;The argument Continued in Colloquial Form&mdash;Dialogue
+ between<br /> Cardinal Gibbons and a Maltreated Wife&mdash;She Asks the
+ Advice of Mr.<br /> Gladstone&mdash;The Priest who Violated his Vow&mdash;Absurdity
+ of the Divorce<br /> laws of Some States.<br /> REPLY TO DR. LYMAN ABBOTT.<br />
+ (1890)<br /> Dr. Abbott's Equivocations&mdash;Crimes Punishable by Death
+ under Mosaic<br /> and English Law&mdash;Severity of Moses Accounted for
+ by Dr. Abbott&mdash;The<br /> Necessity for the Acceptance of
+ Christianity&mdash;Christians should be<br /> Glad to Know that the Bible
+ is only the Work of Man and that the New<br /> Testament Life of Christ
+ is Untrue&mdash;All the Good Commandments, Known<br /> to the World
+ thousands of Years before Moses&mdash;Human Happiness of<br /> More
+ Consequence than the Truth about God&mdash;The Appeal to Great<br />
+ Names&mdash;Gladstone not the Greatest Statesman&mdash;What the Agnostic
+ Says&mdash;The<br /> Magnificent Mistakes of Genesis&mdash;The Story of
+ Joseph&mdash;Abraham as a<br /> "self-Exile for Conscience's Sake."<br />
+ REPLY TO ARCHDEACON FARRAR.<br /> (1890.)<br /> Revelation as an Appeal to
+ Man's "Spirit"&mdash;What is Spirit and what is<br /> "Spiritual
+ Intuition"?&mdash;The Archdeacon in Conflict with St. Paul&mdash;II.<br />
+ The Obligation to Believe without Evidence&mdash;III. Ignorant Credulity&mdash;IV.<br />
+ A Definition of Orthodoxy&mdash;V. Fear not necessarily Cowardice&mdash;Prejudice<br />
+ is Honest&mdash;The Ola has the Advantage in an Argument&mdash;St.<br />
+ Augustine&mdash;Jerome&mdash;the Appeal to Charlemagne&mdash;Roger Bacon&mdash;Lord
+ Bacon<br /> a Defender of the Copernican System&mdash;The Difficulty of
+ finding out<br /> what Great Men Believed&mdash;Names Irrelevantly Cited&mdash;Bancroft
+ on the<br /> Hessians&mdash;Original Manuscripts of the Bible&mdash;VI.
+ An Infinite Personality<br /> a Contradiction in Terms&mdash;VII. A
+ Beginningless Being&mdash;VIII. The<br /> Cruelties of Nature not to be
+ Harmonized with the Goodness of a<br /> Deity&mdash;Sayings from the
+ Indian&mdash;Origen, St. Augustine, Dante, Aquinas.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38806-h/38806-h.htm#link0017">
+ IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1890.)<br /> A Reply to the Dean of St. Paul&mdash;Growing Confidence in
+ the Power of<br /> Kindness&mdash;Crimes against Soldiers and Sailors&mdash;Misfortunes
+ Punished<br /> as Crimes&mdash;The Dean's Voice Raised in Favor of the
+ Brutalities of the<br /> Past&mdash;Beating of Children&mdash;Of Wives&mdash;Dictum
+ of Solomon.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_7" id="vol_7"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ VII.--DISCUSSIONS</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0001">
+ MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0002">
+ MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0003">
+ TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0004">
+ THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0005">
+ THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0006">
+ A CHRISTMAS SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0007">
+ SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0008">
+ IS SUICIDE A SIN?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0009">
+ IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0010">
+ A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0011">
+ AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0012">
+ A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0013">
+ A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0014">
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0015">
+ A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC______">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a><br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0001">
+ MY REVIEWERS REVIEWED.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1877.)<br /> Answer to San Francisco Clergymen&mdash;Definition of
+ Liberty, Physical<br /> and Mental&mdash;The Right to Compel Belief&mdash;Woman
+ the Equal of Man&mdash;The<br /> Ghosts&mdash;Immortality&mdash;Slavery&mdash;Witchcraft&mdash;Aristocracy
+ of the<br /> Air&mdash;Unfairness of Clerical Critics&mdash;Force and
+ Matter&mdash;Doctrine of<br /> Negation&mdash;Confident Deaths of
+ Murderers&mdash;Childhood Scenes returned to<br /> by the Dying&mdash;Death-bed
+ of Voltaire&mdash;Thomas Paine&mdash;The First<br /> Sectarians Were
+ Heretics&mdash;Reply to Rev. Mr. Guard&mdash;Slaughter of<br /> the
+ Canaanites&mdash;Reply to Rev. Samuel Robinson&mdash;Protestant<br />
+ Persecutions&mdash;Toleration&mdash;Infidelity and Progress&mdash;The<br />
+ Occident&mdash;Calvinism&mdash;Religious Editors&mdash;Reply to the Rev.
+ Mr.<br /> Ijams&mdash;Does the Bible teach Man to Enslave his Brothers?&mdash;Reply
+ to<br /> California <i>Christian Advocate</i>&mdash;Self-Government of
+ French People at<br /> and Since the Revolution&mdash;On the Site of the
+ Bastile&mdash;French<br /> Peasant's Cheers for Jesus Christ&mdash;Was
+ the World created in Six<br /> Days&mdash;Geology&mdash;What is the
+ Astronomy of the Bible?&mdash;The Earth the Centre<br /> of the Universe&mdash;Joshua's
+ Miracle&mdash;Change of Motion into Heat&mdash;Geography<br /> and
+ Astronomy of Cosmas&mdash;Does the Bible teach the Existence of<br />
+ that Impossible Crime called Witchcraft?&mdash;Saul and the Woman of<br />
+ Endor&mdash;Familiar Spirits&mdash;Demonology of the New Testament&mdash;Temptation
+ of<br /> Jesus&mdash;Possession by Devils&mdash;Gadarene Swine Story&mdash;Test
+ of Belief&mdash;Bible<br /> Idea of the Rights of Children&mdash;Punishment
+ of the Rebellious<br /> Son&mdash;Jephthah's Vow and Sacrifice&mdash;Persecution
+ of Job&mdash;The Gallantry<br /> of God&mdash;Bible Idea of the Rights of
+ Women&mdash;Paul's Instructions to<br /> Wives&mdash;Permission given to
+ Steal Wives&mdash;Does the Bible Sanction<br /> Polygamy and Concubinage?&mdash;Does
+ the Bible Uphold and Justify Political<br /> Tyranny?&mdash;Powers that
+ be Ordained of God&mdash;Religious Liberty of<br /> God&mdash;Sun-Worship
+ punishable with Death&mdash;Unbelievers to be damned&mdash;Does<br /> the
+ Bible describe a God of Mercy?&mdash;Massacre Commanded&mdash;Eternal<br />
+ Punishment Taught in the New Testament&mdash;The Plan of Salvation&mdash;Fall<br />
+ and Atonement Moral Bankruptcy&mdash;Other Religions&mdash;Parsee<br />
+ Sect&mdash;Brahmins&mdash;Confucians&mdash;Heretics and Orthodox.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0002">
+ MY CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1879.)<br /> Rev. Robert Collyer&mdash;Inspiration of the Scriptures&mdash;Rev.
+ Dr.<br /> Thomas&mdash;Formation of the Old Testament&mdash;Rev. Dr.
+ Kohler&mdash;Rev. Mr.<br /> Herford&mdash;Prof. Swing&mdash;Rev. Dr.
+ Ryder.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0003">
+ TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CLERGY.<br /> (1882.)<br /> Rev. David Walk&mdash;Character
+ of Jesus&mdash;Two or Three Christs Described<br /> in the Gospels&mdash;Christ's
+ Change of Opinions&mdash;Gospels Later than the<br /> Epistles&mdash;Divine
+ Parentage of Christ a Late Belief&mdash;The Man Christ<br /> probably a
+ Historical Character&mdash;Jesus Belittled by his Worshipers&mdash;He<br />
+ never Claimed to be Divine&mdash;Christ's Omissions&mdash;Difference
+ between<br /> Christian and other Modern Civilizations&mdash;Civilization
+ not Promoted<br /> by Religion&mdash;Inventors&mdash;French and American
+ Civilization: How<br /> Produced&mdash;Intemperance and Slavery in
+ Christian Nations&mdash;Advance due to<br /> Inventions and Discoveries&mdash;Missionaries&mdash;Christian
+ Nations Preserved by<br /> Bayonet and Ball&mdash;Dr. T. B. Taylor&mdash;Origin
+ of Life on this Planet&mdash;Sir<br /> William Thomson&mdash;Origin of
+ Things Undiscoverable&mdash;Existence after<br /> Death&mdash;Spiritualists&mdash;If
+ the Dead Return&mdash;Our Calendar&mdash;Christ and<br /> Christmas-The
+ Existence of Pain&mdash;Plato's Theory of Evil&mdash;Will God do<br />
+ Better in Another World than he does in this?&mdash;Consolation&mdash;Life
+ Not a<br /> Probationary Stage&mdash;Rev. D.O'Donaghue&mdash;The Case of
+ Archibald Armstrong<br /> and Jonathan Newgate&mdash;Inequalities of Life&mdash;Can
+ Criminals live a<br /> Contented Life?&mdash;Justice of the Orthodox God
+ Illustrated.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0004">
+ THE BROOKLYN DIVINES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1883.)<br /> Are the Books of Atheistic or Infidel Writers Extensively<br />
+ Read?&mdash;Increase in the Number of Infidels&mdash;Spread of
+ Scientific<br /> Literature&mdash;Rev. Dr. Eddy&mdash;Rev. Dr. Hawkins&mdash;Rev.
+ Dr. Haynes&mdash;Rev.<br /> Mr. Pullman&mdash;Rev. Mr. Foote&mdash;Rev.
+ Mr. Wells&mdash;Rev. Dr. Van Dyke&mdash;Rev.<br /> Carpenter&mdash;Rev.
+ Mr. Reed&mdash;Rev. Dr. McClelland&mdash;Ministers Opposed to<br />
+ Discussion&mdash;Whipping Children&mdash;Worldliness as a Foe of the
+ Church&mdash;The<br /> Drama&mdash;Human Love&mdash;Fires, Cyclones, and
+ Other Afflictions as Promoters<br /> of Spirituality&mdash;Class
+ Distinctions&mdash;Rich and Poor&mdash;Aristocracies&mdash;The<br />
+ Right to Choose One's Associates&mdash;Churches Social Affairs&mdash;Progress<br />
+ of the Roman Catholic Church&mdash;Substitutes for the Churches&mdash;Henry<br />
+ Ward Beecher&mdash;How far Education is Favored by the Sects&mdash;Rivals
+ of the<br /> Pulpit&mdash;Christianity Now and One Hundred Years Ago&mdash;French
+ Revolution<br /> produced by the Priests&mdash;Why the Revolution was a
+ Failure&mdash;Infidelity<br /> of One Hundred Years Ago&mdash;Ministers
+ not more Intellectual than a Century<br /> Ago&mdash;Great Preachers of
+ the Past&mdash;New Readings of Old Texts&mdash;Clerical<br /> Answerers
+ of Infidelity&mdash;Rev. Dr. Baker&mdash;Father Fransiola&mdash;Faith
+ and<br /> Reason&mdash;Democracy of Kindness&mdash;Moral Instruction&mdash;Morality
+ Born of Human<br /> Needs&mdash;The Conditions of Happiness&mdash;The
+ Chief End of Man.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0005">
+ THE LIMITATIONS OF TOLERATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1888.)<br /> Discussion between Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon. Frederic
+ R. Coudert,<br /> and ex-Gov. Stewart L. Woodford before the Nineteenth
+ Century Club of<br /> New York&mdash;Propositions&mdash;Toleration not a
+ Disclaimer but a Waiver of the<br /> Right to Persecute&mdash;Remarks of
+ Courtlandt Palmer&mdash;No Responsibility for<br /> Thought&mdash;Intellectual
+ Hospitality&mdash;Right of Free Speech&mdash;Origin of the<br /> term
+ "Toleration"&mdash;Slander and False Witness&mdash;Nobody can Control
+ his own<br /> Mind: Anecdote&mdash;Remarks of Mr. Coudert&mdash;Voltaire,
+ Rousseau, Hugo, and<br /> Ingersoll&mdash;General Woodford's Speech&mdash;Reply
+ by Colonel Ingersoll&mdash;A<br /> Catholic Compelled to Pay a Compliment
+ to Voltaire&mdash;Responsibility for<br /> Thoughts&mdash;The Mexican
+ Unbeliever and his Reception in the Other Country.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0006">
+ A CHRISTMAS SERMON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1891.)<br /> Christianity's Message of Grief&mdash;Christmas a Pagan
+ Festival&mdash;Reply<br /> to Dr. Buckley&mdash;Charges by the Editor of
+ the Christian Advocate&mdash;The<br /> Tidings of Christianity&mdash;In
+ what the Message of Grief Consists&mdash;Fear<br /> and Flame&mdash;An
+ Everlasting Siberia&mdash;Dr. Buckley's Proposal to Boycott the<br />
+ Telegram&mdash;Reply to Rev. J. M. King and Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. Cana
+ Day<br /> be Blasphemed?&mdash;Hurting Christian feelings&mdash;For
+ Revenue only What is<br /> Blasphemy?&mdash;Balaam's Ass wiser than the
+ Prophet&mdash;The Universalists&mdash;Can<br /> God do Nothing for this
+ World?&mdash;The Universe a Blunder if Christianity<br /> is true&mdash;The
+ Duty of a Newspaper&mdash;Facts Not Sectarian&mdash;The Rev.<br /> Mr.
+ Peters&mdash;What Infidelity Has Done&mdash;Public School System not<br />
+ Christian&mdash;Orthodox Universities&mdash;Bruno on Oxford&mdash;As to
+ Public<br /> Morals&mdash;No Rewards or Punishments in the Universe&mdash;The
+ Atonement<br /> Immoral&mdash;As to Sciences and Art&mdash;Bruno,
+ Humboldt, Darwin&mdash;Scientific<br /> Writers Opposed by the Church&mdash;As
+ to the Liberation of Slaves&mdash;As to<br /> the Reclamation of
+ Inebriates&mdash;Rum and Religion&mdash;The Humanity<br /> of Infidelity&mdash;What
+ Infidelity says to the Dying&mdash;The Battle<br /> Continued&mdash;Morality
+ not Assailed by an Attack on Christianity&mdash;The<br /> Inquisition and
+ Religious Persecution&mdash;Human Nature Derided by<br /> Christianity&mdash;Dr.
+ DaCosta&mdash;"Human Brotherhood" as exemplified by<br /> the History of
+ the Church&mdash;The Church and Science, Art and<br /> Learning&mdash;&mdash;Astronomy's
+ Revenge&mdash;Galileo and Kepler&mdash;Mrs. Browning:<br /> Science
+ Thrust into the Brain of Europe&mdash;Our Numerals&mdash;Christianity
+ and<br /> Literature&mdash;Institution's of Learning&mdash;Stephen Girard&mdash;James
+ Lick&mdash;Our<br /> Chronology&mdash;Historians&mdash;Natural Philosophy&mdash;Philology&mdash;Metaphysical<br />
+ Research&mdash;Intelligence, Hindoo, Egyptian&mdash;Inventions&mdash;John<br />
+ Ericsson&mdash;Emancipators&mdash;Rev. Mr. Ballou&mdash;The Right of Goa
+ to<br /> Punish&mdash;Rev. Dr. Hillier&mdash;Rev. Mr. Haldeman&mdash;George
+ A. Locey&mdash;The "Great<br /> Physician"&mdash;Rev. Mr. Talmage&mdash;Rev.
+ J. Benson Hamilton&mdash;How Voltaire<br /> Died&mdash;The Death-bed of
+ Thomas Paine&mdash;Rev. Mr. Holloway&mdash;Original<br /> Sin&mdash;Rev.
+ Dr. Tyler&mdash;The Good Samaritan a Heathen&mdash;Hospitals and<br />
+ Asylums&mdash;Christian Treatment of the Insane&mdash;Rev. Dr. Buckley&mdash;The<br />
+ North American Review Discussion&mdash;Judge Black, Dr. Field,<br /> Mr.
+ Gladstone&mdash;Circulation of Obscene Literature&mdash;Eulogy of<br />
+ Whiskey&mdash;Eulogy of Tobacco&mdash;Human Stupidity that Defies the
+ Gods&mdash;Rev.<br /> Charles Deems&mdash;Jesus a Believer in a Personal
+ Devil&mdash;The Man Christ.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0007">
+ SUICIDE OF JUDGE NORMILE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1892.)<br /> Reply to the <i>Western Watchman</i>&mdash;Henry D'Arcy&mdash;Peter's<br />
+ Prevarication-Some Excellent Pagans-Heartlessness of a<br /> Catholic&mdash;Wishes
+ do not Affect the Judgment&mdash;Devout Robbers&mdash;Penitent<br />
+ Murderers&mdash;Reverential Drunkards&mdash;Luther's Distich&mdash;Judge<br />
+ Normile&mdash;Self-destruction.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0008">
+ IS SUICIDE A SIN?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1894.)<br /> Col. Ingersoll's First Letter in <i>The New York World</i>&mdash;Under
+ what<br /> Circumstances a Man has the Right to take his Own Life&mdash;Medicine
+ and the<br /> Decrees of God&mdash;Case of the Betrayed Girl&mdash;Suicides
+ not Cowards&mdash;Suicide<br /> under Roman Law&mdash;Many Suicides
+ Insane&mdash;Insanity Caused by Religion&mdash;The<br /> Law against
+ Suicide Cruel and Idiotic&mdash;Natural and Sufficient Cause for<br />
+ Self-destruction&mdash;Christ's Death a Suicide&mdash;Col. Ingersoll's
+ Reply to his<br /> Critics&mdash;Is Suffering the Work of God?&mdash;It
+ is not Man's Duty to<br /> Endure Hopeless Suffering&mdash;When Suicide
+ is Justifiable&mdash;The<br /> Inquisition&mdash;Alleged Cowardice of
+ Suicides&mdash;Propositions<br /> Demonstrated&mdash;Suicide the
+ Foundation of the Christian<br /> Religion&mdash;Redemption and Atonement&mdash;The
+ Clergy on Infidelity<br /> and Suicide&mdash;Morality and Unbelief&mdash;Better
+ injure yourself than<br /> Another&mdash;Misquotation by Opponents&mdash;Cheerful
+ View the Best&mdash;The<br /> Wonder is that Men endure&mdash;Suicide a
+ Sin (Interview in The New<br /> York Journal)&mdash;Causes of Suicide&mdash;Col.
+ Ingersoll Does Not Advise<br /> Suicide&mdash;Suicides with Tracts or
+ Bibles in their Pockets&mdash;Suicide a Sin<br /> (Interview in The New
+ York Herald)&mdash;Comments on Rev. Alerle St. Croix<br /> Wright's
+ Sermon&mdash;Suicide and Sanity (Interview in The York World)&mdash;As
+ to<br /> the Cowardice of Suicide&mdash;Germany and the Prevalence of
+ Suicide&mdash;Killing<br /> of Idiots and Defective Infants&mdash;Virtue,
+ Morality, and Religion.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0009">
+ IS AVARICE TRIUMPHANT?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1891.)<br /> Reply to General Rush Hawkins' Article, "Brutality and
+ Avarice<br /> Triumphant"&mdash;Croakers and Prophets of Evil&mdash;Medical
+ Treatment<br /> for Believers in Universal Evil&mdash;Alleged Fraud in
+ Army<br /> Contracts&mdash;Congressional Extravagance&mdash;Railroad
+ "Wreckers"&mdash;How<br /> Stockholders in Some Roads Lost Their Money&mdash;The
+ Star-Route<br /> Trials&mdash;Timber and Public Lands&mdash;Watering
+ Stock&mdash;The Formation<br /> of Trusts&mdash;Unsafe Hotels: European
+ Game and Singing Birds&mdash;Seal<br /> Fisheries&mdash;Cruelty to
+ Animals&mdash;Our Indians&mdash;Sensible and Manly<br /> Patriotism&mdash;Days
+ of Brutality&mdash;Defence of Slavery by the Websters,<br /> Bentons, and
+ Clays&mdash;Thirty Years' Accomplishment&mdash;Ennobling Influence of<br />
+ War for the Right&mdash;The Lady ana the Brakeman&mdash;American Esteem
+ of Honesty<br /> in Business&mdash;Republics do not Tend to Official
+ Corruption&mdash;This the Best<br /> Country in the World.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0010">
+ A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1878.)<br /> Defence of the Lecture on Moses&mdash;How Biblical Miracles
+ are sought to<br /> be Proved&mdash;Some <i>Non Sequiturs</i>&mdash;A
+ Grammatical Criticism&mdash;Christianity<br /> Destructive of Manners&mdash;Cuvier
+ and Agassiz on Mosaic Cosmogony&mdash;Clerical<br /> Advance agents&mdash;Christian
+ Threats and Warnings&mdash;Catholicism the Upas<br /> Tree&mdash;Hebrew
+ Scholarship as a Qualification for Deciding Probababilities<br /> &mdash;Contradictions
+ and Mistranslations of the Bible&mdash;Number of Errors in<br /> the
+ Scriptures&mdash;The Sunday Question.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0011">
+ AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1881.)<br /> Charged with Blasphemy in the State of Delaware&mdash;Can a
+ Conditionless<br /> Deity be Injured?&mdash;Injustice the only Blasphemy&mdash;The
+ Lecture<br /> in Delaware&mdash;Laws of that State&mdash;All Sects in
+ turn Charged with<br /> Blasphemy&mdash;Heresy Consists in making God
+ Better than he is Thought<br /> to Be&mdash;A Fatal Biblical Passage&mdash;Judge
+ Comegys&mdash;Wilmington<br /> Preachers&mdash;States with Laws against
+ Blasphemy&mdash;No Danger of Infidel<br /> Mobs&mdash;No Attack on the
+ State of Delaware Contemplated&mdash;Comegys a<br /> Resurrection&mdash;Grand
+ Jury's Refusal to Indict&mdash;Advice about the Cutting<br /> out of
+ Heretics' Tongues&mdash;Objections to the Whipping-post&mdash;Mr.
+ Bergh's<br /> Bill&mdash;One Remedy for Wife-beating.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0012">
+ A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1882.)<br /> Solemnity&mdash;Charged with Being Insincere&mdash;Irreverence&mdash;Old
+ Testament<br /> Better than the New&mdash;"Why Hurt our Feelings?"&mdash;Involuntary
+ Action of<br /> the Brain&mdash;Source of our Conceptions of Space&mdash;Good
+ and Bad&mdash;Right and<br /> Wrong&mdash;The Minister, the Horse and the
+ Lord's Prayer&mdash;Men Responsible<br /> for their Actions&mdash;The
+ "Gradual" Theory Not Applicable to<br /> the Omniscient&mdash;Prayer
+ Powerless to Alter Results&mdash;Religious<br /> Persecution&mdash;Orthodox
+ Ministers Made Ashamed of their<br /> Creed&mdash;Purgatory&mdash;Infidelity
+ and Baptism Contrasted&mdash;Modern Conception<br /> of the Universe&mdash;The
+ Golden Bridge of Life&mdash;"The Only Salutation"&mdash;The<br /> Test
+ for Admission to Heaven&mdash;"Scurrility."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0013">
+ A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1892.)<br /> Dr. Hall has no Time to Discuss the subject of Starving<br />
+ Workers&mdash;Cloakmakers' Strike&mdash;Warner Van Norden of the Church
+ Extension<br /> Society&mdash;The Uncharitableness of Organized Charity&mdash;Defence
+ of the<br /> Cloakmakers&mdash;Life of the Underpaid&mdash;On the
+ Assertion that Assistance<br /> encourages Idleness and Crime&mdash;The
+ Man without Pity an Intellectual<br /> Beast&mdash;Tendency of Prosperity
+ to Breed Selfishness&mdash;Thousands Idle<br /> without Fault&mdash;Egotism
+ of Riches&mdash;Van Norden's Idea of Happiness&mdash;The<br /> Worthy
+ Poor.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0014">
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1898.)<br /> Interview in a Boston Paper&mdash;Why should a Minister
+ call this a "Poor"<br /> World?&mdash;Would an Infinite God make People
+ who Need a Redeemer?&mdash;Gospel<br /> Gossip&mdash;Christ's Sayings
+ Repetitions&mdash;The Philosophy of Confucius&mdash;Rev.<br /> Mr. Mills&mdash;The
+ Charge of "Robbery"&mdash;The Divine Plan.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38807-h/38807-h.htm#link0015">
+ A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ (1898.)<br /> Interview in the New York Journal&mdash;Rev. Roberts.
+ MacArthur&mdash;A<br /> Personal Devil&mdash;Devils who held
+ Conversations with Christ not simply<br /> personifications of Evil&mdash;The
+ Temptation&mdash;The "Man of Straw"&mdash;Christ's<br /> Mission
+ authenticated by the Casting Out of Devils&mdash;Spain&mdash;God<br />
+ Responsible for the Actions of Man&mdash;Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Parks&mdash;Rev.
+ Dr. E.<br /> F. Moldehnke&mdash;Patience amidst the Misfortunes of Others&mdash;Yellow
+ Fever<br /> as a Divine Agent&mdash;The Doctrine that All is for the Best&mdash;Rev.
+ Mr.<br /> Hamlin&mdash;Why Did God Create a Successful Rival?&mdash;A
+ Compliment by the<br /> Rev. Mr. Belcher&mdash;Rev. W. C. Buchanan&mdash;No
+ Argument Old until it is<br /> Answered&mdash;Why should God Create
+ sentient Beings to be Damned?&mdash;Rev. J.<br /> W. Campbell&mdash;Rev.
+ Henry Frank&mdash;Rev. E. C.J. Kraeling on Christ and the<br /> Devil&mdash;Would
+ he make a World like This?<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_8" id="vol_8"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ VIII.--INTERVIEWS</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0001">
+ INTERVIEWS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0002">
+ THE BIBLE AND A FUTURE LIFE</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0003">
+ MRS. VAN COTT, THE REVIVALIST</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0004">
+ EUROPEAN TRIP AND GREENBACK QUESTION</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0005">
+ THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0006">
+ THE SOLID SOUTH AND RESUMPTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0007">
+ THE SUNDAY LAWS OF PITTSBURG.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0008">
+ POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0009">
+ POLITICS AND GEN. GRANT</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0010">
+ POLITICS, RELIGION AND THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0011">
+ REPLY TO CHICAGO CRITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0012">
+ THE REPUBLICAN VICTORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0013">
+ INGERSOLL AND BEECHER.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0014">
+ POLITICAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0015">
+ RELIGION IN POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0016">
+ MIRACLES AND IMMORTALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0017">
+ THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0018">
+ MR. BEECHER, MOSES AND THE NEGRO.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0019">
+ HADES, DELAWARE AND FREETHOUGHT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0020">
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. MR. LANSING.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0021">
+ BEACONSFIELD, LENT AND REVIVALS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0022">
+ ANSWERING THE NEW YORK MINISTERS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0023">
+ GUITEAU AND HIS CRIME.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0024">
+ DISTRICT SUFFRAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0025">
+ FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0026">
+ STAR ROUTE AND POLITICS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0027">
+ THE INTERVIEWER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0028">
+ POLITICS AND PROHIBITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0029">
+ THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0030">
+ THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0031">
+ JUSTICE HARLAN AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0032">
+ POLITICS AND THEOLOGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0033">
+ MORALITY AND IMMORTALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0034">
+ POLITICS, MORMONISM AND MR. BEECHER</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0035">
+ FREE TRADE AND CHRISTIANITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0036">
+ THE OATH QUESTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0037">
+ WENDELL PHILLIPS, FITZ JOHN PORTER AND BISMARCK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0038">
+ GENERAL SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0039">
+ REPLY TO KANSAS CITY CLERGY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0040">
+ SWEARING AND AFFIRMING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0041">
+ REPLY TO A BUFFALO CRITIC.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0042">
+ BLASPHEMY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0043">
+ POLITICS AND BRITISH COLUMBIA.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0044">
+ INGERSOLL CATECHISED.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0045">
+ BLAINE'S DEFEAT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0046">
+ BLAINE'S DEFEAT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0047">
+ PLAGIARISM AND POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0048">
+ RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0049">
+ CLEVELAND AND HIS CABINET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0050">
+ RELIGION, PROHIBITION, AND GEN. GRANT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0051">
+ HELL OR SHEOL AND OTHER SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0052">
+ INTERVIEWING, POLITICS AND SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0053">
+ MY BELIEF.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0054">
+ SOME LIVE TOPICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0055">
+ THE PRESIDENT AND SENATE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0056">
+ ATHEISM AND CITIZENSHIP.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0057">
+ THE LABOR QUESTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0058">
+ RAILROADS AND POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0059">
+ PROHIBITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0060">
+ HENRY GEORGE AND LABOR.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0061">
+ LABOR QUESTION AND SOCIALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0062">
+ HENRY GEORGE AND SOCIALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0063">
+ REPLY TO THE REV. B. F. MORSE.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0064">
+ INGERSOLL ON McGLYNN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0065">
+ TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0066">
+ THE STAGE AND THE PULPIT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0067">
+ ROSCOE CONKLING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0068">
+ THE CHURCH AND THE STAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0069">
+ PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0070">
+ LABOR, AND TARIFF REFORM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0071">
+ CLEVELAND AND THURMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0072">
+ THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1888.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0073">
+ JAMES G. BLAINE AND POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0074">
+ THE MILLS BILL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0075">
+ SOCIETY AND ITS CRIMINALS*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0076">
+ WOMAN'S RIGHT TO DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0077">
+ SECULARISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0078">
+ SUMMER RECREATION&mdash;MR. GLADSTONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0079">
+ PROHIBITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0080">
+ ROBERT ELSMERE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0081">
+ WORKING GIRLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0082">
+ PROTECTION FOR AMERICAN ACTORS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0083">
+ LIBERALS AND LIBERALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0084">
+ POPE LEO XIII.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0085">
+ THE SACREDNESS OF THE SABBATH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0086">
+ THE WEST AND SOUTH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0087">
+ THE WESTMINSTER CREED AND OTHER SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0088">
+ SHAKESPEARE AND BACON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0089">
+ GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY, AND PRESBYTERIANISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0090">
+ CREEDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0091">
+ THE TENDENCY OF MODERN THOUGHT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0092">
+ WOMAN SUFFRAGE, HORSE RACING, AND MONEY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0093">
+ MISSIONARIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0094">
+ MY BELIEF AND UNBELIEF.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0095">
+ MUST RELIGION GO?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0096">
+ WORD PAINTING AND COLLEGE EDUCATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0097">
+ PERSONAL MAGNETISM AND THE SUNDAY QUESTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0098">
+ AUTHORS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0099">
+ INEBRIETY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0100">
+ MIRACLES, THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0101">
+ TOLSTOY AND LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0102">
+ WOMAN IN POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0103">
+ SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0104">
+ PLAYS AND PLAYERS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0105">
+ WOMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0106">
+ STRIKES, EXPANSION AND OTHER SUBJECTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0107">
+ SUNDAY A DAY OF PLEASURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0108">
+ THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0109">
+ CLEVELAND'S HAWAIIAN POLICY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0110">
+ ORATORS AND ORATORY.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0111">
+ CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM. THE POPE, THE A. P. A., AGNOSTICISM</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0112">
+ WOMAN AND HER DOMAIN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0113">
+ PROFESSOR SWING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0114">
+ SENATOR SHERMAN AND HIS BOOK.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0115">
+ REPLY TO THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORERS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0116">
+ SPIRITUALISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0117">
+ A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0118">
+ IS LIFE WORTH LIVING&mdash;CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND POLITICS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0119">
+ VIVISECTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0120">
+ DIVORCE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0121">
+ MUSIC, NEWSPAPERS, LYNCHING AND ARBITRATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0122">
+ A VISIT TO SHAW'S GARDEN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0123">
+ THE VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISCUSSION AND THE WHIPPING-POST.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0124">
+ COLONEL SHEPARD'S STAGE HORSES.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0125">
+ A REPLY TO THE REV. L. A. BANKS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0126">
+ CUBA&mdash;ZOLA AND THEOSOPHY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0127">
+ HOW TO BECOME AN ORATOR.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0128">
+ JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG AND EXPANSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0129">
+ PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE BIBLE.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0130">
+ THIS CENTURY'S GLORIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0131">
+ CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE WHIPPING-POST.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38808-h/38808-h.htm#link0132">
+ EXPANSION AND TRUSTS.*</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_9" id="vol_9"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ IX.--POLITICAL</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0001">
+ AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0002">
+ SPEECH AT INDIANAPOLIS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0003">
+ CENTENNIAL ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0004">
+ BANGOR SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0005">
+ COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0006">
+ INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0007">
+ CHICAGO SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0008">
+ EIGHT TO SEVEN ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0009">
+ HARD TIMES AND THE WAY OUT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0010">
+ SUFFRAGE ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0011">
+ WALL STREET SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0012">
+ BROOKLYN SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0013">
+ ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0014">
+ DECORATION DAY ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0015">
+ DECORATION DAY ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0016">
+ RATIFICATION SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0017">
+ REUNION ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0018">
+ THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC_______">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0001">
+ AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1867.)<br /> Slavery and its Justification by Law and Religion&mdash;Its
+ Destructive<br /> Influence upon Nations&mdash;Inauguration of the Modern
+ Slave Trade by the<br /> Portuguese Gonzales&mdash;Planted upon American
+ Soil&mdash;The Abolitionists,<br /> Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Others&mdash;The
+ Struggle in England&mdash;Pioneers<br /> in San Domingo, Oge and
+ Chevannes&mdash;Early Op-posers of Slavery in<br /> America&mdash;William
+ Lloyd Garrison&mdash;Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John<br /> Brown&mdash;The
+ Fugitive Slave Law&mdash;The Emancipation Proclamation&mdash;Dread of<br />
+ Education in the South&mdash;Advice to the Colored People.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0006">
+ INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1868.)<br /> Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus&mdash;Precedent
+ Established by the<br /> Revolutionary Fathers&mdash;Committees of Safety
+ appointed by the<br /> Continental Congress&mdash;Arrest of Disaffected
+ Persons in Pennsylvania<br /> and Delaware&mdash;Interference with
+ Elections&mdash;Resolution of Continental<br /> Congress with respect to
+ Citizens who Opposed the sending of Deputies<br /> to the Convention of
+ New York&mdash;Penalty for refusing to take Continental<br /> Money or
+ Pray for the American Cause&mdash;Habeas Corpus Suspended during the<br />
+ Revolution&mdash;Interference with Freedom of the Press&mdash;Negroes
+ Freed and<br /> allowed to Fight in the Continental Army&mdash;Crispus
+ Attacks&mdash;An Abolition<br /> Document issued by Andrew Jackson&mdash;Majority
+ rule&mdash;Slavery and the<br /> Rebellion&mdash;Tribute to General
+ Grant.<br /> SPEECH NOMINATING BLAINE.<br /> (1876.)<br /> Note descriptive
+ of the Occasion&mdash;Demand of the Republicans of the<br /> United
+ States&mdash;Resumption&mdash;The Plumed Knight.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0003">
+ CENTENNIAL ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> One Hundred Years ago, our Fathers retired the Gods
+ from Politics&mdash;The<br /> Declaration of Independence&mdash;Meaning
+ of the Declaration&mdash;The Old Idea<br /> of the Source of Political
+ Power&mdash;Our Fathers Educated by their<br /> Surroundings&mdash;The
+ Puritans&mdash;Universal Religious Toleration declared by<br /> the
+ Catholics of Maryland&mdash;Roger Williams&mdash;Not All of our Fathers
+ in<br /> favor of Independence&mdash;Fortunate Difference in Religious
+ Views&mdash;Secular<br /> Government&mdash;Authority derived from the
+ People&mdash;The Declaration and<br /> the Beginning of the War&mdash;What
+ they Fought For&mdash;Slavery&mdash;Results of<br /> a Hundred Years of
+ Freedom&mdash;The Declaration Carried out in Letter and<br /> Spirit.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0004">
+ BANGOR SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> The Hayes Campaign&mdash;Reasons for Voting the
+ Republican Ticket&mdash;Abolition<br /> of Slavery&mdash;Preservation of
+ the Union&mdash;Reasons for Not Trusting the<br /> Democratic Party&mdash;Record
+ of the Republican Party&mdash;Democrats Assisted<br /> the South&mdash;Paper
+ Money&mdash;Enfranchisement of the Negroes&mdash;Samuel J.<br /> Tilden&mdash;His
+ Essay on Finance.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0005">
+ COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.<br /> (1876.)<br /> All Citizens
+ Stockholders in the United States of America&mdash;The<br /> Democratic
+ Party a Hungry Organization&mdash;Political Parties<br /> Contrasted&mdash;The
+ Fugitive Slave Law a Disgrace to Hell in its Palmiest<br /> Days&mdash;Feelings
+ of the Democracy Hurt on the Subject of Religion&mdash;Defence<br /> of
+ Slavery in a Resolution of the Presbyterians, South&mdash;State of the<br />
+ Union at the Time the Republican Party was Born&mdash;Jacob Thompson&mdash;The<br />
+ National Debt&mdash;Protection of Citizens Abroad&mdash;Tammany Hall:
+ Its Relation<br /> to the Penitentiary&mdash;The Democratic Party of New
+ York City&mdash;"What<br /> Hands!"&mdash;Free Schools.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0006">
+ INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> Address to the Veteran Soldiers of the Rebellion&mdash;Objections
+ to<br /> the Democratic Party&mdash;The Men who have been Democrats&mdash;Why
+ I am a<br /> Republican&mdash;Free Labor and Free Thought&mdash;A Vision
+ of War&mdash;Democratic<br /> Slander of the Greenback&mdash;Shall the
+ People who Saved the Country Rule<br /> It?&mdash;On Finance&mdash;Government
+ Cannot Create Money&mdash;The Greenback Dollar<br /> a Mortgage upon the
+ Country&mdash;Guarantees that the Debt will be Paid-'The<br />
+ Thoroughbred and the Mule&mdash;The Column of July, Paris&mdash;The
+ Misleading<br /> Guide Board, the Dismantled Mill, and the Place where
+ there had been a<br /> Hotel,<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0007">
+ CHICAGO SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1876.)<br /> The Plea of "Let Bygones be Bygones"&mdash;Passport
+ of the Democratic<br /> Party&mdash;Right of the General Government to
+ send Troops into Southern<br /> States for the Protection of Colored
+ People&mdash;Abram S. Hewitt's<br /> Congratulatory Letter to the Negroes&mdash;The
+ Demand for Inflation of the<br /> Currency&mdash;Record of Rutherford B.
+ Hayes&mdash;Contrasted with Samuel J.<br /> Tilden&mdash;Merits of the
+ Republican Party&mdash;Negro and Southern White&mdash;The<br /> Superior
+ Man&mdash;"No Nation founded upon Injustice can Permanently Stand."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0008">
+ EIGHT TO SEVEN ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1877.)<br /> On the Electoral Commission&mdash;Reminiscences of
+ the Hayes-Tilden Camp&mdash;<br /> Constitution of the Electoral College&mdash;Characteristics
+ of the Members&mdash;<br /> Frauds at the Ballot Box Poisoning the
+ Fountain of Power&mdash;Reforms<br /> Suggested&mdash;Elections too
+ Frequent&mdash;The Professional Office-seeker&mdash;A<br /> Letter on
+ Civil Service Reform&mdash;Young Men Advised against Government<br />
+ Clerkships&mdash;Too Many Legislators and too Much Legislation&mdash;Defect
+ in the<br /> Constitution as to the Mode of Electing a President&mdash;Protection
+ of<br /> Citizens by State and General Governments&mdash;The Dual
+ Government in South<br /> Carolina&mdash;Ex-Rebel Key in the President's
+ Cabinet&mdash;Implacables and<br /> Bourbons South and North&mdash;"I
+ extend to you each and all the Olive Branch<br /> of Peace."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0009">
+ HARD TIMES AND THE WAY OUT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1878.)<br /> Capital and Labor&mdash;What is a Capitalist?&mdash;The
+ Idle and the Industrious<br /> Artisans&mdash;No Conflict between Capital
+ and Labor&mdash;A Period of Inflation<br /> and Speculation&mdash;Life
+ and Fire Insurance Agents&mdash;Business done on<br /> Credit&mdash;The
+ Crash, Failure, and Bankruptcy&mdash;Fall in the Price of Real<br />
+ Estate a Form of Resumption&mdash;Coming back to Reality&mdash;Definitions
+ of<br /> Money Examined&mdash;Not Gold and Silver but Intelligent Labor
+ the Measure<br /> of Value&mdash;Government cannot by Law Create Wealth&mdash;A
+ Bill of Fare not<br /> a Dinner&mdash;Fiat Money&mdash;American Honor
+ Pledged to the Maintenance of the<br /> Greenbacks&mdash;The Cry against
+ Holders of Bonds&mdash;Criminals and Vagabonds to<br /> be supported&mdash;Duty
+ of Government to Facilitate Enterprise&mdash;More Men must<br />
+ Cultivate the Soil&mdash;Government Aid for the Overcoming of Obstacles
+ too<br /> Great for Individual Enterprise&mdash;The Palace Builders the
+ Friends of<br /> Labor&mdash;Extravagance the best Form of Charity&mdash;Useless
+ to Boost a Man<br /> who is not Climbing&mdash;The Reasonable Price for
+ Labor&mdash;The Vagrant and his<br /> strange and winding Path&mdash;What
+ to tell the Working Men.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0010">
+ SUFFRAGE ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1880.)<br /> The Right to Vote&mdash;All Women who desire the
+ Suffrage should have<br /> It&mdash;Shall the People of the District of
+ Columbia Manage their Own<br /> Affairs&mdash;Their Right to a
+ Representative in Congress and an Electoral<br /> Vote&mdash;Anomalous
+ State of Affairs at the Capital of the Republic&mdash;Not the<br />
+ Wealthy and Educated alone should Govern&mdash;The Poor as Trustworthy
+ as the<br /> Rich&mdash;Strict Registration Laws Needed.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0011">
+ WALL STREET SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1880.)<br /> Obligation of New York to Protect the Best Interests
+ of the<br /> Country&mdash;Treason and Forgery of the Democratic Party in
+ its Appeal to<br /> Sword and Pen&mdash;The One Republican in the
+ Penitentiary of Maine&mdash;The<br /> Doctrine of State Sovereignty&mdash;Protection
+ for American Brain and<br /> Muscle&mdash;Hancock on the Tariff&mdash;A
+ Forgery (the Morey letter) Committed<br /> and upheld&mdash;The Character
+ of James A. Garfield.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0012">
+ BROOKLYN SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> (1880.)<br /> Introduced by Henry Ward Beecher (note)&mdash;Some
+ Patriotic<br /> Democrats&mdash;Freedom of Speech North and South&mdash;An
+ Honest Ballot&mdash;<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0013">
+ ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0014">
+ DECORATION DAY ORATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0015">
+ DECORATION DAY ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0016">
+ RATIFICATION SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0017">
+ REUNION ADDRESS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38809-h/38809-h.htm#link0018">
+ THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_10" id="vol_10"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ X.--LEGAL</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME X.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0001">
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0002">
+ CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0004">
+ OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0005">
+ CLOSING ADDRESS IN SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0007">
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0008">
+ ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC________">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME X.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0001">
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE MUNN TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Demoralization caused by Alcohol&mdash;Note from the Chicago<br /> <i>Times</i>&mdash;Prejudice&mdash;Review
+ of the Testimony of Jacob Rehm&mdash;Perjury<br /> Characterized&mdash;The
+ Defendant and the Offence Charged (p. 21)&mdash;Testimony<br /> of Golsen
+ Reviewed&mdash;Rehm's Testimony before the Grand Jury&mdash;Good<br />
+ Character (p. 29)&mdash;Suspicion not Evidence.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0002">
+ CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.<br /> Note
+ from the Washington <i>Capital</i>&mdash;The Assertion Denied that we
+ are<br /> a Demoralized Country and that our Country is Distinguished
+ among<br /> the Nations only for Corruption&mdash;Duties of Jurors and
+ Duties of<br /> Lawyers&mdash;Section under which the Indictment is Found&mdash;Cases
+ cited to<br /> Show that Overt Acts charged and also the Crime itself
+ must be Proved<br /> as Described&mdash;Routes upon which Indictments are
+ Based and Overt Acts<br /> Charged (pp. 54-76)&mdash;Routes on which the
+ Making of False Claims is<br /> Alleged&mdash;Authorities on Proofs of
+ Conspiracy (pp. 91-94)&mdash;Examination<br /> of the Evidence against
+ Stephen W. and John W. Dorsey (pp. 96-117)&mdash;The<br /> Corpus Delicti
+ in a Case of Conspiracy and the Acts Necessary to be Done<br /> in Order
+ to Establish Conspiracy (pp. 120-123)&mdash;Testimony of Walsh<br /> and
+ the Confession of Rerdell&mdash;Extravagance in Mail Carrying (p.<br />
+ 128)&mdash;Productiveness of Mail Routes (p. 131)&mdash;Hypothesis of
+ Guilt and<br /> Law of Evidence&mdash;Dangerous Influence of Suspicion&mdash;Terrorizing
+ the<br /> Jury&mdash;The Woman at Her Husband's Side.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0004">
+ OPENING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Juries the Bulwark of Civil Liberty&mdash;Suspicion Not Evidence&mdash;Brief<br />
+ Statement of the Case&mdash;John M. Peck, John W. Dorsey, Stephen W.
+ Dorsey,<br /> John R. Miner, Mr. (A. E. ) Boone (p.p. 150-156)&mdash;The
+ Clendenning<br /> Bonds&mdash;Miner's, Peck's, and Dorsey's Bids&mdash;Why
+ they Bid on Cheap<br /> Routes&mdash;Number of Routes upon which there
+ are Indictments&mdash;The<br /> Arrangement between Stephen W. Dorsey and
+ John R. Miner&mdash;Appearance<br /> of Mr. Vaile in the Contracts&mdash;Partnership
+ Formed&mdash;The Routes<br /> Divided&mdash;Senator Dorsey's Course after
+ Getting the Routes&mdash;His Routes<br /> turned over to James W. Bosler&mdash;Profits
+ of the Business (p. 181)&mdash;The<br /> Petitions for More Mails&mdash;Productive
+ and Unproductive Post-offices&mdash;Men<br /> who Add to the Wealth of
+ the World&mdash;Where the Idea of the Productiveness<br /> of Post routes
+ was Hatched&mdash;Cost of Letters to Recipients in 1843&mdash;The<br />
+ Overland Mail (p. 190)&mdash;Loss in Distributing the Mail in the
+ District<br /> of Columbia and Other Territories&mdash;Post-office the
+ only Evidence<br /> of National Beneficence&mdash;Profit and Loss of Mail
+ Carrying&mdash;Orders<br /> Antedated, and Why&mdash;Routes Increased and
+ Expedited&mdash;Additional Bonds for<br /> Additional Trips&mdash;The
+ Charge that Pay was Received when the Mail was<br /> not Carried&mdash;Fining
+ on Shares&mdash;Subcontracts for Less than the Original<br /> Contracts&mdash;Pay
+ on Discontinued Routes&mdash;Alleged False Affidavits&mdash;Right<br />
+ of Petition&mdash;Reviewing the Ground.<br /> CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY
+ IN THE SECOND STAR ROUTE TRIAL.<br /> Scheme of the Indictment&mdash;Story
+ of the Case&mdash;What Constitutes Fraudulent<br /> Bidding&mdash;How a
+ Conspiracy Must be Proved&mdash;The Hypothesis of Guilt and<br /> Law of
+ Evidence&mdash;Conversation Unsatisfactory Evidence&mdash;Fallibility of<br />
+ Memory&mdash;Proposition to Produce Mr. Dorsey's Books&mdash;Interruption
+ of the<br /> Court to Decide that Primary Evidence, having Once been
+ Refused, can not<br /> afterwards be Introduced to Contradict Secondary
+ Evidence&mdash;A Defendant<br /> may not be Presumed into the
+ Penitentiary&mdash;A Decision by Justice<br /> Field&mdash;The Right of
+ Petition&mdash;Was there a Conspiracy?&mdash;Dorsey's<br /> Benevolence
+ (p. 250)&mdash;The Chico Springs Letter&mdash;Evidence of Moore<br />
+ Reviewed&mdash;Mr. Ker's Defective Memory&mdash;The Informer System&mdash;Testimony<br />
+ of Rerdell Reviewed&mdash;His Letter to Dorsey (p. 304)&mdash;The
+ Affidavit of<br /> Rerdell and Dorsey&mdash;Petitions for Faster Time&mdash;Uncertainty
+ Regarding<br /> Handwriting&mdash;Government Should be Incapable of
+ Deceit&mdash;Rerdell's<br /> withdrawal of the Plea of Not Guilty (p.
+ 362)&mdash;Informers, their Immunity<br /> and Evidence&mdash;Nailing
+ Down the Lid of Rerdell's Coffin&mdash;Mistakes of<br /> Messrs. Ker and
+ Merrick and the Court&mdash;Letter of H. M. Vaile to the<br /> Sixth
+ Auditor&mdash;Miner's Letter to Carey&mdash;Miner, Peck &amp; Co. to
+ Frank A.<br /> Tuttle&mdash;Answering Points Raised by Mr. Bliss (396 et
+ seq.)&mdash;Evidence<br /> regarding the Payment of Money by Dorsey to
+ Brady&mdash;A. E. Boone's<br /> Testimony Reviewed&mdash;Secrecy of
+ Contractors Regarding the Amount of their<br /> Bids&mdash;Boone's
+ Partnership Agreement with Dorsey&mdash;Explanation of Bids<br /> in
+ Different Names&mdash;Omission of Instructions from Proposals (p.<br />
+ 450)&mdash;Accusation that Senator Mitchell was the Paid Agent of<br />
+ the Defendants&mdash;Alleged Sneers at Things held Sacred&mdash;What is
+ a<br /> Conspiracy?&mdash;The Theory that there was a Conspiracy&mdash;Dorsey's
+ Alleged<br /> Interest&mdash;The Two Affidavits in Evidence&mdash;Inquiry
+ of General Miles&mdash;Why<br /> the Defendant's Books were not Produced&mdash;Tames
+ W. Bosler's Testimony<br /> Read (p. 500)&mdash;The Court shown to be
+ Mistaken Regarding a Decision<br /> Previously Made (pp. 496-502)&mdash;No
+ Logic in Abuse&mdash;Charges against John<br /> W. Miner&mdash;Testimony
+ of A. W. Moore Reviewed-The Verdict Predicted&mdash;The<br /> Defendants
+ in the Case&mdash;What is left for the Jury to Say&mdash;Remarks of<br />
+ Messrs. Henkle and Davidge&mdash;The Verdict.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0007">
+ ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE DAVIS WILL CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Note from the Anaconda <i>Standard</i>&mdash;Senator Sander's Warning to
+ the Jury<br /> Not to be Enticed by Sinners&mdash;Evidence, based on
+ Quality of Handwriting,<br /> that Davis did not Write the Will&mdash;Evidence
+ of the Spelling&mdash;Assertion<br /> that the Will was Forged&mdash;Peculiarities
+ of Eddy's Handwriting&mdash;Holes<br /> in Sconce's Signature and
+ Reputation&mdash;His Memory&mdash;Business Sagacity<br /> of Davis&mdash;His
+ Alleged Children&mdash;Date of his Death&mdash;Testimony of Mr.<br />
+ Knight&mdash;Ink used in Writing the Will&mdash;Expert Evidence&mdash;Speechlessness<br />
+ of John A. Davis&mdash;Eddy's Failure to take the Stand&mdash;Testimony
+ of<br /> Carruthers&mdash;Relatives of Sconce&mdash;Mary Ann Davis's
+ Connections&mdash;The<br /> Family Tree&mdash;The Signature of the Will&mdash;What
+ the Evidence Shows&mdash;Duty<br /> and Opportunity of the Jury.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38810-h/38810-h.htm#link0008">
+ ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL CASE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Antenuptial Waiving of Dower by Women&mdash;A Case from Illinois&mdash;At
+ What<br /> Age Men and Women Cease to Feel the Tender Flame&mdash;Russell's
+ Bargain with<br /> Mrs. Russell&mdash;Antenuptial Contract and Parole
+ Agreement&mdash;Definition<br /> of "Liberal Provision "&mdash;The Woman
+ not Bound by a Contract Made in<br /> Ignorance of the Facts&mdash;Contract
+ Destroyed by Deception.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_11" id="vol_11"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ XI.--MISCELLANY</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#linkTOC"><big>
+ <b>DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME XI.</b></big></a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0001">
+ ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0002">
+ TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0003">
+ GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0004">
+ A REPLY TO BISHOP SPALDING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0005">
+ CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0006">
+ A WOODEN GOD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0007">
+ SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0008">
+ ART AND MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0010">
+ WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0011">
+ HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0012">
+ ERNEST RENAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0013">
+ TOLSTO&Iuml; AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0014">
+ THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0015">
+ THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0016">
+ SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0017">
+ A WORD ABOUT EDUCATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0018">
+ WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0019">
+ FOOL FRIENDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0020">
+ INSPIRATION</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0021">
+ THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0022">
+ HOW TO EDIT A LIBERAL PAPER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0023">
+ SECULARISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0024">
+ CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN
+ FARM."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0025">
+ THE LIBEL LAWS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0026">
+ REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0027">
+ AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0028">
+ HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0029">
+ THE IMPROVED MAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0030">
+ EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0031">
+ THE JEWS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0032">
+ CRUMBLING CREEDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0033">
+ OUR SCHOOLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0034">
+ VIVISECTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0035">
+ THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0036">
+ THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0037">
+ SPIRITUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0038">
+ SUMTER'S GUN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0039">
+ WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0040">
+ CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0041">
+ LAW'S DELAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0042">
+ THE BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0043">
+ A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0044">
+ SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0045">
+ SOWING AND REAPING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0046">
+ SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0047">
+ WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0048">
+ GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0049">
+ A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0050">
+ POLITICAL MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0051">
+ A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkTOC" id="linkTOC_________">
+ <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
+ </p>
+ <div style="height: 4em;">
+ <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+ </div>
+ <h2>
+ DETAILED CONTENTS OF VOLUME XI.
+ </h2>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0001">
+ ADDRESS ON THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Introduction by Frederick Douglass("Abou Ben Adhem")&mdash;Decision
+ of<br /> the United States Supreme Court pronouncing the Civil Rights Act<br />
+ Unconstitutional&mdash;Limitations of Judges&mdash;Illusion Destroyed by
+ the<br /> Decision in the Dred Scott Case&mdash;Mistake of Our Fathers in
+ adopting<br /> the Common Law of England&mdash;The 13th Amendment to the
+ Constitution<br /> Quoted&mdash;The Clause of the Constitution upholding
+ Slavery&mdash;Effect of<br /> this Clause&mdash;Definitions of a State by
+ Justice Wilson and Chief Justice<br /> Chase&mdash;Effect of the
+ Thirteenth Amendment&mdash;Justice Field on Involuntary<br /> Servitude&mdash;Civil
+ Rights Act Quoted&mdash;Definition of the Word Servitude by<br /> the
+ Supreme Court&mdash;Obvious Purpose of the Amendment&mdash;Justice
+ Miller<br /> on the 14th Amendment&mdash;Citizens Created by this
+ Amendment&mdash;Opinion<br /> of Justice Field&mdash;Rights and
+ Immunities guaranteed by the<br /> Constitution&mdash;Opinion delivered
+ by Chief-Justice Waite&mdash;Further Opinions<br /> of Courts on the
+ question of Citizenship&mdash;Effect of the 13th, 14th and<br /> 15th
+ Amendments&mdash;"Corrective" Legislation by Congress&mdash;Denial of
+ equal<br /> "Social" Privileges&mdash;Is a State responsible for the
+ Action of its Agent<br /> when acting contrary to Law?&mdash;The Word
+ "State" must include the People<br /> of the State as well as the
+ Officers of the State&mdash;The Louisiana Civil<br /> Rights Law, and a
+ Case tried under it&mdash;Uniformity of Duties essential to<br /> the
+ Carrier&mdash;Congress left Powerless to protect Rights conferred by the<br />
+ Constitution&mdash;Definition of "Appropriate Legislation"&mdash;Propositions
+ laid<br /> down regarding the Sovereignty of the State, the powers of the
+ General<br /> Government, etc.&mdash;A Tribute to Justice Harlan&mdash;A
+ Denial that Property<br /> exists by Virtue of Law&mdash;Civil Rights not
+ a Question of Social<br /> Equality&mdash;Considerations upon which
+ Social Equality depends&mdash;Liberty not<br /> a Question of Social
+ Equality&mdash;The Superior Man&mdash;Inconsistencies of the<br /> Past&mdash;No
+ Reason why we should Hate the Colored People&mdash;The Issues that<br />
+ are upon Us.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0002">
+ TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> ADDRESS TO THE JURY.<br /> Report of the Case from the New York
+ Times (note)&mdash;The Right to express<br /> Opinions&mdash;Attempts to
+ Rule the Minds of Men by Force&mdash;Liberty the<br /> Greatest Good&mdash;Intellectual
+ Hospitality Defined&mdash;When the Catholic<br /> Church had Power&mdash;Advent
+ of the Protestants&mdash;The Puritans, Quakers.<br /> Unitarians,
+ Universalists&mdash;What is Blasphemy?&mdash;Why this Trial should not<br />
+ have Taken Place&mdash;Argument cannot be put in Jail&mdash;The
+ Constitution of<br /> New Jersey&mdash;A higher Law than Men can Make&mdash;The
+ Blasphemy Statute<br /> Quoted and Discussed&mdash;Is the Statute
+ Constitutional?&mdash;The Harm done<br /> by Blasphemy Laws&mdash;The
+ Meaning of this Persecution&mdash;Religions are<br /> Ephemeral&mdash;Let
+ us judge each other by our Actions&mdash;Men who have braved<br /> Public
+ Opinion should be Honored&mdash;The Blasphemy Law if enforced would<br />
+ rob the World of the Results of Scientific Research&mdash;It declares
+ the<br /> Great Men of to-day to be Criminals&mdash;The Indictment Read
+ and Commented<br /> upon&mdash;Laws that go to Sleep&mdash;Obsolete
+ Dogmas the Denial of which was<br /> once punished by Death&mdash;Blasphemy
+ Characterized&mdash;On the Argument<br /> that Blasphemy Endangers the
+ Public Peace&mdash;A Definition of real<br /> Blasphemy&mdash;Trials for
+ Blasphemy in England&mdash;The case of Abner<br /> Kneeland&mdash;True
+ Worship, Prayer, and Religion&mdash;What is Holy and<br /> Sacred&mdash;What
+ is Claimed in this Case&mdash;For the Honor of the State&mdash;The<br />
+ word Liberty&mdash;Result of the Trial (note).<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0003">
+ GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Feudal System&mdash;Office and Purpose of our Constitution&mdash;Which
+ God<br /> shall we Select?&mdash;The Existence of any God a Matter of
+ Opinion&mdash;What is<br /> entailed by a Recognition of a God in the
+ Constitution&mdash;Can the Infinite<br /> be Flattered with a
+ Constitutional Amendment?&mdash;This government is<br /> Secular&mdash;The
+ Government of God a Failure&mdash;The Difference between the<br />
+ Theological and the Secular Spirit&mdash;A Nation neither Christian nor<br />
+ Infidel&mdash;The Priest no longer a Necessity&mdash;Progress of Science
+ and the<br /> Development of the Mind.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0004">
+ A REPLY TO BISHOP SPALDING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> On God in the Constitution&mdash;Why the Constitutional Convention
+ ignored<br /> the Question of Religion&mdash;The Fathers Misrepresented&mdash;Reasons
+ why the<br /> Attributes of God should not form an Organic Part of the
+ Law of the<br /> Land&mdash;The Effect of a Clause Recognizing God.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0005">
+ CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Three Pests of a Community&mdash;I. Forms of Punishment and
+ Torture&mdash;More<br /> Crimes Committed than Prevented by Governments&mdash;II.
+ Are not Vices<br /> transmitted by Nature?&mdash;111. Is it Possible for
+ all People to be<br /> Honest?&mdash;Children of Vice as the natural
+ Product of Society&mdash;Statistics:<br /> the Relation between Insanity,
+ Pauperism, and Crime&mdash;IV. The Martyrs of<br /> Vice&mdash;Franklin's
+ Interest in the Treatment of Prisoners&mdash;V. Kindness<br /> as a
+ Remedy&mdash;Condition of the Discharged Prisoner&mdash;VI. Compensation<br />
+ for Convicts&mdash;VII. Professional Criminals&mdash;Shall the Nation
+ take<br /> Life?&mdash;Influence of Public Executions on the Spectators&mdash;Lynchers<br />
+ for the Most Part Criminals at Heart&mdash;VIII. The Poverty of the Many
+ a<br /> perpetual Menace&mdash;Limitations of Land-holding.&mdash;IX.
+ Defective Education<br /> by our Schools&mdash;Hands should be educated
+ as well as Head&mdash;Conduct<br /> improved by a clearer Perception of
+ Consequences&mdash;X. The Discipline of<br /> the average Prison
+ Hardening and Degrading&mdash;While Society cringes before<br /> Great
+ Thieves there will be Little Ones to fill the Jails&mdash;XI. Our<br />
+ Ignorance Should make us Hesitate.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0006">
+ A WOODEN GOD.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> On Christian and Chinese worship&mdash;Report of the Select
+ Committee<br /> on Chinese Immigration&mdash;The only true God as
+ contrasted with<br /> Joss&mdash;Sacrifices to the "Living God"&mdash;Messrs.
+ Wright, Dickey, O'Connor<br /> and Murch on the "Religious System" of the
+ American Union&mdash;How to prove<br /> that Christians are better than
+ Heathens&mdash;Injustice in the Name of<br /> God&mdash;An honest
+ Merchant the best Missionary&mdash;A Few Extracts from<br /> Confucius&mdash;The
+ Report proves that the Wise Men of China who predicted<br /> that
+ Christians could not be Trusted were not only Philosophers but<br />
+ Prophets.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0007">
+ SOME INTERROGATION POINTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> A New Party and its Purpose&mdash;The Classes that Exist in every<br />
+ Country&mdash;Effect of Education on the Common People&mdash;Wants
+ Increased by<br /> Intelligence&mdash;The Dream of 1776&mdash;The
+ Monopolist and the Competitor&mdash;The<br /> War between the Gould and
+ Mackay Cables&mdash;Competition between<br /> Monopolies&mdash;All
+ Advance in Legislation made by Repealing Laws&mdash;Wages<br /> and
+ Values not to be fixed by Law&mdash;Men and Machines&mdash;The Specific
+ of<br /> the Capitalist: Economy&mdash;The poor Man and Woman devoured by<br />
+ their Fellow-men&mdash;Socialism one of the Worst Possible forms of<br />
+ Slavery&mdash;Liberty not to be exchanged for Comfort&mdash;Will the
+ Workers<br /> always give their Earnings for the Useless?&mdash;Priests,
+ Successful Frauds,<br /> and Robed Impostors.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0008">
+ ART AND MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Origin of Man's Thoughts&mdash;The imaginative Man&mdash;"Medicinal
+ View" of<br /> Poetry&mdash;Rhyme and Religion&mdash;The theological
+ Poets and their Purpose in<br /> Writing&mdash;Moral Poets and their
+ "Unwelcome Truths"&mdash;The really Passionate<br /> are the Virtuous&mdash;Difference
+ between the Nude and the Naked&mdash;Morality<br /> the Melody of Conduct&mdash;The
+ inculcation of Moral Lessons not contemplated<br /> by Artists or great
+ Novelists&mdash;Mistaken Reformers&mdash;Art not a<br /> Sermon&mdash;Language
+ a Multitude of Pictures&mdash;Great Pictures and Great<br /> Statues
+ painted and chiseled with Words&mdash;Mediocrity moral from a<br />
+ Necessity which it calls Virtue&mdash;Why Art Civilizes&mdash;The Nude&mdash;The
+ Venus<br /> de Milo&mdash;This is Art.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0009">
+ THE DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Way in which Theological Seminaries were Endowed&mdash;Religious<br />
+ Guide-boards&mdash;Vast Interests interwoven with Creeds&mdash;Pretensions
+ of<br /> Christianity&mdash;Kepler's Discovery of his Three Great Laws&mdash;Equivocations<br />
+ and Evasions of the Church&mdash;Nature's Testimony against the<br />
+ Bible&mdash;The Age of Man on the Earth&mdash;"Inspired" Morality of the<br />
+ Bible&mdash;Miracles&mdash;Christian Dogmas&mdash;What the church has
+ been Compelled to<br /> Abandon&mdash;The Appeal to Epithets, Hatred and
+ Punishment&mdash;"Spirituality"<br /> the last Resource of the Orthodox&mdash;What
+ is it to be Spiritual?&mdash;Two<br /> Questions for the Defenders of
+ Orthodox Creeds.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0010">
+ WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Part I. Inharmony of Nature and the Lot of Man with the Goodness
+ and<br /> Wisdom of a supposed Deity&mdash;Why a Creator is Imagined&mdash;Difficulty
+ of the<br /> Act of Creation&mdash;Belief in Supernatural Beings&mdash;Belief
+ and Worship among<br /> Savages&mdash;Questions of Origin and Destiny&mdash;Progress
+ impossible without<br /> Change of Belief&mdash;Circumstances Determining
+ Belief&mdash;How may the<br /> True Religion be Ascertained?&mdash;Prosperity
+ of Nations nor Virtue<br /> of Individuals Dependent on Religions or Gods&mdash;Uninspired
+ Books<br /> Superior&mdash;Part II. The Christian Religion&mdash;Credulity&mdash;Miracles
+ cannot<br /> be Established&mdash;Effect of Testimony&mdash;Miraculous
+ Qualities of all<br /> Religions&mdash;Theists and Naturalists&mdash;The
+ Miracle of Inspiration&mdash;How<br /> can the alleged Fact of
+ Inspiration be Established?&mdash;God's work and<br /> Man's&mdash;Rewards
+ for Falsehood offered by the Church.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0011">
+ HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Statement by the Principal of King's College&mdash;On the
+ Irrelevancy of a<br /> Lack of Scientific Knowledge&mdash;Difference
+ between the Agnostic and<br /> the Christian not in Knowledge but in
+ Credulity&mdash;The real name of<br /> an Agnostic said to be "Infidel"&mdash;What
+ an Infidel is&mdash;"Unpleasant"<br /> significance of the Word&mdash;Belief
+ in Christ&mdash;"Our Lord and his Apostles"<br /> possibly Honest Men&mdash;Their
+ Character not Invoked&mdash;Possession by evil<br /> spirits&mdash;Professor
+ Huxley's Candor and Clearness&mdash;The splendid Dream<br /> of Auguste
+ Comte&mdash;Statement of the Positive Philosophy&mdash;Huxley and<br />
+ Harrison.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0012">
+ ERNEST RENAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> His Rearing and his Anticipated Biography&mdash;The complex
+ Character of the<br /> Christ of the Gospels&mdash;Regarded as a Man by
+ Renan&mdash;The Sin against the<br /> Holy Ghost&mdash;Renan on the
+ Gospels&mdash;No Evidence that they were written<br /> by the Men whose
+ Names they Bear&mdash;Written long after the Events they<br /> Describe&mdash;Metaphysics
+ of the Church found in the Gospel of John&mdash;Not<br /> Apparent why
+ Four Gospels should have been Written&mdash;Regarded as<br /> legendary
+ Biographies&mdash;In "flagrant contradiction one with another"&mdash;The<br />
+ Divine Origin of Christ an After-growth&mdash;Improbable that he
+ intended to<br /> form a Church&mdash;Renan's Limitations&mdash;Hebrew
+ Scholarship&mdash;His "People of<br /> Israel"&mdash;His Banter and
+ Blasphemy.<br /> TOLSTOY AND "THE KREUTZER SONATA."<br /> Tolstoy's Belief
+ and Philosophy&mdash;His Asceticism&mdash;His View of Human<br /> Love&mdash;Purpose
+ of "The Kreutzer Sonata"&mdash;Profound Difference between the<br /> Love
+ of Men and that of Women&mdash;Tolstoy cannot now found a Religion, but<br />
+ may create the Necessity for another Asylum&mdash;The Emotions&mdash;The
+ Curious<br /> Opinion Dried Apples have of Fruit upon the Tree&mdash;Impracticability
+ of<br /> selling All and giving to the Poor&mdash;Love and Obedience&mdash;Unhappiness
+ in<br /> the Marriage Relation not the fault of Marriage.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0014">
+ THOMAS PAINE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Life by Moncure D. Conway&mdash;Early Advocacy of Reforms against
+ Dueling<br /> and Cruelty to Animals&mdash;The First to write "The United
+ States of<br /> America"&mdash;Washington's Sentiment against Separation
+ from Great<br /> Britain&mdash;Paine's Thoughts in the Declaration of
+ Independence&mdash;Author of<br /> the first Proclamation of Emancipation
+ in America&mdash;Establishment of a<br /> Fund for the Relief of the Army&mdash;H's
+ "Farewell Address"&mdash;The "Rights of<br /> Man"&mdash;Elected to the
+ French Convention&mdash;Efforts to save the Life of the<br /> King&mdash;His
+ Thoughts on Religion&mdash;Arrested&mdash;The "Age of Reason" and the<br />
+ Weapons it has furnished "Advanced Theologians"&mdash;Neglect by
+ Gouverneur<br /> Morris and Washington&mdash;James Monroe's letter to
+ Paine and to the<br /> Committee of General Safety&mdash;The vaunted
+ Religious Liberty of<br /> Colonial Maryland&mdash;Orthodox Christianity
+ at the Beginning of the 19th<br /> Century&mdash;New Definitions of God&mdash;The
+ Funeral of Paine.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0015">
+ THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> I. Mr. A., the Professional Philanthropist, who established a
+ Colony<br /> for the Enslavement of the Poor who could not take care of
+ themselves,<br /> amassed a large Fortune thereby, built several
+ churches, and earned<br /> the Epitaph, "He was the Providence of the
+ Poor"&mdash;II. Mr. B.,<br /> the Manufacturer, who enriched himself by
+ taking advantage of the<br /> Necessities of the Poor, paid the lowest
+ Rate of Wages, considered<br /> himself one of God's Stewards, endowed
+ the "B Asylum" and the "B<br /> College," never lost a Dollar, and of
+ whom it was recorded, "He Lived<br /> for Others." III. Mr. C., who
+ divided his Profits with the People who had<br /> earned it, established
+ no Public Institutions, suppressed Nobody; and<br /> those who have
+ worked for him said, "He allowed Others to live for<br /> Themselves."<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0016">
+ SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ SHOULD THE CHINESE BE EXCLUDED?<br /> Trampling on the Rights of
+ Inferiors&mdash;Rise of the Irish and Germans<br /> to Power&mdash;The
+ Burlingame Treaty&mdash;Character of Chinese Laborers&mdash;Their<br />
+ Enemies in the Pacific States&mdash;Violation of Treaties&mdash;The
+ Geary Law&mdash;The<br /> Chinese Hated for their Virtues&mdash;More
+ Piety than Principle among the<br /> People's Representatives&mdash;Shall
+ we go back to Barbarism?<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0017">
+ A WORD ABOUT EDUCATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> What the Educated Man Knows&mdash;Necessity of finding out the
+ Facts<br /> of Nature&mdash;"Scholars" not always Educated Men; from
+ necessaries to<br /> luxuries; who may be called educated; mental misers;
+ the first duty of<br /> man; university education not necessary to
+ usefulness, no advantage in<br /> learning useless facts.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0018">
+ WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Would have the Kings and Emperors resign, the Nobility drop their<br />
+ Titles, the Professors agree to teach only What they Know, the<br />
+ Politicians changed to Statesmen, the Editors print only the<br /> Truth&mdash;Would
+ like to see Drunkenness and Prohibition abolished,<br /> Corporal
+ Punishment done away with, and the whole World free.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0019">
+ FOOL FRIENDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Fool Friend believes every Story against you, never denies a
+ Lie<br /> unless it is in your Favor, regards your Reputation as Common
+ Prey,<br /> forgets his Principles to gratify your Enemies, and is so
+ friendly that<br /> you cannot Kick him.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0020">
+ INSPIRATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Nature tells a different Story to all Eyes and Ears&mdash;Horace
+ Greeley and<br /> the Big Trees&mdash;The Man who "always did like
+ rolling land"&mdash;What the<br /> Snow looked like to the German&mdash;Shakespeare's
+ different Story for each<br /> Reader&mdash;As with Nature so with the
+ Bible.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0021">
+ THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> People who live by Lying&mdash;A Case in point&mdash;H. Hodson
+ Rugg's Account of<br /> the Conversion of Ingersoll and 5,000 of his
+ Followers&mdash;The "Identity of<br /> Lost Israel with the British
+ Nation"&mdash;Old Falsehoods about Infidels&mdash;The<br /> New York
+ Observer and Thomas Paine&mdash;A Rascally English Editor&mdash;The<br />
+ Charge that Ingersoll's Son had been Converted&mdash;The Fecundity of<br />
+ Falsehood.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0022">
+ HOW TO EDIT A LIBERAL PAPER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Editor should not narrow his Horizon so that he can see only<br />
+ One Thing&mdash;To know the Defects of the Bible is but the Beginning of<br />
+ Wisdom&mdash;The Liberal Paper should not discuss Theological Questions<br />
+ Alone&mdash;A Column for Children&mdash;Candor and Kindness&mdash;Nothing
+ should be<br /> Asserted that is not Known&mdash;Above All, teach the
+ Absolute Freedom of the<br /> Mind.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0023">
+ SECULARISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The religion of Humanity; what it Embraces and what it Advocates&mdash;A<br />
+ Protest against Ecclesiastical Tyranny&mdash;Believes in Building a Home<br />
+ here&mdash;Means Food and Fireside&mdash;The Right to express your
+ Thought&mdash;Its<br /> advice to every Human Being&mdash;A Religion
+ without Mysteries, Miracles, or<br /> Persecutions.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0024">
+ CRITICISM OF "ROBERT ELSMERE," "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," AND "AN AFRICAN
+ FARM."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Religion unsoftened by Infidelity&mdash;The Orthodox Minister
+ whose Wife has<br /> a Heart&mdash;Honesty of Opinion not a Mitigating
+ Circumstance&mdash;Repulsiveness<br /> of an Orthodox Life&mdash;John
+ Ward an Object of Pity&mdash;Lyndall of the<br /> "African Farm"&mdash;The
+ Story of the Hunter&mdash;Death of Waldo&mdash;Women the<br /> Caryatides
+ of the Church&mdash;Attitude of Christianity toward other<br /> Religions&mdash;Egotism
+ of the ancient Jews.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0025">
+ THE LIBEL LAWS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> All Articles appearing in a newspaper should be Signed by the<br />
+ Writer&mdash;The Law if changed should throw greater Safeguards around
+ the<br /> Reputation of the Citizen&mdash;Pains should be taken to give
+ Prominence to<br /> Retractions&mdash;The Libel Laws like a Bayonet in
+ War.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0026">
+ REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ REV. DR. NEWTON'S SERMON ON A NEW RELIGION.<br /> Mr. Newton not Regarded
+ as a Sceptic&mdash;New Meanings given to Old<br /> Words&mdash;The
+ vanishing Picture of Hell&mdash;The Atonement&mdash;Confidence being<br />
+ Lost in the Morality of the Gospel&mdash;Exclusiveness of the Churches&mdash;The<br />
+ Hope of Immortality and Belief in God have Nothing to do with Real<br />
+ Religion&mdash;Special Providence a Mistake.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0027">
+ AN ESSAY ON CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Day regarded as a Holiday&mdash;A Festival far older<br /> than
+ Christianity&mdash;Relics of Sun-worship in Christian<br /> Ceremonies&mdash;Christianity
+ furnished new Steam for an old Engine&mdash;Pagan<br /> Festivals
+ correspond to Ours&mdash;Why Holidays are Popular&mdash;They must be for<br />
+ the Benefit of the People.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0028">
+ HAS FREETHOUGHT A CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Object of Freethought&mdash;what the Religionist calls
+ "Affirmative<br /> and Positive"&mdash;The Positive Side of Freethought&mdash;Constructive
+ Work of<br /> Christianity.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0029">
+ THE IMPROVED MAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> He will be in Favor of universal Liberty, neither Master nor
+ Slave; of<br /> Equality and Education; will develop in the Direction of
+ the Beautiful;<br /> will believe only in the Religion of this World&mdash;His
+ Motto&mdash;Will not<br /> endeavor to change the Mind of the "Infinite"&mdash;Will
+ have no Bells or<br /> Censers&mdash;Will be satisfied that the
+ Supernatural does not exist&mdash;Will be<br /> Self-poised, Independent,
+ Candid and Free.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0030">
+ EIGHT HOURS MUST COME.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Working People should be protected by Law&mdash;Life of no
+ particular<br /> Importance to the Man who gets up before Daylight and
+ works till<br /> after Dark&mdash;A Revolution probable in the Relations
+ between Labor and<br /> Capital&mdash;Working People becoming Educated
+ and more Independent&mdash;The<br /> Government can Aid by means of Good
+ Laws&mdash;Women the worst Paid&mdash;There<br /> should be no Resort to
+ Force by either Labor or Capital.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0031">
+ THE JEWS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Much like People of other Religions&mdash;Teaching given Christian
+ Children<br /> about those who die in the Faith of Abraham&mdash;Dr. John
+ Hall on<br /> the Persecution of the Jews in Russia as the Fulfillment of<br />
+ Prophecy&mdash;Hostility of Orthodox early Christians excited by Jewish<br />
+ Witnesses against the Faith&mdash;An infamous Chapter of History&mdash;Good<br />
+ and bad Men of every Faith&mdash;Jews should outgrow their own<br />
+ Superstitions&mdash;What the intelligent Jew Knows.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0032">
+ CRUMBLING CREEDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ CRUMBLING CREEDS.<br /> The Common People called upon to Decide as
+ between the Universities and<br /> the Synods&mdash;Modern Medicine, Law,
+ Literature and Pictures as against the<br /> Old&mdash;Creeds agree with
+ the Sciences of their Day&mdash;Apology the Prelude<br /> to Retreat&mdash;The
+ Presbyterian Creed Infamous, but no worse than<br /> the Catholic&mdash;Progress
+ begins when Expression of Opinion is<br /> Allowed&mdash;Examining the
+ Religions of other Countries&mdash;The Pulpit's<br /> Position Lost&mdash;The
+ Dogma of Eternal Pain the Cause of the orthodox<br /> Creeds losing
+ Popularity&mdash;Every Church teaching this Infinite Lie must<br /> Fall.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0033">
+ OUR SCHOOLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ OUR SCHOOLS.<br /> Education the only Lever capable of raising Mankind&mdash;The<br />
+ School-house more Important than the Church&mdash;Criticism of New
+ York's<br /> School-Buildings&mdash;The Kindergarten System Recommended&mdash;Poor
+ Pay of<br /> Teachers&mdash;The great Danger to the Republic is
+ Ignorance.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0034">
+ VIVISECTION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Hell of Science&mdash;Brutal Curiosity of Vivisectors&mdash;The
+ Pretence that<br /> they are working for the Good of Man&mdash;Have these
+ scientific Assassins<br /> added to useful Knowledge?&mdash;No Good to
+ the Race to be Accomplished by<br /> Torture&mdash;The Tendency to
+ produce a Race of intelligent Wild Beasts.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0035">
+ THE CENSUS ENUMERATOR'S OFFICIAL CATECHISM.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Right of the Government to ask Questions and of the Citizen to
+ refuse<br /> to answer them&mdash;Matters which the Government has no
+ Right to pry<br /> into&mdash;Exposing the Debtor's financial Condition&mdash;A
+ Man might decline to<br /> tell whether he has a Chronic Disease or not.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0036">
+ THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Natural Phenomena and Myths celebrated&mdash;The great Day of the
+ first<br /> Religion, Sun-worship&mdash;A God that Knew no Hatred nor
+ Sought Revenge&mdash;The<br /> Festival of Light.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0037">
+ SPIRITUALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> A much-abused Word&mdash;The Early Christians too Spiritual to be<br />
+ Civilized&mdash;Calvin and Knox&mdash;Paine, Voltaire and Humboldt not<br />
+ Spiritual&mdash;Darwin also Lacking&mdash;What it is to be really
+ Spiritual&mdash;No<br /> connection with Superstition.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0038">
+ SUMTER'S GUN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> What were thereby blown into Rags and Ravelings&mdash;The Birth of
+ a<br /> new Epoch announced&mdash;Lincoln made the most commanding Figure
+ of the<br /> Century&mdash;Story of its Echoes.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0039">
+ WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> What might have been Asked of a Christian 100 years after<br />
+ Christ&mdash;Hospitals and Asylums not all built for Charity&mdash;Girard<br />
+ College&mdash;Lick Observatory&mdash;Carnegie not an Orthodox Christian&mdash;Christian<br />
+ Colleges&mdash;Give us Time.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0040">
+ CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Brockway a Savage&mdash;The Lash will neither develop the Brain
+ nor cultivate<br /> the Heart&mdash;Brutality a Failure&mdash;Bishop
+ Potter's apostolical Remark.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0041">
+ LAW'S DELAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Object of a Trial&mdash;Justice can afford to Wait&mdash;The
+ right of<br /> Appeal&mdash;Case of Mrs. Maybrick&mdash;Life Imprisonment
+ for Murderers&mdash;American<br /> Courts better than the English.<br />
+ BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.<br /> Universities naturally Conservative&mdash;Kansas
+ State University's<br /> Objection to Ingersoll as a commencement Orator&mdash;Comment
+ by Mr. Depew<br /> (note)&mdash;Action of Cornell and the University of
+ Missouri.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0043">
+ A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The Chances a few Years ago&mdash;Capital now Required&mdash;Increasing<br />
+ competition in Civilized Life&mdash;Independence the first Object&mdash;If
+ he has<br /> something to say, there will be plenty to listen.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0044">
+ SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Science goes hand in hand with Imagination&mdash;Artistic and
+ Ethical<br /> Development&mdash;Science destroys Superstition, not true
+ Religion&mdash;Education<br /> preferable to Legislation&mdash;Our
+ Obligation to our Children.<br /> "SOWING AND REAPING."<br /> Moody's
+ Belief accounted for&mdash;A dishonest and corrupting Doctrine&mdash;A<br />
+ want of Philosophy and Sense&mdash;Have Souls in Heaven no Regrets?&mdash;Mr.<br />
+ Moody should read some useful Books.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0046">
+ SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Teachings of orthodox Sunday Schools&mdash;The ferocious God of
+ the<br /> Bible&mdash;Miracles&mdash;A Christian in Constantinople would
+ not send his<br /> Child to a Mosque&mdash;Advice to all Agnostics&mdash;Strangle
+ the Serpent of<br /> Superstition.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0047">
+ WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Character of the Bible&mdash;Men and Women not virtuous because of
+ any<br /> Book&mdash;The Commandments both Good and Bad&mdash;Books that
+ do not help<br /> Morality&mdash;Jehovah not a moral God&mdash;What is
+ Morality?&mdash;Intelligence the<br /> only moral guide.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0048">
+ GOVERNOR ROLLINS' FAST-DAY PROCLAMATION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Decline of the Christian Religion in New Hampshire&mdash;Outgrown<br />
+ Beliefs&mdash;Present-day Views of Christ and the Holy Ghost&mdash;Abandoned<br />
+ Notions about the Atonement&mdash;Salvation for Credulity&mdash;The
+ Miracles<br /> of the New Testament&mdash;The Bible "not true but
+ inspired"&mdash;The "Higher<br /> Critics" riding two Horses&mdash;Infidelity
+ in the Pulpit&mdash;The "restraining<br /> Influences of Religion" as
+ illustrated by Spain and Portugal&mdash;Thinking,<br /> Working and
+ Praying&mdash;The kind of Faith that has Departed.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0049">
+ A LOOK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> The <i>Truth Seeker</i> congratulated on its Twenty-fifth Birthday&mdash;Teachings<br />
+ of Twenty-five Years ago&mdash;Dodging and evading&mdash;The Clerical
+ Assault<br /> on Darwin&mdash;Draper, Buckle, Hegel, Spencer, Emerson&mdash;Comparison<br />
+ of Prejudices&mdash;Vanished Belief in the Devil&mdash;Matter and<br />
+ Force&mdash;Contradictions Dwelling in Unity&mdash;Substitutes for
+ Jehovah&mdash;A<br /> Prophecy.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0050">
+ POLITICAL MORALITY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> Argument in the contested Election Case of Strobach against
+ Herbert&mdash;The<br /> Importance of Honest Elections&mdash;Poisoning
+ the Source of Justice&mdash;The<br /> Fraudulent Voter a Traitor to his
+ Sovereign, the Will of the<br /> People&mdash;Political Morality
+ Imperative.<br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a
+ href="38811-h/38811-h.htm#link0051">
+ A FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Date and Manner of Composing the Old Testament&mdash;Other Books not now
+ in<br /> Existence, and Disagreements about the Canon&mdash;Composite
+ Character of<br /> certain Books&mdash;Various Versions&mdash;Why was
+ God's message given to the Jews<br /> alone?&mdash;The Story of the
+ Creation, of the Flood, of the Tower, and<br /> of Lot's wife&mdash;Moses
+ and Aaron and the Plagues of Egypt&mdash;Laws of<br /> Slavery&mdash;Instructions
+ by Jehovah Calculated to excite Astonishment and<br /> Mirth&mdash;Sacrifices
+ and the Scapegoat&mdash;Passages showing that the Laws of<br /> Moses
+ were made after the Jews had left the Desert&mdash;Jehovah's dealings<br />
+ with his People&mdash;The Sabbath Law&mdash;Prodigies&mdash;Joshua's
+ Miracle&mdash;Damned<br /> Ignorance and Infamy&mdash;Jephthah's
+ Sacrifice&mdash;Incredible Stories&mdash;The<br /> Woman of Endor and the
+ Temptation of David&mdash;Elijah and Elisha&mdash;Loss of<br /> the
+ Pentateuch from Moses to Josiah&mdash;The Jews before and after being<br />
+ Abandoned by Jehovah&mdash;Wealth of Solomon and other Marvels.<br />
+ </p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br /> <a name="vol_12" id="vol_12"></a>
+ </p>
+ <h1>
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#title">VOLUME
+ XII.--MISCELLANY</a>
+ </h1>
+ <p>
+ <br />
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0001">
+ PROF. VAN BUREN DENSLOW'S "MODERN THINKERS."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#linkPREF1">PREFACE
+ TO DR. EDGAR C. BEALL'S "THE BRAIN AND THE BIBLE."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#linkPREF2">PREFACE
+ TO "MEN, WOMEN AND GODS."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#linkPREF3">PREFACE
+ TO "FOR HER DAILY BREAD."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#linkPREF4">PREFACE
+ TO "AGNOSTICISM AND OTHER ESSAYS."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#linkPREF5">PREFACE
+ TO "FAITH OR FACT."</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0007">
+ THE GRANT BANQUET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0008">
+ THIRTEEN CLUB DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0009">
+ ROBSON AND CRANE DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0010">
+ THE POLICE CAPTAINS' DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0011">
+ GENERAL GRANT'S BIRTHDAY DINNER</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0012">
+ LOTOS CLUB DINNER, TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0013">
+ MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0014">
+ THE LIEDERKRANZ CLUB, SEIDL-STANTON BANQUET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0015">
+ THE FRANK B. CARPENTER DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0016">
+ UNITARIAN CLUB DINNER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0017">
+ WESTERN SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC BANQUET.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0018">
+ LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF ANTON SEIDL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0019">
+ LOTOS CLUB DINNER IN HONOR OF REAR ADMIRAL SCHLEY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0020">
+ ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0021">
+ THE CHILDREN OF THE STAGE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0022">
+ ADDRESS TO THE PRESS CLUB.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0023">
+ THE CIRCULATION OF OBSCENE LITERATURE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0024">
+ CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL LIBERAL LEAGUE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0025">
+ CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN SECULAR UNION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0026">
+ THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0027">
+ ORGANIZED CHARITIES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0028">
+ SPAIN AND THE SPANIARDS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0029">
+ OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0030">
+ A FEW FRAGMENTS ON EXPANSION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0031">
+ IS IT EVER RIGHT FOR HUSBAND OR WIFE TO KILL RIVAL?</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0032">
+ PROFESSOR BRIGGS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0033">
+ FRAGMENTS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0034">
+ EFFECT OF THE WORLD'S FAIR ON THE HUMAN RACE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0035">
+ SABBATH SUPERSTITION.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0036">
+ A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0037">
+ AT THE GRAVE OF BENJAMIN W. PARKER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0038">
+ A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0039">
+ A TRIBUTE TO THE REV. ALEXANDER CLARK.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0040">
+ AT A CHILD'S GRAVE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0041">
+ A TRIBUTE TO JOHN G. MILLS.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0042">
+ A TRIBUTE TO ELIZUR WRIGHT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0043">
+ A TRIBUTE TO MRS. IDA WHITING KNOWLES.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0044">
+ A TRIBUTE TO HENRY WARD BEECHER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0045">
+ A TRIBUTE TO ROSCOE CONKLING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0046">
+ A TRIBUTE TO RICHARD H. WHITING.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0047">
+ A TRIBUTE TO COURTLANDT PALMER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0048">
+ A TRIBUTE TO MRS. MARY H. FISKE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0049">
+ A TRIBUTE TO HORACE SEAVER.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0050">
+ A TRIBUTE TO LAWRENCE BARRETT.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0051">
+ A TRIBUTE TO WALT WHITMAN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0052">
+ A TRIBUTE TO PHILO D. BECKWITH.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0053">
+ A TRIBUTE TO ANTON SEIDL.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0054">
+ A TRIBUTE TO DR. THOMAS SETON ROBERTSON.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0055">
+ A TRIBUTE TO THOMAS CORWIN.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0056">
+ A TRIBUTE TO ISAAC H. BAILEY.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0057">
+ JESUS CHRIST.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p class="toc">
+ <a href="38812-h/38812-h.htm#link0058">
+ LIFE.</a>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+ <hr />
+ <p>
+ <br /> <br />
+ </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll,
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+</pre>
+ </body>
+</html>
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generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-03-14 05:48:55 +0000